(NEW YORK) — Police in Dayton, Ohio, have released body camera footage that appears to show police officers dragging a partially paralyzed man out of his car by his hair.
When officers repeatedly ask Owensby to exit the vehicle during a Sept. 30 traffic stop, Clifford Owensby, 39, can be heard telling them that he is paraplegic and could not do so.
He says he does not want to be touched and calls someone to come to the scene and witness what is going on.
Owensby is then dragged out of the car by the officers, who appeared to use his hair to pull him out, the video shows. He’s handcuffed on the ground and continuously held by his hair as he yells for help, according to the video. Police are seen hauling him into a police cruiser.
Owensby accused the Dayton Police Department of unlawful arrest, illegal search and seizure, profiling and failure to read his rights before being taken into custody. He has since filed a complaint with the Dayton NAACP chapter on the incident.
“We’re not talking about his past. We’re not talking about the activity by which the officer was conducting the search or drug activity. We’re talking about this incident and how the incident was handled,” said Derrick Foward, president of the Dayton unit of the NAACP.
Dayton Mayor Nan Whaley called the video “concerning.”
“That is why, immediately following this incident, the city released the body camera footage,” Whaley said in a statement to ABC News. “Everyone involved is owed a thorough investigation, and one is already underway. This incident shows why our community-led police reform process, which includes providing transparency, is more important than ever. The goal is always to ensure our police force has the resources to do its job, while treating all of our citizens with dignity and respect.”
According to the police department, officers were patrolling the area and had been sent to a suspected drug house. They initiated a traffic stop on a white Audi that was seen leaving the residence.
According to a police briefing on the incident, Owensby provided his identification when officers approached. Based on Owensby’s felony drug and weapon history, officers say they requested a Narcotics Detection K-9 at the scene for a free-air sniff on the vehicle.
Dayton police policy requires the occupants of the vehicle to exit for their own safety and the safety of the K-9 officer to perform the free-air sniff.
Police reported that a large bag of cash containing $22,450 was found on the floor of Owensby’s car and based on the K-9’s response the bag may have been in close proximity to illegal drugs.
Owensby denies any wrongdoing and says the cash that was found was his savings.
Owensby was charged with obstructing official business and resisting arrest. The case will be referred to the City Prosecutor’s Office, where it will be decided if the city will pursue the charges against Owensby, police said.
The Dayton Fraternal Order of Police told ABC News that officers “followed the law” and defended the use of force.
(SAN FRANCISCO) — Pacific Gas & Electric warned tens of thousands of customers in California that their power may be shut off Monday to help prevent wildfires due to severe wind and drought conditions in the area.
The preemptive shutdowns, at the inconvenience of customers, come as the company is still reeling from fallout related to deadly blazes in 2018 and 2020 authorities say were sparked by trees hitting the power grid. They also come as climate change has exacerbated California’s wildfires, stoking conditions experts say have led to the larger and deadlier blazes seen in recent years.
The company sent shutoff warnings to nearly 25,000 customers spanning 22 counties — including Alameda, Fresno and Napa — in northern and central California on Sunday.
On Monday, PG&E updated on its website that shutoffs were required and its map of outages indicated power had been temporarily turned off in a slew of communities in the state’s Northern Sierra Foothills region, North Coast region and beyond.
“Since Friday, PG&E meteorologists have been tracking the weather system, which is expected to start Sunday night and bring wind gusts of up to 50 mph by Monday morning,” the company said in a statement Sunday. “PG&E’s in-house meteorologists, its Wildfire Safety Operations Center and its Emergency Operations Center continue to monitor conditions closely.”
Customers impacted were notified via text, email and automated phone calls beginning Saturday, the company said. More information on the latest status in specific neighborhoods can be found on PG&E’s website, along with tips for customers on how to prepare for the planned outages — such as unplugging appliances and using battery-powered flashlights.
Counties that would likely see the most customers impacted include Tehama (where 5,342 customers were sent warnings), Solano (4,561 customers) and Lake (4,008 customers). PG&E initially said it expects “minimal impact” to be felt by customers in the Bay Area and Central Valley.
The National Weather Service has warned of high winds in California due to a powerful storm in the west bringing a “critical fire weather” warning in central and northern California through Tuesday.
The so-called Public Safety Power Shutoffs (PSPS), which proactively turn off power in an effort to reduce the risk of wildfire from energized power lines, come as California has been battling larger and deadlier blazes in recent years linked to climate change.
The preemptive power shutdowns also come as PG&E has been embroiled in controversy linked to the wildfires. Late last month, the company was charged with involuntary manslaughter and other counts related to the 2020 Zogg Fire, which was sparked by a tree contacting a PG&E electric line.
PG&E CEO Patti Poppe disputed the criminal charges in a statement shortly after they were announced, saying, “We’ve accepted CAL FIRE’s determination, reached earlier this year, that a tree contacted our electric line and started the Zogg Fire. We accept that conclusion. But we did not commit a crime.”
“This was a tragedy, four people died. And my coworkers are working so hard to prevent fires and the catastrophic losses that come with them. They have dedicated their careers to it, criminalizing their judgment is not right,” Poppe added.
The latest legal action taken against the firm comes after the company pleaded guilty last year to 84 counts of involuntary manslaughter and one count of unlawfully starting a fire for its link to the ignition of the devastating 2018 Camp Fire.
In her statement, Poppe noted steps the firm is taking to prevent wildfires, saying it is investing more than $1.4 billion in 2021 alone in vegetation management, removing 300,000 trees and trimming a million more, working toward burying 10,000 miles of power lines and more.
(NEW YORK) — The United States has been facing a COVID-19 surge as the more contagious delta variant continues to spread.
More than 713,000 Americans have died from COVID-19 while over 4.8 million people have died from the disease worldwide, according to real-time data compiled by the Center for Systems Science and Engineering at Johns Hopkins University.
Just 66% of Americans ages 12 and up are fully vaccinated against COVID-19, according to data from the CDC.
Here’s how the news is developing. All times Eastern:
Oct 11, 12:41 pm
Daily death average nearly 8 times higher than in mid-July
Although daily deaths have declined by about 17% in the last four weeks, the U.S. is still reporting an average of 1,465 new deaths each day, according to federal data. Over the last four days alone, the U.S. reported another 7,500 confirmed COVID-19 deaths.
The death average is nearly eight times higher than in mid-July when the national average had dropped to a near pandemic low of 192 daily deaths, according to federal data.
But hospitalization admissions have dropped by about 11.4% in the last week, according to federal data.
There are currently about 65,000 COVID-19 patients in U.S. hospitals, down from 104,000 patients in late August.
In the Mountain Region — Colorado, Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Utah and Wyoming — hospital admissions are steadily trending up, federal data show. In the Northeast, hospital admissions are no longer trending down.
-ABC News’ Arielle Mitropoulos
Oct 11, 12:13 pm
Boston Marathon returns with COVID protocols in place
The Boston Marathon returned with 18,000 runners on Monday following a two-year hiatus.
The field size was reduced by 36% this year while another 28,000 runners participated in the race virtually.
Runners were required to provide proof of vaccination or a negative COVID-19 test. Although masks were not mandated for the 26.2-mile course, face coverings were enforced on participant transportation, as well as for volunteers who interacted with participants.
According to the Boston Marathon Association, 95% of all Boston Marathon volunteers were vaccinated and 100% of Boston Marathon medical volunteers were vaccinated.
(NEW YORK) — The United States has been facing a COVID-19 surge as the more contagious delta variant continues to spread.
More than 713,000 Americans have died from COVID-19 while over 4.8 million people have died from the disease worldwide, according to real-time data compiled by the Center for Systems Science and Engineering at Johns Hopkins University.
Just 66% of Americans ages 12 and up are fully vaccinated against COVID-19, according to data from the CDC.
Here’s how the news is developing. All times Eastern:
Oct 11, 12:13 pm
Boston Marathon returns with COVID protocols in place
The Boston Marathon returned with 18,000 runners on Monday following a two-year hiatus.
The field size was reduced by 36% this year while another 28,000 runners participated in the race virtually.
Runners were required to provide proof of vaccination or a negative COVID-19 test. Although masks were not mandated for the 26.2-mile course, face coverings were enforced on participant transportation, as well as for volunteers who interacted with participants.
According to the Boston Marathon Association, 95% of all Boston Marathon volunteers were vaccinated and 100% of Boston Marathon medical volunteers were vaccinated.
(MARTINSBURG, WVa.) — A current U.S. Navy engineer and his wife were charged with sending restricted naval data internationally, with the intention of selling it, court records unsealed over the weekend show.
Jonathan Toebbe and his wife, Diana Toebbe, allegedly communicated through encryption services with an undercover FBI agent and attempted to sell submarine data that was restricted, according to a criminal complaint.
The FBI were brought into the case from the beginning, court documents say.
Starting in December 2020, an unspecified country received a package from the United States, containing U.S. Navy documents as well as an SD disc and a letter explaining that it was not a hoax, the FBI says.
“Please forward this letter to your military intelligence agency. I believe this information will be of great value to your nation,” the letter in the package allegedly said. “This is not a hoax.”
They turned it over to the FBI legal attaché in the country, and FBI began to communicate through encrypted email, according to the complaint. Allegedly on the other side of that encrypted email was Jonathan Toebbe.
The FBI alleges he asked to be compensated in cryptocurrency writing in an email that, “Face to face meetings are very risky for me, as I am sure you understand. I propose exchanging gifts electronically, for mutual safety.”
An undercover FBI agent whom he was communicating with was posing as a representative of a foreign country, and allegedly suggested a drop location for him to drop off sensitive information, according to the complaint.
Court documents say Toebbe asked for a signal to be placed in the country’s main building as a sign of good faith while he visited Washington, D.C., which the FBI placed, and as a sign of good faith, paid Toebbe $10,000 in cryptocurrency.
After the exchange, the government alleges Teobbe dropped sensitive documents in West Virginia, while his wife allegedly acted as a lookout.
“Records show that JONATHAN TOEBBE is a government employee working as a nuclear engineer for the United States Navy and holds an active Top Secret Security Clearance through the United States Department of Defense and an active Q clearance from the United States Department of Energy,” the documents state.
The government alleges that Toebbe put an SD card containing restricted naval data inside a peanut butter sandwich.
“Specifically, the U.S. Navy subject matter expert determined that several of the documents contained militarily sensitive design elements, operating parameters, and performance characteristics of Virginia-class submarine reactors,” court documents state.
In total, Toebbe allegedly received $100,000 for dropping off restricted data.
He allegedly conducted three drop-offs.
“The U.S. Navy subject matter expert determined that multiple documents on the SD card contained Restricted Data. Specifically, the U.S. Navy subject matter expert determined that the document contained schematic designs for the Virginia-class submarine. Virginia-class submarines are nuclear-powered cruise missile fastattack submarines, which incorporate the latest in stealth, intelligence gathering, and weapons systems technology,” the documents say. “Virginia-class submarines, with a per unit cost of approximately $3 billion, are currently in service with the United States Navy and are expected to remain in service until at least 2060.”
The Toebbes were arrested in Jefferson County, West Virginia, by the FBI and the Naval Criminal Investigative Service (NCIS) Saturday. They will appear in federal court in Martinsburg, West Virginia, on Tuesday. They have been charged in a criminal complaint alleging violations of the Atomic Energy Act.
(SAN BERNARDINO COUNTY, Calif.) — Remains found in a Southern California desert this weekend may belong to 30-year-old Lauren “El” Cho, who has been missing for months, authorities said.
The remains were recovered during a Saturday search for Cho “in the rugged terrain of the open desert of Yucca Valley,” the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department said.
The remains haven’t been identified and a cause of death hasn’t been released. The sheriff’s office said the identification process could take several weeks.
Cho, from New Jersey, was reported missing on June 28 “when she reportedly walked away” from the Yucca Valley home where she was staying, the sheriff’s department said.
The search for Cho was launched this summer and included planes searching the remote mountain terrain and canines scouring the area for evidence, the sheriff’s office said.
Cho’s family describes her as “a talented musician, an incredible baker, a hilarious and loyal friend, a strangely intuitive gift giver, and probably the coolest sister one could hope for.”
(ALAMO, Ga.) — Investigators announced Sunday afternoon they had arrested the suspect wanted in connection with the killing of a central Georgia police officer who was shot outside his police department early Saturday, authorities said.
Dylan Harrison, 26, of Dudley, Georgia, was working his first shift as a part-time officer with the Alamo Police Department in Wheeler County when he was fatally shot around 1 a.m. Saturday, police said. Harrison was allegedly killed over an earlier confrontation that took place near the precinct a few hours prior, investigators said.
Damien Anthony Ferguson, 43, of Alamo, Georgia, was taken into custody Sunday afternoon following a nearly 38-hour manhunt, authorities said. He was arrested without incident while officers executed a search warrant of his residence, the Georgia Bureau of Investigation said during a news conference Sunday evening.
Lindsay Wilkes, the special agent in charge for the GBI, told reporters that Harrison was involved in an altercation at a parking lot on Circle K across the street from the precinct Friday night. Harrison allegedly saw a man who was an associate of Ferguson commit a traffic violation and made contact with him, according to Wilkes.
The officer allegedly used his Taser on the suspect when he did not comply with Harrison’s orders, Wilkes said.
“It is believed that the ambush-style attack on Officer Harrison was retaliation for the incident and the arrest of the man Friday night,” Wilkes said.
Ferguson was charged with murder and with aggravated stalking related to a previous domestic incident, according to the GBI. Attorney information wasn’t immediately available.
Ferguson served eight years in prison after being convicted in Wheeler County of charges including aggravated assault of a peace officer, Georgia Department of Corrections records show. He was released in 2006.
Before his arrest, the Georgia Bureau of Investigation issued a “blue alert,” which indicates the search for a suspect who’s allegedly killed or injured an officer and hasn’t been apprehended, for Ferguson. An $18,500 reward was offered for information related to Ferguson’s arrest.
Harrison appears to be at least the fifth Georgia officer killed in the line of duty this year, according to Officer Down Memorial Page, which tracks law enforcement deaths.
He was also a full-time agent with the Oconee Drug Task Force in Eastman, Georgia, and has been in law enforcement since 2018. He leaves behind his wife and 6-month-old baby.
(ST. PAUL, Minn.) — A woman was killed and 14 other people were wounded early Sunday when at least three patrons pulled guns and opened fire at a popular bar in St. Paul, Minnesota, police said.
The mass shooting erupted inside the Seventh Street Truck Park bar in downtown St. Paul around 12:15 a.m., prompting a flood of 911 calls, according to authorities.
Steve Linders, a St. Paul Police Department spokesperson, said that when police officers arrived they found a “chaotic scene” with wounded people inside and outside the tavern.
“There were gunshot wound victims lying in the street outside the bar,” Linders said at a news conference early Sunday. “There were gunshot wound victims lying on the sidewalk outside the bar. There were gunshot wound victims lying on the floor inside the bar.”
St. Paul Police Chief Todd Axtell said one of the victims, a woman in her 20s, was pronounced dead at the scene. Police were withholding her name pending an autopsy and notification of her relatives.
“My heart breaks for the woman who was killed, her loved ones and everyone else who was in that bar this morning,” Axtell said. “In an instant, they found themselves caught in a hellish situation. I want them to know that we have the best investigators in the country, and we won’t stop until we find the people responsible for this madness. We will do our part to hold them accountable.”
Three men wounded in the incident were taken into custody at local hospitals. Police identified the suspects as Terry Lorenzo Brown, Jr., 33, Devondre Trevon Phillips, 29, and Jeffrey Orlando Hoffman, 32. Charges have yet to be determined, but Axtell said the suspects will be booked into the Ramsey County jail as soon as they are discharged from the hospital.
“I hope these arrests bring a modicum of peace to all who’ve been affected by this morning’s tragedy,” Axtell said.
He said the investigation remained active and did not rule out the possibility of more arrests. A possible motive was not disclosed.
Investigators were still conducting interviews with witnesses and collecting evidence Sunday afternoon inside and outside the bar, which is about a block from the city’s Xcel Energy Center, home of the Minnesota Wild National Hockey League team.
St. Paul Mayor Melvin Carter said in a post on Twitter that the shooting has left his community “devastated.”
The fatal shooting marked the 32nd homicide in St. Paul this year, according to the police department’s crime statistics. In 2020, there were a total of 34 homicides in St. Paul, a 13.3% increase over 2019.
“As our St. Paul officers work to bring those responsible for these senseless acts into custody, our work to build more proactive safety strategies is more urgent than ever,” Carter said. “We will never accept violence in our community.”
(NEW YORK) — When someone goes missing in Hawaii, local activist Ihilani Lasconia says that many in the island’s Native communities first suspect one thing: sex trafficking.
“Everybody knows that it’s happening, everybody knows that it’s a problem,” said Lasconia, an advocate for the feminist group AF3IRM. “It’s been so normalized — with over 100 years of colonization — so people feel defeated and don’t have the vocabulary to articulate these experiences.”
A new task force created by the state House aims to gather data on the number of missing Native Hawaiian women, and the impact of sex trafficking on Native populations on the islands.
Women and children in Hawaii are facing a widespread epidemic of violence and sex trafficking, according to House documents.
The task force is being led by the Hawaii State Commission on the State of Women and the Office of Hawaiian Affairs — and is backed by state agencies, local authorities and other activist groups.
Khara Jabola-Carolus, executive director of the Hawaii State Commission on the State of Women, said that “if there’s no data, there’s no problem.”
That’s why she and her team are researching the concrete numbers of how many women and girls may be missing or being sex trafficked in the state.
Why the data matters
The few figures that exist, like research from the commission and Arizona State University, suggest that Native Hawaiian women are disproportionately represented among sex trafficking victims in the state.
Sixty-four percent of the sex trafficking victims identified in the commission’s 2020 study identified as having Native Hawaiian ancestry.
The report reads: “The overutilization of Native Hawaiians to meet sex buyer demand may be directly linked to structural economic coercion and vulnerabilities connected to land dispossession, exposure to sexual violence, hypersexualization, incarceration, cultural dislocation, intergenerational trauma, mental and emotional distress, racism, poverty, and going inequities.”
Nearly a quarter of the sex trafficking victims were sex trafficked by a family member, the research shows.
But there’s still a lot that researchers don’t know, Jabola-Carolus said.
Native Hawaiians have been left out of federal and state research into the issue of missing and murdered Native and Indigenous women — according to Jabola-Carolus, because recent federal efforts have been focused on researching crimes on tribal lands in the U.S., and Native Hawaiians don’t have the same land designation as other Indigenous communities.
Indigenous women and girls are victims of violence at far greater rates than any other population in the United States, according to the Urban Indian Health Institute.
Much of the research on these missing and murdered women have not included or researched Native Hawaiians, or the data does not offer the racial and ethnic nuances of these victims.
How did this happen?
The local activists who spoke with ABC News put the blame on tourism and lack of law enforcement resources for the widespread issue plaguing Native women across the islands.
“We can’t talk about the sexual violence that Native Hawaiians experience without talking about the tourism industry, because a lot of buyers come from either the United States, or internationally and they feed this market,” said Lasconia
Jabola-Carolus and Lasconia say there’s a mistrust in law enforcement, which they allege have never put the resources into finding missing Native women and girls — several of whom have gone missing in recent months with no leads.
ABC News contacted the Honolulu Police Department which wouldn’t comment on the matter.
They also say they believe the tourism industry often easily escapes accountability due to authority or temporary time in the islands.
“There’s nothing bad about Hawaii, right? It’s meant to be marketed to you as a blissful, problem-free place where you can leave your worries behind,” said Jabola-Carolus. “But for us, there is such a high cost.”
Now, the efforts to find these women — and prevent more women from going missing — are on.
Finding the missing
The disappearance of Gabby Petito, a white social media personality, and the media attention that followed her case has prompted calls to search for missing women from different communities across the United States. Activists, like Lasconia, say that missing women of color have been left behind, receiving little attention.
“There was so much conversation around this one white woman going missing … there were so many young Native Hawaiian girls [who] went missing within that same week, and not a single Amber Alert went out,” Lasconia said.
But local activists and organizers in Hawaii have long been working to fix this issue themselves.
Since the state passed its first anti-sex trafficking law in 2016, local agencies have been working to examine how widespread the issue of sex trafficking is.
Jabola-Carolus said that the Hawaii State Commission on the State of Women has been working to build trust with communities that have been heavily impacted by sexual “exploitation, neglect and criminalization.”
In 2019, SB1039 was signed into law.The Hawaiian law lets people vacate a prostitution conviction and expunge their criminal record as long as they haven’t been convicted of another offense within three years of the original offense. Before, the person would have to prove that they were a victim of sex trafficking to have the conviction erased.
In May 2020, the Department of the Attorney General established a human trafficking coordinator position for the state in an attempt to improve Hawaii’s anti-trafficking response.
The department plans on collaborating with law enforcement to increase the number of prosecutions, developing training programs for law enforcement and expanding outreach against these kinds of crimes.
Hawaii also passed a law in June to enhance the state’s ability to investigate and prosecute traffickers, “while improving outcomes for victims and survivors as they move through the justice system, which punishes sex buyers who exploit sex trafficking victims,” a press release from the office of Gov. David Y. Ige reads.
“These laws are the result of support and input from our partners in law enforcement, policy makers, community service providers, non-governmental organizations, and most importantly, those with lived experience,” said Deputy Attorney General and State Human Trafficking Coordinator Farshad M. Talebi in the statement.
Matthew Mire, 31, is suspected of killing at least one person and shooting several others in a crime spree across Louisiana on Saturday, Oct. 9, 2021. – Ascension Parish Sheriff’s Office
(NEW ORLEANS) — A Louisiana State Police officer was found dead after being shot in Ascension Parish Saturday night as law enforcement authorities have swept across the region looking for a suspect in the murder of one person and the shooting of several others.
The New Orleans branch of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives said it was assisting on scene where the officer was found dead and confirmed the death was tied to “a manhunt for a gunman tied to multiple shootings in several parishes this weekend.”
“Today, Louisiana mourns the death of Master Trooper Adam Gaubert, a 19-year veteran of Louisiana State Police, who was ambushed while in his patrol unit and killed in the line of duty on Saturday.” Louisiana Gov John Bel Edwards said in a statement Sunday.
“Preliminary information indicates that Trooper Gaubert was shot and killed in the area in which an early morning homicide occurred,” Edwards said. “I am thankful for Louisiana State Police and all law enforcement agencies that worked together to capture the suspect in these homicides.”
Authorities announced overnight that they had caught the suspect, Matthew Mire, 31. He is suspected of breaking into a home and shooting two people in Prairieville around 3 a.m. on Saturday, according to the Ascension Parish Sheriff’s Office.
Joseph Schexnayder, 43, and Pamela Adair, 37, were both taken to the hospital, where Adair later died. Schexnayder is in critical but stable condition, the sheriff’s office said.
Just hours earlier, in nearby Livingston Parish, Mire is suspected of breaking into another home and shooting two other people. In that incident a woman was shot twice in the arm and leg and a man was shot once in the arm. Both are expected to recover, Livingston Parish Sheriff Jason Ard said.
“The pair tells detectives that they heard a noise outside of their home. They then witnessed someone barging in through their front door and firing shots,” Ard said. “We do not believe this to be a random shooting. It’s believed Mire was familiar with the victims.”
Mire is believed to have stolen a blue 2013 Chevrolet Silverado from that scene, authorities said.
At 5 a.m., a Louisiana state trooper attempted to stop a pickup truck in East Baton Rouge Parish when they came under fire from the driver, authorities said. The officer was not struck, but law enforcement believes the driver was Mire.
Police are still trying to find a motive, authorities said.
