In brief: Mall shooting leaves female dead
CORALVILLE, Iowa – A shooting near the food court of a popular Iowa mall left one female dead and stunned shoppers Friday night, police said.
Witnesses reported hearing gunshots inside the Coral Ridge Mall in Coralville sometime after 7 p.m. They said that a male gunman shot at least one female victim, then fled.
The shots and the report of the gunman caused some shoppers to rush out of the mall and others to take cover inside until the threat cleared.
One female was killed in the shooting, Iowa Department of Public Safety spokesman Alex Murphy confirmed late Friday. The victim’s identity was being withheld pending notification of her family.
Troopers with the Iowa State Patrol and Scott County Sheriff’s deputies arrested the shooting suspect during a traffic stop on Interstate 80 about 50 miles east of the mall in Davenport, Murphy said. The suspect wasn’t identified.
Worker accused of aiding escapees
PLATTSBURGH, N.Y. – A worker at an upstate New York maximum-security prison was behind bars Saturday following her arrest on charges she helped two convicted killers escape last weekend.
Prison tailor shop instructor Joyce Mitchell, 51, was arraigned late Friday night on the felony charge of promoting prison contraband and a misdemeanor count of criminal facilitation. Her lawyer, Keith Bruno, entered a not guilty plea on her behalf.
Mitchell is accused of befriending inmates David Sweat and Richard Matt at the Clinton Correctional Facility in Dannemora and giving them contraband. The inmates used power tools to cut through their cell walls and a steam pipe and escaped through a manhole a week ago.
Mitchell was ordered held in jail on $100,000 cash bail or $200,000 bond on felony count and is due back in court Monday morning.
Race did not factor in ruling, judge says
CLEVELAND – A judge who found a white policeman not guilty in the deaths of two black people in a 137-shot barrage of police gunfire says race wasn’t a factor in the case or his deliberations before the verdict.
In an interview with Politico published Friday and comments to WKYC-TV the same day, Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Judge John P. O’Donnell acknowledged that race is part of broader social discussions about Patrolman Michael Brelo’s case, but he said it wasn’t something he considered in Brelo’s bench trial.
“This case had absolutely nothing to do with race,” O’Donnell told Politico. “This case had to do with whether the prosecutor proved beyond a reasonable doubt whether this crime had been committed and had to do with the defendant being legally justified in shooting that night.”
O’Donnell last month acquitted Brelo of two counts of involuntary manslaughter, which sparked protests leading to dozens of arrests.
Thirteen police officers fired into a car during a chase. Brelo was the only one charged because prosecutors said he waited until after the car had stopped and the two people inside it were no longer a threat to fire the last of his rounds. Brelo’s attorneys argued it was unclear who fired the fatal shots.
Prosecutors want evidence secret
CHICAGO – Federal prosecutors said Friday they want to keep some evidence in the case against former U.S. House Speaker Dennis Hastert secret, even after the proceedings have ended.
Prosecutors filed a motion asking U.S. District Court Judge Thomas Durkin to bar Hastert’s lawyers from disclosing any discovery the U.S. Attorney’s Office provides them to anyone not involved in the case.
They also want all materials destroyed, returned to the government or retained by defense attorneys and kept confidential after the case is concluded.
Hastert is accused of agreeing to pay $3.5 million to someone described in an indictment as “Individual A” to keep past misconduct secret. The 73-year-old former teacher and coach pleaded not guilty to charges of violating banking laws and lying to the FBI.
Experts won’t say MERS outbreak over
SEOUL, South Korea – Experts from the World Health Organization and South Korea today downplayed concerns about the MERS virus spreading further within the country, which recorded its 14th death and 12 new infections, but said that it was premature to declare the outbreak over.
After a weeklong review of the outbreak, the panel of experts told a news conference that there was no evidence to suggest the virus is spreading in the community.