Month: May 2023

On Thursday, four members of the far-right Proud Boys organization were found guiltyof seditious conspiracy in connection with the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol. Enrique Tarrio, Joseph Biggs, Ethan Nordean and Zachary Rehl were found guilty on charges of seditious conspiracy, under a Civil War-era statute. They now likely face a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison. Dominic Pezzola, another member of the group, was found not guilty of seditious conspiracy. U.S. District Judge Timothy J. Kelly declared a mistrial on that count for Pezzola after the jury said it could not come to an agreement.

All five Proud Boys members were charged on nine counts in connection with the Jan. 6 attack, while Pezzola — who was caught on video smashing in a window with a Capitol Police shield during the breach, and who admitted to his behavior on the stand — was separately charged with a tenth count of stealing the police shield and found guilty Thursday. Pezzola was also found guilty of assaulting, resisting or impeding certain officers, while the other four defendants were acquitted on that charge. Tarrio, Biggs, Nordean and Rehl were also found guilty of conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding.

The Proud Boys trial was the third seditious conspiracy case to go before jurors since the Capitol attack: Six members of the far-right Oath Keepers group, including founder Stewart Rhodes, were convicted on that charge across two trials in November and January. Prosecutors argued that the Proud Boys were “thirsting for violence” on Jan. 6 and had organized in advance to stop certification of President Joe Biden’s win by “any means necessary, including by force.”

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Police in Davis, California announced on Thursday that an arrest has been made in connection with three stabbings — two of which resulted the death of a UC Davis college senior, and a homeless man.

Davis Police Chief Darren Pytel said at a news conference that the suspect was identified by police as 21-year-old Carlos Dominguez of Davis. He was a student at UC Davis as os last week, and was arrested on Thursday for two counts of homicide and one count of attempted homicide. The Davis Police Department said on Facebook that their dispatch center and TIP hotline received a call about a person matching the description of the suspect on Wednesday, reporting seeing someone who matched the suspect description and indicated that the person was seen in Sycamore Park and around surrounding areas. Officers went to the area and the person was found at Pine Lane and Colby Drive, near where the second stabbing took place. The suspect was found with a large fixed-blade knife, and based on information and evidence so far, Dominguez was arrested and charged with two counts of murder for David Breaux and Karim Abou Najm; and a count of attempted murder for Kimberlee Guillory, who is recovering from her injuries.

All of the stabbings occurred in Davis, California which is about 15 miles west of Sacramento. There are about 67,000 residents in the city and 13,000 students who live at UC Davis. The first death was reported last Thursday when David Henry Breaux, 50, was found on a bench; on Saturday, a second victim was found and identified as Karim Abou Najm; and on Monday, Kimberlee Guillory, a homeless woman in her 60s, was found stabbed. Although the first and third victims were homeless, they were not being targeted because of their living situation, Police Chief Pytel said.  Dominguez will be arraigned at the Yolo County Courthouse as soon as Monday.

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A man suspected of shooting five women inside an Atlanta medical facility waiting room is in custody, the Atlanta Police Department confirmed. One woman was killed and four others were wounded by a gunman inside a downtown medical office building on Wednesday; the shooting occurred at 12:42 p.m. EDT inside a building on West Peachtree Street between 12th and 13th Streets.

The Atlanta Police Department announced the apprehension of Deion Patterson, 24, following a manhunt that lasted almost eight hours. Police say he was arrested near the Truist Park baseball stadium after stealing a pickup truck near the scene of the shooting. Patterson was taken into custody around 8 p.m. Officers said his family has been cooperating in the investigation.

Robert Jansen, Chief Medical Officer at Grady Memorial Hospital, told reporters that three of the four women injured in the shooting are considered “critically ill” and are in the intensive care unit. Two of the patients underwent surgery Wednesday, and a third victim underwent an interventional radiology procedure to repair vascular injuries. The fourth victim is in stable condition.

The Northside Hospital building, where the shooting took place, will be closed Thursday and all appointments canceled. The hospital, which houses a cancer center, a radiology unit and orthopedics, issued a statement after the shooting, saying “this tragedy is affecting all of us, and we ask for patience and prayers at this time.”

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The Federal Reserve announced Wednesday a 10th interest rate hike on Wednesday, raising the rate to 5.25% — a 16-year high — as it continues its firefight against inflation. In a statement announcing the hike, it omitted previous language that signaled more hikes are likely.

Fed Chairman Jerome Powell faces pressure from politicians to stop raising rates, as fears of a recession increase. The most recent data show personal income levels increased by 0.3% from February to reach $67.9 billion, but inflation remains above the Federal Reserve’s target.

Democratic Sens. Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders, Sheldon Whitehouse and other lawmakers sent a letter to Powell saying that the Federal Reserve’s aggressive actions were threatening to throw millions of people out of work: “While the Fed should remain flexible to incoming data as it assesses the economy’s progress toward achieving lower inflation, the evidence to date suggests that progress can continue to be made without slamming the brakes on the economy and costing millions of Americans their jobs.” The lawmakers argued that Powell’s aggressive actions would end up hurting working families more than inflation has: “While we do not question the Fed’s policy independence, we believe that continuing to raise interest rates would be an abandonment of the Fed’s dual mandate to achieve both maximum employment and price stability and show little regard for the small businesses and working families that will get caught in the wreckage.”

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On Tuesday, the U.S. Justice Department – as well as International law enforcement organizations including European Union Agency for Law Enforcement Cooperation (Europol) — announced 228 arrests in 9 countries, and the seizure of more than a hundred guns in a “record-breaking” joint law-enforcement operation targeting fentanyl and opioid traffic on the dark web. The DOJ also said that the culmination of the operation included confiscating $53 million in cash and virtual currencies, as well as 850 kilograms of drugs that included 64 kilograms of fentanyl or fentanyl-laced narcotics.

Dubbed “Operation SpecTor” by the Justice Department, the law enforcement action was conducted by the Joint Criminal Opioid and Darknet Enforcement team, composed of multiple government agencies. Taking part in the operation: the FBI; the Drug Enforcement Administration; the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives; U.S. postal inspectors; the Naval Criminal Investigative Service; the Internal Revenue Service; and Homeland Security. Working alongside these agencies was international law-enforcement partners in Austria, France, Germany, The Netherlands, Britain, Brazil, Poland, and Switzerland.

In a statement, the DOJ said: “Operation SpecTor was a coordinated international effort spanning three continents to disrupt fentanyl and opioid trafficking on the darknet, or dark web … The operation was conducted across the United States, Europe, and South America, and was a result of the continued partnership between JCODE and foreign law enforcement against the illegal sale of drugs and other illicit goods and services on the darknet.”  

Attorney General Merrick Garland said the operation seized “117 firearms, 850 kilograms of drugs that include 64 kilograms of fentanyl or fentanyl-laced narcotics, and $53 million in cash and virtual currencies … Our message to criminals on the dark web is this: You can try to hide in the furthest reaches of the Internet, but the Justice Department will find you and hold you accountable for your crimes. The availably of dangerous substances like fentanyl on dark net marketplaces is helping to fuel the crisis that has claimed far too many American lives. We will continue to illuminate the dark web and we will bring to justice those who try to hide their crimes there.”

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After a third person was stabbed in a week in the college town of Davis, Calif., the city issued a shelter-in-place order for a part of Tuesday morning. The two previous stabbings resulted in death, marking the first homicides in Davis in three years. The latest stabbing in the home of the University of California, Davis, came just before midnight on Monday at a homeless encampment, where a woman was stabbed multiple times through a tent. The UC Davis Medical Center listed her in critical condition as of Tuesday.

A message issued by the city of Davis and the university read: “The suspect matches the description of previous stabbing incidents. He is described as a male wearing all dark clothing, possibly a blue shirt and jeans, carrying a black backpack and wearing black Adidas shoes with stripes.” Authorities said they looked for a suspect until close to dawn on Tuesday, at which point they lifted their shelter-in-place order. Davis Police were joined in the search by the Sacramento Police Department, Elk Grove Police Department, Yolo County Sheriff, West Sacramento Police Department, and Woodland Police Department. UC Davis said it brought in extra private security to the campus and added staffers to after-hours Safe Ride vans.

The first stabbing took place on Thursday at Davis’ Central Park. Police Chief Darren Pytel said at the time that the victim suffered from a “significant number of stab wounds.” Monday’s stabbing came shortly after the stabbing death on Saturday of UC Davis student Karim Abou Najm, 20, who was a local student expected to graduate this spring with a bachelor’s degree in computer science.

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