Mariel Padilla

While one robber restrained the victims with duct tape and threats of violence, prosecutors said, another would ransack the home in search of valuables.

On Monday, a U.S. District Court judge in Detroit sentenced the leader of the Castro Enterprise, a group of robbery crews that terrorized Asian and Indian homeowners in several states across the country for three years, to 37 years in prison.

The leader, Chaka LeChar Castro, 44, of Houston, believed that Asians and Indians did not trust financial institutions and were therefore more apt to keep money and gold at home, according to evidence presented at trial.

She recruited new members, researched potential victims, deployed her robbery crews to specific home addresses and earned a percentage from each of the lootings, according to court documents.

Under Castro’s direction, the Castro Enterprise, which the authorities said consisted of more than 10 people, robbed at least 22 families in Georgia, Michigan, New York, Ohio and Texas from 2011-14, according to court documents. Castro was arrested in Texas in December 2014.

Castro, who was indicted by a federal grand jury on April 1, 2015, was convicted in June after a five-week trial of one count of racketeer influenced and corrupt organizations conspiracy, four counts of assault with a dangerous weapon in aid of racketeering and four counts of use of a firearm during a crime of violence, according to the U.S. Department of Justice.

The time between Castro’s arrest and her trial was extended because of a battle over suppressed evidence, said Peter Carr, a department spokesman.

A lawyer for Castro did not respond to multiple requests for comment this week.

According to prosecutors, Castro orchestrated the enterprise’s trips so that multiple home invasions could happen in a series of days. The stolen goods were then transported to Texas, according to the indictment.

The crews usually consisted of three to four enterprise members, according to the indictment.

Each member had a designated role. One member, whose trial is scheduled for February 2020, was in charge of the crew on the road. After receiving a list of potential target home addresses from Castro, he would decide which ones to rob, delegate tasks to the other members and coordinate the movement of the stolen property. Another member, who pleaded guilty in 2017 and is to be sentenced in March 2020, was responsible for renting a vehicle and sometimes a hotel room. He was the only one in the enterprise to have a valid driver’s license, according to court documents.

There were a couple of women in the enterprise who would knock on the doors and then act as lookouts while two or three others raided the home.

Bharti Patel, a victim of the enterprise, said her house in Beachwood, Ohio, was “totally ransacked” in May 2011, with drawers emptied out on the floor and family heirlooms gone, according to a statement that she submitted to the court. Valuables worth several hundred thousands of dollars were stolen from her, according to court records.

“I did not feel safe in my own home, felt that I was preyed upon and had the need to always look over my shoulder, which still continues,” Patel said. “Mentally, I know that one needs to forget and move on, but that feeling of being violated of your privacy and safety never ceases.”

In October 2014, Castro sent a crew to commit a series of robberies in New York and New Jersey, the authorities said. In the span of nine days, at least four Indian-American families in New Jersey were robbed, according to the charging documents, though those robberies weren’t included in the indictment.

The robberies sent a wave of fear through the Indian-American community in Middlesex County. The spike in home invasions coincided with the weeklong Hindu festival of Diwali, a time when families often have gold jewelry on hand as part of the celebration.

This article originally appeared in

Woman Who Ran Robbery Ring Targeting Asians and Indians Gets 37 Years in Prison

There was a method to the robberies: One crew member, usually a woman, would knock on the door. Then others, donning bandannas and brandishing firearms, would storm the home when someone answered and corral its occupants.

The deputy, Lauren Michael, a seven-year veteran of the Jackson County Sheriff’s Office, was charged Wednesday with felony assault and armed criminal action after she shot the woman, who was unarmed, several times in the back in an arrest attempt, according to prosecutors.

Michael claimed that the woman had Tasered her, but evidence proved otherwise, investigators found.

“Laws that protect law enforcement’s actions are a high hurdle for prosecutors to overcome,” Jean Peters Baker, the Jackson County prosecutor, said in a statement. “We believe, however, this case will meet that high bar.”

Michael was placed on unpaid leave pending the outcome of the criminal case, which is standard practice, the sheriff’s office said in a statement.

“Deputy Michael is presumed innocent unless proven guilty by a Court,” Sheriff Darryl Forté said on Twitter on Tuesday. She is a “respected member” of the sheriff’s office, he added.

In 2017, while off duty and working for a private security firm, Michael killed an unarmed man, Donald Sneed, 31, after he was accused of shoplifting at a Walmart in Raytown, Missouri. Sneed was wanted on felony warrants.

Michael Tasered him twice and shot him eight times while he was being held on the ground by two store employees, Jermaine Wooten, the lawyer for Sneed’s family, said Sunday. She was never charged, he added.

In that case, Michael said Sneed had tried to Taser her with her own weapon.

On Aug. 8, Brittany Simek, 25, a U.S. Coast Guard veteran working as a personal trainer, was riding on the back of an electric scooter on the wrong side of the road in Kansas City when a patrol car made a sharp turn in front of the scooter. The scooter slammed into the vehicle, knocking Simek and the other rider to the ground, her lawyer David Smith said Sunday.

A deputy immediately detained the other rider, a friend of Simek’s, and Simek decided to leave the scene, Smith said. She was not aware that police were looking for her, he added.

Deputies were advised not to chase Simek because the only charge they could bring was “failure to obey a lawful order by running,” according to prosecutors.

Michael, who canvased the area for Simek, found her nearly 20 minutes later sitting on concrete steps of a residence, prosecutors said.

The deputy jumped out of her vehicle with Taser in hand and told Simek to get on the ground, said Mike Yonke, another lawyer representing Simek. When Simek questioned her, Michael grabbed her braids, forced her to the ground and Tasered her stomach twice, he said.

Simek pushed the Taser away and tried to run, Yonke said. She was about 15 feet away, he said, when Michael fired five shots — three bullets hit Simek’s back, one hit the cellphone in her back pocket, and one missed.

After shooting Simek, Michael told a sergeant, “I am not as comfortable with this one as the last one,” according to prosecutors.

Michael later told investigators that Simek had grabbed the Taser and shocked her left leg, but Simek said that she had not taken the Taser and that she had no intention of hurting the officer, according to prosecutors.

Investigators found that both of the Taser’s cartridges had been deployed within 3 seconds, which did not support Michael’s account of the altercation, prosecutors said.

Doctors removed a bullet that was lodged in Simek’s lower back, and she will be recovering from a broken back for months, Yonke said. She won’t recover as quickly from the emotional trauma, he added.

Both Smith and Yonke, who have litigated police brutality and excessive force cases for more than 20 years, said this was the first time they had seen charges brought against an officer.

“There’s a woman without a record who served our country who was shot in the back by a police officer after breaking no laws,” Yonke said. “Brittany wants the deputy stopped, and she wants the sheriff’s department to do the right thing in the future. She doesn’t want this to happen to anyone else.”

Because of the similarities between the two episodes, prosecutors decided to reexamine the fatal 2017 shooting of Sneed.

Michael received awards from the sheriff’s department and the Metropolitan Chiefs and Sheriffs Association in 2018 for her handling of that altercation.

Gayle Carr-Sneed, Sneed’s mother, said she was grateful that the prosecutors were again looking into the death of her son.

“I have been saying for the last couple of years, How could she get by with this and how did she even live with herself?” Carr-Sneed said Sunday. “He was unarmed and when she shot him, the video showed he was just trying to crawl away.”

Carr-Sneed said police made her son out to be a thug, but he had never been charged.

“He made bad choices, but he had a heart of gold,” she said. “I hope justice is served.”

Prosecutors Reexamine Killing After Missouri Deputy Is Charged in Another Shooting

When a Missouri deputy said she fatally shot a man in 2017 because he was reaching for her Taser, the sheriff’s department awarded her a medal of valor. But after the deputy used the same defense for shooting a woman in the back in August, the county prosecutor pressed charges last week and promised to look into the 2017 shooting again.

The man, Brandon Michael Fleury, was found guilty of three counts of cyberstalking and one count of transmitting a kidnapping threat, according to Ariana Fajardo Orshan, the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of Florida. Fleury, 22, will face a maximum possible sentence of 20 years in prison when he is sentenced on Dec. 2, prosecutors said.

Over the course of three weeks, from late December 2018 into early January 2019, Fleury used 13 different Instagram accounts to target survivors and victims’ loved ones, prosecutors said. He operated under various aliases, including Nikolas Cruz, the man who has confessed to killing 17 people at Stoneman Douglas, and Ted Bundy, the notorious serial killer, according to prosecutors.

From his home in Santa Ana, California, Fleury sent dozens of messages using Instagram handles that included “the.douglas.shooter,” “nikolas.killed.your.sister" and “nikolas.the.murderer,” and images of Cruz as the accounts’ profile pictures, according to court documents.

“I’m your abductor I’m kidnapping you fool,” Fleury said in one message sent to multiple people, prosecutors said.

Other messages taunted the recipients about the deaths of loved ones and mentioned the assault weapon used in the attack.

“I killed your loved ones hahaha,” “Did you like my Valentines gift? I killed your friends” and “With the power of my AR-15, I take your loved ones away from you PERMANENTLY,” some of the messages read, according to prosecutors.

Several siblings, friends and parents of victims filed a harassment report with the Broward County Sheriff’s Office in December 2018.

Law enforcement officers traced many of the Instagram accounts to Fleury’s home address, according to a criminal complaint.

In searching Fleury’s home, where he lives with his father and brother, investigators found thousands of images of Bundy, targeted victims and saved screenshots of his messages on Fleury’s tablet, court records show.

Fleury admitted to targeting family members who were “activists” and had a large social media presence, according to the complaint. He told law enforcement officers that he was trying to gain popularity, and that he had found a “fascination” with mass shooters and serial killers.

Daryl Wilcox, Fleury’s lawyer, argued during the six-day jury trial that Fleury’s autism affected his capacity to understand the emotional effect of his statements, The South Florida Sun Sentinel reported.

During the trial, his father took the stand and described his son as an isolated and deeply autistic young man who played with stuffed animals all day, according to The Sun Sentinel.

California Man Is Convicted of Cyberstalking Parkland Victims' Families

A California man was convicted on Tuesday of cyberstalking and threatening to kidnap relatives of those killed in the 2018 mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, federal prosecutors said.

More than 100 years later, President Donald Trump said he wanted to buy Greenland, the largest island in the world, from Denmark. Denmark has rejected that idea, but Trump is not the first president to attempt the purchase; Harry Truman tried in 1946, but Denmark wasn’t interested then, either.

In its 243-year history, the United States has purchased foreign land a number of times. Parts of present-day Arizona and New Mexico were bought from Mexico; Florida from Spain; and Alaska from Russia.

But that was centuries ago, during an era of exploration when powerful countries fought wars and negotiated treaties to claim land in the New World.

“That’s just not how it works anymore,” said Daniel Immerwahr, an associate professor of history at Northwestern University and the author of “How to Hide an Empire.”

At the turn of the 20th century, he said, there was a notion that the “frontier had come to an end” and there was little unclaimed land left.

“That was another way of saying territorial expansion would have to come at the cost of other powerful empires and not at the expense of indigenous peoples,” Immerwahr said.

Even as this land became more sparse, the desire to build an empire by accruing more territory contributed to both World War I and World War II.

“After World War II, the global map became far more static,” Immerwahr said. Countries found it “easier to project their influence over the world without having to annex huge swaths of territory,” he said.

Here are some of the most significant land purchases by the United States:

1803: Louisiana Purchase

The United States bought 828,000 square miles of land from France for $15 million, or the equivalent of $340 million today.

The territory extended across 15 modern states between the Mississippi River and the Rocky Mountains, including Arkansas, Colorado, Iowa, Kansas, Louisiana, Minnesota, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, New Mexico, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Texas and Wyoming.

President Thomas Jefferson sent James Monroe to France to buy just New Orleans, but Napoleon Bonaparte offered the entire Louisiana territory.

1819: Florida

When the Adams-Onís Treaty was signed in 1819, Spain ceded West Florida and East Florida, which were two colonies that stretched across portions of what is now Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi and the Florida Panhandle.

Both West and East Florida were British colonies during the American Revolutionary War. The Treaty of Paris of 1783 officially ended the war and returned both colonies to Spain.

In 1810, American settlers in West Florida declared independence from Spain. President James Madison and Congress used the rebellion as an opportunity to claim the region, asserting that the land was already part of the Louisiana Purchase.

John Quincy Adams, the secretary of state, began negotiations with Don Luis de Onís, the Spanish envoy to the United States, in 1815.

Under the Adams-Onís Treaty, the United States agreed to pay $5 million, the equivalent of $101 million today, for damage done by those who had rebelled. In addition, the western limits of the Louisiana Purchase were defined, and Spain surrendered its claims to the Pacific Northwest and was granted sovereignty over Texas.

1848: Mexican Cession

The Mexican-American War ended when President James Polk signed the Treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo in Mexico City in 1848. Mexico ceded 525,000 square miles of land for a lump sum of $15 million — the equivalent of $487 million today.

The ceded land included present-day California, Nevada and Utah, and portions of Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico and Wyoming.

The treaty granted United States citizenship automatically to Mexicans who remained in the region, and Mexican-Americans were also allowed to keep their property, according to the treaty.

1854: Gadsden Purchase

The United States paid Mexico $10 million (the equivalent of $305 million today) for nearly 30,000 thousand square miles that encompassed parts of present-day Arizona and New Mexico, according to the United States Office of the Historian.

Though the Mexican-American War had officially ended in 1848, tensions between the Mexican and U.S. governments persisted.

Both countries claimed the Mesilla Valley, which stretches from southern New Mexico to western Texas.

President Franklin Pierce sent James Gadsden, the U.S. minister to Mexico, to negotiate with Antonio de Santa Anna, the Mexican president. The new treaty established the southern border of the United States.

1867: Alaska

The United States bought nearly 600,000 square miles of land from Russia for $7.2 million, or the equivalent of $125 million today.

The purchase marked the end of Russian efforts to expand in North America. Russian czar Peter the Great began exploring the region in 1725; however, the population of permanent Russian settlers in Alaska never exceeded 400, according to the U.S. Office of the Historian.

Though interested in the region’s natural resources, Russia lacked the finances to support major settlements. After facing defeat in the Crimean War, Russia offered to sell Alaska in 1859.

The deal was delayed by the American Civil War, but President Andrew Johnson eventually signed the treaty in 1867. Alaska didn’t become a state until 1959.

1898: Philippine Islands

The Treaty of Paris of 1898 ended the Spanish-American War. Spain ceded the Philippines, its colony for more than three centuries, to the United States.

By the treaty, Cuba gained its independence and Spain also ceded Guam and Puerto Rico to the United States.

The United States paid $20 million (the equivalent of $618 million today) for the Philippines.

The next year, however, Filipino nationalists rebelled against U.S. forces, sparking the Philippine-American War. Led by Emilio Aguinaldo, the nationalists sought independence from all colonial rulers.

The war lasted three years, and the United States granted the archipelago independence in 1946.

1917: Virgin Islands

The islands, which span more than 130 square miles, were bought from Denmark for $25 million, or the equivalent of $501 million today.

The islands include Saint Croix, Saint John, Saint Thomas and many other minor islands.

The United States had been trying since 1867 to expand its influence into the Caribbean by acquiring the Danish West Indies, as they were then known. President Woodrow Wilson signed a treaty in 1917 and the Virgin Islands were formally transferred.

Greenland Aside, Buying Foreign Land Used to Be Common

The last time the United States bought a foreign territory — through a monetary transaction and not just a signed treaty — was in 1917, when the Virgin Islands were acquired from Denmark.

Keller made the remarks in a Facebook post, which is no longer visible to the public, after the mass killings in El Paso, Texas, on Saturday and Dayton, Ohio, on Sunday.

She wrote that “liberals start the blame game” after every mass shooting, but “why not place the blame where it belongs?”

In the post, Keller, 60, who represents Butler County, a suburban and rural area about 30 miles southwest of Dayton, listed several factors that she said had led to mass shootings.

Among those, she included “professional athletes who hate our flag and National Anthem,” “snowflakes who can’t accept a duly-elected President” and a culture “which totally ignores the importance of God.”

Keller’s inflammatory remarks drew widespread anger online. The post spurred both Democrats and Republicans to denounce her statements.

“Candice Keller’s Facebook post was shocking and utterly unjustifiable,” the chairwoman, Jane Timken, said in a statement. “Our nation is reeling from these senseless acts of violence and public servants should be working to bring our communities together, not promoting divisiveness. I am calling on Candice Keller to resign.”

Calls and emails to Keller on Monday evening seeking comment were not immediately returned.

Michael Ryan, the Republican vice mayor of the city of Hamilton, which is in Butler County, said on Twitter that Keller’s post was “a ridiculous statement to make.”

“This isn’t a time for politics,” he said. “This is a time for grieving, coming together and healing.”

Chris Seelbach, a Democratic councilman in Cincinnati who is gay and married, urged people on Twitter to call Keller to “let her know what you think.”

The Enquirer, in Cincinnati, described Keller, a candidate for state Senate in 2020, as the “most conservative politician in the room.” The newspaper said that she had derided teenage gun control activists after the school shooting in Parkland, Florida, in 2018, compared Planned Parenthood workers to Nazis and pushed to ban sanctuary cities.

This article originally appeared in <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/05/us/candice-keller-ohio.html" id="3facf323-53d4-3839-a7a5-f74a01b0a4a1">The New York Times</a>.

Candice Keller's Comments on Mass Shootings Prompt Call for Resignation

The chairwoman of the Ohio Republican Party called Monday for the resignation of state Rep. Candice Keller, a fellow Republican who one day earlier said mass shootings were the result of such factors as “homosexual marriage,” “drag queen advocates” and “recreational marijuana.”

It’s an emu, a flightless bird native to Australia and the world’s second-largest bird, and it’s been spotted at least five or six times since June 26, officials said.

The elusive, feathered creature has apparently been traveling within a 12-square-mile area, crossing between Orange County and Chatham County — and staying one step ahead of animal control officials, who have approached it at least twice.

“It’s become quite a sensation,” said Tenille Fox, a spokeswoman for Orange County Animal Services. “With all of the media coverage, we were hoping that we would be able to find an owner.”

There have been no reports of property damage or human injury caused by the animal, officials said. Animal control officials haven’t gotten close enough to determine whether the bird is male or female — emus can run faster than 30 mph, according to the Smithsonian National Zoo. Officials speculated that the emu was most likely from a nearby farm.

Local news outlets have been providing regular updates on the evasive bird, which certainly wouldn’t be the first animal escape in recent years to attract attention. There have been many, including goats in Idaho, llamas in Arizona and a peacock in New York.

The emu was first spotted June 26, and the latest sighting was reported Thursday morning in someone’s yard.

While the emu did not have an official nickname as of Friday afternoon, Fox said the name “Fluffy” came up several times.

It’s legal to have emus as pets or livestock in Orange County, and Fox said at least a few farms have them. There are more than 11,000 emus on U.S. farms, according to the Department of Agriculture’s 2017 census, but it’s not common for them to run away, Fox said.

“I’ve been here over two years and this has not happened,” Fox said. “I’ve heard it’s been about a decade.”

Fox said officials called a nearby farmer who owns an emu. He told them his emu was accounted for, though he said he’d be happy to help contain the missing emu if it showed up on his property to fraternize with his bird.

Fox warned citizens not to chase or handle the emu. A frightened bird could be dangerous, she said. She advised people to call law enforcement or animal services if they spotted it. “It can kick pretty hard if it gets defensive,” she said.

Animal control is more likely to receive reports about goats, pigs or cows roaming where they shouldn’t be than emus, Fox said. Just last month, a lost pig was corralled in a fenced-in dog park.

Fox said she hoped the emu would be contained in a similar way. Once officials track it down, the goal is to box it in, then load it into a trailer without frightening it.

This article originally appeared in <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/19/us/emu-escape-north-carolina.html" id="c3a132c1-360e-34a6-a597-6afeb34b1c65">The New York Times</a>.

Elusive Emu Remains at Large in North Carolina After More Than Three Weeks

It’s 5 feet tall, weighs 100 pounds and has been running loose in central North Carolina for more than three weeks.

The man, who was armed with a rifle, was throwing unspecified “incendiary devices” at the Northwest Detention Center, according to a police statement. The man continued throwing lit objects at buildings and cars, the statement said.

“One car was fully engulfed in flames,” said Officer Loretta Cool, a spokeswoman for the Tacoma Police Department. “He was also trying to ignite a big propane tank but he was not successful.”

Officers arrived around 4 a.m. and called out to the man, who was wearing a satchel and had flares. Shots were fired that resulted in the man’s death, the statement said. Cool could not say whether the man had opened fire.

The man, who was not publicly identified, was declared dead at the scene. No officers were injured.

A motive for the attack was not known but it happened as the issue of immigration has reached a flash point in the United States.

The episode happened the morning after Vice President Mike Pence visited migrant detention centers in Texas, and thousands attended “Lights for Liberty” demonstrations. More than 700 were planned in hundreds of cities around the country, including at the Tacoma center. The episode happened one day before ICE was said to be planning to arrest thousands of members of families with deportation orders.

GEO Group has run the Tacoma center under a contract with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement since 2005. It is the fourth-largest immigration detention center in the country, with a capacity to hold 1,575 people, according to the city government.

Tanya Roman, a spokeswoman for Immigration and Customs Enforcement, said no ICE employees were harmed or involved. It was not immediately known how many detainees were in the center.

The four officers involved in the episode were placed on paid administrative leave in keeping with department policy, police said.

Cool said police were working with the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security. The Seattle Division of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives said on Twitter it was also helping in the investigation.

Man attacking ice detention center is fatally shot by the police

Police fatally shot a man who was attacking an immigration detention center in Tacoma, Washington, on Saturday morning, authorities said.

Ed Lamb, the chief executive of Mount Carmel Health System, said in a statement that his resignation would take effect July 25. He added that the hospital’s executive vice president, Richard Streck, would be retiring at the end of September. The employees’ terminations were effective immediately.

“Mount Carmel will continue to work on strengthening our culture of safety,” Lamb said in the statement. “It will take time for Mount Carmel to restore our patients’ and community’s trust.”

Eleven additional employees not included in the terminations will have the opportunity to return after additional training, Lamb said. Trinity Health, the hospital’s parent organization, will soon appoint an interim chief, he added. Mount Carmel describes itself as the second-largest health care system in central Ohio.

On June 5, Dr. William Husel, who served patients at hospitals in and around Columbus, was charged with killing 25 people over a four-year period by prescribing fatal doses of fentanyl. Ron O’Brien, the Franklin County prosecutor, said at a news conference in June that he had never seen a murder charge of that size in his 45-year career in the area.

Fentanyl, one of the most powerful opioids, is 50 to 100 times as strong as morphine, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Husel, who started working at Mount Carmel in 2013, first jeopardized the safety of critically ill patients in 2015, according to the State Medical Board of Ohio. During the next four years, potentially fatal doses of the medication were given to 29 of Husel’s patients, including five who still had a chance of seeing their conditions improve, the hospital found after conducting an investigation.

The hospital said that six additional patients were given excessive doses of fentanyl but that it was not likely the cause of their deaths.

Thirty-five people died while under Husel’s care. He was charged with 25 counts of murder because prosecutors included only patients who died with fentanyl dosage levels of 500 micrograms and above, O’Brien said at the news conference in June.

“Expert witnesses said dosages at that level could not support any legitimate medical purpose,” O’Brien said at the time, adding that any dosage above 500 micrograms would be fatal.

Husel pleaded not guilty at his initial court appearance in June. He faces a possible prison sentence of 15 years to life for each murder charge.

More than 25 families of patients have filed lawsuits against Mount Carmel, according to Gerald Leeseberg, a Columbus lawyer who represents 17 of the families. Two of these families have settled with the hospital, he said Thursday.

The hospital had reached nearly $4.5 million in settlements as of Thursday.

One of Leeseberg’s clients is the family of Melissa Penix, the last person to die under Husel’s care before his firing in December. Penix, 75, had pneumonia and could have survived, Leeseberg said.

“Dr. Husel gave her 2,000 micrograms of fentanyl,” Leeseberg said. “You could kill an elephant with 2,000 micrograms.”

Penix is one of three patients who died after Mount Carmel received a formal report regarding Husel’s care, according to a hospital statement.

Richard Blake, Husel’s lawyer, said last month that his client had tried to comfort dying people, not kill them. The authorities have not described a motive in the case.

“There’s no rational explanation for what he did,” Leeseberg said.

The hospital wanted the families’ civil lawsuits to be paused during Husel’s criminal case, Leeseberg said, but last week a court denied that request. Now, the families can request medical documents and question witnesses under oath, he said.

“We’re going to be questioning 37 nurses, pharmacists and hospital supervisors about how this happened,” Leeseberg said.

“There’s no way that this happened in a vacuum with one person being responsible,” he added. “Dr. Husel just orders the drug, but a pharmacist has to provide the drug and nurses have to administer it. This was a systemic, institutional failure and not just the result of one rogue physician.”

This article originally appeared in <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/12/us/hospital-fentanyl-murder.html" id="17dcf082-fec5-39fe-afc6-0dbce3e44d65">The New York Times</a>.

Hospital CEO resigns and 23 employees are fired after Ohio doctor is charged with killings

The chief executive of an Ohio health care system announced his resignation and the termination of 23 employees Thursday, one month after a doctor who worked for the hospital was charged in one of the largest murder cases in the state’s history.

<h1>The chief executive of an Ohio health care system announced his resignation and the termination of 23 employees Thursday, one month after a doctor who worked for the hospital was charged in one of the largest murder cases in the state’s history.</h1>

“Mount Carmel will continue to work on strengthening our culture of safety,” Lamb said in the statement.

On June 5, Dr. William Husel, who served patients at hospitals in and around Columbus, was charged with killing 25 people over a four-year period by prescribing fatal doses of fentanyl.

Fentanyl, an opioid, is 50 to 100 times as strong as morphine, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Husel, who started working at Mount Carmel in 2013, first jeopardized the safety of critically ill patients in 2015, according to the State Medical Board of Ohio. During the next four years, potentially fatal doses of the medication were given to 29 of Husel’s patients, including five who still had a chance of seeing their conditions improve, the hospital found after an investigation.

Thirty-five people died while under Husel’s care. He was charged with 25 counts of murder because prosecutors included only patients who died with fentanyl dosage levels of 500 micrograms and above, Ron O’Brien, the Franklin County prosecutor, said in June.

“Expert witnesses said dosages at that level could not support any legitimate medical purpose,” O’Brien said at the time.

Husel, who has pleaded not guilty, faces a possible prison sentence of 15 years to life for each murder charge.

Richard Blake, Husel’s lawyer, said last month that his client had tried to comfort dying people, not kill them.

This article originally appeared in <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/12/us/hospital-fentanyl-murder.html" link="null" target="_blank">The New York Times</a>.

Staff shakeup at health care system after Ohio doctor is charged in killings

On June 5, Dr. William Husel, who served patients at hospitals in and around Columbus, was charged with killing 25 people over a four-year period by prescribing fatal doses of fentanyl.

“You don’t think about looking at the roof,” Barron said. “It’s just now really showed up, and it’s gigantic.”

Barron immediately retreated, and later sprayed hornet killer on the nest with his son. He said that just angered the yellow jackets, the highly aggressive wasps that live in such colonies. Barron was stung 11 times.

Charles Ray, an entomologist with the Alabama Cooperative Extension System, drove to Barron’s home and confirmed the colony was a “super nest” — one that survives into a second year. He told Barron there were probably 15,000 to 18,000 wasps in the smokehouse.

That super nest was one of four in Alabama that Ray has confirmed this year. There are usually only one or two super nests spotted each year, in June and July, Ray said. In 2006, however, he recorded 90.

“I expect to approach that number this year,” Ray said.

Ray said he had been surprised when the first report of a yellow jacket super nest had surfaced in May. The Alabama Cooperative Extension System issued a news release to tell residents to expect a proliferation of them this year.

“We wanted to warn the public not to disturb them themselves, but get a professional,” Ray said. “We had three people who were seriously injured in 2006.”

Warmer winters contribute to these nests, Ray said. Most yellow jackets don’t survive the cold months because they freeze to death or have trouble finding food. They need a fair amount of sugar and carbohydrates, he said.

“The queens are the only ones who have an antifreeze compound in their blood,” Ray said. “So normally, a surviving queen will have to start a colony from scratch in the spring. With our climate becoming warmer, there might be multiple surviving queens producing more than 20,000 eggs each.”

Yellow jackets are responsible for almost all of the stinging deaths in the United States, Xing Ping Hu, another entomologist, said in an Alabama Extension blog post in June.

Unlike honey bees, yellow jackets can sting repeatedly, and generally attack in large numbers, the post said.

“They’re worrying me, because a child wouldn’t have a chance out there,” said Barron, whose smokehouse nest was still awaiting removal. “I have many grandkids. A child couldn’t run fast enough, and I’m worried about that.”

These wasps usually build nests made of saliva and paper in wall voids, crawl spaces, attics and sometimes in the ground, Hu wrote.

Since the Cooperative Extension System issued the news release, Ray said, he has received dozens of photos of suspected super nests, but he needs to visit each site before confirming them.

Barron still enters his smokehouse once or twice a week, creeping around the corner, to access tools and fertilizer, he said. Ray told him that if there’s another mild winter, the hive could double or even triple in size.

“Sometimes you just walk out there and they won’t do anything, but the next time you leave as fast as you can because they’re out there stinging,” Barron said. “They’re really dangerous and not predictable at all.”

This article originally appeared in <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/30/climate/yellow-jackets-wasp-nests.html" id="95a73240-72ae-371e-a714-9fcd8474fe67">The New York Times</a>.

When James Barron went into his smokehouse in southern Alabama to grab an ax, he was alarmed to see a giant wasp nest about 7 feet wide extending along the wall. It had been two months since he had last stepped foot inside.

Mariel Padilla

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