Report: Growing mental health problems in military

Mental problems send more men in the U.S. military to the hospital than any other cause, according to a new Pentagon report. And they are the second highest reason for hospitalization of women military personnel, behind conditions related to pregnancy. The Defense Department’s Medical Surveillance report from November examines “a large, widespread, and growing mental [...]

Marine suspected of murdering toddler now in civilian hands

A New River Marine accused of killing a toddler last month in California has been transferred from base to the Onslow County Jail. Joshua Kruzik, 21, is awaiting extradition on charges of murder and injury to a child resulting in death. He is accused of killing 18-month-old Audrey Allen, the daughter of Marines he was [...]

Ayala High sex abuse suit can proceed

CHINO – A judge has ruled that a sex abuse lawsuit brought against the Chino Valley Unified School District can proceed to trial. The plaintiff, given the pseudonym “John Roe 79,” filed a law suit in August against the district for damages based on negligence, negligent hiring, sexual battery and sexual harassment as well as [...]

‘Firm sold Israel torture instruments’

A Danish-British security company has sold torture instruments to the Israeli prisons, holding Palestinians inmates, a Danish newspaper has written. The firm, named G4s, sells the devices to the detention facilities in the occupied West Bank, which provide the necessary means for torture of the Palestinian prisoners, Berlingske Tidende reported on Nov. 23.

Retired airman accused of soliciting minor

An outstanding warrant remains in effect for an Air Force officer accused of soliciting sex from a person he thought was a 15-year-old girl in an Internet chat room. Maj. Reinaldo Canton was arrested in 2007 on suspicion of meeting a girl he met online at a mall in Layton, Utah. The “girl” was actually [...]

Former airman convicted of killing 3-year-old

GREAT FALLS, Mont. — A 22-year-old Great Falls man was convicted Monday of killing his girlfriend’s 3-year-old daughter. A Cascade County jury deliberated for less than three hours before finding Jerimie Hicks guilty of deliberate homicide and solicitation to tamper with evidence in the death of Kaelyn Bray. Hicks, who was stationed at Malmstrom Air [...]

Police: Priest solicited murder of boy accusing him of sex abuse

(CNN) — A Catholic priest, facing criminal charges and a lawsuit alleging that he sexually abused a teenage boy, is now charged with attempting to hire someone to kill the youth, authorities said Tuesday. The Rev. John M. Fiala was in the Dallas County, Texas, jail on Tuesday, charged with one count of criminal solicitation [...]

Ignoring You is Not a Cognitive Defect

So a bunch of high school teachers are upset that their students are bored with them. Well, that’s not how they say it. Instead, the New York Times has the backs of boring, stupid teachers everywhere: “Growing Up Digital, Wired for Distraction.” If kids didn’t have iPhones, they would pay attention in school. Really? What’s [...]

Canadian archbishop in pedophile case

Canadian police have charged the head of the Archdiocese of Canada of the Orthodox Church in America with two counts of sexual assault on young boys. Archbishop Kenneth William Storheim, who has held many Church positions in Canadian communities, turned himself in to Winnipeg police on Wednesday after being charged. He has since been released [...]

Calilfornia marijuana Legalization debate gets interesting

Two Norfolk teachers put on leave over material about police

Two Norview High School teachers were placed on paid administrative leave this week after a parent complained that they distributed classroom materials that gave advice on how to deal with police if stopped. The materials – a one-page handout and a video distributed and aired in a 12th-grade government class – are sponsored by two [...]

Desert Spring Middle School Security Guard Accused Of Raping Student

DESERT HOT SPRINGS — A security guard at Desert Springs Middle School is behind bars, today, and faces charges that forced sex on a child. Marvin Cash was arrested at his home in Desert Hot Springs by police, and brought in for questioning, Tuesday. He will be transported to the Riverside County Jail, where is [...]

California passes bill to counteract ‘disturbing’ Texas curriculum

Measure ensures Texas standards don’t ‘creep into our textbooks,’ senator tells Raw Story The California Senate on Friday approved legislation that sends a clear message to Texas and textbook publishers: don’t mess with our kids’ minds. “My bill begins the process of ensuring that California students will not end up being taught with Texas standards,” [...]

Wainwright GI told to remove Facebook video

ANCHORAGE, Alaska — An Alaska-based soldier is under investigation for a video on his Facebook page that taunts smiling Iraqi children by asking if they’re gay, if they engage in certain sex acts and if they would grow up to be terrorists. The two young boys did not appear to understand the questions, which were [...]

Captain pleads guilty to online enticement

An officer from Scott Air Force Base, Ill., pleaded guilty in federal court May 17 to a charge of online enticement after traveling to Tennessee to have sex with a 15-year-old girl. Capt. Felix Tran, assigned to Air Mobility Command, will be sentenced Sept. 23 in Chattanooga, Tenn. He faces a minimum sentence of 10 [...]

VicPD Officer Ordered to Stay Quiet

Local opposition to Arizona law sought

At Tuesday’s Beaumont Unified School District board meeting, trustee Mark Orozco called on his fellow board members to consider a resolution opposing Arizona’s SB1070 immigration law, which he pointed out gives police in that state the right to detain anyone who is suspected of being in this country illegally, or for failing to provide proper [...]

Former Operation Phoenix manager sentenced in San Bernardino

A former community center manager in San Bernardino’s anti-crime program was sentenced this morning to 28 years in state prison in his child molestation case. Michael Steven Miller, 50, was sentenced according to a plea bargain that he had initiated with prosecutors. As part of that agreement, he admitted in March to 10 felony counts [...]

Bill Cranfill, former Redlands police officer, charged with child molestation

A retired Redlands Police Department lieutenant jailed in a 2008 molestation probe posted $100,000 bail over the weekend and was given a July court date. Billy Lee Cranfill, 55, of Redlands, had been held on suspicion of lewd acts with a minor under 14 years old. San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department detectives arrested him Thursday [...]

2010 National Drug Control Strategy

President Obama’s 2010 National Drug Control Strategy uses a multifaceted approach to combat drug abuse and drug use in America’s communities. This Strategy “provides a collaborative and balanced approach that emphasizes community-based prevention, integration of evidence-based treatment into the health care system, innovations in the criminal justice system, and international partnerships to disrupt drug trafficking [...]

Kids Overimitate Adults, Regardless of Culture

Whether they’re preschoolers from Australian suburbs or Kalahari Bushmen, children copy adults to a fault, according to a new study. The findings suggest that over-imitation—in which a child copies everything an adult does, even irrelevant or silly actions—is a universal human trait that may contribute to our complex culture. Researchers already knew that over-imitation was [...]

223,190 Kids Legally Beaten in US Schools

For the first time in over 18 years, Congress has held hearings on the use of Corporal Punishment in U.S. Schools. In the coming weeks, Rep. Carolyn McCarthy (NY) will introduce a bill to institute a federal ban of corporal punishment in all US Schools. Every 20 seconds of the school day, a child is [...]

Without Intent: How Congress Is Eroding the Criminal Intent Requirements in Federal Law

The Heritage Foundation and the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers have just released a new report which provides the results of a joint study of the federal legislative process for all studied non-violent criminal offenses introduced in the 109th Congress in 2005 and 2006. Sponsored by Representatives Robert Cortez “Bobby” Scott and Louis Buller [...]

Former Beaumont school teacher/coach arrested

A man who once worked as a substitute teacher and coach with the Beaumont Unified School District was arrested last week on suspicion of committing lewd acts with a minor, according to the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department. Ryan Moreno, 26, of Baker in the High Desert, was arrested April 26 after deputies and detectives [...]

US school for disabled forces students to wear packs that deliver massive electric shocks

Mental Disability Rights International (MDRI)  has filed a report and urgent appeal with the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Torture alleging that the Judge Rotenberg Educational Center for the disabled, located in Massachusetts, violates the UN Convention against Torture. The rights group submitted their report this week, titled “Torture not Treatment: Electric Shock and Long-Term [...]

Study Describes Difficulties of Latino Kids in U.S.

WASHINGTON – Latino children face obstacles in education and health that make their success as adults and their integration into society more difficult, the National Council of La Raza says in a study released Wednesday. Latinos make up 22 percent of the country’s total population under age 18, a percentage that is predicted to grow [...]

California’s Bay-Area Transit Police Stripped Of Tasers

Have we finally reached the point at which police over-use and abuse of tasers will start resulting in the danged devices being taken away? The Bay Area Rapid Transit police are losing their tasers after a police sergeant attempted to tase a 13-year-old boy on a bicycle whom he was pursuing by car. Oh, and [...]

Soldier faces 17 years for running brothel

BALTIMORE — A soldier formerly stationed at Fort George G. Meade has been sentenced to 17½ years in federal prison for running a brothel out of his Millersville apartment. Prosecutors say Craig Corey conspired with three other men from his hometown of Chillicothe, Ohio, to bring women to Maryland to work as prostitutes. He pleaded [...]

US puts child soldier on trial

A new US law on military trials will be put to the test this week when a long-running case of the Canadian-born terrorist suspect Omar Ahmed Khadr, who was arrested in Afghanistan in 2002 aged just 15, resumes in Guantanamo. Khadr is accused of killing an American soldier during a gun battle, but his lawyers [...]

Child sex `no breach of virtue’, some priests believe

Some priests didn’t see the molestation of boys as a breach of their celibacy vows, retired Catholic bishop Geoffrey James Robinson says. The former auxiliary bishop of Sydney blames the absence of women from church life as a catalyst for the sexual abuse crisis enveloping the faith. In an interview with The Australian Women’s Weekly, [...]

Ex-teacher gets 3 years, 8 months for molesting students

In a brief letter to her molester — a former teacher at Pacific Rim Elementary School — a young girl managed to capture the gravity of a situation that shattered the innocence of three victims and would send a man they once trusted to prison. “Dear Mr. Firth,” the girl wrote in a letter read [...]

Sarkozy proposes total ban on the burqa in France

F At the April 21 meeting of the French cabinet, President Nicolas Sarkozy announced that a bill banning the wearing of the burqa or niqab full-face veil in public would be put before the cabinet in May. The bill is a blatant attack on democratic rights, moving France towards extra-legal rule. Prime Minister François Fillon [...]

Memo to America: Stop murdering my people

Almost every day, the NATO occupation of our country continues to kill innocent people. Each time, it seems, military officials try to claim that only insurgents are killed, or they completely deny and cover up their crimes. The work of a few courageous journalists is the only thing that brings some of these atrocities to [...]

First Europe, then the US – now abuse claims sweep Latin America

The pedophile priest scandal currently enveloping the Vatican has spread to one of the most Catholic areas of the world following a string of new abuse revelations throughout Latin America. Reports of priests raping or abusing minors have now emerged in Brazil, Bolivia, Uruguay, Mexico and Chile causing growing anger in a continent that is [...]

Court case reveals diocese pattern of sending problem priests to desert

BARSTOW • As the sex abuse scandals that plague the Catholic Church continue to make headlines, a recent lawsuit has brought new information to light regarding the San Diego Diocese’s placement of priests with a history of sexual abuse in desert parishes, including St. Joseph Catholic Church in Barstow. One man involved in the lawsuit, [...]

Deportation’s Harmful Effect on Children

This brief from the International Human Rights Law Clinic University of California, Berkeley School of Law , In the Child’s Best Interest? The Consequences of Losing a Lawful Immigrant Parent to Deportation states “Congress is considering a comprehensive overhaul of the nation’s immigration laws more than a decade after the enactment of strict immigration measures. [...]

Child rape charge rocks TSA

A Transportation Security Administration worker who pats down members of the flying public was charged with multiple child sex crimes targeting an underage girl yesterday. The bust outraged privacy and passenger advocates who say it justifies their fears about Logan International Airport’s full-body scanner. “It’s a huge, huge issue,” said Kate Hinni of FlyersrRights.org. “The [...]

Paul Schrader: Transparency- San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department

The questions asked at most of my events and from people all over the county is, what are they hiding, and why is the sheriff and his command staff not open and available to the public. As part of my fresh start approach to the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department, it will be my duty [...]

Paul Schrader: Community Responsibility- San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department

My name is Paul Schrader, and I am running for the position of Sheriff-Coroner of San Bernardino County. My campaign is based on what we call the Fresh Start Initiative. My goal is to bring a Fresh Start to San Bernardino County that the citizens can be proud of, participate in, and see concrete, forward-looking [...]

CNN poll confirms: Most Americans believe their government is a threat to their welfare

A majority of Americans think the federal government poses a threat to rights of Americans, according to a new national poll. Fifty-six percent of people questioned in a CNN/Opinion Research Corporation survey released Friday say they think the federal government’s become so large and powerful that it poses an immediate threat to the rights and [...]

Karl Rove Chased Out of UCSB

San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department buys gear from company targeted by sweatshop investigators

The Safariland website is a virtual big box retailer of tactical equipment, chemical weapons and forensics for police departments, military and private security contractors. The Premium Wallbanger System is used for SWAT team entry operations and can create a shooting port through a wall. It can use an explosive charge to breach metal doors and [...]

“Honored” Miramar Marine Beats Son of 4 Months to Death

OCEANSIDE, Calif. — Days after he was first questioned by police, San Diego police arrested a Marine whose infant son died one day after he was brought to a hospital with injuries. Police and military authorities said Lance Cpl. Michael D. Bixby, 22, was arrested shortly after noon Tuesday. He is expected to be arraigned [...]

Kentucky troopers caught on tape attending cockfight

MANCHESTER, Ky. — Two roosters tear at each other in a fenced ring in a recent match in Kentucky. But even more shocking then the illegal fight in the ring may be who was in the crowd watching, says the Humane Society of the United States. Camera footage from an undercover operation shows children and [...]

FBI probes US school webcam ‘spy’ case

The FBI is investigating a Pennsylvania school district officials accused of secretly activating webcams inside students’ homes, a law enforcement official with knowledge of the case told The Associated Press. The Federal Bureau of Investigation will explore whether Lower Merion School District officials broke any federal wiretap or computer-intrusion laws, said the official, who spoke [...]

ACLU sues USAID for FOIA violations over abstinence-only programs

The American Civil Liberties Union has sued the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) for failing to provide documents regarding its overseas religiously-influenced abstinence-only-until-marriage programs. In July and September 2009, the ACLU sent USAID requests for the programs funded through HIV/AIDs grants, including requests for proposals, contracts with USAID, curricula used by grantees, communications [...]

12-year-old American arrested for doodling on desk

A 12-year-old girl from New York has been handcuffed and arrested by the police for doodling on the classroom desk, an incident that has shaken the US education system to its core. Alexa Gonzales, a seventh grader at the Junior High School in Forest Hills, had written the words “I love my friends Abby and [...]

Army recruiter arrested in sex case

For the second time in less than a year, an Inland military recruiter has been arrested on suspicion of engaging in a sex act with an underage girl. Christian Rigal Mercado, 25, of Moreno Valley, was jailed Wednesday after a security guard at the Inland Center Mall in San Bernardino reported that he saw him [...]

Arpaio Tactics Causing Fear And Loathing In Maricopa County

Sheriff Joe Arpaio‘s crusade against Maricopa County officials has created a “year-long emotional roller-coaster” for some county employees, they tell the Arizona Republic. Arpaio, whose controversial immigration enforcement tactics have made him a nationally known figure, is reportedly being probed by a federal grand jury. The investigation is considering whether the sheriff abused his power [...]

Arrested TSA worker asked girl to be his ’sex slave’

A Transportation Security Administration employee in Florida is behind bars this weekend after a 15-year-old girl claimed he groped her and asked if she would be his “sex slave,” according to published reports. Charles Henry Bennett, a 57-year-old TSA worker at Orlando International Airport, is being held without bail after he reportedly confessed to a [...]