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Neighbors say Kentucky highway shooting suspect threatened them with rifle: “I’ll just kill you”
Neighbors of the Kentucky man who allegedly shot five people at random on Interstate 75 over the weekend and is now the subject of a multi-agency manhunt say the suspect, 32-year-old Joseph Couch, had previously pointed his rifle at them, acted erratically and even appeared to walk in circles outdoors while holding a rifle at a property where he lived.
Couch was arrested at that home in Gray, Kentucky, back on Feb. 8 on a charge of terroristic threatening, 3rd degree. According to a uniform citation by Kentucky State Police, obtained by CBS News, the home is located about 20 miles south of Exit 49 on I-75, where the shooting took place.
The citation was filed after a neighbor called police. That neighbor told CBS News that Couch threw a rock at the family’s dog, and when he confronted Couch about it, Couch allegedly pointed a loaded AR-style rifle at him and his 9-year-old child.
“He went in his house, grabbed an AR-15, pointed it at mine and my daughter’s direction, said next time he would shoot me and my daughter,” the neighbor said. “So, naturally, I went and filed charges on him.”
The neighbor did not want to be identified by name. The charges were eventually dropped after he failed to show up to court hearing.
“They dismissed it because they never notified me that there was a court date,” he said, adding that he said he believes authorities should have taken Couch’s weapons away.
“He’s threatened more than one person with a firearm in this neighborhood,” he said.
Following the incident, he said three family dogs were found dead on his property; two had been poisoned.
Another neighbor, Donald Causey, 61, said he had a good relationship with Couch until earlier this year when his demeanor appeared to change. Causey said things escalated last week when Couch allegedly pulled a rifle on Causey for walking near his property.
“He went back in his house, and he came back out and he pointed his rifle and said ‘I’ll just kill you,'” Causey said.
Causey says he did not contact police, since the two had gotten along in the past, but now regrets not doing so given the I-75 shooting.
“This spring we got a long great — I let him borrow my lawn mower a couple times,” he said, adding that something appeared to change and Couch appeared to be struggling with his mental health. “If you talk to him 15 seconds you can tell.”
At one point during their recent encounter, Causey said he went home to deescalate things but Couch came back out with his rifle.
“He put it up on his shoulder like he was marching, and he went around his house about 50 times in a circle,” Causey said. “…He just started marching like he never spoke to us or nothing.”
According to an arrest warrant obtained by CBS News, just minutes prior to the I-75 shooting on Saturday, police say Couch sent a text message saying “I’m going to kill a lot of people. Well try at least,” and another message saying “I’ll kill myself afterwards.” The affidavit said that the woman who received the text messages called a dispatcher to report them.
Couch is charged with five counts each of criminal attempt to commit murder and first-degree assault for the shootings, which wounded five people.
Since Saturday, searchers have been combing through thousands of acres looking for Couch in a rugged area of southeast Kentucky, including in and around the Daniel Boone National Forest.
Officials are offering a $25,000 reward for information leading to his arrest.
TRENTON, N.J. — Democratic Newark City Council President LaMonica McIver has defeated Republican small businessman Carmen Bucco in a contest in New Jersey’s 10th Congressional District that opened up because of the death of Rep. Donald Payne Jr. in April.
McIver will serve out the remainder of Payne’s term, which ends in January. She and Bucco will face a rematch on the November ballot for the full term.
McIver said in a statement Wednesday that she stands on the “shoulders of giants,” naming Payne as chief among them.
She cast ahead to the November election, saying the right to make reproductive health choices was on the ballot as well as whether the economy should benefit the wealthy or “hard working Americans.”
“I will fight because the purpose of politics and the purpose of our vote is to give the people of our communities and our nation a bold voice,” she said.
Bucco congratulated McIver on the victory in a statement but said he’s looking forward to the rematch in November.
“I am not going anywhere,” he said in an email. “We still have a second chance to make district 10 great again!”
Who are LaMonica McIver and Carmen Bucco?
McIver emerged as the Democratic candidate in a crowded field in the July special election. A member of the city council of New Jersey’s biggest city since 2018, she also worked for Montclair Public Schools as a personnel director and plans to focus on affordability, infrastructure, abortion rights and “protecting our democracy,” she told The Associated Press earlier this summer.
Bucco describes himself on his campaign website as a small-business owner influenced by his upbringing in the foster system. He lists support for law enforcement and ending corruption as top issues.
The 10th District lies in a heavily Democratic and majority-Black region of northern New Jersey. Republicans are outnumbered by more than 6 to 1.
It’s been a volatile year for Democrats in New Jersey, where the party dominates state government and the congressional delegation.
Among the developments were the conviction on federal bribery charges of U.S. Sen. Bob Menendez, who has denied the charges, and the demise of the so-called county party line — a system in which local political leaders give their preferred candidates favorable position on the primary ballot.
Democratic Rep. Andy Kim, who’s running for Menendez’s seat, and other Democrats brought a federal lawsuit challenging the practice as part of his campaign to oust Menendez, who has resigned since his conviction.
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Sean “Diddy” Combs at same Brooklyn detention center that held R. Kelly, Sam Bankman-Fried, other high-profile inmates
A second judge refused to grant bail to Sean “Diddy” Combs on Wednesday and he could remain in federal custody at a Brooklyn detention center until his trial for sex trafficking charges. Combs joins other high-profile inmates, such as singer R. Kelly, fallen cryptocurrency mogul Sam Bankman-Fried, rapper Ja Rule —even Al Sharpton served a brief stint— who were held at the same federal detention center.
Notorious for its horrible conditions —inmates won a $10 million class action settlement after enduring frigid conditions during an 8-day blackout in 2019— the waterfront industrial complex, MDC Brooklyn, houses 1,200 inmates.
JOHANNES EISELE/AFP via Getty Images
Violence and corruption have long plagued the facility; U.S. District Judge Gary R. Brown of the Eastern District of New York wrote the detention center had “dangerous, barbaric conditions” in a recent sentencing opinion. Two inmates were stabbed to death in recent months and several correction officers have been convicted for smuggling contraband and accepting bribes.
Combs joins a list of high-profile personalities that have landed at the MDC Brooklyn, partly because the city’s other federal detention center, MDC New York, closed in 2021, also due to horrible conditions. The disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein died by suicide in his cell there in 2019. “Numerous and serious” instances of misconduct among corrections staff gave Epstein the opportunity to kill himself, a subsequent federal watchdog investigation found.
Kelly sued the federal detention center in 2022 for wrongly putting him on suicide watch after his sentencing. Kelly sought $100 million because he said the detention center knew he wasn’t suicidal after he was convicted in 2021 for racketeering and violating the Mann Act, which bars transporting people across state lines for prostitution.
Yuki Iwamura/Bloomberg via Getty Images
Former crypto billionaire Bankman-Fried survived on bread, water and sometimes peanut butter when he was in the MDC Brooklyn, his attorney said, because the detention center continued to serve him a “flesh diet” despite requests for vegan dishes.
Ja Rule stayed at the MDC Brooklyn for a brief time before being released after serving most of his two-year sentence for illegal gun possession. Most of his prison time was spent in a state prison in New York.
Sharpton served a 90-day sentence in 2001 and went on a hunger strike for protesting the U.S. Navy bombing of the island of Vieques, in Puerto Rico.
Combs was taken into custody on Monday and according to an indictment unsealed Tuesday he was charged with sex trafficking, racketeering conspiracy and transportation to engage in prostitution.
His attorney Marc Agnifilo told CBS News, “It’s impossible to prepare for a trial from where he is,” after a first federal judge denied Combs bail on Tuesday.
U.S. Magistrate Judge Robyn Tarnofsky agreed with prosecutors who argued the hip-hop mogul, who is accused of using his business empire as a criminal enterprise to conceal his alleged abuse of women, is a flight risk and poses an ongoing threat to the safety of the community.
Agnifilo said the part of the detention center where Combs is being held is “a very difficult place to be.”
contributed to this report.
