Free Republic

CHICAGO — A man claiming to be President Obama’s son now has to wear an electronic monitoring bracelet after causing a bomb scare outside Obama’s Kenwood home. Marquez Hassell, 20, was arrested Thursday after he approached the Obamas’ house on the 5000 block of South Greenwood Avenue and dropped a duffel bag over a barricade, which a secret service agent deemed suspicious. Police and a bomb squad responded and discovered that it contained an empty aerosol can, pieces of broken glass and personal hygiene items. Hassell told police he was Obama’s son and that the President was scheduled to return...

Thursday night, Albuquerque police identified the man killed in a shootout at a west side Motel 6 with former CNN reporter Chuck de Caro as 27-year-old Tomorio Walton, who APD says is an absconder out of Memphis, Tennessee. APD spokesperson Tanner Tixier said it is unknown how long Walton had been in the Albuquerque area.

Austin police say a man was caught on video sexually assaulting a woman outside a bar on 6th Street. He is in jail. It's possible another man may be charged as an accomplice. Austin police say on Sunday at 10 a.m., a witness got video that clearly shows 34-year-old Darius Maxwell sexually assaulting a woman. She was lying in the doorway of the Lit Lounge and was unconscious. The witness says another man appeared to serve as a look out while Maxwell committed the assault.

In a recent panel discussion on poverty at Georgetown University, President Barack Obama gave another demonstration of his mastery of rhetoric — and disregard of reality. One of the ways of fighting poverty, he proposed, was to "ask from society's lottery winners" that they make a "modest investment" in government programs to help the poor. Since free speech is guaranteed to everyone by the First Amendment to the Constitution, there is nothing to prevent anybody from asking anything from anybody else. But the federal government does not just "ask" for money. It takes the money it wants in taxes, usually...

No one disputes that Scott Panetti—heavily armed, head shaved and wearing camouflage—shot and killed his in-laws at their Texas Hill Country home, showering his estranged wife and 3-year-old daughter in blood. Panetti himself acknowledged during his 1995 capital murder trial that he had killed Joe and Amanda Alvarado. Dressed as a cowboy, he acted as his own attorney, believing only an insane person could prove an insanity defense. Jurors convicted him and sentenced him to death, and he is scheduled to die on Wednesday. Panetti’s attorneys are seeking to get him off death row or, in the very least, to...

A 15-year-old boy has been charged with the murder of a young woman who was found stabbed to death at her Florida home five months ago. Nicole Franco, 19, who worked as a pastry chef at the Boca Raton Resort & Club, was murdered in her own bed on June 3. DNA testing has lead the investigation to D'Marcus Tucker, 15, a neighbor at the gated Bridgewater Place apartments in Oakland Park. Tucker was charged on Monday with one count of first-degree murder.

Papa John's founder attends funeral for slain employee, offers to pay expenses: family John Schnatter flew out to Spring Hill, Tenn. Saturday to pay his respects after 22-year-old Gordon Schaffer was fatally shot during a brazen stickup on Oct. 20. The CEO generously then went one step further by offering to pay for Schaffer's funeral and medical costs. A Papa John's employee who was shot and killed in a cold-blooded stickup inside a Tennessee restaurant was laid to rest Saturday in a moving ceremony attended by the national pizza chain's very own founder and CEO, his family said. John Schnatter...

A Chicago man was sentenced Friday to 160 years in prison for fatally stabbing a 14-year-old girl nearly three years ago after he broke into her west suburban home. John Wilson Jr., 41, was charged with murder, armed robbery and home invasion in the death of Kelli O'Laughlin, of Indian Head Park. In handing out the maximum sentence, Judge John J. Hynes called the murder “a crime that shocked the conscience of the community.”

FULL TITLE: Thug punches 80-year-old man in the face after he politely asked him to stop cursing inside an Applebee's restaurant in Florida A man has been arrested after he punched an elderly man in the face for asking him to stop swearing inside an Applebee's restaurant in Florida. Mikie Dominic Sawyer, 26, was saying a string of expletives at the bar in the Dunlawton Avenue Applebee's in Port Orange when 80-year-old Harry Sander approached him and asked him to stop. According to police, Sander politely asked Sawyer to stop using the 'F' word and to stop talking so loudly...

A man has beheaded a woman after a workplace dispute in Oklahoma, U.S. law enforcement officials told CNN on Friday. He also tried to kill another woman, officials said.

Police say a woman who was killed by a co-worker at a food distribution center in suburban Oklahoma City was beheaded. Moore Police Sgt. Jeremy Lewis said Friday that the woman, who has not been identified, was beheaded by a man who attacked her and another woman Thursday at Vaughan Foods in Moore.

An elderly Florida woman is recovering after a brutal purse-snatching that left her unconscious. Charlotte Dunaway, 74, was knocked out when her purse was ripped from her hands inside a Publix grocery store in Ocoee. “I was knocked unconscious and have no memory of what happened,” Dunaway said.

72-Year-Old Man Knocked to Ground in West Village Attack By Natalie Musumeci WEST VILLAGE — A 72-year-old man was punched in the face in an apparently random attack in the West Village Monday afternoon, police said. The victim was knocked to the ground with a single hit as he walked past a man waiting in front of 99 Jane St., a doorman building in a residential part of the village between Washington Street and West Street. The male attacker immediately ran off as his victim, who was carrying a shopping bag, fell into a doorway at 5:29 p.m., surveillance video...

ORANGEBURG COUNTY, SC — Orangeburg County Sheriff’s deputies have arrested a man in connection with a fatal shooting that happened Monday morning. Police say Marquis Diondre Stevenson, 20, has been charged with murder and possession of a weapon during a violent crime. Officers were flagged down by a woman around 11:30 a.m. Monday because she heard gunshots while traveling along Stilton Road, Sheriff Leroy Ravenell said. Officers discovered a shattered back window of a vehicle parked near a house and a man laying in the front yard at a Stilton Road address, Ravenell said. “Our investigation indicates 20-year-old Marquis Diondre...

The man who murdered three members of a Hoffman Estates family and seriously wounded another in a 2009 knife attack was sentenced today to three life sentences without parole plus an additional 60 years. D’Andre Howard, 26, showed no emotion as Cook County Judge Ellen Mandeltort delivered the sentence in a crowded Rolling Meadows courtroom.

They told police that Fobbs suddenly launched an unprovoked attack on Richard, who was sitting on a bench outside the station’s waiting room, the report stated. Witnesses said Fobbs repeatedly hit Richard with his fists, leaving him bloodied. The incident was caught on the station’s surveillance camera. Witnesses told police after the attack, Fobbs calmly walked into a restroom and changed his bloody shirt. Officers arrived later and arrested him. Meanwhile, Richard died of his injuries at the scene.

[Editor's note: Warning: this surveillance video contains graphic content that some may find disturbing.] A River Valley man is behind bars after police said he attacked a woman with a baseball bat at Walmart on Sunday night (June 15). Fort Smith police said the incident happened at the Walmart on Rogers Avenue. Police said a man identified as Corey Mosley got a running start and struck a woman identified as Ashlyne Rogers in the head with a bat inside the store. “I couldn’t be happier based on the situation of how she’s doing and holding up,” said the victim’s father...

Melendez punched the woman in the head and committed a sexual battery, police said. They said he then fled the home after taking a white tank top shirt and cellphone from the woman.

As detectives escorted Aazis Richardson from Scranton Police Headquarters Friday night, he gave a simple explanation for shooting a McCarthy Flowered Cab driver twice in the back of the head. “That’s what I do to people that don’t listen.”

‘Knockout game’ suspect chased down by victim’s friend By Philip Messing A Brooklyn fare-beater allegedly punched a young woman in the face while apparently playing the “knockout game” in a Manhattan PATH station — and her friend chased him down, put him in a chokehold and forced him to apologize, sources said. Ibrahim King, 36, allegedly slugged 21-year-old Elizabeth Mejia, breaking her orbital bone, in the Ninth Street station around 3:40 a.m. Sunday. “He looks at her for a very short moment and then he pulls his right fist back and lunges across the railing and punches her in the...