Month: September 2025

By WMTW News Staff

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    WEST GARDINER, Maine (WMTW) — A Maine man was able to escape from his car and swim away after crashing into the Cobbosseecontee Stream on Sunday morning.

According to Maine State Police, 27-year-old Brandon Nale, of Winslow, drove off Interstate 295 around 7 a.m. near the West Gardiner/Gardiner line.

State trooper Tom Bureau arrived within minutes and immediately entered the water in an effort to rescue the driver. He found the car submerged about seven feet underwater, but was unable to open the door because of oil that had leaked out. After trying to gain access for a few minutes, he learned that the driver had already escaped and swam to a nearby home.

Investigators think Nale had fallen asleep at the wheel, hit a concrete barrier, and launched into the stream. He was ultimately transported to MaineGeneral Hospital in Augusta with non-life-threatening injuries.

The left lane of I-295 was shut down for about an hour while the Maine State Police Dive Team helped recover the car.

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By Nick Matoney

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    CADOGAN TOWNSHIP, Pennsylvania (WTAE) — A woman recently evicted from a home in Cadogan Township, Armstrong County, is facing multiple charges after three dead babies were found inside the house.

According to a criminal complaint filed against Jessica Mauthe, 39, of Ford City, the investigation began when the owner of a property on Oak Lane was cleaning out the residence and found a dead baby in a trash bag inside a closet.

Police said two other dead babies were found in totes in the attic.

The criminal complaint said that during a police interview, Mauthe described birthing the infants and placing them in the locations where they were found.

Mauthe is charged with criminal homicide and abuse of a corpse.

She is being held in the Armstrong County Jail.

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By Lauren Lennon

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    AURORA, Colorado (KMGH) — There’s no question that some tutoring services can be costly for families.

That’s why two brothers, Salahdiin and Abdullahi Adan, took it upon themselves to fill a need they saw within their community.

“The community, they don’t have a lot of resources and a lot of tutors, especially in low-income areas,” said Salahdiin.

“I saw the issue, and I wanted to help out my community,” he added.

So Bright Minds tutoring was born. It’s an initiative where the brothers offer free one-on–one tutoring with students.

“We tutor younger students leading up to eighth grade with fractions, differentials, fundamental math, social studies, human geography, US History, English, all of that,” explained Abdullahi.

Salahdiin, the founder of the initiative, said his brother, Abdullahi, saw the impact the organization had on the community, and soon became a co-founder.

Both brothers fuel the initiative’s mission with their own experiences.

“I just entered sixth grade, and I learned fractions. So I was looking for a tutor, and I realized, like, how expensive and how limited tutors are,” shared Salahdiin.

“I was studying for the SAT in June of this year, and I saw how expensive SAT tutors could get,” said Abdullahi.

He went on to describe how he benefited from having a teacher who helped him reach new heights in his academics, “before I took my first SAT, the school day SAT, she helped me get from a pretty low math score to a higher, you know, where I could get scholarships and other things.”

“I want to be that person for other people. I want to be that support. I want other people to have that feeling as well,” he added.

Currently, they focus their services on students in an apartment complex in Aurora, where they claim to see lower test scores.

“It’s maybe 20 to 25 students. And we go there every other Monday,” said Abdullahi.

The brothers also tutor an additional 25 at a local library.

“Before we start tutoring any of the students, we take a diagnostic test at first, and we make sure that they’re on their level. So if they say they’re in sixth grade, we make sure they reach a sixth-grade, if not seventh-grade level,” he explained.

And for Abdullahi and Salahdiin, this initiative is so much more than just helping students catch up in the classroom; it’s an opportunity to make a difference in their community.

“It feels pretty rewarding seeing the kid with a smile on their face and finally being able to understand basic, you know, algebra, basic functions, basic equations. I remember I struggled with that a lot when I was younger,” said Abdullahi.

“For me, it’s like a sense of happiness and joy for them, because I see them succeed and they get the opportunity that I didn’t have when I was their age,” his brother added.

“There’s always someone to help you out. You shouldn’t feel ashamed or afraid to reach out” Both brothers are students at the Lotus School for Excellence; Abdullahi is a senior who hopes to attend Fordham University in New York, while Salahdiin is a sophomore. Their principal noted how the school plans to further their initiative on campus as well.

“We are planning to partner with them in really moving this common course, because Bright Minds also wants to really promote mentorship and opportunities for our students, and that speaks to our goals,” said Ermek Bakyt.

“We are in talks about how this can play out after school, because really what we’re targeting is after school time between 3:20 and 4 pm, where TAs go into the classrooms. They are matched with our middle schoolers, and learning begins,” he added.

As for the future of their initiative, the Adan brothers hope to expand their services to other areas.

The brothers say they have a team of about six other volunteers who help with tutoring services. If anyone is interested in volunteering or signing up for services, the organization’s website has directions on how to get involved.

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By Maggie Bryan

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    DENVER, Colorado (KMGH) — A growing community garden is piquing the curiosity of people passing by the Denver Police Department District 4 substation.

On the corner of W. Warren Avenue and S. Clay Street, you can find volunteers harvesting vegetables and planting flowers on a piece of the substation’s land that once sat vacant.

“This space has always been just a weed field. It’s never been utilized for anything. It just was really an eyesore,” said DPD Commander Brad Qualley.

That all changed in 2023, when Jeanine Kopaska Broek, the co-director of The Table Urban Farm, approached Commander Qualley with an idea: to turn the space into a community garden where volunteers can learn to grow and harvest food together.

The nonprofit has been developing more than a dozen gardens in south Denver neighborhoods since 2012, and 100% of the food grown is donated back to communities.

“All of the land and water that we’ve ever grown on has been gifted to us,” said Kopaska Broek. “We want people to join us in this garden as a learning environment. We grow together, we share the harvest. So anybody who comes to hang out with us in the garden goes home with some food.”

She said the nonprofit shares the garden’s harvest with local food banks at Community Ministry and West High School, and the food is also used to stock the free veggie cooler at The Table Public House, an extension of the nonprofit that serves food, coffee, and craft cocktails nearby.

Kopaska Broek said the nonprofit also recently received a $1,000 donation to put a veggie cooler in the lobby of the DPD District 4 substation.

“That is a very active lobby, and I get to witness a lot of life happening in the parking lot and in that space. And so it’ll have a glass door so people can see, and all of a sudden, we hope there will be some connection to this very unexpected, interesting thing that’s happening right here at District Four,” she said.

Due to its success, the garden continues to thrive. Kopaska Broek said volunteers helped expand the garden another 3,000 square feet this summer.

Commander Qualley said the garden has been a great talking point for his officers to connect with community members.

“You have no idea how much it’s become just as far as a garden, but also for gathering or just a place just to hang out,” he said. “One of the things I didn’t think would happen is a great talking point. People ask us about it all the time. ‘What do we got going on here?'”

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By Landon Haaf, Katie Parkins

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    AURORA, Colorado (KMGH) — Aurora police have released a series of videos captured on body-worn camera, surveillance video and witness cellphones that show the events that led up to the fatal shooting of Rajon Belt-Stubblefield on Aug. 30.

The release came just hours after Belt-Stubblefield’s family and their team of attorneys held a news conference, saying the video shows “unjustifiable” and “excessive use of force.” Aurora police can release body camera video to the public 72 hours after the family has viewed it.

The body camera video shows roughly three minutes before and three minutes after shots were fired. The encounter between the officer and Belt-Stubblefield spans about 85 seconds from his first command to when the officer pulled the trigger.

Aurora police did not issue any new comment on the video release, instead referring Denver7 to comments made Sept. 2 by Police Chief Todd Chamberlain, in which he defended the officer and said he took several steps to de-escalate the situation. An attorney for Belt-Stubblefield’s family claimed Friday that the officer “could’ve very easily taken him into custody without hurting him.”

The incident began when an Aurora officer tried to pull Belt-Stubblefield over for a “routine” traffic stop, the chief said Sept. 2. We still don’t know why the officer was trying to stop Belt-Stubblefield, but Chamberlain had mentioned it was for either speeding or driving under the influence.

Belt-Stubblefield fled from the officer and crashed into a pair of cars at the intersection of 6th Avenue and Billings Street. The video released Friday begins in the seconds before that crash.

Parts of the ensuing confrontation are captured on surveillance video from the Sinclair gas station at that intersection, a nearby traffic camera, dashcam video from a driver and a pair of cellphone videos in addition to the officer’s body camera. Denver7 has reviewed all of the footage.

The officer, who has not been officially identified, approached Belt-Stubblefield’s car with his gun drawn. He made multiple demands for Belt-Stubblefield to put his hands in the air. Belt-Stubblefield disregarded those commands, got out of his car and walked toward the sidewalk.

At that point, about 14 seconds after the initial command, the officer tried to tackle or apprehend Belt-Stubblefield and was unsuccessful. It’s during that first physical contact that Belt-Stubblefield apparently tosses a handgun into the grass nearby.

Roughly 50 more seconds passed between the initial contact and the moment Belt-Stubblefield was shot three times. In those 50 seconds, Belt-Stubblefield could be heard telling two onlookers, one of whom is his son, to “get that [expletive]” while gesturing toward the grassy area where the gun was apparently thrown. The officer can be heard on body camera telling Belt-Stubblefield or the onlookers to “get away from that [expletive] gun.”

Belt-Stubblefield advanced toward the officer as the officer backed away, gun drawn, for an approximately 50-foot distance down the 6th Avenue sidewalk. During his retreat, the officer makes multiple commands to “get on the ground,” at one point warning Belt-Stubblefield: “I’ll shoot you.”

In the seconds before he’s shot, Belt-Stubblefield said at least six times, “Are you ready for this?” as his son could be heard saying, “Dad, chill!” and “officer, chill!” and the officer tells him to “get on the ground.”

The officer backs into the roadway as Belt-Stubblefield continues his advance. After retreating roughly four steps onto 6th Avenue, the officer shoots Belt-Stubblefield twice in the shoulder. He then fires a third shot that hits Belt-Stubblefield in the head.

The ensuing moments have been a point of contention in the two weeks since the shooting. Witnesses have told Denver7 the officer refused to render aid. Chamberlain said aid was not “allowed for based upon the actions of the individuals around and even based upon the actions of the suspect.”

Footage of the exchange shows the officer standing over Belt-Stubblefield’s body with his gun drawn for roughly 30 seconds before he holsters the gun and turns the body on its side. About a minute after shots were fired, a woman claiming to be an ER professional offers the officer gauze and a tourniquet, to which the officer says “No, it’s not a tourniquet kind of thing.”

Several onlookers can be heard shouting at the officer, but none of them seemed to approach the officer.

Paramedics arrived roughly two minutes after shots were fired to render aid, and another officer who arrived at the scene took the involved officer to Aurora Police headquarters.

In their press conference Friday, Belt-Stubblefield’s family members and attorneys did not give a detailed interpretation of the sequence of events, but said Belt-Stubblefield’s death was due to the “aggression” of the police officer and the “unnecessary” third shot that was fired while Belt-Stubblefield was stopped and possibly even stepping back.

Arthur Porter, a senior pastor at New Nation Church in Aurora – of which Belt-Stubblefield was a member – attributed Belt-Stubblefield’s actions to his being shaken by the car crash that preceded the police encounter.

“He had just suffered from a violent car accident, and his mental and emotional stability was not there,” Porter said. “He was incapable of responding to the aggression of the police officer.”

Civil rights attorney Milo Schwab blamed the shooting on a “a deep culture of racism” at the Aurora Police Department, which entered into a five-year consent decree agreement in 2021 after the death of Elijah McClain and has faced criticism over alleged police brutality as recently as this spring, when an officer shot and killed an unarmed Black man, Kilyn Lewis.

“This is a police department with a deep culture of racism, a deep culture of bias and a deep culture of using force instead of their words,” Schwab said. “We’re here yet again, planning a funeral for someone we shouldn’t be.”

Attorneys accused Chamberlain of inserting opinion and trying to “shape the narrative” immediately following the shooting.

For his part, Chamberlain promised a thorough and transparent investigation during a press briefing in the hours after the shooting.

“We are going to do everything, both internal and external, to make sure that this investigation is transparent, it is 100% valid, and it is factual,” Chamberlain said on Aug. 30.

The 18th Judicial Critical Incident Response Team is conducting an independent investigation of the incident. APD said it is conducting its own “parallel administrative review.”

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By Christian Piekos and WLS Digital Team

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    DOLTON, Illinois (WLS) — Sunday marks Pope Leo XIV’s 70th birthday.

The pontiff, born in Chicago and raised in south suburban Dolton, received a special treat as he entered a new decade.

Video on Sunday morning shows a Portillo’s chocolate cake being brought to the pope to commemorate his first birthday as head of the Catholic Church.

It was delivered by the new U.S. ambassador to the Vatican. He said it was sent by Portillo’s.

Meanwhile, the village of Dolton hosted a birthday celebration for Pope Leo at his childhood home on 141st Street on Sunday.

The party, which kicked off at 10 a.m., included music and prayers from local clergy.

“Happy blessed birthday Pope Leo, and we’re just so honored to be able to celebrate your life today,” said village of Dolton Minister Deborah White.

Dolton neighbors and community leaders came together on the sunny Sunday morning to sing together and pray together.

“It’s a sense of pride because it was needed. For the community, it’s brought new light, new community awareness, new fellowship,” White said.

Those celebrating released white balloons as one in the pope’s honor. Special Pope Leo cookies were also on hand.

Dolton Village Trustee Tammy Brown says the pope’s home is bringing new light to Dolton.

“You can drive by anytime, you get out of the car and you see people from all over the world,” Brown said. “Look at where we are today. Knowing that the pope once lived here has brought unity to the community.”

Homer Glen’s Bernice Szaflarski just got back from a trip to see the pope in Vatican City.

“It’s always incredible when you see the pope,” Szaflarski said. “This is not our first visit here. We’ve been here before. We were just so proud that he’s the first American pope and he just seems to be so loving. Just his smile is just incredible.”

Dolton Mayor Jason House says the village plans to celebrate the pope’s birthday every year, creating a special annual tradition for this community.

The celebration in Dolton came after family and friends of “Chicago’s pope” gathered in New Lenox to sing happy birthday to the pontiff on Friday.

And his big brother, John Prevost, told ABC7 that his advice to the pope is that he has to be careful going down the stairs, now that he is getting older.

And on Saturday night, there was a big celebration at the Vatican on the eve of the pope’s birthday.

Big name musicians like Chicago native Jennifer Hudson, Andrea Boccelli and Pharrell Williams raised their voices in a concert to celebrate music and human connection.

There was also a spectacular drone show after the concert, lighting up the sky.

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