Tag-Archive for » police «
Children on board call parents to say driver was swerving and falling asleep
Sitting on the side of the highway waiting to catch speeding drivers, a State Police Officer sees a car puttering along at 22 MPH. He thinks to himself, “This driver is just as dangerous as a speeder!” So he turns on his lights and pulls the driver over.
Approaching the car, he notices that there are five old ladies — two in the front seat and three in the back – eyes wide and white as ghosts.
The driver, obviously confused, says to him, “Officer, I don’t understand, I was doing exactly the speed limit! What seems to be the problem?”
“Ma’am,” the officer replies, “You weren’t speeding, but you should know that driving slower than the speed limit can also be a danger to other drivers.”
“Slower than the speed limit?” she asked. No sir, I was doing the speed limit exactly… Twenty-Two miles an hour!” the old woman says a bit proudly. The State Police officer, trying to contain a chuckle explains to her that “22″ was the route number, not the speed limit. A bit embarrassed, the woman grinned and thanked the officer for pointing out her error.
“But before I let you go, Ma’am, I have to ask… Is everyone in this car ok? These women seem awfully shaken and they haven’t muttered a single peep this whole time.” the officer asks.
“Oh, they’ll be alright in a minute officer. We just got off Route 119.”
Hines Wards has a lot explaining to do. The wide receiver for the Pittsburgh Steelers was arrested over the weekend for a D.U.I. This past spring, Ward won Dancing With The Stars. He apologized to his fans for the weekend mishap, and he insists he was not drinking or under the influence. He says he was texting, and that’s why his car was swerving when police stopped him. Earlier this year, Ward had an incident with police when they stopped him thinking he was driving in a stolen car.
Unlike notorious Duke Lacrosse accuser Crystal Mangum, some women are actually crying “rape”…not “wolf”
In the last few weeks we’ve learned a number of valuable lessons. Among them:
1. Apparently if you are poor, you should not expect to be taken seriously if you accuse someone who is not poor, of sexually assaulting you (or trying to).
2. Similarly, if you are powerless, you should not expect to be taken seriously if you accuse someone who is powerful, of sexually assaulting you.
3.If you are intoxicated—at all—you should not expect the judicial system to take you seriously if you accuse someone of sexually assaulting you.
4. If you are worried that you are in a vulnerable state—intoxicated or otherwise—and therefore worried that you could find yourself in danger (of sexual assault or other bodily harm), don’t call the police.
5. If you do call the police, and they take advantage of you, don’t expect the judicial system to take your complaint seriously. (See numbers 1 through 4).
We should thank the two former New York City police officers who were supposed to be coming to the aid of an intoxicated woman, but instead admitted to “cuddling” with her in bed (but not “assaulting” her), for teaching us these valuable lessons. We should also thank the jurors who acquitted them of the most serious charges they faced, stemming from that night. And lastly, we can thank the defenders of Dominique Strauss-Kahn for driving these points home through their endless efforts to trash—and when that didn’t seem to work— allegedly buy off his accuser and her family.
The treatment of both of these women—in one case, by the legal system and in both cases, by the media wild west of cyberspace— begs the question: Is there such a thing as a credible rape victim? Does she exist? Is there any woman on the planet whose word, reputation and behavior is considered beyond reproach enough that she can accuse someone in power of assaulting her and have a real shot at being taken seriously? Or should we just save ourselves some time and just make a rule right now, that only wealthy, tee-totaling nuns should be allowed to make sexual assault claims? Meaning the rest of us, should we find ourselves in harm’s way, are just out of luck?
Now before we get inundated with scolding e-mails, know that there are women who make and have made false assault claims. Anyone who would do such a thing should face serious punishment (including jail time) for doing so. But statistically we know that the pendulum tends to swing much further in the opposite direction—meaning many more sexual assaults go unreported, than go over-reported, despite the media frenzy that cases like the Duke Lacrosse scandal can generate.
Regina King is dismissing reports she’s planning to marry former “The Cosby Show” star Malcolm Jamal-Warner, insisting they are not engaged – but are definitely dating.
The two have known each other since the 1980s, and King admits their friendship has since taken a romantic turn.
“Malcolm and I have a lot in common,” she tells Essence. “We’ve both been child actors and were also blessed to be raised by incredible mothers who instilled good values in us.
“Things are maturing nicely. (But) no, we’re not engaged.”
King has a 15-year-old son from her previous marriage to Ian Alexander, Sr. They divorced in 2006.
A U.S. appeals court in Philadelphia, acting on orders from the Supreme Court, will again review the death sentence of death-row inmate Mumia Abu Jamal in a hearing scheduled for Nov. 9, reports the AP.
Abu-Jamal, 56, has been on death row since his 1982 conviction for killing Philadelphia police officer Daniel Faulkner the year before.
The 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in 2008 granted the one-time radio reporter and former Black Panther a new sentencing hearing based on what it deemed were flawed jury instructions. But the Supreme Court this year upheld a death sentence in an Ohio case with similar jury issues — and ordered the Philadelphia court to revisit its Abu-Jamal ruling.
“The case is indistinguishable from the Ohio case, which is why the Supreme Court sent it back,” Assistant Philadelphia District Attorney Hugh J. Burns Jr. said last Wednesday. Defense lawyer Robert Bryan does not believe the Ohio case seals Abu-Jamal’s fate. He argues that they involve different facts that will enable the three-judge appeals panel to reach a different conclusion.
The appeals court last Tuesday agreed to hear arguments again on the issue, a decision Mr. Bryan saw as positive. The judges could have ruled solely based on written briefs.
Abu-Jamal “was humbled by the good news. We are cautiously encouraged that the federal court has taken this step,” Mr. Bryan said in an e-mail to supporters.
Abu-Jamal has argued in numerous appeals that racism by the trial judge and prosecutors corrupted his 1982 conviction at the hands of a mostly white jury. Those appeals have so far failed.
Prosecutors, meanwhile, have fought a federal judge’s 2001 decision to grant Abu-Jamal a new sentencing hearing because of the flawed jury instructions.
The flaw relates to whether jurors understood how to weigh mitigating circumstances that might have kept Abu-Jamal from being executed. Under state law, jurors did not have to unanimously agree on a mitigating circumstance.
Last Tuesday, the officer’s widow, Maureen Faulkner, attended the Philadelphia premiere of a new film about the case. The movie, “The Barrel of a Gun,” discusses Abu-Jamal’s brushes with the Black Panther movement and the radical Philadelphia group MOVE, which had deadly clashes with city police in 1978 and 1985. [See trailers below.]
Abu-Jamal also himself called into a discussion that followed the screening of a starkly different take on his case called “Justice on Trial.” That film, which debuted across town, argues that evidence was suppressed or tampered with.
U.S. police shot and killed a man who took three people hostage, waving a gun and apparently fitted out with explosives, in the headquarters of the Discovery Channel near Washington on Wednesday.
Officers who had been watching the hostage drama on a building security camera crept in while police negotiated with the emotional gunman and shot him when he pointed his pistol at one of the three men he held hostage.
“A hostage moved, he pulled his gun, and a shot was taken,” Montgomery County police chief Tom Manger told reporters. He said the suspect was killed and the hostages were safe.
The man, named by a U.S. law enforcement official as James Lee, had been arrested before for protesting against Discovery Channel over environmental issues.
“He had a history … of conflict with Discovery,” Manger said.
The incident caused chaos in Silver Spring, Maryland, a shopping and office district and commuter hub on the edge of the U.S. capital.
Police sealed off the area around the building and SWAT teams deployed shortly after the suspect entered the building carrying a handgun at about 1 p.m. Manger said county and state police, FBI and Homeland Security agents joined the operation.
The building, where nearly 1,900 employees work, was evacuated and children were rushed from a day-care centre.
Police said they were still trying to determine whether two boxes and two backpacks that the hostage-taker had were explosive devices. Bomb-sniffing dogs checked the area before workers were allowed to leave neighbouring buildings.
Decomposing Body Found under Hotel Bed. Do you think the stench of a decomposing body would get your attention? Well maybe it would, but apparently it didn’t for hotel workers in Memphis. Specifically, the body of a missing woman, Sony Millbrook, was found under a motel bed. Her body had been hidden inside a metal frame for several months. Police were told by family members that Millbrook had been staying at the Budget Inn motel. Motel employees said the room had been locked with all of Millbrook’s personal belongings still inside due to lack of payment
How nasty does it have to become before you say……..uhmnnnnn………something, something just ain’t
right here? Instead months have passed by and the corpse goes unnoticed, this further explains this
hotel clientele OK. Somebody needs to get paid, feel me! BTW somebody call the Board of Health on
these folks.
OSLO, Norway — A suspected right-wing Christian gunman in police uniform killed at least 85 people in a ferocious attack on a youth summer camp of Norway’s ruling Labour party, hours after a car bomb killed seven in Oslo.
Police said the suspect immediately surrendered when told to do so and has confessed, Reuters reported.
Witnesses said the gunman, identified by police as a 32-year-old Norwegian, moved across the small, wooded Utoya holiday island on Friday firing at random as young people scattered in fear.
Police detained the tall, blond suspect, named by local media as Anders Behring Breivik, and charged him for the island killing spree and the Oslo bomb blast.
Norwegian police would neither confirm nor deny if the killer acted alone, but were looking into reports of a second suspect.
Norway’s national news agency, NTB, reported Saturday that witnesses told police two people were involved in the shooting on the island, which lasted for about 90 minutes.
At the time of the massacre, hundreds of children were on the island, aged from 11 or 12 to 18 or 19
National police Chief Oystein Maeland said the attack had reached “catastrophic dimensions.