Reading woman and her baby shot by mother's boyfriend, investigators say
An autopsy won't be done in the killing of a 20-year-old Reading woman because the evidence gathered at the scene indicates her boyfriend shot her and her baby before taking his own life, Berks County District Attorney John T. Adams said Wednesday.
Reading police said they found Selena Zavala Hernandez dead in her residence along with her 31-year-old boyfriend, whose name hasn't been released, after responding to the residence in the 1200 block of Locust Street for reports from neighbors of gunfire about 2:15 p.m. Monday.
Zavala Hernandez's 2-month-old daughter, Selene Zavala Hernandez, was suffering from a gunshot wound to the stomach, investigators said.
The baby underwent surgery at Reading Hospital before being transferred to St. Christopher's Hospital for Children in Philadelphia, Adams said. Information on her medical condition wasn't immediately available.
Adams said Reading police are investigating. He didn't know exactly what occurred before the shootings, but said it was domestic-related.
'Clearly, based on the crime scene investigation, we have determined the male was the shooter and the female was the homicide victim,' Adams said.
Capt. Cheryl Pentheny of the Reading police criminal investigations division, who released the victims' names, said the investigation was continuing as detectives were trying to tie up loose ends.
There was a documented history of domestic violence between the couple, Adams said, but no incidents that resulted in criminal charges being filed.
The shooting of an infant girl makes the incident even more tragic, the district attorney said.
It's the second domestic violence killing in a little more than two weeks in the city.
On Jan. 29, Daniela Allende was stabbed to death by her ex-boyfriend in her home in the 1200 block of Amity Street.
Samuel Lopez-Ordones, 33, was held on the living room sofa by the victim's father and brother after family members found her dead in the kitchen, investigators said
Authorities said Allende and Lopez-Ordones were in the process of breaking up after being together for several years. He had moved out of the home they shared with her family about a week before the killing.
Lopez-Ordones is being held in Berks County Prison awaiting a hearing on first- and third-degree murder and related charges.
Where to find help
Call 9-1-1 if you or someone you know are in immediate danger.
To seek the help of an advocate or to contact Safe Berks, call the 24-hour hotline, 844-789-SAFE (7233) or text SAFE BERKS to 20121.
Safe Berks provides free and confidential services for victims of domestic violence and sexual assault 24 hours a day. All services are available in English and Spanish, and translation will be used for any other language needed.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Boston Globe
2 hours ago
- Boston Globe
This is what an ICE arrest in Boston immigration court looks like.
As Diaz Martinez left the courtroom, the five officers approached. Most of the other petitioners — men, women, families with children — had walked in and out of their hearings without issue that day. But she was not so lucky. As agents arrested the mother of two, she had a medical episode. Advertisement She pleaded not to be separated from her husband, Wiliz de Leon, whom she had just married the previous Saturday. And she had two children, 10 and 7 years old, who were back in the Dominican Republic. A lawyer standing nearby interjected. 'You don't have to take her into custody,' Sarah Sherman-Stokes, a clinical associate professor of law and associate director of the Immigrants' Rights and Human Trafficking Clinic at Boston University School of Law, told the ICE officials. Sherman-Stokes was there to observe Advertisement 'We're doing our job,' one of the agents said. Diaz Martinez, 29, had been in the US for a little over a year, after crossing the southern border unlawfully and being apprehended by immigration officials. She was fleeing domestic violence in her home country, Sherman-Stokes said, and is seeking asylum. Diaz Martinez's arrest was the result of a new immigration enforcement tactic that has played out across the nation: Department of Homeland Security lawyers have paired this tactic with a new legal strategy: pressing immigration court judges to dismiss pending cases or issue deportation orders against petitioners who have been in the country for less than two years, at their initial hearings. Dismissals and deportation orders leave immigrants more vulnerable to deportation. In Massachusetts, the immigration court arrests began in the last two weeks. Last Tuesday, at least three people were arrested at the Boston court, including a man who said he was a political torture survivor from Angola, according to Sherman-Stokes. Wiliz de Leon left the John F. Kennedy Federal Building in Boston on June 3 after his wife suffered a medical emergency while being arrested by ICE, while she was in the building for an immigration court appearance. He is a U.S. citizen. Pat Greenhouse/Globe Staff de Leon, Diaz Martinez's husband, is a US citizen. The couple met in the Dominican Republic about four and a half years ago, and have been together since. They live together in Providence. de Leon told the Globe that the couple had seen reports of arrests at Advertisement 'She was really scared to be deported,' de Leon said in Spanish. Now, de Leon said, the couple felt 'betrayed.' 'We always want to follow the rules,' de Leon said the morning after his wife's arrest, sounding defeated in a phone call. 'I don't understand what the motive for this is.' In a statement to the Globe, a Homeland Security spokesperson said most immigrants who entered the country illegally within the past two years are subject to expedited removals, and blamed the Biden administration for allowing 'millions of illegal aliens' into the United States. 'If they have a valid credible fear claim, they will continue in immigration proceedings, but if no valid claim is found, aliens will be subject to a swift deportation,' the spokesperson said. ICE did not respond to a request for comment on Diaz Martinez's case. Last Tuesday, as she was taken into custody, she seemed to need medical attention. She was struggling to breathe, had chest pain, and was having trouble standing upright. ICE called Emergency Medical Services, who examined her and eventually brought a gurney. 'I just don't understand. She's doing exactly what she's supposed to do,' Sherman-Stokes said, appealing again to the ICE agents to allow Diaz Martinez to return home. But it didn't sway the officials. An ICE agent accompanied her to the hospital because she was in custody. Her husband was not allowed to enter the ambulance, or, later, her hospital room. 'You have to let him go,' an EMS worker told Diaz Martinez in Spanish, gently, as she lay on the gurney in the hallway of the court. Advertisement Diaz Martinez reluctantly released her husband's hand. That night, she was taken to Massachusetts General Hospital, and then to the ICE field office in Burlington, where she has been sleeping on a concrete floor in a holding cell with about 12 other women, and using a foil blanket to cover herself, Sherman-Stokes said. Derege B. Demissie, a criminal defense attorney, filed a habeas petition for Diaz Martinez not to be moved out of state, in collaboration with Sherman-Stokes. A Massachusetts federal judge temporarily granted the motion last week. Sherman-Stokes filed a motion for Diaz Martinez to be released on bond. 'She hasn't stopped crying,' de Leon, 40, said in an interview. He followed up in a text: 'I don't know what to do.' Sherman-Stokes, who has been practicing immigration law for more than a decade, said she had seen asylum seekers enduring agonizing conditions at the US-Mexico border, in detention facilities, and elsewhere. But watching someone get arrested at court, where they were trying to follow the law and request asylum, was uniquely distressing. 'I just can't shake what just happened,' Sherman-Stokes said. 'These are folks trying their very best to comply with the law, and instead they're taken away in handcuffs.' Giulia McDonnell Nieto del Rio can be reached at
Boston Globe
4 hours ago
- Boston Globe
A simple statement that can help cops win people's trust
Advertisement As researchers, we've spent more than 500 hours observing, interviewing, and riding along with police officers. We've found that this disconnect is common. Officers feel they're being respectful and polite, while community members — especially people of color, unhoused people, and members of other groups that are disproportionately stopped by or otherwise involved with law enforcement — interpret the interaction as a Get The Gavel A weekly SCOTUS explainer newsletter by columnist Kimberly Atkins Stohr. Enter Email Sign Up But Advertisement Police officers start their conversations with a trust deficit, and strategies that usually put people at ease in regular social situations — like joking around — can backfire in situations where there's a power imbalance. Even a friendly 'How are you? Can I talk to you for a minute?' can put people on edge when the officer's intentions are unclear. Enter the transparency statement. It's a simple sentence an officer can give at the start of a wide range of interactions with community members — from traffic stops to meet and greets to simply stopping to check on someone who looks cold. The statement quickly and clearly explains why they've initiated the interaction. While it sounds simple, our studies with real people and police officers show that a transparency statement can make a difference. A transparency statement is not an exact script. Officers can and should word their transparency statements in a way that captures their true goal for the interaction. For example, one officer's statement was: 'Hi, I'm Officer [Name], how's it going? I'm out here walking around just trying to get to know my beat and my community. Is it OK if I talk to you for a minute?' In this opening statement, the officer states that their intent is to get to know the community, not take the person to task for wrongdoing. Another officer's statement was similar but more casual in tone: 'I'm just walking around getting to know everybody that's hanging out in the area to introduce myself and make sure you're doing OK.' Again, this officer makes clear their benevolent intent from the start. Advertisement Some officers make such statements naturally. On another ride-along, we observed an interaction between two Latino officers and two Latino middle-aged men who were sitting on the curb of a busy street. The officers opened with 'Cuidado!,', or 'Be careful!' in Spanish, and then suggested the men move, explaining that where they were sitting was dangerous for both them and the cars whizzing by. With clear information about the officers' intentions, the two men understood and packed up immediately. These officers hit each of the four key elements that we've pinpointed for effective transparency statements. The first is timing. The statement should be made as soon as possible, to set the tone for the interaction from the outset. Next is benevolence. Officers should communicate an honest reason for the interaction that is ideally motivated by helping the community and specific individuals. This works only if the intention feels genuine — the third characteristic of a good transparency statement. Last, the statement needs to be personal. Officers should speak in the first person (e.g.., 'I'm worried about your safety') and refer to the situation at hand. Generic statements about department-wide efforts to engage the community don't work as well (e.g., 'Our department has a new initiative to get to know community residents'). In our field studies, transparency statements have a simple but powerful effect. In one experiment, we measured electrical signals given off by participants' skin, which indicate stress, during interactions with police officers. We also analyzed the language spoken during the exchanges and surveyed participants after the interactions. Advertisement When officers implemented transparency statements, community members were more likely to respond using language associated with positive rapport and trust-building. They spoke more words during the conversation, suggesting a greater level of engagement. Our skin measurements also indicated they were calmer and more open to the interaction. In tests where an officer did not open a conversation with a transparency statement, skin results showed that stress levels continued to rise over the course of the conversation. In surveys after the interaction, community members were less likely to report feeling threatened: 40 percent said they felt the threat posed by the officer was low versus 29 percent without a transparency statement. And more people reported that they trusted the police officer and his or her investment in their well-being (55 percent versus 46 percent). Around one in five adults in the United States has Teaching the method takes mere minutes, though making it second nature takes practice. After the promising results from our initial experiment, we've begun training officers in one city and will be testing outcomes across the department and the community over the next year. Transparency statements are a simple concept, and that's part of their beauty. Law enforcement officers face a Advertisement
Chicago Tribune
11 hours ago
- Chicago Tribune
Aggressive ICE raids, CPD cooperation denounced at Lower West Side rally
Immigration advocates rallied Sunday for an end to aggressive U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids in Chicago and denounced the alleged cooperation of Chicago police in arrests made Wednesday. The rally, which drew dozens of people to a plaza at the corner of Blue Island Avenue and Loomis Street, follows nationwide protests during the past week over the Trump administration's revamped mass deportation efforts. Trump has deployed the California National Guard in Los Angeles following two consecutive days of protests over immigration enforcement actions and clashes between demonstrators and authorities. Chicago and other liberal-leaning cities appear to continue to be a focal point for the Trump administration in its immigration crackdown. 'I'm proud to be an immigrant, and we are not criminals,' said Ald. Byron Sigcho-Lopez, 25th, whose ward includes the Lower West Side. 'We saw the shameful events in our city early this week, and we continue to see the shameful actions in Los Angeles. Full solidarity to all the people in L.A., all the oppressed people who are fighting for dignity and respect.' Light rain in the forecast did not dampen the spirits of demonstrators, who led a march down Cermak Road following the rally, ending at Benito Juarez Community Academy. Last week, protesters, local organizers and aldermen — including Sigcho-Lopez — clashed with immigration officials outside a U.S. Customs and Immigration office in the South Loop, where immigrants were told to come to a check-in appointment at the office. Many did not come out for hours. Organizers estimate that around 20 people were detained Wednesday. ICE did not respond to requests to confirm the number of people detained. 'These are people that are doing everything that the U.S. is saying that they should be doing to become a citizen and to be able to stay in this country,' Omar Flores, chair of the Immigrant Rights Working Committee of the Chicago Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression, said Sunday. 'And we are arresting them for it. It is leaving them in a position where it is a catch-22, where they have no option but to be deported.' In Pilsen last Monday, federal agents arrested two residents who work at a local business near the 1800 block of South Carpenter Street. Agents failed to properly identify themselves or present arrest warrants in those incidents, according to Sigcho-Lopez and local rapid response teams. Little Village residents also spotted ICE agents on the corner of Troy and 27th streets Tuesday. Flores said that rapid response teams received word of suspicious vehicles in Little Village and acted accordingly, observing the ICE agents and having lawyers on-site. Organizers who were at Wednesday's demonstration alleged that the Chicago Police Department was collaborating with ICE in the raid despite Chicago's Welcoming City Ordinance, which largely prevents local law enforcement from working with federal immigration authorities. Chicago police deny they aided federal agents. Tom Ahern, spokesperson for CPD, previously stated that officers present Wednesday spoke with individuals inside a building and in a large crowd outside 'to ensure the safety of all involved, including those exercising their First Amendment rights.' 'Officers arrived without knowledge of immigration enforcement occurring at the location,' Ahern said. 'At no point did CPD assist in immigration enforcement. All actions taken by CPD during this incident were in accordance with CPD policy and the City of Chicago Municipal Code.' Members of the City Council's Latino Caucus denounced Wednesday's raid in a letter and called for a hearing to examine ICE's actions Wednesday and whether CPD cooperated with ICE in the raid. 'We condemn in the strongest terms ICE's unlawful detainment practices,' the statement from Latino Caucus members read. 'We stand united in calling for a full investigation into the conduct of ICE agents involved in this operation and for the immediate release of all individuals detained under these unlawful circumstances.'
