Tag Archives: first-degree murder

UNC shooting: Person of Interest in custody after hours-long manhunt

UNC Shooting

Important Takeaways:

  • North Carolina university shooting victim is identified as academic advisor who worked with Wuhan-educated gunman on his physics PhD course – as suspect is charged with first-degree murder
  • UNC grad student Tailei Qi has been charged for first degree murder over Monday’s shooting at the campus
  • His academic advisor Zijie Yan was shot dead in the shooting
  • Qi and Yan wrote several academic papers together over the last years
  • The shooting sent the UNC-Chapel Hill campus into lockdown.
  • During a press conference on Monday evening, investigators said that they had not yet discovered a motive behind the shooting.
  • But a series of concerning social media posts have been unearthed, in which Qi complained about his UNC colleagues and slammed bullies at the school.
  • The graduate student previously studied at Wuhan University in 2015, and was studying at the Department of Applied Physical Sciences.

Read the original article by clicking here.

Michigan teen charged with 1st-degree murder, held without bond in shooting spree

 

By Brendan O’Brien and Peter Szekely

(Reuters) – A Michigan teenager was ordered held without bond on Wednesday after being charged with first-degree murder in the deadliest U.S. school shooting of the year, which killed four students and wounded seven other people.

Ethan Crumbley, a 15-year-old sophomore at a high school in Oxford, Michigan, about 40 miles (65 km) north of Detroit, was charged with a slew of criminal counts in Tuesday’s shooting spree, Oakland County Prosecuting Attorney Karen McDonald said.

“I am absolutely sure after reviewing evidence that it isn’t even a close call,” she told a briefing. “It was absolutely premeditated.”

In addition to four counts of first-degree murder, Crumbley faces one count of terrorism causing death, seven counts of assault with intent to murder and 12 counts of possession of a firearm in the commission of a felony, she said.

The shooting spree was the deadliest on U.S. school property this year, according to Education Week. It was the latest in a decades-long string of deadly American school shootings.

Crumbley, who is being charged as an adult, appeared on Wednesday at an online arraignment where Judge Nancy Carniak ordered him held without bond at the Oakland County Jail.

At the arraignment, Lieutenant Tim Willis of the Oakland County Sheriff’s Office said investigators had found videos that Crumbley recorded the night before in which he talked about shooting and killing students.

“Further, a journal was recovered from Ethan’s backpack also detailing his desire to shoot up the school to include murdering students,” Willis said.

Crumbley opened fire at Oxford High School with a semi-automatic handgun – which his father had purchased four days earlier – after emerging from a restroom shortly before 1 p.m. EST (1700 GMT) on Tuesday, authorities said.

Oakland County Sheriff Michael Bouchard said Crumbley did not appear to be targeting any specific people during the shooting spree.

Three students hit by gunfire – Tate Myre, 16, Hana St. Juliana, 14, and Madisyn Baldwin, 17 – died on Tuesday, the sheriff’s office said. The fourth, 17-year-old Justin Shilling, died on Wednesday.

Of the six students and one teacher who were wounded, three students remained hospitalized late on Wednesday afternoon, including a 17-year-old girl in critical condition with a gunshot wound to the chest, the sheriff’s office said. Four others, including the teacher, have been discharged.

MOTIVE UNCLEAR

Bouchard told a briefing that investigators have yet to determine a motive for the shooting, adding that there was no evidence Crumbley had been bullied.

But he said school officials had contact with Crumbley the day before the shooting and another meeting with him and his parents on the morning of the shooting “for behavior in the classroom that they felt was concerning.”

“The content of that meeting, obviously, is part of the investigation, but we did not learn of that meeting nor the content of that meeting until after the shooting and during this investigation,” he said.

More than 50,000 people had signed an online petition as of Wednesday morning to rename the school’s stadium after Myre, who played on Oxford High’s football team, saying he tried to disarm the shooter.

“Tate is not just a hero to his fellow students at Oxford High School but a legend, his act of bravery should be remembered forever and passed down through generations,” the petition on Change.org said.

Bouchard credited swift action by his deputies for preventing greater loss of life, saying they arrived on the scene within minutes and moved straight toward the sound of gunshots. Crumbley, who did not resist, was disarmed and taken into custody minutes after the shooting began, he said.

(Reporting by Brendan O’Brien in Chicago and Peter Szekely in New York; Additional reporting by Steve Gorman in Los Angeles and Tyler Clifford in New York and Kat Jackson in Washington; Editing by Jonathan Oatis and Peter Cooney)

Suspected Colorado supermarket shooter appears in court, faces more charges

By Keith Coffman

DENVER (Reuters) – A 22-year-old man accused of fatally shooting 10 people at a Colorado grocery store in March made a brief court appearance on Tuesday, a day after prosecutors added dozens of new charges stemming from the rampage.

Ahmad Al Aliwi Alissa now faces 115 charges related to the March 22 mass shooting at a King Soopers supermarket in Boulder, Colorado, about 28 miles northwest of Denver.

He previously was charged with 10 counts of first-degree murder and more than 30 counts of attempted murder, among other offenses.

On Tuesday, Boulder County District Court Judge Ingrid Bakke set a September 7 date for a preliminary hearing, when prosecutors will lay out their evidence and Bakke will decide if it is sufficient to move ahead with the case.

On Monday, prosecutors added dozens of new counts of attempted murder, weapons, and assault charges.

District Attorney Michael Dougherty said in a written statement that investigators have identified other victims, leading to the additional charges.

“Based on developments in the ongoing investigation, the District Attorney’s Office has determined that additional crimes and sentence enhancers must be charged in this matter,” Dougherty said.

The state public defender’s office, which represents Alissa, does not comment on its cases outside of court, but at an earlier hearing a defense lawyer said Alissa has a “mental illness.”

If convicted of first-degree murder, Alissa faces a mandatory life sentence without the possibility of parole.

Prosecutors allege Alissa opened fire with a semiautomatic pistol that he had legally purchased. He surrendered after he was wounded by police during an exchange of gunfire.

Prosecutors said they have not yet determined a possible motive for the attack.

Alissa, who has not entered a plea, is being held without bond at an undisclosed lockup.

(Reporting by Keith Coffman, Editing by Nick Zieminski)

Man guilty of murder in Toronto van attack, likely to face life in prison

By Anna Mehler Paperny

TORONTO (Reuters) – A man who plowed a rented van into dozens of people in Toronto in 2018 is guilty of murdering 10 people and attempting to murder 16, a judge ruled on Wednesday, dismissing a defense argument that the suspect’s mental disorder left him with no idea how horrific his actions were.

Alek Minassian, 28, told police he was motivated by a desire to punish society for his perceived status as an “incel” – short for involuntary celibate – because he believed women would not have sex with him. Minassian had pleaded not criminally responsible.

But the defense failed to prove Minassian’s autism spectrum disorder deprived him of the capacity to know his actions were wrong, Judge Anne Molloy said in a verdict that was live-streamed on YouTube following a trial held virtually due to the pandemic.

Molloy referred to Minassian as “John Doe” to try to deny the accused the notoriety he said he desired.

“Mr. Doe thought about committing these crimes over a considerable period of time and made a considered decision to proceed. His attack on these 26 victims that day was an act of a reasoning mind notwithstanding its horrific nature and notwithstanding that he has no remorse for it, and no empathy for his victims.”

“This case has in many ways and on many days been a struggle,” Molloy said. “This accused committed a horrific crime – one of the most devastating tragedies this city has ever endured – for the purpose of achieving fame.”

Minassian’s lawyer argued his autism spectrum disorder prevented him from knowing what he was doing was wrong when he drove the van into pedestrians on a crowded sidewalk.

The attack took place in April 2018 when Minassian drove a rented van down a busy sidewalk on a major street just north of Toronto, hitting one person after another. Those killed ranged in age from 22 to 94.

A sentencing hearing will be scheduled and Minassian is likely to automatically get a life sentence, according to criminal lawyers following the case. A sentencing hearing will also allow for victim impact statements.

Minassian’s lawyer was not immediately available for comment.

Molloy read out the names of the people Minassian killed and injured, listing their injuries: from fractured bones to bleeding brains.

“He had a functioning, rational brain, one that perceived the reality of what he was doing…. He chose to commit the crimes anyway. Because it was what he really wanted to do.”

The outcome was unsurprising given the evidence presented at trial, said Toronto criminal lawyer Daniel Brown.

“It’s not to say that others couldn’t avail themselves of a ‘not criminally responsible’ defense but in Mr. Minassian’s situation, he simply couldn’t.”

First-degree murder carries a life sentence without parole eligibility for 25 years. The question now, Brown said, is whether the prosecution will seek to “stack” parole ineligibilities, for example so that 10 first-degree murder convictions render Minassian ineligible for parole for 250 years.

(Reporting by Anna Mehler Paperny; Editing by Grant McCool, Jonathan Oatis and Howard Goller)

Security guard held on suspicion of murder in shooting at Denver political rallies

By Keith Coffman

DENVER (Reuters) – A security guard hired to protect a Denver television news crew covering opposing rallies of right-wing and left-wing political activists is being held in custody on suspicion of first-degree murder in the fatal shooting of a protester, police said on Sunday.

The deadly gunfire erupted on Saturday following a “verbal altercation” between the suspect and victim just as a “Patriot Rally” and a counter-demonstration dubbed a “BLM-Antifa Soup Drive” was drawing to a close, Denver Police division chief Joe Montoya said.

The suspected gunman, identified by police as Matthew Dolloff, 30, was arrested just after the shooting, which occurred in a courtyard outside an art museum, but he has not been formally charged, Montoya said.

The man shot to death was not immediately named by authorities, but the Denver Post identified him, according to the victim’s son, as Lee Keltner, 49, a Navy veteran who ran a hat-making business in the Denver area for many years.

“He wasn’t a part of any group,” the son, Johnathon Keltner, told the Post. “He was there to rally for the police department, and he’d been down there before rallying for the police department.”

Denver station KUSA-TV, an NBC affiliate, said in its own account posted online that Dolloff was contracted by KUSA through the Pinkerton security agency, and that one of the station’s news producers was with Dolloff during the altercation.

Pinkerton did not immediately respond to an email request for comment.

Denver police tweeted on Sunday they are unaware if Dolloff was affiliated with any political group but said he was not a protest participant.

An image of the incident captured by Denver Post photographer Helen Richardson showed a man spraying a chemical agent at another man pointing a handgun in his direction. Montoya said two guns were recovered from the scene.

Richardson said on Instagram that the shooting victim, who she said was with the patriot rally, and the other man “exchanged heated words” before violence ensued.

The “patriot hit the man in the face, then backed up to spray what looked like pepper spray at him,” Richardson wrote. “Literally in that split second the man who had gotten hit by the patriot pulled out a gun from his waistband and shot the patriot.”

By all accounts, nobody from the side of the Black Lives Matter and anti-fascist counter-rally was directly involved in the deadly confrontation.

Dolloff made his first court appearance on Sunday, where a magistrate judge ordered the arrest warrant affidavit sealed and ruled that the suspect be held without bond, local media reported.

(Reporting by Keith Coffman in Denver; Editing by Steve Gorman and Michael Perry)