Free Republic

PLANO — The handwritten sign over the bar at Scruffy Duffies in Plano read: "I like my beer like I like my violence. Domestic." The words are now gone, but their impact lingers. "I was like, 'Oh my gosh, do you see this?'" said 24-year-old Courtney Williams. She couldn't believe what she saw on the chalkboard inside Scruffy Duffies Saturday night. Williams was offended."How does someone think it's OK to put something like that up there?" she asked. Williams asked the female bartender who had written the sign to erase it. Then Williams asked two managers. They did not take...

The woman accused of critically injuring her 11-year-old son in a Memorial Day shooting confessed to the crime and told police she was building up the courage to kill herself and her three children to put them in a “better place,” according to a Metro Police arrest report released today. Instead, after Shavon Jacklein Carrillo, also known as Shavon Jacklein Aguilar, 31, Las Vegas, shot the 11-year-old boy, she was confronted and had the .22-caliber rifle used in the shooting taken away, police said.

After more than 30 years in law enforcement, Mark Donka says he can’t remember a single instance in which a firearm was involved in a domestic dispute. And the statistics mirror Donka’s experience: gun crime is rare in Vermont. But that hasn’t stopped an on-going effort in Montpelier to confiscate guns from alleged domestic abusers. To hear the Vermont Network Against Domestic & Sexual Violence tell it, Vermont’s domestic violence problem has become so serious the time has come for police to confiscate weapons from alleged domestic abusers. The group is the chief proponent of H.735, a “must pass” fees...

The Democratic National Committee says it has returned $20,000 donated by a wealthy San Francisco Internet entrepreneur recently convicted of domestic violence. DNC spokeswoman Rebecca Chalif said Friday the organization has returned Gurbaksh Chahal’s 2014 contribution after discovering he pleaded guilty last week to misdemeanor domestic violence battery and battery charges. Chahal was sentenced to three years’ probation and faces no jail time. …

A woman who was found not guilty of murdering her husband in Palm Beach County 22 years ago has now been convicted of trying to kill her son in Las Vegas, prosecutors there said Wednesday. Linda Cooney, 64, faces between three and 65 years in prison when she is sentenced June 23 after being convicted of attempted murder, battery with a deadly weapon, intimidating a witness and stalking, said Michael Staudaher, chief deputy district attorney for Clark County, Nev.

WASHINGTON -- For nearly a decade, the National Rifle Association successfully blocked a bill in Washington state that would have required alleged domestic abusers to surrender their firearms after being served with a protective order. Only those actually convicted of felony domestic violence, the nation's largest gun lobby argued, should be made to forfeit their gun rights. This past year, the NRA changed its tune. As the bill, HB 1840, once again moved through the state legislature, the gun lobby made a backroom deal with lawmakers, agreeing to drop its public opposition to it in exchange for a few minor...

A Denver, Colorado mother has been shot dead in front of her children by her 'hallucinating' while she was on a 13 minute call to 911, police said. Kristine Kirk, 44, called for help around 9:30p.m. Monday, telling dispatchers that her husband Richard Kirk, 47, was 'talking about the end of the world' and 'scarring' their three children. A source told FOX31 investigators are looking at whether he had eaten a marijuana cookie. Mrs Kirk said in the 911 call that there was a gun in the house but it was in a safe, according to a probable cause statement....

BROOKSVILLE – Jennifer E. Wood, 33, was arrested on aggravated assault charges after authorities accused her of threatening her boyfriend with a knife and stabbing a cellphone. on Thursday night, Hernando County sheriff’s officials said. According to the boyfriend, deputies said, Wood was angry that other women were sending him text messages. During an argument at their High Corner Road home, she grabbed a knife and began stabbing his phone, sheriff’s officials said.

A Plantation woman is charged with killing her domestic partner during a dispute that stemmed from an argument over relationships, police said on Monday. Michele McCann, 57, was taken into custody about 11 p.m. Saturday at 1085 W. Country Club Circle after police were called about a possible shooting, police said. According to police, Jeanine Luciano, 59, was shot and killed during a dispute, police said. At a first-appearance court hearing on Monday, Broward Judge John "Jay" Hurley read from an arrest report and said police found McCann outside the home with blood all over her clothing.

Dwelle Jerome Clark was stabbed in the stomach by his ex-girlfriend Edna White moments after he caught her rummaging through his mother’s handbag. “He said, ‘Stay out of my mom’s things,’” witness to the stabbing Omar Mills said Wednesday. According to Mills, after Clark, 55, uttered those words, White, 56, started hitting him with a walking cane. Clark then took the cane away from her, Mills said, and walked into his bedroom. White then grabbed a butcher knife from atop a dresser, followed Clark into his room and stabbed him in the abdomen, Mills said.

An Arizona woman went on a naked rampage early Monday after her live-in boyfriend refused to have sex with her, police report.Ashley Marie Prenovost, 24, was already intoxicated when her beau returned to the Glendale residence the couple shares with their four-month-old daughter. Prenovost, according to a court filing, “wanted to have sex with him and got naked.”When her boyfriend declined to have sex, Prenovost became enraged, according to police. She allegedly punched two holes in a bedroom wall, and “punched a picture hanging on the wall in the hallway, causing glass to break and causing injuries to both of...

When Obamacare was passed in 2010, advocacy groups hailed the law for its provisions aimed at domestic violence prevention, including the requirement that all new health plans must cover domestic violence screening and counseling. Before the sweeping healthcare law passed, there were efforts in Congress to prohibit insurance companies from being able to block coverage for an individual who had been physically beaten by a spouse. […] However, Obamacare includes a powerful disincentive for victims trying to leave abusive marriages. Under current enrollment policies, victims who have left abusive relationships, even if they file taxes separately from a spouse, still...

Angry that her credit card was taken away, a 41-year-old Boca woman battered and bit her 75-year-old boyfriend, Boca police say. The victim told police the woman, his live-in girlfriend of five years, bit and kicked during an argument that happened at about 6 p.m. Saturday in the 2200 block of West Silver Palm Road, according to a Boca Raton police report.

A woman has been charged with attempting to murder her husband by putting feces into his IV drip as he recovered from surgery. <>Rosemary Vogel’s husband, 66, was in a critical condition after heart surgery when she allegedly injected the feces into his IV line at Chandler Regional Medical Centre in Phoenix, Arizona. Police told KTVK-TV that hospital staff were alerted when a warning alarm went off and allegedly saw Vogel, 65, fiddling with her husband’s IV.

Young mom, 21, and 25-year-old man shot dead in murder-suicide in Maryland mall skate shop by gunman so heavily armed the bomb squad was called Briana Benlolo, 21, and Tyler Johnson, 25, were shot by a gunman while working at Zumiez at the Mall in Columbia It was Benlolo's first job since she gave birth to her son, two The gunman emerged from a dressing room and began shooting, killing Benlolo and Johnson and injuring others He then turned the gun on himself Police called in the bomb squad to disarm the man, who was armed with crude explosive devices...

A Framingham woman was arrested in Natick on Sunday evening when police claimed she assaulted her boyfriend with a pair of high heels. Greissi Carolina Sanchez was found walking barefoot along West Central Street early Sunday morning. She told police she got into a fight with her boyfriend and was walking home.

Prosecutors say a former minister at First Baptist Church in Birmingham, Ala., charged with his wife’s murder, was trying to leave the country prior to his Jan. 1 arrest to marry his boyfriend. The latest twist in a story that has received worldwide media attention came Jan. 16 in a bond hearing for Richard Shahan, 53, who resigned recently as children and families pastor and facilities director at First Baptist, reportedly to head overseas for three years of mission work in Europe and Central Asia. Prosecutors said information gleaned from more than 3,000 of Shahan’s e-mails indicate he was planning...

They don't strike as frequently as men, and it goes against the grain of how we view our mothers, grandmothers, sisters, aunts and daughters. When women kill, we're shocked and riveted to see those we traditionally view as nurturers, problem solvers and soothers tagged as murderers. "Most kill for romance, love or finance," said Vernon Geberth, a former homicide commander with the New York Police Department who wrote the book "Practical Homicide Investigations." "They tend to kill less violently and in more passive ways, for the most part," he added.

A Florida woman was arrested early Saturday for battering her live-in boyfriend after he refused to “cuddle” with her when they went to bed, police report. Shavonna Rumph, 31, and Henry Price, 33, “had been drinking together at their residence and had been doing so throughout the night,” according to a Manatee County Sheriff’s Office report. The couple subsequently quarreled, a deputy reported, “over Henry refusing to ‘cuddle’ with Shavonna when they went to bed.” The argument “turned physical when Shavonna grabbed Henry by the shirt, causing it to tear.” Price then attempted to leave the couple’s Bradenton residence to...

<p>SANFORD, Fla. — A prosecutor says George Zimmerman’s girlfriend claims he choked her about a week ago but she didn’t report it to police at the time.</p> <p>The prosecutor told a judge about the allegation during a first appearance Tuesday on domestic violence-related charges of aggravated assault, battery and criminal mischief.</p>