Category Archives: Gun-violence

Israeli leaders vow revenge after Tel Aviv attack | The Electronic Intifada “Revenge produces more revenge, which produces more revenge… – dumb, fruitless, cruel…”

Israeli forces have already raided Yatta and closed all its entrances, preventing Palestinians from freely moving in and out of the town. Approximately 100 high school students from Yatta were briefly detained by Israeli forces on Thursday as they tried to leave the town to attend their final exams. Israel meanwhile froze more than 83,000 permits allowing Palestinians living in the West Bank and Gaza to enter Israel and occupied East Jerusalem to visit family and pray at al-Aqsa mosque during the month of Ramadan, which began a few days ago. Two additional army battalions including “hundreds” of infantry and elite intelligence units are reportedly being deployed to the West Bank following the shooting attack. Lieberman also ordered the suspension of the return of slain Palestinians’ bodies to their families and has reportedly asked the attorney general “to look into the possibility of shortening the legal process to allow faster home demolitions of terrorist homes,” Haaretz reported. Such punitive demolitions of the homes of relatives of suspects are a form of collective punishment Israel uses exclusively against Palestinians.

Source: Israeli leaders vow revenge after Tel Aviv attack | The Electronic Intifada

AR500 Armor Recalls Level III Body Armor Due to Risk of Gunshot Injury or Death | CPSC.gov

Level III Body Armor Hazard: The body armor can fail to meet performance requirements for Level III body armor, allowing a bullet to penetrate, and pose a risk of gunshot injury or death. Remedy: View Details Replace Consumer Contact: AR500 Armor toll-free at 844-887-8824 from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. PT Monday through Friday, email at support@AR500armor.com or online at http://www.ar500armor.com and click on “Safety Recall” for more information. Report an Incident Involving this Product

Source: AR500 Armor Recalls Level III Body Armor Due to Risk of Gunshot Injury or Death | CPSC.gov

Family Dog Shot And Killed After Deputies Respond To The Wrong House: LAist – “total fail – hire deputies who are not panicked by dogs.”

San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department Lt. Brad Toms defended the deputies’ actions. He said that deputies approached the home cautiously and “rattled the fence” to see if there were any dogs. He told ABC 7, “A couple of small dogs ran out, barked at them, followed by a much larger dog who barked aggressively and charged toward the deputies.” Investigators say an audio recording of the incident reveals barking, followed by one gunshot.After all of that, deputies did eventually make it to the correct home where they arrested a 42-year-old woman on suspicion of grand theft auto. The deputies involved in Buddy’s death will not be punished.In March of 2015, San Diego police responding to a domestic disturbance call at 5 a.m. on a Sunday shot and killed a 24-year-old man’s service dog of six years. Similarly, the dog’s owner believes the officers had responded to the wrong house.

Source: Family Dog Shot And Killed After Deputies Respond To The Wrong House: LAist

Israel has destroyed $74 million worth of EU projects | The Electronic Intifada

An $11-million farming project in the Jordan Valley, a $61,200 playground near Nablus and an elementary school serving a Bedouin community east of Jerusalem: all have been destroyed by Israel.These are just a few examples of the at least 150 European-funded structures in the occupied West Bank that Israel demolished in the first three months of 2016.Israel has destroyed more homes, businesses and public infrastructure in these months than in all of 2015, according to a new report by the non-profit Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor, or Euro-Med.Each month, an average of 165 privately and internationally funded structures were demolished or partially destroyed, representing a more than three-fold increase from the previous rate of 50 demolitions per month between 2012 and 2015.More than 900 Palestinians have been made homeless this year, according to UN statistics, and thousands more have had their livelihoods affected by the wave of destruction.Euro-Med says that the UN deputy coordinator for the Middle East peace process, Robert Piper, has suggested the increase in demolitions is a response to the escalation of violent confrontations between Palestinians and Israeli occupation forces that began in October 2015.But Israeli politician Moti Yogev, who has applied pressure on Israeli occupation forces to ramp up demolitions, said, “I have no doubt that the government’s firm stance is in part a result of the unilateral measures taken by Europe,” referring to the EU’s decision to label settlement products late last year.If so, the demolitions can be likened to the “price tag” attacks on Palestinians and their property carried out by settlers as a form of revenge for policies they don’t like.

Source: Israel has destroyed $74 million worth of EU projects | The Electronic Intifada

Berlin rebuffs Turkey in Armenian genocide row after Green MP receives death threats | News | DW.COM | 06.06.2016

Steffen Seibert, spokesman to German Chancellor Angela Merkel, said on Monday that the Bundestag – Germany’s lower house of parliament – “had reached a sovereign decision.””That must be respected,” he added.The comments from Berlin on Monday came in light of Turkey’s reaction last week to Germany’s decision to pass a resolution which refers to the mass deaths of 1.5 million Armenians under the Ottoman Empire as “genocide.”As the successor state to the Ottoman Empire, Turkey officially denies that the events that started in 1915 amounted to genocide. Ankara’s official line is that ethnic Armenians represented a fifth column backed by Russia during World War I, and that the mass deportation and accompanying Armenian deaths were not premeditated or intentional – a key requirement in the legal definition of genocide.

Source: Berlin rebuffs Turkey in Armenian genocide row after Green MP receives death threats | News | DW.COM | 06.06.2016

Bangladesh attacks kill wife of police officer and Christian | News | DW.COM | 05.06.2016

The first attack took place in the coastal city of Chittagong early Sunday morning when at least three men on a motorbike stabbed and shot the wife of an anti-terror police superintendent. Mahmuda Khanam was walking her son to a school bus stop when the assailants struck. “The attackers came on a motor-cycle. Her son said she was stabbed first. Then they pointed a pistol near her ear and shot several times,” Chittagong Metropolitan Police deputy commissioner Moktar Hossain told news agency AFP. Khanam was the wife of Babul Akter, a police official who led several high-profile operations against the banned Jumatul Mujahedeen Bangladesh (JMB) militant group in recent months. No one immediately claimed responsibility on Sunday, but police said jihadists could be behind the murder. “We suspect JMB or local Islamist extremists for the attack. Akter led successful anti-militant raids in Chittagong in which several JMB men were arrested,” Hossain said.

Source: Bangladesh attacks kill wife of police officer and Christian | News | DW.COM | 05.06.2016

Philippines’ president-elect Rodrigo Duterte urges public to kill criminals, offers bounties – (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) “Kill your enemy and claim he or she is a drug dealer – OK?”

“If they are there in your neighbourhood, feel free to call us, the police, or do it yourself if you have the gun. You have my support,” he told his cheering followers. “If he fights and fights to the death, you can kill him. “I will give you a medal.” He stressed that drug addicts could not be rehabilitated and warned: “If you are involved in drugs, I will kill you. You son of a whore, I will really kill you.” Mr Duterte reiterated that his anti-crime campaign would be “a bloody war”, as he offered money for slain drug lords. “I will pay, for a drug lord: five million pesos ($145,000) if he is dead. If he is alive, only 4.999 million,” he laughed. Mr Duterte, who takes office on June 30 and is the longtime mayor of the southern city of Davao, also offered smaller amounts for lower-ranked figures involved in the drug trade. He did not say how a private citizen could identify suspects. Mr Duterte has previously been linked with vigilante “death squads” that have killed scores of people in Davao and has vowed to widen his campaign when he becomes president. Others have followed his lead with the elected mayor of the central city of Cebu, Tomas Osmena, admitting he paid more than $US3,000 ($4,000) to police officers for killing drug traffickers. Mr Duterte and other officials have previously brushed aside warnings from human rights groups about the dangers of such a policy.

Source: Philippines’ president-elect Rodrigo Duterte urges public to kill criminals, offers bounties – ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

The Last Survivor of the Black Wall Street Oklahoma Disaster | 3CHICSPOLITICO

A local newspaper had printed a fabricated story that Rowland tried to rape Page. In an editorial, the same newspaper said a hanging was planned for that night. As groups of both Blacks and Whites converged on the Tulsa Courthouse, a White man in the crowd confronted an armed Black man, a war veteran, who had joined with other Blacks to protect Rowland. Eddie Faye Gates, a member of the Tulsa Race Riot Commission, formed several years ago to determine exactly what happened, told CNN what happened next. “This White man,” she said, asked the Black man, “What are you doing with this gun?” “I’m going to use it if I have to,” the Black man said, according to Gates, “and (the White man) said, ‘No, you’re not. Give it to me,’ and he tried to take it. The gun went off, the White man was dead, the riot was on.” Truckloads of Whites set fires and shot Blacks on sight. When the smoke lifted the next day, more than 1,400 homes and businesses in Tulsa’s Greenwood District, a prosperous area known as the “Black Wall Street,” lay in ruins. Today, only a single block of the original buildings remains standing in the area. Experts now estimate that at least 3,000 died. Dr. Olivia Hooker was one of the survivors of this racially motivated attack, which she refuses to call a riot.

Source: The Last Survivor of the Black Wall Street Oklahoma Disaster | 3CHICSPOLITICO

A Girl from a Nairobi Slum Issues a Resonant Call for Post-Tribal Unity in Kenya – The New York Times

Shanize’s poem of unity: It is very sad what’s happening to our country. Imagine. A nation that is known to be safe – no violence – now turned into a nation living in fear. No security. Why does it have to come down to this? Religions. You have grown up together. The Kikuyu, M’Kamba, Luo, Abalughya and others. Why do you want to fight each other? As Kenyans, youth – Christian and Muslim – we should stand up as one and say no to violence, no to terrorism, no to instability and live as one. Let no one convince you to pick up a panga, a gun, grenades, bombs, and harm one another. No one has the right to take anyone’s life. Stand up. Get up. Show up. And say no to violence, no to terrorism, no to instability, and live as one.

Source: A Girl from a Nairobi Slum Issues a Resonant Call for Post-Tribal Unity in Kenya – The New York Times

8-Year-Old Brought Loaded Gun Into Brooklyn School: Gothamist

An 8-year-old boy is accused of bringing a loaded handgun into his elementary school in Brooklyn yesterday. Police say the gun was found in the boy’s backpack, and it’s unclear how he ended up with it—they suspect he may have brought it in because he was having a dispute with another child. Teachers at P.S. 91 on Albany Avenue near Maple Street say they discovered the gun after the boy refused to sit on his backpack when instructed to do so. When teachers became suspicious they looked inside and found a loaded seven-shot, .380-caliber pistol wrapped in a black shopping bag. Police say they’re still trying to ascertain how the boy got a hold of the gun. The school sent home letters alerting parents about the incident. “A student was discovered carrying a weapon in his book bag,” the letter read. “We assure you that every precaution was taken and will continue to be taken to ensure the safety of our students and staff.” ABC 7 reports that officials think the child was having a dispute with a classmate, and suspect he may have obtained the gun from his teenage brother. “Talk to your child,” Gregory Floyd, president of Teamsters Local 237, told the station. “If your child is having a dispute with another child, there should be something in place in the schools that they can just reconcile these issues without resulting in bringing weapons to school.” This is the sixth time since March that teachers have found a child with a gun at a city school.

Source: 8-Year-Old Brought Loaded Gun Into Brooklyn School: Gothamist