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The Independent
29 minutes ago
- The Independent
What to know about the shooting at a New York City office tower that killed 4
For free real time breaking news alerts sent straight to your inbox sign up to our breaking news emails Sign up to our free breaking news emails Sign up to our free breaking news emails Email * SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our Privacy notice A man with a rifle killed an off-duty New York City police officer and three other people before taking his own life at a Manhattan office tower on Monday, according to officials. Law enforcement officials were working to unravel what took place and why this location may have been targeted in a city that had recently announced it was on pace to have its fewest people hurt by gunfire than any year in recent decades. Here are some things to know: What happened? A man exited a double parked BMW with an M4 rifle and then walked toward the building on Monday evening, according to surveillance video. He quickly opened fire on the NYPD officer as he entered the building before shooting a woman who tried to take cover, police Commissioner Jessica Tisch said at a news conference on Monday night. He then started 'spraying' the lobby with gunfire. The man went to the elevator bank and shot a security guard who was taking cover behind a security desk and also another man in the lobby, Tisch said. The man took the elevator to the 33rd floor to a real estate management company and one person was shot and killed on that floor. The man then walked down a hallway and shot himself, she said. What do we know about the gunman? Police identified Shane Tamura of Las Vegas as the gunman, although his motive and reasoning for targeting the building was not immediately clear. Tamura had a 'documented mental health history,' Tisch said. His vehicle had traveled across the U.S. through Colorado on July 26 and then Nebraska and Iowa on July 27. It arrived in Columbia, New Jersey, as recently as Monday afternoon, before making it to New York City, she said. Officers found a rifle case, a revolver, magazines and ammunition in his car, Tisch said. No one answered the door at the address listed for Tamura in Las Vegas. Who were the victims? Didarul Islam, 36, had served as a police officer in New York City for 3 1/2 years. He was an immigrant from Bangladesh. Islam was married and had two young boys, Tisch said. His wife is pregnant with their third child. The names of the other victims, along with a man who was seriously wounded and remains in critical condition, have not yet been released. Where did the shooting happen? The shooting took place at 345 Park Avenue, a commercial office building in a busy area of midtown that is just a short walk north from Grand Central Terminal and about a block east of St. Patrick's Cathedral. The building's tenants include the NFL and Rudin Management, as well as finance companies KPMG and Blackstone. It also includes the consulate general of Ireland.
The Independent
29 minutes ago
- The Independent
How high-tech tools, and pigs, could help in the search for Mexican drug cartel victims
First the scientists dress dead swine in clothes, then they dispose of the carcasses. Some they wrap in packing tape, others they chop up. They stuff the animals into plastic bags or wrap them in blankets. They cover them in lime or burn them. Some are buried alone, others in groups. Then they watch. The pigs are playing an unlikely role as proxies for humans in research to help find the staggering number of people who have gone missing in Mexico during decades of drug cartel violence. Families of the missing are usually left to look for their loved ones with little support from authorities. But now, government scientists are testing the newest satellite, geophysical and biological mapping techniques — along with the pigs — to offer clues that they hope could lead to the discovery of at least some of the bodies. 130,000 missing and counting The ranks of Mexico's missing exploded in the years following the launch of then-President Felipe Calderón's war against drug cartels in 2006. A strategy that targeted the leaders of a handful of powerful cartels led to a splintering of organized crime and the multiplication of violence to control territory. With near complete impunity, owing to the complicity or inaction of the authorities, cartels found that making anyone they think is in their way disappear was better than leaving bodies in the street. Mexican administrations have sometimes been unwilling to recognize the problem and at other times are staggered by the scale of violence their justice system is unprepared to address. Mexico's disappeared could populate a small city. Official data in 2013 tallied 26,000 missing, but the count now surpasses 130,000 — more than any other Latin American nation. The United Nations has said there are indications that the disappearances are 'generalized or systematic.' If the missing people are found — dead or alive — it is usually by their loved ones. Guided by information from witnesses, parents and siblings search for graves by walking through cartel territory, plunging a metal rod into the earth and sniffing for the scent of death. Around 6,000 clandestine graves have been found since 2007, and new discoveries are made all the time. Tens of thousands of remains have yet to be identified. Testing creative solutions Jalisco, which is home to the Jalisco New Generation Cartel, has the largest number of people reported missing in Mexico: 15,500. In March, human bone fragments and hundreds of items of clothing were discovered at a cartel ranch in the state. Authorities denied it was the site of a mass grave. José Luis Silván, a coordinator of the mapping project and scientist at CentroGeo, a federal research institute focused on geospacial information, said Jalisco's disappeared are 'why we're here.' The mapping project, launched in 2023, is a collaboration by Guadalajara University, Mexico's National Autonomous University and the University of Oxford in England, alongside the Jalisco Search Commission, a state agency that organizes local searches with relatives. 'No other country is pushing so strongly, so creatively" to test and combine new techniques, said Derek Congram, a Canadian forensic anthropologist, whose expertise in geographic information systems inspired the Mexican project. Still, Congram warns, technology 'is not a panacea.' 'Ninety percent of searches are resolved with a good witness and digging,' he said. Plants, insects and decomposing pigs Silván walks by a site where scientists buried 14 pigs about two years ago. He says they may not know how well the technology works, where and when it can be used, or under what conditions, for at least three years. 'Flowers came up because of the phosphorous at the surface, we didn't see that last year,' he said as he took measurements at one of the gravesites. 'The mothers who search say that that little yellow flower always blooms over the tombs and they use them as a guide.' Pigs and humans are closely related, famously sharing about 98% of DNA. But for the mapping project, the physical similarities also matter. According to the U.S. National Library of Medicine, pigs resemble humans in size, fat distribution and the structure and thickness of skin. A big Colombian drone mounted with a hyperspectral camera flies over the pig burial site. Generally used by mining companies, the camera measures light reflected by substances in the soil, including nitrogen, potassium, phosphorus, and shows how they vary as the pigs decompose. The colorful image it produces offers clues of what to look for in the hunt for graves. 'This isn't pure science,' Silván said. 'It is science and action. Everything learned has to be applied immediately, rather than wait for it to mature, because there's urgency.' Researchers also employ thermal drones, laser scanners and other gadgets to register anomalies, underground movements and electrical currents. One set of graves is encased behind a pane of transparent acrylic, providing a window for scientists to observe the pigs' decomposition in real time. The Jalisco commission compares and analyzes flies, beetles, plants and soil recovered from the human and pig graves. Each grave is a living 'micro ecosystem,' said Tunuari Chávez, the commission's director of context analysis. Science to serve society Triggered by the disappearance of 43 students in 2014, Silván and his colleagues started gathering information about ground-penetrating radar, electric resistivity and satellite imagery from around the world. They studied University of Tennessee research on human corpses buried at a 'body farm.' They looked at grave-mapping techniques used in the Balkans, Colombia and Ukraine. 'What good is science or technology if it doesn't solve problems?' he said. They learned new applications of satellite analysis, then began their first experiments burying pigs and studying the substances criminals use to dispose of bodies. They found lime is easily detected, but hydrocarbons, hydrochloric acid and burned flesh are not. Chávez's team worked to combine the science with what they knew about how the cartels operate. For example, they determined that disappearances in Jalisco commonly happened along cartel routes between Pacific ports, drug manufacturing facilities and the U.S. border, and that most of the missing are found in the same municipality where they disappeared. Expert relatives The experience of the families of the missing also informs the research. Some observed that graves are often found under trees whose roots grow vertically, so those digging the graves can remain in the shade. Mothers of missing loved ones invited by researchers to visit one of the pig burial sites were able to identify most of the unmarked graves by sight alone, because of the plants and soil placement, Silván said. 'The knowledge flows in both directions,' he said. Maribel Cedeño, who has been looking for her missing brother for four years, said she believes the drones and other technology will be helpful. 'I never imagined being in this situation, finding bodies, becoming such an expert,' she said of her quest. Héctor Flores has been searching for his son since 2021. He questions why so much time and effort has been invested in methods that have not led to concrete discoveries, when the families have proven track records with little official support. Although the research has not yet concluded, the Jalisco Search Commission is already using a thermal drone, a laser scanner and a multispectral camera to help families look for their missing relatives in some cases. But it is unclear whether authorities across Mexico will ever be willing to use, or able to afford, the high-tech aides. Congram, the forensic scientist, said researchers are aware of the limitations of technology, but that 'you always have to try, fail, fail again and keep trying.'
The Independent
29 minutes ago
- The Independent
Closing arguments set in trial of Colorado dentist accused of poisoning his wife
Lawyers are set to deliver closing arguments Tuesday in the trial of a Colorado dentist accused of killing his wife by gradually poisoning her. James Craig is charged with murder in the death of Angela Craig in suburban Denver in 2023. He is also accused of trying to fabricate evidence in the case to make it look like she killed herself and of asking a fellow jail inmate to kill the detective who led the investigation into his wife's death. Angela Craig, who had six children with James Craig, died in 2023 during her third trip to the hospital in a little over a week. Toxicology tests later determined the 43-year-old died of poisoning from cyanide and tetrahydrozoline, an ingredient found in over-the-counter eye drops. Police previously said James Craig purchased a variety of poisons before his wife's death and put some in the protein shakes he made for her. During the trial, prosecutors alleged that he also gave her a fatal dose of cyanide as she lay in her hospital bed on March 15, 2023, as doctors tried to figure out what was ailing her. She was declared brain dead soon afterward. James Craig didn't testify and his lawyers didn't present any witnesses — and it wasn't required. Instead, in opening statements and in their questioning of prosecution witnesses, Craig's lawyers seemed to suggest that Angela Craig may have taken her own life and faulted police for focusing solely on James Craig as a suspect. In notes that police found on James Craig's phone, the dentist said Angela Craig asked him to help kill her with poison when he sought a divorce after having affairs. In the document, which was labeled 'timeline,' Craig said he eventually agreed to purchase and prepare poisons for her to take but not administer them. Craig said that he put cyanide in some of the antibiotic capsules she had been taking and also prepared a syringe containing cyanide. According to that timeline, Craig wrote that just before she had to go to the hospital on March 15, 2023, she must have ingested a mixture containing tetrahydrozoline, the eye drop ingredient, because she became lethargic and weak. Then, he wrote, she took the antibiotic laced with cyanide that he prepared for her. Mark Pray, who was visiting to help the Craig family because of his sister's mysterious illness, testified that he gave Angela Craig the capsules after being instructed to do so by James Craig, who was not at home. Pray said his sister bent over and couldn't hold herself up after taking the medicine. He and his wife then took Angela Craig to the hospital. The lead investigator, Detective Bobbi Olson, testified that James Craig's timeline account differed from statements he had made to others about what happened, including accusing Angela Craig of setting him up to make it look like he had killed her. The defense introduced into evidence Angela Craig's journal in which she talked about struggles in their marriage in previous years and her husband's infidelity. In one entry she wrote, 'He doesn't love me and I don't blame him.' The journal ended in 2018 and did not include any mentions of suicide, Olson said. In opening statements, one of Craig's attorneys, Ashley Whitham, repeatedly described Angela Craig as 'broken,' partly by Craig's infidelity and her desire to stay married, since they were part of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Angela Craig's sister, Toni Kofoed, pushed back against that suggestion. She testified that her sister had a 'broken heart' because of the affairs, but not a 'broken mind." Prosecutors have said James Craig fell in love with another dentist and was in financial straits when he killed his wife.
