Murders, Attempted Murders and Homicides

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      Mother of Georgia Suspect Called School Minutes Before Shooting, Family Says

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      The mother told relatives she reached out to the school on Wednesday morning, warning of an emergency, the suspect’s aunt said Saturday.The mother of the 14-year-old boy charged with fatally shooting four people at his Georgia high school this week told relatives that she had called the school on the morning of the attack, warning of an “extreme emergency,” her sister said on Saturday.Officials said the suspect, Colt Gray, opened fire on Wednesday morning on the campus of Apalachee High School in Winder, Ga., killing two students and two teachers and injuring nine others. The authorities said reports of a shooting came in at about 10:20 a.m. But the suspect’s mother, Marcee Gray, had apparently called the school at 9:50 a.m., her sister, Annie Brown, said.It was unclear what in particular led the mother to call the school that morning.The emergence of the possible alert from the suspect’s mother intensifies the scrutiny now applied to his family, school officials and law enforcement officials about missed opportunities to heed warning signs and intervene before the attack.Ms. Gray told Ms. Brown in a text message after the shooting that she had notified a counselor at the school, Ms. Brown said. The phone call to the school was first reported on Saturday by The Washington Post, which cited Ms. Brown, text messages and a call log from the family’s shared phone plan that documented a 10-minute phone call from the mother’s number to the school.Ms. Brown confirmed the details of The Post’s reporting to The New York Times on Saturday evening. And a federal law enforcement official confirmed that the mother had called the school shortly before the shooting.A spokeswoman for the Georgia Bureau of Investigation, which has been handling the investigation, declined to comment on Saturday. Jud Smith, the sheriff for Barrow County, Ga., where the shooting occurred, did not immediately reply to messages seeking comment, nor did officials from the Barrow County School System.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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      Five People Shot on I-75 in Kentucky, Officials Say

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      The victims were in stable condition, the authorities said. What led up to the shooting on I-75 near London, Ky., was not immediately clear.A section of a Kentucky highway was closed for several hours on Saturday night after five people were shot, the authorities said.What led up to the shooting was not immediately clear. All five shooting victims were in stable condition, said a spokesman for the Laurel County Sheriff’s Office, Deputy Gilbert Acciardo.The Laurel County Sheriff’s Office said on Facebook that the shooting happened on I-75, which was closed at Exit 49, nine miles north of London, Ky. It said just after 6:30 p.m. that the highway was closed “due to an active shooter situation,” but did not elaborate.Randall Weddle, the mayor of London, said in a Facebook video said the authorities were searching for a “suspect or suspects” in “rugged terrain” in the northern part of Laurel County.Deputy Acciardo said helicopters and infrared scanners were being used to search for the gunman in the woods.The London Police Department said on Saturday night that a person of interest had been identified and asked the public for any information about his whereabouts. The city of London is about 90 miles south of Lexington.Just after 9:20 p.m., the Laurel County Sheriff’s Office said on Facebook that while I-75 had reopened, the search for the suspect would continue. Angel Jarrett was working at the 49er Truck Stop when someone told her that shots had been fired nearby.Eventually, multiple police cars surrounded the truck stop near the exit where the shooting took place and placed the facility on lockdown.“We’re not allowed to go in or out,” Ms. Jarrett said. “It’s a little panicky but we’re OK. They’re surrounding us, the cops are.”Saint Joseph London, a hospital in London that is a part of CHI Saint Joseph Health, said that it had “received multiple patients and is treating them for minor injuries.”Two patients were being treated at the University of Kentucky’s Albert B. Chandler Hospital, a spokeswoman said. Their conditions were unknown.The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives said on social media that it was sending agents from its Louisville office to help the State Police and local authorities “with a critical incident” near Interstate 75 in Laurel County.Yan Zhuang More

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      Georgia to Put School Shooting Suspect’s Parent on Trial, Testing a Novel Tactic

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      After four people were killed at Apalachee High School, prosecutors charged a student and his father, who officials say had given the boy the gun as a gift.In a landmark criminal case in Michigan earlier this year, James and Jennifer Crumbley became the first parents convicted in connection with killings carried out by their child in a mass shooting.Now, in the first mass school shooting in the United States since those convictions, Georgia officials appear poised to try the same tactic. On Thursday, prosecutors filed charges, including two counts of second-degree murder, against the father of the suspected gunman, saying he had provided a gun to his son “with knowledge that he was a threat to himself and others.”Such charges were all but unheard of before the Michigan case, and the Georgia prosecution will test the emerging push to hold parents responsible for mass shootings by young people.The bigger test may be whether the prospect of criminal prosecution spurs parents to do more to seek help for troubled children and to keep them away from guns in a country awash in firearms.Proponents of such prosecutions have said that charging parents can help prevent young people from carrying out such shootings. But critics say it’s a misguided effort that scapegoats parents while lawmakers fail to act to reduce gun violence. And its effectiveness as a deterrent may be limited by the deep dysfunction already at play in the families of some of the young people implicated in mass shootings.The prosecution of the Crumbleys, after their 15-year-old son killed four people in 2021 at a high school outside Detroit, was seen as a long shot. But in separate trials, the Crumbleys were convicted of involuntary manslaughter and were sentenced to 10 years in prison.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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      Georgia Suspect’s Family Faced Eviction and Other Turmoil Before Shooting

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      Court and law enforcement records lay out the turbulence in the teenager’s family in recent years.The 14-year-old accused of killing four people at his Georgia high school this week had switched middle schools and drawn the attention of authorities who suspected he had posted school shooting threats online.His mother had repeated encounters with law enforcement and had been ordered to stay away from drugs and alcohol. His family had been evicted from their home because of unpaid rent, and his parents had split.Interviews with relatives and others who knew the teenager, and a review of court documents and law enforcement records, reflected a family in constant turmoil in the years before the shooting this week at Apalachee High School in Winder.The suspect, Colt Gray, has been charged with four counts of murder for the Wednesday morning attack in which two students and two math teachers were killed and eight other students were injured. During his first court appearance on Friday, a judge informed him that he could face a maximum penalty of life in prison.His father, Colin Gray, is facing second-degree murder and other charges, as officials argue that he shoulders considerable blame for giving his son the AR-15 semiautomatic rifle used in the attack. The weapon was a Christmas gift last year, according to three law enforcement officials. Mr. Gray, 54, faces a maximum sentence of 180 years in prison, if convicted.During the brief hearing on Friday, relatives of the people who were killed sat directly behind the defendants, only a few feet away. The grief that the community in Winder is now wrestling with was palpable.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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      Police Arrest Man in 1993 Murder of 19-Year-Old Carmen Van Huss

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      For more than 30 years, the case had remained unsolved. While questions remain, the police said they had linked a 52-year-old Missouri man to DNA at the crime scene.More than three decades after Carmen Van Huss was found dead in her Indianapolis apartment, a homicide victim at 19, the police said on Tuesday that they had arrested a suspect, a break in a cold case that had long consumed the Van Huss family.The Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department and the Boone County Sheriff’s Office in Missouri arrested Dana Shepherd, 52, in Columbia, Mo., on Friday in connection with Ms. Van Huss’s death. The authorities charged Mr. Shepherd with murder, felony murder and rape, according to Ryan Mears, the Marion County prosecutor.“Thirty-one years ago she was tragically killed, and today we finally have some answers,” Kendale Adams, the deputy chief of the Indianapolis police criminal investigations division, said at a news conference on Tuesday. Jimmy Van Huss Jr., Ms. Van Huss’s younger brother, thanked law enforcement officials for their efforts to bring the case to a close.“There’s a lot of people that missed Carmen all these years,” Mr. Van Huss said. “She had a lot of family, a lot of friends.”Mr. Van Huss said he was a freshman in high school when his sister was killed. “We were becoming a lot closer as she was taken from us,” he said. “She wasn’t able to experience her college graduation or have a wedding or any life events that she missed out on.”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 Mars Festivities at West Indian American Day Parade in Brooklyn

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      At least five people were shot and wounded along the route of the bustling event, which continued on despite the disruption.At least five people were shot and wounded along the route of the annual West Indian American Day Parade in Brooklyn on Monday, briefly disrupting — but not derailing — a crowded and colorful celebration of New York City’s Caribbean community.At least one of the victims was listed in critical condition, with the remaining four expected to recover, the police said.It was not immediately clear what led to the shooting, which occurred hours into the parade, at around 2:30 p.m., near 307 Eastern Parkway in the Crown Heights neighborhood of Brooklyn. But at a news conference, John Chell, the chief of patrol of the New York Police Department, described it as a targeted attack. The gunman, whom Mr. Chell described as a man in his 20s, remained at large as of Monday afternoon.It was another conspicuous episode of violence to occur alongside the event in recent years, but, soon afterward, the parade, an annual celebration of emancipation from enslavement, continued along with its festive music, colorful outfits and decorative floats.Adrianalee Watson, 15, said she was selling bracelets with her mother on Monday when they heard the gunshots and ran into a nearby building for safety. Ms. Watson said she also heard shots fired at the parade last year. On Monday, after ambulances took the victims away, she returned to her spot on Eastern Parkway and resumed her business.“It’s a fun experience, even though you do have people who ruin the fun,” she said. “You’ve just got to be safe about it. You’ve got to have a place where you can go if anything bad happens, and you’ve just got to be aware of your surroundings.”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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      Hersh Goldberg-Polin, Israeli-American Hostage Found Dead, Mourned Across U.S.

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      Hersh Goldberg-Polin loved soccer and music. He was curious, respectful and passionate about geography and travel, according to his mother. He was born in the Bay Area and moved to Israel when he was 8.Some 15 years later, he became one of the most internationally recognized hostages among the 240 who were taken by Hamas on Oct. 7. For months, his parents made pleas to bring their son and the other hostages home.But he was among the six hostages whose bodies were found in a tunnel in Gaza over the weekend. In a statement, President Biden said they were killed by Hamas.“With broken hearts, the Goldberg-Polin family is devastated to announce the death of their beloved son and brother, Hersh,” his family said in a statement. Family members declined to be interviewed for this article, asking for privacy.On Sunday, tributes to Mr. Goldberg-Polin, who was 23 and a dual citizen of the United States and Israel, poured in from many pockets of America. People who knew him expressed immense grief and recalled moments they shared. To many across the country, he had become a symbol of hope.Hersh Goldberg-Polin.The Hostages Families Forum, via Associated PressWe 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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      Dallas Police Officer Darron Burks ‘Executed’ in Premeditated Attack, Officials Say

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      Two other officers were also shot, and one of them remains hospitalized. After a pursuit, the suspect was killed by the police, authorities said.A police officer in Dallas was fatally shot on Thursday night in what officials described as a premeditated execution.The officer, Darron Burks, 46, was parked in his patrol vehicle in the Oak Cliff section of the city, southwest of downtown, at around 10 p.m. during a break between assignments when a man approached him on the driver’s side. The man, who officials said appeared to record the encounter on his cellphone, briefly spoke to Officer Burks, then pulled out a handgun and shot him dead.Two other officers were shot by the suspect while they were checking on Officer Burks, who had not responded to a dispatcher’s attempt to contact him, officials said. Senior Corporal Jamie Farmer, who was shot in the leg, has been released from the hospital. Senior Corporal Karissa David, who was shot in the face, remains in critical but stable condition.The suspect, identified by officials as Corey Cobb-Bey, 30, fled the scene. After officers pursued him onto an expressway, he got out of his vehicle with a gun, approached the officers and pointed his weapon, the police said. Six officers then fired, fatally shooting him. It was unclear on Saturday what might have motivated the attack. At a news conference on Friday, Eddie Garcia, the Dallas police chief, said the information the force gathered made it clear that Officer Burks was killed in a targeted attack. “I know that the word ‘ambush’ has been thrown around in the last 24 hours or so,” he said. “That’s not what happened here. Officer Burks was executed.”For some residents, the brutal manner in which the police said Officer Burks was killed called to mind a 2016 shooting, when a heavily armed sniper gunned down five officers in downtown Dallas during a protest against fatal police shootings. That shooting remains the deadliest single attack on law enforcement since Sept. 11.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