Are We Blind?

Or are we been so self absorbed that we don't even care about our fellow men?

Police say there were several customers walking around the store after the crime. But only one called 911 for help.

When asked what he finds most disturbing about the surveillance footage, Titus said, "The fact that people went in and out of the store and didn't call police. There is a man laying there. Nobody thinks to dial 911 or check to see if he's OK or anything."

The clerk got shot, and these people acted like nothing happened. They just kept shopping. No one checked on him to make sure he was alright. Are these people just that self absorbed that they would rather keep shopping than help their fellow man? This reminds me of the Good Samaritan. The people you expect to help you are the ones who leave you stranded because they're too self-important to be bothered with a person who's dying.

Taxation Is Extortion

I couldn't have said it better myself.

In my previous post, I said what could be better than Guns and Diamonds. Well, here's one for you, Guns and Roses.

While I think these gun turn in programs are a joke, as any person who wants a gun can get a gun on the black market, it's still an interesting contrast to the Guns and Diamonds program nearby.

I Just Love Dumb Criminals, Don't You?

They provide for such easy entertainment.

They're Just Mad 'Cuz They Didn't Get Any

Really, a felony? A group of consenting adults gets together to raffle off some consenting prostitutes, make some money, and it's a felony? What isn't a felony anymore?

I'm not saying that prostitution is a good idea, and the idea of raffling them off is not any better, but what happened to this being a free country? Since when can we not make decisions for ourselves? Personally, I think they were mad that they didn't get a cut. That seems to be the case in most of these situations, where money is involved anyway. But that's just my opinion....

Wow, This Just Takes A Special Kind Of Stupid

Man burns himself trying to steal gasoline.

I mean, really, how dumb can you get? I think this one deserves an honorary Darwin Award mention, at the very least.

Dumb Criminals

Gotta love 'em. They just make for great stories.

Man Accused Of Stealing From 2-Year-Old's Piggy Bank

My favorite line from the story,

"He needs to stop bleeding at crime scenes if he thinks he's going to get away with it," Sheboygan County District Attorney Joe DeCecco said.

Who's Safe Anymore?

Wow, even a woman with 5 kids isn't immune to carjacking. I had hoped that any criminal stupid enough to even try to take my van would think twice after seeing all the kids in the back seat, but apparently that might not be the case. This woman was shot even after she was getting the children out so he could take the car.

MILWAUKEE -- Milwaukee police said they want to find a man who shot and carjacked a woman traveling with five children.

The woman, who survived the shooting, told police she was stopped at 13th Street and Lincoln Avenue on Thursday when a man stuck a gun through the window and told her to get out of the vehicle.

She was getting the children out when the suspect shot her and took off with her Ford Explorer, police said.
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None of the children was hurt.

The woman is recovering at Froedtert Hospital.

Anyone with information about the incident is asked to call Milwaukee police.

This Bothers Me

This man was accused of 2nd Degree Sexual Assault on a Child. The problem here, is that this happened more than 10 years ago, when he was 16. He had consensual sex with a 15 year old girl, and now carries the stigma of having assaulted a child. He was a child himself at the time, so how can he be charged with this? When a 16 year old boy has sex with an adult teacher, he has no ability to make adult decisions, so therefore he's automatically assumed to be completely innocent and taken advantage of. Yet, a boy of the same age has sex with a peer (which, if you've ever been to a high school sex ed class, what do you think they're promoting when they're handing out condoms?), he's labeled a sex-offender.

How is this right? The man is now being ostracized, his neighbors don't want him near their children (when he has no interest in them in the first place, since that's not even what he was convicted on), and his life is being destroyed because he had sex when he was a kid. Now, I'm a firm supporter of abstinence until marriage, but when the sex ed classes are handing out condoms, and telling kids to practice safe sex (instead of telling them not to have it in the first place), of course this sort of thing is going to happen. There is absolutely no reason to label this man as a sex offender for the rest of his life.

On a side note, part of the reason I hate this system is because I have a friend who was wrongly accused of inappropriate behavior with a student. I know this man well, and his wife was even around for some of the supposed "incidents". The girl was troubled, she hit a police officer, and then had him removed from the case because he came into the store where she worked, to return a shirt with his daughter, and basically managed to get all of the witnesses discredited in some fashion or another, so that my friend had no ability to make a case. So now, he's being harassed by a nasty case worker who won't let him so much as breathe the wrong way, and he will be labeled an offender for the rest of his life. All because some bratty little girl didn't like him. This system is seriously screwed up.

Twice? In Two Hours?

Man Receives Two OWIs In Two Hours

NORWAY, Wis. -- A Franklin man's plea to "just give me a ride home" instead landed him to the Racine County Jail after he was booked twice in just over two hours for drunken driving.

Clayton J. Paul's bad day started July 23 when he tried to leave a bar parking lot at 2:17 p.m. and backed his truck into a Racine County Sheriff's Department cruiser at a high rate of speed, authorities said.

The impact left a large dent in the squad car's front bumper and police said Paul's blood-alcohol level registered a 0.16. That's twice the legal limit of 0.08.

Paul, 53, was cited for operating a vehicle while intoxicated and exceeding the legal limit. He was booked at the Town of Waterford police station and released to the custody of his wife.

Twelve minutes later at 4:38 p.m., a deputy pulled Paul over again.

According to records, the deputy said that Paul told him, "just give me a ride home."

Instead, Paul failed sobriety tests and registered a 0.13 blood-alcohol level.

He received citations again for OWI and exceeding the legal limit. After being taken back to the station, he was transferred to the Racine County Jail.

So, the man was released into his wife's care, and was found drunk driving 12 minutes later? Where was his wife?

Do you think she should be held responsible? If the man was released, drunk, into her care, and he managed to go driving again, is she legally responsible? Morally responsible? I wonder how that works here.

Where Have All The Parents Gone?

This is just another example of how young children are running free to the point of destruction. 12 and 14 year old boys, with enough boredom, or anger, or whatever the case may be, going to a store and destroying and stealing property. Where are their parents? Where is any influence in their young lives telling them that what they are doing is wrong? Has no one told them that destroying another person's property is a bad idea?

In my opinion, the parents of these children should be held at least partially responsible. The parents are supposed to teach the children values and respect for others. These are their children, and they have a certain amount of responsibility until those children are adults.

When my oldest son, who was 4 at the time, developed a bit of a klepto problem, we dealt with it strictly and immediately. He still does it around the house now and then, but he is punished each time. And it becomes further between each time. When he stole something from a store, we made him take it back, apologize, pay for it, and kept it from him. A candy bar once, a pen another time. We paid for them, and then threw them away. It upset him terribly, but now he is more willing to work for the money to buy these things. He is learning that there are consequences to actions, and that there are ways of getting something that is desired, without stealing. Where was that sort of teaching for these boys? Where are the parents in all this?

Does anyone else think the parents should be responsible for their children's actions?

Fruits Of A Misspent Youth?

After reading this story, I will definitely be a lot more careful about which of my children's friends have access to our house.

Police: Girls, 10, 12, Kidnap Baby For Ransom

Ransom Note Demanded $200,000

ENID, Okla. -- A pair of pre-teen sisters are accused of kidnapping an infant in Enid on Thursday, police said.

The 10-year-old and 12-year-old girl allegedly broke into a neighbor's home Thursday morning about 5:30 a.m., taking a 1-year-old baby while his mother, Sheila Wells, slept, police said. A ransom note was left. According to police, they were accused of kidnapping for extortion and first-degree burglary.

Officers said the girls not only took the baby boy, Brandon Wells, from a crib in which he was sleeping, they also took assorted baby items, $20 in cash and left a ransom note telling the mother of the baby that "if you want to see your son again, then you won't call police and report him missing, and you will leave $200,000 on the sofa tonight, and we will return your son back safe."

Police said the note was signed "the kidnappers."

The mother of the suspects told investigators that she noticed the baby with the girls, who told her that they had "found the baby on the corner," police said.

The mother recognized the baby as belonging to the victim, who lives about a block away. The suspects' family and the victims are acquaintances.

As girls' mother tried to find Sheila Wells' telephone number, the 12-year-old returned to Wells' residence and told her it was the younger sister who was responsible for the abduction, police Capt. Dean Grassino said.

Wells immediately retrieved her child from the girls' home and police were called, Grassino said.

Wells said she knew the girls and had banned the 10-year-old girl from her home a few weeks ago, but did not say why.

Neither of the juveniles allegedly would give detectives any explanation as to why they took the baby, police said. The girls were transported to the Enid Police Department's Community Intervention Center.

Really, what were these girls thinking? Did they really think that they would get away with their little scheme? Did they really think they could make it through a whole day without someone noticing that they had a baby with them? 10 and 12 years old. They should still be playing with Barbies, not kidnapping their neighbor's child. Obviously the mother was paying some attention, when she banned one of the girls from her home, though I'm very curious as to why.

The question now, is what is going to happen to these girls? It's highly unlikely they'll be tried as adults, they're still in grade school, not even junior high. I can't even imagine what malice they could have had at their age. Even if they are locked up in a juvenile detention center, their age will likely get them out by the time they turn 18 or so.

I sincerely hope they are able to get help. They need someone in their lives that will guide them through this, and help them to see how wrong it was for them to do this. Pray that they will never even consider anything like this again.

Respect

After reading this story, I realized that there are still a few respectable people in positions of power.

KEWASKUM, Wis. -- It's not usually news when a police officer writes a ticket -- unless it's the chief and he gives the ticket to himself.

Village of Kewaskum Police Chief Richard Knoebel said he was driving to work when he became distracted by a truck stopping on one side of the street.

He said he didn't see a school bus with its lights flashing and a stop sign out on the other side of the four-lane road.

The chief said he didn't know he had passed the stopped bus until it was too late.

When he realized what he had done, he issued himself a $235 ticket.

"When we get someone for not stopping for a flashing school bus we give them a citation. So I shouldn't be any different so I did," Knoebel said.

Not only did the chief have to pay a hefty fine, he gave himself a four-point penalty on his license.

Now, I can respect that.