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(NEW YORK) — During the final weeks of the Biden administration, the Department of Justice announced consent decrees for police reform with the cities of Minneapolis and Louisville – court-enforceable agreements born out of probes launched after the 2020 police killings of Breonna Taylor and George Floyd.

But after officials in the Trump administration issued a memo last month ordering a temporary freeze on ongoing cases being litigated by the DOJ’s Civil Rights Division, the future of those agreements, which have yet to be approved in federal court, is now uncertain.

The memo, which was reviewed by ABC News, also directed Kathleen Wolfe, acting head of the DOJ Civil Rights division, to notify Trump DOJ leaders of any consent decrees the Biden administration reached with cities in the final 90 days leading up to the inauguration, signaling a potential review.

“[The Trump administration] wanted to look at any agreements that had been completed within the last 90 days of the inauguration, which obviously would include Minneapolis and Louisville,” Minneapolis Police Chief Brian O’Hara told ABC News. “The [Trump] DOJ could go to the court and say they’re no longer interested in this.”

O’Hara, who previously was Public Safety Director for Newark, New Jersey, during the implementation of a federal consent decree, said that the Trump administration could intervene in the process because the agreements have not been finalized in federal court.

But O’Hara emphasized that since the agreements have already been filed, whether they are approved is not up to the White House, but “ultimately in the federal judge’s hands.”

The memo to freeze litigation came ahead of the confirmation hearing for Trump’s nominee for attorney general, Pam Bondi, and his nominee to lead the DOJ’s civil rights division, Harmeet Dhillon. Bondi was confirmed on Tuesday.

Asked about the timeline for the freeze on litigation and what actions the DOJ is planning to take regarding the Minneapolis and Louisville consent decrees, a spokesperson for the DOJ declined ABC News’ request for comment.

The consent decrees each lay out a roadmap for police reform to rectify civil rights violations that the DOJ uncovered and, if approved by a federal judge, the court will appoint an independent monitor to oversee the implementation of the reforms and actions outlined in the agreement.

“I don’t think any city, any police chief wants to get a consent decree,” O’Hara said. “You know, that’s not a badge of honor in any way and something that ultimately costs the city millions and millions of dollars just to simply be monitored, let alone to do the work that is required to reform.”

But O’Hara added that consent decrees do provide police departments with additional resources needed to implement reforms. “I think the main benefit to police chiefs of these agreements is it requires cities to make certain investments, both in the officers’ health and welfare, as well as in training and supervision,” he said, “but without that court order, there is not necessarily an incentive for cities to prioritize some of those investments.”

City officials and police vow to forge ahead with reform

City officials and police in both Louisville and Minneapolis told ABC News that they are prepared to move forward with the agreed upon reforms with or without the oversight of the Trump administration.

Kevin Trager, a spokesman for Louisville Mayor Craig Greenberg, told ABC News that the city and police are committed to the reforms agreed upon in the consent decree, “regardless of what happens in federal court.”

“Louisville Metro Government and LMPD will move forward and honor our commitment to meaningful improvements and reforms,” Trager said.

Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey told ABC News that the city has “not heard directly” from the Trump administration regarding the consent decree, but the city plans to move forward with the terms of the agreement “with or without support from the White House.”

“It’s unfortunate the Trump administration may not be interested in cooperating with us to improve policing and support our community, but make no mistake: we have the tools, the resolve, and the community’s backing to fulfill our promise to the people of Minneapolis. Our work will not be stopped,” Frey said.

O’Hara, who was tapped to lead Minneapolis police in 2022 amid national outrage over the killing of George Floyd in police custody, echoed Frey’s commitment to the reforms, but pointed out that Minneapolis is already under a state consent decree that was approved in July 2023 and includes similar reforms that are outlined in the federal agreement.

“It is possible we may wind up not having a federal consent decree, although I don’t think it’s likely,” O’Hara said, “but again, I think a majority of what is contemplated in the federal consent decree exists already in the state consent decree. There’s already been a ton of work toward making those requirements real.”

O’Hara said that he already created a use of force investigation teams within the MPD’s Internal Affairs Bureau – a move that was not required by the state but is required under the federal agreement.

“That’s something that I already had started long before we had the draft agreement, because I know that’s a best practice in this profession,” O’Hara said, but added that the approval of the federal consent decree would give MPD the resources and the staffing that it needs to carry out these reforms.

“It is not yet staffed up and resourced the way that it should be, and the federal consent decree requires significant more investment in it,” he said.

Where things stand in the courts

Civil rights attorney Ben Crump, who represents the families of Breonna Taylor and George Floyd, told ABC News Live Prime anchor Linsey Davis in an interview last Wednesday that the families want to see the consent decrees approved in federal court.

“This is very disturbing,” Crump said, referencing the Trump administration’s freeze on civil rights litigation.

“Breonna’s mother is very heartbroken, Linsey. Very heartbroken. She’s fought so hard to get whatever measure of justice and accountability she could,” he added. “She is just shocked that they would do this, just like George Floyd’s family is shocked.”

The Minneapolis federal consent decree is being reviewed by Judge Paul A. Magnuson, a senior judge in the U.S. District Court for the District of Minnesota who was appointed by President Ronald Regan.

The agreement, which was announced by the DOJ Jan. 6, focuses on “preventing excessive force; stopping racially discriminatory policing; improving officers’ interactions with youth; protecting the public’s First Amendment rights; preventing discrimination against people with behavioral health disabilities; promoting well-being of officers and employees; and enhancing officers’ supervision and accountability,” according to the DOJ.

A spokesperson for Frey told ABC News that the city has “not heard directly” from the Trump administration regarding the consent decree and, according to O’Hara, Minneapolis is still “awaiting a court date to be set” in this case.

Meanwhile, the Louisville consent decree, which was announced on Dec. 12, 2024, is in the hands of Judge Benjamin Beaton of the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Kentucky.

The agreement lays out “specific policies, trainings, and programs” that the city and police “will implement to protect the rights of Louisville residents and promote public safety,” as well as a requirement to “collect and analyze data to improve as an agency and to hold officers and Louisville Metro employees accountable,” according to the DOJ. The reforms listed in the agreement include steps for LMPD to use “appropriate de-escalation techniques and attempt to resolve incidents without force when possible, and use force in a manner that is reasonable, necessary, and proportional to the threat presented,” as well as “taking steps to reduce unlawful racial disparities in enforcement.”

Beaton, who was appointed by Trump during his first term as president in 2020, questioned the need for the consent decree during a hearing on Jan. 13, according to ABC affiliate in Louisville, WHAS11, where he asked DOJ officials whether there is a “less intrusive manner of resolving the dispute” without judicial oversight.

The Fraternal Order of Police – the largest police union in the country, which endorsed Trump during both of his presidential campaigns – filed a motion on Dec. 27 to intervene in the Louisville consent decree and asked Beaton to oppose it in its current form. In the motion, the union argued that the consent decree violates the collective bargaining agreement between them and the city, according to WHAS11.

Asked about the status of the consent decree, a spokesperson for Greenberg told ABC News that “the city is preparing to file a brief in support of the consent decree by Feb. 18, as requested by the judge.”

ABC News’ Alexander Mallin and Sabina Ghebremedhin contributed to this report.

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(NEW ORLEANS) — Just a little over a month since 14 people were killed and dozens more were injured in a truck-ramming terror attack on New Orleans’ Bourbon Street, the victims and first responders of the rampage will be honored at Super Bowl LIX on Sunday, according to the NFL.

For the eleventh time, the Super Bowl will be played in the Big Easy, but the normally festive atmosphere will include a somber tribute to the victims and the heroes of the New Year’s Day tragedy.

While the NFL is keeping details of the ceremony under wraps, league spokesperson Brian McCarthy told ABC News, “We will appropriately honor the victims and first responders.”

The big game between the Kansas City Chiefs and the Philadelphia Eagles will be played in front of more than 75,000 fans expected to attend the game at the Caesars Superdome and millions more around the world watching on TV.

Among the crowd at the game are expected to be some of the survivors of the attack, firefighters and paramedics who rushed to the chaotic scene to treat the injured, and police who stopped the attack by killing the suspect during a gun battle.

During the Sugar Bowl, a college football playoff game that was delayed a day due to the attack, New Orleans Mayor LaToya Cantrell led a moment of silence before the game, also played at the Superdome, and former President Joe Biden addressed the crowd in a video statement, saying, “The spirit of New Orleans can never be kept down.”

President Donald Trump is planning to attend Sunday’s Super Bowl, according to White House officials. It will mark the first time a sitting president will appear at the game.

A spokesperson for the city of New Orleans referred ABC News to the NFL about Sunday’s plans to honor the victims and first responders of the Jan. 1 attack.

Over the past week, players on the Super Bowl teams, as well as the New Orleans Saints, have been surprising survivors of the attack with tickets to the big game.

On Monday, Saints linebacker Demario Davis teamed up with a furniture company to gift Stevey Kells, a nurse who rushed to provide first aid to victims of the attack, with tickets to the game.

It’s a resilient city. That response began with the first responders, those who were on scene and those who had to react quickly, and she was there,” Davis told reporters after presenting Kells the tickets. “So, it means a lot. To be able to give back to somebody who’s given so much, was awesome. That’s what it’s all about.”

Eagles players also gifted Super Bowl tickets to Ryan Quigley, a former Princeton University football player and Eagles fan who was injured in the attack and whose friend, 27-year-old Martin “Tiger” Bech, was killed.

Eagles player Brandon Graham surprised Quigley with two Super Bowl tickets last week after the team invited Quigley and Bech’s sister to the Eagles practice facility in Philadelphia.

“We wanted to tell you the real reason we brought you. It’s OK if you’re not feeling it, but we would love to have you down for the Super Bowl,” Graham told Quigley in a video the team shared on its Facebook page.

In the video, Quigley said his best friend, Bech, was the “biggest fan” of the Eagles.

“We went to every home game last year,” Quigley told Graham in the video. “All year… I told him if we make it, ‘I promise I’m gonna take you to the Super Bowl.’ So, I’d love nothing more than to still take him.”

The Super Bowl will unfold under tight security with more than 2,700 state, federal and local law enforcement members securing the game, according to officials.

“We have reviewed and re-reviewed all the details of what happened on Jan. 1,” NFL Chief of Security Cathy Lanier said during a news conference on Monday. “We have reviewed and re-reviewed each of our roles within the overarching security plan, and we have reassessed and stressed tested — our timing, our communication protocols, our contingency measures and our emergency response plans multiple times over, over the past several weeks.”

Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said at least 700 Homeland Security personnel will be on the ground in New Orleans to bolster security at the game and more will be added if the need arises. Noem said that at this point, there have been no specific credible threats reported.

“This Super Bowl exemplifies how we come together to safeguard our traditions, how we come together to make sure that the public is well-informed and gets the chance to celebrate something that is very special to us, our culture, to our people and our families,” Noem said.

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(WASHINGTON) — As Elon Musk’s new Department of Government Efficiency works to reduce government spending by eliminating waste and cutting diversity programs, his SpaceX corporation currently has a multibillion dollar contract to help NASA land the first woman and first person of color on the moon.

In 2021, NASA announced that it had awarded a $2.9 billion contract to SpaceX to build a spacecraft for long-term human exploration of the moon under its Artemis program.

“NASA is getting ready to send astronauts to explore more of the Moon as part of the Artemis program,” NASA said in the 2021 press release. “At least one of those astronauts will make history as the first woman on the Moon. Another goal of the Artemis program includes landing the first person of color on the lunar surface.”

In 2023, NASA announced that the crew for the Artemis moon exploration mission would be Navy Capt. Victor Glover, a Black Engineer of the Year Award honoree, and North Carolina native Christina Koch, the record-holder for the longest single spaceflight by a woman, as well as former chief of the Astronaut Office Reid Wiseman and Canadian astronaut and fighter pilot Jeremy Hansen.

“For a woman to be on the crew and for a Black astronaut to be on the crew, because that’s what our office looks like, to me it is important,” Glover told ABC News’ Linsey Davis in February 2024.

Musk, as the head of DOGE, is taking a knife to federal agencies and programs as part of President Donald Trump’s efforts to reduce the size of government. He has claimed to have cut a billion dollars’ worth of federal DEI programs, and sources say DOGE has directed agencies to remove anything DEI-related from bulletin boards, including posters and signs, and has checked bathroom signs to ensure they comply with Trump’s executive orders to eliminate DEI initiatives from the federal government.

NASA representatives and representatives for SpaceX did not respond to a request for comment from ABC News.

Since the 2021 announcement of the partnership with SpaceX, NASA has announced additional contracts for Musk’s space company as part of the moon landing mission. So far, SpaceX has received $2.8 billion in obligations, with the possibility of the total award going up to $4.4 billion, according to federal spending data.

SpaceX has received more than $18 billion in federal contracts over the last decade, with NASA making up $13 billion of that, federal spending data shows.

“SpaceX will not let NASA down!” Musk tweeted in 2022 in response to a post by then-NASA administrator Bill Nelson announcing an additional $1.15 billion contract for the company.

Last month, NASA said the agency would comply with Trump’s executive order aimed at ending DEI programs, by amending certain program elements, including ending the “Inclusion Plan Pilot Study,” removing requirements for “Inclusion Plans,” and removing “references to NASA’s DEIA programs.” It’s not yet clear if NASA’s compliance with Trump’s DEI order extends to each of its contractors.

The Artemis program was first established in 2017 under a directive from Trump during his first administration, with the aim of bringing humans to the moon for the first time since the Apollo 17 mission in 1972, plus a long-term goal of expanding to Mars.

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Secretary of State Marco Rubio told embassy officials in Guatemala this week that it was “not our intention” to uproot families deployed overseas with USAID, despite the agency issuing a 30-day mandate for their return.

“I know it’s hard to ask for patience. I know it’s hard to ask for trust,” Rubio said, according to a partial transcript of his meet-and-greet with embassy staff that was obtained by ABC News.

Rubio, who was tapped to serve as the acting director of the aid agency, also seemed to acknowledge the administration’s haphazard approach to cutting USAID — which handles foreign aid, disaster relief and international development programs — saying it was undertaken “in a manner that we would have preferred to be different, but we’re forced to do because of impediments that we would confront.”

Elon Musk, the head of the newly formed Department of Government Efficiency, said earlier this week he was “in the process” of “shutting down” the agency with the backing of President Donald Trump, as part of efforts to trim the size of the federal government and eliminate waste.

The Trump administration on Wednesday placed all direct-hire employees at USAID on administrative leave starting Friday, with plans to recall all foreign-based USAID employees back to the U.S. within 30 days.

In the transcript of Rubio’s meeting with Guatemalan embassy staff, he says that the ambassador to Guatemala “handed” him a list of USAID programs in the country that he said “align with our U.S. goals and our interests.” That list was the result of an all-night scramble by staff who were directed to compile it shortly after the secretary arrived in the country, according to an embassy official.

Rubio said that document “gave us the idea that we should ask the same exercise be conducted by every Mission around the world so that intelligent decisions can be made” regarding which programs to keep, before the end of Thursday.

The directive has quickly resulted in pushback from some USAID staff stationed abroad, who say the Thursday deadline set by State Department leadership will be extremely difficult for most posts to meet, and that it may be part of a strategy to avoid lawsuits from agency employees that could slow down its dismantling.

“Absolutely impossible,” one USAID employee told ABC News. “Clearly, the 90-day foreign aid review has been compressed to two days.”

Rubio’s remarks came in response to concerns from Haven Cruz-Hubbard, the USAID mission director for Guatemala, who asked about the administration’s efforts to curb foreign aid. Rubio insisted that “the United States is not walking away from foreign aid. It’s not.”

“I want to tell you that this is not about politics, but foreign aid is the least popular thing Government spends money on,” Rubio said, according to the transcript. “And I spent a lot of time in my career defending it and explaining it, but it’s harder and harder to do across the board — it really is.”

Rubio’s private comments generally reflect what he’s said publicly about the cuts to foreign aid — but his sentiments seemed more sympathetic toward the workers whose careers and livelihoods hang in the balance.

“For those of us in charge of doing the work of foreign policy, we understand [foreign aid] is essential,” he said.

The New York Times was first to report on the partial transcript.

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(HOUSTON) — A man aboard a Frontier Airlines flight en route to Houston had to be restrained by fellow passengers on Wednesday after he began kicking seats and hitting a window, eventually breaking the plexiglass, police said.

The flight, F9 4856, departed from Denver and was in the air for about 20 to 30 minutes, when a woman asked the man behind her to switch seats, according to passenger Victoria Clark. This man quickly became enraged, profusely kicking the woman’s seat and trying to break the window, Clark said.

“I started having a panic attack,” Clark told ABC News. “[I thought] it could be a terrorist attack.”

The man continued to hit the window and was eventually able to break the plexiglass, passengers said. Without an air marshal on board, flight attendants asked if there was any law enforcement to help, passengers recounted. That’s when Tanner Phillips, a former member of the military, said he stepped in.

“This guy was just going crazy,” Phillips told ABC News. “He was screaming in multiple languages, punching out the window and laying back and trying to kick it out. I wanted to help as much as I could.”

Phillips said he and several others grabbed hold of the man, using zip ties and boot laces to restrain him and put him back in his seat. Instead of making an emergency landing, the flight continued toward its destination of Houston — forcing the group of good Samaritans to ensure the man did not escape for about two hours.

The man’s blood was everywhere around the window and the ceiling of the aircraft, since the plexiglass cut up his hands, Phillips said.

“You never know what someone is capable of,” Phillips said. “I’m really grateful that we were able to handle the situation and no one got harmed.”

Once the plane landed safely in Houston at around 10:20 p.m. local time, Clark said everyone felt an immense sigh of relief.

“People were clapping,” Clark said. “Everyone was saying thank you to all the gentlemen that helped make sure that we got there safely.”

The Houston Police Department said they received a report that there had been a “combative passenger on board,” and were already on the scene by the time the plane had landed.

Frontier Airlines declined to press charges at the scene, and police are reaching out to airport officials to see what happened to the man. Since the man is not currently facing charges, his name was not released, according to police.

Several passengers, including Jessica Brown and her daughter Chloe Starks, hope this incident shows the need for increased security aboard aircrafts, so that something like this does not happen again.

“It’s just insanity. I don’t wish this on my worst enemy,” Brown told ABC News. “I wish in 2025 we would not have situations like this.”

-ABC News’ Lindsey Krill and Jennifer Watts contributed to this report.

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(BOSTON) — As more than two million federal employees face a midnight Thursday deadline to accept the Trump administration’s buyout offer, a federal judge in Massachusetts will consider an eleventh-hour request to block the buyout from moving forward.

U.S. District Judge George O’Toole Jr. set Thursday afternoon hearing to consider a request by three federal unions to issue a temporary restraining order that would suspend Thursday’s deadline for the buyout and require the Office of Personnel Management to provide a legal basis for the unprecedented offer, which offers to continue to pay federal employees through Sept. 30, 2025, if they resign by Thursday at 11;59 p.m..

Three unions representing a combined 800,000 federal civil servants argue that the “deferred resignation” offer is unlawful, arbitrary, and would result in a “dangerous one-two punch” to the federal government.

“First, the government will lose expertise in the complex fields and programs that Congress has, by statute, directed the Executive to faithfully implement,” the lawsuit said. “And second, when vacant positions become politicized, as this Administration seeks to do, partisanship is elevated over ability and truth, to the detriment of agency missions and the American people.”

The lawsuit comes as at least 40,000 federal workers — roughly 2% of the civilian federal workforce — have accepted the deferred resignation offer to leave the federal government since last week, ABC News has reported.

The three unions — the American Federation of Government Employees, the National Association of Government Employees, and the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees — argue that the OPM violated the Administrative Procedure Act by failing to provide a legal basis for the buyout offer and leaving open the possibility that the government might not follow through with the buyout once federal employees agree to resign.

The lawsuit added that the buyout’s promise of payments through September violates the law because the current appropriation for federal agencies expires in March. Moreover, the buyout is unfair because it was made alongside a threat of future layoffs, the lawsuit said.

The buyout offer, part of DOGE head Elon Musk’s effort to trim the size of government under President Donald Trump, was sent out under the subject line “Fork in the Road” — the same language Musk used when he slashed jobs at Twitter after taking over that company in 2022.

“To leverage employees into accepting the offer and resigning, the Fork Directive threatens employees with eventual job loss in the event that they refuse to resign,” the unions’ lawsuit says.

Overall, the lawsuit alleges that the OPM rushed the offer with a questionable legal basis, largely mimicking Elon Musk’s management style following his takeover of Twitter.

“OPM’s rapid adoption of Musk’s private-sector program confirms that the agency took very little time to consider the suitability of applying an approach used with questionable success in a single for-profit entity to the entirety of the federal workforce,” says the lawsuit.

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(WASHINGTON) — Internet-connected cameras made in China are giving the Chinese government the ability to “conduct espionage or disrupt US critical infrastructure,” according to a Department of Homeland Security bulletin obtained by ABC News.

The cameras typically lack data encryption and security settings and, by default, communicate with their manufacturer. It’s believed there are tens of thousands of Chinese-made cameras on the networks of critical U.S. infrastructure entities, including within the chemical and energy sectors, the bulletin said.

Chinese cyber-operatives have previously exploited internet-connected cameras and the fear is China could gain access and manipulate systems without tighter restrictions on these cameras, the DHS warns.

“A cyber actor could leverage cameras placed on IT networks for initial access and pivot to other devices to exfiltrate sensitive process data that an actor could use for attack planning or disrupting business systems,” the bulletin said. “A cyber actor could use cameras placed on safety systems to suppress alarms, trigger false alarms, or pivot to disable fail-safe mechanisms.”

So far, China has successfully kept U.S. regulators from blocking the use of internet-connected cameras made in China through the use of a practice known as “white labeling,” where the cameras are imported after they’re packaged and sold by another company, according to the bulletin.

This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.

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(NEW YORK) — A federal judge on Thursday will consider whether to block the Federal Bureau of Investigation from assembling a list of agents involved in cases related to the Jan. 6 Capitol attack for potential disciplinary action or firings.

A class action lawsuit filed anonymously by a group of FBI agents alleges that the country’s leading law enforcement agency is planning to engage in “potential vigilante action” to retaliate against government employees who worked on Jan. 6 cases or Donald Trump’s classified documents case.

The lawsuit warned that the effort to survey thousands of FBI agents about their past work could be “catastrophic to national security” and result in the termination of as many as 6,000 FBI agents.

The plaintiffs warned that the Department of Justice may seek to publicly disseminate the names of agents that investigated the conduct that allegedly stemmed from the sitting president.

“Such public disclosures would directly put the safety of all impacted individuals at risk as well as their family members,” the lawsuit said.
In a court filing submitted Thursday morning, the Justice Department urged the judge hearing the case to reject the plaintiffs’ request to impose a restraining order blocking the collection the list.

DOJ attorneys argued in the filing that the motion for the restraining order is based largely on speculation and that the FBI agents have failed to show they face any imminent threats in connection with the list.

Trump’s federal classified documents case and his Jan. 6 case were both dropped following Trump’s reelection in November due to a longstanding Justice Department policy prohibiting the prosecution of a sitting president.

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(NEW YORK) — A winter storm has pummeled the Midwest and the Northeast with sleet, freezing rain and snow, leaving dangerous travel conditions for millions.

In Cleveland, cars, trees and power lines have been coated in sheets of ice, and in Kansas, the icy roads were blamed for car accidents.

The ice targeted Washington, D.C., Baltimore and Philadelphia overnight as the storm moved east.

Snow and sleet reached New York City early Thursday morning, causing a treacherous commute during rush hour.

“Avoid unnecessary travel, and if you must drive, slow down, use caution and give plows and spreaders room to work,” the New Jersey Department of Transportation said.

The icy mix is expected to change to rain later in the morning from New York City to Philadelphia to D.C.

New England, including Boston, will see snow and an icy mix into the afternoon.

Another storm with snow, sleet and freezing rain is forecast for the Midwest and the Northeast this weekend.

A winter storm watch already has been issued for parts of Upper Midwest, including Minneapolis, where up to 8 inches of snow is possible.

This new storm will then track east, reaching the Interstate 95 corridor Saturday evening into Sunday morning with snow, ice and rain.
 

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(NEW ALBANY, Ohio) — Police are looking for a motive after a man allegedly killed two people and injured four others in a workplace shooting at an Ohio manufacturing facility, officials said.

Officers responded to an active shooter report at a New Albany facility run by KDC/One, a beauty products manufacturer, around 10:30 p.m. Tuesday, New Albany police said.

One victim was found shot dead inside the building and five others were hospitalized, police said. Police announced early Thursday that one of the five people in the hospital died from their injuries. The four surviving victims remain hospitalized in unknown conditions, police said.

About 150 employees were safely evacuated, police said.

The suspect, identified as employee Bruce Reginald Foster III, fled the scene just before police arrived, New Albany Police Chief Greg Jones said.

Foster, 28, was taken into custody Wednesday morning at a home in Columbus, Jones said.

A motive remains under investigation, Jones said at a news conference Wednesday.

Authorities interviewed the evacuated employees and “nobody had reported that there was any conflict or that [Foster] was in trouble at work,” Jones said.

The chief described the victims as Foster’s co-workers and said they likely knew each other.

New Albany is a safe community, but “any community in America can fall victim to random workplace violence,” New Albany Mayor Sloan Spalding said at the news conference.

Foster legally bought the gun used in the shooting in September 2024, authorities noted.
 

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