It’s all about the “red, white and blue” on the Fourth of July, celebrating when the Second Continental Congress in 1776 voted on July 2 for independence from Great Britain. It wasn’t until July 4 that delegates from the 13 original colonies adopted the Declaration of Independence.

For the past 248 years, Americans have celebrated the birth of its young country on July 4 with parades, picnics and more, not forgetting the illuminating display of fireworks that started the tradition. It is reported that the practice of setting off fireworks began in Philadelphia on July 4,1777, during the first organized celebration of Independence Day.

ETOWAH COUNTY, Ala. (WIAT) — A 1-year-old child from Massachusetts was found in the custody of his mother in north Alabama following an alleged abduction case.

According to the Alabama Law Enforcement Agency (ALEA), a law enforcement bulletin was issued on Friday by the Fall River Police Department concerning an endangered missing infant.

FRPD stated Genezza Packett, 22, visited her son, who lives in the custody of her aunt, on Thursday. Packett said she was taking her child to a nearby Dunkin’ Donuts but never returned.

Upon further investigation, Packett and the child were believed to be traveling south by car towards Mississippi. Relevant information was relayed to troopers with ALEA’s Highway Patrol Division.

At around 10:15 a.m. Wednesday, ALEA troopers located the vehicle on Interstate 59 in Etowah County near Attalla. A traffic stop was conducted a traffic stop and the child was recovered safely. Packett faces pending criminal charges by FRPD in Massachusetts.

“I commend the exceptional collaboration and communication of the Intelligence Analysts within our Fusion Center and our Troopers, along with our counterparts in other states, for their instrumental actions in the safe recovery of a missing 1-year-old child,” ALEA Secretary Hal Taylor stated in a press release. “Their dedication to duty and quick thinking resulted in the child’s safe recovery which exemplifies the true spirit of law enforcement and demonstrates the necessity of sharing intelligence with both local and state law enforcement partners.”

No further information is available as the investigation is ongoing.

DEDHAM, Mass. — In the heat of early summer, a Massachusetts jury is deciding whether a woman murdered her boyfriend on a snowy winter night, or was framed in a conspiracy concocted by corrupt police involved in the killing of one of their own.

Karen Read is charged with second-degree murder in the January 2022 death of Boston Police Officer John O’Keefe. She’s accused of dropping him off at another officer’s house party after a night of drinking, and then ramming him with her SUV and leaving him to die in a snowstorm. But her defense team argues she was framed, and that the evidence shows O’Keefe was beaten up by someone else inside the house, bitten by a dog and left outside.

It wouldn’t be the first time a turbulent romantic relationship ended in death, and the partner is always a top suspect when an investigation begins. But it also has become easier to question police tactics and integrity after many high-profile cases of misconduct nationwide.

In their second day of deliberations Wednesday, jurors had to consider whether the sometimes tiny bits of evidence — pieces of a broken tail light, a single human hair — point to the girlfriend’s guilt, or a sprawling cover-up by law enforcement officers to plant evidence and protect their own, leaving a killer unpunished.

Karen Read, center, departs Norfolk Superior Court on Wednesday in Dedham, Mass. Read is on trial, accused of killing her boyfriend, Boston Police Officer John O’Keefe, in 2022. The jury began deliberations in the trial Tuesday. Steven Senne/Associated Press

What first might have seemed to be an open-and-shut case has drawn outsized attention, fueled by true crime fanatics, conspiracy theorists and Read’s pink-shirted supporters. In closing arguments Tuesday, defense attorney Alan Jackson rattled off the names of more than a half-dozen prosecution witnesses he said lied on the stand.

“You don’t have to wonder if they would lie to support their narrative, you only need to wonder how many times they did lie, over and over,” he said. “And even when they’re caught in their own lies, they won’t blink, they don’t sweat. They’ll just look you in the eye and demand, ’Pay no attention, you folks. Look the other way.’”

While Jackson argued the state’s entire case boiled down to those four words — Look the other way — Assistant District Attorney Adam Lally narrowed it down to three as he began his final statement: “I hit him.”

Lally reminded jurors that four witnesses reported hearing Read say those words when she returned to the house hours later and found O’Keefe unresponsive on the lawn, covered by snow. Lally also replayed a voicemail he said Read sent O’Keefe hours earlier. Read was “seething in rage,” he said.

“John, I (expletive) hate you!” she screamed. Phone records show she left the voicemail moments after her car recorded her driving in reverse at approximately 24 mph and then driving away, Lally said.

Read, a former adjunct professor at Bentley College, faces up to life in prison if convicted of second-degree murder. She also is charged with manslaughter while operating under the influence of alcohol, and leaving a scene of personal injury and death, which carry maximum penalties of 20 and 10 years, respectively.

The case has divided the community of Canton, the Boston suburb where O’Keefe was raising his niece and nephew after their parents’ deaths and where many of the witnesses and even investigators know one another. And it has attracted hordes of true crime buffs, including some Read supporters who’ve been accused of harassing witnesses.

Prosecutors spent most of the two-month trial methodically presenting evidence including pieces of plastic matching the broken taillight on Read’s SUV. Their witnesses also testified that even before Read returned to the scene and found O’Keefe, she called a friend and screamed “John’s dead!” and raised the possibility that she had struck him.

The defense sought to counter that with evidence that the homeowner’s sister-in-law searched online for how long it takes to die of hypothermia. Jackson said “there’s no innocent explanation” for doing so before the body was found, but the prosecution said she searched for it hours later, and at Read’s request.

The defense called only a handful of witnesses over two days but used cross-examinations to suggest countless conflicts of interest and staggeringly sloppy police work, from a scene left unsecured for hours to blood-stained snow scooped up with red plastic drinking cups and the use of a leaf blower to clear snow. Jackson listed more than two dozen suspicious behaviors, including deleted search histories, destroyed phones and manipulated videos.

“It’s not that it could happen, it’s that every single one of those things I just mentioned did happen,” he said.

Jackson said investigators focused on Read because she was a “convenient outsider” who saved them from having to consider other suspects, including the homeowner, Brian Albert, and other law enforcement officers at the house party. He also pointed to connections between Albert and the state trooper who led the investigation.

“Michael Proctor didn’t draw a thin blue line, he erected a tall blue wall,” Jackson said. “A wall that you can’t scale, a wall that Karen Read certainly couldn’t get over. A wall between us and them. A place you folk are not invited. ‘We protect our own.’”

A block from the court, dozens of Read supporters were glued to their phones awaiting a verdict. Their mood was jubilant, with supporters chanting, waving American flags and getting encouragement from passing motorists who honked their horns.

“She was unjustly charged and we are hoping she can go home today,” said Vicki Walkling, a supporter dressed in pink. “This case has enraptured everybody because it’s unfair. It could happen to any one of us. Any one of us could be framed for a murder we did not commit.”

Ramer reported from Concord, New Hampshire. David Sharp in Portland, Maine, also contributed to this report.

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