Authorities are exploring evidence that Nashville, Tennessee, bombing suspect Anthony Quinn Warner was interested in various conspiracy theories, sources familiar with the investigation told ABC News.
The theories include ones involving “lizard people” — a belief that shape-shifting reptilian creatures appear in human form and are bent on world domination.
Warner, 63, of Antioch, Tennessee, is also believed to have spent time hunting for alien life forms in a nearby state park, sources said.
Some writings found by investigators believed to be associated with Warner, who was killed in the Christmas Day RV explosion, contain ramblings about assorted conspiracy theories, sources said.
Multiple law enforcement sources also told ABC News earlier this week that investigators looked at whether Warner had paranoia about 5G cellular technology.
It is unclear if any of these beliefs or behaviors are connected to the explosion, which damaged dozens of buildings on Second Avenue in downtown Nashville and sent three people to the hospital with minor injuries. The RV was parked outside an AT&T transmission building, which was also damaged.
Warner was identified Sunday after investigators matched tissue found at the blast to DNA from gloves and a hat inside a car the suspect owned, an official said.
Law enforcement sources confirm to ABC News that Nashville police were told in 2019 that Warner was building bombs in his RV.
According to a Metro Nashville Police Department report dated Aug. 21, 2019, and obtained by ABC News, a woman told police her boyfriend, Warner, was “building bombs in the RV trailer at his residence.”
An attorney present when police arrived last year, Raymond T. Throckmorton III, told authorities he represented both the woman and Warner said that he “talks about the military and bomb-making.”
Police visited Warner’s residence and “knocked on the door but did not receive an answer,” according to the report. They also “observed that there was a trailer in the back yard, but the yard was fenced off and police could not see inside the RV,” the report said.
A Metro Nashville Police Department investigator followed up with the FBI to see if they had any additional information related to Warner, the report said.
The FBI, in a statement provided to ABC News, said it “received a request from the Metro Nashville Police Department to check our holdings on Anthony Warner and subsequently found no records at all. Additionally, the FBI facilitated a Department of Defense inquiry on Warner at the request of the Metro Nashville Police Department, which was also negative.”
Investigators are now continuing to analyze chemical residue from the scene of last week’s explosion and are working to narrow down the chemicals that were likely used to make the explosive device.
They are also looking into how the suspect allegedly acquired the bomb-making materials to ensure there were no accomplices.
Sources told ABC News that receipts and credit card account information indicates Warner allegedly purchased items that could be used to construct a bomb, though they cautioned that certain common chemicals have uses that could have nothing to do with bomb-making. Authorities are sorting through Warner’s recent purchases to determine whether those items were allegedly used in the device or had some other purpose, sources said.
The FBI and the U.S. Department of Justice’s Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives are leading the investigation. As of Tuesday afternoon, their response teams had investigated nearly half of the crime scene and hoped to complete it by Friday at the latest, the FBI said in a statement.
FBI and ATF agents and behavioral analysts are also continuing to interview people who knew the suspect “to try to understand why this happened,” the FBI said.
Anyone who knew the suspect and hasn’t yet spoken with investigators is asked to call 800-CALL-FBI.
Before the explosion, an eerie recording counted down to detonation and the Petula Clark song “Downtown” played from the RV. On Tuesday, Clark expressed her “shock and disbelief” at the blast — and use of her song leading up to it.
“Of all the thousands of songs — why this one?” she wrote in a Facebook post.
“Of course, the opening lyric is ‘When you’re alone and life is making you lonely you can always go Downtown.’ But millions of people all over the world have been uplifted by this joyful song,” she wrote. “Perhaps you can read something else into these words – depending on your state of mind. It’s possible.”
ABC News’ Aaron Katersky and Joshua Hoyos contributed to this report.
President-elect Joe Biden on Tuesday sharply criticized the Trump administration over the pace of vaccinations for COVID-19, as prominent public health experts raised questions about the speed by which the federal government was getting shots into Americans’ arms.
In remarks in Delaware Tuesday afternoon, Biden accused the outgoing administration of being “far behind” in delivering what’s needed and what was promised, saying at the current rate, if would take years, not months, for all Americans to get vaccinated.
“A few weeks ago, the Trump administration suggested that 20 million Americans could be vaccinated by the end of December. With only a few days left in December, we’ve only vaccinated a few million so far. And the pace of the vaccination program is moving now, as it — if it continues to move as it is now, it’s going to take years, not months, to vaccinate the American people,” Biden warned.
The Trump administration swiftly pushed back, insisting that its plan to deliver first doses for 20 million Americans had only slipped into the first week of January, and that it was up to the states to ensure the injections were delivered in a timely manner.
“These doses are being distributed at states’ direction to the American people as quickly as they are available and releasable, and the rapid availability and distribution of so many doses — with 20 million first doses allocated for distribution just 18 days after the first vaccine was granted emergency use authorization — is a testament to the success of Operation Warp Speed,” said Michael Pratt, chief communications officer for the OWS program.
Biden reaffirmed his goal of administering 100 million shots in the first 100 days of his administration through a national strategy, saying the current vaccination effort, conducted at the state and local level, would need to be stepped up “five to six times” to reach his goal of 1 million shots a day.
“I’m going to move heaven and Earth to get us going in the right direction. I’m going to use my power under the Defense Production Act, when I’m sworn in, in order — and order private industry to accelerate the making of the materials needed for the vaccines as well as protective gear,” Biden said, outlining his own plans to combat COVID-19 as president, including a public education campaign to boost trust in the vaccine, particularly in communities of color.
But while Biden’s transition is working on plans to increase the number of vaccinations, the president-elect cautioned that the public should be prepared for the the monumental challenge ahead.
“This will take more time than anyone would like and more time than the promises from the Trump administration have suggested. This is going to be the greatest operational challenge we’ve ever faced as a nation, and we’re going to get it done,” he said.
While millions of doses have been administered across the country and the distribution process was still in a nascent stage, President Donald Trump‘s overpromising in an election year raised expectations that the government and pharmaceutical companies could not meet.
Dr. Anthony Fauci, the federal government’s top infectious disease expert, said in an interview with CNN Tuesday that “we are below where we want to be.”
“We certainly are not at the numbers that we wanted to be at the end of December,” Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said.
Trump said in October that “we’re on track to deliver at least 100 million doses of a vaccine this year.”
But in November, Pfizer – which makes one of two vaccines to have received emergency authorization from the federal government – drastically adjusted its predictions for production, and the administration began dropped the expectation to 40 million doses by the end of the year. Since both Moderna and Pfizer’s vaccines require two doses per person, that would be enough for 20 million Americans to get vaccinated.
“By Christmas, 20 million Americans by the end of this year, 20 million Americans could be vaccinated,” Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar declared earlier this month at a vaccine event.
But with just a few days left in 2020, it appears the United States will fall far short of even that.
As of Tuesday morning, only 11.5 million doses had been distributed and officials said they don’t expect to hit the 20 million mark until the first week of January.
Also, while Azar suggested that would be enough for 20 million people to be “vaccinated,” it’s not clear how many people will have actually received the shots. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, about 2.1 million people have been recorded as receiving a dose. But that number isn’t a good indication of real-time injections as it’s up to states and local authorities to report data and are given several days to do so.
“We know that’s underreported because there’s a three to seven-day delay. But we expect that to ramp up,” said Adm. Brett Giroir, a U.S. Department of Health and Human Services official, said in an interview with MSNBC on Tuesday.
Overall, the final numbers are a far cry of what Trump and his top aides promised early in the year, such as when Moncef Slaoui, the chief scientific adviser to the federal government’s vaccine program, said in May he was “confident that we will be able to deliver a few hundred million doses of vaccine by the end of 2020.”
Federal officials remained hopeful the pace would pick up.
Fauci said he thought “that as we get into January, we are going to see an increase in the momentum” that, he said, he hoped “allows us to catch up to the projected pace that we had spoken about a month or two ago.”
For months, the Trump administration has touted the support it has provided pharmaceutical companies with producing and distributing COVID-19 vaccines, helping lead to more than one receiving authorization for emergency use in record time.
But while its vaccine program, called “Operation Warp Speed,” has focused on getting millions of doses from the manufacturers to hospitals across the country, the federal government has largely left the final steps to overstretched state health departments. Experts have raised questions about whether it has done enough to help hospitals and pharmacies work through logistical challenges.
“The biggest problem is getting the vaccine from the states into people’s arms,” Dr. Ashish Jha, the dean of Brown University’s School of Public Health, said in an interview with ABC’s “Good Morning America” on Tuesday. “There’s a lot of steps and there hasn’t been much planning. There hasn’t been much investment.
“And we’re starting to see departments of health that are really stretched having to try to figure out how to get all these vaccines into people,” he added. “And it’s going much more slowly than I think the federal authorities thought it would.”
Giroir notes that all public health operates through state and local communities. For example, he said, the U.S. rolls out flu vaccines every year in much the same way.
It would be a dramatic departure if the federal government decided who gets vaccinations and where in the states. Administration officials say their role has been to provide money, supplies and support.
“The federal government doesn’t invade Texas or Montana and provide shots to people. We support the state and locals doing that,” Giroir told MSNBC.
Indeed, the federal government has left decisions about who actually can receive up to state and regional officials, with the CDC making non-binding recommendations. So far, though, healthcare workers have generally been prioritized across the country, in line with those guidelines.
The Trump administration’s approach to vaccine distribution to some degree has mirrored its approach to testing for COVID-19, which it also left largely up to the states to administer. As a result, a confused, haphazard testing regime across the country left massive gaps in public health officials’ understanding of the viruses’ spread – crippling the country’s response to the pandemic.
It was not immediately clear whether the vaccine rollout would follow a similar path with Giroir and other officials insisting that the vaccinations will ramp up dramatically in coming weeks.
Meanwhile, Vice President-elect Kamala Harris and her husband, Doug Emhoff, got the first dose of a COVID-19 vaccination on Tuesday morning. Biden received his first dose last week, while outgoing Vice President Mike Pence and his wife got theirs the week before.
The accident took place Tuesday morning near Virginia Beach.
December 29, 2020, 7:58 PM
• 3 min read
The Coast Guard and local officials called off a daylong search Tuesday night for a man in the water near Virginia Beach following a tractor-trailer accident.
Authorities received a 911 call around 8:30 a.m. of reports that the tractor-trailer crashed through the southbound side of the Chesapeake Bay Bridge and went into the water, the Coast Guard said.
Witnesses reported seeing a man exit the vehicle and drift west, according to the Coast Guard.
A distribution manager at Cloverland Green Spring Dairy, based in Baltimore, confirmed to Richmond ABC affiliate WRIC Tuesday evening that one of their dairy trucks was involved in the accident. The Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel authority identified the missing man as Erik Mezick, 47, of Fruitland, Maryland.
“The thoughts and prayers of everyone at the CBBT are with the family and loved ones of Mr. Mezick during this difficult time,” Jeff Holland, executive director of the CBBT, told WRIC.
In addition to two Coast Guard boats and a Coast Guard helicopter, local police and fire departments and Virginia Marine Resource Commission combed the waters to find the missing man.
Crews searched 178 square miles before the search was called off in the evening.
The Coast Guard urged anyone who has any information or saw the man in the water to call the Sector Virginia Command Center at (757) 483-8567.
U.S. Marshals captured Koby Francis in an apartment complex in Clarksburg, West Virginia, around 6 p.m., the authorities said. On Dec. 20, the McKeesport, Pennsylvania, Police Department said officers handcuffed Francis, 22, from behind and drove him in a police SUV on suspicion of violating a protective order.
Francis allegedly got his hands in front of him during the drive to the station and ambushed Officer Gerasimos “Jerry” Athans, 32, as the officer opened the door, according to the Allegheny County Police Department. Francis allegedly had a gun on him that was not removed during the arrest, police said.
Athans, a four-year veteran of the force, was shot in the neck and shoulder and is recovering from his non-life-threatening injuries, the police said.
During the police search and investigation officials arrested four people who they say assisted the suspect in his flight.
Jasmyn Henderson-Bracey, 25, Gesiah Grigsby, 21, Daniel Neal, 19, and Justine Kenyatta, 20, all of East Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania, were charged Sunday with hindering the suspect’s apprehension.
The four denied they had seen Francis after the shooting, however, police said they had evidence that their story was not true.
Henderson-Bracey and Grigsby were allegedly seen on surveillance footage with Francis, who allegedly was still wearing his handcuff bracelet, at a grocery store two days after the shooting, police said. Neal, Francis’ brother, was allegedly seen in the video trying to hide the fugitive’s face and Kenyatta was seen in a vehicle with the pair, police said.
Francis is charged with aggravated assault, criminal attempt homicide, person not to possess a firearm, flight to avoid apprehension trial or punishment and escape, police said.
He is currently awaiting extradition at a jail in Doddridge County, West Virginia, police said.
Offering those doses went “against protocol,” the governor said.
December 29, 2020, 6:07 PM
• 4 min read
Members of the public in Kentucky lucked into getting vaccinated for COVID-19 on Christmas Eve when local Walgreens stores had extra doses that would have expired.
The excess doses were offered to local first responders, Walgreens staff and residents in Louisville and Lexington, many of whom where older than 65, according to Walgreens spokesperson Phil Caruso.
“COVID-19 vaccines are not available to the general public at this time,” Caruso said in a statement. “We experienced an isolated situation in which the amount of vaccine doses requested by facilities exceeded the actual need.”
Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear said Monday that pharmacies in both cities had extra doses of the vaccine after performing vaccinations in long-term care facilities and that offering those doses to the public went against protocol. It was unclear how many non-priority people had received vaccines.
“I don’t think that this was intentional, and we have to understand that in an undertaking this massive that mistakes are going to happen,” Beshear said.
Procedures are in place to make sure “the right thing happens next time,” he added.
Kentucky is in Phase 1A of vaccine distribution, which only includes health care workers and people in long-term care facilities. The state is expected to move into Phase 1B in February, according to the governor.
During an interview with “Good Morning America” on Tuesday, Dr. Ashish Jha, dean at Brown University School of Public Health, spoke about the difficulty local health departments are having distributing the vaccine without a national plan or funding.
“The biggest problem is getting the vaccine from the states into people’s arms,” Jha said.
“We’re starting to see departments of health that are really stretched having to try to figure out how to get all these vaccines into people and it’s going much more slowly than I think the federal authorities thought it would.”
ABC News’ William Gretsky contributed to this report.
Tracking the spread in the U.S. and worldwide: Coronavirus map
Tune into ABC at 1 p.m. ET and ABC News Live at 4 p.m. ET every weekday for special coverage of the novel coronavirus with the full ABC News team, including the latest news, context and analysis.
In the wake of a now-viral incident where a woman accused a Grammy-winning Black jazz musician’s teenage son of stealing her cell phone in a hotel lobby, the parents and their son described how the confrontation left them “shell-shocked.”
“I’ve been confused. I mean, don’t know what would’ve happened if my dad wasn’t there, honestly,” Keyon Harrold Jr. told “Good Morning America” on Tuesday. “These past few days, still kind of shell-shocked. But I’m hanging in there.”
The 14-year-old spoke out for the first time on “GMA,” alongside his father Keyon Harrold, his mom Kat Rodriguez and their attorney Ben Crump.
When asked to think back to how he felt in the moment when the chaos unfolded, Harrold Jr. said, “I was confused because I’ve never seen that lady ever and I didn’t know what to do at the moment — that’s why I was happy to have my dad there to help me.”
The incident captured on video on Dec. 26 in the lobby of the Arlo Hotel in Manhattan’s SoHo neighborhood, showed Harrold with his son defending themselves against an unidentified woman who repeatedly demanded he “give it back” — apparently referencing her cell phone.
Harrold told “GMA” that physically, the woman “was all on him asking for his phone immediately” once they got down to the lobby.
“But after the video cuts off and, I mean, she basically tackled, she scratched me, and I was there to, you know, try to protect my little cub,” he said. “And basically trying to keep her away, keep her off of my son. I couldn’t imagine what it would have been like if I wasn’t there to be with him.”
Rodriquez, who was not there at the time, told “GMA” that she feared the possible alternative outcomes if Harrold Jr. had not had a parent by his side.
“Fear came in because my son, if his father wouldn’t have been there, what would have happened to my son if the cops would have been called,” she said. “When my son asked me, ‘why me, mom?’ That just hurt.
“The toughest answer that a parent has to give their child — unfortunately it might be because you’re Black. It might be because you’re no longer seen as a child. When you look at him, he looks like he could be 16 or 17. But when you hear him speak, he’s a 14-year-old boy,” Rodriguez said.
A hotel manager got involved as the woman became more emphatic, but the artist claimed the manager sided with the woman, who was not a current guest at the hotel.
The Arlo Hotel later said in a statement that they apologized for how the dispute was handled and said that they have reached out to the family. Crump told ABC News that the phone in question was later returned by an Uber driver after the owner left the phone in the car.
The family’s attorney told “GMA” that they are petitioning the Manhattan District Attorney Cy Vance Jr. “to bring charges against this woman for assault and battery.”
“We want charges because we have to send a message because this has larger society implications,” Crump said. “Think about how many Black men have been falsely accused by these Karens and they end up losing their liberty and losing their life sitting in prison.”
The term “Karen” took on a new meaning in 2020 stemming from multiple racially charged incidents involving women calling the police on Black men. The moniker has come to signify white women acting entitled and has sparked thousands of memes. The term has been around for several years, with the origin largely unknown.
The NYPD said it is investigating the incident.
Harrold Jr. said that if he were to speak with the woman again he would first, “expect an apology.”
“I would ask her why would she do something like this to a kid who has never met you at all and I would just ask just why,” he added.
Rodriguez echoed the same rhetorical question, “I want to know why.”
“The whole point is why — we don’t have any clue why this woman attacked our son,” she said.
This story is part of “America in Transition,” a weekly series of in-depth reports on key parts of Donald Trump‘s legacy, Joe Biden’s plans for change and what’s at stake for all Americans. It airs Tuesday nights on ABC News Live Prime at 7 p.m. ET.
As the curtain falls on 2020 and the Trump administration, America’s infrastructure system is mired in a financial crisis that the coronavirus pandemic is only making worse.
With fewer travelers at airports and on toll roads, the taxes and user fees that governments rely on to fund repairs aren’t coming in. Less rush-hour gridlock may be a pandemic silver lining, but fewer drivers are filling up and paying the gas taxes that help the Highway Trust Fund for repairs.
Cash-strapped local governments are putting some much-needed upgrades on hold or canceling them altogether.
“You’ve got municipal and state budgets that are starting to buckle under these unprecedented demands, meaning less support available for our parks and schools and other public services beyond infrastructure, precisely at a time when we need to be investing in it,” said Tom Smith, executive director of the American Society of Civil Engineers.
The to-do list of repairs is staggering: $177 billion needed for the electrical grid; $42 billion for aging airports; and $1.1 trillion for crumbling roads and structurally deficient bridges, according to an analysis by ASCE.
Subways, commuter rail and bus lines — which were under financial strain before COVID-19 — are now hundreds of millions of dollars in debt and bracing for deep cuts.
“It’s the hardest thing I’ve ever had to deal with,” said Paul Wiedefeld, CEO of the Washington Metropolitan Transit Authority, the nation’s second-busiest transit system behind New York City.
“I ran BWI [airport] right after 9/11. I dealt with a lot of issues, but this is unbelievable,” he added. In the nation’s capital, rail ridership is down 90% and bus passengers are down 60%.
“When you look at New York, Chicago, Philadelphia, San Francisco, Boston, they’re all in the same place. They’re getting to that same point we are, which is, we’re facing huge financial challenges,” Wiedefeld said. “And until this thing’s really under control, people aren’t coming back.”
New York’s MTA faces an $8 billion deficit through 2024. In Chicago, transit officials are forecasting a $500 million deficit, while in Boston $600 million.
Major metro transit agencies have warned of more layoffs, service cuts, station closures and reduced frequency of trains and buses.
“We have a tremendous backlog when it comes to transit,” Smith said.
In its massive year-end stimulus bill, Congress approved $14 billion in emergency relief for public transit, which major cities said would delay deeper service cuts and layoffs if President Donald Trump signed it into law.
“It’s a down payment, an important down payment on what’s going to have to be done beginning at the end of January into February,” said President-elect Joe Biden of the plan.
Economists say the quagmire for public transit could threaten the nation’s broader financial recovery, as businesses rely on transportation systems to bring back workers, shoppers and tourists.
Weidefeld said he expects the ridership and revenue crisis to last “definitely months” longer. “Let’s see how the vaccine plays out, both in terms of its acceptance and its reliability,” he said.
Some of the nation’s most urgently needed infrastructure repairs are for America’s roads and bridges.
More than 56,000 American bridges — roughly 1 in 10 — are structurally deficient and in need of major overhaul or replacement, according to ASCE’s 2017 Infrastructure Report Card.
“We have pressed our luck, I believe, and I am concerned. I’m very concerned about it,” said Kimberly J. Brown of Minneapolis, a survivor of the Interstate 35W bridge collapse in 2007. “It could be too late. There may be a bridge collapse on the horizon.”
Brown was driving to a soccer game in Minneapolis when the interstate suddenly collapsed over the Mississippi River and her car plunged into the water. Thirteen people were killed and 145 were injured.
“I was standing on the bridge, after falling with the bridge and thinking I was surely going to die,” Brown recalled in an interview with ABC News. “My injuries were all invisible … an eerie metaphor to the damages that were happening under this bridge, and the damages I discovered were happening across different infrastructure and that are happening all across our country.”
Brown, a writer, set out to investigate causes of the collapse on her own, writing a book about her findings, “The I-35W Bridge Collapse: A Survivor’s Account of America’s Crumbling Infrastructure.”
She calls on political leaders in both parties to adopt the lessons from that tragedy and see the human costs of infrastructure neglect.
“Once we embrace the reality of why it truly fell, then we need to organize and bind together regardless of party,” Brown said. “Bridges don’t fall and ask us what party we are. We all fell. 145 people were hurt. It did not matter what their voter registration card said.”
For years, presidents and congressional leaders have campaigned on the promise of infrastructure improvements to smooth commutes, speed shipments of U.S. goods and add construction jobs by the millions.
But inaction in Washington has made “infrastructure week” — a now-annual tradition of politicians talking about new legislation that goes nowhere — a running joke.
“One of the issues we get bogged down by each time is, ‘How do you fund it?’ And the question we have to ask ourselves is, ‘How do you not fund — and what does it cost when you don’t fund it?'” said Smith.
Biden said a long-elusive, bipartisan infrastructure deal is a top priority in his first term. This month, he named former South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg as his nominee for transportation secretary to help lead the charge.
“Americans expect us to see to it that the idea of an ‘infrastructure week’ is associated with results — and never again a media punchline,” Buttigieg said.
The high expectations for 2021 are being met with cautious optimism by industry leaders.
“Infrastructure to me is jobs. That’s what it really means,” said Wiedefeld. “I think the president-elect has shown that he’s an infrastructure guy. He wants to do that. And particularly given what we’ve been through with COVID, we need to start the economy up. The quickest way to do that, you start investing in infrastructure.”
The storms may bring snow, freezing rain, damaging winds and possible tornadoes.
December 29, 2020, 11:23 AM
• 6 min read
A major storm brought heavy snow, heavy rain and gusty winds to parts of the Southwest on Monday, especially in Southern California.
This is the beginning of a multi-storm event that will unfold over the remainder of the holiday week, with messy consequences still to come for much of the country.
Up to a foot of snow was reported in the mountains outside of Los Angeles, and very heavy snow caused major traffic delays near Mount Baldy.
Over 3 inches of rain fell in Santa Barbara, California, and downtown Los Angeles saw 1.81 inches of rain. This was the first significant rainfall of the season for the region.
On Tuesday morning, the storm will move through the Central Plains. It has already closed parts of I-80 in Nebraska due to hazardous road conditions.
Winter weather alerts have been issued for at least 40 million Americans, from Utah to Michigan, as this storm moves eastward.
Of particular concern Tuesday morning is the combination of snow, freezing rain and sleet moving through parts of Kansas and northwest Missouri. This could create dangerous travel conditions on roadways and cause power outages.
Heavy snow will expand into parts of the upper Midwest, especially from Minnesota to eastern Iowa and western Illinois. Up to 10 inches of snow may fall along the Illinois and Iowa border. This could cause major travel delays in the region.
Then, as the core of the storm passes into southern Canada, the trailing cold front on Thursday morning should bring a large line of rain transitioning to snow from the northeast back through the Southern Plains. Additionally, some snow may fall in the interior Northeast as well on Thursday morning. All of this could cause travel delays as Americans head toward New Year’s Eve.
Immediately behind this system on New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day, another storm will start organizing in the South, pushing heavy rain and storms toward the Gulf Coast.
As this system becomes more organized, strong winds and brief tornadoes could move across parts of the Gulf Coast in time for New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day.
The storm will push a rather wide swath of snow and wintry mix from Texas to Indiana, causing power outages and dangerous travel conditions due to ice.
Eventually, the bad weather will reach the Northeast as well. On the back end of the storm, a band of snow could impact parts of the Midwest, including Chicago and Milwaukee.
Officer Adam Coy, a 19-year veteran, shot and killed Andre Hill last week.
December 28, 2020, 11:03 PM
• 5 min read
The Columbus, Ohio, public safety director has decided to terminate Columbus police officer Adam Coy after Coy shot and killed Andre Hill, a Black man, last week.
In a Monday ruling, Public Safety Director Ned Pettus Jr. wrote that “known facts do not establish that this use of deadly force was objectively reasonable.”
Pettus said Coy didn’t try to deescalate the situation before shooting Hill, who was unarmed. After the shooting, Coy didn’t render aid or ensure that others did, according to Pettus.
Coy also didn’t activate his body camera while on the service call, Pettus said.
“I applaud Safety Director Ned Pettus and Police Chief Tom Quinlan for their swift action in firing Mr. Coy for not using reasonable use of force consistent with Division policies, not activating his body-worn camera and not rendering aid to a dying Mr. Hill. This does not represent the values of the Columbus Division of Police,” Columbus Mayor Andrew Ginther said in a statement Monday. “Now we wait on the investigation of BCI, a presentation of the evidence to a grand jury and potential federal charges from the U.S. Department of Justice.”
“This is the first step in our journey and fight for justice in the unjustifiable killing of Andre Hill,” Ben Crump, Hill family attorney, said Monday.
Coy had already been stripped of all police powers and has surrendered his gun and badge, according to the Department of Public Safety. Columbus Police Chief Thomas Quinlan called for Coy’s termination last week when it was discovered that Coy did not turn on his body camera until after shooting Hill.
Hill was shot on Dec. 22 after officers were dispatched to a “non-emergency” disturbance call from a neighbor who allegedly saw a man sitting in an SUV for an extended period of time turning his car on and off, according to the Columbus Department of Public Safety.
After Hill came out of a garage, with a phone in his left hand and his right hand obscured, Coy opened fire.
Coy then approached Hill and ordered that he show his hands and roll over, before asking a colleague if medics were called. Coy didn’t administer aid, according to the footage.
No weapon was found at the scene, and none of the other responding officers had their cameras on until after Hill was shot, according to investigators.
The Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation is conducting an investigation.
Pettus’ decision came after a disciplinary hearing Monday morning and the chief’s investigation. Coy was not at the hearing; Fraternal Order of Police members attended on his behalf, the Columbus Department of Public Safety said.
“The information, evidence and representations made by Chief Quinlan as the investigator are, in my opinion, indisputable. His disciplinary recommendation is well-supported and appropriate,” Pettus said in a statement Monday.
ABC News’ Meredith Deliso and Andy Fies contributed to this report.
A $28 million proposed bail package and letters of support from more than a dozen relatives and friends failed to persuade a federal judge to release Ghislaine Maxwell from custody in advance of her criminal trial next year.
U.S. District Judge Alison Nathan, in a brief order Monday, denied Maxwell’s second attempt at pretrial release, concluding that none of the new information altered the court’s previous determination that Maxwell, an alleged co-conspirator of deceased sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, posed a flight risk if granted bail.
“[T]he Court again concludes that no conditions of release can reasonably assure [Maxwell’s] appearance at future proceedings,” Nathan wrote.
Maxwell’s legal team spent months preparing what they billed as a “comprehensive bail package” containing “substantial information” that was not available to present to the court at Maxwell’s initial detention hearing in July. Several friends and family, whose names were redacted from the public court filings, had pledged assets and offered to co-sign the bond.
The renewed bail application also revealed for the first time that Maxwell, 59, has been married since 2016. Her husband wrote in a letter to the court that he had “never witnessed anything close to inappropriate with Ghislaine; quite to the contrary, the Ghislaine I know is a wonderful and loving person.”
But prosecutors continued to oppose Maxwell’s release, arguing that she remained an “extreme flight risk” because of her foreign ties, her alleged “lack of candor” with the court and her “willingness and sophisticated ability to live in hiding,” according to court documents.
The government balked at the notion that her marriage would keep her from fleeing the country and faulted Maxwell for an “apparent willingness to deceive” the court initially about her spouse and assets after her arrest.
Maxwell’s lawyers claimed prosecutors had effectively ignored her new arguments and were holding her to an “impossible standard” because of the government’s acknowledged failures in connection with Epstein’s death while in federal custody last year.
“With regard to any other defendant, this record would readily support release on strict bail conditions, perhaps even on consent. But this is Ghislaine Maxwell, the apparent substitute for Jeffrey Epstein,” wrote Maxwell attorney Mark S. Cohen in a court filing earlier this month.
Judge Nathan has temporarily sealed the analysis and explanation for her decision until her order is reviewed by Maxwell’s lawyers and prosecutors for “potentially confidential information” that should be redacted before the document is made public.
Maxwell, the youngest daughter of the late British publishing tycoon Robert Maxwell, has been held in a federal detention center in Brooklyn, New York, since early July. She pleaded not guilty to a six-count indictment alleging that she conspired with Epstein in a multi-state sex trafficking scheme involving three unnamed minor victims between 1994 and 1997.
Prosecutors contend Maxwell not only “befriended” and later “enticed and groomed multiple minor girls to engage in sex acts with Epstein, through a variety of means and methods,” but was also, at times, “present for and involved” in the abuse herself. She also faces two perjury charges for alleged false statements she made in 2016 during depositions in a civil lawsuit against her.
