Bank shooting victims' IDs withheld under new amendment

Source: Associated Press

Curt Anderson, Ap Legal Affairs Writer
Updated 6:27 pm CST, Thursday, January 24, 2019

MIAMI (AP) — Names of two of the five women killed in a Florida bank shooting are being withheld by law enforcement officials under a new constitutional amendment that has sparked confusion and uneven application around the state.

The "Marsy's Law" amendment, named after a similar 2008 California initiative, allows withholding from the public information that can be used to locate or harass victims or their relatives.

Sebring Police Chief Karl Hoglund cited the amendment at a Thursday news conference to explain why authorities would not release the names of three of Wednesday's shooting victims. Hoglund and the family of one of those women later released the information, as did the husband of one of the victims. One name remains unknown to the public.

Police have charged Zephen Xaver, 21, with five counts of premeditated murder in the shooting deaths of four employees and a customer at a branch of the SunTrust bank in Sebring, a tourist and retirement city of 10,000 south of Orlando. Hoglund identified two victims: customer Cynthia Watson, 65; and one employee: 55-year-old Marisol Lopez. Later he and the family identified a third victim as 38-year-old Ana Pinon Willliams, a mother of seven. Maine Montague has told NBC News that his 31-year-old wife Jessica Montague was also a victim, although authorities have not released her name.


Read more: https://www.chron.com/news/crime/article/Bank-shooting-victims-IDs-withheld-under-new-13559628.php