Colorado attacker who injured 12 was ‘not on our radar’, police and FBI say – live updates

Prosecutors in Milwaukee charged a man on Monday with four felonies for attempting to frame an undocumented immigrant he is accused of assaulting, by sending forged letters in the immigrant’s name with a threat to kill Donald Trump.

The handwritten, forged letters were mailed to Wisconsin’s attorney general, Milwaukee police and US Immigration & Customs Enforcement (Ice).

WISN-TV, an ABC affiliate in Milwaukee, reports that a criminal complaint alleges that Demetric Scott admitted to investigators that he wrote the letters threatening to kill the president in the name of Ramon Morales-Reyes, whom he was previopusly charged with assaulting.

Among those who fell for the hoax were Kristi Noem, the homeland security secretary, who released a statement praising immigration officers for arresting Morales-Reyes on 22 May, one day after the forged letter was received by an Ice field intelligence officer.

“Thanks to our ICE officers, this illegal alien who threatened to assassinate President Trump is behind bars”, Noem said in a press release. Her department also released an image of the handwritten note to news agencies.

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“We are tired of this president messing with us Mexicans – we have done more for this country than you white people – you have been deporting my family and I think it is time Donald J. Trump get what he has coming to him”, the letter said. “I will self deport myself back to Mexico but not before I use my 30 yard 6 to shoot your precious president in the head – I will see him at one of his big ralleys”.

Last week, one of Morales-Reyes’ children told an immigrant rights group that he could not have written the letters since he cannot read or write in Spanish, let alone English.

Scott is currently in Milwaukee County Jail, charged with armed robbery and aggravated battery. Prosecutors said Morales-Reyes is the victim in that case.

According to a transcript of a phone call prosecutors say Scott made while awaiting trial for assaulting Morales-Reyes, Scott framed Ramon Morales-Reyes to keep him from testifying against him. “If he gets picked up by Ice”, Scott allegedly said in the call, “there won’t be a jury trial, so they will probably dismiss it that day. That’s my plan”.

Morales-Reyes remains in Ice detention at a facility in Juneau, Wisconsin.

A federal judge issued a preliminary injunction on Monday, blocking the Department of Homeland Security from canceling a union contract covering transportation security officers.

In her ruling, US District Judge Marsha Pechman in Seattle wrote that the Trump administration of President Donald Trump likely broke the law by stripping 50,000 TSA officers of the ability to unionize and bargain over their working conditions in a suit brought by the American Federation of Government Employees and other unions.

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Pechman said that the homeland security secretary, Kristi Noem, had failed to explain why she was reversing the Obama administration’s finding that unionizing would benefit TSA officers, who staff checkpoints at US airports and other transportation hubs, and in turn the public they serve.

“The Noem Determination appears to have been undertaken to punish AFGE and its members because AFGE has chosen to push back against the Trump Administration’s attacks to federal employment in the courts,” Pechman wrote.

AFGE represents about 800,000 federal government employees.

Reuters reports that staff of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (Fema) were left baffled on Monday after the head of the US disaster response agency said during a briefing that he had not been aware the country has a hurricane season, according to four sources familiar with the situation.

The US hurricane season officially began on Sunday and lasts through November. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration forecast last week that this year’s season is expected to bring as many as 10 hurricanes.

The remark was made by David Richardson, who has led Fema since early May. It was not clear to staff whether he meant it literally, as a joke, or in some other context.

Richardson, a former marine, was suddenly put in charge of Fema four weeks ago, after his predecessor, Cameron Hamilton, told a congressional committee that he did not “believe it is in the best interest of the American people to eliminate the Federal Emergency Management Agency”. Hamilton was removed the next day.

According to the Fema website, Richardson took over in the middle of the agency’s “Hurricane Preparedness Week”.

Boulder police chief Stephen Redfearn said that the suspect Mohamed Sabry Soliman “was not on our radar in Boulder” as a potential threat.

Mark Michalek of the FBI said that the suspect was not known to his office either.

Boulder police chief, Stephen Redfearn, said that there is as yet no video of the suspect approaching the demonstration but officials are piecing together a timeline using video of the attack aftermath and license plate readers.

He also appealed to anyone who might have more video to bring it to the police.

The Boulder police chief, Stephen Redfearn, said that his force has good relations with the city’s Jewish community and he and other law enforcement officials plan to meet Jewish community leaders shortly.

The Boulder police chief, Stephen Redfearn, told the public at the news conference still in progress that the site of the attack on Pearl Street is now safe, after it was scoured by bomb-sniffing dogs last night.

The FBI Special agent in charge Mark Michalek said at the ongoing news conference in Boulder that the bureau has already interviewed 44 witnesses and is asking the public to come forward with any additional witness accounts or visual evidence.

The Boulder County district attorney, Michael Dougherty, just said that there were 16 unused Molotov cocktails recovered by officers in the aftermath of the attack.

Dougherty explained that his office will be prosecuting the suspect for 16 counts of attempted murder and other charges in parallel to the federal hate crimes prosecution.

If convicted, Soliman would be jailed for the rest of his life, with a cumulative of over 600 years.

He also said that there were 12 victims in total.

A news conference on the Boulder attack just started with a statement from acting US Attorney for the District of Colorado, J. Bishop Grewell.

The suspect, Mohamed Sabry Soliman, has been charged with a federal hate crime, Grewell said.

He added that Soliman claimed to have been planning the attack for a year on what he called a “Zionist group” demonstrating in support of Israelis held hostage in Gaza.

Grewell also said that Soliman told investigators that he had resorted to Molotov cocktails when he had been unable to buy a gun.