(SACRAMENTO, Calif.) — One person was found dead in their vehicle in California on Sunday morning, as a winter storm brought flooding and heavy snow to the state, a Sacramento Metro Fire spokesperson confirmed to ABC News.
A Sacramento Metro Fire spokesperson confirmed that the deceased was recovered from their flooded vehicle in the southernmost part of Sacramento County, near the city of Elk Grove.
The identity and cause of death of the deceased haven’t been confirmed pending a coroner’s examination, according to Sacramento Metro Fire.
The National Weather Service in Sacramento issued flash flood warnings for the area, urging drivers to stay off the road.
A levee break in several places caused the flooding in the area, Sacramento Metro Fire Captain and Public Information Officer Parker Wilbourn told ABC News.
The Sacramento County Office of Emergency Services ordered residents in Wilton to shelter in place earlier Saturday afternoon.
“Rising water has made roads impassable in the area,” the office said in an advisory.
According to Caltrans District 3, which maintains the state highway system in 11 northern California counties, a highway near Elk Grove has been closed because the Cosumnes River flooded.
Two more storms are expected for the next week in northern California, with the second storm scheduled for Wednesday and Thursday, possibly causing flooding in the area, according to NWS Sacramento.
Over 5 inches of rain had fallen in downtown San Francisco on Saturday, setting a new daily record, the National Weather Service for the San Francisco Bay Area said.
The West Coast is being slammed with an atmospheric river, which usually brings heavy rain, wind and snow to areas that it flows through, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
The NOAA describes atmospheric rivers as “rivers in the sky” because they’re somewhat long and narrow regions in the atmosphere that send most of the water vapor outside the tropics.
ABC News’ Meredith Deliso contributed to this report.
(MOBILE, Ala.) — One person is dead and nine are injured following a shooting on New Year’s Eve in Mobile, Alabama.
The shooting happened around 11:14 p.m. local time on the 200 block of Dauphin Street, according to the Mobile Police Department.
When officers arrived, police found a deceased 24-year-old male. Nine other people suffered gunshot wounds, according to police.
The victims, ages 17 to 57, were transported to local hospitals with injuries ranging from non-life-threatening to severe. Police said two businesses were also struck by gunfire.
Police said Sunday that a man is now in custody in connection with the shooting. “The subject is receiving medical treatment and, upon release, will be transported to Metro Jail and charged with murder,” the Mobile Police Department said in a statement.
If you have information about the case, you can contact the Mobile Police Department at (251) 208-721.
Meanwhile, Oklahoma police are investigating a shooting just after midnight Sunday near New Year’s Eve festivities in Oklahoma City.
One man was killed and at least three individuals were injured in the shooting that erupted in a parking lot near Northwest 10th Street and North Hudson Avenue in the downtown area, according to ABC Oklahoma City affiliate KOCO-TV.
No arrests were announced.
ABC News’ Peter Charalambous contributed to this report.
Jane Tyska/Digital First Media/East Bay Times via Getty Images
(RIO DELL, Calif.) — An earthquake with a preliminary magnitude of 5.4 shook Northern California on New Year’s Day, striking in the same area where a tremor killed two people and caused major damage less than two weeks ago, authorities said.
Sunday’s earthquake occurred at 10:35 a.m. and its epicenter was pinpointed nine miles east of Rio Dell in Humboldt County, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.
There were no immediate reports of casualties or major damage. Route 211 was temporarily closed as inspectors checked a bridge that crosses the Eel River in Humboldt County for damage, according to the California Department of Transportation.
The shaker caused a power outage in the Rio Dell area, about 245 miles north of San Francisco. The Pacific Gas & Electric Company reported that 500 to 4,999 utility customers are affected by the outage.
The quake struck 12 days after one hit the same area.
On Dec. 20, a powerful 6.4-magnitude earthquake struck the same area, killing two people, a 73-year-old and an 83-year-old, who died as “a result of medical emergencies occurring during and/or just following the earthquake,” officials said. The previous earthquake injured 17 people, knocked out power and water to the city of Rio Dell, caused a major water main break and shook several homes off their foundations, county officials said.
Gage Dupper, who was displaced by the earlier quake, which knocked his home off its foundation, told ABC San Francisco station KGO-TV that he’s been living as a “nomad.”
“Today was another pretty big one. Still feels like we are shaking to me. We just can’t catch a break it seems,” Dupper said.
He said he was working in Fortuna, next to Del Rio, when Sunday’s quake occurred.
“But even just here it felt like the ceiling was going to come down,” Dupper said. “We nearly lost our power here as well. I was in the middle of talking to a resident of the assisted living community I work for and you could just see the panic in their eyes when it started. She was just trying to pay her rent. It certainly tossed us around a bit.”
(NEW YORK) — An “unprovoked” machete attack on three New York City police officers near Times Square on New Year’s Eve is being investigated as a possible terrorist incident. The suspect is allegedly a 19-year-old man from Maine, whose online posts indicate recent Islamic radicalization, sources told ABC News.
Investigators are looking into whether the suspect came to the annual ball drop specifically to wage an attack on law enforcement, the sources said.
The incident occurred just after 10 p.m. on Saturday near West 52nd Street and 8th Avenue, outside the secure area that had been set up for New Year’s Eve celebrations, Police Commissioner Keechant Sewell told reporters at a news conference at Manhattan’s Bellevue Hospital.
“Unprovoked, a 19-year-old male approached an officer and attempted to strike him over the head with a machete,” Sewell said. “The male then struck two additional officers in the head with the machete.”
One of the officers fired their weapon, striking the suspect in the shoulder, Sewell said. The suspect was taken into custody, she said.
The three injured officers were taken to Bellevue, Sewell said.
Suspect relatives reported concerns
While a motive remains under investigation, authorities are not ruling out the possibility that the suspect came to New York City specifically to attack police officers at the Times Square ball drop, law enforcement sources told ABC News.
Multiple law enforcement sources identified the suspect as Trevor Bickford, 19, of Wells, Maine. He took an Amtrak train to New York City on Dec. 29, the sources said.
Federal and local law enforcement investigators are combing through the suspect’s online postings, which indicate recent extremist Islamic radicalization, the sources said.
Bickford has no prior arrests. His mother and aunt notified law enforcement in recent weeks about their concerns he was gravitating toward dangerous Islamist ideologies, the sources said. The report prompted the FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force to look into the suspect, the law enforcement sources said.
The NYPD counterterrorism bureau is investigating the New Year’s Eve attack in conjunction with the FBI.
Should authorities determine the attack was motivated by an Islamist ideology, it would make it the first terror incident associated with New Year’s Eve in Times Square, authorities said.
Prior to New Year’s Eve, the NYPD noted in a pre-event assessment that throughout December “multiple pro-ISIS users disseminated extremist propaganda graphics broadly calling for attacks in advance of the New Year, advocating a wide range of low-tech tactics.” Islamist terror groups have long promoted knife attacks.
Both federal and local law enforcement stressed at Sunday morning’s news conference the attack appeared to be an isolated incident and there was no longer a threat.
Injured officers in stable condition
One of the injured officers, an eight-year veteran of the NYPD, suffered a laceration to the head, officials said. Another hurt officer had just graduated from the police academy on Friday, and as is traditionally the case, his first assignment was the New Year’s Eve detail in Times Square. The rookie officer was also struck in the head, resulting in a skull fracture and large laceration, officials said.
“We are really pleased by the response and how our officers handled this situation,” Mayor Eric Adams said. “All three of the officers are in stable conditions and there are no critical threats to New Yorkers at this time.”
FBI Assistant Director in Charge Mike Driscoll said the bureau’s Joint Terrorism Task Force is involved to “ascertain what is the nature of the attack.” He said that the FBI believes the attacker was acting alone.
The NYPD released an image of a weapon, saying it had been recovered at the scene. The weapon appeared to be a Gurkha knife, a type of curved blade, according to ABC News contributor Darrell M. Blocker, a retired CIA operative.
Patrick Lynch, president of the Police Benevolent Association of the City of New York, said, “Let’s think about those family members here who are in shock right now, never thinking the first call of the year would be their son, their husband, their family member would be here in Bellevue Hospital.”
‘Everybody’s panicking’
Videos from the scene appeared to show revelers jogging through the rain as they were directed away from the scene by columns of police officers.
David Lyugovski, of California, told ABC News that he saw dozens of officers, some with guns drawn, running toward the scene of the incident.
“They’re all telling us to go towards the viewing area for the ball drop and everybody’s running, everybody’s panicking,” Lyugovski said.
Lyugovski and his brother-in-law, Andrew Dyachkin, of South Carolina, were in New York to watch the Times Square ball drop, they said in a joint video interview.
“Somebody’s yelling, ‘Calm down, calm down,’ because everybody’s on edge,” Dyachkin said. “Like, I’m sure in the back of all of our minds, now this could be a target for, you know, shooting.”
He added, “We thought someone is trying to shoot, you know, as many people as possible. Another mass shooting.”
One of the officers involved in the incident had graduated from the police academy on Friday, Sewell said.
Adams spoke at the officer’s graduation ceremony, he said.
“It just goes to show you, it could be your first day or it could be your last day, the actions that police officers must take every day are life-threatening situations,” Adams said.
ABC News’ Josh Margolin, Keith Harden, Patricio Chile and Mark Crudele contributed to this report.
(NEW YORK) — A 28-year-old graduate student arrested in connection with the murders of four University of Idaho students is believed to be the only suspect in the high-profile case, authorities said.
“We believe we have our guy, the one that committed these murders,” Moscow Police Chief James Fry told ABC News Saturday.
Fry said he does not anticipate additional arrests in connection with the murders of roommates Kaylee Goncalves, Madison Mogen and Xana Kernodle, and Kernodle’s boyfriend, Ethan Chapin, who were all stabbed to death in the girls’ off-campus house on Nov. 13.
The suspect, Bryan Kohberger, was arrested early Friday in Pennsylvania’s Pocono Mountains, authorities said. He is a graduate student at Washington State University, located less than 10 miles away from the University of Idaho, police said.
Washington State University identifies Kohberger as a Ph.D. student in its department of criminal justice and criminology. He completed his first semester in its criminal justice program earlier this month, the university said.
White Hyundai Elantra found
A white Hyundai Elantra spotted near the victims’ house around the time of the crime is believed to be Kohberger’s, Fry said.
Police had previously said they believe the occupant had “critical” information in the case. Police do not believe anyone else was in the car at the time, Fry said.
Law enforcement personnel seized the car from Kohberger’s parents’ Pennsylvania home and it is being processed, according to Fry.
Law enforcement sources told ABC News that police identified Kohberger as a suspect, at least in part, by using DNA technology, and police then tracked the grad student to Pennsylvania through his car.
Moscow police’s only other prior interaction with Kohberger was a traffic citation for not wearing a seatbelt, which was issued while he was in the white Elantra, Fry said. The chief said he cannot release whether the suspect has any prior criminal history elsewhere.
No motive known but believed to be targeted attack
Police are still seeking the murder weapon — believed to be a fixed-blade knife — and do not have a motive, Fry said. The chief said police have evidence this was a targeted attack but cannot share more details at this time.
Within an hour of Kohberger being identified as the suspect, more than 400 calls came in to the Moscow Police Department’s tip line, Fry said.
Kohberger was arrested on four counts of first-degree murder and burglary and is being held without bond, Latah County Prosecutor Bill Thompson said. Kohberger is scheduled to appear in a Pennsylvania court on Tuesday to begin the extradition process, Thompson said.
Kohberger intends to waive his extradition hearing to “expedite his transport to Idaho” and is “eager to be exonerated of these charges,” Jason Allen LaBar, a public defender representing the suspect for the hearing, said Saturday.
“Mr. Kohberger has been accused of very serious crimes, but the American justice system cloaks him in a veil of innocence. He should be presumed innocent until proven otherwise — not tried in the court of public opinion,” LaBar said in a statement. “One should not pass judgment about the facts of the case unless and until a fair trial in court at which time all sides may be heard and inferences challenged.”
On lack of transparency
The probable cause affidavit, which details the reasons for Kohberger’s arrest, is sealed and cannot be released until he returns to Idaho, Thompson said.
Once it is unsealed, more information, such as Kohberger’s whereabouts over the past several weeks and what led police to the Hyundai Elantra, will be made public, Fry said.
Frustrations had been mounting among some of the victims’ family members in the wake of the murders and what was criticized as a lack of transparency from police.
Fry addressed those concerns Saturday.
“We did what we had to do professionally, and we will continue to do that,” he said. “We knew what we needed to do. I said from the very beginning — we will protect the integrity of this case. And we did that. I think a lot of people realize that.”
The victims’ families and the Moscow community expressed relief at the news of an arrest after being on edge for more than six weeks.
“I think there’s some closure there,” Fry said. “And it always feels good to give people closure and to help them heal a little bit.”
(NEW YORK) — The death of Barbara Walters, a trailblazing TV icon who broke down barriers during her illustrious five decades long career, has led to tributes from her peers and other prominent figures on her life and legacy.
Walters died Friday at her home in New York the age of 93.
The legendary anchor was the first female anchor in evening news in 1976 , won 12 Emmys awards, inducted into the Television Academy Hall of Fame in 1989 after 25 years and launched “The View” in 1997 and interviewed many presidents including Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan and Barack Obama. She was admired for paving the way for so many journalists.
“So sad to hear of the passing of Barbara Walters. What an honor to share the set with the inimitable trailblazer when I joined @abc2020,” ABC News Senior National Affairs Correspondent Deborah Roberts tweeted.
“Will never forget the phone call when she asked me to join the groundbreaking program,” she added.
“Barbara Walters was a true trailblazer. Forever grateful for her stellar example and for her friendship. Sending condolences to her daughter and family,” “Good Morning America” co-anchor Robin Roberts tweeted.
David Muir, anchor of “ABC World News Tonight”, said that Walters defined what it meant to be an icon.
“So often we toss around the words – icon, legend, trailblazer – but Barbara Walters was all of these – and perhaps above all else, Barbara Walters was brave. She paved the way for so many – we learned from her – and remain in awe of her to this day. RIP, Barbara,” Muir wrote on Instagram.
Diane Sawyer, who formerly anchored “World New Tonight” and used to co-anchor “20/20” on Sundays with Walters shared memories of her time with Walters.
“Barbara was a trailblazer, a singular force who opened the door for every woman in television news,” she said in a statement. “She was also the history maker right down the hall — my friend and road buddy, eager to talk about the news world, the decades of passionate work — the curiosity and laughter that gets us all through. Sadness. Gratitude. And a salute from all of us who know what we owe her.”
Oprah Winfrey credited Walters for making it possible for her own celebrated career.
“Without Barbara Walters there wouldn’t have been me — nor any other woman you see on evening, morning, and daily news. She was indeed a Trailblazer. I did my very first television audition with her in mind the whole time. Grateful that she was such a powerful and gracious role model. Grateful to have known her. Grateful to have followed in her Light,” she wrote on Instagram.
Walters’ influence was felt beyond just the world of media as other figures such as President Joe Biden honored her.
“Barbara Walters has always been an example of bravery and truth — breaking barriers while driving our nation forward. Her legacy will continue as an inspiration for all journalists,” he tweeted, along with a photo of himself and Walters.
“Jill and I send our deepest condolences to her daughter, Jacqueline, and to those who loved her,” the tweet continued.
Barbara Walters has always been an example of bravery and truth — breaking barriers while driving our nation forward. Her legacy will continue as an inspiration for all journalists.
Jill and I send our deepest condolences to her daughter, Jacqueline, and to those who loved her. pic.twitter.com/e5Cl6bsyvA
Sports legends including NBA Hall of Famer Kareem Abdul-Jabbar remembered her as well.
“Barbara Walters never flinched when questioning the world’s most powerful people. She held them accountable. She cared about the truth and she made us care too. Fortunately, she inspired many other journalists to be just as unrelenting. We are all better off because of her,” Abdul-Jabbar tweeted.
SAG-AFTRA President Fran Drescher called Walters, who joined AFTRA in 1954 and SAG in 1991, a pioneer in her field.
“To be the first woman at anything speaks volumes to the strength and character of that woman, but to be the first woman in network news suggests a woman of intellect, tenacity and a fearless ability to uncover, confront and illuminate; in short, the one and only Barbara Walters. She blazed a trail for many other women to follow, who can pursue the possible because Barbara Walters did it first!” Drescher said in a statement Saturday.
Berry Gordy, the founder of Motown, said Walters was in a league of her own.
“Barbara Walters was in a class by herself – a trailblazer and journalist of the highest degree. She was also a dear, dear friend of mine for many years. I will miss her,” Gordy said in a statement Saturday.
(EASTLAKE, Ohio) — The mother of an Ohio middle schooler is suing her daughter’s school district, alleging a nurse’s aide strip searched the girl.
The federal lawsuit, filed on Dec. 28, names Willoughby-Eastlake Schools Board of Education and three Eastlake School Middle employees as defendants. The lawsuit alleges violations of the teen’s constitutional rights, failure to train school employees, and intentional infliction of emotional distress.
On Sept. 27, the unnamed middle schooler — a current eighth grade student at Eastlake Middle School — was approached by another student who asked to leave her vape pen in the teen’s gym locker, according to the lawsuit. The student “begrudgingly agreed,” the lawsuit states.
Just before lunch the same day, the school’s principal Colleen Blaurock pulled the eighth grader out of class and questioned her about the vape pen, according to the lawsuit.
The lawsuit states that the student told Blaurock the truth about “what occurred in the girls’ locker room that morning,” but insisted “the vape pen was not hers, that she did not have the vape pen and that she did not know where the vape pen was.”
According to the lawsuit, Blaurock then proceeded to search the student’s gym locker and hallway locker, but both searches turned up empty.
Then, the lawsuit says the teen was taken to the nurse’s office. There, a nurse’s aide Rosalyn Rubertino allegedly forced the middle schooler to strip down to only her underwear after the middle school’s assigned nurse Megan Kuhlman — who was not present at the time — allegedly instructed her to do so over the phone.
The lawsuit states that the body search also turned up empty. Following the search, the teen was suspended from the school.
James Macy, chair of the School Law section at von Briesen law firm, said the question of whether schools are justified in strip searching students rests on if they have “reasonable evidence” indicating the student has “contraband or illegal substances” that present safety concerns to the student or others.
“What’s the evidence? To what degree do we have any immediacy to health and safety issues? And then to what degree do we work with law enforcement and the parents to address the situation?” Macy told ABC News. “All of that comes into play before a decision is made.”
The plaintiff’s lawyer Jared Klebanow told ABC News Cleveland affiliate WEWS that in this student’s case, he believes the school went too far.
“A lot of people might say it was one day, move on. But this is an impressionable teenaged girl, and you can imagine the range of emotions. You have fear, humiliation, right?” Klebanow said. “It’s embarrassing she had to go through this and be all but naked in front of a stranger.”
Willoughby-Eastlake City Schools Board of Education, Blaurock, Kuhlman, and Rubertino did not immediately respond to ABC News’ requests for comment.
The major winter storm that impacted parts of the U.S. last week devastated Western New York. The Buffalo region, which is no stranger to snow, was walloped with prolonged whiteout conditions and freezing temperatures that contributed to dozens of fatalities.
New York Gov. Kathy Hochul has called the Christmas weekend storm the “blizzard of the century.”
“This will go down in history as the most devastating storm in Buffalo’s long storied history of having battled … many, many major storms,” Hochul, a Buffalo native, said during a Christmas morning news conference.
Heather Kenyon, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service’s Buffalo office, told ABC News it ranks as the “worst snow event I witnessed in this area.”
“We knew that this was going to be a significant high-impact storm,” Kenyon said. “We saw the combination of lake-effect snow and very strong winds, and so we were expecting blizzard conditions and really messaged that this was going to be a once-in-a-generation-type storm.”
The winter storm saw rain followed by plummeting temperatures, heavy lake-effect snow and high winds — dangerous conditions that developed very quickly on Dec. 23 across Western New York.
“It was a very strong cold front plowing through the area — temperatures plummeting, snow starting, winds gusting,” Kenyon said. “That quick onset I think caught a lot of people off-guard.”
Here’s a closer look at the blizzard by the numbers:
Minus 30-degree wind chills
The strong low-pressure area that moved across the country last week brought extremely cold air to the Buffalo region. Temperatures started plunging on Dec. 23, when sub-zero and single-temperatures combined with high winds for “dangerous wind chills,” the National Weather Service said. Wind chills — what the temperature outside feels like — were between minus 10 and minus 30 degrees for several days.
In those conditions, exposed skin can be affected in minutes, with frostbite and hypothermia as serious concerns, officials warned during the storm.
51.9 inches of snow
As the cold air moved over the warmer waters of the Great Lakes, it caused lake-effect snow.
Over 4 feet of snow accumulated in parts of Erie County over the course of five days ending Dec. 27. The highest total snowfall was reported at the Buffalo Airport, with 51.9 inches.
The lake band is still raging, but it’s now south of the airport. Here’s a view of our office with some rather impressive snow mounds in the foreground. Many (many) cars are still buried throughout the area. pic.twitter.com/owto22GbF6
Record daily snowfall was recorded on Dec. 23 in Buffalo, with 22.3 inches.
Buffalo is significantly outpacing its typical seasonal snowfall. It has recorded over 100 inches so far this season, nearly 70 inches more than the normal amount for this time of year and several inches more than what it averages the entire season.
Nearly 80 mph winds
Meteorologists were expecting wind gusts up to 70 mph during the blizzard, “which were reached,” Kenyon said.
A 79 mph wind gust was recorded in Lackawanna and 72 mph at the Buffalo airport on Dec. 23, according to the National Weather Service.
“This storm was so significant because it brought those strong winds, which we don’t often see with the lake-effect snow,” Kenyon said. “Those strong winds just produced impossible travel and drifting snow where we’re getting this drift where people can’t even open their front door.”
Though the region is prone to lake-effect snow, blizzard warnings are not often issued, Kenyon said. Other areas in the Great Lakes region got lake-effect snow with the storm system, but not the high winds, she said.
The combination of lake-effect snow and high winds was “why it was so bad for us,” Kenyon said.
Zero visibility
The high winds during the snowstorm often made for zero visibility in the lake-effect band, making travel impossible in the Buffalo metro area as many were gearing up for the holiday weekend or trying to head home from work. A travel advisory was soon upgraded to a ban on traveling the morning of Dec. 23.
Cars got stranded as roadways became impassable. The storm marked the first time in history that the Buffalo Fire Department couldn’t respond to any calls, officials said.
At least 39 fatalities
At least 39 people have died due to the storm in Erie County, which includes the city of Buffalo, officials said, making it the deadliest in the region since the blizzard of 1977.
Many people died after getting stranded outside or in their cars, while others were found dead in their homes amid frigid conditions, officials said.
Nearly half of those who died — 17 — were found outside, 11 were in a house and four in a car. Others died due to snow-clearing cardiac events, while three were the result of a delayed EMS response, officials said.
(EUDORA, Ark.) — Officials in the city of Eudora, Arkansas, said they are enforcing a mandatory emergency curfew after struggling to stop what the city’s mayor described as a “rampage of shootings.”
The city of fewer than 3,000 residents has recently experienced more than 10 shootings, according to Mayor Tomeka Butler, including one which killed a local resident on Dec. 24. Facing increased crime, few actionable leads, and limited police resources, Butler announced the “civil emergency curfew” on Dec. 27.
The curfew applies from 8 p.m. until 6 a.m. with exceptions for both employment and medical emergencies, officials said.
In a statement to ABC News, Butler said that the frequency of these shootings are unprecedented, adding “this is the first time these acts of this magnitude have taken place.”
“Should you be caught during curfew hours, you will be subject to being stopped and searched,” Butler said in a video posted to Facebook, in which four law enforcement officers stood behind her.
In the video and on other posts, Butler pleaded for community members to work together to stop the violence.
“Please help us bring these senseless acts of crime to a stop,” she said.
A Community Responds
Members of the community, local leaders, and law enforcement officials gathered for an meeting on Wednesday evening in a local church. They voted to extend the curfew until Jan. 3 and asked community members for their help in stopping the violence.
“We’re pleading for your help, we really need your help,” Butler said. “And the only way that is going to change is if we pull together and change our city.”
With dozens of community members sitting in wooden church pews, aldermen sitting behind a drum set and leadership addressing the anxious community from a lectern, the meeting was both a venue for public announcements and a community venting session.
“This is not people’s houses getting shot in anymore, we have people actually dead on the street,” one unidentified community member pleaded. “We need some extra help”
Others said they were worried about the severity of the problem compared to resources available in Eudora.
“It’s too big for you guys,” a community member told local officials.
The Arkansas State Police is investigating the Dec. 24 shooting that killed one resident and injured another but are not involved with any curfew enforcement, according to Arkansas State Police public information officer Bill Sadler. At the moment, no arrests have been made for the homicide and the investigation is ongoing.
Officials from the Eudora Police Department said their department faced some limitations, including limited staff, a budget best described as “pretty much peanuts,” outdated safety equipment and broken vehicles. As an illustration of those issues, Eudora Chief of Police Mike Pitts pointed to the bullet-proof vest he was wearing and said it was not even his own.
A sergeant with the police department also noted that officials have been unable to act on tips because members of the community fear coming forward with information.
“Prosecutors would turn me around the door if they don’t have anything supporting evidence to back up what I’m presenting to them,” he said. “That’s the problem that I’m having right now in putting these cases together. The community is afraid to come forward and say what’s going on out here in the streets who’s really involved with the shootings that’s going on.”
Despite these limitations and concerns, Pitts stood by the curfew.
“I know it’s an inconvenience for some, but it’s a comfort for others,” he said, noting that a family member of a victim told him that they could finally get sleep after learning about the curfew.
“This action was by no means taken to violate any constitutional rights of any citizen, any business owner, any religious believer, or anyone traveling through the city of Eudora,” Butler said.
Freedom from fear
In a country where gun violence stories have become common, the issues facing Eudora might seem minor, officials said. But in a small city like Eudora, an uptick in crime has been destabilizing.
“I know that in bigger cities, larger cities, that sounds like peanuts, but here in a small community of 2,500 people, that’s too many,” Pitts said. “That’s too many in any city, but that’s unfathomable.”
The “Catfish Capital of Arkansas,” Eudora stretches across a few square miles across a largely rural Arkansas. Its population, over 80 percent African American, shares a grocery store, dollar store and liquor store. With little crime overall, residents at the town hall could easily recall unsolved crime, like a drive-by shooting from three years ago.
The recent uptick in shootings appears to have driven community members and leadership into action to fight back against what the mayor described as a “few senseless citizens” and the police chief described plainly as “murderers.”
“This is home, and if you can’t feel safe at home, then what are you doing?” Butler asked during the town hall.
Law enforcement told community members that they will not rest until the crime stops.
“Until we get justice for that, until we get justice for the people whose homes have been violated by people shooting into them, then we are not going to rest,” Pitts said.
He added, “This is not how Eudora is supposed to be, this is now how it was when I was a kid in the area growing up, and it is not going to remain this way.”
(NEW YORK) — The growing popularity of e-bikes in the United States in recent years has led to a rise in fires and other hazards, local and federal officials are warning.
At least 19 people died in the United States in 2022 because of fires or overheating incidents related to battery-powered products such as e-bikes, scooters and hoverboards, the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission said this week.
In New York City alone, fires caused by lithium-ion batteries powering these micro-mobility devices, also known as light electric vehicles (LEVs), have been responsible for at least 208 fires this year, resulting in 142 injuries and six deaths, a spokesperson for the New York Fire Department said.
In 2021, there were 104 fires caused by these batteries, 79 injuries and 4 deaths, according to city data. In 2020, there were 44 such fires, 23 injuries and zero deaths, the data shows.
Micro-mobility devices in 2022 caused four fires a week on average, based on data from the FDNY.
The Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC), in a letter last week, urged over 2,000 manufacturers, importers, distributors, and retailers of LEVs to sell products that use batteries built with standards set by Underwriters Laboratory, an industry safety organization, in order to reduce the risk of injuries and deaths.
Compliance with these standards should be demonstrated by certification from an accredited testing laboratory, the agency urged.
While many battery manufacturers like Bosch follow the standards, experts say the standards need to be industry-wide. The move to required UL standards in all these products would make them far safer overall, they say.
Some industry experts see the recent moves by the CPSC as evidence it lacks the necessary regulatory muscle to cause a change in the industry. This concern comes as more Americans are embracing LEVs, with many expected to purchase these around the holidays.
The CPSC has jurisdiction over these products. The U.S. Department of Transportation established in 2018 the Lithium Battery Working Safety Group which includes officials from CPSC, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and the National Institute for Standard and Technology. The group advises Congress on additional ways to mitigate fire hazards from these batteries and ways to establish uniform regulations for these batteries.
When asked about why they were not seeking to make UL certification mandatory, instead of just encouraging companies to adopt those standards, a CPSC spokesperson said it is time consuming to adopt mandatory rules, making voluntary standards a more common course of action to get important safety information to industry and consumers as quickly as possible.
New York problem
Fatiumata Dialo has been delivering food on his e-bike in New York for the last year. An immigrant from Guinea, he said his e-bike, for which he paid $1750, is the most expensive purchase he has made since arriving in the U.S.
Dialo cycles between several batteries for the bike over the course of the day. He charges his batteries overnight at his apartment, and he also pays a monthly fee to charge a battery during the day at a e-bike shop in Brooklyn.
Delivery workers pay about $40 a month to charge batteries in one of these e-bike shops, according to a worker in one store. One location in New York’s Chinatown visited by ABC News contained over 80 batteries charging at roughly the same time.
According to FDNY Deputy Commissioner Frank Dwyer, charging stations where dozens or even hundreds of batteries are being charged at the same time could pose fire hazards.
“That’s actually covered in the fire code. And we have our fire prevention people out there doing inspections on those properties if they’re not abiding by the proper fire code,” Dwyer said.
ABC News reached out to the fire departments for the 25 largest cities in the United States. New York City leads its metropolitan competitors with the highest number of fires caused by these devices, according to a review of city data. It’s also the leading city actively tracking the fires and working with government officials to understand and regulate the issue, according to interviews with fire officials.
The Los Angeles Fire Department said it does not have any data about fires attributable to e-bikes, and the San Francisco Fire Department does not actively track fires from LEVs like New York does.
Despite concerns about charging safety, Dialo said he was less concerned about the risk of fire than getting into an accident or getting robbed, he said. Other delivery workers ABC News spoke to seemed to agree with this prioritization of concerns.
However, recent reports of fires due to charging e-bike batteries have raised calls for action by many New Yorkers. A Nov. 5 fire at a high-rise building in midtown Manhattan that sent 38 people to the hospital was caused by a lithium-ion battery connected to a micro-mobility device, fire officials determined.
“It’s not just that there are fires, it’s that there could be a fire in my building where I sleep and my children’s sleep,” New York City Council Member Gale Brewer told ABC News.
The FDNY is attempting to learn more about how the fires are started. Often, the bikes and the batteries are too damaged by the fires to learn about the cause of the fire, type of bike and battery involved, and whether the cause could have been a manufacturing defect.
“So, it’s very hard to examine the actual battery that fails due to the explosive nature of these fires, and the damage that they’re subjected to after the fire occurs,” Dwyer noted.
Brewer sponsored recent legislation focused on e-bikes. The bills currently under consideration by the city council, which the FDNY has voiced support for, include measures to increase education about fire risks from batteries, ban the sale of second-hand batteries that have been reconditioned or manipulated and which are sold on the secondary market, require UL standards for bikes and improve reporting measures.
Some activists say the move is too late.
“They pass a law to legalize [e-bikes], but they never thought about the batteries? I mean, they’re talking about the batteries three years later,” said Hildalyn Colon Hernandez, the director of policy and strategic partnerships for New York City advocacy group Los Deliveristas Unidos.
The rise of LEVs
Light electric vehicles gained popularity as many Americans rethought common methods of transportation during the pandemic. A projected 1 million LEVs are expected to be sold in the U.S. in 2022, compared to the 288,000 sold in 2019, according to Ed Benjamin, chairman of the LEV Association.
But most consumers have gravitated to affordable models.
One of the priciest e-bikes listed in Consumer Reports retails at nearly $4,000, with the cheapest recommendation at $1,300. Some budget bikes retail on sites like Amazon for under $500.
According to Mike Fritz, a chief technology officer for micromobility industry consulting firm Human Powered Solutions, the economics of the $500 e-bike points towards concerns with the quality of the bike’s battery. Just to buy a high-quality battery costs around $750. A complete bike that costs less than that amount raises questions about the quality of the battery and other components.
Some manufacturers have cut corners to lower manufacturing costs, according to Jack Hao of battery manufacturer Phylion. This includes reusing parts of used battery packs from electric cars, which can increase the likelihood of a fire hazard, he said.
Combined with a weak regulatory environment in the U.S., consumers are sometimes left with poor options, said Percy Chien, the executive chairman of the Taiwan-based Fairly Bike Manufacturing Company.
How lithium-ion batteries fail
A battery charges or releases energy by moving an electron-carrying ion between a node and a cathode, across a semipermeable barrier, Fritz said. If that barrier begins to fail and overheat because of a manufacturing defect or from an issue stemming from a faulty charger, an electrolyte liquid in the battery will begin to boil, trigger a pressure release valve, and push a gas out of the battery, which can then ignite when interacting with outside air.
An e-bike battery, which is made of dozens of small battery cells about the size of an AA battery, can cause a cascading chain reaction where one cell triggers other cells to fail, which can lead to a fire or an explosion in a worse-case scenario, he said.
A combination of cheap batteries, mismatched chargers, overuse, damage from weather, poor servicing, and other factors can combine to create deadly consequences, according to Fritz.
Keith Moravick, a vice president of engineering for Swiftmile, a manufacturer of charging systems for LEVs, noted factors that can cause battery deterioration include poor management system communicating between the battery and charger, a lack of weatherproofing for electric connectors, and the damage possibly done to a removable battery that is knocked around.
According to multiple industry experts, a move towards requiring UL standards for all batteries sold would reduce the risk of fires; however, the CPSC is only recommending such a standard at the moment.
Chris Nolte, founder of New York retailer Propel Electric Bikes, which only sells UL-certified Bosch batteries, said the issue has been mainly centralized in New York City in recent years, which is why the federal government has been slow to crackdown on the problem.
“I feel that the federal government likely will step in by 2024 and require a certification,” Nolte said.
