Sam's Top 5 Things to Know for Wednesday

1. FoxNews: Three people were killed yesterday after a man went on a shooting spree in downtown Fresno, California

The man shouted "God is great!" in Arabic before he was tackled and taken into custodyFresno Police Chief said officers took Kori Ali Muhammad, 39, into custody in connection to the shootings. The police chief said Muhammad went by the nickname "Black Jesus" and shouted "Allahu Akbar" as police tackled him to the ground.

The Fresno police chief said at a news conference Muhammad has made posts against white people and the government on his Facebook page. According to police, all of the victims of the shooting rampage on Tuesday were white men.

"These individuals who were chosen today did not do anything to deserve what they got," the police chief said. "These were unprovoked attacks by an individual that was intent on carrying out homicides today. He did that."

All three shooting locations were close to each other in the downtown area. Around 16 shots were fired during the shooting spree, police said.

The police chief also said, “what we know is that this was a random act of violence. There is every reason to believe he acted alone.”

Muhammad was already wanted in connection to the killing of an unarmed security guard at a Motel 6 last week, police said. He now faces four counts of murder and two counts of attempted murder, according to court records.

It's too soon to say whether Muhammad, who was homeless, had ties to any militant groups or causes, Dyer said. Muhammad has a criminal history that includes arrests on weapons, drugs and false imprisonment charges and making terrorist threats, police say. He had been associated with gangs but was not a validated member.

2. FoxNews: Facebook killer Steve Stephens is dead

Steve Stephens, the so-called “Facebook killer” who sparked a multi-state manhunt after he brazenly gunned down a Cleveland man at random, killed himself Tuesday morning in Pennsylvania as cops closed in, authorities said.

Stephens was spotted in a McDonald's parking lot in Erie County just after 11 a.m. by a member of the public who quickly contacted Pennsylvania State Police. After a 2-mile chase, "troopers attempted a PIT maneuver to disable Stephens’ vehicle...As the vehicle was spinning out of control from the PIT maneuver, Stephens pulled a pistol and shot himself in the head," a state police Facebook statement said.

 

A McDonald's employee recognized him and told Stephens the fries were not ready in order to stall for time as another employee called 911. When Stephens saw police approaching from behind, he drove off. Troopers initiated a chase that lasted for roughly two miles and then attempted a move to try to disable the white Ford Fusion he was driving, officials said.

3. FoxNews: Aaron Hernandez, the former New England Patriots star who was convicted of murder in 2015, killed himself in his prison cell

He was found hanging in his cell by corrections officers around 3:05 a.m. this morning at the Souza Baranowski Correctional Center, Massachusetts Department of Correction officials said in a statement. He was pronounced dead an hour later.

Hernandez was in a single cell in a general population housing unit and hanged himself with a bed sheet attached to his cell window. He also tried blocking his door from the inside with various items, officials said. An investigation was ongoing.

The death of the once-promising NFL tight end came almost two years to the day when he was convicted of first-degree murder in the death of semi-pro football player Odin Lloyd.

4. Fox News: A special election in Georgia’s Sixth congressional district failed to produce an outright winner

This result forces a June 20 runoff between upstart Democrat Jon Ossoff and former Georgia Secretary of State Karen Handel.

With 88 percent of the precincts reporting, Ossoff had garnered 48 percent of the vote, falling just short of the majority threshold required in the so-called “jungle primary.” Handel was the top GOP vote-getter at 20 percent, finishing comfortably ahead of technology executive Bob Gray, who received 11 percent of the vote, and former State Senators Judson Hill and Dan Moody, who received 9 percent of the vote respectively.

The winner of the runoff between Handel and Ossoff will succeed Tom Price, who resigned to become Trump's health and human services secretary.

Ossoff, a 30-year-old documentary filmmaker and former congressional aide, had sought to parlay opposition to President Donald Trump into an outright victory that would have emboldened Democrats ahead of the 2018 midterm elections. His run attracted more than $8 million in donations, which largely came from outside the state.

5. FoxNews: Calexit leader drops California secession effort to make Russia his ‘new home’

The man behind the Calexit movement, which pushed for California to secede from the union, is now distancing himself from the controversial effort and said he will stay in Russia.

Louis Marinelli, who helped launch the movement to make California an independent state, said that he “intends to make Russia” his “new home.” As a result, he is withdrawing his petition for a “Calexit” referendum. Marinelli has said in the past that in Russia he has found, “a new happiness, a life without the albatross of frustration and resentment towards ones’ homeland.”

The activist said in a statement he does not intend to return to California in the foreseeable future and therefore feels it’s only right for him to withdraw the Calexit petition.

“As I have stated in the past, I do not wish to live under the American flag,” Marinelli said in a statement posted on Yes California’s webpage. “I do not wish to live under the American political system or within the American economic system.”

The effort to make the nation's most populous state its own country, with what would be the world's sixth-largest economy, gained steam after last year's election of President Donald Trump. But those efforts appear to have been briefly halted.


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