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WASHINGTON (AP) —
People on the U.S. government's terrorist watch list can't board airliners, but they can walk into a gun store and legally purchase pistols and military-style rifles.
After last week's Paris attacks, Democrats are renewing calls for Congress to pass legislation aimed at preventing terrorists from buying guns. Similar bills have been stymied for years thanks in large part to opposition from congressional Republicans and the National Rifle Association.
The new Democratic push is focused on legislation by California Senator Dianne Feinstein that would let the attorney general compile a list of known and suspected terrorists to be barred from buying firearms.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has not yet said whether the Republicans will allow a vote on Feinstein's bill. The NRA is opposed to the measure.
LOS ANGELES (AP) —
A California police officer was shot to death in his own car as he was getting off work in what investigators said Thursday was a botched robbery attempt by two young men and a 16-year-old boy who were arrested within hours.
Downey police Officer Ricardo "Ricky" Galvez, 29, was in plainclothes in the driver's seat of his car at the end of his shift when two men ran up and opened fire late Wednesday, Los Angeles County sheriff's Lt. John Corina said.
The former Marine, and five-year veteran of the department, died in his car.
Corina said the attackers — aged 21, 18 and 16 — were out looking for someone to rob when they spotted Galvez sitting in his car. Galvez was shot seconds later.
"They were attempting to rob Officer Galvez not realizing he was a police officer," Corina said. "I don't even think he saw these guys coming up on him."
Another officer heard the gunshots and pursued the attackers as they fled into the neighboring city of Montebello. Investigators said they arrested the getaway driver and other people were detained after SWAT officers swept surrounding neighborhoods.
Police also said they had recovered a gun they suspect was used to kill Galvez.
The three suspects were each booked on a charge of murder and expected to appear in court on Monday, Corina said. Prosecutors will decide later whether to charge the 16-year-old as an adult.
A young woman who identified herself as the sister of one of the suspects cried and yelled outside a news conference announcing the arrests that her brother didn't do it.
She was unavailable for questions after investigators took her inside to interview her.
Detectives knew quickly that Galvez had been shot in a deliberate, targeted attack.
"It appeared to be an ambush style. It happened very quickly," Corina said after viewing surveillance video of the shooting.
Corina said he wasn't immediately able to tell if words were exchanged before Galvez was shot.
Downey police Chief Carl Charles praised Galvez's professionalism and said the officer had an infectious smile and a great attitude.
"Words cannot express the love we have for Ricky," he said.
Galvez was a Marine veteran from the Downey area. He was single and lived close to his siblings and other family members, Charles said at a news conference.
Downey police Lt. Mark McDaniel said Galvez "loved serving the city and he loved serving his country."
"If you could mold a police officer, you would mold that police officer after Ricky Galvez," McDaniel said. "We have a lot of police officers here who are hurting. We'll never get over it and we'll always remember Ricky."
Dozens of officers wiped away tears and saluted as police carried Galvez's American flag-draped body from the crime scene to a coroner's van.
California Gov. Jerry Brown said flags will be flown at half-staff at the Capitol in Sacramento in honor of Galvez.
Downey is a city of about 110,000 residents 10 miles southeast of downtown Los Angeles.
WASHINGTON (AP) —
Republican presidential candidates on Friday swiftly condemned Donald Trump's call for requiring Muslims in the United States to register in a national database, drawing a sharp distinction with the GOP front-runner.
Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush called Trump's proposal "abhorrent." Ohio Gov. John Kasich said Trump was trying to "divide people." And Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, who has largely avoided criticizing Trump throughout the 2016 campaign, said that while he was a fan of the billionaire businessman, "I'm not a fan of government registries of American citizens."
decades defending the religious liberty of every American," Cruz told reporters in Sioux City, Iowa.
The rebuke followed Trump's call Thursday for a mandatory database to track Muslims in the U.S. In a video posted on MSNBC.com, Trump was asked whether Muslims would be required to register. He replied, "They have to be."
He said Muslims would be signed up at "different places" and said the program would be "all about management."
Civil liberties experts said Trump's idea is unconstitutional on several counts, while the libertarian Cato Institute's Ilya Shapiro said the idea also violates basic privacy and liberty rights.
Marci Hamilton, a Yeshiva University legal expert on religious liberty, said requiring Muslims to register appears to be a clear violation of the Constitution's protection of religious freedom.
"What the First Amendment does and what it should do is drive the government to use neutral criteria," Hamilton said. "You can use neutral criteria to identify terrorists. What it can't do is engage in one-religion bashing. That won't fly in any court."
Meanwhile, the Anti-Defamation League in New York called Trump's proposal "deeply troubling and reminiscent of darker days in American history when others were singled out for scapegoating."
The Council on American-Islamic Relations condemned as "Islamophobic" comments from both Trump and fellow GOP candidate Ben Carson, who on Thursday compared blocking potential terrorists posing as Syrian refugees from entering the U.S. to handling a rabid dog.
"If there's a rabid dog running around in your neighborhood, you're probably not going to assume something good about that dog," Carson told in Alabama. "It doesn't mean you hate all dogs, but you're putting your intellect into motion."
Said CAIR's Robert McCaw said in a statement, "Donald Trump and Ben Carson are contributing to an already toxic environment that may be difficult to correct once their political ambitions have been satisfied."
In New Hampshire on Friday, Carson said the U.S. should have a database on "every foreigner who comes into this country," but he rejected the idea of tracking U.S. citizens based on their religion.
"One of the hallmarks of America is that we treat everybody the same," he said. "If we're just going to pick out a particular group of people based on their religion, based on their race, based on some other thing, that's setting a pretty dangerous precedent."
At an event Friday in South Carolina at which Trump was interviewed on stage, he was not asked about the database idea.
Trump's call for a database follows the terror attacks in Paris that killed 130 people and wounded hundreds more. The Islamic State group has claimed responsibility for the carnage, elevating fears of attacks in the U.S. and prompting calls for new restrictions on refugees fleeing war-torn Syria.
Democratic front-runner Hillary Rodham Clinton took to Twitter Friday and challenged all Republican candidates to disavow Trump's comments. Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders called Trump's words "outrageous and bigoted," a stance for which he should be "ashamed."
"This is shocking rhetoric," Clinton wrote. "It should be denounced by all seeking to lead this country."
Several did just that.
"You're talking about internment, you're talking about closing mosques, you're talking about registering people, and that's just wrong," Bush said Friday on CNBC.
A spokesman for Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., said the candidate "does not support databases based on one's religion."
Kasich, the Ohio governor, said requiring people to register with the federal government because of their religion "strikes against all that we have believed in our nation's history." Kasich had faced criticism following the Paris shooting for saying he would set up an agency with a "mandate" to promote what he calls "Judeo-Christian values" overseas to counter Islamist propaganda.
Trump spoke Thursday a few hours after the House passed legislation essentially barring Syrian and Iraqi refugees from the United States. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., has slotted the bill for possible Senate consideration, though it's unclear whether the chamber could get enough votes to override a veto by President Barack Obama, who opposes the measure.
The unified pushback against Trump was rare. Republicans have vacillated in their handling of other inflammatory comments from the bellicose billionaire, wary of alienating the front-runner's supporters but also increasingly concerned that he's managed to maintain his grip on the GOP race deep into the fall.
A super PAC supporting Kasich had started running a television advertisement in New Hampshire questioning Trump and Carson's preparedness for being commander in chief. The ad opens with pictures of Trump, Carson and Obama as a narrator says, "Job training for president does not work." The ad then pivots to a review of the national security issues facing the country and argues Kasich is the only candidate with a plan to defeat the Islamic State.
The first reference to a database for Muslims came in Trump's interview with Yahoo News published Thursday in which the billionaire real estate mogul did not reject the idea of requiring Muslims to register in a database or giving them special identification cards noting their religion.
"We're going to have to look at a lot of things very closely," Trump told Yahoo News.
According to Yahoo, he also suggested he would consider warrantless searches, saying, "We're going to have to do things that we never did before."
Asked by reporters Thursday night to explain his Yahoo comments, Trump suggested his response had been misconstrued. "I never responded to that question," he said.