Tag Archives: Homicide

Philippines’ Duterte says police can kill ‘idiots’ who resist arrest

Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte greets Lorenza de los Santos and husband Saldy, parents of 17-year-old high school student Kian Delos Santos, who was killed recently in police raid in line with the war on drug, during their visit at Malacanang presidential complex in metro Manila, Philippines August 28, 2017

MANILA (Reuters) – Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte told police on Monday they could kill “idiots” who violently resist arrest, two days after hundreds of people turned the funeral of a slain teenager into a protest against his deadly war on drugs.

Duterte met the parents of the schoolboy, 17-year-old Kian Loyd delos Santos, at the presidential palace in Manila on Monday, to assure them their son’s case would be handled fairly.

Delos Santos’ mother, Lorenza, said she was confident the president would help quickly resolve the case, while the father, Saldy, said he no longer feared for their lives and felt reassured by the meeting.

“He promised he would not allow those who have committed wrong to go unpunished,” the mother said in an interview posted online by Duterte’s communications office on a Facebook page after the meeting.

Duterte unleashed the anti-drugs war after taking office in June last year following an election campaign in which he vowed to use deadly force to wipe out crime and drugs.

Thousands of people have been killed and the violence has been criticized by much of the international community.

Domestic opposition has been largely muted but the killing of delos Santos by anti-drugs officers on Aug. 16 has sparked rare public outrage.

Residents stay at a wake of a victim of a shooting by masked motorcycle-riding men during a local community protest march against extrajudicial killings in Sampaloc, metro Manila, Philippines August 28, 2017. REUTERS/Dondi

Residents stay at a wake of a victim of a shooting by masked motorcycle-riding men during a local community protest march against extrajudicial killings in Sampaloc, metro Manila, Philippines August 28, 2017. REUTERS/Dondi Tawatao

More than 1,000 people, including nuns, priests and hundreds of children, joined his funeral procession on Saturday, turning the march into one of the biggest protests yet against Duterte’s anti-drugs campaign.

Earlier, Duterte broke off midway through a prepared speech at the Hero’s Cemetery on the outskirts of Manila and addressed impromptu comments to Jovie Espenido, the police chief of a town in the south where the mayor was killed in an anti-drugs raid.

“Your duty requires you to overcome the resistance of the person you are arresting … (if) he resists, and it is a violent one … you are free to kill the idiots, that is my order to you,” Duterte told the police officer.

Duterte added that “murder and homicide and unlawful killings” were not allowed and that police had to uphold the rule of law while carrying out their duties.

Delos Santos was dragged by plain-clothes policemen to a dark, trash-filled alley in Manila before he was shot in the head and left next to a pigsty, according to witnesses whose accounts appeared to be backed up by CCTV footage.

Police say they acted in self defense after delos Santos opened fire on them, and Duterte’s spokesman and the justice minister have described the killing of the teenager as an “isolated” case.

U.N. special rapporteur on extrajudicial killings, Agnes Callamard, described the killing of delos Santos as “murder” in a tweet on Aug. 25, earning the ire of Duterte who in a separate speech on Monday called her “son of a bitch” and “stupid”.

“She should not threaten me,” Duterte said as he challenged Callamard to visit and see the situation in the Philippines.

A planned visit by Callamard in December was canceled because she refused to accept Duterte’s conditions that she must hold a debate with him. She turned up in unofficial capacity in May to address an academic conference on human rights.

 

 

(Reporting by Karen Lema; Editing by Raju Gopalakrishnan, Robert Birsel)

 

FBI report expected to show violent crime rise in some U.S. cities

Phone banks of the FBI

By Julia Harte

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Violent crime in certain big U.S. cities in 2015 likely increased over 2014, although the overall crime rate has remained far below peak levels of the early 1990s, experts said, in advance of the FBI’s annual crime report to be released later on Monday.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation’s report was expected to show a one-year increase in homicides and other violent crimes in cities including Chicago, Baltimore and Washington, D.C., based on already published crime statistics.

Coming on the day of the first presidential campaign debate between Republican Donald Trump and Democrat Hillary Clinton, the report could “be turned into political football,” said Robert Smith, a research fellow at Harvard Law School, in a teleconference on Friday with other crime experts.

A rise in violent crime in U.S. cities since 2014 has already been revealed in preliminary 2015 figures released by the FBI in January.

A recent U.S. Justice Department-funded study examined the nation’s 56 largest cities and found 16.8 percent more murders last year over 2014.

Trump last week praised aggressive policing tactics, including the “stop-and-frisk” approach.

Clinton has pushed for stricter gun control to help curb violence and has called for the development of national guidelines on the use of force by police officers.

FBI Director James Comey warned last year that violent crime in the United States might rise because increased scrutiny of policing tactics had created a “chill wind” that discouraged police officers from aggressively fighting crime.

Increased crime has been concentrated in segregated and impoverished neighborhoods of big cities. Experts said in such areas crime can best be fought through better community policing and alternatives to incarceration for nonviolent crime.

“We’re just beginning to see a shift in mentality in law enforcement from a warrior mentality … to a guardian mentality,” said Carter Stewart, a former prosecutor for the Southern District of Ohio, on the teleconference. “I don’t want us as a country to go backwards.”

In Chicago, 54 more people were murdered in 2015 than the year before, a 13 percent jump in the city’s murder rate, according to an April study by New York University’s Brennan Center for Justice.

(Editing by Kevin Drawbaugh and Matthew Lewis)

Teen shot by Chicago police suffered gunshot wound to his back

Police placing handcuffs

CHICAGO (Reuters) – A teenager who was shot and killed by Chicago police officers last month suffered a single gunshot wound to his back, according to an autopsy by the Cook County medical examiner’s office made public on Wednesday.

Toxicology reports also found 18-year-old Paul O’Neal did not have drugs in his system. His death has been ruled a homicide, the autopsy report said.

“We knew he (O’Neal) didn’t have any drugs in his system,” said Michael Oppenheimer, a lawyer for O’Neal’s family. “We’re pleased for that.”

O’Neal, who was not armed, was fatally wounded by police officers on July 28 after he crashed a stolen Jaguar into a police car and then fled into a backyard where he was shot.

During the foot chase shots were fired by unidentified officers at the scene. An officer “believing the shots being fired were coming from O’Neal fired his Glock 9mm handgun five times in an attempt to stop the threat,” the autopsy said.

The shooting death of O’Neal adds to list of fatal encounters between police and black men and women in U.S. cities that have fueled protests over the past two years and stoked a national debate on race and police tactics.

The Chicago Police Department is currently facing a federal probe of allegations of racism and abuse against minorities. Protests rocked the city last year after dashboard video showed another black 17-year-old teenager being shot by a white cop as he jogged away from police officers during an October 2014 encounter.

Authorities released videos that captured the moments before and after police shot O’Neal, but not the shooting itself because a police officer’s body camera was not recording. No firearms were found on O’Neal.

Three Chicago police officers have been stripped of their law enforcement authority, a more severe step than a mere suspension, for their roles in the shooting.

(Reporting by Justin Madden; Editing by Bernard Orr)

Pastor and Family Killed In Houston

The faith community of Houston, Texas is reeling from the news a popular pastor, his wife and 5 year old son were murdered in their home.

Police confirm that Israel Ahimbisibwe, Jr. was found in his apartment around 9:30 a.m. Monday.  A welfare check had been made on the family after the pastor and his wife didn’t show up Sunday and didn’t return phone calls Monday morning.

“He didn’t show up for church yesterday afternoon, which is totally out of character for them not to let us know, and didn’t respond to text or phone calls,” church member Keever Wallace told the Christian Post.

Investigators say that there were no signs of forced entry into the apartment.

“I will say that they did suffer some type of unknown wounds,” Houston Police Department spokesman Victor Senties told FOX 26. “It is being investigated as a homicide.”

“This is a horrific and awful tragedy,” noted Bishop of Texas C. Andrew Doyle in a release from the Episcopal Diocese of Texas. “We are in touch with the police and Israel’s family here in Houston. Please keep the Ahimbisibwe and Redeemer families in your prayers.”

The pastor leaves behind two older sons.

South Korean Ferry Captain Sentenced To 36 Years

The captain of a South Korean ferry which capsized and killed more than 300 people, mostly students, will be spending at least the next three decades behind bars.

Captain Lee Joon-seok was convicted of gross negligence but was surprisingly acquitted of homicide connected to the deaths of the passengers.

The captain had fled the ship when it began sinking rather than staying behind to try and rescue the teenagers and passengers trapped below the water line.

Family members of the students who drowned were furious with the verdict and the sentencing, saying that the sentence was too lenient and that it was unconscionable that the captain was not found guilty of homicide in abandoning the passengers.

The ship’s engineer was convicted of homicide only on the part of two ship’s employees that he left behind when the fled the ship.  He was sentenced to 30 years in prison.

Russia Scrambling To Find Homicide Bomber

Russian security forces are frantically searching for a woman they believe is plotting to kill herself with a homicide bomb attack on the Olympic games.

Russia’s internal security service has sent an alert to hotels in the area of the Olympics looking for Ruzanna Ibragimova.  She has been described as a “black widow” of an Islamic terrorist who was killed by Russian security forces.

They believe she snuck into the area around Sochi on January 11th or 12th.

“According to our information Ms. Ibragimova may be used by the ring leaders of illegal armed groups for the organization of terrorist acts in the zone of the 2014 Olympics,” the alert reads.

Russia has deployed 40,000 police and security staff to the city of Sochi forming what they call a “ring of steel” to stop attacks by Islamic militants.

German Woman Confesses To Killing Five Newborns

A 28-year-old German woman has confessed to police that she killed five of her newborn children shortly after birth and dumped their bodies in various locations around northern Germany.

The confession brings to an end an investigation that started in 2006 when a newborn baby’s body was found in a paper-recycling plant near Flensburg. A second body was found in a parking garage in 2007. Continue reading →