A Tucson Police officer was arrested on suspicion of D.U.I. early Saturday morning, according to a Pima County Sheriff’s Department spokeswoman.
Neal Ronald, 38, was stopped for a moving violation near West Ina Road and North Shannon Road at approximately 1:45 a.m. on May 16, said Deputy Dawn Barkman in a news release Tuesday.
BISBEE — A wildfire burning a half-mile northwest of Bisbee is 40 percent contained after charring 122 acres since breaking out late Monday morning.
Officials said Tuesday that they were bracing for forecasted thunderstorms.
Thirty homes were evacuated as a precaution, but Arizona State Forestry Division spokeswoman Judy Wood says everyone was allowed to return home Monday evening.
Wood said no homes or other structures are threatened.
Crews expect the blaze to continue burning away from the town.
Wood said crews initially attacked the blaze with 10 air tankers and 10 to 15 fire engines, an unusually strong offensive because of the fire’s proximity to Bisbee.
But she said Tuesday that three hotshot crews had been released and aircraft had been pulled off, with about 160 firefighters still on the scene.
The cause of the fire began is under investigation.
Drugs can make you do some really sick things – like eat your kid’s eyeballs out.
That was the case for 34-year-old Angelo Vidal Mendoza Sr. who was apparently high on PCP when he chewed the eyes out of his 4-year-old kid’s face, according to a report in TheWeekly Vice.com.
The dad had been alone with his son in their Bakersfield, Calif., home when neighbors stumbled upon the scene.
They found the boy on the floor, naked and bleeding, with a gaping hole where his left eye used to be. His right was still in his face but damaged beyond repair, according to a report at KGET.com.
Police were called and found Mendoza at a nearby home, sitting in a wheelchair since he injured one of his legs by hacking it with an ax.
Mendoza is being charged with mayhem, torture and child cruelty, the KGET report said, and being held on $1 million bail.
Read story: http://www.kget.com/news/local/story/Blind-Bakersfield-boy-Daddy-ate-my-eyes/RK0Wdl1WTUCH5BlkgKlGuA.cspx
Read update: www.kget.com/news/local/story/CPS-Blinded-boy-attack-could-not-have-been/3NPtnByHeU-eUvdJGpCysw.cspx
Anyone who doesn’t feel like going to school can take a tip form Vail high school seniors.
A number of the students are accused of spraying graffiti on the bus fleet’s windows – writing “Class of ’09″ – and deflated at least two tires on each vehicle.
All 76 buses were damaged, according to a report in the Arizona Daily Star.
The buses will still run, albeit at least an hour later than usual, while they are being fixed up.
Tires need repair or replacement and, of course, the graffiti has to be washed off.
School buses won’t get much respect if they trek around town looking like sheeny wagons.
I have mixed feelings on this one, but, if the kids are caught, they should have some type of punishment. But I have mixed feelings on what it should be.
Perhaps a dose of summer school, or a summer cleaning, painting and revitalizing school grounds before they are handed their diploma.
Too harsh? Laugh it off? Let it go?
What do you think?
Comment below or e-mail rynski@tucsoncitizen.com (rynski@tucsoncitizen.com)
Link to story: www.azstarnet.com/sn/hourlyupdate/293490.php
PHOENIX — From the bustling streets of Scottsdale to the red rocks of Sedona more than an hour away, a NASA research balloon had some Arizonans wondering whether they had spotted an alien spacecraft.
Federal Aviation Administration spokesman Ian Gregor said he got calls about the object all afternoon on Monday.
He said the object did not show up on FAA radar and was likely a balloon.
Later, Bill Stepp of the Columbia Scientific Balloon Facility in Palestine, Texas identified the object as a 4,000-pound research balloon released from a NASA organization used to measure gamma ray emissions in high altitudes.
The balloon was launched at about 7:30 a.m. Sunday morning from Fort Sumner, N.M., and was grounded at about 9 p.m. Monday just south of Kingman in western Arizona.
Stepp said the balloon, which usually floats at an altitude of 130,000 feet, can be seen for about 170 miles on a clear day and has raised concern from Albuquerque to Phoenix.
“It’s something unusual,” he said. “People just don’t know what it is.”
Marshall Valentine, who works in a Scottsdale office, said he and about five other co-workers who spotted the object high in the sky around 2 p.m. Monday had no idea what it was.
“It looks like someone blew a bubble in the sky and it stayed there,” Valentine said. “A plane flew under it and it looked like it was a mountain higher than a plane flies.”
Similar descriptions of an unidentified flying, clear orb were also reported out of Sedona.
Jennifer McCoy, who runs the UFO Store in Sedona with her husband, said a local resident told her about the object around 2 p.m.
She said she went into the parking lot and saw the object in the cloud line.
It “looked like the gigantic bubble from the Wizard of Oz,” she said.
Three jails in Arizona’s largest county are on an indefinite lockdown after some inmates threatened other inmates for refusing to participate in a hunger strike, sheriff’s officials said.
The Arizona Republic reported on its Web site that the lockdown took effect at 3 p.m. Monday at Maricopa County’s Towers Jail, the Fourth Avenue Jail and Lower Buckeye Jail.
“Lockdown will continue until they start eating again,” Sheriff Joe Arpaio said.
The lockdown will prohibit visits, phone calls and television in the jails, and is expected to affect about 4,200 medium- and maximum-security inmates, according to a sheriff’s news release.
Inmates participating in hunger strikes since early May have repeatedly threatened inmates who continue to take their meals.
The news release says six inmates have asked to be placed in protective custody “so they can eat without fear of reprisal.”
Authorities said the hunger strikes were triggered by an anti-illegal immigration enforcement march on May 2. The event drew thousands of demonstrators and about 200 inmates went on strike.
Since then, more than a thousand inmates have repeatedly refused their meals.
Inmates and their representatives have said they’re protesting the quality of the jails’ food. Complaints about the quality of food comes as a dietitian has worked to make sure the jail menus meet USDA guidelines, as U.S. District Judge Neil Wake ordered in a ruling against Maricopa County last fall.
Sheriff’s authorities argue that new healthier menu items fall within 2005 USDA guidelines, but taste worse.
Jail intelligence officers say inmates were displeased with the evening meals, and that most inmates were still eating the morning meal.
Teachers are supposed to be our role models. Kids should admire them, look up to them, learn from them.
Not sleep with them.
The latest steamy scandal involves a 36-year-old Tucson teacher, Joseph Massey, who is charged with two counts of sexual conduct with a minor, according to a KVOA report. She was 15.
The relationship reportedly started at Utterback Middle School.
Gross.
If any of my middle school teachers, even the younger ones, would have made a pass at me when I was 15 I probably would have kicked them in the shins.
Besides, when you’re 15, anyone over the age of 16 is considered “old.” Anyone above age 20 is “ancient” and those older than 30 might as well start digging their graves.
Disgusting images aside, it’s also gross when people who are put in trusted positions – such as teachers, clergy, law enforcement officers, doctors – abuse that trust.
If we can’t trust our teachers to guide us with good decisions, who can we trust?
Read story: www.kvoa.com/global/story.asp?s=10374569
Frank Stout (right) and his neighbor Megin Goetz comfort his dogs CoCo (left), Soju (background) and Saki after they were rescued by firefighters from a house fire on South Palm Springs Drive on Thursday. The fire spread to a neighboring home. The cause is under investigation.
A woman was injured Thursday morning in a house fire, but a firefighter was unscathed by debris from the home’s collapsing roof.
Four dogs found in the backyard of the East Side home escaped serious injury, Tucson fire Capt. Tricia Tracy said. A fifth dog that had been missing was found unharmed late Thursday morning running around the yard.
The pets may have saved themselves by fleeing through a “doggy door” leading to the backyard. Tracy could not tell whether the dogs were singed or just sooty from the fire’s smoke and debris.
Tracy couldn’t provide more information on the injured 64-year-old resident because of a federal patient confidentiality law.
The fire, reported at 8:29 a.m., spread from the home in the 2800 block of South Palm Springs Drive to a neighboring house, Tracy said. The cause is under investigation.
Tracy said the firefighter appeared to be unharmed, but he was sent to a hospital for a precautionary exam. None of the other roughly 50 firefighters sustained injuries.
The fire gutted the first home, causing an estimated $300,000 damage, she said. A sprinkler system in the second home halted the progress of the blaze, which caused about $50,000 of damage there.
Firefighters use a water cannon on a house fire in the 2800 block of South Palm Springs Drive early Thursday.
Tucson firefighter Kevin Unwin (right) hands Saki to the dog's owner, Frank Stout. Saki was rescued Thursday morning from a fire in the 2800 block of South Palm Springs Drive.
Eastside house fire
A woman was injured and five dogs were rescued in an early morning house fire on South Palm Springs Drive.
Producer: FRANCISCO MEDINA
 |  |  |
Blanche White (left) visits with laundromat owners Michael and Clarisse Kostolny on Thursday at the Northgate Laundromat & Cleaners, 3993 E. Grant Road. White is president of the Oak Flower Neighborhood Association, which will be honoring the laundromat for neighborly service.
Some people who live near the intersection of East Grant Road and North Alvernon Way used to avoid shops there.
“People want to shop near their homes,” said Blanche White, 73, president of the Oak Flower Neighborhood Association, one of four neighborhoods bordering the intersection.
But “in one neighborhood meeting, someone said, ‘I don’t feel safe there, so I drive to another place farther away.’
“That was really eye-opening, I think.”
Since that meeting some months back, the four neighborhood associations – Oak Flower, Garden District, Palo Verde and Dodge Flower – have worked with area businesses and organizations to make shopping a safer and more pleasant experience.
The associations are honoring seven with Business Good Neighbor Awards at 10 a.m. Saturday at the Tucson Botanical Gardens Pavilion, 2150 N. Alvernon Way.
The Botanical Gardens is one of the honorees for offering its facilities for neighborhood meetings and special events.
The others are Specialists in Dermatology, Northgate Laundromat & Cleaners, Fry’s, Emmanuel Baptist Church, Sign-A-Rama and Emerge!
Those honored will get a certificate and a placard proclaiming they make good neighbors to place in their front windows.
“We have a lot of neighborhood businesses that are deserving,” White said. She added that more awards will be forthcoming.
The two businesses in her neighborhood, Specialists in Dermatology and Northgate Laundromat & Cleaners, both had good reason to nab the awards.
The dermatology practice worked with residents even before the office was built a few years back. Some employees have attended neighborhood cleanups.
The laundromat has increased security by making sure a worker is always present and posting a security guard at night.
“One of the problems we have is the panhandlers that hang out in the parking lot,” White said. “Businesses have made more efforts to put security guards out, to walk people to their cars if they don’t feel safe. It’s improved considerably.”
The entire area has improved, said Tucson Police Department Capt. David Neri, who is in charge of the midtown division.
The Good Neighbor Awards are just one phase of a larger program, the Alvernon-Grant Initiative. Those involved include the associations, area businesses, Tucson police, City Council Wards 3 and 6, and Pima County Supervisor Districts 3 and 5.
Efforts began about four years ago, Neri said. One of the most successful phases started in February 2008.
“In our first monthly report, we removed in excess of 40 weapons off the street,” Neri said. A number of arrests and confiscated narcotics also were part of the effort.
“It’s far safer now than it has ever been.”
Progress has been marked from February 2008 to February 2009 with a 60 percent reduction in burglaries, auto thefts and all types of fraud, leading to a 13 percent overall dip in crime.
“It’s really a great project,” said George Pettit, spokesman for Councilwoman Karin Uhlich’s Ward 3 office. “People are working hard trying to turn around the neighborhood. It’s really a feel good kind of thing.”
Laundry attendant Lynda Rae Cody helps customer Omar Daniel Cruz at Northgate Laundromat & Cleaners.
Warning period will be Monday through Sunday
After some false starts, Pima County’s 10 speed limit enforcement camera systems will be activated Monday and used to issue warnings to violators through Sunday.
After that, accused speeders with vehicle license plates caught on camera who can be positively identified will be mailed tickets by American Traffic Solutions Inc. of Scottsdale, the county’s contracted vendor for the program.
Drivers at the camera locations will notice strobe lights flashing starting Friday during a three-day test period of the camera system. No warnings or tickets will be issued during the test phase.
The speed limit enforcement program was approved by the Pima County Board of Supervisors this year as a pilot program that will be reviewed later in the year.
The camera locations were selected by the Pima County Sheriff’s Department based on incidences of speeding and crashes.
The 10 sites accounted for 26 percent of all speeding tickets issued by the Sheriff’s Department in 2008 and more than 4,100 crashes over the past three years.
Activation was delayed for about two months while the vendor fine-tuned the system for accuracy.
The locations are:
• North La Cholla near West Sunset Road
• South Mission Road near West Grubstake Drive
• East Ina Road near North Camino de las Candelas
• North Swan Road near East Calle Barril
• East Valencia Road near South Wilmot Road
• West Ruthrauff Road near West Rillito Street
• West Valencia near South Camino de la Tierra
• South Alvernon Way near South Station Master Drive
• East River Road near North Country Club Road
• South Nogales Highway near East Hermans Road
U.S. Customs and Border Patrol agents stop traffic recently in a search of weapons headed into Mexico at the Mariposa border crossing in Nogales.
NOGALES – Federal agents tap on car windows, opening trunks, looking in vain for contraband.
“We’re sucking up a lot of exhaust out here,” supervisory Customs and Border Protection officer Edith Serrano says, shrugging in her uniform.
This is what the Obama administration’s new commitment to help Mexico fight its drug cartels looks like.
President Obama this spring promised his Mexican counterpart, Felipe Calderón, that the United States would fight two of the biggest contributions U.S. residents make to the drug cartels Calderón has vowed to eradicate: cash and weapons, the latter hard to come by in Mexico.
For the past five weeks, hundreds of agents participating in a newly intensified $95 million outbound inspection program have been stepping into southbound traffic lanes, stopping suspicious-looking cars and trucks.
The Associated Press fanned out to the busiest crossings along the Mexican border – San Diego, Nogales, El Paso and Laredo – to see how effective the inspections are.
The findings? Wads of U.S. currency headed for Mexico, wedged into car doors, stuffed under mattresses, taped onto torsos, were sniffed out by dogs, seized by agents and locked away for possible investigations. No guns were found as the reporters watched; they rarely are.
“I do not believe we can even make a dent in (southbound smuggling) because that assumes the cartels are complete idiots, which they’re not. Why in the world would they try to smuggle weapons and currency through a checkpoint when there are so many other options?” said Border Patrol Agent T.J. Bonner, president of the agents’ union.
According to CBP, between March 12 and April 30 officers seized:
• Fifty-one pieces of ammunition, weapons parts and guns, a minuscule fraction of the 2,000 weapons the Mexican government estimates are smuggled south every day.
• $12 million in cash, less than one-tenth of 1 percent of the $17 billion to $39 billion the U.S. Justice Department estimates is illegally sent to Mexico from the U.S. annually, but more than the $10 million seized in outbound checks in 2008.
• Sixty-one people on charges involving weapons or currency offenses and on outstanding warrants.
Millions of cars pass into Mexico from the United States every year. The federal government doesn’t keep track but a count by Texas A&M International University’s Texas Center for Border Economic and Enterprise Development shows more than 27 million vehicles a year drove into Mexico just from Texas.
The outbound checkpoints the AP observed stopped sometimes 1 out of 4 cars, sometimes 1 out of 100, and not every day. Even that amount created huge traffic backups at some locations and, agents said, might have allowed spies to call any smugglers heading that way and warn them to put off their Mexico trip.
Agents across the border said the first few minutes of their operation are the most precious. That’s how long it takes for “scouts” watching from a bridge in San Diego lined with taxis to radio ahead to smugglers to stay away. In Nogales, a dozen men dashed along a Mexican hill about 150 yards from the checkpoint last week.
“We tend to see spotters up there,” said CBP agent Brian Levin. “They sit up on those hills and watch everything we do.”
Inspectors retreat, then mount another “surge” after a while standing on the side of the freeway.
Some of those stopped were sanguine, others annoyed.
“I guess they think I have drugs or something,” said Daniel Saucedo, a 15-year-old Albuquerque high school student who clambered out of the passenger side of a small white pickup truck with his two dogs last week in El Paso. “It’s dumb,” he said.
William Molaski, port director in El Paso, said agents at his four El Paso bridges haven’t found much since the focus on outbound checks started in early April – one handgun and only about $400,000 – “but not for lack of trying.”
Without providing any numbers, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano told attendees at the Border Trade Alliance International Conference on April 21 that, just a few weeks into the intensified outbound inspections, she was amazed at how much had already been seized. “It’s unbelievable,” she said. “So the notion that there wasn’t a river of cash and a flood of guns going into Mexico is a myth. I mean, there was. We want to stop that river.”
CBP’s 2010 budget request, released May 7, includes an additional $46 million specifically targeted at southbound enforcement.
Customs inspectors’ techniques range from primitive to high-tech, with about an equal success rate. Sometimes a small white truck drives slowly alongside vehicles that have been pulled over, beaming X-rays at them to reveal hidden cash or weapons. A smaller X-ray unit scans spare tires or pieces of luggage, a hand-held density meter called a “Buster” can reveal hidden compartments loaded with cash, a fiber-optic scope snaked into gas tanks looks for hidden cargo and trained dogs can sniff out cash or weapons.
But before they get to any of the gadgets, officers knock with a knuckle or flat palm on a car’s body panels. And they ask, again and again: “Do you have any weapons? Cash? Merchandise?”
Often the dogs make the finds.
Grill, a “currency canine,” smelled something on 63-year-old Isabel Ortega Garcia on April 3 in Hidalgo, Texas, when Ortega was walking into Mexico. When Grill got excited, agents patted Ortega down and found $148,000 in neat wads of $100 bills taped around her waist.
Two weeks earlier in Laredo, Akim sniffed cash under the floor of a southbound bus. Under the seats, in a hidden compartment, were 75 bundles of bills totaling $2,997,510.
But even finding that much cash doesn’t always yield an arrest. Without a U.S. attorney’s say-so, the best an agent can do is seize any cash amounts over $10,000 that the traveler does not declare, hand them a receipt and send them on south.
The best case scenario for agents who seize undeclared currency is that federal prosecutors decide to bring charges and begin a forfeiture procedure. But often it is a race against the clock as inspectors on the scene try to collect enough evidence to make it an attractive case for prosecutors.
Obama said while campaigning that he favored a ban on sales of assault weapons. But Congress isn’t budging on the issue, and guns in the U.S., particularly in southern border states, remain easy to buy legally.
“The real issues of assault weapons and bulk cash do not initiate at the border and cannot be solved there,” said David Shirk, director of the University of San Diego’s Trans-Border Institute. “But gun control? That’s a discussion the current administration is reluctant to wade into.”
Mexican customs inspector Ricardo Briseno, 27, says the increase in U.S. inspections of Mexico-bound cars has made his job easier, even though the only effective solution would be to stop every car.
“At least it’s something,” he said. “We are working together on a shared problem.”
FLAGSTAFF – A federal appeals court has ruled that a woman who started part of the largest wildfire in Arizona history must exhaust remedies in a tribal court.
Valinda Jo Elliott was lost on White Mountain Apache land for two days in 2002 when she started a blaze to get the attention of a television news helicopter. That fire merged into the Rodeo-Chediski fire.
She wasn’t criminally prosecuted, but the tribe brought a civil case against her.
After she tried unsuccessfully to have the case dismissed in tribal courts, she turned to a federal district court.
That court held that Elliott must exhaust her tribal court remedies and dismissed the case without prejudice.
The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the ruling Thursday.
Two prisoners serving life sentences at the Arizona State Prison Complex-Tucson tried to escape Thursday but were caught on the grounds, a state Department of Corrections news release said.
Inmates Joshua Aston, 22, and John Wells, 48, have been transferred to maximum security at the Arizona State Prison Complex-Eyman in Florence, according to the release.
The pair set off an alarm near a perimeter fence about 9 p.m. Wednesday, according to DOC. By 3 a.m. Thursday, both had been caught.
Arizona Department of Corrections investigators are trying to piece together how Aston and Wells got as far as they did in the escape attempt, said Bill Lamoreaux, a Corrections spokesman.
Aston is serving a life sentence for murder.
Wells has been imprisoned here for 11 years after being transferred from a Maryland prison, where he was serving time for three armed robberies and three escapes.
Aston was admitted to the Department of Corrections in May 2007, the statement said. He was found guilty of first-degree murder and conspiracy to commit murder by a Maricopa Superior Court jury in March 2007 for the killing of Pedro Corzo.
Corzo, 35, a manager for Del Monte Fresh Produce, was killed in January 2004 while visiting remote farms in the western part of the county.
He was driving on a road between Dateland and Harquahala Valley when he encountered a roadblock of boulders, according to sheriff’s deputies.
When he got out of his car to clear the rocks away, he was shot by Justin Harrison. Aston, Harrison’s cousin, also was accused of shooting Corzo.
Investigators believed the shooting was part of a bizarre odyssey in which Aston, accompanied by Harrison and a younger brother, left their homes near St. Louis and drove to Arizona with an apparent intent to engage in crime. They were arrested near Billings, Mont., a few days after the killing.
In May 2005, Harrison, 26, was sentenced to life in prison after pleading guilty to first-degree murder in a deal to sidestep the death penalty.
Aston, who was 16 when Corzo was killed, escaped the death penalty in 2005 when the U.S. Supreme Court banned death sentences for people who commit murder while juveniles.
Details of Wells’ crimes were not available, said Mark Vernarelli, a spokesman for the Maryland prison system.
Vernarelli said he did not have information on why Wells was transferred here, but Vernarelli said Wells had been in prison on and off in Maryland, serving time on a variety of convictions since he was 19 years old.
Maryland routinely transfers prisoners to other states for various reasons under what are called interstate compacts, Vernarelli said.
The Arizona Republic contributed to this article.
The heartbreaking case of Mikelle Biggs, an 11-year-old Mesa girl who disappeared more than 10 years ago, returns to the national spotlight Friday.
ABC News’ “20/20,” a newsmagazine show, will delve into the unsolved case as part of a series of shows featuring people who have disappeared.
Darien Biggs, Mikelle’s father, remains convinced that a sex offender sentenced to more than 100 years in prison for the brutal rape of a neighbor is responsible for his daughter’s murder.
While suspicion has focused on the convicted rapist, Mesa police consider Mikelle’s disappearance an open case and have never named a suspect. They say there isn’t enough evidence to charge anyone.
Mikelle disappeared about 6 p.m. on Jan. 2, 1999, at Toltec Street and El Moro Avenue in central Mesa. Mikelle had heard an ice cream truck and ran out to meet it. Her sister, Kimber, went home to get a jacket. Tracy Biggs, their mother, sent Kimber back to tell Mikelle to come home.
Only 90 seconds passed, but Mikelle already was gone, less than a block from the family’s house.
Mikelle’s body never was found. No one apparently witnessed what police still believe was an abduction. Police found Mikelle’s bicycle and two quarters she planned to use to buy the ice cream.
Elizabeth Vargas, an award-winning reporter who worked in Phoenix early in her career for KTVK (Channel 3) from 1986-1989, interviews the Biggs family as part of the show.
“It’s such a heartbreaking case,” Vargas said. “Within two minutes, she vanishes into thin air.”
Vargas said she has worked on profiles of 10 to 15 cases where people have vanished; some eventually were solved and others remain unsolved.
“I think the thing we have found repeatedly in these shows is that not knowing is the worst,” she said.
Darien Biggs called the “20/20″ interview another in a series of attempts to finally find out what happened to Mikelle after more than a decade.
“I won’t be a whole person again until we know for sure,” Biggs said. “I think there has to be more than one person in the world who knows what happened. It’s so hard to keep a secret.”
His hope is that the “20/20″ profile will jog memories and generate more tips for police, perhaps from someone who once lived in Mesa but has moved out of state.
“I just hope that someone will say something. You never know,” he said.
Tucson police found 39-year-old Julio Alonso Carreon slain in a South Side driveway early Friday morning, spokesman Sgt. Fabian Pacheco said. Homicide detectives are investigating.
Tucson Police Department was responding to reports of gunshots when they found Carreon in the 1400 block of East Ganley Terrace Drive, near South Park Avenue and East Bilby Road, Pacheco said.
Carreon was found lying the the dirt driveway of a home minutes after police received the reports, about 2:20 a.m., he said.
Pacheco said Carreon appeared to have sustained gunshot wounds, and the home he was lying near was not his own.
A man, a woman and a child were inside the home but unharmed, Pacheco said. Police are trying to establish the relationship between Carreon and the home’s occupants.
The shooting does not appear to be random nor gang-related, he said, though no motive had been established as of 7:30 a.m. Friday morning.
At that time, police were in the process of getting a search warrant for the home and canvassing the neighborhood for witnesses.
Two vehicles were reported leaving the home after shots were fired, Pacheco said, though descriptions were conflicting.
Police had not identified a suspect as of 7:30 a.m.
