Obama Administration Hides Facts On Murdered Border Patrol Agent Amid Disgraced US Attorney General Eric Holder’s Testimony About His Department Supplying Mexican Drug Cartels With Firearms

WASHINGTON, DC – And to think that Attorney General Eric Holder is getting testy about congressional calls for his resignation. After all, the Justice Department has nothing to hide, right?

The Obama Administration has abruptly sealed court records containing alarming details of how Mexican drug smugglers murdered a U.S. Border patrol agent with a gun connected to a failed federal experiment that allowed firearms to be smuggled into Mexico.

This means information will now be kept from the public as well as the media. Could this be a cover-up on the part of the “most transparent” administration in history? After all, the rifle used to kill the federal agent (Brian Terry) last December in Arizona’s Peck Canyon was part of the now infamous Operation Fast and Furious. Conducted by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), the disastrous scheme allowed guns to be smuggled into Mexico so they could eventually be traced to drug cartels.

The murder of a U.S. Border Patrol agent is related to a Justice Department willingly turning over thousands of guns to Mexican criminal gangs, and Obama administration is hiding information about his death from the public. Amazing.

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Syracuse New York Police Failed To Investigate Sexual Abuse By University Coach

SYRACUSE, NEW YORK – The Syracuse police chief knew in 2002 that a former team ball boy had accused an assistant Syracuse University basketball coach of sexual abuse, but police never started an investigation or filed a report, authorities said on Tuesday.

Syracuse Chief of Police Frank Fowler released a timeline of the missteps in 2002 under his predecessor Chief Dennis DuVal, a former Syracuse basketball player from 1971-1974 who later played for two seasons in the National Basketball Association (NBA).

Bernie Fine, a longtime assistant to Hall of Fame coach Jim Boeheim, was fired on Sunday after ESPN played on air the audio of what it said was a telephone call from Fine’s wife Laurie to an alleged victim confirming the abuse.

The school said Boeheim, who initially defended Fine but reversed himself and supported his firing, would speak publicly after a Tuesday evening home game against Eastern Michigan University.

When asked if the scandal would cost Boeheim his job, Chancellor Nancy Cantor gave him what appeared to be an informal vote of confidence on Tuesday, saying, “Coach Boeheim is our coach.”

Fine is the target of a grand jury investigation into accusations that he molested a former ball boy, Bobby Davis, 39, and at least one other boy, Davis’s stepbrother Mike Lang, 45, when they were juveniles.

Pittsburgh police said they would also investigate allegations from a third man, Zach Tomaselli, that Fine tried to fondle him in a hotel in 2002.

Fine has called the accusations against him “patently false in every aspect.”

Syracuse Police formally launched an investigation of Fine on November 17 — nine years after his alleged victim first spoke with them by phone, Fowler said in the statement.

Davis was in Utah when he telephoned Detective Doug Fox in 2002 and told him about the sexual abuse.

The detective relayed the allegations to both his supervisor in the Abused Persons Unit and Chief DuVal,

STATUTE OF LIMITATIONS

The detective told Davis the statute of limitations had run out so authorities could not make an arrest, but he urged him to turn over additional information about other victims.

“It was decided that unless the victim met with the detective or the victim was able to provide names of other victims, then an investigation would not be initiated,” Fowler said in a statement.

Those conditions were not met so an investigation was never initiated and a report never created.

“I was not the chief in 2002 and I cannot change the procedures in place at that time,” Fowler said in a statement. He said that moving forward, all reports of sexual abuse, including those made over the phone, would be formally documented.

“The investigation is active and ongoing and has entered a new phase with the U.S. Attorney’s Office and the U.S. Secret Service taking the lead,” Fowler said in the statement.

Calls to former police chief DuVal were not returned. No one answered the door at DuVal’s house in Syracuse.

Fowler said it was not until earlier this month that police learned of several key developments, which caused them to launch their investigation.

“On November 17, 2011… two victims came to the Syracuse Police Department, along with new evidence,” Fowler said.

On that day, police also learned for the first time that Syracuse University had investigated and dismissed the allegations for lack of corroboration in 2005.

Syracuse is the third major university to disclose abuse allegations after Penn State University, where a former assistant football coach faces 40 sexual abuse charges, and South Carolina military college The Citadel, where a former student was arrested on accusations of molesting boys.

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President Obama’s Approval Rating Hits The Skids – Falls Below That Of Another Worthless Office Holder

WASHINGTON, DC – President Obama’s slow ride down Gallup’s daily presidential job approval index has finally passed below Jimmy Carter, earning Obama the worst job approval rating of any president at this stage of his term in modern political history.

Since March, Obama’s job approval rating has hovered above Carter’s, considered among the 20th century’s worst presidents, but today Obama’s punctured Carter’s dismal job approval line. On their comparison chart, Gallup put Obama’s job approval rating at 43 percent compared to Carter’s 51 percent.

Back in 1979, Carter was far below Obama until the Iran hostage crisis, eerily being duplicated in Tehran today with Iranian protesters storming the British embassy. The early days of the crisis helped Carter’s ratings, though his failure to win the release of captured Americans, coupled with a bad economy, led to his defeat by Ronald Reagan in 1980.

According to Gallup, here are the job approval numbers for other presidents at this stage of their terms, a year before the re-election campaign:

— Harry S. Truman: 54 percent.

— Dwight Eisenhower: 78 percent.

— Lyndon B. Johnson: 44 percent.

— Richard M. Nixon: 50 percent.

— Ronald Reagan: 54 percent.

— George H.W. Bush: 52 percent.

— Bill Clinton: 51 percent.

— George W. Bush: 55 percent.

What’s more, Gallup finds that Obama’s overall job approval rating so far has averaged 49 percent. Only three former presidents have had a worse average rating at this stage: Carter, Ford, and Harry S. Truman. Only Truman won re-election in an anti-Congress campaign that Obama’s team is using as a model.

[Vote now: Will Obama be a one-term president?]

Many pundits believe that job approval ratings are the key number to look at when determining if a president will win re-election. Generally, they feel that a president should be higher than 47 percent to win re-election.

Obama’s troubles have revived talk in Democratic circles that Vice President Joe Biden should be replaced by the politically popular Hillary Clinton. She plans to leave as secretary of state at the end of Obama’s term no matter what happens in the re-election.

A key Democratic source said that Clinton could help revive the Democratic base and bring in Clinton backers, with whom the administration has had a cool relationship. Clinton has repeatedly rejected talk of her swapping roles with Biden, but Democratic operatives eager to keep the president in office believe that she would be the key to winning educated white voters and liberals upset with the administration’s actions.

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Dumbass Cheating Girlfriend Gets Pile Of Steaming Sh*t Tattoo From Boyfriend Instead Of Narnia Trilogy :)

UK – A furious woman is suing her ex-boyfriend after he tattooed a steaming poo on her back.

Rossie Brovent wants £60,000 in damages from Ryan Fitzjerald.

Rossie, from Dayton, Ohio, US, wanted a scene from the Narnia trilogy inked on her back.

Instead she was left with a pile of excrement with flies buzzing around it.

Tattoo artist Ryan turned rogue after discovering that Rossie had cheated on him with his best friend.

Rossie originally tried to have her ex-lover charged with assault but she had signed a consent form agreeing the tattoo design was “at the artist’s discretion”.

She said: “He tricked me by drinking a bottle of cheap wine with me and doing tequila shots before I signed it and got the tattoo.

“Actually I was passed out for most of the time, and woke up to this horrible image on my back.”

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Veteran Lincoln County Georgia Deputy Sheriff Sgt. Darryl Bently Suspended Amid Investigation

LINCOLN COUNTY, GEORGIA – WJBF News Channel 6 has learned that a deputy with the Lincoln County Sheriff’s office has been suspended.

Sheriff Gerald Lawson says Sgt. Darryl Bently has been with the department since 2005.

Bently was suspended after a complaint came in from a citizen.

Lawson says Bently has been suspended with pay until an internal investigation is complete.

The GBI is investigating.

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Lawsuit Charges Adams Colorado With Holding Deaf Man On Totally Bogus Charges For 25 Days – County Never Provided A Sign Language Interpreter For Him Or Supposed “Victim”

BRIGHTON, COLORADO – A lawsuit claims Adams County authorities detained a deaf man for 25 days in jail without providing a sign-language interpreter before domestic assault charges were eventually dropped.

Timothy Siaki’s lawsuit filed Wednesday in U.S. District Court seeks unspecified damages and a finding that Adams County officials violated the Americans With Disabilities Act over his May 14, 2010, arrest and detention.

The Denver Post reports Siaki doesn’t read or write English or read lips, but he does communicate through American Sign Language. Deputies arrested Siaki after a noise complaint at a motel where Siaki and his fiancDee were verbalizing sounds while arguing.

Deputies responding to the complaint knocked down the motel-room door and tackled Siaki after he failed to respond to their commands.

An Adams County sheriff’s spokesman says officials need to review the suit before commenting. Siaki’s fiancee, Kimberlee Moore, as well as Colorado Cross-Disability Coalition advocacy group are also plaintiffs in the suit.

Adams County Sheriff Doug Darr is named as the defendant.

“There were 25 days of his life that he had access to nothing — no information on why he was being held, no information about his case or what was going to happen to him,” said Kevin William, an attorney who filed the lawsuit.

According to the lawsuit, Moore tried to tell the deputies that Siaki didn’t hurt her but couldn’t because she was not provided an interpreter or any aids.

The suit claims Adams County is violating the ADA by failing to provide an interpreter or auxiliary aids for deaf suspects during their arrest and booking process.

“To this day,” he said, “we don’t know why he was held for 25 days.”

Williams told the paper the coalition recently settled a similar case against the Lakewood Police Department and the Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office that call for very specific policies for compliance with the ADA.

“They need policies and procedures for folks who are deaf,” Williams said. “People just assume that a deaf person understands what they are saying.”

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Buckeye Arizona Police Claim They Will Investigate Officer Who Brutally Attacked Elderly Man At Walmart

BUCKEYE, ARIZONA – An Arizona police department will conduct an investigation into the bloody arrest of a 54-year-old grandfather during a Black Friday sale at a Walmart, an assistant police chief said Saturday.

Jerald Newman, 54, was released Saturday from a Maricopa County jail, his wife, Pamela, told CNN. He has been charged with resisting arrest and shoplifting.

“(He is) as good as expected … but he is emotionally and mentally a wreck,” she said.

Newman was among a throng of shoppers crammed into a Buckeye, Arizona, Walmart soon after it opened late the night of Thanksgiving.

“They were just letting people in; there was nowhere to walk,” said his daughter, Berneta Sanchez, who was also in the store. “Teenagers and adults were fighting for these games, taking them away from little kids and away from my father.”

The suspect’s grandson, Nicholas Nava, told CNN affiliate KNXV that Newman had grabbed one video game and put it under his shirt so that others jostling for the game didn’t take it from him. One person alerted a police officer, who then approached Newman.

David Chadd, a CNN iReporter from Las Vegas, was among the crowd shopping for video games set up in the Walmart’s grocery section. He said Newman “was not resisting” arrest as he was led away from the crowd by a police officer.

That officer, Chadd said, then suddenly hooked the suspect around the leg, grabbed him and “slammed him face first into the ground.”

“It was like a bowling ball hitting the ground, that’s how bad it was,” he said.

Video, recorded by Chadd and later posted on CNN’s iReport, shows an apparently unconscious Newman head-down on the floor in a pool of blood. As he’s turned over, Buckeye police officers appear to try to revive him — at which point his face, covered mostly in blood, is revealed.

Several voices, apparently those of fellow shoppers, are heard saying, “Why would you throw him down so hard? All he did was shoplifting and you threw him down like that?” Another person says, “They threw him down. He wasn’t doing anything wrong.”

Two citizens then appear to come to Newman’s aid by applying paper towels to the man’s nose. Chadd estimated Newman was knocked out for about 10 minutes, all the while gushing blood and handcuffed.

Buckeye Assistant Police Chief Larry Hall said Saturday that Newman’s case is “basically in the court’s hands right now, as far as the resisting arrest and shoplifting goes.”

The department will conduct an investigation to assess if the actions of the police officer involved in the arrest were “within reason,” based on “our policy and also the law.” He said that probe would happen soon, adding it was “days away.”

“We may have an independent agency conduct the inquiry, just to show transparency,” Hall said.

As to the criminal charges, Todd Nolan — the attorney representing Newman — said his office will conduct discovery procedures Monday with police “to gather evidence proving my client is innocent.”

The suspect himself plans to speak to the media later next week, his lawyer said.

Walmart spokeswoman Ashley Hardie said the retail giant was aware of the incident.

“We are concerned whenever there is an incident involving a customer at one of our stores,” Hardie said. “We are in contact with the local police and are sharing any information we have with them.”

Sanchez described her father as “a really nice man,” saying he is a custom furniture-maker who preaches through the California prison system. He has raised his grandson from birth and, even while in the hospital, Sanchez said the boy was her father’s chief concern.

Whatever happens, Sanchez vowed that next year she won’t be shopping in the wee hours of the Friday morning after Thanksgiving.

“I will never leave my house again on Black Friday, because I don’t want to put my daughter through that again,” she said, noting her daughter was there to see police standing over her bloody grandfather. “I’d rather stay home. And if they have Black Friday, they need more security.”

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Pyscho New York City Health Department Officials Ban Harmless Cat From Hotel Lobby – 10th In A Series That Have Maintained Residence There For 80 Years

The city Department of Health & Mental Hygiene has sunk its claws into another beloved New York institution — The Algonquin hotel’s lobby cat.

Matilda III — the latest in an illustrious line of free-roaming Algonquin felines — has been banished from the lobby lounge, leaving guests fruitlessly searching for her under chairs and sofas.

Prodded by Nanny Bloomberg, the DOH has been socking restaurants with steep fines for minor violations — and slapping dreaded “C” ratings on places where no one was known to get sick.

Some places are taking no chances, eliminating popular features before the DOH can strike them down. The party-pooping agency recently nudged Sardi’s to eliminate cheese snacks at its bar.

Now, thanks to a DOH “reminder,” poor Matilda is on a leash behind The Algonquin’s check-in desk, or out of sight on a higher floor.

The city’s favorite feline, a blue-eyed ragdoll, took up residence last winter. She’s the 10th Algonquin cat since Rusty, a k a Hamlet I, moved into the hotel, legendary home of the “Round Table” literary salon, in 1932.

The pampered pussies are as much a part of The Algonquin’s cozy confines as the oak paneling and upholstered chairs and sofas. Hotel staff have delighted in pointing out Matilda’s hiding places to guests.

Like her predecessors, she had the run of the house, but the lobby, home to the Round Table restaurant and lounge, was called her “natural habitat.”

Hotel staff tried blaming Matilda’s going missing on guests who were abusing her — a claim that gave paws, since it was not a problem for 80 years.

Algonquin General Manager Gary Budge first said the lockup was for Matilda’s own good.

“People seem more aggressive toward her, and she’s responding in a way that’s not helpful,” he claimed. But then he acknowledged, “The [Health] department in the past months suggested to us that pets in food-service facilities are no longer commingled.

“The lobby is an area where we serve food and beverage. We always want to be respectful of the Department of Health.”

A DOH spokeswoman said, “According to the New York City Health Code, live animals are not allowed in food-service establishments unless a patron needs a service dog.”

She said Algonquin managers told an inspector they had an “electronic fence to contain the cat,” and the inspector “reminded them that the cat is not allowed in food-service or preparation areas.”

At a preliminary inspection on Nov. 10, The Algonquin received 20 violation points, worth a B grade if they aren’t corrected on a follow-up DOH visit.

None of the violations involved Matilda.

The hotel will close Jan. 1 for a four-month, $15 million renovation.

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Clayton County Georgia Police Officer David Carter Arrested For Driving 100+ MPH On Motorcycle

CLAYTON COUNTY, GEORGIA – A Clayton County police officer was arrested Thursday night after authorities said he was clocked at over 100 mph on his motorcycle in Butts County.

“He thought he was being followed” by someone other than police, Butts County Sheriff Gene Pope told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

Clayton Officer David Eugene Carter was leaving Jenkinsburg, southeast of Locust Grove, when he passed Butts County sheriff’s deputies, authorities said.

A deputy driving a black Chevrolet Tahoe police vehicle got behind Carter’s motorcycle, and Carter sped up, Pope said.

Carter turned west onto Georgia State Route 16, heading toward I-75 and sped up, reaching speeds of up to 108 mph at times on the two-lane road where 55 mph is the posted speed limit, Pope said.

The deputy flashed his blue lights and Carter slowed down, Pope said.

“After he was taken off the motorcycle, he identified himself as a cop, and said he was speeding for a reason,” Pope said.

Pope said Carter told the arresting deputy he was afraid for his safety along the sparsely lit state road.

“He said in Clayton County, cars following motorcycles sometimes try to bump the rider off the bike and take the bike,” Pope said. “He couldn’t tell on that dark road that the vehicle following him was police.”

Carter was charged with violating the Georgia Super Speeder law — an offense that warrants arrest, Pope said — and evading an officer. The evading charge likely will be dropped given that Carter did stop when he was flashed, Pope said.

Carter was not wearing a police uniform or carrying his police-issued handgun, Pope said.

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Flaw In iTunes Allowed Hackers And Spys Access To Users Computers For 3+ Years

UK – A British company called Gamma International marketed hacking software to governments that exploited the vulnerability via a bogus update to iTunes, Apple’s media player, which is installed on more than 250 million machines worldwide.

The hacking software, FinFisher, is used to spy on intelligence targets’ computers. It is known to be used by British agencies and earlier this year records were discovered in abandoned offices of that showed it had been offered to Egypt’s feared secret police.

Apple was informed about the relevant flaw in iTunes in 2008, according to Brian Krebs, a security writer, but did not patch the software until earlier this month, a delay of more than three years.

“A prominent security researcher warned Apple about this dangerous vulnerability in mid-2008, yet the company waited more than 1,200 days to fix the flaw,” he said in a blog post.

“The disclosure raises questions about whether and when Apple knew about the Trojan offering, and its timing in choosing to sew up the security hole in this ubiquitous software title.”
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On average Apple takes just 91 days to fix security flaws after they are disclosed, Mr Krebs wrote.

Francisco Amato, the Argentinian security researcher who warned Apple about the problem suggested that “maybe they forgot about it, or it was just on the bottom of their to-do list”.

In response to reports that FinFisher targeted iTunes, Apple has said that it works “to find and fix any issues that could compromise systems”.

“The security and privacy of our users is extremely important,” a spokeswoman said.

This month’s iTunes update 10.5.1 explained that “a man-in-the-middle attacker may offer software that appears to originate from Apple”, adding that the “issue has been mitigated”.

Gamma International has not commented on the matter. Registered in Winchester, the firm is one of several companies that sell computer hacking services to governments. They offer “zero day” security flaws, which have not been publicly disclosed, so attempts to exploit them are unlikely to be detected by anti-virus programs.

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Crazed Everett Washington Safeway Security Guard Tried To Get 4 Year Old Toddler To Read And Sign Form Saying She Is Banned From Store

EVERETT, WASHINGTON – A Safeway security guard is taking heat for the way he questioned a 4-year-old shoplifter in Everett.

Little Savannah Harp recently took a trip to the grocery store with her dad. While they were shopping, Savanna took a package of dried fruit from a shelf.

“She grabbed a bag of apricots – dried apricots – opened them, ate a couple, put it back and the security guard watched her do it,” said the girl’s mother, Alissa Jones.

Savannah’s father didn’t notice his daughter’s sticky fingers, but a store security guard did.

The guard stopped the pair as they left the store and led them back to a break room.

“He proceeded to tell them, ‘Your daughter stole and she’s banned from the store, and we’re pressing charges. And she needs to sign this form saying she understands she can’t come into any Safeways,'” Jones said.

Savannah can’t read or write, but the guard, whom Safeway had hired under contract, had her scribble on the paper just the same.

“It’s pretty troubling,” Jones said. “It’s not like she even knows what she was doing.”

Savannah’s parents aren’t the only ones concerned about the way the situation was handled. Company officials said they are outraged by the incident and have fired the security guard.

“Our policies on shoplifting are intended to protect our customers, but built on common sense. And everyone understands what common sense is,” said company spokesperson Cherie Myers. “We are as appalled as the parent is. Our division president was absolutely appalled, called the mom and apologized.”

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Stockton California Police Officer Lt. Frank Gordo Handcuffed And Shackled 5 Year Old Boy And Sent Him To Mental Hospital After Officer Instigated Incident With The Child

STOCKTON, CALIFORNIA – Earlier this year, a Stockton student was handcuffed with zip ties on his hands and feet, forced to go to the hospital for a psychiatric evaluation and was charged with battery on a police officer. That student was 5 years old.

Michael Davis is diagnosed with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder or ADHD. His mother says it has led to fights at school. But when the school district said it had a plan to change Michael’s behavior, his mother says things went wrong.

“Michael is energetic,” Thelma Gray said. “He is one big ball of energy.”

Gray calls Michael a comedian. She says his biggest problem is his ADHD stops him from thinking before he acts or speaks.

“He’s very loving,” Gray said. “He’s a good kid and he’s not the discipline problem that he was made out to be.”

Those discipline problems include fights with other students, even throwing a chair.

Gray says the school, Rio Calaveras Elementary of Stockton, wanted to change that behavior by having Michael meet with a school police officer.

“He could come out and talk to Michael and the kids are normally scared straight,” said Gray, describing how she says the school district proposed the meeting.

But the meeting didn’t go as planned.

Gray says Michael was agitated when the officer entered the room, and the whole meeting ended with Michael arrested and cuffed, with zip ties on his hands and his feet.

“I was led to believe that Michael saw a police officer and attacked a police officer on sight,” said Gray, adding that that’s not what happened.

She knows because she ultimately obtained a copy of the police report.

In it, the officer, Lt. Frank Gordo, says he placed his hand on Michael’s and, “the boy pushed my hand away in a batting motion, pushed papers off the table, and kicked me in the right knee.”

When Michael wouldn’t calm down, Gordo cuffed Michael’s hands and feet with zip ties and took the boy to the Stockton Kaiser Psychiatric Hospital in the back of a squad car.

He had not called Michael’s mother or father at that point.

Michael was cited for battery on a police officer.

“I didn’t know until two or three weeks later that my son was zip tied,” Gray said.

Her ex-husband had picked Michael up from the hospital. When he arrived, Michael’s wrists were still zip tied behind his back.

KCRA 3 asked Rio Calaveras Elementary, the Stockton Unified School District and the Stockton Unified School District Police on multiple occasions to comment on what happened during Michael’s meeting with the officer.

Both the police chief and the school district said they could not comment.

The district said it could not comment because of privacy laws regarding students and because the San Joaquin County Grand Jury and the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights were investigating.

“I have been around young children that when they can’t express themselves and don’t feel they’re being heard. They really need to make a loud statement in some way and it’s often a very physical statement.”
– UC Davis Professor of Education Shannon Cannon

Also, neither the district nor the Stockton School Police would comment on what procedures were in place to handle children with behavioral problems.

“Some of that’s really abstract,” said UC Davis Professor of Education Shannon Cannon, speaking on how young children react. “We need to try to make it a little bit more concrete,” she said, adding that young children are often more physical than vocal.

When KCRA 3 interviewed Cannon, her students were learning about dealing with problem behavior in the classroom. Cannon says she has seen children as young as 7 years old act out physically and they can get violent, even dangerous to others around them — but adds that it is important to have a behavioral plan in place as soon as the child is diagnosed.

She says children as young as 5 years old may not be able to tell an adult what is bothering them.

“I have been around young children that, when they can’t express themselves, and don’t feel they’re being heard,” says Cannon, adding that “they really need to make a loud statement in some way and it’s often a very physical statement.”

KCRA 3 obtained a copy of the U.S. Department of Education’s report on Michael’s arrest.

The report states that the Stockton Unified School District “delayed an evaluation of the student {Michael} which denied the student a fair and public education.”

They added that the school didn’t offer behavioral services to Michael or his mother, because “it would cost the district money.”

The report goes on to say that, whether or not funds are available through state or federal grants, the school district had an obligation to have Michael evaluated, which it failed to do.

As for Michael’s mother, Gray said she doesn’t want an apology from the district, she simply wants the school district to help her get Michael the education he’s entitled.

“I’ve been asking,” Gray said. “I’ve been begging for any assistance for Michael to get placed appropriately and this is what they chose to do.”

A juvenile court judge eventually dismissed the battery charges against Michael.

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Morons Running State “Terrorist Intelligence Center” In Illinois – Feds Find Water Pump Cyberattack Never Happened

ILLINOIS – Federal officials said Wednesday they have found no evidence to support an initial state report that foreign hackers caused a pump at an Illinois water plant to fail this month.

The preliminary report, collected by a statewide terrorist intelligence center in Illinois, had said that a Russian hacker had taken control of the operating system at the water plant in Springfield. The pump turned on and off repeatedly, burning out the motor, the report said.

Security expert Joe Weiss obtained the report and read it to The Washington Post. If confirmed, the incident would have been the first report of a cyber­attack causing physical damage to a water system in the United States.

But the Department of Homeland Security and the FBI said they could not confirm reports of a cyber­attack. DHS spokesman Chris Ortman called the Illinois state report nothing more than “raw, unconfirmed data.”

He said that the federal investigation also could not confirm the report’s claim that hackers broke into a software company’s database and retrieved user names and passwords, which enabled access to the water plant system.

“In addition,” Ortman said, “DHS and FBI have concluded that there was no malicious traffic from Russia or any foreign entities, as previously reported.”

Officials from the state intelligence center did not return phone calls seeking comment Wednesday.

Weiss said that federal officials were seeking a degree of proof impractical for such a cyberattack. The control system at the Illinois plant probably does not log signals sent to the water pumps and, as a result, would contain no data on who might have gained access to the system, he said. “Control systems don’t have that kind of logging.”

The pump was having problems, Don Craven, a trustee on the Curran-Gardner water board, said in a phone interview. “We noticed some glitches,” Craven said. The district passed the information to the state Environmental Protection Agency, he said.

Craven said the board later saw a report — he did not recall from which agency — that “came to the conclusion that somebody had hacked into the system.”

Robert Green, another water board member, said that the water district manager told him “there were some intrusions.”

“They think some people hacked it, but they weren’t in long enough to do anything,” he said.

Green said that there were some glitches with the pump. “But was it the pump,” he said, “or was it a hacker, or was it something that went wrong in the [control] system, too?”

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Illegal Immigrants Blamed For 30 Wildfires In Arizona

ARIZONA – People entering the U.S. illegally from Mexico are believed responsible for more than one-third of human-ignited wildfires in Arizona over a five-year period, according to a government report that could stoke congressional debate over illegal immigration.

Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) said the Government Accountability Office report supports remarks he made earlier this year after his state was hit hard by wildfires. At the time, McCain was accused of “scapegoating” immigrants.

“I hope this report is a lesson to the activists and public officials that would prefer to engage in partisan character attacks rather than help focus the discussion on the vital need to secure our southern border,” he said in a statement.

Illegal immigrants are believed to have started 30 of 77 fires that were investigated from 2006 through 2010, according to the report by the GAO, the investigative arm of Congress.

Federal land management agencies, however, did not investigate all 422 human-caused fires on federal and tribal land, as called for by federal policy.

“Only 18% of fires on federal land during the five-year study period were actually investigated, and thus, the number and size of fires linked to illegal border crossers may actually be higher,” McCain said.

Of the 30 fires, nine burned more than 100 acres each, 16 burned 10 to 100 acres, and five burned fewer than 10 acres, according to the report.

Efforts to signal for help, provide warmth or cook food appear to be the source of the fires, according to the report. One 2006 fire that burned about 170 acres started after an injured border crosser signaled his need for help. The causes of some of the fires are not known, but the report noted that some occurred in areas known for drug smuggling.

“The presence of illegal border crossers has complicated fire suppression activities in the Arizona border region,” the report said, adding that it has “increased concern about firefighter safety, and, in some instances, has required firefighters to change or limit the tactics they use in suppressing fires.”

Only a limited number of fires were studied because of the lack of investigators, according to the GAO report, which could set off a congressional debate over whether federal agencies are receiving enough money from Congress to prevent fires. The report notes that the percentage of fires caused by human activity in Arizona is “consistent with the national average.”

“In a time of constrained resources and competing needs, we recognize that investigating all human-caused wildland fires in the Arizona border region may not be feasible,” the report notes.

The report urges officials in Arizona to look at a program in California aimed at reducing fires from illegal immigration. Cleveland National Forest has a crew that hikes trails known to be used by illegal border crossers and extinguishes abandoned campfires, according to the report. In 2008 alone, the crew extinguished 101 abandoned campfires that the report said could have grown into larger, more damaging fires.

The GAO study began in 2010, so it didn’t take into account the 2011 fire season, the worst in Arizona history, that McCain said included two fires that destroyed more than 60 homes.

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5 Armed Illegal Immigrants Hunted US Border Patrol Agents In Arizona

ARIZONA – Five illegal immigrants armed with at least two AK-47 semi-automatic assault rifles were hunting for U.S. Border Patrol agents near a desert watering hole known as Mesquite Seep just north of the Arizona-Mexico border when a firefight erupted and one U.S. agent was killed, records show.

A now-sealed federal grand jury indictment in the death of Border Patrol agent Brian A. Terry says the Mexican nationals were “patrolling” the rugged desert area of Peck Canyon at about 11:15 p.m. on Dec. 14 with the intent to “intentionally and forcibly assault” Border Patrol agents.

At least two of the Mexicans carried their assault rifles “at the ready position,” one of several details about the attack showing that Mexican smugglers are becoming more aggressive on the U.S. side of the border.

According to the indictment, the Mexicans were “patrolling the area in single-file formation” a dozen miles northwest of the border town of Nogales and — in the darkness of the Arizona night — opened fire on four Border Patrol agents after the agents identified themselves in Spanish as police officers.

Two AK-47 assault rifles found at the scene came from the failed Fast and Furious operation.

Using thermal binoculars, one of the agents determined that at least two of the Mexicans were carrying rifles, but according to an affidavit in the case by FBI agent Scott Hunter, when the Mexicans did not drop their weapons as ordered, two agents used their shotguns to fire “less than lethal” beanbags at them.

At least one of the Mexicans opened fire and, according to the affidavit, Terry, a 40-year-old former U.S. Marine, was shot in the back. A Border Patrol shooting-incident report said that Terry called out, “I’m hit,” and then fell to the ground, a bullet having pierced his aorta. “I can’t feel my legs,” Terry told one of the agents who cradled him. “I think I’m paralyzed.”

Bleeding profusely, he died at the scene.

After the initial shots, two agents returned fire, hitting Manuel Osorio-Arellanes, 33, in the abdomen and leg. The others fled. The FBI affidavit said Osorio-Arellanes admitted during an interview that all five of the Mexicans were armed.

Peck Canyon is a notorious drug-smuggling corridor.

Osorio-Arellanes initially was charged with illegal entry, but that case was dismissed when the indictment was handed up. It named Osorio-Arellanes on a charge of second-degree murder, but did not identify him as the likely shooter, saying only that Osorio-Arellanes and others whose names were blacked out “did unlawfully kill with malice aforethought United States Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry while Agent Terry was engaged in … his official duties.”

The indictment also noted that Osorio-Arellanes had been convicted in Phoenix in 2006 of felony aggravated assault, had been detained twice in 2010 as an illegal immigrant, and had been returned to Mexico repeatedly.

Bill Brooks, U.S. Customs and Border Protection’s acting southwest border field branch chief, referred inquiries to the FBI, which is conducting the investigation. The FBI declined to comment.

The case against Osorio-Arellanes and others involved in the shooting has since been sealed, meaning that neither the public nor the media has access to any evidence, filings, rulings or arguments.

The U.S. attorney’s office in San Diego, which is prosecuting the case, would confirm only that it was sealed. Also sealed was the judge’s reason for sealing the case.

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Scotland Neck North Carolina Police Officer Joe Williams Used “Stun Gun” To Kill Innocent Disabled Man On Bicycle

Scotland Neck, NORTH CAROLINA – A 61-year-old Halifax County man died Tuesday, a day after police shocked him with a stun gun while he was riding his bike, family members said.

Scotland Neck Police Chief Joe Williams said they received a call Monday night about a man who fell off of his bicycle and injured himself in the parking lot of the BB&T bank, 1001 Main St. The caller was concerned that the man was drunk.

When Officer John Turner arrived, he saw Roger Anthony pedaling away along 10th Street. He followed Anthony in his patrol car, briefly put on his sirens and lights and yelled out of the window for him to stop, but Anthony continued to ride away, police said.

Williams said Turner then saw Anthony take something out his pocket and put it into his mouth. At that time, Turner got out of the car and yelled for Anthony to stop. When Anthony didn’t stop, the officer used a stun gun on him, causing him to fall off of his bike.

Anthony was transported to Pitt County Memorial Hospital, where he was declared brain dead, his sister Gladys Freeman said. He was taken off of life support on Tuesday.

Freeman said her brother was disabled, suffered from seizures and had trouble hearing. She said he was riding his bike home from her house on Sunday night. Anthony lived alone in an independent living community.

Williams would not comment further on the incident, citing an ongoing investigation. Turner, who has been on the force for just over a month, has been placed on administrative leave.

Scotland Neck Mayor James Mills is calling for the State Bureau of Investigation to look into what happened.

“The best we’ve been able to determine is that he offered no threat,” Mills said.

Milton Freeman said Anthony, his brother-in-law, used to smoke cigarettes, drink coffee and ride his bicycle around town. Anthony was nicknamed “Rabbit” because of his big ears.

“Why would you (use a stun gun on) a man on a bike? He didn’t do any crime. He wasn’t trying to escape. How (was) he going to escape on his bicycle?” Milton Freeman said.

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Aransas County Texas Judge William Adams Finally Suspended (But Still Not Charged) After Video Surfaces Of Him Beating His Daughter

McALLEN, TEXAS – The Texas Supreme Court suspended a judge Tuesday whose beating of his then-teenage daughter in 2004 was viewed millions of times on the Internet.

Aransas County court-at-law Judge William Adams was suspended immediately with pay pending the outcome of the inquiry started earlier this month by the State Commission on Judicial Conduct, according to an order signed Tuesday by the clerk of the state’s highest court.

The order makes clear that while Adams agreed to the commission’s recommended temporary suspension and waived the hearing and notice requirements, he does not admit “guilt, fault or wrongdoing” regarding the allegations. His attorney did not immediately return a call from The Associated Press seeking comment.

Adams’ now 23-year-old daughter Hillary Adams uploaded the secretly-recorded 2004 video of her father beating her repeatedly with a belt for making illegal downloads from the internet.

William Adams has not sat on the bench since the video went viral. It has been viewed more than 6 million times on YouTube.

The public outcry over the video was so great that in a rare move, the State Commission on Judicial Conduct announced publicly Nov. 2 that it had opened an investigation. A statement from the commission then said that it had been flooded with calls, emails and faxes regarding the video and Adams.

William Adams appeared in court Monday for a day-long hearing regarding the custody of his 10-year-old daughter. His wife had sought a change in their joint custody agreement, and another judge imposed a temporary restraining order effectively keeping William Adams from being alone with his younger daughter until he reached a decision. An order was expected in that dispute Wednesday.

As Aransas County’s top judge, William Adams has dealt with at least 349 family law cases in the past year alone, nearly 50 of which involved state caseworkers seeking determine whether parents were fit to raise their children. A visiting judge has been handling his caseload.

After reviewing the investigation conducted by local police, the Aransas County district attorney said too much time had passed to bring charges against William Adams.

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12 Former Brooks County Georgia Election Officials Indicted For Voter Fraud

QUITMAN, GEORGIA – 12 former Brooks County officials were indicted for voter fraud. The suspects are accused of illegally helping people vote by absentee ballot.

State officials launched an investigation after an unusually high number of absentee ballots were cast in the July 2010 primary election. “As a result of their grand jury findings 12 individuals were indicted in that particular matter and we will be trying that case in a court of judicial law instead of a court of public opinion so that will be pending this next year,” said District Attorney Joe Mulholland.

The defendants include some workers in the voter registrar’s office and some school board members. They are Angela Bryant, April Proctor, Brenda Monds, Debra Denard, Lula Smart, Kechia Harrison, Robert Denard, Sandra Cody, Elizabeth Thomas, Linda Troutman, Latashia Head, and Nancy Denard.

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Hero To Zero: Douche-Bag University Of California Davis Police Officer John Pike “Honored For Service” Prior To Brutal Pepper Spray Attack On Peaceful Protesters

DAVIS, CALIFORNIA – The police officer who pepper-sprayed a row of peaceful Occupy Wall Street protesters at a California university last week is a retired U.S. Marine sergeant who has been honored for his police work on campus, but he also figured in a discrimination lawsuit against the university.

Lt. John Pike has risen swiftly through the ranks of the University of California, Davis, police force over the last decade. Now, as one of four lieutenants, the 39-year-old supervises more than one-third of the sworn officers on the suburban campus near Sacramento, including the investigations unit.

Linda Katehi, University of California, Davis Chancellor, says she was horrified by video showing students pepper-sprayed by a campus police officers. She also refused calls to resign. (Nov. 21)

Linda Katehi, University of California, Davis Chancellor, says she was horrified by video showing students pepper-sprayed by a campus police officers. She also refused calls to resign. (Nov. 21)

Footage of Pike and another officer clad in riot gear casually spraying an orange cloud at protesters’ heads has sparked national outrage since it began circulating online Friday night. Students gathered on campus Tuesday for the second time in as many days to condemn the violence, and they urged university officials to require police to attend sensitivity trainings.

Pike has twice been honored by the university for exceptional police work, including a 2006 incident in which he tackled a scissor-wielding hospital patient who was threatening fellow officers. Afterward, he said he decided against using pepper spray because it might harm his colleagues or other hospital patients.

But an alleged anti-gay slur by Pike also figured in a racial and sexual discrimination lawsuit a former police officer filed against the department, which ended in a $240,000 settlement in 2008. Officer Calvin Chang’s 2003 discrimination complaint against the university’s police chief and the UC Board of Regents alleged he was systematically marginalized as the result of anti-gay and racist attitudes on the force, and he specifically claimed Pike described him using a profane anti-gay epithet.

UC Davis Chancellor Linda Katehi identified Pike as one of the officers involved in the pepper-spray incident in an interview with the campus television station Sunday, and university communications staff confirmed his role Tuesday morning.

As the controversy over the spraying incident has grown, images of the lieutenant have become the subject of a popular blog, which features his image superimposed on famous paintings and spraying famous figures, from Gandhi to John F. Kennedy. The handcraft site Etsy.com also is selling a T-shirt emblazoned with Pike’s image but showing flowers coming out of his spray can.

Over the weekend, the hacker group Anonymous, which is affiliated with the Occupy Wall Street movement, posted on its website Pike’s phone number and other personal details.

Pike did not immediately return a message left Tuesday at a home address listed in Roseville, a Sacramento suburb.

Records show Pike joined the Marines in November 1989, and by the time he left, he had been promoted to sergeant.

In 2003, two years after Pike joined the campus police force, he received his first meritorious service award for using his patrol car to bump a suspect’s vehicle onto a local highway ramp, stopping the man from driving the wrong way.

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Washington DC Police Track Motorists In Real-Time With Cameras, Then Store In Massive Database

WASHINGTON, DC – An armed robber burst into a Northeast Washington market, scuffled with the cashier, and then shot him and the clerk’s father, who also owned the store. The killer sped off in a silver Pontiac, but a witness was able to write down the license plate number.

Police figured out the name of the suspect very quickly. But locating and arresting him took a little-known investigative tool: a vast system that tracks the comings and goings of anyone driving around the District.

Scores of cameras across the city capture 1,800 images a minute and download the information into a rapidly expanding archive that can pinpoint people’s movements all over town.

Police entered the suspect’s license plate number into that database and learned that the Pontiac was on a street in Southeast. Police soon arrested Christian Taylor, who had been staying at a friend’s home, and charged him with two counts of first-degree murder. His trial is set for January.

More than 250 cameras in the District and its suburbs scan license plates in real time, helping police pinpoint stolen cars and fleeing killers. But the program quietly has expanded beyond what anyone had imagined even a few years ago.

With virtually no public debate, police agencies have begun storing the information from the cameras, building databases that document the travels of millions of vehicles.

Nowhere is that more prevalent than in the District, which has more than one plate-reader per square mile, the highest concentration in the nation. Police in the Washington suburbs have dozens of them as well, and local agencies plan to add many more in coming months, creating a comprehensive dragnet that will include all the approaches into the District.

“It never stops,” said Capt. Kevin Reardon, who runs Arlington County’s plate reader program. “It just gobbles up tag information. One of the big questions is, what do we do with the information?”

Police departments are grappling with how long to store the information and how to balance privacy concerns against the value the data provide to investigators. The data are kept for three years in the District, two years in Alexandria, a year in Prince George’s County and a Maryland state database, and about a month in many other suburban areas.

“That’s quite a large database of innocent people’s comings and goings,” said Jay Stanley, senior policy analyst for the American Civil Liberties Union’s technology and liberty program. “The government has no business collecting that kind of information on people without a warrant.”

But police say the tag readers can give them a critical jump on a child abductor, information about when a vehicle left — or entered — a crime scene, and the ability to quickly identify a suspected terrorist’s vehicle as it speeds down the highway, perhaps to an intended target.

Having the technology during the Washington area sniper shootings in 2002 might have stopped the attacks sooner, detectives said, because police could have checked whether any particular car was showing up at each of the shooting sites.

“It’s a perfect example of how they’d be useful,” said Lt. T.J. Rogers, who is responsible for the 26 tag readers maintained by the Fairfax County police. “We see a lot of potential in it.”

The plate readers are different from red-light or speed cameras, which issue traffic tickets and are tools for deterrence and enforcement. The readers are an investigative tool, capturing a picture of every license plate that passes by and instantly analyzing them against a database filled with cars wanted by police.

Police can also plug any license plate number into the database and, as long as it passed a camera, determine where that vehicle has been and when. Detectives also can enter a be-on-the-lookout into the database, and the moment that license plate passes a detector, they get an alert.

It’s that precision and the growing ubiquity of the technology that has libertarians worried. In Northern Virginia recently, a man reported his wife missing, prompting police to enter her plate number into the system.

They got a hit at an apartment complex, and when they got there, officers spotted her car and a note on her windshield that said, in essence, “Don’t tow, I’m visiting apartment 3C.” Officers knocked on the door of that apartment, and she came out of the bedroom. They advised her to call her husband.

A new tool in the arsenal

Even though they are relatively new, the tag readers, which cost about $20,000 each, are now as widely used as other high-tech tools police employ to prevent and solve crimes, including surveillance cameras, gunshot recognition sensors and mobile finger­print scanners.

License plate readers can capture numbers across four lanes of traffic on cars zooming up to 150 mph.

“The new technology makes our job a lot easier and the bad guys’ job a lot harder,” said D.C. Police Chief Cathy Lanier.

The technology first was used by the postal service to sort letters. Units consist of two cameras — one that snaps digital photographs and another that uses an optical infrared sensor to decipher the numbers and letters. The camera captures a color image of the vehicle while the sensor “reads” the license plate and transfers the data to a computer.

When stored over time, the collected data can be used instantaneously or can help with complex analysis, such as whether a car appears to have been followed by another car or if cars are traveling in a convoy.

Police also have begun using them as a tool to prevent crime. By positioning them in nightclub parking lots, for example, police can collect information about who is there. If members of rival gangs appear at a club, police can send patrol cars there to squelch any flare-ups before they turn violent. After a crime, police can gather a list of potential witnesses in seconds.

“It’s such a valuable tool, it’s hard not to jump on it and explore all the things it can do for law enforcement,” said Kevin Davis, assistant chief of police in Prince George’s County.

The readers have been used across the country for several years, but the program is far more sophisticated in the Washington region. The District has 73 readers; 38 of them sit stationary and the rest are attached to police cars. D.C. officials say every police car will have one some day.

The District’s license plate cameras gather more than a million data points a month, and officers make an average of an arrest a day directly from the plate readers, said Tom Wilkins, executive director of the D.C. police department’s intelligence fusion division, which oversees the plate reader program. Between June and September, police found 51 stolen cars using the technology.

Police do not publicly disclose the locations of the readers. And while D.C. law requires that the footage on crime surveillance cameras be deleted after 10 days unless there’s an investigative reason to keep it, there are no laws governing how or when Washington area police can use the tag reader technology. The only rule is that it be used for law enforcement purposes.

“That’s typical with any emerging technology,” Wilkins said. “Even though it’s a tool we’ve had for five years, as it becomes more apparent and widely used and more relied upon, people will begin to scrutinize it.”

Legal concerns

Such scrutiny is happening now at the U.S. Supreme Court with a related technology: GPS surveillance. At issue is whether police can track an individual vehicle with an attached GPS device.

Orin Kerr, a law professor at George Washington University who has been closely watching the Supreme Court case, said the license plate technology probably would pass constitutional muster because there is no reasonable expectation of privacy on public streets.

But, Kerr said, the technology’s silent expansion has allowed the government to know things it couldn’t possibly know before and that the use of such massive amounts of data needs safeguards.

“It’s big brother, and the question is, is it big brother we want, or big brother that we don’t want?” Kerr said. “This technology could be used for good and it could be used for bad. I think we need a conversation about whether and how this technology is used. Who gets the information and when? How long before the information is deleted? All those questions need scrutiny.”

Should someone access the database for something other than a criminal investigation, they could track people doing legal but private things. Having a comprehensive database could mean government access to information about who attended a political event, visited a medical clinic, or went to Alcoholics Anonymous or Planned Parenthood.

Maryland and Virginia police departments are expanding their tag reader programs and by the end of the year expect to have every major entry and exit point to the District covered.

“We’re putting fixed sites up in the capital area,” said Sgt. Julio Valcarcel, who runs the Maryland State Police’s program, which now has 19 mobile units and one fixed unit along a major highway, capturing roughly 27 million reads per year. “Several sites are going online over the winter.”

Some jurisdictions store the information in a large networked database; others retain it only in the memory of each individual reader’s computer, then delete it after several weeks as new data overwrite it.

A George Mason University study last year found that 37 percent of large police agencies in the United States now use license plate reader technology and that a significant number of other agencies planned to have it by the end of 2011. But the survey found that fewer than 30 percent of the agencies using the tool had researched any legal implications.

There also has been scant legal precedent. In Takoma Park, police have two tag readers that they have been using for two years. Police Chief Ronald A. Ricucci said he was amazed at how quickly the units could find stolen cars. When his department first got them, he looked around at other departments to see what kind of rules and regulations they had.

“There wasn’t much,” Ricucci said. “A lot of people were using them and didn’t have policies on them yet.”

Finding stolen cars faster

The technology first came to the Washington region in 2004 as a pilot program. During an early test, members of the Washington Area Vehicle Enforcement Unit recovered eight cars, found 12 stolen license plates and made three arrests in a single shift. Prince George’s police bought several units to help combat the county’s crippling car theft and carjacking problem. It worked.

“We recover cars very quickly now. In previous times that was not the case,” said Prince George’s Capt. Edward Davey, who is in charge of the county’s program. “Before, they’d be dumped on the side of the road somewhere for a while.”

Now Prince George’s has 45 units and is likely to get more soon.

“The more we use them, the more we realize there’s a whole lot more on the investigative end of them,” Davey said. “We are starting to evolve. Investigators are starting to realize how to use them.”

Arlington police cars equipped with the readers regularly drive through the parking garage at the Pentagon City mall looking for stolen cars, checking hundreds of them in a matter of minutes as they cruise up and down the aisles. In Prince William County, where there are 12 mobile readers, the units have been used to locate missing people and recover stolen cars.

Unlike in the District, in most suburban jurisdictions, the units are only attached to police cars on patrol, and there aren’t enough of them to create a comprehensive net.

Virginia State Police have 42 units for the entire state, most of them focused on Northern Virginia, Richmond and the Tidewater area, and as of now have no fixed locations. There is also no central database, so each unit collects information on its own and compares it against a daily download of wanted vehicles from the FBI and the state.

But the state police are looking into fixed locations that could capture as many as 100 times more vehicles, 24 hours a day, with the potential to blanket the interstates.

“Now, we’re not getting everything — we’re fishing,” said Sgt. Robert Alessi, a 23-year veteran who runs the state police’s program. “Fixed cameras will help us use a net instead of one fishing pole with one line in the water waiting to get a nibble.”

Beyond the technology’s ability to track suspects and non-criminals alike, it has expanded beyond police work. Tax collectors in Arlington bought their own units and use the readers to help collect money owed to the county. Chesterfield County, in Virginia, uses a reader it purchased to collect millions of dollars in delinquent car taxes each year, comparing the cars on the road against the tax rolls.

Police across the region say that they are careful with the information and that they are entrusted with many pieces of sensitive information about citizens, including arrest records and Social Security numbers.

“If you’re not doing anything wrong, you’re not driving a stolen car, you’re not committing a crime,” Alessi said, “then you don’t have anything to worry about.”

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Murder Suspect Released After Fort Bend County Texas DA John Healey Forgot To File Paperwork For Indictment

HOUSTON, TEXAS – A Texas man charged with killing his 17-year-old friend walked out of prison Monday after prosecutors forgot to file paperwork for an indictment.

Richard Mendoza Jr., 26, was arrested and accused of murdering Christopher Daigle in 2002 while hunting near Missouri City, Texas. Daigle was shot in the back of the head.

Fort Bend County District Attorney John Healey confirmed that his office made a mistake and accepted responsibility.

Daigle was considered a missing person and an endangered runaway when he disappeared on Nov. 7, 2002. In the years following, the Houston Chronicle said his grandmother had bought a burial site and waited for bad newsthat was finally delivered this past August when police found his remains in a field.

Mendoza was arrested shortly afterward, and he was originally held on $250,000 bail. But prosecutors let the 90 days pass during which paperwork for an indictment should be filed.

A judge released Mendoza but will track him with GPS, according to KRIV-TV.

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Anonymous Publishes Contact Information On Douche-Bag University Of California At Davis Police Officer Who Attacked Peaceful Protesters With Pepper Spray

DAVIS, CALIFORNIA – The online “hacktivist” group Anonymous published the personal contact details on Monday of a California university policeman who used pepper spray on protesters, and it urged supporters to flood him with phone calls and emails.

YouTube videos of Friday’s incident on the campus of the University of California, Davis have gone viral and led to the suspension of the college police chief, two police officers and calls for the chancellor to step down.

In the YouTube videos, one of which has received 1.44 million views, two university police officers in riot gear are seen spraying an orange mist on protesters sitting peacefully on the ground.

Following the spraying, the crowd begins chanting “Shame on you!”

A YouTube video on Monday purportedly from Anonymous published the home address, the home telephone number, the cellphone number and the email address of one of the policeman who allegedly used the pepper spray on protestors.

In the video, an artificially altered voice tells the “police forces of the world” that “brutalization of our citizens is both unjust and uncalled for.”

Specifically addressing the officer involved in the Davis incident, it said: “You are a coward, and a bully.”

“Flood his phones, email and mailbox to voice your anger,” it said.

A call to the cellphone number listed identified it as that of the police officer involved and said his voicemail box was full.

Anonymous has been involved in scores of hacking exploits including the recent defacing of a website of Syria’s Ministry of Defense to protest a bloody crackdown on anti-government protestors.

Last year, the shadowy group launched retaliatory attacks on companies perceived to be enemies of the anti-secrecy website WikiLeaks.

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Alabama State Police Trooper James Heath Moss Indicted After 120 MPH Wreck In Patrol Car That Killed Innocent Couple

ATHENS, ALABAMA – An Alabama state trooper has been formally charged with two counts of criminally negligent homicide in connection with a wreck that killed an Athens couple in April.

A Limestone County grand jury last week indicted James Heath Moss, 30, of Athens. Moss turned himself in on the indictment warrants Sunday, then immediately posted a $10,000 bail.

The trooper was heading to another accident to provide traffic control on the morning of April 25 when he rear-ended the Mitsubishi Mirage in which Jamie Lee Gossett, 31, and his wife, Sarah Rene Gossett, 38, were riding. Their vehicle was pushed into a field and caught fire. They had been on their way to Tanner High School to pickup their daughters when the accident occurred.

Moss was driving at speeds of up to 120 mph in the seconds before the crash, based on information from the car’s information module, said attorney Derek Simpson of the Huntsville law firm Warren & Simpson, who has filed a civil suit on behalf of the administrator of the Jamie Gossett estate.

Moss had continued to work in the office of the state trooper post in Decatur in the months following the accident.

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Called On To Resign, University Of California Davis Head Linda P.B. Katehi Apologizes For Her Police Officers Attack On Peaceful Protesters – Police Chief And Officers Suspended

DAVIS, CALIFORNIA – The chancellor of the University of California Davis expressed her regrets Monday before a crowd of thousands over the use of pepper spray against Occupy Davis protesters by police last week.

“I am here to apologize,” were the first words Chancellor Linda P.B. Katehi said through a microphone after climbing onto a small stage erected on the university’s “quad” for Occupy supporters. “I really feel horrible for what happened on Friday.”

Video of police pepper-spraying nonviolent demonstrators at a sitting protest Friday on the UC Davis campus has sparked widespread criticism, including calls for Katehi’s resignation.

“If you think you don’t want to be students in a university like we had on Friday,” Katehi said, “I’m just telling you I don’t want to be the chancellor of the university we had on Friday.”

The statement triggered cries of “Resign!” from the crowd.

The university said it has placed two police officers and the police chief on administrative leave in the wake of the incident, while officials investigate officers’ use of pepper spray against protesters.

Katehi saw the measure as “a necessary step toward restoring trust on our campus,” she said.

The chancellor was scheduled to create a task force Monday to review the incident and issue recommendations within 30 days.

In a written statement Sunday, Katehi said she shared the “outrage” of students and was “deeply saddened” by the use of the chemical irritant by campus police.

“I am deeply saddened that this happened on our campus, and as chancellor, I take full responsibility for the incident,” she said. “However, I pledge to take the actions needed to ensure that this does not happen again.”

Katehi made reference to her own past as a student protester when addressing the crowd of Monday.

“There is a plaque out there that speaks about 17th of November of 1973, and I was there, and I don’t want to forget that,” she said in an apparent reference to a student uprising in Greece against the military junta that ruled when she attended university there.

A group of about a dozen protesters sat on a path with their arms interlocked as police moved in to clear out a protest encampment affiliated with the Occupy Wall Street movement Friday. Most of the protesters had their heads down as a campus police officer walked down the line, spraying them in their faces in a sweeping motion.

“I was shocked,” Sophia Kamran, one of the protesters subjected to the spray, said Saturday. “When students are sitting on the ground and no way of moving to be violent, being totally peaceful, I don’t understand the use of pepper spray against them.”

The school said 10 protesters arrested were given misdemeanor citations for unlawful assembly and failure to disperse. Eleven were treated for the effects of pepper spray, which burns the eyes and nose, causing coughing, gagging and shortness of breath.

The Davis Faculty Association, citing incidents at other campuses, demanded “that the chancellors of the University of California cease using police violence to repress nonviolent political protests.”

It called for greater attention to cuts in state funding to education and rising tuition. Its board demanded Katehi resign, saying she exhibited “gross failure of leadership.”

Saturday, Katehi called the officers’ actions “chilling” and said the video “raises many questions about how best to handle situations like this.” But she refused calls from faculty members and others for her to step down, saying she did not violate campus policies.

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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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Crazed Lee County Florida School Officials Go Nuts After Elementary School Girl Kissed A School Boy – Tried To Report A “Sex Crime”

LEE COUNTY, FLORIDA – A sheriff’s deputy was dispatched last week to a Florida elementary school after a girl kissed a boy during a physical education class.

School brass actually reported the impromptu buss as a possible sex crime, according to the Lee County Sheriff’s Office.

The assistant principal of Orange River Elementary School called in the cops after a teacher spotted the smooch Wednesday at the Fort Myers school. In fact, Margaret Ann Haring, 56, initially called child welfare officials, who directed her to contact the sheriff, according to a report.

The kiss apparently occurred after two girls debated over whom the boy liked more. That’s when one of the girls “went over and kissed” the boy. The redacted sheriff’s report notes that Haring “stated there were no new allegations of sexual abuse as far as she knew.”

Deputies do not appear to be further probing the preteen kiss.

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Feds Screw Massachusetts Fisherman – Confiscate 881 Pound Tuna – After Their Victim Tried To Do The Right Thing

MASSACHUSETTS – This fish story may lack the epic qualities of Ernest Hemingway’s 1952 classic“The Old Man and the Sea,” but for New Bedford’s Carlos Rafael, the outcome was about the same. In both cases, despite capturing and bringing home a huge fish, powerful circum­stances conspired to deprive the luckless fishermen of a potentially huge reward.

Boat owner Rafael, a big player in the local fishing industry, was elated when the crew of his 76-foot steel dragger Apollo told him they had unwittingly captured a giant bluefin tuna in their trawl gear while fishing offshore.

“They didn’t catch that fish on the bottom,” he said. “They probably got it in the mid­water when they were setting out and it just got corralled in the net. That only happens once in a blue moon.”

Rafael, who in the last four years purchased 15 tuna permits for his groundfish boats to cover just such an eventuality, imme­diately called a bluefin tuna hot line maintained by fishery regu­lators to report the catch.

When the weather offshore deteriorated, the Apollo decided to seek shelter in Provincetown Harbor on Nov. 12. Rafael imme­diately set off in a truck to meet the boat.

“I wanted to sell the fish while it was fresh instead of letting it age on the boat,”he said.“It was a beautiful fish.”

It was also a lucrative one. Highly prized in Japan, a 754­pound specimen fetched a record price at a Tokyo auction in January this year, selling for nearly $396,000. These fish can grow to enormous size. The world record for a bluefin, which has stood since 1979, was set when a 1,496-pound specimen was caught off Nova Scotia.

However, when Rafael rolled down the dock in Provincetown there was an unexpected and unwelcome development. The authorities were waiting. Agents from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Office of Law Enforcement informed him they were confis­cating his fish — all 881 pounds of it.

Even though the catch had been declared and the boat had a tuna permit, the rules do not allow fishermen to catch bluefin tuna in a net.

“They said it had to be caught with rod and reel,” a frustrated Rafael said.“We didn’t try to hide anything. We did everything by the book. Nobody ever told me we couldn’t catch it with a net.”

In any case, after being towed for more than two hours in the net, the fish was already dead when the Apollo hauled back its gear, he said.

“What are we supposed to do?” he asked. “They said they were going to give me a warn­ing,” Rafael said. “I think I’m going to surrender all my tuna permits now. What good are they if I can’t catch them?”

No charges have yet been filed in connection with the catch, but a written warning is anticipated, according to Chris­tine Patrick, a public affairs specialist with NOAA who said the fish has been forfeited and will be sold on consignment overseas. Proceeds from the sale of the fish will be held in an account pending final reso­lution of the case, NOAA said. No information on the value of the fish was available Friday.

“The matter is still under investigation,”said Monica Allen, deputy director with NOAA Fisheries public affairs. “If it’s determined that there has been a violation, the money will go into the asset forfeiture fund.”

“I think I’m going to sur­render all my tuna permits now. What good are they if I can’t catch them?”

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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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Brain-Dead Glendale California Officials Ban Artificial Grass In Front Yards, Saying Plastic And Chemicals Are Bad – But Allow It In Back Yards – Promise Residents Will Face CRIMINAL Charges

GLENDALE, CALIFORNIA – The city of Glendale is imposing a ban on artificial grass. Notices are going out to homeowners whose front yards are covered in turf.

Geneva Dotson says she was forced to pay crews $3,000 to rip up her brand new front yard after receiving a notice from city hall.

“There’s enough drama in life without having the city breathing down my back,” says Dotson. “I’m very angry about it, to tell you the truth.”

So, what’s the gripe?

City officials say the concern is related to the plastic and chemicals used in the artificial turf.

When asked why the fake grass would continue to be allowed in backyards, officials had no answer.

A turf company contacted by KCAL9 said some artificial lawns contain lead, but there is no harm posed to children or adults.

City officials say they plan to press criminal charges against those who do not comply with the ban.

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Texas Court Sentences Man To 80 Years In Prison For Trying To Buy Hot Dogs

FORT WORTH, TEXAS – A Fort Worth man has been sentenced to 80 years in prison for trying to buy movie theater hot dogs with counterfeit cash.

Charles Cleveland Nowden was sentenced Friday, two days after being convicted of forgery.

Two years ago Nowden used a fake $20 bill when trying to buy hot dogs, popcorn and soft drinks at a Mansfield movie theater. Prosecutors say after his arrest, a police officer found more counterfeit bills worth $120 tucked into a wrapper of one of the hot dogs.

Prosecutors presented evidence about other theft cases pending against the 48-year-old in Tarrant and Lamar counties, including being linked by DNA to the theft of an 18-wheeler in 2010

The Tarrant County District Attorney’s Office says jurors also heard about Nowden’s federal convictions for bank fraud and being a felon in possession of a firearm.

In a release to the media, Tarrant County’s assistant District Attorney Dawn Ferguson said Nowden was “a career cargo-thief who needed to be brought to justice.”

Nowden must serve at least 15 years before he’s eligible for parole.

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U.C. Davis Police Officers Suspended After Attacks On Peaceful Protesters

DAVIS, CALIFORNIA – The University of California at Davis has placed two police officers on administrative leave after video of them pepper-spraying non-violent protesters at point-blank range sparked outrage at school officials.

Friday’s incident has led to calls for the resignation of UC Davis Chancellor Linda Katehi, who announced the action in a written statement Sunday. Katehi said she shares the “outrage” of students and was “deeply saddened” by the use of the chemical irritant by campus police.

“I am deeply saddened that this happened on our campus, and as chancellor, I take full responsibility for the incident,” she said. “However, I pledge to take the actions needed to ensure that this does not happen again.”

And Annette Spicuzza, the campus police chief, told CNN that putting the officers on leave “is the right thing to do at this time.” They will be sidelined until an investigation is complete, and “hopefully that won’t take too long,” she said.

Katehi said that investigation, initially announced Saturday, would be sped up. Katehi said the task force established to conduct the probe will now report in 30 days, instead of 90. And she said she will hold talks with students, faculty and staff “to listen to their concerns and hear their ideas for restoring civil discourse to the campus.”
Police spray seated Occupy protesters

A group of about a dozen protesters sat on a path with their arms interlocked as police moved in to clear out a protest encampment affiliated with the Occupy Wall Street movement Friday. Most of the protesters had their heads down as a campus police officer walked down the line, spraying them in their faces in a sweeping motion.

“I was shocked,” Sophia Kamran, one of the protesters subjected to the spray, said Saturday. “When students are sitting on the ground and no way of moving to be violent, being totally peaceful, I don’t understand the use of pepper spray against them.”

The school said 10 protesters arrested were given misdemeanor citations for unlawful assembly and failure to disperse. Eleven were treated for the effects of pepper spray, which burns the eyes and nose, causing coughing, gagging and shortness of breath.

Occupy roundup: A fallout, a silent protest and a new encampment

Earlier, UC Davis spokeswoman Claudia Morain said police used pepper spray after protesters encircled them and blocked them from leaving. Cut off from backup, the officers determined the situation was not safe and asked people several times to make room, Morain said.

But Spicuzza said the officers were put on leave after “discussion and reviews and time to contact these officers.”

“We’re going to continue to do our jobs here on campus, which is to keep this campus and community safe,” she said. “And the officers will be given their due process.”

The the incident set off a flood of comments on the school’s Facebook page, most of them critical of police and the administration. The Davis Faculty Association, citing incidents at other campuses, demanded “that the chancellors of the University of California cease using police violence to repress nonviolent political protests.”

It called for greater attention to cuts in state funding to education and rising tuition. Its board demanded Katehi resign, saying she exhibited “gross failure of leadership.”

Saturday, Katehi called the officers’ actions “chilling” and said the video “raises many questions about how best to handle situations like this.” But she refused calls from faculty members and others for her to step down, saying she did not violate campus policies.

Saturday evening, as Katehi left campus, dozens of students sat cross-legged and with their arms linked in a silent protest.

A reporter asked Katehi, “Do you still feel threatened by the students?”

“No,” she replied. “No.”

Time: Watch video of police pepper-spraying and arresting students

Morain told CNN that 25 tents were in place Friday afternoon despite fliers explaining the campus prohibits overnight camping. It does so for security and health reasons, Katehi said.

After written and verbal warnings, officers reminded the protesters they would be subject to arrest if they did not move their tents from the quad, Morain said. Many protesters did decide to remove their tents and equipment, officials said.

Critics took issue with the college’s account, saying the seated protesters did not pose a threat to the officers.

“Without any provocation whatsoever, other than the bodies of these students sitting where they were on the ground, with their arms linked, police pepper-sprayed students,” wrote Nathan Brown, an assistant professor in the college’s English Department, in an open letter to the chancellor. He said that police then used batons to separate the students, kneeled on their bodies and pushed their heads to the ground.

“When students covered their eyes with their clothing, police forced open their mouths and pepper-sprayed down their throats,” Brown wrote.

He called on Katehi to resign.

“I call for your resignation because you are unfit to do your job. You are unfit to ensure the safety of students at UC Davis. In fact: you are the primary threat to the safety of students at UC Davis.”

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University Of California Probing Brutal Davis Campus Police Pepper Spray Attack On Peaceful Seated Protesters

DAVIS, CALIFORNIA – Under pressure to resign, the chancellor of the University of California, Davis, established a task force Saturday to look into an incident where a police officer sprayed seated protesters with pepper spray at point blank range.

Linda Katehi told CNN’s Don Lemon that she considered the police action on Friday “unacceptable,” but stressed she has no plans to step down.

“We really want to look into this very carefully and take action … make sure that it will never happen again on our campus,” she said.

Katehi said the task force made of faculty, students and staff will review the events and provide a report within 90 days.

“This report will help inform our policies and processes within the university administration and the Police Department to help us avoid similar outcomes in the future,” she said.

The campus protests were affiliated with the Occupy Wall Street movement.

One of the protesters hit by the spray told CNN’s Lemon that she was still feeling some after-effects Saturday evening.

“I was shocked,” said Sophia Kamran. “When students are sitting on the ground and no way of moving to be violent, being totally peaceful, I don’t understand the use of pepper spray against them.”

A campus police officer, in a sweeping motion, sprayed protesters point blank on Friday before other officers moved in.

Eleven people were treated on site for effects of the yellow spray. Two of them were sent to the hospital, university officials said.

The incident set off a flood of comments on the school’s Facebook page, most of them critical of police and the administration.

In response, Katehi first released a statement, then held a news conference Saturday.

“Yesterday was not a day that would make anyone on our campus proud,” Katehi said in her statement.

At the news conference, she called the use of pepper spray “chilling.”

“The use of pepper spray as shown on the video is chilling to us all and raises many questions about how best to handle situations like this,” she said.

But Katehi refused calls from faculty members and others for her to step down, saying she did not violate campus policies.

The Davis Faculty Association, citing incidents at other campuses, demanded “that the chancellors of the University of California cease using police violence to repress nonviolent political protests.”

It called for greater attention to cuts in state funding to education and rising tuition. Its board demanded Katehi resign, saying she exhibited “gross failure of leadership.”

Saturday evening, as Katehi left campus, dozens of students sat cross-legged and with their arms linked in a silent protest.

A reporter asked Katehi, “Do you still feel threatened by the students?”

“No,” she replied. “No.”

Time: Watch video of police pepper-spraying and arresting students

UC Davis spokeswoman Claudia Morain told CNN that 25 tents were in place Friday afternoon — despite fliers explaining the campus prohibits overnight camping. It does so for security and health reasons, Katehi said.

After written and verbal warnings, officers reminded the protesters they would be subject to arrest if they did not move their tents from the quad, Morain said. Many protesters did decide to remove their tents and equipment, officials said.

A group of about a dozen protesters sat on a path with their arms interlocked as police moved in to remove additional tents. Most of the protesters had their heads down.

At one point, protesters encircled the officers and blocked them from leaving, Morain said.

Cut off from backup, the officers determined the situation was not safe and asked people several times to make room, Morain said. One officer used pepper spray when a couple of protesters and some of the 200 bystanders moved in, she added.

A use of force review will “determine whether we made all the right decisions and handled it the way we should have handled it,” Annette Spicuzza, chief of campus police, told reporters.

Critics took issue with the college’s account, saying the seated protesters did not pose a threat to the officers.

“Without any provocation whatsoever, other than the bodies of these students sitting where they were on the ground, with their arms linked, police pepper-sprayed students” wrote Nathan Brown, an assistant professor in the college’s English Department, in an open letter to the chancellor.

He said that police then used batons to separate the students, kneeled on their bodies and pushed their heads to the ground.

“When students covered their eyes with their clothing, police forced open their mouths and pepper-sprayed down their throats,” Brown wrote.

He called on Katehi to resign.

“I call for your resignation because you are unfit to do your job. You are unfit to ensure the safety of students at UC Davis. In fact: you are the primary threat to the safety of students at UC Davis.”

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Dumbass Pilot Got Locked In Plane’s Bathroom And Sent Passenger With “Thick Accent” To Flight Deck For Help – Prompting An Emergency Landing, Terror Scare, And Police Response

NEW YORK – A pilot stuck in the lavatory may sound like the opening line of a joke, but it triggered a terror scare on a flight from Asheville, North Carolina, to New York on Wednesday evening.

Delta 6132 — operated by Chautauqua Airlines — was about 30 minutes from LaGuardia Airport when the pilot went to use the bathroom.

Unbeknownst to the crew, he became trapped in the lavatory because of a broken door latch.

(The sole flight attendant on the plane couldn’t help him because she had entered the flight deck when he left, per security protocols that require two people to be in the cockpit at all times.)

“After trying unsuccessfully for several minutes to open the door, a nearby passenger heard the noise of the efforts and tried to help,” said Peter Kowalchuk, a spokesman for the airline.

“When the passenger was not able to open the door from the outside, the captain told him how to notify the flight deck of his situation.”

The passenger dutifully complied, but apparently had a heavy accent, which combined with the suddenly-missing pilot spooked the first officer.

The tense conversation between the crew and air traffic control was posted on LiveATC.net, a website that shares live air traffic communications.

“The captain has disappeared in the back, and uh, I have someone with a thick foreign accent trying to access the cockpit,” the co-pilot says in the recording.

“The captain disappeared in the back, went to use the restroom. By all indications, what I’m being told is he’s stuck in the lav and someone with a thick foreign accent is giving me a password to access the cockpit and I’m not about to let him in.”

Air traffic control responds by saying: “You guys ought to declare an emergency and just get on the ground.”

But later, the pilot suddenly reappears at the controls.

“This is the captain. I’m back in the cockpit. Lavatory door malfunction,” he says.

The controller on the ground is cautious: “I just want to make sure: Was there any disturbance in the airplane?”

“Negative,” the pilot responds. “The captain — myself — was in the lavatory and the door latch broke and had to fight my way out of it with my body to get the door open.”

The first officer did the right thing in securing the flight deck when he was not able to personally confirm the status of the captain, Kowalchuk said.

“No one was ever in danger and everyone, including the good Samaritan who tried to help the (captain) as well as the crew, are to be commended for their actions,” he added.

The plane, with 14 passengers and three crew members on board, made an emergency landing at LaGuardia with the pilot at the controls.

The FBI was on hand just to make sure everything was all right.

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10 Year Old Steals Car From Eatonville Florida Town Impound Lot. Police Chief Joseph Jenkins Chased Him Until Kid Wrecked, Setting A House On Fire

EATONVILLE, FLORIDA – A 10-year-old elementary-school student broke into a town impound lot Wednesday, stole an Eatonville pickup and was chased by the police chief, who arrested him, investigators said.

The Eatonville boy scaled a 10-foot chain-link fence about 3 p.m., climbed into the white pickup and drove through a fence at the lot on Mosely Avenue, near Kennedy Boulevard at the west side of town, police Sgt. Eric McIntyre said.

Someone noticed the child behind the wheel and called police, who tried to stop him. However, the boy threw the truck into reverse to avoid officers’ patrol cars and drove a couple of blocks before crashing into a light pole at College Avenue and Lemon Street, McIntyre said.

An electric wire fell, setting a house there on fire. The Maitland Fire/Rescue Department put out the flames, and there were no serious injuries, he said.

The child got out and ran, but police Chief Joseph Jenkins and a detective caught and handcuffed him a little more than a block away. The boy was taken to the Orange County Juvenile Assessment Center. It wasn’t clear whether he would spend the night there or be released to his mother’s custody.

He was arrested on charges of burglary of a conveyance, grand theft of a motor vehicle and resisting arrest. The boy told officers a relative had taught him to drive, McIntyre said.

Officers say the Lake Weston Elementary School student has no previous criminal record.

Investigators are trying to determine how the boy got the keys and started the truck, which sustained $4,000 in damage.

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Cordova Village Iowa Does Away With Its Disfunctional Police Department

CORDOVA VILLAGE, IOWA – The Cordova Village Board voted late Thursday to disband the town’s police force after nearly a year of controversy that has resulted in a wrongful termination lawsuit and criminal charges.

The board voted to override Mayor Bob Vanhooreweghe’s veto of the board’s motion to disband last month. The department will be dissolved Dec. 31.

“When they’re stuck on stupid, there ain’t much you can do about it,” Vanhooreweghe said before the meeting.

Board member Dean Moyer, who voted for the motion to disband, said Thursday the decision was “the right thing to do,” adding the department has “become an unmanageable mess, too many troubles, too many issues.”

As an alternative, the board has suggested contracting with the Rock Island County Sheriff’s Department or sharing Port Byron’s contract with the sheriff’s office.

“We can save money and have a better organization,” Moyer said.

The Cordova Police Department has taken numerous hits this year. In April, then-Chief Todd Allen resigned two days after the mayor fired officer Richard Wallen. Wallen has since filed a lawsuit in Rock Island County against the village, claiming he was illegally let go.

Meanwhile, officer Ray Goossens was arrested in August and charged with one felony count of intimidation. He allegedly intimidated the president of the Cordova Dragway Park, Illinois State Police Master Sgt. Chris Endress said at the time of Goossens’ arrest.

Goossens, whose trial is set for January, faces two to five years in prison if convicted of the Class 3 felony.

Cordova, a town of 672 about 25 miles northeast of the Quad-Cities, used to employ four full-time police officers, including a police chief. Earlier this year, the village board cut full-time hours back to part-time.

Two officers have been on leave for months and the department has been without a police chief since Allen resigned.

The board voted over the summer to attempt to terminate one of the two remaining officers, Ryan Gaines. These days, he’s working only 10 hours a week as an officer at $10.50 an hour, he said.

The council voted Thursday to put Gaines on a four-week suspension.

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Phillipsburg Pennsylvania Police Detective James P. Stettner II Charged After Shooting Grave In Cemetery At 2 AM

PHILLIPSBURG, PENNSYLVANIA – Off-duty Phillipsburg police Detective James P. Stettner II is charged with firing his personal gun early Monday in the United Presbyterian Cemetery in Alpha.

Stettner — son of Phillipsburg Town Councilman James P. Stettner — is accused of violating a borough ordinance prohibiting firing a weapon within 300 feet of a residence, according to police.

Pohatcong Township police Chief Paul Hager said four .40-caliber shell casings were found in the cemetery on Fifth Avenue and were around the grave-site of the late Jason Lee Frey, who was a Phillipsburg wrestling coach and teacher.

Frey, of Easton, died Dec. 26, 2003. The 24-year-old Phillipsburg Middle School math teacher and seventh-and-eighth-grade wrestling coach went into cardiac arrest and died on the way to Easton Hospital.

An autopsy failed to determine the cause of death. Northampton County Coroner Zachary Lysek today did not immediately return a call seeking comment on any new developments in his office’s investigation.

Frey’s father would not comment on the shots fired in the cemetery.

Hager said police made an attempt to retrieve the bullets from the grave site, but were unsuccessful.

“It was an unfortunate act,” Hager said, when asked about a motive. “There was no criminal intent.”

Hager added Stettner was in the area of Fifth Avenue in Alpha when police responded to reports from residents of the gunshots.

“He was not spoken to as a suspect at that point in time,” Hager said.

Hager said Stettner had a female passenger in a car.

The penalty for shooting a gun within 300 feet of a residence in Alpha includes forfeit of the gun. Additionally, the court may deny a person the right to apply for or obtain a gun license or hunting license for a period of time.

There are other penalties and fines for violating the Alpha ordinance that were not immediately clear tonight.

Calls for comment to Stettner, his father and Phillipsburg police Chief Ed Mirenda were not immediately returned.

Residents on Fifth Avenue say they were startled by the incident.

“Our windows were cracked and I was on the edge of falling asleep,” said one resident, who asked to remain anonymous. “All the sudden I heard four shots right in succession.”

The resident added that the area where the shooting occurred is quiet.

“It’s definitely strange to happen in this part of Alpha,” the resident said. “There are not too many gun incidents in the area, and I hope it doesn’t lead to more.”

Hager said he would have a police report ready Thursday documenting the incident at further length.

Phillipsburg police detective charged with firing gun near Alpha cemetery grave | lehighvalleylive.comOff-duty Phillipsburg police Detective James P. Stettner II is charged with firing his personal gun early Monday in the United Presbyterian Cemetery in Alpha.

Stettner — son of Phillipsburg Town Councilman James P. Stettner — is accused of violating a borough ordinance prohibiting firing a weapon within 300 feet of a residence, according to police.

Pohatcong Township police Chief Paul Hager said four .40-caliber shell casings were found in the cemetery on Fifth Avenue and were around the grave-site of the late Jason Lee Frey, who was a Phillipsburg wrestling coach and teacher.

Frey, of Easton, died Dec. 26, 2003. The 24-year-old Phillipsburg Middle School math teacher and seventh-and-eighth-grade wrestling coach went into cardiac arrest and died on the way to Easton Hospital.

An autopsy failed to determine the cause of death. Northampton County Coroner Zachary Lysek today did not immediately return a call seeking comment on any new developments in his office’s investigation.

Frey’s father would not comment on the shots fired in the cemetery.

Hager said police made an attempt to retrieve the bullets from the grave site, but were unsuccessful.

“It was an unfortunate act,” Hager said, when asked about a motive. “There was no criminal intent.”

Hager added Stettner was in the area of Fifth Avenue in Alpha when police responded to reports from residents of the gunshots.

“He was not spoken to as a suspect at that point in time,” Hager said.

Hager said Stettner had a female passenger in a car.

The penalty for shooting a gun within 300 feet of a residence in Alpha includes forfeit of the gun. Additionally, the court may deny a person the right to apply for or obtain a gun license or hunting license for a period of time.

There are other penalties and fines for violating the Alpha ordinance that were not immediately clear tonight.
Jason Lee FreyView full sizeExpress-Times File PhotoJason Lee Frey

Calls for comment to Stettner, his father and Phillipsburg police Chief Ed Mirenda were not immediately returned.

Residents on Fifth Avenue say they were startled by the incident.

“Our windows were cracked and I was on the edge of falling asleep,” said one resident, who asked to remain anonymous. “All the sudden I heard four shots right in succession.”

The resident added that the area where the shooting occurred is quiet.

“It’s definitely strange to happen in this part of Alpha,” the resident said. “There are not too many gun incidents in the area, and I hope it doesn’t lead to more.”

Hager said he would have a police report ready Thursday documenting the incident at further length.

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Florida Department Of Transportation Website Offers Horrific Graphic Videos Of Pedestrians Getting Hit By Vehicles

TALLAHASSEE, FLORIDA – A graphic video on a state of Florida website has captured the attention of a state senator and he does not like what he sees.

The traffic safety video shows real examples of pedestrians getting hit by vehicles. Sen. Mike Fasano calls the video clips horrific and he thinks they should be removed from the website.

The video on the Florida Department of Transportation website starts with a warning: “May be unsuitable for small children.”

Watch the video from their website

Then viewers see a series of very graphic crashes: a car slams into a person in the crosswalk and tosses the victim across the entire intersection, a pedestrian suddenly emerges from in front of a truck and gets hit head on by a car, another person gets clipped by a vehicle and is vaulted into the air before crashing down onto the windshield and then the pavement.

In another scene, a police officer walks toward a body bag on the side of the road. The bag holds somebody’s loved one, but in this video, it’s just an image in an online ad.

Photo Gallery: Online video shows pedestrians hit by cars

Sen. Fasano thinks the images are over the top.

“They were truly graphic and something that shouldn’t be on a state website. I have great concerns as well with children having access to that website and going and watching those horrific and very sad videos.”

The video is part of a traffic safety campaign, called See the Blind Spots. It aims to reduce pedestrian and bicycle fatalities in Florida and especially in the Tampa Bay area, which is one of the most dangerous metro areas in the nation for walkers.

The scenes were taken from the Internet. State officials say they wanted to use images that would get people’s attention.

Rep. Irv Slosberg supports the web video. “We need something graphic on the air.”

Rep. Slosberg has worked tirelessly on road safety issues during his time in the Legislature. His focus comes from personal tragedy: his teenage daughter Dori was killed in a car crash.

Slosberg says a powerful message is needed to make an impact.

“We’re going backwards instead of forwards. A lot of it has to do with driver distraction: cell phones, texting and driving.”

But Sen. Fasano says families of these victims should not have to relive their personal tragedies through this video.

“I would encourage the department to relook at their policy and maybe, just maybe, although they’re doing a good cause and trying to get information and educate the public to do away with those graphic videos. It’s not necessary.”

It’s a debate that will only grow in scope as 21st Century technology puts cameras everywhere, silently recording life and death.
See the Blindspots: Graphic video on FDOT website called ”horrific” | wtsp.com

Retired New York State Supreme Court Justice Karen Smith Witnesses New York City Police Beating Protester, Is Attacked By Officers When She Intervened

NEW YORK, NEW YORK – A retired New York state Supreme Court justice was shoved into a wall by NYPD officers after she intervened in an attempt to stop officers from brutally beating the mother of an ‘Occupy Wall Street’ protester on Tuesday morning.

Judge Karen Smith told Democracy Now! that she was working as a legal observer for the National Lawyers Guild, immediately identifiable as such by her day-glo neon green hat, when she witnessed a shocking incident of police brutality.

“I was there to take down the names of people who were arrested,” she explained. “As I’m standing there, an African-American woman goes up to a police officer and says, ‘I need to get in. My daughter’s there, I want to know if she is OK.’ And he said, ‘Move on, lady,’ and they kept pushing with their sticks, pushing back and she was crying… he throws her to the ground and starts hitting her in the head.”

Smith knew she had to do something to stop the horrific attack.

“I walk over and I say, ‘Look, cuff her if she’s done something, but you don’t need to do that.’ He said, ‘lady, you want to get arrested?’ I said, ‘Do you see my hat? I’m here as a legal observer.’ He said, ‘Do you want to get arrested?’ and he pushed me up against the wall.”

Sadly, such brutality is all too common across the nation as police resort to heavy-handed tactics to deal with overwhelmingly peaceful ‘Occupy’ protesters. In Seattle, 84-year-old Dorli Rainey, a former mayoral candidate who stands all but 4’10″ (1.47 m), was attacked with chemical weapons on Monday. She wasn’t alone; a priest and a pregnant teen were among the many peaceful protesters who were pepper sprayed. The pregnant girl required hospitalization.

“My problem is not only with police brutality, it is with the progressive getting worse attitude of the police,” Rainey, who grew up in Nazi Germany, told Democracy Now! ”I was tear-gassed… in Seattle when the WTO was there in Seattle. And I also was in a workshop with Arundhati Roy when she was in Seattle for theWTO. These locations, while they were pretty violent outside, were not nearly as bad as what we see now. It is getting progressively worse. Our freedoms are getting curtailed. And I just listened to the press being banned at Wall Street—this in a country where we export our sort of democracy all over the world at gunpoint.”

Rainey appeared on Current TV’s Countdown with Keith Olbermann last night, where she said implored people to stand up for what’s right and to ”take one more step out of your comfort zone.” “It would be so easy to say, ‘Well I’m going to retire, I’m going to sit around, watch television or eat bonbons,’ but somebody’s got to keep ’em awake and let ’em know what is really going on in this world,” she said.

No one is immune from police brutality as the ruling class circles the wagons and dispatches its gatekeepers (the police) to crush the ‘Occupy’ uprising. No one. Not old ladies, not military veterans who fought the one percent’s wars against poor people in far-flung lands. On two separate occasions, two War on Terror vets were hospitalized with life-threatening injuries after police in Oakland, California violently attacked ‘Occupy’ demonstrators. On October 25, former Marine and Iraq War veteran Scott Olsen was shot by a police projectile that fractured his skull and sent him to the intensive care unit with a swollen brain. Days later, Kayvan Sabehgi, a former Army Ranger and veteran of both the Iraq and Afghan wars, was brutally beaten by police in downtown Oakland. He ended up on the operating table with a lacerated spleen after being denied proper medical attention for the better part of an entire day.

Nearby, peaceful and unarmed students at the University of California, Berkeley were attacked by riot police on their own campus.

It’s not just protesters who have been brutalized and arrested. New York City Councilman Ydanis Rodriguez was beaten bloody and arrested at Tuesday’s violent ‘Occupy Wall Street’ eviction in Lower Manhattan. Also arrested was Paul Newell, the Democratic District Leader for New York’s 64th Assembly District.

And chillingly, journalists have also been targeted for beatings and arrest for nothing more than doing their jobs. NYPD officers told reporters that “you’re not press tonight” as they roughed up and arrested employees of NPR, the New York Times, the New York Post, NBC and other outlets big and small after the powers-that-be decided to black out media access to the Zuccotti Park/Liberty Square eviction site.

This blatant disregard for First Amendment rights to freedom of speech, assembly and the press is highly disturbing, to say the least. But rather than dissuade demonstrators, concerned citizens and the media from carrying on or covering the ‘Occupy’ phenomenon, police-state tactics will only embolden and enlarge the movement. After all, it was after Americans saw images of civil rights and peace activists being savagely attacked by police in the 1960s that public opinion turned in favor of those movements.

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Miami Florida Police Under Investigation For Shooting And Killing Blacks

MIAMI, FLORIDA – The U.S. Justice Department will investigate whether Miami police violated the constitutional rights of seven black men who were shot to death by officers over an eight-month span, raising tensions in the inner city and sparking demands for an independent review.

The civil investigation — known as a “pattern and practice’’ probe — will examine Miami police policies and training involving deadly force. The goal: to determine if systemic flaws made shootings of black men more likely, rather than unfortunate, last-choice actions, as the officers’ supporters maintain.

A source close to the investigation confirmed Wednesday night that Thomas E. Perez, head of Justice’s civil rights division, and Miami U.S. Attorney Wifredo Ferrer will announce the investigation during a press conference in downtown Miami Thursday morning.

Family members of the deceased, church leaders and activists have been invited to meet with Ferrer Wednesday afternoon, but they were not told why. They reacted with relief when told the news.

“Oh, that’s great, great, really good,” said Sheila McNeil, whose unarmed son Travis McNeil, 28, was shot to death in his car in Little Haiti Feb. 10 by Officer Reinaldo Goyo. The officer said McNeil was driving erratically. No weapon was ever found.

“I’m just glad to know it’s not forgotten,’’ McNeil told The Miami Herald. “Right now I don’t know more than I did the night he died, so I’m just waiting to hear what they have to say.”

But Nathaniel Wilcox, executive director of People United to Lead the Struggle for Equality, or PULSE, who has stood with many of the dead men’s families during a series of emotional public meetings, criticized federal authorities for not opening a criminal investigation into the shooting deaths. They spanned July 2010 to February 2011.

“We think they really took too long and we feel abandoned,’’ Wilcox said. “We expected the Obama administration to do a lot more and a lot quicker than they did.”

The Justice Department will not conduct criminal investigations into the seven shootings, which are under review by the Miami-Dade State Attorney’s Office. But Justice will look into the Miami Police Department’s training methods, leadership and practices. Any adverse findings could lead to court-enforced reforms, but more frequently, Justice works with a police department to iron out any problems.

The U.S. Attorney’s Office in Miami declined comment Wednesday.

Acting Miami Police Chief Manuel Orosa did not respond to interview requests. But spokesman Delrish Moss said the department is being revamped under the new chief, who assumed the post in September and is conducting a “top to bottom review of everything, from training to hiring.”

Miami Mayor Tomás Regalado did not return calls.

The impending investigation marks the second time in a decade that federal authorities have conducted an investigation into alleged systemic violations of constitutional rights by Miami police officers.

In 2002, Justice conducted a much broader civil probe, concluding in 2003 that the department had serious flaws in the way it conducted searches and seizures, used firearms, defined use of force and worked with police dogs. The inquiry began at the city’s request after several controversial police shootings.

However, the report did “not reach any conclusion” about whether the police department’s policies caused civil rights violations.

Since the latest spate of shootings began in July 2010, the public and families of the slain men have clamored for answers, repeatedly seeking transparency from police and the Miami-Dade state attorney’s office.

The police, under the leadership of then-Chief Miguel Exposito, who was terminated in September for insubordination, took heat for keeping quiet. Exposito even refused to turn over information to a civilian oversight panel when it sought details on the first shooting, of DeCarlos Moore in Overtown in July 2010.

Exposito blamed the shootings on a turf war created after his officers took guns off the streets. He also criticized State Attorney Katherine Fernandez Rundle for taking too long to close out her investigations, ham-stringing his ability to speak about the shootings.

Friction over the shootings intensified as the number of incidents grew. The NAACP and the American Civil Liberties Union called for a federal investigation. In late February, U.S. Rep. Frederica Wilson asked U.S. Attorney Eric Holder, the nation’s top law enforcement officer, to look into Miami police policies involving deadly force.

Regalado also requested an investigation, in August.

On Tuesday, Wilson called the investigation “a step in the right direction.” “I think it’s important because of the injustice that happened,” Wilson told The Herald. “I want [Miami police] to respect each other, and drop the racist tactics in training.”

The ACLU praised the development. “We have a crisis in this community where the police department is too quick to use deadly force, especially aimed at young black men, and it doesn’t have the mechanism to control itself,” said Howard Simon, executive director of the ACLU of Florida.

Locally, the state attorney’s office has closed only one criminal review, clearing the officer in the Moore shooting. Police said Moore disobeyed an order to stay put, and returned to his car where officers thought they saw him holding a shiny object, possibly a weapon. No weapon was found at the scene.

The other men killed by police were Joell Lee Johnson, Tarnorris Tyrell Gaye, Gibson Junior Belizaire, Brandon Foster, Lynn Weatherspoon, and McNeil, who was followed by police from a lounge on Northwest 79th Street. McNeil’s friend, Kareem Williams, was shot too, but survived.

The Justice investigation into Miami police will be the 18th being conducted by the Obama administration, which has stepped up civil rights investigations across the country. The federal effort has won praise from advocacy groups and experts on police brutality.

Perez, the assistant attorney general for civil rights, said recently that the investigations into local police are “really a cornerstone of our work.” He was speaking to reporters about a Justice report on Puerto Rico, which accused officers of widespread brutality, unconstitutional arrests and targeting people of Dominican descent. That followed a Justice Department report in March that said the New Orleans Police Department repeatedly violated constitutional rights by using excessive force, illegally arresting people and targeting black and gay residents.

U.S. Justice Department to investigate shootings by Miami police – Miami-Dade – MiamiHerald.com

Morrow Georgia Police Chief Jeffery Baker Arrested After Being Found Asleep And Drunk Behind Wheel Of Patrol Car

MORROW, GEORGIA – Morrow Police Chief Jeffery Baker fell asleep at the wheel of his city police car prior to being charged with drunk driving, Clayton County police said Thursday.

Baker was arrested Wednesday night and charged with DUI and other related charges, including having eight open 12-ounce cans of beer inside the car.

He was less than a mile from the city’s police headquarters when he was seen stopped at a green traffic light at Jonesboro Road and Southlake Parkway, according to an incident report.

Baker could not be reached for comment Thursday and didn’t return repeated calls to his home phone.

“It’s very disappointing,” Morrow city manager Jeff Eady told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

Eady said that Baker was placed on paid administrative leave until the city completes an internal investigation.

“Once we pull all our facts together, we’ll make a decision about Jeff Baker’s future with the City of Morrow,” Eady said.

A Morrow police officer first noticed Baker when Baker’s car didn’t drive through the light and other cars went around him, a Clayton County police report says.

The officer knocked on Baker’s car window to arouse the chief with no results, then tried unsuccessfully to open the door, police said. That’s when the report says Baker’s car began to slowly roll forward.

The officer moved his patrol car nose-to-nose to Baker’s to keep it from moving and approached the chief’s window again, police said. This time, an awakened Baker gave the officer a thumb’s up, according to the report.

Police said the chief’s speech was slurred and he smelled of alcohol, and when ordered to pull over to the side of the road, he told the officer, “I will get right on it, buddy.”

But he didn’t move his car.

When told to put the car in park, police said Baker backed up and drove around the Morrow officer’s squad car, veered over divider lanes in the road, traveled about 40 mph on wet roads to the nearby police headquarters and pulled into his parking space.

Clayton County police were called, and the responding Clayton officer arrived to find Baker smoking a cigarette outside the building, police said. The chief refused to take any field sobriety tests and was arrested.

Baker was taken to the Clayton jail, where he was released on $6,300 bond.

He has been charged with DUI, traffic light violation, impeding traffic, driving with an open container, driving too fast for conditions, making an improper lane change and disobeying police directing traffic.

This isn’t Baker’s first time in trouble.

In 2008, the Georgia Peace Officer Standards and Training Council accused him of lying about police firearm records and voted unanimously to revoke Baker’s certification.

“He falsified gun records, including his own,” Georgia P.O.S.T. executive director Ken Vance told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. “He signed off that he attended training when he actually didn’t.”

Baker appealed to the state’s administrative law judge, and the case has remained in a holding pattern since, Vance said.

Vance said this recent incident could threaten Baker’s certification again.

“There may be a point in the future where this particular case is added to the old one,” Vance said. “The current situation is evolving. We’ll have to see by the first of the week where we are.”

Until the issue has been resolved, Eady said Capt. Greg Tatroe will become the interim police commander.

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Tuscaloosa County Alabama Deputy Sheriff Sgt. Althea Mallisham Pleads Guilty After Taser Weapon Attacks On Inmates

BIRMINGHAM, ALABAMA – A former Tuscaloosa County sheriff’s sergeant pleaded guilty today to federal charges that she wrongfully used a taser as punishment on prisoners on three separate occasions in 2008.

Althea Mallisham, 52, pleaded guilty to three counts of deprivation of rights under color of law during a hearing today before U.S. District Court Judge Virginia Hopkins. Hopkins has set Mallisham’s sentencing hearing for March 15.

Mallisham admitted in a plea agreement also filed today in the case that she used an X26 Taser to electro-shock three different prisoners who were either in handcuffs or locked in a cell and did not pose a threat to her.

“This correction officer deliberately inflicted significant pain on those entrusted to her care for no legitimate law enforcement purpose,” Thomas E. Perez, Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights, said in a news release from the U.S. Justice Department.

Mallisham faces up to 10 years in prison and a maximum fine of $250,000, for each count.

“It’s a sad situation that resulted in her having to enter a plea of guilty to the indictment,” her attorney, Tommy Spina, said after the hearing. “She has accepted responsibility for her actions and is prepared to face the consequences that the judge sees fit to impose.”

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Florida State Police And Miami Police At War – Cops Don’t Think They Have To Obey The Same Laws Everyone Else Must Follow

MIAMI, FLORIDA – Recently released amateur video of two Florida Highway Patrol troopers apparently speeding down a highway appears to be the latest jab thrown at FHP.

CBS4 News partners Univision say the video was shot by an unidentified police officer, allegedly last Thursday on the Florida Turnpike and given to the press.

It appears to be a direct response to the video leaked last month of FHP Trooper Donna Watts pulling over and briefly detaining Miami Police officer Fausto Lopez at gunpoint for reckless driving while he sped to an off-duty job.

Law enforcement sources say that incident caused major friction between the agencies, and the new video of the speeding troopers appears to be the latest in the slugfest.

FHP Union President Bill Smith told CBS4′s Natalia Zea that his agency would investigate the speeding troopers, if the officer who shot the video would come forward with more information.

“Are your guys being targeted on the street by other officers?” Zea asked Trooper Smith.

“Well you start to get that feeling. You start to get that impression because troopers are not going out looking for police officers in marked cars or unmarked cars, that’s not our goal,” said Trooper Smith.

Rumors of street cops giving payback to FHP troopers abound, and in at least one case an FHP patrol car was vandalized.

Over the weekend, Miami City Commissioner-turned-trooper Joe Sanchez left his Miami home and later discovered his patrol car had human excrement all over the windshield and the side of the car. It appeared to have come from a Port-O-Potty.

“I think it’s just some disgruntled employees of other agencies, hopefully it’s not the City of Miami, I don’t know,” said Trooper Smith, adding that the incident is still under investigation.

Despite this brewing battle, Trooper Smith says everyone behind a badge will help each other when it counts.

“They might glare at each other but I really honestly think they’ll be back there to back each other up.”

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9/11 Hysteria: “Exploding Package” Turned Out To Be Lightbulb – “Suspicious Package” In Locker Contained Cookies – As Crazed Overreaction Shuts Down Ranson West Virginia Post Office For 6 Hours

RANSON, WEST VIRGINIA – A reported exploding package and spray of white powder that sent emergency units rushing to a small-town post office turned out to be just the pop of a malfunctioning fluorescent light bulb, authorities said Friday.

The white powder that workers at the U.S. Post Office in Ranson saw was most likely smoke from the damaged bulb, said Ronald Fletcher, a firefighter with Citizens Fire Co. and the designated incident spokesman.

X-rays also revealed that a suspicious package in a storage locker contained only cookies, he said.

The scare Friday morning triggered an evacuation of the building and the temporary quarantine of 15 people inside a school bus. Hazardous materials and bomb experts, State Police units, fire crews and more responded to the scene at a strip mall.

The Berkeley County Sheriff’s Department sent a robot into the building to test the air. It found no chemical agents or evidence of an explosion.

Despite the six-hour disruption, postal authorities said the mail would still be delivered Friday.

Postmaster Steve Parrill said about 20 people work in the Ranson branch.

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Detroit Bus Drivers Fear For Their Safety And Refuse To Drive Busses

DETROIT, MICHIGAN – People who catch the bus in Detroit may be waiting awhile Friday. About 100 Detroit Department of Transportation bus drivers are at work, but are refusing to drive their buses.

WWJ Newsradio 950′s Scott Ryan spoke with Henry Gaffney, spokesman for the D-DOT bus drivers union AFL-CIO Local 26, who said this was not an organized maneuver by the union.

Gaffney said it’s a matter of bus drivers fearing for their safety, citing an incident that happened Thursday afternoon.

“Our drivers are scared, they’re scared for their lives. This has been an ongoing situation about security. I think yesterday kind of just topped it off, when one of my drivers was beat up by some teenagers down in the middle of Rosa Parks and it took the police almost 30 minutes to get there, in downtown Detroit,” said Gaffney.

Speaking live on WWJ, Mayor Dave Bing spokesman Stephen Serkaian said they are working hard to resolve the matter and get drivers back on the road.

“We’re working diligently to work with the union and encouraging the drivers to get back on the buses and get on the street,” said Serkaian.

Gaffney said bus safety is an ongoing problem.

“If it’s to the point where if the driver is not safe on the bus, then the passengers are not safe, then the citizens are not safe. You know, what about them too? We have no security, you can’t get the police, nobody is doing anything to protect us. And I’ve been begging the mayor and the council for two years to do something to help us,” said Gaffney.

But, Serkaian said there are discussions in the city right now to improve bus safety.

“It is a concern. We want to protect drivers and passengers alike. We used to have police presence on the buses. We’re talking about the prospect of perhaps trailing buses with police cars. Nothing has been decided, it’s all in discussion right now,” said Serkaian. “It’s a short-term and a long-term matter… It’s all about money and it’s all about funding, and our transportation system is already stretched to the max.”

WWJ’s Vickie Thomas was at a deserted Rosa Parks Transit Center in downtown Detroit, which is typically booming with passengers and buses alike.

Saharah X. was waiting at the center for 30 minutes before flagging down a cab.

“They just try to find a way not to do their job. And then they got innocent old people, there an old lady on a cane sitting outside over there, that’s dangerous. And she got to walk? Wow. I mean, what is the world coming to? No love, no nothing. Everybody’s just thinking about themselves. Think about other people some,” she said.

Richard Moses, who rides the bus every day, was waiting a bus stop along Woodward Avenue when a D-DOT supervisor rolled up in an SUV and basically told him to find another form of transportation Friday morning.

“They said there’s no D-DOT buses running at this time and they don’t know when any will be starting back up. I just got off work, I work midnights. Luckily, I got dropped off right here or else I would have been sitting on 8 Mile and Woodward, and I’ve got to go all the way to Livernois and Warren,” said Moses.

Serkaian said they’re asking stranded riders who are waiting for the bus to get to school and work to hang on and be patient.

“We understand their frustration, we feel their pain. We simply have to ask folks to be a little bit more patient while we try to resolve this matter,” he said.

Detroit Public Schools has issued a letter to parents informing them of the situation, saying it doesn’t affect DPS yellow buses, which are running normally. They also said DPS Police Dept. personnel will provide additional watch near bus stops where children may be congregated.

A recording on the D-DOT customer service line said the department “sincerely apologizes for extreme delays in service.”

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Broke: Smithfield North Carolina Police May Start Ignoring 911 Calls To Save Money

SMITHFIELD, NORTH CAROLINA – Police say they’ll stop responding to some 911 calls and stop investigating misdemeanors if the town doesn’t increase funding for gasoline – the latest episode in a standoff between the police chief and Town Council, which is trying to save money.

It’s also the latest sign of how tight municipal budgets are impacting services throughout the Triangle.

On Tuesday, the Smithfield Police Department will present dire predictions of how an austere budget could leave police cars in park.

Police Chief Michael Scott will ask the town council to let him use $30,000 of office supply and equipment repair money to pay for gas. He says his department has already cut patrols, halving the numbers of cars on the street at certain times.

Scott said three recent crimes might have been prevented with more patrols – the armed robbery of a convenience store, the theft of tires and rims from a car dealership and a major cocaine bust.

“Those things can all be directly related to patrol issues,” he said, adding that he’s gotten complaints about the reduced patrols. Some callers have asked if they should buy guns to protect themselves.

Law enforcement agencies around the country have seen budget cuts this year.

Here in North Carolina, the state Highway Patrol is coping with an $8 million reduction, and they’ve stopped training new cadets as part of a hiring freeze. The city of Raleigh recently delayed police and fire academies by six months.

Smithfield’s cuts went beyond personnel, with fuel funding down $10,000, or about 14 percent, from last fiscal year. Scott said that even with reduced patrols, the department will be out of gas by February.

This month, council members in the Johnston County town balked at Scott’s proposal to shift funds in his budget. They asked the police department to study alternatives to the plan.

The alternatives that police will present Tuesday include unprecedented cuts to stay within the current budget. Department leaders say detectives will only investigate felony crimes, dropping misdemeanors after the initial report is done.

The new plan also calls for ignoring 911 calls from hotels and pay phones when callers hang up, “as a very high percentage of these calls are errors in dialing.” And police would stop responding to burglar alarms, since they’re often a false alarm. Also, officers wouldn’t patrol the western or southern ends of town, since most crimes there aren’t violent.

Councilman Perry Harris said town leaders won’t let that happen. “There’s no question that we need to provide them with the tools to keep the safety of the town,” he said.

But with enough gas money to work through February, Harris wants the department to look for other money-saving measures first. Since the town recently bought 10 new squad cars, he thinks 10 older vehicles could be sold off. “I think we need to uncover every rock and every stone to see other areas where we could save some money,” he said.

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Bay Area California Riot Police Attack Oakland Protesters With Tear Gas And Grenade Weapons

OAKLAND, CALIFORNIA – Police have used tear gas and “flash bang” grenades on a large crowd of demonstrators that lit a massive bonfire in the streets of downtown Oakland, Calif., in a conflict following a day of action that saw the city’s port closed after demonstrators. blocked it

Dozens of police in riot gear advanced on protesters who had pushed together several large metal and plastic trash bins to start a fire that reached 15 feet in the air, according to The Associated Press. Police reportedly warned protesters to clear out before firing several rounds of tear gas and “flash bang” grenades.

Several protesters, many of whom wore gas masks, chanted “We Are Scott Olson” as the police fired at them early Wednesday. Olson is the Iraq War veteran who suffered a fractured skull last month after he was hit in the head by a projectile during a conflict with police.

The conflict came hours after thousands of Occupy Oakland protesters marched on the Port of Oakland, disrupting operations at the nation’s fifth largest port and causing all maritime operations in the city to be shut down.

Officials at the Port of Oakland said Wednesday that they hope to resume normal operations in the morning after protesters marched through the city all day and into the night on a “general strike” that saw banks and stores picketed and disrupted the flow of traffic.

Demonstrators began marching to the port at 4 p.m. Wednesday, and by 5 p.m. all work had been halted at the port. A message on the website OccupyOakland.org said that the goal was “to stand in solidarity with the longshore workers and shut down the evening shift of the port.”

Omar Benjamin, the director of the Port of Oakland, confirmed the closing of the port at a late-evening news conference.

“Maritime operations remain effectively shut down. And the port is working to ensure that all workers in the harbor area can get home safely. … It is our hope that the work day can resume tomorrow and port workers will be allowed to get to their jobs without incident,” Benjamin said.

“Continued missed shifts represent economic hardship for maritime workers, truckers and their families as well as lost jobs and lost tax revenue for our region,” he added.

Wednesday’s march through Oakland was largely peaceful according to Oakland’s interim police chief Howard Jordan.

“There’ve been no arrests, there have been no injuries. Earlier today at about 7:46 we received a call of a pedestrian that was struck by a vehicle,” Jordan said late Wednesday.

Several banks were vandalized and a dozen windows were shattered at the Wells Fargo branch, while an area of Whole Foods was vandalized after rumors spread that employees who participated in the strike would be fired, according to ABC News affiliate KGO.

Conflict among protesters arose as some scrubbed graffiti from a branch of Wells Fargo bank and a group of protesters attempted to stop another from vandalizing a Whole Foods, KGO reported. A police spokesperson said that five businesses were vandalized throughout the day.

Late Wednesday Oakland Mayor Jean Quan confirmed that the protesters were leaving the city’s port.

“Literally thousands of people have demonstrated today in Oakland primarily peacefully. We are disappointed that a small group created some vandalism,” she said. “It looks like this was a good day for demonstrators and for the 99 percent movement.”

Quan’s support of the protests has created controversy amongst city workers. After ordering officers to clear protesters last week, Quan now supports the movement and gave city workers other than police the day off to join the work stoppage.

In an open letter from the police union, officers accused her of sending mixed messages.

“As your police officers, we are confused,” the letter read. “Is it the city’s intention to have city employees on both sides of a skirmish line?”

The Occupy Oakland has quickly become one of the largest movements in the country after the Occupy Wall Street movement began in mid-September. The movement in Oakland became a flashpoint last week when police used teargas to disperse crowds and Iraq War veteran Scott Owen was hospitalized with a critical skull fracture after he was hit with a projectile during a clash with police.

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Aransas County Texas Judge William Adams Under Investigation After Career-Ending Video Surfaces Of Him Brutally Beating His Daughter – 2.3 Million Hits On YouTube Before State Took Action…

McALLEN, TEXAS – As his adult daughter took to national television, the career of the Texas judge now infamous for the violent beating he gave her as a teenager began to look less certain Thursday. The State Commission on Judicial Conduct announced that it had opened an investigation into the video, now viewed more than 2.3 million times on YouTube, that shows Aransas County Court-at-Law Judge William Adams beating his then 16-year-old daughter with a belt for using an illegal file-sharing program. carrer

County officials said Thursday that Adams would not hear any cases related to Child Protective Services for at least the next two weeks. And the top administrator in Aransas County cast doubt on whether Adams could credibly return to the bench.

“I would think it would be very difficult,” said Aransas County Judge C.H. “Burt” Mills Jr. “Personally I don’t see how he can recover from this.”

Calls to Adams’ office and that of his attorney were not immediately returned Thursday.

Hillary Adams, 23, says the outpouring of support and encouragement she’s received since posting the 2004 video online last week is tempered by the sadness that it’s her father lashing her 17 times with a belt and threatening to beat her “into submission.”

“I’m experiencing some regret because I just pulled the covers off my own father’s misbehavior after so many people thought he was such a good person. … But so many people are also telling me I did the right thing,” she told The Associated Press outside her mother’s home in the Gulf Coast town of Portland, near Corpus Christi Wednesday.

“He’s supposed to be a judge who exercises fit judgment,” she said

And she said the videoed attack was not a one-off. “It did happen regularly for a period of time,” she told NBC’s “Today” show on Thursday.

In the same interview, Hallie Adams blamed her ex-husband’s bouts of violence on his “addiction,” calling it a “family secret.” She did not elaborate. Their 22-year marriage ended in 2007.

Police in Rockport, where the 51-year-old judge lives, opened an investigation Wednesday after receiving calls from several concerned citizens, Police Chief Tim Jayroe said.

Adams, Aransas County’s top judge, was elected in 2001 and has dealt with at least 349 family law cases in the past year alone, nearly 50 of which involved state caseworkers seeking determine whether parents were fit to raise their children.

Aransas County Attorney Richard Bianchi said Thursday that a visiting judge would be handling CPS cases on Adams’ docket for the next two weeks. The agreement between the judges was only on those specific cases, but Bianchi said the visiting judge should take on all of them.

“It makes sense to me that as long as he’s (the visiting judge) here, he’ll be travelling from San Antonio, that it might be just as well that he go ahead and handle the whole docket,” Bianchi said.

Asked if he had concerns about Adams’ ability to handle future cases, or about the impact on cases already processed in Adams’ court, Bianchi said his top concern was the integrity of the process going forward.

“We have to do everything we can to protect that process,” he said.

The Texas Department of Family and Protective Services did not immediately provide comment, but Bianchi said the agency was involved in the decision to bring in a visiting judge to handle those cases.

Corpus Christi television station KZTV caught up with the judge Wednesday, and he confirmed it was him in the video. But he said it “looks worse than it is” and that he doesn’t expect to be disciplined.

“In my mind, I haven’t done anything wrong other than discipline my child after she was caught stealing,” Adams said. “And I did lose my temper, but I’ve since apologized.”

When told of her father’s comments, Hillary Adams said, “it’s a shining perfect example of his personality and he believes he can do no wrong. … He will cover up rather than admit to what he did and try to come clean.”

The 13-member Commission on Judicial Conduct comprises judges, lawyers and regular citizens. If this initial investigation leads to a formal proceeding, Adams would have an opportunity to make his case to the commission in a hearing. After that hearing the commission has the authority to censure a judge or recommend to the Texas Supreme Court that the judge be suspended or removed. The Supreme Court would then form a tribunal of appellate judges to review the case and make a determination.

Rockport Police and the Texas Rangers are conducting their own investigation. If criminal charges are brought against Adams, the commission could suspend him.

If the judicial commission and police investigations do not amount to anything, Adams could be safe in his seat on the bench for another three years. The last time he ran for re-election he faced no opposition.

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Aransas County Texas Judge William Adams And Wife Caught On Video Beating Their Daughter For Using Internet

CORPUS CHRISTI, TEXAS – A video uploaded to YouTube is gaining national attention for claiming to show a Texas judge beating a young girl.

A description on the video says the abused girl is Hillary Adams, the daughter of Aransas County Judge at Law William Adams.

The video’s timestamp shows it was uploaded October 27, but didn’t receive national attention until Wednesday morning. Last night the video had 300 hits. By Wednesday afternoon, it had already topped 500,000.

In a phone interview with TV station KZTV, Hillary Adams says she uploaded the video to bring attention to the problems she says she had when she was younger.

“It had happened before, and had been escalating,” Adams says. “I set up a camera, and I caught it.”

Adams says she was downloading music from a peer-to-peer networking site — something she says her father had forbidden — before the incident happened.

“My father’s harassment was getting really bad, so I decided to finally publish the video that I had been sitting on for seven years.”

Adams says the abuse happened for years, but she never thought it was unusual. “I thought abuse at some level was normal.”

A woman, purportedly the judge’s wife, also appears on the video hitting the girl. The video’s description claims the wife was also abused and should not be blamed for her conduct in the video.

Users on the popular site Reddit uploaded images of pizza orders they sent to his house overnight, and some said they were calling the Aransas County courthouse to leave messages.

The judge is up for re-election, and a Facebook page has been created advising people to vote him out.

Judge Adams responded to the allegations on Wednesday, saying “It happened years ago… I apologize.”

When asked if he thought the conduct in the video was excessive, Judge Adams answered, “It’s not as bad as it looks on tape.”

Watch the video below. WARNING: This video may be disturbing to some viewers.

Police open investigation

Aransas County officials say the video is causing major disruptions, as people are flooding phone lines to complain.

Officials there say the Sherriff’s office and local police have opened an investigation into the claims made by Judge Adams’ daughter.

Judge Adams says he has already contacted the Judicial Review in Austin and “more will come out” during the investigation.

Local officials say they’re stepping up police presence in the small town, after many people have called in death threats.

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FBI Labels Fans Of Music Group “Insane Clown Posse” A “Gang”

WASHINGTON, DC – Fans of notorious US hip-hop group Insane Clown Posse have been officially classified as a gang. A new FBI document has categorised the Juggalos as a “loosely-organised hybrid gang,” citing the group’s violence, criminal activity and “gang-like behaviour”.

Fans of the Insane Clown Posse have called themselves Juggalos for more than two decades, developing a reputation for face-paint, Faygo soda, and a scepticism toward magnets. Although based in the United States – the ICP are from Michigan – it has become a worldwide movement; a UK Facebook group has more than 600 members.

Unfortunately for harmless fans of horrorcore rap, Juggalos are now officially “of concern to law enforcement,” according to the FBI’s 2011 National Gang Threat Assessment report. Juggalos have been tied to a string of recent crimes, including a shooting in January and the assault of a homeless man last year. “Open source reporting suggests that a small number of Juggalos are forming more organised subsets and engaging in more gang-like criminal activity,” the report alleges. “Transient, criminal Juggalo groups pose a threat to communities due to the potential for violence, drug use/sales, and their general destructive and violent nature.”

Download the FBI report as pdf.

While the FBI report only mentions the Insane Clown Posse in a footnote, ICP are not just a soundtrack for the subculture. The group is named after an ICP song, The Juggla, and the Detroit-based rappers organise the annual Gathering of the Juggalos, which attracts more than 20,000 fans. Despite their scary reputation, the Posse has even been described as a Christian group. After a fan called Jacob D Robida shot his girlfriend in 2006, ICP’s manager spoke out against such violence: “Anyone that knows anything at all about Juggalos knows that in no way, shape, or form would we ever approve of this type of bullshit behaviour,” he wrote.

Although the FBI’s gang designation is unlikely to have an immediate effect on ICP, its fans, or friends such as Jack White, many Juggalos are upset. In just a few days, more than 200 people have signed a petition asking the FBI to revise their decision. “Juggalos are a family that have each other’s backs,” explained a supporter based in Tennessee. “They’re people who would die for somebody they haven’t even met.”

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Department Of Homeland Security Ignores Congressional Request For Information On Illegal Immigrants They Didn’t Bother To Arrest And Deport Before Imposed Deadline

WASHINGTON, DC – House Republicans are moving to subpoena a list of all immigrants whom the Obama administration has flagged under its secure communities program but failed to arrest for deportation, after the Homeland Security Department missed a congressionally imposed deadline to produce the information this week.

Judiciary Committee Chairman Lamar Smith, Texas Republican, said he wants the data so he can see who is among the 300,000 people the administration has deemed too low a priority to detain under new deportation guidelines. He has scheduled a meeting for Wednesday for the immigration subcommittee to vote to authorize the subpoena.

“Why would DHS want to keep this information from the committee?” Mr. Smith will say at the meeting, according to an advance copy of his statement. “If there is nothing to hide, why wouldn’t they provide Congress with these documents? Are administration officials concerned that the requested information will show that illegal and criminal immigrants intentionally released by ICE have gone on to commit more crimes?”

He first requested the information in August, and last week set an Oct. 31 deadline for turning it over. He said Homeland Security initially seemed prepared to cooperate, but the request became mired in recent weeks and this week he said the department told him some of the data belong to the FBI and can’t be turned over without that agency’s consent.

Late Tuesday, a spokesman for the department told The Washington Times, “DHS is fully cooperating with the committee and is in the process of gathering information responsive to the committee’s inquiry.” But he did not comment on what the holdup was.

Congressional subpoenas have been rare, even though Republicans took control of the House after the 2010 elections. This will be the first subpoena issued by the Judiciary Committee, and follows a subpoena that the Energy and Commerce Committee issued this year for documents related to Solyndra, the failed solar power company that received special attention from the Obama administration.

At root, the deportation dispute is about the way the Obama administration has been enforcing immigration laws.

While the Homeland Security Department has set records for total deportations, it has shifted its emphasis away from rank-and-file illegal immigrants and toward those with serious criminal records or repeat immigration-law violators. Of the nearly 400,000 people deported in fiscal year 2011, 216,000 had criminal records.

As a result of the shift, though, illegal immigrants who are working or going to school in the U.S. and not running afoul of other criminal laws are under less of a threat of deportation.

The Obama administration’s deportation policy relies heavily on Secure Communities, a program started under President George W. Bush but dramatically expanded by Homeland Security Secretary Janet A. Napolitano. It takes names and fingerprints that federal, state and local jails send to the FBI and runs them through immigration databases to see who could be eligible for deportation.

A Congressional Research Service report issued late last month found that Secure Communities identified 318,308 foreigners potentially eligible for deportation in the first half of fiscal year 2011, and of those, 73,466 were arrested by immigration authorities.

That means Homeland Security declined to pursue immediate cases against more than 250,000 people who could have been eligible for deportation.

Mr. Smith wants to know who those people are, what crimes they were charged with and why they didn’t rise to the level of deportation.

Homeland Security officials have said that not all of the people who are flagged by Secure Communities are eligible for deportation, because some may have become naturalized citizens.

The Obama administration’s approach to deportation has roiled the national public debate, feeding on incidents like last year’s case in which a Catholic nun was killed in Prince William County by an illegal immigrant who was driving drunk. That driver had been charged with drunken driving twice before and had been put into deportation proceedings, though U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement released him into the community and his attorneys said he had been authorized to work while he was going through the process.

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