MEXICO ( Hit man gets 54 dollars to kill- boys paid 500 pesos to kill in Juarez )

Nogales, Sonora, hit man is paid $54

The eye's of evil !  (14 yr old hit man)

 

Sonoran police revealed the price tag on a life over the weekend, and it was cheap.
A U.S. citizen living in Nogales, Sonora, was in a seafood restaurant just after midnight Sunday morning when a gunman came in and shot him. The accused killer later told police he was paid 700 pesos for the hit, according to Sonoran news reports.
That's about $54.
The victim, Jonathan Martin Morgan, was eating at Mariscos La Bocanita, about a mile south of the border. The gunman shot him six times, and Morgan died in an ambulance taking him across the border for treatment.
Morgan, 20, was an admitted drug smuggler, having been caught driving a pickup loaded with about 400 pounds of marijuana near Lochiel, Ariz., on April 9, 2011. He was awaiting sentencing in that case.

14 yr old gets 3 years in mexican prison for murder.

Police arrested Iván Aniceto Estrada López and accused him of the murder. In an interrogation, police told Sonoran reporters, the accused killer gave this version of events: A man known as Juan approached Estrada López outside a church about 10 p.m. He offered to pay him 700 pesos to kill a man.
Estrada López agreed, and Juan gave him a 9 mm pistol and took him to find Morgan. Juan pointed out Morgan at the restaurant and left, Estrada López told police.
Then Estrada López went inside, shot him six times and fled.
By the time police arrested him about an hour later, Estrada López had already spent 200 of the pesos on drugs, Radio XENY reported.
The price tag, while apparently low, was not the lowest seen in Mexico during the years of drug-war violence.
Officials of Mexico's social development ministry said in December 2010 that boys as young as 13 were being paid 500 pesos for a killing in Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua.
Nogales, Sonora, experienced a wave of drug-war violence from 2008 through 2011, but it began easing in late 2011, with eruptions becoming more rare and less random.

MEXICO ( Sinaloa 9 killed on Christmas Eve- Shot with assault weapons ) Cartel wars

By Martin Duran Romero / Associated PressAssociated Press

CULIACAN, Mexico (AP) - A group of armed men stormed a town in the mountains of the western state of Sinaloa on Christmas Eve and shot nine men to death with assault weapons, then dumped their bodies on a sports field as part of a war between Mexico's two most powerful cartels, officials said Wednesday.

"El Chapo " Guzman

Sinaloa state prosecutor Marco Antonio Higuera Gomez said the town of El Platanar de Los Ontiveros had become part of a dispute between the Sinaloa cartel controlled by Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman, Mexico's most-wanted man, and remnants of the Beltran-Leyva cartel who have allied themselves with the Zetas, a paramilitary organized-crime group founded by ex-members of the Mexican special forces. "Everything is linked to a dispute for territory and the buying and selling of drugs," he said. The prosecutor said the nine victims were eating Christmas dinner when gunmen entered the town on foot, surrounded them, and opened fire with assault rifles. They decapitated one victim with a machete and dumped the bodies on field, Higuera Gomez said. He said the army had set up a checkpoint nearby to hunt for drugs, but the killers had avoided it by entering the town on foot.

Beltran-leyva members

 Another cartel fight is raging to the south, along the border between the state of Jalisco and Michoacan. At least seven people have been killed in the area since Sunday. Officials in both states said Wednesday they could not confirm local media reports of more than a dozen new deaths in clashes in the area. Michoacan authorities did report the slaying of a mother and her three children in the capital, Morelia, which has been mostly spared the worst of the state's drug violence.
Prosecutors said 41-year-old Maria Elena Lopez Bautista and her 19-year-old daughter and 18- and 13-year-old sons appeared to have been tied hand and foot with wire and burned to death inside their home on Monday.Officials did not speculate on the motive for the crime, but the border with Jalisco has been hit by clashes between Michoacan's dominant Knights Templar cartel, and the New Generation cartel that operates in much of Jalisco.

MILWAUKEE ( Husband kills wife while she is patrolling as police officer ) Christmas Eve

 

MILWAUKEE (AP) — The husband of a police officer who was fatally shot on Christmas Eve while patrolling in suburban Milwaukee has been arrested in connection with her death, authorities said Thursday.

Benjamin Sebena, of Menomonee Falls, was booked into Milwaukee County Jail on Wednesday night on a tentative charge of first-degree intentional homicide, the Wauwatosa police department said in a statement.
He has not been formally charged in the death of his 30-year-old wife, Jennifer Sebena. A message was left with the district attorney's office seeking comment.
Ben Sebena, 30, is a decorated U.S. Marine who served two tours in Iraq before suffering severe arm and leg injuries in a mortar attack, according to Pastor Scott Arbeiter at Elmbrook Church in nearby Brookfield.
Police officers found Sebena's body in the early hours of Monday morning after she failed to respond to radio calls. She had been shot several times. Police have released few details about the shooting.
Jennifer Sebena had worked for the Wauwatosa police department for two years and her death was the first in active duty in the department's 96-year history. Wauwatosa is a city of about 46,000 people just west of Milwaukee.
Sebena's funeral is scheduled for Saturday.

El Paso ( McDonald's drive through-argument over french fries suspect points gun at employee )

Northeast El Paso McDonald's

By Adriana M. Chávez / El Paso Timeselpasotimes.com

Posted: 12/26/2012 02:41:19 PM MST

Click photo to enlarge

Tyler Velasquez, 17 (El Paso Police Department)

Police have arrested a second suspect in connection with an alleged assault at a Northeast El Paso McDonald's restaurant last week. Tyler Velasquez, 17, was arrested Christmas Day at his Northeast El Paso home. Police allege that Velasquez was with Jesus Medina, 20, when Medina pointed a gun at a 19-year-old employee at the McDonald's at 9461 Dyer. Police said the incident took place at 4:05 p.m. Dec. 19. Velasquez allegedly pulled up at the restaurant's drive-through in a Mercury Grand Marquis with Medina in the passenger seat. During an argument with the McDonald's employee, Medina allegedly pulled a black gun from his waistband and pointed it at the employee as Velasquez drove away. Velasquez faces a charge of aggravated assault and was booked into the El Paso County Jail on a $5,000 bond. Medina, who faces an aggravated assault with a deadly weapon charge, was arrested on Dec. 20 and booked into the El Paso County Jail on a $45,000 bond.

TUCSON Az ( Man starts fireworks show to soon- In his garage )

TUCSON (KGUN9-TV) - Deputies responded to a home on the north west side after the homeowner set off a small explosion in his garage while trying to make self-exploding targets.
Deputy Tom Peine with the Pima County Sheriff's Department tells KGUN9 that deputies responded to a home near Horizon Hills Drive and Galaxy Road where a man was creating explosives in his garage.

There was minor damage to the garage and the man also received minor injuries, but he was not taken to the hospital.
Peine says there is no danger to the home, or any homes in the area, but deputies are working to clear the scene.
They are still trying to determine what the man was trying to make. Northwest Fire District also responded and Capt. Adam Goldberg tells KGUN9 the man was making pyrotechnics to be used on New Year's Eve.
No word yet on if the man will be charged with anything.

IRAN ( One strong woman walks the streets of Iran- Defies a Nation) Boldly resist

This woman walks the street's of Iran to speak of her son's death (brave) uncertain if this may get her killed. If you ever stood on a corner with a "protest sign" you know it could be a lonely place,but when you lose someone you love you already have an empty place in your heart.

I don't know what I would do if my government took my son from me for blogging and put him in prison. I don't know what I would do if they gave him back to me beaten to death, but your seeing what one strong woman is doing about it!

IRAN ( Blogger - Killed in prison -Mother speaks out on Youtube )Must see

IMPACT OF INTERNET

Beheshti's death exposed Iran's political fissures as a handful of lawmakers badgered President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's government and the judiciary into ordering an inquiry.

But the most effective tool in publicizing Beheshti's unusual death was the one he had chosen - the Internet.
"I really do believe this is one of the great examples of the impact of the Internet in Iran," said Mahmood Enayat, director of the Iran Media program at the University of Pennsylvania and the founder of Small Media, a non-profit group that focuses on improving information flows in closed societies.
The Internet had become a watchdog, forcing the government to react to anything gathering enough attention, he argued.
"They can't just ignore it anymore."
Although many of the details of Beheshti's detention and death are murky, some are no longer in dispute. On the night of October 30, he was arrested at his home in Robat Karim and transferred to section 350 of Tehran's notorious Evin prison.
Fellow prisoners there said he was hung from the ceiling of a cell and beaten. His arms and legs were then tied to a chair and he was beaten again. At times, his interrogators threw him on the ground and kicked him in the head and neck.

A group of political prisoners talked to Beheshti while he was detained, and slipped out a letter based on their observations and his account to opposition activists.
"When they brought Sattar to section 350, the marks of torture were visible on all parts of his body," said the letter signed by 41 prisoners and published on opposition websites.

Despite his injuries, Beheshti filed a complaint about his treatment to prison officials. Shortly before he was transferred to another detention facility, Beheshti told his fellow prisoners that his captors intended to kill him. Four days later, authorities informed his family that he was dead.

After Beheshti's death, security forces warned his family not to talk to media outlets, and security agents threatened to arrest Beheshti's sister if the family did not sign a consent form regarding the circumstances of his death, his mother said in an interview with the Persian service of German radio Deutsche Welle.

BLOOD-STAINED SHROUD

The family was also offered diye, or blood money, but Beheshti's mother, Gohar Eshqi, refused. When the family was allowed to see Beheshti's body, they noticed that blood from his knee and head had stained the burial shroud.

"They killed him and handed me back his body," Eshqi said in an interview with the pro-opposition Saham News website.

On December 13, a small crowd of friends, neighbors and family gathered to commemorate the fortieth day after Beheshti's death at his gravesite. The previous day security agents tore up notices about the ceremony in the neighborhood, Beheshti's sister Sahar told Kalame, another opposition website.

Videos of the event posted online show Eshqi, Beheshti's mother, holding his picture and shouting "I'm proud of my son" and "My son's killers must be executed." Police later attacked the crowd and beat Eshqi, wounding her leg, Sahar said.

Kalame published pictures of Eshqi's injuries.

Few Iranians could have predicted that Beheshti's death would make any waves. But the Internet buzz kept building. Websites linked with the opposition Green Movement took up the cause and published details of his detention and physical abuse. That led even conservative bloggers to speak out, concerned that the case would damage the image of the Islamic Republic.

The cyber police, a unit within the Iranian police force, was created in January 2011 with a relatively broad mandate.

While the Revolutionary Guards and Intelligence Ministry do their own web surveillance, the cyber police are mainly responsible for tracking down dissidents online.

They are also responsible for blocking websites with controversial content and for pursuing cases of web sabotage.

Earlier this year, new cyber police guidelines directed all Internet cafes to install cameras to monitor customers.

But in Beheshti's case, little sophisticated surveillance was necessary - he was blogging openly under his own name.

MEXICO (Prosecutor along with 6 others killed in Guatemala )

Prosecutor killed in Guatemala along with 6 others

The Associated PressAssociated Press

Posted: 12/24/2012 12:24:22 PM MST

GUATEMALA CITY—Guatemala's attorney general dispatched a special team Monday to investigate the slaying of a federal prosecutor and six other people in an attack near the Mexican border. Attorney General Claudia Paz y Paz said she was sending prosecutors and investigators to the area of northern Guatemala where Irma Yolanda Olivares, who worked in one of the prosecutor's regional officers, was slain along with an official working for a government social service agency and five others on Sunday night. President Otto Perez Molina blamed the attack on drug traffickers, who have taken over swathes of territory along the border with Mexico. The Interior Ministry said that a group of armed, masked men had intercepted the sport-utility vehicle carrying Olivares and three other passengers, who were returning from the inauguration of a hotel in the city of La Mesilla. The attackers opened fire, then burned the victims' bodies, officials said. Three other people were found fatally shot and burned in another vehicle nearby, official said. Officials were not immediately able to determine the identities of the three or whether they were killed by the same attackers, said Ricardo Guzman, sub-secretary general in the prosecutor's office. "The death of a member of the attorney general's team is a serious attack against the institution and against the work done by each prosecutor's office to fight impunity in this country," Paz said.

NEW YORK ( Man steals 7 yr old girls puppy dog- Christmas eve ) See photo

Video: Christmas Shopping Rush Dognapper

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(Image Credit: ABC News)

A dognapper snatched a pet pooch from a New York City street as a little girl and her family were finishing up their holiday shopping.
The Christmas Eve crime happened in daylight and was captured on surveillance video. A man can be seen in the video approaching Marley, a King Charles Spaniel, who was waiting patiently for his owners outside a Manhattan shop.
The man brazenly unhooked Marley’s leash, scooped the dog into his arms and walked away.
“Who would do this? It’s Christmas Eve! Tomorrow’s Christmas morning.” Mia Bendrat told WABC-TV on Monday.
The family is hoping for a Christmas miracle. Police have taken a copy of the surveillance video and the Bendrats have canvassed their Washington Heights neighborhood with flyers.
“He’s really fluffy and he’s so adorable that I can’t even trim my tree without him,” Bendrat said. “It’s like so hard to be without him.”

MEXICO ( Juarez police officer killed christmas eve dinner - Fight with wife )

Related

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CIUDAD JUAREZ — A Juárez police officer was killed Monday night, shot dead during Christmas Eve dinner. Authorities say it all started when Agent Ricardo Escobar Haro got into an argument with his wife. He allegedly went and grabbed his gun, and the two started fighting over it. That's when the weapon allegedly went off and hit Haro, killing the 30 year-old officer. Meanwhile, police are also investigating a murder in South Juarez. A badly burned body was found in an old city dump in the Colonia Panfilo Natera. Police are still trying to identify the victim, but believe he is a male.

MEXICO ( Juarez police officers arrested for torture and making man swallow bullets )

Juárez police officers allegedly force man to swallow bullets

By Marisela Ortega Lozano / El Paso Timeselpasotimes.com

Posted: 12/24/2012 10:40:43 AM MST

Three Juárez police officers were arrested last week on charges of torture, aggravated sexual abuse and misuse of authority, all in connection to the alleged mistreatment of two men in their custody, Chihuahua General's Office in Juárez said. One of the police officers allegedly forced one of the men to swallow several bullets, according to state officials. While the men were arrested on Friday, the alleged incident took place March 6 in north Juárez after the officers stopped two men were riding a motorcycle around Norzagary Ave. and Arroyo del Mimbre Street, just a few yards from El Paso. According to state prosecutors, the three police officers stopped the men on a routine check and then they called the two men names and beat them. The police officers, prosecutors said, took both men to the former Juvenile Detention Center nearby. Once there, the alleged victims were gagged and blindfolded while being beaten up by the officers, state officials said. One of the police officers reportedly forced one of the victims to swallow several bullets after the man allegedly refused to kill his friend. Both detainees were severely beaten in order to get them to confess that they were in possession of several drugs, prosecutors said. The police officers went on beating their victims and covered them with alcohol. The officers eventually took the victims to jail on public disturbance charges, state officials said. Once in jail, one of the victims suffered several seizures and when he was taken to the hospital doctors discovered several bullets inside his stomach.
The officers were taken to Cereso prison and are awaiting an arraignment. Marisela Ortega Lozano maybe reached at mortega@elpasotimes.com; 542-6077.

KABUL afghanistan ( police women - of the middle east ) See photo's

KABUL, Afghanistan  — The policewoman who killed an American contractor in Kabul is a native Iranian who came to Afghanistan and displayed "unstable behavior" but no known links to militants, an Interior Ministry spokesman said Tuesday.

Police woman (afghanistan)

 

Iranian police woman

The policewoman, identified as Sgt. Nargas, shot 49-year-old Joseph Griffin, of Mansfield, Georgia, on Monday, in the first such shooting by a woman in a spate of insider attacks by Afghans against their foreign allies.

Nargas walked into a heavily-guarded compound in the heart of Kabul, confronted Griffin and gunned him down with a single pistol bullet.

police woman -afghan

The U.S-based security firm DynCorp International said on its website that Griffin was a U.S. military veteran who earlier worked with law enforcement agencies in the United States. In Kabul, he was under contract to the NATO military command to advise the Afghan police force.

DETROIT ( Black truck pulls up to dump body - No he dumps 5 foot alligator ) Flee's area

It was kind of a big deal last June when Detroit Police found two alligators living in an apartment. Apparently, gators as pets is kind of trend because eastside resident Shontez Gibson witnessed someone dumping a five-foot alligator in a vacant lot Thursday night.
They're always so cute when they're little. Then they grow up and become ferocious man-eating animals.
According to WDIV, Gibson and his uncle rescued the gator--pretty brave considering gators aren't exactly the friendliest of animals. They cared for the gator until the Humane Society could pick it up.

WDIV: "A black truck pulled up, they got out and I thought they was dumping a body," said Shontez Gibson, who helped rescue the exotic animal. "So, I told my uncle. My uncle said, 'Come on, let's go see.' My uncle chased the truck up the street and they stopped, so my uncle ran back. And when we got back in the field I said, 'No, it's an alligator.'"
Gibson placed the alligator in its own room with a space heater to help warm it up. He said he fed it fish.

Seriously, people, next time you want to get an alligator as a pet, consider a kitten instead. -- JTW

Rebecca Zahau Case ( Rebecca told Coronado police she thought Dina Shacknai was going to kill her) Cover up

Coronado Patch (comment) hints to corruption with the Coronado Police Chief and San Diego County Sheriff ?

Ann

4:07 pm on Sunday, December 23, 2012

When there is a death and a possiblity of it being a homicide, all the people around that person is interrogated and given a poly. SO, why wasn't Nina or Dina given the same since they were spotted in front of the mansion that night by a witness? Was Adam interrogated?

Rebecca told Coronado police she thought Dina was going to kill her?

Lipp

6:20 pm on Saturday, December 22, 2012

Several people told investigators that Rebecca had told them months before her death that she thought Dina Shacknai was crazy and she was afraid what Dina was capable of. Then there is also the statement from CPD that Rebecca stated she thought Dina was going to kill her. Yet to the bought investigators this was not relevant information. Neither Dina or Nina took a polygraph, give DNA samples, were positively alibied at the time of Rebecca's murder.
Though Jonah Shacknai does not openly support Dina's mud slinging he has also done nothing in support of finding truth in either case. That is most likely because he was well aware what Dina had planned but did nothing to stop it.

 

 

New York ( 2 Fire Fighters KILLED shot while fighting fire ) Breaking news

Firefighter shot at scene of blaze in New York

Associated Press | Updated: December 24, 2012 19:36 IST

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New York: A firefighter has been shot while responding to a house fire in western New York.

Officials in the town of Webster tell local media outlets that someone shot at firefighters around 6 am on Monday when they arrived at the scene of the blaze just east of Rochester.

A fire official with the West Webster Fire District tells the Democrat and Chronicle of Rochester that the firefighter is listed in satisfactory condition at Strong Memorial Hospital.

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Officials say the fire spread to a second home. A man answering the phone at the fire station said firefighters are unable to battle the blazes as long as the area hasn't been secured by police. The man said no other information was being released.

The MISSING in MEXICO ( 7 missing police officers 2009-who cares) Many more

List of 1000s of Missing Raises Doubts in Mexico

| Borderland Beat ReporterBuggs

Borderland Beat

By E. Eduardo Castilllo
Associated Press

In this May 9, 2012 file photo, people hold photographs of their relatives who went missing during a protest that is part of the campaign "March of National Dignity.

Mothers searching their sons and justice" held at the Revolution Monument in Mexico City. A new report by a civic participation group has put a number for the first time on the human toll of all the violence: 20,851 people disappeared over the past six years, although not every case on the list may be related to the drug war. With at least another 70,000 people having died in drug violence, the numbers point to a brutal episode in Mexico that ranks among Latin America's deadliest in decades.

Federal police officer Luis Angel Leon Rodriguez disappeared in 2009 along with six fellow police as they headed to the western state of Michoacan to fight drug traffickers.
Since then, his mother, Araceli Rodriguez, has taken it into her own hands to investigate her son's disappearance and has publicized the case inside and outside Mexico. She's found some clues about what happened but still doesn't have any certainty about her son's whereabouts.

As Mexican troops and police cracked down on drug cartels, who also battled among themselves, Leon was just one of thousands of people who went missing amid a wave of violence that stunned the nation. A new report by a civic participation group has put a number for the first time on the human toll: 20,851 people disappeared over the past six years, although not every case on the list has been proven related to the drug war.
With at least another 70,000 deaths tied to drug violence, the numbers point to a brutal episode that ranks among Latin America's deadliest in decades. In Chile, nearly 3,100 people were killed, among them 1,200 considered disappeared, for political reasons during Augusto Pinochet's 1973-1990 dictatorship, and at least 50,000 people disappeared during 40 years of internal conflict in Colombia.

The new database is shedding needed light on Mexico's unfolding tragedy. It's also sparking angry questions about why it doesn't include all of the disappeared.
Neither Rodriguez's son nor his six colleagues who went missing on Nov. 16, 2009, are in the database, which was allegedly leaked by the Attorney General's Office to a foreign journalist. The group Propuesta Civica, or Civic Proposal, released the data on Thursday.
Rodriguez's mother said she's been in touch with authorities investigating the case and has spoken about it in several public forums about the missing.

"I don't think any government entity has a complete database," she said.
A spokesman for federal prosecutors, who would not allow his name to be used under the agency's rules, said the Attorney General's Office had no knowledge of the document.

As compiled by Civic Proposal, the report reveals the sheer scope of human loss, with the missing including police officers, bricklayers, housewives, lawyers, students, businessmen and more than 1,200 children under age 11. The disappeared are listed one by one with such details as name, age, gender and the date and place where they disappeared.
Some media in Mexico have reported that the number of missing could be even greater, at more than 25,000, with their estimates reportedly based on official reports, although media accounts didn't make the reports public.

"We're worried because several of the people gone missing in the state of Coahuila, and that we have reported to authorities, don't appear on the database," said Blanca Martinez of the Fray Juan de Larios human rights center in that northern border state. She's also an adviser to the group Forces United for Our Disappeared in Coahuila, made up of relatives searching for loved ones.
Martinez said that between 2007 and 2012 the group registered 290 cases of missing people. The database released Thursday lists 272 cases in the state since 2006.
"We have no doubt that the authorities have done absolutely nothing" to solve them, she said.

Public attention to Mexico's disappeared has grown especially since 2011 when former President Felipe Calderon publicly met with members of the Movement for Peace with Justice and Dignity, a human rights group led by poet Javier Sicilia. His son was allegedly killed by drug traffickers that same year.
Sicilia's movement demanded that the thousands of killed and missing should be treated as victims of the drug war, even if they were criminal suspects. Calderon's government responded that it would create a missing persons database, but authorities have not made it public so far. Calderon also ordered the creation of a special prosecutor in charge of assisting crime victims and supporting the search for the missing.

"There is nothing worse for me than having a missing relative. Not knowing where the person may be is very serious and so ... in every case that comes to us, we try to find a solution, to find the person," said Sara Herrerias, the head of Provictima, the office established by Calderon to help crime victims.
Herrerias, however, was cautious talking about the number of missing and said she could only discuss the cases that her office has dealt with.
In 14 months, she said, Provictima has handled the cases of 1,523 missing people, most of them allegedly taken by members of organized crime but with some cases also reportedly involving government authorities. Of the total number, 150 people have been located, 40 of them found dead.
Herrerias declined to talk about the possible magnitude of disappearances. "I don't like to talk when I don't have hard data," she said.
Estimates of the missing vary. The National Human Rights Commission, which operates independently from the government, has said that some 24,000 people were reported missing between 2000 and mid-2012, in addition to some 16,000 bodies that have been found but remain unidentified.
The government of President Enrique Pena, who took office Dec. 1, estimates the number of unidentified bodies at about 9,000 during Calderon's previous six-year administration.
Civic Proposal director Pilar Talavera said that although her group saw inconsistencies in the database, they decided to disclose it not only to help the public understand the scale of the violence, but also to pressure authorities to disclose official information on disappearances.
While the numbers help, what the relatives of the missing need most, of course, is to just learn what happened to their loved ones.
Since the disappearance of Rodriguez's then-23-year-old son, a dozen alleged members of the La Familia drug cartel have been arrested as suspects in his case. Rodriguez said she has interviewed four of them, who have told her that her son and the other six officers were killed and their bodies "disintegrated."
She said that so far no one has given her any clues about where her son's remains are.
"If it's true what the criminals say ... even with that, my heart asks to find Luis Angel," Rodriguez said. "For me Luis Angel is still missing."

Washington ( Navy Seal died of apparent suicide ) Very sad story

Official: Navy SEAL died of apparent suicide

By By KIMBERLY DOZIER | Associated Press – 1 hr 57 mins ago

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WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. military officials are investigating the apparent suicide of a Navy SEAL commander in Afghanistan.

Navy SEAL Cdr. Job W. Price, 42, of Pottstown, Pa., died Saturday of a non-combat-related injury while supporting stability operations in Uruzgan Province, Afghanistan.

A U.S. military official said the death "appears to be the result of suicide." The official spoke on condition of anonymity because the death is still being investigated.

"The Naval Special Warfare family is deeply saddened by the loss of our teammate," said Capt. Robert Smith, Commander of Naval Special Warfare Group Two, which manages all Virginia-based Navy SEAL teams. "We extend our condolences, thoughts and prayers to the family, friends, and NSW community during this time of grieving."

"As we mourn the loss and honor the memory of our fallen teammate, those he served with will continue to carry out the mission," Smith added Sunday.

A U.S. military official confirmed Price was from Virginia Beach, Va.-based SEAL Team 4, which is part of the mission to train Afghan local police to stave off the Taliban in remote parts of Afghanistan. Price is survived by a wife and a daughter.

TEXAS ( Female Trooper suspended for cavity search ) See video

Female Texas trooper suspended amid body search

Associated PressAssociated Press

Posted: 12/20/2012 12:49:02 PM MST

 

DALLAS (AP) - A female Texas trooper has been suspended amid an investigation of her videotaped body cavity search of two women along a busy highway. Department of Public Safety spokesman Tom Vinger said late Wednesday that Trooper Kelley Halleson has been suspended with pay. Results of a Texas Rangers inquiry are expected to go to a Dallas County grand jury in January. An Irving woman and her adult niece this week sued Halleson and a male trooper, plus DPS director Steve McCraw, over the July traffic stop. Angel and Ashley Dobbs say the search videotaped by a patrol car camera was unlawful and humiliating. The women say a male trooper says he saw them throw cigarette butts out a window, questioned them about drugs and summoned Halleson. No drugs were found. Copyright 2012 The Associated Press.

TEXAS DPS ( Kill two men -shooting from DPS helicopter ) Shooting policy in question

Borderland beat
Records show 1 of 5 vehicles was disabled by shots prior to October incident that killed two Guatemalan men

Texas Department of Public Safety officers have fired guns from helicopters while pursuing vehicles five times over the past two years, according to new information on the practice obtained by the American-Statesman.

According to the records, released by the agency Friday after several public information requests, the tactic was clearly successful in only one instance.

Details of the incidents, which all occurred along the Mexican border, raise additional questions about the necessity and effectiveness of a policy that experts have said is almost unheard of in other law enforcement agencies due to the high risks associated with firing a weapon from a moving helicopter at a speeding vehicle.

 

 

DPS Helicopter kills 2

The practice has been under scrutiny since Oct. 25, when a DPS trooper fired into a pickup racing along a South Texas dirt road near La Joya, killing two Guatemalan men hidden in the bed under a blanket. A third man was injured by the gunfire.

The chase began after Texas Parks and Wildlife Department game wardens spotted the truck and called the DPS for air assistance after it refused to stop. Following the incident, the DPS explained that officers may use gunfire to end a high-speed chase that threatens the lives of bystanders.

The trooper, Miguel Avila, shot as the truck was speeding toward a school more than a mile away, which the DPS said posed a potential danger to students. Alba Caceres, the Guatemalan consul in McAllen, has said the men in the truck had “no guns, no drugs.” Texas Rangers are investigating.

In practice, the airborne marksmen aim at a fleeing vehicle’s tires to disable it. But, as the deadly October incident demonstrated, they don’t always hit their intended target.

On Oct. 21, 2010, a DPS officer in a helicopter fired a single shot at a fleeing vehicle suspected of smuggling narcotics — but missed the car. “Round did not hit vehicle,” the agency’s summary of the incident stated.

The vehicle was eventually stopped when officers threw down spikes to puncture its tires. Although 800 pounds of marijuana was recovered, “two suspects abandoned vehicle and fled to Mexico,” the report concluded.

In another case, on Sept. 13 of this year, a DPS rifleman fired three rounds at a vehicle reported by Mission police to be stolen. From the report, however, it is unclear whether the bullets played a role in ending the chase; Mission police couldn’t provide additional details Friday.

“Three bullet holes were later found in the vehicle,” according to the DPS report. “Three suspects exited vehicle and fled to Mexico.” Just over 1,000 pounds of marijuana were recovered.