12/12/2012
Police find getaway car in Manhattan shooting
| By Jonathan Dienst and Shimon Prokupecz, NBCNewYork.com Police in New York have found the getaway car used by the gunman who shot and killed a man along a busy street at midday in midtown Manhattan this week, and are interviewing a man who may have information about the case, NBCNewYork.com has learned.  AP via New York Police Department This still image made from a video provided by the New York City Police Department shows the gunman, left, behind Brandon Woodard pulling the weapon from his jacket pocket a moment before Monday's shooting in New York. Sources told NBCNewYork.com investigators have identified the car as a rental from Avis in Huntington Station on Long Island, and have spoken to the car renters, a couple from Queens. New York City Police Commissioner Ray Kelly said Wednesday that the car had been found in Queens. The person being interviewed is not believed to be the shooter but may have details about what happened, a law enforcement official told NBCNewYork.com. The 40-year-old man is from Queens and may be a friend of the getaway driver. Investigators also say they may have a photo of the getaway driver that was snapped as the car went through the toll booth at the Queens-Midtown Tunnel shortly after the shooting on 58th Street Monday. It was not immediately clear if the man and woman who rented the car were believed to have any connection to the shooting of Brandon Woodard, who was gunned down just before 2 p.m. local time as he walked west on 58th Street between Broadway and Seventh Avenue in New York. Surveillance video shows the suspect getting out of a late model Lincoln sedan about 10 minutes before the shooting. He waits while Woodard passes him, then falls in step behind. As the suspect approaches, the victim, still walking, looks back briefly at the suspect, who by then is directly behind him, and turns forward again. Woodard does not appear to recognize the shooter. The suspect then pulls a gun from his pocket and fires one shot into Woodard's head. The video shows Woodard falling to the ground as the suspect calmly walks to the getaway car, which was driven by another man and parked on the street. The driver waited for traffic to clear before speeding away. Also on NBCNewYork.com: Police release surveillance video of suspect in fatal shooting Woodard, 31, was pronounced dead at the hospital. Shell casings for the silver, semi-automatic weapon were found at the scene. A law enforcement official says the bullet recovered at the scene matches bullets recovered at a 2009 Queens shooting, when 12 rounds were fired into a Mangin Avenue home in St. Albans, damaging windows and doors. No one was hurt, but police recovered ballistics evidence and are looking into the case for possible new leads. Authorities have said they believe Woodard's shooting was planned in advance, and police are investigating possible motives. Woodard, who arrived in New York on a one-way plane ticket Sunday evening, had checked out of the Thompson Hotel moments before the shooting, Police Commissioner Ray Kelly said at a news conference Tuesday. See the police surveillance video of a suspect, from NBCNewYork.com: View more videos at: http://nbcnewyork.com. Jonathan Dienst is WNBC's chief investigative correspondent. Shimon Prokupecz is a WNBC investigative producer.  |
Mall gunman: Personal setbacks, friends' disbelief
| Clackamas County Sheriff's Office Sgt. Adam Phillips answers questions at a press conference regarding the 22-year-old gunman who opened fire at an Oregon mall, killing two people before killing himself. By NBC News staff The man who shot two people to death and wounded another at an Oregon shopping mall had suffered a series of setbacks in the past year, according to a profile in The Oregonian newspaper. Jacob Tyler Roberts, 22, had lost his driver's license after a couple of speeding tickets, broken up with his girlfriend, been evicted from his apartment, then quit his job and told friends he was going to Hawaii -- only to apparently miss his flight last weekend, the Oregonian said. Roberts was identified Wednesday as the man who opened fire in the food court of the crowded Clackamas Town Center southeast of Portland. Steven Mathew Forsyth, 45, of West Linn and Cindy Ann Yuille, 54, of Portland were killed. Forsyth owned a business at the mall. Kristina Shevchenko, 15, of Portland, was wounded and was in serious condition Wednesday. Police said Wednesday that Roberts did not have a criminal history but that he stole the AR-15 rifle that he used in the shooting. Roberts killed himself at the mall. According to the Oregonian, a friend of Roberts' stepfather said Roberts had planned to enter the Navy after graduating from Oregon City High School in 2008 but was prevented because of an injury. "After that, everything kind of fell apart for him," Rosalie DeDore told the newspaper. Oregon mall gunman ID'd; motive unclear Roberts had worked at a sandwich shop for at least six months but quit in November, telling co-workers that he had inherited money and planned to travel to Hawaii and perhaps move there. An acquaintance told the Oregonian that Roberts was supposed to fly there last Friday or Saturday but missed his flight. People who knew Roberts said it was hard to believe that he could have been a killer.  "It's a very difficult thing to wrap my head around," Benjamin Eshbach, who said he played chess with Roberts and went out with him, told the newspaper. He said Roberts was fun and light-hearted. "It's hard to imagine him being any other way. Something doesn't fit." In recent months, Roberts had moved into the basement of a small home in southeast Portland with two roommates, according to neighbors who told NBC station KGW that he seemed like a nice young man. On Wednesday, Roberts' aunt provided a hand-written note through a friend to reporters apologizing for her son's behavior. KATU of Portland reported that family friends said Tami Roberts is Roberts' aunt but raised him. She wrote that she had "no understanding or explanation for her son's behavior" and adding she was "very sad and wants everyone to know that she is so sorry what Jake did, it's so out of his character." More content from NBCNews.com:
|
Mall shooting victims: Hospice nurse, entrepreneur
| Clackamas County Sheriff Craig Roberts identifies the victims of a deadly shooting at an Oregon mall, saying there was "no apparent relationship" between the two and the shooter. By Isolde Raftery, NBC News Before shots rang out at the Clackamas Town Center Tuesday night, the mall was packed with children lined up to sit on Santa's lap, and middle school students who had just been released from school. There were 10,000 people in the mall that afternoon and three were shot: Cindy Yuille, 54, Steven Forsyth, 45, and Kristina Shevchenko, 15. Yuille and Forsyth died; Shevchenko remains hospitalized at Oregon Health & Science University Hospital after being shot in the chest. She is expected to recover. Related: Girl, 15, shot in Oregon mall, cheats death twice The gunman, identified as 22-year-old Jacob Tyler Roberts, killed himself inside the mall. Yuille was not the type of person who enjoyed the mall, her family told the Oregonian. She preferred hiking and climbing. But she headed to the mall – once known for where Olympic figure skater Tonya Harding trained – possibly to buy a hat that her stepson had requested.  Cindy Ann Yuille, 54, of Portland, Oregon, was one of two fatal shooting victims on Tuesday. Originally from Southern California, Yuille moved to Portland in the early 1990s. Later, working as a hospice nurse at Kaiser Permanente, she met her husband, Robert Yuille, also a nurse on the hospice care team at Kaiser. In a statement, Kaiser Permanente said she worked for Kaiser for 16 years. "Cindy was a beloved caregiver for the kind and compassionate support she provided patients and families at times of impending loss and need," the statement said. Counseling services were made available to Kaiser employees.  Steven Mathew Forsyth, 45, of West Linn, Ore., was one of two fatal shooting victims on Tuesday at the Clackamas Town Center in Oregon, south of Portland. Reached by phone, a neighbor told NBC News that she didn't want to talk about Yuille's death: "We're very sad right now," she said. Yuille had lived in Northeast Portland for about 20 years, records show. She was a mother to Jenna Passalacqua, who had recently graduated from the University of Oregon's School of Journalism and Communication. She was a stepmother to a 13-year-old boy. A statement from the family said Yuille was "everybody's friend." "She was a wonderful person who was very caring and put others first," they said. Steven Forsyth was a husband, a father of two and an entrepreneur who founded Coastoms, which sells coasters carved from wood. His family described him as "one of the most passionate people with a true entrepreneurial spirit." "He had a great sense of humor and a zest for life," the statement said. "He had vision and a belief in others that brought great joy and value to many lives. He will be sorely missed by all who knew him." Dennis Glasgow, who had worked with Forsyth in the radio industry, told the Portland Business Journal that Forsyth was well liked. "It's still pretty shocking," Glasgow said. "He was a very popular guy, very gregarious. He was a smart business guy and a good radio man." According to his LinkedIn profile, Forsyth attended high school in the Portland area and the University of San Diego. He described himself as a "business developer." At OHSU, the parents of Kristina issued a statement saying that their daughter remains in serious condition but is "alert and talking." "She informed us today that the first person to be thanked is Alyona, her friend and schoolmate at Clackamas Middle (College), who immediately called 911 and remained by her side until the emergency service providers arrived."  Courtesy of the Shevchenko family Kristina Shevchenko, 15, was shot in the chest Tuesday afternoon at the Clackamas Town Center in Oregon. She is expected to survive. Her brother Yevgeniy wrote on a Facebook page dedicated to the shooting: "The bullet went through bruising her lung, it missed any vital organs and it missed her ribs. She will need 2 more operations. we appreciate any and all support including your prayers! Thank you." Yevgeniy also revealed that his sister had survived a head-on car collision over the summer. "Many of you have noticed the earlier tragedy that happened in our family a couple months ago where 7 of my siblings and 2 friends were involved in a fatal car accident. You could read it online for yourself, but yes it did happen and yes Kristina was in that car accident," the post read, and linked to an article in the Columbian newspaper about a Beaverton, Ore., man who was killed after veering into a van driven by a 27-year-old member of the Shevchenko family. NBC's Elizabeth Chuck contributed to this report. More content from NBCNews.com:
|
Faces of the shooting
Mall gunman: 'I have lived one crazy life so far'
NBC/WSJ poll: Public wants compromise to avoid fiscal cliff
| By NBC's Mark Murray An overwhelming majority of Americans want Congress and the Obama White House to reach a deal featuring both tax increases and spending cuts to avert the so-called fiscal cliff, according to the latest national NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll.  Chip Somodevilla / Getty Images Speaker of the House John Boehner (R-OH) talks with reporters after the weekly House GOP caucus meeting at the U.S. Capitol December 12, 2012 in Washington, DC. In fact, majorities of Democrats, Republicans and political independents each support such a deal. Click here for full results from the NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll (pdf) Yet respondents are split over whether any kind of agreement can be reached, and nearly seven in 10 believe that the coming year will feature Democrats and Republicans in Congress showing little willingness to come to an agreement on important matters. Democratic pollster Peter D. Hart, who conducted the survey with Republican pollster Bill McInturff, says the public is sending this one-word message to Washington: compromise. "Doing something trumps doing nothing," Hart said. Related: Boehner: 'Serious differences' separate GOP from Obama The survey – conducted a month after November's election – also shows a positive uptick in opinion toward President Barack Obama, and more negative views about defeated GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney and the Republican Party. The poll also finds that a majority of Americans now support gay marriage. Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers, R-Wash., explains whether conservative members of Congress are reacting positively to House Speaker John Boehner's progression on the fiscal cliff proposal. 'Hints of a thaw' According to the poll, a combined 68 percent of Americans say that the fiscal cliff – the looming combination of tax increases and spending cuts set to take place at the beginning of next year if nothing is done – is either a "very serious" or "fairly serious" problem. A similar two-thirds of respondents are willing to accept an increase in taxes or cuts in federal government programs they care about to reach an agreement to avoid the problem. Asked another way, 65 percent say leaders in Congress should find a compromise to reduce the budget deficit, even if that means Democrats would need to accept targeted spending cuts to Social Security and Medicare, and that Republicans would need to accept targeted increases in tax rates. NBC's Mark Murray and Domenico Montanaro discuss the latest developments in the fiscal negotiations between President Obama and House Speaker John Boehner. By comparison, just 28 percent believe that leaders should stick to their traditional positions on the deficit – even if that means Congress goes over the fiscal cliff, triggering those automatic spending cuts and tax increases. "There are hints of a thaw here, compared to previous data we've seen," McInturff says. Indeed, for the first time in the poll, a majority of Republicans (59 percent) want GOP leaders in the House and Senate to make compromises in order to gain consensus in the current budget debate. Previously, in 2011, majorities of Republicans said they preferred GOP leaders to stick to their positions rather than make compromises. And the percentage of Democrats who favor compromise on this question (70 percent) is now at an all-time high in the survey. With Christmas less than two weeks away, the White House is faced with the same key question – Can House Speaker John Boehner deliver enough Republican votes for whatever debt deal he and President Barack Obama agree on. The Daily Rundown's Chuck Todd reports. Who's to blame if there isn't a deal? Everyone Yet the public is split – 48 percent of respondents are optimistic, and 48 percent are pessimistic – over whether Congress will be able to reach consensus to avoid the fiscal cliff. And another 69 percent believe that the next year on Capitol Hill will be marked by division and little willingness to compromise. If there is no compromise on the fiscal cliff and the automatic tax increases and spending cuts go into effect at the beginning of next year, 24 percent say they will blame congressional Republicans more, while 19 percent will point the finger at Obama and congressional Democrats. But a majority of respondents (56 percent) say they'll blame both sides equally. Still, twice as many Americans say they trust the president more in handling this fiscal situation (38 percent) than House Speaker John Boehner and the congressional Republicans (19 percent). Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke warns of an 'significant adverse' impact on the economy if the U.S. goes over the fiscal cliff. And significant majorities believe Obama holds a clear mandate from the election on issues related to this subject:
Obama's lift vs. the GOP's decline Speaking of Obama, the poll shows an uptick in his numbers after his victory in last month's presidential election. Fifty-three percent of adults approve of his overall job performance, and 49 percent approve of his handling of the economy – higher marks on these questions than at any time during the 2012 campaign. Another 53 percent say they feel either "optimistic and confident" or "satisfied and hopeful" Obama will do a good job as president, which is up three points from Oct. 2012. "Any president has a little bit of a lift heading into the first few months of any new term in office," McInturff, the GOP pollster, says. Thursday's "Gaggle" which includes Jackie Kucinich, Margie Omero, Perry Bacon and Bob Costa talk about the fiscal cliff negotiations. But if Obama is getting a lift after the election, the Republican Party is seeing a further decline. The GOP's favorable/unfavorable rating in the poll now stands at 30 percent/45 percent (minus-15 points), which is down from 36 percent/43 percent (minus-7) right before the election. That's compared with the Democratic Party's 44 percent/35 percent rating (plus-9 points). What's more, asked to give a word or short phrase to describe the Republican Party, 65 percent offered a negative comment, including more than half of Republicans. Some of the responses: "Bad," "weak," "negative," "uncompromising," "need to work together," "broken," "disorganized" and "lost." By contrast, 37 percent gave negative descriptions of the Democratic Party, while 35 percent were positive. "Republicans have gone off the image cliff," says Hart, the Democratic pollster. "Elections have consequences," McInturff adds about the GOP. "And among those consequences is the cost of losing."  Paul Sancya / AP President Barack Obama speaks to workers about the economy during a visit to Daimler Detroit Diesel in Redford, Mich., Monday, Dec. 10, 2012. The consequences of losing also exist for Romney, whom Obama defeated in November. Romney's favorable/unfavorable rating in the poll is 35 percent/44 percent (minus-9 points), down from his 43 percent/44 percent score (minus-1) before the election. Much of that drop comes from Republicans and conservatives. Majority supports same-sex marriage Finally, for the first time ever in the NBC/WSJ poll, a majority of respondents – 51 percent – support same-sex marriage. That percentage in support is up from 30 percent in 2004, 41 percent in 2009 and 49 percent in March 2012, demonstrating how quickly public opinion on this issue has changed in just eight years. The NBC/WSJ poll was conducted Dec. 6-9 of 1,000 adults (including 300 cell phone-only respondents), and it has an overall margin of error of plus-minus 3.1 percentage points. |
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)