(KEENE, Texas) — A man and a 12-year-old boy were charged with murder after the pre-teen allegedly shot and killed a Sonic Drive-In employee in Texas, according to authorities.
Police responded to 911 calls Saturday night about a shooting at the fast-food restaurant in the 300 block of South Old Betsy Road in Keene, Texas, the Keene Police Department said.
Police allege that 20-year-old Angel Gomez was behaving disorderly in the parking lot of Sonic when he was confronted by Matthew Davis, 32, an employee at Sonic.
ABC News reached out to Sonic for comment but have not yet received one.
According to Keene police, the argument between Davis and Gomez turned physical, leading the 12-year-old, who was a passenger in the vehicle Gomez arrived in, to allegedly grab a gun and shoot Davis.
Gomez and the 12-year-old allegedly fled the scene after the shooting, police said.
Upon arriving at the scene, police found Davis on the ground suffering from multiple gunshot wounds. He was airlifted to Harris Methodist Hospital where he was pronounced dead, according to law enforcement officials.
During the police investigation into the shooting, Gomez returned to the scene and was arrested, Keene police said.
The ongoing investigation led authorities to find the juvenile suspect in the town of Rio Vista and take him into custody. Police also discovered multiple firearms.
Davis’ family set up a GoFundMe to help with funeral costs and according to the page, Davis leaves behind a 10-year-old son.
(WASHINGTON) — Nearly half of all vehicle passengers killed on U.S. roads in 2021 were not wearing a seatbelt — the highest number in 10 years, according to National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) data released Tuesday.
NHTSA said of the 26,325 passenger vehicle occupants killed in traffic crashes during 2021, 11,813 were unrestrained.
The majority of those killed when not buckled up were in the driver’s seat, according to the agency.
“Being in a crash without wearing a seatbelt can have deadly consequences, fatalities have skyrocketed in the last few years,” Jessica Cicchino, vice president of Research at the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) said in an interview with ABC News. “If more people wore belts, we would see thousands of lives saved.”
The report comes as NHTSA kicks off its annual “Click It or Ticket” campaign “to encourage drivers and passengers to buckle up, reminding everyone that seat belts save lives.”
“Putting on your seat belt only takes two seconds, but it can save your life,” NHTSA Chief Counsel Ann Carlson said. “Whether you’re in the front seat or the back, use your seat belt on every trip, every time.”
For traffic crashes in 2021, 60% of pickup drivers who were killed were unrestrained, compared to 49% of SUV drivers, 47% of passenger car drivers, and 44% of van drivers, the report said.
That same year, 17,303 male occupants in passenger vehicles were killed — nearly twice the number of female occupants killed. The agency found that of those numbers, 8,367 men and 3,426 women were not wearing seat belts.
The report also showed that, of the more than 26,000 car passengers killed in 2021, 11,820 people were wearing seatbelts at the time of the crash.
“We need to be doing everything that we can to prevent fatalities, and seatbelts can make a big difference if you survive a crash or not,” Cicchino said. “We also need to be looking at what we can do to bring down speeding and also bring things down like alcohol impaired driving – all of those things can contribute to your risk of dying in the crash.”
NHTSA says frontal airbags used in combination with seat belts “offer effective safety protection for passenger vehicle occupants.” Frontal airbags reduce fatalities by 14% when no seat belts were used, and 11% when seat belts were used in conjunction with frontal airbags, the agency said.
“Airbags can be really useful also at protecting you when you’re in a crash,” Cicchino said. “But seatbelts can also add to that protection and so we don’t want people to think that they don’t need to wear seatbelts because their vehicles have airbags, all of those things can help save your life.”
(NEW YORK) — A new study from the medical journal JAMA Network estimates there were 1.63 million excess deaths among Black Americans between 1999 and 2020. “Excess deaths” is an estimate of how many people died above and beyond what is expected, according to the study.
Put another way: An estimated 1.63 million more Black Americans died compared to what would have happened if Black people experienced the same death rate as white Americans in that same time period, the study revealed. Additionally, an estimated 997,673 excess deaths occurred among Black males and 628,464 excess deaths occurred among Black females.
According to the study, among a multitude of causes of death in this minority group, heart disease in both sexes and cancer rates in males were major contributing factors. These findings suggest that prior efforts made to eliminate disparities in death rates have not been successful.
The study also noted that infants and middle-aged adults had the largest excess years of potential lives lost. The years of potential life lost among Black males was 47 million, and 35 million in Black females.
There seemed to be substantial progress from 1999 to early 2010s, but “despite initial progress during the early 2000s, [the study] found persistent excess mortality rates among non-Hispanic Black adults,” César Caraballo, a postdoctoral associate at CORE and lead author of the study, said in prepared remarks.
Despite progress narrowing health disparities in the early 2000s, progress later stalled — and was especially exacerbated by the pandemic, consistent with fears of the COVID-19 pandemic disproportionately affecting the Black population more than the non-Hispanic white population, according to the study. Early in the pandemic, the death rate abruptly increased and exceeded previous years. In 2020, the number of excess deaths among both Black men and Black women was higher than in previous years, the study showed.
“The abrupt worsening of these disparities in the first year of the pandemic indicates that current efforts to eliminate mortality disparities have been minimally effective and that progress has been fragile,” Caraballo said.
Researchers said both pandemic-specific factors (higher infection exposure, financial instability, food insecurity and financial distress) and social factors (structural racism, systemic bias, barriers to healthcare, higher prevalence of multiple chronic conditions and worse average health status) contributed to the vulnerability in the Black population.
Medical experts say that analyzing the excess death rate should raise awareness of the unfair health burden of Black Americans and spur new policies specifically designed to ease this glaring disparity.
Ifesinachi Nnaji, MD, is a resident physician in family medicine at Stony Brook Southampton Hospital and a member of the ABC News Medical Unit.
(NEW YORK) — The Smith County district attorney, where three sets of remains that belong to Rasheem Carter were found, disputed that a fourth set were part of his remains but said they were animal bones.
Carter’s family’s attorney Ben Crump held a press conference on May 11 demanding answers from Mississippi officials on whether the fourth set of remains belonged to Carter.
“One day after the press conference, I was given oral confirmation by the Mississippi Crime Laboratory that the bones, as suspected, were animal bones. There was never any reason or evidence to suggest that the bones found in Simpson County, Mississippi, were related to Rasheem Carter’s case,” District Attorney Chris Hennis said in a statement on Monday.
This was Hennis’ first official statement since Carter, a 25-year-old Mississippi Black man who went missing last October.
Local officials originally said that they believed there was no foul play in the disappearance. The cause of death remains undetermined. Carter’s family believes that doesn’t hold water.
“Unlike Attorney Ben Crump, my office, as well as law enforcement, has a responsibility to the Carter family, and to the public, to base the investigation on facts and evidence developed during the investigation not on reckless speculation and conjecture,” Hennis said in the statement. “Such misinformation only serves to slow down and hinder the ongoing investigation.”
According to Hennis, the local sheriff notified Rasheem Carter’s family on May 4 that the most recent remains found were suspected to be animal bones.
“Mr. Crump’s statement questioning my office and law enforcement’s dignity and respect towards Rasheem Carter’s family by not notifying them of new remains was not only completely baseless,” Hennis said in the statement. “It also appears to be callously made to inflame public opinion.”
On Nov. 2, 2022, the first set of remains were found in Smith County. Carter’s skull and spinal cord were located in separate locations classifying them as two sets of remains, according to Crump’s office.
Another set of remains that matched Carter’s DNA were found on Feb. 23, also in Smith County, according to Crump’s office.
Attorneys representing Carter’s family are calling for a federal probe into his death, arguing that the Smith County Sheriff’s Department’s original conclusion that there was no foul play seemed dubious.
“I am overwhelmed with the oppression that this state have caused in our lives. I want something done, and I want it done immediately. I’m tired of waiting,” Tiffany Carter, Rasheem’s mother, said at the press conference with Crump last week. “I know I can’t change what has happened, but we can make the change that this doesn’t happen to another family.”
On the day of his disappearance, Rasheem Carter allegedly sent a text to his mother saying that he was afraid for his safety and that men in trucks yelling racial epithets were after him, his family has said.
Crump said Mississippi officials didn’t notify the family of the fourth set of remains. He said a bystander filmed police retrieving the remains and sent the video to the Carter family.
“There is no excuse for bystanders coming showing video to the family, and officials not having the dignity and respect to notify the family immediately, and say ‘we found more human remains in the vicinity where your son head and spinal cord and other bodily remains were found,'” Crump said at the press conference.
Smith County Sheriff Joel Houston told ABC News that the sheriff’s department stands behind its earlier determination that no foul play was involved in Carter’s death. Earlier evidence “didn’t suggest anything,” he said.
According to an autopsy report on the first two sets of remains, a copy of which was obtained by ABC News, most of what was found was bone and the cause of death was undetermined.
“Nothing is being swept under the rug,” Houston said. “There’s nothing to hide.” Houston added that the department is awaiting results of search warrants before ruling out foul play.
“Mississippi, all America’s watching to see if you’re going to do right by Rasheem Carter,” Crump said. “His brokenhearted mother has nightmares at night about what her son must have been doing as a result of this lynching in 2022.”
(NEW YORK) — For some people, a parking spot is a nightmare and for others it’s a status symbol tied to their homes and vehicles.
Slate reporter Henry Grabar, who wrote the book “Paved Paradise How Parking Explains the World,” however said that that piece of concrete or a spot inside a garage has wide ranging impacts on the environment, health, and even policy.
He spoke with ABC News Live about what he found in his research.
ABC NEWS LIVE: All right. Right off the top, people are going to say, why did you write a book about parking? Why should it matter to us?
HENRY GRABAR: Well, I’m a reporter, so I spent a lot of time looking into stories about housing, about transportation, about the environment, infrastructure, architecture, all these subjects. And it seemed to me that whatever the question, the answer was always parking. Which is to say, cars have obviously had an enormous effect on the American landscape. The car spends 95% of its time parked. There’s more land used for parking in this country than there is for housing.
ABC NEWS LIVE: And I read some reviews of the book that I want to just showcase here. “Parking is the primary determinant of the way the place you live, looks, feels and functions.” And also this one, “A parking space is nothing less than the link between driving and life itself.” So in simple terms, explain why parking is so central to the lives of everyday Americans.
GRABAR: Well, because we live in a country where almost all of us have to drive almost all of the time to get wherever we want to go. So when I say a parking spot is the link between driving and life itself, what I mean is you can’t do whatever you set you set out to do in the car until you can park. You can’t get out of the car until you can find a parking space. So, of course, parking functions as a kind of third rail in American politics.
ABC NEWS LIVE: And you do have some funny little stories, anecdotes in there about a man who called 911 in Utah because he can’t find a parking spot [and] a lady who lost 11 pounds because she didn’t want to lose her parking spot, and so she walked everywhere instead. You also talk more seriously, though, about how there have been crimes and murders committed because of parking. How did we get here to that extreme?
GRABAR: Well, again, we live in a place where most of us are dependent on parking. So to some extent, I’m not surprised that people have become so emotional about this subject. At the same time, the degree to which we prioritize great parking sometimes at the expense of everything else means we’ve lost out on some other things that we also care about deeply as a society. Things like affordable housing, nice architecture [and] walkable neighborhoods, all of those things have been sacrificed to create enough parking.
ABC NEWS LIVE: Explain to us the idea of parking minimums and how that determines who gets or I should say, which buildings get built and where.
GRABAR Sure. In most cities and suburbs in the United States, the city code requires that every building come with a certain number of parking spaces. So that means you want to open a restaurant, you are obligated to provide a certain number of parking spaces dependent on your square footage you want to open. You want to build some housing, you have to provide a certain number of parking spaces. And the reason this is important is because parking and for one takes up a lot of space.
And number two is very expensive to build. So when you put these restrictions on builders in terms of what they could do with an existing property or an old building or something like that, you’re putting a massive imposition on the types of results that we can get in terms of the built environment and also just an enormous cost that’s added on to everything we build.
ABC NEWS LIVE: So what’s the solution here? How do we solve all of this?
GRABAR: Well, I think we could start by saying to builders, you can decide to build however much parking you want to build. You think that your tenants or your clients or the people who are buying your apartments, you think they want parking? Well, then you should build enough parking for them.
But what we’ve seen in the United States, in places that have begun to reform these policies, is that there are builders who have decided that, in fact, many people would actually prefer to pay less in rent and figure out the parking situation themselves.
I talked to a developer in Charlotte, North Carolina, which is nobody’s idea of a particularly walkable place, but nevertheless, he said, I could build the building with parking and it’ll be $75 million, or I can build it without parking and it will be $60 million and the rents will be $200 lower a month, and the tenants can figure out what they want to do with their cars themselves.
But at the very least, it’s not going to be bundled into their rent.
ABC NEWS LIVE: Do you think that there is a way that cities can be re-imagined, perhaps, where we don’t need this reliance on parking garages?
GRABAR: One thing we’ve done is we’ve created a cycle where the more parking we build, the more people drive. And that’s both because it functions as a subsidy for driving. If you buy a house and it was required to include a two-car garage, you’ve made it essentially a down payment on car ownership and in fact, a down payment on owning two cars. So that’s an incentive for driving.
And the other one is that when we build all this parking, we create an environment where it’s really hard to walk around or bike or it just feels unsafe and dangerous. And so there is also a virtuous cycle that can be unlocked if you create.
Places where parking is deprioritized, where the parking lot is behind the building instead of in front of it. Where there’s slightly, slightly less room for parking and slightly more room for buildings and for people. People are going to want to walk.
(WASHINGTON) — It may be springtime in 2023, but it’s election night in America on Tuesday.
Kentucky Republicans Tuesday will choose their nominee to try to knock off Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear in the state’s gubernatorial race in November, easily the marquee race of the year.
Meanwhile, Philadelphia will host a pair of consequential races, nominating a Democratic candidate for Philadelphia mayor — who will ultimately be the overwhelming favorite to win a general election in the sapphire blue city — and choosing who to fill a vacant state House seat, which could decide which party controls the chamber.
And in Jacksonville, Florida, a mayoral runoff is emerging as a test of just how strong Republicans — and GOP Gov. Ron DeSantis — are in Florida.
Here are the races to watch Tuesday night:
Kentucky Republican gubernatorial primary
The top billing of the night goes to Kentucky, where state Attorney General Daniel Cameron, former United Nations Ambassador Kelly Craft and Agriculture Commissioner Daniel Quarles are vying for the chance to take on Beshear, who has remained popular despite his state’s red hue.
The three are largely aligned on policies, but slight distinctions have helped define the race.
Cameron started off the primary as the frontrunner, boasting broad name recognition and deep ties to Senate GOP Leader Mitch McConnell’s powerful network. He also entered the race with former President Donald Trump’s endorsement.
Craft has highlighted her support for Trump and her service in his administrations as ambassador in New York while dumping millions of her own money to buoy her campaign. Observers in the state believe that Cameron remains the frontrunner but that Craft’s millions spent on television advertising hammering Cameron have helped make the primary a real race.
Craft also won DeSantis’ endorsement Monday, offering an eleventh hour shot in the arm and shaping up the race to be a minor proxy war between Trump and DeSantis, who are soon anticipated to clash in the Republican presidential primary.
Quarles, meanwhile, has focused much of his campaign less on personality and more on having fleshed out policy platforms, releasing policy positions each week. Should it turn out that Cameron and Craft undercut each other with increasingly vicious attacks, Quarles could benefit.
The primary is anticipated to be a low turnout affair, with the secretary of state predicting turnout to hover around 10%, inserting an added level of uncertainty into the race.
Whoever the nominee is will face a challenge in unseating Beshear, who has garnered praise for his handling of natural disasters that hit Kentucky during his first term as governor.
Philadelphia Democratic mayoral primary
The Democratic primary to replace term-limited Democratic Mayor Jim Kenney is shaping up to be a gauge of whether progressives can keep up their momentum after clutch wins in Wisconsin and Chicago.
Former City Council members Helen Gym, Cherelle Parker and Allan Domb, former City Controller Rebecca Rhynhart and grocery store magnate Jeff Brown are the main contenders for the nomination.
Polling has shown a tight race among the five, with large percentages of undecided voters looming.
Gym, however, has become a favorite of progressives across the country, championing a “Green New Deal” for local schools and winning the endorsements of Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D, and Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt.
Whoever wins the primary will be the overwhelming favorite given Democrats’ heavy registration advantage. The primary also has the chance to elevate who could be the first female mayor of the city — which has had 99 male mayors.
Pennsylvania House special election
Democrats narrowly won back the Pennsylvania state House in the 2022 midterms — but that one-seat majority is at risk in a special election Tuesday.
The Philadelphia-area race is featuring Democrat Heather Boyd and GOP candidate Katie Ford and normally would be a safe race after former state Rep. Mike Zabel won reelection with 65% of the vote last year before resigning over sexual harassment allegations.
However, potentially due to the stakes of the race or the aftermath of Zabel’s scandal, Democrats and Republicans are both investing big dollars over the seat.
Democrats have warned that a Ford win would let Republicans not only let the state legislature serve as a blockade to Gov. Josh Shapiro but also introduce a constitutional amendment scrapping abortion rights in the state, something state Republicans have denied.
Jacksonville mayoral runoff
A mayoral runoff in Jacksonville is set to serve as a check on Republicans’ strength in Florida after big wins in the 2022 midterms.
Donna Deegan, a Democrat, and GOP candidate Daniel Davis are fighting for the chance to succeed term-limited Mayor Lenny Curry, a Republican.
The northeast Florida city, home to almost 1 million people, is the largest city in the country to have a Republican mayor. The city voted for President Joe Biden in 2020, but DeSantis won it convincingly last year.
Polling has been close in the race, which has been focused largely on crime and policing. However, it could also serve as a test of DeSantis’ strength before he launches an expected presidential bid after he came out in support of Curry.
Greta Van Fleet has announced the release of another new song off the band’s upcoming album, Starcatcher.
The track is titled “Sacred the Thread” and will arrive Friday, May 19.
“Sacred the Thread” follows the lead Starcatcher single “Meeting the Master,” which dropped in April. While you wait for “Sacred the Thread,” you can watch the newly released live video for “Meeting the Master,” capturing its debut concert performance last March, streaming now on YouTube.
Starcatcher, the third Greta Van Fleet album and the follow-up to 2021’s The Battle at Garden’s Gate, arrives July 21. Greta Van Fleet will launch a U.S. tour in support of the album in July.
(WASHINGTON) — An unidentified man entered national security adviser Jake Sullivan’s Washington, D.C., home in late April, prompting a Secret Service investigation, according to an agency spokesperson.
Sullivan was home at the time and confronted the intruder, and the incident was over in a matter of minutes, according to sources familiar with what happened.
This occurred with a detail of special agents outside the home who apparently never saw the man enter or leave the home. The man apparently entered through an unlocked door, according to sources.
The Secret Service immediately deployed technology that alerts when an unlocked door is opened, sources said, and a spokesman said the agency is examining the actions of the agents.
“Secret Service is examining a security incident that took place at a protectee site,” Anthony Guglielmi, the Secret Service director of communications, said in a statement to ABC News.
“While the protectee was unharmed, we are taking this matter seriously and have opened a comprehensive mission assurance investigation to review all facets of what occurred,” Guglielmi said. “Any deviation from our protective protocols is unacceptable and if discovered, personnel will be held accountable. Modifications to the protective posture have also been made to ensure additional security layers are in place as we conduct this comprehensive review.”
A source familiar with the incident told ABC News that the man appeared to be intoxicated and didn’t know exactly where he was, and it appeared that he didn’t know he was in the home of the national security adviser.
Sullivan, like most high-profile executive branch members, has an around-the-clock Secret Service detail that monitors outside of his Washington, D.C. residence.
The incident was first reported by the Washington Post.
The White House referred requests for comment to the Secret Service.
(FARMINGTON, N.M.) — At least 150 rounds were fired by an 18-year-old gunman and responding officers during an apparently random shooting in a neighborhood in northwestern New Mexico on Monday, authorities said.
Three people driving through the area were killed shortly after the gunman opened fire at approximately 10:56 a.m. local time in a residential area of Farmington, about 15 miles south of the border with Colorado, police said.
The suspect — identified by police Tuesday as Beau Wilson, a student at Farmington High School — was shot dead by officers at 11:06 a.m., police said.
A motive remains unclear at this stage in the investigation, police said.
“This incident appears to be purely random,” Farmington Deputy Chief Kyle Dowdy told reporters Tuesday. “It had no specific targets or motives to be identified at this time.”
Most of those shot were driving through the area, Farmington Deputy Chief Baric Crum said. Those killed included a woman in her 90s and the victim’s daughter, who was in her 70s, Crum said. The third victim was also in her 70s, he said.
The deceased victims were identified by police Tuesday as Shirley Voita, Melody Ivie and Gwendolyn Schofield.
Two of the victims were pronounced dead at the scene, while a third died at a hospital, police said. Six other victims, including two police officers, were treated at San Juan Regional Medical Center and have since been released, the hospital said. Other victims were treated at the scene, authorities said.
Police have not found any links between the suspect and the victims, police said.
“We’ve discovered nothing that leads us to believe that this suspect knew any of the people,” Dowdy said. “That we’re pretty confident in, because this was pretty random. Because the shooting was arbitrary and up and down the street.”
The suspect walked through the neighborhood, shooting “indiscriminately” at houses and cars, Dowdy said. At least six houses and three cars were hit by gunfire over the course of a nearly quarter-mile crime scene, Dowdy said.
Hundreds of 911 calls came in during the incident, Dowdy said.
Four officers engaged the suspect in a firefight, and the suspect was ultimately killed, Crum said.
At least 150 rounds have been found at the crime scene so far, though investigators do not know who fired what yet, Dowdy said.
“We’re still counting — that’s legitimately going to go up,” he said. “At this point, we’ve got approximately 150 [rounds] exchanged between everyone.”
One of the wounded officers was shot while responding to the scene, while the second was shot during the firefight with the gunman, Crum said. The two injured officers — one from the Farmington Police Department and one from New Mexico State Police — have since been released, officials said.
The suspect was armed with multiple firearms, including an assault-style rifle, police said. Dowdy said the suspect purchased one firearm in November 2022, a month after he turned 18, and police believe he obtained the others from a family member.
Wilson had “minor infractions” as a juvenile, though nothing in his history would have led him to be on their radar, Dowdy said.
Farmington Mayor Nate Duckett thanked residents for their help in supporting law enforcement amid the response.
“There were many acts of bravery that occurred yesterday,” Duckett said.
ABC News’ Ivan Pereira, Matthew Fuhrman and Morgan Winsor contributed to this report.
July will mark the 50th anniversary of David Bowie‘s final performance as Ziggy Stardust, and the milestone is being marked at the exact location where the performance took place.
A special world premiere screening of a restored version of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars: The Motion Picture is happening July 3 at London’s Eventim Apollo Hammersmith (formerly the Odeon), the site of Bowie’s last Ziggy show on July 3, 1973.
The special showing will feature never-before-seen footage, including a previously cut performance by the late Jeff Beck. Ahead of the screening there will also be a live Q&A with some of the late rock star’s famous friends.
And for folks who can’t get there, the event will be livestreamed in theaters in the U.K. and Europe, with worldwide screenings planned throughout July.
Bowie took on the fictional character of Ziggy Stardust, an androgynous alien rock star, throughout 1972 and 1973, performing as Ziggy for his concert tours of the U.K., Japan and North America.
