LOS ANGELES (AP) — Police in Los Angeles arrested a suspect following a break-in at the home of Mayor Karen Bass early Sunday, officials said.
The suspect was arrested shortly after smashing a window to get inside of Getty House while it was occupied, the Los Angeles Police Department said in a statement on social media. The home is the mayor’s official residence, on Irving Boulevard west of downtown.
“Mayor Bass and her family were not injured and are safe," her office said in a statement. “The Mayor is grateful to LAPD for responding and arresting the suspect.”
Bass told reporters Monday, “I am fine. My family is fine.”
The LAPD identified the suspect in the burglary investigation as 29-year-old Ephraim Matthew Hunter, a city resident. He was being held on $100,000 bail, a Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department website said.
Public records do not show if Hunter has a lawyer who can speak on his behalf. The Los Angeles District Attorney's Office said in an email that LAPD investigators have been in contact with prosecutors to review the investigation.
Bass’ office and the LAPD did not respond to questions about security protocols at the residence.
The Los Angeles Times, citing public records, said Hunter was convicted of assault with a deadly weapon following a 2015 attack on a man in Massachusetts and served seven years in state prison.
The newspaper said Josephine Duah, who identified herself as Hunter’s mother, said she spoke with her son Monday from jail and he told her he allegedly entered the property because he believed he was being pursued by someone who wanted to harm him and did not know who owned the residence. She said her son planned to enter a drug treatment clinic on Monday but never made it.
Bass served as a Democratic member of Congress from 2011 until her election as the city’s 43rd mayor in 2022. The former state Assembly leader is the first woman and second Black person to hold the post, after former Mayor Tom Bradley, who held the position from 1973 to 1993.
The arrest recalled the October 2022 break-in at former U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s San Francisco home, in which her husband, Paul Pelosi, was attacked with a hammer. A jury last year found David DePape guilty of attempted kidnapping of a federal official and assault on the immediate family member of a federal official.
The attack raised questions about the security provided for members of Congress and their families. The U.S. Capitol Police had a camera at the residence but it was not being monitored at the time of the attack because Nancy Pelosi was not home.
Suspect arrested in break-in at Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass's home, police say
Suspect arrested in break-in at Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass's home, police say
FILE - Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass waits to speak during a news conference in Los Angeles, Jan. 24, 2023. Police in Los Angeles arrested a suspect following a break-in at Bass' home, early Sunday, April 21, 2024, officials said. (AP Photo/Marcio Jose Sanchez, File)
CHARLOTTE, N.C. (AP) — United Methodist delegates on Friday repealed their church’s longstanding ban on the celebrations of same-sex marriages or unions by its clergy and in its churches.
The action marked the final major reversal of a collection of LGBTQ bans and disapprovals that have been embedded throughout the laws and social teachings of the United Methodist Church over the previous half-century.
The 447-233 vote by the UMC's General Conference came one day after delegates overwhelmingly voted to repeal a 52-year-old declaration that the practice of homosexuality is "incompatible with Christian teaching” and two days after they repealed the denomination's ban on LGBTQ clergy.
It’s the UMC’s first legislative gathering since 2019, one that featured its most progressive slate of delegates in memory following the departure of more than 7,600 mostly conservative congregations in the United States because it essentially stopped enforcing its bans on same-sex marriage and LGBTQ ordination.
The delegates voted to repeal a section in their Book of Discipline, or church law, that states: “Ceremonies that celebrate homosexual unions shall not be conducted by our ministers and shall not be conducted in our churches.”
Clergy will neither be required nor prohibited from performing any marriage, according to existing law that the conference affirmed with minor revisions Friday.
On Thursday, delegates approved Revised Social Principles, or statements of the church's values. In addition to removing the language about homosexuality being “incompatible with Christian teaching," that revision also defined marriage as a covenant between two adults, without limiting it to heterosexual couples, as the previous version had done.
But while Social Principles are non-binding, the clause removed on Friday had the force of law.
Regional conferences outside the United States have the ability to set their own rules, however, so churches in Africa and elsewhere with more conservative views on sexuality could retain bans on same-sex marriage and LGBTQ clergy. A pending amendment to the church constitution would also enable the U.S. region to make such adaptations.
The change doesn’t mandate or even explicitly affirm same-sex marriages. But it removes their prohibition. It takes effect Saturday following the close of General Conference.
Associated Press religion coverage receives support through the AP’s collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content.
United Methodist delegates listen to a debate during their General Conference meeting Tuesday, April 30, 2024, in Charlotte, N.C. (AP Photo/Peter Smith)
The Rev. David Meredith, left, and the Rev. Austin Adkinson sing during a gathering of those in the LGBTQ community and their allies outside the Charlotte Convention Center, in Charlotte, N.C., Thursday, May 2, 2024. They were celebrating after the General Conference of the United Methodist Church voted to remove the denomination's 52-year-old social teaching that deemed homosexuality "incompatible with Christian teaching." (AP Photo/Peter Smith)
