Society's ChildS


Camcorder

Deadly precedent: 5 years ago police proved they can kill with video evidence and still walk free

Kelly Thomas
© Ron ThomasKelly Thomas
Today marks the five-year anniversary of Kelly Thomas' horrific and fatal beating by six Fullerton police officers. None of the officers that beat Thomas to death were ever convicted.

Video recordings of the assault captured the anguished screams of the helpless, unarmed, 160-pound man as he was slugged, kicked, tasered, and clubbed as the attackers bellowed, "Stop resisting!"

For those unfamiliar with the case, Kelly was an unarmed, schizophrenic, transient man, savagely beaten to death by officers Jay Cicinelli, Manuel Ramos, Joe Wolfe, Kenton Hampton, James Blatney, and Sergeant Kevin Craig.

The fateful incident began when Fullerton police were dispatched to Slidebar Rock-N-Roll Kitchen, under a false report that Thomas was breaking into cars. In reality, Thomas was only picking up cigarette butts that were littered on the ground.

Comment: More on the Kelly Thomas case:


Eye 2

Manhunt underway in San Diego for killer who is targeting homeless men

Homeless killer
© Courtesy San Diego Police Department / Reuters A person of interest, possibly involved in three brutal attacks, is shown in these images released by San Diego, California Police Department on July 5, 2016.
Authorities in San Diego are searching for a man suspected of killing and burning homeless men in their sleep.

The burned body of one homeless man was found on Sunday in San Diego's Mission Bay neighborhood. The body was so badly charred that authorities could not determine whether he had suffered any trauma before being consumed by flames.

Witnesses say they saw a man running with a can of gasoline within two blocks of the crime.

Two more attacks occurred in different locations early Monday morning, according to the San Diego Police Department. One died after sustaining wounds to his upper torso in Robb Athletic Field, near a tennis court.

The other man was found with a stab wound near the city's Midway neighborhood, but he survived. He was taken to a local hospital, where he remains in a critical condition.

Police have released low-resolution images of the suspected killer from convenience store footage and urged the public to help them identify him. Witnesses described him as being between 40 and 50 years old, wearing a brown jacket or sweatshirt and a baseball cap, police said. He was carrying a backpack.

Pistol

Baton Rouge: Alton Sterling murder at the hands of police sparks outrage and protests

Alton Sterling murder
© Baton Rouge Crime / YouTube
The shocking and graphic video of Baton Rouge police officers killing African-American Alton Sterling has sparked outrage across the country and protests in the streets of Louisiana's capital.

Sterling was shot dead while pinned to the ground by police. Officers say they were called to a convenience store after an anonymous caller claimed a man selling CDs had threatened him with a gun.

Comment: The names of the death squad thugs (i.e. police officers) who murdered Sterling have been released: Blane Salamoni and Howie Lake II, who have both been placed on administrative leave. If there were any rule of law, they would be executed (Louisiana has the death penalty). The Baton Rouge PD chief is calling for an 'independent investigation' (yeah right), saying there's a lot the department still "does not know" about the murder. Both officers were wearing body cams, but they allegedly "fell off" before the shooting.

Apparently police officers think the law goes something like this: "If I tell you to do something, and if I say I will kill you if you don't do what I tell you to do, then I can kill you." It looks like they're right.


People

The "Toretsk Uprising": How Kiev's repression of Donbass feeds a growing rage

Toretsk uprising Ukraine
© Ukraine Today
During the night of July 4th-5th in the city of Toretsk (formerly Dzerzhinsk) in the Donetsk region of Ukraine currently controlled by the UAF, a group of people barricaded the highway in an attempt to block the re-deployment of UAF military vehicles. Some sources report that the number of protesters was no more than 100 people, while others claim that their number was several times higher.

This event was reported by all Russian, Ukrainian, and many international media outlets, so I will not retell the generally known details. Instead, I will discuss the causes and possible consequences of this rebellion. The sources of my conclusions are media reports, information collected from Ukrainian social networks, and information obtained from my friends in the cities of Ukrainian-controlled Donbass.

The first and main conclusion to be drawn is that the population of Donbass hates the Ukrainian government and Ukrainian occupational troops. On May 11th, 2014, a referendum was held in the cities of Donbass in which the majority of residents voted for seceding from Ukraine and forming the Donetsk and Lugansk people's republics. The results of this referendum were violated by the Ukrainian authorities. In addition, many of these cities were subjected to shelling by Ukrainian "liberation" troops while the inhabitants of these cities, including the people of Toretsk, await the arrival of the liberation army of the DPR. This is a reality...

The second conclusion is that active members of the Russian uprising in Donbass are either in the DPR or LPR or have been arrested by the SBU (the Ukrainian analogue of the Gestapo). The least passionate supporters of the Russian World, or simply apolitical people are the ones who have stayed behind in Ukrainian Donbass. Thus, any rebellion in Donbass will be spontaneous. Its reason will not be political goals, but some kind of social impulse. This is what happened last spring in Konstantinovka when a spontaneous rebellion erupted against Ukrainian troops who shot dead a young mother and her child in a stroller. It is likely that the events in Toretsk have been caused by a similar event.

Comment: Further reading: From patriots to drunks to mercenaries: Analyzing the collapse of the Ukrainian Army


Dollar

Homeless man reunited with $187k inheritance cash found by honest cabbie

cabbie
© Rick Wilking / Reuters
A homeless man was reunited with $187,000 after leaving a backpack full of cash in a taxicab over the weekend. The driver of that taxi is now being hailed as a good Samaritan by the police.

On Friday afternoon, Raymond "Buzzy" MacCausland, a driver for the Independent Taxi Operators Association in Boston, Massachusetts, discovered a backpack left in the rear seat of his cab after dropping off a customer.

Trying to establish the possible identity of his former customer, MacCausland searched through the bag for any form of ID. Instead, he discovered approximately $187,000 in cash inside, in bundles of $50 and $100 dollar bills.

Blackbox

A strange outbreak of mass psychogenic illness in Massachusetts

boy drinking water
© unknown
During the fall of 2012, something odd began happening at two high schools in northeastern Massachusetts. At least two dozen students began to exhibit mysterious hiccuping sounds. By early 2013, the symptoms had died down at North Shore Technical School in Middleton, but at its sister school - Essex Aggie in nearby Danvers - 18 girls were suffering from the bizarre ailment. A survey of students' symptoms as collected by parents, includes such descriptions as: "Starts as a regular hiccup and then turns into a high pitched yelp," "Loud, piercing hiccups," and "Sounds like an exaggerated hiccup." The State Health Department conducted extensive tests of the school grounds and found air and water samples within normal limits, as were tests for toxic substances that could cause neurological problems, such as mercury.

So what caused this baffling outbreak? A study of nine of the students' medical records, considered and eliminated every possible cause but one: mass hysteria. Its more common scientific names are mass psychogenic illness or conversion disorder. The condition involves the converting of psychological distress into physical symptoms. A survey of mass hysteria outbreaks throughout history reveals that they most commonly occur in schools and involve adolescent girls. While no trigger was ever identified in Massachusetts, it was almost certainly some type of stress.

Comment: Further reading:


Bad Guys

Targeting their own? Daesh attacks on Muslims on the rise during Ramadan

Saudi Arabia suicide bomber
© Reuters
As the fighting against Daesh continues, the terror group has increased its nefarious activities. Recently, a number of attacks have rocked Muslim states, from Turkey to Saudi Arabia. Why do violent Islamic extremists attack fellow members of the faith?

"[Daesh] announced before the month of Ramadan that they are going to make this Ramadan especially violent, in order to make the group heard and in response to ongoing battles, in particular to what is happening in Fallujah, but also the battles that are ongoing in Syria itself and Libya," Dr. Theodore Karasik, analyst on regional geo-political affairs and Senior Advisor to Gulf State Analytics, a geo-strategic consultancy based in Dubai, UAE, told Radio Sputnik. "They try to send the message to the observer that ideology in the group is robust and alive."

Speaking about attacks in other Muslim states, including Turkey, Iraq and Bangladesh, Karasik identifies what he calls the "splatter effect." As Daesh is forced out of Syria, Libya and Iraq, the group seeks new territories in which to operate and to conduct attacks.

Music

How popular music's lyrics perpetuate American idiocy

pop stars
A recent study served to confirm the patently obvious: song lyrics for the most popular genres of music are ridiculously obtuse — and getting worse over time. Though this might not be a revelation, the figures are distressing indicators of both an intellectually vapid societal and cultural future as well as its apparent inevitability.

If you've already moved away from Billboard music, congratulations, you refuse to be insulted. But if you haven't, or if you're concerned about pop culture trends acting as portents of systemic dysfunction, you should probably pay attention. Andrew Powell-Morse of SeatSmart studied the "Lyric Intelligence" of 225 Billboard songs in the Pop, Country, Hip-hop, and Rock genres that spent three or more weeks parked at the top of the charts to analyze any changes over the course of ten years. And change there was.

Bad Guys

Bomber kills over 30 people in northeast Syrian city of Hasakah

ISIL militants
© AFP 2016/ ALBARAKA NEWS
According to a Kurdish source, a suicide bomber has killed at least thirty people in Hasakah, Syria.

Over 30 people died in a suicide bombing in the northeastern Syrian city of Hasakah, a Kurdish source told Sputnik on Tuesday.

The attack took place in the city's eastern province of Salhiye, according to the source.

No group has come forward with claims of responsibility.

Bizarro Earth

Pentagon military nurses take 'zombie pandemic' course to train for real life outbreaks

Picture of zombie actors
© Paulo Whitaker / Reuters
The US Department of Defense is using an animated online course about a zombie pandemic to teach active-duty military nurses about population health. There are actual Pentagon guidelines for a zombie outbreak as well. Do they know something we don't?

Military nurses studying for their doctorate at the Uniformed Services University of the Healthcare Sciences (USU) have to take a course on population health. Because many of the students are deployed around the world, the course has to be available online. It is not all PowerPoints and reading, however: the course features an animated storyline revolving around a zombie pandemic in Washington, DC.

The course was developed by Dr. Catherine Ling, assistant professor and family nurse practitioner at USU's Daniel K. Inouye Graduate School of Nursing, earning her the prestigious Teaching with Sakai Innovation Award in 2015.

"We use the narrative device of a zombie pandemic in animations and assignment to help engage students in content," Ling explained in a USU release about the course. Students have to apply the theories and models of public health that they learned in the course to the case of the zombie apocalypse.