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sgtuniversitygurgaon · 1 year

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SGT University - Learn What Makes It Unique

SGT University is a place where we strive for greatness. And nothing short of greatness.

SGT University in Gurgaon is a leading educational university, ranked as one of the best private university in Delhi NCR – ranked Platinum by QS I-Gauge and placed among the top institutions of the country by India Today.

Lately, the University has been making waves in the academic and research world, with its advanced centers of excellence like CCSP for cosmology. The university has been in existence for over a decade and has a reputation for being a preferred choice for students looking for quality education in private universities.

Here are ten points that make SGT University, Gurgaon unique:

World-Class Faculty

SGT University has a world-class faculty that is committed to providing students with the best education possible. The faculty members are experts in their fields, with many of them holding PhDs from prestigious universities around the world. Many of the professors at SGT University feature among the top 2% of scientist in the world conducted by Harvard University.

State-of-the-Art Facilities

The university boasts state-of-the-art facilities that are designed to provide students with the best possible learning experience. From well-equipped labs to modern classrooms, the facilities at SGT University are second to none. The University boasts of an e-library with a huge collection of resources from world-reputed journals available for free. It also has a fully Wi-Fi-enabled campus.

Wide Range of Courses

SGT University offers a wide range of courses across various disciplines, including engineering, management, law, pharmacy, nursing, and more. This provides students with a diverse range of options to choose from. The university has 18 Faculties and more than 160+ courses, taught by more than 500+ professors.

Innovative Teaching Methods

The university uses innovative teaching methods to enhance the learning experience of students. This includes the use of technology in the classroom, hands-on learning, experiential learning, and real-world case studies.

Emphasis on Research

SGT University places a strong emphasis on research and encourages students and faculty members to engage in research activities. The university has a dedicated research department for each faculty that supports research activities and provides funding for research projects through government grants and MoUs with other universities. Atal Community Innovation Centre at SGT University is a special wing dedicated to providing funding to start-ups and helping them get investors.

Strong Industry Partnerships

The university has strong partnerships with various industries, which helps to provide students with practical knowledge and exposure to real-world scenarios. This also provides students with ample opportunities for internships and placements. Not to forget SGT Medical Hospital which provides special training and internships to medical students.

Student-Centric Approach

SGT University has a student-centric approach, with a focus on providing students with a supportive and nurturing environment that helps them achieve their full potential. The university has a dedicated student services department like Corporate Resource Centre (CRC) that provides support to students during placements.

Cultural Diversity

The university has a diverse student body, with students from various parts of the country and the world. This cultural diversity provides students with exposure to different perspectives and cultures.

Collaborative Learning Environment

SGT University fosters a collaborative learning environment, where students are encouraged to work together and share knowledge. This helps to enhance the learning experience and encourages teamwork and collaboration. Making SGT one of the top private universities in Delhi working on cutting-edge pedagogy and learning methodologies.

Strong Alumni Network

SGT University has a strong alumni network, with alumni working in various industries and fields. This provides current students with a network of professionals to connect with, which can help with internships, placements, and career guidance.

In conclusion, SGT University in Gurgaon is a unique university that provides students with a world-class education and a supportive learning environment. With its emphasis on innovation, research, and collaboration, SGT University is well-positioned to continue its growth and maintain its position as one of the top 10 private university in Delhi NCR.

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aion-rsa · 3 years

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How the Saving Private Ryan Cast Launched a New Generation of Stars

https://ift.tt/3azDVUj

This article contains spoilers for Saving Private Ryan.

Steven Spielberg’s Saving Private Ryan (1998) is known for a number of things: the gut-wrenching, visceral terror of its battle scenes (especially the opening landing at Omaha Beach), the shocking way in which bodies are torn to pieces during the course of those battles, the attention to period detail, and a powerful performance by Tom Hanks that rates as one of his finest.

But one thing that the film may not be as widely recognized for is the lineup of young actors who played members of Capt. John Miller’s (Hanks) squad, or soldiers they met along the way as they searched throughout Normandy for the missing Pvt. James Francis Ryan. From Matt Damon to Vin Diesel, Spielberg recruited relatively new faces who were all, in one way or another, either launching their careers outright or just starting to make their mark on Hollywood.

Saving Private Ryan is now considered one of the greatest war movies of all time. Part of that is due to its incredible realism, part of that is due to the skilled direction by Spielberg at the top of his game, and no doubt part of it is thanks to the work of its youthful cast. Let’s look back at who those actors were then, and what they went on to accomplish afterward.

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DreamWorks

Matt Damon (Private James Francis Ryan)

Matt Damon was largely unknown until around 1996 when he gained some good critical notices for his role in Courage Under Fire. At the same time, he and childhood pal Ben Affleck got to finally see their screenplay Good Will Hunting filmed, with Damon in the title role. The movie was in rehearsals in Boston when Steven Spielberg — who was shooting some scenes for Amistad there — stopped by the set to visit with Robin Williams, who introduced Spielberg to Damon. That led to Damon getting the title role in Saving Private Ryan. He’s the young soldier than Tom Hanks and company are trying to find — and who must “earn” his ticket home.

By the time Ryan came out in mid-1998, Damon had gone from unknown to star thanks to the success of Good Will Hunting (which arrived in December 1997), and his and Affleck’s Oscar win for Best Original Screenplay instantly became the stuff of award season legend. Damon has stayed a superstar ever since, starring in the Bourne and Ocean’s Eleven franchises, along with other hits like The Talented Mr. Ripley, The Departed, True Grit, Contagion, The Martian, and Ford vs. Ferrari. Next up for Damon is in Stillwater and reteams with Affleck as co-writers and stars in Ridley Scott’s The Last Duel, both due out later this year.

DreamWorks

Edward Burns (Private Richard Reiben)

Ed Burns had already garnered some attention before landing the role of the feisty, rebellious Pvt. Reiben, one of the few members of Miller’s squad to survive the film. He wrote, produced, directed, and starred in two independent features, The Brothers McMullen and She’s The One, with McMullen in particular earning acclaim and awards (including an Independent Spirit Award for Best First Feature).

Reiben was Burns’ first role in a major Hollywood production, and he followed that up with parts in films like 15 Minutes (2001), Confidence (2003), Life or Something Like It (2002, and the notoriously bad sci-fi thriller, A Sound of Thunder (2005). He also continued to make his own pictures, including No Looking Back (1998), Ash Wednesday (2002), Newlyweds (2011) and Beneath the Blue Suburban Skies (2019), while also creating, directing and starring in a TV series called Public Morals (2015) that lasted for one season on TNT. Not exactly a household name, Burns has nevertheless remained active and prolific.

DreamWorks

Vin Diesel (Private Adrian Caparzo)

Before being cast as Pvt. Caparzo — the first member of Miller’s squad to die while searching for Ryan — the only credits Vin Diesel had to his name were a short film called Multi-Facial, an uncredited walk-on as an orderly in 1990’s Awakenings, and the tiny 1997 indie release Strays, a semi-autobiographical piece which Diesel wrote, directed, and starred in himself. He was, for all intents and purposes, a complete unknown when he was gunned down by a German sniper in a memorably tragic scene early on in Saving Private Ryan.

Things happened quickly for Diesel after that, as he landed the title voice in The Iron Giant (1999) and launched two franchises back to back: in 2000 he introduced the world to the space criminal Riddick in Pitch Black while 2001 brought the film The Fast and the Furious, not to mention Diesel’s signature character, Dominic Toretto. While his other films since have had varying degrees of success, the Fast and Furious series has turned into one of the biggest box office behemoths of the past decade, with F9 coming this summer. Diesel has also played in the world of comic book movies, voicing Groot in the Marvel Cinematic Universe and launching his own superhero film venture with last year’s Bloodshot.

DreamWorks

Paul Giamatti (Sergeant William Hill)

The same sequence that features the death of Vin Diesel’s character also introduces the sardonic, war-weary Sgt. William Hill, played by Paul Giamatti, whose inadvertent collapse of a wall leads to a tense standoff with a hidden group of German soldiers. Before Ryan, Giamatti had bounced around in small film and TV parts for the early part of the ’90s, scoring his breakout role in the 1997 Howard Stern biopic, Private Parts, as radio station program director Kenny “Pig Vomit” Rushton.

After Ryan, Giamatti continued to work steadily and garner more acclaim for outstanding performances in films like Man on the Moon, American Splendor, and Sideways, a movie for which we’re still angry that Giamatti did not receive an Academy Award nomination. He did earn one the following year for his supporting role in Cinderella Man and has continued as one of today’s best working actors in movies like Barney’s Version, Win Win, The Ides of March, 12 Years a Slave, and Private Life, along with his exemplary starring work in TV on John Adams and Billions. He even won an Emmy for playing the United States’ second president.

DreamWorks

Nathan Fillion (Private James Frederick Ryan)

He’s only onscreen for a few minutes, but Nathan Fillion makes a distinct impression as the “wrong” Pvt. Ryan, a soldier with nearly the same name whom Miller and his men come across — only to realize that they have to keep looking. The Canadian-born Fillion first scored some attention in the mid-1990s as Joey Buchanan on the daytime soap One Life to Live (he returned briefly in 2007). Aside from an obscure 1994 film called Strange and Rich, Saving Private Ryan was for all intents and purposes his major motion picture debut.

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Since then, Fillion has worked steadily with his biggest successes coming on TV and in the world of geek culture, where he remains a fan favorite. The Joss Whedon-created sci-fi series Firefly didn’t even last one full season between 2001 and 2002, but has become a cult classic and spawned the movie Serenity (2005). Fillion’s later series, Castle and the currently airing The Rookie, have proven more durable. His other notable film and TV credits include James Gunn’s Slither, Desperate Housewives, Modern Family, Santa Clarita Diet, and Monsters University, while his voice work has also included a recurring role as Green Lantern/Hal Jordan in a number of DC animated films. Next up: more comics-related fun as Floyd Belkin/TDK in Gunn’s The Suicide Squad, and the voice of Wonder Man in Hulu and Marvel’s animated M.O.D.O.K.

DreamWorks

Jeremy Davies (Corporal Timothy Upham)

Jeremy Davies is unforgettable as the terrified, cowardly Cpl. Upham, a nerdy translator who is brought on the mission for his linguistic skills and can only stand paralyzed paralyzed with fear as his fellow soldier Mellish is stabbed to death just up a flight of stairs by a Nazi. Like many of his castmates, Davies kicked around in small acting jobs before garnering acclaim in the 1994 black comedy Spanking the Monkey, which also marked the directing debut of David O. Russell.

Saving Private Ryan was his next big attention-getter and cemented his position as one of the more quirky and compelling character actors in film and TV. Following Ryan, Davies worked in films like Ravenous, Solaris, Secretary, and Rescue Dawn, but has also found success on the small screen in series like Lost, Sleepy Hollow, and Justified. He’s also appeared as Dr. John Deegan in the “Elseworlds” arc of the Arrowverse shows The Flash, Supergirl, and Arrow. We’ll see him next in Scott Derrickson’s The Black Phone, based on a story by Joe Hill.

DreamWorks

Giovanni Ribisi (Medic Irwin Wade)

Acting since he was a young child, Giovanni Ribisi already had a substantial career under his belt before playing the doomed medic Wade in Spielberg’s powerful war epic. He had recurring roles in the late 1980s and early 1990s on shows like My Two Dads and The Wonder Years while guesting on a number of other series as well. In the latter half of the ‘90s, he landed parts in movies like That Thing You Do!, Lost Highway, and The Postman, with Ryan easily his highest-profile big screen effort during that time.

After that, Ribisi continued to do character work in movies like Gone in 60 Seconds, Lost in Translation, Cold Mountain, and Public Enemies, before landing the part of the villainous corporate stooge Parker Selfridge in James Cameron’s massively successful and creatively groundbreaking Avatar (2009). He’ll return in Cameron’s upcoming Avatar sequels and has kept busy on the big and small screens, most recently finishing up a three-season run in the title role of the Amazon series Sneaky Pete (fun fact: Sneaky Pete was co-created by Bryan Cranston, who also has a small role in Ryan as one-armed War Department Col. Bryce).

DreamWorks

Barry Pepper (Private Daniel Jackson)

Hailing like Nathan Fillion from Canada, Barry Pepper had just a handful of small credits to his name when he landed the role of the God-fearing but lethal sniper Jackson in Saving Private Ryan. Jackson is perhaps the deadliest weapon in Capt. Miller’s arsenal, although he is eventually killed along with Miller and most of the others during the film’s climactic defense of the bridge in the shattered town of Ramelle.

Pepper probably remains best known for his portrayal of Jackson, but he scored notable roles soon after that in The Green Mile (1999), the TV movie 61* (2001) as baseball legend Roger Maris, and Spike Lee’s 25th Hour (2002). He also appeared in the starring role of 2000’s disastrous Battlefield Earth with John Travolta. Pepper’s recent film work has included roles in The Maze Runner franchise and the sleeper horror hit Crawl (2019).

DreamWorks

Adam Goldberg (Private Stanley Mellish)

“Juden,” says Pvt. Stanley Mellish, pointing to himself and the Jewish Star of David he wears around his neck as a stream of German POWs is marched past him. It’s a small but powerful moment in Saving Private Ryan for the defiant, wisecracking Mellish, who’s there to wipe out as many Nazis as he can. In the movie’s climactic battle, he bravely and viciously fights hand to hand with a German soldier before the latter sinks a knife slowly into his chest in one of the film’s most intensely horrifying moments.

Adam Goldberg had already appeared in a number of notable films before Ryan, including Billy Crystal’s Mr. Saturday Night (Goldberg’s 1992 debut), Richard Linklater’s Dazed and Confused (1993), John Singleton’s Higher Learning (1995), and the cult horror classic The Prophecy (1995). Mellish remains perhaps his most famed role, but other standouts like A Beautiful Mind (2001), Déjà Vu (2006), and Zodiac (2007) dot his filmography. He’s guested frequently on TV as well and currently has a regular role as Harry Keshegian opposite Queen Latifah on The Equalizer. He’s also directed three features of his own, recorded four albums of his own music, and has exhibited his work as a photographer.

The post How the Saving Private Ryan Cast Launched a New Generation of Stars appeared first on Den of Geek.

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britishchick09 · 4 years

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beatles yellow submarine livewatch

here’s my thoughts on the yellow sub movie as i watched it! :D

omg it’s sgt. pepper’s lonely hearts club band but it’s pepperland :D

jules verne reference :D

I WAS RIGHT IT’S PEPPER’S BAND

pretty music :D

the captain guy is sweet :) (not just because he has flowers)

OMG IT BE THEM

oh no blue meanies!

i didn’t know this movie had a plot cool :D

why apples

OH NOES BEATLES DED

THEY ALL DED

OH NO STATUE GUY DED

captain plz no ded

why is there a blue hand

glove?

RUN CAPTAIN RUN

GLOVE CRUSHED ‘LOVES’ YOU JERK >:(

ha ha glove :D

wait does one meanie have MICKEY EARS NO MICKEY IS TOO PURE FOR YOU

captain: “the meanies are coming!” band: *does NOTHING*

lol at the lincoln reference

DERE IT IS! :D

DERE’S THE SONG! :D

♫ WE ALL LIVE IN A YELLOW SUBMARINE WE ALL LIVE IN A YELLOW SUBMARINE YELLOW SUBMARINE YELLOW SUBMARINE! ♫

cool font on the credits tho

it’s england :D

not even a minute later and it’s song time again

all the lonely people are watching now yay :)

RINGO!!!!!!!!!!!! :D

“an old splintered drumstick”

ringo look behind you sweetie

RINGO LOOK BEHIND YOU

oh so he knows

your outfit isn’t logical RINGO

help the poor captain RINGO

wot WHY SO MANY DOORS

my dad just turned it on in the living room and it’s on an earlier part so it’s weird

“i’ll just park it here :/”

hey marilyn monroe

frankenstein has a SISTER

OH HEY JOHN

john is frankenstein comfirmed?

of course george is in an indian music room

george looks cool bro

ha ha lol georgie :D

he sounds WAY better than the cartoon george ♥

omg car chaos

it’s john driving isn’t it

on the tv paul appeared but a train rammed into a door on mine so idk about that

PAUL :D

PAUL SO POSH

omg the real world exists

hey it’s day in the life music

AHHHH MAKE IT STOPPPP

and they all died :)

jk they’re in the sub

“so THIS is a submarine” what did you think it was paul

“GROOVY”

the chop the tree verse played on the tv when mine started so it’s way off

omg seizure fishes

IT BE ARM FISH!

♫ ALL TOGETHER NOW ALL TOGETHER NOW ALL TOGETHER NOW ALL TOGETHER NOW ALL TOGETHER NOW ALL TOGETHER NOWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW! ♫

“it’s time, the TIME’ stop sounding like tony clock from dhmis john

oh no NUMBERS

since when were you the smart one paul

“you surprise me ringo”

why are they smol n’ chubby

is this like sailor moon supers movie when they become kids

I KNEW IT

LITTLE JOHN THO

yo it’s 2009 now

they’re waving and it’s cute :D

yo that hair

why does george look like god

flying boots tho

nice flowers :D

yo trippy

cool music :D

“he just wrote it like that”

why is it a seizure warning

“he’s UUUUGGGGLLLLYYYYYY” HEY DON’T JUDGE BEATLE BLUE MEANIES >:(

“he must be a bicyclops”

i refreshed the page and the tv is still a few seconds off but it’s not as bad as before :)

yo why is there a torso horn man

a school of whales

GREEN WHALES

“university of whales” lol

“STEER CLEAR!” “yes dear”

“don’t touch that button!”

RINGO YOU HAD ONE JOB

RINGOOOOOO

OMG JUMPY THINGS WOT

“there goes ringo”

AHHHHHHHHHHHH

yo what a big cig

*explosion* AND THAT’S WHY YOU DON’T SMOKE KIDS

why is ringo always the one in danger in beatles movies :(

“so long sucka” -george harrison 1968

YO STOP ATTACKING MY BOI

“jus press a button”

“how was it ringo?’ “harrow-ing”

cool typewriter bro

nowhere man is cool :D

DANCE MY BOIS! :D

awwww ringo is so nice ♥

my dad tried to sync the movies up during nowhere man and now it’s closer but still off :/

he’s wearing the beatles shirt i got him for his b-day (his has the let it be cover) and i’m wearing one of his (beatlemania) so it’s cute :D

yo is that a bunny

trippy mind land woah

yo john’s voice is trippyyyyyyyy

is this lucy

yo this is cool but trippy

I KNEW IT WAS LUCY :D

this is about drugs i can tell

JOHN JUST SMILED

AND MY DAD JUST GOT IT TO SYNC YAS!

omg what’s going on

this truly is trippy sorry beatles it’s a drug song

YO NICE FEDORA JOHN

and nice disguise ;)

hey it’s a 20s girl kewl

i like jeremy :)

circles why

“what do you know about hooooooles”

“the boob is making more and more sense”

"where’s jahnny”

IT BE THE SEA OF GREEN

yo is this the spongebob intro

OMG MAGIC MUSIC :D

they made it! :D

music man is back! :D

“we’re quite cute” SURE PAUL

yo rainbow hats kewl

OH NO BLUE MEANIE WITH MICKEY EARS >:(

he burped AND IT WAS GROSS >:(

all the lonely people :(

my dad’s reaction when the apples fell:’ah hah :D’

gloves inside feet shoes oh no :o

RUN BUNNY RUN

being chased by a giant glove would be terrifying actually

WHY ARE THE MEANIES TEETH RATTLING

nice disguise bois :D

mouth meanies :(

shut up ringo plz

oh no DON’T SHOOT THE BEATLES MAN

they’re becoming the pepper band :D

“oh ek”

*LOUD CRASHES* and yet they sleep

“john love” “what did he say?” “shhh!”

cool green hair paul

“on tip toe”

“tip toe through the meanies” nice reference ;)

OH CRAP THEY ALL UP

RUN BOIS RUNNNNNNN!

PAUL WAS ALMOST DEAD :(

yo why the wobbly camera

safe in the forest :)

“teeny weeny meanie”

i think that ‘breakfast’ is the mean apples

BOOM HE GO DOWN

AND HE DO TOO AND HIM AND HIM

oh no they’re not blue-ish

why is a beat six john

sgt. pepper’s lonely hearts club band est 1948 (or 2007?)

YAS LOVE THE SHOW BOIS! :D

i love how they’re tying in the previous album :D

“i’d love to take you home ;)” JOHN NO

BILLY SHEARS?????????

and everybody loved that :D

OMG IT’S MY 6TH FAVE SONG :D

oh no it’s fading

SHUT UP BIRD >:(

“the hills are aliiiive :)” “with the sound of musiiiic” nice meanies ;)

he go BOOM BOOM BOOM

stop laughing meanie

he’s actually creepy tho :(

“BLOOOPAAAS”

w h o ?

“there you aaaare my little flower” mommy the blue meanie is being scary again :(

“OHBLOOOTERATE THEM” nice

what did those nasty meds do tho

g l o v e

“open your mouth john” it’s ringo saying it BUT IF IT HAD BEEN PAUL...

♫ all you need is love all you need is love love is all you need ♫ :D

an act of true love can defeat a blue meanie’s heart :)

SO MUCH LOVE :D

george floats so fab :D

love truly does win! :D

yay no more meanies! :D

it’s the pepper band! :D

“it’s sgt. pepper’s” “lonely heart club’s” “band”

*john rambles about einstien* john truly is the smart one :D

“nothing is beatle-proof”

“i got a hole in me pocket”

they back! :D

twinsies! :D

yo pepper john has no stache

“beatles to battle!”

OH CRAP THEY BACK

is this hey bulldog because the dogs are barking

CALLED IT :D

you go johns :D

the meanie dogs are john fans i see ;)

one of them likes the song cute :)

this is a trolling song ain’t it

the sing a long is even on the talking parts lol

jeremy plz be careful

sad meanie is good >:)

JEREMY NO :O

“a rosy nose?” lol :D

yay for roses! :D

yay jeremy! :D

“i knew he was somebody” :’)

“where could we go?” “argentina?” lol

jeremy is a somewhere man now :D

YO JEREMY ROCK

the tv froze so my dad went to his phone (although he could watch it on the computer with me) JUST AS THAT AWESOME ROCK CHORD PLAYED YO

this is trippyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy

jeremy trippy spin :D

yo that sun tho

wow what a trippy world this is

BUT AT LEAST THERE’S JEREMY HAPPY SPIN :D

OMG THE LADS

"a hole in my pocket” lol :D

“what’s the matter john love?” ;)

ONE TWO THREE FAUH

paul has a cute wink :)

i’ve seen the live action song before and it’s so cute :D

ALL TOGETHER NOWWWWWWWW! :D

wowza that was amazing!!!!!!!!! :D

i give it a blue 8.5/10! :D

#the beatles #yellow submarine #yellowsublive #livewatch #man that was a load of fun :D

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phroyd · 5 years

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(CNN) "Lives were taken who should still be with us today," Gov. Greg Abbott said at a news conference.Twenty-six people were injured, according to El Paso Police Chief Greg Allen.

What we know about the shooting in El Paso, Texas

"The ages and genders of all these people injured and killed are numerous in the age groups," Allen said. "The situation, needless to say, is a horrific one."

A 21-year-old white man from Allen, Texas, is in police custody, Allen said. Authorities are looking at potentially bringing capital murder charges against him.

The case also has a "nexus to a potential hate crime," he said."Right now, we have a manifesto from this individual that indicates to some degree a nexus to a potential hate crime," Allen said.FBI El Paso Special Agent in Charge Emmerson Buie said more investigative work was needed before determining whether there was a possible hate crime.

Authorities on the scene of a shooting at a Walmart near Cielo Vista Mall in El Paso.CNN reported the suspect is 21-year-old Patrick Crusius of Allen, just outside Dallas, according to three sources.Two federal law enforcement sources and one state government source confirmed the suspect's identity. The federal sources said investigators are reviewing an online writing posted days before the shooting that may speak to a motive.

The online posting was believed to be written by Crusius, the sources said, but that has not been confirmed.'This was a massacre'The first call of an active shooter went out at 10:39 a.m. local time, Allen said. The first officer arrived on scene six minutes later.El Paso Police Sgt. Robert Gomez previously told reporters police were initially given multiple possible locations for the shooting, at a Walmart and the Cielo Vista Mall next door.

"This is a large crime scene, a large area," Gomez said of the scene Saturday afternoon.Multiple agencies responded to the scene, including the FBI, the sheriff's department, the state Department of Public Safety and Border Patrol.The crime scene will "be in play for a long period," Allen said. "Unfortunately, the deceased will remain at the scene until the scene is processed properly for evidentiary purposes to be gathered for later prosecution."

At least two of the patients are in a "life-threatening predicament," according to Del Sol Medical Center Dr. Stephen Flaherty. He said the patients ranged in age from 25 to 82. Two are in stable condition, he said, and seven required emergency operations."This was a massacre," US Rep. Veronica Escobar, who represents the area, told CNN. Escobar has received conflicting reports on the numbers of casualties, she said, but added, "The numbers are shocking."Footage shows people lying on the ground outside Walmart

Walmart issued a statement regarding the shooting, saying, "We're in shock over the tragic events at Cielo Vista Mall in El Paso. ... We're praying for the victims, the community & our associates, as well as the first responders."Inside the mall, crowds hid inside stores after hearing reports of an active shooter, according to 26-year-old Brandon Chavez, an employee at Forever 21.Chavez had just started his shift when he saw customers and staff members running to the stock room to take shelter.

"There were about 20 children and adults, plus employees, hiding, all cramped like sardines," he told CNN. "Most of us were desperate, some were on their phones. There were girls crying, people trying to talk to each other and women with babies in their arms."

In a shaky Snapchat video aired by CNN, a woman holding the camera frantically runs with a small group of girls or women through a mall department store and into a parking lot.As the group hurries past racks of clothes and cases of merchandise, voices off camera shout, "Hands up!"Once in the parking lot, one member of the group asks, "What happened?" ... "I don't know," the woman holding the camera responds. "I don't know."Another video, shot from outside the Walmart, showed people lying on the ground, some of them next to a table set up by the store's entrance.

Authorities respond to an active shooter at a Walmart near Cielo Vista Mall in El Paso."There's a man lying down at the stand that a school set up," the man holding the camera says in Spanish. "Help!" a man screams in English. "We need CPR," someone else says. "We need CPR."'Our community will heal,' mayor says Mayor Dee Margo said Saturday evening that his city would rise above this "senseless and evil act of violence." ... "We will be defined by the unity and compassion we showed in the wake of this tragedy," he said. "United, our community will heal.

"Nowhere was that spirit more on display than at blood donation centers. Authorities had said donations were urgently needed, and said if local residents wanted to help, they should make appointments to do so. Frances Yepez, waiting in line at one blood donation center, said the center was at max capacity and dozens of people were waiting to make appointments for Sunday or Monday. "It's easy to make a dollar, but it's harder to make a difference," she said. "So I get out there and do whatever I can do to help.

"She said the mood there was somber, and she could hear sniffling as the crowd of people learned updates over the television. White House pledges 'total support 'President Donald Trump has been briefed on the shooting, and the White House is monitoring the situation, deputy press secretary Steven Groves said in a statement. "Terrible shootings in El Paso, Texas," the President tweeted Saturday afternoon. "Reports are very bad, many killed. Working with State and Local authorities, and Law Enforcement. Spoke to Governor to pledge total support of Federal Government. God be with you all!"

Phroyd

#el paso #gunman #white nationalist

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wemariuniverse · 5 years

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A young man who was violently assaulted, stabbed and burnt by his abusive girlfriend has revealed the extent of his horrific injuries for the first time in a harrowing documentary.

Alex Skeel, 22, from Bedfordshire was just 'days from death' when police knocked on his door in June 2017, leading to an investigation that saw the mother of his two children jailed for more than seven years.

Jordan Worth was the first female in the UK to be convicted of controlling or coercive behaviour, along with GBH, and her former childhood sweetheart now hopes to spread the message that women can be perpetrators of domestic violence too.

Alex relives his horrific five-year ordeal in new BBC Three documentary Abused By My Girlfriend, which reveals in heartbreaking detail how he went from a carefree teenager to being hit, stabbed and burnt on a regular basis.

Alex was a typical football-mad 16-year-old when he first met Jordan at a concert in June 2012 and soon became besotted with her.

'She was very caring, confident, loving,' he says of the aspiring teacher. 'She just showed a real interest in me.'

Despite Alex's friends describing Jordan as 'delightful' and her boyfriend as 'quite smitten', Alex's mother Ged says it wasn't long before her behaviour 'started to change'.

'The longer they were together, and as the relationship grew, the mind games started playing,' she recalls.

Alex explains: '[Jordan would] say, I don't really like the colour grey, I don't think you should wear the colour grey.

'I don't like your hair like that, you should have your hair like this. I don't like the shoes you're wearing. But I never took it as a negative.'

There was the time Alex's family treated her to a night at the theatre in London, only for her to disappear from the hotel in the middle of the night, sparking a frantic search, before reappearing in the hotel lobby an hour later, 'just laughing'.

Or the time she ruined Alex's 18th birthday party by 'screaming abuse' at a female family friend who she had grown jealous of.

But despite her erratic behaviour, Alex brushed off his family and friends' growing concerns, admitting: 'I was a bit clouded by what happened because at the time I loved her.'

Alex eventually tried to break things off, but Jordan came back with the bombshell revelation that she was pregnant and returned to his life a year later with baby Thomas J ('TJ') who was born in May 2014.

It wasn't long before the young couple were back together and, despite Alex's hopes that she had changed, the cracks soon reappeared.

As Alex's best friend puts is: '[Jordan] just got back into his head to the point where you couldn't do anything to stop it.'

Before long, Jordan forced Alex to choose between her and his family, which resulted in the young couple moving into their own home in Stewartby in July 2016.

Just 19 at the time, Alex didn't speak to his parents for two years - even when he welcomed his second child, a little girl called Iris, in May 2017.

Things went from bad to worse when Jordan forced her boyfriend to change his phone number and threw away his PlayStation console to cut him off further from his loved ones.

She even set up a fake Facebook account where she would send abusive messages to Alex's friends in a bid to isolate him further.

Years later, when police questioned Jordan, she would blame it on Alex, saying: 'He made it very clear he never wanted to see his family.

'He said he hated his family and he doesn't want to talk to his family. He wants nothing to do with his family.'

In time, Jordan grew so controlling she took Alex's wallet away, forcing him to quit the job he loved and accompany her to university every day.

Alex claims things deteriorated to the point where his girlfriend would attack or assault him 'every day', and on one occasion she made him swallow an entire packet of sleeping pills.

One day she attacked him with a broken hairbrush, breaking his tooth in the process.

'I had no money, I didn't drive, so in the end I just ripped the tooth out,' Alex says, recalling how being hit with a hammer or knife became part of daily life.

'I'd be asleep and she'd smack me in the head and I'd look in the mirror and I'd just be bleeding,' he says.

'I wasn't eating properly, she didn't let me. She made him sleep on the floor instead of the bed.

'I could feel that my body was starting to shut down. I didn't want [my son] to get hurt, so I was fighting to keep going because I didn't know what would happen if I was to leave.'

A kettle full of boiling water became Jordan's weapon of choice, leaving her boyfriend screaming in pain as the skin hung off his arms and back.

'She would wait up all night with a kettle of boiling water and if it went cold she would just wait and reboil it,' he recalls.

A few days after one such attack, Jordan slashed her boyfriend's hand with a breadknife and police were called, not for the first time, by their worried neighbours who heard Alex shouting, 'Leave me alone, stop hurting me'.

Sgt. Ed Finn of Bedfordshire Police was on the scene and remembers how, despite there being 'blood everywhere', the couple both insisted that Alex's numerous injuries were self-inflicted.

Officers took Alex to hospital to fix his badly burnt arm, but Jordan came in and 'walked him out of the hospital' despite the attempts of the surgeon - who could sense something was wrong - to make him stay.

'It's strange, because it was the right time and the right place but I didn't say anything,' Alex recalls. 'I kept saying I did it to myself. I was scared of what she was going to do.'

But a few days later, when Sgt. Finn got a call from the couple's address, he seized the opportunity to take action.

He recalls: 'As soon as I saw him in the light of day, the state of him in terms of countless injuries all over his body the fact that he had these horrible dirty clothes on... he was pale, thin. I thought [...] he was being abused.'

Jordan seemed 'very slight, well spoken, very polite, to all intents and purposes a very nice lady,' he recalls.

Despite his protests, Sgt. Finn was able to persuade Alex to reveal what was really going on - and finally arrest Jordan on suspicion of assault and grievous bodily harm (GBH).

When they managed to get Alex to hospital, doctors said he was just 'ten days from death' in his physical state, by which point his burns had become infected.

Bodycam footage and police tapes from the day he was rescued show the 21-year-old looking alarmingly frail, covered with bruises and dressed in bloodstained clothes, unable to make eye contact.

In his interview, when asked by an officer how he feels about moving forward, he replies: 'I just don't want to get hurt anymore.'

Alex returned home to his family where he was reunited with his children and, in September 2017, Jordan was charged with 17 counts including GBH and controlling coercive behaviour.

On 13 April 2018 Jordan was given two seven-year sentences for wounding with intent and GBH to be served concurrently at Luton Crown Court.

She was also handed a consecutive sentence of six months for controlling or coercive behaviour, becoming the first female in the UK to be convicted of this charge.

'When the police found me I was told I was ten days away from death,' says Alex. 'I was in love with Jordan and it took me a long time to have the courage to say she was abusing me.

'The day that she [went] to prison I felt so free. It was a massive relief. I remember just saying, I can actually look over my shoulder now for the first time in five years without worrying.

'Now that I'm free from the relationship, I'm beginning to understand abuse better. And I hope I can help others understand it too.'

Alex now coaches a football team sponsored by a domestic abuse charity and talks to professionals to help them spot the signs of abuse.

'The memories will never leave me,' he says, 'but I'm learning how to cope.

'I have so much support from my friends and family and I'm building a future for me and my kids.'

Abused By My Girlfriend airs on BBC One at 22.45 on Tuesday 19 February, and is available on BBC iPlayer from 10am Monday 18 February.

It’s so important to talk about this. It’s unbelievable what narcs can do.

#bbc three abused girlfriend alex skeel recalls jordan worths abuse

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outfitandtrend · 2 years

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[ad_1] GQ Hype: It's the big story of right now.It’s early April, and Jon Bernthal, an actor famous for playing cops and cartel affiliates, mobsters and professional thieves-for-hire, is facing a new kind of adversity: His dress shoes are too tight. “I’m sitting here on set,” Bernthal, 45, says over the phone, “wearing a fancy suit and some shoes that hurt my feet. I never wear shoes that [make it so] I couldn’t run away from something if I needed to, or couldn’t stand my ground if I needed to.” But Bernthal is unlikely to need either fight or flight as an immediate response today. He’s filming American Gigolo, the Showtime series based on Paul Schrader’s film from 1980, reviving the lead role of a framed-for-murder escort originally played by Richard Gere. And still, he runs down the rest of his character Julian Kaye’s wardrobe—a “goofy” shirt and a tangle of gold chains—as if each item is a talisman of the cursed life Kaye leads, rather than a convenient find from wardrobe. “It’s crazy to me,” he says, “but it scares me—and that’s why I’m gonna see it through.”Over the past decade or so, Bernthal has gone from moderately recognizable screen presence to something just short of a movie star. A principal role in The Walking Dead and a scene-stealing one in Martin Scorsese’s The Wolf of Wall Street established him as someone who could leverage his physical presence—Bernthal is a veteran boxer and street fighter with the nose and muscularity to prove it—for interpersonal drama. He makes a habit of fleshing out characters where there were once two-dimensional cops-and-robbers cutouts. Even his foray into the Marvel universe, as the PTSD-riddled veteran who becomes the Punisher, is grim and cerebral. He’s acted alongside Leonardo DiCaprio (Wolf), Ben Affleck (The Accountant), Emily Blunt (Sicario), and Will Smith (last year’s King Richard), among numerous other A-listers, almost never seeming overmatched in terms of technique or charisma.As his roles get bigger and his name inches toward the top of the call sheet, Bernthal has accelerated his already rapid pace of work. Sharp Stick, the new Lena Dunham film in which he plays a pivotal role, was acquired at Sundance and is slated for an August release. American Gigolo, meanwhile, is the kind of series—pulp with prestige, IP but the good kind—that can mint new stars or give existing ones new dimensions. And this week sees the premiere of yet another Bernthal-led series: We Own This City, a new HBO series from The Wire veterans David Simon and George Pelecanos, in which he stars as Sgt. Wayne Jenkins, the leader of a criminal conspiracy that festered in the Baltimore Police Department’s Gun Trace Task Force. In these new roles—as in much of what he’s done to date—Bernthal pokes and prods at masculine ideals, warping those molds into cruder or kinder shapes. At a time when Americans seem open to reexamining these archetypal male roles, Bernthal is able to scramble them just a bit. The ur-Bernthal Character is a Marlboro Man with a therapist and a death drive he hasn’t fully shaken.Yet We Own This City, which transposes The Wire’s concerns about police overreach and the human cost of criminal enterprise into a post-Freddie Gray Baltimore, presents a unique challenge. In 2018 Jenkins, who was the ringleader of a plainclothes police squad that stole cash, drugs, and guns from citizens, planted evidence on innocent people, and generally terrorized the city, was sentenced to 25 years in federal prison. Bernthal has played a number of unsavory figures; even if Jenkins were a fictional creation, he would be among the most distasteful. In searching for a way in, he found himself gravitating toward the thing that is the centering force in his own life: his, and his character’s, wife and kids. “Every single person that I talked to about Wayne—I talked to guys whose careers were ruined because of the things he did, guys he put away—to a person, they all said he loved his wife and kids. That’s something I could latch onto.” [ad_2] Source link

#FASHIONFORMEN

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atlanticcanada · 2 years

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First officer on scene in Portapique during tragedy raised emergency alert early on

When the first police officer arrived in Portapique, N.S. around 10:25 p.m. on April 18, 2020, the perpetrator behind Canada’s worst mass killing had already murdered residents and set fires.

Enacting a protocol used to respond to active shooter situations, RCMP Cst. Stuart Beselt and two other officers headed in on foot, into the dark, while hearing gunshots – trying to find the killer.

Amidst that danger and chaos - and less than an hour after getting there - Cst. Beselt suggested over police radio that the public should be notified of the ongoing threat.

That’s according to a transcript of police radio transmissions made public by the Mass Casualty Commission this week.

At 11:16 p.m., Cst. Beselt said, “Is there some kind of emergency broadcast that we can make that – make people go into their basement and not go outside."

Staff Sgt. Brian Rehill, who was on duty that night as the risk manager, responded over the radio, “They were using the 911 map to call as many as they can to tell them to shelter-in-place.”

Just what that means, is so far unclear.

At the commission’s public proceedings this week, the head of the RCMP Operational Communications Centre, which takes 911 calls, was asked about what was described by one lawyer as, “reverse 911.”

“Reverse 911 is the ability to search geographic areas for phone numbers so, a database,” said Darryl Macdonald. “But it's not something that's done on a dispatch side.”

When asked by CTV, a spokesperson with the Nova Scotia Emergency Management Office said, “The ability to conduct a mass callout to homes via "Reverse 911" is not a functionality that exists in Nova Scotia or, to our knowledge, anywhere in Canada. Police have the ability to access home phone numbers independent of the 911 system.”

CTV News asked the Nova Scotia RCMP whether calling residents to shelter in place or using some kind of “911 map” is part of RCMP procedure. But the force would not answer those questions, citing the ongoing work by the Mass Casualty Commission.

The commission’s foundational document on first responders in Portapique does indicate information on “communication using the ‘911 map’” will be contained in a forthcoming document on public alerting. That document is not on the schedule for release this month.

When it comes to the idea of an emergency alert, the radio exchange between Cst. Beselt and his risk manager the night the killings began appears to be the last he heard of the idea at the time, according to Beselt’s interview with commission counsel Roger Burrill last year.

In a transcript of that conversation, Burrill asked: What kind of broadcast did you have in mind?

Beselt: Just like, an emergency alert or something....warn people...to shelter and hide.

Then Burrill asked: And did you get a response to that?

Beselt: No, not really.

A tweet about a firearms complaint was sent by the RCMP that Saturday night, with further tweets to come the next morning - long after the commission believes the shooter had left Portapique.

But no provincial emergency alert was ever issued.

Dalhousie University professor emeritus of law Wayne MacKay says these details raise more questions.

“The front-line people were asking for the right thing,” he says. “There needs to be a lot more clarity about what the current rules are, and if they are not adequate, hopefully clear recommendations on how they can be improved.”

That’s something families of those killed have wanted from the beginning. After killing 13 people in Portapique, the gunman massacred nine more people the next day in communities throughout central Nova Scotia. Police apprehended him at a gas station in Enfield, N.S., where he was shot dead.

As for the idea of police calling affected residents to tell them to shelter in place, a lawyer representing many of the families affected questions that tactic.

“That doesn’t seem very practical to me, given the emergency nature of that evening,” says Robert Pineo. “Certainly wasn't a substitute for the Alert Ready system that was there to be used.”

from CTV News - Atlantic https://ift.tt/Z5e1MN6

#new brunswick #prince edward island #nova scotia #news #politics #canada #CTVAtlantic

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nosy-talk · 5 years

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20 people dead in El Paso shooting, 26 injured Texas governor says!

youtube

(CNN)Twenty people were killed and more than two dozen were injured in a mass shooting at an El Paso shopping center on Saturday, according to Texas and local authorities.”Lives were taken who should still be with us today,” Gov. Greg Abbott said at a news conference.Twenty-six people were injured, according to El Paso Police Chief Greg Allen.What we know about the shooting in El Paso, Texas“The ages and genders of all these people injured and killed are numerous in the age groups,” Allen said. “The situation, needless to say, is a horrific one.”A 21-year-old white man from Allen, Texas, is in police custody, Allen said. Authorities are looking at potentially bringing capital murder charges against him.FOLLOW LIVE UPDATESThe case also has a “nexus to a potential hate crime,” he said.”Right now, we have a manifesto from this individual that indicates to some degree a nexus to a potential hate crime,” Allen said.FBI El Paso Special Agent in Charge Emmerson Buie said more investigative work was needed before determining whether there was a possible hate crime.

Authorities on the scene of a shooting at a Walmart near Cielo Vista Mall in El Paso.CNN reported the suspect is 21-year-old Patrick Crusius of Allen, just outside Dallas, according to three sources.Two federal law enforcement sources and one state government source confirmed the suspect’s identity. The federal sources said investigators are reviewing an online writing posted days before the shooting that may speak to a motive.The online posting was believed to be written by Crusius, the sources said, but that has not been confirmed.

‘This was a massacre’

The first call of an active shooter went out at 10:39 a.m. local time, Allen said. The first officer arrived on scene six minutes later.El Paso Police Sgt. Robert Gomez previously told reporters police were initially given multiple possible locations for the shooting, at a Walmart and the Cielo Vista Mall next door.

WalmartCielo Vista Mall

“This is a large crime scene, a large area,” Gomez said of the scene Saturday afternoon.Multiple agencies responded to the scene, including the FBI, the sheriff’s department, the state Department of Public Safety and Border Patrol.The crime scene will “be in play for a long period,” Allen said. “Unfortunately, the deceased will remain at the scene until the scene is processed properly for evidentiary purposes to be gathered for later prosecution.”

El Paso Police Department Sgt. Robert Gomez briefs media on a shooting that occurred at a Walmart.Officials from two local hospitals said they had received at least 23 people.Thirteen people were taken to University Medical Center of El Paso, spokesman Ryan Mielke told CNN, and one of them has died. Two children with non-life-threatening injuries were transferred to a children’s medical facility, Mielke said.Eleven victims were transported to the Del Sol Medical Center, hospital spokesman Victor Guerrero said. Nine are in critical but stable condition, he said.At least two of the patients are in a “life-threatening predicament,” according to Del Sol Medical Center Dr. Stephen Flaherty. He said the patients ranged in age from 25 to 82. Two are in stable condition, he said, and seven required emergency operations.”This was a massacre,” US Rep. Veronica Escobar, who represents the area, told CNN. Escobar has received conflicting reports on the numbers of casualties, she said, but added, “The numbers are shocking.”

Footage shows people lying on the ground outside Walmart

Walmart issued a statement regarding the shooting, saying, “We’re in shock over the tragic events at Cielo Vista Mall in El Paso. … We’re praying for the victims, the community & our associates, as well as the first responders.”Inside the mall, crowds hid inside stores after hearing reports of an active shooter, according to 26-year-old Brandon Chavez, an employee at Forever 21.Chavez had just started his shift when he saw customers and staff members running to the stock room to take shelter.”There were about 20 children and adults, plus employees, hiding, all cramped like sardines,” he told CNN. “Most of us were desperate, some were on their phones. There were girls crying, people trying to talk to each other and women with babies in their arms.”

Shoppers exit with their hands up after a shooting in El Paso, Texas, on Saturday.Store employees had closed the glass doors but he could see police officers walking around the mall and evacuating people from other stores.After police officers knocked on the store’s doors, Chavez said his group had to leave the store, forming a line with their hands up and running.In a shaky Snapchat video aired by CNN, a woman holding the camera frantically runs with a small group of girls or women through a mall department store and into a parking lot.As the group hurries past racks of clothes and cases of merchandise, voices off camera shout, “Hands up!”Once in the parking lot, one member of the group asks, “What happened?””I don’t know,” the woman holding the camera responds. “I don’t know.”Another video, shot from outside the Walmart, showed people lying on the ground, some of them next to a table set up by the store’s entrance.

Authorities respond to an active shooter at a Walmart near Cielo Vista Mall in El Paso.”There’s a man lying down at the stand that a school set up,” the man holding the camera says in Spanish.”Help!” a man screams in English.”We need CPR,” someone else says. “We need CPR.”

‘Our community will heal,’ mayor says

Mayor Dee Margo said Saturday evening that his city would rise above this “senseless and evil act of violence.””We will be defined by the unity and compassion we showed in the wake of this tragedy,” he said. “United, our community will heal.”Nowhere was that spirit more on display than at blood donation centers. Authorities had said donations were urgently needed, and said if local residents wanted to help, they should make appointments to do so.Frances Yepez, waiting in line at one blood donation center, said the center was at max capacity and dozens of people were waiting to make appointments for Sunday or Monday.”It’s easy to make a dollar, but it’s harder to make a difference,” she said. “So I get out there and do whatever I can do to help.”She said the mood there was somber, and she could hear sniffling as the crowd of people learned updates over the television.

White House pledges ‘total support’

President Donald Trump has been briefed on the shooting, and the White House is monitoring the situation, deputy press secretary Steven Groves said in a statement.”Terrible shootings in El Paso, Texas,” the President tweeted Saturday afternoon. “Reports are very bad, many killed. Working with State and Local authorities, and Law Enforcement. Spoke to Governor to pledge total support of Federal Government. God be with you all!”

Terrible shootings in ElPaso, Texas. Reports are very bad, many killed. Working with State and Local authorities, and Law Enforcement. Spoke to Governor to pledge total support of Federal Government. God be with you all!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 3, 2019

Democratic presidential candidate Beto O’Rourke, who once represented the area in Congress, addressed the shooting while at a speaking event in Las Vegas.”We know there is a lot of injury, a lot of suffering in El Paso right now,” he said. “I am incredibly sad and it is very hard to think about this.””But I’ll tell you, El Paso is the strongest place in the world,” he added. “This community is going to come together.”O’Rourke said he would be cutting short his trip to Las Vegas to return to El Paso.Gov. Abbott tweeted late Saturday afternoon that he had arrived in El Paso.”Texans grieve today for the people of this wonderful place. We united in support of all the victims. We thank First Responders for their swift action,” the governor said. “We ask God to bind up the wounds of all who’ve been harmed.”The scene was unfolding in the same week two employees were fatally shot at a Walmart store in Southaven, Mississippi, and three people were shot and killed at the Gilroy Garlic Festival in California.

CNN’s Josh Campbell, Evan Perez, Ed Lavandera, Theresa Waldrop, Artemis Moshtaghian, Shawn Nottingham and Jay Croft contributed to this report.

source

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#OMG Crimes #Trending #World News #20 people dead in El Paso shooting #21-Year-Old Man: Police #26 In

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newsblog · 4 years

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July 9, 2020 Seacoast NH Local News

from seacoastonline:

There have been numerous sightings of a moose in the Dover area over the past few days; along roadsides, the Dover High School parking lot, and various neighborhoods.

Headed to the Regional Economic Development Center in Raymond is $400,000 from the federal Economic Development Agency, U.S. Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H., announced Wednesday. The funds will be used to support businesses in Rockingham County. During federal budget negotiations, Shaheen led an effort to prevent the Economic Development Administration from being eliminated, and helped secure the funds, according to her office. The REDC in Raymond is one of the Granite State’s four economic development corporations working to provide assistance and resources to businesses, and promote overall economic health in areas that need support most.

“Incredibly unfair and harmful” is what University of New Hampshire President James Dean called the new policy announced this week by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement that would require international students to leave the country or risk deportation if their university’s classes go online-only as a result of COVID-19. Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have sued the Trump administration following ICE’s Monday announcement that it will not allow foreign students to remain in the U.S. to take online-only classes in the fall if their institute of higher education makes that shift due to the coronavirus. The Student and Exchange Visitor Program announced modifications to temporary exemptions for non-immigrant students. Non-immigrant F-1 students (academic coursework) and M-1 students (vocational coursework) attending schools operating entirely online may not take a full online course load and remain in the U.S., ICE said this week. UNH campuses will reopen to students Aug. 10 with restrictions university officials say will ensure safety during the COVID-19 pandemic. Precautionary changes include: Reducing residence halls to 50% capacity or less, eliminating triple and quad rooms; reserving two dorms for quarantine housing; mandatory face masks; a stay-at-home policy for anyone who is ill; reducing dining hall capacity and new to-go meal options; a mix of in-person and online courses, plus various course changes to comply with social distancing recommendations; remote learning approval processes for vulnerable students; and more.

The Nancy Morgan Gallery has delayed opening until mid-month. The Nahcotta Gallery is currently by-appointment and online only; ditto for The Art Center Dover, which now presents its in-house exhibits on the web. Profit and nonprofit alike, the galleries that assign so much life and color to our communities are looking for ways to do business in a COVID-19 world, and nervous about the prospects. They’re dealing with limited hours and access, building new online systems, and declining sales. The Bonita, NHAA and the Kennedy Gallery are among the Portsmouth galleries that have reopened – cautiously they say. They are among a number of the galleries that resumed the Art ’Round Town gallery walk, first Friday of the month, with limited guests at any given time, both for openings and shop hours. Controlling visitors hasn’t proved a problem, Board President Renee Giffroy of the NHAA said. “Typically ... on a First Night during July 4th weekend, we would probably get 350 people. It’s not unusual,” Giffroy said. “This Friday I think we had under 20.”

Dine outside (in Portsmouth) at the new al fresco dining set ups all over town. Enjoy prime rib at Clipper Tavern, momo and eggplant basil paneer tarkari at Durbar Square Restaurant and lobster mac ‘n’ cheese at The Portsmouth Brewery, all in the fresh open air, far enough away from your fellow diners to do so safely. More restaurants are being approved each week including Dwyer’s Pub and Bridge Street Bistrot and Wine Bar. (personal note: this is basically an ad but it contains info about which restauarants are open so I included it. There's also a shameless plug for Congdon's After Dark in Wells, ME and Fire and Spice Bistro in Newfields, opening july 17.)

Camp QuaranTEEN is a new virtual camp for girls age 12 to 15 brought to you by local healthy living guru and transformational health coach Tracey Miller. Inspired by her 14-year-old daughter, Tracey will help girls connect and be creative, aiming to keep them engaged, inspired and in community to help them through the limitations of a global pandemic. The girls will meet up in a live ZOOM call each day and then do projects on their own and in collaboration. Girls will get live cooking lessons, create artwork and do journaling to help them be more mindful throughout the day. “Although we’ll meet online, the goal will be to get them off their phones and inspire more ingenuity in the kitchen and in their home to create a healthy home oasis.” Miller said. Camp dates are July 13-24 or Aug. 3-14. For more information, visit www.traceymiller.co/campq. (personal note: ah yes *sarcasm* let's get our girls off their phones and into the kitchen, where they belong. we'll do this by...web conferencing. do boomers even know how hard they contradict themselves???)

After the death of a New Hampshire diver on Tuesday, July 7, York police suspended diving off Nubble Light until the investigation into the circumstances of the incident is concluded, according to Lt. John Lizanecz. Police will meet with York Parks and Recreation for a determination on a reopening plan. The fatal accident was the second diving accident in the waters off Nubble Light, a scuba diving destination, in two days. The investigation into the death of 67-year old Walter Fabian of Nashua is being headed by Sgt. Matthew Sinclair of the Maine Marine Patrol. According to Sgt. Sinclair, in addition to assessing the circumstances at the scene, the investigation needs to consider and determine Fabian’s medical condition as well as the condition of his diving equipment.

#portsmouth nh #seacoast nh #new hampshire #unh #news #local news

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angelinatoms · 4 years

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A towboat pushes nine barges upstream on the Mississippi, past a navigation buoy marking the shipping channel. (Kira Volkov/Dreamstime/)

Scott Erickson will be the first to tell you the accident was his fault.

He thought he had plenty of room to cross in front of the barge, almost half a mile by his reckoning. But Erickson didn’t expect to run out of fuel in the middle of America’s biggest inland shipping lane, and he surely didn’t expect the distance to close so quickly.

The towboat Bill Stegbauer was pushing nine barges upriver at about four knots, and the current was sweeping Erickson and his family downstream at about six. In case you haven’t solved a fifth-grade story problem lately, that’s less than three minutes to impact.

In the Stegbauer’s wheelhouse, river pilot Sean Tittle was focused on guiding 12,000 tons of steel and cargo through one of the tightest bends on the Upper Mississippi, a 90-degree right-hander in Red Wing, Minnesota. It’s a narrow stretch of river, hemmed in by a marina on the right-hand bank and a grain terminal on the left. Complicating matters, it was a Saturday in July and the river was full of pleasure craft.

The accident happened on this bend in Red Wing, Minnesota. (Geoffrey Kuchera/Dreamstime/)

Tittle had already reduced speed and stationed lookouts on the head of his tow when he spotted the 18-foot skiff with the brightly colored bimini top. On board were Scott Erickson, his wife Diana, and their adult son John.

Almost as soon as Tittle saw them they were out of sight again, hidden by the barges arrayed 600 feet in front of him. He called down to his lookout: “I see a boat. Are they moving?”

They weren’t.

Tittle already had kicked the Stegbauer’s engines out of gear—the first step in bringing some 24 million pounds to a halt as quickly as possible, without brakes. The process, called a crash stop, is both frenetic and agonizingly slow. Tittle had to wait about 25 seconds before he could safely put the Stegbauer into reverse, and another few seconds to run the diesels up to full astern.

On the head, deckhand Erskine “Trey” Williams III, told Tittle the stalled boat was left of the tow’s centerline. Tittle immediately threw his flanking rudders hard to port, a maneuver calculated to pivot the head to starboard and run it aground. “If I spread the tow all over the bank, that’s better than a loss of life,” he says.

“Trey was counting me down, you know, it was 75 foot and then it was 50 foot, then 40. His numbers started slowing but I knew I was going to hit them.”

Maybe, if the rudders bit in time, it would be a glancing blow.

As the barge bore down on their aluminum skiff, the Ericksons first tried to restart the motor. They plugged the spare fuel tank into the outboard, squeezed the bulb to prime it, and cranked the motor, again and again. It coughed, but didn’t catch. Then they were out of time.

“My son, who’s a good swimmer, he jumped out of the boat and swam clear. My wife left the boat quite a bit after he did, and that made it a lot worse for her,” Erickson says.

The impact was lighter than expected. “It’s like we caught them on that empty barge,” Tittle recalls. “It just barely bent that little bimini top.”

Scott Erickson clambered from the skiff onto the tow. Diana Erickson disappeared under it.

Towboats on America’s inland waterways generate several thousand horsepower and can take nearly a minute to switch from forward to reverse. They are not equipped with brakes. (William Alden III/Creative Commons/)

Tittle kept the flanking rudders pinned to port and the diesels roaring full astern, using the Stegbauers’ 4,200 horsepower to pivot the barges away from the Ericksons’ boat. The idea was to shake the little skiff off the head of his tow before the river pushed it under like a shoelace caught in an escalator. Tittle didn’t know it at the time, but he was also pulling the barges from atop Diana Erickson.

The river’s swift current had swept her under the left side of the tow. She tumbled eight feet deep, skipping off the barge’s steel bottom as she traveled underwater for some 200 feet. Then, remarkably, she popped up in the narrow gap between the left front barge and the one behind it. Deckhands threw her a flotation device—she wasn’t wearing a life jacket—and then lowered a ladder. Diana Erickson grabbed on to it for dear life. Then Scott Erickson came hustling across the barges and leapt into the river, determined to help his wife. He wasn’t wearing a life jacket either.

Sgt. Jordan Winberg and Deputy Thomas Blue arrived moments later in the Goodhue County Sheriff Department’s Everglades boat. Their dispatcher had received five 911 calls in as many minutes, as nearby boaters watched the Stegbauer bear down on the little skiff, its horn blasting five short, the universal signal for danger.

Winberg and Blue came screaming upstream, and fetched up on the tow’s port side. Tittle by now had halted the tow and was holding it steady against the current. As he raced to rescue the two people in the water, Winberg had a quiet moment of appreciation for the river pilot’s skill. Then he was consumed with the task of getting the Ericksons out of the water.

A deckhand jumped from the tow onto the low-slung ‘glades boat, with a line in hand. He and Blue then used the rope to ease the boat back to the ladder. Winberg, kneeling on the swim platform, slipped his right shoulder under Diana Erickson’s arm and heaved her aboard.

“Once we got close enough, I just scooped her out, and then I scooped the husband out,” Winberg says. Diana Erickson was shaken and had “swallowed a lot of Mississippi River water,” but was not seriously hurt. A boater had plucked John Erickson from the river minutes earlier. All three family members were safe and accounted for.

Tittle is still amazed he was able to stop in time. “Whenever I think about that day I thank God I just knocked the boat out of gear when I did,” he says. “We always wonder in situations like that if we’re going to freeze up or react, and I was blessed to react.”

A standard Mississippi river barge is 200 feet long and 35 feet wide, and a typical tow includes as many as 15 barges. Give them plenty of space to maneuver. (Agcultures.com/)

A lot went into Tittle’s lifesaving actions. Nineteen years on river boats, for one, but also a great deal of training. Tittle credits his employer, the Southern Towing Company, with ensuring its captains and crews are prepared for such emergencies. Like airline pilots, riverboat pilots train on high-tech simulators. Still, Tittle says, nothing prepares a towboater for the real thing. And of all the hazards on America’s inland waterways, unwary pleasure boats are the most disconcerting.

“People up there are crazy, man. They will pull their kids in an inner tube right in front of you,” Tittle says. If he hadn’t kicked the Stegbauer out of gear when he did—if he hadn’t pivoted his tow and Diana Erickson hadn’t come up from under that barge—Tittle isn’t sure how he could have lived with himself afterward, even though the accident was no fault of his own.

It’s a sobering thought for recreational boaters who share waterways with commercial traffic. You wouldn’t turn circles on the interstate on a moped, yet boaters routinely fish, ski and sail on waterways frequented by tow vessels like the Stegbauer, each of which can push as much freight as 870 tractor trailers.

The problem is that many recreational boaters don’t know how to interact with commercial vessels, Winberg says. “Some boaters don’t know how to pass. They don’t know what to do to get out of the way.” In 10 years with Goodhue County’s water patrol, he’s heard it all. “We get complaints from people saying, ‘A tow boat almost ran us over when we were fishing.’ Then we ask where they were fishing, and they say, ‘Right in the middle of the channel.’”

The key to collision avoidance is a set of maritime traffic rules known as the Rules of the Road. Tittle says that if he could tell recreational boaters just one thing, it’s this: “Please educate yourself on the Rules of the Road. It’s one code that we all follow—one set of rules. You can get the U.S. Coast Guard app on your phone, and they’re right there,” he says.

Winberg notes that in Minnesota, boaters 18 and older are not required to complete a boating safety course. The same is true in many other states, but it’s worth remembering that the laws of physics have jurisdiction everywhere. Boaters sometimes talk about the Rule of Gross Tonnage, which is another way of saying that large vessels should always be given plenty of leeway because they can’t stop or turn quickly. It’s that simple.

Scott Erickson will be the first to tell you that.

“It wasn’t that I had no respect for those barges, and it wasn’t that I had no respect for the Mississippi River,” he says. “It’s that I was new to boating and just didn’t have the awareness of that commercial traffic.”

Recreational boaters must be aware of many things to safely operate their craft, particularly on waterways shared by commercial traffic. Many of these things can be learned while obtaining a nationally-approved boating safety education certificate. Always ensure your vessel is properly equipped, and that you and all your passengers wear a Coast Guard approved life jacket. Finally, it should go without saying that if your primary tank is running low, you should switch to your backup before crossing an active shipping lane—even if it looks like you have plenty of room. Because as Scott Erickson will tell you, commercial vessels are big, but they’re not slow.

“Between me and you, I’m going on a lake from now on,” he says. “I’m going where there’s no current and no barges.”

#boating #boatingtips #boatingsupplies #boatingnews #boatingshop #wolfcreek

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bigyack-com · 4 years

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When the Police Stop a Teenager With Special Needs

A man in his mid-20s regularly roams the streets of my small town in the middle of the night. He looks angry and doesn’t communicate clearly.Not everyone living in the area knows him. But the police do.“His father reached out to us,” said Sgt. Adrian Acevedo of the South Orange, N.J., police department, “to tell us his son is blowing off steam, has special needs, and won’t make eye contact or listen to us. If we didn’t have this information, we could mistakenly take him for a burglar.”All of South Orange’s police officers are aware of this man’s disability. His name, his parent’s phone numbers, and brief details about his special needs are on file at the South Orange Police Office.“It’s a smart move,” said Gary Weitzen, executive director of Parents of Autistic Children, a nonprofit based in New Jersey that provides training for parents and educators on how to teach children with autism to respond to people in uniform. The group also hosts workshops for police officers and other officials on how to interact with people with special needs. To date, they’ve trained more than 70,000 police officers, firefighters and ambulance squads in New Jersey.When Mr. Weitzen’s son Christopher, who has autism, was young, Mr. Weitzen always held his hand when out in public. If he didn’t, Christopher would bolt. “Our friends called our house Fort Weitzen,” he said. “I couldn’t let Christopher out of my sight.”Today Christopher is 25 and goes out on his own. “It was a lot of training on my part,” Mr. Weitzen said.Whenever they were out as a family at a community gathering and the police were nearby, Mr. Weitzen would introduce Christopher to the officers. “I want them to know him and for him to feel comfortable around them,” Mr. Weitzen said.Many people of color talk to their children about ways to interact with the police. While the circumstances are different, parents of children with special needs often need to educate their children about ways to behave if they’re stopped by the police.Indeed, in 2016, North Miami police officers shot a behavioral therapist, Charles Kinsey, who was trying to calm down a young man with autism who was holding a toy truck that the officers mistook for a weapon.The tendency of many people on the autism spectrum to wander can lead to encounters with the police, but Wendy Fournier, president of the National Autism Association, said there are two distinct categories, wandering and elopement, though they are often used interchangeably.Wandering, she said, is more purposeful and usually happens between ages 4 and 7. “That child will have it in his head that he wants to go swimming or to the park,” she said. “It’s what he wants to do regardless of the safety issues, which can be crossing a busy street without looking so he can get to his destination. It’s hard to stop him.”In elopement, a child may bolt because of an overwhelming situation such as being around large crowds.The association has two free downloadable programs with tools to address these issues. The Big Red Safety Box covers wandering and elopement, and the Meet the Police program teaches parents of children on the autism spectrum and children with autism how to interact with the police.According to a 2017 study from the A.J. Drexel Autism Institute at Drexel University, an estimated one in five teenagers with autism was stopped and questioned by the police before age 21, and 5 percent were arrested. And according to research at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, people with disabilities, including those on the autism spectrum, are five times more likely to be incarcerated than people in the general population, and “civilian injuries and fatalities during police interactions are disproportionately common among this population.”“The police are not the bad guys,” Mr. Weitzen said. “They need to meet our children and should understand why they may not be able to make eye contact or that they’ll run when ordered to stay put.”He said that people with autism “may keep their hands in their pockets because it’s a coping mechanism. They may repeat a word because it helps them focus. Not all uniformed personnel understand these behaviors.”When a friend of mine whose son has both autism and oppositional defiant disorder moved to a new neighborhood about six years ago, she called the local police to let them know about his behavior. The officer on duty invited them to come in so they could meet.“At the station, the officers treated him with respect,” said my friend, who did not want her name published to protect her son’s privacy. “I told them about his violent temper ahead of the visit, and we discussed it with the police officers. All of the officers know him. They have our information on file at the precinct. It will help keep him safe in the event of a meltdown. They even know his coping words.”Recently, when her son began attending a program for students on the autism spectrum in New Jersey, she asked the school to host a seminar with the local police.“When I met the officer, I was a bit scared,” said her son, who is now 19. “But I listened and he seemed friendly. I was able to talk to him, and I know that most police officers are good and are here to protect us.”In the Weitzens’ neighborhood, the police officers know that it can help Christopher if they mention John Deere tractors and “Thomas the Tank Engine” characters. They also know what triggers him.“Most people with autism have some form of anxiety,” Mr. Weitzen explained. “The cops know Christopher won’t look them in the eye. Something little like that can escalate and make a bad situation worse.”Mr. Weitzen believes children with autism should carry an ID card. It should have their name, their diagnoses, a parent’s or caretaker’s name and phone numbers, and any other information that could be helpful to the police.“Your child should never reach into his pocket” if confronted by police, he said. “Instead, he needs to tell the officer that his ID is in his pocket and ask if he can take it out.”Sgt. Acevedo said, “If we have information about your child, we have an idea of what to expect. We need to know the people in the neighborhood, the signs to look for, and it helps if they know us. Some parents share information and others don’t.”“We even have a file of elderly people with Alzheimer’s and dementia,” he said. “We’ve had a few elderly people with dementia wandering the streets looking lost. Knowing about someone’s autism, Alzheimer’s or special needs saves lives.”“Police officers don’t want children to be afraid of us,” Sgt. Acevedo said. “In a tense situation, where we don’t know what to expect, we make split-second decisions. Knowing your child and having your child know us completely changes that situation.” Read the full article

#health #HealthNews #Police #special #Stop #Teenager

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mastcomm · 4 years

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‘Do Not Make Any Loud Noises’: A Thai Soldier’s 18-Hour Shooting Rampage

KORAT, Thailand — The authorities killed the gunman near the cold storage refrigerators of the Foodland supermarket in the mall he terrorized during Thailand’s deadliest mass shooting.

It was just before 9 local time on Sunday morning — 18 hours after he fired the first shots in a relentless spree that left at least 29 people dead and 58 injured in the city of Korat, north of Bangkok.

Thailand’s prime minister said the rampage started with a real estate dispute. The gunman was bitter and lugging weapons stolen from a military base. It ended with hundreds of shoppers fleeing for their lives, their shoes slapping on the mall’s white tile floors as gunshots cracked, leading to a failed police raid, a follow-up — and finally, the lifeless body of the 32-year-old gunman, dressed in military gear and surrounded by red plastic grocery bins.

“My two children are at home with their grandma now,” said Viparat Wansaboiy, who was watching a movie at the mall with her husband when the shooting broke out. “Luckily they didn’t come today.”

The mix of bloodshed and the banal has become all too common in the United States, even as it bursts into lands less accustomed to violence like New Zealand and Norway. In a sign of what some psychologists call a contagion, the gunman mimicked other perpetrators of mass shootings by posting messages and video to Facebook, which shut down his account within minutes.

But in a nation where mass killings are still rare despite high levels of gun ownership, the sudden appearance of such grisly horror in a seven-story complex of consumerism has already prompted deeper questions about what happened, the government’s response and the underlying forces that led a young man to kill so many who were so innocent.

“This will be seen as not just an individual case, but as a sign of underlying tensions,” said Phil Robertson, deputy director of Human Rights Watch’s Asia division. “It’s about the fact that people are really getting desperate — the economic situation is really not going well. A lot of people are very unhappy.”

Thai officials initially said the man, Sgt. Jakkrapanth Thomma, simply “went mad.” Later, on Sunday morning, Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha suggested that the gunman was enraged over a “land problem,” citing a dispute about selling a house. It was a conflict, he said, that had been simmering for days and could have been resolved without violence.

Korat, a bustling city of 166,000 between the central plains and Thailand’s underdeveloped northeast, is supposed to be where people come together. Sitting on the so-called Friendship Highway originally built by the United States in the 1950s, the unassuming city is a strategic hub for both the Thai military, which has several bases in the area, and regional agriculture, with processing plants for rice, sugar cane, sesame and fruit.

Sergeant Jakkrapanth believed he was owed money. On Saturday, he arrived for a meeting about a payment from a deal with Anong Mitrchan, who was well known for selling real estate to military officers in Korat.

It is unclear whether she was the target of his ire, or whether she did anything wrong. But she was at the center of a long-running dispute, the authorities said, and she was not alone. Her son-in-law, a superior officer from the sergeant’s command — Col. Anantharot Krasae — was there at her house, along with her business partner, according to Mrs. Anong’s husband.

The soldier shot all three of them. Only the partner survived, with serious wounds.

After the initial surge of violence, a photo of bullets appeared on the soldier’s Facebook page. “Nobody can escape death,” he wrote. “Rich from cheating and taking advantage of people … Do they think they can take money to spend in hell?”

Sergeant Jakkrapanth fled, speeding toward a military base where the authorities said he shot and killed a third person before stealing a military Humvee and an arsenal of weapons. Firing out the window, he reached the parking lot of the Terminal 21 shopping center some time after 3 p.m., around the time the police received their first call about the shooting at Mrs. Anong’s house.

The mall — a tower of exuberance, with floors dedicated to different parts of the world, from the Caribbean to London, Paris and Hollywood — pulsed with the rhythm of a busy Saturday. Movie theaters were filled. Families, couples, teenagers were all oblivious, crammed into cellphone stores, Toys “R” Us and the food court.

Then, they heard gunshots. Video taken outside showed people diving for cover as bullets carried across the area. Several people were killed outside the mall, some while walking, others in cars.

It wasn’t clear to everyone what was going on. Kul Kaemthong, 53, a cleaner, said she was on a break around 5 p.m. when she first heard people had been shot. Looking out the windows of the fourth floor food court, she saw a body next to motorcycle, another by a car.

She started running. Then she heard more gunfire.

The sound — one, two, three, then a dozen in rapid succession, also heard in at least one video from the scene — suggested heavy firepower and more than one gun.

Mike Picard, the research director for GunPolicy.org, which tracks firearm use around the world, said the images and sounds captured by people at the scene pointed to at least six weapons: one or two handguns, including the shooter’s personal firearm, three HK33 assault rifles and two larger M60 machine guns.

The gunman, he said, also appears to have been carrying about 1,000 rounds of ammunition. Local news media reported Sergeant Jakkrapanth was a specialist in long-range sniper fire.

Ms. Viparat, 39, and her husband, Somwang Kwangchaithale, 39, were sitting in a movie theater on the fifth floor of the mall when the lights came on and an emergency announcement came over the loudspeaker t around 5:30 p.m. Initially, they stayed in the theater. Then the mall’s staff moved them to an office with a locked door. They huddled together there, 100 of them all together, until around 10 p.m., when the message from the authorities landed: They were about to be evacuated.

“They told us they’re going to turn the lights off, said Mr. Somwang. “‘Stay low and do not make any loud noises.’”

When they reached the basement, the gunman heard them. He started shooting.

“All of the people who gathered at the parking lot started screaming and running for their lives,” said Ms. Viparat. “Rescuers helped us out. Police, rescuers, military, different officers.”

By that time, the authorities had launched into full operation mode. Shortly after 8 p.m., the police declared the gunman a most-wanted person and urged the public to call in tips, presenting a photo that showed him looking bored, with indifferent eyes.

They also started moving large numbers of people out. They urged evacuees to “raise their hands” and identify themselves. They were wary that the gunman was hiding in the crowd.

Outside, dozens of orange-clad emergency workers set up triage areas, helping victims and the rescued. Relatives and friends of those believed to be trapped in the mall anxiously awaited word of their fate. The stalemate lingered for hours. The entire city seemed to be awake.

At 3 a.m., the authorities staged what appeared to be an attempt to capture or kill the gunman. A barrage of gunfire pounded and ricocheted, but the authorities had to retreat. An officer had been hit. He later died. One official said he was the last one killed — shy of the gunman.

The final raid occurred as officials seemed to be in lockdown, tense, refusing to answer questions from reporters. Details eventually came out through a video posted to Twitter, with officials confirming what people inside had witnessed. The gunman was dead, his body lying outside a cooler with an open door, near two other bodies — one of them a police officer; another a woman who seemed to be a supermarket employee.

Prime Minister Prayuth sounded defensive when asked about the operation and why it had taken so long for the siege to end.

“Don’t you guys understand when there are civilians in the mall,” he said. Without evidence, he suggested that the gunman had been troubled for a long time.

“We have to look at mental health,” he added. “I was an army chief before. And we have to acknowledge if they have problems.”

But for those who experienced the attack, his mental health mattered far less than the lives of his victims. In the elevator at the Maharaj hospital, a young woman sobbed as she spoke on the phone about a relative on life support.

On Sunday evening, hundreds gathered near the mall for a vigil, lining up to write tributes to the dead and to express support for peace and the living — a ritual as familiar, sadly, as the mass shootings.

“The society nowadays has turned into this?” said Thusanee Witchartorntakul, 53, a university lecturer, who came to the vigil on Sunday night, shedding tears after a night without sleep. “It’s devastating. My heart can’t handle it.”

Muktita Suhartono reported from Korat, Thailand, and Damien Cave from Sydney, Australia. Ryn Jirenuwat contributed reporting from Bangkok, and Richard C. Paddock from Denpasar, Indonesia.

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goarticletec-blog · 6 years

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First Hispanic detective in Austin recalls police life

New Post has been published on https://www.articletec.com/first-hispanic-detective-in-austin-recalls-police-life/

First Hispanic detective in Austin recalls police life

AUSTIN, Texas (AP) – When Sgt. Leonard Flores Jr. joined the Austin police force in 1954, each cop was, to a certain extent, on his own.

“We couldn’t call for backup,” explains Flores, the city’s first Hispanic detective, “because there was no backup.”

The Austin American-Statesman reports once, Flores responded to a call from a bar on East Seventh Street where a patron had grabbed money out of a cash register.

“So I went there, got out, walked up to this little house turned into a bar,” Flores recounts. “There was this guy standing on the porch, bag in one hand, knife in the other. I said, ‘Drop that knife.’ He said, ‘Make me!’ What could I do? I had a gun. But I wasn’t going to shoot him. I just walked up and knocked him on the hand with my billy club. Took the money back in and gave it to the bartender. Everybody was sitting around drinking beer. Nobody tried to help me. I took him to jail.”

Flores, born and reared on cotton-and-corn farms in Williamson County, joined the department after serving in the Army. At first, he walked a street beat, including three years on East Sixth Street.

“It was a pretty peaceful place,” he says. “There were bars, cafes and stores. I walked up and down the street and never had any problems. Sure, I arrested drunks who wouldn’t go home. I can remember only one shooting.”

One man Flores found repeatedly in the vicinity of the 400 block of East Fourth Street was persistently inebriated.

“I told him to go on home,” Flores says. “He turned around and went on. I’ll be damned if he didn’t go around the block and came back. I had to put him in jail that night.”

In 1960, Flores rose to the rank of detective sergeant, assigned mainly to the homicide detail. His routine changed substantially once he became an investigator. Often in that job, he dealt with death.

“We got a call that someone had committed suicide,” Flores says. “Walked in and looked around. Thought he’d be in the bed or on the floor. I brushed up against a sleeve in the closet. It was him. He had hanged himself.”

At other times, he and his partners found themselves pumped up on adrenaline as they chased down criminals. For instance, sometime between 2:30 a.m. and 3 a.m. on Wednesday, Nov. 15, 1961, two youths from San Antonio gunned down attendant Walter Henry Dabelgott at the Refinery Outlet Gas Station on Guadalupe Street.

An all-points bulletin went out later that morning. By 9:30 a.m., a posse of peace officers had converged off the Lockhart Highway near Creedmoor, where a farmer had been robbed at gunpoint.

“We were in an unmarked police car, and it was raining,” Flores says. “We had the description of the stolen car, saw the license plate, and turned around to give chase. They didn’t speed up, but they didn’t stop. We shined a light on them. My partner was driving and said, ‘Shoot out the tires.’ But we were in this little town with people on the side of the road. I carefully shot – supposedly at the tires – but hit the trunk. They pulled over right away and threw a gun out the window. They were about to run. I told them to lie on the ground, then I picked up one loaded gun, and my partner found the other. We arrested them.”

Today’s Austin Police Department would seem almost unrecognizable to Flores. Out of 1,194 officers, 269 are Hispanic, and 75 of the “detectives and corporals” rank are Hispanic, according to a police force spokeswoman.

“I wouldn’t want to be a policeman now,” he says. “Back then, they respected the cops. Now they don’t.”

On the other hand, he encountered racism not infrequently during a time when all African-American police officers were assigned to the area around East 11th and East 12th streets, and if one of them flagged a white driver, a white cop was called to issue the ticket.

“One morning, we were told to be on the lookout for a car of so-and-so color with so-and-so license number, driven by a Mexican male,” Flores recalls. “One officer asked, ‘Was the car reported stolen?’ Another said, ‘Must be stolen. Have you ever seen a Mexican with something he didn’t steal?’ I called him a liar. I was the only Mexican in the room. For a long time, I was the only Mexican there.

“I ignored things,” Flores says. “Some of them were always trying to get a rise out of me. I wouldn’t let them.”

He also witnessed some pretty brutal scenes.

“One officer drove the paddy wagon,” Flores says. “He would ‘take them for a ride.’ You’ve heard the saying ‘You might beat the charge, but you can’t beat the ride.’ But it was really dangerous banging around in the back of the wagon.”

On Aug. 1, 1966, Flores had asked off to take his baby to the doctor. On the way back, he could hear the shooting as Charles Whitman took aim at passers-by from the University of Texas Tower.

“I dropped the baby off and went to work,” Flores says. “But by the time I got to the scene, they had shot Whitman.”

He never dealt directly with the notorious Overton Gang, which pulled off bank robberies across the state and organized all sorts of nefarious activities in Austin, its home base. One member of the crime family, however, did make a veiled threat on his home phone.

“Mostly, the vice squad took care of them and Hattie Valdez,” Flores says, referring to the infamous madam associated with the gang. “We had a wire on the Overtons’ house. One time I was assigned to stay and listen. That night they didn’t say anything interesting.”

Flores took his crime-fighting job seriously, but at times he found his authority challenged, even if only mildly.

“I arrested whoever needed to be arrested,” he says. “It didn’t matter who they were. I arrested a bunch for drinking after hours under the Montopolis Bridge. They said, ‘Why are you taking us in? We’re Hispanic. You’re Hispanic.’ I told them, ‘If the white people let the white people go, and the black people let the black people go, we wouldn’t have any law enforcement.’”

Life before the police force, for Flores, was comparatively quiet.

He was born near Jonah, an unincorporated village on the banks of the San Gabriel River on Texas 29 between Georgetown and Circleville. Leonardo Flores and Aurora Montelongo Flores – Leonard’s parents – came from Zacatecas, Mexico. Like so many other ancestral Mexican-American families in Central Texas, they arrived at the time of the Mexican Revolution, which lasted roughly from 1910 to 1920. The chaos, however, continued well into the 1920s, when the Flores family left.

Early photos show a young Leonard, the eldest of eight siblings, visiting farming country in Zacatecas, including one snapshot of him posed somewhat unsteadily on a burro.

Leonard’s father worked on the railroad, but also for farmers such as Williamson County Commissioner Will Stern.

Life on the Flores family farm was fairly predictable.

“We had to work all the time,” Flores says. “Got up to milk the cows, stayed out in the fields until sundown. We did that every day for the 20 years that I was there. It was a great life.”

He attended a two-room country school dropped into the middle of a cotton patch.

“On one side was the elementary school,” Flores recalls. “On the other was the high school.”

He also attended schools in Coupland, Elgin and Granger, but he didn’t graduate.

“I made pretty good grades, but I just didn’t go anymore,” Flores says. “Dad was a real believer in getting us educated. He gave me the choice of school or go to West Texas to pick cotton. ‘I’ll go to West Texas.’ Went one year and never went back. But I didn’t go to school.”

Flores eventually earned his GED in 1960.

What did he and his siblings and friends do for fun in rural Williamson County?

“As far as I remember, there wasn’t much fun,” he says. “Taylor was the place to go. We’d go dancing there. There was a church with a bandstand, picnic tables, bingo. We’d make beans and rice for dinner, rice and beans for supper. I still like to cook rice and beans.”

How did the generally segregated rural communities get along?

“Mostly, Hispanics did their thing,” Flores says. “Whites did their thing. I never had any dealings back then with the black community. Most of the Mexican people came over at the same time. All of them were friends. Daddy and others formed a club, bought land and laid a concrete slab for dancing.”

The Flores family arrived in Texas during one of those cyclical periods when the state’s farmers really needed Mexican labor, so their status here was legal.

“Daddy had to go to the post office once a year to fill out a card,” Flores says. “In cotton season, truckloads of people from the Valley helped pick the cotton crop. We didn’t have to migrate. A priest talked Daddy into doing his own farming. He sharecropped. At first on ‘halves’ – which meant giving half the harvest to the landowner, who also supplied the machinery and the seeds – then on ‘thirds’ on cotton or ‘fourths’ on corn, once Daddy bought his own machinery and seed.”

Flores came of age at the end of World War II and received a draft notice.

?’We want you!’” Flores recalls with a laugh. “I went to the post office to report. They said, ‘You guys can go home. The war is over.’ Four years later, they dragged me in again. I spent 23 months in the Army. Trained in California, shipped to Japan during the armistice. I spent nine months in Korea on the front lines, but no fighting. And I’m glad.”

Flores returned to Williamson County in September 1952. Three months later, he married Consuelo “Betty” Avila at Our Lady of Guadalupe Catholic Church in East Austin.

“I met her in Taylor,” Flores says. “Her daddy used to run a hamburger joint. We bought our first house on Kay Street in Govalle. I didn’t have a job. She didn’t either. I went to school on the GI Bill, and we lived off that for a while, but my first real job was as an orderly at Brack. With a regular salary. We were in high cotton. One day I was reading the paper, and I saw they that were hiring police officers. We had to go to University Junior High, take a test and sign up. They hired me.”

His brother Esau joined Austin Police Department later and eventually retired from the U.S. Border Patrol. Leonard rose to the level of senior sergeant in Austin.

Betty and Leonard had four children. Cynthia Gonzales works for the city of Austin; Deborah Zamorano is retired from the Texas Department of Transportation; Leonard Karl Flores is a retired Travis County deputy sheriff; and Michael Flores, who earned a degree in business administration, now works for a builders supply company in Conroe.

After 62 years of marriage, Betty died in 2015. Private caregiver Linda Gonzalez, who helped Betty in her later years, now looks after Leonard in his impeccably maintained one-story house. In retirement, he continues to volunteer in the community, especially at St. Louis King of France Catholic Church on Burnet Road, where he cooks for the Friday fish fries and the early-Sunday breakfast.

In 1989, he retired to his family’s modest 1950s-era home in the Georgian Acres district north of U.S. 183.

“It’s supposed to be a high-crime neighborhood,” Flores, 90, says. “But I don’t see it.”

Flores notices, however, the patrols. Whereas today’s Austin Police Department operates hundreds of patrol cars, Flores remembers when it fielded a total of six for the whole city.

“One south, one north, one east, one west,” he says. “And two extra ones – a traffic car, and another we called the ‘Eastside Car,’ driven by a black officer. Now we have more cars than that right here in this area.”

___

Information from: Austin American-Statesman, http://www.statesman.com

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alamante · 6 years

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The desperate search for missing Iowa college student Mollie Tibbetts has so far led investigators to question a pig farmer who reportedly twice pleaded guilty to stalking, while a suspect in an assault on a jogger in another Iowa city and a man seen surreptitiously snapping pics of young girls on a run have also been analyzed for any possible connections.

But, so far, cops have come up empty.

On Wednesday, a pig farmer in the area told Fox News seven FBI investigators arrived at his home last Friday and asked to search it without a warrant.

Authorities probed the property for nearly two hours, taking photos of the interior of the home and also searching the man’s garage. The farmer said investigators asked to interview him off the property and kept his cell phone overnight to check his records. He added he “has nothing to hide” as cops search for Tibbetts, a sophomore at the University of Iowa who was last seen in nearby Brooklyn on July 18.

WHO-DT reported that the farmer said in an interview that he doesn’t know the family and hopes Mollie is tracked down soon.

“I don’t know who those two [officials] were but they took me down to the fire station Tuesday and questioned me for two hours,” the farmer said. “I don’t remember what they asked me.

He added: “I just thought it was a waste of time, but, oh well.”

WHO-DT, citing Iowa court documents, also reported that the farmer has entered guilty pleas for two instances of stalking – one in Poweshiek County in 2009 and another in Marion County in 2014. The station named the farmer late Wednesday, but he spoke to Fox News on the condition that his identity would be withheld.

Police have not identified any suspects in the case, and are expected to announce at 12 p.m. ET Thursday the reward for information leading to an arrest has skyrocketed from $2,000 to $32,000.

The search for Tibbetts has involved numerous law enforcement agencies on the local, state and federal levels – and for the first time Wednesday appeared to cross state lines as police in Kearney, Missouri, said they investigated a possible Tibbetts sighting.

“The Kearney Missouri Police Department did respond to a possible sighting on 7-26-2018 at a truck stop within our jurisdiction,” Sgt. Joe Kantola said in a press release. “Officers conducted a thorough search of the area, spoke with all possible witnesses, and reviewed all available video footage. A report was sent to the investigating task force regarding this possible sighting.”

Mollie was last seen when she left her boyfriend’s home to jog on the evening of July 18. The boyfriend, Dalton Jack, shares the house with his brother and his brother’s fiance, and Tibbetts was staying there to watch Jack’s dogs while he worked in Dubuque. Police have formally cleared Jack, who was in Dubuque at the time Mollie vanished.

Police in that Iowa city, which lies on the state’s border with Wisconsin and Illinois, said Wednesday they arrested a man accused of assaulting a jogger earlier this week – although as of now, the case currently has no known ties to Tibbetts’ disappearance.

Assistant Police Chief Jeremy Jensen told Fox News the jogger had stated to investigators she was running near the city’s fire station on Sunday night when she was approached by a man who had offered her flowers and tried to grab her.

“The male subject, later identified as Greg Thomas Langel, 22, of Dubuque, grabbed the female victim’s arm when she refused to give him her phone number,” the police department said in a statement. “She was able to pull her arm away and kicked Langel when he tried to grab her again.”

The department said they tracked a suspicious vehicle observed by traffic cameras in the area of the reported assault back to Langel, who made “limited admissions about the incident.” He has been charged with simple assault and was taken into custody Wednesday on a warrant.

In Pella, about an hour’s drive away from Brooklyn, police said Tuesday they took a man in for questioning after he was captured on surveillance footage last Friday taking pictures of female joggers.

Pella Lt. Shane Cox told Fox News that during questioning the man revealed why he had taken the photos, but Cox said he would not disclose that information.

“I’ve got the detectives fact checking everything he’s given us,” Cox said. “At this point there are no criminal charges.” And, Cox added, he doesn’t expect there to be any charges.

Cox also told Fox News on Tuesday his department has been in contact with the Poweshiek County Sheriff’s Office regarding the case but have not found it in any way linked to Tibbetts’ disappearance.

Tibbetts’ father Rob, brothers Jake and Scott, and her boyfriend have urged the public in a series of wide-ranging, exclusive interviews with Fox News Channel to send in tips to police.

“Just think. Think about what you saw and call the authorities. I really think that’s how we are going to get Mollie back. I really do,” Rob Tibbetts told Fox & Friends early Thursday morning.

Fox News’ Cristina Corbin and Andrew Keiper contributed to this report.

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cleopatrarps · 6 years

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A World War II Mystery Is Solved, and Emotions Flood In

After the B-24 bomber carrying Second Lt. Thomas V. Kelly Jr. was shot down off the coast of what is now Papua New Guinea in 1944, his parents had a gray tombstone etched with a drawing of the plane and the words “In Loving Memory.”

The 21-year-old bombardier’s remains were never recovered, and for years, his relatives rarely discussed the pain they felt over his death.

“There were Christmas songs that would come on that my mom couldn’t even listen to,” said Diane Christie, Lieutenant Kelly’s niece.

But in 2013, one of Ms. Christie’s second cousins found a website with information about the bomber he had been on. That led to years of archival research, culminating in a recent search of the ocean floor by a team of oceanographers and archaeologists.

A few weeks ago, Ms. Christie’s phone rang as she was shopping for groceries in Folsom, Calif. Her sister was calling to say that Lieutenant Kelly’s plane — nicknamed Heaven Can Wait — had been found.

“I literally walked outside Whole Foods, and I burst into tears,” Ms. Christie said. “And I’m like, where did this come from? I didn’t even know my uncle.”

Heaven Can Wait is one of 30 United States aircraft retrieved by Project Recover, a six-year-old nonprofit that collaborates with the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency, or D.P.A.A., the arm of the Pentagon tasked with finding and returning fallen military personnel.

The group says its recoveries show how new sonar and robotics technologies make it far easier to find planes that crashed at sea, and that were once thought lost for good.

“It really opens up the possibility that more families can learn what happened to their family members who have been missing all this time,” said Patrick Scannon, the president of the BentProp Project, a California-based nonprofit that cooperated on the effort to find the B-24.

Since 1973, the Pentagon has recovered the remains of 2,381 United States service members and civilians, according to the military’s data. Of the more than 72,000 American service members from World War II who are still unaccounted for, approximately 26,000 are considered possibly recoverable.

The Pentagon says the number of missing United States service members identified worldwide has been rising in recent years, thanks largely to advancements in forensic science.

But as time passes, identifying remains grows harder, and it becomes more difficult to find surviving family members who can provide DNA samples, said Sgt. First Class Kristen Duus, a spokeswoman for D.P.A.A. in Washington.

“Time’s not necessarily on our side,” she said.

Before searching for missing aircraft, the Project Recover team tries to pinpoint the crash locations by interviewing veterans and analyzing historical records and modern satellite imagery. Then it searches with tools that can include thermal cameras and a sonar-equipped robot that looks like a torpedo and swims just above the seafloor.

The recovery and identification of remains from these underwater sites are conducted at the Pentagon’s discretion. Of the 30 aircraft that Project Recover has found so far, 27 are associated with 113 missing service members, and the remains of five airmen have been repatriated.

The Heaven Can Wait bomber was found last year in Hansa Bay, on Papua New Guinea’s northern coast, where five United States aircraft are believed to have gone down during World War II.

Lieutenant Kelly’s bombing mission on March 11, 1944, was part of an American effort to disrupt Japanese shipping and supply chains ahead of attacks that spring on a Japanese airfield nearby and another 360 miles northwest, said Michael J. Claringbould, a historian in Australia who specializes in World War II-era aviation in the Pacific. Many Japanese military personnel would eventually flee into nearby jungles and die of starvation.

Much of the research that helped the Project Recover team pinpoint the bomber’s location in Hansa Bay was conducted over several years by a team of family members led by Ms. Christie’s second cousin Scott L. Althaus.

Mr. Althaus, a professor of political science at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, said his project began on Memorial Day five years ago with an online search for information about Lieutenant Kelly. “It snowballed from there,” he said.

He later sent Ms. Christie and three other family members to the World War II archives at the University of Memphis, where they photographed more than 800 documents associated with the plane and its crew from the U.S. Army Air Force. (The U.S. Air Force was not established until 1947.)

He also spoke by phone with a scuba diver in Belgium who had once lived near Hansa Bay and offered guesses about where the bomber might have crashed.

Mr. Althaus said the point was never to find the plane, but simply to honor Lieutenant Kelly and the other 10 men who had been in it. “Each has a family and a future that they didn’t get to inhabit,” he said.

The bomber was found in Hansa Bay last October, the year after Mr. Althaus’s aunt contacted Project Recover.

Using Mr. Althaus’s research as a guide, the team’s scientists found the plane’s debris field after 11 days searching about 10 square miles of the bay’s seafloor with scanning sonars and underwater robots. Project Recover would not comment on the cost of the mission, although Dr. Scannon said that large ones typically cost $200,000 to $400,000.

The Pentagon has not yet decided whether it will try to recover and identify the 11 crew members of Heaven Can Wait, Lt. Col. Kenneth L. Hoffman, a D.P.A.A. spokesman in Hawaii, said in an email. He added that selecting a site for excavation could take months or even years.

Ms. Christie, 61, said by telephone that receiving Lieutenant Kelly’s remains would provide even more closure for her family. She has now read all of the letters he wrote home during the war, she said, and his grave in Livermore, Calif., has recently taken on new significance for her.

To honor Lieutenant Kelly and the other crew members, a B-24 bomber flew over the cemetery three times on Sunday. A 21-gun salute and flag-presentation ceremony were also held.

“It was wonderful,” Ms. Christie said.

In his correspondence, the young bombardier’s tone is often optimistic, even as he acknowledges the hardships and dangers of his assignment. In one letter, he digresses to say he took a break from writing to eat a quart of ice cream.

Ms. Christie said she was struck by how very young her uncle had been, and by his constant concern for how his family was dealing with his absence.

“If we are lucky we might get home by next Christmas, but it’s hard to say for sure,” Lieutenant Kelly wrote on Feb. 1, 1944, shortly after his 21st birthday.

“How are Mom and Dad?” he wrote on Feb. 29, less than two weeks before he died aboard Heaven Can Wait. “Are they doing a lot of needless worrying?”

The post A World War II Mystery Is Solved, and Emotions Flood In appeared first on World The News.

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party-hard-or-die · 6 years

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A World War II Mystery Is Solved, and Emotions Flood In

The 21-year-old bombardier’s remains were never recovered, and for years, his relatives rarely discussed the pain they felt over his death.

“There were Christmas songs that would come on that my mom couldn’t even listen to,” said Diane Christie, Lieutenant Kelly’s niece.

“I literally walked outside Whole Foods, and I burst into tears,” Ms. Christie said. “And I’m like, where did this come from? I didn’t even know my uncle.”

The group says its recoveries show how new sonar and robotics technologies make it far easier to find planes that crashed at sea, and that were once thought lost for good.

The Pentagon says the number of missing United States service members identified worldwide has been rising in recent years, thanks largely to advancements in forensic science.

“Time’s not necessarily on our side,” she said.

The Heaven Can Wait bomber was found last year in Hansa Bay, on Papua New Guinea’s northern coast, where five United States aircraft are believed to have gone down during World War II.

He also spoke by phone with a scuba diver in Belgium who had once lived near Hansa Bay and offered guesses about where the bomber might have crashed.

The bomber was found in Hansa Bay last October, the year after Mr. Althaus’s aunt contacted Project Recover.

To honor Lieutenant Kelly and the other crew members, a B-24 bomber flew over the cemetery three times on Sunday. A 21-gun salute and flag-presentation ceremony were also held.

“It was wonderful,” Ms. Christie said.

Ms. Christie said she was struck by how very young her uncle had been, and by his constant concern for how his family was dealing with his absence.

“If we are lucky we might get home by next Christmas, but it’s hard to say for sure,” Lieutenant Kelly wrote on Feb. 1, 1944, shortly after his 21st birthday.

“How are Mom and Dad?” he wrote on Feb. 29, less than two weeks before he died aboard Heaven Can Wait. “Are they doing a lot of needless worrying?”

The post A World War II Mystery Is Solved, and Emotions Flood In appeared first on World The News.

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