WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. military said Friday that it has carried out another deadly strike on a vessel accused of trafficking drugs in the Caribbean Sea.
U.S. Southern Command said on social media that the boat “was transiting along known narco-trafficking routes in the Caribbean and was engaged in narco-trafficking operations.” It said the strike killed three people. A video linked to the post shows a boat moving through the water before exploding in flames.
Friday’s attack raises the death toll from the Trump administration’s strikes on alleged drug boats to 133 people in at least 38 attacks carried out since early September in the Caribbean Sea and eastern Pacific Ocean.
U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth declared last week that “some top cartel drug-traffickers” in the region “have decided to cease all narcotics operations INDEFINITELY due to recent (highly effective) kinetic strikes in the Caribbean.” However, Hegseth did not provide any details or information to back up this claim, made in a post on his personal account on social media.
President Donald Trump has said the U.S. is in “armed conflict” with cartels in Latin America and has justified the attacks as a necessary escalation to stem the flow of drugs. But his administration has offered little evidence to support its claims of killing “narcoterrorists.”
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth speaks at the Bath Iron Works in Bath, Maine, Monday, Feb. 9, 2026. (AP Photo/Patrick Whittle)
NEW YORK (AP) — A second suspect in the stray-bullet killing of a 7-month-old baby on a Brooklyn street was arrested Friday, police said, two days after a shooting the police commissioner called “a tragedy that truly shocks the conscience.”
Matthew Rodriguez, 18, was apprehended in Pennsylvania by New York Police Department detectives working with U.S. Marshals, the NYPD said.
The suspected shooter, 21-year-old Amuri Greene, was arrested shortly after the drive-by gunfire that killed Kaori Patterson-Moore. Greene pleaded not guilty to murder and other charges at an arraignment Friday night.
Kaori was in her stroller when a two men sped down a street on a moped Wednesday afternoon. Greene, riding on the back of the vehicle, fired into a group of people on a street corner, according to a court complaint.
Kaori's mother, Lianna Charles-Moore, told the New York Post that after hearing what she initially believed were fireworks, she was comforting her startled 2-year-old son — who had been grazed by a bullet — when she looked to her left and saw her baby daughter bleeding. The infant had been shot in the head.
“My daughter was innocent. She didn’t deserve that," Charles-Moore told the newspaper. She said her daughter was just about starting to crawl and had recently begun saying “Mama.”
Greene told police he was aiming for another person in the crowd, according to the court complaint.
Police said the moped sped and crashed into a car two blocks away, hurling both men off the vehicle. Greene was injured and soon was hospitalized in police custody, but the moped driver fled.
Authorities haven't yet released court papers that detail Rodriguez's alleged role. But they haven't indicated they were looking for anyone other than the gunman — alleged to have been Greene — and the moped driver.
Greene was being held without bail after his arraignment. A voice message seeking comment was left with his attorney.
Police didn't immediately have information on how the men are connected or where Rodriguez lives; no working telephone number for him could immediately be found. Police charges against him were pending.
Mayor Zohran Mamdani and Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch expressed heartbreak and outrage over Kaori's death.
“This is a terrible day in our city, a tragedy that truly shocks the conscience,” Tisch said at a news briefing Wednesday.
This image taken from video provided by the New York Police Department shows New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani, flanked by Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch, left, and Chief of Detectives Joseph Kenny, speaking during a news conference, Wednesday, April 1, 2026, in New York. (NYPD via AP)
