Territory’s high court gets arguments over governor
Attorneys submitted arguments by a Tuesday noon deadline in what many consider the biggest decision in the 119year history of Puerto Rico’s Supreme Court: who will be the governor of the U.S. territory.
The island’s 3.2 million people await the outcome of the constitutional deadlock pitting Puerto Rico’s Senate against Pedro Pierluisi, who was sworn in as governor Friday.
Puerto Rico’s Supreme Court was in summer recess when it decided to take up the lawsuit filed Sunday by senators seeking a preliminary injunction ordering Pierluisi to step down.
DAYTON, Ohio — The shooter who killed nine people in Dayton, Ohio, had expressed a desire to commit a mass shooting and showed an interest in violent ideology, investigators said Tuesday as the FBI announced it is opening an investigation.
Federal investigators will try to determine what ideologies influenced 24-year-old Connor Betts, who might have helped him or knew in advance of his plan, and why he chose the specific target of Dayton’s Oregon entertainment district for the shooting early Sunday, said Special Agent Todd Wickerham, the head of the FBI’S Cincinnati field office.
Dayton Police Chief Richard Biehl said Betts had “violent ideations that include mass shootings and had expressed a desire to commit a mass shooting.”
Wickerham didn’t say whether the FBI is looking at whether the case could be treated as domestic terrorism, as the agency has done in the El Paso, Texas, mass shooting earlier in the weekend. He said Betts hadn’t been on the FBI’S radar. He declined to discuss what specific ideologies might be linked to Betts’ actions but said there was no evidence so far that they were racially motivated.
Meanwhile, public conversation around the shooting shifted Tuesday toward how to address people with mental health issues who might pose a threat of violence, as a woman who briefly dated the gunman recounted their bonding over struggles with mental illness.
Investigators haven’t publicly offered a motive for why Betts, wearing a mask and body armor, opened fire with an Ar-15-style gun outside a strip of nightclubs in Dayton early Sunday, killing his sister and eight others before officers fatally shot him less than 30 seconds into his rampage.
It’s unknown whether any of the Dayton victims were targeted. Besides Betts’ sister Megan, 22, the others who died were Monica Brickhouse, 39; Nicholas Cumer, 25; Derrick Fudge, 57; Thomas Mcnichols, 25; Lois Oglesby, 27; Saeed Saleh, 38; Logan Turner, 30; and Beatrice N. Warren-curtis, 36.
Betts was white, and six of the nine killed were black, but police said the speed of the rampage made any discrimination in the shooting seem unlikely.
A conflicting picture is emerging of Betts, with some people defending him as a nice guy and friendly neighbor, while former schoolmates recall a troubled teenager.
GOP Gov. Mike Dewine said it’s clear Betts exhibited anti-social behaviors in high school that should have alerted those around him to a problem.
But Betts had no apparent criminal record as an adult, and police said there was nothing that would have prevented him from buying a gun.
Dewine on Tuesday called on the Republican-led Legislature to pass laws requiring background checks for nearly all gun sales, allowing courts to restrict firearms access for people perceived as threats, and improving access to in-patient psychiatric care for those who need it most.