This Day In History

May 1 1776
Adam Weishaupt founds the Bavarian Illuminati, the secret society which controls your mind as part of its plot to overthrow organized religion and control the global economy. If you don't believe it, ask yourself what novus ordo seclorum is doing on your dollar bill.

May 1 1997
Sportscaster Frank Gifford is caught on video having sex with TWA flight attendant Suzen Johnson at the New York Regency Hotel. On the tape, Johnson is heard moaning: "Oh, God that's so good. Oh my, you're so big. I knew you would be -- I just knew you would be." A tabloid paid Johnson $75,000 to fornicate with Gifford, and she later goes on to pose nude in Playboy for a six-figure check.

May 1 2003
Commander in Chief George W. Bush rides shotgun aboard a Navy S-3B Viking jet, lands on the USS Abraham Lincoln, marking the first time a president has boarded an aircraft carrier by plane. Underneath a large "Mission Accomplished." sign, he announces that major combat operations in Iraq have ended.

Lawyer: Arkansas Shooter Tortured in Yemen

LITTLE ROCK (CNN) -- The Tennessee man suspected in Monday's attack on a recruitment center in Little Rock, Arkansas, was brainwashed and tortured while imprisoned in Yemen, his lawyer said Thursday.

"My client is a young man, I think, brainwashed," attorney Jim Hensley told CNN. "What else could be explained for a young man who's a true American, plays football, helps his grandmother and mows the lawns of his neighbors? Comes back and then finds himself in this situation? That is not a normal situation in my book."

Abdulhakim Muhammad, formerly known as Carlos Bledsoe, is charged with killing Pvt. William Long, 23, of Conway, Arkansas, and wounding Pvt. Quinton Ezeagwula, 18, of Jacksonville, Arkansas.

The 23-year-old convert to Islam has pleaded not guilty. But, according to court records, he told police that he had "political and religious" motives for the shooting.

In September 2007, Muhammad left Tennessee State University in Nashville, where he was studying business, and traveled to Yemen to teach English to children and to learn Arabic.

There, "he felt at peace with these people," even marrying a Yemeni, Hensley said.

But things began to change when his client was detained for a minor visa violation in Yemen and sent to prison, where he was housed with radical Islamic fundamentalists, Hensley said.

In November 2008, Muhammad was arrested in the port city of Aden for overstaying his visa and deported two months later in cooperation with the U.S. Embassy, a Yemeni official said.

There is disagreement about the time he was incarcerated. The lawyer said Muhammad told him he had served four months in prison.

Hensley said Muhammad told him that, during the last two weeks he was held, he was deprived of sleep and food and "was slapped around a little bit," enduring beatings on the backs of his legs.

During Muhammad's time in the prison, an FBI agent visited him not as an ally but as an interrogator, Hensley said.

However, Mohammed AlBasha, a spokesman for the Yemeni Embassy, rejected Hensley's assertion. "It is understood that the process of radicalization can take a number of years, not a couple of weeks," he said. "So, the statement that his lawyer made, that he was brainwashed and tortured for weeks in Yemen, are baseless."

The FBI agent "believed that Carlos was some kind of hardened terrorist hellbent on doing violence to America," Hensley said.

After he was released in January, Muhammad returned to Nashville, Tennessee, where his parents noticed their son was "fidgety, frustrated, can't sit still," Hensley said.

The same FBI agent approached him and threatened to put him under surveillance, "to do everything we can to cause you trouble," Hensley said.

A federal law enforcement source told CNN that the FBI was investigating Muhammad, but FBI spokesmen would not confirm any contact they might have had.

Hensley added that Muhammad's parents told him that, once he returned to Nashville, "he was a different human," one who blamed the United States for the war wounds suffered by some of the children whom he had taught, children without arms or legs.

He also blamed U.S. immigration policy for his inability to bring his bride back to the United States with him, Hensley said.

"A first-year psychology student would be able to see that this young man needed some help, and that wasn't offered him by anyone," Hensley said.

Muhammad eventually moved to Little Rock to help his father's Memphis tour business expand into Arkansas.

Just before the shooting, he was working out of a Hilton hotel in Little Rock in the family business, driving a sightseeing van.

Hensley said he was speaking to the news media because Muhammad had asked him to. "His agenda is different from mine; he wants to be a martyr," the lawyer said.

The case has attracted high-level attention, with President Obama saying Thursday in a written statement that he was "deeply saddened" by the shootings.

Federal agents said Wednesday that they were looking into whether Internet searches of various locations in several other U.S. cities were a sign that Muhammad was seeking "additional targets." The cities investigators included Atlanta, Georgia; Louisville, Kentucky; New York; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; and Memphis, Tennessee, where Muhammad grew up.

Hensley told CNN that his client was not the only person who was using the computer.

Muhammad is being held on a state count of capital murder and 16 counts of engaging in a terrorist act by firing into an occupied building.

Man Pleads Not Guilty In Deadly Recruiting Center Shootings

(CNN) -- An Arkansas man suspected in a shooting that killed one soldier and wounded another at a Little Rock military recruiting center was angry over the treatment of Muslims, authorities said Tuesday.

Abdulhakim Bledsoe, 23, of Little Rock, also told police he recently watched a video "pertaining to subversive activities which spurred him to commit this act," according to court documents.

Bledsoe pleaded not guilty at his arraignment Tuesday and was ordered held without bail.

He faces one count of capital murder and 16 counts of engaging in a terrorist act, said Little Rock Police Chief Stuart Thomas. The terrorist counts stem from the shots fired at an occupied building.

Before the not guilty plea, authorities said Bledsoe waived his Miranda rights after the shooting Monday and gave a video statement indicating that "political and religious" motives were involved.

He "stated that he was a practicing Muslim ... that he was mad at the U.S. military because of what they had done to Muslims in the past," homicide detective Tommy Hudson said in a police report.

Bledsoe told police "he fired several rounds at the soldiers with the intent of killing them," according to Hudson's report.

The suspect is a Muslim convert who has also gone by the names Carlos Bledsoe and Abdulhakim Mujahid Muhammad. He changed his name from the latter April 23, citing religious reasons, court records show.

A leader of the Muslim community in Little Rock said he did not know Bledsoe.

The suspect had been under investigation after visiting Yemen, a federal law enforcement official said. The official declined to provide further information.

Police believe the shooter acted alone "with the specific purpose of targeting military personnel," Thomas said.

CNN has been unable to reach Bledsoe's attorney.

Residents left flowers and miniature American flags outside the recruiting center after the shooting. A lone candle burned on the sidewalk next to bouquets of white and red roses. A note that said "Thank you for your service" was attached to the flowers.

The shooting Monday killed Pvt. William Long, 23, of Conway, Arkansas, and wounded Pvt. Quinton Ezeagwula, 18, of Jacksonville, Arkansas, who were outside the military recruiting center.

Bledsoe told police he was driving around and saw Long and Ezeagwula smoking outside the building, according to Hudson's report. He said he pulled into the parking lot and shot the two soldiers and added that "he would have killed more soldiers if they had been on the parking lot," according to the report.

Ezeagwula was in stable condition Tuesday, the police chief said.

The soldiers were part of a recruiting program called "hometown recruiting assistance," said Lt. Col. Thomas F. Artis, commander of the Oklahoma recruiting battalion that oversees the Little Rock Army-Navy recruiting center.

Under the program, soldiers tell their stories to potential recruits. It's a volunteer position taken while soldiers are visiting or based back in their home region, Artis said.

"I'm relieved there's a suspect in custody," said Capt. Matthew Feehan, commander of the recruiting center. He said several people were in the building at the time of the shooting, but nobody else was injured.

Bledsoe was arrested after officers on Interstate 630 pulled over his car, which matched witnesses' description of a black Ford sport utility vehicle seen leaving the scene of the shooting.

Police recovered three guns from the suspect's vehicle -- an SKS semi-automatic rifle, a .22-caliber rifle and a .380-caliber automatic pistol, Thomas said.

The victims were shot with an SKS rifle, according to the police report.

Police also seized from Bledsoe's vehicle and apartment several rounds of ammunition, two homemade silencers, handwritten notes in Arabic, CDs with handwritten Arabic labels, a computer and cell phones, according to court documents.

Melvin Bledsoe of Memphis, Tennessee, was listed on the police report as Bledsoe's father. He declined to comment, referring questions to Little Rock police.

Suicides Plague Fort Campbell

FORT CAMPBELL, Kentucky (CNN) -- The 101st Airborne's senior commander in effect ordered his soldiers Wednesday not to commit suicide, a plea that came after 11 suicides since January 1, two of them in the past week.

"If you don't remember anything else I say in the next five or 10 minutes, remember this -- suicidal behavior in the 101st on Fort Campbell is bad," Brig. Gen. Stephen J. Townsend told his forces. "It's bad for soldiers, it's bad for families, bad for your units, bad for this division and our army and our country and it's got to stop now. Suicides on Fort Campbell have to stop now."

Fort Campbell's suicide rate, the highest in the Army, "is not a good statistic," he said in remarks to one of four divisions he addressed during the day.

After nearly one soldier per week committed suicide at the post between January and mid-March, the Army instituted a suicide prevention program that "seemed to be having good effects" until last week, when two more suicides occurred, he said.

"Suicide is a permanent solution to what is only a temporary problem," Townsend said. "Screaming Eagles don't quit. No matter how bad your problem seems today, trust me, it's not the end of the world. It will be better tomorrow. Don't take away your tomorrow."

He urged anyone feeling hopeless or suicidal to "tell somebody."

"You wouldn't hesitate to seek medical attention for a physical injury or wound; don't hesitate to seek medical attention for a psychological injury."

Townsend exhorted any soldier who suspects that a fellow soldier may be feeling suicidal to act -- first by asking how the soldier feels, then by escorting him or her to help.

"Do not wait," he said.

Soldiers can turn to their leaders, chaplains, medics, social workers, teammates, family and friends, he said.

"Don't let yourself, your buddies or your families down," he said, ending his comments by repeating, "This has got to stop, soldiers. It's got to stop now. Have a great week."

But Townsend's message -- called a Second Suicide Stand-Down event -- is likely to be ineffective, said Dr. Mark Kaplan, a professor of community health at Portland State University in Oregon, who has researched veterans' suicide and served last year on a Veterans Administration blue-ribbon panel on suicide risk.

"It sounds like an order," he told CNN in a telephone interview. "I'm not sure that a command like this is going to alter the course of somebody who is on a trajectory of self-harm."

He suggested the Army might want to adopt the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs model.

"They're dealing with a comparable problem with a similar population," Kaplan said. "They have infused more sensitivity to their approach to suicide prevention as opposed to this. This is like any other order."

The military culture attaches a stigma to mental illness that needs to be reduced, he said. Soldiers who acknowledge they are considering suicide can suffer severe repercussions, such as losing opportunities for promotion and access to firearms, he said.

If the Army is serious about addressing the problem, it needs to address the stressors common to soldiers, including financial problems, marital problems, frequency of deployments, length of deployments, deployments to hostile environments, exposure to extreme stress and service-related injuries, he said.

The role of alcohol too must be addressed if the rate of suicide is to be lowered, he said. "More often than not, these are individuals who'll get liquored up, so to speak, and have access to a gun and die from a self-inflicted gunshot wound," Kaplan said.

Bill Lichtenstein, who serves on the board of the Rosalynn Carter Fellowships for Mental Health Journalism, the advisory council of the Center for the Advancement of Children's Mental Health at Columbia University, and on the advisory board of Families for Depression Awareness, was equally unimpressed with Townsend's tack.

"It's the equivalent of 'Just Say No' to prevent drug abuse,' " he told CNN in a telephone interview.

Screening techniques that involve a series of questions are available to identify people at risk for suicide, he said.


"Prominent among them, if not the most important question is: Have you made a plan for suicide? Using a simple battery of questions, you can suss out people who might be at risk, which is far more important than telling somebody, 'Don't take your life,' " Lichtenstein said.

The problem is not limited to Fort Campbell. The Army has reported 64 potential active-duty suicides this year; 35 have been confirmed as suicides, and 29 are pending determination of manner of death.

Ex-Soldier Faces Possible Death Penalty

A jury found Steven Green guilty of a raping a 14-year-old girl in Iraq, then killing her and setting her body on fire to destroy evidence.

Green also was found guilty of killing the girl's parents and 6-year-old sister. Testimony in the sentencing phase of his death penalty trial resumes tomorrow.

This is a day in his life.

---->full story

Soldier Stole Gun Before Rampage, Official Says

BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- The U.S. soldier who authorities say killed five fellow troops -- including a Navy commander -- at a stress clinic in Iraq on Monday apparently used a weapon he wrested away from another soldier, a Defense official said.

After getting the weapon, the soldier stole a military vehicle and drove to the clinic, where earlier he had been in a fight, the official said.

The shooter was identified as Army Sgt. John M. Russell, according to Maj. Gen. David Perkins, the military spokesman who briefed reporters in Baghdad, Iraq, on Tuesday. Russell has been charged with five counts of murder and one count of aggravated assault after the shooting at Camp Liberty, near Baghdad's international airport, Perkins added.
Watch how the Army is handling the case »

A 44-year-old communications specialist from Sherman, Texas, Russell is serving his third tour in Iraq and has previously deployed to Bosnia and Kosovo, according to his service record.

His father, Wilburn Russell, also of Sherman, said Russell had e-mailed his wife saying he believed unidentified officers were trying to run him out of the military.

"As far as he was concerned, the military was the most wonderful thing that ever happened to him," Wilburn Russell said. "Evidently, he felt they turned against him and life was over. He didn't care any more, I guess.

"He broke. He just couldn't handle it."

Russell had recently been referred to counseling by his commander because of unspecified words and actions, Perkins said. The commander also ordered that the sergeant's weapon be taken away.

Among those killed in the shooting was Navy Cmdr. Charles Springle, 52, of Wilmington, North Carolina. Springle was part of the 55th Medical Company, stationed at Camp Liberty.

The military had not released the names of the other victims Tuesday afternoon, pending notification of their families.

A senior Defense official told CNN that when Russell was leaving the clinic Monday, he "became hostile and an altercation broke out."

He was then escorted back to his quarters by another soldier, said the official, who has read the most recent summary of the investigation in Baghdad.

A couple of hours later, Russell seized a weapon from a fellow soldier, "commandeered" a vehicle and drove back to the clinic, the Defense official said. A soldier from Russell's quarters called military police, but they weren't able to stop him in time.

A summary of the investigation earlier Tuesday had suggested Russell took the weapon from his escort -- but that was unclear in the most recent report.

The escort typically would have been a buddy, someone from Russell's unit, the Defense official said. Such steps are handled within the unit, and with the suicides of other troops they would have wanted someone close to keep an eye on him: "Keep your buddy close."

The aggravated assault charge is for the struggle for the weapon in the vehicle, another Defense official said.

Russell is from the 54th Engineering Battalion, based out of Bamberg, Germany -- a unit attached to Multi-National Division South but based at Camp Victory in Baghdad. He's now in military police custody at Camp Victory.

The 54th's 15-month deployment began in May 2008; the battalion is due to leave Iraq in August.

Perkins said the military has launched a criminal investigation into the attack and another probe to explore the military's mental health services operations and how such an incident can be avoided in the future.

Among the five killed, two are officers from the staff of the clinic -- one from the Army and the other from the Navy. Both are from the 55th Medical Company. The other three were enlisted soldiers who happened to be at the clinic.

Perkins, who said there are no immediate insights on a motive, said Russell had been receiving counseling within his battalion. Last week, Russell was referred to the Camp Liberty center.

"He had been seen by his chain of command, chaplain, things like that for about the week prior to (the incident), but that could have been the first time he physically had gone to the clinic," Perkins said.

"He was referred to counseling the week before and his commander determined that it was best for him not to have a weapon," he explained.
Watch how the shootings have raised the issue of post-traumatic stress disorder »

Perkins could not confirm any sequence of events and said the investigation into the incident is ongoing.

"Speculation does not serve us well, or rumor," he said. "We need to know the facts because we will spend a lot of time trying to prevent these types of things in the future."

The clinic is temporarily closed for the investigation, with alternate locations available, Perkins said.

Russell was apprehended outside the clinic after the shots were heard, Perkins said.

Maj. Gen. Daniel Bolger, the commander of Multi-National Division-Baghdad, also spoke to reporters, telling them that a "tragedy like this" points to the "challenges" troops face.

"When something like this happens we've got to be careful not to judge too harshly and extend a sympathy that is due to all these soldiers and families," he said.

Bolger said there is a "stigma" to mental health issues.

"Not all injuries are physical, and so you've got to have that door open for the guys, and that is one of the things we emphasize in our training. And, it's particularly challenging for a fellow like Sgt. Russell.

"He is a non-commissioned officer. ... He is in a leadership capacity. And to make that trip down there is a tough decision for either him or his chain of command to make, but we are willing to make it and we have had those facilities and care available."

Wilburn Russell said he hopes his son is found to be temporarily insane.

We're devastated," he said. "We're heartsick, not just for our son, but for the people that are involved -- the people that got killed and their families.

"My gosh, it's a horrible thing. It's impacted hundreds of people."