Hartford police are investigating a double shooting in Hartford that critically injured a 19-year-old man and sent a 23-year-old man to the hospital.

Police responded to 7 Cherry Street around 10:16 p.m. and found the 19-year-old man lying near the entrance to the home with a gunshot wound in his head.

Medics rushed him to the hospital, where he is in critical condition.

Minutes later, a 23-year-old man arrived at St. Francis Hospital in a private vehicle. He had a gunshot wound to the torso and said he’d been shot by 7 Cherry Street as well. Police said his injuries do not appear to be life-threatening.

Authorities have not released the name of either victim, but said neither is from the neighborhood.
Detectives from Hartford Major Crimes and the Hartford Shooting Task Force are investigating.

Plainfield police have launched an investigation into an inappropriate video and said it stems from a Plainfield High School investigation into a raunchy group chat among members of the varsity football who shared sexually explicit photos and videos.

It was not immediately clear if this investigation is actually connected to any member of the football team.

School officials conducted the initial investigation after learning of a group chat between some football players that evolved from a discussion of football to one that contained a variety of topics, some of which were inappropriate.

Parents said that chat included naked pictures of underage girls, as well as pictures of a team member exposing himself and copies of their own sexual videos.

At the time, school officials reached out to police only for advice, then decided to bar the team from their Friday night game.

Police said they gave administrators information about laws on minors possessing or transmitting pornography after high school administrators reached out to them on Tuesday about what they believed to be inappropriate content that some students were distributing.

At the time, police did not know the exact content and no one had come forward with information, so they provided only guidance.

However, police met with the superintendent and principal on Thursday and learned that school officials discovered a separate incident while investigating the first one and this one warrants a police investigation.

Police said only that the content of the video might be inappropriate, depending on the age and knowledge of those persons involved.

"We took appropriate action within the context of what we were able to learn. As a school, we addressed matters with each and every student and his or her parent. And we took collective action to forfeit the football game. We hope our efforts respectfully helped each student understand the responsibility related to social media,” Supt. Kenneth Di Pietro said in a statement:

Because of the ages of the people involved, police are not releasing any additional information.

Albuquerque police on Thursday identified the officer who was shot during a traffic stop as a former Army paratrooper and nine-year veteran of the department.

Officer Daniel Webster was shot several times, including in the face near his chin, after pulling over a motorcycle for an allegedly stolen plate at around 7:45 p.m. (9:45 p.m. ET) on Wednesday.

The federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives on Thursday filed a charge of possession of a firearm by a convicted felon against the gunman, 34-year-old Davon Lymon.

Webster remained in critical but stable condition Thursday, Albuquerque police said. Police said he is a highly decorated officer and was named Uniformed Officer of the Year in 2013.

Federal investigators are now looking into the Dillon Stadium project in Hartford, according to sources.

A subpoena was delivered Thursday morning to Hartford's town clerk who later had the document sent to Mayor Pedro Segarra.

The documents ask for any and all information relating to the Dillon Stadium project that went down in flames over the past week.

The Hartford Courant initially reported that James Duckett, the primary developer and owner of Hartford City FC, the team that was to call a new stadium on the Dillon site home, had a federal embezzlement conviction against him. It also came to light that had previous issues with both personal and professional debts.

The Troubleshooters team with NBC Connecticut had previously reported on the invoices with ballooning costs once Duckett, his firm Black Diamond Consulting LLC, and Premier Sports Management Group got involved.

NBC Connecticut confirmed Thursday morning the existence of the subpoena.

In a statement, Mayor Pedro Segarra acknowledged the existence of the subpoena and said, "We welcome the process and are eager to cooperate to protect the City and its residents. We hope this will shed light on if, or where, any potential mistakes were made."

City Council President Shawn Wooden, and Council Member Ken Kennedy who was the most vocal support of the Dillon Stadium and professional soccer project declined comment on the subpoena.

Council Member Larry Deutsch, a member of the Working Families Party, had voiced concerns and reservations about the development since day one. He says, unfortunately, the existence of a federal grand jury, vindicates him and his worries.

“The proposal went a certain distance before city council but it never had any data, any financial support, any timetables and yet we were asked to approve the thing" Deutsch said.

A representative for the City of Hartford must appear before the grand jury at 9 a.m. on November 17 at the Giaimo Federal Building in New Haven, according to the subpoena.
 

The parents of a 4-year-old girl who was shot and killed during a road rage incident say their daughter was a "beautiful soul" and they will not rest until her killer is locked up for good.

"He took my Lilly," Veronica Garcia, the mother of 4-year-old Illiana Garcia told NBC News on Thursday.

Albuquerque Police said Tony Torrez, 32, was taken into custody Wednesday after they received an anonymous call from a person claiming they knew who had shot Lilly.

Torrez confessed to the murder, police said. He is being held on $650,000 cash bond.

Debris believed to be from missing American cargo ship El Faro, has washed ashore in San Salvador and Exhuma in the Bahamas, according to local reports.

Pictures published Thursday in the Nassau Guardian newspaper show what appears to be a large container fragment. A number on the wreckage can be traced to a unit that, according to software from TOTE Maritime, the owner of the sunken ship, was loaded and set sail on El Faro.

San Salvador Island Administrator Theophilus Cox told the newspaper that residents were also collecting toiletries and personal items “believed to be on the ship.”

Coast Guard and National Transportation Safety Board officials have not confirmed the debris is from the El Faro.

The cargo ship departed from Jacksonville, Florida, on Sept. 29 on route to San Juan, Puerto Rico, with 33 crew members on board. It went missing two days later when Hurricane Joaquin swept through the Carribean.

A man with disabilities crawled off a plane at Reagan National Airport in Arlington, Virginia, Tuesday night after the airline failed to provide an aisle chair and someone to help him get off the plane.

When no one from United Airlines came, and needing to use the restroom, DArcee Neal crawled up the aisle from the middle of the plane to the doorway.

"I mean, it's humiliating," he said. "No one should have to do what I did."

Ironically, Neal was returning from San Francisco where he had a speaking engagement about accessible transportation.

"Half the time, I feel like airlines treat people with disabilities as a secondary concern," Neal said.

United Airlines said it regrets the delay in providing an aisle chair to assist Neal.

This type of problem is happening too often on various airlines, The National Disability Rights Network said. The Air Carrier Access Act guarantees consistent service to passengers with disabilities, but complaints are up 9 percent in the past year.

"In 2014 here were over 27,500 complaints in reference to things like this, so it is not uncommon," said Dara Baldwin of the National Disability Rights Network. "I hate to say that."

Lawyer Amy Scherer said she also has been left waiting on an aircraft, and one time her travel companions had to lift her and carry her off the plane.

"We got tired of waiting that long," she said.

Advocates for people with disabilities who travel are collecting stories to determine what progress has been made under the Air Carrier Access Act and what still needs to be done.

Connecticut Children’s Medical Center unveiled a new facility Thursday that gives families the resources they need to understand their child's diagnosis and cope with a hospital stay.

The United Technologies Family Resource Center is a 2,000-square foot facility that includes educational resources for families, a simulation room for parents to practice administering treatments, a library, a movie room, computer stations, and a lounging area. United Technologies Corporation donated $1.5 million to help create the space.

“Coming in for medical care can be an isolating experience for families,” Martin Gavin, President & CEO of Connecticut Children’s Medical Center said in a press release. “As our clinical services have expanded to care for children who require more complex care, the need for this resource has increased.

Lori Storm said she wishes the center existed when her son Jordon was staying at CCMC.

“My son had something called an intussusception. I had never heard of that before so to learn more about the diagnosis and how we can be part of our child's recovery and just to connect with people in a really hard time.”

The center is expected to serve more than 300,000 patients each year. For more information check out CCMC’s website here.
 

Hundreds of parents and students packed the auditorium at Middletown High School on Thursday night, to speak out against plans to redistrict.

The superintendent said changes are necessary to make the schools less crowded and more racially balanced, but school officials now have to balance that with public outrage.

“I really don’t want to go to another school because I’ve been going to my school for four years and I’m getting used to it,” Daneyah Martinez, a third-grader at the McDonough School said. “If I go to another school, I don’t think I’m going to be able to catch up.”

School officials said Farm Hill is overcrowded, while McDonough and Van Buren Moody are both dangerously close to becoming racially imbalanced. It is state law that no school should have a minority enrollment that is significantly above or below the level of the district overall.

“We want to have balanced schools. We want to have socio-economically balanced schools and we want to make sure that resources are equal,” Patricia Charles, Superintendent of Middletown Public Schools, said.

If racial balance does not happen, the district would risk losing state funding. However, parents are concerned their children will be uprooted and moved to schools even further away.

“One plan would move us to a school that is 15-20 minutes away,” Yohanny Rodriguez said. “And a lot of parents don’t drive, so that’s going to be an issue for a lot of parents.”

The plan is far from a done deal.

The district is taking the public’s comments into account and will have another meeting in November, then present the plan to the Board of Education to make the final decision.

Police in a suburb north of Orlando are looking for two men who robbed an armored car outside a supermarket, shot the driver in the head and made off with an undetermined amount of cash.

The 25-year old driver wasn’t identified. Police said he was in hospital in serious condition and was talking to investigators.

Police released video footage from a security camera from inside the supermarket they said showed the suspected gunman.

Altamonte Springs police Lt. Robert Pelton addressed the gunman and his getaway driver, urging them to turn themselves in “before anyone else gets hurt.”

One person was fatally shot and two others wounded in a dispute over a dice game on the Tennessee State University in Nashville, police said.  

The campus was on lockdown as of 1:00 a.m. (2:00 a.m. ET), according to a university police dispatcher, NBC News reported.

Shots were fired at 11:00 p.m. (midnight ET), Tonya Stone, a spokesperson with the Nashville Police Department, told NBC News.

Stone told NBC News the victims were transported to hospital. Their conditions are unknown, NBC News reported.

Former secretary of state and Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton answered questions for 11 hours on Thursday in front of the House committee investigating the 2012 Benghazi attacks.

This marked the ninth investigation and the third time Clinton testified about the attacks on the U.S. compound in Benghazi.

Here are some of the key points to take away from the hearing, according to NBC News.

Clinton appeared calm, compassionate and concerned — a sharp contrast to a Senate Benghazi hearing from more than two years ago — and she never raised her voice, while committee chairman Trey Gowdy, R-South Carolina, said not much new was discovered.

The Mexican government issued a state of emergency ahead of Hurricane Patricia, NBC News reported.

Patricia has been declared a category 5 storm with waves of almost 39 feet expected to hit the country’s Pacific coast around 7 p.m. Friday, forecasters said.

Several million residents are said to be directly in the storm’s path, the U.S. National Hurricane Centre and Mexican emergency agencies said.

As much as 10 inches of rain is predicted for Texas over the next three days, according to NBC News meteorologist Bill Karins.

Karins said the aftermath of Patricia means flooding in south Texas will be "even worse" on Sunday.

A suspected drug dealer is now accused of raping a woman in the bathroom of a Vermont courthouse, the Burlington Free Press reports.

According to the report, a warrant has been issued for the arrest of 32-year-old Robert Rosario of Burlington, who is accused of assaulting the victim last Friday at the Costello Courthouse.

At the time of the incident, Rosario was in court for a hearing after being charged with selling more than an ounce of cocaine, the outlet reported.

The suspect could not be found, and Wednesday, officials issued a warrant in which bail was set at $250,000.

Thursday night, Burlington Police Chief Brandon del Pozo issued a statement to the media expressing concern that the publicity of the warrant, the charges and Rosario's identity would make it more difficult to find him.

"He is now on the run, and we have good reason to believe he has fled the state," he said.

It's not clear if Rosario has an attorney.

Stay with necn as this story develops.

At least 42 people died in a crash between a bus and a logging truck in France, NBC News reported. 

The local prefecture in Gironde said that the bus was carrying a group of elderly people when it crashed with the truck at about 7:30 a.m. local time (1:30 a.m. ET) around Puisseguin. It said eight people were injured — four seriously, including two people with head trauma and two with serious burns.

Some of the survivors managed to escape by smashing windows on the bus, France's BFMTV reported.

The crash is one of the country's worst road accidents in France's recent history, NBC News reported.

ISIS called the joint U.S.- Kurdish raid to rescue dozens of hostages, who officials said were about to be executed by the militant group in Iraq, a failure and cowardly operation, NBC News reported. 

U.S. officials said on Thursday that one American commando had been shot to death in the firefight at a prison in the town of Hawija, 34 miles southwest of Kirkuk.

American military officials said they responded to a request from The Kurdish regional government in Iraq, which had learned that the hostages faced "imminent mass execution."

"Mass graves were already dug," according to a senior U.S. military official with direct knowledge of the raid.

There are heavy delays on Interstate 91 South after multi-car crashes in Windsor and Hartford.

The is a five-car crash on the I-91 South exit 36 off ramp in Windsor.

The Hartford crash is between exits 34 and 33.

The American commando killed in a hostage rescue mission in Iraq Thursday was identified as 39-year- old Delta Force commando, Master Sergeant Joshua Wheeler of Roland, Oklahoma, defense officials told NBC News Friday. 

Wheeler was killed during a joint U.S.-Kurdish operation to free dozens of hostages who faced imminent execution by ISIS in Iraq, U.S. officials said Thursday.

The commando was the first service member to die in combat operations against the militant group.

Residents displaced from condemned units at the Church Street South Apartments in New Haven have been living in hotels, waiting on a permanent place to live, and a civil rights attorney working with some of the affected residents said they plan on filing for damages. 

About 50 units in the 300-unit low-income housing complex have been condemned because of mold and leaks, and residents who were forced out have been living in temporary facilities for as long as two months.

While residents are glad to be out of the complex, they said living in temporary housing isn’t exactly ideal and some will be filing for damages, according to attorney David Rosen, including for damaged clothing, furniture and more.

It's not clear how many of the residents will be looking for compensation. 

Northland Investment Corp. owns the building and said it hopes to have all the families moved by Thanksgiving. 

The New Haven Housing Authority is assisting some of the families in the relocation process.

"We have made substantial progress in a very short period of time," Northland Chairman of the Board Larry Gottesdiener said in a prior statement to NBC Connecticut. "We have relocated over 50 families into hotel rooms, and have completed assessments on all of the displaced families. Most of those families are looking at new apartments and our goal is to have all or most of them in replacement housing by thanksgiving. The on-site resident assessments are beginning as soon as tomorrow. All of this has been accomplished through a lot of hard work and teamwork by LCI, HAHN, HUD, and Northland, with one goal in mind – the health, safety, and well-being of the residents."

A former Washington, D.C., police officer and pastor could be sentenced to 18 years in prison for sexually assaulting two teen girls.

Darrell Best, 45, pleaded guilty Thursday to the sexual assault of a 17-year-old girl at police headquarters and a 16-year-old girl at the church where he served as pastor. Best will be sentenced to 18 years in prison if the court approves his plea agreement. 

The 16-year-old victim told police Best sexually abused her three times at the church beginning in December of 2014. He was off-duty during the incidents, police said. According to charging documents, Best was in uniform on one occasion when he raped the girl inside the church.

Best took at least seven sexually explicit pictures of the 16-year-old, according to the documents.

The second victim, who was 17 at the time of the alleged incident, said Best sexually assaulted her in his office on the fifth floor of police headquarters after he took her out to dinner, according to charging documents. He was wearing his badge and gun at the time.

During a previous hearing, prosecutors also revealed that Best sexually harassed a female cadet he supervised in 2007. He was demoted from sergeant to police officer for an incident of sexual misconduct while on duty in 2008, prosecutors added.

Best will be sentenced on Feb. 26, 2016. 

Defense attorney Elliott Queen, who has represented Best in the past, has not yet returned requests for comment.