Just When Thought You Heard It All News (7-10-2014)

Parents: Your children are way smarter than you think, and have way more sense than some of you.....So, Don't be STUPID!

A very brave Barnesville, Minn., 9-year-old girl made a tough call when she decided to walk in to a police station to inform officials that her parents were not only growing but selling and smoking marijuana at her home.

The pint-sized fourth grader who has not been identified for obvious reasons, reportedly told officers that her mom and dad kept the marijuana plants under their house. Upon telling police about the location of the plants, the child also mentioned how whenever her parents smoked the drug, the smell would waft throughout her home and its odor would make her feel sick.  The girl also explained to police how she feared her dog’s health would negatively be affected by the marijuana harbored in the home.

According to Barnesville Police Officer Ryan Beattie, who spoke to the Star Tribune, the child was well-versed enough to provide him with all the facts they needed to take the appropriate action, stating, “She was a very brave, very smart, very articulate little girl. It was almost like interviewing an adult. She appeared to have intelligence far above a normal little girl … [and] she gave some pretty specific information about things, like types of drug paraphernalia, that no young person ought to have knowledge about.”

When police searched the girl’s home, they reportedly uncovered seven marijuana plants growing under the residence, just as the child stated. Officers also stumbled upon drug paraphernalia and a substance that tested positively for the narcotic meth.

Reportedly, the charges against the child’s parents are still pending until the laboratory testing of the drugs and plants found at the residence are conclusive.

Meanwhile the little girl has reportedly been temporarily removed from her home and placed with her grandparents.

Terry Williams is tired of hearing that children have died after being left in a hot car, so he has taken his fight, and a challenge, to social media.

"I'm sitting in the car with the windows rolled up 'cause I want to know how it feels to be left in the car," the Greensboro, N.C., man explained in a YouTube video.

He's sitting in a car with the windows rolled up because he wants his 15 minutes of fame on you tube! 

Williams posted the video and challenged others to sit in a hot car with the windows up so that they can feel what it's like to be left alone in a hot automobile.

It probably feels......hot! The psycho parents who leave their children in a hot car should be sentenced to sit in a hot car themselves.

"As you can see, I'm sweating like, (a fat dude in a hot car?) I can barely breathe out here but my system is stronger than these little kids' systems," a sweaty Williams says in the video.

The day Williams started his challenge, it was 86 degrees outside. The inside car temperature can "rise as much as 20 degrees in 10 minutes." A child's body temperature rises much faster, meaning that a few minutes in a hot car can be fatal.

Since the video was posted sometime last month, it has received nearly 8,000 views and people have been responding to the challenge and helping Williams spread the word. Several viewers have posted their own videos with personal messages.

"I feel sick and nauseous, and I can't wait to get out of this car," said one Portland, Ore., woman who took the challenge. "It is easily over 100 degrees in the car, but all I can say is, mothers and fathers, I urge you ... please don't leave your children in the car." 

A physical education teacher in Florida has been suspended after allegedly giving students twerking lessons.

Wow, when I was in school my teacher's barely cracked a smile much less twerked.

Courtney Spruill, who teaches history and PE at Kernan Middle School in Jacksonville was suspended for 15 days without pay on July 1.

The booty shaking lesson allegedly occurred in May during a party for the girls' soccer team that took place at the house of one of the players. Spruill is the team coach.

Pole dancing coach.

Witnesses at the party told Duval County School Board investigators they saw Spruill drinking vodka and twerking on the players........

Investigators also say they reviewed a cellphone video Spruill getting a lap dance from a student at the party.

The woman who hosted the party told investigators that Spruill brought her a housewarming gift of vodka, but said she didn't allow alcohol around the kids, Jacksonville.com reports.

District investigators said Spruill's actions show "the gross exercise of poor judgment," according to documents obtained by ActionNewsJax.com.

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Complain, Complain, Complain

I know some of you are going to be mad at me, and I know that this is going to rub some of you the wrong way. But hopefully by the time I get to work tomorrow you'll be alright. If not......OH WELL!

We all have these people on our jobs or in our lives. At least one or two of them. They complain about how miserable their lives are, and nothing is ever good enough. Some of them have been on there jobs 20 or 30 years, and they hate it. But, ......THEY AIN'T GO'IN NO WHERE! Each and everytime you see them they have a new complaint. But if they lost their jobs tomorrow they would probably cry a river, beg the boss to stay, or try to shoot up the place. GOD FORBID!

Don't get me wrong, we all live in America and we are all entitled to our own opinions, thoughts and feeling. But we can also do something about them.

With that being said. People simply do not recognize, realize, and understand that their thoughts, and words directly effect who they are because they manifest a destiny. In essence we have to power to motivate, and drive ourselves by the way we think and what we say. These things resonate in our spirits and melt into our souls.

Proverbs 23:7For as he thinketh in his heart, so is he: 

Proverbs 18:21Death and life are in the power of the tongue: and they that love it shall eat the fruit thereof.

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Did Somebody Call 911?!

Law enforcement has always used questionable tactics in the line of duty. Everything from lying, to trickery to blurring the line when it comes to violating our civil liberties. This is the latest example of such foolishness.

A Durham, N.C. police officer admitted under oath that he lied in order to gain entry to a home and to serve an outstanding warrant. 

During a court hearing last May, court officials say he told a District Court judge that it was a common practice within Durham's police department. 

He said he knocked on a resident's door, claiming police had received a 9-1-1 hang up call. But, it never happened. 

It's the reason why Durham Police Chief Jose Lopez sent out an internal memo obtained by ABC11 North Carolina.

"Effective immediately," Lopez wrote, "No officer shall inform a citizen that there has been a call to the emergency communications center, including a hang up call, when there in fact has been no such call."

ABC11 spoke with Chief Lopez by phone while he attended an FBI Training Institute in Washington D.C. 

Lopez denied the officer's claims that lying to get consent to enter a home is a common practice. 

"This has never occurred," said Lopez. "We want to find out what...led him [the officer] to believe that this is something he should do."

Lopez said his department immediately launched an internal investigation. If the officer's claims prove to be true, it would be a clear violation of department policy and in some legal circles, a violation of the Constitution.

Lopez didn't rule out some form of discipline for officers found in violation of the department's policy. He also emphasized his staff is only aware of this single incident.

Durham's City Manager Tom Bonfield is towing a tougher line, promising to look into the allegation.

"If confirmed that this tactic was used, the city manager agrees that it is entirely unacceptable," Bonfield said through a city spokesperson. "This tactic is not a policy, nor an acceptable practice of the department for any reason."

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The NFL Pays!

This may sound heartless, and not too sympathetic. But I have a huge problem with people who do or participate in anything knowing all of the risks, with their eyes wide open and then cry foul when they are forced to suffer the consequenes. Whether they're smokers who are suffering because of a life long addiction, or former professional football players who have  brain injuries due to excessive head trama, they knew the risks. That does not mean that the afflicted should suffer because they either miscalculated or totally ignored the level of risk. After all life happens, and we've all made bad choices. The question is, when our choices result in disaster, should we be compensated.

The NFL has reached an agreement with more than 4,500 players to settle its concussion related lawsuits for a whopping $765 million. The plaintiffs in the suits had claimed the NFL failed to adequately protect them from concussions and other head injuries, actively concealing the prevalence of those injuries from both NFL players and the public. The settlement would also protect the NFL against admission of wrongdoing or further discovery of internal NFL files. Although as far as I'm concerned this particular stipulation in the settlement is an absolutely clear indication of wrongdoing.

Recent technology has diagnosed widespread brain trauma in NFL players, but the league has maintained that safe, legal play shouldn't result in brain damage. At the same time, helmet technology has struggled to keep pacewith the NFL safety claims, and many of the lawsuits had unearthed embarrassing number fudging in concussion-reduction studies undertaken by the league. The current settlement is the result of months of mediation between players and the NFL, but the terms are still tentative, awaiting approval by the presiding judge.

Given the facts, the NFL does have a level of culpability, and should PAY.

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The Badge Behind The Beating

Police brutality has almost become routine reporting. It seems as if every few months some cop, somewhere, forgets that there are cameras everywhere, and decides to beat someone within an inch of their lives.

I know what you're thinking, but Police Brutality goes far deeper than the victims race. There is actually a complex psychological pathology at work. An existence rooted in cultural conditioning and manifested in this kind of violence. 

Last week, a California resident was driving down the 10 Freeway, near La Brea Avenue, when he noticed something truly shocking a California Highway Patrol officer repeatedly punching a black woman he had pinned down. Unfortunately for the California Highway Patrol, most drivers nowadays have cellphones that have built in recording devices and the whole incident was caught on camera, uploaded onto YouTube, and sent to various press agencies. 

Fair warning: the video is hard to watch. It shows a woman being caught and held down on the ground along the side of the freeway, while a large officer punches her, repeatedly, in the face. She appears to try holding up her hands to shield herself. It was filmed by a passing driver, David Diaz, in L.A. Diaz got to the scene as the woman was walking off the road, only turning around when the officer yelled at her. 

http://youtu.be/f7fY_uZ8bec

“He just pounded her,” Diaz said,  “If you look at the video, there are 15 hits. to the head, and not just simple jabs. These are blows to the head. Blows. Really serious blows. And this is ridiculous to me.”

“He agitated the situation more than helped it,” he added.

In response, the CHP has said it’ll investigate the incident though they were quick to point out that it would be “premature” to conclude anything without knowing the full context. Even though the woman did absolutely nothing to provoke the savage beating. Nothing could merit bashing a woman’s face over ten times. In the meantime, at least, the punch-happy officer has been put on administrative leave. In a statement on Thursday the CHP said,

The California Highway Patrol (CHP) is aware of the video and we are looking into the incident. As a matter of policy, every time there is a use of force by our officers, there is a review conducted to determine whether the use of force was appropriate. That will be done in this case, however, since there is an ongoing investigation, it would be premature to comment on this specific video segment without reviewing the entire incident.

According to CHP Assistant Chief Chris O’Quinn, the officer in question was simply responding to a report of a woman roaming on the freeway; when he got to her, she was making her way down an off-ramp and wandering between lanes. The woman, who remains unidentified, is unharmed  they say but undergoing a psychiatric evaluation.

The fact of the matter is that regardless of how many disturbing videos are uploaded to you tube depicting police brutality, and no matter how much public outrage there is, police officers will continue to committ these atrocities. The question is...why? Before we get into the reason why it is important to understand what goes through the mind of many law enforcement officer's. An extremely reliable source has given me some insight into their thought process. From the very start of law enforcement training the emphasis is put on self defense instead of public protection. Of course there are numerous lessons on the application of the law, but the main focus is on ridding their cities or jurisdictions of a "criminal element". But the concept of a criminal element is highly subjective, meaning that what is considered criminal is actually left up to the interpretation of the officer and his ability or lack there of to demonstrate objectivity. In being given the right to decide, in essence, who is good and who is bad, and being given the ability to exercise certain liberties under the law, some find it difficult not to have a "God Complex". Those who have this complex take perceived defiance as a deep personal insult worthy of retaliation through violence either verbal or physical. The mind set of these men and women, whether conscious or subconscious is that they are not like any of the citizens that they have been hired to protect and serve because the very nature of their job's allow them to transcend normalcy. Everyone else becomes an outsider who is to be kept outside of their world. Lost, ignorant people who need to be protected and saved from themselves. 

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The Suspicious Death Of Thomas Austin

On a balmy Sunday last August in Raleigh, North Carolina a grim scene unfolded. A woman walking her dog noticed a pair of boots on the basketball court at Fred Fletcher Park. Above them was a nightmarish sight reminiscent of a scene from the Jim Crow south, a young man hanging from a tree by his belt. He dangled only about a foot off the ground. His shirt and shoes lay strewn in some bushes, and his pants were at his ankles.

His name was Thomas Shantez Austin, 26, and from all appearances, he’d killed himself miles from home in a neighborhood where he knew nobody, in a skinny tree where the branches point upward.

All authorities, from Raleigh police to the state medical examiner, called it suicide. But this so called suicide raises more questions than answers.

For a year, Thomas Austin Sr. wrestled with the twin demons of grief and uncertainty, not knowing for sure how his boy ended up dead hanging from a tree in a Glenwood Avenue park.

Worse, he consistently felt like his son's death was being overlooked, and that nobody was willing to dig deep into the case of a kid who’d been mixed up with drugs and gangs, only recently out of prison.

After 11 months, Mr. Austin finally received a copy of his son’s autopsy and toxicology reports. It added few details, got a few more wrong and left him feeling even more defeated.

“They didn’t care about my son, period. They saw he was in prison, thought he was a nobody and that was it.”

Austin knows his son wasn’t an angel. He was by many accounts a kindhearted young man, especially fond of animals.

But he’d been charged with breaking and entering at a week past his 18th birthday. He went to prison for armed robbery at 19, serving five years. He had cocaine in his system on the night he died, according to his test results. But that does not make this young mans life any less valuable.

He’d gotten out of prison and found a job at a sports bar, splitting time between different family members’ houses. Still, the medical examiner’s report described him as homeless, there by solidifying the perception that he is transient.

“He had people that loved him,” his father said. “He was not homeless and scraggly, out in the street.”

He’d had some mental health problems, twice entering Holly Hill Hospital, once for taking a handful of pills and once for irrational behavior. But neither of these resulted in long stays, and his father insists his son never showed suicidal tendencies. The pills were a careless attempt at getting high while drinking, he said.

The medical examiner’s report makes much of Austin’s mental health, playing up instances that his father called minor. In the most ridiculous example, by his father’s gauge, the report states Austin allowed himself to be bitten by a snake. If anyone had asked, Austin’s dad he would have told them that it was nothing more than a youthful indiscretion, he picked up a small snake to impress a girl, not knowing that it was a copperhead.

But the detail that gnaws at Austin’s father most came in the last few hours of his son’s life.

At 2:30 in the morning, Austin called his him on a borrowed cell phone to say he’d been beaten up, robbed and chased from the McDonald’s on Western Boulevard.

According to Raleigh police spokesman Jim Sughrue, officers responded to the McDonald’s incident that night and found Austin, who showed no apparent injury and declined medical attention.

Tonisha Rowe, a close friend of Austin’s who was working at McDonalds that night, saw the surveillance tape and described a different scene.

“It was two dudes, one kind of big and one kind of little. It showed them beating him up. On the video, you could see him running, and the two dudes split in different directions when they saw the police coming. He was being beat up. It was like they were trying to rob him, hitting him and kicking.”

Austin’s father says the police won’t let him view the tape. I asked to see it and wasn’t allowed, either. Sughrue explained that it’s considered part of an investigative file not subject to public records requests.

The medical examiner’s report showed only a contusion on his tongue. So if he had been badly beaten up, the doctors who looked at his body didn’t find any signs.

“We are all sympathetic to the family,” Sughrue said. “The detectives really did do a lot of work in this case, and there simply was nothing that pointed to anything but suicide in the end.”

But Austin’s father cannot understand why his son would run away from attackers, call him in the middle of the night, walk 3 miles into an unfamiliar neighborhood and hang himself on a skinny tree with its branches close together, first removing most of his clothing?

 The circumstances don’t sit right with neighbors in Fred Fletcher park, either. No matter what scenario you imagine, it seems far-fetched, ludacris, unbelievable, and too hard to swallow.

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Freedom?!

Perhaps one of the most important lessons that I've learned in my 43 years is that the term "Criminal Justice System" is a misnomer. Almost as big a misnomer is the term "Correctional Facility". Because the justice in this system is in short supply, and there is nothing corrected in a prison facility at all. The entire system is nothing more than an industry fueled by human warehousing, an ominous publicity campaign used to make the average American feel safe by incarcerating a perceived threat, and while there are some who are in deed public menaces. There are many more who are non-violent offenders who will always be viewed as threats because they have been cycled in and out of the system and are not allowed to contribute to society. They become part of an underclass, a growing subculture in which they exist in a vacuum.

It is virtually impossible for the formally incarcerated to become gainfully employed because most employers will not hire felons. They are not eligible to vote because they have a criminal record, and the law prevents them from getting government loans or grants for higher education.

Although we make up only 3% of the total population in The United States, African-American men make up roughly 30% of those incarcerated. These men, who've paid their debt to society are forced into paying that debt for a lifetime because of the fact that they have little or no opportunities to redeem themselves, or make a positive contribution to society. They become pariah's, boogey men used as examples of the very worst that America has to offer. Many of them long to make their American dream a reality. But in order for anyone to build a future they need the necessary tools. Without them freedom comes at a price that they cannot afford, and the dream becomes a nightmare.

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Don't Be Too Independent To Depend

Independence is a wonderful thing!

Celebrating Independence Day is also a wonderful thing. 

But we must never become so independent that we forget to depend on the one and only TRUE AND LIVING GOD!!

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Just When You Thought You Heard It All News (7-5-2014)

SIDE BAR: If you know the song sing along....."They smile in your face. All the time they wanna take your place. They're.........

This is a wild story about a man who has to be THE COOLEST DUDE IN THE WORLD.

“Yo, we might not be going to the movies. I got a knife sticking out my back.”

The man who walked into a McDonalds in Queens, New York after getting stuck with a blade calmly delivered that bad news to his daughter from his cellphone as he paced around the eatery.

Andrew Hardy, 53, of Jamaica Queens said that he planned to see “Think Like a Man Too” with his 22-year-old bartender daughter until he was stabbed with a kitchen knife on Tuesday, he said.

“Me and my daughter was supposed to be spending quality time together,” he said from his Jamaica home. “We were meeting up that afternoon.”

Their matinee plans were spoiled by a street fight around 10 a.m. on Sutphin Boulevard near 91st Street. At first two men were fist-fighting. But when another man jumped in — and the two ganged up on the lone fighter — Hardy leveled the playing field by holding one of the men back.

Moments later, he felt a sharp pain in his upper back. By the time he realized he had been stabbed, the attacker was gone. Gushing blood through his white shirt, Hardy called his daughter, then walked toward the Golden Arches a block away with the kitchen knife poking out of his back.

“I stood outside just talking to my daughter. Just staying calm. Probably longer than I should have, but that was my little comfort zone,” Hardy said.

“She got hysterical, naturally . . . but I still kept my cool because, if I had really got hurt, stabbed-stabbed, I would have really known that it had hit some vital,” he said. “S–t, I got a cool demeanor.”

Personally I would have still taken my daughter out. Knife in my back and all. But then again......I am a Brooklyn dude.

Hardy figured surveillance cameras in the restaurant would keep the attacker from following him inside, he said.

“When I felt [the knife], I just thought, ‘Get to safety,’ which was why I put myself in front of a camera, in case the dude come back at me,” he added.

“Basically, I was fully alert the whole time. I passed out, finally,” he said of his ambulance trip to Jamaica Hospital, where he spent six hours recuperating.

“It should have never went the way it went,” said Hardy, who still has no clue who stabbed him.

His daughter, who declined to give her name, said, “My dad is pretty strong. And he told me he was going to be OK, so I believed him.”

WOW!

There is nothing wrong with having the entrepreneurial spirit. After all we do live in a free market society. But that does not mean that we are free to market T and A.

 

Undercover agents working for the Metropolitan Bureau of Investigation conducted a months-long investigation of Super Fades barber shop before finally raiding the place early last Sunday morning.

MBI investigator Lt. Mike Gibson said the agents visited the barbershop by day and saw it turn into an illegal strip bar every Saturday night.

“On each and every occasion they were serving alcohol and they had strippers. And, not strippers following local law, but strippers that went completely nude."

I don't think I'll ever look at the barber pole in quite the same way.............

Along with the barber pole in front of Super Fades, there was a stripper pole installed inside the establishment.

"That would have been a piece of equipment that was there even when they operated during the day while they acted as a barbershop," Gibson said.

Agents purchased $20 worth of illegal vodka at Super Fades early Sunday morning before discovering one of the dancers was a 17 year old female.

"As we were conducting the investigation, we were able to identify one of the dancers being a juvenile, and that led to the need to speed the investigation up," Gibson said

Derrick Price, 43, the owner of Super Fades, was arrested and charged with allowing a worker to engage in nudity, allowing a person under 18 in an adult entertainment establishment, operation of an establishment without a valid license and possession of alcohol without a license with intent to sell.

He was released after posting bond and is due in court next week.

The 17-year-old who was allegedly stripping was also arrested.

This is an amazing story!!

An 84-year-old Washington state woman will soon hold her 1953 university class ring, lost six decades ago, after it was found in a dried-up West Texas lake.

Elizabeth Clark lost her Howard Payne University class ring in 1954 in Lake Nasworthy near San Angelo when she and her future husband went for a picnic and waded into the water. Clark said she wasn't certain where she had lost the ring, after discovering it was missing, she looked around her home before going back to search at the lake.

After years of drought, the ring revealed itself in the lake bed and it was found in March. Someone from the school's alumni association drove to San Angelo to retrieve the ring and was able to identify it from the initials — AEL for Addie Elizabeth Little — inside the band.

"I worked hard for that ring," Clark said. "I'm grateful it was found and that it was in good shape after 60 years."

The ring, which is 10-karat gold with a blue stone, needed some cleaning up by a local jeweler.

Clark's daughter, Donna Clark-Love of Houston, said her mother was delighted.

"She cried, she was just couldn't believe it," she said. "This was like the highlight of her life. She is just thrilled."

Clark, one of 16 children, was the only one who finished college. She got her degree in elementary education and taught fifth grade in California for the Santa Anna Unified School District, where he daughter said she won a teacher of the year award.

The ring will be returned to Clark at a family reunion Friday in her hometown of Brownfield, about 40 miles southwest of Lubbock. The woman who found the ring, Lindsay Waddell, will present it to Clark.

"I think she's more excited about getting the ring back than coming to the reunion," Clark-Love said.

Clark, who remains in contact with many of her college friends, couldn't wait to tell them the good news, Clark-Love said.

"She got on the horn and called everybody," her daughter said.

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"White Guilt"

The word phenomenon is probably one of the most over used words in the English language. It boosts the creedence, scope, and legitimacy of just about anything, no matter how ridiculous the theory or idea may seem or sound. But in reality this pseudo-phenomena is nothing more than nonsensical speculation rooted in desperation.

The latest "phenomena" is something called "white guilt". White guilt as described by an earnest commentator on progressive radio, is the guilt that white people feel for racism, even if they have not personally participated in the systematic oppression of Black people.Their claim is that they feel guilty for being made to feel racist by association.

But in my opinion this is utter nonsense. The notion of "white guilt" is a farse created by those who have disdain or indifference for any reference or mention of racism or slavery. Those who want to relegate Americas dark past to ancient history. People who feel a sense of entitlment are not prone to guilt. It is  nothing more than frustration. The inconvenience of having to deal with what is perceived as constant complaining from Black people. 63% of Americans polled believe that African-American's are soley responsible for their own progress, despite institutionalized racism, a higher unemployment rate per capita, and a pervasive culture of predjudice. So, who feels guilty? Certainly not the people who were polled, the majority of whom I am assuming are white. The fact of the matter is that racism and slavery are skeletons that America wants to keep buried deep in the back of its closet. The "guilt" is in fact ackwardness, uncomfortability, and a lack of understanding as to why Black America will not let it go....

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