Suspect in Arizona Shooting Spree Appears in Court
January 11, 2011 by Trend PK
Filed under Breaking News
PHOENIX, Arizona: A troubled 22-year-old college dropout made his first court appearance on Monday on five federal charges, including the attempted assassination of Representative Gabrielle Giffords, who remained in critical condition with a bullet wound to the head.
His hands manacled together, Jared Lee Loughner said in a strong voice he understood the charges against him involving a shooting spree in Tucson on Saturday that left six people dead and 14 others wounded.
The bloody rampage — at an event Giffords hosted for constituents — has fueled debate about whether heated rhetoric seen in recent political campaigns can lead to violence.
President Barack Obama, who stressed unity after the shootings, plans to go to Arizona on Wednesday to attend a memorial service for the dead, who included a federal judge, a 9-year-old girl and one of Giffords’ young aides.
Last year, Giffords had warned that angry campaign talk had prompted violent threats against her and vandalism at her office.
A police mug shot taken of Loughner after his arrest and released on Monday shows the accused killer, who faces a possible death sentence, smiling broadly.
At his court appearance, Loughner’s lawyer waived a detention hearing. Federal Magistrate Judge Lawrence Anderson ordered Loughner held, calling him a danger to the community.
The judge scheduled a January 24 preliminary hearing.
Having survived a shot to the head at point-blank range, Giffords, a popular 40-year-old Democrat, remained in critical condition at a Tucson hospital.
Al-Qaeda still poses threat to US: FBI
April 16, 2010 by Trend PK
Filed under World News
WASHINGTON: Al-Qaeda still aims to strike inside the United States but homegrown or unaffiliated extremists now “pose an equally serious threat,” FBI chief Robert Mueller warned US lawmakers Thursday.
“Al-Qaeda and its affiliates are still committed to striking us in the United States,” Mueller told a Senate Appropriations Subcommittee, pointing to plots to bomb New York City subways and the failed Christmas airline attack.
“Homegrown and lone-wolf extremists pose an equally serious threat,” the Federal Bureau of Investigation director said, citing the shootings at the sprawling Fort Hood army base in Texas.
“These terrorist threats are diverse, far-reaching and ever-changing, and to combat these threats, the FBI must sustain our overseas contingency operations and engage our intelligence and law enforcement partners both here at home and abroad,” he said.
Three Killed In University Of Alabama Shooting
February 13, 2010 by Trend PK
Filed under World News
Three people were killed and one wounded in shootings at the University of Alabama at Huntsville, and a suspected shooter was in custody, a university spokesman and police said.
We have three confirmed people who are dead, one injured. The police have secured the building. The shooter is in custody, UA-Huntsville spokesman Ray Gardner told local television. Huntsville police confirmed three people were dead. Gardner said the suspect in custody was a female and that authorities had placed the campus in lockdown. The shootings occurred just before 4 pm (local time) at the university’s Shelby Center, local media said. I heard three shots and screaming, an engineering student at the campus told. She was near the exit of the Shelby Center when the shootings happened and she said the sound of the shots appeared to come from the third floor, where a biology faculty meeting was taking place.
Three Killed In University Of Alabama Shooting was first posted on February 13, 2010 at 10:38 am.
John Allen Muhammad Execution
John Allen Muhammad Execution, John Allen Muhammad, sentenced to death row prisoner, is implemented. U.S. Supreme Court rejected the appeal, suspend the implementation of Muhammad.
John Allen Muhammad , a lawyer argued that his client was mentally ill when he’s shooting victims. Muhammad is alleged to suffer from Gulf War Syndrome.
John Allen Muhammad and Lee Boyd Malvo, his teenage accomplice, allegedly committed the shootings in Maryland, Virginia and Washington DC.
Muhammad, 48, was convicted of capital murder in the slaying of Dean Harold Meyers on Oct. 9, 2002, at a gas station outside of Manassas, part of a spree that left 10 people dead in the Washington area and included shootings in several other states. A jury in Virginia Beach, where the trial was moved to get an impartial panel, sentenced Muhammad to death nearly six years ago.
Meyers, 53, was Muhammad’s ninth shooting victim in the region and the seventh to die. All had been doing mundane things such as pumping gas, shopping or walking on a public street. The slayings gripped the region and the country. Many outdoor activities were postponed or canceled and people hesitated to go about their daily routines.
Though authorities were never able to specify a motive for the shootings — Muhammad never talked to police — and were unable to say whether he or Malvo actually shot the victims, they were able to link the shootings to the sniper team and their “killing machine,” a modified blue Chevrolet sedan and a Bushmaster .223 rifle.
John Allen Muhammad Execution was first posted on November 10, 2009 at 10:25 pm.
Protesters Defy Curfews in Held Kashmir
SRINAGAR: Thousands of people marched in defiance of a strict curfew in parts of Indian occupied Kashmir on Wednesday as the death toll from recent protests rose to four.
Chanting, “blood for blood” and “we want freedom,” thousands of residents of northern Baramulla town held noisy anti-India demonstrations, despite attempts by police to break up the protests.
The protesters carried the body of a young man, who had died in hospital from injuries sustained during a similar demonstration earlier in the week.
The recent unrest began Monday when thousands protested in Baramulla against the alleged harassment of a Muslim woman by police. Police fired live rounds to disperse the demonstrators, killing two people.
The shootings brought thousands more onto the streets and the unrest spread to the neighbouring town of Sopore, prompting the district authorities to impose curfews in both towns.
On Tuesday a third protester was killed, and the latest victim died from his injuries on Wednesday.
A general strike — called in response to the shootings — crippled life in the summer capital Srinagar and other towns in the Muslim-dominated Kashmir valley for the second day running.
Most schools, shops and offices closed in Srinagar where police sealed off some neighbourhoods to prevent protests
Protesters Defy Curfews in Held Kashmir was first posted on July 1, 2009 at 5:18 pm.
Fired at From Pakistan Side, one killed: India
SRINAGAR:An Indian soldier was killed in cross-border firing in Kashmir, an Indian security official said on Monday, though Pakistan denied any violation of a six-year-old cease-fire in the region. It was not clear whether the firing on Sunday night was from militants trying to sneak into the IoK or from Pakistani troops. “A soldier fell to bullets fired from across the Line of Control late Sunday,” an Indian army official, who did not wish to be identified, said.
Fired at From Pakistan Side, one killed: India was first posted on June 30, 2009 at 1:15 pm.
