Parolee charged in Humboldt Park triple shooting that wounded 3
A West Garfield Park man on parole for a gun offense is accused of shooting three people after being told to leave a Humboldt Park home.
Joseph Johnson, 28, was escorted out of the home Wednesday after a dispute but reentered shortly after armed with a gun, Cook County prosecutors said Friday.
Johnson confronted one of the men again and said, “Sorry, but I had to do this,” before shooting him in the hip, prosecutors said.
A 73-year-old man heard the shot and entered the front room in the 1000 block of North St. Louis Avenue, where Johnson allegedly shot him in the torso, prosecutors said.
Another man tackled Johnson, but the gun went off during the tussle, injuring the man, prosecutors said. The man allegedly disarmed Johnson and held him until police arrived. The three men are all expected to recover. Johnson’s attorney says his life was threatened and he was acting in self-defense.
RICHMOND, Va. — Jerry Falwell Jr. has agreed to take an indefinite leave of absence from his role as president and chancellor of Liberty University, the school announced Friday.
The private evangelical Christian university gave no reason for the departure in its onesentence statement. But the announcement came after Falwell apologized earlier in the week for a photo he posted on social media that showed him with his pants unzipped, stomach exposed and his arm around a young woman in a similar pose. The photo drew criticism, including from conservatives who said it was distasteful.
The statement said the Executive Committee of Liberty’s board of trustees, acting on behalf of the full board, met Friday and requested that Falwell take leave, “to which he has agreed, effective immediately.”
An early supporter of President Donald Trump, Falwell has served since 2007 as president of the university in Lynchburg founded by his father, the late Rev. Jerry Falwell.
In an interview this week with radio station WLNI, Falwell said the woman in the photo was his wife’s assistant and that the since-deleted picture had been taken during a “costume party” while on vacation.
He said the woman — who also had her shorts unzipped in the photo and midriff exposed — was pregnant, couldn’t get her pants zipped and he imitated her, saying it was all in “good fun.”
“I’ve apologized to everybody, and I’ve promised my kids . . . I’m going to try to be a good boy from here on out,” he said in the interview.