Mexican Civil Drug War

Mexico, a country with a nearly 2,000-mile border with the United States, is undergoing a horrifying wave of violence that some are likening to a civil war. Drug traffickers battle fiercely with each other and Mexican authorities. The homicide rate reached a record level in 2008 and indications are that the carnage could be exceeded this year. Watch a reporter duck to avoid gunfire »

Every day, newspapers and the airwaves are filled with stories and images of beheadings and other gruesome killings. Wednesday's front page on Mexico City's La Prensa carried a large banner headline that simply said "Hysteria!" The entire page was devoted to photos of bloody bodies and grim-faced soldiers. One photo shows a man with two young children walking across a street with an army vehicle in the background, with a soldier standing at a turret machine gun. - CNN

Screw war on drugs. Here we have a war of drugs.

Fitzpatrick Found Guilty on Two Counts

WOBURN, Mass. -- A jury has convicted a N.H. man in the 2006 slayings of his ex-lover's husband and another man at a Wakefield business.

A Middlesex Superior Court jury found Sean Fitzpatrick guilty of murder Thursday after deliberating for more than a week.

Fitzpatrick was accused of fatally shooting 39-year-old Michael Zammitti Jr. after Zammitti's wife ended their relationship. Zammitti was the owner of Allstate Concrete Pumping. - WHDH

Justice has been served!

900 Massacred in Congo since Christmas

Rome, Italy, Feb 13, 2009 / 01:53 am (CNA).- Troops of the guerilla Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) have massacred over 900 people since Christmas in northeastern Democratic Republic of Congo. The news reports from missionary media sources, which are not attracting attention in Europe and America, lament the inaction and “impotence” of the United Nations forces in the area.

Fides news agency reports that the LRA is a Ugandan group mainly composed of child soldiers kidnapped and forced into service. For decades the group has ravaged the land in northern Uganda and is active in Congo, South Sudan, and the Central African Republic.

The armies of Uganda, Congo and South Sudan formed a joint military operation in late December 2008 to try to stop the LRA. They moved against the LRA general headquarters in the Garamba Forest in the Congo with the backing of the U.N. and the United States.

How something like this can slip past our mass media...I don't know.

Boy Found Guilty of Murder

A 12-year-old boy who fatally shot his mother after an argument over his chores was found guilty of pre-meditated murder.

Judge James Conlogue found the boy guilty after a hearing on Friday in Cochise County Superior Court in the southern Arizona town of Bisbee. The boy is not being identified because he was charged as a juvenile.

Conlogue ruled that prosecutors had proved the boy acted intentionally and with pre-meditation when he shot Sara Madrid, 34, eight times on August 1. The shooting happened after the boy had argued with his mother over his chores.

Madrid had left the family home after the argument, and the boy got a .22-calibre pistol from her bedroom closet, waited for her to return and then repeatedly shot her, according to court testimony. - Yahoo!

I don't know if this is worse than the kid who murdered his mom for taking away Halo 3.

Hindu Extremists: We Kill 'Cause They Are Nice

Rome, Aug 20, 2008 / 09:56 am (CNA).- This week, Archbishop Marampudi Joji Hyderabad of India said that Hindu extremists who murdered Carmelite priest of Mary Immaculate, Father Thomas Pandippally, carried out the act for three reasons: “because he was religious, because he was Christian and because he was charitable to the poor.”

In statements to the L'Osservatore Romano, the archbishop explained that Father Pandippally “was killed because the Catholic missionaries are on the side of the poor in this region - in which there still exists a harsh form of servitude in the agricultural industry. Land owners do not recognize the rights of farm workers and make use of fanatical Hindu gangs to put a stop to any improvement to the living conditions of the rural population,” he said.

Wow. Simply wow.

Richard Cass Testifies In Local Murder Case

WOBURN - The presence of surveillance cameras in and around the Allstate Concrete Pumping Company, 17 New Salem St., was the focus of yesterday's testimony in the Sean Fitzpatrick murder trial.

Employees from neighboring Taibbi Equipment Corporation, 80 New Salem St., Electrical Supply Center, 23 New Salem St., an FBI photo analysis specialist and a Wakefield Police detective were called as witnesses. They were asked about what they saw and what the cameras saw on the morning of March 13, 2006, the day Michael Zammitti Jr., 39 and Chester Roberts, 54 were shot and killed at Allstate.

Fitzpatrick, 46, is charged with two counts of first-degree murder and faces life in prison without parole if he's convicted. Fitzpatrick and Zammitti's wife, Michele, had been involved in an affair in the months leading up to the murders but Zammitti's wife ended it. - Wakefield Item

This article and another one on CNN mentions Fitzpatrick raking the same area of his land over and over again for 15-20 minutes on the morning of the murders while the truck that he stole was being looked at by investigators. Nervous much? I will admit my earlier position that had Fitzpatrick as innocent is wrong. He's guilty as guilty gets.

Texas Executes Mexican Rapist/Murderer

HUNTSVILLE, Texas — A Mexican-born condemned prisoner was executed Tuesday night for the rape and murder of two teenage girls 15 years ago after a divided U.S. Supreme Court rejected his request for a reprieve.

"I'm sorry my actions caused you pain. I hope this brings you the closure that you seek. Never harbor hate," Jose Medellin said to those gathered to watch him die. Nine minutes later, at 9:57 p.m., he was pronounced dead.

Medellin's execution, the fifth this year in the nation's busiest capital punishment state, attracted international attention after he raised claims he wasn't allowed to consult the Mexican consulate for legal help following his arrest. State officials say he didn't ask to do so until well after he was convicted of capital murder. - Associated Press

That man did not deserve to die. I definitely acknowledge that the families of those dead have good reason to be mad at the guy, but they must learn forgiveness.