The five anonymous people were challenging a provision of Assembly Bill 173, which passed in 2021 and permits the sharing of data about firearm and ammunition purchases in California with “bona fide research institutions.”

The plaintiffs contend the law violates their rights under the Second and Fourteenth amendments to the U.S. Constitution, which address gun ownership and equal protection under the law.

On Thursday, U.S. District Judge Larry Alan Burns in San Diego granted a request by Attorney General Rob Bonta to dismiss the suit.

Burns noted that AB 173 only permits sharing, under strict protocols, of information that the state already has about gun buyers and applicants for concealed-carry permits.

“The limited disclosure of private information for research purposes permitted by AB 173 doesn’t expose Plaintiffs to any novel risks or impose new burdens on them,” the ruling says.

Addressing the incident last year in which the state Justice Department publicly exposed personal information about applicants for concealed-carry permits, the ruling noted that none of it came from Stanford or UC Davis.

Speculation that such data could be hacked or deliberately disclosed has had no apparent “chilling effect” in the past on gun purchases, the ruling added.

So far, the two universities are the only institutions eligible to access the information, which includes gun owners’ names, addresses and ages. The database is to be used for studying and preventing gun violence, shooting accidents and suicide.

The plaintiffs have until Feb. 10 to file an amended complaint.

It was the first time the two men had ever spoken. They’d chosen drastically different lives since that night in 1998, and when they met on that day in October 2021, Nelson had just left prison. Roberts, by then, was working with the Denver Police Department’s victim assistance unit.

Roberts found Nelson thanks to a random Facebook post. But Roberts wanted more than just to reconnect.

If they could build a relationship, he thought, telling their story could help young people who are at risk of being drawn into gun violence to make a better decision — for reconciliation over vengeance. Nelson, for his part, wanted to show them it’s possible to leave gangs and live a productive life.

There are only two places people in gangs wind up, he said: the grave or the penitentiary.

“I want them to see that change is possible,” he said. “Everybody is scared of change, but you have to do it if you want to go forward in the world.”

On Monday, the two men stood in front of a group of teenagers and, for the first time publicly, share their story. Their message comes as an increasing number of young people die in gun homicides every year. Fifteen teenagers were shot and killed in Denver in 2022 — nearly double the number of teens killed in 2019, when the mayor called youth gun violence an epidemic and convened city leaders to address the problem.

Roberts could have become a statistic like that. Or he could have sought out Nelson for revenge. Instead, he found his way to forgiveness.

“He’s like my brother now,” Roberts said.

Two lives collide in “chaos” of fighting at a party

Both men grew up in Denver in the 1990s, when a wave of gun violence bloodied the city’s streets. Roberts graduated from Overland High School in Aurora, and Nelson, three years younger, attended Denver’s East and South high schools. They didn’t know each other.

On Sept. 11, 1998, their lives intersected.

Nelson, 16 at the time, was invited to a party in Northeast Park Hill. He and his friends were looking for another teen they’d been having problems with — and he was on edge wondering if he’d see him there.

He brought a gun.

When someone at the party played a song about gang life, everyone started throwing their gang signs, Nelson said. Fights broke out and spilled outside.

“It was chaos — period,” Nelson said.

Roberts, then 19, arrived outside shortly before the violence erupted. He was dropping off a friend’s brother at the party. Immediately, he felt like they shouldn’t be there.

He got out of his car to say hi to a few people he recognized when he saw someone he knew, a basketball teammate at East High, about to get into a fight.

Roberts made his way through the crowd to break up the fighting.

As he weaved through the fights, someone hit him and he fell to the ground. He looked up and saw someone walking away. Assuming it was the person who hit him, he stood up, grabbed the man and took him to the ground.

The man Roberts tackled was Nelson, who thought he was about to get jumped.

Nelson fired two shots.

Roberts didn’t realize he’d been hit until he looked at his abdomen. He saw his shirt smoking. He felt the wound with his hand, stuck a finger inside.

“It felt like everything slowed down — time stopped — and then it was complete chaos again,” he recalled.

He asked a friend to help him over to some bushes. If he was going to die, he didn’t want to die in the street.

Instead, police and paramedics arrived and scooped him into an ambulance. He woke up the next morning in the hospital, his mom sitting by his bed. The bullet had pierced his colon.

Despite detectives’ insistence, Roberts couldn’t identify who shot him. He’d never seen Nelson before.

Roberts didn’t even recognize Nelson the next time they saw each other — in the downtown Denver courthouse, when Nelson was to be sentenced for shooting him. Before the hearing, they crossed paths in the bathroom.

“I remember thinking, ‘I wonder what he did?’ ” Roberts said.

It wasn’t until his case was called that Roberts realized the man in the bathroom was the same person who’d shot him. The judge sentenced Nelson to a boot camp program for teens and gave him a six-year suspended prison sentence.

But Nelson struggled to escape the gang life that surrounded him growing up. He spent most of the next two decades in and out of prison, with convictions that included burglary and attempting to escape. All told, 15 years locked up.

He said he realized during his most recent stint in prison that he was just spinning his wheels.

“I got tired of just living my life revolving around what other people think and other people believe,” he said. “I just woke up one day, and that was it. I gave everything up. I couldn’t do it anymore.”

Nelson was paroled and released from prison on Sept. 21, 2021.

“Tired of being angry,” Roberts forgives Nelson

Recovery from the shooting wasn’t easy for Roberts. For three months after Nelson shot him, he walked with a cane. He lost significant weight because the injury to his colon made it difficult for him to eat.

But by January 1999, he was returning to normal.

He stayed in Denver, working in human services roles in Denver Public Schools and for nonprofits. He got married and became a father. And in 2019, he joined the Denver Police Department’s Victim Assistance Unit.

As victim assistance coordinator, Roberts’ job is to build relationships with residents in the East Colfax neighborhood — one of Denver’s neighborhoods most impacted by gun violence.

Occasionally, Roberts thought about Nelson. Once, he saw him in passing at Denver’s Juneteenth celebration. But he didn’t approach.

“I always wondered what his upbringing was, where he came from,” Roberts said. “I wanted to know what he was going through in prison.”

Roberts forgave Nelson years ago, he said.

“I was tired of being angry,” Roberts said. “I had nightmares and PTSD,” or post-traumatic stress disorder. “I was tired of wondering what would happen if we did run into each other.”

Shortly after Nelson was released from prison, Roberts saw Nelson’s name tagged in a Facebook post. He reached out to their mutual connection and asked for Nelson’s phone number.

He thought that if they worked together to tell their story, they could help young people see the possibilities of forgiveness, redemption and change.

When he called, Nelson was eager to help.

“I was like, ‘Whatever you want to do, I’m on board,’ ” Nelson said.

They met for brunch with their wives. Then they kept meeting. They became friends.

Roberts, now 43, introduced Nelson to his family and told them Nelson was the person who shot him. Roberts’ daughter later came up to Nelson and told him she was proud they had become friends.

Everyone had tears in their eyes, said Nelson, 41.

“These stories of forgiveness are so profound,” Ali said. “It lets you know that change is possible. You don’t have to be stuck in a mire of hate.”

At a retreat he hosted last year, Ali asked the 20 teens gathered there how many of them had been affected by suicide or gun violence.

“Every hand went up,” he said. “Even the 13-year-olds.”

Both Nelson and Roberts exemplify uncommon strength, Ali said: Nelson turned his life around after years of street life. Roberts proved that choosing forgiveness instead of revenge can yield unexpected gifts.

On Monday, Ali is hosting another day of mental health and wellness workshops for young people, a program aimed at preventing suicide and gun violence.

Nelson and Roberts plan to be there. They’ll tell their story to the participants — the first time they’ve done so in such a setting.

“Never underestimate the power of forgiveness,” Ali said. “That’s what we want them to walk away with understanding.”

SANTA ROSA —Two men were arrested on Friday in Santa Rosa for allegedly possessing multiple firearms and narcotics for sale.

Santa Rosa police officers stopped a vehicle for a code violation at about 1:30 p.m. near Farmers Lane and Sonoma Avenue, and searched the vehicle after smelling burnt marijuana, according to a statement from Santa Rosa Police.

Officers allegedly found a loaded .357 Magnum revolver and a scale. They then executed a warrant at the driver’s residence on the 6000 block of state Highway 12 in Santa Rosa.

Santa Rosa residents Enrique Garcia-Jordan, 26, and Cheyanne Whitcomb, 19, were both arrested on firearms-related charges. Garcia-Jordan is also facing drug-related charges.

The suspected gunman accused of killing five people in a mass shooting at an LGBTQ nightclub in Colorado Springs, Colorado, last November is facing an additional 12 counts, raising the total to 317.

Anderson Lee Aldrich appeared in court in person Friday, where Colorado’s Fourth Judicial District Attorney Michael Allen announced the new felony charges, including four attempted murder charges and two hate crimes.

Aldrich, 22, was initially charged in December with 305 counts, including charges of first-degree murder, attempted first-degree murder, assault and bias-motivated crimes causing bodily injury.

The new charges were added for two additional victims present at the nightclub during the shooting at Club Q, Allen told District Judge Michael McHenry.

Aldrich — whose attorneys say identifies as nonbinary and uses they/them pronouns — faces up to life in prison without parole if convicted on the first-degree murder charges.

The suspect allegedly entered Club Q late November 19 with an AR-style weapon and a handgun and opened fire, killing Daniel Aston, Raymond Green Vance, Kelly Loving, Ashley Paugh and Derrick Rump. At least 19 others were injured, police have said, most of whom suffered gunshot wounds.

The attack was halted by two patrons who took down and contained the suspect until police arrived at the club, which was seen as a safe space for the LGBTQ community in Colorado Springs.

A neighbor of the accused shooter who said he sometimes played video games with Aldrich told CNN the suspect never mentioned they were nonbinary.

Aldrich’s next court appearance is a preliminary hearing on February 22.

RICHMOND, Va. — Administrators at the Virginia school where a first-grader shot his teacher last week learned the child may have had a weapon in his possession before the shooting but did not find the 9mm handgun he brought despite searching his bag, the school system’s superintendent said.

Michelle Price, a spokesperson for the Newport News school district, said Superintendent George Parker said during an online meeting with parents Thursday night that at least one school administrator was notified the boy may have a weapon before the 6-year-old shot the teacher at Richneck Elementary in Newport News.

“The student’s bookbag was searched at that point, after it was reported that he may have a weapon. Nothing was found in the backpack,” Price said Friday.

Parker’s comments were first reported by WAVY-TV. The online meeting was for parents only, but WAVY-TV reported the station gained access to the meeting from a parent.

Police Chief Steve Drew has previously said the boy brought the gun to school in his backpack the day of the shooting.

Price said she has not been told where school officials believe the gun was when the boy’s backpack was searched.

“That probably is definitely part of our internal investigation and the police investigation, but nothing about that has been released publicly,” Price told The Associated Press.

She declined to comment when asked who reported that the boy may have a weapon and whether school officials should have taken additional steps after the weapon was not found in his backpack.

Newport News Police Department spokesperson Kelly King said in an email Friday that investigators determined a school employee was notified of a possible gun at the school before the shooting. King said police were not given that information before the shooting.

The teacher, Abigail Zwerner, 25, was shot in the chest with injuries initially considered to be life threatening. Her condition has improved, though, and she has been reported in stable condition at a hospital.

Earlier Thursday, Newport News School Board Chair Lisa Surles-Law said the district will install metal detectors at all schools, starting with Richneck.

The Jan. 6 shooting occurred as Zwerner was teaching her class. Authorities said there was no warning and no struggle before the 6-year-old boy pointed the gun at Zwerner.

Drew has described the shooting as intentional. A judge will determine what’s next for the child, who is being held at a medical facility following an emergency custody order.

Drew said the child used his mother’s gun, which had been purchased legally. It’s unclear how he gained access to the weapon. A Virginia law prohibits leaving a loaded gun where it is accessible to a child under 14 as a misdemeanor.

Associated Press writer Matthew Barakat in Falls Church, Virginia, contributed to this report.

The beautiful racket that boils from an attack on playground equipment or a race around it or any of the thousand other impulses bursting from dynamo bodies and newly freed minds has a clamorous harmony like nothing else.

There’s one school I walk past almost every day, through the park across the street, then back across the full span of its architectural footprint. With or without the soundtrack, I look for only one thing — someone who looks out of place, or who is carrying something that looks out of place, but more bluntly, someone with a gun.

Since about Columbine (1999).

There is no school at Richneck Elementary in Newport News, Virginia, this week because last week ended with a first grade teacher getting shot in her classroom by a 6-year-old.

“This,” said Newport News Mayor Phillip Jones, “is a red flag for the country.”

Respectfully, Mayor, you new to this country?

This country did not lose its gun-loving mind last Friday. It took decades upon decades of ill-conceived arguments, millions upon millions of gun lobby dollars, and generations upon generations of gutless politicians to make this a country with more guns than people, a country with less than 5% of the world’s population holding 40% of its civilian-owned weaponry.

If the red flag is the signal to question how a 6-year-old got a gun in the United States of America, the better question is probably, “How did he avoid it for the first five years of his life?”

Only by the favorable exactitudes of trajectory and ballistics was first grade teacher Abby Zwerner not murdered in her classroom by a 6-year-old extracting a gun from his backpack — and maybe that’s why this particular news story got such poor traction in a media culture consumed by Prince Harry, Kevin McCarthy and the all-important re-jiggering of the NFL playoff format. Nobody died at Richneck Elementary. It was the first school shooting of the year. If trends continue, we’ll get 50 or 60 more.

If there’s a red flag still flappable in all of this, it might be the psychological compromise we demand from America’s children to appease the craven political culture that contorts itself to the Second Amendment.

Ninety-five percent of public schools in America have some kind of active shooter drills. The most sickening quote I’ve ever seen was something an elementary school kid told his parents about active shooter drills; he hates them because “the good hiding places are always taken first. There’s nothing to hide behind. He’ll be able to see me.”

In America, in 2022, gun violence surpassed car crashes as the No. 1 killer of young people. Schools, our supposed safe space, have been the stage for nearly 150 shootings since 2018.

A law professor who runs the Children’s Defense Clinic at the University of Richmond weighed in Tuesday on the matter of what to do with the 6-year-old shooter. “Obviously this is a tragedy on every level,” she said. “As a 6-year-old, he just doesn’t have the intellectual capacity to even understand how to form the intent to commit a crime like this.”

No, he doesn’t. But a gun — yeah, that he’s got.

One day the sound an elementary school makes before you see it will be different, no longer pulsating with its total color and richness, not exactly full with its accustomed joy. There will be no mystery as to why.

Gene Collier is a Pittsburgh Post-Gazette columnist. ©2023 PG Publishing Co. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency.

Uvalde school police chief Pedro “Pete” Arredondo told investigators he was more concerned about saving students in other classrooms than trying to stop a gunman who had already shot children and teachers.

An interview with investigators the day after the May 2022 massacre at Robb Elementary shows Arredondo talking bluntly about his recollection of events. CNN obtained a video recording of the previously unreported interview, where some of Arredondo’s answers conflict with his limited public statements.

It was the only meeting about his role that he had with the Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS). He stopped cooperating with the DPS inquiry after its director labeled him as incident commander and blamed him for decisions that left dead, dying and traumatized children with a gunman for over an hour while officers waited in the hallway outside.

The critical moment in his decision making, Arredondo said, was when he saw children in other classrooms.

“Once I realized that was going on, my first thought is that we need to vacate. We have him contained — and I know this is horrible and I know it’s [what] our training tells us to do but — we have him contained, there’s probably going to be some deceased in there, but we don’t need any more from out here,” Arredondo said.

His decision to treat the gunman as a barricaded subject and not confront him effectively left all the students and teachers in Classrooms 111 and 112 for dead. It was one of many times he did not follow the training and protocol for an active shooter.

Arredondo stuck with that choice for over an hour, even when he thought he heard the gunman reloading and after it was confirmed children were trapped — injured and alive as well as dead — with the shooter.

CNN tried to reach Arredondo for this story. His attorney George Hyde said he was not authorized to respond to media requests. “I have informed him of your request and it will be up to him from there,” Hyde wrote in an email.

Arredondo has not contacted CNN. A previous phone number for him has been disconnected.

CNN has also informed the families of the victims about this reporting on Arredondo’s interview. Relatives have complained repeatedly that the only way they have been getting information is through CNN’s work.

‘I need a lot of firepower’

Arredondo, chief of the tiny police force for the Uvalde Consolidated Independent School District, was one of the first officers to reach Robb Elementary, minutes after a gunman went through an unlocked door into the building last May 24.

He told investigators he heard shots being fired as he ran to the school and saw bullet casings still rolling on the floor as he entered. He described a hallway full of smoke from gunfire and saw Lt. Javier Martinez of the Uvalde Police Department retreat after he was shot at through a classroom door.

Arredondo, who had dropped his school and police radios when he got out of his car, called 911 to give them an update. The call was recorded at 11:40 a.m., seven minutes after the shooter walked into the school. CNN has obtained the full audio of the call, which was previously read out by DPS director Col. Steven McCraw.

“It’s an emergency right now,” Arredondo told the dispatcher. “I’m inside the building with this man. He has an AR-15. He shot a whole bunch of times … He’s in one room. I need a lot of firepower, I need this building surrounded, surrounded with as many AR-15s as possible.”

Arredondo confirmed to investigators that he only had his handgun and wanted rifles. That is one of the many times Arredondo’s decisions go against active shooter training and protocols.

Records supplied to CNN by DPS show Arredondo took required active shooter training at least three times, including in the December before the massacre. The specific course he took then instructs officers to “isolate, distract and neutralize” the attacker. It reminds officers “First responders to the active shooter scene will usually be required to place themselves in harm’s way and display uncommon acts of courage to save the innocent.”

Even as Arredondo was calling for assault rifles, it is now known that there were officers with long guns at Robb by 11:40 a.m., at the other end of the hallway. Without a radio, Arredondo’s contact with the other group of officers was by phone, calling a colleague from another force he knew well, he said.

Arredondo also said he ignored his phone once “everybody in the world” started calling. He gave the 911 operator specific instructions, according to the recording. “Call me when SWAT is set up. I’m going to have you on vibrate though, so call me twice if you have to,” he said.

‘Time’s on our side right now’

Arredondo, who was fired as school police chief in August, has said that he never considered himself to be the incident commander. He declined to speak to CNN multiple times in the days after the massacre, including outside his office on June 1 after he had been blamed as the officer in charge whose catastrophically wrong assessments caused the failed response.

In his only extensive public comments since then, he told The Texas Tribune: “I didn’t issue any orders … I called for assistance and asked for an extraction tool to open the door.”

Arredondo’s interview with investigators less than 24 hours after the tragedy and footage from surveillance and body cameras show he gave plenty of direction.

He described getting officers into a “pyramid” formation, all on the same side of the hallway, to avoid crossfire if the gunman came out of the door.

And when he tried the handle of the door to another classroom and found it unlocked with students and a teacher inside, he made the critical decision to save others first.

“We’re going to clear out this building before we do any breach,” Arredondo told officers in the hallway at about 12:08 p.m., as heard on body camera footage. “As soon as they clear this room, I’m going to verify what’s been vacated, guys, before we do any kind of breaching.”

He went on: “Time’s on our side right now. I know we probably have kids in there, but we’ve got to save the lives of the other ones.”

Again, active shooter training for law enforcement states the opposite. Since the 1999 Columbine school shooting when local police waited outside for SWAT teams, the emphasis has been on speed — for any officer to go at once to the sound of gunfire and stop the shooter.

Nineteen children and two teachers were killed in the Uvalde massacre, and more injured. At least three of the dead — two children and one teacher — were still alive throughout the 77-minute siege. Other students and teacher Arnulfo Reyes were injured and waiting for help. One of them, 4th grader Mayah Zamora, needed more than 20 surgeries and spent two months in hospital after she was rescued.

‘I heard him reload’

In the hallway, body camera footage shows that Arredondo called for master keys, but at least initially the intention was to open up the nearby classrooms and get people further into safety, not to go to where the gunman was.

“Are we getting the master key?” he asked in a phone call, his side of which was captured on body camera. “I need to verify that this west wing is completely vacant.”

Arredondo continued with that plan even as police radios blared at about 12:12 p.m. with news that a child was calling from a “room full of victims.” It did not change after a volley of shots from the classroom at 12:21 p.m. He tried to talk with the shooter, in another contravention of active shooter policy. The gunman never responded. Instead, Arredondo told investigators: “I’m certain I heard him reload.”

Throughout the response, Arredondo said he did not know that Classrooms 111 and 112 had an interior connecting door. He told investigators he believed the hallway door was locked but he never tried to open it.

The doors and locks were a focus of his interview with officers from the DPS and FBI. He told them he regularly found classroom doors unlocked when he did his rounds, and indeed he opened at least one other door to help to evacuate students that day. But still, he thought he would not be able to get inside the rooms where the shooter was.

“I know that I wasn’t going to be able to grab that door. That’s my thought,” he said. Yet in June, he told The Texas Tribune he and a police officer tried the doors to 111 and 112 and both were found to be locked. There is no evidence that that happened. McCraw testified to a Texas Senate hearing in June that no one touched the doors before the classrooms were stormed and he did not believe that they were ever locked.

‘I wasn’t aware of what was going on outside’

When he saw men he assumed were Border Patrol officers arrive at the other end of the hallway, Arredondo said he believed they were there to force entry to where the gunman was holed up.

“I did let them know we’re taking these kids out first. We need to preserve the life of everybody around him first,” he told investigators.

The chief said he requested a sniper and told officers outside to make sure the shooter did not escape through the roof. But he did not know what was happening away from where he was.

“We’re right in there, I wasn’t aware of what was going on outside,” he said.

Outside was leaderless chaos.

Exclusive CNN reporting has shown:

• The city’s acting police chief knew there were children trapped with the gunman but did not organize a rescue;
• The county sheriff stayed initially at a different crime scene and had vital information about the shooter that was not shared;
• A Texas Ranger told investigators his actions at the scene were “minimal” despite being part of the elite force that is required to help local agencies stop crime and violence; and
• A captain with the state Department of Public Safety issued an order to halt the entry into the classroom that unknown to him was already happening, because he thought a more skilled team was on the way.

Arredondo was never asked about who had command of the response during his nearly one-hour interview with investigators. That became a key issue in the changing narrative from state officials as the story morphed from a heroic law enforcement response lauded by Gov. Greg Abbott the day after, to an “abject failure,” as labeled by DPS director McCraw in June.

“The only thing stopping a hallway of dedicated officers from entering Room 111 and 112 was the on-scene commander who decided to place the lives of officers before the lives of children,” McCraw testified before a special Texas Senate committee.

In the interview, the investigators were respectful and understanding to Arredondo, who was loquacious and sometimes jovial in return, saying how he was planning to rib a colleague who had not managed to run past him in the initial approach to the classrooms.

“We’re going to get scrutinized, I’m expecting that. We’re getting scrutinized for why we didn’t go in there,” Arredondo said, before giving his reasoning again.

Asked what advice he would give to the next department to have to deal with a school shooter, he identified three critical areas, all of which are now known to have had flaws in Uvalde.

“Never minimize your training, never minimize your equipment, and never minimize your communication.”

Dennis Killough Jr., 51, entered his plea for possessing two firearms in a Sacramento courtroom of the Eastern District of California in Sacramento, U.S. Attorney Phillip A. Talbert said in a press statement.

According to court documents, on Dec. 8, 2021, law enforcement officers, using a search warrant, entered Killough’s home as part of an investigation into a brutal beating at the Vallejo chapter’s clubhouse.

In October 2021, two different victims — both of whom were members of a different motorcycle club that is considered a “puppet” (or subordinate) club of the Hells Angels —were beaten by Killough and two other club members for perceived infractions of the Hells Angels’ rules.

During the search of Killough’s home, officers found two firearms, including a Taurus G2C 9 mm compact pistol and a Taurus model PT 745 Pro handgun. Killough has prior felony convictions, including previous firearm convictions, which prohibit him from possessing firearms.

The case stemmed from an investigation by the Vacaville Police Department, the Solano County District Attorney’s Office, the Solano County Sheriff’s Office, the FBI, and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.

Killough is scheduled to be sentenced on March 27 by U.S. District Judge Kimberly J. Mueller and faces a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison and a $250,000 fine.

As previously reported, Killough was among three members indicted last year on firearms charges.

Jaime Alvarez, 52, of Vallejo, pleaded guilty in December to unlawfully possessing a firearm after being convicted of a felony crime.

According to court documents, on Dec. 8, 2021, law enforcement officers served a search warrant at Alvarez’s home as part of an investigation into the brutal clubhouse beating.

During the search of Alvarez’s Vallejo home, officers found several firearms, including a Glock 27 .40 SW caliber handgun. Alvarez has prior felony convictions, which prohibit him from possessing firearms.

Alvarez is scheduled to be sentenced on March 7 by U.S. District Judge Dale A. Drozd and also faces as much as 10 years in prison and a $250,000 fine.

The case stemmed from an investigation by the Vallejo Police Department, and, as in the Killough case, the Solano County District Attorney’s Office, the Solano County Sheriff’s Office, the FBI, and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives.

The third Vallejo Hells Angels member, Michael Mahoney of Fairfield, who is in his late 20s or early 30s, has pleaded not guilty to two felony firearms charges. Mahoney faces a status conference on Tuesday.

Assistant U.S. Attorneys Aaron D. Pennekamp and Jason Hitt are prosecuting the cases, part of the joint federal, state, and local Project Safe Neighborhoods Program, the centerpiece of the U.S. Department of Justice’s violent crime-reduction efforts.

Founded in 1948 in Fontana by Otto Friedli, the Hells Angels is a worldwide outlaw motorcycle club.

The Vallejo chapter, at one time, considered the enforcer for the Oakland chapter — founded by the late Ralph “Sonny” Barger, who later became the club’s de facto leader — was notorious for two members’ involvement in an Oct. 5, 1986, mass murder of a family of four, including two children, ages 5 and 17, in Fort Bragg. It was a crime that made national headlines on Oct. 7, one day after two members of the Sonoma County chapter traveled to Fort Bragg and, at night, burned down a house near Highway 20 with the four bodies inside.

NEWPORT NEWS, Va. (AP) — In the moments before a 6-year-old Virginia boy shot his teacher, there was no fight, no physical struggle and no warning, authorities said Monday.

“What we know today is that she was providing instruction. He displayed a firearm, he pointed it and he fired one round,” Newport News police Chief Steve Drew said.

Drew, who spoke during a news conference, offered the first detailed description of a shooting that shocked the city and was notable even in a country like the United States that seems inured to constant gun violence. Drew had previously said that the shooting was not accidental and had declined to elaborate.

Drew said he wanted to clarify remarks he made just after the shooting on Friday, when he said there was an “altercation” before the shooting. He said it was more like an “interaction” between the boy and his first-grade teacher at Richneck Elementary School, 25-year-old Abby Zwerner.

But Drew also reiterated that the shooting was “not accidental.”

“It was intentional,” he said.

Drew also revealed that the 9mm handgun used by the boy was legally purchased by his mother and was in the family’s home. He said the boy brought it to school in his backpack the day of the shooting.

Zwerner put up her hand in a defensive position when the gun fired, and the bullet went through her hand and into her upper chest, Drew said. Although her injuries were initially considered life-threatening, she has improved and is currently listed in stable condition at a hospital.

Drew hailed Zwerner as a hero for quickly hustling her students out of the classroom after she was shot. He said surveillance video shows she was the last person to leave her classroom.

“She made a right turn and started down the hallway, and then she stopped. … She turned around and make sure every one of those students was safe,” Drew said.

Drew said a school employee rushed into the classroom and physically restrained the boy after hearing the gunshot. He said the boy became “a little combative” and struck the employee. Police officers arrived and escorted him out of the building and into a police car.

The boy has been held at a medical facility since an emergency custody order and temporary detention order were issued Friday, Drew said. He said it will be up to a judge to determine what the next steps are for the boy. He also said the boy’s mother has been interviewed by police, but it is unclear whether she could potentially face any charges.

As questions loomed about the boy and his mother, Zwerner’s friend told a crowd gathered at a Monday night vigil that the first-grade teacher has shown “dedication and love for what she does day in and day out.”

“Abby is a warrior and she demonstrates mental and physical strength every day,” said Rosalie List, a 2nd grade teacher at Richneck. “I’m so proud of her.”

Lauren Palladini, Richneck’s school counselor, told the crowd that Zwerner is “sweet. She’s thoughtful. She’s caring. And she’s been one of the most amazing teachers that I’ve been blessed to interact with.”

Amanda Bartley, who teaches at another elementary school in the city, asked everyone to pray for Zwerner and to “pray for the young man who did this.”

As she passed out candles before the vigil, Bartley told The Associated Press that she organized the event to support Zwerner and to uplift others. But, she said, many questions remain unanswered.

Among them: “How did he get the gun? Why wasn’t it locked up? A good gun owner knows that you lock up your weapon. You have a safety on. You keep the ammunition separate from the weapon itself.”

Gun owners can be prosecuted under a Virginia law that prohibits anyone from recklessly leaving a loaded, unsecured gun in a manner that endangers the life or limb of children under 14. A violation of that law is a misdemeanor, punishable by a maximum jail sentence of one year and a maximum fine of $2,500.

Virginia does not have a law that requires unattended guns to be stored in a particular way or a law that requires gun owners to affirmatively lock their weapons.

“Virginia definitely has a weaker law than many other states that have child access prevention laws,” said Allison Anderman, senior counsel and director of local policy at Giffords Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence.

Legal experts said even though it is theoretically possible under Virginia law to criminally charge a 6-year-old child, there are numerous obstacles to doing so and it’s highly unlikely that any prosecutor would even try.

To be tried as an adult in Virginia, a juvenile must be at least 14. A 6-year-old is also too young to be committed to the custody of the Department of Juvenile Justice if found guilty. In addition, a common law doctrine known as the “infancy defense” holds that children under 7 cannot be prosecuted for a crime because they are so young that they are incapable of forming criminal intent.

A judge would also have to find that the child was competent to stand trial, meaning that he could understand the legal proceedings against him and assist in his own defense, said Andrew Block, a professor and the University of Virginia School of Law who was the director of Virginia’s Department of Juvenile Justice from 2014 to 2019.

“It’s virtually impossible to imagine a 6-year-old being found competent to stand trial,” Block said.

Julie E. McConnell, a law professor at the University of Richmond who has worked on youth justice cases for more than 25 years, said prosecutors can file what’s known as a “Child in Need of Services” petition in cases in which a child’s behavior or condition presents or results in a serious threat to the child’s well-being and physical safety.

A judge would then have an array of options, including: ordering services such as counseling or anger management; allowing the child to remain with his parents, subject to conditions; ordering the parents to participate in programs or cooperate in treatment; or transferring custody of the child to a relative, child welfare agency or a local social services agency.

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Lavoie reported from Richmond.

Masia Hollins, 22, who raps under the stage name Dooder, was charged with being a felon in possession of a firearm, a federal offense that carries up to 15 years in prison and a $250,000 fine. He is being held in Santa Rita Jail in Dublin without bail, and is next due in court for an arraignment on Jan. 12, records show.

Hollins was charged in connection with two incidents, one at a a San Ramon apartment last July, and the other involving an Oakland police chase in October, according to the complaint. In the first incident, San Ramon police pulled over Hollins and his girlfriend after the license plate on a Mercedes Benz the woman had just parked indicated the car had been in a recent police chase, authorities say.

The complaint alleges that Hollins lied about his name and age, claiming to be his girlfriend’s 17-year-old brother, and that they refused to consent to a search of the Mercedes. An officer eventually tricked Hollins’ girlfriend into changing her mind, when she allowed him to grab the apartment keys from the vehicle in order to allow the couple’s pet dog into the home. The officer then searched the Mercedes found a loaded pistol within reach of where Hollins had been sitting, and his DNA was later allegedly found on the gun.

Three months later, on Oct. 5, Hollins was arrested in the same Mercedes after a police chase that ended in the Acorn Town Center in West Oakland, where Hollins was arrested. Police claim he was seen throwing a gun out of the car, and that he admitted it was possible his DNA would be found on it.

In a motion to keep Hollins detained pending trial, prosecutors describe him as a violent member of a gang based in the Acorn housing development and describe his nickname, Dooder, not as his musical stage name but his “gang moniker.” They included a photograph of a jeweled chain he possessed in the October incident, with the letters “KCSC” — an acronym for Kane City Stain City — and Hollins’ stage name, to argue that he was representing his gang’s “home turf” at the time of his arrest.

Hollins has prior felony convictions, including one for accessory in 2021, a case where his co-defendant was sentenced to five years in state prison for assault with a firearm. Both men were originally charged in 2020 with attempted murder, court records show.

“He has an extensive juvenile and adult record of violence, including three felony convictions in the past three years and arrests for attempted murder, carjacking, and robbery,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Leif Dautch wrote in the motion. “As evidenced by this history, and his possession of two loaded firearms and his flight/deceit in each incident, Hollins poses an unmitigable danger to the public and risk of flight.”

“Mr. Hollins has a high school education and no serious addiction or mental health issues. He was employed at the time of the offense, and he can return to work after his release,” Hansen wrote. “Moreover, Mr. Hollins has substantial ties to his community. He has a young child who lives in the Bay Area, and he has two sisters he anticipates will agree to be co-signers and custodians for him.”