Colorado deputy shot fatally; police seek brothers
Joel and Michael Stovall, 24, escaped from a sheriff's patrol car late Friday near their hometown of Penrose, said Fremont County sheriff's spokesman Dean Richardson.
Authorities said the brothers had been suspects in the shooting a dog.
Richardson said Deputy Jason Schwartz, 26, who was driving the men to jail, was shot several times in the head in his patrol car.
Later, two people were briefly taken hostage in Florence, about 5 miles from Penrose, and their pickup was stolen, Florence Police Chief Mike Ingle said.
Shots were fired from the pickup at a police car, and Florence police Cpl. Toby Bethel was shot twice in the back. He was in critical condition at St. Anthony Central Hospital in Denver.
Officer involved in shooting: 'nightmare for everybody'
CINCINNATI — A white police officer acquitted in the fatal shooting of an unarmed black man said that the outcome of his trial was just, but that the shooting was a "nightmare for everybody."
The shooting touched off the worst rioting in the city since the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.'s assassination in 1968.
"I still can't believe all that has happened in the city in the last six months because of something that took just seconds to occur in that alley," Stephen Roach, 27, told The Cincinnati Enquirer in an interview published yesterday. He was speaking publicly for the first time since the shooting.
Roach shot Timothy Thomas, 19 — who was wanted on 14 misdemeanor warrants — April 7.
For now, Roach's job is inspecting cars and entering data into a computer at the city impound lot. He said he's not ready to return to his beat. "I still have problems dealing with this thing. It's going to take time. It wouldn't be right to come back, for me, for the Cincinnati police, for the city."
New Orleans mayor's group pays fine for back taxes
NEW ORLEANS — The political organization of New Orleans Mayor Marc Morial, who has often attacked tax deadbeats, had to pay nearly $21,000 in delinquent property taxes, penalties and interest.
The organization, Louisiana Independent Federation of Electors (LIFE), finished paying the bill Friday, said Jacques Morial, the group's president and the mayor's brother. Jacques Morial took responsibility for the group's failure to pay taxes on its headquarters for four years.
Jacques Morial said he made two payments, totaling $20,916.
During his two terms in office, the mayor has worked aggressively to collect unpaid taxes. Angry residents swarmed City Hall in March 1999 after receiving notices warning them of penalties and possible legal action if they didn't settle their accounts.
"I have never been more embarrassed, and I apologize to the people of New Orleans for the irresponsibility of LIFE's administrators," the mayor said in a statement.
North Dakota border-town residents warned about water supply
PEMBINA, N.D. — Residents of the Canadian border town of Pembina were warned not to drink the water after a worker found evidence of tampering at the city's water tank.
The town's water system was shut down Thursday and the 500,000-gallon tank was taken out of service.
Joe Defoe, a local emergency coordinator, said the lid on the water tank had been tampered with, and it was unclear if anything was put in the water.
Francis Schwindt, the state Health Department's environmental chief, said initial tests did not find anything harmful in the water, but chlorine levels in the tank had dropped to zero, which he described as "somewhat unusual."
"I guess what we're thinking now, there might be some kind of organic chemical or some type of bacteria or something along those lines that's using up the chlorine residual that's in the water," Schwindt said.
Test results were not completed yesterday and local authorities would not comment.