Tag Archives: Arizona

Firefighters slow Arizona wildfire, allowing some residents to return

Smoke rises from the Goodwin Fire which had prompted the evacuation of the town of Mayer, Arizona, U.S. June 27, 2017. Picture taken June 27, 2017. Arizona Department of Transportation/Handout via REUTERS

By David Schwartz

PHOENIX (Reuters) – Firefighters gained ground against a fierce, five-day-old wildfire in central Arizona on Thursday, enabling authorities to lift evacuation orders for the largest town that had been threatened, but 2,000 people remain displaced in neighboring communities.

The blaze, dubbed the Goodwin Fire, has charred nearly 25,000 acres (10,120 hectares) and destroyed an unknown number of homes since erupting on Saturday in the Prescott National Forest, 70 miles (113 km) north of Phoenix.

Stoked by high winds as it roared through dense, sun-baked chaparral, the blaze raged largely unchecked for the first few days, but by Thursday firefighting teams had managed to carve containment lines around 25 percent of the perimeter.

“This means that we are really making progress on the fire,” said Tiffany Davila, a spokeswoman for the state Department of Forestry and Fire. “Crews are really getting a handle on the fire and all their efforts … seem to be coming into play.”

Residents of Mayer, a town of 1,400 people evacuated on Tuesday, were allowed to return home on Thursday morning, said Dwight Develyn, a spokesman for the Yavapai County Sheriff’s Office.

But Develyn said about 2,000 residents forced to flee from 10 other communities during the week remained under evacuation orders. About 1,400 children at summer camps in the area were also sent home, according to Sheriff Scott Mascher.

A force of about 800 firefighters, backed by airplane tankers dumping payloads of flame-retardant chemicals, benefited from diminished winds and increased humidity in the region that helped slow the fire’s growth and intensity, officials said.

“We’re having better conditions than we’ve had for a while, so I think we’re in decent shape,” fire command spokesman Gerry Perry said.

No serious injuries have been reported.

The Goodwin blaze was one of more than two dozen large, active wildfires reported burning on Thursday across Arizona and eight other U.S. states.

Heavy rainfall in parts of the West over the winter and spring helped delay the onset of fire season, but also spurred the growth of dense vegetation that has now dried out and become highly combustible as summertime heat sets in.

Wildfires have scorched nearly 2.8 million acres so far this year, compared with 2.1 million acres at this point in 2016, according to the National Interagency Fire Center in Boise, Idaho.

Forecasts called for hot, dry weather and gusty winds across much of the Southwest this coming holiday weekend, posing a lingering fire threat for the region.

(Additional reporting by Brendan O’Brien; editing by Jonathan Oatis and G Crosse)

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)

Prosecutor urges Arizona man’s conviction for Islamic State support

By Nate Raymond

NEW YORK (Reuters) – A federal prosecutor on Wednesday urged jurors to convict an Arizona man who she said played a vital role in helping a New York college student travel to Syria, where he died fighting for Islamic State.

In her closing argument, Assistant U.S. Attorney Negar Tekeei told a federal jury in Manhattan that Mohammed El Gammal, 44, was a “steadfast and enthusiastic supporter” of Islamic State who in an online message had said he was “with the State.”

Tekeei said the Egyptian-born Phoenix resident shared his support in encrypted messages with Samy Mohammed El-Goarany, a 24-year-old student at Baruch College in Manhattan, who like El Gammal had become “obsessed” with Islamic State.

She said El Gammal, settled in his American life, decided to guide the student toward his goal, traveling to New York in October 2014 to vet El-Goarany before putting him in touch with a friend in Istanbul who helped him get to Syria.

“It was the defendant who paved the way for that,” she said.

But Sabrina Shroff, El Gammal’s lawyer, said he did not know about El-Goarany’s plan, saying the student misled people into believing he was planning to do humanitarian work in Syria and followed steps in an Islamic State manual to join it.

While El Gammal was not shy in his views, Shroff said no evidence existed showing he took any actions. She also said El Gammal’s friend in Turkey belonged to the Muslim Brotherhood and would not have helped El-Goarany join Islamic State.

“Samy, ladies and gentlemen of the jury, is the only terrorist in this case,” she said.

El Gammal is one of more than 100 people to face U.S. charges since 2014 in cases related to Islamic State, which controls parts of Syria and Iraq and has claimed responsibility for bombings and shootings of civilians in other countries.

According to prosecutors, El-Goarany ultimately flew to Istanbul from New York in January 2015, and sometime after arrived in Syria, where he received religious and military training and fought with Islamic State.

Prosecutors said that in November 2015, an unidentified person via an instant messaging platform contacted El-Goarany’s brother to report that he had been killed fighting in Syria.

In a photograph of the hand-written note shown to jurors, El-Goarany wrote that “if you’re reading this then know that I’ve been killed in battle and am now with our Lord Insha’Allah.”

(Reporting by Nate Raymond in New York; Editing by Bernard Orr)

Arizona man faces trial for helping college student join Islamic State

By Nate Raymond

NEW YORK (Reuters) – An Arizona man is set to face trial on charges that he provided support to Islamic State by helping a New York City college student travel to Syria, where he died fighting for the militant group.

Opening statements were expected on Tuesday in Manhattan federal court in the case of Ahmed Mohammed El Gammal, 44, who was arrested in 2015 and charged with providing material support to a foreign terrorist organization.

El Gammal, who has pleaded not guilty, is one of more than 100 people to face U.S. charges since 2014 in cases related to the Islamic State militant group, which controls parts of Iraq and Syria.

Prosecutors said the case stemmed from El Gammal’s interactions with Samy Mohammed El-Goarany, a U.S. citizen.

By 2014, El-Goarany, then 24, had begun expressing increased interest in militant forms of Islam, prosecutors said. They said he first contacted El Gammal in August of that year after learning of online comments he posted supporting Islamic State.

El Gammal later traveled to New York and met El-Goarany, who according to a LinkedIn profile attended Baruch College in Manhattan from 2009 to 2013. He then arranged for El-Goarany to get in touch with an individual living in Turkey to help El-Goarany travel to join Islamic State, prosecutors said.

El-Goarany subsequently traveled from New York City to Istanbul in January 2015, and sometime in mid-February arrived in Syria, prosecutors said.

After learning of El Gammal’s arrest in 2015, El-Goarany posted a video on YouTube denying he had helped him and saying he “came here out of my own will,” prosecutors said.

In November 2015, an unidentified person via an instant messaging platform contacted one of El-Goarany’s relatives to report that he had been killed fighting in Syria, prosecutors said.

They said that person provided the relative with photographs of a note from El-Goarany that said “if you’re reading this then know that I’ve been killed in battle and am now with our Lord InshaAllah.”

(Reporting by Nate Raymond in New York; Editing by Alistair Bell)

Record heat sparks warnings, boosts fires in western United States

Sun, Smoke, Sherpa Fire

By Steve Gorman

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Wildfire warnings were posted across parts of three Western U.S. states on Sunday as a heat wave baked the region in record, triple-digit temperatures, stoking flames in California from the coastal foothills outside Santa Barbara to desert brush near the Mexican border.

Excessive heat advisories and “red flag warnings” for extreme fire conditions were in effect across southern portions of California, Nevada and Arizona, the National Weather Service reported on the eve of the first official day of summer.

In the Los Angeles suburb of Burbank, the mercury topped out at 109 degrees Fahrenheit (42.8 Celsius), shattering the prior record high for the date of 104 degrees set in 1973. In Phoenix, Arizona, the temperature climbed to 118 degrees, 3 degrees above the previous high mark for the date reached in 1968.

With rising demand for air conditioning expected to test the region’s generating capacity, the California Independent System Operator, which runs the state’s power grid, urged consumers to conserve daytime electricity on Monday.

Forecasters said record-breaking heat would persist through Tuesday, especially in the Desert Southwest, where temperatures could reach as high as 120 degrees.

“These extreme temperatures can be life-threatening,” the Weather Service said on its website.

Fire officials said the heat was a major factor in worsening a wind-driven blaze roaring through dry brush and chaparral about 50 miles east of San Diego, north of the Mexico border, forcing evacuations of dozens of homes in the desert community of Potrero.

The blaze, which erupted Sunday morning, had blackened about 1,500 acres and was still burning unchecked over steep terrain and drought-parched vegetation by evening, San Diego County Fire Captain Kendal Brotisser said.

About 200 miles to the north, excessive heat also continued to plague crews battling the so-called Sherpa Fire, burning for a fifth day in the canyons and foothills near Santa Barbara.

That blaze, which has charred nearly 7,900 acres and forced hundreds of people from their homes, was 51 percent contained as firefighters took advantage of abating “sundowner” winds that had initially propelled the flames.

A much smaller brush fire flared briefly beneath a freeway interchange near downtown Los Angeles, destroying three storage sheds, damaging two homes and snarling traffic in the vicinity as firefighters rushed to douse the blaze.

Meanwhile, in New Mexico, local authorities declared a state of emergency due to a five-day-old timber fire that has consumed some 17,615 acres (7,129 hectares) and destroyed about two dozen homes southeast of Albuquerque.

(Additional reporting by Ian Simpson in Washington; Editing by Andrew Bolton and Himani Sarkar)

Arizona man found guilty in ‘Draw Mohammed’ event shooting

PHOENIX (Reuters) – An Arizona man was found guilty on Thursday of plotting with others to attack a “Draw Mohammed” cartoon contest in Texas last year and providing material support to the Islamic State group, prosecutors said.

Abdul Malik Abdul Kareem, 44, was convicted on all five charges against him by a federal jury in U.S. District Court in Phoenix stemming from the May 3 attack in the Dallas suburb of Garland that left his two alleged associates dead in a shoot-out with police.

The case against Kareem, also known as Decarus Thomas, was the first Islamic State-related prosecution to reach trial of the dozens brought by the federal government across the nation. It is the second jury verdict in such a case, as U.S. Air Force veteran Tairod Pugh was convicted earlier this month in New York.

“This verdict sends a strong message to those who support terrorists,” acting special agent in charge of the FBI’s Phoenix division, Justin Tolomeo, said in a statement.

Kareem’s attorney could not be immediately reached for comment on Thursday, but Kareem maintained his innocence and denied involvement in the attacks when he took the stand for two days in the federal trial.

Kareem’s roommates, Elton Simpson and Nadir Soofi, of Phoenix were killed by Garland police after they opened fire with assault rifles outside the May 3 cartoon drawing event.

The contest was intended to satirize Islam’s Prophet Mohammed. It came months after gunmen killed 12 people in the Paris offices of French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo in what was said to be revenge for its cartoons depicting Mohammed.

Such portrayals are considered offensive by Muslims. None of the approximately 150 people attending the event in Garland in May were hurt.

The original indictment said Kareem supplied the two gunmen with arms and helped them prepare for the attack. He was later charged with showing support for the Islamic State militant group in social media posts, researching travel to the Middle East to train with terrorists and seeking to make explosives that could be used during last year’s Super Bowl in Arizona, the most-watched U.S. sporting event annually.

Prosecutors said Kareem could face a potential sentence of at least 45 years in prison.

(Reporting by David Schwartz in Phoenix; Editing by Curtis Skinner and Sandra Maler)

Two teen girls found shot dead at school in Phoenix suburb

GLENDALE, Ariz. (Reuters) – Two 15-year-old girls died on Friday in a shooting at a high school in the Phoenix suburb of Glendale and were found with a gun beside them, police said.

Glendale police spokeswoman Tracey Breeden said it was too early to determine if the incident at Independence High involved a suicide. But police were not seeking a suspect in the shooting and the school and surrounding community faced no threat, she said.

After a report of gunfire on Friday morning, police rushed to the school and found the two girls under a covered patio on the campus, Breeden said.

Each girl had a single gunshot wound and both were declared dead at the scene, with the gun beside them, she said. Police did not immediately release the girls’ names.

The school was placed on lockdown after the shooting and the street in front of the campus was shut down. During the lockdown students issued updates on social media from their classrooms as dozens of anxious parents, who were barred from the campus, gathered in the parking lot of a nearby Wal-Mart store to await their children.

Jasmine Molina, 15, was in English class when the lockdown was declared.

“I never thought it would happen here. This tells me that it could happen anywhere, at any school, even if it’s a good school,” said Molina, who was holding a stuffed bear her boyfriend had given her that morning for Valentine’s Day.

Ana Lisa Romero, whose son, Lalo, attends the school, said in a Facebook message to Reuters, “I am going crazy just thinking that could have been my son or nieces or nephews.”

Public officials expressed condolences over the shooting.

“Our hearts remain with the students, educators and families of Independence High School and the entire Glendale community,” Arizona Governor Doug Ducey said in a statement.

Independence High, which is just a couple miles outside Phoenix, has about 2,000 students, school district representative Sara Clawson said.

(Additional reporting by Eric Johnson in Seattle and Gina Cherelus in New York,; Writing by Alex Dobuzinskis; Editing by Scott Malone, Bill Trott and Jeffrey Benkoe)

3 Small Earthquakes Hit Central Arizona

Central Arizona was rattled Sunday night after experiencing 3 small earthquakes within a 3 hour period.

The United States Geological Survey (USGS) reported that the first earthquake had a 3.2 magnitude and struck just before 9 p.m. local time. At 11:29 p.m., a 4.1-magnitude earthquake struck the same area, and twenty minutes later, a 4.0-magnitude earthquake took place, according to Weather.com. No injuries or damages have been reported.

All three earthquakes were centered around Black Canyon City which is located about 45 miles north of Phoenix, and they ranged between 3-6 miles in depth.

“In general, it’s relatively small,” Zachary Reeves of the USGS said of the magnitude-4.1 peak earthquake Sunday, the largest of the series. “If people are in bed then people may not even be woken up by it.”

Residents in Phoenix did feel tremors from the quake. Geologist Michael Conway, chief of the Geologic Extension Service of the Arizona Geological Survey, told ABC News that central Arizona region has several inactive and active faults that reach throughout the state.

Since the USGS began keeping records of earthquakes, Arizona has seen 11 earthquakes of magnitude 4 or greater, and two of those 11 occurred on Sunday night.

Serial Shooter Terrorizing Phoenix Area

Drivers on Interstate 10 in the Phoenix area are in a heightened state of fear because of a serial shooter that has struck at least 11 times.

Local authorities confirmed that 11 vehicles have been hit with everything from BBs to bullets.

A 13-year-old girl was injured by flying glass after the windshield of the car she was riding was struck by a bullet.

The latest incident has the passenger side window of a truck shattered by a bullet.

One Arizona official says the incidents are domestic terrorism.

“Anytime that you have multiple shootings against American citizens on a highway, that’s terrorism,” Department of Public Safety Director Frank Milstead said. “They’re trying to frighten or kill somebody.”

A spokesman for Arizona’s state troopers says that someone needs to come forward to authorities with information on the shooter.

“What we have is a very dangerous situation and somebody knows something,” Raul Garcia said. “You need to let law enforcement know.”

Authorities told the public they have increased amounts of officers on the streets looking for the shooter or shooters.

“We have a number of officers … both uniformed, non-uniformed, plainclothes, undercover vehicles, marked vehicles on the road patrolling, looking for the suspect, looking for leads,” said Bart Graves, another Department of Public Safety spokesman.

Arizona Church Says “Don’t Abort, We’ll Adopt”

A Phoenix area church is telling women in their area who are facing an unplanned pregnancy that they will adopt their children in an attempt to stop them from killing their child via abortion.

Members of St. Stephen’s Parish say they hope the billboard will reach women who are considering abortion to make another choice.

“We’re just there to help, you know, if we can help save babies and you know, help these mothers and fathers. That’s what our goal is, you know, not to be judgmental. That’s not what this is about,” said Anne DeRose, the parish’s Respect Life Coordinator.

DeRose says the church has families that are ready to adopt but that the church will also partner with Catholic charities to find homes for every woman that is looking for adoption over abortion.

The Arizona Department of Health Services reported over 13,000 abortions in the state last year.