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Gunman who killed 61-year-old woman and a 16-year-old girl at a St. Louis school brought a long gun and 12 magazines, police say | CNN

Published

2 years ago

October 24, 2022

Gunman who killed 61-year-old woman and a 16-year-old girl at a St. Louis school brought a long gun and 12 magazines, police say | CNN

CNN
—

A teen and an grownup had been killed in a taking pictures at Central Visible and Performing Arts Excessive Faculty in St. Louis on Monday morning, police Commissioner Michael Sack stated.

Officers arrived on the college 4 minutes after the primary 911 name and it took them eight minutes to search out the gunman. After a two-minute gun battle, the suspect was reported down, Sack informed reporters at a information convention.

Authorities didn’t instantly establish the victims, however Sack stated a 61-year-old girl was pronounced lifeless at a hospital and a 16-year-old lady was killed on the scene.

The commissioner recognized the gunman as Orlando Harris, a 19-year-old who graduated from the college final yr. He died at a hospital, Sack stated.

Authorities are working to “try to provide you with what may need led him to this. There’s suspicion, there could also be some psychological sickness that he was experiencing. We’re engaged on creating that data proper now,” Sack stated.

The shooter had no prior legal historical past.

Seven different youngsters had been damage and went to the hospital, Sack stated. Some had gunshot or graze wounds and a few had abrasions. One had a fractured ankle. They’re all in steady situations, the commissioner stated.

The commissioner stated the gunman had lengthy gun and round a dozen 30-round ammunition magazines with him.

Sack wouldn’t say how the gunman entered the college however stated the college doorways had been locked, which delayed the suspect and acquired responding officers time.

“The safety workers did an excellent job figuring out the suspect’s efforts to enter and instantly notified different workers and ensured that we had been contacted,” Sack stated.

The St. Louis Police Metropolitan Police Division reported the energetic shooter on Twitter, and about 45 minutes later, tweeted, “At the moment, the scene is safe and there’s no energetic risk.”

The varsity district is devastated after Monday’s taking pictures, it stated in a press release. CVPA and two neighboring faculties had been evacuated to a reunification location, St. Louis Public Faculties stated.

Talking on the telephone, math instructor David Williams stated the gunshots erupted shortly after 9 a.m. native time (10 a.m. ET) and everybody went into “drill mode,” turning off lights, locking doorways and huddling in corners in order that they couldn’t be seen.

There was a bang on the door, and it shook, he stated. “Somebody was making an attempt to open the door,” Williams stated.

Sirens emerged within the distance, after which Williams heard three pictures, he stated. Somebody with an grownup voice might be heard screaming, “You might be all going to f**king die,” he recalled.

Shortly thereafter, a bullet got here by one of many home windows in his classroom, Williams stated.

The gunshots picked up tempo, he stated.

About then, officers from tactical groups arrived – an enormous group of them, nicely organized – and there was one other spherical of gunshots earlier than Williams heard a lady asserting herself as police, he stated.

Williams and the scholars ran to an emergency exit, he stated, including the ordeal lasted about 40 minutes.

Police engaged the shooter on the third ground, the place Williams’ classroom is positioned, Sack stated.

St. Louis Circuit Lawyer Kimberly M. Gardner stated many individuals reacted as educated to assist save others from being damage.

“The state of affairs continues to be creating and we’ll know extra within the coming days, however one factor that’s clear is that lockdown procedures – which St. Louis Public Faculty’s directors, lecturers and college students at Central Visible and Performing Arts Excessive Faculty and first responders adopted as this assault unfolded – had been important in stopping additional violence,” Gardner stated.

The roughly 400-student highschool is a magnet college about 6 miles southwest of downtown.

College students had been being evacuated from campus “to protected and safe websites,” the district stated. Persons are being requested to keep away from the world, and fogeys have been knowledgeable they will choose up their youngsters at Gateway Stem Excessive Faculty, a few mile and a half north of CVPA.

Phrase of the taking pictures comes on the identical day Michigan teen Ethan Crumbley pleaded responsible to homicide costs in a Michigan college taking pictures final yr that left 4 individuals lifeless and 7 injured. On November 1, Nikolas Cruz will probably be sentenced for the February 2018 taking pictures at Florida’s Marjory Stoneman Douglas Excessive Faculty, the place 17 individuals died.

Because the investigation into the St,. Louis taking pictures was unfolding, a Michigan prosecutor addressed the nation’s gun violence within the wake of Crumbley’s responsible plea.

“It’s not nearly sharing with different departments. Gun violence is preventable. That’s what I’ve discovered, and the truth that there may be one other college taking pictures doesn’t shock me – which is horrific,” Oakland County Prosecutor Karen McDonald stated. “It’s preventable, and we must always by no means, ever permit that to be one thing we simply ought to must dwell with.”

Throughout a information convention on the White Home, press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre demanded Congress take motion and move an assault weapons ban.

“Our hearts exit to everybody impacted by right this moment’s mindless violence, significantly these injured and killed, their households in addition to the primary respondents,” she stated. “We want extra motion to cease the scourge of gun violence.

“Daily that the Senate fails to ship an assault weapons ban to the President’s desk, or waits to take one other – different commonsense actions is a day too late for our households and communities impacted by gun violence.”

The FBI’s St. Louis discipline workplace is helping native regulation enforcement in its response to the taking pictures, spokesperson Rebecca Wu stated. The Kansas Metropolis, Missouri, discipline workplace for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosive is helping as nicely, spokesperson John Ham stated in a press release.

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Atos crisis deepens as biggest shareholder ditches rescue plan

Published

5 hours ago

June 26, 2024

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Atos crisis deepens as biggest shareholder ditches rescue plan

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A rescue bid for French IT services group Atos led by its largest shareholder has collapsed, casting the future of the troubled group into doubt once again.

Atos said on Wednesday that the consortium led by Onepoint, an IT consultancy founded by David Layani, had withdrawn a proposal that would have converted €2.9bn of Atos debt into equity and injected €250mn of fresh funds into the struggling company.

“The conditions were not met to conclude an agreement paving the way for a lasting solution for financial restructuring,” Onepoint said in a statement on Wednesday.

The decision by Onepoint comes less than a month after Atos had picked its restructuring proposal over a competing plan from Czech billionaire Daniel Křetínsky. Atos said on Wednesday that Křetínsky had already indicated he wanted to restart talks.

Once a star of France’s tech scene, Atos is racing to strike a restructuring deal by next month as it struggles under its €4.8bn debt burden. It has cycled through multiple chief executives over the past three years and its shares have collapsed. They were down 12 per cent in early trading on Wednesday.

Atos also said it had received a revised restructuring proposal from a group of its bondholders.

“Discussions are continuing with the representative committee of creditors and certain banks on the basis of this proposal with a view to reaching an agreement as soon as possible,” the company said.

Jean-Pierre Mustier, former chief executive of Italian lender UniCredit, was installed as chair in October 2023 and given the task of putting Atos on a stable footing for the future. Since his appointment, several efforts to stabilise Atos through asset sales have fallen apart.

If talks with Křetínsky do restart, it will mark the Czech businessman’s third attempt to do a deal with Atos after an earlier plan to buy its lossmaking legacy business unravelled.

One of the people close to the talks said creditors had not necessarily become more receptive to Kretinsky’s plan given it cutting a larger chunk of the group’s debt.

The crisis at Atos has prompted the French government to intervene. It is currently seeking to acquire three parts of Atos that are deemed of importance to national security for up to €1bn.

Atos said on Wednesday it had concluded a deal with the French state that would give it so-called “golden shares” in a key Atos subsidiary, Bull SA. The agreement also gives the government the right to acquire “sensitive sovereign activities” in the event a third party acquired 10 per cent of the shares — or a multiple thereof — in either Atos or Bull.

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New Jersey gamer flew to Florida and beat fellow player with hammer, say police

Published

5 hours ago

June 26, 2024

Press Room

New Jersey gamer flew to Florida and beat fellow player with hammer, say police

An online gamer from New Jersey recently flew to Florida, broke into the home of a fellow player with whom he had feuded digitally but never met in person, and tried to beat him to death with a hammer, according to authorities.

The allegations leveled by the Nassau county, Florida, sheriff’s office against 20-year-old Edward Kang constitute an extreme example of a phenomenon that academics call “internet banging” – which involves online arguments, often between young people, that escalate into physical violence.

As Bill Leeper, the local sheriff, told it, Kang and the man he is suspected of attacking became familiar with each other playing the massively multiplayer online role-playing game ArcheAge.

The Korean game is supposed to no longer be available beginning Thursday, its publisher announced in April, citing a “declining number of active players”, as ABC News reported. But prior to the cancellation, Kang and the other player became locked in some sort of “online altercation”, Leeper said at a news briefing Monday.

Kang then informed his family that he was headed out of town to meet a friend he had made through gaming, Leeper recounted. The sheriff said Kang flew from Newark, New Jersey, to Jacksonville, Florida, and booked himself into a hotel near his fellow gamer’s home early Friday morning.

He had allegedly bought a hammer and a flashlight at a local hardware store, receipts for which deputies later found in Kang’s hotel room.

By early Sunday, Kang purportedly had put on black clothes, gloves and a mask, and he went into his target’s home through an unlocked door. He waited for the victim to get up to take a bathroom break from gaming – and then battered him with the hammer, Leeper said.

The alleged victim managed to wrestle Kang to the ground while screaming for help. The victim’s stepfather woke up after hearing the screams, rushed to his stepson’s side, helped take Kang’s hammer away and restrained him until deputies were called and they arrived, according to Leeper.

Deputies found blood at the home’s entrance and in the bedroom of the victim, Leeper added. The sheriff said the victim was brought to a hospital to be treated for “severe” head wounds while deputies jailed Kang on counts of attempted second-degree murder and armed burglary.

Leeper accused Kang of telling deputies that he carried out the violent home invasion because he believed the target to be “a bad person online”. Kang also allegedly asked investigators how much prison time was associated with breaking and entering as well as assault.

Attempted second-degree murder alone can carry up to 15 years. Leeper quipped that his only answer to Kang was: “It will be a long time before you play video games.”

Striking a more serious tone, Leeper urged people to be vigilant about and report to authorities any suspicious online behavior aimed at them. He also mentioned the importance of locking one’s home.

“This … serves as a stark reminder of the potential real-world consequences of online interaction,” Leeper said.