Category Archives: Crime

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Y’all in a heap o’ trouble, boys! These guys are as dumb as a box of rocks.

We have previously noted the two mass shootings at SEPTA bus stops being used by high school students to get home. It’s only taken the Philadelphia Police a few days to identify the (alleged) shooters in the second incident. From The Philadelphia Inquirer:

Two teens charged with Burholme shooting that injured 8 students at a bus stop

The arrests came as students from Northeast High School returned to class.

by Ellie Rushing and Ximena Conde | Saturday, March 11, 2024 | 1:09 PM EDT | Updated: 6:36 PM EDT

Two 18-year-olds have been charged with attempted murder and related crimes in connection with the shooting of eight Northeast High School students who were struck by bullets as they waited for a bus after school last week, police said Monday.

Ahnile Buggs (L) and Jamaal Tucker (R), mugshots via Steve Keeley of Fox 29 News.

Jamaal Tucker and Ahnile Buggs were taken into custody over the weekend and have each been charged with seven counts of aggravated assault and related offenses. Buggs and Tucker were also charged with one count of attempted murder, conspiracy, and illegal gun possession after police said they jumped out of a car at Rising Sun and Cottman Avenues and started shooting into a group of kids Wednesday afternoon.

Eight students, ages 15 to 17, were injured in the gunfire. One 16-year-old was shot nine times.

Police Commissioner Kevin Bethel said Monday that detectives believe Tucker and Buggs were among four shooters. Two others involved in the crime remain at large — a third shooter and their getaway driver, he said.

No, of course the Inquirer didn’t include the mugshots of the (alleged) malefactors. I got those from Steve Keeley of Fox 29 News.

Commissioner Bethel wasn’t forthcoming on the details of the investigation, but stated that it may have been related to the first shooting, the one which killed Dayemen Taylor. Deputy Commissioner Frank Vanore said that evidence was recovered from the stolen car the (alleged) shooters used, which had been dumped in Olney. He also stated that a .40-caliber Glock 22 pistol with an extended magazine, laser pointer, and a “switch,” a small device that attaches to a semi-automatic gun and makes it capable of fully automatic fire, had been recovered.

Many of the kids shot were seriously injured — one 16-year-old who was shot nine times was intubated and only recently upgraded from critical condition and able to talk. Another 16-year-old was shot multiple times in the chest and was expected to recover, while a 15-year-old had a bullet lodged in his spine and faced a risky surgery and long recovery ahead, their families said.

So, what’s going to happen? The two mass shootings have outraged the Powers That Be in the City of Brotherly Love, and even the George Soros-sponsored, police-hating, and softer-than-a-kitten-on-crime District Attorney, Larry Krasner, vowed that the perpetrators would be harshly prosecuted, though I believe that when I actually see it. The two identified suspects are just 18 years old, and no one has exposed any adult criminal records on them, but no one would be surprised if there are sealed juvenile records. It would be very interesting if we learn that one or more of the offenders could have been in juvie last week, but were given lenient treatment by the District Attorney’s Office.

If Messrs Tucker and Buggs were two of the shooters, then let’s tell the truth: they’re both idiots, just plain stupid, dumb as a box of rocks. We don’t yet know the motives for the shootings, but whatever Mr Tucker was taken into custody just two days after the shooting, and Mr Buggs the day after that. Both men are looking at possibly decades in prison, and for what? Just plain stupidity.

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This is what happens when you are soft on crime!

Italian soldiers on guard near the Arch of Constantine, Roma, June 19, 2016. Photo by D R Pico; may be freely used, with attribution.

In response to the huge surge in crime, and the extremely lax prosecution of it by Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner, the Pennsylvania General Assembly passed, and Governor Josh Shapiro, a Democrat, signed into law, Act 40, which created a special prosecutor to investigate and prosecute crimes “occurring within a public transportation authority that serves as the primary provider of public passenger transportation in the county of the first class.” Philadelphia is the only First-Class City/County in the Keystone State.

This was a clear and obvious attempt to bypass Let ’em Loose Larry, whose lenient prosecution has led to outrage, and we continually hear of violent crimes committed in the city by people who could and should have already been in prison, were it not for the George Soros-sponsored, police-hating and softer-than-Charmin-on-crime Mr Krasner.

Act 40 required, in §1786(a), the state Attorney General to appoint said special prosecutor, “Within 30 days of the effective date of this section,” but that appointment has not yet been made, with the 30 day period long having elapsed. And SEPTA, “the primary provider of public passenger transportation” in foul, fetid, fuming, foggy, filthy Philadelphia, has seen an unfortunate surge in violent crime in recent weeks, including two mass shootings as public school students were at SEPTA bus stops for their rides home.

Governor Kathy Hochul (D-NY) was seeing a similar issue in the New York City subway system, and she took the radical action of deploying 750 National Guard troops to the subways to deter crime. From The Wall Street Journal:

Armed Troops on the New York City Subways

Gov. Hochul would do better by firing New York’s progressive DAs and restoring the successful anticrime policies of the 1990s and 2000s.

by The Editorial Board | Saturday, March 9, 2024 | 5:50 PM EST

Here’s a poser to consider for 2025: What if Donald Trump is elected again and decides to send the military to prevent crime or control riots in America’s streets? Wouldn’t half of America lose its collective mind about the supposed threat to democracy?

That’s a rhetorical question, of course, because President Trump did offer to send federal marshals to help cities provide order during the 2020 summer of hate following the unfortunate death-while-resisting-arrest of the methamphetamine-and-fentanyl-addled career criminal George Floyd, and the Democratic mayors of our major cities didn’t want anything to do with that.

Yet that’s essentially what New York Gov. Kathy Hochul did this week in dispatching the state National Guard to patrol New York City’s subways to reduce crime. The Democratic Governor is sending 750 troops and 250 state police officers to guard subway trains and platforms amid a spike in violence and robbery against passengers.

No doubt many New Yorkers will be relieved at the sight, even if it will be somewhat disconcerting to see men in military fatigues on the trains. We know from experience it’s reassuring to see NYPD blue in a subway car when a homeless man is harassing passengers for money or because he’s drugged up.

Ms. Hochul is also calling for judges to have more authority to ban people from the subways if they’ve assaulted commuters or subway workers. She wants to add security cameras, and Mayor Eric Adams said this week he’s asked New York police to expand bag searches on the subways.

Israeli police, near the fourth Station of the Cross, Via Dolorosa, Jerusalem, November 2022, photo by D R Pico, may be freely used, with attribution.

The editorial included a photo of two National Guardsmen, one of whom was holding a semi-automatic rifle, complete with the magazine in place. Rather than use that, I included a photo I took — no copyright problems there! — of armed Italian Carabinieri, outside of the Arch of Constantine, near the Coliseum. We were not somehow unnerved by the sight, but it was an uncomfortable reminder that Italy has seen more than its share of terrorism.

Less pleasant was the vista of three armed Israeli policemen by the fourth Station of the Cross, but Israel has far worse terrorism problems than anyplace else. As a civilized people, we don’t like the thought that there are uncivilized barbarians out there, barbarians who think nothing of theft, violence, and murder. The George Soros-sponsored far-left prosecutors, like Manhattan’s Alvin Bragg and Mr Krasner, are simply too stupid to recognize that there really are barbarians out there, and there are hard-left liberals like the late Jen Angel of Oakland who think that all the barbarians need is some love and hugs.

Back to the Journal:

This is progress after the denial that has prevailed for years among the city’s ruling Democrats. Former Mayor Bill de Blasio and progressives started the downhill slide when they waged political war on cops, on stop and frisk policing, and on the enforcement of offenses against civilized norms.

Yet sending in the military to protect mass transit is also in some sense a sign of societal and political surrender. It means that New York has concluded that it can’t protect its citizens with a normal police presence, or with the laws against vagrancy that once prevailed, or with prosecutors who used to put people in jail for crimes against public order. So send in the guys with assault rifles.

Governor Shapiro has stated that he has no intention of sending the National Guard to help defend SEPTA, so that’s not an issue in Philly yet. But New York City did show the way, in the 1990s, with Mayor Rudy Giuliani and a no-nonsense, “broken windows” policing program. The NYPD arrested, and the prosecutors charged, the wannabe goons who were just starting out in their lives of crime, meting out strict punishment for the little stuff with the idea that strict punishment for the ‘little’ stuff would educate the prospective criminals that crime does not pay.

And, even those wannabes who were too stupid to learn were off the streets, and no danger to the public. Then, when they went back on the streets, if they resumed breaking the laws, they already had criminal records, which meant longer sentences for subsequent crimes.

Governor Hochul took an action which, let’s be plain about this, reeks of desperation. She simply had to Do Something, because the criminal class and their families, along with the untouched liberals in Central Park West, are so f(ornicating) stupid to understand that treating criminals leniently simply leads to more criminals.

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In the wake of two shootings when students were boarding SEPTA buses, Jenice Armstrong wants fewer criminals put in prison

My good friend Daniel Pearson — OK, OK, we’ve never actually met, but we’ve interacted on Twitter, so that should count! — tweeted yesterday that he believed “the single most effective way to keep Philadelphia’s children safe would be passing common sense gun control measures.” An editorial writer for The Philadelphia Inquirer, Mr Pearson is a liberal Democrat, but he’s not the far-left whacko type, and you can peacefully and politely interact with him.

Mr Pearson’s tweet follows the news in the City of Brotherly Love as twice this week, as twice bullets rang out at SEPTA stops where students were catching bus rides home from school: the shooting at the “Five Points” intersection of Rising Sun and Cottman Avenues in the Burholme section of Northeast Philly left eight students from Northeast High School wounded, while Dayemen Taylor was killed, and four others injured at another bus stop shooting, this time on Ogontz, also in North Philly.

Naturally, all of the Powers That Be in Philly are upset, appalled, aghast, and spewing a lot of words. Philly’s softer-than-Charmin-on-crime District Attorney, Larry Krasner, said that the Ogontz shooting brought him to tears, and promised “swift justice,” saying, “This is an absolute outrage. It will be solved, and those responsible will be vigorously prosecuted.” Yeah, uh huh, right. Odds are that, when the suspects are identified, it will be determined that they had previous ‘contact’ with the criminal justice system, and they suffered almost no consequences.

For now, police are focused on recovering more evidence and chasing down tips, (Deputy Police Commissioner Frank) Vanore said. Investigators believe the three shooters were likely juveniles, he said, which makes it all the more concerning that they each had a handgun.

In other words, those “common sense gun control laws” that Mr Pearson advocated were already being broken, in that it is already illegal for juveniles to possess and carry handguns in Philly. Given that they used a stolen, blue Hyundai Sonata, which was later abandoned in Olney, as their getaway car, and that they sprayed more than 30 shots into the crowd, it would seem that the malefactors really don’t give a damn about laws.

But today, Inquirer columnist Jenice Armstrong decided to tell us that the city shouldn’t be locking up people for gun crimes!

Philly program keeps gun offenders out of prison. I’m all for it.

Over the years, I’ve become more skeptical that incarceration is the answer to all our crime problems.

by Jenice Armstrong | Thursday, March 7, 2024 | 6:00 AM EST

I love a graduation ceremony, and the one I attended last month was no exception.

But this one was a little different. For starters, it took place inside a courtroom at the Juanita Kidd Stout Center for Criminal Justice in Center City. Also, there was no playing of the quintessential graduation song, “Pomp and Circumstance,” no wearing of caps and gowns. The graduates were dressed in hoodies, jeans, work boots, and other casual attire. There were few family members present, although one graduate carried a small daughter on his hip.

Each had successfully met the requirements for a new diversionary program called the Alternative Felony Disposition program. Created in 2021 by the Philadelphia District Attorney’s Office, with input from the Center for Carceral Communities at the University of Pennsylvania’s School of Social Work, the program allows people with no prior criminal record who have been arrested on illegal gun charges to avoid jail time. The current crop of graduates, who began the program in July, had been assigned social workers they met with regularly. They also had been expected to attend group sessions with other defendants.

There’s more at the original.

Miss Armstrong has forgotten one obvious thing: those who are locked up, for gun crimes as well as other offenses, are not out on the streets, stealing Kias and Hyundais to use as getaway vehicles from planned shootings.

I also better understand that crime is a complex problem — one that Philly can’t expect to arrest its way out of. I agree with officials who say the city’s focus should be on the long-standing structural and systemic issues that drive people to arm themselves illegally, such as underfunded schools, government neglect of impoverished and broken neighborhoods, and a bloated justice system that targets poor and Black and brown city residents.

Miss Armstrong just can’t seem to understand, or at least admit it if she does understand, that the criminal justice system “targets poor and black and brown city residents” because the majority of crime in Philly is committed by those ‘people of color.’ Perhaps ‘incarceration isn’t the answer to all our crime problems’, but it’s the answer to the vast majority of them.

It’s an interesting set of messages: Mr Pearson wants more “common sense gun control measures” to fight crime, while Miss Armstrong doesn’t want those who violate existing laws to be punished. How does that work?

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Hold them accountable! Larry Krasner is at least indirectly responsible for Dayemen Taylor's murder. The only question is: is he directly responsible?

Shootings and homicides have decreased in the City of Brotherly Love over the past two years, with 55 murders as of the end of March 5, as compared to 79 on the same date last year. But, as the aggregate numbers decrease, more attention gets paid to some of the individual cases. No one really cares all that much when one gang-banger kills another gang-banger, but when a seemingly innocent kid gets targeted and murdered, even The Philadelphia Inquirer takes notice.

The newspaper had a fairly long story, by reporters Ellie Rushing and Kristen A. Graham, on the apparently deliberately targeted Dayemen Taylor, a 17-year-old student at Imhotep Charter, an African-centered school with a science, technology engineering and mathematics (STEM) focus.

About 3:45 p.m. Monday, as a group of students boarded SEPTA’s No. 6 bus to head home, police say, two young men in hoodies and masks ran up from behind, guns in hand.

They fired indiscriminately at close range at least 40 times, police said, spraying bullets among the crowd of kids and through the bus windows. In total, five people were shot, including a 14-year-old boy and a 71-year-old woman.

As the shooters closed in on the group in Ogontz, in North Philadelphia, police said, they strode toward Dayemen Taylor, a 17-year-old Imhotep student, and shot him multiple times. He died minutes later — targeted, police said, for reasons detectives don’t yet understand. Taylor, they said, was a respected student with no prior contact with law enforcement. And while investigators are looking into whether a fight at Imhotep earlier in the day may have led to the shooting, the motive remained unclear and no arrests had been made, said Deputy Police Commissioner Frank Vanore.

There’s plenty more in the story, much of it telling readers what a good kid young Mr Taylor was, which sadly reminded me of past Inquirer stories in which the innocent victims was, in the end, not quite as innocent as depicted. But I’ve grown cynical in my elder years, and I’ve heard no evidence that Mr Taylor was anything other than the innocent victim portrayed.

But what struck me the most were these two paragraphs:

The case brought District Attorney Larry Krasner to tears on Tuesday, and he vowed swift justice.

“This is an absolute outrage. It will be solved, and those responsible will be vigorously prosecuted,” he said.

Oh, Mr Krasner was crying, was he? He was outraged, and he vowed swift justice, did he? That stupid piece of [insert vulgar term for feces here] is responsible for much of the killing on Philadelphia’s mean streets, because he has refused to take ‘lesser’ crimes seriously. He doesn’t like to prosecute crimes involving firearm possession, his minions and he allow very lenient plea deals, especially to juveniles, and he’s proud that the incarcerated population has dramatically declined on his watch. He delights on getting previously convicted criminals released, and on charging Philadelphia Police Officers whenever he can. He is at least indirectly responsible for this homicide, because he has done more than anyone else in Philadelphia to enable a culture and climate in which crime has been enabled.

Is he directly responsible? We don’t know yet, because the killers have not yet been identified. But it would surprise no one if, when the murderers are identified, they are individuals ‘known to the police,’ guys who have been arrested before and given lenient treatment by the city’s softer-than-Charmin-on-crime District Attorney. It would surprise no one if it turned out that the two gunmen both could and should have been behind bars on Monday afternoon.

And if it turns out that they could and should have been locked up on Monday, then Mr Krasner is directly responsible for young Mr Taylor’s murder. When will he be held accountable?

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The credentialed media: Be just as aware of what you are not being told as what is presented That's how you can spot the biases!

We have reported, several times recently, on how the credentialed media write their stories to obscure the incidences in which teachers accused of sexual abuse are actually being accused of homosexual sexual abuse. I stated explicitly, when I see a story in the credentialed media about the sexual abuse of a minor, if it is written in a manner to obscure the sex of the victim, I suspect that the abuse was homosexual in nature.

So, when I saw this story, in the Lexington Herald-Leader, I had to read it to see if it went along with my suspicions.

Kentucky assistant principal with past discipline issues resigns amid investigation

by Beth Musgrave | Monday, March 4, 2024 | 1:14 PM EST | Updated 5:12 PM EST

An assistant principal at McCreary Central High School has resigned amid a police and state investigation, school officials confirmed Monday.Aaron Anderson resigned Feb. 27 rather than face termination, said Superintendent Brian Crawford.

No, of course the Herald Leader did not include a photo of Mr Anderson, but at The First Street Journal we always include mugshots or other photos of the accused. However, the only image I was able to find was a TikTok video, from which I took a screenshot.

Kentucky State Police is investigating Anderson’s conduct along with the Cabinet for Health and Family Services Department of Community Based Services, which investigates child and adult abuse complaints, said Crawford.

Crawford said he could not comment on the nature of the investigation.

Officials with Kentucky State Police did not immediately respond to questions about the investigation.

Crawford said Anderson has been disciplined in the past. He was suspended with pay in January but Crawford said due to privacy and personnel laws he could not say why Anderson had been disciplined.

In 2017, Anderson was reprimanded by the Educational Professional Standards Board, which oversees educator’s teaching licenses, for having a sexual encounter with an adult on a school bus during an elementary school basketball tournament, according to a September 2017 article in The Voice, the McCreary County newspaper.

So, reporter Beth Musgrave had the 2017 article she referenced, an article which explicitly stated that the “sexual encounter” for which Mr Anderson was “reprimanded” involved an adult woman, and was thus heterosexual in nature. Miss Musgrave was the same Herald-Leader reporter who wrote the initial article about the accusations against April Bradford, and structured it in a manner which concealed the fact that Miss Bradford’s actions were homosexual in nature. Did she also conceal the nature of Mr Anderson’s actions?

Nope!

The allegations came out after the woman later applied for a position with the school system and did not get it. Anderson told investigators the relationship was consensual and he did not have any say in the woman being hired.

So, Miss Musgrave was perfectly willing to tell us when normal sex was involved, but kept it unspoken when the allegations were homosexual in nature. McClatchy reporter Mike Stunson did the same.

However, journalistic honesty requires that I also report different results. As we reported previously, Herald-Leader reporter Valarie Honeycutt Spears did not include whether the sexual offenses alleged against Henry Clay High School teacher Kevin Lentz were heterosexual or homosexual in nature in her original story on August 8, 2023. However, in her follow-up story on August 9th, she did report that the accusations against Mr Lentz involved attempting to lure a 9-year-old boy into the production of child pornography.

I have stated before that I much prefer newspapers to television or radio news, due to my seriously compromised hearing, and because the print media have the ability to treat stories in significantly greater depth. But in reading newspapers, or getting your news from any of the credentialed media sources, you have to be aware of what you are not being told, as much as what is presented.
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Also posted on American Free News Network. Check out American Free News Network for more well written and well reasoned conservative commentary.

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My White Privilege is nothing compared to Accredited Victim Group™ Privilege

If you check one Accredited Victim Group™ box, prosecution for crimes in the City of Brotherly Love seems to be reduced. If you check two Accredited Victim Group™ boxes, your chances of being prosecuted are further reduced. So, just imagine if you check three Accredited Victim Group™ boxes!

City LGBT official and husband arrested by state trooper will not face charges at this time, DA’s Office said

Celena Morrison and her husband were arrested by a state trooper after a traffic stop Saturday morning.

by Ellie Rushing | Sunday, March 3, 2024 | 10:55 AM EST | Updated: 1:54 PM EST

A top Philadelphia official and her husband who were arrested by a Pennsylvania State trooper this weekend have been released from custody and were not charged with any crimes, a spokesperson for the state police said Sunday.

“Celena” Morrison, from his city biography page, which is a public record.

Celena Morrison, the city’s executive director of the Office of LGBT Affairs, and her husband, Darius McLean, were taken into custody Saturday morning following a confrontation with a state trooper on the Vine Street Expressway. A video of their arrests, captured by Morrison, quickly circulated on social media and appeared to show McLean lying on the shoulder of the highway, begging the trooper to let him go.

“I work for the mayor! I work for the mayor!” Morrison yelled, before the trooper can be heard telling her to “shut the f— up.”

The trooper then turns to arrest Morrison and, as the video pans toward the sky, she can be heard saying, “He just punched me.”

There’s more at the original.

So, what boxes are checked? Miss Morrison is black, so that’s box number one. Miss Morrison is homosexual, so that’s box number two. And Miss Morison is actually Mr Morrison, a male who believes he is female, and thus checks the transgender box. Mr McLean is black, so that’s box number one for him, and he is homosexual, given that he is married to another male, so that’s box number two.

According to the newspaper, Mr Morrison was pulled over on the Vine Street Expressway, because:

  • the vehicle’s registration was expired and suspended;
  • the windows were illegally tinted;
  • the vehicle’s headlights were not illuminated in the rain; and
  • Mr Morrison was following too closely behind another driver.

Those are all important issues. If the vehicle’s registration was expired and suspended, that means that in any accident in which Mr Morrison might have been involved, even if the vehicle had insurance, the insurance company could refuse to pay any liabilities required. If the vehicle’s headlights were not on while driving in the rain, that created a safety violation, as other drivers would be less able to see the vehicle. And if Mr Morrison was following another car too closely, and had to stop quickly, he might not have been able to do so, especially on wet roads.

What was a city official doing driving a vehicle in that condition?

Mr McLean saw his “wife’s” vehicle having been pulled over by a state policeman, and decided to stop and interfere.

State police initially filed several misdemeanor and summary charges against the couple, but the charges were declined by the District Attorney’s Office “pending additional review,” said agency spokesperson Lt. Adam Reed. They were released from custody Saturday evening.

Jane Roh, spokesperson for the DA’s Office, said that no charging decisions have been made but that officials are investigating all aspects of the incident.

Translation: they’re going after the state trooper for doing his job.

At one point, McLean said: “Please just stop. It’s because I’m Black.”

The state trooper did not stop Mr McLean; he stopped himself. Given that the vehicle Mr Morrison was driving was cited for having windows which were illegally tinted, among other things, the trooper couldn’t really see that the driver was black.

The Keystone State ceased issuing annual stickers for license plates in 2018, and went to automated license plate scanners mounted in police cars. The state policeman did not need to run the plates on Mrs Morrison’s car; that was done automatically by computer, and the trooper was alerted to this in his vehicle. Pennsylvania only issues rear license plates, so the trooper was behind the grey Infiniti sedan when the plate was scanned.

There’s some real privilege being shown here, and it isn’t that dreaded “White Privilege” about which the left so frequently whine. If my wife, who is white, had been pulled over for the same infractions, and I proceeded to stop behind the police car, and pulled the same bovine feces Mr McLean did, I’d be in jail, awaiting a Monday morning arraignment to get bail set. Of course, my wife would simply have accepted the tickets, even if she was unhappy about it, and I wouldn’t be stupid enough to try to interfere with a law enforcement officer. But, then again, we don’t have Accredited Victim Group™ Privilege.

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All the News That’s Politically Correct Do the credentialed media really think we don't notice?

I have written it previously: when I see a story in the credentialed media about the sexual abuse of a minor, if it is written in a manner to obscure the sex of the victim, “I suspect that the abuse was homosexual in nature.” Now, fresh on the heels of our stories about April Bradford’s sexual abuse of two female middle and high school students, this one appeared in my media feed, from the Lexington Herald-Leader.

Teacher sexually abused student for years, including in her classroom, Iowa cops say

By Mike Stunson | Wednesday, February 21, 2024 | 4:53 PM CST

A teacher faces sexual abuse charges following a yearslong “inappropriate sexual relationship” with a student, Iowa police say.

Rachel Whiteside, via Iowa News Now

Rachel Whiteside, a 34-year-old teacher and coach with the Ankeny Community School District, turned herself in Wednesday, Feb. 21, according to the city of Ankeny. She is charged with third-degree child abuse, four counts of sexual exploitation by a school employee, and lascivious conduct with a minor.

Authorities learned in January of the incidents involving Whiteside when the victim came forward to the Ankeny School District, officials said.

The victim reported being in ninth grade when the abuse began, KCCI reported, citing court documents. The victim was 14 years old at the time.

Police said the “sexual conduct” continued for years while the student attended the Ankeny Community School District between 2015 and 2018. The incidents continued until the victim was 23, according to the Des Moines Register.

There’s more at the original. Neither the Lexington Herald-Leader, where I first saw the story on Sunday morning, nor the Kansas City Star, another McClatchy newspaper, had the mugshot of the accused, even though it was available in several places. The Des Moines Register, a Gannett newspaper which Mike Stunson’s article cites, also failed to include Miss Whiteside’s photo.

Why was I interested at all? As I stated, when I don’t see any references to the victim’s sex, I always assume that it was homosexual in nature, and I wanted to confirm my suspicion. And yup, Mr Stunson’s article was written in a manner in which the victim’s sex was carefully concealed.

But The Des Moines Register let it slip, just barely, and just once, in the seventh paragraph down:

She (Miss Whiteside) also kept photographs of the victim in her classroom, and had kept a note written by the victim when she was a student in middle or high school in her desk drawer, according to court documents.

Emphasis mine.

Mr Stunson referenced the Des Moines Register article in his original, which included that reference to the victim’s sex, so, unless he’s a sloppy reader — something which is always a possibility — he knew that the victim was female, and wrote his article in a manner deliberately to conceal it.

But there’s more. Iowa News Now reported, in a reference which was easily found by a Google search of Rachel Whiteside, part of the victim’s statement to law enforcement:

As a minor, I was confused about my sexuality and wasn’t sure about my own identity. Rachel Whiteside groomed me and abused me. It wasn’t until just before I turned 23 that I broke ties with her.

Did Mr Stunson not do any more research? Does he believe that people wouldn’t be asking that question? Of course, to be fair, he could well be following the directives of his editors?

It is the Accepted Wisdom of our good friends on the left that homosexuality has nothing to do with the sexual abuse of minors, nothing at all, but it certainly seems that a much greater incidence of such reported crimes are homosexual in nature than the prevalence of homosexuals in our society. I suppose that we weren’t supposed to notice that.

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You in a heap o’ trouble, boy! There are some real super-geniuses in the criminal world!

Daquis Sharp, mugshot by Fayette County Detention Center, and is a public record.

It was just Thursday that we reported on three absolute super-geniuses, for shooting and wounding a Lexington police detective. Well, now on what the talking heads at the Weather Channel are calling the first day of meteorological spring, we’re learning more, and it isn’t pretty.

Two suspects charged for firing on Lexington police detective linked to other shooting

by Christopher Leach | Friday, March 1, 2024 | 7:39 AM | Updated: 9:45 AM

Two of the three suspects who have been accused of shooting a Lexington police officer earlier this week are facing new charges from a another shooting this past summer, according to the Lexington Police Department.

Daquis Sharp, 27, and Jatiece Parks, 19, have both been charged with two counts of first-degree assault (complicity) and one count of first-degree wanton endangerment (complicity). Police said the charges are connected to a shooting that injured three people, including a juvenile.

Jatiecee Parks, mugshot by Fayette County Detention Center, and is a public record.

The shooting happened on July 4 on the 500 block of Stonehaven Drive. Police said they found shell casings and damaged property on the scene and while investigating, three people showed up at a local hospital with gunshot wounds. Their injuries were described as non-life-threatening.

Parks was one of the three people injured in the shooting, according to court documents. He told investigators he was lighting fireworks at a party when an unknown vehicle drove by and fired shots.

During the investigation, detectives learned Parks was not an attendee at the party and had lied in his initial statement. Court documents say Sharp planned the shooting and was present with Parks when it occurred.

There’s more at the original.

No, of course what my best friend used to call the Lexington Herald-Liberal didn’t publish the (alleged) malefactors’ mugshots; it seems that exceptions taken to the McClatchy Mugshot Policy are only taken when the accused criminals are white.

There’s more below the fold, because I have a video embedded there. Continue reading →

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Why don’t we take sex crimes against children seriously? Perhaps just 3½ years for a lesbian in lady jail isn’t really “address(ing) teachers who prey on students”?

April Bradford. Photo via Kentucky Today.

We have twice previously mentioned the very lovely April Bradford. Miss Bradford sexually assaulted (at least) two female students, beginning when at least one of them was in middle school.

According to the Floyd County Chronicle, Miss Bradford was indicted on

  • KRS §530.064 First-degree unlawful transaction with a minor (class B felony), 11 counts. Under subsection (2)(b), this offense is a Class B felony if the victim is less than 16 years old;
  • KRS §510.080 Second-degree sodomy (class C felony), one count. Under subsection (1), second-degree sodomy is defined as deviate sexual intercourse with a victim who is under 14 years old, or is incapable of consent due to mental deficiency or incapacitation; and
  • KRS §510.090 Third-degree sodomy (class D felony), seven counts. Under subsection (1)(d) this is deviate sexual intercourse with a person under 18 over whom the perpetrator holds a position of authority.

There was clearly some heavy-duty plea bargaining which has occurred, because under KRS §532.060, the minimum sentence for a Class B felony is not less than ten years, and for a Class C felony, not less than five years. According to WYMT, Miss Bradford pleaded guilty to eight counts of third-degree sodomy and 11 counts of first-degree sexual abuse. Under KRS §510.110, First degree sexual abuse is a Class D felony, the sentence for which is not less than one year, nor more than five years. Miss Bradford received a medium sentence for Class D felonies, and was not convicted of the Class C or B felonies.

Perhaps the state attorney general, who was prosecuting this case, didn’t want to have to put the two known victims on the stand, a fairly reasonable thing in cases where the victims are kept anonymous, but the two victims, Jessica Hensley and Mary Prater, chose to come forward publicly, and made their statements.

Also on this topic: Robert Stacy McCain, “Let’s Talk About Things That Never Happen, According to Mainstream Media“

It may still be the case that the victims did not wish to relive their cases on the witness stand, but they did state that they wanted to have Miss Bradford serve her sentence in prison, rather than some sort of home confinement.

Miss Bradford was formally sentenced to 3½ years on Thursday, February 29th, and this time Lexington Herald-Leader reporter Valarie Honeycutt Spears did not write her story in a manner which concealed the fact that Miss Bradford’s sexual abuse was homosexual in nature, the way reporter Beth Musgrave had done on Thursday, November 30, 2023.

In addition to her prison sentence, Bradford will be a lifetime sex-offender registrant under the Kentucky sex offender registry, which includes five years of post-incarceration supervision by the Department of Corrections. A condition of the plea was a 10-year interpersonal protective order against Bradford for the benefit of the victims.

Survivor’s of Bradford’s abuse read statements at the sentencing:

“April Bradford was a terrible influence on my life and caused more damage than good,” said Mary Prater. “She deceived me, my family, our school and everyone in the community. I can stand today with my head held high knowing that God gave me and Jessica the strength to grow up and make it stop.”

Prater and Jessica Hensley recently told the Herald-Leader they are frustrated more hasn’t been done to address teachers who prey on students.

Perhaps just 3½ years for a lesbian in lady jail isn’t really “address(ing) teachers who prey on students”?

More, I have to ask: where is Miss Bradford? For someone who should already be in jail, the Kentucky Online Offender Lookup (KOOL) search function does not return any information on Miss Bradford. Was she free during the three months between her conviction on November 30, 2023 and formal sentencing, on Leapday? I would have thought that a sexual predator would have been locked up right away, but perhaps I’m mistaken.

Under Miss Bradford’s original charges, she faced a possible 265 years in prison, yet her attorney managed to negotiate it down to 3½. Simply one conviction on a Class B felony yields a maximum sentence of 20 years, which would seem to seem to be appropriate. As it is, Miss Bradford will be only 54 or 55 years old when she gets out, plenty of time left to enjoy life as best she can.

We should take sex crimes against minors much more seriously than we do.
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Update: KOOL shows, as of 8:25 AM EST on Saturday, that Miss Bradford is incarcerated in the Floyd County Detention Center. Other information, including prospective release dates, parole eligibility, and latest possible release dates, have not been added as of this update.