Society's ChildS

Pistol

Seven unanswered questions about the Toronto streetcar shooting

Sammy Yatim
© CBCMany questions remain surrounding the fatal police shooting of 18-year-old Sammy Yatim on a Toronto streetcar.
While demonstrators protest the weekend shooting of Sammy Yatim on a Toronto streetcar, questions remain about the sequence of events that led police to use deadly force to neutralize a suspect armed only with a knife.

Yatim was killed on a streetcar in Toronto's west end just after midnight ET Saturday. Much of the incident was captured on amateur video.

What we do know is that the entire incident transpired in about 10 minutes. Just after midnight, Yatim reportedly stood up and brandished a knife on the 505 streetcar on Dundas Street West near Trinity Bellwoods Park.

A few minutes later, police arrived at the scene. At that point, Yatim was alone on the stationary streetcar. A standoff quickly ensued, and within the space of 13 seconds one officer had fired nine shots.

Yatim was given CPR at the scene and then taken to hospital, where he was declared dead.

Here's a look at some of the unanswered questions...

Airplane

Stowaway found dead in landing gear of plane at Heathrow

Stowaway found dead in landing gear of plane at Heathrow
© Unknown
The body of a stowaway has been found in the landing gear of a plane at Heathrow Airport.

A man believed to be Turkish and in his 30s was discovered in the British Airways Airbus A320 that flew from Istanbul to Terminal 5 yesterday.

Police were called by airport staff shortly after 11am and are trying to confirm his identity and trace relatives.

The airline said it will hold talks with authorities in Istanbul and officers from Scotland Yard as they investigate how the man managed to access the plane.

Pistol

Police fired 9 shots in 11 seconds: The killing of Sammy Yatim

Sammy Yatim
© cbc.caSammy Yatim, 18, was shot at nine times and hit with a stun gun while alone on a streetcar in Toronto early Saturday. He was armed with a knife.
An amateur video that shows Toronto police shooting repeatedly at a teenager armed with a knife is "just one segment" of a broader picture that could look different once Ontario's police watchdog completes its investigation, the head of Toronto's police union says.

"I can see why people would have questions, and that's a natural thing, and we're going to get the answers" from the investigation of the province's Special Investigations Unit, said Mike McCormack, president of the Toronto Police Association.


Comment: Further:

Streetcar shooting protest march draws hundreds


USA

'One third of US military women raped'

Image
Reports indicate that nearly one third of women serving in the US military have been raped, with over two thirds having been otherwise sexually assaulted.

In 2008, 62 percent of those convicted of sexual assault or rape received punishments such as demotion, suspension, or a written reprimand.

"Almost a third of all women serving are raped, and over two thirds sexually assaulted, this problem is rampant and systemic," National Public Radio has reported.

USA

Flashback America eats its own: Haliburton employee drugged, gang-raped by multiple mercenaries, locked in container without food or water for 24 hours, told to 'shut up or else'

KBR Told Victim She Could Lose Her Job If She Sought Help After Being Raped, She Says

A Houston, Texas woman says she was gang-raped by Halliburton/KBR coworkers in Baghdad, and the company and the U.S. government are covering up the incident.



ยฉABC News
Since the attack, Jones has started a nonprofit foundation called the Jamie Leigh Foundation, which is dedicated to helping victims who have been raped or sexually assaulted overseas while working for government contractors or other corporations. "There needs to be a voice out there that really pushed for change," she said. "I'd like to be that voice."


Info

Update! Explosions rock Florida gas plant, force evacuations - Fragmenting comet over Gulf of Mexico responsible?

Explosion
© Tom Benitez, Orlando SentinelFire and explosions in a propane plant in Tavares, Fla. on July 29, 2013.
A large series of explosions has rocked a gas plant in Lake County, causing multiple deaths and injuries and forcing the evacuations of residents at least a mile away, authorities said.

A night shift crew was working, and many people are thought to have been killed, said Lt. John Herrell, a Lake County Sheriff's Office spokesman.

"There's going to be a lot," Herrell said.

The explosions began a little before 11 p.m. at Blue Rhino, a propane-tank business at 300 C.R. Road 448, and lasted for more than half an hour. All the explosions happened inside the plant, blowing the roof off, Lake County Sheriff Gary Borders said.


Comment: From The Latest Worldwide Meteor / Fireball Reports
Date: 29 JUL 2013

Observer name: B. Thomas

Location: Fort Lauderdale FL USA

Time: 2300

Duration: 45 seconds

Start/Stop Location in sky: Estimate 45 seconds Southwest of Miami moving to North-North East

Any colors/sound: yellow

Brightness similar to: Moon

Fragment? Where there parts falling off?: multiple fragments and trailing pieces long tail, very brilliant appeared to move parallel to the horizon

Comments other observations: long tail, very brilliant appeared to move parallel to the horizon
And:
Date: 29 JUL 2013

Observer name: Roland

Location: Guanaja, Bay Islands, Honduras

Time: 20:30 CST ???

Duration: 20 seconds

Start/Stop Location in sky: South to North

Any colors/sound: blue

Brightness similar to: Moon

Fragment? Where there parts falling off?: Yes

Comments other observations: Longest meteor I've ever seen. Must be the same one observed in Cayman, Jamaica and Ft. Lauderdale. It could have exceeded 20 seconds. It was long enough for a whole group of people to turn around and point it out to everyone one by one!!! It traveled parallel to the horizon at what seemed to be very low speed.
At least 10 people from Central America north east to Florida reported a dazzling meteorite/comet fragment on Monday night around the time of the explosion at the gas plant in Tavares, north west of Orlando. Considering the likely electrical effects generated between meteorites and the surface of the planet, it is possible that the gas plant explosion was caused by this meteorite.

Update 31 July 2013

Comet seen from Honduras to Cayman Islands and Jamaica, 29 July 2013: Fragments into stream of 'intense' exploding fireballs


Stormtrooper

Lawsuit: SWAT officers dragged 10-year-old from bathtub, made him stand naked next to 4-year-old sister, terrorized family

14 police officers with helmets and facemasks and assault rifles stormed in, family says.

Pittsburgh SWAT officers must face claims that they raided a family's home, violently dragged a child from the bathtub, and "terrorized" them at gunpoint, a federal judge ruled.

Georgeia Moreno and her family sued Pittsburgh, its police chief and 14 police officers in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania.

The events unfolded as Georgeia, her husband, William; and her stepfather, Mark Staymates were watching television in their living room as Georgia's sick mother, Darlene, slept upstairs at 7 p.m. on Dec. 7, 2010. They suddenly heard a loud explosion and saw bright lights, "as if grenades were going off," the complaint states.

Pittsburgh Police SWAT officers wearing helmets and facemasks then broke and "stormed through" the front and back doors of the home, according to the complaint.

Those officers allegedly never identified themselves, pointed assault rifles at the family, shouted obscenities and destroyed their property.

Although the team purportedly sought to arrest William for quarreling with a drunk, off-duty police officer at a local veterans club early that morning, the family says that their "terrorization" continued for another 45 minutes after William was apprehended.

The officers threw to the floor, kicked and handcuffed Georgeia, her stepfather and her adult son Billy. They also injured Mark's shoulder and forced Billy to lie face down in broken glass, according to the complaint.

When Georgeia pleaded repeatedly that she had young children in the house, at least one officer allegedly stated, "You think you can get one of ours, and we won't get one of yours?"

The family says the police proceeded to drag Georgeia's 10-year-old son Trentino violently from the bathtub, injuring his ankles. They allegedly then made the boy stand naked at gunpoint next to his 4-year-old sister Briseis.

Officers have continued to harass and threaten the family since the raid, telling them "that's how we do things here" and that they should move out of Pittsburgh, the complaint states.

Question

Unidentified objects fall over parts of Zimbabwe

UFO Object
© The Eye Today, Zimbabwe
Villagers in parts of Mhondoro and Chikomba districts are living in fear following the recent falling of foreign objects in their area.

Police said they were still to ascertain the origin and type of the objects. National police spokesperson Senior Assistant Commissioner Charity Charamba said investigations were still in progress. "Investigations are still going on at the army engineers. We do not have any conclusions yet," she said.

Minister of State Security Sydney Sekeramayi said he was still to receive a detailed report on the investigations. Two objects landed in the Mhondoro area at the Zimplats Mine and at Denya Village in Mamina while one landed in Unyetu in Chikomba district.
The object that landed at the Turf Village, Zimplats Mine in the Battlefields area is made of aluminium material and resembles a rocket. It is three metres long and a has 1,8 metre diameter while the spherical objects that landed in Mamina and Unyetu were said to weigh above 10kg.

The explanations of the people in all the areas were similar despite the distance between them. People interviewed separately confirmed they heard three loud bursts and hissing sounds that they thought were gun fire followed by jet sound. The sounds were followed by thuds that shook the ground and were felt and heard several kilometres away.

Speculation is high that the objects could be from satellite spying on Zimbabwe with residents in the affected areas insisting that the people responsible for launching the objects should be named and made to explain.

Arrow Down

Massachusetts couple could face $5k fine for helping injured baby seal

helping seal
A Massachusetts couple could face a $5,000 fine after they rushed to rescue an injured baby seal at a Marshfield Beach.

Mark Hodgon was scuba diving at about 1:30 p.m. when he found the baby seal covered in shark bite marks. He said the seal was barely floating and breathing laboriously.

"You could just tell his whole body was in the shark," Hodgon said. "It had to have been."

Hodgon swam closer with a raft and helped the seal onto it then swam back to shore to take a better look at its injuries. Pictures of the event show the pup kissing Hodgon on the chin.

Handcuffs

The business of mass incarceration

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© Illustration by Mr. Fish
Debbie Bourne, 45, was at her apartment in the Liberty Village housing projects in Plainfield, N.J., on the afternoon of April 30 when police banged on the door and pushed their way inside. The officers ordered her, her daughter, 14, and her son, 22, who suffers from autism, to sit down and not move and then began ransacking the home. Bourne's husband, from whom she was estranged and who was in the process of moving out, was the target of the police, who suspected him of dealing cocaine. As it turned out, the raid would cast a deep shadow over the lives of three innocents - Bourne and her children.

The murder of a teenage boy by an armed vigilante, George Zimmerman, is only one crime set within a legal and penal system that has criminalized poverty. Poor people, especially those of color, are worth nothing to corporations and private contractors if they are on the street. In jails and prisons, however, they each can generate corporate revenues of $30,000 to $40,000 a year. This use of the bodies of the poor to make money for corporations fuels the system of neoslavery that defines our prison system.