Society's ChildS


Pistol

Wisconsin sheriff says 911 no longer best option, urges residents to learn to use guns

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A sheriff who released a radio ad urging Milwaukee-area residents to learn to handle firearms so they can defend themselves while waiting for police said Friday that law enforcement cutbacks have changed the way police can respond to crime.

In the 30-second commercial, Milwaukee County Sheriff David Clarke Jr. says personal safety is no longer a spectator sport.

"I need you in the game," he says.

"With officers laid off and furloughed, simply calling 911 and waiting is no longer your best option," he adds. "You can beg for mercy from a violent criminal, hide under the bed, or you can fight back. ... Consider taking a certified safety course in handling a firearm so you can defend yourself until we get there."

The ad has generated sharp criticism from other area officials and anti-violence advocates. The president of the Milwaukee Deputy Sheriffs' Association, Roy Felber, said it sounds like a call to vigilantism.

Eye 2

Kentucky neo-Nazis charged in gruesome murder, dismemberment

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© Shutterstock
The accused killers are being held without bail for kidnapping, murder and abuse of a corpse among other charges.

The 25-point manifesto of the National Socialist Movement (NSM) makes several hyperbolic "demands," such as "all non-Whites currently residing in America be required to leave the nation forthwith and return to their land of origin: peacefully or by force.''

But it appears that two Kentucky members of the neo-Nazi group and an accomplice took at least one of the over-the-top mission statements deadly serious.

Point 17 says, "We demand the ruthless prosecution of those whose activities are injurious to the common interest. Murderers, rapists, pedophiles, drug dealers, usurers, profiteers, race traitors, etc. must be severely punished, whatever creed or race."

On Jan. 9, according to the authorities, the men lured a white, 19-year-old alleged small-time drug dealer into the back seat of their car, choked him, beat him with fists and a metal pipe, dragged him out of the car, slit his throat, stabbed him in the chest, rolled his body down a hill and left him dead in the bushes, covered in brambles, in a field in Boone County, Ky., essentially a suburb of nearby Cincinnati.

Extinguisher

Bangladesh garment factory fire kills six workers

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© APBangladeshi firefighters and volunteers work to douse a fire at a two-storied garment factory in Dhaka, which killed at least six workers. The blaze comes two months after a deadly fire killed 112 in Dhaka.
At least six female workers were killed after a blaze swept through a small garment factory in the Bangladeshi capital Dhaka, police and fire officials said.

The latest fire comes two months after the country's deadliest garment factory blaze that killed 111 workers and put the spotlight on the industry's appalling safety and labour issues.

Fire officials said the workers, who were paid as little as $35 a month at the plant in Dhaka's Mohammadpur suburb, which employed some 300 people, died during a stampede and from suffocation after the fire broke out during a lunch break.

"We have the dead bodies of six workers in two hospitals. Most died in a stampede as they rushed to escape the fire," said Bangladesh fire brigade operations director Mahbubur Rahman.

Firefighters brought the inferno under control in about two hours and found no bodies on the charred factory floor, he said, adding that an investigation was underway to determine the cause of the fire.

House

Andre Barbosa squats legally in $2.5 million Florida estate

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One 23-year-old man seems very successful for his age, as he lives in a $2.5 million estate in Boca Raton, Florida.

But it's all a lie. Andre Barbosa is a squatter, who took residence at 580 Golden Harbour Drive in July. The twist is that he can't be kicked out of the house, as it is legal for him to live there, without owning or even renting it.

Barbosa, a Brazilian national, cannot be arrested because no one witnessed him breaking into the 7,522 square foot, five bedroom, six bathroom, waterfront home.

The bank who foreclosed the home, Bank of America, said there is a "certain legal process" they are required to follow by law and that they are "work[ing] diligently to resolve the matter."

Bizarro Earth

Jennifer Bigham, deemed insane for killing baby, is released from jail

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Jennifer Bigham was deemed insane after she drowned her 3-year-old daughter in a bathtub. Now, three years later, she is able to walk free from jail after doctors determined she had regained her sanity.

Bigham, of Modesto, California, admitted to killing her daughter in 2010, but she was found not guilty of murder by reason of insanity.

She was released from jail Tuesday after doctors declared her sane.

Sheriff

Sheriffs push back on gun laws

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© David Kasnic for The Wall Street JournalDenny Peyman is one of a group of sheriffs who say they won't enforce gun laws they deem unconstitutional.
A collection of sheriffs across the country have sent Congress and the Obama administration a message: If we don't like your gun laws, we aren't going to help enforce them.

As of Thursday, 90 sheriffs, many from rural counties, had pledged not to enforce laws they deem unconstitutional, according to a list compiled by the Constitutional Sheriffs and Peace Officers Association, a Texas-based group that has "vowed to uphold and defend the Constitution against Obama's unlawful gun control measures."

A White House spokesman declined to comment.

The sheriffs began their campaign of letters and media interviews earlier this month, shortly after President Barack Obama signed 23 executive orders addressing gun violence, and outlined a broad framework of new gun-control measures for Congress to consider.

Cult

Boy Scouts threaten to kick out troop for supporting gay members

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© Prayitno, Flickr
The Boy Scouts council in charge of overseeing scout programs in the Washington, DC-area is threatening to kick out a Maryland troop for posting a statement on its website declaring it won't discriminate against gay scouts. The troop has to decide by tomorrow whether to remove the statement.

In September, the families of Pack 442, which is based in Cloverly, Maryland (a small town less than 20 miles from the nation's capital), anonymously voted and overwhelmingly approved to adopt a non-discrimination statement. According to Theresa Phillips, committee chair of Pack 442, the pack wanted Boy Scouts of America to know "we will not stand for the discrimination of homosexual minors or adults whatsoever." Here's the sentence causing the controversy:

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Ambulance

Detective shot dead during raid in Ireland

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© Photograph: Kim Haughton for the GuardianSinn Fein president Gerry Adams said he was deeply shocked by the detective's murder.
Four men fled after botched hold-up on a cash delivery to a credit union near Dundalk.

A detective has died after he was shot during a botched hold-up outside the town of Dundalk in the Republic of Ireland.

The Garda officer, who was in his 40s, was among colleagues who were escorting a cash delivery to a credit union in the County Louth town, which is close to the border with Northern Ireland.

Several shots were fired during the incident at the Lordship Credit Union in the Jenkinstown area at about 9.30pm on Friday.

The officer, who was based at Dundalk Garda station, was fatally injured in the shooting. He was named by Gardai as Detective Garda Adrian Donohoe.

Garda sources said that after shooting the detective the raiders seized the money stolen from the credit union and drove off. Four men who are believed to have fled the scene in a grey Volkswagen Passat are being sought by the force.

Extinguisher

10 killed, 14 injured in fire at Moscow underground parking lot

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© RIA Novosti/Igor Rustak
At least 10 people have died and 14 others were injured in a massive blaze at an underground parking lot in Moscow. Another 10 people were rescued.

The accident happened in a building under construction in south-east Moscow. All the victims are said to be workers at the construction site that turned out to be blocked underground when the parking lot caught fire. Four of them died on the way to hospital, Moscow police said.

Five people have sustained injuries and carbon monoxide poisoning, and been hospitalized, with three of them placed in intensive care.

Megaphone

At least 50 killed, 90 injured in Venezuela prison riot

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© AFP Photo / Dedwinson Alvarez-Diario el ImpulsoMembers of the National Guard take shelter before a riot in front of the prison Uribana, in Barquisimeto, Lara state, Venezuela, on January 25, 2013
At least 50 people are reported to have been killed and 90 more injured as inmates at a Venezuelan prison clashed with National Guard troops on Friday.

Most of those injured at the Uribana prison in Lara state suffered gunshot wounds, hospital official Ruy Medina told AFP. He stressed that the death toll was "alarming," saying it was based solely on bodies brought to the hospital.