Author: Michael Tarm
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Police: Parade shooting suspect contemplated 2nd shooting
HIGHLAND PARK, Ill. • The man charged with killing seven people at an Independence Day parade confessed to police that he unleashed a hail of bullets from a rooftop in suburban Chicago and then fled to the Madison, Wisconsin, area, where he contemplated shooting up an event there, authorities said Wednesday. The suspect turned back…
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Defense rests its case at murder trial of Kyle Rittenhouse
KENOSHA, Wis. • The defense rested its case Thursday at the murder trial of Kyle Rittenhouse, setting the stage for closing arguments Monday in the shootings that left Americans divided over whether he was a patriot taking a stand against lawlessness or a vigilante. Rittenhouse’s lawyers put on about 21/2 days of testimony to the…
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Rittenhouse: ‘I didn’t do anything wrong. I defended myself’
KENOSHA, Wis. • Kyle Rittenhouse testified Wednesday he was under attack when he killed two men and wounded a third with his rifle during a chaotic night of protests in Kenosha, saying: “I didn’t do anything wrong. I defended myself.” In a high-stakes gamble, the 18-year-old took the stand at his murder trial to tell…
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No charges against Wisconsin officer who shot Jacob Blake
KENOSHA, Wis. • A Wisconsin prosecutor said Tuesday that he will not file criminal charges against a white police officer who shot a Black man in the back in Kenosha last summer, leaving him paralyzed and setting off sometimes violent protests in the city. Officer Rusten Sheskey’s shooting of Jacob Blake on Aug. 23, captured…
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Only Native American on federal death row executed
TERRE HAUTE, Ind. • The only Native American on federal death row was put to death Wednesday, despite objections from many Navajo leaders who had urged President Donald Trump to halt the execution on the grounds it would violate tribal culture and sovereignty. With the execution of Lezmond Mitchell for the grisly slayings of a…
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Mental fitness claim halts 2nd federal execution- for now
TERRE HAUTE, Ind. • A judge on Wednesday halted the execution of a man, said to be suffering from dementia, who was set to die by lethal injection in the federal government’s second execution this week after a 17-year hiatus. Wesley Ira Purkey, convicted of a gruesome 1998 kidnapping and killing, was scheduled for execution…
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Video shows Chicago officer shooting subway rider in back
CHICAGO • Extended security and body-cam video released Tuesday shows Chicago police shooting an unarmed short-order cook at the foot of a subway escalator and then again with his back turned to officers after they tried to stop him for violating a city ordinance by walking from one train car to another. The Chicago Transit…
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Blagojevich released from prison after Trump pardon
CHICAGO • Rod Blagojevich walked out of prison Tuesday after President Trump cut short the 14-year prison sentence handed to the former Illinois governor for political corruption. The Republican president said the punishment imposed on the Chicago Democrat and one-time contestant on Trump’s reality TV show “Celebrity Apprentice” was excessive. “So he’ll be able to…
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Reports indicate Michigan man may be baby abducted in 1964
CHICAGO • When a woman posing as a maternity-ward nurse snatched a newborn from its mother’s arms more than 55 years ago, the case made headlines nationwide and led to a massive search by FBI agents and police. The mystery seemed solved two years later, when police found an abandoned child who appeared to be…
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Illinois man gets life in prison for killing Chinese scholar
PEORIA, Ill. • A former University of Illinois doctoral student was sentenced Thursday to life in prison without parole for the 2017 rape and murder of a 26-year-old scholar from China, prompting her family to beg the killer to reveal where her body is so the remains can be returned home. The jurors returned their…