2 on desk duty after outrage over video of baby yanked from mom at benefits office, but family skeptical
BOERUM HILL, Brooklyn — It’s video that’s been viewed, shared and commented on hundreds of thousands of times worldwide on social media, and exponentially more times than that on other media. The video of a baby being pried out of his mother’s arms by police as they try to arrest her has prompted strong reactions from both local officials, and from the family of the mother, Jazmine Headley, 23.
Some officials have now called for charges against Headley to be dropped, and for the officers involved — and NYPD officers, generally — to be retrained, at the very least. Headley’s family is calling for the officers’ dismissal.
The incident happened on Friday, when Headley had taken a day off from work in order to go to the Human Resources Administration, or HRA, office to figure out how to extend day care benefits for her 1-year-old son, Damone, which she’d recently learned were being discontinued.
There was a four-hour wait inside, according to the Brooklyn Defenders public legal assistance office, which is now representing Headley. When she’d gone to the HRA office, she sat on the floor, with her child, because there were no seats, Brooklyn Defenders Executive Director Lisa Schreibersdorf said on Monday.
Headley had refused to get off the floor when she’d been told to do so by a security guard, and a conflict apparently ensued. Security called the NYPD. A sergeant and three officers responded. They tried to remove Headley, but needed to remove her child from her first. When she resisted, all of the officers, as well as at least one security guard, forcibly separated the mother and baby son, while witnesses’ smartphone cameras recorded.
“They’re hurting my son! They’re hurting my son!” Headley is heard screaming in the video.
Eventually, she was arrested and charged with resisting arrest, acting in a manner injurious to a child, obstructing governmental administration and criminal trespass.
Her son, a tall, precocious early toddler, was turned over to his grandmother for care, while Headley was sent to Rikers Island, where she remains, on the NYPD charges, as well on an outstanding warrant out of New Jersey for failure to make an appearance on a credit card fraud arrest.
Headley’s mother, who, again, is now caring for the boy, is herself a security guard. She said that the actions of the guards at the HRA center were counter to their purpose.
“I brought her up to be respectful,” Jacqueline Jenkins told PIX11 News about her daughter.
She said that her daughter knows better than to have escalated the situation, “with the NYPD, or anybody,” Jenkins said.
Also discussing escalation on Monday was Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams, who is a former NYPD captain. Along with Schreibersdorf, he held a news conference late Monday morning in front of the HRA office where the incident had taken place.
“You cannot escalate to that level,” Adams said. “That was not an emergency. It was not a violent crime.”
He commented further about a point in the video in which the NYPD sergeant pulls out her Taser and points it at the people in the crowded office who surrounded the melee.
“There was nothing in that scenario that showed that they should point the taser at the crowd or to children in that crowd,” Adams said in response to a question from PIX11 News.
The incident provoked condemning statements, in the form of tweets, from City Council Speaker Corey Johnson, and from State Attorney General-elect Letitia James.
Mayor Bill de Blasio tweeted about the incident late Monday afternoon.
“This was a disturbing incident. Like anyone who’s watched this video, I have a lot of questions about how this happened,” he tweeted. “NYPD & HRA will get to the bottom of how this happened.”
On Monday evening, HRA Commissioner Steve Banks issued a statement.
“HRA centers must be safe havens for New Yorkers needing to access benefits to improve their lives. I am deeply troubled by the incident and a thorough review was launched over the weekend to get to the bottom of what happened,” Banks said. “I am reinforcing efforts to train officers and staff to better diffuse situations before the NYPD is called for assistance and directing refresher de-escalation trainings for HRA Peace Officers and FJC security staff immediately. The HRA Peace Officers who were involved in this incident are currently on leave, and they will be placed on modified duty when they return to work pending our investigation of what happened.”
For their part, the Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association, the labor union representing police officers, also issued a statement from its president, Pat Lynch.
“These police officers were put in an impossible situation. They didn’t create the dispute at the HRA office — as always, they were called in to deal with the inevitable fallout when the rest of our City government fails in its task,” Lynch said. “Their objective was to enforce the law while protecting the safety of this mother, her child and every person in that office, some of whom were actively making a tense situation worse. The event would have unfolded much differently if those at the scene had simply complied with the officers’ lawful orders. The immediate rush to condemn these officers leaves their fellow cops wondering: when confronted with a similar impossible scenario, what do you want us to do? The answer cannot be ‘do nothing.'”
Despite all of the reactions, the family of the woman who’s now behind bars, charged in the incident, were skeptical about it prompting any systemic reforms.
“I don’t really see a change,” said Jacqueline Jenkins. “I don’t.”
She did say that there was one change she most eagerly wanted to see.
“Those officers need to be fired,” she said.
Michelle Williams ends engagement to Chad Johnson
Michelle Williams is reportedly back to being single.
The singer announced on her Instagram Stories, in a post that appears to have been deleted, that her engagement to pastor Chad Johnson “didn’t work out.”
“I still remain fearless,” the former Destiny’s Child singer wrote as a nod to her new single “Fearless,” also released Friday (via Us Weekly). “I guess I still remain single! Thing didn’t work out.”
Williams, 38, and Johnson announced their engagement in April after he popped the question in March. They met in 2017 at a spiritual retreat.
However, wedding planning wasn’t filled with typical joyous prenuptial festivities as the singer checked herself into a mental health facility for depression over the summer.
In announcing their split, Williams also noted that “the healing that needs to take place is a must!” and wished Johnson well.
“I don’t wanna destroy another relationship. Blessings to him, his family and ministry. #FEARLESS.”
The breakup also comes as their reality show “Chad Loves Michelle” has been airing on OWN after premiering in November. Williams is also in the middle of a Broadway stint as Erzulie in “Once on This Island” until Jan. 6.
Guy Who Told Kids Santa Isn’t Real Arrested
A Texas man telling kids Santa Claus isn’t real got his comeuppance Saturday when he got arrested. Aaron Urbanski, 31, and two other men were protesting outside St. Mark United Methodist Church of Cleburne during a Breakfast With Santa event; they were asked “multiple times” to leave church property, law enforcement authorities say. Two of them did, but Urbanski allegedly refused. One attendee tells NBC DFW the men asked her, “Do you let your kids believe in a fake Santa or do they know who Jesus is?” and when she confronted them about not ruining Christmas, “They started to shout out that Santa was not real and that I was wrong for teaching them that.”
The men “were upset that the folks there were lying to the children about Santa,” an officer says, per Dallas News. “Don’t Mess With Santa!” wrote the Cleburne mayor in a Facebook post. “While I understand folks right to protest, Cleburne loves Santa and those protestors who were naughty and broke the law when they trespassed were arrested promptly. Guess they wanted coal in their stockings to go with a court appearance.” Urbanski was charged with criminal trespass.
via: http://www.newser.com/story/268335/guy-who-told-kids-santa-isnt-real-arrested.html
13-Year-Old Student With Autism Dies After Being Restrained at School in NorCal
A 13-year-old autistic student has died after he was restrained by staff during an incident at his school in El Dorado Hills, authorities said Thursday.
The incident occurred Nov. 28 at Guiding Hands School, about 30 miles east of Sacramento. The El Dorado County Sheriff’s Office said the boy turned violent and had to be restrained by school staff to prevent other students and staff members from getting hurt.
While he was restrained, the student became unresponsive, the Sheriff’s Office said. A teacher administered CPR until emergency responders arrived. He was taken to Mercy Hospital of Folsom and later to UC Davis Medical Center.
Two days later, the Sheriff’s Office learned that the boy, who was 6 feet tall and 280 pounds, had died. It’s unclear when the death occurred or what caused it.
The Sheriff’s Office said there appears to be no evidence of foul play or criminal intent.
The Sacramento Bee reported that the California Department of Education had launched an investigation and suspended the private school’s certification.
via: https://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-el-dorado-student-death-20181206-story.html
Day care worker body-slammed toddler
SMRYNA, Ga. — Police in Georgia say a day care worker has body-slammed a toddler, bloodying the 16-month-old’s lip and shirt.
News outlets report 20-year-old Jonee Nicole Hamilton was arrested Tuesday on charges including child cruelty and aggravated assault. Smryna police says the Oxford Babies worker was upset last week when the child refused to nap and so shoved the toddler’s head into a floor mat.
A police report says Hamilton then picked the child up and slammed them into the mat, busting the child’s lip. Officer Heather Knight says the child was treated at a hospital.
Hamilton passed a background check when she was hired in September. She has since been fired.
Knight says police are reviewing the day care’s surveillance videos.
via: https://nypost.com/2018/12/06/daycare-worker-body-slammed-toddler-police/
Woman clubs boyfriend, sits on his face for refusing oral sex
A “very violent” mohawked Missouri woman clobbered her live-in lover as she demanded he perform oral sex on her, the victim and authorities said.
Amy Nicole Parrino, 43, was busted on charges of domestic assault and sexual abuse for the Sunday night incident that occurred at Parrino and the man’s Boone County home, according to a probable cause affidavit obtained by The Smoking Gun.
During the 9:45 p.m. attack, Parrino allegedly punched the man up to 25 times and struck him with a belt, cellphone and brass plate, according to the court filing.
Then a naked Parrino chased the man around the house as he pleaded for her to “leave him alone.”
But Parrino did not relent, as she “pushed him to the ground and then sat on his face,” the victim told police, according to the affidavit.
The victim told investigators that while Parrino “was sitting on his face she said to him ‘eat my p—-y,’” the court document states.
For a “few seconds” during the encounter, the man said, he could not breathe and that he was “scared to death,” according to the affidavit.
The victim later told police that the whole incident made him “sick” to his stomach and that he did not want to do anything sexual with Parrino.
As a result of the incident, the man suffered an up to 4-inch-long cut on both his right arm and his left arm. He also suffered a cut on the bridge of his nose, which the man told authorities “was from when Parrino sat on his face.”
The man was also left with red marks on his chest where he said he was hit with the belt.
According to the victim, “violence” between him and Parrino “has been getting worse and more frequent,” the document says.
He told police he “don’t know what she’s going to do next” and that he “fears for his safety all the time.”
The man added that Parrino will get “very violent, very quickly.”
Parrino was locked up in lieu of $25,000 cash bail, the outlet said.
Parrino wears a ring in her left nostril and a facial piercing near her eye, as well as a black “Buccaneers” jersey in her mug shot.
She was hit with an additional charge for allegedly smearing fecal matter on the walls of a jail cell and breaking a jailhouse phone, according to the website.
A judge ordered Parrino to have no contact with the victim and she has been barred from the man’s residence, according to the site.
via: https://nypost.com/2018/12/06/woman-clubs-boyfriend-sits-on-his-face-for-refusing-oral-sex/
300-pound PA woman pleads guilty to crushing boyfriend
ERIE, Pa. – A 300-pound woman in Pennsylvania has pleaded guilty to murdering her boyfriend by stabbing him, hitting him in the head with a table leg, and finally crushing the 120-pound man with her own weight.
Windi Thomas, 44, pleaded guilty to third-degree murder in the March 18 death of Keeno Butler in exchange for a recommended sentence of 18 to 36 years in state prison, the Erie Times-News reports.
Police say Thomas admitted crushing Butler after a fight at their Erie residence. She told them she positioned herself so that some of her weight would be on his head.
The death was ruled a homicide “caused by respiratory insufficiency secondary to blunt force trauma to the neck and thoracic compression, exacerbated by blunt force trauma to the head,” court papers state.
Sandra Butler, the victim’s sister, says Thomas should have gotten life. “My mother, she calls for him every night,” she says. Thomas, who had been scheduled to go on trial next week, will be sentenced Dec. 21, the AP reports.
via: https://pix11.com/2018/12/05/300-pound-pennsylvania-woman-pleads-guilty-to-crushing-boyfriend/
Woman arrested after pouring hot grease on victim during argument, police say
CINCINNATI — A woman was arrested after she allegedly poured hot grease on someone during an argument, WXIX reports.
Charlene Thompson, 61, has been charged with felonious assault, Hamilton County Sheriff’s Office records show. She was already wanted on two counts of criminal damaging or endangerment, according to WXIX.
Police said Thompson dumped hot grease on someone during an argument on Sunday in the Mt. Airy neighborhood of Cincinnati.
The victim suffered severe burns to their back and arm, according to WLWT.
Thompson is being held under a $52,000 bond and has court dates scheduled for Dec. 14 and Dec. 18.
Teacher who told kids Santa isn’t real has been let go, district superintendent says
What’s worse than a lump of coal in your Christmas stocking? Perhaps a place in the unemployment line.
A substitute teacher who recently told first-graders that Santa Claus is not real is no longer working for a New Jersey school district, the superintendent said Tuesday.
Montville Township Public Schools Superintendent Rene Rovtar confirmed in a statement to Fox News that the substitute, who has not been identified, is no longer with the K-12 district.
Rovtar previously told News 12 New Jersey that “childhood wonder associated with holidays and traditions” is special to her.
The superintendent, calling the incident the Cedar Hill School the “Santa matter,” said no additional comment would be made on the topic due to “the fact that this is a personnel matter.”
Cedar Hill School Principal Michael Raj had previously sent a letter to parents following Thursday’s incident at the school, noting the “childhood innocence of the holiday season.”
Raj said that as a parent himself, he understands the “sensitive nature” of the topic.
In addition to a discussion on Santa, Rovtar said the students had asked the substitute teacher questions about the Easter Bunny, Tooth Fairy, Elf on a Shelf and leprechauns, NJ.com reported.
“She proceeded to debunk all of it,” Rovtar told the news outlet Friday.
The “Santa matter” prompted a social media outcry from the parental community, the report said.
“Many of us parents have been doing damage control since the kids get home from school,” parent Lisa Simek posted to Facebook on Thursday.
Another parent, Myra Sansone-Aboyoun, told News 12 New Jersey that her 6-year-old daughter Addriana was extremely upset by the ordeal.
“I was heartbroken. You know, my daughter is the hugest believer in the whole Christmas spirit — Santa, giving,” the mother said.
Montville Township is about 30 miles northwest of New York City.
High school class laughs as students sing KKK-themed Christmas song
DOVER, N.H. — A New Hampshire school superintendent is decrying a racially insensitive video of two high school students singing, “KKK, KKK, Let’s kill all the blacks,” to the tune of “Jingle Bells.”
Fosters Daily Democrat reports a cellphone video surfaced over the weekend of the students singing the song in class at Dover High School.
Superintendent William Harbron said in a letter to the school community Monday the incident was part of an assignment dealing with the Reconstruction period in American history, but said, “the impact was harmful.”
Harbron said the 11th-graders had to select a history event and create a jingle for it. Two students selected the Ku Klux Klan.
A decision on whether to discipline the students or teacher hasn’t been made yet.
via: https://nypost.com/2018/12/04/high-school-class-laughs-as-students-sing-kkk-themed-christmas-song/