best friend: March 2011

Thursday, March 31, 2011

Wrongful Deaths in Custody: Susan Lopez (ADC)

(UPDATED from March 29, 2011 post.)

As noted in the last post, a prisoner at ASPC-Perryville killed herself last week. Below is the notice of 35 year-old Susan Lopez' death from the AZ Department of Corrections. What follows is what some of the other prisoners had to say about her suicide. If you are a loved one of Susan's, please brace yourself. I'm sorry if this post is painful, but the public needs to know what's happening behind bars in this state, or more vulnerable people will die needlessly.

Susan was a mother of four children, and was apparently a Certified Nurses' Aide. By the number of people landing on my site Googling her this week, I'd say she was probably well-loved by people in her community, even though she was ignored by her caretakers in prison, where she was sent for non-violent crimes. Her history suggests that her criminal activity may have been related to the disease of addiction. Most addicts in America never acquire a record for it; many get medical treatment for their illness or join a 12-step program and give a tremendous amount back to their communities. The ones who get criminalized before they get well are less fortunate, not less worthy of recovery, and their lives are often shredded by the excess branding, shaming, exiling, and impoverishment that results from initiating criminal prosecution. It can be completely devastating.

A few extraordinary souls pick themselves up after prison and make good anyway - we like to use them as proof that incarceration itself can "help" people get back on their feet. They are the exception to the rule, however, and it's what they already have within them - not some magic instilled by going to prison itself - that gets them through hell and back in one piece, if they make it. Once caught up in the machinery of "justice", though, too many just never break free. The criminal justice system is designed to extort us and exploit our troubles, not assist us, if we're in the shoes of the accused - guilty or not. Once law enforcement is on the scene we have no control over how it plays out from there; cops have been known to kill people who are suicidal, and courts here routinely hold mentally incompetent defendants criminally culpable for the symptoms of their mental illness.

There are no easy answers for addiction, of course; the ones out there are really as diverse as the population of addicts. I've seen courts be far too quick to take a one-size-fits-all approach and send people off to prison because AA didn't fit them and they screwed up their probation or couldn't pay off their restitution in time. A lot of folks think that the state is actually benevolent and calling the police on a loved one who's addicted might help speed along their recovery process by raising the bottom they have to hit before committing themselves to breaking the cycle, but that's especially misguided because of what I just described. I would only resort to such drastic action today if it was the only way to protect someone's life or limb in a crisis.

Most addicts who land in prison are admittedly there for crimes supporting their habits, too, like theft or fraud. That doesn't make them dangerous, though, or justify the violence of imposing imprisonment on them at outrageous public expense - especially while simultaneously refusing to cover treatment services for them to get well. Once you're a criminal, however, every relapse - which is "part of recovery" for the rest of us - is a potential parole violation or a new charge as a "repeat offender", and as your record gets longer judges get less sympathetic...

All of which appears to have happened to Susan.

Susan's guilty plea is on the internet; the sentencing minutes should be updated and posted soon. Her Graham County sentence is what's in question; that's the one that hasn't been posted as of yet. You can check current court records by searching her name with her month and year of birth (June 1975). She had a whole lot of petty stuff pile up on her in several different counties at once - apparently accumulating over several years then catching up to her once she was in custody.

I think if all her charges were in one county, she would have had more dismissed in a plea agreement; the poor woman was just pounded by court appearances this winter. By the looks of it, the respective county attorneys filed every single charge they possibly could to intimidate her into the deals she entered: she could have been facing the rest of her life in prison for forgery-related crimes if she lost at trial. They really do hurt people who resist them: I know one fellow doing 52 years for fraudulent schemes (largely because he accused the prosecution and judiciary of racism then lost in court).

I find it astounding that the judges who sent this mother off to prison were prepared to expend anywhere from $60,000 to over $120,000 in public funds just to punish her - that's what really seems criminal. Our legislature is equally as complicit. It's unbelievable that given such an investment no one could even bother to sit down to help Susan figure out how long she would be locked up and away from her family. There are sources of possible confusion evident in Susan's posted ADC records - her death notice lists her as being 40 though she was born in 1975, and her obituary indicates a different middle name than her court and ADC records. All the court documents indicate it's the same Susan, though. How hard could it have been to help her sort this out and cope with it? A little bit of attention could have saved her life.

Unfortunately, the nightmare that unfolded for Susan immediately prior to her suicide seems to be the standard MO at the Arizona Department of Corrections, though I've had some good experiences with at least one CO at ASPC-Tucson, and I know there are other exceptions - like former ASPC-Eyman DW Carl Toersbijns. It's not the individual CO's so much anyway - it's the staffing schedules, inadequate training, and an abusive institutional culture that results in deaths like Marcia Powell's, Brenda Todd's, and Susan's. There isn't the expectation that officers respond with compassion to prisoners, of course - they're all just criminals trying to manipulate them because that's what they do best.

If ADC policies and culture reflected a fundamental value for human rights, there would be less abusive and negligent conduct by employees. The leadership makes their disdain for their prisoners clear to all, however, and throws criminals on the legislature's alter for live sacrifices to offer their constituents without thought for the consequences of new fees and restrictions for prisoners and their families - who are also taxpaying constituents, I might add. The description of the main officer who ignored Susan's pleas for help is consistent with what I would expect from the current ADC, sadly.

At most the officer(s) involved might get written up - unless this becomes a politically charged case, and the ADC decides to sacrifice the officer to minimize the appearance of institutional negligence, as was alleged by CO's over the death of Marcia Powell. The pattern and practice of ignoring women begging for help in AZ state prisons is unlikely to change any time soon, then - not without serious litigation, anyway. The state is far more concerned with avoiding liability than it is with taking responsibility, despite the moralistic garbage it shoves down prisoners' throats about why they must be brutalized the rest of their lives for the smallest of crimes.

To Susan's family, on that note: take your time grieving, but file a notice of claim against the state within six months for each survivor, or you'll be precluded from suing in state court in the future. The ADC needs to be held responsible for their neglect; so many women out there are still suffering, and have no other hope for relief. I'll do what I can to put survivors in touch with attorneys who can help file claims for wrongful deaths - there are far too many happening like this. I'll also do what I can to help you compile evidence; that's what I've been doing in these blogs for nearly two years now.

My number is 480-580-6807; my email is prisonabolitionist@gmail.com; my name is Peggy. My office is at 1009 N. 1st St. #8, Phoenix, next to the Firehouse Gallery. Contact me anytime.

Anyone can contact the US Department of Justice to complain about all the prison suicides under Brewer, by the way. Ask for a CRIPA Investigation into the AZ Department of Corrections.

The address is:

Jonathan Smith, Chief

US DOJ Civil Rights Division,
Special Litigation Section

950 Pennsylvania Ave. NW, PHB

Washington, DC 20530

SOS DOJ: CRIPA Arizona.

Dodge Theater, Phoenix, AZ.

Halloween Night, 2010.

-------from the AZ Department of Corrections' website (posted 3/30/2011)-----

ARIZONA DEPARTMENT OF CORRECTIONS
1601 W. JEFFERSON
PHOENIX, ARIZONA 85007
(602) 542-3133
www.azcorrections.gov

JANICE K. BREWER, GOVERNOR CHARLES L. RYAN, DIRECTOR

NEWS RELEASE
For Immediate Release

For more information contact:
Barrett Marson
bmarson@azcorrections.gov
Bill Lamoreaux
blamorea@azcorrections.gov

March 28, 2011 Inmate Death Notification

Phoenix, Az. – Inmate Susan Lopez, 40, ADC #184221, died Friday night from an apparent suicide.

Lopez, sentenced out of Cochise and Graham County, was serving 6 years for forgery. She came to ADC Dec. 2, 2010 and was held at the Santa Cruz Unit, ASPC-Perryville.

The death is under investigation by the department.

-----via personal email, March 26, 2011 re: suicide on Santa Cruz-----

"Perryville - 16 yard: Inmate 184221 LOPEZ Susan died last night by hanging. Was told she was a low risk inmate who was put in 16 yard after returning from going to court.

She had just been brought back to from court where she was sentenced to 3 years concurrent on a charge but the counselor told her the computer said she got 6 years-consecutive. She begged for help and was ignored. Her counselor did nothing to try to get that corrected and would not allow her to talk to anyone about it.

She had been seeking help for several days and begged for help. The counselor did nothing. She asked for help from other officers.

Her husband called to say their daughter was having surgery in the hospital - a family emergency. She tried to get the counselor to let her call home on this emergency. He would not help her."

----received from ASPC-Perryville/Santa Cruz via US Mail on March 30, 2011 (dated 3/28/2011)-----

We must do everything we can to keep this from happening again.

This Sammon tells Whoppers.

"The goal of modern propaganda is no longer to transform opinion but to arouse an active and mythical belief” ~Jacques Ellul~

I keep trying to tell anyone who will listen just how dangerous the folks over at Radio Rwanda have become, and today I got more proof to back up my position.

It seems that one of their news [and I use that word laughingly] reporters was caught in a little white lie. (No pun intended) Or, as Sammon himself calls it; "a Pre-Truth." (Stop laughing.)

"In an audio recording obtained by media watchdog group Media Matters, Fox News Washington managing editor Bill Sammon admits that he repeatedly lied on-air about Barack Obama during the home stretch of the 2008 presidential campaign. Sammon’s remarkable admission came in the summer of 2009 aboard a 12-day cruise sponsored by conservative Hillsdale College. Tickets for the cruise ranged in price from $11,800 to $37,600 per couple. The Fox News executive gave an Obama-bashing speech in which he boasted: “Last year, candidate Barack Obama stood on a sidewalk in Toledo, Ohio, and first let it slip to Joe the Plumber that he wanted to quote, ‘spread the wealth around.’ At that time, I have to admit, that I went on TV on Fox News and publicly engaged in what I guess was some rather mischievous speculation about whether Barack Obama really advocated socialism, a premise that privately I found rather far-fetched.

In the run-up to the November 2008 election, Sammon indeed repeatedly took to Fox airwaves to denounce Obama as a “socialist” and tie him to “Marxists.” According to Media Matters, he also pushed his Fox colleagues to “play the socialism card.” Using the tried-and-true Fox strong-arm tactic of sending internal memos to staffers, Sammon made much of what he described as “Obama’s references to socialism, liberalism, Marxism and Marxists.” Only problem is, Obama never once referred to socialism or Marxism during his campaign. Sammon knew exactly what he was doing; trying to smear a presidential candidate with the damaging yet false brush of socialism. Such tactics, he admitted, were “red meat when you’re talking to conservatives.” But they’re also anathema to the “fair and balanced” journalism Fox ludicrously purports to practice. " [Source]

Sammon was incredibly successful, because that is one of the wingnut talking points: "OBAMA IS A SOCIALIST". Of course, how hard can it be to preach to [and convince] a choir, where more than half of its members do not believe that their elected president was born here?

Let me repeat that: MORE THAN HALF OF THE REPUBLICANS IN THIS COUNTRY DO NOT BELIEVE THAT THE PRESIDENT WAS BORN HERE!!!

And people wonder why I blog.

Short but Deep

By PES

Yoo Hoo, Pam!

I asked my personal random number generator/design wall/husband to choose a number from 1 to 41 and he chose 36.

Comment #36 would be Pam 1228 who said:

pam1228 said...

I love the baby quilt finish!!! How cute for a new baby!
I am celebrating the 4th birthday of my special granddaughter, Lilybeth. Lily has a heart condition and we are so thankful for every day she spends with us. Thanks for the giveaway!
Great news on fitting in a smaller pair of jeans!

Pam, honey, email me your snail mail address and your charm pack will go in the mail on Monday. If I don't hear from you by Sunday night, I'll have himself pick a different number.

Lilybeth's 4th birthday is a wonderful thing to be celebrating. If you remind me next year, I'll send you another charm pack to celebrate Lily's fifth, simply because my four grandchildren are perfectly healthy.

Carlos LaMadrid: another child murdered by US Border Patrol agent for throwing stones.

This sad story keeps repeating itself. Our heavily-militarized US Border Patrol is still gunning down children throwing rocks (though we are told the real threat are the drug cartels), while Joe Arpaio is gearing up his amateur posse pilots to identify "illegal activity" from the sky so the Maricopa County Sheriff's deputies can pick off fleeing "suspects" with automatic weapons.

The AZ governor, meanwhile, wants her own private army to call up for whatever she "considers to be necessary" - which I suspect would be used to put down domestic disturbances as the masses slip deeper into debt and poverty, not to protect us from the alien invasion, as she would have the people believe.

Americans are really a sorry bunch of people. We're the ones perpetrating the most border state violence, hands down. Neither Brewer nor Arpaio have suggested using any of those precious resources to rescue desert crossers with, of course - a record number of whom died in 2010, despite the drop in migration...

And so, here we are again. Last night was the first I heard of this youth. If a Border Patrol officer is murdered, it's the crime of the century. Governor Brewer exploits it as a chance to amp up the war on all brown people passing through the state - redirecting hundreds of millions of health care dollars towards criminalizing and incarcerating more immigrants - while Homeland Security Secretary Napolitano personally declares the guy a hero and swears she will stop at nothing to solve the crime. If a latino child is murdered by an officer, though, his family and community are met with either these lame justifications from the feds for why the agent felt threatened, and stone cold silence from everyone else.

------------------From Border Action Network--------------

*Pulsa aqui para leer este artículo en Español*

Carlos La Madrid was known as the teenager who always smiled, who loved to play soccer, guitar and was learning to work with solar energy. This week however, his family has been mourning his death. On March 21st, Carlos La Madrid was shot and killed by Border Patrol agents near the border wall separating Douglas, Arizona from Agua Prieta, Sonora. He was 19 years old.

This is the second incident to shock the Arizona border region so far this year in which teenagers have been shot and killed by border guards in alleged rock-versus-bullets incidents. In January, 17-year-old Ramses Barrón Torres was shot and killed in Douglas, Arizona. That case is still under investigation.

Family and friends of Carlos La Madrid gathered near the site of the shooting to demand justice as they hung two banners on the border wall, one depicting a smiling Carlos playing the accordion, the second commissioned by Carlos’ soccer team that read “You will always be in our team and in our hearts.”

Holding back tears outside the family home, Marta, Carlos’ younger sister, remembered her slain sibling: “He was a great brother, he was always smiling and loved to play soccer,” she told organizers with Border Action Network, a human rights organization in Arizona.

Although federal authorities have not released any information on the incident, Border Patrol claims its agents were confronted by rocks throwers who were standing on the Mexican side.

“Rock throwing is often the pretext to justify shooting and killing migrants crossing the US-Mexico border. In this case, Carlos was a 19-year- old U.S. citizen and hometown boy of Douglas, Arizona,” explained Jennifer Allen, Executive Director of Border Action Network and co-chair of the Southern Border Communities Coalition (SBCC), a recently-formed border-wide coalition of over 60 entities. Allen continued, “The Border Patrol agents took the law into their own hands, and acted as judge, jury and executioner and shot a teenager.”

This incident has also had a chilling effect on communities along the international divide with Mexico.

“Border communities from San Diego to Brownsville are saying enough is enough,” explains Christian Ramirez, a San Diego-based National Coordinator with the American Friends Service Committee and SBCC co-chair. “The growing pattern of agents shooting first and asking questions later is a border-wide epidemic that is rapidly diminishing the quality of life of border communities and trampling on the dignity of the millions of people who call the US-Mexico border home.”

The SBCC and its Arizona members expect:

1. For the FBI and the Cochise County Attorney’s office to conduct thorough and swift investigations that include investigating civil rights violations;

2. For Customs and Border Protection to institute new training for agents to better assess levels of threat and determine appropriate non-lethal responses; and

3. For all agencies involved to provide copies of incident reports to the family, including one that explains the delayed paramedics’ transport to the local hospital.

To see more photos and videos of Carlos and his family, click here.

Stolen Art Watch, Diamonds Worth Millions Reported Stolen at BaselWorld

Basel - Four diamonds worth millions have been stolen from a stand at the world's biggest jewellery fair in Basel.
-
A spokesman for Basel's prosecutor's office, Markus Melzl, said the robbery occurred at around 11am this morning when "three diverted the attention of the diamond trader's employees, while two others opened the showcase".
-
The Israeli trader, whose identity has not yet been revealed, first realised that the four diamonds worth millions of euro had been stolen some fifteen minutes later.
-
After the robbery, the exhibition hall was closed for half an hour, but the thieves had already run away. According to the local police, the theft may have involved 4-5 'professionals' who are thought to have checked out the showcase several times over the past few days.
-

Four diamonds worth millions were reportedly stolen Wednesday from a diamond trader exhibiting at the BaselWorld watch and jewelry show in Basel, Switzerland, news outlets report.

A spokesman for the Basel prosecutor's office, Markus Melzl, issued a statement to the following effect: "On Wednesday, 30 March 2011, at around 11:00 am, one of the as yet still unidentified perpetrators distracted an employee of a diamond trader in the exhibition hall 3.0, and stole four diamonds worth millions from the display window."

The trader noticed the theft only about 15 minutes after the diamonds had been taken, and the hall was closed for half an hour. Nevertheless, the suspects apparently managed to leave the premises with the diamonds.

Melzl noted that the theft was "carried out in a very professional manner."

Police were examining security camera footage from the expo and search for possible DNA traces and fingerprints that the suspects might have left behind.

BaselWorld 2011, the largest event of its kind in Europe, opened on March 24 and runs through today. Over 1,800 exhibitors – including luxury watch manufacturers, diamond manufacturers, and diamond jewelry designers – are showing at this year's event.
-
Art Hostage Comments:
-
At the same venue last year thieves attempted to steal diamonds worth $10 million but were apprehended in the viewing hall before they could escape.
-
On that occasion only one or two of thieves were caught, leaving the rest of the gang to return this year and be more successful on their escape.
-
Oh, and the current value for the stolen four diamonds, $10 million.
-
Take Your Pick

http://abclocal.go.com/wls/story?section=news/iteam&id=7377573
-
http://www.straitstimes.com/BreakingNews/Singapore/Story/STIStory_560266.html
-
http://www.antwerpfacetsonline.be/nc/articles/single/article/india-jewellery-show-diamond-thieves-arrested-in-dubai/
-
http://www.rfi.fr/actuen/articles/111/article_3074.asp
-
On the other hand you could always go Pink, as in Pink Panthers, with this remarkable insight by David Samuels: http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2010/04/12/100412fa_fact_samuels

Twitter Tree Thursday

The Twitter Tree© will be hosted by a different shop each business day.

Monday: http://christiecottage.blogspot.com/
Tuesday: http://audreyscountrycrafts.blogspot.com/
Wednesday: http://elunajewelry-nc.blogspot.com/
Thursday: http://aneedleinthehaystack-debbie.blogspot.com/
Friday: http://sweetybird09.blogspot.com/2010/

Be sure and stop by and be a part of the twitter tree each day.
Instructions:
You tweet the item(s) for me and all the posts above yours, along with your twitter account so we can follow you, and list 1-3 items (clickable links) from any of your online shops that you would like for all those posting here to tweet for you. ( No "mature" items, please). Be sure the item is twitter ready. (See below) Check back throughout the day and tweet all the new items posted from other online shops. Etsy, ArtFire, Zibbet, Bonanzle, ebay, your own website, etc..
Please add this tag to your tweets. " #BlueBird"

This way we can Retweet later in the day, simply by searching the tag.
Thanks!
By reaching out thru blogger and blog follower's twitter accounts, we will reach a new audience of viewers and hopefully land some sales. After all, we all have our online shops to make sales.

Please remember that your post can only be so long for Twitter or it will say the post is to long and then words have to be removed.

Please keep your post to 3 listings and thank you for coming by to the Twitter Tree

Set of 12 black and rainbow digital sheets
http://bit.ly/ia35GQ #Bluebird #crochet18purple @Artfire

The Bumble Bee and The Flower photo print http://bit.ly/doSSCP
#Bluebird #Crochet18purple @Artfire

Set of 9 what to wear assorted dresses on a
by crochet18purple http://etsy.me/gh9OIM
#Bluebird #Etsybot

Wednesday, March 30, 2011

Above the law?

I wonder what makes these wingnut lawmakers in cheese country think that they are above the law? Here we have a judge who issues an injunction, and these republi-clown lawmakers think that they can just blow it off because they are...well....republicans.

"Madison – For the second time in less than two weeks, a Dane County judge Tuesday issued an order blocking the implementation of Gov. Scott Walker’s plan to curb collective bargaining for public workers. Dane County Judge Maryann Sumi said that her original restraining order issued earlier this month was clear in saying no steps should be take to advance the law.

The GOP governor’s administration did so after the bill was published Friday by a state agency not named in Sumi’s earlier temporary restraining order. “Further implementation of the act is enjoined,” Sumi said. “Apparently that language was either misunderstood or ignored, but what I said was the further implementation of Act 10 was enjoined. That is what I now want to make crystal clear.” She warned that those who violate her order could face court sanctions." [Source]

Sanctions? What sanctions? They don't care about "no stinkin" sanctions; they are republicans.

Finally, since we are talking about the courts and our legal system, and whether certain people are above the law. Let me finish with a story that I hope that we will never hear about again:

"I wish I knew how many hundreds of thousands of federal tax dollars have been spent investigating the New Black Panther Philadelphia voter intimidation case. We can add a few more, now that the Justice Department's Office of Professional Responsibility has completed its review of the department's handling of the matter.

On election day in 2008, a pair of African-American guys wearing berets stationed themselves in front of a North Philadelphia polling place, calling themselves "security." One of them had a nightstick.

Though the beret boys didn't interfere with ingress or egress from the polling place and not a single voter can be identified who was intimidated by their idiotic behavior, conservatives have been flogging the issue ever since. They condemn the Obama Justice Department's decision not to press a voter intimidation case against four defendants, though the department did secure an injunction against the guy with the club.

After reviewing thousands of pages of documents and interviewing 44 people, the Office of Professional Responsibility has concluded there were no political or racial considerations in the Justice Department's handling of the case.

The OPR conducted its inquiry in response to a request from Texas Congressman Lamar Smith. You can read their letter to him here. You can get my take on the case in a January Newsworks post here. I'd like to think this will put an end to the controversy, but I know better." [Source]

Dave, I know better as well. This controversy will never end. Why? Because A-merry-ca needs a bogeyman.

Stolen Art Watch, Art Theft Season 2011

Police in Bridgwater are appealing for information following the theft of antiques from a property in Bridgwater.

Sometime between 10.25am and 2.30pm on Monday March 28, unknown offenders have forced their way into a property in the Polden Hills area of Bridgwater and made off with antiques worth tens of thousands of pounds.

Police would now like to speak to anyone who may have been in the area and noticed anyone acting suspiciously or anyone who may have been offered items similar to those pictured.

Anyone who may have information is asked to call Bridgwater police on 0845 456 7000 or call Crimestoppers on 0800 555 111. We never ask your name or trace your call.

http://www.avonandsomerset.police.uk/LocalPages/NewsDetails.aspx?nsid=23081&t=1&lid=5

Celebration

Rainbow Dots is finished. This isn't the best photograph of it; far from it. I think if you click on it you can see the quilting. I thoroughly enjoyed hand-quilting this baby quilt. The backing is the same yellow as the binding.

This is my fifth finish for this year. It's not a UFO, but rather a quilt that a certain mom is going to need early this summer.

Yesterday I picked up Cinnamon Latte and Second Hand Clothes from the machine quilter and managed to get the bindings machined on both of them (not my favorite part of making a quilt). So now I'm ready for the hand-stitching of the binding, a task I enjoy. The quilting on Cinnamon Latte is amazing -- kind of an Aztec sort of motif that is just perfect, I think, with the fabrics. I'll try to get a close-up when it is finished.

Yesterday I retired my favorite blue jeans. They had become too large! Today I'm wearing a pair that looks just like them, but are a size smaller and have been hanging in the spare closet for many years.

And yesterday's post was number 1200.

Many things to celebrate! A give-away seems to be in order. How about a charm pack of French General La Petite Ecole? Leave a comment telling me something that you are celebrating. I'll draw a random winner on Thursday.

Tuesday, March 29, 2011

AZ executes mentally disabled man: Why haven't we evolved yet?

Thanks to "Anchor Baby" Jorge Mendez, Carlos Galindo, and the whole "thuggish mob" occupying the Capitol for coming to my rescue when the cops questioned me about chalking the Senate sidewalk last night.

AZ State Senate:
Vigil against the death penalty.
Phoenix: March 28, 2011.

"Clerical error" my ass, Horne. Of course they requested the drug for use on an "animal" - they don't care if it's defective. They would have executed him for the first crime if they could have - that was pretty horrific: we could line up thousands of guys if we did that, though, for money that could be used saving lives instead. Besides, the AZ Department of Corrections does a better job assuring that their dogs don't suffer the discomfort of summer than they do preventing wretched deaths from befalling the people in their custody - including the ones not sentenced to be executed.

I bet the director of the ADC has a good sleep tonight, defending the public by assuring this man's death. The Arizona Justice Project didn't pick up Eric King's case for some reason, but not necessarily because he isn't innocent - they go with what they think they can win, and can't afford to pin their name on someone who hasn't been cleared. I wonder if it ever bothers Chuck Ryan that so many people have been exonerated. How utterly unnecessary - and unjust, considering how casual this state is about neglect and abuse befalling the people in its custody.

Our condolences to King's kid. I don't think he was asking too much.

This page has links to death penalty resources.

------------------

Arizona executes Eric John King Tuesday, March 29, 2011 Associated Press

FLORENCE, Ariz. — A man convicted of killing two people in a 1989 Phoenix convenience store robbery was executed Tuesday despite last-minute arguments by his attorneys who raised questions over one of the lethal injection drugs and said they had raised “substantial doubt” about his guilt.

Eric John King’s death at the state prison in Florence was the first execution in the state since October and one of the last expected to use a three-drug lethal injection cocktail.

The 47-year-old had maintained his innocence since his arrest and his lawyers fought until the last minute to get his sentence reversed or delayed.

Defense attorney Mike Burke said before the execution that he visited with King on Tuesday morning.

“Although he’s very calm, he continues to maintain his innocence,” Burke told The Associated Press. “He’s done what he can do. All he has left to do is maintain his dignity.”

The Arizona Supreme Court declined to stay King’s execution Monday after Burke argued that the state should wait until it enacts its new lethal injection protocol. The U.S. Supreme Court refused to intervene.

Corrections Director Charles Ryan announced Friday that Arizona will switch to using just one drug in an effort to allay any “perceived concerns” that sodium thiopental is ineffective, but only after the scheduled executions of King and Daniel Wayne Cook on April 5.

Defense attorney Michael Burke had argued that the Department of Corrections may have engaged in fraud when it imported the sedative from Great Britain by listing it on forms as being for “animals (food processing),” not humans.

Arizona Attorney General Tom Horne said the mislabeling resulted from a clerical error.

Arizona obtained the drug legally, and that’s why it has been able to avoid problems other states have had, Assistant Attorney General Kent Cattani has said. Georgia’s supply of sodium thiopental was seized by federal Drug Enforcement Administration agents on March 15 over questions about how it was obtained.

The drug is part of the three-drug lethal injection cocktail used by nearly all 34 death penalty states, but it became scarce last year after the sole U.S. manufacturer stopped making it.

Some states started obtaining sodium thiopental overseas, and lawyers have argued that potentially adulterated, counterfeit or ineffective doses could subject prisoners to extreme pain.

Texas and Oklahoma recently announced they are switching from sodium thiopental to pentobarbital in their three-drug protocol. Ohio has switched to using only pentobarbital for its executions, and Ryan said that’s the drug Arizona might start using.

Burke also was unable to successfully argue that King be granted clemency at a hearing Thursday. Burke had argued that the two key witnesses who testified against King at his trial have changed their stories, that no physical evidence exists and surveillance video used at trial was of extremely poor quality.

Vince Imbordino, a prosecutor with the Maricopa County attorney’s office, argued that the photographic evidence was clear and that if jurors didn’t believe King was guilty, they wouldn’t have convicted him.

King was convicted of fatally shooting security guard Richard Butts and clerk Ron Barman at a Phoenix convenience store two days after Christmas in 1989. Butts and Barman both were married fathers whose families have testified that their deaths in a robbery that netted $72 devastated them.

Shortly before the killings, King had been released from a seven-year prison term on kidnapping and sexual assault charges. Police say King, who was 18 at the time, and another man kidnapped a woman and took her to an abandoned house, where both repeatedly and brutally sexually assaulted her over six hours.

Before he was sentenced in that crime, deputy adult probation officer Lee Brinkmoeller wrote that King had plans to reform himself.

“The defendant’s plans for the future are to become a machinist and to have his own car, house, family, and start being able to do things for his mother for all the things she has done for him,” Brinkmoeller wrote. “He states that he wants to have his mother be proud of him before she dies and he wants to be somebody.”

Court documents show King had a troubled childhood. Born in a taxi on the way to the hospital in Phoenix, King was one of 12 siblings whose alcoholic, abusive and mentally disturbed father died of a heart attack when King was 11, according to court records.

Records also say King’s mother struggled to provide for the children, who were so hungry at times that they tried to catch crawdads in irrigation canals and frequently were without electricity.

King reported to a prison psychiatrist that he had heard voices on and off his entire life, and suffered from anxiety and insomnia.

His son, 20-year-old Eric Harrison, saw King for the first time Thursday at the clemency hearing and asked the board to spare his father.

“This is the first time I’ve ever seen my dad, ever in life, and I know I love him,” Harrison said. “That’s my dad. He gave me life. Just don’t take him.”

King is the 23rd death row inmates Arizona has executed with the three-drug method since it began using lethal injection in 1993.

The state had previously executed 38 inmates with lethal gas since it started using that method in 1934. Another 28 inmates were executed by hanging between 1910 and 1931.

Source: AP, March 29, 2011

---------------------------

AZ State Senate Lawn:
Vigil against the death penalty March 28, 2011.

Libyan technical vehicle Papercraft

Title : Libyan technical vehicle Papercraft
Libyan ZX Auto based technical
Genre : Papercraft
Designer : Yudho
Builder : Yudho
Publisher : www.mypapermodel.blogspot.com
Scale : 1:50
Paper Used : Art Paper 150 gsm
Adhesive : PVaC White Glue
Color : Printed with laser printer
Working Time : 5 Hrs
Difficulty : 2/5

North Africa and Middle East are now in crisis, the authoritarian governments are in danger. People are tired of authoritarian govenment style, start from Tunisia and then Egypt and now it's Libya, people start to do a revolution. In Libya, i see a lot of double cabin SUV that bring a light anti aircraft gun (something like a 12,7 mm dshk or a 20-50 mm gun) on a tripod, and its used by the Libyan revolution army. Civilian vehicles that are being weaponized remembering me to similiar fighting vehicle configuration in some countries that are having a civil war. Somalia (you can see them in Black Hawk Down movie), some other countries in Afrika, Irak, Afghanistan, and now Libya. It is often used by irriguler army such as rebel army and revolution army.
I also heard that some mercenaries (eg : Blackwater) are using this fighting vehicle configuration, a double or single cabin SUV with a gun in the back.

Based on wikipeda, A technical is a type of improvised fighting vehicle, typically a civilian or military non-combat vehicle, modified to provide an offensive capability. It is usually an open-backed civilian pickup truck or four-wheel drive vehicle mounting a machine gun, light anti-aircraft gun, recoilless rifle, or other support weapon. In Somalia, where The term technical describing such a vehicle appears to have originated in, techincal is used to show strength and charisma of warlords. The more technical that a warlord has, the more powerfull he is.

The Libyan technical vehicle Papercraft is based on ZX auto Grand Tiger or ZX Auto Delux pickup. ZX auto or Zhong Xing Auto is a Chinese Automobile manufacturer. This double cabin pickup truck is prepared to compete with the other fifth generation of pickup models such as TUNDRA™ and NISSAN FRONTIER™. During the revolution In Libya, ZX auto is used as a fighting vehicle. You can see this car, with a gun which is mounted on the back, on your tv screen or somewher on the sites that talk about Libya Uprising. There are Toyota Hilux and Mitsubishi Strada Triton that used by revolution army as fighting vehicle (technical) but i think ZX auto is the best for the next papermodel because of the unique and it has cool tribal painting on its door.

The soldier is carrying AK-47 Assault Rifle

And this is it, Libyan technical vehicle Papercraft has been released, you can download here complete with a libyan revolution troop action figure papercraft and boxes of ammo!!!

Some parents should be left behind.

"If you could kick the person in the pants responsible for most of your trouble, you wouldn't sit for a month.” ~Theodore Roosevelt~

Tabitha Allen needs a good kick in the pants.

"Tabitha Allen blames herself for her 10-year-old son's violent behavior. Growing up and living in a drug-infested, hooker-inhabited neighborhood, the 33-year-old mother of five is angry about life. "My anger reflects off my children," Allen explained one morning in the North Philadelphia rowhouse she inherited from her grandmother.

Her son - a thin, almost gaunt, boy with long eyelashes - punched a teacher last June at Kenderton Elementary School, a K-8 in Tioga. He knocked the glasses off her face and blackened her eye with a blow that packed unexpected power. As a 10-year-old, he had reached the minimum age to be arrested, and ended up with a simple assault charge in Family Court, where he was put on probation. He was removed from Kenderton and transferred to a classroom for disruptive elementary school students in Logan. Only last week, Allen said that her son was disciplined for having a BB gun at his new school. She said it was a misunderstanding and that the gun belonged to another student. [Source]

Tabitha Allen doesn't need a kick in the butt because she was born into unfortunate circumstances. She needs a kick in the butt for bringing five children into her world. A world where hope is hard to come by.

Tabitha Allen didn't give herself much of a shot, and she brought five kids along for the ride. Read the link to the Philly.com series about school violence that I provided. It will give you a wonderful insight into why Philly has 77 murders [and counting] so far this year.

"Tabitha Allen admits she wasn't on top of her children's lives the way she should have been, especially after her grandmother got sick and an aunt died. "I took my mind off my kids," Allen said. Allen, a high school dropout and unemployed, had all five of her children before she was 25. Two of her teenagers she describes as "Bonnie and Clyde." "They don't know how to walk away from stuff. They don't know how to let stuff go," she said. Her youngest, the 10-year-old who assaulted the teacher, takes after them, she said. So it was no surprise to her when she learned he had hit his teacher.

Earlier, the teacher had intervened when the boy hit a classmate. That led to a fist fight in the hall between the boy and the teacher, she said. Her son had been suspended repeatedly for fighting, she said. This time, he faced legal charges and landed on probation. Kenderton kicked him out and sent him to a disciplinary classroom at a K-6 school in Logan, about a mile and a half from his house. The classroom is run by Abraxas.

This year, there are 10 such sites based at elementary schools and serving 240 children in grades three to eight, said Wright, of the discipline office. Each self-contained classroom is staffed by a teacher and a behavior specialist. Students are evaluated after 30 days to determine if they can return to a regular school. In addition to academics, the students receive counseling and character-building courses. Allen said the school is too strict. When her son enters the school, he is patted down for weapons, she said. His classroom is in the basement, she said, and he is not allowed out for recess. "He ain't no convict. This isn't jail," she complained. Allen also said she was at a loss about how to help her son, who has ADHD and sees a psychiatrist.

She did her best to discipline her children, she said, and learned how to "beat them at their own game." When her son missed her imposed 10 p.m. curfew, she made him sit outside until 2 a.m. - in the cold. When her 13-year-old was locked up for trying to steal sneakers, she let him sit in jail for a while. She did the same to her 16-year-old daughter after she got into a fight and was detained. And when her 15-year-old son said he was going to kill himself, she hung a rope and told him how best to do it. "I said, 'It depends on how you jump,' " she said. "You got to jump right."

Allen struggles with her own anger. She said it comes from "life. Period. Me growing up in a neighborhood like this, seeing all the drugs." She pointed to her front door. "I got a whole hooker row right here on the corner," she said."

Tabitha Allen gives her ten year old son a 10 p.m. curfew! And people wonder why criminal lawyers do so well. *shaking head*

Libyan Technical Vehicle Instruction

Libyan Technical Vehicle Instruction

Libyan Technical Vehicle Instruction 1

This model is completed with an action figure with AK-47 that can be put on the back side of the vehicle. You will get two optional mode of front wheel, straight and stocks. Please use part 7B if you want your model just be straight forward in action, and use part 7A if you want another pose (your car model will be turning left).