The DOJ says:
“A disconnect exists between officers and residents about the perception of overly aggressive conduct by officers. We observed that many officers were dismissive of community concerns."
“Officers have a duty to intervene to prevent other officers from using excessive force.”
The Albuquerque Police Department are being investigated by the FBI after a YouTube video went up last week, showing APD shooting a homeless man who was camping, after what was reported as a standoff that lasted for hours.
This is the 22nd police shooting since 2010, and outrage has poured out over the incident, sparking the interest of the national media and even Anonymous, which led to protests against police violence all over the city Sunday night.
APD has said that the deadly use of force was warranted in this instance, because the suspect, James Boyd, had a history of mental illness and was armed with multiple knives.
The Albuquerque warehouse district is cold as hell at midnight. And dark. This little spot goes dead around 6 p.m. and refuses to drag its scraggly ass up until 5. I’ve been sitting in the cold for two hours, cursing Matt Staggs and chain smoking.
A single tweet from Matt two week ago piqued my interest, beginning a chain reaction that ends with me on a wild chicken chase to find out who’s been leaving the corpses of black hens in a dusty family cemetery for two years.
A story that has been copypastaed ad nauseum around the internet for some reason, the last two weeks:
“KRQE-TV reports (http://goo.gl/XR9FZ8) that Michael Gabaldon, co-owner of Romero Cemetery, says for two years, dead chickens and chicken parts have been dropped off overnight.
He says the chickens have been left periodically from every day to every two weeks. There also are bones or feathers scattered throughout the cemetery.
Gabaldon says he doesn’t know if the chickens are part of a religious ceremony, but he called the bizarre practice disgusting and creepy.
He says he hopes to put up a gate to keep cars out at night.”
In the heart of Santa Fe, New Mexico, stands the Loretto Chapel, home of a famous spiral staircase said to have been built by a divine stranger who was passing through in 1878. Unsolved Mysteries did a piece on it, and there’s even a 1998 made-for-TV film, The Staircase. According to the legend, the chapel, which was stationed at the end of the Santa Fe Trail, was completed without a set of stairs leading to the choir loft. The Sisters of the Chapel were uncomfortable with their practice of climbing a ladder to the loft before mass, as it allowed any passerby the opportunity to look up their habits. Plans to install a standard staircase were rejected, since the chapel was fairly small, and space was limited as it was.(Read the rest here...)
To solve the problem, the nuns began a nine-day novena to St. Joseph, patron of carpenters, in the hopes that he would give them some sort of solution. On the final day, out of nowhere, a man with a donkey and a box of tools appeared, looking for work.
The first hint that the service Saturday at Sunset Memorial Park wasn’t a typical funeral came when eulogist Michael Flowers got cheers when he spoke of the dearly departed.Another giveaway came from the prominent bright colors, T-shirts, sandals and ubiquitous black pork pie hats that broke up the typical formal black.The funeral for Walter White, the fictional chemistry teacher turned meth kingpin in AMC’s television drama “Breaking Bad,” drew about 200 mourners to the cemetery after a funeral procession that rolled 80 cars deep down Second Street in the North Valley.Leading the procession were a few Bernalillo County Sheriff’s deputies, followed by a tan, beat-up RV made famous in the show, a hearse and then around 80 diehard fans. The procession shut down streets and took 10 minutes to pass.
