(SOUTH WINDSOR, Conn.) — The Connecticut Office of the Inspector General announced it is launching an investigation into the death of a man in police custody in South Windsor.
Kevin Doherty, 55, of Boston, was arrested by South Windsor police on Dec. 23 on family violence charges and was being held on $250,000 bond, according to the inspector general’s office.
In surveillance footage posted by the inspector general’s office, Doherty appears to stand up from his bed and is red in the face. He appears to get on the ground and lay on his side while he is shaking. Shortly after, he can be seen falling onto his back and lying still.
Dispatchers noticed Doherty “in apparent distress in the South Windsor Police Department holding facility” around 12:20 p.m. on Monday, according to the inspector general. Officers responded to the alert regarding Doherty’s condition and found him unresponsive.
They began CPR procedures and transported Doherty to Manchester Hospital where he was pronounced dead just over one hour later, according to officials.
The South Windsor Police Department is cooperating with the investigation, according to the office of the inspector general, and Police Chief Kristian Lindstrom has extended “thoughts and prayers to the Doherty family.”
The Connecticut Office of the Chief Medical Examiner has yet to determine the manner of death.
The investigation, conducted by the Connecticut Department of Emergency Services and Public Protection and the Connecticut State Police Eastern District Major Crime Squad, in conjunction with the office of the inspector general, is ongoing.
The South Windsor Police Department directed ABC News’ request for comment to the inspector general’s office.
(BUFFALO, N.Y.) — Residents of western New York are going from shoveling snow to filling sandbags as a historic blizzard that killed at least 39 people in metropolitan Buffalo gives way to a big meltdown with temperatures forecast to soar.
A record 51 inches of snow over the Christmas weekend paralyzed New York’s second largest city, which is now facing fears of flooding as the mercury is expected to climb into the 50s on Friday, according to the National Weather Service.
The warm-up has already started, with Buffalo hitting a relatively balmy 40 degrees Thursday morning.
With mountains of snow piled up in Buffalo and surrounding communities in Erie County, New York Gov. Kathy Hochul has made additional resources available from the state’s stockpile, including 775,000 sandbags and 312 generators to help communities cope with the radically changing weather.
“As we turn the corner on this historic winter storm, New York State is continuing to stay prepared ahead of potentially dangerous flooding conditions,” Hochul said in a statement Wednesday. “Our state agency personnel and local emergency responders have been coordinating throughout the storm, and we will continue to do everything we can to protect Western New Yorkers and help our communities recover.”
The weekend blizzards sent Buffalo’s seasonal snow total to over 100 inches, the most the city has ever gotten this early in the season, and it’s already surpassed its average annual snowfall mark of 89 inches.
The blizzard came after a monster lake-effect storm in November dumped 77 inches of snow on the area and prompted a state of emergency Erie County.
Hochul has called the Christmas weekend storm the “blizzard of the century” and the deadliest in the region since the Blizzard of 1977. President Joe Biden approved a federal emergency declaration in New York Monday evening.
Thirty-seven of the 40 New York deaths are in Erie County, which includes the city of Buffalo, Mark Poloncarz, the executive of Erie County, said Thursday. One storm-related death was reported in neighboring Niagara County, officials said.
Poloncarz said 31 of the deaths in Erie County occurred in the city of Buffalo. Seven of the deaths occurred in the Buffalo suburb of Cheektowaga, he said.
Among the storm-related causes of death confirmed by the Erie County Medical Examiner’s Office were three people who suffered heart attacks while shoveling or blowing snow; 17 people succumbed to the elements outside, three died due to an EMS delay and nine deaths were the result of people having no heat in their homes, Poloncarz said.
A driving ban that had been imposed in Buffalo during the snowstorm was lifted just after midnight Thursday as snow-removal crews worked to clear city streets.
(SAN BERNARDINO, Calif.) — A California woman was saved after her car crashed off a 200-foot cliff on Christmas Day thanks in part to her iPhone’s location tracking feature, the San Bernardino County Fire Department said.
The woman likely crashed her vehicle driving home from a family gathering overnight on Christmas Day, according to a press release from the fire department. Family members grew concerned when they didn’t hear from her on the morning of Dec. 26, so used her phone’s tracking functionality to see it was located off the side of a California highway, the release said.
Apple products are sold with software called Find My, which can be used to track Apple products or other people’s products with their consent.
After locating the woman on the app, the family called 911 to report an accident, which prompted firefighters to find the car off California Highway 18. The fire department said the vehicle was 200 feet below the roadway on its side, and they began staging a rescue around roughly 7 a.m.
Firefighter-paramedic crews located one female adult in the car with serious injuries. Photos provided by the fire department show paramedics attending to the severely injured woman, whose body was resting through the front windshield of the mangled car.
Firefighters used specialized urban search and rescue equipment including a rope system and capstan raising system to haul both the injured woman and the firefighter-paramedics to the road, the department said.
The section of California Highway 18 where the car and woman were found is north of San Bernardino and does have metal guardrails.
The woman was transported to a local trauma center after being loaded into an ambulance.
(NEW YORK) — The atmospheric river currently impacting the West Coast, while creating dangerous weather conditions for millions of people, could possibly have a chance of temporarily reversing drought conditions in states that desperately need water, experts say.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration describes atmospheric rivers as “rivers in the sky” because they’re somewhat long and narrow regions in the atmosphere that send most of the water vapor outside the tropics.
The atmospheric river usually brings heavy rain, wind and snow to areas that it flows through, particularly on the West Coast, according to NOAA.
Despite the sustained levels of rain and snow, some experts think it’s too early to determine if the latest atmospheric river will do enough to reverse drought conditions, and they say they’ll have a clearer picture in the spring.
“Everyone should be very cautious about making predictions,” Nicholas Pinter, Ph.D., the associate director of the UC Davis Center for Watershed Sciences, told ABC News.
Earlier this month, the California Department of Water Resources (DWR) was preparing for a fourth dry year and more extreme drought conditions but may change its course, according to experts, as parts of the state are expected to see rain for the next seven to 10 days.
The majority of California had seen less than its average precipitation levels over the last two months prior to the atmospheric river, according to the National Integrated Drought Information System (NDIS). Most of the state was under severe to exceptional drought warnings, the data showed at the time.
Flood watches and advisories have been issued from Seattle to San Francisco Bay. Flooding caused by “excessive rainfall” is possible in portions of northern and central California.
The San Francisco Bay Area saw between 1.02 to 2.83 inches of rain in November, according to NOAA’s California Nevada River Forecast Center. In the last three days, between 2 to 4 inches of rain was reported in the Bay Area, causing some neighborhoods to flood.
Parts of northern California saw between 6 to 8 inches of rain in the last 36 hours. In November, parts of the northern California coast saw up to 8.75 inches of rain.
“What we’ve seen in these drought conditions is those river levels just fall right back down,” Michael Anderson, a state climatologist at DWR, told ABC News. “December, January and February are when we usually expect half our annual precipitation to show up. We’re only through the first of them.”
According to Pinter, people will start talking about droughts again after one below-average year of rain.
Experts say that for drought conditions in California to stop, even temporarily, it needs to be between 120% to 200% above average by the end of the season.
“What we want to see is several years of consistently above-average rain and snowfall,” Pinter said. “Because California’s water reach is so long, we want to see that rainfall pattern over the Colorado Basin, as well.”
The Colorado River Basin has faced drought conditions for more than two decades, according to NDIS, resulting in the reservoirs in the Colorado Basin, Lake Mead and Lake Powell hitting historic lows.
(NEW YORK) — The mastermind of the nationwide college admissions cheating scandal — known by its investigative moniker “Varsity Blues” — deserves no more than six months in prison, Rick Singer’s attorneys said Wednesday in a new court filing.
Federal prosecutors, however, said Wednesday night in a sentencing memorandum that Singer deserves to spend six years in prison, far exceeding the six-month sentence sought by the defense.
Singer pleaded guilty in 2018 and has since helped federal prosecutors in Boston with their sweeping investigation into bribes paid to athletic coaches, SAT and ACT proctors, and others so students of wealthy parents could cheat their way into some of the country’s best-known schools. Actresses Lori Loughlin and Felicity Huffman were among the more than three dozen parents charged.
Singer’s attorneys said three years probation, including 12 months of home detention, would be a sufficient sentence, but added “if incarceration is deemed necessary, a six-month sentence, followed by a three-year term of supervised release that includes community service, will satisfy the purposes of sentencing.”
Singer’s cooperation helped prosecutors secure 53 convictions, and defense attorneys said that deserved the judge’s consideration.
Prosecutors said that in addition to prison time, Singer should pay restitution to the IRS in the amount of $10,668,841 and forfeit more than $3 million in cash and certain assets worth more than $5 million.
“Singer was the architect of a massive, decade-long scheme to use fraud and bribery to secure the admission of high school students to elite colleges and universities across the country,” prosecutors wrote. “Staggering in scope, Singer’s scheme was also breathtaking in its audacity and the levels of deception it involved.”
While the government’s sentencing submission acknowledged Singer’s cooperation that helped lead to the convictions of more than 50 defendants, they also suggested it does not fully mitigate the severity of his crimes.
“His corruption and manipulation of others were practically limitless. Singer is far and away the most culpable of the Varsity Blues defendants — by orders of magnitude — and is therefore deserving of the longest sentence, notwithstanding his cooperation with the government’s investigation, which as discussed below, was exceptionally valuable and, at the same time, plagued by missteps,” prosecutors wrote.
“Working closely with prosecutors and agents, he strategically planned and made recorded phone calls, attended wired meetings and completed controlled financial transactions,” the defense wrote in a sentencing memo. “His cooperation contributed to the conviction of more than fifty people and the widespread recognition of vulnerabilities in college admissions. Whatever may be said about Rick’s crimes, his cooperation has led to important reforms at great cost to his own safety and reputation.”
(SALT LAKE CITY) — Nursing a broken arm, two cracked vertebrae and wearing a neck brace, ice climber Tim Thompson recounted surviving a 40-foot fall from a towering outcropping in Utah’s Provo Canyon, saying thoughts of his demise raced through his mind during the horrifying plunge.
One day after cheating death, the 29-year-old Thompson sat at his kitchen table thankful to be alive.
“‘Hopefully I don’t die’ was the first thought that went through my mind,” Thompson told ABC affiliate station KTVX-TV in Salt Lake City.
Thompson, a married father of a young child, said he and a friend were climbing the icy “Finger of Fate” outcropping near Bridal Veil Falls northeast of Provo on Monday morning when the episode unfolded.
He said he was near the top when his footing suddenly gave way and the ice screw anchoring him on the steep icy surface broke loose, making the fall even more perilous.
“All the weight on that left foot, all the ice just sheared off the rock,” said Thompson, who has been ice climbing for seven years. “In my mind, I probably would’ve made the same decision again any other time, which was a bit of a startling thing — thinking that you’re totally safe and solid and then having that happen.”
Thompson said he fell onto a snowy ledge, likely saving his life.
His climbing buddy quickly summoned climbers nearby and called the Utah County Search and Rescue team for help. About 50 people in all responded to rescue Thompson.
He was flown safety down the mountain by a Utah Department of Public Safety helicopter crew and taken to Utah Valley Hospital in Provo for treatment.
Corey Cluff, a member of Utah County Search and Rescue, said “conditions in the area were deteriorating” due to rising temperatures, making the ice less cohesive and rocks unstable and threatening to fall.
Despite the near-death experience, Thompson said he is not about to give up ice climbing.
“A lot of people, I think, would have something like this deter them from doing it,” Thompson said. “But it’s something I’m so passionate about and love that I think you truly can make it safe.”
(PHOENIX) — The remains of an Arizona teenager were found a week after he was kidnapped during an armed home invasion, police said Wednesday. A homicide investigation is now underway.
Jesse Sainz-Camacho, 17, was taken from his Phoenix home on Dec. 19 by “two armed suspects,” police said.
The teen’s remains were found on Monday in a rural area of Maricopa County, police said. The Phoenix Police Homicide Unit is currently leading the investigation.
Police responded to the victim’s home around 3:15 a.m. local time on Dec. 19 following an “unknown trouble call,” Phoenix Police Department spokesperson Sgt. Phil Krynsky said in a statement.
Two men “forced their way into the home” and shot a man who was asleep inside, Krynsky said. They then forced the teen into a dark-colored sedan, which fled in an unknown direction, police stated.
The suspects were carrying a rifle and handgun, according to authorities.The shooting victim, who was not identified by police, sustained non-life-threatening injuries and was transported to a local hospital.
Police have not made any arrests in the case and are seeking two suspects. Local authorities have also released images of one of the suspects, seen carrying a firearm, amid the investigation.
A reward of up to $1,000 is being offered for information leading to the arrest and/or indictment of the suspects.
Anyone with information is encouraged to call Silent Witness at 480-948-6377.
(ATLANTA) — Carol Yancey of the Atlanta metro area was planning to spend a festive Christmas holiday with her large extended family. But she said the threat of possibly contaminated water in Clayton County ended her holiday plans.
Boil water notices were issued last weekend and this week in Georgia’s Atlanta metro area counties, including Clayton, Butts, Forsyth, and parts of Dekalb, Haralson and Monroe. Freezing temperatures caused pipes to burst and valves to freeze, resulting in little to no water pressure in many homes.
The Environmental Protection Agency has previously said that a loss of water pressure could potentially lead to contamination in the water.
“This is the time you really get the community – the unity in it,” Yancey, a community activist, said. “We’re not waiting on elected officials. We’re stepping up and trying to do what we can – we find out something, we tell somebody else.”
Some Atlanta metro residents affected by the water boil advisory say they learned about the possibility of contaminated water from friends and relatives rather than water authority officials. With many local officials on break during the holidays, these residents say they took it upon themselves to help each other get through the ordeal.
Forsyth county resident Kristen Flory said she found out about the water boil notice from a friend a day after the county issued the advisory on Christmas on the water authority’s website. Forsyth lifted its water boil advisory on Dec. 28.
“I was just in shock that I had to go on their website to find out about the possible contaminants that could be in our water,” Flory said. “They should come out and send out a mass text saying, ‘Hey, just so everyone is aware, we had this happen and you need to boil your water until further notice.'”
Spokespeople for Butts, Forsyth and Haralson counties told ABC News that their agencies used a combination of alerts on their websites, social media posts and press announcements through local radio and TV to inform residents.
Local officials have established bottled water distribution sites for residents in the meantime. Forest Park in Clayton County distributed over 1900 cases of bottled water as of Dec. 27, doling out one case per family, according to Forest Park Mayor Angelyne Butler.
“I have to leave those details up to the Clayton County Water Authority,” Butler said when asked when the water system would return to normal. “We are asking for extreme patience during this time, as the water authority is working on a permanent resolve.”
Water authorities for counties that are still affected told ABC News that boil water notices should be lifted on Dec. 29 or 30 after testing results come in.
On the Clayton County Water Authority website, residents experiencing little to no water pressure are directed to call a phone number to notify the agency. But when ABC News tried to call the number on Wednesday evening an automated message stated that the service was experiencing system problems and was unable to process calls.
“I can imagine how inundated with calls and inquiries that they’re receiving at this time. But no, I have not heard of anything,” Butler said when asked if Forest Park residents have complained about not being able to get through to the Clayton County Water Authority.
Clayton County Water Authority General Manager Bernard Franks did not immediately reply to ABC News’ request for comment about the agency’s ability to respond to residents.
About 3,000 homes and businesses experienced low to no water pressure in Butts County, according to Alyssa Hopson, the Butts County Water Authority’s general manager. Other water authority officials that ABC News reached out to were unsure of the estimated number of homes affected.
The water in Forsyth County was likely not contaminated and the boil water advisories were initiated in an abundance of caution, according to Russell Brown, the county water authority’s director of communications and external affairs.
Yancey, who says she does a lot of community work in Clayton County, believes about half of the people she’s been in contact with in the county are experiencing water pressure issues.
Yancey has normal water pressure in her home, but plumbers had to tear down walls in her neighbor’s house to fix busted pipes and restore adequate water pressure.
“To know that infrastructure can shut you down, shut down the county, the water system,” Yancey said. “It reminds me of what went on earlier this year in Mississippi.”
Yancey is referring to the Jackson, Mississippi, water crisis earlier this year where its 150,000 residents were left with contaminated water and little to no water flow in their faucets after inclement weather debilitated its water infrastructure. Jackson residents are currently dealing with another water boil advisory because of freezing temperatures.
Despite the circumstances, residents in the Atlanta area say they have no choice but to trudge on.
“We’re just trying to make sure we bring awareness to the community at large,” Yancey said. “And we look out for each other because the last five letters of community is unity.”
(BUFFALO, N.Y.) — Thirty-seven people have died in Erie County, New York, after a historic winter storm slammed Buffalo.
Fatalities including people found in cars, people found outside and cardiac events from shoveling or blowing snow, according to Erie County Executive Mark Poloncarz.
Monique Alexander
Among those killed was 52-year-old Monique Alexander, a Buffalo woman who doted on her three grandchildren, said her daughter, Casey Maccarone.
Alexander went out on Christmas Eve and never returned, Maccarone told ABC News.
“She never said where she was going, just that she would be right back,” she said.
“My mother was the rock of our family,” Maccarone said in a statement.
“You could count on her for anything, she was the caretaker every time someone needed them,” she said. “During the holidays she would even cook for neighbors or strangers who she knew didn’t have families, because she cared that much.”
William Clay
William Clay died on Dec. 24, which was his 56th birthday, his sister, Sophia Clay, told ABC News.
He was “an avid reader” and “very religious” and read his Bible every day, his sister said.
“There’s people in this world that can quote the Bible but it’s not in their hearts — he’s one of those people that it was in his heart. He spoke it, he lived it,” Sophia Clay said.
William Clay is survived by family including his son and two grandchildren.
“He was a great brother, he was a great grandfather, he was a great friend,” Sophia Clay said.
Abdul Sharifu
Abdul Sharifu, who died in the storm on Christmas Eve, would have turned 27 on Jan. 1, his cousin said.
His wife is pregnant and is due in about one week, The Buffalo News reported.
Sharifu, a refugee from the Congo, was known as someone who helped others around the neighborhood, the newspaper reported.
Anndel Taylor
Anndel Taylor, 22, got stuck in the snow when leaving work on Dec. 23, according to her sister, Tomeshia Brown. Taylor sent a video to a family group chat around midnight that night; the next morning, calls to Taylor went unanswered and the family later learned of her death, Brown said.
Taylor, who grew up in Charlotte, moved to Buffalo in the summer of 2021 to take care of her father, Brown said.
“She was the most kind-hearted and loving person,” Brown said in a statement. “She went to take care of him, but also build a career so she can take more care of her family here in Charlotte. That was her main focus: go back to school, help her dad…She came to visit every chance she could.”
ABC News’ Christopher Looft, Lena Camilletti and Layla Ferris contributed to this report.
(NEW YORK) — The Mega Millions jackpot for Friday is expected to climb to $640 million, after no ticket matched all six winning numbers in Tuesday’s drawing, the lottery said.
“It’s by far the largest Mega Millions prize ever offered in the final week of any year, and could provide someone with a very happy New Year’s celebration,” the lottery said in a statement early Wednesday.
The cash prize option for Friday’s drawing is expected to top $328 million, the lottery said.
The winning numbers on Tuesday were 9, 13, 36, 59 and 61. The megaball was 11 and the megaplier was 2.
Players had also failed to win the top prize on Friday, sending the jackpot from roughly $510 million to $565 million, the second-largest Mega Millions jackpot this year. The cash prize option on Tuesday was $289.8 million.
In July, the jackpot surpassed the $1 billion mark for only the third time in the 20-year history of Mega Millions.
The historic $1.34 billion prize was won by an anonymous ticket owner in Des Plaines, Illinois.
The last winning ticket for a Mega Millions jackpot was on Oct. 14. Two ticket winners split a $502 million prize.
Only six Mega Millions jackpots have been won this year. Winning tickets were in California, Florida, New York, Minnesota, Illinois and Tennessee.
