80% of Haiti's Capital Under (Cannibalistic?) Gang Control, Pittsburgh Police Stations Unmanned from 3-7am, BOTH Commercial Airline Pilots Fall Asleep at 30,000 Feet (The Five for 03/12/24)
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Let’s dive in.
[one]
A brutal high school fight just minutes from my house is dominating national headlines.
A 15-year-old is in custody and local and state leaders have responded with outrage after a video from Friday went viral showing one teen beat another’s head into pavement on a residential street near Hazelwood East High School as a group of young people watch.
As of yesterday, the victim was in critical condition at a local hospital, being treated for a severe head injury. Reports that she had succumbed to her injuries were widespread on special media, but unfounded.
The assault took place 2:30 p.m. on Friday, March 8, at Norgate and Claudine drives in Spanish Lake. That’s near near Hazelwood East High School, but not on school property, as was originally reported.
The St. Louis County Police Department said in a statement that the 15-year-old was taken into custody on Saturday on assault charges and further investigation is ongoing.
St. Louis County Prosecuting Attorney Wesley Bell called the incident “sickening and so difficult to watch.”
“Just heartbreaking,” he wrote on Twitter, but added that the matter is in the hands of the county juvenile courts and does not fall under his office’s jurisdiction unless the 15-year-old is certified as an adult.
Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey wrote on Twitter he thinks that certification is exactly what should happen.
Per Missouri law, if the fifteen-year-old alleged attacker is convicted as an adult, the sentence could be 5-15 years in prison.
[two]
A nation closely neighboring the U.S. is being overtaken by gangs…of alleged cannibals.
Haiti is "in a state of chaos" as brutal gang members attack police officers with machetes, a journalist in Port-au-Prince has claimed.
Violence has plagued the country's capital of Port-au-Prince for years, but the situation has escalated drastically as gangs demand that Haitian Prime Minister Ariel Henry resign. A state of emergency has been declared in the country after gangs attacked two prisons, setting many criminals free. It is now thought that 80% of the Haitian capital is controlled by these gangs.
Describing the violence in the country, a journalist said that cannibalism has been witnessed on the streets as the violence reaches "unprecedented" levels, reports the Express US. Speaking anonymously, they said: "Haiti is living in a total chaotic situation right now. It is total chaos everywhere, especially in the capital where I am right now.
"Haiti has a leader, Prime Minister Ariel Henry, but he is not inside the country right now. In the meantime you have gangs waging full attacks on key institutions.
"You also have attacks on police stations. The officers were in there for three hours crying for help, and after that, we saw images of officers being cut by machetes being shared on social media. The gangs are heavily armed with guns from the US, but they are also equipped with high-level technology like drones.
"The level of violence is unprecedented. The gangs seemingly want to kill as many people as they can. They are in a fear campaign where they want to appear as murderous and as violent as possible."
Haiti has been in flux since President Jovenal Moise was assassinated two years ago.
This seems like the kind of petty rebellion U.S. forces could crush in a matter of hours and restore democracy…but hey, maybe we just don’t have any money or resources left over for our backyard after spending $75 billion on Ukraine. For the record, we just sent them $300 million dollars of weapons TODAY.
But we can’t drop a couple of Navy SEAL teams in…to keep gangs from EATING people?!
[three]
If you need the police in the nation’s 68th largest city….good luck.
Pittsburgh police will no longer personally respond to calls that aren’t considered “in-progress emergencies” after recent department policy changes.
Calls not considered “in-progress emergencies” will be assigned by dispatch to a telephone recording unit. The city’s website states, “Creation of an enhanced Telephone Reporting Unit (TRU) operating from 7-3 a.m. daily, including weekends. Dispatch will assign reports to the TRU for calls that do not require an in-person response by officers. TRU will NOT be assigned to any “In Progress” call where a suspect may be on scene, any crime where a person may need medical aid, any domestic dispute, calls with evidence, or where the Mobile Crime Unit will be requested to process a scene.”
In addition, between 3 and 7 a.m., when reportedly far fewer 911 calls are made, no desk officers will be present at the six police stations in the city. Instead, call boxes linked to 911 have been installed. During some overnight shifts, there may be only 22 officers to cover the entire city.
“It’s enough to cover the entire city in those hours when we have 8% of the time people are calling … I’m confident in the decisions that we make, that it impacts this bureau and this city in much better way than we have in the past,” Pittsburgh Police Chief Larry Scirotto stated.
The “Defund the Police” movement has burned out in some cities, but budget cuts continue to shape crime levels in other locations, including Hartford, CT….where a local pastor has organized a “self defense brigade.”
A new controversial armed citizen patrol has launched in Hartford.
Organizers say the people will be legally carrying as they walk around parts of the city where violence has taken a toll.
Though some – including the city’s mayor – are raising concerns about the effort.
In Hartford’s North End on Saturday, a group of people looked to patrol and clean up Garden Street.
“It was important to come out here because we believe that we have to keep the community safe, keep the community clean. And we're doing this by being out here for a few hours, clean up the community, pick up the trash,” said Marcus Long, of Hartford.
“We are legally armed and we are patrolling,” said Cornell Lewis, the founder of the Self-Defense Brigade. “The people on Garden Street came to us and asked us for help.”
While there did not appear to be open carry – which is banned in Connecticut - organizers previously told us those armed would be licensed and have concealed weapons.
They were part of Minister Cornell Lewis’ Self-Defense Brigade.
“We are not vigilantes. We are a group of people that are disciplined and trained. We go to the shooting range,” said Lewis.
The effort faces opposition including from an anti-violence group and the Hartford mayor.
Mayor Arunan Arulampalam wrote in part:
"Our community has seen so much pain and trauma, and what we need is for those who love this city to do the hard work of healing that pain.”
The mayor added that the city did not need people being trained to walk the streets with guns and trying to take the law into their own hands.
A bit of digging reveals that Lewis moved to the city in the 1990’s, and has been battling organized crime for years, as he built a church.
From Lincoln Christian Univeristy’s alumni feature:
“We purchased an abandoned house and fixed it up. This became our headquarters for Bible study, discussions, and housing homeless men on the third floor. The home became a focal point when I organized community residents to rid the area of vicious drug gangs. In a six-week period in 1993, two drug gangs were run out of the neighborhood. The drug dealers placed a murder contract on my life, causing me to send my wife Terry to live with her parents until the issue was resolved.
[four]
A woman in Alabama has been arrested…for not showing ID, after calling in a noise complaint.
Stallworth had called police to her home on Feb. 23 on a noise complaint, she said, because a neighbor was playing music too loudly. The music stopped when police visited the neighbor's house but resumed after they left, Stallworth said.
She then went out to her car and purposely turned on the alarm to draw her neighbor's attention, she said. Then another neighbor began playing music loudly, and police soon arrived at Stallworth's home.
Cellphone video shot by Stallworth's son, Jermani Marshall, 18, and released by her attorney, Harry Daniels, shows Andalusia Police Officer John G. Barton standing at Stallworth’s doorstep asking for her identification.
“Ma’am, I’m not arguing with you. Provide ID or go to jail,” Barton says in the video.
She said she refused because she did not believe she had to provide identification.
Alabama law allows a police officer who reasonably suspects a crime is being committed to ask for people's names and addresses and explanations of their actions, but it does not say anything about showing identification, such as driver's licenses or passports.
“I’m going to jail? For not providing my ID?” Stallworth responds in the video.
Then Barton orders Stallworth to put her hands behind her back because he is placing her under arrest, the video shows.
The mayor has since apologized.
This publication is not in the business of giving legal advice (and I’m not a laywer), but if a police officer demands ID when you’re the plaintiff/alleged victim…all I can say is that I would rather endure an arrest for a misdemeanor than submit to an unconstitutional police demand.
[five]
And finally, two pilots for an Indonesian airline fell asleep on the job…at 30,000 feet.
USA Today reports:
The report said the pilots were operating a Batik Air flight from Kendari in Southeast Sulawesi province to the capital Jakarta on Jan. 25 when they simultaneously fell asleep for 28 minutes.
There were 153 passengers and four flight attendants on board the flight. No one on board was injured, the report said.
Additionally, the flight lasted two hours and 35 minutes and properly landed in Jakarta with no damage to the aircraft, an Airbus A320.
The report did not name the pilots but said they were both Indonesian. The pilot in command was a 32-year-old and the second in command was a 28-year-old. Both were deemed fit to fly, had passed health checks, and tested negative for alcohol.
I had always heard that commercial airliners could keep themselves in the air if the pilots were incapacitated…I guess now we have evidence that’s true.
Until the next one,
-sth