WSU president responds to encampment removal • Teen's murder still unsolved • Alleged human trafficking bust

THURSDAY NEWS HIT - The president of Wayne State University responded to the removal of a pro-Palestinian encampment Thursday, saying that it "was the right time to take this necessary step."

Police moved into the encampment on the Detroit campus and removed protesters before breaking down tents that were set up there last week. The encampment was erected amid the violence in Gaza. Among the activists' demands are divestment from weapons manufacturing companies supplying Israel, a full disclosure of investments, and ceasing delegation trips to Israel.

University president Kimberly Andrews Espy said the school had conversations with protesters about the encampment. 

"In each conversation, we reiterated that the occupants were trespassing on university property, and we asked that the encampment be removed," she wrote. "The encampment created multiple legal, health, and safety challenges."

WSU moved to remote operations earlier this week due to the encampment.

Teen's murder still unsolved

More than three months after a 15-year-old boy was shot and killed inside a Southfield hotel room, his mother is still begging for answers.

Tyler Johnson was killed Feb. 11 while at a birthday party at the Westin Hotel. Months later, Crime Stoppers is offering a reward for information that helps solve the murder.

"I don't understand how a sleepover with friends end(ed) up with my son being murdered and no one knows who did it," said Johnson's mother, Tomika Alexander. "I can't sleep, I cannot eat, and my son will not rest in peace because justice has not prevailed."

According to police, the teens who were in the room with Johnson at the time of the shooting are not answering investigators' questions, as each witness now has an attorney and is being advised not to talk.

"These were supposed to be his friends. And I feel like if these were friends, we shouldn't be here right now fighting for justice for Tyler," Alexander said. "I think parents are telling their kids not to say anything, and so that's a problem for me. That's why all these parents have failed me and my son." 

Alleged human trafficking operation busted

Two homes and two spas, all in Macomb County, were raided by a law enforcement partnership investigating alleged human trafficking in the area.

Six people were arrested just after 7 a.m. on Wednesday after the Sheriff's Enforcement Team executed search warrants at homes in Macomb Township and Shelby Township, as well as health spas in Shelby Township and Sterling Heights, the office said.

A neighbor's security camera captured law enforcement with shields and battering rams, walking down Gulliver Drive in Shelby Township.

"I came out here and there must have been 25 cars, so it looked like a raid," said one Shelby Township resident, Bill Anton. "The police were here, the sheriff's department, FBI, border patrol."

Several men and women were taken out of a house in the Lakeview Manor subdivision near 21 Mile and Schoenherr. In addition to the six arrested, six other individuals were taken into custody by the U.S. Customs and Border Protection, according to a news release.

Man with suspended license joins Zoom court while driving

A man appearing in court for a driving on a suspended license charge shocked a judge when he appeared at the Zoom hearing while driving.

Ann Arbor Judge Cedric Simpson asked Corey Harris if he was driving when he logged into the hearing.

"Actually, I’m pulling into my doctor’s office," Harris said. "Just give me one second, I'm parking right now."

Simpson was stunned.

"Okay, so maybe I don’t understand something. This is a driving while license suspended [case], and he was just driving, and he didn’t have a license," he said.

Harris' public defenders asked for the case to be adjourned. Instead, Simpson revoked Harris' bond and ordered him to turn himself in to the Washtenaw County Jail.

Prom murder store isn't real

A story quickly making its way around social media about a man murdering a teen at her prom in Livonia isn't true.

The fabricated story first appeared on TikTok. A video details a murder that allegedly occurred after the Livonia High School prom. According to the video that was posted by a TikTok account full of apparent AI-generated content, a man named Douglass Barnes killed a teen girl named Samantha McCaffery. The video says the murder was revenge for Samantha's cop father, Mike McCaffery, killing Barnes's son several years ago. 

However, the story is fake, and it's not the only fabricated story posted on the social media account.

Though the details seem believable, they aren't. Livonia High School doesn't exist in Michigan, and no person named Douglass Barnes lives in Michigan. Also, a reverse-image search for the mugshot in the video also only pulls up stories about the fake murder, suggesting that the image itself may be AI-generated.

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Trump hush-money trial jurors head into 2nd day of deliberations

Jury deliberations in Donald Trump's criminal hush money trial began Wednesday after the panel received instructions from the judge on the law governing the case and what they can take into account in evaluating the former president's guilt or innocence, the Associated Press reported.

The historic deliberations followed Tuesday's whirlwind of closing arguments, which stretched into the evening hours as prosecutor Joshua Steinglass accused Trump of intentionally deceiving voters by allegedly participating in a "catch-and-kill" scheme to bury stories that might obliterate his 2016 presidential bid. Steinglass further suggested that Trump operated with a "cavalier willingness" to hide payoffs and did so in a way that left "no paper trail."

Trump faces 34 felony counts of falsifying business records, charges which are punishable by up to four years in prison. He has denied all wrongdoing and pleaded not guilty.

The defense approached its summation much in the same way it approached cross-examination: by targeting the credibility of star witness Michael Cohen.

Defense lawyer Todd Blanche branded Trump's former lawyer as "the greatest liar of all time" while urging jurors to quickly acquit his client.