(DALLAS) — A man who was recently paroled after serving a sentence for robbery is now facing capital murder charges stemming from Saturday’s shooting at a Dallas hospital that left two employees dead, including a nurse, officials said.
The suspect in the double homicide at Methodist Dallas Medical Center was identified as 30-year-old Nestor Hernandez, law enforcement officials told Dallas ABC affiliate WFAA-TV.
Hernandez was paroled on Oct. 20, 2021, after serving a prison sentence for aggravated robbery, according to a spokesperson for the Texas Department of Criminal Justice.
“He was on parole with a special condition of electronic monitoring,” the spokesperson told ABC News.
Hernandez was granted permission to be at the hospital to join his significant other during the delivery of their baby, the spokesperson said, adding that the state Office of Inspector General is working with the Dallas Police Department as they investigate.
According to the arrest affidavit obtained by WFAA, Hernandez accused his girlfriend of cheating on him after she gave birth at the hospital. He allegedly pulled out a handgun and hit her multiple times in the head with it while saying, “we are both going to die today” and “whoever comes in this room is going to die with us.” Then Hernandez allegedly made “ominous phone calls and text messages to his family,” the affidavit states.
According to the affidavit, the first victim who came into the room was shot and killed by Hernandez. A second victim, along with a Methodist Hospital police officer, were in the hallway and heard the gunshot. The second victim looked into the room and was fatally shot by Hernandez, the affidavit states. The officer then shot Hernandez in the leg. The suspect was detained and taken to a different hospital for treatment, according to the affidavit.
Methodist Health System confirmed the incident in a statement, saying its police force as well as the Dallas Police Department responded to reports of an active shooter at Methodist Dallas Medical Center around 11 a.m. local time on Saturday.
“A Methodist Health System Police Officer arrived on the scene, confronted the suspect, and fired his weapon at the suspect, injuring him,” the hospital said. “The suspect was detained, stabilized, and taken to another local hospital.”
The names of the victims were not immediately released.
Both police and the hospital confirmed that the shooting occurred near the Methodist Dallas Medical Center’s mother/baby unit.
“Out of an abundance of caution, police force staffing has been increased on the Methodist Dallas Medical Center campus, including for mothers and babies,” Methodist Health System said in a statement, describing Saturday’s shooting as an “isolated and tragic event.”
The investigation is ongoing, with the Dallas Police Department assisting the Methodist Health System Police.
“The Methodist Health System family is heartbroken at the loss of two of our beloved team members,” the hospital added. “Our entire organization is grieving this unimaginable tragedy.”
Dallas Police Chief Eddie Garcia slammed the “broken” justice system for allowing the suspect out on the streets, where he could allegedly obtain a gun.
“I’m outraged along with our community, at the lack of accountability, and the travesty of the fact that under this broken system, we give violent criminals more chances than our victims,” Garcia said in a statement posted on Twitter. “The pendulum has swung too far.”
Dr. Serena Bumpus, CEO of the Texas Nurses Association, called the shooting “unacceptable.”
“No person should fear for their life for merely going to work, especially a nurse or healthcare worker whose passion is to help others heal,” Bumpus said in a statement. “We hope our legislators understand that we need to protect our healthcare workers.”
Bumpus also released statistics from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, showing workplace violence has increased during the pandemic, and the risk to nurses was three times greater than “all other professions.”
(MINNEAPOLIS) — The 2020 death of George Floyd under the knee of a Minneapolis police officer is set to be thrust back into the national spotlight as two former cops already convicted on federal charges of violating the 46-year-old Black man’s civil rights go on trial Monday in Minnesota state court.
The joint state trial for former Minneapolis police officers J. Alexander Kueng, 29, and Tou Thao, 34, comes after they reported to separate prisons this month to begin their federal sentences.
Both men have pleaded not guilty to charges of aiding and abetting in second-degree unintentional murder and aiding and abetting in manslaughter stemming from the Memorial Day 2020 death of Floyd, which ignited massive protests across the nation and world.
The trial in Hennepin County District Court in Minneapolis begins Monday with jury selection, which is scheduled to take three weeks, a spokesperson for the court told ABC News.
Opening statements in the trial are scheduled to get underway on Nov. 7.
The state trial was initially scheduled for June 2022, but Judge Peter Cahill delayed it over concerns it would be difficult to seat an impartial jury given the pretrial publicity. Earlier his year, Thao, Kueng and a third defendant, former Minneapolis police officer Thomas Lane, were convicted on federal civil rights charges stemming from Floyd’s death and Lane later pleaded guilty to state charges.
At the time of his decision, Cahill said postponing the trial should “diminish the impact of this publicity on the defendants’ right and ability to receive a fair trial from an impartial and unbiased jury.”
Lane, 39, pleaded guilty in May to state charges of aiding and abetting second-degree manslaughter. In exchange for the plea, state prosecutors agreed to dismiss the top charge against him of aiding and abetting second-degree unintentional murder. Lane was sentenced in September to three years in prison, which he is serving concurrently with his federal sentence of 2 1/2 years.
Kueng, Thao and Lane were convicted in February by a federal jury on charges of violating George Floyd’s civil rights by failing to intervene or provide medical aid as their senior officer, Derek Chauvin, kneeled on the back of Floyd’s neck, while he was handcuffed, for more than nine minutes.
Kueng, a rookie cop at the time of Floyd’s death, was sentenced to three years in federal prison, followed by two years of supervised release. Thao, who had been a nine-year veteran of the Minneapolis Police Department at the time of Floyd’s death, was sentenced to 3 1/2 years in prison, also followed by two years of supervised release.
Floyd suffered critical injuries when he was placed in handcuffs and in a prone position on the pavement after being accused of attempting to use a fake $20 bill at a convenience store to buy cigarettes. Videos from security, police body cameras and civilian cell phone cameras showed Floyd begging for his life and complaining he could not breathe as Chauvin held his knee on the back of his neck, rendering him unconscious and without a pulse, according to prosecutors. Floyd was taken to a hospital and pronounced dead.
Chauvin was convicted in state court last year of second-degree unintentional murder, third-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter. He was sentenced to more than 22 years in prison.
While Chauvin’s state trial was livestreamed gavel-to-gavel due to concerns over the COVID-19 pandemic limiting the public’s access to the courtroom, cameras are not being allowed at the trial for Kueng and Thao. Cahill ruled in April that conditions “are materially different from those the Court confronted from November 2020 through April 2021 with the Chauvin trial.”
The 46-year-old Chauvin also pleaded guilty in December to federal charges of violating Floyd’s civil rights and was sentenced in July to 21 years in federal prison.
During their federal trial, Lane, Kueng and Thao each took the witness stand and attempted to shift the blame to Chauvin, who was a 19-year veteran of the Minneapolis Police Department. Lane told the jury that Chauvin “deflected” all his suggestions to help Floyd, while Kueng testified that Chauvin “was my senior officer and I trusted his advice” and Thao attested that he “would trust a 19-year veteran to figure it out.”
(UVALDE, Texas) — In the first hours and days after the massacre at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, officials said they figured out how the gunman got into a building that was supposed to be secure.
“The exterior door,” the top police official in Texas told reporters, “was propped open by a teacher.”
That statement by Col. Steven McCraw, director of the Texas Department of Public Safety, would be quietly retracted within a few days. Instead, DPS officials said later, the door had been shut by the “teacher” but, for some reason, it didn’t lock even though it was supposed to do that automatically.
For the school staffer McCraw was referring to — the very woman who called 911 to report the gunman was on the way to entering Robb Elementary School — the blame and the events of May 24 still reverberate in a life forever scarred.
Speaking publicly for the first time to ABC News, Emilia “Amy” Marin, a school aide who worked with students after school, said she still struggles through post-traumatic stress from the shooting and its aftermath. She insists that the world know what happened — and what didn’t — on a warm sunny morning that would turn unspeakably ugly in South Texas.
“I died that day,” Marin said in an interview with ABC News correspondent John Quiñones.
“Right now, I’m lost. Sometimes I go into a dark place. And it’s hard when I’m there, but I tell myself, ‘you can’t let him win. You can’t let him win,'” she said, referring to the gunman. “I’m a fighter. I will be okay. I’m going to learn to live with this.”
By now, the casualty count from the Uvalde massacre is well known: 19 students and two of their teachers were killed when an 18-year-old shooter, a former student at the school, attacked in the final days before summer vacation. What sent him to that school on that mission remains under investigation. McCraw is due to update the progress of the probe when he testifies later this week in Austin.
In the months since the rampage, official information from authorities has been limited and much of the focus has fallen on the botched response by police who did not attempt to stop the shooting for more than an hour. For Marin, who said she still cannot work and continues to replay the minutes of May 24 in her head, the struggle now defines her life.
“I am suffering mentally, of course, emotionally,” she said. “I am suffering from post-traumatic arthritis, which is very painful. There are nights when everybody goes to bed and I just stay awake with the pain and my daughter tells me … ‘Mom, soak in the tub.’ And I tell her I can’t because I can’t get out.”
“I sit there at night, replaying that day in my mind,” Marin said as she explained the events of a day that saw one of the worst school shootings in American history.
“And I see those victims’ faces. I pray for them every night,” she said. “But what I go through, McCraw doesn’t know. Nobody knows. But it was very easy for him to point the finger at me. A few weeks ago, I told my counselor ‘It would have been better if he would have shot me, too.’ because the pain is unbearable. And when you have people who are higher up in ranks like McCraw, you would think that they know their job well. He has no idea what his words did.”
“I will never be the person that I was before,” she said. “I did die that day. I see the windows boarded up and the fence around the campus. I tell my counselor, ‘I’m in there. I’m still in there.'”
In a statement to ABC News, DPS spokesman Travis Considine explained: “At the outset of the investigation, DPS reported that an unnamed teacher at Robb Elementary School used a rock to prop open the door that the shooter used to enter the school building. It was later determined that the same teacher removed the rock from the doorway prior to the arrival of the shooter, and closed the door, unaware that the door was unlocked.”
Considine said “DPS corrected this error in public announcements and testimony and apologizes to the teacher and her family for the additional grief this has caused to an already horrific situation.”
Marin worked as a speech pathologist in the special education program at Robb Elementary and coordinated after-school programs, and said she always wanted to work with children.
“I have always loved children and I always wanted to be around them,” she said. “It doesn’t matter if you are having a bad day, they will always make it better.”
A native of San Angelo, Texas, about 200 miles north of Uvalde, Marin said she wants the country to know what she did that day, when confronted with the worst-case scenario: a man with a rifle and untold rounds of ammunition heading straight for the door of the elementary school where she worked. This was the first time she detailed those events to anyone outside of her family or law enforcement.
As she prepared for an end-of-school party that morning, Marin heard the crash of a gray Ford pickup outside and called 911, thinking someone was hurt.
“I walked out and then they yelled he had a gun, I ran back in. I ran back to the building and I closed the door,” she said. “I am telling the operator that he is shooting. I could hear the kids screaming.”
Marin said that children were outside on the playground, running for their lives.
“I could hear the kids screaming. I closed the door. I went in and knocked on the teacher’s door across from me. I was banging,” she continued. “She opened it. She said ‘What is going on?’ I said there is a shooter on campus.”
Still on the phone with emergency operators, Marin decided to hide as she heard gunshots firing off.
“There was shooting and it wouldn’t stop. He just kept shooting and shooting,” she said. “I looked around and I hid under the counter. The whole time I am asking the operator, ‘Where are the cops? Where are the cops?'”
But the almost 400 law enforcement officers who would arrive on the scene did not rush in to the classroom where the killer was still confined with his victims until over an hour later. That slow response has led to a wide chorus of criticism for the police and federal agents who responded to Robb that day. The school district’s police chief has been fired, as has one of the first Texas state troopers to arrive. A second trooper who left DPS to go to work for the Uvalde school system has since been terminated by the district. And the superintendent of schools stunned the grieving community this month when he announced his retirement.
Marin said she wonders if her own death in those first few moments could have saved children.
“Every day they tell me, ‘You were there for a reason. God put you there for a reason.’ I want to know why,” she said. “If I had gone out a few seconds later I would’ve met him outside. He would have shot me. With him shooting me, would I have saved all of them? Would I have given those teachers time to save themselves and the kids?”
She says in the days after the shooting, disbelief took hold of many of the staff who survived.
“It was like did it really happen? We always say it is not going to happen here. It is not going to happen in our town,” she said. “Like in Sandy Hook, you see this story and it happened. It can happen anywhere.”
When Marin heard McCraw blame her personally for the shooter’s ability to gain access to the school, she said she became so distraught that her daughter had to take her to the hospital.
“I was shaking from head to toe,” she said. “The nurse walked out and my boss came in and I told her I closed that door.”
After the shooting, Marin said she asked to speak with Uvalde schools Superintendent Hal Harrell. She said she was told Harrell would not come see her in the hospital and he would ultimately never speak to Marin again.
“Administration let us down. They failed us. He could have defended me. He knew who ‘the teacher’ was and chose not to,” Marin said. “It makes no sense when you have dedicated your life to working for the district.”
“I wish he would’ve handled this differently. It doesn’t cost anything to check up on your employees,” she said. “I have not heard from any administration since the incident.”
Harrell this month announced he would be stepping down next week. His spokeswoman has not responded to a request for comment.
Precisely five months since the day of the shooting, Marin said she’s prepared to fight for herself.
“Maybe a lot of people didn’t know that it was me,” she said. “But they’re going to know now and I’ve always been the type. Like, I’ll be respectful, but I’ll speak up. And people don’t like it when you speak up. But you’re defending yourself. And I know that I have to defend myself.”
Marin has filed suit against the manufacturer of the gun used in the Robb shooting and she is considering other legal options.
She said she is also dismayed at the fractures that have developed in her town.
“We are supposed to as a community to be united and work through this and help these families, help everyone involved,” she said. “They say we are ‘Uvalde Strong.’ We are not. We are divided. How can we divide over 19 lives lost? It doesn’t make sense.”
As for McCraw, who pinned the blame for the massacre on her, Marin said she has one message.
“To Mr. McCraw: it is your job to investigate when any incident like that happens. You sit there and you investigate. Your job was to sit there and watch that video to watch from beginning to end. You chose not to,” she said.
(NEW YORK) — There were 2.7 million migrant encounters along the southern border of the United States in the past 12 months, the highest in the nation’s history, data released as part of U.S. Customs and Border Protection’s fiscal year end show.
The previous record was 1.9 million in fiscal year 2021.
In September, there were 227,547 migrant encounters along the southwest border. CBP says 19% of those encounters were repeat offenders and represents a 12% increase from August.
CPB says they are enforcing not only Title 8, which is standard immigration removal policy, but also Title 42 — the Trump-era policy that allowed migrants seeking asylum along the southern border to be expelled under the public health emergency authority of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention — by a court order.
The highest month in fiscal year 2022 was May, which saw more than 235,000 migrants encountered along the southwest border, according to the data.
Cocaine (-81%) and Fentanyl (-19%) seizures decreased along the border, while meth and heroin seizures increased compared to last fiscal year.
“DHS has been executing a comprehensive and deliberate strategy to secure our borders and build a safe, orderly, and humane immigration system,” the Department of Homeland Security said in the statement.
(CHICAGO) — At least five men were shot, three fatally, early Sunday when gunfire erupted at a Chicago intersection taken over by a drag-racing caravan of more than 100 cars, police said.
The shooting erupted about 4 a.m. at an intersection in the Brighton Park neighborhood on the city’s Southwest side, Cmdr. Don Jerome of the Chicago Police Department said at a news conference.
The gun violence in the nation’s third largest city erupted despite a 20% drop in shootings in Chicago through the end of summer, according to Chicago police crime statistics. Homicides have also plummeted 16% from last year.
Jerome said police officers were responding to complaints of a drag-racing caravan in the area with cars peeling rubber and doing doughnuts in the middle of an intersection.
“There was drifting in the middle of the street and approximately 100 cars had gained control of the intersection,” Jerome said.
He said officers at one of the police departments Strategic Decision Support Centers were monitoring the incident via a live video feed when they received a ShotSpotter gunshot detection alert of at least 13 shots at the intersection and “people hitting the ground.”
Upon arriving at the scene, officers learned that five people had been shot and were all taken to hospitals in private vehicles.
Jerome said four men with gunshot wounds were taken to Holy Cross Hospital and one was taken to Mount Sinai Hospital.
He said three men were pronounced dead upon arriving at a hospital, and two other men were in serious condition, but expected to survive.
Two 20-year-old men were among those who died, police said. Authorities did not release the age of the third man fatally shot. Their names were not immediately released.
The two men who were wounded were described as a 19-year-old and a 21-year-old.
Investigators recovered multiple shell casings from the crime scene, suggesting that more than one gunman was involved, Jerome said.
No arrests were immediately announced. Jerome said police are investigating if some of the people who were wounded or killed were armed and fired shots during the incident.
“All three of the decedents did have a gang affiliation,” Jerome said.
He said police are searching for “one or two” people police suspect were involved in the shooting, adding, they “are not necessarily those in the hospital.”
Chicago Alderman Raymond Lopez, who represents the area where the shooting occurred, called for a police crackdown on the roving drag-racing caravans.
“This is not just fun and games on the street,” Lopez said at Sunday’s news conference with Jerome. “We are seeing gangs and criminality join into the drifting and drag-racing.”
(DALLAS) — A 30-year-old man recently paroled after serving a sentence for robbery, is facing capital murder charges stemming from a shooting at a Dallas medical center on Saturday that left two employees dead, including a nurse, officials said Sunday.
A suspect in the double homicide at Methodist Hospital in Dallas on Saturday was identified as Nestor Hernandez, law enforcement officials told ABC affiliate station WFAA in Dallas.
Hernandez was paroled on Oct. 20, 2021, after serving a prison sentence for aggravated robbery, a spokesperson for the Texas Department of Criminal Justice told ABC News.
“He was on parole with a special condition of electronic monitoring,” the spokesperson said.
Hernandez was granted permission to be at the hospital to be with his significant other during the delivery of their baby, the spokesperson said, adding that the state Office of Inspector General is working with Dallas Police as they investigate.
Police with the Methodist Health System and Dallas Police Department responded to reports of an active shooter at Methodist Dallas Medical Center around 11 a.m. Saturday.
A Methodist Health System police officer “confronted the suspect, and fired his weapon at the suspect, injuring him,” the hospital said in a statement. “The suspect was detained, stabilized, and taken to another local hospital.”
The names of the victims were not immediately released.
The shooting occurred near the medical center’s labor and delivery area, according to police.
A motive for the shooting has yet to be disclosed.
“The Methodist Health System family is heartbroken at the loss of two of our beloved team members,” Methodist Health System said in a statement. “Our entire organization is grieving this unimaginable tragedy.”
The investigation is ongoing, with Dallas police assisting the Methodist Health System police, the hospital confirmed.
Dallas Police Chief Eddie Garcia slammed the “broken” justice system for allowing the suspect out on the streets, where he could allegedly obtain a gun.
“I’m outraged along with our community, at the lack of accountability, and the travesty of the fact that under this broken system, we give violent criminals more chances than our victims.The pendulum has swung too far,” Garcia said in a statement he posted on Twitter.
Dr. Serena Bumpus, CEO of the Texas Nurses Association, issued a statement calling the shooting “unacceptable.”
“No person should fear for their life for merely going to work, especially a nurse or healthcare worker whose passion is to help others heal,” Bumpus said in statement. “We hope our legislators understand that we need to protect our healthcare workers.”
Bumpus also released statistics from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, showing workplace violence has increased during the pandemic, and the risk to nurses was three times greater than “all other professions.”
ABC News’ Lisa Sivertsen contributed to this report.
(FREMONT, Mich.) — Michigan police announced they found the family of four who had been missing since Oct. 16 after the father exhibited “paranoid behaviors” last weekend, authorities said.
“The Fremont Police Department would like to thank you for all the helping locating the Cirigliano Family,” the department said in a statement on Sunday. “They family was successfully located in Wisconsin.”
Sunday’s news follows a confirmed sighting that last placed them in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula earlier this week, though police said they have no indication of where they might be traveling.
The family — Anthony “Tony” John Cirigliano, 51, his wife Suzette Lee Cirigliano, 51, as well as their two sons, Brandon Michael Cirigliano, 19, and Noah Alexander Cirigliano, 15 — “unexpectedly” left their house in Fremont, about 45 miles north of Grand Rapids, on Oct. 16, police said. The sons both have autism, authorities said.
The family’s cellphones have all been turned off and they left behind their pets as well as Suzette’s elderly mother, who has dementia and requires full-time care, police said. The grandmother, who lives with them, was found disoriented in the neighborhood on Oct. 17 and police were unable to reunite her with the family. She is now being cared for by other relatives, according to Fremont Police Chief Tim Rodwell.
“They’re all very concerned that Tony and Suzette and the boys have not been in contact with anyone,” Rodwell told Grand Rapids ABC affiliate WZZM.
Since announcing their search for the missing family, police have received over a dozen tips, Rodwell told reporters Friday. That includes a confirmed sighting at a gas station in Gulliver on Oct. 17, he said. The gas station manager contacted police saying she believed she had seen the family, which was corroborated by surveillance footage, Rodwell said.
The footage captured the four family members in the station buying food and fuel for the minivan shortly before 11 a.m. local time, police said. There was no indication where they might have been traveling, Rodwell said.
The search comes after police responded to the Ciriglianos’ home shortly after midnight on Oct. 16 after Tony called 911 expressing concern about information he said he had about the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, according to Rodwell.
“My officers talked with him at length and just were concerned about his mental well-being,” he said. “They made contact with Suzette and looked at the two boys to make sure they were OK.”
Tony, who is self-employed, has no known mental health issues and police didn’t find any signs of foul play, struggle or violence inside the home to indicate a suspicious disappearance, according to Rodwell, who told WZZM that he is worried about the family.
“Everyone describes [Tony] as an extremely loving father, dedicated to his family,” the police chief added. “It’s really been an all-hands-on-deck for the officers in Fremont.”
Rodwell said the Ciriglianos do not have a history of run-ins with police, apart from an issue involving Brandon that occurred last summer in downtown Fremont. But Rodwell said the family was “very cooperative” and the matter was settled “amicably.”
“My officers found Tony to be, again, very loving and caring and worried about his kid,” he noted.
Both police and neighbors described the Ciriglianos’ disappearance as “uncharacteristic” because the family is known to spend a lot of time at home and typically don’t travel far when they do leave.
One neighbor, Sue Schondelmeyer, told WZZM that the Ciriglianos moved to the neighborhood about five years ago. Previously, the family lived in North Carolina, according to Rodwell.
“They were always friendly,” Schondelmeyer said. “When I moved in, they brought me cookies.”
“When my power was out, [Tony] helped with the generator to boost my power, my refrigeration and wouldn’t even take money for the gas,” she added.
Schondelmeyer told WZZM that she would always see the Ciriglianos out walking. Her grandchildren would often hang out with Brandon and Noah whenever they were visiting, she said.
“I realized I hadn’t seen them this week,” she added. “It is kind of scary to think that a whole family can just disappear with nothing.”
As for the minivan the Ciriglianos are believed to be traveling in, Schondelmeyer said she only saw the vehicle for the first time a couple weeks ago. She recalled Tony had driven it home and Brandon and Noah were checking it out.
“That was the first and only time I’ve ever seen it,” she told WZZM. “They usually had just plain cars, not a van.”
Another neighbor, Josh Brinkman, told WZZM his family is friends with the Ciriglianos and that he goes to school with the two boys, whom he described as having “high-functioning autism.” Brinkman said he hasn’t hung out with Brandon or Noah in a while and that the last time he did, about two months ago, everything seemed “normal.”
As for the boys’ father, Brinkman said Tony is a “good guy” and has never shown any strange behavior, despite losing his job a few years ago. When asked if he has a message for the Ciriglianos, he urged them to “stay safe” and let their family and friends know if they’re OK.
(LEAVENWORTH, Wash.) — A woman suffered “significant” injuries Saturday after being charged by a black bear near her home in Washington state, authorities said.
The incident occurred before 7 a.m. in Leavenworth, in central Washington, while the woman was walking her dog, police said.
“The woman had let her dog out that morning when she was charged by an adult female black bear,” the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife Police said in a statement.
The victim sustained “significant” injuries, according to the Chelan County Sheriff’s Office, which responded to the scene and called in Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife officers to assist.
She is being treated for non-life-threatening injuries at a local hospital, authorities said.
Using a Karelian bear dog, officers located and “lethally removed” an adult female black bear near where the incident occurred later that morning, police said. Two approximately 9-month-old cubs were also captured and transported to a wildlife rehabilitation facility, police said.
“We are extremely thankful that the victim is receiving medical care from this unfortunate encounter,” Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife Police Captain Mike Jewell said in a statement. “Public safety is our priority; our officers and staff were quick to mobilize to locate the animal and secure the scene.”
Please be advised, we are asking the public to avoid the area of Enchantment Park Way off of Commercial Street in Leavenworth due to a recent bear attack. A female was attacked within the last hour. Fish & Wildlife is being called in to assist and for further guidance. pic.twitter.com/OS0g7Mp8fe
The sheriff’s office had warned residents to avoid the area following the bear attack.
Since 1970, Washington state authorities have recorded 20 human-black bear encounters that resulted in a documented injury, including one fatal attack.
(NEW YORK) — Dr. Rochelle Walensky, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and prevention tested positive for COVID-19 Friday night, the agency announced Saturday.
Walensky is up to date on her vaccines and is experiencing mild symptoms, according to the CDC.
She is isolating at home and will participate in her planned meetings virtually, the CDC said in a statement.
CDC senior staff and close contacts of Walensky have been informed of her positive test and are taking “appropriate action to monitor their health,” the agency said.
(KEENE, N.H.) — A small plane crashed into multifamily residential building in Keene, New Hampshire, on Friday, killing both people on the board and igniting a 3-alarm fire, city officials said Saturday.
None of the eight adults who were in the building’s four apartments at the time of the crash were injured, despite all the units being occupied at the time of the crash, according to officials. Eight residents who lived in the building have all been displaced from their homes due to the extent of the damage.
The plane crashed into a two-story garage attached to the building. The two-story building sustained “significant damage” to an estimated 20% of the rear of the structure, and it will remain uninhabited until it can be further assessed, Keene Fire Chief Donald Farquhar said at a press conference Saturday.
The single-engine aircraft departed from Keene Dillant-Hopkins Airport shortly before the accident. The aircraft was owned by Monadnock Aviation, a business that operates in New Hampshire, according to City Manager Elizabeth Dragon.
The plane was a Beechcraft Sierra and the crash occurred at 6:55 p.m., the Federal Aviation Administration said.
Shortly after emergency crews arrived on scene, the fire was upgraded to a 2-alarm fire and then a 3-alarm fire, pulling in more resources from throughout the county, Farquhar said.
The Red Cross helped relocate the eight people who were displaced, Keene Mayor George Hansel said at the press conference.
The city’s fire department responded to the scene of the crash after receiving a 911 call just before 7 p.m. The fire was declared out at 8:47 p.m., Hansel said.
There are identifiable parts of the plane that are still in the building and will be left there until the investigation concludes. Officials will then remove what they can of the plane before returning the building to its owners, Farquhar said.
An investigation into the incident is ongoing. Hansel said it is too early to determine what caused the crash.
The FAA, New Hampshire Department of Transportation and National Transportation Safety Board are all on site and the NTSB will be the lead agency conducting an investigation, according to Dragon.
The aircraft was not equipped with a recording that could help investigators determine what went wrong, David Hickling, the director of the airport, said at the press conference. The airport was also unaware of any emergency call coming from the cockpit before the crash, Hickling said.
There are no indications from the plane’s history that there had been problems with it in the past, Hickling said.
