Man held in attack on 2 LA County sheriff’s deputies
LOS ANGELES — California investigators have arrested and charged amanin connection with the shooting of two Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputies last month as they sat in their squad car, authorities saidWednesday.
Attempted murder charges were filed against Deonte Lee Murray, 36, District Attorney Jackie Lacey told reporters.
Murray, a resident of the city of Compton, where the shooting happened, was arrested two weeks ago in connection with a separate carjacking, and he was expected to be arraigned later Wednesday on charges in both cases. Prosecutors planned to request a bail of $6.15 million.
Sheriff’s Homicide Bureau Capt. Kent Wegener, who provided details about the investigation, did not suggest a specific motive for the attack “other than the fact that he obviously hates policemen and he wants them dead.”
The deputies suffered headwounds in the Sept. 12 ambush and have since been released fromthe hospital and are recovering. Sheriff Alex Villanueva said, however, that they face further reconstructive surgeries and that their recoveries will be a long process.
Surveillance video showed a person walking toward the patrol car, parked at a Metro rail station and firing a handgun through the passenger-side window. The deputies radioed for help despite their wounds.
Breonna Taylor case: A Kentucky judge has delayed until noon Friday the release of secret grand jury proceedings in Breonna Taylor’s killing by police.
Audio recordings of the proceedings were originally supposed to be made public Wednesday. Attorney General Daniel Cameron’s office asked a Louisville court for aweek’s delay, so it could redact the names of witnesses and personal information such as addresses and phone numbers.
On Wednesday, Judge Ann Bailey Smith granted a shorter delay.
Cameron’s office sought the delay “in the interest of protection of witnesses, and in particular private citizens named in the recordings,” according to its legal motion Wednesday. The recordings are 20 hours long.
Taylor was shot and killed in her Louisville home by police who were executing a narcotics warrant in March. The grand jury decided this month not to charge any of the police officers involved with her death; instead, one officer was charged with shooting into a neighboring home.
That decision angered many, and protesters took to the streets in Louisville and around the country to demand accountability for her killing, as frustrations spilled over after months of waiting for Cameron’s announcement. Activists and Taylor’s family called for the grand jury file to be released.
COVID-19 relief: House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin held an “extensive conversation” Wednesday on a huge COVID-19 rescue package, meeting face to face for the first time in more than a month in a last-ditch effort to seal a tentative accord on an additional round of coronavirus relief.
After a 90-minute meeting in the Capitol, Pelosi issued a statement saying the two would continue to talk. “We found areas where we are seeking further clarification,” she said.
“We made a lot of progress over the last few days. We still don’t have an agreement,” Mnuchin said after meeting with Pelosi and briefing Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky.
Israel’s parliament on Wednesday passed a law that would allow the government to curtail public protests during the country’s nationwide coronavirus lockdown, a measure that drew fierce opposition a day earlier.
The law allows the government to declare a special weeklong state of emergency if the coronavirus spreads out of control. If
Israel protest limits:
such a state is declared, the government would be able to limit participation in assemblies, including protests, just over a half-mile from a person’s home, effectively putting a halt to large weekly demonstrations outside Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s residence.
The protests against Netanyahu, which have drawn thousands each week outside his official residence, have been going on for several months.
They are the largest sustained demonstrations againstNetanyahuin nearly a decade, and call on the longtime prime minister to resign while on trial for corruption charges and accuse him of bungling his management of the coronavirus crisis
Netanyahu has said the protests must end due to public health concerns.
U.S. citizen on trial: The trial of a U.S. citizen who is also a Saudi national began Wednesday in Saudi Arabia in a counterterrorism court that has been used to imprison rights activists in a case that could spark further tensions in already uneasyU.S.-Saudi relations.
The case of Salah alHaidar, who has been detained since April 2019 in Saudi Arabia, has caught the attention of members of Congress who are urging President DonaldTrump to personally seek his immediate and unconditional release.
Al-Haidar, who has a family home in Vienna, Virginia, is facing between eight and 33 years in prison for alleged Twitter posts criticizing the Saudi government, according to people with knowledge of his case.
California wildfires:
Flames devoured swaths of brush and trees inNorthern California on Wednesday amid unseasonably hot and dry weather. Officials said wind-whipped flames led two firefighters to deploy the emergency fire shelters they carry.
The firefighters were assigned to the Glass Fire burning in wine country north of San Francisco on Sunday when gusty offshore winds fanned the fire, prompting them to deploy their fire shelters after flames overwhelmed them.
The firefighters covered themselves on the ground with the shelters that look like space blankets if they are in imminent danger from flames. Theywere not injured, the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection said.
A man evacuated with severe burns Sunday, the day the Zogg Fire started burning in Shasta County, died at a hospital of his injuries Tuesday, said Shasta County Sheriff Eric Magrini. He was the fourth person killed by the blaze thathas spreadtoneighboring Tehama County.
The Glass and Zogg fires are among nearly 30 wildfires burning in California. Fire-related deaths total 30.