At West Point, Annual Pillow Fight Becomes Weaponized
For generations, freshmen cadets at the United States Military Academy have marked the end of a grueling summer of training with a huge nighttime pillow fight that is billed as a harmless way to blow off steam and build class spirit.
But this year the fight on the West Point, N.Y., campus turned bloody as some cadets swung pillowcases packed with hard objects, thought to be helmets, that split lips, broke at least one bone, dislocated shoulders and knocked cadets unconscious. The brawl at the publicly funded academy, where many of the Army’s top leaders are trained, left 30 cadets injured, including 24 with concussions, according to West Point.
In interviews, cadets who asked that their names not be used for fear of repercussions in West Point’s strictly controlled culture, said the fight had left one cadet with a broken leg and dislocated shoulders in others. One cadet was knocked unconscious and taken away in an ambulance and had not returned to school, they said. But a spokesman for the academy, Lt. Col. Christopher Kasker, said all cadets had returned to duty.
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Photos posted later on Twitter show plebes, as freshmen are called, with bloody faces and bloody pillows, and at least one person being loaded into an ambulance.
“My plebe was knocked unconscious and immediately began fighting when he came to,” an unnamed upperclassman, who was apparently observing from the sidelines, wrote on the social media forum Yik Yak. “I was so proud I could cry.”
As the battle continued, cadets clustered around at least two classmates who had fallen, apparently unable to get up. Others stumbled to a medical area set up beside the fracas.
“4 concussions, 1 broken leg, 2 broken arms, 1 dislocated shoulder, and several broken ribs. That’s one hell of a pillow fight. #USMA19,” one freshman posted on Twitter, echoing many who seemed to see the injuries as a point of pride.
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Similar violence has occurred at the United States Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs during ceremonial warfare traditions in recent years.
During the first winter storm of the year, Air Force freshmen try to throw their cadet leaders into the snow. But in 2012 the snowball fight turned into a brawl, and 27 cadets were treated for concussions, cuts, broken bones and a bite wound.
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/05/us/at ... .html?_r=0
And more violence!
Police: Boy, 7, dead, 3 hurt after North Carolina shooting
CHARLOTTE, N.C. (AP) — Charlotte police officers are being called back in from days off and vacations after five people have been killed and five others hurt in shootings during a violent Labor Day holiday weekend in North Carolina's largest city.
The dead include a 7-year-old boy killed during a birthday party around 9 p.m. Saturday in a front yard in southwest Charlotte. Another child and two other adults were wounded, but their injuries were not life threatening, Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Deputy Chief Jeff Estes said.
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While officers investigated the boy's killing, authorities said they heard shots nearby about three hours later and found a woman dead and a man wounded from what appeared to be a drive-by shooting.
Also over the holiday weekend, a man was found dead from gunshot wounds in east Charlotte on Sunday morning, and police found a man shot to death Saturday morning in northwest Charlotte after a second man was dropped off at the hospital where he died from gunshot wounds.
http://news.yahoo.com/police-girl-9-dea ... 02989.html
And even more violence! This one is really disgusting.
Black Man Brutalized by Security Guard at Whole Foods for Trying to Buy Food
A black man was beaten to a bloody pulp by a security guard at an Oakland Whole Foods Thursday night after an attempt to purchase groceries led to an argument.
An eye witness to the attack, Zoe Marks, on visit from Edinburgh, Scotland where she lectures at the University of Edinburgh, gave an eyewitness account of the assault on her Facebook, posting graphic images of the victim. She told the Oakland Tribune that she saw the argument between the cashier and the victim as he was trying to use an EBT card (a food stamp card that works like a debit card), but said that the victim wasn’t “shouting,” nor was her “violent or disruptive.” In fact, Marks said the man wasn’t a threat to anyone and that she felt “safe” until the armed security guard came and “attacked him.”
In a Facebook status Marks described the “violent assault,” saying the guard “slammed” the victim against “concrete pillars.” He also allegedly put the man in a chokehold and “suffocated” him before throwing him on the ground unconscious. Then the guard reportedly locked the man out of the store despite the fact that he was unconscious.
She said none of the employees called the paramedics, instead they called for backup.
http://news.yahoo.com/black-man-brutali ... 42280.html
Or read:
Violent "Altercation" at Oakland Whole Foods; Witness Says Black Customer Bloodied After Attempting to "Buy Groceries with his EBT Card"
"I just saw a young man violently assaulted by an armed security guard at Whole Foods - slammed repeatedly against concrete pillars, put in a chokehold, restrained, and suffocated until he was thrown face down on the pavement unconscious. The guard locked him out of the store despite the fact he was immobile. Not a single employee called the paramedics."
http://www.sfweekly.com/thesnitch/2015/ ... s-ebt-card
TSA Agents Allegedly Steal $7,000 Watch, Grope Attractive Passengers
It's another black eye week for the Transportation Security Administration, as a New York-based agent was busted for stealing a diamond-encrusted watch and a newly released video showed a Denver agent groping a passenger.
TSA screener Margo Louree-Grant, 41, was arrested Wednesday after she allegedly stole a $7,000 luxury watch left behind by a passenger at John F. Kennedy International Airport, the New York Daily News reported.
Port Authority police said she snatched the watch after a passenger left it in a screening bin. She reportedly took it to a bathroom, but became nervous when she saw other TSA agents searching for it and so she destroyed it. Louree-Grant was charged with grand larceny and official misconduct.
Meanwhile, newly released footage from a Feb. 9 incident at Denver International Airport shows agent Ty Spicha, 27, fondling male passengers, officials told CBS.
Spicha colluded with a fellow agent, Yasmeen Shafi, 22, who manipulated scanning machines so that male travelers who Spicha found attractive would be identified as female. The scanner would then pick up abnormalities in the passenger's genital region, giving Spicha justification to pat them down.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/tsa ... lp00000592
The stolen watch belonged to an Indian or PIO.
TSA agent at JFK Airport busted for stealing passenger’s $7K watch, then destroys to avoid getting caught: authorities
A sticky-fingered Kennedy Airport TSA agent has been busted for stealing a passenger's $7,000 watch — and then destroying it in an attempt to avoid getting caught, authorities said Friday.
Tranportation Security Administration screener Margo Louree-Grant was caught on security camera swiping the men’s luxury watch about 3 p.m. Aug. 26.
The watch, completely covered in white diamonds, had been placed in a plastic bin for screening by passenger Bindoo Ahluwalia.
When Ahluwalia walked away without the watch after passing through security at Terminal 7, Louree-Grant snatched it and took it to a bathroom, prosecutors said.
http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/nyc ... -1.2348698