Free Republic

Eight people were shot across the city of Chester on Monday — a violent day recorded in a city that needs help. That troubling statistic was met with a major development in a tragic homicide. A month after they buried their 13-year-old son, the Davis family got news Tuesday from U.S. Marshals and police that four people are now held on first-degree murder in their son’s killing. Police have charged 23-year-old Tavon Starkey, 23-year-old Keyonte Watkins, 30-year-old Danielle Showell and 22-year-old Sulayman Womack with first-degree murder and related offenses. “It’s so bitter for me, man, not just because he’s my...

Greg Howard, a Chicago teen, was killed by a gunman who opened fire in the vestibule of an apartment building. Monae Turnage, a Baltimore teen, was shot to death in an alley and left hidden under a pile of trash. Ervin Jefferson, an Atlanta teen, was shot and killed by private security guards. I find it interesting that not one of these killings has generated anywhere near as much news coverage, fomented nearly as much public outrage as the slaying of Florida teen Trayvon Martin. Indeed, Howard, Turnage and Jefferson were black and unarmed, just like Trayvon. They were shot...

An 11-year-old East Brunswick boy who fatally shot his friend last month was surrounded by guns. In the East Brunswick townhouse where the boy lived with his father and grandmother, investigators discovered a cache of 98 firearms, nearly all unsecured, authorities said. In the bedroom he shared with his father, police found four rifles and 21 handguns, five of which were loaded. Middlesex County authorities said yesterday the boy's easy access to weapons led to the June 28 shooting death of Alexander Khoudiakov, 12. The boy's father, Michael Guerriero, 46, and grandmother, Josephine Guerriero, 72, who also lives in the...

EAST PALO ALTO, Calif. (AP) - Authorities arrested a 23-year-old man on Sunday in the fatal shooting of a police officer who was gunned down while taking a teenager on a ride-along. Alberto Alvarez, of East Palo Alto, was taken into custody after an intense manhunt around 6 a.m. in East Palo Alto, where the shooting took place, according the California Highway Patrol. Officer Richard May, 39, was responding to a disturbance at the Villa Taqueria off University Avenue when the incident occurred around 5 p.m. Saturday, police said. The officer was approaching the suspect, who was walking away from...

Violent streak continues Man shot dead in front of his North Laredo home BY ROBERT GARCIA Times city editor Laredo's latest murder occurred Friday in front of a home nestled in a subdivision lined with $300,000 homes in the city's north side. Dozens of police units rushed to the area and located the victim shot several times in the head. His body was slumped on the driver's side of a 2003 Cadillac CTS parked outside a home located at the 2000 block of Manzanares. Laredo Police Investigator Tony Reyes identified the victim as Hiram Vasquez-Puebla, 24, of the same address....

Lexington teen shot and killed in his car By Delano R. Massey HERALD-LEADER STAFF WRITER Family members said Brian K. Brown eluded more than a dozen bullets fired into his moving car before one struck him in the head early yesterday morning. The 18-year-old Lexington man's car struck two parked vehicles along Fairdale Drive and then collided head-on with a third as his body slumped behind the wheel just two blocks from his Dalray Street home. Brown's car rolled to a stop in the grass about 12:15 a.m. Fayette County Deputy Coroner Steve McCown pronounced him dead at 1:45 a.m....