Okay, we all see mass shootings, gang violence and incidents that seem to be rather frequent. And those things have pretty much been beaten to death. And I have no idea if the type of things I'm posting about here are becoming more frequent or have simply been being under reported. But in either case I find them to be quite troubling.....
A 20-year-old woman was shot and killed after her friend turned into the wrong driveway in upstate New York, officials say
A 20-year-old woman was shot and killed Saturday after she and three others accidentally turned into the wrong driveway while looking for a friend’s house in rural upstate New York, authorities said.
The woman, identified as Kaylin Gillis, was a passenger in a vehicle when a man, 65-year-old Kevin Monahan, fired two shots from his front porch, Washington County Sheriff Jeffrey Murphy said in a news conference Monday.
Blake Walsh, Gillis’ boyfriend, said he was driving the car the night they drove up the wrong driveway. He told NBC Tuesday in a phone interview that he, his late girlfriend, and two friends were looking for a party. Four friends were traveling in another vehicle and also went up the wrong driveway.
“We thought we were at the right address,” Walsh told NBC. “We didn’t have any cell service to figure it out. As soon as we figured out that we were at the wrong location, we started to leave, and that’s when everything happened.”
“My friend said, ‘They’re shooting — go!’ I tried to step on the gas as fast as I could, and that’s when the fatal shot (that struck Gillis) came through,” Walsh told NBC.
“I want to believe it was instant. I’m hoping it was. I’m praying it was,” he said.
The sheriff said the shooting happened in “a very rural area with dirt roads” and poor cell service.
“It’s a very rural area with dirt roads. It’s easy to get lost. They drove up this driveway for a very short time, realized their mistake and were leaving, when Mr. Monahan came out and fired two shots,” the sheriff said.
Monahan has been charged with second-degree murder in connection with her death, Murphy said. He was arraigned Sunday on the murder charge, his attorney told CNN. A bail hearing is pending for Tuesday or Wednesday, the district attorney and defense attorney both said.
Walsh said he plans to be in court. “I need to see who took my girlfriend away from me. I need to look at him.”
The shooting happened just days after a Black teenager in Kansas City was shot twice by a White homeowner after going to the wrong address to pick up his siblings.
In that case, Andrew Lester, 84, opened fire on 16-year-old Ralph Yarl as the teen stood at Lester’s front door before any words had been exchanged, according to a probable cause document obtained by CNN. Lester, who told police he thought the teen was trying to break in, faces two felony charges in a case that touches on so-called “stand your ground” laws, the proliferation of firearms and racial bias.
In the New York shooting, both Monahan and Gillis are White. No one is believed to have exited the car, and there was no interaction between Monahan and anyone in the vehicle before shots were fired, Murphy said.
“There was clearly no threat from anyone in the vehicle. There was no reason for Mr. Monahan to feel threatened,” Murphy said.
After the shots were fired, Gillis and the rest of the group drove away from the house in the town of Hebron looking for cell phone service and then called 911.
They were found around 5 miles away from the home in the nearby town of Salem. First responders began administering CPR but Gillis was pronounced dead at the scene, Murphy said.
“This is a very sad case of some young adults that were looking for a friend’s house and ended up at this man’s house who decided to come out with a firearm and discharge it,” the sheriff said.
Walsh told NBC the drive to find cell service did not feel like a 5-mile drive. “It felt like 30 seconds. The adrenaline was rushing so bad.”
Shooting suspect’s attorney offers different version of shooting
Monahan’s attorney, Kurt Mausert, disagreed with the sheriff’s description of events.
“This was not a simple case of coming up a driveway and turning around,” he told CNN. “The description I was given by my client is there were multiple vehicles, including a motorcycle, revving engines, coming up the driveway at a high rate of speed.”
Mausert said Monahan felt that “created an atmosphere and a fear that there was menace going on.”
The sheriff confirmed there were several vehicles traveling together – a car with two passengers; a car with four passengers, including Gillis and her boyfriend; and a motorcycle – driving up and down the street looking for an address.
He said witness accounts from inside the cars and forensics prove the shots were fired as the group exited the driveway. The car in which Gillis was a passenger was the last vehicle to turn around and leave, he said.
“I don’t know how they could menace anyone with those type of actions, but they were clearly leaving the residence when the shots were fired,” Murphy told CNN. He also said no 911 calls regarding loud noises coming from vehicles were reported by Monahan or neighbors.
After the shooting, police officers responded to Monahan’s home and found him to be uncooperative, Murphy said, adding he “refused to exit his residence to speak with police.”
He was taken into custody hours later with help from the New York State Police Special Operations Response Team, according to a press release from the Washington County Sheriff’s office.
Speaking to CNN on Tuesday, Murphy said Monahan had not made any statement about the shooting and obtained a lawyer before he came out of the house.
“(He), quite frankly, has not shown any remorse in this case,” he said.
However, Mausert pushed back against the notion that there was a standoff with police when he was asked to surrender.
Monahan had no idea that the bullets he fired had struck someone, and he called Mausert to report there were four sheriff’s deputies on his road and had “no idea” what they wanted, the attorney told CNN’s Brynn Gingras.
Mausert said he got in touch with law enforcement and was informed of the fatality and charge, at which point he arranged for his client to lawfully turn himself over to police.
“This was not a standoff,” the attorney said. “This was my client and I not knowing what was going on in terms of the charges that were pending.”
Monahan’s driveway is 1/8th of a mile long and has no trespassing and private driveway signs, the attorney said.
Kaylin Gillis was soon to start college
Gillis’ family issued a statement praising her as a “kind, beautiful soul and a ray of light to anyone who was lucky enough to know her.”
“She was a big sister, much loved daughter, devoted friend and partner to her loving boyfriend. She was just beginning to find her way in the world with kindness, humor, and love,” the family said. “Kaylin was a talented artist, an honor student, a Disney fanatic and loved animals. She was looking forward to starting college in Florida to pursue her dream of becoming a marine biologist.
“She was taken from us far too soon, and we are devastated. Our family will never be the same but we will be guided by Kaylin’s positivity, optimism, and joy as we learn to live with her loss.”
The family also thanked those who have expressed support and asked for privacy. “Your well wishes and prayers are deeply appreciated, have been heard and will carry us through this difficult journey,” the family said.
Gillis graduated from Schuylerville High School in 2021 and held the position of “flyer” on the school’s cheerleading team, her former cheer coach Charlene Deming said.
“She was always smiling and laughing, and trying to make others laugh,” Deming told CNN.
Walsh told NBC Tuesday that he and Gillis had been together for over four years. “I had high hopes, and I had plans,” he said adding, “I didn’t want to be with anybody else, and I wanted to spend the rest of my life with her.”
“I want the world to know how good of a person she really was and how much she impacted everybody who had the fortunate opportunity to be in her life.”
“My world was taken from me Saturday,” he told NBC, adding he will miss her smile, eyes and how happy she made him.
Murphy, the sheriff, said he was a friend of the victim’s family and lamented the killing. “A case like this is absolutely senseless,” he said.
More than $97,000 has been raised for Gillis’ family in a GoFundMe raising money for the “Gillis family for use toward Kaylin’s funeral expenses and any immediate financial needs,” according to the page.
Chuchay Stark, a woman who lives in the county where this happened and took high school senior portraits of Gillis, said the community is going through a spectrum of emotions “from disgust to being heartbroken.” She recalled Gillis as one of the few kids who “knew exactly what she wanted” and was sweet to work with.
https://www.cnn.com/2023/04/18/us/woman-shot-wrong-driveway-upstate-new-york/index.htmlAndrew Lester, 84-year-old Kansas City man accused of shooting Ralph Yarl, is in custody
Yarl, a 16-year-old who is Black, was shot after he mistakenly went to the wrong address to pick up his brothers. He told police he rang the doorbell and was shot.
KANSAS CITY, Mo. — An 84-year-old Kansas City man accused of shooting a Black teenager who mistakenly rang the doorbell at the wrong home surrendered to police Tuesday, officials said.
"Andrew Lester, charged in the shooting of Ralph Yarl, has surrendered at our Detention Center and is in custody," the Clay County Sheriff’s Office said in a statement. "He is in the booking process right now."
Lester, of Kansas City, was charged Monday with first-degree assault and armed criminal action, both of which are felonies, in the shooting Thursday night of Ralph Yarl, the Clay County prosecuting attorney has said.
Lester was released Tuesday evening after he posted bail, which had been set at $200,000, the sheriff's office said.
Yarl, 16, had gone to gone to the wrong address to pick up his siblings around 10 p.m., and he was shot through a glass door after he rang the doorbell, according to a probable cause statement filed by police.
Lester told investigators that he had gone to bed when the doorbell rang and that he went to the door armed with a .32-caliber Smith & Wesson revolver, police wrote.
Lester said he saw a Black male he didn’t know pulling on the exterior storm door handle and thought his home was being broken into, the probable cause statement says.
Lester said he fired twice through the glass door, it says. Then, the male ran away, he told police, and he used his home phone to dial 911. He said he saw a car in the driveway of his home that he believed belonged to the male but didn't see anyone inside it.
No words were exchanged, Lester told police.
Lester said firing his weapon "was the last thing he wanted to do, but he was 'scared to death'" because of his age and the male’s size, police wrote.
Lester said he lives alone. A police detective wrote in the probable cause statement that he noticed a security system in the home and took the hard drive to preserve any evidence but later found the equipment had last captured video in June and was no longer functional.
Yarl was interviewed at the hospital the next day and gave a different version of events, according to the probable cause statement. He told a detective that he did not pull on the door and that he was waiting at the door after having rung the bell when a man opened the door holding a firearm.
Yarl “stated he was immediately shot in the head and fell to the ground,” police wrote. He told police that he was shot again, this time in the arm, and ran, according to the document. Yarl reported to police that he heard a voice say, “Don’t come around here,” police wrote.
Clay County Prosecuting Attorney Zachary Thompson said there was a racial component to the case. Lester is white.
Even though Thompson said there was a racial element, Lester won’t be charged with a hate crime because it would be a lesser degree of felony than what he has been charged with, Alexander K. Higginbotham, a prosecutor’s spokesman, said by email Tuesday.
“Our office has charged the defendant in his case with an A felony, which is four classes higher than a hate crime enhancement could take a charge,” he said.
That is also why Lester wasn’t charged with attempted murder, Higginbotham said, because “the charge would be a lower level of offense than Assault in the First Degree and carry with it a lower range of punishment.”
Thompson said he “understands the racial components and context that surround a case like this,” adding, “However, legally speaking, there is not a racial element to the legal charges that were filed.”
Yarl has been released from the hospital, an attorney for his family said.
Police said in the probable cause statement that they tried to reach Yarl's family Sunday and Monday to conduct a formal interview but had trouble making contact.
“I just want justice to be served, so whatever is the right amount of justice for this situation should be granted out to him. Nothing more, nothing less, just the right amount, that’s it,” Cleo Nagbe, Yarl's mother, told NBC News outside the Clay County Courthouse Tuesday afternoon.
Lee Merritt, who is representing Yarl's family, said that he was satisfied with the charges and that the family “want to see it through to a conviction and appropriate sentencing.”
But Merritt took issue on several fronts, including why Lester was released within two hours of having been taken in for initial questioning and saying prosecutors still haven’t clarified whether the shots were fired from inside or outside the house.
“We’re frustrated with law enforcement and their failure to take responsibility for the denial of this family’s due process. No one has owned up to it,” Merritt said. “This 16-year-old unarmed boy didn’t actually pose a threat. But far too often in America, his skin alone is his weapon."
Merritt added that Yarl has some permanent injuries from a cracked skull, loss of brain tissue and scarring but is expected to make close to a full recovery.
The shooting sparked protests in Kansas City. Actor Halle Berry was among those who spoke out.
"This could be your child. This should NOT happen," Berry wrote Monday on Instagram.
President Joe Biden called Yarl and his mother on Monday, attorneys for Yarl's family and a White House official said.
At a rally in Kansas City on Tuesday, demonstrators called for justice, as well as safe communities for Black people.
Keturah Gibson said she babysat Yarl when he was younger. She said that as a Black woman who delivers for DoorDash, and who is the mother of a 7-year-old daughter, the shooting hits close to home.
“That could easily have been me that night,” Gibson said.
The night of the shooting, Lester was taken into custody after the shooting and later released. Police wrote in the probable cause document that the prosecutor's office advised that he be released pending further investigation.
It was not immediately clear Tuesday whether Lester had retained an attorney.
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-new...ed-shooting-ralph-yarl-custody-rcna80147Man arrested in shooting of two Texas cheerleaders after one mistakenly got into the wrong car
One of the victims was critically injured in the shooting that unfolded early Tuesday outside an H-E-B supermarket in Elgin, Texas, police said.
A man has been arrested after two Texas cheerleaders were shot, one critically, after one of them mistakenly got into the wrong car, according to police and the owner of the gym where they trained.
Officers in Elgin, about 25 miles northeast of Austin, responded to reports of shots fired outside an H-E-B supermarket around 12:15 a.m. local time (1:15 a.m. ET) Tuesday, the Elgin Police Department said in a news release.
"Information suggests that an altercation occurred in the parking lot of H-E-B, and multiple shots were fired into a vehicle," police said. Two of the car's occupants were struck by gunfire, with one victim sustaining serious injuries and transported by helicopter to a hospital, where they were listed in critical condition, police said.
The suspect, Pedro Tello Rodriguez Jr., 25, has been charged with deadly conduct, a third-degree felony, police said.
Lynn Shearer, owner of Woodlands Elite Cheer Co., told NBC affiliate KXAN of Austin that the two people shot were cheerleaders who were on their way home from practice.
Shearer said the cheerleaders typically carpooled from the Austin area to her gym. On Monday night, she said at least four cheerleaders were on their way back to the Austin area and had to stop at an H-E-B, where some of the members had parked their cars.
One of the girls accidentally tried to get into the wrong car, Shearer said. That's when, she said, a "guy got out and they saw that he had a gun. And so they tried to speed off and he shot his gun, like five times or so into the car." Woodlands Elite did not immediately respond to an overnight request for comment. The Elgin Police Department also did not immediately respond to an overnight request from NBC News seeking to confirm these details.
According to ABC News, Heather Roth, a cheerleader with the Woodlands Elite, said in an Instagram Live post that she was the one who got out of her friend's car and opened the door of another vehicle she thought was her own, only to notice a man was in the passenger seat. She said she got out of the car and back into her friend's vehicle, the report said.
Roth reportedly said the man approached their vehicle and she rolled down a window to apologize. That's when the man started shooting, she said, according to ABC News. The Instagram Live post was no longer available early Wednesday, but Roth shared a number of posts that appeared to be related to the incident. She did not immediately respond to overnight request for comment.
Victim critically injured known as a 'role model'
Shearer identified the cheerleader who was critically injured in the shooting as Payton Washington, of the Round Rock Independent School District.
“She’s won every title there is to win in all-star cheerleading. She’s literally a role model for the kids in this industry throughout the country,” Shearer said. “Everybody knows her. She’s literally one of the very best that’s ever done this sport.”
Messages of support for Washington have poured in on social media in the wake of the shooting, with a prayer organized by Woodlands Elite held Tuesday. Meanwhile, a GoFundMe page organized by the Woodlands Elite Generals to help raise money to cover her hospital costs had raised more than $60,800 as of early Wednesday.
The GoFundMe page said Washington was "stable in the ICU and will have a long road to recovery."
Shearer said the cheerleaders had "grown up" in her gym. "We’ve known them for years, some of them literally, since they were, you know, 8, 10 years old,” she said. “So they’re like our family.”
The shooting, she said "was unfortunate. These girls were just trying to get home."
As Washington faces a long road to recovery, Shearer said, she and the Woodlands Elite team would be there to support her and others affected by the shooting every step of the way.
“Our goal right now is to take it one day at a time and be there for them,” Shearer said.
Shooting comes following 2 similar incidents
The shooting comes on the heels of two other eerily similar high-profile incidents in which the victims were allegedly shot after mistakenly approaching the wrong addresses.
Last week, 16-year-old Ralph Yarl was shot and seriously injured after mistakenly ringing the wrong doorbell in Kansas City, Missouri, while trying to pick up his siblings in an incident that sparked national outrage.
Just days later, Kaylin Gillis, 20, was fatally shot by a homeowner after the car she was riding in mistakenly turned into the wrong driveway in upstate New York.
The two incidents sparked a national conversation around gun violence and “stand your ground” laws, according to which a would-be shooter defending life or property does not have to retreat before taking violent action. The shooting of the cheerleaders is likely to further fuel the discussion.
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/texas-cheerleaders-shot-wrong-car-practice-rcna803666-year-old girl, 2 adults shot after basketball rolls into North Carolina neighbor's yard
By Caitlin O'Kane
April 20, 2023 / 9:49 AM / CBS News
Two adults and one child were shot in Gastonia, North Carolina, after a basketball rolled into a man's yard and he allegedly opened fire on them. The suspect, Robert Louis Singletary, was still at large as of Wednesday, according to the Gaston County Police Department.
The incident unfolded around 7:44 p.m. on Tuesday when Gaston police received a call about a man firing a gun outside homes in his neighborhood. Singletary, 24, of Gastonia, North Carolina, was determined to be the shooter.
An adult male and his child were seriously wounded during the shooting spree and taken to a Charlotte hospital. One adult woman was grazed by a bullet and another man was shot but not injured.
Detectives secured warrants for Singletary on four counts of attempted first degree murder, two counts of assault with a deadly weapon with intent to kill inflicting serious injury and one count of possession of a firearm by a felon.
The police department is offering a $1,000 reward for information that aids the investigation, which is ongoing. Singletary was last seen with a gun and should be considered armed and dangerous, the police department said.
Chief Stephen M. Zill of the Gaston Police Department said in a news release that his agency has partnered with the U.S. Marshals Regional Fugitive Task Force to assist in the search for Singletary.
"I want to say to the people of Gaston County — this sort of violence will not stand," Zill said.
Two of the victims have been identified as William White and his 6-year-old daughter, who spoke to CBS News affiliate WBTV. "The bullet came back and the bullet went in my cheek," said the girl, whose name is being withheld for her safety.
"I want him to go to jail forever," she said.
A neighbor who witnessed the shooting said it was shocking.
"They were playing basketball and a ball rolled into his yard and they went to go and get it," Jonathan Robertson told WBTV. "It was just crazy."
This shooting is the latest involving violent consequences after ordinary mistakes, reigniting debates about stand your ground laws.
A white man claimed self-defense after he shot a Black teenager this week when he rang the doorbell of his Kansas City home and a 20-year-old woman looking for a friend's house in upstate New York was fatally shot by a homeowner when she went to the wrong address.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/6-year...-neighbors-yard-robert-louis-singletary/these incidents cross over all notions of having race or gender as a common cause. They seem to span the spectrum. But they are all quite disturbing.
