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When police gave out the details of Ainsworth‘s killing, they also announced he had been arrested for drugs and other non-violent crimes, keeping with a year-old policy in which criminal records for slain victims are released – sometimes before they’ve been publicly identified.

New Orleans police say revealing a victim’s rap sheet lets the public know that much of the violence is happening between people with similar criminal backgrounds. Families of the slain victim’s say the practice is insensitive, and others outraged with the policy say it has racial overtones and sends a message that the victims got what was coming to them.

“I don’t understand why they want to do it,” said Kathryn White, whose 25-year-old son was gunned down in what she said was a case of mistaken identity. White said her son was arrested just once for a small amount of marijuana.

“You are already in so much pain and then you have to see people saying bad things about your dead child. What good does that do anyone,” she said.

In a city often cited as the nation’s murder capital – more than 20 people have been slain so far in January – police are hard-pressed to find solutions.

Police Superintendent Ronal Serpas said publicizing arrest records gives a better picture of the killing, which authorities said usually involves young men who are killing people with similar backgrounds.

Serpas estimated 62 percent of those killed in 2011 had prior felony arrests. He said 40 percent of people arrested for murder in 2011 – and 39 percent of those killed – had previous arrests for illegal possession of a firearm

“If I walked into the doctor’s office and he told me there was a 40 percent certainty that something I was doing would affect my life, don’t you think I would want that knowledge?” Serpas said. “This is knowledge people need to know, and talk about.”

The stakes are high for New Orleans, a city where tourism and free-wheeling visits are promoted for events like the Sugar Bowl, the Final Four basketball tournament this spring and the 2013 Super Bowl, not to mention Mardi Gras and Jazz Fest.

Mayor Mitch Landrieu and Serpas acknowledge New Orleans’ per capita murder rate is 10 times the national average. In 2011, there were 199 murders in a city of 344,000, up from 175 in 2010. However, those numbers are far less than the 400-plus killings during some years in the 1990s when the pre-Hurricane Katrina population was higher.

Landrieu hopes to fight the crime surge with an emphasis on mental health, education and employment, as well as more patrols and targeting hotspots.

Many big-city police departments avoid a blanket policy of releasing criminal information on victims.

In Baltimore, police track whether homicide victims had criminal histories, but people who inquire are referred to online court records. In 2011, 80 percent of murder victims had criminal records, according to Baltimore police.

“We may confirm whether the person was known to the police if we’re asked, but we try not to disclose too much information about victims for their privacy and security,” said department spokesman Anthony Guglielmi.

The Detroit Police Department does not release victims’ criminal records unless there is a correlation between the victim’s criminal activity and the homicide, like a convicted drug offender slain during a drug deal. For $10, criminal records are available from the Michigan State Police data base.

Serpas also had a blanket-release policy in Nashville, but after he left 18 months ago, the department decided not to release every rap sheet. Someone with 100 arrests or a person with drug convictions being shot in a drug deal is different than someone with a drunken driving arrest from five years ago, said Nashville police spokesman Don Aaron.

Whether a murder happened in New Orleans, New York or Nashville, there often are common threads, experts said.

“What the New Orleans department is responding to and is true everywhere, is the nature of criminal homicide is that both the offender and the victim tend to have robust criminal records,” said David Kennedy, a professor at New York’s John Jay College of Criminal Justice. “Today’s victim is very likely to be yesterday’s perpetrator.”

Releasing all crime records might have unintended consequences, said Charles Ewing of the University of Buffalo Law School.

“One of which is to say to the average citizen that this is not going to happen to you,” Ewing said. “You are a law-abiding citizen so you are safe, which is not always true.”

Ainsworth, the Good Samaritan, had been arrested for possession and distribution of marijuana and LSD as well as several other non-violent charges. He was on probation for marijuana possession from 2006-2008, and for distribution of LSD from 1987 to 1989. Police said they are still looking for a man who shot him.

The policy has also drawn criticism for what some called its racial overtones.

Police tout building community trust and getting witnesses to testify as a large part of the crime-fighting effort, but the policy on murder victims is a poor way to reverse long-time problems what has been mostly black areas, said Mary Howell, a civil rights attorney in New Orleans.

“To insult and add to grief of these families at the same time they’re saying they want community policing, is incredible,” Howell said. “All I can see this has accomplished is to instill anger and deepen grief.”

NEW ORLEANS — As Mike Ainsworth walked his two sons to a school bus stop, he heard a woman being carjacked scream, and ran to help. The woman was not hurt, police said, but the Good Samaritan was shot to death by a suspect who fled.

When police gave out the details of Ainsworth’s killing, they also announced he had been arrested for drugs and other non-violent crimes, keeping with a year-old policy in which criminal records for slain victims are released – sometimes before they’ve been publicly identified.

New Orleans police say revealing a victim’s rap sheet lets the public know that much of the violence is happening between people with similar criminal backgrounds. Families of the slain victim’s say the practice is insensitive, and others outraged with the policy say it has racial overtones and sends a message that the victims got what was coming to them.

“I don’t understand why they want to do it,” said Kathryn White, whose 25-year-old son was gunned down in what she said was a case of mistaken identity. White said her son was arrested just once for a small amount of marijuana.

“You are already in so much pain and then you have to see people saying bad things about your dead child. What good does that do anyone,” she said.

In a city often cited as the nation’s murder capital – more than 20 people have been slain so far in January – police are hard-pressed to find solutions.

Police Superintendent Ronal Serpas said publicizing arrest records gives a better picture of the killing, which authorities said usually involves young men who are killing people with similar backgrounds.

Serpas estimated 62 percent of those killed in 2011 had prior felony arrests. He said 40 percent of people arrested for murder in 2011 – and 39 percent of those killed – had previous arrests for illegal possession of a firearm

“If I walked into the doctor’s office and he told me there was a 40 percent certainty that something I was doing would affect my life, don’t you think I would want that knowledge?” Serpas said. “This is knowledge people need to know, and talk about.”

The stakes are high for New Orleans, a city where tourism and free-wheeling visits are promoted for events like the Sugar Bowl, the Final Four basketball tournament this spring and the 2013 Super Bowl, not to mention Mardi Gras and Jazz Fest.

Mayor Mitch Landrieu and Serpas acknowledge New Orleans’ per capita murder rate is 10 times the national average. In 2011, there were 199 murders in a city of 344,000, up from 175 in 2010. However, those numbers are far less than the 400-plus killings during some years in the 1990s when the pre-Hurricane Katrina population was higher.

Landrieu hopes to fight the crime surge with an emphasis on mental health, education and employment, as well as more patrols and targeting hotspots.

Many big-city police departments avoid a blanket policy of releasing criminal information on victims.

In Baltimore, police track whether homicide victims had criminal histories, but people who inquire are referred to online court records. In 2011, 80 percent of murder victims had criminal records, according to Baltimore police.

“We may confirm whether the person was known to the police if we’re asked, but we try not to disclose too much information about victims for their privacy and security,” said department spokesman Anthony Guglielmi.

The Detroit Police Department does not release victims’ criminal records unless there is a correlation between the victim’s criminal activity and the homicide, like a convicted drug offender slain during a drug deal. For $10, criminal records are available from the Michigan State Police data base.

Serpas also had a blanket-release policy in Nashville, but after he left 18 months ago, the department decided not to release every rap sheet. Someone with 100 arrests or a person with drug convictions being shot in a drug deal is different than someone with a drunken driving arrest from five years ago, said Nashville police spokesman Don Aaron.

Whether a murder happened in New Orleans, New York or Nashville, there often are common threads, experts said.

“What the New Orleans department is responding to and is true everywhere, is the nature of criminal homicide is that both the offender and the victim tend to have robust criminal records,” said David Kennedy, a professor at New York’s John Jay College of Criminal Justice. “Today’s victim is very likely to be yesterday’s perpetrator.”

Releasing all crime records might have unintended consequences, said Charles Ewing of the University of Buffalo Law School.

“One of which is to say to the average citizen that this is not going to happen to you,” Ewing said. “You are a law-abiding citizen so you are safe, which is not always true.”

Ainsworth, the Good Samaritan, had been arrested for possession and distribution of marijuana and LSD as well as several other non-violent charges. He was on probation for marijuana possession from 2006-2008, and for distribution of LSD from 1987 to 1989. Police said they are still looking for a man who shot him.

The policy has also drawn criticism for what some called its racial overtones.

Police tout building community trust and getting witnesses to testify as a large part of the crime-fighting effort, but the policy on murder victims is a poor way to reverse long-time problems what has been mostly black areas, said Mary Howell, a civil rights attorney in New Orleans.

“To insult and add to grief of these families at the same time they’re saying they want community policing, is incredible,” Howell said. “All I can see this has accomplished is to instill anger and deepen grief.”

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A Broken Heart Can Kill You

The 2010 list, released by the government Wednesday, reflects at least two major trends: Murders are down, and deaths from certain diseases are on the rise as the population ages, health authorities said.

Homicide was overtaken at No. 15 by pneumonitis, seen mainly in people 75 and older. It happens when food or vomit goes down the windpipe and causes deadly damage to the lungs.

This is the first time since 1965 that homicide failed to make the list, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The CDC’s latest annual report on deaths contained several nuggets of good news:

-The infant mortality rate dropped to an all-time low of 6.14 deaths per 1,000 births in 2010. It was 6.39 the year before.

-U.S. life expectancy for a child born in 2010 was about 78 years and 8 months, up about a little more than one month from life expectancy for 2009.

-Heart disease and cancer remain the top killers, accounting for nearly half the nation’s more than 2.4 million deaths in 2010. But the death rates from them continued to decline.

- Death rates for five other leading causes of death also dropped in 2010, including stroke, chronic lower respiratory diseases, accidents, flu/pneumonia and blood infections.

But death rates increased for Alzheimer’s disease, which is the nation’s sixth-leading killer, kidney disease (No. 8), chronic liver disease and cirrhosis (No. 12), Parkinson’s disease (No. 14) and pneumonitis.

The report is drawn from a review of at least 98 percent of the death certificates filed in the U.S. in 2010.

The government has been keeping a list of the top causes of death since 1949. Homicide has historically ranked fairly low. It was as high as 10th in 1989 and in 1991 through 1993, when the nation saw a surge in youth homicides related to the crack epidemic.

In the past decade, homicide’s highest ranking was 13th. That was in 2001 and was due in part to the 9/11 attacks.

Murders have been declining nationally since 2006, according to FBI statistics. Falling homicide rates have been celebrated in several major cities, including New York City, Detroit and Washington.

Criminologists have debated the reasons but believe several factors may be at work. Among them: Abusive relationships don’t end in murder as often as they once did, thanks to increased incarcerations and better, earlier support for victims.

“We’ve taken the home out of homicide,” said James Alan Fox, a Northeastern University criminologist who studies murder data.

Some also credit better police work and public health programs aimed at reducing violence.

Demographics are an important factor, too, as the largest segment of the population is now 50 and older. Younger people – who are most likely to commit or fall victim to murder – are making up a smaller share of the population.

That ties in to the changes in the CDC’s list of causes of death.

“The risk of homicide declines with age, and the risk of death by disease increases,” Fox said.

However, some causes of death associated with old age are giving way to others, noted Robert Anderson, the CDC official who oversaw the report. Doctors have been getting better at preventing and treating heart disease and cancer, which allows something else to become the cause of death.

“In previous years, someone with both heart disease and Parkinson’s would have been more likely to have died from heart disease. Now with better treatment, they die from Parkinson’s instead,” Anderson said in an email.

Pneumonitis is another example. Despite its name, pneumonitis is not related to pneumonia. It occurs in people who have lost the ability to swallow or protect their airway.

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According to an excellent piece in today’s New York Times, New Orleans’ murder rate in 2010 was 10 times the national average, “long before shootings on Halloween night in the crowded French Quarter revealed to a larger public what was going on in poor neighborhoods around the city every week.”

There were 51 homicides per 100,000 residents here last year, compared with less than 7 per 100,000 in New York or 23 in similar-size Oakland, Calif.

“From September of last year to February of this year,” said Mayor Mitch Landrieu in a recent speech, after reciting a litany of killings from one city high school, “a student attending John McDonogh was more likely to be killed than a soldier in Afghanistan.”

The causes of the skyrocketing rate can be found in the economic devastation and social dislocation in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. Notorious corruption in the police department hasn’t helped, leading to a great mistrust between New Orleans’s citizenry and the force that is supposed to serve and protect them.

The narrower causes are less clear. There are no large organized gangs in town, nor are there major drug wars, though some killings are turf disputes over the drug market, made worse by the drastic reshuffling of the urban poor after Hurricane Katrina and the demolition of public housing projects.

Many killings in New Orleans are a result of conflicts and vendettas among small, loosely organized groups, the analysis concluded, but in nearly half the cases, the experts listed the primary motive as uncertain or unknown. Only about half the homicide cases are cleared.

In the end, its not the living who pay, but the victims:

The killers and their victims are overwhelmingly young black men, according to an analysis of homicide cases by outside experts last March, and sponsored by the federal Bureau of Justice Assistance. As police officials frequently point out to the anger of some families, most victims and offenders had prior contacts with the police, often for violent crimes. Less than a quarter were listed as having a steady job.

Read More In The New York Times

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NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — A grand jury says there should not be a new investigation into the murder-suicide of ex-NFL player Steve McNair and his girlfriend.

Authorities say the 36-year-old quarterback who spent most of his career with the Tennessee Titans was shot to death July 4, 2009, by his mistress, 20-year-old Sahel Kazemi, who then killed herself.

Vincent Hill, a former Nashville police officer, has said there should be a new investigation and requested that a three-member team from the Davidson County grand jury review his complaint.

In its final report filed Friday, the panel said Hill “lacked evidence to support his views.”

“The panel felt that this was a case that should not be heard by other members of the grand jury,” the report added.

RELATED: Last Texts Between McNair & Girlfriend Released

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Hill has disputed investigators’ findings in McNair’s death and wrote a book presenting his own theory of the crime.

However, Nashville Police spokesman Don Aaron recently told The Associated Press that the current investigation should stand.

“The Nashville Police Department … stands by its investigation into this matter, which determined after an examination of all the evidence that McNair was murdered by Kazemi, who then killed herself,” he said.

Hill couldn’t be reached by The AP for comment. But he recently told The Tennessean daily that police made multiple errors in their investigation and didn’t properly research conflicting alibis.

Hill resigned from the Nashville police in 2006 with a disciplinary action pending. He was accused of disobeying orders.

Davidson County District Attorney Torry Johnson said in a news release that theories relating to the McNair investigation are not backed up by facts.

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STOCKTON, Calif. – Tearful and trembling, a Sunday school teacher apologized in court Monday for kidnapping and murdering her young daughter’s playmate but didn’t address the main question surrounding the shocking crime that will keep her in prison for the rest of her life.

Why did she do it?

“I still cannot understand why I did what I did. This is a question I will struggle with for the rest of my life,” Melissa Huckaby said before a judge sentenced her to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

The only comfort that Huckaby offered the family of 8-year-old Sandra Cantu was that she “did not suffer, and I did not sexually molest your daughter.”

Few details of the killing were released until Monday, when a judge lifted a gag order.

Authorities disclosed an investigative summary that depicted a brutal killing that left the child with wounds to her head and body, including injuries to the outside of her genitals that were consistent with a bloodstained rolling pin found inside a church where Huckaby had taught. The stain matched Sandra’s blood, prosecutors said.

“It’s hard for me to believe that Sandra Cantu did not suffer,” Deputy District Attorney Tom Testa said.

A pathologist’s report listed the official cause of death as “homicidal asphyxiation.” Prosecutors believe Huckaby drugged the girl then smothered her with a cloth soaked in rubbing alcohol.

Sandra’s body — found in a black suitcase pulled from an irrigation pond — contained alprazolam, a prescription sedative commonly used to treat anxiety. Prescription bottles of the drug were found in Huckaby’s purse and home, prosecutors said.

Huckaby, 29, pleaded guilty last month to first-degree murder with a special circumstance of kidnapping. As part of a plea deal, prosecutors took the death penalty off the table and dropped all other charges, including allegations that she sexually abused the girl.

Testa believes two other drugging cases against Huckaby were “practice attempts” leading to Sandra’s killing. Charges also were dropped in those cases, which involved a 7-year-old girl and a 37-year-old man whom police believe Huckaby had been dating.

District Attorney James Willett said he was satisfied with the plea deal as a way to avoid a costly trial that could drag on for years. He believes the outcome would have been the same, with a jury sentencing Huckaby to a life term.

“California’s death penalty is a joke,” he said.

Defense attorney Sam Behar declined comment outside court.

During the sentencing, Huckaby addressed the victim’s mother, Maria Chavez.

“I’m asking you, Maria, for your forgiveness,” Huckaby said. “I can’t imagine forgiving someone who harmed my daughter. I hope someday you can forgive me.”

Sandra’s family asked the court to play a video depicting her short life. The footage brought many in the courtroom to tears, including Huckaby.

“She changed the lives of a lot of people. A lot of people,” said Daniel Cantu, Sandra’s father, who broke down as he addressed Huckaby.

“All I can say right now is, repent and think about what you’ve done,” he said.

Sandra’s aunt Angie Chavez told Judge Linda Lofthus that Huckaby robbed her family of the ability to see Sandra grow up, go to college, fall in love, get married and have children.

“No amount of explanation can make any sense of what she did or why she did it.” Angie Chavez said. “The only solace we have as a family is to know that she will never do this again.”

Sandra was last seen on a surveillance video walking through the Orchard Estates Mobile Home Park on March 29, 2009. Prosecutors said the girl can be seen looking in the direction of Huckaby’s home before she goes off-camera.

Eight minutes later, the tape shows Huckaby driving her SUV from the mobile home park in the direction of her grandfather’s church, where the bloodstained rolling pin was found.

A massive search ended April 6, 2009, when the girl’s body was found stuffed in the suitcase in the pond a few miles from the mobile home park. Sandra’s body was found with a piece of bloody cloth tied around her head, and the suitcase was bound with a cord that authorities determined had come from a set of window blinds at the church, according to prosecutors’ documents.

A couple later told authorities that they saw Huckaby and her SUV at the pond on the day of Sandra’s disappearance and were told Huckaby was there to urinate.

Huckaby was arrested less than a week later after telling a reporter the suitcase belonged to her but had been stolen from her driveway the day Sandra disappeared.

Huckaby had shown authorities a note that she claimed she found at the mobile home park that read, “Cantu locked in stolin suitcase thrown in water onn Bacchetti Rd. & Whitehall Rd witness.”

The handwriting on the note was similar to Huckaby’s, prosecutors said.

In a separate hearing Monday, Loftus agreed to unseal search warrant affidavits and grand jury transcripts in the case. The documents were not immediately made available, however, because the victim’s family was considering whether to appeal that ruling.

The Associated Press, Bay Area News Group and The Record newspaper of Stockton sought to have the material unsealed.

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A toddler who loved cruising around on her Big Wheel and holding the end of a jump rope died today after being shot in the head as she sat with her two young sisters in the back of her parents’ car Wednesday night in the Chatham neighborhood on the South Side.

The shooter apparently was targeting the girl’s father, police said.

Cynia Cole died just before noon at the University of Chicago Comer Children’s Hospital, a hospital spokesman said. Cynia — called “Coco” by her family — was just 20 months old.

The girl’s mother, Alberta Cole, said doctors had been trying to reduce swelling inside her daughter’s head.

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The toddler was a “feisty” kid, she said, who loved “Disney . . . Hannah Montana, Dora the Explorer . . .” and liked “to sing along.”

Police believe Coco’s father, Jerome Hendricks, was the intended target of the shooter, who fired on the family’s car as it sat parked in the 640 block of East 92nd Place.

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From TheGuardian.co.uk:

A judge in the US has finally dismissed a lawsuit against the city of Los Angeles from the mother of late rapper Notorious BIG.

Voletta Wallace had filed the suit blaming the city and the LAPD for her son’s wrongful death.

However, judge Jacqueline Nguyen has now dismissed the lawsuit without prejudice after five years of legal wrangles. Uncertainty has surrounded the death of the rapper, who was gunned down in 1997.

Click here to view photos:

Based upon claims from former officer Russell Poole, the wrongful death suit had alleged that LAPD officers Rafael Perez and David Mack had conspired alongside Death Row Records boss Marion “Suge” Knight to murder the rapper.

Mack and Amir Muhammed, who had been accused of pulling the trigger, have long since been cleared of criminal charges.

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Once again, a nightmare-like news story may turn out to be the product of real life insanity. Sources are now offering details about the murder of 4 people in their Chicago home: an adult woman and three children (including an infant) that occurred early Wednesday.

A man arrested after a woman and three children, including an infant and a toddler, were found shot to death in a Chicago home told police voices encouraged him to kill his family and he was sorry he had run out of bullets, a person close to the investigation told The Associated Press.

Those killed inside a brick home on the city’s southwest side early Wednesday included the suspected gunman’s wife, his 7-month-old son and his two nieces, said the person who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the investigation. A woman and a teenage boy also were wounded and remained hospitalized.

The Cook County Medical Examiner’s office identified the dead as: 7-month-old Jahad Larry, 3-year-old Kelesha Larry, 16-year-old Keyshai Fields and 19-year-old Tawana Thompson Larry.

The person said the suspected gunman told police Allah had told him to kill family members. The man’s sister told reporters at a vigil outside the home that her brother had recently been reading passages from an Islamic text that led him to believe he should kill someone.

Click here to read more.

Updated 04.14.10, 2:46 p.m., Family Massacred In Rampage On Chicago’s South Side

From WGNTv.com:

CHICAGO – Four people were killed and two injured this morning after a man went on a deadly rampage on the city’s south side.
Chicago police held an impromptu news conference this morning near the home of a deadly multiple shooting that left four family members dead on the scene and two others transported with injuries.

The shooting happened sometime after 4 a.m. at 7248 S. Mozart Street in the Marquette Park neighborhood.

WATCH VIDEO here:

WGN-TV has received new details in this story: Suspect beat up his wife who fleed from their home in Madison, Wisconsin and seeks refuge at suspects mother’s home in Chicago. His wife was pregnant. The suspect arrives at his mother’s home in Chicago and shoots and kills his wife, 7-month-old son and 16-year-old niece, who is also pregnant and another 3-year-old. Suspect shoots his mother, who later died at the hospital. Suspects 13-year-old nephew calls 911 and tells police of shooting in the house. The 13-year-old is then shot in the cheek on his face. He is now in critical condition at Advocate Christ Hospital in Oak Lawn. Suspects 12-year-old niece takes her 7-month-old brother and flees from the scene with suspect shooting at her. She gets away safely with 7-month-old brother. The suspects grandmother is in critical condition at Advocate Christ Hospital in Oak Lawn as well.

Eighth District Commander John Kupczyk told reporters this morning that among the dead, two were found in one bedroom, and two in another. He did not specify where in the bedrooms they were found.

Click here to view photos of Children & Violence:

“This is a crime scene, a horrendous scene,” he said. “Something like this is pretty incomprehensible. We officers have families too.”

Click here to read more.

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NEWARK, N.J. — A New Jersey man has pleaded not guilty after police say he told them he threw his 3-month-old daughter off a bridge.

Twenty-one-year-old Shamsiddi Abdur-Raheem appeared composed during his video arraignment Thursday in Newark. He is charged with kidnapping, attempted murder, aggravated assault and child endangerment.

Text continues after gallery…

The child’s mother watched in court but had no visible reaction. Officials say she had sought a restraining order against Abdur-Raheem.

Officials say he snatched Zara Malani-lin Abdur from her grandmother Tuesday and told them he threw the girl off a river bridge.

Search teams have found no sign of the baby. State Police Sgt. Julian Castellanos says the mission is still a rescue attempt even though the odds of a baby surviving this long are slim.

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SUWANEE, Ga. – Police in Georgia say a man stabbed his estranged wife to death in a Walmart parking lotwhere they met to exchange custody of their two children.

A Suwanee police news release says the couple began arguing Sunday outside of the store in the city about 30 miles northeast of Atlanta.

Phillip Chad Dunn, 28, of Lawrenceville stabbed his wife during the argument then stabbed himself, according to the release. Police say Shelley Dyan Dunn, 27, of Buford, died of her wounds at a nearby hospital.

Police say their children were present. Their ages weren’t immediately disclosed.

Text continues after gallery…

Phillip Dunn was in custody and expected to survive.

Police Captain Cass Mooney says charges were pending Sunday night against Phillip Dunn. Mooney didn’t know if he had a lawyer.

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ST. LOUIS — A man with an assault rifle walked into a business Thursday and shot at least three people, police said. Their conditions were not immediately known.

The shooting occurred around 6:30 a.m. at the ABB Power plant on the city’s north side and two hours later, police believed the gunman was still in the building. Details about the victims were not immediately known.

Swiss-based ABB Group makes power transmission and industrial automation equipment. The company manufactures transformers at the St. Louis site, according to its Web site. It wasn’t immediately known how many people work at the plant.

The St. Louis Post-Dispatch Web site, citing dispatcher reports, said some employees ran to the rooftop to escape the gunfire. The Web site said dispatchers described the gunman as wearing a tan coat and carrying a semiautomatic weapon.

KMOV-TV reported that nearly three dozen emergency vehicles circled the sprawling plant on a day made more chaotic by several inches of snowfall that have snarled traffic in the St. Louis region.

ABB has operations in roughly 100 countries, employing about 120,000 people. Last October, ABB reported third-quarter earnings of more than $1 billion.

Phone messages and e-mail interview requests left Thursday by The Associated Press with Thomas Schmidt, an ABB corporate spokesman in Zurich, Switzerland, were not immediately returned.

Calls to the St. Louis business went unanswered Thursday morning.

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From AJC.com:

Four-year-old Marquel Peters loved church. So much so, that he cried recently when he thought he would miss it because a relative was running late.

For the New Year’s Eve service, Marquel brought along a video game to play during an intermission.

The next time Marquel returns to his family’s church, it will be for his funeral.

Thursday night, Marquel and about a dozen family members attended a service at the Church of God of Prophecy near Decatur.

Marquel was seated next to his mother, Nathalee, while those in the church waited for a 12:30 a.m. concert to begin. Then, those in the sanctuary heard a loud pop. It was almost like the sound of a balloon.

Instantly, Marquel was on the floor, and he was bleeding.

“No one knew what it was,” said Garry Peters, Marquel’s uncle. “It was just crazy.”

Click here to read more.

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McDONOUGH, Ga. — Music producer Demetrius Lee Stewart, known as Shawty Redd, is being held in a suburban Atlanta jail on a murder charge.

Henry County Police Capt. Jason Bolton says Stewart was arrested Friday morning.

Stewart is accused of shooting 35-year-old Damon A. Martin of Detroit in an argument at Stewart’s home in Hampton, about 30 miles southeast of Atlanta.

The 28-year-old Stewart is charged with murder and was being held without bond in the Henry County jail Saturday. His first court appearance is scheduled for Jan. 12. Police didn’t know whether Stewart has a lawyer.

Stewart has worked with Young Jeezy, Snoop Dogg and other major artists.

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FAYETTEVILLE, N.C. – A 5-year-old North Carolina girl was raped and killed the same day she was taken from her home, according to an arrest warrant released Friday.

Shaniya Davis was sexually assaulted and asphyxiated Nov. 10, the day her mother reported her missing from the trailer park where she was staying, according to the warrant. Authorities embarked on a nearly weeklong search that ended when the girl’s body was found dumped off a rural road.

Mario McNeill is charged with first-degree murder and first-degree rape of a child in the warrant, which was issued after police said they collected hair and fibers, clothes, and a straw from his 1997 Mitsubishi Galant. He was initially charged only with kidnapping.

RELATED: Suspect Admits To Taking Shaniya Davis

The girl’s mother, Antoinette Davis, is charged with filing a false police report, trafficking her daughter and child abuse involving prostitution. Her family members have said they do not believe the charges.

It is still not clear how McNeill and Davis knew each other.

Earlier in the week, authorities said McNeill admitted taking the girl. Fayetteville Police Chief Tom Bergamine would not say during a news conference late Thursday whether McNeill admitted to the child’s death.

A search warrant says McNeill picked the girl up in front of her home and drove her more than 30 miles to a hotel in Sanford, where she was last seen alive. Surveillance video captured McNeill carrying the girl in the building.

“It is our sincere hope that the Davis family may now begin to put this horrific event behind them and begin the healing process,” Bergamine said.

RELATED: Mom Accused Of Selling Missing 5-Year-Old Into Prostitution

A message seeking comment was left at the office of McNeill’s lawyer, Allen Rogers.

Tomeka Gray, 20, who is dating McNeill’s brother, said the accusations don’t jibe with what she knows about him. She said McNeill was a good uncle and father who came to see her daughter in the hospital with an armload of baby items right after she was born earlier this year.

“I’ve never known him to do anything like that,” Gray told The Associated Press. She said when she saw the story on the news her first thought was that she hoped authorities would catch the horrible person who did it.

“And then to find out it was him … I was crying. I was shocked,” she said.

Meanwhile, Shaniya’s father, Bradley Lockhart, appeared on Friday’s “The Oprah Winfrey Show,” where Winfrey asked him if he had anything to say to Davis. He told The Associated Press earlier that he had cared for Shaniya for several years but decided to give Davis a chance to raise her because she seemed to be getting her life together.

“Right now I just think it’s best that we let the justice system take its course,” Lockhart said on the show. “I try to keep my heart as pure as possible, and I’m sure one day I will be able to sit down and talk to her, try and understand what was going through her mind.”

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Shaniya Davis’ Brother: “Parents, Don’t Let This Happen To Your Child”, [Updated 11.19.09, 2:00 p.m.]

From Essence.com:

Shaniya Davis was only five. She liked playing dress-up and dancing to the tunes of soulful music. On November 10, Shinaya’s mother, 25-year-old Antoinette Davis, reported her missing. The police subsequently uncovered shocking information: Officials believed that the little girl’s mother, Antoinette sold her daughter into sexual slavery. They arrested Davis and charged her with human trafficking. On November 16, the little girl’s dead body was found by rescue workers in a wooded area near a highway in Sanford, North Carolina. ESSENCE.COM spoke exclusively with Shaniya’s half-brother, Byron Coleman, 21, about the incident, how he found out, and what he remembers the most about his baby sister.

RELATED: Mom Accused Of Selling Missing 5-Year-Old Into Prostitution

ESSENCE.COM Can you tell me about your little sister, Shaniya?
BYRON COLEMAN: She was a very sweet little girl but very, very, shy. She wouldn’t go to just anybody, you would really have to know her. And, she would have to get warmed up to you, especially males. She was a daddy’s girl.

ESSENCE.COM: How close were you to her?
COLEMAN: Me and Shaniya were really close. I would see her every time I came home (from college). The last time I saw her is when we went to Chuckie Cheese. It was fun and she enjoyed it. We went there and McDonald’s and then I went to the store to get her some flip-flops. She saw how they lit up when you walked so she was like, “I want these,” and a Barbie doll.

RELATED: Suspect Admits To Taking Shaniya Davis

ESSENCE.COM: What else did she like to do?
COLEMAN: Make-up, every girl’s dream. She loved Hannah Montana, I know that. She (also) loved R&B because she was always singing.

ESSENCE.COM: When did you find out what happened to your sister?
COLEMAN: I found out the same day that it occurred. I was in Charlotte. I received a phone call from my dad and saw it all over the news. My father said that my little sister was missing but don’t worry too much because she will be coming home pretty soon.

Click here to read more.

From TheRoot.com:

From the D.C. sniper to Ft. Hood, it’s un-American to blame black people or Muslims for what crazy people do.

Long before bloggers were given front-row seats at Milan Fashion Week, or the president took questions from a blogger at the White House, two writers from the online Underground News Network scored press passes to cover the trial of the D.C. sniper John Allen Muhammad.

The Web site’s editors followed some teachings of Islam and were fervent supporters of Muhammad, whose murderous rampage they believed was riddled with divine meaning. They traveled there to monitor the mainstream media covering the 2003 trial—me included—who didn’t realize that that the shootings were actually “like a message from a high priest” intended to “take black people to a higher consciousness.”

Right…

After I published my interview with this kooky pair, I got an e-mail from a friend who is a journalist of Arabic descent who happens to be Muslim. She joked that it’s bad enough they presented themselves as journalists. They would have to be Muslim, too!

Click here to read more.

RELATED:

O’Reilly: We Can’t Kill All Muslims, So Let’s Win Hearts & Minds

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From Examiner.com:

C-Murder’s life as a free man is over.

Everybody believes that, except for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) , which wants to go to the Louisiana Supreme Court and see if they can’t garner a retrial.

Why?

One juror in the initial trial, Mary Jacob, said in an interview that she was pressured by her fellow jurors to enter a vote of guilty. She said the jurors verbally abused her during the sessions. Although Judge Hans Liljeberg ordered another deliberation, a vote of 10-2 found C-Murder guilty.

C-Murder, whose real name is Corey Miller, was sentenced to life in prison for the murder of Steve Thomas, 16, in a nightclub in Harvey, La.

Miller’s brothers are rap mogul Master P, founder of No Limit Records, and MC Silkk the Shocker. P’s son Romeo is also an MC.

To read more, click here.

A dispute over line-cutting at a roadside food stand led to the shooting death of a bystander and the serious injury of another man, Tampa police said.

Police arrested two men in the case Friday, Juan Martinez-Morales, 20, and Leeching-Hong Luberisse, 18. Both were booked into jail Saturday on charges of second-degree murder, attempted murder and being a felon in possession of a firearm, according to Hillsborough County jail records.

It’s unclear who cut in line. But on Aug. 8, Luberisse punched Eriberto Reyes, 27, while waiting at a vendor’s food cart that was set up on Hillsborough Avenue, Tampa police reported. Martinez-Morales then pulled a gun and shot Reyes three times in the abdomen, police said. A stray bullet hit Alquan Garner, 23, who was not involved in the dispute. Garner got in a car and drove off but crashed a short distance away. He was taken to a nearby hospital, where he later died from his wound. Reyes was taken to the same hospital and remained in serious condition.

Police learned where Martinez-Morales and Luberisse were staying last week, and officers staked out their apartment Friday. After Luberisse left, police went in the apartment and found Martinez-Morales. Luberisse was followed from the apartment, pulled over and arrested.

Luberisse and Martinez-Morales were being held without bail. Jail records did not show if they had an attorney.

Garner left behind a fiancee, Sarah Mayor.

From BET.com:

Florida A&M University student Michelle Coleman, 21, died Tuesday, July 7 after suffering from bullet wounds while at a party in Miami ’s Overtown neighborhood early Monday morning.

According to police, three armed men dressed in all black opened fire on the crowd at 12:45 a.m. hitting 12 people, including Coleman. Coleman was the first injured partygoer to die from the shooting spree while others still remain hospitalized.

Police reported a second fatality on Thursday, July 9, when 17-year-old high school student Anthony Smith died from gunshot wounds.

Click here for full story.

Updated 7/16/09, 10:55 a.m.

From MSNBC:

LOS ANGELES – Despite an online report claiming Michael Jackson’s death has now turned into a homicide investigation, a Los Angeles Police Department spokesperson told Access Hollywood the investigation of the singer’s death is “ongoing” and currently not being treated as a homicide.

On Wednesday, TMZ claimed that “the LAPD is already treating Michael Jackson’s death as a homicide, and they are focusing on Dr. Conrad Murray,” citing multiple law enforcement sources. The Web site further claimed that “the evidence points to the anesthesia propofol as the primary cause of Jackson’s death.”

When contacted by Access Hollywood, LAPD Officer Tenesh Dobine defined the investigation as “ongoing” and said that they do not know where TMZ obtained information indicating Jackson’s death was now being treated as a homicide.

Click here to read more.

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From TMZ

Multiple law enforcement sources tell TMZ the LAPD is already treating Michael Jackson’s death as a homicide, and they are focusing on Dr. Conrad Murray.

Law enforcement sources tell us the evidence points to the anesthesia Propofol as the primary cause of Jackson’s death. As we first reported, vials of Propofol were found in Jackson’s home after he died.

Law enforcement sources say there is already “plenty of powerful evidence” linking Dr. Murray as the person who administered the drug to Jackson. The evidence includes various items found in Jackson’s house, including the Propofol, an IV stand and oxygen tank.

From NYPost.com:

A driver who had been fighting with his wife in the parking lot of a Chuck E. Cheese cut a path of destruction through The Bronx yesterday, ramming cars and killing a father — who died pushing his 6-year-old boy to safety, cops said.

Mark St. Pierre, 36, of The Bronx, injured 13 people in a 20-block demolition derby before cops arrested him, po lice said.

The bizarre violence started at the children’s pizza restaurant on Gun Hill Road near Ely Avenue in Baychester at about 5:45 p.m.

St. Pierre got into a 2008 Infiniti and sped west on Gun Hill Road, a witness said.

Click here for the full report.

A woman found dead in a skyscraper where a cleaning woman had vanished days earlier was bound and gagged and had a gold crucifix taped to her mouth, police said Sunday.

Police searching for the missing cleaning woman at a building near the World Trade Center site found the body on Saturday after discovering blood leaking from a ventilation shaft, top police spokesman Paul Browne said.

The body hadn’t been identified, but police presumed it was that of Eridania Rodriguez, who hasn’t been seen since her work shift Tuesday at the 26-story Manhattan tower. Rodriguez’ street clothes and other belongings were found in her locker, and video surveillance didn’t show her leaving the building.

An autopsy Sunday determined the dead woman, found in a 12th-floor air-conditioning duct, was asphyxiated by tape applied to her head and face, medical examiner’s office spokeswoman Ellen Borakove said.

The woman’s hands were tied behind her back, and her feet and mouth were bound, Browne said. The crucifix was dangling by the woman’s mouth, Browne said, but it was unclear whether the necklace had been caught underneath the tape.

“We haven’t determined whether the crucifix ended up there incidentally or intentionally,” he said.

The woman was wearing a work shirt and sweatpants and had suffered a head wound, Browne said. Her shoes were found elsewhere in the air-conditioning duct, he said.

Rodriguez, 46, was the sister of professional bodybuilder Victor Martinez. She was a native of the Dominican Republic who lived in upper Manhattan and was married with several children.

She made her last appearance on security videotape entering an elevator at the skyscraper about 7 p.m. Tuesday. Her cleaning cart was found on the eighth floor.

Rodriguez worked on some vacant floors in the 400,000-square-foot building, and relatives said the emptiness had unsettled her and them.

The atmosphere “is like a creepy place, empty — you know you’re working in a place there’s nobody but you,” brother-in-law Rafael Dicent said Sunday.

He and others in the family went to the building to look for Rodriguez shortly after her disappearance.

Investigators traveled Friday to a Pennsylvania landfill where the building’s garbage is taken to see if Rodriguez’ body had been dumped with the trash.

The building, at 2 Rector St., is a few blocks from the World Trade Center site. Like many others near ground zero, it was upgraded with enhanced security after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. Cameras cover every exit, and guards staff the lobby 24 hours a day.

Among the building’s tenants are Daniel Libeskind, the architect who created the master plan to redevelop the 16-acre trade center site.

A man put an 8-year-old girl in a headlock Wednesday and shot her to death, then shot himself in the stomach, authorities said.

The girl’s father is dating Ricky Lee Blackwell’s estranged wife. Spartanburg County deputies said Blackwellshot the girl twice in the driveway of a home where he had taken her and his estranged wife to swim and play. The home is in Chesnee, about 60 miles southwest of Charlotte, N.C.

Several adults and children saw the shooting and pointed officers toward Blackwell, investigators said.

Blackwell shot himself as police closed in. He was taken to a hospital but his condition wasn’t released.

The coroner’s office identified the girl as Heather Brooke Center of Woodruff.

Investigators said they weren’t sure of Blackwell’s motive.

“I don’t know where you can go in the mind to justify shooting a child,” said Spartanburg County Sheriff Chuck Wright. “I don’t understand how you can get so angry.”

The sheriff said Blackwell, 50, has a long criminal record. He was charged with murder and kidnapping. No one answered his phone Wednesday night.

“As soon as they called his name, I knew him,” Wright said. “I’d heard that boy’s name before.”

Police say 12 people were shot when up to three gunmen stormed a Miami house party and opened fire.

Police spokesman Det. William Moreno said three of the wounded were hospitalized in critical condition from the shooting early Monday morning. Another person fleeing the home was struck by a vehicle.

Moreno said up to three men wearing all black stormed the gathering and opened fire with automatic weapons. The incident happened around 12:45 a.m in Miami’s Overtown neighborhood.

Police are searching for the suspects. Police were investigating the motive.

A judge has delayed a decision on whether a suspect in the slaying of Washington Redskins star defensive back Sean Taylor can withdraw his guilty plea.

A hearing was set Friday in Miami on the request by 21-year-old Venjah Hunte. But after a private conference with attorneys, Miami-Dade Circuit Judge Dennis Murphy postponed the issue for another week.

Hunte’s plea deal calls for a 29-year prison sentence. He could get life if he goes to trial with four co-defendants.

The 24-year-old Taylor died after being shot in an attempted robbery at his home in November 2007. He was an All-Pro safety with the Redskins who starred in college at the University of Miami.

All five suspects are from the Fort Myers area. Their trial is set for Jan. 18.

A Kansas City man has been sentenced to 33 years in prison for killing a man during a melee that erupted when someone threw a bottle of hot sauce.

The Kansas City Star reports that 29-year-old Jarvis T. Williams was sentenced Thursday for his convictions on second-degree murder, three counts of assault and four counts of armed criminal action.

Prosecutors claim he fired more than 20 rounds from an assault rifle into a car in October 2005, killing 22-year-old Gary Scott and wounding three others.

Prosecutors said the victim had thrown a bottle of hot sauce at a woman’s car, angering Williams.

They had requested a life sentence. Williams’ public defender did not immediately return a call seeking comment.

From BET.com:

A Louisiana teen is suspected of raping and beating to death his girlfriend’s 8-month-old son. Police say they were called to an apartment near Gretna, La., to administer aid to a seemingly unconscious child. The child, Da-Von Lonzo was rushed to a hospital, where he was pronounced dead, authorities said. The medical examiner has ruled the death a homicide. The body had multiple fractures and tears to the rectum, he said.

At first, the 17-year-old suspect, Arnold T. Ross, told detectives that Da-Von fell down the stairs and stopped breathing while he was babysitting him. That story began to unravel, however, when a neighbor told police that there were screams coming from the apartment, according to the sheriff’s office.

Click here for the full story.

Other Incidents of Children Involved in Violence

Atlanta Woman Arrested For Hit & Run That Killed 5

Sunday School Teacher May Face Rape Charges in Killing of 8 Year Old

VIDEO: Woman Kills Son At Gun Range

11 Year Old Hangs Himself Due to Bullying

Bullying & The Crisis Of Masculinity

Four people have been arrested in the “cold-blooded” slaying of an armored car guard as he carried a money bag out of a Wal-Mart, police said Wednesday. One suspect was a Wal-Mart employee on duty during the robbery.

A man believed to be the gunman and another man were arrested Wednesday, Lakewood police Lt. Heidi Hoffman said. Two earlier arrests include the suspected getaway driver and a woman who was working at the Wal-Mart during the robbery Tuesday afternoon, she said at a news conference.

All four were arrested for investigation of homicide, robbery and assault. Police did not identify them but said more arrests were possible.

Loomis security guard Kurt Husted was shot in the head while leaving an Anchor Bank branch inside the Wal-Mart in this south Tacoma suburb. The same bullet also wounded a customer.

Hoffman said surveillance video of the robbery makes it clear the shooter made no attempt to take the money without violence.

“They just walked up and executed him,” she said. “It was very violent, very cold-blooded.”

Police recovered about two-thirds of the money, as well as a gun that was being tested. Hoffman wouldn’t specify the amount taken but confirmed it was in five figures.

The male customer wounded in the shooting told KIRO-TV he was with his 15-month-old son when he heard the shot and felt a bullet strike him.

“It was just straight cold,” Wilbert Pina said of the killing. “They didn’t give the guy a chance. They shot him, the bullet went through him, smacked me in the shoulder.”

A Wal-Mart spokesman declined to comment on an employee’s alleged involvement.

“Obviously, it’s a senseless act of violence,” spokesman Greg Rossiter said in a phone interview from Bentonville, Ark. “Our condolences go out to the guard’s family.”

The 39-year-old Husted had worked 16 years for Houston-based Loomis, and was wearing a bulletproof vest, company spokesman Pat Flaherty said.

“We mourn deeply the loss of Kurt Husted,” his family said in a statement released to KING5-TV. “He was a wonderful, caring person whom we loved deeply and will miss forever.”

A plainclothes policeman who drew his gun while chasing someone he had found rummaging through his car was shot and killed by a fellow officer who was driving by and saw the pursuit, the police commissioner said.

Commissioner Raymond Kelly said 25-year-old Omar J. Edwards died after being shot late Thursday within blocks of the Harlem police station where he worked.

Edwards had just finished his shift around 10:30 p.m. when he headed to his car and saw that the driver’s-side window had been smashed and a man was going through the vehicle, Kelly said.

Edwards struggled with the man, who got away from him by slipping out of his sweater, Kelly said. Edwards chased the man up two streets with his gun drawn, he said.

A sergeant and two plainclothes officers in an unmarked police car saw the pursuit and made a U-turn to follow the men, Kelly said. One of the officers jumped out of the car and fired six times, hitting Edwards twice — once in the arm and once in the chest, he said.

Kelly said Edwards did not fire his weapon. He died at the Harlem Hospital Center about an hour after the shooting.

It was unclear whether the officers identified themselves. The name of the officer who fired the shots has not been released, but Kelly said he had worked at the NYPD for four years.

“While we don’t know all the details of what happened tonight, this is a tragedy. Rest assured that we will find out exactly what happened here, and we will learn from it so it doesn’t happen again,” Mayor Michael Bloomberg said at a news conference from the hospital.

Kelly said Edwards had been on the force for two years and worked in the housing bureau. He was recently married and had two young children.

The shooter was white and Edwards was black, a fact that could raise questions about police use of deadly force in a minority community.

In the past three years in the New York City area, there have been two other cases of off-duty policemen being shot and killed by other officers.

In 2008, a black, off-duty Mount Vernon police officer was killed by a Westchester County policeman while holding a gun on an assault suspect in suburban White Plains. A grand jury found the victim had failed to identify himself as an officer. County officers — one white, one black and two Hispanic — were cleared of wrongdoing by a grand jury.

In 2006, a New York City police officer, Eric Hernandez, was shot and killed by an on-duty patrolman who was responding to an attack at a White Castle in the Bronx.

An angry crowd threw rocks and bottles at police in riot gear in Austin, Texas, hours after an officer shot two men, killing one of them.

Police say eight officers had minor injuries and eight patrol cars were damaged as authorities tried to break up the crowd of about 100 people that gathered after the Monday morning shooting.

Police Chief Art Acevedo said the shooting occurred after police investigating complaints of shots fired over the weekend approached a car with three men inside. He said an officer shot one man who made a movement toward a weapon when the officer tried to wake him up, and shot another who ran toward him.

Acevedo said the unidentified officer who fired will be placed on standard administrative leave.

Watch the News Report

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A shooting in Buffalo has claimed the life of a Bronx man who had just celebrated his college graduation.

Police say 23-year-old Javon Jackson was shot around 3 a.m. Sunday in the University Heights neighborhood.

He was taken to the Erie County Medical Center, where he was pronounced dead.

Jackson graduated from the University of Buffalo on Saturday, and his parents were in town for the ceremony.

Police believe the gunman may have been with three other men when they walked up behind Jackson. One of the men fired at least two shots, hitting him.

Police are trying to determine whether a skirmish in a bar earlier was related to the shooting.

Michigan authorities say a man working in his yard accidentally killed his wife with a chain saw.

The Otsego (aht-SEE’-go) couple were trying to cut a tree Sunday when the man hit his wife in the neck with the chain saw.

She died at the scene of the accident, about 35 miles south of Grand Rapids.

Sheriff’s Deputy David Labonde lives nearby. He tells WOOD-TV he heard a cry for help and did what he could to help.

The sheriff’s department says it’s withholding the couple’s names until other relatives are notified. The TV station says they’re in their 40s.

Prosecutors called the beating death of an illegal immigrant from Mexico a hate crime, and they urged an all-white jury in Pennsylvania coal country to punish two white teenagers for their roles in the attack.

Instead, the jury found the teens not guilty of all serious charges, a decision that elicited cheers and claps from the defendants’ families and friends _ and cries of outrage from the victim’s.

Brandon Piekarsky, 17, was acquitted of third-degree murder and ethnic intimidation, while Derrick Donchak, 19, was acquitted of aggravated assault and ethnic intimidation. Both were convicted of simple assault late Friday following a trial in which jurors were left to sort out the facts of an epithet-filled brawl that pitted popular football players against a 25-year-old Hispanic man, Luis Ramirez, who appeared willing to fight.

A representative of Ramirez’s family said the jurors got it wrong.

“There’s been a complete failure of justice,” said Gladys Limon, staff attorney for the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund, who attended the trial and informed Ramirez’s family of the verdict. “It’s just outrageous and very difficult to understand how any juror could have had reasonable doubt.”

On Saturday the group’s interim president, Henry Solano, called on the Justice Department to “bring justice to the Ramirez family and send a strong message that violence targeting immigrants will not be tolerated.” Piekarsky’s attorney declined comment on the possibility of federal charges against the teens.

Prosecutors had cast Ramirez as the victim of a gang of drunken white teens motivated by a dislike of their small coal town’s growing Hispanic population. They said he was killed by a kick to the head from Piekarsky after he’d been knocked unconscious by another teen.

The jury evidently sided with defense attorneys, who called Ramirez the aggressor and characterized the brawl as a street fight that ended tragically.

Jury foreman Eric Macklin said he sympathized with Ramirez’s loved ones but that the evidence pointed to an acquittal.

“I feel bad for Luis’s friends and family. I know they feel they haven’t gotten justice,” he said.

The simple assault convictions carry possible one- to two-year prison sentences. Donchak was also convicted of corruption of minors and an alcohol charge, both stemming from his purchase of beer and malt liquor that he drank with his underage friends the night of the fight. Sentencing has not been scheduled.

The case exposed ethnic tensions in Shenandoah, a blue-collar town of 5,000 that has lured Hispanic residents drawn by cheap housing and jobs in nearby factories and farm fields. Ramirez moved to the town about seven years ago from Iramuco, Mexico, working in a factory and picking strawberries and cherries.

The 2000 U.S. Census showed that Schuylkill County’s population was 96.6 percent white, with 1.1 percent of the county listed as Hispanic or Latino.

The fight began late July 12 when a half-dozen teens, all Shenandoah residents who played football at Shenandoah Valley High School, were walking home from a block party and came across Ramirez and his 15-year-old girlfriend in a park.

Brian Scully, 18, asked the girl, “Isn’t it a little late for you to be out?” That enraged Ramirez, who began yelling in Spanish and dialing friends on his cell phone. Scully admitted shouting ethnic slurs. The verbal sparring soon turned into a physical altercation as Ramirez and Piekarsky traded blows, though prosecutors and defense attorneys disputed who threw the first punch.

Donchak then entered the fray and wound up on top of Ramirez. Prosecutors said he pummeled Ramirez, holding a small piece of metal in his fist to give his punches more power. Defense attorneys said Donchak tried to break up the fight between Piekarsky and Ramirez and denied he had a weapon.

The two sides eventually went their separate ways. But Scully kept yelling at Ramirez, leading the immigrant to charge after the group.

Colin Walsh, 17, then hit Ramirez, knocking him out.

“Does Mr. Ramirez fit the description of an innocent soul who just happened to get picked on by a group of kids?” Piekarsky defense attorney Fred Fanelli asked jurors in closing arguments. “He’s the only adult, and he makes some bad choices.”

Fanelli accused prosecutors of ignoring exculpatory evidence, including statements by two of Ramirez’s friends shortly after the fight that the kicker wore white sneakers _ the color Scully was wearing.

Fanelli also said prosecutors offered leniency to key witnesses _ including Scully and Walsh, who admitted knocking Ramirez unconscious with a punch to the face _ giving them a strong motive to lie.

Walsh pleaded guilty in federal court to violating Ramirez’s civil rights and could be out of prison in four years. On the witness stand, he identified Piekarsky as the kicker. So did Scully, who told jurors he tried to kick the immigrant but missed. Scully is charged in juvenile court with aggravated assault and ethnic intimidation.

Fanelli derided the prosecution testimony as “bought and paid for.”

Robert Franz, the prosecutor, denied any misconduct on the part of the district attorney’s office.

Displaying a candid photo of Ramirez, Franz told the jurors, “He was assaulted and he was beaten, and he was killed for walking the streets of Shenandoah. He didn’t deserve that.”

For over a week now, Atlanta area residents have wondered aloud what kind of monster would cause a chain-reaction crash that killed 5 people, including 3 children, and leave the scene.

Wednesday morning SWAT teams surrounded a home in an upscale subdivision in southwest Atlanta and impounded the BMW they say was involved in the hit and run. No one was home at the time.

Early this morning, Fulton County police arrested Aimee Michaels, 22, and charged her with five counts of vehicular homicide, one count of failure to maintain lane and one count of serious injury by vehicle, hit and run.

Click here for the full report.

From BET.com:

Henry Ford Community College is closed today after a murder-suicide last week in which a 20-year-old fine arts student was killed.

Asia McGowan was pulled into an empty classroom at the Dearborn, Mich. school, police say, when fellow student Anthony Powell attacked her with a shotgun. He then turned the weapon on himself.

Click here for more.

An 11-year-old boy apparently covered his shotgun with a blanket to keep it hidden when he left his bedroom, went downstairs and fatally shot his father’s pregnant girlfriend in the head as she slept, a prosecutor said Monday.

The blue blanket, which has a quarter-sized hole that appeared to be singed from a shotgun blast, supports a claim that the crime was premeditated, Lawrence County District Attorney John Bongivengo said.

Police found the blanket in the farmhouse where the boy, Jordan Brown, lived with his father; the father’s girlfriend, Kenzie Marie Houk; and her two daughters, ages 7 and 4. Houk was killed Friday morning while Brown’s father was at work and the two girls were in the home, authorities believe.

“The operating theory is that he covered the gun with the blanket to hide it when he came downstairs” from his bedroom to shoot Houk, who was in a first-floor bedroom, Bongivengo said. “It wasn’t used to muffle (the shot) or anything, the blanket wasn’t thick enough for that.”

Brown got the youth-sized shotgun as a Christmas present, and used it to win a turkey shoot on Valentine’s Day.

After shooting Houk, the boy ran to get on a school bus with the 7-year-old, who saw him toss something from his pocket on the ground, Bongivengo said. Police later found a spent 20-gauge shotgun shell at that spot.

The girl later implicated the boy in the killing, saying she saw him with what she believed to be a shotgun and heard a loud bang, Bongivengo has said.

Brown is charged as an adult with criminal homicide. In Pennsylvania, there is no criminal homicide charge in juvenile court.

“Because the juvenile system only has jurisdiction until he’s 21, the last thing I want is a 21-year-old who’s going to be out on the streets and willing to kill you,” Bongivengo said.

Houk’s family told police the boy had threatened her and her 7-year-old daughter in the weeks before the shooting, Bongivengo said. Houk’s family has told The Associated Press the boy may have been jealous of Houk and her children.

“If this person were 18, we’d be looking at pursuing the death penalty,” Bongivengo said.

Defense attorney Dennis Elisco has said he plans to ask a judge to move the case to juvenile court and to have the boy released on bail to his father. Brown is being held at the Lawrence County Jail, where jail officials said they don’t have adequate accommodations for someone that young. He is being kept separate from the jail’s approximately 300 adult inmates.

Elisco didn’t return calls for comment Monday. He has said the boy hasn’t confessed to the shooting and he doubts the physical evidence will support police’s claim that the boy killed Houk with one shot to the back of her head.

The Associated Press could not immediately locate relatives of the boy and his father for comment Monday.

Sandra Rose reports:

A transsexual who filed a lawsuit against the Memphis police after a February beating at the hands of an officer, was found shot to death in North Memphis late Sunday.

Duanna Johnson, 43, was shot in the head and died at the scene. In June, she offered to settle the lawsuit against the city of Memphis and the Memphis Police Department, but the parties could not reach an agreement.

According to online reports, one of Johnson’s attorney’s say the lawsuit will continue as planned.

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