Following the shooting at LAX Airport, the first news conference was held explaining briefly what happened today. Chief of police Patrick Gannon explained.
“Thank you mayor. Patrick Gannon. I’m the chief of police here at LA International airport. As the mayor indicated 9:20 this morning, an individual came into Terminal 3 of this airport, pulled an assault rifle out of a bag and began to open fire in the terminal.
“He proceeded up into the screening are where TSA Screeners are and continued shooting, and went pass the screeners back into the airport itself.
“Personnel officers from LA Airport police responded immediately to the call, they tracked the individual through the airport, and engaged him in gunfire in terminal 3, and were able to successfully take him into custody. We had an officer involved shooting that took place.
“As you can imagine, a large amount of chaos took place during this entire incident. We believe at this point that it was a lone shooter. That he acted at least right now, was the only person that was armed in this incident. There’s a tremendous amount of investigative work that will need to be done and I will turn that over to the FBI in just a little bit.
“But nonetheless, we have done security sweep through the entire airport. We feel confident that this particular incident is tied to terminal 3 and terminal 3 only.
“And that’s all we have right now. There’s a tremendously amount of investigative work that will need to be accomplish. We have multiple victims that have been shot and have been transported. And we’ve had some other injuries as well, in additional to the suspect himself.
“I don’t have anymore information than that. I don’t want to give out information that may not be consistent later on, and so I appreciate your corporation in just getting this little bit of information out now.”
According to the official twitter page of LAX, 7 people were injured and taken to 6 different locations.
A 12-year-old Brooklyn boy says in a lawsuit that he was barred from boarding a city bus after the driver heard the youngster reciting a Muslim prayer and branded him a “terrorist.”
The unidentified plaintiff was searching for his MetroCard as the B36 Bus pulled up on Sheepshead Bay Road last October, according to the suit, filed Friday in Brooklyn Federal Court.
He began reciting a Muslim prayer: “I stand in the name of God the most merciful, the most beneficent,” the suit states. The driver became alarmed, called the boy a “terrorist” and slammed the door shut, the boy’s lawyer, Hyder Naqvi, told the Daily News.
“The driver said ‘Get off!’” and used the T-word,” Naqvi said, referring to the word “terrorist.”
The lawyer said the boy was so hurt afterwards that he was didn’t want to use public transportation, but later he became angry and is resolved to right the wrong.
“He was two days shy of turning 11 when this happened, but he’s old enough to know what it feels like to be discriminated against,” Naqvi said.
Dr. Conrad Murray left the Los Angeles County jail under sheriff’s escort, avoiding reporters and Michael Jackson fans waiting for his release early Monday.
Murray, who served two years of a four-year sentence for causing Michael Jackson’s death, was driven away in a sheriff’s car for the “safety and security” of the jail, sheriff’s spokesman Steve Whitmore said.
The handful of Jackson fans gathered outside the jail accused the Los Angeles County sheriff of showing favoritism to Murray by slipping him out of the jail through a back exit, instead of the door where freed prisoners normally leave.
Murray, who the sheriff’s spokesman described as an exemplary inmate, was kept away from the general inmate population during his two years in the jail. He was also allowed to have liberal use of a telephone inside his cell during his last year.
Murray’s lawyer told reporters outside the jail that he would try to get his medical licenses reinstated in California, Texas and Nevada so he can resume the medical career interrupted by his conviction on the involuntary manslaughter in 2011.
As if being a teacher isn’t enough of a financial challenge, here’s some worse news, compliments of a front-page article in Sunday’s New York Times about the Federal Reserve possibly injecting some inflation into the economy. Right now it’s an intellectual argument, and if you’ve ever studied the Great Depression of the 1930s, you know that the real danger to the economy would be deflation. In an effort to combat that, the Fed would look kindly on an inflationary course for these reasons:
The Fed has worked for decades to suppress inflation, but economists, including Janet Yellen, President Obama’s nominee to lead the Fed starting next year, have long argued that a little inflation is particularly valuable when the economy is weak. Rising prices help companies increase profits; rising wages help borrowers repay debts. Inflation also encourages people and businesses to borrow money and spend it more quickly.
The next paragraph, though, shows that not all people would benefit from such an economic course. Read it and weep.
The school board in Anchorage, Alaska, for example, is counting on inflation to keep a lid on teachers’ wages.
But wait; there’s more. Rising inflation also punishes people living on fixed incomes.
So there you have it. The very same people who caused the financial meltdown, destroyed the pension system, and enacted laws that capped what municipalities and states could pay for social services now want an economic policy that would punish teachers and other public workers while they’re working, and it would keep on giving after they retire and are on a fixed pension and Social Security. Is that the way to continue to attract the best and brightest people to teaching, and to show them how much society respects their contributions? Absolutely not.
(As a side note, I completely reject the notion that we have not already attracted some of our best people to become teachers. America’s teachers put in an extraordinary amount of hours into their jobs and genuinely care about their chosen field. We’ve attended some of the best universities in the land and have studied with world class professors and professionals. So, it bothers me a great deal when others say that we need to get the best and brightest into our classrooms. We’re already there. Pay us what we’re worth, give us the tools to do our jobs and stop nickle and diming the schools in the name of an ideology that disrespects and ultimately wants to destroy a system that gives us the right to bargain collectively, set acceptable work rules and protect our due process rights.)
(Which leads to another side note. The right wing doesn’t know what it’s talking about on education.)
The politicians and think-tank lackeys who are presently influencing the education debate in this country have done a fine job singling out teachers, telling the public that their schools are failing, and blaming us for having pensions and benefits. Now the economists want to manipulate the economy so that it punishes us more. The contradiction is that if you continue to squeeze America’s public workers, then we won’t be able to spend and otherwise contribute to the economy. We won’t be able to afford to send our children to college. And we won’t be able to continue to do what we love.
Yes, I know there’s an old myth in this country that says that teachers don’t teach for money, they teach because they’re committed to their craft. As with most myths, this is not only false, but dangerous, and society is playing with fire if it believes it can continue to treat us poorly.
Police Commissioner Ray Kelly paid a visit Saturday to the father of Avonte Oquendo and expressed regret for saying he feared the missing 14-year-old autistic boy was dead.
“He was very nice to me,’’ Daniel Oquendo told The Post. “He apologized.’’
Kelly assured the family the search would continue for Avonte, who walked out of his Long Island City, Queens, school more than three weeks ago and hasn’t been seen since.
On Thursday, Kelly told WABC/Channel 7: “Unfortunately, we are not hopeful that we’re going to find this young man alive, but we are continuing our search.’’
The pessimistic comment infuriated the boy’s family, prompting the commissioner’s visit.
A 29-year-old military veteran in Alabama pleaded guilty to hiring what he believed was a Ku Klux Klan member to kill his neighbor and mutilate his body.
Allen Wayne Densen Morgan began his murder plot when he thought that his neighnor, Clifford Maurice Mosley, who had a previous record of sexual abuse, had raped his wife, according to FOX News. Investigators have not commented on how Morgan came to such conclusion.
“I want this man hung from a tree like he is an animal. I want his d— cut off and I want him cut,” Morgan told Cornelius Harris Jr., an undercover FBI Special Agent. Morgan was arrested on Aug. 25, 2013, when two undercover agents, posing as the KKK members, met him at a motel to finalize the deal. He will be sentenced in February of 2014.
What a waste of time, effort and money. During the sixteen days that the government was shut down, the United States could have been funding scientific research, analyzing economic data and providing needed services to people who need them. It could also have begun work earlier on the health care website that will obviously need almost a complete overhaul, while fending off calls to delay or scrap it by members of both parties. The shutdown only delayed the solutions, and the hope, on this side of the political spectrum at least, is that the site will be up and running more effectively by the middle of November. In the meantime, the federal government should allow the states in which it runs the exchanges to post their choices and prices so that people can simply log on and sign up when the site’s fixed.
Despite those marks, the poll shows voters disapprove of the way Christie has handled two issues they cite as among the most important in the state: the economy and taxes. Only 42 percent approve of his handling of the economy and jobs, while 38 percent approve of his performance on taxes.
while also gaining an endorsement from the Newark Star-Ledger that was one of the least enthusiastic in recent memory. It seems as thought the Ledger was just following other left-leaning voices in not wanting to offend the great offender and pull punches rather than be called stupid in a YouTube video.
It really is a terrible state of affairs that Democratic candidate Barbara Buono, who actually has a positive plan to run the state and will stay in Trenton for the next four years, has had such trouble getting her message out. She’s compassionate, tough, and respectful, things the present governor is not so much of. Now that the Senate special election is over, the Buono-Christie race has a clear field ahead of it. With negatives in the two areas that most New Jerseyans care the most about, Buono has a chance to score some points and gain in the polls. That the state and national Democratic Party will sacrifice her to the gods of money and opportunity is one of the great sell-outs of all time.
It’s the season of scary, and the thought of more GOP power in the statehouse and nation fits it very well. This year, though, the cry will not be boo, but boo-hoo. Oh, what could have been.
“Come to the flashing lights Avonte.” ~ Vanessa Fontaine, Avonte’s mother
Fourteen year old Avonte Oquendo, a severely autistic teen from New York City, has been missing for two weeks. He doesn’t speak and has trouble performing many basic tasks on his own according to his mother, Vanessa Fontaine’
He was last seen on school video cameras at the Center Boulevard School in the Long Island City section of Queens by a school safety agent on duty at the front door. The videotape shows Avonte walking down the hall, and exiting the school through a side door.
Avonte has an affinity for trains so subway tunnels to train yards are being scoured by police and volunteer search teams.
A van from Citywide Disaster Services, using a recording of Avonte’s mother’s voice, tours the Queens neighborhood near where Avonte disappeared.
Police have also elicited the help infra-red cameras that detect heat signatures of live bodies, multi language missing posters and even psychics to locate the teenager. A $70, 000 award is being offered for Avonte’s safe return to his family, who are frantic.
Recently the teen’s family has indicated that they may file a lawsuit against the city, angered over the fact that Avonte, who needs constant supervision, was able to just walk out of the school without an aide. The school waited an hour before notifying police and his parents that he was missing according to interviews.
New York’s police commissioner James Kelly, however, says the school safety officer, who was the last person to see the boy did nothing wrong.
“We have spoken to the school safety agent who was on duty at the front door. We looked at the video tape. She directs the young man to go back upstairs [when] he’s just at the front door. He goes down the hall and actually exits the building from a side door. You see nothing after this juncture that shows the conduct of the school safety agent was inappropriate or there was any misconduct involved.” says Kelly.
Really. Ms. Fontaine’s attorney, David Perecman, questioned why a side door would even be unlocked and unguarded in a school with autistic students. He also questioned whether it was sufficient for the guard to simply tell Avonte to return to his class, or should he have followed to make certain he did. Or at least contact someone else to have done so.
“They dropped the ball; there’s no other way to put it,” Daniel Oquendo Sr., Avonte’s father, told the New York Daily News. “He was seen, but nobody did anything!”
One thing’s for sure, either Avonte’s family has some pull, or — and not to devalue in any way the importance of the safe return of that boy to his mother — the commissioner is envisioning the possible repercussions of a lawsuit. Many in black neighborhoods have repeatedly complained that less effort and media attention are given to missing black children, than white ones. There have also been calls for more and better security to be provided in city schools. In response, The New York City Police Department is pulling out all the stops to find Avonte. Mr. Kelly said Wednesday;
“We’re using a significant amount of resources to look for this young man,”
And the police department has devoted a significant number of officers to the search and has deployed water and air search teams to aid in the effort.
A psychic’s tip sent police to search a tunnel in the East Village section of Manhattan, but there was no sign of Avonte.
The family told CBS New York that they believe Avonte is alive. I hope so.
Avonte was last seen wearing a gray striped shirt, black jeans and black sneakers, police said. He is 5 foot 3 inches tall and weighs 125 pounds.
Anyone with information is asked to call the NYPD’s Crime Stoppers Hotline at 800-577-TIPS. You can also submit tips by logging onto the Crime Stoppers website at www.nypdcrimestoppers.com.
A family of a Dallas-area man wants to know why cops showed up and shot 52-year-old Bobby Gerald Bennett, especially after their official description of the incident is proven wrong on a surveillance video.
The police report read that officer Cardan Spencer shot Bennett as he walked towards him with a “knife raised in an aggressive manner.”
But the video shows that Bennett was standing still with both arms at his sides when he was struck in the abdomen by a single bullet. Bennett is currently in intensive care due to the gunshot wound.
The original story, based on the police report, can be read here. The Dallas News articles says that the officers asked Bennett to show his hands, but he allegedly told them “you all are going to need more officers out here.”
Bennett began walking toward officers with the knife raised, police said. One of the officers on the scene fired four times, striking Bennett once.
Police said Bennett’s mother told them he had been off his antipsychotic medications for several months.
Bennett was arrested and faces an aggravated assault to a public servant charge. His bond hasn’t been set.
The surveillance video shows that Bennett clearly did nothing that would merit an aggravated assault charge.
In the end, we got a terrible economic deal, but a nice political gift. Congress essentially kicked the problem down the road and ensured that early January would mark the beginning of other round of hostage-taking on the part of the right, more attacks on the health care law, and an intransigence on raising revenue in a fiscal deal that will raise hypocrisy to a new level, after they lambasted the president for not negotiating on the debt. Which he did. Anyway.
Even worse is listening to chastened Republicans talk about the importance of bipartisanship and how they hope that Democrats learn the lesson that they shouldn’t do this when they’re in the GOP’s position. Remember: Only the right can shut down the government and scare the world into thinking we’d default on our loans.
The good news is that this deal was worse for the Republicans than even I thought it would be. It was clear that this gambit was not going to help them, and Ted Cruz made it even better for the left because he was convinced that everyone outside of the major cities agreed that the ACA was from the devil and needed to be exorcised. The president stood his ground and public opinion shifted severely away from the GOP. It will take quite a bit of work on their part just to maintain their ranks in the Congress next year. They can kiss the Senate goodbye and might even lose the House, gerrymandered or not.
That this all occurred at the same time that the ACA rollout produced disastrous results makes the episode even sweeter, and is the political equivalent of rubbing salt in right wing eyes. If they had played it straight, they could have earned two years of political capital and would have had the Democrats on the run. But the right made sure that the computer problems will be mostly fixed by the time they’re ready to renew their attacks, and most people won’t pay attention anyway.
The only positive redemption I can see is if the GOP makes the debt and deficit an issue that only they can solve. The public is on their side on that argument, but that would also include cuts to Medicare and Social Security that will not go down well. The shutdown showed that Americans were upset because national parks were closed. Does the GOP think we’d also like to privatize entitlements? I think not.
Let’s hope that Barack Obama keeps his spine straight and forces the right to accept a deficit deal mostly on his terms and without significant consequences for the health care bill. He can also push the immigration bill while the right is down and hope that enough of them see fit to change their minds. Probably not, but it’s fun to dream.
In any case, enjoy the next six weeks. Then it all starts again.
I’ve used the tsunami wave metaphor in other posts about the decline of the Republican Party and its associated havoc-wreaking on the country over the past two years.
Today we talk about the complete meltdown of the party. The debacle over the debt ceiling and the as-we-speak collapse of any kind of deal shows us the final truth about the right: This is not an entity that can be a partner in governing.
Here we are on the brink of a default that many conservatives believe will not be “that bad,” despite the warnings from banks, foreign governments and ratings agencies, most of whom could not remotely be labeled liberal, and they are still trying to knock off the Affordable Care Act. Yes, I understand how important it is to settle the issue of whether congressional aides can qualify for subsidies on the health insurance exchanges, but is is worth embarrassing the United States and inviting the wrath of the financial markets?
Clearly, it is. And that’s the problem with the GOP as is exists today. The extremism knows no bounds and the disdain of the president is ugly. They accuse Obama of not negotiating when that has been their strategy since he was elected. They want to stall, delay, overturn and defund anything he’s signed. They want no revenue increases in any fiscal bill. They want the Consumer Protection Board gone and they want the EPA to stop telling factories they can’t pollute. These are non-negotiable items, yet it’s Obama’s willingness to stand his ground that has them so incensed (I would be worse, though. Open the government and increase the debt ceiling for a whole year, says I).
It’s a sad state of affairs that only the party muckymucks can address. John Boehner doesn’t know which way to go, because all paths lead to The Tenth Circle of Hell (the one that Donald Trump bought and developed). He either has to continue giving in to the Tea Party or he has to sacrifice his speakership and get Democrats and moderates to get us out of this mess.
Some people who know more than I say that the American voters will probably forget all this by next November. I don’t think so. The next wave will be a Democratic takeover of the House.
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