The nation in brief

Randall Saito, who escaped from a psychiatric hospital in Hawaii, is arrested Wednesday in Stockton, Calif.
Randall Saito, who escaped from a psychiatric hospital in Hawaii, is arrested Wednesday in Stockton, Calif.

Psychiatric hospital escapee arrested

HONOLULU — A man acquitted by reason of insanity in a 1979 murder was arrested Wednesday in California after he escaped from a Hawaii psychiatric hospital over the weekend.

Randall Saito left the Hawaii State Hospital on Sunday, took a taxi to a chartered plane bound for the island of Maui and then boarded another plane to San Jose, Calif., Honolulu police said.

Saito was captured in Stockton on Wednesday morning as the result of a tip from an alert taxi driver, the San Joaquin County sheriff’s office said.

Honolulu police received a tip that Saito was on his way to a brother’s home in Stockton and forwarded that information to authorities in California.

Saito was committed to the hospital outside Honolulu in 1981, two years after he was acquitted in the killing of Sandra Yamashiro. The victim was shot and repeatedly stabbed. Her body was found in her car at a mall.

Defense attorneys sought to have Saito released in 2000. But Jeff Albert, a deputy city prosecutor, objected, saying Saito “fills all the criteria of a classic serial killer.”

Vein-finding trouble halts execution

LUCASVILLE, Ohio — Ohio called off the execution of an ailing 69-year-old killer Wednesday after the executioners couldn’t find a vein to insert the IV that delivers the lethal drugs.

It was only the third time in modern U.S. history that an execution attempt was halted after the process had begun.

Alva Campbell, condemned to die for killing a teenager during a carjacking two decades ago, was promptly given a new execution date by Republican Gov. John Kasich.

The execution team worked for about 25 minutes to find a vein in Campbell’s arms or his right lower leg as he lay on a gurney in the death chamber. Although it appeared the executioners had successfully inserted a needle in his shin, the warden instructed the team to pull it out, said David Stebbins, Campbell’s public defender.

Informed that the execution was being called off, the condemned man shook hands with two members of the team and wiped away tears.

“This is a day I’ll never forget,” Campbell said, according to Stebbins.

Stebbins said Campbell’s poor veins and other health ills are problems that won’t go away anytime soon.

Campbell’s new execution date is June 5, 2019.

$62M police, fire deal OK’d in Dallas

DALLAS — The Dallas City Council has voted to pay nearly $62 million to settle four of six lawsuits filed by police and firefighters over back pay that they say they’re owed.

The settlement agreed to Tuesday comes less than a month before the four lawsuits were to go to trial in Collin County. A judge still needs to approve the settlement and the details of the payouts for hundreds of first responders affected by the lawsuits, which were filed in 1990s.

Two class-action lawsuits are still pending in neighboring Rockwall County and could still cost the city hundreds of millions of dollars more to cover back pay, interest and legal fees.

In 1979, Dallas voters approved a pay raise for police and firefighters, including step increases for different ranks within the departments. Over the years that followed, those step increases diminished so that there was not a set percentage of pay increase that happened when an officer was promoted.

U.S. counterterrorism chief to exit post

WASHINGTON — The top U.S. counterterrorism official is leaving the federal government at the end of the year, National Intelligence Director Dan Coats said Wednesday.

When President Donald Trump took office in January, administration officials asked Nick Rasmussen to stay on as director of the National Counterterrorism Center through the transition. However, Rasmussen recently decided to end his 27 years of government service, including three years as director of the center and more than two years as deputy director.

Russ Travers, the deputy director of the counterterrorism center, will be acting chief until Trump nominates a successor. Rasmussen has not publicly disclosed his future plans.

Upcoming Events