Crime

Due to France’s drug trafficking crisis, a large majority of French are in favor of the army being deployed into disadvantaged neighborhoods in problematic neighborhoods in France, including 80 percent of women.

According to a CSA poll conducted for CNews, Europe 1 and JDD, 76 percent of French people overall want the army called in to battle drug trafficking in “disadvantaged neighborhoods.”

In fact, women are more supportive of troops being deployed than men, with 80 percent of women saying yes to the question: “Should the army be called in to combat drug trafficking in troubled neighborhoods?” In turn, only 72 percent of men supported such an action.

A French youth has lost his life after three youths attacked him with in an axe in a Lidl parking lot yesterday in Nogent-sur-Oise, with video of the incident quickly spreading across social media.

The 17-year-old victim was reportedly hit in the neck with the axe, and despite the efforts of emergency medics, was declared dead at the scene at 8:00 p.m.

“Wounded by a knife, the type of which remains to be determined, the minor quickly lost a lot of blood,” Senlis public prosecutor Loïc Abrial said in a statement. “Treated on the scene by emergency services, he underwent numerous resuscitation procedures. He was taken to the hospital, where he was pronounced dead that evening.”

In the video of the attack, a woman can be heard screaming, with reports claiming that the woman is the murder victim’s mother.

NEW YORK (AP) — A cryptocurrency investor has been arrested and charged with kidnapping a man and keeping him locked up for weeks in an upscale Manhattan apartment, where authorities say he was beaten, shocked and led to believe that his family was in danger if he didn’t give up his Bitcoin password.

John Woeltz, 37, was arrested Friday night after the victim escaped from the eight-bedroom town house and flagged down a traffic officer on the street for help, according to prosecutors.

Woeltz was arraigned Saturday on charges of kidnapping, assault, unlawful imprisonment and criminal possession of a firearm, court records show. He was ordered held without bail, a spokesperson for the Manhattan district attorney’s office confirmed Saturday.

His lawyer, Wayne Gosnell, said Saturday in an email that he had no comment.

The 28-year-old victim arrived in New York City from Italy in early May, a law enforcement official told The Associated Press. The official was not authorized to speak publicly about the ongoing investigation and did so on condition of anonymity.

It’s not clear how or if the two knew each other, but the district attorney’s office said in an email that prosecutor Michael Mattson told a judge Saturday that the victim, whose name has not been released, was abducted on May 6.

Mattson said others were involved in the scheme to empty the victim’s Bitcoin wallet. That includes a person referred to in court records as an “unapprehended male.”

The victim said he was bound by the wrists and tortured for weeks inside the apartment. His captors, according to prosecutors, drugged him, used electric wires to shock him, hit him in the head with a firearm and, at one point, carried him to the top of a flight of stairs where they dangled him over a ledge and threatened to kill him if he didn’t share his Bitcoin password.

Believing that he was about to be shot, the victim was able to escape Friday after agreeing to give up his password, which was stored on his laptop in another room. When the suspect turned his back, Mattson said, the victim ran out of the apartment.

Seven Mexican youths have been shot dead at a festivity organised by the Catholic Church in the central state of Guanajuato.

Gunmen opened fire on a group of people who had stayed behind in the central square of the village of San Bartolo de Berrios after an event organised by the local parish.

Eyewitnesses said the assailants had driven straight to the village square in the early hours of Monday and fired dozens of shots seemingly at random.

The authorities have not yet said what the motive behind the shooting may have been but messages scrawled on signs left at several nearby locations appear to indicate it was carried out by the Santa Rosa de Lima cartel.

While attacks on nightclubs, bars and cockfighting venues are not unusual in Mexican states hit by cartel violence, an attack on an event organised by the Catholic Church is rare.

The Episcopal Conference of Mexico, which represents the country's bishops, condemned the fatal shooting saying it "cannot remain indifferent in the face of the spiral of violence that is wounding so many communities".

The local archbishop, Jaime Calderón, also released a statement blaming the attack on a fight for territory between rival cartels.

Guanajuato, where San Bartolo de Berrios is located, had the highest number of murders of any state in Mexico in 2024 with a total of 2,597 homicides.

A gunman has shot dead two top aides of the mayor of Mexico City, Clara Brugada.

The mayor's private secretary, Ximena Guzmán, and Brugada's adviser, José Muñoz, were killed on their way to work on Tuesday morning local time.

Witnesses said an armed man first opened fire on Guzmán, who had stopped her car by the side of a busy avenue to pick up her colleague, and then on Muñoz, who was about to get into Guzmán's car for their morning commute.

The gunman is believed to have escaped on a motorbike and have had at least one accomplice. The possible motive for the killing is still unknown but the attack is the latest in a series of murders of local politicians across the country.

Mayor Brugada was visibly upset during a news conference when she recalled how she had "shared dreams and struggles" with her two aides over the years they had worked for her.

She said she would ensure the murders would not go unpunished.

President Claudia Sheinbaum was informed of the shooting during her daily morning news conference by the security minister, Omar García Harfuch, who has himself been a target of an armed ambush in the past.

President Sheinbaum described it as "a deplorable incident" and offered Mayor Brugada, who is from the same party as the president, all the support she may need.

Police seized a motorbike and another vehicle they think was used in the attack, while forensic experts examined Guzmán's bullet-pierced car.

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While local politicians, especially the mayors of small towns, are often targeted in Mexico, attacks on politicians in the capital are more unusual.

One high-profile exception is the ambush in 2020 of García Harfuch, who was Mexico City's chief of police at the time.

More than two dozen gunmen opened fire on his car and killed two of his bodyguards and a passer-by in one of the most brazen attacks to have occurred in the city.

García Harfuch was hit three times, but survived and went on to become Mexico's security minister in October of last year.

He said the Jalisco New Generation Cartel, one of Mexico's most powerful criminal groups, was behind that incident.

Sean “Diddy” Combs would urinate on Cassie Ventura himself during his “freak-offs” — and once had an entire blow-up pool filled with bottles of baby oil for the sick sex sessions, she testified Tuesday.

“Sometimes Sean, he himself or the escort, would urinate on me,’’ Ventura told the jury at Combs’ sex-trafficking trial in Manhattan federal court. “Sean urinated at the same time.”

She said that once when a male prostitute peed into her mouth during the “humiliating’’ encounters, “It was overwhelming.

“I choked,’’ the witness said.

BELTON, S.C. (WHNS/Gray News) – Parents in South Carolina are facing charges after police said their twin babies were found with rat bite marks on their bodies.

According to the Anderson County Sheriff’s Office, Akayla and Justin Bearden, both 24, were charged with two counts of unlawful conduct towards a child.

Deputies responded to the home in Belton when the mother called 911 on Friday morning to report that her 6-month-old child was covered in blood.

The sheriff’s office said a “large rat started eating the child.”

When they arrived, deputies said they found blood covering the baby girl and her bassinet. They said there were bite marks on the baby’s arms, back of the head, ears and face.

The baby was immediately taken to Greenville Memorial Hospital.

Investigators found that the baby girl has a twin brother, who also had bite marks on his feet.

Deputies said the parents admitted that field rats have been an ongoing issue inside their home for the last several months, but they still allowed their children to live there.

Minneapolis, MINN. (Valley News Live) - While he doesn’t see it as a likely possibility, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz says that officials and the community should be prepared in case President Donald Trump decides to pardon former Minneapolis Police Officer Derek Chauvin.

Some have called for President Trump to pardon Chauvin, who is currently serving prison time for the murder of George Floyd. While Walz says it hasn’t heard any talk from the administration about that possibility, he still thinks it’s worth preparing for.

“I will be candid, I’ve talked to people in the community just to prepare the for that.” Governor Walz said in an interview with WCCO.

He also added that, since Chauvin was found guilty of state and federal charges, a pardon from the President wouldn’t necessarily get Chauvin out of serving time in Minnesota.

The mother of a NSW woman murdered by her ex-boyfriend has welcomed prosecutors' decision to appeal his sentence, describing it as a "small step in a long journey".

Tyrone Thompson, 25, stabbed 21-year-old Mackenzie Anderson 78 times with two kitchen knives over two minutes at her Newcastle apartment in March 2022.

His punishment for the brutal murder, committed 16 days after his release on parole for intimidating the Mayfield woman and destroying her property, was 22 years and six months, with a non-parole period of 15 years and six months.

The sentence appalled Anderson's mother, Tabitha Acret, who last night told 9News Premier Chris Minns' office had been in touch to let her know the Director of Public Prosecutions would launch an appeal this week.

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"I was just so overwhelmed with that information. That anyone could think that that sentence was appropriate for what we'd seen."

In sentencing Thompson, Justice Richard Weinstein described a frenzied attack of such ferocity that one of the two kitchen knives he used had snapped.

Veteran human rights activist Judith Todd has revealed she was raped on the orders of Robert Mugabe's government.

Todd, the daughter of former Rhodesian prime minister Sir Garfield Todd, was one of the most active protesters against Rhodesia's independence and subsequent apartheid-style rule.

She became a target of Mugabe's regime after speaking out against a brutal attack on an insurrection in Matabeleland which left thousands dead.

In her new biography, Through the Darkness: A life in Zimbabwe, Todd says she was arrested by an army officer one morning and driven to a civilian complex inside the Chikurubi prison outside Harare.

"A servant let us in, not looking at us," she writes, as quoted in The Australian.

"The (senior officer) led me into a bedroom, opened a bottle of beer for each of us, unstrapped his firearm in its holster, laid it on the bedside table next to my head and proceeded. I did not resist."

She writes that her attacker appeared "unhappy", and that it appeared he was under orders to rape her from the Mugabe Government.

TOKYO (TR) – Tokyo Metropolitan Police have arrested the former chairman and founder of real estate investment company Raysum Co., Ltd. and a female companion over the alleged possession of illegal drugs in a hotel in Chiyoda Ward last year, reports NHK (May 12).

On June 24, Tsuyoshi Tanaka, 60, is suspected of possessing approximately 0.859 grams of cocaine and approximately 0.208 grams of kakuseizai (methamphetamine) together with 32-year-old Miho Okumoto in a room of the hotel in Otemachi.

On Monday, police accused Tanaka and Okumoto of violating the Narcotics Control Act and the Stimulants Control Act. Police did not reveal whether the suspects admit to the allegations.

On the day of the incident, police officers were called to the hotel after Tanaka and Okumoto got into a dispute. When officers searched the room, they found three bags of cocaine and stimulants near the bed.

Afterward, Tanaka was hospitalized at an unspecified location in the Kanto region.

Police are currently investigating the circumstances that led to the incident and where the suspects obtained the illegal drugs.

Rodney Hinton Jr., who authorities say intentionally hit and killed an Ohio sheriff’s deputy with a car after his son was fatally shot by police, will remain in jail without bond while he awaits trial on a murder charge.

Hinton Jr. was denied bond at a Tuesday court hearing in Cincinnati. He is charged with aggravated murder for the May 2 killing of Hamilton County Sheriff’s Deputy Larry Henderson.

“There will be an order of remand with no bond. Please assure the safety of the defendant and any mental health treatment that can be granted,” Hamilton County Municipal Judge Tyrone Yates said.

The hearing is the latest development in a case that began last week when Cincinnati police shot and killed Hinton Jr.’s son. Police said 18-year-old Ryan Hinton was one of four men who were fleeing after officers found them in a stolen car, and that he was armed when he ran.

Hinton Jr.’s attorney, Clyde Bennett II, entered a plea of not guilty on his client’s behalf and requested bail. During Tuesday’s hearing, Bennett asked for Hinton Jr. not to be thought of as a “cop-killer” but a person with mental illness.

“I don’t think he was a cop killer. I think he’s not in his right mind,” Bennett said. “And I think he should be treated like any other mentally ill person that commits a crime under the auspices, control and authority of a mental defect in the condition.”

The first of three defendants in the deadly Jefferson County rock-throwing case was sentenced on Thursday. Nicholas "Mitch" James Karol-Chik pleaded guilty last May in Alexa Bartell's death in an agreement reached with the prosecution.

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According to the plea agreement, prosecutors said Karol-Chik would serve a minimum of 35 years and up to 72 years in the Department of Corrections. The judge said the deal did not allow for sentencing in the youth offender program. As part of the agreement, Karol-Chik agreed to testify against fellow defendant Joseph Koenig.

On Thursday, the judge sentenced Karol-Chik to 45 years in the Colorado Department of Corrections.

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Another defendant in the case, Zachary Kwak, also pleaded guilty in an agreement reached with the prosecution. He is scheduled to be sentenced on Friday.

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Twenty-year-old Bartell was struck and killed late at night on April 19, 2023, when she was struck by a rock that was thrown into her windshield. Several others were injured in similar incidents with what authorities described as "large landscaping rocks," concrete, and in one case, a statue.

According to Littleton Public Schools, the Department of Justice has formally opened an inquiry to determine whether any violations of the Americans with Disabilities Act occurred in the case of a former school bus aide accused of hitting and slapping students with special needs. Kiarra Jones pleaded not guilty to multiple charges including third-degree assault and child abuse earlier this week.

The declaration was made in a letter sent by Littleton Public Schools to parents this week. LPS stated in the letter that, "We do not know how long the inquiry will take, but we are committed to providing the DOJ any information or other support needed to complete its due diligence."

One alleged incident was caught on video showing the suspect punching a 10-year-old student with autism on a school bus. At least three students said they had been hurt by the aide.

The attorneys representing the families of those students released this statement regarding the DOJ inquiry, "Our clients, the parents of the three tortured and abused students intend to bring a civil rights lawsuit against LPS and TJS. These parents look forward to exposing the many deliberate failures by LPS (and TJS) that resulted in the horrific injuries suffered by these children. LPS chose not to inform the community of the DOJ investigation for weeks until forced to because of our clients' efforts. LPS has shamefully put greater effort into threatening critics rather than protecting its most vulnerable student population."

Some salacious stuff in the article, including:

The plaintiff claims that, once they got to her place, Sharpe forced her to perform oral sex on him and then raped her anally after telling her that he would punish her “a**hole” and “make it so that no man will want you again.”