Toddler, 2, dies after closing car’s power window on her head as her dad slept in front seat
DETROIT (WXYZ) — Relatives of Kierre Allen are devastated after the two-year-old girl died tragically Monday afternoon with her dad just a few feet away from her.
It happened in front of the family’s home on Winthrop near Grand River Avenue on Detroit’s west side.
Little Kierre was in a 2005 Mazda 3 with her dad. They were parked in the driveway, and relatives said her dad fell asleep and when he woke up, he found his daughter’s lifeless body.
Relatives said it appears the power window was activated as Kierre was partially out of it when it closed. Detroit Police said the toddler’s head was stuck in the car’s window.
Relatives were alerted when the little girl’s father began to cry out for help.
They told TV station WXYZ that Allen’s father yelled, “My baby, my baby,” when he discovered her stuck in the window.
Kierre’s uncle rushed her and her dad to Sinai Grace Hospital where she was pronounced dead.
Detroit Police are investigating and took Kierre’s father into custody on unrelated warrants. The girl’s death remains under investigation.
Photo Credit: Getty Images
Mother arrested in daughter’s death rubbed heroin on 1-year-old’s gums to ‘help her sleep,’ father said
BANGOR, Maine – A 33-year-old Maine woman arrested Tuesday in the death of her 1-year-old daughter is accused of rubbing heroin residue on the girl’s gums to help her sleep, court documents say.
Kimberly Nelligan, of Bangor, appeared in court Wednesday and pleaded not guilty to charges of child endangerment and drug possession, the Bangor Daily News reports.
Her daughter Jordynn was found unresponsive at home in October, 2018 and was pronounced dead at an area hospital, WCSH reports. The Maine medical examiner later determined that she died of acute intoxication from the powerful, synthetic opioid fentanyl.
The Bangor Daily News reports that the child’s father told police he saw Nelligan apply the residue to the little girl’s gums more than a dozen times when she had trouble falling asleep. She allegedly told him that she would never hurt the girl on purpose, and that she had done the same thing with their two older children when they were younger.
The medical examiner’s office concluded that Jordynn directly ingested the fentanyl that killed her, the paper reports.
Nelligan is currently being held without bail at the Penobscot County Jail. She is due back in court Nov. 12.
via: https://pix11.com/2019/09/18/mother-rubbed-heroin-on-1-year-olds-gums-to-help-her-sleep-father-said/
Photo Credit: pix11.com
Woman accused of sending video of her trying to drown 6-year-old son in bathtub to child’s father
CLEVELAND (WEWS) — A 25-year-old Cleveland woman accused of sending video of her attempting to drown her 6-year-old son in a bathtub to the child’s father in August was indicted on charges including two counts of attempted murder and multiple counts of endangering children, kidnapping and assault.
Dazshea Watkins was arrested on Sept. 4 and indicted on Friday, Sept. 13. Bond was set at $10,000, and she posted bail on Sept. 12, according to court records.
Watkins tried to drown her son in a bathtub on or about Aug 28, her indictment states.
Cleveland police investigated the incident after the child’s aunt saw the video of the attempting drowning on the father’s phone, according to the police report. On August 28, the father received the video, which showed Watkins holding the child by the neck under the water in the bathtub, with the child kicking and splashing water in an attempt to get away from mother. The video ended before it showed Watkins releasing the child.
After the father saw the video, he went to the house and found his son to be safe and took custody of him, the report states. The child’s aunt told the father to report the incident, but the father said he did not want Watkins to go jail. When he did not file a report, the aunt filed one on his behalf. The aunt told Watkins to send her the video of the attempted drowning because the father said his phone accidentally reset and his copy of the video was lost.
The aunt told police she spoke to Watkins on the phone, and Watkins said she was pregnant, frustrated and felt alone, which is why she did what she did, the report states.
The indictment states that Watkins also beat the child, hit him in the head with a broom and caused physical harm to him with a pillow.
In total, Watkins faces 32 charges: two counts of attempted murder, six counts of felonious assault, 15 counts of endangering children, four counts of kidnapping, four counts of domestic violence and one count of pandering obscenity involving a minor.
The Cuyahoga County Department of Children and Family Services confirmed they took emergency custody of the child from Watkins. They have a court case Tuesday to get temporary custody of the child. Although DCFS has custody of the child, he is in the care of family members.
DCFS said they have made contact with Watkins twice in the past, but both those cases were closed. They have re-opened a case with her after her indictment for attempting to drown her son.
Photo Credit: WEWS
‘They Videoed His Death’: After a Brawl, Teenagers Gawked as a Boy Lay Dying
A wild after-school brawl erupted Monday outside a Long Island strip mall, and when it was over, a 16-year-old student was gravely wounded with a stab wound to his chest.
But most of the 50 or so teenagers in Oceanside, New York, who either took part in the fight or witnessed it made no attempt to defend him. In fact, some stood by recording the fight and his suffering on their cellphones, the police said.
The victim, Khaseen Morris, died at the hospital.
“Kids stood there and didn’t help Khaseen,” Detective Lt. Stephen Fitzpatrick of the Nassau County Police Department said in a news conference Tuesday. “They videoed his death instead of helping him.”
The fracas started at about 3:30 p.m. Monday and was precipitated by a dispute over a girl, and whom she was dating, according to the detective.
The teenagers were all from around the neighborhood, he said, and had gathered at the strip mall on Brower Avenue, a popular hangout where the confrontation was supposed to occur. Khaseen was aware of the dispute, and that other boys were coming to the strip mall, Fitzpatrick said.
Witnesses at the mall said a car drove up, then a group of boys emerged and rushed Khaseen and his friends. Video footage shows Khaseen collapsing to the ground, as teenagers around him film his fall but do not come to his aid, the police said.
The police arrived at about 4 p.m., after a 911 call. Khaseen was taken to a hospital in critical condition and died of his wounds overnight, according to information provided by the police. One other boy suffered a fractured arm, and others had minor injuries. The girl was not present at the fight, Fitzpatrick said.
On social media, Khaseen, whom friends called “Kha,” is seen in photos posing with friends, smiling, pulling faces, his short cropped dreadlocks worn in a rakish style, one half of his head dyed a rusty red color. He described himself as a devotee of cheese, anime and love.
“Speak the truth even if your voice shakes,” Khaseen wrote.
His family moved to Oceanside this summer from Freeport, a neighboring town on the South Shore of Long Island. There, Khaseen saw the promise of a fresh start at a school where he could fully express himself through fashion and art, said his sister, Kedeemah Morris, 22.
He was a free-spirited skateboarder who wore his dreadlocks colorfully: half orange, half black, Kedeemah Morris said Tuesday, adding that he loved to draw and that he had planned to study photography.
The siblings got the same tattoo, she said, in memory of their favorite musicians, Lil Peep and XXXTentacion, both of whom sported bicolored hair. Kedeemah Morris said she and her brother were so similar that she called him her “twin” despite their six-year age difference.
“He danced, he was very funny,” she said. “He was very sweet.”
On Sunday, she said, a 10th-grade girl asked her brother to walk her home and he obliged. Kedeemah Morris said she believed that the girl had been trying to make her ex-boyfriend jealous.
It appears to have worked.
Before Khaseen left for school Monday, he told his family that he had received a threat from the girl’s ex-boyfriend, Kedeemah Morris said.
“My brother, he shrugged stuff like that off,” she said. “He told the boy he didn’t want his girlfriend, it was nothing like that, he just walked her home. The boy said he didn’t care.”
Kedeemah Morris said she thought that Khaseen’s walking the girl home had prompted the fight. “Him being so nice, that one good deed that he did got him killed,” she said.
The high school Tuesday had grief counselors at the ready to help students cope with the loss.
“This is a terrible loss for Khaseen’s family and friends and a traumatic event for our whole community,” Phyllis S. Harrington, the superintendent of the Oceanside Union Free School District, said in a statement. “The way we are going to get through this is by pulling together.”
The police have identified at least seven boys involved in the fray via the videos circulating online, and are working to determine the identities of several more, Fitzpatrick said. No arrests had been made, and the attack was not linked to any gang activity, the detective added.
He urged witnesses to tell the police what they had seen. “When I have you in handcuffs is not the time” to come forward, he said.
“I don’t know what to make of it, my generation versus this generation,” he continued. “This can’t go on. Your friends are dying while you stand there and video it? That’s egregious.”
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.
via: https://currently.att.yahoo.com/news/videoed-death-brawl-teenagers-gawked-192756028.html
Photo Credit: Getty Images
Kevin Spacey Sexual Assault Accuser Dies in the Midst of Lawsuit
An anonymous individual suing Kevin Spacey for sexual assault has died, ET confirms.
In a new court filing, the plaintiff’s attorney has informed the actor’s attorney that he has “recently passed.” No details have been released concerning the circumstances of his death.
In September 2018, the deceased plaintiff, a male masseuse, filed claims alleging the House of Cards actor grabbed his genitals and was allegedly forced to grab Spacey’s genitals during a massage at the actor’s private residence in Malibu, California, two years earlier.
Through his lawyer, Spacey has vehemently denied these allegations.
According to the lawsuit, upon arriving at Spacey’s home, the individual suing as “John Doe” alleged the actor complained of “having some pain or discomfort” in his groin area. The masseuse claimed he told Spacey to lie face down, but the actor allegedly laid down on his back instead. While massaging the actor’s leg, he alleged that Spacey put his hand on his genitals.
The masseuse alleged that he pulled away but gave Spacey the benefit of the doubt, assuming the actor was directing him to where he was in pain. The masseuse alleged that he began to massage Spacey’s groin area in a “nonsexual, professional manner,” but claimed that Spacey forced him to once again touch his genitals.
The massage therapist claimed he pulled away, allegedly telling Spacey, “What are you doing? This is ridiculous. I am a professional. This is what I do for a living. I have a son.” The man also alleged that Spacey exposed himself and grabbed his shoulders in what could have been an attempt at a kiss. He also claimed that Spacey grabbed his genitals and allegedly offered to perform oral sex on him.
The late plaintiff allegedly made multiple attempts to leave, but Spacey allegedly blocked the exit with his naked body. However, the masseuse claimed that Spacey finally let him leave the residence, leaving behind his sheets and oil.
The masseuse reported the incident to the Los Angeles Police Department. In the lawsuit, he was asking for unspecified damages and attorney’s fees to be paid by Spacey.
The death of the plaintiff arrives two months after both a civil case and criminal against Spacey, from one alleged victim, came to an end. On July 5, a man alleging the actor groped him at a Nantucket bar in 2016 dropped his civil lawsuit. Then on July 17, ET confirmed that the sexual assault case against Spacey in Cape & Islands District Court was dropped due to “unavailability of the complaining witness.”
ET previously reported in November 2017 that Spacey was seeking “evaluation and treatment” after he was accused of sexual assault and misconduct by several men. Spacey has maintained his innocence.
Article via ETOnline
Kevin Spacey RUNS ?♂️ out the closet to Deflect From Allegations+ Netflix cancels ‘House of Cards’
Student Accused of Making Terroristic Threats After He Wrote Down Tyler, The Creator Lyrics: Report
Writing down Tyler, The Creator’s lyrics has reportedly gotten a University of South Alabama student in legal trouble.
According to a report The Associated Press published on Tuesday (Sept. 17), a 21-year-old student named Jack Aaron Christensen was reportedly charged with making a terroristic threat using lyrics from Tyler The Creator’s track “Radicals” from his 2011 album Goblin.
Prosecutors claim that he wrote part of the song’s chorus on a large flip chart in the school library that said to “kill people, burn shit, fuck school.”
The complaint reads that the incident happened on or around Sept. 11, the anniversary of the 2001 terrorist attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people. The complaint reportedly didn’t reveal why Christensen wrote it on a flip chart.
We must mention that at the beginning “Radicals,” the former Odd Future leader does offer a disclaimer that the song is a complete work of fiction.
“Random disclaimer, Hey, don’t do anything that I say in this song, okay? It’s fuckin’ fiction,” Tyler states on the track. “If anything happens, don’t fuckin’ blame me, White America. Fuck Bill O’Reilly.”
Apparently, this is the second time this has happened on the University of South Alabama’s campus. In a separate incident, unrelated to Christensen’s case, a student allegedly wrote a terroristic threat on social media.
“The students involved in each incident have been barred from university property pending the outcome of student conduct processes,” Michael Mitchell, vice president for student affairs, wrote in an e-mail to students and employees. “No matter the circumstances, our police must treat any possible threat with the utmost seriousness and act immediately to ensure the safety of our campus community.”
Christensen, nor his attorney, could be reached for comment.
Article via XXLMag
Arizona artists win suit over same-sex wedding invitations
The Arizona Supreme Court ruled that a local nondiscrimination ordinance violated two Christian wedding invitation calligraphers’ free speech.
PHOENIX — The free speech rights of two Christian artists who make wedding invitations were violated by an anti-discrimination ordinance in Phoenix that makes it illegal to refuse service to same-sex couples for religious reasons, the Arizona Supreme Court ruled Monday.
The 4-3 decision reversed lower-court rulings favoring the city.
The state Supreme Court said its ruling is limited to only the creation of custom wedding invitations by Joanna Duka and Breanna Koski and isn’t a blanket exemption from the ordinance for all their business operations.
The artists, who believe a marriage should be between only a man and woman, had argued that the ordinance would violate their religious beliefs by forcing them to custom-make products for same-sex marriage ceremonies.
The high court said the city can’t force them to make same-sex wedding invitations.
“Duka and Koski’s beliefs about same-sex marriage may seem old-fashioned, or even offensive to some,” the court majority wrote. “But the guarantees of free speech and freedom of religion are not only for those who are deemed sufficiently enlightened, advanced, or progressive. They are for everyone.”
In the dissenting opinion, the court’s minority said the case doesn’t concern the content of custom wedding products but instead pertains to the identity of customers.
“Today’s decision is also deeply troubling because its reasoning cannot be limited to discrimination related to same-sex marriage or based on the beliefs of any one religion, but instead extends more broadly to other claims of a ‘right’ by businesses to deny services to disfavored customers,” the opinion states.
The majority ruling said the city and dissenting justices claimed that if the court were to dare to let the artists express their beliefs, “we, in essence, run the risk of resurrecting the Jim Crow laws of the Old South.”
Lawyers for the city are examining potential grounds for an appeal.
Mayor Kate Gallego, a Democrat, emphasized that the ordinance remains in effect.
“I want to be clear: The city of Phoenix does not and will not tolerate hate in any form,” Gallego said. “That doesn’t change with today’s ruling, and we will not stop with our fight.”
In 2018, the U.S. Supreme Court sided with a Colorado baker who refused to make a wedding cake for a same-sex couple, finding thst state’s civil rights commission showed anti-religious bias when it ruled against the baker for refusing to make the cake.
The Supreme Court decision, however, didn’t address the larger issue of whether a business can invoke religious objections to refuse service to gay and lesbian people.
An Arizona state law that bars discrimination by businesses doesn’t include sexual orientation as a protected class. Phoenix, Tempe, Flagstaff and Tucson have passed ordinances banning businesses from discriminating on that basis.
So far, Phoenix hasn’t taken any enforcement actions stemming from the ban.
A lawyer representing the Arizona artists portrayed the state high court ruling as a sweeping victory, even though the justices limited their ruling to custom wedding invitations.
“Regardless of one’s view on marriage, this is a win for all citizens of Arizona, because a government that can crush Joanna and Breanna can crush any one of us” said Jonathan Scruggs, an attorney for Alliance Defending Freedom, a conservative advocacy organization that brought the case.
Scruggs acknowledged the ruling doesn’t automatically protect other business owners, who would need to seek their own court order to avoid running afoul of the nondiscrimination ordinances in Phoenix or other Arizona cities.
Jenny Pizer, law and policy director for the LGBTQ-rights group Lambda Legal, which filed a friend-of-the-court brief supporting the city’s position, said that the ruling was troubling.
“The court misguidedly has concluded that free speech protections allow businesses to express anti-gay religious views by denying particular custom-design services to customers because of who they are,” Pizer said.
Article via NBCNews
FBI looking for man who robbed a bank dressed as a mummy on Friday the 13th
HOUSTON, Texas — Authorities in Texas are on the search for a bank robber they have dubbed the “Mummy Marauder.”
The robbery took place on Friday the 13th at the First Convenience Bank in Harris County.
The FBI in Houston described the suspect as a black male in his early 20s standing about 5’11.”
The suspect wrapped white gauze around his face and arms, the FBI said. He also wore a wig and baseball cap.
No other information about the robbery was released.
The FBI released images on Tuesday of the “mummy” robber in hopes the public could help identify him. Crime Stoppers of Houston is also offering a reward for up to $5,000 for information leading to the arrest of the “Mummy Marauder.”
via: https://pix11.com/2019/09/18/fbi-seeking-help-identifying-a-bank-robber-dressed-as-a-mummy/
Photo Credit: pix11.com
Oklahoma 18-Year-Old Arrested After Buying AK-47 and Threatening Her Old High School
An 18-year-old Oklahomawoman was arrested for making terroristic threats against her former high school, according to a Pittsburg County Sheriff’s Office arrest report.
The report says Alexis Wilson purchased a new AK-47 and took photos and videos of herself with the weapon.
Wilson allegedly showed a co-worker the videos and told her “that she was going to shoot 400 people for fun and that there were so many people at her old school that she would like to do it to,” according to an arrest report. Police said Wilson was making threats against McAlester High School in Pittsburg County, Oklahoma, about 90 miles south of Tulsa.
Wilson’s bond was set Monday at $250,000, and she’s next due in court on September 27, court records show. Attorney Eric Grantham, who appeared in court on Wilson’s behalf, did not immediately respond to CNN’s request for comment.
After receiving reports of the threats, police went to Wilson’s home and recovered the AK-47, rounds of ammunition and a 12-gauge shotgun from her bedroom, according to the report.
When interviewed, Wilson told investigating officers that “she didn’t mean the statement to sound the way it did and that she was just trying to teach her coworker to not be afraid of firearms,” the report said.
The report says Wilson’s mother told investigators that her daughter had saved up to buy the weapon but that it wasn’t odd, “due to the fact that Alexis has always shot firearms and had hunted.”
The sheriff’s office said it contacted the school resource officer at McAlester Public Schools regarding the threat and was told that they had previous incidents with Wilson dating as far back as 2013. Wilson had been suspended from school for bringing a knife and later for having swastika symbols on some of her personal belongings while at school, the report said.
“I am saddened that we live in a world where every threat could be credible,” Randy Hughes, superintendent of McAlester Public Schools, said in a statement following the arrest. “I am grateful for the quick response from the Pittsburg County Sheriff’s Department and the McAlester Police Department in the way they handled this situation. Together they helped to (avert) a very potentially dangerous situation.”
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Bermuda judge slammed for saying he got ‘horny’ during murder trial
A now-retired judge in Bermuda has been slammed by the Court of Appeal in England for remarking that he was getting “horny” during a murder trial, according to reports.
Carlisle Greaves, who served as a junior Supreme Court judge, was presiding over the murder trial last fall for defendant Khyri Smith-Williams when he told the court: “All this sex is beginning to get me horny,” the Royal Gazette reported.
Greaves made the comment as a witness in the trial testified that he had shared some of the same women as Smith-Williams, according to the news outlet.
Ultimately, Smith-Williams was found guilty in the 2011 shooting death of Colford Ferguson and sentenced to 35 years in prison last October.
His lawyer, Jerome Lynch, had filed appeal with a higher court, claiming that the judge acted inappropriately during the trial, the Royal Gazette reported.
The Court of Appeal rejected the appeal, but appeal judge Maurice Kay took the opportunity to knock Greaves for his comments.
“In particular, his comment ‘all this sex is beginning to get me horny’ was inappropriate and inimical to the dignity of court proceedings,” Kay said, according to the site.
“Mr. Lynch was justified in criticizing it. However, I do not believe that it damaged the defense or had the potential to undermine the safety of the conviction,” said Kay.
In the appeal, Lynch also argued that the judge did little to stop a witness from using vulgar language in the courtroom.
The witness, Troy Harris, had told the court that Smith-Williams admitted to his involvement in the killing, but said that a man named Rasheed Muhammad actually pulled the trigger.
Harris repeatedly called Muhammad a “f—-t” and a “f—king p—y,” according to transcripts presented to the Court of Appeal.
“Anybody familiar with serious criminal trials, in this jurisdiction in recent years, knows [Greaves] has a very personal style, whereby he engages with witnesses, defendants, juries and advocates in an informal way, often using casual language and rich metaphors,” Kay wrote in his decision.
“In relation to Harris, it was important that the judge should facilitate his evidence, whatever it turned out to be,” Kay wrote. “If he took the view, and I suspect he did, that the best course was to let the witness have his say, subject to the rules of evidence, rather than seek to inhibit him, it seems to me that that was an exercise of judgment which was open to him.”
via: https://nypost.com/2019/09/17/bermuda-judge-slammed-for-saying-he-got-horny-during-murder-trial/
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