Jason Bruce, a Marine reservist in Tampa, Fla., attacked an innocent Greek Orthodox priest with a tire iron. Bruce has initiated a shameful legal defense: the priest grabbed his crotch.
The actual story is quite different. Apparently, Father Alexios Marakis, who speaks little English, became lost after his car's GPS system led him astray. Marakis followed several cars into the parking garage of a condominium in order to seek instructions. He approached Bruce, who was retrieving items from the trunk of his car. Bruce responded by chasing Marakis and hitting him several times with a tire iron. Video footage shows a tire iron-wielding Bruce chasing Marakis. Marakis's GPS records confirm his assertion that he came to the area while trying to reach another destination.
Police arrested Bruce after he gave several inconsistent explanations. According to the St. Petersburg Times, Bruce said that:
Bruce's allegation that Marakis grabbed his crotch is an example of the controversial "gay panic defense." The gay panic defense allows defendants to claim provocation as justification for violent acts they committed. The defense is not uniformly recognized, and it is widely criticized by legal scholars.
The gay panic defense is homophobic because it rests on the assumption that a gay sexual advance is so provocative and threatening that, with or without physical contact, it warrants a violent response. This is not the law regarding heterosexual sexual advances.
Furthermore, Bruce's conflicting explanations suggest that the defense is a complete fabrication. Nevertheless, his lawyer, Jeff Brown, is running with it. According to Brown the following series of events took place:
The bearded man wearing a robe and sandals was clearly trespassing in the garage. In a sudden move, the stranger made a verbal sexual advance and grabbed Bruce's genitals. The Marine defended himself. And immediately, he called 911 as he chased him.
Brown is actually trying to peddle a gay Islamic Arab rapist terrorist defense. Brown's argument is a gross example of shameful lawyering.
Finally, this was not Bruce's first brush with the law. Although this information will probably get excluded from evidence if Bruce is prosecuted, in 2007, Bruce "was charged with misdemeanor battery ... for hopping over the bed of a tow truck and shoving its driver. He pleaded no contest." Today, Bruce remains violent.
Just an update to a bizarre and tragic story you may remember having read about earlier this year, and which left an impression on me I'd rather it didn't. Julie Corey, the woman who in July allegedly killed her eight-months pregnant friend and then cut the live fetus from her womb and kidnapped it, has been formally charged with murder.
After allegedly killing Darlene Haynes by some combination of blunt head trauma and strangulation, Corey showed up at a homeless shelter in New Hampshire claiming to be the excised baby's mother. Corey had apparently been telling friends she was pregnant, but wasn't. It took a few days before authorities finally found Haynes' body in her apartment.
Haynes already had three other children, the eldest two of whom already were living with her mother. Her then-18-month-old and the abducted baby are in custody of Massachusetts childrens services.
It's just such a sad case all the way around--a woman dead, two kids orphaned, and an alleged killer who most likely suffers from some form of mental illness.
Leering, inappropriate attention -- it's not just for peepholes! When ESPN reporter Erin Andrews checked into a Columbus, Ohio hotel in Februrary of 2008, she did what many people do when they're alone in hotel rooms. She took off her clothes. Little did she know someone was on the other side of the wall, watching her, filming her, someone who would soon be posting what he saw on the Web. Someone who unbeknownst to Andrews had requested a room next to hers -- and had his request unblinkingly honored by the hotel. He then did it again. Yesterday, Michael David Barrett pleaded guilty to interstate stalking, and will face up to five years in prison when he's sentenced in February. Also in that Los Angeles courtroom was Andrews herself, who told Judge Manuel Real, "I am a victim of this sexual predator. I would like to see him immediately put in prison for as long as possible."
The 48-year-old insurance executive has admitted to taking hotel rooms adjacent to Andrews on three occasions and filming her twice. In addition to posting the material he shot, he also tried to sell it to TMZ.
In court yesterday, Andrews said, "I have nightmares. I walk in crowds and I see him in my peripheral vision. When I'm alone in my house, I have fears he's going to come in and hurt me... My career has been ripped apart, something I've worked very hard for. I am subjected to crude comments, suggestions that I have partnered in this crime. I walk into stadiums, and fans say obscene things to me."
How could anybody treat a woman who'd been the victim of a stalker as complicit the crime? Well, maybe it has something to do with the fact that the 31-year-old Andrews is blonde and pretty, a fact that rarely goes unremarked -- or uneditorialized -- in the media coverage of her case.
Yesterday "The New York Post," ever a bastion of taste and restraint, headlined the story as "Andrews Bares Her Torment" and made sure to note Andrews's "four-inch heels." "The New York Daily News," perhaps rusty on their Greek mythology, referred to the "ESPN beauty" meanwhile as a "sportscasting siren." And we're sure she'll be thrilled to know she's in the running for "Playboy's Sexiest Sportscaster of 2009," especially after earning that top honor last year. Oh, and as Andrews noted yesterday, the videos are still out there.
But the field is not entirely riddled with journalistic peeping Toms. SI.com did a fine job yesterday of describing Andrews's emotional courtroom plea without leering at her. Between Barrett's forthcoming sentencing and Andrews's ongoing campaign for better hotel security, there will no doubt be ample further opportunities for reporters to test their ability to cover stories of voyeurism without stooping to ogle their subjects themselves.
The family of a slain British woman said Saturday they were pleased with the murder conviction of American student Amanda Knox but said there was no sense of celebration.
Meredith Kercher's relatives made their first comments since a jury in Perugia, Italy, announced early Saturday that they had convicted Knox and sentenced her to 26 years in prison for the 2007 murder.
The court also convicted Knox's co-defendant and former boyfriend, Italian Raffaele Sollecito, and gave him a 25-year jail term. The two reportedly both were under suicide watch in separate prisons.
"Ultimately we are pleased with the decision, pleased that we've got a decision, but it's not a time for celebration," Lyle Kercher, the victim's brother, said.
Kercher's sister, Stephanie, said the verdict "does bring a a little bit of justice, for us and for her." But she added: "Life will never be the same without Mez."
Kercher, 21, was Knox's roommate while they studied in Perugia.
Her body was found in a pool of blood with her throat slit on Nov. 2, 2007, at the apartment they shared. Prosecutors said the Leeds University student was murdered the previous night.
After a yearlong trial and some 13 hours of deliberations, the jury read out the verdict in a packed courtroom shortly after midnight. Knox burst into tears and murmured "No, no," clinging to one of her lawyers.
Minutes later, the 22-year-old from Seattle was put in a police van with sirens blaring and driven back to her jail just outside Perugia.
She spent her first night in jail as a convicted woman under suicide watch, the ANSA news agency and other reports said. Sollecito, also kept under suicide watch -- which is common in such cases -- received the visit of one of his lawyers, ANSA said.
In Italy verdicts can be appealed by both sides. The prosecutors said they were satisfied with the ruling and would not seek to appeal, even though the court did not grant their request for life imprisonment. Prosecutor Manuela Comodi said that the verdict "recognizes the defendants are guilty of all the crimes they had been charged with."
Both the Knox family and lawyers for Sollecito have announced an appeal.
The American's father, Curt Knox, asked shortly after the verdict if he would fight on for his daughter, replied, with tears in his eyes: "Hell, yes."
Throughout the trial, prosecutors depicted Knox as a promiscuous and manipulative she-devil whose personality clashed with her roommate's. They say Knox had grown to hate Kercher.
"It appears clear to us that the attacks on Amanda's character in much of the media and by the prosecution had a significant impact on the judges and jurors and apparently overshadowed the lack of evidence in the prosecution's case against her," the Knox family said in a statement.
In Seattle, Madison Paxton, Knox's friend from the University of Washington, said: "They're convicting a made-up person ... "They they're convicting 'Foxy Knoxy.' That's not Amanda."
Prosecutors argued that on the night of the murder, Knox and Kercher started arguing, and that Knox joined Sollecito and Ivory Coast national Rudy Hermann Guede in brutally attacking and sexually assaulting the Briton under "the fumes of drugs and possibly alcohol."
Guede was convicted previously and sentenced to 30 years. He denies wrongdoing and is appealing.
Knox said Kercher was a friend whose slaying shocked and saddened her.
Defense lawyers maintained there was not enough evidence for a conviction and no clear motive. They disputed DNA traces that the prosecution linked to Knox and Sollecito as inconclusive, and in some cases said the evidence had been inadvertently contaminated.
The pair also was convicted of illegally carrying a weapon -- the knife -- and of staging a burglary at the house where the murder occurred by breaking a window, supposedly in an effort to sidetrack the investigation.
Knox also was convicted of defaming Congolese man, Patrick Diya Lumumba, whom she accused of the killing. Lumumba was jailed briefly but was later cleared. Knox said during the trial that police pressure led her to initially accuse an innocent man.
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Associated Press writer Gene Johnson in Seattle contributed to this report.
A sheriff's spokesman in Washington state says Seattle police have fatally shot the man suspected of gunning down four police officers.
Pierce County sheriff's spokesman Ed Troyer says Maurice Clemmons was shot and killed early Tuesday in a Seattle neighborhood. Authorities suspected Clemmons of killing the four Lakewood officers at a coffee shop Sunday morning in Parkland, a Tacoma suburb about 35 miles south of Seattle.
Troyer says Seattle police found Clemmons after Pierce County authorities supplied addresses of possible hiding spots.
Police have said they aren't sure what prompted Clemmons to shoot the officers as they did paperwork on their laptops. Clemmons was described as increasingly erratic in the past few months.
One of four police officers killed in an ambush at a coffee house Sunday fought with the gunman and may have wounded him before the officer died just outside the doorway, a sheriff's spokesman said.
Pierce County sheriff's spokesman Ed Troyer told reporters that investigators were asking area medical providers to report any people wounded by gunshots.
Troyer said investigators believe two of the officers were shot dead while sitting in the shop, and a third was killed after standing up. The fourth apparently struggled with the gunman out the doorway and "gave up a good fight," getting off a few shots before he was either shot there or succumbed to earlier wounds.
"We believe there was a struggle, a commotion, a fight ... that he fought the guy all the way out the door," Troyer said.
He added, "We hope that he hit him."
The gunman burst into the coffee house Sunday morning and opened fire on the officers as they sat working on their laptops, killing the three men and one woman in what Troyer described as a targeted ambush.
Troyer said officers were looking for one male suspect who fled the scene and haven't ruled out an accomplice, possibly a getaway driver.
Troyer said investigators determined that a hoax call from a person in nearby Tacoma led officers to believe the gunman was on foot and still near the coffee shop. A number of officers spent part of the afternoon carefully searching buildings close by.
Troyer said the attack was clearly targeted at the officers, not a robbery gone bad.
"This was more of an execution. Walk in with the specific mindset to shoot police officers," he said.
Troyer said the officers -- all from the Lakewood Police Department -- were catching up on paperwork at the beginning of their shifts when they were attacked at 8:15 a.m. Sunday.
"There were marked patrol cars outside and they were all in uniform," Troyer said.
With no known suspects, there was no indication of any connection with the Halloween night shooting of a Seattle police officer. The suspect in that shooting remains hospitalized.
"We won't know if it's a copycat effect or what it was until we get the case solved," Troyer said. "We don't even have a suspect ID right now."
Troyer would not release the names of the victims in Sunday's shooting. He said Lakewood has a small police force and the deaths represent a loss of 10 percent to 15 percent of the department.
Troyer estimated that a couple of hundred officers from the Washington State Patrol and multiple surrounding police agencies in the area were at the crime scene, with some coming on their own time.
"We have no motive at all," Troyer said. "I don't think when we find out what it is, it will be anything that makes any sense or be worth it."
Two employees and a few other customers were in the shop during the attack. All are being interviewed by the Pierce County Sheriff's investigators.
"Some are in shock. They are very upset," Troyer said. "They are the ones who are going to put together for us how this happened."
The Forza Coffee Shop, part of a popular local chain, is on a side street near McChord Air Force Base in Tacoma, about 35 miles south of Seattle. The shop is in a small retail center alongside two restaurants, a cigar store and a nail salon.
Brad Carpenter, founder and owner of Forza Coffee, said his staff was OK and being interviewed by police, and that his main concern was for the families of the police officers.
"I'm a retired police officer, so this really hits close to home for me," said Carpenter, of nearby Gig Harbor.
Troyer said the Lakewood officers were two blocks outside their jurisdiction, and the coffee shop was a popular place for officers from surrounding jurisdictions to meet and share information.
Streets around the coffee shop were blocked off late Sunday morning, and a police helicopter hovered over a large crowd of investigators. TV video showed police taking possession of a pickup truck parked in a grocery store in Parkland.
"We are looking at some people. We are looking at some cars. We are looking at some residences," Troyer said.
Troyer said investigators were checking surveillance video from multiple sources, trying to identify a possible getaway car.
Dave Gabrielson, a clerk at Foot Mart about a block away from the coffee shop, told the newspaper all was quiet when he opened the store at 8 a.m. About 30 minutes later, "All of a sudden a million cops were zooming up and down the road," Gabrielson said.
He said he saw officers bring a police dog into a nearby apartment complex.
Last month, Seattle police officer Timothy Brenton was shot and killed Halloween night as he was sitting in a cruiser with trainee Britt Sweeney. Sweeney was grazed in the neck.
Authorities say the man charged with that shooting also firebombed four police vehicles in October as part of a "one-man war" against law enforcement. Christopher Monfort, 41, was arrested after being wounded in a firefight with police days after the Seattle shooting. He remains hospitalized in stable condition, the hospital said Sunday.
The officers killed Sunday were a patrol squad made up of three officers and their sergeant. No threats had been made against them or other officers in the region, sheriff's officials said. Their families have been notified.
"We lost people we care about. We're working to find out who did this and deal with him." Pierce County Sheriff Paul Pastor told reporters at the scene.
Washington Gov. Chris Gregoire said she was "shocked and horrified" by the killings.
"Our police put their lives on the line every day, and tragedies like this remind us of the risks they continually take to keep our communities safe," she said in a written statement. "My heart goes out to the family, friends and co-workers of these officers, as well as the entire law enforcement community."
At Rollies Tavern near the coffee house, the plasma TVs usually tuned to football had Northwest Cable News on. Three bar patrons live next door to the coffee house.
Jerry Arnold, 45, was in bed when he was awakened by sirens. He's lived there seven years and never seen anything close to Sunday's scene.
"I hope they get them. I can't sleep until they do," he said. "Those guys could be hiding in my backyard."
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Associated Press Writer Rachel La Corte in Olympia and Photographer Ted S. Warren in Parkland contributed to this report.
Reports of hate crimes against gays and religious groups increased sharply in 2008, according to new FBI data released Monday.
Overall, the number of reported hate crimes increased about 2 percent. These same figures show a nearly 11 percent increase in hate crimes based on sexual orientation, and a nearly 9 percent increase in hate crimes based on religion.
The largest category, racially-motivated hate crimes, fell less than 1 percent.
Among all categories of hate crimes, roughly a third are vandalism or property damage. About 30 percent involve intimidation of some kind, and another 30 percent were physical attacks against people.
The FBI does not compare year-to-year trends in hate crimes, saying the number of agencies reporting changes too much. And in fact, the bureau cautioned that the increase reported Monday might well be due to more agencies tracking such incidents.
In 2008, 2,145 different agencies reported hate crimes incidents, while the year before 2,025 agencies did this reporting.
In total, there were 7,783 hate crimes reported to the FBI last year, and seven murders were categorized as hate crimes.
Half of all hate crimes are motivated by race, according to the FBI. One out of every five is driven by religious bias, and one out of every six is based on sexual orientation bias.
The new statistics come less than a month after President Barack Obama signed a bill expanding those covered by the federal law against hate crimes. Previously, the law had protected those attacked on the basis of race, color, religion, or national origin.
The new law signed by Obama now covers crimes based on gender, sexual orientation, gender identity or disability. It also removes the restriction that federal authorities can launch investigations of victims who were engaged in federally protected activities like voting or free speech.
