Tag: crime

Washington, DC, murders surpass coronavirus deaths in July by nearly 3-to-1 ratio

The number of homicides in Washington, D.C., surpassed coronavirus deaths in the city by a nearly 3-to-1 ratio in July as the nation’s capital continues to grapple with an uptick in murders. 

There were 21 homicides throughout the month compared to eight coronavirus deaths, according to FOX5 DC.  

“We’ve put a lot of resources and time into the COVID pandemic,” Trayon White, the councilman of Ward 8, said following the July 16 killing of 6-year-old Nyiah Courtney in his area, according to the station. “We’re in a pandemic right now when it comes to crime in this community and we got to start acting it.” 

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‘I Caused the Death’: Cop With Beer in Car, Admits He Killed Woman in Crash, NOT Arrested or Fired

In June of 2020, Sgt. Ryan Hartman was drinking and driving when we stopped “paying attention” and crashed into a car occupied by Jennifer Miller and her life partner, Pam Watts. The crash would put Watts in the hospital and her partner in the ground. It has been over a year since Hartman killed Miller and not only have police refused to arrest him, but he’s back on duty.

This is not some case with no evidence or disputed facts. According to body camera footage that was released this week, Hartman admitted that his lack of attention caused Miller’s death and police found an open Dos Equis beer in his truck.

“I caused the death of somebody buy me not paying attention,” Hartman says according to the newly released video. According to a search warrant carried out on Hartman’s phone after the crash, he was using his phone whilst drinking a beer.

Despite finding a beer can in his truck and admitting that he caused Miller’s death, Hartman was not arrested that day — or any day after. Instead, he was put on paid vacation for five months while his office “investigated” the crash. Hartman received blue privilege from the start.

After the crash, Hartman refused a breathalyzer and police waited over eight hours to get a warrant for a blood draw. Since so much time had passed after the crash, Hartman still had alcohol in his system but his levels had fallen below the legal limit.

Highlighting the nature of Hartman’s blue privilege was the fact that the neighboring department who responded to the crash, the Lockhart Police Department, recommended charges of negligent homicide. However, the investigation was turned over to Hartman’s department, the San Marcos Police Department.

That investigation was subsequently passed to Bastrop County District Attorney Bryan Goertz, who chose not to send Hartman’s case before a grand jury.

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US diplomat, 45, faces life in prison after pleading guilty to raping and drugging TWENTY THREE women over 14 years while stationed at U.S. Embassy in Mexico City

A former U.S. diplomat may face life in prison, after pleading guilty to raping and drugging 23 women over the course of several years, while he was employed at the U.S. Embassy in Mexico City.

Brian Jeffrey Raymond, 45, of La Mesa, California, pleaded guilty Friday to federal sexual abuse and transportation of obscene material charges, according to the Department of Justice. 

An investigation into Raymond was launched after a nude woman was spotted screaming for help on the balcony of his Mexico City apartment last May. 

The woman told the FBI she had no recollection of events after consuming drinks and food provided by Raymond.  

He was arrested in La Mesa last October, on one count of coercion and enticement.

‘Brian Raymond betrayed the trust granted to him as a U.S. government employee representing the United States abroad by engaging in years of predatory conduct sexually abusing, exploiting, and recording vulnerable women he targeted in the United States and around the world,’ Assistant Attorney General Kenneth A. Polite Jr. of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division, said in a statement. 

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Who Killed the Nazi on Campus?

Of all the folks ambling around the folksy-cute rock-climbing community of Squamish, British Columbia, which is about 65 miles north of the U.S. border, no one is more perplexed by the unsolved 2017 murder of a onetime neo-Nazi troublemaker lunatic named Davis Wolfgang Hawke than his last girlfriend, Eva McLennan, who knew him only by how he first introduced himself, as Jesse James, avid vegan cragsman, adventurer, technologist, futurist, nutritionist, philosopher, writer, occasional poet, ex-officer in the Israeli Defense Force, and holder of a theoretical physics Ph.D. from Stanford. If that seems like a lot to take in, just imagine how it was for her. The guy she’d been in love with was pretty much just a spectral figment of his own imagination. Even his theoretical degree was purely theoretical.

The fullness of this realization didn’t happen right away. First came the murder, him found shot inside his 2000 GMC Yukon XL, which is where he lived, off a service road outside of town, digging the peripatetic so-called vanlife, the truck then torched such that you’d never know it was once bright red. All his gear vanished in the inferno, too — his climbing stuff, two phones, two laptops, a bunch of USB drives, everything. At the time, McLennan spent her nights in a tent a short distance away and stumbled upon the scene expecting only to enjoy another day of climbing the area’s many outcroppings and crags. Their last words to each other were “Good night, sweet dreams, I love you.” Instead, chaos and upheaval and death and cops.

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‘Dating Game Killer’ Rodney Alcala dies at 77

Convicted serial killer Rodney Alcala, known as the ‘Dating Game Killer’ because of his appearance on the TV show as a contestant in 1978, has died of natural causes, California prison officials said Saturday.

Alcala, 77, was condemned to death row for murdering five people, including 12-year-old Robin Samsoe in 1979.

He died at 1:43 a.m. Saturday at a hospital, the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation said in a statement.

He was twice granted a new trial in the Orange County kidnapping and killing of Samsoe but was convicted of her murder, as well as that of four women, by an Orange County jury in 2010. He was sentenced to death.

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UK law commission recommends making speech offenses based on “likely psychological harm”

Recommendations unveiled by the UK’s Law Commission are seeking to establish a new offense by criminalizing communications that could cause “likely psychological harms.”

Another offense that is recommended in the document concerns “knowingly false communications.” This is a serious threat to freedom of expression, and a chance for the authorities to get the last word on what is perceived as true and false.

The recommendation defines “harm” as something that causes “serious distress,” while “psychological harm” is also being mentioned. As for defining “serious distress” – the Commission refers to the Protection from Harassment Act 1997.

The proposed reforms are aimed at protecting victims of online abuse, but there are fears that the vague language and prioritizing subjective perception of speech over objective content could have dangerous consequences.

And the fact that identity and characteristics of the recipient of a communication is also given center stage leaves the door wide open for censorship based on identity politics.

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You’re More Likely to Get Murdered in Chicago Than Be Hospitalized for COVID-19

“The Delta variant does not appear to be especially deadly,” says Dr. Joel Zinberg in a Tuesday New York Post op-ed.

Zinberg — who practiced medicine for 30 years at Mt. Sinai Hospital — notes that “despite rising numbers of Delta cases in July, hospitalizations have only increased moderately.” Delta victims, he notes, “are no more likely to be hospitalized or die than with other variants.”

Not only that, but as I noted elsewhere here at PJ Media on Wednesday, you’re more likely to get murdered in Chicago (18 murders per 100,000 people) than a senior citizen is to be hospitalized for the Wuhan Flu (2.9 per 100,000), Delta variant or no Delta variant.

While Zinberg adds that most of the increase “is concentrated in areas with low vaccination rates,” the actual COVID death rate is “lower than it was three weeks ago.”

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Two Men Charged in ‘Plot’ to Attack Democrat Party Headquarters in Sacramento with Incendiary Devices

How many FBI informants were involved in this plot?

Two men were charged in a so-called plot to attack the Democrat Party headquarters in Sacramento, the FBI said on Thursday night.

Ian Rogers, 45, and Jarrod Copeland, 37, were indicted for a conspiracy to attack the Democrat Headquarters in Sacramento with incendiary devices.

The FBI arrested Copeland in Sacramento on Wednesday; Rogers was arrested in January.

The FBI says the two men were “prompted by the outcome of the 2020 presidential election” and believed they could start a “movement” with their attack.

Rogers sent Copeland a text message on January 11 that said: “I want to blow up a democrat building bad.”

According to court documents, authorities seized 49 firearms, ammo and five pipe bombs from a gun safe in Rogers’ home.

Another piece of “evidence” seized by law enforcement to reinforce that Rogers is an extremist/white supremacist?

A “White Privilege” card (photo below) with the numbers “0045” in reference to Trump, the 45th president.

“I know that many extreme anti-government militias are populated by white supremacists. I believe that the statement “Trumps Everything” and the numbers “0045” repeated four times (to make it look like a credit card number), are references to Donald Trump, the 45th President of the United States” the FBI agent said in a 7-page affidavit in support of a criminal complaint.

The FBI also found it disturbing that Rogers believes Trump won the 2020 election.

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Maine Abolishes Civil Forfeiture, Now Requires A Criminal Conviction To Take Property

Maine became the fourth state to abolish civil forfeiture, a practice that enables law enforcement to confiscate millions of dollars worth of property without ever filing criminal charges. Taking effect on Tuesday without the governor’s signature, LD 1521 fully repeals Maine’s civil forfeiture laws, while simultaneously bolstering its criminal forfeiture process, which only authorizes forfeiture after a criminal conviction (apart from a few narrow circumstances, like the owner’s death or deportation). 

Although civil forfeiture is typically defended as a way to fight back against drug kingpins, in reality, many forfeiture cases have been remarkably petty. In Maine, half of all cash forfeitures were under $1,670. 

“It’s a very simple concept; you don’t lose your property unless you used it in the commission of a crime, or knowingly allowed someone else to use it in the commission of a crime,” bill sponsor Rep. Billy Bob Faulkingham wrote in May testimony supporting his bill. “It is time to end this work around that makes people prove innocence, rather than prosecutors proving guilt. This is one of the founding principles of our country.” 

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