OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — Omaha Police have arrested a 21-year-old man in connection with the fatal shooting of another 21-year-old.
Police said a man was shot Saturday inside a parked car in southeast Omaha. His name was Oziel Vazquez-Serrano.
The shooting was reported around 6:30 p.m. Saturday. A witness gave police the license plate number of a car that was speeding away from the shooting.
Police are holding the suspect on suspicion of first-degree murder and weapons charges.
OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — Police say one person is dead after a single-vehicle crash in southeast Omaha.
Police say in news release that the crash happened late Friday night, when a northbound car on Interstate 480 attempted to take the on-ramp onto Highway 75 north, lost control and hit a concrete support for an overhead interstate sign.
Police say the driver was the only person in the car and was not wearing a seat belt at the time of the crash.
The driver was taken to an Omaha hospital and died a short time later.
Police have not yet identified the driver.
Investigators believe excessive speed caused the crash.
OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — A 28-year-old Honduran man has been sentenced to 24 to 34 years in prison for driving over and killing a co-worker with whom he had been drinking.
Orling Carrasco-Zelaya was sentenced Friday in Douglas County District Court. A jury had found him guilty in March of motor vehicle homicide and leaving the scene of a deadly accident.
Prosecutors say Carrasco-Zelaya, who was in the country illegally, drove drunk and hit and fatally wounded 34-year-old Margarito Nava-Luna in April 2016. Authorities say the two were co-workers and had been drinking at a west Omaha bar before Nava-Luna was hit. Deputies, who stopped Carrasco-Zelaya shortly after Nava-Luna was hit, said Carrasco-Zelaya’s blood alcohol content measured nearly three times the legal limit to drive.
GRAND ISLAND, Neb. (AP) — Officials say a new indoor riding arena and storage facility will be constructed this year at Fonner Park horse track in Grand Island.
The 150-by-80-foot facility will be locate behind a cattle barn at the park.
Nebraska State Fair director Joseph McDermott says it will store 400 new horse stalls bought by the State Fair Board.
McDermott, who is also president of the Grand Island Livestock Complex Authority, says the facility and stalls will allow officials to promote Grand Island for large equine shows.
The facility could cost up to $450,000. McDermott says grants secured by the Grand Island and Hall County Visitors and Convention Bureau will pay for most of it. Construction is expected to begin this month and be completed by August.
WINNEBAGO, Neb. (AP) — Two people have been charged with killing a man on northeast Nebraska’s Winnebago Reservation.
Court records say 32-year-old William Redhorn Jr. was slain early on April 23 in Winnebago. An autopsy shows that he’d been strangled but also suffered head trauma.
Nineteen-year-old Jeremiah Wolfe and 21-year-old Lawrencia Merrick are charged with manslaughter. The records don’t list the names of attorneys for them.
The records say the two had told tribal police that they’d come upon Redhorn outside a building he was trying to break into and approached him when he wouldn’t stop.
Wolfe says a fight then broke out between him and Redhorn and that he put Redhorn in a headlock until he quit struggling. Merrick says she struck Redhorn’s head.
Wolfe says they didn’t intend to kill Redborn.
LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) — Officials in the city of Lincoln are seeking private-sector partners to launch a driverless shuttle service downtown.
State Sen. Mike Hilgers has offered a resolution Wednesday asking the Transportation and Telecommunications Committee to look at the merits of a driverless shuttle pilot project in Lincoln and changes that would be necessary to state law.
Hilgers says the program could reduce costs and congestion while helping Lincoln businesses.
The city was denied a $50 million federal grant last year that would have funded the project with 50 downtown shuttles and 650 passenger cars across Lincoln.
But network engineer David Young says that positive feedback has shown a self-driving shuttle could hit the road as soon as 2018.
No formal deals have been struck yet.
FREMONT, Neb. (AP) — Costco officials have given final approval for construction of the company’s planned chicken processing operation in eastern Nebraska.
Company Vice President of real estate Jackie Frank said site work could begin in the next few weeks. A ceremonial groundbreaking is also planned for June.
Costco would invest about $280 million to build the plant, hatchery and feed mill complex. Supporters say area farmers would raise chickens to be slaughtered at the facility, a system that could generate about $1.2 billion annually for the eastern Nebraska economy.
Opponents of the plant expressed concerns in a series of Fremont city meetings last year, some speaking out on how the chicken industry treats farmers as a disposable resource.
The plant is projected to open April 2019.
Attorneys for the mother of an 8-year-old Ohio boy say he was bullied and knocked unconscious at school two days before he killed himself.
The boy killed himself at his Cincinnati home Jan. 26. The attorneys say a school surveillance video shows the boy being thrown against a wall by another child in a bathroom entrance and knocked unconscious. The attorneys, who viewed the video, say the boy lay unconscious for 7½ minutes before an assistant principal and a school nurse came to his aid.
The attorneys say school officials told the boy’s mother that day that he’d fainted but was alert. They say she only learned of the bullying after attorneys obtained a police investigative file.
Cincinnati school officials say police and media have “mischaracterized” events in the video.
COUNCIL BLUFFS, Iowa (AP) — Investigators say an inmate accused of shooting two deputies, killing one, in an Iowa jail escape somehow managed to unlock his shackles inside a transport van.
Court records presented Wednesday at 24-year-old Wesley Correa-Carmenaty’s initial court hearing say he was in handcuffs and leg shackles May 1 when he was taken from a courthouse to the Pottawattamie County Jail. But he had unlocked them by the time the van reached the jail.
Police say a struggle ensued between Correa-Carmenaty and the deputies, and that Correa-Carmenaty managed to grab one’s gun. Police say he shot Deputy Mark Burbridge in the head and Deputy Pat Morgan in the abdomen before taking both deputies’ guns, ammunition and the keys to the van. Burbridge died; Morgan is recovering.
Correa-Carmenaty was recaptured in Omaha, Nebraska.
OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — Authorities say officers searching a south Omaha home for drugs and other evidence found a makeshift cage used by a couple to corral a 3-year-old girl.
Police reports say a baby gate had been fastened to the top of a crib to form the cage that apparently was often occupied by the girl. She and a 12-year-old boy were removed from the home by state authorities after the April 18 search.
Court records say 32-year-old Kaylee Taylor and 34-year-old Joseph Hamilton both face two counts of felony child abuse. Hamilton also is charged with misdemeanor domestic assault and theft counts and four felony drug charges.
Jail records say both remained in custody Thursday. Their attorneys didn’t immediately return calls from The Associated Press.
