Prisoner killed during escape attempt

An inmate who killed two bailiffs during an escape attempt from a southwestern Michigan courthouse had written in a letter to his ex-wife that he was going on the run or would die trying because he didn't want to spend the rest of his life in prison.
The letter by Larry Darnell Gordon was found after authorities searched a Berrien County Jail unit where he had been housed before a July 11 appearance at the county courthouse in St. Joseph, sheriff's Detective Lt. Greg Sanders said Friday during a news conference.
"I'm not trying to die, and I don't want too," the letter reads. "I'm just trying to get free and I'll die trying.
"Getting free is the only chance at being able to see you!!! Hopefully I make it!!!"
Gordon, 44, was facing possible life in prison on rape and kidnapping charges involving a 17-year-old girl.
Moments after a handcuffed Gordon had been removed from courtroom 315, a security camera recorded sounds of a struggle from an adjacent holding area.
Police have said Gordon attacked and disarmed Deputy James Atterberry Jr. and wounded him. Bailiffs Ronald Kienzle, 63, and Joseph Zangaro, 61, rushed to the area and were shot and killed.
"He's got a gun" and "help me" are heard from the holding area. Someone also is heard yelling at Gordon to put the gun down, Sanders said.
About a dozen people were inside the courtroom. Some initially fled through a door, while others ducked beneath benches before court staff ordered them to leave.
A man identified by Sanders as Gordon yells "I got hostages."
Sanders said Gordon had eight hostages. Cameras outside the courtroom show some hostages fleeing down a hallway as other bailiffs converge on Gordon.
Gordon can be seen crossing a hallway while using a female hostage as a human shield. They are followed by three other hostages.
What follows are about a dozen gunshots, Sanders said.
A bailiff said he "took the shot to save the hostage's life," Sanders told reporters. "Another bailiff began firing and they continued to fire until he was no longer a threat."
A female hostage was shot in the arm by Gordon, Sanders said.
Gordon was arrested in April and accused of holding the teenage girl against her will for two weeks and giving her methamphetamines in exchange for sex.
Police had gone to his Coloma Township home to serve Gordon with a domestic violence warrant, prosecutors said earlier this month. Gordon barricaded himself in a shed and escaped through a back access door before being found several streets away. Officers later found the girl in the shed.
In the letter to his ex-wife, Gordon wrote how much he will miss her and their daughter.
"Baby they want to send me away for the rest of my life," Gordon continued. "I don't deserve that. That's not living. I'm not going to do it!!!"

Parents keep children in cages

Pennsylvania police say a couple locked their three young children in a basement dog cage as punishment and left the youngest child, 6, inside the cage overnight.
Thirty-six-year-old Nicholas Chamberlain and 34-year-old Linda Chamberlain were charged Friday.
State police troopers say the investigation began June 19 when police responded to a call of a child refusing to return home in Huntingdon County. Police say the couple's 13-year-old child escaped to a neighbor's house to call police after the 6-year-old was locked in the cage overnight.
The couple also has a 10-year-old.
Online court records don't list attorneys for the Chamberlains, who remain jailed Monday and face a preliminary hearing Aug. 3.
Both are charged with false imprisonment and endangering the welfare of children. Nicholas Chamberlain is also charged with simple assault.

Ohio womans body found

The remains of a college student whose disappearance several days ago prompted a search in Ohio are believed to be found, authorities said Saturday.
Investigators looking for Sierah Joughin found the remains Friday evening in an area near a rural county road, Fulton County Sheriff Roy Miller said.
"At this time, we strongly believe that this is Sierah," Miller told reporters at a news conference Saturday afternoon.
Miller did not release any details on how she might have died, and he didn't take questions from reporters. An autopsy has yet to be completed, but authorities said they expect to make a positive identification on the remains through DNA or fingerprints in the next few days.
Joughin, a 20-year-old University of Toledo student, was last seen riding her bike Tuesday in Metamora, about 20 miles west of Toledo. Her bike was later found in a cornfield after her mother filed a missing person's report.
On Friday, authorities arrested 57-year-old James Worley, of Delta, on an abduction charge related to her disappearance.
Worley has requested an attorney who has represented him previously. That attorney has declined to comment.
Miller said he anticipates additional charges will be filed against the suspect. "This investigation is far from over," he told reporters.
Worley was convicted in a Lucas County court for the 1990 abduction of a 26-year-old woman, who had been biking along a country road, The Toledo Blade reported. He entered prison in November 1990, and was paroled in December 1993.
Miller said investigators continue to search for evidence in Joughin's case, and he encouraged people with any information to call authorities.
At Saturday's news conference, a family spokesman thanked law enforcement and others for their help in the search for Joughin.
"Sierah was a remarkable young lady with a contagious smile," Paul Bishop told reporters. "She was a loving person who has touched many people in her life."
The University of Toledo has said in a statement that Joughin was entering her junior year. She was studying human resource management and was a member of the school's professional business fraternity.

Baby pushed into McDonald's drive through window during abduction

A McDonald’s drive thru window became a window of opportunity for a woman trying to escape her alleged abductor.
Police have arrested a man in connection with an assault and abduction case last week.
According to court records, on July 13, Levenski Crossty, 26, broke into a home where a woman he knew and her children were house sitting.
“He pushed in an air conditioner and came in through the window,” the victim, who WLWT is not identifying, said.
Police said Crossty assaulted the woman, then forced her and her four children into her car. Once in the car, Crossty drove off but would stop periodically to assault the woman again, police said.
The victim told WLWT she was beaten several times -- even bitten -- in front of her children.
“It was just a very chaotic scene altogether,” Cincinnati Police Lt. Steve Saunders said. “The suspect was physically assaulting the victim inside the vehicle she’s traveling with him in, causing some serious injury to her to the point she had to be hospitalized.”
At a McDonald's drive-thru in Saylor Park, police said, the woman jumped from the car and tried to give her 2-year-old child through the window to a worker, but Crossty grabbed the child and drove away, leaving the woman behind.
“I think she was really trying to hand the child off to some employees through the drive-thru window,” Saunders said. “There was some push and pull of the child back into the vehicle, which the suspect in this case was able to get the child back in the vehicle.”
Crossty dropped all of the children off at the victim’s mother’s home, unharmed.
He has been charged three felonies, including aggravated burglary, abduction and felonious assault. He’s also charged with two misdemeanors, theft and domestic violence.
Bond for Crossty was set Thursday at $300,000.

Man kills 2 soldiers in bar

The military was mourning two soldiers Tuesday who were fatally shot while trying to protect a woman from a gun-toting man in a South Carolina bar.
Staff Sgt. Charles Allen Judge Jr., 40, and Sgt. First Class Jonathan Michael Prins, 29, "were acting as good Samaritans when they were shot," said Capt. Adam Myrick of the Lexington County Sheriff's Department.
And they paid for their bravery with their lives.
"We are shocked and saddened by the loss of Staff Sgt. Judge," said his commanding officer at the McCrady Training Center, Col. Renita Berry. "He was an outstanding instructor who served with great dedication and enthusiasm and demonstrated unwavering commitment to his peers, his students and this organization every day. He will be missed tremendously."
U.S. Army Brig. Gen. Van McCarty said he served with Judge in Iraq in 2004 and called him a "soldier's soldier."
Prins was a drill sergeant at Fort Jackson who had served in Afghanistan and in Iraq.
"The way SFC Prins was taken from us, is a testament to his bravery and his selfless service," fellow Fort Jackson drill sergeant Brandonn Baldwin posted.
 
"I'm very sorry about what happened," Mills said at his arraignment Monday, The State newspaper reported. "I never meant for it to happen like that. I was being lynched by eight people because I was chasing a girl who grabbed drugs off the seat and took off running."
Judge and Prins were at the Frayed Knot Bar & Grill in Lake Murray, west of Columbia, when Mills "physically assaulted a female companion and was physically separated from her by several bar patrons," according to arrest warrants obtained by NBC News.
Among those who stepped in to help the woman were Judge and Prins, the warrants state.
"Mills then presented a handgun" and allegedly fired the fatal shots.
Judge was hit twice and Prins three times, according to the Lexington County Coroner's Office.
Mills, who lives in Little Mountain, north of Lake Murray, was arrested a short time later.
The warrants did not identify the woman Mills allegedly slammed into a railing or divulge her condition.

NYC movie style bank burglary

Bank burglars reminded New York's top police official of a Hollywood movie as they pulled off two nighttime heists, snatching about $5 million in cash, diamonds, jewelry, coins and baseball cards from safe deposit boxes before they were caught, authorities said Tuesday as they announced the arrest of three men.
New York Police Department Commissioner William J. Bratton credited "painstaking persistence" by investigators left with few clues as they looked into a string of recent bank burglaries. He said they learned that plywood used by the burglars was bought at a nearby Home Depot and that torches from a Brooklyn welder were used to poke into bank vaults.
"These heists resembled scenes from the movie 'Heat' — the work of a crew that was well organized, meticulous, and elusive to law enforcement," Bratton said.
Evidence in the case will include surveillance footage of the men as they prepared for and carried out the burglaries, as well as video surveillance of two of the men buying supplies used in one of the burglaries, authorities said.
U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara said the burglars used the darkness of night in an April attack against an HSBC Bank in Brooklyn and a May break-in at the Maspeth Federal Savings Bank in Queens to blowtorch their way through roofs and into the vaults of the banks.
"Through their brazen bank heists, the defendants allegedly stole not just people's money, but their memories too, leaving in their destructive wake gaping holes and looted vaults," Bharara said.
Bharara credited the NYPD and FBI for teaming up on the arrests of Michael Mazzara, 44, Charles Kerrigan, 40, and Anthony Mascuzzio, 36, all of Brooklyn. They were charged with conspiracy to commit bank burglary and bank burglary.
Mazzara's attorney, Sam Talkin, said Mazzara denies the charges and maintains his innocence. A lawyer for Kerrigan did not immediately return a message seeking comment. It was not immediately clear who would represent Mascuzzio when all three men appear in Manhattan federal court Tuesday.
On a bank roof in Queens, the burglars left behind empty safe deposit boxes, grinding wheels and a fuel tank for a cutting torch. Near a hole in the roof was a black plywood structure that the burglars apparently built to shield themselves from view.
In Brooklyn, the burglars cut interior vault alarm wires along with phone wires a block away, authorities said. Investigators said they relied in part on telephone and financial records, cellphone data and a confidential source to build their case.

12 year old girls charged as adults

A Wisconsin state appeals court ruled Wednesday that two girls accused of trying to kill their classmate in an attempt to please the fictional horror character Slender Man should be tried as adults.
Investigators say the girls, who were 12 at the time of the attack in 2014, plotted for months before luring their classmate into some woods after a birthday sleepover and repeatedly stabbing her. The victim, who was also 12, was found along a road, bleeding from 19 stab wounds that nearly killed her.
The girls have been charged with attempted first-degree intentional homicide and if convicted could go to prison for up to 65 years. As juveniles, they could be incarcerated for up to three years then supervised until age 18.
Anyone 10 or older charged with first-degree attempted homicide is automatically considered an adult under Wisconsin law. But defense attorneys have argued that the case belongs in juvenile court, saying the adolescents suffer from mental illness and won't get the treatment they need in the adult prison system.
Experts testified that one of the girls has schizophrenia and an oppositional defiant disorder that requires long-term mental health treatment. The other girl has been diagnosed with a delusional disorder and a condition known as schizotypy, which a psychologist testified made her vulnerable to believing in Slender Man.
In a pair of rulings Wednesday, the 2nd District Appeals court affirmed a lower court's determination that it was reasonable to try both girls as adults. Citing the ruling last year, the appeals court said if the girls were found guilty in the juvenile system they would be released at age 18 with no supervision or mental health treatment.
It also noted that the evidence showed the crime was not accidental or impulsive, but planned out and violent. Given the serious nature of the offense, it would not be appropriate for the trial to take place in juvenile court, the appeals court ruled.
The girls could appeal the rulings to the Wisconsin Supreme Court. The Associated Press left messages with the girls' attorneys seeking comment.
Kevin Osborne, the assistant Waukesha County District Attorney, said he was pleased with the decisions, but declined further comment because he has not yet read them.
The AP hasn't identified the defendants because their cases could still move to juvenile court, where proceedings are closed. They are both now 14 years old.
According to a criminal complaint, the girls plotted for months before they lured Payton Leutner into a park in Waukesha, about 20 miles west of Milwaukee, and attacked her with a knife.
Leutner suffered 19 stab wounds, including one that doctors say narrowly missed a major artery near her heart. After the attack in a wooded park, she crawled to a road and was found lying on a sidewalk by a passing bicyclist. Despite the attack, she staged what her family called a "miraculous" recovery and was back in school in September three months later.
The girls told investigators they hoped that killing her would please Slender Man, a demon-like character they had read about in online horror stories. The tales describe Slender Man as an unnaturally thin, faceless creature who preys on children.
Police captured the girls on the outskirts of the city that same day. They told investigators they planned to walk 300 miles to the Nicolet National Forest, where they hoped to live as Slender Man's servants in his mansion.
An HBO documentary on the case was released in March.

Lottery winner starts meth drug ring

A Georgia man could face life in prison after he invested part of his $3 million lottery winnings in a crystal meth ring.
Ronnie Music Jr., 45, purchased large quantities of the drug meth with lottery winnings he won from a scratch-off ticket.
Investigators determined Music was supplying meth to a group of co-conspirators who were caught trying to sell approximately 11 pounds, worth more than $500,000 on the streets.
Agents seized more than $1 million of meth, firearms, thousands of rounds of ammunition, multiple cars and $600,000 in cash as part of the case.
Music pleaded guilty to federal drug and gun charges.
He could face life in prison.

30+ arrested at rock concert

Police arrested more than 30 people during Guns N' Roses concert Saturday night (July 23) at MetLife Stadium in New Jersey.
Charges ranged from drug possession to lewd conduct, and one woman was taken into custody for assaulting a police officer. Reps for the New Jersey Police Department could not be reached for comment.
GNR's Not in This Lifetime reunion tour continued Sunday night with a second concert at the East Rutherford venue. The trek, which reunites guitarist Slash, singer Axl Rose and bass player Duff McKagan (and briefly drummer Steven Adler) runs through November.

Officer killed at home during burglary

A Texas sheriff's deputy was shot and killed at his home north of Austin before dawn on Monday in what authorities said appeared to be an attempted burglary.
Sgt. Craig Hutchinson of the Travis County Sheriff's Office used his police radio around 1:30 a.m. to report people prowling behind his house. Investigators arriving moments later found Hutchinson lying on the ground in his backyard in Round Rock, about 15 miles from Austin.
He was pronounced dead at a hospital.
Travis County Sheriff Greg Hamilton said at a news conference that no arrests have been made but that authorities are seeking an unknown number of suspects. He said there was evidence that the incident was an attempted burglary of Hutchinson's backyard shed, rather than someone targeting a law enforcement officer.
Tensions remain high following the fatal shooting earlier this month of five police officers in Dallas and the ambush and killing of three law enforcement officers in Louisiana.
"There's no suggestion that this was an ambush," Hamilton said. "I heard that there's a lot of burglaries going on in this community, and I think this was just one of the burglaries."
He said investigators believed items were taken from Hutchinson's shed and that the officer may have "seen individuals in the shed, and I think that's where the confrontation occurred."
 © Reuters Video still of the scene outside the home of Travis County Sheriff's Deputy Craig Hutchinson in Round Rock, Texas. Round Rock Police Department spokeswoman Angelique Myers said investigators were asking for the public's assistance in finding the suspect or suspects. Investigators established a hotline for anyone with information.
Hutchinson was a 32-year veteran who had planned to retire in September. Hamilton said Hutchison served as his field training officer and "taught me everything I know."
"This is near and dear to me," Hamilton said. "This guy was a big teddy bear and everyone loved him."
The block where the shooting occurred was ringed with yellow tape — and red tape surrounded Hutchison's home down the street — for hours after the shooting. Investigators could be seen working in the area around the home. By late morning, some nearby streets had reopened, but a large contingent of police and investigators remained.
Police briefly closed portions of Interstate 35 heading into Austin as a long procession of police cars accompanied Hutchinson's body to the medical examiner's office.

Man poses as daughters online boyfriend

It started like teenage relationships sometimes do, with a boy following a girl on Instagram.
“Superfly1069″ claimed to be a 15-year-old from Watertown, N.Y., and he favored a shirtless profile pic to show off his chiseled abs.
She was an impressionable 14-year-old some 70 miles south, in Syracuse.

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The Instagram follow led to texting, and texting led to an online friendship. Before long, they were boyfriend and girlfriend who expressed their love for one another over text — despite the fact that they’d never met in person.
Their chats were frequent and explicit, the young man seemingly obsessed with sex and desperate to trade raunchy photos, which he sometimes provided without warning. After months of him pressuring her to return the favor, she decided she’d had enough. She wanted to break up and move on, but her boyfriend wouldn’t let her go — not without the pornographic photos he so desperately craved.
When she refused to comply, he lashed out, threatening to show her father the couple’s explicit chats, as well as a risque photo she’d already sent him.
“I told you that a bunch of times when we were dating that I don’t like those pics and now you are threatening me that if I don’t send you those then you’ll send my dad the ones I sent you before?” she texted him. “My life is ruined.”
What she didn’t know, authorities say now, was a secret so bizarre and perverse that it nearly defies imagination: The teenage boy making threats over text was, in fact, the girl’s father — a 41-year-old man living under the same roof as the teenager he was manipulating.
As the online relationship crumbled, the father would attempt to make it look like his daughter’s boyfriend had committed suicide.
The relationship, detailed in federal court documents filed in District Court for the Northeastern District of New York, took place between September 2013 and February 2014. The father, who has not been named to shield the identity of his victim, pleaded guilty this week to 12 counts of enticing a child to produce child pornography and receiving and sending child porn.
When he is sentenced in July, authorities said, he will face up to 250 years in prison.
The man is also due to appear later this month in a court in Herkimer County, where he faces sexual abuse charges stemming from a separate investigation.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Lisa M. Fletcher told The Washington Post that she’s been involved an a variety of heinous criminal cases, but this one stands out.
“I’ve seen so much that I think you can’t shock me anymore,” she said. “I’ve seen it all — parents filming their children, parents raping their children — and then something like this comes along and I’m proven wrong.”
What makes this case notable, Fletcher said, is that authorities believe the man concocted the fake online identity to “groom” his daughter for sexual activity with a parent.
“The sophistication regarding how far he went with the planning and how far he went to set this up — and the fact that it was a father-daughter — that was the clincher,” Fletcher added. “That’s what made this unique.”
In one text exchange included in court documents, the man — posing as his daughter’s boyfriend — details a fabricated sexual experience with his mother.
The goal of the exchange, authorities said, was “planting a seed” that revealing such an encounter would not be in her best interest.
“What would u do???” the boy asked. “If I say anything it’s her word versus mine and I didn’t say or do anything.”
“R u there ???” he continued.
“Babeeeee”
“I knew I should never had said anything … Now u won’t even talk to me????” he finally added.
When the grooming failed and the man’s daughter started to pull away, Fletcher said, he resorted to another abusive tactic: Extortion.
“I tell u what u want to be gone then send me nudes and close ups and I will let u go,” the father wrote as the teen boy, after the victim informed him via text that she was breaking up with him, according to court documents.
“No,” she responded, the documents state. “I’m not going to do that. That’s another reason I’m leaving. All you talk about is sex sex and more sex. Honestly that is not what a relationship is about.”
“Then I will send these to your dad and then I won’t have to worry about anyone else having u,” he replied, according to the documents.
Before eventually agreeing to break up, the man — still posing as a teenager — forced his daughter to send him multiple explicit photos, which he critiqued before demanding still more images, shot from particular angles to reveal specific body parts.
“Please don’t make me send any more pictures,” his daughter texted at one point. “Please I beg you. I don’t like it. I’m shaking really bad right now and I feel like I’m about to puke. Please…”
“U r hot. …. And a deal is a deal,” he replied.
Within days, the teenager would receive another series of bizarre texts, this time from someone claiming to her ex-boyfriend’s mother, according to the court documents.
The boy, the messages said, had committed suicide.
That same day, the girl’s father informed her that he, too, received messages from her ex-boyfriend’s mother confirming the suicide.
The father’s elaborate hoax didn’t unravel until months later, when his daughter told a school nurse that she was being sexually abused by her father, according to court documents.
The father was indicted for the abuse by a grand jury in Herkimer County, the documents state. During the course of that investigation, the documents note, the victim told investigators about her previous online relationship.
Investigators later discovered that the ex-boyfriend didn’t exist and his social media accounts had been created by the victim’s father, the documents state. After federal authorities were contacted, the FBI opened a case.
Recalling the extortion of nude photos, the teenager told investigators that “it felt like I was being virtually raped.”
“By the time she found out she wasn’t necessarily surprised,” Fletcher told The Post. “She had never figured out that it was her father, but it all started to make sense when the pieces of the puzzle came together.”
During his court appearance this week, the Post-Standard reported, the man tearfully admitted his guilt in the child pornography case, but struggled to reach his face with a tissue because “his hands were cuffed and chained to leg irons.”
“It is very emotional,” he told the judge. “I’m giving away many years of my life.”

Attorney jailed for contempt by judge for refusing to remove Black Lives Matter button in court

The Ohio judge stared at Andrea Burton across the table and told the 30-year-old attorney that there had been complaints about the Black Lives Matter pin she was wearing.
He didn’t allow court officials to wear political pins in his courtroom, she recalled him saying, and he asked her to remove it.
“He asked me if I would take it off and I told him I would not,” Burton told The Washington Post. “And he said we would have to deal with that, and I asked how.  And he said, ‘We’ll see.’ ”
A few minutes later, after again refusing to take off the pin, Burton was convicted of contempt of court, placed in handcuffs and taken to jail and sentenced to five days.
Now, Burton’s community — and as the story spread, the rest of the nation — is trying to decide whether Burton was exercising her constitutional right to freedom of expression about the killings of black people by police officers or whether her pin was a political message unfitting of a court official.
Judge Robert Milich told the CBS affiliate in Youngstown, Ohio, that his opinions about Black Lives Matter had nothing to do with his decision.
“A judge doesn’t support either side,” he told the station. “A judge is objective and tries to make sure everyone has an opportunity to have a fair hearing, and it was a situation where it was just in violation of the law,” he said. Milich issued a stay while Burton appeals to a higher court, according to the TV station.
Burton is an attorney in Youngstown who works with police every day, and said she understands they’re not as bad as some portray them. Like many people, she said, they have jobs filled with nuance.
“I’m not anti-police,” she told The Post. “I hold them in the highest regard, and I do believe all lives matter.”
Burton said she wasn’t trying to cause a stir, but wanted to voice her opinion about the killings of blacks by police officers. Burton was raised in Youngstown. She went away for school — ultimately getting her master’s degree and a law degree — but came back to her hometown and works mostly as a criminal defense attorney.
Before Friday, she had only been in Youngstown’s jail to see clients.
For years, her state has been at the center of the debate about whether officers are too quick to use deadly force against minorities. In nearby Cleveland, 12-year-old Tamir Rice was shot and killed by police while playing with a toy gun at a park. His death was one of several high-profile cases in the national conversation about police, minorities and the use of deadly force.

Recently, anger toward the Black Lives Matter movement, which says it organizes peaceful protests, has grown after recent police shootings in Dallas and Baton Rouge. In consecutive days police fatally shot a black man outside a convenience store in Baton Rouge and killed another black man during a traffic stop in Falcon Heights, Minn. Both shootings were captured in graphic videos showing the encounters or the aftermath, and led to protests across the nation. The following day, five officers were killed in a Dallas shooting. And a week later, three officers were killed in Baton Rouge,  what police there called a targeted shooting. Police believe the killings of officers were retaliatory.
Around the time of those shootings, an online petition was started asking the White House to formally recognize Black Lives Matter as a terrorist organization. Nearly 150,000 people have signed it.
The White House’s response to the petition includes remarks by President Obama on the Black Lives Matter movement:

I know that there are some who have criticized even the phrase “black lives matter” as if the notion is, is that other lives don’t matter. And so you get “all lives matter” or “blue lives matter.” I understand the point they’re trying to make. I think it’s important for us to also understand that the phrase “black lives matter” simply refers to the notion that there’s a specific vulnerability for African Americans that needs to be addressed. It’s not meant to suggest that other lives don’t matter. It’s to suggest that other folks aren’t experiencing this particular vulnerability.
And so we shouldn’t get too caught up in this notion that somehow people who are asking for fair treatment are somehow, automatically, anti-police, are trying to only look out for black lives as opposed to others. I think we have to be careful about playing that game, just because that’s not obviously what is intended.

DeRay McKesson, one of the most well-known leaders of Black Lives Matter, said the organization denounces violence. “The movement began as a call to end violence,” he told the New York Times. “That call remains.”
Matt Mangino, a criminal defense attorney who used to be a prosecutor in Lawrence County, which borders the county where Burton was arrested, told The Post that a judge has the authority to determine whether certain signs are “political.”

Attorney Andrea Burton was held in contempt of court and arrested after wearing a Black Lives Matter pin to court. (Courtesy of Andrea Burton via Facebook)

The judge can also determine whether wearing a certain button would be a distraction in the courtroom, or give the impression of bias. Mangino said:

Judges obviously have wide latitude in their courtroom with regard to decorum and things like that as long as their rules are reasonable. It’s not uncommon to have dress codes and other sorts of things. What you normally might find is a sign outside that says lawyers need to wear ties or no cutoffs or tank tops.
With regards to protests or political statements, things that can be controversial if they’re displayed in a courtroom, it may be akin to wearing a Hillary Clinton button in the court — anything that could disturb the court or disturb the decorum within a courtroom or lead to either the impression of bias.
But you have to balance that with First Amendment. I think that distinction is in the eye of the beholder.  A judge obviously has great authority and latitude within his or her courtroom.  He is the beholder.  Black Lives Matter is so new, what does it mean to a judge?  And how does a judge determine what that means.

Amid the recent carnage, Burton says she logged onto the peer-to-peer e-commerce website Etsy and ordered a small Black Lives Matter pin.
“I think that you can’t remain silent or you remain a party to oppression,” she told The Post. “I am usually a pretty agreeable person. I’m always smiling.  I’m polite. I have manners. But at some point it eats away at you how any time people see you talk about Black Lives Matter, then you’re  being sensitive, you’re the person who’s racist.”
The pin arrived in the mail later and a little smaller than Burton expected. But she clipped it to her outfit and wore it to work.
That was last Wednesday, a day Burton said went off without a problem. But on Friday, when she wore the pin again, she was called back into Judge Milich’s chambers.
“It was virtually hidden on Friday,” Burton said. In one video, she can be seen wearing an oversized jacket. “I guess people knew to look for it though.”

Man steals dead mas identity and kleaves family for new one

For more than two decades, Terry Jude Symansky appeared to lead an ordinary life in Pasco County, Fla.
He had a wife and a teenage son, owned property, and “worked odd jobs."
The only problem, police say, was that Terry Jude Symansky was not really Terry Jude Symansky. He was actually an Indiana man named Richard Hoagland who vanished 25 years ago and has been considered dead since 2003, the paper reported.
The lie lasted more than two decades. In the end, a single online search was all it took for the ruse to unravel.
The truth began to surface when a nephew of the real Terry Symansky — who drowned in 1991 at age 33 — started an Ancestry.com family search. Knowing that his uncle was dead, the nephew was surprised to find someone with the same name living in central Florida.
“He looks up his real uncle Terry Symansky and realizes that he died in 1991, which the family knew,” Pasco County Sheriff Chris Nocco told the station. “He then starts scrolling down the page and sees more details that Terry Symanksy was remarried in 1995. He owns property in Pasco County, Florida.”
Fearing that their fake relative might try to harm them, family members waited three years before eventually contacting authorities in April, police told the Tampa Bay Times.
Hoagland, 63, was arrested Wednesday and charged with fraudulent use of personal identification, the paper reported.
How exactly Hoagland came to assume the identity of Terry Symansky — who moved to Florida from Cleveland to work as a commercial fisherman — remains a complicated mystery.
The Tampa Bay Times reported that investigators suspect it occurred as follows:

Deputies think Hoagland stole Terry Symansky’s identity like this: Hoagland once lived with Terry Symansky’s father in Palm Beach. Hoagland found a copy of Terry Symansky’s 1991 death certificate and used it to obtain a birth certificate from Ohio. With the birth certificate in hand, he then applied by mail for an Alabama driver’s license and used that to obtain a Florida driver’s license. That’s how deputies think Hoagland came to spend more than two decades living in Florida as Terry Symansky.
As Terry Symansky, he married Mary Hossler Hickman in 1995. The couple lived in Zephyrhills. He also fashioned a medical card to obtain a private pilot’s license as Terry Symansky from the Federal Aviation Administration.

Before he began the process of assuming a new identity, Hoagland left his old life — which included a wife and four children — behind in Indiana. His former wife in Indiana told police that Hoagland had three businesses related to insurance.

Terry Jude Symansky, who died in 1991, is the man whose identity was stolen by Richard Hoagland, police say. (Courtesy of the Pasco County Sheriff’s Office)

She told investigators that Hoagland told her in the early 1990s that he was wanted by the FBI for embezzling millions of dollars and had no choice but to leave town, according to the Tampa Bay Times. In reality, police told the paper, Hoagland told investigators that he left Indiana to get away from his wife.
Eventually, the paper reported, Hoagland’s wife assumed her husband was dead.
“This is a selfish coward,” Nocco said. “This is a person who has lived his life destroying others.”
Gerry Beyer, a law professor at Texas Tech University who studies identity theft, told the Tampa Bay Times that Hoagland’s alleged actions are unusual because most identity thieves steal people’s names to commit crimes.
He told the paper that the fact that the real Symansky never married or had children made him a “perfect” candidate for identity theft.
Yet, he noted, Hoagland’s ability to maintain the lie for more than two decades was shocking. It was a lie that was probably made easier, Beyer said, because it began before digital records were commonplace.
“You just never know,” Beyer told the paper. “It will all catch up with you.”
Hoagland’s Florida tenants told Bay News 9 that they were shocked that their landlord was not who he said he was.
“We’ve been personal with him quite a bit, and Terry’s the nicest guy anyone could ever meet,” Gregory Yates told the station.
“He’s a really nice guy, and he’s a really good landlord,” Dean Lockwood, another tenant, said. “Never would have known this, couldn’t imagine this was happening.”
Perhaps most damaged by Hoagland’s hoax, police said, was his wife in Florida, who learned about her husband’s alleged crimes only when detectives showed up at her door last week.
“For 20 years, she’s been lied to, so now she doesn’t know what she has to do as far as whether her marriage is even legal — what’s going to happen to all the properties they own, their bank accounts,” Detective Anthony Cardillo told Bay News 9. “The son has the last name Symansky.”

Doctor and Lawyer (husband and wife) kept adopted daughter in dollhouse cage

A husband and wife in Sarasota, Fla., have been accused of child abuse after they allegedly told authorities that they routinely tied up and locked their 12-year-old daughter inside a playhouse.
In an affidavit the 5-by-7 foot playhouse was described by a detective as a “glorified cage.”
“She wasn’t allowed to leave the playhouse to use the restroom,” Sheriff’s Lt. Joe Giasone told WTSP. “She’d have to do all that inside.”
Police allege that Eugenio Erquiaga, a doctor, and his wife, Victoria, a lawyer, used zip ties to restrain the girl’s ankles and wrists before locking her inside the cramped enclosure for hours on end, according to WTSP.
The playhouse could be barred shut with a piece of wood, had most of its windows screwed shut and smelled of urine.
Police said the couple — who were arrested Wednesday — told investigators that their daughter was prone to violent outbursts and the restraints were used to protect the family’s six other children, according to WTSP. Police said the couple came up with the method of restraint recently, after seeing zip ties used in a television show featuring police.
The pair is facing aggravated child abuse charges
The couple’s attorney, Derek Byrd, urged the public to withhold judgment about the parenting style.
“I’m certain any people in the public would say that’s not the way they would handle it, and they’re entitled to their opinion,” he told WTSP. “The question is, is it criminal to handle a problematic child that way?”
The alleged abuse may have escaped authorities’ attention if the victim hadn’t fled her family’s house, finding her way to a neighbor’s home.
When the little girl with zip ties on her ankles and wrists arrived Sean Macindoe’s front door, the 19-year-old neighbor told WTSP that the girl said: “My parents abandoned me. I was left and ran away.”
The 12-year-old girl, who was adopted, was part of a large group of a biological and adopted children in the Erquiaga household. In addition to two other adopted children, the family also includes four biological children from five to 13 years old.
The couple’s other children are in custody of the Florida Department of Children and Families, but police said none of them have reported abuse or neglect to authorities, CBS reported

Reporter falls to death from a waterfall

A Georgia television news anchor, Taylor Terrell of 41NBC in Macon, Ga. was killed Thursday after she was swept over a waterfall in the Pisgah National Forest near Asheville, N.C.
Terrell’s death is the second recently in the Pisgah National Forest, a 500,000 acre wildlife area south of Asheville, N.C., according to the Forest Service. Last Saturday, a man jumped off the top of Elk River Falls in the same forest. His body was recovered from the deep pool at the base of the waterfall on Monday.
Terrell, of Stockbridge, Ga., had visited Rainbow Falls with a friend on Thursday to celebrate her 25th birthday. She was wading in the Horsepasture River when she lost her footing on rocks covered with algae, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Forest Service.
“The current swept her up and over the falls,” she said.
© Provided by WP Company LLC d/b/a The Washington Post Georgia TV anchor slips at top of N.C. waterfall, plunges 185 feet to her death Her body was recovered at the base of the waterfall. Local fire and rescue officials said the fall was about 185 feet.
Transylvania County Chief Deputy Sheriff Eddie Gunter said that the department investigates around three deaths at the falls each year, calling it a “real dangerous spot.” He said his department has already investigated seven deaths related to waterfalls this year alone in the county.
The Forest Service put out a warning:

The best way to enjoy a waterfall is from a safe distance.  Heed posted warning signs indicating danger and stay on established trails.  Never climb on or around waterfalls and never play in the water above a waterfall. Rocks can be slippery and it’s easy to lose your balance especially with bare feet.  Currents near waterfalls can be extremely swift even in areas further upstream.

Never jump off waterfalls or dive into plunge pools at the base of waterfalls. Rocks and logs can be hidden beneath the surface of the water. Often waterfall pools have swirling water or currents that can drag and keep you underwater.

Even if you have seen other people enjoy playing around waterfalls, be aware that they have been lucky to escape unharmed. Waterfalls are constantly changing with varying water flows and erosion of the rocks around them. The current from one place to the next may be faster than you anticipate and the arrangement of rocks or other debris such as logs in the plunge pool is ever changing.

Terrell anchored the weekday morning show “Daybreak”  and also appeared on the 11 a.m., newscast and on daily news reports.
She began at 41NBC as an intern in 2013 after graduating from Georgia Southern University with a degree in public relations. The station hired her as a reporter and she was soon promoted to weekend anchor, then morning show anchor.
“Taylor’s diverse experiences have made her an asset to our team,” 41NBC News Director Brandon Long wrote on Terrell’s website.
“She was a bright spot in the mornings for us here at 41NBC for about two years, and she loved working as a reporter,” he said.
The area is known for its six waterfalls, which are often promoted as a tourist attraction.

Voice contestant autopsy

In June, the 22-year-old singer -- who was a contestant on season six of The Voice -- was killed during a post-concert meet-and-greet in Orlando, Florida. "In consideration of the circumstances surrounding the death, and after examination of the body, toxicology analysis, and review of the available medical records," the report done by Chief Medical Examiner Joshua D. Stephany states. "It is my opinion that the death of Christina Grimmie, a 22-year-old white female witnessed to have been shot by another and subsequently transported to the hospital, is the result of a gunshot wounds of the head and chest. The manner of death is homicide."
The autopsy also states that Grimmie's brother, Marcus, was there at the time of shooting, and identified his sister's body.
The shootings occurred around 10:30 p.m. local time following a performance by Grimmie's pop-rock band Before You Exit. When police arrived to the scene, they found two people had been shot. Grimmie was rushed to the Orlando Regional Medical Center, and, according to an employee at the hospital, she died shortly after she was brought to the ER.
John W. Mina, City of Orlando Chief of Police, revealed that the suspect, 27-year-old Kevin James Loibl of St. Petersburg, Florida, was carrying two handguns, two additional loaded magazines for the handguns, and a large hunting knife. He was at the venue alone, and used a small caliber handgun to fire shots at Grimmie.
"Almost immediately, her brother, Marcus Grimmie, tackled the suspect to the ground," Mina said. "Shortly after that, the suspect killed himself. And obviously as we know, unfortunately, Christina Grimmie succumbed to those gun shots wounds and passed."

Man decapitated over alleged rape

A 22-year-old Minnesota woman was charged Thursday as an accomplice in the murder and beheading of a man she said raped her.
Kayleene Danielle Greniger is accused of hiding a machete her boyfriend allegedly used to decapitate 20-year-old David Haiman. Joseph Thoresen, 35, has been charged with second-degree murder.
Greniger is accused of tying up and beating Haiman and breaking his nose after he arrived at the Grand Rapids apartment she shared with Thoresen. She untied him, then Thoresen punched him repeatedly, according to the complaint.
Thoresen later ambushed Haiman along a road and used the machete to decapitate him after using a baseball bat and knife to kill him, according to authorities. Greniger is accused of hiding the machete in the couple's apartment.
Greniger is charged with being an accomplice to second-degree murder after the fact, and also with third-degree assault, both felonies.
She helped him by "destroying or concealing evidence of that crime, providing false or misleading information about that crime, receiving the proceeds of that crime, or otherwise obstructing the investigation or prosecution of that crime."
The couple and Haiman all drove together to look for drugs before the murder, according to the Duluth News Tribune. They also smoked marijuana and meth, Greniger reportedly told authorities.
Authorities found Haiman's torso and head on Sunday morning.
Greniger was arrested Tuesday, a few days after recounting her story to authorities.
Two days before Haiman's remains were found, Thoresen allegedly forced a man to drive Haiman's car, telling him he killed the vehicle's owner, the News Tribune reported. Triston Michael Corwin fled from the police at speeds of 90 miles per hour and ended up in a ditch, claiming Thoresen had a knife and told him to "keep going and not stop," according to the newspaper.
Cops did not find a knife, so they let Thoresen go. However, authorities realized it had been Haiman's vehicle when he was reported missing two days later, the newspaper reported.
Greniger had told Thoresen that Haiman had sexually assaulted her. Authorities are "looking into" whether the rape took place.
A friend of Haiman's said he had a "big heart."
"He was the kindest person you’d want to meet," Denise Sinner told the News Tribune. "He looked out for everyone — kids, animals. He couldn’t harm anyone."

Mom kills her daughters & cops kill her

Texas mom who killed her two daughters had recently tried to ground the older one so she couldn’t see her boyfriend, police said Wednesday.
Christy Sheats, 42, had argued with her daughter Taylor, 22, and her husband Jason Sheats about the daughter's boyfriend, whom she wanted to marry, in the days leading up to the shooting Friday at the family’s suburban Houston home, said Fort Bend County Sheriff Troy Nehls.
The depressed and suicidal mom used an unlicensed heirloom gun to kill Taylor and her younger sister Madison, 17, at a family meeting her husband thought would be about their possible divorce, Nehls said.
Christy Sheats “had ample time” to shoot her estranged husband, but she “wanted him to suffer” watching her kill their children, Nehls said. A police officer fatally shot Christy Sheats when she refused orders to drop her gun outside the house in a Katy subdivision, Nehls said
“She accomplished what she set out to do, and that is to make him suffer,” Nehls said at a news conference the day after investigators interviewed Jason Sheats.
The couple of 20 years originally from Alabama had talked about a divorce as Christy Sheats struggled through three attempted suicides and stints at three different mental health institutions since 2012, investigators said. She was taking depression and anxiety medication.
Jason Sheats, 45, told investigators he thought they would be discussing the possible divorce at the meeting his wife called Friday. The couple had recently clashed over her view that they should ground their eldest daughter to keep her away from her longtime boyfriend.
The happy couple had plans to marry, with a date set for as early as Monday. And Jason Sheats had told his wife he didn’t think it would be appropriate to ground their adult daughter.
Sheats said she began drinking heavily after the 2012 death of her grandfather, whom she viewed as her mentor, according to Nehls. The vocal gun rights advocate applied for a license to carry the .38-caliber handgun her grandfather left for her, but the state rejected her request, he said.
Investigators were still working Wednesday to find the exact reason for the denial. Nehls has identified the heirloom as the gun used in the attack.

Off duty cop kills man in road rage incident

A road-rage showdown left an unarmed Brooklyn driver dead and an off-duty cop under investigation for answering two punches with three point-blank gunshots.
State Attorney General Eric Schneiderman announced a probe into the early Monday shooting of Delrawn Small, 37, whose girlfriend and three kids watched in horror as the lethal confrontation unfolded.
“Words can’t begin to explain the pain I feel right now,” girlfriend Zaquanna Albert posted on Facebook. “... My heart aches for this man and my son who will never remember his dad.”
A warrant was obtained to search the 2002 Nissan Altima belonging to Wayne Isaacs, 37, a three-year NYPD cop. The Brooklyn resident pulled his service weapon and opened fire at Small, an ex-con, from the front seat.
Small’s relatives and pals described the dead man as a pleasant guy.
“Even if the man did attack you, roll up your window, drive off — hold yourself to a higher standard,” said Jermaine Gabriel, 40. “Yeah, you can get upset. But to kill a man?”
Small, his girlfriend, their 4-month-old son and her two daughters were driving through East New York to meet up with his older brother Ali Dempsey for the Fourth of July.
A witness said the rapidly escalating confrontation began when Small, driving a 2016 Kia, felt he had been cut off by Isaacs shortly after the cop’s 4 p.m.-midnight shift had ended.
A video camera captured Small, who was two cars in back of Isaacs, exiting his car when both vehicles reached a red light, according to cops, who refused to release the video.
A person familiar with the probe said Small’s girlfriend told investigators he had three drinks earlier at a barbecue, was easily angered, and rebuffed her when she begged him not to get out of his car.
A woman answering Small’s girlfriend’s phone Monday night said she wasn’t available to comment.
“All she wants you guys to know is that he was a great dad,” the woman said.
Small, of Cypress Hills, Brooklyn, approached the driver’s side window and punched the cop twice as he sat in the vehicle — once in the face and another time in the mouth, a police source said.
That’s when the cop shot Small twice in the torso.
One witness, however, recalled a different time line.
“Delrawn and the cop’s car almost hit each other. And Delrawn got out of the car and the cop just jumped out and started screaming. He just shot (Small) right there on the street,” said construction worker Lloyd Banks. 43. “(He) was unarmed. His (girlfriend) and kids were still in the car. They saw everything.”
Small, known as “Fu,” died shortly after midnight at the intersection of Bradford St. and Atlantic Ave.
The officer was taken to Jamaica Hospital, where he was being treated for minor injuries and later released.
A man at Isaacs' Brooklyn home Monday night confirmed he was involved in the road rage incident before declining further comment and quickly closing the door.
Police Commissioner Bill Bratton said the department is offering full cooperation in the state probe.
“We are comfortable, based on the preliminary investigation, that this was a road-rage incident,” he said.
Bratton, citing the ongoing probe, said it was too early to say whether the cop had been justified in his actions.
But a police source said the officer will need to explain what led him to use deadly force.
Small had a rap sheet that included 19 arrests and three terms behind bars.
Small finished parole on his latest arrest for assault in 2013, jail records show.
Isaacs was accused in a 2014 lawsuit with a false arrest in which the suspect was “punched, kicked and struck several times in the head and body.”
The plaintiff also charged that one of the arresting cops called him a “n----r” before the case was settled for $20,000.

Reporter robbed while reporting a shooting

A TV news reporter was robbed in Brooklyn while covering the fatal shooting of a man by an off-duty police officer, officials said.
News 12 reporter Kena Johnson, 35, was in the station’s van about 3:15 p.m. Monday when she was approached by Linda Sanchez, 31, at the intersection of Atlantic Ave. and Bradford St., officials said.
Sanchez, who had a Labrador retriever with her, pulled open the passenger side door and grabbed Johnson’s bag and ID card, cops allege.
Johnson, whose on-air name is Kena Vernon, then struggled with Sanchez and grabbed her purse back, but Sanchez took off with the reporter’s ID card, authorities said.

Cops arrived and found Sanchez after a search. Johnson identified Sanchez, who was then arrested and charged with robbery and illegal weapons possession after cops found a 4-inch knife on her.

Sanchez has seven prior arrests, six of which are sealed, police said. The seventh was for violating an order of protection.
Sanchez was awaiting arraignment Tuesday in Brooklyn criminal court. A News 12 official declined comment.
Johnson was covering the fatal shooting of Delrawn Small by off-duty officer Wayne Isaacs early Monday at the same intersection.
Small became enraged when he thought Isaacs cut him off in traffic, and punched him repeatedly in the face before the officer opened fire, officials said.

College Basketball Player Dies After Practice

Oklahoma State forward Tyrek Coger, a 21-year-old junior college transfer from Cape Fear Community College, passed away following a team workout Thursday afternoon.

According to a press release by the school, Coger was transported to the Stillwater Medical Center after collapsing. He was pronounced dead at 6:23 p.m. Coger had collapsed from heat exhaustion at Boone Pickens Stadium.
Coger had only arrived on campus on July 5. This was supposed to be his first year as a Cowboy.

10 year old boy missing and the FBI gets involved

Volunteers joined Buckeye police in searching unsuccessfully for a 10-year-old boy missing since he left his suburban Phoenix home last weekend.
Police suspended the search for Jesse Wilson late Wednesday morning because of the heat but say they plan to resume the search on Thursday. They're calling on experienced hikers to scour rugged terrain.
The FBI is now involved in the case, and agents were seen at the home of the boy's family removing bags of evidence Thursday morning.
Police say the boy slipped out his bedroom window Sunday night. He reportedly has left home before, but hasn't stayed out for an extended period. Investigators are still looking into the circumstances of the disappearance, but foul play hasn't been ruled out.
After his mother reported him missing, police searched for the boy on ground and from the air.
They say the boy is 4 feet tall, weighs 60 pounds and he was last seen wearing a red shirt, shorts, black socks and black shoes.
Police also say he has no known medical conditions.

Chemical Bomb Left in Walmart

A man faces charges of creating a chemical weapon capable of creating a gas the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention classifies as "immediately dangerous to life or health considerations" in a Walmart store here.
Martin Reyes, 31, was questioned Tuesday in connection with a report of having a possible improvised chemical weapon at the store the morning of June 18, says Oxnard police Sgt. Mike Gregson said.
The store was evacuated for about six hours until a hazmat team rendered the device safe.
A month-long investigation identified Reyes as the suspect. Reyes, who was in custody at Ventura County Main Jail on an unrelated charge, confessed to manufacturing and placing the chemical weapon inside the store, Gregson said.
The main said he researched how to do it on the Internet, Gregson added.
Reyes was booked for the unlawful possession and manufacturing of a chemical weapon of mass destruction. He is being held on $500,000 bail, according to Ventura County jail records.
He was scheduled to make his first court appearance Thursday.

Man Held Hostage 4 Years For Money

A Korean War veteran was held hostage for more than four years by a man who stole his Social Security and pension checks, police said.
Perry Cogliano, 43, was being held in lieu of $15,000 cash bail on charges of grand larceny, unlawful imprisonment, criminal possession of a weapon, endangering an incompetent person, menacing and unlawful possession of marijuana.
The victim, 81-year-old David McClellan, lived in a squalid motel room with dried blood and mildew on the mattress and belongings strewn around the cramped lodgings, it was reported.
The veteran had a lucrative pension package and suffered from advanced dementia, police said.
Cogliano lived next door at the Academy Motel in Highlands and was arrested Tuesday evening following a two-week investigation by local police, who received cell phone video from a concerned neighbor showing the elderly man being shouted at and abused by Cogliano, cops said.
“The guy who was arrested who lived next door, he was giving him just one bowl of cereal a day, he would stick him back in the room with a stick, wasn't bathing him, the old guy would just be walking around here naked, just terrible," a neighbor said,
Cogliano escorted the U.S. Marines veteran to his bank and force the elderly man to withdraw large sums of money, police said. Authorities declined to say how much money Cogliano allegedly took from the mentally disabled man.
McClellan had no friends or relatives and had moved into the motel after his home was condemned, authorities said.
He told police officers Tuesday that he’d been living at the motel for about four days. It had been more than four years.
Natasha Blanc, who’s lived there for three years, told HVNN residents constantly talked about the elderly man and how he was treated by his neighbor.
“It’s been going on four years. I think people didn’t speak up because those who stay here have a past – like drug addicts.”
McClellan is being evaluated at a nearby hospital, police said. Adult protective services and other agencies are investigating his case.

Mom has 3rd set of twins in 26 month span

Danesha Couch is just like every other mama out there, except she's had the pleasure of giving birth to fraternal twins—three times—during a 26 month span of time. No, we're not kidding, and yes, we're sure she's heard, "Boy, you sure have your hands full!" a million times.
The 20-year-old Kansas City mom and her fiance, Jeffrey Pressler, welcomed the latest set of twins last month. The girls, Dalanie and Darla, have recently joined the rest of their family at home after spending the first few weeks of their lives in the NICU, and Mom and Dad are facing the challenge of having a ton of kids under three years old at home.
Her newest twinset joins older sisters Delilah and Davina, who are one, and older brother Danarius, who is two. Danarius was also a twin but his brother Desmond died from complications of prematurity.
And I know you're wondering, but no, Danesha did not use fertility medications. She thought it was a huge fluke when it happened a second time, but was really shocked when twins happened a third time—and that's probably the biggest understatement of the year.

 

Each one of her twinsets is fraternal, the chances of which tend to be affected by genetics. Still, the likelihood of anyone popping out two kids three different times is pretty low—research out of the UK pegs it to one chance out of 88,000.
Danesha reports that she loves babies, which is why she was on board for trying again after having twins the first two times. There is a caveat though—it won't be any time soon. She saysthat they'll probably wait a decade or so before even thinking about having any more. And, frankly, the fact that she's thinking about any more at all is truly amazing!
Incidentally, since all of her twins have been fraternal, she may be more apt to have another set of multiples again next time. The tendency to launch two eggs at once‚which is what happens in the case of fraternal twins—usually runs in families,. Identical twins on the other hand, just seem to happen for the fun of it, and there's no genetic predisposition. Danesha's girls, then, will be more prone to have fraternal twins themselves but not her son, as that tendency only follows girls around.
Danesha and Jeffrey plan to wed this September.

UPDATE: Police investigate playboy playmate for body shaming

Police are hoping that the victim of a body-shaming incident by Playboy Playmate Dani Mathers will come forward to aid in a criminal investigation into the matter.
A spokesman for the Los Angeles Police Department told TheWrap that it wants the unnamed woman -- who was photographed naked in an L.A. Fitness gym, then mocked by Mathers on Snapchat -- to step forward.
"We would always want victims to come forward," the spokesman said, adding that "it makes things a little easier" when there's a victim in an investigation.
Currently, the matter is being investigated as a Jane Doe case, the spokesman added.
Mathers drew widespread wrath on social media Thursday after posting a photo of a woman nude in an L.A. Fitness gym, then posted it to her Snapchat with the caption, "If I can't unsee this then you can't either."
The model did not say what about the woman's appearance she found objectionable but the photo suggests a woman who may not meet Playboy norms for svelteness.
Mathers subsequently apologized, but that failed to sway her newly minted critics on Twitter, one of whom noted, "She admitted to it. Body shaming is what she does w/friends. She just got caught. And that woman should sue the hell outta her."
Being tried in the court of social-media opinion soon became the least of Mathers' worries.
On Friday, she was canned from Los Angeles radio station KLOS, where she served as a regular on the "Heidi & Frank" morning show. And police opened an investigation, with the potential crime being the dissemination of private images.
A spokesperson for Playboy has not yet responded to TheWrap's request for comment on the matter.

Hollywood actor Tom Sizemore arrested

Los Angeles police say they have arrested Tom Sizemore on suspicion of felony domestic violence.
Officer Jane Kim says the actor was arrested Tuesday morning and is being held on $50,000 bail. Kim says she cannot reveal any details about the alleged victim or the severity of any injuries.
The 54-year-old actor has battled serious substance abuse problems over the years but has recently been working on the upcoming television series "Shooter."
An email message sent to his manager Charles Lago was not immediately returned.
Sizemore starred in films such as "Saving Private Ryan" and "Black Hawk Down," but his career sputtered after several arrests.
In 2003, he was convicted of assault and battery on his ex-girlfriend Heidi Fleiss.

9 yaer old charged w/ robbery of 12 year old

The bike was orange and had been a gift from a father to his son on his 10th birthday. It sat for months in the basement of the boy’s Northeast Washington home after a tire went flat and his mother wasn’t able to get it fixed.
The father, who lives apart from his son, was recently able to have the bike repaired and on Sunday returned it to the boy, now 12. On Monday, D.C. police said another boy pushed the middle-school student away from the Magna bicycle and stole it from near the victim’s house in the Carver-Langston neighborhood.
The suspect is 9 years old.
“My son ran after him but couldn’t catch him,” said the victim’s mother, 52, who called 911 when she heard her son crying from outside about 5:30 p.m.: “Mama, somebody stole my bike.”
Police broadcast the suspect’s description over Twitter after the robbery. They wrote there was a lookout for a “9 yoa, no shirt, blue basketball shorts, brown hair, orange bike.”
This was just one of 1,678 robberies reported in the District this year; it was the age of the alleged assailant that stuck out. Descriptions from victims can often be wrong, but not in this case, police said.
Police who answered the mother’s 911 call quickly found the young suspect, who was riding around the neighborhood on the bike. A police report says the youth was charged with robbery by force and violence and taken to authorities who handle juvenile cases. Police photographed the orange bike for evidence.
The boy’s mother — who did not want to be identified to protect the identity of her son — said the boy’s father bought the bike for $100 at Target. It broke, and the mother put it away, but said the boy’s father learned of a place that world fix it for free.
It came back from the shop Sunday.
The 12-year-old took the bike for a ride for the first time late Monday afternoon, riding no farther then the edge of an ally near his home. The chain came off and he was fixing it, he later told police, when the other boy approached and asked if he could ride the bike. The young owner told him no.
Police said in a report that the young victim “stated that [the 9-year-old] pushed him back, grabbed onto his bike and rode off traveling westbound on Lang Place NE.” The bike owner’s mother said her son, while younger than the suspect, is small for his age, standing about 4 feet 5 inches tall.
She said she has worked to keep him safe. He is allowed to walk only the four blocks to his school, and can visit a friend who lives at the other end of the block. She watches his friends closely, and made sure he cut off ties with one youth she described as trouble.
Now, she said her son doesn’t want to go outside. “I’m going to have to take him to school,” the mother said. “It’s just sad what happened. This morning when I went to work, he was like, ‘Mommy, don’t leave me today.’ ”

Man and daughter swept out to sea

A California man who was an experienced surfer and his daughter died after being swept out to sea from tide pools in Hawaii on Saturday.
Officials identified the pair as 46-year-old Mark Hornor and 6-year-old Mina Hornor. Both were from Berkeley, California.
Emergency crews responded Saturday to reports that the girl fell into the ocean while walking along the rocky shoreline. Officials said her father jumped in to save her before he also was swept away by the waves.
Lifeguards found both victims unresponsive and brought them back to shore.
They both were taken to a hospital in critical condition and later died.
Witnesses said the events happened in a matter of moments, and the aftermath was difficult to watch.
"There was no movement," said Jamie DeMatoff, who was on the beach when lifeguards were giving the father and daughter CPR. "His body was lifeless just like the little girl. My heart just sank just watching this happen."
Hornor's family described him as an avid cyclist and surfer, and said Mina was the youngest of three daughters.
"He was just a fantastic human being, he jumped in tried to save her. And I don't think he wanted to come back empty handed," said Hornor's brother, Matthew.
The medical examiner will conduct autopsies to determine their causes of death.
The Saturday incident comes after a teenage girl was seriously injured after a wave knocked her over last month. Two people, including a 12-year-old girl, had to be rescued in separate incidents in March 2015 after they were injured by the waves at the tide pools. In 2011, a father his 11-year-old daughter drowned at the tide pools.

Oaklands 35th homicide victim (video)

An unidentified young Black male was brutally killed in a hail of bullets at 10:08pm Monday July 18th on the corner of 15th st & Jefferson st in downtown Oakland. No suspects or eye witness accounts have been produced. This brings the total homicides in Oakland CA this year to 35.

#smokeEFXfilms
https://youtu.be/kWLlaKNd0Ls

"Pretty" on the outside doesn't always make a good person Dani Mathers (Playboy Playmate)

Playmate Dani Mathers will now have plenty of free time to figure out Snapchat.
The 2015 Playboy Playmate of the year was suspended from her regular radio show gig on the "Heidi and Frank" show on KLOS 95.5 and banned from all L.A. Fitness facilities after she posted a body-shaming photo of a fellow gym goer, it was reported.
Mathers faced a slew of criticism after she sent the Snapchat of the woman out to the masses along with the caption "If I can't unsee this then you can't either."
The blond model also uploaded an image where she was coyly laughing at the woman.
The Playmate could also face charges for the photo as L.A. Fitness informed the Los Angeles Police Department of the incident.
"Her behavior is appalling and puts every member's privacy at risk," a spokesperson for the gym said.
L.A. fitness says that Mathers "is not permitted back at any club, ever."
The 29-year-old later apologized and said she did not understand how to use Snapchat and meant to send it to one individual, not all of her followers.
"There is no excuse," Mathers wrote posted to her now deleted Twitter account.
"I understand fully the magnitude of this post that I have hurt a lot of people, women. Body shaming is not okay...and not something to joke about," she continued.
Mathers even created an apology video where she stressed how her career with Playboy is all about "loving the female body" — but it was just too late.
She expressed in her apology video, "I need to take some time to myself now to reflect on why I did this horrible thing."