Tag Archives: gunman

Manhunt prompts evacuation of Arizona wildlife park

By David Schwartz

PHOENIX (Reuters) – A manhunt for an armed fugitive that triggered the evacuation of a popular wildlife park south of the Grand Canyon ended peacefully on Monday with the arrest of the suspect, police in Arizona said.

The accused gunman was believed to have possibly fled into the Bearizona Wildlife Park after a confrontation with police that began as a traffic stop and turned into a high-speed chase, a spokesman for the Yavapai County Sheriff’s Office said.

One passenger was thrown from the car during a getaway attempt, a second man was taken into custody when the car crashed, but a third fled on foot, firing at least one shot toward deputies from a handgun, according to the spokesman, Dwight D’Evelyn.

The suspect disappeared near the Bearizona park, a 168-acre private attraction nestled within the Kaibab National Forest at the edge of Williams, a gateway town to Grand Canyon National Park about 60 miles away.

As a precaution, Bearizona was closed and evacuated, with police escorting all 200 visitors and about 20 staff safely from the facility, spokeswoman Jocelyn Monteverde said. Public schools in Williams were also placed on lockdown during the manhunt, police said.

At about 6 p.m. local time, nearly six hours after the search began, police located the suspect, identified as John Freeman, in a highway culvert near Bearizona, and he was arrested without incident, D’Evelyn said.

Police said Freeman was wanted on a warrant from nearby Kingman, Arizona, but no further information about him was immediately released.

Bearizona is visited by some 300,000 tourists a year, many on their way to or from the Grand Canyon, located about an hour’s drive to the north, Monteverde said. It features a collection of bears, wolves, bison and other wildlife, some roaming a drive-through exhibit and others displayed in smaller zoo-like enclosures.

(Reporting by David Schwartz in Phoenix; Additional reporting and writing by Steve Gorman in Los Angeles; Editing by Simon Cameron-Moore)

Friend to plead guilty to aiding San Bernardino gunman: prosecutors

Weapons and evidence of San Bernardino shooting

By Dan Whitcomb

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – A California man accused of buying assault-style rifles used by a married couple to massacre 14 people at a government office in San Bernardino in 2015 has agreed to plead guilty to conspiring to provide material support to terrorists, prosecutors said on Tuesday.

Enrique Marquez Jr., 25, will plead guilty to conspiring with Syed Rizwan Farook in 2011 and 2012 to attack a community college and commuters on a Southern California freeway, prosecutors said.

Marquez, a friend and former neighbor of Farook, has also agreed to plead guilty to making false statements about his purchase of two assault rifles used in the 2015 shooting rampage at the San Bernardino Inland Regional Center.

Marquez was scheduled to enter his pleas, part of an agreement with federal prosecutors, at a hearing on Thursday in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles. He faces a maximum sentence of 25 years in prison.

“This defendant collaborated with and purchased weapons for a man who carried out the devastating December 2, 2015 terrorist attack that took the lives of 14 innocent people, wounded nearly two dozen, and impacted our entire nation,” U.S. Attorney Eileen Decker said in a written statement announcing the plea deal.

Farook, 28, and his wife, Tashfeen Malik, 29, opened fire at a holiday gathering of Farook’s co-workers on Dec. 2, 2015, killing 14 people and wounding 22.

Farook, the U.S.-born son of Pakistani immigrants, and Malik, a Pakistani native he married in Saudi Arabia in 2014, died in a shootout with police four hours after the massacre.

Authorities have said the couple were inspired by Islamist extremism. It was one of the deadliest attacks by militants in the United States since the Sept. 11, 2001, hijacked plane attacks.

Prosecutors say Marquez and Farook, who were childhood friends, plotted attacks together in 2011 and 2012 that were never carried out and it was during that time that Marquez purchased the two rifles that Farook and Malik ultimately used in San Bernardino.

Marquez did not take part in the San Bernardino massacre but was arrested about two weeks later and has remained in custody ever since.

He also faces immigration fraud charges in connection with his marriage to Russian-born Mariyah Chernykh, which prosecutors say was a sham.

Chernykh, 26, and Farook’s brother, Syed Raheel Farook, 31, pleaded guilty in January to immigration fraud charges stemming from the marriage.

(This version of the story corrects first paragraph to read “conspiring to provide” instead of “providing” to comply with official correction from United States Attorney’s Office, Los Angeles)

(Reporting by Dan Whitcomb; Editing by Peter Cooney and Andrew Hay)

Florida nightclub gunman’s wife accused of misleading police

An Orlando resident wears an "Orlando Strong" T-shirt during a vigil at Lake Eola Park for victims of an early morning shooting attack at a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida, U.S June 12, 2016.

By Letitia Stein

TAMPA, Fla. (Reuters) – The wife of the gunman who killed 49 people at a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida, last year was due in court on Tuesday, accused of misleading authorities investigating the deadliest mass shooting in modern U.S. history.

A federal indictment unsealed on Tuesday showed Noor Salman, 30, who was arrested on Monday in California, is charged with obstructing justice and aiding and abetting husband Omar Mateen’s attempt to provide material support to a terrorist organization.

Salman, who media reports said had been living in the San Francisco area, was to appear in federal court in Oakland, California, on Tuesday.

Mateen was killed in a shootout with police after he took hostages during a three-hour standoff in the Pulse nightclub. He also wounded dozens more in the June 12 attack, which intensified fears about attacks against Americans inspired by Islamic State.

The indictment, initially sealed, was returned last week by a federal grand jury in the U.S. Middle District of Florida, which includes Orlando. It accuses Salman of criminal activity beginning as early as April, several months before the massacre. Court documents said she abetted Mateen in providing support to a designated terrorist organization and engaged in “misleading conduct” toward local and federal authorities regarding the Pulse attack.

Salman told the New York Times in November she did not know Mateen was planning the massacre.

Mateen, 29, pledged allegiance to the leader of Islamic State during the rampage in which he used an assault rifle and pistol that had been legally purchased although he had twice been investigated by the FBI for possible connections with militant Islamist groups.

U.S. authorities say Mateen, who lived in Fort Pierce, Florida, with Salman and their young child, was self-radicalized and acted alone without assistance or orders from abroad.

Salman, a U.S. citizen and the daughter of parents who immigrated from the West Bank in 1985, was repeatedly questioned by law enforcement interrogators after the attack.

(Reporting by Letitia Stein; Editing by Colleen Jenkins and Bill Trott)

Wife of Orlando nightclub gunman arrested on federal charges

Police in front of apartment building

By Daniel Levine

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – The FBI on Monday arrested the wife of the gunman who killed 49 people at an Orlando gay nightclub last year, a massacre that intensified fears about attacks against Americans inspired by Islamic State, officials said.

Noor Salman, 30, is being charged with obstruction of justice and aiding and abetting by providing material support to a terrorist organization, Orlando Police Chief John Mina said in a statement.Salman’s arrest came seven months after her husband, Omar Mateen, went on a hours-long siege at the Florida club that ended when police killed him. She was due to appear in federal court in Oakland, California on Tuesday morning.

“Certainly I can confirm that an arrest did occur in this case,” Attorney General Loretta Lynch told MSNBC.

“We said from the beginning we were going to look at every aspect of this case, every aspect of this shooter’s life to determine – not just why did he take these actions, but who else knew about them, was anyone else involved?” Lynch said.

Salman, who has a young son by Mateen, was arrested at her home outside San Francisco, The New York Times reported, citing an unnamed law enforcement official. Salman has moved at least three times since the attack, attempting to avoid the news media, The Times said.

The daughter of parents who immigrated from the West Bank in 1985, Salman was repeatedly questioned by law enforcement interrogators after the club attack, telling them she was with Mateen when he bought ammunition and conducted surveillance of the club.

But she denied any involvement in the attack or any knowledge of her husband’s plans, she told the Times in an interview published on Nov. 1.

“I was unaware of everything,” Salman told the Times. “I don’t condone what he has done. I am very sorry for what has happened. He has hurt a lot of people.”Her husband, who was 29 at the time of his death, claimed a connection to or support for multiple Islamist extremist groups, including al Qaeda, Hezbollah, al Nusra and Islamic State, Federal Bureau of Investigation Director James Comey told reporters a few days after the attack.

During the siege, Mateen spoke to a 911 emergency dispatcher and expressed solidarity with an al Nusra suicide bomber as well as Islamic State, also known as ISIS, ISIL or Daesh.

Representatives of the FBI could not be reached immediately for more details.

The Orlando massacre came about seven months after a husband and wife who sympathized with Islamic extremists opened fire in December 2015 on a holiday party in San Bernardino, California, killing 14 and wounding 22 others.

(Additional reporting by Frank McGurty and Daniel Trotta; Editing by Marguerita Choy and Cynthia Osterman)

Judge closes hearing on South Carolina church gunman’s competency

South Carolina church massacre shooting suspect Dylann Roof is seen in U.S. District Court of South Carolina evidence photo which was originally taken from Roof's website. Courtesy U.S. District Court of South Carolina

By Harriet McLeod

CHARLESTON, S.C. (Reuters) – A judge on Monday barred the public and press from a hearing to determine if Dylann Roof is mentally fit to serve as his own lawyer in the penalty phase of his trial, when the jury will decide whether to give him the death penalty for the 2015 massacre at a South Carolina church.Roof, 22, an avowed white supremacist, shot dead nine people at the historically black Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston.

The same jury found Roof guilty last month of 33 counts of federal hate crimes resulting in death, obstruction of religion and firearms violations.

The jury will be seated again to determine whether to put Roof to death but first the judge must decide whether Roof can serve as his own attorney or whether he will be represented by court-appointed lawyers.

U.S. District Judge Richard Gergel, whose decision was expected on Monday, said he was keeping the proceedings closed in order to avoid sequestering the jury.

Gergel said he was concerned jurors would inadvertently hear potentially prejudicial information from the hearing if reporters were allowed to cover it, ruling that protecting Roof’s right to a fair trial outweighed the media’s right to view the hearing.

The judge rejected arguments from press attorney Jay Bender and Assistant U.S. Attorney Jay Richardson, who wanted an open hearing. Gergel also banned relatives of the victims from attending.

The judge previously found Roof competent to stand trial after a hearing held in November ahead of the guilt phase but on Monday was due to hear new testimony from forensic psychiatrist James Ballenger, who examined Roof for five hours over the weekend, Gergel said.

Roof’s standby lawyers filed a motion arguing that Roof was not competent to stand trial or represent himself after he revealed at a hearing last week that he would present no evidence or witnesses during the sentencing phase.

His announcement raised “in especially stark fashion the question of whether the defendant is actually unable to defend himself,” the lawyers said in a court filing.

A team led by prominent capital defense lawyer David Bruck represented Roof during the guilt phase of the trial.

Roof has opted to represent himself for the sentencing phase, due to begin on Tuesday, and has sought to keep jurors from hearing evidence about his competency and mental health.

(Reporting by Harriet McLeod; Editing by Daniel Trotta and Andrea Ricci)

U.S. investigating whether Orlando gunman had help

Officers arrive at the Orlando Police Headquarters during the investigation of a shooting at the Pulse nightclub, in Orlando,

ORLANDO, Fla. (Reuters) – U.S. law enforcement officials investigated on Monday whether anyone helped the gunman who massacred 49 people at a gay nightclub in Orlando, but said they did not believe anyone connected to the shooting posed a current danger to the public.

The FBI and other agencies were poring over evidence inside and in the closed-off streets around Orlando’s Pulse nightclub, where a shooter pledging allegiance to Islamic State carried out the deadliest mass shooting in U.S. history.

The gunman, Omar Mateen, a New York-born Florida resident and U.S. citizen who was the son of Afghan immigrants, was shot and killed by police who stormed the club early Sunday morning with armored cars after a three-hour siege.

Officials said on Sunday the death toll was 50. On Monday they clarified that this included Mateen, who was killed by police.

Law enforcement officials were looking for clues as to whether anyone worked with Mateen on the attack, said Lee Bentley, U.S. Attorney for Florida’s middle district.

“There is an investigation of other persons, we are working as diligently as we can on that,” Bentley told a news conference. “If anyone else was involved in this crime, they will be prosecuted.”

Officials emphasized that they believed there had been no other attackers and that they had no evidence of a threat to the public.

Mateen, 29, called emergency services during the shooting and pledged allegiance to the leader of the militant Islamic State group, officials said. His father said on Sunday his son was not radicalized, but indicated Mateen had strong anti-gay feelings. His ex-wife described him as mentally unstable and violent toward her.

Islamic State reiterated on Monday a claim of responsibility for the attack.

“One of the Caliphate’s soldiers in America carried out a security invasion where he was able to enter a crusader gathering at a nightclub for homosexuals in Orlando,” the group said in a broadcast on its Albayan Radio

Although the group claimed responsibility, this did not necessarily mean it directed the attack: there was nothing in the claim indicating coordination between the gunman and Islamic State before the rampage.

The attack, denounced by President Barack Obama as an act of terror and hate, reignited the debate over how best to confront violent Islamist militancy, a top issue in the Nov. 8 U.S. presidential election campaign. Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton and her Republican rival Donald Trump both addressed the issue on Monday.

Trump has made it a centerpiece of his campaign to get tougher on security and has proposed a temporary ban on Muslims entering the country. He told Fox News on Monday that the United States should increase its military campaign against Islamic State militants, who hold land in Syria and Iraq, in response to the shooting.

The rampage began just after 2 a.m. on Sunday at the crowded Pulse nightclub in the heart of Orlando, about 15 miles (25 km) northeast of the Walt Disney World Resort. Orlando is one of the most popular tourist destinations in the United States, drawing some 62 million visitors a year.

Some 350 patrons were attending a Latin music event at the club and survivors described scenes of carnage and pandemonium as the shooter took hostages inside a bathroom.

WAITING FOR NEWS OF RELATIVES

Orlando Mayor Buddy Dyer said that 48 of the 49 victims had been identified and about half the families of those killed have been notified.

“I cannot imagine being one of the parents or knowing that your loved one might be among those who are deceased and waiting to find out,” Dyer told reporters.

Florida Governor Rick Scott asked Obama to declare a state of emergency over the attack, which would free up more federal resources to assist victims.

“Yesterday’s terror attack was an attack on our state and entire nation,” Scott said in a statement.

Mateen was an armed guard at a gated retirement community, and had worked for the global security firm G4S for nine years. He had cleared two company background screenings, the latest in 2013, according to G4S..

Despite Mateen’s 911 call expressing support for Islamic State, U.S. officials said on Sunday they had no conclusive evidence of any direct connection with foreign extremists.

“So far as we know at this time, his first direct contact was a pledge of bayat (loyalty) he made during the massacre,” said a U.S. counterterrorism official. “This guy appears to have been pretty screwed up without any help from anybody.”

Authorities said Mateen had been twice questioned by FBI agents in 2013 and 2014 after making comments to co-workers about supporting militant groups, but neither interview led to evidence of criminal activity

His father Mir Siddique, who saw Mateen on Saturday afternoon, said in a video posted to Facebook early Monday that he had not known of his son’s plans.

“I don’t know what happened and I didn’t know he had hatred,” Siddique said. “God himself will punish homosexuality. It is not the job for humankind.”

In an earlier interview with NBC news, the father described an incident in downtown Miami in which his son, saw two men kissing in front of his wife and child and became very angry.

Mateen’s former wife, Sitora Yusufiy, said he was emotionally and mentally disturbed, yet aspired to be a police officer.

Yusufiy told reporters near Boulder, Colorado, that she had been beaten by Mateen during outbursts of temper in which he would “express hatred towards everything”.

Mateen and his family regularly attended a Florida mosque. “Not everyone had a friendship with him. He wasn’t a people person. He was not extremely friendly but he wasn’t rude either,” said Mohammed Jameel, 54, a worshipper at the mosque.

Sunday night, federal agents combed through Mateen’s apartment in the Atlantic coast town of Fort Pierce, about 120 miles (190 km) southeast of Orlando.

HOMEGROWN ATTACKS

The attack in Orlando came six months after a married couple in California – a U.S.-born son of Pakistani immigrants and a Pakistani-born woman he married in Saudi Arabia – killed 14 people in San Bernardino in an shooting rampage inspired by Islamic State. The couple died in a shootout with police hours after that attack.

Obama was due to be briefed at the White House by his top national security officials including FBI Director James Comey at 10:30 a.m. ET

Obama said on Sunday the Orlando gunman’s motivation was still unclear. “We know enough to say this was an act of terror, an act of hate,” he told reporters. Obama also repeated his frustration over America’s lax gun laws.

The attacks underlined the inherent difficulties of providing security at open public events.

“We are determined to continue living in an open and tolerant way even if such murderous attacks plunge us into deep mourning,” said German Chancellor Angela Merkel, during a visit to China.

The most deadly attack on U.S. soil inspired by violent Islamist militancy was on Sept. 11, 2001, when al Qaeda-trained hijackers crashed jetliners into New York’s World Trade Center, the Pentagon and a field in Pennsylvania, killing some 3,000 people.

(Additional reporting by Barbara Liston Yara Bayoumy in Fort Pierce, Fla., Zachary Fagenson in Port St. Lucie, Fla., Omar Fahmy in Cairo, Michelle Martin in Berlin and Jonathan Landay, in Washington; Writing by Roberta Rampton and Scott Malone; Editing by Frances Kerry)