Denmark to ban violent offenders from night-life zones

COPENHAGEN - Police in Copenhagen have set up four "no go" zones aimed at barring violent offenders from popular night-life areas in a bid to reduce violence in a country known for its low crime rates.

Under a new law, Danish courts can exclude people convicted of violent crime from "night life zones" set up by police, effectively controlling after-dark access to whole streets popular with partygoers.

"We have definitely got a new tool, a tool that affects the few, but which helps the many," Copenhagen police inspector Tommy Laursen told Reuters.

In an early application of the new law, a court in Helsingor last week gave a 24-year-old Dane a five-month prison sentence for violent behaviour.

In addition, he was handed a nine-months ban from visiting pubs, restaurants and places that serve alcohol between midnight and 5 a.m. as weall as being excluded from night-life zones.

In Copenhagen, prosecutors will on Monday use the new law in a violent crime case against a 31-year-old man.

Despite having declined in recent years, violence in bars and clubs is a major contributor to Denmark's violent crime statistics.

Many of those convicted of violence in night life venues are repeat offenders, Laursen said.

Violating a ban, which can last up to two years, will initially result in a fine of 10,000 Danish crowns ($1,500). A second offense means 30 days in prison, Laursen said.

-reuters

US boy, 8, beats crying baby to death, is charged with murder

MIAMI -- An eight-year-old boy beat a baby girl to death to stop her crying while her mother was out partying at a nightclub, US police said Wednesday, charging him with murder.

The boy was one of several children left alone for hours in a Birmingham, Alabama home last month, in what experts said was a rare case of a child so young being prosecuted.

"Since becoming a police officer over 22 years ago, this is by far one of the saddest cases I have witnessed in my career," Birmingham police spokesman Lieutenant Sean Edwards told AFP.

The incident happened at the home of a friend of the baby's mother, whom police have identified as 26-year-old Katerra Lewis.

She has been charged with manslaughter over what Edwards called "reckless" actions.

Police said Lewis left her one-year-old, Kelci, together with several children aged two to eight, while she and her friend went out clubbing.

The children -- six in total, according to local media -- were left unsupervised while Lewis and the friend were gone from roughly 11:00 pm until 2:00 am.

"It is believed that while the mother and friend were at the club, the eight-year-old viciously attacked the one-year-old because the one-year-old would not stop crying," police said in a statement.

"The one-year-old suffered from severe head trauma as well as major internal organ damage which ultimately led to her death."

The mother told police on the morning of October 11, a Sunday, that she found the baby unresponsive in her crib.

The girl was treated at the scene by first responders and was later pronounced dead at a children's hospital.

"This type of behavior, this type of irresponsibility on behalf of a parent is totally unacceptable," Edwards said of Lewis.

"No education, no school, no degree, no training can really prepare you for an eight-year-old committing a heinous crime like this."

The mother was released on $15,000 bail. The Department of Human Resources said it had no prior complaints concerning Lewis or her daughter.

The DHR is holding the boy and won't release his name.

'Very, very unusual'
The age at which minors can be held criminally accountable varies from state to state in the US, but Alabama has no set minimum age for prosecution in juvenile court.

"It is very, very unusual for somebody as young as eight to be prosecuted," Tobie Smith, a lawyer who specializes in the defense of minors in Alabama, told AFP.

The boy will be tried in juvenile court and risks being sentenced to juvenile prison until up to age 21 if found guilty, Smith said.

However, prosecutors must demonstrate that the boy is competent to stand trial and participate in his own defense, Smith said.

"That requires a level of intellectual development and coordinative functioning that is less and less common the younger you go."

Prosecutors could also technically file for the boy to be tried as an adult under Alabama law, although it is extremely unlikely that they would do so.

"I would be stunned and shocked and appalled if they did and I also cannot imagine that the judge would transfer him to an adult court if they asked," said Smith.

Last month, an 11-year-old boy from Tennessee was charged with first degree murder after he shot and killed his eight-year-old neighbor following an argument over a puppy.

source: interaksyon.com

Man charged after 8 found shot dead in Texas home

WASHINGTON -- A man who engaged police in a standoff at a Texas home has been charged with capital murder after the bullet-riddled bodies of six children and two adults were found inside, officials said Sunday.

The eight people were discovered Saturday by deputies performing a welfare check at the Houston-area residence after a concerned relative requested the search, officials with the Harris County Sheriff's Office said.

The victims were found in each of the house's three bedrooms. They had been shot, some multiple times, and many were restrained with metal handcuffs, lead investigator Sergeant Craig Clopton told reporters.

The deputies initially tried to contact residents inside the home before spotting a child's body through a window, Chief Deputy Tim Cannon told reporters.

They then forced their way in and were peppered with gunfire and withdrew. Negotiators from a high-risk operations unit later convinced the alleged assailant to surrender, Cannon said.

Police have identified the man as David Conley, 48, a former domestic partner of Valerie Jackson, who died in the attack.

Jackson, 40, also lived in the house where she, her husband and children were killed.

"There was a prior relationship" between Conley and Jackson and at least one of the dead children, the oldest, could be Conley's, Clopton said.

"The killer's motives appear to be related to the dispute with Valerie," Cannon said.

"It's obvious he had some distaste for what was going on within his personal life and his family life," he added.

A prior warrant was already outstanding for Conley related to assault of family members, the police said.

Conley's rap sheet of domestic violence dates back to at least 2000, the Houston Chronicle reported, and he had previously threatened and attacked Jackson.

Conley has been charged with three counts of murder, with some of the counts covering multiple killings. He is being held without bond.

"We do not, and cannot, fully comprehend the motive of someone who would take the lives of so many innocent people, especially the lives of the young ones," Cannon said, adding that police would conduct a thorough investigation into the grisly killings.

"This case is in its initial stages, we have a long way to go," he said.

The children ranged in age from six to 13. Three of the victims were female and five were male. All are believed to have died on Saturday, Clopton said.

Earlier, police reports stated that five children and three adults had died, and that Conley was 49.

A man who said he was Jackson's brother set up a fundraising page to appeal for donations to cover funeral costs and to pay to have his relatives' remains brought to the US state of Wisconsin.

"Unfortunately we have limited income for this heinous tragedy. The onset of people expressing sympathy has been wonderful and our family appreciates it immensely," said the appeal on Go Fund Me, which set a target of $50,000.

source: interaksyon.com

Global $200 million credit card hacking ring busted

NEW YORK — Eleven people in the United States, the UK and Vietnam have been arrested and accused of running a $200 million worldwide credit card fraud ring, U.S. and UK law enforcement officials said on Wednesday.

Federal prosecutors in New Jersey said they had filed charges against a 23-year-old man from Vietnam.

They said in a statement that authorities in Vietnam had arrested Duy Hai Truong on May 29 in an effort to break up a ring he is accused of running with co-conspirators, who were not named in the statement.

“One of the world’s major facilitation networks for online card fraud has been dismantled by this operation, and those engaged in this type of crime should know that they are neither anonymous, nor beyond the reach of law enforcement agencies,” Andy Archibald, interim deputy director of the National Cyber Crime Unit, said in a statement on the British government’s Serious Organized Crime Agency website. (here)

The arrests were coordinated by the three countries, the statement said.

The arrests come as law enforcement officials around the world are cracking down on Internet-related heists. Two weeks ago, authorities raided Liberty Reserve, a Costa Rica-based company that provided a virtual currency system used frequently by criminals to move money around the world without using the traditional banking system.

Earlier last month, authorities arrested seven people involved in a $45 million heist in which hackers removed limits on prepaid debit cards and used ATM withdrawals to drain cash from two Middle Eastern banks.

“It’s rare that you find actual human beings behind these things,” said Mark Rasch, a former cyber crimes prosecutor and now a lawyer in private practice in Bethesda, Maryland. “Usually you can tie them to organizations or hacker handles, but it’s harder to find individual people.”

Rebekah Carmichael, a spokeswoman for New Jersey U.S. Attorney Paul Fishman, said the charges were filed in New Jersey’s federal court because some of the victims of the scheme are residents of the state.

Prosecutors claim Truong and accomplices stole information related to more than a million credit cards and resold it to criminal customers through the websites www.matteuter.biz and www.mattfeuter.com, according to a criminal complaint filed in federal court in New Jersey.

According to the complaint, Truong hacked into websites that sold goods and services over the Internet and collected personal credit card information from the sites’ customers. “The victims’ credit cards incurred, cumulatively, more than $200 million in fraudulent charges,” the complaint said. The scheme began in 2007.

“Like many ‘carder’ cases, this is an international conspiracy,” Rasch said, adding that a recently passed computer crime law in Vietnam had made it possible for Vietnamese authorities to participate in the multinational sting.

Although Truong has been charged in the United States, he does not have a U.S.-based lawyer because he is being held in Vietnam, Carmichael said.

source: interaksyon.com

All 12 Batman shooting victims named

AURORA, Colorado - The names of the 12 people gunned down at a Colorado screening of the new Batman movie were released Saturday, with a six-year-old girl, a teenager, and two US servicemen among the victims.

James Holmes, a 24-year-old postgraduate student born in San Diego, is accused of killing the moviegoers and wounding 58 others at the late night shooting in Aurora city near Denver while "The Dark Knight Rises" was being shown.

Arapahoe County Coroner's office said all 12 victims died of gunshot wounds and named the youngest as Veronica Moser-Sullivan, 6.

"She was beautiful and innocent," the girl's great aunt Annie Dalton told The Denver Post, recalling how the blonde child "loved to dress up and read, and was doing well at school."

Veronica's mother, who is 25, was shot in the neck and abdomen and is in critical condition at Aurora Medical Center. She is drifting in and out of consciousness and is unaware that her daughter is dead, said the newspaper.

The oldest victim was named by the coroner as Gordon Cowden, 51.

The others killed included John Larimer, 27, who joined the US Navy in June 20122, and Jesse Childress, 29, who CNN said was also on active duty as a US Air Force staff sergeant.

Aspiring sportscaster Jessica Ghawi, 24, also died in the rampage at the midnight screening of "The Dark Knight Rises," the final part of movie director Christopher Nolan's Batman trilogy.

Ghawi's brother, Jordan, spoke to CNN.

"The more air time these victims have, the less time that man has his two seconds on television," he said, calling Holmes "a coward."

The other victims were Alex Sullivan, a bartender who was celebrating his 27th birthday, Micayla Medek, 23, Jonathan Blunk, 26, Rebecca Wingo, 32, and Alexander Teves, 24.

The 12th person killed was listed by the coroner's office as Matt McQuinn, 27. He has been presumptively identified but is awaiting definitive identification.

Victim support counselor Carol O'Shea said a painstaking process had been followed to ensure that families were notified first and in person.

"We are reaching out frantically and as quick as we can to try to get those resources to people and notifying people as quickly as we can," she told reporters.

Many of those wounded in the shooting will suffer long-term consequences, according to Bob Snyder, a doctor at the city's medical center.

The movie theater attack has revived a debate over gun control in the United States, and drew condemnation by President Barack Obama and his election rival, Republican Mitt Romney.

In Aurora, people gathered late Friday for two vigils as it emerged that Holmes bought more than 6,000 rounds of ammunition on the Internet, and four guns, in the two months before the massacre.

source: interaksyon.com