Tasered Brooklyn Man Falls to his Death
September 26, 2008 | 1 Comment
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Police fired a Taser at a naked Brooklyn man armed with only a fluorescent light tube yesterday, sending him falling to his death from a second-floor ledge after he went on a 40-minute rant.
Iman Morales’ mom begged cops not to hurt her son, telling them he’s sick - then watched in horror as he plunged from the top of the roll-down gate on which he’d been perched.
An Emergency Services officer, acting on the orders of his boss, fired at the 35-year-old man at around 2 p.m., as he waved the 8-foot fluorescent light tube, police sources said.
“His body froze up and he fell face-first,” said Sean Johnson, who witnessed the drama at 489 Tompkins Ave. in Bedford-Stuyvesant.
Morales, who crashed 10 feet to the pavement, died a few hours later at Kings County Hospital.
Asked if police followed the proper protocol for using a Taser, NYPD spokesman Paul Browne said, “That’s being reviewed.”
A New York Police Department lieutenant was stripped of his gun and badge, and the officer who used the stun gun on the man was placed on administrative duty Thursday, officials said.
Amid his mostly unintelligible rant, Morales was heard yelling, “You’re going to kill me. I’m going to take everyone with me.”
He also screamed, “I’m going to die. You’re all going to die with me.”
Morales first emerged hanging out a third-floor window after a blowup with his mother at around 1 p.m., witnesses said.
Twenty minutes later, he climbed the fire escape to the fourth floor, where he tried to force his way into a neighbor’s apartment.
“He tried to come into my window and I ran out,” said 40-year-old Tonya Wright.
“He said, ‘Let me in.’ I told him, ‘I’m not letting you in.’ ”
Morales then headed to the second floor and screamed to the crowd, which included his frantic mom.
“She was saying, ‘No! No! Don’t hurt him. He is sick,’ ” Wright said.
With police shouting for him to get down, Morales made his way to a ledge above a the gate.
“Walk down now! Move down!” the police can be heard shouting to him on video.
He then picked up the light tube and waved it in the air before jabbing cops who had climbed out of the windows above.
“When he was poking the cop, people were laughing,” Johnson said.
He refused orders from the officers and continued his incoherent tirade.
Finally, one of the ESU cops on the street shot him with the Taser.
“He just fell face first,” said witness Sean Brown. “People were screaming and yelling. It was wrong.”
It was unclear what set off the episode, but, said Johnson, “once he started hitting the cop with that pole, that’s when it turned serious.”
Morales had one prior arrest, for a Manhattan petit larceny.
“This is very out of character,” said the building’s superintendent, Charlene Gayle, 31.
“Nice guy, clean cut, well kept, never irrational. Didn’t have irrational behavior.”
Additional reporting by Larry Celona
Fat Loser Mum bought weapons for Fat Loser son
September 25, 2008 | 3 Comments
A WOMAN has been found guilty of buying an arsenal for her bullied 14-year-old son, who was planning a Columbine-style massacre at a school.
Michele Cossey, 46, of Plymouth, Pennsylvania, admitted she helped her troubled son Dillon build a cache of weapons by buying a rifle and gunpowder but investigators still do not know whether she was aware her son was planning a deadly school attack.
Dillon, who left school at 12 after being bullied over his weight, planned to use them in a massacre in Plymouth Township, Pennsylvania.
He was caught when a schoolfriend he wanted to help with the attack told the police.
Dillon was sentenced to seven years in a juvenile detention centre earlier this year after pleading guilty to planning the attack, The Sun reported.
Michele Cossey pleaded guilty in Montgomery County Court on Tuesday to one count of child endangerment.
The court was told she bought Dillon an assault rifle fitted with a sniper’s scope, a 9mm handgun, a .22 rifle and gunpowder to make grenades.
Prosecutors said she had created a “me-and-mum-against-the-world” attitude in her only child.
Dillon Cossey had such a passion for the Columbine High School shooters that he decided to attack Plymouth Whitemarsh High School last year, according to the eNews.2.0 news website.
Dillon had been home-schooled since he left public school because of bullying.
His defence lawyer said internet violence woke the boy’s fantasies and he wished for a school attack.
Dillon had also been in touch with a Finnish teenager who carried out a massacre at his school last November, The Sun said.
Pekka-Eric Auvinen, 18, shot dead six pupils, a nurse and the head teacher before killing himself.
On Tuesday another Finn, Matti Juhani Saari, 22, massacred ten pupils at his college.
Michelle Cossey will be sentenced once psychiatric reports are completed.
Montgomery County Assistant District Attorney Christopher Parisi said she had tried to boost her son’s self-esteem “and in some way help the child, as misplaced as those thoughts may have been”.
She could get three to seven years in jail, Mr Parisi said.
Rapist Hides in Strippers Car Boot
September 25, 2008 | 1 Comment
A Sydney teenager raped a topless waitress after hiding in the boot of her car and forcing her to pull over, a judge has heard.
While she was driving from a bucks’ party, James Nigel Stephens moved from the boot compartment by pushing the rear seat forward and entering the rear passenger seat.
Stephens, 18 at the time, from Fairfield in Sydney’s southwest, has pleaded guilty to three counts of aggravated sexual assault and aggravated detaining a person for advantage.
The offences occurred in the early hours of January 14 last year in inner-city Waterloo.
Stephens faced a sentencing hearing in the NSW District Court on Thursday, where an agreed statement of facts was tendered to Judge Michael Finnane.
The facts said that when Stephens attacked the woman he was wearing a distinctive orange and black Balmain Tigers T-shirt, which police found in a search of his home.
The woman had been hired as a topless waitress from midnight to 3am at the bucks party, which Stephens attended.
After later being repeatedly sexually assaulted by Stephens in her car, she escaped and a taxi driver took her straight to police.
“Upon attending Redfern police station, the complainant entered the police station screaming hysterically and shaking uncontrollably,” the facts said.
The sentencing hearing continues.
Bumper Sticker: Only gay right is to die
September 24, 2008 | 3 Comments
GUN lobbyist Ron Owen has been told he is entitled to express his homophobic views, but that he went too far with the bumper sticker: “Gay Rights? Under God’s law the only rights gays have is the right to die.”
Queensland’s Anti-Discrimination Tribunal found Mr Owen guilty of inciting hatred against homosexuals with the bumper sticker when he parked his car outside the Cooloola Shire Council officers in Gympie, north of Brisbane.
The publisher of the ultra-right-wing pro-militia magazine Lock Stock & Barrel and former local councillor was also chastised on Monday for comments he made in the ensuing public outcry that engulfed the rural community, The Australian reports.
The former president of the National Firearm Owners of Australia was taken to the tribunal by several local lesbians, who claimed they had been offended despite only one having seen the bumper sticker.
Two of the women were awarded $5000, with a third awarded $2500 in damages.
Tribunal member Darryl Rangiah handed down a 77-page decision, which also ordered Mr Owen to publish a written apology for inciting hatred and causing offence to the homosexual community of Gympie.
Mr Rangiah acknowledged Mr Owen’s right to free speech, but said he had gone too far with the bumper sticker and in ensuing comments made during a television interview, in a report to a subsequent council meeting and in a letter on his website.
“Ron Owen is entitled to be a homophobe and he is entitled to publicly express his homophobic views,” he said. “That much is required in a society that values freedom of thought and expression. However there are limits.”
The tribunal ruled that Mr Owen - while not the registered owner of the car - had use of it and that the sticker went “beyond a mere joke”.
“The ordinary member of the public would, in my opinion, understand that he or she was being urged to hate and to have serious contempt for homosexuals,” Mr Rangiah said.
Read more on this story at The Australian
School Shooter Matti Juhani Saari kills 10, then himself
September 24, 2008 | Leave a Comment
“YOU will die next”.
That was the chilling warning posted on YouTube by a young Finnish man who went on a shooting rampage through a school, killing 10 people, before setting it on fire and shooting himself in the head.
Student Matti Juhani Saari, 22, was taken taken to hospital after the carnage in the town of Kauhajoki, southwest Finland, yesterday but died, authorities said.
A female victim who was shot in the head was one of two people wounded but alive.
Her condition was not immediately clear.
Saari had been questioned by police just one day earlier after he posted a YouTube video of himself at a shooting range, Interior Minister Anne Holmlund said.
Police had decided against taking his gun and cancelling his gun licence, deeming him not enough of a threat.
“Police action will be examined in more detail later. The gunman had a temporary permit for a .22 calibre pistol, and he had received it in August 2008. It was his first gun,” she said.
“Police were aware of (the YouTube videos) and spoke to him on Monday, September 22,” a police spokeswoman said.
“However, the police officer on duty decided there was no need to terminate his gun licence.”
Saari left a note saying he had been planning such an attack since 2002, and that he hated the human race, police said.
YouTube profile
Saari’s YouTube profile said he loved weapons and horror movies. One clip showed him pointing a gun at the camera and saying “You will die next”.
The videos also showed Saari, dressed all in black, firing a handgun at a shooting range.
The weapon is described on the site as a Walther P22.
Saari said his interests and hobbies included “computers, weapons, sex and beer”.
Among his favourite films were “horror movies like The Shining”, Stanley Kubrick’s famed 1980 film featuring Jack Nicholson as a crazed father.
He listed his favourite heavy metal groups, such as German band Rammstein and US group Metallica, as well as German electronic band Wumpscut, whose name he used in his YouTube pseudonym, Wumpscut86.
Wumpscut is known for its violent lyrics, with song titles such Black Death, Bleed in Silence, and Hate is Mine.
His profile included the words: “And suddenly there was war and the mothers they screamed. For revenge and reprisals for another war.”
In another video, entitled Goodbye, Saari emptied his gun into an off-screen target, walks to the camera and said “goodbye”.
The videos were taken offline soon after the shooting.
Victims trapped
The shooting at the school in Kauhajoki, 360km from Helsinki, in southwest Finland, began yesterday morning (local time) and lasted for about 90 minutes, local official Ari Paananen said.
Saari, a second-year culinary arts student, stalked the school corridors in a ski mask and black outfit before letting off round after round at helpless students trapped inside a classroom.
He then set several fires around the building before shooting himself in the head. He later died of his injuries at a local hospital.
Nine of the victims had been found in one classroom, while another had been discovered in a corridor and Saari had been found in another hallway at the other end of the building.
Police spokesman Jari Neulaniemi said Saari walked into the school armed with a the .22-calibre Walther pistol and carrying explosives.
Mr Neulaniemi said Saari left two handwritten messages at huis flat saying he had planned the attack since 2002 and that he hated the human race.
The note went on to say “the solution is Walther 22″, Mr Neulaniemi said.
He said Saari started fires around the school with “petrol bombs or Molotov cocktails.”
Some of the victims could not be identified immediately because they were burnt beyond recognition.
The school’s headmaster, Tapio Varmola said he did not know what had spurred the deadly shooting spree.
“I have no knowledge about a possible motive,” said.
“Because the shooter has died we might never know why he did this.”
According to a former classmate, the gunman bore no resemblance to the loner profile of many mass murderers.
“He was happy, a social guy - there was nothing exceptional - and he got along with people well and he was not lonely. He had friends,” Susanna Keronen said.
Scenes of horror
Witnesses described a scene of panic and terror as Saari stalked his victims.
“I heard the sound of shooting and hysterical girls’ voices. Then two girls came towards my room and said a weird man was shooting,” school caretaker Jukka Forsberg said.
“I went to see and saw a guy leaving a big black bag in the corridor and going into classroom No.3 and closing the door.
“I looked through window and he immediately shot at me. Then I called the emergency number.
“Thank God I was not hit. He fired at me but I was running zigzag. I ran for my life.”
Mr Varmola also described horrifying scenes.
“People were running out of the building in two directions. When I went out I didn’t hear any shots, only screams,” he told the STT news agency.
Questions over gun laws
The shooting raised the spectre of the killings at Finland’s Jokela high school last November, when student Pekka-Eric Auvinen killed six fellow students, the school nurse and the principal after broadcasting his intent with a video on YouTube.
Auvinen shot himself and died later of his injuries.
Finland has one of the highest rates of gun ownership in the world, ranking third after the United States and Yemen, according to a study last year by the Geneva-based Graduate Institute of International Studies.
After the last shooting, the Government took some steps to toughen gun regulations.
After the latest shooting, it held an emergency meeting of governing coalition party leaders.
Prime Minister Matti Vanhanen said Finland should consider banning private handguns altogether, saying a new stricter European-wide gun law was not enough.
“It is not enough to talk about age limits or interviews … after two such tragic incidents, we have to discuss whether private people can be allowed to have handguns,” Mr Vanhanen said on Finnish broadcaster MTV3.
Finnish President Tarja Halonen said the “shocking” news would start a national dialogue on gun ownership.
“This news we received today was shocking, sad news about the shooting incident at a vocational school in Kauhajoki,” she said on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly in New York.
- AFP, Reuters
