In brief: Police surround man suspected in rampage

Herkimer, N.Y. – A man neighbors called a loner coolly walked into an upstate barbershop, asked the owner if he remembered him and then abruptly opened fire with a shotgun, killing two men in the opening salvo of a rampage that left four dead, two wounded and a heavily armed police force bunkered down around an abandoned building, police and family members said.

Police officers were fired on from the building, which used to house a bar, on Wednesday afternoon while looking for 64-year-old Kurt Myers, state police Superintendent Joseph D’Amico said. At least one officer returned fire, and later it was unknown if Myers was still alive, D’Amico said.

“We’re in no rush to bring this to a conclusion,” D’Amico said, adding that the main objective was to make sure no one else was hurt.

Gov. Andrew Cuomo called it “an inexplicable situation.”

“There’s no apparent motive to the best of our knowledge at this time to provoke these attacks,” he said.

Border agencies hit with complaints, suits

Seattle – Immigrant advocacy groups have filed nearly a dozen complaints and lawsuits against U.S. Customs and Border Protection across the country, claiming federal agents and officers mistreated and discriminated against illegal immigrants and U.S. citizens alike.

The groups alleged Wednesday that officers at Dulles International Airport outside Washington, D.C., were complicit in sending a 4-year-old American girl to Guatemala without giving her parents a chance to retrieve her. Officers also detained a naturalized citizen who had been working with farmworkers in New York, kept women in cold detention cells in Texas and lied on an arrest report that led to an illegal immigrant’s detention in Washington state, the advocacy groups said.

The complaints are the latest in a series of legal actions taken against U.S. Customs and Border Protection and U.S. Border Patrol from immigrant advocacy groups, who have long sought to reform the agency’s conduct on the southern and northern border.

Florida official resigns amid gambling arrests

Orlando, Fla. – Florida’s lieutenant governor resigned and nearly 60 other people were charged in a scandal involving a purported veterans charity that authorities said Wednesday was a front for a $300 million gambling operation.

The organization, Allied Veterans of the World, runs nearly 50 Internet parlors with computerized slot machine-style games, which have come under scrutiny in Florida but are in a gray legal area.

Even so, investigators said the charity was a fraud and executives gave precious little to veterans while lavishing millions on themselves, spending it on boats, beachfront condos and Maseratis, Ferraris and Porsches.

Lt. Gov. Jennifer Carroll was not among those charged but resigned a day after she was questioned by investigators.