8 dead, 18 injured in 'dark day for New York City'

We are standing by and waiting for this briefing that could begin any minute now. Where we are expecting an update on the New York City building collapse, the collapse that happened in Brooklyn. We're going to talk more about that here in just a minute because there are a number of stories that have you talking here on this Thursday afternoon. And so joining us to give us the latest on these, we've got Amy Caulfield, Fox 35 news anchor, joining us live right now from the Alert Center in the Fox 35 newsroom. And Amy, just tragic, you know, and we know the search continuing out there. in New York for potentially more victims. Yeah, it's awful. And I think for so many of us in Florida, it's traumatizing. We think back to the Surfside building collapse that happened here in Florida five years ago. 98 people sadly lost their lives when Surfside collapsed. Today, we're learning more about this building in Brooklyn. And it sounds like, Garrett, from what we're hearing, that there was construction that was happening on a nearby, it was an excavation site nearby. Whether or not that excavation work and that construction site led to the collapse of this particular building, we're still waiting to find out however we can tell you that so far we know of eight people who have lost their lives in this 17 others hurt two of the 17 are critically injured this is a three-story building if you are familiar with that area of Brooklyn this is right at the corner of Flat bush and Bedford Avenues in the Flatbush, Brooklyn area. So this was just after four o'clock yesterday. Again, this was a building that people lived in. And so there would have likely been people home at the time that this happened, which is leading to this loss of life. We can tell you that they were able to pull six bodies out of the rubble. Two of the six that they pulled out died at the hospital, but several of them did survive. In fact, one of the more poignant stories was a pregnant woman who was pulled out of the rubble. And you probably heard we heard from her husband earlier this morning who was just overjoyed that she was found and that she is going to be OK. Some of the victims who were found on Thursday are actually believed to be construction workers. We can also tell you, according to officials, that seven children were among those who. who were treated for injuries, but likely will be okay. So the building itself was 1321 Flatbush Avenue. It had a store at street level. It also had apartments upstairs, and it basically fell into an excavation site on Bedford Avenue. And then you're looking here at these video, and one of the things that we were talking about this morning with a reporter on the scene is that there's a building where it appears you can look right into the building, right? This building here where you're able to look in and you can see there's a stairwell. In other rooms and apartments so that was the building next door so for anybody who's familiar with New York City and these boroughs like Brooklyn these buildings often share walls with each other and everything is really packed in very tightly and so even though a building might be technically separate from another building it usually shares one of the barrier walls and in that particular case the barrier wall from the building next door Door to the collapse. Also came down. And so the people who live in that building and the adjacent building to that on the opposite side, all of those people have been evacuated. We're told by a reporter there on the scene that they've been taken to a local YMCA for shelter as they try to figure out if those buildings next door are safe. And if not, might those buildings also have to come down? Yeah, it's really disconcerting, I think, to see that. The wall just kind of like peeled back. And seeing that, I said it earlier, it's almost like, you know, you're looking at it like it's a dollhouse. I mean, it just shows, you know, the kind of fragility of all of this. And it's just crazy to see. You mentioned the miracles that we saw, you know, the woman, the pregnant woman pulled from the rubble, just absolutely incredible story. But yeah, a scary situation there. There's going to be a lot of questions about why something like this might have happened. We talked I talked with a structural engineer who raised some interesting questions in our Our first hour and so you know it's it's going to be interesting to see if we get some more of those answers when because there are there are questions about you know some some violations on that site before and that kind of thing. So you know just a lot of questions still unanswered about this but but hopefully some more information coming up in just a little bit. Yeah, I hope so. And hopefully we find more survivors. And Garrett, one of the things we heard from fire officials this morning was that how careful they're having to be with moving anything. It's kind of like you equate it to like a Jenga, right? It's like you're playing Jenga and you're trying to be careful not to topple the structure. So they're trying to be very careful as they lift pieces to find out if there are people underneath. They have to be careful not to cause even a greater collapse of the people who might still be underneath those barriers. So just praying. Praying that all of the victims are out, but if not, they do want to go through this in very painstaking sort of way. You will remember after 9-11, one of the things they did was they brought dogs in and the dogs would walk over the rubble because they're gentle, right? And they would try to sniff out if there was any human life or maybe somebody who was buried underneath. So I'm sure they're probably doing similar things in this case, but we're coming up on almost 24 hours and four hours, it'll be 24 hours since this building collapsed. So time is of the essence, for sure. Yeah, and we'll get you to that briefing when it does get underway. Meanwhile, another national story we've been following for much of the morning, and that's the situation in Washington, D.C. Amy, we've got a live look as investigators remain on that scene here into the afternoon. Yeah, again, another very active scene this morning, Garrett. And for those of you who have been to D.C., you might be familiar with Logan Circle. This is a popular area. A lot of people live in this area. This is about a mile north of the White House. So we were saying near the White House earlier. I wouldn't really say it's near. It is in D.C. proper. And you can see this building here. You see the police, the Metro police car that is parked in front of it. Looks like Vita is what it says on the sign below. We understand that there was a person inside of this This gym, who was working out about... About 8 o'clock this morning, who was one of the victims of this shooting. We don't know a lot about any of the circumstances about why this person would open fire, but here's what we know so far. We're told that within just seconds that police arrived on the scene to reports of gunfire. We do know that at least four people were shot, one person perhaps in that gym that's in front of us called, I think it was called the Vita Gym. One gym member rushed in to help him. We're told that the person in that attack may not. not have survived. There were people who apparently who were working out inside this gym eight o'clock in the morning. You can imagine it was probably pretty busy. Another witness nearby said he heard about five shots ring out. Then about 8:30, there were reports of even more gunfire. At this point, they had not located the person who they believed was responsible for firing these shots. So at that point, then there was word that there was someone barricaded inside Inside of an apartment building. Alcohol, tobacco, and firearms showed up on the scene as well. They secured this area as best they could, tried to get everybody out of there. We're told that they went inside of this apartment. There was video, Garrett, I don't know if you saw this, but somebody had posted this on X, of fire actually coming out of this unit. You could see flames coming out of the side of the building right there along this very popular Logan Circle area where this suspected gunman had apparently barricaded himself. They busted their way into this apartment and they did find a man in there with. with a self-inflicted gunshot wound. They do believe that he is the shooter, but of course there's still a lot of this that needs to be worked out. We heard from DC Metro officials not too long ago who told us that they are still trying to, this is a very expansive scene. They're trying to try to figure out exactly what's going on here. But we can tell you at last check that one person was killed, four people injured. I don't believe that they are including the gunman in that death toll. So you have I have one person dead, I believe, inside the gym, four others injured. In gunfire, and then the suspect would be the other person who is dead in this situation. But again, it was just a morning of breaking news, Garrett. And this was just one story, I think, that just kind of came out of nowhere. And all of a sudden, all eyes were on Washington. And meanwhile, a final story here, one we want to talk about much closer to home, learning some more about a murder investigation and a suspect due in court in about an hour, I believe, who is accused of killing her boyfriend. Yeah, this is a really disturbing story. And so here's what we can tell you right now. In custody is Isidra Bautista Hernandez. She is 36 years old. She's been arrested and charged with second degree murder by Orlando police. So her boyfriend that she's connected to, and apparently she had called him her husband in the past. We don't know if that is to be true, but we know at least boyfriend, his body was found near a dumpster at this apartment complex Earlier in the week, so officers responded. At about 9:20 in the morning on Monday to the dumpster area of the Pacifico Apartments, this is on Shenandoah Way, that is when they found an adult male dead under suspicious circumstances. We are told in the discovery that came out later this morning that the body had been placed in a trash bag or multiple trash bags. Homicide detectives did track the investigation to a separate location with assistance from SWAT. They executed a search warrant. They said they did recover some physical evidence. They're not telling us what that evidence was, but we can tell you that they did locate Hernandez. They took her into custody. She has now been booked into the Orange County Jail. And we can tell you that we haven't confirmed the trash bags, but that is That is something that was apparently in that discovery, those documents. that come out, which give us a little bit more information about the scene. Police are withholding the victim's name in this case because they are still trying to notify the next of kin. But we are also told that these two individuals, the woman who we just showed the mugshot of and the man who was killed, were apparently in the country illegally. We don't know what country they would have been here from or how long they were here. But all of that, of course, is expected to probably come out in court later today, Garrett. Yes, and we will have updates on what happens coming up in just a little bit. Amy Kauffeld, Fox 35 News anchor, joining us live from the newsroom. We appreciate it, and thanks so much. Thank you, Garrett. We'll see you again soon.