Bass orders review of how LAPD deals with mentally ill people
Mayor Karen Bass called the training that LAPD officers receive for handling mental health calls “woefully inadequate” and ordered an outside review of the department’s policies Thursday, saying recent shootings highlight continued shortcomings in how police deal with people in crisis.
Bass is particularly concerned by the relative lack of specialized intervention training for patrol officers who respond to the vast majority of service calls. While the SWAT team and other units receive such training, it is not standard across the Los Angeles Police Department.
“After the academy, they have spot training that is essentially videos that are played at roll calls,” Bass said in an interview week with The Times.
The mayor’s directive comes as she’s locked in a reelection fight with progressive challenger Nithya Raman, who, like Bass, has criticized the LAPD over shootings of mentally ill people.
“The ability of the city to respond to someone’s pleas for help is incredibly important in ensuring that we maintain the trust of the public,” Raman recently told The Times. “And right now, there is no alternative system besides LAPD to respond to many of the calls that are coming into 911 besides, of course, Fire Department calls.”
Polling by the UC Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies, co-sponsored by The Times, shows Raman is favored by 39% of likely L.A. voters, compared to 28% support for Bass — with 33% still undecided.
LAPD officers have fired their weapons at people 16 times this year — down from 34 shootings in 2025, but recent incidents have highlighted how officers continue to turn to their guns when confronting individuals with mental illnesses. In years past, department statistics showed at least a third of all police shootings involved someone with obvious signs of emotional distress.
Bass was particularly disturbed by a July 29 incident in the Olympic patrol area in which police fatally shot a man who approached them with an aluminum bat.
Body-camera video captured officers approaching 33-year-old Alejandro Garcia as he was walking through traffic on Normandie Avenue underneath the 10 Freeway overpass. Officers ordered him to drop the bat, although it’s unclear whether he heard them. While Garcia could be seen holding the bat with both hands, the footage appeared to contradict an early LAPD account suggesting he swung at them.
The shooting could have been avoided if “the officers were trained differently or better,” Bass said, noting that one of the officers had been on the job for roughly five months.
The LAPD has yet to identify the officer or officers who opened fire.
Bass said it would have been appropriate for the department to deploy a unit that sends a social worker out with officers when responding to calls involving a person in crisis.
“You knew before that he had a bat and he was going around smashing cars,” she said.
About a week later, two officers shot and killed Canas Zimran, 44, in Boyle Heights after, department officials say, he approached officers with what was later determined to be a tree trimmer.
The shootings occurred despite policies that prioritize deescalation techniques and the use of “less-lethal” alternatives, such as bean bag rounds meant to subdue people without resorting to firearms.
Bass said the killings reflect, in part, a broader failure of the mental health system to get people the care they need. Also of concern, the mayor said, was the lack of training for officers on how to distinguish between symptoms caused by mental illness, physical and cognitive disabilities and drugs such as phencyclidine, or PCP, which seems to be having a resurgence on city streets.
Bass said her review would be a top-down evaluation that also scrutinizes the roles of dispatchers, supervisors and others involved in responding to reports of people behaving erratically.
She said the audit will examine calls from the last five years involving people with “with known histories of mental or behavioral health conditions” in which police officers avoided using force. The goal, Bass said, is to “identify common themes or best practices that successfully de-escalated the incident or allowed officers to gain compliance.”
Bass added that it’s also important to consider the needs of LAPD officers and ensure they “receive appropriate assistance” to cope with stress. She was struck by the willingness of younger officers to openly talk about the mental toll of the job, recalling a recent visit to a roll call in which an officer described feeling a lack of support after being involved in an on-duty shooting.
LAPD officials have said the department has made numerous changes in recent years to curb police shootings, including adopting deescalation training focused on slowing down volatile situations, particularly those involving people who may be mentally ill. Still, the agency’s critics pack police commission meetings each week to argue for removing police from such calls, saying that officers are too quick to fire on people — particularly those wielding knives.
Although the city has experimented with programs that send specialists to help deescalate such encounters, LAPD policy still requires armed patrol officers to clear a scene of any potential threats beforehand.
Bass said she always has been a proponent of approaches that don’t involve police, some of which are employed by her Office of Community Safety. But she said stabbings and other incidents that pose an immediate danger to the public still require a police response.
Beyond looking at how to avoid police shootings, Bass’ directive calls for further assessment of the department’s training for handling people who’ve been booked into jails and detention facilities, including how they are restrained and transferred to medical facilities.
Bass wanted to ensure the review was done by an outside body, hinting at her frustration with the inaction of department leaders and the police commission on addressing the issue.
“Much more needs to be done,” Bass said.
At least 11 people killed in South Africa township shooting | Gun Violence News
Armed men open fire at a house party in a Durban township, killing a pregnant woman and 10 others.
Published On 23 Sep 2026
At least 11 people, including a pregnant woman, have been killed after armed men stormed a house in a township in the South African city of Durban.
The attack took place late on Tuesday, according to Thamsanqa Ntuli, the premier of KwaZulu-Natal province, of which Durban is the main city. Assailants entered the home shortly before 11pm (21:00 GMT) while the victims were gathered at a house party.
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Two people survived the attack, Ntuli said, adding the motive behind the killings was not immediately clear.
“The incident has left the community in profound shock and grief,” he said.
Local broadcaster eNCA reported that the attackers forced everyone into a single room before opening fire. They also set fire to a car belonging to one of the victims.
“It’s shocking and sad. These are guys I grew up with. I can’t believe it. It’s like a movie,” a resident told the broadcaster.
“I’ve been staying here all my life, and I’ve never seen anything like this,” he added.
According to a police statement cited by eNCA, preliminary investigations indicated that some of those killed were on South Africa’s Crime Intelligence radar over suspected illegal activities, though the statement did not elaborate further.
“Although the motive for the shooting has not yet been confirmed, a feud between rival groupings cannot be ruled out,” the police said.
South Africa has one of the world’s highest murder rates, with an average of about 60 people killed daily in a population of roughly 62 million.
In March, soldiers were deployed alongside national police to violent hotspots to tackle rampant crime, an issue President Cyril Ramaphosa has described as one of the country’s biggest threats.
Man shot by ICE in Texas is back in detention after leaving hospital
AUSTIN, Texas — A Venezuelan man shot by a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer in Texas was back in a federal detention center Tuesday after being taken to a hospital for a second time with a bullet still lodged in his back, according to his attorney.
A federal judge also ordered Wilber Rafael Garces Perez, who was shot Sunday in Austin, to appear in court next week following a lawsuit that sought to stop his removal from the U.S.
Kate Lincoln-Goldfinch, Perez’s attorney, said in a video posted to social media Tuesday that the 28-year-old man was “still in a lot of pain.”
Perez was being held at a federal detention facility in the remote South Texas town of Pearsall, according to Texas Democratic U.S. Rep. Joaquin Castro, who has joined others in his party in sharply criticizing the shooting that occurred amid a surge in ICE enforcement during President Trump’s second term. The violent encounter has also sparked protests in Austin, including a gathering outside the Texas Capitol on Monday night.
Perez was making a DoorDash delivery Sunday afternoon when ICE officers in an unmarked truck sideswiped his car twice, Lincoln-Goldfinch has said. He was shot and taken to a hospital, then released into ICE custody with a bullet still in his back. Perez went back to the hospital Monday evening after complaining of pain and was taken back into ICE custody around midnight, Lincoln-Goldfinch said.
Court filings from Perez’s lawyers indicated he was forced to sleep on a cement floor at an ICE temporary processing center, and then at 4 a.m. Monday, ICE transferred him to the Pearsall facility. A temporary restraining order from his attorneys said he was also subject to interrogation without legal representation present.
Lincoln-Goldfinch wrote on social media that he was taken back to the hospital around 5 p.m. Monday after he began experiencing a loss of sensation in his arm.
The Department of Homeland Security, which oversees ICE, did not immediately respond to email messages Tuesday. The agency has released little information and has not said what prompted the shooting. In a statement early Monday, the department said it was investigating the shooting of a Venezuelan man in the U.S. illegally who “had a final order of removal.”
On Tuesday, the department responded on social media to a video of Texas Democratic U.S. Rep. Greg Casar saying Austin will be safer once ICE leaves, calling it a “ludicrous statement.”
“No amount of smears and false narratives will slow down ICE from doing its job by removing dangerous illegal aliens from our communities,” the agency posted.
On Monday, Perez called into a news conference and told reporters he had received no pain medication and slept on the floor.
Castro posted on social media that he planned to visit Perez on Wednesday to “check on his condition and demand his release.”
In response to the lawsuit, U.S. District Judge Orlando Garcia ordered Perez to appear in person at a hearing Sept. 30 in San Antonio.
Wilder writes for the Associated Press.
Turkiye school shooting leaves 11 pupils wounded | Newsfeed
Eleven pupils were wounded after a student opened fire near a secondary school in Manisa, western Turkiye, on Tuesday morning, with two reported to be in critical condition. The suspect was detained shortly after the attack while authorities continue to investigate the motive.
Published On 22 Sep 2026
British Columbia sues OpenAI, Altman over Tumbler Ridge shooting
British Columbia sues OpenAI, Altman over Tumbler Ridge shooting
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US man convicted in 2023 shooting of three Palestinian students in Vermont | Courts News
Jason Eaton faces up to life in prison after a jury rejected his insanity defence.
Published On 21 Sep 2026
A jury in the US state of Vermont has convicted a man of attempted murder for shooting three Palestinian college students in 2023, rejecting his defence that he was not guilty by reason of insanity.
Jason Eaton, 51, faces up to life in prison for the attack near the University of Vermont campus in Burlington. It left Hisham Awartani paralysed from the waist down and wounded his friends Tahseen Aliahmad and Kinnan Abdalhamid.
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The jury deliberated for several hours on Monday before reaching its verdict after a week-long trial that included testimony from the three men and psychiatric experts called by both the defence and prosecution.
Eaton was ordered jailed pending sentencing, which has yet to be scheduled.
Awartani and Aliahmad, who were sitting in the front row of the courtroom, smiled and hugged people around them as the verdict was read.
Eaton did not dispute that he shot the three men in November 2023. Instead, his lawyers argued that he should be found not guilty by reason of insanity.
The defence said Eaton was suffering from a delusional psychotic disorder and believed the CIA and Israel’s Mossad were transmitting messages to him through FM radio.
Joshua O’Hara, the supervising attorney at the Chittenden County Public Defender Office, told jurors that Eaton believed the intelligence agencies had enlisted him to “overwatch duty” to protect a Jewish family living across the street and that God was commanding him to act.
Prosecutors rejected the insanity defence, telling jurors that a state psychiatrist had concluded Eaton did not have a mental disease or defect and that the evidence showed he intended to kill the three men.
‘He pulled out a handgun and started shooting’
Awartani, Aliahmad and Abdalhamid, now 23, grew up together in Ramallah in the occupied West Bank before moving to the US for university.
They were visiting Awartani’s grandmother in Burlington over the Thanksgiving holiday when they went for a walk near the University of Vermont campus after dark.
Awartani testified that the friends were smoking cigarettes and speaking a mix of English and Arabic. Two of them were wearing keffiyehs.
He said Eaton was standing on the porch of the apartment building where he lived before approaching the friends without saying anything.
When Eaton was about five to 10 feet (1.5 to three metres) away, Awartani testified, he pulled out a handgun and began shooting.
Awartani, then a student at Brown University, was shot in the chest and left paralysed from the waist down. Aliahmad, who attended Trinity College, was shot in the collarbone, while Abdalhamid, a Haverford College student, was shot in the right buttock.
The shooting prompted calls for a hate crime investigation, but no hate crime charges were filed.
Police later found three shotguns in Eaton’s apartment as well as a Ruger .380-calibre handgun that crime laboratory testing identified as the weapon used in the shooting.
Man shot by ICE officer is detained in Texas with a bullet still in his back, attorney’s office says
AUSTIN, Texas — A Venezuelan man shot by a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer was in custody Monday at an ICE detention center in Texas after he was released from a hospital with a bullet still lodged in his back, according to a spokesperson for the man’s attorney.
Wilber Rafael Garces Perez, 28, was making a DoorDash delivery in Austin, the state capital, on Sunday before he was shot during a traffic stop, said Fabiana Meléndez Ruiz, a spokesperson for immigration attorney Kate Lincoln-Goldfinch.
Ruiz said Perez called his wife around 12:30 p.m. Sunday to tell her that he had been shot. She said Perez’s wife hasn’t spoken with him since then.
Perez was being detained at the South Texas ICE Processing Center in Pearsall, about 130 miles southwest of Austin, Ruiz told the Associated Press. She said Lincoln-Goldfinch spoke by phone with Perez, who told her that he was being interrogated while a bullet remained in his back. Perez also said he had no pain medication, according to Ruiz.
The Department of Homeland Security, which oversees ICE, has released little information and has not said what prompted the shooting. In a statement early Monday, the department said it was investigating the shooting of a Venezuelan man in the U.S. illegally who “had a final order of removal.”
Perez is an asylum seeker and entered the United States through a parole program, and he has no criminal history, Ruiz said.
“Regardless of his status, the use of force was unwarranted,” Ruiz said. “As far as we understand, he was here legally.”
The shooting occurred amid a surge in ICE enforcement across the U.S. during President Trump’s second term. During the summer, it reported more than 50,000 monthly arrests in July and August — a first for the agency.
Immigration officers have come under intense scrutiny amid a series of shootings during the crackdown. At least four people have been fatally shot by federal officers during immigration enforcement operations this year.
Austin Police Chief Lisa Davis told reporters Sunday that the shooting occurred after a traffic stop. She said local police were not involved. Local officials said the man was shot once in the torso and had been hospitalized in serious but stable condition.
Perez’s wife and attorney were unable to get information on his condition from the hospital Sunday until hospital attorneys told them about 6 p.m. that he had been discharged 90 minutes earlier, Ruiz said.
She said ICE had not confirmed any information to Lincoln-Goldfinch, who used legal databases and other means to discover where he was being detained.
Austin Mayor Kirk Watson said Sunday he wants local police to have a role in investigating the shooting. Watson said it wouldn’t be appropriate for ICE to investigate on its own.
At the scene of the shooting, a dark blue Toyota Corolla was parked under an overpass with damage to its passenger-side door and what appeared to be bullet holes before it was towed away Sunday evening.
About 100 anti-ICE protesters gathered Sunday in the shooting’s aftermath.
Wilder and Bedayn write for the Associated Press. AP writer Russ Bynum in Savannah, Ga., contributed to this report.
‘Resident Evil’ review: Zach Cregger makes all the difference
After his existential suburban horror epic “Weapons” became an Oscar winner (for Amy Madigan’s chilling supporting performance as Aunt Gladys), filmmaker Zach Cregger has dashed off a fun little riff on one of his favorite video games. His “Resident Evil” reboot is the eighth film in the big-screen franchise based on the Japanese zombie survival game, though Cregger’s “Resident Evil” is its own beast — put those Milla Jovovich movies out of your head entirely.
There are, of course, a few shared strands of DNA in the screenplay by Cregger and Shay Hatten: an evil company, Umbrella Corporation, responsible for a virus that mutates humans into zombies and all manner of monsters, located in the lovely Raccoon City. But our hero, Bryan (Austin Abrams), a hapless medical courier, knows none of this when he takes a gig delivering what he thinks is an organ on the snowy mountain roads to the metropolis.
Abrams, who was a standout in the ensemble cast of “Weapons,” has another big movie out this fall in which he stars as the lone protagonist, “Whalefall,” and the two films comprise an apt survival thriller double feature. In “Resident Evil,” Abrams’ Bryan spends much of his lonely mission muttering to himself in annoyance and sometimes victory, much like a gamer would. During one self-reflective moment, Bryan yells, “Yeah! Video games!” elated at how his shooting is improving.
Cregger’s approach to “Resident Evil” is to seamlessly blend the cinematic with a gaming experience and his adaptation best mimics the feeling of playing an actual game or watching someone else play one. At one point, Bryan and a comrade he meets along the way (Paul Walter Hauser) marvel at the shooting skills of Maxine (Kali Reis) as if they’re watching her play the game too.
Immediately, Cregger establishes a camera that follows closely behind Bryan, a similar motif to the cinematography he used in “Weapons.” As Bryan starts to encounter the strange beings who appear on the outskirts of Raccoon City, the game mechanisms click into place. Different characters — villains and helpers — pop up along his journey, as well as different tools and weapons. He frequently encounters locked doors, obstacles and empty spaces that he has to explore. Cregger uses first-person-shooter point-of-view shots, with the long barrel of a rifle or automatic weapon lining up our sights; one running gag sees Bryan, completely hopeless with guns, having to shoot the locks off of gates.
What was already a very darkly funny and incredibly gross film gets even more disturbing as Bryan ventures into the Raccoon City hospital, trying to make his delivery. He encounters monsters that vomit acid or explode with zombie rats; one particular ward is full of undulating sacs of bloody viscera.
Cregger remains one of our finest horror image-makers, creating surreal and snowy landscapes that are as beautiful as they are disturbing: the red and blue lights of a flipped police car in a blizzard, dark pools of blood and mysterious footsteps, tentacles greeting and meeting each other, stomach acid decimating an elevator. With impeccable sound design and an eerie score by Ryan and Hays Holladay, Cregger delivers a textured, wholly realized world.
But our guide is just a regular guy, which lends to the charm. Bryan is dealing with relationship problems that add to the urgency of his desire to survive, but he’s also just a dude with questionable self-preservation instincts, which makes for a good adventure. He has an overwhelming desire to help, which leads to some ridiculous circumstances and is a quality that Cregger plays for laughs. Abrams plays the goofball well and we’re constantly rooting for him, even as his fortunes take a turn in a tragic reversal that we’ve seen in monster movies before.
Cregger wears his influences well and they aren’t just video games but pulled from the history of horror. Still, he blends it all into his own vision so it doesn’t feel derivative. While the unwieldy ending might get away from him, the tightly controlled and efficient stretch that precedes it is the work of a new master, one who delivers imaginative, terrifying and hilarious thrills and chills, whether he’s reanimating a dead franchise or dreaming up his own uncanny vibe. “Resident Evil” might be his most playful — and gooey — film yet.
Katie Walsh is a Tribune News Service film critic.
‘Resident Evil’
Rated: R, for strong bloody violence, gore and language throughout
Running time: 1 hour, 30 minutes
Playing: Opens Friday, Sept. 18 in wide release
Minnesota authorities arrest ICE officer charged with shooting man
MINNEAPOLIS — A federal immigration officer charged with shooting and wounding a Venezuelan man in January and lying about the circumstances to investigators made a brief initial appearance Thursday before a Minnesota judge after state authorities arrested him ahead of a separate hearing in federal court.
During Thursday’s hearing, Judge Paul Scoggin granted Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer Christian Castro bond. Castro wore an orange jumpsuit and appeared behind a glass enclosure.
His attorney, Daniel Gerdts, declined to comment.
Castro was being held without bond after the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension arrested him Wednesday in downtown Minneapolis on state charges of assault and false reporting of a crime stemming from the shooting of Julio Cesar Sosa-Celis. Scoggin set bail at $400,000 with no conditions and $200,000 with conditions.
Castro also faces federal charges stemming from the shooting, which occurred during a federal immigration crackdown in the Minneapolis area. Prosecutors say Castro falsely told investigators he had been attacked with a broom and a shovel.
Arrest months after Minnesota charged him
Castro’s arrest by Minnesota authorities and appearance in state court followed a dispute between Minnesota prosecutors and Texas’ governor over Minnesota’s attempts to extradite Castro from his home state to face the state charges. One of the conditions Scoggin set for the lower bail amount for Castro was that he not fight extradition should he be released.
The lead prosecutor for the county handling the state case told reporters after the hearing that “Castro invented a story to justify shooting through a front door into a house with multiple people in it.”
“His appearance in a Hennepin County courtroom today is a critical step in our efforts to hold him accountable for that shooting,” Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty said during a news conference.
Federal case also accuses Castro of lying
The next court hearing for Castro is scheduled for Friday. That hearing will be in federal court in St. Paul and involves the federal case in which he is charged with making false statements to investigators regarding the shooting. Castro’s defense attorneys in the federal case have said he plans to plead not guilty.
It’s the first Justice Department prosecution of a federal officer for actions taken during this year’s massive Operation Metro Surge, which brought thousands of agents to the Twin Cities and led to sweeping protests, arrests and the fatal shootings of two U.S. citizens by federal officers.
In both the federal and state cases against Castro, prosecutors say he shot Sosa-Celis in the leg while firing through the front door of a Minneapolis home. They say Castro later falsely reported he had been attacked with a broom handle and a snow shovel.
Trump administration says only federal authorities have jurisdiction
Minnesota authorities have battled with President Trump’s administration over who should handle any charges against Castro. The Department of Homeland Security has called Minnesota’s prosecution of Castro “unlawful and nothing more than a political stunt,” saying only federal authorities have jurisdiction.
Minnesota charged Castro months before his federal indictment. He was arrested in Texas in May on the Minnesota charges. But Texas Gov. Greg Abbott last month refused to sign an extradition warrant to hand him over to Minnesota authorities. He was released in Texas and soon after was indicted on the federal charges. He then turned himself in to federal authorities and returned to Minnesota on his own.
Sullivan and Bynum write for the Associated Press. Bynum reported from Savannah, Ga.
Arab News | A Vermont man is on trial for shooting 3 Palestinian students. He claimed the CIA told him to do it
WASHINGTON: Jason Eaton insisted he was acting on orders from the CIA and Mossad when he shot three Palestinian college students who were walking past his home a few days after Thanksgiving. He said the US and Israeli intelligence agencies transmitted the messages to him via FM radio and that God was commanding him to protect his Jewish neighbors.
Eaton’s claims were at the heart of his insanity defens e as he went on trial Monday on attempted murder charges in a case that shook Burlington, Vermont, and reverberated in the West Bank, where the three wounded men grew up and became friends as schoolmates in Ramallah before moving to the US for college.

The November 2023 shooting, weeks after the start of the Israel-Hamas war, spawned calls for a hate crime investigation. But no hate crime charges were filed as questions persisted about whether anti-Palestinian animus, an altered mental state or something else had compelled Eaton to open fire on Hisham Awartani, Tahseen Aliahmad and Kinnan Abdalhamid, who were all 20 at the time.
The men testified one after another as Eaton, now 51, watched stoically from the defense table in a Burlington courtroom. He has pleaded not guilty but doesn’t dispute that he was the shooter. If convicted, he faces up to life in prison. If found not guilty by reason of insanity, he could be ordered to undergo mental health treatment.
Defense lawyer Joshua O’Hara, previewing testimony from a defense psychiatrist, told jurors in an opening statement that Eaton was suffering from a delusional, psychotic disorder after losing his job at a credit union two weeks before the shooting.
While listening to a local NPR affiliate, Eaton believed he was hearing messages that he attributed to the CIA, O’Hara said. At first, the messages were encouraging and validating, the lawyer said, but subsequent messages turned dark, insisting that Eaton “has to go out and shoot somebody.”
Prosecutor Sally Adams told jurors that a state psychiatrist who is slated to testify concluded that Eaton did not have a mental disease or defect. Evidence will show he intended to kill the men, was not legally justified in shooting them, and does not meet the test of legal insanity, Adams said.
Authorities found three shotguns in Eaton’s apartment and a Ruger .380-caliber handgun that crime lab testing concluded was the gun used in the shooting, Adams said. Eaton had purchased the gun seven months earlier from a Vermont gun store.
“If the defense tries to focus on the story that Mr. Eaton tells about why he intended to kill these three young men, that story is only part of the whole picture,” said Adams, the chief administrative deputy at the Chittenden County State’s Attorney’s Office.
Awartani, Aliahmad and Abdalhamid, all of whom are now 23, told jurors of their holiday weekend visit to Awartani’s grandmother’s house, a trip to a bowling alley to celebrate his twin cousins’ birthday, and the walk they took near the University of Vermont campus after dusk that ended in bloodshed.
Awartani, who was studying at Brown University in Rhode Island at the time, said they were smoking cigarettes and speaking a mix of English and Arabic. Two of them said they were wearing traditional Palestinian scarves known as keffiyehs. Awartani said he first noticed Eaton standing on a porch as they approached the apartment house where he lived.
Within seconds, Awartani said, Eaton was off the porch and walking toward them. His face was expressionless and he didn’t say anything. As Eaton got to about five to 10 feet (1.5 to 3 meters) away, “he pulled out a handgun and started shooting at us,” said Awartani, who was paralyzed from the waist down in the shooting and now uses a wheelchair.
Jacob Pyne, who lived in a different apartment in the same house as Eaton, testified that he heard four to six gunshots, followed by footsteps going up the stairs of the apartment house. He said he ran outside and heard two men speaking, one of whom was more vocal and yelling, “I’ve been shot, help me.” He then brought the men blankets and called 911.
Abdalhamid, a student at Haverford College near Philadelphia, said he fled and hid behind another home after seeing Aliahmad fall to the ground. He said he only realized later when he sat down that he had also been wounded. Awartani was shot in the chest and the bullet ricocheted off his scapula, causing paraplegia in his spinal cord. Aliahmad, who was a student at Trinity College in Connecticut, was struck in the collarbone, and Abdalhamid was shot in the right buttock.
O’Hara, the supervising attorney at the Chittenden County Public Defender Office, told jurors that Eaton was confused by the messages he said he was receiving, and became convinced that the CIA and Mossad were enlisting him into “overwatch duty” to protect a Jewish family living across the street.
“These were delusions,” O’Hara said. “He believed in the moment that he was doing something that was right. He had been commanded to do this. And that he did not have the ability to appreciate the wrongfulness of his conduct in the moment because he believed he’d been instructed to do this by a government agency or God.”
Arab News | Video shows Israeli troops shooting Palestinian in West Bank settler stand-off
Israeli troops opened fire Saturday at a group of Palestinians who did not appear to be posing a threat in the occupied West Bank, wounding one man, according to video obtained by The Associated Press.
The video, shot by an eyewitness, showed the man falling to the ground near the Palestinian village of Faqqua, north of the West Bank.
At least 14 shots in total were fired during the duration of the video. They continued as several men rushed to move the injured man to safety before setting him down and tying a tourniquet around his leg in an apparent attempt to stop the bleeding.
Mahmoud Shahin, a resident of the village, said the Palestinians had rushed to the area after receiving reports that Israeli settlers had arrived there with a flock of sheep. He said Israeli soldiers then came and began firing in the air and toward the Palestinians.
He added that the wounded man was undergoing surgery at a hospital in Jenin.
Israel’s military said the video was authentic and confirmed its forces had fired toward the Palestinians, wounding one man, and said commanders would review the incident.
Under the ultranationalist government of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, settler violence in the West Bank has surged. The international community largely considers Israeli settlements to be illegal and obstacles to peace.
Over 700,000 Israelis now live in the West Bank and east Jerusalem, areas captured by Israel in the 1967 Mideast war and claimed by the Palestinians as parts of a future state.
Arab News | Russia detains a Moldovan citizen suspected of shooting a military officer on orders from Ukraine

MOSCOW: Russian authorities said Tuesday they have detained a suspect in last week’s shooting that wounded a senior military officer, the latest in a series of attacks on personnel and figures linked to the war in Ukraine.
The Federal Security Service said a 21-year-old Moldovan national was detained for being allegedly “involved in an assassination attempt on a senior military officer of the Russian Defense Ministry” at the behest of Ukrainian intelligence services. He faced charges of attempted murder and illegal arms trafficking, it said.
The officer was shot at least six times on Sept. 3 in the Probuzhdenie settlement on the outskirts of Engels, a city in the Saratov region, said Svetlana Petrenko, a spokeswoman for Russia’s Investigative Committee, which is also involved in the case.
The region is home to a large air force base that hosts Russia’s strategic bombers and has carried out attacks on Ukraine.
The victim, who has not been identified by Russian authorities, survived the shooting and remains hospitalized.
The FSB alleged that the suspect was recruited by Ukrainian intelligence services in 2025 and arrived in Russia in June. He was detained in the southern Astrakhan region as he was trying to leave the country and return to Moldova, the agency said.
Petrenko said he was allegedly offered $70,000 for carrying out the attack.
There was no immediate comment from either Ukrainian or Moldovan officials. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky alluded to the attack on the day it happened, saying: “Wherever Russian criminals hide, they will be found, and today there is further confirmation of this fact – confirmation in the Saratov region.”
Last week’s attack follows a series of bombings in Russia targeting people involved in the 2022 full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Moscow has blamed Kyiv for some of the blasts.
In late August, a serviceman was killed and his wife was injured by a car bomb on the outskirts of St. Petersburg. Three weeks before that, the director of a factory supplying drones to the Russian military was badly injured and his driver was killed when their car exploded just outside Yekaterinburg, 1,400 kilometers (about 870 miles) east of Moscow.
In those cases, the authorities did not immediately say who they believed carried out the attacks.
Earlier this year, President Vladimir Putin directed the FSB and other agencies to tighten security around military and government officials.
Kyiv has claimed responsibility for some attacks inside Russia. Ukraine’s SBU security service said in 2024 that it had organized the killing of Lt. Gen. Igor Kirillov, who headed the Russian military’s nuclear, biological and chemical protection forces.
Kirillov was killed by a bomb hidden in a scooter outside his apartment building in Moscow, a day after Ukraine’s security service leveled criminal charges against him.











