Keepingitreal

Immigration ruling could send message to states

PHOENIX — States that had been watching Arizona's immigration law in hopes of copying it received a rude awakening when a judge put most of the measure on hold and agreed with the Obama administration's core argument that immigration enforcement is the role of the federal government.

The ruling marked a repudiation of the Arizona law as U.S. District Judge Susan Bolton indicated that the government has a good chance at succeeding in its argument that federal immigration law trumps state law. It was an important first-round victory for the government in a fight that may not be settled until the U.S. Supreme Court weighs in.

But opponents of the law said the ruling sends a strong message to other states hoping to replicate the law. "Surely it's going to make states pause and consider how they're drafting legislation and how it fits in a constitutional framework," Dennis Burke, the U.S. Attorney for Arizona, told the Associated Press. "The proponents of this went into court saying there was no question that this was constitutional, and now you have a federal judge who's said 'hold on, there's major issues with this bill.'"

He added: "So this idea that this is going to be a blueprint for other states is seriously in doubt. The blueprint is constitutionally flawed."

Gov. Jan Brewer called Wednesday's decision "a bump in the road" and vowed to appeal.

Her spokesman Paul Senseman said the state would ask the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco on Thurdsay to lift Bolton's preliminary injunction and to expedite its consideration of the state's appeal.

The key sponsor of Arizona's law, Republican Rep. Russell Pearce, said the judge was wrong and predicted that the state would ultimately win the case.

In her temporary injunction, Bolton delayed the most contentious provisions of the law, including a section that required officers to check a person's immigration status while enforcing other laws. She also barred enforcement of parts requiring immigrants to carry their papers and banned illegal immigrants from soliciting employment in public places — a move aimed at day laborers that congregate in large numbers in parking lots across Arizona. The judge also blocked officers from making warrantless arrests of suspected illegal immigrants. CONTINUE READING...
 

Eight accused of robbing, torturing drug dealers

NEW YORK (AP) -- A gang of police impersonators abducted and tortured cocaine traffickers, forcing them to hand over multimillion-dollar stashes by holding their families hostage or threatening to squeeze their testicles with pliers, authorities said Tuesday. An indictment unsealed in federal court in Brooklyn, New York, charged eight men with robbery conspiracy, drug dealing and an array of other crimes.Since spring 2003, the gang injured about 100 people while committing 100 holdups targeting large-scale traffickers in New York, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, North Carolina and Florida, investigators said.The take: $4 million in cash and more than 1,650 pounds of cocaine worth $20 million, which authorities say the men sold on the streets of New York. Sometimes, abduction attempts led to shootouts between the robbery crew and associates of the drug dealers, authorities said.The scheme "was breathtaking in the scope of its crimes and in the danger it posed to our communities," U.S. Attorney Benton Campbell said. Authorities seized several kilograms of cocaine, more than 20 handguns, handcuffs, police scanners and vehicles equipped with lights and sirens.The men, court papers said, "were particularly sophisticated in their tactics," often conducting surveillance on the drug dealers for weeks before arming themselves with handguns and making "a police-style car stop" in cars equipped with lights and sirens. Other times, the gang gained entry into victims' homes by identifying themselves as police officers and then holding entire families hostage at gunpoint for days on end.The victims were handcuffed, bound with duct tape and subjected to various means of torture during interrogations, including "simulated drowning through repeated submerging of victims' heads in water for extended periods of time," the court papers said. One victim told investigators that during a 2005 abduction, two of the defendants "applied a pair of pliers to the victim's testicles and threatened to squeeze the pliers if the victim did not talk," the papers added. SOURCE: CNN.COM

Woman Hit By Stray Bullet From Drive-By Shooting Dies

OAKLAND -- A 21-year-old mother who was struck by a stray bullet from an Oakland drive-by shooting while sleeping in her bed died from her wounds Tuesday and now Oakland Police are asking for the public's help to find the people responsible.21-year-old Shanice Davis died less than 24 hours after being struck by a stray bullet from a drive-by shooting in East Oakland while she was asleep in her bedroom.Officers found Davis, shot and lying in bed in a her apartment in the 8200 block of MacArthur Boulevard, while canvassing after a nearby shooting just before midnight, Officer Roland Holmgren said Tuesday.   Davis was transported to Highland Hospital. Police responded to the shooting in the 8300 block of MacArthur Boulevard at 11:58 p.m. and found three injured victims who were attending a memorial service for someone who died in a car accident in 2005, Holmgren said.   The three victims found at the memorial were also transported to  hospitals and are in stable condition.Davis had just moved back home with her mother less than two months ago with high hopes for starting a nursing and modeling career. Her sudden death leaves her one-year-old daughter without a mother."She was innocent. She was sleep in her bed. Her baby doesn't even know what happened to her," said her aunt Ada Brown. "She's going to have to be raised without her mother."Officer Holmgren said the motive for the shooting is still under investigation and anyone with information should call the Oakland Police Department Homicide Section at (510) 238-3821.

DEADLY BUSINESS

On Thursday, April 3, at 9 p.m. ET the first installment of CNN’s groundbreaking documentary series Black in America will premiere with “Eyewitness to Murder: The King Assassination“. April 4 marks the 40th anniversary of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s assassination.

Violence Roils Black Funeral Parlors

CINCINNATI -- Clarence Glover has a surveillance camera in the chapel of his funeral home. Joseph Garr sometimes carries a revolver in his hearse. Carl Swann Jr. is contemplating leaving the business. The three directors of black funeral parlors here have been assaulted at services and each has had gunshots fired during burials. Concealed-weapons, pre-funeral intelligence briefings, cameras, panic buttons and armed security guards are becoming as much a part of services as the eulogy. "I've been in this business 42 years and I'm jittery now," Mr. Glover says. Across the country, black morticians are changing the way they operate. The reason: a spike in African-American murders -- and the violence that sometimes follows victims to the grave. In an echo of more volatile parts of the world, such as Iraq and Afghanistan, African-American morticians report seeing an increase in violent behavior, and occasional killings, at funerals. The violation of the once-sacrosanct funeral is one byproduct of a little-noticed upswing in the murder rate of African-Americans. The number of blacks killed in America, mostly by other blacks, has been edging up at a time when the rate for other groups has been flat or falling. As a result, the black murder-victim toll exceeds that of the far larger white population. According to the most recent statistics from the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the number of whites murdered dropped slightly, to 6,956 from 7,005 between 2004 and 2006. The number of blacks killed rose 11%, to 7,421 from 6,680. African-Americans, who make up 13% of the population, have long had a higher homicide rate than other groups. And the total number of black murders is still significantly lower than in the early 1990s, when the U.S. was hit by a wave of drug-related killings. At that time, though, "funeral homes used to be the most respected places you could walk into beside the church," says Jeff Gardner, a co-owner of A.D. Porter & Sons in Louisville, Ky., and a third-generation undertaker. "Nobody respects life and the young folks nowadays don't mind dying." What worries law enforcement, criminologists and sociologists is that there's no unifying theme to explain today's increase. Some killings are drug related. Researchers trace others to a glut of ex-felons re-entering society. Others correlate the rise in murders to the lack of a proper education. Black funeral homes, long a fixture of African-American communities, offer a stark perspective from which to view the trend. There are no comprehensive statistics on assaults or other crimes at funerals. And the violence has not touched all black communities. Still, the topic has become a hot one in the industry. CONTINUE READING THIS ARTICLE

 

Living with staggering violence in South L.A.

The sun splashed onto the roof of a church, filling the faces of two golden statues of angels who opened their arms to the sky. It was the first light of the morning, which made everything look pretty, even the hardened heart of South Los Angeles. Don't be fooled, said 50-year-old Darrell Pruitt, waving a crooked cautionary finger. He walked down Central Avenue, carrying a dripping cup of coffee back to his one-room apartment, as he does each morning before work. "All the stuff that's hiding," he called over his shoulder, "it'll all come out." He was right. Before long, a pile of thin blankets atop an abandoned couch began to stir. A homeless man, 83 years old, wiped the sleep from his filthy face, stretched his good arm and rubbed his shrunken, arthritic one. He hauled himself over a rusty fence to start his day, his sandals crunching on a bed of cheap discarded lighters, their silver tops popped off so they could be used for smoking crack. The hair stylist arrived at work, pleasantly surprised that gangs had not, as they do two or three times a week, tagged the white walls of her salon with black paint. The pastor sprinkled a rack of ribs with paprika; he'd sell them at cost a few hours later, hoping to help a few hungry people get at least one solid meal that day. Two men with mean eyes stepped behind a dumpster, shot up, urinated and emerged again, one of them cursing madly. It has been a month and a day since a gunman opened fire on two men stepping off a bus at the corner of Central and Vernon avenues. He missed his targets, as far as investigators can determine, but hit eight other people, all innocents. They included five kids, students walking home from George Washington Carver Middle School. Police have charged Billy Ray Hines, 24, with the crime.Mario Martinez, 46, was in his girlfriend's Vernon Avenue bakery, the Panaderia Zeragoza, where he sweeps the stoop every morning, when he heard the shots."I ran down there. We all did," he said. "I saw a boy still sitting on the bus stop bench. He was not hit but he could not move. He was too scared. There was a lady at his feet, lying on the floor. Lots of blood." Somehow, no one was killed. SOURCE OF THIS STORY

Ga. Police Officers Shoot Each Other

Two off-duty officers from different police departments wounded each other in a gun fight in the middle of a road in an Atlanta suburb, authorities said. Both officers suffered non-life-threatening wounds, police said. Their conditions were not immediately known on Saturday. Officer Jay Daily, a five-year veteran of the Duluth Police Department, exchanged multiple gunshots with Fulton County officer Paul Phillips on Friday afternoon, police said. Daily was in custody Saturday, charged with aggravated assault, Cpl. Illana Spellman of the Gwinnett County police said. "It's been confirmed that the Duluth police officer was the aggressor in this case," Spellman said. Phillips, 37, required surgery at Gwinnett Medical Center. A hospital spokesman said Saturday he could not release information about the two officers. He referred questions to Spellman, who did not immediately have an update on their injuries. "It's been baffling to us why this situation even occurred," said Duluth Police Chief Randy Belcher. "It's an embarrassment to this agency." Phillips, who was wearing his uniform and in a marked police car, was driving to his home in Gwinnett County, police said. He was flagged down by someone who had seen Daily involved in a physical altercation with a woman in a sport-utility vehicle. Daily, who lives in the area, was off duty and in civilian clothing but was wearing a bulletproof vest, police said. SOURCE OF THIS STORY

FBI Reports Upsurge In Hate Crimes

(CBS/AP) Hate crime incidents in the United States rose last year by almost 8 percent, the FBI reported Monday, as racial prejudice continued to account for more than half the reported instances. Police across the nation reported 7,722 criminal incidents in 2006 targeting victims or property as a result of prejudice against a particular race, religion, sexual orientation, ethnic or national origin or physical or mental disability. That was up 7.8 percent from the 7,163 incidents reported in 2005. More than half of the victims were targeted because of their race, said CBS News correspondent Stephanie Lambidakis, and almost 60 percent of all known offenders are white. Heidi Beirick of the Southern Poverty Law Center says the numbers are probably higher than that. "It's unfortunate that the numbers went up by almost 8 percent, but the truth is the FBI Hate Crimes statistics severely undercounts the number of hate crimes that we have in the United States every year," she told CBS News. That's because only 12,600 of the nation's more than 17,000 local, county, state and federal police agencies - roughly three-quarters - participated in the hate crime reporting program in 2006. Consequently, the FBI figures did not contain highly publicized incidents in late 2006 at Jena, a small town in Louisiana, which involved hanging nooses reminiscent of those used in the lynching of black people in an earlier time and beatings of white students by black youngsters in retaliation, because neither Jena nor LaSalle Parish (the county where the town is) were among the agencies reporting. The report's release comes just days after thousands of civil rights advocates literally surrounded the Justice Department building, claiming that lax federal prosecution has fuelled an outbreak of noose-hanging incidents around the country. The Jena case began in August 2006 after a black student sat under a tree known as a gathering spot for white students. Three white students later hung nooses from the tree. They were suspended by the school but not prosecuted. Six black teenagers, however, were charged by LaSalle Parish prosecutor Reed Walters with attempted second-degree murder of a white student who was beaten unconscious in December 2006. SOURCE OF THIS STORY

Promising varsity football player slain in tragedy

That's where they were celebrating a school spirit night for the senior class. Earlier in the day, San Leandro's football team had won 26-21 over Bishop O'Dowd. Ballard never made it to Boomers. And his classmates soon learned that Ballard, 17, was shot shortly after 8 p.m. in East Oakland. He died within a half-hour. Oakland homicide Sgt. TonyJones said Sunday police have "absolutely no idea" why Ballard was shot.  No witnesses have stepped forward, and no one has been arrested, Jones said Sunday. The death was a tragic blow to those close to Ballard, who said that after running into some trouble, he had began to turn himself around. He was on track to graduate and doing well in school. He joined the football squad for his senior year. "He finally saw which direction in life he wanted to go in, and he saw the door," said older brother Don Taylor, 29, of San Leandro. "But the door was locked, and the room went dark. I just wish he had a little more time to do some of the things he wanted to do." San Leandro's head football coach, Brad Bowers, said, "It's a devastating blow to us to say the least ... he had actually turned into a fantastic student — a great kid and a great student." OAKLAND — Greg Ballard Jr.'s San Leandro High School classmates and football teammates were waiting and waiting for him to show up at Boomers in Livermore on Saturday night.

Ballard had been through some rough patches in previous years.He even spent some time in juvenile hall, Bowers said.But, to many people, he seemed to have moved past all that. Jerome Manos, athletic director at San Leandro and defensive coordinator for the football team, worked as a counselor at the school during the 2006-07 school year.He said he met with Ballard his junior year and recommended he play football, thinking it would bring something positive to his life."He was one of my guys," Manos said about Ballard, who played safety and on special teams. "It was a very unfortunate thing that happened. He was a good kid. He was working hard. He was trying to get his life turned around and make better decisions ... unfortunately he was just in the wrong place at the wrong time, I guess."It is a rarity in prep football for someone to join the team his senior year after forgoing the sport for his first three years in school. In fact, Bowers said he does not typically take players on the varsity squad who haven't played in previous years. But Bowers said he talked to Ballard before the season and became convinced Greg was serious about changing directions."I couldn't help but support what he was doing," Bowers said.At a two-a-day drills retreat the team took to Jackson before the season, Manos said Ballard told his coaches and teammates how important it was to him and his family that he graduate high school.He seemed ready to achieve that goal. His senior portrait was already snapped. As Bowers and Manos tell it, Greg was a regular at practice, working hard, never late.He faced a tough challenge playing with people who'd played in previous seasons, but, Bowers said, "He had a good attitude. He was at practice everyday. With our program it takes a humongous commitment."The coach said Ballard had bought into the structure and discipline associated with being part of a team. It began to show in a changed attitude, not only on the field, but also in the classroom and on campus, Bowers said.He had recently received a student-of-the-month award in his social justice class, Bowers said. Ballard did not see playing time against Bishop O'Dowd, though he had in previous games. After the game, his brother said, he went straight home to get ready for spirit night at Boomers.But he didn't have a car. And couldn't catch a ride. So he changed his plans, Taylor said.Ballard was in the 9200 block of Sunnyside Street when he was shot about 8:10 p.m.Wounded, he was able to make it to the rear of a house on Sunnyside. That's where he was found. He was taken to Highland Hospital and died at 8:49 p.m., police said."It's terrible that just a few hours earlier he was celebrating victory with  his teammates, and then he had his life taken," Jones, the homicide sergeant, said. "It's a real tragedy."It was Oakland's 107th homicide of the year. There were 122 homicides this time last year.Word spread quickly Saturday night that something had gone wrong. Bowers had his cell phone turned off, but turned it back on about 11:30 p.m. He had 25 missed calls, mostly from his players — and one from Ballard's mother. Manos got the news late Saturday."That was a big win for us," he said. "I didn't find out about this thing until late last night, and it just puts everything in perspective. It's tragic."San Leandro Principal Amy Furtado got a call at about midnight. The news left her "devastated and troubled," she said."We all felt that he had turned a corner and absolutely had regained his focus," she said. "He had a bright future ahead of him."The school will have extra counselors on hand today to help students dealing with grief over the loss. Furtado and Bowers also both said the school would, in the coming days, set up an account to help Ballard's family cover memorial service expenses. SOURCE OF THIS STORY

Four College Friends Shot in New Jersey

NEWARK, N.J. (Aug. 6) - In a city where gun violence has become an all too common part of daily life, these shootings were enough to chill even the most hardened residents: Four young friends shot execution-style in a schoolyard just days before they were to head to college. Three were killed after being forced to kneel against a wall and then shot in the head at close range Saturday night, police said. A girl was found slumped near some bleachers 30 feet away, a gunshot wound to the head but still alive.
The four Newark residents were to attend Delaware State University this fall. No arrests had been made by Monday and authorities had not identified suspects. The shootings ratcheted up anger in New Jersey's largest city, where the murder rate has risen 50 percent since 1998. The high number of killings have prompted billboards in the downtown area that scream, "HELP WANTED: Stop the Killings in Newark Now!"  "Anyone who has children in the city is in panic mode," said Donna Jackson, president of Take Back Our Streets, a community-based organization. "It takes something like this for people to open up their eyes and understand that not every person killed in Newark is a drug dealer." The killings bring Newark's murder total for the year to 60, and put pressure on Mayor Cory A. Booker, who campaigned last year on a promise of reducing crime. Jackson said Booker "doesn't deserve another day, another second, while our children are at stake." Booker said Monday that it was "not a time to play politics and divide our city." A $50,000 reward was being offered for information leading to the arrest of those involved, he said. SOURCE OF THIS STORY

Oakland Post editor gunned down

OAKLAND - Sources said that a man shot to death in downtown Oakland Thursday morning was Oakland Post Editor Chauncey Bailey. Witnesses told police a masked gunman shot a man, then fled on foot to a waiting van and drove off. Police have not released a name but sources said that Bailey, 57, was the apparent victim. The shooting happened about 7:25 a.m. in the 1400 block of Alice Street. The victim was pronounced dead at the scene. Police said they have no motive for the killing, except that it appeared to be a deliberate attack, and no suspects have been arrested. A longtime Oakland Tribune reporter, Bailey was named editor of the Oakland Post in June after writing freelance travel stories for the African American weekly for about two years. Bailey grew up in Oakland and had worked at other area media outlets including KDIA radio and Soul Beat TV and was involved with OUR-TV on Comcast Channel 78. In his time as a travel writer, Bailey had made several trips to the Caribbean and visited Vietnam. Bailey has a 13-year-old son who lives in Southern California. Police and Crime Stoppers of Oakland are offering up to $10,000 in reward money for information leading to the arrest of the suspect. Anyone with information can call police at 238-3821 or Crime Stoppers at 238-6946. SOURCE OF THIS STORY

OAKLAND: A PLAGUE OF KILLINGS

When Oakland's homicide count in 2006 reached its highest total in more than a decade, The Chronicle expanded its coverage with this multimedia project. It tells the stories of those who have died and those who have been left behind. Click on the links on the right to access audio clips, podcasts, slideshows, videos and photos. Mary Lee Dunbar cries at the funeral of her grandson, Wayne Gordon Jr., 18, one of more than 140 people killed this year in Oakland. Photo by Lacy Atkins. SEE THIS AMAZING STORY

Gay teacher stabbed in the Mission

A gay black man who teaches at a local high school is recovering from three knife injuries he sustained after being stabbed at a Mission taqueria earlier this month. The May 13 incident took place about 7:18 p.m. and resulted in serious injuries to John "Jay" Frazier, who had to be hospitalized. Sergeant Steve Mannina, of the San Francisco Police Department's public affairs office, told the Bay Area Reporter on May 29 that police officers arrested Lyced Yvette Segovia, 24, a Latina from San Francisco, on one count of assault with a deadly weapon at Taqueria Cancun at 3211 Mission Street. According to district attorney spokeswoman Bilen Mesfin, Harris agreed with the SFPD's charge against Segovia and included two additional counts: use of a deadly weapon and personal infliction of great bodily injury, to the charge. Segovia was arraigned and pleaded not guilty on May 16. A preliminary hearing is scheduled for June 20."She's a very nice person, Ms. Segovia," said attorney Jose Umali, who is representing Segovia. "The charges against her are unfortunate. She pleaded not guilty and at least for now, intends to fight against the charges."Umali didn't want to comment further on Segovia's case because he took her case late last week and was still learning about the "accusations against her."He did say that Segovia's not guilty plea "was the right thing to do." SOURCE OF THIS POST

Pharoahe Monch Embarks On Speaking Tour Against Gun Violence

Former Organized Konfusion group member, Pharoahe Monch, is currently embarking on a national college speaking tour as a spokesman for Guns 4 Cameras. The program allows troubled youth to trade in their guns for video cameras. Pharoahe spoke at UCLA yesterday (April 26) in hopes of promoting gun control and helping kids channel their anger into something more creative like filming their own home movies. Monch addresses the controversial topic of gun violence on his new street single, “Gun Draws.” The video is a graphic account of violence told from a bullet’s point of view. The song will be featured on Monch’s second solo album, Desire (SRC/Universal). The album will be released on June 26 and features an eclectic selection of songs, including the US single “Push” and the UK single “Body Baby.” “I’ve never been so free with my creativity before,” Monch says. “I’m excited about this new album because everything feels so fresh, almost as if I were a new artist. I’m taking it to whole new places, hip-hop, rock and gospel. It’s all there and it’s all sides of me.” In preparation for his album, Pharoahe will be busy touring the country this spring and summer. He will perform at the famed Coachella Music Festival on April 28, alongside Ghostface Killah and rock acts like the Red Hot Chili Peppers. Then, Monch will join the annual hip-hop festival, Rock The Bells, on July 28 in NYC, August 11 in San Bernardino, CA and August 18 in San Francisco, CA. The Rock The Bells concert also features performances by the Wu-Tang Clan, Nas, The Roots and Rage Against the Machine. MORE ON THIS STORY

VA TECH KILLER DESCRIBED AS LONER

An independent panel will conduct "a very thorough after-action review" of the events surrounding Monday's mass shooting at Virginia Tech, Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine said Tuesday as investigators probed further into the background student believed responsible for more than 30 deaths Tuesday morning (April 17), police identified Cho Seung Hui as the person responsible for the clasroom shooting, and said one of the two guns he owned also was used in the dormitory shooting. Cho was a senior English major from South Korea Virginia Tech spokesman Larry Hinker said Cho, who lived in a dorm on campus, "was a loner and we are having difficulty finding any information about him." The Associated Press reported Cho's creative writing for his English classes was so disturbing that he was referred to the school's counseling service. Professor Carolyn Rude, chairwoman of the university's English department, told the AP she did not personally know the gunman. But she said she spoke with Lucinda Roy, the department's director of creative writing, who had Cho in one of her classes and described him as "troubled." There was some concern about him," Rude told the AP. "Sometimes, in creative writing, people reveal things and you never know if it's creative or if they're describing things, if they're imagining things or just how real it might be. But we're all alert to not ignore things like this." MORE ON THIS STORY

Va. Tech Gunman Writings Raised Concerns

BLACKSBURG, Va. - The gunman in the Virginia Tech massacre was a sullen loner who alarmed professors and classmates with his twisted, violence-drenched creative writing and left a rambling note raging against women and rich kids. A chilling picture emerged Tuesday of Cho Seung-Hui _ a 23-year-old senior majoring in English _ a day after the bloodbath that left 33 people dead, including Cho, who killed himself as police closed in. News reports said that he may have been taking medication for depression and that he was becoming increasingly violent and erratic. Despite the many warning signs that came to light in the bloody aftermath, police and university officials offered no clues as to exactly what set Cho off on the deadliest shooting rampage in modern U.S. history. "He was a loner, and we're having difficulty finding information about him," school spokesman Larry Hincker said. A student who attended Virginia Tech last fall provided obscenity- and violence-laced screenplays that he said Cho wrote as part of a playwriting class they both took. One was about a fight between a stepson and his stepfather, and involved throwing of hammers and attacks with a chainsaw. Another was about students fantasizing about stalking and killing a teacher who sexually molested them. MORE ON THIS STORY

Students describe mayhem during rampage

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Virginia Tech students described the mayhem on campus on Monday and criticized officials for not shutting the university down quickly enough after 33 people were killed including a gunman. Andrew Gisch, a second-year student, was walking across a quadrangle listening to his iPod when he heard "a big bang." "I recognized the sound of gunfire but was mostly confused .... I looked around at the other students on the drillfield, most of them confused like myself....it clicked in everyone's head immediately the sound we heard was a gun shot and everyone started running. I went back to the dorm, locked the door, and turned on the news." Daniel Smith said he was aware of shootings at other schools but he never thought it could happen at this university. MORE ON THIS STORY

Bush Says Shootings Affect All Students

President Bush said Monday that the mass shooting at Virginia Tech, the deadliest campus violence ever in this country, affects every student across the nation. "Schools should be places of safety, sanctuary and learning," Bush said in reaction to the deaths of more than 30 people on the campus. "When that sanctuary is violated, the impact is felt in every American classroom in every American community." Bush spoke with Gov. Timothy M. Kaine and Virginia Tech President Charles Steger. "I told them that Laura and I and many across our nation are praying for the victims and all the members of university community that have been devastated by this terrible tragedy," Bush said in the Diplomatic Room of the White House. "Today our nation grieves with those who have lost loved ones at Virginia Tech," he said. "We hold the victims in our hearts. We lift them up in our prayers and we ask a loving God to comfort those who are suffering today.'" Attorney General Alberto Gonzales said agents from the FBI and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives were already on the campus, aiding local authorities in the investigation. MORE ON THIS STORY

ATTACK OF THE KILLER LESBIANS

April 12, 2007 -- One of them was "slightly pretty," so the freelance film director decided to say hi. Next thing he knew, he was encircled, beaten and knifed in the gut right there on a Greenwich Village sidewalk - by seven bloodthirsty young lesbians. "The girls started coming out of nowhere," Dwayne Buckle told a Manhattan jury yesterday, describing the bizarre beat-down he suffered last summer, allegedly at the hands of a seething sapphic septet from Newark, N.J. "I felt like I was going to die." Buckle, 29, of Queens, took the stand in Manhattan Supreme Court yesterday to admit he was defenseless and terrified after his simple "hello" spurred a predawn melee on Sixth Avenue at West 4th Street. Three of the original seven women are currently serving six-month jail sentences for attempted assault. But four others are on trial on first-degree gang-assault charges that could get them anywhere from three to 25 years in prison.

The accused ringleader - Patreese Johnson, 20, whom Buckle called the "slightly pretty one" - is additionally charged with attempted murder for allegedly pulling a knife from her purse and slashing Buckle repeatedly, lacerating his liver and stomach. The women, in turn, claim they were defending themselves against a violent, anti-gay bigot, and counter that Buckle provoked them as he sat outside the IFC Center movie theater trying to talk pedestrians into buying his latest movie.

When they rebuffed his advances - telling him he wasn't their type - he began calling them "f- - -ing dykes," they say. He then spat on them, threw a cigarette at them, and even grabbed one of them by the throat - which, like much of the melee, was caught on an IFC video security camera.

"I'll f- - - you straight, sweetheart," he told defendant Venice Brown, 19, before choking her, her lawyer, Michael Mays, told jurors. Buckle told a different story on the stand, assigning many of his alleged attackers monikers. There was Brown, the one he admittedly called an "elephant." Then there was the one with the "low haircut," do-rag and wife-beater T-shirt, whom he admittedly called "a man," and the "slightly pretty" one to whom he first said hello. It all started, he said, when the first two walked by. "They looked effeminate [sic] and one of them was slightly pretty, so I said 'hi' to them," he said. MORE ON THIS STORY

Kelis Charged With Disorderly Conduct

MIAMI BEACH, Fla. - Singer Kelis was charged early Friday with trying to disrupt a police operation by rushing toward the officers while screaming racial profanities at them, according to a police report. Kelis Rogers-Jones, 27, was detained at 4:30 a.m. and charged with disorderly conduct and resisting arrest without violence, a Miami Beach police arrest report said. She was released on $1,500 bond hours later, Miami-Dade County jail spokeswoman Janelle Hall said. The singer, best known for her chart-topping single, "Milkshake," married rapper Nas in 2005. According to the police report, the officers were working along a main avenue in the South Beach nightclub district when Kelis started screaming racial profanities at them, the report said. She then rushed toward them and had to be restrained by her friends, it noted. MORE ON THIS STORY

How to Spot a Criminal at Your Door

Feb. 15, 2007 — Nearly 60,000 American homes are robbed each year. As hard as it is to believe, in some cases, homeowners actually welcome in criminals. In state after state, fake utility workers are robbing homes. "Good Morning America" safety contributor Bob Stuber recently shared tips on staying safe at home and showed off products that can help ward off criminals. Criminals often pose as electricians or policemen to get into a house, and it's not always easy to tell a fake ID or badge from the real thing. Stuber said that homeowners need to go beyond the basics to pinpoint bad guys. "Look for the things that are the hardest to duplicate. A utility worker, a delivery person, a policeman, should all have an official vehicle," Stuber said. "If a worker from the gas company comes around, his truck should have the company's name. That's the kind of thing most would-be crooks can't duplicate. If you don't see a vehicle, don't let him in." MORE ON THIS STORY