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COSTA MESA – Three teens, including the son of a former City Council candidate and community activist, have been arrested in connection with a shotgun attack on a teenage girl, police said today. The arrests stem from a July 28 shooting on Shalimar Drive – a notorious area barricaded with concrete stumps at all but one access point because of rampant gang activity – that resulted in a 15-year-old girl being hospitalized with a shotgun wound to the torso. The three suspects - one young man and two juveniles - were booked on suspicion of attempted murder, conspiracy and street...

Mexico: the danger of 'drug ballads'  Last Updated: 12:01am BST 01/06/2008       In the past two years, 15 mexican musicians have been murdered. Their crime: to fall foul of the country's drug barons. Ioan Grillo reports It was three in the morning and the Mexican group Banda Guasavena were driving back from a concert at a cockfighting festival, just over the border from Texas. The audience had been even more rapturous than usual and Fausto Castro-Elizalde, the band's horn player, recalls them chatting happily about the evening.   Grupo Cartel de Sinaloa pose in a cemetery full of extravagant...

RIVERSIDE Two recent shootouts between law officers and several members of the Soboba Indian tribe have prompted the Riverside County Sheriff's Deputies Association to warn the public that it considers the tribe's casino to be unsafe, it was reported on Saturday. The 3,700-member union considers the tribal reservation to be "unstable" as a result of "recent violence against Riverside County deputy sheriffs," the Los Angeles Times and Riverside Press-Enterprise reported. Tribal leaders shot back that the deputies union has brought the shootouts into the poitical arena, and said in an e-mail that "the recent tragic events were unrelated to the...

A federal appeals court on Monday upheld Gilroy's right to exclude members of a motorcycle club from the annual garlic festival because their garb violated a ban on clothing that could be associated with gang colors. In a 12-page ruling, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals rejected the arguments of the Top Hatter motorcyle club, which argued their free speech rights were violated when they were ordered to leave the garlic festival in 2000. The club sued in federal court in San Jose, but a judge ruled against their arguments in 2005, prompting the appeal. The 9th Circuit concluded...

May 23, 1934: Police kill famous outlaws Bonnie and Clyde On this day in 1934, notorious criminals Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow are shot to death by Texas and Louisiana state police while driving a stolen car near Salles, Louisiana. Bonnie Parker met the charismatic Clyde Barrow in Texas when she was 19 years old and her husband (she married when she was 16) was serving time in jail for murder. Shortly after they met, Barrow was imprisoned for robbery. Parker visited him every day, and smuggled a gun into prison to help him escape, but he was soon caught...

Long before the O. J. Simpson trial, the "trial of the century" was the Lindberg baby kidnapping and murder case. The son of the most famous American family of the 20th century, (Colonel Charles Lindbergh and Anne Morrow Lindbergh) was kidnapped in 1932 and declared dead after being missing for six weeks. The body (so badly decomposed that proper identification was not possible), was presented to Charles Lindberg. Mr. Lindberg identified the body as that of his missing son, even though witnesses question even the sex of the corpse. Bruno Haupmann, a carpenter, and German immigrant, who had some acquaintance...

Critics of vulgar, violent, gangster-style rap music make a mistake when they write off rap stars as stupid, immoral and self-destructive. They may be immoral and self-destructive, but they're not stupid. As one of my readers observed in a thoughtful e-mail, they're making a rational economic choice. The reader wrote: "I had to stop and ask this question to myself: 'Would I call my mother a 'ho' or my sister a 'bitch' if I could make a couple of million dollars and get out of poverty and live a pretty good life?" In a line of work that dangles riches...

I was threatened to have my ass kicked the next time in San Diego because I dared quote Chris Rock who, at least in his stand up routine, claims to have as little use for niggas (as opposed to hard-working, law-abiding, descent black people) as I do. No one has yet to give me a reason to change that opinion. In fact, my opinions were vindicated, yet again, by the 403 arrests that tarnished the mid-February NBA All-Star Weekend in Las Vegas, According to Edward Lawrence of WLAS-TV, “It wasn’t the shootings, but the general rudeness of the NBA fans...

A federal appeals court refused yesterday to revive civil-rights claims against Gov. Rendell, District Attorney Lynne M. Abraham, and Teamsters Local 115, part of a lawsuit filed eight years ago by a man who says he was beaten and falsely prosecuted after protesting a 1998 appearance by President Clinton. The opinion by a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit is likely the end of the federal suit filed by Don and Theresa Adams, although Adams has said he will press civil claims involving state law in Philadelphia Common Pleas Court. Neither Adams, 46, of...

By Emer Mullins The large increase in babies being born to immigrants in New Orleans in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina is putting maternity hospitals in that city under strain, The New York Times has reported. Hundreds of babies are being born to Latino immigrant workers, who flocked to the city to work during the reconstruction. “The throng of babies gurgling in the handful of operational maternity wards here has come as a big surprise — and a financial strain — to this historically black and white city, which before the hurricane had only a small Latino community and virtually...

LOS ANGELES Police Friday announced a second arrest in the racially motivated shooting death of a 14-year-old black girl who was gunned down -- allegedly by two Latino gang members -- in the Harbor Gateway area of Los Angeles last month. A news conference was scheduled this afternoon to announce details of the arrest, but police earlier identified the second suspect as Jonathan Fajardo. The other suspect, Ernesto Alcarez, 20, is scheduled to be arraigned Monday on murder, attempted murder and hate crime charges that were filed Dec. 26. Cheryl Green, an eighth-grader at Stephen M. White Middle School, was...

A violent fight between clans in Khan Yunis in central Gaza on Saturday erupted into an all-out battle in which an officer of the Palestinian Authority (PA)'s new elite army was killed, according to the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights. Five children and 24 others were injured in the fracas, which broke out Saturday night between two clans. The newly-created Interior Ministry Executive Force, made up of terrorists from various organizations, tried to break up the fight and was drawn into an armed battle.

Recent violence in Sao Paulo may just be the tip of the iceberg: Many parts of Brazil and indeed across Latin America, governments have capitulated to gangsters, and the rise of organized crime could end the recent leftward shift across Latin America. Garbage containers block the road into slum district Vigario Geral, one of the most dangerous favelas in Rio de Janeiro. A visitor approaches the barricade, two youths appear from the shadow of a nearby building. They're carrying machine guns, and handguns are tucked into their pants. "You want to go to church, right?" the older of the two...

Among the most important priorities of U.S. global policy is combating the international traffic in drugs and in persons (often a euphemism for women and children forced into prostitution). Because of the linkage and overlap among terrorist networks and organized criminal gangs, the battle against trafficking is also an integral part of the war on terror. Amazingly, that's what the international community seems to want to help establish in the Serbian province of Kosovo. When Kosovo was placed under United Nations administration and NATO military control at the end of the 1999 war, some hoped the province soon would meet...

Many of those on the left who are attacking President Bush for toppling Saddam Hussein were not so particular when Clinton was president. The man who sent American troops into Kosovo, Bosnia, Haiti, Somalia, etc, did so with the support of liberal-leaning Congressmen and Senators. This fact needs to be borne in mind because I think provides a clue as to why the same Liberals are now snapping at President Bush’s heels. Taking a look at the 1972 George McGovern presidential campaign we find that it provided the means by which those who are deeply hostile to American values and...

An e-mail is bouncing around the Internet with photographs of alleged Bolivarian gunmen in an area of Caracas that appears to be 23 de Enero. Many appear to be teenagers, they are wearing Bolivarian t-shirts with Che Guevara's face super-imposed on Venezuela's national colors, and they are armed with Glock 9mm semi-automatic handguns. According to Pensamiento Militar Venezolano 2005, a strategic and tactical military defense document drafted under the direction of President Hugo Chávez, the core mission of these armed youths is to turn Caracas into a kill zone where escualidos will be hunted down systematically if the Chávez regime...

http://www.allheadlinenews.com/articles/7000310543 Corruption Charges Being To Surface In New Orleans Police Department September 28, 2005 8:00 p.m. EST Douglas Maher - All Headline News Staff Reporter New Orleans, Louisiana (AHN) - Fox News reports an investigation is underway by the FBI as agents look into massive corruption on the state and local levels in the New Orleans Police Department. Police Chief Eddie Compass suddenly resigned on Tuesday asking media interests to respect his right to privacy, but it appears that the former New Orleans cop has a lot of explaining to do. "It's pretty much always been known, but never openly...

Louisiana Attorney General Charles Foti's office confirmed Wednesday that it is investigating the alleged looting of a New Orleans car dealership by city police officers. More than 200 vehicles were taken from the Sewell Cadillac Chevrolet dealership in the Central Business District, and in the most chaotic hours after Hurricane Katrina, some New Orleans Police Department officers reportedly pulled up outside the mobile command center at Harrah's casino in bright, shiny Cadillac SUVs. The cars allegedly still had "2004" stickers in their windshields and "Sewell" medallions on the back. The fancy rides appeared at a time when a desperate force,...

New Orleans Gangs, Drug Dealers May Re-Emerge ElsewherePOSTED: 2:43 pm EDT September 27, 2005 BATON ROUGE, La. -- Hurricane Katrina did what authorities couldn't: put a stop to illegal drug operations in New Orleans and pushed its ruthlessly violent gangs from the streets of the city's poorest neighborhoods. The exact landing point of gang members isn't known for sure, though federal authorities suspect popular evacuation sites like Baton Rouge, Lafayette and Houston. But no matter where they land, the thugs from the Big Easy have been put at a distinct disadvantage, authorities say. "They are crippled," said U.S. Attorney Jim...

Just as Katrina's receding waters revealed acres of ruined houses, flooded cars and pockets of bodies, the post-storm cleanup also raised the curtain on a trail of mass looting that left even the most jaded New Orleans police officers awestruck. As search and rescue crews staged house-to-house searches for survivors during the past two weeks, they repeatedly stumbled upon stacks of merchandise -- from large appliances still in the box to knotted tangles of hastily pilfered jewelry. Much of the loot is being recovered from the drier areas of Uptown and Central City in the 6th Police District. "At first,...

The man approached her at the school bus stop Monday afternoon. The 14-year-old freshman had just gotten off the bus from Eastern Hills High School. The man tried to talk to her. She ignored him and walked away, but he followed. Police say the girl called 911 and kept the operator on the phone during the chase that followed. Her quick thinking helped them catch the man. Glenn E. Holloway, 28, an evacuee from New Orleans, remained in the Mansfield Jail Tuesday night facing a charge of unlawful restraint of a person younger than age 17. The man chased her...

Two Jefferson Parish Sheriff’s Office correctional officers were among the 226 people arrested in Jefferson Parish since Hurricane Katrina made landfall. Cynthine Adams, 48, and Menekia Humphry, 29, no addresses available, were booked with one count each of looting for taking electronic equipment from the Wal-Mart in Harvey, Sheriff’s Office spokesman John Fortunato said Thursday. Sheriff Harry Lee said Wal-Mart officials opened the Manhattan Boulevard store to deputies and emergency personnel for supplies. “They took something they did not need,” Lee said of the two women arrested. “You don’t need a camera.” Both women were held in lieu of a...

COMMERCE, Calif. - The parents of a Navy sailor slain while on leave from the war in Iraq pleaded Thursday for the public's help to find the gunman who also shot the man's pregnant wife in the stomach and wounded his teenage brother. "I need justice for my son," said Jorge Hipolito, who sobbed at a press conference surrounded by video stills of the shooting. "I have too much pain." Osiel Hipolito, 20, was shopping for a television Saturday at a strip mall near Compton with his 16-year-old brother and 21-year-old wife, Lizveth Valdivia, when two men confronted him, said...

New Orleans Police Superintendent Eddie Compas said "In the annals of history, no police department in the history of the world was asked to do what we (were) asked," He also said the Federal goverment should bring in a Cruise Ship for his police officers for some relaxation...

http://www.infowars.com/articles/new_orleans/police_loot_walmart.htm

NEW ORLEANS -- There are reports from New Orleans of shots being fired at cell phone workers on towers trying to restore service. Authorities have been going door to door at nearby apartment buildings, sometimes forcing doors open in their search for snipers. Some pawn shops in the area are federally licensed gun dealers that were looted in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. The operation includes dozens of New Orleans police, Louisiana State Police, ATF and other law enforcement members. Most are wearing flak jackets. No shots have been heard during Wednesday morning's operation and no one has been pulled...

Evacuee charged in sexual assault Plano: Man staying with relatives accused of attacking girl, 13 12:00 AM CDT on Wednesday, September 7, 2005 By JENNIFER EMILY / The Dallas Morning News A Hurricane Katrina evacuee staying with a Plano family was arrested Tuesday and accused of sexually assaulting a 13-year-old girl, police said. Freddie Murray, 48, of New Orleans was charged with aggravated sexual assault of a child. Mr. Murray is a distant relative of the girl, police said. Police didn't know the exact relationship. "The guy is an evacuee staying with distant relatives, and he allegedly assaulted a 13-year-old...

The story that isn't shown on TV. Scratch the surface in San Antonio and you find people who deeply resent the idea of their law-abiding city with its NBA basketball champion team being forced to accommodate people from a city known for its lawlessness well before Hurricane Katrina. The fear here is that the evacuation of New Orleans will see chaos and gang violence spiral outwards to the communities at the front line of the relief effort. "SWAT police don't normally get assigned to jobs like this but a lot of these people are carrying guns," he said. "We've been...

NEW ORLEANS - Rapists, an attempted murder suspect and dozens of men who looted New Orleans after hurricane Katrina huddle in a temporary jail set up as police try to regain city streets which were lawless last week. The scrawled cardboard sign on the front door of the Greyhound Bus Station, now a makeshift jail reads simply, "We Are Taking New Orleans Back." Inside the accused, almost all black men aged 18 to 35, are herded out of confinement into buses by heavily armed officers from Angola State Penitentiary. They stand handcuffed, disheveled and filthy, many with torn clothes, waiting...

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. A well-known Florida newspaper says one of its reporters was shot and wounded while covering the hurricane aftermath in Baton Rouge. The St. Petersburg Times says Marcus Franklin was shot Monday night while on his way back to a motel. The newspaper says the reporter was at a stop sign in a dimly-lit area when a man with a revolver walked up to the car and asked for his money. Franklin says he heard a pop but didn't realize he'd been shot in the stomach until he started driving off. The 34-year-old journalist called 9-1-1 and was...

LET ME START by saying that if I had my life to live over a thousand times, the one thing I would not change would be my race. I am proud to be a black man. There are times however, when I wish that certain people and I did not share that trait. For the past few days, the whole world ... well, at least those who have access to satellite and cable television, have been seeing pictures of the virtually total devastation of the cities of the U.S. Gulf Coast by Hurricane Katrina. An estimated 90 per cent of...

Troops find grisly scenes in New Orleans NEW ORLEANS, Sept. 6 (UPI) -- Troops scouring New Orleans for survivors and victims reported finding at least 40 mutilated bodies in the Convention Center refugee center. Arkansas National Guardsman Mikel Brooks told the New Orleans Times Picayune many of the dead were elderly, or showed signs of trauma. "There's another one in the freezer, a 7-year-old with her throat cut," he said. As the searches became more organized since the Aug. 29 onslaught of Hurricane Katrina, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers said repair crews had patched the ruptured levee along the...

NEW ORLEANS - A two-year veteran of the New Orleans Police Department was arrested Wednesday in connection with the sexual assault of a woman he stopped on the street, according to investigators. Investigators said 5th District Officer Keith Griffin, 37, was working the night shift July 11 at about 3 a.m. when he stopped a 37-year-old woman riding a bicycle in the area of St. Claude Avenue and Flood Street. The woman was detained, driven to Flood and Deslonde streets and sexually assaulted, investigators said. Rest of story: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9066602/

In a broadcast yesterday, Air America radio talk radio host Randi Rhodes repeatedly urged listeners in the hurricane-devastated Gulf Coast to go out and loot, insisting the poor should be allowed to steal goods at will. The leftist host, who has sparked controversy in the past for advocating the assassination of President Bush, said hurricane victims should avoid discount centers such as Wal-Mart and focus their looting on higher-end stores in order to get good quality products, according to Ned Rice, a contributor to National Review Online's weblog "The Corner."

"We started taking fire out of Treme...," Crespo said... "They were shooting at us, they were shooting at military helicopters. So one of the guys said this is just like Fort Apache in the Bronx... "They were shooting at the helicopters that were bringing them food," added another officer. He said there was no obvious explanation why the gunmen should do this. For a couple days, around 80 New Orleans police officers were trapped in the station -- pinned down on one side by sniping from gangs in the barrio... The New Orleans police force has come under severe criticism...

BATON ROUGE, La. - Fed up with the criticism, New Orleans Police Superintendent Eddie Compass said Monday that his officers held their ground without food, water and even ammunition in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. "In the annals of history, no police department in the history of the world was asked to do what we (were) asked," Compass said with a mix of anger and pride. Two police officers killed themselves. Another was shot in the head. Compass said 150 had to be rescued from eight feet of water and others had gotten infections from walking through the murky soup...

CBS) NEW ORLEANS Police shot and killed at least five people Sunday after gunmen opened fire on a group of contractors traveling across a bridge on their way to make repairs, authorities said. Deputy Police Chief W.J. Riley said police shot at eight people, killing five or six. Fourteen contractors were traveling across the Danziger Bridge under police escort when they came under fire, said John Hall, a spokesman for the Army Corps of Engineers. They were on their way to launch barges into Lake Pontchartrain to help plug the breech in the 17th Street Canal, Hall said. None of...

What I report here is obviously hearsay. It comes from someone I have only met once, and through a third party. The source is/was a volunteer with the Sheriff's Dept in New Orleans. He was asked not to leave and did not, at least for a while. He talked about his group of eight dealing with armed and hostile gangs roving wherever he was. Apparently these gangs would attack people with boats attempting to help others and take them over. He said his group of eight killed EIGHTY people. Apparently one of his group is in critical condition from a...

Five people killed by New Orleans Police Last Updated Sun, 04 Sep 2005 18:59:47 EDT CBC News New Orleans police shot and killed at least five people Sunday after gunmen opened fire on a group of contractors travelling across a bridge on their way to make repairs. Deputy Police Chief W.J. Riley said police shot at eight people, killing five or six. John Hall of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers said fourteen contractors were travelling across a bridge that spans a canal connecting Lake Pontchartrain and the Mississippi River, under police escort, when they came under fire. The contractors...

Talk show host, newspaper columnist, and now-book-author Howie Carr has a site up (offering free fridge magnets, for a limited time) to promote his upcoming book on "The Brothers Bulger" http://www.thebrothersbulger.com ("...hello?...hello?") "...two brothers from South Boston who grew up to control a state. With political corruption on one side and a deadly force on the other, the Bulgers shared a diabolic and destructive alliance for decades." There's also an interview with Howie. The gangster and the Mass. Senate President. One robs with a gun, one with a pen, as they say.

Philadelphia Mayor's Letter To Pa. Governor On Recent Violence POSTED: 3:39 pm EST March 15, 2005 March 14, 2005 The Honorable Edward G. Rendell Governor Commonwealth of Pennsylvania 225 Main Capitol Harrisburg, PA 17120 Dear Governor Rendell: I am respectfully requesting the opportunity to meet with you as soon as possible to discuss a matter of life and death to the citizens of the commonwealth's largest city, Philadelphia. It involves the urgent need to address the current law that handcuffs our ability to regulate the sale of guns in Philadelphia. As this past weekend fully dramatized, we need to act...

PHILADELPHIA (Reuters) - The mayor of Philadelphia urged a crackdown on gun ownership on Tuesday after 18 people died in a week of street violence in the city. Calling the rash of killings a "crisis," Mayor John Street urged state lawmakers to amend Pennsylvania's relatively lax gun laws. Among the dead was a nine-year-old shot in the chest as he sat in a minivan waiting for a friend to drive him home. A 21-year-old man was shot in the head multiple times during an attack early on Saturday. About an hour later, the body of a 35-year-old man was found...

Sinn Féin's US fundraising under threat By Jimmy Burns Published: February 28 2005 02:00 | Last updated: February 28 2005 02:00 Mounting allegations of IRA involvement in the £26.5m Belfast bank robbery and growing police suspicions of a much wider involvement of the Irish republican movement in money-laundering operations are threatening Sinn Féin's legitimate fundraising operations in the US, say diplomatic sources in Washington. According to Irish officials, the fact that the onslaught on the alleged criminal activity of Irish republicans is being led by the Irish government is fuelling dissent among supporters of Sinn Féin, the IRA's political wing,...

NUEVO LAREDO, Mexico- A Nuevo Laredo police commander was killed and two other people injured in an early morning attack on Monday. Hector Villareal was at a taco stand early Monday when an unknown number of assailants opened fire. He died a few minutes after his arrival at a hospital, said Juan Varela, a spokesman for state police. Police officer Manuel Moreno and Blanca Salazar, who was fired from Nuevo Laredo police last year, were wounded and were in stable condition, Varela said. Police said Villareal was to receive an award Monday for capturing a group of men who had...

Minister of Interior and Justice Jesse Chacon: We do not rule out that assassinated Prosecutor was part of an extortion ring. From hero to suspected criminal in less than two months -Minister of Agriculture, Arnoldo Marquez: The British owners of the large estate El Charcote have not been able to demonstrate they own the land. The documents are not guarantee that the land is private property, but that they belong to the Agrarian Institute or the Land Institute. There goes the VP’s promise to the British Government to respect their property. -General Oswaldo Bracho: The Bolivarian Liberation front which backs...

SALEM, Ore. — Accusations of dirty tricks are rare in Oregon politics, but Ralph Nader's presidential campaign has sparked charges and countercharges between his campaign and backers of Democratic nominee John Kerry. Union officials who support Kerry accused Nader's backers this week of engaging in widespread fraud and forgery in gathering signatures to place Nader on the Nov. 2 ballot in this battleground state. Nader's supporters countered that Democrats and their union allies are resorting to "gangster" tactics by bullying and intimidating signature-gatherers in hopes of thwarting Nader's petition drive.

To deal with overcrowding, Monterey County Jail officials are studying the idea of housing ex-members of rival gangs in the same units, a move some prisoners say would threaten their lives. Jail Capt. Bert Liebersbach said he got the idea from the San Francisco County Jail, which mixes former gang rivals, called "drop-outs." "It doesn't seem feasible, but it was worth exploring," Liebersbach said. Upset at the prospect, a handful of ex-Sureño gang members called The Salinas Californian from jail Tuesday morning. "Their thing is that they need room, but it's not our fault the jail is full," said Henry...

<p>NEW YORK (AP) - A convicted money smuggler was a key fund-raiser for an Islamic charity he knew financed terrorism, and once used an airport bathroom to secretly deliver $10,000 to the group, prosecutors allege.</p> <p>Alaa Al-Saadawi later "defied logic" by telling investigators he gave the $10,000 to a member of the Global Relief Foundation in a bathroom stall at Chicago's O'Hare Airport because he was "scared of gangsters," according to papers filed in federal court in Brooklyn.</p>

Gangsters operate own prisons as kidnapping soars in Iraq By Patrick Cockburn in Baghdad 15 January 2004 Kidnapping is now the crime of choice among gangsters in Baghdad. Colonel Feisal Ali, a veteran Baghdad policeman, said: "Criminals who used to steal gold and jewellery now specialise in kidnapping because it is easier and more profitable. Some actually maintain their own private prisons." Even the very moderately wealthy in Baghdad are terrified that kidnappers will strike at them or their families. They drive their children to school fearing that, otherwise, they will be seized at the school bus stop. Some of...

<p>RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil, Nov. 1 (UPI) -- A vanload of young partygoers were mistaken for rival gang members and attacked Saturday in the slums of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.</p> <p>At least six of the young people were killed and 12 others remained missing Sunday, the BBC reported.</p>