Salt Lake City – Four people, including a U.S. Army soldier, were indicted Thursday in connection with a teenage Bosnian immigrant’s February shooting at a mall that left five people dead.
The indictments charge three people in the sale of a .38-caliber handgun to a juvenile, and a gun dealer for selling a 12-gauge shotgun with a pistol grip. Both were used in the rampage, authorities said.
Sulejman Talovic, 18, killed five people and wounded four others at Trolley Square on Feb. 12. He was killed by police.
Mackenzie Glade Hunter, 19, and Brenden Taylor Brown, 20, both of West Jordan, Utah, are accused of arranging the sale of the handgun last summer in Rock Springs, Wyo. Both pleaded not guilty.
A third defendant, Matthew Hautala of Wyoming, was described as a witness to the handgun deal and was indicted for denying knowledge of the sale to federal investigators. Authorities did not give further details. He is an Army private assigned to a basic-combat training unit at Fort Jackson, S.C., spokesman Jim Hinnant said.
Westley Wayne Hill was charged with selling a shotgun with a pistol grip to Talovic and failing to keep a record of the transaction. He works for a pawnshop in a Salt Lake City suburb. A long gun with a built-in pistol grip can be sold only to a person 21 or older.
None of the four is accused of knowing about Talovic’s plan to go on a shooting spree. Hunter, however, told investigators he believed Talovic was going to use the handgun for a bank robbery.
CHICAGO
Restaurant killing of 7 brings life sentence
A jury chose a life prison sentence over the death penalty Thursday for a man convicted of killing seven people at a suburban Chicago restaurant 14 years ago.
Juan Luna, 33, and his relatives cried as the decision was read.
Prosecutors say Luna, then 18, and high school friend James Degorski shot and stabbed the victims at Brown’s Chicken and Pasta restaurant in Palatine in a robbery that netted less than $2,000. The restaurant owners’ and five employees’ bodies were found in a walk-in cooler and freezer.
Degorski has pleaded not guilty and will be tried separately.
WASHINGTON
General: Apology to Afghans inappropriate
The Marines’ top general said Thursday that a senior Army officer was wrong to apologize to the families of 19 Afghan civilians killed and 50 injured by Marines in March because investigators have yet to determine whether wrongdoing occurred.
Gen. James Conway, the commandant of the Marine Corps, said he believed Army Col. John Nicholson is in the chain of command that may be asked to decide whether charges should be brought against the Marines.
Conway told reporters he felt it was proper to pay condolence allowances to the families. But he said the apology, in which Nicholson said he was “deeply, deeply ashamed” by the “terrible, terrible mistake” made by the Marines, went too far.
Nicholson said he made the apology because keeping civilians on the side of the U.S.-led coalition was essential in fighting the counterinsurgency.
LITTLE EGG HARBOR TOWNSHIP, N.J.
Overnight rain tames flare-started wildfire
A once-massive wildfire has been tamed by a driving rain overnight, leaving nearly 22 square miles of charred trees.
The New Jersey Air National Guard says it believes the fire started when an F-16 dropped a flare during a training mission Tuesday.
Five homes in two senior housing developments were destroyed and 13 other homes were damaged, but no deaths and only two minor injuries were reported, officials said. Most of the roughly 6,000 people evacuated were allowed to return Thursday.
Firefighters continued to battle a huge fire along the Florida- Georgia state line, where more than 700 homes were evacuated. Calmer wind Wednesday allowed firefighters to strengthen their containment lines, officials said. By Thursday, the blazes had charred 552 square miles.
Near Payson, Ariz., a 4- square-mile wildfire forced about 20 people to evacuate. Authorities suspect the fire, which started Sunday, was human-caused.
PHILADELPHIA
Appeal cites racism in cop killer’s trial
Lawyers for former Black Panther Mumia Abu-Jamal argued to an appeals court Thursday that racism corrupted the 1982 trial at which he was condemned for killing a white police officer.
Abu-Jamal, 53, once a radio reporter, has attracted a legion of artists and activists to his cause. A federal judge overturned his death sentence in 2001 but upheld his conviction. Both sides are appealing that order.
The 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals is weighing three issues: whether the trial judge was racially biased, whether the judge erred in instructing jurors on the death penalty, and whether the prosecution improperly eliminated black jurors.
The jury convicted Abu-Jamal of killing Officer Daniel Faulkner, 25, after the patrolman pulled over Abu-Jamal’s brother, William Cook, in a traffic stop.
HERMOSILLO, Mexico
Police chase gunmen after border killings
Police chased the remnants of a criminal assault force through mountains near the Arizona border Thursday after kidnappings and gun battles that left at least 22 people dead.
Federal police helicopters and ground forces searched the Sierra Madre for fleeing gunmen while state police moved in to replace terrified local officers who abandoned the town of Cananea, 20 miles south of the U.S. border.
Federal Public Safety Secretary Genaro Garcia Luna blamed a turf battle between drug gangs.
