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(SANTA ROSA, Calif.) — One teenager was killed and another was wounded in a stabbing at a California high school on Wednesday, authorities said.

The incident unfolded around 11 a.m. PT at Montgomery High School in Santa Rosa, about 55 miles north of San Francisco. The Santa Rosa Police Department received 911 calls about a fight between students and dispatched officers to the scene. Upon arrival minutes later, the officers found two male students — both juniors — who had been stabbed but were “alert and conscious,” according to Santa Rosa Police Chief John Cregan.

Cregan said the officers determined through an initial investigation that the two juniors had entered a classroom and engaged in a physical altercation with another male student — a freshman. There were 27 students, one teacher and three teacher’s aides inside the classroom at the time. As an initial fight broke out, the teacher and aides intervened. But moments later, the fight continued and that’s when the freshman allegedly pulled out a knife, stabbing the two juniors, according to Cregan.

Both juniors then left the classroom to assess their injuries and seek help from the school nurse before police arrived on scene. The officers learned that the 15-year-old suspect, whose name was not released, had fled the school after the incident, Cregan said.

One of the victims appeared to have sustained three stab wounds to his upper body, while the other had one stab wound to his left hand. Officers provided initial medical aid before both students were transported to a local hospital. One of them — a 16-year-old boy — later died at the hospital, while the other was treated and is expected to survive, according to Cregan. The victims’ identities have not yet been released.

With the help of the Sonoma County Sheriff’s Office, police searched the area for the suspect. Authorities eventually received a tip from witnesses that the teen was hiding in a creek behind Saint Eugene’s Cathedral School.

“Our officers scoured that area and were able to locate a 15-year-old juvenile who was hiding in the creek bed there, who was laying down on his stomach, trying to conceal himself,” Cregan said during a press conference on Wednesday afternoon. “Officers slowed down, they used restraint, they didn’t use any force and they were safely able to take this young man into custody.”

The suspect did not have any weapons in his possession when he was arrested. Police continue to look for the knife that was allegedly used in the assault, according to Cregan, who described the weapon as a folding knife with a black handle and an approximately 4- to 5-inch blade.

Cregan said it was unclear what had caused the suspect to bring the knife to school that day and there was also no evidence to suggest that the two victims were armed during the fight. The incident and a potential motive remains under investigation.

“It’s very early in the investigation, but it appears there had been some previous altercations between these students,” the police chief told reporters. “That’ll be one of the things that our investigators are looking into and we’re looking for students that may have information about that, to come forward to the Santa Rosa Police Department. Another thing that we’re seeking is any videos that students may have recorded of this incident.”

During Wednesday’s press conference, a teenage girl in the crowd who identified herself as a Montgomery High School senior spoke up to voice her frustration. She alleged that school officials “didn’t do anything” about the previous problems between the students.

“It’s their job to keep us safe,” she said. “It’s just disappointing. It really is.”

There are currently no metal detectors at Montgomery High School nor any school within the district, according to Santa Rosa City Schools Superintendent Anna Trunnell.

“We do talk regularly to our students about safety and about caring for each other on campus. But we do not have anything that detects those kinds of weapons on campus right now,” Trunnell said during the press conference. “We are going to be assessing how we approach supporting our students and making sure that they know that this is a safe place, and we will be examining how exactly we are going to do that.”

“This is truly a sad day,” she added. “The tragedy that happened here today is heartbreaking.”

The Santa Rosa Police Department does not currently have a school resource officer stationed at Montgomery High School nor any Santa Rosa school — a decision that the police chief said was made by the Santa Rosa City Schools Board of Education.

“As chief, it’s something that I’ve advocated for us to return to, but we can’t do that without the support of your Santa Rosa school board,” Cregan said.

“We work very closely with the school here and will be looking at how we can partner in some of the school safety to ensure that all students in Santa Rosa are able to come to school in a safe environment,” he added. “My daughter is a Santa Rosa school student and goes to a Santa Rosa school, and I care personally about making sure that we have a safe school campus.”

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(NEW YORK) — A major cross-country storm that first brought blizzard conditions to California is now heading to Nevada and Arizona before taking aim on the South.

In the wake of the storm, Yosemite National Park is buried under 15 feet of snow and is closed indefinitely.

Near Lake Tahoe, California, an avalanche buried the first two stories of a three-story apartment building Tuesday night. No injuries were reported, according to the Placer County sheriff.

In San Bernardino County, California, where some residents are stranded, officials said Wednesday, “Our No. 1 priority is to get our residents the food, the medicine and access that they need. Plowing is going to continue over the course of the next several days.”

California Gov. Gavin Newsom on Wednesday declared a state of emergency in 13 counties hit by the severe winter weather and activated the California National Guard to help support operations.

As the storm marches east, winter storm warnings are in effect north of Las Vegas and extend to the Mexican border.

Tucson, Arizona, is under a winter weather advisory. Tucson residents could get the same amount of snow that New York City saw on Tuesday.

This storm then will move into the Heartland, bringing a severe weather outbreak on Thursday and Friday.

First, an enhanced risk for severe weather has been issued from Texas to Tennessee, where very large hail, damaging winds and strong tornadoes are possible through the evening.

Then comes the major threat on Thursday when strong tornadoes are possible and winds could top 70 mph. Cities in the bull’s-eye on Thursday include Dallas, Little Rock, Texarkana and Shreveport.

Heavy rain could lead to flash flooding from Oklahoma to Tennessee.

This severe weather moves into the southeast on Friday, with Alabama, Georgia and the Carolinas in the storm zone.

By Friday afternoon, that same storm system will bring snow or a wintry mix from Chicago to New York City, and heavy rain to Washington, D.C., and Philadelphia.

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(CHICAGO) — A Chicago police officer was shot and killed Wednesday while responding to a call about a person with a firearm, according to the Chicago Police Department.

The officer was shot multiple times while exchanging gunfire with a suspect, Chicago Police Superintendent David Brown said during a news conference Wednesday evening.

The officer, who was on the force for five years, succumbed to his injuries at Mt. Sinai Hospital, the superintendent said.

The suspect, who police say is an 18-year-old, was shot in the head and is critically injured, Brown added.

Police said the suspect only had a single prior violation before Wednesday’s shooting.

“Every officer in this police department, and for that matter, every officer in this country is grieving today,” Brown said.

“If you see an officer tonight, or the next day, or the day after that, thank them for their service,” Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot, who was also at the press conference, said.

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(NEW YORK) — Human skeletal remains found deep in a wooded area of Pennsylvania has been identified by authorities as belonging to Christopher Story, a man who suddenly and mysteriously went missing almost 10 years ago.

Christopher Story was last seen around 11:00 p.m. on Aug. 11, 2013, at his residence in New Castle, Pennsylvania — a town located just over 50 miles north of Pittsburgh.

“He was last seen wearing a white t-shirt, khaki shorts, a dark ball cap, and black shoes,” read the FBI missing person’s statement released in 2013. “He left behind his wallet, phone charger, and medication.”

At the time of Story’s disappearance, the FBI warned that he “has surgical pins/rods in his spine and may walk with a limp” and that, since he didn’t have his medication, Story “may appear agitated and may also appear confused or suffer hallucinations.”

However, on Wednesday, the New Castle Police Department confirmed that human skeletal remains found in Taylor Township — less than five miles away from where Story went missing — belonged to the man who had been missing for more than nine years.

“The NCPD has continued to aggressively investigate this case since that date attempting to find Chris Story and determine what happened to him,” said the New Castle Police Department following the discovery.

The Coroner’s Office and the New Castle Police Detective Bureau along with assistance from the FBI and K9 cadaver dogs managed to recover the skeletal remains over the past several weeks, authorities said.

“After examining the remains and looking for certain medical characteristics and comparing X-rays, Coroner Richard ‘RJ’ Johnson notified the detectives and New Castle Police that the remain are those of missing person Chris Story,” the NCPD confirmed on Wednesday.

Story’s family has since been notified of the findings and that their loved one has been found, police said.

The investigation into what happened to Story and how he died is still ongoing and the coroner has not made a ruling on the cause or manner of death, the NCPD said in their statement released to the public on Wednesday.

Story’s remains will now be sent out to the FBI for forensic testing and police say they are still actively investigating his death.

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(KANSAS CITY, Mo.) — Three police officers are in the hospital after they were shot while serving a warrant in Kansas City, Missouri.

The shooting unfolded shortly after 9:30 p.m. Tuesday as the three officers from Kansas City’s tactical response team were executing a search warrant, Kansas City Police Chief Stacey Graves said. When the officers knocked and announced their presence, gunfire erupted from inside the home and the officers returned fire, Graves said.

Following an hourslong standoff, the Missouri State Highway Patrol said Wednesday afternoon that a man was found dead once SWAT teams were able to secure the house. A woman was also found alive with no injuries and is currently in custody, police said.

State police and FBI investigators are processing the scene amid the ongoing investigation, Missouri State Highway Patrol said.

The injured officers were hospitalized with “non-life-threatening, but serious injuries” and were listed in stable condition, police said. Graves said the three officers were able to talk and told her they were doing OK.

Kansas City police tweeted, “They put themselves in harm’s way to safeguard Kansas City, serving with bravery and selflessness, and for that, we are indebted to them.”

Kansas City Mayor Quinton Lucas tweeted, “We’ve been reminded too much lately in Kansas City how dangerous police work can be. I am praying for a full recovery for our three officers injured this evening and that everyone on duty gets home to their families safely.”

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(LOS ANGELES) — After an earthquake devastated parts of Turkey and Syria last month, killing 50,000 people, officials in Los Angles County voted Wednesday to update the county’s building code and require all non-ductile high-rises to be retrofitted within 10 years.

The motion by the board of supervisors will apply to all buildings in the incorporated areas of the county or buildings owned by the county. The director of public works has six months to come up with updated language for adoption.

While Los Angeles County building standards were previously updated to ensure new construction can withstand seismic activity, non-ductile, concrete high-rises are prone to brittle behavior during an earthquake, according to the board of supervisors.

Building owners will be required to submit structural evaluation reports within three years, including plans to retrofit or demolish buildings within five years. A full plan is due within 10 years.

Public works must also submit a report to the board with an inventory analysis of all soft-story residential structures in county incorporated areas or owned or overseen by the county that have not been seismically retrofitted, including the number of units within each structure.

The motion also instructs the directors of public works and consumer and business affairs to come up with programs that support property owners. The expense of seismic retrofits may include zero-interest loan programs and construction subsidies for low-income property owners.

The board of supervisors said the county must urgently retrofit and repair vulnerable structures to prevent as much loss of life as possible in the event of an earthquake. A United States Geological Survey simulation of a magnitude 7.8 earthquake in Southern California predicted such an event could result in nearly 1,800 deaths and 50,000 injuries.

Wood frame soft-story structures or structures where one or more floors of a building have large, unobstructed spaces that lack additional stabilization are also vulnerable to large-scale seismic activity. Updated building standards have slowly phased out the construction of these buildings, but that only applies to new construction, according to the board of supervisors.

“The county currently lacks an updated building index to assess the volume of vulnerable soft-story structures, and to assess where those buildings might be more concentrated. This assessment must become the County’s priority to prevent disproportionate casualties in Black and Brown communities,” the motion said.

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(LANSFORD, Pa.) — An explosive device was found in a checked piece of luggage at Pennsylvania’s Lehigh Valley International Airport on Monday, according to a criminal complaint.

The passenger, Mark Muffley of Lansford, Pennsylvania, is now in FBI custody, officials said.

Muffley, 40, was set to take an Allegiant flight from eastern Pennsylvania to Florida’s Orlando Sanford International Airport.

The device hidden in the bag’s lining was a circular compound, about 3 inches in diameter, that had two fuses and powder concealed in wax paper and plastic wrap, according to the criminal complaint.

The “powder is suspected to be a mixture of flash powder and the dark granulars that are used in commercial grade fireworks,” the complaint said. “The black powder and flash powder are susceptible to ignite from heat and friction and posed a significant risk to the aircraft and passengers.”

The bag also had “a can of butane, a lighter, a pipe with white powder residue, a wireless drill with cordless batteries, and two GFCI outlets taped together with black tape,” the complaint said.

An airport spokesperson said the suspicious package was discovered shortly after 11 a.m. Monday and the west side of the airport’s main terminal was shut down.

Muffley was paged over the airport’s public system to come to the security desk, the criminal complaint said. Five minutes later, security cameras showed Muffley leaving the airport, the complaint said.

The package was removed from the airport and the closed portion of the terminal reopened shortly before 2 p.m., the spokesperson said.

Muffley was arrested at his home Monday night, the FBI said. He’s charged with possession of an explosive in an airport and possessing, or attempting to place, or attempting to have placed an explosive or incendiary device on an aircraft. He is due in court on Thursday afternoon.

This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.

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(JACKSON, Mo.) — The nightmare gripping Ken Middleton’s family appeared to be possibly over in 2005.

The same judge who in 1991 sentenced the Kansas City, Missouri, man to life without parole plus 200 years for the shooting death of his wife, ruled to vacate that same ruling and ordered that he receive a new trial based on a series of irregularities that the judge concluded made his original trial unconstitutional.

However, Middleton was never granted a new trial despite that overturned conviction nearly 20 years ago.

The reason is a technicality in Missouri state law that gave jurisdiction in the case to the Missouri Court of Appeals, not with the Jackson County circuit court. Despite the evidence Judge Edith Messina cited in her motion to declare his trial unconstitutional due to ineffective assistance of counsel, her ruling was overturned and ultimately proved toothless.

As a result, Middleton, 78, remains behind bars. He maintains his innocence and said his wife shot herself by accident while he was sleeping.

According to the decision obtained by ABC News, his lawyer failed to present evidence to the jury that no blood was found on his shirt, gun residue evidence went missing, there were irregularities involving the handling of the body at the crime scene, and, among other things, Middleton’s original attorney failed to perform basic duties like interviewing witnesses and calling independent experts. In fact, he presented no evidence at all, the ruling said.

“It upsets me so much,” Cliff Middleton, Ken Middleton’s only child who has dedicated his life to making sure his father does not die in prison, told ABC News. “The justice system in Jackson County is broken.”

The saga is now in its 32nd year, but the family said a state law passed in 2021 gives them renewed hope. It bypasses the appeals court by empowering local prosecutors to file a motion that asks the court to vacate or set aside a guilty verdict based on new information that shows the convicted person is not guilty.

The new law is already responsible for the release of several men in Missouri, including Kevin Strickland, who spent four decades in prison in a triple murder case, and Lamar Johnson, who walked out of prison a free man after serving 28 years for a murder. The reversals of more cases are expected over the coming year, experts told ABC News.

Now all the family must do is to get the Jackson County District Attorney Jean Peters Baker to appeal for Middleton’s release based on all the constitutional violations Messina cited nearly two decades ago.

But she said she will not.

Baker will not re-open the Middleton case because, unlike Messina in 2005, she does not believe the new evidence presented at that time reflects a wrongful conviction, according to spokesperson Michael Mansur.

“Our office greatly admires [Messina] and knows she has a reputation as a fair judge. But we don’t agree with her on this particular ruling in this case,” Mansur told ABC News.

What constitutes ‘new’ evidence

In a 2019 memo provided to ABC News by Mansur, Baker’s office challenges Middleton’s claims of new evidence primarily because of a procedural reason: The failure to introduce it at his original trial was “the result of counsel’s incompetence,” even though, according to Baker, it was available at the time. Robert Duncan, Middleton’s original attorney, died of a heart attack in 1996.

“By this definition of new evidence, Middleton does not have any new evidence. All of his witnesses either were available at the time of trial or — in the case of experts — could have been available at the time of trial if Mr. Duncan had sought out such experts,” Mansur writes. In addition to arguing ineffective assistance of counsel, Middleton has claimed the missing gun residue evidence from the victim’s left hand suggests police tampering, Baker’s office said it is unclear if it was collected at the scene, but even if it was, “it would not be conclusive” that the victim shot herself.

“Middleton was aware of this issue at least as early as 1993 … and could have raised his current complaints at the proper time,” the memo reads. “The weight of the evidence does not support the sinister spin” by Middleton.

The family and supporters characterize Middleton as the victim of a bureaucratic mess.

“We have unchallenged information of an erroneous conviction, yet [Baker] will not file. That’s just unbelievable to me. It’s a dereliction of duty,” Cliff Middleton said.

Jason Flom, a co-founder of the Innocence Project, a legal non-profit involved in criminal justice issues, told ABC News in a statement that Middleton’s case “is one of the most insane and terrifying miscarriages of justice I have ever heard of.”

Missouri’s exonerations record

Retired Missouri Supreme Court Chief Justice Michael Wolff, now a professor emeritus at the Saint Louis University School of Law, said the failure to initially grant Middleton a new trial in 2005 “was a procedural glitch.” “The new statute was intended to correct that, but the problem is, it’s a narrow pathway because it’s only at the bequest of the prosecutor” who is not obligated to pursue exoneration,” he said.

In Missouri, which remains one of 24 states that still has the death penalty, “there’s a lot of bias in favor of keeping convictions final,” Wolff said.

“This new [law] does bring some hope to people but hope is only pivotal if the prosecutor can be persuaded to pursue this,” Wolff said.

Another issue with the law is politics, said Ken Middleton’s attorney Kent Gipson. Because district attorneys are elected positions, he said putting the power in their hands is inherently “stupid.”

“A prosecutor doesn’t want to politically admit that their office put an innocent man in prison for 30 years. That couldn’t do anything for their future political career, even if it wasn’t on their watch,” he said.

According to the National Registry of Exonerations, a project jointly operated by the University of California at Irvine, Michigan State University and the University of Michigan, exonerations nationwide have been steadily rising over the last three decades: from 24 in 1989 to 268 in 2022. However, Missouri only logged a single exoneration last year and the highest yearly number of those exonerated in the state since 1989 is five — in 2010 and 2013, respectively.

Maurice Possley, a senior researcher at the registry, said the reason for such diminished numbers is cultural. “It’s a state that is not particularly open minded to the idea that people are wrongly convicted. Prosecutors tend to be more willing to dig in to preserve convictions,” he said.

Even counties with conviction integrity units, like Jackson County, are not immune to slow-walking wrongful verdict cases, Possley said.

According to Mansur, the unit helped to successfully overturn just one case in its four years of existence and currently doesn’t “have another one right now in which we’re planning to move ahead on.”

New prosecutor, judge sought

Gipson is currently asking for a special prosecutor and a new judge to address Middleton’s case. Last week the Kansas City Star editorial board blasted Baker and said she needed to reopen the case or recuse herself due to several conflicts of interest that Gipson outlines in his filing. For one, the judge who refused to hear Gipson’s motion to disqualify Baker worked under Baker in the prosecutor’s office before her current appointment.

Mansur said no conflict exists because Phillips “sits over criminal cases from our office routinely” and “was not a member of this office at the time of Middleton’s trial.”

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(NEW YORK) — A Brooklyn man stole an American Airlines bus from John F. Kennedy International Airport and drove it through three boroughs before he was pulled over by police in downtown Brooklyn.

Burshawn Quildon, 43, is charged with grand larceny of an auto and criminal possession of stolen property. He allegedly jumped into the American Airlines bus that was left running in an airport lot at around 1:40 a.m. Wednesday.

An airport employee followed the stolen vehicle and called police. Officers then pursued the bus onto the Van Wyck Expressway and Grand Central Parkway in Queens, the FDR Drive in Manhattan and across the Brooklyn Bridge into Brooklyn, where it was finally pulled over on Cadman Plaza West.

Quildon has nine prior arrests, including robbery, marijuana possession, assault and transit fraud.

There were no passengers inside the bus, police said.

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(NEW YORK) — New York City and the New York Police Department have agreed to collectively pay millions to protesters who were arrested, detained or subjected to violence during a George Floyd demonstration in the Mott Haven section of the Bronx in June 2020, according to a court filing.

The settlement agreement called for more than 300 protesters confined that day using a police tactic they referred to as “kettling” to each receive $21,500, which is believed to be the highest per-person settlement award in a mass arrest class action lawsuit. The total cost of the settlement will be nearly $7 million.

“We are really pleased with the settlement,” plaintiffs’ attorney Ali Frick told ABC News. “This was essentially a premeditated show of force against people who were demonstrating against police violence.”

There were 320 protesters restrained with zip ties, battered with batons and hit with pepper spray, according to their lawsuit that named the city, the department and individual high-ranking members of the NYPD.

“The Mott Haven protest really shocked the conscience when it happened. These protesters were kettled. Then the police moved in with extreme brutality that was totally uncalled for and unnecessary,” Frick said.

The proposed settlement is meant to include those who were detained, arrested or subjected to force by police officers on East 136th Street between Brook Avenue and Brown Place.

“The proposed settlement here is fair, reasonable, and adequate and should be preliminarily approved,” attorneys for the plaintiffs said in the court filing.

Henry Wood, one of the protesters who sued, called the proposed settlement a relief but said it would not change what happened to him.

“The violence unleashed upon us that night was intentional, unwarranted, and will be with me for the rest of my life. What the NYPD did, aided by the political powers of New York City, was an extreme abuse of power,” Wood said in a statement.

Samira Sierra, another of the protesters who sued, said she was “violated” by the police.

“We had every right to protest, yet, the City of New York made an explicit statement that day that the people of the Bronx are at will to be terrorized,” she said in a statement.

The arrests in Mott Haven on June 4, 2020, came on the second night of a curfew imposed by then-Mayor Bill de Blasio, who said at the time it was necessary to “protect the city and its residents from severe endangerment and harm to their health, safety and property” from violent acts occurring after dark.

“It was a challenging moment for the department as officers who themselves were suffering under the strains of a global pandemic did their utmost to help facilitate people’s rights to peaceful expression all while addressing acts of lawlessness including wide-scale rioting, mass chaos, violence, and destruction,” the NYPD said in a statement.

“Two-and-a-half years after the protests of 2020, much of the NYPD’s policies and training for policing large-scale demonstrations have been re-envisioned based on the findings of the department’s own, self-initiated analyses and on the recommendations from three outside agencies who carefully investigated that period,” the department continued. “The NYPD remains committed to continually improving its practices in every way possible.”

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