Southeast
Kentucky I-75 shooting suspect could still be found alive after days in the woods, US Marshal says
Local and state officials in Kentucky and federal authorities continued their search Thursday for alleged I-75 shooter and fugitive Joseph A. Couch in a densely wooded area of the southeastern portion of the state.
Couch, 32, is accused of shooting dozens of rounds toward I-75 Sept. 7 near exit 49 in Laurel County, wounding five people from a position in a wooded area on the side of the interstate.
“I’m going to kill a lot of people. Well try at least,” Couch allegedly wrote in a text message around 5 p.m. on Sept. 7.
“I’ll kill myself afterward,” he said, according to an affidavit obtained by Fox News Digital.
SUSPECTED KENTUCKY INTERSTATE SHOOTER HAS MILITARY BACKGROUND, STILL ON LAM 48 HOURS AFTER ATTACK
Jeremy Honaker, acting U.S. Marshal for the Eastern District of Kentucky, described the area where authorities have been searching for the fugitive as “extremely wooded and rural,” as it “bumps up against the [Daniel] Boone National Forest.”
“We’re just there to assist,” he said of the USMS, adding the FBI has “taken on a lot of the assistance” with searching for Couch, along with the Laurel County Sheriff’s Office, London Police Department and Kentucky State Police.
“It’s a joint effort to try to get a dangerous person off the street,” Honaker said.
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The U.S. Marshal also said there is “a possibility” Couch could survive on his own in the southeastern Kentucky wilderness, noting he has a military background. Honaker was not sure about Couch’s level of expertise as far as survival in the woods. Couch served in the National Guard.
Authorities believe Couch fired between 20 and 30 rounds Sept. 7.
KENTUCKY POLICE RECOVER SUV, AR-15 IN MANHUNT FOR I-75 SHOOTER
Officers recovered Couch’s Cobalt AR-15 rifle and a small, silver SUV, but Couch remains on the run.
A Center Target Firearms employee told law enforcement Couch had spent nearly $3,000 on the AR-15 and 1,000 rounds of ammunition.
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Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear met with law enforcement on Thursday during the search for Couch. He said four shooting victims have been released from the hospital, and the fifth is expected to survive.
Authorities have five warrants out for Couch’s arrest, one for each wounded shooting victim, charging Couch with attempted murder and assault, the sheriff’s office said. It is offering a $25,000 reward for information leading to Couch.
Anyone with information about Couch’s whereabouts is asked to contact the Laurel County sheriff at 606-864-6600 or U.S. Marshals at 1-877-WANTED-2.
Fox News’ Stephen Sorace contributed to this report.
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Southeast
Georgia school shooting suspect's father asks for separation from other inmates, cites 'personal safety'
Attorneys representing the father of suspected Apalachee High School shooter Colt Gray are now asking a court for him to be separated from other inmates to “ensure his personal safety.”
Lawyers for Colin Gray, who is facing four counts of involuntary manslaughter, two counts of second-degree murder and eight counts of second-degree cruelty to children in connection to the Sept. 4 attack in Winder, Georgia, made the request in a filing Wednesday with Barrow County Superior Court, according to WRDW. He is being held at the Barrow County Detention Center without bond.
“As a result of the coverage, the public perception as discerned through both the local and national media, and most notably, social media, has led to a nonstop barrage of information being transmitted to the public, leading to incalculable number of threats against the Defendant and calling for both harm and violence to befall the Defendant, and in some cases, even calling for death of the Defendant,” the 54-year-old’s attorneys wrote in a copy of the filing obtained by the station.
They said that “so many lives in the community of Barrow County have been touched in unfathomable ways, it would be reckless to assume there are NO inmates, either currently or in the near future, being housed in the Barrow County Detention Center, who wish harm to the Defendant,” the lawyers continued.
GEORGIA SCHOOL SHOOTING: AUTHORITIES REVEAL HOW SUSPECT BROUGHT GUN INTO BUILDING
“Furthermore, due to both the custodial setting and the non-stop, twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, nature of supervision necessary in such a custodial environment, with such a high profile defendant, opportunities abound for individuals to visit such violence upon the Defendant,” they said.
GEORGIA HIGH SCHOOL SHOOTING SUSPECT’S MOM DEFENDS HER SON IN MESSAGE TO VICTIMS’ FAMILIES
“As a result of all of the above, the Defendant would move this court to Order the Sheriff of Barrow County to keep the Defendant separate from all other inmates in order to ensure his personal safety.”
The Barrow County Sheriff’s Office did not immediately respond Thursday to a request for comment from Fox News Digital.
Four people were killed and nine were injured during the high school shooting.
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Southeast
Harris, Trump enter post-debate 'homestretch' with dueling rallies in key battleground states
CHARLOTTE, N.C. — With the first and potentially only debate between Vice President Harris and former President Trump now in the rearview mirror, both major party nominees are resuming their barnstorming through the key general election battleground states.
“Ours is going to be a tight race until the end,” Harris told supporters on Thursday at a rally in Charlotte, North Carolina. “We are the underdog… we’ve got some hard work ahead of us…but hard work is good work.”
Harris arrived in North Carolina’s largest city on Thursday afternoon for the first of back-to-back rallies in the key southeastern swing state ahead of a nighttime event in Greensboro.
On Friday, the vice president holds two campaign events in Pennsylvania, site of Tuesday’s debate and the battleground state with the most electoral votes up for grabs.
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With less than eight weeks until Election Day on Nov. 5 and early voting getting underway in a number of key states, the Harris campaign says it’s entering a new and more aggressive phase as it aims to build on what many political pundits considered a strong debate performance by the vice president.
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“This is the homestretch. The pace of the campaign is going to get a lot more hectic,” veteran Democrat strategist and former Democratic National Committee Chair Donna Brazile told Fox News.
Brazile, who managed then-Vice President Al Gore’s 2000 presidential campaign and who’s close to Harris, said that “I wouldn’t take my foot off the gas.”
While Harris takes the stage in Charlotte, Trump will be in Arizona, a crucial southwestern battleground. On Friday, Trump heads to another swing state, Nevada.
North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Arizona and Nevada, along with Georgia, Michigan and Wisconsin, were the seven states with razor-thin margins that decided the outcome of President Biden’s 2020 election victory over Trump and will likely determine whether Harris or the former president will win the White House this year.
The latest national polls and surveys in the swing states indicate the battle between Harris and Trump remains a margin-of-error race.
Harris arrived in North Carolina as the latest Fox News Power Rankings, released on Thursday, indicate that Trump has lost his edge in the Tar Heel State as well as in neighboring Georgia, with the battlegrounds now considered toss-ups in the White House race.
An hour before Harris arrived in Charlotte, Trump in a social media post ruled out doing another debate with the vice president.
Harris, near the top of her rally, responded, telling supporters “I believe we owe it to the voters to have another debate. Because this election and what is at stake could not be more important.”
For the second straight day, the Harris campaign launched a new digital ad using clips from her debate performance against Trump to spotlight key policy differences with the former president.
Meanwhile, the Trump campaign fired up a new ad in Pennsylvania that takes aim at Harris over the issue of fracking.
Harris has been pilloried by the Trump campaign and allied Republicans for only giving one major interview since taking over as the Democrats’ standard-bearer and for holding no news conferences. And Trump’s campaign announced this week that the former president would hold another news conference on Friday in Los Angeles. (But it should be noted that Trump took no questions at his previous event that was billed as a news conference.)
Sources in the Harris political orbit say the vice president is expected to sit for more media engagements in the coming days and weeks. Harris is expected to take part in a discussion with journalists at the National Association of Black Journalists this month. Harris was criticized by Trump for not attending a prior engagement with the group, which the former president attended in person.
Harris’ running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, continues a weeklong campaign swing across the battlegrounds. Walz is in Michigan and Wisconsin on Thursday and Friday.
Trump’s running mate, Sen. JD Vance of Ohio, was heading a pair of top-dollar fundraisers in New York City on Thursday, but he is expected back on the campaign trail in the next few days.
Brazile, pointing to the calendar, said that “it’s time to get busy where it matters by engaging with people where they are.”
Get the latest updates from the 2024 campaign trail, exclusive interviews and more at our Fox News Digital election hub.
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Southeast
Army officials to face House grilling on training slides that designated pro-life groups as terrorists
EXCLUSIVE — House Republicans will bring in Army officials to testify at a hearing next week on a training presentation that referred to pro-life groups as terrorists, Fox News Digital has learned.
The House Armed Services Committee’s Subcommittee on Military Personnel will hear Thursday afternoon from Agnes Schaefer, assistant secretary of the Army for manpower and Reserve affairs, and Lt. Gen. Patrick Matlock, Army deputy chief of staff.
Republicans led by Armed Services Chairman Mike Rogers, R-Ala., and Subcommittee Chairman Jim Banks, R-Ind., wrote a letter to Army Secretary Christine Wormuth demanding information about the slide deck.
The Army recently wrote back, admitting that the slides “inaccurately referenced” pro-life groups like Right to Life and Operation Rescue, and a slew of pro-animal and green groups like PETA, as “terrorist organizations.”
LAWMAKERS RIP ARMY BRASS FOR TRAINING SLIDES SUGGESTING PRO LIFE GROUPS COULD BE TIED TO TERRORISM
Schaefer wrote that the training deck, which was used to teach 9,100 Army soldiers at Fort Liberty, North Carolina, between 2017 and 2024, was “inconsistent with Army’s antiterrorism policy and training.”
She said the slides had not been reviewed by Fort Liberty leadership and are no longer in use. Schaefer added there is “no evidence” to suggest the individual who created the slide deck did so to “deliberately subvert” Army policy or to “further a personal viewpoint.”
The slides were used to conduct terror awareness training for soldiers assigned to guarding the gates at Fort Liberty. Schaefer said the slides were not shared outside of Fort Liberty.
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The Republican letter in July said the slides indicated members of pro-life organizations could be threats to the safety of military installations and that regalia of such groups, like a pro-life license plate, could potentially indicate terrorism.
Officials at the Fayetteville, North Carolina, garrison said the person using the slides remains employed at the facility.
“It’s downright ridiculous to claim the slide deck doesn’t ‘further a personal viewpoint,’ but there have been no consequences for the employee who ran anti-life training sessions at Fort Liberty that clearly violated Army policy,” Banks told Fox News Digital.
Rogers said the hearing will be held “to get answers on how this occurred and ensure it never happens again.”
In June, the Army revised some of its policies, with Wormuth announcing that “active participation in extremist activities can be prohibited even in some circumstances in which such activities would be constitutionally protected in a civilian setting.”
Service members are now prohibited from liking, sharing or engaging with content supporting extremism, according to the American Legion.
Fox News Digital’s Charles Creitz contributed to this report.
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