Obama wraps up week of fundraising
SAN FRANCISCO — President Barack Obama on Saturday wrapped up a week that saw him raise campaign money for Democrats on both coasts.
Obama on Saturday attended a discussion at the home of Democratic donor and Zynga founder Mark Pincus and his wife, Ali, with about 25 supporters who paid up to $32,400, Democratic officials said.
It was Obama’s fourth California fundraiser in three days.
This week will bring more of the same for the president, including his first appearance at a campaign rally this election season. Obama plans to attend a campaign event Wednesday in Bridgeport, Conn., for Gov. Dannel Malloy and state Democrats.
Obama has chastised core Democratic constituencies for turning away from politics in nonpresidential election years but also has urged them to turn out next month.
“There’s a congenital problem that we have as Democrats, and that is, in nonpresidential elections, in midterm elections, we don’t vote. We don’t vote,” he told about 300 supporters Friday night at a Democratic National Committee event at a San Francisco hotel.
“But the main thing that I need right now is votes. We’ve got to mobilize. We’ve got to organize. We’ve got to knock on doors. We’ve got to make phone calls,” he said. “If young people vote, if women vote, if people of color vote, if people who care about the environment vote, if people who care about LGBT rights vote, that’s a majority.”
Obama returned to the White House on Saturday after spending the past three days in California, mostly for fundraising. He also raised money last week in New York City and Greenwich, Conn.
30 teens detained for fight at state fair
PHOENIX — Authorities said dozens of teenagers got into a fight at the opening night of the Arizona State Fair in Phoenix.
The Arizona Department of Public Safety and Phoenix police were at the scene near 19th Avenue and McDowell Road on Friday night. Officers said they detained about 30 youths at the fairgrounds and released them to the custody of their parents.
They said as many as 60 youths may have been involved and that some fought with police.
Two adults were also arrested, including a woman accused of kicking and hitting a police officer.
Authorities could not say what started the fight.
Man killed after hit by bus in corn maze
HAUSER, Idaho — A bus carrying paintball players struck and killed a Washington state man inside a zombie attraction at a corn maze in northern Idaho, authorities said Saturday.
Jeremy McSpadden Jr., 18, of Spokane Valley, Wash., was a role player in the Zombie Slayer Paintball Bus attraction at the Incredible Corn Maze in Hauser on Friday night, the Kootenai County sheriff’s office said. Dressed as a zombie, he emerged from his hiding place and ran toward the modified school bus, but he tripped and fell in front of the rear passenger-side tires, witnesses reported.
He was run over and apparently killed instantly. Because of the uneven terrain of the corn maze, the bus frequently rocks, and the occupants did not immediately notice what had happened, investigators said.
“It was not until the bus had traveled away from the victim’s location and the role players began to reset for the next bus to come along that anyone realized something was wrong,” the sheriff’s office said in a news release.
The attraction is new this season, according to the corn maze’s website. For $15, customers ride the bus, which has paintball guns mounted outside the windows, and shoot at the zombies as the vehicle moves through the corn maze.
Neither speed nor alcohol was a factor in the accident, Sgt. Ward Crawford said.
Navajo officer shot; suspect in custody
FLAGSTAFF, Ariz. — The Navajo Nation said Saturday that a tribal police officer was shot in northern Arizona and that a suspect is in custody.
Navajo Nation spokesman Deswood Tome said the male officer was shot in the face Saturday in Kaibeto and was in stable condition at a Flagstaff hospital.
Tome said the officer was wounded by a 12-gauge shotgun and exchanged gunfire with the shooter.
Tome said he did not know where the suspect, who suffered a gunshot wound, was being held.
The armed suspect barricaded himself after the shooting in a home with children inside. Tome said authorities were later able to apprehend him.
Tome said authorities are not yet releasing the names of the officer or the suspect. He said police were initially called to respond to some sort of disturbance.
The FBI is taking over the investigation.
Kaibeto is about 150 miles north of Flagstaff.
— Compiled by Democrat-Gazette staff from wire reports