Eeyores News and View

Watch the names?
Holocaust Museum guard killed in shooting, gunman wounded
WASHINGTON — A Holocaust Museum guard died after being shot Wednesday in the crowded attraction and a gunman was seriously wounded in return fire, authorities said. The incident left panic-stricken visitors dashing for exits, witnesses said.
U.S. Park Police spokesman Sgt. David Schlosser said the gunman and officer were taken to George Washington University Hospital. According to D.C. Mayor Adrian Fenty, the gunman was in critical condition.
"Officer Stephen Tyrone Johns died heroically in the line of duty today," a late-afternoon museum statement said. "There are no words to express our grief and shock over these events.
"He served on the museum's security staff for six years. Our thoughts and prayers go out to Officer Johns' family."
The museum will remain closed Thursday and flags flown at half-staff in the officer's honor, the statement said.
Two law enforcement officials identified the suspected gunman as James Wenneker von Brunn, 88, of Maryland's Eastern Shore. The officials did not want to be identified because they were not yet authorized to release the name to the public.
Von Brunn's name is prominent on white-supremacist Internet sites.
Schlosser said that about 12:50 p.m., a man, "armed with a long gun," entered the museum and fired at a security guard. Two other officers returned fire and wounded the gunman, according to museum spokesman Andy Hollinger.
"There were no threats" against the museum, said D.C. police chief Cathy Lanier. "The second he stepped into the building he began firing." Lanier said he was shooting a rifle.
Another guard was treated by EMS personnel at the scene for wounds, including cuts, said D.C. fire spokesman Alan Etter.
Von Brunn was released from the federal penitentiary in Ray Brook, N.Y. on Sept. 15, 1989, after serving 5-1/2 years. He was convicted in 1983 of attempted kidnapping, burglary and assault with a deadly weapon in a 1981 incident at the Federal Reserve, said Felicia Ponce, a spokeswoman for the federal Bureau of Prisons.
Von Brunn, a Holocaust denier, maintains a racist, anti-Semitic website and wrote a book titled Kill the Best Gentile.
Witnesses reported hearing at least five gunshots.
The museum normally has a heavy security presence with guards positioned both inside and outside. All visitors are required to pass through metal detectors at the entrance, and bags are screened.
The museum, located just off the National Mall near the Washington Monument, is a popular tourist attraction. It draws about 1.7 million visitors each year.
Maria Hernandez, 19, of Manassas, Va., was in the lobby with her grandparents when she heard what she thought were "firecrackers."
"It was toward the entrance of the museum," she said. "I think it was someone trying to run through the metal detector."
She saw Johns bleeding on the floor, she said. "There was just chaos, panic. We were scared, shaking."
Another visitor, Dave Unruh, 66, of Wichita, was at the museum with his wife, Karen, 66, and grandsons, Drew, 15, and Dalton, 17, when the shots rang out.
"We were scared to death," he said. He heard someone holler, "Hit the floor!" and he and his family obeyed the order until authorities herded them out of the building.
Anya Leck, 21, of Chicago, is attending Georgetown University this summer and was in the museum lobby when she heard a boom. "We all just ducked wherever we could," she said. She and eight others hid in an alcove until guards ran by yelling, "Go! Go! Go!"
"Everybody was just in shock," said Leck, who dashed out a back door with other visitors. She recalled the sounds of people crying and gasping as she lay on the ground.
A young visitor, Rebecca McDowell, 10, of Smith Center, Kan., said, "It was scary and I was crying."
Museum officials in Washington say they can't remember there ever being a shooting at a museum in the nation's capital, or even in any other museum in the USA, according to Linda St. Thomas, a spokeswoman for the multi-museum complex Smithsonian Institution, and to Dewey Blanton, a spokesman for the American Association of Museums in Washington.
http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2009-06-10-holocaust-museum-shooting_N.htm
http://wtop.com/?nid=25&sid=1693510

Please quite it, tassing a 70 year old, please. They need to lose their job, what a scum bag, shoots her in the back. Big brave policeman.
Deputy Tasers woman, 72, during traffic stop
June 10, 2009 - 4:24pm

In this image taken from a May 11, 2009 video released by the Travis County Constable's Office, Kathryn Winkfein, right, is shocked with a Taser by Deputy Chris Bieze outside of Austin, Texas. Video released by the constable's Office shows Deputy Bieze confronting 72-year-old Winkfein after stopping her for speeding. (AP Photo/Travis County Constable's Office) By JIM VERTUNO
Associated Press Writer
AUSTIN, Texas (AP) - Cursing and belligerent, the great-grandmother refused to sign her speeding ticket, got out of her truck and dared a deputy to shock her with a Taser.
So he did.
Video released by a Travis County Constable's Office shows 72-year-old Kathryn Winkfein hitting the ground and moaning while the shocks jolted through her body after the May 11 confrontation with Travis County Sheriff's Deputy Chris Bieze.
Winkfein was stopped for driving 60 mph in a 45-mph zone just west of Austin. A dashboard camera in the deputy's car shows the 4-foot-11 Winkfein refusing to sign her speeding ticket, getting out of her white pickup truck and cursing at the deputy constable.
Bieze then pushes her to get her away from traffic.
"You're gonna shove a 72-year-old woman," Winkfein says angrily, standing inches from the deputy.
"If you don't step back, you're going to get Tased," Bieze says.
"Go ahead, Tase me," Winkfein says. "I dare you."
The video shows Bieze using the Taser and Winkfein hitting the ground and moaning in pain.
"Put your hands behind your back or you're going to be Tased again," Bieze yells, and then hits her with another jolt.
Winkfein was eventually charged with resisting arrest, a misdemeanor punishable by up to a year in jail and fines up to $4,000.
A telephone message left with Constable Sgt. Maj. Gary Griffin of the constable's office was not immediately returned Wednesday. Telephone calls to a number listed for Kathryn Winkfein in Marble Falls, about 50 miles west of Austin, went unanswered.
Griffin has defended Bieze's actions and that Winkfein was belligerent and difficult to handle.
But Travis County Sheriff Greg Hamilton, whose office does not oversee the constables, issued a statement Wednesday saying:
"I do not personally agree with the actions of the deputy constable as they are shown in the video. When I look at the video I am in awe of what happened."
http://wtop.com/?nid=104&sid=1693324

Why would the dummies let them board?
Two passengers on doomed Air France jet had names linked to Islamic terror groups
Two passengers with names linked to Islamic terrorism were on board the Air France flight which crashed with the loss of 228 lives, it emerged today.
Both were men in their 20s of unspecified nationality, but their bodies have not yet been found, making proper identification impossible.
French secret servicemen established the connection while working through the list of those who boarded the doomed Airbus in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, on May 31st.
It has also emerged that the laptop and boarding pass of British oil executive Arthur Coakley have been found in the wreckage of the jet.
Flight AF447 crashed in mid-Atlantic en route to Paris during a violent storm.
While it is certain that there were computer malfunctions – and that these were the most likely reason for the accident - terrorism has not been ruled out.
Soon after the fatal crash agents working for the DGSE (Direction Générale de la Sécurité Extérieure), the French equivalent of MI6, were dispatched to Brazil.
It was there that they established that two names on the passenger list are also on highly classified documents listing the names of radical Muslims considered a threat to the French Republic.
There were 32 nationalities represented on the Air France flight, including Moroccans and Lebanese.
The suspicious names are linked to radical Islamic groups including Al Qaeda, which was behind the 9/11 suicide attacks on the U.S.A.
A source working for the French security services told Paris weekly L’Express that the link was ‘highly significant’.
Agents are now trying to establish dates of birth for the two dead passengers, and family connections.
There is a possibility that the name similarities are simply a ‘macabre coincidence’, the source added, but the revelation is still being ‘taken very seriously’.
Bizarrely the full official list of dead passengers has not been released by Air France, despite it being more than week since the plane crashed.
Such lists are normally released within 72 hours.
France has received numerous threats from Islamic terrorist groups in recent months, especially since French troops were sent to fight in Afghanistan.
Security chiefs have been particularly worried about airborne attacks similar to 9/11. French investigators confirmed that that terrorism has not been ruled out, with an Air France spokesman adding that ‘all the indications’ are that the Airbus suffered some kind of catastrophic equipment failure.
A total of 41 bodies have so far been recovered from the zone 700 miles off Brazil 's northeast coast where the plane came down.
Brazilian and French officials are using DNA samples from relatives and dental records to identify the remains.
On Monday, a Brazilian crew recovered the tail fin from the plane - considered significant because it could narrow the area underwater where the black boxes are.
The cause of the disaster is not known, but initial suspicions are focusing on the plane's airspeed sensors which were giving faulty readings, according to automatic data alerts sent by the plane in its final minutes in the air.
A French nuclear submarine, the Emeraude, and a naval vessel containing robot submarines should reach the crash site within the next day or so.
A large amount of material has already been recovered, including possessions belonging to Briton Mr Coakley.
His wife Patricia said a local police liaison officer called at the family home in Sandsend, near Whitby, North Yorks, to say her husband's laptop and boarding pass had been found.
'I just want to remember him smiling and laughing. He was a wonderful man,' she said.
'We are just in limbo and still waiting for the phone call we will get from the authorities, but don't want.
'We cannot plan anything at this time until we get more news. But I don't want to fly out to Brazil.'
Mrs Coakley had spoken to her husband by phone shortly before he boarded the plane.
He had planned to take an earlier flight, but it was fully booked. He should have been in Brazil for two weeks on business and home on May 19, but was delayed.
She has been married to her husband for 34 years and the couple have three children Dominic, 31, Patrick, 29 and Mise, 25.
Mr Coakley, 61, was a structural design engineer and partner in the PD&MS firm based at Aberdeen.
He had many working contacts on Teesside and was also a director at Wilton Engineering Services based in Middlesbrough.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1192065/Two-passengers-doomed-Air-France-jet-names-linked-Islamic-terror-groups.html

London's Metropolitan Police accused of waterboarding suspects
Metropolitan Police officers subjected suspects to waterboarding, according to allegations at the centre of a major anti-corruption inquiry, The Times has learnt.
The torture claims are part of a wide-ranging investigation which also includes accusations that officers fabricated evidence and stole suspects’ property. It has already led to the abandonment of a drug trial and the suspension of several police officers.
However, senior policing officials are most alarmed by the claim that officers in Enfield, North London, used the controversial CIA interrogation technique to simulate drowning. Scotland Yard is appointing a new borough commander in Enfield in a move that is being seen as an attempt by Sir Paul Stephenson, the Met Commissioner, to enforce a regime of “intrusive supervision”.
The waterboarding claims will fuel the debate about police conduct that has raged in the wake of hundreds of public complaints of brutality at the anti-G20 protests in April.
The part of the inquiry focusing on alleged police brutality has been taken over by the Independent Police Complaints Commission. It is examining the conduct of six officers connected to drug raids in November in which four men and a woman were arrested at addresses in Enfield and Tottenham. Police said they found a large amount of cannabis and the suspects were charged with importation of a Class C drug. The case was abandoned four months later when the Crown Prosecution Service said it would not have been in the public interest to proceed. It is understood that the trial, by revealing the torture claims, would have compromised the criminal investigation into the six officers.
None of the officers under suspicion has been arrested, but the IPCC said last night: “This is an ongoing criminal investigation and as such all six officers will be criminally interviewed under caution.”
A Scotland Yard spokesman said: “Whilst the investigation is ongoing it is not appropriate to make assumptions. These are serious allegations that raise real concern. The Met does not tolerate conduct which falls below the standards that the public and the many outstanding Met officers and staff expect.”
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/crime/article6466430.ece

Guess no one really has free speech
Exclusive: Miss California Carrie Prejean Loses Her Crown
Less than a month after being told by Donald Trump that she can keep her Miss California crown, Carrie Prejean was fired on Wednesday.
In a release first obtained by FOXNews.com, K2 Productions, the independent producers of the Miss California USA pageant, under license from Miss Universe, cited continued breach of contract issues as the reason for Prejean's firing.
"This was a decision based solely on contract violations," Keith Lewis, executive director of K2 Productions, said in the release. "After our press conference in New York we had hoped we would be able to forge a better working relationship. However, since that time it has become abundantly clear that Carrie has no desire to fulfill her obligations under our contract and work together.”
Prejean came under fire for her answer to a question about gay marriage two months ago in the Trump-owned Miss USA pageant, in which she was the runner-up. After the pageant, Prejean was continuously attacked as she defended her belief that gays and lesbians should not be given the right to marry in California. She became embroiled in more controversy when racy pictures of her were published that some construed as violations of her Miss California contract.
Trump came to her defense in a May 12 press conference attended by Prejean and Keith Lewis, calling her answer to the question "honest" and saying "we have determined ... that the pictures taken are fine." He allowed her to continue on as Miss California.
But it was Trump who gave the final OK to fire her, FOXNews.com learned.
"I told Carrie she needed to get back to work and honor her contract with the Miss California Organization and I gave her the opportunity to do so," Trump said in the same release. "Unfortunately it just doesn’t look like it is going to happen and I offered Keith my full support in making this decision."
Representatives for K2 and Donald Trump referred to the release when asked for fruther comment. Prejean did not respond for comment.
Prejean is not without supporters, however. The National Organization for Marriage, a group that opposes gay marriage, released a statement slamming Trump and the Miss California pageant.
"This cover story about a contract dispute doesn’t pass the smell test. Americans aren’t fooled that easily. God knows, and we know, the truth about Carrie: She’s a young woman of great beauty who chose truth over the glittering tiara that Hollywood offers,” said Brian Brown, Executive Director for NOM. “Of course they will try to punish her, but we know she will be fine in the end, because her values are in the right place.”
First runner-up Tami Farrell is slated to assume the role and responsibilities of Miss California USA. Additionally, the Miss Universe Organization will make the reigning Miss USA, Kristen Dalton, and Miss Universe, Dayana Mendoza, available to K2 Productions to fulfill appearance requests that were declined by Prejean.
According to a source, Prejean has aspirations to write a book and pursue other opportunities, which she will be able to do now that she has been released from her duties as Miss California.
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,525716,00.html