‘Nobody Deserves That’: Mom Of D.C. Crime Victim Says Nation’s Capital Needs Intervention
Congressional intern Eric Tarpinian-Jachym died because D.C.'s local leadership isn't willing to enforce the law.Congressional intern Eric Tarpinian-Jachym died because D.C.'s local leadership isn't willing to enforce the law.Retired Chicago police officer shot while attempting to stop a robbery
A retired Chicago police officer is in serious condition after he was shot while attempting to stop a robbery in the city's South Side Thursday morning.
The shooting happened around 7:30 a.m., outside a currency exchange business on 71st Street and Wentworth Avenue, WGN-TV reported.
Police said that a 58-year-old female employee was opening the currency exchange when a car approached her. Two men got out of the vehicle and attempted to rob the woman.
The currency exchange security guard, a 60-year-old retired police officer, intervened and tried to assist the woman. Police said there was an exchange of gunfire and the retired officer was shot six times.
The man was transported to the University of Chicago Medical Center, where he's listed in serious condition, according to WGN. The woman was unharmed. It is unknown whether any of the suspects were injured.
The Chicago Police Department released surveillance video of the shooting on Friday. The video shows a gray Dodge Durango pulling up to the currency exchange and two men exiting the vehicle as the female employee was opening the business. One of the men approaches the woman, while the other suspect approaches a parked car, which WGN reported could be the retired officer's vehicle.
CPD spokesman Tom Ahern said it was not clear who fired the first shot, according to the Chicago Tribune. After the shooting, the suspects fled in the vehicle, Ahern said.
An investigation to into the shooting is ongoing and no arrests have been made.
Police said the retired officer's actions were "heroic."
“Even as a retired officer, he did his best, he did his job and he saved a person’s life,” CPD Deputy Chief Fred Melean told reporters at a news conference.
"There's three offenders in total," Melean said. "We don't know exactly at this time how many shot. But you're talking — when somebody's attempted to rob [you] with a handgun, shooting multiple times, definitely that person's life was saved."
The shooting comes two weeks after another retired Chicago police officer was injured in an exchange of gunfire with carjackers outside his Lawndale home. A 17-year-old boy was charged with attempted murder after the retired officer was shot four times.
Sixty-six people were killed in Chicago last month, bringing the total number of homicides in the city up to 448 in 2022, according to police department data. Shootings are down compared to the same time last year, but the number of homicides is still higher than pre-pandemic levels.
Here's more from WGN-TV:
Police: 10-year-old fatally shoots 12-year-old boy in St. Louis
A 12-year-old boy tragically died on Tuesday after being fatally shot by a 10-year-old.
The two children reportedly found a loaded gun while playing inside a home in north St. Louis, Missouri. While playing with the firearm, the 10-year-old fatally shot the older child, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported.
Maj. Ryan Cousins, a St. Louis police officer, said that officers responded to a report of a shooting in the Walnut Park West neighborhood shortly after 7:30 p.m. Tuesday.
Cousins said, “A 12-year-old was fatally shot, and it appeared the boy, and a 10-year-old family member had been playing with a gun they found when it went off, striking the 12-year-old.”
Reportedly, there was an emotionally tense gathering of people from the neighborhood in the incident’s immediate aftermath.
This tragic incident comes just days after the killing of two other children in a shooting at a family party.
The deceased, a 14-year-old boy and a 12-year-old girl, were cousins who were killed at a family party in an apartment.
The 12-year-old killed her 14-year-old cousin and then turned the gun on herself, taking her own life.
Family members of the children believe the deaths were accidental.
The shootings were publicly streamed on Instagram Live while the children were making a video together. Family members of the children said they were alone together in the apartment’s bathroom, with the gun, filming their video with the bathroom’s mirror.
The 12-year-old girl’s grandmother said that the children were close friends who were raised together. Family members said that the two children were always together, communicating through Facetime, rapping, making videos for social media, and pulling pranks.
She said, “It wasn’t a situation where they were arguing or anything like that. They were playing with the gun when they shouldn’t have been. Of course, they shouldn’t have been doing it. I think it just went off.”
“It went off by mistake,” she affirmed.
Initially, the St. Louis police listed the tragic incident as a “murder-suicide,” to the chagrin of the children’s family members.
The girl’s mother said, “It was no murder. It wasn’t a suicide.”
“It was a freak accident. It happened,” she continued.
The mother lamented that the children were “trying to be hip.”
According to data acquired from the FBI, St. Louis has the highest murder rate of any city in the United States. In 2018, St. Louis experienced 88.1 murders per 100,000 residents.
CBS News reported that in 2019, St. Louis retained its spot as the most lethal city in the country while its murder rate declined to 65.54 murders per 100,000 residents.
An allegedly schizophrenic serial killer has been arrested in Portland after launching a string of violent homicides
An alleged schizophrenic serial killer living in Portland, Oregon, has been arrested in connection with a spate of deadly and seemingly random attacks.
Joseph Kelly Banks, 49, was living in a group home for adults diagnosed with serious mental illnesses when he allegedly committed a string of murders in the first three months of 2022. Banks is accused of carrying out two other non-fatal shootings and an additional attack during this time, the New York Post reported.
The alleged victims of Banks were three men who were found dead in or near their cars in Portland on either the first or second day of January, February, or March of this year. Banks is accused of shooting these men to death.
It appears that in February, Banks shot another man and a woman in a park and wounded a third person, authorities said.
The attacks and killings were linked together through forensic evidence and security footage, and it is believed that all of the victims were strangers to Banks.
On Monday, a grand jury charged Banks with 15 counts related to the violent spree. These include three counts of second-degree murder with a firearm.
Banks’ attorney entered a not guilty plea. The Daily Mail reported that Banks was arraigned on the new indictment on Tuesday
Banks is next due in court May 9.
In 2007, Banks was committed to a psychiatric facility for at least a decade after being found not guilty on a weapons charge on the basis of insanity.
At the time of this insanity plea, Banks was diagnosed with schizophrenia and antisocial personality disorder. Doctors warned that he posed a danger to other people.
In February 2021, Banks was released to a halfway house under federal supervision. At the time, psychiatrists said that he could be stabilized on a “regimen of psychotropic medication.”
Banks’ habit of allegedly violently killing people is apparently not uncommon in the city of Portland.
In late February, data from the Portland Police Bureau (PPB) showed that in the first two months of 2022, there were 234 shootings resulting in 64 injuries, and of the 19 recorded homicides, 18 were caused by gunfire, KOIN-TV reported.
Police Commissioner Mingus Mapps said, “The homicide rate is concerning in every way and is an absolute emergency. It is already having an impact on our economic recovery, including tourism. Frankly, the general state of our city isn’t compatible with tourism and that is a significant challenge.”
The Portland Police Bureau did not immediately respond to TheBlaze’s request for comment.
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