We have been discussing the use of criminal charges against children for pranks and threats in recent years, including a story this week involving twelve year old girls in Florida. In Fairfax, Virginia (where I live and my kids attend public school) a 12-year-old is being charged with making threats against her school using emoji. The girl sent an Instagram post in December that said, in part: “Killing [gun emoji] meet me in the library Tuesday [gun emoji] [knife emoji] [bomb emoji].” Once again, the case raises the question of whether such matters need to be criminalized rather than address through stern but internal punishment.
Category: Bizarre
There is a disturbing case out of Snaresbrook Crown Court in England where an Islamic studies tutor raped his 14-year-old pupil and left her pregnant. Mohammed Islam, 31, reportedly started molesting the schoolgirl in 2010 when she was just nine while teaching her the Koran. He has been sentenced to 19 years.
Ok, this would seem a straightforward case. A student at in Union, South Carolina, steals his teacher’s phone and then accesses her private photographs. He finds semi-nude pictures that she took for her husband for Valentine’s Day and shared them with other students. Result? Union County schools superintendent David Eubanks (left) and his colleagues demanded her resignation. I can certainly understand why teacher Leigh Anne Arthur might be a tad confused.
Continue reading “Student Steals Teacher’s Phone and Posts Semi-Nude Private Pictures . . . School Demands Resignation of Teacher”
Just when you thought you could not get more depressed about the state of humanity. Uganda officials are dealing with a rash of mutilations and murders of children. The reason is chilling. Some Ugandans believe that mutilating and murdering children can bring you good luck. With the recent Ugandan elections, people appear to have tried to rig the outcome through child ritualistic murder. Makes you feel a little better about the current crop of candidates in our elections. Ritualistic child murder is perhaps the only thing that they have not accused each other of.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has continued his assault on basic freedoms in his country with an assault this month on the decision of the Constitutional Court. The Court had the temerity to disagree with Erdoğan and rule that the imprisonment of two prominent journalists for a report on alleged illegal arms transfers to Syria was a violation of their rights. Erdoğan has announced that he will simply ignore the ruling of the court because he disagrees with it. Erdoğan has become increasingly bold in his crackdown on opponents and civil liberties — relying on his base of Islamic organizations.
Renee Rabinowitz, a retired lawyer with a Ph.D. in educational psychology who lives in Jerusalem, has finally had enough with having to deal with sexist rules imposed by Orthodox men. The 81-year-old woman has filed a discrimination lawsuit against Israeli airline El Al after she was allegedly forced to move seats after an Ultra-Orthodox man complained about having to sit next to a woman. As have previously discussed such cases where religious men have forced delays and movement of women without penalty from El Al — requiring everyone else to accommodate their extreme religious views. Even Delta airlines did nothing after ultra orthodox men prevented a flight from taking off until women were moved from the seats that they rightfully purchased.
Daniel and Samuel Sledden have again shown how the combination of a demonstrably low intellect and access to social media can be a terrible combination. The two drug dealing brothers were pulled back into court in England by Judge Beverley Lunt after they posted abusive remarks — mocking her for giving them only probation. That directly contradicted the expressions of remorse that the brothers had just made as the basis for suspended sentences.
Three black female college students in Albany have been accused of assault after originally claiming they had been the victims of a racist attack from “10-12 white men” on a city bus. The alleged attack happened on January 30th and Ariel Agudio, Alexis Briggs and Asha Burwell (all 20) claimed that they were the victims of a racist attack. However, after the videotape was reviewed the police found that it was the three students who allegedly initiated the attack and then participated in rallies denouncing racism in America. Hillary Clinton tweeted support for the women in their claim as victims of racist.
I have long been critical of the criminalization of American society, particularly at our schools We have seen school pranks charged as crimes in high school (and here). Now three 12-year-old girls at Deltona Middle School in Volusia County in Florida have been charged for the prank of putting pepper in the soft drink of their teacher. The question is why these cases (which used to be handled as a disciplinary matter for the school) had to be handed over to the police and prosecutors. There are heavy penalties that can be meted out like barring the student from graduation.
We deal with so many truly horrible crimes on this blog that it is often difficult to be truly shocked by the actions of some felons. However, if the allegations are proven, Kimberly Bradford, 41, may be a true stand out. Bradford is accused of stealing money from Christmas cards sent to Sa’fyre Terry, the badly burned 8-year-old survivor of a 2013 arson. Volunteers were used to sort through the outpouring of cards and gifts for Sa’fyre sent to “Safyre’s Angels.” As one of those “angels”, Bradford was one of a number of volunteers suspected of pocketing money and gift cards.
Yesterday I had the pleasure of addressing the American Association of Clinical Urologists on recent developments in law and medicine as well as the controversy over the Supreme Court vacancy left by the passing of Associate Justice Antonin Scalia. I walked past the White House to the speech at the Willard Hotel and was stopped in my tracks by a state funeral in the making. The gun carriage and white horses seemed eerily familiar. It turned out to be the shooting of a scene for a movie called “Jackie,” which I gather is a reference to the former first lady. The procession was meant to reenact the JFK processional.
By Darren Smith, Weekend Contributor
We previously featured beleaguering Missouri Professor Melissa Click who generated controversy by obstructing a student journalist and calling in “muscle” to push him away; denying his first amendment rights. She was later videotaped in another incident yelling at police officers while blocking a protest at a homecoming parade.
After the former incident, she was charged with assault.
Now, the Missouri Board of Curators voted 4-2 to terminate Assistant Professor Click’s employment. Since late January she was on paid administrative leave
Continue reading “Embattled Missouri Communications Professor Sacked”
There was a gut-wrenching moment in the Senate Subcommittee on Immigration this week as Leo Perrero, former Disney IT worker, broke down in tears as he recounted how the company fired him and his colleagues despite record profits so that the company could give their jobs to cheaper foreign workers. The video is below. The company then ordered them to train their replacements or lose their severance pay. At the same time, Disney CEO Bob Iger sent a letter to the remaining company’s employees, asking for them to donate money to support the company’s lobbyists in Disney’s political action committee, DisneyPAC. Disney has been at the forefront in securing draconian copyright laws and protections from Congress.
Academics often get a raw deal when people question public accounts of research that seems frivolous or obvious. Often it is not. That may be the case with the research of Professor Astrid Willener and the team from the University of London. The team studied fat and svelte penguins and discovered that fat King penguins are unsteady on their feet while waddling. Fat penguins were also found to be caught more easily. While the films of fat penguins on a treadmill were worth watching just for the novelty, some may be less surprised by the finding that fat penguins are easier to catch and less likely to find mates. The study does show that some realities cross species lines.
If you said “Rogaine Theft” you nailed it. According to police in Ohio, the bald suspect is being pursued in a series of Rogaine thefts from a Walgreens and other stores in Mt. Healthy, Ohio (outside of Cincinnati). If the Rogaine works, they may want to post a before and after picture to help with identification.
Continue reading “Quick: What Crime Is This Man Suspected Of Committing?”