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U.S. NEWS Thursday 31 OcTOber 2019
2 killed when small

plane crashes into

Atlanta townhome

By JEFF AMY about 10:30 a.m., the Fed-
ATLANTA (AP) — A small eral Aviation Administration
plane crashed into a town- said in a statement. Con-
home Wednesday morn- ditions were foggy in the
ing in a leafy Atlanta-area area.
neighborhood near a ma- Jared Hauck said he was
jor interstate, killing two working from his home Fire officials look at the scene where an airplane crashed into
people and tearing off the about 1,000 feet (300 me- an apartment complex, Wednesday, Oct. 30, 2019, in Atlanta.
home's brick exterior, au- ters) from the crash site be- Associated Press
thorities said. cause he had adopted a
The crash scattered wreck- dog the day before. plane struggling to gain al- Examiner Pat Bailey says of-
age and shook up nearby "I heard a really loud crash titude before it crashed. ficials are not yet ready to
residents. Both the pilot and some rustling," he said. "All of a sudden, I heard a identify the victims.
and a passenger died, but "It didn't sound like anything really loud crack," Hutchin- An Associated Press pho-
there were no injuries on normal." son told the Atlanta Jour- tographer saw authorities
the ground because no Hauck said he found a nal-Constitution . "It was removing a body from the
one was home at the time, piece of wreckage outside obvious that the plane had site after 1 p.m.
DeKalb County Fire Capt. his front door. crashed because it was re- A large section of wall
Dion Bentley told reporters. The end of one of the air- ally loud and all of sudden and part of the roof was
"I'm feeling very lucky," said port's runways is about 1.2 went immediately silent." knocked out of a building
David Youngpeter, who miles (1.9 kilometers) from Bentley said the plane at the townhome complex.
lives near the townhome. "It where the crash occurred, crashed into a six-unit town- DeKalb County Fire Marshal
was too close for comfort." and Youngpeter said he home and crews had trou- Joe Cox declared the units
The Piper PA-28 plane regularly hears planes over- ble accessing the wreck- unsafe because of struc-
crashed shortly after taking head. age and reaching one tural damage and fuel va-
off from DeKalb-Peachtree West Hutchinson, another of the plane's occupants. por, according to county
Airport outside Atlanta resident, said he heard the DeKalb County Medical officials.q

Researchers: Chicago

must overhaul

homicide investigations

By DON BABWIN New York and 73% for Los
Associated Press Angeles. Chicago has a
CHICAGO (AP) — The Chi- higher homicide rate than
cago Police Department both of those cities.
must make significant Chicago police spokes-
changes in the way it inves- man Anthony Guglielmi
tigates homicides in a city said the clearance rate in
where more than half of kill- homicide investigations has In this Aug. 20, 2017, file photo, a police detective walks past
ings go unsolved, a police climbed from about 30% in the body of a man fatally shot in the parking lot of an event
research group said in a re- 2016 to more than 46% so center in Chicago.
port released Wednesday. far this year. He credited Associated Press
The Police Executive Re- changes the department
search Forum found prob- has already undertaken, lice Superintendent Eddie cides and violent crime in
lems in the department including the hiring of 300 Johnson and Mayor Lori Chicago received nation-
that included inadequate detectives. Lightfoot said the depart- al attention and the city
training; a lack of a de- Other problems listed in ment is setting up a new came under withering criti-
tective unit devoted solely the report include too few team to help manage and cism from President Don-
to homicide investiga- detectives assigned to sta- implement the changes ald Trump, a companion
tions; and a failure to ad- tions in areas where slay- recommended by the re- story has been detectives'
equately help witnesses or ings are committed and search group. inability to arrest suspects
even have a witness pro- no "tracking mechanism "With these findings in for both homicides and
tection unit that is critical to determine the exact hand, the City of Chicago non-fatal shootings. How-
in persuading people to number of homicide cases is acting today to ensure ever, homicide numbers in
come forward to help solve assigned to each detec- that police officers and de- Chicago have been trend-
crimes. tive." It noted that detec- tectives have the systems ing downward over the last
The report shows the clear- tives and their supervisors of support that are required couple of years, after hit-
ance rate for homicides in were confused about just not only for solving crimes ting a 19-year high of 770
2017, the most recent year how many homicide cases — but for preventing them in 2016. Police say 660 ho-
listed, was at 36% for the each detective had been from occurring in the first micides were committed
nation's third-largest city, assigned in the past year. place," said Lightfoot. in 2017 and 561 were com-
compared with 84% for In a news release, Po- In recent years, as homi- mitted in 2018.q