- Death froze his exhausted face. The attackers lashed or punctured nearly every part of his body. Then they cut off the dead man’s head, wrapped it in a plastic grocery bag and dumped it with his body between two tractor-trailers on a city street.
As with most murders in Ciudad Juarez, police found no witnesses, no weapons. Only the battered corpse on the steel coroner’s table carries clues to who he was and how he died.
“Every organ speaks,” says Dr. Maria Concepcion Molina, who gently removes packing tape from the head of her third decapitated victim in a week. The dead man’s slack mouth and eyes still seem to pray for relief.
Bodies stacked in the morgues of Mexico’s border cities tell the story of an escalating drug war. Drug violence claimed 6,290 people last year, double the previous year, and more than 1,000 in the first eight weeks of 2009. Read the rest of this entry
Police arrested an Azalea Middle School teacher yesterday on charges of sending pornography to a student.
Christy Lynn Martin, 32, 3457 Lynn Lake Drive S., was charged with sending pornographic photos to a 14-year-old boy’s cell phone. The boy is an eighth-grade student at Azalea Middle School, but is not a student in any of Martin’s classes, St. Petersburg Police said.
She is charged with one count of transmitting pornographic images through an electric device and one count of transmitting material harmful to a minor.
The investigation began after the eighth-grader told an adult relative about his relationship with Martin. The relative told the boy’s mother, who in turn notified the St. Petersburg Police Department.
Detectives interviewed Martin who admitted sending the photographs, police said.
Martin has been a full-time employee at Azalea Middle School since the fall of 2008. Prior to that, she was a teacher’s assistant at the school.
Police said the exact details of their relationship are not yet clear.
After his former girlfriend taunted him, Phillip Alpert remembered the nude photos she e-mailed to him while they were dating.
He took revenge with an electronic blast — e-mailing the photos of the 16-year-old girl to more than 70 people, including her parents, grandparents and teachers.
Three days later, Alpert, then 18, was charged with transmitting child pornography. Today Alpert is serving five years of probation for the crime, and he is registered as a sex offender — a label he must carry at least until he is 43. Read the rest of this entry
Now I’m a big fan of Pirate radio and I believe in freedom of speech but these knucleheads were asking for it. It appears they had stuff on their “Street Heat” show like how to fold a bandana properly and where to buy dope and find hookers. Talk about doing way too much!
Christopher “Asher” Roth
A pirate radio station broadcasting from south Orlando that officials say announced information on criminal gangs and promoted where to buy drugs was shut down late Friday, and two men have been arrested.
The pirate radio station, dubbed “Street Heat,” broadcast live advertisements for gangs, promoted where to buy illegal drugs or solicit prostitutes and offered gang-related advice such as how to fold a “flag,” or bandanna, according to the Orange County Sheriff’s Office.
A two-week investigation by the sheriff’s gang unit and the Federal Communications Commission found that radio signals were broadcast from an antenna mounted in a tree behind a residence on 30th Street in Orlando. FCC investigators found a cable from the antenna and traced it to a window on the northwest side of the home. FCC records show no license had been issued for the broadcast station at the residence.
Balthazard Senat
An Orange County SWAT team executed a search warrant just before 9 p.m. Friday. Balthazard Senat and Christopher Robert Roth were arrested and charged with unauthorized transmission and possession of marijuana with intent to deliver.
Once again, the adverts in its adult section have angered law authorities, namely a sherriff in Cook County, Ill. Angered by the adverts, the sherriff filed a According to the sherriff:
“They’ve (Craigslist) actually catered their site so it facilitates (prostitution), where you can actually and more specifically and quickly get to what you want.” He continued: “How is that different than somebody who’s aggressively and actively working with a pimp to try to get the word out about the women working for him?”
Craigslist responded with a cheeky response: “we still very much appreciate and commend the good work of Sheriff Dart’s department, and will continue to provide any and all assistance whenever we are called upon to help in their efforts to protect and serve the people of Cook County.”
According to the Wall Street Journal, Craigslist has a more philosophical answer: Users asked for it, so that potentially objectionable ads wouldn’t be mixed in with the ordinary personals. The company says it isn’t interested in the money from erotic ads it donates 100% of net revenue from “erotic services” ads to charity.
Two former New York Police Department detectives were sentenced to life in prison without parole Friday for operating as Mafia hit men while employed by the NYPD.
Louis Eppolito, 60, and Stephen Caracappa, 67, who spent a combined 44 years on the force and once worked as partners, were found guilty in April 2006 of engaging in racketeering.
According to prosecutors, they were paid $4,000 a month by the Mafia and were personally paid $65,000 by Luchese crime family underboss Anthony “Gaspipe” Casso for killing another mobster during a phony traffic stop. Authorities said Casso regarded the officers as his “crystal ball,” likely referring to their alleged involvement in relaying classified information to the Luchese family.
Eppolito and Caracappa, who reiterated their innocence at Friday’s sentencing, were found guilty of participating in or aiding eight murders, two attempted murders and one murder conspiracy, as well as witness tampering, witness retaliation, obstruction of justice, money laundering and drug charges.
A record number of Americans served time in corrections systems across the country in 2007, according to a report released Monday by the Pew Center on the States.
The U.S. correctional population — those in jail, prison, on probation or on parole — totaled 7.3 million, or 1 in every 31 adults.
The Pew Center on the States compiled the information from Justice Department and Census Bureau statistics.
America’s prison population has skyrocketed over the past quarter century. In 1982, 1 in 77 adults were in the correctional system in one form or another, totaling 2.2 million people.
The United States has 5 percent of the world’s population, but 25 percent of the world’s prison inmates, the center said.
The numbers vary widely by race and gender.
“Black adults are four times as likely as whites and nearly 2.5 times as likely as Hispanics to be under correctional control. One in 11 black adults — 9.2 percent — was under correctional supervision at year-end 2007,” the report said. “And although the number of female offenders continues to grow, men of all races are under correctional control at a rate five times that of women.”
A dozen gunmen attacked the Sri Lankan national cricket team and its police escort en route to the stadium in the city of Lahore on Tuesday morning, killing six police officers and wounding six cricketers, the Lahore police chief and a Sri Lankan official said. CCTV footage shown on television soon after the attack showed several young gunmen with backpacks firing at the vehicles. The Lahore police chief, Haji Habibur Rehman, said the gunmen opened fire as the motorcade approached Liberty Circle, a major intersection in Lahore not far from Qadaffi Stadium, the best-known cricket facility in Pakistan. The police chief said 12 gunmen attacked the cricketers, and were positioned in vehicles, including rickshaws. According to another police official, Shoaib Janbaz, the gunmen fired a rocket-propelled grenade but it missed the motorcade and did not explode. The captain of the Sri Lankan team, Mahela Jayawardena, was among the wounded cricketers, Mr. Janbaz said. Police escorts who were traveling in a van fired back but failed to hit the attackers, witnesses said. The assailants fled in the rickshaws and another vehicle stolen near the scene, Mr. Janbaz said. The gunmen left behind rucksacks filled with pistols, hand grenades and an AK-47 assault rifle, he said. S The assailants escaped, and the police were hunting for them, Mr. Rehman said. By attacking the Sri Lankan cricket team, the gunmen were hitting at Pakistan’s most popular sport. The safety of visiting foreign teams has been a major problem for the Pakistani government. The Australian cricket team has refused to play in Pakistan, saying that the safety of its players was at risk and that Pakistan was unable to provide adequate protection. The test match in Lahore was the second in a two-match series.
A Pakistani cricketer, Omar Gul, who was traveling with his team in a bus some distance behind the Sir Lankan motorcade said that because of the congestion in the Lahore traffic, the Pakistani cricketers did not hear the shooting. The Pakistanis were told to go back to their hotel, where the team heard about the assault, Mr. Gul said. There was no indication Tuesday that the attack was related to the Sri Lankan government’s current offensive against Tamil Tiger rebels. Jane Perlez reported from Islamabad, Pakistan, and Waqar Gillani reported from Lahore.
“The Obama administration’s first budget seeks to fulfill his campaign promise to put 50,000 more police officers on the streets.
Through a grant program called COPS, the government pays most of the salaries of new hires in their first years on the job.”
Personally, I wouldn’t mind 50,000 less cops but hey, that’s me. I guess I haven’t been robbed in while. Maybe if I did, I’d be more pro-police, but uh.. I’ve been pulled over a few too many times and uh.. this is going to suck.
Maybe I should just become a police officer myself and uphold the law!
Police said a woman’s tightly-woven hair weave saved her life. She told police she had pulled into the market and saw a man with whom she had recently ended an eight-month relation with inside a car. A second man came up to the woman’s window and told her that the ex-boyfriend still loved her, Kansas City police said. The woman told the second man, “I don’t love him.”
At that time, the victim heard gunshots and saw her ex-boyfriend walking toward the back of her car firing a handgun, police said.
The victim sped away in her vehicle as her back window shattered, police said. She returned to the scene a moment later to witness both men leaving in their vehicle. Officers found a bullet in the woman’s hair and said her tightly-woven weave stopped the bullet. - MSNBC
In a case that could cast suspicion on lawn ornaments everywhere, authorities say they have busted a drug ring that used donkey statues to smuggle $1.5-million worth of marijuana into the Los Angeles area.
At least 15 people have been arrested in connection with the scheme to ship 1,800 pounds of pot in 200 concrete burros discovered last month in a shipping container at the Port of Long Beach. The shipment came from Mexico and was being sent to a fictitious business in Fontana.
The marijuana was found hidden inside the hollowed-out decorative lawn statues, which stand 3 feet tall and weigh 100 pounds, said Immigration Customs Enforcement spokeswoman Virginia Kice.
The operation involved nearly a dozen federal, state and local law enforcement agencies, which tracked the donkey statues to Fontana and Sun Valley and then arrested those connected to them on Tuesday night, Kice said.
Of 15 suspects, one had an outstanding criminal warrant while the others were being held on immigration violations.
LOTS of talk about the Chris Brown and Rihanna assault has been going around. You can type “Chr–” or “Rhi–” and with Yahoo’s or Googles search assist settings suggesting a million links that will give you up-to- the minute news of what’s going on. Even though no one REALLY knows what’s going on except those two, LAPD, and their entourage. I really think I’m starting to notice more news about it than the amount of Obama T-Shirts I see. Pretty Scary. Anyhow, you may be sick of hearing about it or maybe you want more…I’m not sure. Either way in case you missed last night’s MTV segment on Chris Brown & Rihanna: Love in Trouble you can catch it here. All 4 Clips for you Chrihanna junkie
MARTIN SCORCESE PRESENTS – GOMORRAH
Power, money and blood: these are the values that the residents of the province of Naples and Caserta confront every day. They have practically no choice, and are forced to obey the rules of the “System,” the Camorra. Only a lucky few can even think of leading a normal life. Five stories are woven together in this violent scenario, set in a cruel and ostensibly invented world, but one that is deeply rooted in reality.
The planned 670-mile fence along the US border with Mexico has proven remarkably ineffective at deterring or stopping illegal crossers to the United States, advocates and critics of the fence admit.
Moreover, the fence’s construction remains in limbo in numerous areas, where legal, political and engineering obstacles have brought its implementation to a halt.
And, where the 600 miles of fencing are already up, along the borders of California, Arizona and New Mexico, “smugglers and illegal immigrants continue to breach the fencing that is up, forcing Border Patrol agents and contractors to return again and again for repairs,” the Wall Street Journal noted Wednesday. “The smugglers build ramps to jump over fencing, dig tunnels under it, or use blow torches to slice through. They cut down metal posts used as vehicle barriers and replace them with dummy posts, made from cardboard.”
There are some early rumors that the driver of the white Bentley car chase in Los Angeles is DJ Khaled from Miami. Is it true, I hope not but pix looks suspicious. In what was super recklessly being reported as possibly Chris Brown, chanel 9 in LA is now claiming that the driver of the white Bentley is Khaled!!
Big Brother is here, look for a lot more of these stories coming soon. Swiss police revealed yesterday (January 27) that they discovered a large local marijuana plantation while using Google Earth.
According to The Associated Press, police revealed that they stumbled across the plantation while investigating two farmers suspected of operating a drug ring.
The plantation measured almost two acres and was hidden inside a field of corn.
The plantation’s discovery led to the arrest of 16 people. 1.2 tons of marijuana was seized as well as cash and valuables worth $780,000.
