(NEW YORK) — A New York City police officer has been charged with murder and attempted murder Thursday for allegedly shooting two women, killing one, at a home in Brooklyn.
The officer, identified by police as Yvonne Wu, 31, who was off-duty at the time, is believed to have shot both women — one of whom she was dating — when they returned to the home where the officer’s girlfriend lived.
Police said the off-duty officer shot a 24-year-old woman in her chest, “possibly more than one time,” at the Bensonhurst home. The victim, identified as Jamie Liang, was taken to Maimonides Medical Center and was pronounced dead, police said.
The other woman, a 23-year-old, who was in the romantic relationship with the officer, was shot in the torso and is expected to survive, police said.
Wu is a police officer in the 72nd District, which encompasses the Park Slope and Sunset Park areas of Brooklyn.
She had worked for the NYPD for 5 1/2 years. Police said she was at a local hospital for evaluation.
“We believe it is domestic in nature. We believe all three parties knew each other,” Assistant Chief Michael Kemper, commanding officer of Patrol Borough Brooklyn South, said at a press conference Wednesday evening.
“We believe they had an intimate relationship,” he said of the officer and the 23-year-old woman.
Wu remained at the scene and told police she had shot the two women, according to police.
Police said they were still investigating, but recovered a gun on the scene and “there’s a very good chance it is her service weapon,” Kemper said.
“The whole incident is horrible, but these cops performed great, just heroically, and this is what NYPD cops come upon every single day,” Kemper said. “Is this an incident they would want to come upon? No. But unfortunately throughout their careers they come upon this.”
It was his voice that got him in the door, but it might’ve been a timely feat of athleticism that cemented Daniel “DL” Laskiewicz as the new lead singer of Bad Wolves.
DL, who previously played guitar in the band The Acacia Strain, joined Bad Wolves earlier this year following the departure of former frontman Tommy Vext. Being he was longtime friends with guitarist Doc Coyle, the band connected with DL and sent him a trio of instrumentals to record his vocals over, and then invited him for an in-person rehearsal session.
As DL tells ABC Audio, it was during a moment after that rehearsal — a moment that will “burned in my mind forever,” he says — that he knew the fit was right.
“We were walking out into the parking lot of the rehearsal space,” DL recalls. “I don’t know if it was keys or something, but from across this long parking lot, [drummer] John [Boecklin] threw keys or whatever it was at me.”
“I just caught them with, like, two fingers,” he says. “The ex-football player in me just, you know, reacted.”
That little bit of chemistry seemed like a sign that DL and Bad Wolves were made for each other.
“Everybody just kind of stopped and looked at each other, like, ‘All right! Let’s go to dinner!'” DL says. “It was one of those moments…It was cool.”
Of course, it certainly helped that the rehearsal itself went well, too.
“The second that we were all finally in a room together with the songs and stuff, it just felt like a family reunion,” DL explains. “It felt really good, felt really natural.”
Bad Wolves’ first album with DL, Dear Monsters, arrives October 29. It features the lead single “Lifeline.”
The 15-track collection follows a similar template to the band’s massively successful 1999 album, Supernatural, with guitar legend Carlos Santana and his group collaborating with guest artists from various musical genres.
At a recent New York City press event, Carlos reflected on collaborating with such a diverse array of musicians.
“We don’t leave anybody out,” he noted. “This is why Supernatural worked, and this is why Blessings and Miracles, I’m getting a lot of feedback [about] how [many] people identify with it. I don’t know the word genre. I don’t know what that means. I only play from the heart, for the heart.”
Like Supernatural, Blessings and Miracles finds Santana teaming up with Matchbox Twenty frontman Rob Thomas — this time on song called “Move” that, like its predecessor “Smooth,” blends melodic pop and rock with a Latin groove.
“This song…makes me realize energy is very welcome in our hearts, because it makes you feel like you’re 17 years old, with a lot of thirst for adventure,” Carlos said.
Another standout track on Blessings and Miracles is a cover of the Procol Harum classic “A Whiter Shade of Pale” featuring Steve Winwood.
Carlos revealed that he asked Winwood to record the cover with him a few years ago when they were both playing a concert at London’s Hyde Park.
“I said, ‘Hey, man, I want to do ‘Whiter Shade of Pale’ with you. You play Hammond organ and singing it,'” Carlos recalled, “‘but I want to do it ‘Spanish Harlem’ style…you know, put some real sex in it.'”
Carlos said the track was one of his favorites on the album, “because [Winwood’s] voice is so iconic.”
Here’s Blessings and Miracles full track list:
“Ghost of Future Pull”/”New Light”
“Santana Celebration”
“Rumbalero” (featuring Salvador Santana & Asdru Sierra)
“Joy” (Carlos Santana & Chris Stapleton)
“Move” (Carlos Santana, Rob Thomas, Zac Barnett & American Authors)
“A Whiter Shade of Pale” (featuring Steve Winwood)
“Break” (featuring Ally Brooke)
“She’s Fire” (Diane Warren, G-Eazy & Carlos Santana)
“Peace Power” (featuring Corey Glover)
“America for Sale” (featuring Kirk Hammett & Mark Osegueda)
“Breathing Underwater” (featuring Stella Santana, Avi Snow, MVCA)
“Mother Yes”
“Song for Cindy”
“Angel Choir” (featuring Gayle Moran Corea)/”All Together” (featuring Chick Corea)
“Ghost of Future Pull II”
Chris “Ludacris” Bridges says he wants to “change the world” with his new animated Netflix series Karma’s World.
Inspired by his real-life daughter, Karma, Bridges says the idea of the series came to him over 10 years ago, when his daughter expressed her interest in following in his footsteps.
“She wanted the rap too,” Bridges tells ABC Audio. “So…I actually put her in the booth, [and] to my surprise, she had the good genetics and…the vocal ability at the age of six…[that] it kind of blew me away. And I was like, ‘If you want to do music, you have to talk about what goes on in your world and in your life.’ And, you know, that brings us to everything that we’re at today.”
The rapper-turned-Fast & Furious actor says he and Karma are a lot alike because they both showed “diligence, hard work, and determination at such an early age.”
“And it made me want to create this entire idea just based on my offspring,” he shares. “And that’s what life is supposed to be all about.”
Looking at his new series, Bridges is confident that he’s created something special.
“I feel like there are a lot of children that will be able to relate to Karma,” he says. “And it’s really encouraging them to find their own voice and to express themselves in very unique ways — the same way that Karma does.”
He continues, “Overall…the same way that Karma wants to change the world with music, I want to change the world with this show.”
Karma’s World is now available to stream on Netflix.
If the real world isn’t scary enough, the new Halloween movie fans have been dying to see is out now.
After the COVID-19 pandemic delayed its release by a year, Halloween Killsslashes its way into theaters today and star Jamie Lee Curtis promises fans it was well worth the wait.
The actress explains that the film is bigger, badder and even gorier than the previous installment.
“[Halloween] 2018 was about female trauma and violence against women and 2021’s movie is about a mob violence,” Curtis, 62, explained, saying the town of Haddonfield, IL, is finally fed up with Michael Meyers and is “taking matters into our own hands.”
“[It’s] a group of people — collateral damage — coming together, saying, ‘We are as mad as hell. We are not taking it anymore. The system is broken,'” she continued, adding that “the violence is next level.”
However, director and writer David Gordon Green hints taking down the legendary killer won’t be easy, but remained coy on how Meyers will be able to withstand the wrath of an entire town.
Does the slasher have powers or is he just an abnormally strong and violent man? Green said the film won’t answer that age-old question, but it will explore “the mystery [of] what makes him scary.”
In order to do that, he needed to expand the scope of “Laurie versus Michael” and include the thousands of voices of Haddonfield who have been a part of the Halloween saga since the beginning.
“I thought it would be fascinating to study a community, to an effect of fear that transcends the interpersonal and becomes the almost cosmic interpretation of fear,” Green explained.
Halloween Kills — also starring Judy Greer and Andi Matichak — is now playing in theaters.
(NEW YORK) — Here are the scores from Thursday’s sports events:
MAJOR LEAGUE SCOREBOARD
NATIONAL LEAGUE PLAYOFFS
LA Dodgers 2, San Francisco 1 (LA wins 3-2)
NATIONAL BASKETBALL ASSOCIATION PRESEASON
Atlanta 127, Miami 92
Brooklyn 107, Minnesota 101
Denver 113 Oklahoma City 107 (OT)
Sacramento 116, LA Lakers 112
NATIONAL HOCKEY LEAGUE
Buffalo 5, Montreal 1
Ottawa 3, Toronto 2
Columbus 8, Arizona 2
Florida 5, Pittsburgh 4 (OT)
Dallas 3, NY Rangers 2 (OT)
Carolina 6, NY Islanders 3
Tampa Bay 7, Detroit 6 (OT)
Final Seattle 4 Nashville 3
NATIONAL FOOTBALL LEAGUE
Tampa Bay 28, Philadelphia 22
(WASHINGTON) — Hours after his Democratic opponent called on him to publicly condemn attendees of a GOP rally who pledged allegiance to an American flag said to have been flown at the Jan. 6 rally near the Capitol prior to the insurrection, Republican nominee for Virginia governor Glenn Youngkin issued a statement calling the act “weird and wrong.”
“While I had no role in last night’s event, I have heard about it from many people in the media today. It is weird and wrong to pledge allegiance to a flag connected to January 6,” Youngkin said. “As I have said many times before, the violence that occurred on January 6 was sickening and wrong.”
Thursday morning, former Gov. Terry McAuliffe, the Democrat in the race, held a press call where he urged Youngkin to disavow the pledge that kicked off an event in support of the statewide GOP ticket.
“They really brought a flag up there and they did pledge of allegiance to a flag that was used to bring down the democracy that that American flag symbolizes,” McAuliffe said. “I’m just asking Glenn Youngkin to issue a statement or go before the cameras today… and say, it was not appropriate to pledge allegiance to a flag… that tried to destroy the democracy.”
At the start of the Wednesday night rally, which was livestreamed on the right-wing platform Real America’s Voice, the emcee called up a woman with an American flag, which the emcee said “was carried at the peaceful rally with Donald J. Trump on Jan. 6.”
Five people died during or after the riot on Jan. 6. A comprehensive review of police officer bodycam footage found roughly 1,000 instances of assault against members of law enforcement who were trying to protect the building, according to legal filings by the Justice Department.
Approximately 140 police officers were assaulted at the Capitol, including about 80 U.S. Capitol Police and about 60 from the Metropolitan Police Department. And nearly 650 people have been arrested and charged with federal crimes in connection to the events of Jan. 6, with more than 100 having already pleaded guilty.
Youngkin did not speak at or attend the Virginia rally on Wednesday, but former President Donald Trump called in to urge attendees to vote for the Republican nominee.
“I’ll tell you what, Glenn Youngkin is a great gentleman, truly successful. … I know Terry McAuliffe very well, and Terry was a lousy governor with raising taxes — that’s all they knew how to do,” Trump said in brief remarks. “You have a chance to get one of the most successful business people in the country … he’ll straighten out Virginia. He’ll lower taxes, do all of the things that we want a governor to do.”
Trump, who didn’t pick a favorite candidate during the primary campaign, endorsed Youngkin after he secured the Republican nomination in May. While he wasn’t on the ground for the event, this marked the first time he attended an event, albeit via phone, to support the GOP ticket in the state.
Another Republican vying for statewide office, Winsome Sears, the nominee for lieutenant governor, was scheduled to speak at the rally, according to the event advisory, but she ultimately did not. ABC News has reached out to her campaign and to the John Fredericks Media Network, which held the rally, to ask about the cancellation but has not heard back.
Steve Bannon, the former White House adviser to Trump who was subpoenaed to appear for a deposition with the committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack Thursday, also spoke at the end of the rally. Bannon has rebuffed the House select committee’s subpoena, and the committee’s chairman and vice chairwoman said last week they will “swiftly consider” holding Bannon in contempt of Congress.
Virginia voters rejected Trump twice, and by nearly double the margin in 2020 as in 2016. McAuliffe has tied Youngkin to Trump, branding him a “Trump wannabe” and frequently highlighting Youngkin’s plans and statements about “election integrity.”
But with less than three weeks until the Nov. 2 election, the race is neck and neck. McAuliffe only leads Youngkin by 2.5 percentage points, according to FiveThirtyEight’s polling average.
The fallout over the last general election, which Trump continues to falsely claim was stolen from him, has been a cloud over Youngkin’s campaign as he attempts to fend off McAuliffe’s attacks without alienating ardent Trump voters, many of whom wrongly believe President Joe Biden did not legitimately win the 2020 election.
But both candidates went on the record during the first debate pledging to “absolutely” accept the results of the election if they lose, even narrowly.
In-person early voting has been underway since mid-September and ends Oct. 30. About 345,000 ballots have been cast so far, according to the Virginia Public Access Project.
ABC News’ Alex Mallin and Michelle Stoddart contributed to this report.
(NEW YORK) — Boeing’s former 737 MAX test pilot, Mark Forkner, was indicted for fraud Thursday for allegedly misleading regulators about problems tied to the aircraft’s two fatal crashes. The ex-chief technical pilot is the first Boeing employee to be charged over the 737 Max’s failures.
In October 2019, pilots struggled to regain control of the MAX and it plunged into the Java Sea off the coast of Indonesia. Five months later, another MAX crashed near Addis Ababa airport in Ethiopia just six minutes after takeoff, killing all on board and forcing regulators around the globe to ground the plane. Three hundred and forty-six people perished in both accidents.
Investigators found that both crashes were tied to the Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System, or MCAS, software, which had been designed to help stabilize the jet after heavier, repositioned engines placed on the aircraft caused the plane’s nose to point too far upward in certain circumstances.
In both crashes, incorrect data from a faulty sensor caused the MCAS to misfire, forcing the planes to nose down repeatedly. MCAS was not mentioned in the pilot manual — allowing pilots to enter the MAX cockpit without simulator training that would have cost the airlines more money.
“In an attempt to save Boeing money, Forkner allegedly withheld critical information from regulators,” Acting U.S. Attorney Chad E. Meacham for the Northern District of Texas said in a release. “His callous choice to mislead the FAA hampered the agency’s ability to protect the flying public and left pilots in the lurch, lacking information about certain 737 MAX flight controls. The Department of Justice will not tolerate fraud – especially in industries where the stakes are so high.”
Internal messages that surfaced in October 2019 between Forkner and another Boeing pilot appeared to show the company knew about problems with MCAS in 2016, two years before the crashes.
The documents released by the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee show Forkner told FAA officials that MCAS was safe despite calling it “egregious” based on simulator tests, according to internal messages and emails.
“I basically lied to the regulators (unknowingly),” Forkner said to his colleague in the messages.
Forkner was the main point of contact between the administration and Boeing in regard to areas like pilot training and manual recommendations, an FAA official explained at the time.
Boeing said in a statement in 2019 that Forkner’s comments “reflected a reaction to a simulator program that was not functioning properly, and that was still undergoing testing.”
In January 2020, Boeing released more than 100 pages of internal communications that the company itself called “completely unacceptable.”
In one exchange, an unnamed Boeing employee says the 737 Max “is designed by clowns, who in turn are supervised by monkeys,” after complaining about the flight management computer.
In another 2018 message a Boeing employee asks, “Would you put your family on a MAX simulator trained aircraft?”
“I wouldn’t,” he said.
“No,” the colleague responded.
Boeing has since rewritten the MCAS software, receiving the FAA’s approval for the jet to reenter commercial service on Nov. 18, 2020.
In January, The U.S. Justice Department charged The Boeing Company with “conspiracy to defraud the United States” — concluding after a lengthy investigation that the company knowingly misled regulators while seeking approval for its 737 MAX aircraft.
In an SEC filing, Boeing said it agreed to the charge “based on the conduct of two former 737 MAX program technical pilots.”
(WASHINGTON) — An independent Food and Drug Administration advisory panel on Thursday voted unanimously to authorize Moderna Covid-19 vaccine boosters for Americans 65 and older, anyone 18 and older with underlying conditions and those frequently exposed to the virus.
The recommendation is in line with what the FDA and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention authorized for Pfizer booster shots last month.
The Moderna booster will only be a half dose, as opposed to the full dose for Pfizer, but was found to return antibody protection to the initial levels after the first two shots.
Dr. Jacqueline Miller, who presented Moderna’s data Thursday, said the company chose the half dose because it was just as effective but would “increase the worldwide vaccine supply of mRNA.”
Moderna and the FDA both said there was no evidence of increased side effects from booster doses except for more reports of swelling or tenderness in the arm where the patient was injected.
“Unsolicited adverse events did not reflect any new safety concerns,” the FDA found.
On Friday, the panel will also vote on authorizing booster shots for the third available vaccine, Johnson & Johnson. Johnson & Johnson posted a summary of its research Wednesday, making the argument for a second shot of the same dose, roughly six months after the initial single-shot vaccine.
The conversation around boosters focuses on whether Americans vaccinated over six months ago need a boost of protection against breakthrough infections in the face of the more transmissible delta variant, though all of the three vaccines authorized in the U.S. are still proving effective against hospitalization and death.
And despite the overwhelming support for boosters from the experts on the FDA panel, many were also quick to point out that the conversation around boosters should not undermine the vital campaign to get the 66 million unvaccinated Americans vaccinated.
“The people who are in the ICU aren’t there because they haven’t gotten the third dose, they’re there because they haven’t gotten any dose,” Dr. Paul Offit, an FDA advisory panel member and director of the Vaccine Education Center at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, said in Thursday’s meeting.
Another panel member, Dr. Michael Kurilla of the National Institute of Health, noted that the vaccines are still working quite well, particularly among young people, and he doesn’t see the need to offer boosters universally.
“I don’t necessarily see the need for a sort of let-it-rip campaign for boosters for everyone who’s ever been vaccinated,” Kurilla said.
Another pertinent debate that the FDA panel will take on Friday is the potential benefits of mixing and matching vaccines for booster shots.
Early results from a highly anticipated National Institutes of Health study found that boosting with a shot different from what people got the first time appears to be safe and effective.
The non-peer reviewed study evaluated all three vaccines — Pfizer, Moderna and J&J — finding that no matter the booster, all study participants saw a “substantial” uptick in antibody levels after a booster shot.
Though promising, more research is likely needed on mixing and matching. For now, the process will formally move forward with authorizing additional booster doses of Moderna and Johnson & Johnson shots for those who received the same original vaccine.
This week’s meetings are the first step in that process: The FDA itself and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention will both need to sign off on the panel’s recommendations about who should get boosters and when for Moderna and J&J.
The first authorization, which will come from the FDA, is expected within days of the independent panel’s non-binding vote.
Then, the question goes to CDC’s independent advisory panel of experts. That panel has scheduled a meeting for next Wednesday and Thursday to discuss boosters for Moderna and Johnson & Johnson. Those outside experts will weigh in with their recommendations, which are also non-binding.
Once that happens, CDC Director Rochelle Walensky must sign off, which typically happens within 24 hours of the panel’s recommendations. That decision is expected by Friday, Oct. 22, at the earliest.
(NASHVILLE, Tenn.) — There is renewed criticism of a juvenile court judge in Rutherford County, Tennessee, following a joint ProPublica and Nashville Public Radio report that alleges Judge Donna Scott Davenport oversaw a juvenile justice system where Black children were disproportionally and illegally hit with criminal charges.
The investigation centers around a 2016 incident where 11 Black children, some as young as 8 and 9 years old, were allegedly arrested for not stopping a fight captured on video. Ten of the children were charged with “criminal responsibility for conduct of another.”
Frank Ross Brazil, an attorney who represented several of the children, told ABC News that criminal responsibility is a prosecutorial theory and not a charge under Tennessee law.
“If you and I are in a car, and there’s something illegal in the car and I’m arrested for possessing it, you could be also found guilty of possessing that substance by the theory of criminal responsibility for another,” he said. “So, that being applied as a charge in and of itself is unlawful.”
The ProPublica report detailed systems set up by Davenport, which allegedly lead to the improper arrest and detention of children.
Davenport has not responded to ABC News’ request for comment and declined an interview with ProPublica.
In 2003, Davenport allegedly set up a “process” where police in Rutherford County took children into custody, transported them to the detention center for screening and then filed charging papers. In the 2016 incident, the children were arrested, taken for processing and then released after they had been charged, the lawsuit alleges.
A class-action lawsuit filed, and later settled, against Rutherford County alleges this process was a violation of Tennessee law. For many juvenile misdemeanor offenses, state law requires that police officers release children with a citation or a summons rather than taking them into custody, according to the lawsuit.
The Rutherford County Juvenile Detention Center also reportedly used a “filter system,” where staff could decide to hold a child before they had a hearing using undefined criteria instead of the precise categories outlined in Tennessee law, Brazil said. Davenport has “ultimate administrative authority” over the detention center, according to the lawsuit.
According to ProPublica, records from the Tennessee Administrative Office of the Courts showed that in 2014, the last year where this type of data is available, children were detained on average in 5% of juvenile cases statewide. In Rutherford County, children were detained in 48% of cases, the report said.
The class-action lawsuit alleged that these policies led to potentially thousands of children being illegally arrested, illegally detained or both.
Dylan Geerts, a named plaintiff in the lawsuit, but not a part of the 2016 incident, was one of those children. When he was 15, he said he was arrested for stealing change and small items from a car.
“They essentially put me in solitary confinement for between 22 and 23 hours a day,” Geerts, now 23, told ABC News. “[They] took me off of my medications by force, not by doctor’s orders or anything. They just didn’t allow me to have my bipolar medication.”
“I was kept awake for close to 30 something hours by the staff, purposefully,” he added. He was released on house arrest after four days.
“I really struggled through my teenage years after that,” Geerts said, noting that he had fallen in with the “wrong crowd” during his time in juvenile detention.
Before his arrest, he said he had been hospitalized for suicidal thoughts. Although he had support from his family, following his arrest, he was hospitalized for attempting to harm himself and was later diagnosed with PTSD.
“Whenever you get taken off of a medication like that,” he said. “It can take weeks to months for it to work again if it does at all.”
The lawsuit was settled in June of this year for $11 million. As a part of the settlement, Brazil said Rutherford County denied any wrongdoing and each child who was improperly detained got $5,000 and each child who was improperly arrested got $1,000.
“It’s been heartbreaking, actually, to talk to these people’s families and to hear individually so many hundreds of stories,” he said.
“You’d like to hope, being a father to my children of my own, I like to hope that this kind of thing does not happen in the 2000s in America, but it does,” Brazil added. “It’s happening to a certain set of people disproportionately.”
Brazil said that the lawsuits have brought some change to Rutherford County. A federal injunction in 2017 ended the county’s “filter system.”
Although there was an investigation into the arrests in 2016, the police officers involved only received reprimands or short-term suspensions. The officials who recommended the charge did not participate in the investigation and had no mention of it in their personnel files, according to ProPublica.
Davenport is still the juvenile court judge for Rutherford County.
Geerts said that knowing the injunction has stopped the “filter system” has made him feel better. However, he said he wants the state legislature to mandate that counties release numerical data about their juvenile arrest rates. And, he said, he would like to see Davenport challenged when she goes up for election next year.
“I hope that people out here will take that into account and be sure that they can voice their opinion and let people know that, yeah, that’s not cool,” he said.
“Like you’re not making kids better, you’re honestly making them worse” he said. “People don’t belong in a box on their first offense, especially if you’re going to play doctor and take their medication away and lock them inside of a cell.”
Following the release of ProPublica’s report, state lawmakers have called for action.
“We are concerned about the recent reports and believe the appropriate judicial authorities should issue a full review,” Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee’s press secretary Casey Black said in a statement to ABC News.
Tennessee State Sen. Jeff Yarbro called the report’s findings “wrong on so many levels” in a tweet Saturday.
“It’s a horror show plain and simple, it’s abusive and it doesn’t even resemble law,” Yarbro, who is the Democratic Leader in the State General Assembly, told ABC affiliate WKRN.
Tennessee State Rep. John Ray Clemmons, who called for a federal investigation after the 2016 incident, said the state and the county failed children and their families in a statement to WKRN.
“As an attorney, I am limited in sharing my personal opinion on sitting judges, but these individuals, through their own acts and admissions, have proven themselves wholly unfit for the important positions they currently hold,” he added.
