indicts

Sept. 1 (UPI) — A North Carolina grand jury has indicted a 17-year-old girl as an adult on charges of murder stemming from allegations that she aided and abetted two other teens who killed three people in a hate-filled attack on a San Diego mosque before taking their own lives.

Caleb Vazquez, 18, and Cain Clark, 17, are alleged to have shot and killed three people, including a security guard, at the Islamic Center of San Diego in California on May 18. Their bodies were found dead from apparent self-inflicted gunshots in a car parked near the scene.

On Monday, Forsyth County District Attorney Jim O’Neil told reporters during a press conference that a 17-year-old girl was arrested last week in North Carolina and that a grand jury indicted her on three counts of first-degree murder and one count of conspiracy to commit first-degree murder, on allegations that she livestreamed the attack, disseminated the recording afterward and released the manifesto the attackers authored to justify their crime.

Court documents identified the suspect as 17-year-old Sarah Lindsey Santiago.

“Today’s indictment sends a clear message: physical distance from an attack does not place someone beyond accountability for the role they allegedly played in making it happen,” Special Agent in Charge Mark Remily of the FBI San Diego Field Office said in a statement.

“In today’s threat environment, individuals may believe they can encourage or facilitate acts of violence from hundreds of miles away without facing consequences. This case demonstrates that law enforcement will aggressively investigate those connections and pursue accountability wherever the evidence leads, including when juveniles are involved.”

According to the indictment, she is also alleged to have purchased a “Sonnenrad” patch for Vazquez, which he wore during the attack. According to the advocacy organization Anti-Defamation League, the Sonnenrad, which translates to “Black Sun,” is a symbol associated with White supremacy and was adopted by the Nazis in the 1930s.

The court document states that the conspiracy charge stems from allegations that she, Clark and Vazquez planned to murder worshipers at the Islamic Center of San Diego but also worshipers at Kehilat Ariel Messianic Synagogue, which is also in San Diego, and Black students at an unnamed public high school.

O’Neil, in the press conference, said that aiding-and-abetting charges in North Carolina come with the same penalties as if the accused had perpetrated the crime.

“So, she didn’t have to be in California. She’s in our jurisdiction. And today, a grand jury indicted her and held her responsible for her actions,” he said.

According to police, the shooting occurred at about 11:42 a.m. on May 18.

Shortly before, at about 9:40 a.m. that morning, San Diego police received a call from Clark’s mother reporting her son was suicidal and that several of her weapons and her vehicle were missing. Her son was with a companion, both dressed in camouflage, she said.

San Diego police were working to locate the teens when the first calls of the shooting at the mosque came in.

The suspects parked in the Islamic Center’s parking lot, ran past security and opened fire, hitting 51-year-old Amin Abdullah, who exchanged gunfire, wounding Clark. Abdullah has been heralded as a hero who saved lives by initiating lockdown protocols before dying from his injuries. O’Neil said there were 140 children on the premises at the time of the shooting.

The two suspects entered the building, but then exited through the back door and into the parking lot, where they encountered Mansour Kazhia, 78, and Nadir Awad, 57, whom they shot and killed.

The suspects fled the scene in their vehicle, from which they shot at a gardener who was uninjured, before dying by suicide.

Searches of residences associated with the suspects uncovered more than 30 guns and a crossbow, including rifles, along with ammunition, tactical gear and electronics.

“There exists in our world an underground subculture. It’s an echo chamber of intense hate against different cultures and religions. Cain and Vasquez, by what is contained in their manifesto, seemed to hate everyone, regardless of skin color, politics, religion or ethnicity,” he said.

“And this underground subculture of hate, they listen to each other, they talk to each other in encoded platforms. It radicalizes one another to the point where they carry out these horrific crimes of violence and murder.”

NEW ORLEANS — Louisiana’s attorney general has been indicted over accusations she threatened the jobs of New Orleans leaders who fought a Republican-led overhaul of local courts in the heavily Democratic city.

The 16-count indictment against Republican Liz Murrill, handed up Thursday by a New Orleans grand jury, charges Louisiana’s first female attorney general with intimidation and malfeasance.

At the center of the case are deepening rifts between state leaders in Louisiana, which is heavily Republican, and Democrats who control the state’s most prominent city.

Republican Gov. Jeff Landry promised a swift pardon, saying Murrill would not have her reputation tarnished by an “Orleans kangaroo court.” Mayor Helena Moreno, a Democrat, was among those who had accused the state’s top law enforcement official in May of making threats against public officials.

Murrill called the case against her “retaliatory, meritless, and unconstitutional.” Late Thursday, Murrill said she had filed for an emergency stay with the Louisiana Supreme Court.

“I will not back down. I will continue enforcing the law, fighting corruption, and doing the job the people of Louisiana elected me to do,” she wrote on X.

For months, political tensions intensified between Louisiana Republicans and New Orleans officials over a new law that abolished a court clerk office won by an exoneree, Calvin Duncan, who spent nearly three decades in prison. The change consolidated that job with another clerk’s office, which Republican supporters said would make the local judicial system more efficient.

The change was staunchly opposed by New Orleans leaders, and in May, the City Council set a special election that would have given Duncan a chance to win the newly combined job. Murrill responded by warning local officials in letters that they could lose their offices for violating state “usurper” laws, which forbid support for an unauthorized officeholder.

“We’re very interested in elected officials in New Orleans not being intimidated or threatened by letter or any other way,” special prosecutor Laurie White told reporters.

Bond for Murrill was set at $400,000 on Thursday, according to court records.

Landry said he was ordering state police to investigate what he called “alleged improprieties” of the grand jury and those who ran it.

“The criminal justice system is a circus at its finest in Orleans and we will not have any of that!” he wrote on X.

The Republican Attorneys General Assn. said that making statements to local officials — in writing — was simply “issuing a legal opinion and warning public officials about the law” as part of her official duties. It called the indictment “as outrageous as it is dangerous.”

Moreno, who was elected in January and was defiant after Murrill sent the letters, on Thursday called it a “matter for the courts” and did not directly address the allegations.

“My focus, as always, remains on fulfilling the responsibilities the people of New Orleans elected me to carry out,” Moreno said.

Duncan has said he believes state officials were retaliating against him in eliminating the job he won with 68% of the vote. Murrill and Landry have long refused to acknowledge his innocence, though he’s listed on the National Registry of Exonerations.

Republicans have said the change was not personal and supporters have noted that the offices of criminal and civil clerks of courts are combined in other parishes.

Duncan was a jailhouse lawyer who later graduated from law school. He founded a nonprofit dedicated to expanding incarcerated people’s access to the court system and was the driving force behind a 2020 U.S. Supreme Court decision that ended nonunanimous jury convictions.

Duncan spent more than 28 years in prison over a fatal shooting during a robbery in 1981.

The night before a 2011 hearing to consider new evidence, prosecutors offered to reduce Duncan’s sentence to the time he’d already served in prison if he pleaded guilty to manslaughter and armed robbery. Duncan took the deal and was freed but didn’t give up on clearing his name.

In 2021, a judge agreed that Duncan had been unjustly convicted and vacated his sentence altogether. Landry and Murrill have pointed to the 2011 plea deal in objecting to Duncan calling himself exonerated.

Riddle and Hanna write for the Associated Press. Associated Press reporter Jack Brook in New Orleans contributed.

The administration of United States President Donald Trump has announced felony charges against a former Olympic athlete for allegedly harming the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool in Washington, DC.

At a news conference on Thursday, US Attorney Jeanine Pirro accused professional canoeist David Hearn, 67, of deliberately vandalising the pool.

“Today, a grand jury has returned a felony indictment against a defendant, David Hearn, for felony destruction of property, for which he faces 10 years in prison,” Pirro, a Trump appointee, said.

She proceeded to call the destruction of national monuments “one of the most offensive images” she has ever seen.

“This unchecked vandalism and civil disorder turns into criminal behaviour, and that’s why we’re here today,” Pirro said. “They are an affront to the dignity of our shared history.”

But in media interviews, Hearn has denied any vandalism, saying that, like many Americans, he was simply curious about the Reflecting Pool when he visited on June 19.

The Reflecting Pool had been the subject of a renovation effort Trump began in April, as part of a wider initiative to reshape Washington, DC, through controversial construction and maintenance projects.

Trump awarded a no-bid contract to a firm to seal and resurface the granite pool in a colour he dubbed “American flag blue”. But observers noted that, as soon as the pool reopened in early June, it suffered an algae bloom, and blue paint began to peel from its bottom.

Faced with criticism about the $13.1m renovation contract, Trump countered that vandals had sabotaged the Reflecting Pool.

At least seven people, including Hearn, have been arrested on allegations they may have harmed the pool’s blue-painted bottom.

Hearn has maintained his innocence. He says he was cycling by the Reflecting Pool when he stopped to look at the peeling paint, and he reached in the water to feel it. He denies removing any part of the pool.

Pirro, however, described a different scene. She said National Park Service employees observed Hearn “forcefully and violently pulling up and removing the bottom liner with both hands”, damaging roughly 2 square feet — or around 0.18 square meters — of pool sealant.

“A parks employee actually told Hearn to stop his behaviour and stop what he was doing. Hearn reacted by shouting at that parks employee,” Pirro alleged.

Reporters confronted Pirro with questions about whether charging Hearn with a felony was disproportionately punitive, since similar cases have been considered misdemeanour offences.

One journalist asked Pirro if her decision to seek a felony indictment was influenced by Trump, who wrote on Truth Social that a 10-year prison sentence should “be fully enforced” for any attempted damage to the Reflecting Pool.

“I didn’t charge anything harshly. I charge according to the evidence,” Pirro replied. She argued that Hearn caused damage exceeding $1,000, thereby necessitating a felony charge.

She also dismissed comparisons with the millions of dollars in damage caused by Trump supporters during the attack on the US Capitol on January 6, 2021. Nearly all of those defendants were pardoned on the first day of Trump’s second term.

“Are you really talking about January 6th? I’m not,” Pirro told one reporter. A hearing in Hearn’s case is scheduled for July 9.

On Thursday, preparations for the July 4 fireworks show began at the Reflecting Pool, with large nets spread across the entire structure.

According to a police officer on the site, the nets are intended to catch the debris that could fall into the pool during the show. The site remains fenced off to visitors.

Still, many have come to look at the pool and see the controversial renovations firsthand.

Brian Williams, a 31-year-old from Roscoe, Georgia, praised Trump for his efforts to beautify the city. He said that algae was normal for a pool full of still water in the heat of summertime.

“I don’t think people have any business vandalising anything,” Williams added. “If you have something that you dislike about the president, don’t take it out on the people’s pool.”

But others were more sceptical of Trump’s claims. Jon Delgado, a 40-year-old Navy veteran from Collierville, Tennessee, expressed frustration at seeing the Reflecting Pool in its current state.

“I came here with my wife and my family to show them the beauty of America, the spirit of what we fought for,” he said. “To see it trashed like this, it just makes me angry.”

Delgado called Trump’s accusations about vandalism at the site “really crazy”.

“We have just got to ask ourselves: Is this where we’re at, in the state of America, that we’re believing something like this? You can look for yourself: This thing has pond scum all in it, and it stinks. There’s no vandalism,” he said.