Illinois
Terrorism charge against SUV driver in suburban mall
SCHAUMBURG, Ill. (AP) — A man accused of driving an SUV through a suburban Chicago shopping mall was charged Sunday with a state terrorism and ordered held without bond.
Police in Schaumburg said the Cook County state’s attorney had authorized the charge against Javier Garcia, 22, of Palatine, Illinois. Garcia also was charged with felony criminal damage to property.
Assistant Cook County State’s Attorney Annalee McGlone said during the bond hearing that on Sept. 20, Garcia drove his SUV through a Sears entrance into the common area of Woodfield Mall, weaving in and out of kiosks as shoppers ran for cover. No one was struck by the vehicle.
“Chaos ensued among the patrons of the mall. Hysterical patrons were running and jumping in attempts to evade the vehicle’s path. Stores were locking their gates and sheltering people in the rear of stores for safety purposes,” McGlone said.
Under Illinois law, the Class X felony of terrorism can apply if the suspect is believed to have caused more than $100,000 in damage to any building containing five or more businesses, according to a statement issued by Schaumburg Police Sgt. Karen McCarthy. No federal charges have been brought against Garcia.
Investigators said in a statement that they “believe Garcia acted alone, no motive has been determined.” He was released to police custody on Friday from the AMITA Health Behavioral Institute.
Defense attorney Amil Alkass said Garcia has no criminal history. He also noted his client takes psychiatric medications and is being treated for bipolar disorder and paranoid schizophrenia.
“He’s definitely not a terrorist,” Alkass told the Chicago Sun-Times. “There was nobody targeted.
Texas
Wife calls lawyer before spouse reports death
DALLAS (AP) — The wife of a Dallas man charged in the fatal shooting of someone they thought was a burglar contacted a lawyer before the husband called 911 to report a home invasion, according to police documents.
James Michael Meyer was charged with murder in Thursday’s shooting, with bond set at $150,000, The Dallas Morning News reported. Online jail records had no information about an attorney to speak for Meyer, who was no longer in custody Sunday.
Meyer told police he heard a noise outside around 5 a.m. Thursday and saw someone with a pickax trying to break into his storage shed, according to an arrest warrant affidavit. Meyer told police that he grabbed his gun, went out and yelled at the person to stop and not come closer or he’d shoot.
Meyer told investigators the person took several steps toward him, so he fired and the burglar dropped his pickax and ran toward a nearby park.
Meyer said he fired an additional shot “into the night” in the direction of the park, even though “from the suspect’s accounts, the threat of serious bodily injury against him was over when the complainant dropped the pickax and ran off,” the affidavit said.
Meyer, who said he didn’t know whether he’d shot anyone, went back to bed. He got up around 7 a.m. Thursday and thought he saw “a black bag” in the park. Upon closer inspection, he found the man’s body.
Meyer’s wife called an attorney, seeking advice, before her husband called 911 to report he was the victim of a crime and that medical help was needed, according to the affidavit.
The Dallas County Medical Examiner’s Office on Sunday had no details on the case and referred questions about the unidentified suspect to police. Spokesman Sgt. Warren Mitchell said he did not have access to the arrest affidavit Sunday.
Texas
Police raised concerns about gunman 8 years before shooting
AMARILLO, Texas (AP) — Police reports describe concerns eight years ago that the gunman who killed seven and wounded 25 last month in West Texas might have been planning an attack.
Officers in Amarillo, Texas, went to the home of Seth Ator’s mother in February 2011 after she told them he had refused to take his mental-health medication and had threatened to end his own life in a shootout with police, CNN reported.
They found a machete hidden in her son’s bed and an underground shelter he had dug in the backyard. In a recording the mother shared with police, her son declared, “911 will bow down before me.”
Police interpreted what they found as preparations for an attack and were so troubled that they recorded floor plans of the property and shared the information with the city’s SWAT team, according to incident reports.
Officers believed Ator was volatile and might hurt somebody someday. Amarillo police spokesman Cpl. Jeb Hilton says that a documents request Sunday from The Associated Press about the February 2011 case has been forwarded to the agency’s Open Records Department.
The police incident reports raise new questions about whether more could have been done to prevent Ator’s shooting spree in the cities of Midland and Odessa, Texas. It’s unclear how Ator, who once failed a background check for an attempted firearm purchase, acquired the AR-15-style rifle he used in the attack. Officers killed Ator outside a busy Odessa movie theater after the shooting rampage that lasted more than an hour.
“There seemed to be some indication of some planned standoff with police,” one of the responding officers wrote in a report following the 2011 encounter.
Another officer stated in an incident report at the time that he believed Ator “will attempt to harm the police and the public.”
After inspecting the home, officers transported Ator to a hospital and he was medicated and admitted to a mental health treatment facility, according to the report.
Police reports note that while in that facility Ator told security: “The police can’t be everywhere.” An officer stated: “I took this as a threat against the public.”
Missouri
Man sentenced for abducting college students
POINT LOOKOUT, Mo. (AP) — A man has been sentenced to 20 years in prison for forcing two Christian college students to perform sex acts on each other after they violated curfew and were locked out of their southwest Missouri campus.
The Springfield News-Leader reports that 49-year-old Robert Hyslop was sentenced last week for first-degree sexual abuse and two counts of first-degree kidnapping.
Charging documents say the College of the Ozarks students fell asleep in a commuter parking lot in October 2018 because the campus’ front gate was locked when they returned after curfew. The documents say Hyslop made the man and woman drive to a highway lookout, where he forced them into sex acts at gunpoint. Hyslop also is accused of making the woman touch him sexually. He was on probation at the time for a drug conviction.
