Emmett Till memorial to be replaced with bulletproof sign
A bullet-riddled memorial sign for Emmett Till at the center of a photo showing three white University of Mississippi students posing with guns is now gone.
It has been vandalized multiple times over the years and, in a few months, the sign will be replaced again — this time with a bulletproof marker.
The sign was placed near the spot where Till’s bodywas pulled from the Tallahatchie River in 1955. The 14-year-old African American was tortured and killed by two white men after accusations that he flirted with a white woman. His death became an important catalyst in the civil rights movement.
Patrick Weems, the executive director of the Emmett Till Memorial Commission, said the group began to mark every site that was part of Emmett’s story after community leaders offered his family an apology for the first time about 10 years ago.
“For 50 years our community didn’t want to talk about Emmett Till, they just wanted to forget it,” Weems said.
The 50-pound purple marker was removed a few days ago when the commission learned that the Mississippi Center for Investigative Reporting and ProPublica were publishing a story along with a photo of the three University of Mississippi students, Weems said.
The students have been suspended by their fraternity and the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division is also reportedly investigating.
It’s not the first time the sign has seen trouble.
The first sign went up along the river in 2007 and was stolen the following year. No arrests were ever made. When the marker was replaced, it was riddled with bullet holes. in 2018, a third sign was put up at the site but only 35 days went by before it was shot up again.
The sign will be replaced in October with a nearly 600-pound sign made of reinforced steel, according to Matt Dilling, founder of Lite Brite Neon Studio in Brooklyn who has been working to create the sign.
And this time, the sign is expected to be bulletproof.
“We won’t’ stop. There will be another sign up,” said Rev. Willie Williams, the commission’s treasurer. “This particular area will go forward in the long run. Because this legacy and this story, it’s much bigger than any of us.”
The commission is asking local authorities to launch an investigation into the students’ photo. Members said they don’t know whether the students damaged the sign.
As Weems walked around the remote site where the marker once stood on Friday, he said, the vandalized signs have brought him both frustration and hope.
“And the hope is that there are people around this country who care about this story,” Weems said. “That Emmett Till did not die in vain. His mother didn’t allow him to die in vain and we have a sacred oath to make sure that these sites go back up.”
via: https://pix11.com/2019/07/27/emmett-till-memorial-to-be-replaced-with-bulletproof-sign/
Photo Credit: Mat Dilling/Light Bright Neon Studios
Woman orders food, tells server ‘this one’s on God’ before fleeing
LAS CRUCES, N.M. — A New Mexico woman is facing charges after police say she ordered food from a Sonic and told a server, “This one’s on God,” before fleeing.
The Las Cruces Sun-News reports 30-year-old Delila Hernandez was arrested Monday in a felony robbery case.
Police say Hernandez rode her bicycle to a Sonic in Las Cruces and ordered a meal. When the server asked for payment, she allegedly told him, “This one’s on God.”
Police say the server told her, “That’s not how this works,” but gave her the meal after she came toward him.
Police later found Hernandez at a nearby park.
It was not known if Hernandez had an attorney who could comment on the allegations.
Authorities say her charges may be reduced.
via: https://nypost.com/2019/07/26/woman-orders-food-tells-server-this-ones-on-god-before-fleeing-cops/
Photo Credit: Getty Images
Florida trooper had sex with 14-year-old girl in the back of his car
A Florida state trooper has been arrested for having sex with a girl starting from when she was just 14 — at least once in the back of his car parked in a public gas station, according to authorities.
Highway Patrol trooper Riley Marcus Schwarz, 23, was busted after the girl’s parents found her journal detailing the numerous times the officer had sex with the youngster, according to the Tampa Bay Reporter.
“The contents of the journal indicate that the relationship was sexual in nature and that they had been talking to each other since Sept. 23, 2018,” the arrest affidavit says, according to the paper.
They started having sex in October 2018 when the girl was just 14, the affidavit states.
Schwarz admitted to the having intercourse with the girl “six to eight times,” according to the affidavit, including once “in the back seat of his vehicle” at a Mobil gas station.
Schwarz has been charged with two felony counts of lewd and lascivious battery involving sexual activity of a victim 12-15 years of age, according to records, and is being held in Land O Lakes jail on $10,000 bond.
He was immediately fired by the Florida Highway Patrol.
“The alleged actions are reprehensible, and the department continues to cooperate fully with the investigation,” Captain Thomas E. Pikul said, according to the Reporter.
Photo Credit: Pasco Sheriff’s Office
Black rag dolls meant to be abused get pulled from shelves – comes with instructions to “slam against the wall”
They’re called “Feel Better Dolls.”
In the instructions, buyers are told to take the black rag dolls — which come with red, green, black and yellow hair made of yarn, styled in dreadlocks — and “find a wall to slam” them against.
“Whenever things don’t go well and you want to hit the wall and yell, here’s a little ‘feel better doll,’” the instructions read. “Just grab it firmly by the legs…and as you whack the ‘feel good doll’ do not forget to yell I FEEL GOOD, I FEEL GOOD.”
The toys were being pulled from shelves in New Jersey this week after sparking outrage among residents and state officials.
“This doll is offensive and disturbing on so many levels,” said Assemblywoman Angela McKnight, who represents Bayonne and other areas of Jersey City.
“It is clearly made in an inappropriate representation of a black person and instructs people to ‘slam’ and ‘whack’ her,” the official charged in a statement. “Racism has no place in the world and I will not tolerate it, especially not in this district.”
The dolls were being sold at a One Dollar Zone store in Bayonne and at least two other locations across the Garden State, though it’s unclear where.
Bayonne Mayor Jimmy Davis blasted them as “insensitive” in a Facebook post this week— saying they “can certainly be considered racist.”
“Aside from the shock of seeing such an insensitive product being sold in our community, I am grateful for the people that saw it and said something immediately,” Davis said. “We will not tolerate any symbol of hate and division within our community! #WeAreBayonne.”
One Dollar Zone President Ricky Shah issued an apology after pulling the dolls Monday. The Paterson-based company was blaming their existence on a simple error of not checking a large shipment of new items — centered around an “I Love NY” theme — that had come into their stores recently.
“This somehow slipped through the cracks,” Shah said in a statement.
The manufacturer of the dolls — the Harvey Hutter Co., based in New York — couldn’t be reached Friday. Shah claimed that it appears to no longer be in business.
The company’s supplier, Global Souvenir Marketing, did not respond to requests for comment.
via: https://nypost.com/2019/07/26/black-rag-dolls-meant-to-be-abused-get-pulled-from-shelves/
Photo Credit: Angela McKnight via AP
Man steals ambulance, takes it to get KFC, Doritos and cigarettes
(Meredith) – Police near Houston, Texas said a man stole an ambulance that was sitting outside of a psychiatric hospital and then drove it to KFC to order food.
Police tell KTRK the man – who has not been publicly identified – also stopped for some Doritos and cigarettes during his joy ride.
Police said the man stole the ambulance early Thursday morning after it was left running with the keys in it. The man is a former patient of the psychiatric hospital, KTRK reports.
Lt. Lynwood Moreau with the Harris County Sheriff’s Office said the man told him he took the ambulance because he “needed a ride.”
“I rolled up on him, opened the door, asked him why he had the ambulance – he said he needed a ride,” Moreau told KTRK.
The man is in jail, charged with unauthorized use of a motor vehicle.
Photo Credit: Getty Images
Teens recorded spitting into soda bottles, placing them back in store fridge
Two teens from Indiana were recorded spitting into soda bottles, then returning the drinks to a store refrigerator, according to a report.
Video footage of the cringe-worthy incident was posted online and shared by Indianapolis resident Brittney Edwards with the hopes of catching the soda spitters, according to WTHR.
“I don’t know what’s in kids’ minds these days, but that’s not right at all,” Edwards told the station.
The recording shows two teens, a boy and a girl, taking turns spitting into separate 20-ounce bottles of soda before tightening the cap and placing the drinks back in the fridge with the other unopened bottles.
“At the end of the day, somebody could [get] sick, horribly sick. Hospitalized,” said Edwards. “It don’t matter. That’s worse than e-coli to me.”
Edwards said her daughter goes to school with one of the teens in the video.
It’s unclear when and where the drink tampering occurred — or if local authorities have been notified.
In an earlier tampering incident, a Texas teen was busted after she licked a container of Blue Bell ice cream and put it back in the freezer. Video of the sick prank went viral.
Photo Credit: nypost.com
Indiana woman arrested for wearing stolen dentures at probation meeting
Don’t lie through someone else’s teeth!
An Indiana woman was busted for stealing dentures this week — after she showed up to a probation meeting with the prosthetics “that were clearly not hers,” according to the Jennings County Sheriff’s Office.
The meeting with the alleged thief, Joann Childers, came the same day that the dentures’ rightful owner contacted police to report she had stolen them.
Deputies spoke with Childers’ probation officer, who told authorities that she believed the woman may have been wearing stolen teeth.
Officers visited Childers’ home Wednesday where they confronted her about the alleged theft — and found the chompers had the original owners’ name on them.
“While speaking with Ms. Childers, Deputy Gholson observed the Dentures in plain view in Ms. Childers home,” the sheriff’s office said. “The dentures had the victim’s name written on them.”
The dentures were returned to their owner and charges were filed against Childers for theft, authorities said.
via: https://nypost.com/2019/07/26/woman-arrested-for-wearing-stolen-dentures-at-probation-meeting/
Photo Credit: Jennings County Sheriff’s Office
Twin babies found dead in the back of a car, father forgot them when he went to work
THE BRONX — Twin babies, a boy and a girl, were found dead in the back of a car in the Bronx after their father forgot them when he went to work, according to sources.
Officials say the twins, each 7 months old, were found in the back of the car at West Kingsbridge Road and Kingsbridge Terrace.
The father of the children went to work at 8 a.m. Friday and forgot the babies in the car, according to sources. He returned to the car at 4 p.m.
“How can you leave the children behind and forget about the kids?” C.J. Rivera, the father of a 9-year-old, wondered. “As a father, you’re supposed to take care of your family, take care of your responsibilities.”
Rivera said the news was shocking, even more so because he says the neighborhood is community-oriented and usually has steady foot traffic thanks to a nearby bus stop.
The father has been taken into custody, sources said.
A source tells PIX11’s Nicole Johnson that the father, 37, went to work at the Veterans Affairs hospital nearby. He returned to the car around 4 p.m., drove a short distance, and noticed the babies.
Shortly after the crime tape went up, devastated neighbors gathered across the street to leave candles as part of a makeshift memorial for the children.
Police continued to question the father Friday afternoon, who officials didn’t immediately identify.
Photo Credit: pix11.com
FBI Agents Found Buckets Of Human Body Parts And A Torso With Another Person’s Head Sewn Onto It In A Horrific Raid At An Arizona Body-Donation Center
FBI agents found buckets of human body parts and a torso with the head from another body sewn onto it in a horrific 2014 raid at a for-profit body-donation center in Phoenix, Arizona, recently published court documents say.
The agents made the gruesome discoveries at the Biological Resource Center in January 2014, but details of the raid were recently revealed via an eyewitness testimony in a civil lawsuit filed against the center, the Arizona Republic and KTVK reported this month.
Mark Cwynar, the FBI special agent who gave the testimony, recalled seeing “various unsettling scenes” during the raid, according to the Arizona Republic. He also described some of his discoveries as a “morbid joke,” KTVK said.
Here’s what he saw, according to the Arizona Republic and KTVK’s reporting from court documents:
- A “bucket of heads, arms, and legs.”
- A “cooler filled with male genitalia.”
- A woman’s head sewn onto a larger male torso, like “Frankenstein,” hanging on a wall.
- “Infected heads.” It’s not entirely clear what this means.
- Bodies that had been cut up with chainsaws and bandsaws. The bodies didn’t have ID tags.
- “Pools of human blood and other bodily fluids” on the freezer floor.
Why the facility stored the body parts and treated them as such is not clear.
KPHO-TV via Arizona’s Family
The FBI raided the center after it was accused of selling the donated body parts for a profit, ABC 15 Arizona reported.
Citing the court documents, the Arizona Republic said the most expensive item the facility sold, a “whole body with no shoulders or head” was $2,900, while a foot was $450. It wasn’t clear who the body parts were sold to.
The Biological Resource Center was closed in 2014 after the raid, but lawsuits from families who donated bodies are ongoing.
Thirty-three plaintiffs are suing the center, with some saying they thought they were donating their loved ones’ remains for scientific research or organ donation and that the bodies were not treated with dignity or respect, the Arizona Republic reported.
Their case is set to go to trial on October 21, the newspaper added.
CBS 15 via Arizona Attorney General/YouTube
The facility accepted bodies from families in exchange for free pickup and, later, the cremated remains of body parts it did not sell, according to the Arizona Republic.
Troy Harp, a plaintiff who donated the bodies of his mother and grandmother to the center in 2012 and 2013, told KTVK that he received what he was told were his mother’s ashes shortly after the 2014 FBI raid but that he wasn’t sure they were really hers.
Stephen Gore, the Biological Resource Center’s owner, pleaded guilty in 2015 to operating an illegal enterprise and was sentenced to one year deferred prison time and four years probation.
According to the Arizona Republic, Gore wrote in a letter to a judge in 2015 that he “could have been more open about the process of donation on the brochure we put in public view.”
“When deciding which donors could be eligible to donate, I should have hired a medical director rather than relying on medical knowledge from books or the internet,” he added.
Court filings say he is representing himself in the latest civil suit, the Arizona Republic reported, adding that it had not been able to contact Gore.
Photo Credit: start.att.net
Woman who used racial slur in confrontation with black diners says she’d do it again
A white North Carolina woman was caught in a now-viral video using the N-word while confronting a group of black women at a restaurant — and then doubled down on her serving of hate, saying she’d use the slur again, according to a report.
A 66-second clip posted to Facebook on Tuesday by Chanda Stewart, who is black, shows a woman identified as Nancy Goodman speaking to an employee at Bonefish Grill in Raleigh, complaining that the three nearby women were being disruptive and too loud.
“So am I shocked because this person had the audacity right here to come to our table and tell us that we are the rudest people that she has ever met,” Stewart says, alluding to the smiling white woman. “Look at her … We’re paying for our food just like everybody else and she told us that we are the rudest people ever.”
Goodman then pulls out her phone and walks around her table to confront the women, video shows, telling them that she has “really good” friends who are black.
“And I love them,” Goodman says.
“We never said anything about color,” Stewart replies.
Goodman then tells the group she thought they were being “too loud,” prompting another woman at Stewart’s table to say that their money was “just as green” as hers.
“Oh, you’re so stupid, n—-r,” Goodman replies before walking away from the women’s table, video shows.
Goodman later told WRAL that she wasn’t sorry for using the slur, saying she would “say it again” to the group of women.
“I’m not going to say I’m sorry to them because they kept pushing at it,” Goodman told the station. “I would say it again to them. They are the rudest individuals I have ever seen.”
Goodman, who insisted she wasn’t racist, apologized to her family, friends and other customers at the restaurant in a since-deleted post on her Facebook page, saying she had “extreme anxiety” but admitted that did not excuse her behavior.
“I am ashamed of my actions,” she wrote in the post.
A spokeswoman for the restaurant’s parent company, meanwhile, told WRAL that the incident was being reviewed so such confrontations can be de-escalated in the future.
“We do not tolerate hate speech or disrespect in our restaurants,” a spokeswoman for Bloomin’ Brands told the station.
Photo Credit: nypost.com