Every time we give out one of our “Asshole’ trophy’s, I think to myself, “boy, it’s gonna be hard to top that one!”
And then, the next thing ya know, without any warning or “how-DE-do,” along comes someone else who raises the bar to new levels of “assholeness” and blows my theory apart!
This guy takes the award on so many levels that I can’t even begin to describe them all here, I will just let you decide for yourself.
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A St. Louis County police officer, who was seen
pushing a CNN anchor during protests in Ferguson, Mo., this week, was
suspended from duty after a controversial video surfaced, in which he
fashions himself as a merciless killer.
“I
personally believe in Jesus Christ as my lord and savior, but I’m also a
killer,” said officer Dan Page, a 35-year veteran, in the video. “I’ve
killed a lot. And if I need to, I’ll kill a whole bunch more. If you
don’t want to get killed, don’t show up in front of me. I have no
problems with it. God did not raise me to be a coward.” Page added, “I’m
into diversity — I kill everybody. I don’t care.”
St. Louis County Police Chief Jon Belmar said Page has been
suspended, pending a review by the internal affairs unit, which will
begin Monday. The video was brought to Belmar’s attention by CNN’s Don
Lemon.
“With the comments on killing, that was obviously something that deeply disturbed me immediately,” Belmar told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.
“I
personally believe in Jesus Christ as my lord and savior, but I’m also a
killer,” said officer Dan Page, a 35-year veteran, in the video. “I’ve
killed a lot. And if I need to, I’ll kill a whole bunch more. If you
don’t want to get killed, don’t show up in front of me. I have no
problems with it. God did not raise me to be a coward.” Page added, “I’m
into diversity — I kill everybody. I don’t care.”“With the comments on killing, that was obviously something that deeply disturbed me immediately,” Belmar told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.
The comments, which were made before members of the Christian organization, the Oath Keepers, also included his story of going to Kenya in search of “undocumented president,” Barack Obama. “I flew to Africa, right there, and I went to our undocumented president’s home,” Page said, holding a picture of him in Kenya. “He was born in Kenya.”
Page has been ordered to take a psychiatric exam, according to Belmar, who issued a public apology for Page’s remarks. “He does not represent the rank-and-file of [the] St. Louis County Police Department,” Belmar told CNN in a Friday on-air interview.
http://www.thewire.com/national/2014/08/suspended-st-louis-police-officer-im-into-diversity-i-kill-everybody/379026/
—————————————————–
This week, ISIL released a video of the beheading of American
journalist James Foley. The executioner in the video has already been
identified as a British ISIL leader, known only as “John” or “Jihadist
John.” Several of his past hostages recognized him from the video, and
as lead hostage negotiator for ISIL’s division in Syria, conducting
negotiations online with families.
Though John wears black robes and covers his face in the video, his
distinct accent, eyes, height, and hands are being used as clues to
identify him. For example, from the video, experts determined he is left
handed.
His accent is perhaps the most powerful clue. It has been narrowed
down to an accent that was likely developed in the South East area of
Greater London. Linguists determined he is likely under 30 based on his
voice, and his youth was spent studying in Southern London. They believe
he is educated to at least a completed high school level.
Experts will try to determine if he lived all of his life in Britain
or moved around — that will be more of an art than a science, as experts
can and have disagreed on the matter. A forensic voice expert told CNN
that British intelligence authorities will now work to match his voice
to existing recordings. With any luck, they will be able to narrow down
his voice to between 200 and 300 matches.As for the final identification, Prime Minister David Cameron has already said it is likely that John is a British citizen. Anil Jain, a professor of biometric recognition techniques at Michigan State University, told Bloomberg News this means it is “likely he is in the passport office database.”
http://www.thewire.com/technology/2014/08/how-technology-is-being-used-to-capture-foleys-executioner-jihadist-john/379014/
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And while we are on the subject, boys and girls, your trustworthy reporter just read a report that says about 130 Canadians are currently over in the Middle-East fighting for Islamic extremists, AND ANOTHER 80 OF THEM ARE BACK IN THIS COUNTRY!
Look folks, this is plain and simple…………………….., why did we let them back in the first place, and since they are here, WHY AREN’T THEY IN JAIL!
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And under the “It’s about time” department, A prominent Calgary Imam is warning that Canadian youth are being recruited by terrorist groups to travel overseas and fight for Islamist militants.
Syed Soharwardy is hoping a two-day hunger strike, which began Friday, will draw attention to what he says is an increasing problem of home-grown terrorism.
“Muslim youth are getting recruited by these fanatics in Canada, in the United States, in Europe, everywhere,” Soharwardy, founder of Muslims Against Terrorism, told CTV Calgary.
“If it can happen there (in the U.K.), it can happen here,” Soharwardy said. “These people are Canadian who are fighting there.”
Soharwardy said that after he denounced Foley’s brutal killing, he received a disturbing Facebook message from a former Ottawa high school student who now claims to be an Islamic State militant in Iraq.
“He was trying to convince me what I am saying is wrong and what ISIS is doing is right,” Soharwardy said.
University of Calgary political science professor Michael Zekulin said Canada’s approach to fighting radicalization has fallen behind, and Islamic State’s threat to the West should be taken seriously.
“They (Islamic State) have international appeal, but do they have the international reach to actually get people back to target the West?” Zekulin asked.
Earlier this week, Prime Minister Stephen Harper said terrorist groups like Islamic State represents an increasing long-term threat to Canada’s security.
Read more: http://www.ctvnews.ca/canada/calgary-imam-staging-hunger-strike-to-draw-attention-to-home-grown-terrorism-1.1971163#ixzz3BDzLfUvp
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This may, or may not, be important to you depending on how old you are! (Don’t forget, it happened almost 35 years ago!)
John Lennon’s killer was denied release from prison in his eighth
appearance before a parole board, correction officials said Friday.
The decision on Mark David Chapman by a three-member board came after
a hearing Wednesday, the state Department of Corrections said.
The transcript of his latest hearing wasn’t immediately released. Chapman can try again for parole in two years.——————————————————
There are some incidents that don’t warrant a 911 call. One of those is when a stripper won’t turn a lap dance into sex, folks!
Yes, that guy ended up with a solicitation charge.
Either way, he was gonna get screwed. If she said yes, she’d do it to
him literally, and since she said no, he got screwed out of the money.
However, by calling the cops, he screwed himself.
————————————————–
For nearly thirty years, a phantom haunted the woods of Central Maine. Unseen and unknown, he lived in secret, creeping into homes in the dead of night and surviving on what he could steal. To the spooked locals, he became a legend—or maybe a myth. They wondered how he could possibly be real. Until one day last year, the hermit came out of the forest.
The hermit set out of camp at midnight, carrying his
backpack and his bag of break-in tools, and threaded through the forest,
rock to root to rock, every step memorized. Not a boot print left
behind. It was cold and nearly moonless, a fine night for a raid, so he
hiked about an hour to the Pine Tree summer camp, a few dozen cabins
spread along the shoreline of North Pond in central Maine. With an
expert twist of a screwdriver, he popped open a door of the dining hall
and slipped inside, scanning the pantry shelves with his penlight.
Candy! Always good. Ten rolls of Smarties, stuffed in a pocket. Then, into his backpack, a bag of marshmallows, two tubs of ground coffee, some Humpty Dumpty potato chips. Burgers and bacon were in the locked freezer. On a previous raid at Pine Tree, he’d stolen a key to the walk-in, and now he used it to open the stainless-steel door. The key was attached to a plastic four-leaf-clover key chain, with one of the leaves partially broken off. A three-and-a-half-leaf clover.
He could’ve used a little more luck. Newly installed in the Pine Tree kitchen, hidden behind the ice machine, was a military-grade motion detector. The device remained silent in the kitchen but sounded an alarm in the home of Sergeant Terry Hughes, a game warden who’d become obsessed with catching the thief. Hughes lived a mile away. He raced to the camp in his pickup truck and sprinted to the rear of the dining hall. He peeked in a window.
And there he was. Probably. The person stealing food appeared entirely too clean, his face freshly shaved. He wore eyeglasses and a wool ski hat. Was this really the North Pond Hermit, a man who’d tormented the surrounding community for years—decades—yet the police still hadn’t learned his name?
Hughes used his cell phone, quietly, and asked the Maine State Police to alert trooper Diane Perkins-Vance, who had also been hunting the hermit. Before Perkins-Vance could get there, the burglar, his backpack full, started toward the exit. If the man stepped into the forest, Hughes understood, he might never be found again.
The burglar eased out of the dining hall, and Hughes used his left hand to blind the man with his flashlight; with his right he aimed his .357 square on his nose. “Get on the ground!” he bellowed.
The thief complied, no resistance, and lay facedown, candy spilling out of his pockets. It was one thirty in the morning on April 4, 2013. Perkins-Vance soon arrived, and the burglar was placed, handcuffed, in a plastic chair. The officers asked his name. He refused to answer. His skin was strangely pale; his glasses, with chunky plastic frames, were extremely outdated. But he wore a nice Columbia jacket, new Lands’ End blue jeans, and sturdy boots. The officers searched him, and no identification was located.
Hughes left the suspect alone with Perkins-Vance. She removed his handcuffs and gave him a bottle of water. And he started to speak. A little. When Perkins-Vance asked why he didn’t want to answer any questions, he said he was ashamed. He spoke haltingly, uncertainly; the connection between his mind and his mouth seemed to have atrophied from disuse. But over the next couple of hours, he gradually opened up.
His name, he revealed, was Christopher Thomas Knight. Born on
December 7, 1965. He said he had no address, no vehicle, did not file a
tax return, and did not receive mail. He said he lived in the woods.
“For how long?” wondered Perkins-Vance.
Knight thought for a bit, then asked when the Chernobyl nuclear-plant disaster occurred. He had long ago lost the habit of marking time in months or years; this was just a news event he happened to remember. The nuclear meltdown took place in 1986, the same year, Knight said, he went to live in the woods. He was 20 years old at the time, not long out of high school. He was now 47, a middle-aged man.
Knight stated that over all those years he slept only in a tent. He never lit a fire, for fear that smoke would give his camp away. He moved strictly at night. He said he didn’t know if his parents were alive or dead. He’d not made one phone call or driven in a car or spent any money. He had never in his life sent an e-mail or even seen the Internet.
He confessed that he’d committed approximately forty robberies a year while in the woods—a total of more than a thousand break-ins. But never when anyone was home. He said he stole only food and kitchenware and propane tanks and reading material and a few other items. Knight admitted that everything he possessed in the world, he’d stolen, including the clothes he was wearing, right down to his underwear. The only exception was his eyeglasses.
Perkins-Vance called dispatch and learned that Knight had no criminal record. He said he grew up in a nearby community, and his senior picture was soon located in the 1984 Lawrence High School yearbook. He was wearing the same eyeglasses.
For close to three decades, Knight said, he had not seen a doctor or taken any medicine. He mentioned that he had never once been sick. You had to have contact with other humans, he claimed, in order to get sick.
When, said Perkins-Vance, was the last time he’d had contact with another person?
Sometime in the 1990s, answered Knight, he passed a hiker while walking in the woods.
“What did you say?” asked Perkins-Vance.
“I said, ‘Hi,’ ” Knight replied. Other than that single syllable, he insisted, he had not spoken with or touched another human being, until this night, for twenty-seven years.
Christopher Knight was arrested, charged with burglary and theft, and transported to the Kennebec County jail in Augusta, the state capital. For the first time in nearly 10,000 days, he slept indoors.
News of the capture stunned the citizens of North Pond. For decades, they’d felt haunted by…something. It was hard to say what. At first, in the late 1980s, there were strange occurrences. Flashlights were missing their batteries. Steaks disappeared from the fridge. New propane tanks on the grill had been replaced by old ones. “My grandkids thought I was losing my mind,” said David Proulx, whose vacation cabin was broken into at least fifty times.
Then people began noticing other things. Wood shavings near window locks; scratches on doorframes. Was it a neighbor? A gang of teenagers? The robberies continued—boat batteries, frying pans, winter jackets. Fear took hold. “We always felt like he was watching us,” one resident said. The police were called, repeatedly, but were unable to help.
Locks were changed, alarm systems installed. Nothing seemed to stop him. Or her. Or them. No one knew. A few desperate residents even left notes on their doors: “Please don’t break in. Tell me what you need and I’ll leave it out for you.” There was never a reply.
Incidents mounted, and the phantom morphed into legend. Eventually he was given a name: the North Pond Hermit. At a homeowners’ meeting in 2002, the hundred people present were asked who had suffered break-ins. Seventy-five raised their hands. Campfire hermit stories were swapped. One kid recalled that when he was 10 years old, all his Halloween candy was stolen. That kid is now 34.
Still the robberies persisted. The crimes, after so long, felt almost supernatural. “The legend of the hermit lived on for years and years,” said Pete Cogswell, whose jeans and belt were worn by the hermit when he was caught. “Did I believe it? No. Who really could?”
Knight’s arrest, rather than eliminating disbelief, only enhanced it. The truth was stranger than the myth. One man had actually lived in the woods of Maine for twenty-seven years, in an unheated nylon tent. Winters in Maine are long and intensely cold: a wet, windy cold, the worst kind of cold. A week of winter camping is an impressive achievement. An entire season is practically unheard of.
Though hermits have been documented for thousands of years, Knight’s feat appears to exist in a category of its own. He engaged in zero communication with the outside world. He never snapped a photo. He did not keep a journal. His camp was undisclosed to everyone.
There may have been others like Knight, whose commitment to isolation was absolute—he planned to live his entire life in secret—but if so, they were never found. Capturing Knight was the human equivalent of netting a giant squid. He was an uncontacted tribe of one.
Candy! Always good. Ten rolls of Smarties, stuffed in a pocket. Then, into his backpack, a bag of marshmallows, two tubs of ground coffee, some Humpty Dumpty potato chips. Burgers and bacon were in the locked freezer. On a previous raid at Pine Tree, he’d stolen a key to the walk-in, and now he used it to open the stainless-steel door. The key was attached to a plastic four-leaf-clover key chain, with one of the leaves partially broken off. A three-and-a-half-leaf clover.
He could’ve used a little more luck. Newly installed in the Pine Tree kitchen, hidden behind the ice machine, was a military-grade motion detector. The device remained silent in the kitchen but sounded an alarm in the home of Sergeant Terry Hughes, a game warden who’d become obsessed with catching the thief. Hughes lived a mile away. He raced to the camp in his pickup truck and sprinted to the rear of the dining hall. He peeked in a window.
And there he was. Probably. The person stealing food appeared entirely too clean, his face freshly shaved. He wore eyeglasses and a wool ski hat. Was this really the North Pond Hermit, a man who’d tormented the surrounding community for years—decades—yet the police still hadn’t learned his name?
Hughes used his cell phone, quietly, and asked the Maine State Police to alert trooper Diane Perkins-Vance, who had also been hunting the hermit. Before Perkins-Vance could get there, the burglar, his backpack full, started toward the exit. If the man stepped into the forest, Hughes understood, he might never be found again.
The burglar eased out of the dining hall, and Hughes used his left hand to blind the man with his flashlight; with his right he aimed his .357 square on his nose. “Get on the ground!” he bellowed.
The thief complied, no resistance, and lay facedown, candy spilling out of his pockets. It was one thirty in the morning on April 4, 2013. Perkins-Vance soon arrived, and the burglar was placed, handcuffed, in a plastic chair. The officers asked his name. He refused to answer. His skin was strangely pale; his glasses, with chunky plastic frames, were extremely outdated. But he wore a nice Columbia jacket, new Lands’ End blue jeans, and sturdy boots. The officers searched him, and no identification was located.
Hughes left the suspect alone with Perkins-Vance. She removed his handcuffs and gave him a bottle of water. And he started to speak. A little. When Perkins-Vance asked why he didn’t want to answer any questions, he said he was ashamed. He spoke haltingly, uncertainly; the connection between his mind and his mouth seemed to have atrophied from disuse. But over the next couple of hours, he gradually opened up.
His name, he revealed, was Christopher Thomas Knight. Born on
December 7, 1965. He said he had no address, no vehicle, did not file a
tax return, and did not receive mail. He said he lived in the woods.“For how long?” wondered Perkins-Vance.
Knight thought for a bit, then asked when the Chernobyl nuclear-plant disaster occurred. He had long ago lost the habit of marking time in months or years; this was just a news event he happened to remember. The nuclear meltdown took place in 1986, the same year, Knight said, he went to live in the woods. He was 20 years old at the time, not long out of high school. He was now 47, a middle-aged man.
Knight stated that over all those years he slept only in a tent. He never lit a fire, for fear that smoke would give his camp away. He moved strictly at night. He said he didn’t know if his parents were alive or dead. He’d not made one phone call or driven in a car or spent any money. He had never in his life sent an e-mail or even seen the Internet.
He confessed that he’d committed approximately forty robberies a year while in the woods—a total of more than a thousand break-ins. But never when anyone was home. He said he stole only food and kitchenware and propane tanks and reading material and a few other items. Knight admitted that everything he possessed in the world, he’d stolen, including the clothes he was wearing, right down to his underwear. The only exception was his eyeglasses.
Perkins-Vance called dispatch and learned that Knight had no criminal record. He said he grew up in a nearby community, and his senior picture was soon located in the 1984 Lawrence High School yearbook. He was wearing the same eyeglasses.
For close to three decades, Knight said, he had not seen a doctor or taken any medicine. He mentioned that he had never once been sick. You had to have contact with other humans, he claimed, in order to get sick.
When, said Perkins-Vance, was the last time he’d had contact with another person?
Sometime in the 1990s, answered Knight, he passed a hiker while walking in the woods.
“What did you say?” asked Perkins-Vance.
“I said, ‘Hi,’ ” Knight replied. Other than that single syllable, he insisted, he had not spoken with or touched another human being, until this night, for twenty-seven years.
Christopher Knight was arrested, charged with burglary and theft, and transported to the Kennebec County jail in Augusta, the state capital. For the first time in nearly 10,000 days, he slept indoors.
News of the capture stunned the citizens of North Pond. For decades, they’d felt haunted by…something. It was hard to say what. At first, in the late 1980s, there were strange occurrences. Flashlights were missing their batteries. Steaks disappeared from the fridge. New propane tanks on the grill had been replaced by old ones. “My grandkids thought I was losing my mind,” said David Proulx, whose vacation cabin was broken into at least fifty times.
Then people began noticing other things. Wood shavings near window locks; scratches on doorframes. Was it a neighbor? A gang of teenagers? The robberies continued—boat batteries, frying pans, winter jackets. Fear took hold. “We always felt like he was watching us,” one resident said. The police were called, repeatedly, but were unable to help.
Locks were changed, alarm systems installed. Nothing seemed to stop him. Or her. Or them. No one knew. A few desperate residents even left notes on their doors: “Please don’t break in. Tell me what you need and I’ll leave it out for you.” There was never a reply.
Incidents mounted, and the phantom morphed into legend. Eventually he was given a name: the North Pond Hermit. At a homeowners’ meeting in 2002, the hundred people present were asked who had suffered break-ins. Seventy-five raised their hands. Campfire hermit stories were swapped. One kid recalled that when he was 10 years old, all his Halloween candy was stolen. That kid is now 34.
Still the robberies persisted. The crimes, after so long, felt almost supernatural. “The legend of the hermit lived on for years and years,” said Pete Cogswell, whose jeans and belt were worn by the hermit when he was caught. “Did I believe it? No. Who really could?”
Knight’s arrest, rather than eliminating disbelief, only enhanced it. The truth was stranger than the myth. One man had actually lived in the woods of Maine for twenty-seven years, in an unheated nylon tent. Winters in Maine are long and intensely cold: a wet, windy cold, the worst kind of cold. A week of winter camping is an impressive achievement. An entire season is practically unheard of.
Though hermits have been documented for thousands of years, Knight’s feat appears to exist in a category of its own. He engaged in zero communication with the outside world. He never snapped a photo. He did not keep a journal. His camp was undisclosed to everyone.
There may have been others like Knight, whose commitment to isolation was absolute—he planned to live his entire life in secret—but if so, they were never found. Capturing Knight was the human equivalent of netting a giant squid. He was an uncontacted tribe of one.
I decided to write him a letter. I wrote it by hand, pen on paper, and sent it from my home in Montana to the Kennebec County jail. I mentioned I was a journalist seeking explanations for his baffling life. A week later, a white envelope arrived in my mailbox. The return address, printed in blue ink in wobbly-looking block letters, read “Chris Knight.” It was a brief note—three paragraphs; 272 words. Still, it contained some of the first statements Knight had shared with anyone in the world.
“I replied to your letter,” he explained, “because writing letters relieves somewhat the stress and boredom of my present situation.” Also, he didn’t feel comfortable speaking. “My vocal, verbal skills have become rather rusty and slow.”
I’d mentioned in my letter that I was an avid reader. From what I could tell, Knight was, too. Many victims of Knight’s thefts reported that their books were often stolen—from Tom Clancy potboilers to dense military histories to James Joyce’s Ulysses.
http://www.gq.com/news-politics/newsmakers/201409/the-last-true-hermit?currentPage=1
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