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How the Houston Cop Who Killed an Unarmed, Disabled Man Was Found Innocent

By on November 5, 2013 in News 6

Apparently Houston cops can kill and get away with it. This time it was a mentally ill double amputee with a pen.

via Texas Observer

Police misconduct in shootings is “very very difficult” to prove, FBI agent says.

On October 24, the Houston Police Department announced the results of its yearlong investigation into the shooting death of Brian Claunch, a mentally ill double amputee killed by an officer last September after refusing to drop a pen. HPD cleared the officer, Matthew Marin, of any wrongdoing.

That may not come as a surprise, since HPD hasn’t found a single police shooting unjustified in at least six years. Between 2007 and 2012, HPD officers fatally shot 109 people and injured another 111. All those shootings were found justified. (For the full story on HPD shootings and beatings, read the Observer investigation here.)

But some expected this case to be different. Claunch was wheelchair-bound and had one arm and one leg.

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Forensic Psychiatrist: Women Kill More Creatively Than Men

By on November 5, 2013 in News 7
blood-countess-elizabeth-bathory

Elizabeth Bathory

Sigrun Rossmanith and Spiegel Online talk about gender roles and the underestimated shadow of women.

via Spiegel Online International

Women rarely commit murder, but forensic psychiatrist Sigrun Rossmanith has treated many female killers. She tells SPIEGEL ONLINE that women’s dark side is underestimated.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: Frau Rossmanith, in your book you pose the question of whether women make better murderers than men. Is that the case?

Rossmanith: They are certainly more creative than men. More inventive. Take the revenge incident that I describe in the book: An unfaithful wife from Asia passionately kisses her partner — and in doing so slips a cyanide capsule into his mouth, which he is forced to swallow. She combines an act of love with the murder. Would a man come up with such an idea?SPIEGEL ONLINE: Hard to say. Are women perhaps more creative with murder because they lack the physical strength for more heavy-handed violence?

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Florida Man Committed To Insane Asylum In Brain-Eating Cannibalism Axe Murder Case

By on September 11, 2013 in News 15

brain-eating

Cannibalism as a means to expand the doors of perception, with sake. Via ABC News:

A Florida man who killed a vagrant with an ax and ate his brain and eyes has been committed to a maximum-security psychiatric hospital in Connecticut after being found not guilty by reason of insanity.

Tyree Lincoln Smith, 36, was ordered committed Monday by a three-judge panel in Bridgeport Superior Court. Judges John Kavanewsky, John Blawie and Maria Kahn were urged by a prosecutor and social worker to protect society from Smith.

His cousin, Nicole Rabb, testified that she saw Smith in December 2011 carrying a bloody ax and chopsticks. She said Smith told her he killed a man with the ax, ate his brain and eyeballs and drank sake in a local cemetery.

A psychiatrist testified that Smith heard voices that told him to eat Gonzalez’s brain to better understand human behavior and eat his eyes to gain vision into the “spiritual realm.”

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Florida Man Cites “Bush Doctrine” As Legal Defense In Killing Of Neighbors

By on September 6, 2013 in News 24

bush doctrine

Give this man the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Via Gawker:

A Florida man who shot three of his neighbors killing two of them has cited the state’s infamous Stand Your Ground law in his defense, but with a twist: William T. Woodward insists the “Bush Doctrine” of preventive war gives him the right to murder his neighbors before they murder him.

An ongoing dispute between Woodward and his neighbors, Gary Lee Hembree, Roger Picior, and Bruce Timothy Blake, culminated in a Labor Day shooting that left Hembree and Picior dead and Blake badly wounded.

Lawyers for Woodward, 44, have asked the court to dismiss the first-degree murder charges against his client, saying Woodward’s neighbors had verbally harassed him in the hours leading up to the shooting, and could even be heard saying “we’re going to get him, all three of us.”

In their argument, the attorneys mentioned the “Bush Doctrine” as a justification for preemptive attack in the face of a potential threat.

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CIA Director Was Michael Hastings’ Next Target

By on August 13, 2013 in News 2

Hastings-carcrashBefore dying in what many people consider an incredibly suspicious car “accident”, Michael Hastings had CIA Director John Brennan in his sights.

Via San Diego 6:

This week Elise Jordan, wife of famed journalist Michael Hastings, who recently died under suspicious circumstances, corroborated this reporter’s sources that CIA Director, John Brennan was Hastings next exposé project.

Last month a source provided San Diego 6 News with an alarming email hacked from super secret CIA contractor Stratfor’s President Fred Burton. The email (link here) was posted on WikiLeaks and alleged that then Obama counter-terrorism Czar Brennan, was in charge of the government’s continued crackdown or witch-hunt on investigative journalists.

After providing the Stratfor email to the CIA for comment, the spymaster’s spokesperson responded in lightning speed. Two emails were received; one acknowledging Hastings was working on a CIA story and the other said, “Without commenting on information disseminated by WikiLeaks, any suggestion that Director Brennan has ever attempted to infringe on constitutionally-protected press freedoms is offensive and baseless.”

The emails also prompted a phone from CIA media spokesman Todd Ebitz.

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Los Angeles Man Receives Life Sentence For Skinning And Dismembering Mother In Satanic Ritual Killing

By on July 23, 2013 in News 8

satanic ritual

This incredibly disturbing saga harkens back to the heyday of heavy metal moral panic. Via the Los Angeles Times:

Prosecutors say that Moises Meraz-Espinoza strangled his mother and then skinned, filleted and dismembered her body as part of a satanic ritual. The woman’s internal organs were never recovered. A Norwalk jury convicted him of first-degree murder in June.

Deputy Dist. Atty. Heba Matta, said Meraz-Espinoza was motivated by satanic beliefs, which he was “heavily entrenched in.” His mother disapproved of his listening to death metal music and he regularly disobeyed her, Matta said.

“This crime was not in the heat of passion or rash and impulsive,” Matta said. “It was done for the purpose of devotion. That’s pretty much the ultimate sacrifice.”

Meraz-Espinoza has numerous tattoos that draw on satanic imagery, such as upside-down crosses and a 666 behind his right ear. Authorities recovered his copy of a satanic bible near the crime scene.

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WikiLeaks Says Michael Hastings Contacted It Just before His Death. Are They Implying He Was Murdered?

By on July 10, 2013 in News 7

michael_hastings_a_pTim Stanley writes at the Telegraph:

WikiLeaks just threw some gasoline onto the conspiracy fire. On Wednesday night, they Tweeted: “Michael Hastings contacted WikiLeaks lawyer Jennifer Robinson just a few hours before he died, saying that the FBI was investigating him.”

What exactly are they trying to say?

Michael Hastings was a much admired freelance journalist who covered the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and helped to bring down General Stanley McChrystal. He was tragically killed this week in a car crash in Los Angeles, after his car hit a tree. Hastings is believed to have been alone in the vehicle.

Hastings has certainly been in contact with WikiLeaks before. In 2012 he wrote a profile of Julian Assange for Rolling Stone in which he asked tough questions – but the overall tone is sympathetic. Hastings appeared willing to accept that the US government might have targeted Assange in an effort to discredit him; the interview also highlights the failure of mainstream media outlets to expose mistakes made by the US military and generally permits Assange to push his side of the story.

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Hitman Testifies About Murders Sanctioned by James Whitey Bulger

By on June 28, 2013 in News 2

Ah, James Whitey Bulger Another excellent example of federal mismanagement.

via Daily News James Whitey Bluger associate

A former associate of the 83-year-old reputed mobster testifies in Boston about murders they committed together. John ‘The Executioner’ Martorano denied being a hitman or a serial killer despite admitting to killing 20 people out of duty to friends and family.

A former gangster in James (Whitey) Bulger’s criminal empire admits to killing 20 people but said he’s a “nice guy” who was only trying to help his family and friends.

John “The Executioner” Martorano denied being a hitman or a serial killer Tuesday as he took the stand for a second day in the sensational trial of Boston’s most famous mobster.

“I didn’t enjoy killing people. I enjoyed helping a friend,” Martorano, 72, told jurors.

He wasn’t a hitman because he was never paid for murders, and he didn’t get a kick out of pumping bullets into his victims, said the former member of Bulger’s violent Winter Hill Gang.

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Maddow: ‘Something Weird Is Going on’ in FBI Shooting of Ibragim Todashev

By on June 3, 2013 in News 25

Boston Police booking photo from 2010. Ibragim TodashevDavid Fergusen writes at Raw Story:

On Thursday night’s edition of “The Rachel Maddow Show,” host Rachel Maddow discussed the swirl of questions around the shooting of Ibragim Todashev, an associate of Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, the two men charged with the bombing of the Boston Marathon.

FBI officials have given conflicting accounts of the questioning and killing of Todashev, who knew Tamerlan Tsarnaev through Mixed Martial Arts fighting. Todashev, who, like the Tsarnaevs, was Chechen, lived in Boston for a time before moving to Florida. Agents from the FBI traveled to Florida to question Todashev repeatedly about the bombing.

“Last week while being questioned again in Florida,” said Maddow, “something went very, very wrong and he ended up dead.”

Law enforcement officials were interviewing Todashev in his apartment in Orlando on Wednesday, May 22, when something occurred that resulted in the young man being shot multiple times.

On Thursday, Todashev’s family held a press conference in Moscow, where they showed autopsie photos of their slain son.

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The Woolwich Murder and Inflaming Racial Tensions

By on May 27, 2013 in News 15

SpotthediferenceVia orwellwasright:

The brutal murder of a man in Woolwich, set upon by two men wielding knives and machetes, inevitably led to a lot of heated responses, not least from the hundreds of closet bigots coming out of the woodwork on social media networks, eager to denounce Islam and calling for all Muslims to be thrown out of the country, or worse. Certainly, the reported scenario – Islamic extremists attack serving British soldier who was wearing a ‘Help for Heroes’ t-shirt in broad daylight – is about as shocking and sensational as you can get, guaranteed to inflame racial tensions in a country where years of terrorism and immigration propaganda has worked to instill a culture of fear and separation throughout the population.

Some of the comments on Facebook on the evening of the murder left me under the impression that the ghost of Enoch Powell had somehow merged with the internet, possessing people with a relentless, savage desire for rivers of Muslim blood cascading through the streets of Britain.

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