Off-duty pilot who tried to cut engines tried mushrooms as mental health worsened, complaint says

posted in: News | 0

PORTLAND, Ore. — An off-duty airline pilot riding in an extra cockpit seat on a Horizon Air flight said “I’m not OK” just before trying to cut the engines midflight and later told police he had recently taken psychedelic mushrooms as his mental health worsened, according to charging documents made public Tuesday.

State prosecutors in Oregon filed 83 counts of attempted murder against Alaska Airlines pilot Joseph David Emerson, 44, on Tuesday just before he appeared in court, with his attorney, Noah Horst, entering not guilty pleas on his behalf. Federal prosecutors meanwhile charged Emerson with interfering with a flight crew, which can carry up to 20 years in prison.

According to a probable cause statement filed in Multnomah County Circuit Court, Emerson told Port of Portland police following his arrest that he had been struggling with depression, that a friend had recently died and that he had taken psychedelic mushrooms about 48 hours before he attempted to cut the engines. He also said he had not slept in more than 40 hours, according to the document.

Police reported that Emerson did not appear to be intoxicated at the time of the interview, and in a statement Tuesday, Alaska Airlines, which owns Horizon, said neither the gate agents nor flight crew noticed any signs of impairment that might have barred him from the flight. An FBI agent wrote in a probable cause affidavit in support of the federal charge that Emerson “said it was his first-time taking mushrooms.”

While psilocybin is illegal in most of the country — Oregon legalized it for adults this year — the Food and Drug Administration in 2018 designated it a “breakthrough therapy” that might be used for mental health conditions or substance use disorders.

Emerson, an Alaska Airlines pilot from Pleasant Hill, Calif., was arrested Sunday night after the flight crew reported that he attempted to shut down the engines on a Horizon Air flight from Everett, Wash., to San Francisco while riding in the extra seat in the cockpit. The plane was diverted to Portland, where it landed safely with more than 80 people on board.

The FBI affidavit said Emerson, who as an off-duty pilot was authorized to ride in the cockpit’s jump seat, made casual conversation with the captain and first officer when the plane was between Astoria, Ore., and Portland, before trying to grab two red handles that would have activated the plane’s fire suppression system and cut off fuel to its engines.

After what the flight crew described as a brief struggle, lasting only about 30 seconds, Emerson left the cockpit, the FBI said.

Flight attendants placed Emerson in wrist restraints and seated him in the rear of the aircraft, but as the plane descended, he tried to grab the handle of an emergency exit, according to the document. A flight attendant stopped him by placing her hands on top of his, it said.

Alaska Airlines said Tuesday that Emerson had been relieved of all duties.

Horst did not immediately speak with reporters following the hearing or respond to phone and email messages seeking comment.

The captain and first officer told police after the plane landed that Emerson said “I’m not OK” just before he reached up to pull the handles. They were able to stop him before he pulled the handles all the way down, the affidavit said.

Emerson walked calmly to the back of the plane after being told to leave the cockpit and told a flight attendant, “You need to cuff me right now or it’s going to be bad,” the affidavit said. Another flight attendant heard him saying, “I messed everything up” and “tried to kill everybody.”

According to the affidavit, he asked police if he could waive his right to an attorney: “I’m admitting to what I did. I’m not fighting any charges you want to bring against me, guys.”

He also told them he thought he was having a nervous breakdown and said: “I pulled both emergency shut off handles because I thought I was dreaming and I just wanna wake up,” according to the affidavit.

Pilots are required to undergo psychological screening as part of their regularly scheduled medical exams. There have been crashes that investigators believe were deliberately caused by pilots. Authorities said the copilot of a Germanwings jet that crashed in the French Alps in 2015 had practiced putting the plane into a dive.

Emerson took his most recent exam in September, Federal Aviation Administration records show — but according to the charging documents, he had long been struggling with depression.

Judge sentences Fridley man to 40-year prison term in brutal slaying of girlfriend in St. Paul apartment

posted in: Society | 0

A Fridley man with a history of civil commitments for mental illness and chemical dependency received a 40-year prison sentence Tuesday for beating and stabbing his girlfriend to death inside her St. Paul apartment in 2020 in front of his 2-year-old nephew.

Terrion Sherman’s sentence, handed down by Ramsey County District Judge Kellie Charles, was an upward departure from sentencing guidelines and the statutory maximum for a second-degree intentional murder conviction.

Terrion Lamar Sherman (Courtesy of the Ramsey County Sheriff’s Office)

Sherman, 27, had waived a jury trial, and the judge in August found him guilty of brutally murdering 21-year-old Abigail Simpson, a graduate of West Bend High School in Wisconsin who was attending college classes full time in St. Paul with a plan of becoming an attorney.

Sherman faced a presumptive sentence of just over 27 years in prison under state guidelines. Charles, however, ruled that “identifiable, substantial and compelling reasons” justify the upward departure. She said Sherman treated Simpson with particular cruelty — stabbing her with a knife 32 times in the face, scalp and neck — and did so in the presence of a child.

“This is one of the extremely rare cases in which a sentence of the statutory maximum is not only justified, but warranted,” Charles told the courtroom.

The “sad and horrific tale of events” began with Sherman’s “voluntary use of synthetic marijuana that led to the death of Abigail Simpson,” she said.

She expressed her condolences to Simpson’s family.

“I know that’s little solace to you,” she said, “and there’s nothing I can do or say here today that’s going to bring her back. But her love and memory lives on through you and with you. And I’m sorry I only got to know her through the tragic events that bring us here today.”

Simpson’s parents sat in the courtroom, while her sister watched the hearing remotely through Zoom. They chose not to read the victim impact statements they had filed in court this month.

Before explaining the justification for the departure, Charles allowed Simpson’s parents to leave the courtroom, thereby sparing them from hearing the graphic details of their daughter’s killing.

‘Extreme and egregious’

St. Paul police investigate a homicide on Pierce Street near St. Anthony Avenue on Wednesday, February 26, 2020. (Mara H. Gottfried / Pioneer Press)

St. Paul police officers were called to Simpson’s Pierce Street apartment, south of Interstate 94 and west of Snelling Avenue, just after midnight Feb. 26, 2020. A man who lives in the building had called 911 and reported “some dude is beating … his girl right now” and that he heard him say “he’s going to kill someone,” Charles noted in her August ruling.

As officers made their way upstairs, they heard stomping and a man say “Stay down or I’ll kill you” as Sherman’s 2-year-old nephew cried, according to the criminal complaint.

Police heard Sherman ordering the boy “to stomp on Ms. Simpson’s head, and that was followed by a loud thump,” Charles said Tuesday.

When no one answered the door, an officer kicked it in. Sherman was seen standing in the living room covered in blood, while Simpson was motionless on the ground, and not breathing.

Sherman’s nephew was standing inches from Simpson’s “lifeless, naked, bruised and bloodied body,” Charles said. Officers’ body-worn cameras showed the “tiny boy covered in blood spatter in a state of shock, horrified by what was happening around him.”

Simpson was beaten so severely that her teeth were broken, and when Sherman arrived at the hospital he believed that one of her teeth may still be lodged in his fist, Charles said.

She called the killing “one of the most extreme and egregious murder cases ever encountered by me, and is significantly more cruel than the conduct typically associated with the offense of intentional murder in the second degree.”

Sherman broke out a rear window in the squad car that was transporting him after his arrest and said he was on drugs, leading officers to transfer him to an ambulance that took him to Regions Hospital in St. Paul to be evaluated.

He made comments about “hitting the dog” and “punching her head off” while hospitalized, but was eventually medically cleared and taken to police headquarters, the complaint said.

He told investigators who asked him whether he took any medication that even though he was prescribed some, he didn’t take them because “(I’m) not crazy,” the complaint said.

Sherman told investigators who interviewed him after his arrest that the boy had become possessed “as a dog” at Simpson’s Merriam Park apartment and that the boy told him Simpson was “really a guy,” the complaint said. He said he blacked out and didn’t recall stabbing her.

Synthetic drug use

Sherman picked up two criminal cases in August 2018.

The first was a fourth-degree assault of a peace officer charge after he lit a shoe on fire on a neighbor’s patio and then spit at a St. Paul police officer, the charges said. The resident who reported the incident told police that Sherman is a “K2 user who frequently causes problems in the neighborhood.” K2 is a synthetic form of marijuana.

Nine days later, he punched two employees at a Family Dollar store in Maplewood who tried to stop him from stealing, according to the complaint that charged him with first-degree aggravated robbery.

The cases were put on hold after judges found him incompetent to stand trial due to mental illness. In October 2018, he was civilly committed as mentally ill and chemically dependent and began treatment at Minnesota Security Hospital in St. Peter.

Court records show that in May 2019 Sherman was provisionally discharged from the state hospital and sent to a Fridley group home.

After Simpson’s murder, Sherman’s sister told investigators that her brother used K2 when he was on furlough from his group home because the substance doesn’t show up in urine tests, according to court records.

She added that she would get concerned when he used the synthetic cannabinoid because “he does crazy things and talks incoherently,” court documents say.

Investigators found a small bag of K2 at the murder scene.

Court proceedings were suspended in 2020 after Sherman was civilly committed as mentally ill and dangerous, and found to be incompetent to stand trial. He was deemed to be competent for court proceedings in January 2022.

Daughter, sister, aunt

At Tuesday’s sentencing, Ramsey County Assistant Attorney Hannah Prokopowicz acknowledged “the really long road to get here.”

“It’s been three years that (Simpson’s) family has had to endure the ups and downs — and mostly downs — of this process,” she said.

Since the murder, Sherman has picked up several new charges while in custody either at a secure treatment facility or the county jail, Prokopowicz noted. They include felony threats of violence and assault involving staff at the St. Peter hospital. Last November, according to other charges, Sherman threw a chair at a prosecutor in a Ramsey County courtroom during a hearing before Judge Charles in which she put on the record that he was competent to stand trial.

Prokopowicz spoke about Simpson before asking Charles to give Sherman the stiffest sentence possible.

Abigail Simpson (Courtesy of Simpson family)

“She was a daughter, a sister, an aunt,” she said. “She was an outstanding athlete. She had goals and ambitions and she was working hard, despite some barriers, to get there. Those memories of Ms. Simpson, who she was and no doubt was going to be, should not be allowed to be contaminated by what Mr. Sherman did to her that night.”

Charles summoned Simpson’s parents back into the courtroom for the sentencing.

“I’m going to have Mr. Sherman remain seated for the sentence due to prior issues in the courtroom,” Charles said.

She then imposed the prison term, noting how Sherman will receive credit for the 1,337 days he has spent in locked facilities since the murder.

Related Articles

Crime & Public Safety |


Feds add charges against Baxter nurse accused of stealing pain meds from hospice clinic

Crime & Public Safety |


Bathroom arson fire evacuates Burnsville elementary school

Crime & Public Safety |


Ex-Minneapolis cop sentenced to workhouse, probation for beating St. Paul man during 2020 civil unrest

Crime & Public Safety |


Maple Grove ‘Airbnb becomes machine gunBNB,’ sheriff’s office says after 11 guns found at teen’s birthday party

Crime & Public Safety |


Former Mayo Clinic doctor accused of fatally poisoning wife held on $2M bail

A Boston Jewish Community Relations Council group reportedly resigns after members call for ceasefire in Israel-Hamas war

posted in: News | 0

A Jewish Community Relations Council group has reportedly resigned from the Greater Boston council after members called for a cease-fire in the Israel-Hamas war at a rally last week.

The Boston Workers Circle Center for Jewish Culture and Social Justice has left the Jewish Community Relations Council of Greater Boston (JCRC), the JCRC of Greater Boston announced on Tuesday.

This resignation comes after the Boston Workers Circle co-sponsored and participated in a de-escalation rally last week — calling on U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren to support a ceasefire in the Israel-Hamas war following the Hamas terrorist attacks. Hundreds of Israelis remain kidnapped by Hamas in Gaza.

Following that rally, JCRC reportedly told the Boston Workers Circle that they would be expelled from the council. The group resigned as a result.

Last week’s rally was “clearly not aligned with the policies and resolutions of the JCRC,” according to the head of JCRC of Greater Boston.

“It is unfortunate that at a time when we are experiencing and expressing a profound level of Jewish unity across the world, a small minority is seeking to exacerbate fractures and divisions within our people,” JCRC CEO Jeremy Burton said in a statement.

“We appreciate the passion by which BWC expresses its concern for Palestinian safety,” he added. “We share this concern for innocent Palestinian civilians who are today in harm’s way in Gaza because of the actions of Hamas. We support those members of our community who express their concern for Palestinian civilian safety, while simultaneously standing in support of the safety of Israelis, including the call for the return of some 200 hostages taken on October 7. However, we cannot support those organizations that demonize Israel, hold Israel to a double standard, and ignore the safety and security of Israel and our community as a whole.”

Related Articles

Local News |


Howie Carr: Only cowards rip posters

Local News |


Boston Common lined with reminders of those still kidnapped by Hamas

Local News |


Boston-area dentist who ripped down posters of Israeli hostages has been fired: ‘It’s appalling. It’s cold-hearted. It’s evil’

Local News |


Larry Hogan slams Harvard ‘anti-Semitism’ in wake of incendiary open letter

Local News |


Live updates | Israeli warplanes strike targets as US seeks more time to free hostages

The Boston Workers Circle says its position is for an immediate ceasefire, a de-escalation to the violence, and the return of all hostages taken from Israel into Gaza.

“The Boston JCRC has decided that at this moment, it is worthwhile to spend time expelling a founding member and dividing the Boston Jewish community, ensuring that an important voice is no longer at the table,” the group said in a statement.

“The Boston JCRC’s choice to isolate itself from a growing moral cry coming from within Jewish community means it can no longer claim to be a representative body of our community,” the Boston Workers Circle added. “It has already been made clear to us that we are not welcome at the JCRC table. Rather than engage in the lengthy and arduous process to be formally expelled, we are turning our attention to focusing on building a future of peace and justice for all.”

Patriots and Revs join to help kids kick cancer

posted in: Adventure | 0

Some Patriots and Revolution players joined to help kids with cancer forget about it all for a day at a Halloween party at Gillette Stadium Tuesday.

Olivia Recos is thrilled to get a balloon unicorn made by the Revs Joe Howard. (Stuart Cahill/Boston Herald)

Olivia Recos, 5, (L) and Sophia Recos, (7) check out how big the stadium actually is as the Patriots and the Revolution host a Halloween party for Pediatric Cancer Patients at Gillette Stadium on October 24, Foxboro, MA. (Staff Photo By Stuart Cahill/Boston Herald)

Charlotte Veiga, 6, checks out the pom poms of Pats Cheerleader Mackenzie Pena, as the Patriots and the Revolution host a Halloween party for Pediatric Cancer Patients at Gillette Stadium on October 24, Foxboro, MA. (Staff Photo By Stuart Cahill/Boston Herald)

Tyler Lino, 9, gets Pats QB Mac Jones to sign his helmet as the Patriots and the Revolution host a Halloween party for Pediatric Cancer Patients at Gillette Stadium Tuesday. (Stuart Cahill/Boston Herald)

Nash Doolan, 1 1/2, slaps five with Syde, the Revs mascot, as the Patriots and the Revolution host a Halloween party for Pediatric Cancer Patients at Gillette Stadium on October 24, Foxboro, MA. (Staff Photo By Stuart Cahill/Boston Herald)

Pat QB Mac Jones greets the crowd as a spaceman as the Patriots and the Revolution host a Halloween party for Pediatric Cancer Patients at Gillette Stadium on October 24, Foxboro, MA. (Staff Photo By Stuart Cahill/Boston Herald)

Pats QB Mac Jones chats about color choices with Edward Torres Rivet, 6, while they color as the Patriots and the Revolution host a Halloween party for Pediatric Cancer Patients at Gillette Stadium on October 24, Foxboro, MA. (Staff Photo By Stuart Cahill/Boston Herald)

Olivia Recos gets a balloon unicorn made by Joe Howard as the Patriots and the Revolution host a Halloween party for Pediatric Cancer Patients at Gillette Stadium on October 24, Foxboro, MA. (Staff Photo By Stuart Cahill/Boston Herald)

Alaina Nelson, 7, punches the alien that has grabbed Patriot Cody Davis as the Patriots and the Revolution host a Halloween party for Pediatric Cancer Patients at Gillette Stadium on October 24, Foxboro, MA. (Staff Photo By Stuart Cahill/Boston Herald)

Grace Markos, 8, (L) and Carter Lacasse, 9, pose with Pats cheerleader Molly Shetters, Pat Patriot and Mackenzie Pena as the Patriots and the Revolution host a Halloween party for Pediatric Cancer Patients at Gillette Stadium on October 24, Foxboro, MA. (Staff Photo By Stuart Cahill/Boston Herald)

Families got to pose with all the celebs for photos as the Patriots and the Revolution host a Halloween party for Pediatric Cancer Patients at Gillette Stadium on October 24, Foxboro, MA. (Staff Photo By Stuart Cahill/Boston Herald)

of

Expand