Interesting read

FBI crime statistics for 2009, data for most cities with populations over 100,000.

Particularly interesting to compare, say, Durham (population 227k) with Jersey City (population 240k), or Springfield MO (population 157k).

May challenge your assumptions.

Continue reading Interesting read

Short attention span theater

Whatever happened to this story?

A Bank of America manager and his teen daughter are safe after three armed suspects kidnapped them Thursday morning, according to Durham Police.

Kammie Michael, spokeswoman for Durham Police, tells NBC17 that the man and his 13-year-old daughter were driving on Pineburr Place when a vehicle bumped them from behind. The father got out of his Mercedes to talk to the people that hit his car. Three people confronted the man at gunpoint and forced him back into his car.

"It sounds like ... if they went up behind him and carjacked him, they had to been at least following him," Durham Police Lt. Mark Sykes said. "Planning out ... doing their homework."

According to Michael, at that point the suspects put the daughter into the trunk of the vehicle that caused the accident. Michael said the daughter was able to get out of the trunk safely, but couldn't provide details on how the daughter was able to escape. She flagged down a Sheriff's Deputy.

Police say the bank manager and one of the suspects drove to the Bank of America at 3807 North Duke Street in the victim's car, followed by another suspect in a grey colored SUV.

I know the needs of the news cycle force us to have short attention spans, but this was a front page story for a day or two just a month ago, and then just completely disappeared without arrests, updates, or debunking. Do we have three kidnappers at large in our community or not? Do we have a news media that knows the meaning of the word followup? Do we have a police department that's willing to determine whether a crime was committed or not and share that information with the public?

Continue reading Short attention span theater

Irony

A man who opened fire inside a church, killing two people with a shotgun hidden in a guitar case, was frustrated at being unable to find a job and blamed liberals and gays, police said on Monday.

"It appears that what brought him to this horrible event was his lack of being able to obtain a job, his frustration over that, and his stated hatred of the liberal movement," Knoxville Police Chief Sterling Owen told reporters of Sunday's incident at Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church.

Suspect Jim Adkisson, 58, who was being held on $1 million bond, had previously worked as a mechanical engineer in several states. He described his violent plans in a four-page letter found at his home, which also explained that his age and "liberals and gays" taking jobs had worked against him.

Another recent setback was that Adkisson's allotment of government-issued food stamps had been reduced, Owen said.

It's going to get worse before it gets better, folks. Personally, i think if he had found a lawyer like Robert Ekstrand to file a suit against the church, that would have been a smarter move. He might have gotten his food stamps restored.

Continue reading Irony

I must be from another planet

See, what amazes me about this story is not that the guy was in the US illegally, and wasn't deported even though he'd been arrested and convicted of a couple of felonies.

It's that he had a fucking AK-47, and no one seems to be wondering why he had it or how he got it. (And don't even get me started on how MS-13 got to be such a big deal, or made inroads into the US.)

Continue reading I must be from another planet