Deputies said Rayven Lee Wooten initially escaped, but his driver's license helped them track him down
An Oklahoma copper theft suspect stunned a deputy with a headfirst dive through a closed window, but overlooked one detail that helped deputies track him down.
The encounter unfolded Oct. 1, when Oklahoma County Sheriff’s Office deputies responded to a burglary in progress at a vacant home on Sunset Lane, according to information included in the agency’s bodycam video.
A deputy found Rayven Lee Wooten, 24, of Nicoma Park, inside allegedly stealing copper wire from a dishwasher, authorities said.
Rayven Lee Wooten stands inside the vacant home during an encounter in which a deputy repeatedly ordered him to turn around and get on his knees Oct. 1.(Oklahoma County Sheriff’s Office)
Video shared by the sheriff’s office captures the deputy confronting Wooten and repeatedly ordering him to take his hands out of his pockets, turn around and get on his knees.
"You’re not listening," the deputy said. "Turn around and get on your knees. You will get shot."
Wooten instead ran around the kitchen and dove headfirst through the closed living room window, prompting a startled expletive from the deputy.
"He just bailed out the window. He’s on foot," the deputy radioed.
Bodycam video shows an Oklahoma County Sheriff’s Office deputy confronting suspected copper thief Rayven Lee Wooten inside a vacant home Oct. 1.(Oklahoma County Sheriff’s Office)
Wooten initially escaped, but deputies said he left his backpack behind with his driver’s license inside, helping them track him down.
The sheriff’s office had its own review of the dramatic getaway.
"A suspect took the phrase ‘Make a break for it’ a little too literally!" the agency wrote alongside the video, adding that the man "missed his calling as a Hollywood stuntman."
Viewers had plenty to say about the deputy’s stunned reaction and the clue the suspect left behind.
Bodycam video captures suspected copper thief Rayven Lee Wooten diving through a closed window to escape an Oklahoma County Sheriff’s Office deputy.(Oklahoma County Sheriff’s Office)
"So he did all that, then left his identification behind lol," one commenter wrote.
"The deputy’s reaction … total disbelief," another added.
"Being flabbergasted and the frustration of unlocking the front door = priceless," a third wrote.
Officials said Wooten is charged with burglary, resisting arrest and obstructing an officer.
It should come as no surprise that Iran maintains powerful allies even while under threat of US bombs, and as Washington sanctions have sought its complete isolation. Most obvious among these remain Russia and China - nations which have not necessarily sought to 'hide' or conceal political and even military support to Tehran.
The last several weeks have seen a new Iran conflict-related front opened up in the Middle East. Saudi Arabia and the Ansar Allah movement of Yemen (the Houthis) are now in a state of open war.
Houthi ballistic missiles are raining down on Saudi airports and Aramco facilities on a daily basis, resulting in a full-blown crisis for the kingdom, which is urging allies to come to its defense.
A fresh report in The Wall Street Journal finds that Chinese parts are becoming a key element of some new Houthi missile systems - weapons which have been a surprise and shock to the kingdom and its Western allies, given the number of impacts on targets of late.
"Houthi militants are attempting to produce their own advanced medium-range ballistic missiles using Chinese-delivered parts, a new report shows, a technological advance that would raise the threat posed by the Iran-backed group," WSJ writes.
The report relies heavily on the findings of an international weapons and conflict monitor:
The Houthis shipped in from a Chinese supplier a range of components needed to make a version of one of Iran’s most powerful weapons, the Kheibar Shekan Iranian precision-guided missile, said the report by Conflict Armament Research, a group that works in conflict zones and reports on the use of weapons and their supply chains. The Houthi missile would have a range up to about 1,200 miles, putting all of Saudi Arabia and Israel within reach.
Iran used the Kheibar Shekan—a cheap, mobile, precision weapon first displayed in Tehran in 2022—against American bases with some success during the war with the U.S. last spring, The Wall Street Journal has previously reported.
One caveat here might be to point out that Chinese components in complex electrical or even weapons systems are diffuse across the world - so it remains a big open question how 'direct' or not the supply chain might be in this case.
However, Conflict Armament Research has sought to answer this. "The local ambition of the Houthis for manufacturing is beyond what was previously assumed,” said Fabian Hinz, a senior analyst at the organization. "These types of parts are very specific, and producing them would have required design information related to the missile."
As for China's official stance on the ratcheting conflict, its foreign ministry on Monday condemned Houthi attacks on Saudi airports. "China condemns the attacks that caused heavy casualties and expresses serious concern over the intensification of the conflict," foreign ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning said.
"We call on relevant parties to avoid taking actions that escalate regional tensions, to resolve differences and disputes through dialogue and negotiation, and to achieve peace and stability in the region at an early date," Mao added. It would be an explosive and highly sensitive situation if Beijing were actually directly assisting a non-state actor like the Houthis in missile development. This is something China will likely vehemently deny.
A member of one of the world’s wealthiest royal families was found passed out on a busy London street after a cocaine binge while a barefoot toddler wandered dangerously close to traffic, a British court has heard.
Mahrah Al Nahyan, 32, a member of Abu Dhabi’s ruling family through marriage, was discovered slumped against railings alongside an unconscious man as a three-year-old child played unattended nearby. The shocking incident unfolded June 13 in west London, where concerned members of the public rushed to protect the child before alerting police, according to The Times.
Al Nahyan reportedly remained unconscious for approximately 30 minutes before awakening and launching into a bizarre tirade against those who had intervened.
“This is not a slaughterhouse, why do you care so much? Why are you so worried?” she allegedly shouted, the Daily Mail reports.
Footage captured by a bystander showed the royal lying on the pavement near children’s toys, including a scooter and toy airplane, while another unconscious individual lay nearby.
Prosecutors told Southwark Crown Court that the toddler had wandered dangerously close to moving vehicles and was stopped by a passerby after running toward the road. Police discovered drug paraphernalia among Al Nahyan’s belongings, although no illegal substances were recovered. Al Nahyan pleaded guilty to one count of child neglect Tuesday.
Meanwhile, Al Nahyan’s attorney, Stephen Vullo KC, has insisted that she had not consumed drugs on the day of the incident but was exhausted following cocaine use in the preceding days.
“The immediate future is she intends to complete all of the steps of a three-month programme which will come to an end at the end of this month,” the lawyer said. “Her plan after that is to rent a property in the Guildford area and become a day patient there, where she will attend Narcotics Anonymous.”
“She made a grave mistake that day and she knows it,” he added.
The court heard that Al Nahyan, who receives a monthly allowance of approximately $10,700, has been undergoing addiction treatment at the Priory rehabilitation center in Surrey since July.
The judge condemned her reckless disregard for the child’s safety, warning that the toddler could have been seriously injured or killed without the intervention of strangers.
“By leaving [the child] to play barefoot in the street while under the influence of drugs, you showed a recklessness and disregard for [the child’s] safety,” the judge said. “On one occasion they ran towards the road while chasing a piece of paper until a member of the public contained [the child].”
Despite record-low crime rates, the Democrat Socialists want NYC Mayor Zohran Mamdani to fire NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch for refusing to banish ICE.
Big-city mayors tend to rise and fall based not on the genius or idiocy of their particular policies, but on the quality of life they deliver. If the streets are clean and crime is low and the people feel safe, hizzoner tends to get the credit.
And so it goes in New York City, where Democrat Socialist Mayor Zohran Mamdani is reaping the rewards for having retained his predecessor’s police commissioner. It was former Mayor Eric Adams who appointed Jessica Tisch to the job of top cop, and it is Commish Tisch who’s overseen a record-setting reduction in shootings and murders. As a recent NYPD press release tells it:
Year to date, there were 489 shooting incidents, beating the previous record of 553 set in 2025. There were 594 shooting victims, beating the previous record of 694 set in 2018 and 2025, and there were 203 murders, beating the previous record of 215 set in 2017. Compared to 2021, 846 fewer people have been shot so far this year.
In short: Mamdani is a smarmy Muslim socialist swine, but a savvy police commissioner is saving his bacon.
“I thank Police Commissioner Tisch, and the members of the NYPD,” said Mamdani, “who continue to devote themselves to the work of devising and implementing strategies that keep New Yorkers safe.”
Indeed, a case can be made that New York City is safer, relatively speaking, than it’s ever been — unless, of course, you’re a Jew, in which case you might want to reconsider why it is you keep aligning yourself with a political party whose Jew-hating base flies Palestinian flags on October 7 and whose leaders keep calling your defensive war against the barbarians of Hamas a “genocide.” But that’s another story.
Now, to be fair, crime is down all across the United States. As the Trump administration noted recently, homicides are down 18% compared to this time last year and are on pace to be at their lowest level in at least 126 years. But it’s not just murders. Carjackings are down 47%, motor vehicle thefts are down 20%, robberies are down 17%, and residential burglaries are down 13%.
Still, the technocratic Tisch gets credit for bringing IT to bear on Big Apple crime. As The Wall Street Journal’s Tunku Varadarajan noted last year, Tisch has tweaked CompStat, the city’s crime-counting system, by focusing on individual pockets of crime rather than whole four-square-mile precincts. She calls it “a scalpel approach to fighting crime,” and it certainly seems to be working.
Despite this remarkable success, though, the Democratic Socialists are out with their pitchforks and their torches. They’re demanding that Mamdani fire Tisch for — get this — failing to kick federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents out of the city. As The Wall Street Journal’s editorial board writes, “The DSA pressure began after ICE agents shot Oscar Belgal, a 28-year-old illegal immigrant.” Belgal was a dangerous dirtbag with gang ties, and he “weaponized his vehicle” against those ICE agents during a targeted immigration enforcement operation. But it seems the Left would rather keep dangerous illegals in the country that keep our cities safe.
Why, you might ask, does the Left have such hatred for ICE, whose job is simply to enforce our nation’s duly passed immigration laws?
Answer: Because immigrants, and especially brown-skinned immigrants, tend to vote overwhelmingly Democrat. Why? Because the Democratic Party is the Party of Open Borders and Free Stuff. That’s just a fact. And it’s that stubborn fact that’s driving the Left’s unwillingness to work with ICE to remove even deadly dangerous illegal immigrants from our streets.
The Democrats want to run out the clock between now and the next presidential election because they know if they can do that, and if they can get a Democrat elected to succeed Donald Trump in 2028, they know that it’ll be next to impossible to restart the removal of Joe Biden’s 15 million illegals the next time a Republican is in the White House, which would be 2032 at the earliest.
So the Left’s long game of resisting and vilifying ICE — even if it means that a bunch of American citizens are going to get robbed, raped, or murdered as a result — is in fact a strategy to mint new Democrat voters by granting the Autopen’s illegals a sort of de facto amnesty.
And all this because “progressives” don’t particularly like children, don’t produce them at the rate conservatives do, and must therefore artificially manufacture the next generation of Democrat voters in order to maintain their political viability.
Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel has appealed a judge’s dismissal of all felony charges against former Adams Township Clerk Stephanie Scott, a step prosecutors rarely take.
Former Adams Twp., Michigan, Clerk Stephanie Scott
Nessel filed the appeal on July 24 in the Michigan Court of Appeals, challenging Hillsdale County Circuit Judge Sara Lisznyai’s April 30, 2026, ruling.
Lisznyai dismissed the charges and found the lower court abused its discretion and made an “error of law” by sending Scott’s case to trial.
Prosecutors seldom appeal. National data are limited, but a 2018 peer-reviewed study by law professors Nancy King and Michael Heise found such appeals are rare.
The ruling dismissed every felony count and found both abuse of discretion and legal error. Nessel is appealing anyway.
MI AG Dana Nessel
In a May 8, 2024, press release announcing the charges, Nessel said Scott “intentionally disregarded numerous instructions from the Director of Elections,” referring to Jonathan Brater.
Director of BOE MI Jonathan Brater
Scott believed those instructions violated the law, instructions which have since become rulesets with the force of law, a subject MFEI News & Commentary has examined in past articles and investigative reports.
Nessel also said in the release: “When elected officials and their proxies use their positions to promote baseless conspiracies, show blatant disregard for voter privacy, and break the law in the process, it undermines the very essence of the democratic process. Those who engage in such reckless conduct must be held accountable for their actions.”
Eaton County Prosecutor Doug Lloyd, the Republican candidate for Michigan attorney general, said in a written statement to MFEI News & Commentary:
“This is another example of Dana Nessel putting partisan lawfare ahead of the facts and evidence. As in the electors case, a judge threw this out for lack of merit. As Attorney General, I will put fair law ahead of lawfare and always base my decisions on facts and evidence.”
Eli Savit, the Democrat candidate for attorney general, did not respond to a request for comment by publication time.
Patrice Johnson, Michigan Fair Elections Institute Co-Founder and Chair, took a different view of Nessel’s motives.
“She is using the Scott case to intimidate and control Michigan clerks,” Johnson said in a telephone interview. “She’s sending a message: ‘If you don’t comply with our rules, this could happen to you.'”
“Nessel’s appeal is an only slightly more civilized version of putting an enemy’s head on a spike,” Johnson said. “Her actions are about psychological deterrence and public humiliation.”
If Nessel’s appeal succeeds — and King and Heise found prosecutors nationally win about 40 percent of the appeals they file — Scott will go to trial on four felonies and a misdemeanor. The most serious felony carries up to seven years in prison; the other four carry up to five years each.
The charges are:
• Using a Computer to Commit a Crime, a seven-year felony • Computers – Unauthorized Access, a five-year felony • Conspiracy to Commit the Offense of Computers – Unauthorized Access, a five-year felony • Misconduct in Office, a five-year felony • Disobeying a Lawful Instruction or Order of the Secretary of State as Chief Election Officer, a 90-day misdemeanor
What Did Scott Do?
In March 2021, Scott was a brand-new township clerk running her first election on a school millage. She was elected in November 2020 and took office that December.
As a new clerk, she consulted veteran Hillsdale County Clerk Marney Kast about the township’s tabulator logic and accuracy testing. “It seemed to me, statistically, there weren’t enough test ballots to perform the test,” Scott told MFEI News & Commentary in a phone interview. She believed the test required 21 ballots, but she was given only seven.
Scott said Kast brushed off her early questions about the tabulators. According to Scott, Kast told her, “Oh Stephanie, you and your math.”
Already concerned about the tabulators’ accuracy, Scott then received instructions to turn over her township’s tabulators for routine maintenance. She refused, saying she did not trust the machines and wanted to preserve their data.
She relied on federal statute 52 U.S.C. § 20701 and state statute MCL Section 168.811 both of which require election officials to keep all records of an election for 22 months. Brater maintained the maintenance did not destroy election data and did not violate the law because the paper ballots were preserved. The law requires keeping all records and papers for 22 months. All records . . . not just the ballots,” Scott said.
Acting as township clerk, Scott hired legal counsel and gave attorney Stefanie Lambert a thumb drive containing the township’s electronic poll book information. Lambert passed the drive to a computer forensics expert for examination. Lambert later faced criminal charges herself.
On Oct. 15, 2021, Brater ordered Scott to correct what he called her false claims and warned her of consequences. On Oct. 25, Director Brater stripped Scott of her election duties.
In May 2024, Nessel filed felony charges against Scott.
By January 22, 2025, Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson announced her 2026 gubernatorial candidacy. Six weeks later, on March 5–6, 2025 — more than eight months past the legally required rule announcement deadline of July 1, 2024 — Benson had begun advancing three rule sets — 40 separate rules — governing the conduct of Michigan elections. Rule Set 2025-14 requires clerks to delete electronic poll book data seven days after certification. Nessel’s charges against Scott centered on electronic poll book data.
“There’s a direct line between Stephanie Scott’s refusal to delete her electronic poll book and Benson’s new rule sets,” Johnson said. “When Stephanie stood up and refused to comply, Benson appears to have decided to take action to keep clerks in line.”
The Process Is the Punishment
For more than five years, Scott has lived under the threat of action from the Bureau of Elections. She says she owes her attorney thousands of dollars, and the appeal has only just begun.
Civil and criminal appeals are notorious for dragging on, sometimes for years, and can bankrupt a defendant like Scott.
Then there is the constant psychological weight of criminal charges and possible prison time. People tend to assume the greatest harm in litigation comes from losing. But a 2020 Spanish study of 360 litigants by M. Clemente and D. Padilla-Racero found that those with the longest exposure to litigation reported the worst health.
Court delays, mounting costs, and legal tactics can wear people down long before a case ends, bringing anxiety, insomnia, bankruptcy, and a loss of trust in institutions.
“A lot of people don’t realize my case has been appealed and that I now have a new round of legal expenses. This is a situation I never dreamed I would have to face. I was just trying to follow the law and protect the voters in my township,” Scott said.
Nessel’s Next Move
If Nessel loses the appeal, she will likely ask the Michigan Supreme Court to review the case. If she wins, Scott will stand trial in Hillsdale County and face the possibility of prison.
“Nessel wants to make Stephanie Scott the sacrificial lamb,” Johnson said. “A conviction would validate the very ‘instructions’ Benson later wrote into a regulatory rule. It is hard to overstate what is at stake in this case.”
