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(MEMPHIS, Tenn.) — The police traffic stop that led to Tyre Nichols’ death was detailed in an incident report obtained by ABC News, as well as a Memphis Police statement, but the written statements provide a different account from what the body camera footage of the disturbing encounter has revealed.

Nichols, a 19-year-old Black man, died after a confrontation with police in which he was beaten following a traffic stop.

The footage shows officers beating Nichols and targeting him with pepper spray as he begins yelling for his mother, who lived near the site of the encounter.

In body camera footage, officers can be seen standing over Nichols while he’s on the ground. As two officers hold him down, a third kicks him. A fourth officer comes over with a baton and the officers pick up Nichols from the ground and hold him up while officers appear to strike him in the face and torso.

The officers yell multiple times at Nichols to “give me your hands.” The officer with the baton can be heard saying, “I’ma baton the f— out of you” – then appears to strike him on the upper body three times. Officers pull Nichols to a stand, then appear to punch and slap him.

The official incident report does not mention that Nichols was kicked and punched by the officers. It also claims that Nichols started to fight with officers, reached for their guns, pulled on their duty belts and grabbed at least one officer by his vest. This cannot be seen in body camera footage.

Officers can be heard in the aftermath claiming that Nichols reached for their guns.

“Suspect Tyre Nichols was refusing a lawful detention by law enforcement officers and he started to fight with detectives,” the report reads.

It says Nichols was “sweating profusely” and “irate” when he exited the vehicle.

The report also claims Nichols “began actively resisting by pulling duty belts and grabbing Officer Smith by the vest.”

It describes the use of chemical agents and the use of the baton to strike Nichols.

The report says the Memphis Police Department officer responded to an “aggravated assault” and that former MPD Officer Martin had observed Nichols’ vehicle “driving recklessly at a high rate of speed” and “into oncoming traffic.”

The initial statement from the Memphis Police Department failed to mention the details of the physical altercations.

It’s not the only example in recent years of police reports or statements not aligning with details seen in body camera footage or other evidence.

Some law enforcement experts and lawyers argue that when people are in fast-paced, high-intensity situations, they may not be equipped to “record” key details the way a body camera can.

“There’s no training that any human being can go through that is going to teach them how to record an event like a machine,” said Michael Rains, a California attorney who has represented law enforcement in civil and criminal litigation.

Two former law enforcement officers told ABC News that every person’s recollection of an event can differ.

“We learned to not say that eyewitness testimony is the only thing,” TJ Kennedy, a public safety and de-escalation expert, told ABC News. “You have to put it all together.”

However, “It’s not to say that an officer wouldn’t lie or try to lie because we all know that that can happen,” Rains adds.

Some officers get a chance to look at body camera footage before submitting their report, while others may not be allowed to because of local legal restrictions, according to ABC News contributor and former San Bernardino Police Chief Jarrod Burguan.

It’s an ongoing debate in the industry, he said. Does it help officers recollect the events? Or does it cause officers to change their narrative based on what they saw in the footage?

“Now we have that conflict between what is the officer perceiving versus what the actual camera is showing,” said Burguan in an interview with ABC News.

Discrepancies in police reports, official statements and official documents have been seen in several recent police brutality cases.

George Floyd incident

The Minneapolis Police Department also has been criticized over its initial statement detailing the murder of George Floyd by then-MPD Police Officer Derek Chauvin.

“After he got out, he physically resisted officers. Officers were able to get the suspect into handcuffs and noted he appeared to be suffering medical distress. Officers called for an ambulance,” read the May 26, 2020, statement.

The report fails to mention that Chauvin held his knee on the back of Floyd’s neck for more than 9 minutes, a moment captured on cellphone video by bystanders. The video prompted protests worldwide against police brutality.

Floyd, who was handcuffed and in a prone position on the pavement, repeatedly said he couldn’t breathe before falling unconscious and losing a pulse, according to evidence presented at Chauvin’s state trial.

Floyd was later pronounced dead at a hospital. Chauvin was convicted of second-degree unintentional murder, third-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter. He pleaded guilty to violating Floyd’s civil rights.

Breonna Taylor

Breonna Taylor was shot and killed in March 2020 by Louisville, Kentucky, police officers executing a no-knock search warrant on her home.

Her death became one of several that year that prompted global protests.

Details concerning the legitimacy of the search warrant unveiled by the Department of Justice in August 2022 prompted more ire.

The DOJ charged Detective Joshua Jaynes, former Louisville Detective Kelly Goodlett and Sgt. Kyle Meany for allegedly violating Taylor’s Fourth Amendment rights when they sought a warrant to search Taylor’s home while knowing they lacked “probable cause.”

The DOJ alleged that the officers knew their affidavit supporting the warrant contained false and misleading information and it omitted other material information, resulting in her death.

“Among other things, the affidavit falsely claimed that officers had verified that the target of the alleged drug trafficking operation had received packages at Ms. Taylor’s address. In fact, defendants Jaynes and Goodlett knew that was not true,” Attorney General Merrick Garland said during a press conference on the charges.

Garland also alleged that Jaynes and Goodlett knew armed officers would be carrying out the raid at Taylor’s home, and that conducting the search could create “a dangerous situation for anyone who happened to be in Ms. Taylor’s home.”

Goodlett pleaded guilty to one count of conspiring to violate the civil rights of Taylor. Jaynes and Meany have both pleaded not guilty. The next status hearing for the trial is scheduled for Feb. 21.

Casey Goodson

Casey Goodson, 23, was shot and killed by Franklin County Sheriff’s Office Deputy Jason Meade while Goodson entered his home on Dec. 4, 2020, in Columbus, Ohio.

However, the details of the fatal incident from authorities and Goodson’s family don’t match up.

Goodson’s family said he was returning from a dentist appointment and had a Subway sandwich in his hand, according to family co-counsel Sean L. Walton.

“Casey had the screen door open and his keys in the door, and Deputy Jason Meade fired shots at Casey,” Walton told ABC News. “He fell into the house, where he lay in his kitchen.”

Meade, who had been taking part in an unsuccessful search for a fugitive along with the U.S. Marshals Service, said Goodson — who was not the target of the search — waved a gun at him when he drove by in his police car.

Meade confronted Goodson outside his home, and Goodson allegedly refused to drop his gun, U.S. Marshal Peter Tobin said at a press conference. Tobin later withdrew those remarks about Goodson waving a gun.

Meade is charged with murder and pleaded not guilty.

Meade’s attorney, Mark C. Collins, has said in a December 2021 statement that his client “acted within his lawful duties as an officer of the law when he pursued Mr. Goodson,” and said Meade fired his weapon at Goodson in “fear for his life as well as those inside the house.”

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(NEW YORK) — A 30-year-old woman found fatally shot in her Sayreville, New Jersey townhouse complex has been identified by local officials as Councilwoman Eunice Dwumfour.

She was shot while inside her white SUV, which appears to have then crashed on Samuel Circle at around 7:22 p.m. Wednesday, authorities said.

She sustained multiple gunshot wounds and was pronounced dead at the scene. She lived in the townhouse complex where she was killed, just steps from her home.

She preliminarily appears to have been the target of the gunfire but a motive for the shooting was not immediately disclosed.

Mahesh Chitnis, who serves on Sayreville’s Human Relations Commission, posted on Facebook that the victim, who was also his neighbor, was “killed 300 feet from my home … She was shot while returning back home. She was a woman full of life.”

Hours later, her SUV was towed away by police, who did not say if a suspect was identified or an arrest was made.

Dwumfour was elected to the council in 2021 and worked as a business analyst and part-time EMT.

“The female had succumbed to her injuries and was pronounced on scene,” Middlesex County Prosecutors Office said in a statement. “This is an active and ongoing investigation anyone with information or surveillance footage of the area is asked to call Detective Rebecca Morales of the Sayreville Police Department at 732-727-4444 or Detective Michelle Coppola of the Middlesex County Prosecutor’s Office 732-745-3477.”

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(NEW YORK) — Over three years after Pebbles LaDime “Dime” Doe was found dead, the Department of Justice unsealed charges against two men involved in her murder.

A South Carolina man was charged with a hate crime for the 2019 murder of Doe in Allendale, South Carolina, according to the United States Attorney’s Office for the District of South Carolina. The U.S. Attorney also charged another man with obstruction offenses related to the murder.

The five-count federal indictment alleges that Daqua Ritter, 26, shot Doe on Aug. 4, 2019, “because of her actual and perceived gender identity.” Ritter faces the maximum penalty of life imprisonment for the hate crime count alone. He also faces charges related to lying about his whereabouts on the day of the murder to federal investigators.

Another man, 24-year-old Xavier Pinckney, was charged with two obstruction counts for allegedly lying about seeing Ritter after the murder and concealing from investigators that his phone was used to call and text Doe on the day of the murder.

According to the Human Rights Campaign, Doe’s death marked the second murder of a transgender woman in South Carolina within a month that summer. On July 20, 2019, Denali Berries Stuckey was killed in North Charleston. Both Stuckey and Doe were black transgender women.

“As occurs far too often in the reporting of anti-transgender violence, initial reports also misgendered and misnamed Doe in coverage of the crime, delaying HRC’s awareness of her death,” HRC wrote in 2019.

According to the Department of Justice, transgender persons are 2.5 times more likely to be violent crime victims than cisgender people.

In 2019 when Doe and Stuckley were murdered, 23 other transgender or gender non-conforming were killed, according to the Human Rights Campaign.

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(NEW YORK) — Punxsutawney Phil, Pennsylvania’s most famous groundhog, awoke Thursday morning to see his shadow which means that — according to legend — there will be six more weeks of winter.

Legend has it that if he sees his shadow then winter will continue for another six weeks but if Punxsutawney Phil does not see his shadow spring will come early.

Phil’s prediction comes as parts of the county are being slammed with cripplingly cold temperatures and ice.

Phil’s actual prediction takes place ahead of time in a place called Gobbler’s Knob, a small hill just outside of the town, and has done so each year since 1887. This year marks the 137th time the event has occurred, according to the Pennsylvania Tourism Office.

The men in top hats surrounding Phil during the ceremony are members of the Punxsutawney Groundhog Club Inner Circle. According to their website, their role is to “protect and perpetuate the legend of the great weather-predicting groundhog Punxsutawney Phil.”

Phil’s predictions have been fairly even over the past decade or so. From 2015 to 2020, the groundhog predicted a longer winter three times and an early spring three times.

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(NEW YORK) — The lights have stayed on in Texas among the recent freezes the state has been experiencing, but experts aren’t sure whether the energy grids are winterized enough to withstand the next deep freeze.

Texas typically experiences deep freezes that really test its power grids once every decade, Ramanan Krishnamoorti, vice president of energy and innovation at the University of Houston, told ABC News. December 1983 holds the record for the coldest December for both Dallas-Fort Worth and Waco.

In 1991, a Halloween blizzard and ice storm overtook southeast Houston. Other freezes occurred in the early 2000s, specifically in 2011, which is known colloquially as the “Super Bowl freeze” because it took place over the Super Bowl weekend hosted at AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas. In 2021, more than 100 people died as a result of rolling blackouts during back-to-back ice storms that brought temperatures as low as 6 degrees.

How the grids have held up amid the recent tests, including freezes this week and in December around the Christmas holiday, has been “remarkable,”, Krishnamoorti said.

In terms of demand and capacity, both renewable energy production and natural gas supply have been available “as predicted,” he added.

“We’re not seeing any significant challenges with the power grid at this point,” other than occasional local outages associated with icing on transmission cables, Krishnamoorti said.

Energy-wise, the winter season has been so successful that price spikes for electricity have stayed well below what was anticipated, Krishnamoorti said. While predictions were measuring electricity prices to increase to about $100 a megawatt per hour, it was stayed closed to $25 to $30, Krishnamoorti said.

Several coal and gas production plants underperformed during the December freeze, and ERCOT underestimated the demand by about 10%, Daniel Cohan, associate professor of environmental engineering at Rice University in Houston, told ABC News. Despite there being “record amounts” of demand on the grid, no widespread outages have occurred. In addition, because it has been so windy in the region, the wind production made up for the coal and gas production facilities that did go down, Cohan said.

“That was a great sign that the grid performed better than it had in 2021,” Cohan said.

However, the tests to the grid these past two winter seasons have not acted as “true stress tests,” Krishnamoorti said. The current freeze is “much less intense” in terms of temperature and temperament, compared to the back-to-back winter storms of 2021 that caused a statewide energy catastrophe, he said. In addition, there has been no ice and snow, Cohan said.

During this cold spell, temperatures have not dipped into the negatives or even to single digits. In addition, the ice that did cause some local outages only fell in select regions, such as Dallas and Austin, Krishnamoorti said.

Changes have been made to the grid, Krishnamoorti said. In June 2021, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott signed a bill to reform the state’s power grid and how it is operated.

Power plants in Texas have installed hundreds of millions of dollars worth of updates to better winterize their facilities, Cohan said.

But it is unclear whether those changes have led to a true winterization of the system, Krishnamoorti said.

“Nature is the best stress test,” he said. “The only way we will know whether the system can stand through the stress test is actually put it through that stress test.”

ERCOT expects sufficient generation to meet demand this season and is continuing to monitor forecasts throughout this week, a spokesperson told ABC News in an email statement on Monday.

“Ice on trees, powerlines can lead to localized outages,” the ERCOT spokesperson said. “If customers are experiencing a local power outage they are to reach out to their local power provider or visit the PUCT outage map for more information.”

One of the challenges to winterizing Texas’ energy grid is that the freezes don’t happen often, Cohan said. After about a third of homes blacked out during the “Super Bowl” freeze in 2011, it would be near-impossible to determine what the demand would have been had the lights stayed on, Cohan said.

The energy sector is also in the middle of a “dynamic shift,” as electrification becomes more commonplace than less sustainable sources, such as coal, nuclear energy and natural gas, Krishnamoorti said.

“That’s great for reducing natural gas use and reducing emissions most of the year, but it makes us more vulnerable to having big surges in demand,” Cohan said.

While Krishnamoorti expects the “next big one” to occur some time in the 2030s, climate scientists believe that climate change increases the frequency in which deep freezes reach the southern-most states in the U.S.

While those types of deep freezes have historically occurred once every decade, climate change could threaten the Lone Star State with more frequent occurrences in the future, scientists say.

As the Arctic warms and Arctic ice melts, the jet stream, a band of strong winds moving west to east created by cold air meeting warmer air, becomes weaker. As the jet stream becomes more “wavy,” it allows very warm temperatures to extend far into the Arctic and very cold temperatures further south than usual, Jessica Moerman, vice president of science and policy at the Evangelical Environmental Network, a faith-based environmental group, told ABC News in 2021.

The loss of human life as a result of extreme weather events is “highly avoidable” in the U.S., Krishnamoorti said. In addition, the economic fallout that occurs as a result of blackout situations in Texas can also be catastrophic, especially in the medical and natural gas industries, he added.

“If Texas sneezes, the world will probably catch a cold,” Krishnamoorti said.

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(NEW YORK) — Attorneys for the Rust film armorer charged with involuntary manslaughter Tuesday said she felt “extreme pressure” to work within an irresponsible culture that resulted in the death of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins in 2021.

Hannah Gutierrez-Reed and actor Alec Baldwin were both charged Tuesday with two counts of involuntary manslaughter in New Mexico. First assistant director David Halls has already agreed to plead no contest for the charge of negligent use of a deadly weapon.

Attorney Jason Bowles said Halls “rushed” Gutierrez-Reed “all the time,” which did not allow her to do a full safety check on the gun held by Baldwin that fatally killed Hutchins. His client was waiting on Halls to call her back to the church where the scene was scheduled to be filmed and where she expected to perform a full check on the gun.

According to her, she never got the call.

Gutierrez-Reed “didn’t even know that Baldwin was there with the gun. So for the DA’s office to blame Hannah for failing to do something … it’s insane,” Bowles told ABC News.

In an exclusive with ABC News, Bowles and attorney Todd Bullion characterized the Rust set as negligent regarding its safety and blamed the culture on Halls, who they said insisted on having a “real gun” on the set and ignored Gutierrez-Reed’s request to be called to the set when it was time to use the Colt .45 in a scene.

Halls, Bowles said, “handed the gun to Baldwin and didn’t do the check himself. He admitted that had Hannah been called back in [he] would have prevented this tragedy. That’s a David Halls failure.”

Amid the allegations by Gutierrez-Reed’s attorneys, Halls’ legal team said, “You can quote anything in the public record.” Lisa Torraco, attorney for Dave Halls, told ABC News earlier that Halls was responsible for “announcing that there’s a firearm on set” but denied he was responsible for the handling of the weapon to Baldwin.

Law enforcement said Halls, Baldwin and Gutierrez-Reed were the only three people who handled the gun on the set. Halls testified in a deposition in December with attorneys from the New Mexico Occupational Health and Safety Bureau that he checked the gun and did not “have any recollection” announcing the gun was “cold,” indicating it did not contain live rounds.

“I have recollections of Hannah saying it,” he testified.

Gutierrez-Reed contradicts those claims, her attorneys say. Prosecutors said Baldwin has given contradicting statements to media and law enforcement, first telling police he received the gun from Gutierrez-Reed and later saying it came from Halls and that Halls told him it was a “cold gun.”

Bowles said the charges brought against Baldwin are appropriate because he failed to follow the appropriate training when handling a firearm. Despite following the required hour-long training, it lasted 30 minutes because Baldwin was texting his family throughout, according to court documents.

“She was demanding the training occur, she was asking for it, pleading that the training occurred. They didn’t allow her to do it,” he said.

When reached for comment, Baldwin’s attorney directed ABC News to his Jan. 19 statement. “Mr. Baldwin had no reason to believe there was a live bullet in the gun — or anywhere on the movie set. He relied on the professionals with whom he worked, who assured him the gun did not have live rounds. We will fight these charges, and we will win,” attorney Luke Nikas said.

Despite her concerns over a reckless safety culture, Gutierrez-Reed did not feel comfortable demanding that protocols be met because of her junior status. Investigator Robert Shilling wrote in the statement of probable cause that she was unqualified because she had “no certification or certifiable training, or union ‘card’ for this practice,” and the production violated industry practices by also assigning her assistant prop master duties, which meant she could not focus primarily on her armorer duties.

Bowles rejected the suggestion that Gutierrez-Reed, 24, was not capable of safety measures because of lack of experience.

“She was absolutely qualified to work in this film,” he said, because she received training from Thell Reed, her father, a veteran armorer and weapons specialist whose credits include Tombstone, Django: Unchained, 3:10 to Yuma, and Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.

“Everybody has to start somewhere. That didn’t mean she wasn’t trained or capable of doing this job,” said Bowles.

He added she was simply “trying to follow orders” because Rust presented her the “opportunity to get her union certification to then be certified” as a professional armorer.

“She’s trying to do her job. And she’s being made to do certain things that she’s fighting against,” he said. “So when you have a 30-year veteran [like Halls] telling her ‘you’re going to do this.’ That’s what she did.”

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(COLUMBUS, Ohio) — Following the disciplinary actions and murder charges brought against several officers involved in the death of Tyre Nichols in Memphis, Tennessee, Rebecca Duran, the mother of Donovan Lewis, renewed her call Tuesday for the Columbus, Ohio, police officer who fatally shot her son last year to be terminated and charged.

“If it can be done in a swift manner anywhere, it can be done swiftly here,” Duran said at a press conference. “Yesterday was five months since the murder of my son, and for the most part there hasn’t been any action when it comes to the reprimanding or termination of Ricky Anderson.”

Lewis, a 20-year-old expectant father, was fatally shot by Officer Ricky Anderson on Aug. 30, 2022. He later died at a hospital.

Columbus police have said they went to Lewis’ apartment around 2 a.m. to arrest him on three separate charges: domestic violence, assault and improper handling of a firearm.

When police arrived, they identified themselves and stood outside the apartment for approximately eight minutes asking those inside to exit, body camera footage shows. Two people eventually exit the apartment and police enter with a K-9, finding Lewis in bed, the video shows.

The footage, played during the press conference Tuesday, appears to show Anderson, a 30-year veteran with the Columbus Police Department and K-9 unit, open fire almost immediately after police open the bedroom door to where Lewis was sleeping.

In the footage, Lewis is seen raising his hands as he lies in bed. Anderson is then seen firing the single gunshot.

Columbus Police Chief Elaine Bryant previously said Lewis appeared to be holding something in his hand, but only a vape pen was found on his bed and that there was no sighting of a weapon.

Duran told ABC News’ Linsey Davis in September that “there was no attempt to preserve his life.”

Several months after Lewis’ death, Duran said “there’s no accountability whatsoever.”

The Columbus Police Department has previously said Anderson was on paid administrative leave.

During the press conference this week, Rex Elliott, an attorney for Lewis’ family, applauded Memphis leadership’s action against the officers involved in Nichols’ beating and read statements from Columbus community leaders condemning how Nichols was treated by Memphis police. Attorneys for two of the Memphis officers have said they will plead not guilty.

“With all due respect, do something here in Columbus,” Elliott said, criticizing Columbus’ lack of punishment against its own law enforcement. “It is time for the other officers who acted inappropriately in this situation with Donovan, that they be handled, and that … Officer Anderson be indicted and charged with homicide.”

“We need to let the criminal process work here in Columbus like it is working in Memphis,” he added.

Michael Wright, an attorney for Lewis’ family, said the Bureau of Criminal Investigation completed its investigation in December.

In a statement to ABC News on Wednesday, Sgt. David Scarpitti, public information officer for the Columbus Division of Police, said: “Once the investigation is completed, BCI forwards the investigation to the Franklin County Prosecutor, who will present the evidence to a grand jury.”

“Once the criminal process is completed, the Office of the Inspector General may conduct an administrative investigation if a complaint is filed or if the Civilian Police Review Board initiates a complaint in order to determine if the officer’s actions were within policy,” he continued. “The IG’s findings go to the Civilian Review Board for review and recommendation of discipline and/or policy changes.”

According to Scarpitti, the Collective Bargaining Agreement requires that recommendations regarding discipline undergo review by the chain of command, which “may rise to the level of the Chief and then the Director of Public Safety.”

“Officer Ricky Anderson is still employed with the Division of the Columbus Police while this process takes place,” Scarpitti said.

Mark Collins, the attorney representing Anderson, did not yet respond to ABC News’ request for comment.

In a previous statement to ABC News, Collins said: “When we analyze police-involved shootings, we must look to the totality of the circumstances, and we are expressly forbidden from using 20/20 hindsight, because unlike all of us, officers are not afforded the luxury of armchair reflection when they are faced with rapidly evolving, volatile encounters in dangerous situations.”

Remembering her son, Duran said she misses Lewis’ sense of humor and his smile the most.

“He had a lot of life in him and had a lot of life left, and he’s not here to be able to live that to his full potential,” she said.

“If something is not done, I can promise you as we sit here and do nothing, it’s going to happen again,” Elliott added, of deadly encounters with police, “and none of us want that.”

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(DALLAS) — A day after two missing monkeys from the Dallas Zoo were found, the zoo is upping its reward for information on who may have been tampering with its animal exhibits.

The Dallas Zoo is now offering a $25,000 reward–up from $10,000– for information that leads to the arrest of the person, or people, responsible for a string of incidents at the zoo in January.

Two emperor tamarin monkeys went missing from their habitats at the zoo on Monday, which was “intentionally compromised,” the Dallas Zoo told ABC News in a statement.

The Dallas Police Department found the monkeys on Tuesday and alerted zoo officials.

According to the Dallas Zoo, on Wednesday, the monkeys, named Bella and Finn, were examined by veterinarians and were uninjured.

Dallas Police received a tip that the monkeys were at an abandoned home in Lancaster, a city in the Dallas area, and responding officers found the animals in a closet in the home shortly before 5 p.m. local time, police said.

Before the animals were found, Dallas PD released a photo on Tuesday of an unidentified man they are looking to speak with about the tamarin monkeys.

On Monday, the zoo said that it believed the monkeys were taken because emperor tamarin monkeys are most likely to stay close to their homes.

No arrests have been made and the investigation is ongoing, police said.

The missing monkeys were the latest in a series of animal incidents to rock the Dallas Zoo in January.

Last month, a clouded leopard escaped her enclosure after her fence was “intentionally cut,” officials said at the time. According to zoo officials, the female leopard, named Nova, was found the same day it went missing. Dallas police launched a criminal investigation into the incident.

In a similar incident last month, the Dallas Police Department opened a criminal investigation after finding a second fence cut inside the langur monkey habitat at the Dallas Zoo.

Despite the cut fence, no langurs escaped their habitat or appeared to be in danger or harmed, Dallas PD said in a press release.

Zoo workers found a rare and endangered vulture dead in its enclosure on Jan. 21, describing its death as “unusual.” Both police and zoo officials said the vulture, named Pin, did not appear to die from natural causes.

The Dallas Zoo confirmed that it had increased its security measures after the vulture’s death and the leopard’s escape.

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(NEW YORK) — A revamped legal team representing Hunter Biden is taking the first steps in what appears to be a more aggressive approach to his defense, disseminating on Wednesday a batch of criminal referrals and cease-and-desist letters targeting some of his most vocal detractors.

Abbe Lowell, a lawyer for Hunter Biden, wrote to the Justice Department and the Delaware attorney general’s office asking investigators to examine the conduct of several operatives who allegedly played a role in “accessing, copying, manipulating, and/or disseminating Mr. Biden’s personal computer data,” including Rudy Giuliani, Steve Bannon, and other supporters of former President Donald Trump.

“The actions described above more than merit a full investigation and, depending on the resulting facts, may merit prosecution under various statutes,” Lowell said. “It is not a common thing for a private person and his counsel to seek someone else being investigated, but the actions and motives here require it.”

Law enforcement agencies are not obligated to act on such referrals, nor are they required to acknowledge them.

Lowell also wrote to the Internal Revenue Service requesting a probe into Garrett Ziegler, a former Trump White House aide who recently published a trove of emails allegedly tied to Hunter Biden. That letter challenges the tax-exempt status of Ziegler’s organization, Marco Polo, which is filed as a 501(c)(3).

Ziegler’s organization “has failed to operate solely for charitable purposes,” Lowell wrote to the agency. “To the contrary, [Marco Polo] has operated as little more than a thinly disguised political operation to attack the Biden administration and the Biden family.”

Bryan Sullivan, a defamation lawyer retained by Hunter Biden, also sent a cease-and-desist letter to Fox News and Tucker Carlson, asking the network and its primetime host to retract and correct a report they ran about alleged rent payments Hunter Biden made to his father, which they have claimed as evidence that the president was more closely tied to his son’s financial arrangements.

Carlson’s promulgation of the story stands in “flagrant violation of all journalistic professionalism,” wrote Sullivan, who also warned of “potential litigation” if the network fails to agree to a retraction by the end of the day on Thursday. Sullivan also asked that Fox News preserve any records related to its handling of the story.

The change in tack by lawyers for the president’s only living son comes at a precarious time for the younger Biden, as Republican scrutiny of his business dealings ramps up and federal prosecutors reportedly near the conclusion of their years-long probe into his tax affairs.

Federal authorities in the Delaware U.S. attorney’s office, led by U.S. Attorney David Weiss, a Trump-era appointee, have been investigating Hunter Biden since 2018, ABC News has previously reported, but paused for several months ahead of the 2020 presidential election.

The probe spilled into public view in December 2020, shortly after Joe Biden secured the presidency, when Hunter Biden confirmed the probe into his “tax affairs.” Prosecutors have since examined whether he paid adequate taxes on millions of dollars of his income, including money he made from multiple overseas business ventures.

Hunter Biden has repeatedly said he is cooperating with investigators and remains “100% certain” that he will be cleared of any wrongdoing. President Biden has said he and his son never discussed his foreign business dealings, and there are no indications that the federal investigation involves the president in any way. The White House has repeatedly sought to distance the president from the probe.

Meanwhile, on Capitol Hill, Republicans have taken their first investigative steps in a long-awaited congressional probe into the younger Biden. House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer and Rep. Jim Jordan, chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, have called investigations into the president’s family a “top priority” and have pledged to “pursue all avenues” of wrongdoing. They said they “would love” to speak with Hunter Biden, but did not announce plans to issue a subpoena.

Lowell, a celebrated defense lawyer, joined Hunter Biden’s legal team in December to assist with congressional oversight inquiries. He has represented a number of high-profile political figures, including Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump; Sen. Bob Menendez, D-N.J.; and former Sen. John Edwards.

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(DETROIT) — Detroit police are searching for three local rappers who went missing after they were expected to perform at an event almost two weeks ago.

Police are looking for leads in the search for 38-year-old Armani Kelly, 31-year-old Dante Wicker and 31-year-old Montoya Givens, saying their phone records are very concerning.

“We are very concerned because there has been no activity on any of their phones,” Detroit Police Chief James White said during a press conference.

Police obtained search warrants for the three men’s phone records and said the phones are not hitting any towers nor have their owners communicated with anyone. There also has not been any activity on their online accounts.

The three men were together for a rap event at Lounge 31 on Jan. 21, but that event was canceled at the last minute. Police said they are unaware if the three men left the local bar together. Police are unsure what happened from that point, but White said they know the three men were together at some point that evening.

White said police are looking at video in the area as they continue their investigation.

A representative for Lounge 31 could not confirm to ABC News if the three men arrived at the venue the day of the performance, but said they are cooperating with police.

The event was canceled due to an issue with the DJ about 30 minutes before it was scheduled to begin, the representative said.

Police were able to locate a vehicle that belonged to an acquaintance of Kelly, but White said there were no signs of the three men. Police are also looking into an individual who was in possession of the vehicle when they found it to see if they are connected to the disappearance, according to White.

Detroit police asked members of the public to come forward with any information they have about the men.

“The case is wide open and extremely active,” White said.

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