This is such a great true story, I couldn’t pass it up. Thanks to my former colleague Jerry Doyle for the heads-up on this one.
SGT. RECKLESS
Except for the Marines who keep her memory alive, few today remember the courageous little mare who became a war horse hero
By Elizabeth Kaye McCall
Cowboys & Indians
July 2011
The is a forgotten hero from The Forgotten War — a little sorrel Mongolian mare whose heroism during heavy combat in Korea was so monumental, the U.S. Marine Corps made her a staff sergeant. Called by the nickname of an antitank weapon with a ferocious back blast, Reckless joined the Marines to carry ammunition to the front lines for the 75 mm Recoilless Rifle Platoon of the 5th Marines. A true war horse, not of stage fame or fiction, she earned her stripes to rival some of history’s greatest patriots.
“Marines passed stories up and down the line on the ridges. We’d heard the recoilless rifle boys had a horse, for crying out loud!” recalls Harold Wadley, of St. Maries, Idaho, a veteran of the 5th Marine Regiment, 1st Marine Division. “They trained her to pack the rounds as well as the gun. That gun was 6 feet long and heavy; it took two guys to handle it. They would strap that on one side [of the horse] and strap ammunition on the other side to balance the load,” says Wadley, who occasionally caught sight of the 14.1-hand pony-size horse on the battlefield. “You talk about baptism of fire!” Flooded with stimuli, the one-time racehorse was quickly desensitized to the weapons’ thunderous roar.
Wadley vividly remembers March 26, 1953, when his infantry unit was holding Outpost Vegas about a mile from the front line. He’d gone to retrieve supplies forgotten by the reinforcement squad when the Chinese launched an assault. “The artillery mortars were unspeakable. It was horrific,” Wadley says. Taking the wounded to the command post, Wadley noticed something extraordinary. “Well, here comes Reckless up that ridge where the recoilless rifle boys had a big foxhole. I couldn’t believe it!”
One of only two men to leave “Hill Vegas” alive, Wadley remembers the day like it was yesterday. “Generally one Marine led Reckless and she brought up ammo. Some of the gun crew were wounded, so they didn’t have an extra Marine. She made that trip all night long by herself. They would tie a wounded Marine on her and turn her around and she’d head down that ridge with all this artillery and mortar coming in. The guys down there would unload the wounded off her and tie gun ammo on her and she would turn around right on her own and head right back up.”
It was steady nerves, bravery, and a sense of duty beyond imagination — amid artillery barrages exploding at the rate of 500 incoming rounds an hour. “I remember in the flare light, looking back and seeing that little Mongolian mare heading up that slope without anybody leading her and going up to that gun pit,” Wadley recalls. “She knew exactly what her job was. There’s not another horse in war history that could even touch that mare.”
Bought for $250 by Lt. Eric Pedersen, commanding officer of the Marine’s Recoilless Rifle Platoon (of the 5th Marines), from a racetrack in Seoul, Korea, Reckless carried grenades, small-arms ammunition, rations, sleeping bags, and barbed wire; she even strung communications wire in addition to her primary duty of packing ammunition for the recoilless rifle. Trained to step over barbed wire, crouch down in foxholes, and head toward a bunker when incoming rounds hit, the little mare was beloved by the Marines, who took her inside their tents and used their flak jackets to protect her.
During just one day of the vicious Battle of Outpost Vegas, Reckless made more than 50 trips to the gun sites, carrying 386 rounds (more than 9,000 pounds of explosives). In all she trudged more than 35 miles across no man’s land, through rice paddies, and up steep 45-degree mountain trails near the front lines. Wounded twice, she never stopped.
Reckless’ wounds weren’t serious enough to get her a quick ticket stateside, and she saw more action in the war. Following the signing of the truce in July 1953, as her Marines began shipping home, she was still on active duty stringing communication wire. Government red tape threatened Reckless’ trip to the States; she would eventually travel from Korea on a freighter as a guest of Pacific Transport Lines, first touching American soil on November 10, 1954, in San Francisco. A weather delay caused her to miss an appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show (a prime time favorite of the day), but Reckless attended a Marine birthday ball instead, traveling up in an elevator to be the guest of honor and indulge her taste for cake.
After the war, Reckless retired at Camp Pendleton in California and was promoted to the rank of staff sergeant in 1959, an honor never bestowed on an animal before or since. Eight hundred pounds of pure inspiration, Reckless was decorated with two Purple Hearts, a Presidential Unit Citation with a star, a United Nations Service Medal, a Republic of Korea Presidential Unit Citation, and other honors. In the 1990s, she was featured in the LIFE magazine collector’s edition “Celebrating Our Heroes” as one of America’s 100 greatest heroes of all time, alongside George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, and Mother Teresa.
“My dad always told me stories about Reckless from when he was in Korea,” says Debbie McCain, secretary at Stepp Stables at Camp Pendleton. McCain met Reckless as a girl in 1956, when her father, a Marine Corps major, was stationed at the Marine Corps base. “As the years passed, I had a chance to meet all her babies [of four, Fearless, Dauntless, and Chesty lived] and grow up with her and see her through her golden years.
“She loved to eat anything — potato chips, peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. One time they had to stop a poker game because she ate [the] poker chips. She would drink anything out of a can or cup, from coffee to beer. She would drink out of a canteen,” says McCain. It was a habit she’d developed in Korea, where Reckless had drunk from Marines’ helmets and eaten whatever was available, from scrambled eggs to C rations. “The Marines would give her whatever they had to eat,” McCain says.
Even during retirement, Reckless kept a high profile as mascot of the 1st Marine Division. “She went to all their change of commands, retirements, promotional command functions. She went to birthday ball receptions. She went to civilian parades,” McCain says.
Throughout the rest of Reckless’ life, the soldiers’ love and respect for the horse remained immense. “Here’s the part that still gets me,” says an emotional Wadley. “Knowing what that mare had done, the order was that there was never to be any more weight than a blanket put on that mare’s back again — and that order stood.” So, when Reckless went on her daily jog at Camp Pendleton, the Marine accompanying her went on foot.
When Reckless died in 1968 she was about 20. She is buried at Camp Pendleton, where there’s a monument to her at Stepp Stables. Wadley thinks more is due the little mare with the big heart: “America needs a bronze statue of her back there on the Potomac.”
Friday, November 25, 2011
IF ISRAEL ATTACKS IRAN .........
Now Mitt ‘All Sides’ Romney says that if elected, his first foreign state visit will be to Israel. Hmmm, I wonder what his position will be one month from now or what it will be if he actually becomes president.
U.S. PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATES WEIGH IN ON ISRAEL
By Ryan Jones
Israel Today
November 23, 2011
Republican presidential candidates held yet another public debate on Tuesday, and much of the talk was devoted to foreign policy. And much of the foreign policy talk was devoted to American relations with Israel, and whether or not the US should help Israel attack Iran’s nuclear facilities.
Frontrunner Mitt Romney was vague on whether or not he would join Israel in a military strike on Iran, but strongly stressed his support of Israel in general. Romney said that if elected, his first foreign state visit will be to Israel.
Romney also took current US President Barack Obama to task, accusing him of being unfriendly toward Israel. Despite a strong focus on Israeli-Arab peace efforts over the course of his first term, Obama has yet to visit the Jewish state.
Former House of Representatives Speaker Newt Gingrich, who has been gaining steam in the primary race of late, also stressed his unwavering support of Israel, and said he would likely join Israel in striking Iran, but would first want to make sure there was no other option to military action.
Even if he did not commit US forces to such an attack, Gingrich said it would nevertheless be absolutly necessary to support Israel in a military strike on Iran, as not doing so would leave the Jewish state isolated and encourage an attack by its enemies.
Popular but maligned candidate Herman Cain said he, too, would support an Israeli attack on Iran, and would likely commit US forces.
The only candidate to outright reject the idea of support an Israeli strike on Iran was Ron Paul, who said he did not think Israel would take such action, anyway.
“Why does Israel need our help? We need to get out of their way,” said Paul, which he clarified also meant an end to US financial aid to Israel.
“We don’t even have a treaty with Israel. Why do we have this automatic commitment that we’re going to send our kids and send our money endlessly to Israel? So I think they’re quite capable of taking care of themselves,” said Paul.
Ron Paul’s objection to foreign aid to Israel or any other nation is well known. What is likely to irk most Republicans about his debate remarks is the fact that he would not use US power to help Israel in the event of a massive Iranian counter-strike.
If Israel attacks Iran “that’s their business, but they should suffer the consequences,” Paul said.
U.S. PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATES WEIGH IN ON ISRAEL
By Ryan Jones
Israel Today
November 23, 2011
Republican presidential candidates held yet another public debate on Tuesday, and much of the talk was devoted to foreign policy. And much of the foreign policy talk was devoted to American relations with Israel, and whether or not the US should help Israel attack Iran’s nuclear facilities.
Frontrunner Mitt Romney was vague on whether or not he would join Israel in a military strike on Iran, but strongly stressed his support of Israel in general. Romney said that if elected, his first foreign state visit will be to Israel.
Romney also took current US President Barack Obama to task, accusing him of being unfriendly toward Israel. Despite a strong focus on Israeli-Arab peace efforts over the course of his first term, Obama has yet to visit the Jewish state.
Former House of Representatives Speaker Newt Gingrich, who has been gaining steam in the primary race of late, also stressed his unwavering support of Israel, and said he would likely join Israel in striking Iran, but would first want to make sure there was no other option to military action.
Even if he did not commit US forces to such an attack, Gingrich said it would nevertheless be absolutly necessary to support Israel in a military strike on Iran, as not doing so would leave the Jewish state isolated and encourage an attack by its enemies.
Popular but maligned candidate Herman Cain said he, too, would support an Israeli attack on Iran, and would likely commit US forces.
The only candidate to outright reject the idea of support an Israeli strike on Iran was Ron Paul, who said he did not think Israel would take such action, anyway.
“Why does Israel need our help? We need to get out of their way,” said Paul, which he clarified also meant an end to US financial aid to Israel.
“We don’t even have a treaty with Israel. Why do we have this automatic commitment that we’re going to send our kids and send our money endlessly to Israel? So I think they’re quite capable of taking care of themselves,” said Paul.
Ron Paul’s objection to foreign aid to Israel or any other nation is well known. What is likely to irk most Republicans about his debate remarks is the fact that he would not use US power to help Israel in the event of a massive Iranian counter-strike.
If Israel attacks Iran “that’s their business, but they should suffer the consequences,” Paul said.
AN APP FOR FLASHING POLICE LIGHTS
I wouldn’t call him lame just because he pulled off a really dumb prank.
LAMEST COP IMPERSONATOR EVER GETS ARRESTED
By Richard Connelly
Houston Press Hair Balls
November 23, 2011
The mind of a 17-year-old male is a wondrous thing to behold, especially because oftentimes it isn't working properly.
Take the case of one unnamed Montgomery County teen who, according to the police blotter, now faces charges of impersonating a public servant.
Sure, it might mess up the kid's chances of getting into Harvard, but we're sure it was worth it:
__[The complainant] advised that while driving on Dobbin Huffsmith Rd. a vehicle pulled behind him and displayed a flashing red and blue light in the front windshield. [The complainant] pulled over expecting to be approached by a police officer but instead the suspect vehicle drove around and yelled "Gotcha."
Thrillz!!
Unfortunately for the kid, the guy who pulled over got a license-plate number. Cops found the owner, who told them his grandson had been using it.
"Deputies found that the suspect had used a phone app on his iPhone to make it flash red and blue," the report states.
A genius, in so many ways.
LAMEST COP IMPERSONATOR EVER GETS ARRESTED
By Richard Connelly
Houston Press Hair Balls
November 23, 2011
The mind of a 17-year-old male is a wondrous thing to behold, especially because oftentimes it isn't working properly.
Take the case of one unnamed Montgomery County teen who, according to the police blotter, now faces charges of impersonating a public servant.
Sure, it might mess up the kid's chances of getting into Harvard, but we're sure it was worth it:
__[The complainant] advised that while driving on Dobbin Huffsmith Rd. a vehicle pulled behind him and displayed a flashing red and blue light in the front windshield. [The complainant] pulled over expecting to be approached by a police officer but instead the suspect vehicle drove around and yelled "Gotcha."
Thrillz!!
Unfortunately for the kid, the guy who pulled over got a license-plate number. Cops found the owner, who told them his grandson had been using it.
"Deputies found that the suspect had used a phone app on his iPhone to make it flash red and blue," the report states.
A genius, in so many ways.
BROWN FRIDAY
It may be Black Friday for shoppers, but it’s Brown Friday for plumbers.
PLUMBING THE DEPTHS OF A HOLIDAY
Thanksgiving leads to clogged sinks and toilets
By Cindy Horswell
Houston Chronicle
November 23, 2011
Notwithstanding the so-called true spirit of Thanksgiving, the holiday is about one thing and one thing only: eating. And not just eating, but feasting.
But all that cooking and gorging can overwork any kitchen - and frankly eventually the bathroom.
So it's no wonder that the Thanksgiving weekend has become by far the busiest time of year for plumbers - especially the Friday after the big feast. Homeowners don't want to pay extra for a plumber on a holiday and so they delay until Friday to get that sink fixed or toilet unclogged.
"What merchants swamped with shoppers call Black Friday, we call our Brown Friday," quipped Ken Hrebeck with Roto-Rooter in Houston.
With households overflowing with guests, the excessive use of facilities from toilets to garbage disposals is the perfect prelude to a household plumbing disaster.
Hrebeck and other plumbers estimate plumbing business generally increases by about 25 percent over the holiday.
"There's nothing like having one toilet for 15 people. Might as well make it into a port-a-potty and call it a day," said Vince Walker with SWG plumbing service in Houston.
Plumbers report finding all sorts of objects flushed down a toilet during Thanksgiving from false teeth to diamond rings. The strangest thing Walker ever found clogging a toilet was a bullfrog that a child had been trying to give a "water burial."
The Thanksgiving meal itself can also become problematic.
The stringy mush and seeds from a pumpkin, turkey dressing and bones have been known to cause many a clog when thrown down a garbage disposal, said Patty Frank with Milton Frank Plumbing in Spring.
But plumbers agree the culprits most often found clogging drains are potato and onion peelings.
"They're slippery and can form a paste. Things can swell up in a pipe," said Tom Pierce, who has handled plumbing issues in the Heights and Montrose for 38 years.
When plumbers respond to those emergency calls over Thanksgiving, they say homeowners greet them with a sense of gratitude mixed with frustration. Nobody is prepared when that starchy side dish expands, turns to concrete and causes a nasty water back flow.
"Usually, we find a husband standing there shaking his head, saying 'I warned them not to put that down there,' " Walker said.
PLUMBING THE DEPTHS OF A HOLIDAY
Thanksgiving leads to clogged sinks and toilets
By Cindy Horswell
Houston Chronicle
November 23, 2011
Notwithstanding the so-called true spirit of Thanksgiving, the holiday is about one thing and one thing only: eating. And not just eating, but feasting.
But all that cooking and gorging can overwork any kitchen - and frankly eventually the bathroom.
So it's no wonder that the Thanksgiving weekend has become by far the busiest time of year for plumbers - especially the Friday after the big feast. Homeowners don't want to pay extra for a plumber on a holiday and so they delay until Friday to get that sink fixed or toilet unclogged.
"What merchants swamped with shoppers call Black Friday, we call our Brown Friday," quipped Ken Hrebeck with Roto-Rooter in Houston.
With households overflowing with guests, the excessive use of facilities from toilets to garbage disposals is the perfect prelude to a household plumbing disaster.
Hrebeck and other plumbers estimate plumbing business generally increases by about 25 percent over the holiday.
"There's nothing like having one toilet for 15 people. Might as well make it into a port-a-potty and call it a day," said Vince Walker with SWG plumbing service in Houston.
Plumbers report finding all sorts of objects flushed down a toilet during Thanksgiving from false teeth to diamond rings. The strangest thing Walker ever found clogging a toilet was a bullfrog that a child had been trying to give a "water burial."
The Thanksgiving meal itself can also become problematic.
The stringy mush and seeds from a pumpkin, turkey dressing and bones have been known to cause many a clog when thrown down a garbage disposal, said Patty Frank with Milton Frank Plumbing in Spring.
But plumbers agree the culprits most often found clogging drains are potato and onion peelings.
"They're slippery and can form a paste. Things can swell up in a pipe," said Tom Pierce, who has handled plumbing issues in the Heights and Montrose for 38 years.
When plumbers respond to those emergency calls over Thanksgiving, they say homeowners greet them with a sense of gratitude mixed with frustration. Nobody is prepared when that starchy side dish expands, turns to concrete and causes a nasty water back flow.
"Usually, we find a husband standing there shaking his head, saying 'I warned them not to put that down there,' " Walker said.
Thursday, November 24, 2011
PARENTS OF PEPPER SPRAYED STUDENTS SPEAK OUT
By Adolf der Schweinehund
The Schalotte
November 23, 2011
On Monday’s NBC Evening News, Brian Williams was commenting on the ‘outrage’ over the pepper spraying of the UC Davis student protesters by saying, “Just think if that was your kid.”
Utilizing my investigative experiences, I managed to locate some parents of the pepper sprayed students. I asked each of them what they thought of their kid being pepper sprayed.
Alton Jones, Walmart manager: “I was shocked beyond belief. How can this happen in America. My poor little girl had to be treated for severe irritation of her eyes and nasal passages. This is a clear cut case of police brutality. I’ve already contacted a good attorney and we’re going to sue the shit out of UC Davis, the chancellor, the chief of police and the cops who terrorized and injured my daughter.”
George Miller, banker: “I’m outraged, simply outraged. This is America, not Nazi Germany. Where did the university find those storm troopers? My son had to have his eyes washed out at the hospital. All he was doing was to sit down with his fellow students to protest something or another. They weren’t harming anybody. They were passive and peaceful like the media said. I’m going to demand that those cops be arrested and charged with aggravated assault with a dangerous weapon. And I’m going to sue everyone involved, from the university chancellor down to the janitor who cleans the campus police station.”
Samuel Bernstein, UC Riverside sociology professor: “I fully expected this kind of police misconduct. Anytime anyone in this country protests against this rotten capitalist system that oppresses the masses and exploits the workers, the cops come along and do the evil corporations’ bidding. My daughter just called me and told me she is still suffering from the effects of that pepper spray. My poor little darling. This is what she gets for standing up for the 99% that are being oppressed and exploited by the 1%. Those Neanderthal cops came along and violated the rights of a group of passive and peaceful students in their exercise of free speech and free assembly. My fellow faculty members are supporting me by petitioning for the removal of the UC Davis chancellor, the police chief, and the disarming of all UC System campus cops.”
Elizabeth Roth, real estate agent: “I’m absolutely outraged. I could not believe my eyes when I saw that on TV. What is this country coming to when the cops come and break up a peaceful student demonstration for no reason at all? My poor Bernie. He called me and said that his eyes are still burning and he is still having trouble breathing and he is still sick in his stomach. And he told me that when he shouted Heil Hitler, a cop deliberately stomped real hard on his foot and now he can barely walk. My little boy wants me to get a lawyer and that’s exactly what I’m gonna do.”
Howard Cates, retired cop, now a corporate security specialist: “As soon as I get ahold of that kid, most likely on Thanksgiving, I’m going to kick his ass. I sure as hell am not helping to pay his way through college to participate in anti-Capitalist protests inspired by Marxist professors. I do not expect him to condemn the very system that enabled me to spend my hard earned money for his education. I expect him to spend his spare time studying for his degree. And I damn sure expect him to obey a police officer’s request to move. I think he brought that pepper spraying on himself and got exactly what he damn well deserved.”
Sheila Washington-Jackson, Democrat member of the California State Assembly: “I’m dumbfounded. To have an atrocity like that perpetrated on one of our college campuses goes beyond outrage. My son Emanuel and his classmates were the victims of naked police brutality. He and his fellow students … several of them were of color, I would add … were only exercising their First Amendment rights. As a black student activist, this is not the first time Emanuel has suffered at the heavy hands of the police. I am calling on my fellow legislators to conduct a full investigation of the UC Davis police atrocity and I am introducing legislation that will prohibit campus cops from carrying any type of weapon.”
The Schalotte
November 23, 2011
On Monday’s NBC Evening News, Brian Williams was commenting on the ‘outrage’ over the pepper spraying of the UC Davis student protesters by saying, “Just think if that was your kid.”
Utilizing my investigative experiences, I managed to locate some parents of the pepper sprayed students. I asked each of them what they thought of their kid being pepper sprayed.
Alton Jones, Walmart manager: “I was shocked beyond belief. How can this happen in America. My poor little girl had to be treated for severe irritation of her eyes and nasal passages. This is a clear cut case of police brutality. I’ve already contacted a good attorney and we’re going to sue the shit out of UC Davis, the chancellor, the chief of police and the cops who terrorized and injured my daughter.”
George Miller, banker: “I’m outraged, simply outraged. This is America, not Nazi Germany. Where did the university find those storm troopers? My son had to have his eyes washed out at the hospital. All he was doing was to sit down with his fellow students to protest something or another. They weren’t harming anybody. They were passive and peaceful like the media said. I’m going to demand that those cops be arrested and charged with aggravated assault with a dangerous weapon. And I’m going to sue everyone involved, from the university chancellor down to the janitor who cleans the campus police station.”
Samuel Bernstein, UC Riverside sociology professor: “I fully expected this kind of police misconduct. Anytime anyone in this country protests against this rotten capitalist system that oppresses the masses and exploits the workers, the cops come along and do the evil corporations’ bidding. My daughter just called me and told me she is still suffering from the effects of that pepper spray. My poor little darling. This is what she gets for standing up for the 99% that are being oppressed and exploited by the 1%. Those Neanderthal cops came along and violated the rights of a group of passive and peaceful students in their exercise of free speech and free assembly. My fellow faculty members are supporting me by petitioning for the removal of the UC Davis chancellor, the police chief, and the disarming of all UC System campus cops.”
Elizabeth Roth, real estate agent: “I’m absolutely outraged. I could not believe my eyes when I saw that on TV. What is this country coming to when the cops come and break up a peaceful student demonstration for no reason at all? My poor Bernie. He called me and said that his eyes are still burning and he is still having trouble breathing and he is still sick in his stomach. And he told me that when he shouted Heil Hitler, a cop deliberately stomped real hard on his foot and now he can barely walk. My little boy wants me to get a lawyer and that’s exactly what I’m gonna do.”
Howard Cates, retired cop, now a corporate security specialist: “As soon as I get ahold of that kid, most likely on Thanksgiving, I’m going to kick his ass. I sure as hell am not helping to pay his way through college to participate in anti-Capitalist protests inspired by Marxist professors. I do not expect him to condemn the very system that enabled me to spend my hard earned money for his education. I expect him to spend his spare time studying for his degree. And I damn sure expect him to obey a police officer’s request to move. I think he brought that pepper spraying on himself and got exactly what he damn well deserved.”
Sheila Washington-Jackson, Democrat member of the California State Assembly: “I’m dumbfounded. To have an atrocity like that perpetrated on one of our college campuses goes beyond outrage. My son Emanuel and his classmates were the victims of naked police brutality. He and his fellow students … several of them were of color, I would add … were only exercising their First Amendment rights. As a black student activist, this is not the first time Emanuel has suffered at the heavy hands of the police. I am calling on my fellow legislators to conduct a full investigation of the UC Davis police atrocity and I am introducing legislation that will prohibit campus cops from carrying any type of weapon.”
FIND MY PHONE
Bob Walsh always has a unique way of putting things – moron, bozo, happy ass, road-puppy.
THERE’S AN APP FOR THAT
By Bob Walsh
PACOVILLA Corrections blog
November 22, 2011
A parolee robbery suspect got tripped up by his loot in LA today when the cops used the “Find My Phone” application to locate him. The moron still had the stolen cell phone on him.
The bozo robbed a woman at gunpoint and took her purse, which contained her phone. A passerby let the cops use his laptop to track the phone and they found the bad guy nearby and detained him. When they called her phone his pocket started ringing and they arrested his happy ass. Jason Topper, 34, is now back in the bosom of his psuedo-family at the L. A. jail on suspicion of robbery. They also arrested his road-puppy, Dominique Taylor, 21, who was in possession of a replica firearm.
Topper is being held against a $1 million bail.
THERE’S AN APP FOR THAT
By Bob Walsh
PACOVILLA Corrections blog
November 22, 2011
A parolee robbery suspect got tripped up by his loot in LA today when the cops used the “Find My Phone” application to locate him. The moron still had the stolen cell phone on him.
The bozo robbed a woman at gunpoint and took her purse, which contained her phone. A passerby let the cops use his laptop to track the phone and they found the bad guy nearby and detained him. When they called her phone his pocket started ringing and they arrested his happy ass. Jason Topper, 34, is now back in the bosom of his psuedo-family at the L. A. jail on suspicion of robbery. They also arrested his road-puppy, Dominique Taylor, 21, who was in possession of a replica firearm.
Topper is being held against a $1 million bail.
PUNISHMENT INEQUALITY
In the crapshoot of the justice system, he rolled the dice and came up snake-eyes.
CLIFTON GRASHAM-REEVES AND KACI POMERENKE: A TALE OF TWO TEXAS SEX CASES
By John Nova Lomax
Houston Press Hair Balls
November 23, 2011
Is the Texas justice system simply a crapshoot? Is there still an enormous double standard when it comes to sex crimes? Or has Jerry Sandusky cast a huge shadow over future sentences for all those convicted of sex crimes against children?
A while back we introduced you to the tale of Clifton Grasham-Reeves, an actor and former English teacher at a Waco charter school. Grasham-Reeves was accused of seducing a 16-year-old girl he met while the two worked on a community theater play, and of having sex with her approximately four times. He was charged with four counts of sexual assault of a child and two counts of indecency with a child by contact.
Last week, just as the nation was gripped in the maw of the Penn State pedophilia scandal, the gavel came down on Grasham-Reeves. And man did that wooden mallet come down hard. Grasham-Reeves, a married father of an infant boy, was convicted. Despite a tearful plea for leniency, and a hitherto-clean criminal record, he was sentenced to 90 years behind bars. (The jury recommended the max 20 years on each count of sexual assault of a child and five years for the indecency charges; the judge accepted their advice and then ordered the sentences stacked.)
Right now Grasham-Reeves's parole officer is probably not even a twinkle in anyone's eye. He will not become eligible for parole until 2056. He will be 77 years old.
Earlier this month, 45 miles from Waco down I-35 in Belton, 31-year-old former teacher Kaci Suzanne Pomerenke was in court on similar charges.
She pleaded guilty to having an improper relationship with a 14-year-old student. It's a lesser charge, but she did pretty much the same thing. Specifically, she confessed that she had sex with the boy in her car on three different occasions.
Her sentence?
Three days in jail and seven years probation. Should he live to be 121 and serve out all his time, Grasham-Reeves will be punished ten thousand times more severely. (We're aware that doesn't account for Pomerenke's probation, which can be onerous but beats prison any day.)
Now, there are some mitigating factors. Grasham-Reeves once worked for CPS, and a woman who trained him there testified at his trial that she had to warn him from spending too much time alone with a ten-year-old girl, as she believed that an inappropriate bond was forming between the two. (Investigators have interviewed all the children Grasham-Reeves worked with during his nine months at the agency and none said that he abused them.)
Also, it was previously reported that Grasham-Reeves gave his victim alcohol and told her to sneak out her window and come over while his wife was away. Those facts make him seem even more coercive and more of a sleaze.
Also, whereas Pomerenke confessed to everything and pleaded guilty, Grasham-Reeves took his case to trial and lost. He might well have been offered a deal at some point and instead rolled the dice and come up snake-eyes.
But still -- 90 years on a first offense?
Years ago I watched famed rapper Carlos Coy, a.k.a. South Park Mexican, get half that much time after he was convicted of sexually assaulting a nine-year-old girl. During the punishment phase, the prosecution brought forth at least five other minors who claimed to have had sex with SPM, and one of them had very compelling evidence in the form of a genetically-certified little South Park Mexican Jr.
So once again, was Grasham-Reeves's sentence just the luck of the draw, a sexual double standard, or should Grasham-Reeves be cursing Jerry Sandusky's name for all eternity?
CLIFTON GRASHAM-REEVES AND KACI POMERENKE: A TALE OF TWO TEXAS SEX CASES
By John Nova Lomax
Houston Press Hair Balls
November 23, 2011
Is the Texas justice system simply a crapshoot? Is there still an enormous double standard when it comes to sex crimes? Or has Jerry Sandusky cast a huge shadow over future sentences for all those convicted of sex crimes against children?
A while back we introduced you to the tale of Clifton Grasham-Reeves, an actor and former English teacher at a Waco charter school. Grasham-Reeves was accused of seducing a 16-year-old girl he met while the two worked on a community theater play, and of having sex with her approximately four times. He was charged with four counts of sexual assault of a child and two counts of indecency with a child by contact.
Last week, just as the nation was gripped in the maw of the Penn State pedophilia scandal, the gavel came down on Grasham-Reeves. And man did that wooden mallet come down hard. Grasham-Reeves, a married father of an infant boy, was convicted. Despite a tearful plea for leniency, and a hitherto-clean criminal record, he was sentenced to 90 years behind bars. (The jury recommended the max 20 years on each count of sexual assault of a child and five years for the indecency charges; the judge accepted their advice and then ordered the sentences stacked.)
Right now Grasham-Reeves's parole officer is probably not even a twinkle in anyone's eye. He will not become eligible for parole until 2056. He will be 77 years old.
Earlier this month, 45 miles from Waco down I-35 in Belton, 31-year-old former teacher Kaci Suzanne Pomerenke was in court on similar charges.
She pleaded guilty to having an improper relationship with a 14-year-old student. It's a lesser charge, but she did pretty much the same thing. Specifically, she confessed that she had sex with the boy in her car on three different occasions.
Her sentence?
Three days in jail and seven years probation. Should he live to be 121 and serve out all his time, Grasham-Reeves will be punished ten thousand times more severely. (We're aware that doesn't account for Pomerenke's probation, which can be onerous but beats prison any day.)
Now, there are some mitigating factors. Grasham-Reeves once worked for CPS, and a woman who trained him there testified at his trial that she had to warn him from spending too much time alone with a ten-year-old girl, as she believed that an inappropriate bond was forming between the two. (Investigators have interviewed all the children Grasham-Reeves worked with during his nine months at the agency and none said that he abused them.)
Also, it was previously reported that Grasham-Reeves gave his victim alcohol and told her to sneak out her window and come over while his wife was away. Those facts make him seem even more coercive and more of a sleaze.
Also, whereas Pomerenke confessed to everything and pleaded guilty, Grasham-Reeves took his case to trial and lost. He might well have been offered a deal at some point and instead rolled the dice and come up snake-eyes.
But still -- 90 years on a first offense?
Years ago I watched famed rapper Carlos Coy, a.k.a. South Park Mexican, get half that much time after he was convicted of sexually assaulting a nine-year-old girl. During the punishment phase, the prosecution brought forth at least five other minors who claimed to have had sex with SPM, and one of them had very compelling evidence in the form of a genetically-certified little South Park Mexican Jr.
So once again, was Grasham-Reeves's sentence just the luck of the draw, a sexual double standard, or should Grasham-Reeves be cursing Jerry Sandusky's name for all eternity?
HEY LOOKEE AT WHAT FELL OUT OF THAT TREE
Bob Walsh wrote, “A former guest of the state made an impressive re-entrance to mother earth with a little help from gravity.”
PAROLEE HIDING FROM LAPD FALLS OUT OF TREE
Associated Press
November 22, 2011
BURBANK, Calif. -- A California parolee who fled after a hit-and-run crash in Burbank fell out of a tree and was arrested after a police standoff that briefly shut down Interstate 5.
Lt. Ed Ruiz said the suspect fell out of the tree at about 2:30 a.m. Tuesday near the freeway's Burbank Boulevard exit.
Ruiz says the man, whose name hasn't been released, has an outstanding arrest warrant.
The man ran away after crashing a car at 11:30 p.m. Monday on San Fernando Boulevard near the freeway. Officers searching the area found him about an hour later in a tree near the freeway off-ramp.
The California Highway Patrol shut down Interstate 5 until they arrested the man.
PAROLEE HIDING FROM LAPD FALLS OUT OF TREE
Associated Press
November 22, 2011
BURBANK, Calif. -- A California parolee who fled after a hit-and-run crash in Burbank fell out of a tree and was arrested after a police standoff that briefly shut down Interstate 5.
Lt. Ed Ruiz said the suspect fell out of the tree at about 2:30 a.m. Tuesday near the freeway's Burbank Boulevard exit.
Ruiz says the man, whose name hasn't been released, has an outstanding arrest warrant.
The man ran away after crashing a car at 11:30 p.m. Monday on San Fernando Boulevard near the freeway. Officers searching the area found him about an hour later in a tree near the freeway off-ramp.
The California Highway Patrol shut down Interstate 5 until they arrested the man.
ARAB FALL BODES ILL FOR ISRAEL
The Arab Spring has turned into the Arab fall, albeit a Jihadist fall.
ISRAEL PREPARING FOR DAY WHEN IT HAS NO RELATIONS WITH EGYPT
Jihadist Spring inching forward
By Sheera Frenkel
Jewish World Review
November 23, 2011
JERUSALEM — The surreptitious departure of Israel's ambassador from Egypt on Tuesday symbolized to many Israeli officials the new state of affairs between the neighboring countries.
Yitzhak Lebanon flew out of Cairo International Airport for the last time, ending his time in Cairo without a departure ceremony or even a nod of farewell from Egypt's foreign ministry. He had hardly been active in Cairo, having fled the Israeli Embassy there in September when rioters attacked and burned down part of the building. Since then, he has remained stationed in Israel, flying back occasionally for diplomatic meetings and to formally close his offices.
But Israeli officials saw his unheralded departure as a sign of Israeli-Egyptian relations to come.
"This is the state of relations now. There is no real diplomacy, just shuttling back and forth and talks at a bare minimum," said an official from Israel's foreign ministry, who spoke anonymously because he was not authorized to speak on the issue. "At least we still have relations."
Perhaps not for long. Officials said they are quietly preparing for what they called a "complete break" in diplomatic ties with Egypt. That would mark a dangerous downturn in Israel's relations with its neighbors unequalled in the past three decades.
"Our peace treaty with Egypt was the backbone of our diplomatic relations with the Arab world," said former ambassador Eli Shaked.
Even as events were unfolding Tuesday in Egypt, where the military government offered to step down in July, a concession thought unlikely to satisfy the tens of thousands of demonstrators who crowded into Tahrir Square, Israeli officials were considering it likely that whatever eventually happens there will bode ill for Israel.
Rumors have spread through Cairo that the tear gas and other weapons used by Egypt's military against the protesters were supplied by Israel — despite the English writing and U.S. serial labels found on empty tear gas canisters. Several forums on Facebook suggested that Israel was indirectly supporting the Egyptian military and pressing it to use harsh means against the protesters.
"Israeli evil is behind this," the deputy head of the Egyptian Al-Wasat Party, Osam Sultan, said Tuesday on Egyptian television.
Israeli news anchors showed the report alongside images of protesters in Tahrir Square burning Israeli flags as evidence that relations with Egypt were headed for a break.
"The chances that at the end of the democratic process we will have a secular, democratic, pro-Western Egypt, one that adheres to the peace agreement with Israel and views it as being in its national interest, are eroding," military correspondent Alex Fishman wrote in the Israeli daily Yediot Ahronoth.
He added that the view among Israel's top diplomatic officials was that they "had lost Egypt" and that the widely supported Muslim Brotherhood Islamist group had asserted itself.
"Now there is concern — not just in Israel and in the U.S. but in all the pro-Western states around us — that the military junta will not be able to withstand the pressure and that the Muslim Brotherhood will also dictate how the elections are run and will attract many more votes than predicted in Egypt, more than Israel hoped or Washington prayed for," Fishman wrote.
Israeli officials were also said to be troubled by pledges from several Egyptian politicians that they would cut diplomatic ties with Israel after the elections.
"Although the relations between Egypt and Israel have been undermined after the collapse of Mubarak's regime, we are still unsatisfied with these conditions and serious efforts will be made after the elections to cut relations with the Zionist enemy completely," Majdi Hussein, the secretary-general of the Egyptian Amal Party, said at a press conference Tuesday in Cairo.
ISRAEL PREPARING FOR DAY WHEN IT HAS NO RELATIONS WITH EGYPT
Jihadist Spring inching forward
By Sheera Frenkel
Jewish World Review
November 23, 2011
JERUSALEM — The surreptitious departure of Israel's ambassador from Egypt on Tuesday symbolized to many Israeli officials the new state of affairs between the neighboring countries.
Yitzhak Lebanon flew out of Cairo International Airport for the last time, ending his time in Cairo without a departure ceremony or even a nod of farewell from Egypt's foreign ministry. He had hardly been active in Cairo, having fled the Israeli Embassy there in September when rioters attacked and burned down part of the building. Since then, he has remained stationed in Israel, flying back occasionally for diplomatic meetings and to formally close his offices.
But Israeli officials saw his unheralded departure as a sign of Israeli-Egyptian relations to come.
"This is the state of relations now. There is no real diplomacy, just shuttling back and forth and talks at a bare minimum," said an official from Israel's foreign ministry, who spoke anonymously because he was not authorized to speak on the issue. "At least we still have relations."
Perhaps not for long. Officials said they are quietly preparing for what they called a "complete break" in diplomatic ties with Egypt. That would mark a dangerous downturn in Israel's relations with its neighbors unequalled in the past three decades.
"Our peace treaty with Egypt was the backbone of our diplomatic relations with the Arab world," said former ambassador Eli Shaked.
Even as events were unfolding Tuesday in Egypt, where the military government offered to step down in July, a concession thought unlikely to satisfy the tens of thousands of demonstrators who crowded into Tahrir Square, Israeli officials were considering it likely that whatever eventually happens there will bode ill for Israel.
Rumors have spread through Cairo that the tear gas and other weapons used by Egypt's military against the protesters were supplied by Israel — despite the English writing and U.S. serial labels found on empty tear gas canisters. Several forums on Facebook suggested that Israel was indirectly supporting the Egyptian military and pressing it to use harsh means against the protesters.
"Israeli evil is behind this," the deputy head of the Egyptian Al-Wasat Party, Osam Sultan, said Tuesday on Egyptian television.
Israeli news anchors showed the report alongside images of protesters in Tahrir Square burning Israeli flags as evidence that relations with Egypt were headed for a break.
"The chances that at the end of the democratic process we will have a secular, democratic, pro-Western Egypt, one that adheres to the peace agreement with Israel and views it as being in its national interest, are eroding," military correspondent Alex Fishman wrote in the Israeli daily Yediot Ahronoth.
He added that the view among Israel's top diplomatic officials was that they "had lost Egypt" and that the widely supported Muslim Brotherhood Islamist group had asserted itself.
"Now there is concern — not just in Israel and in the U.S. but in all the pro-Western states around us — that the military junta will not be able to withstand the pressure and that the Muslim Brotherhood will also dictate how the elections are run and will attract many more votes than predicted in Egypt, more than Israel hoped or Washington prayed for," Fishman wrote.
Israeli officials were also said to be troubled by pledges from several Egyptian politicians that they would cut diplomatic ties with Israel after the elections.
"Although the relations between Egypt and Israel have been undermined after the collapse of Mubarak's regime, we are still unsatisfied with these conditions and serious efforts will be made after the elections to cut relations with the Zionist enemy completely," Majdi Hussein, the secretary-general of the Egyptian Amal Party, said at a press conference Tuesday in Cairo.
OREGON NEEDS A NEW GOVERNOR!
Oregon needs a governor who will carry out the law and the decisions of murder trial juries!
OREGON GOVERNOR BANS EXECUTIONS
Condemned inmate gets reprieve
Associated Press
November 22, 2011
SALEM, Ore. – What was supposed to be Oregon’s first execution in 14 years won’t be taking place -- at least not while Gov. John Kitzhaber is in office.
Calling the death penalty “morally wrong,” the Democratic governor on Tuesday announced a state moratoriumon on executions and granted a reprieve to death-row inmate Gary Haugen.
The twice-convicted murderer was scheduled to be put to death by lethal injection on Dec. 6.
Kitzhaber said he has no sympathy or compassion for murderers. But he said Oregon's death penalty system is broken and applied unevenly.
The death penalty has been carried out in Oregon only twice in the last 49 years: Douglas Franklin Wright was executed in 1996 and Harry Charles Moore was put to death in 1997. Both inmates voluntarily waived their appeals and both executions occurred during Kitzhaber's first administration as governor. (Kitzhaber served as the 35th governor of Oregon, from 1995 to 2003. He was re-elected to a nonconsecutive third term in 2010, becoming the state's 37th governor).
"I allowed those sentences to be carried out despite my personal opposition to the death penalty. I was torn between my personal convictions about the morality of capital punishment and my oath to uphold the Oregon constitution," Kitzhaber said.
"They were the most agonizing and difficult decisions I have made as governor and I have revisited and questioned them over and over again during the past 14 years. I do not believe that those executions made us safer; and certainly they did not make us nobler as a society. And I simply cannot participate once again in something I believe to be morally wrong."
Haugen, 49, waived his legal appeals and has been preparing for his execution by lethal injection. Haugen was sentenced to death in 2007 for his part in the the killing four years earlier of David Polin, who was found with 84 stab wounds and a crushed skull in the prison’s band room. At the time of Polin’s death, Haugen was serving a life sentence for fatally beating his ex-girlfriend’s mother in 1981.
Kitzher said that while he had "no sympathy or compassion" for criminals who commit the most heinous of acts, the death penalty is not applied equally.
"Oregonians have a fundamental belief in fairness and justice -- in swift and certain justice. The death penalty as practiced in Oregon is neither fair nor just; and it is not swift or certain," he said. "It is not applied equally to all. It is a perversion of justice that the single best indicator of who will and will not be executed has nothing to do with the circumstances of a crime or the findings of a jury."
OREGON GOVERNOR BANS EXECUTIONS
Condemned inmate gets reprieve
Associated Press
November 22, 2011
SALEM, Ore. – What was supposed to be Oregon’s first execution in 14 years won’t be taking place -- at least not while Gov. John Kitzhaber is in office.
Calling the death penalty “morally wrong,” the Democratic governor on Tuesday announced a state moratoriumon on executions and granted a reprieve to death-row inmate Gary Haugen.
The twice-convicted murderer was scheduled to be put to death by lethal injection on Dec. 6.
Kitzhaber said he has no sympathy or compassion for murderers. But he said Oregon's death penalty system is broken and applied unevenly.
The death penalty has been carried out in Oregon only twice in the last 49 years: Douglas Franklin Wright was executed in 1996 and Harry Charles Moore was put to death in 1997. Both inmates voluntarily waived their appeals and both executions occurred during Kitzhaber's first administration as governor. (Kitzhaber served as the 35th governor of Oregon, from 1995 to 2003. He was re-elected to a nonconsecutive third term in 2010, becoming the state's 37th governor).
"I allowed those sentences to be carried out despite my personal opposition to the death penalty. I was torn between my personal convictions about the morality of capital punishment and my oath to uphold the Oregon constitution," Kitzhaber said.
"They were the most agonizing and difficult decisions I have made as governor and I have revisited and questioned them over and over again during the past 14 years. I do not believe that those executions made us safer; and certainly they did not make us nobler as a society. And I simply cannot participate once again in something I believe to be morally wrong."
Haugen, 49, waived his legal appeals and has been preparing for his execution by lethal injection. Haugen was sentenced to death in 2007 for his part in the the killing four years earlier of David Polin, who was found with 84 stab wounds and a crushed skull in the prison’s band room. At the time of Polin’s death, Haugen was serving a life sentence for fatally beating his ex-girlfriend’s mother in 1981.
Kitzher said that while he had "no sympathy or compassion" for criminals who commit the most heinous of acts, the death penalty is not applied equally.
"Oregonians have a fundamental belief in fairness and justice -- in swift and certain justice. The death penalty as practiced in Oregon is neither fair nor just; and it is not swift or certain," he said. "It is not applied equally to all. It is a perversion of justice that the single best indicator of who will and will not be executed has nothing to do with the circumstances of a crime or the findings of a jury."
Wednesday, November 23, 2011
JUST THINK IF THAT WAS YOUR KID
On Monday’s NBC Evening News, Brian Williams was commenting on the ‘outrage’ over the pepper spraying of the UC Davis student protesters by saying, “Just think if that was your kid.”
Now if that was my kid, I would kick his ass! I sure as hell did not help pay his way through college to participate in anti-Capitalist protests inspired by Marxist professors. I would not expect him to condemn the very system that enabled me to spend my hard earned money for his education. I would expect him to spend his spare time studying for his degree. And I would expect him to obey a police officer’s request to move.
What would I think if my kid had been one of those UC Davis pepper sprayed students? I would think he brought this on himself and got exactly what he damn well deserved.
Now if that was my kid, I would kick his ass! I sure as hell did not help pay his way through college to participate in anti-Capitalist protests inspired by Marxist professors. I would not expect him to condemn the very system that enabled me to spend my hard earned money for his education. I would expect him to spend his spare time studying for his degree. And I would expect him to obey a police officer’s request to move.
What would I think if my kid had been one of those UC Davis pepper sprayed students? I would think he brought this on himself and got exactly what he damn well deserved.
OWS PROTESTERS, GET A JOB RIGHT AFTER YOU TAKE A BATH
Newt Gingrich pretty well seized up the OWS protesters. Here is what he said:
Jefferson said that people that want to be both free and ignorant are asking for something that has never been and will never be. Captain John Smith said in 1607 in the first English speaking permanent colony to the aristocrats who paid their way and didn’t want to work, "If you don’t work, you won’t eat."
Let me take that for a brief moment to describe Occupy Wall Street. All of the Occupy movement starts with the premise that we all owe them everything. They take over a public park they didn’t pay for, to go nearby to use bathrooms they didn’t pay for, to beg for food from places they don’t want to pay for, to obstruct those that are going to work to pay the taxes to sustain the bathrooms and to sustain the park so that they can self-righteously explain that they are the paragons of virtue to which we owe everything.
Now, that is a pretty good symptom of how much the left has collapsed as a moral system in this country and why you need to reassert something as simple as saying to them, "Go get a job right after you take a bath."
Jefferson said that people that want to be both free and ignorant are asking for something that has never been and will never be. Captain John Smith said in 1607 in the first English speaking permanent colony to the aristocrats who paid their way and didn’t want to work, "If you don’t work, you won’t eat."
Let me take that for a brief moment to describe Occupy Wall Street. All of the Occupy movement starts with the premise that we all owe them everything. They take over a public park they didn’t pay for, to go nearby to use bathrooms they didn’t pay for, to beg for food from places they don’t want to pay for, to obstruct those that are going to work to pay the taxes to sustain the bathrooms and to sustain the park so that they can self-righteously explain that they are the paragons of virtue to which we owe everything.
Now, that is a pretty good symptom of how much the left has collapsed as a moral system in this country and why you need to reassert something as simple as saying to them, "Go get a job right after you take a bath."
CALIFORNIA HAS BEEN MOONBEAMED WITH REALIGNMENT
Ole Jerry ‘Moonbeam’ Brown has hoodwinked the people of California with his prison realignment system.
DECODING ‘PRISON REALIGNMENT’
By Los Angeles Police Protective League Board of Directors
LAPPL Blog
November 21, 2011
Surprise, surprise. Some of the so-called “low-risk, nonviolent” inmates being sent to county jails are turning out to be far more dangerous than touted by advocates of prison realignment.
What went wrong? For starters, only the inmate’s most recent crime is being taken into consideration when determining eligibility for transfer. His or her latest crime may not be of a violent nature, but often, previous convictions have been for very serious crimes that suggest a potential for future dangerous behavior.
Because of jail overcrowding, an inmate’s path from arrival at the L.A. County Jail to release on unsupervised parole can be a short one.
L.A. County Supervisor Mike Antonovich called attention to one prisoner set for transfer to L.A. County who previously served time at the maximum-security Folsom and Atascadero state prisons. In reviewing his rap sheet, county officials were shocked to find that he was a violent sexual predator convicted of rape with violence.
Antonovich says the gaping loophole in the realignment legislation puts the community in danger. It could also cost the county plenty because if an inmate attacks an employee or another inmate, “we assume 100 percent liability."
Antonovich fired off a letter to Gov. Brown calling for the loophole to be closed. The Board of Supervisors has authorized counsel to review possible legal actions to stop transfers of inmates with previous convictions for violent crimes.
This is a problem we’ve been warning the public and elected officials about for some time now. California’s hastily crafted prison realignment legislation was a bad budget cutting solution that transferred the state’s inmate problem to local governments.
We commend Supervisor Antonovich’s leadership in pushing back on Sacramento for playing politics with public safety.
DECODING ‘PRISON REALIGNMENT’
By Los Angeles Police Protective League Board of Directors
LAPPL Blog
November 21, 2011
Surprise, surprise. Some of the so-called “low-risk, nonviolent” inmates being sent to county jails are turning out to be far more dangerous than touted by advocates of prison realignment.
What went wrong? For starters, only the inmate’s most recent crime is being taken into consideration when determining eligibility for transfer. His or her latest crime may not be of a violent nature, but often, previous convictions have been for very serious crimes that suggest a potential for future dangerous behavior.
Because of jail overcrowding, an inmate’s path from arrival at the L.A. County Jail to release on unsupervised parole can be a short one.
L.A. County Supervisor Mike Antonovich called attention to one prisoner set for transfer to L.A. County who previously served time at the maximum-security Folsom and Atascadero state prisons. In reviewing his rap sheet, county officials were shocked to find that he was a violent sexual predator convicted of rape with violence.
Antonovich says the gaping loophole in the realignment legislation puts the community in danger. It could also cost the county plenty because if an inmate attacks an employee or another inmate, “we assume 100 percent liability."
Antonovich fired off a letter to Gov. Brown calling for the loophole to be closed. The Board of Supervisors has authorized counsel to review possible legal actions to stop transfers of inmates with previous convictions for violent crimes.
This is a problem we’ve been warning the public and elected officials about for some time now. California’s hastily crafted prison realignment legislation was a bad budget cutting solution that transferred the state’s inmate problem to local governments.
We commend Supervisor Antonovich’s leadership in pushing back on Sacramento for playing politics with public safety.
A MATCHED SET: BOTH WERE INVOLVED IN THE KILLING OF POLICE OFFICERS
Human rights activist Dorina Lisson sent me this love story. Now, I really can’t get all mushy over the romance of two people who may not have done the actual killing of cops, but were certainly involved in their murders.
MARRIAGE OF TWO FORMER DEATH ROW INMATES, ONE IRISH, ONE AMERICAN
Love story of two accused of cop killings in Ireland and the U.S.
By James O’Shea
Irish Central
November 21, 2011
A couple who served time on Death Row, one in Ireland, and one in America, were married last week in New York and will live in Ireland.
Peter Pringle, 74, was sentenced to death in Ireland for the 1980 capital murder of two policemen during a bank raid in Ballaghaderreen County Roscommon.
The robbery was said to have been carried out by the Irish National Liberation Army, a radical offshoot of the IRA.
His execution was set for June 8 1981 but was commuted by the Irish president.
He served 15 years before it was discovered that his original conviction was unsafe after evidence was produced showing his ‘confession’ was written down even before he was interviewed.
During his work with Amnesty International highlighting innocent death row victims, he met Sunny Jacobs.
Sonia Jacobs, 64, was arrested after a February 1976 shootout with two policemen in Florida in which the officers were killed.
Jacobs and her husband had been passengers in the car driven by Walter Rhodes Junior when it was pulled over by police. Both Rhodes and Jacobs' husband Jesse Tafero had prior convictions.
Rhodes turned evidence and claimed it was Jacobs and Tafero who had shot and killed the policemen. A jailhouse informant also told the court that Jacobs had told him she was involved.
Jacobs also received the death sentence and her husband was eventually executed in 1990.
She, however, won her case on appeal after the jailhouse informant recanted and it became clear that it was Walter Rhodes who had fired the fatal shots and Jacobs was freed after seventeen years in jail.
She and Pringle began seeing each other and often spoke at conferences on the death penalty together.
“We didn’t just share a past, we had a vision for a future,” . Jacobs told The New York Times, which featured their wedding “Sure, Peter and I were also physically attracted to one another, but it was deeper than that,” she said. “You know what happens to attractive, it becomes wrinkled and fat.”
In December 2001, she joined him in his cottage beside the sea in Galway.”
“Sunny teaches yoga, I live on a pension,” Mr. Pringle told the Times . “We have two hens, two ducks and eight goats. We both milk the goats and Sunny makes cheese. It’s really a nice, simple life.”
The Jacobs story became a hit Broadway play and three of the actresses who played her Brooke Shields, Marlo Thomas and Amy Irving turned up for the wedding.
“Playing Sunny was so claustrophobic for me,” Shields told the Times, “You felt her powerlessness, this was a woman in the wrong place at the wrong time, the same for Peter.
“But despite everything they have been through, they are not bitter or jaded, they never closed their hearts. They are two people who are at peace with themselves and with the world. They could not have been more fated and meant to be with one another.”
Jacobs and Mr. Pringle exchanged wedding vows and Irish Claddagh rings before a Hindu priest, and one of the most extraordinary marriages on record went into the books.
MARRIAGE OF TWO FORMER DEATH ROW INMATES, ONE IRISH, ONE AMERICAN
Love story of two accused of cop killings in Ireland and the U.S.
By James O’Shea
Irish Central
November 21, 2011
A couple who served time on Death Row, one in Ireland, and one in America, were married last week in New York and will live in Ireland.
Peter Pringle, 74, was sentenced to death in Ireland for the 1980 capital murder of two policemen during a bank raid in Ballaghaderreen County Roscommon.
The robbery was said to have been carried out by the Irish National Liberation Army, a radical offshoot of the IRA.
His execution was set for June 8 1981 but was commuted by the Irish president.
He served 15 years before it was discovered that his original conviction was unsafe after evidence was produced showing his ‘confession’ was written down even before he was interviewed.
During his work with Amnesty International highlighting innocent death row victims, he met Sunny Jacobs.
Sonia Jacobs, 64, was arrested after a February 1976 shootout with two policemen in Florida in which the officers were killed.
Jacobs and her husband had been passengers in the car driven by Walter Rhodes Junior when it was pulled over by police. Both Rhodes and Jacobs' husband Jesse Tafero had prior convictions.
Rhodes turned evidence and claimed it was Jacobs and Tafero who had shot and killed the policemen. A jailhouse informant also told the court that Jacobs had told him she was involved.
Jacobs also received the death sentence and her husband was eventually executed in 1990.
She, however, won her case on appeal after the jailhouse informant recanted and it became clear that it was Walter Rhodes who had fired the fatal shots and Jacobs was freed after seventeen years in jail.
She and Pringle began seeing each other and often spoke at conferences on the death penalty together.
“We didn’t just share a past, we had a vision for a future,” . Jacobs told The New York Times, which featured their wedding “Sure, Peter and I were also physically attracted to one another, but it was deeper than that,” she said. “You know what happens to attractive, it becomes wrinkled and fat.”
In December 2001, she joined him in his cottage beside the sea in Galway.”
“Sunny teaches yoga, I live on a pension,” Mr. Pringle told the Times . “We have two hens, two ducks and eight goats. We both milk the goats and Sunny makes cheese. It’s really a nice, simple life.”
The Jacobs story became a hit Broadway play and three of the actresses who played her Brooke Shields, Marlo Thomas and Amy Irving turned up for the wedding.
“Playing Sunny was so claustrophobic for me,” Shields told the Times, “You felt her powerlessness, this was a woman in the wrong place at the wrong time, the same for Peter.
“But despite everything they have been through, they are not bitter or jaded, they never closed their hearts. They are two people who are at peace with themselves and with the world. They could not have been more fated and meant to be with one another.”
Jacobs and Mr. Pringle exchanged wedding vows and Irish Claddagh rings before a Hindu priest, and one of the most extraordinary marriages on record went into the books.
BRILLIANT CRIMINAL MASTERMIND
This mentally challenged man needs to be institutionalized.
30-YEAR-OLD MAN’S ALLEGED KIDNAPPING UNRAVELS AFTER HIS MOM NEGOTIATES RANSOM DOWN TO $60
By Noelle Phillips
Jewish World Review
November 22, 2011
COLUMBIA, S.C. — A South Carolina man's attempt to fake his own kidnapping Thursday went awry, starting when his mother negotiated down his ransom to $60 from $100.
Christopher Hutto, 30, of Elgin was charged with extortion for orchestrating the "kidnapping" and then trying to get money from his mother, said Sheriff Jim Matthews.
Hutto had tried to get his mother to pay $100 to find out where the supposed kidnapper had dumped his allegedly badly beaten body, Matthews said. But his mother got the alleged kidnapper to drop the price by $40 after she said she couldn't afford to pay that much for the information.
"Maybe he was a problem child," Matthews said, joking.
Hutto's mother began receiving text messages Thursday night that said her son had been severely beaten and dropped in the woods at an unknown location, Matthews said. The texts, which were coming from Hutto's phone, also said he was near death.
Kershaw County deputies called the State Law Enforcement Division and the Richland County Sheriff's Department to help catch the "kidnapper," Matthews said.
But when police staked out a drop-off location for the money, they saw Hutto running from the site with the money, Matthews said. He was captured after a short foot chase.
Hutto had planned to use the money to buy crack cocaine, Matthews said.
"This guy's a crackhead, and we used all of these resources to ensure his safe return, and it turns out he orchestrated the whole thing," Matthews said.
The penalty for extortion is up to 10 years in prison and a $5,000 fine.
30-YEAR-OLD MAN’S ALLEGED KIDNAPPING UNRAVELS AFTER HIS MOM NEGOTIATES RANSOM DOWN TO $60
By Noelle Phillips
Jewish World Review
November 22, 2011
COLUMBIA, S.C. — A South Carolina man's attempt to fake his own kidnapping Thursday went awry, starting when his mother negotiated down his ransom to $60 from $100.
Christopher Hutto, 30, of Elgin was charged with extortion for orchestrating the "kidnapping" and then trying to get money from his mother, said Sheriff Jim Matthews.
Hutto had tried to get his mother to pay $100 to find out where the supposed kidnapper had dumped his allegedly badly beaten body, Matthews said. But his mother got the alleged kidnapper to drop the price by $40 after she said she couldn't afford to pay that much for the information.
"Maybe he was a problem child," Matthews said, joking.
Hutto's mother began receiving text messages Thursday night that said her son had been severely beaten and dropped in the woods at an unknown location, Matthews said. The texts, which were coming from Hutto's phone, also said he was near death.
Kershaw County deputies called the State Law Enforcement Division and the Richland County Sheriff's Department to help catch the "kidnapper," Matthews said.
But when police staked out a drop-off location for the money, they saw Hutto running from the site with the money, Matthews said. He was captured after a short foot chase.
Hutto had planned to use the money to buy crack cocaine, Matthews said.
"This guy's a crackhead, and we used all of these resources to ensure his safe return, and it turns out he orchestrated the whole thing," Matthews said.
The penalty for extortion is up to 10 years in prison and a $5,000 fine.
Tuesday, November 22, 2011
UPDATE: A 'HEALTHY' DOSE OF PEPPER SPRAY
OUTRAGE! That’s what the internet, the newspaper headlines and the lead-in stories on the national TV news broadcasts have called the reaction to the pepper spraying of UC Davis student protesters. The cops are being excoriated while the protesters are called ‘peaceful’ and ‘passive.’
As I wrote before, the 1% are no longer the bad guys - now it’s the police officers trying to maintain law and order.
Campus Police Chief Annette Spicuzza and the two cops who did the spraying have been placed on administrative leave “to restore trust and calm tensions.” The UC Davis faculty has called for the resignation of Linda Katehi, the university’s chancellor. The ‘university’ has called on the District Attorney to investigate if criminal charges should be filed against the cops. And a prominent educated idiot UC Davis professor has questioned why campus cops are armed in the first place.
Mark G. Yudof, president of the University of California system, said he was “appalled” by the police action and declared that "Free speech is part of the DNA of this university, and non-violent protest has long been central to our history. It is a value we must protect with vigilance." Yudof announced that all 10 chancellors would convene soon for a discussion "about how to ensure proportional law enforcement response to non-violent protest."
The educated idiots, and that includes Yudof, that are screaming ‘outrage’ don’t seem to understand that protesters do not have the right to interfere in the rights of others to go about their business unimpeded. The pepper sprayed protesters were clearly blocking a path and were asked by the cops repeatedly to move. Then they were ordered to move.
In such situations it is common police procedure to resort to pepper spray. Since the protesters were squatting with their arms interlocked and were determined to stay put, removing them by prying them apart and dragging them off would have resulted in injuries to both the protesters and cops. That is something the educated idiots and all the others screaming ‘outrage’ do not seem to understand. And leaving the protesters - who are interfering with the rights of others – in place to continue their unlawful squatting would constitute a breakdown of law and order.
Law and order? That’s been a politically incorrect term ever since the protests against the Vietnam War.
Maintain law and order or let law and order break down? The cops are damned if they do and damned if they don’t. So fuck all those armchair critics and let me repeat: To our police officers I say, right on guys! If the OWS rabble refuses to obey a lawful order, go right ahead and give them a ‘healthy’ dose of pepper spray! And an occasional kick in the butt might not be such a bad idea after all.
As I wrote before, the 1% are no longer the bad guys - now it’s the police officers trying to maintain law and order.
Campus Police Chief Annette Spicuzza and the two cops who did the spraying have been placed on administrative leave “to restore trust and calm tensions.” The UC Davis faculty has called for the resignation of Linda Katehi, the university’s chancellor. The ‘university’ has called on the District Attorney to investigate if criminal charges should be filed against the cops. And a prominent educated idiot UC Davis professor has questioned why campus cops are armed in the first place.
Mark G. Yudof, president of the University of California system, said he was “appalled” by the police action and declared that "Free speech is part of the DNA of this university, and non-violent protest has long been central to our history. It is a value we must protect with vigilance." Yudof announced that all 10 chancellors would convene soon for a discussion "about how to ensure proportional law enforcement response to non-violent protest."
The educated idiots, and that includes Yudof, that are screaming ‘outrage’ don’t seem to understand that protesters do not have the right to interfere in the rights of others to go about their business unimpeded. The pepper sprayed protesters were clearly blocking a path and were asked by the cops repeatedly to move. Then they were ordered to move.
In such situations it is common police procedure to resort to pepper spray. Since the protesters were squatting with their arms interlocked and were determined to stay put, removing them by prying them apart and dragging them off would have resulted in injuries to both the protesters and cops. That is something the educated idiots and all the others screaming ‘outrage’ do not seem to understand. And leaving the protesters - who are interfering with the rights of others – in place to continue their unlawful squatting would constitute a breakdown of law and order.
Law and order? That’s been a politically incorrect term ever since the protests against the Vietnam War.
Maintain law and order or let law and order break down? The cops are damned if they do and damned if they don’t. So fuck all those armchair critics and let me repeat: To our police officers I say, right on guys! If the OWS rabble refuses to obey a lawful order, go right ahead and give them a ‘healthy’ dose of pepper spray! And an occasional kick in the butt might not be such a bad idea after all.
AN INDEFENSIBLE AND IMMORAL TAX
This is absolutely outrageous!
OUTRAGE AS BERLIN ISSUES TAX DEMANDS TO BELGIANS DEPORTED TO GERMANY IN WWII TO WORK AS SLAVES FOR NAZIS
Germans want to tax compensation settlements and pensions agreed to in 2005
By Allan Hall
Mail Online
November 21, 2011
Belgians deported to Nazi Germany in World War II to work as slaves for the Third Reich have now received tax demands from Berlin.
Belgium's finance minister Didier Reynders has vowed to confront Germany over the 'morally indefensible' tax demands which have been arriving in the mailboxes of elderly war survivors over the past few weeks.
'It is shocking that people who during World War II were forced to work by the Nazis have now received tax demands from the authorities related to the compensation eventually paid for that work,' he said.
Several dozen former victims of the forced labour regime imposed by the Nazis after they conquered Belgium in May 1940 have received the demands.
It seeks tax on pensions and lump sums paid out in compensation following a deal struck in 2005.
Tony Vandersteen, ombudsman of the Belgian pension department, said; 'There is great anger. Dozens of people have complained, both survivors or their dependants.
'I told people there is not a lot that I can do. I recommended that people contact the German authorities in order to try to obtain a discount'.
The German tax demands could not come at a worse time for the German image.
The modern-day state is already seen by many in Europe as achieving dominance over its neighbours through the euro crisis and the comment from an aide of Chancellor Angela Merkel to David Cameron last week that 'Europe spricht Deutsch' ('Europe is speaking German') did nothing to enhance that perception.
Nazi Germany enslaved over 13 million people in WWII to work on munitions plants, as labourers, farm and kitchen hands as every able-bodied male was called up to fight.
It was only six years ago that Germany recognised its responsibility towards the survivors and began to issue them payments and pensions.
Belgian slaves worked in some terrible places where life often hung by a thread.
They included the secret underground factory at Nordhausen where V2 rockets were built and where some workers didn't see daylight for four years.
They also endured backbreaking work building the bunker Valentin in Bremen to house submarines.
Nearly 4000 people died while working there, what prosecutors at Nuremberg called 'extermination by working'.
Many Belgian Jews not exterminated were deported to work in ghetto industries in Poland.
Mr Reynders said that this new problem with the pensions paid to former forced labourers had come about because of a new German law on taxing pensions of people living outside of Germany.
He said he had contacted his German opposite number Wolfgang Schaeuble on October 20 about the general implications of the law, but had 'yet to get much of a response.'
'It hits me not only financially but emotionally,' said Simone De Vos, 84, the widow of a forced labourer.
'My late husband had anxiety attacks for decades after his time in Germany. It is outrageous that the Germans now want money back.'
Germany wants to claw back 17 per cent of the payments in tax. Some 200,000 Belgians were enslaved to work for their German masters. It is feared that the tax demands will now be sent to survivors in other lands.
The German government had no immediate comment.
OUTRAGE AS BERLIN ISSUES TAX DEMANDS TO BELGIANS DEPORTED TO GERMANY IN WWII TO WORK AS SLAVES FOR NAZIS
Germans want to tax compensation settlements and pensions agreed to in 2005
By Allan Hall
Mail Online
November 21, 2011
Belgians deported to Nazi Germany in World War II to work as slaves for the Third Reich have now received tax demands from Berlin.
Belgium's finance minister Didier Reynders has vowed to confront Germany over the 'morally indefensible' tax demands which have been arriving in the mailboxes of elderly war survivors over the past few weeks.
'It is shocking that people who during World War II were forced to work by the Nazis have now received tax demands from the authorities related to the compensation eventually paid for that work,' he said.
Several dozen former victims of the forced labour regime imposed by the Nazis after they conquered Belgium in May 1940 have received the demands.
It seeks tax on pensions and lump sums paid out in compensation following a deal struck in 2005.
Tony Vandersteen, ombudsman of the Belgian pension department, said; 'There is great anger. Dozens of people have complained, both survivors or their dependants.
'I told people there is not a lot that I can do. I recommended that people contact the German authorities in order to try to obtain a discount'.
The German tax demands could not come at a worse time for the German image.
The modern-day state is already seen by many in Europe as achieving dominance over its neighbours through the euro crisis and the comment from an aide of Chancellor Angela Merkel to David Cameron last week that 'Europe spricht Deutsch' ('Europe is speaking German') did nothing to enhance that perception.
Nazi Germany enslaved over 13 million people in WWII to work on munitions plants, as labourers, farm and kitchen hands as every able-bodied male was called up to fight.
It was only six years ago that Germany recognised its responsibility towards the survivors and began to issue them payments and pensions.
Belgian slaves worked in some terrible places where life often hung by a thread.
They included the secret underground factory at Nordhausen where V2 rockets were built and where some workers didn't see daylight for four years.
They also endured backbreaking work building the bunker Valentin in Bremen to house submarines.
Nearly 4000 people died while working there, what prosecutors at Nuremberg called 'extermination by working'.
Many Belgian Jews not exterminated were deported to work in ghetto industries in Poland.
Mr Reynders said that this new problem with the pensions paid to former forced labourers had come about because of a new German law on taxing pensions of people living outside of Germany.
He said he had contacted his German opposite number Wolfgang Schaeuble on October 20 about the general implications of the law, but had 'yet to get much of a response.'
'It hits me not only financially but emotionally,' said Simone De Vos, 84, the widow of a forced labourer.
'My late husband had anxiety attacks for decades after his time in Germany. It is outrageous that the Germans now want money back.'
Germany wants to claw back 17 per cent of the payments in tax. Some 200,000 Belgians were enslaved to work for their German masters. It is feared that the tax demands will now be sent to survivors in other lands.
The German government had no immediate comment.
HOMEOWNERS ASSOCIATIONS AND FLAGS
As much as I detest the draconian ways of most homeowners associations and as much as I sympathize and would like to side with Richard Wentz, in this case I am regretfully coming down on the side of the association. To its credit, Wentz's association allows the American flag to be flown, something many others prohibit. And since the 9/11 flag is faded, it would detract from the community aesthetics that maintain property values.
NEIGHBORS TO RETIRED COP: ‘NO 9/11 FLAG’
Homeowners association told Richard Wentz, who assisted at Ground Zero, that flag ‘detracts from aesthetic harmony’
PoliceOne.com
November 21, 2011
NEW YORK — A retired New York police officer was asked by his homeowner's association to take down a commemorative 9/11 flag.
Two flags — the American flag and the 9/11 Flag of Honor, faded and embroidered with victims' names — fly outside the home of Richard Wentz, according to Fox News. An ordinance says residents are only allowed to display one flag, and that it must be the American flag.
Wentz assisted at Ground Zero by pulling people out of Tower 1 before it collapsed, he said, and he has cancer thought to be from exposure to toxins at the site.
Some residents say he should be allowed to keep the flag.
"I think he deserves to have a flag up there. What he went through, I think it's an honor," one woman said.
According to a letter from the association, the flag detracts from the aesthetic harmony of the neighborhood. Wentz has 10 days to remove it before possible legal action is taken.
"I will not take that flag down," Wentz said. "That flag will remain up. I don't care how many fines they want to give me, how many notices they want to give me, I refuse to take that down."
NEIGHBORS TO RETIRED COP: ‘NO 9/11 FLAG’
Homeowners association told Richard Wentz, who assisted at Ground Zero, that flag ‘detracts from aesthetic harmony’
PoliceOne.com
November 21, 2011
NEW YORK — A retired New York police officer was asked by his homeowner's association to take down a commemorative 9/11 flag.
Two flags — the American flag and the 9/11 Flag of Honor, faded and embroidered with victims' names — fly outside the home of Richard Wentz, according to Fox News. An ordinance says residents are only allowed to display one flag, and that it must be the American flag.
Wentz assisted at Ground Zero by pulling people out of Tower 1 before it collapsed, he said, and he has cancer thought to be from exposure to toxins at the site.
Some residents say he should be allowed to keep the flag.
"I think he deserves to have a flag up there. What he went through, I think it's an honor," one woman said.
According to a letter from the association, the flag detracts from the aesthetic harmony of the neighborhood. Wentz has 10 days to remove it before possible legal action is taken.
"I will not take that flag down," Wentz said. "That flag will remain up. I don't care how many fines they want to give me, how many notices they want to give me, I refuse to take that down."
ED AND NANCY
Ed and Nancy met while on a singles cruise and Ed fell head over heels for her.
When they discovered they lived in the same city only a few miles apart Ed was ecstatic. He immediately started asking her out when they got home.
Within a couple of weeks, Ed had taken Nancy to dance clubs, restaurants, concerts, movies, and museums. Ed became convinced that Nancy was indeed his soul mate and true love. Every date seemed better than the last.
On the one-month anniversary of their first dinner on the cruise ship, Ed took Nancy to a fine restaurant... While having cocktails and waiting for their salad, Ed said, "I guess you can tell I'm very much in love with you. I'd like a little serious talk before our relationship continues to the next stage.
So, before I get a box out of my jacket and ask you a life changing question, it's only fair to warn you, I'm a total golf nut. I play golf, I read about golf, I watch golf on TV. In short, I eat, sleep, and breathe golf. If that's going to be a problem for us, you'd better say so now!"
Nancy took a deep breath and responded, "Ed, that certainly won't be a problem. I love you as you are and I love golf too; but, since we're being totally honest with each other, you need to know that for the last five years I've been a hooker."
Ed said, "I bet it's because you're not keeping your wrists straight when you hit the ball."
When they discovered they lived in the same city only a few miles apart Ed was ecstatic. He immediately started asking her out when they got home.
Within a couple of weeks, Ed had taken Nancy to dance clubs, restaurants, concerts, movies, and museums. Ed became convinced that Nancy was indeed his soul mate and true love. Every date seemed better than the last.
On the one-month anniversary of their first dinner on the cruise ship, Ed took Nancy to a fine restaurant... While having cocktails and waiting for their salad, Ed said, "I guess you can tell I'm very much in love with you. I'd like a little serious talk before our relationship continues to the next stage.
So, before I get a box out of my jacket and ask you a life changing question, it's only fair to warn you, I'm a total golf nut. I play golf, I read about golf, I watch golf on TV. In short, I eat, sleep, and breathe golf. If that's going to be a problem for us, you'd better say so now!"
Nancy took a deep breath and responded, "Ed, that certainly won't be a problem. I love you as you are and I love golf too; but, since we're being totally honest with each other, you need to know that for the last five years I've been a hooker."
Ed said, "I bet it's because you're not keeping your wrists straight when you hit the ball."
Monday, November 21, 2011
14-YEAR-OLD GETS 3 YEARS FOR 4 BEHEADINGS
From Borderland Beat:
PONCHIS TEEN SICARIO CONVICTED OF 4 BEHEADINGS MAY BE FREE IN DAYS
"I can no longer be shocked by the impunity of Mexico, sadly, only an event of justice could do that. Hold on to your seatbelts folks, the little darling is a US citizen and free to come and play anywhere, though his history is in the San Diego/Chula Vista area...." Paz, Buela Chivis
CNN Mexico
November 19, 2011
The youngest sicario known as “El Ponchis” was sentenced to three years in prison in the central state of Morelos, for beheading four men could go free in the coming days due to an appeal of his defense.
Following an analysis of the trial by the defense of children, several irregularities were found, so these tests were presented as well as videos of the trial with which the defense seeks to annul the sentence imposed four months ago, sources of the Unitary Tribunal of Justice for Adolescents (TUJA) told CNNMéxico.
The hearing of appeal is an extraordinary remedy that is meant to overturn a court decision, that might contain an incorrect interpretation of the law or a judication that has not followed a legal process.
This legal process is a right of the defendant, said Jose Manuel Serrano Salmeron, head of the prosecution for crimes against adolescents, however, he went on to say that the trial that found the child guilty was fair.
“As a prosecutor in this trial I can tell you that it was a fair trial, the judge listened to each and every one of the witnesses that allowed us to prove all that antisocial behavior in the indictment against him,” Serrano Salmeron said.
The youngest active sicario to date at aged 14, was arrested the night of December 2, 2010 by soldiers at the airport in Cuernavaca while in company of his two sisters. He was about to board a flight that was going to take him to the border city of Tijuana, where he was moving to San Diego, California to join his mother.
At his presentation, the teen said he agreed to work for the South Pacific Cartel (CPS) and said that his job was to behead people working for other cartels.
The hearing, in which all parties will be present, will take place next Tuesday at the Centre for the Execution of Custodial Measures for Adolescents, in Morelos, where he is currently being held, and presiding will be the judges of TUJA, Ana Perez Güemes and Ocampo Virinia that will determine if the sentence is either reduced or annulled or sustained.
After a trial lasting a week, on July 26 “El Ponchis” was sentenced to three years in prison for trafficking drug, possession of a firearm that are only pernitted by the military and violation of federal law against organized crime for committing kidnappings and homicides.
PONCHIS TEEN SICARIO CONVICTED OF 4 BEHEADINGS MAY BE FREE IN DAYS
"I can no longer be shocked by the impunity of Mexico, sadly, only an event of justice could do that. Hold on to your seatbelts folks, the little darling is a US citizen and free to come and play anywhere, though his history is in the San Diego/Chula Vista area...." Paz, Buela Chivis
CNN Mexico
November 19, 2011
The youngest sicario known as “El Ponchis” was sentenced to three years in prison in the central state of Morelos, for beheading four men could go free in the coming days due to an appeal of his defense.
Following an analysis of the trial by the defense of children, several irregularities were found, so these tests were presented as well as videos of the trial with which the defense seeks to annul the sentence imposed four months ago, sources of the Unitary Tribunal of Justice for Adolescents (TUJA) told CNNMéxico.
The hearing of appeal is an extraordinary remedy that is meant to overturn a court decision, that might contain an incorrect interpretation of the law or a judication that has not followed a legal process.
This legal process is a right of the defendant, said Jose Manuel Serrano Salmeron, head of the prosecution for crimes against adolescents, however, he went on to say that the trial that found the child guilty was fair.
“As a prosecutor in this trial I can tell you that it was a fair trial, the judge listened to each and every one of the witnesses that allowed us to prove all that antisocial behavior in the indictment against him,” Serrano Salmeron said.
The youngest active sicario to date at aged 14, was arrested the night of December 2, 2010 by soldiers at the airport in Cuernavaca while in company of his two sisters. He was about to board a flight that was going to take him to the border city of Tijuana, where he was moving to San Diego, California to join his mother.
At his presentation, the teen said he agreed to work for the South Pacific Cartel (CPS) and said that his job was to behead people working for other cartels.
The hearing, in which all parties will be present, will take place next Tuesday at the Centre for the Execution of Custodial Measures for Adolescents, in Morelos, where he is currently being held, and presiding will be the judges of TUJA, Ana Perez Güemes and Ocampo Virinia that will determine if the sentence is either reduced or annulled or sustained.
After a trial lasting a week, on July 26 “El Ponchis” was sentenced to three years in prison for trafficking drug, possession of a firearm that are only pernitted by the military and violation of federal law against organized crime for committing kidnappings and homicides.
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