Society's ChildS


Stormtrooper

Taser International sued by man left with brain damage after being electrocuted

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© Reuters/Bazuki Muhammad
Taser International is being forced to defend itself in court this week after a man filed a lawsuit against the electroshock gun company, claiming he went into cardiac arrest as a result of being shot in the chest by a Taser.

­Colin Fahy, who was 17 years old at the time of the incident, was shot in the chest with a Taser by police responding to a domestic disturbance complaint at his home in St. Louis. Police Officer Karen Menendez claims she used the Taser on Fahy, who was drunk and high, after he lunged at her and one other officer, according to a report by the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

Menendez shot the gun twice, delivering one 25-second shock and one 5-second shot. Fahy went into cardiac arrest soon afterwards, which the plaintiff claims was a direct result of the stuns from the Taser.

"On December 7, 2007, St. Louis police officers used the X26 Taser on Fahy, causing him to go intro ventricular fibrillation and cardiac arrest," read court documents signed by United States District Judge Catherine Perry in 2010.

After falling to the kitchen floor, the teenager was handcuffed by the officers. At this point he was blue in the face and unresponsive. Fahy was subsequently hospitalized, suffered cardiac arrest for 30 minutes and was on life support for weeks. The young man now suffers from permanent brain damage and struggles with short-term and working memory.

Stock Up

Greece jobless rate rises to 26 percent

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© Unknown
Greece's unemployment rate rose to 26 percent in September, the Greek Statistical Authority announced Thursday.

An estimated 1.3 million people were recorded as being unemployed in September, RT reported.

The jobless rate is up from 25.3 percent the previous month and 18.9 percent a year earlier, with Greece headed towards its sixth straight year of recession.

The number of people employed stood at 3,695,053, and another 3,373,692 were listed as financially inactive, according to the September data.

Greek unemployment has surged as a result of harsh austerity measures imposed by the government in return for international rescue loans.

Info

Thieves somehow steal 800-pound statue from New Jersey Elks lodge roof

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© CBS 2Daring thieves recently made off with an 800-pound state of an elk from the roof of an Elks Lodge in Rutherford, N.J.
Working Theory: They Figured Statue Was Made Of Valuable Metal For Re-Sale

A bizarre heist in one New Jersey town has people scratching their heads. Thieves stole an 800-pound statue off the roof of a local Elks lodge.

The big question is how did they pull it off?

There's not much left of the statue that adorned Elks Lodge 547 in Rutherford for more than 60 years.

"The elk would be standing on the roof with lights on it facing the train station with his antlers spread, welcoming them to come and stay at the Elks if they were a member Elk," member Richard Rovito told CBS 2's Elise Finch.

"Just before Sandy a few of us got onto the roof and put it on its side. We were afraid it was going to come down with the high winds. We removed the antlers and head," lodge treasurer Joe Europa said.

Members moved the head and one leg inside, but the rest of the statue was left on the roof. A few days ago they noticed it was gone. People CBS 2's Finch spoke to weren't concerned about who stole the elk or even why.

Gift 3

Thieves caught stealing Christmas gifts from Stoneham home


Massachusetts - Tis the season for online shopping. And with it police say, comes thieves who steal packages right from people's doorsteps.

In Stoneham, police say, three women followed a delivery truck. When it delivered packages to the front door of an Elm Street home, the women stole them.

The packages were toys intended to be Christmas gifts for Tracy, the homeowner's, kids.

"There's lots of packages coming this time of year, probably one every couple days," she told WBZ.

But Tracy and her kids never got the toys. Fortunately, an alert driver saw the whole thing. He tailed the alleged thieves and got their license plate number. Police later tracked them down to a house in Woburn.

Investigators found the empty boxes that had contained Tracy's goods. According to police the women told them they got rid of the toys. Detective Robert McKinnon suspects they hit other houses too.

Christmas Tree

Family decorating Christmas tree robbed by three men

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K'Shawn Aldontay Morris, Troy Tereal Gibson and Maurice Alexander Morris
Loris, South Carolina - Three men are facing charges after reportedly robbing an Horry County family who were decorating their home for the holidays.

The Horry County Police Department charged 19-year-old K'Shawn Aldontay Morris with armed robbery, burglary, resisting arrest, unlawful carrying of a pistol and six counts of kidnapping.

Investigators also charged 21-year-old Maurice Alexander Morris and 21-year-old Troy Tereal Gibson with armed robbery and resisting arrest.

The victims said they were decorating the family Christmas tree Saturday night when three masked, armed men entered their Loris home on Camp Swamp Road Saturday night.

According to the victims, the three suspects held them at gunpoint and forced them to get on the ground while they ransacked their home. A police report states that the suspects separated the parents from the children before robbing them and stealing one of their vehicles.

Authorities say the suspects also stole an Xbox 360, Kinect, two jewelry boxes with jewelry, two men's watches, a portable DVD player, medicines, and cell phones.

Heart - Black

'Men don't have to worry about being caught': Sex mobs target Egypt's women

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© Charlene Gubash / NBC NewsVolunteers scan a crowd in an effort to detect and prevent sexual harassment during a demonstration against President Mohammed Morsi in Cairo's Tahrir Square on Friday.
Cairo - Walaa Al Momtaz doesn't leave her home for up to five days at a time. The neatly veiled 22-year-old misses her friends at City University, where she studies English and German, but what she faces upon leaving her house defeats her.

Men and boys constantly harass and threaten Al Momtaz on the bus, on the street and at the university.

"Every day men talk to me in a bad way, laugh at me and say things about what I am wearing," she told NBC News. On a recent bus trip, a man stuck his hand through a gap in the seat to touch her.

Al Momtaz has gotten off relatively lightly.

On Nov 25, Al-Ahram state newspaper reported three women were sexually assaulted during anti-Morsi demonstrations by hundreds of men.

In September, Eman Mostafa, 16, was gunned down after she spit in the face of a man who harassed her in the province of Assiut, according to police reports.

Monkey Wrench

California handyman held hostage in Morgan Hill, forced to fix home

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© Santa Clara County Sheriff’s Office36-year-old Jason DeJesus and 33-year-old Chanelle Troedson are accused of holding a handyman hostage inside their Morgan Hill home on December 3, 2012.
Two people who live in a large Morgan Hill home have been arrested on suspicion of holding a handyman hostage and forcing him to do home repairs.

Investigators said the 50-year-old victim was lured to a home on 200 block of Caldwell Court Monday morning. The sprawling 4,600 square foot home has five bedrooms and is equipped with a pool, a beach volleyball court, and a tennis court.

"He was assaulted, he was threatened with his life, and he was forced to do some work at the house," Sgt. Jose Cardoza of the Santa Clara County Sheriff's Office told CBS 5.

Detectives said 36-year-old Jason DeJesus and 33-year-old Chanelle Troedson beat the handyman, threatened to kill him and forced him to fix several items in the house over a six-hour span. The repairs included a dishwasher and a broken door.

"The victim was pretty terrified. He was pretty shaken up and scared by this whole incident," Cardoza said. "What he did tell investigators is that he was just trying to do what he was being told, wait for the opportunity to escape."

Info

18th-century French chateau razed 'by mistake'

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© domainedebellevue.infoChateau de Bellevue
Residents of a sleepy French village in Bordeaux have been left dumbfounded after discovering their local 18th-century chateau was completely bulldozed "by mistake."

The mayor's office in Yvrac said Wednesday that workers who were hired to renovate the grand 13,000-square-meter (140,000-square-foot) manor and raze a small building on the same estate in southwest France mixed them up.

"The Chateau de Bellevue was Yvrac's pride and joy," said former owner Juliette Marmie. "The whole village is in shock. How can this construction firm make such a mistake?"

Local media reported that the construction company misunderstood the renovation plans of the current owner, Russian businessman Dmitry Stroskin, to clean up the manor and restore it to its former baroque glory.

Stroskin was away when the calamity occurred and returned home to discover his chateau, a local treasure boasting a grand hall that could host some 200 people, as well as a sweeping stone staircase - was nothing but rubble.

"I'm in shock ...I understand the turmoil of the community," local media quoted Stroskin as saying.

He told them he plans to build an exact replica of lost manor on the site.

Source: The Associated Press

Snowflake Cold

Two men suspected of killing friend and resorting to cannibalism after getting lost for three months on fishing trip to Siberia

Two fishermen lost in Siberia are suspected of killing and eating their friend in order to survive, it was claimed last night.

A fourth man is also missing, leading to fears that he, too, was murdered and cannibalised.

Alexander Abdullaev, 37, and Alexei Gradulenko, 35, were plucked to safety by a rescue helicopter having survived temperatures lower than minus 30C three months after embarking on their fishing trip.
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© Siberian TimesSurvivor: Alexander Abdullaev is one of two men suspected of resorting to cannabalism in order to survive
But police also found the remains of one of their friends, his body so hacked to pieces that he has not been identified.

A wooden stake was found nearby close to a bloodstained jacket, reported the Siberian Times.

'We suspect, the two survivors could have killed and eaten their friend just because of hunger,' said a source.
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© Siberian TimesAlexei Gradulenko, 35, was plucked to safety by a rescue helicopter having survived temperatures lower than minus 30C

Bizarro Earth

Execution-style slayings leave 4 dead; homicides soar in Detroit

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Detroit, Michigan - Four people were found shot to death in a Detroit home, authorities said Wednesday, padding the city's homicide total that already has surpassed last year's.

Officers discovered the bodies of a teenage boy, two men and woman Tuesday night at a home in an east-side neighborhood. Investigators believed the killings were drug-related, police spokeswoman Yvette Walker said.

The Wayne County medical examiner's office identified the victims Wednesday as Shawn Bender, 16; Janetta Harris, 22; Jason Koester, 28; and Dyrelle Davis, 34. Harris died of multiple gunshot wounds, while the other three were shot in the head, according to the office.

The block where the bodies were found has about two dozen two-story homes. Like many Detroit neighborhoods, several of the homes are vacant. On the front door of one vacant home, someone affixed a sign that reads: "This building is being watched."

Carla Collins, 49, said that in August, she and some of her neighbors formed the "Tacoma Street Block Club," a neighborhood watch, because suspicious activity in the area spiked when an abandoned building across the street from her home became a "dope house."

"This was a quiet neighborhood," said Collins, who moved there three years ago.

The killings were the latest in what has been a particularly violent year in Detroit. The city announced last week that homicides rose this year, reaching 354 through Thanksgiving after totaling 344 for all of 2011.