Tag Archives: 3 dead

Three students shot dead, six people wounded at Michigan high school; suspect arrested

(Reuters) – A 15-year-old boy killed three fellow high school students and wounded six other people upon opening fire with a semi-automatic handgun at a Michigan high school, and he was quickly taken into custody, police said.

At least one of those wounded was a teacher at Oxford High School in Oxford, Michigan, about 40 miles (65 km) north of Detroit, the Oakland County Sheriff’s office said.

“The suspect fired multiple shots,” Undersheriff Michael McCabe told reporters at the scene. “There’s multiple victims. It’s unfortunate I have to report that we have three deceased victims right now, who are believed to be students.”

The suspect, a sophomore at the school, was believed to have acted alone and was arrested without resistance after firing 15 to 20 shots, McCabe said.

“The whole thing lasted five minutes,” McCabe said.

WDIV television reported the suspect divulged nothing to police and demanded his right to speak with a lawyer.

Student Abbey Hodder told the Detroit Free Press that she was in chemistry class when she heard the sound of glass breaking.

“My teacher kind of ran out and was scrambling,” Hodder, 15, told the newspaper. “The next thing I knew I saw he was pushing tables. It’s part of school protocol to barricade, so we all knew, barricade, barricade down. And we all started pushing tables.”

McCabe praised the school for its preparation for a shooting and an orderly evacuation.

President Joe Biden was told of the shooting by National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan in advance of a tour and remarks at a Minnesota technical college, Press Secretary Jan Psaki told reporters.

“My heart goes out to the families enduring the unimaginable grief of losing a loved one,” Biden said from Minnesota.

Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer called the shooting “horrific.”

“As Michiganders, we have a responsibility to do everything we can to protect each other from gun violence,” Whitmer, a Democrat, said in a statement.

(Reporting by Peter Szekely in New York, Dan Whitcomb in Los Angeles, Akriti Sharma in Bengaluru, Jarrett Renshaw in Philadelphia and Daniel Trotta in Carlsbad, Calif.; Editing by Sonya Hepinstall and Matthew Lewis)

Police seek motive for shooting at California garlic festival

Justin Bates, a survivor of the Gilroy Garlic Festival mass shooting, and his mother, Lisa Barth, attend a vigil outside of Gilroy City Hall, in Gilroy, California, U.S. July 29, 2019. REUTERS/Kate Munsch

GILROY, Calif. (Reuters) – Police continued on Tuesday to look into what motivated a teenager to shoot visitors attending a popular California food festival over the weekend, killing three people, including a 6-year-old boy and 13-year-old girl.

Santino William Legan, 19, cut through a fence at the Gilroy Garlic Festival on Sunday and shot people, seemingly at random, with an assault-style rifle, according to the Gilroy police department. Police officers on the scene fatally shot the gunman within about a minute of him opening fire.

Police had obtained search warrants for a home in Gilroy associated with the suspect and a car they believe he drove to the festival, a decades-old annual event celebrating the produce farmed in the countryside south of San Jose.

Police and FBI agents were also looking into unconfirmed reports by witnesses that Legan may have had an accomplice.

Shortly before the attack, a couple of posts were published on what appeared to be Legan’s Instagram account, including one featuring a photograph of Sunday’s festival. One urged people to read “Might is Right,” an obscure racist and sexist tract written in the 19th century.

The post also railed against overdevelopment in nearby Silicon Valley to build housing for what he called “hordes” of white people and Latinos with European ancestry. Legan described himself on his account as having Italian and Iranian ancestry.

Cellphone videos of the attack showed people fleeing past tents in panic, as loud rapid-fire popping sounds are heard.

The three people who were killed were Stephen Romero, 6; Keyla Salazar, 13, of San Jose, and Trevor Deon Irby, 25, of Romulus, New York, according to the Santa Clara County Medical Examiner-Coroner.

Romero’s mother and grandmother were also wounded by bullets in the attack, according to media interviews given by Romero’s family.

At least five of the wounded were still recovering in hospital on Monday night. A 12-year-old child and a 69-year-old were among those injured, officials said.

Police believe Legan, who was originally from Gilroy, purchased the rifle legally on July 9 in Nevada, where he had recently been living.

Police planned to hold a news conference on Tuesday.

(Reporting by Alexandria Sage, writing by Jonathan Allen; Editing by Scott Malone and Bernadette Baum)

Christmas market gunman evades French police two days after attack

French police walk past flowers and candles that are placed in the Rue des Orfevres street in tribute to the victims of the deadly shooting as they patrol in Strasbourg, France, December 13, 2018. REUTERS/Vincent Kessler

By John Irish and Christian Hartmann

STRASBOURG, France (Reuters) – The death toll in an attack on Strasbourg’s Christmas market rose to three on Thursday as police searched through eastern France and manned checkpoints on the German border in a hunt for the fugitive gunman.

Police issued a wanted poster for Cherif Chekatt, the main suspect in the attack, who was on a watchlist as a potential security threat. Authorities say the 29-year-old was known to have developed radical religious views while in jail.

France has raised its security threat to the highest level in response to Tuesday evening’s shooting rampage, which Strasbourg’s mayor said was indisputably an act of terrorism.

Two people were killed and a third victim who was hospitalized has now died, the Paris Prosecutor’s office said. A fourth victim has been declared brain-dead. At least 12 people were wounded, several of them critically.

More than 700 police were taking part in the second day of the manhunt in Strasbourg, which lies on the west bank of the Rhine river, and the surrounding region.

Armed French and German police manned controls on either side of the Europe Bridge, which spans the frontier. Traffic on the French side was heavily backed up as officers inspected vehicles during the morning rush-hour.

Police in the German town of Kehl, on the opposite riverbank, said they had received several reports of possible sightings on Wednesday but all were false leads.

Asked if French police had been instructed to catch Chekatt dead or alive, government spokesman Benjamin Griveaux told CNews: “It doesn’t matter. The best thing would be to find him as quickly as possible.”

It took police four months to track down Salah Abdesalam, the prime surviving suspect from the November 2015 militant assault on Paris, in an apartment in Brussels. One hundred and thirty people were killed in that attack as well as seven gunmen and bombers.

French police posted December 12, 2018 on their Police Nationale Twitter account, a call for witnesses for Strasbourg-born Cherif Chekatt, 29, the day after a gun attack on a Christmas market in Strasbourg, France. French Police Nationale/via Reuters

French police posted December 12, 2018 on their Police Nationale Twitter account, a call for witnesses for Strasbourg-born Cherif Chekatt, 29, the day after a gun attack on a Christmas market in Strasbourg, France. French Police Nationale/via Reuters

RELIGIOUS SYMBOLISM

The Christmas market, a hugely popular attraction in the historic city, remained closed on Thursday.

Witnesses told investigators that the suspect Chekatt cried out “Allahu Akbar” (God is Greater) as he opened fire on the market, a target Paris Prosecutor Remy Heitz suggested may have been chosen for its religious symbolism.

Chekatt’s police file photo shows a bearded man of North African descent, with a prayer bruise on the center of his forehead. He has 27 criminal convictions for theft and violence and has spent time in French, German and Swiss jails.

Neighbors on the housing estate where Chekatt family’s lived described the suspect as a typical young man who dressed in jogging pants and trainers rather than traditional Islamic robes.

“He was a little gangster, but I didn’t see any signs of him being radicalized,” said one local association leader who declined to be named, standing outside Chekkat’s apartment building.

The attack took place at a testing time for President Emmanuel Macron, who on Monday announced tax concessions to quell a month-long public revolt over living costs that spurred the worst unrest in central Paris since the 1968 student riots.

Griveaux said a decision had yet to be taken on whether to ban another planned “yellow vest” protest in Paris. The last three consecutive Saturdays of riots in the capital have seen cars torched, shops looted and the Arc de Triomphe defaced.

“We’re simply saying at this stage that, given the events that are unfolding after the terrorist attack in Strasbourg, it would be preferable if everyone could go about a Saturday before the festive holidays in a quiet way,” Griveaux said.

(Reporting by John Irish and Gilbert Reilhac in Strasbourg, Richard Lough in Paris and Michelle Martin and Paul Carrel in Berlin; Writing by Richard Lough; Editing by Angus MacSwan)