Entries Tagged 'Crime' ↓

Black people frequently accuse white people of treating us as though we all look alike. So, when one hears of a Black person having been wrongly convicted in a case of mistaken identity, particularly in as tragic a context as sexual assault, one is usually prepared to write it off as another instance of said Caucasian arrogance, taken to grave ends.

In the 1984 case of Jennifer Thompson, 22, however, raped in Burlington NC while attending college, I can actually see why, in a photo lineup, she mistakenly and tragically identified Ronald Cotton, above left, as her assailant. (She confused him with Bobby Poole, above right, her actual rapist, but whose picture was not part of the grouping.)

Can you say doppelgänger? The duo don’t even look like they’re related. They look, at least, like before and after pictures of the same man, taken a year or two apart.

The close physical resemblance of these two men plays, as well, another unexpected role in this two-part feature from last night’s 60 Minutes. If you missed it, check out the transcript, or ogle part 1, then part 2 of the episode via online video.

As these photos, above, demonstrate, Mexican beauty contest winner Laura Elena Zuniga Huizar, 23, doesn’t flash her terawatt smile in all of her pictures. That’s Zuniga, atop, beaming broadly, after taking home the crown at the Nuestra Belleza Sinaloa (“Our Sinaloa Beauty”) 2008 contest in July.

But that’s also Zuniga, directly above, moments after her December arrest, in what the Associated Press called a “gun-filled truck,” one of two rolling in lockstep, weighted down with “a large stash of weapons, including two AR-15 assault rifles, 38 specials, 9mm handguns, nine magazines, 633 cartridges and $53,300 in U.S. currency.” (Seven alleged gunmen were also captured in the sting.)

Zuniga told police that she was planning on traveling to Bolivia and Colombia with the men to go shopping, [Jalisco state police director, Francisco Alejandro] Solorio said.

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Please stop staring at me…: Carl Panzram, serial killer & tough guy

If you knew you were about to be executed, what would be your last words?

Most of us would want to offer encouragement to our children or loved ones, or make a profound summary on the meaning of life.

Not these guys. In “The 11 Most Badass Last Words Ever Uttered,” Cracked.com have put together a list of ne’er-do-wells who, mere seconds before the the state was about to have their way with ’em, were still out to prove whose cojones had the greatest girth and the most metal.

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Feds raided the nation’s largest kosher slaughterhouse last week when, after a six-month probe, they established that a crystal meth lab was being operated out of the plant, and that employees were bringing weapons with them when they came to work.

At Agriprocessors, in Potsville IA,

a former plant supervisor told investigators that some 80 percent of the workforce was illegal. They included rabbis responsible for kosher supervision, who the source believed entered the United States from Canada without proper immigration documents. The source did not provide evidence for his suspicion about the rabbis. …

At least 300 people were arrested Monday during the raid, for which federal authorities had rented an expansive fairground nearby to serve as a processing center for detainees.

I’m not exactly a huge LisaRaye fan.

I think she’s really pretty, and, in some instances, astonishingly so. When she’s lit well and in motion—like she is in this ignominiously titled YouTube clip, “Lisa raye lookin sexy big butt”—her face has a sculptural quality, an interesting-from-any-angle form. I loved her in 2Pac’s “Toss Is Up” video, much less in The Players Club…and don’t even mention the execrable All of Us.

But when I first saw the inside-gatefold cover of Smooth, issue #36, above, I have to admit I was actually a little disappointed.

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Beats dogfighting any day: Three of Sean Bell’s five killers

This past December, former Atlanta Falcons quarterback Michael Vick was sentenced to 23 months in Federal prison for dogfighting.

Of what significance is the fact that, for that cruel sport, he will serve far more time than New York Police Department detectives Michael Oliver, Gescard Isnora, and Marc Cooper, above, will do for killing Queens resident Sean Bell, in a hail of 50 bullets, the morning of his wedding day? Continue reading →

An estimated 5,000 Black human beings were lynched in the United States between the years 1890 and 1960. By averages, that’s one African-American dying horribly, in racist mob violence, every five days for seventy years. In almost all of these cases, no one was ever charged for the crimes. So affirms the guest on my WBAI-NY / 99.5 FM radio show, NONFICTION, this afternoon, Friday, April 25, 2 pm ET.

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“I’m sorry…I meant to go to jail!”: Akon makes a mean face

I’m not even an Akon fan. However, I just couldn’t resist the opportunity to write that headline before another blog did.

The Huffington Post got to The Smoking Gun earlier than the rest of us did, pointing out what rigorously fact-checked hip-hop magazines should have known a long time ago: When Senegal-born singer-songwriter-producer Akon

settled on “Konvicted” for the title of his second album, which sold nearly three million copies last year … “Kontrived” might have been a more accurate choice.

Akon’s ad nauseum claims about his criminal career and resulting prison time have been, to an overwhelming extent, exaggerated, embellished, or wholly fabricated, an investigation by The Smoking Gun has revealed.

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Not so cute, funny, and sexy now, is it?: Detroit Mayor Kwame M. Kilpatrick and his former chief of staff/alleged mistress Christine Beatty, above, after turning themselves in to the Wayne County Sherriff’s office for mug shots and fingerprinting on perjury, obstruction of justice, misconduct in office, and other charges, Monday. Both are scheduled to be arraigned today at 1 pm CT.