Free Republic

---SNIP--- A dozen boisterous men wearing the berets of Castro’s 26th of July Movement rumbled in at 3 p.m. and ordered takeout at a front counter. The Castro partisans soon were squabbling with five anti-Castros who happened to be seated at the counter. A prosecutor later explained that the beef was over a primal political concept: “That this country was free and Cuba was not.” This abstraction met bloody reality when the hands of several Castroistas slipped into jacket pockets and came out clutching brass knuckles.

Arby’s Ripper Told Mom, ‘I Did A Bad Thing:' Prosecutor Bail denied for 26-year-old man accused of stabbing his co-worker to death at the Hickory Hills Arby's. Lorraine Swanson September 23, 2017 HICKORY HILLS, IL -- Kristina and Daniel Price gripped each other’s hands during a bond hearing Saturday afternoon at the Leighton Criminal Courts Building, as they listened to a Cook County prosecutor describe their brother Johnny’s last moments of life. John Price, 35, was stabbed to death last week while working the night shift at Arby’s in Hickory Hills. The man accused of his murder, Irvin Thomas, 26,...

The notorious mob boss was released five years early from an Arizona prison on September 18, and will remain on federal parole for life, a spokesperson for the Division of Offender Operations, Special Services Unit confirmed to Radar: The 72-year-old was serving a 20-year sentence for buying and selling the drug Ecstasy after a 2002 conviction. In the early 90’s, he was notorious for turning on his mafia family and helping the government bring down his former boss, John Gotti, in exchange for a generous plea deal. As part of the deal, Gravano confessed to murdering a shocking 19 people...

A Tennessee man told police he shot his wife, his three-year-old son and nine-month old daughter dead on Thursday. Jordan Hazel, 27, admitted he fatally shot his wife Keara, 23, son Kayden, three, and daughter Jaylynn, nine months at their Clarksville home. Police found all three dead when they arrived at the scene. He was charged with three counts of homicide.

Following the announcement of a "not guilty" verdict in the case of Jason Stockley, a white former St. Louis police officer who killed a young black man, protesters took to the streets.Prosecutors accused Stockley of murdering Anthony Lamar Smith after the police interrupted a drug deal. Smith took off in his car and eventually crashed. Stockley claims he saw Smith with a gun and fired.But prosecutors said that Smith didn't have a gun and Stockley planted a weapon.Associated Press: Dashcam video from Stockley’s police car captured him saying he was “going to kill this (expletive), don’t you know it.”...

Whole Woman’s Health, a reproductive health care organization, in collaboration with other groups, is offering free abortions to women affected by Hurricane Harvey. At least 74 women have already taken the organization up on the offer, or have scheduled an appointment for the procedure, the Dallas Morning News reported. The price will be fully covered, as will the cost of transportation and accommodations, the group said. But Texas Right to Life, an anti-abortion group, argued against the notion of a free abortion, claiming that "there is always a cost.

This should be instructive: After remarking on the need for a consistent pro-life approach on immigration in the US, Pope Francis might have to clean house on that topic with religious brothers closer to home. The Belgian Brothers of Charity issued a defiant statement today after a Vatican order to stop offering euthanasia, especially in non-terminal cases, for their psychiatric patients. Rather than comply, the monks insist that they have plenty of room within Catholic teaching to assist in suicides when patients request it: Go here to read the rest.  So here we have Catholic Monks killing people in defiance of Church...

Michelle Jones was released last month after serving more than two decades in an Indiana prison for the murder of her 4-year-old son. The very next day, she arrived at New York University, a promising Ph.D. candidate in American studies. In a breathtaking feat of rehabilitation, Ms. Jones, now 45, became a published scholar of American history while behind bars, and presented her work by videoconference to historians’ conclaves and the Indiana General Assembly. With no internet access and a prison library that hewed toward romance novels, she led a team of inmates that pored through reams of photocopied documents...

The case of a Minneapolis police officer who shot and killed an Australian woman in July has been handed over to prosecutors for possible charges, investigators and prosecutors announced Tuesday. Officer Mohamed Noor fatally shot Justine Damond, a 40-year-old life coach who was engaged to be married, on July 15 after she called 911 to report a possible sexual assault in the alley behind her home. Noor's partner, Officer Matthew Harrity, told investigators that he was startled by a loud noise right before Damond approached the driver's side window of their police SUV. Harrity, who was driving, said Noor then...

A Belgian mayor has been found dead in a cemetery with his throat slit open, according to reports.

A masked man burst into a Dorchester barber shop yesterday morning and fatally shot a customer as he sat in a chair getting a haircut, then turned and left, police and witnesses said. “He came in, shot and got out,” the shop’s owner said, translating for another barber who witnessed the killing. “There was no robbery. He didn’t say anything.” The shooting occurred at about 10:45 a.m. at Creole International Style on Stoughton Street, police said.

Three people accused in the murder of MMA fighter “The Matzoh Brawler” – including a 16-year-old girl – were denied bail Saturday after being charged in the killing during a Florida home invasion in July. The girl, Summer Church, of Boca Raton, and 18-year-olds Roberto Ortiz, of Boynton Beach, and Jace Swinton, of Margate, are facing first-degree murder charges as adults in the July 3 shooting death of 25-year-old mixed martial arts fighter Aaron Rajman, an Orthodox Jew. They appeared before a judge in West Palm Beach.

A new Netflix documentary shows the incredible story about how an episode of "Curb Your Enthusiasm" was used to stop a man from being put to death for a crime he didn’t commit. "Long Shot" tells the story of Juan Catalan, arrested for the murder of a 16-year-old girl in 2003. NME reports that he had long maintained his innocence by saying he was at a Los Angeles Dodgers baseball game on the night of the crime. Catalan mentioned that it looked like somebody was filming something at the game, but he wasn’t sure what. The filming was for the...

Mohamed Noor said he was “startled” by a loud noise. He sounds little a little girl (and a liar). That notwithstanding, neighbors said, they heard nothing. Pajama-clad Justine Damond was unarmed when Mohamed Noor fired multiple shots and shot her dead. She died at the scene. From the Daily Telegraph: (thanks to Scott) http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/world/family-of-us-cop-mohamed-noor-say-officer-mistakenly-shot-justine-damond/news-story/f1fceb1b41f4c9494e136365861e1d02

NEW YORK (AP) — Police say a security guard has died after a man walked into a federal building in Manhattan and opened fire. The guard, identified by his union as Idrisa Camara, died shortly after the shooting Friday evening. Police say the gunman walked through a side entrance of the building that houses an immigration court and other government offices. Chief James O'Neil says the gunman later shot himself in the head. He was found dead in the building. A law enforcement official identified the shooter as Kevin Downing, of Fort Lee, New Jersey.

When Santa Rosa police officers jailed a man in early August for allegedly abusing his girlfriend, they worried the violence might escalate and obtained an emergency order barring him from contacting the woman. But the man, Nery Israel Estrada Margos, faced a larger impediment to seeing his girlfriend. Federal immigration agents wanted to take custody of him and deport him to his native Guatemala. Nevertheless, Estrada Margos was released the day after his arrest when he posted bail. He soon returned to the apartment he shared with his girlfriend of nine months, Veronica Cabrera Ramirez. And on Aug. 18, authorities...

A mysterious series of apparently random killings in Kansas City, mostly committed in isolated spots along walking trails, came to an end when the killer deviated from his pattern with a brazen, execution-style shooting in broad daylight on a city street, according to Jackson County prosecutors. The fifth and final killing came shortly after noon on Aug. 13, when 22-year-old Fredrick Demond Scott allegedly followed a man from a city bus, crept up behind him on the street and shot him in the head — before turning and getting right back on a bus. Like the other four victims Scott...

JACKSON, Miss. — Jackson police have made two arrests in connection with the shooting death of Chelsie Lynn Kirschten. Kirschten, 23, was shot and killed Aug. 17 as she sat in her car waiting on a red light at Fortification and State streets, according to police. The gunman said nothing when he walked up to the driver’s side closed window of Kirschten’s white Pontiac G6 and shot her in the back, police said. A passenger in Kirschten’s car told police that the gunman, who was wearing dark clothing, didn’t take anything after the shooting and walked away, investigators said.

BERLIN (AP) — A male nurse who was convicted of killing patients in Germany with overdoses of heart medication is now believed to have killed at least 86 people — and the true scale of the killings could be even larger, investigators said Monday. Many of the deaths could have been prevented if health authorities had acted more quickly on their suspicions, said Johann Kuehme, police chief in the northwestern city of Oldenburg.

From the crescent bay and swaying palms, the taxi drivers of Acapulco need just 10 minutes to reach this other, plundered world. Here, in a neighborhood called Renacimiento, a pharmacy is smeared with gang graffiti. Market stalls are charred by fire. Taco stands and dentists’ offices, hair salons and auto-body workshops — all stand empty behind roll-down metal gates.