(FORT MYERS, Fla.) — Police in Fort Myers, Florida, issued a missing child alert for 12-year-old Edilsy Roca from Lee County.
According to police, Edilsy was last seen in Fort Myers at approximately 10:30 pm Monday walking in the area of Gardenia Ave.
In an updated alert, the Fort Myers Police Department said Friday afternoon that detectives believe Edilsy could be with her mother and her mother’s boyfriend in Lehigh Acres, an area in Lee County, and if the child is found in her mother’s custody, “she could potentially be in danger.”
Along with a photo of the child, police released pictures of her mother, Imilsy Medina, and her boyfriend, Fabio Miguel Costa Araujo, on the Fort Myers Police Department Facebook page and urged anyone with information about Edilsy’s whereabouts to contact the police.
Medina, 30, has brown hair and brown eyes, while Araujo, 31, has brown hair and gray eyes.
Police said that Imilsy Medina may be wearing glasses and urged members of the public not to approach either Medina or Araujo but to contact police immediately.
According to the missing child alert, Edilsy was wearing a gray crop top, black sweatpants and black sandals when she was last seen.
Edilsy, who is Black, has brown hair and hazel eyes, is 5 feet tall and weighs 110 lbs.
It is unclear who reported Edilsy missing and when police were first notified.
A spokesperson for the Fort Myers Police Department told ABC News on Friday afternoon that no further information is available as this is an ongoing investigation.
Anyone with information about Edilsy’s location can contact the Fort Myers Police Department at (239) 321-7700 or SWFL Crime Stoppers.
(NEW YORK) — With a rise in COVID-19 cases across the nation alongside spread of the new omicron variant, several major events this week have been rescheduled or canceled.
New York and Washington, D.C., on Friday and Wednesday, respectively, reported the most COVID-19 cases in a single day, breaking their pandemic records.
In sports
The NFL on Friday rescheduled its Saturday game between the Cleveland Browns and the Las Vegas Raiders to Monday 5 p.m. ET.
According to a statement from Cleveland Browns Senior Vice President of Communications Peter John-Baptiste, all members of the organization who recently tested positive were vaccinated.
Sunday’s games between the Washington Football Team and Philadelphia Eagles, and between the Los Angeles Rams and Seattle Seahawks were also postponed to Tuesday.
In a statement, the NFL said they made these schedule changes “based on medical advice” after “seeing a new, highly transmissible form of the virus.”
This trend is observable in other sports as well, as the NHL earlier announced it was rescheduling all games for the Colorado Avalanche and Florida Panthers through at least the Christmas weekend amid a COVID-19 outbreak.
The organization pointed to rising positive cases within the last two days and the continued spread of COVID-19 as a concern.
A shutdown on the Calgary Flames, which has already had six games postponed, has been extended through Dec. 23.
In entertainment
Rising cases have also affected events within the entertainment sphere. Shows like “A Christmas Carol” in Los Angeles’ Ahmanson Theatre were canceled due to breakthrough infections among the show’s cast.
In New York, The Rockettes canceled four shows of “The Christmas Spectacular Starring the Radio City Rockettes” scheduled for Friday also due to “breakthrough COVID-19 cases in the production,” a representative said.
On New York’s Broadway, “Moulin Rouge! The Musical on Broadway” also canceled its Friday show due to positive cases within the show company.
Earlier this week, several other Broadway shows like “Hamilton” and “Harry Potter and the Cursed Child” had also canceled shows due to infections, local ABC affiliate WABC-TV reported.
On Dec. 12, singer-songwriter Doja Cat pulled out of future iHeartRadio’s Jingle Ball Tour performances after testing positive for COVID-19.
She announced on Instagram that she tested positive after a few members of her production team also tested positive.
(HARRISONBURG, Va.) — Police in Virginia said they believe an alleged serial killer whom they’ve dubbed the “shopping cart killer” may be responsible for the deaths of four people — and possibly more.
Authorities said Friday that a suspect who was previously charged with the murders of two women, whose bodies were found in a lot in Harrisonburg in November, is believed to be connected to the deaths of two more people whose remains were found this week in a wooded area of Alexandria.
“We’re here today to talk about a serial killer — and that is a phrase that I’ve used sparingly in my three decades in this profession,” Fairfax County Police Chief Kevin Davis said during a press briefing.
“He preys on the weak and preys on the vulnerable,” Davis added. “Our shopping cart killer does unspeakable things with his victims, and it’s our collective duty and responsibility to bring justice and closure to all of our communities.”
Two missing Virginia women — Allene Elizabeth “Beth” Redmon, 54, of Harrisonburg, and Tonita Lorice Smith, 39, of Charlottesville — both were found dead on Nov. 23 near each other in an open lot in the commercial district of Harrisonburg, police said.
Authorities allege that both women connected with the suspect, Anthony Robinson, 35, of Washington, D.C., through dating sites and met him on separate occasions at a hotel. Their bodies were found with blunt force trauma, and investigators believe they were transported to the scene in a shopping cart.
“After he inflicts trauma to his victims and kills them, he transports their bodies to their final resting place, literally in a shopping cart, and there’s video to that effect,” Davis said.
Robinson was arrested last month based on video surveillance and cellphone records that connected him to the two victims, according to Harrisonburg Police Chief Kelley Warner. He’s been charged with two counts of first-degree murder and two felony counts of concealing, transporting or altering a dead body.
More charges are forthcoming in connection with the deaths of two people found Wednesday in Alexandria near the Moon Inn, Fairfax County police said.
One victim is believed to be a missing woman from Washington, D.C. Police said cellular data placed Cheyenne Brown, 29, and Robinson at the same location on Sept. 30, the night of her disappearance.
Authorities are awaiting DNA confirmation, but believe the remains to be Brown’s based on a distinct tattoo positively identified by her family.
The remains of a second person found in a large plastic container along with Brown’s have yet to be identified, police said. A shopping cart also was found next to the container.
Robinson has a “remarkable absence” of any criminal history, Davis said. He’s being held without bond at the Rockingham-Harrisonburg Regional Jail and is scheduled to appear in court on Dec. 27. His attorney, Louis Nagy, declined to comment on the charges and latest allegations when contacted by ABC News.
Authorities said they’re coming forward with their findings because they believe there may be additional victims.
“We need to act right now with our law enforcement partners to figure out who else our killer has had contact with, and what’s his M.O. — dating sites, motels, blunt force trauma, shopping cart, final resting place,” Davis said. “He’s killed four already. And we suspect that he has more victims.”
(DALLAS) — Mercedes Clement was last seen in surveillance video on Oct. 11, 2020, walking across the parking lot of the Koko Apartments in Dallas, Texas, with a man.
She hasn’t been seen or heard from again.
“In the beginning, it didn’t matter if it was a street lead or if it was an anonymous tip or if it was a psychic, we followed the lead,” said Clement’s mother, Alicia Gazotti.
She and her husband, Clement’s stepfather Emiliano Gazotti, have been searching for their 26-year-old daughter for a little over a year. They haven’t given up.
“Mercedes, she was just a gift. She was always saving her money for the homeless people, always just had this huge heart of gold, always,” said Alicia Gazotti.
On the night her daughter went missing, Gazotti said that around 10:30 p.m., Clement made some worrisome phone calls to friends.
“She called a couple of her friends and she told one girl in particular she was scared, she needed a ride to her car. Her friend said it was just eerily quiet,” said Gazotti. “And the phone disconnected and that was it. About the fourth day, when there’s no anything. Then I got worried.”
“The next day we got a piece of mail that her car had been towed and a lot of alarm bells went off for me then,” said Gazotti.
Gazotti said she went to the tow yard that same day to pick up the car, and she was alarmed to find most of her daughter’s belongings still inside.
“Her purse was in her car, her wallet was in her car, her car key was on the front seat, her bra was on the passenger seat,” said Gazotti. “We just knew something was wrong.”
In the following days, she said she tried to retrace her daughter’s steps and visited the Koko Apartment Complex where her daughter’s car had been towed from. She found crucial surveillance video she would later provide to the police.
On Oct. 26, 2020, Gazotti said she and her husband officially filed a missing persons report.
“Mercedes Clement’s case victimology, that’s very important in an investigation,” said Patty Belew, a homicide detective with the Dallas Police Department.
After nearly nine months, Belew was assigned ro Clement’s case after it was transferred from a missing persons case to homicide. She said the case was transferred because investigators suspect foul play.
“A missing persons is a warrant to locate and usually they’ll canvas a little bit and then that’s pretty much it and then they’ll move on. When it’s a homicide, then we’re out just constantly digging, trying to get information,” said Belew. “I believe that [what] we’re looking at is something has happened to her.”
During their investigation, detectives found that the surveillance camera, which captured the last time Clement was seen, had stopped recording the night of her disappearance for seven hours.
“The video we had, we’re told that it had a glitch in it. So it stopped recording, unfortunately,” said Belew.
According to Belew, she had asked the camera’s video company if glitches were normal and they said, “Not so much.”
Also in the surveillance video, detectives said they noticed the purse Clement is seen with while walking into the apartment complex is the same purse that was later found in her car.
“So either she brought it back or the people who took her put it in the car, and their intentions were to come back to the car, but the car was towed before they were able to do that,” said Belew.
The detectives with the Dallas Police Department said they are currently investigating multiple people of interest, including acquaintances from her past she knew when she was involved in drug use. They’ve also identified the man Clement was last seen with as 36-year-old Tanner Losson.
“We’ve tried to question him and he’s basically refused to speak with us,” said Belew.
Losson is currently in Dallas County Jail on unrelated charges. He did not respond to a request for comment.
“The guy that she was with, he’s not talking. He’s not talking to anybody. He maintains he doesn’t know anything,” said Gazotti.
Gazotti said she’s afraid her daughter’s case may run cold.
“I think that the media, police, missing persons units- there’s always a stigma around certain people, if they look a little different or if they’re living a different life,” said Gazzotti. “They don’t get treated with that same urgency or that same consideration or that same care.”
Of the 500,000 reported missing persons, almost half were people of color, according to the FBI.
The Dallas Police Department told ABC News that shining a spotlight on Mercedes Clement’s case could bring in tips they need to solve it and that if anyone has information about Mercedes Clement, they can call the North Texas Crime Commission at 1-877-373-TIPS.
Gazotti said she refuses to give up the search for her missing daughter.
“My daughter’s life mattered,” she said. “Everyone deserves to be found. Everybody deserves closure.”
(WASHINGTON) — The White House’s chief coordinator for the U.S. coronavirus response has a strong warning for unvaccinated Americans ahead of a projected surge in cases over the next few weeks.
If you’re vaccinated, “we’ve done the right thing, and we will get through this,” White House COVID coordinator Jeff Zients said.
“For the unvaccinated, you’re looking at a winter of severe illness and death for yourselves, your families and the hospitals you may soon overwhelm.”
In a briefing with reporters on Friday, Zients and the White House COVID-19 task force, which includes Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Rochelle Walensky and chief medical advisor Anthony Fauci, highlighted the importance of initial vaccines, which offer strong protection against severe illness, but strongly emphasized the need for fully vaccinated Americans to go out and get their booster shots, which offer the best protection against the new omicron variant.
“The optimum protection is fully vaccinated plus a boost,” Fauci said.
“So the bottom line of what we’ve been telling you all along: It is critical to get vaccinated. If you are vaccinated, it is critical for optimal protection to get boosted,” he said.
Asked if the task force is considering recommending people get boosters earlier than six months after their final shot, the current standard, Fauci said it’s “on the table.”
“You still get protection that’s reasonably good against hospitalization [with two shots]. We want to make that better with the booster,” he said.
“Whether or not we’re going to change what the time interval between your last vaccination and your boost, we always have these on the table for discussion, but right now there has not been a decision on that,” Fauci said.
Only 30% of fully vaccinated Americans have been boosted so far, and about half of fully vaccinated seniors over the age of 65 have been boosted.
But Zients said those numbers are slightly higher among eligible Americans — people who are six months past their final shot.
“The right way to think about the percent boosted is those eligible. And we’ve now boosted about 60 million Americans. That’s about 40% of the eligible Americans. Importantly, of those over 65 we are now more than 60%. And that’s important because they are the most vulnerable,” Zients said.
Still, that means the percentage of boosted Americans with optimal protection against omicron is quite low, at about four in every 10 vaccinated people. And around 40% of the country still remains completely unvaccinated.
The warnings from the White House come in the lead up to Christmas and New Year’s — the first since vaccines became widespread in the US. The holiday season has coincided with the presence of omicron, the most transmissible variant to date.
Yet the holiday guidance from the White House COVID task force continues to be that Americans can and should gather, given the existence of vaccines — a powerful mitigation tool against the virus.
But vaccines alone are not sufficient to ensure full protection, the CDC director warned, and Americans should return to the basics to steer clear of a holiday outbreak among family members.
That includes indoor masking in all public places, ruling out indoor dining or bars, social distancing, hand-washing and spending time in well-ventilated areas. But historically, the country has had a hard time sticking to these measures and is particularly fatigued two years in — circumstances that do not bode well for avoiding a surge this holiday season.
“I think we’re in a very different place this year than we were last year, and we really do want people to be able to gather and gather safely,” Walensky said.
“We have the tools now to do it and what we’re really saying is please rely on those tools. Get vaccinated. If you’re eligible for a boost, get boosted. And importantly, a week before the holidays, indoor mask in these areas that have — 90% of our counties have substantial or high transmission,” Walensky said.
“Use the next week to make sure you’re practicing those safe prevention mitigation strategies, so that when you come together for the holidays, that people have been not exposed to the virus because in fact they’ve been vaccinated, boosted and masked. And for that extra reassurance as we have more disease in this country right now, do a test and make sure that you’re negative before you mix and gather in different households,” she said.
(WASHINGTON) — Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell is expected to travel throughout Western Kentucky on Friday and Saturday to meet with local leaders and residents in the storm-ravaged state he’s represented in Congress for 36 years.
“It is still difficult to comprehend the vast scope of this storm,” McConnell said on the Senate floor earlier this week. “This is the worst storm to hit Kentucky in my lifetime.”
McConnell is expected to meet with volunteers and speak to reporters in Bowling Green on Friday before traveling Saturday to Madisonville and two of the hardest-hit areas — Dawson Springs and Mayfield — where President Joe Biden also surveyed storm damage this week.
The Republican leader’s trip comes two days after Biden’s, whose efforts in Kentucky McConnell has praised — a rare bipartisan gesture from the conservative leader.
“Kentucky’s congressional delegation came together to send multiple letters to the president in support of disaster relief. In response, President Biden cut through the red tape to approve our request at an accelerated pace, providing the rapid support we need to recover,” McConnell said on Monday.
In an interview with a Kentucky Spectrum news reporter ahead of heading home, McConnell applauded officials he says “got on the ground very quickly” — but also offered praise for another group that many Republicans have maligned.
Asked about the House select committee’s ongoing investigation into the attack on the Capitol on Jan. 6, McConnell said he’s watching it play out.
“It was a horrendous event, and I think what they are seeking to find out is something the public needs to know,” said McConnell, whose condemnation of the attempted coup has drawn the ire of former President Donald Trump.
Biden’s supporters have touted his response as a significant change from that of his predecessor, whose administration put up bureaucratic obstacles that stalled billions in hurricane relief to Puerto Rico, according to an Inspector General report. Trump also suggested that increased federal funding to states hurting early on from the impact of coronavirus was unfair to Republicans, “because all the states that need help — they’re run by Democrats in every case.”
“I don’t think the Republicans want to be in a position where they bail out states that are, that have been mismanaged over a long period of time,” Trump said last May.
Biden, having already approved a major disaster declaration for the state, announced during his visit to Kentucky that the federal government would boost its support to cover 100% of the disaster recovery there for the next 30 days, from debris cleanup to paying overtime for first responders.
Rep. James Comer — who represents Kentucky’s 1st District — was the only congressional Republican to accompany Biden on his visit to the area, which heavily leans Republican, though McConnell and Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., were invited to travel with the president, according to the White House. The two Kentucky senators were in Washington on Wednesday for votes, and Paul surveyed storm damage in Bowling Green on Sunday.
“There’s no red tornadoes or blue tornadoes,” Biden said during his visit where he recommitted federal support. “There’s no red states or blue states when this stuff starts to happen. And I think, at least in my experience, it either brings people together or really knocks them apart.”
For many families, federal aid can’t come soon enough.
At least 77 people were killed in Kentucky, Gov. Andy Beshear said Friday, in deadly storms that spanned across five states.
(NEW YORK) — The trial of former Brooklyn Center Police Officer Kim Potter charged in the death of Daunte Wright, a 20-year-old Black man who was fatally shot during a traffic stop, continues with Potter taking the stand to testify in her own defense.
Potter, 49, is charged with first-degree and second-degree manslaughter in the April 11 incident. She has pleaded not guilty to both charges.
The maximum sentence for first-degree manslaughter is 15 years and a $30,000 fine and for second-degree manslaughter, it’s 10 years and a $20,000 fine.
Wright’s death reignited protests against racism and police brutality across the U.S., as the killing took place just outside of Minneapolis, where the trial of Derek Chauvin, a former officer who was convicted of murdering George Floyd, was taking place.
Dec 17, 1:23 pm
Prosecution questions Kim Potter on training
Kim Potters was asked about the department’s Taser policy, which she said states “that all training should include performing reaction hand draws or cross draws to reduce the possibility of accidentally drawing and firing a firearm.”
She also maintained that she received extensive use of force training.
“Part of the reason for that is weapons confusion, right?” the prosecution asked.
“Yes,” Potter replied.
“And that was known in the field and has been known for a number of years,” the prosecution continued.
“We talked about it,” Potter said.
Potter wore her Taser on her left side and her firearm on her right side, according to her testimony. She said it’s been like this since 2016.
She said she has never deployed her Taser but has pulled it out for de-escalation purposes.
Dec 17, 1:06 pm
Potter describes fatal police shooting of Daunte Wright
Kim Potter was emotional on the witness stand as she described the fatal traffic stop. She shot and killed 20-year-old Daunte Wright, who was being arrested by officers and attempted to flee.
“I remember a struggle with Officer [Anthony] Luckey and the driver at the door,” Potter testified. “The driver was trying to get back into the car … I went around Officer Luckey as they’re trying to get back in the door.”
She added, “They’re still struggling and I can see Officer Johnson and the drivers struggling over the gearshifts because I can see Johnson’s hand and then I can see his face.”
She then described Sgt. Mychal Johnson, who was holding Wright from the passenger side of the car.
“He had a look of fear on his face — nothing I’d seen before,” she said. “We’re trying to keep him from driving away. It just went chaotic. And then I remember yelling, ‘Taser, Taser, Taser,’ and nothing happened and then [Wright] told me I shot him.”
Dec 17, 12:57 pm
Kim Potter on why she pulled over Wright
Kim Potter said she would not have stopped Wright over the air freshener nor the expired registration tabs if she were not field training.
“An air freshener, to me, is not just an equipment violation,” she testified. “The COVID times, the high COVID times, the Department of Motor Vehicles was so offline that people weren’t getting tabs and we were advised not to try to enforce a lot of those things because the tabs were just not in circulation. Part of field training is that my probationer would make numerous contacts with the public throughout the day,” she said, regarding Officer Anthony Luckey, who she was training at the time.
She said that traffic stops can be dangerous for police officers.
“Sometimes there’s guns in the car,” she testified. “Sometimes there’s uncooperative people, you don’t know who you’re stopping.”
Dec 17, 12:33 pm
Potter says she likely never deployed her Taser
Kim Potter said she rarely took her Taser out and doesn’t believe she ever deployed it.
She testified that she sometimes took her Taser out to de-escalate a situation “or to prepare for what might be behind the door. Sometimes an officer has a gun and sometimes an officer has a Taser out.”
She said she received her new Taser almost a month before the fatal killing of Daunte Wright. She also said the training she had at the department was focused more on firearms than on Tasers.
Dec 17, 1:02 pm
Potter talks about her experience as a field training officer
Kim Potter was asked about her background with the Brooklyn Center Police Department. She was hired in 1995, making her a 26-year veteran of the department.
She was a field training officer for at least 10 years, she testified.
She said she was a field training officer because she “felt that I had knowledge and mentorship that I could help young officers develop into somebody I would want to work and my partners would want to work with.”
She was serving as a field training officer when she fatally shot Wright.
She was also on the domestic abuse response team, serving as a crisis negotiator within the domestic abuse program.
“Officers would go out on domestic abuse situations or domestic calls and if there was a victim of a crime or an arrest made — or not an arrest made — we would follow up the next day with the victims to see that they were getting the things they needed like domestic advocates, walking them through getting order for protections that they had questions, and then helping them, and checking in with them through the court process,” she testified.
As a crisis negotiator, Potter said she would respond to calls where people may be in danger to negotiate with the subject and get them to submit to being arrested.
She had also worked in crime prevention work and said she received a Taser and firearm training.
Dec 17, 1:04 pm
Kim Potter takes the stand
Kim Potter is testifying in her own defense about the April 11, 2021, events that led to the death of Daunte Wright, who she shot and killed during a traffic stop. She is charged with first-degree manslaughter and second-degree manslaughter. The defense said Potter meant to use her Taser on Wright but instead grabbed her firearm when she shot him in the driver’s seat of his car, a mistake her lawyers call an “action error.”
The defense has maintained that Potter was within her rights to use deadly force on Wright since he could have hurt or killed another officer with his car.
Dec 09, 3:09 am
Minnesota governor prepares National Guard ‘out of an abundance of caution’
Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz announced that he is preparing the Minnesota National Guard to provide public safety assistance if necessary during Kim Potter’s trial, as requested by Hennepin County and the city of Brooklyn Center.
“Out of an abundance of caution, we are prepared to ask members of the Minnesota National Guard to be available to support local law enforcement with the mission of allowing for peaceful demonstrations, keeping the peace, and ensuring public safety,” Walz said in a statement Wednesday evening.
A press release from Walz’s press office stated that, “at this time, the Minnesota National Guard will not be proactively assuming posts throughout the Twin Cities.” Guard members will only operate in support of local law enforcement “should they be needed,” according to the press release.
Dec 08, 6:49 pm
New body-cam footage shows Potter moments after shooting Wright
New body-worn camera footage played in the courtroom while the prosecution questioned Brooklyn Center officer Anthony Luckey showed the moments after Kim Potter shot Daunte Wright.
In the video, taken from Luckey’s body-worn camera, Potter can be seen falling to the curb.
“Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God,” she said, before hyperventilating for several minutes with her face buried in the grass.
Luckey’s and Sgt. Mychal Johnson’s arms can be seen reaching down to Potter.
“Just breathe,” Luckey can be heard saying.
“I’m going to go to prison,” Potter said.
“No, you’re not,” Luckey said.
“Kim, that guy was trying to take off with me in the car!” Johnson said in the video.
Potter then sat up on the grass and repeatedly said, “Oh my God,” as her colleagues waved traffic by and discussed shutting down the street.
Court has wrapped for the day and will resume at 9 a.m. local time Thursday.
-ABC News’ Sasha Pezenik
Dec 08, 5:57 pm
Brooklyn Center officer recounts fatal shot that killed Daunte Wright
Brooklyn Center officer Anthony Luckey said during his testimony that he was to the right of Kim Potter when she fatally shot Daunte Wright.
He said he was holding on to Wright when he heard Potter yell “Taser,” several times.
“It was pretty much some intense thing when it happened,” Luckey said. “When she yelled, ‘Taser, Taser,’ that’s when I went back into the vehicle, realized that she said ‘Taser, Taser’ and right when I pulled back, that’s when the round went off.”
Then, he said he saw the flash of a gun and heard the bang. He said he was hit with a projectile.
Luckey said he did not know whose gun had gone off initially, but said he knew it wasn’t a shot fired by Wright.
“I just knew that it wasn’t Daunte’s because I was able to see his hands,” Luckey said.
(NEW YORK) — The Department of Homeland Security is urging schools to stay vigilant Friday amid unfounded threats of violence spreading on social media.
“DHS is aware of public reporting that suggests possible threats to schools on December 17, 2021,” the agency tweeted Friday morning. “DHS does not have any information indicating any specific, credible threats to schools but recommends communities remain alert.”
In New York City, the NYPD said Thursday the department was aware of “posts circulating on TikTok concerning a potential school shooting on Friday,” but there was “no credible information to suggest this threat is specific to any school in New York City.”
The NYPD said it was sending extra resources to NYC schools as a precaution.
Other schools have closed due to the threats. In Wisconsin, the Platteville School District said it canceled school Friday due to a potential threat of violence.
In California, the Los Angeles Unified School District said classes will be in session Friday despite the threats.
“There is no reason to believe our schools are in any danger,” the district said Thursday.
Santa Monica police said they’ll be highly visible at schools Friday even though there aren’t specific threats.
The FBI’s Los Angeles field office said, “While we continue to monitor intelligence, we are not aware of any specific threats or known credible threats to schools in the Los Angeles region at this time.”
TikTok said it’s “working with law enforcement to look into warnings about potential violence at schools even though we have not found evidence of such threats originating or spreading via TikTok.”
The DHS said it’ll continue to monitor the threats and asked people to report suspicious activity to law enforcement.
ABC News’ Josh Margolin, Luke Barr and Ahmad Hemingway contributed to this report.
(NEW YORK) — For centuries the world has been fascinated by serial killers. Who are they? What makes them tick? What do they choose to kill?
To try to answer those questions the authorities turned to one woman: Dr. Ann Wolbert Burgess.
Now a celebrated criminal psychologist, forensic nurse and researcher, Burgess began her seasoned career researching and gathering data about victims of sexual assault and the lasting trauma in rape victims.
In the early 1970s at Boston College, Burgess met Linda Lytle Holmstrom. The two began working together and set up a program at Boston City Hospital. Their goal was to meet with as many rape victims as possible.
“[Holmstrom] had wanted to study rape, but hadn’t had any success in finding rape victims,” Burgess said. “It’s no different now than it was back then. They really are hidden. They’re really silent.”
Holmstrom’s and Burgess’s deep dive eventually led to procedures that focused on a victim’s response to rape. But for Burgess, this important initial research provided her with the structure and knowhow to dig into something much deeper.
An “aha” moment happened during a small conference in Worcester, Massachusetts. Holmstrom and Burgess were focusing their research solely on victim impact while another colleague presented information about perpetrators. At that moment, Burgess was struck with the power of putting the two together.
She describes the moment in her new book, “A Killer By Design”: “I realized if I wanted to fully understand the nature of a crime, I’d have to see both the victim and the perpetrator as two halves of the same story.”
These findings were first published in the American Journal of Nursing as “The Rape Victim in the Emergency Ward.”
And then the FBI called.
Supervisory Special Agent Roy Hazelwood had read her article and he wanted her to present a lecture on her research to FBI personnel at Quantico.
“That was a frightening moment for me,” Burgess told ABC News. “And then I thought, ‘I’ve never really talked to a bunch of males before. It’s always been female nurses. So he made arrangements and the rest is history.”
Thus began Burgess’ work with the FBI’s Behavioral Science Unit (“BSU”) — the “Mindhunters” popularized over the last several years by a Netflix series loosely documenting their work.
“BSU was a cast of outsiders,” Burgess explains in her book. “They were the rogue agents, the idealists with big ideas, and they wouldn’t let the limits of convention or bureaucratic traditions stand in their way.”
And because she was an outsider to the FBI with a nonconventional background, FBI agents saw Burgess as an ally. Eventually she was introduced to two agents, John Douglas and Robert Ressler, who were working on an extremely unique side project: interviewing serial killers.
“Of course the content was fascinating,” Burgess said, recalling the first time she listened to the interview tapes. “It became clear to me that they had a wonderful opportunity to get all kinds of information. But they didn’t have a plan. And that’s where I came in and suggested that they really needed to have some kind of methodology to it.”
And so she set out to do just that. Initially, there was a lot of distrust in the profiling process. But once Burgess’ evolving methodology began to show results, everything changed.
Over the next two decades, Burgess worked with the BSU to develop and create a criminal profiling framework that revolutionized the way criminals were identified, interviewed and tracked. Through her continued work, Burgess and BSU agents were able to analyze some of the nation’s most notorious offenders, including Henry Louis Wallace (“The Taco Bell Strangler”), Dennis Rader (“The BTK Killer”) and Ed Kemper (“The Co-Ed Killer”).
“The work alone stands by itself,” said Steven Matthew Constantine, who began working with Burgess as a cowriter for her book. “But the fact that she was one of the very few women in the FBI at the time to be doing this type of work and be trusted to do that type of work, I think that’s really impressive. And I think it’s an important piece of history that needs to be shared.”
He went on, “It was sort of funny when we first started. I remember asking Dr. Burgess, ‘How did you deal with this?’ It’s definitely very disturbing to know it’s out there and still goes on. I tried to take on a little bit of her mentality of looking at it as data and information. If you can get to the bottom of it and you can parse all this information quickly, hopefully that’s preventing future victims.”
When asked if Burgess believed the perpetrators she interviewed and studied were monsters, she said no. Instead, she described the violent offenders as atypical and remarked on the importance of trying to understand the mind of a person who commits serial assaults or homicides.
“I think, as the book says, it’s a quest to understand,” said Burgess. “Because if we can understand [perpetrators] and how early [their tendencies] started, maybe we could stop it or intervene or do something.”
(NEW YORK) — Breonna’s Garden is an augmented reality app memorializing Breonna Taylor, the 26-year-old who died in her own apartment on March 13, 2020 when police unleashed a barrage of 32 shots.
A self-professed CEO and founder of a “cryptomedia” company who is known online as Lady Pheonix told ABC News that she created the app. The founder, who asked that her real name be withheld for privacy reasons, said she was inspired to help Ju’Niyah Palmer, Breonna Taylor’s sister, through her greiving process.
The app has a 3D rendering of Taylor in a garden surrounded by tulips — the late medical worker’s favorite flower, according to Palmer. It features a montage of Taylor’s life. The app’s users can also share voice memos that turn into crystal flowers which play their messages.
Lady Pheonix says that the app’s users are sharing their own stories of grief and loss.
“At first I was a little standoffish,” Palmer told ABC News about being approached with the idea for the app. She said that she was wary of a stranger messaging her “out of the blue” on an Instagram live. But her mom convinced her to hear out Lady Pheonix’s idea, she said.
“I actually fell very in love with it,” said Palmer of the augmented reality project.
“The greatest kind of healing and well-being happen in nature,” Lady Pheonix told ABC News about using the setting of a garden in the app. The tulips in the app also have a special significance: Palmer said her sister wanted a house and a garden to plant tulips everywhere.
Lady Pheonix said that tulips are also a way to contrast beauty with what she called the “tragedy” of Taylor’s story. “The tulip was held in beauty, and Brianna’s story … is held in tragedy. For me, I wanted to invert that and focus on the beauty,” she said.
People use the Breonna’s app to overlay her virtual memorial with her physical memorial in the Miami garden.
Palmer said that she struggled with PTSD after her sister’s shooting, and while she got help from a therapist and medication,she said the app helps her feel like she could still talk with her sister.
“It feels like in the moment I do get to be able to visualize her as if she was here in the moment for me,” said Palmer.
Breonna Taylor’s sister, Ju’Niyah Palmer, Kenneth Walker and Tamika Palmer stand in mourning in a garden honoring Breonna Taylor and anyone else who needs to grieve.
Palmer said that she hopes the garden app reaches more people in the coming years.
Lady Pheonix said that she hopes every hospital and every major city will have a physical garden to accompany the Breonna’s Garden app as places for quiet reflection and healing.
