The Press of Atlantic City, N.J., is protesting a headline in the Philadelphia Daily News, "Tourist Death Trap," on a story about two Canadian women stabbed to death by an obviously deranged woman at a busy intersection in the center of Atlantic City in the middle of a Monday morning. "Random and bizarre," Tourism District Commander Tom Gilbert called it.
The newspaper says that the brutal crime was unfortunate for the Atlantic City Tourism District, which has been making significant strides in making the city cleaner and safer, but says "our brethren at the Daily News were over the top - and irresponsible." The Atlantic City paper says tourists rarely are victims of crime in Atlantic City. A police officer came upon Monday's stabbings while they were in progress and quickly got the suspect to drop her weapon. "It was seconds too late to save the victims, who died later in the hospital. But the point is, the police were right there." It says the Philadelphia headline "is not only inaccurate - it's downright mean-spirited."
Since George Zimmerman's arrest in the Trayvon Martin case, and as more details come out about the Sanford, Fl., police's work, it has become easier to defend Zimmerman, says Slate.com. His defense fund quickly took in $200,000. Among his angels were the founders of Legal Boom, a local gun rights group. The fund has been taking in around $1,000 per day. That’s a steady clip, considering how public interest in the story has faded.
New bits of information from the investigation have bolstered Zimmerman’s version of the story. Harvard Law Prof. Alan Dershowitz has started writing about how the media and the special prosecutor were “biased against Zimmerman,” and how the charge of second-degree murder would never hold up. On Fox News’ Huckabee, he asked, where did the press get off, implying that Zimmerman had racially profiled Martin? “It was the prosecutor who talked about profiling, in the affidavit itself!” said Dershowitz. “He didn’t have any basis. It was just made up.” One scenario that would have provided some swift justice for the Martin family without making Zimmerman infamous. That option: a timely arrest, and a police investigation.
Taking aim at the toughest challenge of his tenure, New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu will detail a new strategy to curb the city's sky-high murder rate and corral the city's most brutal criminals, reports the New Orleans Times-Picayune. Just past the midpoint of his four-year term, Landrieu will stress in a state of the city speech that despite his progress in correcting bureaucratic dysfunction at City Hall and enticing new businesses to the city, New Orleans will not fully succeed until the killing subsides.
City and federal officials have spent hundreds of hours negotiating a consent decree designed to serve as a blueprint for erasing the notorious corruption underpinning the Police Department. Landrieu is expected to recap his administration's efforts to thwart violence and improve residents' quality of life though expanded recreational opportunities, blight-fighting programs, and infrastructure improvements, such as the ongoing push to have every streetlight in the city working by year's end.
A 45-second recording of a 911 call in Sanford, Fl., may be the key to the case against George Zimmerman for shooting Trayvon Martin, reports the Washington...
The cellphone of one of two University of Southern California graduate students killed last month helped lead police to their alleged killers, the Los...
More than three years after Isaac Zamora went on a rampage in Washington state, killing six people, including a sheriff's deputy and a friend, prosecutors and defense attorneys are preparing for what may be the final legal battle, reports the Seattle Times. A bench trial next month will determine whether Zamora will remain a hospital patient or be transferred to prison to serve four life sentences.
The state Department of Social and Health Services wants the 31-year-old to be imprisoned, saying he poses a security risk and no longer requires hospital-based psychiatric treatment. The case is a test of a 2010 law that allows the state to request that mentally ill criminal offenders such as Zamora be imprisoned rather than treated indefinitely at a state mental hospital. Criminal defendants who are found not guilty by reason of insanity are sent to the forensic unit of a state hospital for treatment. So-called forensic patients, after treatment, can petition the courts for release if their mental health is stabilized to the point that they could re-enter society. A judge makes the decision, with input from the state's mental-health experts and attorneys.
Prosecutors of George Zimmerman in the Trayvon Martin shooting have cited new video evidence, a long list of witnesses and experts, and hints of a trail of...
Former LAPD detective Stephanie Lazarus, 52, was sentenced Friday to 27 years to life in prison for murdering the wife of her former lover 26 years ago, reports the Huffington Post. She was found guilty in March of killing Sherri Rasmussen, a nurse who was bludgeoned and shot to death in the condo she shared with her husband of three months, John Ruetten. Prosecutors said Lazarus was consumed with jealousy when Ruetten decided to marry Rasmussen.
The case hinged on DNA from a bite mark prosecutors say was left by Lazarus on Rasmussen's arm. Lazarus was not a suspect in 1986 because detectives then believed two robbers who had attacked another woman in the area were to blame for Rasmussen's death. The case file, however, did mention Lazarus because of her relationship with Ruetten. No suspects were found and the case went cold until May 2009, when undercover officers followed Lazarus and obtained a sample of her saliva to compare with DNA left at the original crime scene.
In the Trayvon Martin case, the court of public opinion has moved online, says the Poynter Institute. Last month, attorneys for George Zimmerman, who is facing second-degree murder charges in Martin’s killing, launed a website, Facebook apge, and Twitter account to comment on developments in the case, solicit money for Zimmerman’s defense, and interact with the public.
“[S]ocial media in this day and age cannot be ignored,” wrote Zimmerman attorney Mark O’Mara. “It is now a critical part of presidential politics, it has been part of revolutions in the Middle East, and it is going to be an unavoidable part of high-profile legal cases, just as traditional media has been and continues to be.” California attorney and legal ethicist John Steele and other observers agree that O’Mara’s embrace of social media carries risk. “They just broke through a major wall by saying the way to defend is to start a website and put out news,” said Scott Greenfield, a New York attorney and blogger. "You have to understand the dynamic of the Internet and understand that you’re playing with a monster that will devour you if you screw up." He added, "Anything you put on the Internet is there forever, and no matter what you say, it can be used against you."
If the parents of Trayvon Martin can use social media and the Internet to demand justice, so can George Zimmerman, NPR reports. Attorneys for Zimmerman, who has been charged with second-degree murder in the case, have created a Facebook page, Twitter account, website, and blog to counteract the vitriol heaped on their client. His legal team is communicating directly with supporters and detractors alike of the neighborhood watch volunteer who says he shot the unarmed boy in self-defense.
The Feb. 26 shooting gained national attention partly due to use of Change.org and Twitter by the boy's parents and supporters who pushed for Zimmerman's arrest. "If you are facing serious prison time, you want to load the dice as best you can," says crisis management specialist Eric Dezenhall, who advised attorneys for Michael Jackson in a 2005 molestation trial, in which he was acquitted. "If you know that the case is being publicly debated, if there's any chance of convincing the public that your client is innocent, you're going to try to do it using real facts and plausible narratives."
With Philadelphia's yearly murder tally consistently passing 300, and with a murder clearance rate of about 60 percent, hundreds of families around the city know what it's like when the leads dry up and the killer of their daughter, or son, or brother roams free as if nothing happened, reports the Philadelphia Daily News. Disheartened relatives of murder victims have built their lives around bringing the killers to justice, putting up rewards out of pocket, organizing fundraisers, and canvassing some of the city's roughest neighborhoods.
"It has to be me, because no one else is going to do it," Janice Collins said of her efforts to push for closure in the case of her murdered daughter, Ericka Brair. "I feel like I just relive it and relive it. It's been a rough road." Right after her daughter's murder five years ago, Collins, 59, and her mother put up a $2,000 out-of-pocket reward through the Citizens Crime Commission and raised more by selling "Justice 4 Ericka" bracelets and holding a beef-and-beer fundraiser at a place where Ericka worked with a friend, making the reward $10,000.
The Sanford, Fl., City Commission refused to accept the resignation of its embattled police chief yesterday, saying that Bill Lee has a spotless record...
If George Zimmerman goes to trial for shooting Trayvon Martin in Florida, “it has the potential to be as big as the O. J. Simpson trial — and just as divisive,” CNN's Piers Morgan tells the New York Times. Already, the fallout from the killing has become a prolonged and politically controversial news story. Along with giving Americans a shared national conversation, “it has filled the void left by a political process that lacks excitement or suspense,” said Jonathan Wald, Morgan's executive producer.
“The electronic media is thankful that this took place in Florida,” said Jeffrey Toobin, The New Yorker staff writer and CNN legal analyst, “because Florida has the most open rules in the country about cameras in the courtroom.” The Zimmerman trial almost certainly would be televised live on channels like HLN, a sibling of CNN that showed the Casey Anthony trial. HLN set a ratings record the day Anthony was judged not guilty of killing her daughter. “Could this be the trial of the decade?” the MSNBC host Ed Schultz asked, in a clip satirized by “The Daily Show.” One of that show’s correspondents, John Oliver, joked, “People are already calling it the trial of the millennium.”
