Woman declared ‘dead’ found alive inside Detroit funeral home
A Detroit woman was declared dead and shipped off to a funeral home Sunday — only for shocked workers to discover she was still alive.
The woman, who was not identified, was sent to the James H. Cole Funeral Home by her family after she was found unresponsive in her apartment and declared dead after paramedics failed to resuscitate her, ABC News reported.
That’s when workers at the mortuary made the startling discovery — she was still breathing.
“While it is our practice not to comment on open investigations, we can confirm that on Sunday, August 23, 2020, we received a call to pick up a Southfield woman who was deceased,” the funeral home said in a statement to ABC.
“Upon arrival at the funeral home, our staff confirmed she was breathing and called EMS.”
The woman had been found in her home in the Detroit suburb around 7:30 a.m. Sunday, Southfield Fire Chief Johnny Menifee told the outlet.
“The paramedics performed CPS and other life-reviving methods for 30 minutes,” the chief said. “Given medical readings and the condition of the patient, it was determined at that time that she did not have signs of life.”
Menifee said firefighters called in the Oakland County Medical Examiner’s Office, and “the patient was again determined to have expired and the body was released directly to the family to make arrangements with a funeral of their choosing.”
But later that day funeral officials called the fire department to tell them she was alive.
“They did the normal medical interventions and that’s when the funeral home told them that she was to be embalmed and all that,” Detroit Fire Department Deputy Commissioner Dave Fornell told ABC. “It kind of surprised us. We couldn’t believe it.”
“I talked to our medical people and they said she was breathing, she had a decent heart rate, she had decent blood-oxygen,” Fornell said. “But she was definitely alive when we got there.”
The woman was transported to Sinai-Grace Hospital in Detroit, which declined to release any information.
via: https://nypost.com/2020/08/24/woman-declared-dead-found-alive-inside-detroit-funeral-home/
Photo Credit: WXYZ/ABC
Vanessa Bryant Celebrates Daughter Capri’s First Birthday With Emotional Post
Capri Bryant is one! Vanessa and the late Kobe Bryant‘s youngest daughter turned a year old on Saturday. To celebrate the birthday girl, Vanessa took to Instagram to share a photo of herself and her late husband cradling their little one. In her heartbreaking note, she explained that her “Koko Bean” was named after her “dearly missed daddy.”
“Happy 1st Birthday Capri! Mommy, Daddy, Nani, Gigi and BB love you SO much!!! God Bless you sweet princess. ❤️,” Vanessa captioned the post. “Capri Kobe Bryant a.k.a. ‘Koko-Bean’ named after her dearly missed daddy, Kobe Bean Bryant ❤️We miss you SO much Gigi and Daddy.”
Kobe and his 13-year-old daughter, Gianna, both died in a helicopter crash in January. Since their deaths, Vanessa and her daughters — Natalie, Bianka and Capri — have had to celebrate a number of milestones without their family members.
Just last month, Capri took her first steps. Vanessa posted the major accomplishment on her Instagram, writing, “My baby!!!! So proud of my Koko Bean ❤️Capri took her first steps from her auntie Sophie to mama today. ??.”
In the video, Vanessa reaches out her arms to Capri, who then walks over to her to the delight of everyone in the room. “I knew you were going to do it,” the excited mom exclaims before showering her daughter with kisses.
This week, Vanessa explained why she and her 17-year-old daughter decided to block fan pages on Instagram. The widow explained that it’s been “ready hard” for her and Natalia to constantly see images of the late basketball player and Gianna.
Thx so much of all the ?,” Vanessa began. “@nataliabryant and I have unfortunately had to block fan pages because it’s been really hard to go online and constantly see pics of our beloved Gigi and Kobe under every single square of our explore pages. Blocking the fan pages has helped change the algorithm.”
“We ? you all but please understand that we had to do this for our own healing not because we don’t appreciate your ?,” she added. “Xo.”
The late Los Angeles Laker, meanwhile, will be honored during Sunday’s virtual 2020 ESPYS. ESPN announced that this year’s show will include “a love letter to Kobe Bryant from the people of Los Angeles, featuring a performance by Snoop Dogg.”
Photo Credit: kmov.com
Friend calls murder-for-hire charges ‘major blow’ for Sweetie Pie’s family as Miss Robbie travels to Mississippi
ST. LOUIS (KMOV.com) — Miss Robbie Montgomery, owner of Sweetie Pie’s, is traveling to Mississippi after her son was federally charged in a murder-for-hire plot in the death of her grandson in 2016.
James Timothy Norman, who goes by Tim, is one of the stars of the St. Louis-based show, Welcome to Sweetie Pie’s.
Norman faces conspiracy charges in a plot involving the death of his nephew in March 2016. Norman is awaiting extradition from Mississippi to St. Louis.
Federal agents accused Norman of conspiring with an exotic dancer from Memphis to have his nephew, Andre Montgomery, killed to collect a $450,000 life insurance policy where Norman was the sole beneficiary.
James Clark, a long-time friend of the family, said the allegations are a major blow to everyone who knows and loves the family.
“That family is part of the St. Louis soul,” Clark said. “To know the family is to love the family.”
Clark said Norman has been involved in programs to reduce violence in St. Louis and reached out to young people.
“Tim has been very involved in mentoring young boys,” Clark said. “His life experience took him to the penitentiary, and he was able to change the trajectory of a lot of young boys’ lives by sharing with them his experience.”
Norman’s biography on the website for the reality show says he was sentenced to 10 years in prison for armed robbery when he was a teenager.
On Wednesday, fans of the show continued posting messages online expressing their love and support.
“The biggest overture that we can make right now is to show love and support for the family,” Clark said.
Court records show that Norman tried to collect the life insurance policy on his nephew within a week after his death, but he was unable to collect the money because he wasn’t able to provide certain documents.
Photo Credit: kmov.com
Protests erupt in Louisiana after police shoot, kill Black man armed with knife outside store
LAFAYETTE, La. (AP) — The mother of a man fatally shot by Louisiana police said her son was intelligent, shy and had sought therapy for social anxiety. Her lawyers said they plan to sue over the death of Trayford Pellerin, who police said had a knife and was trying to enter a convenience store.
The shooting Friday night was captured on video, and the state ACLU condemned what it described as a “horrific and deadly incident of police violence against a Black person.” Both the ACLU and the Southern Poverty Law Center quickly called for an investigation.
Pellerin’s death prompted a crowd of protesters to gather Saturday and demonstrate against the latest fatal police shooting. Officers in riot gear fired smoke canisters on Saturday night to get the crowd to disperse, Trooper Derek Senegal said. No tear gas was deployed, he said.
On Friday night, Lafayette officers followed Pellerin, 31, on foot as he left a convenience store where he had created a disturbance with a knife, Louisiana State Police said. Stun guns failed to stop him, and the officers shot Pellerin as he tried to enter another convenience store, still with the knife, according to a news release.
Pellerin became anxious in groups and may have been frightened by the officers, Michelle Pellerin told The Advocate. He had sought professional help earlier this year, she said.
“Instead of giving him a helping hand they gave him bullets,” national civil rights attorney Ben Crump told the newspaper. He and Baton Rouge attorney Ronald Haley said they have begun their own investigation by interviewing witnesses. Some said Pellerin was not armed, Haley said.
The family believes Pellerin may have been having a mental health crisis, Crump said.
Lafayette police asked state police to investigate — standard procedure in the state for shootings by local officers.
“Lafayette police shot Mr. Pellerin several times as he walked away from them,” Margaret Huang, president and CEO of the Southern Poverty Law Center, said in an emailed statement. “His killing demands an analysis of the excessive use of force by law enforcement. We fully support movement leaders’ calls for a swift and transparent investigation into Mr. Pellerin’s killing.”
State ACLU executive director Alanah Odoms Hebert said, “Once again, video footage has captured a horrific and deadly incident of police violence against a Black person who was brutally killed in front of our eyes.”
Captured on video, the May 25 death of George Floyd under the knee of a white Minneapolis police officer sparked a global reckoning over police tactics and racial injustice.
“Trayford Pellerin should be alive today. Instead, a family is mourning and a community is grieving,” her statement said. “None of our communities are safe when the police can murder people with impunity or when routine encounters escalate into deadly shooting sprees.”
Rikasha Montgomery, who took a video of the shooting, told The Advertiser that a man holding what looked like a knife kept walking down the highway while some officers fired stun guns at him. Officers holding guns shouted at him to get onto the ground, said Montgomery, 18.
She said they fired when the man reached the door of a Shell gas station.
“When I heard the gunshots, I couldn’t hold my phone like I was first filming,” she said. “I feel kind of scared about it. I’m traumatized. You’re so used to hearing about this, but I never thought I would experience it.”
Crump, representing Pellerin’s family, called the shooting reckless and his death tragic.
“The officers involved should be fired immediately for their abhorrent and fatal actions,” Crump said in a statement Saturday.
The incident was the third shooting by Lafayette police since mid-July. State police said a man was critically wounded last month after being shot during an altercation with police. Another man was in stable condition after being shot during a burglary investigation earlier this month.
Haley told The Advocate that he and Crump will be seeking reform and policy changes in the police department as well as damages.
“We want policy changes as well, so that Ben and I are not in the living room with another family in Lafayette dealing with this,” Haley said.
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The spelling of Trooper Derek Senegal’s last name has been corrected.
Photo Credit: kmov.com
Man found guilty of tainting baby food with metal shards to extort almost $2Mil from Tesco
A British farmer added metal shards to baby food in a sick plot to extort nearly $2 million from the supermarket chain Tesco.
Nigel Wright, 45, of Lincolnshire was found guilty of three counts of blackmail and two charges of contaminating goods after he tainted the infant food and sent dozens of emails and letters to the food giant demanding money, the BBC reported.
A UK court heard the horrifying stories of two mothers who were just moments away from feeding their babies when they noticed fragments of metal in the food, the outlet said.
“I gave my son a couple of spoonfuls and noticed something shiny,” one mother, Morven Smith, told the court. “It was horrendous. I felt sick I was so shocked.”
When cops raided Wright’s sheep farm they discovered photographs of tainted baby food and draft blackmail notes on his laptop, the BBC said.
One note read: “Imagine a baby’s mouth cut open and blood pouring out, or the inside of their bellies cut and bleeding. You pay, you save them.”
The scheme began in May 2018 and ended this past February. Wright will be sentenced on Sept. 28.
via: https://nypost.com/2020/08/20/man-found-guilty-of-tainting-baby-food-to-blackmail-tesco/
Photo Credit: Hertfordshire Constabulary
Suspected Chicago looter busted trying to sell $2,700 sweater to undercover cops
Undercover cops busted a suspected looter in Chicago, after he tried to sell them a $2,700 designer sweater, according to a report.
Melvin Banks, 29, advertised the Brunello Cucinelli swag for sale online, which was seen by a staffer at the Italian luxury brand’s looted Windy City store, prosecutors said, according to the Chicago Sun-Times.
Banks was arrested after undercover cops arranged to pay $800 for the stolen item — one that clearly impressed the judge at his first court hearing Wednesday, the paper noted.
“I don’t know how a $2,000 sweater feels, but it must be immaculate,” Cook County Judge John Lyke Jr. told the hearing, according to the report.
It “feels very, very soft, I’m certain. But that’s a little too rich for my blood,” the judge insisted.
Banks — a dad of three who lives with his parents — told police he was asleep during the Aug. 10 looting, prosecutors said.
He claimed he got it for free from his girlfriend — but she gave a conflicting story about them being out of town at the time and getting it from a cousin, the report said.
Banks was held on $2,000 bail, but kept overnight for a pending drug charge for which he was out on bond, the Sun-Times said.
He is not the only accused looter with swanky swag. Mom of four Gabrielle McGriff was charged Tuesday with selling a pair of $1,400 boots also stolen from the Brunello Cucinelli store, the paper said.
The looting devastated Chicago last week, sparked by false reports about the officer-involved shooting of Latrell Allen, who police say was only hit after he fired at two officers while trying to flee arrest.
Photo Credit: nypost.com
Camera catches Florida woman enter stranger’s home to allegedly abduct baby
A Florida woman was caught on a doorbell camera trying to trick her way into a stranger’s home to abduct a baby — one of two attempted abductions that night, according to police and local reports.
Hannah Braun, 28, had left two young kids alone in her own home as she wandered into two properties in St. Petersburg early Tuesday, police told WFLA.
“It’s me, Momma — Hannah,” Braun called out, seemingly swaying as she tried the handle on one of the houses, footage caught on a Ring doorbell camera shows.
She is then seen entering the home after a child opened the door. Inside, she allegedly tried to snatch a nine-month-old baby from her 12-year-old sister’s arms before the mom heard and chased her away.
“She’s standing in my living room, talking about, ‘I’m just here to get the baby. I’m trying to protect the baby,’” the child’s mother, who only gave the name Amber, told the station.
“A random person can come to your house and literally take your child out of your house?” she said, describing how the ordeal left her scared to live in the area.
Just moments earlier, Braun had been in another nearby home and allegedly tried to snatch a 1-year-old, the child’s grandmother claimed.
“She said she was taking care of babies here. … She wanted this baby,” Thelma Reynolds told WFLA.
After Braun was arrested, police found two scared kids — both under the age of 5 — at her home, with one telling officers she “lost her mommy,” police said in a report, according to the outlet.
Police did not elaborate on what her relationship is to the two children.
Authorities also did not say if drink or drugs was a factor, nor reveal a possible motive for the attempted abductions.
Braun is being held on $145,000 bond on charges of attempted kidnapping, burglary with assault or battery, child abuse, and two counts of neglect of a child without great bodily harm, records show.
via: https://nypost.com/2020/08/21/florida-woman-enters-strangers-home-to-allegedly-abduct-baby/
Photo Credit: Pinellas County Sheriff’s Office
Former Florida county tax collector faces child sex-trafficking charge
A Florida county’s former tax collector allegedly paid for sex with an underage girl and tapped the state’s motor vehicle database for records on people with whom he was engaged in “sugar daddy” relationships, federal prosecutors said Friday.
Joel Greenberg, a Republican, was the elected Seminole County tax collector until his resignation in June.
Prosecutors leveled the charges in a new indictment unsealed in Orlando Federal Court that accuses Greenberg of sex trafficking a child.
The charge involves a girl, age 14 to 17, WESH-TV reported, citing an attorney representing Greenberg. It is punishable by a 10-year prison sentence.
The indictment says the crime took place during a six-month period in 2017.
“We vigorously deny the allegations in the second superseding indictment,” Greenberg’s attorney Vincent Citro said. “The government will not be able to prove this case, and we look forward to prevailing at trial.”
Greenberg resigned two months ago after the feds indicted him for the first time on charges of stalking a political opponent and producing false
In 2018, the Florida chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations condemned Greenberg for what they said were “multiple Islamophobic, racist, and xenophobic Facebook posts.”
Photo credit: Florida chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations
Georgia cop fired after tasing unarmed woman in viral TikTok video
A Georgia cop has been fired after he was caught on a viral TikTok video tasing an unarmed black woman on her front porch, officials said Friday.
Michael Oxford, formerly of the Gwinnett County Police Department outside of Atlanta, was first placed on desk duty following the Tuesday incident and was fired Friday after an internal probe, the police department said in a statement.
“The investigation in this case has shown that Officer Oxford violated our policy and did not meet our core values,” the department said.
“We strive to conduct ourselves in a manner that promotes mutual respect within the community and our peers.”
The incident unfolded Tuesday evening when Oxford responded to a home in Loganville after receiving a report for a damaged car. The complainant told cops a group of people threw a bottle at her car, which left behind an unknown liquid on the vehicle, AJC reported.
The incident was captured on the homeowner’s surveillance system and after police reviewed the video, they recognized Aytra Thomas, who was on a porch across the street.
When Oxford approached Thomas to speak with her, a group of women, including Thomas’s daughter Kyndesia Smith, 22, began shouting at him, the outlet said, citing an internal police report.
Oxford said the shouting made it “difficult to speak with Aytra and further conduct my investigation” and told Smith she needed to pipe down or move away if she didn’t want to be thrown in jail on obstruction charges, the police report states, according to AJC.
In a video of the incident, which has racked up millions of views on TikTok, Smith can be heard saying “I’m not going nowhere” and “You’re on my property. We did not call you.”
When Oxford tried to place Smith under arrest, she stood behind her mother, leading the former cop to start grabbing her, the video shows.
When Smith refused Oxford’s orders to “get on the ground,” he tased her, sending her falling into bushes beneath the porch, video shows.
Smith, who police say kicked Oxford when she was eventually placed under arrest, was charged with felony obstruction and simple battery against a police officer and was released Wednesday after posting a bond.
Oxford has worked with the department since February 2019 and had no disciplinary history, according to records.
via: https://nypost.com/2020/08/21/georgia-cop-fired-after-tasing-woman-in-viral-tiktok-video/
Photo Credit: nypost.com
Master P Introduces Black-Owned Brands to Replace Aunt Jemima and Uncle Ben
Rap mogul and entrepreneur Master P has introduced a new line of Black-owned products to directly compete with Aunt Jemima’s pancake syrup and Uncle Ben’s rice products. His products include Uncle P’s Original Syrup, Uncle P’s Buttermilk Pancake and Waffle Mix, and Uncle P’s Louisiana Seasoned Rice.
The products are already available in many grocery stores in Texas and Louisiana, and distribution will continue to expand across the United States.
“When you look at Aunt Jemima, and you look at Uncle Ben, we don’t own those products, we never did,” Master P said in an interview with Yahoo Finance. “We need to understand that we’re not going to be able to put money back in our [black] community because we don’t own those brands. Our grandparents [have] been having us buy those products because they think it’s people that look like us.”
He posted an infomercial on Instagram with the following message: “To change the narrative it starts with education and ownership. Why not buy from us when we are going to buy these products anyway? I’m using the same blueprint that I used in the music business to take over the food industry with Uncle P’s Rice, Uncle P’s Grits, Uncle P’s Oatmeal, Uncle P’s Pancake Mix & Uncle P’s Syrup. We’re flooding the grocery stores with great tasting quality products owned by us.”
Master P is best known as the founder of No Limit Records, which sold more than 100 million records in the late 90s and early 2000s. In addition to his new line of food products, Master P also owns numerous other brands including Rap Snacks and an apparel and shoe collection called MoneYatti.
Learn more about Uncle P’s food products by visiting UnclePrice.com
Photo Credit: blackbusiness.coom