(NEW YORK) — Four passengers were killed and another was hurt after a small plane crashed in Lavaca County, Texas, on Tuesday morning, the state’s Department of Public Safety said.
The injured survivor was taken south to a hospital in the nearby small city of Victoria.
Images from the wreck showed the remainder of the small single-engine plane lying in a flat grass field, surrounded by pieces of debris. More than 10 vehicles were visible near the taped-off site as officials stood over it in video filmed at the scene Tuesday.
Some residents living nearby said it was foggy in the area around 11 a.m. when the plane went down — crashing near county roads less than a mile from the Yoakum Municipal Airport in south central Texas. Yoakum, Texas, is a town of under 10,000 people located in between the four major cities of San Antonio, Austin, Houston and Corpus Christi.
Harvest Church in Germantown, Tennessee, posted online Tuesday afternoon identifying the victims as its members and asking for prayers. The Memphis-area church said Bill Garner, Steve Tucker, Tyler Patterson and Tyler Springer all died in the crash.
“All were beloved members of Harvest Church and their loss currently leaves us without the proper words to articulate our grief,” the church said, announcing its worship center would be open for prayer and mourning time Tuesday night.
The post said pastor Kennon Vaughan was the lone survivor taken to the hospital and he was in stable condition as of the last report.
The flight tracking website FlightAware showed the aircraft appeared to depart from Memphis International Airport hours before the crash and traveled round trip from Memphis to Dallas just days ago.
The National Transportation Safety Board released a statement Tuesday afternoon saying it is “investigating the Jan. 17, crash of a Piper PA-46-350P aircraft near Yoakum, Texas.”
The Federal Aviation Administration will investigate the crash as well.
(NEW YORK) — A fisherman is missing after he was reportedly pulled into the ocean when he hooked a “huge” ahi tuna off the coast of Hawaii.
The incident occurred at approximately 5 a.m. on Sunday morning when 63-year-old Mark Knittle of Captain Cook, Hawaii, was fishing with a friend on a boat near Hōnaunau on the west coast of the Island of Hawaii.
“Knittle and a friend were fishing near the ‘C’ buoy, four miles outside of the Hōnaunau Boat Ramp, when Knittle hooked an ahi,” the Hawaii Police Department in a statement detailing the accident. “The friend heard Knittle say, ‘the fish is huge,’ then saw Knittle go overboard into the water.”
Police say Knittle’s friend attempted to grab the line in an initial and unsuccessful attempt to save him.
“Knittle was seen on the surface and disappeared within seconds,” the Hawaii Police Department said. “The friend attempted to jump in after Knittle but could not see him anywhere.”
The Hawaii Fire Department and Coast Guard personnel were immediately dispatched and have been conducting a continuous 72-hour search for Knittle. Authorities have not disclosed whether any clues have been recovered during their search.
Knittle is described as 5’10” tall and weighs approximately 185 pounds. He has curly brown hair with a white mustache and beard. Police are asking anyone with any information regarding this incident to contact the Hawaii Police Department’s non-emergency line at (808) 935-3311.
The search and investigation for Knittle is ongoing.
(NEW YORK) — A polar bear chased down and killed a woman and a young boy when it entered a remote village community in Alaska before a resident was able to shoot and kill the bear during the attack.
The incident occurred at approximately 2:30 p.m. on Tuesday in Wales, Alaska — the westernmost point of the American mainland with an estimated population of about 170 people — when a polar bear reportedly entered the remote community, police said.
“Initial reports indicate that a polar bear had entered the community and had chased multiple residents,” according to a statement released by the Alaska Department of Public Safety on Tuesday in the aftermath of the attack. “The bear fatally attacked an adult female and juvenile male.”
The bear was shot and killed by a local resident as it attacked the victims, according to authorities.
Polar bear attacks are very rare but male polar bears can weigh anywhere from 600 to 1,200 pounds with female polar bears ranging between 400 and 700 pounds, according to the Alaska Department for Fish and Game. Their average life span is about 25 years.
“Current and predicted future declines in sea ice led the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to list polar bears as threatened under the ESA (Endangered Species Act) throughout their range,” according to the Alaska Department of Fish and Game. “Thinner ice and longer ice-free periods in summer may reduce the length of time polar bears have to hunt, and result in population declines.”
An investigation into the attack is ongoing as “troopers and the Alaska Department of Fish and Game are working to travel to Wales as weather conditions allow,” the Alaska Department of Public Safety confirmed.
The identities of the victims have not yet been confirmed and the next of kin notifications are still in progress.
(WASHINGTON) — The Justice Department said in a brief court filing Tuesday that it will not seek the death penalty in the case against the alleged shooter who killed 19 at an El Paso, Texas, Walmart in 2019.
The Justice Department did not say why it isn’t seeking the death penalty.
Patrick Crusius allegedly killed 23 in August 2019 at an El Paso Walmart and is facing state murder charges and federal hate crime charges.
Crusius was indicted by federal prosecutors in 2019 on 90 federal charges, including 22 counts of committing a hate crime resulting in death, 22 counts of use of a firearm to commit murder, 23 counts of a hate crime involving an attempt to kill and 23 counts of use of a firearm during a crime.
He is accused of being the sole gunman to carry out the Aug. 3, 2019, killing rampage that federal authorities investigated as an act of “domestic terrorism,” meaning the suspect was allegedly intent on “coercing and intimidating a civilian population,” officials said at the time of the announcement.
Crusius allegedly told investigators following his arrest that he set out to kill as many Mexicans as he could after driving from his home in Allen, Texas, about 650 miles east of El Paso, officials said.
The Justice Department has paused carrying out the death penalty during the Biden administration after former Attorney General William Barr resumed carrying out the death penalty at the end of the Trump administration.
A lawyer for Crusius hadn’t yet responded to a request for comment.
(NEW YORK) — An Indiana man was arrested after his 4-year-old son was captured on security camera footage playing with a loaded gun in their apartment complex’s hallway alone, police said.
Shane Osborne, 45, was initially charged with neglect of a dependent following the incident on Saturday, according to the Beech Grove Police Department. Police determined that the child was holding a Smith & Wesson handgun that was loaded with 15 rounds in the magazine, but did not have a round chambered, according to the police report.
Police responded to the apartment complex in Beech Grove Saturday evening after a neighbor called 911 reporting that a young boy “wearing only a diaper had a chrome handgun and was pointing it at people,” according to the police report.
When officers knocked on the family’s apartment door, the child answered, police said. Osborne reportedly told police he was ill and had not realized his son had left the apartment, according to the police report. He “advised there was not a firearm in the home, nor did [his son] have any toy guns,” and later added that he had no guns due to a past felony conviction, according to the report.
Osborne assisted police in a “cursory search” of the apartment, which yielded no gun in plain view, and the officers left, according to the police report.
A neighbor then flagged the officers down as they were leaving the building and showed them security camera footage of the incident in which the child could be seen “walking around the upstairs landing of the apartment with a silver and black handgun,” according to the report.
The Beech Grove Police Department released the footage, which shows the child playing unsupervised in the common hallway with a handgun, pointing it at neighbors’ doors and himself, before going back into his apartment.
The officers returned to the apartment to conduct another search, during which Osborne reportedly told police that he does not have a firearm, but that a relative may have left one in the apartment, according to the police report. When an officer asked the child where he put his “pew pew,” the boy led them to a roll-top desk that contained the handgun, according to the report.
Osborne “did not know the weapon was in the apartment at this time, nor that [his son] knew where it was,” according to the report.
Osborne was arrested for neglect of a dependent and his son was transported to his mother’s home, police said. Final charges will be determined by the Marion County Prosecutor’s Office. The Marion County Department of Child Services was notified about the incident and will also investigate, police said.
Osborne is scheduled to appear in court Thursday afternoon. It is unclear if he has an attorney.
The arrest “gained national attention” after it was captured on the television show “On Patrol: Live,” which the Beech Grove Police Department appears in, according to Beech Grove deputy chief of administration Robert Mercuri.
‘There’s a baby with a gun’
Nicole Summers told ABC News she called 911 after her 16-year-old son saw the child with the gun.
“When my son went to go back out, when he opened the door, he just slowly closed it and said, ‘Everybody get out of the living room, there’s a baby with a gun,'” she said.
Summers said she looked out her door and saw the boy pointing the gun toward her from the top of the stairs.
“He kind of leaned down, and that’s when he pointed the gun at me and said, ‘Look what I got’ and kind of laugh,” said Summers, who said she deals frequently with firearms in her job at a local pawn shop and knew the child was holding a real gun.
Summers said she was aware of the child holding the gun for at least five minutes and believes that he thought it was a toy.
“He is a kid, he didn’t have any clue, the severity of what he was doing,” she said. “No clue that he could have very easily taken his life or somebody else’s.”
Days later, Summers said she is haunted by what happened and questions whether she should have intervened more.
“In hindsight you think, you know, should I have just gone in the hallway? I mean, [he] was 4, I could have easily taken it,” she said. “But what if there was one in the chamber?”
Beech Grove Mayor Dennis Buckley said he was “mortified” by the incident and is “so thankful that no one was hurt, especially the young child.”
“I appreciate the quick action taken by the Beech Grove Police Department to secure the small child and the gun in question,” Buckley said in a statement to ABC Indianapolis affiliate WRTV. “I ask that the Marion County Prosecutor’s Office work tirelessly to secure charges and a conviction against the responsible parties, with maximum penalties. Society shouldn’t accept anything less.”
(WINDSOR, Va.) — A Black soldier in uniform who was pepper-sprayed in his car by Virginia police officers during a traffic stop has been awarded less than $4,000 in a million-dollar lawsuit against the two officers.
The jury awarded 2nd Lt. Caron Nazario a total of $3,685 in the lawsuit against Windsor, Virginia, police officers Joe Gutierrez and Daniel Crocker.
The officers faced four counts: assault, battery, false imprisonment and illegal search.
Gutierrez was ordered to pay $2,685 in damages, no malice, under liability for assault. He was cleared of all other charges.
Crocker was liable for an illegal search, no malice. He was ordered to pay $1,000 in damages. He was cleared of all other charges.
Nazario’s lawyer, Tom Roberts, said it was a “sad day” and that the verdicts fail to send the message to other police officers that “this conduct is unacceptable.”
“It is open season on citizens in Virginia and across the county,” Roberts said in a statement. “Citizens will not rest assured that scenes like this are not repeated with impunity.
The officers pulled over Nazario on the evening of Dec. 5, 2020. Body-camera footage showed Gutierrez pepper spray Nazario when he would not get out of the car.
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
(SCOTTSDALE, Ariz.) — Residents of one Arizona town are findings way to get creative when it comes to saving water after their supply was cut off.
On New Year’s Day, the city of Scottsdale stopped providing water to the roughly 1,000 people who live in Rio Verde Foothills — a suburb about 30 miles north of downtown — due to the historic drought.
Water haulers were allowed to fill up tanks at stations in Scottsdale and water was able to run through a standpipe because Rio Verde Foothills does not have its own water reservoir.
However, the city said because of the “unprecedented drought on the Colorado River,” the city is not allowing any water to be transported outside of city limits to conserve water for its own residents and businesses.
The decision has led to Rio Verde Foothills’ homeowners taking drastic steps, including storing water in their pools for daily activities.
“Really concerned and worried. In fact, I’m happy I have a pool because every time it rains at least I can siphon that,” resident Dee Thomas told Phoenix ABC affiliate KNXV. “We use it mostly for showering. For, you know, washing clothes, the bathroom.”
Thomas said the community well dried up several years ago and she was not able to get any water from her personal well.
Arizona is one of 33 states currently experiencing drought conditions categorized as moderate or worse, according to the U.S. Drought Monitor, which is run by the National Drought Mitigation Center at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.
The Colorado River has been affected by these conditions, with large swaths drying up. A 2017 study by the Colorado River Research Group found river flow could decrease 30% by 2050 and 55% by 2100 because of continuous emissions of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.
Rio Verde Foothills homeowner Cody Reim told Good Morning America he and his family have just two weeks of water left and, if the city of Scottsdale continues to refuse to supply water, his water bill could triple from roughly $400 a month to $1,200 for the same amount of water.
“This is a human issue,” he said. “This is not something that, you know, that can be dwindled down to what we need to preserve water for what might happen.”
Water-hauling companies say they are going to have start charging more for the same amount of water due to the logistics of finding other sources.
John Hornewer, who owns Rio Verde Water, told KNXV he was charging customers 5 cents per gallon, but is now going to raise the price to as high as 10 cents.
“Huge increase in time it takes to deliver the water to the customers out here, the manpower it takes, just the wear and tear,” he said. “We can’t just use any other one municipality up. We have to take our loads from multiple areas so that we don’t degrade or overpressure anyone’s system.”
Several residents filed an injunction last week against the city, calling on officials to resume water service.
In a statement, the city of Scottsdale said because Rio Verde is a separate community, Maricopa County holds the responsibility.
“Scottsdale has warned and advised that it is not responsible for Rio Verde for many years, especially given the requirements of the City’s mandated drought plan,” a statement issued Monday read. “The city remains firm in that position, and confident it is on the right side of the law.”
“Nothing in the city’s action precludes residents in Rio Verde Foothills from purchasing water from other sources. The water haulers who have previously hauled water from Scottsdale have access to water from other jurisdictions and are still offering to haul water to serve the homes in Rio Verde,” the statement continued.
The city did not immediately reply to ABC News’ request for comment.
(CYRIL, Okla.) — The search for a 4-year-old girl who was reported missing after a postal carrier found her sister wandering alone outside is now considered a “recovery operation,” authorities said Monday.
The update comes after one of her caregivers was arrested on a murder charge in connection with the child’s disappearance, authorities said.
Local authorities began searching for Athena Brownfield on Jan. 10, when the postal worker discovered her 5-year-old sister and notified police, according to the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation, which is also involved in the search.
Alysia Adams, 31, was arrested Thursday afternoon in Grady County, Oklahoma, on two counts of child neglect, the agency said. Her husband, Ivon Adams, 36, was taken into custody in Phoenix on Thursday on one count of murder in the first degree and one count of child neglect, it said.
The two sisters had reportedly been in the couple’s care for at least a year, before the 5-year-old was found alone outside their home in Cyril, according to the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation. Alysia Adams is related to the sisters, the agency said. Authorities did not comment on how the Adams’ became the primary caregivers of the children.
The girls’ biological parents have been interviewed by agents and are “cooperating with the investigation,” the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation said.
Ivon Adams is awaiting extradition to Oklahoma. During a Friday court appearance in Maricopa County, he waived his right to an extradition hearing.
“I need to get there and fight this,” he told the court.
The Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation said Monday that its agents and the Oklahoma Highway Patrol are searching areas of Caddo County for the toddler’s remains.
The recovery mission comes nearly a week after the Oklahoma Highway Patrol issued a missing and endangered person alert for Athena to people in a 15-mile radius of Cyril, located about 70 miles southwest of Oklahoma City.
Law enforcement last week conducted searches of bodies of water in and around Cyril and volunteers helped conduct a grid search, looking in vacant houses and local waterways, police said.
Authorities have been working to put together an exact timeline of when Athena was last seen, according to Brook Arbeitman, a spokesperson for the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation.
Arbeitman said last week that authorities were finding items in town that “could be relevant” and helpful to the case, though did not elaborate.
“We are finding things that we hope might give us clues,” she said.
Trash service in the town has been suspended amid the search “in an effort to search for additional clues as to Athena’s whereabouts,” Arbeitman told reporters Thursday.
Athena’s sister did not require any medical care and currently is in protective custody with the state, Arbeitman said.
(NEW YORK) — Federal prosecutors in Brooklyn have asked a judge to dismiss criminal charges against an NYPD officer and Army reservist who had been charged with being a Chinese agent.
“As a result of our continued investigation, the government obtained additional information bearing on the charges,” prosecutors said in a recent court filing, adding that it would dismiss the charges “in the interests of justice” for Baimadajie Angwang.
The filing did not provide any details on the additional information. The judge on Tuesday ordered the parties to appear Thursday morning.
Angwang was charged by the Justice Department in September 2020 with acting at the “direction and control” of officials operating out of the Chinese consulate in New York to report on Tibetans living in the United States. The indictment referred to two unnamed officials assigned to the department responsible for “neutralizing sources of potential opposition to the policies and authority of China.”
The charges were based, in part, on dozens of recorded phone calls between Angwang and these officials that prosecutors said were meant to report on the activities of Tibetans in the New York area, assess potential intelligence sources and introduce the Chinese consular officials to senior NYPD officials.
At the time, Alan Kohler, the assistant director of the FBI’s Counterintelligence Division, wrote, “This case serves as yet another reminder that China represents the biggest counterintelligence threat to the United States and that the FBI and our partners will be aggressive in investigating and stopping such activities within our nation.”
Angwang is an ethnic Tibetan who sought asylum in the United States on the basis he had been arrested and tortured in China partly due to this ethnicity.
The defense insisted Angwang’s interactions with the two consular officials did “not involve ‘direction or control,'” but were meant to establish good relations so Angwang could receive a visa to visit his family.
“Officer Angwang was always confident that this day would come, though he and has family have suffered immeasurably for almost three years,” defense attorney John F. Carman said. “People should know that while he is an ethnic Tibetan, Mr. Angwang is first and foremost a loyal American who served honorably with the Marines and did nothing whatsoever to betray his country.”
(NEW YORK) — University of Idaho quadruple murder suspect Bryan Kohberger allegedly posted in an online forum years ago that he had “crazy thoughts” and “delusions of grandeur.”
The New York Times reported on Jan. 13 that Kohberger, 28, allegedly posted on an online message board devoted to a condition called visual snow syndrome, a disorder that causes someone to see static.
Between Nov. 6, 2009, and Feb. 20, 2012, while Kohberger was a teenager, he allegedly made 118 posts on the forum under the username “exarr.”
In January 2011 he allegedly wrote: “I have had VS [visual snow] since september 21st of 2009. Since then I have changed, mainly from the anxiety and sense of derealization and hopelessness.”
In April 2011, in a thread by another user about possible benefits of visual snow syndrome, Kohberger wrote: “I have become very deep and determined on goals. It made me smarter.”
Kohberger wrote in May 2011 that he has “depression, no interest in activity, constant thoughts of suicide, crazy thoughts, delusions of grandeur, anxiety, poor self image, poor social skills, NO EMOTION.” The post concluded: “When I get home, I am mean to my family. This started when VS did. I felt no emotion and along with the depersonalization, I can say and do whatever I want with little remorse.”
In a July 2011 post, Kohberger allegedly wrote: “I have had this horrible Depersonalization go on in my life for almost 2 years. I often find myself making simple human interactions, but it is as if I am playing a role playing game. … As I hug my family, I look into their faces, I see nothing, it is like I am looking at a video game, but less. … I am blank, I have no opinion, I have no emotion, I have nothing.”
Kohberger’s alleged last post was on Feb. 20, 2012. The post said: “I have just accepted my visual snow finally. I don’t even feel the need to stay away from the forum, it doesn’t scare me anymore! anyone else come to terms? I feel like comign [sic] to terms could be a bad thing though.”
A person who knew Kohberger at the time of the posts told ABC News he had seen the posts and was “extremely confident” they were Kohberger’s, citing Kohberger’s complaints at the time about his issues with visual snow syndrome as well as a reference in the posts to living in a house with mold problems.
Kohberger is accused of stabbing four University of Idaho students to death in an off-campus home in the early hours of Nov. 13. The shocking murders garnered national interest as police searched for a suspect. Kohberger was arrested on Dec. 30.
Kohberger was a Ph.D. student in Washington State University’s department of criminal justice and criminology at the time of the murders. Washington State is just 10 miles from the University of Idaho.
None of the posts viewed by ABC News suggested Kohberger’s alleged illness made him prone to violence. Experts caution that people with mental illness are no more likely to be violent than anybody else. In fact, they are 10 times more likely to be the victim of a violent crime. But in this case, police say Kohberger is their main suspect.
Kohberger faces first-degree murder and burglary charges. He has not yet entered a plea.
