(RIVERSIDE, Calif.) — Police are investigating an apparent triple homicide after three people were found dead in a Southern California residence by firefighters responding to a fire in the home.
Officers with the Riverside Police Department were in the process of responding to the home, located on the 1000 block of Price Court, to conduct a welfare check Friday morning, following the report of a “disturbance” between a man and woman near a car, police said.
“Shortly after that, before [officers] arrived, the fire department responded for what appeared to be a fire” at the same location, Riverside Police Officer Ryan Railsback told reporters during a press briefing Friday night. “When they went inside to extinguish that fire, that’s when they discovered the three bodies.”
A man and two women were found deceased inside the home, though police believe they were already dead before the fire broke out.
“They were victims of homicide, although we’re not going to disclose the means of that at this point,” Railsback said.
The coroner’s office was still in the process of identifying the victims Friday night and did not have their ages.
The woman involved in the earlier disturbance was found in San Bernardino County and was “safe” with law enforcement, Railsback said. The whereabouts of the man involved in the dispute were not disclosed.
The investigation is ongoing and there were no updates Saturday.
“This case is complicated and detectives are still unraveling it,” Railsback told ABC News. “We are hopeful to provide some update in the upcoming days.”
Riverside is located about 55 miles east of downtown Los Angeles.
Neighbors watched the incident unfold.
“Firemen were trying to extinguish it, they got there really early. Next thing you know they’re pulling out some bodies,” a neighbor, Myron Dinga, told ABC Los Angeles station KABC. “It didn’t appear that they were succumbed by fire.”
“It was just smoke everywhere. You couldn’t breathe,” another neighbor, Brandi Kornegay, told the station.
Rick Beavers told KABC he saw the flames in the garage.
“The flames were six-foot high inside the garage,” he told the station. “The day after Thanksgiving, it is kind of sad.”
(ATLANTA) — Three employees at a McDonald’s in Atlanta, Georgia, helped deliver a baby girl after a pregnant mother went into labor there.
Sha’querria Kaigler, Keisha Blue-Murray and Tunisia Woodward heard a piercing scream from the bathroom of the McDonald’s branch on Wednesday, only to find a customer in active labor.
A customer came out of the bathroom and told Woodward there was a customer in labor. When Woodward went in to check on the customer, she found her laid down on the floor, heavily breathing and screaming, Woodward told ABC News in an interview.
The pregnant customer and her husband had stopped by the local branch to eat and use the bathroom. When in the restroom, the customer realized that her water had broken and she was in active labor.
Other employees and the customer’s husband then rushed into the bathroom to help. Kaigler called 9-1-1 and the operator walked them through the delivery, Woodward said.
Woodward sat on the right side of the woman and the customer’s husband sat on the left side and they both held her hand as she delivered the baby. Woodward said at one point, the customer bit her arm because of how much pain she was in.
When the customer told Woodward she didn’t want to give birth in a bathroom, Woodward said she told her, “It’s okay you’re going to have a little nugget today.”
Woodward said the labor was moving fast and about 15 minutes later, the baby had arrived, even before paramedics had arrived on the scene.
The local McDonald’s owner, Steve Akinboro, rewarded the three employees with $250 gift cards toward their Thanksgiving celebrations. Woodward said she plans on spending all the money on the baby.
Woodward said she has been texting with the mother since the unexpected birth and said both mother and daughter are in good health. The employees are planning a baby shower for her at the Atlanta location next week.
(SPRINGDALE, UTAH) — A 31-year-old woman was found dead at Zion National Park in Utah after her husband reported the couple experienced symptoms of hypothermia while camping in the park.
The husband told authorities the couple were on a permitted 16-mile hike in the park’s Narrows section on Tuesday when they became “dangerously cold” overnight, the national park said in a statement Thursday.
The 33-year-old man went to look for help Wednesday morning, but search and rescue teams determined the woman was deceased after park visitors and first responders attempted to administer first aid, the statement said.
The injured man was taken to the Zion Emergency Operations Center.
The Washington County Sheriff’s Office, Utah Office of the Medical Examiner and the National Park Service are investigating the cause of the woman’s death.
(UVALDE, Texas) — Last week, nearly six months after the mass shooting that killed 19 students and two teachers at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, the Uvalde Together We Rise Fund began distributing more than $22 million directly to survivors, families and others affected by the tragedy.
The nonprofit National Compassion Fund, which has distributed donations in more than 50 other similar circumstances — most recently following the mass shooting that killed 10 people and injured three others in Buffalo, New York — did the difficult work of pooling resources from more than 13,000 donors, including local charities, online fundraisers and individuals, and determining who deserves money and how much.
“Donors say, ‘I don’t want to pick and choose,'” Jeffrey Dion, executive director of the National Compassion Fund, which manages the largest pool of Uvalde donations from public and private donors across the country, told ABC News. “‘Why should I help this family and not that family?’ Or ‘I don’t know all the families,’ or ‘Other families don’t have their own GoFundMe. But if I get this, I know I can help everybody.'”
The National Compassion Fund is a partnership between the National Center for Victims of Crime and the survivors and families of others mass shootings — including Columbine, 9/11 and Sandy Hook. The group provides administration, accountability and transparency for money raised in the wake of such tragedies.
Five tiers
The Uvalde Together We Rise Fund began disbursements to its 448 eligible applicants on Nov. 15, the culmination of a months-long process that included two public hearings and multiple closed-door meetings led by a steering committee of 10 community members.
It was ultimately determined that eligibility for compensation would be separated into five tiers and based not on financial need but rather on the level of impact caused by the school massacre, determined by factors like proximity to the event and resulting psychological trauma.
“We have simply been stewards of these funds committed to honoring the intent of more than 13,000 gracious donors to help those directly impacted by this tragedy,” steering committee chair Mickey Gerdes wrote in a statement. “Although these donations could never make the survivors whole, we are hopeful these donations provide the recipients with some comfort knowing that there are many people who wanted to give something to help them in whatever way possible.”
Legal heirs of the 19 students and two teachers killed will receive the highest payments, followed by individuals with physical injuries based upon the number of days hospitalized and the amount of outpatient emergency and non-emergency medical treatment received in the month following the Robb Elementary shooting.
Other categories eligible for compensation include students and school workers who came under gunfire during the shooting and others who were present on campus that day who might be experiencing psychological trauma.
The National Compassion Fund will not disclose the exact monetary amount paid to each family or individual in order to protect victims’ privacy and safety. The group is also working with pro bono legal services to ensure that families who receive public assistance can accept payments without jeopardizing benefits available through government agencies.
One group that will not be receiving any funds: first responders.
It is standard practice, Dion explained, for the National Compassion Fund to exclude first responders because there are often local ordinances that prohibit public employees from receiving compensation or private gifts that arise from their public duties. He also noted that the fund is intended to help those who were there when the shooting started, not those who arrived at the scene later.
“The nature of trauma is that it catches a person unaware, without warning,” Dion told ABC News. “People who have any preparation for what they will encounter, even just a minute or two, are impacted differently.”
Other funds
As survivors and families awaited the distribution of money from the Uvalde Together We Rise Fund, many sought assistance from other, smaller funds in the interim, including the Hope for Uvalde fund administered by the Uvalde Ministerial Alliance, the crisis relief fund organized by Uvalde’s city government, and, most notably, the state-funded Texas Crime Victims’ Compensation Program.
The latter, however, has been seemingly mired in controversy.
Immediately after the shooting, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton urged victims’ families and survivors to apply for the state compensation program, which the state says is designed to “reimburse innocent victims for certain costs related to the crime.” The program reimburses anyone in Texas who’s been a victim of a crime, or is an authorized guardian of a crime victim, an amount up to $50,000.
But according to the Texas Attorney General’s Office, only $76,000 in total compensation has been reimbursed to 332 eligible applicants so far. Much of that sum — roughly $66,000 — was requested for loss of earnings, while roughly $7,300 was reimbursed for replacement of property seized as evidence of a crime scene, and roughly $3,000 was reimbursed for travel costs for families.
Texas Sen. Roland Gutierrez, a Democrat whose district includes Uvalde, told ABC News that multiple families and survivors have reported to him that they’ve faced difficulties filing claims and getting reimbursed through the state program.
He criticized the state’s evaluation process for being unnecessarily slow and onerous, and accused its leaders of placing “unreasonable obstacles” in front of grieving families.
“You’re dealing with poor people here,” Gutierrez said. “It shouldn’t have to be a situation where you’re out there demanding to get bills from people or to have people go through this paper, email process.”
Christina Mitchell Busbee, the local district attorney who has been helping families and survivors file claims, acknowledged some difficulties, but said her office has helped as many families as possible.
“There have been people that have had difficulty filling it out, but we have assisted as much as we can,” Busbee said. “Once it goes to the attorney general’s office, they then send a packet to these families or to the victims saying we need this from your employer, we need this from you, you may need additional documents … and some people have had difficulty in getting that, but a lot of people that have problems call my office, and we help them as much as we can or they can talk to the AGs office directly.”
In response to questions from ABC News, a representative for the attorney general’s office said the program is “committed to the long-term recovery of victims and families.” Under state law, victims have up to three years to submit receipts or claims for compensation, but can request a waiver to extend the deadline for good cause, especially regarding child victims, the attorney general office’s said. The office added that “many applications for compensation are inactive for long periods of time, but may be reopened upon any new request.”
The attorney general’s office also told ABC News that officials are still reviewing 29 pending cases, and to this point no applicant has been denied victim status.
However the office was unable to answer whether any specific claims or requests for reimbursement have been denied, saying the information is not tracked internally and would “require staff research and analysis.”
Representatives of the attorney general’s office did not comment on other specific questions regarding alleged difficulties with the compensation program.
(NEW YORK) — A guest aboard a Carnival cruise ship has been rescued by the U.S. Coast Guard after being reported missing around noon on Thursday.
The missing guest, according to a representative with Carnival Cruise Line, was at a bar with his sister and left to use the bathroom at around 11 p.m. Wednesday night. He never returned, and his sister reported him missing the following day.
Carnival crew searched the ship Thursday but were unsuccessful, later deciding to retrace the ship’s route to find the missing guest.
The U.S. Coast Guard assisted the Carnival crew with search and rescue and confirmed to ABC News that they rescued the man that was overboard the Carnival Valor. His condition has not been disclosed at this time.
The ship was on its way to Cozumel, a Mexican island in the Caribbean, and was released by the Coast Guard to continue to its destination.
The Coast Guard said it will release more information Friday.
(DARIAN, CONNECTICUT) — Susan and Ted Holmes opened up their home to Liudmyla and Volodya Stepnyk and their three children, Yulia, Dmytro and Veronika, under the Biden administration’s “Uniting for Ukraine” resettlement program.
The Ukrainian family will celebrate their first Thanksgiving holiday in the U.S., gathering around the table and learning about the American tradition and foods. Susan Helms says they feel blessed they can share both cultures with her serving up a dinner at her home — pulling pockets of steamed stuffed cabbage out of a pot on a chilly night in Darien, Connecticut.
“Should we go get our plates and get our halupki?” Susan Helms asked.
Susan Helms says Liudmyla Stepnyk was up late making the dish. It is one of the Ukrainian traditions Liudmyla Stepnyk and her family find comfort in after fleeing their home in Western Ukraine when Russia invaded Ukraine in February.
Liudmyla Stepnyk practices some of her English, saying the pockets of cabbage are filled with rice, meat and are boiled. Susan Helms say they look like little presents.
Around the dinner table, the spirit of thanks and giving is felt with the sharing of meals.
The Stepnyk family arrived in August and are still getting used to life in America. Ted Holmes says it’s been a big change for he and his wife, who were empty nesters. He says both families share responsibilities in terms of cooking, which is a mix of Ukrainian and American food.
Ted Helms joked to ABC News that he and Volodya Stepnyk “just eat and show up.”
Susan Helms says she was determined to help once the war began and through her search was able to find relatives in Ukraine and decided to sponsor them to come to the U.S. She and Volodya Stepnyk connected on Facebook.
Under Ukraine’s martial law exemption, men who are raising three children or more can receive a deferment. Volodya Stepnyk says he made the decision to go to ensure the safety of his children. Yulia Stepnyk, who is the oldest of three children says her family first fled to Poland before connecting with Susan Helms and getting approval to come to the U.S.
Under the “Uniting for Ukraine” program, American-based citizens can financially sponsor displaced Ukrainians who are still outside the U.S. They apply to receive a temporary two-year humanitarian live and work visa and go through a vetting process. Susan Helms says once the family arrived, the kids were enrolled in school.
Yulia Stepnyk is 17 years old and in her last year of high school. Her siblings are in middle school and have already celebrated their birthdays in the U.S.
Volodya and Liudmyla Stepnyk say they are trying to make the best life they can for their children and are grateful they could come to America.
All say they are finding peace –something they haven’t felt since leaving their home but still miss the life they left behind.
Yulia Stepnyk has embraced the message of this holiday and said at first it felt strange coming to a new country, but she says she is no longer fearful.
Alec Tabak/New York Daily News/Tribune News Service via Getty Images
Former Elle columnist E. Jean Carroll sued former President Donald Trump for the second time on Thursday, alleging defamation and battery under a new law in New York that allows adult sex assault victims to file claims that would otherwise be barred by the passage of time.
New York’s Adult Survivors Act, which took effect on Thanksgiving, opens a one-year window for adult victims to file claims.
Carroll previously sued Trump for defamation over statements he made in 2019 when he denied her claim that he raped her in the dressing room of Bergdorf Goodman in the 1990s. Her new lawsuit alleged a second claim of defamation over statements Trump made last month.
It also alleged battery as she seeks to hold him accountable for the sexual assault that he has long denied.
“Trump’s underlying sexual assault severely injured Carroll, causing significant pain and suffering, lasting psychological harms, loss of dignity, and invasion of her privacy. His recent defamatory statement has only added to the harm that Carroll had already suffered,” the lawsuit said.
Trump called Carroll’s claim “a Hoax and a lie” in a post last month on his social media platform Truth Social. “And, while I am not supposed to say it, I will. This woman is not my type!” the post added.
“Trump’s false, insulting, and defamatory October 12 statement about Carroll—and his actual malice in making that statement—is fully consistent with his tried-and-true playbook for responding to credible public reports that he sexually assaulted women,” the lawsuit said.
Carroll’s attorney, Roberta Kaplan, asked the judge hearing the first lawsuit to deem the second one a related matter.
Carroll’s first lawsuit is pending the outcome of a January proceeding in the D.C. Court of Appeals.
Trump has argued the Justice Department should be substituted as the defendant in the case because, at the time of his allegedly defamatory statements, he was an employee of the federal government, which cannot be sued for defamation.
The Washington, D.C. Court of Appeals, which retains jurisdiction over the conduct of federal government employees, has scheduled oral arguments for January to decide whether Trump was acting in his official capacity as president when he denied Carroll’s rape claim and allegedly defamed her. If so, the case would go away.
(LOS ANGELES) — Residents in Southern California have more than heavy traffic to contend with this Thanksgiving.
The National Weather Service issued a red flag warning for parts of Los Angeles and Ventura Counties on Thursday that lasts until Friday morning, indicating critical fire weather conditions.
Wind gusts could approach 70 mph in some parts of Southern California, forecasts show. The dry wind, combined with the parched earth still reeling from a decades-long megadrought, could spread any fires that spark.
Temperatures are expected to reach 80 degrees in Los Angeles and Orange Counties, with the strong winds expected to pass through the canyons.
A high wind warning is also in effect for the hills east of Santa Barbara, including Burbank, Santa Clarita and Malibu.
The winds are leading to a high brush fire potential across the region, largely in part due to the direction of the wind. When the wind comes from the east, it is much drier than winds coming from the Pacific Ocean.
There are also scattered wind advisories for other portions of the southwest, with gusts expected to top 50 mph elsewhere throughout Southern California, as well as in Arizona and into western Texas.
Residents are urged to use caution with anything that can spark a wildfire. Power safety outages are possible in several regions, data from Southern California Edison shows.
(CHESAPEAKE, Va.) — Six people were gunned down in a mass shooting at a Walmart in Chesapeake, Virginia.
Survivors said the gunman walked into a break room and opened fire on Tuesday night.
The suspect was identified by city officials as 31-year-old Andre Bing of Chesapeake. Walmart said he worked at the store as an overnight team lead and had been an employee since 2010. He died at the scene from an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound, police said.
Governor orders flags to fly at half-staff through Sunday
Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin has ordered flags to be flown at half-staff over the state Capitol and all local, state and federal buildings and grounds across the commonwealth “in respect and memory of the victims of the Chesapeake shooting, their families, and the entire Chesapeake community.”
“I hereby order that the flags shall be lowered immediately on Wednesday, November 23, 2022 and remain at half-staff until Sunday, November 27, 2022 at sunset,” Youngkin said in a statement.
On Wednesday, the City of Chesapeake released the names of the victims on Twitter.
Here’s what we know about the victims:
Lorenzo Gamble
Brian Pendleton, 38
Pendleton’s mother, Michelle Johnson, told ABC News that her son “had a real big heart” and loved working at Walmart.
Pendleton had a condition called congenital hydrocephalus, but it never stopped him from leading a full life, she said.
“He liked to joke, and he liked to make people laugh, but he was a very good worker,” Johnson said.
“I’m going to miss my son,” she said.
Kellie Pyle
Randall Blevins
Tyneka Johnson
Chesapeake hasn’t released the name and photo of the sixth victim, a 16-year-old boy, because he’s a minor.
(UVALDE, TX) — Thanksgiving Day marks six months since 19 students and two of their teachers were killed in a mass shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas.
Some families of the victims spent the last few days before the holiday volunteering to prepare Thanksgiving meals for neighbors in need during an annual event called “Love Ya, Uvalde.” The Garcia family, whose daughter, Ellie Garcia, was one of the victims, were among the volunteers.
“It is very important for everybody to really cherish these moments of togetherness, the family, loved ones, friends,” said Steven Garcia, Ellie’s father, who volunteered at the event for the first time.
Volunteers spent hours on Tuesday prepping the meals, deboning turkeys, and decorating the space where the meals would be served. On Wednesday morning and into the afternoon, the food was served to over 200 people at the Uvalde County Fairplex. The group also delivered around 100 meals to people who couldn’t make it out. It is a community tradition that started in 1983.
The event took on special meaning as the tragedy’s 6-month mark approached, serving as a brief respite from the grief that has overwhelmed much of the community since the May 24 shooting rampage.
“It means the world for you to see the community come out and support. It’s very important,” said Garcia.
The Cazares family has volunteered at the event many times over the last 20 years, said Javier Cazares. His daughter Jackie, who was killed at Robb, would help serve the food and escort people to their seats each year. She was the “boss lady,” said Cazares.
“It’s hard not seeing her here. Very hard,” Cazares added, looking out over the hundreds gathered to celebrate Thanksgiving.
In the six months that have followed the shooting, the typically quiet town of 15,000 people has been rocked by anger, trauma and demands for accountability that have led to some results. In July, a Texas House investigative report said the law enforcement response to the shooting was riddled with “systemic failures and egregiously poor decision making.”
In the weeks that followed, the school district’s police chief, Pete Arredondo, was fired. The entire Uvalde school police force was disbanded in mid-October. On the same day, the district’s superintendent, Hal Harrell, unexpectedly announced his retirement. Last week, Mariano Pargas, who was the acting Uvalde city police chief during the shooting, quit before the city council could fire him.
But the upheaval that has defined the town since May was nowhere to be seen on this six-month mark. Families said they were remembering their loved ones as they gave back.
“This is something she wanted us to do,” Cazares said about his daughter. “So here we are, one more year.”
