D.B. Cooper's parachute possibly found

AP reporting:

The sheriff of a southern Tennessee county was arrested Saturday in an FBI sting and charged with extorting money from video gambling operators.

Oh, my. You think Chattanooga police, politicians, administrators will keep far, far away from this?

From the Knoxville News Sentinel, Stolen truck stalls on tracks:

When the first officer reached the truck, he had a hard time getting Hunley's attention, DeBusk said.

"He was sitting behind the wheel, oblivious to the officers, happily trying to light a crack pipe," DeBusk said.

You can't make this stuff up.

It's bastards like this who make it hard to keep opposing the death penalty.

Three teenagers in the Cincinnati school system posted an entry on Facebook with the face and last name of a teacher and referred to him as a member of a notorious national association that advocates sex between men and boys.

The students were suspended for 90 days. Now they are suing school officials over the length of the suspensions.

"They're not saying it's true, they're saying it's just parody," the students' attorney, Marc Mezibov, said Friday.

Free speech is coming into play.

Geez! If the Facebook entry is not true, I hope the teacher is suing the students and their families for something. I can't imagine why the students' parents think the students should not receive a strong punishment. They are lucky they are getting a criminal record, IMO.

From the Knoxville News Sentinel: Knox County Sheriff J.J. Jones said Taylor Lee Olsen of Knoxville has been arrested in the slaying.

UPDATE: According to updates at the KNS story linked above, Olsen admits killing Berry.

The "24th Annual National Night Out" (NNO), a unique crime/drug prevention event sponsored by the National Association of Town Watch (NATW), has been scheduled for Tuesday, August 7, 2007.

Heighten crime and drug prevention awareness; Generate support for, and participation in, local anticrime programs; Strengthen neighborhood spirit and police-community partnerships; and Send a message to criminals letting them know that neighborhoods are organized and fighting back.

The City of Knoxville and Knox County are listed as registered participants. Kudos to all for their participation.

Looks like Laura Bush's war on gangs isn't going all that great, just like her husband's war on terror.

Blast from the past after the jump...

The Maryville Daily Times reported on an attempted robbery at the Richy Kreme donut store in Eagleton Village. The suspect got away, but the Sheriff's Office released the following:

The woman then left the shop and fled in a 1993 gray Toyota, traveling toward Maryville on East Broadway.

O’Briant said the tag number on the vehicle was 340PQH.

The woman was described as white, about 5 feet tall, with brown hair.

Anyone with information about the attempted robbery should call the Blount County Sheriff’s Office crime information hot line at 273-5200.

How much more information do they need? Maybe they'd like someone to go ahead and arrest the suspect and bring her on down to the lockup for them?

(Memo to would-be robbers: Donut shops should be pretty far down on your list of targets.)

A city council leader, alarmed by Baltimore's rising homicide rate, wants to give the mayor the power to put troubled neighborhoods under virtual lockdown.

...modeled his plan after an approach advocated by Philadelphia mayoral candidate Michael Nutter, who won the Democratic nomination Tuesday. Nutter has called for declarations of a "state of emergency" in high-crime neighborhoods, where police would conduct aggressive stop-and-frisk searches and impose curfews.

Guess we'll have to win the war over there before we can win the war over here. Are there green zones in these cities?

According to the NY Times, "An investigation into sexual abuse and mismanagement at the Texas Youth Commission has led to the dismissal of 66 employees with records of felony charges or arrests, including one convicted of homicide and another who had pleaded guilty to attempted murder, the state official leading the inquiry reported Wednesday."

They say they aren't sure if any kids were harmed. Yet someone sure was trying to get the ear of the commission.

"From early March through April 27, Mr. Kimbrough reported, 2,972 calls and complaints came into a command post hot line, with 1,463 of the cases closed. Eleven employees have been arrested, and 12 senior executives and three facility superintendents have been fired or have resigned, the report said."

Under the care of people like this, it is most likely these kids were emotionally if not physically tortured. How disgusting!

Be careful out there.

Celebrity Juror #9's random thoughts and notes on the testimony and the jury deliberations. I believe this is the first half. Fascinating stuff. My guess is the guy has already signed a book deal.

Everyone's favorite liberal blogging lawyer Jeralyn Merritt, who covered the trial, has Scooter Libby's sentencing guidelines and her predictions. Her complete beginning to end coverage is indexed here.

Digby: Where's Rove? Bonus: Russert testimony pivotal.

Think Progress: Fox News calls for pardon. Joe Wilson reacts to verdict.

Bill Scher: Blogs kept story from being swept under the rug.

Media Matters: Watch for the spin.

New York Times: Libby guilty

New York Times: Cheney questions remain

Washington Post: Moment of accountability

Washington Post: Libby was the fall guy

Investor's Business Daily: Travesty of justice

In the Fair and Balanced equal time department, Free Republic weighs in after the jump...

This is insane.

Also, can someone explain to me why outsourcing government operations such as prisons to a company like CCA or management of Walter Reed to some Halliburton crony is good policy? Is it supposed to save money? How does that work, when you have to add in profits over and above operating costs?

Ari Fleischer testified today (a Monday) that Scooter Libby told him about Valerie Plame at a Monday luncheon days before Libby said he first learned about it from the media. Somebody's got some splainin' to do.

There's got to be a country music song somewhere in all this.

(More details here.)

Airport cop attacked, returns fire:

"He (the officer) hadn't even gotten out of his vehicle yet when the suspect stepped out of his vehicle and started shooting rounds," O'Briant said.

The officer then opened fire on the suspect through his windshield, striking him twice in the torso, she said.

Amazingly, the story doesn't end (or begin) there.

The irony is astounding. Anybody who knows Les Jones or who has looked at his blog knows that he has been active in helping Johnia Berry's family find her killer.

Yesterday, a Knox County Sheriff's investigator showed up at his house based on a "tip" that Les resembled a police sketch of the killer (which is crazy). Read all about it here.

Michael Silence makes the point that law enforcement can't assume anything and that they have to run down every lead. It's hard to imagine, though, that they didn't know who Les Jones was or that he, along with the Berry family, have at times been critical of the Knox Co. Sheriff's handling of the case.

Stuff like this makes me once again wonder why anybody wants to run a website that discusses controversial issues.

Today is January 8. In this young year, there have been no fewer than eight people murdered in New Orleans, Louisiana.

Ms. Helen Hill was number seven.

...shortly before 6 a.m. Thursday, Hill died of a gunshot to the neck inside her home, where police would also find her husband, shot three times, clutching 2-year-old Francis near the couple's front door.

Helen Hill was an artist and filmmaker, an animator by profession; a community activist by avocation. Her husband, Dr. Paul , is a doctor who co-founded a clinic in Treme to help the city's poor. That clinic was lost, along with their home at Clark & Cleveland in Mid-City New Orleans in the wake of Hurricane Katrina.

The Globe and Mail continues the story...

Dr. Gailiunas was hit four times in the cheek and arm but was released from hospital yesterday. Their two-year-old son, Francis, was unhurt. He was reportedly found in the entrance of his house, protected by his injured father.

In a city that has become accustomed to tragedy and to an endless strings of crime -- there have been a dozen homicides in the past two weeks -- this latest outrage was just too much.

"I'm so aggravated and angry," said Helen Gillet, an experimental cellist who gathered with about two dozen other friends of the couple outside their modest frame house in New Orleans's Faubourg Marigny neighbourhood late yesterday afternoon. "I'm outraged at what's going on in the community."

Dr. Gailiunas, who worked in a clinic for the poor run by the Daughters of Charity religious order, and Ms. Hill were part of the community of artists, poets and other creative types, refugees from the rest of the United States and elsewhere, who have been drawn to New Orleans because of its singular history and culture.

They all know that the city is bedevilled by crime, but what has happened since Katrina has shaken them to the core. There were 161 homicides here last year -- all in a city that has only about 220,000 people, half the number from before Katrina, giving it one of America's highest homicide rates.

These kind folks had left New Orleans, but returned on Aug. 28, 2006 - one year to the day commemorating the beginning of the destruction of their re-adopted city.

I probably wouldn't have even noticed this news, except for the fact that a friend of mine was a friend of theirs.

His tribute to her, "Helen Hill and the Death of New Orleans," seems quite fitting a tribute for a person I shall never meet. It is also fodder for an honest conversation:

(more after the jump)

Is that some folks can make a damn good case for not allowing the mentally ill access to firearms. Today's Year #26.

And, in commemoration of the event, I'm linking a great Guardian review of the recent flick about Lennon's harrassment by Hoover's goons...which is worth reading, if only for the Spike Milligan comparisons.

UPDATE(2:00pm): I have the police report. Here's what happened:

LaFollette Police were called to the residence of Mike Stanfield shortly before 8:00pm Tuesday night on a theft call. Upon arrival, Mr. Stanfield and his son Shaun told officers that they saw the suspect take a utility trailer from their property and pull it to the street behind his vehicle. Mr. Stanfield told police he and his son confronted the suspect (34-year-old Kenny Shepard of LaFollette) who then fled in his vehicle. Mr. Stanfield is claiming Shepard "struck" his son Shaun with the vehicle as he fled but the report also states a witness claims the younger Stanfield jumped onto the hood of Shepard's car in an attempt to stop him.

The officers arrived at the Stanfield residence after Shepard took off. Stanfield said he knew the suspect and knew where he lived. The officers said they would follow Stanfield. However, the officers got slowed by traffic and stop signs in the residential neighborhood and when they arrived at Shepard's residence, Stanfield--according to the report--and Shepard were already in a struggle and Stanfield had a handgun pointed at Shepard's head saying, "You tried to run over my son! I'll blow your f--ing head off!"

Officers ordered Stanfield to drop his gun, which he did. Both he and Shepard were arrested.

Kenny Shepard is charged with theft of over $500 (the utility trailer was returned to the Stanfield property). Although not official, I have heard that perhaps Shepard is an ex in-law of Stanfield's or somehow known to the Stanfield family.

Mike Stanfield was charged with aggravated assault, was booked and later released on bond.

Stanfield was elected to LaFollette City Council two weeks ago and is due to take office next month

Don't let the GOP rain on our parade.

Read more after the jump...

The jury hung 10-2 in favor of conviction. As covered previously, the 199 mph wreck of the $1.5 million sportscar was the tip of the iceberg in this bizarre, fascinating story of an international criminal and dot-com buster.

Sheriff Hutchison has been sending a form letter to some people concerning the murder investigation. The family responds here.

There's a new printable reward flyer. 

In a comment on this thread Johnia's brother Kelly has information about the killer's DNA and the name of the movie Johnia saw shortly before her murder:

According to the DNA evidence found at the scene, the 3rd party's blood is that of a male caucasian. This doesn't necessarily mean that a male caucasian killed Johnia, but that person's blood was found at the crime scene. Personally, I believe that this was the person. Was there more than one person there that morning? I wish I knew. I will keep everyone posted with more information in the future, but I think that this seems to paint a clearer picture of the responsible party. If this, along with the information Jason has given, leads to any potential leads, please let us know. It might seem that this was apparent in the beginning, but it's good to have scientific evidence to back it up. Also, for those interested, the movie Johnia went to see was CLOSER.

Johnia's roommate, Jason Aymami, described the killer as a white male, which the DNA evidence confirms. In that same thread Jason gives more information about the person he saw.

Well the most I can remember about the attacker were his big, glossy eyes. He had a stockier build around 185 pounds, and slightly shorter than I 5-8 to 5-9. His hair was very short, maybe one half inch at most and was lighter colored. Light brown or a darker blonde. He was wearing a Tshirt that was a tan color that resembled a gray sweatshirt pattern. I don't know how else to describe the pattern, but if you seen a regular old russel athletic gray sweatshirt then you'll know the pattern I am talking about. I don't remember any distinct smell or marks on the assailant. I couldn't tell much of his voice because he only talked to me in a louder whisper. His face wasn't pudgy or very slim...it fit his body well. Not to big or too small. And for hypnosis I have said that I have researched it and have decided that I am not going to do it. For those who believe this is a bad decision then let it be. It is not out of disrespect to anyone or revealing information that I don't want to get out it's just a decision I have made. You can post all you want about it but this is the last time I will address the issue. I don't want to repeat myself a million times.

I don't blame him about the hypnosis. I'd be skeptical of any information obtained under hypnosis, and I doubt any recollections collected through hypnosis would be admissable as grounds for a warrant or grand jury indictment.

Finally, frequent commentor Wolfpack Ledger notes the resemblance between Brent Davis (who was convicted of statutory rape), below left, and the police composite created from Jason's A's description, below right.

This isn't the first time an arrestee has come along who looks like the composite - like I've said before, the sketch is of a pretty generic, short-haired, young white guy - but it's part of the sifting process. Wolfpack also links to Ernest James Glenn, but he's less of a match, visually. I do think the killer is very young (Glenn is 19 and Davis is 20).

Previous suspects who sort of, kind of resembled the police composite include Zachary Michael Howell and Douglas Everett Loveday (whose story sent chills up my spine, but the sheriff has cleared him of involvement in Johnia's murder). One thing I discovered from reading the sheriff's Web site is how many weird crimes happen in a city as small as Knoxville. Like Lily Tomlin says, no matter how cynical you are, it's hard to keep up.

Apparently there was some kind of brouhaha on the gun blogs about Knoxville Mayor Bill Haslam signing on to a mayor's conference resolution to work against the proliferation of illegal guns.

Naturally, the gun bloggers concluded that Haslam had signaled his clear intent to unilaterally throw out the 2nd Amendment and invite NY Mayor Bloomberg's anti-gun SWAT task force down to confiscate all their AK-47s and AR-15s using the secret illegal gun registry maintained by the KPD and the ATF and Hillary Clinton.

To the bunkers, men! The Yankees are coming and there's already one of them in Knoxville City Hall!

Uber-wingnut Steve Gill called Halsam out for a high-noon showdown, and tried to get him to renounce his position against illegal guns. Volunteer Voters has the audio.

To his credit, Haslam would not back down. He said he doesn't understand why anyone would not want illegal guns off the street, and invited Gill down to the KPD evidence room to see what they were talking about. Good for Mayor Haslam.

Sometimes a little common sense goes a long way.

(UPDATE: I forgot to mention, kudos to SayUncle for poking a stick at the Mayor and prompting a reaction. No matter what you think about the program, it's always interesting when the powers that be take blogs seriously.)

Earlier this year a man destroyed a million dollar Ferrari Enzo in a 199 mph wreck. That wreck marked the end of the car and the end of a company called Gizmondo that had burned through hundreds of millions of dollars in investments. It would soon lead to the arrest of the car's driver, a Swedish criminal named Stefan Eriksson. Randall Sullivan has the bizarre story in Wired.

The Enzo has less than 6 inches of ground clearance, and at that speed, it took only a slight scrape under the front bumper to launch the vehicle. The airborne Ferrari landed in a skid that in a blink became a sidelong drift. Tires shredding, the car bounced over the shoulder onto a grassy slope wet with dew. All Eriksson could do was hold on as the slithering, swiveling Enzo again achieved liftoff, then slammed broadside into a wooden power pole.

It might have ended there, another high-flying company with big ambitions and a lousy product. But the crash put a spotlight on Eriksson and raised a series of questions: Who is he? What kind of person drives nearly 200 mph on a coastal highway? The answers led to even more puzzles. In just a few years, it seems, Eriksson went from languishing in a European jail cell to making millions as a tech executive to, even more improbably, becoming deputy commissioner of antiterrorism for an obscure Southern California transit police force. Before ­Eriksson lost control of his Ferrari in Malibu, no one in the US really cared about his strange story. But after the supercar came apart, Eriksson would find every inch of his life under scrutiny by the LA County Sheriff's Department, federal law-enforcement officers, and the media. That's when Eriksson and a tangle of cohorts would find out just how large a little bump could loom.

If you like that story, read Sullivan's even more amazing account of the murder of rapper Biggie Smalls. Sullivan makes a compelling case that David Mack was one of the people involved in the murder. Mack was by day a police officer in the LAPD's Rampart division, by night a private security guard for Death Row Records mogul Suge Knight, and by raising a Bloods gangmember. Mack is currently in prison for the armed robbery of the Bank of America.

Apparently some scary dude is going around Blount Co. churches stealing Bibles, removing the covers, and cutting the pages into four equal size shapes, then dumping the pieces at churches or stuffing them in people's mailboxes.

The front-page headline story in today's Maryville Daily Times (story not online at their website) says that one Bible taken was an altar Bible that dates back to the 1800s. According to the article, at least five churches have been hit by the Bible Bandit, one more than once.

Police are seeking more evidence and request churches to report similar thefts. Anyone observing suspicious characters at churches, someone with "numerous Bibles in their car, possibly in pieces," or someone dumping items at churches to call the Blount County crime hotline at 273-5200.

I've been busy for a few days, but just wanted to mention that we have the most arrogant, incompetent, corrupt, criminal government that I can recall in my lifetime.

This stuff with that Foley guy, I hope everyone realizes that the GOP has been sitting on this until it was to their advantage to trot it out as a misdirection from the miserable failure of our Global War on Terror in Iraq, and the fact that Congress just voted to legalize torture, throw out the Geneva Conventions, and elevate the idiot manchild occupant of the White House to a position somewhere above the law and the Constitution.

But forget all that. What everyone wants to know is, was Foley wearing a blue dress? And what IS the age of consent in the District of Columbia anyway?

By all means, let's forget about illegal invasions and torture and murder and no-bid sweetheart contracts and the drowning of a Great American City and whatnot.

And let's forget about our Democratic leadership that has abandoned any pretense of being an opposition party or discharging their duties of oversight of an out of control, corrupt administration. We love being labeled as cowards and weaklings who are soft on terror. Let's add soft on perverts to the list. Thank you sir, I'll have another!

Yes. Instead, let's talk about kinky IMs and that pond-scum-sucking Speaker of the House calling for an FBI investigation.

Does anybody think they will investigate the obstruction of justice and the failure to report a possible crime thus making the Speaker of the United States House of Representatives an accomplice?

Probably not.

But you can bet that the newspapers and cable talking-wobbly-bobble-head idiots will be talking about the swift, decisive action taken by GOP leadership to nip this stuff in the bud. Nip it, I tell you. Right in the bud.

It's yet another example of how they are keeping America safe from assorted invading mongrel hordes, perverts, and tin-pot dictators with imaginary weapons of mass deception in their pants. Which is exactly why you should vote for them in November. Again. Thank you sir, we'll have another!

Knox County Mayor Mike Ragsdale talks with WATE's Gene Patterson this Sunday on the political talk show "Tennessee This Week". The program will air at 12:00 noon.

WATE broadcast a teaser last night and it is interesting to watch the Mayor's body language. Watch this Sunday and see if you can spot the "tell".

Ragsdale would have made a decent magician as he is skilled in the art of misdirection. His summary of the entire Tyler Harber saga can be distilled as he, "believes the stories were generated out of a personal vendetta by Betty Bean and Halls Shopper editor Sandra Clark."

Betty calls the Mayor on that balderdash here. An invitation to the parking lot behind Eddie's Auto Parts may be imminent.

The County Mayor has a very simple political philosophy, you are either with him or you are against him. By the way, he wants to be Governor.