As a kid, I got used to being stopped by the police. I grew up in an inner-ring suburb of St. Louis. It was the kind of place where officers routinely roughed up my friends and family for no good reason.

I hated the way cops treated me.

But I knew police weren't all bad. One of my father's closest friends was a cop. He became a mentor to me and encouraged me to join the force. He told me that I could use the police's power and resources to help my community.

So in 1994, I joined the St. Louis Police Department. I quickly realized how naive I'd been. I was floored by the dysfunctional culture I encountered.

I won't say all, but many of my peers were deeply racist.

A massive fire in downtown Los Angeles early today engulfed an apartment tower that was under construction, damaged two other buildings and left freeways and roads closed.

Firefighters used the 110 Freeway to set up equipment to fight the huge blaze.

Caltrans reopened the 101 Freeway and the southbound 110 at around 4:30 a.m., but the northbound 110 Freeway remained closed as of 7:30 a.m. Caltrans hoped to reopen the 110 north by 8 a.m.

More than 250 firefighters battled the fire at an apartment tower under construction in the DaVinci complex in the 900 block of Fremont Avenue, Los Angeles Fire Department spokesman David Ortiz said. The building -- the size of an entire city block -- had 1.3 million square feet of floor space, and officials said two-thirds of it was consumed by flames.

Ohio resident Kimberly Thompson was recuperating from a month-long, medically induced coma when she was told that she'd no longer be receiving welfare payments. A letter from the county reportedly explained that because she hadn't informed them that she was in a coma, she was being kicked off of welfare.

According to NBC News, Thompson, 43, who spent years scraping by while raising a teenage daughter, applied for Medicaid earlier this year after being unable to work due to a hysterectomy she had in May. After the surgery, Thompson contracted an infection that led to gradual organ failure. She was placed in a coma while doctors worked to save her, and when she awoke she learned that she'd been cut off from $700 per month in government assistance.

"They told me I'd lost the benefits because I didn't go to class," Thompson told NBC News, referring to a job-training program she'd enrolled in when she began receiving Medicaid, welfare and food stamps. "How are you supposed to go to class when you're in a coma?"

Because she was unable to work in the first few months after her coma, Thompson resorted to sleeping on couches and spending time living with relatives. Her teenage daughter lived with her father during that time.

Thompson said she is confused as to why her Medicaid caseworker didn't inform her welfare caseworker of her condition; a problem that a county spokesperson admitted has affected others before. After a hearing officer ordered that Thompson's benefits be reinstated, she received the money that she missed out on after being cut off and is now receiving food stamps. NBC News says that the county is "still deciding whether to reinstate welfare payments in the future, since her daughter does not currently live with her."

"If I'd had that money after the coma, if I'd had it all along, I could have had a place for me and my daughter, but now because she doesn't live with me it's impossible to get us back together until I can get work again," Thompson said.

Seaside, CA - A 20 year veteran of the CSU Monterey Bay police force, was given a notice of termination this week for choosing NOT to immediately resort to violent escalation during a confrontation with a suicidal student.

The unidentified officer was the first one on the scene when responding to an incident involving a suicidal college student in his CSUMB dorm room in February of this year. The officer showed an heartening level of restraint when dealing with a student, who was in his room with a knife and hammer, and was also threatening to light himself on fire.

"He was clearly a danger to himself and he was in crisis," Marina Police Chief Edmundo Rodriguez said. "We were trying to keep him from accessing the weapons or leave, to get him medical attention."

Instead of immediately resorting to violence, this officer was talking the student down and de-escalating the situation. The officer was successful in calming the student down and was going to get him a glass of water when the Marina police department showed up, and immediately began tasering the student.

The campus officer refused to taser the student, as he did not perceive a threat. Subsequently Rodriguez's department later issued a "failure to act" complaint against the campus officer, accusing him of not engaging in a "highly agitated situation."

"It defies logic and is extremely disappointing that, at a time when law enforcement is under fire for using more force than necessary, an officer is being terminated for attempting to use civilized methods to resolve a situation," the student's father said.

"Our officer did not believe he was any threat at all," said Jeff Solomon, the union's president.

Greek police used tear gas and water cannons to disperse crowds during clashes in the capital. Athens was gripped with protests marking six years since police shot dead an unarmed teenager during an anti-austerity rally.

At least 8,000 demonstrators marched in Athens on Saturday commemorating the sixth anniversary since the police slaying of Alexandros Grigoropoulos. Grigoropoulos' murder on December 6, 2008 sparked violent clashes across Greece, with cars being burned, shops looted, and police attacked in a number of Greek cities.

The violence on Saturday began at 19:30 in the evening by a group of some 200 black-clad masked men, local media reported. They started setting on fire cars and bank ATMs and threw Molotov cocktails and other projectiles at police in the bohemian neighborhood of Exarchia, where Grigoropoulos was killed.

Several thousand people were evacuated from a Hyatt hotel in suburban Rosemont when an "intentional" chlorine gas leak at a convention led to 19 people being hospitalized early Sunday morning.

The incident happened around 12:40 a.m. at the Hyatt, at 9300 West Bryn Mawr Avenue in Rosemont, according to a statement from the Rosemont Public Safety Department. First responders were called to investigate a noxious odor that was spreading across the ninth floor of the hotel, where a high level of chlorine gas was discovered in the air, the statement said.

Nineteen people were transported to nearby hospitals after complaining of nausea, dizziness and other medical problems, according to the statement. All people inside the building were temporarily evacuated and sheltered at nearby facilities, including the Donald E. Stephens Convention Center.

A man has been charged with four counts of attempted murder after a stabbing aboard an Amtrak train in Niles, Mich., police said Saturday. Police identified the man as Michael Williams, 44, of Saginaw, Mich. He is being held in the Berrien County Jail in lieu of $1 million bail.

Officers confronted Williams, who was carrying a knife, on board the train Friday evening, subduing him with a stun gun before his arrest. Police have yet to disclose a possible motive in the attack.

The multiple stabbings occurred on a Chicago-to-Port Huron Amtrak passenger train carrying 172 passengers Friday night in Niles, Mich., west of Battle Creek.

Four stabbing victims were taken to area hospitals - Lakeland-Niles Hospital and to the larger Memorial Hospital in South Bend, Ind., about 10 minutes away, a police dispatcher said.

The victims - whose identities were not immediately known - included the train's conductor, a female passenger and two male passengers, said Niles Mayor Michael McCauslin. All four victims were in stable condition Saturday, according to Niles Police Chief Jim Millen.

U.S. special forces stormed a walled compound in a remote Yemeni village early on Saturday in an attempt to free Western hostages held by an al Qaeda unit, but an American journalist and a South African teacher were killed by their captors, officials said.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and a Yemeni intelligence official said Luke Somers, 33, and South African Pierre Korkie, 56, were shot by their kidnappers shortly after the raid began in the arid Wadi Abadan district of Shabwa, a province long seen as one of al Qaeda's most formidable strongholds.

It was the second U.S. attempt to free Somers in 10 days and Kerry said it had been approved because of information that Somers' life was in imminent danger. "It was our assessment that that clock would run out on Saturday," one U.S. official said.

A 12-year-old boy took his own life. And tonight, that boy's family and friends, including the staff and students at Folsom Middle School, are searching for answers.

Those close to Ronin Shimizu say he could not take the bullying anymore.

The district confirms they did get a number of complaints from the parents of the boy. They say they followed protocol, but friends say it just wouldn't stop. Shimizu had a bright smile, but apparently there was a lot of pain.

"He was a really great friend," said a friend.

It was an unimaginable loss, as friends and family gathered around the Shimizu home Thursday night for a quiet candle light vigil.

Shimizu had previously attended Folsom Middle School, but was only recently being home schooled. He killed himself yesterday.

"I didn't see why people would tease him because he was so nice," said a fellow cheerleader.

Those who knew Shimizu say he was the only male cheerleader with the Vista Junior Eagles Cheer Team.

"I heard that people called him gay because he was a cheerleader," said.

"It's a shocking and saddening incident," said.

Nearly everyone knows about the infamous video of a New York City police officer choking Eric Garner. But there is a second video, in the aftermath of the more well-known Eric Garner video.

The second video shows the choking while one officer grabbed Garner around his neck, and threw him to the ground. It also, however, shows the seven minute long aftermath, where a disgusted bystander films the lifeless body of Eric Garner left on the sidewalk with police officers shuffling around him and seeming relatively undisturbed by the fact that they had just killed an unarmed man for not paying a few pennies of tax on cigarettes.

Watch video below of NYPD officers and EMT standing around, and failing to give aid to Eric Garner, who was lifeless on the ground, but technically did not die until he was on the way to the hospital.