Over 600 marches will take place in 57 countries around the world.
(COMMONDREAMS) The Women’s March on Washington on January 21 has gone global, with over 600 “sister marches” planned in 57 countries that same day, as an international display of opposition to the far-right populism embodied by President-elect Donald Trump.
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‘Pussyhats’ Galore: Inside the Pink Toppers Thousands Will Wear to the Women’s March on Washington
Women attending the march and those who support them are intensely knitting pink cat-eared “pussy” hats for participants to wear this Saturday.
The knit pink hats, topped with corners that resemble cat ears, are part of the Pussyhat Project, an initiative formed by two friends, Jayna Zweiman and Krista Suh,
“Tiny Hands” marks Apple’s second musical screed against Donald Trump, following her “Christmas Song” parody, “Trump’s Nuts Roasting on an Open Fire.” Apple released a video of her singing the song a cappella last December then performed the track live at a Standing Rock benefit concert in Los Angeles.
Experience the beauty of Washington, DC with this live streaming camera! A gift from Japan, see the cherry blossom trees that surround the Tidal Basin. The camera also takes viewers on a virtual tour of the capital’s iconic landmarks, including the FDR Memorial, MLK Memorial and the Washington Monument.
This live webcam gives viewers the unique opportunity to peek inside an Eagle nest along the Anacostia River in Washington, DC. EarthCam teamed up with Earth Conservation Corps, whose members promote the environmental interest of their area by holding raptor conservation presentations and workshops in local schools.
Visit the Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial in Washington, DC with HD webcam views! This megapixel camera delivers the perfect look at this monument on the National Mall, which stands for Dr. King’s message of freedom, equality, justice and love.
Visit the Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial in Washington, DC with HD webcam views! This megapixel camera delivers the perfect look at this monument on the National Mall, which stands for Dr. King’s message of freedom, equality, justice and love.
Travel to America’s capital and watch as the National Mall is revitalized during phase II of the turf restoration project! From the vantage point of the Smithsonian Castle’s North Flag Tower, enjoy live views of the Washington Monument, US Capitol Building and everything in between.
Travel to America’s capital and watch as the National Mall is revitalized during phase II of the turf restoration project! From the vantage point of the Smithsonian Castle’s North Flag Tower, enjoy live views of the Washington Monument, US Capitol Building and everything in between.
Explore America’s capital from over 500 feet in the air with EarthCam’s live streaming webcam embedded in the Washington Monument’s pyramidion! Sponsored by the National Stone, Sand and Gravel Association, the camera offers one-of-a-kind views of the WWII Memorial, Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial, Lincoln Memorial and Reflecting Pool.
Visit an Osprey nest located on the Anacostia River in Washington, DC with live streaming webcam views. Situated on a pier under the Frederick Douglass Bridge, watch as the adults bring their chicks into the world.
View the entire Tidal Basin in one impressive panorama image. This interactive, shareable picture is automatically stitched together to include many of the most famous National Park Service and National Mall memorials, including the Washington Monument, D.C. War Memorial, MLK Memorial, FDR Memorial and Jefferson Memorial.
EarthCam delivers spectacular views of the Washington Monument on the National Mall in Washington, DC. Visitors will enjoy updating high resolution images of this 555′ monument, which honors the nation’s founding father and first president, George Washington.
Experience a close-up look at the base of the Washington Monument. Watch as teams work to repair and restore this Washington, DC landmark after it suffered damage from an earthquake in August 2011.
The Women’s March on Washington aims to send a message to all levels of government, including but not limited to the incoming Presidential administration, that we stand together in solidarity and we expect elected leaders to act to protect the rights of women, their families and their communities.
Before showing the article for what to bring – I’m sharing this article that I found about what not to bring and what is banned from the Women’s March on Washington, D.C. – January 21, 2017. Then right below that will be a great article about things to bring and preparing for the Women’s March event – including snacks and really good walking shoes.
The U.S. Secret Service, the Metropolitan Police Department, U.S. Capital Police and other agencies are collaborating on security efforts for the inauguration. The following items have been banned from public events during inauguration week:
Aerosols
Weapons of any kind, including ammunition, explosives, firearms, mace and pepper spray
Animals other than helper/guide dogs
Backpacks and bags larger than 18 inches-by-13 inches-by-7 inches.
Bicycles
Drones and other unmanned aircraft systems
Balloons
Toy guns
Coolers and glass, thermal or metal containers
Laser pointers
Selfie Sticks, and other sticks and poles
Packages
Structures
Any other items determined to be potential safety hazards
Only cardboard, poster board or cloth signs will be permitted, and all signs must be less than 3 feet in width, 20 feet in length and one-quarter inch in thickness. Sticks and poles are prohibited; do not attach them as supports to any signs you bring.
Due to Security Considerations – D.C. Area Law Enforcement has enacted the Following Policy for the Women’s March on Washington
Please note all bags may be subject to search.
Backpacks are not permitted.
Bags should be no larger than 8”x6”x4”.
Specifically for people who would like to bring meals, each marcher is permitted one additional 12”x12”x6” plastic or gallon bag.
For marchers who have medical needs or for mothers who need baby bags or breast pumps, one clear bag or backpack no larger than 17″x12″x6″ will be permitted and subject to search (colored transparent bags are not permitted).
That is an absolutely brilliant article – and definitely worth using to prepare to go to the Women’s March on Washington, D.C. on January 21, 2017.
Also –
If it’s cold, organizers also suggest:
Thermal underwear beneath your clothes
Winter gear such as a scarf, gloves, balaclava and hat
A coat that is insulated comfortable and waterproof with a hood
Waterproof shoes or boots that have been broken in and are suitable for walking long distances.
Travel-sized wet wipes and/or tissues
Hand sanitizer
A paper map of Washington, D.C.
Be sure to charge your cell phone battery and consider bringing a backup battery. Plan to carry essential items, like identification, cash, credit cards and a pre-purchased metro card in a water-resistant pouch, neck wallet or cross-body purse.
If you are a member of the press, covering the event officially, and have equipment that will not fit into bags of the above dimensions: please contact the National Communications Team to get press credentials in advance in order for your equipment to be allowed into the rally site.
If you require disability accommodations or related equipment, that will not fit into the above bags, please enter via the ADA Accessible route: 4th St. SW from C St. to Independence Ave. For anyone using Metro, please get off at Federal Center SW and use 4th St. to enter the rally area.
Canes, walking sticks, walkers, and portable seats are allowed for individuals who require them for mobility and accessibility on a regular basis.
If you’re breastfeeding or have other medical needs, you are allowed to bring an additional clear bag or backpack no larger than 17 by 12 by 6 inches, but no colored transparent bags are permitted. There will be breastfeeding stations along the root, and the FAQ page will be updated this week with information about where they will be.
8. Children
As to kids, it’s your choice as to whether to bring them, but they are welcome. There is a Facebook page for parents who plan to attend the march with kids, which is a good resource for coordination.
9. Volunteering
If you want to roll up your sleeves and volunteer, head over to this Google Doc to sign up.
The main site organizing the event for the Women’s March on DC – says the start time is 10 am. and although it isn’t required to register, nor to have tickets to the event, they are asking people to register to have a better understanding of the numbers of people coming to the Women’s March.
The page showing the buses and number of buses coming from various states is here –
For NYC, all the buses listed are full but there may be others going not listed including from some churches and organizations throughout the five boroughs.
March organizers said in a mission statement posted to their website that participants will unite to end violence and promote rights for women, LGBT people, workers, people of color, people with disabilities and immigrants.
“The Women’s March on Washington will send a bold message to our new government on their first day in office, and to the world that women’s rights are human rights. We stand together, recognizing that defending the most marginalized among us is defending all of us,” the site says.
WEBSITE: https://www.womensmarch.com/
FACEBOOK PAGE: https://www.facebook.com/Womens-March-on-Washington-1338822066131069/
TWITTER: https://twitter.com/womensmarch
INSTAGRAM: http://www.instagram.com/womensmarchRSVP on our OFFICIAL EVENTBRITE: bit.ly/womensmarchrsvp (not required, but greatly helpful for planning!)This is an INCLUSIVE march, is FREE to join and EVERYONE who supports women’s rights are welcome.PLEASE SHARE, we need to spread the word everywhere!
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OFFICIAL STATEMENT, National OrganizersOn January 21, 2017 we will unite in Washington, DC for the Women’s March on Washington. We stand together in solidarity with our partners and children for the protection of our rights, our safety, our health, and our families — recognizing that our vibrant and diverse communities are the strength of our country.The rhetoric of the past election cycle has insulted, demonized, and threatened many of us–women, immigrants of all statuses, those with diverse religious faiths particularly Muslim, people who identify as LGBTQIA, Native and Indigenous people, Black and Brown people, people with disabilities, the economically impoverished and survivors of sexual assault. We are confronted with the question of how to move forward in the face of national and international concern and fear.In the spirit of democracy and honoring the champions of human rights, dignity, and justice who have come before us, we join in diversity to show our presence in numbers too great to ignore. The Women’s March on Washington will send a bold message to our new administration on their first day in office, and to the world that women’s rights are human rights. We stand together, recognizing that defending the most marginalized among us is defending all of us.We support the advocacy and resistance movements that reflect our multiple and intersecting identities. We call on all defenders of human rights to join us. This march is the first step towards unifying our communities, grounded in new relationships, to create change from the grassroots level up. We will not rest until women have parity and equity at all levels of leadership in society. We work peacefully while recognizing there is no true peace without justice and equity for all. HEAR OUR VOICE.
This is an INCLUSIVE march, and EVERYONE who supports women’s rights are welcome.
PLEASE SHARE, we need to spread the word everywhere! And there are groups forming for EVERY STATE, so search for your local group as well!
We especially need HOSTS and ORGANIZERS from marginalized communities for this to be truly inclusive, please DM your state administrator to get involved!
After Trump won the presidency, a retired attorney in Hawaii posted to Facebook about marching in Washington, The Washington Post reported. By the time Teresa Shook went to sleep, 40 women said they wanted to march. By the time she woke up, that number had ballooned to 10,000, the Post reported.
The idea for the march took off, and Shook and the initial organizers handed the reins to a group of experienced activists: Bob Bland, a fashion industry entrepreneur; Tamika Mallory, an organizer and gun-control advocate; Carmen Perez, executive director of the Gathering for Justice, a criminal-justice-reform group; and Linda Sarsour, executive director of the Arab American Association of New York.
The march, the organizers declared via an ambitious platform released last week, is for gender equality, racial equality, LGBTQIA equality, economic justice and reproductive freedom; for equal pay, paid family leave, labor protections, clean water and air and access to public lands; and for an end to violence against women, police brutality and racial profiling. If that seems like a lot, well, that’s the point.
Sarsour, who serves as executive director of the Arab American Association of New York, tells Rolling Stone that the message the marchers want to send is that “from climate justice to racial justice to immigrant rights, reproductive rights, Native rights, we are united. We are committing to work together.
“We think that that hasn’t happened in a very clear way in a long time – bringing all the movements together and … saying, ‘We are watching you. We are ready. We are fired up. And we’re ready to fight back and protect our communities,'” she says.
What to do if you encounter counter-protesters at the Women’s March on Washington
Be prepared for trolls of the highest order at the Women’s March this weekend
1. Counter-protesters are not a possibility, but a definite entity
There will be counter-protesters whose goal is to goad you into confrontation and violence. So if you’re marching this weekend, coming across counter-demonstrators is not so much an “if” as a “when.” Be on the lookout.
GO READ THE REST OF THEIR SUGGESTIONS – REALLY AMAZING and absolutely do-able.
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Will the National team have march etiquette information on the National site?
There will be specific safety information posted on the National site related to children’s areas, medical stations, etc. Resources for safety, march etiquette, and peaceful demonstrations can be found through other sources, such as ACLU or googling peaceful demonstrations, rights at demonstrations, etc. Most important – stay positive during the March. We are unified and making sure our voices are heard for the concerns closest to our hearts!
Remember: Only sign up for information through the official site of the Women’s March, and be sure to download the app to have access to the latest information at all times. Familiarize yourself with the FAQ and only give your information via this questionnaire, which was created by march organizers. Remain alert — and stand up for women’s rights everywhere.
Want civil disobedience training in your community? Contact Alexis Danzig at alexis@directactiontraining.org
What about cell phone service interruption from so much use in one area?
This is a known issue and risk of a large march. Suggest to use Firechat app. This app is fueled by bluetooth technology. You do not need cell phone service or wifi to use. The more phones on bluetooth, the strong the signal. You can use this a form of communication to direct message your group or bus captains.
FireChat is an individual and group texting app that works on your phone yet doesn’t need phone data to function. You only need your wifi (even if it says there’s no wifi, keep it on) and Bluetooth turned on, and it uses that to create a mesh network, not a cellular network. FireChat doesn’t need cell service- full stop. It has been used successfully in disasters and protests around the world. The app has private messages and you can make public chatrooms- think of them like Twitter hashtags. It works on iPhone and Android and is free. You don’t need to use your real name to sign up, people don’t see your phone number when they interact with you- they just see the image you choose and your user name. You can make a private group so all the organizers can communicate privately and quickly.
1. Download the app to your phone or tablet. Add something to your username to emphasize that it’s your official account.
2. Encourage people to sign up.
3. Make a private group message for all your organizers or for your travelling group
WATCH: Democracy Now! Broadcasts Live from the D.C. Women’s March
SPECIAL BROADCASTJANUARY 21, 2017
On Saturday, January 21, Democracy Now! will bring you a special live broadcast from near the Women’s March main stage area. Tune in from 10 a.m.–3 p.m. ET. This special coverage will include speakers and performers from the stage and interviews with people from around the world who are attending the march and rallies in D.C., as well as reports from other actions around the country.
Use the hashtag #DNlive to join the conversation on Twitter.
How to Watch
Stream this coverage live on this page on Saturday, January 21 starting at 10 a.m. ET.
Women were not always allowed the opportunities we enjoy now, despite still being a long way from having equality. At one time women were no more than chattel or property of a man, whether her husband, her father, her brother or some other male relation.
It was illegal at one time in our country to teach a woman to read, do arithmetic or the sciences, both in the belief at the time that a woman had no capacity for learning these things and mistaken beliefs about her emotional capacity to properly use them.
Few things have changed in one sense. Women today are still not considered the same level and value of human being that any man enjoys within laws, within policy decisions, within social ideologies and religious ideologies, and within the contexts and valuations our society has given to women.
However, in light of our first major political party nomination of a woman candidate for President of the United States, I’ve been thinking about women in light of laws we’ve endured that were unfair, biased, misogynistic, propping up inequality, disrespect for women and their rights, slavery of women and laws that have kept it that way.
Many people know when women “got the vote” in 1919. But, when did women get the right to own property? And, how many states still did not allow women to own property well into the 2960’s and 70’s?
Certain aspects of coverture (mainly concerned with preventing a wife from unilaterally incurring major financial obligations for which her husband would be liable) survived as late as the 1960s in some states of the United States.
These laws said that married women were not allowed to own property on their own and reflected back to an earlier time, when the woman’s rights to enter into contracts, earn money, write a will, own property, sell property or have any say in it, were given to her husband upon marrying him.
By marriage, the husband and wife are one person in law: that is, the very being or legal existence of the woman is suspended during the marriage, or at least is incorporated and consolidated into that of the husband: under whose wing, protection, and cover, she performs every thing; and is therefore called in our law-French a feme-covert; is said to be covert-baron, or under the protection and influence of her husband, her baron, or lord; and her condition during her marriage is called her coverture. Upon this principle, of a union of person in husband and wife, depend almost all the legal rights, duties, and disabilities, that either of them acquire by the marriage. I speak not at present of the rights of property, but of such as are merely personal. For this reason, a man cannot grant any thing to his wife, or enter into covenant with her: for the grant would be to suppose her separate existence; and to covenant with her, would be only to covenant with himself: and therefore it is also generally true, that all compacts made between husband and wife, when single, are voided by the intermarriage.[2]
A feme sole had the right to own property and make contracts in her own name, while a feme covert was not recognized as having legal rights and obligations distinct from those of her husband in most respects. Instead, through marriage a woman’s existence was incorporated into that of her husband, so that she had very few recognized individual rights of her own. As it has been pithily expressed, husband and wife were one person as far as the law was concerned, and that person was the husband.
Laws often change before society’s ideas generally change at times and remnants of this thinking is still found today in many places in the United States, from business policies to religious doctrines.
In 1966, the U.S. Supreme Court said “the institution of coverture is … obsolete”[28] even while acknowledging coverture’s existence in 1–11 states.[28] In a separate opinion in the same case, Hugo Black and two others of the nine justices[i] said the “fiction that the husband and wife are one… in reality … mean[ing] that though the husband and wife are one, the one is the husband….[,] rested on … a … notion that a married woman, being a female, is without capacity to make her own contracts and do her own business”,[29] a notion that Black “had supposed is … completely discredited”.[29] Black described modern (as of 1966) coverture as an “archaic remnant of a primitive caste system”.[29][30][j]
So, although laws to allow women to own property had been changing since 1839 onward, with the Married Women’s Property Act, it still didn’t change these disparities until after the 1966 ruling by the Supreme Court within the laws of many states.
But how much did that matter, when women weren’t allowed by banks and in some states, by laws – to have her own bank account, her own money, her own decision-making capacity irespective of her family’s wishes (or husband’s)? A woman could not effectively enter into contracts and have a fair negotiating position as a man would. Some of that is still true today.
He has made her, if married, in the eye of the law, civilly dead.
He has taken from her all right in property, even to the wages she earns.
He has so framed the laws of divorce, as to what shall be the proper causes of divorce, in case of separation, to whom the guardianship of the children shall be given; as to be wholly regardless of the happiness of the women—the law, in all cases, going upon a false supposition of the supremacy of a man, and giving all power into his hands.The movement to expand the property rights of married women did not go unchallenged. Virginia debated and rejected such legislation in the 1840s.[8] In 1849, the Tennessee legislature stated, in one historian’s account, “that married women lack independent souls and thus should not be allowed to own property.”[11] New York expanded its statute in 1860,[12] with the Married Women’s Earnings Act.[6] It then repealed parts of its legislation in 1862, eliminating a married woman’s right to guardianship of her children and the right of a widow to manage her late husband’s estate.[8]
Today, remnants of this thinking endures in religion, in right wing political views and in social ideologies that continue to demand a value of something less for any woman’s life, for her time, for her efforts, for her contributions, for her work, for her talents, for her ideas, for her individual power and decision making.
The antiquated and damaging belief systems that insist on inequality for women happens from every front and very nearly every influencing environment. These pressure anyone to believe women don’t have any right to equality and respect – from home and family reiterating those views, to church pulpits and church affiliated magazines and publications, to policy makers and politicians with party affiliations who still believe women should not be allowed to have the same rights and value as men, to extreme ideologies that are affecting everyone where any dialogue can occur from radio shows to newspaper articles and online presentations of them.
Any woman or girl who believes or have believed something else – that women are equal and deserve equal rights, have been treated to varying degrees of shunning, humiliation, discrediting, demeaning, private and public shaming, ridicule, cruel and vicious attacks, character attacks, family shunning, church and religious abandonment, emotional and physical abandonment by families and communities, public shaming and ridicule by churches, preachers, pundits and politicians alike, along with extraordinary disenfranchisement and exclusion from economic, financially empowering, community and social opportunities.
If the millions upon millions of dollars, hours of work, public information access time and efforts had been spent ON the women and girls of America instead of the above list of detrimental tactics from public humiliation and shaming to verbal abuse and exclusion (among other things), think of where our national gross domestic product and competitiveness in the world would be today. How many lives would’ve been made better rather than plunging so many women and children in America into a third world economic impoverishment and horrors.
We are one world – One Family. We are Americans – We are Global Citizens.
We are the Survivors – We are the Strong who have come through wars, disease, famine and pestilence to stand here today. We are the ones entitled to freedom and the rights guaranteed by our US Constitution. We are equal in the sight of God and equal with every other person in the world. We are the equals of every other living human being and every other citizen.
We are legally, ethically and morally entitled to equality and full equal rights. We are no more sinners than anyone else. We are no less human or deserving than anyone else. Denying our equal rights is to abrogate and deny the validity of our US Constitution, our Bill of Rights and to show contempt for every drop of blood spilled to protect them.
We will no longer be slaves to hate mongering ideologies and beliefs You will not mow us down or simply tolerate us. We deserve respect, acceptance and love for we ARE just like you
We are Americans. We are global citizens. We are equal to you in every respect. We are one family. We are one world. We are citizens of one America – not of two or three, not second class citizens, nor even less as your beliefs insist, and certainly, NOT less than you in any way.
Your HATE IS THE ENEMY of all that is good and decent – not us and not our choices and lifestyles, our way of conducting our lives and our differences from you. Hatred and intolerance based on ideologies and beliefs are the basis of evil and actions of evil – not us, not our lifestyles.
We have the right to be here. Our lives are not less valuable than yours. We are the Survivors.- We are Diverse and that diversity is the strength and power of America, of the world and of the human race. We bring a strength, character and diversity of strength that you could never have.
Nature did not make one flower of a single kind, shape and color. Nor would there be flowers of any kind today, if it had. Nature by great creative force made billions of diverse types of every single plant and being, of every cell and molecule,.of every type and kind of everything created.
That is because diversity is power and diversity is strength. Diversity supports thriving and greater survival while supporting optimum, successful lives of all species by its very nature.
Diversity, NOT sameness, produces the greater strength and engages a higher survival rate with thriving communities for all to be enhanced and successful
Nature does it this way. Perhaps God designed it this way. What neither designed, is the destitution of mind that forces all to be the same or for their rights and freedoms to be forfeit or denied to them, to be denied opportunities to thrive and succeed, to be isolated and enslaved.
I was thinking about the recent trend that says beauty offers equality for women. It isn’t equality. When a fat ugly man is paid the same as a handsome man of average size, it isn’t that for women. A fat, ugly or even an aging woman is not paid the same as a beautiful woman for the same job and neither are paid as much as a man doing it. That isn’t equality.
The problem is, this bias is cheating everybody. It steals from the families that third of an earned income she is actually entitled to earn for doing that job. It steals from the community in which she and her family lives. And, it steals from income that would be serving businesses and organizations in the community where that money would be spent.
Every time a business chooses to pay a woman less than another in the same job for the same efforts and time spent, it is theft of economic resources which would be spent in that community and available to her family’s resources. Men are allowing it to go on this way unabated because they do not understand that they are stealing from themselves and from their own communities, from their own families.
It doesn’t seem that way to the business decision-makers who are making those choices based on their own perceptions of inherent value given to various employee groups. But it is taking funds away from sales and income within the community to serve states, to serve the tax base, to serve businesses and their sales, to serve organizations who also purchase within communities, and to serve families who provide the base for all of it.
This year on International Women’s Day, I’ve been thinking about the vast majority of women who face such an uneven playing field despite all the efforts to correct it. We can name the first woman Chief Technology Officer for a Forturne 500 company this year. How many years and how many corporations have maintained that seat in their companies all this time without ever considering any woman to fill it regardless of their capacity to do a good job in that seat?
How many weeks and months, even years of value and economic resources have been cheated from our communities and our families because businesses refuse to consider a woman’s pay for the same job to be the same as a man’s? That is money not spent as groceries, not spent for families to prosper, not spent anywhere, in fact.
Computer, at that point, was a job title, not a machine. Long before the sisters were businesswomen, community activists, mothers or grandmothers, they were recruited by the U.S. military to do ballistics research. They worked six days a week, sometimes pulling double or triple shifts, along with dozens of other women.
The weapons trajectories they calculated were passed out to soldiers in the field and bombardiers in the air. Some of their colleagues went on to program the earliest of general-purpose computers, the ENIAC.
( . . . )
The war ended in 1945, but within a couple months of arriving in Philadelphia, Bartik was hired to work on a related project — an electronic computer that could do calculations faster than any man or woman. The Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer, created by Penn scientists John Mauchly and J. Presper Eckert Jr., weighed more than 30 tons and contained about 18,000 vacuum tubes. It recognized numbers, added, subtracted, multiplied, divided and a few other basic functions.
Men had built the machine, but Bartik and her colleagues debugged every vacuum tube and learned how to make it work, she said. Early on, they demonstrated to the military brass how the computer worked, with the programmers setting the process into motion and showing how it produced an answer. They handed out its punch cards as souvenirs. They’d taught the massive machine do math that would’ve taken hours by hand.
But none of the women programmers was invited to the celebratory dinner that followed. Later, the heard they were thought of as models, placed there to show off the machine.
How many teachers in schools across America know that some of the greatest mathematicians in their classes of students are the girls?
How many classrooms of students hold the greatest scientists and engineers that happen to be the girls in the class rather than the boys alone? How many of our educators know that as they face that class and work with those students?
Hmmmm…….
Sometimes I wonder.
It was great finding this article. There are four pages to it which is a little hard to notice because the next page numbers are below some ads and rather small – but definitely take a look at all four pages. It is absolutely amazing.
and there is even more about women in the first programming languages of computers, too. We wouldn’t have the computers we have today, had it not been for the efforts of the women who participated in the process along the way.
New Music created yesterday actually and recorded today – by Cricketdiane
Title:
1-800-call me if you love me
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* My Note –
I had to take an art break and create some music. There was great fun looking at the nanotech stuff and pitching hell over the political wars going on at our expense, but I had to do something with the feelings from seeing the young lady on television that had lost her baby because her boyfriend threw the baby out the window onto the freeway. She was filled with such grief that she sat on the sidewalk in front of the courthouse, put her head in her hands and shook with tears and sorrow.
It should’ve never happened. That young woman had been wronged by many years in the foster care system and was getting her life together, caring for her child and just wanted to be loved. That man took her vulnerable position in our society and used it to take a woman he didn’t respect and didn’t deserve. He beat her mercilessly and the judicial system gave her no protection from him, no justice for her whatsoever, and no freedom to be safe in her own home or for her child to be safe. She didn’t deserve that. Her child didn’t deserve that and yet Florida judges literally caused the violence against this woman and against her child by letting this useless, violent bastard walk free after abusing women over and over again.
Today, as I was posting the story about Florida keeping a man in jail for four years because he had put toilets and spare airplane parts all over his house as a political expression of protest, and the thought of her came to me – that the man who threw her child out on the freeway had beat her and poured household cleaners all over her face which could’ve blinded her forever, and he was supposed to be in jail for vile actions he had already done to other girlfriends and women before her. He would’ve never been there doing that to her if even one Florida judge had stopped him, but they didn’t.
The judge gave him probation for the violence this man had already done to her and let this man come back and beat her again, take her baby and kill him. And, she’s supposed to be taking care of herself, her baby and working on her school classes – not having to protect herself from the most cruel torture and danger in her own home from a violent man that the judges wouldn’t put in jail and keep there.
I would love to get ahold of the judges in both that case and the case where the State of Florida not only denied freedom of speech to the man that spent four years in jail for doing nothing criminal, but had charged him with a felony for putting toilet bowls on his own house. I would like the entire world to take those two judges to task for what they did because it was criminal and it was hideously wrong in both cases. They completely denied and abated the US Constitution along with the laws of any sane reasonable society, including ours – no matter how some Republican governor, legislator, judge, lawyer or evangelist “frames” the perspective of it for us.
I hope all those judges, social workers, police, and legislators responsible for both of these travesties of justice, are all chained to that piece of wasted humanity, Richard McTear Jr. throughout eternity in a pit of vipers and fires that torment them every moment of forever in hell. And that’s the truth.
TAMPA – Seven weeks ago, Richard Anthony McTear Jr. broke Jasmine Bedwell’s door, hit her several times, broke items throughout her apartment, held her down, and poured household cleaner on her face and head, sheriff’s deputies say.
A neighbor called deputies, and charges were filed with the state attorney’s office.
Five weeks ago, McTear threatened to go to Bedwell’s home and kill her infant son, according to deputies. They say he later bruised her enough for her to be taken to a hospital. More charges were filed.
Investigators say McTear followed through on his threat against her son early Tuesday by beating Bedwell, throwing the child onto a concrete floor and then kidnapping 3-month-old Emanuel Wesley Murray and throwing him out of a moving car onto Interstate 275. The infant was found dead.
[ . . . ]
•In yet another domestic violence case, McTear entered the apartment of his then-girlfriend Louvena Cromartie through an unlocked back door in February 2008. McTear punched Cromartie in the face and pushed her to the ground, Hillsborough County sheriff’s spokeswoman Debbie Carter said. Cromartie was knocked unconscious. McTear pleaded guilty to felony battery and was placed on probation through June 2010, records say.
And then I put two and two together – that was in Florida – and this was in Florida – thanks, to the Republican administration there – we have both these cases and probably a lot more like them. The judges and politicians are cut from the same cloth and it is evil. They have wronged us by doing these things to people – to this young woman and her child and her life – and by denying this man’s rights to freedom of expression. Those judges are criminals that did this in both cases and in any others like them. It isn’t rhetoric – these are facts.
Litterbug released after 4 years in jail
Published: May 21, 2009 at 5:37 PM
ALTAMONTE SPRINGS, Fla., May 21 (UPI)
Alan Davis of Seminole County was originally convicted in 2003 on a felony criminal littering charge for what he called a political protest,
In 1999, he began covering the roof and yard of his home with toilets, airplane parts, scrap metal, a giant statue of buttocks and other objects his neighbors found objectionable. He was sentenced to one year in jail
So much for Freedom of Speech and freedom of expression guaranteed under the US Constitution – under the monarchy of the Bush Administration and the Florida Republicans in power. – My Note
This man spent longer in jail for this than OJ did for going into a rage and killing his ex-wife and her boyfriend. He also spent longer in jail than any of the young men in Pennsylvania will spend for brutally beating to death, a 25-year old man who was the father figure for two young children and went to work everyday.
This man spent longer in jail and was given a felony charge while Drew Petersen runs around free for years after killing two of his wives and he spent longer in jail than many of the people who have perpetrated some of the most horrendous, violent and brutal crimes against women in this country during the last thirty years of Republican administrations. How could they have taken the principles they told us they believed in and apply policies that made it possible for so many gross wrongs to occur as a direct result?
And, what is it with the Republicans – they only believe in freedom of speech and expression to the extent that they like it or agree with it or its one of their rich friends doing it? – my note
***
Then, I was getting my email and noticed this on the little comcast news fly-around –
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — A mother playing with her children at a park spotted a little black sneaker sticking out of the sand underneath the playground equipment. Figuring a youngster had lost his shoe, she bent down to pick it up. It was strangely heavy.
She had made a ghastly discovery: a dead little boy, buried in the sand.
[ . . . ]
Albuquerque police said Tiffany Toribio, 23, confessed to suffocating her 3-year-old son, Tyruss “Ty” Toribio, as he slept on the climbing gym — a crime so cold-blooded that neighbors struggled to comprehend it, and even veteran officers became choked up.
[ . . . ]
Toribio was homeless and sleeping in the park, having been kicked out of her mother’s home and a friend’s apartment in the days before her son’s death because she was ignoring the boy and withholding affection, investigators said.
“What makes this story especially sad was when asked the reason why she took Ty’s life, Tiffany said that she did not want him to grow up with no one caring about him the same way that she had grown up with no one caring about her,” said Police Chief Ray Schultz, his eyes watery and his voice thick with emotion.
What had baffled police after the discovery of the body was that the chubby-cheeked boy appeared to have been well-fed, showed no signs of physical abuse and was wearing a matching outfit that seemed to suggest he had been well-cared for.
Schultz said Toribio attempted suicide in jail and was under close observation. A single mother, Toribio had no criminal record or history of drug or alcohol abuse, the police chief said.
In the rest of the story, there were people quoted that they would’ve helped – well they damn sure wouldn’t have because they didn’t and they didn’t do it when it mattered.
The little boy and his mother were left to sleep in a park – who helped her to learn to nurture that child? Who helped her learn to have a good time and enjoy her life and be productive with her new role in the world as a woman, as a mother and as a participant in her community? Who did that?
Or was it that she’s right – there was no use for either of them based on the actions, attitudes, inaction, apathy and coldness of those very same people who are mourning now?
What I’ve learned from recent searches about “reward offered” on google – is that regardless of how happy the Wall Street traders are that go to lunch with the news folks – America is not very user-friendly for women and children, for people who are different, for people who are poor or for people who are in any way vulnerable. It is not the same place for the people on Wall Street or that work in Washington’s government sanctuaries and in wealthy neighborhoods.
I learned that if I know someone that would buy a $800,000 castle home in Idaho, I could make $25,000 for getting the owners and buyers together, but the state of Idaho might give me trouble for not having a real estate brokers’ license according to the one comment on the article.
Also, I discovered that there is a $5 million dollar reward for some Mexican drug kingpin that has escaped from a maximum facility jail. That would likely be hard to get considering that this guy and his friends have killed several thousand people in a drug war that continues in Mexico and at times, in the US.
There was a robbery which managed to acquire 26.5 million veterans records whether they knew what they had taken or not and there is a reward in that case, too, although it happened in 2006.
I found out that there is a $100,000 reward for information about ricin sprinkled letters that ended up in some South Carolina post office in 2004 which never seemed to have been solved, also. The letter was addressed to the Department of Transportation, so I can only guess that somebody was really pissed off about missing their exit somewhere. Or, the jackasses had used eminent domain against the wrong person who didn’t take it well.
I found out that Microsoft and others are offering a $250,000 bounty for information leading to those people who created and put online a computer virus called the conficker worm which was supposed to activate on April Fools’ Day but didn’t. (But, it might yet.)
And, by the way – Georgia is adding two new nuclear reactors to go online in 2016 and 2017 which is going to be increasing our bills before they ever go online to help do anything because not only is our tax money paying for them to be built and we are billed for the electricity – we are also paying to build them with increases on our rates. Surprise, surprise, surprise as Gomer would say. All, that thanks to our Republican Governor – Sonny “done let the cows outta the barn” Purdue.
***
From the UTD University Village where students are supposed to safely live – burglaries are common enough that a $5,000 reward is being offered in an attempt to get it stopped. There are actually a lot of missing persons, especially women and shootings happening at University campuses and nearby including crimes recently where the intent was burglary, such as recently happened in Georgia also.
The reward for a family that disappeared is described in a story that doesn’t make any good sense at all. Truck found, people not found. The family was last seen on Dec. 23 and they didn’t start a search for them until January 3, this year. What are all those satellites in the sky doing if they can’t even help resolve a case like this? A man, his wife and their 3-month old son just isn’t ever found? What is that?
But, I found out that this is not all that uncommon in America over the last few years. It doesn’t make the news because it has become a thing that occurs so often, which is really pathetic actually. There have been so many women beaten to death, children killed by men dating their moms and homeless people beaten by groups of teenagers that it isn’t even newsworthy anymore.
Women, daughters, wives, elderly, disabled, homeless, impoverished and the children of America are being savagely treated all across the United States and it isn’t even news because it is so business as usual, commonplace and frequent, including the obscene brutality being given to them as great America’s concept of freedom, dignity, and rights for them. ( and it is what I’ve seen and experienced too, and I know many others that have endured it – some who have survived and many that have not.)
I also discovered that a $40,000 4′ x 40′ aluminum ramp that weighed 1200 pounds and a dock were stolen from a lighthouse without anyone noticing it get up an leave. Who are these people that felt they needed to take that and how did it happen that no one saw anything that big get up and leave? Is anybody at home in America? They are offering a reward.
And, I found out that New Jersey is dicking around because they’ve mismanaged their money like just about every other state and have a shortfall deficit of around $2 Billion dollars that they admit to. The real figures are probably substantially higher and they’re expecting to cover it with a bunch of other inside finagling. Par for the course.
And, disgustingly enough, while the Republican Florida State Governor is handing out some inane message about Happy Mothers’ Day – he and his administration have directly resulted in this horror that happens to women across “his” state and his sister states everyday –
I discovered that while people in America and the press are outraged at some Middle Eastern judge deciding it is okay for husbands to slap their wives over spending too much money, the same people aren’t concerned whatsoever by the domestic violence, cruelty and brutality occurring against women across the United States, in every state, every single moment of every day. There isn’t a Hallmark moment that will ever fix this. Mothers’ Day doesn’t mean anything in a very basic sense while even one woman, daughter, child or member of the United States is being treated in ways that most people wouldn’t even allow a dog to be treated.
We wouldn’t put up with the Taliban treating our women that way even in the “war zone” so why would we put up with it happening in America commonly and pervasively as has been happening every single day for many, many years? Why does the war zone have to be in our living rooms, our bedrooms, in our bathrooms, in the safe harbor of our homes where it should be a sanctuary of safety from the whole world of dangers that are “out there, on the streets and in the bigger world?” Why can’t our children sleep safe in their own beds, wives sleep safe in their own beds, girls and daughters be safe in their schools and churches and in their own neighborhoods?
A 24-year-old Queens woman was beaten to death at a Times Square club packed with rap royalty celebrating Lil’ Kim’s birthday, and the prime suspects are club employees, police sources said.
A maintenance worker Wednesday found Ingrid (China) Rivera’s battered body stuffed in a rooftop electrical room above Spotlight Live, the karaoke bar where patrons wait in long lines to sing with celebrities.
She had been missing since Sunday when, wearing a blue dress and silver heels, she spent the night at Lil’ Kim’s bash, which was attended by Missy Elliott, Busta Rhymes, Lamar Odom and Wyclef Jean.
Updated Thursday, August 7th 2008, 8:12 AM
Ingrid Rivera’s body (below) was found Wednesday on rooftop at karaoke club in Times Square. Costanza for News
Ingrid Rivera’s body (below) was found Wednesday on rooftop at karaoke club in Times Square.
Rivera, whose body is wheeled out Wednesday night (below), had been missing since Sunday, when Lil’ Kim’s birthday was being celebrated at club.
Ingrid Rivera - A 24-year-old Queens woman was beaten to death at a Times Square club packed with rap royalty celebrating Lil' Kim's birthday, and the prime suspects are club employees. She was found Wednesday on rooftop at karaoke club in Times Square.
Orange County News
Father arrested for stabbing daughters
Saturday, May 09, 2009
City News Service
CORONA, Calif. (CNS) — A father allegedly fatally stabbed his 2-month-old and 6- year-old daughters today at a home in Corona, and he and his wife were taken to a hospital with stab wounds before he was arrested, police said.
Amado Esqueda, 39, was arrested on suspicion of murder, said Sgt. Paul Luczenko.
He and his wife, who was not identified, were hospitalized with serious stab wounds, but are expected to survive, police said.
The stabbings were reported at 6:48 a.m. when police received a 911 call from a home in the 700 block of Via Paraiso Circle, said Corona police Sgt. Jerry Pawluczenko.
The girls were pronounced dead at Corona Regional Medical Center, he said.
Neighbor Diana Valencia awoke to screaming, the Press-Enterprise of Riverside reported.
“It was like frightened yelling in horror,” Valencia told the newspaper.
Los Angeles News
Homeless man beaten to death in Echo Park
Saturday, May 02, 2009
City News Service
LOS ANGELES (CNS) — The body of a homeless man who had been beaten to death was found today in Echo Park , police said.
The man’s body was found about 2:30 a.m. in front of a business at 533 Glendale Blvd., said Officer Jose Villalta of the Los Angeles Police Department.
The man appeared to have been “viciously struck in the head with a blunt object,” said April Harding of the LAPD.
A large pot or tree planter was on the victim’s head, Villalta said.
A man is dead after being left bleeding unconscious on the side of the road, and police need your help figuring out who he was. The victim was found early Friday morning on East Tropicana near Maryland Parkway.
It’s not the way detectives would prefer to solve this case: releasing the picture of an unconscious man in his hospital bed. But officers say they had no choice. Identifying the victim is step one in finding out who attacked him.
“It’s wrong,” says Las Vegan Darrayl Hayward. “It’s a sick town we live in.”
Adds local Edward Cox, “I think it’s horrible. Life is something. People have no mental morality at all.”
The man was found early Friday morning bleeding outside of an office complex on East Tropicana. Officers say the man had no identification and was unable to communicate anything. Now, he’s in critical condition at a local hospital with a brain injury.
The attack happened just steps away from a busy bus stop on Tropicana, so there’s always a chance the victim was a passenger.
Police say the victim was between 50 and 60 years old, stood 5’10” tall, and weighed about 155 pounds. He was wearing a white button-up shirt, white pants, and a black belt – the basic attire of countless restaurant and casino workers.
The mystery now is who he is and what exactly happened on the sidewalk across from the UNLV dorms?
Denise Rosch: Busy street. I know it is 2:00 in the morning, but busy street.
Darrayl Hayward: 24-hour town.
The man passed away Sunday night from a brain injury. If you know who this man was or have any information about what happened to him, you’re urged to contact Crime Stoppers at 385-5555. You can remain anonymous.
Boy beaten to death while mom serves in Iraq
Woman’s boyfriend charged with murder after 4-year-old found dead in bed
updated 4:44 p.m. ET, Sat., May 26, 2007
CALUMET CITY, Ill. – A man beat his girlfriend’s 4-year-old son to death after she left the boy in his care while she was deployed to Iraq, police said.
A judge denied bond on Saturday for Donell Parker, 23, who is charged with first-degree murder in the death of Cameron Smith. Parker was charged Friday, a day after the boy was found dead in his bed in a suburb south of Chicago.
Judge Frank Castiglione said at Saturday’s bail hearing that Parker showed a “wanton disrespect for human life.” Prosecutors told the court the boy suffered multiple rib fractures, damaged internal organs and swelling around his brain.
That’s the America I know – I don’t have any idea where the Republicans and their Rush “think’s he’s God” Limbaugh, Uncle Dick “don’t take him hunting” Cheney and other conservative demi-gods have been living but it must be la-la land. – my note
Happy Mothers’ Day in America
***
LOS ANGELES (KABC) – An AMBER alert has been issued statewide for 18-month-old boy Alexis Rodriguez. Francisco Rodriguez, a 33-year-old male, is suspected of kidnapping both the boy and his mother, Consuelo Gonzalez, in Pomona at approximately 7:43 p.m. Saturday after an attempted homicide. Gonzalez is Francisco Rodriguez’s wife.
UPDATE 8:21 a.m.: Francisco Rodriguez, the boy’s father, tried to run over Jose Chavez, 30, on Huntingon Street south of Third Street around 7:45 p.m. Saturday as he drove off, according to Pomona police. Chavez was airlifted to a hospital with a life-threatening head injury.
Police were on the scene of a potentially suspicious death at the Dickens Drive Group Home at 113 Dickens Drive in Raleigh on March 28, 2009.
Search warrant released in death of group home worker
Raleigh police investigate potentially suspicious death
Posted: Apr. 2, 2009
Raleigh, N.C. — A search warrant released Thursday listed the death of a direct-care worker at the Dickens Drive Group Home as a possible murder.
The warrant says that Rebecca Ezeoha Thompkins, 44, had a laceration on the left side of her face when a co-worker found her early Friday, March 27, in the home for mentally disabled patients. Another counselor and six residents were present at that time.
The warrant allowed police to search the home at 113 Dickens Drive and a Volvo 940 and Chevrolet van belonging to Thompkins’ boyfriend.
They also seized tire tools, candle holders, an ink pen and caulking tool.
Additionally, officers found credit cards belonging to Thompkins’ in her boyfriend’s car.
The co-worker who called 911 said that Thompkins was face-down in a bath tub and covered in blood when he found her.
(my note – autopsy reveals – )
autopsy reveals –
blunt force injury to the head
laceration to the left side of the face
fracture of the left zygomatic bone
fracture of the fifth cervical vertebral body
subarachnoid hemorrhage of the brain
(It means that somebody bigger than her beat her viciously)
(My Note – This is the America I know – a place of police brutality, cover-ups by police and authorities, abuses of power and conflicts of interest common among authorities and failures of a justice and law enforcement system that abuses citizens at every excuse while letting murderers go free. It is true that in America, especially in states controlled by the Republican party manifesto – you will spend longer in jail and pay more in fines for not paying parking tickets, or for having a married name on one ID but not on another, or for any misdemeanor than for brutalizing assault or murder – especially when perpetrated against a woman. But, the police will brutalize anyone that isn’t carrying a weapon, didn’t kill someone, and isn’t in a gang of some kind.)
This is just par for the course in America since the Republican conservatives have “fixed things” over the last thirty years to suit themselves and their way of doing things –
**
Documents suggest cover-up in Oakland beating
Jaxon Van Derbeken, Chronicle Staff Writer
Sunday, May 10, 2009
Jerry Amaro complained to everyone he knew that Oakland police had beaten him.
Few people outside his own family believed the 35-year-old drug addict’s story back in March 2000. It seemed no one ever would – he never lodged a complaint against police after being arrested in an undercover drug sting, his family found no witnesses to back his claim, and the lieutenant who led the operation denied that any beating had occurred.
A month after his arrest, Amaro died of pneumonia brought on by broken ribs and a punctured lung. Suddenly, police homicide investigators did find witnesses to back Amaro’s story, and at least one officer acknowledged that police had inflicted blows that night.
Police officials even ultimately concluded that their own criminal probe had been compromised by the “blatant” interference of the lieutenant who oversaw Amaro’s arrest.
Until recently, however, Amaro’s family never knew about any of it. Police shelved the case quietly, handing out a 10-day suspension to the lieutenant.
Eight years after Amaro’s death, that lieutenant, Ed Poulson, was promoted to captain and put in charge of police internal affairs. Only then did new allegations surrounding Amaro’s death come to light, prompting the FBI to open an investigation and Amaro’s family to file a $10 million civil rights lawsuit.
[ . . . ]
Someone within the Police Department then contacted the FBI, accusing Poulson himself of having kicked Amaro on the ground and then ordering officers to lie, according to authorities with knowledge of the case. News that the FBI had opened an investigation was first reported earlier this year by the Chauncey Bailey Project, a consortium of media outlets that does not include The Chronicle.In March, attorney John Burris – who had turned Amaro’s family away in 2000 – filed a $10 million lawsuit on their behalf.
“They beat my brother, they broke his ribs. He died in agony and pain,” said Amaro’s sister, Stephanie Montoya. “These police officers finally came forward after all this time.”
Another case involves Bruce Mendenhall, a trucker from Illinois charged with the June 2007 shooting death of Sara Nicole Hulbert, whose body was found in a Nashville truck stop along Interstate 24. After his arrest, Mendenhall implicated himself in other murders. He now has been charged with killing three women in Tennessee, Indiana and Alabama and is a suspect in at least two other homicides in Indiana and Georgia.
Indeed, the FBI initiative developed out of an Oklahoma case in 2004 when an analyst with the Oklahoma Bureau of Investigation noticed that bodies of murdered women were being dumped along Interstate 40 in Oklahoma, Texas, Arkansas and Mississippi.FBI analysts checked records in the database to determine whether there were similar patterns of highway killings in other areas.
There were. Working with other agencies, the FBI developed a grid of more than 500 murder victims found along or near highways, along with 200 potential suspects, most of them truckers.
The FBI says the system is working. Since its inception, at least 10 suspects believed to have committed some 30 homicides have been arrested. All of them were long-haul truckers at the time, although not all were on duty when the crimes were committed. The FBI said it couldn’t speculate on whether the killers became truckers in order to gain access to victims.
In Kansas, Miss Molly was discovered on Jan. 25, 1986, when a trucker heading west on I-70 noticed a body lying in a creek below a bridge. The partially clothed woman was about 5 feet, 5 inches tall and 25 to 30 years old. Her clothing was expensive, with French and European markings.
She was well-groomed, and stretch marks on her abdomen indicated that she may recently have given birth. Though she was severely beaten and injured from the fall, the cause of death was determined to be drowning — in just a few inches of water.
“We have no idea who she is, where she originated from, where she was going to, absolutely nothing,” Saline County Sheriff Glen Kochanowski said. “We have been all over the United States talking to various task forces about this. Nobody has been able to give us anything on her.”
In Missouri, the body of Gloria Barnes was found July 13, 1997, behind the Seven Gables Truck Stop and Restaurant along Interstate 44 in Springfield. Her body was wrapped in carpet padding and she died from a blow to the head.
Barnes was last seen 400 miles away in Joiner, Ark., about three days earlier.
by Eddi Trevizo – Apr. 21, 2009 11:20 AM
The Arizona Republic
Phoenix police found a woman beaten to death in an alley behind a pawn shop Tuesday morning.
Police responding to a call found the body of a woman, said to be about 45 to 50 years old, behind the shop near 27th Avenue and Bethany Home Road.
Empty plastic bottles, trash bags and debris were scattered around the body.
The victim has not been identified, but she was probably homeless, said Officer James Holmes, spokesman for Phoenix Police.
“We have a fairly messy scene that indicates a struggle,” Holmes said.
The victim’s boyfriend, whose identity has not been disclosed, was taken into custody and is being interviewed. The man has not been arrested, Holmes said.
Zee did not see the woman until several moments later when another employee told him there was a body behind the building.
“She was so beat up she looked swollen; I didn’t know if it was a man or a woman,” Zee said.
Police have not determined the extent of the woman’s injuries and have not determined the cause of death pending an autopsy.
She was beaten to death with a rock. In Spring 2006, The Star ran a 13-part series about the unsolved killing. A Cleveland County woman went to police soon …
… was found strangled to death in her apartment. On Tuesday, police arrested 28-year-old Calvin Lawson of Coney Island. A young woman was found beaten and …
The dying words of a St. Charles woman being beaten to death with a hammer were heard publicly for the first time Tuesday through a 90-second recorded …
***
South Bend woman attacked by boyfriend, suffers severe stab wounds
Posted: 10:23 PM May 4, 2009 Last Updated: 4:06 PM May 5, 2009
A man came to the rescue of his neighbor Monday night after the woman’s boyfriend allegedly attacked her with a knife as she held her infant daughter.
It happened around 6:15 p.m. at the Miami Hills Apartments in South Bend, just north of the Erskine Golf Course on the south side of town.
Police say 24-year-old Katrina McMillen was in her apartment arguing with her boyfriend, 27-year-old Victor Henderson. While she was holding her baby, the boyfriend attacked her with a kitchen knife.
McMillen ran downstairs and out of the building, still holding her child, but Henderson chased after her and began stabbing her again.
At one point, the McMillen dropped her baby on the pavement.
That is when a neighbor, 26-year-old Dennis Johnson, attempted to fight the man off.
Statement by Governor Charlie Crist Regarding Mother’s Day
“I join Floridians in celebrating mothers, grandmothers and aunts across our state during this Mother’s Day weekend. The role of a dedicated and loving mother is important to the well-being of children and families.
TAMPA – Seven weeks ago, Richard Anthony McTear Jr. broke Jasmine Bedwell’s door, hit her several times, broke items throughout her apartment, held her down, and poured household cleaner on her face and head, sheriff’s deputies say.
A neighbor called deputies, and charges were filed with the state attorney’s office.
Five weeks ago, McTear threatened to go to Bedwell’s home and kill her infant son, according to deputies. They say he later bruised her enough for her to be taken to a hospital. More charges were filed.
Investigators say McTear followed through on his threat against her son early Tuesday by beating Bedwell, throwing the child onto a concrete floor and then kidnapping 3-month-old Emanuel Wesley Murray and throwing him out of a moving car onto Interstate 275. The infant was found dead.
[ . . . ]
McTear was no stranger to the justice system.
•The first Tampa police arrest against McTear came in November 2001, when he was 14. He was charged with misdemeanor battery-domestic violence. In that case, police said the Webb Middle School eighth-grader kicked and slapped his mother from the back seat of a vehicle.
•In March 2006, McTear’s child was found wandering alone outside McTear’s apartment, Temple Terrace police say. An investigator found the man asleep. Investigators charged McTear with child neglect, but the charge was later dropped because of lack of evidence.
•In November 2007, he was charged with domestic battery against a woman, but she later waived prosecution.
•In yet another domestic violence case, McTear entered the apartment of his then-girlfriend Louvena Cromartie through an unlocked back door in February 2008. McTear punched Cromartie in the face and pushed her to the ground, Hillsborough County sheriff’s spokeswoman Debbie Carter said. Cromartie was knocked unconscious. McTear pleaded guilty to felony battery and was placed on probation through June 2010, records say.
The Department of Children & Families, the child protection division of the Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office and Hillsborough Kids Inc. will review the case to see whether there were any missteps.
On Wednesday, a heavily shackled McTear stood before Hillsborough Circuit Judge Walter Heinrich. The judge pored over McTear’s record, noting the 21-year-old was on probation, facing other charges for striking another woman and possibly facing the death penalty for Emanuel’s death.
DCF found mother of baby tossed from car was fit for custody
By KRISTA KLAUS | News Channel 8
and KEITH MORELLI | The Tampa Tribune
Published: May 7, 2009
Updated: 05/07/2009 04:18 pm
Child welfare workers investigated an abuse allegation involving 3-month-old Emanuel Wesley Murray in April but closed the case once his mother sought a restraining order against the man suspected of threatening the infant.
In a state report released Thursday, the narrative of a child safety investigation conducted by the Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office describes Jasmine Bedwell’s ex-boyfriend as a violent man bent on hurting the 17-year-old foster child who was the new mother of an infant son.
A week later, Emanuel died horrifically. Investigators say the ex-boyfriend, Richard Anthony McTear Jr., tossed the infant out a car window along Interstate 275 near Fowler Avenue early Tuesday.
Bedwell had been granted a temporary restraining order against McTear and was to have appeared for a court hearing Monday for a permanent injunction. She did not show up, and the restraining order was dropped.
Deputies said early Tuesday that McTear went to Bedwell’s home and a fight ensued. At one point, he grabbed the infant, who was strapped in a car seat, and threw the car seat twice, with Emanuel falling to the concrete floor, according to the sheriff’s office.
Investigators said McTear then abducted the child and fled in his car. The baby was pronounced dead where he was found along the interstate, and McTear was arrested a few hours later.
not only was this young mother subjected to all the shit she endured from the foster care system – and on top of being vulnerable to the abusive men in the community that might say they would love her and her baby – the state and judicial system was a complete failure in helping secure her safety and that of her little family. This is the real Mothers’ Day the governor gave her and has given to every woman like her.
***
Police says Fla. man tosses infant from car on I-275
The Tampa Tribune says the incident occurred after Richard McTear, 21, argued with his 17-year-old former girlfriend and, at one point, threw her son to the concrete. He then fled with the infant in his car.
Deputies say McTear tossed the boy from the vehicle as he drove along I-275, WTSP-TV reports
While McTear was in custody, WTSP says, a reporter asked him, “How can you throw a baby out the window?”
He replied: “It’s a dirty game.” He paused, then repeated himself: “It’s dirty game.”
Police say McTear had been arrested previously on charges felony battery, aggravated assault with a deadly weapon and domestic battery by strangulation. He was sentenced to two years’ probation in June 2008 for felony battery. An arrest warrant was issued when he failed to report.
Posted by Doug Stanglin at 03:36 PM/ET, May 05, 2009
TAMPA, Fla. (AP) — A 21-year-old man was charged with first-degree murder Tuesday after police said he snatched up his ex-girlfriend’s 3-month-old son during a fight and then threw the baby from his car on an interstate highway.
Click on a linked category header below to sort by that category.
Legislator District Party County
Alexander, JD 17 Republican Consists of Hardee, Highlands, and parts of DeSoto, Glades, Okeechobee, Polk, and St. Lucie counties
Altman, Thad 24 Republican Consists of parts of Brevard, Orange, and Seminole counties
Aronberg, Dave 27 Democrat Consists of parts of Charlotte, Glades, Hendry, Lee, and Palm Beach counties
Atwater, Jeff 25 Republican Consists of parts of Broward, and Palm Beach counties
Baker, Carey 20 Republican Consists of parts of Lake, Marion, Seminole, Sumter, and Volusia counties
Bennett, Michael S. “Mike” 21 Republican Consists of parts of Charlotte, DeSoto, Lee, Manatee, and Sarasota counties
Bullard, Larcenia J. 39 Democrat Consists of Monroe, and parts of Broward, Collier, Hendry, Miami-Dade, and Palm Beach counties
Constantine, Lee 22 Republican Consists of parts of Orange, and Seminole counties
Crist, Victor D. 12 Republican Consists of parts of Hillsborough, and Pasco counties
Dean, Charles S. “Charlie”, Sr. 3 Republican Consists of Baker, Dixie, Hamilton, Lafayette, Suwannee, Taylor, and parts of Citrus, Columbia, Jefferson, Leon, Levy, Madison, and Marion counties
Detert, Nancy C. 23 Republican Consists of parts of Charlotte, Manatee, and Sarasota counties
Deutch, Ted 30 Democrat Consists of parts of Broward, and Palm Beach counties
Diaz de la Portilla, Alex 36 Republican Consists of part of Miami-Dade county
Dockery, Paula 15 Republican Consists of parts of Hernando, Lake, Osceola, Polk, and Sumter counties
Fasano, Mike 11 Republican Consists of parts of Citrus, Hernando, Pasco, and Pinellas counties
Gaetz, Don 4 Republican Consists of parts of Bay, Escambia, Okaloosa, Santa Rosa, and Walton counties
Garcia, Rudy 40 Republican Consists of part of Miami-Dade county
Gardiner, Andy 9 Republican Consists of parts of Orange, Osceola, and Seminole counties
Gelber, Dan 35 Democrat Consists of parts of Broward, and Miami-Dade counties
Haridopolos, Mike 26 Republican Consists of parts of Brevard, Indian River, Osceola, and St. Lucie counties
Hill, Anthony C. “Tony”, Sr. 1 Democrat Consists of parts of Duval, Flagler, Putnam, St. Johns, and Volusia counties
Jones, Dennis L., D.C. 13 Republican Consists of part of Pinellas county
Joyner, Arthenia L. 18 Democrat Consists of parts of Hillsborough, Manatee, and Pinellas counties
Justice, Charlie 16 Democrat Consists of parts of Hillsborough, and Pinellas counties
King, James E. “Jim”, Jr. 8 Republican Consists of parts of Duval, Flagler, Nassau, St. Johns, and Volusia counties
Lawson, Alfred “Al”, Jr. 6 Democrat Consists of Calhoun, Franklin, Gadsden, Gulf, Jackson, Liberty, Wakulla, and parts of Bay, Jefferson, Leon, and Madison counties
Lynn, Evelyn J. 7 Republican Consists of parts of Clay, Marion, Putnam, and Volusia counties
Oelrich, Steve 14 Republican Consists of Alachua, Bradford, Gilchrist, Union, and parts of Columbia, Levy, Marion, and Putnam counties
Peaden, Durell, Jr. 2 Republican Consists of Holmes, Washington, and parts of Bay, Escambia, Okaloosa, Santa Rosa, and Walton counties
Pruitt, Ken 28 Republican Consists of Martin, and parts of Indian River, Okeechobee, Palm Beach, and St. Lucie counties
Rich, Nan H. 34 Democrat Consists of parts of Broward, and Miami-Dade counties Richter, Garrett S. 37 Republican Consists of parts of Collier, and Lee counties
Ring, Jeremy 32 Democrat Consists of part of Broward county
Siplin, Gary 19 Democrat Consists of parts of Orange, and Osceola counties
Smith, Christopher L. “Chris” 29 Democrat Consists of parts of Broward, and Palm Beach counties
Sobel, Eleanor 31 Democrat Consists of part of Broward county
Storms, Ronda 10 Republican Consists of parts of Hillsborough, Pasco, and Polk counties
Villalobos, J. Alex 38 Republican Consists of part of Miami-Dade county
Wilson, Frederica S. 33 Democrat Consists of part of Miami-Dade county
Wise, Stephen R. 5 Republican Consists of parts of Clay, Duval, Nassau, and St. Johns counties
Last month, Bedwell sought an injunction against McTear for domestic violence. She didn’t appear for a scheduled court appearance Monday, though, and the case was dropped.
“She did initially get a restraining order, and we were there when she got it,” Rainey said. “You have to go back to court to maintain the restraining order, and no one from Hillsborough Kids was aware of the court date on Monday. If we were aware, we would have been there.”
Probation officials also sought to revoke McTear’s probation last month, saying he failed to report as ordered and had moved without permission.
McTear had told them he was living with Bedwell. But on April 8, she told them McTear had moved out. She also told them to expect new criminal charges to be filed against him because he had hit her three different times.
Bobbi Flowers, a professor at Stetson University’s College of Law, said small-time offenders with rap sheets like McTear’s can present a problem to prosecutors and judges. She said that with constantly shrinking resources, such offenders more frequently end up plea bargaining for probation or other less-restrictive sentences.
“Plea bargaining will sometimes allow them to skate through the system,” she said.
Nikki Daniels, of the Family Justice Center in Tampa, said that even if Jasmine Bedwell had made it to court Monday, the injunction against McTear hadn’t been served yet. “The hearing would’ve been continued another two weeks while they tried to serve him,” Daniels said.
***
Five weeks ago, McTear threatened to go to Bedwell’s home and kill her infant son, according to deputies. They say he later bruised her enough for her to be taken to a hospital. More charges were filed.
Statement by Governor Charlie Crist Regarding Mother’s Day
“I join Floridians in celebrating mothers, grandmothers and aunts across our state during this Mother’s Day weekend. The role of a dedicated and loving mother is important to the well-being of children and families.
http://www.flgov.com/
***
Happy Mothers’ Day thanks to the Republican Party, conservatives and the American Judicial System – they are entrenched still, and have completely failed at providing a safe, healthy, prosperous society in America.
***
ATLANTA, Georgia (CNN) — Eleven-year-old Jaheem Herrera woke up on April 16 acting strangely. He wasn’t hungry and he didn’t want to go to school.
Jaheem Herrera’s mother thinks he hanged himself because he was perpetually bullied at school.
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But the outgoing fifth grader packed his bag and went to school at Dunaire Elementary School in DeKalb County, Georgia.
Bermudez says bullies at school pushed Jaheem over the edge. He complained about being called gay, ugly and “the virgin” because he was from the Virgin Islands, she said.
“He told me, but he just got to the point where he didn’t want me to get involved anymore because nothing was done,” she said.
Bermudez said she complained to the school about bullying seven or eight times, but it wasn’t enough to save him.
Less than a month before Jaheem’s death, a boy in Massachusetts killed himself after being bullied, harassed and called “gay.”
After Jaheem’s death, the school board expressed condolences, saying the school staff “works diligently to provide a safe and nurturing environment for all students.” – THAT is obviously a lie. (my note)
***
Georgia State Governor – Sonny Purdue – (Republican)
Leonardo Otero murder 1/07/08 Chicago, IL *15-year–old fatally shot in Logan …. November 16, 2008 at 8:06 pm. yo thiz to all people who knew leo i knew leo since … Jason Grey murder 1/01/08 Glendale, CA *shot to death at Forest Lawn …
mylifeofcrime.wordpress.com/…/leonardo-otero-murder-10708-chicago-il-15-year–old-fatally-shot-in-logan-sq… – 101k – 22 hours ago – Cached – Similar pages –
10th-grader is 26th Chicago Public Schools student slain this … Chicago, United States …16–year–old was beaten to death with baseball bats …
groups.google.com.mk/group/alt.true-crime/browse_thread/thread/d2a2cdcc56dc6eb4 – 43k – Cached – Similar pages –
Alex Arellano’s family was so concerned about threats the 15-year-old was
getting from gang members that they pulled him from Chicago Discovery
Academy in the fall.
Chicago Breaking News:
But they didn’t know how serious the situation was until his uncle got a chilling call on Friday from a friend of the teenager’s, saying that he was being chased and beaten with bats in a neighborhood several miles from their home.
“He was knocked down by bats, and after he got up he started to run but was struck by a car that was chasing him,” said his uncle, Juan Tirado, who went Friday night to the area near 53rd Street and Sacramento where the caller said Arellano was last seen, but could find no sign of him.
The teen’s severely beaten and burned body wasn’t found until about 2:30 p.m. Saturday in the 3000 block of West 54th Place, a few blocks from where Tirado had been directed, police said.
The Cook County Medical Examiner’s office said Arellano died of a gunshot wound to the head and ruled it a homicide, but would not say if the teen was dead before his body was burned. No one had been arrested by this evening.
The grieving family spent Sunday struggling to understand why a teen who police say had no criminal record or ties to gangs was targeted for such a brutal death.
“Cowards,” Tirado said as he stood on the back porch of the family’s apartment in the 8900 block of South Escanaba Avenue, where Alex lived with his mother, Yeimi Tirado, a 12-year-old sister and a 5-year-old stepbrother.
Tirado lashed out at his nephew’s unknown killers.
“You guys are not human,” he said. “A human would not do that to another human being — especially a child, who had no gang affiliation.”
He also pleaded with anyone who saw his nephew being chased on Friday about 7 p.m., when he received the call from Arellano’s friend, to contact police.
“I know it’s hard for people around there to say anything,” Tirado said. “But if someone saw something, call the police anonymously and say something. It was just so vicious and horrifying of them to do this to a child.”
Arellano last attended Chicago Discovery Academy on Sept. 9, Chicago Public Schools spokeswoman Monique Bond said. School administrators do not recall the teen or his family reporting a problem with threats, Bond said.
“If any student feels threatened, there is a system in place to address that,” Bond said. “You could go to anybody. A teacher. The principal.”
Tirado said the family hoped to move to another neighborhood so that Arellano could attend another school, but financial problems made that difficult. They felt the best way to deal with the problem was just to keep Arellano at home. The teen has a learning disability, Tirado said, and spent much of his time playing video games since leaving school.
Neighbors who asked not to be identified described him as a quiet kid who did not make trouble or seem to be involved with gangs.
“He’s a very shy kid,” said Tirado’s girlfriend, Juanita Quiroz. “He was funny. He didn’t want to get in anybody’s business. He liked to laugh.”
The last time family members had seen Arellano was Thursday night. They realized Friday morning he was gone, and did not know where he was until a girl who Tirado did not know called about 7 p.m. Friday.
At first, she said Arellano needed to be picked up from 51st Street and Albany. She called a few minutes later with the description of the chase, saying police were on the scene.
On Friday night, Tirado said he and other family members asked police to help search for the teen, but were told to go home and call police in their own neighborhood to fill out a missing person’s report. An officer arrived at about midnight and took the report, Tirado said.
On Saturday morning, family members were back in the neighborhood where Arellano was last seen, handing out fliers with the teen’s picture. A family member saw police gathered near where the body was found at 2:30 p.m., and helped identify Arellano, Tirado said.
Tirado has no idea why his nephew was in the neighborhood where his body was found or why anyone would kill him.
“I think it was probably a set-up situation,” he said. “To get him out of this area.”
CHICAGO, Illinois (CNN) — The Rev. Michael Pfleger has ordered the American flag at St. Sabina Church hung upside-down — a historic sign of distress — to symbolize the growing death toll among the city’s youngsters.
Alex Arellano was beaten, burned and shot in the head last week. He was 15.
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So far this school year, 36 children and teens have been murdered — more than one a week — and Pfleger is among a chorus of weary Chicagoans who say the slayings aren’t getting the attention they deserve.
Officials say slayings ignored because victims are minorities
36 children, teens slain in Chicago this school year — at least two of them this week
Alex Arellano, a shy 15-year-old, was beaten, burned and shot in the head last week
Despite Chicago’s numbers, Mayor Daley says problems the same in all cities
Pfleger is not the first Chicagoan to express the sentiment. In 2007, after the city recorded 31 murdered children during the school year, Arne Duncan, then-CEO of public schools, expressed similar disappointment.
One of the most disturbing slayings came last week when the family of Alex Arellano found the 15-year-old’s body. He had been beaten, burned and shot in the head.
“It’s sad because they didn’t have to torture him that way. He never did nothing wrong, never. He was a good kid. It just gets to me. It’s crazy,” Alex’s friend Ashley Recendez said.
Indeed, police say the teen had no criminal record, no gang affiliation. His family says he was well-behaved and shy, almost fearful of strangers. They had recently taken him out of school to protect him after gang members threatened him.
He was last seen May 1, leaving his girlfriend’s house. His girlfriend told his family that several young men chased him and beat him with baseball bats. She didn’t know why.
Marines appear in court in Army nurse’s death
Court hearing for Marines charged in Army nurse’s death
Posted: Jul. 15, 2008
Fayetteville, N.C. — Two Camp Lejeune Marines made their first court appearances Tuesday in connection with the death of an Army nurse from Fort Bragg.
Marine Cpl. John Patrick Wimunc, 23, is charged with first-degree murder in the death of 2nd Lt. Holley Lynn Wimunc.
Marine Lance Cpl. Kyle Ryan Alden, 22, who was assigned to the same engineer battalion at Camp Lejeune, is charged with first-degree arson, felony conspiracy and accessory after the fact of murder.
Holley Wimunc, 24, was assigned to Fort Bragg last August and worked as a nurse at Womack Army Medical Center.
She was last seen on the evening of July 8, and she was reported missing two days later when a co-worker went to her Fayetteville apartment because she didn’t show up for work and found the remnants of a fire.
Crews fighting a brush fire near Sneads Ferry Sunday found charred human remains, and investigators said paraphernalia at the scene led them to believe the remains were those of Holley Wimunc.
A grave had been scooped about a foot deep into the ground in wooded area, and the body, which was in pieces, was dumped into it, Onslow County Sheriff Ed Brown said. When the remains were set afire, it ignited the brush fire, which burned slowly for a couple of days before being extinguished Sunday, he said.
Alden admitted he and John Wimunc were the men witnesses saw running from Holley Wimunc’s apartment the night before she was reported missing, Locklear said.
Camp Lejeune response
The case marked the second time this year that a Camp Lejeune Marine has been charged with murder.
The charred remains of Marine Lance Cpl. Maria Lauterbach were found in January behind the Jacksonville home of Cpl. Cesar Laurean. Lauterbach, who was eight months pregnant at the time, had been beaten to death.
Laurean was arrested in Mexico in April and is awaiting extradition to North Carolina to face a murder charge in Lauterbach’s death.
The body of Army Spc. Megan Lynn Touma, was found in a Fayetteville motel room on June 21, 2008, nine days after she was assigned to Fort Bragg. She was seven months pregnant at the time of her death.
The body of Spc. Megan Touma was found June 21 in a room at the Fairfield Inn near Cross Creek Mall. Investigators said they believe she was killed seven to eight days earlier.
Three non-commissioned officers have been reprimanded for not keeping track of Spc. Megan Touma after her arrival at Fort Bragg. She was found dead nine days later.
The case of an Army sergeant accused of killing a fellow soldier, who was the mother of his unborn child, will stay in North Carolina courts, although the military could file a charge of fetal homicide against him, a newspaper reported Friday.
LAWRENCE, Ind. — Four children returning home from school found their mother beaten to death in their Lawrence home, the city’s first slaying of the year.The children — between the ages of 11 and 17 — found Amenda Yang, 43, dead in a bedroom of the family’s home in the 4300 block of Clinton Street Wednesday afternoon, 6News’ Jack Rinehart reported.”This is the Yang residence. My mom is probably dead. Somebody hit her in the head. She is bleeding all over. Mom, can you hear me? Mom! Mom!” one of the children said during a 911 call made shortly after the discovery.
Investigators said Yang died of blunt force trauma, but that there was no evidence of forced entry at the home.”It would appear that it was a fairly violent attack,” said Lawrence police Detective Gary Woodruff. “Of course, we’re investigating other aspects of the case, so the case is active and ongoing.”Police said Yang was married, but that the couple separated last month. There had been no previous police runs to the home.
Truck of suspect in Davis slaying yields pair of guns
Bartlett woman was shot twice, beaten about head, torso
By Clay Bailey (Contact), Memphis Commercial Appeal
Thursday, April 23, 2009
Two guns were found in Austin Agee’s pickup after the suspect in the Lisa Davis slaying killed himself.
And, based on Davis’ autopsy report, both weapons apparently were used in the death of the 29-year-old Bartlett woman last month.
Davis, an employee of Bumpus Harley-Davidson and a part-time model, was beaten and shot twice — once in the back of the head and once in the chest — according to an autopsy released Thursday.
Davis was reported missing on March 8 when she failed to show up for work at Bumpus Harley-Davidson.
She had been out late with a group of friends the night before.
Through their investigation, they developed the 21-year-old Agee as a suspect. Agee was with the group of friends who brought Davis home.
Detectives arriving at Agee’s house when he shot and killed himself found a note directing authorities to a field where he had dumped Davis’ body.
The details of Davis’ injuries note “blunt force injuries” and reflect an array of lacerations and abrasions, primarily to the head, arms and torso.
ANNAPOLIS, Md. — Maryland granted a new safeguard to its most downtrodden residents Thursday, becoming the first state in the nation to extend hate-crimes protection to homeless people.
Lawmakers point to cases like the one in south Baltimore in 2001, where a group of young men embarked on what a judge later described as a “systematic cleansing” of homeless men in their neighborhood. Three victims were beaten to death and others were forced to relocate. Three men went to prison for the crime one of them dubbed “bum stomping.”
Such attacks on the homeless are becoming more common, advocates say. More than 800 homeless people have been violently attacked in the U.S. in the past decade, and at least 217 have died, according to the National Coalition for the Homeless. In 2007, there were 160 attacks, the most in a year since the group began collecting such data in 1999.
The bill adds homelessness to the protected categories under Maryland’s hate-crimes law, which allows prosecutors to seek tougher penalties for those who target people because of race, ethnicity, religion and sexual orientation.
California, Texas and Ohio are considering similar bills, and legislation has been introduced in Congress.
Three Madison Firefighters Charged with
Posted: 11:35 AM May 8, 2009
Last Updated: 10:50 PM May 8, 2009
Reporter: Anna Baxter, Will Jones
Email Address: anna.baxter@wsaz.com; will.jones@wsaz.com
MADISON, W.Va. (WSAZ) — Three volunteer firefighters have been charged with arson after police say they intentionally set a building on fire in Madison.
The fire happened May 6 at a building on 10th Avenue C.
Dustin Vance, 19, of Foster, Gerald Waters III, 19, of Madison, and Larry Nunnery III, 19, of Danville, are all charged with first degree arson and conspiracy. The three were volunteers at the Madison Volunteer Fire Department.
According to the criminal complaint, the three told police they were bored at the firehouse so they started experimenting with brake fluid and chlorine. Later that night, police say the three suspects decided to set a building on fire.
