"More Than a Game" Soundtrack
15 years ago
11 kids, including family of 9, abandoned
OMAHA, Neb. - Eleven children ranging in age from 1 to 17 were left at hospitals Wednesday under Nebraska's unique safe haven law, which allows caregivers to abandon youngsters as old as 19 without fear of prosecution.
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Nine of the children came from one family. The six boys and three girls were left by their father, who was not identified, at Creighton University Medical Center's emergency room. Unrelated boys ages 11 and 15 also were surrendered Wednesday at Immanuel Medical Center.
The law, which went into effect in July, initially was intended to protect infants. In a compromise with senators worried about arbitrary age limits, the measure was expanded to include the word "child," which wasn't defined. Some have interpreted this to mean anyone under the age of 19.
At least 14 children have been abandoned under the state's safe haven law since it took effect.
Todd Landry, director of Health and Human Services' division of Children and Family Services, said that in nearly every case, the parents who left their children felt overwhelmed and had decided they didn't want to be parents anymore. None of the kids dropped off so far has been in danger, Landry said.
The children surrendered Wednesday are OK, said Kathie Osterman, spokeswoman for the Nebraska Department of Health and Human Services. She didn't know why they had been abandoned. Further details weren't immediately available.
Nebraska was the last state in the nation to adopt a safe-haven law. Under previous law, a parent who abandoned a baby could have been charged with child neglect or abandonment, both misdemeanors, or child abuse, a felony.
State Sen. Arnie Stuthman said he introduced the bill intending to protect infants. In a compromise with senators worried about arbitrary age limits, the measure was expanded.
Abandoning teenagers was not the original intent of the law, Stuthman said Thursday.
"People are leaving them off just because they can't control them," he said. "They're probably in no real danger, so it's an easy way out for the caretaker."
Man Charged With Passing Gas at Cop
SOUTH CHARLESTON, W.Va. (Sept. 25) -- A West Virginia man who police said passed gas and fanned it toward a patrolman has been charged with battery on a police officer.
Jose A. Cruz, 34, of Clarksburg, was pulled over early Tuesday for driving without headlights, police said. According to the criminal complaint, Cruz smelled of alcohol, had slurred speech and failed three field sobriety tests before he was handcuffed and taken to a police station for a breathalyzer test.
As Patrolman T.E. Parsons prepared the machine, Cruz scooted his chair toward Parsons, lifted his leg and "passed gas loudly," the complaint said.
Cruz, according to complaint, then fanned the gas toward the officer.
"The gas was very odorous and created contact of an insulting or provoking nature with Patrolman Parsons," the complaint alleged.
He was also charged with driving under the influence, driving without headlights and two counts of obstruction.
Cruz acknowledged passing gas, but said he didn't move his chair toward the officer nor aim gas at the patrolman. He said he had an upset stomach at the time, but police denied his request to go to the bathroom when he first arrived at the station.
"I couldn't hold it no more," he said.
He also denied being drunk and uncooperative as the police complaint alleged. He added he was upset at being prepared for a breathalyzer test while having an asthma attack. The police statement said he later resisted being secured for a trip to a hospital that he requested for asthma treatment.
Cruz said the officers thought the gas incident was funny when it happened and laughed about it with him.
"This is ridiculous," he said. "I could be facing time."
COPS IN NUDE TASER SLAY
B'KLYN DEATH PLUNGE AFTER 2ND-STORY JOLT
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By JOHN DOYLE, JAMIE SCHRAM and ERIC LENKOWITZ
TROUBLE ON HIGH: Iman Morales stands naked on a fire escape before his fatal confrontation on a lower level.
Last updated: 12:09 pm
September 25, 2008
Posted: 4:08 am
September 25, 2008
Police fired a Taser at a naked Brooklyn man armed with only a fluorescent light tube yesterday, sending him falling to his death from a second-floor ledge after he went on a 40-minute rant.
Iman Morales' mom begged cops not to hurt her son, telling them he's sick - then watched in horror as he plunged from the top of the roll-down gate on which he'd been perched.
An Emergency Services officer, acting on the orders of his boss, fired at the 35-year-old man at around 2 p.m., as he waved the 8-foot fluorescent light tube, police sources said.
"His body froze up and he fell face-first," said Sean Johnson, who witnessed the drama at 489 Tompkins Ave. in Bedford-Stuyvesant.
Morales, who crashed 10 feet to the pavement, died a few hours later at Kings County Hospital.
Asked if police followed the proper protocol for using a Taser, NYPD spokesman Paul Browne said, "That's being reviewed."
A New York Police Department lieutenant was stripped of his gun and badge, and the officer who used the stun gun on the man was placed on administrative duty Thursday, officials said.
Amid his mostly unintelligible rant, Morales was heard yelling, "You're going to kill me. I'm going to take everyone with me."
He also screamed, "I'm going to die. You're all going to die with me."
Morales first emerged hanging out a third-floor window after a blowup with his mother at around 1 p.m., witnesses said.
Twenty minutes later, he climbed the fire escape to the fourth floor, where he tried to force his way into a neighbor's apartment.
"He tried to come into my window and I ran out," said 40-year-old Tonya Wright.
"He said, 'Let me in.' I told him, 'I'm not letting you in.' "
Morales then headed to the second floor and screamed to the crowd, which included his frantic mom.
"She was saying, 'No! No! Don't hurt him. He is sick,' " Wright said.
With police shouting for him to get down, Morales made his way to a ledge above a the gate.
"Walk down now! Move down!" the police can be heard shouting to him on video.
He then picked up the light tube and waved it in the air before jabbing cops who had climbed out of the windows above.
"When he was poking the cop, people were laughing," Johnson said.
He refused orders from the officers and continued his incoherent tirade.
Finally, one of the ESU cops on the street shot him with the Taser.
"He just fell face first," said witness Sean Brown. "People were screaming and yelling. It was wrong."
It was unclear what set off the episode, but, said Johnson, "once he started hitting the cop with that pole, that's when it turned serious."
Morales had one prior arrest, for a Manhattan petit larceny.
"This is very out of character," said the building's superintendent, Charlene Gayle, 31.
"Nice guy, clean cut, well kept, never irrational. Didn't have irrational behavior."
Additional reporting by Larry Celona
john.doyle@nypost.com
Woman ‘tricked into sex’ by penis cream treatment
9:52am Wednesday 25th April 2007
A Syrian-born airline pilot allegedly tricked a schoolteacher from Haverfordwest into having sex with him by pretending he had to administer ointment on the end of his penis, a jury heard yesterday (Tuesday).
Fadi Sbano, 38, even pretended to know a gynaecologist who advised him on how often to have intercourse with her and whether to thrust "slowly or quickly". And, on the "doctor's advice", he kept a clock on the bedside table to time the sessions.
The teacher put up with the treatment for nine months before telling her doctor.
Huw Rees, prosecuting, told Swansea crown court: "The allegations here are of rape by deception."
Mr Rees said the pair met while Sbano was based at Gatwick and the teacher was working nearby.
In November, 2000, she discovered a rash of white spots and feared that typhoid, which she contracted on holiday some years before, had returned.
Sbano claimed he was in talks with a gynaecologist who was anxious for a certain cream to be applied, the prosecutor said.
"He (Sbano) suggested he would apply the cream to his penis and apply it inside her.
Mr Rees said the woman found the sessions "Clinical, not at all erotic". She consented only because she believed it was a proper treatment.
"When the insertions took place, and depending on the instructions of his friend, he would thrust slowly or quickly for anything from one to ten minutes,"
Her doctor told her to find out the identity of Sbano's gynaecologist friend but he "became evasive and never gave his name" beyond the word "Ibby".
"It began to dawn on her that he had devised this treatment in order to have sex with her on his terms."
Mr Rees said "Ibby" was traced but said he knew nothing about the treatment.
Sbano was arrested at Heathrow while attending a pilots' training facility.
He claimed the woman had invented the entire story about the "treatment".
Sbano, from Harrow, London, denies nine charges of rape and 11 or obtaining money by deception.
The trial continues.
WOONSOCKET, R.I. (WPRI) - Three people are facing drug charges Tuesday, including a Woonsocket man police say brought his 9-year-old son on a drug buy with him.
Police said officers were monitoring the parking lot of a Manville Rd. convenience store when they saw Christopher Robertson, 32, pull up. They said Robertson and a small boy got out of the car, used a pay phone and left.
Officers then followed Robertson's car to the Walgreen's on Clinton St., where they said they witnessed a drug transaction.
Police said they arrested Robertson after they found one bag of marijuana in his possession. Robertson's son witnessed the whole thing.
"Yes, he understood exactly what was happening. It was quite apparent he was a smart boy," said Lt. Eugene Gillette of the Woonsocket Police Department.
Officers also arrested Charles Dasent, 30, of Woonsocket, and charged him with possession of marijuana with intent to deliver. Dasent's passenger, Johy Bryant, 35, was charged with possession.
Robertson's son is now in the custody of his mother.
URBANA, Illinois (AP) -- A Catholic priest on the University of Illinois campus has been charged with selling cocaine from his church office and rectory.
The Reverend Christopher Layden pleaded not guilty Thursday to two counts of delivery of less than 1 gram of cocaine within 1,000 feet of a church and one count of possession with intent to deliver 1 to 15 grams of cocaine near a church.
The 33-year-old was arrested Wednesday at St. John's Catholic Newman Center after investigators found 3 grams of cocaine and drug paraphernalia while searching his home and office. His bond was set at $50,000.
The Catholic Diocese of Peoria says it has suspended Layden.
His attorney, Mark D. Lipton, did not immediately respond to an after hours message seeking comment.