HARRISON, N.Y. – The crash of a Toyota Prius in New York caught the attention of federal regulators Wednesday after the driver said it accelerated on its own, then lurched down a driveway, across a road and into a stone wall.
A 2005 Toyota Prius, which was in an accident, is seen at a police station in Harrison, New York, Wednesday, March 10, 2010. The driver of the Toyota Prius told police that the car accelerated on its own, then lurched down a driveway, across a road and into a stone wall. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig)
The crash heightens the attention surrounding unintended acceleration in Toyota vehicles and a recall involving more than 8 million vehicles to address gas pedals that can become sticky or trapped under floor mats.
The Department of Transportation is looking into the New York crash, spokeswoman Olivia Alair said Wednesday.
Capt. Anthony Marraccini of the police department in Harrison, north of New York City, said that a regional Toyota official asked to collect the Prius involved in the crash but that the police are “not prepared to release it just yet.”
He said he wanted to see first if a federal agency wants to join or take over the investigation. “This involved potentially a great safety hazard and could be something of national interest,” he said. Besides, he said, the damaged car belongs to the owner, not to Toyota.
When police release the Prius, Toyota will evaluate it to determine the cause of the accident, company spokesman Brian Lyons said.
The silver-gray 2005 Prius was taken to a police parking lot. Its front end was severely pushed in, the hood was buckled and the front bumper and one front headlight were broken.
Police believe the vehicle was on Toyota’s recall list for the sticky accelerator problem, but they had no immediate proof that this one had the problem, Marraccini said. The vehicle had been serviced by Toyota for the floor mat problem, he said.
A large hole is seen in a stone wall in Purchase, New York, Wednesday, March 10, 2010. The driver of a 2005 Toyota Prius told police in suburban New York that the car accelerated on its own, then lurched down a driveway, across a road and into the stone wall. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig)
The driver, a 56-year-old housekeeper, was going forward in the car on Tuesday, down a curving driveway several hundred feet long with a putting green next to it, when the accident happened, Marraccini said.
“She said she doesn’t know whether the accelerator stuck,” Marraccini said. “She said she didn’t depress it that much because she was just pulling out of the driveway.”
He said she was lucky to escape serious injury because she could have driven into traffic and the impact with the wall “was pretty substantial.” he said police did not yet know how fast the car was going.
The captain said police would consider the possibility that the driver, whose name was not made public, was at fault. But he added, “She appears to have all her faculties. She didn’t appear to be disoriented in any way. There’s nothing at this particular time that would indicate driver error.”
He said she appeared to be properly licensed.
The air bags deployed when the car hit the stone wall of the estate across the street. On Wednesday, five boulders and smaller filler stones were strewn about, some of them 10 feet from the wall. Broken glass, plastic headlight pieces and metal that looked like part of a window frame were nearby.
A California Highway Patrol vehicle (L), and a Toyota Prius (R) owned by James Sikes are shown stopped on the side of a freeway in San Diego in this video frame grab obtained March 9, 2010. Toyota said its own inspectors are also working to try to find out what caused the 2008 Prius to surge uncontrollably to over 90 miles per hour as it was being driven by owner Sikes. The high-speed incident, which involved a dramatic pursuit by a highway patrol car, has raised new questions about the automaker’s damaging string of recent recalls and whether Toyota has done enough to address consumer complaints about unintended acceleration that have damaged its reputation and sales. REUTERS/NBC/Handout
Toyota is fighting fears that the crashes are caused by faulty electronics rather than by mechanical problems.
On Monday, California police stopped a runaway 2008 Prius going nearly 95 mph after the driver said the pedal jammed. Toyota and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration are investigating.
All 2004-2009 Priuses are covered by a recall Toyota announced in October over floor-mat entrapment. Toyota has advised drivers of the Prius and other affected vehicles to take out any removable driver’s floor mat until they are repaired.
ESCONDIDO, Calif. – The bones of a 14-year-old Southern California girl who vanished more than a year ago while walking to school were discovered in a rugged, remote area, authorities said Sunday, less than a week after a registered sex offender was charged with murdering another teenage girl who lived nearby.
This undated file image provided by the Dubois family shows Amber Dubois. Authorities in Southern California say the skeletal remains of Dubois, a 14-year-old girl who disappeared a year ago while walking to school, have been found in a remote area of the Pala Indian Reservation. (AP Photo/Courtesy of Dubois family, File)
The search for Amber Dubois had produced few leads until 17-year-old Chelsea King disappeared Feb. 25, last seen wearing running clothes in a park about 10 miles south of where Amber was last seen walking with a man. A body presumed to be Chelsea’s was found in a shallow, lakeside grave five days after Chelsea disappeared.
Searchers found Amber’s skeletal remains early Saturday in Pala, a small town in the Pala Indian Reservation, a sparsely populated area that occupies more than 12,000 acres in north San Diego County, said Escondido Police Chief Jim Maher. The county medical examiner’s office confirmed later in the day the remains were Amber’s through dental records, he said.
Maher declined to answer questions during a news conference Sunday because he said the discovery was part of an ongoing murder investigation. He said a “lead” brought investigators to the reservation, but he did not elaborate.
“I certainly had hoped that when the day came to do a press conference on Amber it would be under much different circumstances, but that was not to be,” he said.
Amber’s parents, Maurice Dubois and Carrie McGonigle, appeared distraught at his side. Maurice Dubois briefly thanked everyone who searched for Amber since her Feb. 13, 2009, disappearance near Escondido High School, particularly volunteers.
“They were the most dedicated people you could ever imagine,” he said. “Without them, we couldn’t have done anything.”
John Albert Gardner III, 30, pleaded not guilty Wednesday to murdering Chelsea and raping or attempting to rape her and attempting to rape another woman in December, a potential death penalty case.
A spokesman for the San Diego County district attorney’s office, Paul Levikow, declined to comment Sunday on the investigation into Amber’s death.
Gardner was registered as a sex offender in Escondido, a north San Diego suburb, from January 2008 to January 2010, with some gaps, police say.
He served five years of a six-year prison term for molesting a 13-year-old neighbor in San Diego in 2000; he saw her at a bus stop and lured her to his home to watch movies. He completed parole in September 2008.
Amber was last seen walking with a man about 200 yards from Escondido High School by a woman who used to drive her to middle school, her father said. Another neighbor reported seeing her about 300 yards from school. She never appeared on school surveillance cameras.
Amber, a Future Farmers of America member, left home with a $200 check to buy a lamb. It was never cashed, fueling suspicion of foul play.
There was no physical evidence recovered, hindering early search efforts, her father said. Calls reporting sightings of the girl poured in, but none panned out.
After Gardner was arrested Feb. 28 outside a Mexican restaurant in Escondido in connection with Chelsea’s disappearance, Amber’s father said he strongly suspected the same man was behind his daughter’s abduction. He noted that the girls had some identical features — 5-foot-5, thin, blue-eyed — and that Gardner was living nearby at the time.
“They’re both beautiful girls. There are so many similarities it’s scary,” he said Thursday.
Gardner is being represented by Michael Popkins, a public defender who declined to speak with reporters after Wednesday’s arraignment. No one answered the phone at the public defender’s office Sunday night.
Physical evidence was quickly recovered when Chelsea went missing, sparking a massive, round-the-clock search that involved 1,500 law enforcement officials and thousands of volunteers.
Chelsea’s death sparked outrage in her hometown of Poway, a wealthy suburb that borders Escondido.
A court-appointed psychiatrist, Dr. Matthew Carroll, recommended the maximum sentence allowed under law for Gardner in 2000, calling him an “extremely poor candidate” for treatment and a “continued danger to underage girls in the community.”
He faced a maximum sentence of nearly 11 years in prison under a plea agreement, but prosecutors urged six years.
KARACHI, Pakistan – The American-born spokesman for al-Qaida has been arrested by Pakistani intelligence officers in the southern city of Karachi, two officers and a government official said Sunday as video emerged of him urging U.S. Muslims to attack their own country.
This image from video released by IntelCenter Sunday, March 7, 2010, shows Adam Gadahn, featured in a video posted Sunday, coincidentally the day that his arrest by Pakistani intelligence officers in the southern city of Karachi was announced. In the video the 31-year-old American al-Qaida spokesman called for Muslim violence, praising the U.S. Army major charged with killing 13 people in Fort Hood, Texas, as a role model for other Muslims. (AP Photo/IntelCenter
The arrest of Adam Gadahn represents a major victory in the U.S.-led battle against al-Qaida and will be taken as a sign that Pakistan, criticized in the past for being an untrustworthy ally, is cooperating more fully with Washington. It follows the recent detentions of several Afghan Taliban commanders in Karachi, including the movement’s No. 2 commander.
U.S. officials did not immediately confirm Gadahn’s capture.
Gadahn has appeared in more than half a dozen al-Qaida videos, taunting and threatening the West and calling for its destruction. A U.S. court charged Gadahn with treason in 2006, making him the first American to face such a charge in more than 50 years.
He was arrested in the sprawling southern metropolis of Karachi in recent days, two officers who took part in the operation said. A senior government official also confirmed the arrest, but said it happened Sunday. The discrepancy could not immediately be resolved.
They spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to release the information.
The intelligence officials said Gadahn was being interrogated by Pakistani officials. Pakistani agents and those from the CIA work closely on some operations in Pakistan, but it was not clear if any Americans were involved in the operation or questioning.
In the past, Pakistan has handed over some al-Qaida suspects arrested on its soil to the United States.
Gadahn grew up on a goat farm in Riverside County, California, and converted to Islam at a mosque in nearby Orange County.
Adam Gadahn, seen in these undated file photos released by the FBI. The American-born Al-Qaida spokesman called on Muslims serving in the U.S. armed forces to emulate the Army major charged with killing 13 people in Fort Hood in a video posted on a radical Islamic web site on Sunday March 7, 2010. Gadahn, who was raised in California, describes Maj. Nidal Hasan as a pioneer who should serve as a role model for other Muslims. (AP Photo/photos released by the FBI, File)
He moved to Pakistan in 1998, according to the FBI, and is said to have attended an al-Qaida training camp six years later, serving as a translator and consultant. He has been wanted by the FBI since 2004, and there is a $1 million reward for information leading to his arrest or conviction.
The treason charge carries the death penalty if he is convicted. He was also charged with two counts of providing material support to a designated foreign terrorist organization.
The 31-year-old is known by various aliases including Yahya Majadin Adams and Azzam al-Amriki.
His most recent video was posted Sunday, praising the U.S. Army major charged with killing 13 people in Fort Hood, Texas, as a role model for other Muslims. The video released Sunday appeared to have been made after the end of the year, but it was unclear exactly when.
“You shouldn’t make the mistake of thinking that military bases are the only high-value targets in America and the West. On the contrary, there are countless other strategic places, institutions and installations which, by striking, the Muslim can do major damage,” Gadahn said, an assault rifle leaning up against a wall next to him.
Pakistan joined the U.S. fight against Islamist extremists following the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, and several high-ranking al-Qaida and Taliban have been arrested. But critics have accused the country of not fully cracking down on militants, especially those who do not stage attacks in Pakistan, all the time while receiving billions of dollars in U.S. aid.
Osama bin Laden is believed to be hiding somewhere in the country, most likely close to the Afghan border.
Al-Qaida has used Gadahn as its chief English-speaking spokesman. In one video, he ceremoniously tore up his American passport. In another, he admitted his grandfather was Jewish, ridiculing him for his beliefs and calling for Palestinians to continue fighting Israel.
Dawud Walid, the executive director of the Michigan chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations in Southfield, Mich., condemned Gadahn’s call for violence, calling it a “desperate” attempt by Al-Qaida’s spokesman to provoke bloodshed within the U.S.
Walid, a Navy veteran, said Muslims have honorably served in the American military and will be unimpressed by al-Qaida’s message aimed at their ranks.
“We thoroughly repudiate and condemn his statement and what we believe are his failed attempts to incite loyal American Muslims in the military,” he said.
Imad Hamad, the senior national adviser for the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, based in Dearborn, Mich., condemned al-Qaida’s message and said it would have no impact on American Muslims.
“This a worthless rhetoric that is not going to have any effect on people’s and minds and hearts,” he said.
The last person in the U.S. convicted of treason was Tomoya Kawakita, a Japanese-American sentenced to death in 1952 for tormenting American prisoners of war during World War II. President Eisenhower later commuted his sentence to life imprisonment.
Gadahn was last known to be in Southern California in 1997 or 1998. His mother last spoke to him by phone in March 2001. At the time he was in Pakistan, working at a newspaper, and his wife was expecting a child.
Appearing in 2006, in a 48-minute video along with al-Qaida’s No. 2 leader, Ayman al-Zawahri, Gadahn called on his countrymen to convert to Islam and for U.S. soldiers to switch sides in the Iraq and Afghan wars.
LOS ANGELES – Three Los Angeles elementary school teachers accused of giving children portraits of O.J. Simpson, Dennis Rodman and RuPaul to carry in a Black History Month parade have been removed from their classrooms, a school district spokeswoman said Wednesday.
Children from other classes at the school displayed photos of more appropriate black role models, such as Nelson Mandela, Harriet Tubman and President Barack Obama, Los Angeles Unified School District spokeswoman Gayle Pollard-Terry said.
The incident occurred Friday at Wadsworth Avenue Elementary School in South Los Angeles, where the student body is more than 90 percent Latino.
District Superintendent Ramon Cortines placed the teachers — all white men who teach first, second and fourth grades — on administrative leave on Tuesday while an investigation is conducted, Pollard-Terry said.
“The superintendent will not let anyone make a mockery out of Black History Month,” she said.
The issue was brought to district officials’ attention by the Los Angeles chapter of the NAACP after the organization received a complaint early Monday, chapter President Leon Jenkins said.
Jenkins said he felt the teachers acted in concert to mock black heroes and children’s innocence.
“These are not the people we want our young people to emulate or believe these people represent the best of the African-American community,” Jenkins said. “It’s hard for the NAACP to believe this was a mistake.”
Simpson, a former NFL star, is serving a nine-year prison sentence for robbery and kidnapping. He was famously acquitted in 1995 of murdering his ex-wife and her friend.
RuPaul is a drag queen performer. Rodman, a former NBA star, has gained notoriety for bad boy behavior on and off the basketball court.
Some parents at the school on Wednesday said the issue was overblown.
Sharon Tinson, who has two daughters at the school and attended Friday’s celebration, said she had been surprised to see Simpson displayed in the parade. But she noted that Simpson, like Rodman, was a great athlete before falling from grace. RuPaul simply has an alternative lifestyle, she added.
She noted the event also included a tribute to pop singer Michael Jackson, who has also had a checkered career.
“I kind of laughed at it,” Tinson said. “I wasn’t offended.”
Gabriel Blackson, whose son attends the school, said he also took a larger view of the ruckus.
“These guys were heroes before. People make mistakes,” he said. “I think they show kids they can be somebody, to push them to be somebody.”
Jenkins said he is calling for the teachers to be fired.
HARRISON, N.Y. – The crash of a Toyota Prius in New York caught the attention of federal regulators Wednesday after the driver said it accelerated on its own, then lurched down a driveway, across a road and into a stone wall.
ESCONDIDO, Calif. – The bones of a 14-year-old Southern California girl who vanished more than a year ago while walking to school were discovered in a rugged, remote area, authorities said Sunday, less than a week after a registered sex offender was charged with murdering another teenage girl who lived nearby.
KARACHI, Pakistan – The American-born spokesman for al-Qaida has been arrested by Pakistani intelligence officers in the southern city of Karachi, two officers and a government official said Sunday as video emerged of him urging U.S. Muslims to attack their own country.
LOS ANGELES – Three Los Angeles elementary school teachers accused of giving children portraits of O.J. Simpson, Dennis Rodman and RuPaul to carry in a Black History Month parade have been removed from their classrooms, a school district spokeswoman said Wednesday.
“These are not the people we want our young people to emulate or believe these people represent the best of the African-American community,” Jenkins said. “It’s hard for the NAACP to believe this was a mistake.”
Gabriel Blackson, whose son attends the school, said he also took a larger view of the ruckus.