Christmas Eve Massacre

They didn’t even spare the children. 

SEATTLE – After slaughtering their parents, Joseph McEnroe apologized to his girlfriend’s young niece and nephew before shooting both in the head to end a Christmas Eve massacre, prosecutors alleged Friday.

But even as they filed aggravated first-degree murder charges against McEnroe and Michele Anderson, prosecutors could not say what might have driven the couple in the violent killing spree.

“In the end, what motive could you find that would make sense of the senseless slaying of the Anderson family?” King County Prosecutor Dan Satterberg said in announcing the charges.

Anderson and McEnroe, both 29, were each charged with six counts of aggravated first-degree murder. Authorities say they have confessed. Conviction on aggravated first-degree murder in Washington is punishable only by death or life in prison without possibility of parole, and Satterberg said he would give “serious consideration” to the death penalty.

Telephone calls to public defender George Eppler, Anderson’s attorney, and Devon Gibbs, McEnroe’s lawyer, were not returned Friday.

In a Friday afternoon interview from jail with The Seattle Times, McEnroe said he regrets the deaths of his girlfriend’s family members, but he did not admit to playing any part in killing them.

“I’m sorry that they’re gone. They were my family, too, you know?” McEnroe told the newspaper.

“I hope wherever they’re at, they’re at peace. That’s all I’m going to say about them.”

He said jailers had placed him on a suicide watch.

According to court documents, Anderson said both of them shot her parents, brother and sister-in-law, while McEnroe killed the children. While long-standing bitterness and a perceived family debt might have been factors in the killings, the motive may never be known.

Court documents said McEnroe, a store clerk, and Anderson, who is unemployed, told detectives they armed themselves on Christmas Eve and went to her parents’ home near Carnation, about 25 miles east of Seattle. There, they confronted Anderson’s parents, Wayne Anderson, 60, and Judy Anderson, 61, in their living room.

Michele Anderson told detectives her brother, a carpenter, owed her money she had loaned to him years earlier, and that she was upset with her parents because they did not take her side, documents say. She also said her parents were pressuring her to start paying rent for staying on their property, where she lived in a trailer with McEnroe.

“Michelle stated that she was tired of everybody stepping on her,” the court papers say. “She stated that she was upset with her parents and her brother and that if the problems did not get resolved on Dec. 24, then her intent was definitely to kill everybody.”

Satterberg said Michele Anderson fired once at her father’s head but missed. McEnroe stepped in, leveled his gun and fatally shot Wayne Anderson in the head, documents said.

Judy Anderson heard the shots and ran from the back room where she had been wrapping gifts. She was shot by McEnroe, who apologized to her before shooting her again, this time in the head, the court documents said.

Satterberg said that the two dragged the bodies to a shed behind the house, used towels and carpets to sop up blood stains and awaited the arrival of Anderson’s brother, Scott. He was due for a Christmas Eve visit with his wife, Erica, and children Olivia, 6, and Nathan, 3.

Her brother and sister-in-law put up a brave struggle, according to the documents. Scott Anderson charged her when she pulled out the gun, and was shot up to four times, records say.

Michele then shot Erica Anderson twice, but she was able to crawl over the back of a couch to call 911, authorities said. McEnroe told detectives he tore the phone from Erica’s hands and destroyed it.

Huddling with her children, Erica Anderson pleaded with McEnroe not to shoot her, saying: “You don’t have to do this.”

“Yes, we do,” McEnroe was quoted as replying in the affidavit. He fired at her head, authorities said.

Satterberg said that McEnroe apologized to both of the children before he shot 6-year-old Olivia. He then turned to 3-year-old Nathan, who had picked up the batteries from the cordless phone his mother had used in her futile attempt to call for help, court documents said.

McEnroe than fired one last bullet through Nathan’s head, according to the affidavit. When asked why he shot Erica, Olivia and Nathan, McEnroe told detectives three times: “I didn’t want them to turn us in.”

After the killings, McEnroe and Anderson first drove north toward Canada, then south toward Oregon arriving at neither destination, then decided to go back and pretend to discover the bodies, Satterberg said.

When they arrived Wednesday, investigators were already there. Detectives, curious that neither McEnroe nor Michele Anderson asked what had happened at the bustling crime scene, began questioning them and they eventually confessed, according to the documents.

Chad court sentences French to 8 years hard labor for child abduction

Why don’t the French stop funding wars in Africa instead of kidnapping their children?

N’DJAMENA (Reuters) – Six French aid workers were sentenced to eight years of hard labor each after a court in Chad found them guilty on Wednesday of trying to kidnap 103 children from the African country.

The court in the capital N’Djamena handed down its sentence on the fourth day of the trial of six members of the French humanitarian group Zoe’s Ark, who were arrested in October for trying to fly the children, aged one to 10, to Europe.

Chad’s government had faced heavy popular pressure to punish the Zoe’s Ark members with an exemplary sentence.

But there is widespread expectation that a diplomatic deal between Paris and N’Djamena could soon return the six accused to France, either through bilateral judicial accords or a pardon granted by Chadian President Idriss Deby.

Since the trial opened on Friday, the six had persistently rejected the abduction and fraud charges against them.

They testified that they believed the children were orphans from Sudan’s war-torn Darfur region whom they intended to give to European families for fostering. They said international law justified the humanitarian operation.

“I maintain what I’ve said since the start of this affair … our intention was to fetch orphans from Darfur,” Zoe’s Ark’s leader, Eric Breteau, told the court.

Defense lawyers had accused the Chadian court of rushing through the trial under political pressure from Paris.

France is an ally of Deby and has a military contingent stationed in the landlocked former French colony.

French troops have been supporting Deby’s forces against eastern rebels and will provide the bulk of a European Union peacekeeping force due to be deployed in east Chad in January.

CONFLICTING ARGUMENTS

Chad’s government has said the six, on trial along with three Chadians and one Sudanese accused as accomplices, did not have permission to take the children out of the country.

Prosecutors said the group, led by Breteau and Emilie Lelouch, duped parents in eastern Chad into handing over their children with promises of schooling.

State lawyer Philippe Houssine said the sentences requested by the prosecution were justified because Breteau and Lelouch had shown no remorse.

“On the contrary, he (Breteau) displays an arrogant, insolent attitude, which means this is a person who is ready to do it again if asked,” he told reporters.

Janine Lelouch, mother of Emilie Lelouch, told France’s LCI television: “I think we have to hope that they’re transferred quickly to France because they can’t stand it much longer.”

Defense lawyer Gilbert Collard said the accused were very depressed. “They feel the abyss just a few centimeters away, they are lost, completely lost,” he said.

The French have blamed their local intermediaries for misleading them over the identity of the children, who Chadian and U.N. officials said were mostly not orphans and came from villages in Chad on its eastern border with Darfur.

The prosecutor requested civil damages to be awarded for each of the 103 children in the case — 40 million CFA francs ($88,000) each, totaling 4.12 billion CFA francs ($9 million) in all.

White teen who raped and murdered young mother gets life sentence

The death penalty by electrocution would have been most appropriate. Profiling of young white males seems to be the answer.

 A teenager who raped and murdered a young mother as she power-walked along a Glasgow riverbank has been given a life sentence.

Thomas Waddell, 19, was told he must serve a minimum of 16 years before he can apply for parole.

He pleaded guilty at an earlier hearing to killing Farah Noor Adams, 34, on the River Kelvin walkway last October.

The High Court in Edinburgh heard her family, including her eight-year-old daughter, had been left devastated.

Car wash attendant Waddell, of Shiskine Drive, Maryhill, put Ms Noor Adams through an ordeal which lasted up to 30 minutes, which began shortly after she had dropped her daughter at school.

He smashed her face with a brick several times and raped her twice.

As she pleaded with him to let her go he strangled her with both hands.

Sentencing him, the judge Lord Macphail described the attack as “a hideous crime” which had left his Farah’s family devastated, while Waddell had showed no remorse.

“You followed her. You attacked her in the most brutal way. You inflicted severe injuries on her.

“You subjected her to the most painful and degrading sexual ordeal and then you strangled her,” he said.

Lord Macphail stressed that after serving 16 years Waddell would not be released if it was thought that he was still a danger to the public.

The judge also told him that if he had not admitted his crimes the minimum sentence would have been 19 years.

The court heard a statement from advocate depute Michael Meehan detailing the grief of Ms Noor Adams’ family.

“Her family are devastated by her murder and the manner of it,” Mr Meehan said.

“They feel they will never come to terms with it. They are heartbroken for their own loss – a daughter losing her mother, parents losing a child, a brother losing his sister.”

He added: “They miss her terribly.”

Defence QC Donald Findlay said that Waddell, abused by a bullying father, had “no start in life” and had been found to have a “borderline personality disorder”.

He was unable to control his impulses and what had happened on the walkway was “a behavioural explosion”, Mr Findlay said.

He added that Waddell had been affected by what he had done but found it difficult to express himself.

Strathclyde Police said the murder of Ms Noor Adams was “an absolute tragedy”.

A statement said that high visibility policing had been introduced around the Kelvin Walkway and canal tow paths in an effort to reassure the public and reduce their fear of crime.

Thousands of whites sought over child porn

Surprised?

German prosecutors are investigating 12,000 suspected members of a child sex abuse network on the internet – the biggest in the country’s history.

A senior public prosecutor said the suspects were accused of downloading or possessing illegal images of children.

The investigation, which has been going on for several months, also points to suspects in about 70 other countries.

An internet provider in Berlin is said to have helped by alerting the inquiry to a huge amount of internet traffic.

“The material was analysed. Then we called for search warrants,” said Peter Vogt, head of the central office tackling child internet sex abuse. He was speaking to German radio station Mitteldeutscher Rundfunk (MDR).

The suspects include 300 under investigation in the eastern German state of Sachsen-Anhalt.

Merry X-Mas!

White inmate says he needs Thor’s hammer, drum

Does he mean this guy?

SALT LAKE CITY – An inmate is suing the Utah Department of Corrections for denying him his right to practice an ancient Nordic religion while behind bars.

Michael Polk is serving time for aggravated assault and robbery. He filed a lawsuit against corrections officials in federal court, accusing them of denying him religious items that he says are necessary to practice the Asatru religion.

The religion worships ancient Nordic gods like Odin, Thor, Tyr and Heimdal.

In the lawsuit, Polk says he has been a member of the Asatru faith since 2005, and in order to properly practice it he needs items including: a Thor’s Hammer, a prayer cloth, a Mead Horn used for drinking Wassail, a drum made of wood and boar skin, a rune staff and a sword.

FBI aims for world’s largest biometrics database

Paranoid white control freaks at it again.  Haven’t people lost enough freedom already?

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The FBI is embarking on a $1 billion project to build the world’s largest computer database of biometrics to give the government more ways to identify people at home and abroad, the Washington Post reported on Friday.

The FBI has already started compiling digital images of faces, fingerprints and palm patterns in its systems, the paper said.

In January, the agency — which focuses on violations of federal law, espionage by foreigners and terrorist activities — expects to award a 10-year contract to expand the amount and kinds of biometric information it receives, it said.

At an employer’s request, the FBI will also retain the fingerprints of employees who have undergone criminal background checks, the paper said.

If successful, the system, called Next Generation Identification, will collect the biometric information in one place for identification and forensic purposes, the Post said.

Report: Israel rarely prosecutes troops

 Good little Germans….

JERUSALEM – In the past seven years, the Israeli military has indicted just 10 percent of soldiers suspected of criminal offenses against Palestinians, an Israeli human rights group reported Tuesday, saying the figure raises questions about Israel’s willingness to prosecute

The Yesh Din group said just 9 percent of investigations led to convictions. The conviction rate was less than 7 percent when the investigations focused on the killing and injury of civilians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, it said.

“The low number of investigations opened and the minute number of indictments served reveal the (military’s) de facto derogation of its duty to protect the civilian Palestinian population against offenses committed by its soldiers,” said Michael Sfard, Yesh Din’s legal counsel.

Basing its report on statistics solicited from the military, Yesh Din reported that 1,091 criminal investigations were launched between September 2000 — the start of the second Palestinian uprising against Israel — and June 2007. Of that number, 118, or 10 percent, were indicted, and 101, or 9 percent, were convicted.

Of the 239 investigations into the killing and injury of Palestinian civilians, 16 resulted in convictions, or 6.7 percent, Yesh Din reported.

Israeli government spokesman Mark Regev said the Israeli legal system takes all complaints seriously.

“Israel is a country in which we pride ourselves on our independent and professional judiciary,” he said. “No one — no institution and no individual — is above the law.”

The military said it was looking into Yesh Din’s report

Convicted rapist one of prison van escapees

As if they’re werent enough of these things loose in society already. 

Victoria Police have revealed one of the men who escaped from a prison van in Melbourne’s west this morning is a convicted rapist.

Three prisoners kicked their way out of a police van at Altona yesterday morning.

The van was travelling from the Melbourne Assessment Centre to Port Phillip Prison when three inmates kicked out the rear door to escape.

One man was caught by police a short time later.

One of the two criminals still on the run has been identified as 26-year-old Troy Lowe from Melbourne’s western suburbs.

Police say he has served time in prison for rape.

The other man has been identified as 30-year-old Gregory Caulfied from Bendigo. Both men were in custody for theft offences.

Police say the van guards were alerted to the escape when a fellow driver stopped them and told them the back door was ajar.

Detective Senior Sergeant Kerin Moloney, has urged the public to be careful while the pair remains on the the run.

“Both prisoners have a long criminal history,” she said.

Opposition corrections spokesman Andrew MacIntosh says a full inquiry is needed to find out how the prisoners escaped.

“Those sort of answers need to be provided,” he said.

“But in the meantime, I think we need to concentrate all of our energies in recapturing the two prisoners still at large.

“And certainly that’s what I would be expecting Victorian police and corrections officers to be doing.”

German nearly dies downing vodka at airport

Amateur.

BERLIN – A man nearly died from alcohol poisoning after quaffing two pints of vodka at an airport security check instead of handing it over to comply with new rules about carrying liquids aboard a plane, police said Wednesday.

The incident occurred Tuesday at the Nuremberg airport, where the 64-year-old man was switching planes on his way home to Dresden from a vacation in Egypt.

New airport rules prohibit passengers from carrying larger quantities of liquid onto planes, and he was told at a security check he would have to either throw out the bottle of vodka or pay a fee to have his carry-on bag checked.

Instead, he chugged the vodka — and was quickly unable to stand or otherwise function, police said.

A doctor called to the scene determined he had possibly life-threatening alcohol poisoning, and he was sent to a Nuremberg clinic for treatment. The man, whose name was not released, is expected to be able to go home in a few days

Naked white man vexed not sexed by text message

 Kind of late for trick and treating.

WELLINGTON (Reuters) – A New Zealand woman who sent a naked man to the wrong house on the promise of a good time has been charged with misusing a telephone, local media reported on Wednesday.

The 17-year-old woman sent the man an enticing text message offering him an early Christmas present in the shape of two friendly women and suggested he take off his clothes to save time, the Manawatu Standard reported.

The 31-year old man wasted no time in arriving at the house, and took off his clothes and threw them through the window before entering.

But it was the wrong house and the householder did not see the funny side. The police were called and the man arrested for being unlawfully on a property.

The woman, who sent the tempting but deliberately wayward message, was also tracked down and charged for misusing a phone.

Both the man and the woman escaped prosecution and were cautioned and put on good behavior bonds.

White terrorists murder 9 yr old Iraqi girl

Winning hearts and minds.

U.S. officials in Baghdad confirmed that U.S. special forces and Iraqi troops arrested one suspected member of al Qaida in Iraq in a raid near Karmah, south of Fallujah. But they had no information about the death of Hadil Walid Majed Mitaab, 9, who family members said was in a house in al Sicher, near Karmah, with her mother when U.S. and Iraq troops attacked at about 2:30 a.m.

With helicopters flying overhead, the U.S. and Iraqi troops blasted away the doors of two houses and opened fire on a third, which is where Hadil was, family members said. Police and relatives said a bullet pierced Hadil’s neck, and she bled to death in her mother’s arms.

A McClatchy special correspondent visited the house on Tuesday afternoon and watched as a U.S. soldier took bloodied carpet and a small shirt stained with blood from the room where Hadil died. Her father, Walid Majed Mitaab, sat silently among men paying their condolences in one of the partially destroyed houses. Mitaab said a U.S. soldier apologized to him through a translator.

Family members said they didn’t understand why troops had raided the area, which they said had been clear of al Qaida in Iraq since residents had turned on the group earlier in the year. Three men were detained in the raid, they said. The U.S. also said three men were detained, though two were later released.

“We don’t have weapons; we don’t have anything,” Hadil’s mother, Suheila Hammad, said. “We said, ‘Thank God things are getting better,’ and now they are getting worse again.”

Ali Abbass Ali, a local police officer who was doing the overnight shift at the police station about 60 yards away, said no one shot at the soldiers before they began shooting.

Police: Church gunman killed himself

Profiling is the answer.

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. – The man who killed four people at a church and missionary training center shot himself in the head and died after being hit by shots from a church security officer, police said Tuesday.

Matthew Murray, 24, was struck multiple times by a security officer at New Life Church Sunday, but his death was ruled a suicide, the El Paso County Coroner’s Office concluded after an autopsy.

Murray shot himself in the head, said police Sgt. Skip Arms.

Volunteer security guard Jeanne Assam shot Murray after he entered the church. Though investigators had earlier suggested he killed himself, they credited Assam’s bravery with averting a greater tragedy.

Assam, a 42-year-old former Minneapolis police officer, said her faith allowed her to remain steady under pressure.

“It seemed like it was me, the gunman and God,” she said, her hands trembling as she recounted the shooting during a news conference Monday.

The first attack Sunday took place at Youth With a Mission, a training center for missionaries in the Denver suburb of Arvada; the other occurred about 12 hours later at the New Life Church in Colorado Springs.

Officials said revenge was one apparent motive for the attacks. Police said Murray had sent hate mail to the Youth With a Mission center in the last few weeks after being removed from the program years ago.

In a statement, the training center said health problems kept Murray from finishing the program, but elaborated little. Murray did not complete the lecture phase or a field assignment as part of a 12-week program, Youth With a Mission said.

Authorities also believe Murray authored an anti-Christian diatribe online that closely repeated a rant by one of the Columbine killers, a newspaper reported Tuesday.

The most recent post to the site, a forum for people who have left evangelical religious groups, was Sunday morning in the hours between his attacks in Arvada and Colorado Springs, according to KUSA-TV in Denver, which first reported on the writings.

“You Christians brought this on yourselves,” Murray wrote, according to the station, which did not identify the site. “All I want to do is kill and injure as many of you … as I can especially Christians who are to blame for most of the problems in the world.”

The language in the post is almost identical to the text of a manifesto written by Eric Harris, one of the teens who carried out the 1999 massacre at Columbine High School.

The online posts, under the pen name “nghtmrchld26,” spanned several weeks, and in an earlier one, Murray appeared to reject offers of psychological help.

“I’ve already been working with counselors. I have a point to make with all this talk about psychologists and counselors `helping people with their pain,’” he wrote, according to KUSA.

The station said Murray’s posts were removed from the site after Sunday’s killings, and that authorities were aware of them and investigating. Police in Colorado Springs and Arvada would not comment on the writings.

In a search warrant affidavit, investigators said Murray attended a home-based computer school and worked at his computer for three to five hours a day for the past two years. Police said Murray’s only previous brush with the law was a traffic ticket earlier this year.

His relatives said they were grief-stricken and baffled.

“We cannot understand why this has happened. We ask for prayer for the victims and their families during this time of grief,” said Phil Abeyta, Murray’s uncle, who read a statement from the family Monday.

Also Tuesday, Minneapolis police Sgt. Jesse Garcia said Assam was fired from the Minneapolis force in 1997 for lying during an internal investigation. Sgt. John Delmonico, president of the Police Officers Federation of Minneapolis, said police were investigating a complaint that Assam swore at a bus driver while she was handling an incident on a city bus

Gang-Rape Cover-Up by U.S., Halliburton/KBR

While the rape is deplorable, what else is to be expected from a corporate/terrorist group like Halliburton? Apparently even white woman aren’t safe around their own.

A Houston, Texas woman says she was gang-raped by Halliburton/KBR coworkers in Baghdad, and the company and the U.S. government are covering up the incident.

Jamie Leigh Jones, now 22, says that after she was raped by multiple men at a KBR camp in the Green Zone, the company put her under guard in a shipping container with a bed and warned her that if she left Iraq for medical treatment, she’d be out of a job.

“Don’t plan on working back in Iraq. There won’t be a position here, and there won’t be a position in Houston,” Jones says she was told.

In a lawsuit filed in federal court against Halliburton and its then-subsidiary KBR, Jones says she was held in the shipping container for at least 24 hours without food or water by KBR, which posted armed security guards outside her door, who would not let her leave.

“It felt like prison,” says Jones, who told her story to ABC News as part of an upcoming “20/20″ investigation. “I was upset; I was curled up in a ball on the bed; I just could not believe what had happened.”

Finally, Jones says, she convinced a sympathetic guard to loan her a cell phone so she could call her father in Texas.

“I said, ‘Dad, I’ve been raped. I don’t know what to do. I’m in this container, and I’m not able to leave,’” she said. Her father called their congressman, Rep. Ted Poe, R-Texas.

“We contacted the State Department first,” Poe told ABCNews.com, “and told them of the urgency of rescuing an American citizen” — from her American employer.

Poe says his office contacted the State Department, which quickly dispatched agents from the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad to Jones’ camp, where they rescued her from the container.

According to her lawsuit, Jones was raped by “several attackers who first drugged her, then repeatedly raped and injured her, both physically and emotionally.”

Jones told ABCNews.com that an examination by Army doctors showed she had been raped “both vaginally and anally,” but that the rape kit disappeared after it was handed over to KBR security officers.

A spokesperson for the State Department’s Bureau of Diplomatic Security told ABCNews.com he could not comment on the matter.

Over two years later, the Justice Department has brought no criminal charges in the matter. In fact, ABC News could not confirm any federal agency was investigating the case.

Legal experts say Jones’ alleged assailants will likely never face a judge and jury, due to an enormous loophole that has effectively left contractors in Iraq beyond the reach of United States law.

“It’s very troubling,” said Dean John Hutson of the Franklin Pierce Law Center. “The way the law presently stands, I would say that they don’t have, at least in the criminal system, the opportunity for justice.”

Congressman Poe says neither the departments of State nor Justice will give him answers on the status of the Jones investigation.

Asked what reasons the departments gave for the apparent slowness of the probes, Poe sounded frustrated.

“There are several, I think, their excuses, why the perpetrators haven’t been prosecuted,” Poe told ABC News. “But I think it is the responsibility of our government, the Justice Department and the State Department, when crimes occur against American citizens overseas in Iraq, contractors that are paid by the American public, that we pursue the criminal cases as best as we possibly can and that people are prosecuted.”

Since no criminal charges have been filed, the only other option, according to Hutson, is the civil system, which is the approach that Jones is trying now. But Jones’ former employer doesn’t want this case to see the inside of a civil courtroom.

KBR has moved for Jones’ claim to be heard in private arbitration, instead of a public courtroom. It says her employment contract requires it.

In arbitration, there is no public record nor transcript of the proceedings, meaning that Jones’ claims would not be heard before a judge and jury. Rather, a private arbitrator would decide Jones’ case. In recent testimony before Congress, employment lawyer Cathy Ventrell-Monsees said that Halliburton won more than 80 percent of arbitration proceedings brought against it.

In his interview with ABC News, Rep. Poe said he sided with Jones.

“Air things out in a public forum of a courtroom,” said Rep. Poe. “That’s why we have courts in the United States.”

In her lawsuit, Jones’ lawyer, Todd Kelly, says KBR and Halliburton created a “boys will be boys” atmosphere at the company barracks which put her and other female employees at great risk.

“I think that men who are there believe that they live without laws,” said Kelly. “The last thing she should have expected was for her own people to turn on her.”

Halliburton, which has since divested itself of KBR, says it “is improperly named” in the suit.

In a statement, KBR said it was “instructed to cease” its own investigation by U.S. government authorities “because they were assuming sole responsibility for the criminal investigations.”

“The safety and security of all employees remains KBR’s top priority,” it said in a statement. “Our commitment in this regard is unwavering.”

Since the attacks, Jones has started a nonprofit foundation called the Jamie Leigh Foundation, which is dedicated to helping victims who were raped or sexually assaulted overseas while working for government contractors or other corporations.

“I want other women to know that it’s not their fault,” said Jones. “They can go against corporations that have treated them this way.” Jones said that any proceeds from the civil suit will go to her foundation.

“There needs to be a voice out there that really pushed for change,” she said. “I’d like to be that voice.”

White man goes on shooting spree, killing seven

Schools, Malls, and now Churches…is there nothing sacred? Is it time to profile white males?

ARVADA, Colo. – A gunman killed two staff members at a missionary training center early Sunday after being told he couldn’t spend the night, and about 12 hours later four people were shot at a busy megachurch in Colorado Springs.

Colorado Springs police Lt. Fletcher Howard said a suspect had been detained in the shootings at the New Life Church, but a source who was locked down at the church Sunday afternoon said a security guard had shot and killed the gunman. Authorities in Arvada, a Denver suburb about 65 miles north, said no one had been captured in the shootings there.

It was not immediately known whether the shootings were related, but Arvada authorities said they were sharing information with Colorado Springs investigators.

The mission training program has a small office at the church’s World Prayer Center on the New Life campus.

A gunman in a black trench coat and a high-powered rifle entered the church’s main foyer about 1 p.m. and began shooting, according to the source at the church, who spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because the police department had asked that it release all information.

The church’s 11 a.m. service had recently ended, and hundreds of people were milling about when the gunman opened fire. Nearby were parents picking up their children from the nursery.

The gunman was killed by a member of the church’s armed security staff, the source said. Four people were shot, and the source did not know whether the shooter was one of the four. A SWAT team was searching the building for an explosive device, but the source could not confirm any details.

Howard, who had characterized the shootings as occurring outside the church, declined to say whether the suspect had been shot.

The conditions of the four people shot at New Life were not immediately known, El Paso County Sheriff’s Lt. Lari Sevene said.

The first shooting happened at about 12:30 a.m. at the Youth With a Mission center in Arvada, a Denver suburb, police spokeswoman Susan Medina said.

A man and a woman were killed and two men were wounded, Medina said. All four were staff members with the center, said Paul Filidis, a Colorado Springs-based spokesman with Youth With a Mission.

Arvada Police Chief Don Wick said the suspect spent several minutes speaking with people inside the dorm. Peter Warren, director of Youth With a Mission Denver, said the man asked whether he could spend the night.

When told he couldn’t stay, the man opened fire, then left on foot, Warren said.

Warren said he didn’t know whether any of the students or staff knew the gunman. “We don’t know why” he came to the dormitory, Warren said.

Witnesses told police that the gunman was a 20-year-old white male, wearing a dark jacket and skull cap, who left on foot. He may have glasses or a beard.

Police with dogs searched the area through the night, and residents of nearby homes were notified by reverse 911 to be on the lookout. Medina said residents were asked to look out their windows for any tracks left in the snow during the night. About 4 inches of snow had fallen in the area in the past day.

Early Sunday afternoon, Lance Coles, a pastor at New Life Church in Colorado Springs, received a report that a man was shooting at people in the church parking lot and that the gunman may have entered the church, he told The Associated Press.

New Life was founded by the Rev. Ted Haggard, who was fired last year after a former male prostitute alleged he had a three-year cash-for-sex relationship with him. Haggard, then the president of the National Association of Evangelicals, admitted committing undisclosed “sexual immorality.”

The New Life church is one of Colorado’s largest with about 10,000 members.

Police in Arvada identified the victims of the shooting there as Tiffany Johnson, 26, and Philip Crouse, 23. Youth With a Mission said Johnson was from Minnesota and Crouse was from Alaska.

The missionary center identified the wounded as Dan Griebenow, 24, of South Dakota, and Charlie Branch, 22, whose hometown wasn’t immediately known. One of the men was in critical condition, and the other was stable, police said.

About 45 people were evacuated from the Youth with a Mission dormitory and moved to an undisclosed location.

The missionary center is on the grounds of the Faith Bible Chapel. Cheril Morrison, wife of chapel pastor George Morrison, said Crouse had just hung up Christmas lights at her home and that Johnson was “an amazingly beautiful person.”

Mimi Martin, who lives near the center, said she received the warning call at about 9 a.m. warning neighbors to keep their doors and windows locked.

“Why would anybody want to hurt those kids?” Martin said.

Darv Smith, director of a Youth With a Mission center in Boulder, said people ranging from their late teens to their 70s undergo a 12-week course that prepares them to be missionaries. He said the center trains about 300 people a year.

Filidis said staffers are usually former missionaries themselves and that the “mercy ministries” performed by trainees include orphanage work. He said he didn’t know where the group being trained in Arvada was going to be sent.

Youth With a Mission was started in 1960 and now has 1,100 locations with 16,000 full-time staff, Smith said. The Arvada center was founded in 1984.

Canada’s worst serial killer found guilty

Why kind of society breeds men like these? 

NEW WESTMINSTER, British Columbia – A jury convicted a 58-year-old pig farmer Sunday of murdering six women, handing him an automatic life sentence but finding that the killings were not planned.

Robert ‘Willie’ Pickton still faces 20 more murder charges for the deaths of women, most of them prostitutes and drug addicts from a seedy Vancouver neighborhood. If convicted on all those charges, he would become Canada’s most prolific serial killer.

Police are still investigating the cases of almost 40 other missing women.

The remains of the six women he was convicted of killing were found on Pickton’s farm but he denied he was responsible for their deaths.

Pickton listened to the verdict with his head bowed and later smirked at one point. He had been charged with first-degree murder in the six killings, but the jury convicted him on a lesser charge of second-degree murder which means they did not believe the killings were planned.

Two sisters of victim Georgina Papin screamed ‘No!’ when the jury foreman first got up and said “not guilty” on first-degree murder. But they later said they were pleased he was convicted on the second-degree charge.

Two jurors, both women, wiped tears from their eyes while the verdicts were read. The jury foreman glared at Pickton as the verdicts were read back by a court official.

Two jurors, both women, wiped tears from their eyes while the verdict was read

A conviction for any murder in Canada carries a mandatory sentence of life in prison and he will be sentenced on Tuesday when the judge will decide when Pickton might be eligible for parole.

During his trial, a prosecution witness Andrew Bellwood said Pickton told him how he strangled his alleged victims and fed their remains to his pigs. Health officials once issued a tainted meat advisory to neighbors who might have bought pork from Pickton’s farm, concerned the meat might have contained human remains.

The jury of seven men and five women took 10 days to reach a verdict. They had the option of finding Pickton guilty of first-degree murder, second-degree murder or manslaughter or not guilty on any of the six counts.

First-degree murder, which means a murder was planned, also carries a mandatory sentence of life in prison but does not offer parole eligibility for 25 years. The second-degree charge offers parole eligibility in 10 years.

Pickton was convicted of murdering Mona Wilson, Sereena Abotsway, Marnie Frey, Brenda Wolfe, Andrea Joesbury as well as Papin.

“It should have been first degree,” said Rick Frey, father of Marnie Frey. “You don’t have six murders over that time and not have first degree.”

During the trial, Papin’s three sisters cried and clutched each other’s hands in court while the judge reviewed the testimony of witness Lynn Ellingson. In her testimony, Ellingson said she walked in on a blood-covered Pickton as Papin’s body dangled from a chain in the farm’s slaughterhouse.

Before the jury started their deliberations on Nov. 30, Judge James Williams reviewed the transcript of a videotape with them in which Pickton is heard telling an undercover police officer that he had planned to kill 50 women, take a break, then kill 25 more.

Family members and friends gathered for a candlelight vigil outside the courthouse after the verdicts.

Marilyn Kraft, mother of one of the victims in the second murder trial Pickton will face, was relieved that Pickton got a life sentence based on the first trial.

“He’s going away for life,” Kraft said.

White man holds his own baby hostage for a case of beer

Wouldn’t it have been easier to just go to the 7-11?

White gunman kills at least 8 at Omaha mall

Schools, Churches, Malls….whats next? Is it time to disarm whites? Should angry young white men who worked at McDonalds be profiled?

OMAHA, Neb. – A man with a rifle opened fire at a busy shopping mall Wednesday, killing eight people before taking his own life. Five more people were wounded, two critically.

Shoppers and employees ran screaming through the mall and barricaded themselves in dressing rooms after hearing gunfire. The gunman was found dead on the third floor of the Von Maur department store in the Westroads Mall, in a prosperous neighborhood on the city’s west side.

“My knees rocked. I didn’t know what to do, so I just ran with everybody else,” said Kevin Kleine, 29, who was shopping with her 4-year-old daughter. She said she hid in a dressing room with four other shoppers and an employee.

Keith Fidler, a Von Maur employee, said he heard a burst of five to six shots followed by 15 to 20 more rounds. Fidler said he huddled in the corner of the men’s clothing department with about a dozen other employees until police yelled to get out of the store.

Sgt. Teresa Negron said the gunman killed eight people, then apparently killed himself. His name was not immediately released, and authorities gave no motive for the attack and did not know whether he said anything during the rampage.

A witness, Shawn Vidlak, said he heard four or five rapid shots “like a nail gun.” At first he thought it was noise from construction work going on at the mall.

“People started screaming about gunshots,” Vidlak said. “I grabbed my wife and kids we got out of there as fast as we could.”

Shortly after the shooting, a group of shoppers came out of the building with their hands raised. Some were still holding shopping bags.

President Bush was in town Wednesday for a fundraiser in Omaha, but left about an hour before the shooting.

The sprawling, three-level mall has more than 135 stores and restaurants, according to the Web site for General Growth Properties, the manager of the mall. It gets 14.5 million visitors every year, according to the Web site.

White school bus driver abused children

As if there aren’t enough pedophiles in the school system…  

A school bus driver who drugged and then sexually abused children over a period of six years has been jailed for five years.

David Dunn, 40, from Blackburn in West Lothian, used a funnel to make children eat crushed temazepam tablets so that he could knock them out.

Some of his victims were just nine when the attacks took place between 1992 and 1998, Perth Sheriff Court heard.

Dunn spent seven years driving for school runs in Perthshire.

As well as his jail sentence he has been made the subject of an eight-year Sexual Offences Prevention Order (Sopo), banning him from every play park, school and nursery in the country.

The order also prevents him from going to any council leisure facility or anywhere children are likely to gather, without prior permission from a police commander.

The father-of-two is further prohibited from having any contact with a child under the age of 17 unless he is supervised by a social worker.

Dunn, formerly from Blairgowrie, was found guilty of abusing five boys and girls aged between nine and 14.

One victim, who is now 24, said: “He would give me sweets and ice cream. He just told me to help myself.

“He gave us Buckfast. It was what he drank. It made me feel dizzy.

“He would have a bit of paper rolled like a funnel. He used to say ‘just take it, it’s good’. I didn’t want to.

“He used to get us to put our heads back and swallow it.”

‘Extremely serious’

Sheriff Michael Fletcher placed Dunn on the Sex Offenders Register for life and imposed the order to “remove temptation”.

He said: “I regard this as an extremely serious matter, even though the offences took place some years ago.

“He is 40 and he has got some years to go before he might become less dangerous.”

Outside the court, a female victim, who cannot be named for legal reasons, said: “Justice has been done. Now they should lock him up and throw away the key.”

One of the male victims said: “What he did has ruined a lot of lives and he should pay the price for that. We are just the tip of the iceberg.”

Dunn had worked as a driver for Coupar Angus-based Smith & Sons Coaches which said it had sacked him.

Modern day Bonnie and Clyde charged with massive identity theft

They should be out in about a year on good behavior.

PHILADELPHIA – They were young, rich and in love. But the jet-setters financed their fun on the credit cards of unsuspecting neighbors in their high-end apartment building and other identity-fraud victims, police said Monday.

Jocelyn Kirsch, 22, and Edward K. Anderton, 25, were charged Friday with identity theft, forgery, unlawful use of a computer and a laundry list of other counts.

Their fraud scheme, estimated at $100,000 this year alone, paid for jaunts to Paris, London and Hawaii and other luxury perks, including Kirsch’s stop at a tony salon for $1,700 worth of hair extensions, police said.

“They were two young people that were given many gifts in life,” said Detective Terry Sweeney, who spoke of the couple’s supportive families and private schooling. “And the very best thing they could do was victimize other people.”

It was not immediately clear if the couple had hired attorneys. Neither has a listed telephone number in Philadelphia.

Police started investigating Nov. 19 after one of the couple’s neighbors reported that she thought her identity had been stolen. A day later, the woman heard from a local UPS store about a waiting package, although she had not ordered anything.

Police kept an eye on the store and arrested Anderton and Kirsch on Friday when they walked in to pick up the package, detectives said.

A weekend search of the couple’s $3,000-a-month apartment turned up a cache of tech toys: four computers, two printers, a scanner and an industrial machine that makes ID cards. Police also found $17,500 in cash, dozens of credit cards and fake drivers’ licenses, and keys to unlock many of the apartments and mailboxes in their upscale Rittenhouse Square apartment building. Police are not yet sure how they got the keys.

“They were like a parasite that infected that building,” Sweeney said.

The search also turned up a book titled, “The Art of Cheating: A Nasty Little Book for Tricky Little Schemers and Their Hapless Victims,” as well as a newspaper article on “How to Spot Fake IDs.”

Police believe the scheme dates back at least two years and involves victims beyond the apartment house. A slideshow found on one of their computers shows the couple’s high-flying travels: kissing in front of the Eiffel Tower, sporting matching red swim wear at a ritzy oceanfront resort; and dining at an elegant restaurant.

Anderton was recently fired from a job as a financial analyst that had paid for at least his initial stay in the apartment, Lt. George Ondrejka said. Kirsch is a student at Drexel University.

Sweeney fears that police are not finished finding victims. So far, they know of five victims, one of whom was taken for $30,000.

Kirsch’s father arrived from Winston-Salem, N.C., to post her $25,000 bond Sunday. Anderton, who hails from Washington state, posted bond Monday, police said.

Former teacher who had sex with student back in trouble

Since when did bipolar disorder cause pedophilia?

(CNN) — Debra Lafave, a former Florida middle school teacher convicted of having sex with a student, was arrested Tuesday for “inappropriate but non-sexual contact” with a teenage coworker, the Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office said.

Debra Lafave was arrested after talking with a teenager. She is not allowed to have contact with anyone under 18.

The association violated the terms of Lafave’s probation, which forbade her to have contact with anyone under 18, the sheriff’s office said.

She was released on her own recognizance.

Lafave and her mother, Joyce Beasley, had no comment as they left the jail.

“I can only characterize this as somewhat of a bizarre and unusual violation,” said Lafave’s attorney, John Fitzgibbons.

Lafave pleaded guilty in November 2005 to having sex with a 14-year-old boy and was sentenced to three years under house arrest and seven years of probation.

Lafave was also required to register as a sex offender and abide by numerous conditions.

She was arrested after corrections officers interviewed a 17-year-old girl, who worked at a restaurant where Lafave had been employed since January 2006, according to the violation report from Florida’s Corrections Department.

The teenager told the officers that Lafave discussed “non-work related issues such as family problems, friends, high school, personal life, boyfriend issues and sexual issues in both private one-on-one conversations” with her and in group settings, according to the report.

“I would characterize this simply as ‘girl talk,’ or ‘guy talk,’ if you will, among fellow employees, that all of us do every day,” Fitzgibbons said. “This is it. There’s no more, there’s no less. … I would describe it as simply a workplace friendship.”

The co-worker will turn 18 on January 2, Fitzgibbons said.

Lafave refused to make a statement regarding the allegations, the document said.

She was ordered to quit the restaurant job and now works as a receptionist in her mother’s barber shop, the report said.

Lafave says she suffers from bipolar disorder and is receiving treatment.

Fitzgibbons said his client has done everything required of her, living with her parents and leaving only to go to work. She has done so well on two years of house arrest, he said, that he has been planning to ask that the third year be waived.

Fitzgibbons said he still intends to make that request, and hopes Lafave’s arrest will not hurt that effort — “I would hope that the court would be understanding.”

“She’s really tried hard, so it’s upsetting to her,” he said of the arrest, but noted it was “unheard of” for someone on probation for a sexual offense to be released on her own recognizance.

Life sentence for racist stabbing

Even Poles aren’t safe….

A man has been jailed for life for stabbing to death a Polish man in a racist attack in a street.

Thomas Blue, 25, from Glasgow, stabbed Adam Michalski, 24, four times after shouting abuse at him in Wrexham.

Mold Crown Court heard Blue used a knife he had borrowed to cut his baby’s Christening cake with “lethal force”.

Judge John Rogers QC said there had been a racial element to the attack and he would recommend to the parole board that Blue serve a minimum of 17 years.

The judge said Blue was a very dangerous young man who had given his evidence “in a most cold-blooded manner”.

He added: “He has never expressed any remorse for what he did.”

Blue, who denied murder and claimed self defence, showed no emotion when the jury returned its unanimous verdict on Tuesday.

Judge Rogers said that he was sure than an initial confrontation took place in the town’s Kingsmills Road on 5 August, because Blue shouted something abusive about Polish people.

When he was crossed, by one of the Polish people standing up to him, that resulted in Blue running to his girlfriend’s home, getting a carving knife, and returning to stab Mr Michalski four times.

Prosecutor Andrew Thomas had told the jury Mr Michalski received three stab wounds to the front and a fourth to the back “to finish him off”.

Confrontation

The prosecution said that while Mr Michalski was drunk and ready to fight, the defendant was not frightened or acting in self-defence.

Mr Michalski was on his way to buy beer from a late-night store when he was confronted by Blue.

Following an argument, Blue went to his partner’s house, where he had been staying for a christening of his daughter, picked up the knife and then returned to find his victim.

Mr Michalski’s girlfriend Joanna Kisielewska gave evidence that Blue had been heard to shout “I’ve got to kill him” or “I need to kill him” as his girlfriend and her mother tried to stop him.

Prosecutor Mr Thomas said the defendant “wielded the knife skilfully and with lethal force”.

Mr Michalski came from the small central Polish town of Sieradz and had been in the UK for two years.

The judge said: “He left a small town in Poland to come and work with other young Polish people in Wrexham.

“There he worked assiduously and without causing any trouble for some two years.”

He said the sentence would “provide little consolation to his family and friends in Poland.”

North Wales detectives who investigated the murder of Mr Michalski welcomed the guilty verdict and thanked the witnesses for having the courage to give evidence.

Detective Mark Chesters said after the case: “This was a tragic incident in which a young Polish man who had come to the UK to make a better life for himself and his family lost his life.”

He added that he wanted to thank the witnesses for having the courage to attend court and give their evidence which had been vital in proving the case against the defendant.

Handcuffed Woman tazered in Police Station

Does she look like a threat? Why do whites derive pleasure from torturing other human beings, including their own.

Ex-male prostitute linked to 2 scandals

Nasty. No wonder white woman have to travel overseas ….

DENVER – One of the rising stars of evangelical Christian politics resigns after allegations that he had sex with a man. More than a year later, a conservative U.S. senator is embroiled in a similar scandal.

The allegations against the Rev. Ted Haggard and Sen. Larry Craig have a common thread: A 50-year-old former prostitute from Denver named Mike Jones claims he had sex with both.

“I’ll put my credibility up against Larry Craig’s,” Jones told The Associated Press on Monday. “Here’s a man that doesn’t know the difference between innocence and guilty … I think people know he’s been a liar.

“And more than a liar, so much in denial,” Jones said.

Craig maintains he is not gay and has denied the latest allegations. His spokesman called Jones a liar who is trying to sell a book about his involvement with Haggard.

Jones is among eight men quoted in the Idaho Statesman, alleging sexual encounters with the Republican senator. Jones was among four men who agreed to be identified by name.

Craig is fighting to keep his seat after pleading guilty in August to disorderly conduct after being accused by an undercover officer of soliciting sex at the Minneapolis-St. Paul airport.

Jones told the Statesman that Craig paid him $200 to have sex in Denver on a night between November 2004 and March 2005.

The newspaper reported Craig was in Denver on Feb. 11, 2005, and in the ski resort of Keystone, Colo., on Feb. 12, and his Senate travel records showed six other trips where he may have had layovers in Denver in that time.

Jones said Monday he didn’t know who Craig was at the time of their encounter. He said he made the connection only when he saw Craig speak at a televised news conference.

Craig gave no other indication of his identity, where he was from or why he was in Denver, Jones said.

In November 2006, Jones aired allegations of a three-year cash-for-sex relationship with Haggard and that Haggard used methamphetamine.

Fired from New Life Church in Colorado Springs, Haggard resigned as president of the National Association of Evangelicals. He confessed to undisclosed “sexual immorality” and said he bought meth but never used it.

A year ago, Jones said he saw Haggard on TV and suddenly recognizing him as a client.

Jones said that it was no surprise to him that he had crossed paths with both Haggard and Craig — the bodybuilder advertised his massage services on Rentboy.com and in gay publications.

“It’s not like these are the only two high-profile guys I saw,” he said. “But I’ve never heard the others speak ill about the homosexual community or about being gay, so I have no reason to say anything about them.”

Jones portrayed himself as a reluctant whistle-blower.

He said that if he were just trying to sell more books, he could have gone public at the height of the Craig scandal, which would have been closer to his book release in June.

Jones said he only contacted the newspaper after Craig reneged on plans to resign. And then, Jones said he only agreed to take his story public if other men came forward, so he wouldn’t be standing alone.

But some question Jones’ account about Craig, including Mike Rogers, an Internet-based activist who had a hand in outing several Republican politicians, including former Rep. Mark Foley.

While Rogers said he doesn’t know enough to pass judgment on Jones’ account, he noted that in the Haggard case, Jones had evidence including taped phone conversations with Haggard. Jones hasn’t revealed similar evidence with Craig, and the senator’s travel records are public record, Rogers said.

“What are the odds?” Rogers said. “It’s not like (Jones) is the hustler to the stars in New York … In situations like this, a lot of folks come out of the woodwork.”

White man held after Clinton office standoff

Taking the proactive approach 

ROCHESTER, N.H. – A distraught man wearing what appeared to be a bomb walked into a Hillary Rodham Clinton campaign office Friday and demanded to speak to the candidate about access to mental health care. The hostage drama dragged on for nearly six hours until he peacefully surrendered.

Shortly after releasing the last of at least five hostages unharmed, 47-year-old Leeland Eisenberg walked out of the storefront office, put down a homemade bomb-like package and was immediately surrounded by SWAT team with guns drawn. Clad in gray slacks, white dress shirt and a red tie, he was put on the ground and handcuffed.

Clinton was in the Washington area the whole time, but the confrontation brought her campaign to a standstill just five weeks before the New Hampshire primary, one of the first tests of the presidential campaign season. She canceled all appearances, as did her husband, former President Bill Clinton, and the security around her was increased as a precaution.

“Everything stopped, and it had to because we had nothing on our minds except the safety of these young people who work for me,” Clinton told reporters shortly after the standoff ended.

She traveled Friday night to Rochester, where she thanked law enforcement officials for their help. She said she knew of no previous contact between Eisenberg and her campaign.

“It appears he was someone who needed help and sought attention in absolutely the wrong way,” she said.

Rochester police Chief David DuBois said Eisenberg was being held on state charges of kidnapping and reckless conduct, and that federal charges were being considered.

According to police, the drama began shortly before 1 p.m., when the man walked into the office and peeled back his jacket to reveal what appeared to be a bomb duct-taped to his chest. He took several hostages, but let a woman with an infant go immediately.

Eisenberg had a hostage call CNN three times and spoke to network staffers during the standoff, CNN reported after the ordeal was over and all the hostages were safe. Eisenberg said he wanted help getting psychiatric care, but had been turned away because he didn’t have the money.

“I need to speak to Hillary Clinton,” CNN quoted him as saying. “Something’s got to change. Ordinary people need help” with their insurance.

The network described Eisenberg as “well-spoken, articulate and impassioned about his cause” but increasingly agitated. His third phone call was laced with profanities, CNN said.

About two hours after the man let the woman and baby go, at least one other woman escaped from the office; two other hostages made it out later, the last about half an hour before Eisenberg surrendered, police said.

Not long after the surrender, which occurred shortly after 6 p.m., police maneuvered a robot to the hostage-taker’s package and triggered an explosion to destroy it.

Witness Lettie Tzizik told television station WMUR of Manchester that she spoke to the woman who was released first and that she was crying, holding the infant.

“She said, ‘You need to call 911. A man has just walked into the Clinton office, opened his coat and showed us a bomb strapped to his chest with duct tape,” Tzizik said.

Heavily armed SWAT team members, protecting themselves with shields, called to the man over bullhorns and attempted to hand a phone into the office.

A law enforcement official confirmed to The Associated Press earlier that the suspect’s name was Leeland Eisenberg, and that he was known around the town to be mentally unstable. The official declined to be identified because he was not authorized to speak publicly about the case.

Authorities believe the device strapped to the man’s chest was made with road flares, not a bomb, the official said.

The office, in a town of 30,000, is one of many Clinton has around New Hampshire. The campaign said the people taken hostage were volunteers for the campaign.

Eisenberg walked into the office about a half-hour before he was scheduled to appear in Strafford County court with his wife for a domestic violence hearing, according to Foster’s Daily Democrat in Dover.

Divorce papers filed Tuesday indicated Eisenberg was arrested and charged with criminal mischief, domestic related, and violation of a protective order. In the papers, Eisenberg’s wife said the divorce was a result irreconcilable differences and complained that he suffered from “severe alcohol and drug abuse, several verbal abuse and threats.”

Eisenberg also was arrested at least twice earlier this year, once for allegedly driving under the influence and once on two counts of stalking. The status of those cases was not immediately clear.

Eisenberg made local headlines in March when he held a news conference on the steps of Rochester City Hall to complain about a police policy of placing fliers in unlocked cars warning motorists to lock their doors.

“This is nothing more than a gimmick to get around the Constitution and go around in the middle of the night upon unsuspecting citizens in their own yard and search their vehicles,” Eisenberg said.

Police, who said they were just trying to reduce theft from motor vehicles, changed the policy in response.