Anonymous ID: 43d705 May 2, 2020, 6:36 a.m. No.8998591   🗄️.is 🔗kun   >>8903 >>9003 >>9097 >>9104 >>9118

1 Houston police officer killed, 1 injured in copter crash

 

HOUSTON (AP) — A Houston police helicopter crashed early Saturday, killing one of the two officers on board and critically injuring the other, officials said.

 

A pilot and tactical flight officer were aboard a police helicopter when it crashed at an apartment complex around 2 a.m. They were flown to a hospital where the tactical flight officer died, police Chief Art Acevedo said hours after the crash during a news conference where he was joined by the city's mayor, Sylvester Turner.

 

The pilot was still in surgery and was “very banged up,” but police were hopeful he would survive, Acevedi said, noting that investigators still didn't know what caused the crash.

 

There were no injuries to anyone on the ground at the apartment complex, a masked Acevedo told reporters.

 

The helicopter was supposed to assist with a search for bodies in a nearby bayou, which was prompted by a tip that the police chief characterized as “probably a bogus call — we don't know."

 

The officers were trapped in “mangled” wreckage before being cut out by city firefighters who worked for about an hour, Acevedo said, praising the fire department as “phenomenal.”

 

Acevedo identified two silver linings at the first news conference: While the wreckage was “pretty significant,” it didn't catch fire, and the helicopter avoided striking occupied apartment buildings. It did clip the Biscayne at Cityview complex's clubhouse, he said.

 

The department will not release the names of the officers until their extended families are made aware, Acevedo said. The tactical flight officer was survived by a wife and two young children, who were at the hospital along with the officer’s parents and in-laws, Acevedo said.

 

The police department is shutting down flights until it has a chance to reassess in the coming days, and will be relying on the Texas Department of Public Safety and Harris County Sheriff's Office for flight support in the interim.

 

Acevedo identified the helicopter as “75 Fox.”

 

“It’s pretty ironic that yesterday we graduated a class and we had Fox fly out because we had COVID, so we couldn’t do your traditional graduation so we wanted to do something special,” Acevedo said. “And if somebody had told me that a few hours later that we had an aircraft down and we’d lose a really good man, I would have said ‘No way.’”

 

The National Transportation Safety Board and Federal Aviation Administration will investigate, Acevedo said, while the police department conducts a parallel homicide investigation.

 

Turner, the mayor, called on the people of the city "to continue to lift up, number one, both families, but especially lift up the family of the police officer who has died this morning. And then at the same time lift up the entire HPD family."

 

Acevedo noted that shots rang out across the street from the scene at around 3 a.m. Six people were taken into custody, he said. Acevedo stressed that police had no information indicating that the helicopter might have been taken down by hostile action.

 

https://www.yahoo.com/news/2-houston-police-officers-hospitalized-085521326.html

Anonymous ID: 43d705 May 2, 2020, 7:30 a.m. No.8998911   🗄️.is 🔗kun   >>9003 >>9097 >>9104 >>9118

Nearly 10,000 inmates freed as virus hits Philippine jails

 

Nearly 10,000 prison inmates have been released in the Philippines as the country races to halt coronavirus infections in its overcrowded jails, a Supreme Court official said Saturday.

 

The move follows a directive to lower courts to release those awaiting trial in prison because they could not afford bail, Associate Supreme Court Justice Mario Victor Leonen told reporters.

 

"The court is very much aware of the congested situation in our prisons," Leonen told reporters as he announced the release of 9,731 inmates.

 

Covid-19 outbreaks have been reported at some of the country's most overcrowded jails, affecting both inmates as well as corrections personnel.

 

Social distancing is all but impossible in the country's prison system, where cells are sometimes filled to five times their capacity due to inadequate infrastructure and a slow-moving and overburdened judicial system.

 

Overcrowding has become an even greater problem since President Rodrigo Duterte launched a drug crackdown in 2016 that has seen thousands sent to prison.

 

Among those which have reported outbreaks are the Quezon City Jail in the capital Manila, a facility so crowded that inmates take turns sleeping on staircases and open-air basketball courts.

 

The worst outbreaks so far are at two prisons in the central island of Cebu, where two city jails have announced a combined 348 infections among more than 8,000 inmates as of Friday.

 

The outbreaks have fuelled calls from rights groups for the early release of prisoners charged with non-violent offences as well as the sick and elderly.

 

The Philippines has reported nearly 9,000 coronavirus infections and 603 deaths

 

https://www.yahoo.com/news/nearly-10-000-inmates-freed-virus-hits-philippine-092853215.html