Dad mistakes daughter for intruder, shoots her to death
GREENVILLE, S.C. — A South Carolina man fatally shot his daughter after mistaking her for an intruder, authorities said.
The Greenville County Coroner’s office said 23-year-old Nadeja Pressley was trying to enter her Greenville residence just after 1 a.m. Sunday when she was killed.
Pressley’s father told investigators he fired through a door at what he believed was an intruder, who turned out to be his adult daughter.
Greenville County EMS responded to the shooting, and Pressley was pronounced dead at the scene.
An autopsy is planned for Monday as authorities continue to investigate.
Photo Credit: Getty Images
2 men charged after urinating on memorial for New Jersey boy who died from brain cancer
NEW JERSEY (CNN) –Two men are facing charges after a “disgusting act” of vandalism was posted on social media over the weekend in New Jersey.
Police said 23-year-old Bryan Bellace is the man who was seen urinating and laughing on a memorial at Underhill Park in Mays Landing in a video posted online Sunday.
In the video, it zooms into a boy’s face on the memorial after the incident.
The boy has been identified Christian Clopp, a 9-year-old who died of brain cancer five years ago.
“As a single parent you think, what if that was my child?,” said Desmond Walker.
Walker and another good Samaritan Paul Burgen saw the video and immediately reacted with kindness.
“We went down here, came with gloves, sanitizer and we got it cleaned up,” he added.
It didn’t take them too much time to clean up the mess but they say it was meant to show the Clopp family that the community doesn’t stand for that sort of bad behavior.
“It’s a disgusting act,” Burgan said. “We come together. This is our community. When stuff like this happens, we come together and we take care what needs to be done.”
The memorial sits in an all-access playground and it was built in Clopp’s memory.
Clopp’s father took to social media to thank those who reached out in support of his family.
“I don’t understand this world today. A friend of ours came over today to inform us that a video was posted of two scumbags urinating on christian’s memorial at his playground,” the boy’s father wrote.
Bellace was charged with lewdness, disorderly conduct and criminal mischief.
The man recording the video, 23-year-old Daniel Flippen, was cited for having an open container of beer at the park.
Photo Credit: kmov.com/CNN via KYW
Amid #MeToo, Illinois among 10 states debating to teach consent to kids
Inside a Catholic school in Portland, Oregon, high school sophomores break into groups to discuss some once-taboo topics: abusive relationships and consent.
At one desk, a girl with banana-colored fingernails begins jotting down some of the hallmarks of abuse: Physically hurting you, verbally abusive, can be one-sided. She pauses to seek input from her classmates, boys and girls alike, before continuing: “It messes up your mentality and your, like, confidence.”
For the first time this year, Central Catholic High School, like public schools in the city, is using educators from a domestic violence shelter to teach kids about what it means to consent. The goal is to reduce sexual violence and harassment among teens and help them understand what behavior is acceptable — and what’s not — before they reach adulthood.
“We’re talking about dating violence, sexual assault, relationships, #MeToo — all of those things. I think you have to be intentional about bringing this program into our classrooms,” says David Blue, the school’s director of diversity and inclusion. “How do you look at all of these constant conversations in our society right now?”
What’s happening at this Catholic school in liberal Portland represents a larger debate unfolding in blue states and red, as lawmakers, educators and teens themselves re-examine whether sex education should evolve to better address some of the issues raised by #MeToo. Central to the conversation is whether schools should expand curriculums to help kids understand consent — a concept often defined differently from state to state.
“#MeToo has brought the issue of consent into the national spotlight, but it’s abundantly clear that people still struggle with the culture shift that’s happening,” said Jennifer Driver, state policy director of the Sexuality Information and Education Council of the United States, which favors liberal sex ed policies. “When done right, sex education can serve as violence prevention. But first, we have to get these policies (enacted).”
Since January, dozens of new sex ed bills have been floated in statehouses, but only five have passed and just two of those require specific instruction about consent, according to the Guttmacher Institute, which tracks sexuality and reproductive health issues. In all, 10 states and the District of Columbia require that consent be part of sex ed curriculum. The states are: California, Connecticut, Maryland, New Jersey, Illinois, Oregon, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Vermont and Virginia.
Meantime, according to Driver’s group, 32 states require that abstinence be stressed in schools that teach sex education. And most federal funding for sex ed in recent years has gone to abstinence programs, to the tune of $2 billion since 1981.
The divide over how to teach sex ed has long split on the question of whether kids are “sexual beings,” said Jonathan Zimmerman, an education professor at the University of Pennsylvania.
The pendulum has swung from the explicit information on sex, contraception and sexually transmitted diseases taught amid the AIDS epidemic in the 1980s and 1990s to the abstinence-focused agenda that followed the rise of conservative politics, especially in the Bible Belt.
With the #MeToo movement, the pendulum may be inching back, at least when it comes to efforts to curb sexual violence.
A few abstinence-focused states, such as Virginia and South Carolina, have added consent to the curriculum.
And Oklahoma lawmakers this year considered a bill that would have forced high schools to teach consent. Called “Lauren’s Law,” the measure was named for a teen who said she was raped at a high school party. The Legislature eventually passed a narrower measure requiring that schools with a sex ed curriculum incorporate teaching about consent. It leaves other districts of the hook, but state Sen. Carol Bush, the Republican sponsor, called it “baby steps.”
Bush said she raised two daughters in a Christian home but that a background in public health taught her of the need for comprehensive sex ed programs.
“I hate that we call it sex ed. It’s more that you’re a valued person — boy or girl — and we need to help our children understand that,” said Bush, adding the bill was palatable to conservative colleagues because it lets teens know they have the right to say “no” to sex. She believes an increase in the number of women and younger lawmakers this year helped build consensus.
As with most issues in education, local school districts play a big role in shaping sex education curriculum, and many state laws on sex ed are intentionally vague.
In Cadillac, Michigan, a reliably Republican town of about 10,500 people, school leaders proactively teach consent after the school board voted more than a decade ago to change its sex ed curriculum from “abstinence only” to “abstinence based.” These days county prosecutor Jason Elmore regularly visits the town’s high school to deliver a sometimes startling message about consent.
Speaking to a freshmen health class last month, he patted his chest, lower abdomen and inner thighs while explaining that anyone under 16 cannot engage in sexual contact there without committing a crime — “even if it’s a boyfriend or a girlfriend.”
Elmore let the concept of who can do what with whom sink in as the students sat silently. Then he explained what it means for sexual contact to be “freely and honestly given” and how alcohol and marijuana are often involved in cases he sees. In the past year alone, he told the class, he’s prosecuted a half-dozen sex-related cases involving Cadillac students.
“In this school?!” one bewildered boy exclaimed.
A 2017-18 survey found that 15 percent of Cadillac ninth-graders and 55 percent of 11th-graders said they’d had sexual intercourse. And 1 in 10 said they’d been hit by a dating partner.
Health teacher Cathy Booher believes more students today understand what it means to give consent and respect boundaries. But inevitably, not long after Elmore’s class, she said: “A week or two later, we’ve had an incident.”
In Tennessee, where the state mandates an abstinence-based curriculum, some teenagers are leading their own discussions about consent. The state’s sex ed law, known as the 2012 “Gateway Law,” not only prohibits the discussion of sexual activities that stop short of intercourse — so-called “gateway sexual behaviors” — it imposes $500 fines on instructors who wade into the topic.
In Memphis, students who are part of the advocacy group Memphis Against Sexual Harassment and Assault have lobbied the school district to fill its Title IX director’s job, conducted peer training on consent, organized “Survivor Power Coffee Hours,” and taken part in a “Memphis Says No More” poster campaign designed to promote awareness about sexual harassment and violence. The school board has agreed to distribute the posters in all middle and high schools this fall, the teens said.
These issues are personal to youth leaders Devin Dearmore and Savanah Thompson. Dearmore, 18, said she was sexually harassed by a staff member before transferring high schools. Thompson, 15, said she was catcalled, groped, pinned against a locker by another student — and later blamed for it — in eighth grade.
“I think there’s this thing in the South that you just don’t talk about things — provocative things,” Thompson said. “We’re being taught all of these things preparing us for college . but they’re not teaching you how to cope with things that can derail your life. … That’s where our school system — and school systems nationwide — have failed us. In middle and elementary school, I didn’t know I could say no.”
Some who oppose teaching consent believe it signals an approval of teen sexual activity.
Mary Anne Mosack, who runs an abstinence education group called Ascend, said her group has been talking about consent for years but in the context that “avoiding sex is your best option.” Ascend has trained some 1,500 instructors to teach what it calls “sexual risk aversion” in public and private schools, clubs, foster homes and more.
Measures like Tennessee’s “Gateway Law” are not meant to chill discussion on important issues, Mosack said, but to limit those that stray too far into supposed safe-sex topics such as “naked cuddling” and “showering together.”
“In Tennessee and in other states, too, people were looking at those kinds of topics that were being presented, and felt they were inappropriate,” she said.
Critics of abstinence-based programs say they shut down urgently needed conversations. And if they are meant to curtail sexual activity in places like Tennessee, the results appear questionable. A study last month in the Journal of the American Medical Association found that Memphis was first among 17 metro areas surveyed in the rate of boys engaged in preteen sex. The survey found 1 in 4 boys have sex before their 13th birthday.
As for teaching students to delay sex until marriage, Columbia University researcher John Santilli considers that unreasonable in a country where just 3 percent of people do so.
“Abstinence until marriage in America in 2019? It’s an impossible goal,” said Santilli, who studies pediatrics and population health and said that more than half of Americans have sex before leaving high school. “On the other hand, I think we ought to tell young people if they’re not ready to have sex with people, if they’ve had too much to drink, if they somehow feel uncomfortable with somebody, they can say no. To me, that’s feminism in action.”
He led a recent study that found teaching “refusal skills” in high school can cut the chances someone is raped in college in half.
In Oregon, Central Catholic High Principal John Garrow hoped to balance students’ need for information with the Roman Catholic creed on abstinence before marriage. He evaluated several programs before choosing Raphael House, whose mission includes work with sexual and domestic assault survivors.
“We’re trying to do our best to follow the teachings and at the same time be realistic, because as a school you lose your relevance real quickly if you’re not real,” Garrow said.
In the sophomore wellness class in April, two Raphael House instructors asked students to consider signs of healthy and unhealthy relationships. Does your partner make you feel valued? Stupid? Scared?
“It, like, opened my eyes,” said Ramaya Wright, 15. “I didn’t know those are a lot of the signs of an abusive relationship.”
Julia Tycer, a Raphael House educator, said consent comes into play not just in dating relationships but in all of our interactions, every day.
“It’s never really too early to be talking about consent,” she said. “Practicing consent is really just asking, ‘Are you OK?'”
Photo Credit: Getty Images
Aspiring Nurse’s Body Is Found in Dumpster: ‘Worst Feeling I’ve Ever Felt,’ Says Brother
Elizabeth Candice Laird, known as “Candy” by those closest to her, envisioned a life of helping others before her own life was taken.
The 27-year-old Detroit woman was weeks away from completing her degree as a surgical technician, and dreamed of becoming a nurse, when her body was discovered at about 9 a.m. Wednesday in a dumpster after police were called to the scene by someone who reported blood in an elevator at a nearby apartment building, reports local TV station WXYZ.
“She didn’t deserve this,” her mother, Diana Cann, told the outlet.
“My daughter was bright,” she said. “She was intelligent. She always wanted to be someone special in life.”
The victim’s older brother, Curtis, told the news station: “It’s the worst feeling I’ve ever felt in my life. I’m broken up in a million pieces.”
Detroit police Chief James Craig described suspect James Quill Cockerham as “a career criminal” in a news conference following Cockerham’s arrest on Saturday.
“That violent, predatory, cowardly suspect is now in custody,” he said.
Police were alerted on Wednesday to reports of blood in the elevator at the Parkview Towers and Square apartment building, and later said Laird and Cockerham had been seen together inside an elevator in the building, reports WDIV.
The victim’s family said she had been there at the gated building visiting her boyfriend. It was not clear how Cockerman gained entry.
The Wayne County Medical Examiner’s Office listed Laird’s manner of death as compressive asphyxia and ruled it a homicide, according to Fox2Detroit.
Prior convictions for Cockerham include those for weapons charges, criminal sexual conduct, armed robbery and car theft, and he is a registered sex offender, according to court records.
He was being held Monday morning in the Detroit Detention Center awaiting formal charges after his arrest on suspicion of parole violation and murder, a jail spokesman tells PEOPLE.
No bond was listed, and it could not be determined if he had entered a plea or acquired an attorney who might speak on his behalf.
“He should have never been let out,” said Laird’s brother Curtis, reports WXYZ.
“Looking at my baby in a casket — I think that’s going to be the hardest thing in my life that I’ll ever have to do,” Laird’s mother told the outlet. She recalled her daughter as someone who “wanted to save lives.”
A family friend, Michael Hines, said: “She was a great young lady, and I loved her,” according to Fox2Detroit. “She had a bright future. She was going to school to be in the nursing field. She told me she was going to make something of herself.”
“You shouldn’t kill no one like that — like throwing away garbage,” he said.
The police chief said: “We pray for that young lady and it should have never happened.”
Photo Credit: start.att.net
Trayvon Martin’s Mom Announces Run for Office in Miami
A mother who turned to activism after the slaying of her black teen son Trayvon Martin has announced she is running for office in Miami.
The Miami Herald reports Sybrina Fulton will be entering the race to join the 13-member board of Miami-Dade County commissioners.
Fulton said in a Saturday statement that she would continue working to end gun violence. She will challenge Miami Gardens Mayor Oliver Gilbert for the seat that is up for grabs in 2020 because of term limits.
Trayvon’s parents head a foundation and have been recognized for their work on gun reform and social justice.
Trayvon was unarmed when shot dead by neighborhood watch volunteer George Zimmerman, who was later acquitted on the grounds of self-defense. His death sparked the Black Lives Matter movement.
via: https://ktla.com/2019/05/19/trayvon-martins-mom-announces-run-for-office-in-miami/
Photo Credit: Getty Images/ktla.com
Video shows man being punched multiple times in face by Dover Police
DOVER, New Jersey— The family of a New Jersey man is demanding answers after disturbing cellphone videos surfaced overnight of his violent arrest by the Dover Police department.
The video showed the 19-year-old man being punched in the face several times by a Dover police officer during an arrest in New Jersey.
The man, who family identified to PIX11 News as Cyprian Luke of Morristown, could be seen with a bloodied face as a Dover Police officer allegedly strikes him while he’s being restrained on the ground by additional Dover police officers.
Four officers in all are seen restraining Luke, demanding his to “stop resisting.”
“He’s not able to comply with what they’re asking him because they’re not allowing him to,” Luke’s mother, Mary Yurley said to PIX11 News while watching the video.
In the video, onlookers can be heard shouting expletives at the officers and telling the man to “smile.”
At one point, someone off- camera can be heard asking the man to roll over and comply with the officers—But Luke’s mother said while she understands the job police officers are there to do, she believes they used excessive force.
“This was wrong,” Yurley saud.
Dozens of Dover community members and residents protested in front of Dover police headquarters late Sunday night, demanding justice.
“It wasn’t right, they didn’t read him his rights or none of that,” said Luke’s brother, Christopher Luke.
The 19-year-old’s significant other and their two-year-old daughter were also at the rally.
“We usually all sleep together,” said Janelle Harris. “She knows, she’s like where is my daddy?” Harris said.
Around 2 a.m. Sunday,Luke was reportedly being detained on a bench warrant for “charges of assault, violating court orders and criminal mischief.”
It’s unclear what happened prior to the video, and a spokesperson for the Dover Police department was unable clarify that answer.
Dover police says the investigation has been turned over to the prosecutors office and a number of officers have been placed on administrative leave with pay.
via: https://pix11.com/2019/05/19/video-shows-man-being-punched-multiple-times-in-face-by-dover-police/
Photo Credit: pix11.com
9-year-old boy puts car in reverse, accidentally runs over his mother
CHELMSFORD, Mass. (AP) — Police in Massachusetts say a mother has been struck by her own car and seriously injured after her child accidentally put the car into reverse while she was loading the vehicle.
Chelmsford Police Chief James Spinney says the 37-year-old woman, who authorities haven’t identified, is expected to survive the Sunday morning incident.
Police say the woman’s 9-year-old son shifted the car into reverse while she was standing at the open driver’s side front door. They say the woman tried to dive for the brake pedal, but was pinned and then run over by the vehicle.
The vehicle continued down the driveway and came to a stop after striking a rock wall opposite the house. The child wasn’t injured.
Photo Credit: Getty Images
Middle school teacher accused of slapping student in class
HILLSBOROUGH COUNTY, Fla. (WFTS) — A middle school teacher in Florida is accused of slapping one of her students in class.
The Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office responded to a call at Giunta Middle School on South Falkenburg Road in Riverview after a 13-year-old male student reported that his teacher, 63-year-old Sheila Vakili slapped him during class.
Deputies later interviewed the student and his classmates regarding the alleged incident. Deputies were told the student made a profane comment during class. Vakili heard the comment and thought the student called her a profane name.
According to the students, Vakili smacked the student in the face “with enough force to cause redness and swelling.”
Vakili was charged with simple child abuse.
“The safety of our Hillsborough County students is something we take very seriously,” said Sheriff Chad Chronister in a statement. “A teacher is supposed to be a role model to the young people in their classrooms and set an example for how to behave, even at a time of frustration. It is never acceptable for a teacher to become physically violent with a student.”
According to the Hillsborough County Public Schools, Vakili was a regular substitute teacher for many years with the district. Vakili became a fulltime teacher in 2011 and did not have any previous issues, HCPS said.
Vakili will not be on campus as the investigation continues, HCPS said.
Photo Credit: kmov.com/Hillsborough County Sheriff
West Point is about to graduate its largest class of black women
(CNN) — Thirty-four black women are expected to graduate from West Point next week.
That will be the largest class of African-American women to graduate together in the military academy’s lengthy history, West Point spokesman Frank Demaro said.
“Last year’s graduating class had 27,” said Demaro. “And the expectation is next year’s class will be even larger than this year’s.”
Last year, the school appointed Lt. Gen. Darryl A. Williams as its first black superintendent.
In 2017, the academy for the first time selected an African-American woman, Simone Askew, to serve at the top of the chain of command for cadets.
“It makes me feel prideful that the academy is acknowledging diversity,” 2012 West Point alum Shalela Dowdy said.
Dowdy, who said she makes an effort to stay in touch with female African-American cadets to “offer support,” believes the outreach the minority admissions office at West Point is doing is the reason why more minorities are coming to the school.
“There were only 13 in my class, I just counted, but the numbers keep going up and up. It’s encouraging and inspiring to see leaders graduating from the school that are from all different kinds of backgrounds and represent the diversity of the army itself,” said Dowdy.
West Point’s graduating class is seeing diversity in other minority groups. “Also, this year’s class will have the highest number of female Hispanic graduates along with graduating our 5,000th female cadet since the first class of women to graduate in 1980,” said Demaro.
Cadet Tiffany Welch-Baker, spoke to the website “Because Of Them We Can,” about her feelings about being a part of this historic graduating class.
“My hope when young black girls see these photos is that they understand that regardless of what life presents you, you have the ability and fortitude to be a force to be reckoned with.”
West Point created its office of diversity in 2014 to try to attract, retain and promote a “more diverse workforce” according to its website.
About 10% of undergraduate students are black and women make up about 20% of cadets, according to the school’s statistics.
Vice President Mike Pence will speak at the graduation ceremony on May 25, according to a news release from the academy. “More than 950 cadets are expected to graduate from the U.S. Military Academy and be commissioned as second lieutenants in the US Army,” according to the release.
Photo Credit: kmov.com/Courtesy of Hallie Pound/West Point Academy
Disney World employee busted after posting photos of stolen memorabilia online
Maybe he was the real Dumbo at Disney.
A former Disney World employee accused of stealing $7,000 in memorabilia was arrested after posting photos of the missing items online, according to authorities.
Patrick Allen Spikes, 24, became a suspect when his Twitter profile included pictures of valuable items two months after they were swiped from the theme park in Orlando, Florida, according to the arrest affidavit.
He became combative when questioned about the photos of “Buzzy,” a character missing from the “Cranium Command” attraction at Epcot, leading to an initial charge of resisting arrest, the records show.
A search warrant of his home and phone then turned up photos of stolen Disney wigs, skirts and jackets, according to the document.
He is accused of also using his Disney employee ID to access underground tunnels to get to Magic Kingdom’s Haunted Mansion, where some of the costumes were stolen.
Financial records showed that Spikes received about $30,000 via PayPal from two buyers, according to the affidavit, with police saying the missing items were far more valuable on the black market.
One of the buyers returned 18 items that Disney World said had all been stolen, according to the document.
Detectives say they are still investigating and trying to track down the rest of the items that have been documented as stolen.
Spikes was shown smirking in his mugshot as Orange County Sheriff’s Office charged him with burglary, grand theft, and dealing in stolen property.
Disney said the case was a “law enforcement matter.”
Photo Credit: nypost.com/Orange County Sheriff’s Office