Society's ChildS


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Surgeon suspended from Birmingham hospital over allegedly 'branding' his name on a patient's liver

Kashmira Gander
The Independent, UK
Tue, 24 Dec 2013 14:34 UTC
Surgery Equipment
© The Independent, UK
A surgeon has been suspended over allegations that he "branded" his initials onto a patient's liver.

The letters were reportedly found by a colleague who was performing a routine operation on the unnamed patient.

University Hospitals Birmingham NHS Foundation Trust confirmed that they were investigating the claims made against a surgeon at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Birmingham.

The surgeon has been suspended while an internal investigation is carried out.

In a statement, the Trust said: "Following an allegation of misconduct, University Hospitals Birmingham NHS Foundation Trust has suspended a surgeon while an internal investigation is complete."

The news comes after concerns were raised by a report published by NHS England in mid-December which exposed mistakes made by its staff.
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Sheriff

Hong Kong jails woman who smuggled baby formula under unlicensed milk law


The Raw Story
Tue, 24 Dec 2013 07:09 UTC
Image
© The Raw Story
A Hong Kong court has jailed a woman for smuggling baby formula, the first time anybody has been sent to prison under the city's ban on unlicensed milk powder export, officials said Tuesday.

The 37-year-old woman, whose nationality has not been disclosed, was jailed for five weeks after being found with four boxes of baby milk formula weighing 3.2 kilograms at the border crossing between Hong Kong and its neighboring mainland Chinese city of Shenzhen Sunday.

Hong Kong barred people from taking more than 1.8 kilograms of formula out of the city in March after a rush on milk powder by Chinese parents, distrustful of domestic milk brands due to a 2008 scandal involving formula tainted with melamine that killed six children and sickened 300,000 others.

Their concern triggered demand which saw shelves emptied around the world.

Hong Kong's controversial ban aimed to crack down on "parallel traders" who sell the milk powder for a profit in China.
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Compass

Police State: The worst police misconduct of 2013

Eric W. Dolan
The Raw Story
Tue, 24 Dec 2013 08:57 UTC
Image
© Unknown
Police officers are heroes. They voluntarily put themselves in harm's way to serve and protect every citizen, and society grants them powers above and beyond the average citizen to achieve their mission.

Unfortunately, this power can be abused, turning the heroes into villains. Extra power, in a free society, must be coupled with extra responsibility, and exposing misconduct is key to holding those with power accountable.

Below are some - but not all - of the worse police abuses to have occurred or come to light in 2013. Much of the misconduct involves racial or sexual elements, a fact that is entirely unsurprising but still disturbing.

Black men arrested for being with white girl

Landry Thompson, 13, was visiting Houston, Texas to attend dance classes this month. Her mother had given dance instructor Emmanuel Hurd full guardianship over her during the trip.

But police began questioning Thompson, Hurd and another dance instructor while they were at a gas station. The police later decided to handcuff the dance instructors and trainee. Thompson was placed in the custody of Child Protective Services, but she was released back into the custody of Hurd about 11 hours later.

"I was horrified," her mother, Destiny Thompson, said. "She was with the people I wanted her to be with. She was with people I trusted. And now she was taken away from those people and in a shelter with people I didn't know."
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Evil Rays

Texas student reports rape and gets suspended for 'public lewdness'

David Edwards
The Raw Story
Mon, 23 Dec 2013 11:01 UTC
Image
© The Raw StoryRachel Bradshaw-Bean
A former Texas high school student has come forward with accusations that school officials suspended her for "public lewdness" after she reported that she had been raped in a band room.

In her first extensive interview, Rachel Bradshaw-Bean told NBC News that a boy had asked her to go into the band room at Henderson High School in East Texas on Dec. 6, 2010 while they were waiting for a Key Club meeting to begin after school. That's when things turned violent and the boy raped her.

After crying and cleaning herself up in the bathroom, she went to an assistant band director to report the crime.

"He told me to work it out with the boy," she recalled. "There's no way I would do that. But I didn't know what to think. I was 17."

The next day, the news reached an assistant vice principal after Bradshaw-Bean and a friend told another assistant band director. The school sent Bradshaw-Bean to a health clinic, which found lacerations to the hymen and bleeding "consistent with information given per victim," according to a medical report obtained by NBC News.
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Star of David

Judge rejects pro-Israel ad that demeans Palestinians or Muslims

Akilah Johnson
The Boston Globe
Tue, 24 Dec 2013 00:00 UTC
boston train
© Dreamstime
A federal judge rejected a pro-Israel group's assertion that its free speech rights were violated when the MBTA turned down a subway advertisement on the grounds that the ad was "demeaning or disparaging."

The ad is paid for by the American Freedom Defense Initiative, a New York organization that seeks to combat the spread of Islam in the United States. With bold, all-capital-letter text placed against a stark black background, the ad reads: "In any war between the civilized man and the savage, support the civilized man. Support Israel; defeat Jihad."

Officials with the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority rejected the ad in November on the basis that it violated the agency's advertising guidelines, which include rejecting advertisements that demean and disparage individuals and groups, promote alcohol or tobacco, and depict graphic violence.

On Friday, US District Judge Nathaniel M. Gorton sided with the state's transportation authority, saying in the ruling that "it was plausible for the defendants to conclude that the . . . pro-Israel advertisement demeans or disparages Muslims or Palestinians."
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Padlock

Class action lawsuit filed against city of Memphis over untested rape kits

Matt Gerien
My Fox Memphis
Fri, 20 Dec 2013 23:46 UTC
Image
© Guardian
The city of Memphis is facing a class action lawsuit over the Memphis Police's backlog of untested rape kits.

A rape survivor sued the city saying her rape kit has sat untested in a police storeroom for 13 years. The woman's attorneys say her constitutional rights have been violated by the city and the police department.

The 13-page lawsuit was filed Friday in U.S. District Court in Downtown Memphis, and since it's a class action, other rape survivors could join the suit as plaintiffs.

Lawyers are identifying the plaintiff as Jane Doe to protect her identity as a sexual assault victim.

The court documents say a man broke into her home in 2001. She was bound by the suspect and sexually assaulted.

According to the complaint she was brought to the rape crisis center for treatment and an exam, but it says her rape kit, or sexual assault evidence kit, was never submitted for testing.

"There was an intentional decision made by the police department that they would treat crimes against women -- domestic violence, and sexual assaults -- differently than other crimes they investigate," said Robert Spence, Jr., plaintiff's attorney. "Crimes of that nature, rapes and sexual assaults they chose not to investigate them to throw the rape kits in a trash heap and essentially victimize the victims twice."
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Eye 1

UK Police under investigation after three schoolboys with learning difficulties were TASERED

Rebecca Camber
Daily Mail, UK
Tue, 24 Dec 2013 10:23 UTC
  • Officers called to Chelfham Senior School near Plymouth at 9.20am on December 1 to deal with alleged assault on a teacher
  • Two boys, 14, and a 15-year-old Tasered for 'brandishing knives'
  • IPCC has now launched investigation in Devon and Cornwall Constabulary
Image
Probe: The IPCC has launched an inquiry into Devon and Cornwall Police after pupils at Chelfham Senior School (pictured) were Tasered
Police are being investigated after a group of schoolboys with learning difficulties were Tasered at a special needs school.

The police watchdog is supervising an investigation into how three boys - aged 14 and 15 - were blasted with a 50,000-volt electric stun gun.
Several police units were called to Chelfham Senior School near Plymouth, a special needs school owned by the exclusive Priory Group following an alleged assault on a teacher in a 'scuffle' with pupils.
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Eye 1

Ohio schools expect boom in civilian drone use in U.S., offer job training

Associated Press
New York Daily News
Tue, 24 Dec 2013 10:00 UTC
u.s. drones
© HANDOUT/Reuters
Some Ohio schools are preparing students for a boom in the drone industry once the federal government, as is expected, allows civilian unmanned aircraft to fly in U.S. airspace.

The Federal Aviation Administration estimates as many as 7,500 commercial drones could be flying in national airspace within a few years, and has until 2015 to present a plan for safely integrating drones into U.S. airspace....


Comment: US approves drones for civilian use

The 'normalizing' of American society to seeing a drone presence in national airspace begins to play out - they're teaching the children 'well', aren't they?

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Robot

Rise of the Machines: Can a robot do your job?


Yahoo! News
Tue, 24 Dec 2013 08:28 UTC
The real world has not caught up yet with "Star Wars" and its talking, thinking robots, but some of the most sophisticated units that exist headed to Florida this month for a Defense Department competition.

Seventeen humanoid robots were be evaluated at Homestead Miami Speedway for how well they can complete tasks including getting into an all-terrain vehicle and driving it and opening doors. (AP)
ROMachines_1
© REUTERS/Andrew InnerarityAn LS 3 (Legged Squad Support System) robot demonstrates its movement, showing it is designed to accompany soldiers and Marines any place they go on foot, helping to carry their gear, during a demonstration in Homestead, Florida December 20, 2013.

Comment: Computers do talk and think, and so do robots. They say the real world has not yet caught up with 'star wars'? Maybe not in terms of implementation, but the technological capabilities are here. You may want to see this year old report:



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Eye 1

Framed? Former West, Texas paramedic sentenced to 21 months in prison on pipe bomb charges levied after fertilizer plant explosion


New York Daily Post
Wed, 04 Dec 2013 05:35 UTC
Image
© APBryce Reed was arrested by federal agents who said he collected materials to make a pipe bomb. While Reed was sentenced earlier this month for charges related to the pipe bomb, the former paramedic was never charged in the West explosion.
A former paramedic in the tiny Texas town where a fertilizer plant explosion killed 15 people was sentenced Wednesday to 21 months in prison after pleading guilty in a pipe bomb case that isn't linked to the blast.

Bryce Reed made himself somewhat of a representative for the town of West shortly after the April 17 blast, speaking on national television and reassuring displaced residents that they were safe. His arrest - on charges of trying to put together chemicals and equipment for a small pipe bomb - confounded those who knew him and raised questions about whether he had anything to do with the explosion.

A federal complaint alleged that after the blast, Reed gave the materials he had collected to a friend, who called authorities after realizing what Reed placed in his possession. Reed would later admit in court documents to searching the Internet last December for "explosives," "explosions," "explosive ingredients" and "instructions for making explosives."

Ultimately, Reed was never charged with any responsibility for the fertilizer explosion, which blew out windows and caved in walls of homes several blocks away.

Comment: In the aftermath of the explosion, while the authorities - local, State and Federal - were more concerned with keeping a tight leash on information emerging from the site, Bryce Reed helped victims of the blast and stepped up as a spokesman for the town, answering media requests from journalists all over the world:


Two days later, Reed was fired from his job, with no reason given. Then a media campaign began insinuating that he was mentally unstable. Finally, he was handed those ridiculous charges a month after the explosion.

Reed's attorney, Jonathan Sibley, reckons he was set up to shut him up:
DA receives Texas Ranger report on former West paramedic

Waco Tribune, 25 July 2013

[...] Sibley said he thinks federal authorities arrested Reed "in a rush to judgment" to silence him from the prominent role Reed played initially in acting at various venues as a self-appointed spokesman for the city of West and the grieving families of those lost in the blast.

He said he thinks Reed was arrested also because he criticized the multi-agency state and federal investigation into the 
explosion.

According to court documents, Reed gave a box to an unwitting Abbott resident that contained a "possible destructive device."

The person called the McLennan County Sheriff's Office, which took possession of a 31/2-inch pipe and a few bags filled with chemicals, court records state.

Reed admitted having the "components of a pipe bomb," court documents say. But Sibley said Reed "vehemently denies the allegations against him."

"He didn't give the box to the guy who gave it to the feds," Sibley said. "I can't even say if there 
ever was a box, but this was something that the federal government pinned on him when they were in the middle of the investigation into the explosion and he was the one talking to the media, and the FBI and ATF didn't like that.

"This was a convenient way to rush to judgment and to try to get him out of the way," Sibley said. "I think the investigation will reveal that. I think it is faulty and Mr. Reed is ultimately looking forward to his day in court." [...]
The 'pipe bomb materials' (literally a portion of pipe and a bag of some chemical or other) were in turn given to Reed by his friend and colleague Cyrus Reed (no relation) who was killed in the explosion, and who Bryce Reed gave an eulogy to at his funeral:


The authorities still have no clue what caused the blast... or so they say.

Remember, it was a HUGE explosion:
Fertilizer plant explosion injures dozens in West, near Waco

Dallas News, 17 April 2013

[...] Paul Manigrasso, a Gulf War veteran, felt the blast in Waxahachie.

"Based on my naval experience ... we knew immediately what it was but cannot believe it occurred 40 miles away," he told KWTX-TV.

Andy Bartee of Dallas was driving home from Austin when he stopped at a convenience store about five miles from the explosion. Suddenly the lights went out and the explosion rocked the building.

"You could feel it in your chest and ears," he said. Ceiling tiles fell and pictures on the wall broke.

"It was pretty nuts," he said. "It looked like a mushroom cloud. It looked like an atom bomb had been dropped," Bartee said. "I've never seen or felt anything like that."

Debby Marak said she had seen the plant burning and had driven closer to see what was happening but reversed direction after two boys ran toward her screaming that authorities had told them to flee because the plant was going to explode.

"It was like being in a tornado," Marak said of the blast that erupted as she was driving away. "Stuff was flying everywhere. It blew out my windshield. It was like the whole earth shook."
Perhaps they haven't found the cause because they haven't considered this possibility:

Was the West, Texas Explosion a Meteorite Impact?

In the meantime, Reed is a convenient scapegoat. Sure, in sentencing him based on these trumped-up charges they 'clarify' that he wasn't responsible for the blast, but the mere association is enough to seed the idea in people's minds that Reed caused the explosion.

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