truesee's Blog

PAUL ELIAS, Associated Press Writer Paul Elias, Associated Press Writer – Friday Dec 26, 6:22 pm ET

LOS ANGELES – Proving that no good deed goes unpunished, the state's high court on Thursday said a would-be Good Samaritan accused of rendering her friend paraplegic by pulling her from a wrecked car "like a rag doll" can be sued.

California's Supreme Court ruled that the state's Good Samaritan law only protects people from liability if the are administering emergency medical care, and that Lisa Torti's attempted rescue of her friend didn't qualify.

Justice Carlos Moreno wrote for a unanimous court that a person is not obligated to come to someone's aid.

"If, however, a person elects to come to someone's aid, he or she has a duty to exercise due care," he wrote.

Torti had argued that she should still be protected from a lawsuit because she was giving "medical care" when she pulled her friend from a car wreck.

Alexandra Van Horn was in the front passenger seat of a car that slammed into a light pole at 45 mph on Nov. 1, 2004, according to her negligence lawsuit.

Torti was a passenger in a car that was following behind the vehicle and stopped after the crash. Torti said when she came across the wreck she feared the car was going to explode and pulled Van Horn out. Van Horn testified that Torti pulled her out of the wreckage "like a rag doll." Van Horn blamed her friend for her paralysis.

Whether Torti is ultimately liable is still to be determined, but Van Horn's lawsuit can go forward, the Supreme Court ruled.

Beverly Hills lawyer Robert Hutchinson, who represented Van Horn, said he's pleased with the ruling.

Torti's attorney, Ronald Kent, of Los Angeles didn't immediately return a telephone call

OKLAHOMA CITY – A trail of tobacco spit has led investigators to a suspect in at least five burglaries across eastern Oklahoma, police said.

Randy Lee Shoopman Jr., 33, was charged with 11 counts of second-degree burglary after a sample of his DNA matched that taken from expectorant left behind at the scene of several burglaries in Oklahoma, said officer Brad Robertson, a spokesman for the Tahlequah police department.

Shoopman was taken into custody Friday in Merced, Calif., on an unrelated stolen property charge, Robertson said.

Investigators also said Shoopman may be involved in break-ins at businesses across eastern Oklahoma and in Missouri.

Stilwell police detective Chad Smith said he was investigating the burglary of an insurance company in September when he noticed a tobacco stain on papers in the ransacked office.

"None of the ladies that worked there chewed tobacco," Smith said. "You could tell that the stains were from the suspect."

Smith said he sent a sample of the spit to the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation for testing. Detectives in Tahlequah who were investigating Shoopman as a possible suspect in a string of burglaries obtained a warrant to get a DNA sample from him.

The sample linked him to at least five burglaries in which the suspect also left behind tobacco spit, Robertson said. Shoopman was released on bail before the DNA match was obtained.

The evidence helps build a strong case for prosecutors, said Shannon Otteson, assistant district attorney in Adair County.

"Eyewitness testimony is unreliable at best. Even video tape surveillance is sometimes grainy. But this is pretty good," Otteson said. "Through this guy's bad habit, we could possibly solve several different burglaries."

Oklahoma officials hoped to have Shoopman extradited from California soon to face charges, said Otteson.

A telephone message left Wednesday with Shoopman's attorney in Muskogee was not immediately returned

This news is weird, no doubt but also sad. Daniel Petric, a 17 year old boy shot his parents after they took away Halo 3 (an xbox 360 video game).

He came home after sneaking out to buy the game. His father then took it, placing the game in a lockbox—the same lockbox in which he stored his 9mm handgun.

Somehow, Petric retrieved his game and the gun from the lockbox. And according to his father, Petric entered the living room with a chilling request.

“Would you guys close your eyes?” I have a surprise for you.At that point, he was said to shoot both of his parents in the head, killing his mother.

12/23/08

ROME (Reuters) - Down-and-outs and hard up pensioners in Milan will enjoy a rare Christmas treat this year: choice beluga caviar confiscated from traffickers.

Italian police seized over 40 kg (88 lb) of the delicacy, worth some 400,000 euros ($558,300), from two men who last month smuggled it into the country from Poland for sale in the shops of Milan and the rest of the wealthy Lombardy region.

The head of the local forest police who carried out the raid kept the bounty in barrack fridges for several weeks, but realized it would soon go bad.

"Tests showed us the food was still perfectly OK to eat but it couldn't be stored much longer, so we decided to give it to the poor," Juri Mantegazza told Milan daily Corriere della Sera.

A small amount of the sturgeons' eggs have been kept for further analysis while the rest has been sent to voluntary associations, charity kitchens and old people's homes.

"Everything that comes our way is very welcome, even though most of our guests don't even know what those little black balls are," said Virginio Colmega, a priest who helps run the House of Charity in Milan.

(Reporting by Gavin Jones; Editing by Katie Nguyen)

The Tampa Tribune 

December 20, 2008

Just after 8:30 this morning, Temple Terrace police say they received a call that the resident of a home on 5400 E. Busch Blvd. was injured and that a man was in the yard firing a revolver.

When police arrived at the scene, they saw a familiar figure walking from a payphone at a nearby Kmart where the calls were made, according to a report.

According to the report, police questioned Lorrie Ann Fernandez, 39, who denied making any calls. Then the officers recognized Fernandez.

Last month, she called 911 to report that someone was possibly injured and that she heard gunshots. At the time, she told police that she called 911 "because she wanted to know what her neighbors were doing."

That time, the police let her go. She was not so lucky this morning.

After she was read her rights, Fernandez told police that "it wasn't against the law to make 911 calls."

Police disagreed.

Fernandez, was charged with two misdemeanor counts of making a false 911 call. She is being held at the Orient Road Jail on $1,000 bond.

Dec. 19, 2008

A 24-year-old man wounded in a struggle over a gun during an attempted robbery reported the shooting to police but was soon arrested when officers discovered that he was the robber himself, an investigator said today.

Police said the robber went to a home last night in the 3200 block of N. 12th St. armed with a gun, but encountered a person who resisted the robbery and attempted to take the gun away.

The robber was struck in the shoulder with a bullet during the struggle and ran off, according to police.

He reported the shooting a short time later. Police realized his possible involvement in the original robbery and arrested him.

He was being treated today at a hospital and was in police custody.

The robber said he knew the person he had attempted to rob, according to police.

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Dec 18 08:20 AM US/Eastern

A British passenger plane was forced to turn back minutes before landing in Paris because the pilot of 30 years' experience was not qualified to land in fog, an airline confirmed on Thursday.

Speaking over the address system as the Flybe flight approached Charles de Gaulle airport, the pilot announced to startled passengers "I am not qualified to land the plane" and turned back to Cardiff.

A spokeswoman for the low-cost airline said the pilot was "an experienced aviator with more than 30 years commercial aviation experience flying a number of different passenger aircraft types."

"He has relatively recently transferred his 'type-rating' from a Bombardier Q300 to a Bombardier Q400 and has not yet completed the requisite low-visibility training to complete a landing in conditions such as the dense fog experienced in Paris Charles de Gaulle," she said.

"The captain therefore quite correctly turned the aircraft around and returned to Cardiff; a decision which the company stands by 100 percent."

One passenger, 29-year-old Cassandra Grant, said she had missed a job interview in the French capital as a result.

She told the South Wales Echo newspaper: "Twenty minutes outside Paris, the captain said, 'Unfortunately I'm not qualified to land the plane in Paris. They are asking for a level two qualification and I only have a level five. We'll have to fly back.

"The whole thing beggars belief. If I had not been on the plane, I would not have believed it."

The Civil Aviation Authority described the incident as "quite unusual but probably not unheard of.

"I guess he thought when he initially took off that conditions would be suitable for him to land," a spokesman said.

"There are different classifications of aircraft and when an aircraft is updated, pilots who have flown an older version have to completely retrain.

"Different climatic conditions like fog require a certain level of skill and he probably didn't have the level of training required for this particular aircraft."