Society's ChildS


Hardhat

Alabama pipeline ruptures leaking 250,000 gallons of gas causing 'fuel emergency'

Response personnel working on the pipeline that spilled gasoline near Helena, Alabama
© Colonial Pipeline
At least 250,000 gallons of gasoline have spilled following a pipeline rupture in central Alabama. Emergency responders are working to repair the spill, while Alabama and Georgia have declared a state of emergency due to possible fuel shortages.


Comment: But not a state of emergency for the possible environmental damage.


The spill, equivalent to 6,000 barrels, took place in a rural area southwest of Helena, Alabama, and was first noticed Friday. A spokesman for Colonial Pipeline said the spill has affected an area about two acres in size, Birmingham's WBRC-TV reported.

According to local media, the spill is located near Lindsey's Crossing in Shelby County, about 28 miles southwest of Birmingham.

Camera

Convenient accident: IT workers delete one-fourth of Oakland police department's body-cam footage

oakland police body camera
© Al Seib / Reuters
About a quarter of all police body-camera footage stored by the Oakland Police Department was deleted by accident in 2014, according to a sergeant's testimony in an East Oakland murder trial.

In the process of upgrading software for the Oakland Police Department (OPD) computer system that included dozen of terabytes of body-camera footage, city IT workers accidentally erased about 25 percent of the stored data two years ago, according to the San Francisco Chronicle. The revelation came amid testimony in a murder trial this week from Oakland police Sgt. Dave Burke, the former head of OPD's camera unit.

Comment: While the deletion of files could be nothing more than accidental, it is interesting in light of the recent scandals involving the Oakland Police:


Bullseye

Social media storm erupts after restaurant owner kicks out woman wearing a niqab

woman in niqab
© Farid Alouache / Reuters
A restaurant owner in northern Germany has triggered a social media storm after expelling a Muslim woman who refused to remove her niqab. The man reportedly received a barrage of "negative comments" on social media for his actions.

The row started last Saturday when a Muslim woman went to the Seekrug restaurant, reportedly to see the local 'Festival of Light', according to the Rheinische Post newspaper. The event attracted over 3,000 people who gathered in and around the restaurant.

Christian Schulz, the restaurant owner, said he had asked the woman to remove the veil and show her face, but that she had refused and "immediately began to rant," leaving the place shortly afterwards.

Following the incident, Schulz was targeted with abusive comments about Seekrug on its Facebook page, with Schulz and his staff reportedly described as "racist" and "neo-Nazi," the newspaper adds.

Handcuffs

Phoenix: Driver purposely mows down cops with his car

Marc LaQuon Payne
Shocking video: a driver targeting Phoenix Police officers -- running them down outside a valley Quik Trip gas station near 25th Avenue and Camelback Road on Tuesday morning.

It's hard to watch -- the surveillance video shows the moment a man drove his car towards three police officers at the QT. You can see his car speeding through the parking lot -- one of the officers went flying through the air.

For one of those officers, it was his first day on the job. Two of them ended up in a hospital. The third officer was able to arrest the suspect. They are all expected to be OK.

3 Phoenix police officers injured after car hits them, crashes into gas station

Comment:




Fire

At least 21 people injured by explosion and residential building collapse in Dijon, France

French police and firefighters
© Charles Platiau / Reuters French police and firefighters
A gas blast in the heart of the French city of Dijon has resulted in 21 people being injured, according to Le Parisien newspaper. A residential building collapsed following the explosion.

Several of the injured were retrieved from under the rubble. Marie-Christine Tarrare, the Dijon prosecutor, said the incident may have involved "a suicide attempt that would have caused the explosion."

Two gas cylinders have reportedly been found in the rubble, which reinforces the claim, according to the newspaper.

Some victims were retrieved from under the rubble. The search for other people who may still be inside the building continues.

Earlier in the day, Dijon Mayor François Rebsamen said that eight people were injured in the blast according to preliminary information.

M6Info and France 3 TV cited nine injuries in the blast, which occurred on Rue Pierre Palliot, near a train station.

Comment: Other possible explanations and similar incidents:


Camcorder

Footage released of Spokane cops killing a suicidal man

spokane police
© JThom / Liveleak
Police in Spokane, Washington have released footage from an officer's body camera which shows police fatally shooting a man earlier this year.

Officers Chris Lequire, Ryan Akins and Brandon Lynch were responding to a 911 call from a man threatening suicide. The footage, some of which has been redacted by the police, shows the officers arrive at the scene on State Street and attempt to start a dialogue with the man.

"Hey partner, my name's Chris why don't you talk to me?" Lequire calls out to the man, later identified as Michael Kurtz.

Kurtz starts moving towards the officers, holding a knife to his chest and shouting "Kill me!" as police ask him to back up and put the knife down.

Comment: Aiming at a non-vital body part was out of the question?


Sheriff

Stop and frisk not good enough -- now there's stop and swab for DNA collection

police swabbing
Without laws to guide them, police around the country have begun collecting people's DNA — even when no crime has been committed — using private labs which then store the genetic material for unknown periods to make identification simple in the event a crime is committed in the future.

Known generally as "stop and spit," the practice of requesting the DNA of adults and juveniles during routine traffic stops and even basic interactions with police, ProPublica reports, is not only wholly unregulated and unlegislated, it is alarmingly common.

"Over the last decade," writes Lauren Kirchner for ProPublica, "collecting DNA from people who are not charged with — or even suspected of — any particular crime has become an increasingly routine practice for police in smaller cities" in Florida, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, and North Carolina.

For instance, Kirchner explained, police in Branford, Connecticut, are "instructed to request DNA from people they merely observe acting inexplicably or strangely."

Comment: Another question to be asked is what is the government doing with all this collected DNA.
Government breaks promise to delete DNA profiles of innocent people


Camcorder

Not good enough: DC police body camera policy altered after deadly shooting goes unrecorded

D.C. Mayor Muriel E. Bowser
© Joe Heim/The Washington PostD.C. Mayor Muriel E. Bowser (D), flanked by Deputy Mayor for Public Safety and Justice Kevin Donahue, left, and interim Police Chief Peter Newsham, answers questions during a news conference Thursday at Anacostia High School.
Body cameras for the Metropolitan Police Department of the District of Columbia were already required to be turned on by officers responding to calls and encountering citizens, but a new amendment to the policy was just added following an unrecorded fatal police shooting of a motorcyclist.

"We have given the police officers a new tool. We have to do everything we can to make sure that new tool is being deployed properly," DC Mayor Muriel Bowser said Thursday, according to the Washington Post.

Announcing the new policy that Metropolitan officers must confirm with dispatch that they have turned their cameras on, the mayor told reporters that the purpose was to address crime in the District of Columbia.

Attention

'We beat the odds': Abducted 6yo girl found alive and chained to tree, man in custody

Steffany Lenneth Lopez-Castro chained to a tree
© Bob Bonner / Facebook
A six-year-old girl who was abducted from her North Carolina home has been found alive and chained to a tree. A convicted sex offender has been arrested and charged with first-degree kidnapping.

Police found Steffany Lenneth Lopez-Castro chained to a tree in a wooded area in New Hanover County on Thursday morning, about 2 miles (3.2km) from where she was taken from the driveway of her home the previous night, local CBS affiliate WNCN reported.

After locating the girl, police flagged down a nearby driver, asking if he had bolt cutters. The man gave officers a battery-operated saw to cut the child free.

The child was taken to a local hospital for evaluation and is said to be doing well.

Magnify

Big brother alert: 'Rule 41' change allows FBI mass surveillance

FBI coffee mug
© Chris Helgren / Reuters
The deadline is December 1. If Congress fails to act, the FBI gains the power to hack and surveil an unlimited number of computers, based on just one warrant from any federal judge. "Rule 41" marks a new line drawn in the cybersecurity-privacy battle.

The US court system has a process through which the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure are amended, and because these decisions are not made by elected officials, they are not supposed to deal with changes in the law or enacting policy.

Changes to Rule 41, however, will remove the limits on how the FBI can obtain search warrants for computer networks. As of now, a federal judge may authorize the feds to install malware to hack computers suspected to be involved in criminal activity. That judge may only issue the warrant when the device is in his or her jurisdiction, though. That barrier is scheduled to be lifted December 1, unless Congress prevents it.

Comment: Congress will do nothing to stop Rule 41.