Kidnapped Boy and Mom reunite after 5 years ( San Diego)

 

                                                Julio Rocha

Keoni Rocha, 7, shares a laugh with his mother Leilani Masumoto on Thursday at their home in San Diego, California. The two were reunited after 5 years apart. Keoni was allegedly kidnapped by his father and taken to Mexico — Eduardo Contreras

                

SAN DIEGO — It had been five years since Leilani Masumoto had seen her son, who was just a toddler when authorities said his father kidnapped him from San Diego and whisked him to Mexico.

Now, the mother-son reunion that often haunted her dreams was about to come true.

As she waited for him at the Mexico City airport, she worried: “Will he even recognize me? Will I remember him?”

The 7-year-old boy she greeted was taller, but unmistakably her son.

“When I saw him I just broke down in tears,” she said Thursday.

The reunion last week was made possible with help from an enterprising young woman in Mexico and the San Diego County District Attorney’s Office Child Abduction Unit.

Keoni Rocha was abducted by his father, Julio Rocha, in 2007 after the boy’s mother requested full custody, according to the District Attorney’s Office.

The break in the case came recently when a student in Mexico was doing online research for a school project and came across a poster from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children with information about the boy and his father.

She recognized the boy as a neighbor who lived across the street, and she contacted authorities.

BORDER Patrol Shooting ( Report out- FEMALE Agent Shot Nicholas Ivie ) Agent Ivie NEVER fired his Gun

BISBEE - The Cochise County Sheriff's Department released a 39 page report Friday with details in the Ivie investigation. Border Patrol Agent Nicholas Ivie was killed October 2 in a remote desert area northeast of Naco where he was stationed. The 30-year-old was killed by what has been described as friendly fire.
In the report a deputy recalls specifically asking dispatchers if the shooting was an accidental discharge or if the agents took fire. The report says preliminary indications are that the agents were attacked by unknown assailants.
The area is described by agents as Remax, near a trail called Grayface. One deputy described it as a "large bowl in the mountain." Mexican currency is found in the area, as are shoe prints not consistent with those of responders. A deputy also notes an area with fresh smuggling trash such as food wrappers, water and indentations of marijuana bundles.
Authorities initially believed undocumented aliens may have been involved, the Cochise County Sheriff Department deployed its Narcotics Enforcement Team known as NET but no suspects were ever found.
The report says Agent Nicholas Ivie and two other agents, a male and female, responded to an activated sensor, however each drove to area in their own vehicles.
A deputy sat in the on female agent's interview with investigators. She told them she had been with the agency since November 2010 and had never worked in the area where the shooting occurred. The agent told investigators she never saw Ivie but had radio communication with him. She said she and a male agent approached the area from the south and Ivie approached from the north. She told investigators he signaled them with a flashlight.

Agent Ivie

The agent told investigators she heard yelling, observed muzzle flashes and heard rapid gunfire. She drew her weapon, took cover, but could not recall if she fired her weapon but admits conducting a magazine exchange. The agent described seeing a flash from a gun and seeing a reflection of a handgun. She also told investigators at the time of the shooting she thought she saw three to four people and though she heard whispering but could not say if it was in English or Spanish. After the shots were fired she said she tried to remain calm and hid.
The report says there was a trail of blood. It also mentions the autopsy but much of it is redacted leaving out any details. However, one deputy noted Ivie had blood coming out of his ears, nose and mouth. He wrote there were no other injuries. Another deputy wrote "approximately six spent rifle casings (believed to be of the spent casings were clustered approximately five feet to the east of the under belt." There were other casings but it's unclear in the report where they were located.
According to one deputy, Ivie's magazine was seated and the slide was forward, indicating his weapon was loaded and ready to fire.
The names of the two agents involved in the shooting are left out of the report. The FBI nor the Border Patrol would comment on the report saying the investigation remains ongoing.

Navajo Nation ( CODE talker George Smith Died ) U.S Marine

Members of the elite Navajo Code Talkers, the U.S. Marine unit that delivered unbreakable codes during World War …
A member of the famed Navajo Code Talkers, who used their rare and ancient language to outwit the Japanese during World War II, has died.
George Smith died on Oct. 30 at the Gallup Indian Medical Center in New Mexico, said Navajo Nation president Ben Shelly. Smith was 90.
"Our Navajo Code Talkers have been real life heroes to generations of Navajo people," Shelly said in a statement. "They have brought pride to our Navajo people in so many ways."
In honor of Smith, the Navajo Nation flag will be flown at half-staff until sundown on Nov. 4.
Navajo Code Talker George Smith (Paul Natonabah/Navajo Times)
Smith was part of a Marine unit of Native Americans who created a complex and secret code based on the Navajo language. Because Navajo is an unwritten language that was passed through generations, it is difficult for a non-Navajo speaker to translate, according to navajocodetalkers.org.
The words of the code, which were committed to memory by the Code Talkers, were used in communications in key battles, such as Guadalcanal and Iwo Jima, the official site of the Code Talkers notes.

The Japanese never managed to crack the code.

The 2002 movie "Windtalkers" starring Nicolas Cage is based on the Code Talkers' mission.

The identities of the Code Talkers were kept secret, even to friends and family, until 1968. Now only a handful are living, according to navajocodetalkers.org.

Smith enlisted with the Marines in 1943. He achieved the rank of corporal while serving in World War II in the Pacific Theater. He fought in battles at Siapan, Tinian, and the Ryukyu Islands, and served in places such as Hawaii and Japan.

The Code Talkers and the secret code they developed saved countless lives and helped end the war.

After his service, Smith worked as a heavy equipment mechanic with Navajo Engineering Construction Authority.

"Code Talker Smith led an honorable life. He served his country, then provided for his family," Shelly said.

Orange Ca. ( COP shoots himself in leg while drinking at BAR )

An off-duty Orange police officer, honored for making hundreds of DUI arrests, accidentally shot himself in the leg early Sunday at a local sports bar.
In what police are calling an “accidental discharge,” Officer Justin McGowan shot himself just above the right knee about 2 a.m. Sunday inside the O.C. Sports Grill, 450 N. State College Blvd., said Sgt. Fred Lopez. The bullet changed trajectory after hitting McGowan’s knee and rested in his foot, missing all major arteries, Lopez said.
Police are investigating how McGowan, 28, shot himself with his department-issued, .38-caliber back-up weapon, Lopez said. There is no indication of any criminal involvement or altercation, he said.

“We’re conducting our own investigation. Right now, what we’re concerned about is his health,” Lopez said.
A city official close to the investigation said security video taken at the bar showed that McGowan was standing, with the gun in his pocket and his hand in the same pocket, when it went off.
McGowan, an eight-year veteran at the department, had been drinking alcohol at the bar, but a blood test was not administered until hours after the incident, said the city official.
The Orange Police Department has a policy against officers carrying guns while drinking, Lopez acknowledged.
McGowan reported the shooting himself, telephoning his immediate supervisor, Lopez said.
He was driven to a hospital by his wife and friends. He is on medical leave.

7 al Qaeda killed ( DRONE strike or 'lone wolf' hits target )

Lone wolf  ' silent strike' 7 killed.

A drone strike near the southern Yemeni city of Jaar killed at least seven al Qaeda suspects at dawn on Thursday, an official in the restive region told AFP.
“A drone, likely American, fired several rockets at a group of al Qaeda members northwest of Jaar killing all of them,” said the official, adding seven bodies had so far been recovered.
The United States is the only country that operates drones in the region.
The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said al Qaeda militants have been trying to position themselves near Yemen’s main southern cities to carry out operations against the army and the Popular Resistance Committees, the local militias that fight alongside it.
In May, the army launched an all out offensive against al Qaeda in the southern of province Abyan, forcing them to retreat from major strongholds including Jaar and Abyan’s capital Zinjibar.
The campaign was backed by US drones which in recent months have been deployed in strikes against al Qaeda targets in the south and east of the country.
Thursday’s strike was the second such drone attack this month.
On October 4, a drone blasted two cars carrying suspected al Qaeda gunmen in the southern province of Shabwa, killing five of them.
Al Qaeda took advantage of the weakness of Yemen’s central government in an uprising last year against now ousted president Ali Abdullah Saleh, seizing large swathes of territory across the south.
But after the month-long summer offensive, most militants have fled to the more lawless desert regions of the east.
Though weakened, the militants still launch hit-and-run attacks on government and civilian targets throughout the country.

ARIZONA ( Ghost seen at the Gadsden Hotel ) Call Zak "Ghost adventures"

DOUGLAS, Arizona (Reuters) - Manager Robin Brekhus was skeptical about her Arizona hotel's supernatural history until the day she went to the basement in search of candles during a power outage and glimpsed a figure in a long duster coat and cowboy hat in the beam of her flashlight.

"It was like he wanted me to make eye contact with him and acknowledge that I saw him," she said, recalling how she then sprinted up the steps to the spacious lobby with its Italianate columns and Tiffany & Co. stained glass mural - a new believer.

In its heyday in the early decades of the last century, the lobby of the Gadsden Hotel was known as the "living room" of the remote Arizona ranching town of Douglas, hosting cattle barons, cowboys and executives from the local copper mining industry.

While many hotels in the United States claim ghosts, staff and guests at the Gadsden have recorded scores of supernatural encounters from the top floor right down to the maze-like basement - not just at Halloween, but year round.

This Halloween, the hotel is embracing its haunted history as never before, with a visiting blues band from Tennessee set to play at a bash in the lobby. Guests can come dressed up or not, and ghosts are more than welcome.

SANTO DOMINGO ( EX New York Yankees pitcher killed ) Pascual Perez

SANTO DOMINGO, Dominican Republic (AP) — Police in the Dominican Republic say former major league pitcher Pascual Perez has been killed in his home during an apparent robbery.

A statement from police in the Caribbean country says Perez was attacked by several people inside his home in a town west of the capital. He had been struck in the head but the cause of death has not been released. No suspects are in custody.

The 55-year-old Perez last played in the majors with the New York Yankees in 1991. He was suspended in 1992 following two positive tests for cocaine. In recent years, he has had kidney problems.

He made his major league debut in 1980 with the Pirates and played 11 seasons, including stints with the Braves and Expos.