SWSX Tragedy, Galveston Cops

Driver charged with capital murder in SXSW rampage
From SA Express
Rashad Charjuan Owens (how do they come up with these names?) is the thug who stole a car in Austin, fled from the police, and plowed into a crowd outside a nightclub in Austin last week. He killed two, and critically injured over 20 others, some critically.
Rashad, 21, is the proud father of six illegitimate children. Gee, I wonder how he supports them all?
One of his friends say we shouldn't be too hard on him. "This was bound to happen," Lindsey told a reporter. "Running from the (law) ... As a white dude, you can't understand, man."


Judge cites Galveston police culture of force

2008 incident involving former Astro moves to trial this month 

GALVESTON — Police stormed into a wedding party at a seaside hotel in 2008, punching and striking guests with nightsticks, shooting pepper spray and firing stun guns.

   More than five years later, as a lawsuit stemming from that episode is about to come to trial, a legal finding by the federal judge hearing the case suggests that Galveston’s police department has a deeply entrenched history of excessive force. And the department is facing new allegations of misconduct stemming from an incident during the recent Mardi Gras celebration.

   Police had a history of use-of-force complaints before 34 officers swarmed into the wedding party in October 2008, according to a March 5 memorandum by U.S. District Judge Keith Ellison explaining his decision to allow the case to proceed to trial. The event became known as the “H20 case,” a reference to the name of the hotel bar where it occurred.

   The department was “plagued with activities that oftentimes were illegal, most of the time unethical,” Ellison quoted former Police Chief Charles Wiley as saying. “Use of force was a ‘big issue’ within the department itself.” 

Officials: Border agent who killed self had attacked females

MISSION — An immigrant woman, her daughter and another girl who said they were kidnapped and assaulted by a Border Patrol agent were in the process of surrendering to the agent when their ordeal began, another Border Patrol agent and a federal law enforcement official said Friday.

   Agent Esteban Manzanares, who officials say committed suicide Thursday morning, is accused of driving the three away from the river after they surrendered and assaulting them. The other agent said Manzanares cut the wrists of the adult woman, assaulted one teenager in the group, and then fled the area with a second teenage girl. 

Here's one I don't understand. Why is our government giving up control of the internet? After what happened with the Malaysian airplane this week, why would any sane person do anything to give foreign governments and terrorists more opportunities to attack us?

U.S. to relinquish remaining control over the Internet

U.S. officials announced plans Friday to relinquish federal government control over the administration of the Internet, a move that pleased international critics but alarmed some business leaders and others who rely on the smooth functioning of the Web.

Pressure to let go of the final vestiges of U.S. authority over the system of Web addresses and domain names that organize the Internet has been building for more than a decade and was supercharged by the backlash last year to revelations about National Security Agency surveillance.

But former House speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) tweeted: “What is the global internet community that Obama wants to turn the internet over to? This risks foreign dictatorships defining the interne