Murders, Attempted Murders and Homicides

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      What We Know About the Gunman in the Florida State Shooting

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      The gunman accused of killing at least two people and injuring six others on Thursday in a shooting at Florida State University is a current student at the school and his mother is a Leon County sheriff’s deputy, officials said.The shooter was identified by the police as Phoenix Ikner, 20. Chief Lawrence E. Revell of the Tallahassee, Fla., Police Department said the man accused used his mother’s personal handgun in the shooting.The authorities said the attacker appeared to have been acting alone. He was in the hospital on Thursday, after being shot and wounded by responding officers for failing to obey their commands.Few details about the gunman emerged in the immediate aftermath of the shooting. Calls to his family and friends on Thursday mostly went unanswered.The man accused of the shooting graduated in 2022 from Lincoln High School, a public school in Tallahassee. He was a member of the Leon County Sheriff’s Office Youth Advisory Council in 2021-2022.According to the sheriff’s office website, the program is an opportunity for members to help address issues facing young people in their communities. Eligible students must be a rising sophomore, junior or senior at a high school in Leon County, have limited unexcused absences and a minimum grade point average of 2.0.Jacob West, 18, was part of the same youth advisory council with the suspect. Mr. West said he was shocked to hear the suspect’s name on the news and double-checked his phone to confirm it was the same person. He described the man accused as always “in good spirits,” helpful and always proposing “really good ideas to help Leon County.”“To hear what had happened was absolutely just heartbreaking,” said Mr. West.When they were in the youth advisory council together, the suspect was interested in car-racing video games and Minecraft, and he was passionate about vehicles, Mr. West said. The two would talk about the program, as well as pickup trucks and school, Mr. West said.“He never spoke about guns or anything,” Mr. West said.The suspect had told Mr. West that he was considering a career in law enforcement, but toward the end of their time with the youth advisory council, he said his interest in the profession had waned, Mr. West recalled. Mr. West said he left the program early, and that the two texted briefly afterward but had not been in touch since.Susan C. Beachy More

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      Mother of Woman Killed by Immigrant Speaks at White House Briefing

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      Just hours after a federal judge threatened a contempt-of-court investigation over the Trump administration’s deportation flights, the White House sought to freeze the legal debate by reminding Americans of a heartbreaking case of a mother killed by an unauthorized immigrant.White House officials called a special briefing on Wednesday in the press room to bring Patty Morin, the mother of Rachel Morin, who was killed while jogging on a trail in Maryland in 2023, to the podium. She recounted in detail how her daughter, a 37-year-old mother of five, was seized, raped and bashed in the head with rocks and ultimately strangled. Members of her family also appeared at the Republican National Convention last July.An immigrant from El Salvador, Victor Martinez-Hernandez, was convicted in the case this week.The story was a tragic one, and it has fueled Mr. Trump’s arguments about dangers posed by migrants and a debate about capital punishment. Nonetheless, the invitation of Ms. Morin seemed a somewhat transparent effort to suspend the arguments about whether the administration could lawfully send migrants to El Salvador with no due process, and whether it can defy the orders of district judges who order the flights halted.Statistics show that immigrants are less likely to commit crimes on American soil than American citizens, and Mr. Trump’s claims of a wave of violent crime committed by immigrants have not been supported by police or court data. But it is a popular talking point among Mr. Trump’s base of supporters, and he often brought out family members of victims during his presidential campaign.By conflating different incidents, the Trump administration appeared to be diverting the conversation from whether his administration could defy the courts, or deny due process to those arrested and shipped out of the country to a prison the United States is paying for.Before Ms. Morin spoke, Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary, criticized Senator Chris Van Hollen, Democrat of Maryland, for traveling to El Salvador to press for the return of Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia, a Maryland man who was seized and sent to a notorious terrorist prison in El Salvador in what the government admitted was an “administrative error.”Ms. Leavitt accused him again of being a member of the MS-13 gang, a terrorist, and, in a new claim, a perpetrator of spousal abuse. She called him a “woman beater” and waved a court filing, one that sought an order of protection against him.After the briefing, Mr. Abrego Garcia’s wife, Jennifer Vasquez Sura, acknowledged that she had filed the papers. But she said she had not pressed the case.“Things did not escalate, and I decided not to follow through with the civil court process,” she said. “We were able to work through this situation privately as a family.”Chris Cameron More

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      Teenager Charged With Killing Mother and Stepfather in a Plan to Assassinate Trump

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      A Wisconsin teenager was arrested last month on several charges, including two counts of first-degree murder. Federal investigators said he had a broader plot to kill the president.A Wisconsin teenager has been charged in the killing of his mother and stepfather in what the federal authorities described as an attempt to obtain the money and autonomy he believed was necessary for a plot to kill President Trump and overthrow the government.The teenager, Nikita Casap, 17, was arrested last month in the deaths of his mother, Tatiana Casap, 35, and stepfather, Donald Mayer, 51, according to the Waukesha County Sheriff’s Department.Sheriff’s deputies found the bodies at the family’s home in Waukesha, about 17 miles southwest of Milwaukee, after receiving a call on Feb. 28 requesting a welfare check, the department said.According to federal documents unsealed on Friday, the fatal shootings were part of a plan by Mr. Casap, who identified with a right-wing terrorist network known as the Order of Nine Angels, to assassinate President Trump in what he believed would “foment a political revolution in the United States,” federal investigators said.Mr. Casap also paid, at least in part, for a drone and explosives that he planned to use in an attack, according to the documents, which were filed in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Wisconsin.Mr. Casap’s lawyers could not be immediately reached on Sunday for comment.A self-described “manifesto,” found on Mr. Casap’s phone and detailed in the federal documents, contained images and praise of Adolf Hitler, as well as instructions to others to make bombs.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Death of Palestinian American Boy in West Bank Sparks Outcry

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      Amer Rabee, 14, was fatally shot Sunday by Israeli forces in the West Bank, according to his family. On Tuesday, community leaders gathered in New Jersey to demand justice.Members of northern New Jersey’s Palestinian community gathered on Tuesday to condemn the recent killing of a Palestinian American boy by Israeli soldiers in the West Bank.The boy, Amer Rabee, 14, was shot and killed in the town of Turmus Aya on Sunday, his family said. Two other Palestinian American teenagers who were with Amer at the time were shot and injured by the soldiers, the family said.Amer, who was originally from Saddle Brook, N.J., moved with his family to the West Bank around 2013. The family said that since then, it had divided its time between the West Bank and New Jersey.At a news conference on Tuesday, community leaders stood at a small wooden lectern at the Palestinian American Community Center in Clifton, N.J., to decry Amer’s death and call on the U.S. government to investigate the shooting. They were joined by Rami Jbara, an uncle of Amer’s, and by Amer’s father, Mohammed Rabee, who called in remotely from the West Bank.“We cannot let this horrific crime be swept under the rug,” said Rania Mustafa, the center’s executive director.“Our stories are consistently ignored,” she added. “Our people are consistently dehumanized. Our deaths are repeatedly ignored.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Texas Prosecutors Will No Longer Pursue Death Penalty in El Paso Shooting

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      The gunman, who killed 23 people at a Walmart in 2019, was previously sentenced to 90 consecutive life terms after pleading guilty to federal hate crimes.Texas prosecutors will no longer seek the death penalty against the gunman who killed 23 people in a mass shooting at an El Paso Walmart six years ago, the local district attorney announced on Tuesday.The gunman, a self-described white nationalist, had previously been sentenced to 90 consecutive life terms after pleading guilty to federal hate crimes in the attack, one of the deadliest on Latinos in U.S. history. At the time, federal prosecutors also said they would not seek the death penalty.On Tuesday, the El Paso district attorney said his office had changed course after speaking with the families of the victims.“It was very clear as we met with the families, one by one, that there is a strong and overwhelming consensus that just wanted this case over with, that wanted finality in the court process,” said the district attorney, James Montoya, a Democrat.In exchange, the shooter, Patrick Crusius, is expected to plead guilty to capital murder and be sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole, Mr. Montoya said. Mr. Crusius will also waive his right to any potential appeals as part of the plea agreement.Mr. Montoya is the fourth prosecutor to have been assigned to the state case. He promised during his campaign last year to seek the death penalty, and said on Tuesday that he still believed the shooter deserved it.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Shooting at Park in New Mexico Leaves at At Least 3 Dead and 16 Injured

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      The shooting happened at a gathering of drivers of modified sports cars. Witnesses said there was an altercation before the gunfire.Three people were killed and at least 16 people were injured during a shooting at a park Friday night in Las Cruces, N.M., according to Johana Bencomo, the mayor pro tem.“Part of me wanted to write that this is something you never really think is going to happen in your city, but that actually feels deeply untrue,” Ms. Bencomo wrote.The shooting happened around 10 p.m. on Friday near the parking lot at Young Park, the police said on social media.Officers arrived and found multiple people with gunshot wounds. They were sent to hospitals, including the University Medical Center of El Paso in Texas.Andrew Cummins, a spokesman for Memorial Medical Center in Las Cruces, said the center received six patients, all with gunshot wounds, and five of them were flown from the medical center to El Paso.Witnesses said the shooting took place at a monthly gathering where drivers of modified sports cars show them off.Around 200 people had gathered for the event, they said, which had a party-like atmosphere. They described seeing an altercation before shots rang out and people began to flee. At least one man had what looked like an assault-style weapon, witnesses said.“They just started shooting and they just started running around everybody,” said Angel Legaspy, a 20-year-old whose parked car was hit by bullets. The shooting was indiscriminate, “like all over the place,” he said.Manuel Urbina, who was visiting from Wyoming, came to the park to check out the city’s car scene. He said things were calm aside from the occasional squeal of a skidding car or the roar of its engine. Then he heard shots.“People were running everywhere,” he said. “We all started to run, and then I saw a young man laid out on the ground.”Witnesses described seeing an altercation before shots were heard and people began to flee. Paul Ratje for The New York TimesThe police said they had not identified any suspects or possible motive.“We’re still trying to identify who the shooter or shooters are,” Danny Trujillo, a public information officer for the city of Las Cruces, said early Saturday.The police asked anyone who has video or images of the events, particularly any that show the shooting or people with firearms, to submit them.While the circumstances of the shooting in Las Cruces remain unclear, New Mexico has struggled in recent years with violent crime.The violent crime rate there was twice the national average in 2023, according to the Council of State Governments Justice Center. Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham, a Democrat, has made combating crime a priority.Las Cruces became a flashpoint in the state’s debate over crime in February 2024, when a police officer, Jonah Hernandez, was stabbed to death after responding to a trespassing call.By August of 2024, violent crime in the city was up 46 percent compared to the same period in 2023.Isabelle Taft More

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      Fraternity Member Charged With Manslaughter in Hazing Death of University Student

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      Investigators say that Caleb Wilson, 20, a student at Southern University in Baton Rouge, La., collapsed after being hit with boxing gloves as part of a pledging ritual for Omega Psi Phi.The police in Baton Rouge, La., on Friday announced the first of a series of expected arrests in the fraternity hazing death of Caleb Wilson, a 20-year-old Southern University student who they said was repeatedly punched with boxing gloves at a warehouse last week and was unresponsive when he was dropped off at an emergency room.Caleb McCray, 23, a member of the Omega Psi Phi fraternity, was charged with manslaughter and felony criminal hazing, according to court records. The authorities said at a news conference on Friday that two other suspects could soon be arrested.Mr. McCray was identified by witnesses as the person who punched Mr. Wilson, the arrest warrant affidavit said. He turned himself in to the authorities on Thursday and was booked into East Baton Rouge Parish Prison, the police said.The people who brought Mr. Wilson to Baton Rouge General Medical Center told employees on the night of his death that he had collapsed after being struck in the chest while playing basketball before they fled the hospital, the authorities said.But investigators said that they had learned that was not true.As part of a hazing ritual for the Beta Sigma chapter of Omega Psi Phi, Mr. Wilson and several other pledges were lined up and hit four times each with boxing gloves in their chests, the authorities said.The repeated blows caused him to collapse to the floor and suffer what had appeared to be a seizure, according to an arrest warrant affidavit.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      ‘I’m Freaking Out’: New Texts Detail Key Minutes of Idaho Murders

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      Newly released messages reveal that two roommates in the home where four college students were murdered were alarmed by a masked person in the house that night.On the night that four University of Idaho students were fatally stabbed in a house near the campus, two roommates began urgently texting each other after one of them saw a masked man moving through the house.“What’s going on,” one of the residents, Dylan Mortensen, texted to one of her friends upstairs, according to new court documents released on Thursday. The friend did not answer, but she was able to make contact with a downstairs roommate, Bethany Funke. “I’m freaking out,” she texted.Ms. Mortensen and Ms. Funke — who ultimately were the only survivors of the stabbing spree — began texting back and forth shortly before 4:30 a.m., soon after Ms. Mortensen had seen a masked man walking in the hallway outside her bedroom door.The texts on the night of Nov. 13, 2022, give new insight into the confusion and fright of the two surviving roommates, who appear to have hunkered down in Ms. Funke’s room until later that morning. Ms. Mortensen called or texted each of the stabbing victims around 4:30 a.m., but received no response. No one called 911 until more than seven hours later.Ms. Mortensen, who had seen the masked figure in the house, told Ms. Funke by text that “no one is answering” the other roommates’ phones, and she described seeing someone wearing something like a “ski mask almost.” Ms. Funke told her to “run” downstairs to her bedroom so they could be together.“It’s better than being alone,” she texted.Ethan Chapin, left, and Xana Kernodle. Kaylee Goncalves, left, and Madison Mogen. We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More