(NEW YORK) — Trader Joe’s announced this week that it is recalling its popular soft-baked snickerdoodle cookies, citing possible plastic contamination.
“We have been alerted by our supplier of Trader Joe’s Soft-Baked Snickerdoodles (SKU# 94075, BB (Best By) Date 02/03/2023) that product with the aforementioned Best By Date may contain hard plastic pieces,” the retailer said in a statement on its website on Wednesday.
According to the store, there have been no injuries reported so far, and all of the potentially affected product was removed from sale.
“If you purchased any Soft-Baked Snickerdoodles, please do not eat them. We urge you to discard the product or return it to any Trader Joe’s for a full refund,” the company added. “We sincerely apologize for the inconvenience.”
Questions may be directed to Trader Joe’s Customer Relations by phone at(626) 599-3817, Monday through Friday, 6:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. Pacific Time. Customers can also send an email using the form on the Trader Joe’s website.
As Mashed reported on Thursday, the snickerdoodles are made by the manufacturer Enjoy Life Natural Brands and sold under the Trader Joe’s label.
Enjoy Life issued a separate voluntary recall on June 30 for “a limited quantity of a select list of baked snacks products due to the potential presence of hard plastic pieces.”
Those items include the company’s Soft Baked Snickerdoodle, Chocolate Chip, Double Chocolate Brownie, Sunseed Butter Chocolate Chip and Monster Cookies. The company’s Sunseed Crunch and Caramel Blondie Chewy Bars were recalled as well, along with the brand’s Rich Chocolate and Salted Caramel Life Brownie Bites.
Enjoy Life Soft Baked Fruit & Oat Breakfast Ovals in flavors Apple Cinnamon, Chocolate Chip Banana and Berry Medley were affected by the recall, as were the company’s Soft Baked Cookies – Amazon Variety Packs.
Full product codes, photos and “Best By” dates for the recalled Enjoy Life products can be found on the Food and Drug Administration’s website.
“There have been no reports of injury or illness received by Enjoy Life Foods to date related to these products,” the company said in a press release. “Consumers who have this product should not eat it and should discard any product they may have but should keep any available packaging and contact the company at 1 (855) 543-5335, 24 hours a day to get more information about the recall and how to receive a refund.”
(ST. PAUL, Minn.) — Former Minneapolis police officer Thomas Lane was sentenced to two-and-a-half years in prison in a federal court on Thursday morning for violating George Floyd’s civil rights.
Lane, 39, is one of three former Minneapolis police officers who were convicted earlier this year of depriving Floyd of his right to medical care as the handcuffed, unarmed 46-year-old Black man was pinned under the knee of their senior officer, Derek Chauvin, for more than nine minutes on May 25, 2020. Floyd’s videotaped killing in Minneapolis sparked anti-racism protests and calls for police reform across the United States and around the world.
Lane’s former Minneapolis police colleagues, 28-year-old J. Alexander Kueng and 35-year-old Tou Thao, were also convicted of failing to intervene to prevent Chauvin, 46, from applying bodily injury to Floyd. Lane, who was heard on video twice asking his fellow officers whether they should turn Floyd onto his side, did not face that charge. Chauvin knelt on the back of Floyd’s neck, while Kueng knelt on his back, Lane held his legs and Thao kept bystanders away.
During their trial in February, Lane, Kueng and Thao each took the witness stand and attempted to shift the blame to Chauvin, who was a 19-year veteran of the Minneapolis Police Department. Lane told the jury that Chauvin “deflected” all his suggestions to help Floyd, while Kueng testified that Chauvin “was my senior officer and I trusted his advice” and Thao attested that he “would trust a 19-year veteran to figure it out.”
The jury handed down convictions after deliberating for roughly 13 hours.
Magnuson has not yet set sentencing dates for Kueng and Thao.
Lane faces a separate sentencing in state court on Sept. 21, after changing his plea to guilty to a reduced charge of aiding and abetting manslaughter. In exchange for the plea, prosecutors agreed to dismiss the top charge against him of aiding and abetting second-degree unintentional murder, according to Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison.
Thao and Kueng, who have rejected plea deals offered by prosecutors, are scheduled to go on trial in state court on Oct. 24 over charges of aiding and abetting both second-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter.
Earlier this month, Chauvin was sentenced to 21 years in prison on separate federal civil rights charges in Floyd’s killing and in an unrelated case involving a Black teenager. He had already been sentenced to 270 months, minus time served, which equals about 22 1/2 years in prison, after being convicted in state court last year of second-degree unintentional murder, third-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter.
(LONDON) — The BBC has formally apologized to members of the royal family for the bombshell 1995 interview between the late Princess Diana and then-BBC journalist Martin Bashir.
A report last year found that Bashir had “deceived and induced” Diana to obtain the interview.
The network issued the apology to Prince Charles and Princes William and Harry on Thursday. It was delivered by Tim Davie, director-general of the BBC, who said in a statement the outlet would “never show the programme again … nor will we license it in whole or in part to other broadcasters.”
“It is a matter of great regret that the BBC did not get to the facts in the immediate aftermath of the programme when there were warning signs that the interview might have been obtained improperly,” Davie stated.
“Instead, as The Duke of Cambridge himself put it, the BBC failed to ask the tough questions,” he continued. “Had we done our job properly Princess Diana would have known the truth during her lifetime. We let her, The Royal Family and our audiences down.”
More than 23 million people watched the Panorama interview that Bashir did with Diana, who died just two years later, in August 1997, after a car crash in the Pont D’Alma tunnel in Paris. William and younger brother Harry were 15 and 12, respectively, when their mother died.
Diana’s comments in that interview about her marriage to Prince Charles and his alleged affair with his now-wife Camilla, the duchess of Cornwall, sent shock waves throughout the world — and the royal family. Diana and Charles divorced just one year after the interview aired, in 1996.
Despite vowing to never re-air or distribute the interview again, Davie said Thursday that “it does of course remain part of the historical record and there may be occasions in the future when it will be justified for the BBC to use short extracts for journalistic purposes, but these will be few and far between and will need to be agreed at Executive Committee level and set in the full context of what we now know about the way the interview was obtained.”
“I would urge others to exercise similar restraint,” he added.
After last year’s report, which was released following an inquiry by Lord Dyson, William and Harry issued statements reacting to the news.
“It is my view that the deceitful way the interview was obtained substantially influenced what my mother said. The interview was a major contribution to making my parents’ relationship worse and has since hurt countless others,” William said at the time. “It brings indescribable sadness to know that the BBC’s failures contributed significantly to her fear, paranoia and isolation that I remember from those final years with her.”
“But what saddens me most, is that if the BBC had properly investigated the complaints and concerns first raised in 1995, my mother would have known that she had been deceived,” he added. “She was failed not just by a rogue reporter, but by leaders at the BBC who looked the other way rather than asking the tough questions.”
Harry issued his own statement on the matter.
“Our mother was an incredible woman who dedicated her life to service. She was resilient, brave, and unquestionably honest. The ripple effect of a culture of exploitation and unethical practices ultimately took her life,” he said.
“To those who have taken some form of accountability, thank you for owning it,” he continued. “That is the first step towards justice and truth. Yet what deeply concerns me is that practices like these — and even worse — are still widespread today. Then and now, it’s bigger than one outlet, one network, or one publication.”
“Our mother lost her life because of this, and nothing has changed,” Harry concluded. “By protecting her legacy, we protect everyone, and uphold the dignity with which she lived her life. Let’s remember who she was and what she stood for.”
(WASHINGTON) — President Joe Biden tested positive for COVID-19 for the first time Thursday morning, his office said.
Biden, 79, has “very mild symptoms” and is taking Paxlovid, press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said in a statement.
Biden is experiencing a dry cough, runny nose and fatigue, White House COVID-19 Response Coordinator Dr. Ashish Jha said. The physician to the president, Dr. Kevin O’Connor, said Biden’s systems started Wednesday evening.
The president went to bed feeling fine but didn’t sleep well and subsequently tested positive in the morning, Jha added.
Jean-Pierre said an update will be provided every day as Biden “continues to carry out the full duties of the office while in isolation” at the White House.
Close contacts, “including any Members of Congress and any members of the press who interacted with the President during yesterday’s travel,” will be informed on Thursday, Jean-Pierre said.
Biden traveled to Somerset, Massachusetts, on Wednesday where he announced executive actions to address climate change. The president greeted Ukrainian first lady Olena Zelenska at the White House on Tuesday.
“He has been in contact with members of the White House staff by phone this morning, and will participate in his planned meetings at the White House this morning via phone and Zoom from the residence,” Jean-Pierre said.
The president will work in isolation until he tests negative, she said.
Biden was last tested for COVID-19 on Tuesday, when he tested negative, she added.
Biden is fully vaccinated and received two boosters; his second booster shot was March 30.
First lady Jill Biden tested negative Thursday morning in Detroit and will keep her full schedule in Michigan and Georgia through the day, her office said. She will continue following CDC guidance with masking and distancing, her office said.
ABC News Chief Medical Correspondent Dr. Jennifer Ashton said the biggest factor in treatment will be the president’s age.
“That is why,” she said, it’s “no surprise that he’s being treated with the antiviral pill Paxlovid. It’s been shown in clinical trials to be 89% effective in reducing the risk of severe COVID-19 illness, meaning hospitalization or death.”
Ashton stressed, “He is going to be closely monitored at the White House by the personal physician of the president, and if anything looks like it is going in the wrong direction, I absolutely expect that he would be hospitalized, if nothing else than for more close observation. But remember, the White House is not like your home or my home — they can do a lot of medical monitoring and observation and testing right there.”
Former President Donald Trump was briefly hospitalized at Walter Reed Medical Center in October 2020 after he tested positive for COVID-19.
Paxlovid, an antiviral pill developed by Pfizer, was approved by the Food and Drug Administration for those aged 12 and older in December 2021.
Patients take three pills twice daily over the course of five days. The pill was hailed as a game-changer because it was the first COVID-19 treatment that did not require an infusion, making it more convenient to give to patients.
Paxlovid is made up of two medications: ritonavir, commonly used to treat HIV and AIDS, and nirmatrelvir, an antiviral that Pfizer developed to boost the strength of the first drug. Together, they prevent an enzyme the virus uses to make copies of itself inside human cells and spread throughout the body.
Vice President Kamala Harris tested positive for COVID-19 in April. Dr. Anthony Fauci, a senior adviser to the president on the pandemic, tested positive last month.
(NEW YORK) — It’s 2022, and Victoria’s Secret is coming in hot with its first fine fragrance in five years.
“Bare,” the brand’s latest scent, launched this week. According to the company, “Bare” celebrates individuality and self-expression.
“This soft, warm scent transforms on skin, creating a signature that’s uniquely yours,” the company captioned the video revealing the launch.
“Bare Eau de Parfum” includes an alluring blend of musky mandarin, floral Egyptian violet petals and warm Australian sandalwood. Victoria’s Secret says the fragrance was formulated to adapt to every person’s body chemistry to create a unique scent for anyone who wears it.
The packaging for the latest fragrance is created with upcycled materials and responsibly sourced ingredients. Additionally, it uses a new cryptosym technology — created and trademarked by Symrise, a German chemicals company based in Holzminden — which has the capability to encrypt scent formulations to preserve its novelty and protect it from future replication.
“Bare Eau de Parfum is our most intimate fragrance yet. It’s about a quiet confidence that comes from knowing your authentic self, and celebrates individuality in its most natural form,” Kristen Lagoa, Victoria’s Secret vice president of merchandising, beauty and accessories, said in a statement.
The ad campaign for the new fragrance features a diverse lineup of women, ranging from social advocates and herbalists to artists and creatives — all with different backgrounds and body types.
Throughout the imagery, models are seen alongside inspiring quotes such as “Comparison is the thief of joy” and “It’s really the simple things that hold the most space for our healing.”
The latest campaign marks a major transformation from Victoria’s Secret’s past branding. In 2018, the company faced criticism after Ed Razek, the former chief marketing officer for L Brands — Victoria’s Secret’s parent company — told Vogue he didn’t think the brand should add plus-size or transgender models to its annual fashion show “because the show is a fantasy.”
Razek later apologized for his comments and resigned from the company.
The brand ultimately said farewell to its famed “Angel” models last year and launched The VS Collective to revamp its image, featuring a diverse lineup of “ambassadors,” including Valentina Sampaio, who is transgender, Priyanka Chopra Jonas and LGBTQIA+ activist and professional soccer player Megan Rapinoe, along with several others.
“Bare” is available nationwide now online and in-stores. It’s also slated to launch worldwide starting Aug. 23.
(NEW YORK) — The unrelenting heat wave pounding the U.S. is still going strong, with 24 states and 103 million Americans on alert for dangerous temperatures Thursday.
Triple-digit heat is still hitting the West with Thursday temperatures forecast to reach 113 degrees in Palm Springs, California and 114 in Las Vegas. If “Sin City” reaches 114, it’ll break its record high of 113.
In the South, Dallas hit a record high of 109 degrees on Wednesday as Texas’ ongoing heat wave continues to fan spreading wildfires.
The heat is spreading from hard-hit Texas to Arkansas, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, Florida and the Carolinas.
The heat is also slamming the Northeast. The heat index — what temperature it feels like with humidity — is expected to skyrocket Thursday to 107 degrees in Philadelphia, 103 in New York City and Washington, D.C., and 101 in Baltimore and Hartford, Connecticut.
The Northeast heat is expected to intensify over the weekend when actual temperatures could approach 100 degrees. Record highs are possible on Sunday from Philadelphia to New York City.
If New York City stays above 90 degrees for seven days in a row, the city will mark its longest heat wave in nine years.
Philadelphia has issued a heat health emergency that’ll begin at noon Thursday.
High temperatures are also still inundating Europe, where it’s forecast to hit 103 degrees in Madrid and 99 degrees in Milan.
(ST. PAUL, Minn.) — Former Minneapolis police officer Thomas Lane will be sentenced in federal court on Thursday morning for violating George Floyd’s civil rights.
Lane, 39, is one of three former Minneapolis police officers who were convicted earlier this year of depriving Floyd of his right to medical care as the handcuffed, unarmed 46-year-old Black man was pinned under the knee of their senior office, Derek Chauvin, for more than nine minutes on May 25, 2020. Floyd’s videotaped killing in Minneapolis sparked anti-racism protests and calls for police reform across the United States and around the world.
Lane’s former Minneapolis police colleagues, 28-year-old J. Alexander Kueng and 35-year-old Tou Thao, were also convicted of failing to intervene to prevent Chauvin, 46, from applying bodily injury to Floyd. Lane, who was heard on video twice asking his fellow officers whether they should turn Floyd onto his side, did not face that charge. Chauvin knelt on the back of Floyd’s neck, while Kueng knelt on his back, Lane held his legs and Thao kept bystanders away.
During their trial in February, Lane, Kueng and Thao each took the witness stand and attempted to shift the blame to Chauvin, who was a 19-year veteran of the Minneapolis Police Department. Lane told the jury that Chauvin “deflected” all his suggestions to help Floyd, while Kueng testified that Chauvin “was my senior officer and I trusted his advice” and Thao attested that he “would trust a 19-year veteran to figure it out.”
The jury handed down convictions after deliberating for roughly 13 hours.
Magnuson has not yet set sentencing dates for Kueng and Thao.
Lane faces a separate sentencing in state court on Sept. 21, after changing his plea to guilty to a reduced charge of aiding and abetting manslaughter. In exchange for the plea, prosecutors agreed to dismiss the top charge against him of aiding and abetting second-degree unintentional murder, according to Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison.
Thao and Kueng, who have rejected plea deals offered by prosecutors, are scheduled to go on trial in state court on Oct. 24 over charges of aiding and abetting both second-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter.
Earlier this month, Chauvin was sentenced to 21 years in prison on separate federal civil rights charges in Floyd’s killing and in an unrelated case involving a Black teenager. He had already been sentenced to 270 months, minus time served, which equals about 22 1/2 years in prison, after being convcited in state court last year of second-degree unintentional murder, third-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter.
ABC News’ Kiara Alfonseca, Bill Hutchinson, Janel Klein, Whitney Lloyd, Mark Osborne and Stephanie Wash contributed to this report.
(WASHINGTON) — The House select committee investigating Jan. 6 is holding its second prime-time hearing on Thursday, which will focus on the Trump White House’s reaction to the insurrection as it unfolded.
Following a recent and highly publicized hearing, renewed attention is on witness tampering and the possibility that it was committed by Trump.
During a recent hearing, Wyoming Republican Rep. Liz Cheney, the committee’s vice chair, said that Trump attempted to call a witness in the committee’s investigation into last year’s attack on the U.S. Capitol.
“After our last hearing, President Trump tried to call a witness in our investigation — a witness you have not yet seen in these hearings. That person declined to answer or respond to President Trump’s call and, instead, alerted their lawyer to the call,” Cheney said at the time.
The committee warned against witness tampering as it continues its investigation. “Let me say one more time, we will take any effort to influence witness testimony very seriously,” Cheney said.
But what is witness tampering, and did Trump possibly commit it?
What is witness tampering?
Witness tampering is a federal crime and is considered a form of obstruction of justice.
According to the Department of Justice, witness tampering occurs when someone tries to “influence, delay or prevent the testimony of any person in an official proceeding.”
“It’s either threatening a witness with some type of harm if the person doesn’t testify in a certain way or doing this thing, which is defined by Congress as correctly persuading someone to say something,” Robert Weisberg, faculty co-director of the Stanford Criminal Justice Center, told ABC News. “Unfortunately, Congress has done an absolute horrible job defining the crime.”
Congress has the authority to investigate if a crime took place, but it doesn’t have the power to charge someone with witness tampering — that is left up to the Department of Justice.
A person could be sentenced to up to 20 years in prison if found guilty of witness tampering.
Jan. 6 witness Trump allegedly tried to call was White House support staff, sources say
Donald Trump’s alleged witness tampering
The committee has examined not only the insurrection at the Capitol, but also then-President Trump’s possible role in the events leading up to, during and after that day, actions the committee says were a “dereliction of duty” on his part.
Trump, who has denied any wrongdoing, has repeatedly criticized the House select committee for its investigation into the Jan. 6 riot, calling it one-sided and politically motivated.
Cheney’s bombshell accusation about Trump raises questions on if he committed a crime and, if so, if there’s enough evidence to charge him.
“It would depend on the strength of the case,” Peter Zeidenberg, a former federal prosecutor, told ABC News. “When people make calls like that, usually it’s a little more guarded and a little bit of a wink wink, nudge nudge.”
Trump allegedly attempted to call a White House support staffer, a person he wouldn’t normally call, sources said.
Despite not reaching the witness during the purported call, a crime still allegedly took place, this according to guidance from the DOJ under section 18 U.S.C. 1512, “Protection of government processes — Tampering with victims, witnesses or informants.”
“There is no requirement that the defendant’s actions have the intended obstructive effect,” it reads.
Trump spokesperson Taylor Budowich sharply criticized Cheney’s accusation while also going after the media — but did not deny her claims.
“The media has become pawns of the Unselect Committee. Liz Cheney continues to traffic in innuendos and lies that go unchallenged, unconfirmed, but repeated as fact because the narrative is more important than the truth,” he tweeted on July 12.
Cheney’s claim against the former president isn’t the first time Trump has been accused of obstructing justice.
Michael Cohen
Michael Cohen, Trump’s longtime personal lawyer, was convicted in 2018 for tax evasion, violating campaign finance rules and lying to Congress.
For years, Cohen had signaled loyalty to Trump. But after the FBI raided his home in 2018, he was open to cooperating with special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into the then-president.
Cohen’s lawyer said that Trump’s advisers were hinting that he would pardon Cohen following the FBI’s raid into his home. Once Cohen agreed to testify, Trump began publicly attacking his former lawyer and suggested that his father-in-law should be investigated.
The House Committee on Oversight and Reform said at the time that “efforts to intimidate witnesses, scare their family members, or prevent them from testifying before Congress are textbook mob tactics that we condemn in the strongest terms. Our nation’s laws prohibit efforts to discourage, intimidate, or otherwise pressure a witness not to provide testimony to Congress.”
In 2019, after a delay, Cohen testified in front of the House Oversight Committee about his time working for his former boss. Cohen said he initially delayed his testimony because of “ongoing threats against his family from President Trump.”
Could Trump be charged?
It’s unlikely Attorney General Merrick Garland will charge Trump, especially if he plans to run for president again, according to Weisberg.
“If he declares he’s running for president, even though that doesn’t give him any immunity from indictment, we know that’s exactly the situation Garland fears, namely indicting someone amidst a presidential campaign, because he doesn’t want the criminal justice systems to distort the political process,” Weisberg said.
“There’s a weird kind of leverage that Trump has here,” he added.
(WASHINGTON) — The House select committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol will hold the eighth in its latest string of hearings on Thursday starting at 8 p.m. ET — in prime-time.
Committee aides say the session will zero-in on then-President Donald Trump’s response to the insurrection by a pro-Trump mob, specifically the 187 minutes between his speech at the Ellipse near the White House earlier that day and his public statement telling rioters to go home.
The panel will also discuss what occurred on the remainder of Jan. 6, including a tweet Trump sent around 6 p.m., and the fallout on Jan. 7, 2021.
Trump’s tweet — shortly before he was permanently banned from Twitter, read: “These are the things and events that happen when a sacred landslide election victory is so unceremoniously & stripped away from great patriots who have been badly & unfairly treated for so long. Go home with love & in peace. Remember this day forever!”
Aides also emphasized, without providing details, that there would be new evidence presented Thursday and told reporters that there was “no reason to think” this will be the committee’s final hearing, though it is expected to be the last session in the near future.
Two former Trump White House aides are expected to testify, sources previously confirmed to ABC News: former deputy press secretary Sarah Matthews and Matthew Pottinger, who was a member of the National Security Council.
Both Matthews and Pottinger quit on Jan. 6.
ABC News has also learned the committee has outtakes of Trump’s pre-recorded message delivered on Jan. 7, where he condemned the attack on the Capitol and pledged a “seamless transition of power.” But the outtakes tell a different story — showing a president struggling to say the election was over and to condemn the rioters, sources familiar with their contents said.
The sources said the committee may show at least some of the outtakes during Thursday’s hearing but cautioned that plans to do so could change.
Committee aides — previewing the hearing in very broad terms — have said they will show testimony from individuals who spoke to Trump and from those in the West Wing who were aware of what Trump, his staff and his family were doing on Jan. 6.
“What we’ll get into tomorrow is what happened when that speech ended and President Trump, against his wishes, was returned to the White House,” one aide said Wednesday.
“We’re going to demonstrate sort of who was talking to him and what they were urging him to do in that time period,” the aide continued. “We’re going to talk about when he was made aware of what was going on at the Capitol.”
Cassidy Hutchinson, formerly a top aide to Trump’s last chief of staff, Mark Meadows, previously testified to the committee about a conversation she had with members of Trump’s security detail after the rally at the Ellipse on Jan. 6.
Hutchinson said Tony Ornato, the head of the president’s security team, told her that Trump lunged toward his driver in the presidential SUV and tried to grab the steering wheel in a push to be taken to the Capitol with his supporters.
“Tony described him as being irate,” Hutchinson testified. (The Secret Service subsequently said it will respond on the record to Hutchinson’s account.)
Rep. Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., will be chairing Thursday’s hearing remotely as he’s recovering from COVID-19. Thompson announced on Monday that he tested positive for the virus and would be isolating for several days, per federal guidelines.
A spokesperson for the committee confirmed the hearing would go on as planned despite Thompson’s diagnosis, noting the panel was wishing him a “speedy recovery.”
Reps. Elaine Luria, D-Va., and Adam Kinzinger, R-Ill., will lead the hearing.
Lawmakers on the committee are also dealing with a revelation about Secret Service records as it relates to Jan. 6.
A government watchdog previously requested messages sent and received by Secret Service personnel around the time of the attack, but a spokesperson for the agency acknowledged last week that text messages from last Jan. 5 and Jan. 6 were deleted after being sought by the Department of Homeland Security’s inspector general.
The agency maintained that the deletion occurred during a device-replacement program and was not “malicious.”
The House committee subpoenaed the Secret Service for the records on Friday and the National Archives and Records Administration asked the agency to account for the lost texts.
The service has only provided a single text exchange to the DHS inspector general, according to an agency letter to the House Jan. 6 committee and obtained by ABC News.
Rep. Pete Aguilar, D-Calif., said the committee was working to get to the bottom of the situation.
“We continue to work through these issues but clearly that’s not enough,” Aguilar told ABC News.
“There’s a lot more questions to answer, but we have the responsibility to tell the truth and chase the facts and that’s exactly what we plan to do in this regard, as well as our general oversight over the executive department,” Aguilar added.
ABC News’ Rachel Scott contributed to this report.
(NEW YORK) — In the aftermath of the mass shootings in Buffalo, New York; Uvalde, Texas; and Highland Park, Illinois, experts say there is a lot that communities can do to improve how they respond to warning signs indicating people could be a risk to themselves or others.
John Cohen, an ABC News contributor and the former acting undersecretary for intelligence and counterterrorism coordinator at the Department of Homeland Security, told ABC News that law enforcement professionals he has met with around the country have raised concerns that there’s not much they can do when they receive reports of concerning behavior.
But even if the person exhibiting concerning behavior has not committed a crime, there is still room for preventative intervention and community support, Cohen said.
“Too many law enforcement agencies tend to look at these issues, simply from the perspective of: has the person violated the law or not. And what a lot of law enforcement agencies have learned is that there is a middle ground,” he said.
He recognized that a lack of access to inpatient and outpatient mental health care is a large concern.
Jarrod Burguan, a former chief of police in San Bernardino, California, and an ABC News contributor, said in an interview that his experience in law enforcement showed him that the mental healthcare system is a “revolving door” that does not do a good job of forcing people to get help or protecting the rest of society from people who pose a risk.
“We have this major issue of how we deal with mental illness. And we’re very, very ineffective at it,” he said. “We have this disconnect in how we treat mental illness in this country.”
Oftentimes, police take in someone for a mental health evaluation, but there is no leverage for them to get treatment and there is not much else authorities can do to address concerning behavior that has been brought to their attention if it isn’t illegal, Burguan said.
“As a police officer, you’ve got to work within the confines of what you can do legally,” Burguan said.
When police receive a report of concerning behavior, they make contact with the individual to see if they can collect enough information to justify a mental health hold or to determine if a crime has been committed. Police could then take the person into the mental healthcare system if justified, but there is not much else they could do, Burguan said.
Burguan said the threshold for family members to forcibly commit someone into a mental health facility is very high. The process is often difficult for families and can be very expensive, he said. He said that family members rarely think that their loved ones would be able to do something violent like a shooting.
“As a result, we have millions and millions and millions of people that fall through the cracks. We need something that puts more teeth and the ability of the mental health system to hold somebody and force them into treatment and stop allowing people to walk away, and then affect everybody else in society,” Burguan said.
Burguan also said the criminal justice system is not effectively correcting peoples’ paths. While he was chief, he says his department looked through data for two straight years and found that in cases where police had identified a suspect in a murder, an overwhelming majority of the suspects had extensive criminal histories.
“We’re not fixing people through the criminal justice system,” Burguan said.
Cohen said there is still an important role local communities can play to intervene when individuals are showing warning signs that they could be a risk to themselves or others.
He said as far back as 2014 when he was at DHS, the department was working with the Federal Bureau of Investigation and other law enforcement agencies to study the behavioral characteristics of mass shooters and work to develop prevention strategies to be applied in local communities.
He said the strategies center on law enforcement working with mental health professionals and others in the community to assess the risks of people who exhibit these behaviors, making sure that people within the community are educated on what they should be looking for.
Local authorities should be conducting threat assessments to determine whether the individual poses a high risk of committing an act of violence, Cohen said. If the answer is yes, then the community should engage in threat management strategies, he said.
“You bring mental health professionals, the family community members, our community organizations, faith leaders, social service providers, whoever you need to at the local level, you bring them together and you can put in place a plan to address the underlying issues that are causing this person to travel down the path of violence,” Cohen said.
‘Red flag’ laws
Many states have incorporated the use of “red flag” laws, also called extreme protection orders, in their strategies to temporarily restrict an individual’s access to guns when they are found to be a risk to themselves or others, Cohen said.
He said these threat management and threat assessment strategies, implemented in various jurisdictions around the country, including Los Angeles, have been successful in preventing attacks.
“With all the mass shootings that we have experienced over the last 10 years, it is mind-boggling to me that we still have communities that have not established the capabilities to engage in threat assessment and threat management activities,” Cohen said.
He added, “They save lives. They’ve worked in communities across the country. And what we need is a consistent capability in every locality across the United States to do that type of work.”
Cohen said a strategy should have been created to address warning signs the Uvalde school shooter displayed in the leading up to the shooting. Cohen said the large amount of ammunition the shooter purchased in addition to the other warning signs should have been brought to the attention of law enforcement, who should have launched a threat assessment investigation.
Recognizing that this requires a certain level of sophistication, expertise and funding, Cohen said it falls to state and federal governments to intervene. DHS and the Justice Department provide grant funding to support local efforts and the FBI and U.S. Secret Service can provide training and technical assistance to local communities, Cohen said.
“Any police department or any local community that is not prepared to assess the risk posed by an individual who comes to their attention and to take steps to mitigate that risk, is placing themselves in jeopardy of experiencing this type of attack,” Cohen said.
