[IBT] As Americans reel from a shocking Memorial holiday in Chicago that saw 66 shootings and six deaths, federal officials are grappling with statistics revealing that several cities across the nation are experiencing troubling, inexplicable spikes in violence. It's too early to call it a solid trend, but the numbers are frightening, say officials.
"It's being reported on at local levels, but in my view, it's not getting the attention at the national level it deserves," FBI Director James Comey said recently. "I don't know what the answer is, but holy cow, do we have a problem."
Several cities are experiencing hikes in rapes, armed robberies and homicides. But it isn't happening across the board. While Chicago and Los Angeles are seeing homicides rise, for example, other places that would usually follow suit, like Miami and Oakland, are not.
And violence, where it is increasing, is off the charts. Homicides in Chicago, which experienced 66 homicides in May alone, are already running 50% higher than in 2015.
The FBI indicated in May that crime is up in some 40 US cities, but has not yet released statistics revealing where and how much violence is up.
Experts attribute the rise of violence in Chicago to gangs, too many guns, and too little gun-law enforcement. But some -- including Comey -- also speculate that the rift between police and communities where cops have been charged with illegally shooting suspects has made law enforcement officers reluctant to take more action on the street. Others say that breach of trust between residents and police has convinced citizens not to cooperate with law enforcement.
Many are scratching their heads over the change in the brave new world of social network relationships and short fuses. "People want a reason, right?" noted police Sergeant Kendale Adams in Indianapolis, which had a record 144 homicides last year. "There's got to be a reason, but when we look at the data it's disturbances, it's drugs, it's even simple disputes on Facebook. It's very lifestyle-oriented, that's what the data is telling is," he told the Associated Press. "Disputes that normally would have been settled through fighting are being settled through lethal means."
#7
How's that rampant death penalty without appeal or process working out in your streets and neighborhoods working out for you? How many innocents have been put to death?
#11
Yeah, it'll be another 'Summer Of Love' in Chi-Town. Emperor Rahm has decreed it.
Keep yer head down please, Dr. Steve. The area around your work site can get pretty 'hinky' at times.
Posted by: Mullah Richard ||
06/06/2016 16:17 Comments ||
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#12
Yes, Dr. Steve - please watch your six. Time to start looking for another job in another state? Even MC-Free again would be better than Chi-town. :-(
Posted by: Barbara ||
06/06/2016 18:06 Comments ||
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#13
Chicago is 2000 cops short, Cook County Judges (Democrats) give any convicted criminal short sentences, IDOC cuts those in half for "good time" and anyone questioning this is racist. Check out "heyjackass.com" for the breakdowns.
AND it is coming to your town!
#14
Typical report from ABQ: The two men were having a conversation in the middle of Ortiz Drive when a fight broke out and multiple shots were fired, investigators said...Both of the men were wounded by the gunfire and were taken to a hospital with minor injuries. Neither man cooperated with investigators, and the incident may have been a drug deal that turned violent, police said...witnesses weren't cooperating with the investigation either.
Some lowhanging fruit is unpickable,
Nor even (you racist!) nightstickable.
It falls and it spatters.
To say that it matters?
You'll swing in the breeze. How despicable!
[Dallas Morning News] Drug dealers from Garland and Fort Worth who were sentenced to life in prison decades ago will be free men come fall.
President Barack Obama commuted the sentences of 42 federal prisoners Friday as the White House intensifies its push to free nonviolent drug offenders from prisons.
The two North Texans granted clemency are Danny Ray White, 55, and Douglas Ray Dunkins Jr., 50. Both will have served at least two decades in prison when they’re released Oct. 1.
White, of Garland, was sentenced to hard time in 1996 for manufacturing or attempting to manufacture methamphetamine. Court records show he was also found guilty of possessing ethyl ether and a three-neck round-bottom flask, commonly used to cook speed.
Dunkins, of Fort Worth, received a mandatory life sentence in 1993 for participating in a crack cocaine-dealing conspiracy, court records show. Had the drug been powder cocaine, the mandatory sentence would have been 20 years.
Obama has now shortened the sentences of 348 people during his presidency, more than the previous seven presidents combined. The White House has accelerated its efforts to release prisoners in the tail end of the president’s second term.
The Obama administration asked the U.S. Sentencing Commission to allow imprisoned drug offenders to apply for reduced sentences in 2014, and began a program to expedite thousands of clemency requests.
That program places emphasis on aiding nonviolent drug offenders who have served more than a decade in jail with good conduct and who would be eligible for shorter sentences were they convicted today.
"We are continuing to work in bipartisan fashion to secure those much-needed, long-overdue reforms in Congress so that thousands more deserving individuals may benefit from the second chance that these individuals earned today," White House Counsel Neil Eggleston said in a blog post.
[WAPO] After more than 20 years, countless stories, a popular TV miniseries, countless bizarro theories and, now, a lengthy documentary, the truth about who murdered Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman remains elusive.
Although O.J. Simpson, the former NFL player, was found not guilty by a jury in the trial of the century, a civil jury ordered him to pay $33.5 million in punitive and compensatory damages in finding him liable for the 1994 double murders. Now, a former Los Angeles police officer and part-time actor who has been a friend of The Juice for years thinks he might be ready to confess to killing his ex-wife and Goldman.
"The guy is in total torment today," Ron Shipp told The New York Daily News at the Los Angeles premiere of ESPN’s "O.J. Simpson: Made in America" documentary, which begins June 11. "Someone told me he is 300 pounds and he looks horrible. O.J. has always felt his appearance meant everything and now, deep down inside, he is starting to live with himself."
#3
They didn't have to do that. All this requires is Hillary's folks to search for Crooked Hillary Bernie and if they get enough the auto-fill will replace the Crooked Hillary. I suspect all campaigns know this stuff by now. Another trick is to get a website like Snopes or whatever to do a page on how Hillary is not crooked and then get all of your fans to link to that using Crooked Hillary and you can make that the top result on Google. They might have changed things but the Scientologists where working that system for years.
#4
It's entirely possible that Clinton's army of internet astroturfers are gaming search results, but the sad fact is that Google's past behavior prompts suspicion as well.
#5
I agree, but I think if Google did it you wouldn't even see Hillary's name in the search. It'd come up as 'did you mean Crooked Trump' or something like that.
Col. Girkin has been relentlessly critical of Russian actions with regard to Donetsk and Lugansk, prolly a major reason why he was cashiered.
Two years ago, Igor Strelkov was the most notorious personality of the war in east Ukraine. A former Russian security forces officer, with a clipped grey moustache and a penchant for historical re-enactments, Strelkov led the takeover of the town of Slavyansk in April 2014, which presaged the armed conflict across the region.
In Kiev, he was seen as a bloody and ruthless war criminal – a Kremlin agent sent by Moscow to wreak havoc in Ukraine. In Russia, he was portrayed as a valiant military hero, leading the local rebel forces in their fight against Kiev. He could be found striding through the corridors of the Donetsk rebel headquarters, with a Stechkin pistol in a vintage wooden holster at his hip and flanked by heavily armed bodyguards.
Two years later, he cuts a very different figure, during an interview with the Guardian at his small Moscow office. In civilian clothing and slightly chubbier, he spent the encounter stroking his huge Maine Coon cat, Grumpy, which lay on the table in front of him. Strelkov has in recent weeks turned his rhetorical fire on the Kremlin itself, even if he no longer has an army with which to back up his words.
“Putin and his circle have recently taken steps which I believe will almost inevitably lead to the collapse of the system,” Strelkov said. “We don’t know yet how, and we don’t know when, but we are certain it will collapse, and more likely sooner than later.”
Pulled out of east Ukraine by the Kremlin in August 2014, reportedly because the Russian authorities felt he was too much of a liability, Strelkov entered a strange twilight zone, prevented from returning to the conflict or featuring in state-controlled media. After nearly two years of sitting quietly, the erstwhile poster boy of the pro-Russia cause last week released a declaration strongly critical of President Vladimir Putin, and predicting upheaval and bloodshed in Russia in the near future.
Strelkov, whose real surname is Girkin (Strelkov is a pseudonym derived from the Russian for “the Shooter”), believes Putin dithered at the crucial moment in 2014, for fear of breaking off ties between Russia and the west for good. A radical nationalist who believes Russia should seize all the lands where ethnic Russians live, and who describes Ukrainians as “Russians who speak a different dialect”, Strelkov said it was fatal that Putin stopped after annexing Crimea.
“He crossed the Rubicon, but then stopped unexpectedly and illogically. He didn’t retreat, but didn’t go forward either. He has no ideas and seems to be waiting for a miracle. He’s stuck in the middle of a swamp.”
Strelkov, who studied history and models himself on the White officers who fought the Bolsheviks during the Russian civil war, has been put on international sanctions lists for his role in the Ukraine war. Last week, Polish MP Małgorzata Gosiewska presented a report on alleged war crimes committed by Strelkov to the international criminal court in the Hague, and hopes an inquiry will be launched.
Strelkov does not deny having people shot for looting, but claims the executions were legal, as they were carried out according to a Soviet law on wartime justice.
“I was the only person to hold trials, and not just shoot people. It was a troika of judges with a military prosecutor and a lawyer, and there were innocent verdicts as well,” he said. More at the link
[DAWN] MURREE: Adviser to the Punjab 1.) Little Orphan Annie's bodyguard
2.) A province of Pakistain ruled by one of the Sharif brothers
3.) A province of India. It is majority (60 percent) Sikh and Hindoo (37 percent), which means it has relatively few Moslem riots.... Chief Minister Shahbaz Ghaus on Saturday said the teacher murder case would properly be investigated and all culprits would be punished in accordance with the law.
"Justice will not only be carried out but it will be seen as well," he said this while talking to newsmen during his visit to the hill station to get first hand information about progress in the case.
He said that the burning of a young woman was a brutal and barbarian act and whosoever was involved in this heinous crime would not go scot-free.
He said that the Punjab chief minister had taken serious notice of this brutal act and directed the police and other departments concerned to investigate the case purely on merit and bring the murderers to the court of law. On this occasion DSP Raza Khan told the news hounds that modern technology was being employed to investigate the case and the police would soon public the real causes of the murder.
He said that all four nominated accused had already been tossed in the calaboose ... anything you say can and will be used against you, whether you say it or not... and were being interrogated.
Posted by: Fred ||
06/06/2016 00:00 ||
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[DAWN] ABBOTTABAD: Saima, the girl who eloped with the alleged help of her friend Ambreen in Abbottabad ... A pleasant city located only 30 convenient miles from Islamabad. The city is noted for its nice weather and good schools. It is the site of Pakistain's military academy, which was within comfortable walking distance of the residence of the late Osama bin Laden.... , reappeared on Sunday and stated the dear departed Ambreen knew nothing about her marriage.
"She knew nothing about my marriage and she was not my friend," said Saima, while exclusively talking to DawnNews.
She also asked the authorities for security, as she said her husband's and her life is in danger.
"Those who burnt her are now threatening me, and we ask the authorities to provide us security." Saima told DawnNews.
Saima's brother and father are both in jail, tossed in the clink You have the right to remain silent... for the murder of Ambreen and later burning her.
The accused have yet to confess before the authorities. The evidence arranged against them may not be 'adequate', as the police officials arrested the accused individuals by going through their cell phone records.
Ambreen's murder was linked to the orders of the jirga by the area police, the police said a 15-member jirga called by the Makol village councillor Pervez ordered for the dear departed, Ambreen, to be killed and set on fire
District Police Officer (DPO) Khurram Rasheed had told Dawn that a couple eloped and left Makol on April 23 for Abbottabad with the girl’s help and a driver named Naseer. A jirga was called at Naseer’s home when the couple could not be found.
When the jirga ended after a six-hour meeting on April 28, the girl was taken from her home to an abandoned house where she was drugged, killed, and placed in the backseat of a parked van. The van was then doused with petrol and set on fire.
The mother of the ill-fated girl was among 14 persons arrested by the Abbottabad police in connection with the case.
A senior lawyer told Dawn last month on condition of anonymity that police investigation into the case was faulty as the suspects held in connection with the case were the people who had decreed against the girl who had run away with her paramour and had nothing to do with the murder of the girl.
According to the lawyer, police had based their investigation on the phone calls made by the councillor Pervez to call up the people to participate in the jirga.
However, a woman is only as old as she admits... police are sure to prove the case against the jirga members.
Posted by: Fred ||
06/06/2016 00:00 ||
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Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu headed to Moscow this morning, for his third visit to the Kremlin in nine months, as Israel-Russia ties continues to burgeon.
The meeting is the fourth one between Netanyahu and Russia President Vladimir Putin during the same period, after the pair also met at the sidelines of the recent UN climate change conference in Paris. Israeli President Reuven Rivlin has also met with Putin during that time, even cancelling a trip to Australia to visit the Russian leader at the Kremlin.
In an illustration of the growing alliance between their two countries, this time Netanyahu is scheduled to stay in Russia for an extended trip of two and a half days, meeting other leading Russian officials as well as the Russian President.
The two leaders will be engaging on a range of issues of mutual interest and potential cooperation, most notably the ongoing bloody civil war in Syria.
Russia, which supports Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad, has been heavily engaged in Syria on the side of the regime. While Israel considers the Assad regime - a close ally of Iran - an enemy, and is still technically at war with it, Jerusalem and Moscow have seen their interests in Syria converge as of late.
Last year, Netanyahu and Putin reached a landmark agreement to coordinate all Israeli and Russian forces in and over the skies of Israel's northern neighbor.
On the diplomatic front, Netanyahu will look to Russia as a way to offset a hostile White House's recent veiled threats to not use its veto in the Security Council, as well as increased pressure from Europe to impose a two-state solution over the heads of the Israeli government. Israel and Russia share a deadly enemy: the EU.
The growing Israeli-Russian alliance also illustrates Moscow's rising influence in the Middle East, as US President Barack Obama has pulled back America's presence and influence in the region considerably. Nature abhors vacuum
[ENGLISH.ALARABIYA.NET] Incoming Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte has encouraged the public to help him in his war against crime, urging citizens with guns to shoot and kill drug pushers who resist arrest and fight back in their neighborhoods.
In a nationally televised speech late Saturday, Rodrigo Duterte told a huge crowd in the southern city of Davao celebrating last month’s presidential victory that Filipinos who help him battle crime will be rewarded.
"Please feel free to call us, the police, or do it yourself if you have the gun -- you have my support," Duterte said, warning of an extensive illegal drug trade that involves even the country’s police.
If a drug pusher resists arrest or refuses to be brought to a cop shoppe and threatens a citizen with a gun or a knife, "you can kill him," Duterte said. "Shoot him and I’ll give you a medal."
The 71-year-old Duterte won the May 9 presidential election on a bold promise to end crime and corruption within six months of his presidency. That vow resonated among crime-weary Filipinos, though police officials considered it campaign rhetoric that was impossible to accomplish.
Human rights watchdogs have expressed alarm that his anti-crime drive may lead to widespread rights violations.
Duterte has been suspected of playing a role in many killings of suspected criminals in his city by cycle of violence-riding assassins known as the "Davao death squads," but human rights ...which are often intentionally defined so widely as to be meaningless... watchdogs say he has not been criminally charged because nobody has dared to testify against him in court.
In his speech on Saturday, Duterte also asked three police generals based in the main national police camp in the capital to resign for involvement in crimes that he did not specify. He threatened to humiliate them in public if they did not quit and said he would order a review of dismissed criminal cases of active coppers, suggesting some may have bribed their way back onto the force.
"They go back again crucifying the Filipino," he said. "I won’t agree to that."
"If you’re still into drugs, I will kill you, don’t take this as a joke. I’m not trying to make you laugh, son of a bitch, I will really kill you," he said to loud jeers and applause.
The foul-mouthed longtime Davao mayor and former government prosecutor said crimes were committed by law enforcers because of "extreme greed and extreme need." He said that he would provide a small amount to an officer who was tempted because his wife has cancer or a mother died, but that those who would break the law because of extreme greed "will also be dealt with by me. I’ll have you killed."
Duterte, who starts his six-year presidential term on June 30, repeated a plan to offer huge bounties to those who can turn in drug lords, dead or alive.
While it remains to be seen what will happen to his threats when he takes office, some coppers have heeded his call for a tougher anti-crime approach.
In suburban Las Pinas city in the Manila metropolis, police have apprehended more than 100 minors who defied a night curfew, and men who were either having drinking sprees in public or roaming around shirtless in violation of a local ordinance. The crackdown was dubbed "Oplan Rody" -- after Duterte’s nickname -- or "Rid the Streets of Drinkers and Youth."
Posted by: Fred ||
06/06/2016 00:00 ||
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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.
Absence of the 'Rule of Law,' tribalism, de-civilization.... totally 'inexplicable.' 
[DAWN] ABBOTTABAD: Saima, the girl who eloped with the alleged help of her friend Ambreen in 
