UPDATE: Person shot in Macon wielded machete, drove squad car, rammed police, aimed shotgun at officers
MACON, Ill. (WCIA) — The person shot by officers in Macon had a machete, gained control of a squad car and aimed a shotgun at officers among other things, according to the Macon County Sheriff.
At 11:50 a.m., deputies from the Macon County Sheriff's Office responded to a call at the P&V gas station in Macon in reference to a person that had wrecked into a vehicle and was in the parking lot armed with a machete acting suspiciously.
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According to Macon County Sheriff Jim Root, arriving Macon County Sheriff's Office Deputies and the Decatur Park Police secured a scene and began negotiating with the suspect. The suspect then fled the gas station on foot and ran onto U.S. Highway 51, causing responding officers to shut down the road.
The suspect was able to gain control of a Macon County Sheriff's Office squad car and subsequently rammed a Park Police vehicle, which disabled both vehicles. The suspect then pointed a shotgun at responding officers, at which point officers fired their service weapons at the suspect.
The suspect was then transported to Decatur Memorial Hospital for non-life-threatening injuries sustained from gunshot wounds. They were later transported to a hospital in Springfield to be treated for injuries sustained during the traffic incident.
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The Decatur Park Police Officer involved in the incident was transported to Decatur Memorial Hospital to be treated for injuries sustained during the accident. No other officers were injured during the incident.
The Illinois State Police Zone 5 Crime Scene Unit was called in to help with the Sheriff's Office's investigation. According to the MSO Policy and Illinois State Statute, the Illinois State Police Zone 5 Investigations Unit was called in to investigate the officer involved shooting.
This is an ongoing investigation and no further information is available at this time.
This is a developing story. WCIA will continue to update as new information is received.
MACON, Ill. (WCIA) — A person with a knife was shot and hospitalized following a vehicle pursuit in Macon Saturday afternoon, according to Illinois State Police.
At approximately 12:58 p.m. on May 3, the Illinois State Police Division of Criminal Investigations Zone 5 was requested by the Macon County Sheriff's Department to investigate an officer involved shooting. Officers responded to an incident at the PV Quick Stop in Macon.
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Preliminary information indicates officers encountered a person with a knife, a short vehicle pursuit ensued and shots were fired.
The suspect was struck and has been taken to the hospital with injuries. No officers were injured.
According to State Police, an investigation is ongoing and no additional information will be released at this time.
Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
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CBS News
3 hours ago
- CBS News
Palestinian-American dies of smoke inhalation in West Bank after settlers set fires to cars, homes
A Palestinian American died in the Israeli-occupied West Bank last week after a confrontation with settlers, U.S. officials confirmed. Khamis Ayyad, who was in his 40s, died Thursday from smoke inhalation in Silwad, a village in the central West Bank near several Israeli settlements, a U.S. official told CBS News. The Palestinian health ministry said on Friday that the fires were set by settlers on homes and vehicles in Silwad, according to the Agence France-Presse. A U.S. State Department spokesperson confirmed to CBS News the death on Sunday and condemned what they called "criminal violence by any party." "We offer condolences to the family on their loss and are providing consular assistance to them," the spokesperson said, adding that they would not be commenting further. Ayyad was laid to rest on Friday. The Palestinian Authority, which administers part of the Israeli-occupied West Bank, told AFP that some villages around Silwad also came under attack by settlers, in which vehicles, homes and farmlands were set ablaze. Witnesses said Israeli forces fired live rounds and tear gas toward residents after the settlers attacked. Israel's military said police were investigating the incident. They said security forces found Hebrew graffiti and a burnt vehicle at the scene but had not detained any suspects. Ayyad is the latest Palestinian American to die in the West Bank in three weeks. Saifullah Kamel Musallet, a 20-year-old man from Tampa, was beaten to death by settlers while visiting family in the West Bank in July. He was killed in a confrontation with settlers while protecting his family's land in the town of Sinjil, north of Ramallah, according to his family and the Palestinian Health Ministry. U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee, who visited Gaza last week with U.S. envoy Steve Witkoff, has asked Israel to "aggressively investigate the murder" of Musallet, saying in a social media post that "there must be accountability for this criminal and terrorist act." There has been a rise in settler attacks on Palestinians, as well as Palestinian militant attacks on Israelis and large-scale Israeli military operations in the occupied West Bank since Hamas' Oct. 7, 2023 attack on Israel out of Gaza that triggered the Israel-Hamas war. Hamas-led terrorists killed around 1,200 people, mostly civilians, that day and abducted 251 others. They still hold 50 hostages, including around 20 still believed to be alive. Most of the others have been released in ceasefires or other deals. Israel's retaliatory offensive has killed more than 60,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza's Health Ministry, which doesn't distinguish between militants and civilians and operates under the Hamas government. The U.N. and other international organizations see it as the most reliable source of data on casualties. In Gaza on Sunday, at least 23 Palestinians seeking food were killed by Israeli forces, according to hospital officials and witnesses, who described facing gunfire as hungry crowds surged around aid sites. Desperation has gripped the Palestinian territory of more than 2 million, which experts have warned is facing famine because of Israel's blockade and nearly two-year Brennan contributed to this report.

Washington Post
12 hours ago
- Washington Post
Israel's support for clans in Gaza puts tribal strongman in spotlight
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In an interview last month with The Washington Post, Abu Shabab denied he is backed by or obtained weapons from Israel. 'These are merely allegations spread by Hamas on social media and its terrorist TV channels to make people fear us,' he said. 'They want people to believe that we are carrying out an external agenda. On the contrary, we are the owners of the land; we are the owners of these areas. We are the Palestinian presence.' But the base that the militia leader said he has set up is in a part of southeastern Gaza under the control of the Israel Defense Forces. And in recent months, Israeli forces have refrained from interfering when Abu Shabab and his men, armed with AK-47s, patrolled a central artery in the area and stopped U.N. and Red Cross vehicles at makeshift checkpoints, according to several aid workers in Gaza. Abu Shabab's group is one of several that are now openly brandishing arms and challenging Hamas, in the security vacuum left by Israel's targeting of Hamas police and other institutions in Gaza, according to analysts, aid workers and interviews with members of the armed groups. The IDF and the Israeli prime minister's office did not respond to requests for comment. Analysts and historians say that backing for the clans is a page out of an old playbook for Israel, which has at several points in its history provided weapons, money and other support to local groups to divide Palestinians and undermine their national aspirations. 'It's the oldest colonial strategy in the book,' which Israel learned from the British, said Rashid Khalidi, the Edward Said professor emeritus of modern Arab studies at Columbia University. He said the latest initiative has succeeded in 'sowing utter chaos,' which could complicate efforts to position the Palestinian Authority to govern Gaza. He said Israel wants 'a state of chaos, because if the Palestinians are unified, then they might have to actually negotiate or deal with them.' Netanyahu began to publicly float the idea of bolstering Palestinian clans to replace Hamas rule last year, saying the IDF had brought him this proposal and he had agreed. Israel's support for Abu Shabab and other Hamas rivals in Gaza echoes an effort to establish 'Village Leagues' in the West Bank to counter the Palestine Liberation Organization in the 1970s and early '80s, analysts said. Israel gave money, administrative privileges and the right to carry weapons to selected representatives of clans in villages throughout the West Bank in a bid to establish fiefdoms under overall Israeli control and undermine the prospect of a Palestinian state. That effort failed, and so far the proposal to empower Gaza's clans has gained little traction with the Palestinian population. Abu Shabab, 35, hails from a large Bedouin tribe called the Tarabin, which extends across southern Gaza, Israel's Negev desert and Egypt's northern Sinai region. Israeli and Palestinian analysts say Abu Shabab was involved in drugs and weapons smuggling before the war and that he and some of his associates did business with the Islamic State branch in Sinai. After the interview with The Post, Abu Shabab was sent follow-up requests for comment on these allegations but did not respond. Abu Shabab also became known inside Gaza in fall 2024 for allegedly being the ringleader of a criminal gang behind the looting of aid trucks, The Post reported in November. At the time, he said he was driven by desperation to 'take from the trucks,' though he denied that his men attacked drivers. Almost as soon as Abu Shabab appeared on the scene, he was in Hamas's crosshairs. In the late fall, members of a new Hamas-linked force called the 'Piercing Arrow' unit began to target his relatives and associates, according to aid workers, medical personnel and the unit's own Telegram account. The unit killed Abu Shabab's brother in December, said an employee at the morgue of the European Hospital in Gaza, where his body was taken. Then, when a two-month ceasefire took effect in January and Hamas security forces could operate without fear of Israeli attack, they kneecapped nearly two dozen members of Abu Shabab's group in a wave of retribution, according to videos of the punishments posted to social media and a witness. Abu Shabab and his men largely disappeared until late May, by which point Israel had resumed the war. His group rebranded under the name 'Popular Forces,' and members began to paint themselves as liberators who could free Gazans from Hamas's Islamist rule. Abu Shabab's group has now positioned itself as the de facto authority in southeastern Gaza. The group set up checkpoints to screen convoys of international aid workers entering Gaza — according to a video taken by Abu Shabab's group, shared with The Post and confirmed by officials with the United Nations and International Committee of the Red Cross — and claimed to be providing security to aid trucks. U.N. agencies and other international organizations say they do not cooperate with the group. 'He has a full-glide militia up and running, fully backed by Israel,' a U.N. official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive matter. In early June, Abu Shabab declared he had set up a protected zone in the eastern section of Rafah city to which civilians displaced by the Israeli offensive could return. He soon launched a recruitment drive to staff 'administrative and community committees,' including doctors and nurses, engineers, primary schoolteachers and public relations experts. Abu Shabab told The Post last month that more than 2,000 civilians live on his turf, which he said spans a little more than two miles along the border with Egypt. He said that while his militia includes just 100 members, it has built schools, health centers and other civilian infrastructure there. 'We are seeking support from the U.S., the European Union and Arab states,' he told The Post. 'We hope they support our vision and empower us to make all people in the Gaza Strip live like we do, taking control of our own areas in dignity and humanity.' Influential families have long played a role in Palestinian society. In Gaza, the landscape is a mix of extended-family networks, known as hamulas, and Bedouin tribes. When Hamas took control of the Gaza Strip in 2007, the group quickly co-opted and subdued these clans, according to Azmi Keshawi, Gaza researcher for the International Crisis Group. Since the start of the Gaza war, launched in response to the Hamas-led attacks on southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, Israel has targeted Hamas police and internal security forces, which used to keep other armed actors in Gaza in check. The breakdown of law and order has been accompanied by Israel's repeated displacement of civilians, limits on desperately needed humanitarian aid and attacks on government institutions, analysts say. 'The result is basically a societal collapse,' said Muhammad Shehada, a visiting fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations. In addition to Abu Shabab's militia, other clans in Khan Younis and Deir al-Balah have also emerged in this vacuum, openly carrying guns and threatening, or directly clashing with, Hamas-affiliated forces, according to analysts, aid workers and interviews with members of the armed groups. Many Palestinians see Abu Shabab as a traitor and a thief, according to Gazan analysts, civilians, clan leaders and businessmen. He has been roundly condemned by a variety of tribes in Gaza, including his own. 'Yasser Abu Shabab doesn't represent us. He only represents himself,' said Adel al-Tarabin, a leader in the Tarabin tribe. He's a marked man — unable to venture out of his territory under Israeli military protection without fear of imprisonment or assassination by Hamas or affiliated units. Hamas and allied militant groups in Gaza have put out wanted notices for Abu Shabab and his comrades. Abu Shabab dismissed the significance of these notices, saying, 'We don't recognize terrorists or their legitimacy.' Former members of the Israeli security establishment have argued that clans in Gaza cannot substitute for the Palestinian Authority, which is seen by most Western and Arab countries as the only viable alternative to Hamas in the enclave. Israel's support for tribal militias comes with significant risks, including that Israel could lose its control over the groups, said Michael Milshtein, a former adviser on Palestinian affairs to the Israeli military. He sees potential parallels with the United States' arming of fighters in Afghanistan against the Soviet-aligned regime in the 1980s. Those fighters later formed the Taliban. 'After the war ended, the Taliban started to attack the Americans with their own weapons,' Milshtein said. 'It can be also exactly the same experience here in Gaza — it's very likely.' Heba Farouk Mahfouz in Cairo, Alon Rom and Lior Soroka in Tel Aviv, Hazem Balousha in Toronto and Evan Hill in New York contributed to this report.


New York Post
14 hours ago
- New York Post
Mob of anti-Israel protestors clash with police after attempting to storm Grand Central Terminal: cops
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