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Manhunt Begins For Two Suspects Who Shot And Injured NYPD Officers

Manhunt Begins For Two Suspects Who Shot And Injured NYPD Officers

By Nicole Charky, Los Angeles Times (TNS)

New York police officers were on a manhunt early Tuesday for two suspects who shot and wounded two police officers – one critically – during an armed robbery investigation in the Bronx, authorities said.

The two injured officers were part of a plain clothes anti-crime team, searching for suspects wanted in an armed robbery at a grocery store shortly before 10:30 p.m. Monday at 363 E. 180th Street, said New York Police Commissioner William J. Bratton.

Officers saw two possible suspects near the corner of East 184th Street. As they approached them one suspect went inside a business on Tiebout Avenue while the other stayed outside on the street, he said. When the officers walked toward the suspect outside, the other suspect inside came out and started firing at the officers who fired back, wounding two men at about 10:35 p.m. Eastern.

The two suspects then ran one block east toward Marion Avenue, where they carjacked a white Camaro and later abandoned it near east 188th Street and Park Avenue, Bratton said. Investigators also recovered a revolver there.

The officers were taken to St. Barnabas Hospital Bronx where one officer, a 30-year-old man who suffered gunshot wounds to his left arm and lower back, remains in critical condition and was in surgery early Tuesday. The other officer, a 38-year-old man, was shot in the chest and remained in stable condition. Their names were not immediately immediately released.

Detectives are still determining whether the suspects were involved in the reported robbery and were notified of a man who had entered Columbia Presbyterian Hospital in upper Manhattan with a gunshot wound to his back shortly after the incident, he said.

The New York Police Department released video surveillance from the robbery and a photo of the recovered gun, describing the two suspects as two Latino men between the ages of 25 to 30 years old wearing dark clothing. One suspect had a close-cropped full beard and another could be wounded, Bratton said.

Police were continuing to review video footage from the robbery and shooting locations, he added.

Photo via Wikimedia Commons

150 Arrested As Berkeley Protesters Halt Freeway Traffic, Stop Amtrak Train

150 Arrested As Berkeley Protesters Halt Freeway Traffic, Stop Amtrak Train

By Nicole Charky, Los Angeles Times (TNS)

More than 150 people were arrested in Berkeley, Calif., late Monday as hundreds of demonstrators brought traffic on Interstate 80 to a standstill and another group forced an Amtrak train to stop in a protest against two grand jury decisions not to indict white police officers in the deaths of two unarmed black men.

Officials said the incidents began when about 1,000 to 1,500 people began peacefully marching through downtown Berkeley at about 5 p.m. They stopped at the Berkeley Police Department, where officers in riot gear blocked them from nearing the building.

The protesters then moved on to a Bay Area Rapid Transit train station, where demonstrators stood outside. BART officials closed the station for about two hours as a preventive measure, according to Lt. Gil Lopez of the BART police.

“We just had reports that a large group was coming toward our station. It was preemptive,” Lopez said.

Authorities said protesters then divided into smaller groups. In one incident, demonstrators were marching west on University Avenue toward Interstate 80 shortly after 8 p.m. when a small group entered the freeway through an opening in a fence, California Highway Patrol Officer Daniel Hill said.

By 8:30 p.m., he said, protesters had destroyed the fencing along the south side of the freeway at Aquatic Park and were flooding all the traffic lanes after the CHP shut down the University Avenue exit ramps.

“As officers attempted to stop the crowd and clear the freeway, the protesters became violent, and on several occasions assaulted CHP personnel with rocks and other objects,” Hill said.

Demonstrators were moved off the freeway and the roadway reopened about 10 p.m., he said

Another splinter group of protesters marched to nearby railroad tracks and temporarily blocked an Amtrak train, officials said. One demonstrator held up a sign “Black lives matter” in front of the stopped train, according to the Associated Press.

Those arrested were transported to Santa Rita Jail in Dublin, where they were booked without incident, Hill said.

It was the third consecutive night that crowds gathered in the city, protesting the killings of unarmed black men by law enforcement officers in Missouri and New York.
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(Staff writer Matt Hamilton contributed to this report.)

Police move protesters off Highway 24 in Oakland, Calif., Sunday evening, Dec. 7, 2014, during a second consecutive night of local unrest over the killings of two unarmed black men by police in Ferguson, Mo., and New York. (Karl Mondon/Bay Area News Group/TNS)

Navy Divers Confirm Sunken Wreck Is World War II Vessel USS Houston

Navy Divers Confirm Sunken Wreck Is World War II Vessel USS Houston

By Nicole Charky, Los Angeles Times

U.S. Navy divers concluded Monday that a wrecked vessel in southeast Asia is World War II cruiser USS Houston, a ship sunk by the Japanese that serves as the final resting place for about 700 sailors and Marines.

The Houston, nicknamed “The Galloping Ghost of the Java Coast,” sank in the Java Sea during the Battle of Sunda Strait on Feb. 28, 1942. It carried 1,068 crewmen, but only 291 sailors and Marines survived both the attack and becoming prisoners of war.

Navy archaeologists worked with Indonesian Navy divers to survey the wreck over the course of 19 underwater searches, said U.S. Pacific Fleet commander Adm. Harry Harris.

The Navy History and Heritage Command confirmed that the recorded data is consistent with the identification of the former USS Houston.

Documented evidence shows the gravesite was disturbed, noting that hull rivets and a metal plate were removed from the ship. Both U.S. and Indonesia officials are working to coordinate protection of the historic site, which is also a popular recreational dive location.

The report voices public safety and security concerns, citing “active seepage of oil from the hull.”

A final report will be completed in the fall as underwater archeologists continue to collect data from the dives.

The Navy estimates more than 17,000 sunken ships and aircraft rest on the ocean floor.

Photo via WikiCommons

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