LAWMAN KILLED BY FRIENDLY FIRE DURING MASS SHOOTING IN CALIFORNIA BAR
THOUSAND OAKS, Calif. — As terrified people scrambled out of broken windows, screaming and bleeding and fleeing a mass shooting inside a California bar, Sgt. Ron Helus and a highway patrolman decided to try to stop the gunman, running in together with assault-style rifles to what turned out to be an ambush.
Almost immediately inside the dark and smoky bar, the gunman fired on the officers, hitting Helus five times. They retreated and returned fire.
What happened next is every officer’s worst nightmare: One of the patrolman’s bullets hit his fellow policeman, piercing his heart and killing him.
That Helus was killed by friendly fire emerged for the first time at a somber news conference Friday, exactly one month since 28-year-old Ian David Long attacked country-music lovers at the Borderline Bar and Grill in the Los Angeles suburb of Thousand Oaks, killing 12 and wounding 22 others.
Long, who wasn’t hit by either officer’s gunfire, fatally shot himself after the firefight.
Vatican investigates after nuns report sex abuse by priests
VATICAN CITY — The Vatican has launched an investigation into a small Chilean religious order of nuns after some sisters denounced sexual abuse at the hands of priests and mistreatment by their superiors, a turning point that shows the Holy See is now willing to investigate allegations of sexual violence against nuns.
The scandal at the Institute of the Good Samaritan was revealed publicly in an investigative report by Chilean national television earlier this year at the height of outrage over how Chilean Catholic hierarchy covered up decades of sexual abuse of children by priests.
In the report, a half-dozen current and former nuns said sisters were thrown out of the order after they denounced the abuse to their superiors. The report followed the sisters as they testified before two Vatican investigators sent to Chile by Pope Francis.