A 14-YEAR-OLD girl from north-west London stands accused of conspiracy to supply a machine gun capable of firing 1,000 rounds a minute.
The teenager, who cannot be named for legal reasons, is one of four suspects from the area who appeared at High Barnet magistrates' court charged with gun-related crimes.
She was charged with possessing two revolvers, a Mac-10 machine gun and a second machine pistol.
A 16-year-old male youth was also accused of possessing a revolver with intent to endanger life, as well as drugs and CS sprays.
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18-year-old Korrey Johnson-Bell, of Westfield Close, Brent, was charged with possession of a machine pistol while Genevieve Sahel, 31, also of Westfield Close, faced charges of conspiracy to supply firearms, possession of prohibited weapons and possession of ammunition.
Their court appearance on Saturday follows an investigation by London's Trident crime unit, which handles gun crime in black communities. It occurred as five more victims fell prey to gun crime in the capital this weekend.
An internal police report, revealed by the Observer newspaper on Sunday, painted a grim picture of the surge in gang warfare and "post-code killings" in London.
The report focuses on Hackney, where father-of-two Steven Nyembo-Ya-Muteba was murdered outside his home two weeks ago after asking a gang of youths to be quiet.
It says gun and knife crime in the north-east London borough is increasing more rapidly than anywhere in the capital.
The report, written by Superintendent Leroy Logan, highlights the "terrible acts of gratuitous violence" that have afflicted the area, "ending up in young people losing their lives or being badly injured, because they were visiting the area and were known by the local violent youth, showing the serious implications of district code warfare".
The police chief points to a growing trend which is seeing gangs produce music videos, being broadcast on digital music channels, encouraging violent attacks on rivals.
The report, circulated across the Metropolitan police four months ago, warns that if "gangster glamour, was not "shattered" it would "continually end up in predator-type packs of youths committing the most disgusting acts of violence and other forms of crime".
According to the Observer, police are particularly concerned about Sky television's Channel U which is seen by some as glamorising gang culture.
Darren Platt, the director of Channel U, told the paper it had "tightened things up" and now rejected videos advocating violence and guns.
One solution put forward by Superintendent Logan is the US initiative of "street pastors".
Under the American scheme volunteers from local churches, wearing overtly religious clothing, patrol crime hotspots.
The report claims that black males aged between 13 and 19 are less likely to commit crime if they know a pastor is around.
LIGHTHOUSE POINT, Florida (AP) -- An 81-year-old man was in critical condition Thursday after a stingray flopped onto his boat and stung him, leaving a foot-long barb in his chest in an accident similar to the one that killed "Crocodile Hunter" Steve Irwin.
"It was a freak accident," said Lighthouse Point acting fire Chief David Donzella. "It's very odd that the thing jumped out of the water and stung him. We still can't believe it."
Fatal stingray attacks like the one that killed Irwin last month at the Great Barrier Reef are rare, marine experts say. Rays reflexively deploy a sharp spine in their tails when frightened, but the venom coating the barb usually causes just a painful sting for humans.
James Bertakis of Lighthouse Point was on the water with his granddaughter and a friend Wednesday when a stingray flopped onto the boat and stung Bertakis. The women steered the boat to shore and called 911.
Doctors were able to remove the barb during surgeries Wednesday and Thursday by eventually pulling it through his heart and closing the wound, said Dr. Eugene Costantini at Broward General Medical Center.
He said Bertakis' case was different from Irwin's because the barb stayed in Bertakis' heart and was not pulled out. Videotape of Irwin's last moments shows him pulling the barb from his chest.
Bertakis was apparently trying to remove the three-foot-wide spotted eagle ray from the boat when he was stung, police Cmdr. Mike Oh said.
Ellen Pikitch, a professor of marine biology and fisheries at the University of Miami, who has been studying stingrays for decades, said they are generally docile.
"Something like this is really, really extraordinarily rare," she said. "Even when they are under duress, they don't usually attack."
I'm a little more cynical, here's my version: Due to the recent media attention brought about by the incident that led to Steve Irwin's death, when they came across a stingray they decided to bring it on board. The old man picked it up (either to release it or for a photo-op) and it stung him.
They're learning our weak spots! It won't be much longer before the stingrays acheive flight and glide to our homes in swarms! There will be no escape!
ATLANTA, Georgia (AP) -- A lovesick teenage girl drove into an oncoming car in a suicide attempt that she counted down "8, 7, 6..." in a text message to the female classmate who spurned her, authorities said. The teenager survived but a woman in the other car -- a mother of three -- died.
Louise Egan Brunstad, 16, was charged Thursday with felony murder. Prosecutors said they intend to try her as an adult. If convicted, she faces an automatic life sentence.
"She was actually counting down her imminent threat: 'Nine, eight, seven, six ... I'm going to do it,"' said Fulton County District Attorney Paul Howard.
Authorities said Brunstad rammed her family's Mercedes-Benz head-on into a smaller Daewoo driven by 30-year-old Nancy Salado-Mayo, who was killed. Salado-Mayo's middle child, Lesly, 6, was in a child safety seat and was treated for fractured ribs and other injuries.
Brunstad, who was treated for an ankle injury, had told friends she planned to kill herself after another female student at Holy Innocents Episcopal School refused to have sex with her, Howard said.
Witnesses told police the girl never slowed as she crossed over a turning lane and into oncoming traffic on busy Roswell Road in Atlanta's Buckhead neighborhood on October 4.
"She was traveling at a high rate of speed," Howard said. "This is an intentional action."
The girl's attorney, Drew Findling, declined to discuss the allegations but expressed the family's sadness over the accident.
"This young lady and her parents are devastated by this horrible accident and by the death of Mrs. Salado-Mayo and the injuries of her daughter," Findling said. "They are praying for the quick and healthy recovery of her daughter and for the well-being of her husband and other children."
After a memorial service in Atlanta, Salado-Mayo's body was returned to her native Mexico for burial. Her husband, Mario Bibiano, a steel worker, was unable to attend the funeral because he remained by his daughter's bedside at an Atlanta hospital.
Brunstad was on crutches in court Thursday for a brief hearing on charges of felony murder and aggravated assault. Howard said she is being held at a mental health facility, and is wearing an electronic monitor around her ankle to prevent her from running away.
Brunstad, who was treated for an ankle injury, had told friends she planned to kill herself after another female student at Holy Innocents Episcopal School refused to have sex with her, Howard said.
There's no reason to kill yourself over that. Especially when you have an apparently loving family and a Mercedes-Benz.
Because truly she is suffering more than any other person on earth. Those starving children in Africa or the children caught in the struggles in the Middle East must really appreciate how good they have it comparatively.
I have to go with hlavco here, on all counts. I understand that you can be screwed up form a crappy home-life and the societal pressures associated with the confusion of dealing with finding yourself at such a young age. You can argue that it was tough for her because of her environment. We don't know the specifics of it, maybe she only came out to that one girl and was truly crushed and a little scared about what might happen at school the enxt day. But she's still just a spoiled, selfish bitch. She could have at least given it one more minute of thought and driven into a semi. Either she's a complete moron, or her "suicide attempt" was intentionally half-assed. And while you may be rich and have some problems at the same time. All of your problems are correctable. They all come from you. If you have crappy friends or a weird fetish, hang out with other people that you'll get along with. When you're poor, that's all there is to it. You're problems are real, they're out of your control. You really don't have any excuse to be rich and miserable, unless every person you've ever loved is dead and it's just you and your money. Then you can be suicidal, that's ok.
You really don't have any excuse to be rich and miserable, unless every person you've ever loved is dead and it's just you and your money. Then you can be suicidal, that's ok.
Or you can start running around the city fighting crime in a cape, mask and tights. Your choice, really.
Being near Atlanta, and this being the first I've heard of this, the only thing I have to say is that people have attempted suicide for less. The entire essence of suicidal ideation is that the person goes through a sort of tunnel vision wherein there is no other solution. Suicide is simply negative energy/ emotion turned inward and without any means of siphoning it off, the characteristic feelings of helplessness and hopelessness tend to get overwhelming.
The only thing that somewhat disturbs me is the method she chose to end her life, as women tend to be less violent about it than men.
I've heard that there are noticeably fewer cases of attempted suicide for men. This by no means means that men are less suicidal than women so much as, when men try, they more frequently succeed.
I had a friend in college a few years back who tried to kill himself in high school. He came home from school very depressed and decided to end it all. He grabbed a bottle of cleaner from under the sink and walked into the living room with it. He sat in a recliner and proceeded to chug the entire bottle.
So he lay there, and as time passed, he noticed that it was taking longer than expected. As he checked the bottle, he found that it was indeed non-toxic.
He then decided not to kill himself, after discovering he was not good at it.
Comments
The stingray war is upon us.
Or... not do anything since we're in the US midwest...
And, that's one hell of an arms dealer at 14.
The lower on the chart, the better!
Hamelin: Good idea. Thats just caesium, not francium, of which I could find no videos of... I mean its the dogs nuts of the alkali metals!
I believe francium reacts with air so it's one of the rarest elements there is. Only a few grams of the stuff on Earth.
If that girl was suicidal before, I wonder how fucked up she is now.
Oh well, it still doesn't seem like a good idea.
The only thing that somewhat disturbs me is the method she chose to end her life, as women tend to be less violent about it than men.
So he lay there, and as time passed, he noticed that it was taking longer than expected. As he checked the bottle, he found that it was indeed non-toxic.
He then decided not to kill himself, after discovering he was not good at it.
I gave him a lot of crap for it.