(SAN ANTONIO) — A former San Antonio police officer was charged with two counts of aggravated assault by a public servant on Tuesday in the shooting of a teenager last week, according to the San Antonio Police Department Homicide Unit.
The department fired Officer James Brennand after bodycam footage showed him shooting a teenager who was eating a hamburger in a McDonald’s parking lot in Texas.
Brennand turned himself in, police said during a press conference Tuesday night. There were two charges of aggravated assault because of the two passengers in the car, police said.
The 17-year-old, identified by police as Erik Cantu, was shot multiple times and remains hospitalized. He was in critical condition as of Tuesday night, police said.
The SAPD terminated Brennand last Wednesday over the incident due to his actions, which violated department tactics, training and procedures, according to San Antonio Police Chief William McManus.
According to police, Officer Brennand was responding to a disturbance call on Oct. 2 when he noticed a vehicle he thought had fled from him the night before during an attempted stop.
The footage shows the officer approaching the car and opening the door, when he sees Cantu eating a hamburger alongside a female passenger and orders him out.
Police said the officer reported the car door hit him as the teen started to reverse the car.
Bodycam video shows the officer firing 10 times at the moving vehicle before chasing after it on foot.
Police said that the passenger in the vehicle was not injured during the incident.
In a statement to ABC News on Sunday, Cantu’s family, through his attorney, said the teenager is on life support and fighting to stay alive.
“We thank you for the heartfelt thoughts on the status of Erik’s recovery. We will inform you that he’s still in critical condition and literally fighting for his life every minute of the day as his body has endured a tremendous amount of trauma,” Cantu’s attorney, Brian Powers, said. “He is still on life support. We need all the blessing we can receive at this time. We kindly ask for privacy beyond this update as this is a delicate moment in our lives and we are focusing on one thing and that’s getting him home.”
The San Antonio Police Officer’s Association had no comment immediately following Brennand’s dismissal from the force, but in a new statement to ABC News, the president of the union, Danny Diaz, said that the organization will not represent Brennand because he had not completed his 1-year probationary period for new officers at the time of the shooting.
“New police recruits must complete a 1-year probationary period before becoming eligible for benefits provided by the union,” Diaz said. “We understand the San Antonio Police Department’s decision to terminate Officer James Brennand but will refrain from further comment until a full investigation is completed.”
(MENLO PARK, Calif.) — A tree trimmer has died after falling into a wood chipper while he was working, police say.
The incident occurred at approximately 12:53 p.m. on Tuesday in Menlo Park, California, approximately 30 miles south of San Francisco, when the Menlo Park Police Department responded to a report of an incident involving a tree trimmer who had managed to accidentally fall into a wood chipper on the 900 block of Peggy Lane while he was working, police say.
“When police units arrived on scene, a male subject was found deceased from injuries sustained in the incident,” the Menlo Park Police Department said in a statement confirming the fatality.
Authorities from the Menlo Park Fire Protection District and the San Mateo County Coroner’s Office also responded to the tragic accident. The street was shut down while authorities conducted their investigation but all other roads in the area were open to traffic during this period.
The worker’s identity has not yet been released and is currently under the jurisdiction of the coroner’s office while they notify the male victim’s next of kin, authorities said. It is unclear when they will be making a further statement on the identity of the victim and the coroner’s office did not release any further details on the incident.
The Menlo Park Police Department confirmed that his death will be investigated by the Cal/OSHA Division of Occupational Safety and Health.
(NEW YORK) — Russia’s missile strikes across Ukraine on Monday were a direct retaliation for the attack damaging the key bridge connecting Crimea with Russia, Russian President Vladimir Putin said this week.
The bombardment was the largest against Ukrainian cities in months and focused heavily on civilian targets, killing at least 19 and injuring dozens more, Ukrainian officials said. It was also the first time the very center of Kyiv had been directly hit.
But while the barrage was intended to terrorize, independent analysts said it underlined not Russia’s strength but growing weakness, illustrating its inability to shift the military situation in its favor. They called it a desperate attempt by Putin to respond to critics at home but said the strikes would have no effect in reversing Russia’s battlefield defeats.
“This is not, therefore, a new war-winning strategy but a … tantrum,” Lawrence Freedman, a professor of War Studies at Kings College London, wrote in a post his Substack blog of Monday’s strikes.
The Crimean bridge that was partially collapsed by a blast over the weekend was a target with major symbolic and military significance for Russia. The bridge was an expensive physical symbol of Putin’s annexation of Crimea and a key supply line for Russian forces already under intense pressure in southern Ukraine.
The attack on the bridge was a personal humiliation for Putin that underscored how badly the war is going for Russia. Russian nationalists were demanding a commensurate response, experts said.
Russia’s strikes on Monday were unable to hit anything comparable, instead resorting to bombing civilian targets without any military significance, including a university and a children’s playground in Kyiv, local officials said.
“The occupiers are not capable of opposing us on the battlefield already, that is why they resort to this terror,” Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in a social media post on Monday.
In the capital, for example, a Russian missile targeted a pedestrian bridge that crosses through a park and that’s only used for sightseeing. The missile missed the bridge, leaving it intact, but it did hit the surrounding park. It’s unclear if that strike resulted in any injuries.
Russia also targeted several power stations around the country that Ukrainian and Western officials have said are part of a strategy of destroying heating infrastructure as winter approaches.
The strikes are designed to spread fear, but will have no impact on Ukraine’s ability to keep advancing in the northeast and south where Russia is on the defensive, several military analysts said. Russia is also running out of the long-range missiles it used in Monday’s strike, meaning it will be unable to maintain such intensity even short-term, analysts said.
Pavel Luzhin, a military expert and political scientist, told the Russian independent news site The Insider that after Monday’s strikes, Russia already had insufficient advanced missiles to repeat such a large-scale attack.
“The 83 missiles that Russia used today, it had been hoarding for several months,” Luzhin, who writes for Riddle Russia, told The Insider.
Russia produces no more than 200 advanced cruise missiles a year, he said, and upping production or buying them from other countries was impossible.
Luzhin said Russia still had larger quantities of older, less advanced missiles and now Iranian drones, but these were not enough to have a significant military impact.
“Enough for terror, but not for anything more,” he said.
White House spokesman John Kirby said in an interview on ABC News’ Good Morning America on Tuesday that Russia’s bombing campaign across Ukraine didn’t appear to be enough to turn the military tide in Russia’s favor.
“It doesn’t appear like they’re going to do that,” Kirby said. “I mean, we don’t know what the next steps here are for Mr. Putin. But you can see just from the–just from the reaction of the Ukrainian people over the course of the weekend, they’re not backing down. They’re not slowing down. They’re gonna continue to conduct their counteroffensives. They are still active on the battlefield.”
Greg Yudin, a professor of political philosophy at the Moscow School of Social and Economic Sciences, told ABC News the Russian hardliners were “the target audience” for Monday’s strikes.
He said Putin was now fully aligned with the hardliners and that he would escalate further despite his military’s growing weakness.
“He doesn’t care about reality. He will push until the end. He will escalate further and further, hoping that perhaps the final escalation will make the opponent surrender,” Yudin said.
He said, in Putin’s view, the real opponent he must force to surrender was the West.
“The hardliners have been demanding attacks on Ukrainian infrastructure for some time and they now have got what they wanted. But they will inevitably be disappointed with the results. The electricity will be turned back on, the rubble cleared, and Ukraine’s armies will continue to press forward,” Freedman wrote in a post on his Substack.
Russia has been bombing Ukrainian infrastructure since the start of the war, hitting Ukrainian cities most days, but the number of its strikes has fallen dramatically since the summer, which is a sign it has to ration its limited missile stockpile, most military experts say.
Short on missiles and pushed back from Ukrainian cities, Russia is often turning to anti-aircraft and anti-ship missiles to strike ground targets in order to preserve its more valuable cruise missiles, experts said. Ukraine is also increasingly effective at shooting down Russian missiles.
One of Britain’s top spy chiefs on Tuesday also said Russia was increasingly short on ammunition and supplies of all types.
“We know — and Russian commanders on the ground know — that their supplies and munitions are running out,” Sir Jeremy Fleming, the head of Britain’s GCHQ intelligence will say in a speech he is expected to give Tuesday, the BBC and other media outlets reported. “Russia’s forces are exhausted. The use of prisoners to reinforce, and now the mobilization of tens of thousands of inexperienced conscripts, speaks of a desperate situation.”
As Ukraine has routed Russian forces in parts of the country in recent weeks, hardline nationalists in Russia have been calling for Putin to adopt a total war approach that would destroy civilian infrastructure and flatten Ukrainian cities. On Monday some of those critics hailed the strikes.
“We must hope that this is not a one-time act of revenge but a new system of waging war,” Alexander Kots, a prominent military reporter for the pro-Kremlin Komsomolskaya Pravda newspaper, wrote on the social media platform Telegram. “Across the entire Ukrainian government. Until they lose the ability to function.”
The Kremlin last week appointed a new overall commander for its Ukrainian operations, Gen. Sergey Surovikin, known for leading a brutal indiscriminate bombing campaign in Syria. Monday’s strikes may suggest the Kremlin may be shifting to a similar strategy of intensifying attacks on civilians in the hope of counterbalancing its military’s failures while also placating its most aggressive supporters, experts said.
In a short speech on Monday, Putin said the strikes were in response to the Crimean bridge explosion and warned Ukraine more would come if it repeated similar attacks.
“No one should have any doubts about that,” Putin said.
But Ukrainian officials said the threats would not intimidate them, noting Russia has barraged the country since February and instead calling for western countries to provide more air defenses.
Kyiv has pleaded for such defenses for months, and Zelenskyy did so again Tuesday at the G7 meeting.
“I thank you for all the help already provided. It is big, it is significant,” Zelenskyy said Tuesday. “But the Russian leader, who is now in the final stage of his reign, still has room for further escalation. This possibility of his is a threat to all of us.”
Zelenskyy told the G7 that air defense systems are critical for peace to be achieved in his country.
“We have a formula for peace. And now, reacting to Russian terror, sham referenda and the attempt to annex our territory, we can apply the peace formula so that the terrorist state stands no chance,” he said.
“The first point is defense support. Air shield for Ukraine. This is part of the security guarantees that are an element of our peace formula,” Zelenskyy said Tuesday. “When Ukraine receives a sufficient number of modern and effective air defense systems, the key element of Russian terror – missile strikes – will cease to work.”
In a phone call on Monday with Zelenskyy, President Joe Biden pledged to continue support, including “advanced air defense systems.”
The United States announced in July it would provide two NASAMS surface-to-air defense systems, although they have not yet arrived.
Kirby wouldn’t provide any more details on what more, in terms of air defense systems, the U.S. may provide Ukraine.
“Clearly, air defense is a need, and we’re going to work with them on that going forward,” he told GMA on Tuesday, adding: “Clearly, after this weekend, air defense capabilities continue to be a significant need for Ukraine.”
(NEW YORK) — NASA successfully disrupted the orbit of an asteroid in a mission last month that tested a strategy to defend against a potential asteroid headed toward Earth, the agency said on Tuesday.
“This is a watershed moment for planetary defense and a watershed moment for humanity,” NASA Administrator Bill Nelson said on Tuesday.
The Double Asteroid Redirection Test spacecraft, or DART, collided with an asteroid on Sept. 26 after traveling roughly 7 million miles to reach its point of impact.
On the receiving end of that collision was Dimorphos, a small asteroid that is the moon of a bigger space rock, Didymos.
NASA confirmed that the collision changed the trajectory of Dimorphos by comparing the length of its orbit before and after impact, Nelson said.
Before impact, it took Dimorphos 11 hours and 55 minutes to complete its orbit around Didymos. After impact, the orbit took 32 fewer minutes, Nelson said.
“It was expected to be huge success if it only slowed by 10 minutes,” Nelson said. “It was a bull’s eye.”
At the moment of impact, the refrigerator-sized DART spacecraft was traveling at 13,000 mph, Nelson said.
Asteroid Dimorphos, which NASA said is the size of a football stadium, does not pose a threat to the planet, in this case. But the mission aimed to test technologies that could prevent a potentially catastrophic asteroid impact.
Dimorphos, which means “having two forms” in Greek, spans 525 feet or 160 meters in diameter.
The results from the mission show that this technique could be used to deflect a future asteroid headed toward Earth, Nelson said.
“All of us have a responsibility to protect our home planet,” Nelson said. “After all, it’s the only one we have.”
“This mission shows that NASA is trying to be ready for whatever the universe throws at us,” he said.
Giorgio Saccoccia, the president of the Italian Space Agency, a partner on the mission, celebrated its success.
“This is something we can really be proud of as an international endeavor,” he said. “I think our planet can feel a bit more safe for the future.”
(NEW YORK) — A man in South Carolina was arrested for allegedly shooting and killing three family members, including a local councilman, the Horry County Police Department said.
Police arrested Matthew Allen DeWitt, 25, on Monday regarding the triple shooting.
The suspect was charged with murder and possession of a weapon during a violent crime, online arrest records show.
Horry police arrived at a home near Conway, South Carolina, on Sunday afternoon to investigate a death where they discovered the body of 52-year-old Natasha Stevens.
Later that evening, police conducted a welfare check outside of Columbia, South Carolina, where they found two people with “apparent gunshot wounds,” the Horry Police Department said on Facebook.
Police identified the two people as Gloria DeWitt, 52, and James DeWitt, II, 52.
According to the Town of Atlantic Beach website, James “Jim” DeWitt II served as a councilman for the Atlantic Beach community.
Atlantic Beach did not respond to a request for comment.
According to its website, the predominately Black town is known as the “Black Pearl” and was a refuge for African Americans in the area who faced discrimination in the 1930s.
(NEW YORK) — More evidence of polio has been detected in New York City wastewater, according to the state Department of Health.
So far, only one case of polio has been identified, in a previously healthy 20-year-old man from Rockland County who developed paralysis in his legs, local officials said.
As of Oct. 7, 70 wastewater samples have detected, including 63 samples genetically linked to the Rockland County patient, according to health department data.
Of the 63 samples, 37 were collected in Rockland County, 16 in Orange County, eight in Sullivan County, one in Nassau County, and one in New York City from Brooklyn “and a small, adjacent part of Queens County.”
The New York City sample was collected in August, the health department said.
State health officials said most adults do not need the polio vaccine or a booster because they were already fully vaccinated as children.
However, they have stressed the importance of getting vaccinated against or staying up to date with the immunization schedule. Among unvaccinated people, polio can lead to permanent paralysis in the arms and/or legs and even death.
“These findings put an alarming exclamation point on what we have already observed: unvaccinated people are at a real and unnecessary risk” State Health Commissioner Dr. Mary T. Bassett and City Health Commissioner Dr. Ashwin Vasan said in a joint statement. “We have seen more New Yorkers getting vaccinated.”
The statement continued, “But these latest results are a searing reminder that there is no time to waste, especially for young children, who must be brought up to date with vaccinations right away. Paralysis changes life forever. Fortunately, the response is simple: get vaccinated against polio.”
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the polio vaccine protects 99% of children who get all recommended doses from severe disease from poliovirus.
The NYSDOH said between July 21 — when the case of polio was announced — and Oct. 2, more than 28,000 polio vaccine doses have been administered to children aged 18 and younger, in Nassau, Orange, Rockland and Sullivan counties.
New York Gov. Kathy Hochul extended the state of emergency declared in response to the polio case and said it will remain until at least Nov. 8 as health officials continue to try and boost polio vaccination rates.
March of Dimes/US Health Resources and Services Admin.
(NEW YORK) — Maternal care is becoming increasingly difficult to access in the United States, according to a report released Tuesday by the March of Dimes, a nonprofit organization focused on improving the health of pregnant people and babies.
More than a quarter of counties in the U.S., 36%, have no obstetric hospitals or birth centers and no obstetric providers, such as obstetricians, gynecologists and certified midwives or nurse midwives, according to the report, which describes those areas as “maternity care deserts.”
That figure is an increase from 2020, and means that more than 2 million women of childbearing age — ages 15 to 44 — in the U.S. live in maternity care deserts, the report found.
Nearly 7 million women live in areas with little to no access to maternity care, mostly in the South and Midwest, according to the report.
“We know that lack of access to crucial maternal care is a driving factor for the poor outcomes that we see for moms in this country, for high mortality rates,” Dr. Zsakeba Henderson, March of Dimes’ interim chief medical and health officer, told “Good Morning America.” “And we know that the United States continues to be one of the most dangerous industrialized nations to give birth in.”
Describing the increase in so-called maternity care deserts in the U.S., Henderson added, “This problem is worsening. It’s not getting better.”
Around 700 women die each year in the U.S. due to complications of pregnancy or delivery, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
During the coronavirus pandemic, maternal mortality rates in the U.S. climbed 33%, with Black and Hispanic women dying at much higher rates than white women, according to research published by the University of Maryland and Boston University .
Black, Hispanic and Native American women are also disproportionately impacted by the lack of access to maternal care, March of Dimes researchers found.
According to the report, in 2020, 1 in 4 Native American babies and 1 in 6 Black babies are born in areas with no or limited access to maternity care services.
“Communities of color are disproportionately impacted by this crisis,” said Henderson. “And we know that it’s not just an issue of access but an issue of quality.”
The reason why more women have less access to maternity care in 2022 stems from a variety of factors, including hospital closures and COVID-19, according to the report.
Hospital closures can be attributed to everything from staffing difficulties to low birth volumes that make maternal care not profitable enough to remain open to higher proportions of patients on Medicaid, which can lead to greater financial vulnerability for hospitals, according to Henderson.
The impact of a lack of maternity care is felt most in rural areas, where more than 60% of the nation’s maternity care deserts exist and where it’s estimated that only 7% of obstetric providers practice, according to the report.
The data on maternal care was collected prior to the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in June that overturned Roe v. Wade and the constitutional right to abortion in the U.S.
Henderson said she is concerned that new state restrictions on abortion care could lead to an even larger gap of maternal care access in rural areas.
“Research has shown that there’s a high likelihood that these restrictions may not only increase the rate of unsafe abortions that may impact maternal and infant death rates but may also impact the number and quality of providers that are available to provide other maternity services,” she said. “We are definitely particularly sensitive to the impact that it will have on the populations that we know are already vulnerable and have been underserved and are already impacted by poor outcomes.”
Henderson said that while the problem of lack of access to maternity care in the U.S. is daunting, it’s not unsolvable.
For the past two years, the March of Dimes has operated mobile health units in different states to bring care to people in low-access areas and has started a venture philanthropy initiative to invest money in early-stage companies working to bring maternal care to more people.
The organization is also focusing on policy through its so-called Mamagenda that calls on lawmakers to pass legislation to improve maternal care, according to Henderson.
“We are supporting making sure that all women have quality, affordable health insurance and health care,” she said. “Providing preventive and supportive care for women during and after pregnancy, which includes extending Medicaid postpartum coverage to 12 months and expanding access to midwifery and doula care, these are proven solutions that we know will help address this crisis.”
(NEW YORK) — New York City Mayor Eric Adams signed legislation Tuesday establishing how the city will make Times Square a gun-free zone even as the state law underpinning the policy was overturned in federal court.
Adams said the 56 million tourists predicted to visit New York City this year should not have to “live in fear” as they walk through Times Sqaure, often deemed the “crossroads of the world.”
“We will not allow them to live in fear or distrust that someone is walking around with a gun ready to harm them.”
Adams, who owns three guns, said the designation of Times Square as a sensitive location was not intended to punish lawful gun owners. Rather, he and other city leaders said it is untenable to have so many guns in a place as densely packed as Times Square.
“It is plain good old common sense that no one should have a gun in Times Square,” said Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, who joined the mayor for the bill signing.
The law defines the boundaries of the Times Square sensitive location and authorizes the NYPD to implement it.
Last week, a federal judge in Syracuse struck down portions of the state’s new gun law, including the part that designates all of Times Square as off limits to conceal carry.
The state plans to appeal the ruling and has sought to keep the law in effect while the appeal is heard and until it is decided
“We just have to wait and see what happens,” said Steven Lewis of the city’s law department.
(NEW YORK) — A New York City psychiatrist who pleaded guilty to plotting the murder-by-sledgehammer death of her child’s father was sentenced Tuesday to 11 years in state prison, but not before a dramatic moment in court in which Pamela Buchbinder tried to take back her plea, claiming she was maced by guards and got a contact high on the prison bus from people smoking K2.
The judge pressed ahead with sentencing and imposed the prearranged prison term of 11 years followed by five years of supervised release. Buchbinder has already served 5 years in prison.
Buchbinder, 52, admitted to burglary and attempted assault charges for manipulating her 19-year-old cousin, Jacob Nolan, to kill Michael Weiss at Weiss’s home office in November of 2012. The plot followed a custody battle over their then- 5-year-old child.
Weiss spoke in court before Buchbinder’s sentencing about his ongoing struggles.
“While I am grateful that this day has arrived, it has not brought me the sense of relief, or the feeling of closure that I had hoped it would. Although it has been almost 10 years since I was attacked, I still struggle with the emotional and physical scars of what happened to me on November 12, 2012,” Weiss said.
Buchbinder, who was a practicing psychiatrist, was called an evil genius in court, a label her attorney rejected.
“I don’t know her to be evil or a genius — just statements that were opportunistic,” defense attorney Eric Franz said.
Buchbinder accompanied Nolan to Home Depot on West 23rd Street the night before the November 2012, attack and paid cash for a 10-pound sledgehammer. Buchbinder also gave her cousin a kitchen knife to use in the attack.
Buchbinder drew a map for Nolan and instructed him how to enter Weiss’s building. Once inside, Nolan swung a sledgehammer repeatedly at Weiss and stabbed him repeatedly.
“I still find it difficult to understand how any of this could have happened, and I struggle to comprehend the type of hatred that would lead someone to plan such a deliberate, personal and brutal attack,” Weiss said.
In 2016, Nolan was convicted of attempted murder and sentenced to 9 ½ years in New York state prison.
(WASHINGTON) — The Department of Justice on Tuesday urged the Supreme Court to avoid intervening in the government’s ongoing documents dispute with Donald Trump, asserting that the former president is not entitled to have the court put the materials before an independent arbiter.
Trump had asked the court to put more than 100 documents with classification markings back in the hands of the special master appointed to review the materials seized from Mar-a-Lago.
The DOJ said in their latest filing that Trump “has no plausible claims of ownership or privilege in the documents bearing classification markings” and said that he has never represented in court that he declassified any of the documents — “much less supported such a representation with competent evidence.”
A federal appeals court last month excluded those documents from the special master’s review and restored the government’s access to them as federal prosecutors decide whether any criminal charges are warranted.
“Most notably, applicant has not even attempted to explain how he is irreparably injured by the court of appeals’ partial stay, which simply prevents disclosure of the documents bearing classification markings in the special-master review during the pendency of the government’s expedited appeal,” the DOJ’s Tuesday filing stated.
The department said Trump “has no basis to demand special master review” of any classified documents.
Trump’s application was made to the Supreme Court’s Clarence Thomas, the justice for the 11th Circuit. Thomas could rule on his own or refer the matter to the full court.
In the next 48 hours, the Trump team will file a reply to the DOJ’s brief. Then the court could act at any time, though it has not yet shown any indication that it sees this issue as an “emergency” in the way that Trump does.
