Disgust and Disgrace: A Racially-Driven Murder

August 11, 2011 By

The other day I was brows­ing through the news web­sites as I always do to see what was hap­pen­ing in the world.  The every­day sto­ries were there:  Polit­i­cal bick­er­ing, stock mar­ket going up and down, the newest tech­nol­ogy devel­op­ment.  But then I saw some­thing that filled me with utter dis­gust and con­tempt – con­tempt for those who would com­mit such a ter­ri­ble crime.

On June 26, 2011 [Yes, that’s Two Thou­sand Eleven, not 1911 or even 1961], James Ander­son, 49, a black man and an auto worker from Jack­son, Mis­sis­sippi, was going about his own busi­ness at a hotel on the south side of town.  Two vehi­cles filled with white teenagers from Bran­don, a town more than 16 miles away, then pulled into the hotel park­ing lot near him.  They were out joyrid­ing and decided that they would try to find a black per­son to tor­ment.  The teens, includ­ing an 18-year-old named Deryl Ded­mon, mer­ci­lessly beat Mr. Ander­son, then got back into their truck and pro­ceeded to run him over like he was noth­ing but an ani­mal.   “I ran that nig­ger over”, Ded­mon is said to have told his friends on a cell phone call later.  It appears these teens had a his­tory of beat­ing black home­less people.

After every­thing that has hap­pened in this state since the 1960’s, I thought we had finally been able to move past the stigma that the rest of the coun­try and the world has attached to us.  But then a per­son like Ded­mon and his actions put Mis­sis­sippi right back in that racist spotlight.

This does not occur every day and every­where in Mis­sis­sippi.  And this white-on-black crime doesn’t just hap­pen here, either.  It’s in every city and every state in the nation.  And, as we’ve seen in Lon­don over the past few days, it’s also in Europe.

The thing that dis­gusts me is that when it hap­pens in Mis­sis­sippi, the whole world soon learns about it.  It becomes a national and inter­na­tional event.  It’s as if the world looks at Mis­sis­sippi and says, “See?!   They ARE all racist!”  Trust me; I’m just as out­raged and dis­gusted at these teens as you are.   They are the low­est of the low — a dis­credit and a dis­grace to their race.  I truly hope that Deryl Ded­mon is tried, con­victed, and sen­tenced to death for his heinous and cow­ardly act.  This trash doesn’t deserve to see another sun­rise.  And to those that didn’t stop him or help Mr. Ander­son:  May you bear the guilt for your cow­ardice and inac­tion for the rest of your life.

Filed Under: Crime, Local Tagged With: , , ,

Casey Anthony: A Travesty of Justice

July 18, 2011 By
Is there no justice for Caylee?

Is there no jus­tice for Caylee?

So Casey Anthony is now a free woman again after three years of being jailed and put on trial for the mur­der of her daugh­ter, Caylee Marie. As was much of the coun­try, I was sick­ened and stunned at her acquit­tal. The jury’s final deci­sion, I believe, is a vile mis­car­riage of justice.

We, as a soci­ety, have become so caught up in the real­ity TV and “CSI: [Name the City]” world that we have lost sight of what it is to truly have a “rea­son­able” doubt. As I told my wife shortly after the ver­dict was announced, there is a huge dif­fer­ence between a “rea­son­able doubt” and a “shadow of a doubt”. Let me explain.

A “rea­son­able doubt” is defined as hav­ing proved based on the evi­dence to the extent that there is no doubt in a rea­son­able person’s mind that the defen­dant is guilty. There can still be some doubt, but only to the extent that it would not affect a rea­son­able person’s belief whether or not the defen­dant is guilty.

A “shadow of a doubt” means there is suf­fi­cient evi­dence that proves the defen­dant is guilty with no room for doubt at all about any­thing in the case. And this, ladies and gen­tle­men, is an impos­si­ble stan­dard and is not used in U.S. trials.

As I saw it, the “rea­son­able doubt” stan­dard was def­i­nitely met. Sure there was some gaps as to the cause of death and a some­what ambigu­ous motive. How­ever, I believe the pros­e­cu­tion proved its case beyond and to the exclu­sion of every rea­son­able doubt. The 31 days of not report­ing Caylee miss­ing, with all the par­ty­ing and such; the duct tape on the skull; the cholo­ro­form pres­ence in the car and at the crime scene; and the com­puter searches all point to Casey Anthony and her involve­ment in Caylee’s death. That’s all the jury needed to con­vict her of murder.

As I said ear­lier, our soci­ety has become so caught up in the CSI world that they expect every mur­der trial to be an open-and-shut case. And as I have heard many a lawyer say: you’ll never have that in a mur­der trial. That’s what this jury was expect­ing. They didn’t get it handed to them on a sil­ver plat­ter, so they acquit­ted her. How can a jury, in a two-month-long trial, spend just shy of 11 hours to review all the evi­dence and dis­cuss it? There is no way. There is just no way.

I truly fear that with this prece­dent, there will be numer­ous baby killers that will walk. There is no jus­tice for Caylee Marie. There will be no jus­tice for her on this side of eter­nity. And that, I feel, is the great­est trav­esty of all.

Filed Under: Crime Tagged With: , , ,

Casey Anthony Murder Trial: Victim or Villain?

June 6, 2011 By

I have been debat­ing what to blog about recently. But last week, the Casey Anthony mur­der trial started and it imme­di­ately piqued my inter­est. Never before have I been as engrossed with the goings-on inside a court­room as I have been this case – not even with the O.J. Simp­son mur­der trial back in 1995.

The story is dis­turb­ing to say the least. A sin­gle mother, liv­ing at home with a seem­ingly lov­ing fam­ily, takes her daugh­ter and goes “miss­ing” for 31 days. In fact, she has been bounc­ing from the home of friend to friend, never call­ing her par­ents and let­ting them know where she is. Then, when she is finally con­fronted by an angry and wor­ried mother, she tells her mom, Cindy Anthony that her daugh­ter, Caylee, has been taken by the nanny and has been miss­ing the whole time.

The foren­sic sci­ence used in the inves­ti­ga­tion is very intrigu­ing. Nor­mally I would be bored to tears by the tes­ti­mony that has been given by the anthro­pol­o­gists, ana­lysts, and sci­en­tists that have taken the stand. But I find myself want­ing to hear more about all the tech­niques used in the investigations.

I have been thor­oughly impressed by the case the pros­e­cu­tion is build­ing. They basi­cally start in the begin­ning, and take the jury and audi­ence through the events from June 15/16, 2008 – when Caylee was last seen – to July 15, 2008 when Casey finally was found, con­fronted by her mother, and then inter­viewed by Orange County Sheriff’s Office investigators.

The case they build is this: In the 31-day span men­tioned above, Casey goes from friend’s house to friend’s house, par­ty­ing and hav­ing a good time. None of those who saw her dur­ing that time said she appeared dis­traught, wor­ried, or con­cerned about the where­abouts of her daugh­ter Caylee. They have all said she appeared “nor­mal”, even happy at times. When asked, “Where’s Caylee?” she always says, “She’s with the nanny.”

How­ever, the defense says that Casey was abused sex­u­ally by her dad and brother. It also pur­ports that Caylee drowned acci­den­tally in the pool, and George Anthony, Casey’s dad, helped her dis­pose of the body. I’m not buy­ing it, and unless the defense has an air­tight case they can prove (other than more lies by Casey), the jury won’t either.

The evi­dence pre­sented by the pros­e­cu­tion so far really hasn’t done any­thing in the way of estab­lish­ing a modus operandi (or “motive”) or a cause of death for Caylee. What it does do is estab­lish the case that Casey Anthony is a cold, cal­lous, unfeel­ing mon­ster that doesn’t care what has hap­pened to her daugh­ter. She con­tin­u­ously and patho­log­i­cally lies so much that it seems sec­ond nature to her. It also proves, via cir­cum­stan­tial evi­dence, that Casey was the last one to see Caylee alive and had some part to play in her death and dis­posal of her body. Caylee’s body wasn’t found until Decem­ber of 2008.

I truly believe, based on what I’ve seen so far, that this jury will have an easy time of con­vict­ing Casey of first-degree mur­der. It will be much harder to prove pre­med­i­ta­tion, so I don’t really fore­see the death penalty in this case.

Filed Under: Crime Tagged With: ,

A Jared Loughner Guide

January 13, 2011 By
what-loughner-isnt.png

Very apro­pos.

 

what loughner isnt

Filed Under: Crime Tagged With: ,

Tucson Shooting: Sarah Palin Responds to Left’s Attacks

January 12, 2011 By

Sarah Palin: “America’s Endur­ing Strength” from Sarah Palin on Vimeo.

Filed Under: Crime Tagged With: ,

The Loughner Family Releases Statement

January 11, 2011 By

 

Just break­ing from Fox News, the Lough­ner Fam­ily has released the fol­low­ing statement:

This is a very dif­fi­cult  time for us.  We ask the media to respect our pri­vacy.  There are no words to express how we feel.  We wish that there were, so that we could make you feel bet­ter.  We don’t under­stand why this hap­pened.  It might not make any dif­fer­ence, but we wish we could change the heinous events of Sat­ur­day.  We care very deeply about the vic­tims and their fam­i­lies.  We are so very sorry about their loss.

Thank you,

The Lough­ner Family

Filed Under: Crime Tagged With: ,

Remembering the Youngest Tucson Victim: Christina Green

January 9, 2011 By

To lose a child … was some­thing that could end one’s world. One could never get back to how it was before. The stars went out. The moon dis­ap­peared. The birds became silent.

– Alexan­der McCall Smith

Cour­tesy:  Wall Street Journal

Filed Under: Crime Tagged With: ,

Tragedy in Tucson: What Can We Learn?

January 9, 2011 By
GabrielleGiffords_thumb.jpg

 

GabrielleGiffordsYes­ter­day a sense­less, cow­ardly act occurred in Tuc­son, Ari­zona.  A 22 year-old, pot-smoking psy­chopath went to a meet-and-greet held by U.S. Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Gabrielle Gif­fords at a local Safe­way super­mar­ket and opened fire on those attending.

Six peo­ple were viciously mur­dered, includ­ing a fed­eral judge and a 9-year-old girl:

  • John Roll, 63 – U.S. Dis­trict Court of Ari­zona judge who had served the legal sys­tem for nearly 40 years
  • Christina Tay­lor Green, 9 – Born on Sep­tem­ber 11, 2001, she was described by fam­ily mem­bers as being “excited” about the polit­i­cal process, and she was just elected to the stu­dent coun­cil at her school.  She was invited by a neigh­bor to the event so Christina could learn more about politics.
  • Gabe Zim­mer­man, 30 – A Tuc­son native, engaged to be mar­ried, he was the direc­tor of com­mu­nity out­reach for Rep. Gabby Giffords.
  • Dor­win Stod­dard, 76 – A retired con­struc­tion worker, he tried to shield his wife and was shot in the head.  His wife was struck three times in the legs and is expected to make a full recovery.
  • Dorothy Mor­ris, 76
  • Phyl­lis Scheck, 79

There are those out there, espe­cially in the media of the left-leaning per­sua­sion, that were quick to blame those like Sarah Palin and the Tea Party.  This is just irre­spon­si­ble and despi­ca­ble.  Nei­ther Sarah Palin nor the mem­bers of the Tea Party no more pulled the trig­ger than Mickey Mouse did.  Only one per­son is respon­si­ble, and that per­son is in fed­eral cus­tody.  He is charged with the following:

  • One count of attempted mur­der of a mem­ber of Congress
  • Two counts of mur­der in the first degree
  • Two counts of attempted murder

It is imper­a­tive that we as Amer­i­cans fully real­ize that this inci­dent was not polit­i­cally charged and is not the fault of any­one else, either on the left or the right, other than the shooter him­self.  It has become quite appar­ent from all the infor­ma­tion avail­able from var­i­ous sources (e.g. MySpace, YouTube, Face­book, etc.) that this guy was unsta­ble and com­pletely inco­her­ent.  He appar­ently has no firm polit­i­cal con­nec­tions or affil­i­a­tions.  He was a loner and a lone wolf.

I said it ear­lier on Twit­ter, but I want to reit­er­ate it here.  Any­one who would use this tragedy to score polit­i­cal points is just as psy­chotic as this shooter is.  This is not a polit­i­cal event; it is a human tragedy.  It should be treated as such, and our prayers as a nation should be with the fam­i­lies of those who died and with those who are still recov­er­ing from this hor­ri­ble attack.

Read more here:

Mother of Girl Shot Dead in Ari­zona Ram­page Remem­bers her “Beau­ti­ful Girl”

Sus­pect Slapped with Mur­der Charge in Tuc­son Shoot­ing Spree

Filed Under: Crime, Politics Tagged With: , , , ,

George County Sheriff dies in the line of duty; Update: Suspects denied bond

July 22, 2010 By
George County Sheriff Garry Welford

Update, 2:00 p.m. — Judge Nor­man C. How­ell denied bond for Brandi Williams and Christo­pher Bax­ter.  They both came into the court­room with no shoes on, still wear­ing the clothes they had been arrested in.  Reporters asked Bax­ter if he knew the sher­iff had been run over, he said, “No”.  Williams did not respond to ques­tions.  Brandi Williams was wear­ing a t-shirt that said, “Put your big girl panties on and deal with it.”  Well, let’s see her deal with life in prison or being placed on death row.

Update 1:33 p.m. - Williams and Bax­ter are sup­pos­edly enroute from Hat­ties­burg to Lucedale for arraign­ment on the charges of cap­i­tal mur­der of Sher­iff Garry Welford.  The charges carry the penalty of death or life in prison with­out the pos­si­bil­ity of parole.

Yes­ter­day after­noon a ter­ri­ble tragedy struck my com­mu­nity.  George County Sher­iff Garry Welford was in the process of lay­ing out a spike strip to stop flee­ing crim­i­nals when the truck they were dri­ving struck him.  He was Life­flighted to the Uni­ver­sity of  South Alabama Med­ical Cen­ter, where he died.

Over 200 offi­cers from numer­ous agen­cies, such as:  Mis­sis­sippi Bureau of Inves­ti­ga­tion; George, Greene, Jack­son, and Har­ri­son County Sheriff’s Depart­ments; and the Mis­sis­sippi High­way Patrol searched all night for the losers.  The scum­bags, 18-year-old Brandi Nicole Williams and 24-year-old Christo­pher Bax­ter, were arrested at 6:20 this morn­ing by the MS High­way Patrol and are now in jail in Hat­ties­burg, MS, where they have both been charged with one count each of cap­i­tal mur­der.  The rea­son they were flee­ing?  This is it:

Bax­ter was wanted on a war­rant for fail­ure to appear for sen­tenc­ing in a meth man­u­fac­tur­ing case in which he pleaded guilty.

Williams had recently entered a pre-trial diver­sion pro­ba­tion pro­gram on grand lar­ceny charges in Jack­son and George counties.

Below the fold I’ve posted pic­tures of the crim­i­nals.  Let this be a les­son to those of you who like doing drugs or man­u­fac­tur­ing drugs.  God be with these crim­i­nals, for no one else will.

[Read more…]

Filed Under: Crime, Local Tagged With: , ,

More from Obama’s Immigration Speech

July 2, 2010 By

I down­loaded a tran­script of Pres­i­dent Obama’s immi­gra­tion speech yes­ter­day at Amer­i­can Uni­ver­sity in Wash­ing­ton, D.C.  You can read it in its entirety here.

But as I was read­ing it, a cou­ple of more pas­sages grabbed my atten­tion.  Here’s the first one:

Into this breach, states like Ari­zona have decided to take mat­ters into their own hands. Given the lev­els of frus­tra­tion across the coun­try, this is under­stand­able. But it is also ill con­ceived. And it’s not just that the law Ari­zona passed is divi­sive -– although it has fanned the flames of an already con­tentious debate. Laws like Arizona’s put huge pres­sures on local law enforce­ment to enforce rules that ulti­mately are unen­force­able. It puts pres­sure on already hard-strapped state and local bud­gets. It makes it dif­fi­cult for peo­ple here ille­gally to report crimes -– dri­ving a wedge between com­mu­ni­ties and law enforce­ment, mak­ing our streets more dan­ger­ous and the jobs of our police offi­cers more dif­fi­cult.  (Empha­sis mine.)

This is curi­ous, as S.B. 1070 is mod­eled after the fed­eral law.  Does Obama think the fed­eral law is unen­force­able as well?  That’s what this pas­sage would lead you to think.  And for the record, if the fed­eral gov­ern­ment would do its job to secure our bor­ders, the states wouldn’t have to step in and fill the void, putting pres­sure “on already hard-strapped state and local budgets”.

The final sen­tence in that pas­sage just irks me to no end.  It also irks me that Obama said, when refer­ring to the ille­gal immi­grants in this coun­try, “The over­whelm­ing major­ity of these men and women are sim­ply seek­ing a bet­ter life for them­selves and their chil­dren.”    Here’s you some sta­tis­tics (and this is from 2006):

  • 95% of war­rants for mur­der in Los Ange­les are for ille­gal aliens.
  • 83% of war­rants for mur­der in Phoenix are for ille­gal aliens.
  • 86% of war­rants for mur­der in Albu­querque are for ille­gal aliens.
  • 75% of those on the most wanted list in Los Ange­les, Phoenix and Albu­querque are ille­gal aliens.
  • 24.9% of all inmates in Cal­i­for­nia deten­tion cen­ters are Mex­i­can nation­als here illegally.
  • 40.1% of all inmates in Ari­zona deten­tion cen­ters are Mex­i­can nation­als here illegally.
  • 48.2% of all inmates in New Mex­ico deten­tion cen­ters are Mex­i­can nation­als here illegally.
  • 29% (630,000) con­victed ille­gal alien felons fill our state and fed­eral pris­ons at a cost of $1.6 bil­lion annually.
  • 53% plus of all inves­ti­gated bur­glar­ies reported in Cal­i­for­nia, New Mex­ico, Nevada, Ari­zona and Texas are per­pe­trated by ille­gal aliens.
  • 50% plus of all gang mem­bers in Los Ange­les are ille­gal aliens from south of the border.
  • 71% plus of all appre­hended cars stolen in 2005 in Texas, New Mex­ico, Ari­zona, Nevada and Cal­i­for­nia were stolen by Ille­gal aliens or “trans­port coyotes”.
  • 47% of cited/stopped dri­vers in Cal­i­for­nia have no license, no insur­ance and no reg­is­tra­tion for the vehi­cle. Of that 47%, 92% are ille­gal aliens.
  • 63% of cited/stopped dri­vers in Ari­zona have no license, no insur­ance and no reg­is­tra­tion for the vehi­cle. Of that 63%, 97% are ille­gal aliens
  • 66% of cited/stopped dri­vers in New Mex­ico have no license, no insur­ance and no reg­is­tra­tion for the vehi­cle. Of that 66%, 98% are ille­gal aliens.
  • BIRTH STATISTICS 380,000 plus “anchor babies” were born in the U.S. in 2005 to ille­gal alien par­ents, mak­ing 380,000 babies auto­mat­i­cally U.S.citizens.
  • 97.2% of all costs incurred from those births were paid by the Amer­i­can taxpayers.
  • 66% plus of all births in Cal­i­for­nia are to ille­gal alien Mex­i­cans on Medi-Cal whose births were paid for by taxpayers.

Con­tin­u­ing his den­i­gra­tion of Ari­zona, Obama said, “These laws also have the poten­tial of vio­lat­ing the rights of inno­cent Amer­i­can cit­i­zens and legal res­i­dents, mak­ing them sub­ject to pos­si­ble stops or ques­tion­ing because of what they look like or how they sound.”  Again, this is a bla­tant lie.  The law absolutely pro­hibits pro­fil­ing.  Law enforce­ment offi­cers can only ask for papers if the per­son in ques­tion is already in the process of com­mit­ting a crime.

Pres­i­dent Obama does go on and say that blan­ket amnesty would be “unwise and unfair”, but also that mass depor­ta­tions of 11 mil­lion peo­ple is impos­si­ble.  On those points, I agree.  But then, he says this:

But our bor­ders are just too vast for us to be able to solve the prob­lem only with fences and bor­der patrols. It won’t work. Our bor­ders will not be secure as long as our lim­ited resources are devoted to not only stop­ping gangs and poten­tial ter­ror­ists, but also the hun­dreds of thou­sands who attempt to cross each year sim­ply to find work.

Did he say, “No we can’t”?  What ever hap­pened to “Yes We Can”?  The laws are there, Mr. Pres­i­dent, to stem the tide of ille­gal immi­gra­tion.  It’s time for the fed­eral gov­ern­ment to step up and do their job and enforce the laws that are already on the books, instead of try­ing to re-invent the wheel.

Filed Under: Illegal Immigration, Politics Tagged With: ,
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