Gunshots fired outside VP Biden’s home
Multiple gunshots were fired outside Vice President Joe Biden’s home in Delaware, and a vehicle fled the area on Saturday night, Secret Service officials said.
The vice president and his family were not at home when the shooting occurred, authorities said.
The incident occurred about 8:25 p.m. on a public road outside the established security perimeter, authorities said. About a half-hour later, at 9 p.m., an individual in a vehicle attempted to pass an officer with the New Castle County Police who was securing an outer perimeter. That person, a man who remains unidentified, was taken into custody and charged with resisting arrest after he did not cooperate with police in the area, said Sgt. Jacob Andrews, a spokesman for the New Castle County Police.
It was not clear whether the individual had anything to do with the shooting minutes earlier.
It was also not clear on Sunday whether any of the gunshots hit Biden’s home, which is in Greenville, a small, affluent suburb of Wilmington. After the shooting, Secret Service agents launched an extensive search of the home’s exterior to determine whether the building had been struck, according to the Secret Service.
No plea deal likely in bombing case
WASHINGTON – The focus of the Boston Marathon bombing trial figures to be as much on what punishment Dzhokhar Tsarnaev could face as on his responsibility for the attack.
With testimony expected to start later this month, the Justice Department has given no indication it is open to any proposal from the defense to spare Tsarnaev’s life, pushing instead toward a trial that could result in a death sentence for the 21-year-old defendant.
In a deadly terror case that killed three people, including a child, and jolted the city, there may be little incentive for prosecutors who believe they have incontrovertible evidence to negotiate away their ability to seek the maximum penalty possible.
The prospect of a death sentence, a rare punishment in the federal system, raises the stakes of a trial that will revisit in gory detail the 2013 attack that also injured more than 260. Should the jury find Tsarnaev guilty, it would then decide in a separate penalty phase whether he should be sentenced to death. Jury selection is underway and the judge has said he hopes to begin testimony on Jan. 26.
Only three federal inmates, including McVeigh, have been put to death since 2001.
There has been no indication the government has wavered in that decision, even though one of Tsarnaev’s lawyers, Judy Clarke, has gotten prosecutors to spare the lives of multiple high-profile killers.
Black Caucus invokes MLK in Ferguson
FERGUSON, Mo. – Leading black members of Congress are vowing to lead a legislative fight for criminal justice reform after recent fatal police shootings around the U.S.
Eight members of the Congressional Black Caucus joined U.S. Rep. William Lacy Clay at Wellspring United Methodist Church in Ferguson on Sunday. They invoked the legacy of Martin Luther King Jr.
Clay, a St. Louis Democrat, sharply criticized St. Louis County Prosecutor Bob McCulloch’s handling of the grand jury that declined to indict Ferguson officer Darren Wilson in the August shooting death of 18-year-old Michael Brown.
Caucus chairman Rep. G.K. Butterfield, a North Carolina Democrat, said the group planned to use their strength in numbers in Washington. He also called the protests that arose after Ferguson and other shootings “a turning point in race relations.”
ASU student dies while rappelling
MESA, Ariz. – An Arizona State University student is dead after she fell while rappelling from a cliff in the Tonto National Forest.
The Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office says 21-year-old Katelyn M. Conrad was rappelling in Coon Bluff, a popular recreation area near the Salt River, on Saturday morning when the incident occurred.
Sheriff’s Office spokesman Chris Hegstrom says she fell about 125 feet and was unresponsive. Despite lifesaving efforts by deputies, Conrad was pronounced dead.
Authorities say Conrad was part of a group of 20 climbers from ASU. They also say Conrad, who was from nearby Gilbert, was the daughter of Phoenix police Lt. Robert Conrad.
Investigators are looking into the cause, but they say it appears to be accidental.
Washington Post, AP
