(WASHINGTON) — As more people return to the skies, the number of unruly passenger incidents onboard planes continues to skyrocket.
Last week alone, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) reported an increase of 150 unruly passenger cases, making it the worst weekly report of the summer.
The FAA said on Tuesday that it has received over 3,400 reports of unruly behavior from passengers since the beginning of the year. Of those incidents, 75% involved passengers who refused to wear face coverings.
In one of the most recent cases, a woman from Florida was arrested after allegedly refusing to wear a mask on a Delta Air Lines flight.
Video of the incident appears to show the woman argue with police officers on board the aircraft as they ask her to deplane. She was then restrained and escorted off.
Adelaide Schrowang is facing several charges and remains in police custody on a $56,000 bond.
The FAA is still enforcing its zero-tolerance policy for in-flight disruptions which could lead to fines as high as $52,500 and up to 20 years in prison. The agency has looked into more than 550 potential violations of federal law this year — the highest number since 1995.
Last month, a coalition of airline lobbying groups and unions called on the Justice Department to go a step further and prosecute unruly passengers “to the fullest extent of the law.”
“The federal government should send a strong and consistent message through criminal enforcement that compliance with federal law and upholding aviation safety are of paramount importance,” the letter said.
Flight attendants are often the first responders during these in-flight confrontations, and they have seen them become more volatile.
An unruly passenger allegedly punched a Southwest Airlines flight attendant in the face last month, knocking her two front teeth out.
“It tops the chart of the most egregious things I’ve ever heard of,” Lyn Montgomery, a spokesperson for the union that represents Southwest flight attendants, told ABC News. “It’s unbelievable and really hard to understand the level of aggression that has been exhibited towards our flight crews. It just seems that when people get on board an aircraft they’re feeling more angry than they used to feel.”
The spike in unruly passenger reports prompted the TSA to resume crew member self-defense training this month.
The voluntary training program, which was put on hold due to the pandemic, provides flight crew members with techniques “for responding against an attacker in a commercial passenger or cargo aircraft,” including self-defense measures and ways to identify and deter potential threats.
“It should be a recurring training so that we can create that muscle memory that you need to be able to respond at a moment’s notice,” Sara Nelson, the president of the Association of Flight Attendants, told ABC News. “But even taking the course one time changed my attitude, gave me a better understanding about how to stand, how to hold myself, how to protect myself if someone is coming at me.”
(JACKSON, Miss.) — As the delta variant spreads rapidly across the country, Mississippi officials are warning that a dozen children are hospitalized throughout the state with severe cases of COVID-19.
Of the 12 children currently in the intensive care unit due to COVID-19, 10 are on ventilators, according to State Health Officer Dr. Thomas Dobbs.
“Delta Surge – be careful,” Dobbs said in a terse tweet Tuesday, while sharing the updates on the latest hospitalizations.
Children are less likely than adults to have serious COVID-19 infections. Most have mild symptoms, if any, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, though in rare instances, they have developed severe cases that led to hospitalization or death.
It is not clear what the ages of the 12 children are, if they were eligible for the COVID-19 vaccine or if any have underlying health conditions that would put them at greater risk for severe illness from COVID-19. ABC News has reached out to the Mississippi Department of Health for more information on the cases.
Dr. Alan Jones, associate vice chancellor for clinical affairs at the University of Mississippi Medical Center, told ABC affiliate WAPT in Jackson, Mississippi, that his facility is currently treating four pediatric COVID-19 patients, two of whom are on ventilators.
“We have had more pediatric admissions than we had early in the pandemic,” Jones told the station.
The state has been seeing a “pretty alarming” increase in the number of COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations, Dobbs said during a press briefing last Friday, as the highly contagious delta variant, which was initially identified in India, has quickly become the dominant variant in the state.
“We have seen pretty much an entire takeover of the delta variant for our transmission,” Dobbs said during the briefing, noting that the current cases in the state are “pretty much all delta.”
Hospital systems are not currently overwhelmed, but Dobbs said there are “concerns about it going forward, as has been seen in other states” due to delta, which has become the dominant variant nationwide.
Mississippi’s daily COVID-19 case average has more than doubled in the last three weeks. Less than three weeks ago, there were under 100 patients receiving care for COVID-19 in Mississippi. As of July 11, there were nearly 200. Hospital admissions have also increased by 26.7% in the last week.
The state has seen an increase in COVID-19 outbreaks as well, particularly among youth, in summer activities and nursing homes, Dobbs said.
The delta variant is surging as Mississippi has the second-lowest vaccination rate in the country, with approximately one-third of the state’s total population fully vaccinated, according to the CDC. The “vast majority” of cases, hospitalizations and deaths in the state now are in unvaccinated people, Dobbs said.
Due to the low vaccination rate, the state health department advised Friday that those who are ages 65 and older or have chronic medical conditions avoid mass indoor gatherings for several weeks.
“Our collective under-vaccination in the state has put us all at risk, especially the most vulnerable,” Dobbs said.
(PHILADELPHIA) — President Joe Biden in a fiery speech on Tuesday decried Republican efforts to limit ballot access across the country as a “21st Century Jim Crow assault,” while warning Americans that the GOP push to restrict voting and “selfish” challenge of the 2020 election results were “the most significant test of our democracy since the Civil War.”
His use of the bully pulpit from Philadelphia to invoke the Constitution comes as his administration wades more aggressively into the fight over ballot access at the urging of civil rights groups and Democrats as Republican-led legislatures advance new voting restrictions in places like Texas and Congress remains deadlocked over proposed legislation.
Here are Biden’s full remarks, as released by the White House:
2:46 P.M. EDT
THE PRESIDENT: Thank you. (Applause.) I see an awful lot of good friends out there. Please have a seat if you have one.
I — let me begin by saying I used to be important. (Laughter.) I used to be the chairman of the board of this place. And Jeffrey Rosen allowed me to do that for a while.
But thank you all for being here. I truly appreciate it. Governor, it’s above and beyond the call. Mr. Mayor, I’d compli- — I thought you were a great mayor — still think you are — but your judgment in fiancées is even stronger. And — but — but all of you. And a good friend, Bobby Brady. I see so many friends out. Al Sharpton — Al, how are you, pal? It’s great to see you. (Applause.)
And I’m — I’m going to get in trouble here because I’m going to recognize my congresswoman from the state of Delaware, Lisa Blunt Rochester — (applause) — and her sister who used to run my office. Stand up. (Applause.)
Well, folks, good afternoon. There’s a serious subject I’d like to talk about today. I’m here in Philadelphia at the National Constitution Center — the city and the place where the story of “We the People” — “We the People” began.
It’s a story that’s neither simple nor straightforward. That’s because the story is the sum of our parts, and all those parts are fundamentally human. And being human is to be imperfect, driven by appetite and ambition as much as by goodness and grace.
But some things in America should be simple and straightforward.
Perhaps the most important of those things — the most fundamental of those things — is the right to vote. The right to vote freely. (Applause) The right to vote freely, the right — the right to vote fairly, the right to have your vote counted. The democratic threshold is liberty. With it, anything is possible. Without it, nothing — nothing.
And for our democracy and the work — and to deliver our work and [for] our people, it’s up to all of us to protect that right. This is a test of our time and what I’m here to talk about today.
Just think about the past election.
A 102-year-old woman in Arkansas who voted for the first time on the very spot she once picked cotton.
A 94-year-old woman in Michigan who voted early and in person in her seventy-se- — 72nd consecutive election. You know what she said? She said this election was, quote, “the most important vote that we ever had.”
The daughter who voted in the memory of her dad who died of COVID-19 so others wouldn’t have the experience of pain and darkness and loss that she was going through. Patients out there.
And the parents — the parents who voted for school their children will learn in.
Sons and daughters voted for the planet they’re going to live on.
Young people just turning 18 and everyone who, for the first time in their lives, thought they could truly make a difference.
America — America and Americans of every background voted. They voted for good jobs and higher wages. They voted for racial equity and justice. They voted to make healthcare a right, not a privilege.
And the reason that Americans went to vote and the lengths they went to vote — to be able to vote in this past election were absolutely extraordinary. In fact, the fact that so many election officials across the country made it easier and safer for them to be able to vote in the middle of a pandemic was remarkable.
As a result, in 2020, more people voted in America than ever — ever in the history of America, in the middle of a once-in-a-century pandemic. (Applause.)
All told, more than 150 [million] Americans of every age, of every race, of every background exercised their right to vote.
They voted early. They voted absentee. They voted in person. They voted by mail. They voted by drop box. And then they got their families and friends to go out and vote.
Election officials, the entire electoral system, withstood unrelenting political attacks, physical threats, intimidation, and pressure. They did so with unyielding courage andfaith in our democracy.
With recount after recount after recount, court case after court case, the 2020 election was the most scrutinized election ever in American history. Challenge after challenge brought to local, state, and election officials; state legislatures; state and federal courts — even to the United States Supreme Court not once, but twice.
More than 80 judges, including those appointed by my predecessor, heard the arguments. In every case, neither cause nor evidence was found to undermine the national achievement of administering this historic election in the face of such extraordinary challenges.
Audits, recounts were conducted in Arizona, in Wisconsin. In Georgia, it was recounted three times.
It’s clear. For those who challenge the results and question the integrity of the election: No other election has ever been held under such scrutiny and such high standards.
The Big Lie is just that: a big lie. (Applause.)
The 2020 election — it’s not hyperbole to suggest — the most examined and the fullest expression of the will of the people in the history of this nation. This should be celebrated — the example of America at its best. But instead, we continue to see an example of human nature at its worst — something darker and more sinister.
In America, if you lose, you accept the results. You follow the Constitution. You try again. You don’t call facts “fake” and then try to bring down the American experiment just because you’re unhappy. That’s not statesmanship. (Applause.)
That’s not statesmanship; that’s selfishness. That’s not democracy; it’s the denial of the right to vote. It suppresses. It subjugates.
The denial of full and free and fair elections is the most un-American thing that any of us can imagine, the most undemocratic, the most unpatriotic, and yet, sadly, not unprecedented.
From denying enslaved people fu- — full citizenship until the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments after the Civil War; to denying women the right to vote until the 19th Amendment 100 years ago; to poll taxes and literacy tests, and the Ku Klux Klan campaigns of violence and terror that lasted into the ’50s and ’60s; to the Supreme Court decision in 2013 and then again just two weeks ago –- a decision that weakened the landmark Voting Rights Act; to the willful attacks — election attacks in 2020; and then to a whole other level of threat — the violence and the deadly insurrection on the Capitol on January 6th.
I just got back from Europe, speaking to the G7 and to NATO. They wonder — not a joke — they wonder, Gov — they ask me, “Is it going to be okay?” The citadel of democracy in the world, “Is it o- — going to be okay?”
Time and again, we’ve weathered threats to the right to vote in free and fair elections. And each time, we found a way to overcome. And that’s what we must do today.
Vice President Harris and I have spent our careers doing this work. And I’ve asked her to lead, to bring people together to protect the right to vote and our democracy. And it starts with continuing the fight to pass H.R.1, the For the People Act. (Applause.)
That bill — that bill would help end voter suppression in the states, get dark money out of politics, give voice to the people at the grassroots level, create a fairer district maps, and end partisan political gerrymandering.
Last month, Republicans opposed even debating, even considering For the People Act. Senate Democrats stood united to protect our democracy and the sanctity of the vote. We must pass the For the People Act. It’s a national imperative.
We must also fight for the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act to restore and expand — (applause) — to restore and expand voting protections and prevent voter suppression. All the congresswomen and men here — there’s a bunch of you — you knew John, many of you.
Just weeks ago, the Supreme Court yet again weakened the Voting Rights Act and upheld what Justice Kagan called, quote, “a significant race-based disparity in voting opportunities.”
The Court’s decision, as harmful as is, does not limit the — Congress’ ability to repair the damage done. That’s the important point. It puts the burden back on Congress to restore the Voting Rights Act to its intended strength.
As soon as Congress passes the For the People Act and the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act, I will sign it and let the whole world see it. (Applause.) That will be an important moment.
And the world is wondering — the world is wondering — and Dwight knows what I’m talking about, for real. You know, the world is wondering, “What is America going to do?”
But we also have to clear-eyed about the obstruction we face. Legislation is one tool, but not the only tool. And it’s not the only measure of our obligation to defend democracy today.
For example, Attorney General Merrick Garland announced that the United States Department of Justice is going to be using its authorities to challenge the onslaught of state laws undermining voting rights in old and new ways. (Applause.)
The focus — the focus will be on dismantling racially discriminatory laws, like the recent challenge to Georgia’s vicious anti-voting law.
The Department of Justice will do so with a voting rights division that — at my request — is doubling its size in enforcement staff. (Applause)
Civil rights groups — civil rights groups and other organizations have announced their plans to stay vigilant and challenge these odious laws in the courts.
In Texas, for example, Republican-led state legislature wants to allow partisan poll watchers to intimidate voters and imperil impartial poll workers. They want voters to dive [drive] farther and be able to be in a position where they wonder who’s watching them and intimidating them; to wait longer to vote. To drive a hell of lot lo- — excuse me — a long way — (laughter) — to get to vote. They want to make it so hard and inconvenient that they hope people don’t vote at all. That’s what this is about.
This year alone, 17 states have enacted — not just proposed, but enacted — 28 new laws to make it harder for Americans to vote, not to mention — and catch this — nearly 400 additional bills Republican members of the state legislatures are trying to pass.
The 21st century Jim Crow assault is real. It’s unrelenting, and we’re going to challenge it vigorously.
While — (applause) — while this broad assault against voting rights is not unprecedented, it’s taking on a new and, literally, pernicious forms.
It’s no longer just about who gets to vote or making it easier for eligible voters to vote. It’s about who gets to count the vote — who gets to count whether or not your vote counted at all. It’s about moving from independent election administrators who work for the people to polarized state legislatures and partisan actors who work for political parties.
To me, this is simple: This is election subversion. It’s the most dangerous threat to voting and the integrity of free and fair elections in our history. Never before have they decided who gets to count — count — what votes count.
Some — some legi- — state legislatures want to make it harder for you to vote. And if you vote, they want to be able to tell you your vote doesn’t count for any reason they make up.
They want the ability to reject the final count and ignore the will of the people if their preferred candidate loses.
And they’re trying — not only targeting people of color, they’re targeting voters of all races and backgrounds. It’s with a simple target: who did not vote for them. That’s the target.
It’s unconscionable. I mean, really, I — it’s hard to — it’s hard to declare just how critical this is. It’s simply unconscionable.
We’ve got to shore up our election system and address the threats of election subversion, not just from abroad — which I spent time with Putin talking about — but from home. From home.
We must ask those who represent us at the federal, state, and local levels: Will you deny the will of the people? Will you ignore their voices?
We have to ask: Are you on the side of truth or lies; fact or fiction; justice or injustice; democracy or autocracy? That’s what it’s coming down to.
Which brings me to perhaps the most important thing we have to do: We have to for- — forge a coalition of Americans of every background and political party — the advocates, the students, the faith leaders, the labor leaders, the business executives — and raise the urgency of this moment.
Because as much as people know they’re screwing around with the election process, I don’t think that most people think this is about who gets to count what vote counts — literally, not figuratively. You vote for certain electors to vote for somebody for President. State legislator comes along — under their proposal — and they say, “No, we don’t like those electors. We’re going to appoint other electors who are going to vote for the other guy or other woman.”
Because here’s the deal: In 2020, democracy was put to a test — first by the pandemic; then by a desperate attempt to deny the reality and the results of the election; and then by a violent and deadly insurrection on the Capitol, the citadel of our democracy.
I’ve been around a long time in public life. I thought I’ve seen it all or most of it all. But I never thought I’d see that, for real.
And in spite of what you see on television — and you saw it — you have senators saying it was just a day at the Capitol, just people visiting the Capitol.
Folks — but we met the test. Because of the extraordinary courage of election officials — many of them Republicans; our court system; and those brave Capitol police officers — because of them, democracy held.
Look how close it came. I mean, for real, how close it came. We’re going to face another test in 2022: a new wave of unprecedented voter suppression, and raw and sustained election subversion. We have to prepare now.
As I’ve said time and again: No matter what, you can never stop the American people from voting. They will decide, and the power must always be with the people.
That’s why, just like we did in 2020, we have to prepare for 2022. We’ll engage in an all-out effort to educate voters about the changing laws, register them to vote, and then get the vote out.
We’ll encourage people to run for office themselves at every level.
We will be asking my Republican friends — in Congress, in states, in cities, in counties — to stand up, for God’s sake, and help prevent this concerted effort to undermine our elections and the sacred right to vote. (Applause.) Have you no shame? (Applause.)
Whether it’s stopping foreign interference in our elections or the spread of disinformation from within, we have to work together.
Vice President Harris and I will be making it clear that there’s real peril in making raw power, rather than the idea of liberty, the centerpiece of the common life.
The Founders understood this. The women of Seneca Falls understood this. The brave, heroic foot soldiers of the Civil Rights Movement understood this. So must we.
This isn’t about Democrats and Republicans; it’s literally about who we are as Americans. It’s that basic. It’s about the kind of country we want today, the kind of country we want for our children and grandchildren tomorrow. And quite frankly, the whole world is watching. Folks — (applause).
I’m not being sentimental. I’m not preaching to you. I’m just giving it to you straight, as I promised I would always do — lay things out on the line and honor your trust with trust [truth].
So hear me clearly: There is an unfolding assault taking place in America today — an attempt to suppress and subvert the right to vote in fair and free elections, an assault on democracy, an assault on liberty, an assault on who we are — who we are as Americans.
For, make no mistake, bullies and merchants of fear and peddlers of lies are threatening the very foundation of our country.
It gives me no pleasure to say this. I never thought in my entire career I’d ever have to say it. But I swore an oath to you, to God — to preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution. And that’s an oath that forms a sacred trust to defend America against all threats both foreign and domestic. (Applause.)
The assault on free and fair elections is just such a threat, literally. I’ve said it before: We’re are facing the most significant test of our democracy since the Civil War. That’s not hyperbole. Since the Civil War. The Confederates back then never breached the Capitol as insurrectionists did on January the 6th.
I’m not saying this to alarm you; I’m saying this because you should be alarmed.
I’m also saying this: There’s good news. It doesn’t have to be this way. It doesn’t have to be, for real. We have the means. We just need to show the will — the will to save and strengthen our democracy.
We did it in 20- — we did it in the 2020. The battle for the soul of America — in that battle, the people voted. Democracy prevailed. Our Constitution held. We have to do it again.
My fellow Americans, it requires fair-mindedness; devotion to justice; corny as it sounds, a love of country. It requires us to unite in common purpose, to declare here and now: We, the people, will never give up. (Applause.) We will not give in. We will overcome. We will do it together. And guaranteeing the right to vote, ensuring every vote is counted has always been the most patriotic thing we can do. (Applause.)
Just remember, our late friend John Lewis said, “Freedom is not a state; it is an act.” “Freedom is not a state; it is an act.” And we must act, and we will act. For our cause is just, our vision is clear, and our hearts are full. (Applause.)
For “We the People,” for our democracy, for America itself, we must act. (Applause.)
God bless you all. And may God protect our troops and all those stand watch over our democracy. (Applause.) But act. We’ve got to act. Thank you. (Applause.)
(NEW YORK) — Michael Collins, the former chief of staff to the late-Rep. John Lewis, joined ABC’s “Good Morning America” co-anchor Robin Roberts to reflect on the life and legacy of the civil rights icon, chronicled in his new book “Carry On.”
Collins, who worked with Lewis for 21 years, said the inspiration for the book came in the final months of Lewis’ life.
“It was the last months of his life, and we had an opportunity to really think about his legacy, and what he was going to leave. And this was one of the opportunities he wanted to take, and this was to tell a story of just who he was, the simpleness of the man,” Collins said.
“It was difficult because it was during the time that he was sick and he didn’t have a lot of energy. But he made effort to really tell the story. And that’s what’s important. He wanted to always tell the story,” he added.
Collins said “Carry On” will give readers an opportunity to learn more about Lewis’ optimistic spirit.
“He woke up as if it was a brand new day, literally, and he welcomed everybody, he welcomed his thoughts for the day. And he would say, ‘Let’s get ready. Got a new day. Let’s go.’ And it was just an experience that you never forget. And for him, it just allowed him to just keep going on with optimism and fire every day,” Collins said.
Pointing to Lewis’ legacy of advocating for equal rights, Roberts asked Collins how he believed Lewis would respond to the country’s current racial climate.
“He would be disappointed in a lot of ways. The hatred, the racism — it would be very difficult, it will be difficult for him, but he would be optimistic. He would face it head on and he would look at it as it is, but he would be optimistic that there would be a better day,” Collins replied.
He added that, though Lewis was dismayed by the tense racial climate, he found inspiration through the young people at the forefront of the protests.
“He was very sad, but he was inspired by all the young people, all the young people across the country. He didn’t condone the violence, but he’d love to watch the people protest, peacefully, non-violently, because again it reminded him of a time not so long ago when he was young,” Collins explained.
Shifting to the current debate over voting rights, Roberts asked how Lewis would react to the recent DOJ lawsuit brought against Georgia — Lewis’ home state — due to the state legislature’s passing of restrictive voting laws.
“He would champion it. Most definitely. You know, the vote was precious, sacred. And that’s what he would always talk about, and he felt like everybody should have the right to vote. And that was what he fought for his entire life,” Collins said.
Roberts concluded the interview by asking Collins how he was carrying out his own legacy.
“I’m trying to live out his legacy. It’s been a journey, it’s been a journey,” he said. “I’m fortunate enough to now be working for the vice president of the United States. Her leadership is something that I’m looking forward to just embarking on in the world. And this is an extension of the work that I did with him, and I look forward to that tremendously.”
(LOS ANGELES) — Health officials in Los Angeles County are warning that the delta variant’s spread among unvaccinated people is driving a spike in new COVID-19 infections in the county.
On Monday, the health department reported 1,059 new COVID-19 cases, a significant increase since June, when the department was consistently reporting a few hundred new infections each day. Officials are currently investigating 55 ongoing outbreaks, up 25% from the 44 outbreaks they were investigating last month.
Nearly all new cases are among people who haven’t gotten a COVID-19 vaccine, according to officials.
“Over 99% of the COVID-19 cases, hospitalizations and deaths we are seeing are among unvaccinated individuals,” Barbara Ferrer, Los Angeles County’s director of public health, said in a statement Monday.
Young people are also contributing to the infection spike, according to Ferrer. “Of the cases reported today, nearly 87% were under 50 years old,” she said.
“The COVID-19 vaccines are the most effective and important tool to reduce COVID-19 transmission and the spread of variants like the highly transmissible delta variant,” she said. “Getting fully vaccinated is the way we protect you, your family and our community from COVID-19 and the delta variant.”
As a state, California’s vaccination rate is better than the national average. As of Monday, 63% of residents had received at least one dose, and 51% were fully vaccinated, compared with 56% of all Americans who’ve gotten at least one shot and 48% who are fully vaccinated, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In Los Angeles County, 70% of residents 16 and older have gotten at least one dose of the vaccine, according to the health department. Nationally, 68% of Americans 18 and older have gotten at least one dose.
The delta variant, which was first detected in India and now has made up 51.7% of infections in the United States for the two weeks ending July 3, according to the CDC, is more transmissible than the original version of the virus and is especially dangerous for people who are unvaccinated or partially vaccinated, experts say.
In part because of fears over the variant, Los Angeles officials made waves when they reversed their guidance on masks less than a month after Gov. Gavin Newsom lifted COVID-19 restrictions in the state.
According to a statement issued by the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health on June 28, the department “strongly recommends everyone, regardless of vaccination status, wear masks indoors in public places as a precautionary measure.” The department acknowledged that “fully vaccinated people appear to be well protected from infections with delta variants.”
(NEW YORK) — With his sentencing hearing just days away, the man convicted of murdering Mollie Tibbetts is asking for a new trial, claiming he was unwittingly framed by the real killer who he claims confessed to the crime.
Attorneys for Cristhian Bahena Rivera, a Mexican national, filed a motion asking that the jury verdict in the case be set aside based on the new evidence they received from prosecutors following the trial.
The 26-year-old Bahena Rivera is scheduled to be sentenced on Thursday and is expected to receive a mandatory life sentence without the possibility of parole.
But he claims the real killer confessed to at least two people that he and a sex trafficker fatally stabbed the 20-year-old University of Iowa student.
Bahena Rivera’s attorneys, husband-and-wife team Chad and Jennifer Frese, wrote in a motion filed on Friday that two people, unbeknownst to each other, came forward on May 26 — the day Bahena Rivera testified in his own defense — and identified by name a man they claim confessed to them on separate occasions that he participated in Tibbetts’ 2018 slaying.
“That Mexican shouldn’t be in jail for killing Mollie Tibbett, because I raped her and killed her,” the man, whose name has not been released, allegedly told one of the two witnesses, according to documents filed in the Poweshiek County, Iowa, district court.
Prosecutors from the Iowa Attorney General’s Office, according to the defense motion, informed Bahena Rivera’s attorneys about the alleged confessions after prosecturors received word from the Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation that an inmate had come to a chaplain and later an assistant warden claiming that another inmate, whose name has not been released, told him he and a 50-year-old sex trafficker killed Tibbetts after her disappearance garnered national attention.
The inmate purportedly claimed he first saw Tibbetts bound and gagged at a sex-trafficking “trap house” owned by his alleged accomplice. He claimed, according to the defense motion, his alleged accomplice grew worried after federal authorities searching for Tibbetts showed up at a house next door to his.
The inmate allegedly claimed his accomplice devised a plan for them to stab Tibbetts and “dump her body near a Hispanic male in order to make it appear that the Hispanic male committed the crime.”
“It was reported that this Department of Corrections inmate was coming forward at this time because he had heard the testimony of Cristhian Bahena Rivera on television, and it was at that point, he realized that the information given him by this other individual was likely true,” the defense’s motion for a new trial reads.
A second individual contacted the Mahaska County, Iowa, Sheriff’s Office with a similar story involving the same inmate who reportedly confessed, but deputies said the witness appeared to be under the influence and dismissed the story as not being credible.
In his testimony during the trial, Bahena Rivera claimed he was kidnapped at his home near Brooklyn, Iowa, by two armed masked men, who ordered him to drive to where Tibbetts was expected to be jogging. He claimed that when they found Tibbetts, one of the men stabbed her to death, put her body in the trunk of Bahena Rivera’s car and made him drive to a cornfield, where the young woman’s badly decomposed remains were discovered a month after she went missing.
Bahena Rivera said that while he placed Tibbetts’ body in the cornfield, he did not kill her.
His stint on the witness stand came after homicide investigators testified that Bahena Rivera confessed to killing Tibbetts after he spotted her jogging and she rebuffed his advances. Prosecutors also presented surveillance video evidence showing Bahena Rivera’s black Chevrolet Malibu circling the area Tibbetts was jogging in around the time she went missing on July 18, 2018.
In his closing argument, prosecutor Scott Brown dismissed Bahena Rivera’s testimony as a “figment of his imagination.”
Bahena Rivera claimed during his testimony that he didn’t tell investigators about the masked men because they threatened to harm his former girlfriend, the mother of his daughter, if he did
The jury in the case deliberated for seven hours over two days before unanimously finding Bahena Rivera guilty of first-degree murder.
A spokesperson for the Iowa Attorney General’s Office declined to comment Tuesday but told ABC News that prosecutors plan to file a response to the defense’s motion for a new trial either Tuesday afternoon or Wednesday.
Bahena Rivera’s defense attorneys also filed court papers asking that an inmate at Iowa’s Mount Pleasant Correctional Facility be brought to the Poweshiek County courthouse on the day of Bahena Rivera’s sentencing hearing. The document does not say if the inmate is one of the people who came forward with the new claims.
(WASHINGTON) — Five members of the same Texas family were arrested Tuesday and charged for their alleged participation in the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol, according to newly-unsealed charging documents.
Kristi Munn, Tom Munn, Dawn Munn, Josh Munn and Kayli Munn — described by prosecutors as a nuclear family from Borger, Texas — are now each facing four federal charges over their alleged illegal entry and alleged disorderly conduct in the Capitol, according to a criminal complaint filed Tuesday afternoon.
A 34-page affidavit for their arrest details their movements while inside the Capitol on Jan. 6, based on surveillance and social media posts.
The affidavit also indicates that the family brought an unidentified minor child into the building with them, who is not being charged.
While there have previously been arrests of family members including fathers and sons, mothers and sons, and husbands and wives, the Munn family is thus far the largest single family unit out of the more than 530 arrests made so far from the Justice Department’s investigation of the Capitol riot.
FBI officials say they first received a tip that Kristi Munn participated in the Capitol riot just three days after the insurrection, from a tipster who captured screenshots of Munn’s Facebook and Snapchat accounts. Investigators then combed through public Facebook posts from Munn’s family members to track their journey from Texas to D.C. as they amplified calls for a march on Congress on Jan. 6.
“We made it to our hotel just outside D.C.,” Tom Munn allegedly wrote in one post on Jan. 5. “1,600 miles in 24 hrs!”
After the riot, investigators found posts from the family where they discussed joining in the insurrection.
“The only damage to the capital building was several windows and sets of doors,” Tom Munn wrote on Facebook. “Nothing inside the capital was damaged. I can tell you, patriots NEVER made it to the chamber. There was no violence in the capital building, the crowd was NOT out of control … they were ANGRY!!!”
Prosecutors have said in recent court filings that the riot caused at least $1.5 million in damage to the U.S. Capitol, including damage from those who made it into the Senate chamber. At least 140 law enforcement officers suffered injuries from the riot and more than 100 people have been charged so far with direct assaults on police, according to the DOJ.
After gathering screenshots showing the five members of the Munn family inside the Capitol, investigators say they further confirmed the family members’ identities through interviews with three people familiar with the family in Texas — including two employees at a local Borger high school “who had taught multiple Munn children,” and an employee at a college who taught two of the Munn children.
None of the members of the family have entered pleas in their case, and attorney information was not immediately available for them as of Tuesday afternoon.
(NEW YORK) — An alleged sexual assault victim who says she was held against her will for months was rescued after she left notes in public restrooms pleading for help, according to authorities.
In one note she wrote, “If I don’t make it tell my family I love them,” according to a criminal complaint.
Police say the first cry for help was found Thursday, stuck to a mirror in the women’s bathroom of a Walmart in Carnegie, Pennsylvania, outside Pittsburgh.
The note was from a woman who said she had been sexually and physically assaulted, and was being held against her will, by 38-year-old Corey Brewer, who was armed with a knife, according to the complaint. The note also gave an address where she was being held and a description of a car, and begged the reader to call 911.
The alleged victim’s ex told police she and Brewer were in a relationship and that she filed a protection from abuse order against Brewer in August 2020, they said. The order expired one month later.
Police went to the address written on the note. Though no one answered the door, according to the complaint, officers said they could hear furniture being moved around inside.
Officers called Brewer’s number and asked to speak to the victim privately, but Brewer allegedly told the officers he wouldn’t take her off speaker phone, the complaint said. In the speaker phone conversation, Brewer told the officers the two were on vacation in New York, and the victim told police she was with her boyfriend.
Two days later, on Saturday, a second note signed by the same victim was found stuck to a mirror in a women’s restroom at the Fallingwater museum and landmark in western Pennsylvania, the complaint said. Police say video surveillance from Fallingwater showed Brewer and the alleged victim there.
The note said she’d been held since May 1 and was not on vacation, and again pleaded with the reader to call 911, the complaint said. The note said “she heard the police knocking at the residence, that the abuse hasn’t stopped, and please don’t give up.”
Police executed a search warrant early Sunday, rescuing the alleged victim and taking Brewer into custody, the complaint said. The woman told police Brewer confiscated her phone and she wasn’t able to escape.
She said Brewer sexually assaulted her, and that he also punched and strangled her numerous times, the complaint said. She claimed Brewer also threatened to kill her and her children if she tried to leave.
The woman also alleged Brewer took nude photos of her against her will and used a knife to cut her foot, according to the complaint.
Brewer was charged with sexual assault, strangulation and unlawful restraint. He did not have an attorney as of Tuesday afternoon and is due in court for a preliminary hearing on July 22.
(WASHINGTON) — Texas Democrats spent Tuesday in Washington pressuring Congress to pass federal voting rights legislation and calling for an exception to the Senate’s filibuster rule blocking Democrats from moving forward with a measure they say would stop GOP-led efforts to restrict voting in Texas and nationwide.
The state lawmakers were expected to meet with a key Democrat who has resisted changing the filibuster rule requiring 60 votes to advance legislation — West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin. He and Arizona Democrat Sen. Kyrsten Sinema are playing a pivotal role in the ongoing congressional negotiations over a national voting rights bill.
It is unclear if the Texas Democrats will hold meetings with Sinema. If both she and Manchin were to agree to an exception to the rule — Senate Democrats with their 50 votes, along with Vice President Kamala Harris — could pass the bill congressional Democrats and President Joe Biden have made a top priority.
Biden was making his case in a high-profile speech in Philadelphia Tuesday afternoon.
“If you can have a carve-out for a right-wing Supreme Court justice, why can’t you have a carve-out to protect the very fundamentals of our democracy?” State Rep. Chris Turner said at a Capitol Hill news conference, referring to making an exception to the filibuster for voting rights.
“If Mitch McConnell did a carve-out for Amy Coney Barrett, then we ought to do a carve-out for the black and brown people that live in Texas, Georgia, Florida, that live in all these states trying to make it harder for our constituents to exercise their right to vote,” State Rep. Marc Veasey added. “Time is of the essence. We cannot wait. States are going to start to ramp up these efforts.”
More than 50 Texas House Democrats fled the state Monday evening, depriving the state legislature of a quorum, and must now remain out of Texas for the duration of the ongoing special legislative session, which ends on August 6.
In their absence from the Austin state capitol on Tuesday, a majority of Republican House lawmakers passed a procedural measure that allows authorities to go out and find the absent Democrat House members.
Texas law authorities may even utilize arrest warrants in their efforts to compel the lawmakers back, if such action is deemed necessary. However, it remains unclear whether this order can affect the Democrats while they are out of state and outside of the jurisdiction of Texas law enforcement.
The state legislators pointed to the spread of what they called former President Donald Trump’s ‘big lie’ that falsely asserts his claim of winning the 2020 election as a partial catalyst for their decision to leave their home state.
“We are not going to buckle to the ‘big lie’ in the state of Texas — the ‘big lie’ that has resulted in anti-democratic legislation throughout the United States,” Mexican American Legislative Caucus Chair Rafael Anchía said.
Texas House Dean Senfronia Thompson further echoed Anchia’s comments and put a spotlight on the impact revisions to voting access in her state would have on people of color.
“I’m not here to take a vacation in Washington, D.C. When I looked at the African American Museum, I thought about the struggle my people fought in this country to get the right to vote. And that right is sacred to my constituents that I represent in Houston, Texas, and I’m up here because I don’t plan to be a sitting person in that legislature,” Thompson said.
Seventeen states had enacted 28 new laws that restrict access to the vote, as of June 21, according to the Brennan Center for Justice. The latest versions of Republican-backed legislation aimed at revising Texas voting and election laws included several provisions that voting rights advocates say would detrimentally affect the abilities of people of color to vote.
Among them are provisions that appear to be aimed at practices utilized by Democrat-leaning Harris County during the 2020 election. Both bills ban 24-hour voting availability, which offered greater ballot access to Houston-area shift workers when implemented in the fall. Each of the proposals coming from the Republican majorities in the Texas House and Senate also aim to end drive-thru voting, another popular voting method in the diverse county.
Additionally, the dual bills included provisions that granted expanded access to partisan poll watchers, which voting rights advocates decried for potentially opening the door to in-person voter intimidation.
On Monday, Texas Democrats did not indicate specific plans for what they aim to do after the special session ends. They also did not directly offer insight into whether they intend to continue breaking quorum going forward, given that GOP Gov. Abbott has the power to call for as many special legislative sessions as he wants.
“We know that’s exactly what he’s going to do, we went in his eyes wide open,” Texas House Democratic Chair Turner told reporters.
“Our intent is to stay out and kill this bill this session, and use the intervening time — I think 24 or 25 days now — before the other session to implore the folks in this building behind us to pass federal voting rights legislation to protect voters in Texas and across the country,” he added.
Vice President Harris will meet sometime this week with the Texas legislators, according to an official in Harris’ office.
(MOSCOW) — Alena Denisavets said she had been looking for her husband for more than a day when she got a text message from a lawyer who she believed was working for Belarus’ feared security services, still known today as the KGB.
Her husband Youras Ziankovich had vanished while on a trip to Moscow in April. She said she learned from the hotel where he was staying that unknown men had taken him. Now, she was hearing from the place she had never wanted him to be.
“I kind of tried to calm down and to understand what happened; why he’s in Minsk, [Belarus], why this person is contacting me from the KGB; [and] who is this person,” Denisavets told ABC News from Texas last week. “I was shocked, I was shaking, I was crying.”
Belarus’ KGB later announced it had taken Ziankovich. The men who took him filmed the abduction and it was later aired on Belarusian state television. As Ziankovich approached his hotel in Moscow, three men grabbed him and forced him into a van.
Ziankovich is a lawyer with U.S. citizenship and a long-time opponent of Alexander Lukashenko, the authoritarian leader of his native Belarus. For more than a decade, Ziankovich had lived in the United States, where he gained political asylum and then citizenship, and ran a law practice from Texas.
After he was seized in Moscow, he was driven nearly 700 miles across the border to Belarus and placed in a KGB jail in Minsk, according to Belarusian authorities. His wife has not been able to speak with him since, nor have the United States consular staff, despite requests to do so.
Zianokovich was grabbed that day in Moscow along with another Belarusian opponent of Lukashenko, Alexander Feduta, shortly after the two had eaten lunch together. Feduta, who more than a decade ago served as spokesman for Lukashenko, is a literary critic and now a vocal critic of his former boss.
About a week after the men were taken, Lukashenko announced to journalists that Belarusian security forces had thwarted a supposed coup attempt against him and accused Ziankovich and Feduta of planning it.
Belarus’ KGB claimed the two men were part of a U.S.-backed plot to assassinate the Belarusian authoritarian leader and abduct his children.
“We have seized them in Moscow,” Lukashenko told reporters. “They flew from the U.S. His last name is Ziankovich.”
The U.S. State Department responded quickly to Lukashenko’s claim, saying that “any suggestion that the U.S. government was behind or involved in an assassination attempt on Lukashenko is absolutely untrue.”
Denisavets said the coup claims against her husband were ridiculous, invented by the Lukashenko regime to create a justification for repression in the country, where he is currently straining to crush a protest movement that broke out against him last year.
“They need a story, kind of a very loud story,” Denisavets said. “Everyone is a terrorist, a potential terrorist, if he is against the government.”
She accused Belarus and Russia of collaborating to kidnap her husband.
Belarusian state television aired a lengthy report on the supposed coup attempt several days after he was taken. It included hidden camera footage showing Ziankovich and Feduta meeting in a Belarusian-themed restaurant in central Moscow with some unknown men.
The surveillance footage had been released by Russia’s Federal Security Service or FSB, its powerful domestic intelligence agency.
The FSB later said Ziankovich’s seizure had been a joint operation with the KGB. And president Vladimir Putin has since supported Lukashenko’s claim of the coup plot, criticising the West in his annual state of the nation address for not condemning it.
Most outside experts have expressed scepticism about the coup allegations, noting the improbable way in which it was supposedly planned and that those involved have no connections with the military or significant influence.
To back up the claims about the coup, Belarusian state television aired video from a Zoom call, where it alleged Ziankovich and the others were discussing their plans.
But Alexander Perepechko, a political analyst who participated in the Zoom call, said that claim was preposterous and that in reality the call had just been an academic discussion.
“This is the first time in my life that I’ve seen people like us playing quote-un-quote ‘coup d’etat’ using Zoom,” Perepechko, who lives in exile in the U.S., told ABC News. “There was no secrecy, there was no conspiracy. It was an academic conversation.”
Perepechko said the call had been a “war gaming” exercise where the participants had discussed different possibilities for how Belarus’ political crisis might end. Although he and others present were passionate to see the end of Lukashenko’s rule, he said, they had no means or experience for organizing a coup.
“We just became part of a big game,” he said. “And we were just kind of unlucky those people … are in KGB prison in Minsk now because we talked about a sensitive topic.”
Hanna Liubakova, a journalist and Atlantic Council non-resident fellow, said she did not believe the coup allegations were real.
“I don’t really think a coup d’etat might be planned by Zoom,” she said. “I think that’s another kind of fairy tale, another story that the regime tries to show.”
Liubakova said she believed it was possible that Ziankovich and Feduata might have been tricked into going to Moscow on false promises about possible assistance against Lukashenko, but that the idea they might have orchestrated a real coup was not credible.
“It’s all being kind of presented in this way because Lukashenko needs to justify repressions,” she said.
The mass protests that broke out following the contested election in August 2020 came close to toppling Lukashenko at the time. But he has since gradually strangled the protest movement through continuous repression, and in recent months, has gone on the offensive.
This week the regime moved to close down several popular independent media organizations. At the same time, it has aggressively targeted its opponents in exile. In May, Belarus forced down a Ryanair passenger flight with another opposition blogger onboard, Roman Protasevich.
Since then, Protasevich has repeatedly been paraded in front of journalists and publicly recanted his former opposition to Lukashenko under what his family and other opposition figueres say is intense pressure and likely torture.
Ziankovich and Feduata have both been shown appearing to admit guilt in videos aired on state television.
“When you are taken as a prisoner, you say whatever they want you to say to save your life and not to make things worse,” said Perepechko.
The democratic opposition estimates there are at least 500 political prisoners currently in Belarus and thousands have been detained since last August.
It is unclear when Ziankovich might be placed on trial. Aside from the denial of any conspiracy to assassinate the Belarus leader, the U.S. State Department has issued only curt statements on his detention, saying it is aware of it and trying to assist him.
Denisavets says she has written about her husband’s case to President Joe Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris, as well as her local senator and Congressional representatives. But she said that so far she had only received one response from the office of Sen. Ted Cruz.
Denisavets said she had to keep hoping that he would be freed. She believes the current situation in Belarus cannot last.
“I just want to say to him if he sees me, that I love him. … I wait for him here and I will do whatever is possible to release him, to help him,” she said, holding back tears. “It’s an occupation of the country and it will not last such a long time. The regime will not stay on the blood of people. It will end, and very soon.”
