(LAGUNA WOODS, Calif.) — One person was killed and five were wounded in a shooting at a church in Laguna Woods, California, on Sunday, authorities said.
Four were critically hurt and one person suffered minor injuries from the shooting inside the Geneva Presbyterian Church, the Orange County Sheriff’s Office tweeted. All victims are adults and range in age from 66 to 92 years old, the sheriff’s office said.
A group of churchgoers detained the suspect and hogtied his legs with an extension cord and confiscated two handguns from him before more people could be shot, according to Jeff Hallock, Undersheriff at the Orange County Sheriff’s Office.
“That group of churchgoers displayed what we believed exceptional heroism, heroism and bravery in interfering or intervening to stop the suspect,” Hallock said.
The Orange County Sheriff’s Department said later Sunday that it had arrested a suspect who was described as an Asian man in his 60s. The suspect will not be identified until after he is booked into the Orange County Jail, the department said.
The man was taken into custody and two firearms were recovered at the scene, authorities said.
Investigators are working to determine where the suspect lives and whether he has any connections to the church or its congregants; they are unsure if he is from the area.
“The Presbytery of Los Ranchos is deeply saddened by a fatal shooting that occurred at a lunch reception honoring a former pastor of the Taiwanese congregation that nests at Geneva Presbyterian Church in Laguna Woods,” Tom Cramer, Presbytery head of staff, said in a statement Sunday. “Please keep the leadership of the Taiwanese congregation and Geneva in your prayers as they care for those traumatized by this shooting.”
The suspect opened fire at a lunch banquet at the church following a morning service, Hallock said.
The shooting was reported at about 1:26 p.m. local time, authorities said.
Hallock said a motive and whether the suspect had an intended target is unknown.
The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and the FBI are en route to assist local officials.
There were 30-40 people inside the church when the shooting began, officials said.
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
Libby March for The Washington Post via Getty Images
(BUFFALO, N.Y.) — Ten people were killed and another three wounded when a mass shooting erupted at a supermarket in Buffalo, New York, that authorities allege was a “racially motivated hate crime” carried out by heavily armed white teenager who fired a barrage of 50 shots outside and inside the market.
An 18-year-old male suspect is in custody, police said. The shooter livestreamed the Saturday afternoon attack on social media, authorities said.
The gunman, wearing military fatigues, body armor and a tactical helmet, shot four people in the parking lot of a Tops supermarket around 2:30 p.m., three fatally. He proceeded inside the store where he was confronted by a retired Buffalo police officer working security, police said.
The guard shot and struck the suspect but without effect due to the body armor, police said.
The gunman then proceeded to shoot nine more people inside the store, police said.
Buffalo Police Commissioner Joseph Gramaglia told ABC News on Sunday that police officers arrived at the store within one minute of getting the first report of the shooting in progress and raced toward the gunfire to confront the suspect.
Gramaglia said that upon seeing the officers, the assailant placed the barrel of an assault-type rifle up to his neck and threatened to shoot himself. He said officers were able to de-escalate the situation and talked the suspect into dropping the weapon.
“He had dropped down to his knees and began taking off his tactical gear and they immediately took them into custody,” Gramagilia said.
Among the 13 victims shot, 11 were Black and two were white, authorities said.
Four of the shooting victims were store employees while the rest were customers, authorities said.
The Buffalo police officer working security was among those killed, according to a law enforcement official. He was identified as Aaron Salter Jr. by Buffalo Mayor Byron Brown.
“He’s a true hero,” Gramagilia said of Salter. “He went down fighting. He went towards the gunfire.”
Gramagilia said the suspect fired 50 shots during the attack and has several more loaded ammunition magazines when he was taken into custody.
Three victims suffered non-life-threatening gunshot wounds, authorities said.
Brown ordered flags to be lowered to half-staff at city facilities, including police stations, fire stations and Niagara Square in the heart of Buffalo.
No other suspects are outstanding, a law enforcement official said.
The suspect — identified as Payton Gendron of Conklin, New York — was arraigned Saturday on one count of first-degree murder and ordered held without bail, according to Erie County District Attorney John Flynn. His office is also investigating terrorism charges, he said.
The suspect traveled from a New York county several hours away to the Buffalo store, authorities said.
Gramagilia said investigators believe the suspect arrived in Buffalo on Friday.
“It seems that he had come here to scope out the area, to do a little reconnaissance work on the area, before he carried out his just evil, sickening act,” Gramagilia said. During a news conference Saturday, Mayor Brown described the shooting as “the worst nightmare any community can face.”
Gendron legally purchased the AR-15 assault-style rifle used in the Buffalo supermarket shooting at a gun store in his home county of Broome, New York Gov. Kathy Hochul confirmed during an interview with ABC New York City station WABC.
The rifle was modified by what Hochul called an “enhanced magazine,” which is illegal in New York, Hochul said.
The FBI is separately investigating the attack as a hate crime and as racially motivated violent extremism.
Early indications are the shooter may have possessed extremist beliefs cultivated online, law enforcement sources told ABC News.
A 180-page document believed to have been posted on the internet by Gendron before he allegedly committed the massacre is a hate-filled screed fixated on the notion of “replacement theory,” a white supremacist belief that non-whites will eventually replace white people because they have higher birth rates, according to a copy viewed by ABC News.
Gendron, the purported author of the document, embraces racist and anti-Semitic tropes throughout the document. He also included photos of himself and described why he decided to carry out the attack, largely focused on replacement theory.
Investigators are looking at multiple online postings that may be associated with the shooter that include praise for South Carolina church shooter Dylann Roof and the New Zealand mosque shooter Brenton Tarrant, according to the document.
The document also includes a detailed plan for his alleged attack, stating time, place and manner. He allegedly even mapped out his planned route through the store and allegedly wrote that he targeted the Buffalo Tops market because it is a predominantly Black neighborhood, according to the document.
Gendron allegedly wrote that he understood he could be killed, but if he survived and goes to trial, he said he intends to plead guilty.
“This was pure evil,” Erie County Sheriff John Garcia told reporters. “It was a straight-up racially motivated hate crime from somebody outside of our community … coming into our community and trying to inflict evil upon us.”
During an interview Sunday on ABC’s “This Week” with George Stephanopoulos, Hochul said investigators probing Gendron’s background have found other disturbing documents he wrote as a high school student and that he was under observation of medial authorities.
“I want to know what people knew and when they knew it and calling upon law enforcement as well as our social media platforms,” Hochul said.
She added that depraved ideas fermenting on social media are “spreading like a virus” and need to be monitored and shut down.
“It has to stop, because otherwise, there’s no stopping it,” Hochul said.
Hochul said she has directed the New York State Police’s Hate Crimes Task Force to assist in the investigation.
A home linked to the suspect in Conklin, a town near Binghamton in Broome County, was searched by the FBI and New York State Police Saturday evening, according to law enforcement officials and eyewitnesses. Hochul confirmed during a news briefing that a home in Broome County was searched Saturday.
Authorities did not specify which social media platform the suspect used to allegedly livestream the shooting. But following the attack, the livestreaming platform Twitch said it had indefinitely suspended a user over the shooting in Buffalo.
“Twitch has a zero-tolerance policy against violence of any kind and works swiftly to respond to all incidents,” a Twitch spokesperson said in a statement. “The user has been indefinitely suspended from our service, and we are taking all appropriate action, including monitoring for any accounts rebroadcasting this content.”
The company said it removed the stream within two minutes of the violence starting and is monitoring Twitch for any re-streams of the content or related content.
“A horrible day in the history [of] our community,” Eri County Executive Mark Poloncarz said in a statement posted on Twitter. “Like too many communities in our nation, we’ve been impacted by the horror [of] a mass shooting. My thoughts are about the deceased and with their families at this terrible time.”
President Joe Biden has been briefed on the shooting, his press secretary said.
“He will continue to receive updates throughout the evening and tomorrow as further information develops,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said in a statement. “The president and the first lady are praying for those who have been lost and for their loved ones.”
Attorney General Merrick Garland was also made aware of the incident.
“The Justice Department is investigating this matter as a hate crime and an act of racially-motivated violent extremism. The Justice Department is committed to conducting a thorough and expeditious investigation into this shooting and to seeking justice for these innocent victims,” the statement from the department read.
Tops Friendly Markets said in a statement it was “shocked and saddened” by the shooting and offered condolences to the victims and their families.
“We appreciate the quick response of local law enforcement and are providing all available resources to assist authorities in the ongoing investigation,” the Amherst, New York-based supermarket chain said.
NAACP President Derrick Johnson called the organization was “shattered” and “extremely angered” by the incident.
“This is absolutely devastating. Our hearts are with the community and all who have been impacted by this terrible tragedy,” Johnson said. “Hate and racism have no place in America.”
The Buffalo shooting prompted the New York Police Department to provide increased security at Black churches around New York City “in the event of any copycat,” the NYPD said in a statement.
“While we assess there is no threat to New York City stemming from this incident,” the NYPD said in its statement, “out of an abundance of caution, we have shifted counterterrorism and patrol resources to give special attention to a number of locations and areas including major houses of worship in communities of color.”
ABC News’ Matt Foster and Luke Barr contributed to this report.
(BUFFALO, N.Y.) — A retired police officer is being praised for the valiant actions he took to protect others when a gunman opened fire on a supermarket, killing 10 people in an alleged hate crime.
Aaron Salter was working as a security guard for the Tops Friendly Market in Buffalo, New York, when a gunman shot four people in the parking lot, according to the Buffalo Police Department.
Once the shooter, outfitted in military fatigues, body armor and a tactical helmet, proceeded inside the store, Salter confronted him, shooting and striking the man, Buffalo Police Commissioner Joseph A. Gramaglia told ABC News Sunday.
But those bullets had no effect due to body armor the suspect wore, and the gunman returned fire, striking Salter, Gramaglia said.
The gunman shot nine people inside the store, livestreaming the entire massacre on social media. Salter was one of 10 people killed in the mass shooting.
Four of the shooting victims were store employees while the rest were customers, authorities said.
While it is not clear how many more victims were saved due to Salter’s actions, Gramaglia said, “We’re sure he saved lives yesterday,”
“He went down fighting,” Gramaglia said, describing him as a true hero. “He came in, he went towards the gunfire. He went towards the fight.”
Salter retired from the police department several years ago and had been a “beloved” member of Tops as a security guard, Gramaglia said.
“He took on a responsibility to protect the customers and the employees in the store,” Gramaglia said. “And he did exactly what he signed up for.”
One Tops employee, a mother of seven, told ABC News Sunday that if it hadn’t been for Salter, she and her 20-year-old daughter, who was working at the register, would not have known the gunman was headed in their direction.
When she saw Salter pull out his weapon, they knew they had to run, and they both made it out alive, she said.
Buffalo police officers responded to the scene “within one minute” of Salter being shot and encountered the gunman, Gramaglia said.
The gunman then pointed the assault rifle to his neck in a threat to kill himself, but officers were able to deescalate the situation and talk him into dropping the weapon, Gramaglia said. The suspect then dropped to his knees and began taking off his tactical gear, and officers took him into custody, Gramaglia said.
Investigators from the FBI, New York State Police and other agencies revealed that the gunman — identified as Payton Gendron of Conklin, New York — was in the Buffalo area at least a day before the shooting to prepare for the attack.
“It seems that he had come here to scope out the area to do a little reconnaissance work on the area before he carried out his just evil, sickening act,” Gramaglia said.
Gendron had legally purchased the AR-15 assault-style rifle allegedly used in the Buffalo supermarket shooting at a gun store in his home county of Broome, New York Gov. Kathy Hochul confirmed during an interview with ABC New York City station WABC on Saturday.
The gun had been modified with an “enhanced magazine,” which is illegal in New York, Hochul said.
The FBI is separately investigating the attack as a hate crime and as racially motivated violent extremism. Early indications are the shooter may have possessed extremist beliefs cultivated online, law enforcement sources told ABC News.
Among the 13 victims shot, 11 were Black and two were white, authorities said.
Buffalo Mayor Byron Brown ordered flags to be lowered to half-staff at city facilities, including police stations, fire stations and Niagara Square in the heart of Buffalo.
ABC News’ Meredith Deliso and Matt Foster contributed to this report.
(BUFFALO, N.Y) — The 18-year-old suspect who allegedly shot and killed ten people at a supermarket on Saturday afternoon in the heart of a Black community in Buffalo, appears to have been motivated by extremist beliefs and has a history of making violent threats, according to authorities.
Payton S. Gendron allegedly traveled more than three hours from Conklin, New York, to the Tops Friendly Market, according to law enforcement, to carry out the attack in a predominantly Black community.
He was wearing military fatigues, body armor and a tactical helmet when he shot four people in the parking lot of the Tops supermarket around 2:30 p.m. and then allegedly shot nine people inside before surrendering to authorities.
He was confronted by a retired Buffalo police officer working security who shot the suspect but without effect due to the suspect’s body armor, police said.
Grendon was arraigned on one count of first-degree murder to which he pleaded not guilty. He has been ordered to be held without bail, according to the Eric County District Attorney’s office.
Online writings
Law enforcement sources told ABC News the alleged shooter’s extremist beliefs may have been cultivated online and he appears to have expressed racially motivated extremist views in his online postings.
A 180-page document believed to have been posted on the internet by the suspect, is a hate-filled screed fixated on the notion of “replacement theory,” a white supremacist belief that non-whites will eventually replace white people because they have higher birth rates, authorities said.
Gendron, the purported author of the document, espouses racist and anti-Semitic tropes throughout the document, which he appears to have posted before he carried out the alleged attack, according to authorities.
Among the posts that investigators are looking at include online writings in which the suspect praises other mass shooters who were also motivated by racist ideology, including South Carolina church shooter Dylann Roof, the New Zealand mosque shooter Brenton Tarrant and the Pittsburgh Tree of Life synagogue shooter Robert Gregory Bowers.
In the document, the suspect also appears to outline a plan for his alleged attack, including time and place, and writes that he chose this location because there is a high concentration of Black people in the area.
Suspect’s history
Neighbors of the Gendron family told ABC News that the suspect is a former student at Broome Community College, part of the State University of New York college system — a detail confirmed by a spokesperson for the school.
Police in Broome County, New York, were called by a local high school in June 2021 after they reported that Gendron threatened a shooting at graduation or during that time, law enforcement sources familiar with the matter confirmed to ABC News. Following a police investigation, no charges were filed against Gendron, who received a mental health evaluation and counseling after the incident.
A home associated with Gendron was searched by the FBI and New York state police, law enforcement officials and eyewitnesses confirmed to ABC News.
New York Gov. Kathy Hochul told ABC station in New York, WABC, that Gendron legally purchased the AR-15 assault-style rifle that was allegedly used in the supermarket shooting at a gun store in his home county of Broome.
But the “legally obtained weapon” was modified and became “illegal,” Hochul said.
“It’s mostly the illegal guns and magazine capacity enhancements that are causing a lot of problems in New York City and all the way here to Buffalo,” she added.
What’s next
Gendron was arraigned on Saturday evening before the Buffalo City Court on one count of first-degree murder, according to a statement from the Erie County District Attorney’s office.
The suspect entered a plea of not guilty. If convicted, he faces a maximum sentence of life in prison without the possibility of parole, according to the DA’s office.
But according to Erie County District Attorney John Flynn, further charges against Gendron are possible.
“My office is working closely with the U.S. Attorney’s Office and our partners in law enforcement into potential terrorism and hate crimes. This is an active investigation and additional charges may be filed,” Flynn said in a statement.
The U.S. Department of Justice is also investigating the shooting as “a hate crime and an act of racially motivated violent extremism,” Attorney General Merrick Garland said in a statement.
“The Justice Department is committed to conducting a thorough and expeditious investigation into this shooting and to seeking justice for these innocent victims,” Garland said.
Gendron’s next court hearing is set for May 19 and will remain in custody, where he is ordered to be held without bail, according to the DA’s office.
ABC News’ Aaron Katersky, Bill Hutchison, John Santucci, Laura Romero and Olivia Rubin contributed to this report.
Libby March for The Washington Post via Getty Images
(BUFFALO, N.Y.) — Fragrance Harris Stanfield, a mother of seven, was at work at a Tops grocery store in Buffalo, New York, when she heard gunshots.
“We all looked toward the front door. We saw the security guard backing up, reaching for his weapon. And we ran,” she said.
One of Stanfield’s children — her 20-year-old daughter — was also working at the store, at register 6.
In the commotion, Stanfield said she realized she was separated from her daughter.
“I didn’t know where she was. And I just thought, if she’s gone, I gotta get out of here. She’s got babies — she has a newborn, and she has a 3-year-old, so I still had to get out. If I went back for her and she was gone, I would be gone, too. And then they’ll have nobody,” Stanfield said, overcome with emotion. “So I still ran and ran out the back.”
Stanfield later learned her daughter was crouched down by a register during the gunfire and witnessed two people get shot.
Stanfield said her daughter “covered her face” when the gunman walked by so he “wouldn’t hear her breathing.”
“By the grace of God we got out,” she said.
Stanfield and her daughter were among those who escaped alive on Saturday when a gunman killed 10 people — all of whom were Black — at a Buffalo supermarket. Authorities are calling the massacre a “racially-motivated hate crime.” The 18-year-old suspected gunman is in custody.
Annette Parker and her 9-year-old daughter were walking out of a Family Dollar store, just a few feet away from the grocery store, when they heard gunshots.
Parker picked up her daughter and started running, she told ABC News.
“My mother lives down the street … so I ran towards her house,” she said.
Parker said her daughter is terrified, and they’re staying with family.
But Parker, with tears in her eyes, said hate won’t stop her from going back.
“That’s not gonna stop me or my daughter. This is my community,” she said.
ABC News’ Stephanie Ramos, Katie O’Brien and Matt Foster contributed to this report.
Libby March for The Washington Post via Getty Images
(BUFFALO, N.Y.) — At least 10 people are dead and another three wounded after a mass shooting at a supermarket in Buffalo, New York, that authorities said was a “racially motivated hate crime.”
An 18-year-old white, male suspect is in custody, police said. The shooter live-streamed the attack on social media, authorities said.
The gunman, wearing military fatigues, body armor and a tactical helmet, shot four people in the parking lot of a Tops supermarket around 2:30 p.m., three fatally. He proceeded inside the store where he was confronted by a retired Buffalo police officer working security, police said.
The guard shot and struck the suspect, but without effect due to the body armor, police said.
The gunman then proceeded to shoot nine more people inside the store, police said. He threatened to shoot himself before dropping his gun and surrendering to police, authorities said.
Among the 13 victims shot, 11 were African American and two were white, authorities said.
Four of the shooting victims were store employees, while the rest were customers, authorities said. The Buffalo police officer working security was among those killed, according to a law enforcement official.
Three victims suffered non-life-threatening gunshot wounds, authorities said.
The scene is no longer active and no other suspects are outstanding, a law enforcement official said.
The gun was legally obtained but modified with illegal magazines, according to Gov. Kathy Hochul.
“There is no depth to the outrage I’m feeling right now,” she said during a briefing Saturday.
The suspect — identified as Payton Gendron of Conklin, New York — was arraigned on one count of first-degree murder and ordered held without bail Saturday evening, according to Erie County District Attorney John Flynn. His office is also investigating terrorism charges, he said.
The suspect traveled from a New York county several hours away to the Buffalo store, authorities said.
“This is the worst nightmare any community can face,” Buffalo Mayor Byron Brown said at a press briefing Saturday.
The FBI is separately investigating the attack as a hate crime and as racially motivated violent extremism.
Early indications are the shooter may have possessed extremist beliefs cultivated online, law enforcement sources told ABC News.
Investigators are looking at multiple online postings that may be associated with the shooter that include praise for South Carolina church shooter Dylann Roof and the New Zealand mosque shooter Brenton Tarrant, according to the sources.
“This was pure evil,” Erie County Sheriff John Garcia told reporters. “It was a straight-up racially motivated hate crime from somebody outside of our community…coming into our community and trying to inflict evil upon us.”
Flynn said there are pieces of evidence that “indicate some racial animosity,” but would not elaborate more at this point in the investigation.
Hochul said she has directed the New York State Police’s Hate Crimes Task Force to assist in the investigation.
A home associated with the suspect in Conklin, a town near Binghamton in Broome County, was being searched by the FBI and New York State Police Saturday evening, according to law enforcement officials and eyewitnesses. Hochul confirmed during a news briefing that a home in Broome County was being searched Saturday.
Authorities did not specify which social media platform the suspect used to allegedly livestream the shooting. But following the attack, the video game live streaming platform Twitch said it had indefinitely suspended a user over the shooting in Buffalo.
“Twitch has a zero-tolerance policy against violence of any kind and works swiftly to respond to all incidents,” a Twitch spokesperson said in a statement. “The user has been indefinitely suspended from our service, and we are taking all appropriate action, including monitoring for any accounts rebroadcasting this content.”
The company said it removed the stream within two minutes of the violence starting and is monitoring Twitch for any restreams of the content or related content.
Erie County Executive Mark Poloncarz also tweeted Saturday afternoon that he had been “advised of an active multiple shooting event” at the supermarket.
“A horrible day in the history [of] our community,” Poloncarz said in a statement. “Like too many communities in our nation, we’ve been impacted by the horror [of] a mass shooting. My thoughts are about the deceased and with their families at this terrible time.”
President Joe Biden has been briefed on the shooting, his press secretary said.
“He will continue to receive updates throughout the evening and tomorrow as further information develops,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said in a statement. “The President and the First Lady are praying for those who have been lost and for their loved ones.”
Attorney General Merrick Garland was also made aware of the incident.
“The Justice Department is investigating this matter as a hate crime and an act of racially-motivated violent extremism. The Justice Department is committed to conducting a thorough and expeditious investigation into this shooting and to seeking justice for these innocent victims,” the statement read.
Tops Friendly Markets said in a statement it was “shocked and saddened” by the shooting and offered condolences to the victims and their families.
“We appreciate the quick response of local law enforcement and are providing all available resources to assist authorities in the ongoing investigation,” the Amherst, New York-based supermarket chain said.
NAACP President Derrick Johnson called the organization was “shattered” and “extremely angered” by the incident.
“This is absolutely devastating. Our hearts are with the community and all who have been impacted by this terrible tragedy,” Johnson said. “Hate and racism have no place in America.”
ABC News’ Matt Foster and Luke Barr contributed to this report.
(MILWAUKEE) — Milwaukee Mayor Cavalier Johnson imposed a two-night curfew for individuals under the age of 21 within the city’s entertainment district on Saturday. The curfew is from 11 p.m. to 5:30 a.m. on Saturday and Sunday.
Police will be enforcing the curfew and individuals found in violation will be arrested and fined $691, according to police.
The curfew comes after three shootings in the entertainment district left 21 people injured on Friday.
“I fully expect that when people cause death, harm and destruction in Milwaukee that they should be held fully accountable under the law,” Johnson said during a press conference Saturday.
He later added: “What happened here in this neighborhood last night, it will not be tolerated.”
The Milwaukee Police Department is investigating a non-fatal shooting incident that occurred late Friday night. Police said the shooting occurred due to a “confrontation” between a “couple groups that exchanged in gunfire”
There were 17 victims, their ages raging from 15 to 47. They are all expected to survive, police said.
Police have arrested 10 people and nine guns have been recovered from at least five people who were armed.
Police are also investigating a triple shooting that occurred Friday. The victims were a 29-year-old male, a 16-year-old female and a 26-year-old male and are all expected to survive, according to police.
A 19-year-old male was taken into custody in connection with this incident and charges against him are pending review by the Milwaukee County District Attorney’s Office.
A third shooting injured one person on Friday. The victim, a 20-year-old Milwaukee man, was taken to the hospital and is expected to survive. Police said they are still looking for unknown suspect(s).
(NEW YORK) — During the early days of the pandemic, Cayci Weaver was able to hold on to her teaching job. Educating high school students, however, was not easy; the switch to remote learning was a challenge, she says.
“I think we were working 12-hour days for about a week, just trying to get everything set up,” she said, adding: “You know, you gotta do what you gotta do to make sure you’re not failing the students.”
But she says after those initial struggles, students adapted, and so did she.
Weaver said she didn’t always want to be a teacher. Even into her college years, she says she was still unsure of what career path to take.
But she said she had always loved history. That’s why, a little more than ten years ago, she applied for a job at a school in Jacksonville, Florida. After teaching middle school for a time, she eventually moved to the high school level, teaching American history to 11th and 12th graders.
It may not have been a lifelong dream, but Weaver says she came to love teaching.
“Nobody gets into teaching because you’re going to make a lot of money, because you know you’re not going to,” Weaver tells ABC Audio. “You get into it because you like what you’re doing. You care about what you’re doing.”
Though money was tight on a teacher’s salary, Weaver says she lived comfortably during the twelve years she spent in the classroom.
“I stuck it out for a while,” she said.
While many Americans lost their jobs in 2020, Weaver was still working and adapting to changes brought by the pandemic.
“After the ball got rolling, and the kids adapted to what the new normal was… I actually enjoyed it a lot more,” says Weaver.
She also says that time allowed her to discover something about her job that she didn’t fully see before the pandemic.
“For me, I think I thrived, a bit, in that environment,” she says.
She says working remotely illuminated the things she was missing during her days commuting back and forth to school.
“It was just better being at home, where I could spend more time with family and my pups, so I actually enjoyed that a whole lot more,” she says. “It felt like I had more time to enjoy what I wanted to do while still also being present for the students and still teaching.”
When the 2020 school year began, Weaver’s school had adopted a hybrid model for students, and she had to continue teaching students remotely while at the same time engaging the students who returned to school for in-person learning. Plus, with parents going back to work, coronavirus concerns began to mount, as well.
“The number of parents that would send their kids to school when they knew their kids were sick because they didn’t have day care for them, or they didn’t have an option – they didn’t have anyone to watch their kids – that happened quite frequently.”
For Weaver and her colleagues, all of that equaled burnout.
“We always called it the ‘April feeling,’ where you just wanted the end of the school year to get here because you’re worn out. That ‘April feeling’ came in September,” she says.
So at the end of that school year, in May 2021, after her students made it through state testing, Weaver quit her job.
“Twelve years later, I think I’m ready to just cut my losses and start looking out for more me, and my future long term, rather than just living paycheck to paycheck,” she says.
She’s now a real estate agent, and while it might not be as much history on a day-to-day basis, she says things have been easier. Weaver says in the first two months of 2022 she’s already made half of her full year’s salary as a teacher. And she says her finances aren’t the only thing that’s improved.
“I think I made the right choice,” she said. “I can get home a little early to make sure I have time to cook, or I can get home a little earlier to make sure that I can do the things that I want to do. I 100 percent think that this was the right call for me.”
(NEW YORK) — An Alabama judge has partially blocked the state’s gender-affirming trans youth care ban.
S.B. 184, the Vulnerable Child Protection Act, states that anyone who provides gender-affirming care to anyone under 19 could be convicted of a felony and face up to 10 years in prison and a $15,000 fine.
Judge Liles Burke blocked part of the Alabama law that banned prescriptions for gender-affirming puberty blockers and hormones, as the case is litigated.
He left in place other parts of the law, including the ban on gender-affirming surgeries that physicians say are already banned.
Burke will also allow the provision that requires school officials to tell parents if a minor discloses they are transgender.
The ban went into effect on May 8 and left physicians and families across the state rushing to figure out how best to provide care for their young transgender patients before the ban took place.
“It was a scramble, trying to gather as many names as possible of the kids that we see in our clinic and make sure that they do have refills called in before the law took effect,” pediatric endocrinologist Hussein Abdul-Latif told ABC News.
Burke held a two-day hearing before the ban went into effect to hear from doctors, researchers, families and more about the legislation and its impact.
Many at the hearing pointed out that the legislation is riddled with misinformation about hormone therapy, puberty blockers and gender reassignment surgery.
The claims made in the legislation — including the falsehood that hormone and puberty blockers have negative health impacts or cause infertility in trans youth — have been debunked by physicians who spoke to ABC News, as well as researchers at Yale University and the University of Texas Southwestern.
GLBTQ Legal Advocates & Defenders (GLAD), alongside other LGBTQ advocacy groups, is suing Gov. Kay Ivey, alongside the state attorney general, in opposition of the trans care ban.
“A state cannot criminalize parents and doctors for following medical guidelines and providing needed medical treatments,” NCLR Senior Staff Attorney and Transgender Youth Project Director Asaf Orr said in a statement on the lawsuit.
Orr continued, “This is a blatantly unconstitutional bill that will cause enormous stress and harm to Alabama families and cost Alabama taxpayers millions of dollars to defend.”
Ivey’s office did not respond to ABC News’ request for comment.
A similar law was halted in Arkansas last year when a federal judge issued an injunction.
(DALLAS) — The shooting of three Korean women in a hair salon in the city’s Koreatown on Wednesday afternoon could be hate motivated, Dallas police said, and may be linked to a series of recent shootings at Asian run businesses in the city.
The shooting victims at the Hair World Salon in a historically Asian district were all Korean women — the salon owner, an employee and a customer, according to ABC affiliate station WFAA in Dallas. The women suffered nonfatal injuries and were transported to a local hospital, according to police.
Dallas Police Chief Eddie Garcia said at a press conference on Friday that initially police “did not have any indication that this crime was hate motivated,” but as of Friday afternoon, “that just changed.”
Garcia said that amid the investigation, law enforcement “concluded three recent shootings of Asian run businesses may be connected” and the suspect in each incident was driving a similar vehicle.
On 5/11/22 at 2:20 p.m. 3 female victims were shot at the World Salon on Royal Ln. The suspect is described as a Black male 5’7” to 5’10” thin build with curly hair and beard. Contact Detective T. Johnston at 214.671.3523 or timothy.johnston@dallascityhall.com if you have info. pic.twitter.com/gZ81P62BN7
The Dallas Police Department released a security camera image Thursday of the assailant dressed all in black running from the salon following the 2 p.m. shooting. The man appeared to be holding a semiautomatic rifle with an extended magazine clip.
Police said they learned from a witness report that an unknown Black male parked what appeared to be “a dark color minivan-type vehicle” on Royal Lane and then walked across the parking lot into the establishment and allegedly opened fire as soon as he entered the salon.
“The suspect then fired multiple rounds inside the business, wounded all three victims,” police said.
Police also released a security image of a maroon minivan they said the gunmen fled the scene in. The gunman was described by police as 5-foot-7 to 5-foot-10, thin with curly hair and a beard.
Garcia said that the shooting at the salon may be linked to a shooting that happened a day before and one that took place last month.
Police learned from witness reports that on April 2 a driver in a red minivan drove past a strip mall of Asian run businesses and fired shots at three businesses, but no one was injured.
And on Tuesday a suspect in a burgundy van or car drove by and shot into Asian run businesses near 4849 Sunnyvale Street, but no one was injured.
“Out of an abundance of caution, we have reached out to our partners to make them aware of the possible connection and ask for their assistance,” Garcia said. “This includes the FBI and member agencies of the Joint Terrorism Task Force. We are also working with North Texas police partners to determine if this criminal action has or is taking place in their jurisdictions.”
Garcia said that police will be increasing the presence of high visibility patrol officers in areas in the city where there are large Asian American populations.
“We are turning to every resident of the city of Dallas to keep an eye out and safeguard our city,” Garcia said. “Hate has no place here.”
These incidents in Dallas come amid a spate of attacks targeting Asian Americans across the nation, which spiked amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
“The possibility that we are dealing with a violent gunman who is motivated by hate is chilling and deeply disturbing,” Dallas Mayor Eric Johnson said in a statement on Friday.
“And I want our Asian American community – which has appallingly faced increased vitriol in recent years – to know that the city of Dallas and the people of Dallas stand with them,” he added.
