Tag Archives: Death

Lack of security footage hampers Ohio nightclub shooting probe

The parking lot of Cameo Nightlife club remains empty after police removed barrier tape from the scene of a mass shooting in Cincinnati, Ohio, U.S. March 26, 2017. REUTERS/Caleb Hughes

By Ian Simpson

(Reuters) – Ohio police have made no arrests yet in a fatal weekend shooting in a Cincinnati nightclub, in part because there was no security video footage available to investigators despite a history of violence at the venue, authorities said on Monday.

The shooting at the packed Cameo Nightlife early on Sunday left a 27-year-old man dead and 16 others wounded; the number of wounded had initially been put at 15 people.

The gunfire, which sent hundreds of patrons fleeing and ducking for cover, grew out of a dispute inside the club, where two shootings took place in 2015, authorities said.

Unlike last year’s massacre at a Florida nightclub, there was no indication that the Cincinnati shooting was “terrorism-related,” authorities said on Sunday. The rampage in Orlando last June was the worst mass shooting in U.S. history, leaving 49 people dead.

Even though Cincinnati police lacked a video recording of the chaos, Chief Eliot Isaac said on Monday the department was confident of finding those responsible.

The best witnesses to the shooting were those who had been shot and were still recovering, Isaac said at a televised hearing of the public safety panel. In addition, some witnesses were reluctant to cooperate immediately after the incident, police have said.

Isaac said the number of wounded rose to 16 after another person came forward late on Sunday claiming to have been hit by gunfire. Two people remained in critical condition at the University of Cincinnati Medical Center.

Patrons managed to bring guns into Cameo Nightlife even though four off-duty police officers were providing security in the parking lot. Employees also used handheld metal detectors to check patrons for firearms before they could enter the club.

Even so, one customer told the Cincinnati Enquirer newspaper that clubgoers in a “no-wait” line were not being screened.

Club owner Julian Rodgers issued a statement late on Sunday expressing condolences to the victims. “We will do everything in our power to cooperate and make sure the monsters that did this are caught and brought to justice,” he said.

A telephone call to the club was not answered and its Facebook page was unavailable. However, late Monday Cincinnati City Manager Harry Black said on Twitter that the club had voluntarily surrendered its liquor license and that the facility would be closed until the investigation is complete.

The shooting was the worst this year in the United States in terms of the total number of dead and wounded, according to the nonprofit Gun Violence Archive, which tracks U.S. shootings.

(Reporting by Ian Simpson in Washington; Additional reporting by Sharon Bernstein in Sacramento, California; Editing by Frank McGurty and Leslie Adler)

Migrant boat sinks off Turkish coast, 11 dead: DHA

Lifeguards from the Spanish NGO Proactiva Open Arms sanitise five dead bodies of migrants on-board the former fishing trawler Golfo Azzurro following a search and rescue operation in central Mediterranean Sea off the Libyan coast, March 24, 2017. REUTERS/Yannis Behrakis

ANKARA (Reuters) – A plastic boat carrying 22 migrants sank off Turkey’s Aegean coastal town of Kusadasi on Friday, killing 11 people and leaving four missing, the Dogan news agency (DHA) said.

Television footage showed bodies washed up on a beach near the town. Rescuers managed to save seven people from the stricken vessel and the coast guard was searching for any other survivors, Dogan said.

A deal between Turkey and the European Union on curbing illegal migration, struck a year ago, helped reduce the migrant influx to Europe via Greek islands to a trickle. But some are still trying to make the perilous voyage across the Aegean.

Just 3,629 refugees and migrants have crossed to Greece from Turkey so far this year, according to the United Nations refugee agency UNHCR, and about 60 arrive on Greek islands each day. At least 173,000 people, mostly Syrians, arrived in 2016.

Europe’s deteriorating relations with Turkey could endanger the deal, under which Ankara helps control migration in return for the promise of accelerated EU membership talks and aid.

President Tayyip Erdogan said on Thursday that Turkey would review all political and administrative ties with the EU after an April referendum, including the migrant deal.

Erdogan has been angered by Germany and the Netherlands cancelling planned rallies on their territory by Turkish officials seeking to drum up support for a “yes” vote in the referendum, which could lead to constitutional changes extending the powers of the presidency.

(Reporting by Tuvan Gumrukcu in Ankara and Karolina Tagaris in Athens; Writing by Nick Tattersall)

‘What a mad world’ says minister who tried to save wounded officer in parliament

MP Tobias Ellwood listens to speeches in Parliament the morning after an attack in Westminster, London Britain, March 23, 2017. Parliament TV/Handout via REUTERS

LONDON (Reuters) – The government minister who tried to resuscitate a police officer stabbed to death in the attack on Britain’s parliament described the incident on Thursday, saying “what a mad world.”

Tobias Ellwood, 50, a junior minister in the foreign office, walked away from the scene with blood on his face and hands.

Ellwood’s brief includes counter-terrorism. Before entering politics he served in Northern Ireland, Kuwait, Bosnia and other countries during a six-year spell in the British army.

Speaking to Britain’s Times newspaper, he said: “What a mad world — tried to save officer but stabbed too many times.”

“I was on the scene and as soon as I realized what was going on I headed toward it,” he said. “I tried to stem the flow of blood and give mouth-to-mouth while waiting for the medics to arrive but I think he had lost too much blood. He had multiple wounds, under the arm and in the back.”

Ellwood, whose brother was killed in a bomb attack in Bali in 2002, was hailed as a hero by fellow lawmakers, and many of Britain’s tabloid newspapers featured images of him knelt over the body of the victim just inside the gates of parliament.

A Reuters witness saw him walk away from the body, which was later covered in blankets, before comforting others in the area.

(Reporting by William James; editing by Stephen Addison)

Police officer, three others killed in Wisconsin shooting: reports

By Brendan O’Brien

MILWAUKEE (Reuters) – A police officer and three other people were killed in a string of shootings, including at a bank and a law firm, in central Wisconsin following what police referred to as domestic incident, media reported on Wednesday.

A suspect was taken into custody by police at an apartment building in Weston, a community of 15,000 about 90 miles (140 km) west of Green Bay, in the wake of the shootings, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel newspaper reported.

The incident began with a “domestic situation,” the Journal Sentinel reported, citing a press release from the Rothschild Police Department.

At about 12:30 p.m. central time shots were reported fired at the Marathon Savings Bank in the nearby town of Rothschild, Todd Baeten, police captain for Wausau, Wisconsin, told an afternoon press conference. Police found two people shot at the bank and that the suspect fled, the Journal Sentinel reported.

Shots were then reported at a law firm in Schofield, Wisconsin at about 1:10 p.m. About 20 minutes later, police received a call from an apartment building in Weston. Police converged on the apartment complex and took the suspect into custody about an hour later after more shots were fired, the Journal Sentinel reported.

It is unclear where the police officer was shot and killed. Police did not disclose the identities of the suspect and the four people who were killed. Wausau police and the Wisconsin Division of Criminal Investigations declined to confirm the casualties to Reuters.

(Reporting by Brendan O’Brien in Milwaukee; Additional reporting and writing by Dan Whitcomb in Los Angeles; Editing by Simon Cameron-Moore)

Four dead, others injured in UK parliament ‘terrorist’ attack

An air ambulance lands in Parliament Square during an incident on Westminster Bridge in London. REUTERS/Stefan Wermuth

By Toby Melville and William James

LONDON (Reuters) – Four people were killed and at least 20 injured in London on Wednesday after a car plowed into pedestrians and an attacker stabbed a policeman close to the British parliament, in what police called a terrorist incident.

The dead included the assailant and the policeman he stabbed, while the other two victims were among the pedestrians hit by the car as it tore along Westminster Bridge, which is right next to parliament.

“We’ve declared this as a terrorist incident and the counter-terrorism command are carrying out a full-scale investigation into the events today,” Mark Rowley, Britain’s most senior counter-terrorism officer, told reporters.

“The attack started when a car was driven over Westminster Bridge, hitting and injuring a number of members of the public, also including three police officers on their way back from a commendation ceremony.

“A car then crashed near to parliament and at least one man, armed with a knife continued the attack and tried to enter parliament.”

Reuters reporters who were inside parliament at the time heard loud bangs and shortly afterwards saw the knifeman and the stabbed policeman lying on the ground in a courtyard just outside, within the gated perimeter of the parliamentary estate.

A Reuters photographer said he saw at least a dozen people injured on the bridge. His photographs showed people lying on the ground, some of them bleeding heavily and one under a bus.

A woman was pulled alive, but with serious injuries, from the Thames, the Port of London Authority said. The circumstances of her fall into the river were unclear.

Three French schoolchildren aged 15 or 16 were among those injured in the attack, French officials said.

The attack took place on the first anniversary of attacks by Islamist militants that killed 32 people in Brussels.

PARLIAMENT SESSION SUSPENDED

“I just saw a car go out of control and just go into pedestrians on the bridge,” eyewitness Bernadette Kerrigan told Sky News. She was on a tour bus on the bridge at the time.

“As we were going across the bridge, we saw people lying on the floor, they were obviously injured. I saw about 10 people maybe. And then the emergency services started to arrive. Everyone was just running everywhere.”

The House of Commons, which was in session at the time, was immediately suspended and lawmakers were asked to stay inside.

Prime Minister Theresa May was safe after the incident, a spokesman for her office said. He declined to say where May was when the attack took place.

Journalist Quentin Letts of the Daily Mail newspaper told LBC radio that he had witnessed the stabbing of the policeman and the shooting of the assailant from his office in the parliament building.

“He (the assailant) ran in through the open gates … He set about one of the policemen with what looked like a stick,” Letts said.

“The policeman fell over on the ground and it was quite horrible to watch and then having done that, he disengaged and ran towards the House of Commons entrance used by MPs (members of parliament) and got about 20 yards or so when two plain-clothed guys with guns shot him.”

Britain is on its second-highest alert level of “severe” meaning an attack by militants is considered highly likely.

In May 2013, two British Islamists stabbed to death soldier Lee Rigby on a street in southeast London.

In July 2005, four British Islamists killed 52 commuters and themselves in suicide bombings on the British capital’s transport system in what was London’s worst peacetime attack.

(Additional reporting by Kylie Maclellan, Elizabeth Piper, Costas Pitas, Alistair Smout, Michael Holden, Kate Holton, Elisabeth O’Leary and London bureau, writing by Estelle Shirbon, editing by Stephen Addison, Mark Trevelyan and Guy Faulconbridge)

Severe storm kills one as it sweeps northern Georgia

By Gina Cherelus

(Reuters) – Strong winds, quarter-sized hail and lightning ripped through towns in northern Georgia, killing one man and leaving several cities with severe damage and power outages on Wednesday, local media and officials said.

The man died when a tree fell on a home near Braselton, about 53 miles northeast of Atlanta, just before 9 p.m. on Tuesday, according to Fox 5, a local news affiliate, citing the Jackson County Emergency Management office.

The name of the deceased was not immediately released.

As the storm slowly crossed the state on Tuesday afternoon, gusts of winds of about 60 miles per hour toppled trees and power lines, the National Weather Service said. Photos on social media showed large balls of hail and massive fallen trees.

A severe thunderstorm warning was issued until 10:30 p.m. on Tuesday for about 10 counties. By Wednesday morning there were no active storm watches, warnings or advisories for the area.

Several school systems in the north of the state said they would begin classes two hours late on Wednesday due to the power outages and large number of downed trees.

More than 170,000 residents in north Georgia and the Atlanta metro area lost power at the height of the storm, according to Georgia Power. Most of them were reconnected before dawn.

“Service restored to more than 135k overnight, additional crews moving in from other parts of state. Thank you for your continued patience,” Georgia Power (@GeorgiaPower) wrote on Twitter.

Georgia Electric Membership Corporation (EMC) reported that only about 15,000 customers were without power in north Georgia and the Atlanta area by early Wednesday.

(Reporting by Gina Cherelus; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama)

Abnormal El Nino in Peru unleashes deadly downpours; more flooding seen

Residents do the laundry at a flooded Ramiro Priale highway, after rivers breached their banks due to torrential rains, causing flooding and widespread destruction in Huachipa, Lima, Peru, March 20, 2017. REUTERS/Mariana Bazo

By Mitra Taj

LIMA (Reuters) – A sudden and abnormal warming of Pacific waters off Peru has unleashed the deadliest downpours in decades, with landslides and raging rivers sweeping away people, clogging highways and destroying crops.

At least 62 people have died and more than 70,000 have become homeless as Peru’s rainy season has delivered 10 times as much rainfall than usual, authorities said Friday.

About half of Peru has been declared in emergency to expedite resources to the hardest hit areas, mostly in the north where rainfall has broken records in several districts, said Prime Minister Fernando Zavala.

Peru is bracing itself for another month of flooding.

A local El Nino phenomenon, the warming of surface sea temperatures in the Pacific, will likely continue along Peru’s northern coast at least through April, said Dimitri Gutierrez, a scientist with Peru’s El Nino committee.

Coastal El Ninos in Peru tend to be preceded by the El Nino phenomenon in the Equatorial Central Pacific, which can trigger flooding and droughts around the world, said Gutierrez. But this year’s event in Peru has developed from local conditions.

The U.S. weather agency has put the chances of an El Nino developing in the second half of 2017 at 50-55 percent.

While precipitation in Peru has not exceeded the powerful El Nino of 1998, more rain is falling in shorter periods of time – rapidly filling streets and rivers, said Jorge Chavez, a general tasked with coordinating the government’s response.

“We’ve never seen anything like this before,” said Chavez. “From one moment to the next, sea temperatures rose and winds that keep precipitation from reaching land subsided.”

Some scientists have said climate change will make El Ninos more frequent and intense.

In Peru, apocalyptic scenes recorded on cellphones and shared on social media have broadened the sense of chaos.

A woman caked in mud pulled herself from under a debris-filled river earlier this week after a mudslide rushed through a valley where she was tending to crops.

Bridges have collapsed as rivers have breached their banks, and cows and pigs have turned up on beaches after being carried away by rivers.

“There’s no need to panic, the government knows what it’s doing,” President Pedro Pablo Kuczynski said in a televised event, urging people to stay clear of rivers.

In Lima, the capital, classes have been suspended and running water has been restricted after treatment systems were clogged – prompting a rush on bottled water that produced shortages at some supermarkets.

The vast majority of people affected by the extreme weather are poor, including many who built makeshift homes on floodplains that had been dry for 20 years, said Chavez.

“There’s no electricity, no drinking water…no transit because streets are flooded,” said Valentin Fernandez, mayor of the town Nuevo Chimbote.

Chavez said Peru must rethink its infrastructure to prepare for the potential “tropicalization” of the northern desert coast, which some climate models have forecast as temperatures rise.

“We need more and better bridges, we need highways and cities with drainage systems,” said Chavez. “We can’t count on nature being predictable.”

(This story corrects to remove reference in first sentence to extreme weather in Peru being a sign of a potential El Nino; corrects sixth paragraph to show that Gutierrez said local El Ninos in Peru tend to be preceded, not followed by, the global El Nino pattern and that this year’s event in Peru has developed from local conditions)

(Reporting by Mitra Taj; Additional reporting by Reuters TV; Editing by Leslie Adler)

DNA links man to two Michigan police shootings: law enforcement

(Reuters) – A man charged in the shooting of two Detroit police officers earlier this week has been linked through DNA evidence to the fatal shooting of a university police officer last year, authorities said.

Raymond Durham, 60, who was charged in shootings of two Detroit officers on Wednesday, is now the “prime suspect” in the November shooting death of Wayne State University Police Sergeant Collin Rose, Detroit Police Chief James Craig told the media on Friday.

Craig declined to provide details on the DNA evidence that links Durham to Rose’s death, citing the ongoing investigation.

Durham was charged by the Wayne County Prosecutor on Friday in connection with the shootings of the two Detroit officers, the Detroit Free Press reported.

He was arraigned while in hospital, where he is receiving treatment after being shot in the leg during a shoot-out with officers.

One officer was shot once in the ankle and twice in the upper torso, but was wearing protective body armor that likely saved his life. The other officer was shot in the neck, police said. They are both recovering in hospital, the Detroit Free Press reported.

The shoot-out occurred while officers were investigating drug activity on the city’s West Side, just blocks from where Rose, 29, was shot on Nov. 22. He died a day later.

Police are compiling evidence to present to prosecutors regarding Rose’s killing, Craig said on Friday. He said he anticipated charges would be filed against Durham for that shooting.

(Reporting by Timothy Mclaughlin in Chicago; Editing by Paul Tait)

Four suicide bombers kill two in northeast Nigeria’s Maiduguri

National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) workers attend to a woman after suicide bombers detonated their explosives along Muna Garage in Maiduguri, Nigeria, March 15, 2017. NEMA/Handout via REUTERS

By Kolawole Adewale and Lanre Ola

MAIDUGURI, Nigeria (Reuters) – Four female teenage suicide bombers killed two people and injured 16 others in a residential area in the northeast Nigerian city of Maiduguri, a disaster agency spokesman said on Wednesday.

The girls knocked on the door of a house and then detonated their devices, a representative of the state-run emergency service in Borno State said.

The focus on individual homes is a new tactic.

“Community leaders should create awareness among residents not to open their doors for anybody (if) they are not aware of the visit,” Borno police commissioner Damian Chukwu said.

The blasts in the Muna Garage area, on the edge of the city worst hit by jihadist group Boko Haram’s eight-year insurgency, occurred around 1:15 a.m (0015 GMT), National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) spokesman Abdulkadir Ibrahim said.

“Four female teenage suicide bombers and two other men died,” he said.

Hours later, suspected Boko Haram militants attacked the town of Magumeri, around 50 kilometers (31 miles) from Maiduguri, shooting indiscriminately and forcing locals to flee their homes, witnesses said.

Residents said the attackers burned down buildings and opened fire after arriving in vans and on motorcycles at around 05:00 p.m. (1600 GMT).

“They were shooting sporadically, one person was dead near them. The police station, village head’s house and other residences were burnt down,” civil servant Mustapha Aja said by telephone. He said he had been separated from his wife and children.

The number of attacks or attempted attacks bearing the hallmarks of Boko Haram in crowded areas, such as markets and refugee camps, has escalated since the end of the rainy season in late 2016.

Most of the attacks have either been foiled or the suicide bombers have only managed to blow themselves up.

The jihadist group has killed 15,000 people and displaced more than two million during its campaign to create an Islamic state governed by a harsh interpretation of sharia law in the northeast of Africa’s most populous nation.

It has also carried out cross-border attacks in neighboring Cameroon, Chad and Niger.

Cameroon said on Wednesday that West African forces had freed 5,000 people being held in villages by Boko Haram, in an operation that killed more than 60 fighters and destroyed the jihadist group’s hideout along the Nigeria-Cameroon border.

(Additional reporting by Ahmed Kingimi and Ardo Abdullahi; Writing by Alexis Akwagyiram; Editing by Catherine Evans)

Dozens killed in double suicide attack in Syrian capital

Security personnel stand near a damaged entrance after a suicide blast at the Palace of Justice in Damascus, Syria March 15, 2017. REUTERS/Omar Sanadiki

BEIRUT (Reuters) – Two suicide bomb attacks killed at least 31 people and wounded dozens more in Damascus on Wednesday, state media reported, in the second such spate of bombings in the Syrian capital in five days.

The first suicide bomber targeted the Palace of Justice, the main courthouse in central Damascus near the Old City. Justice Minister Najem al-Ahmad told reporters the initial death toll was 31, mostly civilians.

The second suicide blast struck a restaurant in the al-Rabweh area of Damascus to the west of the first attack causing several casualties, state media reported.

The courthouse bomber set off his explosive device at 1:20 p.m. (1120 GMT) as the police tried to search him and stop him from entering the building, state television cited the Damascus police chief as saying.

Syrian state television broadcast footage from inside the courthouse showing blood splattered on a floor littered with papers, a shoe and broken tiles and stones. Images from a hospital showed a man in a suit on a stretcher with blood on his clothes.

The explosion hit the courthouse “at a time when the area is crowded” with lawyers, judges and civilians, harming a large number of people, Ahmed al-Sayyid, a senior state legal official told state-run al-Ikhbariya TV.

He later added that 45 people had been wounded. No further details were immediately available.

“RETALIATION”

“The attack came as a retaliation against the latest victories of the Syrian army and the political victories in Geneva and Astana,” Ahmad said, referring to recent peace talks in Switzerland and Kazakhstan.

State media reported that the second bomber had entered the restaurant and detonated the device after having been chased by security forces.

On Saturday scores of people, most of them Iraqi Shi’ite pilgrims, were killed in a double suicide attack in Damascus claimed by an alliance of jihadist groups known as Tahrir al-Sham.

In late February an attack in central Homs killed dozens of people with coordinated shootings and suicide bombs that targeted two security headquarters and led to the death of a senior official.

That attack was also claimed by Tahrir al-Sham, which includes the Fateh al-Sham group that was formerly known as the Nusra Front until it formally broke ties with al Qaeda last year.

(Reporting by Ellen Francis in Beirut and Kinda Makieh in Damascus; Writing by Tom Perry and Angus McDowall; Editing by Ken Ferris and Gareth Jones)