In the latest example of Mexico's warring drug cartels taunting each other with gruesome on-line videos, footage posted on a popular cartel-tracking blog shows members of the Gulf cartel interrogating and then beheading at least three members of the Zetas cartel.
The grainy three-minute video, which appeared on Mundonarco.com Wednesday, depicts five shirtless men on their knees, their chests painted with large black "Z"s, surrounded by masked members of the Gulf cartel wielding machetes.
Each Zeta prisoner states his name for the camera, at the prompting of an unidentified voice behind the camera. When asked who sent them, each responds "Z-40." "40," as he is known within the Zetas organization, is Miguel Angel Treviño Morales -- the cartel's second-in-command. The U.S. has offered a $5 million reward for information leading to the capture of "40," and he and his two brothers are also under federal indictment in Texas for alleged laundering of cocaine profits through a U.S. horseracing venture.
EMILIANO ZAPATA, Mexico (AP) — Before the sun climbed above the hills around this central Mexican town, Saul Garcia and his family awoke to the sound of bullets piercing the front gate. A masked motorcyclist had opened fire on their brick home, leaving behind a poster signed by the La Familia drug cartel, warning the mayoral candidate to withdraw from the race or the gang would kill him, his wife and three children.
Garcia, a candidate for the local Social Democratic Party, didn't pull out. A state police officer now follows Garcia 24 hours a day while he courts voters on the steep and narrow streets of Emiliano Zapata, a suburb of Cuernavaca in the state of Morelos.
As Mexicans head to the ballot box Sunday, drug cartels are registering their votes with scare tactics and cold, hard cash to make sure whoever is elected doesn't interfere with their lucrative operations. The focus is usually on local politics, where officials and their police departments can cause problems, or smooth the way, for gangs moving drugs or shaking down businesses. It's also easier to influence a local race than an extensive, well-financed national election in the glare of media coverage.
The recent U.S. drone strike that killed al-Qaida's No. 2 leader in Pakistan was by any measure a step forward in the war on terrorism.
The attack also fueled the debate over the morality and effectiveness of remote-control warfare.
Pakistan registered its disapproval; and the ACLU renewed its argument that drone attacks create more enemies than they kill. What's missing from those arguments is a viable alternative.
Strikes from combat aircraft? No. Just last week, a NATO air attack in Afghanistan killed 18 civilians at a wedding. Drones are more precise. Commando operations? Vastly more difficult, more dangerous and less likely to succeed. Doing nothing? Not an option, given al-Qaida's continuing plots to attack the U.S.
That leaves drones, which have been a remarkably effective way to hunt down terrorist leaders and keep others cowering.
»Civilian casualties. Strikes aimed at terrorists but also kill non-combatants are enormously damaging to the United States. They turn local populations against the U.S. and pressure governments to stop cooperating with U.S. forces.
Accurate counts of civilian casualties are virtually impossible to get, but the U.S. appears to be making progress toward reducing what's euphemistically called collateral damage. The New America Foundation estimates that civilian deaths have fallen from half of all drone deaths in 2008 to fewer than 10 percent last year, a total of somewhere between 16 and 36 people.
WASHINGTON (AP) — A Maryland man who was suspected in the presumed death of his traveling companion in Aruba is suing to collect on a travel insurance policy issued in the woman's name.
Gary Giordano says in a lawsuit that AMEX Assurance Company is required to pay him $3.5 million under the terms of a policy purchased before last summer's trip. He says in the suit that his companion, Robyn Gardner, is presumed dead following her Aug. 2 disappearance and that the insurance company "has a duty to pay the full death benefit" to him.
Gary states "shes dead I want my money"!
Giordano was held for months in an Aruban jail on suspicion of being involved in Gardner's disappearance, and the insurance policy's existence caught the attention of investigators and prosecutors. But an Aruban judge ordered him released in November, saying prosecutors didn't have enough evidence to continue holding him.
(CBS/AP) BUFFALO, N.Y. - A trauma surgeon and former military weapons expert continued early Thursday to elude authorities who began searching for him shortly after the fatal shooting of a receptionist at the Buffalo hospital where they worked. Police warned that Dr. Timothy Jorden may be armed and should be considered dangerous.
Trauma surgeon kills himself after killing girlfriend
Jorden, who has been licensed to practice medicine in New York for a decade, has served as a role model for black youth in Buffalo, people who know him told the Buffalo News. Betty Jean Grant, chairwoman of the Erie County Legislature, told the newspaper she watched Jorden grow up and
Former Girlfriend
never knew him to get into any trouble. "It's tragic that a doctor who saved countless lives might be accused of taking someone else's life," she said. "It puts a dark cloud over the mission of a hospital
American travelers to Mexico should beware of possible violent retaliation for this week's arrest of alleged Zetas drug cartel associates and family members inside the U.S., the U.S. State Department has warned.
Though the warning does not specify which "Transnational Criminal Organization" might engage in "anti-American" violence, on Tuesday federal authorities arrested seven alleged associates of the powerful Zetas drug cartel in New Mexico and Oklahoma for allegedly laundering millions in drug profits through breeding and racing quarterhorses in the U.S. Those arrested included Jose Trevino Morales, the brother of Zetas leaders Miguel Angel and Oscar Omar Trevino Morales, who were also indicted but remain at large in Mexico.
According to the indictment, the Zetas cartel steered drug money to Jose Trevino Morales and his wife to purchase, train and race quarterhorses. Horses owned by the Zetas' alleged front companies competed at Ruidoso Downs in New Mexico and won lucrative races, including the $1 million All American Futurity in 2010. Some of the horses, like Morning Cartel and Coronita Cartel, had the word "cartel" in their names.
The travel warning issued Tuesday, the day of the arrests and the unsealing of the indictment, urges U.S. citizens in Mexico to be on guard. "Given the history and resources of this violent TCO, the U.S. Embassy urges U.S. citizens to maintain a low profile and a heightened sense of awareness."
CORONADO — The attorney for the family of Rebecca Zahau has submitted a detailed request to the state Attorney General’s Office asking for an independent investigation into her hanging death at her boyfriend’s Coronado mansion last summer.
Rebecca Zahau — AP
Seattle-based attorney Anne Bremner said the Sheriff’s Department and District Attorney’s Office have turned down similar requests she submitted, paving the way for the official request to the attorney general.
Zahau’s family continues to suspect foul play in her death.
Zahau, 32, was found hanging nude and bound at her wrists and ankles at the historic Spreckels mansion on July 13. The vacation home was owned by boyfriend Jonah Shacknai, CEO of Arizona-based Medicis Pharmaceutical Corp.
Sheriff’s investigators ruled the death a suicide, saying she was apparently distraught over the grave injuries suffered by Shacknai’s 6-year-old son, Max, who had fallen over a second-story railing while she was babysitting. He died days after Zahau.
TUCSON (KGUN9-TV) - He was fired from his coaching job at Altar Valley Middle School, after reporting inappropriate texting between a girl and his assistant, but not reporting it quickly enough.
Then he was arrested for something worse---sexual conduct with a minor.
A video from a Norwegian TV crew shows Hezlitt working with Shawna Forde's border vigilante group. Forde was sentenced to death for a home invasion and murder of a man and his 9 year old daughter. Hezlitt was never charged in that crime.
Now deputies say both Todd Hezlitt and a 15 year old girl have disappeared---and are most likely together---but there could be yet another twist to this story.
UPDATE (IN CUSTODY) IN MEXICO 15 YEAR OLD FEMALE OK
In a February interview with KGUN9 News, Hezlitt talked about the case of another school coach fired for inappropriate conduct with a 15 year old girl. Hezlitt was fired too, the Altar Valley School District said, for failing to report the incident right away.
We first met Todd Hezlett when Altar Valley School District fired him as a wrestling coach and bus driver, on the claim he had failed to immediately report inappropriate contact between another coach and a 15 year old girl.
In a February interview with KGUN9 News he said he simply took the weekend to figure out exactly what do and how to do it.
TUCSON - Tucson Police say they know the identity of a suspect who robbed at least five pharmacies at gunpoint, demanded the painkiller oxycodone.
Police say 57-year-old Robert F. Gutierrez committed each of the crimes, which occurred at various pharmacies on Tucson's south and west sides between February 10, 2012, and May 30, 2012. More details on these incidents can be found here.
Gutierrez is described as a Hismanic man, 5'7" tall, weighing 160 pounds with black hair and brown eyes.
Anyone with information about his whereabouts is urged to call 911 or 88-Crime.
Deandra Lee has been charged with the murder of twins Jordan and Taylor Dejerinett and their babysitter, 73-year-old Jack Mac Girdner.
HAYNEVILLE, Ala. — An Alabama man acquitted in a double murder is being charged with killing 9-year-old twins and their elderly baby sitter earlier this week, a prosecutor said Thursday.
Police are looking for Deandra Marquis Lee, 22, who was out on bail on felony gun and robbery charges when the killings occurred Tuesday. He has been charged with three counts of murder, Lowndes County District Attorney Charlotte Tesmer said.
Authorities believe the slayings happened on a dirt road where the bodies were found. All three victims had been shot, the Alabama Bureau of Investigation said Thursday night.
It was unclear if Lee knew any of the victims or their families.
Authorities previously identified Lee as a person of interest in the deaths of 9-year-old Jordan Dejerinett and his sister Taylor, as well as 73-year-old Jack Mac Girdner.
Girdner was a family friend who watched the children for their mother while she was at work. Authorities said Girdner had known the family for about three years after meeting them at the church they attended in Montgomery.
MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Fourteen dismembered bodies were found in a truck in the center of a town in northern Mexico on Thursday in what appeared to be the latest atrocity committed by rival gangs battling over drug-smuggling routes, local media said.
The bodies of 11 men and three women were discovered in the sugar-cane farming town of Ciudad Mante in the south of Tamaulipas state, which borders on Texas, daily Milenio reported on its website.
Officials at the state attorney general's office could not immediately confirm the report. Tamaulipas has been one of the bloodiest battlegrounds in Mexico's drug war.
More than 55,000 people have been killed in the conflict since President Felipe Calderon sent in the army to fight drug gangs shortly after he took office in December 2006.
Calderon's conservative National Action Party, or PAN, looks likely to lose power in the presidential election on July 1, due partly to rising frustration with the violence.
The government has blamed the turf wars between the brutal Zetas gang, founded by army deserters, and the Sinaloa cartel of Mexico's most-wanted man, Joaquin "Shorty" Guzman, for an escalation of killings in recent weeks.
Suspected drug cartel killers dumped 49 decapitated and dismembered bodies on a highway near the affluent northern city of Monterrey in May. Days before, 18 mutilated bodies were found near Mexico's second-largest city, Guadalajara.
At the beginning of May, the bodies of nine people were hung from a bridge and 14 other dismembered victims were found in the city of Nuevo Laredo, also in Tamaulipas state and just across the border from Laredo, Texas.
Seven people were wounded on Thursday, including a boy who was seriously hurt, when a male suspect threw a grenade into a restaurant in the town of Amecameca outside Mexico City, a state of Mexico official said.
Authorities are investigating a possible extortion attempt against the business as well as the conflict between two gangs in the area, she said.
PHOENIX (AP) — Phoenix police have arrested a woman who allegedly drove off after forgetting that her 5-week-old baby was in a car seat on the roof of her vehicle.
Officer James Holmes said officers were called out early Saturday after witnesses found a child strapped in a safety seat in the middle of an intersection.
The boy wasn't hurt. He's now in the custody of Arizona Child Protective Services.
Authorities say the child's mother, 19-year-old Catalina Clouser, her boyfriend and their friends had been smoking marijuana earlier in the evening at a nearby park.
Upset that her boyfriend was arrested for suspicion of driving under the influence, police say Clouser went to the home of friends and smoked more marijuana.
Clouser left around midnight. Police say she apparently put the sleeping baby on the roof and drove off, forgetting he was there.
CORONADO — The attorney for the family of Rebecca Zahau has submitted a detailed request to the state Attorney General’s Office asking for an independent investigation into her hanging death at her boyfriend’s Coronado mansion last summer.
COVER UP (THIS CASE STINKS)
Rebecca Zahau — AP
Seattle-based attorney Anne Bremner said the Sheriff’s Department and District Attorney’s Office have turned down similar requests she submitted, paving the way for the official request to the attorney general.
Zahau’s family continues to suspect foul play in her death.
Zahau, 32, was found hanging nude and bound at her wrists and ankles at the historic Spreckels mansion on July 13. The vacation home was owned by boyfriend Jonah Shacknai, CEO of Arizona-based Medicis Pharmaceutical Corp.
Sheriff’s investigators ruled the death a suicide, saying she was apparently distraught over the grave injuries suffered by Shacknai’s 6-year-old son, Max, who had fallen over a second-story railing while she was babysitting. He died days after Zahau.
A shooting at a Seattle cafe and an apparent carjacking have left two men and woman dead and three others seriously wounded, police reported Thursday.
Two men were killed at a coffeehouse in the city's University District, while a woman died in the carjacking, Seattle police said. Three more people -- another two men and a woman -- were wounded at the coffeehouse.
Investigators were looking for any connections between the two incidents, which happened about four miles and a few minutes apart, police spokesmen said.
Suspect shot and killed himself (above picture of suspect in cafe)
"We're definitely in a dynamic situation right now," Deputy Police Chief Nick Metz told reporters.
The gunman ran away from the coffeehouse shooting.
"Whether he is armed at this time, we don't know," Metz said. But he added, "We're assuming he's very dangerous."
One of the wounded had life-threatening injuries, while the other two were seriously hurt, the department said. The black sport-utility vehicle was found empty a few miles southwest of downtown, police reported.
SEATTLE – Police are responding to a shooting in the 5800 block of Roosevelt Way NE in the Ravenna neighborhood. Seattle police say there are multiple victims.
The shooter was seen running away from the scene northbound, armed with a gun. He is described as a white male, 30 to 40-years-old. He is 6 feet tall with a medium build, brown hair and a goatee or beard. He was wearing a dark shirt.
The public is advised to stay away from the area.
More details to come. (Two people Killed)
Two people were killed and three others were wounded in a shooting this morning in North Seattle.
Seattle police say the shooting happened at Cafe Racer Espresso in North Seattle. Seattle police say two people are confirmed dead and one person has life-threatening injuries. Two others also suffered gunshot wounds.
A law enforcement source says it could be a domestic violence situation.
The state budget got a boost--a drop-in-the-bucket boost--when the lifetime incarceration of James Lee Crummel was cut short Tuesday.
The murderer of a 13-year-old Costa Mesa boy hung himself in his San Quentin prison cell, according to the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitations.
Crummel, 68, had been on Death Row since 2004, when he was convicted of the 1979 kidnapping, sexual abuse and killing of James Wilfred Trotter, just one young victim authorities suspect Crummel preyed on over the years.
He was convicted of the 1967 murder of a 9-year-old boy in Pima County, Arizona, but a judge later overturned it after Crummel had served five years in prison. He'd also been questioned about 1981 and 1995 murders of boys in Anaheim Hills and Big Bear City respectively.
Much to the chagrin of residents in pre-Megan's Law Newport Beach, "high-risk" sex offender Crummel resided there. Eleven years after Trotter disappeared while walking to school, Crummel posed as a random person in calling police to report finding charred human bones while hiking near Ortega Highway in Riverside County. The bones were later identified as Trotter's.
Crummel's reputation as a sex offender and proximity to Trotter's home--about a mile away from his--led him to be suspected and ultimately convicted of the boy's murder.
MILLER COUNTY, AR - Two accused killers are on the loose at this hour from the Miller County jail near Texarkana, according to CNN.
According to reports, inmates Cortez Hooper, 23. and Quincy Stewart, 36, were last seen in their cells around 3:00 am Monday. Police believe the pair used a hacksaw blade to cut through iron bars, squeezed through a narrow cell window, leaped from a second story window and scaled a 10-foot razor wire-topped fence.
Hooper is from Texarkana, Arkansas, and was jailed on a charge of first-degree murder, assault and probation violation. He is described as 5'4" tall and weighs approximately 130 pounds.
Stewart stands about 5' 7" tall and weighs approximately 160 pounds. Stewart is from Texarkana, Texas, and was being held on a capital murder charge in Bowie County. He's also charged with possession of a controlled substance
The Miami Herald reported that the naked man chewed off half the face of his victim, who is struggling for his life.
The violence started at 2 p.m. on the MacArthur Causeway off-ramp, just south of the Herald’s offices, the newspaper said.
Witnesses said that a woman saw two men fighting and flagged down a police officer, who came upon the naked man mauling the other man, the Herald reported.
The officer, who was not identified, ordered the naked man to back away, but when the man continued the assault, the officer shot him, the Herald said. Witnesses told the Herald the wounded attacker continued to eat his victim, so the officer continued firing.
Witnesses said they heard at least a half-dozen shots, the Herald said.
PHOENIX - Arizona is considering requests to expand its fledgling medical marijuana program to allow use of the drug for an array of conditions, including post-traumatic stress syndrome and migraines, beyond those allowed under the law approved by voters two years ago.
The Department of Health Services, which is required under the 2010 law to consider requests to expand coverage, held a public hearing Friday on the first batch of requests. A decision on the requests is expected in mid-August.
Besides PTSD and migraines, the requests for covered conditions include depression and general anxiety disorder. The law already permits medical marijuana use for such medical reasons as cancer, glaucoma, AIDS, chronic pain, muscle spasms and hepatitis C.
According to sources, 21-year old Antonin Garcia Gomez of Morgan Hill was taken into custody around 5:30PM and preliminarily charged with one count of murder and one count of kidnapping. Sheriff Department authorities are planning to release more information at a new conference on Tuesday.
Murder suspect in custody
An eye for an eye ( dirt bag)
LaMar has been the focus of one of the biggest civilian and law enforcement searches in the Morgan Hill area after she disappeared Friday, March 16th on her way to school. Sierra's cell phone was found in a nearby area by her home and a back pack of Sierra's clothes was later found by a road to the west of the LeMar home.
Sources disclosed that DNA evidence found on the clothing in Sierra's back pack provided a link to the suspect that was arrested. The suspect's red Volkswagen Jetta, which was video taped in several location near the LaMar home, also connected the suspect to the kidnapping.
LOS ANGELES (AP) — Police shot and killed a mountain lion that somehow made its way through an urban landscape before it was found early Tuesday in a downtown Santa Monica office building courtyard near an outdoor mall and a blufftop park that offers tourists views of the ocean and the city's famed pier.
Authorities made multiple attempts to try and subdue the young male cat, including use of a tranquilizer and a pepper ball, before killing it, said Capt. Daniel Sforza of the state Fish and Game Department.
The mountain lion was found about 6 a.m. by a janitor in the courtyard near a popular open-air mall, the Third Street Promenade, and just a couple of blocks from the beach. The street that has a preschool, a church and other businesses was cordoned off as a precaution.
In the latest example of 
