© heavy.comMary Knowlton
A 73-year-old librarian became the latest victim of police in Punta Gorda, Florida. However, her tragic death — in front of 34 people, during an officer's demonstration about police use of deadly force — is far from the, unfortunately common, tales of violence by law enforcement.
Mary Knowlton signed up to be a student in the citizen police academy hosted by the Punta Gorda Police Department, intended to show residents of the small town why and how officers do what they do.
After the group of 35 participants toured the police station and spoke with officers — a popular public relations tactic used by departments across the country amid the epidemic of police violence — Knowlton and another person decided to volunteer for a
demonstration.
To illustrate how and when officers decide to use lethal force, the officer had the two students role-play a scenario putting citizens in cops' shoes. According to
Charlotte Sun photographer, Sue Paquin, who was there to cover the event, Knowlton
played the role of a victim, while the officer played "bad guy."
Such a simulation would ordinarily not pose any danger to participants, as weapons would either be fake or empty. Not this time. When the officer fired, live ammunition hit Knowlton — several times.
The elderly wife and mother was promptly rushed to Lee Memorial Hospital, but was pronounced dead.
Comment: There is always more to a story as it unfolds.
The officer who shot Mary Knowlton, subsequently identified as Lee Coel, has a prior history of violations and excessive force before being hired by PGPD.
The weapons used (see Wink News video starting at 4:40) in demonstrations were supposed to be modified to not allow for live ammo. This particular gun had allegedly been used in demos before and the PGPD claims only blanks were available and only blanks could be used. In addition, three people have to check this weapon before use. So there is a question regarding this particular gun, its modification and the choice of ammo. Did Officer Coel use other than a modified gun? Indisputably, he used real bullets.
UPDATE 8/11/16: Police Chief Lewis
confirmed the officer was Lee Coel. He also assured the public that real guns will no longer be used during "shoot, don't shoot" exercises. "We do not have live ammunition or live weapons anywhere near the building or the room in which we're having these scenarios or these role players at all," said Sgt. Douglas Dever of the Collier County Sheriff's Office.
The weapon used in the incident was not in use among all officers, and is not similar to one that police officers are issued. "We believe that the particular caliber of the weapon used, that there were only blank rounds available to the officer,"
Coel's background:
A graduate of Broward College police academy.
A former Miramar officer with a troubled record, forced to resign at the end of 14 months.
Stripped of his gun and badge in 2013 from two complaints filed for excessive force.
Placed on administrative leave and failed to meet the department's probation period.
Committed two department policy violations.
.
As an officer of the Punta Gorda PD, he was sued for ordering his K-9 to attack an unarmed bicyclist who was riding at night without lights on his bike. Coel's report stated the man was coming at him, but dashcam video does not verify this. The dog tore into the defendant, gnawing his right side under his arm. The victim was hospitalized two weeks for severe injuries requiring surgery. The dog ate part of his armpit muscle. This case is ongoing.
Marcus Williamson
MediumThu, 02 Jun 2016 18:39 UTC
SeekingArrangement Student Advertisement
You may have seen the adverts, like the one above, or the headlines:
'A quarter of a million' UK students now using sugar daddies — BBC
Meet the sugar baby who's had 10 sugar daddies - and has found love with one — Mirror
Things Are Thriving In The "Modern Hooker Economy" — Zerohedge
For those of you who aren't aware of what is going on here exactly, well let me cease your virginity on the matter.
This will be a non technical, yet comically financial style review of the rapidly growing industry, the areas which will be covered are the following:
1. The market securities (Students)
2. The market participants (Old men)
3. The market exchange (SeekingArrangements)
4. The market regulations (SeekingArrangements Blog Tips)
5. The effects of the marketplace on society (Why this is bad...)
RTThu, 11 Aug 2016 18:29 UTC
© Bobby Yip / ReutersRurik Jutting
A British banker accused of murdering two Indonesian women who were found mutilated in his upmarket Hong Kong apartment attended a pretrial hearing on Thursday, ahead of his October trial.
Rurik Jutting, 31, was charged with murder after two women believed to be sex workers were found dead in his home.
The former Bank of America Merrill Lynch employee appeared much thinner than in his previous public appearance last October after he was charged.
Dressed in a button down shirt and accompanied by four police officers, Jutting listened attentively at the pre-trial hearing, which was closed to the public.
RTThu, 11 Aug 2016 18:24 UTC
At least one person has been killed and 11 more injured, including foreigners, as two explosions rocked the tourist hotspot of Hua Hin in Thailand, according to local media reports.
The bombs were hidden in plant pots, some reports suggest, while others claim these were motorbike explosions. A woman selling street food died in the attacks, according to a witness on Twitter.
The blasts took place at night in the resort town, which is located nearly 200km from the capital of Bangkok. Several foreign citizens are believed to be among the injured.
© Unknown
If Obamacare enrollments continue their current trend and insurers continue to hike premiums at alarming rates then
Republicans may not have to worry about "repealing and replacing Obamacare" as it might just work itself out "naturally". The 4th open enrollment period for Obamacare begins on November 1, 2016 and industry experts are warning that another year of tepid demand from "young and healthy" Americans
could force more insurers out of the exchanges effectively marking the end of Obamacare as we know it. According to a story published by
The Hill, 11 million people bought health insurance through the exchanges for 2016 which was drastically below the Congressional Budget Office's initial projection of 21 million.
Well we're shocked!
Turns out that whole "adverse selection bias" was a real thing. So you're telling us that young, healthy people don't want to pay for insurance they know they'll never use? We guess America's youth can actually do basic math, after all. Apparently they were able to figure out they would rather take the lower tax associated with Obamacare penalties than the larger tax associated with buying a healthcare policy they'll never use. We guess Millennials are a little less enthusiastic about embracing socialism when the costs are coming out of their pockets.
Comment: Obamacare was a fraud since its very inception.
© Jefferson Seigel/NY Daily News
A dim-witted Donald Trump fan used suction cups to scale the mogul's namesake Midtown tower Wednesday in a failed bid to meet the blowhard.
The 19-year-old Virginia man evaded frustrated cops for nearly three hours in the oppressive summer heat as he clung to the side of the Fifth Ave. skyscraper "Mission: Impossible"-style.
He was eventually yanked to safety through a 21st-floor window by NYPD officers.
The daredevil started off slowly climbing the glass tower around 3:30 p.m. using handheld suction cups, ropes and a climbing harness — stunning visitors on the fourth-floor terrace as he began his ascent.
© AFP Photo/Karen BleierThe New York Times, Wall Street Journal and Financial Times have been relatively successful with paywalls because of their unique content
Paywalls were supposed to help rescue newspapers from the crisis of sinking print circulation as readers shifted to getting their news online.
But with a few exceptions,
they have failed to deliver much relief, prompting some news organizations to rethink their digital strategies.
Newspapers in the English-speaking world
ended paywalls some 69 times through May 2015, including 41 temporary and 28 permanent drops, according to a study by University of Southern California researchers.
Paywalls "generate only a small fraction of industry revenue," with estimates ranging
from one percent in the United States to 10 percent internationally, the study in July's
International Journal of Communication said.
"People are far less willing to pay for online news than for print," said USC journalism professor Mike Ananny, an author of the study.
Comment: The state of journalism today is a tragedy. On the one hand, we say good riddance: MSM is the semi-official propaganda arm of the deep state. On the other hand, the world needs real journalists, and there just isn't a system in place for good journalism to exist and thrive. John Oliver highlighted some of this recently:
RTThu, 11 Aug 2016 16:55 UTC
© operacoesrj / YouTube
Three Brazilian police officers tasked with protecting the Rio Olympics were fired upon after they missed a turn and mistakenly entered one of Rio's slums, also known as favelas, where a drug gang thought they had arrived as part of a police raid.
"They were three officers with the National Force who accidently went into the Vila do Joao community. Their car was hit by drug traffickers' [gunfire]," AFP quoted a police officer speaking on condition of anonymity.
The shootout took place on Wednesday evening on the outskirts of Vila do Joao favela in northern Rio's Maré complex near the city's international airport. The officers, who had been sent to Rio for the games and weren't familiar with the city, were heading to the Olympic Park. They tried to access the Yellow Line which leads there, but missed their entrance and instead were forced to take a nearby street, where they were met by gunfire.Members of a local drug gang apparently took the appearance of a police car for a raid and fired at the officers with rifles before fleeing into the warren of the shantytown, Folha de S.Paulo
reports citing witnesses.
Michael Kaplan
NY PostThu, 11 Aug 2016 16:23 UTC
© NY Post photo compositeComputer forensics is the latest frontier in catching a cheating spouse, by uncovering deleted incriminating files
The sprawling Manhattan apartment had a gorgeous view of Central Park. But two quarter-size cameras with wide-angle pinhole lenses, discreetly hidden behind crown molding, were not there to photograph foliage. A financial-world heavyweight suspected that his wife was cheating with her office colleague, and he wanted to secure hard evidence.
The $3,000 secret setup "allowed him to monitor the apartment in real time on his phone," Michael Mancuso tells The Post.Sounding as proud as any Hollywood auteur, Mancuso, the snoop-camera specialist and owner of
Searching for the Truth Investigative Services, says, "Three days later, our client had what he needed: footage of his wife walking into their apartment with her boyfriend." Add that to salacious text messages extracted from her iPhone, and the cuckolded husband had reason for divorce.
Gone are the days of looking for lipstick traces or sniffing out perfume. Suspicious spouses have an array of far more advanced techniques at their disposal. Science and technology mean that no philanderers are safe.
© Christian Tate
Corporate ownership of 90 percent of media outlets in the United States has made the term 'mainstream journalist' quite the oxymoron, but the
Washington Post's newest project eliminates 'journalist' from the equation entirely —
robots are now writing the outlet's 'news.' Using artificial intelligence technology,
the Washington Post is 'employing' software to 'write' hundreds of news briefs highlighting key information about the Olympic Games in Rio in real-time."'Heliograf,' which was developed in-house, automatically generates short, multi-sentence updates for readers,"
the Post proudly announced Friday,
as if the news organization couldn't predict the collective American jaw-drop at the notion a computer could simply replace a longstanding tradition of actual journalism."Automated storytelling has the potential to transform the
Post's coverage," explained Jeremy Gilbert, director of strategic initiatives at the
Washington Post, in what could easily be deemed the understatement of the year. "More stories, powered by data and machine learning, will lead to a dramatically more personal and customized news experience.
"The Olympics are the perfect way to prove the potential of this technology. In 2014, the sports staff spent countless hours manually publishing event results. Heliograf will free up
Post reporters and editors to add analysis, color from the scene and real insight to stories in ways only they can."
Comment: Journalistic integrity has already become a mockery in the New American Century, and now that robots are 'informing' the masses, it's become downright absurd. Welcome to the next stage in smashing whatever consciousness remains within the American public to smithereens.
Be sure to check out the John Oliver video above for an accurate view of the how media owners view their responsibility of reporting the news. Here's a transcript of an excerpt Oliver's show collected showing media mongrel Sam Zell in an exchange with a photographer:
Zell: "I want to make enough money so that I can afford you. You need to in effect help me by being a journalist that focuses on what our readers want that generates more revenue."
Fajardo: "What readers want are puppy dogs; we also need to inform the community."
Zell: "I'm sorry but you're giving me the classic, what I would call, journalistic arrogance by deciding that puppies don't count. . . . What I'm interested in is how can we generate additional interest in our products and additional revenue so we can make our product better and better and hopefully we get to the point where our revenue is so significant that we can do puppies and Iraq. F**k y**."
Comment: There is always more to a story as it unfolds. The officer who shot Mary Knowlton, subsequently identified as Lee Coel, has a prior history of violations and excessive force before being hired by PGPD. The weapons used (see Wink News video starting at 4:40) in demonstrations were supposed to be modified to not allow for live ammo. This particular gun had allegedly been used in demos before and the PGPD claims only blanks were available and only blanks could be used. In addition, three people have to check this weapon before use. So there is a question regarding this particular gun, its modification and the choice of ammo. Did Officer Coel use other than a modified gun? Indisputably, he used real bullets.
UPDATE 8/11/16: Police Chief Lewis confirmed the officer was Lee Coel. He also assured the public that real guns will no longer be used during "shoot, don't shoot" exercises. "We do not have live ammunition or live weapons anywhere near the building or the room in which we're having these scenarios or these role players at all," said Sgt. Douglas Dever of the Collier County Sheriff's Office.
The weapon used in the incident was not in use among all officers, and is not similar to one that police officers are issued. "We believe that the particular caliber of the weapon used, that there were only blank rounds available to the officer,"
Coel's background:
A graduate of Broward College police academy.
A former Miramar officer with a troubled record, forced to resign at the end of 14 months.
Stripped of his gun and badge in 2013 from two complaints filed for excessive force.
Placed on administrative leave and failed to meet the department's probation period.
Committed two department policy violations.
.
As an officer of the Punta Gorda PD, he was sued for ordering his K-9 to attack an unarmed bicyclist who was riding at night without lights on his bike. Coel's report stated the man was coming at him, but dashcam video does not verify this. The dog tore into the defendant, gnawing his right side under his arm. The victim was hospitalized two weeks for severe injuries requiring surgery. The dog ate part of his armpit muscle. This case is ongoing.