New Jersey
Prosecutors charge lawmaker with pushing and grabbing agents
Federal prosecutors alleged Democratic Rep. LaMonica McIver of New Jersey pushed and grabbed officers while attempting to block the arrest of the Newark mayor outside an immigration detention facility, according to charges in court papers unsealed on Tuesday.
In an eight-page complaint, interim U.S. Attorney Alina Habba’s office said McIver was protesting the removal of Newark Mayor Ras Baraka from a congressional tour of the Delaney Hall detention center in Newark on May 9.
The complaint says she attempted to stop the arrest of the mayor and pushed into agents for Homeland Security Investigations and Immigration and Customs Enforcement. She faces two counts of assaulting, resisting and impeding an officer.
McIver has denied any wrongdoing and has accused federal agents of escalating the situation by arresting the mayor. She denounced the charge as “purely political” and said prosecutors are distorting her actions in an effort to deter legislative oversight.
Habba had charged Baraka with trespassing after his arrest but dismissed the allegation on Monday when she said in a social media post she instead was charging the congresswoman.
Prosecuting McIver is a rare federal criminal case against a sitting member of Congress for allegations other than fraud or corruption.
The case instantly taps into a broader and more consequential struggle between a Trump administration engaged in overhauling immigration policy and a Democratic party scrambling to respond.
Within minutes of Habba’s announcement, McIver’s Democratic colleagues cast the prosecution as an infringement on lawmakers’ official duties to serve their constituents and an effort to silence their opposition to an immigration policy that helped propel the president back into power but now has emerged as divisive fault line in American political discourse.
Members of Congress are authorized by law to go into federal immigration facilities as part of their oversight powers, even without advance notice. Congress passed a 2019 appropriations bill that spelled out the authority.
A nearly two-minute clip released by the Homeland Security Department shows McIver on the facility side of a chain-link fence just before the arrest of the mayor on the street side of the fence. She and uniformed officials go through the gate and she joins others shouting they should circle the mayor. The video shows McIver in a tightly packed group of people and officers. At one point her left elbow and then her right elbow push into an officer wearing a dark face covering and an olive green uniform emblazoned with the word “Police” on it.
It isn’t clear from bodycam video whether that contact was intentional, incidental or a result of jostling in the chaotic scene.
The complaint says she “slammed” her forearm into an agent and then tried to restrain the agent by grabbing him.
Tom Homan, President Donald Trump’s top border adviser, said during an interview on Fox News Tuesday “she broke the law and we’re going to hold her accountable”
“You can’t put hands on an ICE employee. we’re not going to tolerate it,” he said.
House Democratic leaders decried the criminal case against their colleague in a lengthy statement, calling the charge “extreme” and “morally bankrupt” and lacking “any basis in law or fact.
On Tuesday Democratic lawmakers pushed back against the charges.
New Jersey Democratic Rep. Frank Pallone called the arrest “outrageous” and said the lawmakers “were met by unidentified masked agents with loaded weapons, and now they face charges? The department of justice and ICE are weaponizing this place.”
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said Tuesday during a Congressional hearing that lawmakers can conduct oversight but accused those who visited the Newark detention facility of showing up with a “mob” intending to break in and attack law enforcement.
New Jersey Rep. Bonnie Watson Coleman, who along with Rep. Rob Menendez had joined McIver at the detention center, told reporters Tuesday that her and Menendez’s attorneys are scheduled to meet Wednesday with Habba’s office.
“That’s the first contact that we’ve actually had from her so we don’t know what she has intended, but we’re ready for whenever it might be,” she said.
Watson Coleman added that Habba’s office has indicated that charges are still on the table.
“It’s a possibility and it may be a probability. We shall see,” she said.
A message seeking comment Tuesday was left with Habba’s office.
McIver, 38, first came to Congress in September in a special election after the death of Rep. Donald Payne Jr. left a vacancy in the 10th District. She was then elected to a full term in November. A Newark native, she served as the president of the Newark City Council from 2022 to 2024 and worked in the city’s public schools before that.
Nebraska
Man not guilty by reason of insanity in baseball director’s death
OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — A Nebraska man charged in the shooting death of the director of baseball operations at Creighton University has been ordered to remain at a psychiatric hospital after he was found not responsible by reason of insanity.
A judge on Monday ordered Ladell Thornton to undergo an evaluation to determine a treatment plan, WOWT reported.
Thornton waived his right to a jury trial on charges that included first-degree murder in the 2021 shooting death of Chris Gradoville, 37. The former baseball standout played for Creighton from 2004 to 2007 and then joined its baseball staff as its director of operations in the fall of 2020.
Gradoville had just flipped an Omaha house and sold it to a realty company that was renting it to Thornton, officials said. Gradoville was shot after he arrived at the house to take care of a repair he had promised the realty company he would make.
Annie Petersen with the Douglas County Public Defenders Office said signs that something might be wrong with Thornton went unnoticed because he lived alone.
“He slowly isolated himself from friends and family due to his paranoia, and there was nobody to tell him that the thoughts in his head and the voices that he was hearing were not real ... or that medicine could help his situation,” Petersen said.
Thornton, who had an extensive criminal record, entered a no-contest plea for being a felon in possession of a firearm months before the killing. If there is ever a court order releasing him from the psychiatric facility, he must first serve the sentence for that offense, which carries a prison term of up to 50 years.
Creighton is a private university in Omaha.
Washington
Wrongful death lawsuit settled for nearly $5M over Babbitt shooting in Capitol riot
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Trump administration has agreed to pay just under $5 million to settle a wrongful death lawsuit that Ashli Babbitt’s family filed over her shooting by an officer during the U.S. Capitol riot, according to a person with knowledge of the settlement. The person insisted on anonymity to discuss with The Associated Press terms of a settlement that have not been made public.
The settlement would resolve the $30 million federal lawsuit that Babbitt’s estate filed last year in Washington, D.C. On Jan. 6, 2021, a Capitol police officer shot Babbitt as she tried to climb through the broken window of a barricaded door leading to the Speaker’s Lobby.
The officer who shot her was cleared of wrongdoing by the U.S. Attorney’s office for the District of Columbia, which concluded that he acted in self-defense and in the defense of members of Congress. The Capitol Police also cleared the officer.
Settlement terms haven’t been disclosed in public court filings. On May 2, lawyers for Babbitt’s estate and the Justice Department told a federal judge that they had reached a settlement in principle but were still working out the details before a final agreement could be signed.
Justice Department spokespeople and two attorneys for the Babbitt family didn’t immediately respond to messages seeking comment.
Babbitt, a 35-year-old Air Force veteran from San Diego, was unarmed when she was shot by the officer. The lawsuit alleges that the plainclothes officer failed to de-escalate the situation and did not give her any warnings or commands before opening fire.
The suit also accused the Capitol Police of negligence, claiming the department should have known that the officer was “prone to behave in a dangerous or otherwise incompetent manner.”
“Ashli posed no threat to the safety of anyone,” the lawsuit said.
The officer said in a televised interview that he fired as a “last resort.” He said he didn’t know if the person jumping through the window was armed when he pulled the trigger.
Thousands of people stormed the Capitol after President Donald Trump spoke to a crowd of supporters at his Jan. 6 “Stop the Steal” rally near the White House. More than 100 police officers were injured in the attack.
In January, on his first day back in the White House, Trump pardoned, commuted the prison sentences or ordered the dismissal of charges for all of the more than 1,500 people charged with crimes in the riot.
California
Family sues after sheriff’s deputy dies from fire in mobile gun range
LOS ANGELES (AP) — The family of a Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputy filed a wrongful death lawsuit Monday against the law enforcement agency after he died from being critically injured in a fire that broke out inside a mobile gun range.
Deputy Alfredo “Freddy” Flores died April 20 after enduring third-degree burns across most of his body and a period of medical complications, six months after the fire on Oct. 10, 2023. He was performing a mandatory firearm recertification inside a trailer that serves as a mobile shooting range when it caught on fire at the department’s Pitchess Detention Center about 30 miles (48.3 kilometers) north of Los Angeles.
Another deputy with him was also seriously injured. Flores was participating in firearms qualification which the department requires deputies to do once a quarter, Sheriff Robert Luna said in October 2023.
His family filed a lawsuit suit seeking damages for constitutional violations, negligence and product liability, alleging the fire started because officials failed to properly maintain the mobile gun range.
The LA County Sheriff’s Department did not immediately respond to an emailed request for comment.
The lawsuit alleges the sheriff’s department allowed a “dangerous accumulation of unburned gunpowder residue, lead, propellant, and/or other combustible material” which ignited suddenly to start the fire.
According to the lawsuit, there are well-documented prior instances of fires in mobile shooting ranges in California as well as other ranges operated by the LA County Sheriff’s Department. There is also “documentation of violations” by the department related to unsafe practices in the operation and maintenance of its mobile shooting ranges, the suit said.
The family is also seeking relief from Inveris Training Solutions, the manufacturer of the trailer. Mobile Inveris shooting ranges are “defectively designed” and have a high risk of fires from a buildup of the combustible material that isn’t properly cleaned and ventilated, the lawsuit said.
The suit asks for injunctive relief to stop the county’s operations of its mobile gun ranges, compensation for damages as well as civil penalties.
Flores was a deputy for 22 years and his assignments included the North County Correctional Facility and Altadena Station. He is survived by his wife, two daughters and two sons.
Prosecutors charge lawmaker with pushing and grabbing agents
Federal prosecutors alleged Democratic Rep. LaMonica McIver of New Jersey pushed and grabbed officers while attempting to block the arrest of the Newark mayor outside an immigration detention facility, according to charges in court papers unsealed on Tuesday.
In an eight-page complaint, interim U.S. Attorney Alina Habba’s office said McIver was protesting the removal of Newark Mayor Ras Baraka from a congressional tour of the Delaney Hall detention center in Newark on May 9.
The complaint says she attempted to stop the arrest of the mayor and pushed into agents for Homeland Security Investigations and Immigration and Customs Enforcement. She faces two counts of assaulting, resisting and impeding an officer.
McIver has denied any wrongdoing and has accused federal agents of escalating the situation by arresting the mayor. She denounced the charge as “purely political” and said prosecutors are distorting her actions in an effort to deter legislative oversight.
Habba had charged Baraka with trespassing after his arrest but dismissed the allegation on Monday when she said in a social media post she instead was charging the congresswoman.
Prosecuting McIver is a rare federal criminal case against a sitting member of Congress for allegations other than fraud or corruption.
The case instantly taps into a broader and more consequential struggle between a Trump administration engaged in overhauling immigration policy and a Democratic party scrambling to respond.
Within minutes of Habba’s announcement, McIver’s Democratic colleagues cast the prosecution as an infringement on lawmakers’ official duties to serve their constituents and an effort to silence their opposition to an immigration policy that helped propel the president back into power but now has emerged as divisive fault line in American political discourse.
Members of Congress are authorized by law to go into federal immigration facilities as part of their oversight powers, even without advance notice. Congress passed a 2019 appropriations bill that spelled out the authority.
A nearly two-minute clip released by the Homeland Security Department shows McIver on the facility side of a chain-link fence just before the arrest of the mayor on the street side of the fence. She and uniformed officials go through the gate and she joins others shouting they should circle the mayor. The video shows McIver in a tightly packed group of people and officers. At one point her left elbow and then her right elbow push into an officer wearing a dark face covering and an olive green uniform emblazoned with the word “Police” on it.
It isn’t clear from bodycam video whether that contact was intentional, incidental or a result of jostling in the chaotic scene.
The complaint says she “slammed” her forearm into an agent and then tried to restrain the agent by grabbing him.
Tom Homan, President Donald Trump’s top border adviser, said during an interview on Fox News Tuesday “she broke the law and we’re going to hold her accountable”
“You can’t put hands on an ICE employee. we’re not going to tolerate it,” he said.
House Democratic leaders decried the criminal case against their colleague in a lengthy statement, calling the charge “extreme” and “morally bankrupt” and lacking “any basis in law or fact.
On Tuesday Democratic lawmakers pushed back against the charges.
New Jersey Democratic Rep. Frank Pallone called the arrest “outrageous” and said the lawmakers “were met by unidentified masked agents with loaded weapons, and now they face charges? The department of justice and ICE are weaponizing this place.”
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said Tuesday during a Congressional hearing that lawmakers can conduct oversight but accused those who visited the Newark detention facility of showing up with a “mob” intending to break in and attack law enforcement.
New Jersey Rep. Bonnie Watson Coleman, who along with Rep. Rob Menendez had joined McIver at the detention center, told reporters Tuesday that her and Menendez’s attorneys are scheduled to meet Wednesday with Habba’s office.
“That’s the first contact that we’ve actually had from her so we don’t know what she has intended, but we’re ready for whenever it might be,” she said.
Watson Coleman added that Habba’s office has indicated that charges are still on the table.
“It’s a possibility and it may be a probability. We shall see,” she said.
A message seeking comment Tuesday was left with Habba’s office.
McIver, 38, first came to Congress in September in a special election after the death of Rep. Donald Payne Jr. left a vacancy in the 10th District. She was then elected to a full term in November. A Newark native, she served as the president of the Newark City Council from 2022 to 2024 and worked in the city’s public schools before that.
Nebraska
Man not guilty by reason of insanity in baseball director’s death
OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — A Nebraska man charged in the shooting death of the director of baseball operations at Creighton University has been ordered to remain at a psychiatric hospital after he was found not responsible by reason of insanity.
A judge on Monday ordered Ladell Thornton to undergo an evaluation to determine a treatment plan, WOWT reported.
Thornton waived his right to a jury trial on charges that included first-degree murder in the 2021 shooting death of Chris Gradoville, 37. The former baseball standout played for Creighton from 2004 to 2007 and then joined its baseball staff as its director of operations in the fall of 2020.
Gradoville had just flipped an Omaha house and sold it to a realty company that was renting it to Thornton, officials said. Gradoville was shot after he arrived at the house to take care of a repair he had promised the realty company he would make.
Annie Petersen with the Douglas County Public Defenders Office said signs that something might be wrong with Thornton went unnoticed because he lived alone.
“He slowly isolated himself from friends and family due to his paranoia, and there was nobody to tell him that the thoughts in his head and the voices that he was hearing were not real ... or that medicine could help his situation,” Petersen said.
Thornton, who had an extensive criminal record, entered a no-contest plea for being a felon in possession of a firearm months before the killing. If there is ever a court order releasing him from the psychiatric facility, he must first serve the sentence for that offense, which carries a prison term of up to 50 years.
Creighton is a private university in Omaha.
Washington
Wrongful death lawsuit settled for nearly $5M over Babbitt shooting in Capitol riot
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Trump administration has agreed to pay just under $5 million to settle a wrongful death lawsuit that Ashli Babbitt’s family filed over her shooting by an officer during the U.S. Capitol riot, according to a person with knowledge of the settlement. The person insisted on anonymity to discuss with The Associated Press terms of a settlement that have not been made public.
The settlement would resolve the $30 million federal lawsuit that Babbitt’s estate filed last year in Washington, D.C. On Jan. 6, 2021, a Capitol police officer shot Babbitt as she tried to climb through the broken window of a barricaded door leading to the Speaker’s Lobby.
The officer who shot her was cleared of wrongdoing by the U.S. Attorney’s office for the District of Columbia, which concluded that he acted in self-defense and in the defense of members of Congress. The Capitol Police also cleared the officer.
Settlement terms haven’t been disclosed in public court filings. On May 2, lawyers for Babbitt’s estate and the Justice Department told a federal judge that they had reached a settlement in principle but were still working out the details before a final agreement could be signed.
Justice Department spokespeople and two attorneys for the Babbitt family didn’t immediately respond to messages seeking comment.
Babbitt, a 35-year-old Air Force veteran from San Diego, was unarmed when she was shot by the officer. The lawsuit alleges that the plainclothes officer failed to de-escalate the situation and did not give her any warnings or commands before opening fire.
The suit also accused the Capitol Police of negligence, claiming the department should have known that the officer was “prone to behave in a dangerous or otherwise incompetent manner.”
“Ashli posed no threat to the safety of anyone,” the lawsuit said.
The officer said in a televised interview that he fired as a “last resort.” He said he didn’t know if the person jumping through the window was armed when he pulled the trigger.
Thousands of people stormed the Capitol after President Donald Trump spoke to a crowd of supporters at his Jan. 6 “Stop the Steal” rally near the White House. More than 100 police officers were injured in the attack.
In January, on his first day back in the White House, Trump pardoned, commuted the prison sentences or ordered the dismissal of charges for all of the more than 1,500 people charged with crimes in the riot.
California
Family sues after sheriff’s deputy dies from fire in mobile gun range
LOS ANGELES (AP) — The family of a Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputy filed a wrongful death lawsuit Monday against the law enforcement agency after he died from being critically injured in a fire that broke out inside a mobile gun range.
Deputy Alfredo “Freddy” Flores died April 20 after enduring third-degree burns across most of his body and a period of medical complications, six months after the fire on Oct. 10, 2023. He was performing a mandatory firearm recertification inside a trailer that serves as a mobile shooting range when it caught on fire at the department’s Pitchess Detention Center about 30 miles (48.3 kilometers) north of Los Angeles.
Another deputy with him was also seriously injured. Flores was participating in firearms qualification which the department requires deputies to do once a quarter, Sheriff Robert Luna said in October 2023.
His family filed a lawsuit suit seeking damages for constitutional violations, negligence and product liability, alleging the fire started because officials failed to properly maintain the mobile gun range.
The LA County Sheriff’s Department did not immediately respond to an emailed request for comment.
The lawsuit alleges the sheriff’s department allowed a “dangerous accumulation of unburned gunpowder residue, lead, propellant, and/or other combustible material” which ignited suddenly to start the fire.
According to the lawsuit, there are well-documented prior instances of fires in mobile shooting ranges in California as well as other ranges operated by the LA County Sheriff’s Department. There is also “documentation of violations” by the department related to unsafe practices in the operation and maintenance of its mobile shooting ranges, the suit said.
The family is also seeking relief from Inveris Training Solutions, the manufacturer of the trailer. Mobile Inveris shooting ranges are “defectively designed” and have a high risk of fires from a buildup of the combustible material that isn’t properly cleaned and ventilated, the lawsuit said.
The suit asks for injunctive relief to stop the county’s operations of its mobile gun ranges, compensation for damages as well as civil penalties.
Flores was a deputy for 22 years and his assignments included the North County Correctional Facility and Altadena Station. He is survived by his wife, two daughters and two sons.
