Page 6 - ARUBA TODAY

A6 U.S. NEWS
Thursday 3 augusT 2017
Vegas police shootout wounds officer; suspect dead Ex-CEO of male

escort site gets

officers, but then tried to 6 months in jail
start the truck at least twice
before pulling a handgun By TOM HAYS
and opening fire. McMa- LARRY NEUMEISTER
hill didn’t say how many Associated Press
shots were fired. A police NEW YORK (AP) — The
sergeant arrived and drove former CEO of a once-
the wounded officer to a popular male escort ser-
hospital. Police said the vice website who pleaded
bullet went through his ab- guilty last year to promot-
domen and out his lower ing prostitution was sen-
back. The officers were tenced to six months in pris-
put on paid leave pend- on Wednesday by a judge
ing reviews of the shooting who said she wanted to
by police and prosecu- send a deterrent message
tors. The recent increase in even though she knows the
officer-involved shootings business helped people.
comes five years after the Jeffrey Hurant, who ran
department underwent a the Rentboy.com site, was
first-in-the-nation review by sentenced by U.S. District
the U.S. Department of Jus- Judge Margo K. Brodie in
tice’s Community Oriented Brooklyn. “The very thing
Policing Services. The vol- that is illegal — there is
SWAT vehicles and officers stand on scene in Las Vegas after a police officer was shot Tuesday, untary review followed 25 no question it did a lot of
Aug. 1, 2017. Police in Las Vegas say an officer is in stable condition at a hospital after being shot police shootings in 2010. good,” Brodie said of the
while responding to a report of a suspicious vehicle. Federal investigators rec- website as she also an-
(Steve Marcus/Las Vegas Sun via AP) ommended 80 reforms and nounced a $7,500 fine. “Al-
By KEN RITTER that were deadly. The offi- was fired by the suspect,” later credited the police most two decades of com-
Associated Press cer wounded in Tuesday’s she said. The gunman was department with adopt- mitting a crime. That can’t
LAS VEGAS (AP) — Officers gunbattle was hospitalized shot at least once by police ing almost all of them. An go unpunished.” She not-
were checking on a stolen in stable condition with a and also had a self-inflicted officer was last wounded ed the many positive let-
cellphone that its owner wound to the abdomen gunshot wound, McMahill on duty in Las Vegas in De- ters sent to her on Hurant’s
traced to a car in Las Ve- after a bullet missed his bal- said. The coroner did not cember 2015, when a vet- behalf. “I am convinced
gas when the suspect tried listic vest, police Capt. Kelly immediately identify the eran patrol officer was hit in you started the site for a
to flee and then opened McMahill said. He was im- suspect, pending notifica- the torso and arm while re- good purpose,” she said.
fire, leading to a shootout proving Wednesday and is tion of family members. The sponding to a disturbance Hurant defended the busi-
that wounded an officer expected to be released officers, who also have not call at an apartment com- ness he said he ran openly
and left the gunman dead, within the next few days, been identified, were fol- plex. Officers Alyn Beck and for 20 years, saying many
authorities said. It marked Officer Laura Meltzer said. lowing up on a report from Igor Soldo were the last of- sex workers had told him
the 15th shooting involv- After the gunfire ended, a a man whose cellphones ficers killed on duty. They that the website enabled
ing Las Vegas officers so second officer realized that had been taken from a ve- were shot to death while them to work safely and
far this year, including sev- he had been hit but not in- hicle Sunday and he had eating at a pizza shop in independently after years
en since June 20. That is a jured, McMahill said during traced to a pickup truck June 2014 by a man and a of laboring in deplorable
sharp increase from the 10 a recorded briefing Tues- parked outside a business in woman who later died dur- conditions. “I disagree with
shootings by police in all day night. “His gun belt ac- an industrial area. The sus- ing a shootout with officers the law I violated. I am
of 2016, including seven tually stopped a bullet that pect initially spoke with the at a Wal-Mart.q obliged to follow it,” he
said. “My company miti-
1 dead, 1 missing after Minneapolis school explosion gated many of the dan-
gers of sex work.” Prosecu-
tors sought at least a short
By AMY FORLITI Both individuals worked at Chief Bryan Tyner. Four peo- ing shortly after the explo- prison term to deter opera-
JEFF BAENEN the school, according to ple remained hospitalized sion and fire, Tyner said, tors of other escort services
Associated Press the Minneapolis Fire De- late Wednesday, including Paul Meskan, who lives from similar misconduct,
MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — One partment. No other de- one in critical condition, at across the street from the while his lawyers argued
school staff member has tails were immediately re- Hennepin County Medical school, said he was pulling he deserves probation. In
been found dead and an- leased. Center in Minneapolis, ac- weeds when the blast hap- letters to the court, law-
other is still missing follow- The school released a cording to the hospital. Vic- pened, and he ran over to makers, civil rights orga-
ing a natural gas explosion statement earlier in the tims suffered injuries rang- the school. Meskan said nizations and other sup-
Wednesday at a private day saying all of its summer ing from head injuries and he and other people who porters cautioned that
school in Minneapolis, au- program students and staff broken bones to cuts from rushed to help found a man a tough sentence could
thorities said. were “accounted for and debris, according to Dr. Jim pinned under the rubble. send the wrong message
The body was found in the safe.” The school didn’t Miner, the hospital’s chief “We just started digging,” to the gay community. The
rubble of a building that immediately return a mes- of emergency medicine. Meskan said, noting that case is troubling “because
partially collapsed during sage seeking comment fol- Aerial video footage of the after police and firefighters it harkens back to a dark
the explosion at the Min- lowing Fruetel’s news con- school’s campus showed arrived, “we kept digging, chapter in our nation’s his-
nehaha Academy, Min- ference. part of a building crum- and gas, gas was going. tory when the government
neapolis Fire Chief John Contractors were doing bled, windows in other ar- Fire was going. used its vast resources to
Fruetel said during a news work on the building at the eas blown out and shat- “And it’s like, ‘we’re not target and threaten LGBT
conference. The Christian time of the blast, which in- tered, and bricks and other going back until we get this adults by exposing their pri-
school serves students from vestigators determined was debris scattered about. guy out of here.’ And we vate consensual sexual ac-
pre-kindergarten through caused by a gas explosion, Three people were rescued got him out, and they got tivity,” wrote state Sen. Brad
12th grade. according to Assistant Fire from the roof of the build- him on a stretcher.”q Hoylman, a Democrat.q