Crime

Minutes Before School Attack, Texas Gunman Sent Online Warning

Published

3 years ago

May 26, 2022

By Derrick Bangura

The Texas gunman who murdered 19 children and two teachers posted an online message warning that he was going to shoot up an elementary school minutes before he attacked, Governor Greg Abbott said on Wednesday, as harrowing new details of the massacre emerged.
The gunman, whose rampage ended when police killed him, also had sent a message on Tuesday saying he was going to shoot his grandmother, followed by another internet post confirming he had done so, Abbott said at a news conference.
The suspect’s grandmother, shot in the face before her grandson left the home they shared and attacked the school, survived and called police.
The gunman, identified as Salvador Ramos, 18, otherwise gave no warning he was about to commit what now ranks as the deadliest U.S. school shooting in nearly a decade, authorities said.
Fleeing the shooting of his grandmother, he crashed his car near Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, about 80 miles (130 km) west of San Antonio, then managed to evade a school police officer who approached him before running inside.
No gunfire was exchanged at that point, according to police. But authorities offered few details of the encounter, likely to become a focus of investigations, except to say that the suspect dropped a bag full of ammunition and ran toward the school when he saw the officer.
Ramos then entered the school through a back door carrying an AR-15-style rifle and made his way to a fourth-grade classroom where he shot all of the people who were slain. Authorities said he had legally purchased two rifles and 375 rounds of ammunition days before the shooting.
Meanwhile, police surrounded the building, breaking windows to help children and staff escape. U.S. Border Patrol agents also responded and entered the building to confront the shooter, with one agent wounded “in the crossfire,” homeland security officials said.
Eventually, Ramos, a high school dropout with no known criminal record or history of mental illness, was shot dead by law enforcement.
Abbott said 17 people suffered non-life-threatening injuries. The wounded included “multiple children” who survived the gunfire in their classroom, Texas Department of Public Safety spokesperson Chris Olivarez said.

The shooter’s online posts were made on Facebook, the governor said, but spokespeople for Facebook’s parent company, Meta Platforms (FB.O), said they were private one-to-one messages discovered after the shooting. The company declined to say who received the messages or which of Meta’s platforms, such as Messenger or Instagram, was used to send them.

Victims’ loved ones took to social media to express anguish over the loss of children who never came home from school.

“We told her we loved her and would pick her up after school,” Kimberly Mata-Rubio posted on Facebook in a remembrance of her daughter, Alexandria Aniyah Rubio, a fourth-grade honor student. “We had no idea this was goodbye.” read more

GUN CONTROL DEBATE

Investigators have not suggested a motive for the shooting, and little about the suspect’s background immediately came to light.

The suspect’s mother, Adriana Reyes, was quoted in an interview with the British-based news site DailyMail.com describing her son as someone who “kept to himself and didn’t have many friends.”

Ten days earlier an avowed white supremacist shot 13 people at a supermarket in a mostly Black neighborhood of Buffalo, New York, re-igniting a national debate over U.S. gun laws.

In a sign of the charged political atmosphere, Beto O’Rourke, the Democratic candidate challenging Abbott in a November election, interrupted the news conference to confront the governorover the state’s permissive gun laws, shouting “You are doing nothing!” read more

Several officials gathered on stage around the governor yelled at O’Rourke. “You’re a sick son of a bitch who would come to a deal like this to make a political issue,” one of them said, though it was not clear who.

O’Rourke was escorted from the building and spoke to reporters outside. He said it was “insane” that an 18-year-old was legally permitted to acquire a semi-automatic rifle and vowed to pursue gun restrictions.

Abbott said stringent gun laws do not prevent violence, citing states such as New York. He said policy-makers should instead focus on mental health treatment and prevention.

U.S. President Joe Biden, calling for new gun safety restrictions in a nationally televised address on Tuesday evening, is planning a trip to Texas soon, a senior administration official said. read more

New legislation appeared unlikely to pass in Washington. Virtually all Republicans in Congress oppose tighter gun controls, and there was no sign the latest massacre would alter the equation.

The National Rifle Association’s annual meeting starts on Friday in Houston, where Republicans including Abbott, Texas U.S. Senator Ted Cruz and former President Donald Trump were scheduled to address the gun rights group.

In a statement, the NRA expressed sympathy for the victims but said the event would go on as planned.

World leaders expressed shock and sorrow. Pope Francis on Wednesday said he was “heartbroken” and called for an end to “the indiscriminate trafficking of weapons.”

Shootings have become so commonplace in American schools that data shows a gun being fired almost every day this year on school property, according to the K-12 School Shooting Database at the Naval Postgraduate School’s Center for Homeland Defense and Security.

The Texas rampage stands as the deadliest U.S. school shooting since a gunman killed 26 people, including 20 children, at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut in December 2012.

Uvalde, deep in the state’s Hill Country region, has about 16,000 residents, nearly 80% of them Hispanic or Latino, according to U.S. Census data.

By early evening, the elementary school remained cordoned off with crime-scene tape, as passers-by walked up periodically to hand off flowers and stuffed animals to a police officer who carried it over to a makeshift memorial taking shape near the building.

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Crime

2 ladies docked for allegedly obtaining money by fraud

Published

2 weeks ago

December 16, 2024

Saadatu Sahabo

The police in Lagos have dragged two women, Mmesuma Ofunna, and Blessing Adimekwe, before an Ojo Magistrates’ Court in Lagos, over alleged obtaining money by false pretence.

Ofunna, 22, and Adimekwe, 25, were arraigned before the Magistrate, Mr L K J Layeni, on a four-count charge bordering on conspiracy, obtaining by false pretence, stealing and conduct likely to breach peace.

They each, however, pleaded not guilty to the charge.

The prosecutor, ASP Simon Uche, told the court that the defendants conspired with others now at large, to commit the offence on Oct. 26 at the Okokomaiko area of Ojo.

He alleged that they had obtained the sum of N70, 000 from one Faith Ahamefule, with a promise not to post her nude photo on social media.

The prosecutor alleged that the defendants later posted the nude photo of the nominal complainant on social media, knowing that their promise was false.

He alleged that they stole the N70, 0000, thereby conducting themselves in a manner likely to breach public peace.

The offence contravenes the provisions of sections 168(d), 287, 314, and 411 of the Criminal Law of Lagos State 2015.

The court granted the defendants bails in the sum of N500, 000 each, with two sureties each in like sum.

He adjourned the case until Jan. 8, 2025 for mention.

Crime

Mechanic jailed 15 months for pickpocketing passengers

Published

2 weeks ago

December 16, 2024

Saadatu Sahabo

A Jos Magistrates’ Court on Monday, sentenced a 26-year-old Mechanic, Sadiq Umar to 15 months imprisonment for pickpocketing from passengers.

The Magistrate, Shawomi Bokkos, summarily tried and sentenced the convict after he pleaded guilty to the charge.

Bokkos in his judgment, ordered the convict to pay an option of N100, 000 fine or spend one year in prison.

He also asked him to pay a compensation of N15, 000 or an additional three months in prison in default.

Earlier, the Prosecutor, Insp Ijuptil Thiawur, told the court that the case was reported on Nov.16, at the “A” Division Police station by Moses Pam, Alexander Bakshak and Simon Justice the complaints.

Thiawur said that the convict attempted to steal from them before he was caught in the act and when the driver stopped the vehicle to search him he fled but was caught.

The Police said that the offence contravened the Plateau Penal Code Law.

Crime

Police detain 2 suspected fraudsters, reject N66m bribe in Lagos

Published

2 weeks ago

December 16, 2024

Saadatu Sahabo

Police rescue 14 passengers from bandits in Jibia

The Zone-2 Police Command in Lagos says it has detained two suspected international fraudsters that allegedly specialised in forging foreign certificates in Lagos and Ghana.

The AIG in charge of the zone, Adegoke Fayaode, confirmed this to the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Monday.

Fayoade said that the suspects allegedly offered N66m to the operatives with a view to free them but the offer was turned down.

NAN reports that the same zone operatives rejected a N174m bribe offered by a suspect in November to set him free.

Fayoade said that the suspects simply identified as Elvis, 23 and Kelly, 24, allegedly specialised in forging certificates of different nations and African Universities and defrauding their unsuspecting victims on the internet.

He said that the suspects have succeeded in acquiring exotic cars and erecting mansions in different parts of the country with the proceeds of their loot.

The AIG pointed out that luck ran out of the suspects after detectives at the Anti-Corruption Unit of the Zone received credible information from Nigerians in diaspora concerning some group of boys that specialised in forging foreign certificates.

According to him, on getting the information, he detailed the anti-corruption unit to investigate it and arrest the suspects without delay.

Fayoade said that based on his directives, the detectives stormed Murtala Muhammed International Airport, Ikeja, Lagos waiting for the arrival of the suspects, whom they trailed to a five star hotel at Osapa-London in Lekki Area.

He said that the operatives arrested the suspects at a bus stop while they were about to escape secretly from the hotel, after monitoring their activities.

“Searching their luggage, one certificate of Blue Crest College, Ghana, belonging to Elvis and a student identity card of Academic City College belonging to Kelly were recovered.

“Further search revealed a transcript of an academic record from Blue Crest University belonging to Elvis.

“A letter of English proficiency from the said college and a letter of recommendation from the same Blue Crest College were recovered,” he said.

The AIG said that the suspects made useful statements to the police and confessed that they never got any admission into the school, stressing that they only procured the degree certificates through the help of a female Nigerian resident in Ghana.

“The suspects further confessed that the major aim of doing that is to enable them to get Ghana resident permit, which they got.

“The resident permit is showing them also as a student of Academic City University and that none of them has ever been admitted in the school.

“They claimed they paid a total of 26,000 Ghana Cedis for all the documents procured.

“They confessed that they procured all the documents to evade arrest in Ghana since they don’t have any means of livelihood.

Whenever police intercepted them, they showed their passports that they were students in Ghana.”

Fayoade said that the suspects were also allegedly involved in online romance scam, provision of foreign bank accounts for fraudulent transactions on the internet through what they call ‘Facebook bombing’.

He said the suspects presented themselves as an American soldier by name Captain Donald Rowe, serving in Syria, whom they impersonated on Instagram, using his name to defraud innocent persons.

The AIG said that while detectives were making frantic efforts to get more credible information from the suspects, they started negotiating to bribe the operatives for them to be set free.

“I directed my men to play along and recover the money as an exhibit. Subsequently, the detectives played along and the suspects paid them a sum of N66m, which they collected and kept as an exhibit.

“The Nigeria Police authorities have written to the Ghana embassy to get more information about the result and their suspected partners in Ghana said to be spearheading the fraud.

Fayoade said that they had also spread their dragnets through the International Police, Interpol, to round up their foreign accomplices.