Young Atlanta cop slain outside station; suspect still at large
ATLANTA —A massive manhunt was underway Saturday after a young officer was shot and killed early that morning outside his Georgia police station, officials said.
Dylan Harrison, 26, was working his first shift as a part-time officer with the Alamo Police Department when he was gunned down outside the station about 1 a.m., GBI spokeswoman Natalie Ammons said at a Saturday afternoon news conference.
Harrison, who lived in Laurens County, is survived by his wife and their 6-month-old child, officials said.
A manhunt is underway for 43-year-old Damien Anthony Ferguson, who goes by “Luke,” according to the GBI. A “Blue Alert” was issued for the Alamo man and a $17,500 reward is being offered for information leading to his capture. Such alerts are issued when a suspect accused of killing or seriously injuring a law enforcement officer remains at large.
“Officer Harrison was a part-time Alamo police officer working his first shift with the department last night,” Ammons said, adding that he was also a full-time Oconee Drug Task Force agent in nearby Dodge County.
Officials have not released any details about what led to the deadly shooting.
Harrison had been in law enforcement since 2018. His body was taken to the GBI Crime Lab near Decatur for an autopsy.
Czech PM’s party narrowly loses election:
Prime Minister Andrej Babis’ centrist party on Saturday narrowly lost the Czech Republic’s parliamentary election, a surprise development that could mean the end of the populist billionaire’s reign in power.
The two-day election to fill 200 seats in the lower house of the Czech Republic’s parliament took place shortly after the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists reported details of Babis’ overseas financial dealings in a project dubbed the “Pandora Papers.” Babis, 67, has denied wrongdoing.
With all the votes counted, the Czech Statistics Office said Together, a liberal-conservative three-party coalition, captured 27.8% of the vote, beating Babis’ ANO (Yes) party, which won 27.1%. In a second blow to the populists, another center-left liberal coalition of the Pirate Party and STAN, a group of mayors, received 15.6% of the vote to finish third, the statistics office reported.
“The two democratic coalitions have gained a majority and have a chance to form a majority government,” said Petr Fiala, Together’s leader and its candidate for prime minister.
The winning coalition won 71 seats while its partner captured 37 seats to have a comfortable majority of 108 seats. Babis won 72 seats, six less than in the 2017 election.
The five opposition parties, which have policies closer to the European Union’s mainstream compared with the populist Babis, put aside their differences in this election to create the two coalitions, seeking to oust the euroskeptic prime minister from power.
DA seeks to charge Durst in ex’s 1982 disappearance:
A New York prosecutor will seek an indictment in
the coming weeks against millionaire real estate scion Robert Durst for the death of his former wife, Kathie Durst, who disappeared in 1982, a person familiar with the matter told The Associated Press on Friday.
Westchester District Attorney Mimi Rocah decided in recent days to take the case to a grand jury in the next week or two, according to the person, who was not authorized to speak publicly about the matter and did so on condition of anonymity.
Kathie Durst’s disappearance has shadowed Robert Durst, 78, for years, highlighted in an HBO documentary in which he appeared to admit killing people and culminating last month in his conviction in California for murdering a confidante whom prosecutors say helped him cover up Kathie Durst’s killing.
Austria’s Kurz stepping down: Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz said Saturday
that he will step down in a bid to defuse a government crisis triggered by prosecutors’ announcement that he is a target of a corruption investigation.
Kurz, 35, said he has proposed to Austria’s president that Foreign Minister Alexander Schallenberg become chancellor. But Kurz himself will remain in a key political position: he said he will become the head of his conservative Austrian People’s Party’s parliamentary group.
Kurz’s party had closed ranks behind him after the prosecutors’ announcement on Wednesday, which followed searches at the chancellery and his party’s offices. But its junior coalition partner, the Greens, said Friday that Kurz couldn’t remain as chancellor and demanded that his party nominate an “irreproachable person” to replace him. The coalition government took office in January, 2020.
Kurz and his close associates are accused of trying
to secure his rise to the leadership of his party and the country with the help of manipulated polls and friendly reports in the media, financed with public money. Kurz, who became the People’s Party leader and then chancellor in 2017, denies wrongdoing.
US asks Mexico to allow DEA agents in: The new U.S. ambassador to Mexico, Ken Salazar, said Saturday the United States has asked the Mexican government to allow agents, including those from the Drug Enforcement Administration, to work in Mexico.
Last year, Mexico pulled foreign agents’ immunity from prosecution and imposed strict limits on their contacts with their Mexican counterparts. Analysts say that inevitably affects the DEA’s ability to do intelligence gathering on Mexican drug cartels.
Since some DEA personnel are already in Mexico, it appears the U.S. request is
for more to be allowed in, or for those here to be allowed to work more freely.
Assad allows exiled kin back into Syria: President Bashar Assad allowed his exiled uncle back into Syria to avoid serving a fouryear prison term in France, where he had spent more than 30 years, a Syrian pro-government newspaper reported late Friday.
Rifaat Assad’s lawyer confirmed his client has left France, denying he fled French justice.
Assad, 84, was sentenced last year for illegally using Syrian state funds to build a French real estate empire. Assad’s lawyer took the case to France’s highest court, which is yet to render its ruling.
Al-Watan, a pro-Syrian government newspaper, reported the return of the elder Assad, who fled Syria in 1984 after he led a failed coup attempt against his brother, late President Hafez Assad.