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CHICAGO (AP) — Police in Florida took a 15-year-old into custody six years ago for threatening to take his own life, though he was soon released following an involuntary mental health examination, according to official records. This past weekend, that same person entered a Jacksonville Dollar General as a 21-year-old, wielding a rifle emblazoned with a swastika, and fatally shot three Black people in a racist attack. The gunman, who was white, then killed himself. Saturday's shooting raises questions about whether so-called red flag laws in F...
CHICAGO (AP) — The federal trial of a 50-year-old truck driver convicted of killing 11 people at a Pittsburgh synagogue in the deadliest antisemitic attack in U.S. history is in its third and final phase, in which jurors must decide whether to sentence him to death. The jury convicted Robert Bowers in June after three weeks of testimony about how he stormed the Tree of Life synagogue in October 2018 and shot anyone he saw. He killed members of three congregations that were sharing the building, and wounded two worshippers and five police o...
CHICAGO (AP) — An Illinois judge on Friday set a Nov. 6 trial date for a father charged with helping his son obtain a gun license three years before the son allegedly shot dead seven people at a Fourth of July parade in suburban Chicago last year. The father, Robert Crimo Jr., told Judge George Strickland at a hearing in Waukegan — north of Highland Park, where the shooting occurred — that he was waiving his right to a jury trial. That means Strickland will hear evidence and issue verdicts at the end of the bench trial. Earlier this year,...
CHICAGO (AP) — An Illinois judge on Friday set a Nov. 6 trial date for a father charged with helping his son obtain a gun license three years before the son allegedly shot dead seven people at a Fourth of July parade in suburban Chicago last year. The father, Robert Crimo Jr., told Judge George Strickland at a hearing in Waukegan — north of Highland Park, where the shooting occurred — that he was waiving his right to a jury trial. That means Strickland will hear evidence and issue verdicts at the end of the bench trial. Earlier this year,...
CHICAGO (AP) — More than 450 Catholic clergy in Illinois sexually abused nearly 2,000 children since 1950, the state's attorney general found in an investigation released Tuesday, revealing that the problem was far worse than the church had let on. Attorney General Kwame Raoul said at a news conference that investigators found that 451 Catholic clergy abused 1,997 children in Illinois between 1950 and 2019, though he acknowledged that the statute of limitations has expired in many cases and that those abusers "will never see justice in a l...
The first federal capital case tried under President Joe Biden ended with a split among jurors that means the life of an Islamic extremist who killed eight people in a New York City will be spared. It came at a rare federal death penalty trial in a state without the death penalty. That Biden's Justice Department continued to pursue the death penalty for Sayfullo Saipov, who used a truck to mow down pedestrians and cyclists on a popular bike path, was a surprise to many given Biden's opposition to capital punishment and his 2016 campaign pledge...
CHICAGO (AP) — A federal judge on Thursday rejected a call from prosecutors to keep R. Kelly behind bars until he is 100, instead telling the Grammy Award-winning R&B singer he would serve all but one of his 20 years on child sex convictions simultaneously with a previous racketeering sentence. Handed down in a courtoom in Kelly's hometown of Chicago, the sentence means Kelly could make it out of prison alive, when he is about 80. Prosecutors had asked Judge Harry Leinenweber to sentence him to 25 years — and to not let him begin serving tho...
Federal prosecutors will not seek the death penalty for a man accused of fatally shooting nearly two dozen people in a racist attack at a West Texas Walmart in 2019. The U.S. Department of Justice disclosed the decision not to pursue capital punishment against Patrick Crusius in a one-sentence notice filed with the federal court in El Paso on Tuesday. Crusius, 24, is accused of targeting Mexicans during the Aug. 3 massacre that left dozens wounded and killed 23 people. The Dallas-area native is charged with federal hate crimes and firearms...
CHICAGO (AP) — R. Kelly's lawyers began mounting a defense Thursday in Chicago against federal charges of child pornography, enticement of minors for sex and fixing his 2008 state trial, with an initial witness contending the singer was himself a victim of blackmail. The presentation to jurors won't include Kelly taking the witness stand. Judge Harry Leinenweber asked Kelly directly on Thursday morning if he would testify, and the Grammy Award winner responded that he would not. The judge raised the issue minutes before attorneys for Kelly a...
CHICAGO (AP) — A woman who has been central to R. Kelly's legal troubles for more than two decades testified Thursday that the R&B singer sexually abused her "hundreds" of times before she turned 18 and that it was her and Kelly in a videotape that was at the heart of his 2008 child pornography trial, at which he was acquitted. Jane — the pseudonym for the now 37-year-old woman as she testified — paused, tugged at a necklace and dabbed her eyes with a tissue as she said publicly for the first time that the girl in the video was her and that...
CHICAGO (AP) — Jury selection in R. Kelly's federal trial on charges that he rigged his 2008 state child pornography trial began Monday with the judge and attorneys quickly focusing on whether would-be jurors watched a 2019 documentary about sex abuse allegations against the R&B singer. After denying a request from Kelly's attorney to automatically exclude anyone from the jury who watched the six-part documentary series, "Surviving R. Kelly," U.S. District Judge Harry Leinenweber quizzed potential jurors about how much they watched, what t...
HIGHLAND PARK, Ill. (AP) — A shooter fired on an Independence Day parade from a rooftop in suburban Chicago, spraying the crowd with gunshots initially mistaken for fireworks before hundreds of panicked revelers of all ages fled in terror. At least six people were killed and at least 30 wounded. An hourslong manhunt during which residents hunkered down in businesses or received police escorts to their homes ended with a traffic stop and brief chase Monday evening, when authorities detained a man they described as a person of interest. They i...
Hospitals, like schools, are not typically designed to guard against the threat of a determined gunman entering the building to take lives. The vulnerability of health care facilities was highlighted by a shooter who killed four people and then himself Wednesday at a hospital in Tulsa, Oklahoma. The assailant got inside a building on the Saint Francis Hospital campus with little trouble, just hours after buying an AR-style rifle, authorities said. Here's a look at what's known about security at the Tulsa facility and other American hospitals:...
CHICAGO (AP) — Even as the nation reeled over the massacre of 19 children and two teachers at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, multiple mass shootings happened elsewhere over the Memorial Day weekend in areas both rural and urban. Single-death incidents still accounted for most gun fatalities. Gunfire erupted in the predawn hours of Sunday at a festival in the town of Taft, Oklahoma, sending hundreds of revelers scattering and customers inside the nearby Boots Café diving for cover. Eight people ages 9 to 56 were shot, and one of them di...
GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. (AP) — A jury was selected Tuesday for the trial of four men charged with plotting to kidnap Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer in 2020 because they were angry over pandemic restrictions the Democratic governor imposed. Opening statements were scheduled for Wednesday in the federal court in Grand Rapids. Prosecutors have said they will present secret recordings and other evidence against the men, including of a trip to check Whitmer's vacation home and training with weapons and explosives. Defense attorneys say the men deny a...
GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. (AP) — The four men charged with planning to kidnap Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer were swayed by informants and federal agents who targeted them for their anti-government views, defense attorneys said Wednesday, portraying the men as big talkers and wannabes who never meant what they said. Assistant U.S. Attorney Jonathan Roth argued that the men were "willing, eager, if not already preparing" to get Whitmer before investigators infiltrated the group. He said the men — angry about COVID-19 restrictions the Democratic govern...
KENOSHA, Wis. (AP) — When he was acquitted of murder in shootings during unrest in Wisconsin, Kyle Rittenhouse went from staring at possible life behind bars to red-hot star of the right: an exclusive interview with Tucker Carlson and a visit with Donald Trump at Mar-a-Lago capped by a photo of both men smiling and snapping a thumbs-up. For Rittenhouse, a year of legal uncertainty over whether his claim of self-defense would stand up has given way to uncertainty over what's next. He told Carlson, in an appearance that spiked the host's r...
KENOSHA, Wis. (AP) — Kyle Rittenhouse was acquitted of all charges Friday after testifying he acted in self-defense in the deadly Kenosha shootings that became a flashpoint in the debate over guns, vigilantism and racial injustice in the U.S. Rittenhouse, 18, began to choke up, fell forward toward the defense table and then hugged one of his attorneys as he heard a court clerk recite "not guilty" five times. A sheriff's deputy whisked him out a back door. "He wants to get on with his life," defense attorney Mark Richards said. "He has a huge se...
KENOSHA, Wis. (AP) — The jury began deliberating Tuesday at the murder trial of Kyle Rittenhouse after listening to dueling portrayals of him as a "wannabe soldier" who went looking for the trouble, or a concerned citizen who came under attack while trying to protect property. The case went to the anonymous, 12-member jury after Rittenhouse himself, in an unusual move, was allowed by Judge Bruce Schroeder to draw the numbered slips of paper from a raffle drum that determined which of the 18 people who sat in judgment during the trial would deci...
KENOSHA, Wis. (AP) — A defense lawyer angrily accused the prosecution at Kyle Rittenhouse's murder trial of lying. The lead prosecutor struck a measured tone, even as he raised the accused's rifle at one point and sighted at a courtroom wall. How the indignation and theatrics during Monday's closing arguments played with jurors won't be clear until 12 of them return with verdicts in a case that underscores American divisions on issues of guns, protests and policing. Here's a look at how some five hours of closings went and which side may h...
KENOSHA, Wis. (AP) — Kyle Rittenhouse's attorneys asked the judge to declare a mistrial even as the jury was deliberating Wednesday, saying the defense received an inferior copy of a potentially crucial video from prosecutors. Judge Bruce Schroeder did not immediately rule on the request, the second mistrial motion from the defense in a week. At issue was a piece of drone video that prosecutors showed to the jury in closing arguments in a bid to undermine Rittenhouse's self-defense claim and portray him as the aggressor. Prosecutors said it sho...
KENOSHA, Wis. (AP) — Kyle Rittenhouse provoked bloodshed on the streets of Kenosha by bringing a semi-automatic rifle to a protest and menacing others, and when the shooting stopped, he walked off like a "hero in a Western," a prosecutor said in closing arguments Monday at Rittenhouse's murder trial. But Rittenhouse's attorney countered that the shooting started after the young man was ambushed by a "crazy person" that night and became afraid his gun was going to be wrested away and used to kill him. Rittenhouse, then 17, killed two men and w...
KENOSHA, Wis. (AP) — The jurors who will decide Kyle Rittenhouse's fate will be allowed to consider lesser charges if they opt to acquit him on some of the original counts prosecutors brought, the judge said Friday during a contentious hearing in which both sides could claim partial victory. Rittenhouse, of nearby Antioch, Illinois, testified that he acted in self-defense when he fatally shot two protesters and wounded a third during an August 2020 night of unrest in Kenosha following the police shooting of Jacob Blake, a Black man. Jurors are...
KENOSHA, Wis. (AP) — The murder case against Kyle Rittenhouse was thrown into jeopardy Wednesday when his lawyers asked for a mistrial over what appeared to be out-of-bounds questions asked of Rittenhouse by the chief prosecutor. The judge did not immediately rule on the request. The startling turn came after Rittenhouse, in a high-stakes gamble, took the stand and testified that he was under attack when he shot three men, two fatally, during a night of turbulent protests against racial injustice in Kenosha in the summer of 2020. "I didn't d...
KENOSHA, Wis. (AP) — A protester and volunteer medic wounded on the streets of Kenosha by Kyle Rittenhouse testified Monday that he was pointing his own gun at the rifle-toting Rittenhouse — unintentionally, he said — when the young man shot him. Gaige Grosskreutz, the third and final man gunned down by Rittenhouse during a night of turbulent racial-justice protests in the summer of 2020, took the stand at Rittenhouse's murder trial and recounted how he drew his own pistol after the bloodshed started. "I thought the defendant was an activ...
