Police: London stabbings were not terrorism

Police: London stabbings were not terrorism

LONDON

A Somali-Norwegian teenager went on a knife rampage through London’s Russell Square, a hub for students and tourists, fatally stabbing an American woman from Florida and wounding five other people.

Police said Thursday that it wasn’t terrorism – but in a city on edge after a summer of attacks elsewhere in Europe, both authorities and London residents initially responded as if it were. Police flooded the streets with extra officers and mobilized counterterror detectives before saying the shocking burst of violence appeared to have been “triggered by mental-health issues.”

Police officers used a stun gun to subdue the 19-year-old suspect at the scene of the stabbings late Wednesday, among busy streets lined with hotels close to the British Museum.

FBI arrests man, says he had contact with 2 attackers

CLEVELAND

A North Carolina man arrested Thursday on accusations that he tried to recruit people to join the Islamic State group had communicated with one of two men shot dead by a police officer in Garland, Texas, during an attack at an event where the Prophet Muhammad was being depicted in cartoons, the FBI said.

Erick Jamal Hendricks, 35, was arrested Thursday morning in Charlotte, N.C., on a charge filed in Cleveland of providing material support to a terrorist group. A federal magistrate in Charlotte ordered that Hendricks be detained and assigned a federal public defender, who did not return telephone messages.

Man assaulted in argument over ‘Pokemon GO’

MOUNT CLEMENS, Mich.

A 53-year-old Detroit-area man is in a hospital after an argument with a 33-year-old man who was playing “Pokemon GO.”

The victim was bleeding from the back of his head on a sidewalk Wednesday night in Mount Clemens. Macomb County Sheriff Anthony Wickersham told The Macomb Daily that the man acknowledged making disparaging remarks about the popular game.

The younger man was charged with aggravated assault, a misdemeanor.

Wickersham doesn’t know what was said, exactly, but he assumes it was “something about kids being robots” while they play in public.

Ohioans indicted on hate-crime charge in man’s beating

TOLEDO

Federal authorities say two white Ohio men suspected of beating a stranger because he is black have been indicted on a federal hate-crime charge.

The FBI says 33-year-old Charles Butler and 25-year-old Robert Paschalis were indicted Wednesday in Toledo.

A woman in the office of the defendants’ attorneys said the lawyers had no comment Thursday.

The FBI says the two Toledo men drove past the victim while he was unloading his truck May 18 and then returned and attacked him while yelling racial slurs. Court documents say Butler struck the man with a broom multiple times. Authorities say the victim’s eye was damaged and an eye socket bone was fractured.

Authorities say two off-duty state troopers happened by and pulled Butler and Paschalis away.

Associated Press