(HIGHLAND PARK, Ill.) — The suspected Highland Park, Illinois, mass shooter declined to change his plea to guilty at a Wednesday hearing, crushing victims’ families who watched on in the courtroom.
Robert Crimo III is accused of killing seven people and injuring dozens of others in the mass shooting at a 2022 Fourth of July parade in the Chicago suburb of Highland Park.
Crimo was expected to plead guilty to seven counts of murder and 48 counts of aggravated battery with a firearm at the hearing, according to The Associated Press. Instead, the 23-year-old rejected the agreement, which would have sentenced him to life.
Crimo is scheduled for trial in February 2025.
“We came to court today in hopes that we could put this out of our mind,” Leah Sundheim, whose mother, Jacquelyn Sundheim, was killed, said at a news conference Wednesday.
“We have Fourth of July coming up and it will be two years,” she said. “All I wanted was to be able to fully grieve my mom without the looming trial, knowing that he was going to spend the rest of his life in jail. And instead, we were yet again shown [Crimo’s] complete and blatant disregard for humans.”
“[Crimo] is evil and manipulative, and brought us here today probably knowing what he was going to do,” she said. “I think that he has very little control, and he will exercise every bit he has — and does not care who he hurts.”
Tony Romanucci, an attorneys for some of the victims’ relatives, added, “This was a calculated effort on his part to continue the suffering that our clients are going through.”
Also among those killed were Highland Park residents Irina McCarthy, 35, and Kevin McCarthy, 37, who were at the parade with their 2-year-old son.
Lance Northcutt, an attorney for the McCarthy family, said Wednesday’s hearing revictimized the families.
Crimo “came to court today with one goal in mind: to continue the terror that began on July 4, 2022,” Northcutt said.
But Karina Mendez, whose dad, Eduardo Uvaldo, was killed, said she’ll be “patient with the court system,” adding that’s what her father would be telling her to do.
“It’s hard just to come in here and see the person that took my dad,” Mendez said. “I was hoping for closure — that was the goal for today, to be done with this.”
“My dad was somebody who loved his family. And we’ve stuck together through all this — we’re gonna keep sticking together,” she said.
Lake County State’s Attorney Eric Rinehart made a brief statement after Wednesday’s hearing. He said prosecutors will continue to support the survivors and the victims’ families, adding, “We will be ready for trial.”
ABC News has reached out to Crimo’s attorneys for comment.
Crimo’s father, Robert Crimo Jr., pleaded guilty last year to reckless conduct, admitting to signing the Firearm Owner’s Identification card for his son to apply for gun ownership.
The younger Crimo was 19 at the time and and too young to get a FOID card on his own. Illinois at the time required people ages 18, 19 or 20 to have parent or guardian authorization.
(NEW YORK) — Columbia University professors Ari Goldman and Gregory Khalil, each with their unique perspectives as individuals of Jewish and Palestinian descent, respectively, co-teach the complexities of the Israel-Hamas conflict.
The two professors are embarking on a joint educational mission at Columbia’s Graduate School of Journalism. Their course, which focuses on religion, aims to teach students how to approach conflicts through a lens of empathy and understanding.
Goldman said they try to show how it’s possible to disagree with someone and still be friendly with them. They share that someone can have differing opinions and discuss them with others, and you can coexist without insisting that a person agree with you.
This mission takes on a heightened significance in the aftermath of recent student protests, which began April 17 on Columbia’s campus.
Pro-Palestinian protesters have been calling for the Ivy League school to financially pull out from companies and institutions that “profit from Israeli apartheid, genocide and occupation in Palestine,” according to an online statement from the group Columbia University Apartheid Divest.
However, Columbia’s investments are not public information and remain largely unknown.
Following Columbia University President Minouche Shafik’s congressional hearing on April 17 about antisemitism on campus, the encampment drew a larger group of protesters.
In a statement following the protests, Shafik said that the encampment “violates all of the new policies, severely disrupts campus life and creates a harassing and intimidating environment for many of our students.”
“Students and outside activists breaking Hamilton Hall doors, mistreating our Public Safety officers and maintenance staff, and damaging property are acts of destruction, not political speech,” said Shafik. “Many students have also felt uncomfortable and unwelcome because of the disruption and antisemitic comments made by some individuals, especially in the protests that have persistently mobilized outside our gates.”
ABC News sat down with Goldman and Khalil to talk about the challenging discussions they want people to have in their households.
ABC NEWS LIVE: The Israel-Hamas conflict is complex, layered with religion, race and land disputes, and dates back generations without a peaceful resolution — which is what makes one particular class at Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism so unique.
Two professors, Ari Goldman, who is Jewish, and Greg Khalil, who is Palestinian, co-teach covering religion, part of an educational mission to approach conflicts with empathy and understanding, especially in the wake of protests on Columbia’s campus and beyond in recent months.
Both professors kind enough to join us now. Thank you so much. How do you think that Columbia University in particular handled when you talk about things blowing up? I mean, we saw it really happening there — was kind of like an epicenter for a lot of the tumult in what we were seeing all across the country. How do you feel that it was handled within your own campus?
KHALIL: I personally don’t think it was handled well at all, but I think what many viewers missed is that Columbia’s failures extended well before the encampments and the protests. If we can’t have these conversations on campus, is it no wonder so many of our democratic institutions feel like they’re failing?
ABC NEWS LIVE: Has there been any kind of discussion that you feel like more people need to hear this, where we’re coming to some ideas anyway, of possibilities for resolution?
GOLDMAN: Well, I would get back to what Greg said about the behavior or the success of Columbia University. I think he would probably give it a failing grade. I would give it maybe a C, a C-plus. I don’t think we’ve been as bad as, as some people might think. I think the University has made strides, has done some things good.
I support the student rights to speak out and to protest and even to demonstrate on campus. But I think when things got intimidating, when things got violent and things got — broke the law — they needed to be stopped.
ABC NEWS LIVE: Were there disagreements, those kinds of disagreements that when in discussions that we were seeing play out, in the encampments, were those happening in the classroom? And how do you all go about resolving them on the spot?
GOLDMAN: I feel that our students were well prepared to cover this big story. This story came to our door. That came, a big international story is suddenly at our doorstep. And as journalists, we took advantage of that.
KHALIL: We very much disagree on the approach of the university. I don’t think the violent approach, the university after the encampments or many months before was warranted. But there were a lot of stories that we didn’t see. I remember the third night of Passover, for example, being next to the encampment at Pulitzer Hall, where we teach and heard the Muslim call for for prayer from the camp and went over.
I saw 20 students holding up bedsheets around Muslim students who were praying an hour and a half before the start of Passover, when the Jewish students there — and there was a sizable minority of students there who were Jewish — held a multifaith meal in honor of Passover. So there were a lot of positive stories that were coming out of that that you didn’t see.
ABC NEWS LIVE: I am curious to know how your opposing viewpoints helped to inform how you teach your students.
GOLDMAN: We try to show how you can disagree with someone and yet be friendly with them. You can disagree with someone and discuss your differences, and you could coexist with them without saying, ‘you have to agree with me. And if you don’t agree with me, you’re out of here. You have nothing to contribute to me.’
ABC NEWS LIVE: One thing people have been talking about a lot lately is Zionism. And I’m curious if you all have the same definition of Zionism.
GOLDMAN: Well, I am a proud Zionist. I declare myself to be such. I’m someone who believes in the promise of, of a Jewish homeland and of the necessity of a Jewish homeland. There is no other country where Jews can go, and feel like like this is their country. There are Muslim countries; there are Christian countries. There’s no other Jewish country. And I believe that it’s essential.
I don’t agree with everything that Israel does, and Zionism doesn’t require me to agree with everything Israel does.
ABC NEWS LIVE: If you think there could be a Palestinian state in there.
GOLDMAN: Absolutely. I think there should be.
KHALIL: And I actually have a very different view of Zionism. I fundamentally believe that there is no good future for any Israeli or Palestinian without a good reality for every Palestinian and Israeli, that security, dignity, safety, freedom, equality, justice for everyone. And I think that Zionism, the motivations behind Zionism are things that completely support and understand the Jewish quest for self-determination, for liberation, which I actually believe is intertwined with Palestinian liberation.
So Zionism in its reality is resulting in sort of this indefinite control over millions of people’s lives. And that’s something that I think is wrong. And we need to find a way out that centers fundamental human rights for everyone.
ABC NEWS LIVE: What’s the way forward?
GOLDMAN: Greg used the word indefinite. It’s not indefinite. It’s gone on too long. And I think there should be a Palestinian state. And I think the proposal that President Biden has on the table is one that I support and I think has the possibility to eventually lead to a Palestinian state and normalize relations between Israel and some of its Arab neighbors.
KHALIL: And I think it’s actually a little bit more complex than that. I think, you know, when you say it’s gone on too long, it’s all the generations of my family, for generations who’ve never known one second of freedom, who’ve lived lives under absolute military control by another state based on who they are. That’s wrong.
We don’t have more time to wait. And, unfortunately, today the path forward is not clear. Gaza is going to take 80 years to rebuild. It’s like the building next door is on fire, their children dying. But the next critical step is to put the fire out, save as many children as possible, release the captives, and we have to do whatever we can before this problem in Gaza, which many around the world are causing, calling an act of genocide, explodes regionally and even globally.
ABC NEWS LIVE: He said that it’s wrong that his family for generations has had to live as he described and kind of not knowing freedom. Would you agree that that’s wrong?
GOLDMAN: I agree, and I want the situation to be better. I want it to change. Our job is not to resolve the Arab-Israel conflict, and we’re not going to. Whatever ideas we have, our job is to teach journalists how to write about this subject in a way that recognizes the other side, that hears his argument and hears my argument, or hears not my argument than the Israeli argument.
ABC NEWS LIVE: We could all benefit from that class.
KHALIL: And on that we are absolutely committed. We may be ideologically opposed in one sense, but we’re good friends. I love Ari like family. That’s not just a saying. And we believe that we as a society need to hold space and build space for people as different as us to enable others to have these conversations, too.
ABC NEWS LIVE: Gentlemen, we hope that we will be able to get the conversation started in households and beyond, all around the world. We thank you so much for this kind of safe space to have this kind of discussion. People need to talk about it more. Professors Ari Goldman and Greg Khalil, we thank you.
(NEW YORK) — A wind-driven wildfire that ignited on Tuesday in Central Oregon spread overnight to 1,700 acres and was threatening homes as residents were ordered to evacuate, officials said.
The Darlene 3 Fire burning in Deschutes County was 0% contained early Wednesday, according to the Central Oregon Fire Management Service.
The blaze started about 2 p.m. PT on Tuesday. Fanned by gusty winds, the blaze quickly spread through a pine forest near homes in La Pine, a small town of about 2,500 people in the foothills of the Cascade Mountains, officials said.
The Deschutes County Sheriff’s Office ordered some residents on the southeast side of La Pine to evacuate. Shelters were opened at a local high school and the La Pine Rodeo Grounds, officials said.
Lt. Jayson Janes of the Deschutes County Sheriff’s Office said evacuation alerts were sent to 1,100 homes and businesses.
It was not immediately clear if any structures had been damaged or destroyed.
Several campgrounds and hiking trails in the area were also closed, officials said.
The cause of the fire is under investigation.
The sheriff’s office posted photos and video on its Facebook page showing a large plume of smoke emerging from a forest behind a group of homes and a firefighting air tanker dropping fire-suppression retardant on the flames.
Oregon Gov. Tina Kotek invoked the Emergency Conflagration Act after determining the fire posed a threat to life and property and exceeded the resources of the local fire agencies. The act allows the state fire marshal to mobilize firefighters and equipment throughout the state to assist local fire crews in battling the fire.
Oregon State Fire Marshall Mariana Ruiz-Temple said gusty winds and hot weather caused the fire to quickly spread.
“The Emergency Conflagration Act allows us to send the full power of the Oregon fire service to protect life and property,” Ruiz-Temple said in a news release. “As we enter the hot and dry summer months, I am asking Oregonians to do everything they can to prevent wildfires.”
(NEW YORK) — A pro-Palestinian protester who was captured on video this month leading what city officials deemed an “antisemitic” call-and-response chant on a New York City subway surrendered to police, authorities said.
The protester, whose name was not immediately released, turned himself in Wednesday at the Transit District 2 precinct in lower Manhattan and was expected to be released after being issued a desk appearance ticket, according to the New York Police Department.
Police had been searching for the man since the June 10 incident on a crowded Manhattan subway car that prompted a police complaint from at least one rider, according to authorities.
A video of the incident on the Brooklyn-bound subway train later surfaced online.
“Repeat after me: Raise your hands if you’re a Zionist,” the suspect, wearing sunglasses and a traditional Palestinian keffiyeh scarf, which has become a symbol of pro-Palestinian resistance, is heard repeatedly saying in the video, adding, “This is your chance to get out!”
“Ok, no Zionists, we’re good,” the man is then heard saying.
NYPD officials asked others who were aboard the subway car and felt threatened to come forward.
The man is expected to be charged with attempted coercion, police sources told ABC News.
The subway encounter was among a string of incidents between June 10-13 in New York City, including vandalism linked to pro-Palestinian protests that were discovered in four other areas of the city, including at the homes of the Jewish director of the Brooklyn Museum and several of the museum’s board members, officials said.
A protest tied to the war in Gaza also prompted a large police response on June 12 and the closure of a block on the city’s Upper East Side, where the Palestinian Mission to the United Nations was vandalized and demonstrators littered the street with leaflets smeared with red paint and encouraging the intifada, according to police.
The vandalism came a day after a large protest against the war in Gaza was held outside a new exhibit in lower Manhattan honoring the 364 concertgoers killed at the Nova Festival in Israel during the Oct. 7 attack by Hamas terrorists. Hundreds of protesters waved Palestinian and Hamas military flags and the flag of Hezbollah, the Lebanese militant group that has vowed to destroy Israel.
Some protesters even tried to storm the doors of the exhibit as relatives of those killed at the Nova Festival were touring the displays, which featured photos of loved ones murdered by Hamas.
New York City officials, including Mayor Eric Adams, reacted to the vandalism and other acts by protesters that week as “antisemitic” and “repugnant.”
“These actions will never be tolerated in New York City for any reason,” Adams said at the time. “This is not peaceful protest or free speech. This is a crime, and it’s overt, unacceptable antisemitism.”
(NEW YORK) — Hawaii Island police said they’re investigating a possible shark attack that injured a 20-year-old man visiting the island from Romania.
The man was swimming about 15 to 20 feet offshore at Anaeho’omalu Bay in Waikoloa at the time, the Hawaii Police Department said.
Around 5:30 p.m. Monday, he felt pain on his right foot and saw lacerations “bleeding profusely” on the top and bottom of his foot, police said.
The man was hospitalized in non-life-threatening condition with injuries medical personnel described as consistent with a shark bite, police said.
The victim and two people near him in the water didn’t spot a shark, police added.
The potential attack comes days after a well-known surfer and lifeguard was killed by a shark near the North Shore of Oahu, emergency officials said.
Tamayo Perry, 49, had been a lifeguard with Honolulu Ocean Safety since 2016. He was a local surf coach and competed for years in the Pipeline Master Trials, according to his official bio on his coaching site. Perry appeared in the 2002 movie Blue Crush, along with episodes of Hawaii Five-O and The Bridge, according to IMDb.
“The world knew Tamayo as a surfer and an actor, but to those who knew him best, he was a man of deep faith … now taken too soon,” his wife, Emilia Perry, told ABC News in an exclusive interview. “I feel so upset and devastated. But I also have a weird calmness in my heart knowing that he’s in a better place.”
Exterior view of Elvis Presley’s house Graceland in Memphis, Tennessee. (Gab Archive/Redferns via Getty Images)
(NEW YORK) — The Tennessee Attorney General turned the investigation into the failed foreclosure of Elvis Presley’s Graceland estate to federal investigators, according to a spokesperson for the office.
“The Tennessee Attorney General’s Office looked into the Graceland matter, and it quickly became apparent that this was a matter best suited for federal law enforcement. We have faith in our federal partners and know they will handle this appropriately,” director of communications for the Tennessee Attorney General’s Office Amy Lannom Wilhite said in a statement to ABC News.
In May, Tennessee AG Jonathan Skrmetti announced that his department would look into the attempt by an investment group to foreclose on Graceland.
Actress Riley Keough, Presley’s granddaughter, and daughter of Lisa Marie Presley, sued to stop a company calling itself “Naussany Investments and Private Lending LLC” from auctioning off the Memphis estate visited by millions from around the world.
Contact information for the company wasn’t immediately available.
The sale had been scheduled for late May but was blocked by a judge, and the effort was ultimately dropped.
Skrmetti said in May lawyers from the AG’s office would look into the matter “and identify” what they could do to “protect both Elvis Presley’s heirs and anyone else who may be similarly threatened.”
“My office has fought fraud against homeowners for decades, and there is no home in Tennessee more beloved than Graceland,” Skrmetti said.
High water levels at the Rapidan Dam on the Blue Earth River in Mankato, Minn., June 24, 2024. (Ben Brewer/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
(NEW YORK) — As southern Minnesota battles an onslaught of rain and severe flooding, the fate of the Rapidan Dam hangs in the balance, with officials saying the dam is in “imminent failure condition.”
The Rapidan Dam, built in 1910, is located on the Blue Earth River, which begins in Iowa and runs outside Mankato, Minnesota, about 85 miles southwest of Minneapolis.
The Blue Earth County Sheriff’s Office reported the dam was in precarious standing amid the overflow of the river, which has caused “erosion and slope-cutting” to the dam as well as a buildup of debris in the area.
The sheriff’s office reported a “partial failure” of the dam on the west abutment on Monday.
“We do not know if it will totally fail or if it will remain in place, however, we determined it was necessary to issue this notification to advise downstream residents and the correct regulatory agencies and other local agencies,” the office wrote in an alert on Facebook Monday.
“Public Works, Emergency Management and Sheriffs Offices are implementing steps outlined in the Rapidan Dam Emergency Action Plan for Imminent Failure of the Dam including notification of potentially affected residents, impacted regulatory agencies and other local agencies,” the office said.
On Monday, river levels peaked at 34,800 cubic feet per second and have lowered to 33,000 cubic feet per second as of Tuesday while officials continue assessment and evaluation of the dam.
An Xcel Energy substation, which supplies power to 600 customers, was swept downriver during the overflow Monday, according to the company.
“Our teams have been working diligently since floodwaters knocked out the Rapidan substation this morning to bring power back to homes and businesses in the area — more than 170 Xcel Energy employees arrived at the scene to assist,” Ryan Long, president of Xcel Energy–Minnesota, said in a press release Monday.
“We know people depend on electricity, especially during warm days and severe weather,” Long said, adding, “We urge residents to stay safe as our crews work by avoiding any damaged electrical equipment and following all flooding precautions.”
In April 2023, the National Inventory of Dams gave Rapidan Dam a “poor condition” rating with the hazard potential classification as “significant.”
Minnesota has faced over 18 inches of rain over the last few weeks, affecting 40 counties, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz said during a press conference Monday, warning forecasts for more rain could lead to further damage.
“We’re making sure, first and foremost, people are safe, protecting property and protecting public infrastructure,” Walz said.
Walz signaled he would request a presidential disaster declaration if the damage in the state reached the federal threshold.
Blue Earth County Road 9 bridge that crosses the river remains closed to traffic for public safety, according to the Blue Earth County Sheriff’s Office update on Tuesday.
At this time, the department has not issued any mass evacuation plans.
The United Launch Alliance (ULA) Atlas V rocket with Boeing’s CST-100 Starliner spacecraft launches from Space Launch Complex 41 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida on June 5, 2024. (Miguel J. Rodriguez Carrillo/AFP via Getty Images, FILE)
(NEW YORK) — Two NASA astronauts have no set date to return to Earth and are stuck waiting aboard the International Space Station (ISS) due to several mechanical issues with Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft.
Starliner launched on June 5 from the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Cape Canaveral, Florida, with flight commander Barry “Butch” Wilmore and flight pilot Sunita “Suni” Williams onboard, arriving at the ISS one day later.
The mission is part of the larger Commercial Crew Program at NASA, which was testing if Boeing’s spacecrafts could be certified to perform routine missions to and from the ISS.
The pair were originally scheduled to return on June 14 but have since had their return delayed multiple times, and currently do not have a planned date to return to Earth.
“We are taking our time and following our standard mission management team process,” Steve Stich, manager of NASA’s Commercial Crew Program, said in a statement. “We are letting the data drive our decision making relative to managing the small helium system leaks and thruster performance we observed during rendezvous and docking.”
Boeing and NASA have said the crew is currently not in danger because they are aboard the ISS with plenty of supplies in orbit, and the station’s schedule is relatively open through mid-August.
NASA and Boeing say Wilmore and Williams are “integrated” with the Expedition 71 crew aboard the ISS and are helping the crew with station operations as needed as well as completing “objectives” needed for NASA’s possible certification of Starliner.
“The crew’s feedback has been overwhelmingly positive, and they know that every bit of learning we do on the Crew Flight Test will improve and sharpen our experience for future crews,” Mark Nappi, vice president and program manager of Boeing’s Starliner program, said in a statement.
Starliner has been plagued by issues even before launch. The flight test was originally tentatively scheduled for May 6, but was scrubbed after a problem with an oxygen valve on a rocket from United Launch Alliance (ULA), which manufactures and operates the rockets that launch spacecraft into orbit.
A new launch date had been set for May 25, but a small helium leak was discovered in the service module, which contains support systems and instruments for operating a spacecraft.
Helium leaks and a thruster issue then threatened to delay Starliner’s docking. Five days after docking at the ISS, NASA and Boeing said the spacecraft was experiencing five “small” helium leaks and, at the time, said enough helium was available for the return mission.
(WASHINGTON) — The third and final day of hearings in Donald Trump’s classified documents case reached a heated conclusion after prosecutor for special counsel Jack Smith accused the former president’s lawyers of “hijacking” the hearings with far-fetched allegations about the case.
“There is no hijacking going on — it’s about to end,” U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon responded, cutting off prosecutor David Harbach.
“It’s not fair,” Harbach responded, arguing that Trump’s lawyers effectively “hijacked” the hearing by raising issues that have “nothing to do” with the matters before the court.
Cannon had convened the hearings to hear arguments over the defense’s requests to have the case dismissed, as well as their efforts to limit prosecutors’ use of selected evidence.
Trump pleaded not guilty last year to 40 criminal counts related to his handling of classified materials after leaving the White House, after prosecutors said he repeatedly refused to return hundreds of documents containing classified information and took steps to thwart the government’s efforts to get the documents back.
Trump has denied all charges and denounced the probe as a political witch hunt.
Judge Cannon concluded Tuesday’s hearing without issuing any ruling from the bench. The judge generally appeared skeptical of the defense argument that the evidence seized from the FBI’s August 2022 search of Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate should be tossed because of a lack of specificity in the search warrant.
During the hearing, Cannon grew frustrated with arguments from both sides.
“Can we just stay focused on this motion, please?” Cannon told defense attorney Emil Bove.
Earlier in the hearing, she implored Harbach to “please try not to put words in my mouth.”
“I didn’t mean to try to put words in your mouth, your honor,” Harbach responded.
US Environmental Protection Agency / Handout/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images
(EAST PALESTINE, Ohio) — Federal investigators confirmed Tuesday that a hot railcar wheel bearing sparked a fire and caused the massive derailment of a Norfolk Southern train carrying tank cars with hazardous materials in East Palestine, Ohio, in 2023. Investigators said a series of missteps, faulty track sensors and delayed communications about the train’s toxic cargo from the railroad company contributed to the disaster.
In its final report on the Feb. 3, 2023, crash, the National Transportation Safety Board concluded that the crash which caused the evacuation of more than 2,000 residents and endangered the lives of first responders could have been avoided.
“Today we present our findings mindful of the challenges faced by those affected. We are here to ensure that the lessons learned from this derailment will lead to meaningful change so no other community has to relive the challenges faced by the people of East Palestine,” Mike Graham, an NTSB board member, said Tuesday during a public hearing in East Palestine.
Jennifer Homendy, chair of the NTSB, opened the hearing by apologizing on behalf of her agency to the residents of East Palestine, saying some outside the NTSB sought to minimize the toxic threat caused by the crash because no one was killed or injured.
“The absence of a fatality or injury does not mean the presence of safety,” Homendy said.
Researchers estimate that 110 million residents in 16 states, or one-third of the nation’s population, were impacted by pollution, according to a study published in the Environmental Research Letters.
The findings released Tuesday confirmed and expanded on findings in the preliminary investigative report the NTSB released about three weeks after the crash.
Officials said the train comprised three locomotives and 149 freight rail cars, including 17 tank cars loaded with hazardous materials. The crash caused 38 rail cars to derail, officials said.
Eleven of the derailed cars were tank cars carrying flammable and combustible material, including vinyl chloride chloroethene.
“Post-accident inspections revealed that about 25% of the cars had federal defective conditions,” NTSB investigator Ruben Payan said while giving a summary of the agency’s investigative findings.
The investigation focused on the wheel bearing of rail car 23 that caught fire and caused the axle to fall off and derail the train in East Palestine around 8:54 p.m. local time, resulting in an explosion and fire, Payan said.
The crash occurred as the train was en route from Madison, Illinois, to the Conway Yard in Pennsylvania.
Before the crash, the train’s rail cars were inspected in Toledo, Ohio, and again in Decatur, Illinois, and no obvious defects were detected, Payan said.
He said investigators reviewed video taken from security cameras of private homes and businesses along the route from Decatur to East Palestine and saw the wheel bearing of car 23 initially glowing from being overheated to being in flames as the train approached East Palestine.
NTSB investigators said the train tracks are equipped with sensors to detect dangerously overheated bearings and trigger critical alarms to the crew.
As the train passed through Salem, Ohio, about 17 miles from East Palestine, an alarm was triggered and alerted a Norfolk back office analyst, who deemed it non-critical because the trackside sensor only showed car 23’s wheel bearing at 103 degrees, the NTSB investigation found. Investigators said the sensor did not properly detect the true temperature of the overheated bearing and that Norfolk Southern’s policies don’t call for a train to be stopped and inspected until the hot bearing reaches at least 115 degrees.
As the train approached East Palestine, critical alarms sounded on the train indicating that the overheated bearing had reached 253 degrees, prompting the train operator to apply the brakes in an attempt to stop the train, which was traveling at 42 mph, NTSB investigators said. By then, investigators said it was too late to avoid the derailment.
The NTSB also found that when East Palestine police and firefighters arrived on the scene at around 9 p.m. the incident commander called the Norfolk Southern center in Atlanta to ask what hazardous materials were in the derailed tank cars. The person who picked up the phone said they would check but did not get back to the incident commander, NTSB officials said.
Fire crews attempting to extinguish the fire with water didn’t learn of the specific hazardous materials on the train until 10 p.m.
About 2,000 residents in the vicinity of the crash were initially ordered to shelter in place, NTSB officials said. But around 11 p.m., fire officials, who learned some of the derailed tankers contained vinyl chloride chloroethene, ordered the residents to evacuate. Around midnight, volunteer firefighters stopped batting the blaze, retreated to a safe distance and moved the command center back, according to the NTSB.
NTSB also found it was unnecessary for Norfolk Southern to recommend firefighters perform what was described as a “vent and burn” procedure on the tank cars containing vinyl chloride, sending a toxic plume of smoke into the air and causing further potential health hazards.
The NTSB made several recommendations to prevent similar incidents, including ways to advance the speed of communication between Norfolk Southern and first responders and establishing standards for how railroads should respond to bearing failure alarms. The agency, whose recommendations are not binding, also suggested that the Federal Railroad Administration establish rules governing railroad responses to the alarms.
In addition, the agency recommended establishing a database to report hot wheel-bearing incidents.
The agency also recommended that volunteer firefighters receive training on how to handle emergencies involving hazardous materials.
“We will continue to pursue and advocate for these safety recommendations until each one is implemented,” Graham said.
In April, Norfolk Southern agreed to a $600 million settlement to resolve a class action lawsuit stemming from the train derailment. The settlement was approved by a judge in May.
“The agreement is designed to provide finality and flexibility for settlement class members,” the company said in a statement at the time. “Individuals and businesses will be able to use compensation from the settlement in any manner they see fit to address potential adverse impacts from the derailment. This could include healthcare needs and medical monitoring, property restoration and diminution, and compensation for any net business loss.”
On Tuesday, the company issued a new statement saying it has implemented measures to address the Federal Railroad Administration’s recommendation from its 2023 Safety Culture Assessment.
Some of the recommendations Norfolk Southern addressed are similar to those of the NTSB, including approving communications, training, trust and “going above and beyond” regulatory minimums.
“We appreciate the strong partnership with FRA on advancing safety and are grateful for its thorough assessment of our culture and their thoughtful recommendations, all of which serve as building blocks to our goal of becoming the gold standard for safety in the industry,” said Alan H. Shaw, president and CEO of Norfolk Southern.
