(HOUSTON) — The first bus carrying unaccompanied migrant girls arrived at a Houston shelter Friday evening, amid a surge of children entering the country and growing concern for their well-being.
The shelter, run by the National Association of Christian Churches, has a capacity for 500 beds.
Rep. Sylvia Garcia toured the facility on Friday and tweeted Houston “has always been a welcoming region,” promising to monitor the shelter and “do whatever it takes to ensure that children are protected, treated with dignity and respect.”
Garcia said the facility will have beds, medical facilities and equipment to properly house and process the children, per local ABC station KTRK-TV.
The Biden administration has differed from former President Donald Trump’s in that it stopped using a public health policy called “Title 42” to turn away unaccompanied minors at the border. Instead, unaccompanied minors are being taken to their own facilities, tested for COVID-19, and connected to family or sponsors in the country.
The arrival of the girls in Houston comes amid rising concerns for the well-being of young children crossing into the U.S.
Last week, startling video emerged showing smugglers dropping two children, a 5-year-old girl and a 3-year-old girl from Ecuador, over a 14-foot border fence on the U.S.-Mexico Border.
The influx of migrants and Biden’s policy to allow unaccompanied minors to stay has led to overcrowding at border facilities as well as concern over COVID-19 infections among the newcomers due to cramped conditions.
On Friday Texas Department of Health and Human Services told ABC News that from March 1 to March 30, there has been a total of 647 COVID-19 cases in 40 out of 50 Texas HHSC Office of Refugee Resettlement operations. These are self-reported positive COVID-19 cases in migrant children in care.
As of an April 2 the Department of Homeland Security and Department of Health and Human Services report there are a total of 19,236 children in Customs and Border Patrol custody and HHS care, officials told ABC News.
There are nine migrant housing facilities located in Texas, according to KTRK. They are located in Carrizo Springs, Dallas, Houston, Midland, Pecos and San Antonio and Fort Bliss, which is the largest and holds 5,000 beds.
The United States has been grappling with a surge in migrants arriving at its southern border in recent months.
The number of children and families attempting to cross the border increased by more than 100% between January and February. Meanwhile, the amount of children trying to cross the border alone jumped by 61% to over 9,400, the highest monthly total since the spring of 2019, according to statistics released last month by CBP.
Kevin Drennen/ABC NewsBy JACK DATE, VICTOR ORDONEZ, and MICHELLE STODDART, ABC News
(WASHINGTON) — One of two injured U.S. Capitol Police officers has died after being hit by a suspect who then rammed their car into the north barricade of the Capitol complex Friday afternoon before exiting the vehicle with a knife, acting Chief Yogananda Pittman said at a press conference.
Police opened fire and the suspect is dead, Pittman said.
“The suspect exited the vehicle with a knife in hand. Our officers then engaged that suspect. He did not respond to verbal commands,” Pittman said. After the suspect lunged at officers, they “fired upon the suspect.”
The officer who died of injuries sustained at the scene has been identified as 18-year Capitol Police veteran William “Billy” Evans.
“He began his USCP service on March 7, 2003, and was a member of the Capitol Division’s First Responder’s Unit. Please keep Officer Evans and his family in your thoughts and prayers,” Pittman said.
The suspect who was killed by Capitol Police has been identified as Noah Green, law enforcement sources told ABC News.
Authorities believe Green, 25, had ties to Virginia and Indiana, law enforcement sources said.
Authorities are taking a close look at social media postings believed to be associated with Green. No clear motive has been established, sources said.
Multiple agencies are investigating the incident, including the Capitol Police, D.C. Metropolitan Police Department and the FBI Washington Field Office. The FBI Indianapolis Field Office is also providing support and assisting law enforcement partners in the investigation.
The other officer last was reported in “stable and non-threatening condition.”
The Capitol was put on lockdown Friday afternoon. Hill staffers were sent a message from U.S. Capitol Police around 1:20 p.m. saying that “due to an external security threat … no entry or exit is permitted.” The message said people could move around inside the building “but stay away from exterior windows and doors. If you are outside, seek cover.”
“We do not have the suspect on file with U.S. Capitol Police,” Acting Metro Police Department Chief Robert Contee said. “So there is no indication at this time that there is any nexus to any member of Congress.”
Conte also said the incident didn’t appear to be terror related.
Congress was in recess when the incident occurred, and many staff offices were closed in observance of Good Friday.
There were approximately 2,300 National Guardsmen already on mission at the Capitol following the violent riot on Jan. 6, when protesters breached the Capitol — five people died, including Capitol Police officer Brian Sicknick.
The D.C. National Guard deployed an “Immediate Reaction Force” to support Capitol Police during Friday’s incident, according to a spokesperson.
About 40 National Guardsmen lined up with riot gear to block access to Constitution Avenue, just east of where the incident took place. Capitol Police and the National Guard also blocked off roads and pedestrian access near the Supreme Court.
White House press Secretary Jen Psaki said that President Joe Biden, who is at Camp David for the holiday weekend, is aware of the incident. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi ordered flags lowered to half-staff in honor of the officer who died, a spokesperson for Pelosi said in a tweet Friday.
“I just ask that the public continue to keep U.S. Capitol police and their families in your prayers,” Pittman said. “This has been an extremely difficult time for U.S. Capitol police after the events of January 6 and now the events that have occurred here today. So I ask that you keep our U.S. Capitol police family in your thoughts and prayers.”
ABC News’ Mariam Khan, Alexandra Svokos, Luke Barr, Benjamin Siegel and Josh Margolin contributed to this report.
Minneapolis Police Dept.By Bill Hutchinson, ABC News
(MINNEAPOLIS) — One needed an auxiliary cable for her cellphone. Another was walking her 9-year-old cousin to the corner store to buy snacks. An off-duty firefighter was strolling home from a serenity garden, and another man, who described himself as “nosey,” was driving around his neighborhood and pulled over when he saw police detaining a Black man.
On the warm spring evening of May 25, 2020, they and others converged just after 8 p.m. outside the Cup Foods store on the corner of Chicago Avenue and East 38th Street in south Minneapolis, witnessing what prosecutors have described as the torturous murder of George Floyd at the hands of police officers.
Witness after witness testified this week at the trial of one of those now-former officers, Derek Chauvin, and told a jury, at times through tears and even sobs, what they saw in excruciating detail. Several provided commentary to cellphone videos they took of Floyd dying. ‘You can’t win’
Charles McMillian, 61, was in his 2006 Dodge Caravan and stopped at a red light in front of Cup Foods, planning to turn east on East 38th Street when his attention turned to an encounter between police and a Black man sitting in a blue Mercedes Benz SUV.
McMillian, who lives in the neighborhood, said he stopped because he was being “nosy.”
He said he got out of his van and watched the interaction — only later he’d learn that it was 46-year-old George Floyd.
“Basically, I [saw] the officer asking Mr. Floyd to get out of the truck,” McMillian recalled.
After briefly allowing Floyd, who had been placed in handcuffs, to sit on the sidewalk, two officers McMillian later learned were Thomas Lane and Alexander Kueng, had Floyd stand up as they walked him across the street to a police car parked outside Cup Foods.
As the officers attempted to place Floyd in the police car, McMillian said Floyd appeared to struggle and collapse in the back seat and told the officers he was “claustrophobic.” McMillian said he began speaking to Floyd from a distance. It turned out to be the last full conversation Floyd would have with another human being.
“I was telling Mr. Floyd, ‘Just comply with them. Get on in the car because you can’t win,'” McMillian said.
Police body camera footage played in court showed Floyd respond to McMillian: “I don’t wanna win. I’m claustrophobic. I got anxiety. I’m scared as f—, man.”
As the officers struggled with Floyd, two more now-former officers, Chauvin and Tou Thao, arrived on the scene. McMillian said he recognized Chauvin from an encounter the previous week when he said he told the officer, “At the end of the day, you go home to your family safe.”
He said the officers forced Floyd into the back of the squad car on the driver’s side and struggled with him, eventually removing him through the rear passenger-side door. Floyd, still handcuffed, was placed prone on the ground. McMillian said he saw Chauvin putting his knee on the back of Floyd’s neck as Lane and Kueng helped hold him down.
As his face was being pressed against the pavement, Floyd, according to McMillian, repeatedly cried out “momma.”
“I feel helpless,” said McMillian, who broke down sobbing. Out to buy snacks
Darnella Frazier, now an 18-year-old high school student, was walking to Cup Foods with her 9-year-old cousin, Judea Reynolds, from their home a few blocks away to buy some snacks. As they approached the store, Frazier ushered her cousin inside then circled back to investigate something that caught her eye — police officers holding down a Black man next to a police car.
Frazier said she immediately began recording the incident with her cellphone.
“He was in pain,” Frazier said of Floyd. “It seemed like, he knew … he knew it was over for him. He was terrified. He was suffering. This was a cry for help.”
Other witnesses began to gather. Frazier’s cousin, Judea, emerged from the store, and as Frazier recorded the event, the little girl, wearing a green shirt with the word Love written on the front of it, stood by her, watching in disbelief.
The youngest witness, so far, called to testify against Chauvin, Judea said, “I was sad and kind of mad cause I felt like he was stopping him from breathing.”
Frazier testified that the crowd of bystanders grew larger and that Thao was keeping people at bay as Floyd continued to beg for his life.
She said that after an ambulance arrived, Chauvin still refused to remove his knee from Floyd’s neck, even though Floyd no longer appeared to be conscious.
“The paramedic … he did a motion like ‘Get up,’ basically telling [Chauvin] to move his knee. His knee was still there, even when they came,” she said. ‘Blood choke’
Professional MMA fighter Donald Williams II, 33, said he was just going to Cup Foods that day to get a drink and clear his head.
He testified that when he got to the front of the store, Floyd was still pleading for his life under the weight of Chauvin’s knee on his neck. He said he immediately recognized the position Chauvin had Floyd in as a “blood choke,” a technique he has used in the ring to render an opponent unconscious by cutting the flow of blood to the head.
“His breathing was getting tremendously heavy,” Williams said of Floyd. “You actually could hear him, you could see him struggling to actually gasp for air.”
Williams testified that at one point, he locked eyes with Chauvin.
“He looked at me. It was the only time he looked at me, when I said it was a blood choke,” Williams testified.
Williams said that after Floyd’s apparently lifeless body was taken away in an ambulance, he called 911 “because I believed I witnessed a murder.”
‘Wasn’t anything I could do’
Alyssa Funari, an 18-year-old 12th grader, testified that she and a friend drove her grandfather’s Buick to Cup Foods on May 25 to pick up an auxiliary cable for her phone. But before she could get to the door, she heard the sound of bystanders yelling at police.
She said she could also hear Floyd.
“He said he couldn’t breathe and that his stomach hurt and that he wanted his mom,” Funari said. “I knew initially that there was something wrong, so I started recording.”
“He looked like he was fighting to breathe. At first, he was vocal, and then he got less vocal,” she added. “You could see in his face that he was slowly not being able to breathe. His eyes were rolling back and at one point he just kind of sat there, or laid there.”
She also began to break down in tears as she said, “It was difficult because I felt like there really wasn’t anything I could do as a bystander.”
In her testimony, 17-year-old Kaylynn Gilbert, the friend who accompanied Funari to the store, testified that she saw none of the police officers attempt to check to see if Floyd had a pulse or move to get off of him. As she grew more concerned, she joined other bystanders in yelling at the officers.
She described Floyd’s condition once paramedics arrived and told the officers to get off of him.
“He looked kinda like purple, like he wasn’t getting enough circulation. He was really limp,” Gilbert said. “I didn’t know for sure if George Floyd was dead until after the fact, but I had a gut feeling.” Walk from a serenity garden
By the time off-duty Minneapolis firefighter Genevieve Hansen, 28, happened upon the scene, she said Floyd was unconscious but Chauvin’s knee remained on his neck.
Dressed in civilian clothes, Hansen, on her way back from a serenity garden, said she identified herself to the officers and asked if they’d checked Floyd for a pulse.
“I was concerned to see a handcuffed man who was not moving, with officers with their whole body weight on his back and a crowd that was stressed out,” Hansen testified.
Instead of being allowed to examine Floyd, she said Thao ordered her to get on the sidewalk and told her, “If you’re really a Minneapolis firefighter, you know better than to get involved.”
“That’s not right — that’s exactly what I should have done,” Hansen said. “There was no medical assistance on scene, and I got there and I could have given medical assistance.”
(WASHINGTON) — An Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention center in Eloy, Arizona, was in violation of multiple detention standards that put the health and safety of detainees at risk, according to a new federal watchdog report.
The Department of Homeland Security Office of Inspector General’s report includes allegations by detainees that officers at the La Palma Correctional Center used excessive force and findings that some verbally abused detainees.
Officials fired pepper spray at detainees and deployed chemical agents from the ceiling in order to stop a peaceful protest by detainees in April 2020, according to the report. While detainees describe this use of force as “excessive,” the report states that federal detention guidelines may not have been violated since they don’t specify how ICE officers should respond to civil disobedience.
An ICE official said the report’s claims about detention standards were “unsubstantiated.”
“ICE leadership is concerned that several findings in the report rely on uncorroborated allegations by detainees, such as when it appears that the audit team did not interview ICE or the contracting facility representatives,” the official wrote in a letter to the inspector general.
In a separate incident, a guard ridiculed a detainee with “profane and abusive language,” according to the report. Another officer allegedly used a racial slur directed at a detainee, threatened to use pepper spray on him and terminated his phone call with family.
The report also found that protocols to stem the spread of COVID-19 were not enforced at the facility and some detainees did not receive masks despite a coronavirus outbreak in August of last year. There have been 767 coronavirus cases at the facility and currently 75 detainees are being isolated or monitored, according to ICE data.
Detainees also faced delays in receiving care and two detainees out of a sample of cases that were investigated, waited 12 and 14 days before receiving treatment for fever, the report found.
The wide-ranging evaluation also included a review of the facility’s medical unit, which investigators found to be “critically understaffed.” Vacant positions in the mental health department were left unfilled for more than a year in some cases while the nursing department had 11 vacancies. In total, 21 of the 72 positions in the medical unit were unfilled at the time of the review, according to the report.
“The vacancies hinder the medical department’s ability to provide care to the detained population,” the report’s authors wrote.
In response to the staffing concerns raised by the watchdog report, facility managers pointed to the reduced population of the facility as the reason behind the vacancies. The average daily population of the facility at the time of the review was 1,542 while its maximum capacity is 2,340, which is why management said medical positions did not need to be fully staffed.
Salsibury Police DepartmentBy Morgan Winsor, ABC News
(SALISBURY, N.C.) — A police officer in Salisbury, North Carolina, has resigned after video surfaced showing him mistreating a K-9 during training.
Following a weekslong investigation, the Salisbury Police Department announced Wednesday that it concluded the officer depicted in the video, identified as James Hampton, “had acted in a manner entirely inconsistent with his K-9 training and had violated Police Department policy.”
“As a result, he was recommended for termination,” the agency said in a statement. “The Police Department followed its disciplinary process, which requires that an employee subject to termination be afforded a due process hearing. Following that hearing, and prior to the Police Department formalizing any disciplinary action, Officer Hampton tendered his resignation, effective immediately. The Police Department did not incentivize or otherwise request Officer Hampton’s resignation, which he tendered as a matter of right.”
“The Salisbury Police Department will continue to review and make the necessary changes to our K-9 training operations, policies and procedures that align with industry best practices,” the agency added.
Prior to the news of Hampton’s resignation, animal rights organization PETA sent a letter to the North Carolina Police Dog Association on Wednesday morning asking for the officer’s K-9 handler state certification to be immediately and permanently revoked.
“This individual’s violent and abusive behavior toward his loyal K-9 partner indicates a serious lack of judgment and decency — qualities that the public demands and K-9s deserve from their human partners in law enforcement,” PETA senior vice president Daphna Nachminovitch wrote in the letter.
The video at the center of the investigation shows Hampton placing a leash on the police dog, named Zuul, and hauling the K-9 off the ground by the neck. With Zuul suspended in the air, the officer swings the dog around his back and over his shoulder before walking toward a patrol vehicle. Someone outside the camera shot is heard saying, “We’re good, no witnesses.” Others can be heard discussing turning off their cameras.
Hampton is then seen slamming Zuul into the side of the car as he tries to lift the K-9 into the vehicle by the leash. The officer yells at Zuul and strikes the dog’s head.
The video, which is almost a minute long, was obtained by Charlotte ABC affiliate WSOC and other local news stations about a month ago, but the incident allegedly occurred in October. Police have not confirmed when the video was taken.
On March 2, when the footage surfaced, the Salisbury Police Department released a statement saying that the officer involved had been “administratively separated from the canine” amid an ongoing investigation and that Zuul “was not harmed and is healthy and being well-cared-for.”
The dog appeared at a press conference where Salisbury Police Chief Jerry Stokes read the department’s statement.
“It is important to understand that a police canine is trained to use force against criminal suspects and a handler must ensure they have complete control over the dog at all times so that any use of the canine in the field is appropriate and lawful,” Stokes said. “When a canine is noncompliant with the handler’s commands, the handler is trained to correct the dog. Canine training tactics and corrective measures can sometimes be alarming out of context.”
Amid public outrage over the now-viral video, PETA held a protest outside the Salisbury Police Department on March 5, demanding answers along with a criminal investigation and appropriate charges. That same day, the Salisbury Police Department released another statement saying that Zuul was taken to a veterinarian on March 4 “for a checkup” and had “received a clean bill of health.”
“He is in good hands, happy and healthy, and taking some time off,” the agency added.
Veterinarian records later released by the Salisbury Police Department confirm that Zuul went to an animal hospital in Concord, about 20 miles southwest of Salisbury, on March 4 for a “semi-annual exam.” The document states that the 3-year-old Dutch Shepherd “had an incident that involved his neck in October of 2020” but “is doing well” and “is not having any clinical signs at this time.” The document further states that Zuul showed “no obvious musculoskeletal or neurological damage from his incident in October.”
“I do not see any reason that Zuul should not be trained for police work,” the examiner wrote in the document.
KTRKBY: MARLENE LENTHANG, ABC NEWS
