(NEW YORK) — A massive storm is bringing blizzard conditions and icy roads to the U.S. right as the holiday travel rush gets underway.
Over 3,200 flights are canceled within, into or out of the U.S. so far on Friday.
States of emergency have been declared from South Dakota to New York. At least 750,000 customers are without power across the U.S.
“This is really a very serious weather alert,” President Joe Biden warned Thursday. “Please take this storm extremely seriously.”
Here’s the latest forecast:
The storm barreled across the Midwest and Great Lakes on Thursday.
Blizzard conditions will continue in the Great Lakes into Friday. The blowing snow will cause very low visibility, making travel nearly impossible.
Several feet of snow could drop in Michigan and western New York.
Only a few inches of snow is expected for the rest of the Midwest. But the combination of the snow, wind and brutal cold will make travel extremely dangerous throughout the day Friday.
The Illinois State Police is urging people to stay home.
“The snow, wind and bitter cold are headed our way creating hazardous roadway,” the police tweeted. “If you must travel because of an emergency, please slow down, remain vigilant, and Don’t Crowd the Plow!”
Meanwhile, heavy rain invaded the Northeast Thursday, flooding roads from Virginia to New York. As the temperature plunges on Friday, roads could turn to ice, so those hitting the road for the holidays should use extreme caution.
(NEW YORK) — A collection of images exclusively obtained by ABC News details what law enforcement says are the recruitment and transportation tactics used by human smugglers to help move migrants across the southwest border and through U.S. cities.
The screen-captured images, provided by Homeland Security Investigations (HSI), show suspected smuggling organizers posting what are essentially recruitment ads asking for “serious drivers” in states along the border and portray the task as a test of manhood.
Investigators said these tactics are aimed at recruiting young people in often rural areas looking to make some quick cash.
Multiple ads, as seen in the images, show large stacks of cash and claim to be offering drivers as much as $10,000 to drive between various places in Texas including Eagle Pass, San Antonio, Dallas and Austin.
“We’ve seen a very disturbing trend over the past few years — it’s the use of social media to recruit young people,” HSI lead agent Craig Larrabee told ABC News. “Young people on social media in big cities, whether it be Dallas or San Antonio or Austin — recruited on social media … they’re told to go out into places they’ve never been in very difficult situations on ranches and desolate roads and told to pick up people and drive them north.”
Larrabee said law enforcement often finds mangled vehicles crashed on the side of poorly lit back roads.
“If approached by law enforcement, they’re often told to try to flee and that’s disastrous too,” Larrabee said. “These kids are young, maybe first-year drivers — sometimes they don’t even have a driver’s license. But they certainly very often do not have experience driving on ranch roads.”
Human smuggling investigations require hundreds of hours and a deep dive into what are often vast networks of organized criminals seeking to exploit migrants, Larrabee said. As the HSI special agent in charge for San Antonio, Larrabee oversees the largest single region in the country for investigating human smuggling, which includes 500 miles of Texas-Mexico border.
HSI, a division of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), is the country’s principal agency for tracking down smugglers and delivering justice and helping those who find themselves in the throes of illicit operations run by transnational criminal organizations with immense resources. The government believes the stakes have never been higher for ICE HSI as the Biden administration attempts to reign in illegal immigration across the southwest while protecting victims fleeing persecution.
The scope and sophistication of smuggling operations has ramped up exponentially in recent years, according to Homeland Security officials. Fifteen to 20 years ago it was common to find family-operated smuggling rings charging $2,000-3000 per migrant, Larrabee said. But now, much larger organizations are charging upwards of $8,000.
“That’s a huge amount of money,” Larrabee said. “Now, that money is spread out among many different people in the organization — but those numbers continue to go up depending on where you’re coming from too.”
Larrabee said the scale of individual smuggling attempts has increased, with drivers using tractor trailers to move large groups of people at one time.
“If you can put 200 people in the back of a tractor trailer in one run, that’s gonna make you a lot more money [than] to try to find multiple drivers and smaller vehicles, which may be safer in some cases,” Larrabee said.
ICE HSI, along with a variety of law enforcement partners, is responsible for investigating the San Antonio tractor trailer incident earlier this year where 53 people were found dead.
Authorities said it was the largest mass casualty incident ever connected to human smuggling in the U.S. Multiple people have since been charged.
While details remain limited due to the ongoing nature of the investigation, Larrabee said, investigators employ a victim-centered approach when sorting out the level of complicity within a human smuggling scheme. Though migrants may initially agree and pay smugglers to transport them, they are often exploited or physically harmed along the way.
“It’s not always obvious,” he said. “But our approach is to make sure that we’re looking for victims.”
Additional photos and body camera images obtained by ABC News show a thwarted smuggling effort in which 41 migrants were found at a truck stop in San Antonio last year. As non-citizens, all 41 were arrested and processed by Homeland Security officials.
(GRAND JUNCTION, Colo.) — A Colorado nurse was arrested in October for allegedly sexually assaulting patients and documenting the abuse in cellphone videos and photos. Now, two of his alleged victims are suing his former employer for negligence, claiming the hospital should have known about the alleged misconduct.
Christopher Lambros, 61, was arrested on Oct. 25 on suspicion of sexual assault following a months-long investigation that began after a colleague reported seeing the former nurse at St. Mary’s Medical Center in Grand Junction appear to take a “selfie” with a nearly naked female patient, according to a police affidavit.
Detectives said at the time there appeared to be at least three victims, based on photographs and videos found on Lambros’ phone. During a hearing last month, prosecutors said they believe there may be a fourth victim dating back to an incident in March 2016.
Two of Lambros’ alleged victims filed a lawsuit in Mesa County District Court this week against St. Mary’s Medical Center and its parent companies, SCL Health and Intermountain Healthcare. The class-action complaint alleges there could be hundreds, if not thousands, of victims during Lambros’ decade-long tenure at the hospital, and said that investigators recovered four terabytes of data from Lambros’ devices.
He is being represented by an attorney from the Colorado public defender office, which does not comment on criminal cases.
That amount of data is “something like 65,000 hours of cellphone footage or 700,000 cellphone photos,” Omeed Azmoudeh, one of the attorneys representing the plaintiffs, told ABC Denver affiliate KMGH-TV.
In one video from June 24, police said Lambros can be heard whispering to the camera, “Don’t ever get rid of these videos,” and “You need to keep them forever … this is your Dexter collection” — an apparent reference to the TV series about a serial killer, the complaint noted.
“That confirms that nurse Lambros has maintained a very long and large collection of what he believes to be trophies. And what they really are are scars, scars on our patients,” Azmoudeh told KMGH.
Both plaintiffs, who are identified by their initials due to the sensitive nature of the case, allege that Lambros drugged and then sexually assaulted them while they were patients at St. Mary’s Medical Center over the summer.
One of the plaintiffs, M.C., said she was assaulted on July 9 — the day police say a colleague reported Lambros to a supervisor.
“I was his last victim. And thank God for the nurse that walked in on him,” M.C. told KMGH. “She’s my guardian angel right now.”
The complaint alleges that Lambros drugged and assaulted the second plaintiff, J.V., on several occasions while she was in the hospital’s intensive care unit in late June and early July. After regaining consciousness, J.V. told hospital employees and family members that Lambros “‘was a bad man,’ or something to that effect,” according to the complaint.
“I will never know what happened to me exactly,” J.V. told KMGH. “But yes, there were photos and videos. That’s how they identified me.”
The lawsuit, which is seeking unspecified damages, alleges the hospital “knew or should have known of Lambros’ misconduct” due to patients under his care being unconscious for “no legitimate medical purpose” and because there was a surveillance camera in M.C.’s room, among other reasons.
After the July 9 incident, the hospital placed Lambros on administrative leave, removed his access to the hospital and reported the matter to law enforcement, Intermountain Healthcare said. He was fired following his arrest.
“What this former nurse is accused of is reprehensible and goes against everything we believe and value at St. Mary’s Medical Center. Patients put their trust in us and should feel safe in our care,” Bryan Johnson, president of St. Mary’s Medical Center, said in a statement this week in response to the lawsuit. “We are working closely with law enforcement to protect our patients from those who intend to cause harm. We are doing everything possible to ensure our patients continue to feel safe and respected while receiving care at St. Mary’s Medical Center.”
Intermountain Healthcare said it cannot offer further details on the matter “out of respect for patient privacy.”
When confronted by police in July, Lambros reportedly denied taking pictures with patients and claimed he was administering an injection for blood clots when the colleague walked in on him, according to the affidavit.
Lambros faces multiple sexual assault charges. He is currently being held on $1 million bond and is due back in court on Jan. 13, 2023, for a review hearing.
(NEW YORK) — As parts of the country are bracing for a frigid forecast, residents are advised to be on the lookout for turtles, pelicans and other animals impacted by the unseasonably freezing temperatures.
Texas is forecast to see single-digit temperatures into Friday morning. With the extreme cold Thursday night and Friday, sea turtles could become cold-stunned, where they could wash up and become stranded along the shores or be unable to avoid watercraft, David Reese, a meteorologist from the National Weather Service in Brownsville, Texas, told ABC News.
In extreme cold, turtles experience hypothermia and can no longer move or keep their heads above water. Once they are stunned, it is critical for their survival to remove them from the water or they will drown.
In February 2021, when southern Texas experienced record cold, thousands of endangered turtles had to be rescued from South Padre Island.
Ahead of the cold temperatures this week, the National Weather Service in Brownsville advised residents heading out to South Padre Island to report any stranded or cold-stunned sea turtles to an emergency hotline.
The agency also warned residents to be on the lookout for pelicans, which also struggle with chilly weather and gusty winds. They often land on coastal roadways and bridges when temperatures drop below 30 to 40 degrees and winds increase above 20 mph and “do not avoid oncoming traffic well,” it said.
Fish stocks in Texas’ bays and estuaries are also vulnerable to the extreme cold, with a hard freeze likely to game fish or make them easier to capture. During the February 2021 freeze, an estimated 3.8 million fish were killed on the Texas coast, according to the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department.
In response to the current forecast, the department has issued a temporary closure to saltwater fishing along parts of the coast, effective Saturday, to “protect resources during the upcoming freezing weather conditions,” while advising anglers and coastal residents to report any freeze-related fish kills or cold-stunned fish.
“The high mortality that a freeze can cause may deplete fish stocks for years,” Robin Riechers, director of the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department’s Coastal Fisheries Division, said in a statement Thursday. “Protection of the surviving fish during the few days when they are especially vulnerable to capture would likely shorten the time period for overall recovery of coastal species, especially spotted seatrout.”
Elsewhere, the Maryland Department of Natural Resources is asking visitors to the Chesapeake Bay, the largest estuary in the U.S., to be on the lookout for sea turtles and marine mammals that may be showing signs of cold-stunning.
“While cold-stunning is a natural occurrence, reporting incidents can help protect these animals and the public,” Amanda Weschler, coordinator of Maryland’s Marine Mammal and Sea Turtle Stranding Response Program, said in a statement Wednesday.
The East Coast is forecast to get hit with a blast of cold air by Saturday morning, when dangerously cold wind chills will make it feel like it is below zero.
Farther south, Southern Florida could also see unseasonably chilly temperatures this weekend — which could mean cold-stunned iguanas falling from trees. The phenomenon is possible when temperatures drop into the 30s and 40s, according to the National Weather Service.
Images of fallen iguanas flooded social media in January 2020, when lows hit the 30s and 40s in the Miami area. The National Weather Service in Miami even issued an advisory at the time on the possibility of falling iguanas — and to let residents know the invasive lizards are not dead but immobile.
This weekend, parts of southern Florida, around Lake Okeechobee, could see temperatures drop into the low to middle 30s, with winds making it feel like it’s in the upper 20s to lower 30s. Elsewhere in the region, lows in the 40s are possible.
“There could be some sites that meet the iguana danger criteria,” Nick Carr, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service office in Miami, told The Palm Beach Post.
(ALBUQUERQUE, N.M.) — The American Civil Liberties Union of New Mexico is suing the city of Albuquerque over its treatment of the city’s homeless population.
Attorneys from the law firm of Ives and Flores, the ACLU-NM and the New Mexico Center on Law and Poverty (NMCLP) filed suit Monday, accusing the state’s largest city of illegally destroying property and encampments for the homeless, as well as jailing and fining them.
“They’re criminalizing those residents, fining them for existing in public spaces and they are also taking their property [that they] need to function within our society and to hopefully transition out of homelessness,” Laura Ives, partner at the law firm of Ives and Flores, told ABC News.
Albuquerque has gotten rid of tents, bed rolls, shopping carts, identification cards and even birth certificates, all things that can help people escape homeless, Ives said.
The ACLU said that the city closed Coronado Park, a place where homeless New Mexicans could sleep at night, by fencing it off, ultimately forcing those staying at the park to leave and got rid of their belongings, according to the suit.
“Unhoused people in Albuquerque make up the city’s most vulnerable population,” the lawsuit reads. “Subject to the harms and indignities of abject poverty, many unhoused people live outdoors, exposed to the extremes of Albuquerque’s climate, to hunger, thirst and to the constant fears and worries that accompany being unsheltered.”
There aren’t enough shelter spaces in Albuquerque for even close to every homeless person to go to the shelters, Ives said, describing the conditions at the shelters as “inhumane.”
The City of Albuquerque did not respond to ABC News’ request for comment.
Albuquerque Mayor Tim Keller announced in July that the city would revisit its policies addressing homelessness and the encampments.
Albuquerque has designated lots or partial lots that has space for tents, recreational vehicles, and/or light vehicles and can offer social services and support facilities as Safe Outdoor Spaces(SOS).
The city doesn’t consider Coronado Park as an SOS because those spaces cannot be located in parks, according to the city.
Individuals experiencing homelessness in Albuquerque have declined in the last 22 years, according to data from the New Mexico Coalition to End Homelessness (NMCEH). In 2000, about 2,002 homeless people were living in the city. As of Jan. 31, 2022, that figure sits at 1,311, according to a recent report by NMCEH.
In the first quarter of 2022, rent in Albuquerque increased between 10% and 19.9%, according to the ACLU.
“The housing crisis impacts everyone, but disproportionately hurts people with mental health and other disabilities,” Maria Griego, director of economic equity at NMCLP, said in an ACLU press release. “Being forced to move and having belongings confiscated increases instability, making it even harder to find work, get medications, see a social worker, or find permanent housing.”
(INDIANAPOLIS, Ind.) — A missing 5-month-old boy was found safe in the car he was apparently stolen in, police said Thursday, after three days.
Nalah Jackson, 24, the suspect sought in the kidnapping, was taken into custody Thursday in Indianapolis, Indiana, police said hours earlier.
Kason Thomass was found near a Papa Johns in Indianapolis, police said, adding that the “5-month-old boy is in good health & being transported to a hospital to be checked out.”
The search for Kason was launched Monday night after a homeless woman allegedly stole his mom’s running 2010 Honda Accord in Columbus, Ohio. Kason and his twin, Kyair, were inside the vehicle while their mom stepped away to pick up a food order, police said.
Kyair was found around 4:40 a.m. Tuesday abandoned at the Dayton International Airport, more than 70 miles from Columbus. Surveillance cameras captured Jackson allegedly abandoning Kyair in his car seat in a parking lot at the Dayton airport, authorities said.
Police identified Jackson as the suspected car thief and initially said investigators believed she still had Kason in her possession. Columbus Police Chief Elaine Bryant said witnesses told police Jackson was seated inside the restaurant when the mother walked in.
Jackson was taken into custody in Indianapolis around 2 p.m. local time Thursday, Columbus police said. Kason, who was last seen wearing a brown onesie, was not with Jackson at the time of her arrest, according to Bryant.
Police had received tips earlier Thursday that Jackson may have been spotted in Indianapolis. A person believed to be Jackson was stopped by police Thursday afternoon in the city and was positively identified through fingerprints an hour later, police said.
Jackson has been charged with two counts of kidnapping and is currently being questioned by police, Bryant said.
“We are relieved to have located the suspect, and it takes us one step closer to locating Kason,” Bryant told reporters during a briefing Thursday early evening. “But we will not stop searching until he is brought home safely.”
The FBI assisted in the search for Kason, providing personnel and technology.
Amid the search for Kason, Dion Green, who survived a 2019 mass shooting in Dayton, Ohio, that claimed the life of his father, established a $10,000 reward for the baby’s safe return.
“I hope and pray that this baby is found safe and that we can get him back home to his mother,” Green said in a Facebook post on Wednesday announcing the reward.
On Aug. 4, 2019, Green was out with his father, Derrick Fudge, in Dayton’s Oregon District when a 24-year-old man went on a shooting rampage, killing nine people, including Fudge, and wounding dozens more. In the aftermath of the massacre, Green founded the Fudge Foundation to help individuals impacted directly and indirectly by mass shootings, violence, human trafficking, domestic abuse and other forms of trauma.
“My main concern is the child,” Green told ABC affiliate station WSYS in Columbus. “I just want to get the baby and make sure we get him returned back home safely.”
(NEW YORK) — Break out the gloves and hats: bitter cold is moving in, bringing what could be the coldest Christmas in decades for parts of the U.S.
On Friday morning, the wind chill — what temperature it feels like — is forecast to fall to minus 6 degrees in Dallas and 1 degree in Houston. This will mark the coldest air mass for the Rio Grande River since the late 1980s.
On Saturday morning the wind chill will plunge to a bone-chilling minus 15 degrees in New York City, minus 32 degrees in Chicago and minus 39 degrees in Minneapolis. On Christmas Eve, the wind chill is forecast to clock in at minus 10 degrees in New York and minus 1 degree in Nashville.
Here is your cheat sheet for how to brave the frigid weather:
How to keep pipes from freezing
Keep the temperature in your home consistent during the day and night, the Red Cross advised. If you’re leaving home for the holidays, keep the heat on with the temperature set at a minimum of 55 degrees.
Prop open the cabinet doors in your kitchen and bathroom so warmer air can circulate around the plumbing, according to the Red Cross — just make sure to move any chemicals so children can reach them.
Keep your garage door closed if there are water supply lines inside, the Red Cross said.
You can also let the water drip, even at a trickle, from the faucet connected to exposed pipes, according to the Red Cross.
How to stay safe outside
Those with prolonged exposure or those not dressed appropriately for the weather are in danger of frostbite and hypothermia, National Weather Service meteorologist Jay Engle told ABC News.
Frostbite results in the loss of feeling and color in affected areas — usually the nose, ears, cheeks, fingers, toes or chin, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Frostbite could potentially cause permanent damage and, in severe cases, can lead to amputation, the CDC said.
Someone suffering from frostbite can be unaware of it because tissues that become frozen are numb, the CDC said. These are all signs of frostbite: numbness, white or grayish-yellow skin, or skin that feels unusually firm or waxy.
“Don’t rub your hands — if you have frost-nip or frostbite, rubbing actually causes tissue damage,” Dr. Randall Wexler, professor of family medicine at Ohio State University, told ABC News.
If you think you are developing frostbite, “keep the area covered if you can … because if you have frostbite on your hand and you pull off your glove, you may cause tissue damage,” Wexler said.
He added, “That’s also when you want to start trying to raise your core body temperature — get rid of wet clothes, put on clothes that are warm and dry.”
There’s also hypothermia — or abnormally low body temperature — which can impact the brain, “making the victim unable to think clearly or move well,” the CDC said. “This makes hypothermia especially dangerous because a person may not know that it’s happening and won’t be able to do anything about it.”
Warning signs for adults are shivering, exhaustion, confusion, fumbling hands, memory loss, slurred speech and drowsiness. Warning signs for infants are bright red or cold skin and very low energy, the CDC said.
Engle recommends to “dress in three or more layers. One big thick winter coat tends not to do the trick. You have to have a thick sweater underneath and then a lighter jacket on top of that and then your winter coat.”
“People really should keep their heads covered because that’s where majority of heat gets lost,” Engle added.
Wexler said moving can generate heat. But try to avoid sweating.
“If you are overheated and start to sweat, that lowers your body temperature and makes you more susceptible to cold injury,” he said. “You want to be able to adjust your layers, zip and unzip.”
Wexler also recommended staying hydrated because “dehydration can help promote cold injury.”
The young and elderly should be especially careful in the cold.
“Their ability to maintain core body temperature is harder than mid-age and younger adults,” he said. “Kids, especially babies, lose a disproportionate amount of heat from their head — that’s why you want to have a hat on their head when you’re out there. Older people are more at risk simply because it is more difficult to regulate our core body temperature as we get older.”
It’s also more difficult to maintain your core temperature if you are diabetic or taking decongestant antihistamines or certain blood pressure medications, Wexler said.
How to keep your car safe
When the temperature dips, getting behind the wheel can prove to be a challenge. Problems include dead car batteries, iced-over windshields, broken car locks and driving with no traction.
Audra Fordin, founder of Woman Auto Know and the owner of Great Bear Auto Repair in Queens, New York, provided these tips:
1. Before you hit the road, check under the hood.
“If it’s really cold outside, you want to make sure that your battery is going to be good in the freezing cold weather,” Fordin said. “If you see any snow or blue stuff that’s growing off your battery, that’s an indication you want to go to the shop to have your battery checked.”
2. Iced out windshields? Turn to your wallet for help.
“If you get to your car and can’t see, pull out a credit card, and you can just wipe that frost away,” Fordin said.
3. Fighting a stubborn car lock? Get sanitizing.
“If your lock is frozen, put the sanitizer on the key, and then put the key into the lock,” Fordin said.
4. If your car can’t gain traction, let your floor mat give an assist.
“Grab your floor mat, you’re going to put it underneath the wheel,” Fordin said. “That will give you enough traction to pull your car out and hit the road.”
This story was originally published in the winter of 2017 – 2018.
(NEW YORK) — A massive storm bringing heavy snow and blizzard conditions is hitting the U.S. right as the holiday travel rush gets underway.
Over 2,200 flights are canceled in the U.S. so far on Thursday. Chicago and Denver are seeing the most cancellations.
Blizzard warnings are in effect in the Dakotas, Minneapolis, Des Moines, Grand Rapids and Buffalo.
Philadelphia schools will be closed on Friday due to the weather.
“This is really a very serious weather alert,” President Joe Biden warned Thursday. “Please take this storm extremely seriously.”
Here’s the latest forecast:
The storm is barreling across the Midwest and Great Lakes on Thursday.
St. Louis, Chicago, Indiana and Michigan will see the brunt of the blinding snow and high winds.
Although only a few inches of snow is expected for most of the Midwest, the combination of the snow, wind and brutal cold will make travel extremely dangerous. Michigan could see the most snow, with 1 foot possible in some areas.
The Illinois State Police is urging people to stay home.
“The snow, wind and bitter cold are headed our way creating hazardous roadways today and tomorrow,” police tweeted Thursday. “If you must travel because of an emergency, please slow down, remain vigilant, and Don’t Crowd the Plow!”
Bombogenesis — or a “bomb cyclone” — is forecast Thursday night into Friday when the storm rapidly strengthens over the Great Lakes.
Blizzard conditions will continue in the Great Lakes into Friday. The blowing snow will cause very low visibility making travel nearly impossible.
Heavy rain will invade the Northeast starting Thursday afternoon, causing a dangerous travel day.
The worst of the heavy rain will hit the Northeast late Thursday night and extend overnight.
A flood watch has been issued for Washington, D.C., Philadelphia, Albany, New York, and Portland, Maine, where some areas could see 2 to 4 inches of rain in a short period of time.
The strongest winds will arrive in the Northeast Friday morning, with winds gusts possibly topping 60 mph. The pounding winds could cause widespread power outages and major airport delays.
(WASHINGTON) — Two Washington, D.C., police officers were found guilty in the death of Karon Hylton-Brown during a police pursuit.
On Oct. 23, 2020, Hylton-Brown was driving an electric scooter without a helmet on a sidewalk when two Metropolitan police officers attempted to stop Hylton-Brown.
Body camera footage released by the MPD shows officers following Hylton-Brown down an alleyway, where he is hit by a civilian’s car as Hylton-Brown turned onto a busy street during the chase.
He died at a hospital a few days later, according to officials.
The officer who led the chase, Terence Sutton, was found guilty of second-degree murder, conspiracy to obstruct and obstruction of justice in a federal district court on Wednesday.
The officer who drove the second vehicle, Andrew Zabavsky, was found guilty of conspiracy to obstruct and obstruction of justice.
Wednesday’s verdict reportedly marks the first time that an on-duty police officer has been charged and convicted of murder in the District of Columbia.
Sutton had allegedly turned off his lights and sirens as he sped up behind Hylton-Brown, according to the indictment of the two officers.
The charging documents also said that neither Sutton nor Zabavsky made any officials in the MPD chain of command aware about Hylton-Brown’s injuries, which delayed notification to the internal affairs division in charge of making formal referrals to federal authorities responsible for launching civil rights investigations.
Neither of the officers took steps to collect evidence or preserve the scene and roughly 20 minutes after the crash both officers allegedly deactivated their body-worn cameras to speak privately to each other, according to the charging documents.
After departing the scene of the crash, Sutton and Zabavsky allegedly made misleading statements describing their pursuit of Hylton-Brown and made no mention of his serious injuries, significantly delaying an investigation into their conduct.
Both officers pled not guilty. Sutton’s attorney, Michael J. Hannon, said at his initial appearance in federal court that the officers believed Hylton-Brown was a member of a drug gang and was armed and dangerous, according to the Washington Post.
Sutton and Zabavsky’s attorneys did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
The death of Hylton-Brown was followed by days of protests outside the MPD’s 4th District station that resulted in clashes between activists and police in riot gear.
The D.C. Council this week passed legislation to limit police car chases. The measure, sponsored by council member Janeese Lewis George, would prohibit officers from chasing vehicles unless the occupants are suspected of being involved in a violent crime or if the pursuit would not risk death or bodily injury. The legislation would prohibit officers from roadblocking or ramming vehicles.
ABC News has reached out to Mayor Muriel Bowser’s office to see if she intends to sign the bill.
“The verdict today provides some closure after two years of what has been a difficult and emotional matter for our city,” said the Metropolitan Police Department in a statement. “We recognize that the loss of any life is tragic. As a Department, we will continue to review our policies and training, adjusting as necessary.”
According to MPD, both Sutton and Zabavsky have been on indefinite suspension without pay throughout the legal proceedings.
MPD will complete an internal investigation into this incident now that the trial has concluded, the department said in a statement.
(NEW YORK) — Sal, a U.S. Customs and Border Protection employee, was going through a difficult time in his life when he first started at the agency. His mother was being physically abused by her partner, he said — and that was the tipping point.
“So one day at work … I’m just pacing back and forth and I have a miserable look on my face,” Sal, who was not identified by his last name, said during a Customs and Border Protection (CBP) podcast in September 2021. “And someone overheard me say, ‘I want to eat my own gun.'”
His life was saved, he recalled, after a coworker noticed that he wasn’t doing well and called to check in on him. His supervisors came to his apartment and made the decision to take his firearm away, helping him get the help he needed.
He was put on light duty and was able to attend counseling sessions, with people who checked in on him regularly, he said.
On the CBP podcast, Sal said that he and others worried their personal struggles could be a professional liability.
“The big thing is a lot of officers, they think that if they get depressed or they’re going through a difficult time that they can lose their job or that they’re going to be embarrassed,” he said. “And the entire time, that wasn’t the case. If anything, my situation got 10 times better at work because of this.”
He called it a “silver lining.”
“You’re not going to lose your job because you’re going through a difficult time. And there is nothing to be embarrassed about because, I don’t care how much money you have or what your job is or, you know, anything that you do in life — everybody gets depressed. Whether you’re the president of the United States, the biggest rock star in the world, you’re a surgeon. It doesn’t matter,” he said last year. “Everybody gets depressed.”
Though Sal was saved from his crisis, this year saw the most Customs and Border Protection agents die by suicide since 2009 — a total of 14.
CBP Executive Assistant Commissioner Benjamine “Carry” Huffman told ABC News the situation was “concerning” and that he believes there isn’t one factor that’s contributing to the increase in suicides.
Both he and a doctor at the agency, however, highlighted problems with stigma around mental health and the need to encourage officers to get help.
“Law enforcement is a challenging profession,” Huffman said.
“The things that we face and things that we do on a day-to-day basis, that we ask our workforce to do, is very difficult. Whatever crisis the nation is facing, we face it first. Whether it’s this big surge of migrants, whether it’s dealing with the first contact with people with COVID or other disease or whatever is going on. We’re the ones that come see it first, and those things are all contributing factors,” he said.
Huffman said the agency is hoping to destigmatize seeking help when people aren’t feeling well enough to work, including if they are dealing with mental health issues — the very outreach that Sal said last year had helped him. Huffman said he has held 60 town halls over the past year with the CBP workforce.
“We have a culture of toughness,” he explained. “We ask our people to do dangerous things in dangerous places, go places where other people won’t go, do things they won’t do to keep Americans safe.”
The downside, he said, is that sometimes that toughness “deters” people from reaching out — something he said he is trying to change. When an agent breaks their leg or gets a physical injury, they go on leave to get better; and Huffman said there is no difference with mental health.
“If you have some sort of a mental crisis, we need to change the culture where we have that same thought process: You get the help you need to get it fixed, you get back from job and you’re good to go,” he said. “That’s the message we’re trying to say is it’s no different between those things — getting a physical injury or a mental injury — and treat them the same way and just have that same acceptance of your peers.”
The way the agency handled such issues in the past, he said, sometimes made the situation worse. Now, though, officials are trying to empower their officers.
Huffman said the influx of migrants along the southwest border isn’t going to impact the way CBP handles officer suicides, and they are offering the same help as they did before.
CBP is one of the only federal law enforcement agencies to have a suicidologist on staff. His name is Dr. Kent Corso.
“Culture change is by far the biggest challenge,” Corso told ABC News. “And some of the things we’re doing about that [are] we are hiring over a dozen operational psychologists. So these are specialists who are there to help consult with management, with employees. We have a new process in place, a policy that has come out of the commissioner’s office, that teaches managers how to slow the process down.”
When new recruits are at the academy, CBP officials work to make sure to let them know that it is OK to not be OK — part of the shift Corso and Huffman talked about.
Corso said the work environment is contributing to some of the challenges officers are facing.
“The last few years have been unprecedented,” he said, adding, “There are many changes going on. There is high unpredictability. And what we know from the psychology research is that when things become less predictable — that is to say, people perceive less control — it’s just more stressful. Add on to that the idea that everybody’s watching the border, it’s a bit of a fishbowl, if you will, that just makes things difficult.”
