3 Amish Siblings Die After Their Buggy Collides with an SUV, Throwing the Children from the Carriage
The Marshall County Coroner's Office identified the victims as Glenda Jo Yoder, 13, Darrell Yoder, 10, and Devon Yoder, 9, according to CW affiliate WISH, NBC affiliate WNDU and CBS affiliate WSBT.
The incident occurred south of Bremen along Fir Road and 4th Road, WISH reported. The Yoders were heading to school on the morning of Wednesday, April 9, when a Mercedes GLA hit the back of their buggy, throwing the kids out, the outlet further noted.
Related: Amish Woman, 23, Shunned By Her Family After Leaving Community: Inside the Restrictive Lifestyle She Escaped (Exclusive)
Emergency responders, including a medical helicopter and an accident reconstructionist, arrived, WSBT reported. The children were pronounced dead at the scene.
The Mercedes driver was uninjured, WIBC reported.
In an interview with WSBT, Katie, a resident, recalled witnessing police lights 'and saw it looked like an accident and in the back of my head I kind of knew that I hadn't seen the Amish kids come down the road yet and go down the road onto to the school.'
She also told the outlet she had seen many incidents between buggies and cars.
'So, you know you'll be going the opposite direction,' Katie said, 'and you'll see a horse spook at something and almost jump into your lane. It happens a lot and driving around them enough, you can see how easily it can happen.'
Related: Ex-Amish Woman, 21, Details Escape with $24, a Partial Education and No Birth Certificate (Exclusive)
According to the nonprofit organization Amish Heritage Foundation, per tradition, Amish individuals are not allowed to operate cars but can drive using horse-drawn buggies. In some communities, however, Amish people can own a vehicle for business purposes.
There is no current minimum age to operate a horse-drawn vehicle in Indiana, WNDU reported.
According to the Indiana-based law firm Keller and Keller, there were 20 incidents in 2015 involving horse-drawn vehicles in Elkhart County, which has an Amish population. The vehicles, the firm said, don't contain seat belts or airbags to maintain occupant safety.
'One of the difficulties of course is not infringing on the way of life of a segment of the population that we have,' Keller and Keller attorney Dan Armstrong, who does not represent anyone involved in Wednesday's incident, told WNDU, 'so trying to make that balance between making the roads safer, but at the same time accommodating people who live a certain way and have certain beliefs. It's a tricky thing, I think.'
The Marshall County Sheriff's Office did not provide further comment to PEOPLE as the investigation is ongoing.
PEOPLE also contacted the Bremen Police Department and the Marshall County Coroner's Office for additional information on Friday, April 11, but they did not immediately respond.
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USA Today
24 minutes ago
- USA Today
The only thing Alina Habba is enforcing is Trump's vengeance
U.S. attorney-in-limbo for New Jersey, Alina Habba, is the eager-to-please former personal lawyer to Trump who has turned the federal plaza in Newark into a circus. Letitia James, the New York attorney general, is going to need to 'lawyer up.' So will Adam Schiff, the California senator, and Jack Smith, the former Justice Department official who investigated President Donald Trump's complicity in the riot at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. There's a good chance former Presidents Joe Biden and Barack Obama, whom Trump has flippantly accused of treason, also may need to. And here is a name that may surprise you: New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy. He's already ahead of them all. The governor, as Politico New Jersey reported on Aug. 7, retained two top-shelf lawyers – Parimal Garg, his former chief counsel, and Chris Porrino, who served as a state attorney general for former Gov. Chris Christie – after Murphy was served with a subpoena as part of an investigation into New Jersey's 'sanctuary state' immigration policies. Both lawyers work at the Roseland-based Lowenstein Sandler firm and will be paid $450 an hour, the report said. Leading this spurious inquisition is the acting U.S. attorney-in-limbo for New Jersey, Alina Habba, the eager-to-please former personal lawyer to Trump who has turned the federal plaza in Newark into a circus. She is – or was, at least, when she was secure in the job – probing whether the 'sanctuary state' policies interfered with Trump's immigration crackdown. But according to sources familiar with matter, the subpoena apparently was more concerned with the gaffe Murphy made before a left-wing group in February. Playing to the crowd, a puffed-up Murphy suggested to the audience that he might be sheltering an illegal immigrant at his Middletown home. He then dared the federal immigration authorities to try to get her. That annoyed Tom Homan, Trump's border czar and chief enforcer of the ICE raids, who called Murphy's remarks 'foolish' and vowed to look into them. An aghast Murphy spent the next week walking back his comments, explaining that the person in question had never been to his place, and that this unnamed person was, in fact, in the United States legally but was seeking permanent status. It was a form of crowd-pleasing fabulism that probably overtook Murphy in the heat of the moment. (If telling tall tales were a crime, most of the Trump administration would be on a supervised work-release program.) Murphy administration officials declined to comment on the subpoena and status of the investigation – if there is one. Alina Habba isn't enforcing the law. She's playing politics. Yet the subpoena over an absurd, custom-made-for-the-right-wing-echo-chamber 'investigation," and the fact that Murphy needed to go hire two top guns – at taxpayers' expense if at some point they have to do real work – is just another milestone of the absurd Habba circus as the state's top federal law enforcement officer. It's been a debacle since she took the job earlier this year. She began by politicizing the office, telling a right-wing podcaster that New Jersey is ripe for a 'red' takeover. The crime fighter spoke like a political strategist. Then she had Newark Mayor Ras Baraka arrested in May for allegedly trespassing at Delaney Hall, the federally leased detention center in his city, during an immigration protest, only to withdraw the charge and draw the withering scorn of the presiding judge, who publicly scolded her for her 'embarrassing retraction.' Opinion: Alina Habba politicized her job as US attorney. Team Trump politicizes her exit. Both U.S. senators from New Jersey refused to sign off on her nomination, and the state's federal District Court judges voted not to extend her interim rein. They made their vote of no confidence clear by replacing her with prosecutor Desiree Leigh Grace, a registered Republican. An angered Trump defended Habba and devised a work-around by firing Grace and installing Habba as the first assistant U.S. attorney, which would effectively put her in charge of the office without needing to get approval from the Senate or the blessing of federal judges. But this piece of creative shuffling has only created more confusion, as lawyers for several defendants are now seeking to get their charges dismissed on the grounds that Habba was not authorized to bring the charges under this new end-around role. And looming over this recent résumé is an ethics investigation into Habba's allegedly improper role in settling a sexual harassment claim of a former employee at Trump's Bedminster golf club. Opinion: Midterms are more than a year away, but Trump is already challenging them Trump – suddenly – cracks down on crime The irony is that Trump has made a great show lately of cracking down on crime. He authorized a military takeover of the Washington, DC, police department on Aug. 11, vowing to wipe the nation's capital of crime and homelessness –despite a drop in crime rates in the city. He has hinted that he may deploy more federal troops to Democratic-controlled cities. Crime fighting doesn't seem to be his purpose in Newark. He's digging in his heels in support of Habba out of anger at being rebuffed by federal court judges. He feels his prerogative of picking his own people has been once again thwarted by unelected judges. His prerogative just ran smack into long-established institutional guardrails. And as always when he runs into guardrails or norms, he seeks to ignore them or blow them up. Habba is simply not qualified One clear reason Habba has collided with those guardrails is that she is clearly not suited for the job. The United States attorney for New Jersey is a powerful and prestigious job that was held by a long roster of venerable prosecutors: Frederick B. Lacey in the late 1960s, the first in a series of important mob-busting prosecutors, like Jonathan Goldstein, a Nixon appointee in the mid-1970s, and Robert Del Tufo until 1980. Chris Christie, sworn into office in 2002, was widely accused of targeting mostly Democrats, but there was at least a focus on rooting out political corruption, and he parlayed that record into the governor's office. Regardless of his motives, he put the political class on notice. Alina Habba? Is she the best that Trump can do for a state where he raised and later bankrupted his casino empire and where he retreats from the Florida heat? Or is New Jersey not really a front in his purported War on Crime but just another battleground in his war on institutional power? Charlie Stile is a veteran New Jersey political columnist. This column originally appeared on
The Intercept
24 minutes ago
- The Intercept
Teen Immigrant's Release Propels Lawsuit to End ICE's Courthouse Arrests
In a rare win against U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement last month, a judge ordered that a detained 19-year-old asylum-seeker be released back to his family. Oliver Mata Velasquez's arrest outside a Buffalo, New York, court hearing on his asylum process was unlawful, U.S. District Judge Lawrence Vilardo wrote. 'Mata Velasquez followed all the rules,' Vilardo wrote, 'On the other hand, the government changed the rules by fiat, applied them retroactively, and pulled the rug out from under Mata Velasquez and many like him who tried to do things the right way.' In the weeks since, lawyers for Mata Velasquez said Vilardo's order could influence similar cases and, they hope, lead to ICE releasing others arrested in immigration court. Now, the New York Civil Liberties Union and other organizations have sued the Trump administration, seeking to end the practice of courthouse arrests nationwide. 'The court was rightfully outraged at the detention to begin with.' Mata Velasquez was one of hundreds of people taken by ICE during its new practice of stationing agents outside of immigration courts around the country to make arrests when people show up for routine hearings. While judges have released several people arrested in the stakeouts on bond, few have ordered their outright release. That's what makes Mata Velasquez's case so unique, said attorney Amy Belsher, who worked on the case and is the director of Immigrants' Rights Litigation at the New York Civil Liberties Union. 'Outright release is really rare in an immigration case,' she said. 'The court was rightfully outraged at the detention to begin with.' The order could open the door for other defendants to find similar relief, said Sarah Gillman, director of strategic U.S. litigation with Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights and one of Mata Velasquez's attorneys. 'We hope the decision sends a strong message about the actions of the government here,' she said. 'I think that this ruling could definitely have an impact on these cases.' 'What's going on with this administration is that they are testing the limits of everything,' Gillman added. 'I think in Oliver's case, the court sent a resounding message back, saying, 'No.' ' The NYCLU, representing New York City-based immigrant advocacy organizations African Communities Together and The Door, is now asking a federal judge to overturn the Trump administration policies allowing for arrests in immigration court. They cite the cases of 10 people they allege were detained after showing up for otherwise routine immigration hearings. 'These policies are unlawful,' the lawsuit, filed in the Southern District of New York, argues. 'Such arrests chill access to the courts and impede the fair administration of justice.' The parties are due for an initial hearing on October 10. (The Department of Homeland Security did not respond to a request for comment.) In the lawsuit, the NYCLU attorneys argue the Trump administration changed two key policies that have laid the groundwork for the arrests in immigration court. First, they say, ICE and U.S. Customs and Border Protection rescinded a Biden-era policy that formalized a long-standing practice, banning so-called courthouse arrests. Second, the attorneys argue, the Executive Office for Immigration Review issued a new policy that empowered immigration judges to dismiss a broader category of cases than before. Those two changes, the lawsuit alleges, have put in place a new practice where the government's immigration lawyers move to dismiss cases verbally, a judge grants the dismissal, and then a migrant is detained shortly thereafter while still in the court building. 'ICE officers — in coordination with DHS attorneys — station themselves in immigration court, including in the hallways or even in courtrooms, so that they can immediately arrest and detain individuals upon conclusion of their court hearings,' the lawsuit says. That's exactly what happened to Mata Velasquez. On the morning of May 21, Mata Velasquez showed up for a routine immigration hearing in downtown Buffalo. The courthouse, located at 130 Delaware Avenue, is in a nondescript office building located near Niagara Square and Buffalo City Hall. Born in Venezuela, Mata Velasquez arrived in the U.S. in September 2024 after waiting for an appointment via the CBPOne application, a process put in place by the Biden administration. Once in Buffalo, he lived with an uncle and, like other migrants in the city, found work in a local hotel as a housekeeper. Following his court hearing, his lawyers later said, he took the elevator down from the third floor. Waiting for him in the small lobby were four ICE agents. Mata Velasquez speaks only Spanish, but the agents had paperwork in English and demanded that he sign it, according to both Mata Velasquez's lawyers and his uncle. His uncle described them as wearing civilian clothes, not ICE uniforms. Mata Velasquez was then detained and sent to the ICE detention center located in Batavia, about 40 miles east of the courthouse. 'He was really scared when they pressured him to sign this form,' his uncle, who requested anonymity for fear of being targeted by ICE, said in an interview. 'My nephew is a good person. He doesn't have a criminal record or any tattoos. He's a good person, he's a kid.' Mata Velasquez's lawyers, in their successful petition to have him released, said he was afraid while in the Batavia facility and routinely harassed by others. 'Oliver is terrified and experiencing the harms of being in a carceral setting for the first time,' that petition said. 'He has experienced harassment from at least 10 other detainees, many of whom are much older than him. Officers threatened to place him in solitary confinement and Oliver is very scared of being put in such isolating conditions.' Solitary confinement is a standard practice at the Batavia facility, which uses the isolated cells more than all but four other ICE facilities in the country. Prior reporting by The Intercept and its partners found that solitary confinement is a frequent tool used by ICE, and occasionally results in detainees taking their own lives. Mata Velasquez ultimately spent 26 days in the Batavia facility before Vilardo, the federal judge in Buffalo, ordered him released. 'Rarely do we ever get somebody's outright relief granted,' said Jillian Nowak, managing attorney at Prisoners' Legal Services of New York. 'And I'm hoping we can use this as a foundational decision to pump the brakes on some of these detentions.' Read Our Complete Coverage Facing an uphill battle in getting all courthouse arrestees released, the legal advocacy organizations are shifting their strategy to challenge as a system what they argue are unlawful policies. Belsher, of the NYCLU, said doing so is necessary to combat the Trump administration's crackdown on migrants. 'This is a broader strategy of the government's, right? Just flood the system,' Belsher said. 'They are causing enormous harm by just doing unlawful things at scale.' Every individual case requires intensive resources. 'They are doing this to hundreds of people,' she said, 'and thousands of people are terrified to go to their hearings because of it.' The lawsuit argues that allowing the courthouse arrests to continue will only enable ICE to detain more people, putting more strain on detention centers that are already at or over capacity. Through June, data shows that ICE has doubled arrests compared to 2024. The majority of those arrested have no criminal record, despite the rhetoric published by ICE and the White House. 'Due to the increase in arrests and related overcrowding at many of its detention facilities, ICE has been detaining noncitizens swept up in immigration courthouse arrests in transitional holding facilities for prolonged periods — in some cases over a week — where they lack access to counsel and are in conditions wholly inadequate to safely and humanely detain people,' the suit alleges. In Western New York, CBP offices at the Peace and Rainbow bridges as well as other CBP stations have been used to detain migrant families including toddlers and those with life-threatening diseases. Statewide, four county sheriffs have newly agreed to allow ICE to detain migrants in their jails. In New York City, arrests and detentions in the federal building at 26 Federal Plaza have raised alarm among immigration advocates. Gillman, one of Mata Velasquez's lawyers, said she hopes the Vilardo ruling and subsequent NYCLU lawsuit shifts the tide. 'As the judge wrote in his decision, the government … can't just kind of change the goalpost and say, 'Now we're just going to go out and arrest people without any type of process, without any type of due process,'' she said. 'As a lawyer, the legal decision that the judge made is very, in my mind, impactful.'
Yahoo
an hour ago
- Yahoo
Despite denials, email shows ex-Henry County sheriff knew of sex abuse claim
A newly disclosed email contradicts previous claims by former Henry County Sheriff Ric McCorkle that he knew nothing about a 2018 sexual abuse allegation against a community corrections official who was also a special sheriff's deputy. McCorkle said earlier this year that he was unaware of an inmate's allegation in 2018 that Deputy Community Corrections Director Jason Bertram had touched the man's genitals during a work release meeting in 2018. The accuser is one of at least seven men who claim Bertram used his power to coerce them into unwanted sexual acts before killing himself in 2023. Most of the men were abused after 2018. Six of them are now suing Henry County leaders in federal court for failing to take steps that could have prevented the abuse. McCorkle, who was sheriff from 2015 to 2022, said under oath in a March 6 deposition that he was "not aware" of the 2018 allegation. He also told IndyStar in a June 5 phone interview that the allegation "wasn't brought to my attention" and that he "wasn't aware of the '18 complaint." But an email unearthed as part of the pending civil lawsuits against him and other officials suggest he did know about the allegation. The email is the most recent evidence to emerge that McCorkle and other Henry County leaders knew about allegations against Bertram for years, but failed to stop him from victimizing more men. In the June 12, 2018, email, then-Henry County Prosecutor Joe Bergacs asked the Indiana State Police to take over the investigation from the sheriff's department. Bergacs wrote that he "received a call from Sheriff McCorkle" informing him that a Henry County jail inmate named Michael Ritchie had made a complaint against Bertram under the Prison Rape Elimination Act. "The allegations contain inappropriate touching by Mr. Bertram against Mr. Ritchie," Bergacs wrote, noting that Bertram is "a special deputy appointed by the Sheriff." When confronted with the email, McCorkle told IndyStar he didn't remember the allegation or speaking with Bergacs, but he acknowledged it may have happened. "I'm not gonna tell you that I didn't," he said in an Aug. 14 phone interview. "I don't remember it. I just don't remember. I have no reason to lie to you, I just don't remember doing any of that with Michael Ritchie." At the time of the 2018 complaint, both Bergacs and McCorkle sat on the Henry County Community Corrections Advisory Board, which had the power to fire Bertram. But even after they learned of a second accusation from a different inmate in 2020, they took no action to restrict Bertram's access to clients. Only after several more men came forward with allegations amid a new state police investigation did the board finally fire Bertram in 2022. "It's sad that this went on so long and that the cover up is still continuing," said Indianapolis attorney Jonathan Little, who is representing Bertram's accusers. "Just think of all the men and boys who could have been spared." McCorkle attributed the board's inaction to "a lack of sharing information" and said he doesn't beleive there was a cover up. "I don't know why it got dropped," he said, "but I can't imagine anybody wanting to cover it up." As deputy director of community corrections, Bertram oversaw defendants placed on house arrest or assigned to community service. McCorkle said he designated everyone who worked in community corrections a "special deputy" so that they had arrest powers if needed. McCorkle isn't the only one who said he forgot about Ritchie's case. Bergacs, the prosecutor at the time, also claimed during a recent deposition that he didn't recall Ritchie's case. "I really don't remember anything," he said. "I'm sure it had to do with inappropriate touching, but I don't remember whatever the specific allegations are as I sit here now." Bergacs did not respond to an inquiry from IndyStar, but the newly disclosed email and previously disclosed state police records show that he was heavily involved and that he declined to prosecute Bertram because the statute of limitations had expired. The statute of limitations is a time limit set in state law for filing criminal charges after an alleged crime is committed. The limit is generally longer for more serious offenses. Little contends the statute of limitations had not expired for crimes such as sexual battery and official misconduct. He criticized McCorkle and Bergacs for their claims they couldn't remember such a serious allegation against a member of Henry County's law enforcement community. "Should we be concerned about the rash of amnesia in Henry County?" Little said. Although McCorkle and Bergacs no longer hold elected office, both men have continued in government service. McCorkle is now a school resource officer for South Henry School Corp. Bergacs is one of four public defenders listed on the county's website. As IndyStar reported in June, Bergacs and McCorkle are among several county officials who have been named as defendants in lawsuits filed by Bertram's accusers. Others include Community Corrections Director Joni Williams and Henry Circuit Court Judge Kit Crane. Read IndyStar's investigation: County official abused clients for years. Leaders knew of allegations, but failed to stop him The lawsuits accuse Henry County officials of effectively running a sex trafficking operation and are seeking damages under federal Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act and the Rackateer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, or RICO. Henry County officials have denied in court records that they failed to properly respond to the abuse allegations. Bergacs and Crane have also argued they are entitled to qualified immunity, a legal doctrine that protects government officials from civil liability unless they violate clearly established law. Contact IndyStar reporter Tony Cook at 317-444-6081 or Follow him on X: @IndyStarTony. This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: Despite denials, email shows former sheriff knew of sex abuse claim
