Society's ChildS


Handcuffs

Oz: Israel's detention prison for Palestinian children

arrest youth
© 972mag.comChild under arrest shows evidence of abuse as he is taken for interrogation.
  • Rampant abuse of Palestinian children by Israeli interrogators
  • Collective punishment for the children and a way of gathering information
  • Palestinian children denied legal rights, punishments up to 20 years in prison
Over 100 children have been subject to arbitrary detention by Israel in October across the West Bank, rights groups say. Since the beginning of October, hundreds of young men from Jerusalem have spent the night in Oz - not the magical fairy-tale land, but a police station in Jabal al-Mukaber.

Like the rest of occupied East Jerusalem, the neighbourhood is mired in neglect and has become a scene of regular clashes between Palestinian youth and Israeli security forces. Those who come to Oz arrive in military vehicles, handcuffed and blindfolded.

According to prisoner support group Addameer, at least 876 Palestinians, including 133 children, have been arrested since October 1 across the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem and Israel. According to figures collected by the Wadi Hilweh Information Center in Silwan, at least 60 children were arrested in Jerusalem during the first two weeks of unrest.

Comment: Palestinian children are the heart-wrenching and unfortunate victims of a pathological ideology, jaded by acts and deeds so despicable it defies comprehension. But comprehend we must in order to rip off the mask of evil and expose it for what it truly is.


Sheriff

Transit cop fired after attacking autistic teen at rail station

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17-year-old Marcus Abrams required medical attention after an encounter with transit police in St. Paul, Minnesota
A transit police officer who was accused of attacking a teenager who has autism has been fired.

The mother of 17-year-old Marcus Abrams said the boy was standing Aug. 31 near the tracks at a light rail station in St. Paul when police approached him, reported KARE-TV.

The officers, identified as Peter Buzicky and Richard Wegner, approached Abrams and some friends after one of the boys briefly stepped on the light rail tracks.

Abrams, who has Asperger's syndrome and wears specially magnified glasses because he is legally blind, was wearing headphones and couldn't hear Wegner's order to place his hands behind his back.

Police suspected Abrams, who was returning home with friends after working at the Minnesota State Fair, was intoxicated or using drugs. Wegner grabbed his wrist and the teen backed up, so the officer grabbed the boy by his vest.

2 + 2 = 4

California school district reinforces dumbness through grade inflation

math student
© getty images"Forget it. I'll take the C."
Officials in a public school district about 50 miles north of San Francisco have found a new and exciting way to coddle kids. Under a new policy, students will be able to earn passing grades with scores of just 20 percent — and a solid C for doing absolutely nothing at all.

The lax, taxpayer-funded Cotati-Rohnert Park school district's new grading system is called the equal interval scale, reports The Press Democrat, a newspaper out of nearby Santa Rosa.

The Cotati-Rohnert Park grade scale deviates from the traditional, well-established A-through-F scale by distributing grades in 20-percent increments from 0 to 100 percent, and by only giving grades of F for students with scores below 20 percent.

Comment: More proof that modern education is only tasked with churning out obedient debt slaves who are unable to use their brains in any way that matters. What difference do grades make when the entire system is designed for mis-education?


Eye 2

Leaked emails of Pennsylvania Supreme Court justice reveal jokes about raping women, molesting kids, and racism

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Justice J. Michael Eakin
Hundreds of emails obtained by the Daily Beast reveal the twisted mind of a Pennsylvania Supreme Court justice and his circle of colleagues who take delight in misogyny and racism.

Justice J. Michael Eakin communicated with state and federal officials using a private "John Smith" email account. Emails include suggesting that a battered wife treat her wounds by "keeping her mouth shut," a joke about a man using a Taser to rape a woman, jokes about kids being molested by pedophiles, and numerous racial slurs.

"An email Eakin received from defense attorney Terry McGowan links to a video titled "Craziest White Man," which shows a man picking up Latino day-laborers, who he then takes to immigration services. Afterward, the man in the video comments on the need to "cull the herd, make sure they don't overpopulate."

Much of the correspondence was received by prosecutors in the U.S. Attorney's office in Harrisburg as well as by various county Common Pleas Court judges and district attorneys. It included a set of "motivational posters," which feature a woman mock-fellating a beer bottle above the slogan, "True Love: Sometimes you know it the instant you see it across the bar" and one of a topless woman which reads: "Dear Abby: I'm an 18 year old girl from Arkansas and I'm still a virgin. Do you think my brothers are gay?"

Heart - Black

Sick society: Dallas woman kidnapped, forced to take heroin and engage in blood ritual

Mercedes Salazar
© Bexar County Sheriff's OfficeMercedes Salazar, 32, is accused of kidnapping her slain brother's ex-girlfriend in revenge for her suspicions that the 25-year-old woman had something to do with her brother's death. Salazar was arrested early Sunday.
A Texas woman took revenge on her slain brother's ex-girlfriend by rounding up a crew that abducted and drugged her, police said.

Mercedes Salazar, 32, was arrested early Sunday in the kidnapping of a 25-year-old woman who was found screaming for her life at a home on San Antonio's West Side last month, according to the Bexar County Sheriff's Office.

Deputies rescued the victim Sept. 9 when one of three other accomplices who have already been arrested fell asleep and the woman managed to contact her mom, officials in the sheriff's office said.

The group led by the longtime offender Salazar - whose brother was murdered in August - held the victim captive for three days inside the house in a subdivision near Lackland Air Force Base, Bexar County Sheriff's spokesman James Keith told KENS-TV.

Red Flag

Disintegrating society: Huge brawl at high school leads to student slamming principal to ground, 3 arrests

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© YouFirstNews / YouTube
A brawl at Florin High School, Sacramento led to the arrest of three students. Three school officials were injured during the fight, including the principal, who was body slammed into the ground by a student.

"It was like chaos," Marquice Wong, a sophomore at the school told local KCRA. "There were students everywhere fighting. I (saw) school officials getting hurt."

Some of the fight, which occurred on Monday, was caught on video and posted to Facebook and YouTube. When the fight broke out, it drew a school resource police officer, a school official and Principal Don Ross.

The video shows students gathered around as officials try to break up the fight. There is much screaming and what sounds like punches being exchanged. After trying to restrain a tall student in a blue sweater, Principal Ross was body slammed to the ground. Ross quickly gets back up and grabs the student from fighting again, puts him a hold and draws him to the back of the room, where another officer joins him.

Camcorder

PBS Frontline: Inside Assad's Syria - what Syrians really think (VIDEO)

syria destruction
© Mahmoud Hebbo / Reuters
For weeks, the world's eyes have been fixed on the tens of thousands of refugees fleeing war-torn Syria for Europe. But what is life like for those left behind? Correspondent Martin Smith goes "Inside Assad's Syria" to report from government-controlled areas as war rages, with on-the-ground reporting and firsthand accounts from Syrians caught in the crisis.


Comment: A reader from Fort Russ comments:
I see no objectivity in a piece which cuts footage of the "barrel bombs" (or actually standard gravity bombs, but released by Mi-24 helicopters) together with pictures of explosions and their aftermath from other events, including suicide car bombings of Damascus. It's great editing, telling a story but not telling the truth. Or ridiculing Syrians for trying to live a "normal" life and enjoy it while it lasts, going to a disco, or to a beach, or attending a concert. This idiot meets scores of people, refugees from Aleppo and Homs and doesn't ask himself, how come 7 million displaced Syrians ran to the state controlled areas (Sunnis in Lattakia), running to Assad not from Assad. He meets people supporting the state everywhere and yet never pauses the question, why Assad should go when Syrians want him to stay... But there is one thought that sticks to me after watching the doc. The contrast of the alternatives in Syria. The state side standing for secularism, normality above the dividing lines of ethnic and religious background and the other side: "the scum of the earth are selling now women of the minorities as slaves".....and we are supposed to support the scumbags!
Indeed. Smith tries his hardest to portray Assad and his government in the worst light possible, but the actual people he interviews suggest things are not so simple. That is the real value of this documentary: what Syrians themselves think. In the process, PBS ends up broadcasting a little bit of truth: the 'peaceful protests' were not so peaceful, and the 'protesters' shot first. The Syrian government offers amnesty to rebels who choose to stop fighting. Whatever one thinks of Assad, Syria needs the existing infrastructure and institutions in order to survive, and the only alternatives are the scumbag jihadis and a woefully inexperienced and inept 'opposition'.


Red Flag

Retired cop to use 'stand your ground defense' after fatally shooting Florida moviegoer for texting daughter's day care provider

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© WFTSCurtis Reeves
A retired police officer who gunned down a married father who threw popcorn at him will use Florida's "stand your ground" law as his defense when he goes on trial for murder.

The lawyer for Curtis Reeves confirmed that the retired Tampa police captain would use the controversial law to claim self-defense in the fatal Jan. 13, 2014, shooting, reported the Tampa Bay Times. The 73-year-old Reeves was charged with second-degree murder after he shot 43-year-old Chad Oulson to death because he refused to stop sending a text message to his 2-year-old daughter's day care provider.

The former police officer fatally shot Oulson once in the chest, and the man's wife, Nicole, who was sitting next to him during the matinee showing of "Lone Survivor," was grazed by a bullet — which prompted an additional charge of aggravated battery. "Just to think that in the blink of an eye, my whole world just got shattered into a million pieces, and now I'm left trying to pick them all up and putting them back together," Nicole Oulson said after her husband's slaying.

Reeves' attorney has maintained all along that video recorded inside the Wesley Chapel movie theater will show that Oulson attacked the older man first — causing Reeves to fear for his life. Defendants must show they had a "reasonable belief" that they were threatened before using force — even if no such threat actually existed.

Comment: It's nice to see some common sense coming from law enforcement in the whole 'popcorn is a weapon' defense.


Heart - Black

Activist releases disturbing video of animal cruelty at Tyson chicken factory

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© Issei Kato IK / Reuters
A graphic video secretly recorded by an animal rights activist inside a Tyson Foods plant has led to two firings after it showed workers punching chickens and ripping their heads off. The footage could instigate legal proceedings against the fast food chicken supplier.

In September, a Mercy for Animals activist went undercover to accept a job with Tyson Foods at its plant in Carthage, Mississippi, then filmed coworkers abusing chickens in a variety of violent acts, including bashing chickens with their fists or by throwing them against equipment. Among other abuses, the domesticated birds, called broiler chickens, had their heads manually ripped off while they were still alive and conscious.

"We do not believe the behavior shown in this video by the two team members we have now terminated is representative of the actions of the thousands of workers we employ across the country," Tyson wrote in a public statement.

"Ongoing and systemic" is how affidavits filed by Mercy for Animals described the maltreatment at the slaughterhouse, which processes 2.5 million chickens a week.

Comment: So on top of filling their chicken with poisonous anti-biotics and feeding them GMO foods, Tyson is literally torturing their chickens before they are killed. Anyone with a conscience and a desire to eat healthy foods should refuse to eat anything with the Tyson name on it.


Ambulance

Plane at Florida airport catches fire on runway

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© @mikejdupuy /Twitter
An airplane has caught fire at Ft. Lauderdale-Hollywood international airport in Florida.

All the passengers appear to have been safely evacuated to the terminal building, as emergency crews battled flames on the port-side engine of the Dynamic Airways Boeing 767-200, with the registration N251MY.