Missouri fire truck crash kills 3 people
KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Three people were killed when a fire truck collided with a sport utility vehicle, then plowed over a sidewalk and into a building in a Kansas City entertainment district.
Police said the collision happened Wednesday night in the Westport area as the fire truck was headed to an emergency call with its lights flashing and sirens blaring. The impact forced the truck and the SUV over a sidewalk, where a woman was hit. The vehicles came to a stop in a building that had been home to the Riot Room, a bar and music venue that recently closed.
Two of the victims were found soon after the crash in the sport utility vehicle. The pedestrian’s body was found buried in the rubble Thursday, police said.
No firefighters were injured. Police have not released the names of those killed.
“As first responders, we are entrusted to respond to incidents and help people, and we are heartbroken by last night’s tragic collision,” Kansas City Fire Chief Donna Lake said in a tweet.
5th Circuit upholds bump stock ban
NEW ORLEANS — A federal appeals court in New Orleans is the latest court to uphold a federal ban on bump stocks — devices attached to semiautomatic firearms so that a shooter can fire multiple rounds with a single trigger pull.
The ban was instituted in 2019 by the Trump administration after a sniper in Las Vegas used the device to help him massacre dozens of concertgoers in 2017 in the deadliest mass shooting in modern U.S. history. The ban was instituted by the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives in a rule declaring that bump stocks are classified as “machine guns,” banned by National Firearms Act.
The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, in a decision dated Tuesday, affirmed a Texas-based federal judge’s ruling in a lawsuit challenging the ban.
A similar challenge failed recently in the Cincinnati-based 6th Circuit when judges split 8-8 on the issue. Another challenge is on appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court, arising from an unsuccessful attempt to overturn the ban at the Denver-based 10th Circuit. The high court could decide next year whether to hear arguments on the ban.
Opponents of the rule argue that the trigger itself functions multiple times when a bump stock is used. Judge Stephen Higginson, writing for the three 5th Circuit judges, disagreed, quoting from a lower court ruling that said it was “a weapon’s rate of fire, not the precise mechanism by which that capability is achieved,” that is subject to regulation.
Body of missing tornado victim found
LEXINGTON, Ky. — Searchers found the body of a missing 13-year-old girl on Thursday who had been killed in a tornado that hit Bowling Green, Ky., early Saturday.
Nyssa Brown was the final person in Bowling Green who had not been accounted for after the deadly storm, police said. Her mother, father, three siblings and grandmother also died in the tornado.
The teen’s death pushed the death toll in five states to 90, including 76 in Kentucky. Brown was the 17th person who died as a result of tornadoes that hit Warren County.
Ronnie Ward, spokesman for the Bowling Green Police Department, said searchers found Nyssa’s body in a dense briar thicket in the edge of a field near where she lived on Moss Creek Avenue.
The street was in the area hit hardest by the tornado. Most of the people who died in the tornado lived on or near Moss Creek.
Ward estimated Brown’s body was about three blocks away.
Of those, 16 were killed by the tornado or died as a result of injuries, and one man died after suffering a heart attack while cleaning up debris at his daughter’s house, according to county Coroner Kevin Kirby.
Asphyxia cause of 10 concert deaths
HOUSTON — The 10 people who lost their lives in a massive crowd surge at the Astroworld music festival in Houston died from compression asphyxia, officials announced Thursday.
Medical examiners with the Harris County Institute of Forensic Sciences in Houston had to wait several weeks following the Nov. 5 concert by rap superstar Travis Scott for additional test results before making final determinations on cause and manner of the deaths.
The 10 people who died were among 50,000 who attended the festival and were in the audience when Scott’s concert turned deadly when fans surged toward the stage during Scott’s concert, squeezing people so tightly together that they could not breathe or move their arms.
The youngest victim was 9-year-old Ezra Blount. The others who died ranged in age from 14 to 27. Medical examiners said contributing factors in one man’s death were cocaine, methamphetamine and ethanol, a form of alcohol.
Some 300 people were injured and treated at the festival site and 25 were taken to hospitals.
Dozens of lawsuits have been filed over injuries and deaths at the concert.
Scott and the event organizers are the focus of a criminal investigation by Houston police. No one has been charged.
Gallery: Fire truck crashes in Kansas City, Mo.
