- Bensalem shooting: Person of interest in Peter Romano murder dies from self-inflicted gunshot wound after police chase in Ohio WPVI-TV
- Suspect in Bensalem Halloween shooting that killed a 14-year-old found dead in Ohio, police say The Philadelphia Inquirer
- Family demands justice after middle schooler gunned down on Halloween in Bensalem WPVI-TV
- Family and friends will hold vigil for teen killed on Halloween night NBC 10 Philadelphia
- Person of interest in Bensalem teen’s killing dies after Ohio police chase NBC 10 Philadelphia
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Tag Archives: selfinflicted
Miami-Dade police share update on director after self-inflicted gunshot in Tampa – WFLA
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- Miami-Dade Police Director Freddy Ramirez in ‘Stable Condition’ After Self-Inflicted Gunshot Wound: Officials PEOPLE
- Palm Beach County PBA President discusses officers’ mental health WPEC
- Miami-Dade Police Director Ramirez’s ‘critical injury’ a sad and shocking event | Opinion Miami Herald
- ‘We still need Freddy’: Gun violence activist ‘broken’ over police director shooting NBC 6 South Florida
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Report: Man accused of kidnapping, torturing Oregon woman dies from self-inflicted gunshot wound following police standoff
CNN
—
A week after authorities discovered a woman bound and beaten in a southwest Oregon home, the kidnapping suspect has died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound, a CNN affiliate reports.
Benjamin Obadiah Foster, 36, died in a hospital after an hourslong standoff with law enforcement Tuesday evening in Grants Pass, Oregon, CNN affiliate KTVL reported, citing a police spokesperson.
The standoff concluded after authorities had surrounded the home – under which they believed Foster was hiding – and were trying to convince the suspect to surrender, KTVL reported.
In a statement Tuesday night, Grants Pass police said Foster was “in custody” after the standoff but provided no additional details. The department said it will hold a press conference Wednesday.
Foster was wanted on suspicion of attempted murder, kidnapping and assault after officers found a woman restrained and beaten until she was unconscious in a Grants Pass home on January 24, police said.
Prosecutors have accused Foster of torturing the woman with the intention of killing her, according to charging documents.
The victim was still hospitalized in critical condition as of Sunday, according to Grants Pass Police Chief Warren Hensman.
Foster knew his victim before the attack, Hensman told CNN, saying the two had a “prior relationship.” He did not elaborate but said, “This was not a random attack.”
The suspect had already fled by the time officers arrived at the scene last week, prompting a sweeping multi-day search for Foster which drew a flood of tips from the public and included federal, state and local agencies, police said.
As they searched for Foster, police warned he was “extremely dangerous” and potentially armed. Hensman said he was “definitely a threat to others,” particularly those who might try to befriend him.
Investigators said Foster likely received help fleeing law enforcement. They also warned he could be may have been using dating apps to find potential new victims or lure people into aiding his escape.
When officers responded to a 911 call from a friend of the victim, they were confronted with “an absolutely disgusting scene,” Hensman told CNN. The victim had been suffering the alleged abuses for a “protracted amount of time” before she was discovered, he said.
“This will stay stained in my memory for many years to come,” the police chief said, describing images of the scene as “horrific.”
At least two women who have had relationships with Foster have accused him of attacking and abusing them, according to Clark County court records from cases in Las Vegas.
In the first case, his ex-girlfriend testified that in 2017 Foster flew into a rage and strangled her after seeing that another man had texted her. Foster was charged with felony battery constituting domestic violence, the records show.
While that case was still pending, he was charged with felony assault, battery and kidnapping after his then-girlfriend told police that he had strangled her multiple times and kept her tied up for most of a two-week period, according to the documents.
The woman was finally able to escape by convincing Foster they needed to go shop for food and fleeing through a store, a Las Vegas police report said. When she reached a hospital, she had seven broken ribs, two black eyes and abrasions to her wrists and ankles from being tied up, the report said.
Foster accepted plea deals in both cases. In the first case, he was sentenced to a maximum of 30 months in prison but given credit for 729 days served.
Naomi Judd Died of a Self-Inflicted Gunshot Wound, Her Daughter Says
When Naomi Judd, the Grammy-winning country music singer, died last month, her daughter Ashley Judd said that she had lost her mother to the “disease of mental illness.” On Thursday, Ms. Judd was more candid, saying in a television interview that her mother had died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound at her home in Tennessee, and encouraging people who are distressed to seek help.
Ms. Judd, an actress, told Diane Sawyer on “Good Morning America” that she was speaking out about her mother’s death because her family wanted to share the information before it became “public without our control.”
“We’re aware that although grieving the loss of a wife and a mother, we are, in an uncanny way, a public family,” Ms. Judd said. “So that’s really the impetus for this timing. Otherwise, it’s obviously way too soon. So that’s important for us to say up front.”
Naomi Judd and her other daughter, Wynonna Judd, dominated the country music charts in the 1980s as the mother-daughter duo the Judds. Naomi Judd, 76, died on April 30, a day before the duo was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame.
In the interview on Thursday, Ashley Judd said she was visiting her mother at her home outside Nashville when she died. Ms. Judd said she went outside to greet a friend of her mother’s who had stopped by, and when she went upstairs to tell her mother that the friend had arrived, she found her mother dead.
“Mother used a firearm,” Ms. Judd said. “That’s the piece of information that we are very uncomfortable sharing, but understand that we’re in a position that if we don’t say it, someone else is going to.”
“Mom was a brilliant conversationalist, she was a star, she was an underrated songwriter,” Ms. Judd said. “And she was someone who suffered from mental illness, you know, and had a lot of trouble getting off the sofa, except to go into town every day to the Cheesecake Factory, where all the staff knew and loved her.”
Naomi Judd was born in Ashland, a coal-mining town in northeastern Kentucky, and lived in California before moving to Nashville in 1979, as a single mother with two daughters.
Ms. Judd supported her family by working as a nurse while pursuing a music career with Wynonna. Their break came in 1983, when Ms. Judd cared for a patient who turned out to be the daughter of an executive at RCA Records. A record deal, nine Country Music Association Awards, five Grammys and 14 No. 1 hits followed.
Ashley Judd said in the interview that her mother was most alive when she was performing.
“She was very isolated in many ways because of the disease,” Ms. Judd said. “And yet there were a lot of people who showed up for her over the years, not just me.”
Ms. Judd encouraged people in distress to seek help and cited resources, including the national suicide hotline and the National Alliance for Mental Illness, a mental health organization that also has a hotline.
“And so I want to be very careful when we talk about this today,” Ms. Judd said, “that for anyone who is having those ideas or those impulses, you know, to talk to someone, to share, to be open, to be vulnerable.”
If you are having thoughts of suicide, in the United States call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 800-273-8255 (TALK) or go to SpeakingOfSuicide.com/resources for a list of additional resources. Go here for resources outside the United States.
Naomi Judd Cause of Death: Self-Inflicted Gunshot Wound
Naomi Judd, the country music icon who died on April 30 at the age of 75, died of a self-inflicted firearm wound, her daughter, Ashley Judd, disclosed on Thursday morning.
Ashley Judd made an appearance on “Good Morning America” to speak with Diane Sawyer about her mother’s death and how the Judd family has been coping in the weeks since. She said her family wanted to control the flow of information about the death before an autopsy was released.
“She used a weapon…my mother used a firearm,” Ashley told Sawyer. “So that’s the piece of information that we are very uncomfortable sharing, but understand that we’re in a position that if we don’t say it someone else is going to.”
Ashley said that she was deputized by her family to discuss her mother’s death in order to shed light on the disease and shine a light on a path for fans that need help.
“My mother knew that she was seen and she was heard in her anguish, and she was walked home,” she said, adding, “When we’re talking about mental illness, it’s very important to be clear and to make the distinction between our loved one and the disease. It’s very real, and it lies, it’s savage.”
Ashley also said that despite her mother’s imminent induction to the Country Music Hall of Fame, she wasn’t able to keep facing the disease.
“Our mother couldn’t hang on until she was inducted into the Hall of Fame by her peers,” she said. “That is the level of catastrophe of what was going on inside of her, because the barrier between the regard in which they held her couldn’t penetrate into her heart, and the lie the disease told her was so convincing.”
Ashley also detailed her mother’s final day.
“It was a mixed day,” she said. “I visit with my mom and pop every day when I’m home in Tennessee, so I was at the house visiting as I am every day. Mom said to me, ‘Will you stay with me?’ and I said, ‘Of course I will.’…I went upstairs to let her know that her good friend was there and I discovered her. I have both grief and trauma from discovering her.”
She also encouraged fans to reach out the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline (800-273-8255) if they need help.
In a statement released by Ashley Judd and her sister, Wynonna, immediately following their mother’s death, the two attributed her death to “the disease of mental illness.”
“Today we sisters experienced a tragedy,” the statement said, according to the Associated Press. “We lost our beautiful mother to the disease of mental illness. We are shattered. We are navigating profound grief and know that as we loved her, she was loved by her public. We are in unknown territory.”
On the day following Naomi Judd’s death, The Judds, a musical duo composed of Wynonna Judd and her mother, was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame in a tearful ceremony.
“I didn’t prepare anything tonight because I knew mom would probably talk the most,” Wynonna told the audience during the induction. “I’m gonna make this fast, because my heart’s broken, and I feel so blessed. It’s a very strange dynamic, to be this broken and this blessed… Though my heart’s broken, I will continue to sing, because that’s what we do.”
Brian Laundrie died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound, attorney says
Brian Laundrie died from a gunshot wound to the head and his manner of death was suicide, according to his family’s attorney and a local medical examiner. His remains were found last month at a Florida reserve after a weeks-long manhunt following the disappearance and death of his fiancée, Gabby Petito.
“Chris and Roberta Laundrie have been informed the cause of death was a gunshot wound to the head and the manner of death was suicide,” attorney Steven Bertolino said in a statement Tuesday. “Chris and Roberta are still mourning the loss of their son and are hopeful that these findings bring closure to both families.”
The District Twelve Medical Examiner’s Office in Sarasota, Florida, later confirmed the statement. The office said its investigation included the examination of skeletal remains and consultations with forensic experts, including skeletal reconstruction and dental comparison for identification.
Petito, 22, was reported missing by her family on September 11 after her fiancée Laundrie returned from a cross-country trip at the beginning of September without her. Petito’s body was later found near Grand Teton National Park in Wyoming on September 19.
Last month, a coroner determined that Petito was strangled to death and that the manner of her death was a homicide. The coroner said he believed her body had been outdoors for three to four weeks.
Laundrie’s parents said their son on September 13 went for a hike and never returned home. He was reported missing days later on September 17. Laundrie’s skeletal remains were found on October 20 at the Myakkahatchee Creek Environmental Park in Sarasota County. The FBI identified the remains through a comparison of dental records on October 21.
Victoria Albert and Sophie Reardon contributed to this report.
US coronavirus: The rise in US Covid-19 hospitalizations is a self-inflicted wound, expert says
“This is a self-inflicted wound, because we can prevent all of those hospitalizations and deaths — or at least 98, 99% of them — if we can encourage vaccination,” Dr. Peter Hoztez, a vaccinologist and dean of the National School of Tropical Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine, told CNN’s Jim Acosta on Thursday.
Yet, despite the warnings from health experts, the daily pace of people becoming fully vaccinated keeps falling.
Only 48.8% of the US population is fully vaccinated, and the seven-day average pace is around 252,000. The average hasn’t been above 500,000 fully vaccinated people per day since July 5, according to CDC data.
“We’re all thinking that another surge is likely,” said UC Davis Medical Center Director of Critical Care Christian Sandrock said in a statement Thursday. “It is frightening. I don’t think we’ll go back to the worst we’ve seen, due to the vaccine, but it’s hard to tell.”
UC Davis epidemiology professor Lorena Garcia said the impact could be extremely devastating on rural communities with lower vaccination rates and limited access to care.
In Missouri, additional personnel and equipment are being sent to Springfield and Greene County to support the local healthcare system, Missouri Governor Mike Parson announced Thursday.
Some regions are returning to masks in hopes of slowing the spread.
In Texas, Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo warned that the region is “at the beginning of a potentially very dangerous fourth wave of this pandemic” and raised the threat level from yellow to orange, urging community members to wear masks.
“So, I know they’re uncomfortable, I don’t like wearing masks either, but until we get the numbers back down, let’s all wear masks again,” said the judge of the county that includes Houston.
The CDC still recommends that unvaccinated people wear masks, but the choice is up to the individual if they are vaccinated, Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky said Thursday.
“If you are vaccinated, you get exceptional protection from the vaccines, but you have the opportunity to make the personal choice to add extra layers of protection if you so choose,” she said.
Experts express concern even for vaccinated Americans
Experts are warning that even people who are vaccinated need to be concerned about the surge.
“If there’s all kinds of virus around you, if you’re in a community with a lot of virus, then because these vaccines are not 100%, it is going to impact you,” CNN Medical Analyst Dr. Leana Wen told CNN’s Anderson Cooper on Thursday.
At this time of the summer, transmission rates should be low, CNN’s Chief Medical Correspondent Sanjay Gupta said, speaking on the same show. In the warm weather of July, people are primarily socializing outside, where the virus is less likely to spread, he said.
Come the drier, colder weather of the fall and winter, transmission rates might go up even more, Gupta added.
“So, this could be as good as it gets at least for a period of time,” he said.
For people who are vaccinated, their immune system is much better equipped to protect them against the virus, but it is not perfect, Gupta said. Some might not get symptoms if they are infected, but some might end up being protected from hospitalization and still get sick, he said.
Wen compared vaccination to wearing a seatbelt: it is a crucial layer of protection, but it is not foolproof against the reckless behavior of others.
“But saying that doesn’t mean undermining confidence in seatbelts, it just saying that the choices that other people are making influence us too,” Wen said.
Vaccine effectiveness against Delta
Walensky said Thursday that the Delta variant is an “aggressive and much more transmissible” strain of the virus.
It is one of the most infectious respiratory viruses we know of, and I have seen in my 20-year career,” Walensky said at a White House COVID-19 Response Team briefing.
The spread of the variant makes vaccination even more important, Walensky said.
“If you are not vaccinated, please take the Delta variant seriously. This virus has no incentive to let up, and it remains in search of the next vulnerable person to infect,” she said.
According to CDC data released earlier this week, the Delta variant represents an estimated 83% of all coronavirus samples sequenced in the last two weeks. The good news is data shows vaccines are working as they did in clinical trials against the variant, Walensky said.
The Los Angeles County health director called the Delta variant a “game-changer,” as about 20% of the approximately 4,000 new cases reported in the country in June were among fully vaccinated people.
Most people who were vaccinated experienced only mild symptoms, Health Director Barbara Ferrer explained.
While cases are also rising among vaccinated people, the increase is much smaller and much slower than it is in unvaccinated people, Ferrer said, adding that unvaccinated people face more than five times the risk of vaccinated people.
She said the county’s case rate would be higher were it not for the number of vaccinated residents.
CNN’s Sarah Moon, Raja Razek, Carma Hassan, Virginia Langmaid and Cheri Mossburg contributed to this report.