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Arizona’s 3rd execution this year!

April 25, 2012

In 1992, Thomas Kemp was an ex-convict working as a maintenance man in Tucson. When a past prison mate named Jeffrey Logan escaped from an honor farm in California, he and Kemp teamed up, purchased a gun and went looking for a victim.

They found a college student by the name of Hector Juarez, 25, who had left his apartment to get a late-night snack. Kemp and Logan seized him in the parking lot outside his apartment. They forced him to withdraw money from an ATM, stripped him naked and shot him in the head. Then they discarded his body near the Silverbell Mine in Marana.

Kemp and Logan drove to Flagstaff and sold Kemp’s truck, then carjacked a couple and forced them to drive to Durango, Colorado. The couple got away and contacted police. Logan was arrested in Denver and led Tucson police to Juarez’s body in the desert. Kemp was arrested in a homeless shelter in Tucson. While in jail in Pima County, Kemp confessed to killing Juarez.

Logan received a sentence of life in prison. Kemp was convicted of first-degree murder, armed robbery and kidnapping. At his sentencing a month later, Kemp told the court that Juarez was “beneath my contempt” because he was not an American citizen.

Thomas Kemp was put to death in Florence on Wednesday morning. This is Arizona’s 3rd execution for 2012. Kemp was insubordinate to the end. “I regret nothing,” were his last words.
Then he trembled as the drugs coursed through his veins and went still.

What is your opinion on the death penalty? Should Kemp have just lived the rest of his life in jail like his partner in crime Logan?

New Case of Mad Cow Disease in California

April 24, 2012

A new case of mad cow disease has surfaced in a dairy cow in California. The animal was not released for the nation’s food supply and posed no danger, the Agriculture Department said Tuesday. The USDA department has begun notifying trading partners and international health officials. The organization did not release explicit information about the cow other than that it died on the farm.

John Clifford, the chief veterinary officer of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, said the cow from central California did not enter the human food chain and that U.S. meat and dairy supplies are safe. “There is really no cause for alarm here with regard to this animal,” Clifford told reporters at an assembled press conference.

Clifford did not mention when the disease was found or where the cow was raised. He said the cow was at a rendering plant in Central California when the disease was discovered through standard USDA sample testing.

There had only been three confirmed cases of BSE (bovine spongiform encephalopathy) or mad cow disease in the United States since the government began examining for the disease to keep the food supply safe. This cow is the fourth one to be discovered. Mad cow disease can be fatal to humans who eat the infected beef. However, humans cannot be infected by drinking milk from BSE-infected animals. The disease is always fatal in cattle though.

In people, eating the BSE contaminated meat is linked to Creutzfeldt – Jakob disease, an uncommon and deadly nerve disease. An enormous outbreak of mad cow disease in the United Kingdom that peaked in 1993 was responsible for the deaths of 180,000 cattle and more than 150 people.

There have been a small amount of cases of variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease confirmed in people living in the United States. But those cases were linked to meat products in the United Kingdom and Saudi Arabia, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Is it possible that the cows that were raised with that specific cow also be infected? How accurate is the standard USDA sample testing?

2 men arrested for planting booby traps in Utah

Two young men are in custody in Utah after deadly booby traps were found along an admired walking trail in Provo Canyon. The suspects are Benjamin Steven Rutkowski, 19, and Kai Matthew Christensen, 21. They were charged with reckless endangerment which is a misdemeanor.

Authorities used Facebook to track the suspects down. They moved in on Rutkowski and Christensen following their conversations of the booby traps on the social networking site. An observer also contacted the Utah Country Sheriff’s Office with information on the suspects.

A statement issued by the Utah County Sheriff’s Office said a US Forest Service officer discovered the two booby traps inside a shelter built from dead tree limbs while on foot patrol along the Big Springs walking trail. “As he investigated the shelter he noticed what appeared to be a trip wire near the ground at an entrance. Upon further investigation he discovered that the trip wire led to a booby trap device which was made with a large rock, sticks sharpened at both ends, and was held together with rope,” the statement read. “This device was situated in such a way that when contact was made with the trip wire it would swing toward an unsuspecting hiker or camper,” the statement added.

A second booby trap was also revealed and it also could be triggered by a trip wire. “This wire was configured so as to trip a person, possibly causing them to fall forward onto sharpened sticks placed in the ground,” the statement said.
Police said the two young men had confessed to placing the deadly traps in the Provo Canyon area.

What do you think is the reason for which they placed these traps on a walking trail? Do these two men need some sort of psychological help? What was the purpose of the booby traps: harming people for fun? Could this be a real life Hunger Games?

Is FBI’s Most Wanted Robert Fisher in Payson, AZ?

April 23, 2012

It’s more than a decade old mystery. Police say a Scottsdale’s Robert Fisher allegedly set fire to his home killing his wife and children and then he vanished.
Fisher’s wife and two children were found dead in their home in 2001. Robert Fisher is the main suspect in the triple murder. Then wife, Mary, 38, and their children, Brittney, 13, and Bobby, 10, were found murdered. Authorities believe he slit their throats, shot his wife in the head and blew up the home to cover it up.

A trail of evidence was found outside of Payson 10 days after the murders. His wife’s SUV, one of Fisher’s hats and the family dog. But since then, there’s been no real trace of the man on the run. He’s on the FBI’s Top 10 Most Wanted List and the reward is $100,000. Fisher hasn’t been seen since and his disappearance remains one of the largest unsolved obscurities the valley has ever seen. A lot of people want to know where is he is. Is Fisher still alive?
Now, we have learned there are some new developments in the case, and he could be hiding out HERE IN THE STATE. The FBI alerted local law enforcement about the new developments. The information was meant to be confidential but it was somehow disclosed to the public.

For some reason, the FBI thinks Fisher could be in Payson. The FBI is searching the area to make sure he’s not in an old cabin or trailer. The agency has not mentioned what tipped them off to search for Fisher in Payson again. But, they do still receive tips from people who think they know where Fisher might be hiding. Police say the reason why it’s so difficult to find Fisher is because he doesn’t have anything that stands out about him. By now, Fisher would be 51. He would walk with an upright posture and pushed-out chest because of a lower-back surgery he had.

What is the possibility that Fisher is still in the same state he committed a murder? Wouldn’t he at least leave the state after he fled from the scene? If he is in Payson, can the community do something to help track him down?

Milledgeville, GA- Kindergartner Arrested

April 17, 2012

Georgia police handcuffed a 6 year old kindergartner after the girl threw a tantrum at school. Salecia Johnson was accused of tearing items off the walls and throwing books and toys on Friday at Creekside Elementary School. The principal was injured due to a small shelf the child threw. The police report says when the officer tried to calm down the child in the principal’s office, she resisted and was handcuffed. The child also jumped on a paper shredder and tried to break a glass frame, the police report states. The girl was charged with simple battery and damage to property. She was suspended and can’t return to school until August.
The girl’s aunt, Candace Ruff, went with the child’s mother to pick her up from the police station. She said Salecia was alone in a holding cell and complained about the handcuffs. “She said they were really tight. She said they really hurt her wrists,” Ruff told the Associated Press. “She was so shaken up when we went there to pick her up.”

The girl’s family demanded that the central Georgia city change policy so that other children aren’t treated the same way. They say the child was shaken up by being put in a cell at the police station.” We would not like to see this happen to another child, because it’s horrifying. It’s devastating,” Ruff said.
The police chief said the girl was taken to the police department’s squad room, not a holding cell, and officers there tried to calm her down.
“The reason we handcuff detainees is for the safety of themselves as well as the officer,” says Police Chief Dray Swicord. “Our policy states that any detainee transported to our station in a patrol vehicle is to be handcuffed in the back and there is no age discrimination on that rule”.

Was it really necessary for the child to be handcuffed? Should the school have better control on the children so there won’t be a need for police enforcement?

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