A still image from surveillance video shows what the Metropolitan Nashville Police Department describe as mass shooting suspect Audrey Elizabeth Hale, 28, inside The Covenant School carrying weapons in Nashville, Tenn., March 27, 2023. — Metropolitan Nashville Police Dept.
(NASHVILLE, Tenn.) — Arguing no one has suffered more than them, the parents of three children killed and those traumatized by a mass shooting in March at Covenant School in Nashville are asking a court to prevent the killer’s writings from being released
The request was filed Wednesday in Davidson County Chancery Court in response to three separate lawsuits asking that the journals of the shooter, 28-year-old Audrey Hale, be made public to shed light on a possible motive for the massacre.
In their court filing, the parents asked a judge set a hearing in which they would be allowed to give victim impact statements on how the deadly rampage has affected their lives.
“No one was more traumatized or has suffered more, than the families of the victims and survivors of the Covenant School atrocity. No one,” the brief filed by the parents reads. “And no one can claim a remotely similar interest in whether the shooter’s writings be released.”
On March 27, Hale, a former student at the private Christian school, launched an attack on the campus, killing three 9-year-old students and three adults, police alleged. Hale used a legally purchased AR-15-style rifle and another gun in the rampage, firing 152 rounds in 14 minutes before being fatally shot by a police officer, officials said.
About a week after the shooting, the Metropolitan Nashville Police Department released a statement saying journals and maps were found in Hale’s vehicle and home, revealing the attack was planned over a period of months and that “Hale considered the actions of other mass murderers.”
The collective writings were reviewed by Nashville detectives and the FBI’s Behavioral Analysis Unit in Quantico, Virginia.
“The motive for Hale’s actions has not been established,” the police department said in an April 3 statement.
The brief filed with the court by the parents of the slain children said three-quarters of Covenant School parents support the motion to keep Hale’s writings under court seal.
“The parents see no good that can come from the release and wish to contend that the writings — which they believe are the dangerous and harmful writings of a mentally-damaged person — should not be released at all,” the brief argues.
However, if the court decides to make a redacted version of Hale’s writings public, the parents asked that it be done after the end of the school year on June 8 “so that the children of Covenant School might finish the school year in peace.”
“The parents humbly and respectfully request that the court spare them and their children additional pain that would be caused by the release of these documents until after the school year concludes,” according to the parent’s court brief.
The parents added that they fear Hale’s writings could inspire “copycat attacks.”
A hearing on the issue was scheduled for Thursday but has now been postponed until Monday.
The parents’ request came just two days after more than 60 members of the Tennessee House Republican Caucus signed a letter they sent to Chief John Drake of the Metropolitan Nashville Police Department, asking him to release Hale’s writings. The lawmakers wrote that Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee has called upon the General Assembly to hold a special session to consider public safety legislation in response to the shooting.
“In order for this special session to be successful, it is paramount we understand the behavior and motives of the Covenant School perpetrator,” the letter said.
(EVERETT, Wash.) — An incident at a Washington jail Wednesday prompted a significant emergency response and sent seven inmates to the hospital after a potential fentanyl exposure.
The incident resulted in seven inmates being transported to a local hospital, with no fatalities reported, according to the Everett Fire Department. Twenty-three emergency response units responded to the incident, officials said.
Exposure to fentanyl, a deadly synthetic opioid, likely resulted in multiple overdoses, ABC affiliate KOMO-TV reported. A spokesperson for the Snohomish County Sheriff’s Office said each inmate received multiple doses Narcan, a medicine used to reverse opioid overdoses, which officials credited with saving the inmates’ lives.
Four inmates would soon be released from the hospital, the sheriff’s office told KOMO.
“Due to the number of patients, the incident was upgraded to a Multiple Casualty Incident (MCI), which brought in mutual aid assistance,” Everett Fire wrote online.
The Snohomish County Sheriff’s Office did not immediately respond to an inquiry on the incident.
According to the facility’s website, the jail houses roughly 875 inmates across a “general housing module” and specialized housing. The module where the overdoses took place was placed under lockdown, according to KOMO.
The rate of fentanyl overdose deaths has spiked by 279 percent since 2016, according to the National Center for Health Statistics’ National Vital Statistics System. A string of overdoses in nearby Portland, Oregon, left eight dead last weekend, with at least six overdoses likely related to fentanyl.
(NEW YORK) — An 8-year-old girl died while under U.S. Border Patrol custody in Texas on Wednesday, authorities said.
The child and her family were in custody at the Border Patrol station in Harlingen, near the border with Mexico, where she had “a medical emergency,” according to a statement from U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP), the Border Patrol’s parent agency.
The girl was rushed to a nearby hospital where she was pronounced dead, CBP said.
The CBP’s Office of Professional Responsibility, charged with upholding the agency’s ethical standards, is conducting an investigation into the incident, as is protocol. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s Office of Inspector General and the Harlingen Police Department were also notified.
CBP did not disclose the girl’s nationality or provide further information about her death.
The incident occurred amid concerns of a looming surge at the U.S.-Mexico border now that so-called Title 42 restrictions have expired. The pandemic-related immigration policy allowed the United States to swiftly turn back asylum seekers at its border with Mexico for the last three years in the name of protecting public health.
Last week, a 17-year-old Honduran boy traveling alone died while under U.S. Health and Human Services Department custody in Safety Harbor, Florida.
(WASHINGTON) — Washington, D.C., Mayor Muriel Bowser on Wednesday said officials must “act urgently” to combat crime in the nation’s capital after a 17-year-old was fatally shot in a high school parking lot while class was still in session, according to police — the third shooting involving a child in the District since Sunday.
The teenager, who has not been publicly identified, died following a confrontation at Roosevelt High School that resulted in gunshots, D.C. Metropolitan Police said. He was found with one gunshot wound and was pronounced dead at the hospital.
Law enforcement has begun a preliminary investigation and is asking for the public’s help in finding the shooter. They said the teen had been in school at Roosevelt earlier Wednesday and authorities are investigating what time he left.
Assistant Chief of Police Morgan Kane told reporters later Wednesday that police do not believe students inside the school faced any danger.
A source familiar with the situation told ABC News that that D.C. Public Schools planned to deploy immediate mental health and social workers to assist with crisis support for students and staff at Roosevelt.
“I can’t overstate how heartbreaking it is, how heartbroken I am right now, for our kids with what we see happening as a police agency in the city,” Kane said. “But what I will tell you is that it just makes us more deliberate and intentional in our resolve to put our hands around what is happening with our kids.”
On Sunday, 10-year-old Arianna Davis was shot in the upper body while driving home with family following Mother’s Day celebrations, police have said. Metropolitan Police said she was “accidentally hit in a barrage of gunfire.”
On Wednesday, authorities said Davis had died.
Separately, before dawn on Monday, a 12-year-old girl was shot after a bullet went through the window of her home and struck her in the leg as she was sleeping, according to authorities. She was transported to a hospital with non-life-threatening injuries.
Speaking to reporters on Wednesday, Mayor Bowser said: “We don’t want to see any gun violence in our city, certainly not among our children. We regard our schools as the safest place for our children.”
Bowser told reporters that she felt there “needs to be a fundamental shift” with “how we talk about consequences and how we’re working with young people that we know are in trouble.”
Asked to elaborate, Bowser said: “I think it needs to be on how to get young people who are using guns and make sure that they can’t hurt other people.”
She pointed to new legislative efforts aimed at increasing public safety, unveiled on Monday, which she said she hopes the city council “urgently” takes up before the end of the summer. The proposal would increase penalties for some violent crime and illegal gun possession.
“We can’t think of our juvenile rehabilitation system as punishment that courts and judges don’t regard as a way to help keep young people out of trouble,” she said, adding that her administration is supporting the “idea of respite or shelter care before a young person gets himself in trouble or hurt somebody or ends up being a victim of crime.”
(GREENVILLE, S.C.) — A South Carolina woman who ran an autism clinic is facing federal charges of health care fraud, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of South Carolina.
Stamatina “Nina” Bourret, 41, from Greenville — 200 miles northwest of Charleston — was indicted by a federal grand jury Tuesday on 21 charges including fraud, and aiding and abetting for defrauding Medicaid.
According to the indictment, viewed by ABC News, Bourret ran Agapi Behavior Consultants, which allegedly provides clinic, in-school and at-home services for children with autism and other related disorders.
The clinic’s website says its programs are for those between ages 18 months to 21 years, and treatment consists of behavioral support, emotional training, family training, social skill training and generalizing skills.
The indictment states that from about July 2020 to April 2022, Bourret billed Medicaid for services that she and other workers either only provided partially or did not provide at all.
For example, the indictment alleges that Bourret submitted claims that services were provided on the weekends, despite the fact that Agapi was closed on weekends, and that she also submitted “false and fictitious claims for services beyond what was actually performed on the beneficiaries.”
She also submitted claims using the provider numbers of employees who did not work in the area of South Carolina where patients lived, and claims of employees who never treated these patients, the indictment says.
The claims ranged from about $58 to $436, according to the indictment.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of South Carolina did not immediately reply to ABC News’ request for comment.
Bourret was arrested Tuesday and was released on a $25,000 bond on the condition she surrender her passport.
She faces a maximum of up to 10 years in prison for each charge. Bourret is also required to forfeit all process “obtained, directly or indirectly, from the offenses charged in this Indictment, that is, a minimum of approximately $1,109,430.00.”
Attempts to reach Bourret were unsuccessful, and a number listed for Agapi was not in service. Her next court appearance is scheduled for May 26 at the federal court in Greenville.
Her attorney, Andrew Moorman, told ABC News he could not comment on the case.
(GRAND RAPIDS, Minn.) — A federal grand jury indicted a Minnesota man on Tuesday for allegedly stealing a pair of the ruby slippers that actress Judy Garland famously wore playing Dorothy in “The Wizard of Oz.”
Federal prosecutors allege that Terry Martin stole the iconic slippers in 2005 from the Judy Garland Museum in Grand Rapids, Minnesota — one of only four remaining pairs worn by Garland in the 1939 film.
The shoes were ensured at a $1 million valuation at the time they were stolen, prosecutors said, but their current market appraisal could price them around roughly $3.5 million, according to estimates.
The shoes were recovered by the FBI and Grand Rapids police in a sting operation in July of 2018, the Justice Department said.
The charges against Martin are the result of a long-running federal investigation launched following the initial disappearance of the shoes.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office in North Dakota provided no further details on Martin’s background or his role in the alleged theft of the slippers and the office says they are declining to comment further at this time, citing the ongoing case.
Martin faces one count of theft of an object of cultural heritage from the care, custody or control of a museum, which carries a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison if he is convicted.
At this time, Martin does not have an attorney listed for him on his court docket.
That pair was one of several custom-made for the role of Dorothy in the film.
In the classic film, Garland, as Dorothy, is seen clicking her heels of the ruby slippers together and saying the famous phrase, “There’s no place like home,” which the American Film Institute considers one of the 100 greatest movie quotes of all time.
Private collectors own at least two existing pairs, including a pair jointly acquired by Leonardo DiCaprio and Steven Spielberg for display at the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures.
ABC News’ Emily Shapiro and Karma Allen contributed to this report.
(NEW ORLEANS) — A federal appeals court in New Orleans on Wednesday heard arguments in a high-stakes bid to invalidate FDA approval of the most widely used abortion medication in the country more than two decades after it hit the market and despite its safe use by millions of women.
Three judges on the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals — one of the most conservative courts in the country — appeared open to limiting access to the medication as they questioned a Biden administration attorney about FDA’s assessment of the drug mifepristone’s safety and effectiveness.
A federal judge in Texas last month concluded the agency’s process was deeply flawed and illegal from the start. That decision remains on hold for the duration of the legal challenge, which is expected to ultimately reach the U.S. Supreme Court, possibly next year. Mifepristone continues to be widely available under longstanding FDA guidelines.
The coalition of anti-abortion doctors and associations, represented by the conservative legal group Alliance Defending Freedom, which brought the case is seeking to remove the drug from use, even in states where abortion is currently legal.
For two hours, the appeals court panel peppered attorneys on both sides with questions on the issue of legal standing: whether the doctor plaintiffs in the case suffer a specific and direct injury from the availability of the abortion pill sufficient to allow them to bring a lawsuit.
The government argued that none of the doctors involved has been directly impacted by FDA’s regulations of Mifepristone and that the entire challenge should be tossed out.
“Seeing and treating patients isn’t an injury,” said Deputy Assistant Attorney General Sarah Harrington. “These are not directly regulated parties.”
The government attempted to discredit the doctors, who have claimed in court filings that their religious conscience rights were violated by having to treat patients who had alleged complications from taking Mifepristone. None of the doctors in the case had raised objections at the time of providing care, and some of the patients they treated could not confirm that mifepristone was involved, according to court records.
An attorney for Danco Laboratories, which manufacturers mifepristone, also hammered the standing argument hard in defending the FDA.
“There must be a specific doctor with a specific injury from the regulation,” the company’s attorney Jessica Ellsworth said. “There’s no link to these doctors.”
Moreover, the drug maker’s attorney noted, Texas and Indiana — home states of the doctors involved in the case — have largely outlawed abortion, including mifepristone, minimizing the prospect that they could suffer any “injury” in the future.
“These declarations offer generalized statements and no acknowledgment of the changed laws,” Ellsworth said.
Attorney Erin Hawley, representing the doctors, forcefully pushed back, insisting that a doctor’s involvement in removing a fetus after a “failed” chemical abortion could compromise conscience rights and that the risk remains real for many providers nationwide.
Judge James C. Ho, a Trump appointee, seemed to agree that conscience rights are recognized as sufficient to establish standing.
But Judge Cory Wilson, also a Trump appointee, voiced some skepticism, asking Hawley why doctors with conscience concerns didn’t object at the time of treating a patient with abortion complications. “What about handing it off to another doctor who doesn’t have an objection?” he said.
Wilson also raised concerns about broader implications. “Does approval of any drug that a doctor has a conscious objection to give standing? Where do you draw the line?” he said.
Hawley countered that, If abortion clinics have standing to challenge state restrictions meant to protect women, then their doctors should have standing as well.
The panel also zeroed in on the FDA’s drug-approval process and whether the agency adequately examined potential risks to women when drafting regulations for the drug in 2000 and revising them in subsequent years.
After initially approving mifepristone, the FDA retooled its guidelines in 2016 — reducing the recommended dose, allowing use of the drug up to 10 weeks of pregnancy (from 7), eliminating in-person doctor visits to receive it, among other measures.
Did the agency conduct any studies before 2016 looking at safety of the changes in total? Judge Wilson asked. The government conceded one had not been done.
Judge Jennifer Walker Elrod, a George W. Bush appointee, wondered whether the FDA had properly considered safety risks of allowing the pill’s prescription via telemedicine. “Did the FDA consider safety of the drug with a mail-order regime?” she asked of the agency’s recent approval of distribution by mail.
The government also argued that the challenge to FDA approval of mifepristone is beyond the statute of limitations — coming more than a decade out of time.
At least one judge, Judge Elrod, suggested she may agree with the time-cap, but that some of the FDA’s subsequent revisions to the regulations might be fair game.
The revisions in 2016 “stripped away every safeguard,” argued Hawley.
“This case isn’t about ending abortion, it’s about challenging a particularly dangerous type of abortion,” she said. (Her claim is not supported by scientific evidence endorsed by the FDA or dozens of health and medical associations.)
The government and drug maker attorneys warned the judges against taking a middle ground approach – upholding approval of mifepristone but invalidating some FDA restrictions of it – saying that would create massive upheaval.
Among other things, they said, manufacturers would effectively have to halt production for “months” to retool their guidance and labeling for the drug. They also said reverting to the old guidelines prior to 2016, for example, would tell women to take a higher dose than has now been deemed necessary.
“It doesn’t make sense,” Danco’s attorney said. “It’s a strange remedy to have women take four times as much.”
None of the panelists appeared entirely persuaded by the government’s argument that a rollback of regulations would be harmful.
The judges, who each have previously voted to uphold restrictions on abortion, voiced frustration with not having thousands of pages of the FDA’s administrative record from decades ago detailing the steps and procedures. The government says it is working to provide those documents.
The panel also bristled at the government and drug maker’s assertion that it would be unprecedented for a court to overrule an FDA determination of drug safety.
“We’re allowed to look at the FDA just like any other agency,” declared Judge Ho.
The appeals court is expected to deliver a decision in the case in the coming months but is not on a fixed timeline. Regardless of the outcome, a Supreme Court order has preserved status quo around mifepristone until such time that it rules on the case.
(NEW YORK) — Police sources are countering a claim by Harry and Meghan, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, that they were involved in a “near catastrophic car chase” while being pursued by paparazzi in Manhattan on Tuesday night.
A spokesperson for the couple, who were returning from an event along with Meghan’s mother, Doria Ragland, accused paparazzi of being “highly aggressive” and driving on the sidewalk and running red lights during a two-hour “relentless pursuit” of the famous pair. Police sources, however, are saying the whole episode only took about 20 minutes and did not involve the amount of paparazzi the spokesperson claimed.
“While being a public figure comes with a level of interest from the public, it should never come at the cost of anyone’s safety,” the spokesperson said.
Harry and Meghan appeared Tuesday night at the Ziegfeld Ballroom as Meghan received the Ms. Foundation’s Women of Vision Award at the foundation’s annual gala.
The foundation was co-founded by feminist icon and activist Gloria Steinem, a friend of Meghan’s, who presented her with the award.
Police sources described to ABC News a different version of events from the one described by Harry and Meghan’s spokesperson.
Two New York Police Department detectives were present at the Ziegfeld when Harry and Meghan emerged from the event and drove alongside the couple’s private vehicle to get them home. Harry and Meghan were home no more than 20 minutes after their departure from the event, according to police sources.
Along the way, police sources said photographers on bicycles are visible on security cameras but not the kind of caravan described by sources close to Harry and Meghan.
The NYPD said in a statement: “On Wednesday evening, May 16, the NYPD assisted the private security team protecting the Duke and Duchess of Sussex. There were numerous photographers that made their transport challenging. The Duke and Duchess of Sussex arrived at their destination and there were no reported collisions, summonses, injuries, or arrests in regard.”
The NYPD is running down reports that members of the paparazzi had license plates covered on their motorcycles, scooters and cars, and that they were driving on sidewalks and backward on streets.
At one point, Harry and Meghan’s private security detail believed there was a car following them, so they drove toward the 19th Precinct, which is close to where the couple is staying, and pull into a driveway, according to sources.
Private security flagged a yellow cab and Harry, Meghan and a security guard climbed in. The cab circled the block and returned to the precinct, unable to shake the photographers, according to sources.
At no time did Harry and Meghan enter the police precinct, the sources said.
Celebrity news agency Backgrid USA said it received photos and videos from four freelance photographers — three who were in cars and one on a bike — who were covering Harry and Meghan’s stay Tuesday night, and it also refuted claims of a “near catastrophic car chase.”
According to the photographers, “there were no near-collisions or near-crashes during this incident,” Backgrid USA said in a statement. “The photographers have reported feeling that the couple was not in immediate danger at any point.”
Some of the photos “even show Meghan Markle smiling inside a cab,” the statement said.
The photographers claimed that one of the four SUVs in Harry’s security escort “was driving in a manner that could be perceived as reckless,” including blocking off streets, according to Backgrid.
The couple warned in their statement that people should not share photos of the incident.
“Dissemination of these images, given the ways in which they were obtained, encourages a highly intrusive practice that is dangerous to all in involved,” the spokesperson said.
The couple has widely criticized the press and paparazzi and asked for privacy in the past.
Prince Harry’s mother, Princess Diana of Wales, was killed in a car crash in Paris in 1997 while being pursued by paparazzi.
New York City Mayor Eric Adams said it was “a bit reckless and irresponsible” for paparazzi to chase Harry and Meghan and he noted echoes of Princess Diana’s death as he took questions from reporters during an unrelated event.
“I don’t think there are many of us who don’t recall how his mom died,” Adams said. “I thought that was a bit reckless and irresponsible.”
The mayor, however, expressed skepticism the chase lasted two hours.
“I would find it hard to believe there was a two-hour high-speed chase,” the mayor said. “But if it’s 10 minutes, a 10-minute chase is extremely dangerous.”
Duchess of Sussex Meghan Markle and Duke of Sussex Prince Harry attend the ceremony, which benefits the Ms. Foundation for Women and feminist movements, in New York, May 16, 2023.
In his first statement confirming their relationship in 2016, Prince Harry called out the “abuse and harassment” Meghan Markle faced from the press amid speculation that the couple were dating.
In a statement issued by Kensington Palace at the time , Prince Harry said he “has never been comfortable” with the significant curiosity surrounding his private life, rarely taking “formal action” on the “very regular publication of fictional stories that are written about him.”
“Prince Harry is worried about Ms. Markle’s safety and is deeply disappointed that he has not been able to protect her,” the statement read. “It is not right that a few months into a relationship with him that Ms. Markle should be subjected to such a storm.”
The royal couple stepped down from their role as senior members of the royal family in 2018. In a docuseries released since, the couple has said they are prioritizing privacy for their children , with Harry saying the constant harassment from paparazzi and press that he endured throughout his childhood was never fair.
ABC News’ Mark Osborne and Nadine El-Bawab contributed to this report.
(WASHINGTON) — The Army National Guardsman charged with leaking a trove of military secrets was twice admonished by his superiors last year over “concerning actions” he took with regards to classified information, federal prosecutors said in a court filing on Wednesday.
Jack Teixeira, who is set to appear in court on Friday afternoon where a judge will determine if he should remain detained pending trial, was told by superiors in September and October “to no longer take notes in any form on classified intelligence information and to “cease-and-desist on any deep dives into classified intelligence information,” prosecutors wrote in the filing.
Teixeira has not yet pleaded to his charges.
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
(NEW YORK) — U.S. airlines are gearing up for the busiest Memorial Day holiday since before the pandemic.
United Airlines said it’s preparing for its busiest Memorial Day in over a decade, expecting to carry nearly 2.9 million passengers from Thursday May 25 to Tuesday May 30.
The airline said it will see the most passengers Friday, May 26, when it expects to transport 500,000 customers.
Delta Air Lines said it’s expecting to fly 2.8 million customers over the holiday – a 17% increase from the number of passengers it flew during last year’s Memorial Day weekend.
American Airlines said it will carry more than 2.9 million customers, operating over 26,000 flights this upcoming holiday.
“The busiest airports over Memorial Day weekend will be Atlanta, Dallas, Denver and Los Angeles, all with more than half a million passengers departing over the weekend,” Haley Berg, economist at Hopper, said in an interview with ABC.
According to AAA, airports could see the busiest Memorial Day Weekend since 2005, with 5.4% more passengers than 2019.
“Despite high ticket prices, demand for flights is skyrocketing,” AAA said in a news release.
