(NEW YORK) — Law enforcement officials briefed on the investigation into Salman Rushdie’s attack told ABC News that “a preliminary investigation into the suspected perpetrator’s probable social media presence indicates a likely adherence or sympathy towards Shi’a extremism and sympathies to the Iranian regime/Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.”
Author Salman Rushdie was attacked while giving a lecture at an education center, the Chautauqua Institution in Chautauqua, in southwestern New York, Friday morning. Rushdie was stabbed at least once in the neck and abdomen, after a man ran up on stage and attacked him and his interviewer. The interviewer was not injured.
But, Rushdie’s agent told ABC News on Friday that he will likely lose an eye, the nerves in his arm were severed and his liver was stabbed and damaged.
Law enforcement have identified Rushdie’s attacker as 24-year-old Hadi Matar of New Jersey. Matar is currently in New York State Police custody. Matar is charged with felony attempted second-degree murder and second-degree assault.
Matar was processed at SP Jamestown and transported to Chautauqua County Jail and will be arraigned on Aug.13.
The suspect was born in California, sources told ABC News. On the suspect’s phone, investigators say they found photos of Iranian Maj. Gen. Qasem Soleimani, who was killed in a U.S. drone strike, and Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, the leader of Iraq’s pro-Iranian militia movement, also killed by U.S. forces. Police recovered a fake New Jersey driver’s license, which appears to have used the suspect’s picture with the alias “Hassan Mughniyah,” a possible reference to Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of Lebanese terror organization Hezbollah, and Imad Mughniyeh, who was the group’s No. 2 official before being killed in 2008, sources said.
Detectives are now calling the attack an “apparent assassination attempt” by “an individual with strong indicators of ideological support for the Iranian regime.” They said the incident occurred during a period of “plot disruptions” apparently connected to the current state of U.S.-Iran tensions.
Investigators are noting Iran continues to threaten its enemies around the world as part of its stated play for revenge for the killings of Soleimani and al-Muhandis.
Investigators say they do not know, at this point, whether the Ayatollah’s prior call to assassinate Rushdie was a motivator. No Iranian official has commented on the attack yet.
Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the late Supreme Leader of the Islamic Revolution and a prominent Shi’a Muslim figure, issued a “fatwa,” a religious decree, on Feb. 14, 1989, calling for the death of Rushdie and his publishers over his book “The Satanic Verses.” Officials stress that the probe is ongoing and information is subject to change. The incident occurred less than 24 hours ago.
(ARLINGTON, Va.) — Authorities are investigating after a car crashed into a Virginia pub, injuring over a dozen people and sparking a fire.
The incident occurred Friday evening in Arlington, outside of Washington, D.C. Police and fire crews responded to the scene around 6:45 p.m. after the car slammed into Ireland’s Four Courts. Fourteen people were injured and the crash caused a structural fire, which was extinguished, the Arlington County Police Department said.
Four people were transported to local area hospitals with critical injuries and another four were transported with non-life-threatening injuries, police said Friday night. Six people were treated at the scene and released, police said.
The cause of the crash is under investigation. So far there is “no information to suggest the crash was deliberate,” a law enforcement official briefed on the investigation told ABC News on Saturday. “Background research on the driver revealed no derogatory or concerning information,” the official said.
Dramatic video from the scene showed smoke and flames coming from the pub before the blaze was extinguished.
The impacted building was determined to be structurally sound but could not be reoccupied, authorities said.
Ireland’s Four Courts thanked police and fire crews for their quick response and asked to keep “all the injured in your thoughts and prayers.”
“We are devastated,” the restaurant said on Twitter.
(NEW YORK)– Colleges and universities have been eagerly awaiting the arrival of students this fall, heralding a much-anticipated return to normalcy on campuses, with COVID-19 cases beginning to abate again across the country.
However, following the nation’s growing monkeypox outbreak, there are growing concerns from health experts that this second virus could once again disrupt the upcoming school year given the potential spread of the virus through sexual networks and close contacts during physical and social activities.
“Monkeypox is most likely to spread through dense social networks where frequent close contact occurs. College campuses are a potentially high-risk environment where this virus could take hold and should be a target for surveillance efforts,” said John Brownstein, Ph.D., an epidemiologist at Boston Children’s Hospital and an ABC News contributor.
Experts say the greatest risk of transmission is prolonged, skin-to-skin contact with a person with monkeypox. It is also possible to spread the virus through bedding and towels contaminated with infected lesions.
More casual contact, such as brushing past someone or speaking face to face, is significantly less risk, experts say.
A handful of universities, including Bucknell University, Georgetown University and West Chester University in Pennsylvania, have already reported cases in their communities, prompting college officials to roll out monkeypox education programs, and stock up on test kits.
“I think college campuses need to be very aware of the possibility” of monkeypox spreading into their student populations, Dr. Stephanie Silvera, an epidemiologist and professor of public health at Montclair State University, told ABC News. “It would be foolish to think that it won’t happen on these college campuses where we know that infectious diseases have the opportunity to spread quickly.”
The shift to a more urgent strategy comes after the Biden administration declared the monkeypox outbreak a public health emergency, last week, with the number of reported cases growing exponentially in recent weeks.
Across the globe, nearly 32,000 cases of monkeypox have now been reported, including more than 11,000 cases in the U.S. — the most of any country. All but one U.S. state — Wyoming — have now confirmed at least one positive monkeypox case.
The majority of cases, in the current monkeypox outbreak, have been detected in gay, bisexual, or other men who have sex with men. However, health officials have repeatedly stressed that anyone can contract the virus.
“As much as this has, thus far, been largely confined to a single population, it doesn’t take much for that expand when you have so many people living together or in close contact as frequently as you do at schools and colleges,” Dr. Alexandra Brugler Yonts, an infectious disease specialist at Children’s National Hospital in Washington, D.C., told ABC News.
Keeping students safe
Although the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has yet to release specific guidance for curbing the spread of monkeypox at colleges and universities, the agency recently published guidance for congregate living settings, which includes dormitories at institutes of higher education.
The CDC recommends that institutions provide clear updates on the status of the outbreak to residents, respond to cases by testing and keeping in contact with local health officials and ensure that those who test positive wear a mask and stay in isolation for monkeypox.
Similar to quarantine periods associated with COVID-19, experts noted that universities will once again have to consider how to best support students who are isolating with monkeypox.
“Drawing from the covid playbook, setting up infrastructure for testing and contact tracing, is a reasonable strategy ahead of any possible outbreak this fall,” Brownstein said.
At this time, no quarantine is recommended for individuals who have been exposed to the virus. However, for those who do test positive, isolation is recommended until the monkeypox lesions have completely healed with a new layer of skin which can take up to four weeks — significantly longer than what is currently recommended for those who are COVID-19 positive.
“Some universities had isolation housing for COVID, but most of those have sort of relinquished that inventory so that we can have more students living on campus, and so making sure we have the space for those students to stay safely is going to be very important,” Silvera said.
How colleges are preparing
In light of the recent upsurge in monkeypox cases, colleges and universities from coast to coast have begun to create informational programs to ensure students are educated on the risks associated with monkeypox, as well as the key symptoms and signs, in order to adequately spot potential cases within the community.
At the University of Texas at Austin, university officials recently sent a letter out to students and faculty, alerting them to the global spread of monkeypox.
“UT has a longstanding public health infrastructure and implements mitigation protocols when faced with known or emerging communicable diseases, and we collaborate on strategies needed to reduce the incidence or spread within our population. Monkeypox will be handled as we would most other communicable illnesses with similar modes of transmission,” wrote Dr. Terrance Hines, executive director and chief medical officer at the university.
Some universities, including Northwestern and Bucknell, have set up monkeypox pages on their websites, with information pointing students to resources about the virus.
“I think that level of information is really the first step,” Silvera said.
And at North Carolina State, officials confirmed to ABC News that the university has “limited testing and vaccines available by appointment” for monkeypox.
With students set to return to campus at Salem Academy and College in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, school leadership is preparing to urge students to follow the same health protocols as they have with COVID-19.
“I think that the key to being prepared is education and communication with our students, and so many of the same best practices that we encourage our students to follow around COVID-19 — hand hygiene, social distancing, monitoring for symptoms — are the same for monkeypox or any other infectious disease,” Summer McGee, Ph.D., president of Salem Academy and College, told ABC News.
In addition, health experts stressed that it will be critical that colleges not single out or stigmatize certain populations in their messaging.
Students should be on alert, health experts say
The increase in cases across the country has left some students feeling anxious about their return to school.
Camila Heard, a Los Angeles Community College District student who heads to campus this month, said she doesn’t “feel too good” about going due to the threat of monkeypox.
Heard noted the multiple precautions she’s taken to avoid contracting the virus, including always carrying sanitizer, disinfecting wipes and wearing a mask.
Experts say students with monkeypox should refrain from sharing towels, sheets and other materials and that all students should be honest about their symptoms and contact history with potential partners, roommates, or friends.
“I think you have to be very mindful of what, at this point, what your behaviors are,” Silvera said. “So think about who you’re interacting with, who you’re having that close physical contact with. Be open and honest in your communication about where you have been, and signs and symptoms.”
“This is not the time to ignore the signs and symptoms,” she added. “If you’re not feeling well, make note of that. Put on a mask, try to limit the amount of physical contact you’re having with other people, and that can hopefully help to prevent the spread of this disease.”
Avery Edelmon, who is immunocompromised, currently lives in a dorm and begins classes next week at Tarleton State University in Texas — one of the states leading the country in monkeypox cases.
“I’m pretty nervous about going to class and I kind of know that if I want to be as safe as can be, I’ll have to put that on myself,” she told ABC News.
Immunocompromised people are at higher risk for developing severe disease due to monkeypox, according to the CDC.
It will also be critical for students to responsibly monitor themselves and seek care, should they develop symptoms, health experts stressed.
“The same thing we tried to say with COVID-19, if you’re sick, stay home. Well, if you’ve got a pustules or vesicle or rash, cover it up, and go get it checked out,” Brugler Yonts said. “Don’t just go to that party, like it’s no big deal.”
(NEW YORK) — A suspect has been charged with attempted murder in the attack on author Salman Rushdie at a speaking event in New York state.
Rushdie, who has faced death threats over his writing, was scheduled to give a lecture at the education center Chautauqua Institution in Chautauqua, in southwestern New York, Friday morning.
At around 11 a.m., a man “ran up onto the stage and attacked Rushdie and an interviewer,” according to New York State Police.
Rushdie was stabbed at least once in the neck and abdomen and was transported by helicopter to a trauma center in Erie, Pennsylvania, police said.
His agent told ABC News Friday that Rushdie is undergoing surgery and is on a ventilator. The author will likely lose one eye as a result of the attack, his agent said. The nerves in his arm were also severed and his liver was damaged in the stabbing, his agent said.
The alleged attacker is Hadi Matar, 24, of Fairview, New Jersey, a law enforcement official told ABC News. He was arrested at the scene by a New York State Police trooper.
State police were working with the Chautauqua County district attorney to determine “appropriate charges,” Major Eugene Staniszewski, a troop commander for New York State Police, told reporters during a press briefing Friday afternoon.
Matar has since been charged with attempted murder in the second degree and assault in the second degree, Chautauqua County District Attorney Jason Schmidt said Saturday. He was arraigned Friday night and remanded without bail, Schmidt said. It wasn’t immediately clear if Matar had a lawyer.
Law enforcement officials briefed on the investigation told ABC News that “a preliminary investigation into the suspected perpetrator’s probable social media presence indicates a likely adherence or sympathy towards Shi’a extremism and sympathies to the Iranian regime/Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.”
The officials say investigators found photos on Matar’s phone of Iranian Maj. Gen. Qasem Soleimani and Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, the leader of Iraq’s pro-Iranian militia movement, who were killed by U.S. forces in a drone strike in Baghdad on Jan. 3, 2020.
JUST IN: Author Salman Rushdie’s alleged attacker has been identified as 24-year-old Hadi Matar, officials say. Rushdie was stabbed “at least once in the neck and at least once in the abdomen.” https://t.co/TML9Ty3QS0pic.twitter.com/3W3xcZtZUs
Police believe the suspect acted alone and were in the process Friday of obtaining search warrants for items including electronics and a backpack found at the scene that they believe belong to the suspect, Staniszewski said.
The FBI is also assisting with the investigation, he said.
The suspect had a pass to access the event, officials said.
In the aftermath of the attack, Rushdie, 75, was seen being tended to while on the stage.
The interviewer, Henry Reese, 73, suffered a minor head injury during the attack, police said. He was treated for a facial injury at a nearby hospital and has since been released, police said.
Chautauqua Institution president Michael Hill said during Friday’s press briefing that security “has been a top priority,” and that they had a state trooper and sheriff presence at the event.
“We’ll continue to look at providing the maximum security that we can,” Hill said. “This has never happened in our entire history. Chautauqua has always been an extremely safe place. We will continue to be working to keep that tradition going.”
Those in the audience expressed shock at the attack.
“He rushed the stage, it looked like he was punching him,” Patrick Fogarty told Erie, Pennsylvania, ABC affiliate WJET. “It was all over very fast.”
John Stein told WJET he was worried about security given Rushdie’s notoriety.
“Somebody just ran up on stage,” he said. “It was so quick. I was just thinking, am I really seeing this?”
Stein said when the attacker started to run off the stage following the assault he was apprehended with the help of a handful of attendees.
“People in the audience had gone up on the stage when they saw this and then grabbed the attacker, who still had a knife, I think,” he told the station. “A lot of bravery.”
One or two doctors in the audience also went on stage to help provide medical assistance, he said.
Thank you to the swift response of @nyspolice & first responders following today’s attack of author Salman Rushdie.
Our thoughts are with Salman & his loved ones following this horrific event. I have directed State Police to further assist however needed in the investigation.
New York Gov. Kathy Hochul called the attack “horrific,” saying she has directed state police to “further assist however needed in the investigation.”
“Here is an individual who has spent decades speaking truth to power, someone who has been out there, unafraid, despite the threats that have followed him through his entire adult life,” Hochul remarked during a press briefing on an unrelated matter on Friday.
The British-Indian writer faced years of death threats after his novel, “The Satanic Verses,” was published in 1988.
The late Iranian leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini accused the author of blasphemy over the book and in 1989 issued a fatwa against Rushdie, calling for his death.
Rushdie spent years in hiding, which he chronicled in his 2012 memoir, “Joseph Anton.” The book was nominated for the United Kingdom’s top nonfiction award, the Samuel Johnson prize.
In 1998, the Iranian foreign minister said that the country no longer supported the fatwa against Rushdie, though a bounty for his death continues to be offered by an Iranian religious foundation. In 2012, the group increased the bounty from $2.8 million to $3.3 million.
Others have been attacked in connection with “The Satanic Verses,” which was banned in several countries following its publication. Among them, Hitoshi Igarashi, who translated the book into Japanese, was stabbed to death in 1991 on the campus where he taught literature.
Rushdie has authored over a dozen books, including the Booker Prize-winning “Midnight’s Children,” and is a former president of the literary and human rights organization PEN America.
PEN America expressed “shock and horror” at the attack on Rushdie.
“We can think of no comparable incident of a public violent attack on a literary writer on American soil,” Suzanne Nossel, CEO of PEN America, said in a statement.
“Salman Rushdie has been targeted for his words for decades but has never flinched nor faltered,” she continued. “While we do not know the origins or motives of this attack, all those around the world who have met words with violence or called for the same are culpable for legitimizing this assault on a writer while he was engaged in his essential work of connecting to readers.”
Penguin Random House, which will publish Rushdie’s “Victory City,” next year, released a statement Friday evening on the attack.
“We are deeply shocked and appalled to hear of the attack on Salman Rushdie while he was speaking at the Chautauqua Institution in New York. We condemn this violent public assault, and our thoughts are with Salman and his family at this distressing time,” chief executive officer Markus Dohle said.
National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan said the attack was “reprehensible.”
“Today, the country and the world witnessed a reprehensible attack against the writer Salman Rushdie,” Sullivan said in a statement. “This act of violence is appalling. All of us in the Biden-Harris Administration are praying for his speedy recovery.”
ABC News’ Aaron Katersky, Josh Margolin, Somayeh Malekian and Benjamin Siu contributed to this report.
(NEW YORK) — Just a few months ago, the real estate market was favorable to people selling homes. The amount of buyers was increasing, the number of listings were down and interest rates were dropping, it seemed, across the country.
Now, brokers are saying the market has shifted.
“Today, week after week, we see more and more inventory come on the market and demand is down,” broker Justin Itzen, who sells high-end homes in Orange County, California, told ABC News’ “Nightline.”
“Buyers have more to choose from, they can be more selective,” he said.
In expensive coastal markets such as Orange County, there has been a notable drop in homebuyer interest and other signs of a cooling market, according to Taylor Marr, chief economist of real estate listings site Redfin.
At large, the share of home listings that have been on the market for more than 30 days has increased more than 12% from last year, according to a Redfin report released last week.
As interest rates increase due to inflation, from 2-3% last year for certain mortgages to between 5-6% this month, buyers are more hesitant to take out loans.
“We did feel a very aggressive slowdown,” said Itzen, that happened almost overnight. “During open houses it was like, ‘where’s all the buyers?’”
Iesha McTier-Whyte, a broker who sells middle to high-end homes in the Newark, New Jersey area told ABC News’ “Nightline” that she has experienced the same, but doesn’t view it necessarily as a bad thing.
“It’s nice to see [the market] cool down and kind of go back to the basics,” she said. “What we experienced last year was like no other.”
Justin Itzen’s real estate partner, Gio Helou, said “buyers are [now] able to actually go through the natural home buying process,” instead of making extraordinary sacrifices to try to secure a home.
And yet the rising interest rates have put pressure on buyers in certain ways.
One couple, Deni and Tim Sherman, started looking to buy a home in California this spring and reached out to Gio Helou for help. They found the process extremely stressful.
“Homes were going within days for way over the asking price,” said Tim Sherman.
When they found a home they wanted to buy in Huntington Beach, California, they said they considered liquidating investments to buy it.
Not only was it “15% over the asking price,” said Tim Sherman, “but it was now over the market estimates of what the property was worth.”
The house fell through, but they were finally able to buy a house. Helou had sent it to them and they put an offer immediately, solely based on photos.
(NEW YORK) — Author Salman Rushdie was attacked at an event in New York state on Friday, according to witness accounts and law enforcement reports.
Rushdie was scheduled to give a lecture at the education center Chautauqua Institution in Chautauqua, in southwestern New York, Friday morning.
At around 11 a.m., a man “ran up onto the stage and attacked Rushdie and an interviewer,” according to New York State Police.
Rushdie suffered an apparent stab wound to the neck and was transported by helicopter to the hospital, police said. His condition is unclear.
The Chautauqua County Sheriff’s Department also confirmed to ABC News there was a stabbing at the event where Rushdie was speaking.
The suspect was taken into custody by a state trooper, police said.
In the aftermath of the attack, Rushdie, 75, was seen being tended to while on the stage.
The interviewer suffered a minor head injury during the attack, police said.
The Chautauqua Institution said it is “currently coordinating with law enforcement and emergency officials on a public response” following the attack on its stage and will provide more details at a later time.
New York Gov. Kathy Hochul called the attack “horrific,” and said she has directed state police to “further assist however needed in the investigation.”
“Here is an individual who has spent decades speaking truth to power, someone who has been out there, unafraid, despite the threats that have followed him through his entire adult life,” Hochul remarked during a press briefing on an unrelated matter on Friday.
Police have not commented on a possible motive in the assault, and the suspect has not been identified.
The British-Indian writer faced years of death threats after his novel, The Satanic Verses, was published in 1988.
The late Iranian leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini accused the author of blasphemy over the book and in 1989 issued a fatwa against Rushdie, calling for his death.
Rushdie spent years in hiding, which he chronicled in his 2012 memoir, Joseph Anton. The book was nominated for the United Kingdom’s top nonfiction award, the Samuel Johnson prize.
In 2018, the Iranian foreign minister said that the country no longer supported the fatwa against Rushdie, though a bounty for his death continues to be offered by an Iranian religious foundation. In 2012, the group increased the bounty from $2.8 million to $3.3 million.
Others have been attacked in connection with “The Satanic Verses,” which was banned in several countries following its publication. Among them, Hitoshi Igarashi, who translated the book into Japanese, was stabbed to death in 1991 on the campus where he taught literature.
Exterior of the Cincinnati Field Office building. – FBI.gov
(CINCINNATI) — Ricky Shiffer, the man armed with an AR-15 style rifle and believed by authorities to have tried to break into the FBI’s Cincinnati field office Thursday is a “suspected domestic violent extremist,” according to law enforcement officials briefed on the probe.
Law enforcement is now investigating social media posts apparently linked to the suspect, which called for violence in the days after the FBI search of former President Trump’s Mar-a-Lago property, the officials told ABC News.
The unprecedented search of a former president’s residence ignited a firestorm among Republicans and Trump’s supporters and sparked a wave of messages online hinting at potential violence. Law enforcement officials have been monitoring for threats since the raid was conducted.
Shiffer was fatally shot by police after he allegedly raised a gun toward law enforcement officers, an Ohio State Highway Patrol spokesperson said during a press briefing.
Social media posts believed to belong to Shiffer on Twitter and TruthSocial, Trump’s own social network, suggest the suspected gunman was likely “motivated by a combination of conspiratorial beliefs related to former President Trump and the 2020 election (among others), interest in killing federal law enforcement, and the recent search warrant executed at Mar-a-Lago earlier this week,” according to a briefing compiled by the Institute for Strategic Dialogue, a think tank that monitors extremism and hate speech online.
ABC News has reviewed a series of recent posts to accounts believed to be Shiffer’s on “TruthSocial” that call for “war” and for FBI agents to be killed “on sight.”
In one post on Thursday, Shiffer appeared to detail his failed attempt to enter the FBI building, writing, “it is true I tried attacking the F.B.I.”
The account allegedly tied to Shiffer has since been removed.
Trump Media & Technology Group, which founded “TruthSocial,” did not respond to a request for comment.
According to social media posts and photographs, Shiffer was present at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, according to ISD analysts that have combed the accounts. Investigators are actively working to determine whether Shiffer was, in fact, at the Capitol during the insurrection.
The ISD report also details that Shiffer appeared to encourage others to “Save ammunition” and “Get in touch with the Proud Boys” in posts on the video streaming website Rumble. Any connections he might have had to the Proud Boys are also a key focus of the probe, officials said.
(ATLANTA) — Brianna Grier, a mother of 3-year-old twins who died last month in police custody, was remembered Thursday by her family as a loving, caring person.
Rev. Al Sharpton spoke at Grier’s funeral, which took place at West Hunter Baptist Church in Atlanta.
“The program says that we come to celebrate a life, but we also come to condemn a passing,” Sharpton said.
He continued, “These two young twins … one day we will have to tell them the story of what happened to their mother. But the troubling thing is that they will ask, ‘Why?’ And I’m here today to join others in saying that Georgia is going to have to start answering why.”
Preliminary findings of an independent autopsy ordered by Grier’s family declared her cause of death to be severe blunt force injury to the head. Results of an official autopsy being conducted as part of the Georgia Bureau of Investigation’s review of Grier’s death are still pending, according to a GBI representative.
The 28-year-old was arrested by Hancock County Sheriff’s Office deputies on July 15 after Grier’s mother called 911 to report that her daughter was experiencing a mental health crisis, according to the family and the Georgia Bureau of Investigation. Grier fell out of the police car’s rear passenger door after it was not properly closed. Grier had been handcuffed and was not wearing a seat belt, according to the Georgia Bureau of Investigation.
The Hancock County Sheriff’s Office did not respond to ABC News’ request for comment.
Sharpton said $5,000 from the National Action Network will go toward a fund for Grier’s daughters’ education. He then went on to criticize the sheriff’s office and its initial claims that Grier kicked open the door to the police car, causing her to fall out.
“That’s why if the county don’t do something about Brianna, we’re going to the Justice Department,” Sharpton said at the funeral. “Her life mattered and that’s why we’re here.”
Grier’s father, Marvin Grier, said: “The night that this happened, we called the police for help … not death. We are here to seek justice, accountability, transparency. That’s all we’re asking for. We need answers.”
(NEW YORK) — A few days after learning about the deadly shooting at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, Jim Witt, superintendent of Lake Local Schools in northern Ohio, reached out to a school safety organization he’s worked with for over a decade.
“It’s unfortunate,” Witt said, but “every time we have a Uvalde situation,” he emails the Educator’s School Safety Network to ask what they need to know and what needs to be changed.
“We want to do everything we can to stay current with what is going on in school safety,” he said.
As more has come to light on one of the worst school shootings in U.S history — most notably the shortcomings of the law enforcement response — schools across the country are reexamining their active shooter plans and implementing new measures, from requiring clear backpacks to more controversial steps like arming teachers.
While active shooters in schools remain exceedingly rare, they are on the increase in recent years, federal data shows, and they have an outsized impact on perceptions of safety.
For Witt, the incident at Uvalde — where the gunman entered the school through a door that didn’t latch properly — reinforced what his district already does, including having a planned entrance, maintaining a relationship with local police, checking in with students and the “vigilance of locking doors.”
“When our school bells ring, our custodians — you can set your watch by it — they go and make sure that all of the exit doors are locked,” said Witt. “My administrative staff and I walk around campus every day and included in our walks is checking those doors to make sure that they are locked and they are closed and they’re latched.”
A Texas state legislature investigation into the Uvalde shooting found that while the elementary school had adopted security policies to ensure that exterior doors and internal classroom doors were locked during school hours, those protocols were mostly ignored.
The shooting in Uvalde — in which the 18-year-old alleged gunman killed 19 students and two teachers — and other recent school shootings also demonstrate the importance of measures to reduce student access to guns, including conversations on proper gun storage and “red flag laws,” Rob Wilcox, federal legal director for the gun violence prevention organization Everytown for Gun Safety, told ABC News.
“To keep our schools safe and to keep our students safe, no matter where they are in the community, schools and community members really need to work together,” Wilcox said.
Consistency and communication
Months before the massacre at Robb Elementary School, Kristine Martin, the assistant superintendent of Washington Local Schools in Toledo, Ohio, was spearheading a school safety audit to determine their vulnerabilities.
“I think any time something like that happens, we always reflect on what are we doing and what are our practices and what can we do better or differently,” she said. “We started this work before that, but it just speaks to the urgency of the work.”
One of the areas the school focused on based on the audit was consistency. When students return in the fall, the district’s 10 buildings will have new kiosks — paid for through a state education grant — to sign in visitors and dispense a standard visitor pass across the campus. Every school employee will also be required to wear their staff IDs, which previously wasn’t a uniform practice across buildings.
“Kids in an emergency need to know who is a safe person,” Martin said.
Though schools may turn their focus to active shooter drills, Amy Klinger, founder of the Educator’s School Safety Network, which provides schools with safety training and resources, advises that they take an “all-hazards approach” that takes into account other scenarios that may be more likely to happen, such as violent fights that do not involve firearms, issues with noncustodial parents and severe weather.
“When you have this heavy emphasis on active shooter, lockdown sort of drills, and that’s the only training that people get, then you have situations where people don’t realize the importance of the doors being locked, and the importance of carrying their keys and carrying their radio or their phone and having appropriate communications,” Klinger said.
“What I would hope for schools is that they really begin to look at kind of an all-hazards approach that says, what are we doing about access control? Does our communication plan work? Can people really get notifications? And that we look beyond just, we did a lockdown drill where everybody hid in the corner and now we’re all safe,” she continued. “Because Ulvade demonstrated that that’s not the case.”
The Texas state legislature investigation into the Uvalde shooting found a range of communication failures, from the lack of a command post being established by responding law enforcement to problematic radio reception inside the school building. It also found that Uvalde school district employees did not always reliably receive alerts like an active shooter situation for reasons including poor wi-fi coverage and turned-off phones.
In the wake of the Uvalde shooting, the Texas Education Agency plans to review external entry points of every school in Texas, as well as review each district’s safety protocols, the Texas Tribune reported. ABC News has reached out to the agency for an update on its reviews.
Among the recommendations in an interim report by the Arkansas School Safety Commission drafted in response to the mass shooting in Uvalde were that all exterior school building doors and classroom doors should remain closed and locked during school hours, and that school districts should develop a “layered two-way communication access between staff to ensure information sharing during critical incidents,” such as the use of intercoms, radios and cell phones.
Preventing gun access
The accused gunman in the Uvalde shooting legally purchased the assault rifle used in the shooting when he turned 18, authorities said. That has led Uvalde community leaders to call on the state to hold a special legislative session to consider raising the minimum age to purchase semi-automatic assault-style rifles from 18 to 21.
Nearly 80% of school shooters under the age of 18 acquire guns from the home of family or close friends, according to Everytown — which makes secure storage a key part of preventing gun violence in schools, Wilcox said.
“We’ve seen really encouraging action across the country as schools step up to make sure that everyone in their community knows how important it is to securely store firearms in the home,” Wilcox said.
Last month, the Albuquerque Public Schools Board of Education voted to amend its student/parent handbook to include information about the secure storage of firearms. The move came nearly a year after one of the students in the district, 13-year-old Bennie Hargrove, was fatally shot during lunch at school. The accused shooter — a fellow student — allegedly brought his father’s unsecured gun to school.
Much of this work happens at the school board level, Wilcox said. Though last month, the California governor signed a bill that requires schools to include information related to the safe storage of firearms in an annual notice sent to parents or guardians. The bill was drafted in reaction to a 2021 school shooting at a Michigan high school, in which an alleged 15-year-old gunman fatally shot four of his classmates.
Another tool that schools could use to limit students’ access to guns is extreme risk protection orders, often known as “red flag laws,” Wilcox said.
Addressing warning signs
The Texas House of Representatives committee report on the Robb Elementary School shooting revealed the accused school shooter exhibited many warning signs prior to the massacre.
“If a student is showing that they’re in crisis and you’re taking steps to intervene, then you may want to use an extreme risk protection order to ensure that there’s no access to guns by that young person,” Wilcox said.
Wilcox pointed to testimony by a Baltimore sheriff who told state legislators in 2019 that in the first few months of Maryland’s red flag law going into effect, his office seized firearms in five instances that involved schools.
For Witt, part of maintaining a safe school includes having meaningful relationships with students.
“If a student has a broken leg, you know it because he or she is on crutches and there’s a cast on the leg. If a student is suffering from depression or some other type of mental health illness, you can’t see it,” he said. “That’s why the relationship becomes even more imperative, so those kids not only have an outlet to talk to someone about their situation, but also if there’s a possibility of danger, you can address it in a meaningful and helpful way.”
Mental health support is a focus; the Arkansas School Safety Commission advised in its interim report that all students should have access to mental health services, and that all school districts should provide youth mental health first aid training to all staff that interacts with students.
For Wilcox, having a positive school climate is one part of preventing school violence, so that someone in crisis can get help and prevent harming themselves or others.
“But at the same time,” he said, “we need everyone in the community to make sure that there’s no easy access to guns for young people.”
(CHICAGO) — Certain iconic imagery brings to mind traditional American summer activities: the smell of hamburgers cooking on a grill, marching bands with drum lines and kids catching candy thrown from colorful floats. These are all a part of the Bud Billiken Parade in Chicago.
First held in 1929, the Bud Billiken Parade is the largest African American parade in the United States, according to its organizers. It’s also one of the three largest parades in the country overall, along with the Tournament of Roses Parade on New Year’s Day and the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. Every year on the second Saturday of August, participants of the Bud Billiken Parade march and dance their way through the streets of Chicago.
Robert Sengstacke Abbott, founder of the Chicago Defender newspaper, and his editor, David Kellum, created the fictional character Bud Billiken in 1923 as a mascot for a youth group they had set up in the community. A Billiken is a mythical good-luck figure that was popular in the early part of the 20th century. Kellum then decided to have a day of celebration for Black youth and the Bud Billiken Parade was born.
Like many other public events, the parade was canceled in 2020 due to COVID-19.
“As our community continues to recover from the effects of the pandemic over the past couple of years, it is exciting that we are able to come together this year and celebrate the students of Chicago as they head back to school,” said the Bud Billiken Parade chair, Myiti Sengstacke-Rice, who is also the president and CEO of Chicago Defender Charities.
The 93rd annual Bud Billiken Parade will kick off on Aug. 13.
