Horrible. We will miss you Darrent.
Broncos cornerback Darrent Williams was shot and killed in a drive-by shooting early Monday, his limousine sprayed with bullets in downtown Denver. Was he that bad?
Team spokesman Jim Saccomano said police called him about 3 a.m. from the scene and told him three people had been shot, and the 24-year-old Williams had been killed. His death came hours after the Denver Broncos were eliminated from the playoff race. Here in Baltimore we just fire 'em...
A little after 2 a.m., a white Hummer limousine was fired on from a vehicle that pulled up along its side, police spokesman Sonny Jackson said. As many as a dozen bullet holes were visible on the driver's side of the vehicle. One window was blown out and four others had bullet holes. Three people in the limo were hit and taken to hospitals, where one man was pronounced dead, Jackson said. The other man and woman who were shot were not identified.
Jackson said police were searching for suspects. "We have no motive yet," he said. "We're hoping to talk with witnesses to find out where they were coming from, and that might give us some clues."
The limo sat in a snowbank beside Speer Boulevard, a main street through downtown. Police and technicians worked amid snow and ice from recent storms, using small yellow plastic markers to indicate possible evidence.
Saccomano said he spoke with coach Mike Shanahan and others in the organization. Hours earlier, the Broncos lost to San Francisco 26-23 in overtime. "Complete shock. We're speechless. It takes words away," Saccomano said.
"It is a terrible tragedy," NFL spokesman Greg Aiello added. "We don't know all the details yet, but we are reaching out to the Broncos to offer our support."
"He had a big heart and a lot of courage," said Cedric Smith, assistant strength and conditioning coach. "It's a tragedy, a complete tragedy. It's sickening."
Williams teamed with Bailey to give Denver one of the NFL's top cornerback tandems. Williams finished the season with 88 tackles, 78 of them solo, and four interceptions. On Sunday against the 49ers, Williams had three tackles and returned two punts for 50 yards before leaving the game with a shoulder injury late in the second half. After the game he said he planned to wait a few weeks before deciding if he needed an operation.
Williams, a second-round draft pick out of Oklahoma State in 2005, made an immediate impact on the Broncos. He started nine times in his rookie season following a stellar college career.
Anthony Criss, Williams' high school football coach in Fort Worth, Texas, spoke with the cornerback often, and as recently as two weeks ago. "When he was younger, he always gravitated to the wrong crowd," Criss said. "I remember he went to church and the minister was talking to him about needing to pray and stop hanging around with the wrong people, and he started straightening up and doing the right thing."
Williams matured at Oklahoma State, turning his eye toward pro football, Criss said. "I visited him his junior year, and he was grown," Criss said. "Everything was, `Yes, sir. No, sir."'
In December, Williams spoke of returning to his hometown this offseason to talk to youngsters about staying out of gangs. Williams, who has two young children in the Fort Worth area, recently talked to Criss about establishing a free football camp for youth players. "He had great compassion," Criss said. "He always wanted to try to make sure people did the right thing. He wanted to be a good parent, a good father, a good example for his kids. He will be missed."
WORLAND - A string of burglaries ended when a retired couple caught a 17-year-old male in their home, hit him over the head with a frying pan and forced him to flee, police said.
Four burglaries were attempted between 11 p.m. and 12:30 a.m. Thursday night and Friday morning, according to police. The last of the homes robbed belonged to retired couple Deloris and Mel Mead, who were sleeping when Deloris Mead saw a light on in her living room. "I tiptoed around and the light was on in the living room, the back door going into the garage was open wide, the basement was open wide and the garage door going into the backyard was open wide," she said.
She closed and locked the basement door and awakened her husband. While the two were looking around, they heard something rattling the basement door. Deloris Mead said her husband opened the door and a young male holding a folded hanger tried to run out. "Mel opened the door and grabbed the kid," she said.
As her husband struggled to subdue the juvenile, Deloris Mead said she grabbed a frying pan and "bopped him over the head with it."
The juvenile fell down the stairs that led to the garage and ran to the backyard, where he jumped the fence. Shortly after, police spotted a male with a backpack and, after a short chase, apprehended a juvenile, Sgt. Tom Brase with the Worland Police Department said. The juvenile, whose name was not released, was being held in jail, Brase said.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/01/2007 00:00 ||
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He was holding a folded hangar? Clothes hangar?
#3
Pretty obvious she wasn't wielding a Lodge, a smack with even a single-egg-baby=pan would crack your skull. Likely some damn cheap anodized aluminum, Sunday morning special.
#4
DW has a cast-iron 9-inch skillet we no longer cook with. It's now used strictly for anti-theft defense. Being hit with that would be kind of like being hit by a HUMMV at 50MPH. Weighs about six pounds, and DW is no fading violet.
I STILL prefer using a white-ash or hickory axehandle across any accessible part. Preferably multiple strikes, in different locations.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
01/01/2007 22:07 Comments ||
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Three armed intruders versus a (former) Marine and his wife and his mom. That's not even close to a fair fight.
Trooper Scott Spraggins opened his eyes to the African darkness, awakened by a strange scraping noise. It was different from the crickets and the whir of central air conditioning in the gated, elegant home where he and his family had been staying during their trip this month to Ghana.
He padded barefoot from the bedroom down a darkened hallway and opened a door that led to the living room. He saw three sets of eyes glaring at him. He also caught the outline of a shotgun in the hands of one of the intruders.
Spraggins wasn't about to gamble early that morning of Dec. 21, not when his wife, his mother, and his two daughters, Sophia, 5, and Sabrina, 15 months, were sleeping down the hall. "I knew I was going to be the last one standing," Spraggins, 35, said. Yep.
As the intruder leveled the shotgun, Spraggins' survival instinct took over. He hurled his stocky 5-foot-10, 220-pound frame at the man and grabbed the barrel of the shotgun before the man could get off a shot.
Spraggins turned his attention to the other man, who was removing a revolver from his waistband. He ran into the intruder with all his force. The two other intruders began striking Spraggins in the head and body with pieces of furniture, splitting his head open. Silly people, attempting to disable a Marine by bashing furniture over his head. Just annoys them.
Blood began spurting from his head, turning the white tile floor red, and making it slippery, and causing the men to fall as they fought. Now his wife walks in, and these guys are in serious trouble.
That's the scene Angelica Spraggins said she walked into when she was awakened by banging furniture. "What are you doing? Leave us alone!" she began screaming when she saw the men in the living room. Here comes his mom, and the bad guys are wishing he had just brought a flamethrower instead.
Spraggins' mother also ran out of her room. She pushed a bamboo chair at the intruders. It broke into pieces, and she began striking them with pieces of furniture. The intruders struck her in the head, she said, and even bit her on the arm. She grabbed a can of Lysol and sprayed it in the face of one of the intruders. "Ya know, I'm beginning to think we should have picked a different house."
Scott Spraggins yelled to his wife to get his knife, the one he carries on the job to cut car crash victims out of their seat belts. She ran to the kitchen instead and handed him a steak knife. "Honey, I am not going to let you ruin that good work knife I got you."
Spraggins jammed the knife through the eye of the man who had the pistol and then stabbed him in the abdomen, breaking the blade of the flimsy knife. The man ran, screaming in agony. Yeah, I can see where that had to smart some.
Spraggins yelled to his wife to get his work knife in the bedroom. "Lambchop, sweetie, would you be so kind as to get my other knife. That's the one, thank you."
"Awfully sorry honey but I broke your good steak knife. Be a great gal and get my work knife like I asked you the first time, 'k?"
"You broke my good steak knife? My aunt gave us that set for our wedding!"
Spraggins slashed the second intruder in the abdomen, severely wounding him.
The third intruder ran away in the chaos. Let's see, surprise attack on one Marine and two unarmed American women. Attack goes south, surviving bad guy runs for his life. Yep, it's Al Qaeda for sure. They have no fear of death except when they do.
Great title by the writer, by the way. If this article had run in the NYT, the title would have been "Marine Offends Local Sensitivities."
Posted by: Matt ||
01/01/2007 00:00 ||
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Great in-line comments!
ROFL. :-D
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
01/01/2007 0:26 Comments ||
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LONDON -- New 24-hour alcohol licensing laws have failed to help Britons adopt a more relaxed attitude toward drinking, a Cabinet minister said, according to a Sunday newspaper. Most Britons enjoy drinking too much to emulate the cafe culture of continental Europe, said Hazel Blears, chairman the governing Labour Party and a member of Prime Minister Tony Blair's Cabinet. "I don't know whether we'll ever get to be in a European drinking culture, where you go out and have a single glass of wine," Blears said, according to Britain's Sunday Times newspaper. "Maybe it's our Anglo-Saxon mentality. We actually enjoy getting drunk," she was quoted as saying.
Britain's drinking laws were changed in November 2005, allowing licensed premises to apply for permission to open round-the-clock. Proponents of the laws had hoped they would nudge Britons toward gentle tippling rather than relentless chugging, by ending the scramble to guzzle as much booze as possible before an early closing time.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/01/2007 00:42 ||
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Proponents of the laws had hoped they would nudge Britons toward gentle tippling rather than relentless chugging, by ending the scramble to guzzle as much booze as possible before an early closing time.
#4
Public intoxication is like a sport in the UK. Personally, I only like the buzz that you get from 3-4 ounces of Rye Whiskey. I haven't been dead drunk since 1991.
Yes, the annual New Year's Eve Possum Drop, the one and only, inspired by the dropping of a certain illuminated ball 670 miles away.
On Thursday, at the stroke of midnight, at the exact moment that hundreds of thousands of people holler in the New Year at Times Square, with millions more tipping back champagne flutes and watching it on TV, a few hundred people will huddle at a Citgo station in this little Appalachian town, wearing hunting jackets and hats with dangling ear flaps, to cheer the descent of one confused marsupial.
''We love possums around here,'' said Mr. Logan, 57, as he spat an oyster of tobacco juice and wiped his gray beard. ''They're an animal everybody says is the dumbest animal in the world, and they probably are. But they'll save your life. If you're out in the woods and you get lost, just follow a possum track and it'll take you right to the road.''
''We weren't terrorizing it. That little fella is just sitting there.''
William Reppy, a Duke University professor who teaches animal law, said the possum drop was probably not illegal. North Carolina prohibits unjustifiable physical abuse to animals, but the law does not say anything about psychological pain. ''I don't think any D.A. would touch it with a 10-foot pole,'' Professor Reppy said.
That frustrates Brenda Overman, president of the Greensboro, N.C., chapter of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. ''I'm sure the animal is traumatized,'' Ms. Overman said. ''You walk up on a possum in the woods, they freeze; they're terrified. They're putting it through horror for hours. Instant death would be better.''
#1
Duke professors don't care about people. Why not try a Nifong drop instead.
Posted by: Eric Jablow ||
01/01/2007 1:20 Comments ||
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In Cincinnati, we've got the turkey drop.
Posted by: Herb Tarlek ||
01/01/2007 1:52 Comments ||
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WKRP's still on the air? ;-p
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
01/01/2007 2:07 Comments ||
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"As God is my witness, I thought turkeys could fly!"
Still funny after all these years.
Posted by: Almost Anonymous5839 ||
01/01/2007 2:47 Comments ||
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There will also be bluegrass music, including a crowd-pleaser that includes the line, ''Down in the darkness, much to my delight, there's five pounds of possum in my headlights tonight.''
#6
On Thursday, at the stroke of midnight, at the exact moment that hundreds of thousands of people holler in the New Year at Times Square,
What year was this report filed?
#7
"'I'm sure the animal is traumatized,' Ms. Overman said. 'You walk up on a possum in the woods, they freeze; they're terrified. They're putting it through horror for hours. Instant death would be better.'"
So, death is better than indignity TO ANIMALS???
Posted by: Mark E. ||
01/01/2007 11:11 Comments ||
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#8
Good catch, Mark. Clicking on the linky, it was written 12/31/2003. Of course, it's still funny. Just wait 'til PETA hears about the squirrel drop I've got planned next year!
Posted by: BA ||
01/01/2007 11:13 Comments ||
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#9
Oh, yeah, it goes back. But it hasn't been posted on RB before, as far as I can tell. And the PETA battle continues:
#10
Funny, this event (and whether it was still being held) was a big item of discussion on a bluegrass mailing list I frequent. Didn't realize it would be RB-worthy.
Blonde ambition ... after ushering in 2007 with Sam Branson, Paris Hilton spent New Year's Day finding the face of Bondi Blonde and revealed she wants to do more charity work
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
LONDON -- New 24-hour alcohol licensing laws have failed to help Britons adopt a more relaxed attitude toward drinking, a Cabinet minister said, according to a Sunday newspaper. Most Britons enjoy drinking too much to emulate the cafe culture of continental Europe, said Hazel Blears, chairman the governing Labour Party and a member of Prime Minister Tony Blair's Cabinet. "I don't know whether we'll ever get to be in a European drinking culture, where you go out and have a single glass of wine," Blears said, according to Britain's Sunday Times newspaper. "Maybe it's our Anglo-Saxon mentality. We actually enjoy getting drunk," she was quoted as saying. 
