DA: Officers justified when they fatally shot man with knife
May 28, 2021
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BROCKTON, Mass. (AP) Two Massachusetts police officers were justified when they shot and killed a knife-wielding man during a domestic violence investigation, prosecutors said.
Bryan Cruz-Soto, 28, was killed Dec. 28 by Brockton officers responding to a 911 call reporting that he had attacked a woman, the office of Plymouth District Attorney Timothy Cruz said in a statement Thursday.
Cruz-Soto attempted to stab one officer and refused orders to drop the knife before he was shot, and the officers “reasonably believed that they were in imminent danger of being injured or killed,” the statement said.
A great-grandmother is making headlines for graduating from an Alabama university at the age of 78.
Vivian Cunningham received her bachelor’s degree in liberal studies at Samford University’s commencement ceremony over the weekend. She told
Today, “If I could have done cartwheels across the stage, I would have.”
Vivian Cunningham / Twitter via Stephanie Douglas Samford University
The former seamstress reportedly spent six years working toward her degree. She moved to Birmingham from Atlanta as a single mother of two in the late 1960s, where she spent 29 years working a custodial job at the Alabama Power Company.
She ultimately worked her way up to managing the mailroom. Cunningham also took advantage of the company’s tuition reimbursement program. After she retired in 1992, she continued taking classes and earning course credits from several colleges in the Birmingham area.
Army Col. Rob Barnes, along with Samford Office of Professional Studies director
Bryan Gill and associate director
Nicole B. Otero with keeping her on track.
“I felt like I wanted to quit at times, but they were behind me 100%,” she said. “They kept pushing me.”
Cunningham spent 29 years working as a custodian and then as the head of the mailroom for the Alabama Power Company before retiring in 1992. She then used the company’s tuition reimbursement program to earn an associate degree in paralegal studies from Virginia College, but wasn’t satisfied.
“AARP tells us to take some classes and do something instead of just sitting down and being retired, so I kept going,” she said.