truesee's Blog

7:23 PM, May. 8, 2011

 

Sean Rose

 

After duPont Manual High School teacher Carrie Shafer was found partially undressed in a car with a 17-year-old boy in March, high school journalist Charley Nold set out to tell the story.

But Charley, 16, a staff writer for the school's online publication, the Manual RedEye, couldn't get his story past principal Larry Wooldridge.

Wooldridge rejected Charley's initial one-paragraph story announcing Shafer's arrest and subsequent resignation, instead scribbling out his own statement to be posted online, saying only that Shafer had quit and the school was seeking a replacement.

Charley, joined by classmate Julian Wright, then wrote a follow-up story that focused on student reaction to the incident, along with examples of alleged misconduct by teachers with students elsewhere in Kentucky, and warning signs for students about being exploited. Wooldridge rejected that story as well.

To date, the only things published by the RedEye on the departure of the popular science teacher are two statements by the principal, neither of which addresses Shafer's arrest on a misdemeanor charge of unlawful transaction with a minor. Neither police nor school district officials have confirmed whether the boy found with Shafer was a Manual student.

According to the RedEye's still unpublished story, the goal of school officials was to “ensure that this situation stayed within the school's walls.” Charley and other Manual students are concerned that Wooldridge is censoring their work to protect the school's reputation from an already widely reported scandal.

“As a principal he does a good job, but when it comes to matters of the student press I think he doesn't understand that we're not just part of the school,” Charley said. “We are a legitimate news organization.”

According to the Jefferson County Public Schools' code of conduct and student bill of rights, school publications “will be free from censorship or prior restraint.” But it also says school officials may establish guidelines that include restricting libelous or obscene material.

 LINK TO PHOTO OF TEACHER:

http://www.courier-journal.com/article/20110507/NEWS0105/305080015/Manual-principal-blocks-story-on-teacher-found-with-teen?odyssey=tab|mostpopular|text|FRONTPAGE 

Carrie Shafer

 

Cornell Hood II got off with probation after three marijuana convictions in New Orleans.

 

He didn't fare too well after moving to St. Tammany Parish, however. A single such conviction on the north shore landed the 35-year-old in prison for the rest of his life.

State Judge Raymond S. Childress punished Hood under Louisiana's repeat-offender law in his courtroom in Covington on Thursday. A jury on Feb. 15 found the defendant guilty of attempting to possess and distribute marijuana at his Slidell home, court records show.

Hood moved from eastern New Orleans to the Slidell area after he admitted to separate charges of distribution of marijuana and possession with intent to distribute marijuana on Dec. 18, 2009, in Orleans Parish Criminal District Court. He received a suspended five-year prison sentence and five years' of probation for each -- which was precisely the same penalty he got in that court after pleading guilty to possessing and intending to distribute marijuana on Feb. 22, 2005.

When Hood switched homes, he also requested a new probation officer based in St. Tammany. Authorities granted the wish, and the officer, Dustin Munlin, drove to Hood's place for a routine visit on Sept. 27, 2010.

Munlin found nearly two pounds of pot throughout the house, according to court records. He alerted Sheriff's Office deputies. They arrested Hood, who apparently shared the King's Point house with his mother and young son.

Prosecutors later charged him with one count of possession with intent to distribute marijuana.

At Hood's one-day trial, the evidence presented by the prosecution included a digital scale and about a dozen bags that had contained marijuana before being seized from the house, testimony showed. Deputies also found $1,600 in cash and a student-loan application with Hood's name on it inside of a night stand.

Jurors deliberated for less than two hours and convicted Hood of a reduced charge, which usually carries no more than 15 years' imprisonment. Assistant District Attorney Nick Noriea Jr. then used Hood's past convictions on Thursday to argue that he was a career criminal worthy of a severe punishment.

Drug offenders in the state are subject to life imprisonment after being convicted three or more times of a crime that carries a sentence exceeding 10 years.

 

 

A Canadian woman who was last seen in mid-March in Baker City, driving with her husband to Las Vegas, was discovered alive Friday in Nevada, severely malnourished but in relatively good shape.

Rita Chretien, 56, was found by hunters near her van on a remote logging road in Elko County in northeastern Nevada. She was airlifted to a hospital in Twin Falls, Idaho, for treatment.

She survived 49 days in the wilderness by eating snow, her son, Raymond Chretien, told The Oregonian.

"We're stunned," he said. "We haven't fully digested it. This is a miracle."

The news was bittersweet, however, because his father, 59-year-old Albert Chretien, is still missing.

Raymond Chretien said he had pretty much lost hope of seeing either of his parents again.

They took off March 19 from their home in Penticton, B.C., just north of Oroville in north-central Washington, heading to Las Vegas for a trade show. They were last seen that afternoon at Jackson's Food Mart in Baker City, where they bought gas with a credit card. They were captured on a video surveillance camera.

Raymond Chretien said they traveled to Nevada the same day, meandering over back roads to soak in the scenery.

But their van, a tan 2000 Chevrolet Astro, got stuck in the mud, and they couldn't dislodge it. Rita Chretien told her son that they simply had made a series of bad choices.

Three days later, Albert Chretien ventured out to seek help. His wife stayed put in the van.

Figuring neither might make it out alive, Rita Chretien kept a journal to let her family, friends and the world know what had happened to them.

"I don't believe they were prepared for winter weather," Raymond Chretien said. "They don't go camping."

When his mother finally was rescued and talked to him, she immediately apologized for causing him and his two brothers and other loved ones anguish.

"She felt extremely bad for us all," he said. "She was extremely apologetic."

The two hunters discovered her about 3:30 p.m. today, according to Detective Jim Carpenter, spokesman for the Elko County Sheriff's Office. Chretien told her son that she probably would not have lived more than another two or three days. Over the 49 days, she lost about 30 pounds. When the two hunters tried to feed her, she couldn't keep it down.

She's not optimistic about her husband's fate.

"He didn't have shelter," Raymond Chretien said. "It's her belief that he didn't make it."

Still, he said her spirits were fairly good.

Raymond Chretien and his wife are flying today to Twin Falls to be with his mother.

He said the Elko County Sheriff's Office is mounting a search at the crack of dawn. Conditions were too difficult to start searching right away.

The couple, who own a commercial excavating company, left their home in Penticton about 6:30 a.m. March 19 and made it to Baker City between 3:30 and 4 p.m., according to Baker City police.

They didn't have to be in Las Vegas for another three days, their son said.

When they didn't return home as planned on March 30, the family alerted Canadian authorities, and a massive search was launched that went on for more than a week.

Dozens of officers in patrol vehicles and aircraft took part in the search covering Oregon's Baker, Grant, Harney and Malheur counties, a rugged, sparsely settled 30,000-square-mile region. Pilots even peered into the Burnt and Snake rivers, looking for any sign of the couple's van.

Officials from the Royal Canadian Mounted Police took part in the effort, headquartered in Baker City. Raymond Chretien rented a plane early on, fearful that searchers would not use planes.

The search was scaled back after about two weeks and discontinued April 21 pending any new information.

"We had all concluded that there was very little chance left," Raymond Chretien said. "We know that there's a miracle here."

Police Sergeant Fired for Not Zipping It

Lisa Johnson Mandell

Apr 27th 2011 @ 12:24PM

 

Oh sure -- he claimed he was running around with his fly open in an effort to see who would tell him to zip up his pants, but the Ohio police sergeant who approached Sears employees with the proverbial barn door open, has been fired following a conviction of indecent exposure.

It took the Cincinnati Police Department almost a year to do it, but finally, on April 19, 39-year-old Robert McDonough III, was fired for escapades committed in May 2010. He was reassigned to desk duty last June, and found guilty and convicted in February 2011.

McDonough defended his actions claiming they were "an attempt to determine who would advise him that his zipper was down" according to UPI. But the court didn't buy it. He was sentenced to eight days of community service, two years of probation and a $250 fine. Then he was fired.

In addition, McDonough has been prohibited from shopping at Sears -- all locations -- ever again!

11:29 p.m. EDT, May 6, 2011

 

Contrary to popular belief, Mother’s Day was not conceived and fine-tuned in the boardroom of Hallmark. The earliest tributes to mothers date back to the annual spring festival the Greeks dedicated to Rhea, the mother of many deities, and to the offerings ancient Romans made to their Great Mother of Gods, Cybele. Christians celebrated this festival on the fourth Sunday in Lent in honor of Mary, mother of Christ. In England this holiday was expanded to include all mothers and was called Mothering Sunday.

Julia Ward Howe, a Boston poet, pacifist, suffragist, and author of the lyrics to the “Battle Hymn of the Republic,” organized a day encouraging mothers to rally for peace, since she believed they bore the loss of human life more harshly than anyone else.

In 1905 when Anna Jarvis died, her daughter, also named Anna, began a campaign to memorialize the life work of her mother. Legend has it that young Anna remembered a Sunday school lesson that her mother gave in which she said, “I hope and pray that someone, sometime, will found a memorial mother’s day. There are many days for men, but none for mothers.”

Anna began to lobby prominent businessmen like John Wannamaker, and politicians including Presidents Taft and Roosevelt to support her campaign to create a special day to honor mothers. At one of the first services organized to celebrate Anna’s mother in 1908, at her church in West Virginia, Anna handed out her mother’s favorite flower, the white carnation. Five years later, the House of Representatives adopted a resolution calling for officials of the federal government to wear white carnations on Mother’s Day. In 1914 Anna’s hard work paid off when Woodrow Wilson signed a bill recognizing Mother’s Day as a national holiday.