TEL AVIV — Early indications suggest the Flydubai co-pilot accused of attacking his captain and trying to seize control of an Israel-bound plane acted alone, rather than as part of a larger organization or on behalf of a foreign government, multiple U.S. officials briefed on the investigation and a former Israeli security official told NBC News.

The U.S. officials cautioned that the investigation into Wednesday’s midair attack remains at an early stage.

“The assessment is that he operated alone. Right now, it looks like a case of ‘lone wolf’ terrorism inspired by content found online,” said Shalom Ben Hanan, a former official in the Shin Bet, Israel’s domestic security agency.

“We still need to wait for the final investigation results to determine whether an organization or a state is behind it,” he added.

Emirati authorities, who are leading the investigation, said Saturday that the co-pilot attacked the captain with a crash ax and attempted to take control of the aircraft’s flight controls in an attempted terrorist attack.

The flight was carrying 174 mostly Israeli passengers from Dubai to Tel Aviv. A crash was averted when crew members and passengers entered the cockpit and subdued the attacker, according to eyewitnesses and Israeli officials.

NBC News has identified the suspect as Omani citizen Hamam al-Hammami, based on information from multiple sources from three agencies briefed on the investigation and a diplomat in the Middle East. Authorities have not released his identity.

UAE Attorney General Hamad Saif Al Shamsi said Saturday that investigators were working to establish the incident’s “full circumstances, motives, and any links.”

The preliminary assessment comes after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Friday that investigators were examining whether the attacker had been sent by someone.

President Donald Trump also raised the possibility of Iranian involvement Thursday, threatening renewed strikes against Iran if it was behind the attack. A senior U.S. official briefed on the Israeli investigation previously told NBC News there were no indications that Iran directed or was involved in the attack.

The flight captain, Indian national Smit Machchhar, said Friday from a hospital in Abu Dhabi that he had been severely injured and could sense the aircraft descending before he managed to open the cockpit door, allowing passengers and crew to intervene.

“I was acting for my own life, but at the same time, I knew I couldn’t let all of them die,” he said on a video call released by India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

With the full, raw master quality of the Jules Naudet being released, this video cuts down the video to just the 9/11 portion of his video, as well as an added clock at the top to keep track of the time. The time goes off of NIST's calculations, so there may be some inaccuracies, but the clock is very near to real time.

0:00 - PRE-8:46 AM

5:45 - Flight 11 Hits The North Tower

6:19 - 8:47:05 AM-9:00:25 AM

19:39 - 9:00:30 AM-9:02:54 AM

22:05 - Flight 175 Hits The South Tower

22:21 - 9:03:11 AM-9:19:19 AM

38:02 - 9:19:24 AM-9:24:54 AM

43:24 - 9:25:00 AM-9:42:17 AM

1:00:41 - 9:42:42-9:58:58 AM

1:16:58 - The South Tower Collapses

1:17:22 - 9:59:23 AM-10:17:06 AM

1:35:06 - 10:17:47 AM-10:28:19 AM

1:45:39 - The North Tower Collapses

1:46:19 - 10:29:00 AM-10:47:48 AM

The September 11 attacks, colloquially known as 9/11, were a coordinated series of suicide attacks perpetrated by the Islamic terrorist organization al-Qaeda against the United States in 2001. A total of 19 terrorists planned and subsequently hijacked four airliners, flying one into each of the Twin Towers at the World Trade Center in New York City. The third plane crashed into the Pentagon, the headquarters of the United States Department of Defense, in Arlington County, Virginia. The fourth plane crashed in a rural field in Pennsylvania during a passenger revolt. In response to the attacks, the United States launched the Global War on Terror, seeking to eliminate hostile groups deemed terrorist organizations and the governments purported to support them. This foreign policy agenda was conducted over the next two decades.

The ringleader, Mohamed Atta, flew American Airlines Flight 11 into the North Tower of the World Trade Center complex at 8:46 a.m. At 9:03 a.m. Marwan al-Shehhi flew United Airlines Flight 175 into the South Tower. Both collapsed within an hour and forty-two minutes, destroying the remaining five structures in the complex. Hani Hanjour flew American Airlines Flight 77 into the Pentagon at 9:37 a.m., causing a partial collapse. United Airlines Flight 93, hijacked by Ziad Jarrah, was believed to target either the United States Capitol or the White House. Alerted to the previous attacks, the passengers revolted and the hijackers crashed the aircraft into a field near Shanksville, Pennsylvania, at 10:03 a.m. The Federal Aviation Administration ordered a ground stop for all traffic in U.S. airspace, requiring all airborne aircraft to return to their point of origin or divert to Canada. The actions undertaken in Canada to support incoming aircraft and their occupants were collectively titled Operation Yellow Ribbon.

That evening, the Central Intelligence Agency informed President George W. Bush that its Counterterrorism Center had identified the attacks as having been the work of al-Qaeda under Osama bin Laden. The United States responded by launching the war on terror and invading Afghanistan. NATO's invocation of Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty—its only usage to date—called upon allies to fight al-Qaeda as well. As U.S. and allied invasion forces swept through Afghanistan, bin Laden eluded them. He denied any involvement until 2004, when excerpts of a taped statement in which he accepted responsibility for the attacks were released. Al-Qaeda's cited motivations included U.S. support of Israel, the presence of U.S. military bases in Saudi Arabia, and sanctions against Iraq. The nearly decade-long manhunt for bin Laden concluded in May 2011, when he was killed during a U.S. military raid in Abbottabad, Pakistan. The war in Afghanistan continued for another decade.

The attacks killed 2,977 people, injured thousands more, and gave rise to long-term health consequences while causing at least US$10 billion in infrastructure and property damage. It remains the deadliest terrorist attack in history, as well as the deadliest incident for firefighters and law enforcement personnel in American history, killing 343 and 72 members, respectively. The crashes of Flight 11 and Flight 175 were the deadliest aviation disasters of all time, and the collision of Flight 77 with the Pentagon resulted in the fourth-highest number of ground fatalities in a plane crash in history. The destruction of the World Trade Center and its environs seriously harmed the U.S. economy and induced global market shocks. Many other countries strengthened anti-terrorism legislation and expanded their powers of law enforcement and intelligence agencies. The total number of deaths caused by the attacks, combined with the death tolls from the conflicts they directly incited, has been estimated by the Costs of War Project to be more than 4.5 million.

Cleanup of the World Trade Center site (colloquially known as "Ground Zero") was completed in May 2002, while the Pentagon was repaired within a year. After delays in the design of a replacement complex, six new buildings were planned to replace the lost towers at the World Trade Center site, along with a museum and memorial dedicated to those who were killed or injured in the attacks. The tallest building, One World Trade Center, began construction in 2006 and opened in 2014. Memorials to the attacks include the National September 11 Memorial & Museum in New York City; the Pentagon Memorial in Arlington County, Virginia; and the Flight 93 National Memorial at the Pennsylvania crash site.

BANG KRUAI, Thailand, Sept 1 (Reuters) - A school in Thailand where a student went on a deadly shooting rampage three weeks ago reopened on Tuesday amid heightened security, with police ​deployed and checks performed on bags.

The 14-year-old student killed seven people including himself at ‌the Debsirin Nonthaburi School on the outskirts of the capital Bangkok on August 7, after shooting his grandparents dead in their home.

The incident was Thailand's deadliest mass shooting in nearly four years and has sparked debate over ​gun control in the country.

A screen at the entrance to the school on Tuesday ​displayed the names and images of those who died, while white ribbons ⁠were tied to the fence in their memory. Aside from the gunman, one student and ​five staff were killed.

Civil defence volunteers wearing berets and camouflage uniforms were posted around the grounds ​of the school as students queued for bag checks, some carrying items in transparent plastic bags.

Parents expressed mixed emotions about the return to classes.

"On one hand, I feel confident the school will put strict and thorough ​safety measures in place," said Thongbai Muenjit, who has a 15-year-old daughter at the school.

"But ​I'm worried about my child's mental state and how she will feel going back to the building where ‌the ⁠shooting happened," he said.

The school's staff have been visited by mental health experts from the health ministry since the incident.

Parent Natchuda Petpuangpan said she supported her 12-year-old daughter returning to class.

"I don't think these kinds of incidents happen every day. It could have happened anywhere," she said.

Days after ​the shooting, Prime Minister ​Anutin Charnvirakul suspended ⁠the issuance of permits to buy firearms and said existing licences would be reviewed.

Thailand had an estimated 10.3 million firearms in civilian possession and the ​second-highest rate in Asia, according to a 2017 estimate by the ​Small Arms Survey.

Last ⁠month, a school in Bangkok held a drill to prepare students for active shooter incidents.

Student Adisorn Deesa, 15, said the Debsirin Nonthaburi school would be providing mental health support to the students and ⁠he was ​happy to return and see his friends.

"With online classes, ​I couldn't understand the lessons as well as I do at school, and I think my friends are happy to ​be back too," he said.

The FBI warned Caleb Vazquez's mother about her son's online activity just days before he left a San Diego mental health facility and joined 17-year-old Cain Lee Clark in the deadly attack at the Islamic Center of San Diego, according to a new wrongful death lawsuit filed by Vazquez's mother.

The August 31 non-conformed lawsuit alleges Vazquez's treatment providers knew about the FBI's concerns but failed to move him to a more secure facility. The Vazquez family accuses Park Mental Health of negligence, wrongful death, dependent-adult abuse and medical malpractice. 

News 8 has reached out to Park Mental Health but has not received a response before deadline. This story will be updated to reflect any statement they provide. 

Vazquez, 18, and Clark killed three Muslim men at the mosque on May 18 before driving away and dying by suicide minutes later. 

The new filing fleshes out Vazquez's alleged whereabouts and why people were concerned in the days leading up to the shooting.

FBI warns mom about 'dark web' activity before disappearance

Vazquez was living at a mental health facility in the North Park neighborhood overseen by Park Mental Health and receiving treatment for myriad disorders, including: autism, OCD, body dysmorphia anxiety, depression and psychotic episodes, the suit alleges. He was admitted April 28, 2026. 

The FBI contacted mother Lilliana Vazquez and told her he was using the dark web and speaking with people about school shootings and suicides. Mrs. Vazquez reached out to his therapist at Park Mental Health on the morning of May 14 and made her aware of the FBI warning. His therapist then allegedly texted Ms. Vazquez five hours later and said she spoke with the program director. They set up a time for the following day to discuss the FBI warning. 

Mrs. Vazquez believes Park Mental didn't address the concerns with her son quickly enough. He should have been placed in a more secure facility. 

"The above described breach of the standards of care, i.e. the negligent failure of all Defendants to take adequate steps to protect Caleb Vazquez from his own self destructive actions, such as transferring him to a locked facility, pursuant to section 5150 of the California Welfare and Institutions Code and otherwise, resulted in Decedents untimely death," the complaint reads.

Then Vazquez went missing. 

The program director allegedly texted Mrs. Vazquez saying, "Do you have an idea of where Caleb could be?" 

Mrs. Vazquez replied, "Are you saying that he's missing?" 

"Yes," the program director allegedly said.

Video surveillance showed him leaving the facility the night before the shooting around 8:24 p.m. The suit says the footage showed Vazquez pacing back and forth while he was on the phone inside the facility. But his parents say they weren't made aware until the morning -- just hours before the shooting. 

By the time Mrs. Vazquez called San Diego Police, he was already with Clark. They would then go on a killing spree that ended in their own suicides. 

SDPD: A May 18 timeline of what happened at the Islamic Center of San Diego

Before the shooting

Around 9:42 a.m., San Diego Police received a call from a San Diego mother saying Clark was a runaway and a gun of hers was missing. She believed her son to be suicidal and that he was with a person her son met online, now known to be Vazquez. She didn't know his last name and had never seen him before. She told police they were both wearing camouflage.

Initial reports from San Diego Police Chief Scott Wahl said Clark was described as a runaway, suicidal teen. The updated timeline published Friday indicates they did not know he was suicidal or violent and classified Clark's mother's call as a Priority 2 call. News 8 reported last year that while officers aim to respond to Priority 2 calls in 27 minutes, it actually takes on average 115 minutes to respond.

At 9:45 a.m., dispatchers share the descriptions of Clark, Vazquez and Clark's car. Officers did not have Vazquez's last name at the time.

At 10:41 a.m., Clark's mother calls again and reports several firearms are missing and she believes Clark took them. She also told dispatchers she found a possible suicide note on his computer along with "hate-filled writings."

San Diego Unified School District was notified of the incident since Clark was a student within the district. 

The call was upgraded to a "Priority 1" at 10:50 a.m. because of potential acts of violence.

At 10:54 a.m., two officers and a patrol sergeant head to the mother's house.

All dispatch centers countywide were notified at 11:04 a.m. 

At 11:06 a.m., officials believe their actions will lead to violence and they call the San Diego Law Enforcement Coordination Center and the Department's Criminal Intelligence Unit and Threat Management Unit. They also requested data from the license plate reader system.

Around 11:10 a.m., police arrived at the Clark's home to speak with the mother. Officers then learn Clark and Vazquez possibly wrote a suicide pact. 

By this time, Clark's school within the San Diego Unified School District was alerted and data from license plate readers were being scanned. Police got two hits for the license plate of Clark's car heading east in the Mission Valley area at 11:31 a.m. Units were sent out. 

At 11:37 a.m., Clark's mother said they may be at a store he likes in Mission Valley. 

The car was gone when officers arrived. 

The shooting

At 11:42 a.m., the first reports of the shooting at the Islamic Center of San Diego came in. Officers were interviewing Clark's mother as it happened. The call was elevated to a Priority 0, triggering a countywide response.

Clark and Vazquez had stormed the mosque, running by security guard Amin Abdullah while he was working his shift at the Islamic Center of San Diego. The shooters didn't realize he was there. Abdullah, who approached from behind, started shooting at the gunmen. They responded with a slew of bullets. As bullets flew, Abdullah used his radio to call in a lockdown. 

The students went on lockdown. All 140 students and their teachers hunkered down in classroom closets as they could hear the gunfire just 15 feet away. 

Abdullah died from gunshot wounds to the head, according to the San Diego County Medical Examiner's Office. 

Two additional men, now identified as Mansour Kaziha and Nader Awad, ran toward the gunfire. The gunmen ran outside after killing Abdullah and saw Kaziha and Awad. 

Awad lived across the street.

Kaziha and Awad were unable to flee by the time the two shooters made their way to the parking lot. The shooters cornered the men and shot them both to death. The Medical Examiner said they died from gunshot wounds to the head and torso. The shooters ran to a car and fled the scene. 

At 11:46 a.m., the first batch of San Diego Police officers arrived on scene. 

Clark and Vazquez were already gone.

At 11:52 a.m., another call came in with additional shots fires on the 7100 block of Salerno Street where a landscaper was shot at. The helmet he was wearing took the brunt of the gunfire and he suffered minor injuries.

At 12:03 p.m., the shooters parked a few blocks away in the 3800 block of Hatton Street and parked. They both died by self-inflicted gunshot wounds in the car. 

What we know about Vazquez, their motives

The FBI said Vazquez and Clark met online and were radicalized.

News 8 obtained a 75-page manifesto that is believed to be put together by Clark and Vazquez. It is riddled with a nihilistic mix of anti-Muslim, misogynistic, anti-Hispanic, anti-gay and anti-trans hate rhetoric. It also blamed Jewish people for the ills of the world and idolized James Huberty, who killed 21 people in a San Ysidro McDonald's in 1984.

It is unclear if the shooters created it themselves or had AI-assistance.

In addition to the antisemitic slander, it identified them as "accelerationists," which is known to be one of the most violent ideologies harbored by white supremacists.

Accelerationism is the idea that society is irredeemable and promotes its believers to partake in sabotage and violence to promote societal collapse. Its primary objective is to create a white ethno-state in its aftermath, according to the Anti-Defamation League.

CBS News referenced the widely circulated livestream the shooters aired during the rampage. They allegedly referenced themselves as the 'sons' of the shooters who committed the 2019 shooting at a mosque in Christchurch, New Zealand, that killed 51 people. The New Zealand shooters also livestreamed their massacre.

A 17-year-old girl who recorded their livestream of the shooting and spread it online was indicted and charged with murder by aiding and abetting on Monday.

CBS News also reports a gun Vazquez and Clark used had the words "race war" carved into it and that the teen shooters wore gear with Nazi symbols resembling the "SS" insignias worn by Hitler's paramilitary ranks.

News 8 reached out to the Vazquez family for comment on the newly filed lawsuit. The representing attorney said they did not want to comment.

MIDTOWN (WABC) -- One person was shot during an officer-involved shooting in Times Square on Monday afternoon, the NYPD said.

Police fired shots at 4:27 p.m. between Seventh Avenue West and 42nd and 43rd Streets, police said.

Police sources said a woman who appeared to be emotionally disturbed was threatening people with two knives.

The incident was initially reported as a knifepoint robbery but police now believe the emotionally disturbed person had no clear motive, police said.

At 4:26 p.m. FDNY responded to 42nd and Seventh Avenue for a report of a person stabbed.

Police said the woman stabbed two people, a man and a woman before police arrived.

Then the woman fled north toward the NYPD substation where police confronted her, police said.

Police say the woman refused to put the knives down when police approached her.

The woman who was shot and the two victims who were stabbed were taken to the hospital with life-threatening injuries.

Police are closing traffic from West 42nd street to West 47th Street as the investigation continues.

PROVIDENCE, R.I. (WPRI) — A review commissioned and paid for by the city has concluded that Providence’s response to the December 2025 mass shooting at Brown University was highly effective, while flagging communication failures that included a mass-notification system which wasn’t working the day of the attack.

The 65-page assessment, dated Aug. 19 and released Friday, was written by the Police Executive Research Forum, or PERF, a Washington-based nonprofit of police leaders that Providence hired after the shooting. The city paid $95,000 for the report.

The review is largely based on the city’s own internal after-action reports, supplemented by interviews with employees of those same agencies. The city has not released any of the underlying after-action reports, and said they would need to be sought by making a formal request under the Access to Public Records Act.

Two students were killed and nine were wounded in the attack on Dec. 13, 2025, inside the Barus & Holley Building. The gunman, later identified as Cláudio Manuel Neves Valente, evaded law enforcement, fled campus and two days later killed an MIT professor in Brookline, Massachusetts. 

Neves Valente was found dead five days after the Brown shooting in a storage unit in Salem, New Hampshire. Authorities said he shot and killed himself after recording videos of himself expressing no remorse for his actions.

The PERF report examining Providence leans heavily into the city’s initial response time, lauding first responders for meeting or exceeding national benchmarks for responding to active-shooter events.

Dispatchers sent police and fire personnel at 4:07 p.m., 1 minute and 22 seconds after the first call reporting shots fired. Officers arrived at 4:10 p.m. and entered the building within five minutes of dispatch, not knowing whether the shooter remained inside.

Every wounded student was en route to a hospital by 4:23 p.m., many driven in police cruisers rather than waiting for ambulances, according to the report.

“This approach prioritized rapid evacuation and transport, which is widely recognized as critical in life-threatening trauma situations and was highly effective in this incident,” according to the report.

Those response times met national benchmarks in every category but one, according to the report. The exception was unified command, which was requested at 4:23 p.m. but delayed while officers worked in the “active hot-zone operations,” according to the report. 

The report compares Providence favorably with high-profile mass-shooting responses in Nashville, San Bernardino and Parkland, a peer group drawn from the city’s own review.

It’s unclear in the report why those incidents are comparable to the Providence situation beyond being mass-shooting events. The review does not examine whether the two students who died could have been saved.

PERF largely praised Providence Mayor Brett Smiley and Col. Oscar Perez for their communication during the crisis, describing the mayor’s public remarks as “measured and highly effective.”

The report also praised city leaders for exercising restraint when describing a man FBI and other law enforcement detained in Coventry as a “person of interest.” The man, who was confused as the suspect, was later released.

PERF defended Smiley’s decision to initially tell residents that “the people of Providence should breathe a little easier this morning” after the wrong man was detained.

“Understanding that statement’s chaotic context is important, as it came amid rapidly unfolding events and intense public demand for information,” the report said. “Viewed in that light, the remark serves as one point in a broader pattern of strong mayoral communications throughout the incident, shaped by evolving facts, operational constraints, and the need to keep the public informed.”

Overall, PERF’s criticisms were structural rather than specific. Detailed issues outlined in the report included:

• Lt. Patrick Potter, commander of the department’s Special Response Unit, moved through Barus & Holley unaware that Brown University public safety officers had entered from another location.
• Providence had no two-way radio protocol and coordinated only after meeting inside the building.
• Officers from neighboring departments arrived in a city that had no system to stage or assign them.
• The rapid transport of victims left no real-time accounting of which patients went where.
• The Providence Emergency Management Agency, which ran family reunification, was not fully brought into the early response.

The report also discloses in a single paragraph that CodeRED, the city’s mass notification system, was not working at the time of the shooting. It does not say how long the system had been down, whether officials knew it wasn’t or who was responsible for maintaining it.

Less than a month before the shooting, the R.I. Department of Emergency Management revealed CodeRED was temporarily unavailable due to a cyberattack. After the report was released, city officials confirmed Friday that’s why the system was down during the attack.

“CodeRED went down nationwide — including in Rhode Island — due to a cyber-attack on November 10, 2025,” Providence police spokesperson Kristy DosReis said in a statement.

“The system came back online in late December of 2025 but municipalities were not fully up and running with the rebuilt CodeRED until late January,” she added.

Officials considered but did not use a separate warning system called the Wireless Emergency Alerts, or WEA.

“In an active shooter incident, these alerts can create operational challenges, including disrupting shelter-in-place environments or drawing attention to areas where people are trying to remain concealed, as was the case for students sheltering inside Barus & Holley,” according to the report.

Brown drew repeated criticism in the city’s report.

Detectives were told the university’s shuttle buses had no cameras, which turned out to be wrong. The shuttle footage ultimately established the gunman’s escape route.

Access to campus video was delayed, and city officials learned of Brown’s shelter-in-place order through news coverage.

Every recommendation in the report is assigned to Providence police, not the university. Brown has pledged to release its own review of the shooting before classes start on Sept. 9.

The city’s review also stressed that the findings are not intended to correct deficiencies. It suggested Providence could be held up as an example for other cities to follow.

“Providence is well positioned not only to build on its performance in this incident but to serve as a model for other jurisdictions seeking to strengthen their preparedness for complex, high-consequence events,” according to the report.

Twelve of its 18 recommendations begin by urging the city to “continue” efforts, including one directing police and Brown to install radio protocols the two agencies did not have on Dec. 13.

The report does not mention Gov. Dan McKee or state government beyond the attorney general’s office and one reference to state police.

Providence leaders issued a press release along with the report, praising the city’s response to the attack. The release included a list of actions the city has taken or already completed to improve the city’s crisis-response protocols.

“Every discussion of this response must begin with the people whose lives were changed forever,” Smiley said in his final prepared statement included in the release.

“We will never lose sight of that,” he added. “Our commitment to preparedness is ultimately about protecting people and giving our first responders every possible advantage when lives are at risk.”

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — Documents released a year after the deadly shooting at a Minneapolis Catholic church and school provide a detailed account of the swift and widespread response by law enforcement officers — who arrived within minutes and began triaging injured students.

But the nearly 1,500 photos and hundreds of pages cataloging witness interviews, evidence and officer accounts of the shooting at Annunciation Church and School don’t shed much light on why 23-year-old Robin Westman launched the Aug. 27, 2025, attack that killed 8-year-old Fletcher Merkel and 10-year-old Harper Moyski. At least 21 other children and adults were wounded before Westman died by suicide.

Files provide insight into what officers encountered

The documents released this week by city officials as part of a records request show dozens of officers from Minneapolis and a half dozen other state, federal and neighboring local law enforcement agencies arrived quickly — with the first on scene about three and a half minutes after the first report of a possible shooting, the dispatch records showed.

By that time, Westman, who was armed with a rifle, shotgun and pistol as well as knives, smoke bombs and multiple rounds of ammunition, was already on the ground suffering from a self-inflicted gunshot wound.

The documents detail a sprawling crime scene filled with bullet holes and littered with shell casings recovered from around the church, the neighboring playground and as far away as the walls and gutters of houses in the surrounding neighborhood.

The first officers entering the sanctuary described encountering a horrific scene of victims lying across pews, “vast” amounts of blood, broken glass and the smell of gunpowder in the air. One officer’s report began with the disclaimer that he had not reviewed his body camera video from the call — and did not plan to.

Officers triaged as many patients as they could, holding pressure against wounds and applying a tourniquet for an adult who was wounded in the parking lot — shot in the leg and losing blood quickly. The officer rode with her to the hospital, where staff said he likely saved her life.

Survivors recount a Mass disrupted, lives shattered

Many survivors described sitting in Mass when they began hearing shots coming from outside, and the windows began to shatter. At least one described holding the inner doors to the church shut as they heard the outside doors rattling.

Many of the children told officers they had ducked under pews or followed adults to hide in other areas of the church. Preschool teachers described barricading classrooms and trying to keep children calm and as sheltered as they could.

Officers also described the throng of parents searching for children and spouses who worked at the school, including a woman who said her husband had grabbed their child and hidden near an ice machine in the basement of the church.

The records provide few new insights into motive

Overall, the records — lists of evidence, weapons, journals and other seized belongings — are a compilation of information that has been previously reported, though a handful of new details were released, including some of Westman’s actions before the shooting.

Investigators had previously said Westman was “full of hatred” and seeming admiration for previous mass shooters — writing their names on the weapons, gear and ammunition used in the attack along with a slew of statements attacking religions, race and ethnicity in an unclear mishmash that provided little insight into Westman’s target and decisions.

A search warrant in the documents showed the car Westman drove to the church that morning and in the days before the shooting had a dashcam. Officers described the videos recorded by that camera, writing that Westman seemed agitated after a visit with family and at times sobbed before driving by the church and school the night before the attack.

The records also include transcripts of police interviews with Westman’s father, ex-girlfriend, close friend and former co-workers, describing Westman as somewhat of a loner prone to depression. Many of those people had not previously spoken publicly about the shooting or about Westman.

While several said Westman had expressed suicidal ideations years earlier, they also said they had not seen signs that Westman was capable of hurting others. Westman’s father said he hadn’t seen a reason to be worried about his child before the shooting, noting only that Westman had been struggling to eat and had lost significant weight. Several relatives declined to speak with law enforcement altogether, according to the record release.

City officials said more documents or videos could be released in coming weeks. Many of the documents already released had been redacted to protect the privacy of the victims. There were no photos or visuals released from inside the church.

A man killed eight relatives, including his sister and four children, at a family dinner in Montana weeks after his parents asked him to move out, authorities said Wednesday.

The attack unfolded early Sunday evening on White Star Circle just outside Billings at a home owned by victims Dana Smith, 73, and Barbara Smith, 72, officials said.

The homeowners were killed along with Megan Ireland-Ghekiere, 39, and her four children, Owen Ireland, 13; Chloe Ireland, 7; Landon Ghekiere, 15; and Charlotte Ghekiere, 12, authorities said.

Evelyn Smith, 92 — whom interim Yellowstone County Sheriff Kent O’Donnell called the “family matriarch” — did not live at the home but was there Sunday for dinner. She was killed.

O’Donnell identified the shooter as Alan Michael Smith, 44, saying he carried out a “very complex” attack. He was found dead as authorities sought the killer.

Smith is the brother of victim Megan Ireland-Ghekiere and thus an uncle to all four of the younger victims, Billings police said.

Dana and Barbara Smith were the killer’s parents and Evelyn Smith was his grandmother, according to police.

Smith had once lived in that house and had been asked to move out weeks earlier, Brad Ireland — Megan Ireland-Ghekiere’s ex-husband — told The Associated Press.

O’Donnell confirmed that Alan Smith had once lived at the house but wasn’t residing there when the violence occurred Sunday.

“This is an ongoing criminal investigation with eight victims, making this very complex,” O’Donnell said.

The killings wiped out members from four generations, said Jennifer Mercer, a neighbor and family friend who set up an online fundraiser to help cover funeral costs and other expenses and was authorized to release the details.

Smith arrived at the home at about 5:49 p.m., and 11 minutes later neighbors believed they heard the sound of fireworks, officials said. That kind of noise, especially in the summer, wouldn’t necessarily alarm anyone, O’Donnell said.

But at 6:02 p.m., dispatchers received a call from a “female” voice inside the house, and Yellowstone County sheriff’s deputies arrived at 6:10 p.m., officials said.

The children were all very close and everyone got along, with their parents remaining amicable even after having divorced, according to Mercer.

“Charlotte was the hero that dialed 911,” Mercer said told NBC News in a statement. “She tried to save her family. She lived by her favorite quote, ‘I love you more.’”

When police officers and deputies arrived, they “confronted the suspect in the front yard, where he retreated into the house,” O’Donnell said.

More “gunshots were heard within the household” before the shooter went to the back of the property, O’Donnell said.

At about 6:13 p.m., a deputy “heard a final shot, which was broken away from the rest of the shots,” according to O’Donnell.

By about 6:22, police officers and sheriff’s deputies “made entrance into the backyard,” found a male victim there with a gunshot wound and began lifesaving measures on him, O’Donnell said.

“At this time, it wasn’t known that he was actually the suspect of all this,” O’Donnell said. “He was just a person down, and law enforcement did what they’re trained to do. They got him out of the hot zone and provided what first aid they could. He was pronounced dead upon arrival at the hospital.”

The blaze continued until about 1 a.m. Monday, Billings Fire Department Chief Matt Hoppel said.

Another complicating factor in the fire was that the house sat outside Billings city limits on county land where fire hydrants were not mandatory.

“They had to haul in truckloads of water, set up a temporary tank and pump out of that tank,” O’Donnell said. “So the fire suppression portion of this was very, very difficult.”

The Smith family moved to Montana from the Seattle area.

When Megan Ghekiere and Ireland divorced six years ago, she moved to Montana with their children, her ex-husband said.

Megan Ghekiere would then meet Adam Ghekiere, who would become her second husband. He was working and not at the Smith home when gunfire erupted.

“We are so grateful for the prayers, the love, the support that we’re getting from the nation,” Ghekiere said.

The blended family appeared to be very close, emotionally and geographically, with Evelyn Smith, Dana’s elderly mother, living in a nearby retirement home, Ireland said.

“They were nice,” neighbor Donna Heisler, 67, told NBC News on Tuesday. “I talked to Barbara, the wife, at a couple of garage sales.”

Heisler said her neighbors appeared to enjoy their privacy.

“They kind of kept to themselves. Really weren’t a very outgoing couple,” Heisler said. “They weren’t the socialites on the block, so you’d see them once in a while, but they weren’t overly outgoing.”

She added: “And coming from a bigger city maybe more the way they preferred to have it.”

Ireland said Alan Smith had moved in with his parents in Montana and stayed with them for years before he was asked to leave a couple of weeks ago.

Ireland called Alan Smith a “hermit” and said, “No one knew what he did in there 24/7.”

Smith’s name was not connected to any criminal records in Montana and Washington.

“We had not been called to this residence before, and we had not had any prior contact with the suspect,” O’Donnell said.

Adam Ghekiere, who works at the airport in Billings, learned of the shootings over dispatch radio, and when he couldn’t reach family on the phone, he raced to the crime scene.

Ghekiere’s children weren’t supposed to be there, he said, because family dinner was usually on Friday.

Ghekiere said police have confirmed to him that Charlotte was the one who dialed 911 from inside the house.

“I keep hearing her — every time I would say, ‘I love you,’ she would say, ‘I love you more,’” Ghekiere told the AP.

A Texas appeals court on Friday sharply reduced the $49 million award that a jury ordered the broadcaster Alex Jones to pay the parents of a Sandy Hook shooting victim after he spread false conspiracy theories about the attack.

The Third Court of Appeals in Austin, Texas, set the amount instead at about $6 million, leaving in place the compensatory damages but slashing the punitive damages in line with the state’s cap on such awards. The court said that the parents’ claims did not warrant lifting the cap, and that the trial judge improperly allowed lawyers for the parents to submit an amended petition supporting the larger judgment after the verdict.

Mr. Jones hailed the ruling as a victory in the deluge of cases over the mass shooting that aim to dismantle his Austin-based Infowars broadcast and supplements empire. But it does not affect more than $1 billion he owes the families of other victims who sued in Connecticut and received a verdict that has withstood multiple appeals.

None of the families have collected on the judgments, as they wrangle with Mr. Jones in bankruptcy court, and their chances of collecting anything near what juries have awarded them are negligible.

The ruling comes four years after a jury in Austin ordered Mr. Jones to pay Scarlett Lewis and Neil Heslin $4 million in compensatory damages and $45 million in punitive damages. Their 6-year-old son, Jesse Lewis, died in the attack.

Mr. Jones for years peddled lies on his Infowars broadcast that the Dec. 14, 2012, mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., was a hoax perpetrated by the government and the victims’ families. Jesse Lewis was one of 20 first graders killed in the shooting, along with six educators. During the 2022 damages trial, Ms. Lewis and Mr. Heslin testified that Mr. Jones’s conspiracy theories had subjected them to years of online and in-person abuse, and that they feared daily for their safety.

Ms. Lewis and Mr. Heslin, along with Lenny Pozner and Veronique de la Rosa, the parents of the Sandy Hook victim Noah Pozner, were the first to sue Mr. Jones for defamation, filing their cases in Texas in early 2018. They were followed several weeks later by the families of eight other victims, who sued Mr. Jones in Connecticut. A jury awarded those families a total of $1.4 billion.

Mr. Jones celebrated the ruling on Friday, saying he intended to appeal to the Texas Supreme Court to further reduce the award. “This is a MASSIVE VICTORY for the 1st Amendment!” he said on social media.

The ex-wife of the man accused of killing five people in a rural northern Michigan shooting rampage blames the local court system for failing to keep him behind bars.

Chad Hickman, 39, was found dead on Aug. 14 following an extensive manhunt in Missaukee County, roughly 200 miles northwest of Detroit, according to Michigan State Police. Authorities said the violence began at a home, where officers responding to reports of a shooting found a 45-year-old man, a 40-year-old woman, and a 16-year-old boy dead, and a 13-year-old girl critically wounded.

During the investigation, police discovered a 53-year-old man fatally shot at a second residence and later found a 29-year-old woman dead near a wooded area alongside Hickman. Evidence at the scene indicated Hickman died by suicide, according to state police.

Chad Hickman's history of alleged violence and the court system's handling of the cases have come under scrutiny following the deadly shooting spree.

"Missaukee County should be held accountable for what's going on," his ex-wife Katie Hickman told the Detroit Free Press, part of the USA TODAY Network, in a brief phone interview on Aug. 17.

"Every last bit of it. Every death falls on the Missaukee County prosecutor who released Chad and let him off all the charges after he raped, tormented, and almost [expletive] killed me and 15 years of abuse," she continued. "Missaukee County let him do this. They were warned and they knew it was coming and they let it happen."

Ex-wife of suspected gunman previously sought protection

In late July 2025, Chad Hickman's ex-wife sought a personal protection order against him, alleging years of abuse.

"I fear for my life and my children," Katie Hickman wrote in a letter to the court seeking the order. "Chad is an evil man. He tortured me for 15 years and he hurt my children. Chad will stop at nothing, he will never leave me alone. Now that he is released, he is back in possession of many guns, pistols, rifles including fully automatic weapons. He is a danger to me and my children."

Family Court Judge Edward Van Alst denied the request for the protection order and advised Katie Hickman that she could seek a hearing to plead her case. Court records do not show any hearing ever being held.

"Petitioner fails to clearly establish reasonable cause to believe immediate, irreparable injury, loss or danger will result from the delay to give notice," Van Alst wrote in his decision.

The denial came after Chad Hickman had been released from the county jail, where he had served time after cutting a plea deal with prosecutors the year before.

Van Alst declined through his office on Aug. 17 to comment on the decision to deny the protection order.

Why prosecutors agreed to a plea deal

In that 2024 case, Chad Hickman was charged with felony counts of criminal sexual conduct and assault with intent to do great bodily harm, along with misdemeanor counts of child abuse and contributing to the delinquency of a minor.

He agreed to plead guilty to two misdemeanor counts, according to court records. Prosecutors agreed to drop the felonies.

In a statement explaining the plea deal, Missaukee County Prosecutor David DenHouten said his office had charged Chad Hickman with the felonies even though the crimes were alleged to have happened years before they were reported to police. A police report shows the accusations were reported in December 2023 and stretched back to 2011.

DenHouten also noted that the allegations were made in the middle of a divorce case. Court records show the divorce was especially bitter. DenHouten said the prosecutor's office became aware of prior family court testimony in which Katie Hickman, under oath, denied an assault had taken place.

"In light of the fact that the alleged victim’s credibility had been severely damaged, and because the truthfulness of her proposed testimony was in question, and without other corroborating evidence to support the assault, the Missaukee County Prosecutor’s office entered into a plea agreement involving the remaining child abuse counts," he wrote.

The Detroit Free Press was not immediately able to access transcripts of Katie Hickman's testimony that DenHouten referenced.

Court records: Children described abuse to investigators

Court records related to the criminal case show two children who lived with the couple told investigators that they witnessed abuse. One of the two daughters was the couple's biological child and the other was Katie Hickman's from a previous relationship.

One girl, who was 15 at the time, described seeing Chad Hickman choke her mom with his arm and hands, including once in the kitchen when he pinned her against a "cabinet or refrigerator" with his arm against her throat, according to a summary of the police interview from 2023. The girl said she went to call police for help and Chad Hickman smashed her phone.

When investigators asked how the choking incidents would end, the girl said there came a point when her mother could no longer breathe. She told police she had seen her mother's face "turning purple" and that she was gasping for air, court records show.

The girl also told investigators that after her mother was injured in a car crash and relied on crutches following foot surgery, Chad Hickman would sometimes throw the crutches outside the house to prevent her from walking, according to court records.

A critically wounded 13-year-old girl, shot multiple times by a Lake City man on a shooting spree in northern Michigan that left three other family members dead in the girl's home, was able to call 911, alert authorities and identify the shooter as Chad Hickman, a family member said on social media.

Hickman's alleged rampage left another man dead at a second location in Missaukee County, and a woman was found dead in a wooded area near Whitlock Lake alongside Hickman, with indications that he took his own life.

Michigan State Police on Saturday released only the ages and genders of the victims in the shooting spree, which occurred in the rural county east of Cadillac. But David Everitt, a Cadillac resident, on Facebook identified his daughter, Amanda Everitt, as among those killed by alleged gunman Chad Hickman, 39, of Lake City.

"The world just lost two beautiful people and one is clinging to life ... My daughter Amanda and her two beautiful children were shot in their home yesterday. Amanda and her son eric went home to be with god and our granddaughter Bella is clinging to life in a Grand Rapids hospital," he posted.

David Everitt later in the post noted, "Prayers for Bella who while shot 4 times still managed to call 911 and identify the shooter ... She is a hero."

Family members at David Everitt's home said he wasn't available for comment on Saturday.

A GoFundMe drive to raise money to help the family was set up on Sunday.

Megan Brown, chief communications officer for Munson Healthcare, confirmed Sunday that the Munson Healthcare Cadillac Hospital did treat one victim of a "tragic local incident on Friday." After being stabilized, Brown said, the victim was transferred to another facility outside of Munson for further treatment.

"We extend our thoughts to everyone impacted by this incident," according to Brown's statement to the Detroit Free Press. 

Mike Davidson lives on South Blodgett Road less than 2 miles from the house where three of the slayings occurred.

“This is what everybody is talking about, everybody that I ran into today, everybody’s talking about it in all of the smaller communities around here. It seems like everybody knew at least one person involved in it. It’s really had an impact; it’s led to a lot of scared people.”

Detectives from the Michigan State Police Cadillac Post, throughout Friday and into Saturday, investigated three crime scenes in the county. Investigators pieced together a preliminary timeline of events:

• At approximately 11:40 a.m. on Friday, Aug. 14, troopers were dispatched to a home on South LaChance Road in Lake Township for a report of a 13-year-old girl who had been shot. She was transported to a local hospital in critical condition, and according to police, she remains hospitalized and is now listed in stable condition.
• Police found three other people shot dead at the South LaChance Road home: a 45-year-old male, 40-year-old female and 16-year-old male.
• With Hickman gone from the South LaChance Road home, police undertook a massive search, with state police bringing in aviation, K-9, and emergency support teams. The search led police to a second home a few miles away in Missaukee County, where they found a 53-year-old male dead.
• Police eventually found Hickman's vehicle in a wooded area at Whitlock Lake in Caldwell Township in the county, where they discovered a deceased 29-year-old female alongside Hickman.

Hickman had violent history, court records show

Court records show Hickman had a criminal conviction for child abuse and a stormy divorce with accusations of domestic abuse.

Court records show that in January 2024, Hickman was arraigned on four felony and five misdemeanor charges in Missaukee County. Prosecutors accused him of assault with intent to do great bodily harm less than murder by strangulation. They also charged him with two counts of first-degree criminal sexual conduct and one count of interfering with electronic communications.

The misdemeanor charges at the time were one count of domestic violence, three counts of fourth-degree child abuse and one count of contributing to the delinquency of a minor.

In August 2024, Hickman pleaded guilty to one count of fourth-degree child abuse and one count of contributing to the delinquency of a minor. All other charges were dismissed, according to online court records.

A judge sentenced Hickman to a year in the county jail.

Hickman's 2023 divorce from his wife, Katie Hickman, was so bitter that he posted parts of the court file on his Facebook page, thanking the judge for being "way to f---ing smart to believe my ex wife's bull---- story."

The records show the couple married in 2011. Katie Hickman was injured in an accident and received a lawsuit settlement. The pair used that money to start a business buying and renovating homes to rent or sell.

The marriage eventually soured and they separated and tried reconciling.

Hickman testified in the case that he attempted to separate from his wife in December 2023 after she set up online dating profiles, according to the court filings posted online on his Facebook page. He also accused his wife of "sex bombing" him as a way of reconciling with him.

"It is uncontested that this marriage involved allegations and incidents of domestic violence which lie at the heart of the issues before the court," Judge Melissa Ransom wrote in an opinion in the case also posted on Facebook. "Testimony and evidence presented by both parties confirm that the relationship was marked by significant disfunction and mutual toxicity."

Gunshots nothing new in Lake Township — only the mass violence

Vicki Gunnerson lives next door to the home on South LaChance Road where three people were shot and killed and a fourth wounded. She said Amanda Everitt was once a niece to her via marriage.

Hearing gunshots, even a lot of them, is nothing new in rural Lake Township, Gunnerson said.

“There are gunshots here all the time,” she said. “You hear them at all hours of the day or night, from every direction, every angle.”

As a Free Press reporter was talking with Gunnerson, as if to prove the point, a number of shots could be heard fired in rapid succession, not too far away.

But just before noon on Friday, Gunnerson experienced something unexpected: the police urgently at her door.

“I was coming, and he kind of opened the door and yelled in, ‘Did somebody get shot here?’” she said. “I said no, and he said, ‘Well the shots are coming from this property.’”

Police were on Gunnerson’s property and next door well into early Saturday morning. She called the spree of violence coming so close to home "very shocking."

“I was scared, I wanted to get the heck out of here,” she said. “I was the only one here.”

Chad Hickman as a small child came to live briefly with Vicki Gunnerson and her husband, Steve, now deceased, decades ago, she said. The couple knew Hickman’s parents, and they came to live with them for a while, along with three of their children, including Chad.

“I remember Chad when he was a little kid, they stayed with us for a little while. And I remember later he worked at the ABC Warehouse. I thought he looked like a nice young man back then, but we’re talking years ago, and I never knew him personally or was around him or his wife.”

The shootings have shaken this rural community of about 2,800, an area where acres of open land often separate neighbors.

“We’ve never had [violence] to this level,” said Lake Township Supervisor Rob Hall. “I don’t think anybody really even knows what to think.”

On May 24, 2022, a mass shooting occurred at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, United States. Salvador Ramos, an 18-year-old former student of the school, fatally shot 19 students and 2 teachers, while injuring 18 others. Ramos was killed 77 minutes after entering the classroom by law enforcement officers.

It is the third deadliest shooting at an American school after the Virginia Tech shooting in 2007 and the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in 2012 and the deadliest school shooting in Texas. After shooting and wounding his grandmother at their home, Ramos drove to Robb Elementary School, where he entered a classroom and shot his victims, having bypassed local and state officers who had been in the hallways. He remained in the classrooms for 1 hour and 14 minutes before members of the United States Border Patrol Tactical Unit breached the classroom and fatally shot him. Police officers did not breach the classroom, but cordoned off the school grounds, resulting in violent conflicts between police and civilians, including parents, who were attempting to enter the school to rescue children. As a consequence, law enforcement officials in Uvalde were criticized for their response, and their conduct was reviewed in separate investigations by the Texas Ranger Division and United States Department of Justice.

Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS) officials laid much of the responsibility for the police response on Uvalde Consolidated Independent School District Police Department (UCISD PD) Chief Pedro Arredondo, whom they identified as the incident commander. Arredondo disputed the characterization of his role as incident commander, but was fired by the Uvalde school board. A report by the Texas House of Representatives Investigative Committee attributed the fault more widely to "systemic failures and egregious poor decision making" by many authorities. It said, "At Robb Elementary, law enforcement responders failed to adhere to their active shooter training, and they failed to prioritize saving the lives of innocent victims over their own safety... there was an unacceptably long period of time before officers breached the classroom, neutralized the attacker, and began rescue efforts."

Shortly after the shooting, local and state officials gave inaccurate reports of the timeline of events and exaggerated police actions. The Texas Department of Public Safety acknowledged it was an error for law enforcement to delay an assault on Ramos' position in the student-filled classrooms, attributing this to the school district police chief's assessment of the situation as one with a "barricaded subject", instead of an "active shooter". Law enforcement was aware there were injured individuals in the school before they made their entrance. In June 2024, two officers, including Arredondo, were criminally indicted for allegedly mishandling the response to the shooting. On January 21, 2026, former Uvalde school officer Adrian Gonzalez was acquitted of 29 child endangerment charges. The trial of former Uvalde school police chief Pete Arredondo on 10 counts of "abandoning or endangering a child" has yet to be scheduled.

Discussions ensued about American gun culture and violence, gridlock in politics, and law enforcement's failure to intervene during the attack. A month after the shooting, Congress passed the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act and President Joe Biden signed it into law; it was the most significant federal gun reform legislation since the Federal Assault Weapons Ban of 1994. Investigations revealed that Ramos was motivated to do the attack for fame. After the shooting, Robb Elementary was permanently closed. The district plans to demolish it and build a replacement.

The man suspected of launching an Up North killing spree had a history of violence before being found dead himself on Aug. 14.

Court records show Chad Hickman, 39, of Lake City had a criminal conviction for child abuse and a stormy divorce with accusations of domestic abuse. Michigan State Police said they found Hickman dead in a wooded area of Missaukee County's Caldwell Township about 25 miles west of Houghton Lake.

Police began searching for him Friday after responding to a reported shooting at a home on South Lachance Road. They found three people dead and a fourth in critical condition at that home. Another apparent victim was found dead at a nearby home. A fifth person was found dead near where Hickman's body was located, State Police said.

Investigators have not yet released the names and ages of the people who were killed.

Court records show that in January 2024, Hickman was arraigned on four felony and five misdemeanor charges in Missaukee County. Prosecutors accused him of assault with intent to do great bodily harm less than murder by strangulation. They also charged him with two counts of first-degree criminal sexual conduct and one count of interfering with electronic communications.

The misdemeanor charges at the time were one count of domestic violence, three counts of fourth-degree child abuse and one count of contributing to the delinquency of a minor.

In August 2024, Hickman pleaded guilty to one count of fourth-degree child abuse and one count of contributing to the delinquency of a minor. All other charges were dismissed, according to online court records.

A judge sentenced Hickman to a year in the county jail.

Hickman's 2023 divorce from his wife, Katie Hickman, was so bitter that he posted parts of the court file on his Facebook page, thanking the judge for being "way to f---ing smart to believe my ex wife's bull---- story."

The records show the couple married in 2011. Katie Hickman was injured in an accident and received a lawsuit settlement. The pair used that money to start a business buying and renovating homes to rent or sell.

The marriage eventually soured and they separated and tried reconciling.

Hickman testified in the case that he attempted to separate from his wife in December 2023 after she set up online dating profiles, according to the court filings posted online on his Facebook page. He also accused his wife of "sex bombing" him as a way of reconciling with him.

"It is uncontested that this marriage involved allegations and incidents of domestic violence which lie at the heart of the issues before the court," Judge Melissa Ransom wrote in an opinion in the case also posted on Facebook. "Testimony and evidence presented by both parties confirm that the relationship was marked by significant disfunction and mutual toxicity."