Texas
Woman who thought she was being kidnapped shoots Uber driver in the head
EL PASO, Texas (AP) — A Kentucky woman has been accused of fatally shooting her West Texas Uber driver after mistakenly believing she was being kidnapped and taken to Mexico, according to police.
Phoebe Copas remained jailed Sunday in El Paso, Texas, after being charged with murder last week in the death of 52-year-old Daniel Piedra Garcia.
Court and jail records did not list an attorney who could speak for Copas, 48.
The shooting took place on June 16 as Piedra was driving Copas to a location in far southeast El Paso. Copas, who is from Tompkinsville, Kentucky, was in El Paso visiting her boyfriend, according to authorities.
During the ride, Copas saw traffic signs that read “Juarez, Mexico,” according to an arrest affidavit. El Paso is located on the U.S.-Mexico border across from Juarez.
Believing she was being kidnapped and taken to Mexico, Copas is accused of grabbing a handgun from her purse and shooting Piedra in the head, according to the affidavit. The vehicle crashed into barriers before coming to a stop on a freeway.
The area where the car crashed was “not in close proximity of a bridge, port of entry or other area with immediate access to travel into Mexico,” according to the affidavit.
“The investigation does not support that a kidnapping took place or that Piedra was veering from Copas’ destination,” police said in a news release.
Police allege that before she called 911, Copas took a photo of Piedra after the shooting and texted it to her boyfriend.
Piedra was hospitalized for several days before his family took him off life support after doctors told them he would not recover.
“He was a hardworking man and really funny,” Piedra’s niece, Didi Lopez, told the El Paso Times. “He was never in a bad mood. He was always the one that, if he saw you in a bad mood, he’d come over and try to lift you up.”
Copas, who is being held on a $1.5 million bond, was originally charged with aggravated assault. The charge was upgraded to murder after Piedra died.
A GoFundMe campaign set up by Piedra’s family said he was their sole provider and had only recently started working again after being injured in his previous job.
“I wish she would’ve spoken up, asked questions, not acted on impulse and make a reckless decision, because not only did she ruin our lives, but she ruined her life, too,” Lopez said. “We just want justice for him. That’s all we’re asking.”
Minnesota
Man gets nearly 29 years for mass shooting at bar
ST. PAUL, Minn. (AP) — A Las Vegas man convicted of firing the first shots in a mass shooting at a St. Paul bar that left one woman dead and 14 people injured was sentenced Friday to nearly 29 years.
Devondre Trevon Phillips, 31, apologized at his sentencing hearing for his role in the gunfight inside the crowded Seventh Street Truck Park Bar on Oct. 10, 2021. He was convicted in February of eight counts of attempted second-degree murder.
“I just want to say that I’m sorry to the innocent victims and the families of the victims,” Phillips said. “I truly am sorry. I’ve lost loved ones to violence and I’ve been a circumstance of violence and it doesn’t give me the right to do what I did.”
A different jury last week convicted Terry Lorenzo Brown of second-degree murder in the death of Marquisha “Kiki” Wiley, a 27-year-old veterinary technician from St. Paul, plus four counts of attempted second-degree murder and one of illegally possessing a firearm. He’s scheduled to be sentenced in August. Most Minnesota inmates serve two-thirds of their sentence in prison and the rest on supervised release.
Prosecutors said Phillips and Brown were in a dispute over domestic abuse allegations involving Brown and the woman he was dating, who Phillips, a former St. Paul resident, described as a cousin of his. Both men exchanged gunfire inside the bar, striking each other and a dozen bystanders.
“We can only dream of the missing pieces of what our Kiki’s life would’ve been,” her mother, Beth Wiley, told the court before Ramsey County Judge Carolina Lamas handed down the sentence. Wiley and others wore shirts depicting the victim holding a sign that read, “No more silence, end gun violence.”
Arizona
Executive order safeguards abortion seekers and providers from prosecution
PHOENIX (AP) — Arizona Gov. Katie Hobbs on Friday signed a sweeping executive order to protect anyone involved with a legally obtained abortion from prosecution.
The order bans local prosecutors from bringing abortion-related charges and state agencies from assisting in any criminal investigations without a court order. In addition, Arizona will not honor any extradition requests for people wanted for assisting, providing or seeking an abortion.
Only Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes, a Democrat, will be able to oversee abortion-related prosecutions.
“I will not allow extreme and out of touch politicians to get in the way of the fundamental right Arizonans have to make decisions about their own bodies and futures,” the Democratic governor said in a statement. “I will continue to fight to expand access to safe and legal abortion in any way that I can.”
Under the order, Hobbs will also create a special council to make recommendations on how to expand access to sexual and reproductive health care.
Abortions are currently allowed in Arizona in the first 15 weeks of pregnancy under a 2022 law. Last year, the Arizona Court of Appeals ruled that abortion doctors cannot be prosecuted under a law dating back to 1864 that criminalizes nearly all abortions. That pre-statehood law was already barred from being enforced for decades because of Roe v. Wade.
Planned Parenthood Arizona President and CEO Brittany Fonteno called Hobbs’ action a “promising and welcome path.”
“This executive order will help ease the fear and uncertainty that swept through Arizona in the year since Roe was overturned, and protect all those seeking and providing necessary health care,” Fonteno said.
Cathi Herrod, president of the socially conservative Center for Arizona Policy, accused the governor of overreaching.
“In her zeal for abortion, Gov. Hobbs has exceeded her authority as governor,” Herrod said in a statement. “The law does not allow her to strip county attorneys of their clear enforcement authority as granted in various Arizona laws.”
Hobbs’ action comes at the one-year anniversary of the U.S. Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe v. Wade, which had legalized abortion nationally.
