Disabled Teen Sues TSA, Memphis Airport After Bloody Scuffle
July 11th, 2016Via: CBS:
A disabled St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital patient was injured, and then arrested, by security workers at a Memphis International Airport checkpoint, a lawsuit alleges.
CBS affiliate WREG-TV reports that 19-year-old Hannah Cohen was flying home to Chattanooga on June 30, 2015, after receiving treatment at Memphis-based St. Jude. Attorneys say Hannah Cohen has an impairment from radiation and removal of a brain tumor, and she is limited in her ability to talk, walk, stand, see and hear.
The lawsuit says an alarm went off as she and her mother were going through a security checkpoint operated by the Memphis International Airport Police Department and the Transportation Safety Administration. Hannah Cohen became disoriented by the alarm and the security workers’ attempts to search her, the lawsuit says.
“The security personnel failed to recognize that she was confused because of her obvious disability and was unable to cooperate with the search,” Cohen’s lawyers, Kelly Pearson and William Hardwick, wrote in the lawsuit.
Her mother, Shirley Cohen, said she tried to tell TSA agents about her daughter’s disability, but she was kept away by police.
“She’s trying to get away from them but in the next instant, one of them had her down on the ground and hit her head on the floor. There was blood everywhere,” Shirley Cohen told WREG-TV.
Delta Plane Mistakenly Lands at Ellsworth Air Force Base
July 9th, 2016Via: Rapid City Journal:
A Delta flight Thursday night from Minneapolis to Rapid City mistakenly landed at Ellsworth Air Force Base instead of Rapid City Regional Airport.
Flight 2845 had 130 passengers aboard, Delta said.
“Delta has contacted the customers of this flight and offered a gesture of apology for the inconvenience,” said a written statement issued Friday by Delta.
The flight’s crew has been taken off duty, the statement said, while an investigation commences by the National Transportation Safety Board and Delta begins its own internal review.
A spokeswoman at Rapid City Regional declined an interview request and referred all questions to Delta.
An Ellsworth spokeswoman, 1st Lt. Rachel Allison, issued a written statement.
“Base officials followed the proper procedures to address the situation and ensure the safety of our Airman, their families and the passengers,” the statement said, in part. “The aircraft departed for Rapid City Regional Airport later that night.”
A passenger interviewed by the Journal said she and her fellow passengers waited about 2½ hours in the plane at Ellsworth, from about 8:45 p.m. until about 11:15 p.m., where they were ordered to pull down their window shades as military personnel walked through the cabin with at least one firearm and a dog.
Finally, the plane took a short flight to Rapid City Regional, which is only about seven miles away as the crow flies.
More: “Incidents like this occur when pilots fail to execute the basic measures of airmanship.”
Tens of Thousands of People Every Year Sent to Jail Based on Results from Ridiculously Flawed Roadside Drug Test
July 8th, 2016“Why are police departments and prosecutors still using them?”
The article doesn’t go anywhere near the reason, which is that large Wall Street banks profit from the private gulag system in America:
The prison industry as a whole took in over $5 billion in revenue in 2011.
According to journalist Matt Taibbi, Wall Street banks took notice of this influx of cash, and are now some of the prison industry’s biggest investors. Wells Fargo has around 100 million invested in GEO Group and 6 million in CCA. Other major investors include Bank of America, Fidelity Investments, General Electric and The Vanguard Group. CCA’s share price went from a dollar in 2000 to $34.34 in 2013. Sociologist John L. Campbell and activist and journalist Chris Hedges respectively assert that prisons in the United States have become a “lucrative” and “hugely profitable” business.
…
Most privately run facilities are located in the southern and western portions of the United States and include both state and federal offenders. For example, Pecos, Texas is the site of the largest private prison in the world, the Reeves County Detention Complex, operated by the GEO Group. It has a capacity of 3,763 prisoners in its three sub-complexes.
Texas. Sprawling private prions. Flawed $2 roadside drug test kits.
What could possibly go wrong?
The private prison scam is one of the most horrific aspects of the U.S.—and one which people probably don’t think much about until they find themselves inside its belly. In the piece below, I think we’re meant to take away a glimmer of hope from the fact that some minuscule number of bogus drug convictions are being overturned, but I refuse to see it that way. In the end, countless lives have been shattered over nothing, and the practice continues.
This is a long article but I encourage you to read it all. If you get swept into the maw of the prison system monster because of a roadside drug test, the information in this article could, quite literally, prevent your life from being ruined (assuming you survive being arrested).
Via: ProPublica:
All of the 212 N.C.S. defendants struck plea bargains, and nearly all of them, 93 percent, received a jail or prison sentence. Defendants with no previous convictions have a legal right in Texas to probation on drug-possession charges, even if they’re convicted at trial. But remarkably, 78 percent of defendants entitled to probation agreed to deals that included incarceration. Perhaps most striking: A majority of those defendants, 58 percent, pleaded guilty at the first opportunity, during their arraignment; the median time between arrest and plea was four days. In contrast, the median for defendants in which the field test indicated the wrong drug or that the weight was inaccurate — that is, the defendants who actually did possess drugs — was 22 days. Not only do the innocent tend to plead guilty in these cases, but they often do so more quickly.
Dallas: Multiple Snipers Ambush, Kill 5 Officers, Injure 11
July 7th, 2016Suspect Killed with Explosive Delivered by Robot
Via: Los Angeles Times:
Police used a “bomb robot” early Friday to kill a gunman after five police officers were killed and seven others wounded in downtown Dallas during a protest over recent police shootings in Minnesota and Louisiana, officials said.
“We cornered one suspect and we tried to negotiate for several hours,” Dallas Police Chief David Brown said during a Friday morning news conference, but “negotiations broke down” and turned into “an exchange of gunfire with the suspect.”
The suspect was identified as Micah X. Johnson, 25, a resident of the Dallas area, two U.S. law enforcement officials said.
Johnson had no known criminal history or ties to terror groups, the official said, and has relatives in Mesquite, Texas, which is just east of Dallas.The official said federal agents were assisting Dallas authorities in the investigation.
Brown said a hostage negotiator spoke with the gunman at length before he was killed about 2:30 a.m.. The chief said the attacker said he was upset “with white people” and with recent police shootings. The suspect also said that he was not affiliated with any groups and that he acted alone, Brown said.
“The suspect said we will eventually find the IEDs,” Brown said, a reference to explosives. “He wanted to kill officers. And he expressed killing white people, killing white officers, he expressed anger for Black Lives Matter.”
“We saw no other option than to use our bomb robot and place a device on its extension to detonate where the suspect was,” Brown said, adding that, “other options would have exposed our officers to grave danger.”
Brown said reports that the suspect shot himself were incorrect. “The suspect is deceased as a result of detonating the bomb,” he said.
Brown said other suspects were in custody, but declined to say how many. Other officials said three suspects were in custody.
—
Via: NBC:
Dallas police were locked in a standoff early Friday after snipers shot 11 officers, five fatally, during a protest over recent shootings in Minnesota and Louisiana.
Three people were in custody and a fourth suspect was exchanging gunfire with authorities in a parking garage downtown, Dallas Police Chief David Brown said.
The remaining suspect “has told our negotiators that the end is coming, and he is going to hurt and kill more of us, meaning law enforcement, and that there are bombs all over the place in this garage and downtown,” Brown said.
At least two snipers fired from an elevated positions on police officers minutes before 9 p.m. CT, according to Brown. He described the shootings as “ambush style.”
“We believe that these suspects were positioning themselves in a way to triangulate on these officers from two different perches in garages in the downtown area, and planned to injure and kill as many law enforcement officers as they could,” he told a news conference — noting that some were shot in the back.
Woman Streams Aftermath of Fatal Officer-Involved Shooting
July 7th, 2016The video advice below isn’t just for black people! The few times I’ve had encounters with cops, they have always rested hands on guns and been ready to draw. I’m as white as can be. Just like the guy below says: Keep your hands up on the steering wheel. If the cop asks to see your vehicle registration and you need to get it out of the glove box, say to the cop something like, “My registration is in the glove box. May I get it out?”
Move very slowly. If it’s at night, the cop will be shining his or her flashlight on your hands. At this point, the cop brain is set to a hair pin trigger to kill you if you make a move the cop brain interprets as dangerous. Again, move very slowly.
Of course, even if you behave in a totally calm and servile manner, the cop may kill you anyway.
Have a nice day.
Via: CNN:
As Philando Castile’s head slumps backward while he lies dying next to her, Diamond Reynolds looks into the camera and explains a Minnesota police officer just shot her fiancé four times.
The nation is, by now, accustomed to grainy cell phone videos of officer-involved shootings, but this footage from Falcon Heights, outside Minneapolis, is something different, more visceral: a woman live-streaming a shooting’s aftermath with the police officer a few feet away, his gun still trained on her bloody fiancé.
“He let the officer know that he had a firearm and he was reaching for his wallet and the officer just shot him in his arm,” Reynolds said as she broadcast the details of Wednesday’s evening shooting on Facebook.
“Santeria Rituals in the Boardroom”
July 7th, 2016Via: Bloomberg:
On the day Maurice Spagnoletti was murdered, his black Lexus sedan was full of balloons. It was June 15, 2011, the day before his wife’s birthday, and he was planning a celebration.
Spagnoletti, 57, was the No.?2 executive at Doral Bank in San Juan, Puerto Rico. Once flush, the bank had been almost ruined by a fraud scandal, and in 2007 it was rescued by Bear Stearns, Goldman Sachs, and a group of hedge funds. The Wall Street investors had put up $610 million, but Doral continued to lose money, and they were losing patience. In late 2010, Doral hired Spagnoletti, a New Jerseyan experienced in managing large banks, with orders to reduce costs and get Puerto Rican operations under control.
Brazil: Army Deployed in Rio Before Olympics
July 6th, 2016Via: Guardian:
Brazilian troops have begun patrolling Olympic venues in an attempt to reassure athletes and visitors about a public security situation that even the Rio de Janeiro mayor has described as “horrible, terrible”.
USU Students Learn Public Health, Zombie Style
July 6th, 2016Nothing to see here. The zombie theme just, “Keeps the material interesting” for students, etc.
Via: U.S. Department of Defense:
A course at the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences here is teaching students global health care delivery in a unique way that’s sure to be a “thriller.”
Students in USU’s family nurse practitioner doctorate of nursing practice program must take a population health course as part of their degree requirements. This online class outlines key principles in responding to and understanding population health – the overall health of a group, be it a group of employees, a community, or entire nation. Students must apply what they learn about theories and models of public health care through debate, small-group work and a series of creative scenarios –including a zombie pandemic.
“We use the narrative device of a zombie pandemic in animations and assignment to help engage students in content,” explained Catherine Ling, assistant professor and family nurse practitioner for the DNP and PhD programs in USU’s Daniel K. Inouye Graduate School of Nursing.
The students watch video clips of scenarios, including one of the nation’s “president” delivering a brief “State of the Zombie Pandemic” address. They see the impact that a fictitious zombie virus has made on a population and the fear it has created – along with “anti-zombie” posters strewn all over cities.
Reinforcing Course Lessons
These scenarios reinforce teaching materials regarding various tools that shape population health planning and interventions, Ling said.
The zombie coursework keeps the material interesting, and the underlying zombie theme throughout each lesson in the module makes it more cohesive, Ling said. In turn, she added, narrative cohesion makes it easier to remember the material and therefore makes it easier to apply in a real population health emergency.
As part of a fictitious Defense Department division called HHIT, the students draw on what they’ve learned throughout the course to enact a quarantine, administer widespread vaccines and obtain international resources, Ling explained. Meanwhile, she said, they must remember to follow actual DoD guidelines when responding to the “growing zombie pandemic.”
Autonomous Robots to Begin Delivering Food and Parcels in Europe
July 6th, 2016Via: Bloomberg:
The next time you order food using the delivery app Just Eat in London, don’t be surprised if it’s brought to your door by a small, six-wheeled robot.
London-listed Just Eat Plc. will join German retail chain Metro AG, logistics company Hermes Group, and U.K. food delivery startup Pronto Technology Ltd., in trialing delivery using self-driving robots. Starship Technologies, the company that makes the droids, said Wednesday that Just Eat and Pronto will be using the robots in London, while Metro and Hermes will deploy them in Dusseldorf, Germany, and Bern, Switzerland, as well as another undisclosed German city.
Created by two Skype co-founders, Starship, which is headquartered in London and has its engineering research and development office in Tallinn, Estonia, has been testing its robots in 12 countries over the past nine months. This will be the first time businesses will be using the technology to deliver real orders to paying customers.
Top 5 Guns to Get Before an Election
July 6th, 2016I’ve got three honorable mentions.
1) SIG 556 Classic Swat
2) FN PS90
3) FN M249S *chortle*
Via: Iraqveteran8888:
