Mass Shooting Kills 4 and Wounds 17 in Nightlife District in Birmingham, Alabama

(BIRMINGHAM, Ala.) — Four people were killed and 17 others injured when multiple shooters opened fire Saturday in what police described as a targeted “hit” on one of the people killed at a popular nightlife spot in Birmingham, Alabama.

The shooting happened shortly after 11 p.m. Saturday in Five Points South, a district filled with entertainment venues, restaurants and bars that is often crowded on weekend nights. The mass shooting, one of several this year in the city, unnerved residents in the area and left city officials pleading for help to both solve the crime and address the broader problem of gun violence.

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“The priority is to find these shooters and get them off our streets,” Birmingham Mayor Randall Woodfin said at a Sunday press conference.

The shooting occurred outside Hush, a hookah and cigar lounge, in the entertainment district. Blood stains were visible on the sidewalk outside the venue on Sunday morning.

Birmingham Police Chief Scott Thurmond said authorities believe the shooting targeted one of the people who was killed, possibly in a murder-for-hire. He said a vehicle pulled up and “multiple shooters” got out and began firing, then fled the scene.

“We believe that there was a ‘hit,’ if you will, on that particular person,” Thurmond said.

Police said approximately 100 shell casings were recovered at the scene. Thurmond said law enforcement was working to determine what weapons were used, but they believe some of the gunfire was “fully automatic.” Investigators were also trying to determine whether anyone fired back, creating crossfire.

Police said officers found two men and a woman on a sidewalk with gunshot wounds and they were pronounced dead there. An additional male gunshot victim was pronounced dead at a hospital, according to police.

By early Sunday, after victims began showing up at hospitals, police had identified 17 people with injuries, some of them life-threatening.

The area of Birmingham is popular with young adults because of its proximity to the University of Alabama at Birmingham and the plethora of nearby restaurants and bars.

Geoffrey Boshell, a 22-year-old biomedical engineering student who lives nearby, said he was working on a school project when he heard a burst of rapid pops that he said sounded like automatic gunfire.

“I heard it, looked out my window and immediately see people screaming, fleeing the scene,” Boshell said.

The shooting in the bustling and popular area was unnerving, he said. “I’m not sure scared is the right word. Just very disturbed that it was happening right outside where you are living.”

Ashton Mills, 24, who lives in a nearby apartment complex was headed to work Saturday night when she heard a “bunch of popping sounds.”

“It’s scary, especially as a single woman walking around the city,” she said. “I’m definitely a lot more on guard.”

Woodfin expressed frustration at what he described as an epidemic of gun violence in America.

“We find ourselves in 2024, where gun violence is at an epidemic level, an epidemic crisis in our country. And the city of Birmingham, unfortunately finds itself at the tip of that spear,” he said.

The Birmingham mayor also urged state and federal officials to give cities more tools to address gun violence. He put both hands behind his back to illustrate what it is like for cities to combat crime. Alabama last year abolished the requirement to get a permit to carry a concealed handgun in public.

Woodfun said there is an “element” in the city that is too comfortable carrying Glock switches — which convert semi-automatic handguns to deliver more rapid fire — and assault-style rifles with the intent of doing harm.

“Elected officials locally, statewide and nationally have a duty to solve this American crisis, this American epidemic of gun violence,” the mayor said.

___

Associated Press writer Jonathan Mattise in Nashville, Tennessee, contributed to this report.

source https://time.com/7023286/birmingham-alabama-mass-shooting-nightclub/

Indigenous Peoples Are Key to Navigating the Climate Crisis. We Deserve a Seat at the Table

As Climate Week NYC kicks off today, leaders in government, business, science, and philanthropy from around the world are coming together to strategize the global fight against climate change. Since last year’s gathering, the world has seen 12 straight months that hit or surpassed 1.5C in average warming. This grim threshold, one set by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), intended to avoid the worst impacts of climate change, underscores the urgency of the moment.

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As the clock ticks down on the time we have left to redirect our Earth toward a more sustainable future, it is now more important than ever that Indigenous Peoples have a bigger seat at the table.

After all, Indigenous Peoples are the world’s greatest protectors of the environment. Our land is not just our home—it is our spiritual connection to the Earth, to our ancestors, to our past, present and future.  

The territories of Indigenous Peoples contain about 40% of the large intact ecosystems scientists say we cannot lose if we want Earth to continue supporting life on Earth as we know it. These ecosystems are critical to the future of our planet, with lower biodiversity loss than non-Indigenous lands. Our land also faces less deforestation, helping our global fight to reduce CO2 levels in the atmosphere.

Read more: This Is Life in America’s Water-Inequality Capital. It Might Be About to Change

For the Blackfoot People, our land is spread over thousands of miles across North America, from the Rocky Mountains to the Saskatchewan River. It is an incredible sight, a place of environmental preservation and spiritual wisdom. 

When taking in this landscape, it may be difficult to understand the reasons for the destruction that our land and our people have faced. We have had our prairies exploited by natural gas pollution, our sacred buffalo almost entirely wiped out and our language and cultural identity severely diminished. Our tribe and centuries-old culture has been reduced, marginalized, and assimilated to the point of near disappearance. Today, we continue to face the consequences of this trauma, including community fragmentation, drug abuse, alcoholism, and mental health issues. This is why we are working tirelessly to facilitate healing processes 

Yet our tribe’s fight to preserve and restore our way of life is part and parcel of the larger global climate fight, in which greedy corporations and self-interested governments have spent decades setting the natural world on fire by trading things like clean air and fresh water for financial gain. 

As Blackfoot cultural leaders, we know what it means to work for the greater good and long-term prosperity. Many with an individualistic mindset, focused solely on short-term monetary gain, may consider doing business with extractive companies, selling the land, natural resources, water, and plants. However, as Indigenous Peoples, our ancestors taught us to always consider the long-term impact of our actions on future generations. We do not act as individuals pursuing personal benefit, but as a collective, with the responsibility to protect our planet and ensure we leave it in the best possible condition for those who will follow.

This is because what unites Indigenous Peoples around the world is that, even in the darkest times, we remain resilient. Despite our differences, Indigenous Peoples share experiences and trauma with colonialism, exploitation and extraction, powerful forces that have both threatened our ways of life and laid the groundwork for the climate crisis the planet now faces. Yet we remain united in our commitment to protecting and restoring our lands, our cultures and the natural world. This is who we are and who we have always been— a powerful collective force that thinks, feels, and acts guided by the wisdom of our ancestors, with a shared vision of leaving a lasting legacy for future generations.

Nevertheless, as Indigenous Peoples, we are often overlooked when it comes to global climate solutions. From Climate Week NYC to the United Nations Climate Change Conference, Indigenous perspectives are underrepresented in the decision-making spaces that determine the direction of our future. In discourse dominated by big money, big names and technological innovation, we often don’t even have a seat at the table. This is a grave mistake.

Instead of selling off our land for profit and destroying our natural environment in the process, for centuries we have proactively found ways to sustain ourselves while protecting and restoring the environment around us. This includes Blackfoot’s decades-long effort to bring back free-roaming buffalo, whose population used to number in the millions but were brought to the edge of extinction. We are proud to be the first sovereign Indigenous nation in U.S. history to have released a herd of free-roaming buffalo back into their natural habitat. 

At the heart of our cultural preservation is our efforts to educate the Blackfoot youth and work towards building the next generation of Indigenous peoples warriors. By teaching them our traditional knowledge, our heritage and our language, Siksikáí’powahsin, we are building eco-knowledge in the younger generations and revitalizing our environmental work. 

While we have made incredible progress in restoring our land, our fight never ends. Oil and gas corporations continue to seek our land for drilling, contaminating our water and disrupting our sacred sites. Each day we must stand our ground and do all we can to ensure environmental justice and protect our land from further destruction. It’s not an easy fight, but it is one we are committed to as a people.

By putting our voices forward, and leveraging thousands of years of experience, Indigenous Peoples play a central role in navigating the climate crisis and helping the world achieve greater ecological, social and cultural harmony. We have overcome incredible obstacles to rebuild from the ground-up. Our worldview, along with our way of thinking and acting as stewards of a legacy, prioritizing the care of our Earth over financial gain, has been essential in bringing us to where we are today. If we want to combat climate change and protect our natural world from destruction, the same must be true on a global scale: we need to choose our collective future and well-being of all life on Earth and future generations over the short-term gains and profits of a few, and we must have Indigenous leaders at the table in order to do so. 

source https://time.com/7023013/indigenous-people-climate-week-nyc/

Israeli Strike on a School Kills at Least 22, Gaza Health Ministry Says

(DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip) — An Israeli strike on a school in northern Gaza on Saturday killed at least 22 people, according to the Gaza Health Ministry, while the Israeli army said it targeted a Hamas command center in what used to be a school.

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Another 30 were wounded in the strike on the school in the Zeitoun area of Gaza City, the ministry said in a statement. Most of the casualties were women and children, it said. It wasn’t immediately clear which hospital the dead and injured were taken to.

Video taken by The Associated Press showed dozens of people including children digging through the rubble of the building — its ceilings caved in, walls knocked out and a mess of wires and metal rods visible. Outside, others gathered around shrouded bodies. Some covered their faces as they wept for relatives killed in the strike.

“A missile, a missile from the plane hit us, and another missile,” said Ferial Deloul, who is displaced. “We saw the whole world covered with smoke and stones and we saw people and children cut up. … What should we do? What is our fault for this to happen to us?”

Read More: Exclusive: Netanyahu at War

The Israeli army said earlier Saturday that it struck Hamas’ “command and control center, which was embedded inside a compound that previously served” as a school. It said steps were taken to limit harming civilians, including using precise munitions and aerial surveillance.

Also on Saturday, the Gaza Health Ministry said five of its workers were killed and five others wounded by Israeli fire that struck the ministry’s warehouses in the southern Musbah area.

Contesting narratives over the use of schools and hospitals

Since the outbreak of the Israel-Hamas war, the Israeli army has struck several schools, packed with tens of thousands of Palestinians driven from their homes by Israeli offensives and evacuation orders. The conflict has left 90% of Palestinians in Gaza displaced, according to figures from the United Nations.

The military has continually accused Hamas of operating from within civilian infrastructure in Gaza, including schools, U.N. facilities and hospitals. The contesting narratives over the use of schools and hospitals go to the heart of the nearly yearlong conflict.

Read More: Fact-Checking What Benjamin Netanyahu Said in His 2024 Interview With TIME

Earlier this month, an Israeli strike hit a school in the Nuseirat refugee camp, killing 14, according to Palestinian medical officials. The Israeli military said it was targeting Hamas militants planning attacks from inside the school.

In July, Israeli airstrikes hit a girls’ school in Deir al-Balah, killing at least 30 people sheltering inside. Israel’s military said it targeted a Hamas command center used to direct attacks against its troops and store “large quantities of weapons.”

The war began when Hamas-led fighters killed about 1,200 people, mostly civilians, in an Oct. 7 attack on southern Israel. They abducted another 250 people and are still holding around 100 hostages. Israel’s campaign in Gaza has killed at least 41,000 Palestinians, according to the Gaza Health Ministry, which doesn’t differentiate between fighters and civilians.

Escalating tensions in the region

Tensions soared in the region on Friday after an Israeli airstrike on a Beirut suburb in Lebanon killed dozens of people, including civilians and Ibrahim Akil, who was in charge of Hezbollah’s elite Radwan Force. Also killed was Ahmed Wahbi, another senior commander in the group’s military wing.

Read More: ‘It Sounded Like Gunfire.’ Fear Grips Lebanon After Deadly Pager and Radio Blasts

The strike came hours after Hezbollah launched one of its most intense bombardments of northern Israel in nearly a year of fighting. Israel’s Iron Dome missile defense system intercepted most of the rockets.

Israeli military spokesman Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari said Israel had struck more than 400 rocket launchers in Lebanon on Saturday.

Tens of thousands of Israelis demonstrated on Saturday night in Tel Aviv and at several smaller protests across the country, demanding a cease-fire and the return of the roughly 100 hostages still being held in Gaza. The protests, which happen every Saturday night, attracted a similar crowd compared to previous weeks despite the tense security situation on Israel’s northern border.

source https://time.com/7023265/israel-gaza-school-strike/

Court Rules Nearly 98,000 Arizonans Whose Citizenship Hadn’t Been Confirmed Can Vote Full Ballot

PHOENIX (AP) — The Arizona Supreme Court unanimously ruled Friday that nearly 98,000 people whose citizenship documents hadn’t been confirmed can vote in state and local races, a significant decision that could influence ballot measures and tight legislative races.

The court’s decision comes after officials uncovered a database error that for two decades mistakenly designated the voters as having access to the full ballot. The voters already were entitled to cast ballots in federal races, including for president and Congress, regardless of how the court ruled.

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Secretary of State Adrian Fontes, a Democrat, and Stephen Richer, the Republican Maricopa County recorder, had disagreed on what status the voters should hold. Richer asked the high court to weigh in, saying Fontes ignored state law by advising county officials to let affected voters cast full ballots.

Read More: Here’s Where Abortion Will Be on the Ballot in the 2024 Election

Fontes said not allowing the voters who believed they had satisfied voting requirements access to the full ballot would raise equal protection and due process concerns.

The high court, which leans Republican, agreed with Fontes. It said county officials lack the authority to change the voters’ statuses because those voters registered long ago and had attested under the penalty of law that they are citizens. The justices also said the voters were not at fault for the database error and also mentioned the little time that’s left before the Nov. 5 general election.

“We are unwilling on these facts to disenfranchise voters en masse from participating in state contests,” Chief Justice Ann Scott Timmer wrote in the ruling.

Of the nearly 98,000 affected voters, most of them reside in Maricopa County, which is home to Phoenix, and are longtime state residents who range in age from 45 to 60. About 37% of them are registered Republicans, about 27% are registered Democrats and the rest are independents or affiliated with minor parties.

Arizona is unique among states in that it requires voters to prove their citizenship to participate in local and state races. Voters can demonstrate citizenship by providing a driver’s license or tribal ID number, or they can attach a copy of a birth certificate, passport or naturalization documents.

Arizona considers drivers’ licenses issued after October 1996 to be valid proof of citizenship. However, a system coding error marked nearly 98,000 voters who obtained licenses before 1996 — roughly 2.5% of all registered voters — as full-ballot voters, state officials said.

The error between the state’s voter registration database and the Motor Vehicle Division has since been resolved.

That number of votes could tip the scales in hotly contested races for the state Legislature, where Republicans hold a slim majority in both chambers.

Read More: Breaking Down the 2024 Election Calendar

Voters also are deciding on the constitutional right to abortion and on a state law that would criminalize noncitizens for entering Arizona through Mexico at any location other than a port of entry.

Though Richer and Fontes disagreed over the status of the voters, both celebrated the court’s ruling.

“Thank God,” Richer said on the social platform X. He told The Associated Press on Thursday that maintaining voters’ statuses would be administratively easier.

Fontes, in a news release, called the ruling a “significant victory for those whose fundamental right to vote was under scrutiny.” Election officials will be contacting voters who need to update their proof of citizenship after the election, he said.

John Groseclose, who was among the voters whose citizenship was in question, said he was relieved he wouldn’t have to spend more time running around to resolve the mix-up.

Earlier this week, he said he waited an hour and a half at a motor vehicle office in Tempe only to find that the employee who attended to him was unaware of the issue and did not know how to update his voter registration — despite him providing an official birth certificate and new passport.

“I’m glad that none of us are going to be disenfranchised over an error generated by the MVD 20 some-odd years ago,” Groseclose told the AP.

source https://time.com/7023258/arizona-supreme-court-citizenship-vote-ruling/

Want to Burn Calories? Climbing Stairs Might Be the Most Effective Exercise for You

(TOKYO) — If you’re trying to lose weight and want a new way to do it, stair-climbing as a regular exercise — or just adding a few flights a day — might be for you.

It’s accessible, and research shows it’s more effective than walking on level ground.

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“Overall, it is a fact that stair-climbing gets you fit faster and consumes more calories,” said Lauri van Houten, vice president of the International Skyrunning Federation, which oversees a wide range of disciplines that involve vertical climbing.

This includes disciplines like mountain running above 2,000 meters (about 6,500 feet) or events like the Stairclimbing World Championships.

These competitions are for the very fit, but we’re talking here about adding a few minutes of stair-climbing as a daily routine and raising awareness about its effectiveness for all ages.

“How many calories will I burn is the question everyone wants to know,” van Houten said. “Here’s the good news: The overall energy expenditure of the exercise depends on your weight. Therefore, the more you weigh, the more you burn.”

Stair-climbing burns calories — fast

Research shows you burn about 20 times more calories going up stairs than walking on flat ground. Even going down stairs you burn roughly five times more, the muscles being worked to slow the body’s descent.

That might be all you need to know if you are trying to lose weight.

Dr. Alberto Minetti, a physiologist and biomechanist at the University of Milan, has done extensive research of human locomotion — including stair-climbing.

“It is an exercise everybody can do,” Minetti told The Associated Press. “You always have stairs nearby you — free of charge compared to a gym.”

Minetti did the math to explain why going up stairs is so effective for burning calories in a short amount of time.

Read More: What’s the Least Amount of Exercise I Can Get Away With?

“To move 1 kilogram of body mass over 1 horizontal meter, you expend 0.5 calories,” he said. “If you move 1 kilogram of body mass vertically on stairs it’s 10 calories. So it’s 20 times the calories moving vertically rather than horizontally.”

Trained as a physician, Minetti has spent his career in research rather than treating patients. He suggested “watching your speed” for the not-so-young and beginners. He does his own stair-climbing at his third-floor residence in Milan. He said he often takes a few deep breaths before ascending, which makes him feel fresher at the top.

In a scientific study, Minetti makes the point that using the arms in stair-climbing adds extra power. Handrails offer safety, too.

The journal notes that handrails are available in most stairwells in skyscrapers, which maximizes “the muscle mass involved and, consequently, the mechanical/metabolic power of the ascent” by getting the arms involved.

“They are relatively small muscles in the arms, but better than nothing,” Minetti said.

Stairs are everywhere

If stair-climbing was an Olympic sport, Suzy Walsham would own a handful of gold medals.

She’s won 10 races up New York’s Empire State Building — officially 1,576 stairs. She’s claimed titles in more than 100 international stair races, and was once regarded as the No. 1 woman in the discipline.

Five times, the Australian has won climbs up the Eiffel Tower.

This was all too easy, apparently.

When she was living in Singapore, Walsham climbed up her 29-story building — 37 consecutive times. It took over four hours, riding the elevator down each time after reaching the top with short breaks for coffee or water. She covered a vertical distance of 3,200 meters (10,500 feet).

But let’s get grounded. What are the advantages of stair-climbing as a regular exercise routine for the rest of us?

Read More: TIME Guide to Exercise

“You get a lot of bang for your buck,” Walsham told the AP. “Many people struggle to run as they age. The impact of running gets harder on the joints. But stair training is a great alternative.”

Stairs are everywhere — one flight, two flights at home, inside skyscrapers, in stadiums and arenas, at work, in shopping malls, in the subway.

One giant advantage of stair-climbing is it doesn’t take much time. It’s easy to build up, adding a few flights of stairs every day or week, and it improves balance.

On the down side, it’s not very scenic, particularly in the stairways of towering skyscrapers.

Stair-climbing can be worked into your daily routine

Yuri Yoshizumi won last year’s women’s division of the Stairclimbing World Championships in her native Osaka, Japan, a 285-meter (935 feet) climb — 1,610 stairs — that she finished in 10 minutes, 20.06 seconds.

Read More: 9 Ways to Squeeze in More Steps Every Day

“Stair-climbing is an easy sport for beginners and the general public to get into,” Yoshizumi told the AP in an email. “Elite athletes push themselves pretty hard, so it’s pretty tough. But it’s good for you to strengthen your muscles and your cardiovascular system in a short amount of time.”

She added another advantage, particularly living in a large metropolis like Osaka.

“It’s possible to do it in the city,” she said. “Just using the stairs instead of the escalators at (subway) stations and department stores is a good way to get some exercise.”

source https://time.com/7023255/stairs-exercise-calories-weight-loss/

The Story Behind the Therapist Who Played a Key Role in the Menendez Brothers’ Case

How much does doctor-patient confidentiality matter in a murder trial? The answer can be complicated.

Ryan Murphy’s Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story, streaming Sept. 19 on Netflix, tackles this question in a dramatization of the real-life saga of brothers Lyle and Erik Menendez, who were convicted in 1996 for the Aug. 20, 1989, murders of their parents, Jose and Kitty Menendez, in their Beverly Hills mansion.

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The question at the center of the murders was not whether the Menendez brothers had shot their parents, but why they shot their parents. Prosecutors argued that the men wanted to get their inheritance, pointing to their lavish spending in the months after their arrest. The defense argued that the men had an abusive father and acted in self-defense. Americans followed along via Court TV, which was just two years old but helped popularize true crime as a genre by broadcasting the trial.

The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story begins with the funeral service for Jose and Kitty, before jumping forward a couple months, when police are still investigating the murders. Lyle (Nicholas Chavez) and Erik (Cooper Koch) are living in the same Beverly Hills home, and Erik is shown growing increasingly anxious about their circumstances. He calls his therapist Jerome Oziel (Dallas Roberts) and asks if he can come see him. Erik reveals that he’s been haunted by nightmares and has felt suicidal. They take a walk and eventually, Erik begins sobbing, and confesses that he and his brother shot their parents. Oziel ushers Erik back to his office, where Erik shares everything that led up to him and Lyle killing their parents. In flashbacks, we see how Jose had been a domineering and abusive father—screaming at Erik on the tennis court, throwing plates while in a drunken rage—while Kitty stepped in only to aid the abuse. After witnessing one particularly bad incident, in which Kitty got so angry with Lyle she ripped his hair replacements out of his scalp, Erik tells Oziel he felt motivated to protect his brother above anything else. The idea to actually kill his parents, he says, came from a movie.

As Erik becomes more worked up, an alarmed Oziel calls Lyle in, and Lyle threatens to kill Oziel. Oziel repeatedly reassures the duo that their conversations will remain confidential. 

What happened with Erik’s confession to the therapist?

In reality, the conversation became key evidence in the case of the Menendez brothers. Five months after Lyle and Erik spoke with Oziel in his office, the therapist’s mistress, Judalon Smyth, tipped off police to Erik’s confession.

In the show, Oziel runs out of the therapy session to a pay phone and begs Smyth (Leslie Grossman) to come in so he can have a witness when Lyle arrives. She’s seen in his waiting room, and then has her ear pressed up against Oziel’s office door as Erik confesses to the murder. In the second episode, Oziel explains to Smyth that he will put Erik’s confession in a safety deposit box and give her the key. Smyth says Oziel has to go to the police because the boys threatened his life, and starts having a panic attack because she’s afraid the boys will come after her too. 

Smyth, in real life, eventually went to the police in March 1990, after she and Oziel had broken up, and reported that she had overheard the brothers confessing to the murders to the therapist.

On Aug. 7, 1990, a California judge ruled that conversations between the therapist and the Menendez brothers, Erik, 19, Lyle, 22, could be used as evidence in their murder case because the brothers were believed to have threatened the therapist. The threat, the judge said, constituted an exception to the court rule that conversations between therapists and patients are privileged. Authorities seized tapes of counseling sessions as part of a warrant to search Oziel’s home. For the next two years, there was a legal battle over the tapes, but a 1992 California Supreme Court ruling deemed most of them admissible.

In 1993, Smyth created another element of drama in the case when she walked back her account, claiming she had been brainwashed and ended up testifying for the defense, determined to do whatever she could to discredit Oziel.

In 1996, the Menendez brothers were convicted of two counts of first-degree murder and conspiracy to commit murder and are serving life sentences in prison.

Where is Jerome Oziel now?

Jerome Oziel has not had a license to practice psychology since 1997.

The California Board of Psychology maintained that he improperly shared information about the Menendez brothers’ case with Smyth, and Oziel surrendered his license rather than challenge it in court.

The board also accused him of sexual misconduct with female patients, which Oziel denied. He went on to host seminars to help women have more fulfilling personal relationships.

Ryan Murphy’s Monsters is not the first dramatization of Oziel on the small screen. He was depicted in the 2017 show Law & Order True Crime and called the portrayal of him “entirely fiction,” in an interview with Bustle, dismissing the show as a “junk soap opera.”

source https://time.com/7022796/lyle-erik-menendez-story-jerome-oziel/

Kentucky Sheriff Charged for Allegedly Killing Judge in Chambers

WHITESBURG, Ky. — The sheriff charged with murder in the shooting of a rural Kentucky judge in his courthouse chambers was accused in a federal lawsuit of failing to investigate allegations that one of his deputies repeatedly sexually abused a woman in the same judge’s chambers.

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The preliminary investigation indicates that Letcher County Sheriff Shawn M. Stines shot District Judge Kevin Mullins multiple times on Thursday following an argument inside the courthouse, according to Kentucky State Police.

Mullins, who held the judgeship for 15 years, died at the scene, and Stines surrendered without incident.

Just what the two men were arguing about wasn’t immediately made clear.

Stines was deposed on Monday in a lawsuit filed by two women, one of whom alleged that a deputy forced her to have sex inside Mullins’ chambers for six months in exchange for staying out of jail. The lawsuit accuses the sheriff of “deliberate indifference in failing to adequately train and supervise” the deputy.

The now-former deputy sheriff, Ben Fields, pleaded guilty to raping the female prisoner while she was on home incarceration. Fields was sentenced this year to six months in jail and then six and a half years on probation for rape, sodomy, perjury and tampering with a prisoner monitoring device, The Mountain Eagle reported. Three charges related to a second woman were dismissed because she is now dead.

Stines fired Fields, who was his successor as Mullins’ bailiff, for “conduct unbecoming” after the lawsuit was filed in 2022, The Courier Journal reported at the time.

The killing of the judge sent shock waves through the tight-knit Appalachian town. Whitesburg is the county seat of government with about 1,700 residents located about 145 miles (235 kilometers) southeast of Lexington. Rather than hold the sheriff in the local jail, authorities booked Stines into the Leslie County Detention Center, two counties away, where he remained Friday morning.

Lead county prosecutor Matt Butler described an outpouring of sympathy as he recused himself and his office from the investigation, citing social and family ties to Mullins.

“We all know each other here. … Anyone from Letcher County would tell you that Judge Mullins and I married sisters and that we have children who are first cousins but act like siblings,” Butler said in a statement from his office. “For that reason, among others, I have already taken steps to recuse myself and my entire office.”

Kentucky Attorney General Russell Coleman said his office will collaborate with a commonwealth’s attorney in the region as special prosecutors in the criminal case. Mullins, 54, was hit multiple times in the shooting, state police said. Stines, 43, was charged with one count of first-degree murder.

“We will fully investigate and pursue justice,” Coleman said on social media.

Kentucky Supreme Court Chief Justice Laurance B. VanMeter said he was “shocked by this act of violence” and that the court system was “shaken by this news.”

Letcher County’s judge-executive closed the county courthouse on Friday.

It was unclear whether Stines had an attorney — state police referred inquires to a spokesperson who did not immediately respond by email.

“There is far too much violence in this world, and I pray there is a path to a better tomorrow,” Gov. Andy Beshear posted in response to the shooting.

Mullins served as a district judge in Letcher County since he was appointed by former Gov. Steve Beshear in 2009 and elected the following year.

source https://time.com/7023038/kentucky-sheriff-shooting-judge/