New England Sun-Times

Neighbors say they didn’t hear the shots fired, or the police cruisers that followed. “It was very quiet,” says neighbor Courtney Dagou. “It’s like it didn’t even happen.” But what the Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office says did happen: 70-year-old Ralph Wald walked out of his bedroom late Sunday night and found his 42-year-old wife having sex with another man, 32-year-old Walter Lee Conley. “The wife and the victim knew each other,” says HCSO spokeswoman Debbie Carter. “They used to be roommates.” What reportedly happened next horrifies Wald’s neighbors. Deputies say Wald walked back to the bedroom, grabbed a handgun, and fired at Conley several times, killing him instantly. “Everyone has their own issues in their own home. Everyone argues. To take someone’s life… that’s another scenario,” Dagou says. After the shooting, Wald apparently called Hillsborough County dispatchers to report the alleged crime. “Basically told them that he had just shot someone who w...

Conventional media reporters remain for the most part absent in the Brooklyn riots Friday, Day 4 of the U.S. “paramilitary” clashing with hundreds of protesters, angry at the Saturday police killing 16-year-old Kimani Gray, shot eleven times. “How do you spell racist? NYPD!”and “They say get back, we say fight back!” protesters have been yelling at an overwhelming number of officers. “Stop killing our kids,”a woman yelled through a loudspeaker. Gray's family attorney, Kenneth Montgomery, told reporters about the tendency for police to treat black and Hispanic teenagers “in a manner that is paramilitary.” He said “it is a community that is under siege.” Where are reporters? “Martial law in brooklyn and few credible sources reporting it. Wake up journalists, get in there. ‪#martiallaw ‪#riot ‪ http://nyti.ms/Z29YQm" said Dan T on Twitter Friday morning. Jackson Green ‏‪@jacksondgreen tweeted, “Everyone should work to raise awareness. Get ‪#br...

By SHEILA BURKE,Associated Press     COOPERTOWN, Tenn. (AP) — A police chief hired to rebuild a tiny Tennessee department dismantled by scandal is using a lie-detector test to keep racists off his force. Coopertown Police Chief Shane Sullivan took over the department in November, becoming the 11th chief in as many years. He was hired on the heels of a series of police scandals that for a few months left Coopertown with no police at all. Years before that, a mayor was voted out of office after the local prosecutor accused him of racism and running a notorious speed trap. Law enforcement experts say Sullivan’s polygraph approach is unusual, though some departments use the devices for other purposes during the application process. Others try to root out bias in other ways. One polygraph expert warned that lie detectors can’t accurately predict racism for reasons that include people’s inability to recognize their...

51-year-old Chandler Spencer , best known for singing the hook on Rob Base’s melody “Joy & Pain” was found dead in his apartment from an apparent robbery. Spencer is best known by his stage name “Omar Spencer”, he was found dead in the hallway of his apartment in South Carolina. South Carolina police are searching for any leads. They are also looking for Spencer’s 1998 Chrysler Town and County minivan which was reported missing by the victim’s family. The police do not have a suspect.

By ED WHITE, Associated Press     DETROIT (AP) — Former Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick was convicted Monday of corruption charges, ensuring a return to prison for a man once among the nation’s youngest big-city leaders. Jurors convicted Kilpatrick of a raft of crimes, including a racketeering conspiracy charge. He was portrayed during a five-month trial as an unscrupulous politician who took bribes, rigged contracts and lived far beyond his means while in office until fall 2008. Prosecutors said Kilpatrick ran a “private profit machine” out of Detroit’s City Hall. The government presented evidence to show he got a share of the spoils after ensuring that Bobby Ferguson’s excavating company was awarded millions in work from the water department. Business owners said they were forced to hire Ferguson as a subcontractor or risk losing city contracts. Separately, fundraiser Emma Bell said she gave Kilpatrick more t...

A $15.5 million settlement has been reached to end the legal battle over the case of a man who was held in solitary confinement for two years without a trial and was so neglected that he took out his own tooth. Stephen Slevin spent 22 months in a New Mexico county jail after being arrested for drunk driving but was never convicted, according to his lawsuit. Attorney Matthew Coyte said his client ended up in solitary confinement after someone noted he was suicidal. He was so neglected, Coyte said, he was left in his cell for months at a time, had untreated dental problems and toenails that grew so long they curled under his feet. That verdict was one of the largest federal civil rights settlements in history. The county’s board of commissioners said in a statement that it regrets the harm Slevin suffered while in custody between August 2005 and June 2007. The county defended its operation of the jail following the initial $22 million judgment in January 2012. I...

The battle over the Stallion Booty and the Donkey Booty is officially on. After Kenya Moore and Phaedra Parks fell out on “Real Housewives of Atlanta” over disputes relating to business agreements related to the production and distribution of Phaedra’s “Donkey Booty” video , you just knew things were gonna get ugly. But who knew it would lead to Kenya going into direct competition with Mrs. Parks? In the most recent episodes of RHOA, we’ve seen Kenya running around calling her exercise DVD the “Stallion Booty workout,” which is a direct play off of Phaedra’s working title, “Donkey Booty.” But it looks like their marketers told them that it wasn’t a good look to name their exercise brands after animal asses, so Kenya went with the consumer-friendly Booty Boot Camp while Phaedra and Apollo decided to call their workout series the Phine Body workout, with the sub-head “Donkey Booty Volume 1.” Reports have already surfaced saying Kenya is outselling Phaedra’s vide...

A Sallisaw, Oklahoma woman is in the Sequoyah County jail following her arrest for attempting to sell her two children to a woman in Fort Smith. Misty VanHorn, 22, was arrested by Sallisaw Police. Police say VanHorn contacted a Fort Smith woman about buying VanHorn’s 2-year-old and 10-month-old for $1,000 each or both for $4,000. The Fort Smith woman called the Oklahoma Department of Human Services, who notified Sallisaw Police. Detectives say VanHorn told them she needed the money to bond her boyfriend out of jail. VanHorn was booked into the Sequoyah County jail on a complaint of trafficking children. Her bond was $40,000. Both children were placed into state custody. SOURCE: KOTV

Sahirah Rasul’s bus trip from Brooklyn to Burlington didn’t go as planned. Surprise drug busts on the Megabus landed the 17-year-old behind bars. “She’s charged with extremely serious offenses,” said Mary Morrissey, the deputy state’s attorney for Chittenden County. “The heroin trafficking alone carries a 30-year maximum penalty.” Police say they caught Rasul getting off the bus carrying a cereal box stuffed with heroin and crack cocaine. They say she’s one of three New York City passengers arrested this week for using the bargain bus company to transport drugs. “Thousands and thousands of dollars of drugs were confiscated this week,” Chittenden County State’s Attorney T.J. Donovan said. For several months authorities suspected the bus was being used to traffic drugs. So officers were sent to a drop off zone on the University of Vermont’s campus to question suspicious passengers. Police arrested Shirley Colon, 21, for cocaine and marijuana possession after she...

An Ohio man who was exonerated after spending 13 years in prison for murder cried as a federal jury found that two Cleveland police detectives violated his civil rights by coercing and falsifying testimony and withholding evidence that pointed to his innocence. The jury’s verdict on Friday, which included awarding $13.2 million to David Ayers of Cleveland for his pain and suffering, brings an end to the legal battle he’s been fighting since his arrest in the 1999 killing of 76-year-old Dorothy Brown. Ayers, 56, was released from prison in 2011 after the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Cincinnati reversed his conviction and the state decided not to seek another trial. Ayers had been found guilty of killing Brown, who was found in her Cleveland apartment bludgeoned to death, covered in defensive wounds and naked from the waist down; she also had been robbed. DNA testing later proved that a pubic hair found in her mouth did not come from Ayers. “This should have...

An 8-year-old kid has married a 61-year-old woman because the ghost of his dead ancestor told him to. Sanele Masilela tied the knot with Helen Shabangu, who is already married and a mother-of-5. The boy, from Tshwane, South Africa, said he had been told by his dead ancestors to wed and his family, fearing divine retribution, forked out for a wedding. Dressed in a bow tie and tiny silver suit, little Sanele, the youngest of five children, exchanged rings in front of 100 guests and even puckered up for a kiss. It’s already shocked the community but the family has defended the ceremony, saying it was just a ritual and not legally binding. Sanele is named after his grandfather, who was never had a white wedding before he died so he asked Sanele to get married. He chose Helen because he loves her. “By doing this we made the ancestors happy. If we hadn’t done what my son had asked then something bad would have happened in the family. I didn’t have a problem wit...