National Roundup

Pennsylvania
AG's office to review fight involving McCoy

PHILADELPHIA (AP) - The Pennsylvania attorney general's office is reviewing a district attorney's decision not to charge Buffalo Bills running back LeSean McCoy in a Philadelphia nightclub fight that left two off-duty police officers injured.

Solicitor General Bruce Castor said Monday that he met last week with detectives after getting a written request from the president of the police union in Philadelphia.

Castor says that despite spending decades as a prosecutor, he wasn't aware of the rarely used review procedure. It requires approval from a judge to transfer the case from county prosecutors to the attorney general.

Castor described the likelihood of that occurring as "pretty remote."

Police say a fight broke out Feb. 7 over who had purchased a $350 bottle of Champagne. One officer suffered a broken nose and broken ribs.

Ohio
Stepmom of scalded boy who died is charged with murder

LEBANON, Ohio (AP) - An Ohio woman accused of killing her 4-year-old stepson by putting him in scalding water as punishment the day before he was found dead has been indicted on murder and other charges.

Warren County's prosecutor said Monday that grand jurors indicted Anna Ritchie on charges of murder, involuntary manslaughter, felonious assault and endangering children. Ritchie's attorney declined to comment on the case.

Prosecutor David Fornshell says the Franklin woman put Austin Cooper in water estimated at around 130 degrees for at least 20 minutes and resented being his primary caregiver.

Fornshell says the boy was bleeding and had skin coming off his legs when Ritchie put him to bed without treatment.

Authorities say he died of shock from blood and fluid loss resulting from his burns.

Pennsylvania
Police: Father 'recklessly' ­waving gun kills daughter

PHILADELPHIA (AP) - A Philadelphia father was "carelessly and recklessly" waving a gun around a small bedroom with seven children present when it went off, killing his 4-year-old daughter, authorities said Monday.

Maurice Phillips, 30, has been charged with third-degree murder, involuntary manslaughter, child endangerment and reckless endangerment and related counts in Saturday afternoon's death of Tahirah Phillips.

Capt. James Clark, of the Philadelphia police homicide division, said Monday that the girl and her six siblings - who range in age from seven months to 13 - were in the bedroom of the Kensington home when Phillips came into the room, took his gun from its holster and started "carelessly and recklessly waving and pointing the gun around in the room." The gun went off, striking the girl in the back of her head, "killing her instantly," Clark said.

"We don't believe that he intended that to happen but because of his grossly negligent acts, this is ultimately what happened," Clark said.

The other children became upset and began yelling, investigators said. They said Phillips got off the bed where he was sitting and struck his 5-year-old daughter "with a closed fist" and then "wiped the blood from his hand onto her shirt" in an attempt to shift blame. Police initially believed the girl's sibling fired the weapon.

"He went as far as to punish the five-year-old to show how much he felt that she did this," Clark said.

Authorities alleged that Phillips called his fiancee, and after she arrived, he changed his clothes and fled. Several hours later, he turned himself in to police. After homicide investigators "broke down his story," Phillips confessed he had accidentally shot the girl, Clark said.

Police haven't yet identified the girl's mother.

Five of the seven children, including the victim and the daughter originally blamed, are Phillips' biological children, Clark said.

Attorney Dan Stevenson, of the Defender Association of Philadelphia, said the organization was handling the case but would have no immediate comment.

Virginia
Faith leaders decry plan to shield execution drug suppliers

RICHMOND, Va. (AP) - A group of religious leaders is denouncing Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe's effort to shield the identities of pharmacies that supply drugs for executions.

About a dozen members of an interfaith coalition gathered Monday at the Statehouse to urge lawmakers to reject the proposal. The Democrat's plan replaced a bill that sought to allow the use of the electric chair if the lethal drugs aren't available.

Several states have adopted secrecy laws in an effort to make the drugs easier to obtain by protecting suppliers from critics.

Bishop Carroll Baltimore is the former president of the Progressive National Baptist Convention. He said when states must resort to "secrecy or brutality" to keep "the machinery of death going," what they're doing is wrong.

Lawmakers are expected to consider McAuliffe's proposal Wednesday.

Florida
Man shoots self after killing wife, 2 young children

SANFORD, Fla. (AP) - Authorities say a central Florida man killed his estranged wife and two young children before fatally shooting himself as police pursued him.

Authorities say the spree began late Sunday when 30-year-old Henry Ramone Brown waited in the trunk of Chericia Brown's vehicle, outside a Chili's restaurant. In a news release, Seminole County Sheriff's officials say Brown stabbed her and ran over her with his car. She was taken to a hospital, where she died.

Officials say Brown picked up the couple's children, ages 4 and 1, from a baby sitter and drove to Central Florida Regional Hospital to find his estranged wife. He was confronted by deputies and Sanford police, fired at them and ran from the hospital.

Deputies located him on Interstate 4. Inside his car, they found the bodies of Henry Brown and the children.

A paramedic and nurse, who came to help Chericia Brown after she was stabbed, also were injured when he ran over his wife with his car, according to the police report.

Altamonte Springs police records show Chericia Brown filed a domestic violence injunction against her husband in January.

She initially filed an incident report with the Altamonte Springs police on December 18, 2015, according to official documents obtained by The Associated Press. In the report, Chericia said she believed her husband was cheating on her and that he had threatened to kill her if she took the couple's children away from him.

Published: Tue, Apr 19, 2016