Society's ChildS


Pistol

'Stand Your Ground' law, 'Bush Doctrine' used to defend double homicide

Florida murder case
© Joe Raedle / Getty Images / AFP
A Florida man accused of killing two men and seriously injuring a third has invoked the state's controversial "stand your ground" law as well as the "Bush Doctrine," which provided legal justification for the war in Iraq, for his defense.

William T. Woodward, 44, allegedly confronted his neighbors during a Labor Day picnic in Titusville, Florida.

Police had responded to the neighborhood multiple times in the past, reportedly because of an ongoing feud between the two parties. Officials say they previously offered to mediate the dispute, but when officers arrived at the scene on Tuesday they found that Gary Lee Hembree, Roger Picior, and Bruce Timothy Blake had all been shot.

Hembree and Picior were mortally wounded, but Blake survived despite being shot at least 11 times. Blake later told Wesh.com that he needed to call the police dozens of times on Woodward, who is a combat veteran.

"I feel about as good as I can with 16 bullet holes in me," he said. "Who in the world think they are going to walk outside to smoke a cigarette and get shot 11 times from somebody a month earlier who was your friend."

Stormtrooper

US military sick and tired of war, have no faith in government

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© Facebook
The US government has no more credibility with the American people and the military that are "sick and tired" of war which has now lasted for 13 years, Gordon Duff, a marine veteran has told RT.

As President Barack Obama is seeking support from Congress for military action in Syria, anti-war sentiment among the population is growing. Earlier last week, images emerged on social media purporting to show US servicemen speaking out against a looming strike against Damascus.

People wearing military uniform are seen posing in front of cameras with posters saying they did not join-up to fight with Al-Qaeda in Syria. Those pictures cannot be verified but the Pentagon is reportedly already looking into the identities of those involved.

Display

Watch LG use 4K TVs to trick people into thinking a meteor hit Earth

LG, maker of fine displays and wonderful prankster of innocent people, has cooked up another beautiful visual trick: installing LG 4K TVs as fake window units and tricking people into believing a meteor has crashed onto Earth. Because the screen is so clear!

Supposedly, the people in the video are all innocent bystanders trying to apply for a job but hey, if the LG 4K TV is that clear (and it probably is), I'm pretty sure I'd fall for the same prank too. I've watched too many apocalyptic movies to not properly freak out.


Source: LG Chile

Radar

Mystery drone seen hovering over six-alarm warehouse fire in Virginia near Pentagon

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© Robert RapanutAlexandria resident Robert Rapanut photographed a drone he saw hovering over a six-alarm fire at a warehouse Monday afternoon.
It wasn't flying for long and it's unclear what it was doing, but at least one witness spotted a drone hovering over a six-alarm fire at a warehouse in Alexandria, just miles from the Pentagon.

Robert Rapanut of Alexandria said he was near the scene of the blaze that destroyed a warehouse in the 800 block of South Pickett Street when he saw an object rise. He took out a camera and photographed it.

"I just saw some black thing go up" Mr. Rapanut said. "It was up maybe two or three minutes. It hovered over the roof of the Red Lobster" a few hundred feet east of the fire.

Alexandria fire officials said the drone didn't belong to them.

"It's not ours," said Robert Rodriguez, chief fire marshal and spokesman for the Alexandria fire department. "It was none of our departments'," he added, referring to the three other fire departments that provided assistance in putting out the blaze.

A Fairfax fire department spokesman practically laughed when asked if the drone at the Monday blaze could have been theirs.

A law passed this year in Virginia placed a temporary moratorium on the use of drones by government agencies, except for situations in which lives might be at risk.

Sheriff

Long Beach Police brutally beat and repeatedly taze man as he lies on the ground screaming in pain

Long Beach police have been accused of brutality after a YouTube video shows an officer striking a prone man multiple of times with a baton.

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Several officers are shown surrounding the man, who is lying on the ground, and then one of the officers strikes the man in the legs as the others shout orders.

The video, which was posted to YouTube on Monday, also shows the man being Tased by the officers at least once Monday at Locust Avenue and South Street.

"Police can only use force that is proportionate to the risk of injury or resistance," said Peter Bibring, spokesman for the American Civil Liberties Union. "And it's difficult to see how striking someone who's lying on the ground in a proportionate response."

Family members identified the man who was struck by police as Porfirio Santos-Lopez, 46, of Long Beach.

Santos-Lopez was taken into surgery late Tuesday at Long Beach Memorial Hospital for his injuries, his wife Lee Ann Hernandez said.

Long Beach police are expected to comment on the incident later today.

Comment: Becoming a Police Officer is the perfect job for a psychopath. Once they get a badge, they can brutalize people with complete impunity.


Sheriff

DeKalb County Police Officer "unintentionally" shoots unarmed teen

16-year-old mistaken for would-be burglar
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© BEN GRAY / AJCDeKalb County Police Chief Cedric Alexander explains during a Wednesday afternoon press conference that the teen shot by a DeKalb officer following a Tuesday home invasion was not involved in the robbery, but had run from officers because he was skipping school. Alexander said the officer was startled by the teen and unintentionally discharged his firearm.
The person a DeKalb County police officer shot Tuesday morning was not a would-be burglar, as police initially believed, police said.

DeKalb County Police Chief Cedric Alexander on Wednesday said the individual was a 16-year-old Southwest DeKalb High School student skipping school.

"It has been revealed to us that the subject shot by one our DeKalb police officers was not associated with the burglary on Streamside Court," Alexander said. "He was truant from school and began running when he saw police officers in the area."

The teen tried to hide from a K9 officer and apparently startled the officer as the officer approached him, the chief said.

"The K9 officer actually came in contact with the young man, and there was an unintentional discharge when he came up on a subject who appeared to be hiding in the shed," Alexander said.

Stormtrooper

Syrian army vs "Syrian rebels"

Syria
© unknown

Post-It Note

Ohio kidnapper Ariel Castro found hanged in cell

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Ariel Castro, the convicted kidnapper who kept three women captive in his Cleveland home for a decade, has been found hanged in his prison cell. Castro had previously pleaded guilty to the charges against him to avoid the death penalty.

Prison officials at the Ohio Correctional Reception Center discovered Castro's body hanging in his cell at 9:20 pm Tuesday local time (01:20 GMT Wednesday). After various attempts to revive him his body was transferred to The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center, where he was pronounced dead an hour later.

"Inmate Ariel Castro was found hanging in his cell this evening at 9:20 pm at the Correctional Reception Center in Orient. He was housed in protective custody which means he was in a cell by himself and rounds are required every 30 minutes at staggered intervals," JoEllen Smith of the Ohio Department of Corrections said in a statement.

Arrow Down

Until death do us part: One woman dies every hour in India's dowry disputes

Dowry Deaths
© AFP Photo / Dibyangshu Sarkar
One woman dies every hour in dowry-related crimes in India, with over 8,000 deaths reported in 2012. The numbers steadily increased between the years of 2007 and 2011, pointing to a rise in the demand for dowries.

According to the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB), 8,233 women died in disputes over dowry payments given by the bride's family to the groom's family at the time of marriage in 2012 - that works out to be one death per hour.

The report comes as the world's attention remains on women's rights issues in India after a number of high-profile rape cases shocked the nation and the globe.

Thousands of Indian women die every year because the groom's family deemed the dowry amount to be inadequate. Many of the women are doused with gasoline and burned to death. According to AFP, dowry demands continue even years after the marriage ceremony.

The number of deaths has been steadily growing, rising from 8,093 in 2007 to 8,618 in 2011.

Arrow Down

Pastor claims Mark Twain was demonically possessed

Mark Twain
© Patheos.com
Pop quiz. Was Mark Twain

1. an atheist,
2. an agnostic, or
3. a deist?

Well, the author's name is on Wikipedia's list of agnostics. Also, on its list of deists. Hmm. Now go looking for a list of famous atheists, and yup.

So what did Twain believe? Depends on whom you ask. In other words, it's complicated - but not to Colorado pastor Kevin Swanson. Swanson has gotten it into his head that Twain was one of the wickedest men who ever lived, on account of the fact that America's greatest humorist frequently made fun of religious phonies with observations like this one:
"In religion and politics, people's beliefs and convictions are in almost every case gotten at second-hand, and without examination, from authorities who have not themselves examined the questions at issue but have taken them at second-hand from other non-examiners, whose opinions about them were not worth a brass farthing."