John Ismay

But by 3 the next morning, three Indiana circuit court judges, by way of a failed attempt to enter a strip club, were brawling with two strangers outside a White Castle in a drunken melee that ended with two of the judges shot and in critical condition in a hospital.

In the latest repercussion from that night, the judges, Andrew Adams, Bradley B. Jacobs and Sabrina R. Bell, were this week suspended from the bench by the Indiana Supreme Court for having “gravely undermined public trust in the dignity and decency of Indiana’s judiciary.”

According to police reports and the opinion issued by the Supreme Court, the drinking began early in the evening of April 30 for Jacobs, who had a scotch in the hotel lobby after checking into his room for the conference. At 7 p.m., Bell kicked things off with a couple of Seagram’s Escapes. Sometime after 10 p.m., Adams started drinking beers at an Irish pub. Around 12:30 a.m., all three were drinking with a court magistrate at another bar, throwing darts and playing cornhole.

About 3 a.m. they headed for the strip club, which had just closed for the night. The four officers of the court then walked to a nearby White Castle. The magistrate went inside while the three judges waited in the parking lot.

At that time, two men, Alfredo Vazquez and Brandon Kaiser, drove by in a blue SUV and “shouted something out the window,” according to the Supreme Court opinion. With no gavel to register her displeasure, Bell extended her middle finger instead.

The two men objected, and after they parked their vehicle in the White Castle parking lot, a “heated verbal altercation ensued” — with all parties yelling, using profanity and making “dismissive, mocking, or insolent gestures.”

The dispute quickly escalated into a brawl — at one point Adams kicked Kaiser in the back — but it appeared to have ended when Jacobs had Kaiser pinned down, with his fist raised to strike.

“This is over,” Jacobs said, according to the opinion. “Tell me this is over.”

If only it was: Kaiser pulled out a firearm, shooting Adams once and Jacobs twice, according to the police.

Adams needed two emergency operations, including to repair damage to his colon. Jacobs, who was shot twice in the chest, had two operations during a 14-day hospitalization.

Medical workers also recorded the men’s blood alcohol levels: 0.13 for Jacobs, and 0.157 for Adams. (The legal limit for drivers in Indiana is 0.08.) The report says Bell did not have her blood alcohol level tested, though she later said she had no memory of what would seem to have been a memorable encounter.

“I mean I fully acknowledge that I drink and get mouthy, and I’m fiery and I’m feisty,” Bell said in a recorded statement made at a police station after the brawl. “But if I would have ever thought for a second that they were gonna fight or that that guy had a gun on him, I would never, never. . . .”

The report does not indicate how Bell finished that thought, but it does detail the punishments adjudicated to the three justices.

Adams, a Democrat elected to the Clark County court in 2014, was charged with felony battery and multiple misdemeanors; he pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor for kicking Kaiser, and was sentenced to a year in jail with all but two days suspended. He was also suspended from his job without pay for 60 days.

Though a grand jury declined to indict Jacobs, a Republican who has also been on the Clark County court for five years, the Indiana Supreme Court suspended him for 30 days without pay. Bell received an identical suspension.

Kaiser, who is accused of firing on the judges, faces eight felony and six misdemeanor charges in a jury trial set to begin on Jan. 13. His lawyer declined to comment on Friday.

Court records show that Vazquez pleaded guilty to one misdemeanor battery charge, and received a yearlong sentence that was mostly suspended. His lawyer could not be reached.

A lawyer representing Jacobs released a statement on Friday saying, “Judge Jacobs acknowledged that his behavior that evening, although not illegal, was unbecoming of a judge and that his actions were injudicious and reflected poorly upon him and his peers on the bench.” A lawyer for Adams declined to comment, though the judge has previously released a statement expressing regret for his actions. Bell, a Republican who began her tenure in Crawford County in 2017, represented herself in the disciplinary proceedings. Her office did not respond to a request for comment.

As circuit judges, they hear all kinds of cases — small claims, felonies, misdemeanors — though Jacobs’ office said about 90% of the cases his court hears are drug-related.

In its opinion, the Indiana Supreme Court said that the three judges’ behavior “fell far short” of their code of conduct, which directs them to “aspire at all times to conduct that ensures the greatest possible public confidence in their independence, impartiality, integrity, and competence.”

This article originally appeared in

Judges Suspended After Brawl in White Castle Parking Lot

The judges’ plan, if there ever was one, was to enjoy a couple of drinks with their colleagues the night before a judicial conference in Indianapolis.

Rescue teams started from the spot where he was believed to have fallen Tuesday, about 4 miles offshore between Fort Walton Beach and Pensacola. The Coast Guard dispatched three types of aircraft over the course of the search, along with several boats. Army Special Forces joined the search as well.

But after 3 1/2 days scouring 700 square miles of the Gulf of Mexico without success, the rescue teams faced the grim reality: The sergeant was unlikely to have survived that long unaided. Their mission was no longer to rescue him but to recover his body.

“It’s not an easy decision,” said Chief Petty Officer Lauren Jorgensen, a spokeswoman for the Coast Guard’s 8th District in New Orleans, which covers the Gulf Coast. “Every piece of information that can be gathered about the person’s characteristics helps in creating our search patterns and then determining how long it makes sense to keep searching.”

There is no hard and fast rule for when to make that call. Rescue coordinators must take into consideration environmental factors like the weather and the water temperature, and also whether the search effort is putting the searchers in danger from hazards like high seas and storms.

Capt. Chip Lewin has made the call to suspend a search a couple of dozen times in his nearly 29 years in the Coast Guard. “It’s one of the most difficult decisions we have to make in search and rescue,” said Lewin, who serves as the chief of incident management for the 8th District. “There aren’t any two cases that are identical. Each time we have to take new factors into account and give the person the best chance of being saved.”

“We call it off when we believe that the chance of survival is unlikely and our efforts are no longer fruitful,” Lewin explained. “Emotions are there, and we’ve all lost people,” he added. “But we try to put logic and empathy into the decision.”

Bad weather was not a factor in the search for Condiff, and the water temperatures near Fort Walton Beach were around 70 degrees Fahrenheit. But even in fairly warm water, hypothermia can set in when a person is immersed for a long time. “Any water that is colder than your core body temperature will eventually cause hypothermia,” Jorgensen said.

The Coast Guard can base its decision in part on computer software that calculates the probability of survival for a given temperature and time. The service’s search and rescue manual notes that when a person’s core body temperature falls to 82.4 degrees, he or she is expected to lose consciousness.

It is a kind of brutal math that no amount of physical conditioning can overcome. Condiff’s job as a combat controller — an expert at calling in airstrikes from the ground — who was assigned to the 23rd Special Tactics Squadron at Hurlburt Air Force Base required him to be in top physical condition. He had completed a rigorous two-year training program in parachuting, combat diving and air traffic control, and was among the elite of the Air Force.

The sergeant was taking part in low-level parachute training over a drop zone on one of the nearly 2-mile-long runways at Hurlburt when he made “an unplanned parachute departure” from the aircraft, an MC-130H Combat Talon II plane, when it was over the Gulf of Mexico, according to the Air Force.

Although the service has not released additional details, the wording of its statements may point to a parachute malfunction while inside the aircraft. For low-level jumps, military parachutists typically wear harnesses with a main parachute on their back and a reserve parachute strapped to their chest. If one of the canopies accidentally deploys inside the plane while the rear cargo ramp is open in preparation for jumping, the slight vacuum created could cause the parachute to fill with air and yank the wearer out of the plane.

Because Hurlburt’s runways are positioned so close to the Gulf, planes like the MC-130H often fly briefly over the water before turning to drop parachutists on dry land.

Condiff, a Dallas native, is presumed dead, survived by his wife and two daughters. He had completed deployments to Africa and Afghanistan and was awarded an Air Force Commendation Medal with a combat device.

“Cole was a man with deep-rooted beliefs who dedicated himself to God, our freedoms, peace, and his family,” said Lt. Col. Steven Cooper, Condiff’s commanding officer. “This is a tragic loss to the squadron, the Special Tactics community and our nation.”

The Condiff family released a statement expressing “our deepest and unending gratitude to those that have searched so diligently.”

“We would also like to thank those who have been and continue to stand at the ready to help serve the family in this time of crisis,” the statement said.

The accident remains under investigation, and the military was still combing the Gulf on Monday.

“We will continue our recovery effort as long as circumstances and resources allow, to bring our airman home,” Col. Matt Allen of the Air Force said.

Allen commands the 24th Special Operations Wing at Hurlburt. Condiff was one of his own.

'Not an Easy Decision': Rescue Mission Ends With an Airman Still Missing

One of the bedrock principles of military service is to leave no one behind. So when an airman, Staff Sgt. Cole Condiff, 29, fell from a cargo plane into the waters south of the Florida Panhandle during a training exercise last week, an intense search effort was quickly underway.

The prosecutors also filed charges of first-degree reckless injury and use of a dangerous weapon against the suspect, Clifton Blackwell, on Wednesday. He faces a total of 35 years in prison and $105,000 in fines.

According to charging documents, the episode began Friday night when Blackwell yelled at Mahud Villalaz, 42, for parking too close to a bus stop, saying “Why did you invade my country?” and “Why don’t you respect my laws?”

Villalaz, who is a U.S. citizen, moved his truck and walked back toward the restaurant’s entrance, prosecutors say, but Blackwell continued to berate him, calling him an “illegal” before splashing him in the face with a bottle of acid. A surveillance camera caught the attack on video.

Villalaz suffered second-degree burns on his face and third-degree burns on his neck, as well as irritation to his left eye.

Wisconsin state law provides for an additional fine of $5,000 and a maximum of five more years in jail for felonies in which the perpetrator selects a victim because of their national origin, “whether or not the actor’s belief or perception was correct.” Villalaz, who was born in Peru, became a U.S. citizen in 2013.

A search of Blackwell’s home recovered muriatic acid, four bottles of sulfuric acid and two bottles of lye-based drain opener, police said.

In an interview this week, Villalaz said he had stopped after work to get carne asada and carnitas tacos at La Sierrita restaurant, located in a majority-Hispanic neighborhood south of downtown Milwaukee, when he was attacked. “I don’t know the guy, and he did that to me,” Villalaz said. “Who carries a bottle of acid?"

Suspect Charged With Hate Crime in Acid Attack on Hispanic Man

A 61-year-old white man who is accused of splashing acid on a Hispanic man’s face and telling him to “go back” to his country has been charged with a hate crime by prosecutors in Milwaukee.

The victim, Mahud Villalaz, 42, was assaulted outside a Mexican restaurant in the Lincoln Village neighborhood of Milwaukee on Friday. He described being attacked by a white man who hurled racist insults at him and accused him of being an “illegal” before splashing acid on him.

The police said they had arrested a 61-year-old white man in connection with the attack, but as of Monday night they had not announced any charges nor released the suspect’s identity.

Villalaz, an American citizen who came to the United States from Peru 19 years ago, said the episode began when he parked near the taqueria and was confronted by the man about how close his pickup truck was to a bus stop. Villalaz returned to his vehicle and moved it about a block away. As he walked toward the restaurant again, he said, the man said, “You came here to invade.”

A nearby surveillance camera captured video of the attack, showing a man splashing a liquid onto the left side of Villalaz’s face.

Villalaz said he rushed into the restaurant’s bathroom and rinsed his face with water, which may have lessened his injuries. The police described the liquid only as a “corrosive substance,” though Villalaz said doctors told him they thought it was battery acid and it also burned a jacket, sweater and shirt he was wearing.

Mayor Tom Barrett of Milwaukee and members of the city’s Hispanic community said they were alarmed by the attack and were worried that statements made by President Donald Trump had cultivated an anti-immigrant sentiment.

“This anger towards people from other countries is being fed by our president and by his followers,” Barrett, a Democrat, told reporters Monday. “What we saw over the weekend is a manifestation of that anger.”

“The victim is a United States citizen,” Barrett added. “He has as much right to be here as any one of us.”

Darryl Morin, the president of Forward Latino, an advocacy group based in the Milwaukee area, said, “Sadly this is following the pattern we’re seeing nationwide,” citing the mass shooting in which Hispanics were targeted in El Paso, Texas, as the most horrifying example.

The attacker’s reported use of the word “invade” was particularly troubling, Morin said, given Trump’s public warnings of an “invasion” by immigrants on America’s southwestern border — language also echoed by the El Paso suspect. Trump also told a group of four minority Democratic congresswomen to “go back” to their countries this summer.

“What we are seeing is not just an attack on immigrants, it’s an attack on all Hispanics,” Morin said. “It’s an attack on America as a whole.”

According to José G. Pérez, who represents Lincoln Village and seven nearby neighborhoods on the City Council, the area around the attack is overwhelmingly Hispanic and has been attracting new businesses.

“Latinos are the backbone of population growth in the city and in the district,” he said.

Villalaz was treated at a hospital for second-degree burns on his face and third-degree burns on his neck, as well as irritation to his left eye. He was recovering at home Monday.

Morin, whose organization has been providing assistance to Villalaz, said the victim and his family were comforted somewhat by the arrest of a suspect, and grateful for the efforts of the Milwaukee Police Department. An online campaign to raise funds for Villalaz’s medical expenses has already exceeded its goal of $15,000.

Villalaz, the father of two young boys — Alain, 7, and Aayden, 5 — said the attack had been hard on his sons. “The younger one started crying and said, ‘Why would somebody do this to you, Daddy, when you did nothing to him?’ ” he said. “How do you explain this to a little boy?”

“But my older son understands a little better. He said, ‘It was crazy people out there.’ ”

Victim of Milwaukee Acid Attack Says He Was Told to 'Go Back to Your Country'

The police in Milwaukee on Monday were investigating an attack on a Hispanic man as a possible hate crime after the victim, who was severely burned on his face and neck, reported that his attacker threw acid on him and told him to “go back to your country.”

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John Ismay

Articles written by the author

Judges Suspended After Brawl in White Castle Parking Lot

'Not an Easy Decision': Rescue Mission Ends With an Airman Still Missing

Suspect Charged With Hate Crime in Acid Attack on Hispanic Man

Victim of Milwaukee Acid Attack Says He Was Told to 'Go Back to Your Country'