Trend Investigated After 7 Kids Die in Latest Attack on Chinese Kindergarten

Fox News- It's a parent's worst nightmare. And it's becoming a nightmare for China.

An attacker with a cleaver hacked to death seven children and two adults at a kindergarten in northwest China on Wednesday, the latest in a string of savage assaults on the country's schools. Eleven other children were wounded.

This latest incident at a kindergarten in northwest China was the fifth major attack on children in a couple of months.

Each assault involved a lone male.

Wednesday's killer, 48-year-old Wu Huanming, returned home after the attack on the outskirts of the city of Hanzhong and committed suicide, the local government reported.

Sociologists suggest it could be caused by a lack of help for the mentally ill in the country and also in part caused by therising stress levels caused by inequalities in Chinese society as some prosper and many struggle.

For someone who has visited China frequently over the past 20 years I have seen dramatic changes but it's nothing to what the people there must have felt.

Going from Maoist uniforms and bicycles to Gucci hand bags and Mercedes in a few short years would be a shock to anyone.

And it's probably an even bigger shock to the Chinese in comparison to other societies as its people have come out of a life that always prided itself during the Maoist years on equality and lack of materialism.

Of course as you travel in China it's easy to see the difference now between the upwardly mobile and those fighting to survive.

Amongst the glittering skyscrapers of Beijing or Shanghai there is sometimes a glimpse of the struggles many are facing.

Once I saw workers, all men, fighting their way to the front of a crowd to get a ticket off a foreman to get work for the day, perhaps at a building site.

There are also unbelievable pressures on Chinese men to be successful now.

China's one child policy has created a disproportionate number of males to females as Chinese families traditionally favor boys.

At a basic level the chinese male is now competing with a lot more males to be successful, get a bride and have a family.

It doesn't, of course, explain these series of attacks on children.

But it's not something that is unique to China.

Japan has had similar cases in the past.

The Chinese authorities seem to be trying to downplay the incidents in the media.

Their defense being that they don't want to start a wave of panic, and some experts in China say coverage could also inspire copycat attacks.

Clayton Weatherston 'Stabbed Girl 216 Times'

A New Zealand mother has gone into gruesome detail in describing how she watched a man stab her daughter 216 times.

Lesley Elliott told the High Court at Christchurch how she broke into her daughter, Sophie’s, bedroom only to see Sophie’s ex-boyfriend Clayton Weatherston straddling her legs and stabbing her over and over again in complete silence.

Weatherston is claiming provocation as a defence to the murder charge, at a trial expected to run for three weeks before Justice Judith Potter and a jury.

“I thought he was going right through her," Mrs Elliott said.

Her daughter suffered stabs wound to almost every part of her body.

Her ears, part of her nose, one nipple and one of her inner labia were cut off.

She had 45 stab wounds to her throat and 26 to her temple as well as both her eyes and concentrated wounds to one cheek and the left side of her neck.

“I never heard him say a word,” Mrs Elliott told the court.

She ran upstairs to her daughter’s bedroom after hearing her daughter screaming, but couldn’t break the door down.

She said the screaming stopped and was replaced by rhythmic “thumping”, which she thought meant Mr Weatherston was raping her daughter.

Mrs Elliott finally managed to open the door with a meat skewer and was on the phone to emergency services when she laid eyes on the horrific scene in front of her.

"I screamed and screamed: 'He's killed her, he's killed her’," she told the court.

“The whole room was red,” she said.

Earlier that day, Sophie was packing her bags for a move to a new job in Wellington.

Before she left, Mrs Elliott answered the door to find Mr Weatherston holding a supermarket bag, claiming he had “something to give” Sophie.

The two went up to Sophie’s bedroom, and the next time Mrs Elliott saw her daughter, she was lying on her bed on her back with Mr Weatherston stabbing her.

He pushed her back out of the room and closed the door.

Emergency services told Mrs Elliott to go outside and wait for the police.

This Woman Is Hardcore!

PALMETTO, FL -- A Manatee County woman is behind bars after resisting arrest and then being Tasered as her two young children watched, according to a sheriff's report.

A van driven by Amy Solomon was pulled over for a license tag violation Tuesday evening in the 1600 block of 21st Street East. by two Manatee deputies. Her two children, ages 3 and 4, were with her.

Solomon initially said her name was Cassandra Miller, according to the officers.

As one of the deputies wrote a warning for the tag, the other asked for permission to search the van. Solomon and her two children got out of the vehicle.

The deputy then found a piece of crack cocaine on the floor between the two front seats.

As Soloman was being placed under arrest, one of the officers took the children back to the van. He then saw Solomon fighting with the other deputy. She was told to stop or she would be Tasered.

When they saw the commotion, the two children ran from the van toward their mother. They were taken back to the van when they refused to return on their on.

At that point, deputies say, Solomon kicked the deputy who was trying to arrest her. He then Tasered her twice before she became compliant.

Once inside the squad car, she gave her real name. Her license came back as suspended.

Solomon is being held in the Manatee County Jail without bond. She faces a hearing Wednesday on charges of child neglect, drug charges and resisting arrest with violence.

Hearings on Chimp Attack Case Postponed

[Ripped from prairie-chicken]

Chimp victim's family wants photos sealed
By DEBRA ALFARONE and LEANNE GENDREAU

Two hearings involving the woman who was brutally attacked by a chimpanzee in February were postponed Monday and her family's lawyers are asking that photos of her remain sealed.
Attorneys for a Charla Nash are also asking a judge to keep her medical records from the public.

Nash, 55, lost her hands, nose, lips and eyelids on Feb. 16 when Travis, a 200-pound celebrity chimp belonging to Sandra Herold, of Stamford, attacked.
Matt Newman, an attorney for the conservator of Charla Nash, said Nash's right to privacy overrides the public's right to see the photos. The photos and records will be evidence in Nash's $50 million lawsuit against chimp owner Sandra Herold.

"They're extremely graphic, naturally," Newman said of the photos. "There is an overriding privacy concern with regard to the family members of Ms. Nash and in particularly her daughter."
Herold's attorneys did not object to the request to seal the photos and records, and Stamford Superior Court Judge Edward R. Karazin Jr. scheduled an April 27 hearing to discuss the request.

Karazin did not make an immediate ruling on Newman's request to make permanent a restraining order that places an attachment on Herold's property and assets, keeping her from selling them. Herold's attorneys are opposing the request because they say there was no way to predict the chimp would attack Nash.

Nash’s family filed a $50 million lawsuit in March, claiming Herold was negligent and reckless when she asked Nash to come over and lure her pet chimp back into her home.
Nash's attorneys are seeking an account of Herold's assets. A judge has granted a temporary restraining order that prevents Herold from selling or mortgaging her assets, and has scheduled a hearing for Monday on the attorneys' request for detailed financial information from Herold.
Herold's attorney said the attack was an accident and that Herold should not be held liable.
Stamford police are still considering criminal charges.

[original article]

Related Stories:

• Chimp Attack Victim Needs 2 Years of Surgery
• Brothers of Chimp Attack Victim: She’s Tough
• 'He’s Eating Her! Shoot Him!' Screamed Chimp's Owner

This Day In History

Apr 17 1969
A Los Angeles jury convicts Sirhan Sirhan of assassinating Senator Robert F. Kennedy. Sirhan receives a death sentence, but it is later reduced to life in prison.

Gangs Honor Dead With Caps, Crosses

"A baseball cap dangles from a cement cross. The slogan on the hat reads "power, money, respect." On the brim there's the logo of the classic gangster movie "Scarface." Etched on the gravestone, the words: "Jesus Guadalupe Parra. 12 December 1986 to 25 August 2008." "Lupito," as friends and family knew him, went down in a hail of bullets alongside three others in a gunfight with a rival drug gang in Mexico. "

[Rest of article HERE]

Mexico Has Major Beef With USA

Two articles in a row from CNN:

U.S. marshal's body found in Mexico
(CNN) -- The body of a fugitive U.S. marshal has been found in the city of Juarez, Mexico, according to the U.S. Marshals Service -- the latest discovery in a wave of violence that has gripped towns along the U.S.-Mexican border in recent months.

The body of Deputy Marshal Vincent Bustamante -- who faced federal charges of stealing weapons and other government property -- was found in Juarez on Wednesday, said Marshals Service spokesman Jeff Carter.

Bustamante appeared to have been shot in the back of the head, a federal law enforcement source said.

Chihuahua state police said the body had multiple wounds to the head -- apparently consistent with an execution-style shooting, according to Edgar Roman, a reporter with XHIJ television in Juarez.

Bustamante, 48, was charged with stealing U.S. government property including Glock and Ruger handguns, a shotgun and a pair of binoculars, according to court documents.

According to the federal source, who was not authorized to speak about details of the case and asked not to be named, a pawnshop owner became suspicious when Bustamante attempted to pawn a shotgun and called the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.

The source said Bustamante would buy back items he had pawned on his pay days and return them.

Bustamante's attorney, Mike Torres, said a warrant was issued for Bustamante's arrest after he failed to appear at a court hearing last week.

He said Bustamante was a 17-year veteran of the marshals and a former El Paso Police officer who lived in El Paso with his wife and two children.

"He was a familiar face around the federal courthouse here," Torres said. "I'm very shocked by this and very saddened.

"He had a lot of friends and a lot of people that cared about him."

Carter said Bustamante was on "modified status" with the marshals, meaning he had been required to turn in his gun and badge outside of his official work hours.

"What I can tell you is that the U.S. Marshals Service is saddened by the death of Deputy Bustamante and our thoughts and prayers are with his family," he said.

Carter said U.S. marshals are working with the FBI and Mexican authorities to investigate the death. He said an autopsy will be conducted in Mexico, and another may be conducted once Bustamante's body is returned to the United States.

Juarez, which sits across the border from El Paso, Texas, has become one of the major battlegrounds as drug cartels fight both each other and Mexican authorities. The conflict has made violence increasingly common in Juarez, Tijuana and other Mexican border towns.

More than 400 deaths in the region have been attributed to the fighting this year.


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Victim's wife: Kidnappers' Silence 'Very Cruel'
Lourdes Batista wishes she had superpowers so she could use them to find her husband, she said Wednesday, 105 days after authorities said he was kidnapped in Mexico. Felix Batista, a renowned kidnapping consultant, disappeared after getting into a vehicle outside a Saltillo restaurant December 10. The family has yet to hear a word from his abductors.

"I don't have words to describe the pain," Lourdes Batista said. "It's cruel, very cruel."
Lourdes Batista was getting ready for bed at her Miami, Florida, home when she received a phone call informing her that her husband of 31 years had been snatched. She tried contacting him on both of his phones, but to no avail.

Felix Batista, 53, had arrived four days prior in Saltillo, the Coahuila state capital about 250 miles from the U.S. border, to take part in a security seminar about kidnappings. He was giving talks about kidnappings to a business group in Saltillo and Torreon.

Though the Cuban-American worked as a contract consultant for the Houston, Texas-based ASI Global Response, the trip was not affiliated with the company.

On the day of his kidnapping, Felix Batista was in a restaurant with several other people when he received a phone call, according to a statement from the Coahuila state attorney general's office.

"After speaking for a few minutes, [he] left the restaurant, telling his colleagues that several people in a white pickup truck were going to give him a message," the statement said.

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"Afterward, outside the business, at about 7 p.m., he got into a vehicle with different characteristics from those he had mentioned to his colleagues and, since then, no one has had any communication with him," the statement said.

There was no indication of violence at the scene, the attorney general's office said.

Jackie Batista said she has no clue why someone would abduct her brother.

"We can speculate till next year," she said. "We've waited for answers. We don't have any information, and no one has contacted us."

Lourdes Batista added, "It's very perplexing. I don't know. I don't understand why. This is why I can't sleep at night."

Felix Batista served four years in the U.S. Army before entering private practice. He has 23 years of experience as a crisis responder and had worked with ASI Global Response since May 2007, President Charlie LeBlanc said.

A profile on the company's Web site, which has been taken down, said Felix Batista conducted threat assessments and had been credited with the "successful resolution" of almost 100 kidnap-and-ransom cases.

LeBlanc said Felix Batista was a "multidisciplined security practitioner" who also worked on extortion cases and consulted corporations.

His aptitude as a consultant aside, Lourdes Batista said, he was an outstanding family man: "a great man and a great father and a wonderful husband. I couldn't ask for better."

Since Felix Batista's kidnapping, ASI Global has been working with his family, acting as a liaison with the FBI and Mexican authorities and vetting those offering to help with the case, LeBlanc said.

It's the same kind of work Felix Batista was known for, he said.

ASI Global has been sharing information with the Mexican national police, who have "been very forthcoming in sharing information and asking for advice," LeBlanc said.

"We've had viable leads. They just haven't panned out," he added.

Kidnappings and violence have long been problems in Mexico, but the problem has spiked in the past year, at least statistically.

Mexican President Felipe Calderon said this month that there were 6,500 organized-crime killings in 2008, more than double the number from 2007. The nation's human rights ombudsman has reported that there were 5,140 reported kidnappings between 2001 and 2008.

Attorney General Eduardo Medina Mora's office reported that there were 326 kidnappings in the first five months of 2008 alone.

"Many cases continued, however, to go unreported, as families negotiated directly with kidnappers. The number of reported cases to authorities was believed to be far less than the actual number of kidnappings," said a statement from Mora's office.

Lourdes Batista said the level of violence in Mexico troubles her.

"The Mexican citizens, how do they live like this every day of their lives? It's beyond me," she said. "I fear for them and fear for their loved ones."

Lourdes Batista said there have been no threats against her or against her five children with Felix, who range in age from 16 to 28, but she still lives anxiously.

"I do live in fear, but mostly for Felix and for the families that are going through what I'm going through," Lourdes Batista said, adding that the kidnappers' silence has left her feeling impotent.

Last week, exactly 100 days after his kidnapping, the Batistas submitted a letter to three newspapers in Monterrey, about 30 miles east of Saltillo. The letter, addressed to "the Mexican people," sought any leads or information in the case and offered a financial reward for information yielding Felix Batista's safe return.

In short, it stated, "we want Felix back," Jackie Batista said.

Lourdes Batista said she is willing to add a caveat to the family's plea.

"I am not one to persecute, and I don't want to know. I just want my husband back. We need him here," she said.

Illinois Church Shooting

Church shooting suspect planned 'day of death,' prosecutor says
(CNN) -- The suspect accused of killing a minister at an Illinois church had marked the day of the attack as a "day of death" or "death day" in a planning book, a prosecutor said Tuesday.

There were "words to those effect," written in a day planner belonging to Terry J. Sedlacek, the man accused in Sunday's attack at the First Baptist Church in Maryville, Illinois, said William Mudge, the Madison County state's attorney.

Mudge said he hadn't seen the planner and could not recall the exact wording that police described to him. He said police found the book in Sedlacek's home.

Lt. Scott Compton of the Illinois State Police said he hadn't seen the planner and could not confirm Mudge's account.

Authorities have charged Sedlacek, 27, with first-degree murder in the killing of the Rev. Fred Winters. He also was charged with two counts of aggravated battery related to the stabbing of church members Terry Bullard and Keith Melton.

Sedlacek was seriously wounded in the melee, authorities said.
Melton, one of the two church members stabbed in the attack, described the scene that erupted during Sunday service.
Winters had been preaching for a while when the gunman approached him, Melton told CNN.

"It just seemed a lot out of place for someone to be walking to the front to take a seat at that point in the service," Melton said.

Winters stopped his sermon and asked the man what he could do for him, Melton said.
The assailant fired a weapon and hit the pastor's Bible, causing "confetti" to fly into the air, Melton recalled.

"It was a bit confusing just at first," Melton said, adding that he could see from the pastor's reaction that what happened was not part of the service.
Melton was one of two men who first jumped the assailant, he said.
"By the time the second shot rang out, there were a number of us who sprang into action," Melton said.
Winters jumped off the stage, Melton said, and was met by the gunman. The two wrestled and more shots rang out.

The attacker's .45-caliber weapon jammed at that point, authorities said.

The assailant tried to get away but was subdued by church members, some of whom blocked the entrances while others grappled with the gunman.
"There were men everywhere," Melton said.

It was minutes before Melton realized he had been stabbed, he said, attributing the delay to adrenaline.

He was treated and released from a local hospital. Bullard, another church member, also was stabbed in the attempt to subdue the gunman.
Sedlacek is being treated at a hospital after suffering serious knife wounds.

"When he was tackled by two of the members, we don't know whether he fell on the knife, injuring himself at the time, or whether [his injury] was self-inflicted during the struggle," said Illinois State Police Director Larry Trent.
Trent said police are trying to determine a motive, noting that church members did not recognize the gunman.

In August, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch profiled Sedlacek in an article on Lyme disease, and quoted his mother, Ruth Abernathy, as saying he began acting strangely during his junior year in high school. He seemed confused and stopped participating in activities that had interested him, she told the newspaper. She said a doctor had diagnosed Sedlacek as mentally ill before a battery of tests revealed that he had Lyme disease, according to the paper.

The newspaper reported that even years later, Sedlacek, then 26, had lesions on his brain and was taking several medications, including an anti-seizure drug.
The Post-Dispatch identified him as a resident of Troy, Illinois, in suburban St. Louis.

A spokesman for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Monday that mental illness associated with Lyme disease is highly unusual, and the Infectious Diseases Society of America said Lyme disease "is not known to cause violent behavior."

But a study published in 2002 in the American Journal of Psychiatry and carried out in the Czech Republic found that 36 percent of 900 psychiatric subjects had antibodies to the bacterium linked to Lyme disease, versus 18 percent of 900 healthy control subjects.

The Illinois shooting is believed to be the nation's first in a church since July, when a 58-year-old man opened fire in a Knoxville, Tennessee, church during a children's play. Two people were killed and six wounded in the shooting at Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church.

Jim Adkisson pleaded guilty last month in a deal that allowed him to avoid the death penalty with a sentence of life in prison without parole, court officials said.