Atlanta mass shooting sees murder charge, 4 assault cases filed
The suspect in a mass shooting in Atlanta that left one woman dead and four others wounded has been charged with one count of murder and four counts of aggravated assault, Fulton County Jail records show.
Deion Patterson, 24, is being held without bond and waived his first court appearance Thursday after police say he opened fire in the waiting room of an Atlanta medical practice Wednesday. People in a bustling commercial district took shelter for hours during the manhunt.
Authorities swarmed the midtown neighborhood shortly after noon seeking the gunman. Patterson had gone to a gas station and took a pickup left running, authorities said. Patterson was found in Cobb County, just northwest of Atlanta.
Atlanta Police Deputy Chief Charles Hampton Jr. declined to discuss details of the investigation or a possible motive, saying, “Why he did what he did, all of that is still under investigation.”
A 39-year-old woman was pronounced dead at the scene of the shooting, Atlanta police Chief Darin Schierbaum said.
The Fulton County medical examiner’s office identified her as Amy St. Pierre. She worked with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the agency confirmed. St. Pierre had done research aimed at reducing pregnancy-related deaths, according to a 2021 report she co-authored.
Patterson used a semi-automatic handgun to shoot St. Pierre, according to arrest warrants released Thursday. He also shot Alesha Hollinger in the face, and fired multiple shots into the abdomen area of Jazzmin Daniel, the documents state. Another woman, Lisa Glynn, was shot in her abdomen area; and Georgette Whitow was shot in the arm, the records show.
Patterson’s mother, Minyone Patterson, who police said had accompanied her son to the medical office, told the AP by phone that her son, a former Coast Guardsman, had “some mental instability going on” from medication that he began taking Friday.
NYC subway death: The choking death of a man at the hands of another New York subway rider set off powerful reactions Thursday, with some calling it a criminal, racist act even as authorities reserved judgment on the killing.
Manhattan prosecutors promised a “rigorous” investigation into whether to bring charges in the death of the Black man who was tackled by fellow passengers and put in a fatal chokehold by a white Marine veteran.
The medical examiner’s office ruled Jordan Neely, 30, died in a homicide from compression of the neck but said determination about criminal culpability would be left to the legal system.
Epstein islands sold: A U.S. investor has bought two Caribbean islands that were once owned by late financier Jeffrey Epstein and where authorities allege many of his crimes took place.
Stephen Deckoff, with SD Investments LLC, bought Great St. James and Little St. James islands in the U.S. Virgin Islands for $60 million and plans to build a resort, a spokesman told The Associated Press on Thursday. The islands were on sale for $110 million total.
Epstein had been accused of federal sex trafficking charges and pleaded not guilty to charges of sexually abusing dozens of girls, some as young as 14 years old. Authorities said some of the girls had been brought to his home in the Caribbean.
U.S. deaths fell last year, and COVID-19 dropped to the nation’s No. 4 cause, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported Thursday.
COVID-19 deaths trailed those caused by heart disease, cancer and injuries such as drug overdoses, crash fatalities and shootings. In 2020 and 2021, only heart disease and cancer outpaced the coronavirus.
U.S. deaths usually rise year-to-year, in part because the nation’s population has been growing. The pandemic accelerated that trend, making 2021 the deadliest in U.S. history, with more than 3.4 million deaths. But 2022 saw the first drop in deaths since 2009.
The 2022 tally was about 3.3 million — a 5% decline from 2021 but still much higher than in the years before the pandemic. The CDC cautioned that last
Fewer U.S. deaths:
year’s numbers are preliminary and may change a little after further analysis.
Coronavirus-associated death rates fell for nearly all Americans. The virus was deemed the underlying cause of about 187,000 U.S. deaths last year, about 6% of deaths. The highest COVID-19 death rates were in the South and in the region that stretches west to Texas, Oklahoma and New Mexico, the CDC said.
The death rates for heart disease and cancer increased during the pandemic, the CDC said. The cancer death rate had been falling for 20 years before COVID-19 hit.
Oklahoma killings: Questions mounted Thursday about why an Oklahoma sex offender who authorities say shot to death his wife, her three children and their two friends and then killed himself was freed from prison despite facing new sex charges in a separate case.
Okmulgee Police Chief Joe Prentice said each victim found Monday near a creek in a wooded area in rural Oklahoma had been shot in the head one to three times with a 9 mm pistol.
The bodies apparently had been moved there from where they were originally killed, the scene “staged” before Jesse McFadden, a 39-year-old convicted sex offender, killed himself, Prentice said.
The bodies were discovered near the man’s home in Henryetta, a town of 6,000 about 90 miles east of Oklahoma City.
The gruesome discovery came Monday — the very day McFadden was to stand trial on charges that he solicited nude images from a teen while in prison for rape. McFadden was sentenced to 20 years in 2003 for first-degree rape. He was freed in 2020, three years early, in part for good behavior.
He faced new charges while still in prison, accused of using a contraband cellphone in 2016 to trade nude photos with a 16-year-old girl. Court records show
McFadden was charged with the new crimes in 2017 after a relative of the victim alerted authorities. He was rearrested a month after he was released in October 2020 and got out on a $25,000 bond.
N.C. abortion bill: The GOP-controlled North Carolina legislature approved a ban on nearly all abortions after 12 weeks of pregnancy in response to last year’s overturning of Roe v. Wade at the U.S. Supreme Court.
The measure passed by the Senate on Thursday lowers the time restriction from the current 20 weeks. The House passed the bill Wednesday in a similar party-line vote.
Abortion-rights supporter Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper has said he’ll veto the bill, but the GOP has enough votes to override it.
Before this bill, women from nearby states with restrictive laws had traveled to North Carolina for abortions in later stages of pregnancy.