Free Republic

New York Governor Andrew Cuomo has decided to commute the sentence of a domestic terrorist, Judith Alice Clark, who willingly participated in a bloody robbery that led to the deaths of a security guard and two police officers. Clark, who pleaded not guilty, but was convicted of felony murder, had been sentenced to such a long prison term that she had no real hope for parole during her lifetime – until now. Cuomo’s decision to commute Clark’s sentence will not immediately result in her release, but the steep reduction in her sentence will make her eligible for parole early this year....

UPDATE 6:09PM:  CWB Chicago has been told credibly, but not yet confirmed, that no firearms were recovered from the shooting scene, potentially raising further questions about Ald. James Cappleman's cut-and-dried statement that two men simply shot each other to death in a disagreement. Police say it is not uncommon for witnesses or family members to pick up firearms at shooting scenes. UPDATE 6:10PM: Police now say the second, unidentified victim was 25-years-old. Our original report follows. --------------- Chicago’s first two homicide victims of 2017 were shot to death in an Uptown “restaurant,” less than five hours into the new year. The...

After nearly five hours of deliberation, a jury found Cedric Poore guilty of first-degree murder a quadruple murder trial. Poore was found guilty of four counts of first-degree murder and two counts of armed robbery. He was found not guilty of felony in possession of a firearm. The jury recommended Poore be sentenced to life without parole. Formal sentencing will be set for a later date. There were a lot of tears in the courtroom as the verdict was read Friday night; even the jury members looked very emotional as the guilty counts were read out loud. Poore himself rubbed...

An Istanbul nightclub was attacked Sunday morning, killing 35 people and wounding 40 others, according to Istanbul governor Vasip Sahin. Sahin called the incident "a terror attack" targeting innocent people who were at the club to celebrate the new year. An armed attack has taken place at a nightclub in the Besiktas neighborhood of Istanbul, according to Turkish state-run news agency Anadolu. The attacker, who has not yet been identified, opened fire inside the nightclub early Sunday, the agency reported.

---the usual sanctimonious blather --including the last sentence in this excerpt----"But in the here and now — to curb the carnage today — it is hard to overstate the importance of better gun laws and a powerful and professional police force. We strongly support new state laws to get and keep illegal guns off the street. Most significantly, we support legislation pending in Springfield that would increase minimum prison sentences for gun crimes. Illegal guns are killing our city."

A 31-year-old Overbrook man with a history of drug arrests was charged Thursday with killing a beloved 81-year-old South Philadelphia grocer inside her store on Christmas Eve, and police said it was over a piece of jewelry. Maurice Green shot Marie Buck 11 times from the doorway of her store, Marie's Grocery, just before 9 a.m. Dec. 24, Homicide Capt. James Clark said at a news conference Thursday. "He just went and opened up the door," Clark said. "He never even fully was one step inside the store and he fired multiple times, striking her 11 times." Green had intended...

A married man was convicted Tuesday of murder and kidnapping in the 2007 death of a single mother from Colorado who led a double life as a paid escort. A judge sentenced 65-year-old Lester Ralph Jones to life in prison without parole after the jury delivered its verdict, according to the Grand Junction Daily Sentinel. It was Jones' second trial in the killing of Paige Birgfeld. The first ended in a mistrial in September when jurors couldn't reach a unanimous verdict.

The family of a Spokane woman who was murdered along with her son can pursue a lawsuit over whether the killer’s psychiatrist should have done more to protect them, the Washington Supreme Court held in a case with implications for mental-health professionals around the state.

A 33-year-old man is facing a capital murder charge after being arrested in last week's road rage killing of a three-year-old Arkansas boy out Christmas shopping with his grandmother. Gary Holmes was charged after surrendering to police in his hometown of Little Rock, Assistant U.S. Attorney Patrick Harris said late Thursday. Holmes was the subject of national outrage and a $40,000 reward after allegedly shooting the boy after becoming enraged when his grandmother did not move fast enough after braking for a stop sign.

An Ithaca man accused of killing a UPS driver said in court Monday afternoon that not only did he believe he shot and killed Donald Trump, but that no evidence could be presented to him to suggest otherwise. Justin R. Barkley, 38, said during his arraignment and subsequent attempt to plead guilty, "I shot and killed Donald Trump purposely, intentionally and very proudly." Now obviously Barkley is out of his mind. But the murder of an innocent man is another example of how the media's climate of hate can backfire. Did the media's paranoid fantasies about Trump feed into Barkley's...

For more than a century, boys were sent to the Florida School for Boys reformatory in the north Florida town of Marianna. Many were beaten brutally and bear the physical and psychological scars to this day. Many boys, though, never came home. They died, some under mysterious circumstances. They were buried in unmarked graves and they were forgotten. Several years ago, a young anthropology professor from the University of South Florida decided she would try to answer the many questions about what happened to these boys and, if she could, return their remains to their families. To get to the...

The gunshots that rang out just after midnight last September sent youths in the neighborhood running scared. One 22-year-old man was killed. Three others, just passing by at the time of the altercation, were injured by the gunfire. Sound familiar? It's not a scene from Chicago. This shooting, stemming from a "spilled drink," happened near the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign campus.

31-year-old Tehilla Nagar is the woman who was murdered Tuesday and whose body was found next to the road bypassing the Sea of Galilee, adjacent to the village of Migdal. The body exhibited signs of violence. Police placed a gag order on the murder investigation. "When we came to the place we found a young woman in her 20's with violent wounds inflicted on the upper part of her body. She was lying next to the road," said Meir Ashraf, an MDA paramedic who arrived on the scene. 'She was not breathing and after a few moments we determined that...

A New York man’s legal defense for murdering a UPS driver is apparently to claim he thought he was brutally killing president-elect Donald Trump instead. Justin Barkley, a 38-year-old Ithaca man, is charged with second-degree murder for the shooting death of William Schumacher in a Wal-Mart parking lot Dec. 8. But during Barkley’s arraignment hearing Monday, during which he attempted to enter a guilty plea, Barkley says the person he killed was Trump, not Schumacher. “I shot and killed Donald Trump purposely, intentionally and very proudly,” Barkley said at the hearing....When asked whether he could be convinced otherwise, Barkley replied...

Germany is facing the biggest rise in right-wing support since the 1930s

Two West Side men are in critical condition after they were shot on a crowded party bus in Lakeview early Sunday. A third man, who may be the shooter, also suffered a gunshot wound to his hand. Police and ambulances rushed to the 500 block of West Irving Park Road after a man opened fire during a dispute on the bus, which was carrying 30 passengers, shortly before 2 a.m. The gunman and another man ran out of the bus and fled down Recreation Drive on foot. They crossed under Lake Shore Drive in the Addison pedestrian tunnel and fled...

Either Blacks Are Violent Or Stats Are Racist! You Decide! video only

December 16, 2016 (LifeSiteNews) – Many Star Wars fans flocking to see Rogue One this weekend don't know the dark side of Mark Hamill, the actor who plays Luke Skywalker. When Los Angeles model Maegan Chen found out earlier this year that she was pregnant with Hamill's grandbaby, Hamill and his son Nathan pressured her to have an abortion. But despite the attempted coercion, Maegan courageously resisted, and her baby, Autumn, was just born and is thriving. Maegan was unavailable for comment on this story, but she discussed the situation with LifeSiteNews for a previous report. She found out she...

In a story worthy of a Star Trek episode, five Pakistani girls were murdered for the crime of dancing with a boy, and then, when authorities came to investigate, they found the Pakistanis replaced with duplicates. It didn't take a tricorder to figure out that while these were not robots or shapeshifters, neither were these the same girls, but rather close relatives of the murdered girls. It was just a few seconds, a video clip of several young women laughing and clapping to music, dressed for a party or a wedding in orange headscarves and robes with floral patterns. Then...