Black mannequin dragged by rope at Nevada HS football game
A Nevada high school student dragged a black mannequin on the ground with a rope during a recent football game in an incident caught on video.
The Damonte Ranch HS student was dressed as a cowboy riding the school’s mascot, a mustang, while he dragged the black and blue dummy behind him during the halftime parade at Friday’s homecoming game, according to video captured by News 4-Fox 11.
The Washoe County School District launched an investigation Friday night as soon as it learned of the incident, which many saw as “culturally, racially insensitive,” a spokesperson said.
“This incident and the behavior of those responsible is utterly inconsistent with our collective commitment to equity, diversity, responsibility, and kindness for all of our students and staff members,” the district said in a statement.
Damonte Ranch students had intended to buy a blowup cowboy and horse and then lasso a student dressed as the opposing school’s mascot, a Lancer knight, according to the school’s incident report obtained by the Reno Gazette Journal.
The plan then changed and it was decided that a student would dress up as the cowboy and a blowup doll would serve as the knight — but class advisers weren’t told of the changes, the report said.
Students looked for a gray mannequin online to match the colors of the opposing school, McQueen. When they couldn’t find a gray dummy they bought a black one instead, the report said.
The mannequin was supposed to be standing on a float but wouldn’t stay up, and “that’s why it ended up being dragged behind the student,” according to the report.
The display was intended to “demonstrate a traditional, friendly rivalry” and was never meant to be offensive or reminiscent of the lynchings of thousands of African Americans after the Civil War.
Still, “it is troubling that children are so poorly educated that they did not immediately know that the hanging of a black doll is hurtful and frightening,” Lonnie Feemster, president of the Reno-Sparks NAACP, told the Gazette Journal Monday.
Damonte school officials apologized in the report saying, “We completely understand how this was perceived and this could be offensive to anyone in attendance at the game.
“This is a valuable learning experience and lifelong lesson for our Damonte Ranch students and staff.”
via: https://nypost.com/2019/09/24/black-mannequin-dragged-by-rope-at-nevada-hs-football-game/
Photo Credit: Washoe County School District
Toddler drowned in tub while parents went shopping
A Minnesota couple have been charged in connection with the drowning death of their toddler — after surveillance footage caught the pair shopping for two hours while their kids were home alone, according to authorities.
Sabina Pierre Louis, 25, and Eddy Louis, 54, initially told cops that 21-month-old son Asher Pierre Louis drowned in the bathtub while they were in their Bloomington apartment’s storage room Saturday morning.
But they were busted after video showed them going to a grocery store and local Walmart, leaving their three kids alone for at least two hours, according to the Hennepin County Attorney’s Office.
Confronted, they admitted making the shopping trip — but assumed the youngsters would all sleep through their absence, the prosecutors say.
Instead, when they came home, they found their 4-year-old in the bathroom — with Asher dead in the tub, according to the report.
Their 9-year-old daughter was also home but still asleep, the attorney’s office said.
The parents drove the toddler to Fairview Southdale Hospital, where he was pronounced dead, with staff calling cops.
Both parents were charged with second-degree manslaughter for neglect of a child. They are expected in court Wednesday.
via: https://nypost.com/2019/09/25/toddler-drowned-in-tub-while-parents-went-shopping-cops/
Photo Credit: Hennepin County Jail
Dad, aunt arrested after toddler found alone on rooftop
A 2-year-old boy was found by cops alone on the rooftop of a Connecticut home Monday, leading to the arrest of the tot’s dad and aunt, cops said.
David Hustek, 23, and Sarah Barker, 20, were both sleeping and unaware the toddler was 30 feet above ground when cops arrived to the Ansonia, Ct., home at about 8:45 a.m., authorities said.
Video first obtained by WFSB shows the the boy pacing back and forth atop the second-story roof as officers from the Ansonia Police Department arrive.
The same clip shows one of the cops wrangle the child from an open window.
He was taken to a local hospital and didn’t appear to be injured, police said.
The home “was found to be in deplorable living conditions” and was condemned by the city, police said in a release.
Hustek and Barker were charged with risk of injury of a minor and reckless endangerment.
They’re being held on $10,000 bond and their arraignment is set for Thursday.
via: https://nypost.com/2019/09/26/dad-aunt-arrested-after-toddler-found-alone-on-rooftop/
Photo Credit: Ansonia Police Department
Hollywood costume designer’s racist tirade at CVS: I’d kill black people but ‘law says I can’t’
A Hollywood costume designer was caught on video going on a racist tirade outside a Los Angeles-area CVS store — claiming she would kill black people if it was legal, according to a report.
Heather Patton was seen leaving the drugstore Tuesday in Eagle Rock using threatening language and repeatedly shouting racial slurs, news station KTLA reported.
“If the law didn’t say I couldn’t kill the n—ers, they would all be dead,” she reportedly said to a black woman filming her rant.
Patton then goes on to double down on her hateful message, saying, “I would kill a n—er, but the law says I can’t kill the n—er.”
Patton has worked in the TV and movie industry in the costume department on shows such as “Private Practice” and “Medium,” according to her IMDB page.
Renee Saldana, who witnessed the episode, said that she reported the woman to authorities.
“It was quiet in CVS & then someone just yelled the n-word then it was quiet again & then that woman started screeching racist stuff towards a Black woman (who shot the video,” she said in a tweet. “There was no build-up or prior altercation.”
The Los Angeles Police Department confirmed that a report was filed in connection to the incident, CBS LA reported.
A rep for CVS said the unruly customer was kicked out of the store — and the company is now cooperating with police.
“We are committed to maintaining a welcoming and diverse environment in our stores to help ensure that all customers are treated with respect and dignity,” the company said in a statement. “We condemn, in the strongest terms, the behavior of the customer seen in the recent social media video.”
Patton’s neighbor, who asked to be identified only as Tony, said that she has a history of racist behavior, KTLA reported.
“Her and her husband have really been behaving dishearteningly with our neighbors. We had to file restraining orders against her for wanting to threaten us, assault us. They were yelling racial slurs at us like ‘Go back to your country,’ ” he told the news station.
Photo Credit: nypost.com
12-year-old girl: Classmates grabbed her, cut her dreadlocks at school
SPRINGFIELD, Va. — Police are investigating a 12-year-old girl’s allegation that her classmates grabbed her and cut her dreadlocks on the playground of a northern Virginia private school.
News outlets report the girl says three of her sixth-grade classmates at Immanuel Christian School in Springfield called her hair “ugly” while they assaulted her at recess earlier this week.
The girl is African American. She says her attackers are white, and that they’ve been bullying her.
The school issued a statement Thursday saying it is disturbed by the allegations and has asked police to investigate.
Police confirmed Thursday they are investigating.
via: https://pix11.com/2019/09/26/12-year-old-girl-classmates-grabbed-her-cut-her-dreadlocks-at-school/
Photo Credit: Getty Images
Woman killed disabled grandson because she worried there would soon be no one to take care of him
BRADENTON, Fla. — An 87-year-old Florida woman told police she gave her disabled 30-year-old grandson a fatal dose of drugs because she fears she’s near death and there will be no one else who can take care of him.
Bradenton police detectives took Lillian Parks into protective custody Sunday for an evaluation and medical treatment, spokesman Brian Thiers said in a Tuesday afternoon news conference.
Joel Parks lived with his grandmother on weekends and at a group home during the week. He was not able to take care of himself, Thiers said.
On Sunday, Joel Parks’ sister came to check on him and called 911 when she discovered his body at the grandmother’s apartment.
The Bradenton Herald reports Joel Parks’ father is dead and his mother is estranged.
Investigators say Lillian Parks will likely be charged with second-degree murder once she’s released from a doctor’s care. They’re awaiting a toxicology report to reveal the substance used to kill Joel Parks.
Thiers said police don’t know how long Parks had been dead before his body was discovered. Investigators spent Tuesday interviewing family members.
“This is a difficult case for our detectives,” Thiers said. “Partly, we feel bad for an individual who feels that the only option is to take another human being’s life because you’re so worried about their care after you’re gone.”
“On the other hand, this was a process that was thought out, it was planned, and she took a human life,” Thiers added.
Photo Credit: Getty Images
Alleged arsonist lit sleeping homeless man on fire, took pictures
GLENDALE, CA — A 32-year-old man allegedly intentionally lit the cardboard covering a sleeping homeless man on fire, police said Tuesday.
The homeless man woke up to the smell of smoke on Sept. 12 around 1:20 a.m., Glendale police said. He tried to douse the flames with a water bottle, but he was unsuccessful.
Later that day, detectives found video surveillance that shows a man starting the fire and taking pictures.
Police identified the man in the video as Richard Smallets. They arrested him on a charge of attempted murder.
Smallets remains in custody. His bail was set at $1,000,000.
Photo Credit: Glendale Police Department
Transgender man who gave birth loses court battle to be registered as child’s father
A transgender man who gave birth with the help of fertility treatment lost his legal fight to be registered as the child’s father, rather than the child’s mother, in the UK High Court on Wednesday.
Born female, Freddy McConnell transitioned to become a man and was legally recognized as male when he became pregnant in 2017, giving birth in 2018.
The 32-year-old took legal action after a registrar told him that UK law required people who give birth to be registered as mothers on birth certificates.
This establishes the first legal definition of the term “mother” in English common law.
In ruling with the government, Andrew McFarlane, the president of the High Court’s family division, deemed that being a “mother” referred to being pregnant and giving birth, regardless of whether that person, in law, was a man or a woman.
“There is a material difference between a person’s gender and their status as a parent,” McFarlane ruled.
“Being a ‘mother,’ whilst hitherto always associated with being female, is the status afforded to a person who undergoes the physical and biological process of carrying a pregnancy and giving birth.
“It is now medically and legally possible for an individual, whose gender is recognized in law as male, to become pregnant and give birth to their child. Whilst that person’s gender is ‘male,’ their parental status, which derives from their biological role in giving birth, is that of ‘mother.’”
McConnell, a multimedia journalist for UK newspaper The Guardian, started taking testosterone aged 25 and a year later had surgery to remove breast tissue. In 2016, he stopped taking testosterone and subsequently his menstrual cycle restarted before he became pregnant using sperm from a donor.
A feature-length film called “Seahorse,” documented McConnell’s journey.
On Twitter, McConnell said he would appeal. “I’m saddened by the court’s decision not to allow trans men to be recorded as father or parent on their children’s birth certificates,” he wrote.
“I fear this decision has distressing implications for many kinds of families. I will seek to appeal and give no more interviews at this stage.”
In praising McConnell, the judge said the case was an “important matter of public interest” and that there was a “pressing need” for the UK’s legislators to address “square-on” the status of a trans male who has become pregnant and given birth to a child.
Existing legislation and UK and European human rights case law, McFarlane said, did not directly engage with the central question.
McFarlane ruled: “The issue which has most properly and bravely been raised by the claimant in this claim is, at its core, a matter of public policy rather than law. It is an important matter of public interest and a proper cause for public debate.”
In July 2019, McFarlane had removed McConnell’s right to anonymity after UK media organizations successfully argued that the publicity surrounding McConnell’s film and the public interest in the question of how the state recognized parenthood meant his identity should be known.
Photo Credit: pix11.com
No charges against off-duty officer in deadly Costco shooting of mentally disabled, non-verbal man
California prosecutors won’t file charges against an off-duty officer who fatally shot a man inside a Costco store in Corona three months ago.
Following a grand jury decision that charges are not warranted, Riverside County District Attorney Mike Hestrin said he will not file criminal charges against Salvador Sanchez, an off-duty Los Angeles police officer.
Kenneth French, described by a cousin as non-verbal, is believed to have struck Sanchez, who then fired 10 shots. Sanchez was shopping with his family on June 14 and holding his young child when the brief incident began.
French, who had been diagnosed with schizophrenia, was unarmed.
French was hit three times in the back, and once in the shoulder, said Joe DelGiudice, chief of investigations for the district attorney’s office.
French’s parents, Russell and Paola French, were also wounded. Four seconds passed between the assault and the beginning of the shooting, DelGiudice added.
Hestrin showed surveillance video of the deadly encounter, which is somewhat difficult to discern, as the perspective is from across the warehouse store. At least two people can be seen in a scuffle and both drop to the ground.
Hestrin notes that French’s parents were uncooperative during the investigation and were heard from for the first time during the grand jury hearing.
“I am not condoning this shooting,” Hestrin said, but indicated that he would abide by the grand jury’s decision.
Salvador’s attorney said it appears the family will file a civil suit but they were happy there would be no criminal charges.
“Today is quite a victory for Sal,” Ira Salzman said. “This was a terrible tragedy. (Sanchez) was protecting his son, he thought he had been shot and felt like he had no other option.”
Salzman said Salvador is gratified the grand jury felt the same way when it rendered its decision Tuesday. When Salzman told his client about the grand jury decision, both men cried
CNN has reached out to attorneys for the French family but hasn’t received a response.
Photo Credit: pix11.com
A mother says a teacher cut off a chunk of a girl’s hair because she wouldn’t stop playing with it
A middle school teacher in New Hampshire cut off about three inches of a student’s hair after the student wouldn’t stop playing with it, the mother of the middle schooler says.
Jillian Miglionico’s daughter attends Somersworth Middle School. Miglionico says the teacher told her daughter to stop playing with her hair or he would cut her hair off, according to CNN affiliate WMUR.
CNN has called Miglionico but has not heard back.
“If you’re going to act like that with a middle school student, I don’t think that you should be able to be around and teach middle school students,” the mother told WMUR. “I don’t want this man around my child.”
CNN called the middle school, but the school was not making comments on the situation and could not confirm whether the teacher was back in the classroom.
Robert Gadomski, superintendent of the Somersworth/Rollinsford School Districts, said the district is aware of the situation and monitoring it.
“When it was reported to us we moved swiftly to address the situation,” he said in a statement. “We moved forward in two ways:
“First we made sure that supports were in place to ensure the safety and success of our students in the classroom and throughout the building.
“Secondly we handled the situation as a personnel issue using our district policies and procedures.”
CNN asked Gadomski whether the teacher was disciplined and whether the student is still in his class, and he did not respond.
Photo Credit: pix11.com