Tennessee mayor resigns after allegedly shoplifting at Target
A Tennessee mayor has resigned after he was allegedly caught shoplifting around $300 worth of merchandise from Target.
Fairview Mayor John Blade, 53, submitted his resignation Tuesday, nearly a month after he was accused of swiping items from a store in Spring Hill, the Nashville Tennessean reported.
The store loss prevention officer claimed that Blade used the self-checkout line Sept. 19, but didn’t pay for all of the products and walked out with $281 worth of stolen merchandise, news station WKRN reported.
The goods included more than 40 household items, including three tweezers and skin products, authorities said.
Blade turned himself in to the Maury County Sheriff’s Office on Oct. 8 and was issued a citation for theft of property.
Vice Mayor Debby Rainey was named acting mayor and will remain in the role until the November 2022 mayoral election, officials said.
via: https://nypost.com/2020/10/15/tennessee-mayor-resigns-after-allegedly-shoplifting-at-target/
Photo Credit: Spring Hill Police
Plane passenger caught smuggling gold nuggets in rectum to avoid taxes
Indian airport authorities literally struck gold when they spotted a man walking oddly — and discovered he had about 2 pounds in bullion shoved into his rectum, according to a report.
The GoAir passenger arrived from Dubai on Tuesday at Kerala’s Kannur Airport, where he tried to avoid paying an 18 percent tax on his precious nuggets by smuggling them where the sun don’t shine, The National reported.
Officials at the Air Intelligence Unit mined the stash, worth about $60,000, from the unidentified smuggler’s butt, according to the news outlet.
Another passenger on the same flight was caught carrying more than 3 pounds of gold, though officials did not disclose if that traveler had concealed it the same way.
On Wednesday, customs agents seized just under a pound of gold from a passenger who landed in Kozhikode, also known as Calicut, on an Air Arabia flight from Sharjah in the United Arab Emirates.
The gold was hidden in the traveler’s underwear.
via: https://nypost.com/2020/10/16/plane-passenger-caught-smuggling-gold-in-rectum-to-avoid-taxes/
Photo Credit: Commissionerate of Customs (Preventive), Cochin
Man allegedly yelled ‘Black lives don’t matter’ before attacking black teen – telling them “N—-s don’t belong on this beach”
A Michigan man accused of attacking a black teen with a bike lock and yelling “Black lives don’t matter” has been charged with a federal hate crime, authorities said.
Lee Mouat, 42, of Newport, allegedly attacked Devin Freelon Jr., 18, with a bike lock on June 6 at Sterling State Park in Monroe, where he confronted the teen and two friends, telling them “N—-s don’t belong on this beach,” a criminal complaint obtained by NBC News shows.
Witnesses said Mouat, who is white, threatened to “bash” the three teens’ heads if they didn’t turn their music down and called them “monsters” while threatening to hit them with a cooler if one of them said something to him, according to the complaint.
Freelon and his friends then started yelling back at Mouat, prompting him to walk to his car to grab a bike lock, which he used to assault Freelon, hitting him in the jaw and knocking him to the ground.
Another witness said Mouat yelled “Black lives don’t matter” at the teens before walking to his minivan.
The attack knocked out several of Freelon’s teeth and fractured his jaw, the Justice Department said Tuesday. The teen was a high school senior at the time at Orchard Center High School in Monroe, WDIV reported.
Mouat is already facing state charges in the attack. He was arraigned in June on counts of ethnic intimidation, assault with intent to do great bodily harm less than murder and assault with a dangerous weapon, according to the station.
Mouat remained held in Monroe County Jail as of Wednesday and had not yet entered a plea to the state charges. He had yet to appear before a judge on the federal hate crime charge, NBC News reported.
If convicted on the federal charge, Mouat faces up to 10 years in prison. His attorney did not immediately respond to a request for comment Wednesday, according to NBC News.
An online fundraiser for Freelon, meanwhile, generated more than $18,000 in donations before a dentist offered to provide him free care to fix his teeth.
“He is doing great and if all goes well, he gets a permanent set of teeth to replace the missing ones, sometime in the next few months,” the fundraiser’s organizer announced Wednesday.
via: https://nypost.com/2020/10/15/man-allegedly-yelled-black-lives-dont-matter-before-attacking-teen/
Photo Credit: Monroe County Sheriff’s Office
Florida teacher says she has right to ‘dislike blacks,’ video shows
A white Florida teacher is out of the classroom for saying she was entitled to “dislike blacks” since she was attacked by a gang on a train in Atlanta as a teen, school officials said.
Video of the exchange between social studies teacher Tracey Brown and students at Poinciana High School in Kissimmee shows one teen telling her that some black people live in communities where cops “do not treat them right” during an online class Monday.
“Do you understand?” the student then asked, setting Brown off, the video shows.
“Stop right there, David,” Brown replied. “Stop! I want to be very clear. What you don’t know about me could fill a friggin’ swimming pool.”
Brown then told the students she was attacked when she was 16 while riding a train in Atlanta by a gang that “used the language of blacks,” the startling footage shows.
“I have as much right as anyone else to dislike blacks for what happened to me,” Brown said. “So, you don’t get to preach to me what I do and don’t know.”
A second clip circulating online also showed Brown criticizing the Black Lives Matter movement, WFTV reports.
“You are implying that black lives matter more than anyone else,” Brown said at one point.
The student whom Brown admonished said the teacher’s comments came during a discussion about the social movement.
“I took offense to it because I am black,” the student told WFTV. “I didn’t want her to, like, say anything about this at all.”
Brown continued by saying she was a “little bit more educated” than the assailants who attacked her as a teen, the clip shows.
“And I was raised that skin tone is nothing but pigment,” Brown said. “It has nothing to do with who you are on the inside.”
Brown then turned her ire toward the Black Lives Matter movement, denigrating its supporters as “entitled, self-righteous individuals.” The teacher’s original lesson plan was about the Constitution before the topic shifted to Black Lives Matter, a second student told WFTV.
“I guarantee you wouldn’t support the movement at its heart,” Brown told the students, video shows.
Brown has been reassigned to a position outside the classroom with no interaction with students as school officials investigate the incident, Osceola County School District spokeswoman Dana Schafer told The Post on Thursday.
“Racism, intolerance, and injustice have no place in our communities or in our schools,” district officials said in a statement. “We will not tolerate behavior by students or staff which insults, degrades, or stereotypes any race, gender, disability, physical condition, ethnic group, religion, or sexual orientation.”
Brown, who first joined the district in 2012, left three years later before returning in 2018, Schafer said.
via: https://nypost.com/2020/10/15/florida-teacher-says-she-has-right-to-dislike-blacks/
Photo Credit: twitter
Attorney busted for recording co-worker with hidden phone in bathroom
A Houston attorney was busted for allegedly using a phone to secretly record a co-worker using the bathroom, officials said.
Landon Keating, 30, was arrested on charges for invasive visual recordings after a female colleague uncovered the device hidden in the women’s bathroom at the east Houston office, Harris County authorities said Tuesday.
She told authorities the phone belonged to Keating and contained several videos of her using the restroom.
The case was turned over to the high-tech crimes unit and a search warrant was issued for the phone.
“As a result of this investigation several hundred video and image files of the complainant using her own office bathroom were discovered,” Harris County Precinct 4 Constable Mark Herman said in a Facebook post.
Keating was taken into custody at Harris County Jail, where he was released on $25,000 bond, news station KPRC reported.
via: https://nypost.com/2020/10/14/attorney-busted-for-recording-coworker-with-hidden-phone-in-bathroom/
Photo Credit: Harris County Constable
Chris Christie: I should have worn a mask at White House super-spreader event
Chris Christie, who is recovering from COVID-19, said Thursday that he was wrong not to wear mask at a White House event for Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett and during debate prep for President Trump.
In an interview with the New York Times, Christie said he thought he was in a “safe zone” at the White House before coming down with the deadly disease soon after President Trump and a number of top aides and Senate Republicans tested positive for the virus.
“I believed when I entered the White House grounds, that I had entered a safe zone, due to the testing that I and many others underwent every day,” Christie told the Times in a statement.
“I was wrong. I was wrong not to wear a mask at the Amy Coney Barrett announcement and I was wrong not to wear a mask at my multiple debate prep sessions with the president and the rest of the team,” he added.
He also urged Americans to follow advice from scientists and take precautions to stop the spread of the virus.
“I hope that my experience shows my fellow citizens that you should follow C.D.C. guidelines in public no matter where you are and wear a mask to protect yourself and others,” he added in the statement.
Christie was released from a New Jersey hospital last week after being treated with an experimental antibody cocktail from drugmaker Eli Lilly, according to the Times. The treatment has now been pulled from hospitals due to safety concerns.
In an interview with the newspaper, Christie said he was sitting in the third row at the White House ceremony after being told everyone in the first three rows had tested negative that day.
“I shouldn’t have relied on that,” he said.
via: https://nypost.com/2020/10/15/chris-christie-i-should-have-worn-a-mask-at-super-spreader-event/
Photo Credit: AP Photo/Julio Cortez, File
Detroit woman says she woke up to pastor peeing on her on plane
DETROIT (FOX 2) – A well-known pastor from North Carolina is accused of relieving himself on a sleeping woman in the backseat of a Delta plane as she returned to Detroit from Las Vegas.
Alicia Beverly had just spent a great time in Vegas and could not wait to get home Monday night. They were on the red-eye flight and pretty much everyone was asleep, including her.
Alicia said she was curled up in a back seat next to her sister when suddenly she woke up to the feeling of being urinated on.
“It felt warm, like on the side of me I felt something warm,” she said.
In her sleepy haze, right at eye level, she saw something very unexpected.
“I jump up and I seen his private area out and I screamed and that woke everybody up,” Alicia said. “By that time I actually looked at him and I see him shake himself off and I’m like this man just peed on me! I looked and there was a puddle of pee in the seats!”
She screamed and got the attention of everyone on the plane, including an off-duty officer who rushed over and restrained the man, a well-known pastor from North Carolina.
According to sources, the pastor had an apparent reaction to a sleep aid.
“He didn’t say anything the whole time he was standing there,” Alicia said.
Alicia said after being treated like a bathroom, she sat in those wet clothes for several hours before landing at Detroit Metro in Romulus. The pastor was taken into custody but hasn’t been charged yet. The FBI handles incidents in the air and they will make a decision on charges.
Alicia, naturally, is filled with anxiety.
“I left work yesterday because I couldn’t stay but I had to tell them why I needed to leave. It was a lot. My anxiety was really high literally. Since then I have only gotten 4 hours of sleep,” she said.
She said she’s grateful the officer who was there took charge of the pastor and something is being done for his actions.
The pastor’s camp has decided not to comment on the story.
via: https://www.fox2detroit.com/news/detroit-woman-says-she-woke-up-to-pastor-peeing-on-her-on-plane
Photo Credit: fox2detroit.com
2-year-old girl’s arm ripped off after she reaches into cage of wolfdog
A 2-year-old Michigan girl’s arm was torn off when she reached inside the cage of a wolfdog at her grandmother’s sanctuary and tried to grab its collar, according to reports.
Brenda Pearson, who founded the Howling Timbers Animal Sanctuary in Muskegon, described the horrifying July incident involving Sophia Scraver in a lengthy post on Facebook.
She wrote that she believes her granddaughter “was interested in the shiny collar being worn by one of the wolf dogs. A wolf dog that was friendly, loved to be groomed and preferred human attention over treats.”
Pearson continued: “We believe she grabbed his collar and he pulled to get away. She then got her arm stuck in the fence at the elbow and lost her arm.
“After she was rushed to the hospital, I went back to the pen and picked up her little arm. I can still see it today. Her little hand was still closed as if she was still grasping the collar.”
Although she first reported to authorities that the animal bit Sophia, Pearson said that “the more I thought about it, it didn’t make sense.”
“If the animal bit an arm that was inside the pen, there would be bite wounds on the hand and lower part of the arm,” she wrote, adding that the girl “had no bite wounds on her arm. She had one tiny cut on her wrist.”
The grandmother continued: “If the animal bit the arm from the side, there would be a part of her arm missing. None of that was the case which led me to believe my first assumption was wrong.”
Pearson said she was investigated by Child Protective Services officials “who found no wrong doing on my part.”
“I asked the CPS investigator if he seen any bite wounds in the pictures and he stated that he did not. I would of (sic) given both my arms to save hers but it doesn’t work that way so instead, I will cherish the special little girl that amazes us everyday,” she added.
On Friday, authorities said they found 47 “illegal” wolfdogs at the facility, in addition to “six red foxes, three coyotes, four eastern box turtles and two fawns,” according to the Mirror.
The Michigan Department of Natural Resources said the sanctuary is believed to have been illegally breeding animals, according to the news outlet.
“Michigan Department of Natural Resources conservation officers led a joint investigation and served a search warrant Friday morning at Howling Timbers, an animal rehabilitation facility in Muskegon that is believed to be illegally breeding and housing animals, including ‘wolf dogs’ – a crossbreed between a wolf and dog (or another wolf dog) that is illegal in Michigan unless necessary permits are obtained,” the DNR said in a statement.
Conservation Officer Anna Cullen said that “no person should be allowed near those dogs. It’s not fair to this child who lost an arm.”
She added: “We are doing everything we can to ensure the safety of anyone who may encounter any animal at Howling Timbers, including the health and safety of all the animals at the facility.”
The animal sanctuary responded to the agency on Facebook, where it addressed the guidelines it was following and also posted an image of an “animal shelter registration” from the state’s Department of Agriculture and Rural Development dated Oct. 19, 2010.
Pearson told the Daily Mail that the three coyotes DNR officials removed had been kept “legally under our wildlife rehabilitation permit” along with the six domestic-bred foxes.
Meanwhile, a friend of the family has launched a GoFundMe effort to raise more for a prosthetic arm for Sophia, who was described as still smiling despite the horrific injury and “doing well.”
via: https://nypost.com/2020/10/13/2-year-olds-arm-ripped-off-after-she-reaches-into-wolfdog-cage/
Photo Credit: Gofundme
Texas girl dies after couple forced her to jump on trampoline in heat
A Texas couple is facing capital murder charges for forcing an 8-year-old girl to jump non-stop on a trampoline in 110-degree heat as a sadistic form of punishment, police said.
Daniel Schwarz, 44, and Ashley Schwarz, 34, of Odessa, were arrested Monday in the death of the child who was pronounced dead at the couple’s home on Aug. 29 when cops responded to a medical call.
“Investigation revealed that the 8-year-old child had been punished and was not allowed to eat breakfast and was required to jump on the trampoline without stopping for an extended period of time,” Odessa police said in a statement Monday.
The couple — who reportedly served as guardians of the girl, identified by KOSA as Jaylin — also didn’t allow her to drink any water while she was being punished, police said.
The high temp in Odessa — a city of roughly 123,000 in west Texas — on Aug. 29 was 100 degrees, KWTX reported. But the temperature of the trampoline read to be approximately 110 degrees and the ground was approximately 150 degrees, police said Monday.
An autopsy released Thursday determined Jaylin died of dehydration and listed her manner of death as homicide, police said.
Daniel and Ashley Schwarz were not Jaylin’s biological parents, but were the girl’s guardians, her relatives told KOSA.
It’s unclear if the girl was in foster care, a police spokesman told the Odessa American.
The couple was taken into custody at the Ector County Law Enforcement Center, where neither had bonds set as of Monday afternoon, the newspaper reported.
via: https://nypost.com/2020/10/13/girl-dies-after-couple-forced-her-to-jump-on-trampoline-in-heat-cops/
Photo Credit: City of Odessa
Woman who burned granddaughter for urinating on couch gets 12 years in prison
An Indiana woman who pleaded guilty to scalding her 4-year-old granddaughter in a hot shower for urinating on a couch has been sentenced to 12 years in prison, prosecutors said.
Gretta Feil, 50, of Lebanon, will then serve four years of probation on two felony counts of aggravated battery for the “horrific abuse” she inflicted upon her granddaughter while the youngster stayed with her in April, Boone County prosecutors announced Tuesday.
“Her physical scars are healing, and we hope that this sentence today helps the healing process for her emotional scars,” Special Victim’s Prosecutor Heidi Jennings said in a statement. “The evidence suggested Gretta Feil’s abuse of this child was beginning to escalate.”
Feil, who was watching the girl and her brother after picking them up at her son’s Alabama home in early April, was arrested later that month after child welfare workers found third-degree burns on her granddaughter’s face, scalp and genitals, the Greensburg Daily News reported.
The girl told her mother she was burned in the shower, investigators said, while other relatives told police Feil struck her with a wooden backscratcher and took her into a bathroom, a probable cause affidavit shows.
An investigation revealed Feil put the girl in the shower after she had a “wetting accident” on the couch or had cut the piece of furniture. The water temperature inside Feil’s shower reached 132 degrees in just 15 seconds and got as hot as 137 degrees after 30 seconds, the affidavit shows.
Investigators who examined the girl said the abuse that Feil inflicted on her granddaughter can eventually lead to a child’s death if not stopped early, Jennings said.
“She’s doing good now,” Jennnings told The Post Wednesday of the young victim, who is back at home in Alabama. “Her parents are very supportive of her, very supportive of the prosecution and we touch base with them quite frequently. She’s healing.”
Feil, who pleaded guilty in September, had previously claimed her granddaughter was burned after getting into “her cream and lotions” inside her apartment, but investigators determined the girl’s injuries were not accidental and could have been caused by scalding water. She’s expected to have permanent scarring as a result of her injuries, the affidavit shows.
The 16-year sentence Feil received is the maximum for a Level 3 felony, prosecutors said. She was arrested after child welfare workers got reports of a child possibly being abused while in her care.
“We are thankful to every person who intervened and saved this child’s life, especially the neighbors who did not ignore the child’s cries of distress,” Jennings said in a statement. “They did what we need all persons to do – SEE SOMETHING, SAY SOMETHING.”
via: https://nypost.com/2020/10/14/woman-who-burned-granddaughter-for-urinating-on-couch-gets-12-years/
Photo Credit: Boone County Sheriff’s Office