Society's ChildS


Sheriff

Concerned citizen pulls over drunk cop, locks him up in his own cruiser

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Pietermarizburg man arrested an allegedly drunk police officer and locked him up in the back of his police van after watching him drive recklessly through the city streets.

Russell George, of Prestbury, said he was coming down Stott Street and about to enter Mayor's Walk at about 8 pm on Sunday when he noticed a police van driving fast and recklessly .

"He was driving towards oncoming traffic as he turned into Victoria Road.

"At this point I was concerned about the safety of other road users," self-employed George told The Witness.

"He suddenly jammed on his brakes and came to a complete stop.

"I got out of my car and went towards him and I asked him if he knew what he was doing. He started his car and carried on driving," he said.

Continuing to drive recklessly, the policeman turned into Logan Road and came to a stop at the Howard Road intersection.

Evil Rays

Harrowing surveillance footage shows woman getting punched, dragged, and thrown onto subway tracks in Philadelphia

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Police say surveillance video shows a man approach a woman at a SEPTA station, assault her and then throw her onto the tracks.

According to SEPTA, the woman was sitting Tuesday just after 3 p.m. at the Chinatown stop's northbound platform on Race Street along the Broad Ridge-Spur subway line.

Surveillance video, released Thursday by SEPTA, shows a man approach the woman. Police say he asked for a lighter.

Once he had that lighter, he attacked the woman, throwing her onto the tracks (see the surveillance footage in the second video clip above).

The man took her cell phone, which had fallen out of her pocket and onto the ground, and is then seen on surveillance video leaving, SEPTA police said.


Pistol

Firearms instructor leaves gun in school bathroom

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© Reuters / Jim Urquhart
In response to last month's massacre in Newtown, a Michigan charter school hired a firearms instructor as a security guard - only to find that the armed guard forgot his gun in the school bathroom.

The school took the National Rifle Association's advice in hiring an armed guard, but the retired Lapeer County Sheriff's Dept. firearms instructor, Clark Arnold, endangered students less than a week after he was hired by forgetting his deadly weapon in the school bathroom.

The Chatfield School of Lapeer, Michigan, which has about 500 enrolled students, was fortunate that the security guard remembered to retrieve the missing gun before a student came across it. The school director reported the incident to local authorities, but the retired firearms instructor will face no criminal charges.

"If you left a gun unattended and a toddler finds it and shoots and hurts someone, it could be some kind of reckless use of a firearm," Lapeer County Prosecutor Byron Konschuh told the Flint Journal.

But because no students were injured at the charter school, "it's almost like no harm no foul," Konschuh added.

Pistol

Man shops at Utah JCPenney while carrying assault rifle

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A man in Riverdale, Utah walked into a local JCPenney department store this week armed to the teeth, carrying a holstered handgun, a semi-automatic assault rifle and extra clips on his belt.

The strange display of firepower was enough to draw a scene, with bystanders taking photos and making concerned comments to one another. Images of the man published to Facebook caused a stir in the community and got the attention of ABC 4 in Salt Lake City.

The woman who took the photo that got the most attention said it happened on Wednesday, just four hours after President Barack Obama announced a series of executive orders relating to firearms.

Red Flag

'Compassionate, gifted' Connecticut priest busted in cross-country meth ring

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© CONNECTICUT POSTMonsignor Kevin Wallin, of Bridgeport, Conn., was charged along with four others with selling crystal meth as part of a cross-country drug ring.
He went from pastor to pusher.

A Connecticut priest was part of a cross-country drug ring that smuggled crystal meth from California into the well-heeled hamlets of Fairfield County, federal prosecutors said.

Monsignor Kevin Wallin, a former pastor of St. Augustine Parish in Bridgeport, sold meth to undercover narcs six times since September 2012, the U.S. Attorney's Office said Wednesday.

The 61-year-old former church leader and four others were indicted by a grand jury on six counts of possession with intent to distribute.

If convicted, he could face up to 20 years in prison and a $2 million fine.

Federal investigators arrested the group on Jan. 3.

Heart - Black

Algeria: 12 hostages have died in the siege

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Algeria's state news agency says 12 hostages have been killed since the start of the operation to free workers kidnapped by Islamic militants at a natural gas plant in the Sahara.

The APS news agency quotes an unidentified security source for the new death toll and says the fatalities include both Algerian and foreign workers at the remote desert facility.

APS also said Friday that 18 of the hostage takers have been killed.

The militants, meanwhile, offered to trade two captive American workers for two terror figures jailed in the United States, according to a statement received by a Mauritanian news site that often reports news from North African extremists.

The Friday report from the government news agency APS, citing a security official, did not mention any casualties in the battles between Algerian forces and the militants. But earlier it had said that 18 militants had been killed, along with six hostages.

Eye 2

Man bites off girlfriend's thumb in fight

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Police in Central Florida say a man bit off his girlfriend's left thumb during a fight while he was driving her to work at Taco Bell.
Police in Central Florida say a man bit off his girlfriend's left thumb during a fight while he was driving her to work at Taco Bell.

Florida Today reports that hospital officials called police after the woman arrived for treatment Wednesday.

Pistol

Gun laws in the U.S.: Seven things you need to know about the data

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From concealed carry laws to background checks, the 50 states are a patchwork of inconsistent gun regulations.
Weapons laws can vary dramatically from state to state. Here are the key findings we collected while building our interactive.

When you first encounter this interactive, it's perhaps best to know that our key finding was that gun regulation from state to state is not one-size-fits-all.

Trying to create "buckets" to classify regulations broadly among the states is a challenge because most states have not enacted comprehensive legislation. In fact, it's common to find that states regulate one area of gun control in a very isolated way. For example, Rhode Island and Pennsylvania have enacted universal background checks for prospective gun owners, which also apply to sales at gun shows. However, other states, like Virginia, have imposed other administrative requirements - many of which emphasize record-keeping over regulation - that also pertain to gun shows.

A key point about the "blue" regulation areas used to highlight gun regulations in this interactive: the law specifically regulated gun rights in those states; however, if a state's regulation area is colored "grey", we can't necessarily make the assumption that there are absolutely no gun restrictions in that locale.

Below are other key findings we encountered while wrangling the data for this interactive:

Attention

West Point center cites dangers of 'far right' in U.S.

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© Associated Press/The Gainesville Sun A U.S. flag flies July 3, 2012, over a field during the Fanfare and Fireworks celebration at the University of Florida in Gainesville, Fla.
A West Point think tank has issued a paper warning America about "far right" groups such as the "anti-federalist" movement, which supports "civil activism, individual freedoms and self-government."

The report issued this week by the Combating Terrorism Center at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, N.Y., is titled "Challengers from the Sidelines: Understanding America's Violent Far-Right."

The center - part of the institution where men and women are molded into Army officers - posted the report Tuesday. It lumps limited government activists with three movements it identifies as "a racist/white supremacy movement, an anti-federalist movement and a fundamentalist movement."

The West Point center typically focuses reports on al Qaeda and other Islamic extremists attempting to gain power in Asia, the Middle East and Africa through violence.

But its latest study turns inward and paints a broad brush of people it considers "far right."

It says anti-federalists "espouse strong convictions regarding the federal government, believing it to be corrupt and tyrannical, with a natural tendency to intrude on individuals' civil and constitutional rights. Finally, they support civil activism, individual freedoms, and self government. Extremists in the anti-federalist movement direct most their violence against the federal government and its proxies in law enforcement."

Heart - Black

Acid thrown in face of Bolshoi ballet's artistic director

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© Yuri Kadobnov /AFP/Getty ImagesSergei Filin, artistic director of the Bolshoi ballet, in 2011.
A masked assailant threw acid into the face of the Bolshoi ballet's artistic director on Thursday in Moscow in what may have been a "reprisal for his selection of dancers in starring roles at the famed Russian company," The Associated Press reports.

Russia Today writes that 42-year-old Sergei Filin "may lose his sight." He "suffered severe burns of multiple degrees to his face and eyes," it adds. And, the news outlet reports that:
"It will take Filin at least six months to recover, Bolshoi spokesperson Ekaterina Novikova said. She added that Sergei Filin had received threats from anonymous callers before. 'We never imagined that a war for roles - not for real estate or for oil - could reach this level of crime,' Novikova said to Channel One.

"Bolshoi general director Anatoly Iksanov said he believed the attack was linked to Filin's work at the theater. 'He is a man of principle and never compromised," Iksanov said. 'If he believed that this or that dancer was not ready or was unable to perform this or that part, he would turn them down.' "