(PHILADELPHIA) — Three Philadelphia school teachers filed a proposed class action lawsuit on August 18 against the School District of Philadelphia, accusing the district of violating their First Amendment rights after they protested against asbestos in the school.
Ethan Tannen and Carolyn Gray, who are current teachers at Julia R. Masterman Laboratory and Demonstration School along with Karen Celli, who retired in June 2023, claim in a lawsuit obtained by ABC News that the school docked their pay for unauthorized absences after they assembled their workstations on the outdoor patio of the school amid concerns over asbestos in the facilities.
The complaint alleges that the district failed to provide complete information to teachers and parents about asbestos remediation efforts and potential dangers of asbestos at the school.
The school district marked the teachers as absent and docked their pay for Aug. 26 and 27, according to the complaint.
“Those teachers were not ‘absent’. The district knew that and knew they were working,” Mary Catherine Roper, an attorney who represents all three teachers, said to ABC News in a statement on Sept. 13. “The district wanted to stop the protest, so they threatened the teachers and then punished them. That violates the First Amendment.”
The School District of Philadelphia told ABC News in a statement that they could not comment on pending litigation. They also would not elaborate on whether asbestos exists at the Masterman school.
The latest AHERA (Asbestos Hazard Emergency Response Act) report published for the Masterman school building, which is from the 2018-2019 school year, identified over 100 “confirmed” or “assumed” sources of asbestos in the building, according to the lawsuit.
“Asbestos is a naturally occurring fibrous material that has historically been used for many industrial and construction purposes,” said Dr. Stephanie Widmer, an ABC News contributor and medical toxicologist, who was not involved in this case. “The material itself is very fire resistant and is a great thermal insulator, many houses built before 1980 contained asbestos. Since the discovery of negative health effects, 66 countries and territories have banned asbestos.”
Though asbestos’ use is now limited in the United States, it is not completely banned, Widmer said.
“Well established health risks of asbestos exposure include ‘asbestosis’, which is scarring of the lungs that results from inhaling asbestos fibers, and an aggressive form of lung cancer, Mesothelioma,” Widmer said. “Asbestos is a known carcinogen.”
According to Widmer, it is important to note that negative health effects from asbestos exposure don’t mount right away. It can take many years to develop illness.
The issue of asbestos in schools is one that the School District of Philadelphia has dealt with over the years. Two schools had to close last April due to concerns of the presence of the potentially hazardous mineral fiber.
Amid school closures, School District of Philadelphia superintendent Tony Watlington told ABC News in April that it would cost almost $5 billion to “fully repair and bring our buildings up to code.”
“With decades of underfunding, the district has had to balance insufficient resources to work on our facilities and the need to deliver pressing educational services,” Watlington added.
To curb the effects of asbestos in schools, Congress passed the Asbestos Hazard Emergency Response Act in 1986, ordering districts “to inspect their school buildings for asbestos-containing building material, prepare asbestos management plans and perform asbestos response actions to prevent or reduce asbestos hazards,” according to the Brookings Institute, a non-profit public policy organization in Washington D.C.
Research has shown that lower-income and minority communities are disproportionally impacted by asbestos exposure, similar to other environmental pollutants compared to their wealthier, white counterparts because these groups are more likely to live in places or work in jobs that have environmental and occupational exposure.
“The class members suffered damage as a result of the district’s retaliatory actions in the form of a loss of First Amendment freedoms, lost wages and other employment benefits, and damage to their professional reputations from the discipline recorded in their employment records,” according to the teachers’ complaint.
According to the lawsuit, up to 50 teachers were improperly disciplined. The three educators are seeking an award of financial damages from lost wages, plus interest and an expungement of their employment records from the school district’s disciplinary actions.
(NEW YORK) — A New York appellate judge on Thursday issued an interim stay of the state attorney general’s $250 million civil fraud lawsuit against former President Donald Trump that is scheduled to go on trial Oct. 2, sources familiar with the matter tell ABC News.
The judge’s order was issued during a previously unscheduled virtual hearing that was not open to the public.
The Appellate Division’s First Department will now hear Trump’s request to delay the trial.
Responding to the ruling, Attorney General Letitia James said, “We are confident in our case and will be ready for trial.”
Whether the trial starts as scheduled next month will depend on how quickly the panel hears the arguments and renders a decision.
Before trial can start, Trump’s attorneys said that Judge Arthur Engoron is obliged to decide whether the attorney general’s case — which covers more than a decade of allegedly fraudulent business conduct — should be narrowed. Trump’s legal team has argued some of the real estate transactions are too old to be considered.
Trump’s team is now taking the aggressive step of suing Engoron to force him to rule.
Engoron has said the trial would start on Oct. 2 “come hell or high water.”
James last year brought the $250 million lawsuit against Trump, his children and his company that accuses them of “grossly” inflating the former president’s net worth by billions of dollars and cheating lenders and others with false and misleading financial statements.
(NEW YORK) — While New York City police insist there are no credible threats to this year’s United Nations General Assembly, law enforcement officials are concerned the annual gathering of world leaders next week comes amid an uptick in political violence both at home and abroad.
“There are no credible threats to the UN General Assembly and New York City in general,” NYPD Police Commissioner Edward Caban said Thursday at a briefing outside U.N. headquarters on Manhattan’s East Side.
However, a confidential NYPD bulletin distributed this month and obtained by ABC News said there is particular concern about “multiple recent attacks involving firearms and IEDs targeting high-ranking public officials globally.”
The bulletin cited the assassinations both of Ecuadorian presidential candidate Fernando Villavicencio and former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe as well as attempted assassinations in Argentina and Ecuador. In the United States, the bulletin noted a recent attack at a Congressional office in Virginia and last year’s violent assault of Paul Pelosi, the husband of Democratic Rep. Nancy Pelosi.
NYPD officials conceded the uptick in political violence is a concern but declined to identify specific dignitaries they are worried about at Thursday’s briefing.
151 heads of state are scheduled to attend, among them President Joe Biden and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has been the target of months of protests over changes to the Israeli judiciary.
“Every aspect” of the NYPD will be involved in securing the event,” Caban said, including aviation, harbor and K9, working with the U.S. Secret Service, the State Department’s Diplomatic Security Service and the U.N.’s own security arm.
(BATON ROUGE, La.) — A Louisiana man charged with murdering a woman in July has now been charged in a second murder at the same address that happened last December, according to Baton Rouge police.
The December murder was previously thought to be a suicide until police discovered the two killings happened at the same address, according to Baton Rouge ABC affiliate WBRZ.
Cedrick Lang, 35, has now been charged for the beating death of 26-year-old Christina Hobbs, which occurred on Dec. 26, 2022.
Hobbs was found dead in her home at the Florida Vista Condominiums from a gunshot wound, according to police.
Lang was rebooked into East Baton Rouge Parish Prison for second-degree murder.
He was already charged with the beating death of 42-year-old Rachel Johnson, who was killed at the same location on July 3, according to police. Johnson had died from blunt force trauma, according to autopsy results.
Police described responding to a report of a possible overdose on July 3, to find a woman whose eyes “appeared to have been blackened and swollen shut” and “had apparent bruising over her body,” according to an affidavit.
“It appeared as if she was slammed down on the piece of furniture breaking its leg and then beaten with blunt force trauma on the head and face,” according to the affidavit.
Residents told police that the suspect came to a resident and told them to call 911 because Johnson was dead in the apartment and then he left the area.
The cause of death was determined to be blunt force trauma past and present, according to the affidavit.
A witness told police that they saw the suspect beating Johnson with his fist and said they overheard Lang threaten to kill Johnson when he would get angry, according to the affidavit.
Police said they searched data records from three local jurisdictions and they all showed numerous reports from three separate people who were in a relationship with Lang, all saying that he physically abused them and that they were trying to leave the relationship, according to the affidavit.
Two separate protective orders have been filed against Lang, according to the affidavit.
(DAYTON, Ohio) — The parents of a non-verbal boy with autism are demanding answers after surveillance video appeared to show a Dayton Public Schools (DPS) employee striking their son, causing him to fall to the ground.
“He wasn’t doing anything wrong,” Taneshia Lindsay, mother of 3-year-old Braylen Tootle, said tearfully during a press conference on Wednesday. “You could have bear-hugged him. You could have let another teacher do it. I don’t know what was going on in that man’s head, but my son did not deserve that.”
The family said they received a video of the incident on Monday after sending multiple requests for a copy of the video to Dayton Public Schools. Michael Wright, a lawyer for the family, said they have not yet seen the entire video of the incident, which took place on Aug. 21, and have not been informed whether the employee was credentialed to work with children with special needs.
ABC News has obtained a copy of the video in which the boy can be seen running down the hallway, followed by the DPS employee.
In the 17-second video, the employee eventually catches up to Braylen, hitting him in the head and causing him to fall to the ground. The employee proceeds to grab Braylen by his legs and carries him back upside down before another employee runs toward him. It is unclear what led to the incident and what occurred after.
“We want answers. We’re demanding answers and we want them immediately,” Wright said during the press conference.
The status of the employee, who has not been named, was not clear. Lindsey said the worker was suspended pending an investigation, but the school did not respond to ABC News’ request for comment to confirm that or discuss the incident.
“They shouldn’t have sent him home pending an investigation. He should have left that school in handcuffs. And that’s why a lot of other parents are mad because, why hasn’t he been arrested?” Lindsay said.
She added, “That is clearly assault on that video. That man should not have left that school, he should not be in society around other people’s kids. We don’t know what this man is doing. He should have been locked up.”
The Dayton Police Department told ABC News on Thursday that the case has been presented to the Montgomery County Prosecutor’s Office.
On Wednesday, David Lawrence, the interim superintendent at DPS, said in a statement posted to the school system’s website in response to the incident that the district in response would be taking additional measures “to ensure all 2,300 employees are properly trained and qualified for their positions in an effort to prevent such incidents from occurring in the future.”
“Fitness for duty will be measured in terms of job qualification, training, and social-emotional health and well-being,” Lawrence said in the online statement, adding that he plans to meet with concerned parents at Rosa Parks Early Learning Center early next week to discuss the incident.
“The way Dayton Public Schools handled this situation was absolutely shameful. They lie to this family. They kept them in the dark. They were not being transparent, and they have to be held accountable,” Wright said.
He added, “For the Dayton Police Department, why has there not been an arrest? For the prosecutor’s office, why has there not been any formal charges against this teacher’s aide, paraprofessional? So we are requesting an arrest. We are requesting charges, and we are requesting that the Dayton public school system be transparent with this family.”
The family said they first learned of the incident that occurred on Aug. 21 upon picking up their son from school. They said the school mentioned that an incident had happened but were vague and failed to provide additional details. The family said they were later contacted by Child Protective Services, who were investigating the incident, and the family was told to request video of the incident as it was “way worse than what the school put on paper.”
Doctors have been treating Braylen since the incident and continue to provide medical care, a representative for the family told ABC News. The family said they are waiting to hear if there are any long-term effects from this incident.
“This is a very disturbing video and our hearts are with this child and his family. Montgomery County Children Services cannot share any detail on involvement, as all Children Services case files are confidential under Ohio law,” Deb Decker, Director of Montgomery County Communications and Public Affairs, told ABC News in a statement.
Robert Tootle, the boy’s father, said during the press conference that he already lived in fear something could happen to his son.
“You say something to a kid that’s non-verbal, you don’t get a response, so we wouldn’t know,” Tootle said. “We wouldn’t have a clue what was going on with our kid.”
“Our kids need help, society needs to be educated on autism, and they need to be trained to deal with these kids,” Lindsay said.
(NEW YORK) — Hurricane Lee, a Category 1 storm churning in the Atlantic Ocean, is bringing dangerous rip currents to the East Coast before heading to New England, where a hurricane watch is in effect.
The winds and rain will reach Rhode Island, Massachusetts and Maine by the weekend.
Latest headlines:
-Lee now a Category 1 hurricane
-New Jersey beach town to fine those who go into dangerous surf
-Onboard with hurricane hunters as they fly into the center of Lee
Here’s how the news is developing. All times Eastern.
Sep 14, 12:03 PM EDT
Lee now a Category 1 hurricane
Lee, currently a Category 1 hurricane, is pounding Bermuda with tropical storm-force winds.
Lee, now located about 750 miles south of Nantucket, Massachusetts, will soon move north. A tropical storm warning has been issued for eastern Massachusetts, including Cape Cod, Martha’s Vineyard and Nantucket.
Gusty winds will begin in New England on Friday night and will last through the day on Saturday.
These strong winds will force up to 4 feet of water to pile up along the coasts of Long Island, Cape Cod, Nantucket and Maine.
Lee is forecast to weaken to a post-tropical storm by the time it makes landfall Saturday night in Canada, around Nova Scotia or western New Brunswick. Two to four inches of rain is possible in eastern Maine and into Canada.
ABC News’ Max Golembo
Sep 14, 10:18 AM EDT
New Jersey beach town to fine those who go into dangerous surf
As the summer comes to an end, Hurricane Lee is bringing high surf and dangerous rip currents to beaches up and down the East Coast.
In Seaside Heights, New Jersey, beachgoers who go into the ocean without lifeguards present or in unsafe conditions this week could face a fine up to $1,250, city officials warned Thursday.
“STAY OUT, STAY ALIVE,” city officials posted on Facebook.
Click here for what you need to know to stay safe from rip currents.
Sep 14, 9:12 AM EDT
Onboard with hurricane hunters as they fly into the center of Lee
ABC News chief meteorologist Ginger Zee traveled with NOAA researchers as they flew into the center of Hurricane Lee to gather data on the storm.
Sep 14, 9:00 AM EDT
Lee’s latest forecast
Lee, now a Category 2 hurricane, is bringing huge waves — up to 12 feet — to the entire East Coast.
A tropical storm warning is in effect for Bermuda where Lee will drop gusty winds and heavy rain on Thursday.
By Friday, Lee will move away from Bermuda and begin to impact New England, where a hurricane watch was issued for Maine.
Powerful winds up to 60 mph could reach Cape Cod, Massachusetts, by Friday night.
On Saturday, the winds and rain will spread into the rest of New England. Boston could see winds up to 60 mph on Saturday morning.
The heaviest rain — 1 to 3 inches — will be from Cape Cod to Bar Harbor, Maine.
Landfall is expected Saturday night in Canada, either in New Brunswick or Nova Scotia, near the Maine border. Lee at that point will have weakened to an extra-tropical storm system, but the strong winds will continue for Maine and Canada through Sunday morning.
ABC News’ Max Golembo
Sep 14, 6:07 AM EDT
What to know
There’s an increasing likelihood that Hurricane Lee will bring wind, rain and flooding to coastal New England on Friday and into the weekend.
Lee is forecast to still be hurricane-strength by the time it passes east of Cape Cod, Massachusetts, on Saturday morning.
Lee could bring strong, gusty winds from Rhode Island to Boston to Maine. The heaviest rain, wind and storm surge will be from Cape Cod to Bar Harbor, Maine, from Friday night through Saturday.
Up to 4 feet of storm surge is possible on Cape Cod and Nantucket.
Hurricane conditions are possible in eastern Maine.
Early Sunday morning, Lee may make landfall between coastal Maine and Nova Scotia as a post-tropical storm. Then Lee will head out to sea.
(NEW YORK) — A convicted murderer who had eluded capture for nearly two weeks after escaping from a Pennsylvania prison was apparently planning to flee to Canada.
In interviews with authorities hours after his capture on Wednesday, Danelo Cavalcante allegedly revealed his plan to steal a car at gunpoint and drive to the U.S.-Canada border.
“He stated he intended to carjack somebody in the next 24 hours and that he was going to head north to Canada,” Supervisory Deputy U.S. Marshal Robert Clark told ABC News later Wednesday.
Authorities initially believed the 34-year-old fugitive may have been attempting to return to his native Brazil, where he faces charges in a separate slaying that took place in 2017.
Cavalcante also allegedly told authorities that they were so close to him at times during the dayslong manhunt, they nearly stepped on him.
“He said on multiple occasions law enforcement officers almost stepped on him, [that] we were only five or six feet away,” Clark said.
The fugitive claimed to have survived on the run, in part, by eating watermelon. He was also able to stay clean shaven from a razor that was in a backpack he had obtained, according to Clark.
Cavalcante absconded from the Chester County Prison in southeastern Pennsylvania on Aug. 31, while awaiting transfer to a state prison to serve a life sentence without parole for fatally stabbing an ex-girlfriend in 2021. He allegedly broke out of the jail by “crab walking” up a wall in a recreation yard, pushing his way through razor wire and accessing the roof, where he climbed down and made his getaway an hour before guards realized he was missing, according to Howard Holland, acting warden of the Chester County Prison.
State authorities launched a massive manhunt for the 5-foot-tall fugitive, recapturing him on Wednesday morning. He was found hiding in or near a large pile of logs behind a John Deere store in South Coventry Township, about 30 miles from the Chester County Prison.
Cavalcante did not surrender immediately, according to Lt. Col. George Bivens, deputy commissioner of operations for the Pennsylvania State Police. The fugitive tried to get away by crawling through thick brush while armed with a .22-caliber rifle he had stolen from a nearby residence the night before, Bivens said.
Yoda, a 4-year-old Belgian Malinois from a U.S. Customs and Border Protection team from El Paso, Texas, was sent in and helped detain Cavalcante, biting him at least once. No shots were fired, according to Bivens.
ABC News’ Ahmad Hemingway and Bill Hutchinson contributed to this report.
(WASHINGTON) — The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) confirms to ABC News it is “looking into” accusations that several members of an agency team tasked with COVID-19 pandemic analysis were paid off “significant” hush money in order to buy a shift in their position about where the virus came from — but the agency emphasized it does not pay its analysts to reach particular conclusions.
“At [the] CIA we are committed to the highest standards of analytic rigor, integrity and objectivity. We do not pay analysts to reach specific conclusions,” CIA spokesperson Tammy Kupperman Thorp said in a statement to ABC News. “We take these allegations extremely seriously and are looking into them. We will keep our Congressional oversight committees appropriately informed.”
The CIA’s comment and review come in response to claims leveled in a new letter from two Republican House chairmen to CIA Director Bill Burns, sent Tuesday, which says there is a whistleblower within current, senior ranks of the agency, making these allegations.
It’s the latest chapter in the yet-unresolved contentious debate over the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic — and the latest in an ongoing effort by the GOP to find evidence suggesting that COVID’s origins have been buried by a conspiratorial cover-up.
In their letter to Director Burns, chair of the Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic, Brad Wenstrup (R-OH), and chairman of the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence Chairman, Mike Turner (R-OH), say a “multi-decade, senior-level, current CIA officer” had come forward alleging the payoff.
Turner and Wenstrup’s missive came as an apparent surprise to the other side of the aisle on their respective committees.
“Neither the ranking member nor the Democratic staff for the Intelligence Committee were made aware of these allegations before the letters were sent. We have requested additional information,” a spokesperson for the Democrats on the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence said in a statement to ABC News.
A spokesperson for Select Subcommittee Democrats said they “were given no prior notice of a whistleblower’s existence, let alone testimony,” adding that “without further information regarding this claim from the Majority, we have no ability to assess the allegations at this time.”
According to the whistleblower, seven “multi-disciplinary and experienced officers with significant scientific expertise” had been assigned to a “COVID discovery team,” Wenstrup and Turner’s letter says.
At the end of their review, all but one member of that team leaned towards a lab leak origin — but that they were “given a significant monetary incentive to change their position,” according to the letter stating the whistleblower’s allegations.
“Six of the seven members of the team believed the intelligence and science were sufficient to make a low confidence assessment that COVID-19 originated from a laboratory in Wuhan, China,” the letter said.
“The seventh member of the team, who also happened to be the most senior, was the lone officer to believe COVID-19 originated through zoonosis,” the letter said. “The whistleblower further contends that to come to the eventual public determination of uncertainty, the other six members were given a significant monetary incentive to change their position.”
Ultimately, as the Office of the Director of National Intelligence said in June, the CIA and “another agency” remained “unable” to decide on where they think COVID’s origins lie, as “both hypotheses rely on significant assumptions or face challenges with conflicting reporting.”
As ABC reported at the time, the Department of Energy and the FBI believe with varying degrees of confidence that a lab incident was the “most likely” cause of the first human infection, though ODNI said it arrived at that conclusion “for different reasons.”
ODNI also underscored that “almost all” the agencies didn’t believe the virus was genetically engineered and “most agencies” don’t think the virus was lab-adapted — meaning, most of the U.S. intelligence community doesn’t think that so-called “gain-of-function” research was how COVID-19 was born.
No definitive conclusion as to COVID’s origins has yet been determined by the American intelligence or international public health bodies who have probed for answers. And, as ODNI, President Biden and international health bodies have emphasized, unless Beijing stops stonewalling the investigation into COVID’s origins, no more definitive conclusion will be possible.
Wenstrup and Turner have asked for a number of documents on the team’s creation — their intra group, intra agency and inter agency communications on COVID’s origins, and records of payments or financial bonuses made to members of the team. Wenstrup and Turner want them by Sept. 26.
In a separate letter, Wenstrup and Turner also invite former CIA chief operating officer Andrew Makridis to sit for a “voluntary transcribed interview” on that same day, saying he “played a central role” in the “formation and eventual conclusion” of the team the whistleblower pointed to.
A spokesperson for the Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic had no further comment at this time. There’s no hearing currently scheduled.
(PHILADELPHIA) — A fugitive who escaped from a Pennsylvania prison just days after being sentenced to life without parole in the fatal stabbing of his ex-girlfriend was captured early Wednesday after he tried to crawl away and was taken down by a law enforcement K-9 named Yoda, Pennsylvania State Police said.
Danelo Cavalcante was captured at 8:14 a.m. Wednesday, officials said. He was found hiding in or near a large pile of logs behind a John Deere store in South Coventry Township, about 30 miles from a county-run prison where he escaped 14 days ago.
“Today is a great day in Chester County. Our nightmare is finally over and the good guys won,” Chester County District Attorney Deb Ryan said at a news conference Thursday morning.
Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro began the news conference by announcing Cavalcante’s capture, praising “the extraordinary work of law enforcement officials” from local, state and federal agencies.
Lt. Col. George Bivens, deputy commissioner of operations for the Pennsylvania State Police, said a federal Drug Enforcement Administration fixed-wing aircraft using infrared imaging technology picked up a heat source in the area of South Coventry Township around 1 a.m., but a lightning storm forced the aircraft to land.
Bivens said a state police tactical unit and a U.S. Customs and Border Protection team from El Paso, Texas, quickly surrounded the area and maintained a perimeter until Wednesday morning when they moved in. Bivens said Cavalcante didn’t realize he was cornered until he saw the officers coming toward him.
“Tactical teams converged on the area where the heat source was. They were able to move in very quietly. They had the element of surprise,” Bivens said. “Cavalcante did not realize he was surrounded until that had occurred.”
He said Cavalcante did not surrender immediately. He said the fugitive tried to get away by crawling through thick brush while armed with a .22-caliber rifle he stole from a nearby residence Wednesday night.
Bivens said Yoda, a 4-year-old Belgian Malinois from the Border Patrol team, was sent in and was able to help detain Cavalcante, biting him at least once. No shots were fired.
There were no injuries to law enforcement officers, Bivens said.
“The dog subdued him and team members from both of those teams immediately moved in,” Bivens said. “He continued to resist, but was forcibly taken into custody.”
He said Cavalcante was bitten on the scalp and was treated at the scene.
Asked why lethal force was not used when Cavalcante resisted, Bivens said, “That option is only to prevent the escape of a very dangerous individual.”
“Had they not been able to contain him, that would have remained an option,” Bivens said, adding that 20 to 25 officers were involved in Cavalcante’s arrest.
Shortly after the arrest, a large group of officers posed for a photo with Cavalcante, who was in handcuffs, soaking wet and wearing a gray Philadelphia Eagles sweatshirt he allegedly stole during his time on the lam. He was also wearing dark work boots he swiped from a residence Wednesday night and dark pants he was wearing when he escaped, officials said.
“I’m aware that there was a photo op that was taken out there. Those men and women worked amazingly hard through some trying circumstances. They’re proud of their work,” Bivens said. “I’m not bothered at all by that. They took a photo with him in custody.”
Cavalcante was loaded in the back of an armored vehicle and driven to the Pennsylvania State Police barracks in Avondale, where investigators hoped to question him, Bivens said.
As the armored vehicle carrying Cavalcante approached the police barracks in Avondale, some residents in the area lined the roadway cheering, pumping their fists in the air and applauding.
“I can assure you he will not escape while he is in our custody,” Bivens said.
Cavalcante was arraigned Wednesday on a felony escape charge and denied bail, court records show. He is scheduled to next appear in court on Sept. 27 for a preliminary hearing.
Bivens said Cavalcante will eventually be transferred to a state prison to begin serving out his life sentence for the brutal 2021 murder of his ex-girlfriend, Deborah Brandao, who was stabbed 38 times in a Schuylkill Township, Pennsylvania, home in front of her two young children.
The end of the 14-day manhunt for the 34-year-old Cavalcante came as a relief to residents in Chester County, who had been advised by officials to stay alert and keep their doors and windows locked. Several schools in Pocopson Township canceled classes as the search for Cavalcante intensified.
A combination of tactical teams from Pennsylvania State Police, FBI and Border Patrol brought Cavalcante into custody, according to a law enforcement source.
Cavalcante, who officials said is also wanted in his native Brazil on homicide charges, escaped from the Chester County Prison in Pocopson Township on Aug. 31.
Cavalcante was noticed missing that morning about an hour after his escape after inmates returned from the exercise yard at the prison, where he was being held pending transfer to a state correctional institution.
He had scaled a wall to gain access to the roof and pushed through razor wire before jumping down to a less secure area to make his getaway, Howard Holland, the acting warden of the Chester County Prison, told reporters during a recent press briefing.
Cavalcante followed the same method of escape and route used by an inmate at the Chester County Prison, Holland said. Inmate Igor Vidra Bolte broke out of the prison in Pocopson Township on May 19 by scaling a wall in an exercise yard to gain access to the roof, according to a criminal complaint obtained by ABC News.
Holland noted that “one key difference” between the two escapes was the actions of a tower guard whose primary responsibility was to monitor inmates in the exercise yard.
“In Bolte’s escape, the tower officer observed the subject leaving the yard area and contacted control immediately. That is why Bolte was apprehended within 5 minutes,” Holland said. “In the escape of Cavalcante, the tower officer did not observe nor report the escape. The escape was discovered as part of the inmate counts that occur when the inmates come in from the exercise yard.”
Cavalcante escaped from the prison by “crab walking” up a wall, pushing his way through razor wire installed after Bolte’s escape, running across the prison roof and scaling more razor wire, Holland said.
The corrections officer on duty in the guard tower at the time was terminated on Sept. 7, officials said.
Holland said during the press briefing on Sept. 6 that steps are being taken now to completely enclose the eight exercise yards at the prison, which are now open-air. He said additional security cameras will also be installed and additional officers will be on the ground to help the tower officers monitor the inmates in the exercise yards.
The search for Cavalcante was initially centered in an area near the Chester County Prison, where he had been spotted multiple times, officials said.
A citizen reported seeing a man matching Cavalcante’s description on Sept. 7 running through the area near Longwood Gardens, a sprawling horticulture attraction located about 5 miles southwest of the prison, said Lt. Col. George Bivens, deputy commissioner of operations for the Pennsylvania State Police. The search perimeter shifted toward Longwood Gardens, and Calvalcante was spotted two more times in the search area on Sept. 8, state police said.
Bivens said nearly 400 people from multiple agencies were engaged in the manhunt on Sept. 8, adding that they will “keep up this search at whatever tempo is appropriate for as long as we need to. He’s a dangerous individual.”
A Chester County jury on Aug. 16 convicted Cavalcante of first-degree murder in the fatal 2021 stabbing in Brandao.
The jury took just 15 minutes of deliberations before voting unanimously to convict Cavalcante.
Prosecutors said Brandao was killed after she learned Cavalcante was wanted for murder in Brazil and threatened to expose him to police, officials said in a statement following Cavalcante’s conviction.
Following Brandao’s murder, Cavalcante fled to Virginia, where he was arrested and brought back to Pennsylvania to face justice for Brandao’s killing.
Brandao’s sister, Sarah Brandao, released a statement on Instagram following the arrest, thanking law enforcement officials for capturing Cavalcante.
“Right now, my family and I need to regroup and focus on processing everything that has happened while taking care of ourselves,” wrote Sarah Brandao, who along with her family lives in the Chester County area where the search was being conducted.
During the search for Cavalcante, Sarah Brandao and her family members were placed under 24-hour protection, Ryan said at a recent news conference.
“The last two weeks have been extremely painful and terrifying as they have brought back all the feelings of losing my sister and the idea that the criminal could crush us again,” Sarah Brandao wrote.
It was the second time in less than two months that a dangerous inmate had escaped from a Pennsylvania lockup. Inmate Michael Burham, who is a suspect in the rape and murder of a 34-year-old woman in Jamestown, New York, escaped from the Warren County Jail in northern Pennsylvania on July 6.
Burham, an Army reserve sergeant who authorities said was a “self-taught survivalist,” was captured on July 15 following a massive manhunt in the northern Pennsylvania woods.
(SEATTLE) — A Seattle police accountability office is investigating after an officer was recorded on his body camera joking over the death of a 23-year-old woman who was fatally struck by another officer who was responding to a call.
Graduate student Jaahnavi Kandula was in a crosswalk the night of Jan. 23 when an officer struck her with his patrol SUV, police said. The officer, Kevin Dave, was driving 74 mph moments before the collision, according to the Seattle Police Department’s investigation report provided to the King County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office. Dave was responding as an emergency medical technician to a “priority 1” emergency call at the time, police said.
Officer Daniel Auderer responded to the scene to evaluate Dave and determined he did not show any signs of impairment, according to the investigation report.
In newly released body camera footage, Auderer can be heard discussing the incident while on the phone in his cruiser.
“He’s going 50 [mph]. That’s not out of control. That’s not reckless for a trained driver,” Auderer said during the phone call, which according to the video’s timestamp occurred on Jan. 24.
The other person he is talking to cannot be heard during the call.
After discussing whether she was in the crosswalk and how far she was thrown, Auderer says, “But she is dead,” and laughs several seconds later.
Toward the end of the 2 1/2-minute video, Auderer says, “Yeah, just write a check,” followed by laughter.
“Eleven thousand dollars. She was 26, anyway,” he said, misstating Kandula’s age. “She had limited value.”
The Seattle Police Department on Monday released the footage, saying the video was identified by a department employee who was “concerned about the nature of statements heard on that video” and brought it to the chief’s office.
Following a review of the video, the chief referred the matter to the police department’s independent Office of Police Accountability to determine “any policy violation that might be implicated,” the police department said in a statement on Monday.
The department released the video “in the interest of transparency” due to public concern, but said it cannot comment on its substance pending the completion of the Office of Police Accountability’s investigation.
“SPD has been in touch with the family of the victim pedestrian and continues to honor their expressed request for privacy,” the department said. “As others in the accountability system proceed with their work, we again extend our deepest sympathy for this tragic collision.”
Auderer is vice president of the Seattle Police Officers Guild, the police union that represents Seattle officers, according to the Seattle Community Police Commission, a citizen oversight board.
ABC News did not immediately receive a response from the Seattle Police Officers Guild or Auderer to a request for comment on the video.
The Seattle Community Police Commission’s co-chairs called the phone call “heartbreaking and shockingly insensitive.”
“After Detective Auderer is heard confirming that the pedestrian died, he is laughing in response to the person on the other end of the call,” the co-chairs — Rev. Harrier Walden, Rev. Patricia Hunter and Joel Merkel — said in a statement. “He joked that her life was only worth $11,000 and ‘had limited value.'”
In what was believed to be a private conversation, Auderer showed “unprofessional and inhumane conduct,” the statement continued.
Kandula was from India and was working to earn a master’s degree in information systems from Northeastern University’s Seattle campus when she died.
Dave had his patrol SUV’s emergency lights and siren on at the time of the collision, police said.
According to the investigation report, a responding officer reported that Dave appeared to be “visibly shaken” at the scene.
“Lights were on, was chirping the siren as I was headed down. She was in the crosswalk, she saw me, she started running through the crosswalk. Slammed on my brakes. Instead of staying back where she should before crossing, she just zips,” Dave told the officer, according to the report.
ABC News did not immediately receive a response from Dave to a message seeking comment on the case.
The King County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office is conducting a criminal review of the incident to make any charging decision. The Office of Police Accountability is also investigating.
