6 Teens Tried To Rob A House, Police Say. After The Homeowner Shot And Killed 1, The Others Were Charged With Murder
Police near Chicago say six teenagers were trying to break into a house when the elderly homeowner told them to leave and fired a gun after they refused.
The youngest of the group, 14, was shot and killed.
Now the other five, including four under 18, have been charged with first-degree murder as adults, the Lake County Sheriff’s Office said in a statementon Facebook.
One is legally an adult, 18-year-old Diamond C. Davis, the sheriff’s statement says. Three are 17. One is 16. Authorities did not name the minors.
“Illinois law has long held felons accountable for any foreseeable deaths that occur during the commission or attempted commission of a ‘forcible felony.’ This includes the death of innocent bystanders in addition to the deaths of co-felons,” State Attorney Michael G. Nerheim said in his statement obtained by CNN on Thursday.
And the homeowner? “We are waiting for the completion of the investigation before making a final decision on charges surrounding the homeowner,” said Nerheim.
A Lake County Judge set bail at $1 million for each of the defendants, who are due back in court on September 5. The four juveniles will be housed at the Hulse Juvenile Detention Facility in Vernon Township, while Davis is held in the Lake County Jail, according to the Sheriff’s Office statement.
Moira Mercure, an attorney at Lake County Public Defender Office, represented the teens during their bond hearing. It is unknown whether she will continue to act as their lawyer, the State Attorney’s office said.
She could not be reached for comment.
How it happened
Nerheim said that on Tuesday at 1:15 am, the six teens awakened a 75-year-old resident of Lake County. The resident saw the headlights of the stolen Lexus they were driving in the area of his driveway. Grabbing his firearm, he left the house and went to the outside of his property, according to Nerheim.
Facing “multiple strangers,” he ordered them off his property, but they “continued to advance on him,” Nerheim said.
One stranger had something in his hand, the resident later explained, and believing himself in danger, the resident fired his gun several times, striking one of the defendants with a single bullet, the prosecutor said.
The teens all ran back to the stolen Lexus and drove away, Nerheim said.
The prosecutors said the teens stopped the car in Gurnee, a township within Lake County, and told a police officer they’d spotted that their friend had been shot. As the officer examined the injured teen, four of the suspects drove off in the stolen Lexus, while the fifth was taken into custody, according to Nerheim.
Reaching Chicago, they stopped only when they ran out of gas and then ran from the police officers who were chasing them, Nerheim said.
Taken into custody, some of the defendants, “most of whom have significant criminal histories,” stated they’d run because they “did not want to go back to jail,” according to Nerheim.
“When Lake County authorities responded to the scene of the shooting, they located the offenders’ hunting knife on the driveway,” noted Nerheim.
Rationale behind the law
Having planned to arm themselves and ignore the resident’s demand to leave his property, the defendants are responsible for placing their accomplice in danger, Nerheim said.
Police did not say additional weapons were found on the teens, though Nerheim stated the decision to bring a knife was “collective.”
“Had they not made the decisions they did make early Tuesday morning, this 14-year-old would still be alive today,” he said.
Nerheim explained the rationale behind the law that holds felons accountable for deaths that occur during their crime. When felons are armed, “the possibility of death or great harm increases dramatically,” Nerheim stated.
This greater risk of danger is what the law is attempting to deter, he said.
The Lake County Coroner’s Office is scheduling an autopsy for the boy who was killed, the sheriff’s office said.
Photo Credit: cnn.com
A Black Teen Ran Out With A $2 Beer. Then A Tennessee Store Clerk Followed Him And Shot Him Dead
A jury found a grocery clerk guilty of killing a 17-year-old boy who ran out of the store with a beer he didn’t pay for in Memphis, Tennessee, in a case that had sparked protests, authorities said.
Anwar Ghazali was convicted of second-degree murder after a four-day trial, Shelby County District Attorney General Amy Weirich said Friday.
“This defendant took it upon himself to be the judge and jury and the executioner over a $2 beer,” prosecutor Lora Fowler said, according to CNN affiliate WMC.
The shooting happened in March 2018, after Dorian Harris walked out of the Top Stop Shop with a beer without paying, Weirich said.
Security video of the incident played in court shows that Ghazali, while behind the counter dealing with another customer, pulled out a handgun and pointed it at Harris. He then ran outside to follow the teen and fired several times.
Afterward, he returned to the store and told a witness, “I think I shot him.” He did not call the police, and neither did any other customer inside the store, WMC reported.
Harris was shot at least three times and was left to bleed out, Fowler said. His body was found two days later in a yard near the store with gunshots in the back of his thigh, Weirich said.
Ghazali’s defense attorney, Blake Ballin, told CNN in an email that Ghazali maintains he acted recklessly that night but his intention was never to harm Harris.
He said they were pleased that the jury rejected the prosecution’s argument that this was a calculated and premeditated murder motivated by the theft of a beer. That would have come with a potential life sentence.
Ghazali is expected to be sentenced on September 23.
“At his sentencing hearing I expect him to express his heartfelt remorse and his hope that Mr. Harris’ family can forgive him and continue healing,” Ballin said.
Family mourns: ‘Why did this happen to my son?’
The shooting, which sparked protests outside the store, has similarities to other instances of black men shot and killed over otherwise minor incidents. Bernice King, daugher of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., linked his death to the broader issue of the value of African American lives known as the Black Lives Matter movement.
“Dear Memphis: I’m here in your city. #DorianHarris should be here, too,” she said on Twitter. “If we don’t value black lives and believe that Dorian’s life is worth far more than an allegedly stolen beer, then we’re not authentically honoring my father.”
Ballin said his defense team focused on the facts and not the emotion of the case.
“I understand why this case has caused public frustration because another African American kid has been needlessly killed. But decisions of guilt and innocence and questions of intent should not be based on emotion,” he said. “The defense team did our best to make sure that the jury rendered a verdict based on the facts of the case and not on the color of someone’s skin. That would just be another injustice.”
Harris’ family members mourned the young man after the killing and ahead of the trial.
“It shouldn’t have happened like that,” his grandmother Effie Fitch told WMC in April 2018. “He was a child and that was an adult. He ought to have more responsibility than that and he’s running a business.”
“Why did this happen to my son?” Harris’ father, Peete Hanson, said earlier this week. “Why was it that he was left there like that? Like he was nothing. Like he was a nobody.”
Photo Credit: cnn.com
She Wanted A Late-Night Hookup, But He Fell Asleep. So She Burned His House Down
WOODBURY, N.J. – A New Jersey woman is accused of torching a man’s house after he invited her over for late-night sex, then fell asleep and did not hear her at his door.
Taija Russell, 29, was arrested Tuesday in connection with a fire that destroyed a home earlier this month, said Woodbury police.
Police accuse Russell of sending a series of angry texts to the slumbering resident, then buying lighter fluid, matches and a lighter at a nearby gas station around 4 a.m. on Aug. 4.
She’s accused of setting a fire outside the sole doorway to the man’s home, then fleeing as the flames spread, according to a probable cause statement for her arrest.
The victim, whose name has not been released, awoke around 4:30 a.m. to find flames blocking the exit from his smoke-filled residence. He escaped by physically removing a window frame and climbing through the opening, police said.
The man, described as “covered head to toe in soot and ash” and wearing only a T-shirt, then ran around two-tenths of a mile to Woodbury’s police station.
He “frantically” announced that his residence was burning, then ran back to his home, says the probable cause statement.
The victim was taken to a hospital to be treated for smoke inhalation and first- and second-degree burns, according to police.
Firefighters from Woodbury and surrounding towns responded to the blaze, saving the man’s dog.
“The residence and its contents were completely destroyed,” says the probable cause statement, which notes the fire was determined to be an arson.
Police then learned of texts sent by Russell to the victim, which included “I see you wanna die” and “You wasted my money to come out here.”
The victim’s phone also showed eight missed calls, according to the probable cause statement.
The man told police he’d invited Russell to his home “and stated that she was a ‘side chick’ whom he had been having a sexual relationship with,” it adds.
Video surveillance showed the woman outside the man’s house “just prior to the fire” and making a purchase at a Conoco station on Mantua Pike, police said.
Russell is being held on charges of attempted murder, aggravated arson, endangering and criminal mischief.
The incident marked the second time this year a woman was accused of setting fire to a man’s home in Woodbury.
A city woman, 33-year-old Tasia Young, was charged with aggravated arson and other crimes in April.
According to police, Young confessed she engaged in a threesome at her boyfriend’s duplex, then became angry when he sent her home and the other woman stayed.
Police said Young also bought lighter fluid and matches at the same gas station.
Photo Credit: usatoday.com
Mom accuses renowned boys choir of gender bias after daughter was rejected
A mother in Berlin is helping her 9-year-old daughter sue a historically renowned all-boys choir for gender bias.
The girl, whose identity is concealed to protect her privacy, has attempted to join the State and Cathedral Choir in Germany multiple times and has been continuously rejected, the Associated Press reported. The choir said that it didn’t deny the girl entry based on her gender, but because she lacked the talent and motivation needed to succeed.
The choir also noted that she may have been asked to join “if her voice had matched the desired sound characteristics of a boys choir,” Berlin administrative court said.
The mother insists that the choir’s decision was discriminatory and infringes on equal opportunity rights. In its 554 years of operation, the choir has not admitted a single girl.
The 9-year-old was rejected from the choir in 2016 and 2018 without being given an audition, according to the girl’s attorney Susann Braecklein. In December, she was told “a girl will never sing in a boys choir,” in a letter sent by the dean of the music faculty at the University of the Arts.
The girl was invited for an audition in March, but was rejected again.
The case has received a lot of attention with some siding with the girl and her mother and others arguing that letting a girl sing breaks from history and tradition. Some say that there’s a distinct difference between boys’ and girls’ voices.
Ann-Christine Mecke, a musicologist, told ZDF television that although there are variations between the voices of girls and boys, it’s pretty insignificant.
Article via USAToday
‘You ugly!!!’ Airport guard fired for slipping mean note to random traveler
It looks like the TSA is hiring the cast of “Mean Girls” now.
A traveler passing through security at Rochester International Airport got an unexpected sick burn from an employee — when she handed him a folded-up note that said, “You ugly!!!”
Neal Strassner, 40, said he was handed the small, folded-up piece of brown paper by a female worker before collecting his things at the checkpoint in June.
He said he initially thought it was a piece of scrap cardboard or some trash.
“I didn’t open it because I didn’t care about it,” he told The Post. “She turned around a few times asking, ‘Are you going to open that?’”
When he finally did, he looked at it and saw the message. He said he just put it in his pocket and got on his plane to Kansas.
The guard can be seen doubling over with laughter as Strassner walks away, according to CCTV footage of the incident that Strassner got though a Freedom of Information Act request.
She then tears another piece of cardboard from a box of latex gloves above the bag scanner and begins writing — presumably a message for her next victim.
“I travel constantly and I’ve never had anything like this happen,” Strassner said.
“I don’t like throwing negativity around,” he said. “What about a note that says, ‘Hey, next time bring me tacos’?” he suggested.
Strassner said he wasn’t going to take any action until he started sharing the story with friends and they became concerned that the guard could pick on a person who might be depressed or in a more vulnerable state and not be able to shake the insult off so easily.
“If you were bullied, that could be a big deal to somebody,” he said. “A smile could bring someone up from the ground and that note could drag them back down.”
Security supervisors at the airport initially thought Strassner was joking when he called them a few weeks later to report what happened — until he produced the note and obtained the CCTV footage.
The woman, an employee of Virginia-based security company VMD Corp., which contracts with the TSA, has since been fired, the agency has confirmed.
“TSA holds contractors to the highest ethical standards and has zero tolerance for this type of behavior,” a statement from the agency read.
Strassner said her employers were equally speechless.
“One of the guys from VMD Corp. called me and he started apologizing and said, ‘I have no words.’ Once he received the tapes, he couldn’t believe it either.”
VMD Corp. did not respond to a request for comment.
Strassner said he still can’t wrap his head around the nasty trick.
“I really have no idea what she was trying to do.”
Photo Credit: nypost.com
CT man with interest in committing a mass shooting is arrested; weapons seized from home
NORWALK, Conn. — Authorities say they’ve arrested a Connecticut man interested in committing a mass shooting and seized weapons and ammunition from his home.
Norwalk and FBI officials say 22-year-old Brandon Wagshol was charged Thursday with illegal possession of large capacity ammunition magazines. Police say they received a tip that Wagshol was trying to buy large-capacity rifle magazines from out of state.
Officials allege Wagshol was attempting to build a rifle with parts bought online. They say a Facebook posting showed his interest in committing a mass shooting.
Authorities say they seized firearms, body armor and other items from Wagshol’s home. They say the firearms are registered to his father.
Wagshol was held on $250,000 bail. It wasn’t immediately clear if he has a lawyer who could respond to the allegations.
Photo Credit: Norwalk PD
Man accused of sexual assault of a 13-year-old has ‘mummified remains’ in Newark home
NEWARK, N.J. — A Newark man accused of the sexual assault of a 13-year-old child also had mummified remains in his home upon search, the Essex County Prosecutor’s Office said.
Frank Williams, a 53-year-old, was arrested today as the result of an investigation between the county and the Newark Police Department after a report he had sexually assaulted the child over a period of several months, starting in 2018.
Police and the prosecutor’s office’s SVU conducted a search warrant on Thursday. During the search, mummified human remains were found in a bin in his closet. His bedroom also contained an alter to an unknown deity.
Williams is charged with first-degree aggravated sexual assault; first-degree endangering the welfare of a child; second-degree sex assault upon a victim between the ages of 13 and 15; second-degree luring; endangering the welfare of a child for engaging in sexual conduct with a child; and desecration of human remains.
Photo Credit: pix11.com
Florida woman who pulled gator from yoga pants gets probation
A Florida woman who was arrested for pulling a small alligator out of her yoga pants during a traffic stop pleaded guilty to illegally possessing animals and was sentenced to probation, authorities said.
The woman, 25-year-old Ariel Machan-Le Quire, was arrested in May when she and 22-year-old Michael Clemons were pulled over by Charlotte County cops after Clemons ran a stop sign, according to police.
The pair told the officers they were collecting frogs and snakes underneath an overpass and gave them permission to search the car and bags they had, authorities said.
Cops discovered 41 turtles in a “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles” backpack, and asked Machan-Le Quire if she had anything else unusual on her.
She then pulled a 1-foot-long gator out of her yoga pants and handed it to the officers, police said.
Machan-Le Quire was sentenced to probation Thursday for possessing the animals. Charges against Clemons were pending.
via: https://nypost.com/2019/08/15/florida-woman-who-pulled-gator-from-yoga-pants-gets-probation/
Photo Credit: Charlotte County Sheriff’s Office
Black man stopped by police after white woman allegedly said he was staring ‘suspiciously’ at her
Royal Oak, MI (WXYZ) — A Royal Oak police internal investigation is underway after a controversial incident Tuesday evening that was recorded live on Facebook.
The department confirmed the investigation to 7 Action News Wednesday afternoon while declining an interview request.
The person behind the cell phone claims a black man was questioned by police for looking “suspiciously” at a white woman as he crossed the street.
“I am in Royal Oak Michigan,” the witness recording video said. “I was going to the CVS over here when this young man was stopped because a Caucasian lady said that he looked at her suspiciously and he has been pulled over walking to go to eat by two police officers for suspicion of being black.”
The woman who shot the video and narrates it claims the white woman called police while watching the man from her car, which was across the street.
A black man who identifies himself to officers as a 20-year-old is shown being questioned by Royal Oak police.
The man who says he was walking into Inn Season Cafe at 4th and Knowles in Royal Oak, even apologized to officers for the inconvenience.
“By the way, I’m sorry for wasting your guys’ time,” the man in the video says.
The man can eventually be heard saying, “They need to make a warning sign for Royal Oak: ‘Don’t stare too long.’”
The narrator follows saying, “No, don’t be black and stare.” The narrator also suggest the man was walking across the street to meet his girlfriend in the restaurant when police were called on him.
Four minutes into the video more officers arrive along with a supervisor. The man was eventually allowed to go.
The restaurant’s general manager witnessed the questioning and can be heard telling the officer in the video, “If that were me walking across the street and walking in, this would not be happening because I was looking at her.”
The restaurant paid for the man’s meal inside according to an employee at the restaurant.
Royal Oak police declined Action News’ request for an interview and declined to provide any information on this other than confirming there is an internal investigation.
Royal Oak Mayor Michael Fournier responded to the incident with the below statement:
The city of Royal Oak takes nothing more seriously than our responsibility to provide public safety with the highest level of integrity and transparency. We are passionate about being a city that lives and acts according to our values and one where all people from all walks of life, from all racial and ethnic backgrounds feel not just safe, but welcome and embraced as members of our community. We absolutely recognize that racial bias exists and we as a community aspire to be among those working every day to combat it. But, this is not just the work of our officers and public officials alone, but all of us, individually and as a community must put in the effort to recognize and come to terms with our own personal prejudices and biases. We are in the process of evaluating what mistakes have been made and we will own them, we will learn from them, and we will continue to strive to be better in everything we do.
Photo Credit: Getty Images
White woman pulls gun on 4 black high school students raising funds for their football team
WYNNE, Ark. — The wife of an Arkansas jail administrator was arrested and charged with assault several days after police say she pulled a gun on four black teenagers who were going door to door to raise money for their high school football team
Police in the eastern Arkansas city of Wynne, about 100 miles (161 kilometers) northeast of Little Rock, said the incident happened Aug. 7. Police responding to reports of “suspicious persons” found the four children on the ground, with Jerri Kelly, who is white, standing over them holding a gun, Memphis TV station WMC reported.
The officer let the children stand up, and they told him they had been selling discount cards to raise money for a school athletic program. The Wynne School District said two of the four children were wearing football jerseys.
Kelly, 46, was charged Monday with aggravated assault, false imprisonment and endangering the welfare of a minor.
Cross County Sheriff’s Department Captain Jeff Nichols said a warrant was put out for Kelly’s arrest, and she turned herself in Monday evening. She was released that night on $10,000 bond.
Kelly, who is the wife of Cross County Jail Administrator Joseph Kelly, couldn’t immediately be reached for comment Thursday and it wasn’t clear whether she had an attorney who could comment.
Nichols said a mugshot of Kelly wasn’t taken on Monday because she had a “medical emergency” as she was being booked. He said he could not release more information, citing medical privacy laws. He said she came to the jail to have a mugshot taken after her initial court appearance on Thursday morning, in part because of community backlash.
“She was afforded the same booking process and procedures as anyone that’s brought into our facility,” Nichols said. “She received no preferential treatment.”
Bill Winkler, who said he has lived in the neighborhood where the incident took place for four decades, said children are typically out this time of year selling discount cards for the football team.
“Usually it’s right before football season, late summer or early fall,” Winkler said.
Wynne School District Superintendent Carl Easley said the district is considering stopping door-to-door fundraisers.
via: https://pix11.com/2019/08/15/white-woman-pulls-gun-on-4-black-fundraising-teens/
Photo Credit: Cross County Sheriff’s Office