Former charter student shoots employee
HOUSTON -- A former student of a Houston charter school shot and wounded a school employee on campus Friday morning before quickly surrendering to police, authorities said.
The man shot through a locked, glass door at YES Prep Southwest Secondary, then shot the employee in the back, Houston Police Chief Troy Finner said.
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The employee was in serious condition at a hospital, Finner said. No students were hurt, the school said in a statement.
Police did not release the name of the wounded employee or the shooter but said they were able to quickly identify him because he was a former student. Police also did not release a motive, but Finner said authorities were investigating whether the shooter and wounded man had any past interactions.
The shooting happened at about 11:45 a.m. YES Prep Southwest Secondary is a charter school that serves students in sixth through 12th grades.
A line of students in masks streamed out of the school just before 1 p.m., holding their hands up to show officers they were not carrying a weapon. Some students said they saw blood while leaving the building, and others said they hid and blocked doorways with furniture like they had practiced in drills to survive a shooting.
Midair collision kills 2 near Phoenix
CHANDLER, Ariz. -- A helicopter and a single-engine plane collided in midair Friday near a suburban Phoenix airport, sending the helicopter crashing into a field and killing both people on board. The plane landed safely, and the flight instructor and a student on board were unhurt.
The collision happened in the city of Chandler near its municipal airport, said police Sgt. Jason McClimans. He said no one on the ground was hurt but the airport remained closed for several hours.
The Chandler Fire Department received reports of a fire in a field next to the airport shortly before 8 a.m. Crews found a large plume of smoke and the wreckage of the helicopter on fire but were able to extinguish it all relatively quickly, fire officials said.
They inspected the helicopter and found the bodies of the two people on board. The Maricopa County medical examiner's office will determine their identities.
The chopper was operated by Quantum Helicopters and the plane by Flight Operations Academy. Both are flight schools, according to McClimans, of Chandler Police.
Richard Bengoa, owner of Flight Operations Academy, said it appeared from a distance that the plane's landing gear had been damaged. He said he had no information about how the collision happened and was not allowed to speak with the flight instructor or the student pilot.
The National Transportation Safety Board will lead the investigation into the cause of the collision and crash.
Missouri expands Medicaid eligibility
JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. -- Thousands of Missourians who previously were ineligible for Medicaid are expected to seek the health care coverage now that voter-approved expansion of the program has taken effect.
Friday marked the day the health care program began processing applications. Voters approved Medicaid expansion in August 2020. The constitutional amendment passed with 53% of the vote.
Previously, Missouri's health care program did not cover most adults without children, and its income eligibility threshold for parents was one of the lowest in the nation, at about one-fifth of poverty guidelines. The expansion is expected to add Medicaid eligibility for up to 275,000 low-income Missourians.
It wasn't immediately clear how many people have applied for Medicaid under the expansion. A spokeswoman for the Missouri Department of Social Services said enrollment information for October won't be posted until November.
Deputy indicted in Missouri shooting
ST. LOUIS -- A deputy with the St. Louis County, Mo., Sheriff's Department has been indicted in the fatal shooting of a man who police said carjacked a pickup and tried to run down the truck's occupants.
A grand jury Thursday indicted Deputy James Buchanan, 53, on second-degree murder and armed criminal action counts in the death last year of 27-year-old William Wade Burgess III.
Buchanan's lawyer, Scott Rosenblum, said his client shot Burgess in self-defense.
Buchanan was on his way to work in the Spanish Lake community on July 6, 2020, when he said he saw a pickup trying to run down a man and a child on a sidewalk. The truck hit the 67-year-old man's leg and missed the man's 10-year-old grandson before crashing.
Police later determined the man and child had been in the truck waiting in a fast-food restaurant drive-thru when Burgess, wielding a screwdriver, carjacked the truck, then made a U-turn in an attempt to run over the man and boy.
Buchanan then chased Burgess into a nearby alley and fatally shot him. Prosecutors said the screwdriver was later found near the truck and that Burgess was unarmed when he was shot.
Buchanan was placed on paid administrative leave on Wednesday.