Tag: Murder

Member Post

Randall Moore
Randall Moore
1 2
 

I invested 10 hours or so in viewing “Tin Star”, a 10 part series, on Amazon Prime. I found the program to be interesting and involving, particularly in its depiction of family relations and loyalties as they face challenges to their family bonds. The performances were uniformly excellent and I just had to find out […]
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Jury Duty: 12 Cranky People

Judge Mental
Judge Mental
115 37
 

(Note: Most of my stories here tend towards the light and fluffy. This one isn’t, so be forewarned that some of this is ugly. Even though this is all a matter of public record, I’m going to limit my use of names to the principals, and then only those I remember; it’s been almost 15 years. These are the events to the best of my recollection, some of which I learned in the trial, and the rest that I found online after it was all over. I’ll try to demarcate the two.)

Late on the night of Nov. 14, 1997, Elhadji Gaye pulled up in his green Lexus sedan in front of an apartment building in East Harlem, NYC. A driver for a livery company, he had received a call for a pickup at that address from his dispatcher. It was late, but Gaye, a recent immigrant from Guyana, was happy to work the long hours, as it allowed him to send more money back home; not only to his wife and children, but to his entire extended family.

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O.J. and Us

Mona Charen
Mona Charen
29 14
 

The cover image on iTunes for the Academy Award winning documentary series “O.J. Simpson: Made in America” is a dripping glove in the design of the stars and stripes. It perfectly captures the message of the series — the “trial of the century” was really a reflection of America’s sins.

So, yes, the history of the Rodney King beating, the Watts riots of 1965, Mark Fuhrman’s disgusting racist language, and every curse, slap, and traffic stop ever suffered by a black American at the hands of the police is part of the gloomy backdrop of the Simpson case.

But that is far from the whole story. The film would have been less interesting if that were all there was to it. Certainly the filmmaker Ezra Edelman (the bi-racial son of Children’s Defense Fund founder Marion Wright Edelman and law professor Peter Edelman) places the O.J. case within the context of black/white tensions in Los Angeles and in America generally. The jury’s indifference to the evidence is juxtaposed with the grainy video of Rodney King’s tormentors, undated black-and-white images of police roughing up black suspects, and even stills of lynchings. One of the jurors looks straight into the camera and declares that in acquitting Simpson “we took care of our own.”

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Member Post

RushBabe49
RushBabe49
22 10
 

Songs on the Death of Children. In his book The Devil’s Pleasure Palace, Michael Walsh opines that the German Romantic Movement of the late 19th and early 20th Century, foretold the decline of Western Civilization. Two stories in the news today perhaps reflect how far we have fallen. Both stories are horrifying. Dad Admits Killing […]
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The Only Answer Is to Speak the Truth

J Climacus
J Climacus
64 24
 

shutterstock_296708867There is only one answer to the events that are unfolding around us: Speak the truth. It’s not hard to find. Even the Washington Post sort of stumbled over it. Key quote:

In a year-long study, The Washington Post found that the kind of incidents that have ignited protests in many U.S. communities — most often, white police officers killing unarmed black men — represent less than 4 percent of fatal police shootings. Meanwhile, The Post found that the great majority of people who died at the hands of the police fit at least one of three categories: they were wielding weapons, they were suicidal or mentally troubled, or they ran when officers told them to halt.

There is no war on black lives by the police. There never has been, and a simple look at statistics shows it. It’s obvious why Democrats want to foster this myth. What is so depressing is that Republican politicians are so cowed by the media and charges of “racism” that they are unwilling to publicly and forthrightly challenge it.

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Survivors Know the Gun Blame Game

Mickey White
Mickey White
22 18
 

On Nov. 8, 1998, my parents were both killed by a single .22 caliber gunshot wound to the head. My father fired both bullets. At no time did it occur to me to blame the weapon, nor has it since. My father murdered my mother and then turned the weapon on himself, leaving no note or message of any kind. So I guess I have a unique perspective on the topic of guns and “gun control.”

Although my father murdered my mother with a .22 rifle, do you think it matters to me how he did it? More importantly, if you think he wouldn’t have done it without a gun, you know little of human nature.

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Member Post

Biden Pure Demagogue
Biden Pure Demagogue
2 4
 

How did an assassin end up under Our Lady’s mantle in heaven with his confessor and his victim? In the thirteenth century, as now, murder was an impediment to priestly ordination, and the Order of Preachers has always had a clerical character due to the close connection between preaching and the sacraments of penance and […]
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Books as Christmas Gifts: The Polygamist King

Paul A. Rahe
Paul A. Rahe
7 9
 

The Polygamist King by John MillerSomething like two-thirds of the books sold each year in the United States are sold in the weeks leading up to Christmas, which explains why publishers are more apt to release books (such as my own recent contribution, The Grand Strategy of Classical Sparta: The Persian Challenge) in the fall.

The reason that book sales are concentrated in this season is simple and straightforward: we are expected to give gifts and, tolerably often, we have no idea what to give. Knowing that there may be a host of Ricochet members in that situation, I propose over the next few days to suggest a number of recent books that might do the trick.

The first on my list is a book hot off the presses written by John J. Miller of Hillsdale College and National Review, and host of Ricochet’s own The Bookmonger podcast. It was published last week and is entitled The Polygamist King: A True Story of Murder, Lust, and Exotic Faith in America; it is available only on Kindle; and it is both short (46 pages) and inexpensive. I read it in ninety minutes, and can verify that Amazon is right to treat it as a “page-turner” and as “pulp non-fiction.”

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Six-Year-Old Logan Tipton’s Funeral is This Morning

Cameron Gray
Cameron Gray
32 27
 

Screen Shot 2015-12-11 at 9.47.40 AMAs I write this on Friday morning, the town of Versailles, Kentucky, near Lexington, is getting ready to say goodbye to Logan Tipton. Here’s why:

According to court documents, the intruder, later identified as 32-year-old Ronald Exantus wandered around the home before walking up the stairs and stabbing a sleeping six-year-old boy several times in the head “with a large kitchen knife that he obtained in the house.”

The boy was identified as Logan Tipton, a student at Simmons Elementary School in Versailles.

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In Defense of Dragon Slaying

Karon Adams
Karon Adams
40 16
 

Raphael_-_Saint_George_Fighting_the_DragonI have been reading C.K. Chesterton of late. For those who don’t know me, Chesterton and I share an affliction: The terror of a moment without task or input. I find this so terrifying that, upon realizing I have left home without a coat, I would as soon shrug and resolve to the chill. But, upon realizing I have left home without a book, I would turn round, return, and find one. Any book. The thought of being made to sit and wait, a mere five minutes with nothing to read is a form of torture.

Chesterton tells us much of ourselves. I met him first in passing, as a quote on a television show. He seemed quite astute. As I had never before met him, I nodded politely and went on. But that introduction made such an impression — mostly because it expressed something I have been trying to say most of my life — that I decided to meet the man properly. Anyone who could put into the words the single thought of my heart, which has abided there since childhood, must have other things to say that I would like to hear.

Off I went. Via the magic of Kindle and the wonders of copyright free, I had Chesteron’s complete works at my fingertips within moments and at no further cost. Gazing across them, I was daunted. So prolific was he — and on nearly every topic — that I wondered where to begin. I eventually decided on The Defendant, a series of essays.

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The Ethical Dilemma

EJHill
EJHill
44 20
 

shutterstock_68073163The folks at Planned Parenthood and its defenders are trying to mitigate their public relations nightmare by reminding us that fetal tissue played a vital role in the development of vaccines, including polio. Their main points are:

  • We are doing vital work in saving lives.
  • If you received the vaccination and you don’t have polio you are already an accomplice, so get over it.

Where then, do you draw the line?

Most of us received the vaccine as a matter of course, before we were old enough to understand the concept of the ethical dilemma. But we surely could have understood when we had our own children vaccinated; that is, if we had even known about the history of the research.

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Regaining the Moral Clarity to Punish Criminals

Vince
Vince
59 17
 

shutterstock_208296562Sounds easy right? Just a boring topic that states the obvious. The problem is, when it comes to the criminal justice system, the mainstream media has, on one hand, created the myth that prison is hell on earth, and, on the other, horribly mislead the public about the death penalty. The prison systems in the United States have been locked in the 1960s liberal fantasy that we can — and, worse, should — always try to rehabilitate career criminals.

To be clear, I am focusing this post on the worst of the worst: the murderers, violent gang members, rapists, child molesters, etc. The people who my wife and I have dedicated our lives to prosecuting. I will save discussing how retribution should apply to addicts or non-violent first time offenders for another day. But how we punish the worst of the worst will shock you. There is a massive moral deficit in the criminal justice system, one that values criminals far above victims — and it is disgusting. If we are to regain the moral clarity and fortitude to punish the worst of the worst, it will only come from the political right.

Those who don’t have experience in the trenches of the criminal justice system get a very myopic and negative view of it: cops are renegade vigilantes with a badge; the death penalty costs too much and often punishes the innocent; prisons are nothing but raping grounds and murder houses; cowboy legislatures keep increasing not only what is criminal but also the sentences associated with crime. Some of these debates are worth having, but the casual listener must understand that he is only being given anecdotal information from a pro-criminal left that seeks to relegitimize the liberal fantasy of the reformed killer. One needs only to look to how the left slobbers over Mumia Abu-Jabal — a convicted cop-killer who has turned his crime into celebrity — to see how morally bankrupt the criminal justice system is. In a moral society, Abu-Jamal would have been vilified and put to death — as most of those on death row or serving life sentences should be.

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Member Post

Biden Pure Demagogue
Biden Pure Demagogue
5 3
 

Link to pdf file with full description On Wednesday, June 11, 2014 at approximately 9:11 p.m., an unknown white male entered a residence attached to a church in the area of 1500 West Monroe Street. He assaulted a Male Victim, who is also a Father of the Church, before assaulting and shooting Kenneth Walker. Both victims were […]
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