14-year-old arrested for Publix mass shooting threat, police say
BOYNTON BEACH, Fla. (WFLA) — A 14-year-old boy was arrested Monday night for posting a message to Instagram threatening to commit a mass shooting at a Publix in Boynton Beach, officials said.
The Boynton Beach Police Department was notified about the post by a Publix representative and immediately began investigating.
Detectives identified the teen responsible and arrested him on charges of written threats of a mass shooting.
The teen reportedly told detectives it was a joke.
“The Boynton Beach Police Department will vigorously investigate any claim of harm against our community, and arrest any individual responsible,” the police department said. “We urge parents to have conversations with their children about the severity of this.”
via: https://fox2now.com/2019/12/31/14-year-old-arrested-for-publix-mass-shooting-threat-police-say-tmw/
Photo Credit: fox2now.com
Wisconsin man chokes, punches sister after she teases him for being a Vikings fan
JANESVILLE, WI (WTMJ) — A Wisconsin man is facing three charges after he choked and punched his sister in the jaw because she teased him for being a Vikings fan.
According to WISC-TV, Mark E. Mueller, 56, is facing charges for strangulation and suffocation, misdemeanor battery, and disorderly conduct for hurting his sister on Christmas Eve. All three of these counts have a domestic abuse modifier.
Mueller was living with his sister at the time, according to the criminal complaint, and she started teasing him for being a Vikings fan. Mueller walked over to his sister and started choking her. She slapped her brother in the face and that was when Mueller punched her in the jaw.
Mueller’s sister said this was not the first time her brother has threatened her or attacked her.
Photo Credit: Janesville PD via WTMJ
Woman arrested after trying to pass off dog’s urine as own
PINEVILLE, Ky. (LEX 18) — On Monday, a woman was arrested after she tried to pass off dog urine as her own to her probation officer.
Police responded to the Bell County Probation and Parole Office and spoke with officers, who advised that Julie Miller, 30, of Arjay, was at the office for her regular probation visit.
As part of her supervision, Miller was asked for a drug screen. One officer told another that Miller had sneaked in a sample of urine to pass it off as her own.
An officer asked Miller if the urine was hers and she admitted that it was not and that it was her dog’s urine.
She admitted to officers that she brought it in because she knew she would fail a drug test.
Miller told officers that she had used meth and suboxone.
Miller was arrested and taken to the Bell County Detention Center, where she was charged with tampering with physical evidence.
She was also served a probation violation and with trafficking in a controlled substance warrant.
via: https://www.lex18.com/news/woman-arrested-after-trying-to-pass-of-dogs-urine-as-own
Photo Credit: Pineville Police Department
A 12-year-old got a magnifying glass for Christmas — and set his lawn on fire
A family in Texas found themselves doing damage control on Christmas Day after their 12-year-old son accidentally set their lawn on fire with a magnifying glass.
Nissa-Lynn Parson posted photos on Facebook of what she said is going down in the family history book as one of the most memorable Christmas Days to date.
“My 12-year-old son Cayden received a magnifying glass, which we thought was for reading, but instead he tried to see if he could light a fire with it,” the post said .
Cayden and his two brothers went out in the driveway after opening presents to “burn a couple of holes in some newspaper” with the magnifying glass he had just received when an unexpected fire broke out, Parson told CNN. The wind caught the newspaper and blew embers into the lawn, ultimately causing the grass to catch fire.
“Everything was under control until the boys came running into the house telling us that a corner of the lawn was on fire and the Christmas lights were melting,” Parson wrote in her post. She said she knew the kids were out playing in the front lawn and this was an honest accident that could have happened to anyone.
She said she’s glad the family was able to contain it before it got worse.
In the photos posted on Facebook, the Parson clan, in matching pajamas, can be seen with garden hoses in hand, dousing the front yard of their McKinney, Texas, home with water to extinguish the flames, leaving parts of the grass burnt to a crisp.
“We grabbed buckets, Justin turned the sprinklers on, and I grabbed blankets to smother and trap it – before it could spread any more into the neighbors yard,” Parson wrote in her post. “What a sight to see – a bunch of people running around crazy trying to put a front lawn fire out while wearing matching Christmas jammies!”
Parson and her husband, Justin, said they weren’t surprised that Cayden asked for a magnifying glass for Christmas because he’s an avid reader, very curious and interested in science.
“It’s like a basketball player asking for basketball shoes,” she said.
The other items on Cayden’s Christmas wish list were books, a piano keyboard and a robot building model kit, Parson said.
The next-door neighbor whose grass was a little burned was just glad it wasn’t worse and was good-natured and pleasant about the incident, according to Justin Parson.
By: CNN Wire
![items.[0].image.alt](https://ewscripps.brightspotcdn.com/dims4/default/95f28e6/2147483647/strip/true/crop/1600x900+0+303/resize/1280x720!/quality/90/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fewscripps.brightspotcdn.com%2Fd5%2F8a%2Ff271873d416fa895fc169193c7f1%2Fs118647134.JPG)
Photo by: Nissa-Lynn Parson/Nissa-Lynn Parson
A family in Texas found themselves doing damage control on Christmas Day after their 12-year-old son accidentally set their lawn on fire with a magnifying glass.
Nissa-Lynn Parson posted photos on Facebook of what she said is going down in the family history book as one of the most memorable Christmas Days to date.
“My 12-year-old son Cayden received a magnifying glass, which we thought was for reading, but instead he tried to see if he could light a fire with it,” the post said .
Cayden and his two brothers went out in the driveway after opening presents to “burn a couple of holes in some newspaper” with the magnifying glass he had just received when an unexpected fire broke out, Parson told CNN. The wind caught the newspaper and blew embers into the lawn, ultimately causing the grass to catch fire.
“Everything was under control until the boys came running into the house telling us that a corner of the lawn was on fire and the Christmas lights were melting,” Parson wrote in her post. She said she knew the kids were out playing in the front lawn and this was an honest accident that could have happened to anyone.
She said she’s glad the family was able to contain it before it got worse.
In the photos posted on Facebook, the Parson clan, in matching pajamas, can be seen with garden hoses in hand, dousing the front yard of their McKinney, Texas, home with water to extinguish the flames, leaving parts of the grass burnt to a crisp.
“We grabbed buckets, Justin turned the sprinklers on, and I grabbed blankets to smother and trap it – before it could spread any more into the neighbors yard,” Parson wrote in her post. “What a sight to see – a bunch of people running around crazy trying to put a front lawn fire out while wearing matching Christmas jammies!”
Parson and her husband, Justin, said they weren’t surprised that Cayden asked for a magnifying glass for Christmas because he’s an avid reader, very curious and interested in science.
“It’s like a basketball player asking for basketball shoes,” she said.
The other items on Cayden’s Christmas wish list were books, a piano keyboard and a robot building model kit, Parson said.
The next-door neighbor whose grass was a little burned was just glad it wasn’t worse and was good-natured and pleasant about the incident, according to Justin Parson.
“The other neighbors felt bad they didn’t see it to help put it out,” he said.
Cayden was shocked and surprised to see what his magnifying glass was capable of doing, according to his mother.
“Instead of a tragedy, it will now be a Christmas to remember,” she said.
Photo Credit: Nissa-Lynn Parson/Nissa-Lynn Parson
5 People Were Stabbed at a Hanukkah Celebration in a New York Suburb
(CNN) — The suspect in a string of stabbings during a Hanukkah celebration at a rabbi’s Monsey, New York, home was found with “blood all over him,” a law enforcement source with direct knowledge of the case told CNN on Sunday.
Thomas Grafton was driving a Nissan Sentra across the George Washington Bridge into New York City when police identified his license plate about 11:45 p.m. Saturday, the source said without elaborating.
Police apprehended Grafton without incident after midnight, a New York Police Department spokeswoman told CNN earlier Sunday.
Ramapo officers picked him up and transported him upstate, the spokeswoman said. Monsey is a hamlet within Ramapo.
Five people were taken to hospitals near the rabbi’s home after a man entered the Hanukkah celebration in the New York suburb and began stabbing people, according to police and witnesses.
The victims were Hasidic Jews, the Orthodox Jewish Public Affairs Council for the Hudson Valley Region said in a tweet. Two people are in critical condition, council co-founder Yossi Gestetner told CNN.
The attacker pulled out a knife that was “almost like a broomstick,” said Aron Kohn, who attended the Hanukkah celebration.
There were at least 100 people in the home at the time, as the rabbi was “lighting the candle” on the seventh night of Hanukkah, Kohn said.
The suspect tried to run into a nearby synagogue, but someone closed the doors, Kohn added.
Rockland County — where the stabbing took place — has the largest Jewish population per capita of any US county, according to New York state. More than 30% of its residents are Jewish.
Officials are still working an active crime scene, Ramapo Police Chief Brad Weidel said in a news conference. Weidel described the suspect as a tall African-American man.
A latest in a string of attacks
The stabbing was “the latest in a string of attacks against members of the Jewish community in New York (state) this week,” New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo said.
“Let me be clear: Anti-Semitism and bigotry of any kind are repugnant to our values of inclusion and diversity, and we have absolutely zero tolerance for such acts of hate,” the governor said in a statement.
He directed the state’s Hate Crime Task Force to investigate the incident. The Anti-Defamation League of New York was heading to the scene to learn more and coordinate with law enforcement, the group said.
Evan Bernstein, the ADL’s director for the New York/New Jersey region, is dismayed by the rise in anti-Semitic attacks in New York and demanded solutions, which he said go beyond policing. Of particular concern, he said, is that many orthodox and ultra-orthodox communities aren’t using the types of technology that facilitates reporting and awareness of these types of crimes.
Last week, New York Mayor Bill de Blasio said the city’s police department would boost its patrols after at least eight possible anti-Semitic incidents in a week.
Police will increase visits to houses of worship and “other critical areas in the community,” he said.
Israel’s President Reuven Rivlin was”shocked and outraged” by the stabbing, he said in a statement to CNN.
“The rise of anti-Semitism is not just a Jewish problem and certainly not just the State of Israel’s problem. We must work together to confront this evil, which is raising its head again and is a genuine threat around the world,” the statement said.
Israel will work with local authorities to deal with incidents of anti-Semitism, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said.
“We will work together in every way with the local authorities in order to help eliminate this phenomena. We offer our help to all countries,” he said at the start of the weekly cabinet meeting.
‘We cannot overstate the fear people are feeling’
As authorities began investigating the stabbings, officials shared messages of solidarity and resilience.
There is “zero tolerance for acts of hate of any kind and we will continue to monitor this horrific situation,” New York Attorney General Letitia James said in a tweet “I stand with the Jewish community tonight and every night.”
Added de Blasio, “Many Jewish families in our city have close ties to Monsey. We cannot overstate the fear people are feeling right now.”
“We will NOT allow this to become the new normal,” the mayor tweeted. “We’ll use every tool we have to stop these attacks once and for all. The NYPD has deployed a visible and growing presence around Jewish houses of worship on the streets in communities like Williamsburg, Crown Heights and Boro Park.”
The ADL will be working with leaders in orthodox and Hassidic communities to improve their reporting mechanisms, Bernstein said.
“There’s a fear of reporting. There’s a fear of retaliation, or they just don’t have the understanding of how to report,” he told CNN. “So what happens is in a place like here in Rockland County, you maybe will only show a few or handful of incidents that have taken place … when in reality — we believe, based in our conversations with orthodox leadership — there’s far more of that happening.”
ADL CEO Jonathan Greenblatt said it is “heart-wrenching to see the holiday of Hanukkah violated yet again” following last week’s “hateful assaults.”
“We are outraged because the answer is clear: the Jewish community NEEDS greater protection,” Greenblatt tweeted, demanding more protection for Jewish communities and consequences for the perpetrators of the attacks. “Whether worshiping in synagogue, shopping in the supermarket or celebrating at home, Jews should be safe from violence.”
CNN’s Mark Morales, Elizabeth Joseph, Eliott C. McLaughlin, Alta Spells, Oren Liebermann, Michael Schwartz and Artemis Moshtaghian contributed to this report.
Photo Credit: kmov.com
NY man dies after being beaten, mugged for $1 on Christmas Eve
(AP) — A 60-year-old man who was kicked and punched while defending his partner during a $1 mugging on Christmas Eve has died, the New York Police Department said Saturday.
Juan Fresnada died Friday afternoon at the Bronx hospital where he was taken in critical condition after the mugging early Tuesday, the NYPD said Saturday. Officers have released surveillance photos and videos in hopes of pinpointing suspects.
His partner, Byron Caceres, told the New York Daily News that Fresnada suffered the fatal blows while trying to spare him and urging him to run to safety, which he did.
He “tried to defend me,” Caceres, 29, told the newspaper Wednesday. He said he had been unable to summon help because he doesn’t have a cellphone. No contact information for him could immediately be found Saturday.
Surveillance video clips released by police show a man grabbing another man’s shirt and swinging him to the ground, then hitting him. Later clips show two other men joining the attacker, one of them grasping a trash can, as the beaten man starts to stand up.
It’s unclear whether he is Fresnada or Caceres, who didn’t need hospitalization.
The muggers took $1 from the men and fled, police said.
Caceres, originally from Honduras, and the Cuban-born Fresnada met through a program for poor gay men in 2015 and lived together in a building in Morrisania, according to the Daily News.
“He’s very calm, and I’m the one who is stressed all the time,” Caceres said Wednesday as Fresnada lay in intensive care.
Caceres says the muggers didn’t say anything to indicate the attack was a hate crime.
A neighbor, Aletha Jacobs, told the Daily News that Fresnada was well known and liked in the area.
“He never bothered nobody,” she said. “He’s a beautiful guy.”
Photo Credit: kmov.com
Florida grandmother tased by deputies on 70th birthday
A grandmother said she was tased three times and arrested on her 70th birthday for not cooperating with sheriff’s deputies trying to arrest her grandson at her Florida home, a report said.
The confrontation between Barbara Pinkney and members of the Manatee County Sheriff’s Office occurred last Thursday when the deputies tried to enter her home in search of Tevin Turner, according to WFLA, citing authorities.
Turner was being sought for allegedly violating his probation by carrying a concealed weapon, the report said.
Pinkney, who claimed her grandson wasn’t home at the time, refused to let the deputies inside and tried to close the door.
The sheriff’s office believes Turner may have been inside, but escaped amid the struggle, the report said.
“When he was on probation he gave this as his address, but he wasn’t living here,” Pinkney told the outlet.
During the scuffle, part of which was caught on camera by Turner’s wife, the deputies tased Pinkney in her left arm and back, according to a probable cause affidavit.
A deputy also held her to the ground.
“I was just hollering. I was scared. I didn’t know what else to do. I was just hollering,” Pinkney said.
The grandmother was arrested for obstruction and resisting an officer.
via: https://nypost.com/2019/12/30/florida-grandmother-tased-by-deputies-on-70th-birthday/
Photo Credit: Manatee County Sheriff’s Office
Tina Turner Mural Defaced With Incorrectly Drawn Swastika in North Carolina
A mural of legendary singer Tina Turner was vandalized with a red “swastika-type symbol” in Asheville, North Carolina, according a police report.
The Nazi symbol, drawn incorrectly, appeared on Monday evening and was reported to police the next day, according to a report from the Asheville Police Department.
The mural was located on the pull-down storefront of a record store, Static Age Records.
An employee of the store, Arieh Samson, told CNN that his reaction to the incident was “a mix of deep disappointment and anger.”
“Our record store isn’t just a record store,” Samson told CNN. “It’s a community space that hosts events multiple times a week. It’s truly a safe and inclusive space for many aspects of the community.”
CNN has reached out to the store owner for comment but has not heard back.
A spokeswoman for the Asheville Police Department told CNN on Saturday that the “incident is under further investigation,” and encouraged anyone with information that could aid the investigation to contact the Asheville Police Department or Buncombe County Crimestoppers.
Photo Credit: Arieh Samson via CNN
Suspect may have killed Tessa Majors because she bit his finger
The 14-year-old mugger suspected of killing Barnard College freshman Tessa Majors likely snapped and stabbed her to death because she bit his finger, law enforcement sources told The Post on Friday.
Majors, 18, was fighting for her life when she was set upon by the middle-school criminal and his two young buddies — and in a desperate bid to survive, she clamped down hard on the finger of the knife-wielding young mugger, who then flew into a rage, stabbing her multiple times, sources said.
“She bit him, and that is why he stabbed her,” a source said, citing the current theory detectives are working on.
One of the 14-year-old suspect’s alleged accomplices told cops right after the murder that Majors bit the teen’s finger, court papers show.
And in doing so, Majors also may have provided cops with the forensics to solve her murder. Investigators believe that her bite on the boy’s finger drew blood — and that blood may have been left behind on Major’s body.
The suspected stabber submitted Thursday to a Manhattan court-ordered DNA test, police officials said. Early next week, tests will reveal the boy’s DNA profile, authorities said, which will be compared with samples taken from swabs of Majors’ mouth.
Sources say the teen’s DNA will also be compared against any stray cells that rubbed off on Majors’ clothing during the struggle, which happened in Morningside Park on the evening of Dec. 11.
Meanwhile, the suspected stabber remains free without charges, pending the results of the DNA testing.
He was on the lam for more than two weeks before cops nabbed him in the Bronx on Thursday. He was brought in for questioning but didn’t say anything on the advice of his lawyers. Investigators believe he may have stayed underground until his finger healed, according to a source.
“He must not have had a bite mark” on his finger when he was taken in, a source familiar with the case said. “If he did, that would have been enough corroborating evidence to hold him.”
“He’s funny — he could tell a good joke to lighten up the mood,” a 12-year-old neighbor of the 14-year-old said Friday.
“I know he hangs around with not the right people at times,” she added. Still, “Nobody would ever think he would do anything like this,” she said.
“We don’t think he did it.”
So far, only Zyairr Davis, 13, is in custody and charged with the Dec. 11 murder, in which police believe three young muggers took part.
Photo Credit: Instagram; DCPI
Mother sentenced to 7 years in prison for injecting feces into her son’s IV during cancer treatment
An Indiana mother accused of injecting fecal matter into her 15-year-old son’s IV bag has been sentenced to seven years in prison.
Tiffany Alberts is set to serve five years of probation following her prison sentence, said Michael Leffler, a spokesman with the Marion County Prosecutor’s Office.
Alberts was convicted of six counts of aggravated battery and one count of neglect in a trial in September 2019. Alberts was found not guilty of an attempted murder charge, online court records show.
James Voyles, an attorney for Alberts, declined to comment.
The Wolcott, Indiana mother was arrested and charged in 2016 after she used a syringe to inject feces into her son’s IV while he was undergoing cancer treatments at Riley Hospital for Children in Indianapolis. She knowingly placed him “in a situation that endangered the dependent’s life or health,” Marion County Superior Court documents said.
Alberts said her actions were meant to get her son moved from the intensive care unit to another Riley unit, where she believed “the treatment was better,” the documents state.
Her son had been receiving treatment for leukemia since early August 2016 at the hospital, a Marion County police affidavit said. He was released and returned to the hospital a few days later, in early September 2016, with a fever, vomiting and diarrhea, according to the report.
Blood tests of the boy showed organisms that are normally found in feces caused a bacterial infection and sepsis, which an extensive medical evaluation could not to explain.
Suspecting someone may be contaminating the patient’s IV lines, hospital staff began monitoring the teenager’s room with video surveillance and spotted the mother injecting a substance into his central line.
Authorities said Alberts initially told investigators that she was injecting water to “flush it as the medicine that was given to him burned.” She later admitted to injecting her son’s own fecal matter, which she kept in a gift bag on the bathroom sink of his room, officials said.
Photo Credit: Marion County Jail