(MONTEREY PARK, Calif.) — At least 10 people were killed and 10 others were injured on Saturday night when a gunman opened fire at a crowded dance studio in Monterey Park, California, authorities said.
The suspect — identified as 72-year-old Huu Can Tran — fled the scene and traveled to nearby Alhambra, where he allegedly entered a second dance hall before being disarmed that same night. Tran was found dead on Sunday from a self-inflicted gunshot wound inside a van in Torrance, about 30 miles southwest of Monterey Park, according to police.
Here’s how the news is developing. All times Eastern:
Jan 23, 7:36 AM EST
‘Something came over me,’ says man who disarmed shooter
The man who disarmed the Monterey Park mass shooter recalled how “something came over me” during an interview Monday on ABC News’ “Good Morning America.”
“I realized I needed to get the weapon away from him,” Brandon Tsay said. “I needed to take this weapon, disarm him or else everybody would have died.”
Jan 23, 7:01 AM EST
Dance studio releases statement
The dance studio in Monterey Park where Saturday’s mass shooting took place has released a statement.
“What should have been a festive night to welcome the first day of the Lunar New Year turned into a tragedy. Our heart goes out to all the victims, survivors, and their families,” Star Dance Studio said in a Facebook post late Sunday. “In this time of healing, we hope that all those who were affected have the space to grieve and process what transpired within the last 24 hours. In the meantime, all classes will be canceled and studio will be closed until further notice.”
Jan 23, 5:31 AM EST
Survivor says longtime dance partner was among those killed
Shally was dancing the jive with her longtime dance partner on Saturday night when a gunman entered the studio and opened fire.
“We go to hide under the table,” Shally, who only provided her first name, recalled during an interview with Los Angeles ABC station KABC. “I think [my partner] had got shot already but not realized yet.”
Shally said she saw the gunman leave to get more bullets. When he returned, he reloaded the gun and opened fire again, she said.
“I said, ‘Lie down.’ We all lied down,” Sally told KABC.
Shally said the shooter then fled the scene and she turned to her partner, who she realized was unconscious. She tried to wake him but then saw her hands were covered in blood, she said.
“I thought I got shot too,” she told KABC.
Shally said she then realized that her partner had been shot in the back and the blood on her hands was his, from when they were holding each other in fear while hiding under the table.
“‘Wake up, wake up,'” she recalled telling her partner. “He was dead.”
Shally, who did not want to share the name of her dance partner, said he was a good friend and that they had danced together every week for about 10 years. She described him as a 62-year-old Asian man who didn’t have any family and said he was also friends with her husband, whom she married a couple years ago.
“He’s a nice guy,” she told KABC of her dance partner. “We love to dance.”
(MONTEREY PARK, Caliif.) — The man who disarmed the Monterey Park mass shooter recalled how “something came over me” during an interview Monday on ABC News’ Good Morning America.
“I realized I needed to get the weapon away from him,” Brandon Tsay said. “I needed to take this weapon, disarm him or else everybody would have died.”
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
(NEW YORK) — For the first time in history, Black mayors are leading America’s four largest cities.
ABC News’ Chief Washington Correspondent Jonathan Karl recently sat down with three of them — New York City Mayor Eric Adams, Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass and Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner — in Washington, D.C., on the sidelines of the annual gathering of the countries’ mayors.
“It’s a moment for us,” Adams told Karl in the interview, which aired on ABC’s “This Week.” “It’s a moment that we are now really going after those tough challenges and historical problems that we fought for many years to be in the driver’s seat.”
Turner, who was first elected in 2016 and is currently serving a second term, said that while their mayoralities signal that “progress is being made,” he hopes that enough Black mayors are elected “to the point where it doesn’t stand out.”
Big cities facing same problems
“What is, in your view, the No. 1 issue facing your city?” Karl asked the three.
Their cities may be spread out across the country, but Turner, Adams and Bass are grappling with similar problems and challenges: For Turner and Adams, it’s “public safety,” while Bass is confronting homelessness in Los Angeles, they said.
“In Los Angeles, without a doubt, it’s homelessness,” Bass said. “But it’s the intersection of income inequality and also public safety. And because income inequality is so severe in Los Angeles, the most extreme manifestation of that is 47,000 people [sleeping] on the streets in tents, every night, in the city.”
While Adams campaigned on fighting crime in New York as a former police officer, the city is still struggling with major crimes, which rose more than 20% last year, despite homicides hitting their lowest level since 2019.
Bass and Turner elaborated on Adams’ notion that addressing public safety is key to solving multi-pronged issues in their cities. Turner said the approach was about “revitalizing our communities that have been underserved for a long, long time, dealing with issues of homelessness and those things that put people on the street.”
Karl pressed Bass on her comments about defunding the police — a progressive slogan for a push by some liberals to redirect police funding toward other community safety and service programs in an effort to reduce crime — while campaigning to be mayor.
“You called defunding the police ‘probably one of the worst slogans ever’ — why did you say that?” Karl asked.
“What I believe is that over time, especially the federal government, state and cities have divested, defunded social services,” Bass said. “So I think when a person goes into the academy, they don’t go in to address homelessness, addiction, mental illness. And so we need to refund our communities, build out the social safety net so that people don’t fall into crime.”
Turner said the “defund the police” movement — which gained popularity amid the nationwide protests for racial justice following the 2020 murder of George Floyd — received “too much play in the first place.”
“If you look at many of the cities, they were funding their police. The city of Houston never defunded its police,” said Turner.
“You wanted an increase in police funding,” Karl added.
“In fact, right at that time, we passed a 13% increase,” Turner said. “It’s not about defunding police, it’s about investing in communities.”
Migration straining big cities
Karl also asked Adams about his recent trip to El Paso, Texas, to see the U.S.-Mexico border. His office says more than 40,000 migrants have arrived in his city since the spring, including thousands bused to New York from Texas by Republican Gov. Greg Abbott. Adams has warned that the flow of migrants to New York has strained city resources, and he’s asked New York state and the federal government for help.
“This should not happen to any city in America — El Paso, Houston, Chicago, New York, Washington,” he said. “This is a national problem and our national government, Congress and the White House must do a long-term, comprehensive immigration policy. But the White House must deal with the immediate emergency we have now.”
Turner and Bass sympathized with Adams over the issue, both arguing that Abbott’s busing migrants north was an ineffective strategy.
“No. 1, you need comprehensive immigration reform,” said Turner. “No. 2, if you’re going to send people anywhere, there needs to be dialogue and collaboration — between, for example, the governor of New York or Denver or Chicago, wherever that’s taking place.”
“And if you want to score political points, that’s one way to do it,” Turner added. “But that doesn’t solve the problem and, quite frankly, migrants shouldn’t be used as political pawns on this chess board.”
Abbott has said he’s busing migrants to so-called sanctuary cities, cities which locally protect immigrants and refugees from deportation by federal authorities, to show them what border states are dealing with.
Bass said it was “very cynical” of Abbott and that “it’s a way of attempting to deliberately undermine New York City and Democratic-run cities that welcome immigrants.”
“Does something need to be done though to slow the flow of migrants over the border?” Karl pressed the mayors.
All three applauded the immigration plan put forth by the Biden administration earlier this month, which expanded the use of Title 42 and established a process for more immigrants to apply for asylum if they have a U.S.-based sponsor and set up an appointment at a port of entry.
“I think we need to use this opportunity now to really look at how do we have a real decompression strategy?” Adams said. “If we’re going to allow those that are coming in who have relationships here in the country, sponsors, if it’s coordinated in the proper way, we can absorb it throughout the entire country. You cannot absorb it just in a few cities that we’re witnessing right now, with each one of those cities acting independently to address a national crisis. That’s not how to do it.”
Karl also asked all three if they’d back President Joe Biden for a second term. Adams, Bass and Turner unanimously said they’d support Biden if he chooses to run again.
(BATON ROUGE, La.) — Police are investigating a shooting that injured 12 people at a Baton Rouge, Louisiana, nightclub.
The shooting occurred just after 1:30 a.m. Sunday at 4619 Bennington Ave in Baton Rouge, according to the Baton Rouge Police Department.
The gunshot victims were taken to local hospitals, either by personal vehicles or by emergency responders, police said. They are all currently listed in stable condition.
The motive for the shooting is under investigation, police said.
Investigators did not release any information on a possible suspect.
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
(MONTEREY PARK, Calif.) — The suspected gunman who allegedly shot 20 people, 10 fatally, at a dance studio near a Lunar New Year celebration in the Los Angeles suburb of Monterey Park is believed to be connected to a van law enforcement officers surrounded Sunday and forced their way into about 30 miles from there the massacre occurred, authorities said.
SWAT officers broke the driver’s side window of the van around 1 p.m. local time, about two hours after police made a traffic stop in the Los Angeles County city of Torrance and heard a loud noise coming from inside the vehicle, sources told ABC News.
The suspect, whose name has not been released, is believed to have been inside a white cargo van, police officials told ABC station KABC. Live aerial footage shows the van sandwiched between two police armored vehicles, Torrance police officials told ABC station KABC.
But Los Angeles County Sheriff Robert Luna said it has not been confirmed that the suspect in the mass shooting suspect hold up inside the van in Torrance.
“We don’t know,” Luna said at a news conference Sunday afternoon as the incident in Torrance continued to unfold. “We believe there is a person inside of that vehicle. Could it be our suspect? Possibly.”
Asked if the person inside the van could be dead, Luna said, “that is a possibility.”
In addition to the armored police vehicles, the van was surrounded by numerous police officers, including SWAT members, many with their guns drawn and trained on the van.
Monterey Park shooting suspect’s photo released
The standoff in Torrance came as the sheriff’s department released surveillance images of the homicide suspect, saying he was wearing a beanie cap and glasses and is about 5-foot-10 and 150 pounds.
“He should be considered armed and dangerous,” the sheriff’s department said in a statement.
On Saturday January 21, 2023 at 10:22 PM the suspect male/adult/Asian pictured above was involved in a shooting. Investigators have identified him as a Homicide suspect and he should be considered armed and dangerous.
Contact LASD Homicide with any information at 323-890-5000. pic.twitter.com/2gPUBBybvv
Some of those injured in the Monterey Park rampage were in critical condition, while others were reported as stable, Los Angeles County Sheriff Robert Luna said at a news conference Sunday morning.
Luna said five women and five men were killed in the rampage.
The gunman was only described as an Asian male 30 to 50 years old, Luna said.
“We’re going to use every resource available to us because we need to get this person off the street as soon as possible,” Luna said.
‘Everything is on the table’
Luna declined to comment on a possible motive, but said, “everything is on the table.”
“We don’t know that this was a hate crime as defined by law, but who walks into a dance hall and guns down 20 people?” Luna said.
President Joe Biden has been briefed on the shooting by his Homeland Security advisor, according to the White House, and the FBI has joined the investigation.
“Jill and I are praying for those killed and injured in last night’s deadly mass shooting in Monterey Park. I’m monitoring this situation closely as it develops, and urge the community to follow guidance from local officials and law enforcement in the hours ahead,” Biden said in a statement.
In early alerts sent to Washington, investigators said “they had no idea who the suspect was,” Pierre Thomas, ABC News’ chief justice correspondent, said on ABC’s “This Week.”
U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland has also been briefed on the shooting, according to a statement from the Department of Justice.
Monterey Park had been hosting the Monterey Park Lunar New Year Festival this weekend, marking the beginning of the Chinese lunar calendar. The annual two-day street festival is widely attended, with previous celebrations drawing as many as 100,000 daily visitors, according to the city. More than 65% of Monterey Park’s about 60,000 residents identify as Asian American, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.
The Sheriff’s Department said the shooting erupted around 10:22 p.m. on West Garvey Avenue, near the downtown less than a block from where the festival was being held.
The gunman opened fire shortly after entering a dance hall, where people had been celebrating the holiday, police said. It was unclear what type of weapon he used, but Luna said detectives do not believe an assault weapon was involved.
Chaotic crime scene
Monterey Park Police Scott Wiese said his officers responded to reports of shots fired at the dance studio and described a chaotic scene with panicked people running out of the dance hall and gunshot victims lying in the parking lot.
Police in the nearby city of Alhambra were investigating an incident, which also occurred at a dance studio, that might be connected to the shooting, Luna said.
In the Alhambra incident, which occurred 17 minutes after the Monterey Park shooting, an Asian man entered the dance studio with a gun, and several people there wrestled the weapon away from him before he fled the scene. Luna said a white cargo van witnesses spotted at the Alhambra incident is a “van of interest” in the investigation.
“To have this tragedy occur on Lunar New Year weekend, makes this especially painful,” Alhambra Mayor Sasha Renée Pérez said in a Twitter post Sunday. “Monterey Park is home to one of the largest #AAPI communities in the country. This is a time when residents should be celebrating with family, friends and loved ones – not fearing gun violence.”
In a statement Sunday morning, the city of Monterey Park clarified that the shooting did not occur at the Lunar New Year Festival but at the dance studio near the festival that was not connected to the festivities. Officials said Saturday’s festival events were scheduled to finish at 9 p.m.
City officials said all festival activities for Sunday have been canceled.
“Even though the incident did not occur at the 2023 Lunar New Year Festival, an active investigation is currently underway and the area near and around the festival is affected. As a precaution and for the safety of everyone, the City regrets to announce the cancellation of the second day of the festival,” city officials said in a statement.
The L.A. County Sheriff’s Department said it would lead the investigation, after earlier saying it would assist Monterey Park Police. The FBI said it had responded to the scene to assist.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom released a statement on Twitter condemning the attack.
“Monterey Park should have had a night of joyful celebration of the Lunar New Year. Instead, they were the victims of a horrific and heartless act of gun violence,” Newsom tweeted. “Our hearts mourn as we learn more about the devastating acts of last night. We are monitoring the situation closely.”
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates. ABC News’ Vanessa Navarrete contributed to this report.
(FLORIDA) — Police are “currently negotiating” with a woman who allegedly shot her terminally ill husband in his Florida hospital room on Saturday, authorities said.
The Daytona Beach Police Department said midday Saturday that it had responded to a shooting at Advent Health Hospital.
Staff and patients have been removed from the area, our shooter is contained. https://t.co/iShIobchOu
(NEW YORK) — Massachusetts man Brian Walshe appeared in court this week on charges he allegedly killed and dismembered his missing wife, Ana Walshe. The case echoes other high-profile cases in recent years involving husbands allegedly killing their wives.
Prosecutors accused Walshe of making incriminating Google searches including “10 ways to dispose of a dead body if you really need to” and “can you be charged with murder without a body.”
Walshe’s alleged Google searches also included, “what’s the best state to divorce.”
Walshe has pleaded not guilty to murder and improper transport of a body.
About 34% of the women killed in the U.S. in 2021 died at the hands of an intimate partner, according to the Bureau of Justice statistics. Only about 6% of the men killed in the U.S. in 2021 died from intimate partner homicide.
What are the reasons behind why some husbands kill their wives?
Premeditated vs. spontaneous
Former FBI agent and ABC News contributor Brad Garrett notes two types of domestic homicide: premeditated and spontaneous.
“The spontaneous ones are people who probably have a history of abusing their spouse,” Garrett said. They “may have alcohol or drug dependency issues [or] raging jealousy issues” and end up killing their spouse in a “fit of rage,” he said.
As for the premeditated homicides, motives are often jealousy or greed. For example, they may “become enraged because their wives have become so successful,” Garrett said.
Premeditated homicides are often poorly planned, Garrett said, because “they’re so driven by getting rid of their partner, that they actually don’t even think through the logical things like, ‘My cellphone can be tracked.'”
Control
To Kiersten Stewart, director of public policy and advocacy at nonprofit Futures Without Violence, the core of domestic violence is power and control.
And domestic violence also includes emotional abuse and sexual abuse, she noted.
“If your partner is really possessive…wants to control who you talk to, what you wear, where you go…that’s a red flag,” she said.
If the husband feels like he’s losing control — for example, if he lost his job or his spouse is giving attention to someone else — the wife may feel like he is trying to control her and start to pull away. That’s often when domestic violence will start, Garrett warned.
Domestic homicide remains a threat if the couple has separated, according to Garrett and Stewart.
After a separation, “the abuser is still carrying all of this anger, revenge, resentment baggage,” Garrett explained.
“If possession and control is one of your triggers,” he said, during a divorce “you see even more things disappearing and you have even less control over what happens.”
Personality
When it comes to domestic homicide offenders’ personalities, they are usually narcissistic and anti-social, according to Garrett.
“In particular, with the ones that are planned, you’re really talking about anti-social personalities,” he said. “It’s all about fulfilling their needs and nothing else matters.”
Walshe, for instance, is accused of dismembering his missing wife; dismembering the mother of his three children would be “such a huge step beyond just killing somebody,” Garrett said.
Walshe’s defense attorney, Tracy Miner, told ABC News in a statement Friday: “It is easy to charge a crime and even easier to say a person committed that crime. It is a much more difficult thing to prove it, which we will see if the prosecution can do. I am not going to comment on the evidence, first because I am going to try this case in the court and not in the media. Second, because I haven’t been provided with any evidence by the prosecution. We shall see what they have and what evidence is admissible in court, where the case will ultimately be decided.”
The personality of domestic homicide suspects is also a “complicated mix of how they were raised and their relationship with women,” Garrett said. “Do they view women as their property? Did they get really no emotional support growing up?”
For example, he said, a wife achieving success in her career or finding a new partner can “drive these guys into a fit — that either can be spontaneous or planned.”
But psychological reasons behind a domestic homicide are still complex, Garrett noted, stressing that mental health and drug use can be factors.
‘Take care of yourself first’
Domestic homicides also extend to dating relationships.
After a nationwide search for missing travel blogger Gabby Petito in 2021, her boyfriend, Brian Laundrie, admitted in a notebook that he killed her.
Petito, who was killed by strangulation, was found in a national park in Wyoming. Laundrie later died by suicide in Florida.
Petito’s father, Joseph Petito said at her funeral, “If there is a relationship that you’re in that might not be the best thing for you, leave it now. Take care of yourself first.”
How to get help
“Some people don’t always know it’s abuse at first,” Stewart explained. “Usually abusers don’t come with a giant sign.”
“It’s usually somebody you cared about…and the behavior starts to escalate,” she said.
“We know that many men who abuse their partners may themselves have grown up in abusive homes,” Stewart said. In those cases, she said, the victim may show them sympathy, excuse the behavior and not view it as dangerous.
Domestic violence overall is “unbelievably underreported,” Garrett noted. “The person being abused has to figure out a way to report what’s going on.”
Stewart encourages domestic violence victims to contact the National Domestic Violence Hotline for help developing a safety plan and finding local resources.
And Garrett stressed that anyone in an abusive domestic situation should notify police and friends if there are guns in the house. An average of 70 women in the U.S. are shot and killed by an intimate partner each month, according to Everytown for Gun Safety.
Stewart believes preventing domestic violence is everyone’s responsibility.
“When we think about domestic violence, it really starts in adulthood,” she said. “So we’re really asking…everybody in the community to start talking to younger people in your lives about how to build healthy relationships. And when you see behavior that’s not OK, to speak up.”
She added, “We’d so much rather have a conversation with a 14-year-old than be burying a 34-year-old.”
The National Domestic Violence Hotline is available 24/7 for confidential support at 1-800-799-SAFE. You can click here for more information on identifying abuse, click here for help creating a safety plan, and click here to find local resources.
(NEW YORK) — They were designed to help people keep track of their valuables, devices and other products – but some claim that Apple AirTags have been used to track people.
Reports of people using the quarter-size tracking device to allegedly stalk others have arisen since AirTags’s product launch in April 2021 and have led to calls for the tech giant to review its security measures.
“When you’re selling a cheap, ubiquitous tracking device, the product is the problem. It really is a question of are you going to stop selling this before more people get hurt?” Albert Fox Cahn, the executive director of the Surveillance Technology Oversight Project, told “Nightline.”
When AirTags have been paired to a user’s iOS device, that user can track the location of their own AirTag using their phone. In June 2021, Apple updated their existing security measures so that a user’s phone would more precisely notify them if an unknown AirTag was moving with them, emitting a sound within 24 hours, updated from three days.
There have been reports of people finding someone else’s AirTags in their purses, backpacks, coats and other belongings. In December of 2022, two women filed a class-action lawsuit in California, claiming the product made it easier for them to be stalked and harassed by abusers.
In June 2022, an Indianapolis man was allegedly killed by an ex-girlfriend who police say used an AirTag to track him down. The family of Andre Smith, 26, has called for reform, citing the incident; Marion County police say Smith’s ex-girlfriend, Gaylyn Morris, placed an AirTag in the back of Smith’s car and followed him without his knowledge. Morris has pled not guilty to a murder charge and is awaiting trial.
LaPrecia Sanders, Smith’s mother, told “Nightline,” that after police let them take Smith’s car home, the family’s older son ripped out the seat of the car and found the tracker.
“That night of his murder, the young lady that was in the car with him, she told me and my family that Andre had told her, ‘Somebody’s following us,’ and he kept lookin’ at his phone,” Sanders told “Nightline.” “They were looking around the car, but they just couldn’t find the Apple AirTag.”
Smith’s story is one of many cases of former partners allegedly using the tracker on unsuspecting victims.
Lauren Hughes told “Nightline” that she too found an AirTag in her car after she broke up with a boyfriend.
“Even though my phone told me when it was moving with me, I had no idea how long it had been there. And if he knew the neighborhood I lived in, or was looking at moving to, and that’s the scariest part about it,” she told “Nightline.”
Hughes is one of two named victims in the class action lawsuit that has been filed against Apple in California. The suit claims AirTags have been “the weapon of choice for stalkers and abusers” and charges the tech company with negligence, intrusion-upon-seclusion and product liability.
Apple told “Nightline” it couldn’t comment on the ongoing litigation. Last February it issued a statement that said “incidents of AirTag misuse are rare; however, each instance is one too many.”
“AirTag was designed to help people locate their personal belongings, not to track people or another person’s property, and we condemn in the strongest possible terms any malicious use of our products,” the statement said.
Gillian Wade, one of the attorneys who filed the suit, told “Nightline” that one of her clients found an AirTag placed under the wheel of her car and colored to match the vehicle’s color.
“If you get a notification that an AirTag traveling with you that isn’t yours, it is delayed. So it doesn’t happen immediately,” she told “Nightline.”
Although there are many AirTag users who have said the device has helped them track and recover lost valuables, Cahn and other tech safety watchdogs have reiterated that the device comes with a huge risk.
“To me, the convenience of being able to track your luggage isn’t worth putting other people at risk of potentially being assaulted or stalked,” he said.
(HARTFORD, Conn.) — A state representative wants to restore a piece of Connecticut’s pre-colonial history to one of its major water streams.
State Rep. Anthony Nolan introduced a bill this week in the state that would restore the Thames River to the Pequot River, named after the tribe that lived on the land for thousands of years.
Nolan told ABC News that his bill came as a request from constituents who were seeking more ways to honor the history of the state’s indigenous population in a bold way.
“It think it’s a big step forward. It’s an opportunity to see a visual of what they had,” Nolan told ABC News. “It will be on our signs [and] in our literature instead of things you have to seek out.”
The 15-mile river runs through several towns in eastern Connecticut including New London and Groton.
European colonists renamed the river in the 17th century, during the time when the Pequot tribe was being forced out of their lands.
“It wasn’t right,” Nolan said of the colonial name change. “And this is what I’m fighting for with them in mind.”
“Prior to European contact, the Pequots had approximately 8,000 members and inhabited 250 square miles,” according to the Mashantucket Pequot Tribal Nation’s website. “By 1774, a Colonial census indicated that there were 151 tribal members in residence at Mashantucket. By the early 1800s, there were between 30 and 40 as members moved away from the reservation seeking work.”
Nolan said he has spoken to members of the tribe and they were supportive of the project as were some of his state assembly colleagues.
He said he is planning on hosting a town hall to discuss the measure with constituents and others. Although Nolan said he’s seen some opposition in online postings, he reiterated that the bill isn’t aimed at taking away the history of the river, rather expanding on it by highlighting the state’s rich indigenous origins.
“We want it returned back to the people of the river,” he said.
(AURORA, Colo.) — Five Aurora, Colorado, first responders pleaded not guilty in an arraignment Friday on charges of manslaughter and criminally negligent homicide, among other counts, in the death of Elijah McClain.
McClain died in 2019 after being stopped by police, placed in a chokehold and injected with ketamine as a sedative.
The five defendants’ cases will be split into three separate proceedings, according to a Wednesday court order from Adams County District Court Judge Mark Douglas Warner.
Aurora police officers Nathan Woodyard and Randy Roedema, former officer Jason Rosenblatt and paramedics Jeremy Cooper and Lt. Peter Cichuniec were indicted on a total of 32 counts related to McClain’s violent arrest and death in August 2019.
Cooper and Cichuniec, who injected the ketamine, will be tried together.
“The paramedics, Cichuniec and Cooper, generally assert that the actions of the law enforcement officers occurring prior to their arrival were factually unrelated to their actions implicated in their cases,” Warner wrote in the court order.
Rosenblatt and Roedema, who helped to restrain McClain, will also be tried together. Woodyard will be tried separately because he was first on the scene and allegedly placed McClain in the carotid hold, according to the court order.
“The Court well understands the legal theory of complicity. Nonetheless, the Court finds that under the particular facts as alleged in this case warrant severance of trials,” the order read.
McClain, a Black 23-year-old massage therapist, died following an encounter with police in August 2019 while he was walking home from a convenience store.
A passerby had called 911 to report McClain was acting “sketchy” since he was wearing a ski mask on a warm night. The lawyer for the McClain family attributed this to the fact that McClain was anemic, which made him feel cold more easily.
Aurora police officers responded to the scene and confronted McClain.
An officer can be heard saying in body camera footage that they put him into a carotid chokehold, which restricts the carotid artery and cuts off blood to the brain, according to the Department of Justice.
McClain can be heard saying, “I can’t breathe,” in police body camera footage.
Paramedics arrived, giving McClain an “excessive” dose of ketamine, according to McCain’s lawyer, and McClain suffered from cardiac arrest in an ambulance shortly afterward, according to officials. McClain was pronounced dead three days later.
The cause of death was listed in an amended autopsy report as “complications of ketamine administration following forcible restraint.”
“The investigation suggests that [McClain] received an intramuscular dose of ketamine that was higher than recommended for his weight,” according to the report from Adams County Chief Coroner Monica Broncucia-Jordan.
It continued, “Further, my review of all the body camera footage shows that Mr. McClain was extremely sedated within minutes of receiving a shot of ketamine. When he was placed on a stretcher, I believe he was displaying agonal breathing and respiratory arrest was imminent.”
“I believe that Mr. McClain would most likely be alive but for the administration of ketamine,” the report read.
