Priest imprisoned for abuse of 2 boys
BROOKVILLE, Pa. -- A Pennsylvania Roman Catholic priest who pleaded guilty to sexually abusing two boys and making one of them say confession after the assaults was sentenced Friday to 2½ to 14 years in prison.
David Lee Poulson was sentenced in Jefferson County after pleading guilty in October to corruption of minors and child endangerment. He is one of two priests charged as a result of a scathing Pennsylvania grand jury report that accused almost 300 predator priests of abusing more than 1,000 victims over seven decades in six of the state's dioceses.
Friday's hearing lasted more than an hour including statements from two victims read by prosecutors and a brief apology from Poulson, who addressed the court before he was sentenced.
Poulson, 65, who served in the Diocese of Erie, told the court his actions were "criminal and sinful."
"I am ashamed of what I did," he said after hearing the victim impact statements.
Poulson's attorney, Casey White, said the court was sentencing the Catholic church as a whole.
The two boys were 8 and 15 when the abuse occurred between 2002 and 2010.
New Florida governor suspends sheriff
FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. -- Florida's new governor, Republican Ron DeSantis, suspended Broward County Sheriff Scott Israel on Friday over his handling of February's massacre at a high school in Parkland.
DeSantis' Republican predecessor, now-U.S. Sen. Rick Scott, had refused to suspend Israel, saying he wanted to wait until investigations into the Feb. 14 shooting that left 17 dead were complete before deciding.
"Sheriff Israel has repeatedly failed and has demonstrated a pattern of poor leadership," according to a statement issued by DeSantis' office. "He failed to protect Floridians and visitors during the tragic Fort Lauderdale International Airport shooting in 2017. He failed in his duties to keep our families and children safe during the devastating shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School on February 14, 2018. These incidents demonstrate Sheriff Israel's repeated incompetence and neglect of duty."
Under Florida law, the governor can suspend elected officials for criminal activity, misfeasance, incompetence or neglect of duty.
Israel intends to challenge the suspension to the state Senate, which will conduct a trial and then remove or reinstate him. Israel's lawyer, Stuart Kaplan, said this week that the sheriff did nothing warranting removal and his future should be left to Broward County voters in the 2020 election. Israel had been sheriff six years.
Texans to remove Confederate plaque
AUSTIN, Texas -- In a meeting that lasted less than five minutes, the Texas State Preservation Board voted Friday to remove from the Capitol building a plaque on a wall near the Rotunda that it said presents a historically inaccurate retelling of the Civil War.
The plaque, erected in 1959 and titled "Children of the Confederacy Creed," states that one of "the truths of history" is that slavery was not the underlying cause of the Civil War, which historians say is false.
State lawmakers, led by Rep. Eric Johnson, D-Dallas, have called for the removal of the plaque since 2017. The Preservation Board, which maintains and preserves the Capitol and its grounds, has the authority to remove the plaque. Members include Gov. Greg Abbott.
Abbott, who has said said the plaque should be removed and that any decision to remove the plaque should be made by the Legislature, convened Friday's meeting of the six-member preservation board.
Police say officer's killer rode up, fired
DAVIS, Calif. -- A gunman on a bicycle ambushed a rookie police officer in Northern California, shooting her from the shadows, then reloaded and narrowly avoided wounding others before walking home and calmly watching the chaos he had caused, police said.
The man who gunned down officer Natalie Corona in the small college town of Davis on Thursday night later killed himself in a house, but police still don't know the motive for the attack, Police Chief Darren Pytel said Friday.
The man's name was not released.
Corona, 22, died within minutes of arriving at the scene of a three-car accident. She was shot in the neck and then several other times as she lay on the ground.
"We're speculating that she never even saw him," Pytel said.
Christian Pascual, 25, was one of the drivers involved in the crash. He had handed Corona his license and she was returning it when he heard shots from close behind his right shoulder.
"The person was behind me," he told the Sacramento Bee.
"When I looked up and I saw the officer on the ground, he was already walking due west ... just shooting at what looked like random people to me," Pascual added.
The gunman sprayed bullets at a firetruck, a passing bus and a house, pausing to reload. Nobody else was wounded, although a firefighter at the scene was struck in a boot as he ran and a girl later found a bullet lodged in a textbook in her backpack, the police chief said.
A Section on 01/12/2019