Gunshot sensors have crime in sights - News - Stornoway Gazette: "Sensors that can detect gunshots have been installed in Birmingham in a bid to drive down gun crime.
The Shotspotter Gunshot Location System - which can pick up blasts within a 25m (82ft) radius - is being used in parts of the city. Police hope it will drive down the number of firearm incidents, which have run into the hundreds in recent years.
The sensors, which record an audio clip and give police a GPS location, have been placed on buildings in areas of north-west Birmingham.
Trained officers listen in to the clips and can then decide whether to deploy other officers.
Chief Supt Chris McKeogh said the Shotspotter - used in 50 American cities - had an 85% accuracy rate.
He told the BBC: 'The sound waves a bullet produces has a particular signature, if you like, and that should be recognisable to our force control room officers that have been trained up to listen.
'Shots, or a shot, being fired outside have the best chance (of being detected)."

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Authorities today announced the arrest of a second man on murder charges for the deaths of three adults and a child on Woolson Street in Mattapan on Sept. 28.

Edward Washington, 31, of Dorchester, is a cousin of Kimani Washington, whom authorities charge participated in the drug shakedown and robbery that led to the murders.

Last month, police charged Dwayne Moore, 33, of Mattapan, with the four murders.

In addition to the murder charges, Edward Washington will face charges of armed assault with intent to murder, home invasion, armed robbery, and unlawful possession of a firearm, when he is arraigned in Dorchester District Court, likely tomorrow, the Suffolk County District Attorney's office says.

In 2006, Edward Washington was acquitted on federal racketeering and conspiracy charges related to his alleged involvement in the Esmond Street Crew, a violent gang that authorities said attempted to murder members of the rival Franklin Hill Giants partly for status, but mostly to protect its cocaine business in the Esmond Street area in 2000 and 2001.

A federal judge ordered Washington and a co-defendant not guilty the day after the jury declared itself deadlocked, over the issue of whether the gang was organized enough to be tried under federal racketeering laws.

In the federal case, Washington was accused of shooting at a Franklin Hill gang member on Sept. 16, 2000.

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Farm murderers leave chilling note: News24: South Africa: News: "A chilling message written in Sotho on a piece of cardboard saying 'We have killed them. We are coming back', was found on the gate of the farm where three people were brutally killed on Thursday.

The victims of the murders were Attie Potgieter, 40, his wife Wilna, 36, and their 3-year-old daughter Willemien. It was suspected that little Willemien was shot so that she wouldn't be able to identify her parents' killers.

Three farm workers were arrested on Thursday. Later, in townships in the area, three more suspects were arrested. According to early information, one of them is only 17 years old.

The Potgieters were murdered on their 11th wedding anniversary.

Shock

Arno Potgieter from the neighbouring farm, Van Tondersrust, spoke about the murders of his brother, sister-in-law and Willemien: 'It is still half unreal. It was a terrible, terribly big shock.'

After her mother was killed, little Willemien was presumably taken to an outside room and shot in the back of the head.

The body of Willemientjie, as she was called, was then apparently carried to her mother's body in the main bedroom. Her mother had also been shot in the back of the head."

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Triggerman in Shakopee drive-by shooting gets 9 years in prison Jordan Independent: "After pleading guilty in August to a drive-by a shooting at a Shakopee apartment complex, 24-year-old Marquis Levelle Jordan did the unusual: he tried to retract his plea.
Scott County District Court Judge Carol Hooten would have none of it, however, and went ahead and sentenced the Shakopee man to the maximum possible under his plea agreement: nine years and nine months in prison.
Hooten, in a memo, quickly dismissed Jordan’s arguments for withdrawing his plea.
Jordan’s reasons: He was under the impression that his prison time would be less than 117 months and said he became concerned about the possible length after receiving a copy of a pre-sentence investigative report. He also said he should be allowed to withdraw his plea because a good friend of his was never interviewed by his previous defense attorney.
Hooten responded that the sentencing matter had been discussed in court with Jordan, evidenced by a transcript. Jordan’s defense attorney planned to request less than the maximum possible under state sentencing guidelines, but 117 months was still possible under the plea agreement with prosecutors.
The judge also rejected Jordan’s argument about his friend, whose name actually appeared on a list of potential witnesses for the state should the case go to trial. Hooten said Jordan provided no reason why any information from his friend would exonerate him. His friend had previously told police that he didn’t witness the shooting, although he heard it."

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Convict sought in fatal Largo drive-by shooting - St. Petersburg Times: "man in a black SUV aimed a 9mm semiautomatic pistol at the women and opened fire, Largo police said. The woman in the car sped away as the gun barked again and again. Two of the women dashed into the store for cover.
But Annie Marie Conyers, 26, didn't make it. The Clearwater woman was shot in the lower torso. She died hours later.
The man behind the trigger, Largo police said, was Larry Joe Jerry Jr., a 300-pound convict with a long history of arrests for drugs and violence — including domestic violence.
But Conyers was not his target, said the suspect's half-sister, Malaya Pelham. The two women who escaped into the store were.
But that didn't stop Jerry from ambushing them with two family members in the line of fire, Pelham said. Another half-sister was the driver who fled, and a bullet penetrated the child's car seat and just missed his 1-year-old niece, Pelham said.
'He's not scared of nothing,' Pelham said. 'That's why I'm scared of him, because I know how my brother is. He's crazy.'
Jerry, 26, quickly became the target of a dragnet of Pinellas County. He is wanted on one charge of murder and four counts of attempted murder.
Jerry, who police said is armed and dangerous, was still on the loose Tuesday night. But Pelham said she doesn't expect her brother to come in peacefully.
'I already know he's going to die,' she said, 'because he's going to shoot back"

Rock Machine bikie charged after powerful guns cache found Perth Now: "ROCK Machine bikie has been charged after police uncovered a cache of powerful guns in a car yesterday. The find comes as senior detectives today called on outlaw gangs to 'stop the stupidity'' amid concern of a bloody bikie turf war on the horizon.

Police Transport Division officers pulled over a 39-year-old Edgewater man driving a red Holden Commodore ute on Mounts Bay Rd, Crawley.

Police will allege that a homemade semi-automatic pistol, fashioned from several other weapons, was found under the driver's seat, while two other guns - a 12 gauge sawn-off shotgun and a stolen .44 magnum lever-action rifle - were found in a toolbox on the tray of the ute.

In addition, ammunition was found."

Brazil police scour sewers for druglords - Yahoo! News UK: "Police scoured sewers under Rio's sprawling slums for hundreds of drug traffickers who fled an unprecedented military onslaught on the favelas that netted Brazil's biggest seizure of marijuanaThe crackdown on the Alemao was the culmination of an offensive that began last week
 Brazil claims 'D-Day' victory on Rio slums.  With Rio's World Cup and Olympic hosting duties looming, some 2,600 paratroopers, marines and elite police backed up by helicopters and armored personnel carriers led a pre-dawn assault Sunday on the traffickers' bastion of Grota, a lawless city within a city with a population of 400,000.
Grota is just one of 15 favelas that make up the Complexo do Alemao. But with an estimated 500 drug dealers thought to be hiding in the maze of slums, only 130 arrests were made.
Officials said the dealers may have escaped through a large network of sewers before the police arrived."

Real IRA turns screw in gangland drug war - National News, Frontpage - Independent.ie: "two young men shot dead in a filling station forecourt last week may have been caught up in the feuding between the republican/drugs gang terming itself the 'Real' IRA in Dublin and the remnants of slain gangland boss Eamon Dunne's drug network.
Gardai believe that the Real IRA hired hitmen, believed to be based in the Border area, to assassinate figures associated with Eamon Dunne's drugs distribution network in north inner-city Dublin. Dunne himself was shot dead by two gunmen in April as he sat in the Fassaugh House pub in Cabra with friends. Gardai believe hired professional gunmen were responsible for Dunne's murder and the same pair may have been behind last Tuesday night's double murder.
Glen Murphy, 19, and his cousin Mark Noonan, 23, both had garda records but only for petty offences. They were followed from an apartment in Rathborne Drive in south Finglas to the Clearwater Tesco filling station on the Finglas Road at around 11.40pm on Tuesday.
A black Five Series BMW was waiting in the forecourt when they arrived. The two gunmen got out as the victims' Toyota Avensis arrived and opened fire, hitting both young men repeatedly. Both died at the scene."

Murder in the rainbow nation - Telegraph: "townships of Cape Town carjacking and murder are grimly routine, so commonplace they barely register in the press, investigated by local police with scant hope of the culprits ever being caught.
But there was nothing routine about the shooting two weeks ago of Anni Dewani, the elegant 28-year-old honeymooner of Indian extraction whose body was found in an abandoned car in Khayelitsha, South Africa's largest shantytown.
Victims tend to be local not foreign like Mrs Dewani, a Swede whose family had been forced out of their home in Uganda by Idi Amin in his anti-Asian pogroms of the early 1970s and given asylum in Scandinavia."

Register-Pajaronian: "Watsonville man arrested last week on murder charges has ties to a Chicago gang known for drug sales, kidnapping and robbery, according to a federal indictment from the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois.

Manuel “Manny” Uriarte, 33, was arrested Friday at his place of employment by Santa Cruz County sheriff’s deputies. He is suspected of committing two murders for the “Rodriguez Enterprise,” an organization thought to have operated between 1999 and 2009 in the Chicago area."

WHDH-TV - Teen shoots crossbow at car in Charlton: "Not your ordinary drive by shooting - a teenager armed with a crossbow fired at a car full of people on Friday.
The arrow attack happened in Charlton on Friday afternoon. The teen was found a short time later and arrested.
“I’d consider them very lucky. This absolutely if it would have struck any one of them anywhere on their body definitely could have either injured them very severely, if not killed them,” said Keith Cloutier of the Charlton Police Department.
Paul Edwards, 18, was arrested and is now being charged with firing an arrow from a crossbow into a car with four teenagers inside."

CTV British Columbia - Back-to-back suspicious fires in B.C. linked to gangs - CTV News: "Gang warfare has landed a disabled woman in hospital with severe burns after her home was apparently set on fire, according to Prince George RCMP, who are linking the blaze to a suspicious fire at a tattoo shop one day earlier.
A 60-year-old woman who is confined to a wheelchair had to be rescued when firefighters discovered her home fully engulfed in flames shortly after midnight on Wednesday.
She is now in critical condition with severe burns at a Vancouver Hospital.
Mounties in the northern city say the injured woman is related to a known gang member, who is currently in jail. The prisoner was formerly a tenant at the burnt home, located in the 4000-block of Foster Road.
Just a day earlier, firefighters were called to a suspicious blaze at the Twisted Soul Tattoo Shop on 7th Avenue -- an establishment that just happens to be operated by the same incarcerated gang member.
'We believe the suspicious fire at the Twisted Soul Tattoo Shop and this fire are somehow connected. This is an unsettling example of how innocent people are affected by organized crime as the violence they inflict on each other also affects the entire community,' RCMP Const. Lesley Smith said in a release.
'It is not uncommon for a rival gang to inflict harm on their opponent by targeting a friend or family member.'"

Blog del Narco presents a video of a series of photographs which appear to show the apprehension and execution of several members of the Zetas by the Gulf cartel in Tampico, Tamaulipas.

The video mentions that some of the people shown executed were captured during an operation by by SEDENA (Secretary of National Defense) but were later released.

Among those captured were men and women who worked directly for a man identified as Comandante Quique, de Los Zetas.

Cold blooded BMW assassins lured their two victims to Tesco - National News, Frontpage - Herald.ie: "GARDAI were seconds away from catching the three man hit squad behind the Tesco murders.
A patrol car chased the BMW 5 series carrying two gunmen and their driver as it sped from the filling station at Clearwater, Finglas. The getaway car hit speeds of up to 200kph as it fled the scene.
Cousins Glen Murphy (19) and Mark Noonan (23) were gunned down in a hail of 15 bullets a minute earlier.
A marked garda car -- with unarmed officers inside -- pursued the killers' BMW from the Finglas Road onto the M1.
The killers' car, travelling at speeds of up to 180kph, sped north on the motorway. The garda car could not keep up and lost the dark-coloured vehicle."

Violence Rises in Brazil - WSJ.com: "Armored personnel carriers on loan from the Brazilian military rumbled through the streets of Rio de Janeiro as police with assault rifles battled heavily armed gangs for a fifth day, raising concerns about the seaside city's ability to keep visitors safe when it hosts soccer's 2014 World Cup and the 2016 summer Olympic Games.
Authorities said the death toll had hit at least 23 since Sunday night, including a teenage girl hit by a stray bullet, as live television carried scenes of paramilitary police shooting their way deeper into the hillside shantytowns that form a backdrop to the beaches of the famous tourist destination.
The wave of violence began Sunday night, when groups of armed men began setting vehicles ablaze, in many cases after stopping them on roadways and clearing out the occupants."

Defiant Va. gang leader gets life term: "One-time federal death row prisoner Richard Thomas Stitt was sentenced to life in prison without parole Tuesday.
Stitt, one of Portsmouth's more notorious gang leaders who had the nicknames 'Death' and 'Tom-Tom,' remained defiant, proclaiming his innocence and telling the judge he was framed.
'I had nothing to do with these murders,' Stitt told U.S. District Judge Raymond A. Jackson. 'I never had nobody killed or shot.'
He said if a number of co-defendants hadn't cut deals with the government to testify against him, 'the truth would have come out.'
Stitt, now 37, ran a violent drug gang in Portsmouth for nearly a decade before his arrest in the late 1990s. He was convicted in 1998 and received three death sentences - one for each of three killings he ordered.
Wayne A. Griffin Sr. testified Tuesday that his family remains impacted by the 1993 murder of his brother, James Michael Griffin Jr. Stitt was convicted of ordering the killing.
'It's like a hole in your heart,' Griffin said. 'It's something missing.'"

Getting a grip on gun crimes - The Irish Times - Fri, Nov 26, 2010: "THE THREAT posed by organised drug gangs is reflected in lives destroyed by substance abuse and in a spate of killings that has given Dublin the unenviable status of having the highest rate of gun murder in Europe. The double shooting of cousins Glen Murphy and Mark Noonan in Finglas, last Tuesday, brought to 23 the number of gun murders so far this year, compared to 19 in 2009. At a time when activity in drug dealing has fallen because of the recession, that is a deeply troubling development"

Gardai hope phone records will shed light on murders - National News, Frontpage - Independent.ie: "GARDAI are examining mobile phone records for vital clues to the identity of the callous killers responsible for the brutal murder of two cousins in a petrol station forecourt.
The phone checks will determine whether the victims, Glen Murphy (19) and Mark Noonan (23), were lured to their bloody deaths shortly before midnight on Tuesday.
They died in a hail of bullets after stopping at the station beside a Tesco supermarket at the Clearwater shopping centre in Finglas, Co Dublin.
Two gunmen fired up to 15 shots from automatic pistols into their victims.
The gunmen and an accomplice, who was driving their dark-coloured BMW car, had been seen in the forecourt about five minutes before the victims arrived in Mr Noonan's grey Toyota Avensis."

2 bodies hung from bridge, man beheaded in Tijuana: "Two men were slain and hung from a bridge, another was decapitated and a fourth was shot to death over 24 hours in Tijuana, the latest gruesome killings in a Mexican border city where hopes had risen that cartel violence was decreasing.
The bodies of two men were found hanging from the Los Alamos bridge early Friday, said Fermin Gomez, Baja California state's deputy attorney general for organized crime.
Both victims had their hands and feet bound and one had his head covered with a black plastic bag. One of the bodies fell into traffic when the rope broke.
A day earlier, a human head was found underneath another bridge in Tijuana, which sits across from San Diego, California. The body of the 24-year-old man was found 12 hours later alongside the highway from Tijuana to the beach town of Ensenada."

Accused killer to represent himself in court - ContraCostaTimes.com: "Rodney Colonel Perez, 30, could face the death penalty for allegedly shooting and killing 24-year-old Roberta Romero last year in Pomona.
Prosecutors believe that Romero, of Azusa, was killed on May 11, 2009, because she testified against a high-ranking member of the Azusa 13 street gang who was convicted of four murders and sentenced to death.
Before Judge Tia Fisher relieved Perez's attorney and placed Perez in control of his case, she warned him of the difficulty of representing himself.
'I think that that's a bad choice,' Fisher told Perez in Pomona Superior Court. '... It would certainly be against my advice.'
Perez told Fisher he has no legal training and has never acted as his own attorney in prior criminal cases. He said his highest education level is 11th grade. He also said he completed one semester at Mt. San Antonio College in Walnut.
Perez's former attorney, Antonio Bestard, said after the hearing that Perez was adamant about representing himself.
'He feels he can represent himself better,' Bestard said. 'He said he just wants to do this.'"