A Mississippi man has been charged with six counts of DUI manslaughter after an SUV carrying members of the Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians drove off an embankment into the frigid waters of a rain-swollen creek over the weekend, killing five of his children and a woman.

The man, Duane John, 34, was at the wheel when the vehicle shot off the roadway on Saturday shortly after midnight near the Neshoba-Newton county line in eastern Mississippi, authorities said. He was charged with six felonies Monday after his release from a hospital where he was treated for hypothermia.

The children, ages 18 months to 9 years, and a 37-year-old woman identified as Dianne Lewis Chickaway drowned, NBC station WLBT of Jackson, Miss., reported. Surviving were John, the children's father; their mother, Deanna Jim; and Chickaway's husband, Dale Chickaway.

"When officers and rescue personnel arrived on the scene, the vehicle was totally submerged," Neshoba County Sheriff Tommy Waddell said.

Choctaw Tribal officials said John and Deanna Jim also have two other children who weren't involved in the accident. Tribal spokeswoman Misti Dreifuss said a funeral for the children would be Wednesday at a tribal building in Choctaw. Chickaway's funeral was set for Thursday.

Waddell said it appeared that none of the children was in a child restraint and that none of the adults was wearing a seat belt, even though they were driving late at night along a dangerous stretch of roadway. 

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"We had an accident approximately a month or so ago where there was a fatality just a few hundred yards from this location," Waddell said.

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Detroit's police chief on Monday called the death of a Detroit woman who was shot after she hugged an off-duty police officer from behind during a party, causing the officer’s weapon to fire, a “tragic and unfortunate incident.”

"I offer our sincerest condolences by what all apparent preliminary investigation indicates is a very tragic and unfortunate incident, but nothing intended at all," Police Chief Ralph Godbee Jr. told reporters in Detroit.

Adaisha Miller would have celebrated her 25th birthday on Monday, family members say.  

Police identified the officer as Issac Parrish, a Detroit law enforcement veteran of nearly 16 years. He was placed on administrative duties until authorities complete their investigation and report their findings to the Wayne County Prosecutor’s Office, Godbee said.

Miller had been invited by friends to the officer's home in the city's west side for a fish fry on Saturday, according to Detroit media reports. The two didn't know each other, police union lawyer John Goldpaugh said, the Detroit News reported.

Godbee said Miller was dancing with Parrish and had touched his waist from behind when his holstered handgun fired, striking Miller in the chest. The bullet pierced Miller’s lung and struck her heart, authorities said. Miller died later at a Detroit hospital.

Godbee said Parrish's weapon was in a waist holster made of a soft material and worn on the officer’s right side, which would have allowed the trigger to be activated. He said there was no indication that Parrish had touched the weapon when it went off.

According to the Detroit News, the gun, described as a Smith & Wesson M&P 40-caliber semi-automatic, did not have an external safety, but did have an internal safety in the trigger.  

Here's what certified firearms instructor Rick Ector told The Associated Press:

"The Smith & Wesson M&P primarily was designed for police and military use. It does not have a safety switch, but the trigger has to be pulled back completely for the gun to fire.

If properly holstered, the gun cannot be fired accidentally."

 David Balash, a former Michigan State Police firearms examiner, told the AP:

"What's going to be very important here is the angle of the entry of the wound to the victim (and) if there is in fact any gunpowder residue. I'm having a great deal of difficulty understanding how a weapon that's pointed at the ground can be turned literally 110 degrees minimum to be in an upward position to strike someone."

Godbee said each Detroit Police Department officer has the option to carry a weapon off duty. If one does, the officer must be certified and the weapon must be concealed and holstered, according to Godbee.

“He is very remorseful of the incident and the tragic nature of this young lady losing her life,” Godbee said of Parrish.

"We are profoundly sad at their loss," the police chief said, referring to Miller's family.

Miller's mother, Yolanda McNair, vowed to keep fighting for answers.

"All she wanted to do was enjoy the weekend for her birthday," McNair told WDIV-TV. "She had every right to enjoy turning 25 and look beyond that."

"There is nothing they can do to get her back," McNair said.

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Louis Lanzano / AP

Two vehicles, one badly burnt out is removed from the scene of the house fire on Tuesday, in Carmel, N.Y. A police captain, his wife and two teenage daughters died in a fire that swept through their home early Tuesday.

CARMEL, N.Y. — A suburban New York police captain helped save his son from a horrific house fire, then ran back inside to try to rescue his wife and two teenage daughters -- and died with them in the blaze, according to his brother-in-law.

“Tommy Sullivan was a hero,” Thomas Zielinski told The Journal News in White Plains, N.Y., after speaking to the surviving son. “After he got his son out, he ran back in to get the rest of the family.”

The son, 20-year-old Thomas Sullivan Jr., escaped by crawling down the stairs and out of the garage after being woken up by his father early Tuesday morning. He pulled the garage door open with a rope because the electricity was out. He told arriving police officers that his family was trapped inside their Carmel home, about 60 miles north of New York City.

“He was screaming that there was fire in the house,” Carmel Police Chief Michael Johnson said.

Read NBCNewYork.com's complete coverage of fatal fire

The other victims are believed to be Sullivan’s wife, Donna, and his daughters, 18-year-old Meaghan and 13-year-old Mairead.

“They were pretty well burned. It’s very difficult to identify them without an autopsy and DNA,” said Johnson.

Louis Lanzano / AP

The completely destroyed home is partially visible on Wyndham Lane on Tuesday in Carmel, N.Y.

The son was treated for smoke inhalation at a hospital and released, said Vickie Zielinski, Donna Sullivan’s sister-in-law.

The blaze was so intense that it melted the siding of two nearby homes and prevented firefighters from entering, said Johnson. It took firefighters from several towns three hours to extinguish the flames. Video of the fire, posted on the website of the Journal News, showed the home being nearly entirely consumed by a fireball.

"There's nothing standing but two garage doors," said Lorraine Girolamo, who lives two doors down. She said she didn't know the Sullivans well but saw them daily and would wave hello. She said they moved in about 11 years ago when the residential development opened.

Officials were still looking for a cause into blaze.

“Everything’s being explored ... whether it was suspicious or not is still being investigated,” Johnson said.

Officials were able to find Sullivan’s body on the rear deck, where Johnson said he apparently landed after jumping from the second floor.

Sullivan was captain of the Larchmont Police Department.

'Devastated'
The fire was reported by a neighbor just before 2 a.m. Johnson said no 911 calls came from inside the house, which he said was equipped with multiple wired smoke detectors. None sent any alarm to a monitoring station.

Sullivan was a former New York police officer assigned to the Bronx who had left the city for the comparatively tranquil suburbs two decades ago because he felt he could make a bigger difference in a smaller community.

“We are devastated, the village of Larchmont as a whole,” said Larchmont Police Chief John Poleway, who described Sullivan as “full of integrity, honesty, he was dedicated to family.”

Sullivan’s daughters were students at Carmel High School. Mairead was a freshman and Meaghan a senior.

“The school community is devastated,” said the district’s superintendent, James Ryan. “We are working together in this very difficult time to offer support to students and staff.”

Principal Kevin Carroll said the girls “were good students and nice kids.”

“Obviously today their teachers were very upset, and of course the other students,” he said, adding that school psychologists were following the girls’ class schedules to see the children who would be most upset.

He said that many of the students knew of the fire by the time they got to school, and that administrators made an official announcement at 7:10 a.m.

“It was very quiet for the most part,” Carroll said of the school’s atmosphere. “There was something in the air.”

A funeral was planned for Saturday morning at St. James the Apostle Church in Carmel. Viewing will be at the Balsamo-Cordovano Funeral Home in Carmel; hours have not yet been scheduled.

NBCNewYork.com and the Associated Press contributed to this report.

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BOWLING GREEN, Ohio -- A wrong-way driver slammed head-on Friday into a car full of sorority sisters who were caravanning to an airport for a spring break trip, killing three of the young women and the other driver.

The car carrying the three Alpha Xi Delta members, ages 19 to 21, and two other sorority sisters hit the wrong-way vehicle overnight on a rise in Interstate 75 south of Toledo, just miles from Bowling Green State University, which they all attended. The two survivors were seriously injured.

Sixteen sorority sisters were heading to the Detroit airport in different cars as they tried to make a 5:30 a.m. flight to the Dominican Republic, a friend said. Another vehicle carrying five of the students narrowly avoided the wrong-way driver, Ohio state troopers said.

"I don't think the college girls ever saw it coming. Nothing they could have done to avoid the crash," Wood County Sheriff Mark Wasylyshyn said.

The wrong-way driver, Winifred D. Lein, 69, of Perrysburg, Ohio, was traveling alone, authorities said. Investigators are looking into why she was driving on the wrong side of the divided highway.

"The college girls apparently did nothing wrong," Wasylyshyn said.

'Tragic news'
Killed were Rebekah Blakkolb, 20, a junior from Aurora, Ohio; Christina Goyett, 19, a sophomore from Bay City, Mich., who was studying teacher education; and Sarah Hammond, 21, a junior from Yellow Springs, Ohio, majoring in apparel merchandising, the university said.

“We’re shocked and deeply saddened by this tragic news,” BGSU President Mary Ellen Mazey told The Toledo Blade. “Our hearts go out to the families, friends and sorority sisters of these young women.”

Goyett was excited about her first trip to the Dominican Republic, said Dee Bishop, a family friend in Bay City. She was a graduate of John Glenn High School, where she competed in swimming, and was studying English at Bowling Green.

"She was an absolutely wonderful, positive, happy person," Bishop said.

She had just visited with her family Thursday at a surprise birthday party for her mother, Robyn, at a Bay City restaurant, and driven back to the campus several hours to the south.

Students dropped off flowers and held each other outside the sorority house in Bowling Green, a stately brick building with green shutters. Members of the sorority wouldn't speak to reporters.

The injured were identified as Angelica Mormile, 19, a freshman from Garfield Heights, Ohio, and Kayla Somoles, 19, a sophomore from Cleveland. Bowling Green President Mary Ellen Mazey said in a Facebook post that they had serious injuries.

Spring break begins Saturday.

According to the Toldeo Blade, tapes obtained from the sheriff’s office showed at least four motorists called 911 just after 2:10 a.m. to report a car going south in the northbound lanes on I-75. Truckers had reported the wrong-way driver, and a state highway patrol officer had seen her car and begun a pursuit when the crash happened.

Lein was cited in 2002 in Toledo Municipal Court for a lane changing violation, according to court records. A message was left at a phone listing for her.

The accident recalled a similar tragedy 10 years ago, when six Bowling Green students were killed while returning home from a spring break trip to Florida.

The students, all 19, were returning from Panama City, Fla., on March 15, 2002, when their minivan slid into oncoming traffic and was struck by a tractor-trailer.

Authorities said severe winds and heavy rain may have contributed to the crash, which happened on Interstate 71 in Kentucky.

The sorority sisters' death was the second school tragedy in five days in Ohio. Three students were fatally shot Monday and two others wounded at Chardon High School east of Cleveland. A 17-year-old was charged.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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The Arizona police officer who shot and killed an unarmed man while he held his baby grandson has been involved in at least five previous fatal shootings, police said.

The officer, James Peters of the Scottsdale police, was on administrative leave Thursday after he killed John Loxas, 50, with a single rifle shot to the head Tuesday. Loxas' 9-month-old grandson, who was in his arms, was unhurt.

"There were at least three officers in position to engage the suspect," Sgt. Mark Clark, a spokesman for the Scottsdale police, told NBC station KPNX of Phoenix. "At least one of the officers thought he saw something in the suspect's hands."

KPNX reported that Peters has now been involved in seven shootings in the past 10 years, six of them fatal. The Arizona Republic reported Thursday that the city of Scottsdale agreed to a $75,000 settlement in 2009 with the family of one of the people Peters had killed; the city denied liability.

New Times, a Phoenix alternative weekly, profiled Peters in 2010 under the headline "'Dirty Harry' in Scottsdale? Badass Cop Bags Four Bad Guys in 10-Year Career." 

Police said that as a former member of the SWAT team, Peters had been involved in the department's most dangerous assignments and that all of the previous shootings had been found to be justified.

In the incident Tuesday, police were called to Loxas' home after a call to 911 reported that he had kicked over a trash can and threatened the owner when he complained. The caller said Loxas was walking around the neighborhood with his grandson and a weapon. 

"We have a neighbor out here that pulled a gun on us," the caller said. "He's got a baby in his arms. He's got a gun, and he cocked it."

Loxas had returned home by the time police arrived, and he answered the door with the baby in his arms. Peters and another officer told investigators they saw something in Loxas' hand, and when he turned, Peters fired a single shot, killing Loxas instantaneously.

Afterward, detectives determined that Loxas wasn't armed. But they did find several weapons in the home, KPNX reported.

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