Former Balch Springs, TX police officer Roy Oliver, 38, was found guilty of murder in the shooting of Jordan Edwards, an unarmed teen who was a passenger in a car that had left a party. Oliver was fired by the Balch Springs Police Department just days after the shooting for violating several departmental policies. A Texas jury sentenced Oliver to 15 years in prison and imposed a $10,000 fine for the murder of the 15-year-old honor student. The jury found Oliver not guilty on two counts of aggravated assault.
During the trial Oliver claimed that he fired at the car after seeing it move toward his partner, Officer Tyler Gross, and thought Gross’s life was in danger. Officer Gross testified that he did not fear for his life and didn’t feel the need to fire his own weapon. Oliver faced up to life in prison on the murder conviction. Prosecutors were pushing for at least 60 years in prison, while defense argued for 20 years or less. Oliver’s mother and wife asked for a lenient prison sentence. His wife, Ingrid Llerena, testified that she’s concerned about their 3-year-old son, who is autistic, and the boy’s future without his father at home.
In April 2017, the police were responding to a call about a house party when they encountered Jordan, his brothers and his friends in their car, attempting to leave. The officers first claimed that the boys were “backing down the street toward officers in an aggressive manner,” before later retracting that statement and acknowledging that the teens had been driving away.
Police body cam video shows Oliver fired his assault rifle into the car carrying the five teenagers as they drove away from the officer, hitting Jordan in the head. One of the car’s passengers says the officer never even ordered the boys to stop driving before opening fire. Edwards, was shot in the head as he was sitting in the front passenger seat of the car, along with his two brothers and two friends.
Jordan’s father Odell, said that his son Vidal, continued driving away so that no one else would be shot. He stopped the car two blocks from the party and called his father while his two friends in the back seat called their parents. “All I could hear was screaming and crying and the boys saying that police had just shot and killed Jordan. Jordan Edwards was a freshman at Mesquite High School and a straight A student with a 4.0 GPA who played quarterback and receiver on the football team. He lived in an upper middle class neighborhood in Balch Springs with his parents, two older brothers and younger sister.
Dallas County District Attorney Faith Johnson described Oliver as a “killer in blue” who violated his oath to protect citizens. Johnson said she wished Oliver’s sentence was much longer, but she respected the jury’s decision and realizes a guilty verdict for an officer is rare in police shootings. Charmaine Edwards said she would have preferred a sentence of 25 to 30 years for the killer of the stepson she raised. “That was my exact thought: They gave a year for his age,” Edwards, said outside a Dallas County courtroom after the sentence was handed down. “He can actually see life again after 15 years, and that’s not enough because Jordan can’t see life again.”
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A Pennsylvania a grand jury report revealed how more than 300 Catholic priests sexually abused over 1,000 children and possibly thousands more over seven decades and that the church leadership covered up the abuse. The report chronicles how the church used an array of tactics to conceal the abuse, including lying to the community about why a priest was removed from the parish, transferring pedophile priests rather than firing them, and locking abuse complaints away in a “secret archive.”
The report also details how priests raped young girls and boys, including one priest who raped a young girl in the hospital after she had her tonsils out. Another priest impregnated a young girl and then arranged for her to have an abortion. One priest who had been repeatedly accused of child abuse asked for—and received—a letter of recommendation to work at Disneyland.
Attorney General Josh Shapiro said “Today, the most comprehensive report on child sexual abuse within the church ever produced in our country was released,” Attorney General Josh Shapiro said. “Pennsylvanians can finally learn the extent of sexual abuse in these dioceses. For the first time, we can all begin to understand the systematic cover up by church leaders that followed. The abuse scarred every diocese. The cover up was sophisticated. The church protected the institution at all costs.” “The term ‘secret archives’ is not my term. It is how the church officials themselves refer to the troves of documents sitting in filing cabinets, just feet from the bishops’ desks. In each diocese, the bishops had the key to the secret archives, which contained both allegations and admissions of the abuse and the cover-up.”
The 884-page document, two years in the making, exposed the predators and the efforts of their bishops to protect them. Several clergy abuse victims who had testified before the grand jury attended Shapiro’s news conference and at least one of them could be seen breaking down in tears.
In a statement issued Thursday—two days after the grand jury delivered its report—Vatican spokesperson Greg Burke described the abuses as criminal and morally reprehensible. “There are two words that can express the feelings faced with these horrible crimes: shame and sorrow. The Holy See treats very seriously the work of the grand jury and the report it has produced. The Holy See condemns unequivocally the sexual abuse of minors. The abuses described in the report are criminal and morally reprehensible. The acts were betrayals of trust that robbed survivors of their dignity and, in many cases, also their faith. The church must learn hard lessons from the past, and there should be accountability for both abusers and those who permitted abuse to occur.”
The Vatican told victims Pope Francis “is on their side” and promised action to “root out this tragic horror.” The statement came just months after the pope said he mishandled a Vatican investigation into widespread sexual abuses by clergy in Chile, and less than two months after a Vatican court sentenced the church’s former ambassador to Washington, D.C., to five years in prison on a child pornography charge.
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The airline industry is re-examining security protocols after an airport worker at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport stole a plane on Friday night, took off without permission, then flew it for about an hour before crashing the plane into an island on Puget Sound. Richard Russell, a ground service agent, was the only person on board when he crashed the 76-seat Horizon Air plane.
Russell took off around 7:30 p.m. on August 10th, according to the authorities. He chatted with air traffic controllers who tried to guide him to a safe landing, as jets from the Air National Guards of Washington and Oregon flew alongside him, ready to take action. In recordings of Mr. Russell’s conversation with air traffic controllers, he speaks admiringly of the Olympic Mountains at sunset, complains of lightheadedness and muses about potential prison time if he were to land the plane safely.
At one point, an air traffic controller asked if Mr. Russell felt comfortable flying. “It’s blast, man,” Mr. Russell replied. “I played video games before so, you know, I know what I’m doing a little bit.” At times, Mr. Russell was contrite. “Man, I’m sorry about this. I hope this doesn’t ruin your day,” he said to the controller, adding that he was grateful to be kept away from other aircraft. “I’m glad you’re not, you know, screwing up everyone else’s day on account of me.” He said he hoped to have a “moment of serenity” in the air but lamented that the sights “went by so fast.”
“I got a lot of people that care about me, and it’s going to disappoint them to hear that I did this,” Mr. Russell could be heard saying. “I would like to apologize to each and every one of them. Just a broken guy, got a few screws loose, I guess. Never really knew it until now.” Videos taken by onlookers during Mr. Russell’s flight showed the plane doing deep dives, broad loops and at least one upside-down roll. The plane came down in a fiery crash on Ketron Island, about 30 miles from the airport and Russell was killed in the crash.
Russell had worked for Horizon Air, a subsidiary of Alaska Air Group, for three and a half years and was responsible for handling luggage and cargo and for towing aircraft. At a news conference the following day, the chief executive of Horizon Air Industries, Gary Beck, said Mr. Russell had cleared all the necessary background checks and was meant to be “on the secure side” of the airport, where the plane was. Beck said that Richard Russell did not have a pilot’s license “Commercial aircrafts are complex machines,” Mr. Beck added. “I don’t know how he achieved the experience he did.”
The plane was not scheduled for a flight when Mr. Russell commandeered it. Alaska Airlines officials said it was not clear how Russell had managed to take off in the plane. Debra Eckrote, the chief of the northwest regional office of the National Transportation Safety Board, said that it was conceivable that a ground service agent would be able to start an airplane. “They don’t necessarily use a key, so there’s switches that they use to start the aircraft,” she said. “So if the person has basic understanding — from what I understand he was support personnel, ground personnel — they probably do have at least a basic understanding on how to start the aircraft.”
At a news conference, Mike Mathews, a family friend, read a statement on behalf of Mr. Russell’s family. “We are stunned and heartbroken,” according to the statement, which described Mr. Russell as a faithful husband, a loving son and a good friend. “He was right in saying that there are so many people who have loved him.” Tim Orr, who also works at the Seattle-Tacoma airport said he had known Mr. Russell since they were both 12. He described Russell as the funniest and nicest person in the room. Mr. Orr added that Russell and his wife were active church members “so he doesn’t really fit the bill of someone who would steal an airplane.”
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Satellite images show North Korea has taken the first steps toward its commitment to nuclear disarmament. Images show they have begun dismantling a missile-engine test site, fulfilling one of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un’s promises during the historic summit in Singapore in June. The site is believed to play a role in North Korea’s development of liquid-fuel engines, although it’s unclear how much the site’s facilities were still being used.
Images published by a leading think-tank on North Korea show activity at the Sohae Satellite Launching Station, located among dense forest and hills close the northern border with China. Workers are believed to be dismantling a building used to assemble space-launch vehicles and a nearby rocket engine test stand used to develop liquid-fuel engines for ballistic missiles and space-launch vehicles, the 38 North think-tank said.
The work started at some point in the past two weeks, after the last visit to North Korea by the US secretary of state, Mike Pompeo. White House officials have stated that the trip made by Pompeo to Pyongyang went “as bad as it could have”. Jenny Town, the managing editor of 38 North, which is based at the Stimson Center in Washington DC, said the work at Sohae could be an important move to keep negotiations going. “Since these facilities are believed to have played an important role in the development of technologies for the North’s intercontinental ballistic missile program, these efforts represent a significant confidence-building measure on the part of North Korea,” 38 North said in a report.
South Korean officials have also said they detected dismantlement activities at the site, though didn’t specify the exact nature of the activities. The South Korean foreign minister, Kang Kyung-wha, at a briefing in London, said its reports suggested North Korea was preparing for disarmament in return for a lifting of economic sanctions. The satellite image analysis leaves it unclear whether North Korea planned to demolish the entire Sohae site, which has been vital to its space program. Other important facilities such as fuel bunkers, a main assembly building and the gantry tower appear untouched.
Senior US officials called on Mr Kim to act on his promise to give up his nuclear weapons and said the world, including China and Russia, must continue to enforce sanctions until he does so. The US State Department issued an advisory together with the departments of Treasury and Homeland Security alerting businesses to North Korea’s sanctions-evasion tactics. It said they should “implement effective due diligence policies, procedures, and internal controls to ensure compliance with applicable legal requirements across their entire supply chains.”
While the images are encouraging, experts urge caution until the North completely abandons the area. “If North Korea goes further and dismantle the entire Sohae site, that would meaningfully reduce the country’s long-range missile capability by eliminating a facility where it could fire multiple ICBMs in succession,” said Lee Choon Geun, a missile expert at South Korea’s Science and Technology Policy Institute. He added, however, that while the first steps in dismantling the site are important, in reality, Pyongyang is giving up little as it appears the country is content with the current long-range weapons in its possession.
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On July 19th, seventeen people died after a Missouri duck boat capsized and sunk on Table Rock Lake in Branson, Missouri. The boat, with 31 people aboard, sank around 7pm Thursday evening after it left for a ride on the lake that was hit by a thunderstorm generating near-hurricane strength winds. Witnesses captured video of two of the Ride the Ducks vessels being tossed around by waves as they struggled to make it back to land, only one made it back safely. One video shows water from the waves entering the craft before it capsized (rolled over onto its side) and then sank below the waves. It is believed the boat sunk in 40 feet of water, rolling as it sank, before landing on its wheels in 80-feet-deep lake water.
Duck boats are amphibious vehicles equipped with wheels and propellers that can be driven on roadways or on water. With a push of a lever, the vehicle can switch from being wheel-driven to relying instead on the rear-mounted propeller. Originally built to transport troops during WWII, they are now popular in many tourist areas with large bodies of water. The 17 victims in the tragedy ranged in age from 1 to 76 years with nine victims from the same family. None of the victims were wearing life jackets when found. There were life jackets on the boat but passengers weren’t required to wear them.
The National Transportation Safety Board recorded wind readings of 73 mph which were estimated to cause waves that rose to around 4 feet, with a possibility of 6-foot crests. An investigation into the cause of the tragedy and why the Ride the Ducks boat entered the lake despite severe thunderstorm warnings for the area. Branson is about 200 miles from Kansas City, and is considered a major family vacation destination. The town was under a severe thunderstorm warning issued about half an hour before the boat capsized.
Tia Coleman and 10 of her relatives were on a family vacation from Indiana. Her husband, her three children and five other members of her family died in the accident. Their names were: Angela, 45; Arya, 1; Belinda, 69; Ervin, 76; Evan, 7; Glenn, 40; Horace, 70; Maxwell, 2; and Reece, 9. Only Tia and her 13 year old nephew Donovan survived when the boat sank. The other victims included the driver of the duck boat, Robert Williams, 73; Steve Smith, a retired teacher from Osceola, Arkansas, and his teenage son, Lance; William and Janice Bright, a married couple from Higginsville, Missouri; William Asher and his partner, Rosemarie Hamann from Missouri; and Leslie Dennison from Illinois.
Tia Coleman, one of the 14 survivors, said passengers were told there was a storm coming before the trip and that they would alter their route to tour the lake before the storm hit. During an emotional interview from her hospital bed she said that the captain mentioned the life jackets before they went on the lake but said, “you won’t need them so we didn’t grab them, nobody did.”
She described the amphibious vessel being hit by waves and taking on some water. She said that immediately after a large wave went over the vessel, they were plunged under water where she couldn’t see or hear anything but felt her head hitting the top of the craft. Passengers were unable to make an immediate escape as the craft sank because the sides of the craft are windows with a canopy top. Once the canopy top gave way, some were able to swim to the surface as the craft continued to sink in the murky later water.
Vacationers and employees of a nearby dining showboat immediately began throwing life preservers, and life rafts into the water. Others jumped in and pulled people out of the water. Several people nearby with medical training tried unsuccessfully to revive unresponsive victims. Rescuers searched late into the night for survivors before calling it off due to poor visibility. The searching resumed the next morning until the remaining victims were found.
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A New York City lawyer has found himself in hot water after his racist tirade went viral. The footage shows a man now identified as Aaron Schlossberg – dressed in a white dress shirt and gray slacks, berating an employee at the Fresh Kitchen eatery in midtown Manhattan because the staff was speaking Spanish. In the video, Aaron Schlossberg, a lawyer in Midtown Manhattan makes racist remarks to Spanish-speaking patrons and threatens to call immigration enforcement after overhearing customers and staff speaking Spanish.
“Your staff is speaking Spanish to customers when they should be speaking English,” he says. “Every person I listen to: He spoke it, he spoke it, she’s speaking it.” “My guess is they’re not documented, so my next call is to ICE to have each one of them kicked out of my country,” he said. “If they have the balls to come here and live off my money — I pay for their welfare. I pay for their ability to be here. The least they can do — the least they can do — is speak English.”
Since the video went viral, Schlossberg has lost his office space and is now at risk of being disbarred. Corporate Suites, who rented an office space to Schlossberg, released a statement saying it had terminated an agreement to provide meeting space, mail handling and telephone services to Schlossberg. “Corporate Suites has a diverse and global community of business professionals working in a rich environment with mutual respect,” spokesman Hayim Alan Grant said in a statement. “We found Mr. Schlossberg’s statements offensive and contrary to our community norms.”
New York Congress member Adriano Espaillat has said he’s filed a grievance against Aaron Schlossberg and several other videos have now surfaced showing Schlossberg in a handful of other politically charged videos. In one video, at a protest against a Muslim activist last year, rallier’s held signs and icons connected to a alt-right, the far-right movement associated with racism, sexism and anti-Semitism. A man that appears to be Schlossberg, is heard cursing at the person taking the video and chanting, “Milo,” for right-wing media personality Milo Yiannopoulos.
Another video allegedly shows Schlossberg yelling at protesters outside of Trump Tower in a “Make American great again,” hat. YouTube vlogger Willie Morris drew even more attention when he posted a video of what he said was a random encounter with Schlossberg in New York in 2016. Morris said the Fresh Kitchen video jolted his memory about the incident. “I let it go and pretty much forgot about it until I was scrolling through Twitter yesterday and randomly saw a thumbnail and thought, ‘No freaking way!'” Morris said.
According to Morris, he was walking down the street when a man coming from the opposite direction made eye contact, walked faster toward him and shoved him with his briefcase. Morris included his own commentary to the video he posted. In it he said, “He immediately … starts yelling mostly racist and xenophobic stuff. I was so shocked, I’ve lived in NYC for five years and have never had anything like this happen. I was waiting for someone to jump out and scream, ‘Gotcha!’ ” In the video, a man can be seen asking Morris, “What country are you from?” and then saying: “I’m going to call the police. You don’t run into me. I’m a citizen here, you’re not. You’re an ugly f***ing foreigner. F*** you.” Morris, who was born in Massachusetts, holds up his passport at the end of his commentary.
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In an effort to broaden the company’s “social interaction” with our clients and FaceBook fans, Daily Trivia Questions are posted on both of our business pages. Here are the weekly standings for this past week, and the winner of the Sunday night Weekly Drawing for an AmEx gift card!
Congratulations – To this past week’s Trivia Contest Winner!! Our latest contest winner for the weekly FaceBook HealthInsurance4Everyone/Health & Life Solutions, LLC Trivia Contest, drawn randomly by computer late Sunday evening, April 2nd, 2017 was:
KAREN BONDEHAGEN
Fort Atkinson, WI
Winner Of A $25.00 AmEx Gift Card
Each day, fans of either of our company FaceBook pages (HealthInsurance4Everyone or Health & Life Solutions LLC) are able to test their skills with our Daily TRIVIA QUESTION. The first 20 winners who post the correct answer to the TRIVIA QUESTION, will then get entered into the weekly drawing held late on Sunday evenings for a $25.00 Am Ex Gift. Card
Weekly Gift Card winners will be posted in our blog at this site. Remember to become a FaceBook “fan” on either of our company pages to enter and post your answers.
Here are the daily contestants from last week’s Trivia Contest that were entered into the Sunday drawing:
3/27/17
Dean Bruss
Vickie Gipson
Crystal Young
Alisa Jones
Tonya Velazquez
Valerie Kuehn
Christina Domingue
Cheryl Hall
Christine Acoba
Teena Sierson
Leslie Wagner Hobson
Tracy Shafer
Jonnalyn Gates
Andrea Timms
Tera Wardrip
Jennifer Sparks
Shona Ortenblad
Johnna Loth
Phyllis Hines
Jane Peterson
3/28/17
Susanne Killion
Rebecca Fauteux
Sheila Carvell
Juanita Williams-Jones
Kimberly Foster
Phyllis Hines
Rhonda Nicholson
Julie Cutshaw
Kristina Rosson
Heather Jacques
Jennifer Kinner
Steve Hardy
Brandi Chaney
Dean Bruss
Nelle Bailey
Sherri Kidwell
Melissa Turner Baker
Lisa Dion
Kathleen Hickman
Kevin Cusack
3/29/17
Sandra Sue Blanton
Jennifer Downing
Jane Peterson
Justin Wilcox
Sheila Vives
Kim Floyd
Sarah Bellestri Shih
Demetris Crutcher
Mary Achio
Stephanie Caldwell
Alysia Jackson
Alexandria Fields
Anna Nichols
Amber McGrath
Eva Biggs
Leslie Wagner Hobson
Anne Delos Reyes-Villafuerte
Christina Domingue
Carla S-Paige Williams
Kristina Harris
Kayla Hernandez
3/30/17
Jennifer Ramlet
Christy Hawkes
Sheila Carvell
Brandy Marie Williams
Jennifer Sparks
Kathleen Hickman
Maria Bouchard
Dean Bruss
Althea Thomas
Kayla Clemons
Michelle Hughes
Cheryl Ralley-Messick
Cheryl Hall
Beth Cleveland
Lori Capobianco
Christine Domingue
Angela Hendricks
Tera Wardrip
Leslie Wagner Hobson
Melissa D’Ornellas Curtis
Alisa Jones
Alicia Johnson
Lauren Bradley
Glenna Zanaglio
3/31/17
Brittany Marie Thompson
Kimberly Snyder
Dean Bruss
Sheila Carvell
Lauren Bradley
Tammy Alcorta
Kristina Harris
Melissa Barnes Walker
Christy Hawkes
Angela Hendricks
Jodi Stevens
Rhonda Nicholson
Phyllis Hines
Amber McGrath
Brandy Marie Williams
Allyson Becker
Abby Cox
Nitasha Shank
Kayla Clemons
Belinda Haas
Ashley Stamey Phillips
4/1/17
Kristina Rosson
Preeti Chand
Bobbie J Rittenhouse
Jamie Shapiro
Alicia Dansby
Timothy Simpson
Mya Murphy
Lauren Bradley
Cassandra Berholtz
Linda Pearson
Althea Thomas
Kayla Hernandez
Christina Dimingue
Sherri Kidwell
Thomas Ryan
Lotorya Patrick
Angela Nicole
Megan Rhyne
Sheila Carvell
Dana Dilaura
4/2/17
Jennifer Ramlet
Cheryl Hall
Joanie Waterman
Kizzy Alvarez DeSantis
Nai Merri
Karen Bondehagen
Jacqlyn Gummert
Kayla Clemons
Brandi Chaney
Geri Rus
Holly Cajigas
Mary Achio
Jean Simmons Homfeld
Rachel Munoz Navarro
Lisa Dion
Tina Casto-Shafer
Trish Marks
Chris Maxwell
Sarah Harrison
Michelle Hughes
Be sure to watch both of our FaceBook pages for your chance to win and enter again next week, with questions posted daily on HealthInsurance4Everyone or at Health & Life Solutions, LLC!!
Remember that if you try your hand at answering the Trivia Question several days each week, your odds of winning the Sunday weekly drawing are much better. You may also find that if you “Like” both of the business pages, you will receive faster notifications of the other players as they post their answers to compete with you!
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