Buttigieg pauses campaign over shooting
SOUTH BEND, Ind. -- A police officer fatally shot a black man in South Bend, Ind., the city where Democratic presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg is mayor.
Buttigieg said he changed his campaign schedule to return to South Bend on Sunday and held a late night news conference. He said that the circumstances of the death would be thoroughly investigated, and called on any witnesses of the shooting to come forward and speak to investigators. He also canceled a Monday campaign stop in New York.
"We will be striving to reach out to community members," Buttigieg said.
The St. Joseph County prosecutor's office said police responded Sunday to a call about a suspicious person going through cars.
A police officer confronted a man in a vehicle in an apartment building parking lot. The prosecutor's office says the man exited the vehicle and approached the officer with a knife raised and the officer opened fire.
The man, identified as 53-year-old Eric Jack Logan of South Bend, died later at a hospital.
The officer, who was not identified, was treated for minor injuries.
Maryland man gets 9 years in fire death
ROCKVILLE, Md. -- A wealthy stock trader was sentenced Monday to nine years in prison for his conviction in the fiery death of a man who was helping him secretly dig tunnels for a nuclear bunker beneath a Maryland home.
Daniel Beckwitt, 28, apologized to the parents of 21-year-old Askia Khafra, who was burned beyond recognition by the September 2017 fire that broke out above the tunnels they were digging beneath a home in Bethesda.
"If there was something I could do to bring Askia back -- anything -- I would jump at that chance," said Beckwitt, who didn't testify at his trial in April before a jury convicted him of second-degree murder and involuntary manslaughter. "I most certainly did not intend for any of this to happen."
Montgomery County Circuit Judge Margaret Schweitzer sentenced Beckwitt to 21 years behind bars but suspended all but nine years of the sentence.
Firefighters found Khafra's naked, charred body in the basement of Beckwitt's trash-filled house, only a few steps from an exit. Prosecutors said the extreme hoarding conditions in the home prevented Khafra from escaping.
Montgomery County prosecutor Marybeth Ayres accused Beckwitt of ignoring obvious signs of danger and sacrificing safety for secrecy while they dug a network of tunnels.
Defense attorney Robert Bonsib had told jurors Monday the fire was an accident, not a crime.
"This is a passive omission. This is a failure to clean up the house," he said. "That's what he was on trial for, the consequences of failing to keep the basement clean."
Benghazi attack case ends in mistrial
WASHINGTON -- A federal judge declared a mistrial Monday after a federal jury convicted a second Libyan man of conspiracy in the deadly 2012 attacks on U.S. facilities in Benghazi, Libya, but deadlocked on 15 of 17 counts in the deaths of U.S. Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens and three other Americans.
U.S. District Judge Christopher "Casey" Cooper found jurors hung and dismissed them after they reported themselves unable "to come to unanimous agreement on any of the remaining counts."
Last Thursday, Cooper asked jurors to return after a weekend break following their partial verdict, in which they found Mustafa al-Imam, 47, guilty on one count each of conspiracy to provide material support to terrorists and maliciously destroying government property in overnight attacks that began Sept. 11, 2012, on a U.S. diplomatic mission and nearby CIA post.
The dismissed counts included the most serious charges of murder and attempted murder against the Americans, and also counts involving a second round of attacks on the nearby secret CIA annex in which two contractor security agents were killed and another CIA and State Department security officer injured.
A spokesman for U.S. Attorney Jessie K. Liu of the District of Columbia did not immediately respond to requests for comment, including whether the government planned to retry the case.
1 dead, 4 rescued after Kentucky rain
TAYLORSVILLE, Ky. -- Heavy rains led to the death of a man in Kentucky and the rescues of four other people Monday in two separate incidents, officials said.
The first call for help came as a family tried to drive over a flooded bridge in Taylorsville and was swept away by the fast-moving water.
Emergency crews were called to the water rescue early Monday and found a woman and two children alive, but they weren't able to immediately locate the man, Spencer County Sheriff Scott Herndon told news outlets. His body was found hours later.
Meanwhile, about 100 miles east, crews in Stanton were called to a home that was smashed by a mudslide amid heavy rains and rescued a 90-year-old woman from the debris.
Heavy rains moved through much of the state Sunday and early Monday and forecasters say storms could continue through much of the week.
-- Compiled by Democrat-Gazette staff from wire reports
A Section on 06/18/2019