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Police: Dispatch errors made after first killing by accused Philadelphia mass shooter

Published

2 years ago

July 10, 2023

Police: Dispatch errors made after first killing by accused Philadelphia mass shooter

PHILADELPHIA (WPVI) — A day before killing four people in a mass shooting in Philadelphia last week, authorities say the gunman went to his first victim’s door wearing a dark mask, shot through it before entering the home and continued to shoot, police officials said at a news conference Monday.

The details were revealed a day after police announced that it was likely Joseph Wamah Jr., 31, had been killed in the early hours of July 2, and not during the larger July 3 attack, as police had initially thought. Authorities also revealed that a 911 call reporting the gunshots had been misrouted to the wrong neighborhood.

An investigation is underway into Wamah’s murder and the emergency response following the first shooting.

SEE ALSO: 1st victim of Kingsessing mass shooting was killed 44 hours earlier: Philadelphia police

A woman who doesn’t want to be identified says she watched from her porch as the alleged mass shooter Kimbrady Carriker, 40, opened fire through the front door of 1625 South 56th Street, killing Joseph Wamah Jr.

He was gunned down roughly 44 hours before authorities say Carriker opened fire with an AR-15-style rifle in the same neighborhood, killing four others and wounding four more in a southwest Philadelphia neighborhood.

“It was like something out of a movie. I couldn’t believe it,” said the eyewitness.

She says an hour and a half after the alleged killing, she repeatedly called 911.

“I waited, but the cops didn’t come. I started feeling guilty. So I did call the cops. But the first two times I didn’t get no answer, and the third time they called me back to ask me the location,” recalled the woman.

Instead of South 56th Street, officers were dispatched to the 1600 block of North 56th Street, roughly three miles away.

Responding officers didn’t see anything and left.

SEE ALSO:| Philadelphia mass shooting suspect left behind a will, had been acting agitated: DA

“When they spoke to each other, there was no mention of direction….north or south. Just stating it was on the 1600 block,” said Deputy Commissioner Krista Dahl-Campbell, who oversees police dispatch.

But 911 calls show accurate address locations, and police admit they had some accurate information available.

“An error was made. Someone placed in the wrong location without looking at the very small print that she was at S. 56th,” Deputy Commissioner Frank Vanore said during a Monday afternoon press conference.

The dispatch error has people in this heartbroken neighborhood wondering if the mass shooting the following day could’ve been prevented.

“While it may have given us an investigative lead, the likelihood of cutting off what happened later… we just don’t know,” said Police Commissioner Danielle Outlaw.

Meanwhile, while the dispatch response is being investigated, Outlaw said the department has instituted another failsafe to try to prevent calls from being wrongly marked as unfounded. She said a higher level of supervisor will have to review and OK it before a call is dismissed.

Dahl-Campbell said when 911 calls are received, the system identifies a location for the caller. Dispatchers have the option of automatically transferring that location to dispatchers, but in this case and in most cases, the operator inputs the location by hand.

“Oftentimes you are not calling about yourself … so they end up inputting the reported information instead,” she said.

SEE ALSO| Here’s what we know about the 5 victims of the Philadelphia mass shooting

Vanore said police are still investigating a motive in both shootings. Carriker has been charged with five counts of murder, attempted murder, aggravated assault and weapons charges.

Investigators say it appears the same weapon was used in the attacks. He had previously said both the AR-15-style weapon and a handgun found on Carriker after the shootings were self-manufactured weapons also known as ghost guns.

Vanore also said if he had not been familiar with Carriker since he was taken into custody, he would not have been able to identify him from the surveillance video gathered in Wamah’s shooting because he was wearing dark clothing and a mask covering his face.

Officers said witnesses and video of the attack indicated the suspect went to several locations while wearing a ski mask and body armor, carrying the AR-15-style rifle and shooting people and moving cars at random.

Cornered in an alley, Carriker surrendered and was found to have two guns, extra magazines, a police scanner and a bulletproof vest, police said.

Lashyd Merritt, 21; Dymire Stanton, 29; Ralph Moralis, 59; and DaJuan Brown, 15, were all killed in the July 3 attack. A 13-year-old and 2-year-old also suffered gunshot wounds and two others, including a 2-year-old, suffered wounds from shattered glass, police said.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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Thousands Protest Trump’s Return to White House Days Before His Inauguration

Published

1 hour ago

January 18, 2025

Press Room

Thousands Protest Trump’s Return to White House Days Before His Inauguration

Some climbed into buses in the wee hours of the morning. Others boarded planes from across the country or drove bleary-eyed through the night. No matter how they got to Washington on Saturday, they shared a common goal: to protest against President-elect Donald J. Trump.

Just two days before Mr. Trump’s inauguration, thousands of people attended the People’s March across Washington. Despite the damp and chilly weather on Saturday, demonstrators came out to rally against Mr. Trump’s hard-right plans for the country and show support for causes like civil rights, racial justice, immigration and gun violence prevention.

“I am angry and frustrated,” said Jillian Wheat, who came to the march from Columbus, Ohio, with her 14-year-old daughter, Emma. “I’m worried that he is going to dismantle our democracy.”

It was a sequel of sort to the Women’s March in 2017, right after Mr. Trump was sworn in for his first term, a protest that focused on women’s reproductive rights. But the march was rebranded and expanded to include more people and a wider range of issues. Various sponsors, including the Sierra Club and Time to Act, a group against authoritarianism, backed the event on Saturday.

With signs that called Mr. Trump a felon, an oligarch and a danger to democracy — one read, “such a disaster that even grandmoms have to take to the streets to resist” — protesters yelled chants such as, “Stand up! Fight back!” and “No justice, no peace, no Trump,” at times injecting an expletive into the chant.

Many, if not most, attendees said they were nervous that Mr. Trump would try to roll back more rights they valued than he did in his first administration, during which he nominated Supreme Court justices who helped overturn Roe v. Wade. They were hoping that he would not strip away climate change protections and L.G.B.T.Q. rights, and that he would not follow through with his threat to carry out mass deportations of undocumented immigrants.

Debbie Pierce, a gerontologist from Tampa, Fla., wiped tears from her eyes as she held up a photo of a young relative who recently told her that she might be a lesbian.

“I’m here for her,” said Ms. Pierce, referring to her relative. “With this new administration, I don’t know if she will be safe.”

Alana Eichner, co-director of the local chapter of the National Domestic Workers Alliance, came to the march with more than a dozen women who work as caregivers for children and the elderly. She said she hopes that Mr. Trump realizes that domestic workers — including many who are undocumented — are essential to the American economy and help the country function.

“We’re here to make sure these workers are protected and valued,” she said, as the women she came with nodded in agreement.

On the dawn of a second Trump presidency, marches also were held in other cities, including New York, Nashville and Portland, Ore. All were different — and felt different — than the ones held to protest his first term.

The Women’s March eight years ago was much bigger than the People’s Marches on Saturday. More than 470,000 people had packed into the nation’s capital in 2017, ready and energized to fight after his surprise defeat of Hillary Clinton. The protest turned into a sea of pink as many attendees wore pink knitted hats.

This time, the crowd in Washington was smaller and the pink hats were sparse. Mary Griffin, who flew to Washington from Seattle for both Saturday’s march and the one in 2017, said she was troubled by the lower turnout, adding that people were squished together shoulder-to-shoulder at the 2017 march. She said she suspects that voters for Vice President Kamala Harris are still in shock and “in the doldrums,” frozen about how to show their resistance to the new administration.

“We need to get our energy back,” said Ms. Griffin, a 63-year-old lawyer. “I think once Trump starts moving in the direction I think he’s going in, the pendulum will swing back and people will be energized again.”

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Trump says he will ‘most likely’ give TikTok extension to avoid ban

Published

3 hours ago

January 18, 2025

Press Room

Trump says he will ‘most likely’ give TikTok extension to avoid ban

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President-elect Donald Trump said he would “most likely” extend the deadline for ByteDance, the Chinese owner of TikTok, to divest the video app which faces a nationwide ban that is set to come into effect on Sunday.

In an interview with NBC News, Trump said he was considering issuing a 90-day extension to the deadline. His comments come one day after TikTok warned that its 170mn users would face an imminent blackout after the Supreme Court on Friday upheld the divest-or-ban law that Congress passed last year to address China-related national security concerns.

“The 90-day extension is something that will be most likely done, because it’s appropriate,” Trump said. “We have to look at it carefully. It’s a very big situation . . . If I decide to do that, I’ll probably announce it on Monday.”

On Friday, Trump said he had spoken to President Xi Jinping and discussed TikTok with the Chinese leader. Chinese state media said the two leaders had spoken but did not specify if TikTok was part of the conversation.

The Biden administration on Friday said it would leave decisions about enforcement of the law, which comes into effect at midnight on Saturday eastern time, to the incoming Trump administration.

That means the companies that provide the video platform — including Apple, Google and Oracle — have to decide whether to risk violating the law between the midnight deadline and Trump’s inauguration on Monday.

Apple and Oracle declined to comment, while Google did not immediately respond.

TikTok said statements from the Biden administration “failed to provide the necessary clarity and assurance to the service providers that are integral to maintaining TikTok’s availability to over 170 million Americans”.

It also warned that the video app would “go dark” on January 19 unless the Biden administration “immediately provides a definitive statement to satisfy the most critical service providers assuring non-enforcement”.

In an overwhelming bipartisan vote last March, Congress passed a law that required ByteDance to divest TikTok to avoid a nationwide ban on the app.

Lawmakers and US security officials believe that Chinese ownership of the app poses a national security risk because it could be used for espionage and disinformation by the Chinese Communist party. TikTok has denied that the Chinese government has any influence over the app.

In his first term, Trump issued an executive order to block TikTok from operating in the US, but it was stymied by the courts at the last minute. In early 2024, he came out in opposition to the congressional divest-or-ban measure on the grounds that it would help Facebook, which banned him from its social media platform for two years.

Trump has appointed several China hawks who oppose Chinese ownership of TikTok to his administration, including Mike Waltz, a former green beret and Florida congressman, who will serve as national security adviser.

Earlier this week, Waltz said the incoming administration would put “measures in place to keep TikTok from going dark”, saying the legislation allowed for an extension as long as a “viable deal” was on the table.

Following the TikTok statement on Friday, Rush Doshi, a former senior Biden administration China official, wrote on X that the company only had itself to blame.

“TikTok had 268 days to sell itself so it wasn’t operated by China. That would have solved everything. But they didn’t even try. China wouldn’t let them,” Doshi said.

“Now, with time short, they want Biden to ignore a bipartisan law SCOTUS (Supreme Court of the US) upheld 9-0. If they shut down, it’s on them.”

Additional reporting by Hannah Murphy and Michael Acton

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Biden Proclaims That The Equal Rights Amendment Is The Law Of The Land—But What Does That Mean?

Published

3 hours ago

January 18, 2025

Press Room

Biden Proclaims That The Equal Rights Amendment Is The Law Of The Land—But What Does That Mean?

President Joe Biden announced on Friday that, as far as he’s concerned, the Equal Rights Amendment is the “law of the land,” a somewhat symbolic move that is poised to allow more women across the country to sue their states for gender discrimination—including challenges to abortion bans.

The ERA, originally drafted over a century ago and passed by Congress in 1972, has faced a long and hard-fought journey toward ratification and implementation as the 28th Amendment to the Constitution. If formally recognized, the ERA would constitutionalize gender equality.

“The Equal Rights Amendment is the law of the land—now!” Biden said in a speech to the United States Conference of Mayors. “It’s the 28th amendment to the Constitution—now.”

While Biden’s declaration is expected to spur legal and political repercussions nationwide, the president’s announcement isn’t so simple.

Immediately following Biden’s announcement on Friday, the National Archives, which publishes constitutional amendments, stated it had no plans to formally add the ERA to the Constitution. When Congress passed the ERA over 50 years ago, the initial preamble required that 38 states move to ratify within seven years (that deadline was extended to 1982). By that year, the amendment was three states short of implementation.

View of Pro-Choice supporters, including several people with ‘Honored Guest’ sashes, as they take part in a March for Women’s Equality, Washington DC, April 9, 1989. Among the visible signs as ones supporting NARAL (National Association for the Repeal of Abortion Laws) and Physicians For Choice. (Photo by Barbara Alper/Getty Images)

Barbara Alper/Getty Images

Thanks to anti-abortion, anti-feminist activists like Phyllis Schlafly, the ERA was squashed. It wasn’t until 2020 that Virginia became the crucial 38th state to ratify the ERA. Yet, because the deadline had long passed and thanks to Donald Trump’s Justice Department saying at the time that ratification took too long, the ERA has remained outside of the founding text—even as about eight in ten US adults, including majorities of men and women and Republicans and Democrats alike, say they at least somewhat favor adding the ERA to the Constitution, according to Pew.

United States Archivist Colleen Shogan, a Biden appointee and the first woman archivist, has repeatedly stated that the ERA’s eligibility has expired and could not be added to the Constitution now unless Congress acts. Last month, Shogan and the deputy archivist released a statement saying they could not certify the ERA “due to established legal, judicial, and procedural decisions.” On Friday, the Archives reiterated its position. “The underlying legal and procedural issues have not changed,” they said in a statement. Biden is also not going to order the archivist to certify and publish the ERA, the White House told reporters.

Biden’s Friday announcement about the ERA comes as the president has filled his last moments in office with sweeping executive measures, including designating national monuments in California, removing Cuba from the list of state sponsors of terrorism, blocking a Japanese company’s takeover of United States Steel, extending protected status to nearly 1 million immigrants, and commuting the sentences of almost everyone on federal death row, as detailed by The Washington Post this week.