A 14-year-old was shot in a parking lot off Foxon Boulevard in New Haven Thursday night.
Police said the teen was hot in the leg and that his injuries are not life-threatening.
The victim was taken to the hospital for treatment.
The shooting happened around 8:30 p.m. in a parking lot off Foxon Boulevard at Quinnipiac Avenue. Any witnesses are asked to call the New Haven Police Department Detective Bureau at 203-946-6304.
A small gathering of members of New Haven’s Dixwell community Thursday at a local church began as a conversation about reducing violence in the city, but quickly turned to a discussion of the faith community’s role in making the Elm City safer.
The meeting hosted by Varick Memorial AME Zion Church and the Greater New Haven Clergy Association was called in response to the April police shooting of an unarmed couple by Yale and Hamden officers inside New Haven city limits, as well as the shooting of a 9-year-old last week.
The pastor called the incidents wake up calls for faith leaders to do more.
“I believe these events occurred to open up our eyes and cause us to really focus on what we ened to do as a community,” said Varick’s pastor Reverend Kelcy GL Steele.
But just what role the clergy should play and how was a point of contention among some attendees, including Rodney Williams, the uncle of the driver of the car in the police shooting.
“A lot of people that’s in the congregations aren’t in the community like where we’re at. We need to figure out how to get the community in here for the conversation,” said Williams.
Also in attendance, former New Haven Police Chief Anthony Campbell in his new role representing the State’s Attorney’s office. Campbell says their inquiry into the shooting is nearly complete. In the meantime, he also called on the community to play an active role in changing things.
“You are all people of influence. Bring five people with you. Bring 10 people with you, Make it a point that everyone understands that this effects all of us, every single one of us,” said Campbell.
Part of Route 6 in Bristol is closed as police investigate a crash and police expect the road to be closed for several hours.
Route 6, which is Farmington Avenue, is closed between Mix Street and Camp Street and police are asking drivers to avoid the area.
An NBC Connecticut crew is at the scene and saw a pole down and at least two vehicles damaged.
No additional information was immediately available.
A teenage boy is dead after being mauled by at least one dog Thursday night in Dighton, Massachusetts.
The Bristol County District Attorney's Office confirms that a 14-year-old Rehoboth boy was killed in the attack on Maple Swamp Road. Police responded to a 911 call around 8 p.m. after a neighbor made the grisly discovery.
Officials said multiple dogs were taken into the custody of animal control. It is unclear what breed of dog was involved in the fatality.
Authorities said they do not think there was any foul play, but the investigation is ongoing.
No further information was immediately available.
Milford police responded to the Milford train station to investigate a suspicious package at the train station and said a person left it unattended.
Police are leaving the scene.
Four hostages were rescued in West Africa overnight, including an American woman, French authorities said Friday.
NBC News reported that two French nationals and a South Korean were also rescued in an operation in Burkina Faso that left two French commandos dead.
The rescued French citizens had vanished on May 1. It wasn't immediately clear when or where the American or South Korean went missing.
U.S. officials weren't immediately available for comment.
The teenage parents and grandmother of a newborn baby thought to have been abandoned in a Chicago alley were charged early Friday, according to police.
A 16-year-old girl and a 17-year-old boy were identified as the baby's parents and each charged with one felony count of first-degree attempted murder, Chicago police said in a statement. They were not identified, as they were charged as juveniles.
Karla L. Antimo, 37, was identified as the newborn's grandmother and charged with one felony count of disorderly conduct in making a false report of an offense, authorities said.
According to police, the girl gave birth on Tuesday and wrapped the newborn boy in a towel, placing him on top of a garbage can in an alley in the 3500 block of North Pulaski Road in the South Old Irving Park neighborhood on the city's Northwest Side.
The 17-year-old boy then went to the alley, put the baby and towel into a bag and called Antimo, authorities said.
Antimo took the newborn to a Chicago firehouse in the 1700 block of North Pulaski Road in the city's Hermosa neighborhood, according to police, who said there she reported finding the baby at around 3:30 p.m. on top of a garbage can in a nearby alley in the 1700 block of North Keystone Avenue.
Paramedics took the baby to Norwegian American Hospital in critical condition just after 4 p.m., officials said. The baby was "crying and kicking," according to a fire department spokesman, and his condition was upgraded to stable before he was then transferred to Lurie Children's Hospital.
Police said Thursday that a 16-year-old girl came forward the previous night and had been positively identified as the mother of the child. On Friday, officials said Antimo admitted during the investigation that she was the grandmother of the newborn. All three were expected to appear in court Friday.
The newborn was the first baby to be illegally abandoned in Illinois this year, according to Dawn Geras, who lobbied to pass Illinois' "Safe Haven" law.
Under the law, infants 30 days or younger may be dropped off with no questions asked at a hospital, fire or police station, according to the state's Department of Child and Family Services.
The Charter Oak Bridge is one of the state's most congested areas and Gov. Ned Lamont said he wants to change that.
He is holding a news conference in Hartford near Interstate 91 and the Charter Oak Bridge to discuss plans to improve the state’s transportation system and fix traffic congestion.
His office said that there are several factors that cause frequent backups at the Exit 29 ramp on Interstate 91 northbound, which connects to Routes 5 and 15 and Interstate 84 East.
His office said the lengths of the backups vary but extend 1.4 miles to the vicinity of the Wethersfield Cove at times.
Lamont will be joined by Department of Transportation Commissioner Joseph Giulietti for the 11 a.m. news conference.
When confronted by a gunman at his Colorado school earlier this week, teenager Kendrick Castillo rushed the gunman, taking a fatal shot that gave his classmates a chance to save themselves.
The move has been widely hailed as an act of heroism. But some school safety experts and psychologists fear it's indicative of a growing pressure that American schoolchildren feel to neutralize threats at their schools — an unfair expectation that they say sometimes puts students in danger where it may not already have existed, NBC News reported. At least one expert said he was worried "that we're setting our kids up to be martyrs."
Options-based trainings like the Alert, Lockdown, Inform, Counter, and Evacuate protocol, also known as ALICE, don't "factor in age and developmental factors," said Ken Trump, president of National School Safety and Security Services.
"We're asking children to make executive decisions, life-and-death decisions: Do we attack or not? Do we run or do we lock down?" he said.
Michael Dorn, executive director of the nonprofit school safety consulting firm Safe Havens International, said in some cases a student brings a gun to school without intending to carry out a shooting.
"We have had students and educators shot moving to attack when the person was not firing, had not fired," he said.
Click here to read NBC News' full report.
A New Hartford woman had a scary moment Friday morning when a bear tried to get to her baby goats, but she was able to scare it off.
Brittney Mitchell said her goats were out in her yard on Cotton Hill Road when the bear tried to get past the fence and into the goat enclosure, but she was not going to let them become breakfast.
“I hear my dogs barking, so I book it down the stairs and there is just a large bear standing here, so I walk outside and I tried to shoo him away with my voice and it wasn’t working,” Mitchell said.
Then she grabbed laundry detergent and threw the bottle at the bear, but that did not work.
Then she picked up a helium tank, yelled and sang and the bear did leave and head into the woods.
Mitchell’s goats, Billy and Freddy, are only a month old and this is not their first encounter with a bear.
Mitchell said three bears tried to get into the goat enclosure three days ago.
When another bear showed up on Friday, she called the state Department of Energy and Environmental Protection for help, but the bear was already gone when DEEP staff arrived.
Mitchell said she will be taking advice from DEEP and will get bear spray, put a light on the enclosure and use ammonia to detract bears.
WARNING: This story contains disturbing details that may be difficult for some viewers to read.
The Illinois mother and father charged with the beating death of their 5-year-old son Andrew "AJ" Freund pleaded not guilty Friday and requested jury trials.
Joann Cunningham, 36, and Andrew Freund Sr., 60, were each indicted on multiple counts by a grand jury on Thursday, McHenry County court records show. The charges are in connection with AJ's death, as well as two unspecified incidents in the months before.
Both parents were indicted on 20 charges apiece, including first-degree murder and aggravated battery of a child, among others connected to AJ's death.
Cunningham and Freund were also indicted on several counts related to incidents occurring on March 4, for which they were indicted on two counts of aggravated battery of a child and one count of aggravated domestic battery, and on Sept. 20, 2018, for which they were indicted on one count each of reckless conduct causing great bodily harm, unlawful restraint and a misdemeanor count of child endangerment.
Freund was also indicted on an additional count of making a false complaint to 911. The judge on Friday granted a motion seeking a pyschological evaulation.
Cunningham and Freund Sr. were arrested and initially charged on Apr. 24, the same day police said they recovered the young boy's body wrapped in plastic and buried in a remote location in the northwest suburb of Woodstock, just miles from the Crystal Lake home where the two had reported the boy missing the week before.
Freund Sr. called police on Apr. 18 to report AJ missing, telling a dispatcher that he and Cunningham last saw the boy while putting him to bed the night before and that they'd checked "closets, the basement, the garage, everywhere," in the house to no avail, according to the 911 call.
But investigators quickly knocked down the possibility of a kidnapping, saying there were no signs that AJ had been forcibly removed from the home.
Police said both parents were questioned the following Tuesday and overnight into the morning of Apr. 24. After investigators confronted them with cell phone data evidence "both Joann and Andrew Sr. provided information that ultimately led to the recovery, what we believe is the recovery of deceased subject AJ," said Crystal Lake Police Chief James Black.
Court records revealed that video police recovered from Cunningham's cell phone, showing AJ naked on a mattress and covered in bruises, prompted Freund Sr. to lead investigators to the boy's body.
On Apr. 25, the McHenry County Coroner's office identified the body found as AJ's and said the cause of death was "craniocerebral trauma as a consequence of multiple blunt force injuries."
That same day, a judge set bail at $5 million each for Cunningham and Freund Sr. as the two appeared in court for separate bond hearings, in which prosecutors alleged that the two beat AJ and forced him into a cold shower for an extended period of time the night that he died.
Both Cunningham and Freund Sr. were expected to appear in court for preliminary hearings on the indictments beginning at 9 a.m.
State police are at Killingly High School Friday after receiving reports of a social media threat, according to the superintendent’s office.
Superintendent Steven Rioux sent a statement to parents Friday that said the threat was regarding Killingly High School and state police were immediately notified and started investigating.
Several students and parents were notified for questioning and state police determined that “the threat was completely fabricated by students,” according to the superintendent.
He said state police will continue to have a presence at the high school.
The Jonas Brothers are coming to Mohegan Sun this summer, but you are out of luck if you did not already order tickets. They sold out in two minutes, according to Mohegan Sun.
The Jonas Brothers will take the Mohegan Sun Arena stage on Wednesday, Aug. 21 with special guests Bebe Rexha and Jordan McGraw. The show starts at 7:30 p.m.
Tickets for the Uncasville stop of the Happiness Begins Tour went on sale at 10 a.m. on Friday and they were sold out by 11 a.m.
The state has released new immunization data broken down by school and said the state Department of Public Health has updated the kindergarten immunization rate data for 11 schools in Connecticut and updated 7th grade data for five schools in the state.
The exemption rates for all grades are posted here.
The kindergarten numbers are posted here.
The seventh grade numbers are posted here.
A news release says Department of Public Health personnel worked with school officials to identify and correct reporting errors and statewide, the kindergarten student immunization rate for measles mumps and rubella is 96.5% – a number that factors in a 96.8% rate for public schools and a 91.6% rate for private schools.
The data show there are 102 schools in Connecticut where the kindergarten immunization rate for the MMR vaccine is below the federal guideline of 95%, according to the state Department of Health.
Video surfaced Thursday in which a white Montgomery County, Maryland, police officer can be heard using a racial slur while talking to a group of black men.
One of the men, Barry Tucker, said he and a group of friends go to the parking lot of the McDonald's on New Hampshire Avenue in White Oak every morning before they are picked up for landscaping work and have been doing so for months.
On Thursday morning, a group of officers arrived and told him and his three friends they were being cited for trespassing, Tucker said. It was not immediately known whether someone had called police to the area.
Tucker captured six minutes of video of their interaction with the officers and posted it on social media.
At one point in the video, an officer can be heard using a racial slur.
"I couldn't believe it. I could not believe it and I couldn't believe her face that she made. She thought it was actually a cool thing to say and it's not. She even said it was appropriate," Barry Tucker said.
Later on Thursday, Montgomery County Police released Tucker's full video and the officer's body camera footage.
The nearly 13-minute bodycam video, posted to the police department's YouTube account, shows that at least six officers responded.
One officer pats one of the men down and finds a small bag of what appears to be marijuana. Possession of marijuana in small amounts — less than 10 grams — is not a criminal offense in Maryland, although police may issue civil citations similar to traffic tickets.
About 12 minutes into the video, Tucker can be heard saying a racial slur before the woman officer says the same word.
Tucker then uses a derogatory term toward the officer and tells her she is "racist" after she said the racial slur.
The officer then responds, "Nope, that's a quote. Those were your words."
"We sincerely regret the disturbing nature of this video. We understand the pain such language causes the entire community. Our commitment to having open and honest communication with the community and providing transparent police service persists," Montgomery County police said in a statement.
Police issued two citations for marijuana possession and all four men were cited for trespassing.
The officer's status with the department was not known as of Thursday night.
Below is the complete statement from the Montgomery County Police Department:
The Montgomery County Department of Police takes all allegations of racial discrimination seriously. We are committed to serving all members of the community in a fair, impartial, and non-discriminatory manner at all times. All allegations of misconduct surrounding inappropriate actions or language by our employees are investigated by our Internal Affairs Division, at times in concert with other governmental agencies within Montgomery County.
The matter brought to our attention today is disturbing and contrary to our department’s values and our overarching mission to fairly and impartially serve our community. The statements observed on the social media video clip are contrary to our extensive training curriculum that include implicit bias training and other training programs to ensure fair, unbiased, and non-discriminatory policing in our community.
We sincerely regret the disturbing nature of this video. We understand the pain such language causes the entire community. Our commitment to having open and honest communication with the community and providing transparent police service persists. As part of our commitment to accountability and transparency, we are releasing both the social media video and the body worn camera footage of the involved officer for all to view.
The referenced videos were captured during an interaction between officers and four individuals at the McDonalds located at 11146 New Hampshire Avenue, in Silver Spring, on today’s date at 10:36 a.m. The officers were investigating trespassers at that location.
Meriden police are searching for a man in connection with a shooting last month and said he should be considered armed and dangerous.
Police are urging Diaz to come forward on his own to face charges including assault in the first degree, carrying a pistol or revolver without a permit, unlawful discharge of a firearm and criminal use of a firearm.
Anyone who encounters Diaz is urged to maintain a safe distance and call the police.
Police said they have been investigating after a bout of shootings in Meriden in the past several months and they are asking for the continued cooperation of the community while they prepare search warrants and conduct interviews.
Anyone with information is asked to contact Det. John Femia at 203-630-6219.
Crews are responding to a gas leak in Berlin.
A Tweet from the Berlin Volunteer Fire Department says firefighters are responding to the area of Glendale and Farmington avenues after a construction crew hit a gas line.
CNG is responding as well.
Police are asking people to avoid the area.
New York City’s hottest nightclubs have clear policies at the door. No one under the age of 21 is allowed in.
But an I-Team hidden camera investigation found club promoters -- working as independent contractors -- offering to sneak underage women past bouncers and right into seats at expensive reserved tables. Over the course of a month, I-Team interns sent direct messages on Instagram, asking whether club promoters could get young women in even without proper ID.
"We don’t have fakes ... could we still get in??" wrote one intern who is a local college student.
A promoter working to fill seats at the Chelsea nightclub Avenue wrote back, "Yeah ... I will walk u in. Just come w make up and heels."
When I-Team interns arrived at Avenue to meet the promoter, he offered to provide them with fraudulent IDs he said would get them past the door security. He was surprisingly frank when confronted about the scheme.
"You just gave them fake IDs, right?" asked the I-Team's Chris Glorioso.
"Yes," the promoter said.
We followed up with a question about whether the promoter felt he should be giving people he believes to be underage fake IDs.
"No, but I mean the girls, they want to go out," the promoter said. "So we try to help."
Glorioso responded, "I mean it’s illegal though, isn’t it?"
The promoter's answer: "I know, I know. It’s illegal but if the girls want to go out ... it’s like ... we always try to help them."
Avenue is owned by TAO Group, a company that also owns PHD Midtown, yet another club where two Instagram promoters boasted "VIP access and drinks all night" to female guests. When our interns asked if they could enter without their driver's licenses, the promoters slipped them fraudulent identification cards.
"We were just trying to do a favor for them," said one of the promoters. He added that he didn’t really believe the I-Team interns were underage.
A TAO Group spokesperson sent the I-Team an email saying the business has cut ties with the promoters caught on camera peddling fake IDs outside PHD and Avenue.
"We have strict policies and procedures in place to prevent underaged individuals from entering our nightclub venues," the email read. "We engage highly qualified security professionals who are trained to spot and confiscate fake IDs and deny entrance, which they do on a regular basis. We would never knowingly allow any promoter who works with underage clientele to engage in business at our venues."
TAO Group nightclubs aren’t the only ones where rogue promoters have offered to sneak underage women beyond the velvet ropes. I-Team interns found promoters working for other clubs suggesting under-21 women can come in and drink. One promoter on Instagram promised the nightclub he worked for was "under-21 friendly" with "a private table and drinks."
When asked if valid IDs were necessary at another club, a promoter wrote back, "No it’s fine ... come in heels and dressed [hot] (fire emoji)."
A Manhattan father says his daughter, then 17, was served alcohol in 2014 after a promoter ushered her into PHD Downtown, another club owned by TAO Group. Sometime after leaving the PHD with a man she met at the club, she was raped at a Manhattan apartment, according to her father, who asked the I-Team to withhold his name to protect his daughter's identity.
The dad believes she was drugged.
He doesn't blame TAO Group -- or the promoter -- for the alleged rape, but he does believe his teenage daughter was improperly served alcohol and essentially used by promoters as bait for older men.
"They’re specifically targeting students because they’re vulnerable. They love free drinks and they have no money,” the father said. "I think the clubs know exactly what’s happening. Everyone knows exactly what’s happening."
Club promoters working as independent contractors are typically paid in two different ways. They often get a standardized payment for every person they bring into the club. On top of that, they can get 5 to 10 percent of the total alcohol tab at their reserved table, where the cost of liquor bottles ranges from hundreds to thousands of dollars.
As one promoter explained it, "We bring girls. Girls bring guys. Guys spend money."
A spokesman for TAO Group declined to answer questions about the alleged rape in 2014, but did respond with a statement suggesting the company was never made aware of the incident.
"Our highest priority is to create a safe environment for all our guests. We would always cooperate with law enforcement in any such matter, however, we were not aware of these claims," the spokesman said.
The father says his daughter reported the alleged rape to police, but the Manhattan district attorney's office declined to pursue the case after viewing surveillance video showing her leave the club willingly with a man.
A spokesperson for the Manhattan district attorney’s office declined to answer questions about the case.
In 2017, MSG, the owner of Madison Square Garden and the New York Knicks purchased a controlling interest in TAO Group.
Snakes on a plane… and in washing machines?
An Evanston homeowner opened up their washing machine to find a snake inside Wednesday, authorities said.
"I was totally creeped out," Sanela Kamencic told NBC 5. "How did a snake get in the house let alone the washer?"
Evanston Officer Pedro Carrasco and Animal Control Warden Jason Pound responded to the scene and brought the reptile to the Chicago Exotics Animal Hospital.
"I saw it peeking its head out of the washing machine," Carrasco said.
"I could smell it and could tell that it had actually been through a cycle," Pound said. "Smelled like Downy."
The animal went through a wash cycle, but survived, according to the veterinarian who treated it.
“We have never had a snake come in that was found in a washing machine,” she said. “It looked pretty good. Was able to do an exam on it.”
The snake, named Penelope, apparently belongs to a 12-year-old boy, who lived nearby and had lost the animal three days earlier. The young owner was reunited with the snake following the incident.
A passenger aboard a Delta flight tried to open the front door of the plane mid-flight, prompting the pilot to declare an emergency, according to live air traffic control transmission ATC.net. The plane has landed safely at LaGuardia Airport.
On an audio recording the pilot told tower control that the emotionally disturbed passenger tried to open the "forward service door" on the right side of the Delta 5935 flight from Raleigh to LaGuardia. It landed in New York City around 1:40 p.m.
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"We’re aware of the social media report related to the flight and are looking into it, but what I can tell you now is that the flight landed uneventfully and proceeded to its gate," a Republic Airways spokesperson said.
At least one woman on social media tweeted the woman was "screaming her head off that she needed to open the door and die." That woman tweeted the upset traveler's father pulled her away from the door.
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"I wasn’t scared as I knew the door could not be opened but her shrieks were terrifying," Stacy Herbert tweeted. "And she was sitting behind us so when she was pulled back to her seat it was awful to see her suicidal distress."
Passengers say that she woman was ultimately subdued by a flight attendant and her father.
After the plane landed safely, the woman was subsequently taken to an area hospital for observation.
Herbert tweeted photos of what appeared to be a dozen law enforcement vehicles and ambulances surrounding the plane once it landed safely.
If you are in crisis, call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 800-273-8255 or reach out to the Crisis Text Line by texting 'Home' to 741741.
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