Free Republic

PORTLAND, Ore. -- Police are investigating another flash mob theft by a group of teens, this time at Nordstrom at the Lloyd Center. Last week, a group of 16 teens converged on a Southeast Portland convenience store and stole merchandise and then ran out. Police are still investigating the incident. Friday's incident happened just after 8 p.m. Police interviewed employees of the store who said a group of approximately 10 African-American male teenagers were in the store and began taking items and putting them in bags before they ran out the southwest doors of the store toward Northeast 9th Avenue....

MINNEAPOLIS - To hear the story from the one who lived it is unsettling. Matthew Collie was walking near Marquette and 9th Street in Downtown Minneapolis last Saturday night heading to Hell's Kitchen for a concert. He had just gone to the TCF ATM on Marquette and was in front of the W Hotel when he said everything went dark. "I was walking on the sidewalk and then the next moment I was on the sidewalk. Totally disoriented, I didn't know who had come up and hit me," Collie said Wednesday recalling the moment he was jumped from behind. For...

Watch the video. The story doesn't mention the characteristics of the mob members. Wonder why not? Mpls. Police Ponder 8 P.M. Curfew After Youth Mob AttacksThere have been six mob attacks, in all, since February. Now, police are now wondering if an 8 o’clock curfew keeping anyone 17 and under from two downtown streets will stop the violence. Nicollet Mall is a destination for many. Outdoor patios where drinks and food are served are a draw not only to people who live here, but also tourist. Since February, when the sun goes down, later in the evening, mobs of teens...

BIRMINGHAM, Alabama -- A crowd of young people -- possibly drawn though social media -- interrupted the movies at The Edge 12 Movie Theater and were disruptive outside in the parking lot of Festival Shopping Center on Crestwood Boulevard Sunday night. About 400 people were involved, with 200 of them really disruptive, Birmingham Police East Precinct commander Capt. Allen Hatcher said Tuesday, based on reports he got from the off-duty Birmingham police officer who worked security at the theater that night. Movie-goer Shannon Webster, pastor of First Presbyterian Church downtown, said he counted 18 police cars when he and his...

About 50 people simultaneously shoplifted from a Silver Spring, Md., 7-Eleven Saturday night. Officers arriving at the store in the 12200 block of Tech Road after 11:20 p.m. saw several people gathered in surrounding parking lots and on side streets, police said. They began to disperse when police arrived. The shoplifters -- described as teens and young adults -- took items including snacks and drinks, police said Police stopped a group of six people ages 16-18 near Tech Road and Broadbirch Drive. Each had items from the 7-Eleven but no receipts, police said. Detectives are investigating whether the shoplifters had...

The Occupy movement is stepping up its confrontational tactics, plotting “alternative forms of protest,” including flash mobs that can be deployed nationwide. Citing the success of last week’s so-called Day of Action protests, Take to the Square, one of Occupy’s main online planning forums, has devised an “Alternative Day of Action” to coincide with international Human Rights Day on Dec. 10. “Our freedom and dignity are under attack as a result of market dynamics and corrupt government institutions that are turning our local and global societies into increasingly unjust places,” the site complains. The Occupy forum calls for “alternative forms...

Not to worry: The recent beating of a white football coach by 30 black people in Georgia was not a race riot. The Associated Press called it an “ambush.” A local TV station said a “fight broke out:” Maybe the coach attacked the mob, instead of the other way around. Whatever. The attack left the coach with several broken bones in his face. We know it was not a race riot because we would have read about that in the newspapers.

Huh? After weeks of repeating 9-9-9 and, in the process, making his bold and original tax reform plan common knowledge, Herman Cain today altered his slogan: GOP presidential candidate Herman Cain clarified his much talked-about “9-9-9″ tax plan Friday, saying those who fall at or beneath the poverty level would have a different plan: “9-0-9.”Cain took heat over his proposal, which replaces the current tax code with a 9% corporate tax, a 9% income tax and a new 9% national sales tax. Opponents have argued the middle part of the plan would increase taxes on the poor, who currently pay...

Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain said on Friday that poor Americans will not have to pay the 9 percent flat income tax under his now-famous “9-9-9” tax reform plan. During a speech in front of a vacant train depot in Detroit, the former Godfather’s Pizza CEO staunchly defended his signature tax proposal from critics who say it will raise taxes for lower-income Americans. Cain’s plan would throw out the current tax system in favor of a 9 percent corporate tax, a 9 percent income tax and a new 9 percent national sales tax. He said Friday that poor people under...

AN 84-YEAR-OLD ex-university official savagely attacked by four young punks during a walk in Wissahickon Valley Park earlier this week theorizes that the beating he endured was a cruel game of "get the old geezer." Jim Shea, a former vice president of university relations for Temple, from 1968 to 1983, walks up to five miles on Forbidden Drive, in Fairmount Park, three times a week, but that type of stamina wasn't enough to stave off the lowlifes who not only beat him bloody, but dealt a blow to one of the things he holds most dear - his pride. Shea...

When I told my friends I was working on a magazine article, then a book, about a tsunami of racial violence in America over the last two years, they said, “I haven’t heard about that.” When my Tennessee friend told me about a horrific racial crime in Knoxville, Tennessee, I told him: “I haven’t heard about that.” Outside of Tennessee, most did not.

Thank God for YouTube. Or else we never would have know that hundreds of times in more than 50 cities since 2010, groups of black people have been roaming the streets of America – assaulting, intimidating, stalking, threatening, vandalizing, stealing, shooting, stabbing, even raping and killing. But today the denials are crumbling. The curtains are lifting. We now can see what so many public officials and media have been curiously desperate to deny: Race riots are back. And not just in Chicago, Philadelphia and New York. Places like Iowa, Wisconsin, Colorado and Indiana have their very own race riots, too.

Another week in Philadelphia, another violent episode where people dare not speak its name: Race Riot. The latest is Port Richmond, where a mob of black people stormed a house, broke in, and beat up the occupants — all because of something that may or may not have happened to a black teenager on a bike. One of the attackers pulled a gun. Luckily the victim disarmed him. Later that day, another mob returned, this time armed with racial taunts and threats of violence against the white family if they testify in court. This is just one of dozens of...

TOWN OF NEWBURGH — Town police have charged a restaurant owner with shooting two young men after a crowd of unwanted guests crashed a party last month at his business. Al-van Brown, 50, of the Town of Newburgh, faces charges of first- and second-degree assault. Police said Brown shot a 16-year-old and 23-year-old on Sept. 10. Brown is a co-owner of Elvedge Restaurant, Bar, and Lounge. The newly opened restaurant on North Plank Road hosted a birthday party for a teenage girl that night, police said. Everything was going fine until word of the party spread through text messages and...

It was an ordinary night, August 26, at the Exxon Tiger Mart at South Polk Street and Interstate 20 in Dallas. C.J. Thomas, the store's clerk, was behind the counter when a rush of customers came through the door at 10:12 p.m. "There was more coming in than going out," Thomas said. "Once they realized how many were in there, one of the students started throwing stuff and screamed out. Everything after that went crazy." Store surveillance cameras from different angles show bottles being thrown. Seconds later, Thomas ran to the front door. He tried to close it, but he...

It was an ordinary night, August 26, at the Exxon Tiger Mart at South Polk Street and Interstate 20 in Dallas. C.J. Thomas, the store's clerk, was behind the counter when a rush of customers came through the door at 10:12 p.m. "There was more coming in than going out," Thomas said. "Once they realized how many were in there, one of the students started throwing stuff and screamed out. Everything after that went crazy." Store surveillance cameras from different angles show bottles being thrown. Seconds later, Thomas ran to the front door. He tried to close it, but he...

Dallas police are investigating a convenience store robbery in which a group of teens attacked a clerk. The melee, which was caught on video, happened last month at the Exxon Tiger Mart at South Polk Street and Interstate 20, WFAA-TV (Channel 8) reports. When the clerk confronted them and tried to close the door, someone in the crowd punches him, knocking him to the ground. "Once they got me on the ground, I thought they were going to kill me," C.J. Thomas told Channel 8's Monika Diaz. Fortunately, two girls helped him up and pulled him out of harm's way....

The number of Pennsylvanians licensed to carry a concealed weapon is close to 1 in 14, considerably above the national figure of 1 in 50. September 01, 2011 /24-7PressRelease/ -- Few topics are as likely to provoke a heated response as concealed carry laws and their effect on crime. Proponents of the laws claim more guns mean less crime. In Pennsylvania, they certainly mean more guns. Concealed Carry Since the 1980s, the numbers of citizens licensed to carry a concealed gun has grown from less than a million to 6 million, The Daily Item reported recently. The story notes nearly...

They had instructions to carry masks, wear black and converge en masse to foment chaos at specific times and places. They were divided into green, yellow and red risk categories. They were compartmentalized into cells to avoid compromising the secret master plan. They weren’t terrorists, but a so-called flash mob that BART spokesman Linton Johnson said was hell-bent on disrupting train service on Aug. 11. Such flash mobs — seemingly spontaneous gatherings of people organized by mobile phones and social networks — can range from cute forums for creative expression to a powerful tool in the anarchist playbook. From the...

Wyatt Earp disbursed many a lynch mob with his resolute demeanor standing behind his Colt .45 six shooters or a shotgun. Was his threat overkill? I don’t think so! It worked and usually, not a shot was fired. Check that thought. What about a “flash mob?" Kevin Costner as Wyatt Earp Are they less or more deadly than what Earp encountered? And do you have the reputation of a Marshall Wyatt Earp? Does the pictured 12 gauge 15-round Kel-Tec Scatter Gun send out the wrong idea? I don’t think so. One might want a scatter gun if confronted by a...