Free Republic

One of the witnesses of last month's gang rape of a 15-year-old girl at her homecoming dance said that while he could have stopped the attack that he watched for 20 minutes he didn't feel accountable for what happened. I feel like I could have done something, but I don't feel like I have any responsibility for anything that happened," the unidentified 16-year-old witness told ABC's San Francisco affiliate KGO-TV. Two witnesses told the television station they didn't call police during the more than two-hour-long assault on the girl because they didn't want to be called a snitches. For the...

The W.H. web address flag@whitehouse.gov, set up for the public to report 'fishy' information regarding health care reform, has become inactive today...

(AP) — NEWARK, N.J. - Mohammad Qatanani's mosque was full of FBI agents the night before he was to find out if he would be deported. But even though the federal government was trying to link Qatanani to foreign extremists, the agents weren't there to keep an eye on him. They wanted to show their support for a Muslim leader they considered a valued ally for the relationships he helped forge between the FBI and Muslims in the wake of 9/11. Across the nation, such grass-roots relationships between Muslims and the federal government are in jeopardy. A coalition of Muslim...

OAKLAND - A grand jury today voted to indict Yusuf Ali Bey IV, the scion of the defunct Your Black Muslim Bakery, for ordering the killings of journalist Chauncey Bailey and two other men in 2007, authorities familiar with the situation said. Prosecutors are likely to bring the case with special circumstances - allowing them to seek the death penalty against Bey IV, 23. He allegedly told two of his followers that in exchange for killing Bailey, he would teach them how to file fraudulent loan applications that could reap hundreds of thousands of dollars. Another man, Antoine Arelus Mackey,...

2 brothers fatally shot 15 years, 2 blocks apart As he lay dying in ’94, 1st bade 2nd goodbye BY JACOB QUINN SANDERS ARKANSAS DEMOCRAT-GAZETTE As Toboris Molden lay dying from a gunshot wound on a February night 15 years ago, he took care to say goodbye to his grandmother, his mother and his two younger brothers. The youngest brother was Anthony Jackson, named for his father and just a year old at the time. On Wednesday, their mother again grieved the loss of a son. This time it was Jackson, who was 16. Little Rock police found him and...

'Mother's pride' is laid to rest By DAFNEY TALES & DAVID GAMBACORTA Philadelphia Daily News LONG AFTER the final hymn had been sung and the last rose had been laid across her son's bronze casket, Sharon Conroy sat in her quiet home in Lansdowne trying to make sense of it all. Her mind drifted through a steady stream of tender memories of her son, Sean Patrick Conroy. She could see him as an eager, grinning Cub Scout, then as the kid who went to dinner and a movie with her every Friday night until it seemed uncool at age 15....

A Philadelphia teenager celebrating his 16th birthday is fighting for his life after a shooting over a snowball fight. Authorities said the Feltonville teen, identified as Tavin Rutledge, was shot in the head at point-blank range while playing with neighborhood friends in the 4800 block of D Street. Witnesses say the shooting was sparked from a casual snowball fight amongst children. "Everyone was playing and throwing snowballs and one little boy ran and got his dad. His dad came around with a gun and shot him," said Renay Reeves, Tavin's aunt. Police said an adult male used a gun to...

COLUMBIA, Md. - The crime? A cafeteria food fight. The reward for information? Thirty bucks. A Maryland high school wants students to name names behind the flying cheeseburgers in a recent food fight. But now the principal says the reward offer is being withdrawn after students complained. Seems nobody likes a snitch. Homemade videos keep surfacing in the Baltimore suburb of Columbia, where the school is located. The "Stop Snitching" videos are being distributed on the streets, threatening people who co-operate with police. Officials say no injuries were reported in the December food fight but at least two students were...

The Philadelphia School District says they will launch an investigation into a disturbing video posted on Myspace. The video shows two girls fighting as other kids and adults egg the fight on. ---snip--- In the background of the video, you can hear a man's voice saying "uppercut her, uppercut her." At some point, Shaquia says "I can't breathe." Another voice, a woman's says "I'll give you five seconds

Despite progress, the city's murder rate is No. 1 among big cities. Figures tell the story, but don't nail the solution. AS Philadelphia approaches the new year and a new mayor, the murder rate remains an appalling blight on the city's reputation and a threat to our quality of life. While shootings and other violent crimes are down from last year, there's only slight improvement from the 406 homicides recorded in 2006. As of last night, the city had suffered 391 murders in 2007, the highest rate per 100,000 residents among the nation's 10 largest cities. It hasn't always been...

The Urban League of Philadelphia's 2007 State of Black Philadelphia report paints a grim picture on the issue of race and inequality. It's a pretty dismal report. But it reflects the level of poverty in Philadelphia," Elijah Anderson, Yale University sociology professor, said yesterday. Anderson, formerly with the University of Pennsylvania, is among several experts invited to an Urban League symposium on the report at the Loews Hotel at 9 a.m. today. Crafting its findings as the "Philadelphia Equality Index," the Urban League's report says that black Philadelphians' quality of life ranks as just 72 percent of that of their...

Philadelphia police and black community leaders called on Wednesday for 10,000 men to volunteer to patrol the streets of America's most dangerous big city in a bid to halt a surge in murders and violent crime. In an initiative that organizers hope will be copied in other cities, the unarmed and non-uniformed volunteers would patrol selected areas in an attempt to deter drug dealing and other street crimes that have given Philadelphia the highest murder rate among the 10 largest U.S. cities. Philadelphia Police Commissioner Sylvester Johnson, a key backer of the plan, said it will be officially launched on...

An editorial cartoon in last Friday's Florida Times-Union depicting a gunman wearing a T-shirt saying "Don't Snitch" continues to draw criticism, with some black leaders calling for an apology, the firing of the cartoonist and other demands, according to a WJXT-TV report in Jacksonville. Two young children drawn in the cartoon say "I didn't see nuttin'!" Then the gunman says, "Now that's a good little ho! In a letter sent to all Jacksonville television stations as well as the newspaper, the Jacksonville Leadership Coalition called the cartoon "racist, culturally insensitive and degrading to African-American women." In addition to the apology,...

A good article written by a trauma surgeon comparing his Iraq experience with that of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Besides this there is this: "...More young men are killed each day on the streets of America than on the worst days of carnage and loss in Iraq. There is a war at home raging every day, filling our trauma centers with so many wounded children that it sometimes makes Baghdad seem like a quiet city in Iowa. "...Unlike the Iraq conflict, this war is not on the front pages of The Post or on CNN. You have heard of the Washington area...

In spring 2003, Eugene "Twin" Coleman began cooperating with the FBI after he was linked to a murder and a cocaine ring run by one of Philadelphia's most notorious drug kingpins. By the time Kaboni Savage was convicted in December 2005, two other potential witnesses had been gunned down. Coleman's mother and five other family members were dead, too, killed in a house fire that investigators believe was set in retaliation. Coleman went into the federal witness-protection program. But if he thought he could fade into obscurity, he was wrong. His role as an informant is detailed at www.whosarat.com. The...

A little after 8 p.m. Tuesday, gunfire erupted on a Germantown street, and after the shattering noise receded, three men lay wounded, one fatally. The death of Akir Thomas, 29, of the city's West Oak Lane section, was the 162d homicide in Philadelphia this year. The triple shooting, on the 5100 block of Henley Street, mirrored other killings in the city, and with the city on a pace to surpass last year's 406 homicides, officials have taken notice of a quirk in the crime figures: While shootings overall are down, the proportion of homicides caused by gunfire is up. Through...

A killing spree this morning began with a triple homicide outside a Southwest Philadelphia bar and ended with two more shooting deaths in other parts of the city. The deaths bring the total homicides this year to 233, on pace to be the highest in a decade

Police: Pa. Boy Stabs Brother Over Game Jul 17 01:16 PM US/Eastern LANSDOWNE, Pa. (AP) - A 13-year-old boy fatally stabbed his brother with a steak knife after the 16-year-old refused to turn over a video game controller, authorities said. Jahmir Ricks was charged with first-degree murder in the death of Antwan Ricks at their home outside Philadelphia. The older boy died of a single stab wound to the chest, police said, and a bent and bloody knife was recovered from the home. Lansdowne police said the younger boy told them, "I just stabbed my brother," when they arrived at...

A 12-year-old Camden boy, shot dead in a fusillade of gunfire on the Fourth of July, was described by police yesterday as "a temporarily lost soul," left to find his own way on the streets. James "Pee Wee" Coleman, whose birthday was three weeks ago, was hit in the head and left leg. Police arrived shortly after 11 p.m. to find the boy slumped in the back seat of a beat-up Oldsmobile, which was riddled with bullet holes and parked at the Branch Village housing project. More than 20 shell casings, most likely fired from an AK-47 assault rifle, were...

PHOENIX -- Four people have been arrested in connection with kidnapping, assaulting and using a branding iron to burn the word "snitch" on a Mesa woman's face, police said. Investigators said they believe the crime was done in retaliation for reporting one of the men and woman to Child Protective Services in February 2006, which ultimately led to CPS taking away their children. "If CPS removes a child from the house, there must be some very serious allegations," said Sgt. Chuck Trapani of the Mesa Police Department. "So the children removed, they're in CPS custody, and now they're blaming this...

BALTIMORE - A city council leader, alarmed by Baltimore's rising homicide rate, wants to give the mayor the power to put troubled neighborhoods under virtual lockdown. "Desperate measures are needed when we're in desperate situations," City Council Vice President Robert W. Curran told The (Baltimore) Sun. He said he would introduce the legislation next week. Under Curran's plan, the mayor could declare "public safety act zones," which would allow police to close liquor stores and bars, limit the number of people on city sidewalks, and halt traffic during two-week intervals.

--snip-- Philadelphia marked its 100th homicide of 2007 yesterday --snip-- The scene quickly grew even more surreal. The mother of a third shooting victim arrived and told police: "I know who did it, and he's in this crowd." As the woman looked around for the gunman, the crowd berated her and told her to keep silent, the officer said. "People were telling her to be quiet and saying, 'We'll get you, bitch.' " Police called for reinforcements. "How are we supposed to end this when we're up against these kinds of societal values?" asked the officer

DENVER -- Denver Nuggets star Carmelo Anthony is featured in an underground DVD that is circulating in his home town of Baltimore, Md. The DVD is called "Stop Snitching" and shows alleged drug dealers talking about what happens to people who cooperate with the police, and Anthony is standing next to one of them. He is also seen on the DVD talking about his Olympic bronze medal and saying that he threw it in a lake. The man he stands next to later goes on to tell how he would take care of snitches by "putting a hole in their...

Right or wrong, the code of the street in poor, largely black neighborhoods in the Bay Area is never, ever cooperate with police. To do so, the idea goes, means risking retaliation from criminals. The ethos cuts across generations, even as some who embrace it complain police do little about crime in their neighborhoods. The mind-set is moving from the streets to the mainstream, carried by rappers denouncing rats and T-shirts declaring, "Stop Snitchin." The T-shirts have proven popular in Oakland and elsewhere, prompting a debate within the communities where they're worn and frustrating police who say they're another...

BOSTON -- When NewsCenter 5 showed a controversial T-shirt to Mayor Thomas Menino, he was so upset he called for the boycott of the store selling it. NewsCenter 5's Jorge Quiroga reported that the T-shirt's slogan, "Stop Snitchin'," is street slang for, "Don't cooperate with police."

PHILADELPHIA - City prosecutors struggled in a high-profile case this week to get fearful witnesses to stick to their stories, finding a deeply entrenched "code of silence" at work even in the slaying of a 5-year-old girl. In an example of witnesses "going south," or recanting testimony, four key witnesses in the Sept. 25 drive-by shooting of Casha'e Rivers took the stand in city court and withdrew statements they previously gave police. In the most striking reversal, a witness whose statement was videotaped by police one day after the slaying told the judge he had just told police what they...

The stop-snitching movement has spread across the United States, worrying police and prosecutors who often use informants to win convictions, a report said. The movement got its start two years ago in Baltimore in an underground DVD featuring armed drug dealers. Since then, the movement and T-shirts that say "Stop Snitching" have gone nationwide -- being worn by a diverse group ranging from rap artists to college professors, USA Today reported. The code of silence, David Kennedy of New York's John Jay College of Criminal Justice told the newspaper, "is breaking out in a way we've never seen before."