September 29, 2016


News and Views


http://www.cbsnews.com/news/new-jersey-train-collides-wall-hoboken/

Hoboken, New Jersey, train crashes into station
CBS/AP
September 29, 2016, 9:10 AM

12 PHOTOS -- Worst U.S. train crashes in recent history
Play VIDEO -- Witness in front car of N.J. train describes "big crash"
Photograph -- Onlookers view a New Jersey Transit train that derailed and crashed through the station in Hoboken, New Jersey, in this picture courtesy of Chris Lantero taken Sept. 29, 2016. COURTESY OF CHRIS LANTERO VIA REUTERS
Play VIDEO -- CBS News' Steve Capus describes the deadly Hoboken train crash
Play VIDEO -- Train passenger describes horrific crash in New Jersey
Play VIDEO -- "The train simply did not stop"
Play VIDEO -- Train passenger describes deadly crash in Hoboken, N.J.
Tweet -- My train just derailed and crashed into the Hoboken train station. Thankfully all I got was a crack to my head, please pray for the rest pic.twitter.com/DEm34qFSFI


HOBOKEN, N.J. -- A crowded commuter train plowed into the bustling Hoboken station during the morning rush hour Thursday, killing at least one person and injuring more than 100 others, some critically, in a tangle of broken concrete, twisted metal and dangling cables, authorities said.

Gov. Chris Christie said a woman was killed by debris while standing on the station platform. Of the 108 others injured, 74 of them were hospitalized, according to Christie and area hospitals.

People pulled concrete off bleeding victims and passengers kicked out windows and crawled out amid crying and screaming after the arriving New Jersey Transit train smashed through a barrier at the end of its track and ground to a halt in a covered waiting area. It apparently knocked out pillars, collapsing a section of the roof onto the first car.

“It just didn’t stop,” Kirby Fisher, a passenger in the first car, told CBS News. “It was like a big crash, and then everything from the ceiling just fell.”

Investigators with the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey and a senior official with the New York State Police confirmed to CBS News that the train operator survived the crash. Christie said the operator was fully cooperating with law enforcement.

CBS News executive editor Steve Capus described the scene at the station as “devastating.” He saw one person on the ground who appeared to have a broken leg and a number of people holding bandages to their head, bleeding.

Scores of people were in a triage area at the station, many with bloodied shirts and clothing, Capus reports. Some people being taken out of the station appeared to be “severely hurt,” he said.

Ross Bauer, an IT specialist who was heading to his Manhattan job from his home in Hackensack, was sitting in the third or fourth car when the train pulled into the historic 109-year-old station.

“All of a sudden, there was an abrupt stop and a big jolt that threw people out of their seats. The lights went out, and we heard a loud crashing noise - like an explosion - that turned out to be the roof of the terminal,” he said. “I heard panicked screams, and everyone was stunned.”

The cause of the crash wasn’t immediately known. The National Transportation Safety Board said it was sending investigators.

A law enforcement source told CBS News that nothing has been ruled out, CBS News senior investigative producer Pat Milton reports. Preliminarily, it appears to be an accident, that the train derailed, causing it to strike the station, Milton reports.

Investigators will want to know what the operator was doing before the crash and whether the person was distracted, said Bob Chipkevich, who formerly headed the NTSB train crash investigations section.

Hoboken, which is NJ Transit’s fifth-busiest station with 15,000 boardings per weekday, is just across the Hudson River from New York City. It is the final stop for several train lines and a transfer point for many commuters on their way to New York City. Many passengers get off at Hoboken and take ferries or a PATH commuter train to New York.

None of NJ Transit’s trains are fully equipped with positive train control, a safety system designed to prevent accidents by automatically slowing or stopping trains that are going too fast. The industry is under government orders to install PTC, but the deadline has been repeatedly extended by regulators at the request of the railroads. The deadline is now the end of 2018.

Jennifer Nelson, a spokeswoman for NJ Transit, said she didn’t know how fast the train was going when it crashed through the bumper. Rail service was suspended in and out of Hoboken.

Passenger Bhagyesh Shah said the train was crowded, particularly the first two cars, because they make for an easy exit into the Hoboken station. Passengers in the second car broke the emergency windows to get out.

“I saw a woman pinned under concrete,” Shah told WNBC-TV in New York. “A lot of people were bleeding; one guy was crying.”

Brian Klein, whose train arrived at the station after the crash, told The Wall Street Journal that transit police ushered everyone aboard his train into a waiting room, “then quickly started yelling, ‘Just get out! We don’t know if the building is going to hold.’”

The train had left Spring Valley, New York, at 7:23 a.m. and crashed at 8:45 a.m., said NJ Transit spokeswoman Nancy Snyder.

“It simply did not stop,” CBS radio station WFAN anchor John Minko, who witnessed the crash, told CBS station WINS-AM. “It went right through the barriers and into the reception area.”

More than 100,000 people use NJ Transit trains to commute from New Jersey into New York City daily.

A crash at the same station on a different train line injured more than 30 people in 2011. The PATH commuter train crashed into bumpers at the end of the tracks on a Sunday morning.

The Hoboken Terminal, which was built in 1907 and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places, has undergone waves of restoration, including a major project launched by NJ Transit in April 2004 that largely restored the building to its original condition. The station was extensively damaged during Superstorm Sandy in 2012 and underwent major repairs.


— Laura (@rustysombrero) September 29, 2016
More images of the PV Line train crash in Hoboken. I was on the train but I'm all good #NJT #PATH pic.twitter.com/pIRI4yWB5s

— Corey Futterman (@coreyfuttdesign) September 29, 2016
Hoboken Terminal train accident pic.twitter.com/haGOJ4CHd7

— David Richman (@daverichman) September 29, 2016
Hoboken train crash pic.twitter.com/49H7StwSfF

— Ty (@ScotchWoodTy) September 29, 2016



EXCERPT -- “None of NJ Transit’s trains are fully equipped with positive train control, a safety system designed to prevent accidents by automatically slowing or stopping trains that are going too fast. The industry is under government orders to install PTC, but the deadline has been repeatedly extended by regulators at the request of the railroads. The deadline is now the end of 2018.” …. “It just didn’t stop,” Kirby Fisher, a passenger in the first car, told CBS News. “It was like a big crash, and then everything from the ceiling just fell.” Investigators with the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey and a senior official with the New York State Police confirmed to CBS News that the train operator survived the crash. Christie said the operator was fully cooperating with law enforcement.”


There was no driver carelessness here, but the station had been the site of another crash, and Hurricane Sandy had damaged the tracks. The big thing here is the lax restriction by government on those who should have installed the PTC system. Sure, it costs money, but so does recovering from these disasters. As for that, the description, “It was like a big crash, and then everything from the ceiling just fell,” this brings home the human side of the problem. People must have been devastated by such a terrible shock, not to mention their broken bones, and the one death. This kind of “graft and greed” around the subject of government actions is like black mold. It grows everywhere when there is moisture and no light.



DEMOCRATS


http://www.cbsnews.com/news/minorities-less-anxious-about-election-outcome-than-whites/

Minorities less anxious about election outcome than whites
AP September 29, 2016, 9:54 AM

Photograph -- FILE - In this Feb. 23, 2016 file photo, Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton takes pictures with supporters after a campaign event at the Central Baptist Church in Columbia, S.C. During a primary season that has proved surprisingly competitive, bombarded with persistent critiques about her likeability and trustworthiness, Clinton has maintained a strong bond with one significant block of Democratic Party voters. Black women. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin, File) AP


KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- Consider two women in their 70s, both residents of the Kansas City area. One is white and affluent; the other is black and working class.

Guess which one is more optimistic about the country’s future and that of their grandchildren?

More than likely, you guessed wrong.

This year’s presidential campaign has underscored an economic paradox: Financially, black Americans and Hispanics are far worse off than whites, yet polls show minorities are more likely than whites to believe in the American Dream. And they are less anxious about the outcome of the election.

At 71, Carole Ramsey knows she has long been fortunate. She married a man who became a successful lawyer, raised their children in Kansas City’s affluent western suburbs and now enjoys a comfortable retirement full of international travel.

“We’ve lived a very good life,” Ramsey, who is white, said at an upscale shopping center in Leawood, Kansas. Even so, she says she’ll vote for Donald Trump because she fears economic stagnation and global terrorism. “Our kids will not be able to live the way we did, that’s for sure.”

Ethel Tuggle, 72, backs Hillary Clinton, and a big reason is that her grandchildren’s circumstances show how life has improved for her family. “They’re starting jobs at $15, $20 an hour; I’ve never seen that sort of money,” said Tuggle, who is black and worked construction for Kansas City government until injuries forced her to retire early.

Tuggle says she’s amazed at the progress she’s witnessed since her childhood in rural Missouri, when she was barred from entering shoe stores and had to trace her foot on a sheet of paper so a salesman inside could fit her for shoes. Her grandchildren live under the nation’s first black president.

One factor in the surprising gap between black optimism and white pessimism is simply partisan politics: Blacks and Hispanics are overwhelmingly Democrats and more likely to feel positive about the future when one of their own is in the White House.

“When Bush was in office, Republicans thought the country was headed in the right direction,” while Democrats did not, said Neil Newhouse, a Republican pollster. “Once Democrats took over, that flipped.”

Still, there’s evidence that the divide goes beyond party and Obama’s presidency. In great measure, it has to do with the past, not the future: Minorities who have seen great improvements in their lives are more confident, while whites who have seen disintegration in their lives are more pessimistic.

The NORC* at the University of Chicago has for decades asked Americans whether they think their standard of living will improve. Since 2002 - well before Obama’s 2008 election - NORC surveys have found that whites across all parties and income levels have been steadily less likely to think their standard of living would improve. Blacks and Hispanics, meanwhile, have increasingly believed their living standards would rise.

“This is a racial and ethnic thing - not something that’s based on education, income or party,” said Jennifer Benz of NORC. “It’s whites’ huge decline in optimism that makes the gap between whites and minorities the biggest it’s been in a long time.”

In a poll conducted for the Atlantic and Aspen Institute last year, minorities were more likely than whites to agree with the statement, “The American Dream is alive and well.”

A Pew Foundation survey found that Hispanics were the least likely ethnic or racial group to be anxious about the outcome of the current presidential race - even though a centerpiece of Trump’s platform is to deport millions of immigrants living in the country illegally and restrict overall immigration.

In a June AP-NORC poll, 62 percent of blacks said they thought America’s best days were ahead. Only 40 percent of whites thought so. Fifty-three percent of blacks and 48 percent of Hispanics called the economy “good.” Just 37 percent of whites did.

The level of optimism among minorities might seem to defy economic realities. Whites have a median household income of $71,300 compared with blacks’ median of $43,300. A Pew foundation report found that white households’ typical net worth was 13 times that of black households. A separate report from the Institute for Policy Studies has calculated that, at their current rate, it would take blacks 228 years to catch up with the wealth of whites.

Still, minorities have seen progress, while whites have stalled.

According to Census data, white men have increased their income by only 3 percent since 1973, while black men have improved theirs by 12 percent. (Incomes for all women have risen sharply since they entered and rose through the workforce since the early 1970s.)

Many Hispanics have enjoyed solid income gains. The Institute for Policy Studies found that Hispanics’ household wealth has risen 69 percent over the past 30 years, albeit to a still-low $98,000 relative to whites’ $656,000.

“If you’re at the bottom moving up, you feel much better about your prospects than if you’re at the top moving down,” Democratic pollster Mark Mellman said.

There is one area where blacks, especially, register as more pessimistic than whites: Race relations and policing. Blacks particularly have polled as more negative about race relations recently, following a series of high-profile police killings of African-Americans. There is frustration, especially among younger blacks, that the incidents have continued under the nation’s first African-American president.

Yet even the usually peaceful demonstrations against those killings since 2014 could be seen as evidence of optimism, said Andra Gillespie, a political scientist at Atlanta’s Emory University.

“You wouldn’t see people taking to the streets and demanding justice if they didn’t think they had a greater chance of being able to change things,” Gillespie said.

Brandon Dixon’s father was asphyxiated by Kansas City police in 2009 during a psychotic episode. The incident shocked Dixon, who gave up his work in construction and decided to plow his family’s life’s savings into opening a restaurant in the impoverished neighborhood where he grew up.

Four years after he bought a former beauty salon to convert into an eatery, Dixon has been unable to open the restaurant because of environmental contamination from a neighboring gas station. He’s struggling financially but hopes his business will finally open in a few weeks, and that it will help turn around his life and his community.

“We’ve always seen adversity,” Dixon said. “You have to not stand still, not be stagnating, keep moving forward.”

Andrew Cherlin, a sociologist at Johns Hopkins University, noted that people tend to evaluate their own prospects based on their parents’ experiences.

“When whites look backwards, they compare themselves to a generation that was doing better,” Cherlin said. “Blacks and Hispanics,” who face less overt discrimination today, “compare themselves to a generation that was doing worse.”

As incomes have stagnated for working class whites, their rates of suicide, drug addiction and mortality have surged. Two economists in December 2015 reported that death rates have been rising since 1999 for whites between ages 45 and 54, with the sharpest increase among the least educated.

By contrast, the suicide rate for black men has dropped since 1999. And the gap between black and white life expectancy is now the lowest in more than a century: 3.4 years. More whites have died than were born since 2011, and the Census Bureau projects that whites will be in the minority by 2060.

Doug Haag lives in Milwaukee. One of the city’s dwindling number of working-class white residents, he feels that the social contract between employers and employees has broken down.

Haag, 59, doesn’t see much job security anymore. He works for the state of Wisconsin, where a recent civil service overhaul makes it easier to fire public employees. Even though he’s had a steady job the past 18 years he considers himself “lower-middle class,” unable to afford vacations or nights out with friends. He worries about whether he’ll be able to retire.

“There’s no middle class any more - the true middle class,” Haag said. “There’s no loyalty from companies any more or from the employees.”

A Trump supporter, Haag said he’s hopeful that the reality show star can restore the country’s position of strength in the world and in the economy.

“He’s going to be able to do that as a businessman,” Haag said.

Adrianne Bockhorst lives in a tonier spot than Haag - in the upscale Milwaukee suburb of Whitefish Bay. She’s a Democrat who plans to vote for Hillary Clinton. But she, too, is worried - shaken by the scars of the recession, which tossed her family into bankruptcy, and by the vitriol of the presidential campaign.

Bockhorst, who is white, tries not to even think of the country’s economic future. “I just ignore it because it scares me so much because of the collapse and what it did to us, our dreams,” she said. “I’m in total denial that something bad could happen again. We don’t have a retirement plan, we don’t have a safety net.”

Bockhorst lives worlds away from the Milwaukee streets which erupted in riots last month in the wake of the shooting of a 23-year-old black man by police after a traffic stop. Milwaukee has the fifth-worst poverty rate in the nation, based on the most recent Census data. But even there you’ll find optimism among minorities.

“We used to have slaves, you know?” said Christine Ricks, whose northside neighborhood was at the center of August’s riots. “There have been improvements. My grandfather and your grandfather used to not be able to drink out of the same fountain.”

Ricks grew up next to what Ricks calls “the biggest dope house in the entire city”; she works as a substitute teacher and has almost no money. But she’s still optimistic that her life will improve, and that Clinton will be elected.

“I think it’s going to be all right; I just don’t know how,” Ricks said. “I would describe it as complete faith in God. Literally. From moment to moment.”

Jose Estrada, 71, emigrated from Mexico to California in the 1960s. He moved to Milwaukee in 1967, became a citizen 11 years later, and retired in 2003 after working a variety of manufacturing jobs. Estrada describes himself as middle class.

“I worked very, very hard to get myself to this point,” he said.

While he supports Clinton and fears Trump would damage the country, Estrada is optimistic about America’s future regardless.

“We will be happy with anyone who gets into that position, and I will respect it,” Estrada said. “Whoever it is, I am living in this country, it is a beautiful country and I love it. I’ve got more here than I ever had in Mexico.”



*National Opinion Research Center (NORC) at the University of Chicago
Non-Profit Organization
Address: 4350 East-West Hwy, Bethesda, MD 20814
Phone:(301) 634-9300


This concept is interesting, and surprising, except that when I was taking a history course some 60 years ago, the professor said that when a true revolution occurs, it is always at a time of cultural improvement and optimism. Hope, apparently, energizes and brings out our creativity – the ability and desire to fight for what we need, instead of seeking chemical solutions to our depression and angst.



http://www.cbsnews.com/news/the-arizona-republic-backs-hillary-clinton-first-democrat-in-120-year-history/

For the first time 120-year history, Arizona paper backs Democrat
By EMILY SCHULTHEIS CBS NEWS September 28, 2016, 12:37 AM

Play VIDEO -- Clinton in North Carolina following heated presidential debate


In more than 120 years, the Arizona Republic has never endorsed a Democrat for president—but on Tuesday, that changed.

The Arizona newspaper threw its support behind Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton in the presidential race, snubbing GOP nominee Donald Trump as “not conservative and … not qualified.”

“Since The Arizona Republic began publication in 1890, we have never endorsed a Democrat over a Republican for president. Never,” the editorial board’s endorsement read. “This reflects a deep philosophical appreciation for conservative ideals and Republican principles. This year is different.”

The editorial, coming on the heels of the first debate, in which Trump’s performance was widely panned, lists a series of reasons Trump isn’t qualified to be president, both on issues of policy and character. He lacks the temperament necessary for a commander-in-chief, it said.

“Trump responds to criticism with the petulance of verbal spit wads,” the endorsement said. “That’s beneath our national dignity. When the president of the United States speaks, the world expects substance. Not a blistering tweet.”

The Arizona Republic blasted Trump for his long history of inflammatory statements about women, minorities and the disabled.

“Trump’s long history of objectifying women and his demeaning comments about women during the campaign are not just good-old-boy gaffes,” the endorsement read. “They are evidence of deep character flaws. They are part of a pattern.”

The Arizona Republic ed board endorses Hillary Clinton, first time we've ever backed a Democrat for president. https://t.co/iU5IIQ5zxG pic.twitter.com/1sICVeqnkS

— azcentral (@azcentral) September 28, 2016

The newspaper’s editorial board wrote that they aren’t endorsing Clinton because they think she’s perfect, and they criticized her for several decisions, including her use of a private email server and questions of undue influence at the State Department

“Make no mistake: Hillary Clinton has flaws,” they wrote, mentioning her use of a private email server and the Clinton Foundation’s foreign donors. “She has made serious missteps.”

Still, the endorsement states that Clinton, not Trump, is the only candidate who could heal the country’s divisions as president.

“This is Hillary Clinton’s opportunity. She can reach out to those who feel left behind,” they wrote. “She can make it clear that America sees them and will address their concerns. She can move us beyond rancor and incivility.”



EXCERPTS -- “Make no mistake: Hillary Clinton has flaws,” they wrote, mentioning her use of a private email server and the Clinton Foundation’s foreign donors. “She has made serious missteps.” Still, the endorsement states that Clinton, not Trump, is the only candidate who could heal the country’s divisions as president. “This is Hillary Clinton’s opportunity. She can reach out to those who feel left behind,” they wrote. “She can make it clear that America sees them and will address their concerns. She can move us beyond rancor and incivility.”


This is a great summary of what I think the standard DNC Democrats face now, and if they still lack incentive to improve their plans for the party and country, the specter of Bernie Sanders is still on the scene, if not on the front row.


MENTAL HEALTH AT ISSUE AGAIN


http://www.cbsnews.com/news/shawn-grate-suspected-serial-killers-chilling-text-meet-the-other-me/

Suspected serial killer's chilling text: "Meet the other me"
By CRIMESIDER STAFF CBS/AP
September 29, 2016, 12:08 PM

Photograph -- Shawn Grate appearing via video feed in an Ashland, Ohio court Sept. 16, 2016 WOIO
Play VIDEO -- Chilling 911 call leads police to kidnapping victim -- and 3 dead bodies


ASHLAND, Ohio -- An occasional drifter linked to the slayings of at least four women in just over a decade could always find a place to stay and someone to give him a lift. Even with little money to his name and a string of arrests in his past, Shawn Grate, 40, was magnetic enough to make friends with almost anyone.

Cleveland 19 News Cleveland, OH

“He just had this way about him that he could draw people in,” said Tim Denis, who struck up a friendship with Grate that fell apart nearly two years ago over a loan.

Denis got a string of angry text messages from Grate, ending with a warning that still gives him chills: “Meet the other me.”

Grate, described by those who know him as a charmer with a dark side, has been charged with killing two women whose bodies were found in a vacant home two weeks ago after another woman called 911.

On that call, the woman said that she had been tied up, but managed to partly freed herself to make the call from her captor’s phone while he was asleep. She is heard whispering to a dispatcher, terrified that she will wake him up.

“I’ve been abducted,” the woman said in the call, begging, “Please hurry.”

Grate pleaded not guilty Thursday to charges outlined in a 23-count indictment, including the killings of the two women -- Elizabeth Griffith, 29, and Stacey Stanley, 43 -- and the abduction in Ashland. He showed no emotion, appearing via video feed as a judge read out the counts against him.

Once in custody, authorities say Grate told them he had killed another woman earlier this summer and a fourth woman sometime around 2005. Police now are looking at whether Grate was involved in the disappearance or death of a fifth woman over a year ago.

Investigators also want to know if there could be more victims from his past - a period when Grate piled up a long list of arrests, was married for about a yea,r [sic] and started a business making handcrafted wood signs that he sold at craft fairs.

The indictment says Grate repeatedly raped the woman who called 911. It also alleges Grate kidnapped Griffith and burglarized her home and charges him with abusing her corpse “in a way that would outrage reasonable community sensibilities.” The indictment accuses Grate of kidnapping, raping and robbing Stanley and destroying evidence.

Prosecutors say they’ll seek the death penalty if he’s convicted. Messages seeking comment have been left with his attorneys.

Grate’s legal problems began a year after he graduated high school. He spent four years in prison on a burglary charge from 1996 after violating his probation.

But most of his trouble centered on his treatment of women, with past charges including domestic violence, aggravated menacing and failing to pay child support. He has two children.

His former wife, who he had a daughter with, filed a protection order against Grate after they divorced in 2012.

“I have been estranged from my ex-husband for four years, and he is not a part of our lives,” Amber Grate said in a statement that asked for privacy after his arrest.

After his marriage ended, he moved from place to place in Ashland and Mansfield - two cities that sit between Cleveland and Columbus.

He sometimes lived with women he met or squatted in abandoned homes.

“He was definitely a charmer,” Denis said. “He was able to get people to do what he wanted.”

Grate didn’t have a car, he said, so he rode his bicycle or relied on friends to get around.

He worked a few maintenance jobs, but was determined to make a living selling the wood signs. For a short time, he peddled them at a storefront in Mansfield, but they didn’t bring in much money, said Denis, who still has a “Home Cookin” sign in his kitchen.

“Outside of doing his signs, he didn’t want to do much else,” Denis said. “He didn’t strike me as motivated to get another job.”

The home in Ashland where the two bodies were found was thought to be vacant. Both women were strangled, according to preliminary autopsy reports.

Authorities have not said how he met the women.

Stanley, of Greenwich, was reported missing five days before her body was discovered. Her son, Kurtis Stanley, said his mother had a flat tire late at night and was at gas station a few blocks from the vacant home.

“I think it was just an accidental run in,” he said. “He was out preying on women and he took my mom.”



The ability to exhibit/imitate signs of personal charm is a frequently found characteristic of the serial killer. That’s how they get in the door to make their attack. They are usually classified as “sociopaths,” who lack real warmth and empathy, but are clever and devious enough to fool people into trusting them. I read a biography of Ted Bundy, who was described as such a person. He was finally executed, but did an interview with a journalist beforehand, which was really interesting.

These people need to be in a locked ward at a long-term hospital for the criminally insane. Unfortunately, we don’t have as many of those facilities as we do prisons. Besides it’s easier to simply dismiss them as being sinful instead of sick, sick, sick! We need to go one step beyond catching and confining them, to intervening at the very beginning when they start to prove that they are unstable and dangerous, usually within their family. Domestic violence is like rape. It tends to be ignored until someone is killed. “Not my problem,” or “she asked for it,” etc. We are a very ignorant society in my view.



http://www.cbsnews.com/news/before-washington-mall-shooting-courts-ordered-mental-health-treatment/

Before Wash. mall shooting, courts ordered mental health treatment for suspect
By CRIMESIDER STAFF AP
September 28, 2016, 4:18 PM

SEATTLE — Assaults on his parents and inappropriate sexual behavior at school led judges to order mental health treatment for the young man charged with killing five people at a Washington state department store, but weekly counseling sessions failed to help him.

Court records obtained by The Associated Press detail a series of criminal charges and attempts to rehabilitate 20-year-old Arcan Cetin, who was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, anxiety disorder and depression. They didn’t detail what caused the PTSD.

A court first ordered Cetin into treatment after he attacked his mother two years ago. He was following a program designed to erase that assault charge when he made unwelcome sexual advances toward two girls in his math class in 2015 and then punched his stepfather soon afterward, the documents say.

Jim Follman, an addiction counselor, wrote in January that there was “a strong likelihood of similar future violations” unless Cetin received treatment for his mental health and substance abuse disorders.

Cetin was involuntarily sent to a hospital for treatment two months earlier because professionals said he was likely to harm himself. He had attempted suicide and overdosed on his prescription drugs several times, records show.

But as recently as Sept. 6, he attended a counseling session and was found to be compliant with his court-ordered treatment.

Cetin’s parents, despite the attacks, helped him pay his rent and frequently visited - his stepfather had dinner with Cetin on Friday before police say he opened fire in the Macy’s cosmetics department at the Cascade Mall in Burlington, north of Seattle.

When officers arrested Cetin near his apartment Saturday night after a nearly 24-hour manhunt, they say he confessed to shooting the victims ranging from a 16-year-old girl to a woman in her 90s. He was charged with five counts of first-degree murder, but prosecutors said they still don’t know what motivated him.

The identities of four of the people killed in the shooting were released Tuesday. They were: Sarai Lara, 16; Shayla Kathleen Martin, 52; Belinda Sue Galde, 64; and Beatrice Dotson, 95. The cause of death was multiple gunshot wounds.

Stepfather David Marshall told reporters as he and Cetin’s mother, Hatice, left a court hearing Monday that they had been working with their son on his “mental health issues” and were devastated by the shooting. They have declined further interviews.

Cetin was arrested on domestic violence charges in October 2014 after arguing with his mother because she wouldn’t let him take his car to see his girlfriend, who had recently moved away. He broke glass in two pieces of furniture, put a hole in a wall and made dents in the refrigerator, she told police.

When Marshall got home and said he couldn’t visit the girl, Cetin exploded again and took his mother’s hand and started smacking himself in the face, she said.

Marshall called 911, and when the dispatcher asked if there were any guns in the home, Marshall said they were under his bed. When Cetin heard the comment, he bolted for the room, with Marshall close behind. Cetin tried to reach the guns, but Marshall pinned him against a wall until officers arrived, the documents say.

He was charged with assault and malicious mischief. In February 2015, the court agreed to dismiss the charges after two years if Cetin complied with the conditions of his probation, including not possessing firearms, drugs or alcohol and attending monthly counseling sessions.

Four months later, two of his classmates at Oak Harbor High School told authorities that he placed his foot between their legs during class and wouldn’t stop. He denied being at school that day when questioned by police but was arrested on two counts of fourth-degree sexual motivation.

Later in June, Cetin had another violent outburst at home, and when his stepfather tried to stop him, he kissed Marshall on the lips. Marshall pushed Cetin away, and Cetin punched his stepfather in the face twice, records say.

He was charged with assault, which included an order not to contact Marshall. But the stepfather asked the court to end the order in December.

“Arcan needs all the support he can get,” Marshall wrote to the judge. “As his father, it is my responsibility to help him as much as possible. With this no-contact order I am unable to help.”

Cetin’s mother told a counselor in November that they rented an apartment for him, but he had not been taking care of himself. He wasn’t taking his medications and may have overdosed as early as September when his mother found an empty vial and she struggled to wake him up, the counselor said in a report.

“I don’t know how to help him,” Hatice Marshall told the counselor.

Cetin was committed to a hospital involuntarily. He told counselors his drugs of choice were alcohol and marijuana.

“He attributes his legal issues to cannabis use,” Follman wrote in January.



Here we are with one of those very naïve reactions on the part of a family member and of the police also. The guy, when his step-father tries to talk to him, “kisses him on the mouth” and then punches him twice. This should be a huge red flag to anybody, but no. They charge him with simple “assault,” rather than dealing with the clear-cut homosexual assault on his step-father. Didn’t that strike the family as well outside the norm? I do wonder if there was a prior history between the two of sexual interactions, of course.

Often kids and parents are sent together by a judge to Family Counselling, which makes lots of sense to me. It addresses the real issues, and probably produces some improvement in the household as a whole. I’m of the opinion that, while some people are really severely and dangerously mentally ill from the earliest times (the “Bad Seed”), many are not and can benefit from knowledgeable and effective intervention, or perhaps from the ABSENCE of mental or physical cruelty.

A couple of the first places the attention to the problem could start are in the school and in the Family Physician’s office. One article said that they haven’t been strongly trained to INTERVENE even when they do see red flags. At any rate we should make a great effort to approach things that way so that our society as a whole can be improved.


ROHYPNOL? POISON? Where is Hercule Poirot?

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/american-sisters-annie-korkki-robin-korkki-found-dead-seychelles-resort/

American sisters found dead in island paradise resort
CBS/AP
September 29, 2016, 8:21 AM

Photograph -- Annie Korkki, 37, and Robin Korkki, 42, are seen in the Seychelles in a photo posted to Annie’s Facebook account on Sept. 19, 2016, three days before sisters were found dead in their resort room by staff. ANNIE KORKKI/FACEBOOK


Members of a bereaved American family are on their way to the tropical island paradise of the Seychelles to try and solve the mystery of what killed two sisters in their shared resort room, and to bring their bodies home.

CBS Denver reports Annie Korkki, 37, and Robin Korkki, 42, were found dead in their villa at the posh Maia Luxury Resort on the Seychelles, a chain of islands in the Indian Ocean about 900 miles from the coast of East Africa.

Local media have reported the sisters were found without any clear signs of physical attack or obvious trauma to their bodies.

The Seychelles Nation newspaper said the women had to be helped to their room by resort staff after drinking the night before they were found, according to CBS Denver. Resort staff found the women in their room and reported it to the police on Sept. 22.

Facebook pictures showed the sisters enjoying their time in the Seychelles for at least a week before they were found dead. According to the Seychelles News Agency’s website, they had been due to depart the island and fly home on Sept. 24.

“They were certified dead by the doctor at the Anse Boileau health centre where they had been transported for examination,” the agency quoted a police spokesman as saying. “Preliminary examination done by the police on the bodies of the two Americans is not showing any signs of violence.”

Officials in the Seychelles, and the Korkki family, were awaiting the results of the autopsies.

The women’s brother, Chris Korkki, of Lakeville, Minnesota, told the Star Tribune his family had learned nothing through official channels about his sisters’ deaths.

Chris Korkki said his mother and brother had traveled to the Seychelles to press officials for answers. He said his mother had also been talking with the U.S. Embassy.

Annie Korkki was a member of a synchronized skating team in Colorado, and CBS Denver said she had taken leave from the team to go on the extended vacation with her sister.

“She talked about it as a trip of a lifetime and I think she and Robin felt like it was a wonderful way to celebrate their relationship, their love of travel, and adventure,” Korkki’s coach Caitlyn Cattelino told the station.



I feel the same way about this case as I did when the JonBenet Ramsay case came out. There is something that is very fishy here. Possibly double suicide, possibly a sexual assault by an outside party who doctored their drinks and then volunteered to “help them” get to their room. That business of both at the same time being, or appearing to be, drunk and having to be helped to their rooms is odd – one, yes, but not both. Of course, there hasn’t apparently been an autopsy yet, just the Police Department’s first judgment. I hope we hear more about this.


EL CAJON YESTERDAY AND TODAY


http://www.cbsnews.com/news/angry-crowd-gathers-at-scene-of-socal-police-shooting/

Angry crowd gathers at scene of SoCal police shooting
CBS/AP
September 28, 2016, 2:29 AM

Rumbie Mubaiwa

EL CAJON, Calif. -- Police shot a man they said was acting erratically in a San Diego suburb Tuesday, drawing an angry cluster of protesters who believed it was another instance of law enforcement shooting an unarmed black man. The man died at a hospital.

Several dozen people, most of them black, gathered and some cursed at officers guarding the scene in El Cajon after the shooting.

Many were chanting “black lives matter!” and “hands up, don’t shoot!”

The protesters later went to police headquarters, reports CBS San Diego affiliate KFMB-TV. The protest was angry but peaceful.

The fatal shooting comes soon after black men were kshot and killed by police in Tulsa, Oklahoma, where peaceful protests developed, and in Charlotte, North Carolina, where violent protests broke out.

A woman who was working the drive-thru window at a restaurant next to the shooting captured it on video. The woman turned her phone over to investigators voluntarily and signed a consent form, police Lt. Rob Ransweiler said.

Police said the man did not have his hands up when he was shot, as some witnesses have said, and police said the cellphone video shows it.

The investigation just started, but based on the video voluntarily provided by a witness, the subject did NOT have his hands up in the air. — El Cajon Police (@elcajonpolice) September 28, 2016

Officers were called to the area of the Broadway Village Shopping Center shortly after 2 p.m. by reports of a man acting erratically, “walking in traffic, that kind of stuff,” Ransweiler said.

A police statement says the man “refused multiple instructions by the first officer on scene to remove his concealed hand from in his pocket. … The subject paced back and forth while officers tried to talk to him. At one point, the subject rapidly drew an object from his front pants pocket, placed both hands together and extended them rapidly toward the officer taking up what appeared to be a shooting stance.”

At that point, the statement said, one officer with a Taser-like device “discharged his weapon” and, at the same time, an officer with a gun fired several shots, hitting the man.

He was taken to a hospital, where he died, police said. He was believed to be in his 30s.

At a news conference, El Cajon Police Chief Jeff Davis appealed for calm and promised a thorough, transparent multi-agency investigation, KFMB reported. He didn’t disclose what the object was that the man had but said no firearm was recovered.

Bystanders reported hearing about five shots, the station said.

Davis said both officers would be put on administrative leave for at least three days, standard procedure for such incidents. Both have more than 20 years on the force, he said.

Michael Ray Rodriguez was among the witnesses who said the man had his hands in the air. He said he was driving out of his apartment complex past the shooting scene and saw a shirtless black man with his hands up and an officer firing seconds later.

The officer “let go of the trigger and shot him again and again,” Rodriguez told the San Diego Union-Tribune.

Several witnesses alleged the officers were unduly quick to open fire and suggested that their actions had been influenced by the fact that they were dealing with a black man, one they described as mentally challenged, KFMB said.

One man angrily told reporters the victim was suffering a seizure prior to the shooting.

One woman who appeared in a video posted by Rumbie Mubaiwa on her Facebook page is heard telling police at the scene that the man was ordered to take his hand out of his pocket.

“I said, ‘Take your hand out your pocket, baby, or they’re going to shoot you.’ He said ‘No, no, no,”’ the woman said. “When he lifted his hand out ... he did have something in his hand but it wasn’t no gun, and that’s when they shot him.”

On Mubaiwa’s tape, a woman wearing hospital-style scrub clothing who said she was the man’s sister appeared distraught, repeatedly shrieking and crying, telling officers she had called them to help her brother.

“I just called for help, and you came and killed him,” she said.

“Don’t you guys have crisis communications teams to talk to somebody mentally sick?” she asks.

A new policy by the San Diego County District Attorney’s office requires release of such officer-involved shooting footage, but it was unclear when that would happen, Ransweiler said.

The police department is working on a program to have officers wear body cameras, but none have been issued, Ransweiler said.

El Cajon is a city 15 miles northeast of San Diego and has a population of about 100,000. It is 69 percent white and 6 percent black, according to 2010 census figures. It has become a common home for refugees fleeing Iraq and, more recently, Syria.



http://www.cbsnews.com/news/alfred-olango-shooting-el-cajon-officer-involved-in-deadly-police-shooting-was-sex-suit-target/

El Cajon officer involved in deadly shooting was demoted after sex complaint
By CRIMESIDER STAFF CBS/AP
September 29, 2016, 1:04 PM

Photograph -- Community members protest the fatal shooting of an unarmed black man in El Cajon, Calif. CBS NEWS
Play VIDEO -- El Cajon shooting raises questions about police training


EL CAJON, Calif. -- One of the officers involved in a deadly confrontation with an unarmed black man in a San Diego suburb was demoted last year amid allegations that he sexually harassed a lesbian colleague.

Richard Gonsalves, who has 21 years with the El Cajon Police Department, was identified by the mayor as one of two officers who confronted Alfred Olango on Tuesday. Authorities haven’t said which officer shot and killed Olango.

Gonsalves was a sergeant when Christine Greer sued him and the city last year. She alleged that Gonsalves repeatedly made unwanted sexual advances, which included texting her a photo of his penis and on another occasion texting that he was drunk and wanted to have three-way sex with Greer and her wife.

The lawsuit also contended that Gonsalves harassed other women.

After two investigations, Gonsalves was demoted from sergeant to officer, but he was allowed to remain on the force. That decision angered some citizens who said Gonsalves should have been fired.

But City Manager Douglas Williford stood by the decision. “It’s entirely possible that a judge or a jury at some point in the future may disagree with the city’s decision, and obviously the city will defend its decision with the utmost vigor,” Williford told the City Council at a meeting where speakers called for Gonsalves to be dismissed.

Greer’s lawsuit was settled months later. But she filed a second lawsuit this August.

Greer contends that she faced retaliation from male colleagues and had been forced to work in the presence of Gonsalves.

The lawsuit also alleges that Gonsalves has harassed Greer by spitting on her locker and following her down a hallway, said her attorney, Dan Gilleon.

An email to the president of the El Cajon Police Officers’ Association seeking comment from Gonsalves was not immediately returned.

Police said that on Wednesday, Olango, a refugee from Uganda, pulled out a large electronic cigarette, known as a vape pen, from his pocket and pointed it at the police officer in a “shooting stance” before an officer fired. Police have produced a single frame from a cellphone video to support their account.

A family attorney said Olango was having an emotional breakdown over the recent death of his best friend. His sister is heard on a video taken by an eyewitness that he was “mentally sick.”



EXCERPT – “After two investigations, Gonsalves was demoted from sergeant to officer, but he was allowed to remain on the force. That decision angered some citizens who said Gonsalves should have been fired. But City Manager Douglas Williford stood by the decision. “It’s entirely possible that a judge or a jury at some point in the future may disagree with the city’s decision, and obviously the city will defend its decision with the utmost vigor,” Williford told the City Council at a meeting where speakers called for Gonsalves to be dismissed. …. Greer contends that she faced retaliation from male colleagues and had been forced to work in the presence of Gonsalves. The lawsuit also alleges that Gonsalves has harassed Greer by spitting on her locker and following her down a hallway, said her attorney, Dan Gilleon. …. pulled out a large electronic cigarette, known as a vape pen, from his pocket and pointed it at the police officer in a “shooting stance” …” “I just called for help, and you came and killed him,” she said. “Don’t you guys have crisis communications teams to talk to somebody mentally sick?” she asks.”


Come on, this is old hat after Weiner did his bit. “Texting her a photo of his penis” is becoming boring. And spitting on her locker? The personal behavior of Gonsalves is thoroughly despicable, and he should have been fired immediately, rather than demoted, but that is a common factor in the police misbehavior cases. Cops go along with no restraint until a group like the DOJ or, now BLM, get involved. In this case it went on until he did something deadly, and now they have a new case to give due and probably very slow consideration to! Pardon my cynicism.

But the lack of CRISIS COMMUNICATIONS TEAMS in MOST cities is the worst and most unfair part of this situation in my view. It comes up again and again. Do we have to specifically ASK FOR AN AMBULANCE every time? Doesn’t anybody in the city government have any common sense??These calls about the insane shouldn’t go first to the police, anyway, but to the Fire/Rescue Department instead, and they should always bring a straitjacket and some injectable tranquilizer with them. Patching people’s broken bones isn’t the only reason for a rescue squad (as they used to be called.) They make tranquilizer guns for use on animals, and they could be used on humans also.