Gunman dies after storming school:
An 18-year-old masked former student of The Geschwister School in Emsdetten, Germany stormed the school, wounding 8. The gunman’s name and cause of death have not been released.
Explosives were said to have been found on his body.
More details as they become available.
Sex-Assault Suspect Faces More Charges:
“Alleged” child rapist Scott Shefelbine from Connecticut has been arrested again. You can read about all his exploits here.
TOLLAND — Scott D. Shefelbine was arrested Wednesday night for allegedly preying on another teenage girl for sex.
This time, the 31-year-old Tolland man was charged with restraining and attempting to rape a 15-year-old girl in the parking lot of Tolland High School. State police from Troop C served Shefelbine with a warrant Wednesday night charging him with criminal attempt at first-degree sexual assault, second-degree unlawful restraint, third-degree sexual assault and risk of injury to a minor. Police did not say when the incident took place.
Shefelbine, of 167 Mountain Spring Road, was already facing multiple charges of sexually assaulting young teenage girls, some of whom he met on Myspace.com, a social networking website that is popular with teenagers. Prior to his arrest Wednesday, he was free on $1 million bail posted by his parents, who run a computer business from their home.
He is now accused of assaulting at least seven girls. One of those, from West Hartford, told police that she had sexual contact with Shefelbine on numerous occasions, including at least once when she lived in Tolland before she turned 16.
In court documents, the accused is described as portraying himself as age 17 or 19 to teenage girls and their parents. Police searching his home have recovered hair pieces that investigators say he used to hide his receding hairline and bald spot.
According to this article, Shefelbine posted bond and was released. So now this scumbag is back out on the streets.
What I find strange is that Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal has repeatedly called for MySpace to make their site safer for children, yet the state can’t keep repeat offenders like Shefelbine and David Leonard off the streets.
Relatives sue over shotgun slayings in Aliso Viejo:
Relatives of the victims of gunman William Freund are filing lawsuits against several different parties…
Relatives of a father and daughter who were killed when a neighbor burst into their Aliso Viejo home and opened fire have filed a lawsuit against the killer’s family, the gun dealer who sold the weapon and a support-group website where the gunman had vowed to wage a “terror campaign.”
Denise Smith and her son, Brandon Smith, filed the lawsuit in Orange County Superior Court this week, seeking damages for wrongful death and emotional distress.
The Smiths allege that the gunman’s parents, Karen and Dennis Freund, “permitted” their son to keep a weapon in their home, failed to supervise him, and failed to warn and protect them from their son’s violent nature, according to the lawsuit.
Before the murders, Freund e-mailed and posted comments on the WrongPlanet.net website saying he needed a “real life” friend and said he was contemplating suicide.
He also threatened to start “a terror campaign to hurt those that have hurt me.”
The website serves as a support group for people with Asperger’s syndrome, a neurological disorder, described as a variant of autism, which hampers people’s ability to interact socially. Freund suffered from the disorder.
The suit accused the website of failing to alert police, the victims, Freund’s family or any authorities to prevent harm.
WrongPlanet founder Alexander Plank declined to comment Friday, but during an interview last year, he said volunteer moderators in Virginia tried to call Freund’s parents but were unsuccessful.
The Smiths also accused the Saddleback Valley Gun Center and its owner, George Hueneman, of negligently selling the shotgun to a teenager suffering from a disorder.
Hueneman said he ran a state background check on Freund — which came up clean. He said the state did not log a person’s medical history. He said he was not aware of Freund’s condition and that the law did not require him to determine it before selling a him gun.
I can see the merit in a suit against Freund’s parents, but as far as the gun dealer and WrongPlanet.net are concerned, that part of the lawsuit should be thrown out.
As the article states, the gun dealer followed the law and WrongPlanet tried contacting Freund’s parents. Granted, they should have contacted law enforcement, but it’s not like they sat back and did nothing.
Mother says Joplin school shooter was bullied:
The mother of Thomas White, the Memorial Middle School shooter, is claiming that her son was bullied…
Norma White said that her son would come home with injuries, crying and begging not to be sent back to the school. The Associated Press is not naming the boy because of his age.
“He came home once limping; he had been kicked by an older kid in the halls,” she said. “He came home once with a huge welt on his head from someone slamming his locker door on his head when they passed him in the hall. His hand was injured once too.”
“He did suffer from bullying. He would come home crying, begging us not to send him back to school.”
While I can definitely empathize, it’s still no reason to bring a MAC-90 to school.
Mrs. White is placing a lot of the blame on herself…
Norma White did not directly blame the shooting on the bullying.
But she said she now wishes she had done more to raise the problem with school officials.
White spoke to her son’s teachers about the problem only a couple of times – during parent-teacher conferences – but never made a formal complaint to the administration. She said she advised her son to tell his teachers, but he often insisted nothing would be done about it.
It also didn’t help that White had such easy access to the guns that White’s father wasn’t supposed to have anyway.
In school killings, journalists have duty to report, must fight danger to sensationalize:
This is a great article by American University journalism student Max Ringsgwandl. And I’m not just saying that because he interviewed me for the article.
Max’s article explores the roles and actions of mainstream media when it comes to school shootings. It should be a must-read for all “professional” journalists.
Prostitution sting leads to nearly 100 arrests:
Rented furnishings and hidden cameras were among the props Seattle police vice detectives used to arrest nearly 100 men who showed up at a ritzy downtown condo in the past two weeks expecting to pay for sex.
Nearly three-fourths of the men who were arrested on suspicion of patronizing a prostitute responded to postings in the “erotic services” category on craigslist, the free online community where people can search for apartments, jobs, used cars, friends and dates. The rest answered escort ads found in the back pages of The Stranger and Seattle Weekly.
Vice detectives then turned their attention to men who, instead of cruising the streets for prostitutes, respond to online and newspaper ads looking for sex, he said. To make their ads believable, Sano said, female detectives were photographed in flirty poses, phone lines were established and appointments were set up.
When a man arrived at the rented condo, he was greeted at the door and ushered inside, Sano said. As other detectives hid in a bedroom watching live footage from hidden cameras, the female detective, posing as “a provider,” would engage in a conversation about sex and collect her fee, he said.
Once money had changed hands, Sano said, other officers would then walk out and arrest the man.
All but five of the men were interviewed, cited and released: One man, a registered sex offender, was booked into the King County Jail for violating conditions of his release, three others were booked on drug violations and another on a weapons charge, Sano said.
Arrestees have included “bank presidents, state employees, business owners, construction workers, physicians and surgeons,” Sano said.
And here’s what Craig himself had to say…
Craig Newmark, who founded craigslist in San Francisco in 1995, said he has heard that “prostitution is a significant problem” on the Web site and noted that craigslist has built a “top-notch” reputation for responding to complaints of illegal activity.
As for the local craigslist review board where men discuss the sexual exploits they paid for, Newmark said those who operate the site are improperly using the craigslist name and that legal action is being discussed by the Seattle-based law firm representing his site.
Craigslist, which is now available in some 300 cities worldwide, doesn’t monitor what people post.
“We are a democracy … and we find we can trust our community,” he said. “I don’t know what the situation is like in Seattle, but we would prefer that [police] go after violent criminals or crooked congressmen.”
I’d prefer that my local police would go after all of them. This is not a debate on whether or not prostitution should be legal. Right now, it’s illegal in most of the country.
When prostitution moves into a neighborhood, it’s not long before the drugs move in, then the violent criminals. Cracking down on prostitution is stopping the flood of crime before it even starts.
Vernon man charged again with MySpace sex assault:
David Leonard, our favorite Connecticut child molester, has been arrested AGAIN!!! You can check out just some of his earlier exploits here and here.
NEW BRITAIN – A Vernon man was served with an arrest warrant Monday morning for another sexual-assault charge stemming from his use of the profile Web site MySpace.com
The man, David Leonard, 22, was charged with second-degree sexual assault, risk of injury to a minor, employing a minor in an obscene gesture, promoting a minor in an obscene performance, and enticing a minor, according to the New Britain Herald.
The incident took place in 2004 in New Britain, and involved a 14-year-old girl, New Britain police Sgt. Gregory Wright said.
Leonard, a former Central Connecticut State University student, was first arrested on Jan. 30 on charges of sexually assaulting a 15-year-old Vernon girl he met through MySpace.
Leonard was arrested a second time and accused of fondling a 12-year-old Newington girl and her friend of the same age in a wooded area.
Leonard was arrested a third time on June 16, accused of sexually assaulting a 14-year-old girl in New Britain, and was arrested for the fourth time in early August and charged with sexually assaulting a 14-year-old girl in Wethersfield.
In October, a Superior Court judge signed a fifth arrest warrant against Leonard.
After the last arrest in October, Assistant State’s Attorney Louis Luba told the Herald that police are expecting to arrest Leonard again on allegations of sexual assault against minors in Torrington and Vernon.
Leonard also was arrested recently on a warrant out of Litchfield County, Luba told The Herald.
Luba added that this would bring the total number of suspected cases to around 10.
In addition to the sexual assault charges, Leonard has pending charges for carrying a weapon in a motor vehicle, failure to appear, and resisting arrest after police said he tried to run away from them when they came to his house in January.
How many times does a child molester have to be arrested before they stop arresting him and just put him in jail?
Campbell County High School shooting case goes back to juvenile court:
The attorney for Kenneth Bartley, the teenage gunman from Campbell County High in Tennessee who killed assistant principal Ken Bruce and wounded principal Gary Seale and assistant principal Jim Pierce, wants to have the trial moved back to juvenile court…
In March Bartley agreed to be tried in adult court, but now he wants a hearing on the matter. So the case will at least temporarily go back to juvenile court. Thursday the judge set April tenth as a tentative trial date if the case comes back to adult court.
“If they want to have a hearing in juvenile court, we don’t want to deny them any right, but we’re confident that we’ll have the trial in April here in criminal court,” said District Attorney General Paul Phillips.
Hopefully, it will stay in adult court where it belongs. Murder is not a juvenile crime.
MySpace sex case prompts Internet parental warning:
SHELBY TOWNSHIP — Macomb County’s top cop warned parents Tuesday about the potential dangers their children face on the Internet after a 22-year-old man was charged with having sex with an underage girl he met on the popular MySpace.com Web site.
His comments come a day after Peter Kennedy, 22, of West Bloomfield was charged with having sex with a 14-year-old girl in Shelby Township.
Police are not disclosing the girl’s identity because of her age.
“He apparently had contacted the girl days before through MySpace.com,” said Sgt. Stan Muscynski of the Shelby Township Police Department’s Detective Bureau.
Kennedy was arraigned Monday before Magistrate Michael Osaer in the 41-A District Court in Shelby Township on a first-degree criminal sexual conduct charge. Kennedy faces up to life in prison for the charge.
Osaer set bond at $250,000 bond. Kennedy remained in police custody Tuesday at the Macomb County Jail.
Kennedy’s attorney, Bloomfield Hills-based Elias Muawad, said the girl voluntarily left her home and met with his client and is now claiming forced sexual conduct.
“Force is the key thing here,” he said. “My client also believed the girl was 16 because of statements she made to him.”
The girl may have also told Kennedy she was 16 in exchanges they had over the Internet, Muawad said.
“I’m hoping she doesn’t ruin this young man’s life and tells the truth about (giving her consent),” he said.
A preliminary exam for Kennedy is scheduled for Nov. 20 before District Judge Douglas Shepherd.
Kennedy was arrested after a police officer on patrol found him engaged in sex with the girl in a car at about 3 a.m. Sunday, said Muscynski.
The car was in a parking lot in the 24 Mile and Van Dyke area, he said.
The old “she said she was 16” defense. You know, just because it may be legal for a 22-year-old to have sex with a 16-year-old doesn’t make it right.
Anyway, I was unable to find a current MySpace for this loser.