When Ingrid Andress isn’t writing new songs or touring, you can probably find her enjoying a hobby she picked up as a home-schooled kid: cross-stitching.
“I used to cross-stich when I was younger, and now I love cross-stitching rap lyrics,” the singer says. “It’s just so funny to me. I don’t know why my brain thinks that’s hilarious, but cross-stitching weird, raunchy rap lyrics with, like, flowers and hearts around [them] just brings me so much joy, and I have no idea why.”
Hopefully Ingrid’s friends and family feel the same way — she says she likes to spread that joy around, especially during the holidays.
“I used to do them as Christmas gifts,” she continues, explaining that she either keeps it in the hoop she uses to make it so the gift recipient can hang it on their wall, or she cross-stitches a pillow or napkin for them.
Ingrid says she’s waiting for the perfect cross-stitch craft to make for herself. “I haven’t kept one for me yet. Usually I just give them away,” she continues.
Ingrid may be cross-stitching in her free time, but she’s currently hard at work on musical pursuits. She released her latest new song, “Seeing Someone Else,” earlier this month.
Elton John‘s classic fifth studio album, Honky Château, was released 50 years ago today, on May 19, 1972.
The album was Elton’s first to top the Billboard 200, spending five consecutive weeks at #1 in July and August of ’72 and beginning a run of six straight chart-topping studio efforts in the U.S. for Elton.
Honky Château included two songs that reached the top 10 of the Billboard Hot 100, “Rocket Man” — one of Elton’s signature tunes — and “Honky Cat,” which peaked at #6 and #8, respectively.
The album was recorded in France at Château d’Hérouville, an 18th century manor house, and was Elton’s first full album to feature contributions from his classic backing band of guitarist Davey Johnstone, drummer Nigel Olsson and bassist Dee Murray.
Johnstone tells ABC Audio that he had basically just met Olsson and Murray for the first time at the airport before the sessions began, but he says they quickly developed a chemistry while working on the album.
“[W]ith Elton on piano, Nigel on drums, Dee on bass and me on guitars, and then us all doing background vocals, we it had tailor-made,” Johnstone says. “[We were a] four-piece … rocking outfit. And with Bernie Taupin supplying the lyrics, it was like, suddenly we were this unstoppable force.”
Johnstone notes that with everyone staying at the chateau, songs often would come together very quickly.
“[W]e’d come down in the morning and have a coffee and a baguette or something, and we’d just immediately start rehearsing some of these songs,” Johnstone recalls. “And in some cases, we’d rehearse the song and we’d say, ‘Oh, that sounds great. Let’s just go over to the studio and cut it right now.’… So it was very, very fast.”
Here’s Honky Château‘s full track list:
“Honky Cat”
“Mellow”
“I Think I’m Going to Kill Myself”
“Susie (Dramas)”
“Rocket Man (I Think It’s Going to Be a Long, Long Time)”
“Salvation”
“Slave”
“Amy”
“Mona Lisas and Mad Hatters”
“Hercules”
She’s one of the most famous women in Hollywood, yet no one really knows anything about her. That’s all about to change with Angelyne, the limited series debuting today on Peacock.
Emmy Rossum plays the blonde billboard loving bombshell, who is famous just for being famous and driving around LA in a pink Corvette. Rossum tells ABC Audio she’s been obsessed with Angelyne since she was 13, when she first came to LA for auditions.
“I saw this billboard at a stoplight, and it was this woman and this power and this femininity. And then I started seeing the billboard everywhere,” she says. “And the more I asked people like, who is Angelyne? Everyone would light up and then tell a completely different story.”
“I think that’s what’s so interesting about her. How could you be both so known in LA and yet so unknown?” Rossum recalls thinking. “She’s kind of done the impossible…you know, maintain the mystery and the enigma for decades.”
The actress worked on nailing Angelyne’s look “for months and months,” until they “really kind of got a look we loved.”
“I didn’t recognize myself,” she continues. “And I have never been so able to enter my imagination so easily…there was real freedom and liberation in that.”
Another thrill for Emmy was getting to meet Angelyne and bring her “pink cookies.” In return, she gave Rossum “a magic stone.”
“She granted us her life rights and her trademarks, the ability to recreate all of her songs and billboard poses,” notes Rossum, who adds that it “meant the world to me, especially as somebody who has fought so much for pay equity and fairness. It was incredibly important to me that she was very well compensated for all of her contributions to the story.”
(NEW YORK) — Here are the scores from Wednesday’s sports events:
MAJOR LEAGUE BASEBALL
INTERLEAGUE
Cincinnati at Cleveland (Postponed)
AMERICAN LEAGUE
Tampa Bay 6, Detroit 1
Minnesota 14, Oakland 4
Boston 5, Houston 1
NY Yankees 3, Baltimore 2
Seattle 5, Toronto 1
Kansas City 6, Chi White Sox 2
Texas 6, LA Angels 5
NATIONAL LEAGUE
Milwaukee 7, Atlanta 6
Colorado 5, San Francisco 3
LA Dodgers 5, Arizona 3
Philadelphia 3, San Diego 0
Washington 5, Miami 4
NY Mets 11, St. Louis 4
Pittsburgh 3, Chi Cubs 2
NATIONAL BASKETBALL ASSOCIATION PLAYOFFS
Golden State 112, Dallas 87 (Golden State leads 1-0)
NATIONAL HOCKEY LEAGUE PLAYOFFS
Carolina 2, NY Rangers 1 (OT) (Carolina leads 1-0)
Calgary 9, Edmonton 6 (Calgary leads 1-0)
WOMEN’S NATIONAL BASKETBALL ASSOCIATION
Seattle 74, Chicago 71
MAJOR LEAGUE SOCCER
New York City FC 2, D.C. United 0
Chicago 3, New York 3 (Tie)
Miami 0, Philadelphia 0 (Tie)
LA Galaxy 1, Minnesota 1 (Tie)
Seattle 1, Houston 0
Sporting Kansas City 2, Colorado 1
Nashville 2, CF Montral 1
Vancouver 2, FC Dallas 1
Austin FC 2, Los Angeles FC 1
San Jose 3, Portland 2
(WASHINGTON) — Many across the country — and certainly former President Donald Trump — are watching Pennsylvania.
Ballots are still being counted in the GOP Senate primary race, where razor-thin margins separate hedge fund manager David McCormick and celebrity TV Dr. Mehmet Oz. Meanwhile, a late Trump endorsement in the Republican gubernatorial primary helped boost election denier and state Sen. Doug Mastriano to a win. Both races offer insight — and raise tough questions — about the conservative electorate in the Keystone State.
As of Wednesday afternoon, with 98% of votes counted, both McCormick and Oz had roughly 31% — separated by just about 2,000 votes. Pennsylvania law triggers a recount if a candidate’s margin of victory is 0.5% or less, as seems all but certain.
Here’s what happening in the Senate contest and what to know about the gubernatorial win.
What’s next for Oz and McCormick?
Only about 2% of ballots in the GOP Senate primary remain to be counted. But in a squeaker like this, those 2% are key.
Many counties in Pennsylvania don’t start counting mail-in ballots until Election Day, so there are still enough outstanding votes across the state’s 67 counties to be tabulated and counted that a result cannot yet be projected.
Raising another issue, in Lancaster County, “about 22,000 mail ballots were printed by the print vendor with the incorrect code and could not be read by the county’s scanners,” the secretary of state’s office told ABC News on Tuesday night. County election officials were in the process of re-marking and scanning the ballots by hand, which will likely take a few days.
If the margin demands a recount when all votes are in, the secretary of state will initiate that process.
Trump, taking a page out of his own playbook and refusing to wait for every vote to be counted, on Wednesday publicly urged Oz to “declare victory.” Trump continued to sow doubt in the election results to come, using his social media app, Truth Social, to again attack mail-in ballots.
Republicans have been reluctant to rely on that voting method in the last two years — repeatedly criticizing and undercutting an option that millions of Americans relied on at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, despite any evidence of widespread fraud. But a key race still counting them is forcing patience within the party.
The combination of mail-in ballots trailing in and printing errors is, in part, what’s causing the delayed result on the McCormick-Oz contest. But another factor was the ascendance of far-right conservative commentator Kathy Barnette — over Trump’s objections.
Barnette — who was at Trump’s rally on Jan. 6, 2021, and was seen walking with others to the U.S. Capitol before the deadly rioting (in which she has denied participating) — saw a surge in support in the last few weeks and appeared to split votes among Trump’s base and away from Oz and McCormick. As of Wednesday afternoon, she had about 25% of the votes compared to the others’ 31% each, highlighting how unusually fractured GOP primary voters were.
In the days leading up to the primary, Trump came after Barnette, saying that she would not be able to win the general election against the Democratic nominee (who ended up being Lt. Gov. John Fetterman). He also swiped at her background, saying that “she has many things in her past which have not been properly explained or vetted.” Barnette told NBC News Trump had to say that because “he’s going to stick with that endorsement.”
But during Trump’s rally in Pennsylvania earlier this month, intended to bolster Oz, voters on the ground expressed skepticism, citing Oz’s changing stances on COVID vaccines, abortion access and the Second Amendment. Instead, many told ABC News, they would prefer Barnette, calling her a true conservative.
“MAGA [“Make America Great Again”] does not belong to President Trump,” Barnette said at a debate last month. “MAGA — although he coined the word — MAGA is actually, it belongs to the people.”
Without Barnette’s success, it’s likely that either McCormick or Oz would have more decisively won the race, avoiding the potential for a recall while Republicans would prefer to be able to turn toward the upcoming general against Fetterman.
The Senate seat that Oz and McCormick are vying for is currently held by retiring Republican Sen. Pat Toomey. It would be a significant loss to the GOP — and a critical gain for Democrats who hope to maintain their slim control in the 50-50 Senate.
Trump announced his endorsement of Oz in April, citing the latter’s popularity and past compliments on Trump’s health. He argued that Oz would be the one most likely able to win in November’s midterms. But McCormick, the hedge fund owner from Connecticut endorsed by Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, and whose wife worked in the Trump administration, drew many votes even without Trump’s coveted support.
In a call with ABC News on Tuesday, McCormick struck a delicate balance of complimenting Trump while arguing his endorsement didn’t matter in the race.
Both McCormick and Oz spoke at their respective election night parties and acknowledged that their race was too close to call.
“We’re not going to have resolution tonight, but we can see the path ahead,” McCormick said.
Oz, appearing minutes after, first thanked Trump for his endorsement and then Fox News host Sean Hannity for his “behind-the-scenes” advice.
“We’re not going to have a result tonight. When all the votes are tallied, I am confident we will win,” Oz said.
Whoever wins the Republican primary will face Fetterman, who has campaigned with a distinctly blue-collar bent and an everyman affect — tall, bald and tattooed, more often in a shirt and shorts than a suit. He soared to a wide victory in the Democratic race over the more moderate Rep. Conor Lamb, even as he underwent surgery on primary day to get a pacemaker with defibrillator after he suffered a stroke last Friday. His campaign said Tuesday that the procedure was successful and he was recovering in the hospital.
Trump vaults Mastriano to victory, with a Democratic assist
Pennsylvania’s Republican gubernatorial primary shifted dramatically in the final days of the election after Trump interjected and endorsed Doug Mastriano, who had attracted conservative grassroots support for his efforts to try to overturn the state’s 2020 presidential result. Mastriano’s win has raised concerns about the state’s future election integrity, since Pennsylvania’s governor appoints the secretary of state, the chief officer in charge with overseeing elections.
The state senator and retired Army colonel organized buses to the “Stop the Steal” rally on Jan. 6 and was seen on camera walking past barricades at the Capitol ahead of the rioting later that day. The House’s Jan. 6 committee has subpoenaed him, given that he was in communication with Trump, but neither he nor the committee has confirmed whether he complied with the order. He has denied participating in any violence.
Establishment Republicans worried about Mastriano getting the nomination, given how his baseless claims about the 2020 election might play with the wider electorate. Two GOP candidates in the governor’s race, Melissa Hart and Jake Corman, dropped out in the last stretch in an effort to consolidate votes around Rep. Lou Barletta instead of Mastriano.
Democrats, however, hoped for Mastriano’s win, believing him easier to beat in November.
Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro, who ran unopposed for the Democratic nomination, branded Mastriano as Trump’s pick so that he could stand out from the GOP crowd. But Republican political strategist Amanda Carpenter, who condemned Mastriano as “an insurrectionist” in a column for the website The Bulwark, also said his win should provide a lesson to Democrats, especially those who wanted Trump to face Hillary Clinton in the 2016 presidential election for similar reasons.
“Hoping that Democrats will solve the problems of the Republican party has been a grave mistake. It’s not often countries get second chances,” she wrote. “But if the GOP now gets behind insurrectionists like Mastriano, it’s January 6th forever.”
ABC News’ Hannah Demissie, Oren Oppenheim and Alisa Wiersema ontributed to this report.
Libby March for The Washington Post via Getty Images
(BUFFALO, N.Y.) — On the east side of Buffalo, New York, community is the neighborhood’s greatest asset and the local Tops Friendly Market on Jefferson Ave. serves as a vital hub, according to area leaders.
In this predominantly Black community, which has struggled to thrive after years of historic segregation and divestment, residents say the area’s lone grocery store is a central resource and gathering place providing access to fresh food and medicine.
“We don’t got the YMCA no more in the community, so Tops is it for us,” Jeffrey Watkins, a 64-year-old long-time resident of East Buffalo, told ABC News’ “Nightline.” “It’s like a community center. We meet there every day. We’re in Tops every single day. That’s where we live.”
But on Saturday, May 14, all of that changed when an 18-year-old white male allegedly opened fire in what authorities say was a racially motivated attack, shooting and killing 10 people and injuring 3 others. Eleven of the victims are Black.
“It was a planned attack. He took away a food source. Now there’s nowhere people can eat right now,” Julien Guy, an East Buffalo resident, said.
Buffalo Councilman Ulysees Wingo said the shooting suspect “attacked an oasis in the middle of a food desert,” telling ABC News that he “wasn’t just trying to kill Black people, he was trying to starve them.”“With this store being closed – it has completely disrupted the lives of residents; it has completely interrupted the flow of how people fellowship and how we come together,” the councilman told ABC News.
An assault on the disenfranchised
Nearly 20 years ago, residents living in East Buffalo lacked access to healthy, affordable food within walking distance. The nearest grocery store was more than 3 miles away.
“Years ago, some of us worked very hard to bring this supermarket to Buffalo’s east side,” Buffalo Mayor Byron Brown told ABC News. “This was a food desert previously,” he added.
Community leaders and city officials advocated and lobbied for a supermarket and won, opening Tops Friendly Market with much fanfare in 2003.
Since then, the grocery store has been a pinnacle of pride for the food equality and resources for which residents long fought.
“It was a really big thing about us even getting a Tops in an inner-city neighborhood,” said Roberto Archie, a resident. “It was something we really needed. We finally got it; now it’s gone again.”
Wingo said the systemic racism that ultimately perpetuated years of divestment is a major factor that makes Saturday’s deadly rampage even more devastating to a community that has struggled with historic disenfranchisement.
“This country was founded on principles that suggested Black folks were lesser than other folks. We have these nationalists and these white supremacists who think that they’re entitled to this country when the fact of the matter is this country was built on the backs of my ancestors,” Wingo said.
Banding together in the face of tragedy
In the aftermath of this tragedy, city officials have collaborated with corporations to help residents get the resources they need.
Tops Supermarket offered ongoing transportation to neighboring store chains, saying in a statement, “While the Tops location at Jefferson Avenue will remain closed until further notice, we are steadfast in our commitment to serving every corner of our community as we have for the past 60 years. Knowing the importance of this location and serving families on the east side of the city, we have taken immediate steps to ensure our neighbors are able to meet their grocery and pharmacy needs by providing free bus shuttle service starting today [May 15].”
New York Gov. Kathy Hochul announced a partnership with Uber and Lyft to provide residents free rides.
“They have offered to take people from the [local] ZIP codes, and they need to go to a grocery store in another area because a lot of people in this neighborhood walk to the grocery store. They don’t have transportation,” Hochul said on Sunday, May 15.
Resident Dayna Overton-Burns, 53, has been working around the clock to gather donations and deliver food and resources to people in need, one of several city residents who are rallying together to ensure that the community’s most vulnerable are fed.
“This is my city. This is my community. These are my people. I don’t care if you’re Black, white, or purple,” Overton-Burns told ABC News. “It’s important for me to help where I live and build community. We should be one, and not just wait for tragedy to happen in order to come together. We should be doing that work every single day.”
(LEON COUNTY, Texas) — An inmate serving a life sentence for murder managed to free himself of restraints and cut through a caged area of a bus transporting him before overpowering a bus driver and escaping, Texas authorities said as the search for the inmate continued.
Gonzalo Lopez, 46, was on a transport bus en route from Gatesville to Huntsville for a medical appointment when he escaped in Leon County on May 12, the Texas Department of Criminal Justice said.
“Due to his criminal history and restrictive housing status, inmate Lopez was being transported in a separate, caged area of the bus, designated for high-risk inmates,” the department said in an update Wednesday. “During the transport, inmate Lopez defeated his restraints, cut through the expanded metal, crawled out through the bottom of the cage, and attacked the driver.”
During the altercation with Lopez, the officer driving the bus was stabbed in the hand and punctured in the chest, suffering non-life-threatening injuries, officials said last week. Lopez allegedly tried to grab the driver’s service weapon but couldn’t remove it from the holster, officials said.
The Texas Department of Criminal Justice did not provide any updates on what Lopez allegedly used to cut through the cage.
“He used some type of device, we don’t know what some type of device, to cut out the bottom of the door,” Texas Department of Criminal Justice spokesman Robert Hurst told reporters last week.
The driver, Lopez and a second officer at the rear of the bus exited the vehicle, the department said Wednesday. As the second officer approached Lopez, the inmate got back on the bus and started driving away, it said.
Both officers fired at the bus, striking the rear tire. Lopez continued to drive for about a mile before crashing, officials said. Lopez then jumped off the bus and fled into the woods off Highway 7 in Leon County, the Texas Department of Criminal Justice said.
As the search for Lopez continues, the Texas Department of Criminal Justice also released new photos Wednesday of the inmate taken from surveillance footage on the morning of the escape as he was being escorted to the prison bus.
Visitation at more than 40 Texas Department of Criminal Justice units, including prisons, will be canceled until further notice starting Thursday “due to the ongoing efforts in the apprehension of escaped inmate Gonzalo Lopez,” the department announced Wednesday.
Lopez is serving a life sentence for a capital murder in Hidalgo County and an attempted capital murder in Webb County, the Texas Department of Criminal Justice said. The murder was committed with a pickaxe, according to Hurst.
Several local, state and federal law enforcement agencies have been involved in the search, including horse and K9 teams.
A reward for information leading to Lopez’s arrest has grown to $50,000.
ABC News’ Emily Shapiro contributed to this report.
(NEW YORK) — As the fentanyl crisis continues to sweep across the United States, lawmakers are focused on trying to stop the flow of fentanyl into their communities, but many are saying that curbing the supply from dealers is only part of the larger problem. There’s demand.
After five decades since the start of the war on drugs, critics say these efforts haven’t helped curb drug use.
One in 14 Americans are suffering from some form of addiction to legal or illegal substances, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Some say the rise in fentanyl deaths has been exacerbated by ignoring the opioid crisis and the millions of people who are already suffering from addiction who continue to seek available opioids – in many cases, fentanyl.
Ryan, who wished to be identified by first name only, said he has been living with an opioid addiction for decades. He said he just recently started using fentanyl.
“I stopped for many years. I just relapsed three months ago and I hadn’t used in 10 years,” said Ryan. “Fentanyl is in everything now.”
According to the United States Drug Enforcement Administration, fentanyl is 80 to 100 times more potent than morphine. Despite the risk, for many people like Ryan, despite how addictive it is, fentanyl quickly becomes their drug of choice because it is so potent.
Sam Rivera runs the nation’s first overdose prevention clinic in Harlem, New York. The aim is to not stop people from using drugs, but to supervise them when they do by offering medical support and safety.
Rivera said that goal is harm reduction and preventing overdose deaths.
“We’ve had a number of overdoses today. It seems like a potential bad batch [of fentanyl],” said Rivera. “We’re there when the overdose happens, and we’re there immediately.”
Rivera added that not a single person has ever died at his clinic.
Studies show that similar programs in other countries have successfully reduced fatal overdoses and increased access to health services, according to a recent study published in the International Journal of Drug Policy.
Rivera said by giving people living with addiction a safe space to use drugs, it gets them into a supervised facility that can help them stay alive until they are ready to try to quit.
“Beautiful, hurting people are coming in with those drugs, to use them safely and stay alive,” said Rivera.
Other approaches include a clinic named Rock to Recovery In Nashville, Tennessee. They are using the power of music as therapy.
Phil Bogard, a former rock musician, is the program administrator at Rock to Recovery. He said he struggled with addiction and has been “clean and sober” for almost 14 years.
“We’ve got people playing keyboard parts, and I’m on a guitar. We’re going to write a chorus together that we can all sing along to. An hour and a half passes by and we lived in the moment,” said Bogard, who adds that music fosters a sense of belonging and community. “And hopefully we got some people to get on the other side of ‘I can’t, I won’t, I’m not able to.’”
Activists say there is no easy answer to stopping both the enduring opioid crisis and the growing fentanyl crisis, those who are struggling with an addiction and need more resources and help now.
“They’re going to use,” said Rivera. “I have people in that room right now who want to stop, they’re right there saying, ‘I want to stop.’ But at least now they’re talking about it.”
(NEW YORK) — As the nation continues to grapple with mass shootings in New York and California this past weekend, a new analysis by ABC News and ABC’s owned stations shows a startling rise in gun violence along interstate highways across the country over the last few years.
The analysis, which examined nearly 3,000 shootings that occurred on or near U.S. interstates from January 2018 through March 2022, found that interstate highway shootings across the country spiked alongside the overall surge in gun violence over the course of the COVID-19 pandemic, with New Orleans, Chicago and Memphis seeing some of the biggest spikes.
Interstate highway shootings rose from 540 incidents in 2019 to 846 incidents in 2021 — in increase of 57% — according to the data, which was collected by the Gun Violence Archive, an independent research group.
In just the first three months of this year, at least 149 shooting incidents occurred along or near interstate highways, the data shows.
In all, the incidents resulted in 680 people killed and more than 1,600 people injured over the last four years and three months, according to the data.
The full report by ABC News Chief Justice Correspondent Pierre Thomas, “Highway Gunplay: An ABC News Investigation,” will stream on ABC News Live Prime with Linsey Davis, Wednesday at 7 p.m. and 9 p.m.
The data collected by the Gun Violence Archive helps shed light on some of the nation’s most dangerous stretches of highway out of the more than 47,000 miles of interstates across the country.
According to the data, I-10 in the New Orleans area has been the single most violent stretch of interstate in terms of gun incidents between 2019 and 2021. It’s followed by I-94 in the Chicago area, I-240 in the Memphis area, I-35 in the Austin area and I-70 in the St. Louis area.
Courtney Bradford, a young man who was about to be married, was shot and killed late last year while riding as a passenger in a car on I-240 in Memphis. He and his fiancé had just bought a new home to share with their 5-year-old daughter.
“I’ve called him by mistake. It’s very hard,” Bradford’s fiancé, Latoya Henley, told ABC News’ Thomas about dealing with Bradford’s death seven months ago.
The shooting that took Bradford’s life was one of 121 interstate shootings Memphis Police responded to in 2021, according to data provided by the police department.
“What’s even more unsettling is the fact that they’re so reckless,” Bradford’s mother Tonja Rounds told ABC News. “You could be aiming at one particular individual — but you’re shooting on the expressway and people are driving by, so you could shoot anybody.”
“It’s very insane,” Henley said. “I get antsy when I’m on the expressway.”
Seven months after the shooting, Henley and Rounds say police don’t appear to be any closer to determining who took Bradford’s life. The shooting occurred at night, and surveillance cameras were unable to provide any details about the car that the shots came from.
“We just keep trusting and believing that someone is going to come forward,” Rounds said.
Memphis, New Orleans, Chicago and Detroit are among the cities that have been hit hardest by the surge in highway shootings over the last few years, with the number of shootings increasing even more as the COVID-19 pandemic spread across the U.S.
Eight of the 10 stretches of interstates with the highest number of gun incidents between 2019 and 2021 are in those four cities, according to the Gun Violence Archive data. Shooting incidents on or near interstates in those cities alone killed at least 63 people and injured at least 284 others during that time, accounting for nearly 12% of all deaths and 23% of all injuries reported from interstate gun violence nationwide during those years.
I-10, which runs across the southern U.S. from Florida to California, had the highest number of interstate highway shootings during the pandemic period, including at least 79 incidents in Louisiana — many of them occurring around New Orleans.
“You’ve got what police chiefs are calling the pandemic impact on crime,” Chuck Wexler, executive director of the Police Executive Research Forum, told ABC News. “It cannot be underestimated.”
“Traffic stops have decreased, so now a small altercation — someone cuts someone off on the road — that can quickly escalate,” Wexler said. “And that altercation becomes a shooting, becomes a homicide.”
During the pandemic years, between 2020 and 2021, the Gun Violence Archive data showed at least 121 interstate shootings in the Chicago area, averaging out to one incident every six days. The group found 73 incidents in the New Orleans area, 58 incidents in the Detroit area, 57 incidents in the Memphis are and 38 incidents in the St. Louis area.
The spike in highway shootings during the pandemic mirrors a surge in overall gun violence.
According to data released this month by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, gun homicides increased 35% across the country during the pandemic, to the highest level in 25 years.
Firearm murders increased most markedly among youths and young adults, with the number of victims age 10-24 rising by 40%. People of color experienced the highest increase, as the number of Black male shooting victims age 10-24 years — already 21 times higher than the number of white male victims of the same age — increased even further in 2020.
An analysis of data provided by the Houston Police Department by ABC13 showed that homicides along the city’s highways and streets doubled during the pandemic, driving a surge in the overall number of homicides in the city during the two pandemic years. Among those killed in Houston road rage incidents was 17-year-old David Castro, who was fatally shot last summer on I-10 while leaving an Astros baseball game, and Tyler Mitchell, who died earlier this month after being shot along the same interstate just before his 22nd birthday.
In California, the Gun Violence Archive identified more than 200 interstate highway shootings between January 2018 and March of 2022, with many of them occurring on I-5, I-80 and I-580. And additional shootings occurred on Southern California freeways that aren’t part of the interstate system; last year, the California Highway Patrol reported at least 80 incidents of cars being shot at while traveling on SoCal freeways in just the one-month span between late April and late May, with the majority of them occurring along the 91 Freeway that runs from east of the 15 Freeway west toward the 605 Freeway.
Law enforcement officials say the nature of highway shootings typically makes them more difficult to track and solve that other types of shootings.
“The evidence and the crime scene is moving, sometimes 70, 80, 90 miles an hour,” said Illinois State Police Director Brendan Kelly.
As a result, said Kelly, the Illinois State Police are adding patrols and increasing searches to identify people with illegal weapons in their cars. They’ve also added new cameras along interstates to try to better track suspects.
“We will use license plate readers, we will use our air operations, we will use our patrol officers that are out there, we will use canines, we will use all the tools at our disposal to be able to pursue the people that are responsible for this violence,” Kelly said.
In the Detroit area, where the Detroit Police Department says they’ve seen an average of five freeway shootings a month over the past three years, the city has teamed up with more than three dozen other law enforcement agencies to launch “Operation Brison,” a multi-city effort to crack down on freeway shootings after two-year-old Brison Christian was killed last year when someone opened fire on his family’s vehicle on I-17 in what the police say was a case of mistaken identity.
Two alleged gang members have been charged with murder in the case.
But in Memphis, Latoya Henley is still waiting for resolution to her fiancé’s murder.
“We don’t know what happened at all,” Henley told ABC News. “We don’t know who’s involved.”
“I don’t want anyone to ever feel what I feel,” she said. “I pray a lot, ’cause the one thing I don’t want to be is angry. Because that’s what I was at first — I was angry. I was confused. And I was in disbelief. And you know, some days, I’m still in disbelief.”
ABC News’ Jack Date, Luke Barr and Alexandra Myers contributed to this report, along with Ross Weidner of WLS in Chicago, Courtney Carpenter of KTRK in Houston and Lindsey Feingold of KGO in San Francisco.
Watch “Highway Gunplay: An ABC News Investigation” on ABC News Live Prime with Linsey Davis, Wednesday at 7 p.m. and 9 p.m.
Metallica is once again teaming up with Walmart for an exclusive run of colored vinyl.
The collection includes new wax variants of 1996’s Load, 1997’s Reload, 2003’s St. Anger and 2008’s Death Magnetic, as well as the 1998 covers compilation Garage Inc.
Each of the five titles will be available separately or altogether as part of a bundle. They’ll be available in Walmart stores and online beginning June 17. You can preorder your copies now via Walmart.com.
Metallica previously linked up with Walmart in 2020 for exclusive colored vinyl reissues of their first five albums, from 1983’s Kill ‘Em All to 1991’s Black Album, as well as their latest release, 2016’s Hardwired… to Self-Destruct.
