Month: June 2022

Police arrested an armed man near the Maryland home of Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh just before 2 a.m. EDT on Wednesday. Authorities noted that the man, identified as 26-year-old Nicholas John Roske of Simi Valley, California, said that he wanted to kill Kavanaugh, and had called 911 on himself. During the call, police said Roske told them he’d had homicidal thoughts and traveled from California to attack Kavanaugh.

According to a FBI affidavit filed on Wednesday, Roske was carrying a suitcase and backpack filled with a tactical knife, a Glock 17 pistol, two magazines, ammunition, pepper spray and zip ties. He also had on hand a hammer, screwdriver, nail punch, crowbar, pistol light and duct tape. Roske told law enforcement he had traveled from California to kill “a specific United States Supreme Court Justice.” The affidavit said Roske was upset about the leak of the Supreme Court opinion related to abortion rights, an upcoming gun control case and the school shooting last month in Uvalde, Texas.

The incident comes at a time of heightened concern for for justices of the Supreme Court, stemming from an impending decision on legalized abortion.  A leaked draft opinion from the Supreme Court about a month ago indicated the conservative-majority court is preparing to overturn the landmark abortion ruling in Roe vs. Wade. The court’s decision on abortion will be delivered sometime before the Supreme Court’s term ends later this month. At the end of the term, Associate Justice Stephen Breyer will retire and will be succeeded by Ketanji Brown Jackson, President Joe Biden’s first high-court appointee.

The 57-year-old Kavanaugh has been a controversial justice since he was nominated by President Donald Trump in 2018. He faced accusations of sexual misconduct at his Senate confirmation hearings, but narrowly won confirmation by a vote of 50-48.

Roske appeared in a Greenbelt, Maryland, federal court Wednesday and agreed to remain in jail. A preliminary hearing is scheduled for June 22.

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The House committee on gun control heard testimony on Wednesday from witnesses and survivors of the Uvalde shooting. The hearing was held ahead of scheduled votes in the House on several pieces of gun control legislation, and included survivors of the shooting, several parents and a doctor who treated some of the children killed in the shooting.

Robb Elementary fourth grader Miah Cerrillo told the committee her teacher got an email alert about the shooter and attempted to close the classroom door but he’d already got there. “He told my teacher goodnight and then shot her in the head. And then he shot some of my classmates,” said Miah, telling the committee that she covered herself in blood from another student the gunman had shot and stayed quiet, playing dead, before getting to her teacher’s phone and to call 911.  Miguel Cerrillo, Miah’s father, testified:  “I wish something would change, Not only for our kids but for every single kid in the world because schools aren’t safe anymore. Something needs to really change.”

Kimberly Rubio, who lost her 10-year-old daughter Lexi in the Uvalde shooting, testified that she would like to see the legal age to buy an AR-15 rise to 21 and a ban on high-capacity magazines, as well as stronger background checks for people buying firearms. During her emotional testimony, Rubio said, “Today we stand for Lexi, And as her voice we demand action. We seek a ban on assault rifles and high-capacity magazines. To people with money, to people who fund political campaigns, guns are more important than children.” 

Zeneta Everhart, whose son was shot in the Tops Market mass shooting in Buffalo, said: “America is inherently violent, this is who we are as a nation. The very existence of this country was founded on violence, hate and racism with the near-annihilation of my native brothers and sisters.”  Everhart told the committee thoughts and prayers are not enough:“We need you to stand with us in the days, weeks, months years to come and be ready to go to work to create the change this country so desperately needs.” 

Rep. Carolyn Maloney, D- N.Y. said: “Gun violence is the leading cause of death for children in our country, As a society are failing our children and we are failing each other.” Maloney said that no other country comes close to the United States in mass shootings, noting that between 2009 and 2018, the United States had 288 school shootings compared to the combined five in the six other G7 nations. She said “We stand alone in mass shootings — other countries pass sensible gun safety laws and protect their children.”

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Authorities confirmed that one climber is dead, and several others were injured in separate incidents on Northern California’s Mount Shasta on Monday during “very tough conditions”. Mount Shasta is a potentially active volcano and a major peak of the Cascade Range. It has an elevation of 14,179 feet.

The Siskiyou County Sheriff’s Office said rescuers responded to three incidents on the mountain near the Oregon border over the course of several hours. The fatal incident involving three climbers was reported at 8:39 a.m. around Avalanche Gulch, which authorities described as a snowy glacier climb on the mountain. One climber was confirmed dead before rescue efforts could be performed, the sheriff’s office said. The second climber in this incident was in critical condition while a third was recovering from injuries that included a broken ankle.

A second incident occurred around Avalanche Gulch at 12:31 p.m., with rescue crews airlifting one climber in critical condition to safety. The sheriff’s office said that in yet another separate incident, a fifth climber was rescued around 4 p.m. after suffering injuries on the mountain. A helicopter crew located her and airlifted her to a hospital.

The sheriff’s office later posted a climbing advisory video with another climber describing the conditions on the mountain as “very tough.”  In the video, Wallace Casper of Bozeman, Montana said a lot of people were slipping and sliding due to a layer of water ice on top of the snowpack, conditions which he said make it “pretty much impossible to self-arrest” as a skier.

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Uvalde, Texas native Matthew McConaughey visited the White House on Tuesday, and emotionally urged leaders to make the loss of 19 children and two teachers in last month’s mass school shooting “matter” by enacting stricter gun laws.

McConaughey said during the White House briefing:  “So I am here today in the hopes of applying what energy, reason and passion that I have and to try and turn this moment into a reality because this moment is different. We start by making the loss of these lives matter.  We start by making laws that save lives and don’t infringe on our Second Amendment rights. We start right now by voting to pass policies that can keep us from having so many Columbine, Sandy Hooks, Parklands, Las Vegas and Uvaldes.”

McConaughey called for gun responsibility, not gun control, saying: “We need background checks. We need to raise the minimum age to purchase an AR-15 rifle to 21. We need a waiting period for those rifles. We need red flag laws and consequences for those who abuse them.”

McConaughey visited his hometown after the shooting, and as he spoke he showed photos of the children killed and described how their families pleaded with him to make sure their loss mattered.  The actor said: “We need to invest in mental health care. We need safer schools. We need to restrain sensationalized media coverage. We need to restore our family values. We need to restore American values.”

McConaughey challenged leaders in Washington, D.C. to finally enact gun laws that save lives: “Can both sides see beyond the political problem at hand and admit that we have a life preservation problem on our hands This should not be a partisan issue. As divided as our country is, this gun responsibility issue is one that we agree on more than we don’t Find the middle ground, a place where most of us Americans live anyway, especially on this issue, because I promise you, America, you and me, we are not as divided as we are being told we are.”

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