• Two 'extremely dangerous' inmates flee Texas jail, possibly only in underwear

    Hopkins County Sheriff's Office via AP

    Booking photo of John Marlin King

    Hopkins County Sheriff's Office via Reuters

    Booking photo of Brian Allen Tucker

    By Jim Forsyth and Tom Brown, Reuters

    SAN ANTONIO, Texas — An inmate suspected of strangling a man with shoelaces escaped with a fellow prisoner from a Texas jail on Tuesday, triggering a manhunt for what authorities described as two dangerous fugitives, possibly clad in nothing but their underwear.

    "They squeezed their way through the fence somehow," said Sergeant Brad Cummings, a spokesman for the Hopkins County Sheriff's office in Sulphur Springs, Texas, about 80 miles northeast of Dallas.

    The men escaped from the county jail recreation yard and their black-and-white prison uniforms were later found on the outskirts of the detention facility, which has a capacity to house about 200 inmates, he said.

    "Officers were notified that the two subjects had left the jail, and we immediately set up a command post and notified all surrounding agencies, and all schools within our county are on lockdown," Cummings said.


    He said one of the escapees, Brian Allen Tucker, 44, was awaiting trial for capital murder stemming from the 2011 killing of an acquaintance, 63-year-old Bobby Riley, who was strangled with shoelaces before being robbed.

    John Marlin King, 39, a burglary suspect in another case unrelated to the shoelace killing, escaped along with Tucker.

    "We do not know if they have weapons of any kind at this point, but they should be considered extremely dangerous," Cummings said.

    Since the men discarded their jail uniforms, Cummings said they may have fled with nothing but their prison-issue white T-shirts and boxer shorts to protect them from the elements.

    "It could be that they're possibly just in their underwear," he said.

    Copyright 2013 Thomson Reuters. Click for restrictions.

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  • Lawyers for Fort Hood massacre suspect: Take death penalty off the table

    AP file

    This undated photo shows Nidal Hasan, who is charged with 13 counts of premeditated murder and 32 counts of attempted murder in the 2009 Fort Hood, Texas, shootings.

    By Jim Forsyth, Reuters

    SAN ANTONIO - Lawyers for a U.S. Army major accused of a deadly 2009 shooting spree at a Texas military post have asked for the death penalty to be disallowed in his court martial, possibly paving the way for a guilty plea in the case. 

    Fort Hood massacre suspect Major Nidal Hasan is charged with 13 counts of premeditated murder and 32 counts of attempted murder in connection with the rampage at the sprawling Central Texas Army facility.

    A three-day pre-trial hearing due to begin on Wednesday will include discussions on a defense request to remove the death penalty in the case, according to a written agenda for the hearing.

    A guilty plea is not allowed if the death penalty is a possibility, and one item on the court docket refers to discussion of part of the military justice code involving guilty pleas in capital cases.

    Hasan is accused of opening fire on a group of soldiers who were going through processing before being deployed to Afghanistan. He was shot four times by two civilian Fort Hood police officers, leaving him paralyzed from the chest down.


    Military commanders, shortly after Hasan was charged, gave prosecutors the right to seek the death penalty if he is convicted, a significant step given that the United States has not executed anyone under the Uniform Code of Military Justice since 1961.

    The top U.S. military appellate court ruled last month that the judge who had been presiding over the case, Colonel Gregory Gross, was not impartial and ordered him removed, also setting aside an order that Hasan's beard be forcibly shaved.

    Jeffrey Addicott, a law professor at St. Mary's University in San Antonio and a military justice expert, said his reading of the case was that the requested remedy by the defense for the judge's conduct was for the case only to move forward with a maximum penalty of life imprisonment.

    "The government has prepared for this case for many years," Addicott said. "There is no incentive for them to accept anything that is less than the death penalty."

    Fort Hood spokesman Christopher Haug said that Hasan's court-appointed defense attorney was "prohibited by regulation" from commenting on the agenda item regarding pleas in capital cases.

    Hasan's lawyer, Lieutenant Colonel Kris Poppe, is also requesting that he receive the services of a media analyst at taxpayer expense to press a claim that Hasan has been the victim of unfair media coverage.

    The delays in Hasan's court martial have frustrated survivors of the shooting. Attorneys for both sides spent much of 2012 arguing over whether Hasan could keep his beard, which he says he grew due to his Islamic faith.

    Hasan was repeatedly held in contempt of court by the previous judge over the beard, which violates Army grooming regulations. Judge Gross ordered the beard removed.

    But an appeals court ruled that Hasan's grooming standards were the concern of the post commander, not the trial judge, and the new judge in the case, Colonel Tara Osborn, barely mentioned the beard during her first pre-trial hearing last month. 

    Copyright 2013 Thomson Reuters. Click for restrictions.

  • Four injured as school bus plunges off Texas highway

    Two adults and one child were injured when a school bus veered off an expressway and plunged off the overpass in Texas. NBCNews.com's Dara Brown reports.

    WOAI-TV

    A television image shows the bus separated from its chassis beneath Interstate 37 in San Antonio on Thursday.

    By Darlene Dorsey, Elsa Ramon and M. Alex Johnson, NBC News

    New in this version: Details on injuries

    Updated at 7:53 p.m. ET: Four people were injured when a school bus plunged 15 feet off an interstate highway in San Antonio on Thursday, authorities said.

    The bus had already dropped off most of its passengers and was carrying only three people — the driver, an adult monitor and a young boy — when it flew off I-37 into the parking lot of a Comfort Suites hotel in east San Antonio about 4:35 p.m. (5:35 p.m. ET).

    Darlene Dorsey and Elsa Ramon are reporters for NBC station WOAI of San Antonio. M. Alex Johnson is a reporter for NBC News. Follow him on Twitter and Facebook.

    All three people on the bus were taken by ambulances to University Hospital under "priority one" protocols, which are invoked when a patient has "possibly life-threatening injuries," said Christian Bove, a spokesman for the San Antonio Fire Department. A fourth person in a separate vehicle on the highway also was taken to a hospital with unspecified injuries. It wasn't immediately clear whether the two vehicles collided. 

    Authorities said that despite the precautionary protocols, none of the injuries was believed to be grave — mainly broken bones for the driver and the monitor and facial cuts for the child.

    No information about the identities of any of the victims was immediately available.

    Watch US News videos on NBCNews.com

    The bus was traveling north on the interstate when it veered off the side, completely flipped in midair and landed right-side up, shearing it from its chassis, which came to rest at a right angle to the main body of the bus, NBC station WOAI-TV reported.


    Sherry Chaudhry, the hotel's manager, told WOAI that gasoline had spilled all over the scene of the accident and that bystanders broke out the bus' windows to rescue the boy. Chaudhry said she was able to speak with the bus driver, whom she quoted as having said a car cut off the bus and forced it off the road.

    This is a breaking news story. Check back for more details.

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  • Air Force relieves training commander at Lackland over sex scandal

    A top commander has been relieved of his position in the wake of a sex scandal at Lackland Air Force base.


    Col. Glenn Palmer had been in charge of basic training for new Air Force recruits at the 737th training group at the base in San Antonio, Texas. A senior U.S. military official confirmed to NBC on Friday that Palmer had been relieved. The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the wing commander lost confidence in Palmer's ability to lead the training group.

    Allegations that basic training instructors behaved inappropriately with female recruits have rocked the base. Some of the alleged victims have claimed sexual abuse and assault. 

    Staff Sgt. Luis Walker, a former instructor, received a 20-year prison sentence last month in a military court-martial after being convicted of rape and sexual assault. Walker was convicted on all 28 charges he faced. 

    Tech. Sgt. Christopher Smith, 33, was sentenced to 30 days in jail and a reduction in rank to airman first class last week. He was convicted of developing an intimate relationship with one female trainee and fraternizing with another.

    Other training instructors are scheduled for courts-martial in the coming months. 

    The military hasn't seen a sex scandal of this magnitude since the 1990s, when accusations of sexual misconduct surfaced at the Army's Ordnance Center and School in Aberdeen, Md., where officers were accused of using their positions to sexually assault female trainees under their command. The scandal resulted in one company commander and two drill sergeants being sent to prison. 

    Lackland is where all new recruits go through eight weeks of basic training. The installation graduates 35,000 new airmen every year. About one in five recruits are female but most instructors are male.

     

    Courtney Kube contributed to this report.

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  • Air Force instructor jailed for 30 days in military sex scandal

    By NBC News wire services

    SAN ANTONIO --  A U.S. Air Force basic training instructor was sentenced to 30 days in jail on Thursday and had his rank reduced after being convicted of improper sexual misconduct at a court martial, one of seven cases in the worst military sex scandal since 1996.

    Tech. Sgt. Christopher Smith, 33, received his punishment after the seven-member jury deliberated for five hours. The sentencing, which capped a three-day court-martial at the base, includes a reduction in rank to airman first class.

    Smith was convicted Wednesday of seeking to develop an intimate relationship with one female trainee and fraternizing with another at Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio. He was acquitted of making sexual advances on the female trainee he pursued and of obstructing justice.

    Lackland is where all Air Force recruits go through basic training. It has about 500 instructors for about 35,000 airmen who graduate every year. While one in five recruits are women, most instructors are men.

    Seven trainers at Lackland have been charged with sexual misconduct.  The latest, Staff Sergeant Jason Manko, was charged on Thursday, Air Force officials said.

    Last month, a military jury gave Staff Sgt. Luis Walker a 20-year sentence after the former instructor was convicted of rape and sexual assault. The counts against Walker were the most severe in the investigation.

    A third trainer earlier pleaded guilty to sexual misconduct.


    Smith can remain in the military after he finishes his sentence, though not as a military training instructor.

    A total of 38 women have come forward to claim they were victims of inappropriate conduct at the hands of their basic training instructors.

    Courts-martial have been set for three more trainers, with Master Sgt. Jamey Crawford scheduled for trial Sept. 5. He stands accused of having a wrongful sexual relationship with a trainee, wrongfully providing and consuming alcohol with a trainee and committing adultery with the trainee.

    In a mixed verdict, a jury found Smith guilty of seeking to develop an intimate relationship with a teenage trainee, but cleared him of charges of making sexual advances. Smith was found guilty of having a personal social relationship with a second female trainee.

    Smith was convicted by a "special" court martial, a streamlined process allowed in cases where the maximum penalty is no more than a year in prison.

    U.S. Senator John Cornyn, who had blocked the nomination of the proposed Air Force chief of staff over concerns about the sex scandal, said on Thursday he has lifted his hold on the appointment of General Mark Welsh.

    The Texas Republican said he asked Welsh to conduct a formal review of current Air Force policy and training on sexual assault prevention and inappropriate relationships.

    Petition

    U.S. Representative Jackie Speier has called for hearings in the House, saying the problem of women in the military being sexually harassed and raped by men in command positions is far more widespread than officials have been willing to believe.

    Pressure is mounting from the public as well.

    Paula Coughlin-Puopolo, the former Navy helicopter pilot who exposed the 1991 Tailhook scandal involving allegations of sexual abuse by military pilots, on Thursday presented petitions signed by more than 10,000 people to House Armed Services Committee Chairman Buck McKeon, demanding public hearings into the Lackland case.

    The U.S. military hasn't been confronted with a sex scandal of similar scope since 1996. That scandal involved an Army base in Maryland.

    Reuters and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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