NEWARK, N.J.
NTSB: Train was speeding
A New Jersey Transit commuter train sped up and was going twice the 10 mph speed limit just before it crashed into Hoboken’s terminal last week, killing a woman on the platform and injuring more than 100, federal investigators said Thursday. The train’s engineer hit the emergency brake less than a second before the Sept. 29 crash, according to information released by the National Transportation Safety Board.
WASHINGTON
Obama offers more clemency
President Barack Obama offered 102 federal inmates the chance to leave prison early, wielding his clemency powers Thursday as part of his end-of-term push to spur action on criminal justice reform. The latest round of commutations brings to 774 the number of sentences Obama has shortened, including 590 this year. The White House said it’s more than the previous 11 presidents put together.
LOS ANGELES
Sheriff describes ‘execution’
A Los Angeles County sheriff’s sergeant was the victim of “a calculated execution” by a parolee with a long history of arrests who pumped bullets into his body as he lay wounded, Sheriff Jim McDonnell said Thursday. Sgt. Steven Owen, 53, was shot Sunday as he responded to a report of a burglary in progress at an apartment building in Lancaster. Owen went behind the building, where the gunman shot him with a stolen gun then stood over his body and fired four more times, McDonnell said at a news conference. Trenton Trevon Lovell, 27, of Lancaster, was arrested in the killing.
DETROIT
Burke Ramsey files lawsuit
The older brother of JonBenet Ramsey filed a defamation lawsuit Thursday against a Michigan forensic pathologist who told a Detroit-area media outlet that Burke Ramsey killed his 6-year-old sister. The complaint alleges that Dr. Werner Spitz said in a Sept. 19 interview that 9-year-old Burke bludgeoned JonBenet to death in 1996. “Spitz made this accusation without ever examining JonBenet’s body, without viewing the crime scene, and without consulting with the pathologist who performed the autopsy on JonBenet,” the complaint filed in Wayne County Circuit Court in Detroit says.
Compiled from wire reports