True Crime News Roundup: Suspect Accused Of Mass Shooting In NYC Subway Indicted On Terrorism Charge

The man accused of shooting up a subway car in NYC is captured and ordered held without bail.

Frank James, the armed man accused of injuring almost 30 people when he opened fire on a crowded Brooklyn subway, was arraigned on a federal terrorism charge on April 14.

“The defendant’s attack was premeditated; it was carefully planned; and it caused terror among the victims and our entire city,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Sara Winik told the court, saying James’s “mere presence outside of federal custody” would be “a serious risk, a danger to the community.”

A judge ordered James, 62, held without bail. He faces life in prison if convicted of the charge of carrying out a terrorist attack on a mass transit system, The New York Times reported.

Around 8:30 a.m. on April 12, James was on a Manhattan-bound N train when he allegedly tossed smoke bombs into the car and shot 33 rounds from a Glock 9mm handgun.

The following day, James called Crime Stoppers and reported himself to authorities, who captured him after a massive manhunt.

A Los Angeles man is sentenced to prison after fatally injecting two men with drugs.

On April 14, a federal judge in Los Angeles sentenced Ed Buck, a wealthy donor to multiple political causes, to 30 years behind bars for injecting two men with fatal doses of methamphetamine.

Buck, 67, was arrested in 2019 following the deaths of Gemmel Moore and Timothy Dean. He was also accused of injecting Dane Brown, who survived multiple injections of controlled substances and later led police to the suspect.

Buck was found guilty last year of two counts of distribution of methamphetamine resulting in death, four counts of distribution of methamphetamine, one count of maintaining a drug-involved premises, and two counts of enticement to travel in interstate commerce for prostitution.

At sentencing, Judge Christina A. Snyder called the circumstances surrounding the two men’s deaths “horrific crimes” and said they were “more than just an accident,” according to the Associated Press.

Buck insisted he loved the victims and never meant to harm them. “Their deaths were tragic but I did not cause their deaths,” he said at the hearing.

Federal prosecutors countered that Buck preyed on vulnerable men and were seeking a life sentence in the case.

“Buck used his money and privilege to exploit the wealth and power imbalances between himself and his victims, who were unhoused, destitute, and/or struggling with addiction,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Chelsea Norell wrote in court documents. “He spent thousands of dollars on drugs and party and play sessions that destroyed lives and bred insidious addictions.”

Game of Thrones actor Joseph Gatt accused of inappropriate communication with a minor, police say.

Actor Joseph Gatt, best known for his portrayal of Thenn Warg on Game of Thrones, was arrested on April 6 in connection to an investigation into alleged inappropriate communication with a minor.

According to a Los Angeles Police Department news release obtained by The Los Angeles Daily News, Gatt was taken into custody on a felony warrant after detectives received a tip he allegedly “had been engaged in online sexually explicit communication with a minor across state lines.”

Gatt posted $5,000 bail and was released on his own recognizance.

The actor took to Instagram to adamantly deny the allegations against him.

“I obviously want to address the absolutely horrifying and completely untrue allegations recently leveled against me,” Gatt wrote. “They are 100% categorically wrong and reckless.”

He added that he was cooperating with law enforcement to get to the bottom of the claims against him and looks “forward to clearing [his] good name.”

Videos show deadly confrontation between a Michigan police officer and driver after a traffic stop.

Authorities in Michigan have released multiple videos of the police-involved shooting that claimed the life of a 26-year-old Black man during a routine traffic stop.

Shortly after noon on April 4, an officer, who has not been publicly identified, pulled over Patrick Lyoya in Grand Rapids.

Video from the officer’s body cam shows Lyoya exit his vehicle and the officer can be heard telling him to stay inside. When Lyoya walks toward the front of his car, the officer grabs at him but Lyoya slips free and attempts to run away, video shows.

The officer tackles Lyoya to the ground and the two can be seen in video struggling with each other. The officer then tries to deploy a Taser as the two fight for control of the device.

The video on the officer’s body cam cuts out, but dashboard camera from the squad car as well as video shot by a passenger in Lyoya’s car shows the scuffle, which ends when the officer fires a single bullet in Lyoya’s head, killing him.

An investigation into the deadly shooting is ongoing to determine if the officer will be charged with a crime.

Civil rights attorney Ben Crump, who Lyoya’s family hired in the wake of the shooting, called the incident “an unnecessary, excessive, and fatal use of force against an unarmed Black man who was confused by the encounter and terrified for his life.”

“Out of nowhere my brother is killed just like that. Why is that?” Jimmy Barwan told WOOD following the shooting of his brother, a refugee from the Democratic Republic of the Congo. “We’re fighting for justice, we’re fighting for justice for all of us, not only my brother at the end of the day, because we’re all human beings.”

A mother in Miami is accused of killing her two children after she said she was having financial problems.

A mother was arrested after the bodies of her two young children were found inside the family’s Miami apartment.

Odette Lysse Joassaint faces two counts of first-degree murder in connection to the deaths of her son, Jeffrey, 3, and daughter Laural, 5.

On the evening of April 12, an agitated and incoherent Joassaint, 41, phoned 911 multiple times, Miami-Dade Public Information Officer Michael Vega told WPBF.

The mother was “calling but she wasn't saying much,” Vega said. "The one thing she did say to officers: ‘They're inside. Go get them. I don't want them.’”

Officers responding to the scene “found a female who appeared to be irate or going through a crisis,” Vega said.

The boy and girl were reportedly found hogtied and strangled to death.

The mother was reportedly having financial issues, and she told officers the "kids were suffering and that they would suffer less if they were dead,” the Miami Herald reported, citing a police report.

The children’s father, Frantzy Belval, claimed that his estranged ex was unstable and had not worked since last year.

“I told her: ‘You are crazy. You create too much problems,’” he said in an interview with the Herald.

Joassaint is currently being held without bail.