A man who calls himself a contract killer reportedly confessed to police of killing at least 40 people.
Jose Manuel Martinez, 51, told investigators that he was an enforcer for a drug cartel and carried out multiple murders at the command of the cartel leaders. Martinez is facing a trial in Alabama on a single murder charge and then a trial in California for at least nine others.
Martinez was arrested last year as he was crossing the border into Arizona.
Errek Jett, district attorney for Lawrence County, Alabama, said that he believes Martinez because he told investigators details that only the killer would be able to know.
Florida officials also say they want to question Martinez in connection with gang related murders in their states.
Police say that the possibility Martinez was the killer came to light during an investigation into a series of home invasion robberies in 2012.
The virulent anti-Christian Freedom From Religion Foundation is attacking the police chief of Birmingham, Alabama because of his participating with a group that prays in the most crime-ridden sections of town.
Chief A.C. Roper, who is an ordained minister, is assisting a group called Prayer Force United. The group consists of the chief, members of the force, area churches and local residents. The goal of the group is to bring faith-based activities to parts of the community that have been negatively impacted by crime.
The anti-Christianists are demanding that the chief no longer participate in the events unless he makes sure to remove any reference to his position as a leader in the police department. The group claims that his participation in the events and allowing a police car to roll through the area as part of the “prayer walks” in crime-infested neighborhoods is a violation of the Constitution.
The FFRF did not address the presence of the police officers providing security and safety for the prayer walkers who are residents of the city the officers are sworn to protect.
Chief Roper told reporters that he is not ashamed of his association with the group and that working with faith-based groups is part of their overall plan to deal with crime in Birmingham.
Birmingham police have stopped two Christian organizations from feeding the homeless in the city.
The police and city officials say that because of a new ordinance passed at the behest of restaurant owners to stop food trucks in the city the ministries can no longer take their trucks to hand out free hot dogs and water to those in need.
“I’m just so totally shocked that the city is turning their back on the homeless like this,” Pastor Rick Wood told WBMA-TV. “It’s like they want to chase them out of the city. And the homeless can’t help the position they’re in. They need help.”
The Lord’s House of Prayer has been feeding the poor and homeless in Birmingham every Saturday for the last six years before the police stopped them from feeding the hungry.
Birmingham’s mayor is all in favor of keeping the ministries from feeding the homeless because he says there has to be consistency to the law.
“What’s the quality of that hot dog? Where did it come from?” Mayor William Bell snapped when asked about the situation.
Don Williams of Bridge Builders Ministries said that police also stopped his group from feeding the homeless. Williams noted that there is nothing in the city’s law that addresses feeding the homeless for free from a truck, so the Mayor and police are acting beyond the bounds of the law.
A district court judge who blocked Alabama’s abortion law announced they will be holding a trial to discover the “merits” of the law.
Judge Myron Thompson, appointed by President Carter in 1980, issued a decision on the law saying that if the court finds the law was passed in an attempt to protect the lives of an unborn baby, then the law is unconstitutional.
Pro-abortion groups including Planned Parenthood, the ACLU and Reproductive Health Services immediately attacked the law upon passage, which Governor Robert Bentley signed last year. The judge placed the law on hold because he said evidence had to be reviewed regarding the effects of the law.
Abortion supporters say the law’s requirement that abortionists obtain admitting privileges at a nearby hospital is too restrictive because most hospitals won’t give those privileges. They claim at least three of the state’s five abortion clinics would have to close if the law is allowed to go into effect.
The Alabama legislature is considering three new bills to curtail abortion in the state.
The governor of Alabama called on the people of his state who believe in Christ to lift up the state’s students in prayer.
The “Day of Prayer Over Students Across Alabama” was held on Friday, March 28th.
“Whereas Alabama students face extreme challenges, such as peer pressure to abuse drugs and alcohol, negative influences in the media, school violence and gang activities, and low self-esteem,” Governor Robert Bentley’s proclamation reads, “… Alabamians are encouraged to pray for God’s protection, guidance and peace, and for opportunities and blessings on the students of Alabama.”
The proclamation marked the 9th time the governor has made the request of his state’s citizens to cover the students as they try to learn and grow. First Priority of Alabama, who coordinates Christian clubs within schools, initiated the movement for the first statewide prayer day in 2006.
“Praying for students is not just a privilege, it’s a necessity. They face an enormous amount of peer pressure to become part of what is considered normal by the world’s standards,” Matthew Wilson, Executive Director of First Priority of Greater Birmingham, said. “Without prayer, these students will not be able to stand against the insurmountable odds they will face from childhood until they leave this world.”
A Birmingham, Alabama brain surgeon is being hailed as a hero after he defied the harsh winter storm that shut down the town to answer the call for an emergency.
Dr. Zenko Hrynkiw received a call while attending patients at Brookwood Medical Center that he was needed miles away at Trinity Medical Center for emergency surgery. Dr. Hrynkiw is the only brain surgeon on staff for Trinity Medical Center.
The neurosurgeon rushed to his car and attempted to drive to the other hospital only to find he was trapped a few blocks away by abandoned cars and traffic because of the massive snowstorm that blanketed the city.
So the doctor called Trinity on his fading cell phone and said that he would be walking.
The charge nurse at Trinity called local police to have them on the lookout for the doctor but despite a few reported sightings no one was able to find him. Hours later, the doctor called from inside the hospital after making the over 6-mile trek.
Dr. Hrynkiw rushed to the family’s side to get health information and then rushed in to complete the surgery for a traumatic brain injury. Hospital officials say that the patient would have most likely died if it wasn’t for the doctor arriving when he did to perform the surgery.
An Alabama man born in Syria says a brain aneurysm suffered when he was a Muslim resulted in his starting on a path to accepting Christ as Lord.
Karim Shamsi-Basha grew up in Syria and were practicing Muslims. Shamsi-Basha told the Christian Post he was “very serious” and prayed five times a day. He said he would go to mosque before sunrise and fasted during Ramadan.
He moved to the U.S. when he was 18 to attend the University of Tennessee and stayed because he was not a fan of President Bashar al-Assad’s government. In 1992 he fell into a month-long coma after a brain aneurysm.
After he woke, a doctor told him that he needed to find out why he survived the aneurysm. He accepted Christ in 1996 but then faced a decade of struggles from divorce to homelessness before he fully realized his position in Christ.
Shamsi-Basha tells his life’s story in a book called “Paul and Me”. He says most of his family are still Muslim and he never told his father, who died in 2005, that he had become a Christian.
He says he’s been struggling to get his sister out of Syria since the beginning of the Syrian Civil War but U.S. officials have denied her visa.
The anti-Christianist group Freedom From Religion Foundation is threatening the Cullman (Alabama) County Board of Education with a lawsuit if a group of citizens is allowed to pray for the schools the weekend before schools open for the year. Continue reading →
An Alabama law that requires abortion doctors in the state to have staff privileges at a local hospital is being challenged in court by the pro-abortion group Planned Parenthood and the ACLU.
The pro-abortion activists say the law is unfair because a few abortion clinics will have to close because of the law to increase safety for women who choose to engage in killing their babies via abortion. Continue reading →
The Centers for Disease Control has conducted tests on the nine Alabama patients suffering from mysterious illnesses and has found that no single germ seems to be the cause. Continue reading →
