Society's ChildS


Bad Guys

22 year old with Down Syndrome beaten by the police for "bulge in pants" that was only a colostomy bag!


A man with special needs is speaking out after he was left badly bruised by police.

Twenty-two-year-old Gilberto Powell, who has Down Syndrome, is left with horrible bruises and scars on his face after he had an encounter with police outside his home. "That's my son. That's my baby. I really love this little boy. He's my love," said Powell's mother, Josephine.

According to the family, they were inside their Southwest Miami-Dade home last Saturday when Powell, who is also called Liko, called his parents on his cell phone to let them know he was walking a block from his friend's house. On his way home, Liko said, "The police followed me." Liko said, the officer smacked him in the face with an open hand and knocked him to the ground. "His whole hand," he said. According to the police report, a Miami-Dade Police officer noticed a bulge in Liko's waistband. The officer attempted to conduct a pat down, and Powell tried to run away. "I said, 'Didn't you know he was a Down Syndrome kid?' And he said, 'No, I'm not a doctor. I don't know.' And I said, 'Well, you can see it in his face that he is a Down Syndrome kid,'" said Josephine."

Stormtrooper

U.S. Marines turn up noses at Obama's new 'girly' hats; some fear it looks too French

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The Marine Corps Uniform Board seeks active-duty and Reserve Marines™ feedback on three uniform-related issues. One issue is whether the Corps should adopt universal, unisex dress and service caps either the current male frame cap with modifications or the Dan Daly cap, which had previously been identified as the replacement cap for the female bucket cover
Marines are decrying a new look President Obama has planned for their uniforms - namely, a unisex-style cap that they say looks more French than American, more "girly" than hard-charging.

"We don't even have enough funding to buy bullets and the DoD [Department of Defense] is pushing to spend $8 million on covers that look like women's hats," one senior Marine said to The New York Post. "The Marines deserve better. It makes them look ridiculous."

One estimate is that the new hats could cost about $8 million.

The hats are thinner and smaller, aimed at looking equally good on females as well as males. They're called the "Dan Daly" hat, in honor of a Long Island sergeant who earned the Medal of Honor during World War I.

But the present hat has been a Marine Corps fixture since 1922, and it's not just tradition that has some decrying the new hat. It's the feminine feel of the proposed cap.

Heart - Black

Obamacare operator fired after Hannity radio call; Hannity to give her a year's salary

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© AP/Douglas C. Pizac
An Obamacare phone operator announced Thursday on Sean Hannity's radio show that she had been fired after Hannity aired a prior phone call with her earlier this week.

On Monday, Hannity called an Obamacare hotline and had a conversation with the woman, Erling Davis, in which he pressed her for details about the lackluster rollout of Obamacare.

That phone call led to her termination from the private contractor where she worked, Davis said when Hannity interviewed her Thursday. Hannity then promised to give her a year's salary.

"They fired me from my job," Davis said.

Arrow Down

Questions for Portuguese mother who kept 'secret baby' in car boot for over a year

Arrested Couple
© Agence France-PresseThe couple are escorted by police into court in in Brive-La-Gaillarde.

A baby girl was forced to live hidden in the boot of her parents' car for almost two years in a case that has appalled France and that investigators say "defies the imagination".

Neighbours and the media today questioned how the tiny child could have been hidden undetected for so long.

Mechanics carrying out repairs on a Peugeot 307 family estate car in Terrasson-Lavilledieu in the Dordogne were alerted to the child's presence after hearing "strange noises that sounded like moans" coming from the rear of the vehicle.

The mother, 45, a Portuguese woman known only as Rose-Marie, claimed that these came from "toys". But the men insisted on opening the boot and were horrified to discover a small, dehydrated and apparently feverish child lying naked in its own excrement.

The mechanic who found the girl, Guillaume Iguacel, said today he was still in shock from the discovery.

"I'm still having trouble sleeping, it was a horrifying sight, seeing this little girl in her own excrement, not able to hold up her head, white as a sheet," he said.

Mr Iguacel said the girl's mother appeared to have little concern for her daughter.

"We were deeply shocked because she didn't find this abnormal. We told her to remove the little girl (from the boot) and give her something to drink right away," he said.

Paramedics were called and she was immediately taken to hospital.

Top Secret

Massive barge on San Francisco Bay likely secret Google facility

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© CBSSources told KPIX 5 that that Google is building a floating marketing center for Google Glass off Treasure Island.
The U.S. Navy had its share of secrets on Treasure Island, but few were better kept than what's taking place on a mysterious barge just off the island.

The barge, with a four-story stack of shipping containers, is out in the open for all to see. But the project's purpose has been kept under wraps, and virtually no one wants to talk about it for the record, from the harbor office at Clipper Cove to the Treasure Island Development Authority to the U.S. Coast Guard.

"I don't know anything about it, honestly I don't," a voice on the intercom at the Clipper Cove told KPIX 5. "It's a complete mystery to me."

There has, of course, been speculation about the barge's purpose, much of it centering on the belief that it's a water-based data center for Google.

KPIX 5 has learned that Google is actually building a floating marketing center, a kind of giant Apple store, if you will - but for Google Glass, the cutting-edge wearable computer the company has under development.


Heart - Black

Wisconsin case challenges 'fetal protection' law

Alicia Beltran
© Melissa WantaAlicia Beltran, 28, of Jackson, Wisc., went to a prenatal visit -- and ended up in handcuffs.
When Alicia Beltran was 12 weeks pregnant, she took herself to a health clinic about a mile from her home in Jackson, Wis., for a prenatal checkup. But what started as a routine visit ended with Beltran eventually handcuffed and shackled in government custody - and at the center of a first-of-its-kind federal lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of a state's fetal protection law.

On July 2, Beltran, 28, met with a physician's assistant at West Bend Clinic at Saint Joseph's Hospital in West Bend, Wis., for her prenatal visit. When asked to detail her medical history, Beltran admitted a past struggle with the painkiller Percocet. But that was all behind her, Beltran said: She had been taking Suboxone, a drug used to treat Percocet dependency. Lacking health insurance and unable to afford the medication, Beltran had used an acquaintance's prescription and self-administered the drug in decreasing doses. She had taken her last dose a few days before her prenatal visit.

According to Beltran, the physician's assistant recommended she renew her use of Suboxone under a doctor's supervision. After Beltran declined, she said she was asked to take a drug test, which was negative for all substances except Suboxone.

Two weeks later, a social worker visited Beltran at home and told her that she needed to continue Suboxone treatment under the care of a physician, said Beltran, who again declined. Two days later, Beltran found police officers at her home, who arrested and handcuffed her.

According to the police report, the officers took Beltran to a hospital, where she underwent a doctor's exam. Her pregnancy was found to be healthy and normal, her lawyers say. Police then took her to Washington County Jail to await a hearing - hours later, she was led into a courtroom, handcuffed and shackled at the ankles, where a county judge ordered her to spend 90 days in a drug treatment center.

"Alicia had no idea she was giving information to the physician's assistant that would ultimately be used against her in a court of law," said Linda Vanden Heuvel of Germantown, Wis., one of Beltran's attorneys. "She should not have to fear losing her liberty because she was pregnant and she was honest with her doctor."

Heart - Black

Baby kept in car trunk 'since birth': France stunned by parental cruelty

France is in shock after the "imagination-defying" discovery of an infant girl who was kept in the trunk of a car by her parents for about a year and a half since birth.

The girl was naked and dehydrated when she was found and rescued by the mechanics at a garage in the town of Terrasson, southwestern France, on Friday.

Garage in France
© AFPA picture taken on October 28, 2013 in Terrasson, central France, shows the garage where a child was found by mechanics in the truck of a car three days before.

Gear

Belarus' KGB accused of abduction attempt in 'Potash War'

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© RIA Novosti. Pavel LisytsinUralkali
An ongoing effort to improve the soured Russian-Belarusian relations came under threat this week after reports that Belarus secret police tried to arrest a Russian citizen in downtown Moscow.

Igor Evstratov was apprehended by four men as he was boarding a train to St. Petersburg, a source at Russian potash producer Uralkali told Prime news agency.

Evstratov was a senior executive at Belaruskali before Uralkali terminated a cartel with the Belarusian fertilizer maker last summer.

Evstratov was freed by Russian police after a well-timed shout for help as he was being led away, Belaruspartisan.org news website said Friday.

Che Guevara

Wave of anti-austerity protests across Portugal

Protests in Portugal
© AAPThousands of people in Portugal took to the streets in 2013 to call for an end to salary cuts.
Thousands of demonstrators have been protesting across Portugal against salary cuts and public sector reforms imposed by the government under the country's international bailout deal. Rallies were held in more than a dozen cities.

Comment: Along with non-violent protests adequate knowledge of psychopathology and the role psychopaths play in our current world events is essential.


Green Light

Woman sentenced to life for killing pimp gets parole

Sara Kruzan
© Unknown
Sacramento, California - Gov. Jerry Brown will allow parole of a woman sentenced at age 16 to life in prison for killing a man who forced her into prostitution, his office said.

Sara Kruzan, 35, was convicted of first-degree murder for killing George Howard in a Riverside, Calif., hotel room. Kruzan has said he sexually assaulted her when she was 11 and forced her into prostitution when she was 13.

She was tried as an adult and sentenced to life in jail without the chance of parole, but a new law that went into effect in January has changed her sentence, the Los Angeles Times reported Saturday

Sen. Leland Yee, D-Calif., started championing her case as an example juvenile offenders he thinks should have softer punishments.

Kruzan is the "perfect example of adults who failed her, of society failing her. You had a predator who stalked her, raped her, forced her into prostitution, and there was no one around," Yee told the newspaper.

The law allows new sentencing hearings for juveniles sentenced to life in prison with no parole. In September, Brown signed a second bill requiring parole boards to review the cases of juveniles tried as adults who have served 15 years or more of their sentences, the Times said.

Under the new laws, more than 1,000 prisoners currently in the California prison system are eligible for parole hearings.