A Maryland woman attacked her 11-year-old son with a saw and told a hospital employee she was overwhelmed with trying to care for her children with autism, according to court documents.

The boy told police he returned to their Rockville home after school March 12 and found his younger brother crying and his mother, 46-year-old Kristina Petrie, laughing and crying. He went upstairs to play a game before doing his homework, and his mother followed and asked why he wasn’t doing his homework.

The boy told police she then raised a bow saw and he got out of the room and tried to escape, but she caught him, “jammed” the saw into the back of his neck and moved it back and forth several times.

The boy screamed and was able to escape and get the saw away from his mother, police said.

She called her husband and told him she attacked their son with a saw, court documents said. When her husband got home from work, he took her to MedStar Montgomery Medical Center, where she said she “tried to kill her kids again,” according to court documents. She told a hospital employee she was not helping her children enough with their autism and did not want them to be a burden to society when they reach adulthood. She said they needed to die and she had intended to cut off her 11-year-old son’s head.

Three days later, the boy was medically examined. He had thin lines with broken skin and scabbing on his neck, according to court documents. He also had small cuts on his left hand.

Petrie is charged with attempted first-degree murder and two counts of child abuse.

Petrie's defense attorney, Sharon Diamant, told NBC Washington that Petrie has been married 15 years and had no criminal history.

"We do not believe she intended to hurt her children," Diamant said. "Her husband and her kids love her very much."

Diamant said she was unable to comment on whether mental health issues may have been a factor.

"Multiple friends have come forward in support of her, and we're hopeful that the public will reserve judgment until proper facts come out," Diamant said.

The CTfastrak is celebrating its third anniversary.

Many criticized the $570-million project from the start, but Gov. Dannel Malloy said Wednesday that it’s surpassed expectations.

Shuttling 15 million riders to date by state estimates, Malloy said those numbers are proof the cost to taxpayers was money well spent. 

“We’ve actually exceeded our own predictions with respect to success. To reach ridership numbers that we had not expected to reach for years to come is really quite spectacular,” Malloy said during a news conference celebrating the rapid transit system.

Detractors were quick to point out their belief that ridership numbers have been inflated by including routes previously in use before construction and counting roundtrip users twice. 

Republican leaders, like Senator Len Fasano called the governor’s statement misleading, adding, “We see the CTfastrak buses every day in Hartford; they’re big, they’re green, and they’re empty.” 

“Public transit doesn’t make money,” Jim Redeker, Transportation Commissioner explained. “The investments being made by the private sector in housing and mixed-use development and commercial development are going to ultimately exceed the cost of this system.” 

State leaders point to a surged in economic growth, such as a subsidized apartment building going up a block away from this West Hartford stop, growth around the CTfastrak in New Britain, and projects the governor said are planned up and down the Fastrak corridor. 

Malloy said to continue that growth investors need to know that the system will be viable for years to come. However, a big budget shortfall could push future expansion off track.

“There are lots of things that we want to do, including bus service by about 40 percent over the not-too-distant future. You need money to do that and the transportation fund is not projecting a five-year surplus,” Malloy said. 

The governor said the regional rapid-transit service was developed to give people access to jobs and our cities. 

That’s just what one rider said it’s doing for her. 

“I love the convenience of the bus. I mean, when I can’t get a ride I know I can jump on the bus,” Tanisha Bonner, of Hartford, said.

The Commissioner of Transportation said 80 percent was paid for with federal grant money. 

Many state transportation projects are on hold because of the budget gap and Fasano said the millions in state taxpayer dollars that helped pay for the project would have been better spent investing in roads and other infrastructure that serve more commuters in Connecticut. 

Parents in South Windsor have been lined up since before the sun came up Thursday for the chance to sign their children up for a before and after school program called the “4th ‘R.’”

The Parks and Recreation Commission runs this program, which is offered at the elementary schools throughout the school year.

Registration begins at 8 am., but the number of spots available is limited and parents have to register in person, which had led to long lines.

Parents said students who previously attended can automatically re-enroll.

Ella Grasso Technical High School is Groton has moved graduation to the United States Coast Guard Academy and officials from both said this will result no additional costs for student or taxpayers.

Hundreds of people called into out "Connect-A-Thon" event to let us know what's going on in your neighborhood and one viewer who wished to remain anonymous had concerns about the cost of moving the high school graduation because of construction at the school.

Officials from the Coast Guard Academy said the high school will hold graduation at one of the halls that is available for rent.

The academy hosts several ceremonies each year, including a few graduations, and said the school rented the hall and that there is no additional cost to students.

The principal of Ella Grasso Technical High School said money from class dues and fundraising goes into an activities fund and all of the graduation costs come from that.

She said the school looked at several venues, but others cost far too much.

Holding the event at the Coast Guard Academy keeps costs down to about what they would have spent in-house on graduation, around $3,500, the principal said.

She pointed out that even a graduation that takes place at the high school still requires renting chairs, a DJ and other items.

Graduation is set for June 20.

A Berlin family was forced out of their home by fire early Tuesday morning.

Fire officials said the house at 54 Sun Meadow Drive was engulfed in flames when crews arrived. A family of had three escaped the home before firefighters got there.

Firefighters began attacking the fire from outside. It took around an hour to put out the blaze. In the process, part of the roof and the second floor collapsed.

“Everything fell into the first floor so we had to go around digging through everything to get the hotspots and remaining fire out, and that’s what crews are doing at this time," East Berlin Fire Chief Thomas Farr said.

No injuries have been reported.

State police said it appears the fire started in the living room, near the couch. The fire marshal has determined the fire was accidental.

A person was taken to the hospital to be treated for hypothermia after the racing scull he was in capsized at Gardner Lake in Salem Thursday morning.

Department of Energy and Environmental Protection officials said EnCon officers responded after a racing scull capsized.

The person has been removed from the lake and is being treated at William Backus Hospital in Norwich.

A trove of leaked photos and documents form a "paper trail of war crimes" by the Syrian government that give stronger evidence than what convicted the Nazis at Nuremberg, according to the human rights group processing them.

NBC News reported that the 140-person Commission for International Justice and Accountability has been documenting human rights abuses by Syrian officials since civil war broke out there in 2011. One source is roughly 50,000 photos shot by a forensic photographer known as "Caesar" at the start of the conflict that allegedly catalogue nearly 7,000 victims of torture at the hands of pro-regime forces.

Directives from the government were meticulously documented, even involving torture, "to make sure that everyone does what they're supposed to be doing," Deputy Director Chris Engels said.

While Assad has disputed the photos' veracity, Human Rights Watch, the FBI and the U.N. have verified them in part.

Boston's Public Improvement Commission has decided to postpone a vote to change the name of an iconic street adjacent to Fenway Park.

The commission met Thursday morning after hearing from several people for and against the idea. After two hours, the commission decided to postpone the vote until April 12.

Red Sox principal owner John Henry had filed a petition in February to change the name of Yawkey Way back to the original name of Jersey Street.

"It is important to separate the unfortunate and undeniable history of the Red Sox with regards to race and integration from the incredible charitable work the Yawkey Foundation has accomplished in this millennium and over the last 16 years," the team had said in a statement.

Officials said it was in an effort to rid themselves of negative connotations connected with Tom Yawkey, who allegedly had a history of racist views while he was team owner from 1933 to 1976.

His widow, Jean Yawkey, and later the Yawkey Trust, continued to own the team until Henry purchased it in 2002.

Among those speaking for and against the name change Thursday morning was Jack Connors, a well-known Boston philanthropist who said the street name shouldn't change.

"What’s next? Washington Street? Jefferson Way," he asked.

John Harrington, chair of the Yawkey Foundation, who knew Tom Yawkey personally also said Yawkey’s true legacy was giving back and agreed the street’s name shouldn’t change.

"We should not just honor his name, we should support his work," said Harrington.

As the survivors of the Parkland, Florida, school shooting fight for gun control and school safety, critics are questioning their intentions and attacking their credibility. But the teen activists continue to push back.

In the six weeks since the Valentine’s Day massacre at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, the students have defended themselves against constant false claims, ridicule and conspiracy theories. Seventeen-year-old David Hogg, who has become one of the most prominent voices in the student-led movement and has frequently drawn the ire of gun supporters, has been at the center of some of the most recent attacks.

Conservative Fox News host Laura Ingraham mocked Hogg on Twitter Wednesday after he said in an interview that he had been rejected from four California universities. Ingraham wrote that Hogg “whines” about his rejection and linked to a story on conservative news site Daily Wire.

Hogg responded swiftly to Ingraham by threatening a boycott of her advertisers. By Wednesday evening, Hogg had compiled a list of 12 major brands that advertise on Ingraham's show and called on his 600,000 followers to boycott the companies. The list, which included AT&T, Hulu, Arby’s, and Nutrish, has been retweeted 25,000 times.

Thursday morning, Rachael Ray's Nutrish brand heeded Hogg's call, tweeting, "We are in the process of removing our ads from Laura Ingraham’s program."

Ingraham and Fox News did not immediately respond to NBC’s request for comment.

TMZ founder Harvey Levin, who interviewed Hogg about his application process, came to the student’s defense and tweeted that Hogg “was not whining” or “feeling sorry for himself in the slightest.”

Hogg is a student journalist at his high school and was focused on documenting his school’s tragedy. He initially gained attention for recording himself hiding in a closet with classmates and interviewing them during the shooting. In a CBS interview, he described riding his bike back to school later in the evening with his camera to record more interviews. But conservative writer Sarah Rumpf questioned this account in a Monday blog post and wondered if Hogg lied about being at school during the shooting.

Rumpf, on the conservative political blog Red State, misinterpreted Hogg’s comments to CBS to mean that perhaps Hogg rode his bike to school in the evening because he had not been in school at all that day. The theory was spread across social media.

Rumpf later issued a correction and apology, writing that she was “absolutely wrong” and that “David Hogg was absolutely on campus during the shooting.” She added: “It appears that the problem was that CBS included a very confusing quote without context.”

After the story spread online, Hogg explained on Twitter that he rode back to school after returning home because “my sister was crying so much I couldn't stand not being able to do anything about it.”

Hogg also faced backlash after delivering an impassioned speech at last week’s March for Our Live rally in Washington Saturday, which organizers say drew more than 800,000 participants. After addressing the crowd and calling on Congress to enact sweeping gun law changes, Hogg raised his arm and put a closed fist in the air.

Many Twitter users compared the gesture to the salute of Adolf Hitler and his Nazi party. A meme spread through social media with side-by-side images of the teen and dictator and the caption: “All in favor of gun control, raise your right arm.” The Daily Wire and other conservative outlets like Breitbart and Infowars wrote about the comparison.

However, Hogg’s closed-fist gesture is different from the Nazi salute, which consisted of an open hand and down-turned palm. And the raised fist has a history of being paired with political activism. Olympians John Carlos and Tommie Smith raised their fists after receiving their Olympic medals at the 1968 Games, and feminists Gloria Steinem and Dorothy Pitman Hughes did so as well on a 1971 cover of Esquire magazine.

Hogg himself did not respond to the memes, but a classmate did. Though Parkland student Kyle Kashuv has been outspoken about his disagreements with Hogg, he told The Hill that “it is reprehensible that people are comparing a 17-year-old to Hitler. As a Jew, I find it egregiously misinformed.”

The comparisons to early-19th century Germany didn’t stop there. Alex Jones of Infowars, the outlet that helped spread the false theory Hogg and his classmates are coached crisis actors, called the March for Our Lives a “Hitler Youth invasion” and pronounced Hogg the “propagandist-in-chief,” even dubbing video of Hogg’s speech with audio of Hitler.

At least one GOP congressmember made a Hitler Youth comparison as well.

Hogg doesn’t seem to be distracted by the detractors, though. He’s currently busy mobilizing constituents across the country to organize local “Town Hall for Our Lives” events to talk about gun violence. As of Thursday morning, more than 400 events had been scheduled.

The Broward County jail is receiving love letters and fan mail addressed to Nikolas Cruz, the accused gunman in the deadly Parkland school shooting, according to the public defender's office.

The South Florida Sun Sentinel obtained copies of some of the correspondence, including greeting cards, letters and photographs, that's been sent to Cruz.

Cruz's commissary account has also received hundreds of dollars in contributions, which can be used by inmates to buy food, drinks, hygiene products and other items, according to the report. 

Teenage girls, women and older men are sending Cruz correspondence. Broward County public defender Howard Finkelstein confirmed to NBC6 that Cruz has received the letters.

"I reserve the right to care about you, Nikolas!" a woman from Texas wrote in a greeting card six days after the shooting. The card has an illustration of a rabbit holding binoculars as it looks out to the ocean with the caption; "Out of sight, but never out of mind."

In another letter, overcome with hearts and happy faces drawn by hand, a Texas teenager told Cruz that when she saw his face on television, "something attracted me to you."

“Your eyes are beautiful and the freckles on your face make you so handsome," the letter reads, with the writer describing herself as a skinny, busty, white high school senior. A Chicago woman also sent Cruz nine suggestive photos.

A man from New York sent Cruz a card with a cat in the front that included photos of himself behind the wheel of his 1992 Nissan convertible, while an 18-year-old also from New York told Cruz to "hang in there and keep your head up."

“No one else is dealing w/your demons, meaning maybe defeating them could be the beginning of your meaning, friend. I know you could use a good friend right now," reads the letter, which features hearts colored in pink ink.

People are also joining Facebook and other online communities to discuss how to help the accused gunman. Hashtags are being spread by sympathizers showing support for Cruz.

Finkelstein's office is representing Cruz. Finkelstein told NBC6 he has never seen a defendant receive so many letters in his 40 years as a public defender.

Cruz has not yet seen the correspondence because he is on suicide watch, Finkelstein told the Sun Sentinel. Other than legal mail, Broward County jail workers open inmates' mail, per Broward County Sheriff's Office procedure.

“We read a few religious ones to him that extended wishes for his soul and to come to God,” Finkelstein told the newspaper, "but we have not and will not read him the fan letters or share the photos of scantily-clad teenage girls.”

Finkelstein said he worries that boys and girls across the country are idolizing Cruz and "looking up to his fame and notoriety.”

"The letters shake me up because they are written by regular, everyday teenage girls from across the nation,” Finkelstein said. “That scares me. It's perverted.”

Adnan Syed, whose murder conviction was the subject of the 2014 true-crime podcast “Serial,” is getting a new trial, the Maryland Court of Special Appeals ruled Thursday.

Syed was convicted in 2000 of murdering his 18-year-old ex-girlfriend Hae Min Lee in Baltimore, Maryland, before leaving her in a shallow grave in a local park. Syed was 17 at the time and is now 36.

After the highly anticipated ruling, Syed's attorney Justin Brown tweeted: "WE WON THE APPEAL. #FreeAdnan"

Syed's case gained international attention when "Serial" focused on it in its first season, becoming the fastest podcast to reach 5 million downloads and streams in iTunes’ history. The show garnered a cult-like following, enthralling listeners with the dramatic twists and turns of Syed’s case. Host Sarah Koenig took the audience to Maryland and traced the very steps Syed is said to have taken before murdering Lee, each episode playing like a real-life murder mystery.

Syed first appealed his conviction in 2012 but was denied. A lower court judge then vacated Syed’s conviction in June 2016 after deciding that his defense attorney at the time had not effectively represented him or cross-examined the state on key evidence.

The prosecution had used cell phone tower data to place Syed at the scene of the grave. But Syed's trial lawyer, Christina Gutierrez, who has since died, failed to question the state's cell tower expert on the reliability of the data in determining location.

With the vacation, Syed was granted a new trial, and after the state appealed that decision, the three-judge panel upheld the decision on Thursday.

In a 2-1 ruling, the panel agreed with Syed's current lawyer that Gutierrez failed to investigate a potential alibi witness who said she saw Syed at a public library at the time prosecutors said he killed Lee. 

That potential witness was Asia McClain, who had written two letters saying she and two others saw Syed. However, Gutierrez never followed up on her account.

The panel said in its written decision that if testimony from McClain had been presented to the jury, it would have "directly contradicted the State's theory of when Syed had the opportunity and did murder Hae" and could have created reasonable doubt in at least one juror's mind and led to a different outcome.

It was not immediately clear if prosecutors plan to appeal the ruling to the state's highest court.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

An Oakville man has been arrested and charged with possession of child pornography and voyeurism.

Police said he shared images of girls between 2 and 12 being sexually assaulted by men and also set up a hidden camera in a private bathroom.

Detectives arrested 49-year-old Shawn Bivens, of Oakville, Wednesday and police said he has been charged with possession of child pornography in the first degree, employing a minor in an obscene performance, obscenity and voyeurism.

The investigation into Biven began in August 2017 when he was identified as a suspect.

Bevins is accused of sharing through his Gmail account 27 images depicting girls between 2 and 12 years old being sexually assaulted by adult men, according to police.

Investigators went to Bivens’ home and seized several computers and media devices and police said the preliminary examination showed the presence of hundreds of images of child pornography on his cell phone.

Police said detectives also recovered images from what appears to be a hidden camera that had been set up in a private bathroom and that is what the voyeurism charge is.

Police are still investigating.

Bivens was held on a $250,000 bond.

Apple just released nthe iOS 11.3 update for iPhones and iPads on Thursday which features a setting that will allow users to control battery usage along with other new additions, CNBC reported.

Earlier this year, reports revealed Apple was purposefully slowing down iPhones to preserve battery life. To remedy the issue Apple will now have a feature that will show if the phone's performance has been limited and an option to turn off the limitation, CNBC reported. 

Addition new features in the update will include the Health Record, an app to track your health data and Business Chat in iMessage which will allow users chat with businesses for support, CNBC reported. 

The former treasurer and secretary of the Terryville Volunteer Fire Department who was suspended amid an investigation into embezzlement allegations has been arrested.

John Wunsch, 53, of Terryville, has been charged with larceny in the first degree and turned himself in on Thursday, according to police.

In January, the fire of the Terryville Volunteer Fire Department said an audit of the fire department’s finances revealed discrepancies in the funds that the department raised through private donations and fundraisers.

That money was meant for programs including fire prevention, uniforms and supporting local outreach programs, including Small Wonders and helping several local families at Christmastime, according to fire officials.

Wunsch, who was suspended amid the investigation, had been with the department for around 17 years at the time the investigation was revealed.

When NBC Connecticut called phone numbers listed for a John Wunsch in January and left messages, there was no immediate response.

He was held on $75,000 bond and is due in court today. 

A state trooper has died after a crash on Interstate 84 East in Tolland, according to a local law enforcement source.

The trooper’s cruiser and a tractor-trailer collided near exit 68 just after 12:30 p.m. and the highway is closed, according to state police.

Tolland Alert Tweeted that the highway is closed between exits 68 and 69 and will be closed for an extended period of time.

The superintendent of schools in Tolland said the buses from the middle and high schools will be delayed.

Tractor-trailers and trucks should use Route 195 South to Route 32 North, according to Tolland Alert. Passenger vehicles should use Route 195 North to Route 74 East.

No additional information was immediately available.

Check back for updates.

A Hartford state representative has resigned after pressure to step down when questionable text messages surfaced between Angel Arce and a teenager.

"I am very grateful for the opportunity to have met so many wonderful people in my role as a State Representative and Hartford Town Committee member, and to have worked alongside so many talented colleagues in both roles," Arce wrote in a letter to the state's secretary.

Speaker of the House Joe Aresimowicz sent a letter to Arce on March 1, informing him that he removed the state representative from the positions of assistant majority leader and vice chair of the transportation committee, as well as from the transportation, housing and finance, revenue and bonding committees.

“In light of the nature of such information, I strongly encourage you to resign your office of State Representative for the 4th District in the Connecticut House of Representatives,” the letter from Aresimowicz says.

Messages obtained by NBC Connecticut purportedly shows Arce talking to a 16-year-old girl. The girl in question is now 18 years old. 

One Democratic source describes them as "not explicit and not at all appropriate."

No criminal investigation is underway since the messages are not explicit. 

The wife of the slain 84-year-old UConn School of Medicine professor who had not been on campus for months has repaid the university through her attorney, the school said. 

UConn Health said $50,040 was recovered and that amount also recoups taxes and all net of vacation time owed. 

UConn officials said Dr. Pierluigi Bigazzi last taught in the classroom in Spring 2017 and keycard access records indicate he was last on campus in August. 

In January, staff from UConn Health tried to contact him about a routine administrative matter but did not hear back. Then on Feb. 5, the head of Bigazzi’s department alerted UConn Police, who found the man dead under a tarp in the basement, according to police reports. 

The doctor's wife, Linda L. Kosuda-Bigazzi, 70, was arrested a few days later after police developed probable cause.

While Bigazzi had not been on campus for months, his absence would not have been a concern because the work he was doing could be done from anywhere, including remotely, according to a statement from UConn. 

On Thursday, UConn said the recovered payments start from Aug. 4, 2017, however, if it is determined the doctor had been dead earlier than that day, they will call for additional repayments. 

“The full reimbursement of all salary paid to Dr. Bigazzi after Aug. 3, 2017, in concert with UConn Health’s recent review and modification of its process for monitoring off-campus work and projects, underscores our commitment to fiscal accountability and our diligence in recouping all state funds inappropriately disbursed after the employee’s undisclosed death,” Chris Hyers, UConn Health’s chief communications officer, said on Thursday.

Kosuda-Bigazzi has been charged with murder and tampering with evidence and court records said Pierluigi Bigazzi could have been killed anytime between June 13, 2017 and Feb. 5, 2018.  

Following Bigazzi's death, the school said they would look into whether relevant UConn and UConn Health policies and protocols were followed and whether they need to update or create new policies and protocols.

On Mar. 21, UConn President Susan Herbst directed that deans at UConn Health provide her an account of every faculty member that included where the person is physically working, what type of work they are doing and last contact with the staff member. 

Herbst provided a memo sent to all management enforcing standards that include staying in regular contact with reporting faculty members, assessing a staff member's work on a regular basis and reviewing approved vacation reporting on a monthly basis. 

Recently, UConn identified Dr. Melinda Sanders, the head of the Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, as the person responsible for managing Bigazzi. She was removed as the department head on Mar. 14.

Nearly two thirds of suspects accused of carrying out mass shootings and attacks in the U.S. in 2017 suffered from symptoms of mental illness. And in 25 percent of the cases, the suspects had been "hospitalized for treatment or prescribed psychiatric medications" prior to the assaults, a new Secret Service report found.

An analysis of 28 mass attacks, which claimed the lives of 147 people and injured nearly 700 more across the country, found that 100 percent of attackers had been plagued by at least one significant stressor in the last five years. The vast majority of them — 79 percent — had engaged in threatening or suspicious communications that raised concerns from others before carrying out their attacks, according to the National Threat Assessment Center report on Mass Attacks in Public Spaces published Thursday.

The study found several other commonalities between the 28 attackers: All were male, 71 percent had a history of criminal charges, one-third had a history of domestic violence and two-thirds had an overall history of violence.

While the attackers ranged in age from 15 years old to 66, the majority — 54 percent — used illicit drugs or abused substances like alcohol and marijuana. More than half of the men appeared to have gone through financial hardships in the last five years and 82 percent of the attackers "exhibited behaviors that were indicative of aggressive narcissism," including rigidness, hostility, or extreme self-centeredness, the Secret Service said.

A profile of the men also found nearly half were motivated to carry out the attacks due to a personal grievance, real or perceived, related to his workplace, home or other issues.

"Our behavioral research on incidents of targeted violence has shaped how we conduct threat assessments as an agency," said Frederick Sellers, a spokesman for the Secret Service’s Office of Strategic Intelligence and Information. "We use multiple sources to gather and analyze information to assess concerning behaviors and identify mitigation strategies in support of our protective mission.”

The study’s findings come in the wake of the Feb. 14 massacre at a Florida high school, and will likely fuel growing concerns of people with untreated mental health issues having access to guns.

Despite repeated warnings to school and law enforcement officials that he was a violent threat, Nikolas Cruz, who is accused of killing 17 people at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, passed a background check to purchase an AR-15 rifle.

School officials and a sheriff's deputy were so concerned about Cruz’s mental stability, they recommended he be forcibly committed. The recommendation was never acted upon.

Such an involuntary commitment would appear on a background check, creating a high obstacle if not a complete barrier to legally obtaining a firearm, authorities say.

Mental health issues also plagued Texas church shooter Devin P. Kelley. In 2012, Kelley escaped from a civilian mental health center where he had been placed by the Air Force for treatment, according to Air Force spokeswoman Ann Stefanek. He had also reportedly been caught sneaking firearms onto Holloman Air Force Base, New Mexico, where he was stationed, and was accused of planning to carry out death threats against his military superiors. Stefanek said she could not confirm those details.

Kelley had a history of domestic violence. He was given a bad conduct discharge from the Air Force after pleading guilty to assaulting his first wife and stepson.

On Nov. 5, he fatally shot 26 people and wounded 20 others at the First Baptist Church of Sutherland Springs. Investigators said the attack appeared to stem from a domestic dispute Kelley was having with his mother-in-law, a member of the church who wasn't present that day.

It was was one two church shootings in 2017 the Secret Service analyzed. Other attacks examined in the report took place at schools (4), open spaces (9), transportation systems (3), and at businesses (13).

The report noted these attacks "violated the safety of the places where we work, learn, shop, relax and otherwise conduct our day-to-day lives."

One of those places was a baseball field, where a gunman opened fire on congressional Republicans during a baseball practice in Alexandria, Virginia. According to his wife, 66-year-old James Hodgkinson began experiencing financial problems in 2016 and told his family he was going to Washington, D.C., to "protest" and "talk about taxes."

On June 14, Hodgkinson sprayed a baseball field with at least 70 rounds of bullets, seriously wounding House Majority Whip Steve Scalise and injuring several others before he was shot dead by Capitol Police.

After the shooting, Suzanne Hodgkinson said her husband was once a fun-loving man who changed after a long illness in the 1990s. She told The New York Times he would throw dishes at her, yell at the television and went "bananas" after Donald Trump won the 2016 presidential election. James Hodgekinson also had a long record of arrests, including battery and domestic battery, but bought guns legally.

"He was running out of money. He was not employed at the time of the event, and he was looking for some local employment. He was married for 30 years, and it appears that that marriage was not going so well,” FBI Assistant Director Tim Slater said at the time. "It was just a pattern of life where you could tell things were not going well."

After the discovery that Facebook had allowed user information to be shared and analyzed by a third party, but Facebook is not alone, Google is also another tech giant that collected user information, but what does Google collect?

NBC News sat down with technology information consultant Dylann Curran to understand how much information about a person is collected at Google. 

Curran told NBC News that he requested his data from Google and found that it was constantly tracking his location in the background, including calculating how long it took to travel between different points, along with his hobbies, interests, possible weight and income, data on his apps and records of files he had deleted.  

"It's wrong to trust any entity that big with so much information," he told NBC News. "They're just trying to make money," and at some point, "someone is going to make a mistake."

The major software products like Turbo Tax, H&R Block and TaxAct let you prepare forms on your mobile device, with apps that let you take a photo of your W-2 to populate your return. You already shop and do banking on your smartphone, but should you do your taxes this way?

NBC News BETTER spoke to a number of nationally recognized privacy and digital security experts who all agreed that using a mobile device creates vulnerabilities. One of the biggest risks: People who take photos with their personal phones and do not delete those photos after, leaving a copy of sensitive data on the phone.

Robert Sicliano, security analyst with Hotspot Shield, worries about lost or stolen mobile devices that do not have password protection. He said that "when someone finds or steals your mobile phone they have access to everything on it and in this case, your tax return."

There's also the risk of having this sensitive information compromised by mobile malware - and that threat is growing. The number of new mobile malware variants increased by 54 percent in 2017, according to a new report from Symantec.