This ain't Hell, but you can see it from here

Author: Jonn Lilyea

  • Dixon Police Officer Mark Dallas stops school shooter

    Dixon Police Officer Mark Dallas stops school shooter

    The Chicago Tribune reports that Dixon, Illinois Police Officer Mark Dallas is considered a hero because he ran to the sound of gunfire in Dixon High School and stopped a determined gunman before he could injure any of the students;

    The officer, identified by the city as 15-year department veteran Mark Dallas, shot and injured the gunman after the suspect fired at the officer while trying to flee, police said.

    The suspect, identified as 19-year-old former student Matthew A. Milby, was taken into custody, and no one else was injured in the gunfire exchange, authorities said.

    Late Wednesday, officials confirmed that they have charged Milby with felony aggravated discharge of a weapon and set his bond at $2 million. Illinois State Police said the investigation continues and more charges could be forthcoming.

    From CNN;

    The 19-year-old former student opened fire near the school auditorium where students had gathered for graduation ceremony rehearsal, the statement said.

    The suspect fled the school and Dallas chased him, Dixon Police Chief Steven Howell said in a news conference. The suspect continued to shoot at the officer and the officer returned fire, Howell said.

    The suspect was taken to a hospital for non-life threatening injuries. He will be transported to jail after he’s released from the hospital, state police said.

  • Clayton Pressley III sentenced again

    Clayton Pressley III sentenced again

    Last year, we talked about Clayton Pressley III, a former sailor when he was sentenced for identity theft of his subordinate sailors. He got 50 months in prison for that. It seems that while investigators dug into that charge, they discovered that there was a larger plot afoot according to the Virginian-Pilot;

    The Bronze Star recipient was also ripping off the Navy through an elaborate procurement fraud scheme.

    Pressley was sentenced Tuesday to two years in federal prison in connection with the $2.3 million fraud. That is on top of four years and two months he received in the identity theft case, in which he fraudulently obtained $24,000 in loans.

    The fraud charges stem from Pressley’s efforts in 2014 to manipulate the Navy’s procurement process for personal profit. According to court documents, Pressley, then a senior chief petty officer, and unnamed co-conspirators were selling Navy “inert training aids,” or fake bombs, that were never shipped but marked as delivered.

    According to court documents, an unnamed Navy officer who had purchasing authority ordered the aids from two vendors, identified as Firm D and Firm V.

    Friendly sales representatives from those firms funneled orders to Firm G, a Tucson, Ariz.-based business that served as a front for Pressley, the mother of one of his children and other co-conspirators. No goods were ever delivered, documents said.

    Who knew that there was that much money in training aids?

    Thanks to Mick for the link.

  • Sidney Bouvier Gilstrap-Portley returns to high school to relive glory days

    The UK’s Daily Mail recounts the story of 25-year-old Sidney Bouvier Gilstrap-Portley who missed his high school glory days of basketball so much that he enrolled in a high school pretending to be 17-year-old Rashun Richardson, claiming to be a Hurricane Harvey refugee – he even dated a fourteen-year-old;

    Gilstrap-Portley graduated from his own high school, North Mesquite, in 2011, and had a relatively successful college basketball career as a guardsmen for the Dallas Christian College between 2013 and 2014. But he went undrafted in the 2017 NBA draft.

    […]

    Gilstrap-Portley was finally caught after one of his former coaches from North Mesquite High School recognized him when they saw him playing at a tournament in April, and alerted the Hillcrest basketball coach.

    They should have suspected him when he started using My Space instead of Facebook.

    The Dallas News says that he’s facing a charge of tampering with government records.

  • Boulder bans “rapid spray firing” weapons

    Boulder bans “rapid spray firing” weapons

    Bobo sends a link to the Huffington Post which reports that Boulder, Colorado city council has written their own “scary-looking black rifle ban”. It appears that they had 3rd graders write the language that bans bump-stocks, magazines that hold more than 10 rounds, and “semi-automatic firearms designed with military features to allow rapid spray firing”.

    Owners of assault weapons, defined by the ordinance as “semi-automatic firearms designed with military features to allow rapid spray firing,” have until December 31 to relinquish or destroy their guns. But a grandfather clause also allows residents who currently possess an assault weapon to apply for a permit proving prior ownership.

    The permit will only be granted to gun owners who pass a background check and are not prohibited by law from owning a gun. The owner must also agree to store the firearm in a safe place and report a loss of the weapon to law enforcement within 48 hours.

    Members of law enforcement and military personnel are exempt from the new restrictions.

    Councilman Sam Weaver told the Daily Camera that the grandfather clause ? which applies to people who legally obtained assault weapons prior to June 15, 2018 ? was included as an “olive branch” to gun owners.

    Opponents of the measure, however, were not assuaged.

    Gun owners in the city have vowed to challenge the ordinance in the courts. I want to see the lawyers defend that “spray firing” bullshit. They should add that “full-semi-automatic” shit, too.

    “It felt like a no-brainer to propose this,” [Councilwoman Jill Adler] Grano said at the time, according to the Daily Camera. “Each time we have a shooting, it is a reminder of the fact that we are failing miserably at protecting our citizens…

    Yes, it is certainly a “no brainer” and the council succeeded in using no brains to write their ordinance. When you write laws for a living, every problem seems to require a new law.

  • Joseph Campanella passes

    Joseph Campanella passes

    Bobo sends us the sad news that Joseph Campanella has passed at the age of 93. He was a World War II Navy veteran.

    Campanella appeared across five seasons of late ’60s and early ’70s crime drama “Mannix,” for which he earned a supporting actor Emmy nomination in 1968, and six seasons of ’70s sitcom “One Day at a Time.” He had a number of other co-starring roles on the small screen, including ’60s hospital drama “The Doctors and the Nurses,” the ’70s medical series “Marcus Welby, M.D.,” and ’80s primetime soap story “The Colbys.” In more recent years, the actor held a recurring role on daytime soap opera “The Bold and the Beautiful” from 1996 to 2005 and worked on “The Practice” and “That’s Life.”

  • Thursday morning feel good stories

    Thursday morning feel good stories

    From Chicago, Illinois;

    Prosecutors said a Hanover Park man entered the family room through an unlocked screen door on Sunday, ran through the house and brandished a large butcher knife.

    When he held the knife near an 85-year-old woman, the woman’s 60-year-old daughter grabbed her mother’s walker and began striking him, prompting him to flee, Cook County Assistant State’s Attorney Jennifer Gates said in court Tuesday. The older woman had been using the walker since a recent hospitalization, Gates said.

    The suspect, 44-year-old Gregorio Salgado, was taken into custody outside the home, where he resisted being handcuffed and was found with more than a gram of cocaine, Gates said.

    Salgado was charged with home invasion, possession of a controlled substance and resisting arrest, prosecutors said, and his bond was set on Tuesday at $750,000.

    Gates said Salgado has previous felony convictions for aggravated battery and drug possession.

    From Memphis, Tennessee;

    A suspect was shot during an attempted carjacking in Orange Mound.

    Memphis police responded to a shooting call in the 1400 block of Trezevant in near McDonalds.

    Police said four men attempted to rob a victim, but the victim then shot one of the suspects.

    All four suspects then fled the scene.

    The suspect that was shot was transported to the hospital in non-critical condition.

    MPD said the four suspects fled the scene in a black Infiniti.

    Moments later, a black Infiniti arrived at in the 2900 block Lamar with a gunshot wound.

    From Springfield, Missouri;

    A man who was attempting to break into an apartment was shot overnight.

    Lt. David Myer of the Springfield Police tells KOLR10 that a man attempted to climb in a window in the apartment complex in the 2800 block of south Nettleton shortly before 2:30 this morning…

    That is when someone inside shot the suspect. The suspect has non life threatening injuries and it is believed that the suspect and homeowner knew each other.

  • Marines & Mickey founder John Simpson sentenced

    Marines & Mickey founder John Simpson sentenced

    We wrote about John Simpson, the founder of the Marines & Mickey charity last year. He falsely claimed to be a Marine reconman and cheated a lot of people out of a lot of money. He was sentenced in Florida last week;

    John Simpson, a former Anderson County resident who was accused of lying about his military service after creating a charity called Marines & Mickey, received a nine-year prison sentence in Florida last week for sexually assaulting his former girlfriend.

    Simpson, 41, also will face a federal complaint in South Carolina, authorities said this week.

    Don Wood, a spokesman for the FBI field office in Columbia, said his agency has notified officials in Florida that Simpson needs to be brought back to South Carolina to face a federal complaint that has been lodged against him.

    Wood and a spokesman for the U.S. Attorney’s Office did not provide any additional details about the complaint. The Independent Mail previously reported that the FBI and Naval Criminal Investigative Service were conducting a joint investigation into complaints about the financial practices of Marines & Mickey.

    […]

    Robert Hines, Simpson’s criminal attorney in Florida, said Simpson accepted a negotiated plea that calls for him to serve nine years in state prison, followed by six years of probation. He also must register as a sex offender.

    Simpson was found guilty of burglary with assault or battery, obstructing justice, sexual assault, stalking and contempt of court for violating a domestic violence injunction, court records show.

  • Tchaasu Taylor; killed two days after he was released on bail

    Tchaasu Taylor; killed two days after he was released on bail

    Tchaasu Taylor was killed by a homeowner last week in Trinity, Alabama when he tried a home invasion. Two days prior, he was released on $31,000 bail for kidnapping and assault on a woman.

    WAAY 31 asked the Madison County District Attorney why Taylor was back on the street so quickly.

    Robert Broussard told us it’s simple, anyone is innocent until proven guilty and the bond that was set for Taylor is fair.

    “I don’t look at an incident like this and think man this system is so broke,” he said.

    The Madison County DA is talking about Tchaasu Taylor’s arrest in Huntsville and eventual death days later in Morgan County.

    Huntsville police say Taylor kidnapped a woman from a business off Highway 72 after seeing text messages on her phone about a week and a half ago.

    Investigators said Taylor hit, kicked, and stabbed the woman. He then beat her with weapons while he drove from Huntsville to Muscle Shoals, according to police.

    Days later, police arrested Taylor but he was out on about a $31,000 bond in about a day.

    “I hate to say it, but it’s not uncommon that somebody who is out on bond ends up committing another crime. The natural question is why were they out on bond? You’re entitled to it. You’re presumed innocent until proven guilty,” said Broussard.

    Decatur Police said Taylor did commit another crime. He broke into a home in Trinity, and police say the homeowner shot and killed him.

    “I believe the system works pretty good. I really do. You can always point to the one that maybe if somehow this guy was locked up certainly he wouldn’t commit another crime in Morgan county and he wouldn’t have got killed, but there’s no way to forecast that,” Broussard added.

    The Decatur Daily says that Taylor has a long history of violent crime;

    Also, a hearing had been set for May 21 in Madison County on the state’s motion to revoke bond for Taylor, according to circuit court documents. Taylor was indicted last month by a Madison County grand jury on a first-degree burglary charge, documents state.

    Taylor was arrested in August and released from jail the next month after he made bond, documents show. According to documents, Taylor had entered a dwelling and struck another man in the nose and mouth.

    The only justice I see is that which an armed citizen dealt Taylor.