Impossibly Texas falls further down the hole.
Fatin A. Ward, 23, of Arlington, Texas, told The Associated Press Thursday morning she was playing a telephone game called "bombing" in which people make bogus emergency calls and then see how many law enforcement officers respond. Her mother said Ward has a history of mental illness and has been refusing to take medication.
"I didn't mean to cause any trouble," Ward said in a telephone interview Thursday morning. "It got out of control."
The Middlesex County prosecutor's office signed criminal complaints Thursday afternoon against Ward and an alleged accomplice, Wadu Jackson, 20, of Irvington, charging them with conspiracy, initiating a false public alarm, and making a fictitious report to police.
Ward was arrested at her home at about noon, said Christy Gilfour, spokeswoman for Arlington, Texas, police. A registered sex offender in Texas, she had been charged in Arlington on Feb. 18 with failing to notify police of her new address.
A month later, after the Union, N.J. police department said Ward was making prank calls to them, Texas authorities moved to revoke her bail because she was continuing to commit crimes, Gilfour said. It was that bond revocation order on which she was arrested Thursday.
The Middlesex prosecutor's office asked police in Arlington, Texas, to extradite Ward to New Jersey.
Jackson was still being sought in New Jersey on Thursday afternoon.
Ward declined to say exactly what she told police to spark Tuesday's standoff. She told The Star-Ledger of Newark for Thursday's newspapers that she told police she had been handcuffed to a bed, raped and was being held hostage in an apartment. That prompted police to cordon off a neighborhood more than 1,500 miles away.
The standoff ended when three teenagers who were in a third-floor apartment walked out of the house. The teens were taken into custody and then released. Middlesex County First Assistant Prosecutor William Lamb said Thursday that the three teens have been cleared of any criminal activity.
David Wilson, father of two of them, said the teens saw police outside the apartment house and figured somebody was in the house with a gun. They had no idea police suspected they were armed, he said. Wilson said the three teens do not know Ward or a male caller who told police he would kill his hostages.
Ward's mother, Dorthula Wisener, told The Associated Press on Thursday that her daughter didn't fully realize that what she was doing was wrong. Ward and a friend were at Wisener's house Wednesday night, watching television reports about the standoff.
"They were carrying on, laughing and giggling like it was a joke," Wisener said. "I said, 'What the ... are you laughing at? This sounds really serious.' I asked her to leave. I couldn't understand her giggling. She was on a chat line talking to people as this (television news reports about the incident) was going on. They were laughing so hard I could hardly hear the TV."
Wisener said her daughter, who grew up in Teaneck, suffers from bipolar disorder, but has lately refused to take medicine.
Ward said others on the chat line are more responsible for the incident than she was, including a male caller who gave police the name "Carlos" and told them he would kill his alleged hostage and anyone who approached the apartment.
Lamb, the assistant prosecutor, said Jackson is thought to be the man who called himself Carlos.
Ward told the newspaper the man who asked her to make the call wanted to take revenge on a 16-year-old girl who lived in a first-floor apartment in the building that police surrounded. There was no answer at the first-floor apartment on Thursday.
Ward, a sex offender registered with Texas law enforcement authorities, is listed on a state database as on probation for aggravated sexual assault on a 12-year-old boy in 2000. Ward told the newspaper the boy, now about 16, is the father of her 4-year-old son.
Ward is not employed; she receives a monthly disability check for her bipolar disorder, her mother said.
She is suspected of pulling similar pranks in other New Jersey and Pennsylvania, according to police. On Jan. 5, Feb. 1 and Feb. 15, a woman believed to be Ward called police in Union reporting various emergency situations including shootings and stabbings, but each turned out to be a hoax, police said. A similar call to Belleville on Jan. 17 sent a SWAT team scrambling to a house where a man and his mother were calmly watching television.
And police in Palmer, Pa., say Ward was responsible for a three-hour standoff stemming from a bogus emergency call Feb. 20 that cost his department between $5,000 and $7,000 in response costs.
texas isnt even dumb enough to elect a woman as president !
I don't even where canton is in Texas.
“I admit what I did. It was stupid, it was inexcusable and I’m sorry,” said dispatcher Mike Forbess.
The woman, identified only as Lori in Wednesday’s Fort Worth Star-Telegram, said she recently phoned authorities after coming home to find her daughters fighting. She told the dispatcher that her 12-year-old had kicked a hole in the door.
After Forbess’ comment, the woman fell silent for about five seconds.
“Are you there?” Forbess asked.
“Excuse me?” the woman asked.
Forbess, a dispatcher for five years at the Watauga Department of Public Safety, told her he was joking and apologized. But the woman was offended, and Forbess immediately told his supervisor what happened.
“This type of response cannot be tolerated, and this letter shall serve as notice that any future unprofessional responses while answering the 911 line will be cause for termination,” Police Chief David Van Laar wrote to Forbess.
Watauga is a Fort Worth suburb of about 22,100 residents.
[QUOTE=alex cassun] [serious]hero.[/serious]. the only way this guy could be any cooler is if he actually went over there and shot the kid, who probably deserved it.[/QUOTE]
[serious]Also my hero.[/serious]. I heard the audio to this. It was awesome. Every day there is at least one call that I would love to answer like that. This article will be in the back of mind mind everytime I get an dumbass call like this. People should be able to raise their own kids.
Group says she failed to pay fee; critics say incident is an example of excessive power.
Pamela Bernhardt was close to completing renovations on a house she owned and hoped to sell. She had installed a new roof, new granite tops in the kitchen and new tiles in the bathroom.
Earlier this month, she arrived at the house on the 14200 block of Swallowfield in southwest Houston and found a small, yellow note stuck to the front door.
The handwritten note said that the house had been sold at a foreclosure sale seven months earlier. The local homeowners association had sold the house, valued at about $250,000, saying Bernhardt failed to pay a $420 assessment fee.
"It was so devastating," Bernhardt said. "I was just stunned."
Bernhardt's situation was another example of the excessive power of homeowners associations and the need to reform the use of foreclosure sales to collect fees, state leaders and activists said Wednesday.
Suing to get house back
A lawyer for the Briarhills Homeowners Association, which foreclosed on the house, said sufficient protection is on the books for homeowners and that Bernhardt was given ample opportunities to pay the debt.
Bernhardt has filed suit, claiming she never received notices alerting her to the delinquent fees. She is asking for her house back.
"I was never sent any notices," the 52-year-old real estate agent said. "I would have paid the $420, before spending about $48,000 on renovations."
Terry Sears, a lawyer for Briarhills, said notices were sent to Bernhardt by certified mail and that after the sale she had 180 days to buy her home back.
"She could have bought her home back for the amount of the past due assessment," he said. "It's unfortunate she did not respond to any of the notices."
Had the dispute been mediated in court, Bernhardt would not have lost her home, said state Sen. Jon Lindsay. Some foreclosures can be enacted without going before a judge, Lindsay said.
"I want to see judicial foreclosures," said Lindsay, R-Houston. "A judge should be looking over the shoulder of this process."
Lindsay said he would address the concern during the current session. The deadline for introducing new bills has passed, but he could still amend a pre-existing proposal, Lindsay said.
Practice is common
The push to curtail homeowners associations gained momentum after 83-year-old widow Wenonah Blevins lost her Houston home in 2001 when she failed to pay $814.50 in association dues.
Blevins eventually got her home back, and public outrage galvanized state leaders to install protections that included the 180-day period in which a property owner could repurchase their home after a foreclosure.
But more needs to be done, according to Robert A. Axelrad, Bernhardt's lawyer.
"There are no safeguards with non-judicial foreclosures," he said. "You are talking about such a relatively small amount of money. The question is whether people should be allowed to take away people's homes without the safeguard associated with the judicial process."
The practice of homeowners associations threatening foreclosure has become much too common, said David Kahne, a lawyer who has represented homeowners against foreclosure. He estimates that 1,000 lawsuits are filed each year in Harris County by homeowners associations seeking foreclosures.
[URL=http://today.reuters.com/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=oddlyEnoughNews&storyID=2005-05-05T030952Z_01_N04489168_RTRIDST_0_ODD-CHEERLEADERS-DC.XML]http://today.reuters.com/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=oddlyEnoughNews&storyID=2005-05-05T030952Z_01_N04489168_RTRIDST_0_ODD-CHEERLEADERS-DC.XML[/URL]
[QUOTE]Texas to cheerleaders Don't shake it anymore
Wed May 4, 2005 11:10 PM ET
AUSTIN, Texas (Reuters) - Texas lawmakers sent a message to the state's high school cheerleaders on Wednesday: no more booty-shaking at the game.
The state's House of Representatives voted 85-55 to approve a bill that would forbid sexy cheers and give the Texas Education Agency authority to punish schools that allow "overtly sexually suggestive" routines at football games and other events.
The proposal must go to the Texas Senate for consideration.
"People are calling and telling me how disgusting it is to see sexually suggestive routines on the part of marching units or cheerleaders," said State Rep. Al Edwards, a Houston Democrat who sponsored the bill.
He complained of cheerleaders "shaking their behinds, breaking it down," but the proposal does not define what constitutes suggestive cheering.
Democratic state Rep. Senfronia Thompson, also of Houston, said the bill was a waste of valuable time.
"I think the Texas Education Agency has enough to do making sure our kids are better educated, and we are wasting our time with 'one two three four, we can't shake it any more?'" Thompson told legislators. [/QUOTE]
Funny thing is, a similar situation happened in Kansas a few years ago, but with high school dances instead. There was a video made for it too. I'm sure I've linked it here before, but here it is for your enjoyment.
[URL=http://www.ljworld.com/section/schools/story/145633]http://www.ljworld.com/section/schools/story/145633[/URL]
I'm not sure in what thread this would go into, because it doesn't seem so asinine to be dropped into this one, but it's the best I can come up with.
[url=http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/B/BARRED_FROM_SEX?SITE=MTHEL&SECTION=STRANGE&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT]Crazy ass female Texan conservative Judge goes on rampage, bans piercings, t-shirts, clevage, sex, tattoos[/url].*
*in other news, Fox News has made that whole "no spin" shit so easy to pull off.
Abortion not yet illegalized in Texas. [url=http://www.kfdm.com/engine.pl?station=kfdm&id=13872&template=breakoutlocal.html]In the meantime, this should work for those unruly, unwanted children.[/url]
[QUOTE=alex cassun]Abortion not yet illegalized in Texas. [url=http://www.kfdm.com/engine.pl?station=kfdm&id=13872&template=breakoutlocal.html]In the meantime, this should work for those unruly, unwanted children.[/url][/QUOTE]
I'm gonna call them up. I work in Galveston and I need a babysitter this weekend. Thank you, Alex.
[QUOTE=random internet news source]CANTON, Texas - A high school football player’s father was charged with aggravated assault Friday for allegedly shooting his son’s coach in the chest, critically wounding him.
Authorities said Jeffrey Doyle Robertson, 45, had been barred from the high school after several earlier confrontations, including one where he was accused of shoving coaches at a team picnic.
Robertson allegedly went to the school just after classes started Thursday and shot coach Gary Joe Kinne, apparently with a .45-caliber pistol. Kinne was in critical but stable condition Friday at Trinity Mother Frances Health System hospital.
Kinne was alone in the field house when he was shot but managed to call the school’s office, Canton schools Superintendent Larry Davis said in a statement. The principal applied pressure to the wound until medical help arrived.
Robertson appeared haggard yet calm in court when he was charged with aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, a felony punishable by two to 20 years in prison. Judge Lilia Durham set his bond at $1 million.
Volatile character:
Robertson was not required to enter a plea. His attorney, William Reece, declined to comment. Robertson — who has a tattoo on his arm of cartoon character Yosemite Sam brandishing two guns with the words “Born to Raise Hell” — was arrested a few hours after the shooting in woods outside of town. He had two guns and a pocketknife with him, Police Chief Mike Echols said.
He was found a few hours after the shootings with self-inflicted wounds, including cuts to his wrists and leg, authorities said. In court Friday morning, bandages were visible on Robertson’s wrists.
Echols said Robertson had been barred from Canton High and told not to attend football games after several confrontations, including the one at the annual football picnic, where he was accused of “shoving and verbally abusing” coaches, authorities said.
Police were investigating a possible motive. On Wednesday, Robertson’s son, Baron, had apparently been banned from playing all school athletics, said Steve Smith Jr., a senior who was a defensive end and kicker on the team.
Seeking a motive: “Yesterday, evil reared its head in Canton, Texas,” the superintendent said Friday. “It is useless to speculate on the motives of the shooter since no motive justifies this type of violence.”
Baseball and softball games scheduled for Friday were postponed, but otherwise the school schedule was back to normal, Davis said.
Smith’s father described Robertson as “a very high-strung, hot-tempered individual” who threatened Smith Jr. last year — grabbing his shirt and pushing him up against a fence — over an on-field teasing. He said Baron Robertson, then a freshman, was walking off the field when some older students “razzed” him.
“This guy blew up,” Steve Smith Sr. said. “He thought some kids were picking on his son. My son wasn’t even the one who said anything. But he threatened to kill him.”
Smith said he complained to the school and police, but Robertson was never charged.
Echols and Davis said they were unaware of any previous threats.
Football frustrations: Some parents had been upset that Kinne had made his own son the starting quarterback as a freshman, Smith Sr. said. G.J. Kinne received an honorable mention as quarterback last season in the Associated Press Sports Editors Class 3A all-state poll.
Other parents also said there were frustrations with the program and the coach.
“All parents face that, you know,” said Mark Crapanzano, whose son is a sophomore receiver and backup quarterback. “But that’s no reason for violence, Some deal with it better than others. You have to be rational. Accept it. Practice hard and accept it.”
Kinne came to Canton in 2003 for his first head coaching job after working as an assistant at Mesquite High School. In his first season he took a team that was 3-7 the previous year to an 8-3 record and their first playoff win in 39 years. In 2004 Canton finished 8-2, narrowly missing the playoffs on a tiebreaker.
Canton is a town of about 3,500 people some 60 miles east of Dallas.
[/QUOTE]The worst thing about all this? They went 8-2 and still didn't make the playoffs.