Tag Archives: fatally shot

NJ Councilwoman shot outside home as surge in Crime Wave sweeps across America

Mark 13:12 “Brother will betray brother to death, and a father his child. Children will rebel against their parents and have them put to death.

Important Takeaways:

  • NJ Republican Councilwoman Fatally Shot Outside Home: A ‘Huge Loss for the Community’
  • Fox News identified the victim as 30-year-old Sayreville Councilwoman Eunice Dwumfour, who was a Republican, the outlet reported Thursday
  • “A 911 call reported shots fired around 7:22 p.m, the Middlesex County Prosecutor’s Office said. A female, identified by New Jersey Globe reporter David Wildstein as Dwumfour, was found dead in her vehicle with multiple gunshot wounds,” the outlet said.
  • The young woman was reportedly shot in the car before it crashed near the Camelot at La Mer apartment complex, according to the New York Post
  • In a social media post, community organizer Charlie Kratovil called her death a “huge loss” for the area.
  • Kratovil reported that detectives believed the incident to be targeted but did not yet have a motive and are actively investigating the incident further.
  • Officials said the investigation is ongoing and citizens with information pertaining to the case were asked to call the Sayreville Police Department or the prosecutor’s office.
  • As the crime wave continues sweeping across President Joe Biden’s (D) America, citizens are “more likely now than at any time over the past five decades to say there is more crime in their local area than there was a year ago,” Gallup reported in October.
  • “The 56% of U.S. adults who report an increase in crime where they live marks a five-percentage-point uptick since last year and is the highest by two points in Gallup’s trend dating back to 1972,” the article said.

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Prosecutors charge parents of Michigan teen in school shooting

By Brendan O’Brien and Joseph Ax

(Reuters) -Prosecutors on Friday charged the parents of a 15-year-old boy accused of murdering four students at his Michigan high school with involuntary manslaughter, saying the couple appear to have bought him the weapon as a Christmas present and ignored warning signs that he might be planning the rampage.

James and Jennifer Crumbley each face four counts and are expected to be arraigned later on Friday, three days after authorities say their son, Ethan, carried out the deadliest U.S. school shooting of 2021. He faces two dozen charges and is being held without bond.

“These charges are intended to hold the individuals who contributed to this tragedy accountable and also send a message: that gun owners have a responsibility,” Oakland County Prosecutor Karen McDonald told a news conference on Friday.

Four days before the shooting, Ethan accompanied his father to a local gun shop, where James Crumbley bought a semi-automatic handgun, prosecutors said.

Later that day, Ethan posted photos of the gun on social media, writing, “Just got my new beauty today” and adding a heart emoji. His mother posted the next day that the two of them were “testing out his new Christmas present,” McDonald said.

Prosecutors described several chilling warning signs in the days leading up to the shooting. On Nov. 21, a teacher saw Ethan Crumbley searching for ammunition on his phone during class and alerted school officials, who left messages for his mother that went unreturned.

In a text message to her son that day, Jennifer Crumbley wrote, “LOL, I’m not mad at you. You have to learn not to get caught,” prosecutors said.

The morning of the shooting, a teacher discovered a drawing that Ethan Crumbley had made depicting a handgun, a bullet, and a bleeding figure. The words “Blood everywhere” and “The thoughts won’t stop – help me” were also written on the sheet, among other messages, according to McDonald.

“It is impossible not to conclude that there is reason to believe he might hurt someone” based on the drawings, McDonald said.

James and Jennifer Crumbley were summoned to the school, where they were instructed to get Ethan into mental health counseling within 48 hours, McDonald said. They “resisted” the idea of taking their son home from school and did not search his backpack or ask him about the gun, she said.

When news of an active shooter at the school broke shortly after 1 p.m. EST, Jennifer Crumbley sent Ethan a text message, urging him, “Don’t do it,” according to prosecutors. A few minutes later, James Crumbley called police to report that the gun was missing and he believed his son might be the shooter.

The gun had been stored in an unlocked drawer in the parents’ bedroom, McDonald said.

It was not immediately clear whether James and Jennifer Crumbley had legal representation.

Parents are rarely charged in connection with children’s school shootings. Unlike some states, Michigan does not legally require gun owners to keep their firearms secured from children.

The attack is the latest in a decades-long string of mass shootings at U.S. schools.

(Reporting by Brendan O’Brien and Joseph Ax; Editing by Daniel Wallis)

 

Police search for motive after gunman kills eight at Indianapolis FedEx site

By Maria Caspani and Shubham Kalia

(Reuters) -Authorities said on Friday that it was still too early to know what motivated a gunman who killed eight employees at a FedEx facility in Indianapolis and wounded several others before taking his own life.

The incident – the latest in a spate of mass shootings in the United States – unfolded at a FedEx operations center near Indianapolis International Airport in Indiana after 11 p.m. local time on Thursday night, police said.

It lasted only a couple of minutes and was already over by the time police responded to the scene, Craig McCartt, the Indianapolis police department’s deputy chief, told a news briefing on Friday.

Witnesses described a chaotic attack, as the gunman opened fire in the parking lot before entering the facility and continuing to shoot, leaving victims both inside and outside the building. Officers found the suspect dead of an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound.

FBI Indianapolis Special Agent in Charge Paul Keenan said it would be “premature to speculate” on the gunman’s motive.

The suspect has been identified as Brandon Scott Hole, a law enforcement source told Reuters. NBC News had previously reported that Hole, 19, was the alleged gunman, citing unnamed law enforcement officials.

The massacre is the most recent in a series of U.S. mass shootings that has again pushed the issue of gun violence to the political foreground.

Indianapolis – the capital of the Midwestern state of Indiana – alone has seen two mass shootings this year. In January, police say a teenager shot and killed four family members and a pregnant woman.

U.S. President Joe Biden, in a statement, said he had ordered flags lowered and reiterated his call for Congress to pass gun restrictions.

“Too many Americans are dying every single day from gun violence,” he said. “It stains our character and pierces the very soul of our nation. We can, and must, do more to act and to save lives.”

Earlier this month, Biden announced limited measures to tackle gun violence that included a crackdown on self-assembled “ghost guns.” But more stringent measures face an uphill battle in a divided Congress, where Republican lawmakers have long opposed any new gun limits.

Nearly 20,000 Americans died last year as a result of gun violence, not including suicide – 25% higher than in 2019, and more than in any other year in at least two decades, according to figures compiled by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Eight people were shot to death at three day spas in the Atlanta area in mid-March, raising fears that the gunman had targeted Asian Americans amid a rise in hate crimes. Days later, a gunman killed 10 people at a Colorado grocery store.

There have been 147 mass shootings in 2021, defined as incidents in which at least four people were shot, according to the Gun Violence Archive, a non-profit website that tracks firearm-related incidents.

Friday also marked the 14th anniversary of the deadliest school shooting in U.S. history at Virginia Tech, which saw 32 people killed.

“Last night, Indianapolis was revisited by the scourge of gun violence that has killed far too many in our community and our country,” Mayor Joe Hogsett said at the briefing.

‘HOODED FIGURE’

A FedEx employee, Levi Miller, told NBC’s “Today Show” he saw a “hooded figure” holding what appeared to be an AR-style semi-automatic rifle who shouted and opened fire outside the facility.

“I thought he saw me, and so I immediately ducked for cover,” he said.

Another worker at the air freight facility told local television station WRTV that he was eating when he heard what sounded like “two loud metal clangs” followed by more shots.

“Somebody went behind their car to the trunk and then got another gun,” he said. “Then I saw one body on the floor.”

Five people were taken to hospitals with gunshot wounds, including one in critical condition, police said. Two more were treated at the facility itself by medical staff and released.

Hours after the shooting, employees’ family members, friends and colleagues gathered at a ‘family unification center’ that authorities set up at a nearby hotel. Some relatives expressed frustration that they were unable to reach workers at the site, where many employees are barred from having their mobile phones by a company policy intended to avoid distractions.

In a message to staff, FedEx Chief Executive Officer Frederick Smith said that the eight victims were all employees.

“First and foremost, I want to express my deepest sympathies to the families, friends, and co-workers of those team members,” said Smith, who added that the company is cooperating with investigators.

(Reporting by Maria Caspani in New York; Shubham Kalia, Kanishka Singh, Nandakumar D, Akriti Sharma and Akshay Lodaya in Bengaluru; Barbara Goldberg in Maplewood, New Jersey; and Susan Heavey and Njuwa Maina in Washington; Additional reporting by Ismail Shakil; Writing by Joseph Ax; Editing by Steve Orlofsky and Rosalba O’Brien)

Police chief, officer who fatally shot Black man in Minnesota, resign

(Reuters) -The Brooklyn Center, Minnesota, police chief and the officer who fatally shot Daunte Wright, a 20-year old Black man who struggled with police after a traffic stop, have both resigned, the city’s mayor told a briefing on Tuesday.

Brooklyn Center Mayor Mike Elliott said the resignations came after the city council passed a resolution to dismiss both the chief, Tim Gannon, and the officer who shot Wright, Kim Potter, a 26-year veteran of the police force.

“I’m hoping this will bring some calm to the community,” the mayor said. “We want to send a message to the community that we are taking this situation seriously.”

Wright was shot on Sunday after being pulled over for what police said was an expired car registration. Officers then discovered there was a warrant out for his arrest, and an officer accidentally drew her pistol instead of her Taser during a struggle with Wright, Gannon said on Monday.

Former U.S. President Barack Obama on Tuesday called for a “full and transparent investigation” of the shooting.

Wright’s death ignited two consecutive nights of unrest in Brooklyn Center. Hundreds of protesters clashed with law enforcement officers outside the city’s police headquarters on Monday in defiance of a curfew ordered by Governor Tim Walz.

The region had already been on edge for weeks with the trial of Derek Chauvin, the former Minneapolis police officer charged with murdering George Floyd, taking place just a few miles away from where the shooting of Wright occurred.

Wright’s relatives have described him as a kind man who liked basketball and worked multiple jobs to support his son.

“My brother lost his life because they were trigger-happy,” his older half-sibling, Dallas Wright, said during a memorial vigil on Monday evening at the spot where he was killed.

“My heart is broken in a thousand pieces… I miss him so much, and it’s only been a day,” his mother, Katie Wright, said at the vigil. “He was my life, he was my son and I can never get that back. Because of a mistake? Because of an accident?”

(Reporting by Nathan Layne in Wilton, Connecticut, Peter Szekely in New York and Susan Heavey in Washington; Editing by Dan Grebler and Jonathan Oatis)

Seven shot in Louisville protests over killing of black woman: police

(Reuters) – Seven people were shot and at least one was in critical condition after protests in Louisville, Kentucky over the killing of Breonna Taylor, a black woman fatally shot in her apartment in March, police said on Friday.

The situation downtown “remains fluid and continues to evolve,” Louisville Metro Police spokesman Lamont Washington told Reuters in an emailed statement.

The police said they did not fire any shots in the incident but had made some arrests. They had earlier tweeted that there was a large crowd in the downtown area around 2nd street.

Late on Thursday, Louisville Mayor Greg Fischer shared a post on Twitter which he said was written on behalf of Taylor’s mother, urging protesters to be peaceful. “Understandably, emotions are high,” he said in the tweet.

The Louisville shootings come as separate protests escalated in Minneapolis over the death of a black man seen on video gasping for air while a white police officer knelt on his neck.

(Reporting by Rebekah Mathew and Shubham Kalia in Bengaluru; Editing by Hugh Lawson)