Category: Violence

Ricardo Marchan Shot Two Innocent People Because of Breakup, Police Said

Posted on by TL

Don’t get me wrong.  I’m not saying there are people who deserve to get shot.

However, Chicago police say Ricardo Marchan shot “two innocent people,” because  his girlfriend broke up with him.

Police said.  You know.

From the Chicago Sun-Times:

A man upset over a breakup with his girlfriend decided to vent his rage by randomly shooting two innocent people in the back of the head before police arrested him in the middle of a separate robbery, Chicago Police said Saturday.

The connection between the two murders and the armed robbery Aug. 2 in Humboldt Park was revealed Saturday when Ricardo Marchan, 24, of the 4000 block of West Grand, was charged with two counts of murder. He previously was charged with armed robbery.

Police said Marchan’s deadly rampage began at 4:10 a.m. Aug. 2, when he allegedly shot Michael Hernandez in the 1500 block of North Western Avenue.

Hernandez, 18, who was planning to attend college this fall, was shot in the back of the head. He was driving to his mother’s home after a night with friends.

Police said Marchan then drove about four blocks west and, three minutes later, fatally shot Patrick Cregan, 35, in the 1400 block of North California Avenue. Cregan, who was delivering a pizza, also was shot in the back of the head in his car, police said.

Hernandez was planning to attend college this fall.

Cregan was a pizza delivery man, shot in the back of the head.

My son delivers pizza.

For God’s sake, my son delivers pizza.  The Bush Economy has destroyed job prospects in the Chicagoland area, and the Obama Economy is still struggling to breathe.

Why do we work out our grievances in this country by shooting other people?  Am I the only one who thinks this is insane?

Why shoot innocent people?

15-year-old Chicago Girl Takes Bullet for Younger Relative

Posted on by TL

Yet another sensless shooting on Chicago’s Far South Side.  From the Chicago Sun-Times:

A 15-year-old Chicago girl who was shot in the head outside her Far South Side home Wednesday as she shielded a younger relative from gunfire has come through surgery, a relative said this morning.

Taccara Swain’s relatives said they are praying that the Julian High School student will recover from Wednesday night’s shooting.

“These are your friends, these are your neighbors, these are your classmates. Have some values,” Taccara Swain’s aunt, Vernetta Swain, said she’d tell whoever fired the shots.

The girl, who is entering her sophomore year at Julian, was in critical condition at Advocate Christ Medical Center after being shot around 8 p.m. in the 11000 block of South Normal Avenue.

Police said there was an argument between the occupants of two vehicles when shots were fired. The girl was not the intended target, according to the police.

Is anybody listening?  Are we listening?  This is not “their” problem on the South Side of Chicago.  This is our problem.  These are our children getting shot.

Advertisers Bailing on the Glenn Beck Show

Posted on by TL

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

Keith Olbermann tallies the advertisers who are dumping Glenn Beck, refusing to advertise on his ugly show.

Recently, Beck joked about poisoning House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.  And there’s more.

A list of Beck’s former advertisers:

  • Procter & Gamble
  • Progressive Insurance
  • SC Johnson
  • Lawyers.com
  • Geico
  • Men’s Warehouse
  • Sargento

With a nod to ColorOfChange.org, I invite you to sign a petition that will go to Beck’s sponsors:

As you may know, right-wing talk show hosts have been bringing race-based fear mongering into the mainstream, but FOX’s Glenn Beck just took it to another level. On Tuesday, Beck said:

This president has exposed himself as a guy over and over and over again who has a deep-seated hatred for white people… this guy is, I believe, a racist.

It’s part of a larger argument Beck has been making: that President Obama wants to serve the needs of Black communities at White people’s expense. This kind of talk stirs up fear, hate, and it can lead to violence.

I’ve joined ColorOfChange.org’s effort to stop Glenn Beck. ColorOfChange is already putting calls into Beck’s advertisers, asking them if they want to be associated with this kind of racist hate and fear-mongering. When the advertisers see that tens of thousands of us are behind that question, I believe they’ll move their advertising dollars elsewhere, and his show and platform will be history.

Will you take a stand and be counted, and invite your friends and family to do the same? It takes just a moment:

http://www.colorofchange.org/beck/?id=1835-468358

Glenn Beck is appealing to the worst in America. Of course, some Americans refuse to accept the fact that our president is Black or the idea that he could truly serve all Americans. But the only way these views fade away is if they’re not reinforced by mainstream society. Instead, folks like Glenn Beck, Lou Dobbs, and Rush Limbaugh are exploiting racism and race-based fear to bump their ratings, stirring up racial discord in the process.

The dangers of these tactics are real. We saw the same dynamic during the presidential race: By the end, the McCain/Palin campaign was unable to control the violent energy whipped up by their race-baiting. It resulted in an unprecedented number of threats on Obama’s life, a rise in the number of hate groups, and an increase in the number of threats and crimes against immigrants and Black people.

FOX has a horrible track record on pushing racist propaganda, but Glenn Beck appears to be taking the network to an even lower standard. He’s trying to divide and distract America when we should be coming together and talking about issues that really matter–like health care and the economy.

The good news is that we have the power to stop this. All major media is funded by advertising. And advertisers care more than anything what consumers think. If we want to change what’s happening and put an end to folks like Glenn Beck having a platform, we can do it.

It’s up to us, and it can start now. Please join me:

http://www.colorofchange.org/beck/?id=1835-468358

Thanks.

Here are some links to more info:

“Beck: Obama has ‘exposed himself as a guy’ with ‘a deep seated hatred for white people'”
http://mediamatters.org/mmtv/200907280008

“Glenn Beck: Obama agenda driven by ‘reparations’ and desire to ‘settle old racial scores'”
http://mediamatters.org/mmtv/200907230040

“MSNBC’s Deutsch encourages viewers to demand advertisers on Beck’s show spend money elsewhere”
http://mediamatters.org/mmtv/200907290037

“On Television and Radio, Talk of Obama’s Citizenship”
http://tinyurl.com/mb467j

At Least 4 Democratic Congressman Receive Death Threats Over Health Care

Posted on by TL

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

The fringe right wing of movement conservatism is dangerous.

Glenn Beck jokes about poisoning Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, and gets to keep his show.

Congressman David Scott had a 4-foot swastika painted over a sign in front of his office.

Congressman Scott is black.

Watch Rachel Maddow in the video above, and be careful.

And speak the TRUTH in the face of these violent, desparate lies.

UK Newspaper Dispels Myths About National Health Care

Posted on by TL

I’ve had it with the fringe right-wing health-insurance-industry-paid screaming white lunatics screaming at congressional town hall meetings.  Homeland Security needs to keep an eye on these nuts and their racist-driven attacks.

Calmer minds are prevailing in the media.  The UK’s The Guardian has begun taking these arguments to task.  Even the United Steel Workers are standing up to unmask the lunatic fringe doing the bidding of the for-profit health insurance industry:

Iowa Sen. Charles Grassley has claimed that U.S. Sen. Ted Kennedy, 77, would not be treated for his brain tumor if he was in Britain because he is too old.

The newspaper reports that this is just not true, according to Britain’s Department of Health. “There is no ban on anyone of any age receiving any treatment,” said a spokesman. “Whether to prescribe drugs or recommend surgery is rightly a clinical decision taken on a case by case basis.”

An e-mail circulating in the U.S. claims that in England, anyone over 59 years old cannot receive heart repairs, stents or bypass because it is not covered as being too expensive and not needed. The Guardian reports that this is totally untrue.

“Growing numbers of patients over 65 with heart conditions are having surgery, including valve repairs and heart bypass surgery,” says Professor Peter Weissberg, the British Heart Foundation’s (BHF) medical director. For example, the average age at which people have a bypass operation has risen from 58 in 1991 to 66 in 2008.

San Francisco-based thinktank Pacific Research Institute has been saying that in Britain, breast cancer kills 46 percent of patients, compared with 25 percent in the U.S. They claim prostate cancer kills 57 percent of the Britons it strikes, compared with 25 percent of American victims; and that Britain’s heart attack fatality rate was 19.5 percent higher than America’s in 2005.

Breast cancer does claim more lives, proportionally, in the U.K. than in the U.S., but no where near the difference some claim, according to the 2002 database run by the World Health Organisation’s cancer advisers. For example, 19.2 of every 100,000 Americans die of breast cancer disease, compared to 24 percent in Britain. With heart attacks, 40 percent of Britons who suffer one die from it compared to 38 percent in the States.

And there’s more.

The violent and threatening thugs are not mainstream America.  They are servants of the health insurance industry, and they are getting dangerous, bringing firearms to congressional town hall meetings.

And it turns out everything they say is laughably unscientific and false.

Neil Hayes Takes Blackhawks’ Patrick Kane to Task

Posted on by TL

It didn’t take long for the Sun-Times’ Neil Hayes to put Chicago Blackhawks’ Patrick Kane in his place.  At 20-years-old, Kane is facing a felony charge allegedly over a $0.20 dispute with a 62-year-old Buffalo cab driver.  According to police, the driver claims he was roughed up enough to have had his glasses broken.

I’ll let Hayes speak first:

Now one of the franchise’s poster boys, one of the ‘‘core’’ players the team is determined to build around, is arrested for roughing up a cabbie who couldn’t produce exact change after Kane gave him $15 for a $13.80 fare. That’s right, Hawks fans, your millionaire, high-scoring forward — who is due a lucrative contract after next season — is accused of becoming unhinged when a cab driver couldn’t find two dimes to rub together.

Let’s hope there are facts in this story that have yet to surface and will cast Kane in a less humiliating light. Otherwise, this could be the most worrisome offseason development of all for the Hawks. If true, how can anyone defend such idiotic behavior from someone so prominent in the organization?

Only two things can prevent Kane, Jonathan Toews, Kris Versteeg and other young players from becoming cornerstones: injuries or their inability to mature on and off the ice. That Kane would be accused of something so asinine does not mean that this will be the first of many such incidents. Kane has been a model citizen to this point, as far as anyone knows, and probably deserves the benefit of the doubt for that reason. The Hawks declined to comment publicly until more facts are known. Kane’s mother, when contacted by the Sun-Times, did the same, which is probably wise. But this is not a good sign.

No, it’s not a good sign.  The Blackhawks need to comment.  The ‘Hawks need to tell us that this type of alleged behavior is not fitting for a member of their organization.  The ‘Hawks need to send a message loud and clear to other young people — and adults — that this is not the way to handle a petty dispute.

“No comment” isn’t enough.

Hayes again:

The bottom line is, good as he is, Kane has to improve markedly for he and the Hawks to be the player and team they aspire to be. There are better ways to build strength, toughness and refine his all-around game than playing enforcer with cab drivers three times his age at 4 a.m. after a night on the town.

Kane reportedly has entered a plea of not guilty. If this case goes to trial, those who believe he is less star than product of NHL rule changes meant to encourage more speed and scoring might suggest he show the jury his career highlights to prove he is incapable of causing bodily harm. Then again, he could’ve avoided the whole ugly episode had he uttered three simple words that every millionaire athlete should use in such situations: Keep the change.

Absolutely.

Look, young people act stupidly sometimes.  So do adults.  But a millionaire allegedly roughing up a cab driver over $0.20 takes entitlement to a whole new level.

Step up, kid.  You’re not the man yet.

Blackhawks’ Patrick Kane Faces Felony Robbery Charge Allegedly Over $0.20

Posted on by TL

Chicago Blackhawks’ star winger Patrick Kane faces felony robbery and other charges over an alleged dispute with a cab driver over $0.20.

That is not a misprint.  The dispute was allegedly over $0.20 US currency.

From the Chicago Tribune:

Blackhawks star winger Patrick Kane was arrested early this morning in his hometown of Buffalo and faces robbery and other charges after allegedly assaulting a cab driver and failing to pay the fare, according to a report in the Buffalo News.

Kane, 20, and a relative, James M. Kane, 21, believed to be his cousin, are alleged to have punched the cab driver and taken back money they had given him after the driver told them he didn’t have 20 cents in coins to give them change, according to the report.

The police told the newspaper the fare was $13.80 and the two Kanes had paid the driver $15. The newspaper is reporting the cab driver told police he was punched in the face, grabbed by his throat and had his glasses broken in the altercation.

An attorney for both entered a plea of not guilty.

I wonder how much that cab ride will end up costing him now.

Anyone know his salary?

Craig Williams, 23, Charged With Stabbing Death of Grandfather, 88

Posted on by TL

Two lives lost in south Chicagoland’s Richton Park.

One, and 88-year-old man.  The other, his 23-year-old grandson who allegedly stabbed him to death.  Prosecutors are already tossing around the words, “death penalty.”

From the Chicago Sun-Times:

The stabbing occurred after a family party at the home of 88-year-old Sim Williams in the 22600 block of Amy Drive in Richton Park, according to a release from Richton Park police.

Williams was found dead on the floor of his upstairs bedroom about 12:15 p.m. Sunday.

The Cook County Medical Examiner’s office said Williams died from multiple stab wounds and ruled his death a homicide.

Williams’ grandson, Craig Williams, was charged Wednesday with first-degree murder and armed robbery, police said.

A statement from the office of State’s Atty. Anita Alvarez on Wednesday afternoon said: “Based on the evidence gathered during the investigation this is a potential capital case.”

The victim:

A retired construction worker, Sim Williams lived in his Richton Park home since 2000 with his family, including his wife Ethel, who died in January 2008.

Sim Williams’ family described him as an easygoing man who loved his family. He had six children, 15 grandchildren and 20 great-grandchildren.

One of the comments under the story reads, “After reading this madness, I had to go hug my grandmother!”

No kidding.  Hug your grandmother.  Hug your grandfather.  Hug mom and dad.  Give them all a kiss.

And pray, pray for this family.

Chris Lake’s Photo Spread on Southside Chicago Gun Violence

Posted on by TL

Woman holding girl

Chris Lake is a photographer from Park Forest, IL. We had the chance to chat briefly recently and exchanged emails. He invited me to stop by his Web site and take a look at his work.

Very stirring.

What caught my eye most is the fact that hope for change is fading on the south side of Chicago.

From Unforseen Developments:

I was recently commissioned to shoot a story about gun violence on the south side of Chicago. Working with a reporter from UK’s The Guardian, I heard many tragic stories about how gun violence has been destroying lives in that part of the city in epidemic proportions. These people are understandably upset and angry and it shows in their eyes. The problem is getting worse and worse and no one seems able to figure out what to do about it. Hopes that President Obama, himself a southsider, would do something once he took office have faded and residents feel increasingly abandoned and desperate.

I’m looking forward to reading this story in the The Guardian.

Chris says he is looking to collaborate with designers to use some of the photography from the gun violence.  Contact him on is blog if you are interested.

Stop by and take a look at his blog. The photographs, well, speak volumes.

http://chrislake.wordpress.com

3 Dead, 12 Wounded at Israeli Gay Youth Center Shooting

Posted on by TL

Nod to Brad Friedman for this.

From Reuters, via the NYTimes:

Israel’s gay community was rocked on Sunday by the killing of two people in a homosexual and lesbian youth center and the possibility they fell victim to a hate crime in the Jewish state’s most freewheeling city.

“The biggest shock is to think that it happened in Tel Aviv, which is the most tolerant city in the country,” said Avi Sofer, a gay rights activist.

Witnesses said a masked gunman clad in black opened fire on Saturday night in a basement club belonging to the Tel Aviv Gay and Lesbian Association, which was hosting a weekly event for teenage gays.

The attacker killed a 26-year-old man and a 16-year-old girl and wounded 13 people before fleeing, hospital officials said.

“He simply fired all over the place,” Or Gil, 16, told the YNet news website. “At first I thought it was prank, or a toy gun. After the killings, it was quiet, completely silent and then people came to help the wounded.”

Prime Minister Benjamin Netenyahu condemned the attack, telling his cabinet: “We are a tolerant, democratic country governed by the rule of law and we must respect each and every person.”

I found this quite interesting:

Despite anti-gay sentiments among some religious Jews in Israel, gays serve openly in the military. Israel accords same-sex couples a measure of legal recognition and cohabitation rights, though Orthodox religious authorities control formal nuptials in the country.

The whole episode is quite sad.