http://www.wusa9.com/news/local/story.aspx?storyid=97555
Jillian Coyle
9news
Wed, 24 Feb 2010 13:16 EST
Two students were shot at a middle school on Tuesday afternoon before teachers tackled a man with a high-powered rifle outside of the school. Authorities say the man is in custody, and one of the students is now in critical condition.
Jacki Kelley, spokesperson for the Jefferson County Sheriff's Office, says one victim was found inside at Deer Creek Middle School and the other was found outside the school.
Deer Creek is on West Columbine Drive near South Garrison Street, which is near Kipling Parkway and Ken Caryl Avenue.
The victims were a boy and a girl. Both were initially taken to Littleton Adventist Hospital with what authorities initially said were non life-threatening injuries.
Kelley says the shootings happened outside of the school around 3 p.m., which is about when children would be getting out of school.
One of the victims is a seventh-grade girl named Reagan Weber. She was treated and released from Littleton Adventist Hospital.
The other victim is an eighth-grade boy named Matt Thieu. He transferred to The Children's Hospital and is now listed in critical condition.
Kelley says both had surgery on Tuesday.
Kelley says deputies took 32-year-old Bruco Strong Eagle Eastwood into custody and he is being held at the Jefferson County Sheriff's Office. He is expected to face at least two counts of attempted first-degree murder and will appear in court at 10 a.m. on Wednesday for an advisement hearing.
His picture was not released pending a photo lineup.
Kelley says two people tackled Eastwood to the ground and a contractor pulled the gun away from him.
"There's no reason for us to believe that these two victims were targeted. It may have really been happenstance," Kelley said. "It could have been so much worse."
She says there are reports Eastwood was at the school prior to Tuesday.
"He was also briefly in the school today [before the shootings], although the shootings occurred outside," Kelley said.
Authorities say Eastwood used a bolt-action, high-powered rifle. 9 Wants to Know has learned he has a lengthy criminal history of charges, including assault, domestic violence and DUI.
Kelley says authorities do not yet have a motive for the shootings.
Reese Ferrin, a Deer Creek student, says he was standing next to Dr. David Benke, a seventh-grade math teacher, when the shootings began.
"I was by the crosswalk and the gunman came around the corner and Dr. Benke ran and tackled him," Reese said.
Reese says Benke tackled the gunman first and other teachers piled on top of him.
Benke's wife, Sandra Benke, told 9NEWS he called her just after the shooting.
"He wanted me to know, first of all that he was OK. That there'd been a shooting at the school and that he'd had to tackle the gunman and before he was able to get the gunman down he got a shot off and shot one of the students," she said.
"I'm not surprised that David would tackle somebody like that. He's 6'5" and he knows how to handle himself. He dearly loves his students. They're like an extended portion of his family. But I was really, really worried and glad to hear that he was OK," she said.
One student says she spoke with the shooter and he asked some students if they went to school at Deer Creek before he opened fire.
Sheri Hasse says her son was on the bus and he saw at least one of the shootings happen outside the school. Her son was kept on the bus as deputies investigated the scene.
Thirteen-year-old Kyle Barker was also on the bus and says they heard the first shot and everyone on the bus got down. He says he peeked up and saw students running away from the gunman around the back of the bus. He says one of those kids was the second victim. He watched the student fall to the ground after being shot. He says he also saw teachers tackling the gunman and one teacher came over and put a coat over the victim. They didn't do CPR, but did apply pressure to the wound.
Levi Shafter, a seventh grader, was also on the bus.
"I heard a gunshot and everybody was running away, I was a little confused, and then I saw the shooter, I saw him put out a second shot and that's when the bus driver told us all to get down so we got down," Levi said. "I was really scared."
"Some of the teachers tackled him and then the police arrived and arrested him," Levi said.
Tamara Vermeer has a daughter who is an eighth grader at Deer Creek. She says she was parked close to the front of the school and heard a gunshot.
"At that time, of course, I'm not thinking it's a gunshot. I see my daughter and her friends coming towards me and I hear a second gunshot and all - probably nine or 10 of them, just piled in my car and then I saw kids starting to run," she said.
"I could see adults or someone leaning over someone," Veremeer said. "And then I saw a woman come out and pick up a rifle and so that's when I knew this was a shooting."
Kelley says Deer Creek was put into lockdown because of the shooting.
All of the students were taken to nearby Stony Creek Elementary School at West Columbine Drive and South Everett Street. Parents were told to go to Stony Creek to pick up their children.
Groups of children were sent from one school to the other as investigators cleared Deer Creek.
Tuesday was not the first shooting on the Deer Creek campus. On April 7, 1982, 14-year-old Jason Rocha shot and killed a 13-year-old student named Scott Michael during a lunch-hour recess at the school.
The school is also about three miles southwest of Columbine High School, where two teens - Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris - killed 12 students and a teacher and wounded 23 others before killing themselves in 1999.
About 525 seventh and eighth grade students attend Deer Creek.
Jefferson County Schools says both Deer Creek and Stony Creek will be closed on Wednesday. Counselors will be available for anyone who needs them at Stony Creek beginning at 7:30 a.m. They will be there throughout the day.
All Jeffco activities, except athletics, were cancelled for Tuesday night. All athletic events were to go on as scheduled.
It is unclear when classes would resume at the schools.
Friday, February 26, 2010
Sunday, February 14, 2010
Update: Accused Alabama prof shot, killed brother in 1986
This mass murder is looking more like MKULTRA or Manchurian Candidate stuff all the time! With six unemployed people for every job opening, you'd think the professor would appreciate her job even if it wasn't tenured! A smart person wouldn't throw it all away like this. No, there has to be something hidden underneath. More, if she got away with the first murder, she might get away with these murders as well!! THAT'S WHY I'M MAKING IT A PUBLIC RECORD HERE!!! WAKEY, WAKEY ALL YOU SLEEPERS!!! SOMETHING IS WRONG HERE!!!
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5hf_Cw1b1x1DmRrdG4hiu4P55yZTgD9DRJL8O0
Update: Accused Alabama prof shot, killed brother in 1986
Kristin M. Hall and Desiree Hunter
Associated Press
Sun, 14 Feb 2010 00:56 EST
The professor accused of killing three colleagues during a faculty meeting was a Harvard-educated neurobiologist, inventor and mother whose life had been marred by a violent episode in her distant past.
More than two decades ago, police said Amy Bishop fatally shot her teenage brother at their Massachusetts home in what officers at the time logged as an accident - though authorities said Saturday that records of the shooting are missing.
Bishop had just months left teaching at the University of Alabama in Huntsville when police said she opened fire with a handgun Friday in a room filled with a dozen of her colleagues from the school's biology department. Bishop, a rare woman suspected in a workplace shooting, was to leave after this semester because she had been denied tenure.
Police say she is 42, but the university's Web site lists her as 44.
Some have said she was upset after being denied the job-for-life security afforded tenured academics, and the husband of one victim and one of Bishop's students said they were told the shooting stemmed from the school's refusal to grant her such status. Authorities have refused to discuss a motive, and school spokesman Ray Garner said the faculty meeting wasn't called to discuss tenure.
William Setzer, chairman of chemistry department at UAH, said Bishop was appealing the decision made last year.
"Politics and personalities" always play a role in the tenure process, he said. "In a close department it's more so. If you have any lone wolves or bizarre personalities, it's a problem and I'm thinking that certainly came into play here."
The three killed were Gopi K. Podila, the chairman of the Department of Biological Sciences, and two other faculty members, Maria Ragland Davis and Adriel Johnson. The wounded were still recovering in hospitals early Saturday. Luis Cruz-Vera was in fair condition; Joseph Leahy in critical condition; and staffer Stephanie Monticciolo also was in critical condition.
Descriptions of Bishop from students and colleagues were mixed. Some saw a strange woman who had difficulty relating to her students, while others described a witty, intelligent teacher.
Students and colleagues described Bishop as intelligent, but someone who often had difficulty explaining difficult concepts.
Bishop was well-known in the research community, appearing on the cover of the winter 2009 issue of The Huntsville R&D Report, a local magazine focusing on engineering, space and genetics. However, it was unclear how many of her colleagues and students knew about a more tragic part of her past.
She shot her brother, an 18-year-old accomplished violinist, in the chest in 1986, said Paul Frazier, the police chief in Braintree, Mass., where the shooting occurred. Bishop fired at least three shots, hitting her brother once and hitting her bedroom wall before police took her into custody at gunpoint, he said.
Frazier said the police chief at the time told officers to release Bishop to her mother before she could be booked. It was logged as an accident.
But Frazier's account was disputed by former police Chief John Polio, who told The Associated Press he didn't call officers to tell them to release Bishop. "There's no cover-up, no missing records," he said.
Attempts by AP to track down addresses and phone numbers for Bishop's family in the Braintree area weren't immediately successful Saturday. The current police chief said he believed her family had moved away.
After being educated at Harvard University, Bishop moved to Huntsville and in 2003 became an associate professor at the University of Alabama's campus there. The school, with about 7,500 students, has close ties with NASA and is known for its engineering and science programs.
Setzer, the chemistry chairman, said he was not aware of the incident with Bishop's brother.
Bishop and her husband placed third in a statewide university business plan competition in July 2007, presenting a portable cell incubator they had invented. They won $25,000 to help start a company to market the device.
Her husband, James Anderson, was detained and questioned by police but has not been charged. Police said Bishop was quickly caught after Friday's shooting. A 9-millimeter handgun was found in the bathroom of the building where the shootings occurred, and Huntsville police spokesman Sgt. Mark Roberts said Bishop did not have a permit for it.
Bishop was in custody and it wasn't immediately known if she has an attorney. No one was home at the couple's house.
Several experts said campus shootings commonly occur because the shooter has some kind of festering grievance that university officials haven't addressed, and the granting of tenure can be a polarizing and politicized process for many academics. "Universities tend to string it out without resolution, tolerate too much and to have a cumbersome decision process that endangers the comfort of many and the safety of some," said Dr. Park Dietz, who is president of Threat Assessment Group Inc., a Newport Beach, Calif.-based violence prevention firm.
Tenure, which makes firing and other discipline difficult if not impossible, can seem generous to outsiders. But the job protection gives professors the freedom to express ideas and conduct studies without fear of reprisal. The system typically emphasizes research over teaching, and tenured professors typically are paid more.
While it's rare for the stresses of the tenure process to incur violence, what's even rarer is for a woman to be accused in such an incident like the one Friday that also left three of Bishop's colleagues injured, two critically.
"Workplace shootings of that kind are overwhelmingly male," said Franklin E. Zimring, a law professor and director of violence prevention at the University of California, Berkeley. "Going postal was essentially a monopoly position of the XY chromosome."
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5hf_Cw1b1x1DmRrdG4hiu4P55yZTgD9DRJL8O0
Update: Accused Alabama prof shot, killed brother in 1986
Kristin M. Hall and Desiree Hunter
Associated Press
Sun, 14 Feb 2010 00:56 EST
The professor accused of killing three colleagues during a faculty meeting was a Harvard-educated neurobiologist, inventor and mother whose life had been marred by a violent episode in her distant past.
More than two decades ago, police said Amy Bishop fatally shot her teenage brother at their Massachusetts home in what officers at the time logged as an accident - though authorities said Saturday that records of the shooting are missing.
Bishop had just months left teaching at the University of Alabama in Huntsville when police said she opened fire with a handgun Friday in a room filled with a dozen of her colleagues from the school's biology department. Bishop, a rare woman suspected in a workplace shooting, was to leave after this semester because she had been denied tenure.
Police say she is 42, but the university's Web site lists her as 44.
Some have said she was upset after being denied the job-for-life security afforded tenured academics, and the husband of one victim and one of Bishop's students said they were told the shooting stemmed from the school's refusal to grant her such status. Authorities have refused to discuss a motive, and school spokesman Ray Garner said the faculty meeting wasn't called to discuss tenure.
William Setzer, chairman of chemistry department at UAH, said Bishop was appealing the decision made last year.
"Politics and personalities" always play a role in the tenure process, he said. "In a close department it's more so. If you have any lone wolves or bizarre personalities, it's a problem and I'm thinking that certainly came into play here."
The three killed were Gopi K. Podila, the chairman of the Department of Biological Sciences, and two other faculty members, Maria Ragland Davis and Adriel Johnson. The wounded were still recovering in hospitals early Saturday. Luis Cruz-Vera was in fair condition; Joseph Leahy in critical condition; and staffer Stephanie Monticciolo also was in critical condition.
Descriptions of Bishop from students and colleagues were mixed. Some saw a strange woman who had difficulty relating to her students, while others described a witty, intelligent teacher.
Students and colleagues described Bishop as intelligent, but someone who often had difficulty explaining difficult concepts.
Bishop was well-known in the research community, appearing on the cover of the winter 2009 issue of The Huntsville R&D Report, a local magazine focusing on engineering, space and genetics. However, it was unclear how many of her colleagues and students knew about a more tragic part of her past.
She shot her brother, an 18-year-old accomplished violinist, in the chest in 1986, said Paul Frazier, the police chief in Braintree, Mass., where the shooting occurred. Bishop fired at least three shots, hitting her brother once and hitting her bedroom wall before police took her into custody at gunpoint, he said.
Frazier said the police chief at the time told officers to release Bishop to her mother before she could be booked. It was logged as an accident.
But Frazier's account was disputed by former police Chief John Polio, who told The Associated Press he didn't call officers to tell them to release Bishop. "There's no cover-up, no missing records," he said.
Attempts by AP to track down addresses and phone numbers for Bishop's family in the Braintree area weren't immediately successful Saturday. The current police chief said he believed her family had moved away.
After being educated at Harvard University, Bishop moved to Huntsville and in 2003 became an associate professor at the University of Alabama's campus there. The school, with about 7,500 students, has close ties with NASA and is known for its engineering and science programs.
Setzer, the chemistry chairman, said he was not aware of the incident with Bishop's brother.
Bishop and her husband placed third in a statewide university business plan competition in July 2007, presenting a portable cell incubator they had invented. They won $25,000 to help start a company to market the device.
Her husband, James Anderson, was detained and questioned by police but has not been charged. Police said Bishop was quickly caught after Friday's shooting. A 9-millimeter handgun was found in the bathroom of the building where the shootings occurred, and Huntsville police spokesman Sgt. Mark Roberts said Bishop did not have a permit for it.
Bishop was in custody and it wasn't immediately known if she has an attorney. No one was home at the couple's house.
Several experts said campus shootings commonly occur because the shooter has some kind of festering grievance that university officials haven't addressed, and the granting of tenure can be a polarizing and politicized process for many academics. "Universities tend to string it out without resolution, tolerate too much and to have a cumbersome decision process that endangers the comfort of many and the safety of some," said Dr. Park Dietz, who is president of Threat Assessment Group Inc., a Newport Beach, Calif.-based violence prevention firm.
Tenure, which makes firing and other discipline difficult if not impossible, can seem generous to outsiders. But the job protection gives professors the freedom to express ideas and conduct studies without fear of reprisal. The system typically emphasizes research over teaching, and tenured professors typically are paid more.
While it's rare for the stresses of the tenure process to incur violence, what's even rarer is for a woman to be accused in such an incident like the one Friday that also left three of Bishop's colleagues injured, two critically.
"Workplace shootings of that kind are overwhelmingly male," said Franklin E. Zimring, a law professor and director of violence prevention at the University of California, Berkeley. "Going postal was essentially a monopoly position of the XY chromosome."
February 2010 - Alabama Professor Held in 3 killings
A survivor of the Seattle massacre (a very nice lady) sends me articles for my mass murder blog and she sent me an article when it happened and then she sent me this today. This woman shot her brother in the chest with a shotgun, shoots in the neighborhood and it goes away...Almost all the records of it doesn't exist or never existed...Just incredible! Go to URL to see video!!!
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/us_ala_university_shooting_brother
Chief: Ala. prof held in 3 killings shot Mass. kin
AP – Amy Bishop is taken into custody by Huntsville, Ala. police Friday, Feb 12, 2010 in connection with fatal …
Play VideoVideo:Alabama Murders Prof. Shot Brother In Braintree WBZ Boston
By JAY LINDSAY, Associated Press Writer – Sun Feb 14, 12:02 am ET
BRAINTREE, Mass. – An Alabama university professor accused of fatally shooting three colleagues at a faculty meeting this week shot her younger brother dead at their home in the Boston suburbs more than 20 years ago, but records of it are missing, police said Saturday.
Amy Bishop shot her teenage brother in the chest in 1986, Braintree police Chief Paul Frazier said at a news conference. Bishop fired once into a wall, then shot her brother, then fired a third time into the ceiling and fled with the shotgun before police took her into custody at gunpoint, he said.
Before Bishop, who was 19 at the time, could be booked the police chief back then called officers and told them to release her to her mother, Frazier said. The shooting of the brother, Seth Bishop, an 18-year-old accomplished violinist, was logged that day as a "sudden death" and later considered accidental, but detailed records of the shooting have disappeared, Frazier said.
"The report's gone, removed from the files," he said.
The police chief said Saturday that he planned to meet with the local district attorney over the possibility of launching a criminal investigation into how the case was handled.
The police chief in 1986, John Polio, said Saturday in an interview at his Braintree home that he was astonished at any implication of a coverup. He said he didn't instruct officers to release Bishop and wasn't close to her mother.
"(There's) no coverup, no missing records," Polio said.
A University of Alabama at Huntsville spokesman said Bishop, who's in her 40s, had been denied tenure before she was held Friday in the campus shooting.
As Bishop was being taken to jail in handcuffs she said: "It didn't happen. There's no way."
Attempts by The Associated Press to track down addresses and phone numbers for Bishop's family in the Braintree area weren't immediately successful Saturday. Polio's wife said she believed the Bishop family had moved away.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/us_ala_university_shooting_brother
Chief: Ala. prof held in 3 killings shot Mass. kin
AP – Amy Bishop is taken into custody by Huntsville, Ala. police Friday, Feb 12, 2010 in connection with fatal …
Play VideoVideo:Alabama Murders Prof. Shot Brother In Braintree WBZ Boston
By JAY LINDSAY, Associated Press Writer – Sun Feb 14, 12:02 am ET
BRAINTREE, Mass. – An Alabama university professor accused of fatally shooting three colleagues at a faculty meeting this week shot her younger brother dead at their home in the Boston suburbs more than 20 years ago, but records of it are missing, police said Saturday.
Amy Bishop shot her teenage brother in the chest in 1986, Braintree police Chief Paul Frazier said at a news conference. Bishop fired once into a wall, then shot her brother, then fired a third time into the ceiling and fled with the shotgun before police took her into custody at gunpoint, he said.
Before Bishop, who was 19 at the time, could be booked the police chief back then called officers and told them to release her to her mother, Frazier said. The shooting of the brother, Seth Bishop, an 18-year-old accomplished violinist, was logged that day as a "sudden death" and later considered accidental, but detailed records of the shooting have disappeared, Frazier said.
"The report's gone, removed from the files," he said.
The police chief said Saturday that he planned to meet with the local district attorney over the possibility of launching a criminal investigation into how the case was handled.
The police chief in 1986, John Polio, said Saturday in an interview at his Braintree home that he was astonished at any implication of a coverup. He said he didn't instruct officers to release Bishop and wasn't close to her mother.
"(There's) no coverup, no missing records," Polio said.
A University of Alabama at Huntsville spokesman said Bishop, who's in her 40s, had been denied tenure before she was held Friday in the campus shooting.
As Bishop was being taken to jail in handcuffs she said: "It didn't happen. There's no way."
Attempts by The Associated Press to track down addresses and phone numbers for Bishop's family in the Braintree area weren't immediately successful Saturday. Polio's wife said she believed the Bishop family had moved away.
Friday, February 12, 2010
Murder Capital of the World
http://www.truthout.org/murder-capital-world56742
Thursday 04 February 2010
by: Laura Carlsen | Foreign Policy in Focus
On January 31, an armed commando unit pulled up to a house in a working-class neighborhood in Ciudad Juarez on the Mexican side of the border with the United States. Inside the house, 60 teenagers were celebrating a friend's birthday. Wielding high-caliber weapons, the commandos opened fire on the kids, robbed the house, then drove away from the scene — amid human cries, the scent of gunpowder, and the total absence of law enforcement officials.
To date, 16 people are dead as more lie wounded in the local hospital. Photographs capture the concrete floors stained with blood, the bereaved families, the frightened neighbors. Local residents interviewed in the aftermath of the tragedy called the security forces "useless." Fearing to give their names, they noted that the gunmen entered the neighborhood, hunted down the victims, and passed right by a group of soldiers in the vicinity.
"We heard a lot of shots, at first we thought they were bottle rockets, but later we heard the running and the cries of the young girls that were at the party. Then came silence and a strong odor of gunpowder," a witness reported. Residents say that even 10 hours after the murders, the crime scene had not been secured.
So far, no one knows the motive of the crime. The Washington Post reported that Ciudad Juarez Mayor Jose Reyes put forward the preposterous hypothesis that the hit was "random." Mexico's secretary of government chalked it up to "delinquents" and ended up blaming the victims. He stated that the new strategy in the region would be focused on "the gang wars." The state attorney general presented a suspect who claimed the victims were associated with a gang called the "Artist Assassins" that works for the Sinaloa drug cartel. According to this story, the rival Gulf cartel carried out the mass hit as punishment and a warning to others.
Mexico's Drug War
Ciudad Juarez now holds the world record in homicides per capita. The city beats out war zones in the number of violent deaths because unofficially, it too is a war zone. This border city of two million is the frontline of one of the most violent and most ill-conceived war of our times — the war on drugs. On March 27, 2008, Mexican President Felipe Calderon launched "Operation Chihuahua," and since then thousands of soldiers have been sent in to beat back the cartels.
The bodies of the slain teenagers and thousands of others attest to the results of this strategy. Last year, Ciudad Juarez's over 2,600 murders accounted for more than a third of Mexico's reported 7,724 drug war-related deaths. With 227 assassinations related to organized crime in January alone, 2010 stands to be the bloodiest year yet.
If governments based their security strategies on hard evidence and proven results, this city would be rightly viewed as a case study in the failure of the drug war. Instead, for years the strategy has been reinforced, with worse results. Ciudad Juarez stands out as a tragic example of what happens when a black-market economy creates massive corruption and avarice, and partisan politics and special interests determine government responses.
Calderon initiated the drug war to secure the support of the armed forces following huge protests over electoral fraud. He needed to unite the country against an enemy and organized crime was growing. Since Calderon announced the offensive against organized crime soon after taking office, somewhere between 15,000 and 17,000 people have been killed. The government has deployed 50,000 troops to fight the war nationwide, racking up human rights violations and criticisms that their new domestic role violates the constitution, accelerates the downward spiral of violence, and militarizes a nation still undergoing a shaky transition from authoritarian rule.
Now public anger over the government's failure to control the violence has reached a boiling point in Mexico. Perched atop the open casket of one of the young people, a hand-written sign read "Mr. President, We demand responses and solutions. No False Promises or False Hopes." Some groups in Juarez have called for Calderon's resignation.
The Mexican Congress has demanded that the cabinet members charged with security policy explain the failure in Ciudad Juarez in light of the recent killings. The massacre comes on the heels of the announcement of a change in strategy to withdraw soldiers and replace them with police officers. U.S. Ambassador to Mexico Carlos Pascual praised the move: "What the government has done now is an intelligent measure to introduce the federal police, which has all the legal capacities, and put them on the front line in the war on against drug-traffickers."
However, experts like General Francisco Gallardo of the Mexican armed forces, now a human rights leader, note that the difference between the armed forces and the police is often just a change of uniform. Although some groups in Washington have insisted that a shift from army to police represents a major improvement in the drug war strategy, the massacre and continued violence indicates that the impunity of organized crime will continue unabated as long as the confrontation model itself remains the same.
In an 2008 article for the Americas Program on the failure of Operation Chihuahua, congressman and human rights activist Victor Quintana wrote that "Crowding soldiers into different parts of the country, far from dissuading drug dealers and their hired gunmen, exponentially increases the risk for civilians, who now have to take care on all sides: hired gunmen breaking into their daily activities, stray bullets, and human rights violations by the police and the army."
A New Strategy?
Calderon has made the most self-critical statements yet regarding the failure of his drug war. Speaking from Japan, he said he would alter the strategy. He went on to announce a more integral approach to attack the "social deterioration" of Ciudad Juarez, adding that the new approach would revamp the police and justice system and tackle social problems. "It's clear that the action of the police or government and armed forces is not enough," he said. "We need an integral strategy of social recomposition, prevention and treatment for addictions, a search for opportunities for employment and recreation and education for youth."
The same week, in its 2011 budget request, the Obama administration called for an additional $310 million for Mexico's drug war under the Merida initiative. Through this initiative, the U.S. government, first under Bush and now under Obama, has pledged its support for the enforcement strategy with over $1.4 billion, mostly to the Mexican armed forces and police. But this approach doesn't address the reduction in the demand for illicit drugs, the treatment and prevention of addiction, or the financial structure of organized crime. Moreover a recent story in the Mexican daily El Universal notes that 70 percent of Merida resources remain in the United States, doled out in contracts for military and intelligence equipment.
The irony of announcing further U.S. support for the drug war strategy, at the same time as Mexican society and even the president called for a change in strategy, was not missed. The daily paper La Jornada dedicated an indignant February 2 editorial to the coincidence. "Based on the results, the application of the Merida Initiative has translated into a sustained and exasperating deterioration in public security," the editorial concludes. "Crimes linked to drug trafficking are more frequent than when it was signed, which is a disaster for Mexico. Through this instrument it was agreed we would fight a war that isn't ours, one that contains an immoral and unacceptable clause: the U.S. pays in dollars and Mexico pays in lives."
U.S. officials explain the violence in Ciudad Juarez as the result of turf battles for control of heavy trafficking routes. But the city has become the center for traffickers because of what's happening on the other side of the border. U.S. demand for drugs sustains the market, and U.S. laws do little to prevent the illicit trade — weapons going in, drugs coming out — that has made this border area a war-zone.
FPIF columnist Laura Carlsen is director of the Americas Program of the Center for International Policy. The Americas Program is online at http://americas.irc-online.org/.
Thursday 04 February 2010
by: Laura Carlsen | Foreign Policy in Focus
On January 31, an armed commando unit pulled up to a house in a working-class neighborhood in Ciudad Juarez on the Mexican side of the border with the United States. Inside the house, 60 teenagers were celebrating a friend's birthday. Wielding high-caliber weapons, the commandos opened fire on the kids, robbed the house, then drove away from the scene — amid human cries, the scent of gunpowder, and the total absence of law enforcement officials.
To date, 16 people are dead as more lie wounded in the local hospital. Photographs capture the concrete floors stained with blood, the bereaved families, the frightened neighbors. Local residents interviewed in the aftermath of the tragedy called the security forces "useless." Fearing to give their names, they noted that the gunmen entered the neighborhood, hunted down the victims, and passed right by a group of soldiers in the vicinity.
"We heard a lot of shots, at first we thought they were bottle rockets, but later we heard the running and the cries of the young girls that were at the party. Then came silence and a strong odor of gunpowder," a witness reported. Residents say that even 10 hours after the murders, the crime scene had not been secured.
So far, no one knows the motive of the crime. The Washington Post reported that Ciudad Juarez Mayor Jose Reyes put forward the preposterous hypothesis that the hit was "random." Mexico's secretary of government chalked it up to "delinquents" and ended up blaming the victims. He stated that the new strategy in the region would be focused on "the gang wars." The state attorney general presented a suspect who claimed the victims were associated with a gang called the "Artist Assassins" that works for the Sinaloa drug cartel. According to this story, the rival Gulf cartel carried out the mass hit as punishment and a warning to others.
Mexico's Drug War
Ciudad Juarez now holds the world record in homicides per capita. The city beats out war zones in the number of violent deaths because unofficially, it too is a war zone. This border city of two million is the frontline of one of the most violent and most ill-conceived war of our times — the war on drugs. On March 27, 2008, Mexican President Felipe Calderon launched "Operation Chihuahua," and since then thousands of soldiers have been sent in to beat back the cartels.
The bodies of the slain teenagers and thousands of others attest to the results of this strategy. Last year, Ciudad Juarez's over 2,600 murders accounted for more than a third of Mexico's reported 7,724 drug war-related deaths. With 227 assassinations related to organized crime in January alone, 2010 stands to be the bloodiest year yet.
If governments based their security strategies on hard evidence and proven results, this city would be rightly viewed as a case study in the failure of the drug war. Instead, for years the strategy has been reinforced, with worse results. Ciudad Juarez stands out as a tragic example of what happens when a black-market economy creates massive corruption and avarice, and partisan politics and special interests determine government responses.
Calderon initiated the drug war to secure the support of the armed forces following huge protests over electoral fraud. He needed to unite the country against an enemy and organized crime was growing. Since Calderon announced the offensive against organized crime soon after taking office, somewhere between 15,000 and 17,000 people have been killed. The government has deployed 50,000 troops to fight the war nationwide, racking up human rights violations and criticisms that their new domestic role violates the constitution, accelerates the downward spiral of violence, and militarizes a nation still undergoing a shaky transition from authoritarian rule.
Now public anger over the government's failure to control the violence has reached a boiling point in Mexico. Perched atop the open casket of one of the young people, a hand-written sign read "Mr. President, We demand responses and solutions. No False Promises or False Hopes." Some groups in Juarez have called for Calderon's resignation.
The Mexican Congress has demanded that the cabinet members charged with security policy explain the failure in Ciudad Juarez in light of the recent killings. The massacre comes on the heels of the announcement of a change in strategy to withdraw soldiers and replace them with police officers. U.S. Ambassador to Mexico Carlos Pascual praised the move: "What the government has done now is an intelligent measure to introduce the federal police, which has all the legal capacities, and put them on the front line in the war on against drug-traffickers."
However, experts like General Francisco Gallardo of the Mexican armed forces, now a human rights leader, note that the difference between the armed forces and the police is often just a change of uniform. Although some groups in Washington have insisted that a shift from army to police represents a major improvement in the drug war strategy, the massacre and continued violence indicates that the impunity of organized crime will continue unabated as long as the confrontation model itself remains the same.
In an 2008 article for the Americas Program on the failure of Operation Chihuahua, congressman and human rights activist Victor Quintana wrote that "Crowding soldiers into different parts of the country, far from dissuading drug dealers and their hired gunmen, exponentially increases the risk for civilians, who now have to take care on all sides: hired gunmen breaking into their daily activities, stray bullets, and human rights violations by the police and the army."
A New Strategy?
Calderon has made the most self-critical statements yet regarding the failure of his drug war. Speaking from Japan, he said he would alter the strategy. He went on to announce a more integral approach to attack the "social deterioration" of Ciudad Juarez, adding that the new approach would revamp the police and justice system and tackle social problems. "It's clear that the action of the police or government and armed forces is not enough," he said. "We need an integral strategy of social recomposition, prevention and treatment for addictions, a search for opportunities for employment and recreation and education for youth."
The same week, in its 2011 budget request, the Obama administration called for an additional $310 million for Mexico's drug war under the Merida initiative. Through this initiative, the U.S. government, first under Bush and now under Obama, has pledged its support for the enforcement strategy with over $1.4 billion, mostly to the Mexican armed forces and police. But this approach doesn't address the reduction in the demand for illicit drugs, the treatment and prevention of addiction, or the financial structure of organized crime. Moreover a recent story in the Mexican daily El Universal notes that 70 percent of Merida resources remain in the United States, doled out in contracts for military and intelligence equipment.
The irony of announcing further U.S. support for the drug war strategy, at the same time as Mexican society and even the president called for a change in strategy, was not missed. The daily paper La Jornada dedicated an indignant February 2 editorial to the coincidence. "Based on the results, the application of the Merida Initiative has translated into a sustained and exasperating deterioration in public security," the editorial concludes. "Crimes linked to drug trafficking are more frequent than when it was signed, which is a disaster for Mexico. Through this instrument it was agreed we would fight a war that isn't ours, one that contains an immoral and unacceptable clause: the U.S. pays in dollars and Mexico pays in lives."
U.S. officials explain the violence in Ciudad Juarez as the result of turf battles for control of heavy trafficking routes. But the city has become the center for traffickers because of what's happening on the other side of the border. U.S. demand for drugs sustains the market, and U.S. laws do little to prevent the illicit trade — weapons going in, drugs coming out — that has made this border area a war-zone.
FPIF columnist Laura Carlsen is director of the Americas Program of the Center for International Policy. The Americas Program is online at http://americas.irc-online.org/.
Tuesday, February 2, 2010
February 2010 - Gunmen Kill 14 at High School Party in Mexico
http://www.sott.net/articles/show/202247-Gunmen-Kill-14-at-High-School-Party-in-Mexico
Gunmen Kill 14 at High School Party in Mexico
Julian Cardona
Reuters
Sun, 31 Jan 2010 20:46 EST
Suspected drug hitmen burst into a high school birthday party and killed 14 people in Ciudad Juarez on Sunday, the latest massacre in one of the world's deadliest cities.
Gunmen jumped out of sport utility vehicles and fired at the students, who were celebrating the birthday of a classmate, in a house in the city across the border from El Paso, Texas, in the early hours of Sunday.
Bodies lay on the street outside and pools of blood collected by nearby parked cars. Inside the house, the walls were stained with blood and marked with bullet holes.
"The men drove up in SUVs, they were well-armed. They went into the house and shot at everyone, you could hear the gunfire all around," a neighbor at the scene said.
Patricia Gonzalez, attorney general for Chihuahua state that includes Ciudad Juarez, said the shooting was possibly linked to drug cartels.
"We have two lines of investigation and one of them is linked to drug trafficking," she told a news conference. "We know from witnesses that the men arrived looking for someone." She declined to give more details.
Over the past two years, hitmen have attacked parties in Chihuahua state, searching for rivals, and police have reported that some teenagers in Ciudad Juarez have been involved in kidnapping others.
Gonzalez said the dead included three adults and 11 minors. Fourteen others were wounded, two critically. All the victims were between 15 and 20 years old, the army said.
She denied earlier reports that the teenagers were celebrating a local sports championship victory.
"They were about 15 men, they closed off the surrounding streets and began shooting at the house as they moved inside," said army spokesman Enrique Torres.
Ciudad Juarez is the bloodiest front in Mexico's three-year drug war as rival cartels fight over markets and control of smuggling routes into the United States.
Violence is escalating even as federal police and soldiers patrol the streets. Some 2,650 people were killed in drug violence in Ciudad Juarez last year and cartel murders have jumped since the start of 2010.
In some of the worst attacks, gunmen have stormed at least seven drug rehabilitation clinics in the manufacturing city over the past two years, targeting rival dealers. Two strikes in September killed 28 people.
Mexico is the key transit route for U.S.-bound cocaine from South America and a top producer of marijuana and heroin.
A military crackdown on rival cartels in Mexico has fueled a surge in drug violence that has killed more than 17,000 people since President Felipe Calderon took office in 2006, worrying Washington and investors and scaring off tourists from some cities.
Gunmen Kill 14 at High School Party in Mexico
Julian Cardona
Reuters
Sun, 31 Jan 2010 20:46 EST
Suspected drug hitmen burst into a high school birthday party and killed 14 people in Ciudad Juarez on Sunday, the latest massacre in one of the world's deadliest cities.
Gunmen jumped out of sport utility vehicles and fired at the students, who were celebrating the birthday of a classmate, in a house in the city across the border from El Paso, Texas, in the early hours of Sunday.
Bodies lay on the street outside and pools of blood collected by nearby parked cars. Inside the house, the walls were stained with blood and marked with bullet holes.
"The men drove up in SUVs, they were well-armed. They went into the house and shot at everyone, you could hear the gunfire all around," a neighbor at the scene said.
Patricia Gonzalez, attorney general for Chihuahua state that includes Ciudad Juarez, said the shooting was possibly linked to drug cartels.
"We have two lines of investigation and one of them is linked to drug trafficking," she told a news conference. "We know from witnesses that the men arrived looking for someone." She declined to give more details.
Over the past two years, hitmen have attacked parties in Chihuahua state, searching for rivals, and police have reported that some teenagers in Ciudad Juarez have been involved in kidnapping others.
Gonzalez said the dead included three adults and 11 minors. Fourteen others were wounded, two critically. All the victims were between 15 and 20 years old, the army said.
She denied earlier reports that the teenagers were celebrating a local sports championship victory.
"They were about 15 men, they closed off the surrounding streets and began shooting at the house as they moved inside," said army spokesman Enrique Torres.
Ciudad Juarez is the bloodiest front in Mexico's three-year drug war as rival cartels fight over markets and control of smuggling routes into the United States.
Violence is escalating even as federal police and soldiers patrol the streets. Some 2,650 people were killed in drug violence in Ciudad Juarez last year and cartel murders have jumped since the start of 2010.
In some of the worst attacks, gunmen have stormed at least seven drug rehabilitation clinics in the manufacturing city over the past two years, targeting rival dealers. Two strikes in September killed 28 people.
Mexico is the key transit route for U.S.-bound cocaine from South America and a top producer of marijuana and heroin.
A military crackdown on rival cartels in Mexico has fueled a surge in drug violence that has killed more than 17,000 people since President Felipe Calderon took office in 2006, worrying Washington and investors and scaring off tourists from some cities.
Thursday, January 21, 2010
Serial Killer vs. Mass Murderer
http://www.mentalfloss.com/difference/serial-killer-vs-mass-murderer/
Serial Killer vs. Mass Murderer
The Dilemma: The guy sitting next to you at the bar keeps insisting that John Wayne Gacy wasn’t a serial killer but a mass murderer, which is really creepy. But is he right?
People You Can Impress: authors of true crime novels and suckers for semantics
The Quick Trick: The creepy guy at the bar is full of it: Gacy was a serial killer because he committed many murders over a long period of time; mass murderers commit many murders all at once.
The Explanation: The difference here is all about the details—but then, any CSI fan knows that the magic of police work is in the little things. According to the U.S. Department of Justice, Statistics Bureau (and yes, there really is such a thing), “mass murder” is a single event at one location involving the murder of four or more people. Kill three people at once, therefore, and you’re merely a homicidal jerk. Terrorism and government-sanctioned murder often are considered mass murder.
Serial killers, on the other hand, kill in a series of events. The killers usually don’t know their victims (the opposite is true with mass murderers), they almost always have “cooling off ” periods between murders, and they usually derive sexual excitement from the killings. To qualify as a serial killer, one needs three victims. It rather goes without saying, but serial killers tend to be pretty screwed up individuals. Although there are records of serial killers going back to at least 1400, the term wasn’t coined until the 1970s, when killers Ted Bundy and David “Son of Sam” Berkowitz were frequently in the news.
SERIAL KILLERS
GILLES DE RAIS (1404–1440): Once one of the richest men in France, Rais raped, tortured, and murdered between 80 and 200 boys—and a few girls—on the grounds of his various estates.
Long before there was Aileen “Monster” Wuornos, there was ELIZABETH “THE BLOODY LADY” Bathory (1560–1614). Some sources claim that Bathory, a Hungarian countess, tortured and killed 2,000 young girls (mostly peasants, but some lower gentry).
When it comes to British serial killers in the 19th century, Jack the Ripper gets all the press. But MARY ANN COTTON (1832–1873) was more prolific, killing as many as 21 people. Cotton probably poisoned four of her husbands, a variety of her friends and in-laws, and several of her own children with arsenic.
MASS MURDERERS The term “going postal” has its roots in the case of one PATRICK SHERRILL, a disgruntled former postman who walkedinto the post office in Edmond, Oklahoma, on August 20, 1986, and killed 14 employees before committing suicide.
On November 1, 1955, JACK GILBERT GRAHAM put his mother on a flight from Denver to Portland with a dynamite bomb in her suitcase. (Graham wanted her life insurance money.) The bomb exploded midair, killing all 44 people aboard.
Serial Killer vs. Mass Murderer
The Dilemma: The guy sitting next to you at the bar keeps insisting that John Wayne Gacy wasn’t a serial killer but a mass murderer, which is really creepy. But is he right?
People You Can Impress: authors of true crime novels and suckers for semantics
The Quick Trick: The creepy guy at the bar is full of it: Gacy was a serial killer because he committed many murders over a long period of time; mass murderers commit many murders all at once.
The Explanation: The difference here is all about the details—but then, any CSI fan knows that the magic of police work is in the little things. According to the U.S. Department of Justice, Statistics Bureau (and yes, there really is such a thing), “mass murder” is a single event at one location involving the murder of four or more people. Kill three people at once, therefore, and you’re merely a homicidal jerk. Terrorism and government-sanctioned murder often are considered mass murder.
Serial killers, on the other hand, kill in a series of events. The killers usually don’t know their victims (the opposite is true with mass murderers), they almost always have “cooling off ” periods between murders, and they usually derive sexual excitement from the killings. To qualify as a serial killer, one needs three victims. It rather goes without saying, but serial killers tend to be pretty screwed up individuals. Although there are records of serial killers going back to at least 1400, the term wasn’t coined until the 1970s, when killers Ted Bundy and David “Son of Sam” Berkowitz were frequently in the news.
SERIAL KILLERS
GILLES DE RAIS (1404–1440): Once one of the richest men in France, Rais raped, tortured, and murdered between 80 and 200 boys—and a few girls—on the grounds of his various estates.
Long before there was Aileen “Monster” Wuornos, there was ELIZABETH “THE BLOODY LADY” Bathory (1560–1614). Some sources claim that Bathory, a Hungarian countess, tortured and killed 2,000 young girls (mostly peasants, but some lower gentry).
When it comes to British serial killers in the 19th century, Jack the Ripper gets all the press. But MARY ANN COTTON (1832–1873) was more prolific, killing as many as 21 people. Cotton probably poisoned four of her husbands, a variety of her friends and in-laws, and several of her own children with arsenic.
MASS MURDERERS The term “going postal” has its roots in the case of one PATRICK SHERRILL, a disgruntled former postman who walkedinto the post office in Edmond, Oklahoma, on August 20, 1986, and killed 14 employees before committing suicide.
On November 1, 1955, JACK GILBERT GRAHAM put his mother on a flight from Denver to Portland with a dynamite bomb in her suitcase. (Graham wanted her life insurance money.) The bomb exploded midair, killing all 44 people aboard.
Texas man charged in deaths of 5 family members
A blog reader sent me this and this mass murder was announced to the public 4-5 days after the incident. Instead, the Virginia mass murder was publicized during this period instead! It makes one wonder HOW MANY MASS MURDERS THERE REALLY ARE!!! It makes one wonder WHY THE MEDIA IS HIDING MASS MURDERS!!!
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100121/ap_on_re_us/us_five_killed_texas;_ylt=Al2aJ3PjfBzvDVo1GFR8JHWs0NUE;_ylu=X3oDMTNwZHNtbms1BGFzc2V0A2FwLzIwMTAwMTIxL3VzX2ZpdmVfa2lsbGVkX3RleGFzBGNjb2RlA21vc3Rwb3B1bGFyBGNwb3MDMTAEcG9zAzcEcHQDaG9tZV9jb2tlBHNlYwN5bl9oZWFkbGluZV9saXN0BHNsawN0ZXhhc21hbmNoYXI
Texas man charged in deaths of 5 family members
AP – In this photo provided by the Austin County Sheriff's Office is an arrest picture of Maron Thomas, 20, …
By JUAN A. LOZANO, Associated Press Writer – Wed Jan 20, 8:13 pm ET
BELLVILLE, Texas – A southeast Texas man was charged Wednesday in the weekend shooting deaths of five family members, including his 2-year-old niece, who also was decapitated.
Maron Thomas, 20, remains jailed on a $1 million bond, accused in the deaths of his mother, stepfather, sister, brother and niece. Police said Thomas was naked when he was caught trying to break into a neighbor's home after the shootings.
"This is one of the most horrific crimes we've had," Austin County District Attorney Travis Koehn said.
Investigators said an ongoing family dispute led to the shootings, but they declined to give additional details.
The five bodies were discovered Sunday afternoon at the family's single-story brick home in Bellville, a rural town of about 4,000 people 55 miles northwest of Houston. Police say the shootings took place early Sunday morning.
Preliminary autopsy reports indicate all five died of gunshot wounds, and the 2-year-old girl was decapitated with a machete.
Her head was found near her body, Austin County Sheriff's Department Sgt. Paul Faircloth said.
A shotgun and a handgun found near the scene were both used to kill the family, Texas Ranger David Maxwell said.
Authorities would not say how many times each victim was shot.
Before the capital murder charge was filed, Thomas was held on charges of breaking into a vehicle and trying to break into a home 1 1/2 miles from his family's house.
Faircloth said he didn't know whether Thomas had an attorney, and the court was not open Wednesday evening to check whether an attorney has been listed in the case. Austin County court records aren't available online.
Relatives who were at Thomas' home Wednesday declined to comment.
Faircloth said Thomas broke into a car after the shootings and was naked when a neighbor caught him trying to break into the neighbor's house about 3 a.m. Sunday. The neighbor held Thomas at gunpoint until police arrived. By then, Thomas was wearing spandex workout shorts, he said.
Thomas was taken to the county jail, where he told deputies he had killed his family, Maxwell said.
Those found inside the house were identified as Thomas' mother, Debra Washington, 54; his stepfather, George T. Washington, 69; his sister Kiana Phearse, 25; and his 2-year-old niece, Khalilah Chambers-Massey. The naked body of his brother, Cedric Thomas, 19, was found in a thick expanse of woods behind the house.
Relatives and neighbors have described the Washingtons as a friendly couple who had lived in the house with Thomas since moving from Houston about two years ago.
Koehn said the single count of capital murder covers all five slayings, but Thomas could be charged with additional counts. Prosecutors have not decided whether they will seek the death penalty.
Authorities took blood samples from Thomas to determine whether he might have been using drugs at the time of the shootings, Maxwell said.
Bellville drew attention in August with the shooting death of a physician during a burglary at his ranch. Two suspects were arrested days later and charged with killing Dr. Jorge Mario Gonzalez of Houston.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100121/ap_on_re_us/us_five_killed_texas;_ylt=Al2aJ3PjfBzvDVo1GFR8JHWs0NUE;_ylu=X3oDMTNwZHNtbms1BGFzc2V0A2FwLzIwMTAwMTIxL3VzX2ZpdmVfa2lsbGVkX3RleGFzBGNjb2RlA21vc3Rwb3B1bGFyBGNwb3MDMTAEcG9zAzcEcHQDaG9tZV9jb2tlBHNlYwN5bl9oZWFkbGluZV9saXN0BHNsawN0ZXhhc21hbmNoYXI
Texas man charged in deaths of 5 family members
AP – In this photo provided by the Austin County Sheriff's Office is an arrest picture of Maron Thomas, 20, …
By JUAN A. LOZANO, Associated Press Writer – Wed Jan 20, 8:13 pm ET
BELLVILLE, Texas – A southeast Texas man was charged Wednesday in the weekend shooting deaths of five family members, including his 2-year-old niece, who also was decapitated.
Maron Thomas, 20, remains jailed on a $1 million bond, accused in the deaths of his mother, stepfather, sister, brother and niece. Police said Thomas was naked when he was caught trying to break into a neighbor's home after the shootings.
"This is one of the most horrific crimes we've had," Austin County District Attorney Travis Koehn said.
Investigators said an ongoing family dispute led to the shootings, but they declined to give additional details.
The five bodies were discovered Sunday afternoon at the family's single-story brick home in Bellville, a rural town of about 4,000 people 55 miles northwest of Houston. Police say the shootings took place early Sunday morning.
Preliminary autopsy reports indicate all five died of gunshot wounds, and the 2-year-old girl was decapitated with a machete.
Her head was found near her body, Austin County Sheriff's Department Sgt. Paul Faircloth said.
A shotgun and a handgun found near the scene were both used to kill the family, Texas Ranger David Maxwell said.
Authorities would not say how many times each victim was shot.
Before the capital murder charge was filed, Thomas was held on charges of breaking into a vehicle and trying to break into a home 1 1/2 miles from his family's house.
Faircloth said he didn't know whether Thomas had an attorney, and the court was not open Wednesday evening to check whether an attorney has been listed in the case. Austin County court records aren't available online.
Relatives who were at Thomas' home Wednesday declined to comment.
Faircloth said Thomas broke into a car after the shootings and was naked when a neighbor caught him trying to break into the neighbor's house about 3 a.m. Sunday. The neighbor held Thomas at gunpoint until police arrived. By then, Thomas was wearing spandex workout shorts, he said.
Thomas was taken to the county jail, where he told deputies he had killed his family, Maxwell said.
Those found inside the house were identified as Thomas' mother, Debra Washington, 54; his stepfather, George T. Washington, 69; his sister Kiana Phearse, 25; and his 2-year-old niece, Khalilah Chambers-Massey. The naked body of his brother, Cedric Thomas, 19, was found in a thick expanse of woods behind the house.
Relatives and neighbors have described the Washingtons as a friendly couple who had lived in the house with Thomas since moving from Houston about two years ago.
Koehn said the single count of capital murder covers all five slayings, but Thomas could be charged with additional counts. Prosecutors have not decided whether they will seek the death penalty.
Authorities took blood samples from Thomas to determine whether he might have been using drugs at the time of the shootings, Maxwell said.
Bellville drew attention in August with the shooting death of a physician during a burglary at his ranch. Two suspects were arrested days later and charged with killing Dr. Jorge Mario Gonzalez of Houston.
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