Violence Unchecked

Violence has been a theme in the news as usual. Here are excerpts from just a few examples:

Community Laments Slaying of Priest/Janitor Accused of Stabbing Cleric After Argument
By VICTOR EPSTEIN, AP
posted: 1 DAY 8 HOURS AGOcomments: 1521filed under: Crime News, National NewsWith HP wireless printers, you could have printed this from any room in the house. Live wirelessly. Print wirelessly. PRINT|E-MAILMOREText SizeAAA

CHATHAM, N.J. (Oct. 25) -- An arrest in the fatal stabbing of a beloved priest has brought little solace to an affluent Roman Catholic parish in this tiny northern New Jersey community.
Authorities say longtime church janitor Jose Feliciano stabbed the Rev. Ed Hinds 32 times with a kitchen knife after an argument in the rectory of St. Patrick's Church on Thursday. Parishioners and residents said his arrest represents a second blow to the community.

(Read full article: Here).

Police Storm Jerusalem's Holiest Site
By MATTI FRIEDMAN, AP
posted: 1 DAY AGOcomments: 1189filed under: World NewsWith HP wireless printers, you could have printed this from any room in the house. Live wirelessly. Print wirelessly. PRINT|E-MAILMOREText SizeAAA

JERUSALEM (Oct. 25) — Israeli police firing stun grenades faced off Sunday against masked Palestinian protesters hurling stones and plastic chairs outside the Holy Land's most volatile shrine, where past violence has escalated into prolonged conflict.
A wall of Israeli riot police behind plexiglass shields marched toward young men covering their faces with T-shirts and scarves, sending many of them running for cover into the Al-Aqsa mosque, one of the Islamic structures in the compound known to Jews as the Temple Mount and to Muslims as the Noble Sanctuary.

(Read whole article: Here).

Cops: Witnesses Didn't Help Rape Victim
AP
posted: 3 HOURS 52 MINUTES AGOcomments: 429filed under: Crime News, National News
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RICHMOND, Calif. (Oct. 26) - Police believe as many as a dozen people watched a 15-year-old girl get beaten and gang-raped outside her California high school homecoming dance but didn't report it.
One suspect is in custody for his alleged role in the assault, but police say as many as six other men raped the girl over a two-hour period Friday night outside Richmond High School.

(Read the rest: Here).

These are cases in which the church must speak a big affirmative "No" to the violence of culture. May God's grace prevail over culture for the living of these days.

Anti-Abortion Activist Murdered

Anti-Abortion Activist Slain Near School
BY ED WHITE and TIM MARTIN, AP
posted: 4 HOURS 42 MINUTES AGOcomments: 405filed under: Crime News, National News
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OWOSSO, Mich. (Sept. 11) -- A 33-year-old man fatally shot an anti-abortion activist Friday outside a high school as horrified parents and students watched, authorities said. When police arrested him, the gunman said he was involved in the killing of a gravel pit owner earlier that day.
Officials found the body of Mike Fuoss, 61, in the office of his gravel production company, Sheriff George Braidwood said. Fuoss and the gunman knew each other.
Owosso Police Chief Michael Compeau said authorities did not know whether the suspect knew anti-abortion activist Jim Pouillon, 63, who was shot while protesting in the town about 70 miles northwest of Detroit.
Police declined to release the gunman's identity and no other injuries were reported. No motive was given for the shootings, but Compeau said he believed Pouillon appeared to be a target.
"I would speculate it was ... intended," Compeau said. "He was out protesting right across the street from the high school ... and there (were) multiple people around there and that person was targeted."
Students said Pouillon was a fixture outside the high school and regularly held graphic signs of aborted fetuses.
"I can see someone spitting on him or punching him, but shooting him is pretty stupid. It's not something you expect in Owosso," said 16-year-old Curtis Wisterman.
"There ain't no use in being in school when you can't concentrate," he said.
After the shooting all schools in the district were locked down, but opened up again after the suspect was arrested, said Julie Omer, business manager for Owosso Public Schools.
Troy Newman, president of the anti-abortion group Operation Rescue, said he wept when he received word that Pouillon, his friend and colleague, had been killed.
"He was just a kind, gentle man who loved life and endeavored to save other people's lives," Newman said.

Associated Press writers David Aguilar, Mike Householder, Jeff Karoub and Ben Leubsdorf in Detroit contributed to this report. Copyright 2009 The Associated Press. The information contained in the AP news report may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or otherwise distributed without the prior written authority of The Associated Press. Active hyperlinks have been inserted by AOL.
2009-09-11 13:34:47

Just another way violence begets more violence.

Todd Friel Responds To Dr. Tiller's Murder

Once again, Todd is full of hot air and his kind of rhetoric is what ultimately leads to these type of acts of "Christian Terrorism." I have nothing further to add, so what are your thoughts?

Also, here's something just as disturbing---John Meunier’s Blog: Bring a gun to church day. No not John Meunier, but the subject of his post:

I am not making this up.

LOUISVILLE, Ky. – A Kentucky pastor is inviting his flock to bring guns to church to celebrate the Fourth of July and the Second Amendment.

More Violence In The News

Woman Kills Son, Self at Gun Range
AP
posted: ONE MINUTE AGOcomments: 368filed under: Crime News, National NewsPrintShareText SizeAAA

CASSELBERRY, Fla. (April 7) - A Florida woman fatally shot her son and then turned the gun on herself at a central Florida gun range, authorities said. Marie Moore, 44, of Altamonte Springs and her 20-year-old son, Mitchell, were sharing a firing lane at the Shoot Straight range Sunday, Casselberry police said. Shooters in an adjacent lane said the mother and son seemed to be getting along fine. A security video shows Moore walk up behind her son, point a revolver at the back of his head and fire a single shot, police said. She then put the gun in her mouth and pulled the trigger.
The son died at the scene, and the mother died later at the hospital. Family members told police that Moore had a history of mental illness.
The gun was rented from the shooting range.

Copyright 2009 The Associated Press. The information contained in the AP news report may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or otherwise distributed without the prior written authority of The Associated Press. Active hyperlinks have been inserted by AOL.
2009-04-07 13:54:04

Mom Stabbed Child 100 Times, Cops Say
AP
posted: 3 DAYS 21 HOURS AGOcomments: 637filed under: Crime News, National NewsPrintShareText SizeAAA



GARDNER, Mass. (April 3) - A woman who believes she was being stalked by a cult has been charged with stabbing her 2-year-old daughter 100 times with scissors, her lawyer and police have said, and can be heard yelling "Die! Die!" on a 911 call.
Susan Johnson's screams can be heard on the 911 call made by a security guard who helped to subdue her in a laundry room at a Gardner apartment building Wednesday night.

Johnson, 38, also used an electrical cord from a dryer to try and strangle the toddler, police said, but the security guard and two residents separated mother and child just before police arrived.
"I heard a woman screaming very loudly that she was going to 'Kill, kill, I have to kill you, Die, die, die,'" said resident Real Belliveau, 65, who lives just down the hall from the laundry room. He was watching a Boston Celtics game on TV when he heard the commotion.
When he ran to the laundry room he thought the child was already dead because she was limp, covered in blood and had the cord wrapped around her neck.
The girl was taken to a hospital suffering from as many as 100 wounds to her head, neck and torso, but many of them were superficial, police Chief Neil Erickson said. The child, who is now in the custody of state child welfare authorities, was taken to a hospital and is expected to survive.

The state Department of Children and Families made a check on the girl at her home in Turners Falls, about 35 miles west of Gardner, the day before the attack, the Worcester Telegram & Gazette and WBZ-TV reported. Department spokeswoman Alison Goodwin refused to confirm the report Thursday and said only the department is now investigating.
It's unclear what she was doing in the apartment building. She has family in Gardner, defense attorney Peter Binder said.
Johnson has a history of depression and had not been taking her medication, Binder said, adding she does not remember the attack in the laundry room.
"She seems to be very paranoid," he said.
Johnson was held without bail on a number of charges including attempted murder and ordered to undergo a competency evaluation at her arraignment Thursday in Gardner District Court. A dangerousness hearing was scheduled for April 17.

Copyright 2009 The Associated Press. The information contained in the AP news report may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or otherwise distributed without the prior written authority of The Associated Press. Active hyperlinks have been inserted by AOL.
2009-04-03 11:12:03

Recent Violence In The News

Body of Missing California Girl, 8, Found
By JULIANA BARBASSA, AP
posted: 4 HOURS 52 MINUTES AGOcomments: 2001filed under: Crime News, National NewsPrintShareText SizeAAA

TRACY, Calif. (April 7) - The body of a missing 8-year-old girl has been found in a suitcase dumped in an irrigation pond a few miles from her northern California home.
Sandra Cantu was found Monday after a 10-day search, authorities announced.
Authorities would not comment on their investigation, but they roped off the mobile home park where Sandra lived. They had previously searched several homes and towed several cars from the park.
No suspects had been identified. "Our heartfelt sympathies go to Sandra's family and friends," said Tracy Police Chief Janet Thiessen. "We will determine the person or persons responsible for this reprehensible act, and we will bring them to justice."
Authorities planned an autopsy to determine the cause of death.
Thiessen said Sandra was found wearing the same clothes she had on when she was last seen on March 27: a pink "Hello Kitty" T-shirt and black leggings.
Sandra's disappearance sparked a widespread search that included hundreds of volunteers and law enforcement officials, including the FBI, and drew more than 1,000 tips. Pictures of the girl with dark brown eyes and light brown hair were posted all over town, on business fronts, car windows and fire hydrants in this city of 78,000 about 60 miles east of San Francisco.
Investigators said they spoke last week to the girl's father, Daniel Cantu, who lives in Mexico and works in southern California. Authorities would not give any details of the discussion, but the father told the Tracy Press newspaper he had not seen his daughter for a year.
Police said the suitcase was found by farmworkers who were draining the irrigation pond to water fields.
Investigators cordoned off the area for hours while they searched the area for clues. The suitcase was eventually opened at the coroner's office, where Sandra's body was positively identified.
More than 100 mourners — some holding candles, others wiping away tears — gathered outside the mobile home park Monday night while police blocked the entrance.
"I am still in shock," said Brandy Robles, 27, who held her 2-year-old son. "You see this in the movies. I never thought it would be real life — real to me."

Copyright 2009 The Associated Press. The information contained in the AP news report may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or otherwise distributed without the prior written authority of The Associated Press. Active hyperlinks have been inserted by AOL.
2009-04-07 05:21:24

5 Children Slain in Trailer Park Home

Police Say Dad Killed Kids Because Wife Was Leaving Him
By PHUONG LE, AP
posted: 1 DAY 6 HOURS AGOcomments: 1178filed under: Crime News, National NewsPrintShareText SizeAAA

GRAHAM, Wash. (April 6) - Authorities and relatives portrayed a father believed to have killed his five children and then himself as a strict parent who had been reprimanded by the state and a jealous husband driven to rage by another man.
The children, aged 7 to 16, were found shot to death Saturday in the family's mobile home in Graham, 15 miles southeast of Tacoma. The father, James Harrison, was found earlier in the day, dead of a self-inflicted gunshot behind the wheel of his idling car 18 miles away in Auburn, about 30 miles south of Seattle.

A Grim Tally: In Past Month, US Mass Shootings Claimed 53 Lives

The night before, the father and his eldest daughter went in search of the wife, Angela Harrison. The daughter used a GPS feature in her mother's cell phone to find her with another man at a convenience store in Auburn, said Ed Troyer, a spokesman for the Pierce County Sheriff.
The woman told her husband she was not coming home, and was leaving him for the man with her at the store. The father and the daughter left, distraught, Troyer said. Sometime after the children went to sleep, he shot them each multiple times. Four died in their beds. The fifth was found in the mobile home's bathroom, surrounded by signs of violent struggle.
"He wanted the kids dead," Troyer said. "It wasn't like he shot a few rounds. He shot several rounds."
Investigators believe he then returned to the area near the convenience store looking for his wife. His body was found near the store, Troyer said. Investigators believe he then returned to the area near the convenience store looking for his wife. His body was found near the store, Troyer said.
"A working theory is that he probably went back up there looking for her, wasn't able to find her, realized the gravity of what he'd done and shot himself," Troyer said.
Several weapons were found in the home.
Authorities have not released the names of the family, relatives identified the couple as Angela and James Harrison and the children as Maxine, Samantha, Heather, Jamie and James.
Candy Johnson, Angela Harrison's aunt, described James Harrison as a strict, controlling husband and father who didn't allow his wife to make any decisions without asking him first.
"My niece has been so controlled from the time she was young," Johnson said, adding that James Harrison had impregnated Angela when she was 13.
"It's unbelievable," Johnson said. "My whole family is in shock. How does this happen? How does anyone do that?"
The father worked as a diesel mechanic, and the mother works at Wal-Mart, said another of Angela Harrison's aunts, Penny Flansburg. Troyer, however, said he worked as a security guard at a casino.
Ron Vorak, who lives across the street from the family's trailer at the Deer Run mobile home park, said James Harrison "wasn't too friendly a person."
"He was always hollering at the kids. He seemed to be strict with them."
Harrison was put on a parenting plan by state child welfare officials in 2007 after what Troyer describes as a "minor assault" on one of the children. He agreed to the plan and the case was closed, Troyer said.
Ryan Peden, daughter Maxine's classmate, had said she told him Friday night that her parents had gotten into a fight and her mother had left. The father followed the mother and tried to get her to return, said Peden.
"Maxine texted me at 11 p.m. Friday. She said: "I'm tired of crying. I'm going to bed.''" His text to her the next day went unanswered.
Outside the mobile home, neighbors left cards and bouquets of flowers. The yellow crime-scene tape and dozens of investigators who responded to the scene on Saturday were gone. The home's front yard was littered with unused bicycles, a swing set, a trampoline and a basketball hoop.
A few people drove slowly by the scene, a neatly kept mobile home in a quiet park nestled among towering evergreens.
"How do you make sense out of something like this?" asked Jeff Davis, superintendent of the 2,100-student Orting School District where all five children attended school.
"In a small community like this, we know these kids," Davis said. " Teachers know the kids. All the kids know the kids."

Associated Press Photographer Ted S. Warren contributed to this story.---Copyright 2009 The Associated Press. The information contained in the AP news report may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or otherwise distributed without the prior written authority of The Associated Press. Active hyperlinks have been inserted by AOL.
2009-04-05 06:48:20

Man Gets Life in Craigslist Killing Of Lutheran Pastor's Wife

Man Gets Life in Craigslist Killing
AP
posted: 1 HOUR 1 MINUTE AGOcomments: 113filed under: Crime News, National NewsPrintShareText SizeAAA

SHAKOPEE, Minn. (April 1) - A man convicted of murdering a woman he had lured to his home with an online baby-sitting ad was sentenced to life in prison without the chance of parole Wednesday.
The sentence was mandatory for 20-year-old Michael John Anderson, who was convicted Tuesday of first-degree premeditated murder and other charges in the October 2007 shooting death of Katherine Ann Olson, 24.
"Mr. Anderson is not just a murderer — he's a thief of the future of our family's joy," said the Rev. Rolf Olson. "He needs to be prevented from inflicting evil on anybody else's life ever again."
The Lutheran pastor said he believes God will help him to forgive Anderson, but "in this situation, I don't sense that there is any hurry."
Prosecutors said during the weeklong trial that Anderson, of Savage, ran a phony ad on the Craigslist classified-ad Web site in order to lure a woman to his home so he might experience what it felt like to kill.
The defense argued that the shooting was accidental. Anderson's lead attorney, Alan Margoles, said he plans an appeal because he wasn't allowed to present evidence that Anderson has Asperger's syndrome, a form of autism.
Anderson declined to comment during or after the sentencing. Margoles conveyed on Anderson's behalf his "deepest regrets for his actions."
"Why did you do this? You are the only one who knows and I won't pretend to understand it," Scott County District Judge Mary Theisen said from the bench. She added that Anderson was a "coward" when he shot Olson — who Theisen believed was "running for her life."
"You have shown no remorse and I have no empathy for you," Theisen said before handing down the life sentence. She also ordered Anderson to pay restitution of $6,500 from his prison wages to reimburse Olson's family for her funeral expenses.
Sarah Richter, Olson's older sister, said her sleep is interrupted nightly by horrible images from the murder.
"I'm haunted by Anderson's face, by Katherine's screams, the gun, her body in the trunk and now, the real bloody images of my sister," she said. "When will I sleep again?"

Copyright 2009 The Associated Press. The information contained in the AP news report may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or otherwise distributed without the prior written authority of The Associated Press. Active hyperlinks have been inserted by AOL.
2009-04-01 10:36:50

Pray for the victim, the victim's family and the accused that God's grace be manifested for healing and forgiveness.

Jack The Ripper: A Halloween Related Post

Find out about Jack The Ripper, who terrorized Whitechapel and gave London nightmares over 100 years ago:

Jack the Ripper is an alias given to an unidentified serial killer[1] active in the largely impoverished Whitechapel area and adjacent districts of London, England, in the autumn of 1888. The name originated in a letter sent to the London Central News Agency by someone claiming to be the murderer.

The victims were women allegedly earning income as prostitutes, who were killed in public or semi-public places at night or in the early morning. Each victim's throat was cut, after which her body was mutilated. Theories suggest that the victims first were strangled, in order to silence them, which may explain the reported lack of blood at the crime scenes. The removal of internal organs from three of the victims led some officials at the time of the murders to propose that the killer possessed anatomical or surgical knowledge.[2]

Newspapers, whose circulation had been growing during this era,[3] bestowed widespread and enduring notoriety on the killer because of the attacks' savagery and the police's failure to capture the murderer (they sometimes missed him at the crime scenes by mere minutes).[4][5]

Because the killer's identity has never been confirmed, the legends surrounding the murders have become a combination of genuine historical research, folklore, and pseudohistory. Many authors, historians, and amateur detectives have proposed theories about the identity of the killer and his victims.

Gruesome crime scene photo:



See also: Casebook: Jack the Ripper for an extensive collection of contemporary newspaper reports related to the murders as well as articles by modern authors.

Somehow silly Halloween songs such as Screaming Lord Sutch's aptly named Jack The Ripper:

1963 version:


1977 version:
---do not seem to evoke the sheer sense of terror and panic London felt all those years ago.

For another Jack that terrorized London's city streets see:

Spring Heeled Jack (also Springheel Jack, Spring-heel Jack, etc), is a character from English folklore said to have existed during the Victorian era and able to jump extraordinarily high. The first claimed sighting of Spring Heeled Jack that is known occurred in 1837.[1] Later alleged sightings were reported all over England, from London up to Sheffield and Liverpool, but they were especially prevalent in suburban London and later in the Midlands and Scotland.[2]

Many theories have been proposed to ascertain the nature and identity of Spring Heeled Jack. The urban legend of Spring Heeled Jack gained immense popularity in its time due to the tales of his bizarre appearance and ability to make extraordinary leaps, to the point where he became the topic of several works of fiction.

Spring Heeled Jack was described by people claiming to have seen him as having a terrifying and frightful appearance, with diabolical physiognomy that included clawed hands and eyes that "resembled red balls of fire". One report claimed that, beneath a black cloak, he wore a helmet and a tight-fitting white garment like an "oilskin". Many stories also mention a "Devil-like" aspect. Spring Heeled Jack was said to be tall and thin, with the appearance of a gentleman, and capable of making great leaps. Several reports mention that he could breathe blue and white flames and that he wore sharp metallic claws at his fingertips. At least two people claimed that he was able to speak in comprehensible English.