Sucks to be you

Boy, that sucks.

How'd you like to be one of her kids or husband?

Mom's going to go back to prison now, I'll be home as soon as I can. Love you.

Very sad for the family.

Carmel Valley Mom Caught 32 Years After Prison Break

SAN DIEGO -- A woman living a quiet life in San Diego County with a husband and two children is discovered to be an escaped fugitive from Michigan, 10News reported.

According to authorities, Del Mar resident Marie Walsh used to be known as Susan Lefevre.

Authorities said Lefevre escaped from a women's prison in Plymouth, Mich., on Feb. 26, 1976.

Lefevre was serving a 10- to 20-year sentence on drug charges, authorities said.
An anonymous tip led authorities to Lefevre's home in Del Mar, where she was arrested on April 24.

Authorities said Lefevre denied her true identity but later admitted who she was after photos and fingerprint evidence were presented.

Lefevre said her husband and children did not know about her criminal past.

Authorities said Lefevre is currently at the Las Colinas Women's Detention Center awaiting extradition back to Michigan to serve the remainder of her sentence.

weed whackers

A tie-in to the article below.

Home pot delivery service in New York

But now it's busted:

NEW YORK (AP) - In a city where you can get just about anything delivered to your door _ groceries, dry cleaning, Chinese food _ pot smokers are increasingly ordering takeout marijuana from drug rings that operate with remarkable corporate-style attention to customer satisfaction.

An untold number of otherwise law-abiding professionals in New York are having their pot delivered to their homes instead of visiting drug dens or hanging out on street corners.Among the legions of home delivery customers is Chris, a 37-year-old salesman in Manhattan. He dials a pager number and gets a return call from a cheery dispatcher who takes his order for potent strains of marijuana.

Within a couple of hours, a well-groomed delivery man sometimes a moonlighting actor or chef arrives at the doorstep of his Manhattan apartment carrying weed neatly packaged in small plastic containers.

Its up to you, New York

Wow, who woulda thought New York was a major pot haven?

All of you who thought so raise your hands. Now put your hands down.

All who didn't think so raise your hands. No one did.

Hey, Senator Clinton, does your husband inhale in New York?

What? I'm just sayin'

NYCLU: City Now World's 'Marijuana Arrest Capital'
Report: Racial Profiling A Fact Of Life; NYPD Disagrees

NEW YORK (CBS/AP) ― Police busted nearly 400,000 people for carrying small amounts of pot in the last decade, making New York City the world leader in marijuana arrests, civil rights advocates said Tuesday while unveiling a study criticizing the war on drugs.

Police officials -- who have long argued that the low level drug arrests help drive down more serious crime -- countered by saying the report's data was flawed and its findings misleading.

The study by Queens College sociologist Harry G. Levine, titled "Marijuana Arrest Crusade," accused police of purposely singling out minorities during the 10-year crackdown. It said that data provided by stat Division of Criminal Justice Services showed that between 1997 and 2007, 52 percent of the suspects were black, 31 percent Hispanic and only 15 percent white.

The findings are further proof that "racial profiling is a fact of life on the streets of New York," Donna Lieberman, executive director of the New York Civil Liberties Union, told a news conference at the group's Manhattan headquarters.

Laws were revised in the late 1970s to largely decriminalize carrying small, concealed stashes of marijuana, Levine said. But he claimed police routinely "manufacture" arrests for possession in public view -- still a misdemeanor -- by stopping young black men on the street and goading them into emptying their pockets.

According to the study, arrests for marijuana possession began skyrocketing in the late 1990s during the Giuliani administration -- a trend that continued under Mayor Michael Bloomberg at an estimated cost of between $50 and $90 million a year. There were 39,700 arrests last year alone, according to the study.

The 2007 total makes the city "the marijuana arrest capital of the world," Lieberman said. The study says New York deserves that title because it devotes far more resources to arresting and jailing marijuana offenders than other large cities in Europe and elsewhere. It also cites a previous analysis of FBI data showing that five of the top 10 counties with highest per-capita arrest rate were the five boroughs.

Police disputed the study's finding that most of the misdemeanor arrests involved suspects carrying only a few grams of marijuana inside "blunts" or small plastic bags. Typically, they said, the suspects were either smoking pot in public or carrying more weight: Between about one and eight ounces.

NYPD spokesman Paul Browne called Levine an "advocate for marijuana legalization," and accused the NYCLU of using the sociologist "to mislead the public with absurdly inflated numbers and false claims about bias." "If the NYCLU is for legalization, it should just say so without resorting to smears," Browne said.

Child's play

Fiesta a time of joy, a time of fun and a time of death.

I hope he is certified to stand trial as an adult.

Stabbing suspect now in Bexar lockup
Express-News

A 16-year-old Seguin boy is in a Bexar County juvenile lockup after his arrest in connection with a stabbing death at the Fiesta Carnival in the Alamodome parking lot early Saturday.

His name was not released. He was detained without incident by Seguin police at an apartment late Saturday and held at the Seguin Juvenile Detention Center until transferred, said Seguin police spokesman Johnny San Miguel. The boy lived at the apartment with his grandmother, San Miguel said.

The arrest warrant had been obtained by the San Antonio Police Department.

Officers responding to a report of a fight at the carnival found Robert Perales, 19, on his back, covered in blood. He had been stabbed four times in the chest and stomach and was declared dead a short time later at Brooke Army Medical Center.

San Antonio police said the stabbing was possibly gang-related. It was the first major crime since the carnival relocated to the Alamodome this year.

What we have here is a failure to communicate

Who would want the job? There's high risk, tedium, boredom and random acts of violence and a starting salary of $25,000? That isn't a living wage that's a joke but then again I see teachers start out at around $31,000.

I don't know how folks can afford to live these days. I don't know how I can afford it these days.

At least I'm not charged for the blog.

Yet.

Prisons go begging for guards

Lisa Sandberg: Express-News

AUSTIN — The Neal prison in Amarillo has so few guards working these days that Dorothy Barfoot, a correctional officer, often finds herself working alone in a dorm with 80 to 100 male felons.

Sometimes, she gets so scared that her knees shake.
“Usually, there should be two (additional correctional officers), at least,” the 13-year veteran said.

But the prison can’t find enough people to do the job of guarding inmates — in Amarillo or virtually anywhere else.

The Texas prison system is short more than 4,300 guards; with 17 percent of its full-time security positions unfilled. Nearly one in five of the state’s 106 prisons operates with less than 75 percent of its correctional guards.

Currently, 16 of Texas' 106 state prisons operate with at least one in four correctional jobs unfilled. Systemwide, the shortage is about one in six.

Far-flung Fort Stockton, the worst-staffed unit, operates with 59 percent of its correctional officers. Barfoot’s lockup in Amarillo operates with 76 percent of its allotted guard positions.

The prison system has 34 percent fewer guards today than when seven Texas inmates pulled off a brazen escape at the Connally Uni t in South Texas in 2000 — when everyone acknowledged the system was in crisis — even though its inmate population has grown 5 percent since then, to 153,000.

Testifying before a legislative hearing last month, Texas Prison Board Chairman Brad Livingston called the guard shortage critical.

To deal with the shortage, the prison board March 27 approved a 10 percent emergency raise for all new employees — bringing starting salaries to $25,000 a year — and $1,500 signing bonuses for those taking jobs at the hardest-to-staff units.

The raises were an attempt to address the fact that Texas prison guards earned the second-lowest guard salaries in the nation, according to the union that represents many state correctional officers, AFSCME-CEC7. The yearly turnover rate for first-year correctional staff is 43 percent.

The signing bonuses were a recognition that staffing shortages are as much about geography as about pay. Texas prisons were built in some of the most out-of-the-way areas of the state.
Thirteen of the 15 prisons with the most severe guard shortages are in towns with fewer than 15,000 people. Nine of those places have lost, not gained, residents since 2000, according to population figures.

Consider the Dalhart Unit, a 1,300-bed facility that operates with 31 percent of its correctional staff unfilled, and is located in a remote Panhandle town of the same name with 7,000 residents.
Marty Turner, a field representative with the union AFSCME-CEC7 in the region that includes Dalhart, said the prison always is short-staffed because it has a tiny work force to draw from.
“There’s no help,” he said.

Skyrocketing gas prices have made it difficult to lure people to commute from distant towns, he said. A shortage of affordable housing keeps them away.
“Things are absolutely the worst I’ve seen ’em, and I’ve been (working in and around the prisons) since 1990,” Turner said.

Sen. John Whitmire, a Houston Democrat who heads the Senate Committee on Criminal Justice, said he blamed the staffing problems squarely on decisions made during the massive prison building boom of the 1990s to put most of the units in far-flung locations.

“The state built most of its prisons in all the wrong places,” he said. “They used prisons for economic development. The rural counties would give you the land and throw in other incentives. It might have looked like a bargain but we’re paying a huge price for it.”

Allan Polunsky served on the prison board between 1987 and 2000, when the prison population jumped from 49,000 inmates to 147,000. In an interview last month, Polunsky said he generally was opposed to building prisons in rural areas — but his board colleagues, and the rural lawmakers who wielded power back then, favored it.
“There certainly was political persuasion that came into place,” Polunsky said.

He noted rural communities often lobbied as hard to bring prisons into their communities as metropolitan areas lobbied to keep them out.

The state built most of its correctional facilities for youths in remote places, too, and now faces chronic staffing shortages at many of those units. Whitmire champions closing the Texas Youth Commission altogether and moving its 2,800 juvenile offenders back to the mostly urban communities from which they come.

Whitmire said he has heard no talk of relocating the 106 prisons that house 153,000 adult inmates across the state.
“We have no choice,” he said of those facilities. “We’re stuck with them.”

Union leaders say the recent raises for newly hired guards may do nothing to ease the shortage because the fix largely ignores seasoned officers.

“They’ve created a big problem with the veterans. They’re raising cane. They’ve been the backbone of this agency,” said Brian Olsen, who heads the correctional officers union.

Meanwhile, officials in the most understaffed units have resorted to confining inmates in their pods for long stretches at a time, depriving them of work assignments and outdoor recreation.
Last fall, because of the staffing shortage, officials at the Dalhart Unit closed an entire 300-bed dorm. Michelle Lyons, a prison spokeswoman, said there were no plans to reopen it.

The long arm of the law

Sometimes you gotta take the extra steps and get them where they hide.

Mexico turns over suspect to U.S.
Express-News

Kerrville police are applauding the efforts of U.S. Marshals and the Mexican government in apprehending a suspected sex offender who fled across the border last July to avoid prosecution in the Hill Country.

Officials said Adrian J. Guia Jr., 21, was arrested last week after being expelled from Mexico and is being held in the Val Verde County Jail pending extradition to Kerr County, where he faces a charge of sexual assault of a child based on a complaint by a 14-year-old female acquaintance.

“We are extremely pleased that the United States Marshals have been able to work with the Mexican government to apprehend this subject. We appreciate the diligent work by the Lone Star Fugitive Task Force,” Kerrville Police Sgt. Drew Hufstedler said in a statement issued Monday.

Knock, knock

Your "Castle Doctrine" at work.

Homeowner shoots, kills burglary suspect
Express-News



Police said a homeowner shot and killed a burglary suspect inside a Northeast Side home this morning.



The 18-year-old man male suspect was shot about 2:30 a.m. in the 5800 block of Midcrown after a male homeowner noticed the youth inside the man's house.

The suspect was pronounced dead at the scene. His identity has not been released this morning. at work.

Chinese cabbages

Nice place to hold the Olympics.

Chinese children sold "like cabbages" into slavery

BEIJING (Reuters) - Thousands of children in southwest China have been sold into slavery like "cabbages", to work as labourers in more prosperous areas such as the booming southern province of Guangdong, a newspaper said on Tuesday.

China announced a nationwide crackdown on slavery and child labor last year after reports that hundreds of poor farmers, children and mentally disabled were forced to work in kilns and mines in Shanxi province and neighboring Henan.

"The bustling child labor market (in Sichuan province) was set up by the local chief foreman and his gang of 18 minor foremen, who each manage 50 to 100 child labourers," the Southern Metropolis Newspaper said.

"The children generally fall between the ages of 13 and 15, but many look under 10," it added.
The newspaper said 76 children from the same county, Liangshan, had been missing since the Chinese Lunar Year festival in February, 42 of whom had already left the region to work.

"The youngest kids found in the child labor market were only seven and nine years old," it said.
According to a contract exposed by an undercover reporter, a child laborer is paid 3.5 yuan ($0.50) an hour and must work at least 300 hours a month.

"These kids are robust and can do the toughest work," a foreman was quoted as saying, as he pulled a scrawny girl to stand beside him, the paper said.

Xinhua news agency said the county government had sent officials to rescue the children, but some were unwilling to leave, having been sold into slavery by their parents or volunteering to work themselves.

I'm not a lawyer but I play one on TV

You go Judge Luitjen!

Man accused of posing as lawyer has list of charges reduced by one
By John MacCormack: jmaccormack@express-news.net

CORPUS CHRISTI — A charge of aggravated perjury against Mauricio Celis was thrown out here Monday shortly after he was arraigned on multiple new charges of impersonating a lawyer and money laundering.

It was the only bit of good news lately for Celis, the owner of the now-defunct law firm CGT Law Group International and a prominent political player who is fighting a blizzard of criminal and civil suits.

Celis had been charged with lying under oath after he testified in May in Zapata County that he is a lawyer in Mexico. The state claims this is false, and that Celis is not licensed to practice law anywhere.

Visiting Judge Mark Luitjen tossed the perjury charge after deciding that the alleged untrue statements were never made or repeated by Celis in Nueces County.

“What's wrong with indicting him where it happened?” Luitjen asked Nueces County District Attorney Carlos Valdez, who said later the perjury issue would be referred to prosecutors in Zapata County.

As he has since last fall when his troubles began, Celis declined to comment, but appeared to be in good spirits, joking with the press. After the hearing ended, his lawyer, Tony Canales, blasted Valdez.

“This is evidence that Mr. Valdez abused the grand jury system by bringing a case that had nothing to do with Nueces County,” Canales said. “This grand jury would indict on anything Mr. Valdez would bring before it.”

Valdez is prosecuting the case with the assistance of lawyers from the attorney general's office, and Canales also criticized Valdez for enlisting the help.
Valdez took a calmer approach to the day's developments.
“It's just the normal process of getting ready for trial,” he said.

Celis was first indicted in November on charges of impersonating a lawyer, impersonating a peace officer, theft from a client and aggravated perjury. On Friday, he was indicted on 16 more counts, of impersonating a lawyer and money laundering.

The latter charge, a first-degree felony, stems from his alleged receipt of money derived from his activities representing himself as a lawyer. It is a first-degree felony, punishable by five to 99 years.

Valdez said he will file a motion consolidating the money laundering charge with those of impersonating a lawyer, and that these will be tried together.

After being arraigned Monday on the new charges, Celis, who was born in Mexico, was ordered to surrender his Mexican passport. He had earlier given up his American passport.
Luitjen said he would probably set a trial date when the parties next confer in about a month.

Another Angel weeps

A needless and senseless death which could have been avoided. How terrible for the child of these parents.

Do the parents not understand what happened? What they caused through their neglect or do they believe that it was God's will?

They are not under arrest and they are scheduled to appear in Court. It is a tragedy writ large.

Wis. parents who prayed as diabetic daughter died charged
By ROBERT IMRIE Associated Press Writer

WESTON, Wis. (AP) -- Two parents who prayed as their 11-year-old daughter died of untreated diabetes were charged Monday with second-degree reckless homicide.
Family and friends had urged Dale and Leilani Neumann to get help for their daughter, but the father considered the illness "a test of faith" and the mother never considered taking the girl to the doctor because she thought her daughter was under a "spiritual attack," the criminal complaint said.

"It is very surprising, shocking that she wasn't allowed medical intervention," Marathon County District Attorney Jill Falstad said. "Her death could have been prevented."

Madeline Neumann died March 23 - Easter Sunday - at her family's rural Weston home. Her parents were told the body would be taken to Madison for an autopsy the next day.
"They responded, 'You won't need to do that. She will be alive by then,'" the medical examiner wrote in a report.

An autopsy determined that Madeline died from undiagnosed diabetic ketoacidosis, which left her with too little insulin in her body. Court records said she likely had some symptoms of the disease for months.

The Neumanns each face up to 25 years in prison if convicted. The couple and their attorney did not immediately return messages left Monday by The Associated Press.
Falstad said the Neumanns have cooperated with investigators and are not under arrest. They have agreed to make an initial court appearance Wednesday, she said.

Randall Wormgoor, a friend of the Neumanns, told police that Dale Neumann led Bible studies at his business, Monkey Mo Coffee Shop, and believed physical illness was due to sin, curable by prayer and by asking for forgiveness from God, the complaint said.

Wormgoor said he and his wife, Althea, were at the Neumann home when Madeline - - called Kara by her parents - died. Wormgoor said he had urged the father to seek medical help and was told the illness "was a test of faith for the Neumann family and asked the Wormgoors to join them in praying for Kara to get well," the complaint said.

Althea Wormgoor said she "implored" the parents to seek medical help for the girl, the complaint said.

Leilani Neumann, 40, told the AP previously she never expected her daughter to die. The family believes in the Bible, which says healing comes from God, but they have nothing against doctors, she said.

Dale Neumann, 46, a former police officer, has said he has friends who are doctors and started CPR "as soon as the breath of life left" his daughter's body.
According to court documents, Leilani Neumann said in a written statement to police that she never considered taking the girl, who was being home-schooled, to a doctor.

"We just thought it was a spiritual attack and we prayed for her. My husband Dale was crying and mentioned taking Kara to the doctor and I said, 'The Lord's going to heal her,' and we continued to pray," she wrote.

The father told investigators he noticed his daughter was weak and slower for about two weeks but he attributed it to symptoms of the girl reaching puberty, the complaint said.

A day before Madeline died, according to the criminal complaint, the father wrote an e-mail with the headline, "Help our daughter needs emergency prayer!!!!." It said his daughter was "very weak and pale at the moment with hardly any strength."

The girl's grandmother, Evalani Gordon, told police that she learned her granddaughter could not walk or talk on March 22 and advised Leilani Neumann to take the girl to a doctor.

Gordon eventually contacted a daughter-in-law in California who called police on a non-emergency line to report the girl was in a coma and needed medical help. An ambulance was dispatched shortly before some friends in the home called 911 to report the girl had stopped breathing, authorities said.

One relative told police that the girl's mother believed she "died because the devil is trying to stop Leilani from starting her own ministry," the complaint said.

The Neumanns said they moved to Weston, a suburb of Wausau in central Wisconsin, from California about two years ago to open the coffee shop and be closer to other relatives. The couple has three other children, ages 13 to 16; they are living with relatives.

The family does not belong to an organized religion or faith, Leilani Neumann has said.
Everest Metro Police Chief Dan Vergin said the parents once belonged to the Lighthouse Pentecostal Church but later became what he called religious "isolationists" involved in a prayer group of five people.

"They have gone out on their own," he said. "... They have a very narrow view of Scripture and I would say not many people hold to that narrow of view."

In March, an Oregon couple who belong to a church that preaches against medical care and believes in treating illness with prayer were charged with manslaughter and criminal mistreatment in the death of their 15-month-old daughter. The toddler died March 2 of bronchial pneumonia and a blood infection that could have been treated with antibiotics, the state medical examiner's office said.

No knives in the Courtroom, please

The lesson here?

Don't take a knife to a gunfight.

Cops: Deputies shoot, kill man with knives at Calif. court
By GARANCE BURKE: Associated Press Writer

FRESNO, Calif. (AP) -- A man with a history of mental illness burst into a packed courtroom Monday wielding two carving knives and was shot to death as he threatened a judge he may have blamed for his misfortune, authorities said.

Robert Eaton, 40, had an extensive arrest record and last year, rammed his car into the Merced County courthouse out of anger that he was refused treatment by a mental health facility, Merced County Sheriff Mark Pazin said. Merced is about 50 miles northwest of Fresno.

On Monday, Eaton drove back there in a Toyota Camry he hijacked from someone who was hired to take him to a doctor's appointment, Pazin said. He ran past guards and through a set of metal detectors at the front door holding a knife in each hand, he said.

As attorneys and witnesses cried out, Eaton charged through the doors of Courtroom 2 and into the well where lawyers were standing in the midst of court proceedings, Chief Deputy District Attorney Harold Nutt said.

"As soon as he hit the inside doors, I was behind him and I started yelling that he had a knife," said Nutt, who saw Eaton approach as he stood in the hallway talking with a colleague. "The officers started yelling at him, and yelling at everybody else to get down, and at that point it was rather chaotic. People started screaming, people started heading for the door, and I just ran back outside."

As Judge Brian McCabe tried to hurry his court clerks out of the courtroom through his chambers, Eaton held the knives aloft in a stabbing position about 30 feet away, Nutt said.
When Eaton refused to drop the weapons, several officers fired directly at him, and the man died on the courtroom floor, in front of a few dozen witnesses, law enforcement officers and others doing business in the court, Pazin said.

"There is a likelihood that he and Judge McCabe may have crossed paths in his courtroom," Pazin said Monday. "He had the knives in tow and literally left the vehicle running and came straight over to the courthouse."

Nutt said a public defender told him he recognized the suspect as a previous client with a history of mental illness.

Eaton had an arrest record dating back nearly two decades for car theft, vandalism and other charges, Pazin said.

No other injuries were immediately reported, but the courthouse was locked down for hours as investigators interviewed witnesses and officers involved in the incident, said sheriff's spokesman Tom MacKenzie.

Giving them the means to hold the world hostage

Quick before Hillary nukes it.

Iran demands Russian nuclear shipment
By NASSER KARIMI, Associated Press Writer

TEHRAN, Iran - Iran demanded Sunday that Azerbaijan deliver a Russian shipment of nuclear equipment blocked at its border with Iran for the past three weeks.

Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Mohammad Ali Hosseini said in his weekly briefing that his country has asked the Azerbaijani ambassador in Iran to get his government "to deliver the shipment as soon as possible."

The blocked nuclear equipment "is in the framework of Iran-Russia cooperation" and there should be "no ban on it," he said about the shipment destined for a Russian-built nuclear reactor in the southern Iranian port city of Bushehr.

Azerbaijan has said it was seeking more information about the shipment due to fears that it might violate any of the three sets of U.N. Security Council sanctions imposed on Iran over its failure to halt uranium enrichment.

On Monday, Russian state-run company Atomstroiexport said that one or two trucks carrying the equipment for Iran were stopped two weeks ago at the town of Astara, on the Azerbaijani-Iranian border.

Company spokeswoman Irina Yesipova said officials were holding talks with both Azerbaijan and Iran about the incident. She said the shipment contained "heat-isolating equipment" essential to the plant's operation but that the holdup was not likely to delay the startup of the plant.

Iran is paying Russia more than $1 billion to build the light-water reactor at Bushehr.
Construction has been held up in recent months by disputes between Tehran and Moscow over payments and a schedule for shipping nuclear fuel.

Russia delivered the final shipment of uranium fuel in January, and Tehran has said it was hoping the plant would begin operations by summer.

The United States initially opposed Russia's building Bushehr, but later softened its position after Iran agreed to return spent nuclear fuel to Russia to ensure it does not extract plutonium from it that could be used to make atomic bombs.

Washington and Moscow have also said the Russian nuclear fuel supply means Iran no longer needs to continue its uranium enrichment program — a process that can provide fuel for a reactor or fissile material for a bomb.

death and destruction- a lover's duo

More Domestic violence at the work place.

Paul Hastings Secretary Killed in Apparent Murder-Suicide Outside Atlanta Office
Alyson M. Palmer: Fulton County Daily Report

A woman killed in Midtown Atlanta Friday in what police say is an apparent murder-suicide was a Paul, Hastings, Janofsky & Walker secretary, the firm's Atlanta managing partner, Philip J. Marzetti, confirmed Friday evening. Police said a man shot and killed the woman and then turned the gun on himself outside the Bank of America Plaza, Atlanta's tallest building.

Marzetti said that the secretary, Raven Buckley, had been with the firm for about a year. The shooter was not a firm employee, he said, but the employee of a local temporary agency who had been working for the last three months in the firm's records center.

The incident happened at a picnic table in the courtyard outside the skyscraper around 3:30 p.m. Paul Hastings' Atlanta offices are in that building.

The man and woman got into a verbal argument that soon turned physical, said Atlanta Police

Officer Ron Campbell. The man then held the woman down and shot her before shooting himself, Campbell said.

Police arrived at the scene to find two bodies. Campbell didn't know if the two had a personal relationship.

The west entrance to the 1,023-foot-tall building was draped in yellow tape Friday afternoon. Campbell said witnesses described a "pretty panicked scene" in the shooting's aftermath, as workers alarmed by the gunfire scrambled to call authorities.

"We're shocked and deeply saddened by this tragedy," Marzetti said in a phone message, "And it's got everyone here quite upset, as you might imagine. In any event, our principal concerns right now are with our employee's family, friends and her co-workers, make sure that they're doing OK.

"The last three hours have been some of the worst of my life," he added later.

(Of course hers had ended, but never mind that)

WTF ?!

This is one sick fuck. (sorry about the language)

'Man Held Daughter Captive In Cellar'

Police in Austria have entered a cellar where a man allegedly held his daughter captive for 24 years, during which time he may have fathered seven children by her.

The basement area consists of a very narrow hallway and several rooms, said Franz Polzer, head of the Lower Austrian Bureau of Criminal Affairs, on Austrian TV.
Authorities accessed the area after the father told them how to unlock a hidden door using a code only he had known.

Detectives say Elisabeth Fritzl had been missing since August 29, 1984.
Now aged 42, the woman was found after a tip-off to police. Her 73-year-old father Josef Fritzl has been arrested and is being held in custody.

Speaking from outside the house, Sky's Greg Milam said: "The fact that police have been able to get inside that cellar is significant.

"It means they have a better idea of what Elisabeth Fritzl was going through.
"But it also means the father is talking to police."

The case came to light after one of the children was taken to hospital in the town of Amstetten.
The youngster, 19-year-old Kerstin, was said by police to be "gravely ill".

Elisabeth told police her father began sexually abusing her when she was 11 and he locked her up in a room in the cellar on August 28, 1984.
During the 24 years that followed, she said she had six children by him.

The seventh child was a twin who died shortly after birth. Josef Fritzl removed the body and burned it.

The two oldest children, aged 18 and 19, and the youngest aged 5, had been locked up with their mother since birth and had never seen sunlight or received any education, police said.

Josef's wife Rosemarie had been unaware of what happened to her daughter and it was assumed she had disappeared voluntarily when her parents received a letter from her saying they should not search for her.

Three of Elisabeth's younger children were each left on her parents' doorstep, the first accompanied by a letter saying she could not look after the baby herself.

All were taken in by Josef and his wife as foster or adopted children and went to school as normal.

Police said Elisabeth only agreed to talk after the authorities promised she would not have to have see her father again and the children would be taken care of.
The mother and children are now being treated in hospital by a team of psychologists.

DNA tests are being carried out to determine whether Fritzl is the father.

The case follows that of Natascha Kampusch, the girl who was held in the basement of a house on the outskirts of Vienna for more than eight years.

She was snatched on her way to school by technician Wolfgang Priklopil, who threw himself in front of a train after she escaped.

In another case that rocked Austria, three young girls were locked up for seven years by their mentally ill mother near the city of Linz.

A weighty law suit on the weigh

Geeze, There's plenty of folks who'd like to lose weight the jail diet way.

Heck they'd just like to lose some weight.

300-pound inmate complains Ark. jail doesn't feed him well

BENTONVILLE, Ark. - An inmate awaiting trial on a murder charge is suing the county, complaining he has lost more than 100 pounds because of the jailhouse menu.

Broderick Lloyd Laswell says he isn't happy that he's down to 308 pounds after eight months in the Benton County jail. He has filed a federal lawsuit complaining the jail doesn't provide inmates with enough food.

According to the suit, Laswell weighed 413 pounds when he was jailed in September. Police say he and a co-defendant fatally beat and stabbed a man, then set his home on fire.
"On several occasions I have started to do some exercising and my vision went blurry and I felt like I was going to pass out," Laswell wrote in his complaint. "About an hour after each meal my stomach starts to hurt and growl. I feel hungry again."

But Laswell then goes on to complain that he undertakes little vigorous activity.

"If we are in a small pod all day (and) do next to nothing for physical exercise, we should not lose weight," the suit says. "The only reason we lost weight in here is because we are literally being starved to death."

The suit also asks that the county be ordered to serve hot meals. The jail has served only cold food for years.

The meals, provided through Aramark Correctional Institution Services, average 3,000 calories a day, jail Capt. Hunter Petray told The Morning News of northwest Arkansas for a story Saturday.

A typical Western diet consists of 2,000 to 3,000 calories a day.

Laswell's suit was filed without a lawyer in U.S. District Court in Fayetteville

Shy-town

Behave when you're in Chicago.

Daley: Chicago police to get assault rifles
Tribune staff report

Mayor Richard Daley said Saturday Chicago police officers will he armed with high-powered assault rifles when they're on the streets fighting gangs and other criminals."Many times they're outgunned, to be very frank," Daley said at an event in the Englewood neighborhood. "When they come to a scene, someone has a semi fully-automatic weapon and you have a little pistol, uh, good luck."

The city's police officers carry pistols, and Daley suggested they will start carrying "M4 rifles."Police spokeswoman Monique Bond said the department still is working out details about the M4 carbines. "It is something being reviewed. As far as all of the logistics, the training component, might be premature to discuss it at this point," Bond said.

Daley pointed out that the Illinois State Police, Chicago SWAT units and other police departments around the country already carry high-powered assault weapons. He said the weapons will better match the Chicago police officers against criminals with sophisticated weapons, such as high-powered assault rifles.

"We're finding out that the weapons of criminals are getting bigger and bigger, AK47s, all types of different weapons, because they can carry assault weapons, it's not a violation of federal law, and that is a concern for all of us," he said.

Do not Enter

Great security!

Bet he didn't stop and ask for directions either.

MIA Security Breach: Man Drives Car On Runway

MIAMI (CBS4) ― Airport security is no joke these days which is why Miami-Dade police took an elderly man into custody after he drove his car onto a runway at Miami International Airport on Friday morning.

According to police, a 73-year old man driving a 4-door black Chevy Cobalt, drove through the main service gate at the southeast end of the airport shortly after 8:30 a.m.

The man crashed right through the entry-arm gate, which was in the down position, and raced onto airport property and onto runway 9. "He was going at a high rate of speed we alerted our units as soon as possible and they began chase," explained MIA Security Chief Ricardo Fernandez.

The elderly driver actually drove for more than a mile on the runway before Miami-Dade police were able to take him into custody. A security guard stationed at the service gate, along with security from the FAA tower, called police immediately after the man smashed through the gate and began driving on the runway.

"He was under surveillance from the tower at all times and security units were alerted immediately, as well as police, and he was apprehended along the runway," said Fernandez. The identity of the elderly driver has not been released.

The man is currently being detained and questioned and charges are pending. The runway was closed for a short time but has since reopened and the incident did not affect other airport traffic.

Wheeeeee!

He was protesting the Dutch Government's banning of magic mushrooms.

Nah, I'm jest foolin' ya.

Seven-year-old takes grandma's SUV for bumpy ride
By WILL VASH
Palm Beach Post Staff Writer

PALM BEACH GARDENS — A 7-year-old boy took his grandmother's Dodge Durango for a ride Friday and left a path of damage in his wake.

The tike, who police would not identify, grabbed a set of car keys in his grandmother's home and began his nearly eight-minute joy ride on the 300 block of Sandtree Drive, said Palm Beach Gardens police officer Ellen Lovejoy.

"When she came in, she saw the keys were gone," Lovejoy said of the grandmother. "Her car was gone too."
Meanwhile, blocks away, the white SUV struck two mailboxes on Burma Road and continued north.

Police don't know how fast he was going, but it was the sight of the boy's head peeking over the steering wheel that prompted onlookers to call 911, describing the erratic driver as "a small person driving a car," Lovejoy said.

As police were responding to the area, the Durango continued through a crowded Costco parking lot fronting Northlake Boulevard - striking two parked cars without stopping. Then, at the corner of Park Avenue West and Congress Avenue, the young motorist hit two moving vehicles.

The youngster's jaunt abruptly ended a short time later, when the Durango slammed into sign at the corner of Currency Drive and Investment Lane - causing the right front wheel to break off the vehicle.

No one was hurt during the episode. The child was charged with stealing a vehicle and was returned to his family.

Lovejoy said charging the boy with a crime would allow him to receive services for any behavioral problems or other issues he might have. She did not believe the charge would be prosecuted.

"This is unusual behavior for a 7-year-old," Lovejoy said.

Magic Carpet ride

What! The Dutch are banning Shrooms? What's next?

Weed?

Prostitutes?

Who'll go there to visit anymore?

Dutch Government Seeks To Ban Magic Mushrooms
While dried magic mushrooms are illegal in the Netherlands, fresh mushrooms can still be bought openly in so-called "Smart Shops".

The Dutch cabinet has proposed a ban on the sale of all hallucinogenic "magic" mushrooms because they could induce life-threatening behaviour.

A bill will now pass to the Dutch parliament, where a majority of lawmakers are expected to back a ban after a teenage French girl who had eaten mushrooms died jumping from a bridge in 2007.

While dried magic mushrooms are illegal in the Netherlands, fresh mushrooms can still be

bought openly in so-called "Smart Shops".

Posters in Smart Shops outline the effects the mushrooms have and whether users are more likely to feel chatty or exhilarated, for example.

"The use of mushrooms can produce hallucinogenic effects which can lead to extreme or life-threatening behaviour," the health ministry said in a statement late on Friday after the cabinet decision.

In February the Dutch association of Smart Shops (VLOS) promised tighter self-regulation and noted the majority of mushroom-related incidents involved young tourists to Amsterdam mixing mushrooms with alcohol and cannabis.

Figures from the Amsterdam emergency services show there were 55 call-outs for mushroom-related incidents in 2004, a figure which had more than doubled by 2006 to 128, with the majority of youngsters involved coming from Britain.

The VLOS said sales of mushrooms rose by 20 percent last year, while the number of accidents experienced by users rose by a smaller percentage.

In recent years the Netherlands has looked to shed its "anything goes" image and has tightened laws on drug use and prostitution.

"If they succeed with this mushroom ban then I am sure they will try to ban things like cannabis as well. This is part of a wider trend," said Freddy Schaap of the VLOS.

Boom, Hiya Inky

Doesn't everyone know that there are explosive dye packs mixed in with the stolen money?

Bank Robber Gives Teller Her Real Name And Address

A woman in McAllen, Texas, accused of robbing two banks this month gave investigators the break that they needed to identify her on April 14, when she passed a threatening note to a teller with her name and address on the back.

Investigators believe that the woman, identified as 33-year-old Maria Garcia, scrawled the holdup message on the back of a completed food-stamp application just moments before entering the Capital One Bank branch in the downtown section of the city and absconding with an undisclosed amount of cash.

Cops arrested her less than two hours later by tracking her to the address on the form. They also linked her to a similar robbery earlier this month at another Capital One Bank in Mission.
As of this writing, police have not released the contents of the note that Garcia used to hold up the McAllen bank on April 14. But they did say that she entered the location, near the intersection of South Main Street and Erie Avenue, just before 10:00 AM without a weapon.

Once the tellers handed over the cash, Garcia stepped outside but didn’t get far before a dye pack embedded in the money exploded, McAllen Police Chief Victor Rodriguez said.
Banks often package large amounts of cash with the stain-making devices as a security measure. Evidence of the exploded pack remained on the bank’s outside wall hours after the robbery.
“That stain’s going to be with her for a long time,” Rodriguez said. “That ink is pretty powerful.”

The circumstances of the April 14 robbery are similar to the April 1 hold-up in Mission of which Garcia is also accused. In that case, the robber entered the Capital One on South Shary Road, gave the teller a note and fled before the cops showed up at the scene.

Within a week of that robbery, investigators had tracked the suspect to the San Juan home but were still conducting surveillance on the house at the time of the April 14 robbery, Mission police Chief Leo Longoria said.

“Our detectives came over after hearing about the bank robbery in McAllen and sat on the house,” he said.

They arrived to discover Garcia and a suspected accomplice, identified as 32-year-old Ricardo Cavazos, trying to take the license plates off a green Ford Expedition that police identified as the getaway vehicle.

A search of the SUV yielded ink-stained clothing and money believed to have been taken from the McAllen bank, Longoria said. The money from the Mission robbery had not been recovered as of this writing.

Officers from Mission, McAllen, and San Juan surrounded the home for several hours as family members hovered behind police lines looking alternately concerned and confused.

It wasn’t the first time authorities had responded to the house near the intersection of Business 83 and Standard Avenue, according to San Juan police investigator Rolando Garcia — no relation to the accused bank robber.

Police had been called to the residence for child custody disputes and Maria Garcia’s mother had filed a report with the department identifying her daughter as mentally challenged.

As of the evening of April 14, both Maria Garcia and Cavazos remained in the Mission city jail pending an arraignment hearing that was scheduled for April 15.

Both were set to face charges of aggravated robbery, a first-degree felony punishable in the state of Texas by up to life imprisonment and up to $10,000 in fines.

After being processed in Mission, they were expected to face charges in McAllen in connection with the April 14 robbery.

Dope

That's why its called dope.

Suspected Drug Dealer Calls Police To Report Robbery

A man from Seaford, Oregon, had to know that he would be arrested when he called the cops to report being robbed in a drug deal gone bad.

Nassau County Police say that the man, identified as 23-year-old Christopher Canonico, called 8:19 PM April 16 to say that he had just been robbed in North New Hyde Park.

According to police, Canonico was set up by two women who agreed to buy heroin at a local gas station. While they were sitting in Canonico’s car, a third person with a gun came up to the car and robbed him of $340, a cell phone, and a wallet.

Police have arrested Canonico on charges of criminal sale and criminal possession of a controlled substance. The women and man with the gun are charged with robbery and other charges.

Undercover investigation

What? the investigation included undercover work.

Police officer sacked for sex on the job

LONDON (Reuters) - A police officer was forced to resign on Wednesday for having sex with a prostitute at a building he had been sent to investigate to see if it was a brothel.

The police sergeant, who was not named, had "engaged in sexual activity with a sex worker" while on duty in east London in December 2005, the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) said. He was supposed to be finding out if the premises were being used for prostitution.

"The sergeant's behaviour was disgraceful. He has brought shame on himself and his former colleagues," said IPCC Commissioner Deborah Glass.

The sergeant, who had faced four disciplinary charges, was forced to quit after a misconduct hearing.

Self-demolition man

I guess I can't work up much sympathy here.

Actor Snipes gets 3 years, apologizes for `costly mistakes'
(ET)By TRAVIS REED

OCALA, Fla. (AP) - After haggling with revenue agents, criminal investigators and eventually U.S. prosecutors for almost a decade, Wesley Snipes finally caught them by surprise.
Hours before he was to be sentenced Thursday for failing to file income taxes he insisted he never had to pay, the action star cut the federal government three checks for $5 million, delivered in court.

So taken aback were prosecutors that they first declined the cash. But by the end of the day, the government took the money and more - a maximum three-year sentence for its highest-profile criminal tax target in decades.

"The sentencing court sends the right message to the American taxpayer - you've got to pay your taxes," U.S. Attorney Robert O'Neill told reporters outside the usually quiet central Florida courthouse. "Rich, poor, it doesn't matter. We all pay our taxes."

Though Snipes was convicted of three counts of willfully failing to file returns, his trial was held by some as proof of victory for the tax protest movement. Snipes was acquitted of five other charges, including felony tax fraud and conspiracy, that would've exposed him to 13 more years in prison.

Criminal tax prosecutions are relatively rare - usually the cases are handled in civil court, where the government has a lower burden of proof.

Snipes' attorneys argued the sentence was too stiff for a first-time offender convicted of three misdemeanors, and recommended he be given home detention and ordered to make public service announcements.

But U.S. District Judge William Terrell Hodges said Snipes exhibited a "history of contempt over a period of time" for U.S. tax laws.

"In my mind these are serious crimes, albeit misdemeanors," Hodges said.

The action star of the "Blade" trilogy, "White Men Can't Jump,""Jungle Fever" and other films hasn't filed a tax return since 1998, the government alleged. Snipes and the IRS still must determine how much he owes, plus interest and penalties. The government alleged Snipes made at least $13.8 million for the three years in question, owing at least $2.7 million in back taxes on them alone.

Snipes read aloud from a prepared apology, calling his actions "costly mistakes" but never mentioning the word "taxes." He said he was the victim of crooked advisers, a liability of wealth and celebrity that attract "wolves and jackals like flies are attracted to meat."

"I am an idealistic, naive, passionate, truth-seeking, spiritually motivated artist, unschooled in the science of law and finance," Snipes said.

His lawyers said he was no threat to society, and offered three dozen letters from family members, friends and even fellow actors Woody Harrelson and Denzel Washington attesting to his compassion, intelligence and value as a mentor. They called four character witnesses Thursday, including television's Judge Joe Brown, who incited applause from the gallery by suggesting Snipes was no different than "mega-corporate entities" that legally avoid taxes.

Hodges twice halted the proceedings to quiet the crowd, threatening to clear everyone out if they made another outburst.

Snipes' co-defendants, Douglas P. Rosile and Eddie Ray Kahn, were convicted on both felony counts on which the actor was acquittal. Kahn, who refused to defend himself in court, was sentenced to the maximum 10 years, while Rosile received 4 1/2 years. Both will serve three years of supervised release.

Snipes and Rosile remain free and will be notified when they are to surrender to authorities. Defense attorney Carmen Hernandez signaled in court that Snipes would pursue an appeal.
Kahn was the founder of American Rights Litigators, and a successor group, Guiding Light of God Ministries, that purported to help members legally avoid paying taxes. Snipes was a dues-paying member of the organization, and Rosile, a de-licensed accountant, prepared Snipes' paperwork.

The actor maintained in a yearslong battle with the IRS he did not have to pay taxes, using fringe arguments common to "tax protesters" who say the government has no legal right to collect. After joining Kahn's group, the government said, Snipes instructed his employees to stop paying their own taxes and sought $11 million in 1996 and 1997 taxes he legally paid.

Defense attorneys Hernandez and Daniel Meachum said Snipes was unfairly targeted because he's famous. Meachum called prosecutors "big game hunters," selectively prosecuting the actor while Kahn's some 4,000 other clients remained free.
Hodges was not swayed.

"One of the main purposes which drives selective prosecution in tax cases is deterrence," the judge said, while denying it had anything to do with his sentence. "In some instances, that means those of celebrity stand greater risk of prosecution. But there's nothing unusual about it, nor is there anything unlawful about it. It's the way the system works."

Rent

The Landlords from Hell!

Wow.

S.F. landlords charged with tenant terror

SAN FRANCISCO -- A landlord couple have been charged in San Francisco with waging a campaign of terror against their renters in a South of Market building, including cutting out the floor supports at one apartment after the tenant went to court to keep from being evicted, authorities said Wednesday.

Software engineer Kip Macy, 33, and real estate agent Nicole Macy, 32, who have addresses in Sausalito and Incline Village, Nev., were arrested Tuesday and charged with felony stalking, felony residential burglary, conspiracy and other counts in the bizarre case of apparent landlord rage. They posted bail after their arrest and could not be reached for comment Wednesday.

The charges stem from tactics the Macys allegedly used after they bought a six-unit, three-story apartment building on Clementina Street for $995,000 in 2005 and started eviction proceedings against the five tenants living there.

When one of the tenants, Scott Morrow, successfully fought eviction, the couple allegedly told workers in September 2006 to cut the beams that supported his apartment's floor. They also shut off Morrow's electricity, cut his phone line and had workers saw a hole in his living room floor from below, prosecutors said. Morrow has since sued the Macys.

The couple were also charged with terrorizing two other tenants in the building who began paying the Macys reduced rent after concluding that they were being overcharged under the city's rent control law.

Prosecutors said the Macys broke into the tenants' apartment last June and stole $2,000 in cash, a Gucci watch and a cell phone. The tenants, Erik Hernandez and Jason Lopez, later filed a lawsuit accusing the Macys of first changing the locks on the apartment, then illegally entering their unit and dismantling some of their furniture.

When Hernandez came home and confronted Kip Macy as the landlord was ransacking his apartment, Macy kicked him in the chest, the suit says. Threatening notes then started appearing at the tenants' door, and the water was shut off after the Macys stopped paying the bill, the suit says.

In October, Nicole Macy broke into the apartment and poured ammonia on clothes, bedding and home electronics, prosecutors said.

"I would say this is horrendous, a total abuse of tenants and human beings so they could have their way and totally ignore the law," said Steve Collier, the attorney for Hernandez and Lopez. "Lawless landlords is what I'd call them."

Kip Macy is accused of three felony conspiracy charges, three burglary charges, two stalking charges, two grand theft charges and one felony count of shutting off service, related to cutting Morrow's power. He also faces one misdemeanor vandalism charge.

Nicole Macy faces three conspiracy charges, three burglary charges, two stalking charges, two grand theft charges, one charge of cutting phone service and one count of misdemeanor vandalism.

Deputy City Attorney Jennifer Choi said that in February, the city sued the Macys and the now-defunct Nevada corporation that owned the building at 744-746 Clementina St., saying they were "managing their business in an unfair way."

Among other things, the Macys' attempted evictions under the state Ellis Act violated the law, the city says. The law allows landlords to quit the rental business, evict all tenants and move into the vacant units themselves or sell them to a group of individuals who would occupy them. But if any units are re-rented within five years, the rents have to be the same as those the evicted tenants were paying.

The Macys, said Choi, simply rented to new tenants at higher rates. But Morrow fought his eviction and won in the summer of 2006. That was when the trouble started.

A fire in the apartment below his had exposed the floor joists, and after he won his court case, the Macys had the joists cut, Choi said.

"That is one of the most egregious things I've seen, of cases of landlords really going to extremes," Choi said.

One day, Morrow noticed the blade of a saw come through his living room floor, his attorney said. He and a friend managed to bend the blade, which had cut a 2-by-4-foot hole in the floor.
Choi said building inspectors repeatedly visited the building and issued multiple citations, including one ordering that the cut joists be repaired immediately. In the end, the city did the work and sent the Macys a bill for $8,000, which the couple have not yet paid, Choi said.

"This is a very bizarre case," Choi said. "It seemed like these landlords went from zero to extremely angry very quickly."

Morrow declined to comment Wednesday.

"The poor guy," Choi said. "This has been very traumatic for him. He literally never leaves his apartment because he thinks the Macys will change the locks."

J. Scott Weaver, Morrow's attorney, said the Macys' attitude appears to be, " 'It's my property - I can do whatever I want.'

"From that, all the other stuff follows," Weaver said. "It's their property, they can cut holes in the floor, if they want to.

"It makes you question your own sanity," he said. "You think, why would a landlord do that? Why would a landlord cut open his floor? It was a big hole. ... After a few incidents like that, you come to the conclusion that anything can happen."

Mooooo! Udderly ridiculous

What would this column be without stupid people acting stupidly?

I guess he figured no one would care about the cows.

N.J. Officer Allegedly Performed Sex Acts On Cows
Previously Charged With Sexual Assault On 3 Girls

MOORESTOWN (CBS 3) ― More charges have been filed against a Burlington County police officer who was recently charged with sexually assaulting three girls.

Authorities announced Moorestown Officer Robert Melia Jr., 38, has been charged with four counts of animal cruelty after allegedly engaging in sex acts with cows between June and December of 2006.

Melia and his former girlfriend, Heather Lewis were previously charged with three counts of aggravated sexual assault and one count of criminal sexual contact with three girls in his Pemberton home from 2003 until 2006.Melia is being held on $510,000 bail.

Lost in Translation

The cost of translation should get covered by the Feds I think.

Arrest in slaying lost in translation
Zeke MacCormack: Express-News

KERRVILLE — The wheels of justice have turned so slowly for Mirella DeLaFuente that her children now openly question the commitment of elected officials tasked with obtaining it.
DeLaFuente, 37, was killed March 2, 1991, after leaving a bar on Texas 16 where she'd argued with her estranged husband, Jose Garcia DeLaFuente, according to police reports.

A witness told investigators that Jose DeLaFuente, then 50, forced his wife's car off the road and, when Mirella got out to confront him, pointed a rifle out of his pickup cab, shot several times and sped away.

Jose DeLaFuente, a concrete worker, was indicted on a murder charge a month later but by then had fled to Mexico, officials believe.

While state and federal warrants for him are active on this side of the border, there's been no attempt to obtain one in Mexico — until now.

"In 17 years, it should have been done," said Charlie Vela, 29, one of Mirella DeLaFuente's five children raised here by her mother.

Kerr County Sheriff Rusty Hierholzer said he's finished assembling an array of records required for federal authorities to request a Mexican warrant.

But there's a hitch. The roughly 80-page file has to be translated into Spanish, and Hierholzer doubts his office can cover the fee.

District Attorney Ron Sutton has plenty of money but says he won't pay it.
"That's Kerr County's responsibility," he said last week.

FBI spokesman Erik Vasys said Wednesday his agency is eager to assist Kerr County, but noted, "We can't enlist our counterparts in Mexico to help without the proper documentation."

Vela's sister, Valerie Jimenez, 31, is angry over the lack of progress in catching the man who married her mother, a food service worker at a local hospital, in 1987.
"Money shouldn't be an issue. We want justice," she said.

Vela, who has also contacted federal officials about getting a warrant in Mexico, sees race as a factor behind the inaction.

"I just think that if it was a white person (killed) they would have acted faster," said Vela, noting a Mexico warrant was obtained promptly for a man accused of beating two Anglo women to death here in 2001.

Hierholzer, one of the first deputies on the scene of Mirella DeLaFuente's slaying, said race played no role in the case.

"I don't blame the family for being upset," he said. "If it was my momma, I'd be upset."

The case was among several open but idle murder investigations that Hierholzer said he revived upon succeeding Frances Kaiser as sheriff in 2000.

"We're working on a lot of these old cases. We try to do everything we can," he said.

Reports that DeLaFuente was occasionally crossing the border fostered hopes he'd be caught in Texas, Hierholzer said. A federal warrant was issued in 2005 for the man also known by the alias Jose Isaac DeLaFuente.

Since DeLaFuente didn't surface, Hierholzer said, deputies began the process to obtain a Mexican warrant in 2006.

But records were misplaced, he said, so deputies had to reassemble certified copies of court files, fingerprints, photos and sworn statements.

Hierholzer is now pricing the translation fee, but said he can't afford to spend more than $3,000 of the $10,000 budgeted for investigations by his agency this year.

Sutton controls a fund of more than $1 million in seized assets that's supposed to be used to aid law enforcement efforts in his five-county district.

But he won't pay for the translation and aired doubts that filing the DeLaFuente documents would result in a warrant or arrest.

"It's an uphill grind," Sutton said. "The Mexican government will probably never issue one."
He noted that getting a Mexican warrant six years ago hasn't led to the capture of Juan M. Castanon, charged with the 2001 slayings of Mary G. Delery, 71, and her daughter, Mary M. Delery, 51, at their home outside Kerrville.

Officials say they acted quickly to obtain a Mexican warrant in that case after getting leads on Castanon's whereabouts and because of fear that the suspect would harm other people.

In what Sutton now describes as a bad precedent, he acceded to Hierholzer's pleas and dipped into his seized-asset account to translate the Delery case file.

"I did it one time, but I shouldn't have and I won't do it again," Sutton said.

The asset fund is an issue in the election race among Sutton's would-be successors, Republican Amos Barton and Democrat Richard Ellison.

Through open-records laws, Ellison has sought a detailed accounting of expenditures from what he calls the "slush fund."

Noting it paid for trips by Sutton and others to conferences in Hawaii, Ellison said, "If they've got money for that, they can spend it for the translation."

Woo Hoo! Its Fiesta time in Ol' San Antonio

Obviously, Chief McManus forgot its Fiesta! The time in the city of San Antonio when people get stinking drunk and then pile into their cars and try to drive home. Its all part of the fun!

When I had my own firm and did insurance defense litigation I loved Fiesta because I could always count on there being anywhere from 10 to 15 cases I'd get from Fiesta related drinking and accidents alone. At an average cost per file between $3500 to $5000 generated in legal fees per file it was a nice addition to the bottom line per year.

Crashes kill 3 within 25 hours
Brian Chasnoff: Express-News

Three people were killed in suspected drunken-driving crashes during a 25-hour period this week, prompting San Antonio Police Chief William McManus on Wednesday to sound a familiar plea urging motorists to refrain from drinking and driving.

"If you're going to drink, do not get behind the wheel of a car," he said at a news conference, stressing the need for responsibility as this year's Fiesta rolls toward its final weekend. Last year, one person was killed in an alcohol-related crash during the 10-day citywide party.

"Think about what can happen as a result of having a few drinks," McManus said.

This year's episodes — the first Monday night and the others within two hours late Tuesday and early Wednesday — left two teenagers and a 42-year-old woman dead. The 6-year-old son of one of the drivers remained hospitalized Wednesday after undergoing surgery to repair his spine. His father, Adolfo Reynosa, 29, remained jailed on a $35,000 bond on charges of intoxication manslaughter and intoxication assault.

Since Friday night, when Fiesta commenced, at least 100 people have been charged with driving while intoxicated in San Antonio and surrounding areas, according to records at the city's magistrate and detention center. More than half of those suspects were arrested for first-time offenses.

"That seems high," said Lt. Tim Vaughan, a commander in the SAPD's DWI unit. "It's definitely a cause for concern."

Alamo Heights Police Detective Mike Davis, chair of the county's DWI Task Force, agreed.

"That shows our officers are out in full force," he said. "They will be especially vigilant during this Fiesta week."

As of Tuesday night, the Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission had issued 60 alcohol-related citations at Fiesta events. Of those, 56 were issued to minors in possession of alcohol, said TABC Lt. Christina Guerra.

San Antonio exceeds the national average in drinking and driving fatalities, a fact that moved McManus last month to push for initiatives aimed at curbing the problem. Those reforms, including the establishment of sobriety checkpoints and tougher open-container laws, await consideration by the City Council and the state Legislature.

And District Attorney Susan Reed is planning in May to crack down on suspected drunken drivers who refuse to take a breath test. Over the Memorial Day weekend, drivers who don't take the test will be subject to having their blood drawn.

"Even if you don't want to give (blood), you'll be forced to give it," McManus said.

Meanwhile, the police chief said Wednesday that he has sent DWI and traffic officers out "in force" for the remainder of Fiesta, a 10-day party that generates much of its revenue from beer sales.

It's unclear if Fiesta events were factors in the past days' fatal wrecks. Adolfo Reynosa had been at a friend's house before his arrest Monday night, said Michelle Martinez, a cousin. Of Reynosa's son, Brandon, who enjoys playing kickball and riding on scooters, she said the family is "just hoping for the best."

The 6-year-old cried Monday night when his dad tried to leave the friend's house without him. So his father let the boy hop into the car. But Adolfo Reynosa was intoxicated, according to a police report.

Speeding east on West Olmos Drive around 11:30 p.m., Reynosa collided with another car at the intersection with Buckeye Avenue, killing its driver, 19-year-old Angela Medina, and fracturing his son's spine, according to a police report and Martinez.

Nearly 24 hours later, Amelia Arce-Trevino, 42, was ejected and killed when the Acura Legend in which she was riding veered off North Loop Road and crashed into several trees around 10:10 p.m. Tuesday, a police report said. The driver, 42-year-old Michael Trevino, was charged with intoxication manslaughter and jailed on a $20,000 bond.

About two hours later, Fernando Yanez, 19, was killed when his car struck a telephone pole in the 200 block of Donaldson Avenue around 12:30 a.m. Wednesday, according to a police report. An officer found an open beer can in the mangled car, the report said.

Just making a withdrawal

Sorry, but we seem to have hit some sort of a theme today.

People have lost their senses.

Police arrest 2 in India for allegedly stealing sperm
By RAMOLA TALWAR BADAM

MUMBAI, India (AP) - A laboratory technician who allegedly tried to make a quick buck by stealing samples from the Indian sperm bank where he worked has been arrested after a doctor tipped off police, authorities said Tuesday.

The employee allegedly stole the sperm from a sperm bank in the western city of Aurangabad, and tried to sell 101 vials of it to a doctor in Mumbai for about $625, Aurangabad police chief Krishna Lal Bishnoi said.

The doctor declined and called police, who arrested the lab employee and a relative, Bishnoi told The Associated Press.

"The doctor contacted police because they (doctors) usually refer patients to infertility clinics for treatment. They are never approached with sperm vials on sale," Bishnoi said.
Infertility expert Dr. Aniruddha Malpani described the alleged theft as "bizarre" because vials that are not properly labeled would be "worse than useless."

"Anyone would have a hard time selling sperm vials. They must be stored in a liquid nitrogen container. It doesn't make any sense," Malpani said.

Police said the two men will be charged with stealing and cheating, and each could face up to seven years in prison if convicted.

Hide the family jewels!

This BBC article is from 2001.

Periodic panics I guess?

No, I didn't make up the map.

Its from the BBC article, pretty funny though.

Benin alert over 'penis theft' panic

Illiteracy rates are high and many are very superstitious

The authorities in Benin have ordered security forces to curb violence in the commercial capital, Cotonou, following the deaths of five people by vigilantes

There have been reports of at least 10 such attacks since Saturday.

Four of those who died were burned, another man was hacked to death.

Correspondents say that mobs have attacked indivduals accused of using magic to steal men's penises.

The belief that men's private parts can mysteriously disappear through a handshake or an incantation is commonplace in Benin where superstition and illiteracy are rife.

The BBC's Karim Okanla in Cotonou says these attacks begin by someone screaming that that they have been robbed of their penis.

An angry mob would then descend on any passer-by deemed to look suspicious, strip them naked and then douse them in petrol before setting them alight.

No one in the crowd would stop to question their actions or ask whether the accused might possess magical powers, he says.

Our correspondent adds that there have been some lucky escapes for people.

An angry mob almost necklaced a photojournalist who happened to be passing by whilst a crowd was hunting for a suspect.

Another example, he says, was when a high school principal narrowly escaped death, after a mob objected to him sheltering a man they had been chasing in his school.

One report said three of the people torched were foreigners.