News in brief for November 18

Man charged in shooting death of cleaning woman at front door

(NYT) — A man in Indiana was charged with manslaughter Monday in the death of a cleaning woman who was shot through a front door when she arrived at the wrong house this month.

The man who was charged, Curt Andersen, 62, owned the home in Whitestown, a suburb of Indianapolis, where the cleaner had arrived with her husband before dawn Nov. 5. Andersen was charged with voluntary manslaughter, a felony that can bring between 10 and 30 years in prison, and he was booked into jail.

The woman who was killed, María Florinda Ríos Pérez de Velásquez, 32, was the mother of four children, the youngest of whom is 1 year old, and she had immigrated with her husband from Guatemala about three years ago, according to her brother.

Andersen, a former Navy nurse, told the police that he had been sleeping with his wife on the second floor of the home for a few hours when he was woken up by a noise at their front door, officials say. Through a window, he saw two people at the door and immediately believed that they were trying to break into the house, according to a police detective’s summary of what Andersen said to officers that was filed in court.

He grabbed a Glock handgun, which he told the police he had purchased this year but had never fired, then loaded it and went to the top of his stairwell, where he fired one shot at his front door, the authorities say. The bullet pierced the door and struck Ríos Pérez de Velásquez in the head, killing her.

Andersen told the police that he had not tried to communicate with the people outside before firing the shot, and that he had been “terrified” that they were going to break in. Moments after the shot, he heard weeping from outside the door and told his wife to call 911, the court documents say.

Andersen’s lawyer, Guy Relford, said in a statement that Ríos Pérez de Velásquez’s death was “a terrible tragedy,” but that he believed Andersen’s actions were legally justifiable under Indiana’s self-defense protections, which are often known as stand-your-ground laws or, in the home, laws based on the “castle doctrine.”

Andersen has not yet entered a plea; his initial hearing is scheduled for Friday morning.

Man who rushed Ariana Grande in Singapore gets 9 days in jail

SINGAPORE (NYT) — An Australian influencer who lunged at actor Ariana Grande at a film premiere in Singapore was sentenced Monday to nine days in jail.

The Australian man, Johnson Wen, 26, pleaded guilty to one charge of being a public nuisance after he leaped over a barricade and rushed toward Grande at Thursday’s Asia-Pacific premiere of “Wicked: For Good.”

Videos that circulated widely on social media showed Grande walking on a yellow carpet at Universal Studios Singapore past a crowd of screaming fans. Wen, wearing a shirt reading “Jesus,” leaped over the barricade, wrapped an arm around Grande and jumped up and down, to her apparent astonishment.

As her co-star Cynthia Erivo confronted him, security officers quickly grabbed him, pushed him back over the barricade and took him away.

Grande appeared startled but continued greeting fans after her castmates, including Michelle Yeoh, gathered around her.