Andrea Rebello

NEW YORK (AP) — The college student was being held in a headlock by a masked intruder with a loaded gun to her head, police said. Then the gunman took aim at an officer.
A moment later both Hofstra University junior Andrea Rebello and the intruder were dead — killed after a split-second decision that is perhaps the most harrowing in law enforcement: when to pull the trigger.
“The big question is, how do you know, when someone’s pointing a gun at you, whether you should keep talking to them, or shoot?” said Michele Galietta, a professor of psychology at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice who helps train police officers. “That’s what makes the job of an officer amazingly difficult.”
She spoke Sunday as Hofstra University students honored Rebello, a popular 21-year-old public relations major, by wearing white ribbons at their graduation ceremony.
Rebello’s funeral is scheduled for Wednesday in Sleepy Hollow, north of New York City.
The news that she died from a police bullet came as “a second shock” for the already devastated family, said Henry Santos, Rebello’s godfather.
Her life ended in the seconds that forced the veteran police officer to make a fatal decision, but the questions surrounding the student’s death are just beginning, along with an internal investigation by the Nassau County Police Department.
Rebello and the intruder, Dalton Smith, died early Friday when the officer fired eight shots, hitting him seven times and her once in the head, according to county homicide squad Lt. John Azzata.
With a gun pointed at her, Smith “kept saying, ‘I’m going to kill her,’ and then he pointed the gun at the police officer,” according to Azzata.
The officer acted quickly, saying later that he believed his and Rebello’s lives were in danger, according to authorities.
No doubt, he was acting to try to save lives — his own and that of the young woman, Galietta said.
“What we’re asking the cop to anticipate is, ‘What is going on in the suspect’s mind at the moment?’” she said. “We’re always trying to de-escalate, to contain a situation, but the issue of safety comes in first, and that’s the evaluation the officer has to make.”
Eugene O’Donnell, a former New York City police officer and professor of law and police studies at John Jay College, said the crucial issue may be whether or not police had deemed it a hostage situation. If so, he said, there are protocols police follow to buy time, slow down, isolate and assess.
But O’Donnell said the officers may have had few options because of “an eyeball to eyeball confrontation between the officer and the offender.”
“It may have been too fluid to deteriorate for the officers to do anything else,” O’Donnell said. “It underscores that there’s no two of these that are exactly alike.”
Police tactical manuals are meant to assist officers in making the best decision possible, but in the end, “they’re not 100 percent foolproof,” Galietta said. “In a situation like that, you can follow procedure, and it doesn’t mean it comes out perfectly.”
Hofstra student John Kourtessis told the New York Post that he’d gone to a bar with Rebello and a few other friends to celebrate the end of school. When they got back to Rebello’s house, she asked him to move his car and he went upstairs to get his keys.
When he came back down, he said, Smith was there. He said Smith kept talking about “the Russian guy,” insisting the house’s residents owed a Russian man money and that he was outside waiting.
“He was saying … that he just needed us to cooperate. I said, ‘Listen, we have all this money here.’”
Kourtessis said the students offered Smith computers, jewelry and other items from the house but that Smith kept demanding more money.
The officer who fired the shots is an eight-year NYPD veteran and has been with Nassau County police for 12 years.
He is now out on sick leave, Azzata said.
Procedurally, the Nassau County district attorney would determine whether an officer’s use of deadly force was justified, O’Donnell said. A spokesman for the prosecutor’s office said Monday it is monitoring the ongoing police investigation.

Dalton Smith

Submitted by Sam Nelson

Police arrested a Kingsport couple Monday night, after a child they were babysitting drove a car and crashed it into a house.

Police say  let the 11-year-old drive.

Witnesses reported seeing a Mercury Mystique careen out of control then smash through a fence, over a swing set, and into the side of a house.

Neighbors say the couple then grabbed several beer cans out of the car and ran away. One witness followed the them to a nearby home and helped police find them.

The pair admitted to police that they had let the child drive, and Taylor told officers that Hammonds had been “drunk since he went to work this morning.”

Hammonds said he was straddling the center console of the vehicle, operating the pedals and steering wheel, while the 11-year-old girl assisted from the driver’s seat.

Hammonds said he drank a bottle of liquor after the accident.

Katrina Taylor was arrested and charged with contributing to the delinquency of a minor, false reporting, aiding and abetting DUI, and reckless endangerment.

Landon Hammonds faces charges of DUI, reckless endangerment, driving on a revoked license, leaving the scene of an accident, and failure to comply with financial responsibility.

No one was hurt in the crash.

Landon Hammonds, 49 Katrina Taylor, 52

VALLEY SPRINGS, Calif. (AP) — People in this quiet Northern California community expressed relief that there had been an arrest in the stabbing death of an 8-year-old girl, but they were stunned by the suspect: her 12-year-old brother.
“It’s just shocking. I don’t know what else to say,” Patti Campbell, longtime restaurant owner in the town of Valley Springs, told The Associated Press on Sunday.
Last month’s stabbing death of Leila Fowler shook this small community southeast of Sacramento and set off an intense manhunt. Her brother was in the home at the time and told police he saw a man run from the scene.
Days later, the boy appeared with his father and stepmother at a vigil for his sister. On Friday, as speculation in the community built that perhaps the boy was involved, his biological mother told Sacramento television station KOVR her son “could never hurt his sister.”
Later that day, police announced that the boy had been arrested and faced homicide charges.
Aaron Plunk, a neighbor of the family, said the arrest was staggering but he could rest easier now. He said he and his family had been extra vigilant about locking windows and doors, even though the street was being closely guarded throughout the manhunt by deputies who demanded IDs of residents to pass.
“I think we were the safest house in the county,” Plunk told the Modesto Bee.
His mother, Carla Plunk called it “a relief knowing there is not some crazy person running around, saying she’d been scared enough to arm herself.
“It the first time I ever held a gun,” she said.
Calaveras Unified School District Superintendent Mark Campbell said counselors will be available Monday at all schools.
The district “stands ready to provide whatever level of support and assistance is necessary to the Fowler family” and the community at large, he said Sunday.
Police released no information about what led them to arrest the boy. Leila’s brother told police he found his sister’s body and encountered an intruder in the home while their parents were at a Little League game. He described the man as tall with long gray hair. A neighbor told detectives she saw a man flee the home, but she later recanted the story.
Police said there was no sign of a burglary or robbery. As part of the investigation, authorities seized several knives from the Fowler home, where Leila lived with her father, stepmother and siblings.
A day before the arrest, the boy’s biological mother told Sacramento television station KOVR her son “could never hurt his sister.”
“I’ve never seen him be mean to her,” Priscilla Rodriquez told the TV station Friday.
Calaveras County Sheriff Gary Kuntz said authorities spent more than 2,000 hours on the investigation before they arrested the boy on Saturday.