(ATLANTA) — The Atlanta City Council will vote Monday on allocating up to $31 million to “support the continued construction of and improvements to” the controversial Atlanta Public Safety Training Center.
The vote, happening at 1 p.m., could amend the 2023 general fund budget to transfer and allocate no more than $30 million to support the facility.
It would also authorize the mayor or chief financial officer to use $1 million in public safety impact fees to install a gymnasium facility on the project site.
The center, set to be used for specialized training for both law enforcement and fire department service workers, has garnered national attention for the riotous protests against it.
City officials assert the center could improve policing, while critics claim the effort is militarizing police and endangering local forests. Protesters have dubbed the training center “Cop City.”
The center will include an “auditorium for police/fire and public use,” a “mock city for burn building training and urban police training,” an “Emergency Vehicle Operator Course for emergency vehicle driver training,” a K-9 unit kennel and training, according to the center’s website.
The first phase of the training center is scheduled to open in late 2023.
Protests against the center escalated when a protester, Manuel Esteban Paez Terán, was shot and killed by police on Jan. 23 as they raided the campground occupied by demonstrators against the project.
Terán had at least 57 gunshot wounds in their body, according to the autopsy by the DeKalb County Medical Examiner sent to ABC News, including in the hands, torso, legs and head.
Officials said the protester fired the first shot at a state trooper, and the officer responded with the fatal shot.
According to the autopsy, Terán did not have gunpowder residue on their hands.
Since Terán’s death, protests have continued, with dozens of protesters arrested.
Last week, police arrested three Atlanta leaders of the Atlanta Solidarity Fund, which has bailed out protesters and helped them find lawyers. They were charged with money laundering and charity fraud and have since been granted bond.
(NEW YORK) — Joran van der Sloot, the prime suspect in the unsolved 2005 disappearance of American teenager Natalee Holloway, will likely be extradited to the United States on Thursday night, according to a National Penitentiary Institute of Peru spokesperson.
Van der Sloot left the Challapalca prison in Peru on Saturday to be transferred to another prison in Lima, where he’s awaiting his extradition to the U.S.
The Dutch citizen has been serving a 28-year sentence in Peru for the 2010 murder of 21-year-old college student Stephany Flores.
U.S. Justice Department officials acknowledge that a “temporary surrender” was granted by Peru under Article X of an existing extradition treaty between the two countries. The department would not comment on the timing of his movement, citing policy regarding safety and security concerns.
In the U.S., van der Sloot faces extortion and wire fraud charges stemming from an accusation that he tried to profit from his connection to the Holloway case.
Holloway, 18, went missing in May 2005 while on a high school graduation trip in Aruba. She was last seen driving off with a group of young men, including van der Sloot, then 17.
Van der Sloot, who was detained as a suspect in the teen’s disappearance and then later released, was indicted by an Alabama federal grand jury in 2010 for allegedly trying to extort Holloway’s family.
Federal prosecutors alleged that in March 2010 van der Sloot contacted Holloway’s mother, Beth Holloway, through her lawyer and claimed he would reveal the location of the teen’s body in exchange for $250,000, with $25,000 paid upfront. During a recorded sting operation, Beth Holloway’s attorney, John Q. Kelly, met with van der Sloot at an Aruba hotel, giving him $10,000 in cash as Beth Holloway wired $15,000 to van der Sloot’s bank account, according to prosecutors.
Then, van der Sloot allegedly changed his story about the night he had been with Natalee Holloway, prosecutors said. Van der Sloot claimed he had picked her up but that she had demanded to be put down, so he threw her to the ground. He said her head hit a rock and she was killed instantly by the impact, according to prosecutors.
Prosecutors said van der Sloot then took Kelly to a house and claimed that his father, who had since died, buried Natalee Holloway’s body in the building’s foundation.
Kelly later emailed van der Sloot, saying the information he had provided was “worthless,” according to prosecutors. Within days, van der Sloot left Aruba for Peru.
ABC News’ Jack Date and Nadine El-Bawab contributed to this report
Wildfire in Crawford County, Mich. — Michigan Department of Natural Resources
(NEW YORK) — Dangerous air quality will be a significant issue for millions of Americans to deal with early this week, as fires continue to spark throughout Canada.
Much of that smoke is coming from new wildfires in the Quebec province, according to meteorologists.
There have been nearly 400 forest fires in the province so far in 2023, while the 10-year average is 197, data from the fire prevention nonprofit SOPFEU shows, according to the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation.
Satellite images show smoke moving over areas from Chicago and Indianapolis to Cincinnati, and much of Wisconsin is experiencing dangerous air near the surface.
This near-surface smoke, meaning people would be able to breathe it, stretched from Wisconsin to West Virginia on Sunday.
Dry weather and gusty winds in the Midwest have increased the wildfire risk, with a large portion of Michigan under a red flag warning.
Outdoor burning is not recommended, as firefighters have been working to put out several fires over the last few days.
The Wilderness Trail Fire in Michigan, which began on Saturday, has burned about 2,400 acres and is 85% contained, according to the Michigan Department of Natural Resources.
Older adults, kids, people with lung or heart disease and those who are pregnant should not partake in lengthy or heavy exertion, according to meteorologists.
The near-surface smoke will intensify by Tuesday morning, impacting areas from Nashville to Indianapolis, Pittsburgh to New York City and Hartford, Connecticut, to Burlington, Vermont.
Despite inching closer to the official start of summer, a large part of the Northeast was unseasonably cool on Sunday, with much of New England looking at high temperatures in the 50s and 60s.
A persistent cloudy and showery stretch of weather this weekend is leading to temperatures that are 20 to 30 degrees below normal for this time of year.
Temperatures are expected to steadily rebound into the 70s headed through the upcoming week.
New York and Pittsburgh are both forecast to reach 81 degrees on Tuesday.
Meanwhile, in the tropics, Tropical Storm Arlene, the Atlantic hurricane season’s first named storm, has fizzled out. However, a showery pattern remains for south Florida.
A flood watch will remain in effect until at least Sunday evening due to an additional 1 to 2 inches of rain in cities like Miami and Fort Lauderdale.
(WASHINGTON) — A New Hampshire man was arrested last week and charged with threatening to kill a U.S. senator, federal prosecutors said.
Brian Landry, a 66-year-old from Franklin, New Hampshire, allegedly left a threatening voicemail at the senator’s district office on May 17, which was referred to U.S. Capitol Police, investigators said in an affidavit along with Landry’s criminal complaint.
“Hey stupid I’m a veteran sniper. And unless you change your ways, I got my scope pointed in your direction and I’m coming to get you. You’re a dead man walking you piece of f—— s—,” Landry is accused of saying, according to the affidavit.
Prosecutors did not identify the senator whom Landry allegedly targeted beyond stating that the lawmaker took office on Jan. 3, 2021.
When questioned by authorities after being identified through phone records, Landry said he was “extremely angry with certain politicians over their handling of important entitlement programs for veterans,” the affidavit states.
He also “said he saw on the news that [the senator] is blocking military promotions” and called the senator’s office “because he was angry about what he saw on the news,” according to the affidavit.
Authorities said in the criminal complaint affidavit that while talking with Landry, he “initially stated that he did not recall exactly what he said in the voicemail he left.” Later, he “acknowledged he may have said those things, but denied any intentions or desire to commit violence.”
Landry is charged with threatening to assault, kidnap or murder a member of Congress and faces up to 10 years in prison if found guilty.
He made his first court appearance on Friday afternoon, according to prosecutors. His next hearing is set for July 12.
He does not have a lawyer listed who could comment on his behalf. He has not yet entered a plea.
ABC News’ Allison Pecorin contributed to this report.
A billboard promoting contract army service is pictured in the Russian city of Belgorod, some 40 km from border with Ukraine, on May 27, 2023. — Olga Maltseva/AFP via Getty Images
(SLOVYANSK, Ukraine) — Well-trained, well-equipped Ukrainian combat forces are now in “assembly areas,” close enough to front line areas, meaning they could launch a concerted attack on Russian positions in a relatively short time period, according to Western officials.
In the meantime, Ukraine has already increased its offensive operations, both within its own borders and in Russia and beyond, in order to attempt to create more favorable conditions ahead of a much-anticipated counteroffensive.
Current operations were part of a “bigger plan,” which would eventually lead to a major offensive, a senior Ukrainian commander said in a recent interview with ABC News.
Unconfirmed reports indicated on Monday that Ukrainian offensive actions in certain areas of the front lines were increasing.
The Russian Ministry of Defense claimed to have repelled a number of Ukrainian attacks, however the leader of the Russian mercenary Wagner Group, Yevgeny Prigozhin, said Ukrainian forces had advanced around the settlement of Berkhivka, to the north of the Ukrainian eastern city of Bakhmut.
“The troops are fleeing,” said Prigozhin in an audio message posted online.
It’s unclear whether fresh offensive actions by the Ukrainian military will evolve into larger assaults on wider areas of the Russian front lines or whether they are more localized — or even diversionary operations — aimed at testing and wearing down the Russian defenses in preparation for a more substantial offensive later on.
In an online briefing this week, Western officials cautioned that, even though Ukraine now has the military weaponry and equipment it needs to punch through the Russian lines, a large-scale assault could still be “weeks” away.
The officials said Ukraine was currently engaged in “shaping operations,” which refers to a series of actions on and off the battlefield aimed at destabilizing the Kremlin and the Russian military in order to create the optimal conditions for the counteroffensive.
Despite officially denying involvement in a drone attack last week on Moscow, in private Ukrainian officials have indicated that Ukrainian intelligence was behind that strike and a number of other recent attacks inside Russia.
Officials in the Russian region of Belgorod have also reported a spike in Ukrainian artillery and drone attacks in recent days.
The assessment from Western officials given to reporters was that the series of attacks inside Russia are “difficult for the Russian leadership” as the Kremlin has to strike a balance between recognizing the seriousness of what had been happening, but also not reinforcing the notion that the war in Ukraine is now having a tangible impact in Russia.
The officials said they were now “tracking” Russian media sources to see whether criticism of the Russian leadership might become “a less taboo thing.”
Over the past two weeks ABC News has interviewed four middle-ranking and senior Ukrainian commanders, as well as low-ranking soldiers about the forthcoming counteroffensive.
Most of the men said preparations for the counteroffensive are moving into the final stages.
Colonel Oleksandr Bakulin, who commands around 6,000 men positioned near the embattled eastern city of Bakhmut said Ukraine was “pushing” in some frontline areas, however he cautioned that in other areas, Russian forces were doing the same.
Bakulin said recent Ukrainian gains in areas near to Bakhmut were part of a “bigger plan” which would “eventually lead to the counteroffensive.”
In recent weeks Ukraine has also stepped-up long-range missile strikes on areas of occupied territory deep behind the Russian lines.
The efficacy of such strikes is impossible to judge, given that there is little public comment about the strikes and claims by either side cannot be verified.
However verifiable videos circulating online fit the same broad pattern seen in the run-up to Ukraine’s counteroffensive on the city of Kherson back in November which was preceded by Ukrainian strikes on Russian military assets and logistics.
Officials in the United Kingdom said their Storm Shadow missiles are now being used by the Ukrainian military.
Those missiles have a range of around 155 miles, which is roughly triple the range of the missiles which the United States has supplied to Ukraine for use with the HIMARS missile-launchers.
In order not to reveal sensitive information to the Russians the quantities of long-range missiles supplied to Ukraine has not been revealed.
ABC News contributing military analyst, retired Col. Steve Ganyard questioned whether Ukraine’s stocks of Storm Shadows will be sufficient to substantially weaken Russian forces.
“Continued attacks on fuel storage areas and ammunition dumps will eventually prove useful in weakening Russia’s ability to wage war,” Ganyard said.
However he was skeptical about whether this can be achieved to a sufficient level over the next few weeks.
Russian defensive fortifications are also now, in places, “potentially formidable,” said Western officials.
Ganyard said he agreed with that assessment. He said there are still question marks about whether the Ukrainians “have the overwhelming force required to advance against a well dug-in opponent.”
However, he said, it was also important to bear in mind “how surprisingly poorly the Russian military has performed in this war.”
“It will all come down to how good Ukrainian and western supplied intelligence is, and how well Ukraine is able to exploit the Russian weaknesses they find,” Ganyard said.
Senior Ukrainian officials, including President Volodymyr Zelenskyy have in recent days given a number of interviews and statements in which they have said that Ukrainian forces are now ready for the pending offensive.
However, as Western officials conceded, a major attack might still be weeks away.
Keeping the Russian military waiting and guessing is an important part of the Ukrainian game plan.
(HOLLYWOOD, Fla.) — Police continue to search for an additional suspect after nine people, including children, were shot and injured along the Hollywood Beach Broadwalk on Florida’s east coast.
Four children between the ages of 1 and 17 were shot Monday night, including a baby between 15 and 18 months old, according to Hollywood police spokesperson Deanna Bettineschi.
The other five victims were adults ages 25 to 65.
The four children remain hospitalized on Wednesday, all in stable condition, according to hospital officials. The injured adults have been treated and released.
The shooting apparently stemmed from an altercation between two groups, and multiple people were detained in the aftermath, Bettineschi said Tuesday.
Two men believed to be involved in the shooting have been arrested on weapons charges, Bettineschi said. Morgan Deslouches, 18, and Keshawn Paul Stewart, 18, both face a concealed carry weapon charge in connection with the incident. Deslouches also has been charged with larceny-grand theft of a firearm and removing the serial number from a firearm, court records show.
A third suspect was taken into custody Saturday, and a fourth suspect was taken into custody Sunday, police said.
Authorities said they’re still looking to identify one more person they believe was also involved in the shooting.
“No stone will be left unturned in bringing the perpetrators to justice,” Hollywood Beach Mayor Josh Levy said in a statement Tuesday. “We will utilize every available resource to apprehend those responsible.”
“It is completely unacceptable that innocent people spending time with family on a holiday weekend have been affected by a shooting altercation between two groups who came into our city with guns and no regard for the safety of the law-abiding public around them,” Levy added.
ABC News’ Darren Reynolds, Peter Charalambous and Okelo Pena contributed to this report.
Tiffany Groves, of Texas, says taking the drug Mounjaro has improved her PCOS and helped her lose weight. — Courtesy Tiffany Groves
(NEW YORK) — Branneisha Cooper of Texas said she was diagnosed during her senior year of high school with polycystic ovary syndrome, or PCOS, a reproductive hormone imbalance that can cause problems with the menstrual cycle and lead to the formation of multiple ovarian cysts and infertility, according to the U.S. Office on Women’s Health.
The exact cause of PCOS is unknown, but people with this condition have higher levels of androgens, such as testosterone, and insulin that can lead to insulin resistance which is a risk factor for Type 2 diabetes.
Cooper, now 26, said she suffered for over a decade with irregular menstrual cycles, hormonal imbalances and weight gain.
That changed late last year, she said, when her doctor prescribed her Mounjaro, an injectable medication approved by the Food and Drug Administration in May 2022 to treat Type 2 diabetes.
“[My doctor] said, ‘There’s this great medication and I have a couple of women on it already who also have PCOS,'” Cooper told “Good Morning America,” adding, “Since starting on Mounjaro, it has honestly just been like a stress relief. I feel like a weight has been lifted off my shoulders.”
Since starting on the medication in November, Cooper said she has had a menstrual cycle regularly each month, has experienced reduced inflammation and has lost over 40 pounds.
She said she is also thinking, for the first time since her diagnosis, about becoming pregnant in the future, something she said she was previously told was unlikely to happen.
“For me especially, since I’m taking this for PCOS, this is so much more than weight loss for me, Cooper said. “Now that my cycles are regular again and I’m ovulating, it’s like I can think again about that thought I’d pushed back in my mind, of being a mom.”
Cooper is among a growing number of women with PCOS who are turning to medications like Mounjaro and Ozempic to treat their condition. The medications have been in the headlines recently for their growing popularity as drugs used for weight loss.
Like Mounjaro, Ozempic is approved by the FDA to treat Type 2 diabetes, but some doctors prescribe the medication “off-label” for weight loss, as is permissible by the FDA.
Many women, including Cooper, are talking about the medications on social media, where they say they’re finding a community of women who have long struggled with PCOS and struggled to find any medications to ease their symptoms.
Symptoms of PCOS can include everything from irregular or absent periods to excessive facial hair, acne and obesity. The exact cause of PCOS is not known.
The condition affects 1 in 10 women of childbearing age, according to the Office on Women’s Health.
“Prior to being on this medication, I thought it was just a me problem, that there was just something that I wasn’t getting right that other people were,” Cooper said. “It wasn’t until I [went] on Mounjaro and realized it’s a chronic disease … and you weren’t the problem.”
Tiffany Groves, who also lives in Texas, said she too struggled with PCOS for nearly a decade before going on Mounjaro last October, after learning about the medication on TikTok.
She was prescribed the medication off-label to help treat PCOS, and said she has since experienced regular menstrual cycles for the first time in her life. The 38-year-old said she has also lost around 43 pounds.
“This whole time I’ve been living life and thinking it’s normal to think about food all the time and then all of a sudden, you don’t think about food,” Groves told “GMA” of her experience on Mounjaro. “I can just eat a little bit and be perfectly fine.”
How drugs like Ozempic, Mounjaro can help PCOS
Typically, treatment options to manage PCOS symptoms include hormonal birth control and anti-androgen medicines as well as weight loss, according to the Office on Women’s Health.
Dr. Rekha Kumar, an endocrinologist at Weill Cornell Medicine and NewYork-Presbyterian and an expert in obesity and PCOS, said that drugs like Ozempic and Mounjaro can be helpful in treating the condition because they help address one of its main underlying problems, insulin resistance.
“It’s not necessarily that we’re using the meds to treat PCOS, but the meds can be helpful for one of the symptoms of PCOS, which is the actual weight gain and hormonal drive to eat carbohydrate because of the insulin resistance,” Kumar said, adding, “What we’ve learned in the past 20 years is that PCOS is actually an insulin-carbohydrate-metabolism problem called insulin resistance, meaning the body makes more insulin in response to carbohydrates.”
She continued, “And what people often forget about insulin is that it’s a fat storage-promoting hormone, so the more insulin your body is making, the better you are at storing fat.”
The active ingredient in Mounjaro, tirzepatide, works by activating two naturally produced hormones in the body: glucagon-like peptide-1, known as GLP-1, and glucose-dependent insulinotropic polypeptide, or GIP.
The combination is said to slow the emptying of the stomach by making people feel full longer, suppress appetite by slowing hunger signals to the brain, and help reduce blood sugar.
Ozempic is made from a compound called semaglutide, which works by helping the pancreas release insulin to move sugar from the blood into body tissues.
It also works by slowing down movement of food through the stomach and curbing appetite, thereby causing weight loss.
Ozempic and Mounjaro cannot be given to patients with certain medical conditions, including medullary thyroid cancer, pancreatitis or gallstones. Side effects of the medications can include severe nausea and constipation.
Kumar said she has been prescribing this class of medications to patients with PCOS for over a decade, saying, “The people that really know the science about how these medicines work as well as the science of PCOS have understood the link for some time.”
Kumar noted that as drugs like Ozempic and Wegovy have risen in popularity in recent months, she has found it harder to get her prescriptions for patients approved by insurance.
Both Ozempic and Wegovy are considered off-label for PCOS. Without insurance coverage, the cost of the medications can run over $1,000 per month.
“We used to be able to prescribe these a little easier, before the Ozempic craze,” Kumar said. “Because now there’s so much inappropriate prescribing that even the one-off cases that might do really well on these medicines are getting denied because there’s so much scrutiny on each prescription.”
Kumar and other doctors say that patients having a hard time accessing Ozempic or Mounjaro due to shortages or insurance problems should speak to their doctor about alternative options within the same class of medications.
Because PCOS is many times diagnosed in women as they are experiencing fertility struggles, Kumar said it’s also important for women to know that medications like Ozempic and Mounjaro should not be taken during pregnancy or while trying to become pregnant.
“We just have to really make sure that patients understand the risks and the unknowns of getting pregnant on these medicines, because when we do treat people’s insulin resistance, they become more fertile,” Kumar said. “Women who thought that they could never get pregnant, if you’re treating them with these medicines, they might, so we just have to be very careful with educating on the risks.”
The FDA also says in its safety profiles of these drugs that they should not be taken during pregnancy, noting there is “insufficient data” available.
The FDA also explains that the drugs could cause weight loss, and that “weight loss offers no benefit to a pregnant patient and may cause fetal harm.”
The FDA recommends that people discontinue treatment at least two months before they plan to become pregnant.
Both Cooper and Groves said they have plans in place with their doctors to go off Mounjaro if they ever try to become pregnant in the future. Cooper said she anticipates being on Mounjaro “long-term” for PCOS, except for when she tries to have a child.
“It’s treating my PCOS — it’s not curing it, it’s treating it,” Cooper said. “And this is the best I’ve felt my entire adult life.”
(WASHINGTON) — Federal officials have launched an investigation into how an unresponsive Cessna aircraft flew into restricted airspace in Washington, D.C., triggering the launch of fighter jets.
A loud sonic boom could be heard throughout the D.C. region on Sunday as two F-16s launched from nearby Joint Base Andrews in Maryland to investigate, military officials said.
The National Transportation Safety Board said late Sunday it had begun an investigation into the crash. Investigators are expected to be on the ground on Monday.
The unresponsive plane, a Cessna 560 Citation V, traveled at 34,000 feet through restricted airspace before crashing n a mountainous area of southwest Virginia at approximately 3:30 p.m. local time. The Virginia State Police will identify the victims.
The private jet had been owned by Florida-based Encore Motors, The New York Times reported Sunday.
When Times reporters reached Encore’s 75-year-old owner, John Rumpel, he reportedly identified four people who had been on the downed flight: his daughter, a granddaughter, a nanny and a pilot.
Six F-16s from three different units and bases were involved in tracking the Cessna, according to U.S. Northern Command. All six scrambled at the same time.
The two F-16s from the 113th Fighter Wing that took off from Joint Base Andrews were the first to reach the Cessna, Defense officials said. The pilots and aircraft were with the D.C. Air National Guard.
The four other F-16s that scrambled were from the 177th FW from Atlantic City, New Jersey, and the 169th FW from McIntyre, South Carolina, officials said.
“Based on the length of the flight path the FAA described for this event, it is normal procedure to have made NORAD aircraft available at several locations,” a North American Aerospace Defense Command spokesperson said on Sunday.
A preliminary report from NTSB investigators is expected within three weeks, officials said. That report is expected to look at “the human, machine and environment as the outline of the investigation,” NTSB officials said.
“At this early stage of an investigation, NTSB does not state a cause but will provide factual information when available,” the board said.
(NEW YORK) — New York will try to make it a crime to print a gun at home.
Lawmakers are responding to a surge in gun crimes committed with untraceable firearms, known as ghost guns, increasingly being created using a 3D printer.
“You can sit at your kitchen table and print out weapons of destruction,” Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg said Friday during a visit with reporters.
Under current New York law, someone who possesses or distributes a 3D printed gun can be charged with a misdemeanor. A proposed new law would make it a felony to manufacture a gun using a 3D printer.
The goal is to “attack the manufacture” of these kinds of weapons, which can be printed for a fraction of the cost of buying a traditional firearm, said State Senator Brad Hoylman, a sponsor.
The necessary components to create a fully functional 3D printed gun cost about $150 dollars, according to the NYPD.
“We have individuals who that are printing silencers, they’re printing magazines for AR’s and AR-type rifles,” said NYPD Inspector Courtney Nilan.
According to the NYPD, there has been a 75% increase in ghost gun seizures in the past year. 20 ghost guns have been recovered at the scenes of homicides or shootings just in Manhattan since the start of 2022. Since the Manhattan district attorney’s office began keeping track in 2021, there have been 90 ghost gun prosecutions in the office.
“Guns aren’t manufactured in New York,” Bragg said. “Through these printers, that is changing.”
The proposed legislation would criminalize both the printing of guns and the intentional sharing of the digital instructions the printer needs to follow.
Licensed gun owners in New York are allowed to use a 3D printer to print a gun but they must immediately register the new weapon with ATF, something the authorities said no one has ever done.
In April, thousands of guns — including numerous assault-style rifles and ghost guns — were surrendered in a single day over the weekend across the state of New York in exchange for gift cards, according to New York State Attorney General Letitia James.
(SACRAMENTO, Calif.) — More than a dozen migrants were dropped off on the doorstep of a California church after being transported to the state via private plane, according to state officials.
The migrants were dropped off at the Diocese of Sacramento on Saturday “with no prior arrangement or care in place” and in possession of documentation purporting to be from the government of the State of Florida, California Attorney General Rob Bonta said in a statement.
The group had been transported from Texas to New Mexico before being flown by private chartered jet to Sacramento, California Gov. Gavin Newsom said in a statement.
Officials are evaluating potential civil action against those who transported or arranged for the transport of “these vulnerable immigrants,” Bonta said, comparing the move to “state-sanctioned kidnapping.”
The California Department of Justice is investigating the circumstances around who paid for the group’s travel and whether the individuals orchestrating this trip misled anyone with false promises or have violated any criminal laws, including kidnapping, Newsom said.
The group of migrants was allegedly approached by a private contractor in El Paso, Texas, who told them they would be provided with jobs, free support and help getting into a migrant center, ABC Sacramento affiliate KXTV reported, citing the Sacramento Area Congregations Together (ACT).
The 16 migrants did not know where they were and only had a backpack’s worth of belongings, Diocese of Sacramento Bishop Jaime Soto said in a statement.
“While we continue to collect evidence, I want to say this very clearly: State-sanctioned kidnapping is not a public policy choice, it is immoral and disgusting,” Bonta said. “We are a nation built by immigrants and we must condemn the cruelty and hateful rhetoric of those, whether they are state leaders or private parties, who refuse to recognize humanity and who turn their backs on extending dignity and care to fellow human beings.”
Newsom and Bonta met with the group of migrants on Saturday and are working with the office of Sacramento Mayor Darrell Steinberg and local and nonprofit partners to ensure the migrants are treated with respect and dignity and get to their intended destination as they pursue their immigration cases, officials said.
The city is welcoming the migrants with open arms, Steinberg said in a statement, accusing those who transported the migrants of “using scared human beings to score cheap political points.”
“California and the Sacramento community will welcome these individuals with open arms and provide them with the respect, compassion, and care they will need after such a harrowing experience,” Bonta said.
