KARACHI, Pakistan (AP) — A mob in southern Pakistan stormed a police station to seize a mentally unstable Muslim man accused of burning a copy of Islam's holy book, beat him to death, and then set his body afire, police said Saturday.
The case is likely to raise further concerns about the country's harsh blasphemy laws, which can result in a death sentence or life in prison to anyone found guilty. Critics say an accusation or investigation alone can lead to deaths, as people take the law into their own hands and kill those accused of violating it. Police stations and even courts have been attacked by mobs.
Local police official Bihar-ud-Din said police arrested the man on Friday after being informed by residents that he had burned a Quran inside a mosque where he had been staying for a night.
An angry mob of more than 200 people then broke into the police station in the southern town of Dadu and took the accused man, who they say was under questioning. Din said police tried their best to save the man's life but were unable to stop the furious crowd.
He said that police had arrested 30 people for suspected involvement in the attack, while the head of the local police station and seven officers had been suspended.
Past attempts by governments in predominantly Muslim Pakistan to review these laws have met with violent opposition from hardline Islamist parties.
TUCSON, AZ (Tucson News Now) - Tucson Police are revealing more about a S.W.A.T. stand-off in midtown.
Police have been near Glenn and Park throughout Thursday evening. Several streets are still closed.
Police say it was a six-year-old who brought a loaded handgun to school that led to the stand-off.
A teacher at Keeling Elementary found the gun in the child's backpack, though, police say there was no threat or lockdown at the school.
Now, investigators are trying to figure out how the gun got into the boy's possession.
The incident led officers to a home in the area of Park and Glenn.
Police say the boy's father has a felony warrant for parole violation.
Police tell us they have learned there are weapons in the home, and worked for several hours to try to get him to come out.
Police were able to send in a K-9, and take the man into custody, after the dog bit him.
Officers say they may charge the father with child abuse for the gun incident.
Stay with Tucson News Now on-air, online, and on your mobile device for updates on this Late Breaking story
Reuters) - Four people died on a Pennsylvania highway on Friday when a gunman shot dead three people and later was killed in a shootout with police, authorities said.
Three state troopers were injured in the incident in Frankstown Township, about 100 miles east of Pittsburgh.
Investigators suspect the shooter might have been driving when he opened fire, shooting people for unknown reasons, the Pittsburgh Tribune Review reported, citing an official with the Blair County Emergency Management Agency.
"The Pennsylvania State Police have neutralized the active shooter in Frankstown Township, Blair County. There is no longer a threat to residents and visitors to this area from this individual," the Blair County Emergency Management Agency said on its Facebook page.
The shooting took place with much of the United States still highly sensitive to gun violence one week after a gunman killed 20 school children and six adults at an elementary school in Newtown, Connecticut.
Pennsylvania state trooper Adam Reed said the shooting was believed to take place between 9 a.m. and 9:30 a.m.
At 9:30, Newtown held a moment of silence on Friday in remembrance of the children and teachers killed exactly one week ago in Connecticut. The National Rifle Association pro-gun lobby later issued a statement in response to the Newtown shooting, urging armed guards at the nation's schools.
Asked if the Pennsylvania shooting might have had any connection with the Newtown events, Reed said, "I don't believe it did, but that's all still being looked into."
The unidentified highway shooter killed two other men and a woman, the Altoona Mirror reported, citing the prosecutor, Blair County District Attorney Richard Consiglio.
One trooper was hit in his bulletproof vest and another was hit by flying glass when the shooter fired on his car, the Mirror said. The third trooper was injured in a crash involving the suspect, the newspaper reported, citing Consiglio.
Police said they would hold a news conference soon to release details.
(Reporting by Drew Singer and Daniel Trotta; Editing by Sandra Maler, Alden Bentley, Gary Hill)
A Burger King franchise in Pennsylvania settled a lawsuit out of court with a black Ohio truck driver who claimed that his Whooper Jr. was served with spit.
Glenn Goodwin settled the civil rights lawsuit with Fast Food Enterprises #3, which operates the Burger King franchise on Interstate 90 in Fairview, Penn.
Goodwin’s suit claimed that the spitting was racially motivated. He said he was the only black customer in the Burger King on Nov. 11, 2008 when he ordered a burger.
According to GoErie.com, “Goodwin said he saw the male employee retrieve Goodwin's wrapped burger from a chute, then turn his back and unwrap the sandwich.
A restaurant manager, Goodwin said, stood by the employee as if he were trying to shield the employee from Goodwin's view. The manager said, "nice," as the worker handled Goodwin's food, Goodwin said.
Goodwin said he took the food to his truck. He said when he bit into the hamburger, he realized it had been tampered with….He said he went into the restaurant and asked who spit on his sandwich and someone named "Greg" was identified.
Goodwin complained to state police, whose tests showed the presence of saliva on the outside and inside of the sandwich, according to court records. The burger was thrown out by police before further DNA testing could be performed to determine whose saliva was on the sandwich, according to court records."
Attorney’s for the Burger King franchise argued that there was no evidence of the spitting, that there was no evidence that even if there was spitting, that it was racially motivated, and that the franchise was not liable for the employee’s actions.
US District Judge Sean J. McLaughlin disagreed: "There is evidence from which a reasonable jury could conclude that Caucasian customers at the Burger King restaurant received satisfactory food service while the plaintiff, the only minority person in the restaurant, did not," he wrote in a July 2011 opinion.
Attorneys for both sides were ordered not to disclose the details of the settlement agreement.
There have been other incidents of racially motivated spitting. In September, Brandi Worley, had been contracted to do post-Hurricane Isaac clean up work in Grand Isle, Louisiana.
She was spit on by Josh Jambon, who also swore at her and called the “N-word,” according to WBRZ.com. He was apparently upset over the pace of the cleanup efforts.
"It was humiliating," Ms. Worley told WBRZ-TV News 2. "It was just so hurtful."
Worley captured the incident on her cellphone video camera. Jambon was arrested by Grand Isle police and charged with battery.
WASHINGTON - Government officials are crediting the media for aiding in the quick identification and arrest of a female child porn producer and rescuing her 4 to 6-year-old victim.
On Wednesday, federal Crimes Against Children agents broadcast their nationwide search for a "Jane Doe" suspected child pornographer. Hours later, Corine Danielle Motley, 25, was arrested in Pensacola, Florida.
Motley is believed to have produced at least one long-form child pornography video featuring herself engaging in explicit sexual conduct with a 4 to 6-year-old victim.
Police in Denmark first downloaded the video in November, then notified American authorities based on indications that it was produced in the United States.
"The quick identification of the victim and suspect in this case demonstrates the power of the press, social media and the general public in helping solve these cases," said Immigration and Customs Enforcement Director, John Morton. "Literally hours after we asked the public for their assistance in identifying Jane Doe, a tip came in that led to her identification and arrest. There is nothing more satisfying than knowing that, due to these efforts, a child is now safe and her tormentor now in custody."
A U.S. Border Patrol agent accused of smuggling marijuana earlier this month while on duty in southwestern Arizona will remain in jail while he awaits trial.
U.S. Magistrate Judge Michelle Burns ruled Thursday that 25-year-old Aaron Anaya was at serious risk to flee from authorities and granted prosecutors’ request to keep him in jail.
Authorities say agents conducting aerial surveillance saw Anaya loading marijuana bundles that had been dropped over the border fence from Mexico into his patrol vehicle on Dec. 2 in between Yuma and Wellton, about 185 miles southwest of Phoenix.
Investigators say agents tracked Anaya for several hours as he appeared to return to normal duties and found nearly 147 pounds of marijuana in the vehicle.
Anaya pleaded not guilty to marijuana importation and other charges
Human skulls deliberately warped into strange, alien-like shapes have been unearthed in a 1,000-year-old cemetery in Mexico, researchers say.
The practice of deforming skulls of children as they grew was common in Central America, and these findings suggest the tradition spread farther north than had been thought, scientists added.
The cemetery was discovered by residents of the small Mexican village of Onavas in 1999 as they were building an irrigation canal. It is the first pre-Hispanic cemetery found in the northern Mexican state of Sonora.
The site, referred to as El Cementerio, contained the remains of 25 human burials. Thirteen of them had deformed skulls, which were elongate and pointy at the back, and five had mutilated teeth. [ See Photos of the 'Alien' Skulls ]
Dental mutilation involves filing or grinding teeth into odd shapes, while cranial deformation involves distorting the normal growth of a child's skull by applying force — for example, by using cloths to bind wooden boards against their heads.
"Cranial deformation has been used by different societies in the world as a ritual practice, or for distinction of status within a group or to distinguish between social groups," said researcher Cristina García Moreno, an archaeologist at Arizona State University. "The reason why these individuals at El Cementerio deformed their skulls is still unknown."
"The most common comment I've read from people that see the pictures of cranial deformation has been that they think that those people were 'aliens,'" García added. "I could say that some say that as a joke, but the interesting thing is that some do think so. Obviously we are talking about human beings, not of aliens."
Of the 25 burials, 17 were children between 5 months and 16 years of age. The high number of children seen at the site could suggest inept cranial deformation killed them due to excessive force against the skull. The children had no signs of disease that caused their deaths.
Although cranial deformation and dental mutilation were common features among the pre-Hispanic populations of Mesoamerica and western Mexico, scientists had not seen either practice in Sonora or the American Southwest, which share a common pre-Hispanic culture. The researchers suggest the peo
"The most important implication would be to extend the northern boundary of the Mesoamerican influence," García told LiveScience.
A number of skeletons also were found with earrings, nose rings, bracelets, pendants and necklaces made from seashells and snails from the Gulf of California. One person was buried with a turtle shell on the chest. It remains uncertain why some of these people were buried with ornaments while others were not, or — another mystery — why only one of the 25 skeletons was female.
During the next field season, the researchers aim to determine the cemetery's total size and hope to find more burials to get a clearer idea of the society's burial customs. "With new information, we also hope to determine whether there was any interaction between these and Mesoamerican societies — how it was and when it happened," they said.
García and her colleagues completed their analysis of the skeletal remains in November. They plan to submit their research to either the journal American Antiquity or the journal Latin American Antiquity. ple at El Cementerio had been influenced by recent migrants from the south.
