At least 13 people were shot across Gotham on Tuesday and early Wednesday — two fatally and one clinging to life — as the citywide surge in gunplay continued.
A 24-year-old man was shot in the leg around 1:30 a.m. Wednesday on the grounds of Harlem’s Grant Houses, on Broadway near LaSalle Street, cops said.
He was taken to Mount Sinai Morningside with non-life-threatening injuries.
About 40 minutes earlier, Darien Simpson, 20, was blasted in the chest on Howard Avenue near Pacific Street in Weeksville, Brooklyn, cops said.
He was rushed to Interfaith Medical Center, where he was pronounced dead.
The circumstances of the shooting were not immediately clear.
Just before midnight, a 33-year-old man was shot once in the face and once in the left arm on Bristol Street near Dumont Avenue in Brownsville, police said.
He was taken to Brookdale University Hospital Medical Center in stable condition, and described hearing shots and feeling pain.
About a half-hour earlier, a 19-year-old man was shot in the left leg and buttocks on the grounds of the Langston Hughes Houses on Sutter Avenue, cops said. He is listed in stable condition.
And around 10:20 p.m., a 26-year-old man was blasted in the head — leaving him clinging to life — on Park Avenue near Carlton Avenue in Fort Greene, cops said.
He was taken to NewYork-Presbyterian Brooklyn Methodist Hospital in critical condition.
Cops did not immediately have details on that shooting.
In total on Tuesday, 10 shooting incidents were reported with 11 victims, according to preliminary numbers released by the NYPD.
On that date in 2019, the city saw only one shooting with one victim.
So far this year, the city has seen a staggering 89 percent increase in shootings and a 98 percent increase in shooting victims from last year’s figures, cops said Wednesday morning.
A total of 1,024 shootings have been reported with 1,259 victims, cops said. At this time in 2019, there were 542 Incidents with 636 victims.
Two people were killed in Gotham on Tuesday — Javon Bradley, 28, who was gunned down across from a Harlem Whole Foods, and an unidentified 29-year-old man who was shot multiple times as he sat in a 2019 Volkswagen at Prospect Avenue and Elsmere Place in the Crotona neighborhood of the Bronx.
Chicago police on Tuesday released surveillance video asking for the public's help in identifying a group of people who broke in and ransacked a store on the city's West Side back in May.
Video showed dozens of people swarming the West Chicago Avenue business, which sold electronics among other items, around 1:45 p.m. on May 31.
Many were captured taking whatever merchandise they could find over a roughly 25-minute period. At least one person violently kicked and shattered a protective covering under a counter that housed additional items.
The aftermath of the looting spree saw the store looking like a shell of itself. The floor was littered with items and packaging as well as shattered cases that previously had protected the store's merchandise. Walls that held up goods and electronics were stripped bare, with only a few items remaining.
The aftermath of the looting at a store on the 3300 block of West Chicago Avenue on May 31 (Chicago Police)
Police said they're seeking the public's help in identifying those involved. They released still photos of 23 people suspected of committing a burglary during the incident.
The pictured subjects are suspected of committing a burglary in the 3300 Block of West Chicago Avenue, police said.(Chicago Police)
"If you see any of these individuals, DO NOT APPROACH. CALL 9-1-1," police said.
The looting was one of the first of many troubling incidents in the city following the death of George Floyd in police custody on May 25 in Minneapolis. It occurred on a day in Chicago that saw 699 arrests -- primarily looting suspects -- 132 officers injured, 48 shootings and 17 homicides, Chicago's WBBM-TV reported, as well as widespread damage to businesses and other property.
According to a tape obtained by WTTW News of a conference call on May 31 among the city’s 50 aldermen and the mayor, an alderman could be heard weeping while others angrily decried what was going on in the city.
One alderman asked how seniors and vulnerable populations were supposed to get medicine and food if “every CVS, every Walgreens is shutting down.”
Another was heard asking, “How do businesses recover and why would they want to recover in our community?”
Fox News' Adam Shaw contributed to this report.
David Aaro is a Reporter at Fox News Digital based in New York City.
Tamarris Bohannon, a 29-year-old St. Louis, Missouri, police officer is dead after a suspect shot him in the head on Saturday. He succumbed to his injuries Sunday evening.
The suspect began firing on officers as they approached the home.
The second officer was shot in the leg, and transported to a local hospital for treatment and release.
What's happening now?
Bohannon is survived by his wife and their three young children.
In a letter shared on Twitter, the fallen officer's family refers to Bohannon as a "hero to many," but "most importantly to his loving wife and three incredible children."
"It is with great sadness we share the loss of Officer Tamarris 'T' Bohannon, affectionately known as "Bo" by his squad of the St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department," the letter said. "A three-year veteran who was raised and continued to live and raise his family in the city in which he patrolled."
"He is a hero to many, but most importantly to his loving wife and three incredible children," the letter continued.
"The loss of this great man is felt deeply within the St. Louis community and we ask for your prayers and support in the days ahead," the heartfelt letter concluded.
What else?
Authorities took into custody a 43-year-old male suspect after a 12-hour standoff, later identified as Thomas Kinworthy, who reportedly has a lengthy criminal history.
St. Louis Metropolitan Police Chief John Hayden said that Bohannon and the second officer were ambushed while "trying to do their job," and said that this latest incident is the most recent in a "surge of violence" against police officers that the city has seen since June.
"We're trying to cope through a very trying summer, and it's very difficult," Hayden said. "It's very difficult."
KMOV-TV reports that Bohannon is the first officer to be fatally shot in the city since 2011.
Florida police shot and killed a man wanted for attempted murder on Saturday after the suspect opened fire on officers, striking one of them during a “gun battle,” officials said.
The officer was hit in his bullet-proof vest and suffered a bruise to his chest from the impact, Daytona Beach Police Chief Craig Capri told reporters. A second officer tripped during the gunfire and injured his head and neck. Both officers were in “great spirits” at a hospital, according to Capri, and were expected to recover from their injuries.
The department released officer bodycam footage of the shootout, which Capri said shows that the suspect “tried to murder these police officers,” who were forced to return fire in self-defense.
“His intent was to go out in a shootout,” Capri said of the suspect, “not to surrender.”
Officers were responding to a tip about the whereabouts of a violent felon, later identified as 44-year-old Michael A. Harris, who had shot a woman twice in the back about two weeks ago, police said.
The officers arrived at an apartment complex and tried to arrest Harris, the department said in a news release. The suspect ran into a bedroom and fired a handgun at officers through an open door.
Police returned fire and wounded Harris, who died at the scene.
Capri said that the officers did not intend to take a life, but the suspect’s actions to fire on police first dictated the officers’ response.
“We don’t get paid to get killed,” the chief said. “If you pull a gun on a police officer and shoot a police officer, you’re going to get killed. As simple as that.”
Capri said he was proud of his officers for doing their job to protect and serve the community.
“It’s like I said, 99.99% of officers in this country do the same thing, and people want to all of us as being bad under the same brush,” he told reporters. “We’ve been attacked not only in the media but also by several radical groups.”
The scene on Tuesday night was something I had only seen in photos of war-torn countries. Men and women stood with baseball bats, hand-guns, semi-automatic rifles, and shotguns in front of their businesses and homes.
Details of a a highly disturbing criminal complaint against Jacob Blake have emerged.
A Kenosha, Wisconsin, police officer shot Blake in the back at least seven times on Sunday following a call for a domestic dispute. His father told the Chicago Sun-Times that Blake is paralyzed from the waist down.
Blake's shooting only added fuel to the already out-of-control fire lit by the police killing of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and others involved in instances of apparent police brutality.
What are the details?
Blake's ex-girlfriend, identified in the criminal complaint as "LNB," says Blake sexually assaulted her in May.
The criminal complaint states that Blake unlawfully entered her home in the early hours of the morning on May 3. The woman said she awoke from her sleep to find Blake standing in her room, looming over her.
Blake, the 29-year-old father of the woman's three children, reportedly demanded she return his possessions.
"I want my s***," Blake reportedly told the woman, and proceeded to assault her according to the complaint.
"As LNB lay there, on her back, the defendant, suddenly and without warning, reached his hand between her legs, penetrated her vaginally with a finger, pulled it out and sniffed it, and said, 'Smells like you've been with other men,'" the at-times graphic complaint reads.
Following the assault, Blake reportedly stole her vehicle and left the premises.
In the complaint, the woman reports that Blake is unemployed and without a vehicle of his own. Over the eight-year period that the two spent together, Blake reportedly sexually assaulted her at least twice per year during drunken episodes.
Caused 'pain and humiliation'
The officer who took the woman's statement said she had a "very difficult time telling him this and cried as she told how the defendant assaulted her."
The woman said that Blake's assault "caused her pain and humiliation and was done without her consent."
Blake's ex-girlfriend told authorities that she was able to maintain her composure despite the incident, and attempted to follow Blake. When she realized her keys and her vehicle were missing and immediately phoned 911 to report the incident.
Authorities charged Blake in July with felony third-degree sexual assault, misdemeanor trespassing, and disorderly conduct connected to domestic abuse.
Allegedly armed with a knife during latest dispute
Fast-forward to August, Blake's ex-girlfriend — purportedly the same one from the criminal complaint — reportedly phoned police and reported the latest domestic incident, which purportedly took place because he showed up at her home and had taken her keys.
The Kenosha Police Department has not, at the time of this reporting, released any further details or background on the incident, which was captured on video by a bystander's cell phone.
The bystander, Raysean White, said that Blake showed up at his ex-girlfriend's home where two women had been arguing. He allegedly told one of his sons, who was at the residence, to get into his vehicle, and then walked into a home.
White said he briefly left the scene, but when he returned, he saw Blake wrestling with police officers and began recording the incident once more.
At one point, another witness said that officers were attempting to take Blake into custody, and were punching him and tasing him while he was on the ground. Blake, however, can be seen wrestling out of the officers' grip and begins walking to his vehicle's front driver's side door. Officers follow him, guns drawn, and as Blake reaches into the vehicle, at least one Kenosha officer shoots Blake in the back at close range.
Several of Blake's children were reportedly inside the vehicle at the time of the incident.
The witness also said he overheard officers saying that Blake had a knife.
On Friday, Kenosha cops said that Blake was, indeed, armed with a knife at the time of the shooting.
Blake also reportedly placed one cop in a headlock despite being tased twice while resisting arrest.
Despite threat of lethal force, Blake 'continued to ignore the officers' commands'
Brendan Matthews, the attorney for the Kenosha Professional Police Association, said on Friday that all officers involved in the incident were placed on leave pending an investigation.
"Based on the inability to gain compliance and control after using verbal, physical and less-lethal means, the officers drew their firearms [on Blake]," Matthews said in a statement.
Matthews added, "Mr. Blake continued to ignore the officers' commands, even with the threat of lethal force now present."
She was killed during a no-knock raid on her home in March
Breonna Taylor's mother Tamika Palmer (center) addresses the media over the speed of the investigation of her daughter's death as attorney Benjamin Crump (left) and co-counsel Lonita Baker (right) look on outside Louisville City Hall in Louisville, Kentucky. The attorneys and family are upset with the lack of action by city officials during the 150 days since Breonna Taylor was fatally shot by Louisville Metro Police officers. (Photo by John Sommers II/Getty Images)
Editor’s note: The Courier Journal has exhaustively covered all aspects of the fatal March 13 shooting of Breonna Taylor at the hands of Louisville Metro Police Department officers. As the investigation of their conduct continues, this story examines documents and other evidence we obtained that helps explain why LMPD pursued the no-knock search warrant and why they were there that night. It does not justify the shooting but provides more insight into this highly controversial case that has captured the nation’s interest. An earlier version of this story published prematurely Tuesday morning before final edits were made. We apologize for that misstep.
An internal report written by Louisville Metro Police after officers fatally shotBreonna Taylor on March 13 sheds more light on the reasons why they chose to forcibly enter her South End apartment the night she was killed.
It provides no explanations or evidence aimed at justifying the shooting that has sparked three months of protests in Louisville and national outrage, with critics accusing police of breaking into the home of an unarmed Black woman for no legitimate reason and killing her.
But the 39-page report and corroborating evidence do show that Taylor had more extensive ties than previously made public with an accused drug trafficker who was at the center of a larger narcotics investigation in Louisville. It is not known if details included in the report were presented to the judge who signed the controversial "no-knock" warrant for Taylor's apartment.
The findings of the report, corroborated by jail phone recordings and other documents obtained by The Courier Journal, detail multiple links between Taylor and Jamarcus Glover of Louisville, a main target in a drug probe that prompted police to request the search warrant for Taylor’s apartment.
Plainclothes officers that night battered in her door, searching for drugs and illicit cash. None were found.
Glover was arrested the same night as Taylor’s shooting. He was picked up at an alleged drug house 10 miles to the north in Louisville’s West End. He was released on bail but is now a fugitive after failing to post a new bail set at $50,000 when he was charged again last month.
"Breonna Taylor did not deserve to die no matter what her role in all this,” said a Jefferson County law enforcement official who asked not to be identified because Kentucky's attorney general is still deciding whether the officers who shot Taylor should be prosecuted.
The Louisville Metropolitan Police Department released a report this week providing more details about Breonna Taylor's alleged connections to drug trafficking that led police to obtain and execute a no-knock search warrant at her home in March, the Courier Journal reported.
Taylor was shot eight times and killed by police who broke into her home in the middle of the night on March 13. Police shot back after Taylor's boyfriend, Kenneth Walker, fired a shot at them when they entered the apartment. No drugs or money were found at the apartment.
What's in the report?
Recorded calls about bail money. During a call from jail on March 12, Jamarcus Glover (the main target in the drug probe) called a friend and told her that Taylor was keeping $8,000 of his money and that she had been "handling all of my money." Glover and Taylor had dated a couple of years prior.
In January, in another call from jail, Glover called Taylor to ask her to arrange for obtaining bail money from a mutual associate.
Taylor posted bail for Glover twice in 2017, and there were 27 calls from Glover to Taylor while he was in jail at various points from January 2016 through January 2020.
Glover and Taylor seen leaving alleged drug house together. Police reportedly observed Taylor and Glover visiting a known drug house together on Feb. 13.
According to the report, in a call from jail the the same day Taylor was killed, Glover expressed confusion to an associate named Adrian Walker about why the police searched Taylor's apartment when their only connection was the bail money, and Walker responded that it was probably because of the photos of them going to the drug house.
The mayor criticizes the report
Louisville Mayor Greg Fischer criticized the Courier Journal's publication of the information from LMPD's report as "reckless" in a statement:
Breonna Taylor's death was a tragedy. Period. Justice, peace and healing are what is needed for her, for her family and for our community. Today a news story was released that includes information related to the Breonna Taylor case, despite the fact that the Attorney General and FBI have insisted that the investigation remain confidential for the integrity of the judicial process as a whole. In addition, attorneys for Breonna's family, the county attorney, and the civil attorneys for the officers are under a protective order that does not permit them to disclose evidence in this case. It is deeply reckless for this information, which presents only a small fraction of the entire investigation, to be shared with the media while the criminal process remains ongoing. It would be unjust to draw conclusions about this case before the investigation is complete and the full truth comes out. And, efforts to sway opinion and impact the investigation by releasing select information are wrong and divisive, at a time when our city needs unity more than ever before.
Keep these in mind as you contemplate the direction of the American government over the past 50 years and especially since the Obama election.
The Goals of Communism
(as read into the congressional record January 10, 1963, from "The Naked Communist" by Cleon Skousen)
1. U.S. acceptance of coexistence as the only alternative to atomic war.
2. U.S. willingness to capitulate in preference to engaging in atomic war.
3. Develop the illusion that total disarmament of the United States would be a demonstration of moral strength.
4. Permit free trade between all nations regardless of Communist affiliation and regardless of whether or not items could be used for war.
5. Extension of long-term loans to Russia and Soviet satellites.
6. Provide American aid to all nations regardless of Communist domination.
7. Grant recognition of Red China. Admission of Red China to the U.N.
8. Set up East and West Germany as separate states in spite of Khrushchev's promise in 1955 to settle the German question by free elections under supervision of the U.N.
9. Prolong the conferences to ban atomic tests because the United States has agreed to suspend tests as long as negotiations are in progress.
10. Allow all Soviet satellites individual representation in the U.N.
11. Promote the U.N. as the only hope for mankind. If its charter is rewritten, demand that it be set up as a one-world government with its own independent armed forces. (Some Communist leaders believe the world can be taken over as easily by the U.N. as by Moscow. Sometimes these two centers compete with each other as they are now doing in the Congo.)
12. Resist any attempt to outlaw the Communist Party.
13. Do away with all loyalty oaths.
14. Continue giving Russia access to the U.S. Patent Office.
15. Capture one or both of the political parties in the United States.
16. Use technical decisions of the courts to weaken basic American institutions by claiming their activities violate civil rights.
17. Get control of the schools. Use them as transmission belts for socialism and current Communist propaganda. Soften the curriculum. Get control of teachers' associations. Put the party line in textbooks.
18. Gain control of all student newspapers.
19. Use student riots to foment public protests against programs or organizations which are under Communist attack.
20. Infiltrate the press. Get control of book-review assignments, editorial writing, policymaking positions.
21. Gain control of key positions in radio, TV, and motion pictures.
22. Continue discrediting American culture by degrading all forms of artistic expression. An American Communist cell was told to "eliminate all good sculpture from parks and buildings, substitute shapeless, awkward and meaningless forms."
23. Control art critics and directors of art museums. "Our plan is to promote ugliness, repulsive, meaningless art."
24. Eliminate all laws governing obscenity by calling them "censorship" and a violation of free speech and free press.
25. Break down cultural standards of morality by promoting pornography and obscenity in books, magazines, motion pictures, radio, and TV.
26. Present homosexuality, degeneracy and promiscuity as "normal, natural, healthy."
27. Infiltrate the churches and replace revealed religion with "social" religion. Discredit the Bible and emphasize the need for intellectual maturity which does not need a "religious crutch."
28. Eliminate prayer or any phase of religious expression in the schools on the ground that it violates the principle of "separation of church and state."
29. Discredit the American Constitution by calling it inadequate, old-fashioned, out of step with modern needs, a hindrance to cooperation between nations on a worldwide basis.
30. Discredit the American Founding Fathers. Present them as selfish aristocrats who had no concern for the "common man."
31. Belittle all forms of American culture and discourage the teaching of American history on the ground that it was only a minor part of the "big picture." Give more emphasis to Russian history since the Communists took over.
32. Support any socialist movement to give centralized control over any part of the culture--education, social agencies, welfare programs, mental health clinics, etc.
33. Eliminate all laws or procedures which interfere with the operation of the Communist apparatus.
34. Eliminate the House Committee on Un-American Activities.
35. Discredit and eventually dismantle the FBI.
36. Infiltrate and gain control of more unions.
37. Infiltrate and gain control of big business.
38. Transfer some of the powers of arrest from the police to social agencies. Treat all behavioral problems as psychiatric disorders which no one but psychiatrists can understand.
39. Dominate the psychiatric profession and use mental health laws as a means of gaining coercive control over those who oppose Communist goals.
40. Discredit the family as an institution. Encourage promiscuity and easy divorce.
41. Emphasize the need to raise children away from the negative influence of parents. Attribute prejudices, mental blocks and retarding of children to suppressive influence of parents.
42. Create the impression that violence and insurrection are legitimate aspects of the American tradition; that students and special-interest groups should rise up and use united force to solve economic, political or social problems.
43. Overthrow all colonial governments before native populations are ready for self-government.
44. Internationalize the Panama Canal.
45. Repeal the Connally reservation so the United States cannot prevent the World Court from seizing jurisdiction over nations and individuals alike.
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