Man with Down syndrome dies after group home worker who drove him takes nap in hot van
Pinellas County (WFTS) — A group home worker in Pinellas County is accused of leaving a 35-year-old man with Down syndrome to die in a hot van.
In May 9, the worker with Crossroads of Pinellas — identified as 26-year-old Joshua Russell — was taking care of the man with Down syndrome and was driving him back to the group home after a hospital visit. On their way back from the hospital, Russell decided to make a stop at his house and left 35-year-old John Lapointe inside the van.
While at his own home, Russell consumed kratom. Russell told deputies he took the substance to feel “more alert.”
After taking the kratom, Russell hopped back inside the van and resumed his drive. During the drive back, Russell started to feel tired and nauseous. He then parked the van in the driveway, turned the vehicle off and took a nap.
Russell later woke up sweating from the van’s heat and noticed Lapointe was not breathing.
Russell tried CPR but could not revive Lapointe, Pinellas County Sheriff Bob Gualtieri said.
Russell, who was armed, called his mother and told her he was going to kill himself after realizing what he just did. His mother told Russell he should not kill himself.
His mother called 911, and the Pinellas County Sheriff’s Office responded to their location on 82nd Avenue near Oaskhurst Road in Seminole.
When deputies arrived on scene, paramedics had already pronounced Lapointe dead and Russell left the area on foot and was armed. When deputies located Russell, the 26-year-old told them he was going to kill himself.
Eventually, deputies were able to place Russell in custody. Sheriff Gualtieri said the van’s inside temperature at the time of Lapointe’s death was about 125 degrees.
“You know this poor guy baked in that car, that’s what happened,” said Gualtieri.
Russell is charged with aggravated manslaughter of a disabled adult.
Photo Credit: WFTS
New Jersey troopers approach car with guns drawn, find woman in labor
RIDGEWOOD, Pa. — New Jersey State Police chased a speeding car for several minutes and then approached it at gunpoint once the driver finally pulled over.
Inside they found a woman in labor.
State police got a call for a car speeding northbound on Route 17 just before 11 p.m. Friday. They gave chase, signaling for the vehicle to stop.
Authorities tell NorthJersey.com that troopers drew their guns because they didn’t know if the car’s occupants were armed or dangerous. When they realized what was happening, the troopers escorted the pregnant woman and her driver to The Valley Hospital in Ridgewood.
The woman’s condition wasn’t clear.
via: https://pix11.com/2019/09/22/new-jersey-troopers-approach-car-with-guns-drawn-find-woman-in-labor/
Photo Credit: Getty Images
Man allegedly rapes woman in Queens after giving her the option of that, being killed or having sex with her son
QUEENS — Authorities say a man raped a woman in New York after giving her the option of that, being killed or having sex with her son.
The Queens district attorney’s office says 33-year-old Joshua Henderson raped and robbed the victim in her home Monday.
Prosecutors say Henderson dressed as a construction worker to get into the building.
They say he tied the woman and her adult son up and grabbed jewelry and cash. They say he then told her of her choices and raped her.
Henderson was arraigned Thursday and held without bail.
Information on Henderson’s lawyer wasn’t available. The Daily News reports that Henderson’s wife, Joanna Henderson, said DNA evidence would prove her husband’s innocence.
Henderson pled guilty to a pattern of burglaries and was sentenced to 12 years in prison in 2009. He was paroled in 2018 after serving nine years.
“We don’t want career criminals that have a propensity for violence that over and over have been given chances and hurt New Yorkers being released before detectives have done the paperwork,” said NYPD Chief of Detectives Dermot Shea previously told PIX11. “Let’s have those hard conversations.”
Photo Credit: pix11.com
The world’s first vagina museum will open in London in November
(CNN) — The first museum in the world dedicated solely to the vagina will open in London in November, after a crowdfunding campaign raised almost £50,000 (about $62,000).
The Vagina Museum will educate visitors about vulvas and vaginas while challenging the prevailing stigma surrounding them, development and marketing manager Zoe Williams told CNN.
Founder Florence Schechter developed the concept for the Vagina Museum after discovering a museum dedicated to penises in Iceland, the Icelandic Phallological Museum, but no counterpart for vaginas. Schechter and her team subsequently launched a campaign on Crowdfunder, initially aiming to raise £300,000.
“As this is the world’s first bricks-and-mortar museum dedicated to vaginas, vulvas and the gynaecological anatomy, we didn’t quite know what to expect in terms of interest, and were delighted with the £50,000 we raised,” Williams said.
The museum will open on November 16 in a temporary location in London’s Camden Market, with an exhibition entitled “Muff Busters: Vagina Myths and How to Fight Them.” The exhibition will challenge “pervasive myths” about the vagina and vulva, Williams said, “such as that vaginas and vulva need to be cleaned through the use of bespoke feminine cleaning products; however, the vagina is completely self cleaning.”
Comedy and theater events, craft workshops and educational talks will take place at the museum, she said, which will help to raise funds for a permanent location. The museum’s mission statement asserts that it will also “act as a forum for feminism, women’s rights, the LGBT+ community and the intersex community,” “challenge heteronormative and cisnormative behaviour” and “promote intersectional, feminist and trans-inclusive values.”
“We want to give everyone the confidence to talk about a perfectly normal part of the anatomy,” Williams explained, citing a study from cancer research charity The Eve Appeal that found 65% of young women and girls in the UK struggled to use the words “vagina” or “vulva.”
“There’s nothing shameful or offensive about vulvas and vaginas,” she said. “They’re a part of the body that should be celebrated!”
Photo Credit: vagina museum
Louisiana man drowns after proposing to his girlfriend underwater on vacation
A Louisiana man has drowned after proposing to his girlfriend underwater while the couple was vacationing in Tanzania.
Steven Weber and Kenesha Antoine were staying in Pemba Island, CNN affiliate WBRZ reports, in a wooden cabin with a bedroom submerged beneath the ocean surface off the east coast of Africa.
Weber proposed on Thursday by swimming underwater and holding a handwritten note against the bedroom windows, according to a video Antoine posted Friday on Facebook, before presenting a ring.
The note, which Weber had placed inside a transparent plastic bag, read, “I can’t hold my breath long enough to tell you everything I love about you. BUT…Everything I love about you I love more EVERY DAY!
“Will you please be my WIFE,” the note continued. “Marry me???”
But Weber failed to return to the surface, Antoine said in a subsequent Facebook post. “You never emerged from those depths, so you never got to hear my answer, ‘Yes! Yes! A million times, yes, I will marry you!!’ ” she wrote.
“We never got to embrace and celebrate the beginning of the rest of our lives together, as the best day of our lives turned into the worst, in the cruelest twist of fate imaginable,” Antoine continued.
“I will try to take solace in the fact that we enjoyed the most amazing bucket list experiences these past few days, and that we both were so happy and absolutely giddy with excitement in our final moments together.”
CNN has reached out to Antoine for comment.
The Manta Resort, where the couple was staying, issued a statement on Saturday confirming the death.
Photo Credit: facebook
Florida grandmother outraged after granddaughter, 6, is arrested at school
ORLANDO, Fla. (KMOV.com) – A Florida grandmother is demanding answers after her 6-year was put in handcuffs and thrown in jail.
Meralyn Kirkland says her granddaughter Kaia was arrested after she threw a tantrum like any other child would. Kirkland says she got a call from her granddaughter’s school Thursday saying she kicked someone, and that she was being charged and taken to a juvenile detention center by officers.
“No 6-year-old child should be able to tell somebody that they had handcuffs on them, and they were riding in the back of a police car and taken to a juvenile center to be fingerprinted, have a mug shot taken,” said Kirkland.
The school resource officer who arrested her is now under investigation for the arrest and for a separate arrest of an 8-year-old at the school.
Photo Credit: wfla.com
Woman Says Florida Scientology Operatives Cut Car’s Brake Lines, Followed Her After She Spoke Out About Alleged Abuse
A woman says in a Florida lawsuit that Scientology operatives cut the brake lines on her car, vandalized her property and followed her after she spoke out about alleged abuse.
The lawsuit filed last Wednesday in state court in Miami says the unnamed 25-year-old woman had been sexually assaulted as a child in Scientology’s care.
She says the harassment started after she left the Church of Scientology last year and spoke out about the abuse.
The lawsuit claims church officials knew about the abuse, but did nothing to stop it, and didn’t contact law enforcement.
The Tampa Bay Times reports it is the third civil lawsuit filed against the church since June by a group of victims’ rights lawyers.
The woman is referred to only as Jane Doe for fear of more retaliation by the church of Scientology.
An attorney for the church called the lawsuit “a disgusting sham.”
Photo Credit: Paul J. Richards/AFP/Getty Images)
School bus driver busted after student calls 911 to report her driving drunk
A school bus driver in Washington was arrested after a young student called 911 to report her for running red lights while driving drunk, according to reports.
The 10-year-old pupil got off the bus because he was so concerned about driver Catherine Maccarone, 48, who had driven about 90 children the day she was busted, according to ABC News.
“The bus driver, Catherine, she was drunk,” the unidentified Longview fifth-grader told the 911 dispatcher, in audio released to ABC.
“She passed three red lights and she got on the side road by the 76. And there’s still kids on there. And I was telling my friend to get off with me — and his sister — but the bus driver wouldn’t let him.”
He said the driver was “not acting like herself” and had been swearing at kids on the bus, according to The Daily News in Longview.
She was so bad she was “wobbling,” the boy reportedly told the dispatcher. “Her eyes, you can tell, she was drunk,” he said, according to ABC.
While there were no children on the bus by the time police got to Maccarone on Thursday last week, she had completed two afternoon routes, according to Longview police.
“Officers smelled an obvious odor of intoxicants coming from Maccarone,” police said in a statement.
Maccarone told the officer she was upset about her divorce and was taking anxiety and sleep medication — saying “Oh, you know” when asked which ones, according to The Daily News.
Maccarone was booked into the Cowlitz County Jail for driving under the influence and reckless endangerment. She is due back in court on Oct. 15.
Photo Credit: nypost.com
NYPD officer allegedly molested 10-year-old girl – is currently suspended from duties
BROOKLYN — An NYPD officer is accused of sexually assaulting his girlfriend’s daughter, police said.
Shaun Frazier, 39, turned himself in to authorities Thursday morning in Brooklyn after an NYPD Internal Affairs Bureau investigation found out he molested the 10-year-old girl, according to police.
Frazier faces charges of endangering the welfare of a child, police said.
Frazier, who had been on job since 2015 and was assigned to the transit department, is currently suspended, police said.
The officer appeared before a Brooklyn judge Thursday. He was released on his own cognizance, according to authorities.
via: https://pix11.com/2019/09/19/nypd-officer-allegedly-molests-10-year-old-girl/
Photo Credit: Getty Images
Celine Dion doesn’t want Drake to tattoo her face on his body
NEW YORK — Just because you loved her, Drake, it doesn’t mean that Celine Dion wants her face on your body.
The singer has asked her fellow Canadian to not get a Celine Dion tattoo.
“Please, Drake, I love you very much,” Dion said during an interview with iHeartRadio Canada. “Can I tell you something? Don’t do that.”
Drake is well known for getting tats of muses and musical influences.
The rapper has two tattoos of singer Sade on his torso and has expressed a desire to add Dion to his collection.
But Dion would rather pass and had a message for Drake: “You can write me love letters. You can send me autographs for my kids. You can come and visit.”
“I can have you home for lunch or dinner. We can go for a drink,” she added.” We can sing together. Whatever you want to do. I can talk to your mother. Whatever you want, but please…”
The singer’s reasoning is that she doesn’t think her face will age well on Drake’s body as time goes on.
“As time goes, as you go older, you too — when time comes my face will go longer and it will go not prettier,” she said. “Please don’t tattoo. If you do it, just do a fake one.”
via: https://pix11.com/2019/09/21/celine-dion-doesnt-want-drake-to-tattoo-her-face-on-his-body/
Photo Credit: pix11.com