Kentucky school shooting: 2 students killed and 17 others injured
Another high school has turned into a scene of carnage, this time in western Kentucky.
Article via: https://www.cnn.com/2018/01/23/us/kentucky-high-school-shooting/index.html
Amazon pulls kids clothes bearing ‘Slavery gets shit done’ slogan
LONDON (Thomson Reuters Foundation) – Children’s clothes bearing the slogan ‘Slavery gets shit done’ have been pulled from sale by online retail giant Amazon.com Inc after criticism from shoppers and anti-slavery groups.
A range of products featuring the slogan, from mugs and bags to T-shirts modeled by young children, were listed by third-party sellers and have been removed from sale, Amazon said.
“All Marketplace sellers must follow our selling guidelines and those who don’t will be subject to action including potential removal of their account,” an Amazon spokesman said in a statement. “The products in question are no longer available.”
While the slavery-themed products are no longer available to buy on Amazon’s UK website, bags bearing the slogan were still on sale on the U.S.-based Amazon.com on Monday.
The sale of such items by a major retailer trivializes the global drive to end modern slavery, said charities Anti-Slavery International (ASI) and International Justice Mission (IJM) UK.
“If it is meant to be funny, it fails miserably,” Jakub Sobik of ASI told the Thomson Reuters Foundation by phone.
More than 40 million people were living as modern slaves last year – either trapped in forced labor or forced marriages – according to the United Nations International Labour Organization (ILO) and human rights group Walk Free Foundation.
“Children the same age as those modeling the T-shirts will be forced to work long hours for no pay in desperate conditions where starvation, beatings and sleep deprivation are common,” said David Westlake, chief executive of IJM UK.
“Rather than trivializing slavery, companies and the global community must recognize the vast injustice of modern slavery and work together to end it for good,” he added.
The imagery linked to slavery, and the issues it raises over history and identity, has stirred increasing debate with deep division over the fate of slavery-era statues in the United States, and worldwide outrage about slogans and pictures used by big brands.
British supermarket Waitrose this month pulled a brand of coffee off its shelves after shoppers noticed the packaging featured images of 19th-century slaves working on plantations.
Man accused of impersonating doctor at California hospital
SAN DIEGO – A man arrested for impersonating a Harvard-educated doctor at a Southern California hospital pleaded not guilty in court Friday.
Prosecutors say Zaid Jeorge had fooled both doctors and staff at Sharp Grossmont Hospital for weeks, according to KSWB. He was seen periodically at the hospital beginning sometime after Christmas until a hospital administrator discovered his alleged ruse on Jan. 11. When that medical manager questioned him in the doctor’s lounge, he gave her a story she said didn’t check out.
Jeorge told the manager that he was an anesthesiologist for Sharp Healthcare, but when she ran his name in the hospital database there was no record of him. He then told her he went to Harvard Medical School and was an intern working with a doctor at the hospital, but that story was also a lie.
In reality, Jeorge is a 27-year-old Iraqi national with a Swedish passport. He has family in San Diego. His defense attorney says he legally entered the U.S. on a visa but it expired last month.
“Mr. Jeorge had obtained a Sharp lab coat, embroidered it with his own name, anesthesiologist and M.D. written on it, and then he went into Sharp Grossmont and impersonated being an anesthesiologist,” said Deputy District Attorney Paul Reizen.
Sharp Healthcare released a statement that reads in part: “We are pleased that we have no evidence of patient interaction or access to patient information. We are also continuing to evaluate this event and reinforcing and enhancing Sharp HealthCare’s security measures.”
Prosecutors allege Jeorge is a threat to the community. The judge granted their request to set his bail at $100,000.
“Obviously when you have someone impersonating a doctor who has gained access to a hospital, they have the ability and obviously the mental capacity to think of certain things that could put the public’s health in danger,” said Reizen.
via: http://pix11.com/2018/01/20/man-accused-of-impersonating-doctor-at-california-hospital/
Former Assistant Police Chief Told Recruit ‘If Black, Shoot Them’
A former Kentucky assistant police chief reportedly told a new recruit to shoot a juvenile if they are black and caught smoking marijuana.
Todd Shaw, who resigned from the Prospect department last year, made the comments in Facebook messages to a Louisville Metro Police Department recruit.
The recruit reportedly asked Shaw what the “right thing” to do would be in a situation where he caught minors smoking marijuana.
“Fuck the right thing,” Shaw said according to documents obtained by the Courier-Journal. “If black shoot them.”
When asked with how to deal with parents of the minors, Shaw then told the recruit that he should conduct sexual acts on the parents but said: “Unless daddy is black. Then shoot him.”
Shaw also told the recruit that “ML King was nothing but a raciast (sic) womanizer … but because someone shot him, I get a day off with pay each year.”
Jefferson County Attorney Mike O’Connell called the messages “highly disturbing, racist and threatening” in a letter to Prospect Mayor John Evans, according to The (Louisville) Courier-Journal.
The department suspended Shaw in September while investigating his behavior following the county attorney’s letter. Shaw’s messages, which were sent to the recruit between September and October of 2016, were made public this week. Before his resignation in November, Shaw had spent more than 20 years on the police force.
Mayor Evans sent out a press release where he quoted the police chief saying that it was “apparent to him” that Shaw had violated police conduct, according to WDRB. Shaw had requested that his messages be kept private in court after media outlets began requesting them but a judge later denied his request.
“Throughout his career, he treated all people fairly and respectfully regardless of their race,” Shaw’s attorney, Michael Burns, told the Courier-Journal.
Prosecutors discovered Shaw’s messages after the former assistant chief was placed under investigation for “allegedly interfering in the sexual abuse probe of the Louisville Metro Police’s Explorer program,” according to WDRB.
“There is no place in police departments for men or women who hold such strongly held prejudices, including recommending shooting people simply because of their race,” O’Connell said in his letter.
via: http://www.newsweek.com/if-black-shoot-them-former-kentucky-assistant-police-chief-wrote-786167
Mother Arrested on Manslaughter Charge After 1-Year-Old Toddler Dies From Burns at SW Miami-Dade Home
A mother is facing a manslaughter charge after police say she didn’t get help for her 1-year-old child who died after he was severely burned at their home in southwest Miami-Dade Thursday.
Christina Marie Hurt, 35, was arrested and charged with aggravated manslaughter and booked into jail early Friday morning, records showed.
Hurt was arrested after a woman called police shortly after 11 a.m. after seeing her place the boy on a mattress outside a home near the 12000 block of Southwest 217th Street in Goulds.
Police found the unresponsive child and took him to the hospital, where he later died. He was identified as Ethan Coley.
According to an arrest report, police say the mother of three – who has previously lost custody of her children before – became worried on Wednesday when her four-year-old child burned the toddler with hot water when trying to give him a bath at their Homestead home.
Hurt allegedly refused to seek medical attention for Coley, who had burns to his torso and toes, instead consulting friends and giving the child Tylenol and juice – telling police she was afraid of losing her children again, the report said.
After driving her older kids to school Thursday, police say Hurt went to the friend’s house in Goulds and continued trying to give the child first aid before he became unresponsive.
Police say witnesses told Hurt to take the child to a hospital, but she refused. Coley had severe burns from mid torso to the toes, the report said.
One witness who tried to help revive the boy said it was the worst thing he’s seen in all his life.
“I hear them screaming across the street ‘please help save my baby!’ so I said I’m going to go and see what’s going on over there. It’s a little child, I have to go,” Randolph Joseph said. “So I run over to help, when I go I see them shaking the baby but the baby was gone already so we tried to do CPR.”
Police said Hurt had previously been under investigation by the Florida Department of Children and Families for child neglect, where she temporarily lost custody of her children.
Hurt was being held on $10,000 bond Friday, records showed. Attorney information wasn’t available.
Pope Francis ‘slander’ comment angers Chile abuse victims
Pope Francis has triggered anger in Chile after accusing victims of a pedophile priest of slander
Francis said there was “no proof” for their claims that abuse by Father Fernando Karadima had been covered up by another man, Bishop Juan Barros.
“There is not one single piece of proof against him (Bishop Barros). It is all slander. Is that clear?” the Pope said.
One Karadima victim said the Pope’s earlier plea for forgiveness over clerical sex abuse was “empty”.
The Pope made his comments on Thursday before celebrating Mass outside the city of Iquique in northern Chile.
“The day someone brings me proof against Bishop Barros, then I will talk,” the Pope told journalists.
Lifetime of penance
Juan Carlos Cruz was one of the bishop’s accusers who was quick to condemn the Pope’s stance.
“As if I could have taken a selfie or photo while Karadima abused me and others with Juan Barros standing next to him watching everything,” he tweeted.
“These people are absolutely crazy, and @Pontifex (the Pope’s Twitter handle) is talking about reparation to the victims. Nothing has changed, and his plea for forgiveness is empty.”
Bishop of Osorno, Juan Barros, denies allegations he covered up his mentor’s abuse of boys
Another Barros accuser, James Hamilton, told a news conference the response revealed an “unknown face” of the pontiff.
“What the Pope has done today is offensive and painful, and not only against us, but against everyone seeking to end the abuses,” he said.
Earlier in his Chile trip, Francis had met victims of sexual abuse by priests in the country. He cried with them and said he felt “pain and shame” over the scandal.
The US-based NGO Bishop Accountability says almost 80 members of Catholic clergy have been accused of child sex abuse in Chile since 2000.
- Why Pope’s trip to Chile is a challenge
- Protesters challenge Pope on Church sex abuse
- Chile churches attacked before Pope visit
The Church suffered a body blow in Chile in 2010 when Father Karadima was publicly accused of molesting several teenaged boys in the capital, Santiago, starting in the 1980s.
Mr Cruz claims Bishop Barros was present when Father Karadima – then the bishop’s mentor – kissed and groped him and another boy.
While Bishop Barros has not been accused of abuse, the Pope has been criticised for appointing him bishop of Osorno in 2015. Barros’s ordination ceremony had to be cut short over protests in the cathedral.
Father Karadima was found guilty by the Vatican of abusing teenage boys in 2011 and sentenced to a lifetime of “penance and prayer”.
He never faced criminal prosecution in Chile as too much time had passed, but the judge who heard victims’ testimony in a year-long investigation described them as “truthful and reliable”.
Pope Francis arrived in Peru late on Thursday for a three-day visit which will conclude his two-nation South America trip.
Article via: http://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-42745170
Fake-bomb TV crew held at New Jersey airport
Seven TV crew members have been arrested at a US airport after allegedly trying to film the smuggling of a fake bomb through security
The incident happened on Thursday at Newark Liberty in New Jersey.
Transport officials said a bag carrying an item with “all the makings of an improvised explosive device” was found before it had cleared security.
US media say the crew were part of a reality show being made by a production company for CNBC.
The production company, Endemol Shine North America, issued a statement saying it was investigating the incident and co-operating with the authorities.
“We sincerely apologise for any disruption caused,” the statement said.
Endemol Shine produces the show, Staten Island Hustle, which CNBC has taken up. CNBC has not yet commented.
The crew reportedly wanted to covertly film themselves going through a security checkpoint with the fake device.
Sources reported by the New York Daily News said the crew then wanted to film the reaction of the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) officials and the possible public panic that would ensue.
Images of the device showed it apparently made of vacuum cleaner parts and wires.
A source told the New York Daily News: “The TSA bomb tech just happened to be [at the checkpoint]. He quickly looked it over, said it was nothing and they were taken in.”
The crew face charges of conspiracy to create a public alarm, among others, authorities say.
Lisa Farbstein, public affairs spokesperson at the TSA, said the crew members also faced civil penalties of up to $13,000 (£9,300) for each security violation.
Endemol Shine North America is behind such shows as Big Brother, MasterChef and Fear Factor.
Article via: http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-42743829
‘I just don’t like Muslim people’: Trump appointee resigns
‘I just don’t like Muslim people’: Trump appointee resigns after racist, sexist and anti-gay remarks
President Trump’s presidency surprised many, and one of the main concerns citizens had, beside the fact that he has had little political experience, is that Trump would bring his seemingly racist views into office- as well as invite others who share a similar outlook.
President Trump’s appointee has resigned from the federal agency that runs AmeriCorps and other service programs following his assertions he made disparaging Blacks, Muslims, gays, women, veterans with PTSD and undocumented immigrants surfaced in the news media.
Carl Higbie totaled six months as the chief of external affairs in the Corporation for National and Community Service.
Higbie’s Thursday afternoon resignation, which was prompted after CNN unearthed the comments he made, comes amid increased scrutiny of the president’s appointees for racist or anti-Muslim statements made in the past.
In November, the Department of Homeland Security’s Jamie Johnson, another Trump appointee, resigned after commentshe made that linked blacks to “laziness” and “promiscuity” came to light. Last week, Pete Hoekstra, the new U.S. ambassador to the Netherlands and a former Republican congressman, apologized after uproar over baseless anti-Muslim theories he had spread numerous times in past.
According to the reporting and audio clips published by CNN on Thursday, Higbie had a lengthy track record of making strongly racist and anti-Muslim statements before his appointment.
In 2013, he spoke about giving away free firewood while working in Virginia Beach on “Sound of Freedom,” an Internet talk radio show that he hosted, according to CNN. Higbie said that black women think “breeding is a form of government employment,” that blacks were “lax of morality,” and that culture “is breeding this welfare and the high percentage of people on welfare in the black race.”
On another talk show in 2013, he expressed dislike for the term “African Americans.”
“The whole African American thing gets me whipped up because it’s like 99 percent — and I’m paraphrasing here — of people who write down African American have never been to Africa,” he said.
He also spoke disparagingly of Islam, saying that he didn’t like Muslims “because their ideology sucks,” and that he was fine if his views caused him to be labeled a racist.
“I just don’t like Muslim people. People always rip me a new one for that. ‘Carl, you’re racist, you can’t, you’re sexist.’ I’m like Jesus Christ,” Higbie said on “Sound of Freedom” in 2013.
On another podcast, Warrior Talk Radio, in 2014, according to CNN, he struck a similar chord.
“I was called an Islamophobe, and I was like, ‘no, no, no, no, no, I’m not afraid of them. I don’t like them. Big difference,’ ” he said on the show. “And they were like, ‘Well, you’re racist.’ I was like, fine if that’s the definition of it, then I guess I am.’”
This is not the first round of controversy for Higbie, who worked as the spokesman for pro-Trump super PAC Great America before the 2016 election. During an appearance on Fox News shortly after the election, he cited Japanese internment camps during World War II as a “precedent” for some of the president’s potential immigration plans, and the remarks drew wide condemnation.
Nonetheless, he was appointed to the position at the CNCS, which runs AmeriCorps and other volunteering initiatives, and has programs dedicated to rebuilding after natural disasters and supporting veterans and their families, including helping them transition once they return home.
In other audio unearthed by CNN, Higbie, a former Navy SEAL, derided military veterans with post-traumatic stress disorder as having “a weak mind” and said he thought a large majority of people with PTSD were being dishonest.
“I’d say 75 percent of people with PTSD don’t actually have it, and they’re either milking something for a little extra money in disability or they’re just, they honestly are just lying,” he said on another talk radio show in 2014.
Samantha Jo Warfield, a CNCS spokeswoman, declined to comment on the circumstances of Higbie’s resignation.
[‘Here is what my #shithole looks like’: African countries and Haiti react to Trump’s remark]
Of undocumented immigrants, Higbie, on another episode of “Sound of Freedom” in 2013, said that Americans with guns should be able to shoot undocumented immigrants who attempted to cross into the United States at the border.
“What’s so wrong with wanting to put up a fence and saying, ‘Hey, everybody with a gun, if you want to go shoot people coming across our border illegally, you can do it fo’ free,’ ” Higbie said. “You cross my border, I will shoot you in the face. I will go down there. I’ll volunteer to go down there and stand on that border for, I don’t know, a week or so at a time, and that’ll be my civil duty.”
He also spoke harshly about Sen. Dianne Feinstein on “Sound of Freedom,” calling the California Democrat a “bitch” and saying he’d love to smack her and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi’s heads together.
“Nothing gets me going like Ted Cruz, when he went off on that Feinstein bitch about the Second Amendment. And he put her in her place; that was just fantastic. I can’t stand that woman,” Higbie said. “Her and Pelosi. I’d love to just take both their heads and smack them together a couple of times.”
During another appearance on “Sound of Freedom,” he spoke about the legalization of gay marriage in Rhode Island.
“Congratuf’in’lations, you suck, Rhode Island. Why would you do that?” he said. “I mean, you are breaking the morals, the moral fiber of our country. You know, I don’t like gay people. I just don’t.”
The White House did not respond to a request for comment.
She wore the weapon in a photo with a friend — then killed her with it
It was just past midnight when the two friends huddled for a photo in March of 2015.
Cheyenne Rose Antoine’s right arm is outstretched, but disappears at a sharp angle — the telltale sign of a selfie. Brittney Gargol, with auburn hair draped across her shoulder, produces an upturned smirk.
And in the left bottom corner, peeking just into the frame, Antoine captures what would become the main piece of evidence used to put her away for manslaughter.
Antoine, now 21, pleaded guilty to killing Gargol and was sentenced Monday to seven years in a Canadian prison. The decision came nearly three years after the body of Gargol was found dumped on a road outside Saskatoon, Saskatchewan.
An autopsy revealed Gargol was killed by strangulation, and a belt found at the scene matched the one Antoine wore in the photo posted by Gargol just hours before she was killed, investigators concluded.
Two years passed before evidence against Antoine started to mount, eventually leading to her arrest.
A person had approached the Gargol family to tell them about an alcohol-fueled rant that included Antoine’s confession that she had a fight with Gargol and choked her, the Saskatoon Star Phoenix reported.
But police by then were already doubting Antoine’s explanation to them of what occurred that night.
The two women readied for a night on the town and snapped the photo before going out, prosecutor Robin Ritter told The Washington Post.
Antoine later told police that she left Gargol sometime after midnight and met up with her uncle before dawn, to walk along a river.
But after reviewing surveillance videos that would have verified Antoine’s statement, police questioned her uncle again, and he admitted he told a lie to protect his niece.
[Commit a crime? Your Fitbit, key fob or pacemaker could snitch on you.]
Investigators uncovered digital clues, too.
For one thing, prosecutors said, Antoine’s phone pinged WiFi signals at locations and times consistent with an investigator’s reconstructed timeline of the slaying.
Modern society is awash in smartphones, smartwatches and other devices that can track, tag and pinpoint their users at exact moments. That has been a boon to investigators who can confirm details in photos and videos posted to social media, but can also help the wrongly accused show they were somewhere other than a crime scene.
That was apparently understood by Antoine, though her attempt to create an alibi was poorly executed. After the slaying, Antoine wrote on Gargol’s Facebook page: “Where are you? Haven’t heard from you. Hope you made it home safe.”
Ritter said the Facebook comment showed a deliberate attempt by Antoine to dupe investigators about her involvement, with a conveniently time-stamped message of concern. But investigators concluded Antoine knew her friend was not home safe, because she had strangled her to death outside of town.
The photo of Antoine’s belt proved to be a cornerstone of the prosecution’s evidence. Prosecutors said the belt was found at the crime scene, and they believe Antoine killed her friend with it.
The belt’s weave and color, evident in the selfie, were consistent with marks inside her friend’s car and indicated a struggle, said Ritter, a senior Crown prosecutor.
What appears more elusive is the motive, which Ritter said may have started over an argument about a cellphone. “I don’t think we’re ever going to get the answer,” he said.
In a statement read in court by her lawyer, Lisa Watson, Antoine said: “I’ll never forgive myself. It’s wrong and shouldn’t have happened.”
Antoine maintained she did not remember what happened after she and Gargol left a house party the night of the slaying.
Gargol’s family offered emotional statements and sharp rebukes of Antoine.
Gargol’s father, Everett Hillbom, told the court he was shocked by the death of his young daughter, who was 18 at the time. He expected to repair her car the day after she died — “the last time I would have hugged her,” he said, according to the Star Phoenix.
“You were her friend. She trusted you,” Gargol’s stepmother, Kristi Wickenhauser, told the defendant.
Though the prosecution crafted a strategy of damning information about Antoine from publicly available Facebook posts, mining data through personal devices and social media are on the frontier of criminal justice. Laws on recovering private data have not caught up with the proliferation of devices that record them, privacy experts in both the United States and Canada have warned.
“We have recognized for some time now that new technologies have the potential to eviscerate privacy rights,” said Nader Hasan, a Toronto attorney focusing on criminal and constitutional law.
The business research company Gartner estimates that 8.4 billion devices were connected to the Internet worldwide in 2017, a 31 percent increase over the previous year. By 2020, the company estimates there will be roughly three smart devices for every person on the planet.
Andrew Ferguson, a University of the District of Columbia law professor, called this an era of “sensorveillance,” The Post’s Justin Jouvenal reported.
Crime scenes and criminals are covered with hair follicles, droplets of blood and now, in the 21st century, data from smart devices.
[A teen was found buried in a shallow grave. His former classmate is now charged with murder.]
In one instance, Connecticut police used multiple segments of data to bring in Richard Dabate for the alleged 2015 murder of his wife, Connie. His alibi, that a masked intruder tied him and killed his wife after he returned to inspect a home alarm signal, contradicted information harvested from Connie’s Fitbit wristband that recorded her movements after he said she was dead. Police later learned the alarm was triggered by his own key fob, and an email he claimed to send to his boss from the car was tied to an IP address associated with his home, The Post’s Jouvenal reported.
And in another case, an Ohio man in 2016 was charged with arson and insurance fraud after he claimed his house was ablaze as he slept. Police filed a search warrant for data from his pacemaker, and his heart rate and cardiac rhythms appeared to show he was awake at the time.
Social media appears to be a particularly malleable form of covering tracks, though it may not always be convincing: After Antoine’s sentencing, Ritter, the senior prosecutor, said it was “quite remarkable” how investigators used Facebook and other technology to build their case.
Six months after her friend’s death, Antoine was back on Gargol’s Facebook page, posting a comment on the photo that would ultimately help send her to prison.
“i miss you soo much bert! wish heaven had visiting hours so i could come see you,” Antoine wrote. “but i’m so glad you came & visited me in my dream lastnight.”
“i’m blessed to have met you & have you be apart of my life,still can’t believe those last two days were going to be the last 2 days i got to be able to hug you, talk to you & laugh with you , i will cherish && hold all our good memories,” she added.
Man sent to prison for biting off chunk of wife’s nose
HARTFORD, Conn. — A Connecticut man who bit off a chunk of his wife’s nose, permanently disfiguring her, will spend more than six years in prison following his Tuesday sentencing.
Rodwell Clay, 55, was sentenced after pleading under the Alford doctrine to a first-degree assault charge, the Hartford Court reported. That means while he does not agree with all the state’s allegations, he acknowledges there is enough evidence to convict him.
Clay bit the victim in their Bloomfield home in August 2015, prosecutors said. The couple has since divorced.
She now wants nothing to do with Clay, who stalked, harassed and threatened her during their marriage, she said in court. Every day she looks in the mirror she’s reminded of the attack and hopes to have surgery to further repair the damage, she said.
Clay told the judge he still loves the victim, still considers her his wife despite the divorce and compared his prosecution to the persecution of Christ. He apologized only after his attorney prompted him to do so.
That led prosecutor Christopher Pelosi to say Clay’s apparent lack of remorse makes him fear for the victim.
“The state has concerns for her life,” he said.
Clay was sentenced to 15 years in prison, with 6½ years to serve, and three years of probation. He also was also barred from contacting his ex-wife.
via: http://pix11.com/2018/01/18/man-sent-to-prison-for-biting-off-chunk-of-wifes-nose/