‘The only thing my son is guilty of is being a black boy’: Mom of 10-year-old charged with assault for dodgeball injury speaks out as case dropped
Days after officials in Canton, Mich., announced that a 10-year-old black boy would be facing aggravated assault for the dodgeball injuries of a white boy — prompting critics to say it was racist — Wayne County prosecutor Kym Worthy has announced that the charges have been dropped.
“This case came to us as a not-In-custody case — that means that there was never an arrest. Efforts were made to resolve this matter before it was sent to us for a charge consideration. The mother of the alleged victim had every right to go to the authorities and the authorities had an obligation to investigate,” Worthy said in a statement, according to WXYZ Detroit. “When this case was reviewed by my office, no one paid attention to the race of either party. It is categorically wrong to suggest that this was charged based on race or geography.”
The decision to dismiss the case came just hours before defense lawyer and ex-prosecutor, Maurice Davis of Davis Law Group, who is representing 10-year-old Bryce Lindley, planned to hold a press conference defending him. Speaking with Yahoo Lifestyle shortly after the dismissal, Davis says it was “no coincidence” that the prosecutor dropped the charges just hours before his scheduled press conference.
“They knew they were completely wrong,” he continues, “but had [Bryce] not received the media attention that he did, he would be in court tomorrow at 9AM as scheduled.” Davis is calling for Worthy’s office to “reevaluate” their method of authorizing charges. He says, “it is an abuse of power to charge a 10-year-old with aggravated assault over an accident at a playground.”
n an earlier statement sent to Yahoo Lifestyle, Davis had called for the dismissal of what he deemed “outlandish” charges.
“You cannot criminally charge a child for participating in a dodgeball game at a school. If the school intends to hold this child criminally liable for a dodgeball game, then the prosecutors need to bring charges against all of the teachers and school employees that initiated the game, allowed the children to participate in the game, and supervised them during the game,” he wrote. “These charges are ridiculous.”
Also in the statement was a quote from Bryce’s mother, Cameishi. “My son is not a criminal… If every child that played a game of dodgeball and threw a dodgeball at another kid was thrown in jail, the vast majority of our country would be behind bars,” she said. “The only thing my son is guilty of is being a Black boy.”
Speaking with Yahoo Lifestyle on Tuesday, Davis explained that an aggravated assault charge would have implied that it was Bryce’s intent to injure his classmate. He added that he was “surprised” by the prosecutor’s office for authorizing such an “unbelievable” charge — especially, he said, because Worthy is a black woman.
On Monday, Yahoo Lifestyle spoke with the assistant prosecuting attorney on the case, Maria Miller, who at the time defended the charge. Miller said she had reviewed the case and found there “was enough evidence to for us to charge aggravated assault.”
Davis explained that the children were playing a modified version of dodgeball that required players to stand in a circle, jump up and then toss the ball, with the receiver jumping up to catch it. He noted that the children were given two recesses a day, and that the school was aware of the victim’s condition, adding, “There’s no reason why this baby is facing criminal charges.”
Photo Credit: Maurice Davis
Man stabs two people in Manhattan subway confrontation over a seat
LOWER MANHATTAN — A confrontation over a subway seat led to a double stabbing in Manhattan Tuesday night.
According to authorities, a dispute started when Ronald Cundiff refused to move his bag off a subway seat after a 55-year-old passenger asked to sit down.
Cundiff, 40, then stabbed the victim before fleeing at Canal Street around 7:20 p.m., police said.
A passenger who witnessed the incident chased him through the street before he was also stabbed by Cundiff about half a mile away, police said.
Police eventually tasered Cundiff and took him into custody.
Both victims were taken to the hospital for their injuries.
Cundiff, who police said had 15 prior arrests on weapon and drug charges, remains at the hospital.
He faces charges of assault, criminal possession of a weapon, resisting arrest and reckless endangerment.
Photo Credit: pix11.com
Southwest Airlines flight attendant hides in overhead bin
NASHVILLE, Tenn. —One Southwest Airlines employee literally put herself into the fray when it came to jockeying for overhead bin space.
Passenger Veronica Lloyd was surprised to find a flight attendant in the overhead compartment on her flight from Nashville to Atlanta on Monday.
“She was up there for about five minutes. More than half the flight was boarded before she got down,” Lloyd said. “It was pretty hilarious.”
“She was greeting passengers as they walked by,” Lloyd added.
“This was my second time ever flying with them,” she said. “So I guess I was unaware of the [flight attendants] wanting to have a sense of humor during flights for Southwest, but it certainly was entertaining.”
Southwest said its employees “are known for demonstrating their sense of humor and unique personalities.” In this case, the flight attendant “attempted to have a brief moment of fun with customers during boarding,” the airline said in a statement.
“Of course, this is not our normal procedure, and Southwest crews always maintain safety as their top priority.”
Lloyd tweeted about the incident.
She was flying home to Philadelphia after a girls’ trip to Nashville.
via: https://pix11.com/2019/07/31/southwest-airlines-flight-attendant-hides-in-overhead-bin/
Photo Credit: CNN
Babies found abandoned near dumpster in CA; 1 dead, police say
Fairfield, CA (KCRA ) — Two babies, one of whom has died, were found abandoned near a dumpster in Fairfield on Tuesday afternoon, police said.
The infants, believed to be twins, were found in the 300 block of Pittman Road around 4:15 p.m., Fairfield police said. The second baby was rushed to a hospital, where the infant’s condition has been stabilized.
Police said the owner of a nearby business called 911, after seeing a woman in distress.
The business owner told dispatch, “two infants were with (the woman) and appeared to have been recently birthed on the sidewalk behind the businesses,” said Lt. Jausiah Jacobsen.
Police said when officers arrived, they found the newborns near a dumpster in the back of a shopping plaza parking lot, across from the La Quinta Inn on Pittman Road.
“They showed up around 4ish and she was gone,” said Joe Frundl, who owns a nearby pizza restaurant. “(The mother was) nowhere to be found.”
Police said the infants were on the ground when the first officer arrived.
“The first officer who arrived immediately started life-saving efforts on one of the newborns and turned care over to fire department personnel,” police said in a statement. “Unfortunately, the other newborn was determined to have died prior to the officer’s arrival.”
As officers were helping the infants, police said they found the mother on a sidewalk, about a five-minute walk from where the babies were found.
“It was apparent that she did recently give birth,” Jacobsen said. “That female has been taken over to the hospital to be checked on.”
Frundl said he and his employees have seen the woman in the parking lot before.
“She had been here for a couple weeks,” he said. “I’m assuming she was homeless. Don’t know much, really. The only time I had seen her was last night, but my staff said she’d been around the last couple of weeks.”
The investigation is ongoing.
No other details were released.
SAFE SURRENDER IN CALIFORNIA
People can safely surrender a newborn at a firehouse or hospital emergency room within 72 hours of birth without fear of being prosecuted, as long as the baby shows no signs of abuse or neglect, according to the California Department of Social Services.
For more information about safe surrender sites and locations, people can call this toll-free number: 1-877-222-9723.
via: https://pix11.com/2019/07/31/babies-found-abandoned-near-dumpster-in-ca-1-dead-police-say/
Photo Credit: pix11.com
Man charged with using sword to murder 74-year-old mother, leaving her body in garbage can
PARK RIDGE, Ill — A man has been charged in the stabbing death of his 74-year-old mother in Park Ridge, PIX11 sister station WGN reported.
David Krystyniak, 47, is being held without bond on a first-degree murder charge, police announced Wednesday.
A police officer and a social worker discovered the body of Judith Krystyniak at the home she shared with her son in the 1900 block of South Courtland Avenue on Monday. Police said they were driving in the area at about 7:30 a.m. when they noticed debris in the driveway of the home that looked out of place. They knocked on the door, and there was no answer.
They returned to the home at about noon, and David came out of the house to speak with them. The police officer asked if they could see his mother, and David invited them into the home. After making multiple attempts to find the mother in the home, the officer and social worker eventually discovered her body in a large garbage can.
Police believe Judith Krystyniak was killed sometime Sunday night. She died of multiple stab wounds to the chest, which they believe were made with a two-foot sword recovered at the scene.
Police were uncertain as to the motive in the case.
David Krystyniak’s next court date is Aug. 14.
via: https://pix11.com/2019/07/31/man-charged-with-using-sword-to-74-year-old-mother-leaving-her-body-in-garbage-can/
Photo Credit: pix11.com
EMT accused of sending racist messages to colleague
MANHATTAN — EMTs at NYU Langone are responsible for saving lives, but PIX11 has learned that one may be doing their job with an offensive mindset.
A colleague of Cathy Albano — we are concealing her identity — says she began following her on social media and saw she usually made off-color posts. However, she never expected to read Albano, known as “Rina” on social media, calling stabbing victims “animals,” among other invectives.
“Just the animals stabbing each other,” Albano wrote on a post when asked what was going on at a stabbing she had worked at.
“EMS is a frustrating job, I get that, but there is no excuse around it,” said the co-worker.
The colleague also pointed out a post from Facebook, Albano sounding off on the recent mass shooting in Brownsville.
“Last night all hell broke out in Brownsville with over 11 people shot, they were all screaming for the police,” she wrote. “Why are you yelling for police. The police are too busy trying to dry out their uniforms from the water bucket attack.
“Stop calling the police when your ass is in danger, call a crackhead instead.”
“People were concerned that work with her,” said community activist Tony Herbert, who says Albano’s colleagues reached out to him. “They don’t want to work with her.”
“How can we entrust any confidence in this individual in providing these type of services to keep us alive when in fact we don’t even know that they would do that because of their racist overtone? They should fire her.”
“We are taking these complaints very seriously and are looking into the matter,” a representative from NYU Langone told PIX11 in a statement.
Albano has not responded to PIX11’s requests for comment.
via: https://pix11.com/2019/07/31/emt-accused-of-sending-racist-messages-to-colleague/
Photo Credit: pix11.com
The Model Who Lied About Being Transgender After Making Anti-Trans Comments Said She Is “Taking Full Responsibility”
Article via BuzzFeed
In her first comments on the controversy, Savage X Fenty model Carissa Pinkston told BuzzFeed News, “I definitely feel like a trans person in a way — in high school I was really bullied.”
The 20-year-old model who became a face of the Savage X Fenty brand — and who recently admitted to lying about being transgender to cover up for anti-trans comments she made on Facebook in May — told BuzzFeed News she is now “taking full responsibility for what [she] said.”
In her first comments about the controversy, Carissa Pinkston opened up to BuzzFeed News, saying, “I definitely feel like a trans person in a way — in high school I was really bullied.”
“I remember being in school being little and taking tissues and trying to put them in my shirt,” she claimed in a phone interview. Pinkston initially demanded payment for an interview; when BuzzFeed News declined, she called back to talk.
Pinkston didn’t say if she
identifies as transgender. However, in response to admitting over the
weekend to falsely coming out, she told BuzzFeed News: “I’m taking full
responsibility for what I said.”
The initial lie, then the apparent justification for the lie, all spun out earlier this year when a high school friend named Cecelia Jinks screenshotted and tweeted anti-trans comments Pinkston made on her personal Facebook page suggesting that transgender women are not women.
Jinks told BuzzFeed News she was friendly with Pinkston, and shared
mutual friends with her when they attended school in Lancaster,
Pennsylvania. She said she found the Facebook comments to be anti-trans
and “utterly disappointing.”
But when she saw her old classmate falsely saying she was transgender last week in an Instagram post that’s now deleted, she felt she had to say something and began tweeting @SavageXFenty.
“I double-checked with all my friends who have known her for years and years, and when I was finally 100% sure she was lying I was horrified,” Jinks said. Pinkston denies knowing Jinks or being friends with her at all.
Jinks added, “Not only was I appalled that she lied about something so sensitive to so many people, but that she did so to cover up her mistake of making transphobic posts on social media.”
Fellow models also chimed in on social media.
Check out some Lovelyti videos:
Ginuwine gets called Transphobic for turning down a kiss from a Transgender woman
Lil Duval Doubles Down on his Breakfast Club comments +Charlamange Targeted by Transgender Activists
YouTube ‘King of Random’ dies in paragliding accident
YouTuber Grant Thompson, star of the “King of Random” channel, has died in a paragliding accident.
The 38 year old, whose channel had 11 million subscribers with billions of views, failed to return from a trip in Utah on Monday.
Thompson had a GPS device which helped locate his body the next day.
His YouTube channel was known for its creative – and sometimes dangerous – experiments such as “What does Liquid Nitrogen do to Your Face?”
Thompson’s death was officially announced on his Instagram page, with calls for his fans to “do a random act of love or kindness today in honour of The King of Random”.
In an interview with MediaKix in 2017, Thompson explained how he was bullied at school but eventually became a pilot. After flying planes for more than a decade, he went into real estate, became “semi-retired” and started his YouTube channel.
“I started making videos on YouTube showing people what I was tinkering with and what I was coming up with,” he said at the time.
Some of his most successful videos include “How to Make LEGO Gummy Candy!”, “What Happens When You Boil The Ocean?” and “How To Make Magic Mud – From a Potato!”
Tributes to Thompson started pouring in from fans and fellow YouTubers after his death was announced, including Logan Paul, who said he was “heartbroken.”
Article via BBCNews
FL TSA officers placed on leave after discovery of racist display
MIAMI, F.L. — Two Transportation Security Administration officers have been placed on leave after a racist display was found inside a TSA workstation at Miami International Airport.
Three TSA officers discovered two stuffed gorillas tied together and hanging with a noose on July 21, according to four TSA employees with knowledge of the situation and a picture obtained by CNN.
A TSA employee with knowledge of the situation told CNN the display was hanging from a “pole right in the center of the TSA workstation located underneath the airport where passengers’ checked luggage is screened before being placed on aircraft.”
The three officers notified their manager, but according to an employee with knowledge of the situation, the manager “tried to downplay the noose and gorilla display, saying it wasn’t racist, it was just a joke.” The manager’s reaction further upset the three officers, the TSA employee said.
According to an internal email obtained by CNN, the incident prompted the agency to launch an internal investigation, and two officers have since been placed on leave.
A veteran Miami TSA officer who asked that his name not be used for fear of retaliation said he was upset about the incident, which he says has many of Miami International Airport’s black and Hispanic TSA officers distraught.
“The mood now at the airport is people are upset this hasn’t been properly taken care of yet. We want everybody held accountable for what they have done,” the officer said.
In a statement, the TSA said the display was immediately removed once reported and that an investigation was launched into who was responsible for the “unacceptable behavior.”
“TSA does not tolerate racist or offensive behavior and those found responsible will be held accountable for their actions,” Jenny Burke, a spokeswoman for the agency, said in a statement. “Two TSA officers have been placed on administrative leave while the investigation is ongoing.”
In the internal email obtained by CNN that was sent six days after the incident, TSA’s acting deputy administrator Patricia Cogswell writes to other high-ranking TSA officials that “given the number of emails and such coming in to HQ about the MIA situation, please pull together a message for SO (senior officers) to issue, and think about other information that should go out to all offices.”
After deliberations about the best way to communicate with the workforce about the incident, executive assistant administrator for security operations Darby Lajoye sent an email saying, “We’ve been made aware of an extremely troubling event in Miami this week involving a racially charged, disturbing display that cuts at the very core of who we are and what we stand for as an agency.”
The email goes on to say, “TSA has zero tolerance for acts like this. We have already ordered an independent investigation and all individuals potentially involved have been placed on Administrative leave while the investigation is underway.”
The emails did not name the individuals involved.
via: https://pix11.com/2019/07/30/tsa-officers-placed-on-leave-after-discovery-of-racist-display/
Photo Credit: myfox8.com