Tag Archives: Death

Suspects sought in Florida nightclub shooting that left two teens dead

Fort Myers police at scene of Club Blu shooting

By Chris Tilley

FORT MYERS, Fla. (Reuters) – Florida police said on Monday they had taken three people into custody but were searching for additional suspects in connection with a shooting outside a nightclub just after midnight that left two teenagers dead and more than a dozen people wounded.

The shooting took place shortly after 12:30 a.m. EDT (0430 GMT) on Monday in the parking lot of Club Blu, which was hosting an event open to teenagers, the Fort Myers Police Department said.

Police said Stef’An Strawder, an 18-year-old high school basketball star, and Sean Archilles, 14, were killed. Two other people were critically wounded.

Police officials in Fort Myers, located on Florida’s Gulf Coast, said terrorism was not a factor in the state’s latest outburst of gun violence this summer, but provided no details about a possible motive.

The three young men were arrested after fleeing the scene in two vehicles and were charged in connection to that pursuit, according to the Lee County Sheriff’s Office said in a statement posted on Facebook.

According to the statement Derrick Church, 19, was charged with assault on a law enforcement officer after accelerating his vehicle toward a sheriff’s deputy. Church was shot in the stomach by the deputy during that altercation, but was treated and had been released from a hospital, the sheriff’s department said.

Demetrius O’Neal, 19, and Tajze Battle, 22, were taken into custody on suspicion of resisting arrest, according to the statement.

“This was not a terrorist act,” Fort Myers interim Police Chief Dennis Eads said at a news conference.

He said officers responding to the shooting found chaos at the scene.

“No one really knew what was going on or what happened,” Eads said.

Officers provided first aid to victims, bandaging some with tourniquets to stop bleeding, he said. Paramedics took some victims to the hospital while others drove themselves.

At least 19 people, ranging from 12- to 27-years-old, were treated at local hospitals, said Lisa Sgarlata, chief administrative officer for Lee Memorial Hospital.

Three patients remained hospitalized at Lee Memorial as of Monday afternoon, two of whom were in critical condition.

The shooting came six weeks after a massacre at a nightclub in Orlando, in central Florida, where a gunman who sympathized with Islamist extremist groups killed 49 people in the deadliest mass shooting in modern U.S. history.

Despite the recent violence, Florida Governor Rick Scott said the state’s crime rates were at a 45-year low.

Fort Myers, about 150 miles southwest of Orlando, was the scene of another shooting incident last October when one person was killed and several wounded by gunfire at a festival that attracts thousands of people in zombie costumes.

ALL-AGES PARTY

Before the latest shooting, Club Blu, located in a partially vacant strip mall, was hosting a “swimsuit glow party” for people of all ages, according to a flyer posted on Twitter by television station WINK.

The nightclub said on its Facebook page that the shooting occurred when the venue was closing and parents were picking up their children. The page later appeared to have been removed.

“We tried to give the teens what we thought was a safe place to have a good time,” the nightclub’s post said, adding that armed security guards were present inside and outside the club. “It was not kids at the party that did this despicable act.”

Jean Archilles, 37, the father of the 14-year-old killed, said his son loved sports, especially basketball.

“It happened for a reason. I don’t know what the reason is,” he said in a telephone interview, adding that he had not been told details about his son’s death.

Sean Archilles was due to enter eighth grade at Royal Palm Exceptional Center, while Strawder was to start his senior year at Lehigh Senior High School, according to the Lee County School District.

Strawder’s mother, Stephanie White, told the News-Press newspaper that her son was shot in his right shoulder as he walked out of the club and was pronounced dead at the hospital. His 19-year-old sister survived a gunshot wound in the leg, White said.

Police said shots were also fired at a nearby residence, where there was one minor injury.

In a video interview, Syreeta Gary said her daughter and a friend ran for cover. Her daughter escaped unscathed, but a bullet struck a friend in the leg.

(Additional reporting by Letitia Stein in Tampa, Florida, Colleen Jenkins in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, Frank McGurty and Laila Kearney in New York and Mary Milliken and Dan Whitcomb in Los Angeles; editing by Leslie Adler and G Crosse)

Suicide bombers hit peacekeeping base in Somali capital, 13 dead: police

Suicide bombing in Somalia

MOGADISHU (Reuters) – Suicide bombers killed at least 13 people at the gates of the African Union’s main peacekeeping base in the Somali capital Mogadishu on Tuesday, police said, in an attack claimed by the Islamist militants of al Shabaab.

The force of the explosions shattered windows at the nearby airport, showered arriving passengers with glass and forced the suspension of flights, police and witnesses said.

Police said the first attacker detonated a car bomb and the second tried to storm the base on foot, but was shot and exploded at the gate.

“At least 13 people mostly security forces died in the two car bomb blasts,” and 12 others were wounded, Abdiqadir Omar, a police officer told Reuters.

The guards were caught in the blast as they escorted U.N. personnel into the base, which is known as Halane, he added.

Al Shabaab, an Islamist militant group linked to al Qaeda and fighting to topple Somalia’s Western-backed government, said it set off two car bombs.

The African Union’s AMISOM force said on Twitter it condemned the “senseless attacks that aim to disrupt and cripple the lives of ordinary Somalis”. There was no immediate comment from the United Nations.

People arriving on international flights said the blasts shattered windows in the airport buildings.

“We were greeted by two loud blasts. The glass of the airport building fell on us,” said Ali Nur, who had just got off a plane from Nairobi.

Al Shabaab regularly attacks AMISOM, which is made up of about 22,000 military personnel from Uganda, Kenya, Ethiopia and other African countries helping to support Somalia’s government and army.

The country in the Horn of Africa was plunged into anarchy in the early 1990s following the toppling of military dictator Mohamed Siad Barre.

(Reporting by Abdi Sheikh and Feisal Omar; Writing by Duncan Miriri and Elias Biryabarema; Editing by Andrew Heavens)

Natural disasters in China kill more than 800 since June

Flooding in China one of the many natural disasters

BEIJING (Reuters) – More than 800 people have died and about 200 are missing in a series of natural disasters that have struck China since June, the worst casualty figures since a similar period in 2011, state media said on Tuesday.

Large parts of central, eastern and northern China have been hit by flooding this summer, while a typhoon left a wave of destruction this month and a freak tornado killed at least 98 in the eastern province of Jiangsu in June.

Since the year began, 1,074 people have died in natural disasters, 833 of them since June, with 270 missing, Xinhua news agency cited the Ministry of Civil Affairs as saying.

Direct economic losses have reached 298 billion yuan ($44.63 billion) this year, with about 400,000 houses destroyed and 6.24 million residents relocated, the ministry added.

Separately, the government on the southern island province of Hainan issued a typhoon warning for a tropical storm that is expected to hit in the early hours of Wednesday.

($1=6.6769 Chinese yuan renminbi)

(Reporting by Ben Blanchard; Editing by Clarence Fernandez)

Islamist knifemen slit priest’s throat in church in France

Police outside of French Catholic Church where hostages have been taken

By Noemie Olive

SAINT-ETIENNE-DU-ROUVRAY, France (Reuters) – Knife-wielding attackers interrupted a church service in France, forced the priest to his knees and slit his throat on Tuesday, an attack that President Francois Hollande said showed the threat from Islamist militancy was greater than ever.

Police shot and killed the attackers as they emerged from the church, freeing three hostages, one of whom was seriously wounded.

The knifemen arrived during morning mass in Saint-Etienne-du-Rouvray, near Rouen, northwest of Paris, where the 85-year-old parish priest Father Jacques Hamel was leading prayers.

“They forced him to his knees and he tried to defend himself and that’s when the drama began,” Sister Danielle, who escaped as the attackers slayed the priest, told RMC radio.

“They filmed themselves. It was like a sermon in Arabic around the altar,” the nun said.

Speaking at the scene, Hollande called it a “dreadful terrorist attack,” adding that the attackers had pledged allegiance to Islamic State, the militant group that he said had declared war on France.

News agency Amaq, which is affiliated with Islamic State, said two of its “soldiers” had carried out the attack. Police said one person had been arrested.

Tuesday’s attack came less than two weeks after a Tunisian plowed a truck into a crowd in the French Riviera city of Nice, killing 84 people. Islamic State claimed that attack.

France is a major partner in the U.S.-led military coalition bombing Islamic State targets in Iraq and Syria. The White House condemned Tuesday’s attack and commended the French police’s “quick and decisive response.”

Several French media reported that one of the assailants was a local who had spent a year in jail on his return from Turkey after being intercepted trying to travel to Syria, but had been freed on bail with an electronic tag pending trial for terrorism offences.

The prosecutor’s office said the identification of the two suspects was still under way.

MERCILESS

A horrified local resident, Cecile Lefebre, said: “I have no words. How do you arrive at this point, killing people in cold blood like this? It’s pure barbarity.”

Since the Bastille Day mass murder in Nice, there has been a spate of attacks in Germany, some of which appear to be Islamist-inspired.

“In the face of this threat that has never been greater in France and Europe, the government is absolutely determined (to defeat) terrorism,” Hollande said in a televised address.

But former president Nicolas Sarkozy, who is expected to enter a conservative primary for next year’s presidential election, accused the Socialist government of being soft.

“We must be merciless,” Sarkozy said in a statement to reporters. “The legal quibbling, precautions and pretexts for insufficient action are not acceptable. I demand that the government implement without delay the proposals we presented months ago. There is no more time to be wasted.”

The center-right opposition wants all Islamist suspects to be either held in detention or electronically tagged to avert potential attacks.

Far-right National Front leader Marine Le Pen, who is also expected to run for the presidency, said both Sarkozy’s and Hollande’s parties had failed on security.

“All those who have governed us for 30 years bear an immense responsibility. It’s revolting to watch them bickering!” she tweeted.

Hollande said France should “use all its means” within the law to fight Islamic State.

Pope Francis condemned what he called a “barbarous killing”.

“The fact that this episode took place in a church, killing a priest, a minister of the Lord and involving the faithful, is something that affects us profoundly,” Vatican spokesman Father Federico Lombardi said.

In a telephone call with the pope, Hollande expressed “the sorrow of all French people after the heinous murder of Father Jacques Hamel by two terrorists,” and said everything would be done to protect places of worship, the presidential palace said.

Jean-Pierre Raffarin, a former conservative prime minister who now heads the Senate’s foreign affairs committee tweeted: “Everything is being done to trigger a war of religions.”

(Additional reporting by Chine Labbe, Marine Pennetier, Michel Rose and Richard Lough in Paris and Jess Mason in Washington; Writing by Richard Lough and Paul Taylor; Editing by Jeremy Gaunt and Robin Pomeroy)

Shooting after Florida nightclub’s teen party leaves two dead

Shooting at Club Blu crime scene

By Frank McGurty

(Reuters) – Shots erupted outside a party for teenagers at a Florida nightclub early on Monday, killing two people and wounding as many as 17 others in the latest burst of gun violence to wrack the state this summer, according to authorities.

The shooting in Fort Myers took place just after 12:30 a.m. EDT (0430 GMT) in the parking lot of Club Blu, where officers found “several victims suffering from gunshot wounds,” the city police department said in a statement.

Besides the two fatalities, a local hospital said there were 17 other victims, ranging between ages 12 and 27. Police put the number of wounded at 14 to 16, with their injuries ranging from minor to life-threatening.

Investigators had yet to determine a motive and were trying to identify the two people who were killed, the statement said. Police said three people had been detained for questioning and that the area was deemed safe, although roads in the vicinity remained closed.

The shooting came six weeks after a massacre at a nightclub in the Florida city of Orlando, where a lone gunman who sympathized with Islamist extremist groups killed 49 people in the deadliest mass shooting in U.S. history.

Club Blu, located about 150 miles southwest of Orlando in the Gulf Coast city of Fort Myers, was hosting a “swimsuit glow party” for people all ages, according to a flyer posted on Twitter by local television station WINK. To enter, patrons were not required to show proof that they were the legal age to drink alcoholic beverages.

The nightclub said on its Facebook page that the shooting occurred when the venue was closing and parents were picking up their children.

“We tried to give the teens what we thought was a safe place to have a good time,” the statement said, pointing out that armed security guards were posted inside and outside the club. “It was not kids at the party that did this despicable act.”

Cheryl Garn, a spokeswoman for Lee Memorial Hospital in Fort Myers, said victims arriving there were as young as 12 years old. One of them died at the hospital, she said in a statement, while three others were admitted, one of them in critical condition and one in serious condition. The second victim died at the scene of the shooting.

Police said shots were also fired at a nearby residence, where there was one minor injury.

Fort Myers police and the Lee County’s Sheriff’s Office were canvassing the area for other people who may have been involved, the statement said.

Representatives of the law enforcement agencies could not immediately be reached for further comment.

The night before the Orlando nightclub shooting, a man thought to be a deranged fan fatally shot Christina Grimmie, a rising singing star, while she was signing autographs after a concert in that city.

(Reporting by Frank McGurty in New York; Additional reporting by Laila Kearney in New York and Mary Milliken in Los Angeles; Editing by Catherine Evans and Lisa Von Ahn)

Islamic State supporters hail deadly Munich shooting on social media

Police in Munich getting to shooting scene

CAIRO (Reuters) – Supporters of the Islamic State militant group celebrated on social media a shooting rampage in a shopping mall in the southern German city of Munich on Friday that killed and wounded many people.

“Thank God, may God bring prosperity to our Islamic State men,” read one tweet in Arabic on an account that regularly favors the radical Islamist movement.

“The Islamic state is expanding in Europe,” read an Arabic-language tweet on another account also known to support Islamic State.

The attack was the third major act of violence against civilian targets in Western Europe in eight days. Previous attacks in France and Germany were claimed by Islamic State and Munich police said they suspected the latest assault was a terrorist attack.

Authorities were evacuating people from the Olympia mall in the Bavarian capital but many others were hiding inside.

A Munich police spokeswoman said multiple people were killed or wounded. “We believe we are dealing with a shooting rampage,” the spokeswoman said.

Bavarian broadcaster BR said six people were dead and many wounded in the shopping mall. NTV television reported the state’s interior ministry as saying three people were dead, but the ministry said later it would not confirm this.

It was not immediately clear who carried out the attack, which took place a week after an axe-wielding teenager went on a rampage on a German train, wounding four people before he was shot dead. Islamic State claimed responsibility for that attack.

(Reporting by Omar Fahmy; Writing by Amina Ismail; Editing by Tom Heneghan)

Multiple deaths at shooting rampage in German shopping mall: police

Police meet at scene of shooting rampage in Munich

By Joern Poltz

MUNICH (Reuters) – Gunmen went on a shooting rampage in a shopping mall in the southern German city of Munich on Friday, killing and wounding many people, police said.

Authorities were evacuating people from the Olympia mall but many others were hiding inside.

The Bavarian Interior Ministry said three people were dead, NTV television reported. A Munich police spokeswoman said multiple people were killed or wounded.

“We believe we are dealing with a shooting rampage,” the spokeswoman said.

More than one gunman was believed to be involved and no one had been arrested, she said.

“We believe there was more than one perpetrator. The first reports came at 6 p.m., the shooting apparently began at a McDonald’s in the shopping center. There are still people in the shopping center. We are trying to get the people out and take care of them.”

Police special forces had arrived at the scene, NTV said.

It was not immediately clear who carried out the attack, which took place a week after an axe-wielding teenager went on a rampage on a German train. Islamic State claimed responsibility for that attack.

Staff in the mall were still in hiding, an employee told Reuters by telephone.

“Many shots were fired, I can’t say how many but it’s been a lot,” the employee, who declined to be identified, said from the mall in Munich.

“All the people from outside came streaming into the store and I only saw one person on the ground who was so severely injured that he definitely didn’t survive,”

“We have no further information, we’re just staying in the back in the storage rooms. No police have approached us yet.”

Munich transport authorities said they had halted several bus, train and tram lines.

The shopping center is next to the Munich Olympic stadium, where the Palestinian militant group Black September took 11 Israeli athletes hostage and eventually killed them during the 1972 Olympic Games.

Friday’s attack took place a week after a 17-year-old asylum-seeker wounded passengers on a German train in an axe rampage. Bavarian police shot dead the teenager after he wounded four people from Hong Kong on the train and injured a local resident while fleeing.

German Justice Minister Heiko Maas told Bild newspaper’s Friday edition before the mall attack that there was “no reason to panic but it’s clear that Germany remains a possible target”.

The incidents in Germany follow an attack in Nice, France, on Bastille Day in which a Tunisian drove a truck into crowds, killing 84. Islamic State also claimed responsibility for that attack.

There was, however, no immediate word that the attack was politically motivated.

Friday is also the five-year anniversary of the massacre by Anders Behring Breivik in Norway. Breivik is a hero for far-right extremists in Europe and America.

(Reporting by Andrea Shalal, Editing by Robin Pomeroy and Angus MacSwan)

Nearly 3,000 dead in Mediterranean already this year: IOM

Migrants waiting for rescue

By Stephanie Nebehay

GENEVA (Reuters) – Nearly 3,000 migrants and refugees have perished in the Mediterranean Sea already this year while almost 250,000 have reached Europe, the International Organization for Migration said on Friday.

The estimated death toll could put 2016 on track to be the deadliest year of the migration crisis. Last year the same landmark was only reached in October, by which time nearly one million people had crossed into Europe.

“This is the earliest that we have seen the 3,000 (deaths) mark, this occurred in September of 2014 and October of 2015,” IOM spokesman Joel Millman told a briefing. “So for this to be happening even before the end of July is quite alarming.”

Three out of four victims this year died while trying to reach Italy from North Africa, mostly Libya, a longer and more dangerous route. The others drowned between Turkey and Greece before that flow dried up with the March deal on migrants between Turkey and the European Union.

Nearly 2,500 fatalities have occurred since late March, with about 20 migrants dying each day along the route from Libya to Italy, Millman said. Most are from West Africa and the Horn of Africa, although they may include people from Pakistan, Bangladesh and Morocco.

“The (Libyan) coast guard has had some luck turning back voyages from Libya. We’ve heard in the last six weeks a number of cases where they have been able to turn boats back.

“They (have also been) recovering bodies at an alarming rate,” Millman said.

Some 84,052 migrants and refugees have arrived in Italy so far this year, almost exactly the same number as in the same period a year before, he said.

That indicated departures from Libya were at “maximum capacity” due to a limited number of boats deemed seaworthy.

But there is “a very robust market of used fishing vessels and things coming from Tunisia and Egypt that are finding their way to brokers in Tripoli,” Millman said. “And you can actually go to shipyards where people are trying to repair boats as fast as they can to get more migrants on the sea.”

Migrants in Libya are often held in detention centers, some run by criminal gangs and militias, he said. IOM officials seek access to detainees and authorization for their repatriation.

“There’s no question that in some of this range of detention (centers) there are people in league with smugglers who are moving people toward the smugglers,” Millman said.

(Reporting by Stephanie Nebehay; Editing by Catherine Evans)

Bikers ride through Baton Rouge in support of fallen police

Several hundred bikers gathered in Baton Rouge on Tuesday and rode in a procession to the city’s police headquarters in a show of support for the policemen shot and killed by a gunman at the weekend.

The bikers, many carrying U.S. flags and revving their engines, rode past the gas station where the policemen where killed en route to the police station.

Spectators gathered on the side of the streets to cheers them on. One woman carried a banner reading ‘cops lives matter.’

President Barack Obama has told law enforcement officials that Americans recognize, respect and depend upon the difficult and dangerous work they do, a rallying call of support following the ambush killings of eight officers in Dallas and Baton Rouge.

Three police officers were gunned down in Louisiana’s state capital on Sunday by a U.S. Marine Corps veteran with ties to an African-American anti-government group, authorities said. On July 7, another former U.S. serviceman espousing militant black nationalist views killed five Dallas officers.

Authorities identified the Baton Rouge gunman as former Sergeant Gavin Long of Kansas City, Missouri, an Iraq war veteran, and said he seemed determined to slay as many police officers as possible before a SWAT team marksman cut short his attack.

The single gunshot that killed Long, 29, was fired by an officer from about 100 yards away, police have said as they deepened their investigation into the second racially charged armed assault on U.S. law enforcement this month.

Police captain shot and killed in Kansas City, Kansas

(Reuters) – A Kansas City, Kansas, police captain was shot and killed on Tuesday as he tried to reach a suspect, authorities said.

Police Captain Robert Melton had responded to a report of several people in a vehicle shooting at a man, police said in a statement.

Three or four people in the car ran when police arrived. Melton “attempted to make contact” with a suspect and was shot, the statement said.

Melton was taken to a hospital and died of his injuries, it said. Two people were in custody and one suspect was still at large.

National attention has been focused on attacks on law enforcement officers following the ambush killings of eight police officers in Dallas and Baton Rouge, Louisiana.

(Reporting by Ian Simpson; Editing by Jonathan Oatis)