(WASHINGTON) — Included in the anti-gun violence legislation announced Tuesday night by a bipartisan group of senators is a measure that supporters hope will help protect victims of domestic violence.
The legislation includes a change to the so-called “boyfriend loophole,” which refers to a gap in the law on who can purchase guns.
Currently, federal law prohibits people convicted of domestic violence from purchasing a gun, but only if they are living with their partner, married to their partner or have a child with their partner. The law does not apply to dating partners.
Under the newly-introduced legislation, the definition has been expanded so that individuals in “serious” “dating relationships” who are convicted of domestic abuse would also be prevented from purchasing a gun.
Additionally, the bill includes language that allows those convicted of non-spousal misdemeanor domestic abuse to have their gun ownership rights restored after five years if they have a clean record.
“This is an incentive, I think for people who have made a mistake, committed domestic violence and received a misdemeanor conviction, to straighten up their act and not repeat it,” Republican Sen. John Cornyn of Texas, one of the bill’s lead negotiators, said in a floor speech Tuesday.
Advocates for victims of domestic violence had encouraged senators to close the loophole in the new legislation, negotiations for which began after the Uvalde, Texas, school shooting on May 24, which left 19 elementary-age students and two teachers dead.
On average, more than 12 million men and women in the United States are victims of rape, physical violence or stalking by an intimate partner each year, according to the National Domestic Violence Hotline, which offers free, 24/7 support for victims of domestic violence.
According to the Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Violence Solutions, a woman is five times more likely to be murdered when her abuser has access to a gun.
Last year, more than 17,000 people who reached out to the National Domestic Violence Hotline said firearms were a part of the abuse they experienced.
Katie Ray-Jones, CEO of the National Domestic Violence Hotline, said in a statement that her organization “applauds the [senators’] work” to address domestic violence in gun legislation.
“We appreciate the senators’ initiative to close this dangerous gap and protect millions more people experiencing relationship abuse in this country,” she said. “We also know while this is a significant step forward, there is even more work to be done to ensure that all survivors are protected.”
Exact timing for a final vote on the legislation in the Senate is not yet known but could happen toward the end of the week, with all involved hoping to approve the legislation before the two-week July 4 recess.
In addition to strengthening the ban on convicted domestic abusers possessing firearms, the bill also includes support for mental health and school security services and provides incentives to expand the federal background check system for prospective buyers under 21.
Both Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said they supported the bill, indicating that it could reach a super-majority in the Senate — which is necessary to overcome any filibuster — barring more developments.
ABC News’ Rachel Scott and Trish Turner contributed to this report.
(WASHINGTON) — The House Committee on Oversight and Reform held a hearing Wednesday to investigate the National Football League’s handling of what lawmakers are calling the Washington Commanders’ “toxic” workplace culture, including sexual harassment.
NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell appeared virtually to face a grilling from committee Democrats.
During the roughly two-and-a-half hour hearing, Goodell was questioned about both the team culture in general and allegations about owner Daniel Snyder’s personal conduct.
Snyder did not testify as the committee had requested, although a name card and microphone were placed in front of an empty chair at the witness table. A spokesperson for Snyder cited a “business conflict” in a letter to the committee, according to ESPN.
“His refusal to testify sends a clear message that he is more concerned about protecting himself than coming clean with the American people. If the NFL is unwilling or unable to hold Mr. Snyder accountable than I am prepared to do so,” said committee chair Carolyn Maloney, D-N.Y., who said she intends to subpoena Snyder to to testify at a deposition next week.
“I have not seen a workplace in the NFL that is anywhere near what we saw in the context of that period of time for the Washington Commanders,” said Goodell of the organization until recently known as the Washington Football Team.
Several Republicans on the committee claim Democrats shouldn’t be investigating a private business, instead questioning the commissioner on issues unrelated to the investigation, ranging from the NFL’s social justice program to Deflategate.
“Our hearing today is about protecting women and all workers from sexual harassment intimidation and bullying in the workplace,” Maloney said in her opening statement.
Multiple team employees were fired in 2020 when a Washington Post investigation found allegations of sexual harassment spanning from 2006 to 2019.
Goodell confirmed many of the claims about team culture found in an investigation by attorney Beth Wilkinson. “It is clear to me that the workplace in Washington was unprofessional and unacceptable in numerous respects: bullying, widespread disrespect toward colleagues, use of demeaning language, public embarrassment, and harassment,” he said.
Goodell defended the NFL’s response to the investigation. In 2021, the league fined the team $10 million. Snyder had denied any misconduct but has stepped away from day-to-day operations of the team.
The hearing grew especially tense when Democrats demanded why Goodell didn’t release Wilkinson’s full report, just a summary.
“Commissioner Goodell, yes or no: Will you commit today to providing this committee the full findings of the NFL internal investigation while protecting the identities of the confidential witnesses?” she asked.
Goodell responded that the NFL had committed to protecting the identities of the victims who came forward.
Rep. Jaime Raskin, D-Md, asked Goodell why redacting names and other identifying information — a practice the NFL had used in the release of a sexual harassment report about the Miami Dolphins — was not “sufficient” to protect the anonymity of the women involved.
“Congressman, with all due respect, redaction doesn’t always work in my world,” said Goodell.
Rep. Rashida Tlaib, D-Mich, prodded Goodell on whether he would force a change in leadership in Washington. “Will you remove him?” she asked about Snyder.
“I don’t have the authority to remove him,” Goodell said, although his fellow owners could vote to do so.
Rafael Henrique/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images
(NEW YORK) — A woman who feared for her life as she was allegedly being held hostage in a New York City apartment found an alternative way to call for help without alerting her captor.
The 24-year-old woman was being held against her will in an apartment in the Eastchester section of the Bronx on Sunday after a man she met online allegedly sexually assaulted her, police told ABC New York station WABC.
The woman and the suspect had met in person for the first time months after they connected online, police said. The encounter soon turned violent, according to police, and the suspect would not let the woman have her phone — except to order food, the station reported.
Employees at the Chipper Truck Café in Yonkers, just north of Manhattan, received an order placed on Grubhub for a breakfast sandwich and a burger around 5 a.m. on Sunday, the restaurant’s owner Alice Bermejo told WABC. While the order itself was not unusual, employees noticed a hastily written note in the section for additional instructions, which said to call police and have them come with the food — cautioning them to not make the response obvious.
“She was basically saying to bring the police with the delivery,” Bermejo said.
Bermejo said her husband received a call from one of the employees who saw the order come up on the screen, asking what to do.
Bermejo’s husband instructed the employee to follow the instructions.
“He was like, ‘Call the police. Can’t take any risks. Better safe than sorry,'” Bermejo said.
Police responded and the suspect, 32-year-old Kemoy Royal, was arrested, the New York City Police Department told ABC News in a statement. Royal was charged with rape, unlawful imprisonment, strangulation, criminal possession of a weapon and sexual abuse, among other counts, police said.
Royal was also charged that day with the attempted sexual assault of a 26-year-old woman on June 15, the NYPD said. Police did not immediately say why Royal was not charged earlier for that incident.
Grubhub Chief Operating Officer Eric Ferguson reached out to Bermejo Wednesday morning and offered her $5,000 to invest in her business to recognize the quick-thinking of the owner and employee, Lisa Belot, director of public relations for the food delivery company, told ABC News over email.
“Every time we see a simple but extraordinary act like this, we are amazed by how our partners positively impact their communities,” Belot said. “From drivers delivering in difficult weather to our corporate employees volunteering at food banks to these restaurant employees in Yonkers who recognized a serious situation and acted quickly, we’re grateful and humbled that Grubhub can be a part of such incredible stories of kindness and heroism.”
Bermejo said she later received a phone call from the victim’s friend, thanking the restaurant for helping her.
“We really had no idea of the gravity of the situation until after everything had happened,” Bermejo
ABC News could not immediately reach an attorney for Royal.
Matt Stone/MediaNews Group/Boston Herald via Getty Images
(WASHINGTON) — President Biden on Wednesday called on Congress to suspend the federal gas tax for three months and asked states to suspend their own gas taxes or provide commensurate relief to consumers.
The federal government charges an 18.4-cent tax per gallon of gasoline and a 24.4-cent tax per gallon of diesel. Suspending the tax for three months — through the end of September, will cost about $10 billion, the White House said.
“I fully understand that the gas tax holiday alone is not going to fix the problem,” Biden said in remarks delivered from the South Court Auditorium. “But it will provide families some immediate relief, just a little bit of breathing room, as we continue working to bring down prices for the long haul.”
But the idea may not get the reception Biden is looking for from lawmakers on Capitol Hill.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., was noncommittal on the issue in a statement she released after Biden’s announcement. “We will see where the consensus lies on a path forward for the President’s proposal in the House and the Senate,” the statement read.
Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., told ABC News on Wednesday that he’s not on a “yes” vote as of now.
“Now, to do that and put another hole into the budget is something that is very concerning to me, and people need to understand that 18 cents is not going to be straight across the board — it never has been that you’ll see in 18 cents exactly penny-for-penny come off of that price,” Manchin said.
Biden specifically called on companies to make sure that “every penny” of those savings are passed through to consumers.
“This is no time for profiteering,” he said.
Biden on Wednesday also called on the industry to use profits to refine more oil and gasoline and lower prices at the pump.
“My message is simple to the companies running gas stations and setting those prices at the pump: this is a time of war, global peril, Ukraine,” Biden said. “These are not normal times. Bring down the price you are charging at the pump to reflect the cost you are paying for the product to it now. Do it now, do it today. Your customers, the American people, they need relief now.”
The administration has been putting public pressure on oil companies to help Americans at a time of financial need.
“Companies, of course, are beholden to their shareholders, but they really need to be beholden and conscious of customers, and their fellow neighbors, and their fellow citizens, just like this administration’s doing,” another senior administration official told reporters. “And we hope that that’s the spirit that CEOs of these companies will take.”
Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm is scheduled to meet with oil company executives Thursday, during which they will press executives to ensure they’ll pass on the savings if the gas tax holiday is enacted.
“We are encouraging these oil and gas companies to invest, to help their fellow citizens, to help their own workers,” Granholm told reporters at the daily White House press briefing. “We need them to come to the table.”
When asked about the apparent lack of support for the gas tax holiday from lawmakers, Granholm said there will be ongoing discussions.
“I would hope that both sides of the aisle are listening to their constituents about getting relief,” she said. “I think the citizens will be the loudest voice in the room.”
On Wednesday, Biden also called on state and local governments to provide “relief” to Americans by suspending their state gas taxes or provide other remedies, like delaying planned tax and fee increases, or even consumer rebates or relief payments.
State gas taxes average about 31 cents per gallon of gasoline, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.
Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School recently found that the suspension of gas taxes in Maryland, Georgia and Connecticut were, in fact, “mostly passed onto consumers at some point during the tax holiday in the form of lower gas prices,” but that the lower prices “were often not sustained during the entire holiday.”
In Maryland, 72% of the tax savings were passed on to consumers; in Georgia, 58-65% were, and in Connecticut, 71-87% were, according to their analysis.
When asked why Biden wants the federal tax suspended for three months specifically, the official said the president wanted to balance the need of “the unique moment that we’re in” — particularly during the summer driving season — with the fact that the tax provides important revenue for the government to pay for highways and other transportation projects.
“The purpose of this suspension,” the official said, “is really to address the unique moment that we’re in, and with a particular focus on the summer driving season and the pain that families are feeling at the pump right now, while recognizing that on a longer-term basis, the gas tax is an important source of revenue for federal infrastructure.”
The gas tax revenue goes to the federal government’s Highway Trust Fund, which provides for much of the government’s spending on highways and mass transit.
Biden said his proposal wouldn’t affect the Highway Trust Fund, and an administration official previously told reporters that Congress can fill in the $10 billion gap with “other revenues.”
“I promise you I’m doing everything possible to bring the price of energy down, gas prices down,” the president said.
(WASHINGTON) — The House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol is set to bring into focus Thursday former President Donald Trump’s relentless post-Election Day efforts to enlist the Justice Department in his failed bid to overturn his election loss.
The committee’s fifth hearing this month will feature testimony from three former top officials in the department who say they resisted Trump and his allies’ repeated entreaties, former acting attorney general Jeffrey Rosen, former deputy acting attorney general Richard Donoghue and former top DOJ lawyer Steven Engel.
All three have previously confirmed that they went as far as joining a group of top White House lawyers in threatening a mass resignation if Trump didn’t back away from plans to oust Rosen and replace him with another obscure official in the top echelons of the department who was sympathetic to the president’s baseless claims of widespread voter fraud.
That former official, Jeffrey Clark, previously pleaded the Fifth Amendment in an appearance before the committee and has declined to comment through an attorney when asked about specific details regarding his alleged coordination with Trump and others.
Trump ultimately relented, and his behind-the-scenes campaign wasn’t publicly revealed until the New York Times reported on the dramatic standoff several days after President Joe Biden’s inauguration.
Throughout his four-year tenure, former President Trump completely disregarded and distorted Justice Department protocols in place since the post-Watergate era, where the department sought to generally avoid having the White House or the president directly involved in criminal matters.
Trump’s efforts following his loss to Biden blew up any notion of Justice Department independence on criminal investigations that might benefit the White House or president politically. Trump’s post-election interaction with top DOJ officials portray a president pressing for specific investigations that could potentially help him keep his grip on power.
And FBI and DOJ investigators did indeed end up investigating some of the more outlandish claims pushed by Trump election lawyers like Rudy Giuliani, John Eastman and others.
Similar to the committee’s first two hearings revealing evidence gathered from their nearly year-long investigation, much of the details of Trump’s effort to weaponize DOJ in his effort to undermine the results of the election have been reported on previously.
In remarks last week, the committee’s vice chair Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., said the hearing will seek to tie Trump’s effort to “corrupt the Department of Justice” into his broader plan to thwart the certification of Biden’s victory on Jan. 6, which culminated in the deadly attack on the Capitol.
ABC News has learned that Rosen on Thursday will testify that he was under repeated and constant pressure from Trump to find widespread corruption.
A source familiar with the matter told ABC News that Rosen would often simply reply to the president that his department was “just not seeing the evidence.”
The source said that at one point Clark discussed with Rosen that the president was about to name him acting attorney general and that Rosen could potentially stay on as Clark’s deputy. The source said Rosen used that information to coordinate with other department officials a plan of mass resignation if Trump were to remove him and install Clark.
In August last year, ABC News exclusively obtained emails showing how Rosen and Donoghue rebuffed Clark’s request to urge officials in Georgia to investigate and possibly overturn Biden’s victory in the state.
The emails showed a draft letter circulated by Clark on Dec. 28, which he sought to send to Georgia’s governor and other top state officials, advising them to convene the state legislature into a special session so lawmakers could investigate claims of voter fraud.
“There is no chance that I would sign this letter or anything remotely like this,” Donoghue responded roughly an hour after receiving Clark’s email. “While it maybe true that the Department ‘is investigating various irregularities in the 2020 election for President’ (something we typically would not state publicly) the investigations that I am aware of relate to suspicions of misconduct that are of such a small scale that they simply would not impact the outcome of the Presidential Election.”
Rosen responded several days later on Jan. 2, according to the emails, stating he had “confirmed again today that I am not prepared to sign such a letter.”
A day later, according to previous testimony from Rosen and Donoghue to both the Senate Judiciary Committee and House select committee, came the extraordinary meeting in the Oval Office.
Rosen said he arranged for the meeting through Trump White House chief of staff Mark Meadows after learning from Clark that Trump planned to replace him “so that [Clark] could pursue” his plan with the Georgia election.
“And I said “Well, I don’t get to be fired by someone who works for me,” in the case of Mr. Clark. I wanted to discuss it with the President,” Rosen told Congress last year.
That night, Meadows walked Rosen, Donoghue and Engel into the meeting with Trump, Clark, then-White House counsel Pat Cipollone and his top deputies — but Meadows then left the room for the discussion that followed, according to Rosen.
“The president said something near the very beginning, “One thing we know is you, Rosen, aren’t going to do anything. And you don’t even agree that I’m right about these concerns that people are telling me,”” Rosen recalled Trump saying.
What followed was a roughly two-and-a-half-hour meeting, by Rosen and Donoghue’s telling, where Trump repeatedly pressed but was eventually dissuaded from his plan to install Clark atop the Justice Department to pursue baseless allegations of voter fraud just days before Congress was set to convene to certify Biden’s victory.
What appeared to change Trump’s mind, according to Donoghue’s testimony, was unanimity among nearly everyone in the room that they would resign if Trump moved forward with the plot.
“And I said, “And we’re not the only ones. You should understand that your entire Department leadership will resign,” Donoghue said. “And I said, “Mr. President, these aren’t bureaucratic leftovers from another administration. You picked them. This is your leadership team. You sent every one of them to the Senate; you got them confirmed. What is that going to say about you, when we all walk out at the same time?”
Donoghue then detailed a nightmare scenario for Trump of hundreds of career officials in the department following en masse, resignations that he said Engel told Trump would leave Clark “leading what he called a graveyard; there would be no one left.”
The account of the Jan. 3 meeting could prove for gripping on-camera testimony as the committee seeks to show the country that the former president, desperate at clinging to power by any means necessary, was in the days leading up to Jan. 6 seriously entertaining a plot that would almost certainly thrust the country into an unprecedented constitutional crisis.
Rosen, Donoghue and Engel could also serve to bolster the committee’s line of argument that President Trump was persistent in moving forward with his attempt to overturn the election leading up to Jan. 6, even as he had been told repeatedly that he had lost.
While much of the focus thus far on that front in the committee’s investigation has zeroed in on Barr’s private statements to Trump as well as in an interview with the AP about the department finding no evidence of fraud that could overturn the election results, his resignation left a clear opening for Trump to continue seeking to use the department to aid his campaign to overturn the election.
Rosen has previously testified that at a meeting on Dec. 15, the day after former attorney general William Barr announced he would resign from the department, a group of top officials at the White House told Trump that “people are telling you things that are not right” regarding claims of widespread fraud in the election.
Donoghue said he later told Trump in a Dec. 27, 2020 phone call “in very clear terms” that DOJ had done “dozens of investigations, hundreds of interviews” and determined “the major allegations are not supported by the evidence developed.”
And unlike Rosen, Donoghue and Engel — Barr’s statements to the committee about his private interactions with Trump appear in direct conflict about his public actions leading up to his resignation.
Leading up to the 2020 election, Barr spent more time arguably than any other Trump cabinet official sowing doubts about expansions of mail-in voting, laying the groundwork for Trump and his legal team to later make their baseless claims of widespread voter fraud.
Barr pushed a conspiracy theory that foreign actors would be able to flood the country with millions of fraudulent ballots, even when top officials in the intelligence community were publicly disputing that was possible.
Barr told ABC News Chief Washington Correspondent Jonathan Karl in an interview that then-Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell had been urging him to speak out against Trump’s fraud claims “since mid-November,” in part over McConnell’s fears it would sabotage the GOP’s chances to win the Georgia Senate runoffs. Barr didn’t give his interview ruling out widespread fraud to the AP until Dec. 1.
But two weeks later, Barr gave his resignation letter to Trump, saying he “appreciate[d] the opportunity to update you this afternoon on the Department’s review of voter fraud allegations in the 2020 election and how these allegations will continue to be pursued.” The resignation letter showed no indications of Barr’s supposed concerns about Trump’s behavior, and instead lauded Trump as a victim of a supposed left-wing-led conspiracy to undermine all the accomplishments of his administration.
The Justice Department’s inspector general last year announced it had launched its own investigation into efforts inside the department to subvert the 2020 election.
Attorney General Merrick Garland, who is currently overseas, told reporters at the Justice Department last week that he plans to watch all of the committee’s hearings in their entirety, while adding, “I can assure you that the January 6 prosecutors are watching all of the hearings as well.”
(UVALDE, Texas) — A state senator who represents Uvalde, Texas, filed a lawsuit Wednesday against the Texas Department of Public Safety, seeking access to the agency’s records of its sweeping investigation into the police response to last month’s mass shooting at Robb Elementary School.
Sen. Roland Gutierrez (D-San Antonio) is accusing the DPS, the state’s top law-enforcement agency, of unlawfully denying his records requests.
“From the very start, the response to this awful gun tragedy has been full of misinformation and outright lies from out government,” Gutierrez said in the eight-page complaint, filed in Travis County state court in the state’s capital of Austin.
DPS officials did not immediately respond to a request for comment from ABC News.
On Tuesday, DPS Director Steven McCraw testified for more than three hours before a state Senate panel investigating the police response the massacre that left 19 children and two teachers dead. He said the investigation has determined that the law-enforcement response led by the local school district’s police chief was an “abject failure.”
Enough officers and equipment had arrived on the scene within three minutes to “neutralize” the shooter, McCraw testified, but instead officers did not breach the door to the classroom containing the shooter for one hour and 14 minutes.
McCraw’s testimony marked the first time in nearly four weeks that anyone in law enforcement publicly laid out details of the various investigations into the mass shooting, probes that are examining everything from the killer’s motives and planning to police actions that directly contradicted first-response protocols that mandate officers rush in to protect civilians from an active shooter.
For weeks, all official information has been laid out only behind closed doors, and law enforcement officials have not responded to requests for information from families of the victims and news media.
According to the lawsuit, Gutierrez filed his public records request on May 31 but has yet to receive a response. Texas state law requires a response to records requests within 10 days, or the seeking out of an attorney general decision, according to the complaint.
During Tuesday’s state Senate hearing, Gutierrez delivered an impassioned plea for “common sense gun solutions” and for the ongoing investigation to be conducted in the open.
“We live in a democracy. In a democracy, things need to be transparent,” he said. “As to the laws and the things, that we need to change.”
Multitalented superstar Chris Brown has sung with some successful music artists throughout his career, but there’s one person he has yet to partner with. When Million Dollaz Worth of Game podcast host Walloasked the singer who in the industry he’d wish to collab with, he mentioned Beyoncé.
“Honestly, realistically — I probably said it once before but probably Beyoncé,” Brown said. “Only because of what that would look like.” The singer detailed his plans for the potential “dope song” with a matching music video of the two dancing together.
Brown said his hopeful partnership with Queen Bey would be “like a check off my to-do list.” And of course he’d never turn down the opportunity, the two popular singers simply need to make it happen.
Wallo, like some fans who left comments on Instagram, says he didn’t realize the duo had never officially teamed up before. Back in 2015, a remix to her hit song “Jealous” surfaced online, which features Brown’s vocals. According to Billboard at the time of the song’s release, Brown tweeted about the mashup, saying he “did the jealous remix some months ago for the Beyoncé collaboration album but it was never used.”
Brown is gearing up to drop his forthcoming 10th studio album, Breezy,on June 24, while Beyoncé has been prepping fans for Renaissance, her first solo studio album since Lemonade in 2016.
Bring Me the Horizon has announced a new single titled “sTraNgeRs.”
The track is set to premiere Wednesday, July 6. You can presave it now, which will also enter you for a chance to win tickets to see BMTH at the Reading & Leeds Festival in August.
“sTraNgeRs” will follow Horizon’s 2021 single “DiE4u.” The English rockers have been working on a new EP for their Post Human series to follow 2020’s Post Human: Survival Horror.
Meanwhile, frontman Oli Sykes is collaborating with Chinese artist Alice Longyu Gao on a new song called “Believe the Hype,” which arrives Wednesday, June 29. That track is available for presave, as well.
Other recent BMTH and Sykes collaborations include songs with Machine Gun Kelly, Tom Morello and Ed Sheeran.
With a price tag of just under $400, this stuffed animal isn’t going to be one you want to give to the kids.
The legendary German toy company Steiff has teamed up with Elton John to create a limited edition Elton teddy bear that’s a tribute to both Elton and his 1973 album Goodbye Yellow Brick Road. Just like Benny in “Benny and the Jets,” the teddy sports a “mohair suit” of soft fur and also rocks a pair of exclusive sunglasses from the Elton John Eyewear collection.
Images from the Yellow Brick Road album cover appear on the teddy’s footpads, and he has detailing that makes him look like he’s wearing a baseball jacket with “Elton John” embroidered on the back, as Elton does on the album cover. He’s even wearing a “diamond” cross earring in one fuzzy ear, just like Elton does, and the signature Steiff button in his ear is gold-plated.
Only 3,000 Elton teddies will be produced, at $395 a pop. You can preorder them now; they ship October 31.
(SAN FRANCISCO) — A search was underway Wednesday for a gunman who shot two people, one fatally, on a packed Muni commuter train in San Francisco, police said.
The shooting occurred around 10 a.m. as the light-rail train was moving between stations, according to San Francisco Police Department spokesperson Kathryn Winters.
Winters said police were initially called to the city’s Forest Hill Muni station for a report of a shooting, but the train had already pulled away, Winters said. Offices caught up to the train at the busy Castro Street Station, where they discovered the two victims, Winters said.
She said the gunman and commuters aboard the train ran off as soon as it stopped and the doors opened at the station.
Winters said one victim, a man, was pronounced dead at the scene. A second individual was taken to Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital and Trauma Center with non-life-threatening injuries.
The shooting happened ahead of this Sunday’s Pride Parade in San Francisco and in the heart of the city’s popular Castro District, which is expected to be filled with revelers celebrating LGBTQ pride this weekend. Winters said preliminary evidence showed that the shooting has no connection to this coming weekend’s activities or directed at the city’s LGBTQ community.
San Francisco Supervisor Myrna Melgar told ABC station KGO-TV in San Francisco that police informed her that the shooting occurred during a confrontation the gunman had with the victim who died.
“We do know the shooting happened after a heated verbal argument,” Melgar said.
It was not immediately clear whether the gunman and the deceased victim knew each other. She said the second victim who was wounded was an innocent bystander.
Winters said homicide detectives are securing surveillance video from the train and the Forest Hill and Castro stations in hopes there is footage of the shooting that can help them identify the assailant.
Police only released a vague description of the perpetrator as a man wearing dark clothes and a hooded sweatshirt.
Melgar asked any commuters who were on the train and witnessed the shooting to contact police immediately.
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
