Police have released bodycam footage showing the moment they arrested a father accused of trying to force his 4-year-old daughter to drink bleach. Police say he also tried to suffocate the child.

Michael Dublin, 28, was arrested on suspicion of attempted first-degree murder and aggravated child abuse following a May incident in the Tangelo Park area of Orlando, Florida.

The Orange County Sheriff’s Office said Dublin pinned his daughter to the ground and tried to make her drink bleach from a water bottle. The suspect allegedly put flavoring in the bleach before trying to force her to drink it.

Bodycam footage released by the department shows Dublin calmly speaking to officers as they approach him, while people can be heard screaming in the background. When an officer asks Dublin what happened to a little girl who had stopped breathing, Dublin replies: “She good.”

According to an affidavit seen by Fox 35, the officer noted Dublin “did not appear to have any remorse,” and was more concerned about being arrested than what he was accused of doing to his daughter.

The bodycam footage also shows officers interviewing one of the suspect’s young cousins.

“He [Dublin] put bleach and a flavor packet in there, he shake it up, and let her drink it. Put it in her mouth, she’s holding it, he put a pillow over her head, and then started suffocating her, and then she swallowed it,” the child said.

“I heard her screaming ‘Help me! Help me!’ We were in the backroom, and he said ‘Get out of here! It’s none of your business.'”

The family said they managed to pull the girl away from Dublin and perform CPR on her outside until she started breathing again.

The family said Dublin is bipolar and schizophrenic, according to WESH Orlando. Court records show that Dublin was previously committed to a mental health hospital, but his mother said he was off his medication for schizophrenia.

The family also believe the incident with the bleach was sparked by a conversation Dublin had with the girl’s mother earlier that day. The child’s mother told police that the pair had a phone call in which she told the 28-year-old that she did not want to get back together with him.

Dublin did not have custody of the girl at the time of the alleged attack. Police said the suspect has several previous criminal convictions, including battery, theft and drug charges.

via: https://start.att.net/news/read/category/news/article/newsweek-florida_father_accused_of_forcing_4yearold_daughte-rnewsweek

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A maniac is on the loose after he gunned down two people with an AR-15 in the middle of Houston rush-hour traffic — and then bolted in his car, with a trash bag full of weed inside, according to a new report.

The chaos unfolded just before 6 p.m. Thursday on eastbound Interstate 10, when the shooter and another person inside his sedan struck another vehicle, causing it to spin out, local outlet ABC 13 reported.

Both suspects got out of the car — and one of them opened fire, according to the report.

“A Hispanic male, tan shirt, holding a really big gun, shooting at another car,” a police dispatcher said.

Assistant Chief Bobby Dobbins of the Houston Police Department told the station a witness caught a glimpse of the weapon.

“He’s familiar with guns and he believes it was an AR-15,” the police official said.

“Unreal scene just witnessed on I-10 in Houston, eastbound lanes at Holland, just outside the east loop,” KHOU reporter Daniel Gotera tweeted at the time. “A guy gets out of his car with gun just shooting in the middle of freeway. Unbelievable.”

As the victims’ car rolled toward the gunman, he popped off multiple shots, killing both men in the vehicle, authorities told ABC 13.

Then the shooter and his passenger took off in their car, which had a large garbage bag filled with marijuana, police sources told the outlet.

Authorities do not have a solid description of the suspects or their vehicle, according to the report.

One driver told authorities he fired at the shooter with a pistol that he carries for personal protection. It was unclear if the gunman was hit, according to the report.

“This is a scary event to happen at 6 o’clock at night on a busy freeway,” Dobbins said.

Police weren’t ruling out any possible motives.

“Road rage? An accident? Narcotics? We don’t know yet,” the assistant chief said.

Later Thursday night, authorities were checking in with local business, including hotels — urging them to be extra cautious about about who walks in.

via: https://nypost.com/2019/08/09/maniac-with-ar-15-guns-down-two-people-on-houston-highway-sparking-manhunt/

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SPRINGFIELD, Mo. – Police say a man was arrested Thursday after he showed up at a Springfield Walmart store with a loaded rifle and a bulletproof vest. 

Lt. Mike Lucas with the Springfield Police Department said the incident occurred at about 4:10 p.m. at the Walmart Neighborhood Market on West Republic Road. 

Lucas said the man showed up to the business with body armor and military-style clothing and then walked inside carrying a “tactical rifle” and another gun. 

As shoppers were panicking and fleeing the store, Lucas said the man was taking video on his phone and making comments to people while pushing a shopping cart. 

Lucas said the suspect then walked out of the store, where an off-duty firefighter held the suspect at gunpoint until police arrived moments later. 

The suspect, a 20-year-old white man, was arrested, but Lucas said police are still working to determine his motives and whether he intended to shoot anyone. 

Lucas said the man had more than 100 rounds of ammo. 

“His intent obviously was to cause chaos here, and he did that,” Lucas said. 

Thursday’s incident comes five days after a gunman opened fire at a Walmart in El Paso, Texas, killing 22 people. 

Lucas said Springfield police officers arrived on scene 3 minutes after the initial 911 call Thursday. He said the scene was chaotic.

He described the suspect as “pretty stoic” during the initial police contact. He said officers would be interviewing the suspect at the jail on Thursday to try to learn more about his motivations.

“His intent was not to cause peace or comfort to anybody that was in the business here,” Lucas said. “In fact, he’s lucky he’s alive still, to be honest.”

Julie Belew of Springfield said she stopped at the store Thursday afternoon to buy milk, and before she could exit her car she heard someone nearby shout: “Is that a real rifle?”

Walking straight toward her Kia Soul, coming down a grassy rise, was a young man with a rifle, wearing a bulletproof vest and military-style clothing. He had his hands raised.

She turned and saw another man near her car aiming a handgun at the man coming down the hill. Belew now believes this was the off-duty firefighter, who responded when he saw the man with the assault rifle.

Someone shouted at the man, “Why are you walking around in a tactical jacket carrying a rifle?” Belew said. She did not hear what he said back.

“He did not seem surprised. He did not seem angry. He looked like he had accomplished whatever he wanted to accomplish,” Belew said.

Police told the young man to get on the ground, she said. The man got on the ground and was handcuffed. 

Lucas said police would be reviewing any surveillance video from the store and also checking the suspect’s social media accounts to see if he was live-streaming the events.

via: https://start.att.net/news/read/article/springfield_newslead-police_man_with_rifle_bulletproof_vest_arrested_at-rgannett/category/news

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GALVESTON, Texas (AP) – Galveston’s police chief is apologizing after two of his officers, mounted on horseback, led a handcuffed trespassing suspect by a rope through downtown streets.

Photos of the Saturday incident went viral on social media. The two officers linked the rope to handcuffs worn by 43-year-old criminal trespass suspect Donald Neely and led him around the block to a mounted patrol staging area.

In a statement Monday, Police Chief Vernon Hale said “this is a trained technique and best practice in some scenarios,” such as with crowd control. However, he said he believes his officers “showed poor judgment in this instance and could have waited for a transport unit at the location of arrest.” He said his department has “immediately changed the policy” to prevent use of the technique.

Neely is free on bond. He has no listed telephone number and couldn’t be reached for comment.

via: https://fox2now.com/2019/08/06/texas-police-chief-apologizes-after-horseback-officers-lead-man-by-rope/

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It’s a fear particularly potent among parents of young children and especially now, days away from the start of the school year. It’s not unwarranted — CNN examined 10 years of shootings on K-12 campuses and found two sobering truths: School shootings are increasing, and no type of community is spared.

Instead of letting their children choose a plastic backpack covered in Hello Kitty or Spider-Man, some parents are purchasing bags that double as shields in case kids get caught in gunfire.

Companies like Guard Dog Security, Bullet Blocker and TuffyPacks designed bulletproof backpacks to quell those concerns.

The retailers said backpack sales spike during the back-to-school season, and all three said they they saw a significant uptick in the aftermath of mass shootings.

Bulletproof backpacks are a ‘consumer favorite’

Joe Curran founded Bullet Blocker 12 years ago after a shooting at Virginia Tech killed 33 people.

To protect his two school-aged children, the former sheriff’s deputy inserted body armor into their backpacks, he said. Classmates’ parents asked for inserts for their children’s bags, and it grew into a business.

The company’s website calls the bulletproof backpack a “consumer favorite.” Prices range from $160 to $490. Most are JanSport or High Sierra backpacks retrofitted with ballistic panels sewn into the back. The smallest offering, the “Junior Pack,” is suggested for preschoolers.

Sales have increased 200% since the mass shootings last weekend, Curran said.

Demand increased after Parkland

Yasir Sheikh, president of Guard Dog Security, said the company launched a line of bulletproof backpacks in 2013. And since 2018, they’ve cropped up in major retailers like Office Depot and Bed Bath & Beyond.

They’re marketed as “bulletproof” or “bullet-resistant,” depending on the store, but the two are synonymous, he said. The bags retail for between $119.99 and $299.99.

Sheikh couldn’t draw a direct correlation between mass shootings and sales increases, but he said there was a significant rise in demand after the Parkland, Florida, school shooting last year.

“What we’re finding is, sometimes, events trigger heightened awareness of the product,” he said.

The Florida company builds and designs its bulletproof backpacks and tests them at a facility accredited by the National Institute of Justice, a research branch of the Department of Justice.

Guard Dog’s backpacks offer Level IIIA protection, a National Institute of Justice standard that means they were tested to withstand 9-mm, .44 magnum and shotgun ammunition. They’re not built to protect against the ammunition of rifles or assault weapons.

Lightweight inserts double as shields from bullets

Steve Naremore, CEO of TuffyPacks, said he launched the company in 2015 after his daughter, who teaches fourth grade, told him how frequently her school required her to perform active shooter drills with her students.

Although the company sells some retrofitted backpacks, it specializes in lightweight, removable ballistic shields.

The Level IIIA-rated shields are made of a ballistic-rated synthetic fiber that’s five times stronger than steel, according to the website. The 24-layer inserts last up to five years.

About 95% of the company’s customers are parents and grandparents who buy them for children, Naremore said.

“We always see spikes in sales in the days or weeks after shootings,” he said. TuffyPacks’ sales rose nearly 300% over the past week, according to Naremore.

There’s a mixed reaction from consumers

The weekend’s mass shootings are a painful reminder for parents

Raquel K.W. Donahue decided to purchase a bulletproof insert for her 6-year-old son before he starts first grade. She opted for the insert instead of the pricier backpack because he’ll outgrow a bag quickly, and the insert was marketed to last 20 years, she said.

Donahue is a reference and instruction librarian at Prairie View A&M University in Texas. About an hour and a half away is Santa Fe, Texas, where 10 people were killed at a high school in May 2018; 10 hours away is El Paso, where a gunman killed 22 people at a Wal-Mart on Saturday.

Her campus, like all public college campuses in the state, is legally required to allow adults over 21 who have concealed carry permits to carry a handgun on school grounds.

Gun violence is something she’s thought about fleetingly, she said, but the horror in El Paso and in Dayton, Ohio, brought it to the forefront, not just for her son but for her family.

Her brother lives in El Paso, and it wasn’t until Monday that she heard from him and learned that he was uninjured. And with racist sentiment swirling in the state and beyond, being Mexican American has become an “added concern” to gun violence, she said.

“I dislike the additional level of anxiety that’s sort of randomly interjected into my life,” she said.

An uncomfortable truth

“There is the morbidity factor,” Naremore acknowledged of the product’s purpose.

The very existence of a bulletproof backpack forces parents confront an uncomfortable reality, but it’s a conversation many children are having in schools and an essential one for parents who want to protect them, Sheikh said.

“When I was in school, there was no such thing as active shooter drills,” he said. “But times have changed.”

Donahue’s son brought it up first. He came home from an active shooter drill in kindergarten and shared what he’d learned to do if a “bad guy comes to hurt him,” she said.

“He’s worried about things I never dreamed of,” she said. “It makes me sad — and angry.”

She’s had active shooter trainings at work, too. After a 2014 shooting in a library at Florida State University in Tallahassee — the same town where a gunman would kill two women in a yoga studio four years later — Donahue her fellow librarians have planned what they’d do in case of an attack.

“It’s sort of incredible how this is impacting both my personal and professional life.”

Companies like Guard Dog make bulletproof bags for Donahue, too. Although their more popular items are children’s backpacks, they manufacture laptop bags and heavier, larger packs, modeled by men in suits.

Donahue and her son’s father saw the backpack inserts emblazoned with the Avengers and Disney princesses — TuffyPacks stopped selling them after Disney released a statement saying it hadn’t authorized the use of the characters — but they chose a black AR500 Level III bulletproof insert. Unlike the children’s packs sold in Office Depot, her son’s plate can withstand rifle ammunition.

“I think we’re both upset that this is the reality, but we feel it’s important to address the reality,” she said. “It’s not a guarantee, but it’s some measure we can take to feel just a little bit better about sticking him on that school bus every day.”

via: https://ktla.com/2019/08/08/sales-of-bulletproof-backpacks-surge-in-wake-of-last-weeks-mass-shootings-companies-say/

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