Thursday, January 31, 2013

Woman sues for $250 million after NYPD handcuff and interrogate her 7 year old boy.

Came across this article on Yahoo.  If any of this is even remotely true someone needs to lose their job.  To handcuff and interrogate a 7 year old boy for supposedly stealing "lunch money" is pretty damn offensive.

Here is the Yahoo story.

 7-Year-Old Handcuffed Over $5, Says Suit
 By: Ben Waldron

7-Year-Old Handcuffed Over $5, Says Suit (ABC News)

The family of a 7-year-old New York boy is suing police and the city for $250 million, saying cops handcuffed and interrogated the boy for ten hours after a scuffle over lunch money at school.  Wilson Reyes, a student at Public School 114 in the Bronx reportedly got into a fight with a fellow student in December after he was accused of taking $5 of lunch money that had fallen on the ground in front of him. Responding to a complaint of assault and robbery, the police were called and took the boy to the local police precinct where officers allegedly handcuffed and interrogated him for ten hours, according to the lawsuit.

"Imagine how I felt seeing my son in handcuffs," Wilson's mother, Frances Mendez, told the New York Post. "It was horrible. I couldn't believe what I was seeing," she said.

The claim, filed by family attorney Jack Yankowitz, accuses the NYPD, among other things, of false imprisonment, physical, verbal, emotional and psychological abuse, and deprivation of Reyes' constitutional rights.  Robbery charges against the boy were later dropped, and the NYPD, though it disputes the accusations in the suit, is investigating the incident.

"While the lawyer's claims are grossly untrue in many respects, including fabrication as to how long the child was held, the matter is nonetheless being reviewed by the department's Internal Affairs Bureau," Deputy Commissioner Paul J. Browne told ABC News in an emailed statement.  New York City Public Advocate Bill de Blasio was critical of the NYPD in a statement posted on the New York City Public Advocate's website.

"Seven-year-olds don't belong in handcuffs," he said. "As a parent, I wouldn't stand for this in one of my kids' schools. Our school system's over-reliance on the NYPD as a disciplinary tool traumatizes our young people, sows distrust in our communities and drains vital city resources away from responding to genuine crimes. This has to stop."

Calls placed to Public School 114 were not immediately returned.

Accident on I-29 causes traffic and two serious injuries

Two serious injuries that left two people in the hospital were the results of an accident on Interstate 29 in Platte County.  In what was originally a small accident, in which left German Rivera-Torres of Kansas City, Missouri blocking the left lane of Interstate 29 with his 2001 Chevy Cavalier ended up being far more serious.  As the 2001 Chevy blocked the lane ahead, Cody Darr of Winterset, IA continued to pilot his 1995 Buick Skylark ahead on Interstate 29.  It is unknown at this time why Cody Darr did not see the 2001 Chevy, it may have been a case of a distracted driver, but Cody Darr's Buick smashed into the 2001 Chevy.

The collision caused serious injury to both Darr and Rivera-Torres and both were transported to North Kansas City Hospital by KC Fire and EMS. The investigating officer for the Missouri Highway Patrol was Corporal M.B. Koch.

Police Report

When seriously injured in an accident like this you need to obtain an experienced personal injury lawyer to investigate the facts and determine whom is at fault.   If you or a loved one find themselves in need of an experienced personal injury lawyer please contact the attorneys of Copley Roth and Wilson LLC.  Our firm has extensive experience handling personal injury and wrongful death claims and is here to compassionately assist you in your time of need. If you, a loved one, or a family member has suffered the devastating , and oftentimes tragic consequences of a car accident, please do not hesitate to contact Copley Roth and Wilson, LLC (913-451-9500) to address any questions or concerns you may have.  The initial consultation(s) telephone and in person, are always free.

Missouri Driver causes serious accident in Johnson County

Abriell Halliburton of Kansas City, age 21, caused an accident in Johnson County Kansas the Kansas Highway Patrol reports.  At this time it is unknown what happened other than a 1996 Mercury Tracer driven by Ms. Halliburton,  for an unknown reason swerved and lost control while southbound on Interstate 35 just north of 75th street.  The 1996 Mercury then struck the 2009 Kia operated by Mr. Bazi Nur, a 26 year old man from Lenexa.  According to the investigating officer of the Kansas Highway Patrol, the accident occurred on on January 30, 2013 at approximately 3:25 p.m.

Both Abriiell Halliburton and Bazi Nur were transported for medical care. Ms. Halliburton was taken to Shawnee Mission Medical, and Bazi Nur was taken to Overland Park Regional. Mr. Nur was listed in serious condition.

Police Report

When seriously injured in an accident like this you need to obtain an experienced personal injury lawyer to investigate the facts and determine whom is at fault.   If you or a loved one find themselves in need of an experienced personal injury lawyer please contact the attorneys of Copley Roth and Wilson LLC.  Our firm has extensive experience handling personal injury and wrongful death claims and is here to compassionately assist you in your time of need If you, a loved one, or a family member has suffered the devastating , and oftentimes tragic consequences of a car accident, please do not hesitate to contact Copley Roth and Wilson, LLC (913-451-9500) to address any questions or concerns you may have.  The initial consultation(s) telephone and in person, are always free.  We invite you to call and speak with our experienced personal injury lawyers in your time of need.

Monday, January 28, 2013

Texas woman's execution will be the first women executed in the United States since 2010.

Saw this article in the Star. The story of her impending death isn't really the shocking part of this story it is the  ridiculously absurd and heinous crime she is convicted of. The story goes,

"Evidence showed McCarthy phoned Booth to borrow a cup of sugar, then attacked Booth when she went to retrieve it. Booth was stabbed with a butcher knife, beaten with a large candle holder and robbed of a diamond wedding ring. "(McCarthy) quite literally took the woman, put her left hand on a chopping block of the kitchen and then used a knife to sever her ring finger while she was still alive," said Greg Davis, the former Dallas County assistant district attorney who prosecuted McCarthy. "She took the ring from the finger that had been severed and continued the attack until she finally killed her."

Then they found her later having pawned the ring and using the money to purchase crack/cocaine.

 If the death penalty is correct for anyone it is surely this woman.


Here is the article in the KC Star.

By: Michael Graczyk

A Texas woman convicted of the gruesome slaying and robbery of her neighbor, a retired 71-year-old college psychology professor, is set to be the first woman put to death in the United States since 2010.
A Dallas County jury already found former nursing home therapist Kimberly McCarthy guilty of the 1997 killing when evidence at the punishment phase of her trial tied her to two similar murders a decade earlier.

"Once the jury heard about those other two, we were certainly in a deep hole," recalled McCarthy's lead trial attorney, Doug Parks. Jurors decided McCarthy should die.

Her execution, set for Tuesday evening, would be the first since a Virginia inmate, Teresa Lewis, became the 12th woman put to death since the U.S. Supreme Court in 1976 allowed capital punishment to resume. In that same time, 1,309 men have been executed.  Federal Bureau of Justice Statistics compiled from 1980 through 2008 show women make up about 10 percent of homicide offenders nationwide. According to the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, 3,146 people were on the nation's death rows as of last Oct. 1, and only 63 - 2 percent - were women.

The 51-year-old McCarthy also would be the first woman executed in Texas in more than eight years and the fourth overall in the state, which executes the most people in the nation - 492 prisoners since capital punishment resumed 30 years ago.  McCarthy, who is black, was condemned for the July 1997 killing of neighbor Dorothy Booth in Lancaster, about 15 miles south of Dallas. All but one of McCarthy's jurors were white.  McCarthy exhausted her court appeals, as the U.S. Supreme Court three weeks ago declined to review her case and the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles last week turned down a clemency petition. On Friday, her attorneys asked Dallas County District Attorney Craig Watkins to delay the lethal injection, citing his interest in Texas adopting a law to allow death-row prisoners to base appeals on race. Watkins has not responded.

"It certainly doesn't make me happy," Parks said. "It's a fact of life. ... The reality is, with some exceptions, they're going to execute your client."

Evidence showed McCarthy phoned Booth to borrow a cup of sugar, then attacked Booth when she went to retrieve it. Booth was stabbed with a butcher knife, beaten with a large candle holder and robbed of a diamond wedding ring.

"(McCarthy) quite literally took the woman, put her left hand on a chopping block of the kitchen and then used a knife to sever her ring finger while she was still alive," said Greg Davis, the former Dallas County assistant district attorney who prosecuted McCarthy. "She took the ring from the finger that had been severed and continued the attack until she finally killed her."

Prosecutors showed McCarthy stole Booth's Mercedes and drove to Dallas, pawned the ring for $200 and then went to a crack house to buy some cocaine. Evidence also showed she used Booth's credit cards at a liquor store and was carrying Booth's driver's license.  Booth's DNA was found on a 10-inch butcher knife recovered from McCarthy's home. McCarthy was arrested after police found her name on a pawn shop receipt for the ring.  McCarthy blamed the crime on two drug dealers she identified only as "Kilo" and "J.C."

"We could never turn up anything that would indicate they existed," Parks said.

McCarthy was tried twice for Booth's slaying, most recently in 2002. Her first conviction in 1998 was thrown out three years later by the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, which ruled police violated her rights by using a statement she made to them after asking for a lawyer.  Prosecutors presented DNA and fingerprint evidence that tied McCarthy to similar slayings of two other women in Dallas in December 1988. Maggie Harding, 81, was beaten with a meat tenderizer and stabbed. Jettie Lucas, 85, was beaten with both sides of a claw hammer and stabbed. McCarthy was indicted but not tried for those slayings. She denied any involvement.  "When the jury saw the other two were equally gruesome, I think it sealed the deal for her," Davis said.  McCarthy is a former wife of Aaron Michaels, founder of the New Black Panther Party, and he testified on her behalf. They had separated before Booth's slaying.

McCarthy declined to speak with reporters as her execution date neared. She's one of 10 women on death row in Texas but the only one with an execution date.  In 1998, Karla Faye Tucker, 38, became the first woman executed in Texas since the Civil War for a robbery in Houston where two people were killed with a pickax. Two years later, a 62-year-old great-grandmother, Betty Lou Beets, received lethal injection for the slaying of her fifth husband in northeast Texas to collect insurance and pension benefits. And in 2004, Frances Newton, 40, was executed for the 1987 slayings of her husband and two children in Houston.  At least eight male Texas prisoners have executions scheduled in the coming months.

Read more here: http://www.kansascity.com/2013/01/28/4035694/texas-womans-execution-1st-in.html#storylink=cpy

Read more here: http://www.kansascity.com/2013/01/28/4035694/texas-womans-execution-1st-in.html#storylink=cpy