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Woman fatally struck by police truck on South Carolina beach
A woman is dead being struck by a police vehicle on a South Carolina beach on Thursday.
The Horry County police officer, who was not identified, has been placed on administrative leave, CBS News affiliate WBTW reported.
The unidentified woman was facing east on Nash Street, in the Myrtle Beach area, at around 1 p.m. on Thursday. The officer, driving a 2020 Ford Ranger Pickup truck, approached from the north and hit the woman.
The woman was transported to Grand Strand Regional Medical Center, where she died, WBTW reported.
The incident remains under investigation, the Horry County Police Department said. The South Carolina Highway Patrol is leading the investigation.
“What occurred on the beach yesterday was a tragedy and we know our community is hurting,” the department said in a statement, WBTW reported. “Our hearts are with all those impacted by this loss. We also know our community has questions. We do too.”
Denis Miller, who was on the beach at the time of the incident, told WBTW that he had seen the aftermath of the collision.
“From my point of view, I had my back turned. I heard somebody yell ‘There’s somebody that’s been run over,'” Miller said. “We run over here, and yeah, there’s a lady on the ground and there’s a truck on top of her.”
This is the second such incident in Horry County in recent years. A woman was struck by a Horry County police patrol car while on the beach in Garden City in 2020. That woman survived, WBTW reported at the time.
In late May, a Florida police sergeant was cited for careless driving after he hit two beachgoers with his patrol vehicle. The pair, both young women, were sunbathing near a strip of hotels in Daytona Beach at the time. Both women were hospitalized.
Florida-based personal injury law firm McQuaid & Douglas says on its site that there have been at least 20 accounts of beach patrol cars running over sunbathers in recent years.
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A teacher and student killed in a shooting earlier this week at a school in Madison, Wisconsin, were identified Wednesday by authorities.
The Dane County Medical Examiner’s Office said in a news release provided to CBS News that 42-year-old Erin West and 14-year-old Rubi Vergara were fatally shot Monday morning at Abundant Life Christian School.
Preliminary examinations determined the two died of “homicidal firearm related trauma.” Both were pronounced dead at the scene, the medical examiner said.
An online obituary on a local funeral site stated Vergara was a freshman who leaves behind her parents, one brother, and a large extended family. It described her as “an avid reader” who “loved art, singing and playing keyboard in the family worship band.”
West’s exact position with the school was unclear.
The medical examiner also confirmed that a preliminary autopsy found that the suspected shooter, 15-year-old Natalie Rupnow — a student at the same school — was pronounced dead at a local hospital Monday of “firearm related trauma.” Madison Chief of Police Shon F. Barnes had previously told reporters that Rupnow was pronounced dead while being transported to a hospital.
Police had also previously stated that she was believed to have died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound.
The shooting at the private Christian K-12 school was reported just before 11 a.m. Monday. In addition to the two people killed and the shooter, six others were wounded.
Police said the shooting occurred in a classroom where a study hall was taking place involving students from several grades.
A handgun was recovered after the shooting, Barnes said, but it was unclear where the gun came from or how many shots were fired. A law enforcement source said the weapon used in the shooting appears to have been a 9 mm pistol.
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