9 posts tagged “injuries”
Protesters react to the verdict in the Sean Bell case outside of the Queens County Criminal Courts Building Friday, April 25, 2008 in the Queens borough of New York.
Three detectives were acquitted of all charges Friday in the 50-shot killing of an unarmed groom-to-be on his wedding day, a case that put the NYPD at the center of another dispute involving allegations of excessive firepower.
Justice Arthur Cooperman delivered the verdict in a Queens courtroom packed with spectators, including victim Sean Bell's fiancee and parents. At least 200 people were gathered outside the building.
The verdict in the case, which put police at the centre of another controversy over excessive use of firepower, provoked an outpouring of emotions.
Bell's fiancee immediately walked out of the room. His mother cried.
Outside the courthouse, which was surrounded by scores of police officers, many in the crowd began weeping as news of the verdict said. Others were enraged, swearing and screaming "Murderers! Murderers!" or "KKK!"
Bell, a 23-year-old black man, was killed in a hail of gunfire outside a seedy strip club in Queens on Nov. 25, 2006 - his wedding day - as he was leaving his bachelor party with two friends.
Officers Michael Oliver, 36, and Gescard Isnora, 29, stood trial for manslaughter while Officer Marc Cooper, 40, was charged with reckless endangerment. Two other shooters weren't charged. Oliver fired 31 times, Isnora 11 and Cooper four times.
The officers, complaining that pretrial publicity had unfairly painted them as cold-blooded killers, opted to have the judge decide the case rather than a jury.
The judge indicated that the police officers' version of events was more credible than the victims' version. "The people have not proved beyond a reasonable doubt that each defendant was not justified" in firing, he said.
A conviction on manslaughter could have brought up to 25 years in prison; the penalty for reckless endangerment, a misdemeanour, is a year behind bars.
The case brought back painful memories of other NYPD shootings, such as the 1999 shooting of Amadou Diallo - an African immigrant who was gunned down in a hail of 41 bullets by police officers who mistook his wallet for a gun. The acquittal of the officers in that case created a storm of protest, with hundreds arrested after taking to the streets in demonstration.
The mood surrounding this case has been muted by comparison, although Bell's fiancee, parents and their supporters, including Rev. Al Sharpton, have held rallies demanding that the officers - two of whom are black - be held accountable.
A phalanx of police officers, some uniformed and some in the department's community affairs polo shirts, was stationed outside the courthouse Friday. The building was ringed by metal barricades.
After the verdict, Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly acknowledged that some people were disappointed with the acquittals. "We don't anticipate violence, but we are prepared for any contingency," he said.
The nearly two-month trial was marked by deeply divergent accounts of the night.
The defence painted the victims as drunken thugs whom the officers believed were armed and dangerous.
Prosecutors sought to convince the judge that the victims had been minding their own business, and that the officers were inept, trigger-happy aggressors.
None of the officers took the witness stand in his own defence. Instead, Cooperman heard transcripts of the officers testifying before a grand jury, saying they believed they had good reason to use deadly force. The judge also heard testimony from Bell's two injured companions, who insisted the maelstrom erupted without warning.
Both sides were consistent on one point: The utter chaos surrounding the last moments of Bell's life.
Bell's companions - Trent Benefield and Joseph Guzman - also offered dramatic testimony about the episode. Benefield and Guzman were both wounded; Guzman still has four bullets lodged in his body.
Referring to Isnora, Guzman said, "This dude is shooting like he's crazy, like he's out of his mind."
The victims and shooters were set on a fateful collision course by a pair of innocuous decisions: Bell's to have a last-minute bachelor party at Kalua Cabaret, and the undercover detectives' to investigate reports of prostitution at the club.
As the club closed around 4 a.m., Sanchez and Isnora claimed they overheard Bell and his friends first flirt with women, then taunt a stranger who responded by putting his right hand in his pocket as if he had a gun. Guzman, they testified, said, "Yo, go get my gun" - something Bell's friends denied.
Isnora said he decided to arm himself, call for backup - "It's getting hot," he told his supervisor - and tail Bell, Guzman and Benefield as they went around the corner and got into Bell's car.
He claimed that after warning the men to halt, Bell pulled away, bumped him and rammed an unmarked police van that converged on the scene with Oliver at the wheel.
The detective also alleged that Guzman made a sudden move as if he were reaching for a gun.
"I yelled 'Gun!' and fired," he said. "In my mind, I knew (Guzman) had a gun."
Benefield and Guzman testified that there were no orders. Instead, Guzman said, Isnora "appeared out of nowhere" with a gun drawn and shot him in the shoulder - the first of 16 shots to enter his body.
"That's all there was - gunfire," he said. "There wasn't nothing else."
With tires screeching, glass breaking and bullets flying, the officers claimed that they believed they were the ones under fire. Oliver responded by emptying his semiautomatic pistol, reloading, and emptying it again, as the supervisor sought cover.
The truth emerged when the smoke cleared: There was no weapon inside Bell's blood-splattered car.
--Tom Hays, Associated Press
April 25, 2008
A B-17 damaged on a bombing raid over Germany reached England safely after a German pilot declined to shoot it down
Charlie Brown (a 21-year old) was a B-17 Flying Fortress pilot with the 379th Bomber Group at Kimbolton, England. His B-17 was called "Ye Olde Pub" and was in a terrible state, having been hit by flak and fighters while on a mission to bomb a factory in Bremen, Germany. The compass was damaged and they were flying deeper over enemy territory instead of heading home to Kimbolton.
Charles "Charlie" Brown (England)
After flying over an enemy airfield, Charlie Brown stated that his heart sank. A pilot named Franz Stigler was ordered to take off and shoot down the B-17. When he got near the B-17, he could not believe his eyes. In his words, he "had never seen a plane in such a bad state." The tail and rear section was severely damaged, and the tail gunner wounded. The top gunner was all over the top of the fuselage. The nose was smashed, and there were holes everywhere.
Despite having ammunition, Franz flew to the side of the B-17 and looked at Charlie Brown, the pilot. Brown was scared and struggling to control his damaged and blood-stained plane.
Brown stated that he noticed Stigler's plane flying alongside him: It seemed amazing that the heavily damaged B-17 remained in the air. But it did, and Brown hoped to keep it flying until he reached the shores of England 250 miles away.
Drawing of the English B-17 "Ye Olde Pub" in front, and the German BF-109 in back as escort. Notice the damage on the B-17: the nose is gone, one propellor is not working, the back turret is gone, the tail section is shredded and missing, holes in the hull.
Still partially dazed, Lt. Brown began a slow climb with only one engine at full power. With three seriously injured aboard, he rejected bailing out or a crash landing. The alternative was a thin chance of reaching the UK. While nursing the battered bomber toward England, Brown looked out the right window and saw a BF-109 flying on his wing.
Aware that they had no idea where they were going, Franz waved at Charlie to turn 180 degrees. Franz escorted and guided the stricken plane to and slightly over the North Sea towards England. He then saluted Charlie Brown and turned away, back to Europe.
When Franz landed he told the commanding officer that the plane had been shot down over the sea, and never told the truth to anybody. Charlie Brown and the remains of his crew told all at their briefing, but were ordered never to talk about it.
Franz Stigler (Germany)
More than 40 years later, Charlie Brown wanted to find the Luftwaffe pilot who saved the crew. Franz had never talked about the incident, not even at post-war reunions.
They met in the USA at a 379th Bomber Group reunion in 1989, together with five people who are alive now----all because Franz never fired his guns that day.
After the war, Brown remained in the Air Force, serving in many capacities until he retired in 1972 as a Lieutenant Colonel and settled in Miami as head of a combustion research company. But the episode of the German who refused to attack a beaten foe haunted him. He was determined to find the enemy pilot who spared him and his crew.
He wrote numerous letters of inquiry to German military sources, with little success. Finally, a notice in a newsletter for former Luftwaffe pilots elicited a response from Franz Stigler, a German fighter ace credited with destroying over two dozen Allied planes. He, it turned out, was the angel of mercy in the skies over Germany on that fateful day just before Christmas 1943.
It had taken 46 years, but in 1989 Brown found the mysterious man in the ME-109. Careful questioning of Stigler about details of the incident removed any doubt.
Stigler, now 80 years old, had emigrated to Canada and was living near Vancouver, British Columbia. After an exchange of letters, Brown flew there for a reunion. The two men have visited each other frequently since that time and have appeared jointly before Canadian and American military audiences. The most recent appearance was at the annual Air Force Ball in Miami in September (1995), where the former foes were honored.
In his first letter to Brown, Stigler had written: "All these years, I wondered what happened to the B-17, did she make it or not?"
She made it, just barely. But why did the German not destroy his virtually defenseless enemy?
"I didn't have the heart to finish off those brave men," Stigler later said. I flew beside them for a long time. They were trying desperately to get home and I was going to let them do it. I could not have shot at them. It would have been the same as shooting at a man in a parachute."
Franz Stigler passed away on March 22, 2008.
German Ace, Franz Stigler. Artist, Ernie Boyett. B-17 pilot, Charles Brown.
"There was no time to react," Officer Salvatore Mazza says of the Sunday morning crash that left him and his patrol horse, D'artagnon, with scrapes. Police say the 20-year-old driver who hit the pair in Ybor City was drunk.
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TAMPA - A day after a driver struck him and his horse in Ybor City, mounted patrol Officer Salvatore Mazza couldn't help but kick himself.
"I feel kinda bad because I failed that night," Mazza said Monday, holding the reins of D'artagnon, his equine partner of three years. "It's my job to look out for him."
Mazza, 39, and the 15-year-old male quarter horse wound up on the hood of a Buick about 3:30 a.m. Sunday while directing traffic at East Eighth Avenue and North 19th Street, Tampa police said. Police said the driver was drunk and ran into the partners.
"He hit us so hard, it picked the horse up and landed us on the hood of the car. I hit the windshield. It got fuzzy from there," Mazza said.
Mazza thinks his helmet and the horse's size - D'artagnon weighs about 1,100 pounds - probably saved him from serious injury.
"My neck's stiff; my back's stiff; my knee's stiff," Mazza said. "I tell you, if I wasn't on top of the horse, I definitely would've been a lot worse than I am now."
D'artagnon, also known as Dar, has minor swelling on his right side, a scrape on his right shoulder and a scrape on his right knee where "the bumper caught his leg," Mazza said.
He is recovering nicely and should be back on duty Thursday night, directing crowds at Raymond James Stadium and later in Ybor City, said Cpl. Mike Morrow, the mounted patrol's supervisor.
On Monday, as Mazza described the ordeal, the horse munched grass and snorted.
"Obviously his appetite hasn't gone," Mazza said.
D'artagnon has been with Tampa police since 2000, when a Hillsborough County sheriff's deputy donated him to the department. He and Mazza, a 13-year veteran, have worked together for three years.
They've encountered odd situations, such as people slapping the horse, but nothing like what happened Sunday, Mazza said.
The officer said he was trying to divert traffic from East Eighth Avenue and North 19th Street onto Palm Avenue when he turned his head to check a car approaching from behind. When he turned around, he saw the Buick headed right for them at about 30 mph.
"There was no time to react," he said. "I thought, 'This is not good. This is gonna hurt.'"
Mazza said he didn't remember the horse sliding off the car. Witnesses told him the horse crumpled to the ground, then stood, stunned. They also told Mazza the reins never left his hands.
Police charged the Buick's driver, Arleis Perez, 20, of Brandon, with misdemeanor driving under the influence after his blood alcohol level registered 0.215 and 0.21, jail records show. Florida law presumes a driver is intoxicated at 0.08.
Mazza said he bears the driver no ill will. "He stopped. He checked on me. He made sure I was OK," he said. "Whenever people get intoxicated, they don't use the best judgment."
10 hospitalized after Air Canada jet loses control: January 11, 2008
Nisha Gill believed she was looking at her two-year-old daughter for the last time during 15 seconds of terror yesterday morning as Air Canada Flight 190 plunged through the skies.
"I was scared because my daughter was with me. My husband was telling me not to go. She wasn't supposed to go with me," said Gill, tears streaming down her face. "We were just praying it should land properly."
Gill, 30, was on her way to visit a sister in Toronto and had only booked her daughter's ticket the night before.
The two were among 88 people on a Victoria-Toronto flight that began normally, but was suddenly transformed into a terrifying white-knuckle roller-coaster ride.
Shaken passengers spoke of how the jet plunged thousands of metres and then rolled sharply to the left and right - violently pitching people, dishes and drink carts about the cabin.
"I can't describe the screaming. No movie does it justice. There was a lot of screaming - a lot of crying," recalled Jayne Harvey, 45, a nurse from Keswick, Ont.
Ambulances encircled the plane after it made an emergency landing at Calgary International Airport shortly after 8 a.m. and paramedics whisked a number of people off the aircraft on stretchers. Ten, including two crew members, were treated at city hospitals for a range of relatively minor injuries.
Nine were out of hospital by yesterday afternoon, and the 10th person was released last night.
"The people who weren't belted in were the ones that got injured the most and those who had other people flying into them," said Harvey, who helped tend to the injured.
"I thought it was over for me. I will admit I was saying my prayers because I really thought I was about to die. I said, 'Just take care of my family."'
Some passengers had gripped their armrests so tightly they were bent 60 degrees.
What caused the aircraft to plunge was unknown. Canada's Transportation Safety Board was investigating, but said it was too soon to determine whether the "control problems" were caused by turbulence, mechanical problems or a mistake by the flight crew. A passenger reported the pilots saying the computer had failed.
The rough flight was the second in Canada in recent months.
In September, nine people were hurt and three sent to hospital after a Halifax-bound WestJet flight hit turbulence with little warning.
Sgt. Rich Kelly, Indiana State Police, had his life spared this past March. He was sitting alongside the Interstate conducting an inspection on an 18-wheeler when another semi-tractor pulling a flatbed ran over the top of his police car. Sgt. Kelly sustained a broken vertebrae and was able to exit his car and use his cell phone to call for help. The driver that struck him was going too fast and locked his brakes up, thus losing control.
When you look at the photos you realize only by the Grace of God, Sgt. Kelly's life was spared. Rich and his wife have 4 young daughters. It is hard to believe that he survived this crash.
After all, he WAS in the car at the time of the crash. Click on the photos to enlarge.
PHILADELPHIA — Police Officer Richard Decoatsworth, who took a shotgun blast in the face last week, left the hospital yesterday with bandages on his neck and chin, declaring that the injuries looked worse than they were and that he was "doing great."
Surrounded by police and relatives, Decoatsworth, 21, walked out of the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania to a 16th District police cruiser for a ride home.
"I'm doing great," he said as he paused with his parents, Mark and Evelyn, and sister, Natalie, to speak to reporters outside the hospital.
"I can't wait. I would go back tomorrow if I could," Decoatsworth said of returning to police work.
It wasn't a surprising response from the officer, who graduated from the police academy in March and was hailed as a hero by fellow officers after he chased the gunman three blocks despite bleeding profusely.
Before leaving, Mark Decoatsworth said that it had been a trying time for the family, and that his son was "very tough."
"I was very proud of my son," he said.
Decoatsworth was shot at 9:05 a.m. Sept. 24 in West Philadelphia after stopping a Buick that had been backing up on Farson Street near Market Street. When three teens got out of the car and started walking away, the officer ordered them back to the car. As they complied, the driver pulled out a sawed-off shotgun, leveled it on the hood of the Buick, and fired birdshot at Decoatsworth at close range.
Though seriously wounded, Decoatsworth ran after the gunman while returning fire. Several blocks later, he collapsed on the 100 block of Paxon Street and radioed for assistance.
Police flooded the area, searching rooftops and under cars for the gunman. They arrested Antonio Coulter, 20, who they said had been hiding in a brushy alley between Paxon and 52d Streets, and recovered a sawed-off shotgun hidden in weeds about 25 feet away.
Coulter, who lives on the block where the shooting happened, was charged with attempted murder, aggravated assault and related offenses.
Top police officials, including Commissioner Sylvester M. Johnson and Homicide Inspector Joseph Mooney, called Decoatsworth's pursuit heroic.
The officer underwent several hours of reconstructive surgery the day of the shooting.
Yesterday, though eager to get back to work, Decoatsworth said he had not decided whether to return to the 16th District, where he was wounded. He said that he loved working there, but that decisions about his career would be made later.
Typically, officers who have been shot in the line of duty may pick where they want to work when they return.
Decoatsworth downplayed the accolades from fellow officers.
"I was just doing my job, just as any other officer would have done," he said.
By The Associated Press 
PASSAIC, N.J. — Police officers fired about 20 shots at an unarmed driver as she tried to flee, striking her six times, authorities said Thursday, and investigators quickly pronounced the shooting justified.
Michelle M. Moleti, 34, was in guarded condition Thursday at a hospital in Paterson, Passaic County Prosecutor James Avigliano said. WABC-TV in New York reported that Moleti was hit in the chest, neck and arm.
Police were responding to a report of a suspicious car parked Wednesday night in Clifton, a town in northeastern New Jersey, Avigliano said.
They found Moleti in the car and tried to open the locked door, but Moleti drove away, authorities said.
Police pursued her at normal speeds, stopped her car in nearby Passaic and again tried to open the door. Moleti once more stepped on the gas, injuring the hand of an officer, police said. Police then opened fire on the car, hitting Moleti six times, authorities said.
Avigliano said three or four officers were on the scene but said it was not clear how many fired their weapons. Roughly 20 shots were fired, he said.
"Based on what we know at this time, the shooting appears to be justified," Avigliano said.
The officers who fired the shots were from Clifton, according to Clifton Detective Captain Robert Rowan, who confirmed Avigliano's estimate of the number of shots fired.
Rowan said two officers were struck by the woman's car and fired their weapons to protect themselves.
The officers were treated at a hospital, one for the hand injury and one for a leg injury, and released. The extent of their injuries and how they were injured was not immediately clear.
Avigliano said charges will be filed against Moleti, including aggravated assault on a police officer and eluding police.
A message left at a phone listing for Moleti was not returned Thursday.
''I'm just as baffled as everybody else right now that this happened, and I haven't gotten any answers from the police yet,'' the woman's mother, Rose Moleti, told WABC.
I finally went to see the doctor, after getting more and more symptoms of DEATH (lol). The whole lovely "As the World Turns" episode of my life began about 6-8 weeks ago, and finally after enough arm twisting from *supposed* friends (big laugh), I walked into the chamber of horrors to get some relief. As it turns out, the constant ear static along with all the other pleasant visitors who joined in the merry festivities in my body, turned out to be a flare-up of an ear injury I sustained about 20 years ago when I had a gun go off near that ear. Nothing to be done for it other than deal with it as best I can. All the other symptoms that were happening with it are thankfully gone now (adios!!!!), but my ear still pulses with static. It WILL go away again at some point. I've only had to deal with some pulsing static from time to time in the past 20 years, so hopefully all these other demons will not come back when my ear could flare up again.
As for my neck....owie, owie, owie, owie!!!!! Again, another injury that occurred when someone tried to pull my head off! Not the nicest of experiences!!! I'm glad it stayed on my shoulders. How would I ever be able to type if I had to hold my head in my hands?? Lol. Anyways, doc gave me prescription muscle relaxants at the highest dose, and they do a pretty good job....but it doesn't take it away completely. He said that it could be another 4 weeks before my neck relaxes up enough to allow me to be my charming self again. Hee hee. He also wanted me to go into physical therapy for it, but that's just not going to happen. For one thing, nobody is touching my neck!!! I know how to wield a slipper at someone, and I'm not in the least afraid to do it. So stay back! Lol. Plus, I really can't afford private therapy and I don't have the ability to get to the Rehab Hospital during the daytime hours. So I'm on my own with that....just little ole me and my bottle of prescription muscle relaxants. Yee Haw!! Actually, I haven't used many at all because I'm scared of running out of them and feeling the full effects all over again. But I think I may ask my doc, the next time I see him, if it would be possible to have a prescription of them on hand....just so I can get some relief before people start twisting my arm again to get me to the doctor. Lol. He knows I'm not a drug seeker, so he may go along with that. I also have anti-anxiety pills that help with muscle tension.
He thinks that stressful events in my life lately are the culprits for the flare-ups. Nice to know. I just found out yesterday that my favorite aunt is dying of bowel cancer, so I somehow don't think the stress level will be lowering for quite some time. My poor mum just lost one sister a few weeks ago to cancer, and now she's losing her only other sister. She still has two brothers, but that's just not the same as a sister. So I'm feeling bad for *everyone*, and all this on top of certain other stressors that have been living out their lives in my comfort zone.
Anyways.......the doctor says that we can't do much for the ear, but we can relax and even rehab the neck. He also requisitioned about 2.4 billion blood tests to be done on me, so I'll probably get that taken care of next Friday. But I'm still here (yay or boo, whatever your opinion of me is!), and I feel better than even a week ago. I just can't wait until I'm back to my old self. I have no idea how people can tolerate chronic pain. They have a very strong character to be able to endure constant discomfort or outright pain. They are very focused and determined people.
In that moment of pure and selfless action, Coleman telegraphed his urgent warning. At precisely 9:06 on December 6, 1917, the worst man-made explosion ever [before the atomic bomb on Hiroshima] tore through Halifax, claiming 2,000 lives, including the life of Vince Coleman.
The Great War had brought prosperity to Halifax. The harbour bustled with convoys of men and materials bound for Europe. But on the evening of December 5, two ships' captains anxiously awaited departure. Aboard the Imo, a Belgian relief ship at anchor in the harbour, Captain From was annoyed that a late inspection had forced him to delay departure until morning.
Outside the harbour sat the French steamship Mont Blanc, its captain Aimé Le Medec awaiting morning access to the harbour and official clearance. Captain Le Medec had good reason to feel uneasy. Four days earlier his freighter had been loaded with tons of picric acid, TNT, gun cotton and benzol. The Mont Blanc was a floating bomb.
At 7:30 a.m., on December 6, the Mont Blanc began its slow entry into the harbour just as the Imo pulled up anchor. Forced to the wrong side of the channel by a steamer and tugboat, the Imo continued its improper course in direct line with the incoming Mont Blanc. The two ships sighted each other. There was a confusion of whistle blasts, misunderstood signals and, at 8:45 a.m., a disastrous collision.
As black smoke and flames rose from the Mont Blanc, crowds gathered on the Pier to watch the excitement. Factory workers, stevedores, mothers and children rushed to the best vantage points. Few people had any idea of the danger.
But one sailor who knew about the imminent explosion ran past the railway freight yards, warning Coleman and Lovett to clear out. Vince Coleman knew what was at stake when he ran back to tap out his crucial message. In the worst catastrophe in Canadian history, one man sacrificed his life to save 700 others.
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