It's a crime that police officers in a small eastern Arizona community can hardly fathom yet have to deal with: an 8-year-old charged in the fatal shootings of his father and another man. "Who would think an 8-year-old kid could kill two adults?" said St. Johns Police Chief Roy Melnick Friday.
The crime that unfolded Wednesday evening sent shock waves through St. Johns, a community of about 4,000 people northeast of Phoenix. The boy had no disciplinary record at school, and there was no indication he had any problems at home, prosecutors said. "It was such a tragedy," said the boy's defense attorney, Benjamin Brewer. "You have two people dead; you have an 8-year-old in jail. It tugs at the heart strings. It's a shocker, no doubt about it."
On Friday, a judge determined there was probable cause to show that the boy fatally shot his father, Vincent Romero, 29, and Timothy Romans, 39, of San Carlos with a .22-caliber rifle. The boy faces two counts of premeditated murder. Melnick said officers arrived at Romero's home within minutes of the shooting Wednesday. They found one victim just outside the front door and the other dead in an upstairs room.
Romans had been renting a room at the Romero house, prosecutors said. The two men were employees with a construction company that had a contract to do work at the Salt River Project power plant near St. Johns, which is about 170 miles northeast of Phoenix. The boy had went to a neighbor's house and said he "believed that his father was dead," said Apache County attorney Brad Carlyon. Police later obtained a confession from the boy, Melnick said.
Brewer said police overreached in questioning the boy without representation from a parent or attorney and did not advise him of his rights. "They became very accusing early on in the interview," Brewer said. "Two officers with guns at their side, it's very scary for anybody, for sure an 8-year-old kid." Prosecutors aren't sure where the case is headed, Carlyon said. "There's a ton of factors to be considered and weighed, including the juvenile's age," he said. "The counter balance against that, the acts that he apparently committed."
Under Arizona law, a juvenile under 8 years old is treated as a dependent child. Charges can be filed against anyone 8 or older, which Melnick argued are warranted in this case. He said the child didn't act on the "spur of the moment," though he didn't elaborate on what the motive might have been.
Defense attorney Mike Piccarreta, who is not involved in the case, said each case has to be considered on its own merits, but it would be hard for him to comprehend that an 8-year-old has the mental capacity to understand the act of murder and its implications. "If they actually prosecute the guy, it's a legal minefield," he said. "And, two, society has to make a decision as to whether they want to start using the criminal justice system to deal with 8-year-olds. That doesn't mean you don't have a troubled kid."
Brewer, the defense attorney, said the child "seems to be in good spirits. "He's scared," he said. "He's trying to be tough, but he's scared."
#3
Do I read this correctly?
The defense attorney is actually trying to get the kid off on a technicality? They better have his rotten little brain inspected is what they better do. Would you want to sleep in the same house as a kid who murders people for no apparent reason while they are sleeping?
#6
he'll appeal for sympathy, after all, now there's no father figure to guide him
/Menendez Bros.
Posted by: Frank G ||
11/08/2008 14:26 Comments ||
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#7
Insufficient information in the story. No motive given. Is there possible child abuse that is politically incorrect to mention? The kid has NO record of problems.
Or he could be a minor child nutcase that was told to put away his video game...
#9
Hell's bells, give that kid a scholarship to Princeton, undergraduate work under prof singer, then a chair at the Woodrow Wilson School of International Studies - he beat his Dad to the punch! heh
A pilot who suffered a stroke at the controls of his light plane found himself totally blind at 15,000 ft. Jim O'Neill, 65, was alone in the cockpit of his four-seater Cessna and frantically radioed a mayday alert.
Air traffic controllers attempted to guide him to the nearest airfield, Full Sutton, near York. But so complete was his loss of vision that it proved to be an impossible task. Thankfully, an RAF Tucano used for training military pilots was already in the air and was soon alongside the stricken pilot.
Having established radio contact Mr O'Neill was ordered to turn left and right, go lower or straighten up. He was guided the 15 miles to RAF Linton-on-Ouse in North Yorkshire and after three failed attempts he touched down.
'I should not be alive,' said Mr O'Neill, from Marks Tey, near Colchester, Essex. 'I owe my life - and those of dozens of people I could have crash-landed on - to the RAF.
From his hospital bed in Romford, where he is undergoing tests, he added: 'It was terrifying. Suddenly I couldn't see the dials in front of me. All there was in front of me was a blur. I was helpless at the controls.'
The astonishing drama happened as Mr O'Neill headed for Earls Colne airbase in Colchester after taking off from Glasgow Prestwick airport following a holiday in Scotland. The stroke put pressure on his optic nerves, rendering him completely blind.
Flt Lt Terry O'Brien, Linton's Air Traffic Control Officer, said: 'When Mr O'Neill contacted us we knew he had a vision problem but we thought he had been dazzled by the sun.
'He just kept apologising for not being able to land. He kept saying he couldn't see the airfield but I didn't realise he was blind.
'He came in but missed the runway, even though we are on a massive airfield. We then realised he couldn't see the runway and clearly the problem was getting bigger and bigger.'
Wing Commander Paul Gerrard, 42, a former Tornado display pilot, was then contacted in the Tucano. He flew within 300ft of the Cessna and guided it down. It landed at high speed, bounced twice and stopped at the very end of the runway.
Group Captain Mark Hopkins, station commander at Linton-on-Ouse, said: 'The RAF has the best pilots and air traffic controllers in the world. Shepherding aircraft in this way is something we do from time to time, but this is a very strange case.'
Mr O'Neill runs a travel, hotel and conference booking agency. Doctors are confident some vision will be restored when the swelling in his brain recedes.
His wife, Eileen, 63, said: 'It's a miracle Jim is here today. The RAF are heroes. They were so cool and calm and talked Jim down. Without them, he wouldn't be alive. We are a very religious family and I believe there was an angel on his shoulder as he came in to land, helping Jim alongside the RAF crew.' Pics at site
#7
The survey sought to link internal trafficking in the country to commercial sexual exploitation, forced labour and the removal of organs.
Organlegging?
Get the long arm Of Gil "the Arm" Hamilton involved. Wikipedia on Gil the Arm
The smart, West Sussex home with a manicured lawn - and a rose archway over the garden gate - is a long way from the Afghan-Pakistan border. But in it is a man who spent two years commanding 1,000 Khassadars - Waziri soldiers - between 1946 and 1948.
Today, Waziristan has become the new frontline in the so-called war on terror and is considered one of the most dangerous places in the world. Frank Leeson, 82, living in quiet retirement, has been watching events unfold with great interest. He is the last surviving British officer to have served in North Waziristan.
During his time there Mr Leeson kept diaries and took hundreds of photos, which he has donated to the National Army Museum. Now his knowledge of the area is being sought out by British and US defence officials.
Mr Leeson was called up in 1944 and sent to India, becoming a lieutenant in the Sikh regiment. In 1946 - at the age of 19 - he volunteered for a special mission in Waziristan. He was put in charge of a 1,000 Khassadars, or Waziri soldiers. He got to know them and the region well, learning Pashtu, the local customs and clan systems. He wrote in his book and diary that it was "not easy to like the Wazir".
"He takes a lot of knowing. If he is young he wears a flower behind his ear- though his country is a desert, and coryllium in his eyes - yet he is by no means effeminate. He loves fighting but hates to be a soldier; loves music but has a profound contempt for the professional musician.''
While based in Waziristan, Mr Leeson had to deal with an insurgency led by the Fakir of Ipi, a religious militant who had called for jihad. More than 40,000 troops and £1.5m were spent in one year alone trying to track him down. He killed thousands of villagers and 1,000 troops, but was never caught. Mr Leeson says the parallels with Osama Bin Laden are there, although the Fakir of Ipi's jihad was not an international one and he never killed anyone outside Pakistan or Afghanistan.
He says the Fakir had a strong spy network, was surrounded by loyal bodyguards and was always on the move, using the rough terrain to his advantage, with its caves, gorges and mountains as hiding places and escape routes. Mr Leeson says that the terrain was on the Fakir's side. "These frontier hills are difficult of access and easy to defend," he wrote. "When one speaks of them as hills, rolling downs on which tanks and cavalry can operate are not meant, but the worst mountain-warfare country imaginable - steep precipices, narrow winding valleys every vantage point commanded by another, and innumerable refuges and routes of escape.''
In 1938, the British offered the Fakir of Ipi a free pardon, but it was rejected.
The men who live in the tribal areas are famous for being good fighters, says Mr Leeson. While he was based there, the fighting was usually between the various tribes and what he calls 'blood feuds' where even the smallest slight had to be avenged and where grudges would be held for years.
Residents of a mainly Kurdish village in southeastern Turkey have sacrificed 44 sheep to celebrate the election of Barack Obama as the 44th president of the United States.
Dogan news agency video Friday shows villagers in Cavustepe village, in the province of Van, bordering Iran, holding Obama posters smeared with blood. In overwhelmingly Muslim Turkey, the practice is believed to protect people or property from bad luck.
The posters read "you are one of us" and "we love you."
Abdulkerim Kulaz of Cavustepe village says Obama's election and his Muslim ancestry have excited the villagers. Kulaz says Obama's election was a "proof of an end to racism in the world."
#6
Did they have their way with them, before slaughtering them? Sounds kinda un-islamic if they didn't.
Anyway, add that to the kenyan goat-killing to mark the Zero's victory, and you get a pretty nice, pleasing picture of primitives being all excited and happy for all the "good" reasons, which certainly tells a lot.
#8
Sorry, 1/2 mt.
Plea's in support of 'the primitives' must represent a valued advancable society treated unjustly. (Prime Directive and all that...)
Letting 'the primitives' have their fun without the balance of conscience and social obligation or personal growth removes them from the power of my fiscal pity I'm afraid.
I expect this was a chance to seize a poorman's herd and slaughter it for some 'good eaten '!
TV presenter Prem Radhakishun, himself black and a strong advocate of multiculturalism, now feels safer in the proximity of white racists than among Moroccan teenagers. In an interview on Radio 1 yesterday, he expressed his frustration in a tirade.
On his TV programme Premtime, produced by public broadcaster NPS, Radhakishun has tried for some years to give a realistic picture of the problems of the multicultural society. He regularly visits old city districts for street interviews. Radhakishun, a Hindu originally from Surinam, has always defended the position of Moroccan youngsters and sees it as his task to get rid of stigmatisation and prejudice.
But in a tirade on Radio 1, Radhakishun said yesterday he has become "sick to death" of "all these Moroccan m*therf*ckers" that he says push him around. "Today I feel a lot safer among white Lonsdale racists" than among Moroccan teenagers. "I may snap soon (...) but if I bash that scum back I will be tried as a racist in a show trial," he fumed.
Radhakishun was explaining that this week, he was threatened by Moroccan teenagers for the umpteenth time, after shooting for Premtime in The Hague. "I was forced to run away" from a group of 'opportunity youngsters', as they are often called in policy papers, "to avoid being completely beaten up. Even though I have stood up for them for years."
Earlier, a young kid injured Radhakishun by throwing a full can of cola at him but Radhakishun continued the broadcast with a bleeding head. "Why is the government not doing anything? Damn it, I am simply becoming rightwing from this! And politicians just ask themselves where that 'feeling of uneasiness' comes from. This is much more important than the election of President Obama," according to the avowed Obama devotee.
#1
Live by the multiculturalism, expect to die by the multiculturalism. Maybe if he and his fellow travellers hadn't spent their energies promoting ghetto-isation, sectarianism and victimhood but rather promoted the idea of equanimity, they wouldn't have half the problems their country is now mired in. Why should these gangs respect their Dutch compatriots when they've never been encouraged to think of themselves as Dutch compatriots? Time for some one size fits all application of respect to and by the law.
#3
A full can of Coke to the head did it. Huh! Maybe if I try that on my left wing family members and neighbors, it will straighten them out, too. What a simple, clever solution! My big brother, though, only takes Pepsi. Maybe for the others, it would be good to ask their preference before banging them. Wouldn't want to offend.
Posted by: Richard of Oregon ||
11/08/2008 9:23 Comments ||
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#4
because mulit-cultists are loud obnoxious whiners that never demand accountability from the so-called downtrodden minorities they are supposedly fighting for - that's how this crap comes about. The avg conservative is truly go along get along so long as people leave them be. Now that the mulit-cultists have over reached you'll see more avg Joses and Jaques taking a stand.
#5
Well, shazam ! Another simpleton sees the light after a good smack on the noggin'. Just like the lefties who become advocates for self-defense, using guns if necessary, AFTER a home invasion or after a family member has been murdered by a thug. Only after a realtime shock do they wake up from their coma. Laugher.
#6
There used to be a semi-popular saying 'bout lefties who have a change of heart..."define a neo conservative; a liberal who has been mugged". Maybe the worm is turning.
NEW DELHI: A crucial manoeuvre, to be performed on Saturday, on Chandrayaan-1 will inject it into an orbit around the moon from its current highly elliptical orbit around the earth.
On November 4, the last of the earth-bound manoeuvres was carried out, which put the satellite into an orbit with an apogee (the farthest point in the orbit from the earth) of 3,84,000 km and a perigee (the nearest point) at 1,019 km. With this apogee, the satellite actually encircles the moon as well. However, this earth-bound orbit is actually at about an inclination of 18 degrees to the earth's Equator. Since the final designated lunar orbit is a circumpolar one, this orbit has also to turn around by almost 90 degrees.
As the satellite cruises along its present trajectory, the moon's gravity will begin to dominate when this orbit will be about 60,000 km from the moon, which is expected to happen around midnight on Friday. Under the gravitational pull, the satellite will also begin to gain velocity. The orbit plane will also begin to gradually tilt away from its present near-equatorial one.
Continued on Page 49
Posted by: john frum ||
11/08/2008 00:00 ||
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Chandrayaan-1, Indias first unmanned spacecraft mission to moon, entered lunar orbit today (November 8, 2008). ?This is the first time that an Indian built spacecraft has broken away from the Earths gravitational field and reached the moon. This historic event occurred following the firing of Chandrayaan-1 spacecrafts liquid engine at 16:51 IST for a duration of 817 seconds. The highly complex lunar orbit insertion manoeuvre was performed from Chandrayaan-1 Spacecraft Control Centre of ISRO Telemetry, Tracking and Command Network at Bangalore.
Indian Deep Space Network (IDSN) at Byalalu supported the crucial task of transmitting commands and continuously monitoring this vital event with two dish antennas, one measuring 18 m and the other 32 m.
Chandrayaan-1s liquid engine was fired when the spacecraft passed at a distance of about 500 km from the moon to reduce its velocity to enable lunar gravity to capture it into an orbit around the moon. The spacecraft is now orbiting the moon in an elliptical orbit that passes over the polar regions of the moon. The nearest point of this orbit (periselene) lies at a distance of about 504 km from the moons surface while the farthest point (aposelene) lies at about 7502 km. Chandrayaan-1 takes about 11 hours to go round the moon once in this orbit.
The performance of all the systems onboard Chandrayaan-1 is normal. In the coming days, the height of Chandrayaan-1 spacecrafts orbit around the moon will be carefully reduced in steps to achieve a final polar orbit of about 100 km height from the moons surface. Following this, the Moon Impact Probe (MIP) of the spacecraft will be released to hit the lunar surface. Later, the other scientific instruments will be turned ON sequentially leading to the normal phase of the mission.
It may be recalled that Chandrayaan-1 spacecraft was launched on October 22, 2008 by PSLV-C11 from Indias spaceport at Satish Dhawan Space Centre (SDSC) SHAR, Sriharikota. As intended, PSLV placed the spacecraft in a highly oval shaped orbit with a perigee (nearest point to Earth) of 255 km and an apogee (farthest point to Earth) of 22,860 km. In the past two weeks, the liquid engine of Chandrayaan-1 has been successfully fired five times at opportune moments to increase the apogee height, first to 37,900 km, then to 74,715 km, later to 164,600 km, after that to 267,000 km and finally to 380,000km, as planned. During this period, the Terrain Mapping Camera (TMC), one of the eleven payloads (scientific instruments) of the spacecraft, was successfully operated twice to take the pictures, first of the Earth, and then moon.
Posted by: john frum ||
11/08/2008 13:19 Comments ||
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#3
The nearest point of this orbit (periselene) lies at a distance of about 504 km from the moon's surface while the farthest point (aposelene) lies at about 7502 km
They were aiming for 500km periselene and 7500km aposelene.
Not bad from 400,000 km away.
I guess the Chinese can now assume that the stellar navigation on Indian missile RVs works just fine.
Posted by: john frum ||
11/08/2008 13:57 Comments ||
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A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
It's a crime that police officers in a small eastern Arizona community can hardly fathom yet have to deal with: an 8-year-old charged in the fatal shootings of his father and another man. "Who would think an 8-year-old kid could kill two adults?" said St. Johns Police Chief Roy Melnick Friday.
The smart, West Sussex home with a manicured lawn - and a rose archway over the garden gate - is a long way from the Afghan-Pakistan border. But in it is a man who spent two years commanding 1,000 Khassadars - Waziri soldiers - between 1946 and 1948. 
TV presenter Prem Radhakishun, himself black and a strong advocate of multiculturalism, now feels safer in the proximity of white racists than among Moroccan teenagers. In an interview on Radio 1 yesterday, he expressed his frustration in a tirade.
