The nation in brief

Thursday, August 28, 2014

Cops crewman among 2 killed by police

OMAHA, Neb. -- Police officers who opened fire while disrupting a robbery at a fast-food restaurant in Omaha killed a crew member with the TV show Cops as well as the suspect, who was armed with a pellet gun that the officers thought was a real handgun, authorities said Wednesday.

The suspect fired from the pellet gun before officers returned fire, Police Chief Todd Schmaderer said at a news conference. He said witnesses and officers thought the robbery suspect's Airsoft handgun looked and sounded real, but discovered later that it fires only plastic pellets. The suspect was struck by the officers' gunfire but fled the restaurant before collapsing.

Officers continued firing on the suspect as he exited the restaurant, and that was when the Cops crew member Bryce Dion, 38, was also struck, said Schmaderer. Dion was wearing a bullet-resistant vest, but a single bullet that hit his arm "slipped into a gap in the vest" and entered his chest, Schmaderer said.

Texan cleared in drunken driver's death

ANGLETON, Texas -- A jury on Wednesday acquitted a southeast Texas man of murder in the fatal shooting of a drunken driver who had just caused an accident that killed the man's two sons.

David Barajas could have been sentenced to life in prison if he had been convicted.

Prosecutors alleged that Barajas killed Jose Banda, 20, in a fit of rage after Banda plowed into Barajas and his sons while they were pushing a truck on a road near their home because it had run out of gas. David Jr., 12, and Caleb, 11, were killed.

Defense attorney Sam Cammack said Barajas didn't kill Banda and that he was only focused on saving his sons. The gun used to kill Banda wasn't found, and there was little physical evidence tying Barajas to the killing.

Authorities said that after the crash, Barajas, 32, went to his home about 100 yards from the crash site, got a gun and returned to shoot Banda.

Amish hate-crime convictions reversed

CINCINNATI -- An appeals court panel on Wednesday overturned the hate-crime convictions of 16 Amish men and women in beard- and hair-cutting attacks on fellow members of their faith in Ohio, ruling that religion wasn't their driving motive.

A 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals panel sided with arguments from attorneys for the Amish, convicted two years ago in five attacks in 2011. The attacks were in apparent retaliation against Amish who had defied or denounced the authoritarian style of Sam Mullet Sr., leader of the Bergholz community in eastern Ohio.

In a divided decision, two of the three judges on the panel concluded that the jury received incorrect instructions about how to weigh the role of religion in the attacks. They also said prosecutors should have had to prove that the assaults wouldn't have happened if not for religious motives.

Mullet has served nearly three years of his 15-year sentence, while seven other men in the community are serving between five and seven years in prison. The other eight Amish convicted in the attacks either already served one year in prison and have returned to their communities or are about to be released from two-year sentences.

Girl with Uzi fires fatal gun-range shots

Authorities in Arizona on Wednesday were investigating what went wrong after a 9-year-old girl firing an Uzi submachine gun at a shooting range accidentally killed her instructor.

Charles Vacca, 39, died Monday after the girl pulled the trigger of the Uzi and was apparently unable to control its recoil, which sent the automatic weapon over her head, according to the Mohave County sheriff's office.

The girl, whose name has not been released, was at the range with her parents, authorities said.

The shooting range, Bullets and Burgers, is just over the Arizona border from Nevada, off a highway popular with tourists that connects Las Vegas to the Grand Canyon.

Sam Scarmardo, the operator of the range, told a television station, KTNV, that the girl was old enough to shoot the high-powered weapon, adding that the user must be at least 8 years old.

"We instruct kids as young as 5 in .22 rifles," he said.

A Section on 08/28/2014