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No arrests after 66 shot, 12 killed, in weekend Chicago gun violence

A Chicago police officer attends a news conference announcing the department's plan to hire nearly 1,000 new police officers in Chicago, Illinois, U.S. on September 21, 2016.

(Reuters) – Chicago police have made no arrests tied to the shootings of 66 people over the weekend, 12 of them fatal, but dozens were taken into custody on gun charges, the city’s police chief said on Monday.

Police Superintendent Eddie T. Johnson said additional officers had been deployed to prevent retaliatory shootings, leading to the arrests of 46 people on firearms charges. Police seized 60 guns, adding to a total of 5,600 already confiscated in Chicago so far this year.

“I share the anger and frustration that many Chicagoans are having today because, if anything, this should underscore the continuing issue that we have with illegal guns and offenders that are out on the street that are willing to use them,” Johnson said.

Johnson told reporters there were some promising leads in investigations of the weekend bloodshed, but he did not elaborate and provided few updates on crime statistics for the third most populous U.S. city. Authorities had previously said gun violence was on a decline this year.

“What happened this weekend did not happen in every neighborhood of Chicago but it is unacceptable to happen in any neighborhood of Chicago,” the city’s mayor, Rahm Emanuel, told reporters on Monday.

“There are too many guns on the street. Too many people with criminal records on the street. And there is a shortage of values of what is right and what is wrong,” said Emanuel, a Democrat.

An earlier wave of shootings in Chicago emerged as a talking point for Republican Donald Trump in his 2016 presidential campaign, as he pledged to crack down on street crime.

The rash of shootings over the weekend also elicited comments from President Donald Trump’s lawyer Rudy Giuliani, a former New York City mayor who has touted his crime-fighting record there.

Giuliani urged Chicago residents to vote against Emanuel’s bid for a third term next February and back Garry McCarthy, also a Democrat, who served as the city’s police chief for four years until 2015.

(Reporting by Makini Brice; Editing by Tom Brown)

Suspected Houston serial killer in custody after crime spree: police

(Reuters) – Houston police on Tuesday arrested a suspected serial killer who they believe murdered at least three people in a weekend crime spree that had prompted city authorities to warn residents of Texas’ largest city to be on “high alert.”

Officials said they arrested Jose Gilberto Rodriguez, 46, who they described as having gang ties and having days earlier removed a monitoring device that he wore as a condition of his parole before his crime spree.

Police said they would release more details on Rodriguez’ capture later on Tuesday.

The Houston area had been on edge after three people were killed beginning Friday. Police Chief Art Acevedo and Harris County Sheriff Ed Gonzalez held a joint news conference on Monday to warn that Gonzalez posed a threat to the community.

“Let’s get this man off the street as soon as possible,” Acevedo posted on Twitter.

The victims included a widow and two people who were killed in mattress stores, officials said.

In addition to the murders, Rodriguez is also suspected of a July 9 home-invasion robbery and the Monday shooting and robbery of a bus driver who is expected to survive the attack, Acevedo said at Monday’s news conference.

Acevedo did not discuss Rodriguez’ prior criminal convictions, and Houston police officials could not be reached for immediate comment. Local news media reported that the suspect was a registered sex offender.

“He cut his monitor just a matter of days ago, and next thing you know we believe he’s involved in this,” Acevedo said.

(Reporting by Peter Szekely in New York; Editing by Scott Malone, Jeffrey Benkoe and Jonathan Oatis)

California manhunt under way after random shootings target 10 drivers

A bullit hole in a victim's vehicle window is shown in this photo in Fresno County, California, U.S., provided December 21, 2017.

By Alex Dobuzinskis

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Police in California’s Central Valley have launched a manhunt for at least one suspect after a series of 10 random shootings on vehicles left one woman wounded this holiday season, officials said on Thursday.

Fresno County Sheriff Margaret Mims has warned the shooting attacks, which have occurred in her jurisdiction and neighboring Madera County, could turn deadly.

“If this keeps going, it’s going to be a matter of time before we have a murder investigation,” Mims said at a news conference. “That’s what we’re trying to avoid.”

Witnesses described the suspect’s vehicle as a dark colored pick-up truck with oversized tires, Mims said. The motive for the shootings is unknown, the Fresno County Sheriff’s Office said in a statement.

A woman was struck by a bullet when she was driving on Dec. 1 in rural Fresno County near the town of Kerman, less than 200 miles (322 km) southeast of San Francisco.

Her injuries were not life-threatening.

In the other nine shootings, which occurred between Nov. 27 and Dec. 17, cars were struck by gunfire but no one was wounded, authorities said. Most of the shootings were in Fresno County, just outside Kerman with its population of 15,000 people.

The drivers of those cars said they heard a bang, as another vehicle passed by, according to the Fresno County Sheriff’s Office.

Investigators are not sure if a single suspect is behind the attacks, or if others may be involved, said Fresno County Sheriff’s Office spokesman Tony Botti.

But Mims, speaking in general terms, addressed a single suspect during her remarks at the news conference.

“To the suspect, this is a cowardly act and we are working very hard to find you,” Mims said. “We will hold you responsible.”

Authorities believe the victims were randomly chosen.

A number of communities in the United States have dealt with random shootings on roadways over the years.

In 2015, 11 vehicles were struck by gunfire and a teenager was lightly wounded, in a series of shootings in the Phoenix area. A landscaper was arrested and charged later that year in connection with the attacks, but defense attorneys called into question ballistics evidence used to charge him.

A judge in 2016 tossed out charges against the landscaper, after prosecutors asked for them to be withdrawn.

(Reporting by Alex Dobuzinskis; editing by Diane Craft)

Freeport evacuating Indonesian mine worker families after shootings

TIMIKA, Indonesia (Reuters) – U.S. miner Freeport-McMoRan Inc is evacuating spouses and children of workers from its giant Indonesian copper mine after a string of shootings in the area raised security concerns.

The move follows efforts by Indonesian authorities on Friday to evacuate villages near Freeport’s Grasberg mine in the eastern province of Papua that authorities said had been occupied by armed separatists.

Since August at least 12 people have been injured and two police officers have been killed by gunmen with suspected links to separatist rebels.

Freeport has asked family and household members of its employees to prepare over the weekend for a temporary relocation from the mining town of Tembagapura, about 10 km (6.2 miles) from Grasberg, company sources said. Workers have been asked to stay behind and maintain their work schedule, they said.

Details of the evacuation or the number of people impacted were not immediately clear. Shots were fired at a light vehicle and two large mining trucks were set on fire at Grasberg on Saturday, one of the sources said. The sources declined to be named as they were not authorized to talk to the media.

Freeport in a statement on Saturday confirmed the evacuation plan and said it will be carried out immediately.

“We are working closely with government and law enforcement to ensure the safety of our people and those in the communities we support, and to bring about the return of peace and stability as soon as possible,” it said.

Grasberg is the world’s second-largest copper mine by volume.

The separatist West Papua National Liberation Army (TPN-OPM) says it is at war with Indonesian authorities and wants to “destroy” Freeport in an effort to gain sovereignty for the region.

TPN-OPM has claimed responsibility for the shootings but denies police allegations it took civilian hostages.

(Reporting by Sam Wanda in TIMIKA; Writing by Fransiska Nangoy and Fergus Jensen in JAKARTA; Editing by Muralikumar Anantharaman)

Tampa police hunt possible serial killer after three shootings

(Reuters) – Police in Florida warned residents of a central Tampa neighborhood not to go out alone after dark as they search for a possible serial killer they believe fatally shot three people in nighttime ambushes over the last two weeks.

At least two of the victims were trying to catch a bus in the Seminole Heights section when they were shot, police said.

Benjamin Mitchell, 22, was alone at the bus stop after dark when he was shot on Oct. 9. Monica Hoffa, 32, was walking through the neighborhood two days later to meet a friend when she was shot. Anthony Naiboa, 20, was trying to find a bus stop when he was shot on Oct. 19.

Police say they think a single killer is behind all three attacks because they happened so near to each other at roughly the same time in the evening and without any obvious motive.

“We need everyone to come out of their homes at night and turn on their porch lights and just not tolerate this type of terrorism in the neighborhood,” Brian Dugan, the Tampa police department’s interim chief, told reporters at a news conference on Friday.

He said people should not go out alone and should pay attention to their surroundings.

The U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and Crime Stoppers of Tampa Bay are offering a $25,000 reward for information leading to the arrest of the killer or killers.

Police have released an indistinct video of a person wearing a hooded top they think may be the killer.

(Reporting by Jonathan Allen in New York; Editing by Daniel Wallis and Jeffrey Benkoe)

Rainbows, angels mark a year since Florida nightclub shooting

Guests visit the memorial outside the Pulse Nightclub on the one year anniversary of the shooting, in Orlando, Florida.

By Christopher Boyd

ORLANDO, Fla. (Reuters) – The names of the 49 people killed at a Florida gay nightclub where a gunman turned a dance party into a massacre last year were read aloud on Monday at ceremonies marked by rainbow-hued memorials and guarded by supporters dressed as angels.

On the first anniversary of the worst mass shooting in modern U.S. history, officials asked Americans to join in acts of “love and kindness” to honor victims of the three-hour June 12, 2016 rampage at the now-shuttered Pulse club, including survivors still reeling from emotional and physical wounds.

Vigils and rallies were planned across the United States in a show of solidarity with victims of the attack, which authorities called a hateful act against lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people.

“People have asked me what has changed in my life. I tell them everything,” Pulse owner Barbara Poma told several hundred people gathered for a midday ceremony outside the club. “We are all changed.”

Choking back sobs, Poma said she missed everything about Pulse, whose site will become a permanent memorial.

Forty-nine pale yellow wreaths emblazoned with the victims’ names adorned a wall at the nightclub on Monday, and many people at the ceremony wore T-shirts bearing messages such as “we will not let hate win.”

Two women, one with a rainbow flag in her hair, embraced as the names of the victims were read aloud.

“We just had to come here today,” said Joe Moy, 56, of Orlando, who has two gay children and attended the event with his wife. “It was a tremendous outpouring of love.”

Survivors and victims had gathered privately at Pulse at 2:02 a.m. ET (0602 GMT) to mark the exact moment that gunman Omar Mateen, 29, opened fire during the club’s popular Latin night. He shot patrons on the dance floor and sprayed bullets at others cowering in bathroom stalls.

Holding hostages during his standoff with police, Mateen claimed allegiance to a leader of the Islamic State militant group before he was killed in an exchange of gunfire with authorities.

His widow, Noor Salman, is charged in federal court with aiding and abetting Mateen’s attack and lying to authorities. She was not present for the shooting and has pleaded not guilty.

With the massacre, more LGBT people were killed in the United States in 2016 than any of the 20 years since such record-keeping began, according to a report by the National Coalition of Anti-Violence Programs.

(Writing by Letitia Stein; Additional reporting by Chris Michaud in New York; Editing by Colleen Jenkins and Richard Chang)

Chicago police push for community assistance after deaths of three children

Chicago Police Department coordinator trying to bring community together

By Timothy Mclaughlin

CHICAGO (Reuters) – Glen Brooks, a Chicago Police Department area coordinator, stood in front of a sometimes hostile crowd for the third time this week, calling on the community to help curb the city’s gun violence.

“There is an evil out here, if we do not organize and become powerful it will continue to spread,” he said Thursday night, speaking in the parking lot of an auto parts store on the city’s West Side.

“It will continue to take our young men and turn them into something no parent could ever imagine.”

In the wake of three fatal shootings of young children — aged 2, 11 and 12 — in recent days, the department held a series of interventions aimed at convincing those in violent neighborhoods to become more involved.

The police also want to overcome years of mistrust that has led to hostility with the city’s minority communities, which see the police as having used excessive force against its members for years.

Discriminatory policing practices in Chicago’s minority neighborhoods have “eroded CPD’s ability to effectively prevent crime,” a January report from the Department of Justice said. The rate of solved murders in Chicago regularly lags the national average.

Neighborhoods on the city’s South and West Sides, where the three children were shot this week, are impoverished and plagued by unemployment.

Last year, Chicago, the nation’s third-largest city, had a surge in violence that sent murders to 762, the highest since 1996.

The children who died this week were three of the 74 people murdered so far this year, a decrease from 82 in the same period last year, according to police. The number of shootings has ticked up to 330 from 324 in the same period last year.

Police, and community activists, point to the arrest of Antwan Jones, 19, who turned himself in and was charged with first-degree murder in the killing of Takiya Holmes, 11, as an example of how quickly cases can be closed if people are willing to work with law enforcement.

“We need the community to help us,” Police Superintendent Eddie Johnson said after Jones’ arrest. “In this case, they stepped up.”

Police were assisted by community activist Andrew Holmes, who worked with other groups and spoke to Jones’ mother in an effort to convince him to turn himself in.

“They are not our enemy,” Holmes said of the police in an interview with Reuters.

(Reporting by Timothy Mclaughlin in Chicago; Editing by Dan Grebler)

Shootouts in Mexico show Trump’s drug cartel fight will be tough

By Christine Murray and Lizbeth Diaz

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) – Since Mexico’s top drug kingpin Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman was extradited to a U.S. jail, gunfights in broad daylight have rocked his home state of Sinaloa in a power struggle that is a reminder of how hard it is to crush the country’s drug cartels.

U.S. President Donald Trump on Thursday signed an executive order aimed at dismantling the cartels his spokesman called “a clear and present danger.” To succeed, history suggests, Trump will have to go further then capturing or killing gang leaders.

When leaders such as Guzman are taken out, others replace them or the cartels splinter. Either way, the flow of drugs to lucrative U.S. markets is rarely interrupted for long.

As boss of the Sinaloa cartel, Guzman escaped from prison twice before Mexico’s navy arrested him last year after a chase through city sewers. Flown to the United States in January, he is awaiting trial in a New York jail.

In his absence, violence has flared. The Sinaloans, long the world’s largest drug gang with a footprint across most of the United States, appear to be facing both an internal power struggle and challenges from upstart rivals.

Last month, there were 116 homicides in Sinaloa, 50 percent more than the same month in 2016, an official at the state attorney general’s office told Reuters.

Shootouts in the state capital Culiacan resulted in 12 deaths over three days in the last week alone, the office said in a statement. The state education ministry suspended classes in 148 schools on Wednesday, citing security issues.

A video obtained by Reuters from a Federal Police official showed a pick-up truck fitted with a mounted machine gun circling a gas station during a two-minute exchange of gunfire.

The official said the footage was taken in Culiacan. Reuters could not independently verify that. Earlier, a Mexican marine and five other people were killed in clashes with a drug gang’s armed convoy that was roaming the city.

Tomas Guevara, who studies crime at Sinaloa State University, attributed the outburst of violence to the breakdown of an alliance between factions, with Guzman’s sons Alfredo and Ivan Archivaldo on one side and another leader, Damaso “El Licenciado” Lopez, on the other.

Scott Stewart, vice president of tactical analysis at security consultancy Stratfor, said Chapo was out of touch now he was in a U.S. jail.

“That seems to have emboldened ‘El Licenciado’,” Stewart said.

After Guzman was extradited the night before Trump’s inauguration, former and current U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration officials told Reuters they expected an imminent move on Chapo’s sons by their rivals. A letter this week to a top Mexican journalist claimed they were injured in the latest violence.

U.S. HELP

In a call with Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto this month, Trump offered help, saying Mexico had not done a good job knocking the cartels out, according to a CNN report.

Trump’s executive order tells federal agencies to increase help for foreign partners on security and on intelligence sharing. The order was vague on details. The U.S. government and Mexico already work closely to tackle cartels.

For example, on Thursday, Mexican marines used a Black Hawk helicopter to kill eight alleged gang members including the head of the Beltran-Leyva gang, a rival of El Chapo. The United States sold Black Hawks to Mexico under the anti-cartel Plan Merida.

Steve Dudley of think-tank Insight Crime said it was impossible to end the flow of drugs, but more could be done on violence. Success would depend on stabilizing the volatile turn in bilateral relations under Trump.

“The overriding concern on the part of law enforcement officials on both sides of the border is that they are now at the whim of a seemingly erratic, chaotic approach,” he said.

Mexico’s national security commission did not respond to a request for comment.

(Reporting by Christine Murray and Lizbeth Diaz; Editing by Frank Jack Daniel and James Dalgleish)

Chicago’s gang violence catches highway drivers in crossfire

Mother cries for her son who was shot on the highway

By Timothy Mclaughlin

CHICAGO (Reuters) – Jonathan Ortiz and other members of his rap group, No Nights Off, stepped onto the stage at Chicago’s House of Blues in mid-September for a concert they hoped would propel their young, promising careers.

Less than two weeks later, the 22-year-old Ortiz, who forebodingly rapped under the stage name “John Doe,” was fatally shot as he drove on an expressway in Chicago. His girlfriend Alexis Garcia also got a bullet lodged in her back.

Ortiz and Garcia were victims of the 38th shooting on Chicago-area expressways in 2016, a record-high number for a city stung by a murder rate not seen in two decades.

“It is overwhelming that this is the reality in Chicago, that you can drive on the expressway now and get shot at,” said Tanue David, a family support specialist with the outreach group Chicago Survivors, who is working with the Ortiz family.

Officials say gang violence is increasingly spilling over onto Chicago’s expressways, with innocent drivers sometimes caught in the crossfire, while the state police force is shrinking.

The Illinois State Police, which has jurisdiction over the expressways, blamed gang warfare for the increased highway shoot-outs in 2016 that pose “an extreme danger to the motoring public.”

Ortiz was shot on Interstate 290, one of five expressways within city limits where shootings took place.

PERSISTENT INCREASE

Ortiz and Garcia were shot on the morning of Sept. 29 while Ortiz drove her SUV not far from his mother’s home.

Chicago police said Ortiz had no criminal record and several family members and friends said he was not affiliated with a gang. He and Garcia met three years ago on the shores of Lake Michigan.

“He was calm, that’s how I knew that God took him fast,” Garcia, who grew up in a suburb of Chicago, said of the moments after Ortiz was shot.

In 2011 and 2012, there were nine shootings on city expressways, according to state police, which had no data prior to that.

That number jumped to 16 in 2013 and 19 in 2014. It nearly doubled the next year to 37 and climbed again in 2016 to 47. Three shootings last year were fatal.

The rise in highway shootings came as Chicago suffered a broader surge in violence that saw 762 people murdered in 2016, a 57 percent increase from 2015, and the highest number since 1996.

The number drew the attention of President-elect Donald Trump, who said that Chicago’s mayor must ask for U.S. government help if the city fails to reduce its murder rate. [nL1N1ES0LX]

Chicago police cite a number of factors, including splintering gang structures and police drawing back from confrontation out of fear of increased scrutiny for their actions.

Chicago police Superintendent Eddie Johnson has vehemently blamed lax regulations for gun repeat offenders. “The people committing these crimes think the consequences for their actions are a joke,” he said last month.

DIFFICULT CRIME SCENES, DEPLETED RESOURCES

State police launched the Chicago Expressway Anti-violence Surge in February 2016 after the seventh freeway shooting, deploying aircraft, undercover officers and unmarked vehicles.

But the shooting numbers remained high and arrests were made in only one of last year’s expressway shootings. Uncooperative victims and expansive crime scenes hamper efforts to solve the cases, state police said.

Political gridlock in Springfield is also a factor, said Joe Moon, president of the Illinois Troopers Lodge 41 Fraternal Order of Police, the union representing state troopers.

Feuding between Republican Governor Bruce Rauner and Democrats who control the legislature has kept the state without a full operating budget since July 2015. That meant no cadet hires in 2015 and 2016, and 2017 remains in limbo as well, state police said. [nL1N1DF1XU]

Since 2000, the number of sworn officers has declined steadily to just over 1,600 from around 2,100, Moon said.

State police said the budget impasse had no impact on the force’s work. Governor Rauner’s spokeswoman, Catherine Kelly, declined to comment beyond what state police said.

At a December vigil, friends and family gathered by a roadside memorial of flowers and photos as one of Ortiz’s songs thumped from a nearby sports car.

“Chicago I beg of you … this needs to stop,” Ortiz’s friend Sharee Washington, 29, said. “You are destroying people.”

(Reporting by Timothy Mclaughlin in Chicago; Editing by David Gregorio)

Police officers shot in Texas, Missouri and Florida

San Antonio Police Detective Benjamin Marconi, 50, is shown in this photo provided by the San Antonio Police Department, in San Antonio, Texas, U.S.

By Jim Forsyth

SAN ANTONIO (Reuters) – A police officer was killed in Texas and another wounded in Missouri in apparently unrelated ambush-style shootings, while a third officer was shot and wounded in Florida, authorities said on Monday.

The latest attacks on U.S. law enforcement revived painful memories of deadly ambushes targeting police in July in Dallas and Baton Rouge.

A manhunt was underway for the suspect who killed the officer in San Antonio, Texas, while the suspect in the Missouri shooting died in a shootout with authorities.

In Sunday’s first incident, 50-year-old Benjamin Marconi, a 20-year veteran of the San Antonio force was fatally shot as he sat in his squad car during a routine traffic stop outside the city’s police headquarters.

The assailant stopped his car behind the police cruiser, walked up and shot the officer in the head through the window as he was writing a ticket, Police Chief William McManus said.

The gunman then reached through the window, fired a second shot into the officer, returned to his vehicle and sped away.

Hours later, a 46-year-old St. Louis police sergeant was shot in the face by someone in a car who pulled up beside the officer’s cruiser at an intersection, opened fire, then fled. St. Louis Police Chief Sam Dotson said the wounded officer was conscious and able to speak after the attack.

The suspect was later killed in a shootout after officers spotted his car, police said on Monday.

The unidentified suspect was wanted for other violent crimes and likely shot the officer “in fear of being recognized,” police said in a statement.

‘WORST NIGHTMARE’

Meanwhile, a third police officer was shot during a traffic stop on Sanibel Island on Florida’s Gulf Coast, but was not seriously hurt, local media reported.

The officer was treated for a shoulder wound and later released from the hospital, according to the reports, while the suspect was apprehended at his home on an island off Ft. Myers.

Investigators in Texas said they did not have any immediate clues to the identity of the San Antonio gunman. They found no apparent link with the man who had been pulled over, McManus told reporters.

“This is everyone’s worst nightmare,” McManus said. Referring to the recent ambush killings of police officers in Texas and Louisiana, he said, “You never want to see anything like this happen. Unfortunately, like Dallas, like Baton Rouge, it’s happened here now.”

McManus said the suspect’s image was captured by security cameras.

McManus did not say whether police believe there was a racial element to the shooting. He said San Antonio officers were being ordered to call for backup during traffic stops.

The latest shootings come amid an intense national debate over the role of law enforcement and especially the use of force by officers against minorities.

In July, five Dallas police officers were killed when a black U.S. military veteran opened fire during a protest against police shootings of black men. Days later, a gunman killed three police officers and wounded four others in Baton Rouge.

Earlier this month, an Iowa man was charged with killing two police officers who were shot in their patrol cars in the Des Moines area. He had been ejected by police from a high school football game after waving a confederate flag at black spectators.

A total of 57 U.S. law enforcement officers have been killed by gunfire so far this year, a 68 percent increase from the same period in 2015.

(Additional reporting by Steve Gorman in Los Angeles, and by Chris Michaud and Laila Kearney in New York; Editing by Daniel Wallis and Jeffrey Benkoe)

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