Society's ChildS


Heart - Black

Woman arrested for leaving creepy notes to neighbor family: "The children look delicious"

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Carrie Pernula
What should've been a simple dispute between neighbors over exuberant children turned into a frightened family believing they had a cannibal in their midst. They began to receive mail saying their "children look delicious" and asking "may I have a taste."

The two phrases sent to the parents in Champlin, Minnesota, were certainly a bolt from the blue, and a rather unpleasant one at that. They received the threatening letter September 27.

"Opened our mail today to this letter. Obviously my stomach started doing somersaults," the parents posted on the Champlin community Facebook page.
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The terrified family called the local police to look into the matter after they began to receive magazine subscriptions with similarly frightening lines on them.

Heart - Black

Psycho cops run over elderly dog several times then shoot it

Karen Sutherland
© Natalie Kalata/CBCKaren Sutherland says her dog was run over and shot dead by the OPP.
A disturbing video surfaced this week showing Ontario Provincial Police officers conducting themselves in a most disgusting and cruel manner.

A 21-year-old German Shepard-cattle dog mix belonging to Karen Sutherland had gotten loose during a storm. When police officers arrived on the scene and saw the mostly deaf and nearly decrepit dog, they apparently feared for their lives and took offensive action.

Instead of seeing if the dog had an ID tag and perhaps attempting to return it to the owner, these cowardly cops decided to run it down - multiple times.

The entire gruesome incident was captured on cellphone video from a nearby neighbor who originally thought the beloved pet was a coyote.

Comment: Nothing and no one is safe around cops.

'A cop tried to kill my dog last night': Tales from the police state


Alarm Clock

Colorado man dies of dehydration in police custody; DA declares it a 'natural cause'

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© screenshotTyler Tabor
A Colorado family has been left without justice after an Adams County District Attorney found no criminal negligence on the part of the jail staff who allowed a 25-year-old man in custody to die from dehydration.

Tyler Tabor, 25, was being held in the Adams County Detention Facility this past May for outstanding warrants. Three days later, he would be dead from what District Attorney Dave Young has called "natural causes."

Tabor had told the staff at the jail that he was suffering from a heroin withdrawal and asked to be placed on an IV the evening before he died. He was reportedly falling on the floor and unable to grasp his medication, yet he was refused proper medical attention.

A nurse who was on duty told the suffering man that they try not to use an IV unless it is absolutely necessary.

The morning of his death, the 5 a.m. routine "row check" was passed over because of other incidents that were occurring at the jail. When staff finally made their way to Tabor's cell to check on him at 5:25, he was having trouble breathing.

An ambulance was called to transport him to a hospital, but it was too late, and Tabor succumbed to the dehydration and died before help arrived.

Young decided that staff followed protocol when they allowed Tabor to die in their care, and wrote that even if they had checked on him at 5:00 a.m., it likely would not have made a difference.

His parents have already hired an attorney and plan to sue the facility as well as the controversial medical services provider that the jail uses, Corizon Health.


Comment: Good! The detention center should also be criminally charged for denying the requested (and clearly needed) medical attention.


Arrow Down

Adolescent psychopaths? Students add cleaning solution to teacher's drink

poison
A Gillett, Wisconsin, high school school teacher went to the hospital after a group of students filled his soda with cleaning solution, police say.

On Oct. 20, the Gillett Secondary School teacher noticed a strange smell coming from his bottle after he had left it unattended, Fox 11 News reports.

"Something was off. He thought that maybe a foreign substance could have been put in it," school superintendent Todd Carlson told Fox 11.

While the teacher had no symptoms, he decided to admit himself to the hospital as a precaution.

Eye 2

Break-in at Washington University office - files for El Salvador lawsuit against CIA stolen

Inter-American Defense College Washington, de
© Mr. Granger / WikipediaLawsuit seeks information on a Salvadoran army officer trained at the Inter-American Defense College (pictured) in Washington, DC
A hard drive with research on atrocities in El Salvador, relevant to a recent lawsuit against the CIA, was stolen from a University of Washington office while the agency's director was visiting the campus. Police are investigating the "suspicious" theft.

The office of Dr. Angelina Godoy, director of the UW Center for Human Rights, was burglarized at some point between Thursday and Saturday last week. After searching the office, the unknown thief made off with the desktop computer containing the hard drive with 90 percent of the research on human rights violations in El Salvador during the 1980s.

The Center recently filed a lawsuit against the CIA, trying to obtain any agency records about Sigifredo Ochoa Perez, then a colonel in the Salvadoran army. Perez was trained at the Inter-American Defense College in Washington DC, and is suspected of leading massacres of civilians during the 1979-92 Salvadoran civil war.

After receiving a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request in 2013, the agency said it could neither confirm nor deny the existence of such records, citing reasons of national security. A second request was dismissed as an "unreasonably burdensome search," The Stranger reported.

Comment: Shades of Watergate.


Attention

Antique shop spills one-quarter pint of hazardous mercury forcing a lockdown of village

mercury spill cambridgeshire england
Police have lifted a 75 meter cordon in Ely, southeast England, after emergency services cleared up a hazardous mercury spillage. Residents were advised to stay inside with windows and doors closed while the cordon was in place.

A 1/4 pint of mercury was spilled inside an antique shop on Downham Road, according to local news reports. The substance is poisonous and highly dangerous when inhaled.

Police placed a 75 meter cordon around the area, which remained in place for much of the afternoon.

Comment: What were the owners of this establishment thinking by keeping such a hazardous substance in the shop?


Heart - Black

Cops arrest man and threaten girlfriend over non-existent breast-feeding violation

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A Charles County, Maryland sheriff's deputy threatens a woman with arrest after having her boyfriend arrested.
An infuriating video posted to Facebook this week shows the grim and infuriating reality of incompetent and power tripping cops in police state USA.

Local artist, DC Prophitt was doing absolutely nothing wrong when he was approached by multiple Charles County Sheriff's deputies. The deputies mistakenly thought that Prophitt's girlfriend was breastfeeding their baby in the vehicle, so he decided to ruin their year.

The family was getting gas when their world was quickly turned upside down by badged agitators.

When the video begins, Prophitt is understandably aggravated by the stop and he was unafraid of voicing this emotion. As a deputy attempts to cite the couple for the non-existent "breast feeding violation," Prophitt becomes even more upset.


Coffee

Fascist Minnesota police pull woman over for drinking coffee while driving

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© Shutterstock
St. Paul woman is dumbfounded after getting pulled over for doing something everyone who drives a car has done — taking a sip of coffee.

Lindsey Krieger said she was merging onto I-94 when she was pulled over on Monday. The officer asked her if she knew what she was doing wrong, and she said no. The officer informed her she had taken a sip from her coffee cup, and that doing so is against the law, Fox9 reports.

"I thought it was a joke," Krieger said.

The police department sided with the officer. Sgt. Mike Ernster of the St. Paul Police Department told the station he couldn't comment on the specifics of the case, but said, "Inattentive driving relates to anything that takes your attention away from those obligations of every driver, which is to pay attention."

USA

The harrowing stories of pregnant women behind bars in US prisons

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© Victoria LawClockwise from top left: Sierra Watts in her only visit with her son, Oak Lee, before he was adopted; Minna Long’s son Noah; Michelle Barton with her daughter, Semaj, in February 2014, hours after birth; the mattress in the Wichita County jail cell where Nicole Guerrero gave birth; Noah’s twin brother, Joseph. Excerpts from 2015 letters from pregnant prisoners in Oklahoma
Our 6-month investigation reveals the horrific and shameful conditions facing pregnant prisoners—and the inhumane treatment they receive.

At 5 a.m. on June 12, 2012, lying on a mat in a locked jail cell, without a doctor, Nicole Guerrero gave birth.

Guerrero was eight-and-a half months pregnant when she arrived 10 days earlier at Texas' Wichita County Jail. The medical malpractice lawsuit Guerrero has filed—against the county, the jail's healthcare contractor, Correctional Healthcare Management, and one of the jail's nurses, LaDonna Anderson—claims she began experiencing lower back pain, cramps, heavy vaginal discharge and bleeding on June 11. The nurse on duty told her there was no cause for concern until she had bled through two sanitary napkins. Several painful hours later, Guerrero pushed the medical emergency button in her cell.

At 3:30 a.m., more than four hours later, Guerrero was finally taken to the nurse's station. Guerrero says she showed Anderson her used sanitary pads filled with blood and fluids, but was not examined. Instead, she was taken to a one-person holding cell with no toilet, sink or emergency call button, known as the "cage." At 5 a.m., her water broke. She called out to Anderson, but, Guerrero says, Anderson refused to check on her. Shortly after, Guerrero felt her daughter's head breach. A passing guard stopped to assist her, and Guerrero, unable to keep from pushing, gave birth on a blood and pus-covered mattress.

The baby was dark purple and unresponsive, with the umbilical cord wrapped around her neck. When Anderson arrived minutes later, she did not attempt to revive the baby, Guerrero says. The EMTs got there after 20 minutes and rushed the baby to the hospital. Guerrero remained in the cage, where she delivered the placenta. At 6:30 a.m., the baby was pronounced dead.

Comment: It's not just pregnant women who are mistreated in US prisons. Incarcerated women as a whole have to deal with rampant sexual assault:


Brick Wall

Private prisons: Mass incarceration bit players

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© (Doug Mills / The New York Times)A prison guard on duty outside El Reno Federal Correctional Institution in El Reno, Oklahoma. President Obama toured the prison on July 16, 2015.
Social justice activists love to hate private prisons. The loathing is easy to justify. Making profit by locking people up and keeping them there is repulsive. Moreover, major private prison operators like the Corrections Corporation of America (CCA) and the GEO Group have a history of tragedy and ruthless behavior. From the early days of CCA when cofounder Tom Beasley described marketing prisons as "just like ... selling cars, or real estate, or hamburgers" to more recent revelations of locking up preschoolers, private prisons have plumbed the depths of immorality. And they have thrown money at the project, spending millions on lobbying for harsher sentencing laws to secure their bottom lines, even bribing judges to incarcerate juveniles.

Since 2000, private prison companies have staked out the war on immigrants as their market niche, working with the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) to promote the passage of harsh anti-immigrant legislation in Arizona, Alabama and other states to corral more "customers" for their growing stable of detention centers. Unless you are a shareholder, there is little to praise about the rebirth of private prisons that has accompanied mass incarceration.

Comment: America: Enter the biggest prison system in history