Month: September 2020

The Zogg Fire has grown to 50,102 acres and is 0% contained.

Wildfires continue to burn in California as more gusty winds, and record high temperatures are expected for the West Coast.

Critical fire weather conditions are possible in California in the coming days for the Dolan and Glass Fires, according to the National Weather Service. A fire weather watch has been issued for both blazes.

The Zogg Fire, burning near Shasta County, has grown to 50,102 acres with 0% containment, according to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection. The Dolan fire has burned 125,000 acres and is 40% contained.

Meanwhile, the dangerous Glass Incident Fire has nearly quadrupled in size in the last 24 hours, burning more than 42,000 acres in Napa and Sonoma counties. The wildfire has forced at least 68,000 people to evacuate, officials said. So far, according to Cal Fire, the incident has burned 42,360 acres in the North Bay and is 2% contained. At least 113 structures have been destroyed.

In the last 24 hours, record highs were either tied or broken in Medford, Oregon, (98 degrees) Fresno, California, (102 degrees) Woodland Hills, California, (108 degrees) and even in San Diego, a record high of 96 degrees was reached.

Now, attention turns to gusty, dry winds coming to the San Francisco Bay area Wednesday night through Friday afternoon. Wind gusts near 30 mph are expected and a fire weather watch has been issued.

In addition to the wind, a heat advisory has been issued for the Bay area, including San Francisco and also for southern California, including Los Angeles and San Diego. Temperatures could reach 90 to 100 degrees in those cities Wednesday.

On top of the wind and heat, most of northern California is experiencing severe to extreme drought. These dry conditions are helping to fuel the destructive fires.

Unfortunately, there is no relief through Friday for the heat. Temperatures will hover near 100 degrees for most of the area, with Palm Springs forecast to be near 110 degrees for the next three days.

Meanwhile, in the tropics, it looks like a tropical wave in the northern Caribbean is trying to develop into a tropical depression by this weekend.

It is too early to tell exactly where it will go, but some models forecast it for the southern Gulf of Mexico by next week.

Overall, the tropics could come back to life as we head into October, which is the second mini-peak of the Atlantic Hurricane season.

Rights groups say Yury Dmitriyev is being punished for his work

MOSCOW — A Russian court has sentenced a historian who helped uncover Stalin-era mass graves to 13 years in prison, abruptly increasing his sentence by 10 years, in a highly unusual step that rights groups said was revenge for his work and part of a broader campaign to whitewash the dark chapters of Russia’s Soviet history.

The case of Yury Dmitriyev attracted international criticism when he was sentenced to three and a half years in prison earlier this year on charges condemned by human rights organizations as fabricated.

He had, however, been due to be released within weeks because of time-served in pre-trial detention.

But on Tuesday, a higher court in the northern city of Petrozavodsk abruptly overturned the original ruling and sentenced Dmitriyev to 13 years in a prison colony.

Dmitriyev, 64, is a member of Memorial, a group that commemorates the victims of Soviet repression. He has faced criminal prosecution since 2016 based on shifting charges based around allegations he had taken pornographic photos of his young adopted daughter and abused her.

His supporters though say his imprisonment, in reality, is linked to his role in uncovering mass graves tied to the Soviet gulag prison system and say the charges are an attempt to smear a figure who has played a leading role in commemorating the mass murder conducted under Joseph Stalin.

Memorial on Tuesday condemned the ruling saying it was clearly “politically motivated.”

“Today’s sentence is the revenge of the system which is heir to the Soviet system and would like to consign to oblivion the names that Yury Dmitry has returned, having besmirched him himself, his work and his life,” it said in a statement.

Human Rights Watch has previously called the charges against Dmitriyev “bogus.” The United States embassy in Moscow condemned the new sentence as “outrageous.”

The embassy’s spokeswoman Rebecca Ross wrote on Twitter it “is another step backwards for #humanrights and historical truths in #Russia.”

In the 1990s, Dmitriyev and others found a grave in his home region of Karelia in northern Russia in a place known as Sandarmokh close to the border with Finland. The site is believed to hold the bodies of at least 6,000 prisoners executed by Soviet secret police during what’s known as Stalin’s ‘Great Terror’ between 1937 and 1938.

But in recent years though, a state-backed nationalist conservative group has sought to alter the narrative around the grave.

The Military-Historical Society, whose membership includes many senior Russian government officials, has promoted a theory that the grave also holds Soviet soldiers killed by Finnish troops during World War II. The group has conducted digging at the grave and, in 2018, it exhumed 16 corpses that it said were Red Army soldiers in order to support the theory that not only the Soviets were killed at the site .

Critics have said it is part of a broader effort to downplay Soviet crimes under president Vladimir Putin. Putin does not deny the mass repression under Stalin, but has sought to shift the emphasis onto the dictator’s role in modernizing Russia and defeating Nazi Germany.

The case against Dmitriyev has shown repeated problems. He was acquitted on the charges of taking pornographic photos by a court in April 2018, but a higher court overturned the ruling and ordered further investigation. Police then brought the case once again and added a new charge alleging that Dmitriyev had violently sexually abused his daughter.

In July this year, a court convicted Dmitriyev of that charge and gave him the three and a half year sentence. Rights groups a condemned that as a travesty of justice but also celebrated it as a victory because the shorter sentence meant that because of his lengthy time spent in pre-trial detention Dmitriyev would be freed in November. The court also acquitted him of the original pornography charge.

His supporters at the time said the verdict essentially amounted to an “acquittal” and his lawyers appealed to have the guilty verdict fully overturned.

Prosecutors, however, appealed the decision and the court on Tuesday satisfied their request to jail Dmitriyev for 13 years. It also overturned his acquittal on the pornography charge and sent it back for investigation.

Dmitriyev’s trial was held entirely behind closed doors and, at the hearing on Tuesday, his lawyer was not present because he was quarantining due to a suspected coronavirus infection. The court rejected a request to delay until his lawyer could attend and overruled his objection to be represented by a court appointed lawyer.

Memorial has faced frequent harassment in recent years, including a series of dubious criminal cases. The organization also campaigns against present day abuses and its offices have been raided and its members sometimes physically attacked.

New York City reported its highest daily positivity rate since June on Tuesday, the same day elementary schools started welcoming students back in person and a day before restaurants began indoor dining.

The number — 3.25% — has been driven by rising cases in nine neighborhoods in the boroughs of Brooklyn and Queens, officials said. As of Tuesday, they accounted for over 25.6% of new cases citywide over the past two weeks despite representing only 7.4% of the city’s overall population, according to the city’s health department. The 14-day average positivity rate in the nine ZIP codes ranged from 3.31% to 6.92% as of Tuesday.

“We are deeply concerned about the alarming increase in COVID-19 in the ZIP codes in Brooklyn and Queens,” NYC Health Commissioner Dave Chokshi said during a press briefing Tuesday.

City officials started ringing alarm bells about the increases last week. On Sept. 19, six neighborhoods accounted for 20% of all COVID-19 cases citywide. The areas in question included neighborhoods with large Orthodox Jewish populations, and officials warned that gatherings during the Jewish high holidays and a general lack of mask compliance could spread the virus.

The city has looked to address the increase by making automated calls in both English and Yiddish, driving trucks through the neighborhoods blaring messages, deploying mobile testing units to several of the neighborhoods, and distributing masks, gloves and hand sanitizer to residents. It has handed out masks to 300 different synagogues, Dr. Mitchell Katz, the head of the city’s public hospital system, said Tuesday.

“Multiple leaders reported that in their synagogues everyone was wearing a mask and that people were keeping their distance. So, I know that work has been happening and has been successful,” Katz said Tuesday.

But with positivity rates on the rise, the city says it will be bolstering testing. On Wednesday, it plans to increase rapid testing capacity at three city hospital-run testing sites, and add new rapid-testing capacity at community provider offices in Orthodox neighborhoods, Katz said.

Mayor Bill de Blasio also announced new enforcement of mask-wearing. “Anyone who refuses to wear a face-covering will be told if they don’t put one on they will be fined,” he said during Tuesday’s press briefing.

Additionally, any nonpublic school or childcare center that does not follow city health guidelines will also close, he said. More measures, including closing down nonessential businesses and limiting gatherings, could also go into effect depending on the data, the mayor said.

“Those are all on the table,” de Blasio said. “None we want to do, but all on the table, if we don’t see enough progress quickly enough.”

During the pandemic, New York City was one of the earliest- and hardest-hit cities in the country. But as of Tuesday, the citywide positivity rate for the virus was 1.38% on a seven-day rolling average, as the city continues its phased reopening. For the first time since March, about 300,000 public elementary school students returned to classrooms Tuesday. Middle and high school students report by the end of the week.

On Wednesday, the city will also allow indoor dining — which has been barred since March — to return at 25% capacity.

“We fought so hard as New Yorkers,” Katz said. “We can’t give up the progress that’s allowed us to reopen our city.”

Beyond New York City, other areas of New York state are also seeing increases in COVID-19 cases. Statewide, there are 20 ZIP codes with an average positive test rate of 5%, which is five times the statewide average, Gov. Andrew Cuomo said Tuesday. The clusters in Brooklyn, as well as Rockland and Orange counties, show overlap with large Orthodox Jewish communities, he said.

“That is a fact, so I will be directly meeting with them to talk about it,” Cuomo said during his daily coronavirus briefing. “This is a public health concern for their community. It’s also a public health concern for surrounding communities.”

As officials vowed to work with Orthodox Jewish leaders, some have highlighted a “lingering distrust” in the community stemming from how the city treated Hasidic mourners at a Brooklyn funeral in April versus Black Lives Matter protesters a month later.

“The Hasidim were singled out for harsh criticism by Mayor de Blasio, who called their attendance ‘absolutely unacceptable.’ Those protesting racial injustice were accommodated and encouraged,” Avi Schick, a former New York State deputy attorney general and the president of the Rabbi Jacob Joseph School, and David Zwiebel, executive vice president of Agudath Israel of America, wrote in an op-ed published in the New York Daily News on Tuesday. “The point is not to compare the two issues but to highlight why the Hasidic community remains skeptical about whether the city takes their devotion to religious worship, education and ritual as seriously as it takes the priorities of other communities.”

Their op-ed “clearly & succinctly explains the double standard that Orthodox Jews often feel subjected to in NYC,” Brooklyn Councilmember Chaim Deutsch said on social media. “Yes, we can & will do better. It’s also important to understand where the distrust comes from.”

Avi Greenstein, the chief executive officer of the Boro Park Community Council, a social service organization in the Brooklyn neighborhood of Borough Park, one of the areas seeing high rates of cases, told the Associated Press Tuesday that the city should be focused on outreach.

“There’s a way to do it,” he told the AP. “There’s no need to threaten fines.”

ABC News’ Aaron Katersky and J. Gabriel Ware contributed to this report.

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The agency also blamed state regulators’ ineffective oversight.

A limousine company’s disregard for safety, coupled with ineffective oversight from state regulators, led to a 2018 limo crash in upstate New York that left 20 dead, the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) said in a meeting Tuesday.

The limo was carrying a group of people traveling to a birthday party when it crossed an intersection in Schoharie, New York, and crashed into a parked vehicle, killing all 17 passengers, the driver and two pedestrians.

“Seventeen young people made the smart, safe decision to arrange for sober transportation when celebrating,” NTSB board member Michael Graham said. “They put their trust and safety into a system designed to protect them, and it failed.”

The meeting detailed the “egregious” actions by Prestige Limousine, the company that operated the limo, as well as the inadequate safety record of the vehicle.

“I have never seen such a series of bad decisions, and bad actors and people failing to take responsibility for their actions,” NTSB’s vice chairman, Bruce Landsberg, said.

According to the NTSB, Prestige Limousine “knowingly” operated a limousine in “poor mechanical condition” the day of the crash. The agency also said the company’s maintenance program was not “effective” to ensure passengers’ safety.

Investigators found the vehicle had failed an inspection just over a month before the crash, and that one of the brakes was non-operational at the time of the incident. If the brake system had been maintained, investigators said the vehicle “should have been capable” of stopping safely.

“I cannot imagine the pain of losing a loved one to this senseless, preventable tragedy,” Graham said.

While the agency detailed various issues with the vehicle and limo company, it also pointed the finger at state regulators, saying they failed to verify safety forms and fell short in keeping the company from operating without proper authority.

“There were several missed opportunities and failures of oversight that allowed Prestige to operate,” one investigator said.

The family of the driver previously stated they believe he was unknowingly “provided with a vehicle that was neither roadworthy nor safe for any of its occupants.”

“Knowing this tragedy could have been prevented on numerous occasions, by those who are entrusted to protect us, makes this crash even more heartbreaking,” NTSB Chairman Robert Sumwalt said. “If our safety recommendations are implemented, they will go a long way toward preventing another Schoharie.”

The operator of the limousine company, Nauman Hussain, is currently facing multiple charges including manslaughter and criminally negligent homicide. He has pleaded not guilty.

The RESTAURANTS Act is set to be rolled into the $3 trillion stimulus package.

Independent restaurants and bars are one step closer to getting a seat at the table in Washington when it comes to plans for federal relief amid the pandemic.

The House of Representatives’ latest federal aid proposal will now include the bipartisan, bicameral RESTAURANTS Act as part of the $3 trillion stimulus package.

“Congress must quickly pass this COVID-19 relief proposal and give America’s 500,000 independent restaurants a fighting chance to survive,” the Independent Restaurant Coalition said in a press release. “By including the RESTAURANTS Act, the revised version of the HEROES Act (Health and Economic Recovery Omnibus Emergency Solutions Act) is the best plan Congress has put forward to protect the livelihoods of the 11 million people employed by independent restaurants across the country. Independent restaurants are out of options, and by providing flexible grants based on revenue losses to independent restaurants who need them, Congress can ensure many businesses have a shot at surviving colder weather and getting through the pandemic.”

What will it do?

If signed into law, the bipartisan bill would establish a $120 billion grant program for independent restaurants and bars.

As of time of publication, the RESTAURANTS Act has secured 203 House cosponsors and 40 Senate cosponsors, with 13 of those signatures coming in the past month alone. Senators Roger Wicker, R-Miss., and Kyrsten Sinema, D-Ariz., originally introduced the act in June alongside Reps. Earl Blumenauer, D-Ore., and Brian Fitzpatrick, R-Pa.

The grant program would be run by the U.S. Treasury, and funds would cover costs such as payroll, rent, supplies and PPE.

Whom will it help?

“Eligible establishments include restaurants, food stands, food trucks, food carts, caterers, saloons, inns, taverns, and bars. In its first two weeks of operation, grants would be prioritized for establishments owned by members of marginalized and underrepresented communities, with a focus on women and minority-owned and operated entities,” the Independent Restaurant Coalition explained. “Priority would also be given to establishments with annual revenues of less than $1,500,000.”

The IRC has continued to fight over the last six months for the industry that before the pandemic was on track to make $881 billion in 2020 sales, and has instead been uniformly ravaged due to the outbreak of COVID-19. For comparison, industry total sales in August were nearly $11 billion lower than the pre-coronavirus levels posted in January and February, according to the National Restaurant Association.

The uniquely vulnerable industry was one of the first to help local communities when the pandemic hit. Independent restaurants that were forced to close or pivot into takeout or delivery hubs also helped feed first responders and essential health care workers, donating meals throughout communities while adapting to new health and safety procedures with fewer staffers.

Now, industry leaders continue pushing full steam ahead with the same drive and tenacity to get a tangible plan in place.

The IRC, which represents the owners, employees and suppliers who makeup the fabric of the restaurant industry, was formed to affect legislative change through a united voice of local restaurant and bar owners around the country reeling from the economic shutdown as a result of the pandemic.

A similar accident happened on the exact same trail three years ago.

A man has plummeted to his death after climbing a tree to pose for a picture before falling off of a cliff and into the ocean.

The incident occurred on Sept. 27 at approximately 1:48 p.m. when Oregon State Police Troopers received a call from the Devil’s Cauldron Trail in Oswald West State Park located in Tillamook County, Oregon, to reports that a man had fallen from a cliff into the Pacific Ocean.

According to authorities, Steven Gastelum, 43, of Seaside, Oregon, was walking with a friend down the Devil’s Cauldron trail before stopping to take a picture at a cliff side viewpoint.

Gastelum then reportedly climbed a tree on the cliff’s edge so that he could pose for a picture when the limb on the tree snapped causing him to plummet from the cliff approximately 100 feet into the ocean below.

“U.S. Coast Guard helicopter and Nehalem Bay Fire Department jet skis assisted in locating Gastelum and bringing him to shore,” said the Oregon State Police in a statement released to the media.

After authorities located the victim, Gastelum was then transported to Tillamook Regional Care Center by ambulance where he was pronounced dead.

This is also not the first death that has occurred on the Devil’s Cauldron Trail in Oswald West State Park.

In September 2017, Joe Lescene, 51, had been hiking with his wife in Oswald West State Park when it was reported that the Canadian man and father of two lost his footing on the bluff overlooking Devil’s Cauldron and fell more than 800 feet into the ocean below, according to a CBC report. His body was never found.

Temperatures could top 100 degrees near inland Los Angeles.

There were 27 large wildfires burning in California on Tuesday after dry brush and windy and hot conditions spread and fueled the flames.

New fires are gaining traction in the state, where more than 3.8 million acres have burned this year.

The Glass Fire in Napa County has burned through 42,560 acres and destroyed at least 113 structures, as well as iconic wineries and bed and breakfasts. The Zogg Fire in Shasta County has blazed through 40,371 acres, killed three people and destroyed 146 structures so far. Both fires are 0% contained.

While gusty winds subsided overnight, temperatures are expected to remain above normal across much of the inland areas in California. Red flag warnings remain in effect for the mountains and inland valleys in Riverside and San Diego counties through Tuesday night.

Some of the worst conditions likely will be in southern California, including Los Angeles and San Diego. Temperatures could top 100 degrees in parts of inland Los Angeles, with coastal areas reaching the 90s. Over the next few days, the heat will continue with temperatures in the 100-degree range from Redding down to Burbank, where some areas could see a few record highs.

In Northern California, winds are expected to be lighter, but dry conditions and temperatures close to 100 degrees will remain all the way to Redding, California and southern Oregon. A major wind event is not expected in the next few days which should help to fight the fires but the usual localized gusty winds are expected in the canyons and mountains.

More record highs were broken on Monday in the Bay area as Napa reached 103, San Francisco Airport hit 96 and San Jose peaked at 101. Southern California experienced dry and gusty winds in excess of 40 mph on Monday that helped spread some of the new fires.

Elsewhere, a strong cold front is expected to produce some heavy rain with flooding possible for the Northeast on Tuesday night into Wednesday.

Some areas in the Northeast could see more than 3 inches of rain, and if this rain comes down too fast, some minor flooding will be possible in urban areas.

Finally, a possible tropical depression could form in the northern Caribbean by Friday night into Saturday, and, if it becomes a tropical storm, it would be named Gamma.

It’s too early to tell where it will go after this weekend, but some models have it move into the Gulf Coast by next week.

This report was featured in the Tuesday, Sept. 29, 2020, episode of “Start Here,” ABC News’ daily news podcast.

“Start Here” offers a straightforward look at the day’s top stories in 20 minutes. Listen for free every weekday on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, the ABC News app or wherever you get your podcasts.

ABC News’ Jenna Harrison and Julia Jacobo contributed to this report.

Trump claimed he was entitled to tax deductions like everyone else.

While President Donald Trump‘s initial reaction to the New York Times’ bombshell report that he paid little to no federal income taxes over nearly two decades was to dismiss it outright as “totally fake news,” his defense has since evolved into defense of tax-avoidance practices.

In a series of tweets Monday morning, the president attacked the Times for “bringing up my Taxes & all sorts of other nonsense with illegally obtained information” and argued he was “entitled” to what he claimed.

“I paid many millions of dollars in taxes but was entitled, like everyone else, to depreciation & tax credits,” Trump tweeted, defending how much he has paid in taxes without directly challenging the specific numbers raised by the Times.

But he did not answer reporters’ shouted questions at a Rose Garden event Monday afternoon.

The paper denies Trump’s tax information was obtained illegally. ABC News has not independently verified the Times’ account.

In a story published Sunday, the newspaper reported that the president paid just $750 in federal income tax the year he was elected and that same amount during his first year in office. The Times also found that he paid no federal income tax at all in 11 of the 18 years of information they examined.

Trump is the only president in modern history not to release his tax returns and could resolve the lingering questions about his taxes once and for all by simply releasing the information voluntarily. But instead, Trump has claimed that an ongoing audit prevents him from doing so.

While it’s not true that an audit prevents the president from releasing the information, as even his own IRS commissioner has confirmed, it is the case that the president is undergoing a decade-long audit battle over a $72.9 million tax refund, the Times report found.

Beyond the intricacies of the Times’ reporting, the story paints a damning portrait of a president who was elected on his image as a wealthy and successful businessman but whose records tell a story of a deeply indebted and struggling business empire stretched beyond its means.

The president’s evolving defense to the report followed a “Fox and Friends” appearance by his son and business partner Donald Trump Jr., who similarly attacked the report without disputing its key claims and defended the use of maneuvers by the president to lower his tax bill.

“It’s ridiculous. My father has paid tens of millions of dollars in taxes, if he does things where you get depreciation, where you get historical write-offs like we did when we took on the risk of building the Old Post Office in D.C. It’s the perfect example,” the junior Trump said, citing his family’s luxury hotel inside a leased government property on Pennsylvania Avenue.

Short of a denial of the Times reporting, he instead criticized the paper for offering a “selective picture” of the president’s overall tax payments and suggested they were motivated to do so ahead of Tuesday night’s first presidential debate.

“Of course, The New York Times does this, they put out a selective picture of all of these things a day before the debate to try to give someone like Joe Biden an attack line, they come up with one or two catchy soundbites and that’s the game,” he added.

Beyond the commentary directly from the president and his son, the president’s team has also moved to build the president’s defense in an approach that has run the spectrum from outright denials to justifying the practice of tax avoidance to the suggestion of a “coordinated political smear.”

White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany said the timing of the report’s release just ahead of the president’s first debate matchup against Joe Biden Tuesday night was suspect, while deputy press secretary Brian Morgenstern went further in making a baseless allegation that it was “probably a coordinated political smear” on the part of the Times and Democrats.

“The Democrats had ads up and running within minutes of this coming out which means that it’s probably a coordinated political smear but the president has paid lots of taxes but the point is that why would anybody pay more than they owe? He wants everybody to have low taxes,” Morgenstern said.

He took issue with the Times not showing the documents that form the basis of their reporting so they “could be verified and disputed,” an argument that left unmentioned the fact that the president has the power to do so himself if he would release his tax information.

“The documents the New York Times used they wouldn’t even show them to anybody so they could be verified and disputed,” said Morgenstern, who has cited the previous denials by the president and his attorney in pushing back against the report.

Morgenstern further echoed the president’s defense that he has donated his presidential salary over his nearly four years in office as evidence of generosity toward the government, even though such donations do not compensate for tax payments.

“The president’s attorney stated he paid tens of millions of dollars in taxes. We know this. We know he donates his salary to the government even when he doesn’t have to. That’s a million and a half dollars in taxes he didn’t have to pay, but this is a story that is another version of it from four years ago on the eve of the debate, coordinated with the Democrats as a political hit,” Morgenstern said.

But all the while, as the Trump team has sought to claim the Times story is riddled with inaccuracies and defended the president’s image, there is little indication that the president and his team are any closer to taking the step that would resolve the matter once and for all by releasing the president’s tax information.

If convicted, Brett Hankison faces up to five years in prison.

Brett Hankison, the only officer to be indicted in the Breonna Taylor case, pleaded not guilty to his charges during a telephone court appearance Monday afternoon.

Hankison, who was fired from the Louisville Metro Police Department in June, was hit with three counts of wanton endangerment in the first degree last week for shooting into the apartment of Taylor’s neighbors during the March 13 incident.

If convicted, he faces up to five years in prison.

During the phone hearing, Hankison only spoke to indicate he was initially present and alerted Judge Anne Bailey Smith that his attorney, Stewart Matthews, had not called into the conference.

Matthews phoned in a few minutes later, entering the not guilty plea for his client. The judge set bond at $15,000 and mandated two stipulations: that Hankison attend every court hearing, even if it was virtual, and that the former officer give up all of his firearms.

Matthews asked the judge to reconsider the firearm stipulation, contending that his client has received numerous threats and needed his weapons for “self-defense purposes.” Judge Smith declined Matthews’ request.

“People in this court who are charged with offenses with firearms, I do not allow them to possess firearms as part of their bond,” she said.

The next pre-trial date was set for Oct. 28.

Hankison, Detective Myles Cosgrove and Sgt. Jonathan Mattingly were executing a no-knock warrant at Taylor’s apartment as part of an investigation into a suspected drug operation.

Taylor, 26, and an EMT, and her boyfriend, Kenneth Walker, 27, were sleeping during the time of the incident. Walker said the officers awakened him. When the officers didn’t respond to calls to identify themselves, Walker said he took out his licensed handgun and fired at the door. One of the officers was struck in the leg and they returned fire.

The three officers fired 32 shots into Taylor’s apartment, 10 of which were fired by Hankison, according to Kentucky Attorney General Daniel Cameron. Bullets from Cosgrove’s and Mattingly’s guns struck Taylor six times, according to Cameron.

No drugs were ultimately found in the apartment.

After months of protests and calls for justice, a grand jury delivered its indictment against Hankison last week. Cameron said the officers were justified in their use of force, much to the disappointment of Taylor’s family and their supporters.

“If Hankison’s behavior constituted wanton endangerment of the people in the apartments next to hers, then it should also be considered wanton endangerment of Breonna. In fact, it should have been ruled wanton murder,” Benjamin Crump, Sam Aguiar and Lonita Baker, the attorneys representing the Taylor family, said in a statement shortly after the grand jury decision was announced.

The grand jury decision set off more protests in Louisville and cities across the country. Some of those protests turned violent as cars and other buildings were damaged, the police said.

Cosgrove and Mattingly have been placed on administrative duty since the incident. They, along with four other officers, are currently under an internal probe by the Louisville Metro Police Department’s Professional Standards Unit for their actions during the incident, according to a police spokesman.

Two weeks ago, the city of Louisville agreed to a $12 million settlement with the Taylor family over a wrongful death lawsuit. As part of that settlement, the city agreed to several police reforms including a housing credit program to incentivize officers to live in low-income neighborhoods and bi-weekly community service.

Montana was able to get his grandchild back.

Football great Joe Montana and his wife, Jennifer, faced down a would-be kidnapper at their Malibu home this weekend, saving their 9-month-old grandchild from being taken.

Montana told police an unknown woman entered the residence on Saturday and took his grandchild from a playpen, where the child was sleeping, according to a Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department statement.

As the suspect held the child, Joe and Jennifer Montana, “confronted the female, attempted to de-escalate the situation, and asked for the suspect to give back their grandchild,” according to the LASD.

“A tussle ensued and Mrs. Montana was able to safely pry the child out of the suspect’s arms,” the LASD statement stated.

The suspect then fled, after which the NFL Hall of Famer flagged down deputies patrolling Lost Hills Sheriff’s Station and told them what had happened. After a search, deputies arrested Sodsai Dalzell, a 39-year-old woman, and charged her with kidnapping and burglary. Bail was set at $150,000.

“Thank you to everyone who has reached out. Scary situation, but thankful that everybody is doing well. We appreciate respect for our privacy at this time,” Joe Montana said in a tweet Sunday afternoon.

Joe and Jennifer Montana were married in 1985. They have four children.