(HOUSTON) — A toddler was found dead inside a car that was stolen after the child’s father was shot and killed in Houston on Tuesday, police said.
“We are asking for a lot of things from the public right now,” Houston Police Executive Assistant Chief Larry Satterwhite told reporters during a press conference Tuesday night. “First and foremost, to pray for this family. A mother lost her husband and she lost her 2-year-old child today. We are also asking the public’s help in identifying the suspect. He is still at large.”
The Houston Police Department received a 911 call about a shooting in the area of El Camino Rey Del Rey Street and Chimney Rock Road at around 1:46 p.m. local time on Tuesday. Upon arrival, officers found a 38-year-old man who had been shot to death, according to Satterwhite.
Investigators believe the victim was meeting with another man at the location when possibly an argument ensued. The other man took out a gun and shot the victim multiple times before stealing his black SUV and fleeing the scene, Satterwhite said.
That evening, at approximately 6:36 p.m. local time, a woman called 911 to report her husband and 2-year-old son missing. The information she provided was specific enough that police soon realized the shooting victim was her husband, according to Satterwhite.
“We never knew about the child until she called,” he told reporters.
The stolen SUV with the little boy inside was found on Elm Street, more than 10 miles away from the shooting scene. Officers shattered the windows of the locked vehicle to get to the child, then immediately tried to render aid and called for an ambulance, according to Satterwhite.
“Sadly, it was too late. The chid had passed in the car,” he said. “At this time, we don’t know why or how or what the cause of death will be. It could be something like heat exhaustion, we just don’t know. That will be determined later through autopsy.”
Investigators believe the suspect had left the car there, locked up and turned off, with the child in the backseat, according to Satterwhite.
“It’s the hardest thing we do,” he told reporters. “Children are innocent.”
The unidentified suspect, who remains on the loose, is described as a Black man wearing a white t-shirt, black shorts and a black Oakland Raiders cap.
When asked if he had a message for the suspect, Satterwhite said: “Turn yourself in. Turn yourself in now.”
(WASHINGTON) — When he steps up to podium to deliver an address on Wednesday at the United Nation General Assembly, President Joe Biden is expected to cast the defining conflict facing global leaders as a duel between democracy and autocracy, and one with implications for every nation across the world.
The speech will be Biden’s first at the forum since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, offering him the opportunity to condemn the Kremlin in front of an audience of fellow heads of state.
“He’ll offer a firm rebuke of Russia’s unjust war in Ukraine and make a call to the world to continue to stand against the naked aggression that we’ve seen these past several months,” National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan said.
“Countries cannot conquer their neighbors by force, cannot seize an acquired territory by force,” he said. “He will speak to every country in the world — those that have joined our broad-based coalition to support Ukraine and those who so far have stood on the sidelines that now is a moment to stand behind the foundational principles of the [UN] charter.”
Thanks to the so-far unshakeable coalition of NATO allies standing behind Kyiv, Sullivan said the president was heading into summit with “the wind at his back,” and would demonstrate the administration’s commitment to offsetting the collateral impacts of the war by pledging more than $100 million to food-security efforts.
As Biden grapples with a series of complicated global issues, the high-stakes summit presents a range of challenges for the administration.
The no shows
Although U.N. General Assembly meetings offer an abundance of opportunity for face-to-face diplomacy — something the president prides himself on — two key players won’t be in attendance: the leaders of Russia and China.
“Our competitors are facing increasingly strong headwinds, and neither President Xi nor President Putin are even showing up for this global gathering,” said Sullivan.
In Russian President Vladimir Putin’s case, the most pressing of those headwinds are losses on the battlefield in Ukraine, according to administration officials.
Ahead of an engagement with his counterpart from the U.K., Secretary of State Antony Blinken denounced reports that Moscow plans to hold sham referenda in occupied territories in Ukraine to pave the way to annex the territory and that Putin may move to surge additional troops to help the war effort.
“I think this is also not a surprise this is happening now. We have seen in the last weeks significant gains by Ukraine,” Blinken said. “It’s a sign of weakness. It’s a sign of Russian failure.”
But as a number of other heads of state push for negotiations for peace, the gathering won’t offer a robust opportunity for Biden to pursue that path with the leaders of the countries involved in the conflict. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov is in New York, but there are no plans for a meeting with U.S. officials on the books.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy will also give a speech on Wednesday, but he will do so remotely as the only leader allowed to appear virtually this year.
China’s Xi Jinping’s absence means there’s no chance of an in-person meeting with the president, something that hasn’t happened since Biden took office. And the two have an ever-growing list of differences to discuss.
The past months have seen multiple escalations, with China responding to any step perceived as the U.S. moving towards recognizing Taiwan as a sovereign state with shows of force, a strategy a senior State Department official described as an attempt to normalize military pressure.
While the administration says Washington’s long-standing One China policy remains in effect, Biden also said U.S. troops would defend Taiwan if it were attacked.
The impermanent 5?
Russia’s exalted position as one of five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council has thrown a significant wrench in the body’s efforts to check its aggression, prompting calls that it should be removed all together.
Biden won’t go quite that far, Sullivan said.
“It is not something that he is going to raise tomorrow, although I think the world can see that when a permanent member acts in this way it strikes at the heart of the U.N. Security Council and so that should lead everyone collectively to put pressure on Moscow to change course,” he said.
But U.S. officials appear to be aligning behind a plan. Instead of subtracting Russia from the permanent members of the council, they may seek to make additions.
A senior State Department official said that Biden would attempt to “reenergize” the push for reform by arguing the arm needs to be “more representative of the world’s population, and filled with countries that are ready to work together.”
The odds of expanding the council appear slim. Reforming its makeup would require amending the U.N. charter, a step that Russia or any other permanent member could veto.
The rest of the agenda
While the war in Ukraine is shaping up to dominate the General Assembly, administration officials have stressed they want to take on other global issues as well.
One pressing matter facing the White House is its push to return to an Obama-era nuclear deal with Iran. Indirect negotiations appear to have stalled again, and officials from both countries appear increasingly pessimistic that the pact can be renewed.
Sullivan said Biden plans to reiterate that the U.S. is open to returning to an agreement, but that he isn’t anticipating any major breakthroughs.
Even a meeting with one of the U.S.’s closest allies has its thorns. Biden will hold his first meeting with the U.K.’s new prime minister, Liz Truss, as the differences between the two’s economic policies become ever apparent.
Recently, Truss said completing a long-awaited trade deal with the U.S. was not a key priority and unlikely to happen anytime soon. But Sullivan said it would be on the president’s list.
“I do think that they will talk about the economic relationship between the U.S. and the U.K.,” Sullivan said, adding they would also hit other areas where Truss and Biden have more in common, such as support for Ukraine and addressing Europe’s energy crisis.
(NEW YORK) — It’s the size of the continental U.S., more than 10,000 feet deep and its recently become the center point in the debate over what’s the best way to build green products without making the environment worse off.
There is still much that is unknown about the Clarion-Clipperton Zone off Mexico’s Pacific coast, but scientists have said that the Pacific abyss is rich in minerals that are critical for renewable batteries and other green technologies.
Even though international regulators are still hammering out the rules and regulations for conducting deep sea mining, one mining executive contended to ABC News that they can extract the critical minerals from the depths of the abyss without harming the seabed.
“I mean, why on Earth shouldn’t we explore new frontiers? We need to mix it up,” Gerard Barron, the CEO of The Metals Company, a Canadian-based firm that is one of 16 companies exploring ways to mine the CCZ, told ABC News.
“The question is, what’s this impact? How can we mitigate those impacts? And how does that compare to the known impacts of land-based activity? And I think that’s a decision that society is going to have to face,” he added.
Oceanography experts, however, warn that we still know little about the ecology this deep under the sea. Even though potential mining could benefit necessary green projects, it could have unforeseen negative effects down the road.
“The worst case scenario for the environment would be driving species extinct before we even know they exist,” Matt Gianni, the co-founder, and the political and policy advisor of the Deep Sea Conservation Coalition, told ABC News.
The zone is between 12,000 and 18,000 feet deep and is still not fully explored, but scientists have found polymetallic nodules that are millions of years old on the ocean floor and contain nickel, cobalt, copper and manganese. These are key minerals used in rechargeable batteries for electric vehicles, storage units and other major devices.
The U.S. government has deemed cobalt as an essential mineral because of its importance in electric vehicles and many western countries are pushing for a supply chain that relies less on minerals produced by countries like China and Russia.
Barron said that the move to more electric vehicles and non-fossil fuel energy means that the country needs to act immediately to meet the growing demand.
“People haven’t given a lot of thought to where these metals come from and what we’ve woken up to is the fact that getting new mines permanent is really challenging because of the environmental impacts,” he said.
“So, if you want to build an ecosystem that can make American batteries with secure supplies of battery raw materials, then it’s not so easy [to] just imagine up a new mine because all the good ones have been discovered and getting anything permanent is really hard,” he said.
Currently, there is no active mining project within the CCZ, as the International Seabed Authority, an intergovernmental body that oversees “mineral-resources-related activity” in seaboards has not yet signed off on deep sea mining in the zone.
In the meantime, the ISA, which doesn’t yet formally include the U.S., awarded 17 exploration contracts to state sponsors and contractors which are meant to assess mining opportunities in the CCZ seabed.
The Metals Company has three licenses and has already conducted research using sophisticated unmanned underwater tools, such as an automated underwater vehicle.
“They’re actually like rockets that fly on the ocean floor and take really detailed imagery and measurements of everything,” Barron explained.
The company also received approval from the ISA to collect 3,600 tons of nodules while an independent team of scientists studies the potential impact it would have on the surrounding systems.
Barron said his teams have identified 1.6 billion tons of polymetallic nodules in two of its three license areas in the CCZ, which is enough to produce materials for 280 million mid-sized heavy batteries.
He estimated that it would take 30 years to mine the material in CCZ. He said based on his team’s analysis there would be a minor impact on the ecosystem, because they’ve found very little life down there.
“It’s a very low-energy area,” Barron claimed.
Environmental experts, however, argue that the companies looking to mine the seabed are premature in their ecological assessments and they need to reconsider their goals.
Craig Smith, a professor of oceanography at the University of Hawaii, told ABC News that no one will really know what the mining impacts on the CCZ will be until at least one mine has been operating for a decade.
“Because the ecosystems will take millions of years to recover, no site that’s mined will recover before the last site that’s mined,” he told ABC News. “These nodule habitats will not recover.”
One possible effect would be chronic stressors to the ecosystems in the area, according to Smith who compared the issue to a loud concert.
“Many humans enjoy going to a rock concert for an hour but if they were in that noise environment 24/7, they would go deaf,” he explained.
Gianni refuted claims by mining companies the CCZ is a low-energy area with little life. He said the seabed is home to many underwater fauna and flora and there are many more species that haven’t been discovered.
He said there is concern that the mining operations would push sediment into the water and affect the food chain from the smallest fish right up to whales.
“Scientists are saying [the CCZ is] teeming with life…We’re still discovering them,” Gianni said.
He added that because of how the gradual flow of the deep sea’s ecosystem, many of those changes won’t be noticed until many decades later.
“We hope that we should learn by now from our past mistakes,” Gianni said. “There’s a lot of value to keeping it natural, exploring it, understanding what the deep ocean is…rather than just going in blind, extracting metals until we can’t get any more build cars. And then, oops, in 30, 50, [or] 100 years, future generations will say that was a big mistake.”
The concerns about deep sea mining have already prompted companies such as Google and Microsoft to make pledges that they would not use minerals from those kinds of operations.
Gianni’s group is one of many environmental organizations that have called for a moratorium on deep-sea mining, contending that the environmental risks outweigh the ecological rewards.
Barron defended his company’s plans from the criticism and contended that their latest processes will not have long-term negative impacts on the seabed.
In addition, he said his company is taking a hard look at how their presence will affect the CCZ and are willing to amend its plan.
“We’ve always said if the scientific evidence points to the fact that we shouldn’t be doing this, then we stop. That’s part of exploration,” Barron said.
Gianni contended that mining companies are rushing the process because of the increase in demand for rechargeable batteries but said that recycling older minerals will play a key role in reducing the amount of mining in the future.
He argued that more patience would go a long way to solving both environmental issues.
“We need the foresight to say let’s prevent this problem from happening before it starts taking place,” Gianni said.
(WASHINGTON) — The Washington Monument has been temporarily closed after a man vandalized the national landmark with profanities and red paint.
The incident occurred on Tuesday evening when the unnamed male suspect splashed the base of the historical monument with red paint and wrote an obscene message across the side of the structure.
“The United States Park Police has an adult male in custody for vandalizing the base of the Washington Monument with paint,” the United States Park Police said in a statement obtained by ABC News. “The area at the base of the monument will be temporarily closed.”
It is currently unclear what the motivation behind the vandalism was or if the message scrawled on the base of the monument was targeting anybody specific.
“National Park Service conservators will work on the restoration process,” said the United States Park Police.
Authorities did not say how long the restoration process would take or how long the tourist attraction is expected to be closed to the public.
The investigation is currently ongoing and authorities will not be releasing any more information at this time.
The Washington Monument, completed in 1884, stands at 555 feet tall and was once the tallest structure in the world from 1884 to 1889 before it was overtaken in height by the Eiffel Tower in Paris. The historical obelisk is named after the first president of the United States and attracts over 600,000 visitors a year.
NICOLAS MAETERLINCK/BELGA MAG/AFP via Getty Images
(NEW YORK) — As global leaders descend on New York City for the annual U.N. General Assembly, the body’s Secretary-General António Guterres issued a dire warning in an opening speech on Tuesday: “Our world is in big trouble.”
“Divides are growing deeper. Inequalities are growing wider,” he said. “And challenges are spreading farther.”
The annual gathering of high-level diplomats in the General Assembly is the first to happen in a fully in-person format since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, and it’s the first to take place since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine — an international conflict that has drawn deep divides between the organization’s most powerful members, sparking calls for the U.N. to be reformed and prompting questions about whether it can still serve its stated purpose “to maintain international peace and security.”
Guterres alluded to these fractures in his address Tuesday, arguing they undercut the organization’s work.
“We are gridlocked in colossal global dysfunction,” he said. “The international community is not ready or willing to tackle the big dramatic challenges of our age. These crises threaten the very future of humanity and the fate of our planet. Our world is in peril — and paralyzed.”
Overcoming those major challenges, he said, depended on cooperation.
“Let’s work as one, as a coalition of the world, as united nations,” he urged.
Hunger on the horizon
While much of Guterres’ speech was devoted to outlining the problems facing the planet, he sought to remind the audience that the U.N. was still capable of finding solutions.
Large projectors in the room displayed a picture of a ship called Brave Commander that Guterres called “an image of promise and hope.” Laden with grain and flying the blue-and-white flag of the U.N., the vessel was the first to leave Ukrainian ports since the outbreak of Russia’s invasion, navigating Black Sea trade routes to bring its badly needed cargo to the Horn of Africa thanks to an agreement Guterres played a pivotal part in brokering.
“Some might call it a miracle at sea. In truth, it is multilateral diplomacy in action,” he said, calling the dozens of ships that have followed in Brave Commander’s path a testament to what can be accomplished through cooperation.
But while that safe passage deal is allowing grain exports to ameliorate the global food crisis, Guterres warned there was another on the horizon due to a shortage in fertilizer — saying that while the current problems can be chalked up to distribution issues, the world’s hunger may soon be the result of not having enough to go around at all.
“Without action now, the global fertilizer shortage will quickly morph into a global food shortage,” he said.
The secretary-general then alluded to the U.N.’s next major initiative: a proposal to export Russian fertilizer components through Ukraine.
“It is essential to continue removing all remaining obstacles to the export of Russian fertilizers and their ingredients, including ammonia. These products are not subject to sanctions, and we are making progress in eliminating indirect effects,” Guterres said.
The U.N. separately says it is “pursuing all efforts” to maximize fertilizer output, but the clock is ticking. The body’s trade negotiator advises that shortages need to be addressed in October and November before the window for the northern hemisphere’s planting season closes.
Dire problems, drastic plans
The secretary-general on Tuesday also spoke to the even broader-sweeping challenges of the day, and advocated for even more ambitious — or, to some, radical — plans to address them. “We need action across the board. Let’s have no illusions,” he said. “Our planet is burning,”
Guterres called not only for initiatives to address the root causes of damage to the environment but also to compensate developing countries that bear the brunt of those problems.
“Polluters must pay,” he said. “Today, I am calling on all developed economies to tax the ‘windfall’ profits of fossil fuel companies. Those funds should be re-directed in two ways: to countries suffering loss and damage caused by the climate crisis, and to people struggling with rising food and energy prices.”
Guterres argued that the climate crisis was fueling “a once-in-a-generation global cost-of-living crisis” that could only be remedied through radical change.
“Today’s global financial system was created by rich countries to serve their interests. It expands and entrenches inequalities. It requires deep structural reform,” he said. “The divergence between developed and developing countries — between North and South, between the privileged and the rest — is becoming more dangerous by the day. It is at the root of the geopolitical tensions.”
The U.S. agenda
While President Joe Biden isn’t scheduled to take part in the summit until Wednesday, Guterres’ speech mentioned a number of other items that coincide with the White House’s priority list.
On nonproliferation, the secretary-general noted that “a nuclear deal with Iran remains elusive.”
The Biden administration, with help from the European Union, has been embroiled in months of indirect negotiations with Tehran over returning to an Obama-era nuclear pact that then-President Donald Trump scrapped in 2018. But talks appear to have stalled again. Although a high-level delegation from Iran will participate in the General Assembly, there are no planned meetings with any U.S. officials.
While addressing women’s rights, Guterres also hit on a domestic matter: the overturning of Roe v. Wade.
The U.N. women’s rights committee has previously denounced the landmark ruling which reversed the national access to abortion in the U.S., calling “access to reproductive rights is at the core of women and girls’ autonomy and ability to make their own choices about their bodies and lives, free of discrimination, violence and coercion.”
More broadly, Guterres said that gender inequality is “going backwards” and “women’s lives are getting worse, from poverty, to choices around sexual and reproductive health, to their personal security.”
(JACKSON, Miss.) — As Jackson, Mississippi, continues efforts to recover from the city’s water crisis this summer, residents have filed a class action lawsuit against former and current city officials, as well as infrastructure engineering companies, for their alleged role in neglecting or worsening a “foreseeable” public health crisis, according to the filed complaint.
Raine Becker, one of four named plaintiffs in the lawsuit, told ABC News she was unaware of the ongoing water issues in Jackson when she moved there two years ago. Becker says her first experience with these problems came in 2021 when winter storms left her without water for two weeks.
After a failing water treatment plant led to low water pressure and the contamination of Jackson’s water supply last month, Becker says she was left wondering how she would pay her bills and care for her seven-year-old son Shylar, who is terminally ill.
“I pick up people’s laundry…bring it to my house, wash it, dry it, fold it, and bring it back. Two days without water meant two days without a paycheck,” she said. “So now I’m being hit professionally and personally.”
Becker told ABC News that Shylar, who she says was born with a heart defect and developed terminal liver disease, has a feeding tube that requires sanitary water to flush it. Using contaminated water could have fatal consequences, she says.
“If I had been flushing with the water we were given through the tap, we might be in a whole different predicament right now. Like that would hospitalize him, potentially kill him,” she said. “It’s important and imperative that we have clean, safe water. I mean for everybody, not just because I have a sick child. This is a human right.”
Becker said that while she does not want to minimize the impact of officials’ efforts to mitigate the crisis, including offering state-run water distribution sites, residents should not have to rely on them.
“I feel like they were reactive instead of proactive,” she said. “And the second they knew there was a problem–the second they knew there was an issue whether it was with the plant or the pipes, they should have looked into fixing it then and they didn’t and they failed to protect us.”
Mississippi ended its boil water notice for all of Jackson’s residents on Sept. 15, nearly two weeks after water pressure returned to the state capital’s residents after days of a water shortage crisis that impacted thousands of Jacksonians.
The complaint names the City of Jackson; Mayor Chokwe A. Lumumba; former mayor Tony Yarber; former public works directors Kishia Powell, Robert Miller and Jerriot Smash; Siemens Corporation, Siemens Industry and Trilogy Engineering Services as defendants.
Spokespersons for Lumumba, Powell, Miller, and Siemens declined to comment when reached by ABC News.
Yarber, Smash, and Trilogy Engineering did not immediately respond to ABC News’ requests for comment.
Lumumba spoke with “ABC News Prime” last month about the roots of this water crisis, which he said has been unfolding over several years.
“This is due to decades, decades and decades, of possibly 30 years or more of deferred maintenance, a lack of capital improvements made to the system, a lack of a human capital, a workforce plan that accounted for the challenges that our water treatment facility suffers from,” Lumumba said.
Mark Chalos, a partner at Lieff Cabraser Heimann & Bernstein, LLP, is one of the attorneys representing the plaintiffs in the lawsuit. He told ABC News that the water system’s failure last month “is not a surprise and shouldn’t have been a surprise to anyone in connection with running the Jackson water system.”
Plaintiffs are seeking damages and relief including regular water testing, removal of contaminated pipes, cancellation of bills and debts for contaminated or undelivered water and community health centers for those affected by contaminated water, according to the complaint.
Chalos says he and his clients ultimately hope that the lawsuit pushes officials to resolve the water system’s issues entirely and immediately.
Becker says she hopes officials have a structured plan to prevent this from happening again.
“I have faith and I believe that hopefully they will actually fix this,” Becker said. “I hope nobody else ever has to go through this. This has been horrible. It’s been costly. It’s had a lot of bad effects. And so I hope that they can learn from this and grow from this.”
(WASHINGTON) — The number of suicides among military veterans dropped to its lowest rate in over a decade, according to a report released Monday by the Department of Veteran Affairs. The latest figures come days after a national suicide prevention nonprofit said the federal agency was underestimating the problem.
After instances of suicide rose among veterans from 2001 to 2018, the VA’s annual report documented a near 10% decline between 2018 to 2020.
The VA recognized 6,146 deaths from suicide among veterans in 2020, the most recent year with reportable data. This was 343 fewer instances than recorded in 2019, marking the sharpest decline since 2001. (By contrast with veterans, according to Pentagon data, there were 580 suicides among current service members in 2020.)
The drop in veteran suicides persisted during the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in March 2020. The VA cited strengthened mental health programming, clinical support, community collaboration and paid media campaigns as important intervention methods for veterans in crisis.
But Monday’s report also acknowledged that there was still work to be done to create more comprehensive resources.
“Unemployment, chronic pain, insomnia, relationship strain, homelessness and grief are examples of factors outside of mental health that may play a role in suicide,” the report states. “We must also move beyond the individual factors in suicide and look to address broader international, national, community and relational factors that play a role.”
The VA said it remains cautiously encouraged by the drop in the suicide rate. The 10% decline between 2018 and 2020 is close to double the 5.5% reduction among non-veteran adults over the same two-year period.
The issue is still disproportionately impacting former service members. The report determined that in 2020, the age- and sex-adjusted suicide rate for veterans was more than 57% higher than non-veteran adults.
The VA found that on average in 2020, 16 veterans took their lives each day.
That may be an undercount, outside advocates say: A report released Saturday says the number could be closer to 24. America’s Warrior Partnership, a national suicide prevention nonprofit, found that when factoring in unexplained or accidental deaths as well as county record-keeping mistakes, the suicide rate was 37% higher than the VA estimated between 2014 to 2018.
America’s Warrior Partnership said this discrepancy is “likely due to undercounting of [former service member deaths] and the greater specificity of the decedent’s demographics, military experience, and death details available” to the nonprofit.
While America’s Warrior Partnership was working alongside Duke University and the University of Alabama using death records from eight states corroborated with the Department of Defense, the VA was using data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Department of Defense.
The independent investigation, labeled “Operation Deep Dive,” also found unique risk factors that influenced a former service member’s decision to kill themselves. The report found the longer someone served in the military, the less likely they were to commit suicide, by a declining rate of 2% per year served.
The report also assessed that a demotion during military service was associated with an increased suicide risk of 56%.
America’s Warrior Partnership has requested the VA share its current data to better collaborate and make recommendations that would support former service members considering suicide.
“We need everyone at the table, leveraging work within and outside of clinical health care delivery systems to decrease both individual and societal risk factors for suicide,” the VA stated at the conclusion of its report. “The public health approach reminds us that what we do can and does make a difference.”
(NEW YORK) — Banning someone from buying a gun while under felony indictment goes against their Second Amendment right to bear arms, a federal judge in Texas ruled Monday.
“There are no illusions about this case’s real-world consequences—certainly valid public policy and safety concerns exist,” U.S. District Judge David Counts, a Trump appointee, wrote in his decision.
Counts cited a June Supreme Court decision, New York State Rifle & Pistol Association vs. Bruen, in which the justices rolled back concealed-carry permit restrictions for gun owners in New York state.
Counts’ opinion relied heavily on the framework set out by the high court in Bruen, saying that it was unclear after that ruling “whether a statute preventing a person under indictment from receiving a firearm aligns with this Nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation.”
The Texas judge had been asked to weigh the case of Jose Gomez Quiroz, who was indicted for felony burglary on June 9, 2020, and then allegedly jumped bail, attempted to purchase an automatic weapon, lied on his ATF firearms transaction form and was able to purchase the gun.
Quiroz was convicted of making a false statement during the purchase of a firearm and illegal receipt of a firearm by a person under indictment. But he moved to dismiss the verdict “because of the United States Supreme Court’s recent ruling in Bruen.” (Quiroz’s burglary case is still pending.)
Counts agreed, finding that the Supreme Court had established a new “standard” with which to view Second Amendment rights.
“No longer can courts balance away a constitutional right. After Bruen, the Government must prove that laws regulating conduct covered by the Second Amendment’s plain text align with this Nation’s historical tradition. The Government does not meet that burden,” Counts found.
He also wrote that he was skeptical that a felony indictment should preclude anyone from owning a weapon.
“The nature of grand jury proceedings is one such area that casts a shadow of constitutional doubt on [making a false statement on a gun form],” he wrote. “Some feel that a grand jury could indict a burrito if asked to do so.”
The government has submitted notice of intention to appeal the decision.
ABC News’ Nicholas Kerr and Gina Sunseri contributed to this report.
(WASHINGTON) — The House select committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, riot on Capitol Hill will hold another hearing next week, the group’s chairman said Tuesday, suggesting that it could be the last time they convene publicly.
Rep. Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., told reporters at the Capitol on Tuesday that the committee will hold its final hearing on Sept. 28 at 1 p.m. ET.
“I can say that unless something else develops, this hearing at this point is the final hearing. But it’s not in stone because things happen,” Thompson said.
He added that the committee hearing will feature “substantial footage” of the riot and “significant witness testimony” that hasn’t previously been released, but he declined to divulge any details or the topic.
The hearing, should it be the last one, could mark a crescendo of the panel’s work before it releases a final investigative report, which is expected later this year.
The hearings so far have already featured multiple startling moments, including an array of former aides and associates of President Donald Trump recounting his state of mind after he lost the 2020 election and before and during the Jan. 6 riot by his supporters.
According to testimony at the hearing, Trump knew protesters in Washington were armed that day but still urged them to march to the Capitol and reacted angrily when he was barred from joining the group. (Trump has denied wrongdoing and said the committee is politically motivated.)
The panel is racing to finish its work before the next Congress starts up amid speculation that a House GOP majority would scrap the investigation entirely.
Outstanding questions remain over what witnesses may be called and whether committee investigators will press Trump or former Vice President Mike Pence to testify. The committee has also sent a letter to former House Speaker Newt Gingrich seeking information and records over communications with Trump’s team before and after the attack on the Capitol.
The committee has interviewed several people linked to Trump or who served in his administration, including several former Cabinet secretaries, whose testimonies have not yet been seen publicly.
Next week’s hearing will be the committee’s first since the FBI searched Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort over his possession of what the government says was highly classified documents.
(NEW YORK) — A Kentucky man currently serving a life sentence for a deadly 1997 school shooting said he feels responsible for school shootings that have happened in the U.S.
On Dec. 1, 1997, then-14-year-old Michael Carneal opened fire on a prayer group at Heath High School near Paducah, Kentucky, killing three of his fellow students and injuring another five. After pleading guilty, he was sentenced to life in prison with the possibility of parole after 25 years.
With 24 years and nine months of his sentence served, Carneal, now 39, is seeking parole in what’s one of the first known instances of a school shooter facing the possibility of leaving prison.
After hearing testimony from Carneal and several victims this week, the two members of the Kentucky parole board were unable to make a unanimous decision on his parole, sending the decision to the full board next week.
During his parole hearing on Tuesday, Carneal, who spoke via Zoom from Kentucky State Reformatory, apologized for his actions and said since his incarceration he has received multiple mental health diagnoses, for which he takes medication.
Carneal said some of the symptoms of his illness include hearing voices, which often encourage him to behave violently. He recounted that he was hearing such voices before the shooting. Asked during the hearing if he still hears those voices, he said “Yes.” He said they told him to throw himself down the stairs as recently as two days ago, though he said he believes he now has his actions under control.
The decades since the Paducah incident have seen the deadliest school shootings in U.S. history, including in Uvalde, Texas, earlier this year.
When asked about the school shootings that have followed, Carneal said, “I feel responsible for them on some level,” in particular the 1999 shooting at Columbine that killed 12 students and a teacher. He said he felt suicidal after learning about Columbine and had to be hospitalized.
At one point, the parole board members asked Carneal to name his eight victims. He said he considered one of them — 14-year-old Nicole Hadley, whom he killed — a “very good friend.”
“How does that make you feel, that you took the life or injured those eight?” Kentucky Parole Board chairperson Ladeidra Jones asked.
“It makes me feel terrible that I hurt anybody, my friends or not my friends,” he responded.
In testimony from Carneal’s victims and their families during a hearing on Monday, most encouraged the parole board to deny Carneal’s request for parole, saying his actions have caused permanent harm and he was still too much of a risk for the public.
Missy Jenkins Smith, who was paralyzed by one of the bullets Carneal fired, said keeping Carneal in prison for life “is the only way his victims can feel comfortable and safe.” She also spoke about the impact of the injuries she suffered in the shooting.
“I have been sentenced to life without the possibility of parole after living the consequence of Michael Carneal’s decision, to not be able to walk,” Smith said. “I’m forced to continue with every day getting harder and harder as the years pass during my life sentence. The future, and the fear of it, haunts me.”
But at least one victim, Hollan Holm, said Carneal was an adult being held responsible for the actions of a child, and that having spent two-thirds of his life in prison, deserves a chance to do some good in the community.
The parole board members noted Carneal’s attorney and family had submitted plans of action should his parole be granted, but Carneal did not submit one on his own behalf. Both parole board members appeared skeptical that he had fully thought about his plans to successfully reintegrate into society.
After hearing testimony from Carneal and several victims, the two members of the Kentucky parole board were unable to make a unanimous decision on whether to release him in November or defer his next opportunity for parole for up to five years.
The full board is scheduled to meet on Monday to decide whether Carneal should be released, serve out his full sentence or have another chance to seek parole at a later date for up to 10 years.
