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HOUSTON – Two people were in critical condition after shots were fired inside a Kroger supermarket outside Houston, Texas on Wednesday afternoon, the Harris County Precinct 4 Constable’s Office said.

The incident took place at the Cypresswood Drive location in the Cypress around 2:50 p.m. CT., Capt. Juan Flores of the Harris County Precinct 4 Constable’s Office told reporters.
Law enforcement on the scene of a shooting at a Kroger store in Cypress, Texas, July 15, 2026.

Officers discovered two men shot at the scene, Flores said. Investigators are looking into reports that one of the victims was the shooter, according to the constable’s office.

One of the people shot walked out of the store with injuries and was transported to the hospital, according to Flores.

The other person was found inside the store with multiple gunshot wounds and was transported to the hospital, Flores said.

Both were listed in critical condition Wednesday evening.

No other bystanders were hurt during the incident, Flores said.

The scene was closed off as investigators searched searched the area.

In a statement, Kroger said it was “deeply saddened,” by the incident and the store would remain closed while the police investigation continues.

This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.

CROCKETT (KETK) — A car is stolen or broken into every 23 seconds, according to FBI crime statistics, with an experienced car thief taking less than a minute to steal the average vehicle.

In Texas, more than 65,000 cars and trucks are stolen and almost 200,000 are burglarized every year. On Monday night, the Kilgore Police Department reported that they received 8 calls regarding car burglaries, an unusual uptick for the city with a population of less than 14,000.

The police department is advising residents to stay alert and take proactive measures to protect themselves from becoming victims.

Anyone who may have security video footage or any information regarding the incident is asked to call Detective Torres at 903-983-1559.

Vehicle Theft Prevention

Ensure all windows are closed and your car doors are locked. Always take your keys with you.
Choose to park in well-lit areas for added safety.
Store packages and valuables out of sight; it’s best not to leave them in your vehicle at all. Always make sure to lock your trunk.
Keep your license and registration in your wallet or purse to prevent identity theft; thieves could use them to impersonate you and sell your car.
If you have a garage, remember to lock both your car and the garage door for extra security.

Drone used to capture a suspected car thief in Crockett

Over in Deep East Texas, the Crockett Police Department said that on Tuesday at around 2:30 p.m., law enforcement responded to a vehicle burglary at the J.H. Wotters Crockett Library. The caller said that someone was going through her vehicle before leaving the scene.
Second of three wanted suspects arrested in East Texas car burglary case

When officers arrived, they began a search of the area and deployed a drone to use thermal imaging. They located the suspect attempting to hide between a bush and a nearby church.

As the drone moved overhead, police said the suspect attempted to flee again, but was surrounded by law enforcement and taken into custody. Police were able to recover the victim’s stolen wallet from the suspect’s pocket.

The suspect, identified as Trent Omar Shedd of Crockett, was then taken into the Houston County Jail and charged with burglary of vehicles and evading arrest.

Mugshot of Trent Omar Shedd, courtesy of the Crockett Police Department.

Sentencing for burglarizing a vehicle

For a first-time criminal offense of vehicle burglary, a person can be charged with up to one year in county jail. However, if evidence of prior burglaries is presented, the offense can be punishable by a term in prison no less than 180 days but not more than two years, along with a fine of up to $10,000.

If the suspect stole a firearm or a controlled substance, they may face a third-degree felony, which carries a sentence of two to ten years in prison.

NACOGDOCHES — Beach volleyball players from Stephen F. Austin State University filed a lawsuit against the head coach and the university, claiming they faced retaliation for their support of a Title IX lawsuit against the institution, according to our news partner, KETK.

The suit was filed Monday by Ryann Allison, one of the two plaintiffs, among seven female student athletes, who have filed a Title IX sex discrimination class action lawsuit against the university. The action was prompted by the decision to cut three women’s athletics programs, including beach volleyball. The case is currently still in litigation.

At the end of the 2025-2026 school year, Allison was the only athlete to remain at SFA with plans to continue her senior season. In response to the initial lawsuit, the school reinstated all three programs into the athletic department.

Throughout the initial case, Allison and the second plaintiff, fellow teammate Brynn Dowd, were outspoken in their support for the lawsuit. Dowd expressed that she was proud of what the Title XI plaintiffs were doing and that she would also like to help rebuild the previously cut program, documents said.

Shortly after the end of the season on April 28, Allison had an end-of-year meeting with head beach volleyball coach Gretchen Hand that resulted in Allison being removed from the team for the next season. Dowd reported experiencing the same thing.

The lawsuit states that the defendants had no legitimate reason to remove the players from the team, and when asked why, Hand allegedly told the plaintiffs separately, “You don’t need to understand why.” In addition to her first given reason, Hand reportedly told Dowd that her decision “wasn’t about ability.”

Documents said that both plaintiffs demand a trial by jury. A spokesperson from SFA said the investigation is ongoing and that the university will not be commenting at this time.

Where Myers vs. Stephen F. Austin State University stands now

Filed in 2025, the case first began when the university axed three women’s programs (beach volleyball, golf and bowling) due to alleged budget cuts. The lawsuit against the institution claimed that the university discriminated against its female student-athletes by eliminating the teams.

In September 2025, the university filed a motion to dismiss the lawsuit on three grounds, as they had already reinstated beach volleyball and golf and claimed that the plaintiffs’ allegations were insufficient to show noncompliance with Title IX.

According to court documents obtained by KETK News, U.S. District Court Judge Michael J. Truncale ruled that the motion to dismiss is “granted in part and denied in part.” Despite the procedural ruling that SFA “won” the first ground, the case can still go “forward, full steam ahead,” Arthur Bryant, the attorney for the plaintiffs, said.

The next steps for the plaintiffs are a motion for their class certification and a motion to preserve the claims of all the women athletes, he said, for the trial set in mid-December.

(HOUSTON, Texas) — Deputies responded to reports of multiple people shot inside a Kroger outside Houston, Texas on Wednesday afternoon, the Harris County Precinct 4 Constable’s Office said.

The incident took place at the Cypresswood Drive location in the Houston area around 3:00 p.m. CT.

A possible suspect was detained, according to law enforcement.

The scene was closed off as investigators searched searched the area. It was not immediately clear how many victims were involved.

CROCKETT – Police said law enforcement responded to a vehicle burglary on Tuesday at the J.H. Wotters Crockett Library. The caller said someone was going through her vehicle before leaving the scene, according to our news partner, KETK.

When officers arrived, they began a search of the area and deployed a drone to use thermal imaging. They then located the suspect attempting to hide between a bush and a nearby church. As the drone moved overhead, police said the suspect attempted to flee again, but was surrounded by law enforcement and taken into custody.

Police were able to recover the victim’s stolen wallet from the suspect’s pocket. The suspect, identified as Trent Omar Shedd, of Crockett, was taken to Houston County Jail and charged with burglary of vehicles and evading arrest.

ANGELINA COUNTY (KETK) — Over a decade of backlogged cases have piled up in the Angelina County district attorney’s office, leaving thousands of cases pending. District Attorney, Amy Wren, says she’s now taking up the burden left to her to combat the delay in justice.

Wren was first appointed as district attorney in August 2025, and at the time, the number of cases totaled about 6,000, with some dating back more than a decade. After less than a year, the number has dwindled down to about 2,000 as of Tuesday.

“I tried in April a case that was reported and indicted originally in 2015,” Wren said. “So to have a case pending that long, about 11 years by the time it was tried, that’s too long. That’s unusual.”

Several issues could have contributed to the build up throughout the courts and judicial offices, such as the COVID-19 pandemic and staffing issues.

Currently, the district attorney’s office has five prosecutors working the nearly two-thousand cases, including a recent hire. To continue combating the pending cases, the district attorney’s office said they’re looking to hire two more prosecutors.

Hudson (KETK)– Houston-based company Hyper Data Grid has begun construction on Highway 103 in the city of Hudson as it prepares to build a second data center near Angelina County.

Angelina County Judge Keith Wright says the tech company has purchased the former ‘Northern Chip Mill’ property and is currently constructing what they say will be a ‘small data center.’

“There’s some existing water wells on site that they will obtain their water from, and my understanding is that they have an agreement with Oncor for their power, using previous infrastructure on the sight,” Wright said.

As Angelina County residents continue to fight back against the second data center in their neighborhood, the commissioners court said there’s not much that can be done.

“We don’t have any permit authority or way to control land use.” Wright offers one solution: “They are located on a county road, so all we can do is a Road Use Agreement. That will protect the county from damages and force some fees to be paid.”

The court is also working with state lawmakers to find permanent solutions.

TRINIDAD (KETK) — Over the past several months, residents of this East Texas city have been advocating for clean drinking water. Their concerns were confirmed by a recent report from the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ), which identified three violations in the local water supply.

According to TCEQ, the state received multiple complaints regarding poor water quality in April. An investigation was launched shortly after, which evaluated and tested the water system for compliance.

Three of the alleged violations were found to need corrective action with a compliance plan by Aug. 3.

In the investigation, it was found that the system had issues between its filter and controller and failed to conduct chloramine effectiveness, which is used as an alternative disinfectant. It was also found that some streets that reported discoloration problems could not mitigate excessive water age, which is not meeting compliance.

The report reads that the discolored water did not originate from Trinidad’s surface water treatment plant. The operator of the water system told TCEQ that the city is looking to upgrade the water mains through several projects.

“He believed significant portions of the distribution system are old, iron-based water mains (an inventory of the water main composition was not available for review),” the report reads.

Other alleged violations were investigated, but were found to be resolved before the completed report, the TCEQ said.

Additionally, DPS has confirmed to KETK News on Tuesday that the Texas Rangers are now investigating the city. Officials were unable to disclose the nature of the investigation; however, it remains ongoing.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency should continue vehicle stops after recent fatal shootings, President Donald Trump said on Wednesday, seeming to oppose a new suspension of the practice used as part of his immigration crackdown.

ICE is “doing a GREAT job, one that has to be done,” Trump wrote on his social media site.

The Republican president said that to remove criminals he claims were let into the country under the previous Democratic administration “we must be strong, tough, and smart, and we CANNOT give up one of ICE’s most important and effective Crime Fighting tools, THE TRAFFIC STOP!” Trump said, “Once we do, we are playing right into the criminal’s hands.”

Trump administration officials have told Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers to suspend most vehicle stops after two deadly shootings within a week, people familiar with the decision said Tuesday.

The suspension was ordered after an ICE officer shot and killed a Colombian driver Monday in Maine and a week after another officer shot and killed a motorist in Houston, renewing criticism of the agency’s enforcement tactics that were widely condemned last winter after the killings of Alex Pretti and Renee Good in Minnesota.

In Florida on Tuesday, a third man in roughly a week died during an encounter with immigration officers. This time, a 28-year-old man was killed after he was hit by a tractor trailer while running from immigration and other federal officers, authorities said.

It’s a narrative that has been repeated again and again since the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown began, with federal officers confronting drivers and then saying they opened fire when the drivers’ vehicles became a danger. That’s despite decades of warnings from policing experts that shooting into moving cars presents a danger of its own and should almost always be avoided.

There have been at least 10 deaths involving encounters with immigration agents since Trump launched his deportation campaign. At least four of those deaths involved people in vehicles, including the one last week in Houston, a trend so troubling that U.S. Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, said Tuesday that she had urged Department of Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin “to cease all non-urgent vehicle stops.”

John Sandweg, who was acting director at ICE, which is part of DHS, during President Barack Obama’s Democratic administration, estimated recently that there have been roughly 18 traffic stop shootings during the Trump immigration crackdown.

The office of Maine Sen. Angus King, an independent who caucuses with Democrats, was told by DHS that ICE was suspending traffic stops, office spokesperson Matthew Felling said.

ICE, which has been under pressure to beef up arrest and deportation numbers, often says people it’s trying to arrest are increasingly resistant to leaving their homes. ICE officers blame immigration advocates who advise immigrants to stay in their homes unless ICE produces a warrant signed by an independent judge instead of the administrative warrants the agency generally uses that are signed by another ICE officer. So, ICE officers say, they’re forced to find other areas in which to make arrests.
Shooting angers Maine

Hundreds of people in Maine protested Tuesday over the fatal shooting of Johan Sebastián Durán Guerrero, a 25-year-old Colombian national. Advocacy groups said Guerrero, who had a wife and a young daughter, was authorized to work in the United States.

DHS said Monday that an officer, “fearing for public safety,” shot and killed Durán Guerrero while officers were watching the home of someone they believed was in the U.S. illegally and facing a final order of removal from the country. It said in a post on X that when ICE tried to stop a car driven by someone who came from the home, the person attempted to flee in the vehicle and the officer fired.

That was a shift from how King earlier described the encounter, when he said Mullin told him the officer opened fire after the man tried to use his vehicle as a weapon. King said Mullin told him the officers were trying to serve an arrest warrant but not for the man who was shot.

In a scathing post on X, outgoing Colombian President Gustavo Petro called the shooting a targeted killing “at the hands of the U.S. government.”

Petro, who has openly quarreled with Trump, urged Trump to provide an explanation and accused ICE officers of treating Durán Guerrero as “an inferior being without rights.”

In Wednesday’s social media post, Trump told ICE to be “judicious, fair and smart, and go back and do your very important job.”

Maine’s congressional delegation on Tuesday demanded a “comprehensive, transparent, and expedited investigation.”
Questions surround the shooting

Photos showed bullet holes in Durán Guerrero’s car windshield, but the officers involved in the shooting didn’t have body cameras, leaving many questions. Among them are how close the officer was to the vehicle when shooting, whether officers told Durán Guerrero to stop and why ICE believes he had put the public in danger.

Border czar Tom Homan told reporters Tuesday that the investigation needs to play out and that officers will be held accountable if they are found to have acted inappropriately or illegally.

Maine’s attorney general’s office, which said it is working with federal agencies to investigate, said initial statements suggest the driver was trying to flee in the direction of the officer, whose name hasn’t been released and who was placed on leave.

Collins said Mullin told her the DHS inspector general is investigating in cooperation with the FBI.

Democrats seeking to unseat Collins in November have sought to connect her with ICE’s methods, which have drawn public scrutiny and derision. Collins later said in a statement that although ICE needs to improve, eliminating the agency would make the nation less safe.

Maine Secretary of State Shenna Bellows, a Democrat who is vying for Collins’ seat, called the ICE officers at the shooting “thugs” during a vigil Tuesday in Lewiston.

UVALDE (AP) — Slow-moving storms with heavy rain were drenching a large swath of South Texas on Wednesday, spawning a tornado in San Antonio a day after downpours washed out roads and farmland and led to dozens of high-water rescues in the region.

The National Weather Service said a tornado touched down in the northwestern part of San Antonio near Interstate 10. Videos posted on social media showed what appeared to be a small twister. There were no immediate reports of injuries.

Warnings of potentially dangerous flash flooding, meanwhile, were posted in some areas as the deluge was expected to continue through Thursday evening. The weather service said 10 to 20 inches (25 to 50 centimeters) of rain was possible in some areas by the time the storms move out.

There have been no reports of deaths or injuries from the flooding.

Flash flood warnings were posted Wednesday morning for several counties near the Mexico border including parts of Kerr County, where catastrophic flooding along the Guadalupe River last year killed more than 100 people. Kerr County officials said they have been in contact with summer camps and retreat centers where river flooding could happen.

The highest rainfall totals so far have been in Uvalde County — up to 16 inches (40 centimeters) in some areas, the weather service said.

“This is called a typical mid-summer tropical weather pattern that happens in Texas,” said Monte Oaks, a meteorologist with the weather service. “About once every five years, we’ll get socked in with a daily recurrence of heavy rain chances that’s generally produced by a stagnant kind of a pattern with a low-pressure center that’s just not moving very fast.”

Oaks said the rain is being fueled with tropical moisture, mostly from the Gulf of Mexico and some from the Pacific Ocean.

The highest level of concern for potentially dangerous flooding Wednesday was for areas west of San Antonio and north of Route 90, he said.

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott issued disaster declarations for dozens of counties.

Authorities posted videos on Tuesday showing a rescue crew in a boat navigating flooded streets and a vehicle being swept away by fast-moving waters. Five people were rescued by the Texas Game Warden Search and Rescue Team and four were rescued by a local game warden, said Maggie Berger, a Texas Parks and Wildlife spokeswoman.
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The weather service said the city of Uvalde has been hardest hit. Officials there said there had been at least two dozen water rescues, and a local event center was open for anyone displaced by flooding. In Sabinal, officials were also making plans for a shelter.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Dozens of people held at a sprawling Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility in Texas say they were either beaten by guards or witnessed others being beaten, according to a new report issued by legal and human rights advocates.

The 84-page report issued jointly Wednesday by Human Rights Watch and the American Civil Liberties Union also says men and women held at Camp East Montana, located at the U.S. Army’s Fort Bliss in El Paso, recounted being denied necessary medical care, forced to live in filthy conditions and fed inedible meals. Detainees also said they were prevented from contacting their lawyers or family members.

Of the 71 detainees contacted over a five month period, 64 — about 90% of those interviewed — said they had either personally been assaulted by the staff or had seen others physically abused, according to the report.

“ICE’s Camp East Montana is a human rights disaster,” said Angélica César, a fellow at Human Rights Watch and the ACLU who was a lead researcher for the report. “The U.S. government should shut it down, conduct independent investigations into all abuses and deaths in custody, and put an end to mass deportations and mandatory immigration detention.”

The Department of Homeland Security, which includes ICE, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The new accounts of violence and substandard living conditions inside Camp East Montana are consistent with earlier reports by The Associated Press and others. At least three detainees held at the facility since it opened in August have died, including a 55-year-old Cuban migrant who was handcuffed and stopped breathing earlier this year after being held down by guards.

A local medical examiner later ruled that death a homicide and a federal report issued last month said evidence in the case was “missing or destroyed.” That report by the Government Accountability Office found mismanagement by the Department of Homeland Security had created unsafe conditions that contributed to detainee deaths and suffering even as millions of wasted tax dollars enriched contractors.

In March, ICE replaced Acquisition Logistics, LLC, the prime contractor that had been awarded a deal last year worth up to $1.3 billion to build and manage the camp. The Virginia company had no prior experience running an ICE detention facility, had never won a federal contract worth more than $16 million and lacked a functioning website.

The change came as an internal ICE review documented 49 deficiencies, which it defines as violations of detention standards or policies, in areas including the use of force and restraints, security and medical care.

Despite the change in contractors, interviews conducted by Human Rights Watch and the ACLU as recently as last month found serious problems at the camp have persisted.

Detainees recounted degrading and inhumane living conditions that included bathrooms covered in feces, flooded housing units and no access to soap or other basic hygiene supplies, according to the report. They also reported being held indoors for weeks without meaningful access to recreation, sunlight or fresh air.

People also described receiving spoiled food and inconsistent meal schedules, with delays of up to 12 hours between meals.

The report recounts detainees saying that guards beat detainees in response to hunger strikes, requests for medical attention and complaints regarding detention conditions. Several people said that guards imposed collective punishment, striking or assaulting multiple people after accusing one detainee of violating rules, according to the report.

Researchers found that staff pressured and coerced those held there into abandoning immigration claims and accepting removal to third countries if they could not be sent back to their own country. The detainees said they were threatened with violence, criminal prosecution, and indefinite detention if they refused deportation.

In some cases, the report concluded, the circumstances of ICE detention could amount to enforced disappearances, a potential violation of international human rights law.

Human Rights Watch and the ACLU called on the Trump administration to close Camp East Montana and to allow independent investigations into deaths in custody, excessive force, medical neglect and enforced disappearances.

“The abuses documented at Fort Bliss are the predictable outcome of the Trump administration’s mass deportation agenda, its brutal expansion of immigration detention, and the erosion of federal oversight mechanisms,” said César, the lead researcher. “People at Camp East Montana are human beings who deserve to be treated with dignity and protected from harm.”

HOUSTON (AP) — Janice S. McNair, who alongside her late husband Robert “Bob” McNair brought the NFL back to Houston after the Oilers left for Tennessee by founding the Texans, has died. She was 89.

“It is with profound sadness that we announce Houston Texans co-founder and senior chair Janice S. McNair passed away peacefully in Houston this afternoon with her family by her side,” the Texans said in a statement on Tuesday.

After her husband Bob died in 2018 following a battle with both leukemia and squamous cell carcinoma, Janice took over the Texans organization as owner. McNair’s son, Cal, was approved as primary owner of the team in 2024.

“Mom was exceptional. She exuded kindness, radiated joy, had an endless amount of hope and love, and lived an incredible life centered around faith, family, philanthropy and football,” Cal said in a statement.

“I remain honored to lead this franchise and build on the foundation my parents set when they brought football back to Houston. Mom leaves an indelible mark on our family, our team and our community, and her giving spirit will always be embedded in the fabric of our organization. While I’m heartbroken, I take great comfort in knowing she is now reunited with my dad, her favorite teammate.”

Janice McNair grew up in South Carolina, and moved to Houston with Bob in 1960. Bob McNair made his fortune as the founder of Cogen Technologies, an energy company which was sold to Enron in 1999 for $1.5 billion.

The couple was committed to charity in the city, including causes such as The Robert and Janice McNair Foundation, The Robert and Janice McNair Educational Foundation in Forest City, North Carolina, and the Houston Texans Foundation.

Janice is survived by four children, 16 grandchildren and 13 great-grandchildren, according to the team.

___

AP NFL: https://apnews.com/hub/nfl

UVALDE (AP) — Slow-moving storms with heavy rain were drenching a large swath of South Texas on Wednesday, a day after downpours washed out roads and farmland and led to dozens of high-water rescues.

Warnings of potentially dangerous flash flooding were posted in some areas as the deluge was expected to continue through Thursday evening. The National Weather Service said 10 to 20 inches (25 to 50 centimeters) of rain was possible in some areas by the time the storms move out.

There have been no reports of deaths or injuries.

Flash flood warnings were posted Wednesday morning for several counties near the Mexico border including parts of Kerr County, where catastrophic flooding along the Guadalupe River last year killed more than 100 people. Kerr County officials said they have been in contact with summer camps and retreat centers where river flooding could happen.

The highest rainfall totals so far have been in Uvalde County — up to 16 inches (40 centimeters) in some areas, the weather service said.

“This is called a typical mid-summer tropical weather pattern that happens in Texas,” said Monte Oaks, a meteorologist with the weather service. “About once every five years, we’ll get socked in with a daily recurrence of heavy rain chances that’s generally produced by a stagnant kind of a pattern with a low-pressure center that’s just not moving very fast.”

Oaks said the rain is being fueled with tropical moisture, mostly from the Gulf of Mexico and some from the Pacific Ocean.

The highest level of concern for potentially dangerous flooding Wednesday was for areas west of San Antonio and north of Route 90, he said.

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott issued disaster declarations for dozens of counties.

Authorities posted videos on Tuesday showing a rescue crew in a boat navigating flooded streets and a vehicle being swept away by fast-moving waters. Five people were rescued by the Texas Game Warden Search and Rescue Team and four were rescued by a local game warden, said Maggie Berger, a Texas Parks and Wildlife spokeswoman.

The weather service said the city of Uvalde has been hardest hit. Officials there said there had been at least two dozen water rescues, and a local event center was open for anyone displaced by flooding. In Sabinal, officials were also making plans for a shelter.

___

Associated Press writer Dave Collins in Hartford, Connecticut, contributed to this report.

MIAMI (AP) — A federal judge has awarded $314 million in damages to three Americans who were jailed and allegedly tortured by what he called a “criminal enterprise” led by former Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro before the men were freed in a swap for a close Maduro ally imprisoned in the U.S.

Maduro’s government in 2023 freed Jerrel Kenemore, Jason Saad and Edgar Marval after months in prison as part of an exchange secretly negotiated with the Biden administration for Alex Saab, a businessman long described by U.S. officials as Maduro’s bag man and who had been awaiting trial in the U.S. on money laundering charges.

Last year, the three Americans sued several top Venezuelan officials, including now acting President Delcy Rodríguez, claiming they were subjected to physical and psychological torture — electrocution, stress positions and beatings — that continues to inflict anguish and trauma on them and their families today. Similar allegations of abuse are also being investigated by prosecutors at the International Criminal Court.

Judge Darrin P. Gayles in Miami issued a default judgment Tuesday against Maduro, Saab and five other individual defendants as well as the “Cartel of the Suns,” a purported drug-smuggling ring involving top military officials, for failing to respond to the lawsuit. Rodríguez was not included in the ruling after lawyers for her entered an appearance in April seeking to dismiss the complaint, arguing that as the duly recognized head of state she is immune from civil action in the U.S., a contention plaintiffs dispute.

The case is the largest judgment to date amid a slew of lawsuits filed for Americans imprisoned in Venezuela. All sought damages under a little-used federal law, the Anti-Terrorism Act, that allows American victims of foreign terror groups to seize the assets of their victimizers.

“The kidnappings,” Judge Gayles wrote in his 19-page ruling, were just one of many crimes “committed in order to support Maduro’s dictatorial rule over Venezuela, which in turn allowed the Maduro Criminal Conspiracy to earn ill-gotten gains.”

A lawyer for Saab, who is once again in U.S. custody facing new charges after Rodríguez handed him over to U.S. authorities in May, declined to comment. Lawyers for Rodríguez didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

Each of the plaintiffs arrived in Venezuela unsuspecting they would be accused of spying and used as bargaining chips in Venezuela’s negotiations with the U.S.

Kenemore, who spent 643 days in jail, was a computer professional from Fort Worth, Texas, who had been living in neighboring Colombia with a Venezuelan woman he met online when both were getting over divorces. In 2022, he was abducted by armed gunmen near the border and later handed over to Venezuelan authorities and immediately imprisoned, according to the complaint.

Saad, a native of Alabama, had been living in Venezuela working in construction for several years at the time of his arrest, according to the complaint. Together with Marval, who owned a company in Florida and did business Venezuela, all were held by Venezuela’s feared military intelligence police.

The Trump administration labeled the “ Cartel of the Suns” a foreign terrorist organization ahead of a massive military deployment in the Caribbean that resulted in Maduro’s capture in January to face drug trafficking charges in New York.

The former president has denied any wrongdoing and some observers doubt that corruption that has long festered inside Venezuela’s barracks has led to the creation of a cohesive drug smuggling group that functions like other Latin American cartels.

MEXICO CITY (AP) — Mexico formally requested that U.S. state attorneys general criminally investigate cases of migrants who have died in Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody or during raids, the Mexican government said Tuesday.

The request follows the death of Mexican immigrant Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, who was shot and killed by an ICE agent in Houston. Since the beginning of U.S. President Donald Trump’s second term, 17 Mexican migrants have died during immigration enforcement, 14 in ICE custody and three in agency operations.

Mexico’s Foreign Ministry had previously said it would make the request, which was formalized on Tuesday, according to the ministry. It said a similar request will be also sent to the U.S. Department of Justice.

The United States is not legally obliged to act on the requests.

Also, the Mexican government said it has started sending letters to U.S. detention centers where Mexican migrants have died, demanding they “immediately cease the actions or omissions that resulted in these deaths, such as preventing access to prompt and expedited medical care, as well as the application of policies incompatible with medical and penitentiary standards.”

The first center to receive the letter was Adelanto, in California, where four Mexican migrants died.

The letters are a first step toward “the eventual filing of civil lawsuits” against the companies that operate the detention centers to stop human rights violations, according to the ministry.

Last week, Mexican Foreign Minister Roberto Velasco said his country would go directly to U.S. authorities to request criminal investigations in cases of Mexicans killed in ICE custody or enforcement operations.

Salgado Araujo, who had no criminal record and had lived in the U.S. for 35 years, was shot last Tuesday while driving his construction crew to a job site in Houston. His death sparked protests in Houston and demands for an independent investigation from Democrats and Salgado Araujo’s family.

The Department of Homeland Security, which oversees ICE, said the 52-year-old Araujo had rammed an ICE vehicle, and that a federal agent fired a weapon in self-defense.

Velasco also sent a letter to Volker Türk, the U.N. high commissioner for human rights, requesting that U.S. authorities gather information on the deaths of the Mexican migrants in ICE custody and analyze the “compatibility of these events with international human rights obligations.”

The foreign minister also asked Türk to seek the opinion of the Human Rights Council, a U.N. intergovernmental body that promotes human rights, on the cases and offer recommendations.

The developments mark an escalation in Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum’s response to Trump’s immigration crackdown. Sheinbaum earlier this year ordered Mexico’s diplomatic missions across the U.S. to regularly check in with ICE detainees, and her government even lodged a complaint with Türk.