Infant dead after dad leaves twins in car outside Alabama car dealership
An 11-month-old boy died after he and his twin sister were left in a hot car for more than three hours outside an Alabama Honda dealership where their dad worked, according to news reports.
Police responding to the Sunny King Honda dealership in Oxford, Alabama at around noon on Friday said temperatures had topped 90 degrees by the time the two kids were taken out of the car — where they had been left since 8:30 a.m.
Both were rushed to a nearby hospital, where the boy was pronounced dead but his sister is doing well, according to CNN.
Police have not identified the children or the father, who told police he only remembered the kids were still in the car when his wife called and asked how they twins were doing.
No charges have been filed.
“All indications seem that this is a tragic accident,” Calhoun County Coroner Pat Brown told the network.
“No one can fathom the way this family feels, and I especially want to make sure that people are sympathetic to this family and that they get all the facts before they pass judgment.”
The car dealership said in a statement that “the Sunny King Automotive Group family is hurting.”
Oxford Police Chief Bill Partridge said on Facebook that the investigation is ongoing.
The case bears chilling similarities to the case of Rockland County dad Juan Rodriguez, whose one-year-old twins died after he left them in a sweltering car outside his job in the Bronx.
Rodriguez is facing two counts of manslaughter.
Photo Credit: Shutterstock
Motorist was killed after looking at another driver the wrong way
PHOENIX – A Phoenix man was arrested this week on suspicion of shooting and killing another man who looked at him while stopped at a red light in March, authorities say.
Nicolas Elliott, 30, was booked into a Maricopa County jail Thursday on suspicion of first-degree murder, aggravated assault, misconduct involving weapons and drug-related charges, according to the Phoenix Police Department.
Police, in a press release, said Elliott shot and killed 26-year-old Alex W. Mixon on March 1 about 3:15 a.m., “for merely looking at him while stopped at a red traffic light.”
Mixon was traveling west on Thunderbird Road in a Dodge pickup truck at the time of the shooting, according to the police press release.
The shooting caused the truck to cross into eastbound lanes and leave the roadway, according to police. The truck hit a power pole and then traveled through a wall before coming to a stop.
Mixon was taken to a nearby hospital, where he later died of his injuries, according to the police press release. He was the sole occupant of the truck, according to Maricopa County court documents.
Police say they originally believed the incident was a single-vehicle collision. However, an autopsy on March 2 revealed Mixon had been shot and his death was determined to be a homicide, court documents say.
Elliott fled the scene after the shooting, the court documents say.
Surveillance video from the area of 32nd Street and Thunderbird Road, which police say was the closest major intersection to the shooting, showed Mixon stopped at a red light March 1 about 2:40 a.m. when a larger pickup truck stopped directly beside him in a left-turn lane, according to court documents. The video shows the larger truck did not turn left onto 32nd Street and instead continued west on Thunderbird Road while Mixon followed, the court documents add.
The shooting and collision that followed were out of the camera’s view, court documents say.
An anonymous person reported in July that they overheard Elliott talking about shooting someone in the face earlier this year because the man gave him a dirty look while they were stopped next to each other at an intersection, according to the court documents.
Three other people interviewed by police said they were present at the time of the shooting, according to court documents. They said Mixon “merely looked over at (Elliott) which in turn enraged (him) to fire his handgun at (Mixon),” the court documents add.
Other witnesses interviewed by police said Elliott bragged about the shooting, according to court documents.
During an interview with police Thursday, Elliott said he remembered arguing with a man while at a red light, the court documents say. He said he had forgotten whether he fired a weapon at the man but said “if he could go back in time, he would take the incident back,” the court documents say.
Police say Elliott also admitted that firearms and drugs found during his arrest belonged to him, according to court documents.
Elliott is being held on a $1 million bond and is scheduled to appear in court Oct. 3, according to court documents.
via: https://currently.att.yahoo.com/news/motorist-killed-looking-another-driver-012251551.html
Photo Credit: usatoday
Man in blackface poses with Florida mayor at ‘African safari-themed’ police fashion show
A Florida police department held an African safari-themed senior fashion show — where a man in blackface posed with a local mayor.
Medley Mayor Roberto Martell is seen smiling in a photograph with two women and a man in a tribal-like costume who was holding a spear at the annual event hosted by the town’s police department for nearly the past 20 years, WPLG reports.
Photos posted on social media of the Sept. 20 soiree show the unidentified man gleefully dancing with other revelers — and even being recognized with an award at the fashion show, the station reports.
“If you know the history of blackface, since the 1800s it was used as a minstrel show, a way to depict black people in a derogatory way,” Miami-Dade County NAACP president Ruban Roberts told WPLG. “In 2019, the mayor [and] police department should be aware of what those images conjure up in people of color.”
The photo is a clear example of not only “ignorance” but racial insensitivity, Roberts said.
Martell, who was elected in the Miami-Dade County town in 2012, said he was “very sorry” for the photo when reached by The Post early Friday.
“This is a senior event that the police have been doing for the past nineteen years,” Martell wrote. “We are sorry if we hurt anyone’s feelings and it will not happen again.”
In a statement issued later in the day, Martell said he was “genuinely sorry.”
“I’m upset with myself for not realizing at the time the photo was being taken how serious and hurtful this image would be to people of color. I was insensitive.”
Martell told the Miami Herald he plans to meet with NAACP staffers to discuss the incident, a plan that Roberts welcomes.
“We need to spread a message of awareness and prevent this from happening again,” the NAACP official told the newspaper.
Medley’s police chief, meanwhile, initially agreed to answer questions on camera, but later acknowledged the incident in a statement, WPLG reports.
“This event brings our senior citizen together to promote community and have a good time,” Chief Jeanette Said-Jinete said in a statement. “This year’s theme was African Safari, and unfortunately, a 78-year-old participant dressed inappropriately and clearly did not understand how others might be offended. For this, we apologize and regret the incident.”
Photo Credit: Local 10
New Jersey family’s Halloween display depicting a man hanging in noose sparks outrage
A New Jersey family’s Halloween display depicting a man being hanged from a noose sparked outrage from neighbors and the NAACP — which said it should be considered a hate crime, according to new reports.
Ryan McDonald displayed the stuffed, dark-complexioned dummy hanging from a wooden gallows-like structure in front of his home in Mannington, Salem County — and was forced to take it down when he received a flood of backlash, CBS Philly reported.
“The hangman’s noose was going to be a part of a pirate theme that we did, and I guess some people just thought it wasn’t quite appropriate,” McDonald told the station.
Beyond just being inappropriate, the display should be considered a hate crime, the local NAACP chapter says.
“Put a scarecrow up on a bale of hay, we don’t care,” Salem County NAACP president Nelson Carney Jr. told the station. “But if it has a noose around its neck, we don’t care what color. We’re not going to accept it.”
Salem County Prosecutor John Lenahan told NJ.com that he reported the hangman to the New Jersey State Police, which has jurisdiction over that road.
A state trooper spoke to the resident and asked him to remove it because of public complaints — which he did, Lenahan said.
“It’s five weeks from Halloween and I hope this is the only complaint like this we get,” the prosecutor told the outlet.
The display was determined not to be a hate crime, according to Lenahan.
But the NAACP president told CBS Philly that the Attorney General’s Office is investigating.
McDonald insisted he didn’t intend to offend anyone with the display.
“I can understand why that would be an issue, but we’re not a racist family at all,” he told the station.
He’s also apologized and said he’ll never again put the same prop in front of his home, according to the report.
“At this time, I accept his apology,” Carney told the station. “But he needs to be educated more on the history of African Americans.”
Photo Credit: nypost.com
Deli worker gave meth-spiked bean dip to co-workers
She tweaked the bean dip a bit too much.
A deli worker in Oregon fed methamphetamine-spiked dip to at least two co-workers — sending one to the hospital, according to the Marion County Sheriff’s Office.
Ex-con Cassandra Medina-Hernandez was arrested Wednesday after surveillance footage showed her giving the doctored dip to fellow Thriftway employees on Sept. 9, a probable cause affidavit obtained by The Oregonian shows.
Medina-Hernandez, 38, let her colleagues eat the dip after removing something from her bra and going behind a microwave inside the deli section of the supermarket. She also consumed some of the dip herself, the affidavit states.
An assistant manager at the store called authorities later that night to report that her daughter was in the hospital after eating the mixture. The manager’s daughter later told a deputy she asked Medina-Hernandez to try her recipe for lunch and even took some home to enjoy later, authorities said.
“[She] thought one of the bites she ate tasted odd, but she did not think anything of it,” according to the affidavit.
The woman, who said she had never before used meth, reported feeling queasy and uneven on her feet when she returned to work, authorities said.
A third employee who also ate the dip told deputies that Medina-Hernandez told her the dish was intended for herself and another employee, rather than the co-worker who got sick, court papers show.
There’s no evidence that customers at the store were served the contaminated dip. No additional arrests are expected, according to the sheriff’s office.
Medina-Hernandez, who has been charged with suspicion of delivery of methamphetamine and causing another person to ingest a controlled substance, remained held on $50,000 bail Friday, jail records show.
She has been previously convicted of assault, robbery, identity theft and delivery of meth, as well as theft, possession of meth and possessing a restricted weapon as a felon. She was most recently sentenced to more than two years in prison in 2015 for robbery and assault, The Smoking Gun reports.
via: https://nypost.com/2019/09/27/deli-worker-gave-meth-spiked-bean-dip-to-coworkers-deputies/
Photo Credit: Marion County Sheriff’s Office
Man marries elderly, disabled cousin — allegedly to avoid military service
A 24-year-old man in Ukraine married his 81-year-old disabled cousin — and neighbors say it was all a craven ploy to escape military service, according to a new report.
Alexander Kondratyuk allegedly wed Zinaida Illarionovna, 81, to take advantage of the country’s rules that excuse a man from military service if he is looking after a disabled wife, Metro UK reported Friday.
Military service is otherwise compulsory for all male citizens 18 and over, according to the report.
The oddly matched pair wed in the village of Baykovka, near the city of Vinnitsa in west-central Ukraine, the outlet reported.
Kondratyuk denied marrying Illarionovna to be granted an exemption from the military, and expressed a strong affection for his octogenarian better half, according to the report.
His wife told local media outlets her husband takes good care of her.
But neighbors have alleged that Kondratyuk is never around the area — and that the only sign of their marriage was the certificate he brought with him whenever the draft board showed up.
“[Illarionovna] is much more likely to be visited by her nephews, grandchildren and sisters than by her supposed husband,” one neighbor told a local TV channel.
Reports indicate that the matter is being investigated, but army officials have said the case is closed, according to Metro.
Kondratyuk had a right to have his service deferred because he is the guardian of a registered disabled person, according to Aleksandr Danilyuk, the commissioner who is in charge of the Vinnitsa Commissariat, which handles conscription.
Since he has shown his marriage certificate and another document proving he lives at Illarionovna’s home, no action can be taken, the commissioner said.
But lawyer Roman Korchenyuk told Metro there’s still a way for Kondratyuk to be drafted.
“If they prove that there is no valid marriage, and that there is no common household, then he can be called up to do military service,” he said.
Photo Credit: CEN/TCH
White students called a 10-year-old black girl the N-word as they beat her up on NY school bus
A 10-year-old African American girl who was beaten up on a school bus in upstate New York told police her two attackers called her the N-word as the bus monitor did nothing, according to court documents obtained by CNN affiliate WWNY.
The victim’s mother reported the incident to police on September 10. Her mother said her daughter had a black eye, some of her hair had been pulled out and her knee was bruised after falling into the school bus seat, Gouverneur police said. Gouverneur is about 100 miles north of Syracuse.
The victim, a fifth grader at Gouverneur Middle School, wrote she believed this happened “because of the color of my skin, how my hair looks, how I dress and that I look different from them.”
Court documents to do not identify the race of the two girls or bus monitor charged, but WWNY identified all three as white.
In a deposition, the victim wrote that the incident began on September 9 when a girl asked to know her first and last name, her grade and her age.
“I told [redacted name] that it was none of her business and that I wasn’t answering her questions. [Redacted name] then told me that I had to tell her or I was going to get into trouble. I still did not answer [redacted name’s] question and she kicked me in the right knee,” the victim wrote in the deposition.
Then the next day, the victim wrote the same girl was accompanied by another girl. The two discussed how the victim tried to fight the day before.
“I didn’t want to fight anyone,” the victim wrote.
The three then exchanged words. The victim wrote that one of the girls called her the N-word and the other called her “a b***h.”
The victim wrote the bus monitor, identified as Tiffany Spicer, 28, was in the back of the bus during the entire incident.
“Tiffany did not do anything to keep me safe,” the victim wrote.
Sgt. Darren Fairbanks with the Gouverneur police wrote in his deposition that surveillance video showed Spicer did go to the back of the bus during the attack, but did nothing when one of the students yelled the N-word in front of her. She did nothing to stop the attack other than say: “You guys are worse than my kids.”
Spicer has not returned CNN’s request for comment.
Fairbanks also wrote the surveillance video showed a girl pulling the victims hair saying twice that “(N-word) always start it” and then “I like my people, but I don’t like your people.”
After having her hair pulled and getting punched in the face, the victim says another student stood between her and her attackers so she could get off the bus. Fairbanks wrote in his deposition a boy student was seen on the surveillance video helping the victim off the bus to prevent further attack.
The victim was taken to the emergency room and did not attend school the next day, Fairbanks wrote.
New York governor directs state agency to investigate hate crime
After a police investigation the two white girls, ages 10 and 11, were arrested Monday and charged with one count of second-degree aggravated harassment.
The 11-year-old girl also was charged with assault and a third-degree hate crime. The hate crime charge is a felony, Fairbanks said.
Spicer was also charged with three counts of endangering the welfare of a child Monday because police said she witnessed the assault, but “did not make an effort to stop and/or prevent said behavior.”
First Student, the bus company used by the school district, has been asked to provide more training to bus aides and monitors, the superintendent told WWNY.
Gov. Andrew Cuomo said in a statement Wednesday he was “appalled” by the reports of the “20-minute racist assault.”
“That this was allegedly perpetrated by her own classmates, on a school bus with an adult monitor present, makes this incident even more shocking and troubling,” he said.
Cuomo said he’s directing the New York State Division of Human Rights (DHR) to open an investigation into the school bus attack and “to take legal action to the fullest extent of the law against the perpetrators.”
Linda Brown-Robinson, Syracuse/Onondaga NAACP branch president, told WWNY she doesn’t know why “people still think it’s acceptable to allow things in their presence or do things in the presence of others that are racially motivated.”
“That is a learned behavior, they didn’t just get up that morning and decide they were going to whomp on a young person of color,” Brown-Robinson said.
Lauren French, Gouverneur Central School District superintendent, told WWNY the school is planning to have sessions to educate students on bullying and race as well as separate ones for the community at large.
Photo Credit: pix11.com
He shot his girlfriend in the head but didn’t tell her. She finally went to the doctor, and now he’s going to prison
(CNN) — A Georgia woman and her ex-boyfriend were arguing in her car two years ago when her driver’s side window shattered and she blacked out.
When she came to, she was in his car, not hers, and they went to his mother’s house because she had a head wound.
She thought she had been cut by flying glass. But her ex, Jerrontae Cain, had a secret — he had shot her.
Thursday, a judge sentenced Cain, 39, to 25 years in prison for several crimes including aggravated assault with a deadly weapon and possession of a firearm by a felon. Cain had been convicted of felony sexual battery in 2010.
For a month after the shooting in 2017, the woman stayed at Cain’s mother’s house, suffering through severe headaches, dealing with memory loss and having trouble when she tried to talk, according to a news release from the Fulton County District Attorney’s office. In June that year, a friend took her to the hospital.
Doctors at Atlanta Medical Center found a bullet in the back of her skull, one that would have to remain there because trying to take it out could kill her, the DA’s office said.
Hospital staff alerted investigators, and the woman told them she didn’t remember being shot — she just recalled the window breaking.
Cain told police the woman, now 42, had crashed her car into a tree. But detectives found the crime scene inconsistent with his explanation, according to the DA’s office.
They issued an arrest warrant but Cain was not caught until January 2019, more than a year later, when police showed up at a home in College Park, just south of Atlanta. He hid in an attic during a two-hour standoff until he surrendered, the DA’s office said.
Cain was also sentenced to five years of probation to be served after his prison term.
Photo Credit: FBI
Culver City Parents Get 6 Years in Prison for Dumping Their Dead Baby Son in a Dumpster
The parents of a baby boy who went missing in Culver City earlier this year were each sentenced to six years in prison for dumping him in a dumpster upon discovering he was dead, the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office said Thursday.
Adam Manson, 34, and Kiana Williams, 32, each pleaded no contest to felony child abuse seven months after authorities first said they had reason to believe the pair was involved in the disappearance of their infant son.
Jacsun, who was 5 ½ months old, was first reported missing on Jan. 25. He has never been found but is presumed dead.
Manson and Williams were staying at a motel in South Los Angeles with Jacsun while doing drugs on New Year’s Eve of last year, according to prosecutors.
At some point, they later found he was dead and placed his body inside a suitcase, placing the boy in a dumpster near the Baldwin Hills Crenshaw Mall.
It remains unclear how the infant died.
Authorities issued arrest warrants for Manson and Williams weeks later and they were each charged with felony child abuse in late February.
Investigators searched for the suitcase containing Jacsun’s body at the El Sobrante Landfill in Corona on multiple occasions. But those efforts were called off on April 22.
“We make this decision with a heavy heart after an exhaustive investigation was unable to narrow down the possible location of Jacsun’s remains within the landfill to a point that would make continuing the search reasonable,” reads a news release from the Culver City Police Department.
Manson and Williams had been living with their son at Upward Bound House in Culver City, a shelter for homeless and struggling families, just prior to his disappearance.
KTLA’s Alexandria Hernandez contributed to this report.
Photo Credit: Culver City Police Department/National Center for Missing and Exploited Children
Woman with ‘Wi-Fi allergy’ sleeps in $500 copper sleeping bag
A woman who claims to be allergic to Wi-Fi is asking her hometown to discontinue their wireless internet to ease her condition
Rosi Gladwell, 70, currently spends much of her time tucked inside a copper and silver thread sleeping bag, which cost her $500, to avoid electromagnetic fields (EMF) emitted by modern technology such as Wi-Fi and cellphones. She’s worried that the rollout of 5G in her current residence in the UK may cause irreversible damage to her health.
“I’m actually quite frightened about the future,” says Gladwell, who is self-diagnosed with EMF sensitivity. “At the moment, I’ve managed to make myself safe by being fortunate enough to live in a house in the countryside where there are no measured electromagnetic frequencies.”
She says, “But if they introduce 5G then I don’t know what the future will bring. It’s a really scary issue.”
Gladwell has spent hundreds on gear to protect her against electromagnetic radiation, such as a $250 radiation detector, according to the Sun. She frequently travels with her husband to her remote hometown in Spain via ferry, where she stays wrapped for 30 hours in a protective sheet. She launched a campaign in her hometown of Polopus, near Granada in Spain, in hopes they will shut down their citywide Wi-Fi, reports the Olive Press.
She says she began to feel unwell six years ago — then suddenly felt better after switching off her Wi-Fi and cordless phones.
Unfortunately, wireless technology is becoming inescapable.
“Back then people would think of you as being weird if you said you suffered from EMF sensitivity, but I don’t think that’s the case now,” said Gladwell.
Her condition has made living a normal life impossible.
When she goes out to eat, she tries to sit outside, or she’ll take her radiation meter into the restaurant to investigate which seats have less radiation, “because it varies so much in a room.”
“If I am exposed for too long I have to come home and have two days with everything turned off and not watch TV,” she says.
Gladwell helps lead the Electromagnetic Field Awareness Totnes group, with “about 12 members” who get together to mobilize support for their condition, which is largely not recognized in the medical community, and watch films about the effects of radiation.
“Scientists say 4 percent of people worldwide are suffering from EMF sensitivity and that’s probably an underestimation,” said Gladwell. “A lot of people now aren’t feeling very well, everyone feels exhausted and stressed out, and some of it is, in my view, down to the extent of radiation.”
Since Gladwell began the initiative in her Spanish hometown in 2016, the mayor of Polopus has proposed putting public Wi-Fi on a timer to help limit its EMF emissions.
via: https://nypost.com/2019/09/27/woman-with-wi-fi-allergy-sleeps-in-500-copper-sleeping-bag/
Photo Credit: Totnes Times /SWNS.COM