Society's ChildS


Radar

Mystery drone seen hovering over six-alarm warehouse fire in Virginia near Pentagon

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© Robert RapanutAlexandria resident Robert Rapanut photographed a drone he saw hovering over a six-alarm fire at a warehouse Monday afternoon.
It wasn't flying for long and it's unclear what it was doing, but at least one witness spotted a drone hovering over a six-alarm fire at a warehouse in Alexandria, just miles from the Pentagon.

Robert Rapanut of Alexandria said he was near the scene of the blaze that destroyed a warehouse in the 800 block of South Pickett Street when he saw an object rise. He took out a camera and photographed it.

"I just saw some black thing go up" Mr. Rapanut said. "It was up maybe two or three minutes. It hovered over the roof of the Red Lobster" a few hundred feet east of the fire.

Alexandria fire officials said the drone didn't belong to them.

"It's not ours," said Robert Rodriguez, chief fire marshal and spokesman for the Alexandria fire department. "It was none of our departments'," he added, referring to the three other fire departments that provided assistance in putting out the blaze.

A Fairfax fire department spokesman practically laughed when asked if the drone at the Monday blaze could have been theirs.

A law passed this year in Virginia placed a temporary moratorium on the use of drones by government agencies, except for situations in which lives might be at risk.

Sheriff

Long Beach Police brutally beat and repeatedly taze man as he lies on the ground screaming in pain

Long Beach police have been accused of brutality after a YouTube video shows an officer striking a prone man multiple of times with a baton.

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Several officers are shown surrounding the man, who is lying on the ground, and then one of the officers strikes the man in the legs as the others shout orders.

The video, which was posted to YouTube on Monday, also shows the man being Tased by the officers at least once Monday at Locust Avenue and South Street.

"Police can only use force that is proportionate to the risk of injury or resistance," said Peter Bibring, spokesman for the American Civil Liberties Union. "And it's difficult to see how striking someone who's lying on the ground in a proportionate response."

Family members identified the man who was struck by police as Porfirio Santos-Lopez, 46, of Long Beach.

Santos-Lopez was taken into surgery late Tuesday at Long Beach Memorial Hospital for his injuries, his wife Lee Ann Hernandez said.

Long Beach police are expected to comment on the incident later today.

Comment: Becoming a Police Officer is the perfect job for a psychopath. Once they get a badge, they can brutalize people with complete impunity.


Sheriff

DeKalb County Police Officer "unintentionally" shoots unarmed teen

16-year-old mistaken for would-be burglar
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© BEN GRAY / AJCDeKalb County Police Chief Cedric Alexander explains during a Wednesday afternoon press conference that the teen shot by a DeKalb officer following a Tuesday home invasion was not involved in the robbery, but had run from officers because he was skipping school. Alexander said the officer was startled by the teen and unintentionally discharged his firearm.
The person a DeKalb County police officer shot Tuesday morning was not a would-be burglar, as police initially believed, police said.

DeKalb County Police Chief Cedric Alexander on Wednesday said the individual was a 16-year-old Southwest DeKalb High School student skipping school.

"It has been revealed to us that the subject shot by one our DeKalb police officers was not associated with the burglary on Streamside Court," Alexander said. "He was truant from school and began running when he saw police officers in the area."

The teen tried to hide from a K9 officer and apparently startled the officer as the officer approached him, the chief said.

"The K9 officer actually came in contact with the young man, and there was an unintentional discharge when he came up on a subject who appeared to be hiding in the shed," Alexander said.

Stormtrooper

Syrian army vs "Syrian rebels"

Syria
© unknown

Post-It Note

Ohio kidnapper Ariel Castro found hanged in cell

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Ariel Castro, the convicted kidnapper who kept three women captive in his Cleveland home for a decade, has been found hanged in his prison cell. Castro had previously pleaded guilty to the charges against him to avoid the death penalty.

Prison officials at the Ohio Correctional Reception Center discovered Castro's body hanging in his cell at 9:20 pm Tuesday local time (01:20 GMT Wednesday). After various attempts to revive him his body was transferred to The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center, where he was pronounced dead an hour later.

"Inmate Ariel Castro was found hanging in his cell this evening at 9:20 pm at the Correctional Reception Center in Orient. He was housed in protective custody which means he was in a cell by himself and rounds are required every 30 minutes at staggered intervals," JoEllen Smith of the Ohio Department of Corrections said in a statement.

Arrow Down

Until death do us part: One woman dies every hour in India's dowry disputes

Dowry Deaths
© AFP Photo / Dibyangshu Sarkar
One woman dies every hour in dowry-related crimes in India, with over 8,000 deaths reported in 2012. The numbers steadily increased between the years of 2007 and 2011, pointing to a rise in the demand for dowries.

According to the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB), 8,233 women died in disputes over dowry payments given by the bride's family to the groom's family at the time of marriage in 2012 - that works out to be one death per hour.

The report comes as the world's attention remains on women's rights issues in India after a number of high-profile rape cases shocked the nation and the globe.

Thousands of Indian women die every year because the groom's family deemed the dowry amount to be inadequate. Many of the women are doused with gasoline and burned to death. According to AFP, dowry demands continue even years after the marriage ceremony.

The number of deaths has been steadily growing, rising from 8,093 in 2007 to 8,618 in 2011.

Arrow Down

Pastor claims Mark Twain was demonically possessed

Mark Twain
© Patheos.com
Pop quiz. Was Mark Twain

1. an atheist,
2. an agnostic, or
3. a deist?

Well, the author's name is on Wikipedia's list of agnostics. Also, on its list of deists. Hmm. Now go looking for a list of famous atheists, and yup.

So what did Twain believe? Depends on whom you ask. In other words, it's complicated - but not to Colorado pastor Kevin Swanson. Swanson has gotten it into his head that Twain was one of the wickedest men who ever lived, on account of the fact that America's greatest humorist frequently made fun of religious phonies with observations like this one:
"In religion and politics, people's beliefs and convictions are in almost every case gotten at second-hand, and without examination, from authorities who have not themselves examined the questions at issue but have taken them at second-hand from other non-examiners, whose opinions about them were not worth a brass farthing."

Arrow Down

Surfboard pierces Honolulu driver's windshield

Surfboard
© AP Photo/Courtesy of Donard SonodaIn this image provided by Donard Sonoda, an unidentified man stops to assist driver Jerrin Ching (not seen) after a surfboard smashed through the front windshield of his car on a freeway in Honolulu, Sunday, Sept. 1, 2013. Witnesses said they saw the surfboard fall from an overpass and hit Ching's car as he was driving in the far left lane. Ching suffered only minor scratches in the incident.
A man was driving along a Honolulu freeway over the weekend when a surfboard crashed through the windshield just inches from his face, leaving him with only scratches on his face and arms.

Jerrin Ching was driving on the H-1 freeway Sunday morning when the red surfboard came out of nowhere and pierced through the glass, he told KHON- TV.

"I'm just thankful to be here," he said. "After it hit, I was like what just happened?"

Sheriff

Child shoots SWAT officer with his own gun at California 'Literacy Fair'

A child who was thought to be no older than 8-years-old shot a SWAT officer with his service weapon at a literacy fair in California last week while he was showing off tactical equipment to kids.


Lodi Police Chief Mark Helms told KMAX that the incident took place at the "2013 Literacy Fair: Little Buckaroos Reading Roundup" on Aug. 24.

Helms said that SWAT Officer Robert Rench was in a SWAT vehicle demonstrating equipment to children when a boy, between 6 and 8 years old, walked up behind him and fired his holstered Glock .40 caliber service weapon into his leg.

"According to the witnesses, [the child] was able to walk up to the officer, and was able to manipulate his handgun while it was in the holster, causing it discharge," Lodi Police Lt. Sierra Brucia explained to KXTV. "And then the round actually fired down the officer's leg and into the pavement."

Brucia said that an internal investigation was focusing on Rench's thigh holster, which may have made it easier for the child to access the weapon.

Cult

Psychopathic former Navy chaplain wants 'worthy of death' printed on all LGBT couples' wedding photos

klingenschmitt
© Unknown
A disgraced former Navy chaplain is calling on all photographers to print Bible scripture that says homosexuals are "worthy of death" on the back of photos taken at weddings of gay and lesbian couples.

On his Monday Pray in Jesus Name Internet show, Chaplain Gordon James "Chaps" Klingenschmitt expressed outrage that the New Mexico Supreme Court had unanimously ruled against a Christian photographer for discriminating against a same sex couple.

"Well, this is not the first place and it may not be, sadly, the last place that Christians are punished by law for exercising their religious conscience objections," he warned.