Okay, we all see mass shootings, gang violence and incidents that seem to be rather frequent. And those things have pretty much been beaten to death. And I have no idea if the type of things I'm posting about here are becoming more frequent or have simply been being under reported. But in either case I find them to be quite troubling.....

A 20-year-old woman was shot and killed after her friend turned into the wrong driveway in upstate New York, officials say

A 20-year-old woman was shot and killed Saturday after she and three others accidentally turned into the wrong driveway while looking for a friend’s house in rural upstate New York, authorities said.

The woman, identified as Kaylin Gillis, was a passenger in a vehicle when a man, 65-year-old Kevin Monahan, fired two shots from his front porch, Washington County Sheriff Jeffrey Murphy said in a news conference Monday.

Blake Walsh, Gillis’ boyfriend, said he was driving the car the night they drove up the wrong driveway. He told NBC Tuesday in a phone interview that he, his late girlfriend, and two friends were looking for a party. Four friends were traveling in another vehicle and also went up the wrong driveway.

“We thought we were at the right address,” Walsh told NBC. “We didn’t have any cell service to figure it out. As soon as we figured out that we were at the wrong location, we started to leave, and that’s when everything happened.”

“My friend said, ‘They’re shooting — go!’ I tried to step on the gas as fast as I could, and that’s when the fatal shot (that struck Gillis) came through,” Walsh told NBC.

“I want to believe it was instant. I’m hoping it was. I’m praying it was,” he said.

The sheriff said the shooting happened in “a very rural area with dirt roads” and poor cell service.

“It’s a very rural area with dirt roads. It’s easy to get lost. They drove up this driveway for a very short time, realized their mistake and were leaving, when Mr. Monahan came out and fired two shots,” the sheriff said.

Monahan has been charged with second-degree murder in connection with her death, Murphy said. He was arraigned Sunday on the murder charge, his attorney told CNN. A bail hearing is pending for Tuesday or Wednesday, the district attorney and defense attorney both said.

Walsh said he plans to be in court. “I need to see who took my girlfriend away from me. I need to look at him.”

The shooting happened just days after a Black teenager in Kansas City was shot twice by a White homeowner after going to the wrong address to pick up his siblings.

In that case, Andrew Lester, 84, opened fire on 16-year-old Ralph Yarl as the teen stood at Lester’s front door before any words had been exchanged, according to a probable cause document obtained by CNN. Lester, who told police he thought the teen was trying to break in, faces two felony charges in a case that touches on so-called “stand your ground” laws, the proliferation of firearms and racial bias.

In the New York shooting, both Monahan and Gillis are White. No one is believed to have exited the car, and there was no interaction between Monahan and anyone in the vehicle before shots were fired, Murphy said.

“There was clearly no threat from anyone in the vehicle. There was no reason for Mr. Monahan to feel threatened,” Murphy said.

After the shots were fired, Gillis and the rest of the group drove away from the house in the town of Hebron looking for cell phone service and then called 911.

They were found around 5 miles away from the home in the nearby town of Salem. First responders began administering CPR but Gillis was pronounced dead at the scene, Murphy said.

“This is a very sad case of some young adults that were looking for a friend’s house and ended up at this man’s house who decided to come out with a firearm and discharge it,” the sheriff said.

Walsh told NBC the drive to find cell service did not feel like a 5-mile drive. “It felt like 30 seconds. The adrenaline was rushing so bad.”

Shooting suspect’s attorney offers different version of shooting

Monahan’s attorney, Kurt Mausert, disagreed with the sheriff’s description of events.

“This was not a simple case of coming up a driveway and turning around,” he told CNN. “The description I was given by my client is there were multiple vehicles, including a motorcycle, revving engines, coming up the driveway at a high rate of speed.”

Mausert said Monahan felt that “created an atmosphere and a fear that there was menace going on.”

The sheriff confirmed there were several vehicles traveling together – a car with two passengers; a car with four passengers, including Gillis and her boyfriend; and a motorcycle – driving up and down the street looking for an address.

He said witness accounts from inside the cars and forensics prove the shots were fired as the group exited the driveway. The car in which Gillis was a passenger was the last vehicle to turn around and leave, he said.

“I don’t know how they could menace anyone with those type of actions, but they were clearly leaving the residence when the shots were fired,” Murphy told CNN. He also said no 911 calls regarding loud noises coming from vehicles were reported by Monahan or neighbors.

After the shooting, police officers responded to Monahan’s home and found him to be uncooperative, Murphy said, adding he “refused to exit his residence to speak with police.”

He was taken into custody hours later with help from the New York State Police Special Operations Response Team, according to a press release from the Washington County Sheriff’s office.

Speaking to CNN on Tuesday, Murphy said Monahan had not made any statement about the shooting and obtained a lawyer before he came out of the house.

“(He), quite frankly, has not shown any remorse in this case,” he said.

However, Mausert pushed back against the notion that there was a standoff with police when he was asked to surrender.

Monahan had no idea that the bullets he fired had struck someone, and he called Mausert to report there were four sheriff’s deputies on his road and had “no idea” what they wanted, the attorney told CNN’s Brynn Gingras.

Mausert said he got in touch with law enforcement and was informed of the fatality and charge, at which point he arranged for his client to lawfully turn himself over to police.

“This was not a standoff,” the attorney said. “This was my client and I not knowing what was going on in terms of the charges that were pending.”

Monahan’s driveway is 1/8th of a mile long and has no trespassing and private driveway signs, the attorney said.

Kaylin Gillis was soon to start college

Gillis’ family issued a statement praising her as a “kind, beautiful soul and a ray of light to anyone who was lucky enough to know her.”

“She was a big sister, much loved daughter, devoted friend and partner to her loving boyfriend. She was just beginning to find her way in the world with kindness, humor, and love,” the family said. “Kaylin was a talented artist, an honor student, a Disney fanatic and loved animals. She was looking forward to starting college in Florida to pursue her dream of becoming a marine biologist.

“She was taken from us far too soon, and we are devastated. Our family will never be the same but we will be guided by Kaylin’s positivity, optimism, and joy as we learn to live with her loss.”

The family also thanked those who have expressed support and asked for privacy. “Your well wishes and prayers are deeply appreciated, have been heard and will carry us through this difficult journey,” the family said.

Gillis graduated from Schuylerville High School in 2021 and held the position of “flyer” on the school’s cheerleading team, her former cheer coach Charlene Deming said.

“She was always smiling and laughing, and trying to make others laugh,” Deming told CNN.

Walsh told NBC Tuesday that he and Gillis had been together for over four years. “I had high hopes, and I had plans,” he said adding, “I didn’t want to be with anybody else, and I wanted to spend the rest of my life with her.”

“I want the world to know how good of a person she really was and how much she impacted everybody who had the fortunate opportunity to be in her life.”

“My world was taken from me Saturday,” he told NBC, adding he will miss her smile, eyes and how happy she made him.

Murphy, the sheriff, said he was a friend of the victim’s family and lamented the killing. “A case like this is absolutely senseless,” he said.

More than $97,000 has been raised for Gillis’ family in a GoFundMe raising money for the “Gillis family for use toward Kaylin’s funeral expenses and any immediate financial needs,” according to the page.

Chuchay Stark, a woman who lives in the county where this happened and took high school senior portraits of Gillis, said the community is going through a spectrum of emotions “from disgust to being heartbroken.” She recalled Gillis as one of the few kids who “knew exactly what she wanted” and was sweet to work with.

https://www.cnn.com/2023/04/18/us/woman-shot-wrong-driveway-upstate-new-york/index.html

Andrew Lester, 84-year-old Kansas City man accused of shooting Ralph Yarl, is in custody

Yarl, a 16-year-old who is Black, was shot after he mistakenly went to the wrong address to pick up his brothers. He told police he rang the doorbell and was shot.

KANSAS CITY, Mo. — An 84-year-old Kansas City man accused of shooting a Black teenager who mistakenly rang the doorbell at the wrong home surrendered to police Tuesday, officials said.

"Andrew Lester, charged in the shooting of Ralph Yarl, has surrendered at our Detention Center and is in custody," the Clay County Sheriff’s Office said in a statement. "He is in the booking process right now."

Lester, of Kansas City, was charged Monday with first-degree assault and armed criminal action, both of which are felonies, in the shooting Thursday night of Ralph Yarl, the Clay County prosecuting attorney has said.

Lester was released Tuesday evening after he posted bail, which had been set at $200,000, the sheriff's office said.

Yarl, 16, had gone to gone to the wrong address to pick up his siblings around 10 p.m., and he was shot through a glass door after he rang the doorbell, according to a probable cause statement filed by police.

Lester told investigators that he had gone to bed when the doorbell rang and that he went to the door armed with a .32-caliber Smith & Wesson revolver, police wrote.

Lester said he saw a Black male he didn’t know pulling on the exterior storm door handle and thought his home was being broken into, the probable cause statement says.

Lester said he fired twice through the glass door, it says. Then, the male ran away, he told police, and he used his home phone to dial 911. He said he saw a car in the driveway of his home that he believed belonged to the male but didn't see anyone inside it.

No words were exchanged, Lester told police.

Lester said firing his weapon "was the last thing he wanted to do, but he was 'scared to death'" because of his age and the male’s size, police wrote.

Lester said he lives alone. A police detective wrote in the probable cause statement that he noticed a security system in the home and took the hard drive to preserve any evidence but later found the equipment had last captured video in June and was no longer functional.

Yarl was interviewed at the hospital the next day and gave a different version of events, according to the probable cause statement. He told a detective that he did not pull on the door and that he was waiting at the door after having rung the bell when a man opened the door holding a firearm.

Yarl “stated he was immediately shot in the head and fell to the ground,” police wrote. He told police that he was shot again, this time in the arm, and ran, according to the document. Yarl reported to police that he heard a voice say, “Don’t come around here,” police wrote.

Clay County Prosecuting Attorney Zachary Thompson said there was a racial component to the case. Lester is white.

Even though Thompson said there was a racial element, Lester won’t be charged with a hate crime because it would be a lesser degree of felony than what he has been charged with, Alexander K. Higginbotham, a prosecutor’s spokesman, said by email Tuesday.

“Our office has charged the defendant in his case with an A felony, which is four classes higher than a hate crime enhancement could take a charge,” he said.

That is also why Lester wasn’t charged with attempted murder, Higginbotham said, because “the charge would be a lower level of offense than Assault in the First Degree and carry with it a lower range of punishment.”

Thompson said he “understands the racial components and context that surround a case like this,” adding, “However, legally speaking, there is not a racial element to the legal charges that were filed.”

Yarl has been released from the hospital, an attorney for his family said.

Police said in the probable cause statement that they tried to reach Yarl's family Sunday and Monday to conduct a formal interview but had trouble making contact.

“I just want justice to be served, so whatever is the right amount of justice for this situation should be granted out to him. Nothing more, nothing less, just the right amount, that’s it,” Cleo Nagbe, Yarl's mother, told NBC News outside the Clay County Courthouse Tuesday afternoon.

Lee Merritt, who is representing Yarl's family, said that he was satisfied with the charges and that the family “want to see it through to a conviction and appropriate sentencing.”

But Merritt took issue on several fronts, including why Lester was released within two hours of having been taken in for initial questioning and saying prosecutors still haven’t clarified whether the shots were fired from inside or outside the house.

“We’re frustrated with law enforcement and their failure to take responsibility for the denial of this family’s due process. No one has owned up to it,” Merritt said. “This 16-year-old unarmed boy didn’t actually pose a threat. But far too often in America, his skin alone is his weapon."

Merritt added that Yarl has some permanent injuries from a cracked skull, loss of brain tissue and scarring but is expected to make close to a full recovery.

The shooting sparked protests in Kansas City. Actor Halle Berry was among those who spoke out.

"This could be your child. This should NOT happen," Berry wrote Monday on Instagram.

President Joe Biden called Yarl and his mother on Monday, attorneys for Yarl's family and a White House official said.

At a rally in Kansas City on Tuesday, demonstrators called for justice, as well as safe communities for Black people.

Keturah Gibson said she babysat Yarl when he was younger. She said that as a Black woman who delivers for DoorDash, and who is the mother of a 7-year-old daughter, the shooting hits close to home.

“That could easily have been me that night,” Gibson said.

The night of the shooting, Lester was taken into custody after the shooting and later released. Police wrote in the probable cause document that the prosecutor's office advised that he be released pending further investigation.

It was not immediately clear Tuesday whether Lester had retained an attorney.

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-new...ed-shooting-ralph-yarl-custody-rcna80147

Man arrested in shooting of two Texas cheerleaders after one mistakenly got into the wrong car

One of the victims was critically injured in the shooting that unfolded early Tuesday outside an H-E-B supermarket in Elgin, Texas, police said.

A man has been arrested after two Texas cheerleaders were shot, one critically, after one of them mistakenly got into the wrong car, according to police and the owner of the gym where they trained.

Officers in Elgin, about 25 miles northeast of Austin, responded to reports of shots fired outside an H-E-B supermarket around 12:15 a.m. local time (1:15 a.m. ET) Tuesday, the Elgin Police Department said in a news release.

"Information suggests that an altercation occurred in the parking lot of H-E-B, and multiple shots were fired into a vehicle," police said. Two of the car's occupants were struck by gunfire, with one victim sustaining serious injuries and transported by helicopter to a hospital, where they were listed in critical condition, police said.

The suspect, Pedro Tello Rodriguez Jr., 25, has been charged with deadly conduct, a third-degree felony, police said.

Lynn Shearer, owner of Woodlands Elite Cheer Co., told NBC affiliate KXAN of Austin that the two people shot were cheerleaders who were on their way home from practice.

Shearer said the cheerleaders typically carpooled from the Austin area to her gym. On Monday night, she said at least four cheerleaders were on their way back to the Austin area and had to stop at an H-E-B, where some of the members had parked their cars.

One of the girls accidentally tried to get into the wrong car, Shearer said. That's when, she said, a "guy got out and they saw that he had a gun. And so they tried to speed off and he shot his gun, like five times or so into the car." Woodlands Elite did not immediately respond to an overnight request for comment. The Elgin Police Department also did not immediately respond to an overnight request from NBC News seeking to confirm these details.

According to ABC News, Heather Roth, a cheerleader with the Woodlands Elite, said in an Instagram Live post that she was the one who got out of her friend's car and opened the door of another vehicle she thought was her own, only to notice a man was in the passenger seat. She said she got out of the car and back into her friend's vehicle, the report said.

Roth reportedly said the man approached their vehicle and she rolled down a window to apologize. That's when the man started shooting, she said, according to ABC News. The Instagram Live post was no longer available early Wednesday, but Roth shared a number of posts that appeared to be related to the incident. She did not immediately respond to overnight request for comment.

Victim critically injured known as a 'role model'

Shearer identified the cheerleader who was critically injured in the shooting as Payton Washington, of the Round Rock Independent School District.

“She’s won every title there is to win in all-star cheerleading. She’s literally a role model for the kids in this industry throughout the country,” Shearer said. “Everybody knows her. She’s literally one of the very best that’s ever done this sport.”

Messages of support for Washington have poured in on social media in the wake of the shooting, with a prayer organized by Woodlands Elite held Tuesday. Meanwhile, a GoFundMe page organized by the Woodlands Elite Generals to help raise money to cover her hospital costs had raised more than $60,800 as of early Wednesday.

The GoFundMe page said Washington was "stable in the ICU and will have a long road to recovery."

Shearer said the cheerleaders had "grown up" in her gym. "We’ve known them for years, some of them literally, since they were, you know, 8, 10 years old,” she said. “So they’re like our family.”

The shooting, she said "was unfortunate. These girls were just trying to get home."

As Washington faces a long road to recovery, Shearer said, she and the Woodlands Elite team would be there to support her and others affected by the shooting every step of the way.

“Our goal right now is to take it one day at a time and be there for them,” Shearer said.
Shooting comes following 2 similar incidents

The shooting comes on the heels of two other eerily similar high-profile incidents in which the victims were allegedly shot after mistakenly approaching the wrong addresses.

Last week, 16-year-old Ralph Yarl was shot and seriously injured after mistakenly ringing the wrong doorbell in Kansas City, Missouri, while trying to pick up his siblings in an incident that sparked national outrage.

Just days later, Kaylin Gillis, 20, was fatally shot by a homeowner after the car she was riding in mistakenly turned into the wrong driveway in upstate New York.

The two incidents sparked a national conversation around gun violence and “stand your ground” laws, according to which a would-be shooter defending life or property does not have to retreat before taking violent action. The shooting of the cheerleaders is likely to further fuel the discussion.

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/texas-cheerleaders-shot-wrong-car-practice-rcna80366

6-year-old girl, 2 adults shot after basketball rolls into North Carolina neighbor's yard

By Caitlin O'Kane

April 20, 2023 / 9:49 AM / CBS News

Two adults and one child were shot in Gastonia, North Carolina, after a basketball rolled into a man's yard and he allegedly opened fire on them. The suspect, Robert Louis Singletary, was still at large as of Wednesday, according to the Gaston County Police Department.

The incident unfolded around 7:44 p.m. on Tuesday when Gaston police received a call about a man firing a gun outside homes in his neighborhood. Singletary, 24, of Gastonia, North Carolina, was determined to be the shooter.

An adult male and his child were seriously wounded during the shooting spree and taken to a Charlotte hospital. One adult woman was grazed by a bullet and another man was shot but not injured.

Detectives secured warrants for Singletary on four counts of attempted first degree murder, two counts of assault with a deadly weapon with intent to kill inflicting serious injury and one count of possession of a firearm by a felon.

The police department is offering a $1,000 reward for information that aids the investigation, which is ongoing. Singletary was last seen with a gun and should be considered armed and dangerous, the police department said.

Chief Stephen M. Zill of the Gaston Police Department said in a news release that his agency has partnered with the U.S. Marshals Regional Fugitive Task Force to assist in the search for Singletary.

"I want to say to the people of Gaston County — this sort of violence will not stand," Zill said.

Two of the victims have been identified as William White and his 6-year-old daughter, who spoke to CBS News affiliate WBTV. "The bullet came back and the bullet went in my cheek," said the girl, whose name is being withheld for her safety.

"I want him to go to jail forever," she said.

A neighbor who witnessed the shooting said it was shocking.

"They were playing basketball and a ball rolled into his yard and they went to go and get it," Jonathan Robertson told WBTV. "It was just crazy."

This shooting is the latest involving violent consequences after ordinary mistakes, reigniting debates about stand your ground laws.

A white man claimed self-defense after he shot a Black teenager this week when he rang the doorbell of his Kansas City home and a 20-year-old woman looking for a friend's house in upstate New York was fatally shot by a homeowner when she went to the wrong address.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/6-year...-neighbors-yard-robert-louis-singletary/

these incidents cross over all notions of having race or gender as a common cause. They seem to span the spectrum. But they are all quite disturbing.

Good guy with a gun

The good ole boy mentality. Anyone black is a threat. “My property and I got the god given right to use me gun and ask questions later.”

This is exactly what republicans want.. The wild wild west where everyone carries a gun and shoots anyone that wrongs them... perceived or real.

Can't begin to tell you how many times I've pulled into the wrong driveway... I wonder how many times a Doordash or Uber Eats driver went to the wrong address? This is dumb

How soon we forget. A black Amazon driver was brutally shot and killed not to long ago. Let’s face it, if you’re black, you better calculate your movement to perfection, or POW you’re dead.

Is that REALLY how you feel? I'm a republican.

Not sure if you realize but the "wild west" was chock full capricious gun control laws. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/gun-control-old-west-180968013/

https://apnews.com/article/north-ca...parents-61dda7685d1b0a9bcfde5655f753be1c


GASTONIA, N.C. (AP) — A North Carolina man shot and wounded a 6-year-old girl and her parents after children went to retrieve a basketball that had rolled into his yard, according to neighbors and the girl’s family — another in a string of recent shootings sparked by seemingly trivial circumstances.

Gaston County Police Chief Stephen Zill said at a news conference Wednesday that his department and the U.S. Marshals Service’s Regional Fugitive Task Force were conducting a broad search for 24-year-old Robert Louis Singletary, who fled after the Tuesday night shootings near Gastonia, a city of roughly 80,000 people west of Charlotte.

Singletary, who has been out on bond in a December attack in which authorities say he assaulted a woman with a hammer, is wanted in Tuesday’s shootings on four counts of attempted first-degree murder, two counts of assault with a deadly weapon with the intent to kill inflicting serious injury, and one count of being a felon in possession of a firearm. Singletary remained at large Thursday, county spokesman Adam Gaub said in an email.

Zill declined to say what sparked the attack, explaining that the investigation was ongoing.

However, neighbor Jonathan Robertson said the attack happened after some neighborhood children went to retrieve a basketball that had rolled into Singletary’s yard. He said Singletary, who had yelled at the children on several occasions since moving to the neighborhood, went inside his home, came back out with a gun and began shooting as parents frantically tried to get their kids to safety.

“As soon as I saw him coming out shooting, I was hollering at everybody to get down and get inside,” Robertson said.

A 6-year-old girl, Kinsley White, was grazed by a bullet in the left cheek and was treated at a hospital and released, she and her family said. Her father, Jamie White, who had run to her aid, was shot in the back. He remained hospitalized Wednesday with serious wounds, including liver damage, according to Kinsley’s grandfather and neighbor, Carl Hilderbrand. The girl’s mother, Ashley Hilderbrand, was grazed in the elbow. Authorities say Singletary also shot at another man but missed.

“It was very scary,” Ashley Hilderbrand said Wednesday. “My daughter actually got to come home last night. She just had a bullet fragment in her cheek.”

It is the latest in a string of recent U.S. shootings that occurred for apparently trivial reasons, including the wounding of a Black teenage honors student in Missouri who went to the wrong address to pick up his younger brothers, the killing of a woman who was in a car that pulled into the wrong upstate New York driveway, and the wounding of two Texas cheerleaders after one apparently mistakenly got into a car that she thought was her own.

https://www.nbcnews.com/now/video/group-of-teens-beat-and-rob-chicago-couple-170730565977


Teenager mob in Chicago riot, loot, vandalize, and assault people and mayor makes excuses for it.

Dem policies pfffft

https://www.cerescourier.com/opinion/editorial/walmart-closing-stores-due-rampant-theft/

Half of Chicago walmarts closing due to theft and security issues.

Dem policies pfffttt

https://www.foxnews.com/media/alvin...blish-racial-equity-agenda-crime-poverty

Chicago DA says he will no longer procesecute theft because its a "crime of poverty"

Dem policies pffft

Uh... I just can't.


Way to go Buttigieg!

I created this thread to speak about new and unusual types of shootings that are becoming more and more common. But the "whatabout crowd" just couldn't help themselves.

Grandson ‘Disgusted’ With Man Who Shot Ralph Yarl

Klint Ludwig said his grandfather Andrew Lester, who pleaded not guilty in the case, had fallen down a "right-wing rabbit hole" in recent years.

A grandson of the Missouri man who shot 16-year-old Ralph Yarl for mistakenly ringing his doorbell said on Thursday that he is “disgusted” by his grandfather’s actions.

“I was disgusted. I thought it was terrible,” Klint Ludwig told CNN’s Don Lemon. “Myself and my family stand with Ralph Yarl in seeking justice. This is a horrible tragedy, never should have happened.”

Yarl had gone to pick up his younger brothers from a house in Kansas City, Missouri, on the evening of April 13, but mistakenly went to the wrong address. The Black teenager rang the doorbell, only for 84-year-old Andrew Lester to shoot a revolver through the glass front door. Yarl was hit in the head and the upper right arm. He miraculously survived the encounter.

The teen was released from the hospital over the weekend, and is recovering at home with his family. Lester, who is white, has pleaded not guilty to felony charges of first-degree assault and armed criminal action, and he is currently free on bond. His next court appearance is June 1.

“Ralph Yarl did nothing wrong by showing up at the wrong house, which is an honest, easy mistake,” Ludwig told The Kansas City Star. “And the fact that it was almost a death sentence is disgusting.”

Ludwig said that over the past several years, he and his grandfather lost touch largely due to Lester falling down “the right-wing rabbit hole,” according to the Star. Lester engages in a “24-hour news cycle of fear and paranoia,” fueled by conservative networks like Fox News and OAN, that “reinforces and galvanizes racist people and their beliefs,” his grandson said.

“And then the NRA pushing the ‘stand your ground’ stuff and that you have to defend your home,” Ludwig told the Star. “When I heard what happened, I was appalled and shocked that it transpired, but I didn’t disbelieve that it was true.”

Lester also followed “QAnon-level conspiracies” about abortion and supposed election fraud, and appeared to believe in COVID-19 disinformation and racist stereotypes about Black people. According to Ludwig, “the warning signs were there.”

While Yarl’s physical health is improving, the teen’s family says he is still struggling emotionally and mentally. Friends and family of the high school junior have described him as academically talented and musically gifted.

“I’m proud of you, Ralph. I’m so sorry this happened to you,” Ludwig said on CNN. “I understand you’re an amazing kid and I think you’re going to grow up to be an amazing man. You didn’t do anything wrong. The outpouring of support that the country has shown to you, I think, says more than I ever could say.”

“Ralph, you don’t deserve to have your life fundamentally changed like you had it,” Ludwig said. “You deserve justice ― and my family stands with you.”

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/gran...5pzR5EDUJi8uhVV3ra6A5TzMztfVZEUffymA-jCg

Wow, someone who speaks the truth, and not the typical, "He was a gentle man, never saw any signs of danger in him."

It’s a shame the family didn’t intervene with their cuckoo Goper grandfather before now. We’re seeing this right wing radicalized racist behavior infest our society unchecked.

It's expected from a defense attorney to stand up for and make excuses for their client at every opportunity to do so. I wish the story would have expounded what who all was included in "family members" though.

And j/c

Before anyone goes off the rails on what I meant in my post above in purple about whataboutisms, it was intended as a two way street. I posted a total of four stories. In one of the four stories the victim was actually black. In three of the four stories that was not the case. But as we saw it was quickly made into a racial thing. Then on the other side it became some "Chicago" thing about inner city crime which is quite common and in no way fit into the subject matter of such unusual occurrences of which I plainly spelled out was the topic of this thread.

Now both sides can go off about it.

Still no matter the race, it’s crucial for the family to intervene when they agree grampa’s gone off the rails.

I was speaking about the turns the thread had taken in the beginning and moving forward. I'm pretty sure you understood that. I agree these some such incidents might be able to be avoided in states where red flag laws exist. I'm not sure how much good they would do in states where such laws do not exist. I mean I doubt just saying, "Grandpa is watching FOX News and OAN. He gets worked up over it and sounds crazy", is going to get law enforcement to take his guns.

Florida police decline to make arrests after neighbor shoots at grocery delivery car

A man opened fire after feeling threatened by the driver's actions, police said, and the driver was justified in an erratic escape.

Police in South Florida said they will not charge a neighbor for shooting at a car being used by a grocery delivery worker who ended up at the wrong address.

Officials in Davie, a town about 26 miles north of Miami, announced Friday that charges would not be recommended against the gunman, Antonio Caccavale,43, because his actions were justified by his fear.

Likewise, police said, the Instacart driver will not be charged because he acted based on their own assessment of danger when the vehicle, moving erratically, struck a boulder and the shooter's foot.

Investigators said they did not have video of the incident and thus had to rely on the narratives of each side, which each had its own chronology and facts.

"Each party appear justified in their actions based on the circumstances they perceived," Detective Patrick Di Cintio said in a supplement to the police report on the matter.

It wasn't clear if the detective concluded the shooting was justified based on Florida's controversial "stand your ground" law, the first in the nation, which states that residents have no duty to retreat before using potentially deadly force to defend life, family, and property.

The police report stated that driver Waldes Thomas Jr. and companion Diamond Harley D'arville were attempting to make a grocery delivery on the evening of April 15 and were talking to the customer's wife on a cellphone for navigation help when the incident took place.

After the Honda Civic stopped on Caccavale's property, next door to the target of the delivery, the home of Instacart customer Daniel Orta, Caccavale's son came out at his father's behest to tell the pair in the car to stay off the property, according to the report.

It's not entirely clear what happened next, and in what order, but the driver and his companion said that Caccavale approached them aggressively, prompting their hasty exit, according to the document. The duo said Caccavale had grabbed or otherwise latched on to the vehicle as it was moving, the report stated.

Caccavale's foot was struck by the Civic, according to the police report, and Caccavale said he opened fire after that in order to prevent more injury and protect his family from the vehicle.

The resident said he had aimed his semiautomatic Smith & Wesson handgun at the vehicle's tires in an attempt to disable it as a threat, the report said.

"He stated that he shot out three rounds at the vehicle after the vehicle struck him," the police report stated. "He stated he fired his gun at the vehicle because he was in fear for his and his children's safety."

The Civic exited the property, and officers found it a few blocks away stopped on railroad tracks, the report stated. There were indications of round impacts on the car, and one tire was flat, it said.

Thomas and D'arville were clearly shaken, police said, but were otherwise were uninjured. The extent of Caccavale's foot injuries was not specified by police.

The duo said they heard gunfire only after they attempted leave as a result of what they called aggressive behavior from neighbor Caccavale.

“I had seen him pull out a gun and that’s when I said, ‘We got to go, we got to go,’” D’arville said. “I was scared, I’m not going to lie.”

Someone at Caccavale's phone number hung up when contacted by NBC South Florida.

Instacart said in a statement it reached out to Thomas and would cooperate with investigators if asked.

"The safety of the entire Instacart community is incredibly important to us, and we take immediate action when we receive reports of violence or threats of violence made against any member of the Instacart community," it said.

The San Francisco-based company, founded in 2012 and boosted by venture capital investment, helped establish contemporary grocery delivery that connects gig economy drivers with online customers, similar to Uber's platform that connects drivers with ride-seekers.

The state attorney for Broward County, Harold Pryor, told NBC South Florida he's requested a review of the case and of the Davie Police Department's conclusion that charges would not be warranted.

On April 13, a teenager mistook a very similar address in Kansas City, Missouri for the one where he was expected to retrieve siblings, police said. An elderly white resident, since charged with assault in the first degree and armed criminal action, opened fire and injured the Black teenager.

More cases of gunfire over mistaken locations, roadways, and vehicles have turned up in the wake of the the Missouri shooting of teen Ralph Yarl, helping to renew the national conversation on guns and equal justice.

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-new...hbor-shoots-grocery-delivery-c-rcna81007

Isn’t that dandy. Lol….The next politician that steps onto my property who I deem threatening, I’m justified to shoot the bastard.

The only response republicans have for stopping senseless shootings is to arm more people, more armed guards, armed teachers, constitutional carry, etc... so until they come up with a plan that doesn't just involve adding more guns to the mix... what are folks supposed to think?

A lot of the "wrong place, wrong time" victims have been white so I don't think your argument is particularly valid... I don't think the real point has much to do with the victims at all..

If you look at the victims of the recent shootings, they range in age from 6 to early 20s, different races, different genders, different states, and completely different situations.. one rang the wrong doorbell, one pulled into the wrong driveway and started to back out, one 6-yeare-old chased his basketball into the neighbor's yard, and one got in the wrong car (that looked like hers) in the grocery store parking lot... which, if you are like me, is the only one that sounds reasonable. If you are sitting in your car waiting for your wife to come out and a stranger jumps in your car, that's threatening.. the only problem was he didn't shoot her in the car. She got out, acknowledged her mistake and walked to her own car and he followed her across the parking lot and shot her over there. The threat was long over..... so there is little we can glean from the victims...

But we can glean more from the shooters... older, angry, scared, white men with a gun nearby and an itchy trigger finger... consistently. Who have, no doubt, bought into the narrative that our society has reached some uniquely depraved state where somebody is always coming for them or for their stuff.... Pretty sure they all watch the news, follow the conspiracy theorists on social media, etc not to stay informed but to stay agitated and angry, to keep themselves in this heightened state of alert that they actually enjoy... In their own warped minds, they pull their guns not only to defend themselves but they believe they are defending the very essence of democracy itself.. that's how deluded these people are... and states all around the country are making it easier and easier for these people to obtain and carry guns all the time.... Oddly enough, most of them are probably very anti-gun control and, through their own actions, made themselves the poster child for why more gun control is necessary..

I think you hit it pretty good with the "wrong place" part. Depending on where you are race may play a much bigger role in you getting shot than if you were in another place. You know what they say and often times it rings true. "Location, location, location." In the case you are discussing I think the location and probably the overall mind set more than anything was a huge factor.

In the instances where the victim was black, it's quite possible that race was at least a contributing factor, but based on all of current events and the wide variety of victim, this is not specifically a race-based problem and we would be doing the debate a disservice by framing it that way. It's an angry-white-man-with-a-gun problem.

or as I have commented about football players... "Nothing good happens outside a strip club at 2:00 am"

Half the battle of life is not putting yourself in the position to have something bad happen. There is a larger economic (not just race DC) factor that cannot be overlooked. If you are in a poorer area, the crime rate will be higher. That is true regardless of race.

I'm not disagreeing with you about crime in general.. but I don't believe these same economic factors apply as neatly to these "wrong place, wrong time" shootings, they appear to be fairly random when it comes to location and economics.

Yes, I think framing the entire issue that way is most certainly a disservice to the overall topic. Yet at the same time I don't believe there is a single factor that encompasses the issue of mass shootings. I believe the reason for mass shootings can vary widely depending on the incident. So we certainly agree that you can't base it all on race, in certain instances race certainly plays a role. IMO to find a solution to mass shootings each one should be looked at on an individual basis. So while we agree that race shouldn't be the focus of being responsible for mass shootings as a whole, I also don't believe that race should be ignored in the cases where it most certainly applies. It's not the only cause of mass shootings but it is the cause in some mass shootings.

Edit to add; I think one of the reasons you see for this "angry white man with a gun" type of scenario is because it keeps being called "a good guy with a gun" by the other side. Until of course that "good guy with a gun" turns out not to be a good guy with a gun.

Agreed, and the instance described above, like the basketball or driveway shooting are examples where the shooting was totally unexpected.

And that is what makes things scary, between random shooting and mass shootings, we have to many shootings going on.

Pit, I know I haven't been here in a while, but this entire thread is about wrong place, wrong time shootings.. now you have switched to mass shootings (which there is already a thread discussion).. both tragic, both unacceptable, but completely different in their causes and circumstances...

True. However if you'll notice the shootings that I began this thread with, only one of those three had a victim which was black. Both the girl who was shot when she pulled in the wrong driveway and the cheerleader were white. Was the one where the victim was black race related? I believe so. So I'm not so sure you are correct in the cause part of it to some degree but I agree that you're certainly correct that in some cases the causes and circumstances are different. A lot more domestic violence cases are involved as an example.

Just get a dog. My doberman chased an intruder out of the backyard today. He's my guardian angel. Sweetest boy, until you are a threat.

Spiral when you get done whinning about Whites shooting Blacks lets talk about Blacks shooting Blacks which happens in 90% of cases.

Lol … I have no clue what you’re talking about. But please go on. It’s always entertaining.

Man allegedly shoots 14-year-old girl playing hide-and-seek on his property in Louisiana

A Louisiana man was arrested and charged with shooting and wounding a 14-year-old girl playing hide-and-seek on his property, officials said.

Deputies responded to a shooting early Sunday at a home in Starks, near the border of Louisiana and Texas, the Calcasieu Parish Sheriff’s Office said in a statement.

A 14-year-old girl was found with a gunshot wound to the back of her head on the property of David Van Doyle, 58. Further investigation revealed that several minors, whom the sheriff’s office identified as neighbors, were playing hide-and-seek in the area and hiding on Doyle's property.

Van Doyle told detectives he saw "shadows" outside his home, went inside to get his firearm and then "went back outside and observed people running away from his property, at which time he began shooting at them and unknowingly hit the girl," the news release says.

Van Doyle was arrested and charged with aggravated battery, four counts of aggravated assault with a firearm and illegal discharge of a firearm, the sheriff's office said. Bond is pending.

It was not known whether he has an attorney.

The girl was taken to a hospital for treatment of non-life- threatening injuries.

The investigation continues, the sheriff's office said.

The shooting is the latest of at least four similar incidents, sparking a national conversation around gun violence, as well as “stand your ground” and “castle doctrine,” both self-defense laws.

On April 13, Ralph Yarl, 16, was shot when he rang the wrong doorbell as he was trying to pick up his younger twin brothers from a friend’s home in Kansas City, Missouri. Andrew Lester, a white man in his 80s, was accused of shooting Yarl, who is Black, and charged with first-degree assault and armed criminal action.

Yarl was shot in the head, cracking his skull and leaving him with a traumatic brain injury, his family's attorney said.

On April 15 in upstate New York, Kaylin Gillis, 20, was fatally shot after the car she was in with her boyfriend and two friends turned into the wrong driveway as they were looking for a friend's house. Kevin Monahan, 65, was arrested on a charge of second-degree murder.

On April 18 in Texas, two cheerleaders were shot, one critically, after one of them mistakenly tried to get into the wrong car in a supermarket parking lot. The suspect, Pedro Tello Rodriguez Jr., 25, was charged with deadly conduct, a third-degree felony, police said.

In North Carolina, also on April 18, a man allegedly shot and wounded a 6-year-old girl and her father after a basketball rolled into his lawn, a neighbor said. Robert Louis Singletary, 24, turned himself in days later in Tampa, Florida, after a manhunt.

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-new...aying-hide-seek-property-louis-rcna83523

Kentucky man accused of shooting roommate for eating last Hot Pocket

Clifton Williams, 64, was charged with assault and pleaded not guilty in the Louisville case. His roommate survived.

A Kentucky man accused of shooting his roommate who ate the last Hot Pocket has been charged with felony assault.

The roommate, who has not been named, sustained non-life-threatening injuries in the weekend shooting, according to the Louisville Metro Police Department.

Clifton Williams, 64, was arrested early Sunday and charged with second-degree assault, police said. On Monday, he pleaded not guilty, according to NBC News affiliate WAVE of Louisville.

An attorney for Williams did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

According to a police citation, the two roommates had a physical fight over the frozen sandwhich.

"Mr. Williams got mad he ate the last Hot Pocket," it states, and allegedly "began throwing tiles at him."

The victim "attempted to" fight back and threatened Williams, but he left, the document

Williams got a gun and followed the roommate outside, where he shot him in the buttocks, the police document said.

Williams is scheduled to be back in court May 30 for a preliminary hearing.

Under Kentucky law, a person convicted of second-degree assault conviction can be sentenced to five to 10 years in prison.

The state defines a second-degree assault convict as someone who "intentionally causes physical injury to another person by means of a deadly weapon or a dangerous instrument"

https://www.today.com/food/news/ken...oommate-eating-last-hot-pocket-rcna85996

Anyone can see the extreme bias in this article. I mean who in the hell calls a Hot Pocket a sandwich for God's sake!!!?

Hot pockets are a calzone.

I consider that category to be much more accurate. A generic calzone but a calzone none the less.

Any self respecting Italian would cut your tongue out for comparing a hot pocket to a calzone.

Not if they are bringing a knife to a gun fight.

Do people really even do that anymore? I know I wouldn't. And especially in the event when you know for a fact how much someone advocates almost anything gun related should be legal.

Man arrested with AK-47, handgun and ammo at Virginia preschool

A trespasser carrying an AK-47, handgun and loads of ammo was arrested at a preschool in Virginia, as he claimed he was headed to the nearby CIA headquarters.

Eric Sandow, 32, of Florida, was taken into custody on Tuesday at the Dolley Madison preschool in McLean after he was caught sneaking onto school grounds, police said.

Officials recovered an AK-47 assault rifle with five extra magazines, a handgun with six extra magazines, as well as several boxes and bags of ammo from Sandow’s vehicle.

Police said Sandow told them he was actually headed to the CIA’s headquarters, in Langley, less than 2 miles away from the school.

The preschool said in a statement that Sandow asked to come into the school to use the restroom, which was denied.

“At no point did he gain physical entrance to the school building,” officials said. “We are grateful for the swift response of the Fairfax County Police Department.”

Sandow was charged with felony possession of a firearm on school property. He is being held at the Fairfax County’s Adult Detention Center without bond.

The Fairfax County Police Department and CIA did not immediately respond to The Post’s request for comment.

Sandow’s arrest comes a day before the first anniversary of the Uvalde massacre, where 19 Robb Elementary School students and two teachers were shot and killed in the Texas town.

Since then, the US has seen about 600 more mass shootings, according to the Gun Violence Archive, including the Nashville shooting that claimed the lives of three 9-year-olds and three staffers at the Covenant School.

Sandow’s arrest also took place about nine miles from the White House, which saw its own major incident Monday night when alleged neo-Nazi Sai Varsith Kandula, 19, rammed a U-Haul truck into security barriers.

After barreling the vehicle into the barriers, he reportedly exited the front seat and started waving a red, swastika-emblazoned flag before he was taken into custody.

Kandula allegedly told FBI investigators he wanted to take control of the government and kill the president, ABC reported.

He has since been charged with threatening to kill, kidnap or inflict harm on a president, vice president or family member, as well as assault with a dangerous weapon, reckless operation of a motor vehicle, trespassing and destruction of federal property, US Park Police said.

https://nypost.com/2023/05/24/eric-...Ws81wf-OBAyDPBifGIKW4Uze_uLnYkhpKiuvFya0

JMHO, members of society- white, black, hispanic- any color or creed are SCARED- everyone reads about the news you shared....AND they read about black on black crime/ hear the gangster type rap/ music degrading themselves and women---- any you are SUPRISED innocent people are shot.....get REAL. Can't have blacks killing blacks in hundreds every year in major cities across the country and think white people aren't afraid of blacks.....life is cheap in movies, games, the HOOD- it doesn't surprise me at all.

I think it's wonderful you care so much about the black community.

I care about very person created by God, I don't see why blacks killing blacks over and over again for decades isn't recognized as a HUGE problem.....no other minority has their issues and it all comes down to lack of FAMILY, JMHO. And, JMHO, Bill Cosby- before his real colors where shown stated in 60s, blacks have no reason not to succeed- as a nation, we are the only nation of the world to authorize reverse discrimination to favor a specific minority.....and it has worked some---but not enough to change their family issues. Why are black churches not taking to streets to stop the killings in their communities?

Family disintegration isn't just a black issue- it exists all over the world.

If family disintegration isn't just a black issue, why are you making it a black issue? You must have missed it but I have posted many places where black churches and black community leaders across the country have marched, have groups and are leading cities in trying to address black on black crime in their communities.

Law Enforcement and Community Leaders Announce One Detroit Partnership to Reduce Violent Crime in the City of Detroit

https://www.justice.gov/usao-edmi/p...e-one-detroit-partnership-reduce-violent

Black Faith Groups Have Been Fighting Neighborhood Gun Violence For Decades. They're Finally Getting Support

https://www.philanthropy.com/articl...for-decades-they-finally-getting-support

Chicago pastors invite 500 Black men to join walk in response to downtown chaos last weekend

https://abc7chicago.com/chicago-teens-take-over-streets-teen-takeover-downtown-loop-chaos/13156290/

I could post many more sources of how black churches have stepped up to try and address this problem. You can certainly say their efforts have not been effective but to say black churches aren't taking to the streets is totally false.

What "reverse discrimination" have you suffered from? And are you actually trying to claim that a TV show, Cosby, was some sort of representation of the black experience in America? I mean really?

Ex-Georgia deputy gets life in prison for killing married lover who insulted his penis size

A disgraced former Georgia sheriff’s deputy has been sentenced to life in prison for shooting his married girlfriend in the back of the head after she belittled his penis size.

Jason “Moose” Cunningham, 48, formerly with the Richmond County Sheriff’s Office, pleaded guilty to malice murder and possession of a firearm during the commission of a felony for the cold-blooded June 2020 killing of 37-year-old Nicole Harrington, reported the station WJBF.

Cunningham told investigators that he shot Harrington, his girlfriend and a married mom of three, in the back of the head at least once after she “insult[ed] the size of his manhood,” according to a statement from the Augusta District Attorney’s Office.

Cunningham then left the woman to die in a parking garage elevator in downtown Augusta.

Following the killing, the ex-deputy was involved in an eight-hour standoff with cops at Clarks Hill Lake before being arrested.

On Monday, Cunningham was sentenced to 35 years to life in prison on the murder charge, and another five years for the weapons count.

According to an affidavit obtained by the station WRDW, Cunningham told detectives that he had gone to the parking garage at the Augusta Convention Center around 6 a.m. June 18, 2020, to meet his paramour in order to end their affair.

During the conversation, Cunningham and Harrington got into a heated argument, which escalated to homicidal violence after the woman reportedly took a dig at her lover’s penis.

Cunningham said Harrington was loud and he “didn’t know what to do,” so he shot his girlfriend in the head as she entered the elevator.

“This was an extramarital affair in which the defendant was living a double life,” District Attorney Jared Williams said.

Cunningham served as a deputy for about 14 years, before resigning his post in February 2018 after failing a drug test.

He also worked as a marketing director for a veterans’ organization in Georgia.

https://nypost.com/2023/05/24/ex-ge...FyAy1Uu_7BqrnugyYYnmRXMhS2K4zHSblIOO7pS8

I don't know where you are getting your news source from - but I do know that it is an Alt Right media tactic to spin the agenda to somehow suggest that Black on Black crime is an issue that no-one talks about. And because of the numbers it somehow means we shouldn't / can't talk about cops killing Blacks in disproportionate numbers. It's a troupe. A dog whistle. A strawman argument that is not true. Pit's post contains some info on that ... They (Right Wing Alt Media) also sometimes like to quote the NUMBER of white people killed each year by cops and say - look this number is far less than the number of Black people killed by cops ... again, a troupe, a dog whistle, a strawman argument that doesn't hold scrutiny --- but those with bias just eat it up.

Here's a question you can google. What % of white victims of homicide are committed by other White's ? Hmmm. Looks like they have the exact same problem as Black on Black crime. Let's see you preach about that maybe? Or do you want to spin this away somehow?

ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2016/crime-in-the-u.s.-2016/tables/expanded-homicide-data-table-3.xls --> this is an official Gov Website with data from the FBI. . . . Or maybe we can't trust this because the FBI is deep state now ???

https://www.reuters.com/article/uk-...on-u-s-racial-murder-rates-idUSKCN24I2A9

I am not in favor of playing the race card, (black on black, etc.) when the underlying issue is economic disparity.

Said another way, it is far more probable that crime is more related to economic conditions (the money someone earns) than their race.

More plainly, I think a person with a 6 figure income is less likely to be involved with a crime.

I guess if we could normalize the data based on income, the differences would be less.

We should bring back summary executions and firing squads for anyone that possesses a gun or pulls a trigger during the commission of a crime. Make all assault rifle owners buy an insurance policy to fund victims/family in the aftermath of shootings and prosecute gun owners that do not keep their weapons secure. Finally, manufactures who make high power high capacity weapons should be fined every time one of their weapons kills an innocent. Standard fine per death injury. 1MIL/500K. Watch the crazy end then and nobodies’ rights get trampled.

No.

I agree with you - I posted because we saw/heard the right wing troupe of "BUT BLACK ON BLACK CRIME"....

Family of 11-year-old Mississippi boy shot by police officer calls for release of bodycam footage

The family of an 11-year-old Mississippi boy who was shot and wounded by a police officer who was responding to a 911 call to their home last weekend has demanded the release of police bodycam footage.

"The family deserves answers and they deserve it sooner than later because you had an 11-year-old boy within an inch of losing his life," the family's attorney Carlos Moore told CBS News.

Moore said that the family has asked the Mississippi Bureau of Investigation (MBI) for the bodycam footage of Aderrien Murry being allegedly shot in the chest early Saturday morning by an Indianola police officer. The bureau, Moore said, won't release the footage while the investigation is ongoing.

Body camera footage can provide crucial evidence about what happened in an incident, but laws don't compel release of the footage to the public, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.

"That's unacceptable," Moore said, and he believes investigators won't release the footage "because it shows things that are damaging to the city of Indianola." Known as the "Crown of the Delta," Indianola is located in the Mississippi Delta and has 10,683 full-time residents.

An Indianola Police Department officer came to the family's home after the child called the police for a domestic incident, his mother Nakala Murry said.

Her daughter's father knocked on the door around 4 a.m. on May 20 and "stated he was irate," said Murry, while her children and nephew were sleeping in bed. She told CBS News she gave her cell phone to her son and asked him to call her mother and the police.

Her son called the police first, and then called his grandmother, and was "trying to help protect his mom," Moore said, adding that Aderrien told 911 dispatch that the man did not have a gun.

Police arrived at the house, and at first they knocked on the door, but then kicked the door open, the family recounted.

An officer yelled, "Anyone that's in the house come out with your hands up!" Murry recalled.

Aderrien heard the order and went out of his room towards the living room, the family said. As he got into the living room he was shot by the same officer who told him to come out, Moore said.

Murry said her son fell to the ground, and then she held him and tried to compress his bullet wound.

"He started singing gospel. He started praying," Murry said.

Aderrien was airlifted to the University of Mississippi Medical Centre in Jackson where he was diagnosed with having a collapsed lung, lacerated liver and fractured rib, and put on a ventilator, the family said. He was released on Wednesday from the hospital, his family said.



Indianola police confirmed that Officer Greg Capers was involved in the shooting and is employed by the department, but referred any other questions to MBI.

MBI told CBS News it is currently assessing the incident and gathering evidence. Due to this being an open and active investigation, no further comment will be made, the agency said.

Request for comment from Indianola Mayor Ken Featherstone about the incident was not immediately returned.

Indianola is located about 90 miles north of Jackson.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/aderri...ng-calls-for-release-of-bodycam-footage/

This is all the fault of the left wing media!

Let me guess. Another police officer with a list of policing violations in the past and has never been reprimanded or suspended.

1-year-old boy accidentally shot by 4-year-old brother in Texas, authorities say

A 1-year-old boy is expected to survive after he was accidentally shot by his 4-year-old brother at their home in Texas on Tuesday afternoon, authorities said.

The incident occurred inside a house in Sheldon, a suburban neighborhood of northeastern Houston. A preliminary investigation indicates that the 4-year-old boy had found an unsecured pistol at home and unintentionally shot his little brother, according to the Harris County Sheriff's Office.

"I am grateful to report that the 1-year-old was immediately transported to the hospital and is expected to survive," Maj. Saul Suarez of the Harris County Sheriff's Office told reporters. "However, I do want to take this time to remind the community to be responsible when it comes to weapons, make sure that you're securing them, especially when there's children in the house."

The incident remains under investigation. It's unclear where exactly the boy found the firearm inside the home, according to Suarez.

The children's father, who declined to give his name or appear on camera, told Houston ABC station KTRK that his 4-year-old son likes to play with toy guns and probably didn't realize he had gotten hold of a real one. The father said his 7-year-old daughter was also inside the house at the time.

The father noted that he was not at home when the shooting happened and the firearm allegedly belongs to a relative staying there. He appeared visibly angry that an adult had left a loaded gun out around his children, according to KTRK.

https://abcnews.go.com/US/boy-accidentally-shot-brother-texas/story?id=99383373

What good is a gun if it isn’t locked and loaded ready to protect?

It isn't. That said, when you have young children, precautions need to me made. Depending on the children, you may need to take precautions well into their teens.

In this case it sounds like a family member who wasn't thinking or wasn't used to young kids being around made the mistake.

No doubt that as a parent, sometimes you have to sacrifice "protection" to protect your young ones.

"
It isn't. That said, when you have young children, precautions need to me made. Depending on the children, you may need to take precautions well into their teens."

Wait, are you admitting that some folks should NOT have access to guns?

Every child should be given a locked and loaded gun at birth to play with. Let the smart ones figure it out.

No doubt a 3 year old shouldn't have access. Are you stupid or just trying to be a richard?

Why not? After all it’s a god given right isn’t it? The second, as written, gives a 3 year old the right to bare arms. Are you suggesting we change that?

Nevertheless a good majority of teenagers these days act like 3 year olds. And nothing is stopping them from amassing a armory full of weapons and ammo.

I had the exact same question when you categorized gross negligence as "a mistake".

What the Hell is wrong with people?

WE CRAZY

I didn't see where any or what charges might be filed.
At any rate, the reply by you, Daman, and Perfect are good examples of what the hell is wrong with people.

Have a great day.

So then it's your contention that leaving a loaded weapon where a 3 year old has access to it is a mistake and not gross negligence? Speaking of what the hell is wrong with people. Being candid and honest doesn't make you anti gun, it makes you candid and honest. Yeah, what the hell is wrong with people seems pretty obvious. Minimizing the wrecklesness of the adult who allowed this child to have access to a loaded gun isn't attractive.

Dollar General Cashier Says She Was Fired After Hitting Alleged Shoplifter With Her Car

The cyclist and his basket filled with chips, cheese, bologna and other food items fell to the pavement when Jessie Soto was caught on doorbell security camera hitting him with her car.

A Dollar General cashier in Fresno, California, says she was fired after a dramatic video surfaced of her chasing an alleged shoplifter in her car, and hitting him as he was biking away.

“I’m sick and tired of everyone getting away with it,” she tells Inside Edition.

Jessie Soto, 35, was captured on neighborhood doorbell footage chasing down a cyclist in her car. She is later seen in video hitting his bicycle in someone’s driveway, knocking him and his basket full of goodies to the ground.

The two then get into a hurried argument while collecting as much of the items that had fallen to the ground as possible, the footage showed.

Soto said she never meant to hit him with her car. “That was never my intent,” she says. “I would never hurt anybody.”

She claims the man on the bike had stolen the chips, doughnuts, bread, cheese, bologna he had in the basket from the Dollar General store where she worked at the time of the incident.

Soto said she never meant to hit him with her car. “That was never my intent,” she says. “I would never hurt anybody.”

She claims the man on the bike had stolen the chips, doughnuts, bread, cheese, bologna he had in the basket from the Dollar General store where she worked at the time of the incident.

https://www.insideedition.com/dolla...Gok32MTEX3JSHM7srXkVAuTGRwDjpOGSbiF5Drbw

Running people over with your car sure will teach those hungry people a lesson.

So just a hungry person and not a thief?

He was a hungry thief… I’ll take his side, because nobody should go hungry in America. I’ll defend her too, she’s not a criminal, she’s an idiot.

Right. If you're hungry and you want food -- you should steal it.

You said that not me. I don’t think that way. Stealing is wrong. Going hungry in America is more wrong.

Just another scumbag that likes to steal... which is easy in CA since it's a sport and not a crime. I'm sure he's starving though; I mean, OCD says he's "going hungry" so it must be true.

Cashier lost her job and is living in her car. Not that it matters; she's just a minority single parent, I'm sure she'll land on her feet. She said she was just fed up with all the scumbag pos thieves. This one in particular had stolen from the place numerous times... she warned him that she would get him.

How was it determined the person was actually hungry?

Wow, look how panties get in a wad just because I said somebody was hungry… how do I know, I don’t for sure… But stealing food is a damn strong clue.

You're right. There's a huge black market for bologna and chips now.

You do realize you're standing up for a person getting hit by a car for stealing a small amount of food, right? I guess some of you are trying to take being tough on crime mantra to a whole new level. The entire "let the punishment fit the crime" mantra has obviously gone straight to hell.

Because all they stole was some food? Oh I forgot, all of that money you can get for bologna and chips now on the black market.

Maybe next time she'll think about running down someone with her car for what amounts to nothing more than a minor misdemeanor. What's next, the death penalty for stealing 30 dollars worth of food?

Yeah, she warned him she might try to kill him with her car and since she made herself judge, jury and executioner that must be okay, right?

And people wonder why i tell liberals to arm themselves. Heavily if they can afford to.

She said she didn't mean to hit him and would never try to hurt someone. She's lying and the scumbag thief is telling the truth?? Aaaand... you're lying again. She never threatened to run him over with a car. But yes, the party of "destroy all the guns" should encourage thieves to arm themselves. Do you ever read anything you type?

Death penalty comment is funny since the libtard policy is let them steal whatever they want and punish them with sympathy.

Florida man points gun at woman's head after vehicle briefly backs into his driveway, authorities say

Terry Vetsch, 60, Palm Coast, was charged with aggravated assault with a deadly weapon without intent to kill, according to the Flagler County Sheriff's Office.

A Florida man was charged with aggravated assault after allegedly pointing a gun at a woman's head when her friend used the suspect’s driveway to back up a vehicle, authorities said.

Terry Vetsch, 60, of Palm Coast, approached the two victims from his home on Saturday, yelling and “armed with a gun after one of the victims had briefly used Vetsch’s driveway to backup their vehicle,” according to a Facebook post from the Flagler County Sheriff’s Office.

Vetsch “used the gun to strike the victim’s backseat window before the other victim approached him and an argument ensued. Vetsch then pointed his gun at the victim’s head and continued to argue with them,” the sheriff’s office said.

According to a charging affidavit provided by the sheriff's office, he also allegedly threatened to shoot and kill one of the victims.

Vetsch told a deputy who responded to his home that he thought the alleged victims were his neighbors, whom he had previously had several arguments with.

The deputy received permission from Vetsch to review surveillance footage that captured the incident. The video showed a woman following Vetsch toward his property while arguing, but the victims “had not trespassed” when Vetsch pointed the gun, according to the sheriff’s office.

Vetsch could not be immediately reached for comment Friday afternoon.

The sheriff's office on Friday provided NBC News with a roughly 95-second video of the alleged incident, appearing to show Vetsch pointing a handgun at a woman after he confronted her because a vehicle was on the driveway.

The woman and Vetsch repeatedly swear at each other and the woman can be heard saying, "You pointed a gun at my head."

Vetsch was arrested and charged with aggravated assault with a deadly weapon without intent to kill. He was jailed and held on $50,000 bond, the sheriff’s office said.

Vetsch posted bond on Sunday, court records show.

He was ordered no contact with the victim and to surrender his firearms and ammo, which he did following his jail release, according to the sheriff's office.

Palm Coast is about 80 miles northeast of Orlando.

Vetsch’s Florida arrest is similar to an April incident in New York in which a homeowner fatally shot 20-year-old Kaylin Gillis after her boyfriend pulled into the wrong driveway while looking for a party.

Kevin Monahan is charged with second-degree murder in the incident. If convicted, he faces a minimum of 15 years to life and a maximum of 25 years to life in prison. He has pleaded not guilty.

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-new...e-briefly-backs-driveway-auth-rcna87451?

Stand your ground gone wild!

Aw. I know you think running over someone that stole a bicycle rack full of food is perfectly alright. And those that stormed the capital on Jan. 6th didn't mean to either. Mmmm. hmmm.

Yes she just chased him down with her car to "accidentally" hit him with it.

And what is it exactly do you claim I posted the thief said that was true? That's right, nothing.

And you once again are just making BS up. I've actually never advocated any guns be destroyed or even outlawed that are currently legal. Once again you use the extremist view to try and represent anyone who disagrees with you.

Let's take a look at the video, shall we?



I'm sure that looks like an accident to you.

Take a look at that video and then at least TRY to be honest, for a change. It was obviously on purpose. She was enraged, chased him down and hit him on purpose. But of course rather than being honest you'll call me the troll.

Failed New Mexico GOP candidate indicted by federal grand jury in alleged shooting spree targeting Democratic officials’ homes

A former GOP candidate in New Mexico has been indicted on federal charges in connection to a spate of shootings at Democratic officials’ homes after he lost his 2022 midterm election bid, court documents show.

Solomon Peña, 40, is charged with conspiracy, interference with federally protected activities and several firearms charges, including the use of a machine gun, according to a grand jury indictment unsealed Wednesday.

After his defeat in a November run for the New Mexico House of Representatives, prosecutors accuse Peña of going to the homes of at least three Bernalillo County commissioners and urging them not to certify the election results, claiming there had been election fraud, the US Department of Justice said in a news release.

“Following the Bernalillo County board of commissioners’ certification of the vote, Peña allegedly hired others to conduct the shootings and carried out at least one of the shootings himself. At least three of the shootings occurred while children and other relatives of the victims were at home,” the release said.

Though victims’ names were withheld in the indictment, Albuquerque police have said Democratic officials whose homes were shot at included Bernalillo County Commissioner Adriann Barboa, newly installed state House Speaker Javier Martinez, and state Sen. Linda Lopez, among others. No one was injured in the shootings, police have said.

f convicted on all charges, Peña faces a mandatory minimum of 60 years in prison, according to the DOJ.

CNN has reached out to Peña’s attorney, Roberta Yurcic, for comment.

Peña also faces several conspiracy and firearms charges in New Mexico, to which he has pleaded not guilty.

As of Wednesday, he had not yet appeared in court to face the federal charges. Peña was still detained without bond at the Bernalillo County Jail Wednesday evening, online records show.

After Peña was arrested in January, a district court judge ruled that that he must remain in jail as he awaits trial, arguing that Peña poses a threat to the shooting targets and their families.

https://www.cnn.com/2023/05/31/us/solomon-pena-new-mexico-democrat-shootings-indictment/index.html

If you can't beat them, shoot them? Murica!

Maybe dude should
1) get a job so he can buy food
or
2) bike his ass down to the local food pantry and get groceries in a legal way

Theft does nothing but raise prices for everyone and make businesses leave town so then everyone suffers.

How does any of that excuse this?

I never said it did. But if dude wasnt stealing he wouldnt have had a problem, would he? Personal accountability is a thing.

And personal accountability also applies to what that cashier did when she obviously hit that guy with her car on purpose. The only real difference here is that all along I have stated this guy was stealing. I've never claimed that he wasn't doing something wrong. He clearly was. On the other hand we've been hearing excuses for this woman to hit this guy with her car. (not from you per say) Accountability works both ways.

I never stood up for the driver. I just pointed out you mentioned hungry person and no word of thief.

See, I can do that too, much like you and a few other did when we were discussing a 3 year old child who shot a sibling, and my words were twisted to sound like 3 year olds should be able to have handguns and you not liking my use of the word mistake...which it was.

So, if that is how you folks want to play, so will I.

Have a good evening.

You may wish to check yourself. You posted that immediately after I posted the article in which it clearly stated he was a shoplifter. It was OCD who never mentioned he was a thief. And you also may wish to check my comments about the three year old shooting his sibling. You boiled it down to being a "mistake". I said I thought that was downplaying it. That it was worse than a mistake. You know, a mistake is accidentally putting mustard on your sandwich when you meant to put ketchup on it. Allowing a three year old to get their hands on a loaded weapon is much more than a "mistake". Nowhere did I even suggest that you felt a three year old should be able to have a handgun. Where you come up with such BS is unreal.

Mother fatally shot by neighbor after dispute over playing children, sheriff says

OCALA, Fla. (AP) — A Florida mother was fatally shot through the front door of her neighbor’s home while her 9-year-old son stood next to her, a violent culmination of what police said was a 2½-year feud.

Ajike Owens, 35, was fatally shot after going to the Ocala apartment of her neighbor, who earlier had yelled at Owens’ children as they played nearby and threw a pair of skates that hit one of them, Marion County Sheriff Billy Woods said at a news conference Monday.

Deputies responding to a trespassing call at the apartment Friday night found Owens suffering from gunshot wounds. The mother of four was taken to a nearby hospital, where she died. Ocala is about 70 miles (110 kilometers) northwest of Orlando.

“I wish our shooter would have called us instead of taking actions into her own hands,” Woods said. “I wish Ms. Owens would have called us in the hopes we could have never gotten to the point at which we are here today.”

Since January 2021, Woods said, deputies responded at least a half-dozen times in connection with the feuding between Owens and the woman who shot her. The sheriff’s office hasn’t arrested or identified the shooter.

Woods said detectives are working with the State Attorney’s Office and must investigate possible self-defense claims before they can move forward with any possible criminal charges.

The sheriff pointed out that because of Florida’s “stand your ground” law, he can’t legally make an arrest unless he can prove the shooter did not act in self-defense.

Before the shooting, Owens’ children had been playing in a field near the shooter’s apartment. When Owens later confronted the woman at her apartment, an argument ensued, and the woman shot Owens through the front door, according to police.

Civil rights attorney Benjamin Crump, who is representing Owens’ family, said in a statement that the shooter had been yelling racial slurs at the children before the confrontation with their mother. Owens and her children are Black.

The sheriff’s office hasn’t confirmed there were slurs uttered or said whether race was a factor in the shooting.

Woods also said they haven’t interviewed Owens’ children, who witnessed the shooting, because investigators first want child therapists to work with them. Most of the information the deputies have is coming from the shooter, Woods said.

“There was a lot of aggressiveness from both of them, back and forth,” Wood said the shooter told investigators. “Whether it be banging on the doors, banging on the walls and threats being made. And then at that moment is when Ms. Owens was shot through the door.”

Woods was joined at his news conference by community leaders and a local attorney retained by the family, Anthony Thomas. Their singular message was a call for patience while the sheriff’s office conducted its investigation.

During a vigil with the family later Monday, Thomas said the sheriff had promised him the most professional service that he and his deputies could provide, and Thomas plans to hold the agency to that.

During the same gathering, Owens’ mother, Pamela Dias, said that she was seeking justice for her daughter and her grandchildren.

“My daughter, my grandchildren’s mother, was shot and killed with her 9-year-old son standing next to her,” Dias said. “She had no weapon. She posed no imminent threat to anyone.”

https://thehill.com/homenews/state-...iT6wr502sXZmY9bUewaVTcAxxCfuVlNoj6p9_4kc

Of course in states such as Florida when you shoot an unarmed person through the door it might be self defense. I mean you might be sceered!

Muruca!

Can you cite where it is legal in Florida to shoot through a door, especially when you know the person is unarmed? Don't just say "stand your ground". That isn't carte blanche to indiscriminately shoot people. Be specific. Chapter and section of the criminal code in FL.

So you're saying you have to "know they're unarmed"? And as a hint moving forward, purple font indicates sarcasm. You're welcome.

How would you actually know a person is unarmed?

I know what purple font means. I also know how much you hate anyone other than you owning a gun. I understood your intent perfectly.

But please carry on with your panic porn.

Maybe you'll find this helpful. Or maybe not.....

From the article.....


I have no problem with people owning guns. Maybe not so much guns that can fire 30 rounds in a matter of a few seconds. But extremists will spin things they way they wish and the facts be damned.

Yes, that's why you always seem to finish these statements with "murica!" It is a dig. You can't just illegally paste a copyrighted article without taking your own special shots. You continue to hate anyone but you having rights. No one can actually do anything right other than you. You are so much more bester than us.

Boy, 3, dead after accidentally shooting himself in Tennessee

A 3-year-old boy died after he accidentally shot himself in Tennessee over the weekend, police said Monday.

The boy was in a vehicle in Collierville with family members when he found a firearm and shot himself on Saturday afternoon, officials said. He was rushed to a hospital in critical condition and later succumbed to his injuries.

Police have not yet said if an arrest will be made in connection with the boy's death.

Nonprofit Everytown for Gun Safety has documented more than 120 unintentional shootings by children so far this year in the U.S., resulting in 54 deaths and 77 injuries as of May 26.

There have been at least nine unintentional shootings by children, resulting in 2 deaths and 7 injuries in Tennessee, as of May 26, according to the nonprofit.

Pressure to pass gun safety measures has ratcheted up in the state in the wake of the March shooting at The Covenant School in Nashville, which killed three children and three adults. Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee, a Republican, signed an executive order in early April to tighten the background check process in the state.

More than half of Tennessee adults have guns in their homes, according to a 2020 study. Everytown has advised the state to "enact responsible gun storage requirements for both vehicles and homes."

A GoFundMe has been set up to help with funeral expenses for the boy who accidentally shot himself, CBS affiliate WREG reported. In the post, family members described the boy as fun, loving and rambunctious. He loved to play basketball and climb.

"This event has completely turned our lives upside down," the GoFundMe organizer wrote. "It was never imaginable and something that we pray that no other family had to experience."

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/boy-3-...Xm6gdUZJE_IsPohBj4q9dP0YsioC2ltgb6SPWz5A

Gov. Lee has also called for a red flag law to be composed and passed by the Tennessee legislature. But of course as of now, so far nothing has been done on either.

Whoever left this loaded gun where a 3 year could get to it needs to be charged with negligent homicide. But I'm sure some would simply call it a mistake.

If that's the best you can come up with when people post actual things that are happening you have no grounds to stand on. And yes, I use the term "Murica" a lot and it is a dig at some of the crazy things that are going on which so many have no come out of their closets to support. Politicians attacking businesses over opposing political views. Some of the stand your ground laws are just idiotic. Bringing religion into tax payer funded schools is as well. Trump leading the GOP polls is just crazy. So yes, I will point that out. Sorry if that bothers you. Well, actually no I'm not.

Something tells me if a gun wasn't available, a different weapon would have been used.

I'm so glad something told you.

Well I guess law enforcement was finally able to prove enough for the prosecutor to conclude this incident had nothing to do with the stand your ground law that charges were able to be filed...........

After years of threats, a feud ends with a Black mom dead and her white neighbor arrested

The Marion County Sheriff’s Office says a white Florida woman accused of fatally shooting her Black neighbor last week has been arrested

OCALA, Fla. -- A Florida woman accused of fatally shooting her neighbor last week in the violent culmination of what the sheriff described as a 2½-year feud was arrested Tuesday, the Marion County Sheriff’s Office said.

Susan Louise Lorincz, 58, who is white, was arrested on charges of manslaughter with a firearm, culpable negligence, battery and two counts of assault in the death of Ajike Owens, a Black mother of four, Sheriff Billy Woods said in a statement.

Authorities came under pressure Tuesday to arrest and charge the woman who fired through her front door and killed Owens in a case that has put Florida’s divisive stand your ground law back into the spotlight.

In a video posted on Facebook late Tuesday night, the sheriff said this was not a stand your ground case but “simply a killing.”

“Now many of you were struggling to understand why there was not an immediate arrest,” the sheriff said. “The laws here in the state of Florida are clear. Now I may not like them. I may not agree with them. But however, those laws I will follow.”

The video shared by the sheriff's office shows two detectives and a deputy leading down a hallway with her hands behind her back.

Jail records show she was booked, but did not list a lawyer who could speak on her behalf. It wasn't immediately clear when she would make her first court appearance.

Deputies responding to a trespassing call Friday night found Owens with gunshot wounds.

The neighborhood of single-story duplexes and quadruplexes is in the rolling hills outside of Ocala. The area is known for its thoroughbred horse farms, which surround the working-class neighborhood.

Lorincz told investigators that she acted in self-defense, and that Owens, 35, had been trying to break down her door before she fired the gun, the sheriff said. She also told them that Owens had come after her in the past, and had previously attacked her.

Sheriff Woods said the investigation, which included eyewitness statements, established that Lorincz’s actions were not justifiable under Florida law.

On Tuesday, about three dozen protesters, most of them Black, gathered outside the Marion County Judicial Center, demanding the shooter's arrest. The chief prosecutor, State Attorney William Gladson, met with the protesters and urged patience while the investigation continues.

“If we are going to make a case we need as much time and as much evidence as possible,” Gladson said. “I don’t want to compromise any criminal investigation."

Earlier the sheriff had said that because of the stand your ground law he couldn't make an arrest unless he could prove the shooter did not act in self-defense.

In the neighborhood a stuffed teddy bear and bouquets marked the area near where Owens was shot. Nearby, children were riding bikes and scooters, and playing basketball.

Some protesters gathered downtown, chanting “No justice, no peace” and “A.J. A.J. A.J” using Owens’ nickname, on Tuesday afternoon.

The sheriff said Owens was shot moments after going to Lorincz's apartment after she yelled had at Owens' children as they played in a grassy area outside nearby. He also said Lorincz had thrown a pair of skates that hit one of the children.

Before the confrontation, Lorincz had been yelling racial slurs at the children, according to a statement from civil rights attorney Ben Crump, who is representing Owens’ family. He also represented Trayvon Martin's family in 2012, when the Black teenager was killed in a case that drew worldwide attention to the state's stand your ground law.

The sheriff’s office hasn’t confirmed there were slurs uttered or said whether race was a factor in the shooting.

In a statement late Tuesday, Crump said while Owens’ family is “relieved” that an arrest has been made, they remain concerned it has taken this long because “archaic laws like Stand Your Ground exist”

Lauren Smith, 40, lives across the street from where the shooting happened. She was on her porch that day and saw one of Owens' young sons pacing, and yelling, “They shot my mama, they shot my mama.”

She ran toward the house, and started chest compressions until a rescue crew arrived. She said there wasn't an altercation and that Owens didn't have a weapon.

“She was angry all the time that the children were playing out there,” Smith said. “She would say nasty things to them. Just nasty.” Smith, who is white, described the neighborhood is family friendly.

The sheriff said that since January 2021, deputies responded at least a half-dozen calls in connection with what police described as feuding between Owens and Lorincz.

“There was a lot of aggressiveness from both of them, back and forth,” the sheriff said Lorincz told investigators. “Whether it be banging on the doors, banging on the walls and threats being made. And then at that moment is when Ms. Owens was shot through the door.”

“I'm absolutely heartbroken,” Angela Ferrell-Zabala, executive director of Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America, told The Associated Press. She described the fatal shooting as “so senseless.”

“We’ve seen this again and again across this country,” she said, adding that “it’s really because of lax gun laws and a culture of shoot first.”

Ferrell-Zabala said stand your ground cases are deemed justifiable five times more frequently when a white shooter kills a Black victim.

In 2017, Florida lawmakers shifted the burden of proof from a person claiming self-defense to prosecutors. Before the change in law, prosecutors could charge someone with a shooting, and then defense attorneys would have to present an affirmative defense for why their client shouldn’t be convicted. Now authorities must rule out self-defense before bringing charges.

Stand your ground and “castle doctrine" cases — which allow residents to defend themselves either by law or court precedent when threatened — have sparked outrage amid a spate of shootings across the country.

In April, 84-year-old Andrew Lester, a white man, shot and injured 16-year-old Ralph Yarl, a Black teenager who rang his doorbell in Kansas City. Yarl mistakenly went to the wrong house to pick up his younger siblings. Lester faces criminal charges. At trial, he may argue that he thought someone was trying to break into his house.

Missouri and Florida are among about 30 states that have stand your ground laws.

The most well-known examples of the stand your ground argument came up in the trial of George Zimmerman, who fatally shot Trayvon Martin in 2012.

At a vigil Monday in Ocala, Owens’ mother, Pamela Dias, said that she was seeking justice for her daughter and her grandchildren.

“My daughter, my grandchildren’s mother, was shot and killed with her 9-year-old son standing next to her,” Dias said. “She had no weapon. She posed no imminent threat to anyone.”

https://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory...7mb6tslu78IEFdwwpbZwMJWCjh9ox0w1n_xCuU1E

Some would call this fake news- Rms Chp 1- 28-31.....explains all.

So the system is working?

We'll have to wait and see what a jury decides first. And I guess if you think police having to prove that shooting through your door to kill someone isn't "stand you ground" and legal first before a prosecutor be can press charges is "working, yeah. I think that's crazy.

The police investigating and turning the case over to the DA for charges is the system is working. I know you think that is crazy, I mean our entire legal system is based on it. You are more of a "I can look at em and tell they are guilty" kinda guy.

Yes, in your world having to prove to a prosecutor that a woman who shot an unarmed woman through her door wasn't doing so in self defense means it's working. I guess to an extent you're right. It's working for some people.

So the police investigated at the scene, turned over their finding to the DA who brings charges, if they are warranted. This is the process in EVERY single case. This is how it works.

But you know what guilty looks like and can just spot it. No need to investigate, no need for a trial. You have the all knowing eye.

No, the sheriff made it clear that it goes much further than that......


A law was actually created that makes law enforcement had to prove that shooting an unarmed person through a door isn't self defense.

So they followed the established legal process that got to the DA charging the shooter? Again, the processed worked.

When the process includes having to convince a prosecutor that someone shooting a person through their door wasn't self defense, something in the "legal process" is seriously flawed. Even you should understand that.

the process always involves convincing the DA that charges need to be brought. Some times this is easier than others.

You must have missed the " law enforcement had to prove that shooting an unarmed person through a door isn't self defense" part.

I did not. You must have missed that law enforcement must show the DA that charges are warranted part. Whatever that involves is what that involves.

Must show that charges are warranted by proving that a person who shoots and kills someone through a closed didn't do it in self defense. That "whatever it involves" part is what has gotten so far out of hand.

Due process is such a pain. Glad COTUS doesn't guarantee that.

It doesn't say that people should be stupid enough to question whether someone shooting through a door and killing someone should be questioned as self defense either. It's amazing to me the things people claim are in the constitution.

You do know that when the police arrive they do so with zero understanding of the situation. Fact finding takes time.

Due process is actually in COTUS. Yet another one of those inconvenient things about having a foundation of government that requires the government answer to the people, not the the other way around.

You can drop the facade about caring about the actually believing in COTUS and the Republic.

This was some redefined meaning of what due process means. It is something that was never seem until recently as law. Nothing about having to prove a person who murders another person by shooting them through a door is contained in the COTUS. All the double talk in the world won't change that.

So, you're against this "redefining" but you're good with the BATFE redefining what a machine gun is?

No it is not. When the police show up they do not know what has happened. They investigate. That's what they do. Keep in mind the presumption of innocence is foundational. Only once the facts emerge do they refer to the DA for charges. This could be a matter of minutes or a matter of months. That is all part of the sam process that has been around for a long time. The minutia may change but the process is pretty baked.

That you don't like it means nothing other than you don't believe in COTUS unless you can use it as a fighting point.

Damn, it seems everything must be explained to you. Do you even read the threads or just come on here to stalk me? This issue here, if you had bothered to read the thread, is that Z seems to claim that it's the constitution and it's mentioning of due process that makes this extreme version of the stand your ground law somehow okay. My point was that this crazy stand your ground law is not in the constitution.

Some of the changes that are trying to be made I will agree with and some I won't. What i won't do is pick and choose where and when I think it's okay to use such a tactic and when I won't depending on the topic.

Not only that, I didn't say I agreed with BATFE actually changing the law. I stated that this is a tactic used many times to challenge the laws on the books. How I understand that's how our system currently works and that I'm okay with them using such a method in an attempt to overturn laws. I never said I actually agreed with the decision the BATFE made. I actually don't.

Try and keep up will ya?

You still don't seem to understand what that sheriff said do you? He even went on to say that he had to enforce the laws on the books whether he liked them or not. I'm not rally sure how much more clear he could have made the fact that he felt the burden was unreasonable. Once again, the COTUS says nothing about stand your ground laws. According to you every law in every state qualifies as due priocess no matter what those guidelines happen to be because you know, the COTUS.

"Extreme'! Yay hit that buzzword.

The constitution does not tell States what process they must go through to investigate and bring charges in crimes. it does say that "nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; ". Florida has an established process that has not been found to be extraconstitutional. The incident to charges was not very long, but there is a process to get there. The process worked. The process cannot be "you look guilty therefore you are guilty".

It doesn't satisfy your need for outrage. Thankfully that is not what the COTUS is here for.

I call out the extremes of both sides. You just like to point it out when I do it in one direction. So let me get this straight. You think our forefathers wrote about due process and by that they meant, "Make up anything you like because we have you covered"?

I'll take "Horse pucky for $1000 Alex"

Let me get this straight, you yet again ask a pointed question to deflect and try to create a narrative that doesn't exist. Another "y" day I suppose.

Cleveland mom charged with murder after baby is left home alone for 10 days and dies

16-month-old Jailyn Candelario was found "extremely dehydrated" after her mother, Kristel Candelario, went on a vacation and left her alone, police said.

A baby girl died after she was left home alone in Cleveland for 10 days as her mother traveled without having made any arrangements for the 16-month-old's care, officials said Thursday.

Kristel Candelario, 31, was arrested and charged with murder after her baby girl, Jailyn, was found unresponsive at their home at 3129 W. 97th St., police said.

There were "no signs of trauma," and the Cuyahoga County Medical Examiner’s Office's investigation revealed that "the child had been left alone and unattended for approximately 10 days and had subsequently died," police said in a statement.

Candelario had been vacationing in Puerto Rico and Detroit, according to a police affidavit written in support of her arrest.

Candelario admitted to police that she left Jailyn “at home, all alone and unattended,” the affidavit written by Detective Thelemon Powell Jr. revealed.

When Candelario got home on a week ago Friday, she found Jailyn to be “extremely dehydrated,” the affidavit revealed.

The baby’s pen “consisted of soiled blankets and a bottom liner, saturated with urine and feces,” according to Powell.

Neighbors told NBC affiliate WKYC in Cleveland that Candelario had asked them to take care of Jailyn in the past and didn't understand why she hadn't reached out for their help again.

“Jailyn really didn’t deserve what happened to her. She was amazing and really adorable, and I miss her a lot,” a 13-year-old neighbor told WKYC.

It wasn't immediately clear Thursday whether Candelario had hired an attorney or been assigned counsel.

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-new...y-left-home-alone-10-days-dies-rcna90590

That’s just horrific.

Not that it’s at all related and this women has some deep mental issues, but living in a state that forces motherhood on teens this type of thing shouldn’t be that surprising.

Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp denounces neo-Nazi demonstrations that occurred outside synagogues

Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp condemned two neo-Nazi demonstrations that took place outside synagogues in Macon and near Atlanta on Friday and Saturday.

“There is absolutely no place for this hate and antisemitism in our state. I share in the outrage over this shameful act and stand with Georgians everywhere in condemning it,” the Republican tweeted Sunday morning. “We remain vigilant in the face of these disgusting acts of bigotry.”

A group of about a dozen neo-Nazi extremists -- waving swastika flags and displaying antisemitic propaganda -- gathered in front of an East Cobb synagogue, about 20 miles (32 kilometers) from Atlanta during services Saturday, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported.

County officials identified “these individuals as part of a small group that travel around the country in order to spread their hateful message,” the Chabad of Cobb County said in a statement to WSB-TV.

Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp condemned two neo-Nazi demonstrations that took place outside synagogues in Macon and near Atlanta on Friday and Saturday.

“There is absolutely no place for this hate and antisemitism in our state. I share in the outrage over this shameful act and stand with Georgians everywhere in condemning it,” the Republican tweeted Sunday morning. “We remain vigilant in the face of these disgusting acts of bigotry.”

A group of about a dozen neo-Nazi extremists -- waving swastika flags and displaying antisemitic propaganda -- gathered in front of an East Cobb synagogue, about 20 miles (32 kilometers) from Atlanta during services Saturday, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported.

County officials identified “these individuals as part of a small group that travel around the country in order to spread their hateful message,” the Chabad of Cobb County said in a statement to WSB-TV.
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“We are working closely with Cobb County officials and the Police Department to ensure the security and safety of our campus. There is no threat whatsoever at this time,” the statement read.

Similarly, on Friday a group of 15 protesters yelling antisemitic messages gathered outside Temple Beth Israel in downtown Macon.

The demonstrations drew outrage from politicians and residents, with hundreds of people gathering at Temple Beth Israel to take a stand against antisemitism.

“Yesterday we saw antisemitism on display in Macon, and now in metro Atlanta. This has got to stop,” U.S. Sen. Raphael Warnock tweeted Saturday. “Praying for our Jewish community in Georgia and beyond. We must all raise our voices loudly against this vile hate.”

Antisemitic incidents have been on the rise across the country. In 2022 there were 192 antisemitic incidents reported in Georgia, Alabama, South Carolina and Tennessee – a 120% increase from the previous year, according to a report from the Anti-Defamation League. In Georgia alone, there was a 63% rise in such incidents between 2021 and 2022.

https://apnews.com/article/neonazi-...agogues-5be95e239641c38ad5d4d483ea0c9dc6

Antisemitic incidents on rise across US, report finds

https://apnews.com/article/antisemitism-israel-jews-tel-aviv-us-2e13cc5732a04fa4fc2dcf091ac729dd

A woman fatally shot an Uber driver. Police say she wrongly thought she was being kidnapped

EL PASO, Texas (AP) — A Kentucky woman has been accused of fatally shooting her West Texas Uber driver after mistakenly believing she was being kidnapped and taken to Mexico, according to police.

Phoebe Copas remained jailed Sunday in El Paso, Texas, after being charged with murder last week in the death of 52-year-old Daniel Piedra Garcia.

Court and jail records did not list an attorney who could speak for Copas, 48.

The shooting took place on June 16 as Piedra was driving Copas to a location in far southeast El Paso. Copas, who is from Tompkinsville, Kentucky, was in El Paso visiting her boyfriend, according to authorities.

During the ride, Copas saw traffic signs that read “Juarez, Mexico,” according to an arrest affidavit. El Paso is located on the U.S.-Mexico border across from Juarez.

Believing she was being kidnapped and taken to Mexico, Copas is accused of grabbing a handgun from her purse and shooting Piedra in the head, according to the affidavit. The vehicle crashed into barriers before coming to a stop on a freeway.

The area where the car crashed was “not in close proximity of a bridge, port of entry or other area with immediate access to travel into Mexico,” according to the affidavit.

“The investigation does not support that a kidnapping took place or that Piedra was veering from Copas’ destination,” police said in a news release.

Police allege that before she called 911, Copas took a photo of Piedra after the shooting and texted it to her boyfriend.

Piedra was hospitalized for several days before his family took him off life support after doctors told them he would not recover.

“He was a hardworking man and really funny,” Piedra’s niece, Didi Lopez, told the El Paso Times. “He was never in a bad mood. He was always the one that, if he saw you in a bad mood, he’d come over and try to lift you up.”

Copas, who is being held on a $1.5 million bond, was originally charged with aggravated assault. The charge was upgraded to murder after Piedra died.

A GoFundMe campaign set up by Piedra’s family said he was their sole provider and had only recently started working again after being injured in his previous job.

“I wish she would’ve spoken up, asked questions, not acted on impulse and make a reckless decision, because not only did she ruin our lives, but she ruined her life, too,” Lopez said. “We just want justice for him. That’s all we’re asking.”

https://apnews.com/article/uber-mur...-mexico-5ab60092bb0a3710090b7186723adf88

In my best Rod Sterling impression, "That's the signpost up ahead - your next stop, the Mexicao Zone!"

'I'm coming to get you': New Hampshire man arrested for allegedly threatening Sen. Tuberville
Updated: 6:14 PM CDT Jun 6, 2023
By Riley Conlon
WASHINGTON —
A New Hampshire man has been arrested over alleged threats directed at Alabama Senator Tommy Tuberville.

Brian Landry was arrested on Friday, June 2, and charged with threatening to assault, kidnap, or murder a member of Congress.


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According to investigators, Landry allegedly threatened to shoot Tuberville, claiming in a voicemail that he was a former military sniper and that he had his scope pointed at the senator.

If convicted, Landry faces up to 10 years in prison, supervised release, and a fine of $250,000.

https://www.wvtm13.com/amp/article/arrest-threat-alabama-senator-tommy-tuberville/44110302

This needs to happen each and every time. Without exception. Zero tolerance.
Threaten a civil servant/do time.

I'd extend this to include threats of violence against election workers now that the Donny Brigade are constantly going around threatening and intimidating election workers in the belief that they someohow stole an election from their boy.


https://www.npr.org/2023/06/23/1183...2024-election-workers-already-are-scared

Florida man won't face charges for firing on pool cleaner he thought was intruder

The Pinellas County sheriff said the shooting with the high-capacity weapon was “lawful but awful.”

A Florida man won't be criminally charged after he mistook his pool cleaner for an intruder and opened fire on him with a high-capacity weapon, officials said Monday.

Bradley and Jana Hocevar were in their home in Dunedin on June 15 when she spotted a figure on their pool deck about 9 p.m., officials said.

Jana Hocevar, 43, called 911, and Bradley Hocevar, 57, "retrieved a rifle from their bedroom" and "fired two rounds" at Karl Polek, 33, the Pinellas County Sheriff's Office said in a statement.

Polek works for Bay Area Pool Techs and was servicing the couple's pool. He was hurt by exploding glass and shrapnel but didn't suffer any life-threatening wounds, officials said.

“This is a classic example of what’s called the castle doctrine, or Florida's stand-your-ground law. Bradley Hocevar was in his home; he was in fear someone was breaking in,” Sheriff Bob Gualtieri told reporters.

"I would call [it] lawful but awful. I mean it's lawful, but it's an awful set of circumstances."

The couple have been using Bay Area Pool Techs for years, and Polek has been their cleaner for more than six months, officials said.

The service normally happens on Thursday or Friday afternoons but never as late as 9 p.m., officials said.

Both Bradley and Jana Hocevar yelled out at the man to leave, but he didn’t obey the shouts, the couple's 911 call and security video seemed to show.

"It’s an unfortunate set of circumstances," Gualtieri said. "We talked to [the] pool guy. In hindsight, he should have probably let them know he was coming at 9 o'clock at night, yet he made no effort to contact them at all."

After Hocevar fired two shots and Polek fled, Hocevar fired more shots into the unoccupied pool area, emptying his 30-round magazine in about 90 seconds.

Hocevar, a former Army lieutenant colonel, could be heard on the 911 call concerned that he might have wounded someone.

"I shot up the whole f------" pool deck, he said. "My God, did I hurt somebody?"

Gualtieri said he refuses to engage in "Monday morning quarterbacking" and criticize Hocevar's actions.

He did wonder whether Hocevar needed to keep shooting with his AR-15 rifle after the first two rounds.

"If there’s room for discussion, that's where there’s room for discussion," Gualtieri said. "That didn’t need to happen."

Polek couldn't be reached for comment Tuesday at any of the publicly listed phone numbers for him.

A representative for Bay Area Pool Techs couldn't immediately be reached for comment Tuesday.

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-new...l-cleaner-thought-was-intruder-rcna91467

When asked he told the police, "No, he never tried to break into the house nor nuthin'. But you never know what he mighta tried to do later and besides he mighta tried to swim nekid in my pool! I was skeered! I was in fear for mah life! So I unloaded 30 rounds at him!" At which time a police officer replied, "You're good bro."

jc

if people start empting clips on these trash ass Kia boys, im not gonna be mad about it whatsoever.

Man with weapons and Jan. 6 warrant arrested after running toward Obamas' D.C. home

A man with materials to make explosives and an active Jan. 6-related warrant was arrested by law enforcement in former President Barack Obama's Washington, D.C., neighborhood Thursday, multiple sources briefed on the matter tell CBS News.

Several sources identified the suspect as 37-year-old Taylor Taranto, of Seattle, Washington. Secret Service spotted him within blocks of the Obamas' home, according to a law enforcement official briefed on the matter. Taranto fled, and Secret Service chased him. He was running toward the Obamas' home, but was apprehended before reaching it.

Taranto's van was parked close to where he was arrested. There were multiple weapons and the materials to make some kind of explosive device akin to a Molotov cocktail, but it had not been assembled, according law enforcement officials familiar with the details. He had said he had explosives, but first responders only found the materials to make them.

U.S. officials were concerned because Taranto had made threats during recent livestreams on social media against a public figure. He also had an open warrant on charges related to the Jan. 6, 2021, assault on the U.S. Capitol. He wasn't in Obama's neighborhood by mistake, a U.S. official noted.

According to a senior law enforcement official, Taranto had been in Washington, D.C., area for a couple of months. He had been seen camping out in his van near the D.C. jail where many of the Jan. 6 defendants are being held, and some of his livestreams were apparently posted while he was in the D.C. area.

Taranto has been charged with being a fugitive from justice, according to the Metropolitan Police Department.

The incident did not result in any injuries. It's unclear if the Obamas were home at the time.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/man-with-weapons-arrested-near-obamas-dc-home/

Suburban New York police officer accused of making hoax threats against herself

Emily Hirshowitz, 36, of the Ossining PD has been charged with filing false reports.

A suburban New York police officer sent herself a series of vile, menacing text messages and claimed she'd been the target of harassment by colleagues, prosecutors said.

Ossining Police Officer Emily Hirshowitz, 36, made reports to the Westchester County District Attorney's Office dating to May last year, detailing anonymous, threatening messages she said she'd been receiving, according to a criminal complaint filed in White Plains City Court last week.

Hirshowitz had said "a fellow police officer or multiple police officers at my department are involved," Westchester County DA's criminal investigator Michael Garcia wrote in a complaint.

The expletive-laced texts urged her to take her own life and called her "stupid," “useless” and a “reject.”

But investigators discovered the texts were sent from phone numbers linked to Hirshowitz using apps that had her email and IP addresses associated with them, the complaint said.

She has been charged with three counts of offering a false instrument for filing and four counts of falsely reporting an incident.

Hirshowitz's attorney could not immediately be reached for comment Monday. Of three publicly listed phone numbers linked to Hirshowitz, two were disconnected and one caller said it was a wrong number.

Hirshowitz is on administrative leave, said a police representative, who declined to comment further.

She was arrested Wednesday, and her next court appearance is set for July 12.

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-new...er-accused-making-hoax-threats-rcna92345

Marine taken into custody after missing 14-year-old girl is found in barracks of California base

Military police at Marine Corps Base Camp Pendleton found the teen on June 28, just over two weeks after her grandmother reported her missing to San Diego County authorities.

A Marine was detained last month after a missing 14-year-old girl was found in the barracks of a California base, authorities said.

Military police at Marine Corps Base Camp Pendleton in Oceanside found the teenager on June 28, just over two weeks after her grandmother reported her missing to the San Diego County Sheriff's Department, said Melissa Aquino, a sheriff's spokesperson.

Capt. Charles Palmer, the director of communications strategy and operations for the 1st Marine Logistics Group, confirmed in a statement that an unidentified “Marine with Combat Logistics Battalion 5, 1st Marine Logistics Group was taken into custody for questioning by Naval Criminal Investigative Services,” the Navy and Marine law enforcement agency, on June 28.

Palmer said that the Marine remains in the custody of his command and that he has not been formally charged.

“This command takes this matter and all allegations very seriously,” he added.

The sheriff’s department and the San Diego Human Trafficking Task Force are “supporting NCIS with the investigation,” said Aquino, of the sheriff’s office.

Representatives for the state attorney general's office did not immediately respond to inquiries Sunday morning about the human trafficking task force's involvement.

Aquino said the girl's grandmother reported her missing on June 13 and that she said the girl had run away from home four days earlier. The grandmother said the girl had run away before but always returned home quickly, Aquino said.

Authorities entered the girl's information into missing person databases, including that of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, the sheriff's office said.

She was subsequently returned to her grandmother, said Aquino, who added that detectives interviewed the teen and that the family was "offered services." The sheriff's office did not immediately respond to a follow-up question seeking more detail about what kind of services the family was offered.

The girl has not been publicly identified. The sheriff's office said in a statement that it does not release information that could identify victims who are minors.

Jeff Houston, a spokesperson for NCIS, said in a statement, "Out of respect for the investigative process, NCIS does not comment on, confirm details relating to, or confirm the existence of ongoing investigations."

Lt. David LaDieu, the sheriff's department's media relations director, said in a statement that NCIS is handling the investigation and that "the only involvement we have had is the recovering the juvenile as she was listed missing from our jurisdiction."

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-new...-girl-found-barracks-californi-rcna93283

I really don’t believe NCIS should be in charge of investigating a case involving a local civilian minor. This belongs to local authorities and elected state courts imo.

I agree. It's a lot like allowing the police to investigate the police. "Internal Affairs is handling the investigation."

A popular Tennessee soccer coach left his phone at a restaurant. Police say they discovered videos on the device of him allegedly raping unconscious boys

Police say they have arrested a “popular” Tennessee soccer coach after finding videos on his cell phone depicting unconscious boys being raped.

Camilo Hurtado Campos is being held in Franklin, Tennessee, on charges of rape of a child and sexual exploitation of a minor with additional charges expected to be filed, according to a Sunday news release from the Franklin Police Department.

Police say they were alerted after Campos left his phone at a restaurant and employees went through the device, looking for information about the owner so they could return it.

“What they found, instead, were dozens of unconscionable videos and pictures of children, and so they called police,” authorities said in the news release.

Authorities investigated and found hundreds of disturbing images and videos on the 63-year-old’s phone, according to the release. Police say Campos “recorded himself raping unconscious boys between approximately 9 and 17 years old.”

So far, the rapes of “at least 10 children” were found on the phone, and detectives have managed to identify three of the victims, according to police.

“Five more that we didn’t know about have also come forward. We are nowhere close to the end of our review of the evidence in this horrific case,” Franklin police said in a tweet Monday.

Detectives say victims may not even know they were raped due to being in an unconscious state.

Campos has lived in Franklin, just south of Nashville, for the past two decades.

The soccer coach would allegedly frequent school playgrounds where he would approach and recruit children to play soccer, many of whom he would later invite to his home after gaining their trust, authorities said in the release.

Franklin police are still trying to identify the remaining children and want to hear from anyone that has been associated with Campos.

Campos’ bond has been set at $525,000, a spokesperson for the Williamson County Sheriff’s Office said.

Campos does not have an attorney yet, according to the court clerk. His next court date is July 25.

https://www.cnn.com/2023/07/10/us/franklin-tennessee-soccer-coach-rape-charges/index.html

Actually NCIS aid a civilian federal agency that polices the Navy. There is no love for the agency from the Navy.

Baby boy dies in Florida after teen mother puts fentanyl in baby bottle, sheriff says

A 9-month-old baby boy died last month in Florida after his teenage mother is accused of putting enough fentanyl into his bottle to kill 10 people, officials said Wednesday.

The 17-year-old mother was arrested on charges of aggravated manslaughter and possession of a controlled substance, Nassau County Sheriff Bill Leeper said during a news conference. She allegedly confessed to investigators that she thought the fentanyl was cocaine, and put it into her baby's bottle to put him to sleep because she was tired and wanted to take a nap, he added.

"Unfortunately, some babies are born to individuals who have no business being parents," Leeper said.

On June 26, deputies responded to a residence on Deerfield Country Club Road in Callahan, which is about 20 miles north of Jacksonville, Leeper said. They arrived to find the baby boy unconscious on the living room floor. He was not breathing and did not have a pulse.

A deputy performed CPR and the baby was taken to a hospital where he was pronounced deceased, Leeper explained.

"Originally the mother said she didn't know what happened, she put the baby to sleep and just couldn't wake him up," Leeper said.

On Monday, investigators received a report from the medical examiner that fentanyl had been found in the baby's blood, the sheriff said, and his cause of death was determined to be a fentanyl overdose.

Two milligrams of fentanyl can be lethal, depending on a person's body size, tolerance and past usage, according to the Drug Enforcement Administration.

"The amount he had in his system would kill approximately 10 people," Leeper said.

The baby's bottle was located and tested, and deputies found signs of fentanyl inside, Leeper disclosed. The bottle has since been sent to the Florida Department of Law Enforcement for further testing.

Investigators brought the mother in Tuesday for an interview, Leeper said, adding that she changed her story several times before ultimately confessing.

She told officers she had filled the bottle with formula, then went to the bathroom where she found a pill bottle containing what she believed to be cocaine, according to Leeper. She added some to the baby's bottle.

"She laid him down in his crib to go to sleep and he never woke up," Leeper said. "Who does that? What mother would do that? That's not normal. That is sick. It's beyond my imagination why a mother would do that to her child."

There were others in the home at the time of the incident, but investigators believe it was solely her decisions that led to the baby's death. Officials have not released the names of the mother or her child.

Leeper added that while the mother was being booked into jail, she indicated she may be pregnant again.

Leeper also urged struggling parents to reach out for help, saying there are resources available.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/baby-b...lv4bb_VhLWn6oJe-iauhC9F3M2bzjMrls1foBm4U

In the words of Robert Plant who sang Stairway To heaven so many years ago.... "And it makes me wonder."

Texas man ticketed for feeding the homeless outside Houston library is found not guilty

HOUSTON (AP) — A man has been found not guilty of breaking a law against feeding homeless people outside a public library in Houston, concluding the first trial to be held after dozens of tickets were issued against volunteers for the group Food Not Bombs.

Friday’s verdict in the sprawling Texas city is latest flashpoint in the debate in many American cities over whether feeding the homeless is an act of charity or a crime that raises health and safety concerns among people who live and work nearby.

“This law that the city has passed is absurd. It criminalizes the Samaritan for giving,” lawyer Paul Kubosh, who represented volunteer Phillip Picone, told KPRC 2 after last week’s verdict.

The city of Houston said it will continue to “vigorously pursue violations of its ordinance relating to feeding of the homeless,” according to a statement released to news outlets.

“It is a health and safety issue for the protection of Houston’s residents,” city attorney Arturo Michel said.

Food Not Bombs had provided meals four nights a week outside the Houston Public Library for decades without incident. But the city posted a notice at the site warning that police would soon start issuing citations, and the first came in March.

City regulations on who can provide free meals outdoors to those in need were enacted in 2012. The ordinance requires such groups to get permission from property owners if they feed more than five people, but it wasn’t enforced until recently, Nick Cooper, a volunteer with Food Not Bombs, told The Associated Press in March.

The office of Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner had said tickets were being issued in part because of an increased number of threats and violent incidents directed at employees and visitors to the library by homeless individuals. The office said the city had started providing meals and other services for homeless individuals at an approved facility located about a mile (.6 kilometer) north of the library.

“We simply cannot lose control of the iconic and historic building that is intended to be a special and safe place for all,” the mayor’s office said.

Cooper said that the approved location wasn’t ideal because it is close to a police station, although Food Not Bombs members were willing to discuss alternatives.

The group has argued that the city’s law is immoral and violates freedoms of expression and religion, the Houston Chronicle reported.

Picone, the Food Not Bombs volunteer, had received a criminal citation in March after police allegedly told the group to move their operations to another location, the Chronicle reported. As of last week, group members have received 45 tickets, each seeking $254, for continuing to pass out meals at the library.

The newspaper reported that Picone’s trial was the first for the series of tickets that were issued. Nine more tickets are scheduled for court on Thursday and Friday.

Bans on sharing food with people who are experiencing homeless are not new. And Picone is not the first to be cited.

Among the most notable cases was against Arnold Abbott, a 90-year-old World War II veteran, in 2014 in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.

Abbott was charged with violating an ordinance that restricted public feeding of the homeless. He later obtained a state-court injunction against the rule on the grounds it violated Florida’s Religious Freedom Restoration Act, the South Florida Sun-Sentinel reported. He died in 2019.

The local Food Not Bombs chapter had filed a separate federal lawsuit against Fort Lauderdale’s food-sharing rules. And in 2021, a federal appeals court found that the group’s efforts were protected under the U.S. Constitution, the Sun-Sentinel reported.

A survey of 187 U.S. cities found 17 food-sharing bans that were either city wide or in particular public places, according to a 2019 report from the National Law Center on Homelessness & Poverty.

The report noted that food-sharing laws “expose individuals or organizations, often faith-based organizations, to fines or criminal liability.”

Donald H. Whitehead Jr., executive director of the National Coalition for the Homeless, said many American cities have seen a rise in the number of people who are homeless.

But efforts to criminalize homelessness — or acts of help — fail to address its root causes, such as the lack of affordable housing, Whitehead said.

“We’re creating housing in this country, but it’s not housing that is targeting people at the lowest end of the economic ladder,” Whitehead said Wednesday. “Most of the housing that we’re building are luxury apartments and high-end apartments.”

https://apnews.com/article/houston-...-guilty-530a5e5931fc6db8f0ab7d51b2331492

https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/man...reats-biden-officials/story?id=102138966

A Utah man was shot and killed during an FBI raid early Wednesday morning, the FBI confirmed to ABC News. The raid was in connection with an investigation into alleged threats against President Joe Biden and others, according to two officials briefed on the case.

One of the officials told ABC News that the investigation began in April and the U.S. Secret Service was notified by the FBI in June. In addition to threatening posts, the official said, the man under investigation suggested online he was making plans to take physical action. The threats had been deemed "credible," the official said.

The FBI in Salt Lake City said the shooting occurred around 6:15 am. local time while special agents attempted to serve arrest and search warrants at a residence in Provo.

Robertson was facing three counts, according to the complaint -- interstate threats, threats against the president, and influencing, impeding and retaliating against federal law enforcement officers by threat.

The complaint includes numerous social media posts believed to have been made by Robertson threatening to kill Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, as well as several officials involved in prosecuting former President Donald Trump.

What the Hell is wrong with people?

I'm gonna say A LOT

Too many stupid people.

Are you saying Texas has a law making it a crime to feed homeless people outside of a library? YIKES..

I'm betting it will only take a few days for some fool to call this weaponizing the DOJ....

Top evangelical says churchgoers view Jesus quotes as ‘liberal talking points’, warns Christianity ‘in crisis’

By Victor Nava
August 9, 2023 7:08pm
link
 

A onetime top official with the Southern Baptist Convention has warned that American Christianity is in crisis — with some churchgoers viewing the teachings of Jesus Christ as nothing more than “liberal talking points.” 

Russell Moore, now the editor-in-chief of Christianity Today, explained in a Tuesday interview with NPR that partisan tribalism in the US is infecting the evangelical movement and that he is alarmed at the number of self-professed Christians who believe the Bible and its teachings are “subversive.”

Moore told “All Things Considered” host Scott Detrow that his moment of clarity “was the result of having multiple pastors tell me, essentially, the same story about quoting the Sermon on the Mount, parenthetically, in their preaching — ‘turn the other cheek’ — to have someone come up after to say, ‘Where did you get those liberal talking points?’

“And what was alarming to me,” Moore went on, “is that in most of these scenarios, when the pastor would say, ‘I’m literally quoting Jesus Christ,’ the response would not be, ‘I apologize.’ The response would be ‘Yes, but that doesn’t work anymore. That’s weak.’ And when we get to the point where the teachings of Jesus himself are seen as subversive to us, then we’re in a crisis.”

Moore suggested that the roots of the problem “really come down to disconnection, loneliness, sense of alienation, even in churches that are still healthy and functioning” and “legitimate concerns” about the state of society that are being portrayed as an “existential threat” by “conflict entrepreneurs.” 

“I don’t think we fix it by fighting a war for the soul of evangelicalism,” Moore said.

“I really don’t think we can fix it at the movement level. And that’s one of the reasons why, when I’m talking to Christians who are concerned about this, my counsel is always small and local. I think we have to do something different and show a different way, and I see in history that every time that something renewing and reviving has happened, it’s happened that way, it’s happened at a small level with people simply refusing to go with the stream of the church culture at the time. And I think that’s where we need to be now.”

Moore called for a return to a “first-century understanding of what it means to be the church,” noting that historically “the very existence of the church is to mean a group of people who are reconciled to God and to each other and from the very beginning was standing apart from those sorts of factions.”

“I think if we’re going to get past the blood-and-soil sorts of nationalism, or all of the other kinds of totalizing cultural identities, it’s going to require rethinking what the church is,” he added. 

Moore is a longtime critic of former President Donald Trump and has blasted the ex-commander-in-chief for both his immigration policy of separating migrant families at the southern border and for his actions during the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot. 

In a 2016 tweet, Trump, the 2024 Republican presidential frontrunner, derided Moore as a “truly a terrible representative of Evangelicals” and “a nasty guy with no heart!”

The church aligned itself with the right and now it has a crisis on its hands. Does it continue to push hate or get back to the actual teachings of Christ… the socialist Jew? It’s their bed they made. Now they’re tangled in their own sheets. I find it hilarious. It’s also why I left the church. It became a breading ground for the Fox News evangelical types. Yuck.
Good luck to those churches that decide to fight back.

Since you went there let's get something straight. This is a local law in the city of Houston. Houston is a Democratic city with a Democratic mayor. It's easy to just say "Well it was Texas" or "Well it was Florida", but the fact is in every state you have areas ran by Democrats as well as Republicans. Even California and New York.

People who reject God undoubtedly replace God with some false God, which is blasphemy.
and they can't help it, it happens whether they want it to or not,
If they would listen to and believe God, and not reject God, then they would not be blind to these things.

Exactly.

Many cities do this. Chicago has been run by Democrats for as long as I can remember. I admit I haven't been there for several years, but in the past they rustled the homeless out of the downtown area faster than they could hold out a tin cup.

Cleveland for that matter used to have mission trucks lined up in front of the Terminal Tower, handing out sandwiches and such. The city passed laws not allowing that in the area.

Cities have to be concerned about image as much as dealing with the homeless. You can do both. I applaud that. People see what has happened in San Francisco. People don't go to San Francisco anymore and other cities don't want that happening to their city.

Dear Lord Peen, people still go to San Fransisco.

I'm old school....probably way to old....what happened to vagrancy laws? A homeless person, man or woman who defecates in public area- why are they not arrested for spreading disease or public obscenity? I'd be in jail if homeless did what they do in front of my business? I don't understand the new improved world.

Fewer, and same goes for Seattle and Portland---both cities SUCK due to homeless.

I think it sucks that we have that many homeless. No matter where they are. And where did it say anyone was defecating in public?

Maybe you don't "research" as much as you claim.

San Francisco Travel Association Announces 2022 Results and 2023 Forecast

Visitor spending more than doubled YOY to $7.4 billion, delivering $522 million in tourism-generated fees and tax revenues to the City.

2022 visitor arrivals grew by 29% to 21.9 million, including a 211% increase in international visitation.

2022 meetings and convention business recovered with 347,788 hotel rooms consumed by attendees of 33 Moscone Center events, a 1,933% increase YOY.

2023 visitor arrivals are expected to reach 23.9 million, and 2023 visitor spending is expected to grow to $8.7 billion.

https://www.sftravel.com/media/pres...ion-announces-2022-results-2023-forecast

Maybe you don't do any and just come here popping off one liners.

Fancy numbers coming out of the pandemic. Everybody had amazing recovery numbers after being closed for two years.


San Francisco still struggling with hotel, tourism comeback
By Christina Jelski |Jul 17, 2023

It's no secret that San Francisco has lagged behind other major U.S. cities in terms of its tourism comeback, but the scope of that lag remains startling.

Data from hotel analytics firm STR indicates that June RevPAR in the San Francisco market was down 19.6% over the same period last year, while occupancy slipped 6% and average daily rate (ADR) fell 14.5%.

Those declines stand in stark contrast to performances in other gateway cities, with New York's June RevPAR up 7.5%, Chicago's rising 6.5% and Los Angeles' eking out a 0.3% gain.

"Most U.S. urban markets have been seeing positive hotel performance, and if there are declines, they're pretty modest," said Emmy Hise, senior director of hospitality analytics at CoStar Group, parent company of STR, adding that San Francisco is also one of few U.S. markets where ADR hasn't exceeded 2019 levels.

"And that's a big deal, especially considering what inflation has been."

Overall, Hise said, "San Francisco has been one of the least recovered markets out of the top 25 markets in the U.S., and that's been a trend throughout the entire recovery."

https://www.travelweekly.com/North-...l-struggling-with-hotel-tourism-comeback

So was Peen right that nobody visits San Fransisco anymore? It seems we have two different sets of numbers here. I guess people will have to decide which set of numbers to believe.

Probably the ones from the SF Travel Association. 🤣

Here's some more links for those on the fence. The word "decay" comes up a lot.


What if San Francisco never pulls out of its ‘doom loop’?

HOW SAN FRANCISCO BECAME A FAILED CITY

Downtown San Francisco's collapse reflects the city's decay

San Francisco's Decline is a Warning to Other American Cities

San Francisco is decaying

Goodbye, El Dorado: Fear And Poverty In San Francisco

So was Peen right that nobody visits San Fransisco anymore?

San Francisco tourism bounces back as international visitors increase

https://www.ktvu.com/news/san-francisco-tourism-bounces-back-with-increase-of-international-visitors

You do realize that most of your links do not actually address any tourism numbers, right?

j/c:

There's idiots on both sides. Paying too much attention to them or portraying them as representative of "the other side" no matter if its the left or right doing it is just about as bad as being in the fringe.

The only fringe part of the populationt that concerns me is the minority of Trump supporters who the Republicans can't win without who are most defintely on the fringe, angry at the world and politics in general, largely xenophobic, certainly a large number of supremicists .... most of them never voted before they voted for Trump. They belive in 'Make America Great Again' but they aren't paying enough attention to realize Trump is a snake oil salesman who will simply say anything to make money or have his ego pandered to.

Gee what choices we've had in the last 2 elections. Tump/Hilary. Trump/Biden and soon to be Trump/Biden again.... hard to believe.

I have family in SF and visit regularly. I also live in Denver and find the homeless situation the same here as I do in any major city I’ve visited. Homelessness is not a partisan issue. First off I’m not an expert but I have volunteered and worked at shelters and food banks in New England and Colorado. My solution would be to convert unused buildings into hospital/emergency medical care centers/housing units/food centers all in the same building or campus. Then start administering and admitting patients and people who just need a place to stay until they can get back on their feet.

But hey we know, there will be no freebies and hand outs from the party of no. ‘Em I right Goper’s?

j/c...

Saw this earlier this morning. SOLD OUT.

Anyone could design a 1.5 mile walk pointing at the worst of the worst of any major US city and call themselves experts. Just saying.

I see hating on the homeless is still acceptable posting. #DT4chan

I think it would make sense if they concentrated themselves to rural areas where there are no food kitchens, homeless shelters, programs or resources adequately to help them.