Virginia Beach Councilman John Uhrin Claims He Didn’t Beat His Wife After Domestic Violence Arrest – Says He Won’t Resign – Wife “Fell And Scraped Her Knee”

VIRGINIA BEACH, VIRGINIA – The lawyer for a Beach councilman accused of domestic violence says his client never hit his wife.

Councilman John Uhrin’s lawyer told reporters that Uhrin and his wife deny the whole thing happened.

He says Uhrin will not resign.

Police arrested Uhrin over the weekend after police say he punched his wife outside of their Indian Avenue home.

Uhrin’s lawyer told reporters Uhrin and his wife had a loud argument – and during the course of that argument – Uhrin’s wife fell and scraped her knee.

The councilman is free today. He met with Beach Mayor Will Sessoms about the charges.

Sessoms released this statement:

“As a husband and a father of three daughters, I find any allegation of domestic violence deeply troubling. My thoughts and prayers are with the entire Uhrin family, and I have the utmost confidence that the Virginia Beach law enforcement and legal communities will handle this incident expeditiously and without prejudice.”

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New/Continuing Concerns That Pentagon Still Isn’t Following Federal Voting Laws – 92% Drop In Absentee Ballot Requests By Virginia Military Personnel

FREDERICKSBURG, VIRGINIA — A 92 percent drop in absentee-ballot requests by military personnel in Virginia is raising concerns that the Pentagon is failing to carry out a federal voting law.

With only 1,746 military voters in Virginia requesting absentee ballots so far this year — out of 126,251 service members in the state —the Military Voter Protection Project says the system has broken down.

And it’s not just in the Old Dominion. MVPP Executive Director Eric Eversole reports significant declines in absentee-ballot requests by service members across the nation.

Compiling data from Virginia, Florida, North Carolina, Illinois, Ohio, Alaska, Colorado and Nevada, Eversole’s organization found that military families have requested 55,510 absentee ballots so far this year. That’s a sharp decline from the 166,252 sought in those states in 2008.

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Chesapeake Virginia Police Arrest Man For Stealing SUV He’d Just Purchased, With No Evidence Of Theft – Priority Chevrolet Tried To Get Out Of legal And Binding Sales Contract By Lying And Saying He’d Stolen The Car

CHESAPEAKE, VIRGINIA – The president of Priority Chevrolet apologized Wednesday for the arrest of a customer in June whom the dealership mistakenly undercharged for an SUV and who resisted the company’s efforts to get him to sign a new, costlier contract.

Dennis Ellmer said he’s heard from Chesapeake police that one of his managers told an officer that Danny Sawyer of Chesapeake had stolen a 2012 Chevrolet Traverse.

“I owe Mr. Sawyer a big apology,” said Ellmer, who manages the entire Priority Auto Group – which includes 11 dealerships in Virginia and North Carolina.

He said his staff erred when they sold the SUV to Sawyer for about $5,600 too little and erred again when they went to police. He said Sawyer should not have been arrested and definitely should not have spent four hours in jail.

“It is my plan to let him keep the $5,600 and to make Mr. Sawyer right. I can’t tell you how I plan to fix it, but it is my intention to make it right,” said Ellmer, adding that he would like to sit down and talk with Sawyer.

Rebecca Colaw, Sawyer’s attorney, said she appreciates that Ellmer is taking responsibility for what happened. But she said he will have to do more than say he’s sorry and let Sawyer keep the SUV.

“An apology is not enough,” she said.

Earlier this month, Sawyer, 40, a registered nurse, filed two lawsuits against the dealership accusing it of malicious prosecution, slander, defamation and abuse of process, among other things. The lawsuits seek $2.2 million in damages, plus attorney fees.

Ellmer and his vice president, Stacy Cummings, said they were unaware of the lawsuits until they read about them Tuesday on the front page of The Virginian-Pilot. Two managers at Priority Chevrolet declined Monday to comment on the lawsuits, and two phone calls and an email to an attorney for the dealership were not returned.

According to the lawsuits, Sawyer test-drove a blue Chevrolet Traverse on May 7 but ultimately decided to buy a black one. He traded in his 2008 Saturn Vue, signed a promissory note and left in his new SUV.

The next morning, Sawyer returned and asked to exchange the black Traverse for the blue one.

The lawsuit claims Wib Davenport, a sales manager, agreed to the trade without discussing how much more the blue Traverse would cost. Cummings disputed that, saying Davenport told Sawyer it would cost about $5,500 more than the black one and that Sawyer orally agreed to the higher price.

Regardless, the final contract Sawyer signed did not reflect the higher price, which Cummings said should have been in the area of $39,000. He blamed a clerical error.

“We definitely made a mistake there. There is no doubt about it,” said Ellmer.

After signing the contract – which listed a sale price of about $34,000 – Sawyer immediately left the dealership and returned with a cashier’s check covering what he owed after dealer incentives and his trade-in.

A week later, Sawyer came back from a vacation to find numerous voicemails and a letter from the dealership, the suit said. In a phone conversation, Davenport explained they had made a mistake on the contract and sold the car for too little. He asked Sawyer to return to the dealership and sign a new contract.

The lawsuit claims Sawyer refused. Cummings said Sawyer initially agreed but never followed through.

When Sawyer did not return to the dealership, Priority staff continued their attempts to contact him via phone, text message and hand-delivered letters. They eventually contacted police.

On June 15, three Chesapeake police officers arrested Sawyer in his front yard and took him before a magistrate judge. He was released on bond after about four hours at the Chesapeake jail, the suit said.

Commonwealth’s Attorney Nancy Parr said her office dropped all charges Aug. 23 after speaking with representatives of the dealership and determining there was insufficient evidence to pursue the case.

In an interview Tuesday, Ellmer and Cummings said their staff never reported the SUV stolen and never asked for Sawyer to be arrested. They said they called police only for help locating the SUV while they pursued the civil action.

After speaking with police Wednesday, however, Ellmer said he’d learned one of his managers, Brad Anderson, had indeed said the SUV was stolen.

Kelly O’Sullivan, a spokeswoman for the Chesapeake Police Department, said the officer told Anderson in advance he was going to secure a warrant for Sawyer’s arrest.

Ellmer described what happened to Sawyer as an isolated incident. He noted that his dealerships sell about 13,000 cars a year.

“This shouldn’t have happened,” he said.

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Altavista Virginia Police Officers Gun Down 83 Year Old Woman In Her Own Backyard After She Called 911 To Report Burglary

ALTAVISTA, VIRGINIA – A police officer shot and killed an 83-year-old woman in her own backyard.

Delma Towler dialed 911 to report a burglary but when police arrived, one officer killed her outside her home in Altavista, Va.

“It’s not over yet. I’m going to get some justice because our mother did not deserve to die like this … to be gunned down like she was an animal or a criminal,” Towler’s daughter Linda Langford told The News and Advance.

Towler had never fired her gun before that night. She fired a warning shot out the window to scare the burglar off. Then she started walking through her backyard toward her sister’s house. She grasped the gun for protection from the reported intruder — not the police, her family maintains.

WWII VET KILLS HOME INTRUDER, CITES SELF DEFENSE

The police “heard shots fired from within the residence. As the officers took cover, they saw a woman armed with a handgun leave the back of the house,” according to a statement released by the Virginia State Police.

The two responding officers claim that they fired Towler after she refused to put her weapon down. The woman reportedly did not have her glasses on or hearing aid in at the time.

The police statement also alleges that Towler pointed her gun at the officers — a point her son Robert Barbour does not buy.

“Mom ain’t gonna hurt no police officer or nobody else. She was a good Christian woman and she wouldn’t hurt a soul,” Barbour said.

The officer who killed Towler is currently on administrative leave, according to WDBJ7.

“If I have to spend every penny, someone’s going to pay,” said Langford. “They took my mama.”

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Giving Back: Harrisonburg Virginia Mosque Vandalized As Filthy Muslims Protest, Riot, And Kill People Around The World

HARRISONBURG, VIRGINIA – A mosque in Virginia has been vandalized amid angry protests in the Muslim world over a film produced in the United States denigrating the Prophet Muhammad.

On Friday, worshippers at the Islamic Center of the Shenandoah Valley in Harrisonburg arrived at their weekly prayer service to find graffiti on their building.

Rockingham County authorities say recent vandalism at the mosque and a Christian school could be linked to an earlier incident at a high school.

Sheriff Bryan Hutcheson tells The Daily News Record (http://bit.ly/UetXJM ) that investigators initially believed the defacing of the Spotswood High School sign was just a high school prank. Now, they are looking into whether that incident last Wednesday is connected to graffiti found Friday afternoon at the Islamic Center of Shenandoah Valley in Harrisonburg and Saturday morning at Redeemer Classical School in Keezletown.

Hutcheson says authorities believe the mosque and Christian school incidents are connected. Graffiti in both incidents was the same coloring and had the same content.

The Washington-based Council on American-Islamic Relations is calling for an FBI investigation.

On Saturday, The Washington Post reported that about 30 cars parked on streets surrounding the Dar al-Hijrah mosque in Falls Church had windows smashed. Police later said the vandalism appeared to be random and scattered over a large area.

The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) called on local, state and federal law enforcement authorities to investigate vandalism at a Virginia mosque as a possible hate crime.

Reports indicate that the Islamic Center of the Shenandoah Valley in Harrisonburg, Va., was vandalized sometime Thursday night with obscene hate graffiti, including racial slurs against African-Americans and vulgar references to Iraqis. The FBI has been contacted about the incident.

SEE: Vandalism on Harrisonburg Mosque
http://tinyurl.com/8jcn49e

“Given the nature of the vandalism and ongoing international events, it is important that a bias motive be investigated in this case,” said CAIR National Communications Director Ibrahim Hooper.

Hooper said that CAIR’s Washington state chapter recently held a news conference in Seattle to call for a bias crime investigation of hate graffiti, including the slurs “sand n**gers,” “doon [sic] coons,” scrawled on a rental vehicle used by a group of Seattle-area Muslims on a recent vacation trip to Chelan, Wash.

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US Secret Service Pissing Away Taxpayer Funds Investigating Empty Chairs Hung In Trees In Texas And Virginia

WASHINGTON, DC – At least two recent incidents in which empty chairs were hung from trees by rope have critics decrying what they say are racially offensive displays meant to symbolize the “lynching” of President Barack Obama.

In Austin, Texas, a homeowner hung an empty folding chair from a tree branch in front of his house and later attached an American flag to it. He reportedly told a Democratic political blogger who said she had concerns, “You can take it and go straight to hell and take Obama with you.”

In Centreville, Va., an empty chair with a sign reading “Nobama” was strung from a tree in or near a park. “In short, this appears to be a crude metaphor for the lynching of President Obama,” wrote the blogger who posted the photo.

The image of an empty chair has been associated with Obama ever since Clint Eastwood’s headline-grabbing, non-conformist speech at the Republican National Convention three weeks ago in Tampa, Fla. The 82-year-old actor-director talked to an empty chair as if the Democratic president were sitting in it, criticizing and mocking the “invisible Obama” for 12 minutes.

“When somebody doesn’t do the job, you’ve got to let them go,” Eastwood said before making a throat-slashing gesture.

Hollywood star Clint Eastwood speaks at the RNC in Tampa, Fla.

In Austin, Katherine Haenschen, editor of Burnt Orange Report, a Texas liberal-leaning political blog, said someone forwarded her a photo this week of an empty folding chair hanging from a tree in front of a home in the city’s northwest. A few days later the homeowner apparently added a small American flag to the display, according to a picture taken by a neighbor and forwarded to Haenschen on Thursday. [Picture above].

Haenschen said she called the man who she said lives in the home with his wife on Wednesday night to express her concerns about the display. Here’s what she said he told her:

“He replied, and I quote, “I don’t really give a damn whether it disturbs you or not. You can take [your concerns] and go straight to hell and take Obama with you. I don’t give a [expletive]. If you don’t like it, don’t come down my street.”

NBC News tried reaching out to the man for comment, but a telephone message left Thursday morning was not returned.

Haenschen said the display has apparently caused “great consternation” in the neighborhood.

“There are other neighbors up there who are Republicans who find this as offensive as anybody else does,” Haenschen told NBC News.

“Someone always wants to say, ‘you’re making a big deal out of it, it’s just a chair.’ But I don’t see how you can dismiss the racial message of lynching a symbol of the first African-American president. It’s really tough for me to see how folks might, after the Eastwood speech, not view this as a racially charged message and a symbol of a threat to the president’s life.”

Rosemary Edwards, chairwoman of the Travis County Republican Party in Austin, said she was not aware of the display. She said if anything racial is suggested by the display, it would be “deplorable.”

In Virginia, a photo posted on Tuesday on Blue Virginia, a Democratic-leaning political blog, shows an empty chair with a handmade “Nobama” sign strung from a tree by a rope.

Courtesy of Blue Virginia

A chair with an anti-Obama slogan hangs from a tree in Centreville, Va.

The blogger, who goes by the username “lowkell,” said photos of the display were taken with a cellphone by someone who was leaving the KORUS festival, an annual gathering organized by a local Korean-American association, at Bull Run Regional Park in Centreville over the weekend.

“Obviously, it’s beyond grotesque (it also boggles my mind that this was allowed to be put up, let alone to stay up, at a festival presumably visited by thousands of people – wtf?),” lowkell wrote.

Lowkell told NBC News the photo was forwarded to him by a source who “wants to remain anonymous.”

The display was on private property neighboring the park, a park official told the Centreville Patch. The park is about eight miles from Centreville High School, where Obama appeared at a campaign rally in July. It was not known who put up the display.

The Secret Service said it was looking into the empty chair incidents. “The Secret Service is aware of this and will conduct appropriate followup,” spokesman Brian Leary told NBC News.

Lynching, the killing of people, usually by hanging or shooting, by mobs who take the law into their own hands, occurred most frequently in the U.S. from the late 1800s through the 1950s. Most of the lynchings took place in the South, and most of the victims were black.

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Department Of Homeland Security Pilot Used US Customs Helicopter In Virginia To Help His Son Invite Girl To Homecoming

PRINCE WILLIAM COUNTY, VIRGINIA – U.S. Customs and Border Protection is investigating claims one of its helicopters was used to help a teenager invite his girlfriend to homecoming.

A CBP pilot allegedly used a helicopter — while it was on a routine mission — to hover over his son’s high school in northern Virginia and drop a teddy bear with the invitation last week.

The pilot’s son attends Patriot High School in Prince William County.

“We are aware of reports that a locally-based CBP helicopter was used improperly by local CBP personnel Sept. 12,” CBP spokesman Michael Friel said.

The pilot who had command of the helicopter was reassigned to administrative duties while CBP investigates the alleged incident.

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EPA Rule Changes Results In Coal Producer Cutting Production And Elminating 1,200 Jobs In Virginia, West Virginia, And Pennsylvania

MORGANTOWN, WEST VIRGINIA – Coal producer Alpha Natural Resources said Tuesday it was cutting production by 16 million tons and eliminating 1,200 jobs companywide, laying off 400 workers immediately by closing mines in Virginia, West Virginia and Pennsylvania.

The mine shutdowns start Tuesday, while the rest of the layoffs will be completed by the end of the first quarter after Alpha fulfills current sales obligations, Chief Executive Officer Kevin Crutchfield said. In all, the layoffs amount to nearly a tenth of Alpha’s 13,000-person workforce.

Alpha said it was closing four mines in West Virginia, three in Virginia and one in Pennsylvania. They are a mix of deep and surface mines, and all are non-union operations.

Alpha didn’t immediately name the mines because it wanted to inform all the workers first.

Company spokesman Ted Pile said most of the displaced workers may eventually be rehired, either assigned to new jobs in other locations or replacing outside contractors. Only 150 workers in West Virginia and three in Pennsylvania will not have any other employment opportunities with the company, he said.

Though some miners will stay on to seal the operations, most will either be reassigned or laid off immediately.

Support positions will also be cut proportionally as Alpha reduces its operating regions from four to two, Crutchfield said, and two executives will retire Nov. 1.

It wasn’t immediately what other states would be affected by the layoffs.

Crutchfield said the shutdowns and layoffs are a necessary part of ensuring Alpha survives in what has become a difficult U.S. market, where coal companies face a dual challenge: Power plants are shifting to cheap, abundant natural gas, while companies like his face “a regulatory environment that’s aggressively aimed at constraining the use of coal.”

“We think the actions we’re taking are aimed at getting ahead of this on a proactive basis and getting set up for 2013 going forward,” he said.

Bristol, Va.-based Alpha will cut production 16 million tons by early 2013 and reduce overhead by $150 million as it shifts away from thermal coal used in domestic power generation to concentrate on metallurgical coal used in steelmaking overseas.

Globally, “there remains a structural undersupply” of metallurgical coal, Crutchfield said, and Alpha expects to see demand grow by more than 100 million tons by the end of the decade.

Alpha’s $7.1 billion acquisition of Massey Energy helped create “one of the most valuable met coal franchises in the world,” Crutchfield said, effectively doubling its production potential. Alpha now has the world’s third-largest supply of coal.

Alpha has 25 million to 30 million tons of export capacity through the East Coast and the Gulf of Mexico, giving it the ability to scale up exports quickly, he said. The global sales and marketing initiatives will be led by Brian Sullivan, the current president of Alpha Australia LLC. He’s transferring to the U.S. to fill the vacant post of chief commercial officer.

About 40 percent of Alpha’s production cuts will come from high-cost eastern mines “that are unlikely to be competitive for the foreseeable future,” Crutchfield said, while about half will occur in the Powder River Basin, the largest coal-producing region in the U.S. The basin is located in northeast Wyoming.

Alpha’s Wyoming operations, Alpha Coal West, consist of the Eagle Butte and Belle Ayre surface coal mines. Together, the mines have about 650 employees and produce about 50 million tons of coal a year, according to the Wyoming Mining Association. The number of layoffs that might occur there was unclear.

“We’re still trying to figure out, with the reduction in production, what our operations will look like,” said Mike Lepchitz, spokesman for the Belle Ayre Mine.

Crutchfield said “the elimination of jobs on this scale is something I take very seriously.”

“Unfortunately,” he said, “we think we have to do it to set the company on the right foot going forward.”

In the long run, the new strategy will create a leaner, more agile company that can readily adapt to changing market circumstances, he said.

Alpha will try to find openings for some of the laid off workers in other locations or in contractor positions, but that will take time.

Some politicians were quick to pounce on the announcement as further evidence that President Barack Obama’s administration is waging a “war on coal” through new air-pollution standards, but many U.S. power companies have long planned to close or convert some of their aging, inefficient coal-fired plants.

Crutchfield acknowledged that natural gas is currently a less expensive option for those utilities but predicted that will change. Eventually, the price of gas will rise, he said, and in the long term, so will Americans’ power bills.

“I absolutely, unequivocally believe that,” he said, citing coal prices that have been historically “relatively flat” and natural gas prices that have been “very volatile.”

Although Alpha stock had dropped more than 5 percent by midday, at least one analyst commended the new corporate strategy. Sterne Agee’s Michael Dudas said believes the market is underestimating Alpha’s value.

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State Of Virginia Loses Lawsuit – State Has Kept Prisoners In Segregation For More Than A Decade Because Of Beards

RICHMOND, VIRGINIA – Virginia inmates will soon get to wear beards.

The state Department of Corrections settled a lawsuit earlier this week with inmate William Couch, a Sunni Muslim who says his religion requires him to maintain a beard. The state will amend its grooming policy to allow male prisoners to sport up to ¼-inch beards beginning in October.

Virginia has maintained that long hair and beards are threats to security and health and were therefore banned.

Several Rastafarian and other inmates unsuccessfully challenged the policy and were held in segregation for more than a decade for refusing to cut their hair for religion reasons.

A federal appeals court revived Couch’s lawsuit in May, saying federal law protecting prisoners’ religious rights requires the government to use “the least restrictive means” to guarantee security.

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State Of Virginia Targets Existing Abortion Clinics With New Building Codes Intended For New Hospitals

RICHMOND, VIRGINIA – The Virginia state health board voted on Friday to require existing abortion clinics to meet stricter hospital building codes, a move clinic supporters say could force facilities to make expensive changes or close.

The board in June had exempted existing abortion clinics from meeting the building code rules for new hospitals that can require modifications such as wider hallways and additional parking. It voted 13 to 2 on Friday to reverse that decision.

Virginia Attorney General Kenneth Cuccinelli, a Republican known for his conservative social views, had argued against that earlier decision, saying the health board did not have the authority to challenge the intent of a 2011 law that treats abortion clinics as hospitals.

Abortion-rights supporters, who had packed the hearing room, stood and chanted “shame, shame, shame” as the vote was read and security officers escorted them from the room.

“I’m exhausted because I’ve been going to these meetings for over a year,” said Shelley Abrams, director of A Capital Women’s Health, a Richmond abortion clinic. “We’ve complied with every rule except these architectural requirements.”

Anti-abortion activists said the board’s decision would protect women who choose to get an abortion.

“I’m against it, but if you’re going to do it, it should be safe,” Williamsburg resident Jerry Moran said. “Safety of women should be the primary objective.”

The board typically has exempted existing medical facilities from new construction codes approved by state lawmakers, limiting them to additions, renovations and new building.

More than half of the clinics have submitted plans to comply with the state codes.

“It is unprecedented to force existing health centers to comply with building regulations intended for new construction, and the board acted well within its authority in voting to amend these regulations in June,” said Tarina Keene, executive director of NARAL Pro-Choice Virginia.

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Richmond City Virginia Deputy Sheriff Al-Tamar D. Glover Arrested, Suspended, And Charged With Drunk And Reckless Driving

RICHMOND, VIRGINIA —A Richmond City Deputy Sheriff was arrested early Wednesday morning by Colonial Heights Police for driving under the influence of alcohol.

28-year-old Al-Tamar D. Glover is a one-year deputy with the Richmond City Sheriff’s Office. Officers arrested him around 2:00 AM in Colonial Heights, and charged him with one count each of reckless driving and driving under the influence.

Glover has been placed on administrative leave without pay pending the outcome of the criminal charge in Colonial Heights.

Sheriff C.T. Woody made the following statement regarding the incident: “Deputy Glover is, of course, presumed innocent until proven guilty. Although he was off-duty when the alleged incident occurred, he is still required to uphold the law and is responsible for his own conduct.”

Deputy Glover is being held at the Riverside Regional Jail, awaiting an appearance before the magistrate.

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Pedophile Coeburn Virginia Police Officer Edward Shane Kiser Arrested After Seeking Sex With A Child On Facebook

GATE CITY, VIRGINIA — A former Coeburn police officer is facing felony charges for allegedly sending sexually explicit messages to a 15-year-old girl over Facebook.

Edward Shane Kiser, 27, of Coeburn, was arrested and charged Friday by the Virginia State Police with using a computer in an attempt to gain sex from a minor.

The charge is considered a Class 5 felony and carries a possible sentence of one to 10 years in prison.

Although Kiser lives in Coeburn, the Scott County Commonwealth Attorney’s Office is prosecuting the case since the alleged victim is a resident of Scott County.

“The VSP received contact (from the girl’s parents) that there was, at that time, an officer from the town of Coeburn who had been Facebooking their daughter,” Scott County Commonwealth’s Attorney Marcus McClung said. “He had made contact with the girl through his occupation, and he then began what we believe was an inappropriate relationship through Facebook.”

Kiser was employed as a patrol officer with the Coeburn Police Department when he allegedly began sending the messages.

Coeburn Town Manager Loretta Mays confirmed that Kiser submitted his resignation from the force without reason prior to being charged and arrested Friday.

The VSP began investigating Kiser on Aug. 16 after the teenage girl’s parents reported his alleged actions to the Scott County Sheriff’s Office.

According to McClung and VSP Special Agent Jason Jenkins, Kiser first met the girl — and subsequently learned her identity and age — following a noise complaint involving juveniles at a gas station in Coeburn.

As a result of that incident, authorities said Kiser was able to find the girl’s Facebook profile and began sending her private messages on the social networking site propositioning her for sex.

“We allege that he knew how old she was,” McClung said. “When he stopped her, he had an opportunity to locate her age, and despite that he decided to carry on the inappropriate communication.”

After the girl’s parents discovered the messages and went to authorities, Jenkins was given permission to assume her identity on Facebook and begin carrying on conversations with Kiser.

That portion of the investigation lasted nearly a week before authorities decided to formally charge Kiser.

Jenkins said the cooperation of the girl’s parents was key to the investigation getting under way.

“It’s very important to have the parents involved,” Jenkins said. “Without the parents, a lot of times we wouldn’t know the extent of how bad these situations can be, because without parent involvement we might not find out.”

Following his arrest, state law enforcement executed a search warrant on Kiser’s residence and seized a computer and cell phones.

Kiser was taken before a Scott County magistrate after being taken into custody Friday and was released on his own recognizance.

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University Of Virginia Tells Obama Campaign To Keep Moving, Declines President’s Request To Speak At College

VIRGINIA – A University of Virginia spokeswoman says President Barack Obama will not be at the university when he comes to Charlottesville on Wednesday. In a statement released Friday, it was confirmed that the university declined the president’s request to speak at UVA.

UVA says the Obama campaign requested the use of one of two outdoor venues – the Amphitheater or the Harrison-Small Library plaza. The university declined the request for a number of reasons including class cancellations, which UVA estimates could be more than 186 classes on the second day of school. The other main reason is they would have to take on the full cost of security, and because of university policy and their federal and state tax exempt status, they would have to offer the same opportunity to the other candidate so as not to show favor for either candidate.

Virginia’s top Democrat is playing down the snub. While stopping in Albemarle County, Virginia Democratic Party Chairman Brian Moran told NBC29, “We’re proud that he’s coming. We’re very excited that he’s coming to Charlottesville, regardless of where in Charlottesville. Charlottesville is known for the University of Virginia, so I don’t think that’s going to be missed on anyone.”

Other than the denied request from the university, questions still remain about the where and when of the event.

The Albemarle County Democratic Party blocked off 1:00 p.m. to 4:00 p.m. on their website’s calendar for Obama’s visit, but there is still a lot of speculation and uncertainty.

UVA spokesperson Carol Wood confirmed President Obama will not be speaking at the university. Meanwhile, other information coming in Friday is narrowing down the details.

According to the UVA Communications Office earlier on Friday, they offered up John Paul Jones Arena, but were told it “was not academic enough” by the Obama for America campaign.

Meanwhile, Albemarle County Police Chief Steve Sellers says they know of a “proposed” location, but can’t say where because of Secret Service restrictions. It could be the nTelos Wireless Pavilion.

nTelos Wireless Pavilion General Manager Kirby Hutto tells NBC29 they’ve been asked to save the date, but nothing’s been confirmed. Regardless of where or when it is, the Obama campaign office says it’s ready.

Charlottesville Democratic Co-chair Jim Nix said, “Virginia is one of the battleground states and we’re quite excited that Charlottesville is considered one of the more important destinations in Virginia, a place that will play a big role in electing the next president, so we’re very excited about it and looking forward to it.”

Nix says there’s no confirmed time or date for selling tickets for the event, but it’s possible that the time will be set for Sunday at noon, if everything is in place by then.

The full details about the president’s visit are expected to be released no later than this weekend. We will bring you more information as soon as it becomes available.

The NBC29 newsroom has received the following statement from University of Virginia Spokesperson Carol Wood:
Many of you have asked about whether President Obama will be holding an upcoming campaign rally in Charlottesville at the University of Virginia.

I am writing to tell you that the University met with five members of the Obama Presidential Campaign on Wednesday. The campaign team had toured the University Grounds prior to meeting with University officials and zeroed in on two particular outdoor venues — the Amphitheatre or the Harrison-Small Library plaza — that would accommodate 5,000 to 10,000 people. Both of these locations sit in the middle of the daily academic enterprise. After reviewing the campaign’s request for either of these two sites and the impact on the University, the University declined the request for the following reasons:

As you know, Aug. 29 is the second day of classes overall and the first day of classes on the Monday/Wednesday/Friday academic schedule.

The use of either of the desired sites would require closing buildings adjacent to the sites for the entire day.

The cancellation of 186 classes would occur if the site is the Amphitheatre or closing of the libraries and Newcomb dining if the site is the Harrison-Small plaza. This would result in an extraordinary disruption of the second day of the new semester.

In addition to the disruption to classes, the University would have to bear the full cost of security — a substantial and open-ended expenditure of staff time and money.

By University policy, we would also have to offer the same accommodations and bear the same costs for other candidates. Both our federal and state tax-exempt status requires that we not favor any candidate.

The Secret Service would have final approval on the site chosen and would dictate the security requirements, but at a minimum the buildings adjacent to the event venue would need to be closed on Aug. 29. Adjacent buildings would be searched and secured with officers posted in each starting at least 6 hours prior to the event.

Additional details: The use of McIntire Amphitheater would require the closing of the following buildings on Aug. 29: Bryan Hall, Cocke Hall, Garrett Hall, Minor Hall, and possibly Maury Monroe halls. The parking lots behind Bryan and Clark would have to be closed for the day, as well as a portion of McCormick Road.

The use of the Harrison-Small Special Collections Library would require the closing of the Alderman Library, Special Collections Library, the temporary dining facility, Peabody Hall, and possibly Monroe Hall, the rooms along the West Range and a portion of McCormick Road.

Costs: the host site would be responsible for all security costs as determined by the Secret Service. The security costs would include, but not be limited to: staffing the intersections along the motorcade route (anticipate more than 200 officers would be required at a cost of $90,000 or more); security required at U.Va. and at the airport (obtaining officers from the local police departments and state police at U.Va.’s expense); canine dogs (obtaining them from police departments statewide).

While there are certainly financial implications to a state university that has seen faculty and staff salary freezes for the past five years, the primary reasons for declining the offer were related to disruption of the first days of classes.

A national election is something we want our students to be involved in — and hope that it is something they will rally around. The timing of this request simply could not be accommodated at these two requested locations because of the start of classes. This was not an easy decision, especially given our Jeffersonian legacy.

The University informed Jim Loftis, the leader of the campaign advance team, who said that he completely understood the decision given the impact it would have on the academic schedule.

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Virginia Police Interrogate Family That Allowed Kids To Play Outside – Harassed By Authorities Because Its One Of Only Two Neighborhood Families That Allow Children Outside

A family has been harassed by social services and police for the egregious crime of allowing their children to play outside in another example of how the nanny state is running wild in America.

Lenore Skenazy, editor of the Free Range Kids website, was contacted by a mother in Virginia who related her story of how she was interrogated by police four times and visited by social services twice after her children were spotted playing outside unsupervised.

The mother said that despite the fact she is careful about allowing her kids to stay over at other people’s houses because of a related childhood trauma of her own, she is being harassed by authorities because she is “one of only two families that allows my children to play outside at all in our neighborhood (which is very safe).”

“Just today, I allowed all four of my children (they were all together) to go play in the field adjacent to my house. I could literally see them outside my kitchen window. My 10 year old ran home to tell my husband and I that a cop had stopped and was interrogating my oldest daughter,” the mother writes.

“No, this was not after dark, it was at 4pm on a Saturday. So my husband walked out to see what was going on, and the police officer even wrote up a report, stating that the children were left outside unsupervised.”

Although she makes her children carry cellphones and check in every 30 minutes, the mother was told by her neighbors that “it just isn’t safe anymore to allow your kids to play outside.”

When the mother asked the police officer if the children, two teens, a pre-teen and a 5-year-old, were causing trouble, the officer responded, “No they were very respectful kids, I just wanted to make sure they were okay because it was odd seeing them outside unsupervised.”

How fundamentally warped has society become when children are not allowed to play outside in a field right next to their own house without suspicion being cast on their parents by authorities and neighbors?

Paranoia about child abductions has been hyped by both the media and the state as a means of eviscerating parental rights and transferring such power over to the government.

In reality, America has never been safer for kids in decades.

As AOL News’ David Knowles documents, “According to the U.S. Department of Justice, 980,712 people under the age of 18 were reported missing in 1997, compared to 643,744 in 2008.”

Child abductions are declining rapidly year upon year, so why on earth are Americans increasingly terrified of allowing their kids to enjoy the freedom of the great outdoors?

This is another example of the nanny state gone wild.

Manufactured paranoia that has no basis in reality is being hyped to turn all parents into potential child abusers and in the process castrate the happy, normal, and adventurous upbringing that all children should enjoy.

Is it any wonder that so many children end up being put on Ritalin or other psychotropic drugs given that the happiest days of their lives and the key formative stage of their development is being strangled by such overbearing nonsense?

Parents are being harassed by police and social services for caring for their children in ways which a sane society would consider normal and healthy.

Back in 2010, we reported on the case of a father of two who was harassed and investigated by Child Protective Services and police for feeding his daughters organic food, refusing to make them drink fluoride-poisoned tap water and not having them injected with mercury-laden vaccines.

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Thought Police: Former Marine Released From Illegal Imprisonment For Psychiatric Evaluation By Chesterfield County Virginia Police And Federal Agents Over Private 1st Amendment Facebook Posts – Previous Court Order Contained No Allegation Or Basis To Hold Him

RICHMOND, VIRGINIA - A judge on Thursday ordered the release of a former Marine who was detained for psychiatric evaluation after posting strident anti-government messages on Facebook.

Prince George County Circuit Judge W. Allan Sharrett said at the end of a one-hour hearing that the involuntary commitment order issued by a magistrate against Brandon J. Raub was invalid because it contained no allegation or basis to hold him, according to the head of a civil liberties organization that represented the 26-year-old veteran.

“This is a great victory,” Rutherford Institute executive director John Whitehead said. “He’s a good human being. He just got caught in some weird bureaucratic meanderings and the judge recognized that there’s really no true facts to hold this man in a psychiatric ward.”

Raub was released from the Salem Veterans Affairs Medical Center late Thursday and was on his way back to his home in the Richmond area, a Rutherford Institute spokeswoman said. Both Raub and his mother, Cathleen Thomas, were unavailable for comment.

Raub, who served in Iraq and Afghanistan, was taken into custody Aug. 16 after being questioned by Chesterfield County police and federal agents about his Facebook posts. The FBI said the interview was prompted by complaints from people who read his ominous posts, including some that spoke of a pending revolution. One said “a day of reckoning” was coming, and another said: “Sharpen my axe; I’m here to sever heads.”

Onlookers shot a video of Raub being led away from his home in handcuffs and posted it on You Tube, fueling a groundswell of support for the veteran and criticism that the government was trampling on his free-speech rights. The Charlottesville-based Rutherford Institute came to his defense, characterizing the government’s actions as those of a police state. Raub was not charged with a crime.

“Brandon Raub was arrested with no warning, targeted for doing nothing more than speaking out against the government, detained against his will, and isolated from his family, friends and attorneys,” Whitehead said. “These are the kinds of things that take place in totalitarian societies. Today, at least, Judge Allan Sharrett proved that justice can still prevail in America.”

He called Raub’s release a victory for the First Amendment.

“People a have right to go on Facebook or the Internet (and) say things that people might not agree with, “Whitehead said. “But that doesn’t mean they’re crazy or should be incarcerated for it.”

Raub initially was taken the John Randolph Medical Center in Hopewell, where he was held over the weekend for a preliminary evaluation. After a hearing Monday, another judge ordered Raub detained for an additional month and transferred him to the Salem VA hospital.

Thursday’s hearing was expected to be limited to Raub’s objection to the transfer, so Whitehead said Sharrett’s decision came as a surprise.

“The petition is so devoid of any factual allegations that it could not be reasonably expected to give rise to a case or controversy,” the order says.

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Thought Police: Former Marine Arrested And Detained Without Warrant Or Charges For Private 1st Amendment Protected Facebook Posts – Chesterfield Virginia Police, FBI, And Secret Service Wanted To Enter His Home Without A Warrant, And Their Victim Will Be Held Against His Will For At Least Another Month

RICHMOND, VIRGINIA – A former Marine involuntarily detained for psychiatric evaluation for posting strident anti-government messages on Facebook has received an outpouring of support from people who say authorities are trampling on his First Amendment rights.

Brandon J. Raub, 26, has been in custody since FBI and Secret Service agents and Chesterfield County police questioned him Thursday evening about what they considered ominous posts talking of a coming revolution. In one message earlier this month, Raub wrote: “Sharpen my axe; I’m here to sever heads.”

Police — acting under a state law that allows emergency, temporary psychiatric commitments upon the recommendation of a mental health professional — took Raub to the John Randolph Medical Center in Hopewell. He was not charged with any crime.

The Rutherford Institute, a Charlottesville-based civil liberties group, sent one of its attorneys to the hospital to represent Raub at a hearing Monday. A judge ordered Raub detained for another month, Rutherford executive director John Whitehead said.

“For government officials to not only arrest Brandon Raub for doing nothing more than exercising his First Amendment rights but to actually force him to undergo psychological evaluations and detain him against his will goes against every constitutional principle this country was founded upon,” Whitehead said. “This should be a wake-up call to Americans that the police state is here.”

Raub’s mother, Cathleen Thomas, said she was not surprised by her son’s plight.

“We’re seeing our government overstepping its bounds again and again on the Constitution,” she said in a telephone interview. “The bottom line is his freedom of speech has been violated. It was his patriotic right and duty to make those grievances known.”

Thomas said her son, who served tours as a combat engineer in Iraq and Afghanistan, is “concerned about all the wars we’ve experienced” and believes the U.S. government was complicit in the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. One of his Facebook posts, she said, pictured the gaping hole in the Pentagon and asked “where’s the plane?”

“I want the country to know who he is — that he’s not crazy, he’s a staunch patriot,” Thomas said.

Whitehead said he found nothing alarming on in Raub’s social media commentaries.

“The posts I read that supposedly were of concern were libertarian-type posts I see all the time, so I don’t know what supposedly triggered this,” he said. “I see worse stuff.”

The big concern, Whitehead said, is that government officials are apparently monitoring citizens’ private Facebook pages and arresting people with whom they disagree.

Dee Rybiski, an FBI spokeswoman in Richmond, said there was no Facebook snooping by her agency.

“We received quite a few complaints about what were perceived as threatening posts,” she said. “Given the circumstances with the things that have gone on in the country with some of these mass shootings, it would be horrible for law enforcement not to pay attention to complaints.”

Whitehead said some of the posts in question were made on a closed Facebook page that Raub had just created and that had only three members, so he questioned whether anyone from the public would have complained about them.

“Support Brandon Raub” Facebook pages were drawing significant interest and — along with other Internet sites — had numerous comments from people outraged by the veteran’s detention.

Raub’s supporters are characterizing the detention as an arrest, complaining that he was handcuffed and whisked away in a police cruiser without being served a warrant or read his Miranda rights. But county and federal authorities say it was not an arrest because Raub doesn’t face criminal charges.

Col. Thierry Dupuis, the county police chief, said Raub was taken into custody upon the recommendation of mental health crisis intervention workers. He said the action was taken in accordance with the state’s emergency custody statute, which allows a magistrate to order the civil detention and psychiatric evaluation of a person deemed to be potentially dangerous. He said Raub was handcuffed because he resisted officers’ attempts to take him into custody.

Whitehead said Raub’s only act of resistance was refusing to allow authorities into his home without a warrant. A video of the incident shot by onlookers and posted on You Tube provides no insight because Raub was already in cuffs when the cameras started rolling

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Pitchfork Wielding Farmers Rally In Support One Of Thier Own Who Was Singled Out And Targeted By Fauquier County Virginia Board Of Supervisors And Threatened With $5,000 In Fines

FAUQUIER COUNTY, VIRGINIA – Pitchfork-wielding Virginia farmers rallied to support a woman who claims local officials came down on her for, among other things, hosting a children’s birthday party on her spread.

Martha Boneta, owner of Liberty Farms in the northern village of Paris, was threatened with nearly $5,000 in fines for selling produce and crafts and throwing unlicensed events, including a birthday party for her best friend’s child. She told FoxNews.com she wasn’t doing anything farmers haven’t done for generations, and at a recent zoning board meeting, her agrarian friends literally showed up with pitchforks to express their support.

“It’s rather odd that I’m the only farmer in the county having these issues,” Boneta said. “It’s customary to do these things. It’s done through on farms throughout Virginia to help farming and agriculture.”

Boneta was told that she did not have the proper event permits for the party and other events, including wine tastings, craft workshops, and pumpkin carving.

“Why I would need a permit for a pumpkin carving?” she said.

Boneta was also threatened with fines for selling produce and products not grown or made on the 70-acre farm in a small store she operated on the property. But she said she already had a special license issued to her in 2011 that allowed her to run a “retail farm shop” where at the time, she made it clear that she intended to sell handspun yarns and craft items like birdhouses in addition to fresh vegetables, eggs, and herbs.

But in the same year, the Fauquier County Board of Supervisors changed “farm sales” classification to require a special permit for activities that were previous including under the license. Fauquier County Zoning Administrator Kimberley Johnson told FoxNews.com Boneta is out of line.

“There were a multitude of violations,” Johnson said, adding that issuing a warning is standard practice in the county for such violations.

Boneta said her farm produces “tons of vegetables” every year, including the items she sells. She blames an angry neighbor for siccing the village on her.

“It’s unfortunate that the county would do this on the complaint of one person. They never even came to the farm to see for themselves,” she added.

Johnson said that Boneta would be able to continue so long as she obtains the proper permits; “She can get an administrative permit for 90 percent of the events being held.”

Boneta gained the support of other farmers in the county who feared that they would face similar fines and joined her at a hearing on Aug. 2, where they held a “pitchfork protest” in which they held signs and farming tools in support of Liberty Farms and its owner.

The zoning board’s warning was upheld during the hearing but Boneta plans to appeal again.

Boneta has since closed up the store but is still farming her 70-acre property, preparing for the upcoming harvest and will be meeting with the other county farmers to plan the next step in protesting the zoning boards handling of the situation.

“This affects every farmer. It affects our ability to earn a living to produce and sell on our own land,” she said.

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Police Officer Shot Himself In The Hand At Chesapeake Virginia Police Academy Firing Range

VIRGINIA – On Wednesday at around 7:45 p.m. at the Chesapeake Police Academy Firing Range, an officer was shot in the hand after firing his weapon.

Before clearing the weapon, a round from the gun hit the officer in the hand officials say.

The officer sustained a minor non-life threatening injury.

No further information has been released.

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Woman Convicted of Vandalism In Richmond Virginia After Her Child Wrote On Rocks With Chalk

RICHMOND, VIRGINIA – A judge found enough evidence to convict a Richmond mom who is charged with vandalism, but he’s delaying a final disposition until she performs community service hours.

29-year-old Susan Mortensen allowed her daughter to draw on rocks on Belle Isle with chalk.

Mortensen will now serve 50 hours of community service in order for the judge to dismiss her charge.

In court, NBC12 learned a little more about the confrontation between Mortensen and Officer Stacy Rogers, who saw her daughter writing on the rocks.

Outside the courthouse, people support Susan Mortensen with their own chalk on the sidewalk. However, in court, the officer who reprimanded her back in March says she responded with an attitude and curse words.

“I don’t think I should comment on that,” said Mortensen after the trial. I agree that the outcome is something I would agree with and I thought it would help as far as doing community service.”

Mortensen has since then apologized. She’s agreed to complete 50 hours of community service through the James River Park System.

Mortensen will have to paint about 200 boundary posts west and east of the Boulevard Bridge. Before she even starts, she’ll have to scrape off the old paint and remove surrounding weeds. It’s vital to finish the project before the weather gets too cold for the paint to stick.

The parks manager says he’d like to set a date before Thanksgiving. Mortensen’s supporters say they’re still upset she was charged for letting her daughter draw on the rocks. Police and park leaders say chalk is the same as graffiti.

“There’s no way to compare two,” Meg McLain with Virginia Cop Block. “When you spray paint something, it’s pretty much there. But when you chalk something, it rains, it’s gone. You’ll never know.”

“It is all the same thing,” said James River Park Systems Park Manager, Ralph White. “A couple of weeks ago, I was covering over pornographic drawings done in chalk. It doesn’t matter what the medium is. It’s offensive.”

Even though both sides share their point-of-views, they agreed on a common ground to help beautify the James River Park System.

Back in 2010, court documents show the same officer issued Mortensen a summons for destruction of property on Belle Isle.

Mortensen is scheduled to start her community service this week.

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8 Months Of Continuous Pretrial Torture In Virginia By US Military Could Result In All Charges Against Bradley Manning Being Dropped

VIRGINIA – Bradley Manning is seeking to prove that he was held in torture-like conditions after being arrested on suspicion of giving classified army documents to whistleblowing site WikiLeaks, and has asked the judge to allow seven expert witnesses to testify at his next pretrial hearing on 1 October, according to documents filed by his defence team on Friday.

The witnesses will include medical and psychiatric experts who will say that Manning’s eight-months solitary confinement at Fort Quantico – where he was allegedly kept naked, drugged with anti-depressants, and forced to sleep in a straitjacket – was not justified on mental health grounds.

The defence team led by David Coombs will put the case that the charges against him should be thrown out “owing to Manning’s illegal pretrial punishment”. The defence team’s website said:

The Defense is requesting the Court to dismiss all charges with prejudice owing to the illegal pretrial punishment PFC Manning was subjected to in violation of Article 13, UCMJ and the Fifth and Eighth Amendments to the United States Constitution.

Manning’s lawyers filed a 113-page document to the court, but were only allowed to release parts of the document to the public.

According to this Guardian report, Manning was often kept naked while in solitary confinement at the military base of Fort Quantico, and had to be drugged heavily with antidepressants to bear the conditions. At night he was placed in a suicide prevention bed, blanket and smock, which his lawyers have requested to produce as part of their evidence in court.

Suicide prevention beds feature full locking systems that restrain the arms, legs and body and the smocks and blankets are akin to straitjackets.

Though the US Army argued the confinement was essential for Private Manning’s own safety, on Prevention of Injury grounds, experts said they repeatedly disagreed with this mental health assessment, saying that he had not self-harmed or attempted to harm anybody else and did not appear to be at risk of suicide.

The witnesses will also testify to the psychological harm of isolation and solitary confinement.

The case, which is being heard by Military Judge Denise Lind at a military tribunal in Fort Meade, will continue on 1 October. ®

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Nutcase Fauquier County Virginia Zoning Officals Sent Farmer Cease And Desist Notice For Legally Selling Farm Products And Hosting Her Best Friend’s 10 Year Old Daughter’s Birthday Party On Her 70 Acre Farm – Ever After Being Warned By County Attorney And A State Secretary That Restrictions Are Illegal

FAUQUIER COUNTY, VIRGINIA – Farmers in Fauquier County are planning to bring their pitchforks to an Aug. 2 hearing before the Board of Zoning Appeals to protest the arbitrary treatment of one of their own. On April 30, Zoning Administrator Kimberley Johnson sent Martha Boneta an official cease-and-desist notice for selling farm products and hosting a birthday party for her best friend’s 10-year-old daughter on her 70-acre Paris, Va., farm without a special administrative permit.

Johnson threatened to fine Boneta $5,000 per violation if she did not stop the alleged unlawful activities within 30 days. In doing so, Boneta’s fellow farmers say, Johnson stepped far beyond her authority. They’re supporting her appeal before the BZA because they rightly fear that left unchecked, this infringement on one farmer’s freedom to make a living will spread to other agricultural enterprises like a dangerous pest.

The Virginia Right to Farm Act prohibits local authorities from treating agricultural activity as a “nuisance” — which seems to be what’s happening here, since Johnson was reportedly responding to complaints from nearby residents. Boneta already had a business license the county issued her in June 2011 that allowed her to operate a “retail farm shop” on her property. Her license application specifically noted her intention to sell handspun yarns, birdhouses, soaps and other handicrafts in addition to fresh vegetables, eggs, herbs and honey.

The following month, the Fauquier County Board of Supervisors changed the classification of “farm sales” to require a special administrative permit for activities that were in compliance with the ordinance just one month before. But documents received under the Freedom of Information Act showed that Boneta is the only farmer in Fauquier County who has ever been cited — even though the county’s own website lists dozens of farms that sell similar products to end-use customers.

On July 12, supervisors voted to limit the number of visitors allowed at food- and wine-tasting events to 25, and to limit such events to two per month, even though they were warned by the county attorney and Virginia Secretary of Agriculture and Forestry Todd Haymore that such restrictions are illegal. Virginia’s growing wine industry and its small artisanal farmers contribute millions of dollars to the state economy while providing urban residents with a taste of country life. But even in picturesque Fauquier County, their future is clouded by the growing burden of capricious government regulation.

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CIA Stumbles Upon 4-5″ Stack Of Documents Detailing Agency’s Cooperation With Filmmakers Of Bin Laden Raid – Previously Overlooked In Response To Freedom Of Information Request

LANGLEY, VIRGINIA – The Central Intelligence Agency recently discovered a “4 to 5 inch stack” of documents that relate to the spy agency’s cooperation with the makers of a forthcoming Hollywood film on the raid that killed Osama bin Laden, according to a new court filing.

The documents about CIA dealings with the film now titled “Zero Dark Thirty” were “inadvertently overlooked” in response to a Freedom of Information Act request and lawsuit filed by the conservative watchdog group Judicial Watch, Justice Department attorneys said in a motion filed in federal court in Washington Tuesday afternoon (posted here).

“The CIA discovered a 4 to 5 inch stack of records potentially responsive to plaintiff’s FOIA request that had been inadvertently overlooked during the CIA’s search,” Civil Division attorney Marcia Berman wrote. “The CIA is continuing to look into the circumstances of the discovery of the new documents to ensure the adequacy of its search.”

A CIA spokesman said the agency does not comment on matters in litigation.

The discovery of the additional records, which are being processed but were not immediately released, could fuel Republicans’ attacks on what they say is the Obama Administration’s pattern of using national-security information to burnish President Barack Obama’s reputation and his re-election standing. Likely GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney hit that theme hard on Tuesday in a speech to the Veterans of Foreign Wars.

“This conduct is contemptible. It betrays our national interest. It compromises our men and women in the field,” Romney said. “Whoever provided classified information to the media, seeking political advantage for the administration, must be exposed, dismissed, and punished. The time for stonewalling is over.”

Obama has forcefully denied that White House officials deliberately leaked classified national security information, though the administration did declassify some information related to ot obtained in the May 2011 raid.

Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton said he was deeply suspicious about the revelation.

“These documents were supposed to be turned over to us two months ago under a federal court order,” Fitton said. “This new ‘discovery’ and resulting delay stinks to high heaven – maybe an independent criminal leak investigation can look into this issue, too.”

A political firestorm over leaks broke out in May of this year in part due to documents the CIA and Pentagon released about their contacts with “Zero Dark Thirty” filmmakers Kathryn Bigelow and Mark Boal.

The records, obtained through the Judicial Watch suit, showed that even as top Pentagon officials were complaining that too much information was being disclosed about the raid that killed bin Laden, a senior DoD official promised the filmmakers a Navy SEAL team contact who could offers details about the raid.

Boal called the offer “dynamite,” but the Pentagon said later that the promised liaison effort never took place.

CIA documents showed that Boal was given a tour of a mock-up used to plan the raid on the compound in Pakistan, but a CIA spokeswoman said in an internal e-mail that the agency’s contacts with the filmmakers should be kept “a bit quiet” due to “sensitivities” about the selective nature of such access.

Bigelow and Boal are best known for “The Hurt Locker,” a 2008 film about a US military team that defused bombs during the Iraq War.

The bin Laden raid movie, “Zero Dark Thirty,” had originally been due out from Sony in October. However, after critics complained that it was a thinly-disguised effort to boost Obama’s re-election chances, the studio moved the release date to December 19.

While Berman initially described the newly-discovered stack of documents as “potentially responsive,” she later says CIA determined that the records “are responsive…but contain some duplicates of previously-processed records.” About 30 new documents are in the stack, she said.

The government has asked U.S. District Court Judge Rudolph Contreras to give it until August 24 to turn over releasable documents to Judicial Watch. The CIA may well determine that some of the documents or portions thereof are exempt from disclosure under FOIA—a decision Contreras is likely to ultimately rule upon.

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Crazed Tappahannock Virginia Police Officer Sgt. Woolums With Checkered Past, Facing $20 Million Lawsuit After Killing Motorist, Adds To His Problems By Breaking Mentally Disabled Bicyclist’s Arm And Invading A Home Without A Warrant

RICHMOND, VIRGINIA – Just ten police officers are sworn to serve and protect the small town of Tappahannock. Even out of uniform, neighbors recognize them. They count on them to keep the peace. But some neighbors say there’s an officer who’s disturbing the peace.

“I think it’s terrible, something needs to be done,” said Teresa Churchill.

On April 30, Tappahannock police Sgt. Everett Woolums stopped Churchill’s sons while they were riding their bicycles. 19-year-old Brian and his 21-year-old brother Brandon were heading to the trailer park where they live when they were stopped for having improper lights on their bikes.

“They were like ‘we’re on our way home’ and he was like ‘get off the d-a-m bikes,’” Churchill said her sons told her.

Tappahannock police Chief Jim Barrett told CBS 6 that the boys ran from Woolums and that the pursuit briefly became physical. Barrett said it also became clear to Sgt. Woolums that the boys had mental disabilities.

“He had him by his arm and kept wrenching his arm and he broke his arm, he broke his arm in two places,” Churchill said about her son, Brandon.

The boys got away, made it home and their mom called for an ambulance. The chief says Sgt. Woolums learned of that call and, without a warrant, went into the boys’ home and arrested both of them for obstructing justice.

“Get him off the streets get him off the police force,” said Churchill, who has now filed a complaint against Woolums for using excessive force against her son. Brandon is scheduled to have surgery later this month.

Churchill claims neither boy had ever been in trouble before their encounter with Woolums. And we have learned that this is not the first complaint against him. In fact, his most serious complaint happened when he was working right here in Richmond.

“He intentionally shot him and he knew that he was unarmed,” said attorney David Morgan.

A $20 million wrongful death suit was re-filed last year against Woolums. It stems from an incident in 2006. Woolums made a traffic stop in North Richmond at 3:00 a.m. The driver, Billy Thigpen, fled, hitting parked cars before getting out of his SUV and running. After a foot pursuit, Woolums told investigators that things got physical. In a recent deposition, he said Thigpen repeatedly grabbed for his gun during a tussle between the two men. Woolums said they finally separated about five feet apart, at which point “Mr. Thigpen lunged one more time and I shot him”.

“Everett Woolums did not have a reasonable basis to believe his life was in danger,” said Morgan.

Commonwealth’s Attorney Mike Herring disagreed, saying that the shooting raised no red flags, and that Thigpen’s DNA was found on Woolums’ gun.

But Thigpen’s attorney and his wife say the gun never should have been drawn on an unarmed man in the first place.

Christie Thigpen saw the shooting of her husband, as it happened just a few feet in front of the house where they were raising six children. Since then, she says she’s had nightmares about the event.

“Two years, night after night, I saw the fire come from that gun and my husband fall on his face. I wish that I could have saved his life,” said Thigpen.

A CBS 6 investigation has turned up two more complaints against Sgt. Woolums. We discovered one that was made three months before the 2006 shooting, alleging that a 17-year-old girl was hurt by Woolums during a disorderly conduct arrest in Richmond. She spoke with CBS 6 back in 2006 and provided us with photographs of her injuries. Her complaint was never prosecuted.

In 2008, in Tappahannock, another citizen filed a civil rights complaint against Woolums after he handcuffed her after responding to a minor accident in a Walmart parking lot. A federal judge later dismissed the case.

We went to Tapahannock to ask Sgt. Woolums about these complaints. Getting him to answer our questions wasn’t easy. When we first located Woolums, he would only tell us that he couldn’t talk to us about any of the cases we were asking about.

Numerous follow-up attempts to speak with Woolums and his attorney were unsuccessful.

Neither the Richmond Police Department nor the commonwealth’s attorney would comment on the case.

But Christie Thigpen’s attorney David Morgan is talking. He believes her $20 million lawsuit will either be settled by the City of Richmond or go to a jury trial before the end of this year. Morgan also says the outcome will send a message to police in every jurisdiction.

“Just because you’re a police officer doesn’t mean you can determine who lives and who dies.”

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Chesterfield Virginia Firefighter Aubrey Smith Arrested And Faces Laundry List Of Charges After Drunken Chase, Speeding, And Assaulting A Police Officer

CHESTERFIELD, VIRGINIA – A Chesterfield firefighter is facing a series of charges related to a suspected drunk driving incident. A police officer says 41-year-old Aubrey Smith tried to outrun the law then turned on the officer.

According to court documents, on the night of June 29th Smith was arrested for speeding, driving under the influence, eluding police, resisting arrest and assaulting a police officer.

The police report says, Smith was driving almost 20 miles over the speed limit on Route 360 in Amelia. When a deputy tried to pull him over, Smith is accused of speeding up, before stopping in his own driveway.

It’s there the Amelia County Sheriff says a struggle ensued and Smith was subdued using pepper spray.

While Smith had no comment, his neighbors are shocked by the allegations.

“I was very surprised because he’s not that type of person,” said neighbor Kimberly Stewart. “He’s a great guy, he’s always a calm, cool, and collective.”

Stewart tells NBC12 she’s only seen Smith drink once but his blood alcohol content the night of his arrest is listed as more than twice the legal limit.

“I just hope he doesn’t lose his job,” Stewart added.

Whether Smith will lose his job is up to the Chesterfield Fire Department. A spokesperson says he can’t comment on personnel matters.

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Virginia State Police Drug Sniffing Dog With 74% Error Rate Enough To Establish Probable Cause To Search Vehicle

WYTHE COUNTY, VIRGINIA – The nose of a drug-sniffing police dog is not so sharp, but it’s good enough to support cocaine charges against Herbert Green.

That was the opinion of federal Judge Glen Conrad, who denied a motion this week to suppress the drugs found in Green’s sport utility vehicle with the help of a police dog named Bono.

Green’s lawyer had argued that Bono’s track record — drugs were found just 22 times out of 85 “alerts” by the dog — was so poor that police lacked probable cause to search Green’s SUV.

Had Bono failed the legal smell test, Green might have escaped prosecution on charges of having a kilogram of cocaine hidden in the back of his Lincoln Navigator.

Bono “may not be a model of canine accuracy,” Conrad wrote in an opinion filed Thursday in U.S. District Court in Roanoke.

However, the judge ruled that other factors, including the dog’s training and flawless performance during re-certification sessions, were enough to overcome a challenge raised by Green’s attorney, public defender Randy Cargill.

The ruling clears the way for prosecutors to try Green on charges of possession of cocaine with intent to distribute.

Green, 45, of Pittsburgh, was arrested in March 2011. A state trooper patrolling Interstate 77 in Wythe County pulled him over on suspicion of having illegally tinted windows and an obscured license plate.

When Bono was called to the scene, he began to wag his tail furiously after catching a whiff of something near the rear panel of the vehicle, according to earlier testimony.

Prosecutors say that gave police probable cause to search the SUV, where they found a duffel bag holding cocaine and about $7,000 in cash.

But after learning that Bono had an accuracy rate of just 26 percent, Cargill filed a motion seeking to suppress the evidence.

At a hearing earlier this month, Assistant U.S. Attorney Ashley Neese defended the performance of the German shepherd.

In some cases where nothing was found after an alert by Bono, police later determined that drugs had been in the vehicle earlier, likely leaving an odor the dog was trained to detect, Neese said.

Taking those cases into account, Conrad found that Bono’s accuracy rate was at least 50 percent.

In determining whether police had probable cause, the judge wrote that he had to consider other factors beyond the dog’s track record.

As a federal appeals court once put it, “the reliability of a drug-detection dog does not rise or fall on the basis of one sniff.”

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Embezzlement Case Against Former Veteran Charlottesville Virginia Police Officer Wilbert Davis Brassfield Continues – Took More Than $10,000 From Church Where He Was “Pastor” To Pay His Delinquent Mortgage

PALMYRA, VIRGINIA — A judge hearing an embezzlement case against a former Charlottesville police officer granted the commonwealth’s attorney’s motion to temporarily suspend the charges Friday morning in Fluvanna County Circuit Court.

Wilbert Davis Brassfield, a 10-year veteran of the Charlottesville police force, was accused in December of embezzling more than $10,000 from Courts of Praise Christian Fellowship in Fluvanna, where he served as pastor from the time the church opened its doors until 2010. The church has since closed.

Commonwealth’s Attorney Jeffery W. Haislip said he has reason to believe Brassfield embezzled funds from the church in order to pay off his “very delinquent mortgage.” He said that subpoenas issued to the out-of-state mortgage company have not been answered.

“It’d be a much stronger case with those documents,” he said in a phone interview Friday afternoon. As such, he asked the judge to “nolle prosequi” the charges, meaning that prosecution will stop, but that the charges may be raised again at a future date.

“This is not going away one way or the other,” Haislip said in court Friday. He said he intends to raise further charges against Brassfield at the August docket call, but is not yet sure what those charges will be.

“I don’t know if they’ll be related to these checks or other evidence that we have,” Haislip said outside of court.

Brassfield’s court-appointed defense attorney, James Cooke, asked the judge to dismiss the charges altogether, saying that Brassfield lost his job as a school resource officer because of the case.

“My client has been a police officer his entire career,” Cooke said.

Though the case has no future court dates at this time, Haislip said he will continue to evaluate the evidence and try to get documents from the mortgage company.

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Veteran Chesapeake County Virginia Deputy Sheriff Michael Southerland Arrested, Suspended, And Charged With Felony Rape

VIRGINIA BEACH, VIRGINIA – A deputy with the Chesapeake Sheriff’s Office has been arrested on a felony rape charge, according to officials.

Maj. D.A. Hackworth with the Chesapeake Sheriff’s Office told WAVY.com Michael Southerland was arrested in Virginia Beach Friday for felony rape, however, Hackworth did not know if the victim was a juvenile or an adult.

Virginia Beach Police spokeswoman Grazia Moyers said the alleged incident occurred on May 26 and the victim, who claimed to have known Southerland, reported she was assaulted at the oceanfront, after leaving a bar.

Southerland has been employed at the Chesapeake Sheriff’s Office for the past four and a half years, currently assigned to the Civil Enforcement Section, Hackworth said.

He has been placed on administrative suspension and is currently out of jail on bond.

Southerland’s neighbors said he was well-liked and the allegations against him don’t sound like the man they know.

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Dead Bedford County Virginia Dog Receives Voter Registration Forms

BEDFORD COUNTY, VIRGINIA – When Tim Morris got his mail last week he found a pretty big surprise, a document asking his dog Mozart to register to vote.

Not only is Mozart a dog but he’s been dead for two years.

“I opened it up and looked at it and I just laughed,” Morris said. “I thought it was a joke at first and it turns out it’s real.”

The form is addressed to Mo, the family’s nickname for the dog.

What amazed Morris is that if Mozart was human he would have been eligible to vote for the first time in 2012.

“He would have been 19 years old this year and he passed away two years ago,” he said. “I still have no earthly idea how they got his information.”

10 On Your Side looked deeper and found that the voter registration forms were sent by the non-profit Voter Participation Center, not the State Board of Elections.

So we contacted the Voter Participation Center and found that they purchase mailing lists from vendors and while they do try and check every name the organization admits that some do fall through the cracks.

The voter registration efforts are focused on groups like young people, minorities, and unmarried women.

This could help explain why the Morris’ dog Mozart didn’t receive a registration form until now, since he would have been 18.

The Board of Elections said they’ve received similar complaints but since the Voter Participation Center is a private organization they can’t stop them from sending voter registration forms.

As for Morris he’s hopeful the problem can be controlled so animals like Mozart won’t be deciding elections anytime soon.

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Fired Hopewell Virginia Police Officer Bobby CoPenny Jr. Arrested After Standoff, Charged With Abducting 18 Year Old Girl

DINWIDDIE, VIRGINIA – A former Hopewell police officer was arrested after barricading himself in a home, ensuing a police standoff that lasted more than an hour Wednesday afternoon.

Bobby CoPenny Jr. was taken into police custody Wednesday after police said he barricade himself inside a home in the 5000 block of Moody Dr. around 11 a.m. Wednesday.

Police said special agents with the Virginia State Police Bureau of Criminal Investigation, Richmond Field Office, were attempting to serve an indictment on CoPenny Jr. when the incident occurred.

While police attempted to serve the warrant, CoPenny Jr. barricaded himself inside the home and refused to come out, according to police.

The standoff lasted approximately 90 minutes before police said CoPenny Jr. surrendered peacefully.

The indictment came after the City of Hopewell Police Department requested the Virginia State Police investigate an abduction allegation involving CoPenny Jr. The abduction occurred January 13, 2012 in the 1500 block of Piper Square Dr. and involved an 18-year-old female, according to police.

“The Hopewell Police Department immediately responded and conducted a preliminary administrative investigation when informed of this allegation on January 17, 2012 involving CoPenny,” said Chief John Keohane, City of Hopewell Police. “This is a very serious crime and will not be tolerated in our department as such actions degrade the public’s trust of its officers who are sworn to serve and protect.”

CoPenny, Jr. was terminated from his position as an officer with the Hopewell Police Department following a June 12 grand jury indictment on one felony count of abduction with the intent to defile.

Following the Wednesday standoff, CoPenny Jr. was taken to the Dinwiddie County Jail for further processing and is being held without bond pending a June 27 arraignment in the City of Hopewell Circuit Court.

There were no injuries during the incident Wednesday, and Virginia State Police continue to investigate the situation.

CoPenny had been employed with the City of Hopewell Police Department as a uniformed officer since 2003. He was suspended without pay on January 26, 2012 and terminated from employment on February 3, 2012 based upon several department policy violations regarding this incident.

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Montgomery County Virginia Police Union Used Criminals, Including A Fugitive, To Collect Signatures For Ballot Measure Killing Legislation They Don’t Like

VIRGINIA – Montgomery County’s police union used felons, including a fugitive and a man convicted of forgery, to collect signatures for a ballot measure that would kill legislation reducing police collective bargaining rights, court documents show.

The county cites the Fraternal Order of Police’s use of felons among reasons why at least 6,700 of the 34,828 signatures validated by the County Board of Elections are insufficient to put the measure, protecting police officers’ ability to negotiate any management decision, on the November ballot.

The felons were responsible for collecting signatures and certifying they were gathered legally.

“The notion that a felon who under Maryland law would be prohibited from voting in an election, and who at any time was at the risk of arrest by the very individuals on whose behalf he was circulating the petition, would be responsible for preventing fraud flies in the face of common sense and is truly laughable,” attorneys for the county wrotein documents filed in Montgomery County Circuit Court.

One felon, Keith Gregory Moore, of Grand Rapids, Mich., was convicted of forgery, fraud, aggravated assault and home invasion, the court filing shows.

Another petition circulator, Jessie James Rowe, of Kalamazoo, Mich., was a fugitive felon at the time he was gathering signatures — and still is — the document says.

In June 2010, Rowewas convicted of possession of methamphetamines or Ecstasy. A warrant was issued for his arrest on July 2, 2010, after he tested positive for marijuana, amphetamines and opiates, violating his bond. As of May 17, when the county filed the court documents, the warrant was still outstanding. In 2004, Rowe pleaded guilty to operating a meth lab.

The county wants the 2,744 signatures Rowe collected and the 543 gathered by Moore tossed out.

Both were hired by California’s PCI Consultants, which the FOP contracted to gather signatures. Union Secretary Jane Milne referred questions to PCI. A PCI representative did not return calls.

The union asked that the criminal records be omitted from the court record because the county submitted them after a legal deadline.

The union and Board of Elections argue that criminal history is not relevant.

The only legal requirement is that circulators be at least 18 years old, the Board of Elections said in a court document. They do not need to be eligible to vote or live in the jurisdiction where they collect signatures.

“Unless there is evidence that a voter’s signature is false, it does not matter if the circulator lacks credibility as a witness,” the union wrote in a court motion.

Montgomery County says other problems among the 6,700 signatures it is challenging include signatures lacking proper dates, names that don’t match voting records and circulators who gave inaccurate address information. The Elections Board approved 4,594 signatures more than required for the referendum.

The court is scheduled to rule June 18 on motions for summary judgment.

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Media Threatened With Arrests In Chantilly Virgina – Man Arrested For Crossing Street – Photographers Arrested For Taking Pictures

CHANTILLY, VIRGINIA – The security crackdown surrounding the Bilderberg Group confab in Chantilly, Virginia intensified today after a protester was arrested for little more than crossing the street. The incident followed the arrest of two activists yesterday for taking photographs.

The video clip shows a man in a white t-shirt appearing to cross the street in an attempt to get back onto the sidewalk. Even as he tries to walk back to the designated protest area, Fairfax cops grab the man, slap him in handcuffs and take him away.

The arrest appeared to be an intimidation tactic aimed at the hundreds of other demonstrators in attendance.

Indeed, when another protester began loudly asking what would happen if hundreds of protesters stepped onto the street, the police almost immediately left the scene.

As we reported yesterday, two protesters, one of them a veteran, were arrested last night simply for getting too close to arriving Bilderberg members’ limousines in an effort to take photographs.

The Washington Times also reported yesterday that its photographer was told by police “any attempt to get close to the building would result in arrest.”

Given the fact that the Bilderberg Group prefers their conference to be kept out of the media, arrests at the summit of power brokers are rare, but given the unprecedented security crackdown that has dominated the event this year, expect more incidents like this to occur over the next three days.

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Two Small Planes In Mid-Air Crash Over Virginia Were Registered To FAA And NTSB Employees

VIRGINIA – Investigators learned that the planes involved in Monday afternoon’s mid-air crash in Fauquier County were registered to employees of the FAA and the NTSB.

Two people died after two small planes collided about 4 p.m. and then crashed to the ground about a mile apart from each other in southern Fauquier County.

A Beechcraft BE-35 registered to an NTSB employee caught fire when it hit the ground. The pilot and passenger died, but it’s unknown if either was the owner of the plane. They have not been identified.

The pilot and owner of the second plane — a 1965 Piper PA-28 — was an FAA employee identified as 70-year-old Thomas R. Provin, of Broad Run, Va. He was taken to Mary Washington Hospital in Fredericksburg, Va. He remained hospitalized Tuesday but there’s no word on his condition.

Because the planes were owned and/or operated by FAA and NTSB employees, NTSB, after consulting with the FAA, requested the Transportation Safety Board of Canada investigate the crash.

The cause of the crash remains under investigation, but police received several calls from people in the area at the time of the crash.

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Prince William County Virginia Jail Officer Ralph Lester Justice Arrested In Scheme To Have Man Jailed And Sexually Assaulted

PRINCE WILLIAM COUNTY, VIRGINIA – A Prince William County man’s alleged scheme to pay someone $2,000 to kill his stepson took an additional twist Thursday when police announced that a county jail officer was arrested for trying to help put the stepson in a compromising situation, according to county police and prosecutors.

Ralph Lester Justice, 61, who police said was an officer at the Prince William County Adult Detention Center, was an acquaintance of Michael George Rusinack, 50, who is accused of plotting to kill his 28-year-old stepson, authorities said.

The two were allegedly scheming to have the stepson arrested and put in jail, then put him “in a situation where the victim could be sexually assaulted,” according to a county police statement. The plot never resulted in the arrest of the stepson, police said.

Rusinack was “disenchanted with his stepson for a number of reasons,” Commonwealth’s Attorney Paul B. Ebert said. Police said in a statement that the two were “involved in a continuous domestic related feud.”

County police said they learned of the alleged murder-for-hire plot on May 8 and began an investigation.

In the days that followed, Rusinack offered a “cooperating witness” $2,000 to kill his stepson, and the witness then introduced Rusinack to an undercover police detective, according to court records. Rusinack offered to pay the detective to kill his stepson and, court records say, “gave him instructions on how he wanted it done.”

Rusinack, of the 15000 block of Donald Curtis Drive in Woodbridge, was charged with solicitation to commit capital murder and is being held without bond.

Justice, of the 15900 block of Crest Drive in Woodbridge, was charged with conspiracy to commit forcible sodomy. He is being held on a $3,000 secured bond.

The men are scheduled to appear in court on June 13.

Ebert said that Justice’s alleged plot with Rusinack and the murder-for-hire scheme were not connected. Investigators know of no other law enforcement officers involved in either plot, Ebert said.

Jail officials and a lawyer for Rusinack could not be reached Thursday for comment. It was unclear Thursday whether Justice has a lawyer, and his employment status was unknown.

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Censored: White Newspapers Ignoring Black On White Crime

US – When two white newspaper reporters for the Virginian-Pilot were driving through Norfolk, and were set upon and beaten by a mob of young blacks — beaten so badly that they had to take a week off from work — that might sound like news that should have been reported, at least by their own newspaper. But it wasn’t.

The O’Reilly Factor on Fox News Channel was the first major television program to report this incident. Yet this story is not just a Norfolk story, either in what happened or in how the media and the authorities have tried to sweep it under the rug.

Similar episodes of unprovoked violence by young black gangs against white people chosen at random on beaches, in shopping malls, or in other public places have occurred in Philadelphia, New York, Denver, Chicago, Cleveland, Washington, Los Angeles, and other places across the country. Both the authorities and the media tend to try to sweep these episodes under the rug.

In Milwaukee, for example, an attack on whites at a public park a few years ago left many of the victims battered to the ground and bloody. But when the police arrived on the scene, it became clear that the authorities wanted to keep this quiet.

One 22-year-old woman, who had been robbed of her cell phone and debit card, and had blood streaming down her face, said, “About 20 of us stayed to give statements and make sure everyone was accounted for. The police wouldn’t listen to us, they wouldn’t take our names or statements. They told us to leave. It was completely infuriating.”

The police chief seemed determined to head off any suggestion that this was a racially motivated attack by saying that crime is color-blind. Officials elsewhere have said similar things.

A wave of such attacks in Chicago were reported, but not the race of the attackers or victims. Media outlets that do not report the race of people committing crimes nevertheless report racial disparities in imprisonment and write heated editorials blaming the criminal-justice system.

What the authorities and the media seem determined to suppress is that the hoodlum elements in many ghettoes launch coordinated attacks on whites in public places. If there is anything worse than a one-sided race war, it is a two-sided race war, especially when one of the races outnumbers the other several times over.

It may be understandable that some people want to head off such a catastrophe, either by not reporting the attacks in this race war, or by not identifying the race of those attacking, or by insisting that the attacks were not racially motivated — even when the attackers themselves voice anti-white invective as they laugh at their bleeding victims.

Trying to keep the lid on is understandable. But a lot of pressure can build up under that lid. If and when that pressure leads to an explosion of white backlash, things could be a lot worse than if the truth had come out earlier, and steps taken by both black and white leaders to deal with the hoodlums and with those who inflame them.

These latter would include not only race hustlers like Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson but also lesser-known people in the media, in educational institutions, and elsewhere who hype grievances and make all the problems of blacks the fault of whites. Some of these people may think that they are doing blacks a favor. But it is no favor to anyone who lags behind to turn their energies from the task of improving and advancing themselves to the task of lashing out at others.

These others extend beyond whites. Asian-American schoolchildren in New York and Philadelphia have for years been beaten up by their black classmates. But people in the mainstream media who go ballistic if some kid says something unkind on the Internet about a homosexual classmate nevertheless hear no evil, see no evil, and speak no evil when Asian-American youngsters are victims of violence.

Those who automatically say that the social pathology of the ghetto is due to poverty, discrimination, and the like cannot explain why such pathology was far less prevalent in the 1950s, when poverty and discrimination were worse. But there were not nearly as many grievance mongers and race hustlers then.

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Lawsuit Filed After Nutcase Culpeper Virginia Police Officer Harmon-Wright Threatened, Shot, And Killed Unarmed Female Motorist Who Rolled Up Window

CULPEPER, VIRGINIA – The husband of Patricia Cook, 54, has filed a wrongful death lawsuit against the Culpeper, Virginia police officer who shot her to death on February, 9, 2012.

Gary Cook is asking for $5 million in damages from Officer Daniel Harmon-Wright (a/k/a Daniel W. Sullivan).

Patricia Cook was shot multiple times in her Jeep Wrangler in a parking lot of a school annex on North East Street in the Town of Culpeper.

The lawsuit, filed on May 11, 2012 in Culpeper County Circuit Court, says Officer Harmon-Wright carried through on his threat to shoot Mrs. Cook if she did not stop rolling up her car window and do as he demanded. It says he shot her at close range and continued firing at her as she attempted to depart.

The lawsuit says “Defendant Harmon-Wright did not have his hand or arm trapped inside the car window of Mrs. Cook’s Jeep at any time during this incident.”

It also says the officer was not dragged by Mrs. Cook’s vehicle and that he suffered no injuries as a result of Mrs. Cook’s actions. It says she did not user her vehicle as a weapon and did not try to strike or injure the defendant.

The lawsuit says, “When Defendant Harmon-Wright attempted to bully and coerce Mrs. Cook into complying with his commands by raising his voice and threatening to shoot her, she was lawfully entitled to refuse to comply with his commands and was was lawfully entitled to depart unharmed and unhindered.”

Virginia State Police first said that the officer fired in self-defense because she had caught his arm in her window and was dragging him. But an eyewitness told WUSA 9 News that he clearly saw the officer’s left hand on the door handle and his right on on his gun. The witness said that the officer’s arm was not caught as he yelled at the woman to stop. The witness said he was stunned when he saw the officer shoot and continue shooting as Cook drove away.

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Lawsuit Filed After Nutcase Culpeper Virginia Police Officer Harmon-Wright Threatened, Shot, And Killed Unarmed Female Motorist Who Rolled Up Window

CULPEPER, VIRGINIA – The husband of Patricia Cook, 54, has filed a wrongful death lawsuit against the Culpeper, Virginia police officer who shot her to death on February, 9, 2012.

Gary Cook is asking for $5 million in damages from Officer Daniel Harmon-Wright (a/k/a Daniel W. Sullivan).

Patricia Cook was shot multiple times in her Jeep Wrangler in a parking lot of a school annex on North East Street in the Town of Culpeper.

The lawsuit, filed on May 11, 2012 in Culpeper County Circuit Court, says Officer Harmon-Wright carried through on his threat to shoot Mrs. Cook if she did not stop rolling up her car window and do as he demanded. It says he shot her at close range and continued firing at her as she attempted to depart.

The lawsuit says “Defendant Harmon-Wright did not have his hand or arm trapped inside the car window of Mrs. Cook’s Jeep at any time during this incident.”

It also says the officer was not dragged by Mrs. Cook’s vehicle and that he suffered no injuries as a result of Mrs. Cook’s actions. It says she did not user her vehicle as a weapon and did not try to strike or injure the defendant.

The lawsuit says, “When Defendant Harmon-Wright attempted to bully and coerce Mrs. Cook into complying with his commands by raising his voice and threatening to shoot her, she was lawfully entitled to refuse to comply with his commands and was was lawfully entitled to depart unharmed and unhindered.”

Virginia State Police first said that the officer fired in self-defense because she had caught his arm in her window and was dragging him. But an eyewitness told WUSA 9 News that he clearly saw the officer’s left hand on the door handle and his right on on his gun. The witness said that the officer’s arm was not caught as he yelled at the woman to stop. The witness said he was stunned when he saw the officer shoot and continue shooting as Cook drove away.

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Norfolk Virginia Police Make One Arrest After Pack Of Dozens Of Black Savages Attacked Innocent White Couple

NORFOLK, VIRGINIA – Police have arrested a 16-year-old in connection with a mob attack by large numbers of black teenagers against a young white couple in a car, a case which has sparked national outrage.

As WND reported in a story posted on the popular Drudge Report, the couple was pummeled April 14 by dozens of black teens, and the Virginian-Pilot newspaper did not report the incident for two weeks, despite the fact the victims, Dave Forster and Marjon Rostami, are both news reporters for the paper.

Police arrested the suspect this morning, but authorities will not release his name due to his age. According to the Virginian-Pilot, he has been charged with throwing a missile at a vehicle, a felony, as well as two counts of simple assault by mob, destruction of property and participation in a riot, all misdemeanors.

Editor’s note: Click here to read more as WND reports on the developing wave of black-on-white crime in the aftermath of the Trayvon Martin shooting

The attack was first reported in an opinion piece by columnist Michelle Washington.

“Wave after wave of young men surged forward to take turns punching and kicking their victim,” Washington wrote, describing the onslaught that began when Dave Forster and Marjon Rostami stopped at a traffic light while driving home from a show on a Saturday night. A crowd of at least 100 black young people was on the sidewalk at the time.

“Rostami locked her car door. Someone threw a rock at her window. Forster got out to confront the rock-thrower, and that’s when the beating began. …

“The victim’s friend, a young woman, tried to pull him back into his car. Attackers came after her, pulling her hair, punching her head and causing a bloody scratch to the surface of her eye. She called 911. A recording told her all lines were busy. She called again. Busy. On her third try, she got through and, hysterical, could scream only their location. Church and Brambleton. Church and Brambleton. Church and Brambleton. It happened four blocks from where they work, here at the Virginian-Pilot.”

Washington said neither suffered grave injuries, but both were out of work for a week. Forster’s torso ached from blows to his ribs, and he retained a thumb-sized bump on his head. Rostami reportedly fears to be alone in her home, while Forster wishes he’d stayed in the car.

Pilot editor Denis Finley addressed the paper’s decision not to cover the attack in a front-page column today.

“Some have assumed the worst and accused The Pilot of everything from liberal hand-wringing to outright lying about the incident,” he wrote. “We did not cover up anything. What would we gain by protecting some thugs who beat up two of our reporters? The accusation is ludicrous.

Dave Forster

“We bend over backward to treat ourselves the same way we would treat any other member of the community. In fact, we go overboard at times to make sure there is no perception that we have treated ourselves favorably. Based on the facts, this story did not cross the bar to be published because as a general rule, The Pilot doesn’t publish stories about simple assaults.”

In her column about the assault, Washington said the day after the beatings, Forster searched Twitter for mention of the attack, and one post in particular chilled him.

“I feel for the white man who got beat up at the light,” wrote one person.

“I don’t,” wrote another, indicating laughter. “(do it for trayvon martin)”

Trayvon Martin is the unarmed black teen who died after being shot by a community-watch captain with white and Hispanic parents, George Zimmerman, in Sanford, Fla., sparking a wave of outrage long after the incident.

But at a press conference today, interim Norfolk Police Chief Sharon Chamberlin said the department is not investigating the case as a hate crime.

“At no time in our investigation or in statements taken from the victims did it appear this assault was racially motivated,” she said.

Just yesterday, a police spokesman told WND authorities were not sure if the attack was racially motivated.

“Could it have been? Yeah, it could have, I guess,” said police spokesman Chris Amos. “We certainly haven’t ruled that out, but we haven’t seen anything that jumps out at us other than someone throwing a rock at someone’s car.”

“A whole lot of racial implications have been made. We don’t know the motive of this. Race didn’t become a factor until Twitter comments later. No one at the scene said it was racially motivated. They didn’t tell us then and they didn’t hear any [comments such as] ‘Remember Trayvon Martin.’”

Rostami estimated there were around 100 people in the crowd, with about 30 near their car.

However, Chamberlin said police think only a few people in the crowd participated in the attack.

“It is important to clarify that 30 people did not carry out the assault,” she said. “There was a large group in the vicinity, but our investigation and the statements of the victims show that no more than a handful of people were involved.”

She said the crowd had emerged from three entertainment venues around the same time on the night of the attack.

“This is a situation where you had a whole bunch of events let out all at once, you had a lot of people on the street, you had an assault occur and that was isolated with a small number of people,” Chamberlin said. “The streets of Norfolk are safe. We are a vibrant city, we are growing, we are changing each and every day and citizens should not judge our streets in light of this particular thing.”

The police investigation is continuing. Amos told WND suspects are “facing felony charges, if we can find them and identify and if our victims can identify them.”

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Norfolk Virginia News Media Hides Story About White Couple Attacked By Dozens Of Black Savages – Even The Newspaper They Worked For, Virginia Pilot, Didn’t Report On Beatings Until 2 Weeks Latter

NORFOLK, VIRGINIA – There’s outrage in Norfolk, Va., today after a white couple was attacked by a group of dozens of black teenagers, and the local newspaper did not report on the incident for two weeks, despite the victims being employees of the paper.

Even today, the Virginian-Pilot did not cover the crime as news, but rather as an opinion piece by columnist Michelle Washington.

“Wave after wave of young men surged forward to take turns punching and kicking their victim,” Washington wrote, describing the onslaught that began when Dave Forster and Marjon Rostami stopped at a red light while driving home from a show on a Saturday night. A crowd of at least 100 black young people was on the sidewalk.

“Rostami locked her car door. Someone threw a rock at her window. Forster got out to confront the rock-thrower, and that’s when the beating began. …

“The victim’s friend, a young woman, tried to pull him back into his car. Attackers came after her, pulling her hair, punching her head and causing a bloody scratch to the surface of her eye. She called 911. A recording told her all lines were busy. She called again. Busy. On her third try, she got through and, hysterical, could scream only their location. Church and Brambleton. Church and Brambleton. Church and Brambleton. It happened four blocks from where they work, here at the Virginian-Pilot.”

Washington says neither suffered grave injuries, but both were out of work for a week. Forster’s torso ached from blows to his ribs, and he retained a thumb-sized bump on his head. Rostami reportedly fears to be alone in her home., while Forster wishes he’d stayed in the car.

The columnist admits the story has not, until today, appeared in the Virginian-Pilot.

“The responding officer coded the incident as a simple assault, despite their assertions that at least 30 people had participated in the attack,” Washington explains. “A reporter making routine checks of police reports would see ‘simple assault’ and, if the names were unfamiliar, would be unlikely to write about it. In this case, editors hesitated to assign a story about their own employees. Would it seem like the paper treated its employees differently from other crime victims?”

Washington says the day after the beatings, Forster searched Twitter for mention of the attack, and one post in particular chilled him.

“I feel for the white man who got beat up at the light,” wrote one person.

“I don’t,” wrote another, indicating laughter. “(do it for trayvon martin)”

Trayvon Martin, is the unarmed black teen, who died after being shot by a community-watch captain with white and Hispanic parents, George Zimmerman, in Sanford, Fla., sparking a wave of outrage long after the incident.

The newspaper is coming under heavy criticism today from residents in the greater Norfolk area, known as Hampton Roads.

“It is unbelievable that the Virginian-Pilot would BURY this story for two weeks for politically correct reasons. That is sad and disgusting,” said David Englert of Norfolk. “Someone should be fired or resign over the decision not to report this attack. It is a sad enough commentary on our society and community to read about how the responding police viewed this crime, but for our only newspaper to decide that they will hide from the truth rather than report the truth is PATHETIC! Any attack by a mob of people on any innocent victim should be put under a bright spotlight for all involved to be judged and exposed as appropriate, and to make sure that the criminal justice system does its job to protect those who obey the law.”

William Tabor of Chesapeake, Va., complained: “Surely the Pilot knew about it. A racially motivated attack is certainly news. Was it not politically correct enough to be reported? Is civilization suspended in Norfolk after dark? If we can’t rely on the police for protection, and our [news] media fails to warn us of such hazards, we can only rely on ourselves.”

Charles Chandler of Norfolk indicated: “I am not sure what I am angrier about. This story, or the crowd of black teens who needlessly and thoughtlessly beat two white victims. Or am I just angry that this still occurs in the year 2012. Nearly fifty years after the marches and the speeches and the declaration of civil liberties for all people. Clearly we are nowhere near the dream Dr. King envisioned. I am angry. I am angry at the calloused cop who stated “this is what they do”. I am angry at the Pilot for hiding it under a bushel.”

And Douglas Gaynor of Virginia Beach brought up the need for self-defense, saying, “If the young lady was armed and trained, she could have whipped out P345 and taken out a few thugs.”

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Pack Of Savage Black Beasts Brutally Attacked Innocent White Couple In Norfolk Virginia – Police Officer Called It “Simple Asault” And Told Victim To Shut Up And Get In Her Car, Pointed To Public Housing Saying “It’s What They Do…”

NORFOLK, VIRGINIA – Wave after wave of young men surged forward to take turns punching and kicking their victim.

The victim’s friend, a young woman, tried to pull him back into his car. Attackers came after her, pulling her hair, punching her head and causing a bloody scratch to the surface of her eye. She called 911. A recording told her all lines were busy. She called again. Busy. On her third try, she got through and, hysterical, could scream only their location.

Church and Brambleton. Church and Brambleton. Church and Brambleton.

It happened four blocks from where they work, here at The Virginian-Pilot.

Two weeks have passed since reporters Dave Forster and Marjon Rostami – friends to me and many others at the newspaper – were attacked on a Saturday night as they drove home from a show at the Attucks Theatre. They had stopped at a red light, in a crowd of at least 100 young people walking on the sidewalk. Rostami locked her car door. Someone threw a rock at her window. Forster got out to confront the rock-thrower, and that’s when the beating began.

Neither suffered grave injuries, but both were out of work for a week. Forster’s torso ached from blows to his ribs, and he retained a thumb-sized bump on his head. Rostami fears to be alone in her home. Forster wishes he’d stayed in the car.

Many stories that begin this way end much worse. Another colleague recently wrote about the final defendant to be sentenced in the beating death of 19-year-old James Robertson in East Ocean View five years ago. In that case, a swarm of gang members attacked Robertson and two friends. Robertson’s friends got away and called for help; police arrived to find Robertson’s stripped, swollen corpse.

Forster and Rostami’s story has not, until today, appeared in this paper. The responding officer coded the incident as a simple assault, despite their assertions that at least 30 people had participated in the attack. A reporter making routine checks of police reports would see “simple assault” and, if the names were unfamiliar, would be unlikely to write about it. In this case, editors hesitated to assign a story about their own employees. Would it seem like the paper treated its employees differently from other crime victims?

More questions loomed.

Forster and Rostami wondered if the officer who answered their call treated all crime victims the same way. When Rostami, who admits she was hysterical, tried to describe what had happened, she says the officer told her to shut up and get in the car. Both said the officer did not record any names of witnesses who stopped to help. Rostami said the officer told them the attackers were “probably juveniles anyway. What are we going to do? Find their parents and tell them?”

The officer pointed to public housing in the area and said large groups of teenagers look for trouble on the weekends. “It’s what they do,” he told Forster.

Could that be true? Could violent mobs of teens be so commonplace in Norfolk that police and victims have no recourse?

Police spokesman Chris Amos said officers often respond to reports of crowds fighting; sirens are usually enough to disperse the group. On that night, he said, a report of gunfire in a nearby neighborhood prompted the officer to decide getting Forster and Rostami off the street quickly made more sense than remaining at the intersection. The officer gave them his card and told them to call later to file a report.

The next day, Forster searched Twitter for mention of the attack.

One post chilled him.

“I feel for the white man who got beat up at the light,” wrote one person.

“I don’t,” wrote another, indicating laughter. “(do it for trayvon martin)”

Trayvon Martin, an unarmed black teen, died after being shot by a community watch captain with white and Hispanic parents, George Zimmerman, in Florida.

Forster and Rostami, both white, suffered a beating at the hands of a crowd of black teenagers.

Was either case racially motivated? Were Forster and Rostami beaten in some kind of warped, vigilante retribution for a killing 750 miles away, a person none of them knew? Was it just bombast? Is a beating funny, ever?

Here’s why their story is in the paper today. We cannot allow such callousness to continue unremarked, from the irrational, senseless teenagers who attacked two people just trying to go home, from the police officer whose conduct may have been typical but certainly seems cold, from the tweeting nitwits who think beating a man in Norfolk will change the death of Trayvon Martin.

How can we change it if we don’t know about it? How can we make it better if we look away?

Are we really no better than this?

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Cops Promise Their Will Be Drones Flying In US

WASHINGTON, DC – Look up. Drones are “certainly” coming to the skies over the Beltway in the next few years, one area police chief says.

The use of drones in the D.C. area became public information last week, after the Federal Aviation Administration released a list of agencies currently or previously permitted to use the unmanned aerial vehicles. It included many federal departments, such as Agriculture, Homeland Security and Energy as well as local organizations such as Virginia Commonwealth University and Virginia Tech.

“Drones will certainly have a purpose and a reason to be in this region in the next, coming years,” said Fairfax County Police Chief David Rohrer, while speaking on WTOP’s “Ask the Chief” program on Monday. “Just as a standpoint as an alternative for spotting traffic and sending information back to our VDOT Smart Traffic centers, and being able to observe backups.”

The use of drones over U.S. soil has some in Congress concerned about Americans’ privacy rights.

“The potential for invasive surveillance of daily activities with drone technology is high,” wrote Rep. Edward J. Markey, D-Mass., in an April 19 letter to FAA. “We must ensure that as drones take flight in domestic airspace, they don’t take off without privacy protections for those along their flight path.”

Rep. Joe Barton, R-Texas, said in the same letter he “proudly suppported” the FAA Modernization and Reform Act that allowed for the domestic use of drones. There are many institutions in his home state that the FAA has cleared for done use, including Texas A&M University, and the police forces in the city of Arlington outside Dallas-Fort Worth and in Montgomery County near Houston.

“However, if used improperly or unethically, drones could endanger privacy and I want to make sure that risk is taken into consideration,” he said.

The police chief of Prince William County, Va., which neighbors Fairfax, is not as focused on the prospect of the alternative monitoring system.

“I really haven’t studied them that much,” says Police Chief Charlie Dean. “I’m sure they’re valuable to some degree, but I don’t know about their capabilities.”

The police chiefs also discussed their officers’ involvement in seeking out illegal immigrants.

Prince William County has received national attention for its aggressive policy of checking the immigration status of every person arrested.

Victims of crimes and witnesses are exempt from such questioning, Deane said Monday. He supported the policy as “fair, lawful and reasonable.”

Upon learning that an arrested person is an illegal immigrant, Prince William police officers then turn over their information to federal authorities, such as Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Fairfax County officers are not required to ask about immigration status after making an arrest, says Rohrer, though officers are trained to ask if they suspect someone might be in the country illegally.

“We are not a sanctuary,” he says.

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Nutcase Abingdon Virginia Vocational School Teacher Manuael Ernest Dillow Arrested After Lining Up A Dozen Students, Pulling Blank Gun, And Firing At Them

ABINGDON, VIRGINIA – A Kingsport man who teaches at a vocational school in Abingdon, Va., has been arrested after allegedly pulling a blank firing gun on his students, pointing it their direction and firing multiple times.

The incident occurred April 4 at William H. Neff Center. Manuael Ernest Dillow, 60, of 840 Liberty Drive, Kingsport, was arrested Wednesday for the alleged incident and charged with 12 felony counts of brandishing a firearm on school property.

The Washington County Sheriffs Office reports the charges are class 6 felonies, with each count punishable up to five years incarceration and a $2,500 fine.

Washington County Sheriff Fred Newman reports School Superintendent Jim Sullivan notified the Sheriff’s Office of the incident. An investigation reportedly discovered Dillow “gathered” the attention of the 12 students in his welding class and lined them up near a garage door in the shop.

“He then pulled a ‘blank firing handgun,’ black in color, from the back waistband of his pants and discharged the weapon between four and ten shots in the direction of the line of the students,” states a Wednesday afternoon press release. “The ‘report’ of the firearm was similar to that of a firearm that fires a projectile, thus placing the students in fear, according to statements. No students were physically injured as a result of the incident.”

Dillow was released on a $20,000 unsecured bond with a hearing date scheduled for May 7.

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Navy Jet Crashes Into Virginia Beach Residential Neighborhood Burning Apartment Buildings

VIRGINIA BEACH, VIRGINIA – Two Navy pilots ejected from a fighter jet Friday, sending the unmanned plane careening into a Virginia Beach apartment complex and tearing the roof off at least one building that was engulfed in flames, officials said.

Local officials reported three injuries, including the pilot, but no deaths. The Navy said both people on board the jet ejected before it crashed around noon and were being taken to hospitals for observation.

Live video from WAVY-TV showed dozens of police cars, fire trucks and other emergency vehicles filling the densely populated neighborhood where the plane crashed. Yellow fire hoses snaked through side streets as fire crews poured water on the charred rooftops of brick apartment houses. Another fire crew doused the plane’s wreckage with streams of white foam to try and contain any potential spill of jet fuel.

Four buildings had massive damage, showing gaping holes with fire-blackened edges, while a few yards away, rows of homes were largely untouched.

As authorities closed roads in the neighborhood, traffic backed up on side streets and on nearby Interstate 264, with slow-moving columns of vehicles bringing drivers to a virtual standstill early Friday afternoon.

The crash happened in the Hampton Roads area, which has a large concentration of military bases, including Naval Station Norfolk, the largest naval base in the world. Naval Air Station Oceana, where the F/A-18D that crashed was assigned, is located in Virginia Beach.

Edna Lukens, an apartment employee across the street from the crash, said she saw three apartment buildings on fire.

“We heard this loud noise and we looked out the window and there was smoke all in the sky. Then the flames started going up in the sky, and then the apartment building just started burning and the police was called and everybody came out,” Lukens said.

Lukens said a senior citizens’ community was across the street, and people were trying to help them evacuate.

The Daily Press of Portsmouth reported that Sean Pepe of Norfolk and Kenny Carver of Hampton saw the jet as they were driving on Interstate 264. They said it appeared to be “floating” in the air before it went down behind trees.

“It was odd, but we didn’t think anything of it,” Pepe told the newspaper. “We thought it was doing maneuvers. We were watching the plane but didn’t see the impact. We saw it go down and there was a `boom.’ Then there was black smoke everywhere.”

Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell issued this statement Friday:

“We are taking all possible steps at the state level to provide immediate resources and assistance to those impacted by the crash of an F-18 fighter jet in Virginia Beach. In the past half hour I have spoken to Virginia Beach Mayor Will Sessoms several times and informed him that all Commonwealth resources are available to him as the community responds to this breaking situation. We are monitoring events carefully as they unfold and State Police resources are now on the scene. Our fervent prayer is that no one was injured or killed in this accident.”

Rep. Scott Rigell, R-Va., says the first responders “are admirably addressing the situation on the ground,” according to a release.

“Our prayers are with our entire Hampton Roads and military communities right now,” he says. “I have spoken with Governor McDonnell, Mayor Sessoms, and leadership at Naval Air Station Oceana, and my office and I stand ready to assist as appropriate.”

The same model of fighter jet, an F/A-18D, crashed in December 2008 while returning to Marine Corps Air Station Miramar after a training exercise in a San Diego neighborhood. That crash killed four members of one family and destroyed two homes.

The Marine Corps said the jet suffered a mechanical failure, but a series of bad decisions led the pilot — a student — to bypass a potentially safe landing at a coastal Navy base after his engine failed. The pilot ejected and told investigators he screamed in horror as he watched the jet plow into the neighborhood, incinerating two homes. A federal judge ordered the U.S. government to pay the family nearly $18 million in restitution.

An F-18, a supersonic jet used widely in the Marine Corps and Navy and by the stunt-flying Blue Angels, costs about $57 million. An F-18 crashed at Miramar — known as the setting for the movie “Top Gun” — in November 2006, and that pilot also ejected safely.

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Veteran Virginia Beach Virginia Police Officer Sgt. Mark Vidrine Busted In Chesapeake Prostitution Sting

CHESAPEAKE, VIRGINIA – A Virginia Beach police sergeant has been accused of trying to buy sex. Chesapeake police say he tried to pick up a prostitute in the Greenbrier section of the city.

Chesapeake police routinely do these undercover prostitution stings every few months, but they never expected to catch a police officer from another department in their operation.

Chesapeake undercover officers set up their escort sting at a hotel on Crossways Road in Greenbrier.

According to police, five men fell for the trap; one of them was a Virginia Beach police sergeant.

Mark Vidrine, 49, who has been a Beach officer since 1995, was arrested on Friday night along with other men.

Detectives say in each case, the men arranged to meet with an undercover officer who they thought was a prostitute.

Conversations started on the Internet and moved to the phone where detectives say it was made clear the men wanted to have sex in exchange for money.

When the men showed up to the hotel rooms, detectives tell us the arrangement was again confirmed before arrests were made.

Vidrine and three others were from Hampton Roads but one man, Luis Solano Herrera, traveled all the way from Raleigh for the encounter.

Right now, the Beach sergeant is on administrative assignment pending the outcome of the investigation.

NewsChannel 3 went to his home on Independence Boulevard for comment but no one answered the door.

All five men have been charged with solicitation of prostitution and were given a summons to report to General District Court on these misdemeanor offenses.

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Busted – PETA Killed More Than 95% Of Pets In Its Care

VIRGINIA – Documents published online this month show that People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, an organization known for its uncompromising animal-rights positions, killed more than 95 percent of the pets in its care in 2011.

The documents, obtained from the Virginia Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services, were published online by the Center for Consumer Freedom, a non-profit organization that runs online campaigns targeting groups that antagonize food producers.

Fifteen years’ worth of similar records show that since 1998 PETA has killed more than 27,000 animals at its headquarters in Norfolk, VA.

In a February 16 statement, the Center said PETA killed 1,911 cats and dogs last year, finding homes for only 24 pets.

“PETA hasn’t slowed down its slaughterhouse operation,” said Rick Berman, CCF’s executive director. “It appears PETA is more concerned with funding its media and advertising antics than finding suitable homes for these dogs and cats.”

In a statement, Berman added that PETA has a $37 million dollar annual budget.

His organization runs PETAkillsAnimals.com, which reports that in 2010 a resident of Virginia called PETA and asked if there was an animal shelter at the group’s headquarters. PETA responded that there was not.

The Virginian, the website reports, then called his state’s agriculture department. Dr. Daniel Kovich investigated, and conducted an inspection of PETA’s headquarters.

“The facility does not contain sufficient animal enclosures to routinely house the number of animals annually reported as taken into custody,” Kovich concluded in his report.

Kovich also determined that PETA employees kill 84 percent of the animals in their custody within 24 hours of receiving them.

“[PETA’s] primary purpose,” Kovich wrote, “is not to find permanent adoptive homes for animals.”

PETA media liaison Jane Dollinger told The Daily Caller in an email that “most of the animals we take in are society’s rejects; aggressive, on death’s door, or somehow unadoptable.”

Dollinger did not dispute her organization’s sky-high euthanasia rate, but insisted PETA only kills dogs and cats because of “injury, illness, age, aggression, or because no good homes exist for them.”

PETA’s own history, however, shows that this has not always been the case.

In 2005, two PETA employees described as “adorable” and “perfect” some of the dogs and cats they killed in the back of a PETA-owned van. The two were arrested after police witnessed them tossing the animals’ dead bodies into a North Carolina dumpster.

PETA had no comment when the Daily Caller asked what sort of effort it routinely makes to find adoptive homes for animals in its care.

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Crazed Virginia TSA Agents Targeted Teen Girl With Gun Design On Purse

JACKSONVILLE, FLORIDA – A teenage girl’s sense of style got her in trouble at the airport.

Vanessa Gibbs, 17, claims the Transportation Security Administration stopped her at the security gate because of the design of a gun on her handbag.

Gibbs said she had no problem going through security at Jacksonville International Airport, but rather, when she headed home from Virginia.

“It’s my style, it’s camouflage, it has an old western gun on it,” Gibbs said.

But her preference for the pistol style didn’t sit well with TSA agents at the Norfolk airport.

Gibbs said she was headed back home to Jacksonville from a holiday trip when an agent flagged her purse as a security risk.

“She was like, ‘This is a federal offense because it’s in the shape of a gun,’” Gibbs said. “I’m like, ‘But it’s a design on a purse. How is it a federal offense?’”

After agents figured out the gun was a fake, Gibbs said, TSA told her to check the bag or turn it over.

By the time security wrapped up the inspection, the pregnant teen missed her flight, and Southwest Airlines sent her to Orlando instead, worrying her mother, who was already waiting for her to arrive at JIA.

“Oh, it’s terrifying. I was so upset,” said Tami Gibbs, the teen’s mom. “I was on the phone all the way to Orlando trying to figure out what was going on with her. It was terrifying. I don’t ever want to go through it again.”

Vanessa and her mom said it’s hard to believe anyone could mistake the design on the purse for a real gun because it’s just a few inches in size and it’s hollow, not to mention Vanessa has taken it on planes before.

“I carried this from Jacksonville to Norfolk, and I’ve carried it from Norfolk to Jacksonville,” Vanessa said. “Never once has anyone said anything about it until now.”

TSA isn’t budging on the handbag, arguing the phony gun could be considered a “replica weapon.” The TSA says “replica weapons have prohibited since 2002.”

It’s a rule that Vanessa feels can’t be applied to a purse.

“Common sense,” she said. “It’s a purse, not a weapon.”

A TSA official at JIA said it’s not that uncommon for passengers to wear something that could be considered a gun replica, but the official encourages everyone to check the prohibited items list, which can be found online or at the airport before going through security.

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Virginia Woman Face FIFTY YEARS In Prison For Killing Piglets

CHESAPEAKE, VIRGINIA – A Portsmouth woman faces up to 50 years in prison after pleading guilty to beheading her boyfriend’s piglet.

According to court documents, Ashley Fowler, 22, was breaking up with the piglet’s owner Zach Sawyer and wanted to play a prank first.

Sawyer’s mother told the Virginian-Pilot last year that the piglet’s head freaked her out when she let her puppy outside early one morning last February and saw it staring back at her.

“For somebody to come and do something like this was unbelievably sick,” Janie Sawyer told the paper.

The Sawyers had to euthanize another pig who Fowler admitted to stabbing in the same incident. She said her son started raising them on the family farm as therapy after he suffered a head injury.

Fowler also plead guilty to charges of possessing Adderall and breaking and entering.

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TSA Agent Harold Glen Rodman Arrested In Manassas Virginia, Charged After Raping Woman – While Wearing Uniform

MANASSAS, VIRGINIA – A Transportation Security Administration employee is accused of sexually assaulting a woman in Manassas.

TSA won’t say where or what suspect does for agency

The suspect, Harold Glen Rodman, 52, allegedly was wearing his uniform and displayed a badge to the victim, a 37-year-old woman.

Police arrested Rodman on Nov. 20. He is charged with aggravated sexual battery, object sexual penetration, forcible sodomy and abduction with intent to defile.

A TSA spokesperson confirmed that Rodman works for the agency but wouldn’t say in what capacity or where.

Police said the victim reported that she and a friend were in the 10500 block of Winfield Loop in Manassas when the suspect approached them. The suspect flashed a badge and sexually assaulted the victim before fleeing on foot, police said.

Police responded and canvassed the area when Rodman stepped out of his residence. He matched the description given by the victim and was taken into custody, police said.

Those who live in the community says they were shocked to learn that a neighbor was facing sexual assault charges.

“He seems like a normal guy. I’m really shocked,” says one neighbor.

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Secret Service Pisses Away US Tax Dollars Investigating “Zombie Obama” That Appeared On Halloween Themed Republican Committee Banner

VIRGINIA – A Halloween-themed graphic featuring a zombie President Barack Obama with a bullet hole in his forehead provoked widespread outrage and the attention of the Secret Service Monday after a local Republican committee in Virginia used it to scare up interest in Halloween parade political activities.

The montage, a banner on a mass email to Loudoun Republicans, mingles seasonal images including a jack-o-lantern, a disfigured U.S. Rep. Nancy Pelosi and a throng of flesh-hungry zombie Obama supporters.

The posterized image of a rotting, undead Obama with a bleeding, large-caliber hole an inch above his right eye prompted Democrats to cry foul and Virginia’s Republican governor to denounce it as “shameful and offensive.”

“This is a disgusting and violent portrayal of the president of the United States,” said Democratic Party of Virginia spokesman Brian Coy.

Gov. Bob McDonnell, through spokesman J. Tucker Martin, called on the Loudoun GOP to “apologize for their actions, and to immediately ensure that such imagery is never used again.”
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Virginia GOP Chairman Pat Mullins said such an image “has no place in our politics. Ever.”

Loudoun County GOP chairman Mark Sell said in an email response to The Associated Press that the graphic was “a light-hearted attempt to inject satire humor into the Halloween holiday.”

“Apparently, some individuals have interpreted an image of Barack Obama that appeared within the email as intending to portray the President as a victim of a violent crime,” Sell wrote. “Nothing could be further from the truth, and we deeply and sincerely apologize to the President and anyone who viewed the image if that was the impression that was left.”

There was no reply from Sell to a follow-up email seeking an alternative explanation for the nickel-sized hole in Obama’s forehead.

The image was first reported in a post Monday on the conservative northern Virginia blog, Too Conservative. The post’s author, identified as a “Loudoun Insider,” said he’s no Obama fan, “but putting up a photo of him as a zombie with a bullet hole in his head?”

“Someone should send this to the US Secret Service,” the blog post concluded. The Secret Service is in charge of the president’s security.

“We are aware of the situation,” said George Ogilvie, a Secret Service spokesman in Washington.

The image the Loudoun GOP altered is the red, white and blue image of a determined-looking Obama gazing upward that, emblazoned with the caption “HOPE,” became a ubiquitous Obama poster during his 2008 campaign.

It was created from a copyrighted AP photo taken in 2006 when Obama was a U.S. senator appearing at the National Press Club in Washington. The AP sued over the unlicensed, uncredited and uncompensated use of its photo. The litigation was settled earlier this year.

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Wetback Found Guilty Of Murdering Virginia Nun While Drunk Driving – Had 2 Prior Convictions In US For Drunk Driving

VIRGINIA – An illegal immigrant who fatally struck a Benedictine nun while driving drunk was found guilty in Prince William County on Monday of felony murder — a case that sparked outrage in a county at the forefront of debates on local enforcement of federal immigration laws.

Carlos A. Martinelly Montano, 24, faces up to 70 years in prison when he is sentenced Feb. 3 on the murder charge and a host of lesser related charges to which he pleaded guilty earlier in the day.

The charges stemmed from an Aug. 1, 2010, crash in which Martinelly Montano struck a car carrying Sister Denise Mosier, 66, as she was traveling to a retreat at the Benedictine Monastery in Bristow, Va.

Martinelly Montano, who entered the country illegally with his family from Bolivia in 1996, had twice been convicted on drunken-driving charges before the accident. After the second conviction in 2008, he was released by the county into the custody of the Department of Homeland Security and was awaiting a deportation hearing when the crash occurred.

Prince William Board of County Supervisors Chairman Corey A. Stewart, who at the time of the incident accused President Obama and Congress of having “blood on their hands,” said Monday that the case emphasizes the continued need for strong illegal-immigration-enforcement laws.
Prince William County Commonwealth’s Attorney Paul B. Ebert (right) called it a “tragic case all around.” Mr. Ebert said he could remember past cases against illegal immigrants in which charges were dropped on the condition that the accused be deported — only to have them return soon afterward. “I don’t concern myself with the immigration status anymore,” he said. “We have to enforce the laws whether they’re illegal immigrants or not.” Ronald Reed looks on. (Rod Lamkey Jr./The Washington Times)

“This is just the tip of the iceberg,” he said. “What I don’t want people to think is, ‘Well, we got this one,’ and the issue is resolved. It’s not. This is just a small, one-man example of the dangerous illegal aliens in America who are released by the federal government instead of deported.”

Prince William County Commonwealth’s Attorney Paul B. Ebert called it a “tragic case all around.”

Mr. Ebert said he could remember cases against illegal immigrants in which charges were dropped on the condition that the accused be deported — only to have them return soon afterward.

“I don’t concern myself with the immigration status anymore,” he said. “We have to enforce the laws whether they’re illegal immigrants or not.”

Martinelly Montano’s attorneys disputed that their client should be characterized as an illegal immigrant, saying that at the time of the crash he carried a valid work permit.

Martinelly Montano had used the document when applying for an identification card.

In September 2010, shortly after the accident, Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell ordered the state Department of Motor Vehicles to stop accepting an Employment Authorization Document, or work permit, as proof of legal status.

A Homeland Security Department investigation into the Martinelly Montano case determined that the Justice Department several times had delayed deportation hearings, even as he had several minor run-ins with the law in 2009 and 2010 that were not reported to the Department of Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Martinelly Montano on Monday morning pleaded guilty to involuntary manslaughter, two counts of maiming as a result of driving while intoxicated, driving on a revoked license and a third drunken-driving charge within five years.

He opted for a non-jury trial on the murder charge, and both prosecution and defense attorneys said they thought it was the first time a drunken-driving fatality was prosecuted under state murder laws.

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Crazed Norfolk Virginia School Security Guard Assaulted At Least 37 Children Using Pepper Spray

NORFOLK, VIRGINIA – A middle school security guard used pepper spray on children after a food fight broke out in the cafeteria.

Schools officials are investigating after the unnamed female guard used the powerful weapon to break up a fight during lunch at Lafayette-Winona Middle School in Norfolk, Virginia.

Parents were horrified by the heavy- handed approach, which caused some children who suffer from asthma to get sick.

Violent: A security guard at Lafayette-Winona Middle School in Norfolk, Virginia used pepper spray to regain control after a food fight broke out in the cafeteria

Violent: A security guard at Lafayette-Winona Middle School in Norfolk, Virginia used pepper spray to regain control after a food fight broke out in the cafeteria

37 students complained of physical symptoms following the pepper spray.

They were examined by the school nurse, and their parents were contacted. Five parents contacted the school after the incident.

‘It was just terrible in there,’ 12-year-old Derrell Hairston told Wavy.com

Derrell’s mother Tyheshia Hairston said: ‘He stayed up all night coughing and gagging.

‘I just feel like you can’t treat these kids like animals … they’re going to act like animals.’

Norfolk Public Schools Superintendent Dr. Richard Bentley said. ‘I’d be upset absolutely I don’t blame the parents for being upset I understand that.’

He added: ‘We’re still investigating the facts, we don’t have all the facts yet okay and it would be inappropriate for me to speak about that until we completed the investigation.’

According to school policy, the security officer only use the pepper spray when less forceful methods don’t work. They must also warn pupils.

Derrell Hairston said: ‘She just started spraying pepper spray. She didn’t warn nobody or nothing.’

The principal Tracey Flemings yesterday sent a letter to parents, which read: ‘Yesterday during your child’s lunch period, one of our school security officers determined that it was necessary to use pepper spray to end a food fight.

‘Children who were in the vicinity of the incident, or any who complained of physical symptoms, were examined by the school nurse. We contacted their parents.

‘Please be assured that Norfolk Public Schools has specific policy and procedures regarding the use of pepper spray by our school security officers, and all officers are thoroughly trained.

‘I am working in partnership with the Norfolk Public Schools Department of Pupil Personnel Services to determine whether yesterday’s use of the pepper spray met our policy and procedures.

‘If we find that the protocols were not followed, appropriate steps will be taken to ensure that it does not happen again.’

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