Free Republic

The police have arrested six people, including one reputed gang member, who they said were involved in a fight in Brooklyn on Tuesday that left four men hospitalized, one with a severe head injury. The fight began after a group of Hispanic men used ethnic slurs to address a group of white men in front of 200 Knickerbocker Avenue just before 1 a.m., the police said. An argument ensued, followed by a scuffle in which one suspect used a knife, and another suspect, a bat, the police said. Two victims were taken to Elmhurst Hospital Center and two to Bellevue...

Poet and activist Nikki Giovanni keeps '60s spirit intact for a new generationBy Tyrone BeasonSeattle Times staff reporter Nikki Giovanni may be a 60-year-old cancer survivor with a respectable teaching job at Virginia Tech University, but her opinions; and hair; are as edgy as ever. A cornerstone of the Black Arts literary movement in the 1960s and early '70s who sported an Afro when Afros were social statements, Giovanni still looks hip with her new, don't-mess-with-me platinum locks. And Monday, when the poet and activist pulled up the left sleeve of her sweater in an auditorium filled with 500...

Gang Attacks Train of Migrants in Mexico ASSOCIATED PRESS TUXTLA GUTIERREZ, Mexico (AP) - Gang members attacked illegal immigrants from Central America on a train in southern Mexico, killing three people and wounding four in the latest in a series of violent incidents in the region, an official said Wednesday. Witnesses said about 25 members of the Salvatrucha gang used guns and machetes in the attack Tuesday in Tuzantan, state Public Safety Secretary Horacio Schoeder said. Police arrested 10 suspects and were searching for the others, Schoeder said. In the past year, gangs have killed more than 70 people in...

Lance Corporal Sok Khak Ung no longer has the right to free speech. This is because he was shot dead by a gang member who mistakenly took he and his friends for members of a rival gang. It wasn’t as if they were cruising the streets looking for trouble either. Ung and his friends were “free-style rapping” at a barbecue in celebration of his return from Iraq, his return to his neighborhood, a neighborhood mired in the hopelessness that a gang haven has to offer. This is when and where the murder took place. Over his backyard fence the shots...

Apr 27, 2002Biker-Gang Violence a Shock to Gambling Town That Caters to Older Vacationers By Lisa Snedeker Associated Press WriterLAUGHLIN, Nev. (AP) - For most of the year, this second-tier gambling town on the arid border of Nevada, Arizona and California attracts aging vacationers in modest sedans, RVs and tour buses who are seeking a cheap getaway. But every April for the last 20 years, motorcyclists from around the Southwest have roared into this garish strip bordering the Colorado River for the four-day Laughlin River Run. Most of the bikers are "weekend warriors" such as Sanford Jossen, a lawyer from...