A grand jury says it won't press charges against a police officer who shot a man outside a tire store in Atlanta. Sergeant Kenneth Owens killed Nicholas Thomas as he allegedly drove a customer's car towards officers after they tried arrest him.

Thomas died from a single gunshot to his upper back on his right side on March 24, as he drove a car towards the police officers, who were trying to serve him with a parole violation.

Cobb County District Attorney Vic Reynolds said in a statement that he had sympathies with Thomas's family and called the loss of life "unfortunate." However, he understood why the officers took the course of action outside the Goodyear tire store.
"But when he drove the vehicle toward officers in the manner he did, the officer who fired the shots was justified under the law to use lethal force," the statement says, as cited by AP. "Police officers in Georgia are authorized to fire their weapons to protect themselves or others from immediate bodily harm. That is what happened in this case."

The Georgia Bureau of Investigation and the Cobb County Police Department had both said the shooting was "justified under the facts and the law." Owens was initially placed on administrative leave, while police say that he returned to administrative work in May.

Palestine activists will highlight the BBC's pro-Israel bias in an annual protest against the occupation of Jerusalem, which coincides with the first anniversary of the Gaza War.

Activists will march from the BBC's Broadcasting House at Portland Place to the US Embassy in Grosvenor Square as part of Al Quds Day demonstrations, held annually on the last Friday of Ramadan.

The Islamic Human Rights Council (IHRC), which is organizing the protests, said the US Embassy was selected as a rallying point because of Washington's "heinous support of Israel."

Al Quds Day rallies take place across the globe, but are especially prominent in the Arab world where they can receive state support.

Speaking to RT, IHRC Communications chief Nadia Rasheed said the BBC was chosen as a starting point of the march because of its "pro-Israeli" bias.

"We're starting near the BBC in protest of what we deem to be the bias in their reporting of the situation in Palestine and their pretense of impartiality when in reality their coverage is pro-Israeli," Rasheed said.

Two people have been killed after gunshots were fired from a car in the southern German city of Ansbach, according to local media.

The gunman initially shot and killed an 82-year-old woman in the Tiefenthal district. Shortly after, he reportedly shot a cyclist in nearby Orsteil Rammersdorf. He died at the scene.

A former Baltimore cop who has since blown the whistle on abuse and corruption he witnessed on the force called the prosecutor in the Mike Brown case corrupt.

Michael Wood, who was a police officer for 11 years before retiring with an injury last year, blasted onto the national scene last month when he began tweeting illegal and violent things he saw his colleagues do to citizens.


On Wednesday, Wood went on "The Joe Rogan Experience" podcast to discuss law enforcement. When discussing the need for due process in police shootings, Wood called Robert McCulloch, the prosecutor who led the investigation into the shooting by Ferguson police officer Darren Wilson of unarmed black teenager Mike Brown, a criminal.

"He's a criminal. He criminally covered up that indictment. There's no way around it," Wood said. "That's what they did and no one seemed to care."

A former youth pastor was accused this week of sexually assaulting a girl over a five year period, beginning when she was 12 years old.

The St. Louis Dispatchreported that former Ballwin Baptist Church youth pastor Cameron Patterson, who also worked as an after school program supervisor for Wentzville School District, was charged on Wednesday in Lake Saint Louis with two counts of felony child molestation.

Court records indicated that Patterson had sexually assaulted the victims "hundreds of times" beginning at the age of 12 and continuing until she was 17 years old, The St. Louis Dispatch noted.

Patterson reportedly used email to apologize to the victim, court documents said.

A Dallas police officer received a three-day suspension after putting his arm around a 14-year-old teen and telling him "I will break your f*cking neck," WFAAreports.

The altercation — which took place last October and was recorded by the teen without the officer's knowledge — came after officer Terigi Ross and his partner responded to a 911 call that ended in a hangup.

According to authorities, the teen's stepmother made the call over a towed car and then hung up thinking the conversation was over. After speaking with the woman, Rossi decided to handcuff her and told her she was being arrested.

When confronted by the teen over why she was being arrested, Rossi grew angry and began threatening the teen, telling him he was going to end up in a foster home before launching into an expletive-filled rant.

Baltimore's mayor has fired the police commissioner because of a recent crime spike. In the last two months, there have been 73 murders in the city. The firing coincides with a police union report critical of the department's role during the riots.

Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake commended police commissioner Anthony W. Batts for his service, citing improvements in transparency and accountability at City Hall on Wednesday.

"Over the past three years, Commissioner Batts has served our city with distinction," she said,according to the Associated Press.

Chicago police are calling for increased gun controls after another deadly Fourth of July weekend saw 65 people shot, 10 of them fatally. A 7-year-old boy was among the dead. At one point, police said they were confiscating an illegal firearm every hour.

Thirty people were shot across Chicago from dusk on Saturday until dawn on Sunday, after Independence Day celebrations. One of them was Amari Brown, seven, killed in his front yard late Saturday night in the Humboldt Park neighborhood.

"It's scary to think you can't even be outside in the front yard because you fear for your safety. It's really ugly right now," a neighbor who wished to remain anonymous told DNA Info.

Chicago police say Amari was killed by a "bullet meant for his father," Antonio, described as a ranking member of the Four Corner Hustlers street gang. Antonio Brown had been arrested 45 times, most recently in April on charges of gun possession.

It sounds too ridiculous to even be satire. A Michigan judge recently sent three children to a local detention center after they refused to attend a court-ordered lunch with their father.

The judge even went so far as to compare the oldest boy - 15-years-old - to Charles Manson!

The other two siblings were 10 and 9.

"You're very defiant, you have no manners," the judge said to the oldest.

"There is no reason why you do not have a relationship with your father. Your father has never been charged with anything. Your father's never been convicted of anything. Your father doesn't have a personal protection order against him. Your father is well-liked and loved by the community, his co-workers, his family [and] his colleagues. You, young man, have got it wrong. I think your father is a great man who has gone through hoops for you to have a relationship with you."

Since their father was so "well-liked" they judge decided to lock the kids up for not liking him.

Maya Eibschitz-Tsimhoni and Omer Tsimhoni had recently gone through a very ugly divorce. The boys weren't particularly fond of their father after some of the things that happened during the course of that divorce.

We live in a strange world. Check out just the recent news: putative European "democrats" support Nazis and don't seem to notice that the latter are using weapons of war, including chemical munitions, multiple-rocket launchers and ballistic missiles, against cities. We live in a world were it is apparently quite normal for the IMF/ECB/etc. to continue to send money to a bankrupt country in the midst of the civil war in total violation of their own statutes, but where an EU/NATO member like Greece cannot even get a few days worth of credit extension. In the USA homosexuals will now be "playing marriage" and continue to adopt children to pretend to be viable couples. In the Middle-East the Israelis are happily continuing to commit acts of piracy on the high seas while Canada wants to pass a law making criticizing Israel a punishable form of "hate speech". Besides being revolting, is all this not just plain crazy?!

"Democratic" countries are ruled by the 1% but "authoritarian regimes" like Russia, Iran or Syria all undeniably have the support of the masses (and the eternal hatred of the local wannabe 1%ers!).

And it is not just politics - this insanity reaches much deeper into our society. Men are not supposed to be manly any more, while women are now told that femininity is being stupid and submissive. Honor is now passé, as is obedience, kindness, faithfulness and humility.

We are supposed to be sexually free, yet there is a huge multi-billion dollar industry fully dedicated to cater to sexually dysfunctional people (sexually happy people need neither porn nor Viagra!). We are supposed to be politically free, but somehow the policies of our rulers seem to never change. We are supposed to be intellectually free (freedom of speech!!) and yet with each new generation the already disgraceful level of crass ignorance of the average citizen is getting worse and worse.