Mr. Michael Grady's Blog

Vigil honors slain officer Aug. 15, 2008--St. Louis police officer Larry Kreisman, foreground, and several dozen more officers held a candlelight vigil on the one year anniversary of the death of fellow officer Norvelle Brown. (J.B. Forbes/P-D) By Leah Thorsen ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH 08/16/2008
ST. LOUIS — The block where people gathered Friday night to honor rookie police Officer Norvelle Brown on the first anniversary of his death was where he'd hoped to make a difference.

Brown, 22, was fatally shot Aug. 15, 2007, while on routine patrol a few blocks northwest of Sherman Park, in the 1600 block of Semple Avenue.

A candlelight vigil held in the middle of that block, with people gathered in the street and police and family speaking from a podium set in a weedy, vacant lot, was a way to honor his memory. People sang, prayed and talked of a better future on a street with lots surrounded by fences ringed with barbed wire and several boarded-up homes. RELATED LINKS  Alone on patrol  St. Louis homicides

Police hoped that the vigil would not only be a way to remember Brown, but it would also show they are committed to stopping violence and to foster hope.

"This is a night when we have to unite," said Lt. Col. Stephen Pollihan, the city's acting police chief. Several dozen police officers attended the vigil, some standing behind the podium, others standing in lines in the street.

Since Brown's death, community leaders and 7th District officers have been working together to improve resident-police relationships in the Wells-Goodfellow neighborhood.

"I've never had respect for the police like I do now," said James Brown, Norvelle Brown's uncle.

Making a difference was important to Norvelle Brown, who asked to be assigned to the neighborhood where he grew up after he graduated from the Police Academy. He'd been on the force for about a year when he was killed, allegedly by a 15-year-old boy.

In December, a judge ruled that Antonio Alexander Andrews, the teen accused of shooting Brown, was "beyond rehabilitation under the juvenile code" and ordered him to stand trial as an adult. Andrews was charged with first-degree murder and is awaiting trial.

Police allege that Andrews acted on a "spur of the moment decision" when Norvelle Brown approached him and two other teens in an alley.

Andrews had a history of problems. At age 14, he shot himself in the thigh after receiving a gun from an older friend, court papers say. He tested positive for marijuana when he was arrested seven months later and was absent from school nearly every day during the 2006-2007 school year.

Allie Brown, Norvelle Brown's mother, said her son became a police officer to help those like Andrews.

She said she wants to work for peace, and that she has no bad feelings toward Andrews or his family.

Said the mother of the fallen officer: "I forgave him a long time ago."

By Joe MahrBy Robert Patrick ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH 08/12/2008
UPDATED 12:40 P.M.

ST. LOUIS -- FBI agents this morning raided the offices of St. Louis Metropolitan Towing., the company that provided previously impounded cars to the daughter of the former St. Louis police chief.

FBI and Internal Revenue Service agents arrived at the towing company about 9 o'clock this morning, according to construction workers across the street from the tow lot.

Federal agents were also searching the towing company's offices at its second impound lot on 13th street, as well as an affiliated company, Mo-Jo's Towing in Kirkwood.

Federal investigators are looking into the St. Louis police department's relationship with the towing company, which held a lucrative contract to impound thousands of vehicles a year. Those unclaimed after 30 days could be sold by the firm, which kept the profits.
 
After the Post-Dispatch began asking about the chief's daughter and towing practices, the department admitted last month that the daughter, Aimie Mokwa, and an unnamed group of officers got free use of some vehicles that had gone unclaimed in the impound lot. The free use, called "test drives," extended for weeks or months.
 
At the time, Chief Joe Mokwa insisted he didn't know anything about it until the spring, but the Post-Dispatch uncovered a 2002 accident report, handled by his department, in which officers noted Aimie Mokwa was driving a car registered to the sales arm of the towing company, known as Parks Auto Sales. The newspaper also found that Parks sold his daughter three cars at prices well below wholesale value. The ensuing controversy led Mokwa to retire last month, as department officials turned over records of their law firm's internal review to federal authorities.
 
Federal authorities, however, were reluctant to publicly acknowledge their investigation until this morning, after federal agents set up a command post vehicle right outside the company's offices. Agents searched inside the building and stood guard at the gate. About an hour into the search, agents drove an empty Penske rental truck onto the property and backed it into a service bay at the rear of the towing company's headquarters.
  RELATED LINKS  STORIES  Towing firm has old ties with city  Mokwa steps down, interim chief named  Mokwa's retirement statement  Joe Mokwa's tenure as St. Louis police chief  Interim chief had sought top job in 2001  Police Board calls special meeting  Tow scandal threatens police chief  Mokwa: I did nothing wrong  Tow firm deals draw questions  Chief's daughter used seized cars  COLUMNS  BROWN: Something is broken at police headquarters  STATEMENTS  Mokwa's retirement statement  Mayor Slay's blog post on Mokwa  Statement of St. Louis Police Chief Joe Mokwa  VIDEO: Chief Mokwa's announcement  INTERACTIVE  Has your car been towed in St. Louis?  TALK: Should federal authorities investigate St. Louis police practices?
John Gillies, the head of the FBI's St. Louis office, confirmed that agents expected to search the company's main office for most of the day and expected the investigation to "continue for a while."  He confirmed the agency was "talking to a lot of people" but contradicted earlier news reports that anyone had been granted immunity from prosecution in exchange for cooperation.
 
Beyond raiding the towing company, the FBI is asking for the public's help in documenting the company's dealings with vehicle owners. The FBI posted a survey on its website asking for information from anyone whose vehicles were towed by St. Louis Metropolitan Towing or its affiliated companies, S&H Parking or Parks Auto Sales, in the past five  years. The survey can be found at http://stlouis.fbi.gov/publiccorruptionsurvey.htm
. Vehicle owners can also call the FBI at 800-CALL-FBI.

With the continuing saga of the "Tow-Gate" being publicized, my notion of corruption in the Board of Police Commissioners have been exemplified.

1. When the Board of Police Commissioners asked a "private" law firm to investigate the towing contract of S & H Towing with the Poiice Department, I was concerned about the veracity of such an "investigation" since the "private" law firm is not a law-enforcement agency and is not answerable to the public. They are answerable to their  "client" (AKA, the Police Board of Commissioners).

2. When the Board of Police Commissioners voted to give former Chief Joe Mokwa a "sweetheart deal" of $100,000 severance package that included free legal services at his retiremen, I wondered if the "package" was "hush-money" to keep him quiet about the fiasco.

3. When FOX2 publicized the loss of the gentleman from Memphis Tennessee "lost" his  2005 Ford Escape due to "forfeiture" and "abandoned" property while he was detained in jail for about 1 month, even without being indicted by the Circuit Attorney's Office, completed the examples of such corruption.

Lauds to FOX2 to dig for the paperwork that indicated the "smoking gun" of the St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department-Board of Police Commissioners in the preceived "forfeiture" of the gentleman's vehicle.

I hope that there will be a "kind-hearted" lawyer somewhere in St. Louis that would take on the gentleman's case against the SLMPD Board of Police Commissioner to get back his vehicle so he can return home!!!

I hope fomer Chief Mokwa will use his "free'" legal services to make a deal with the US Attorney's Office (immunity) so he can disclose the corruption that is evident with the Board of Police Commissioners.

I hope (Circuit Attorney) Jennifer Joyce is nervous about the corruption of the SLMPD in relation to her criminal cases (a "good" defense attorney may want to consider judicial review of all criminal cases investigated by the SLMPD).

This situation is the prime example of why the SLMPD should be runned by City Hall, not Jefferson City!!!!

Owner Disputes 44-Pound Cat Was Abandoned Last Edited: Thursday, 31 Jul 2008, 2:31 PM CDT Created: Thursday, 31 Jul 2008, 2:31 PM CDT The owner of the 44-pound cat says she had to put her up for adoption after she foreclosed on her house. SideBar
Related Items Stories A 44-Pound Cat Needs New Home in New Jersey Links Photos: 44-Pound Cat or just enabling jstl so that we can just write ${bean.property} and jsp takes care of the new lines. -->From MyFoxPhilly Reports

The real owner of a 44-pound New Jersey cat tells Fox 29 in Philly that media reports about how her gigantic cat wound up at a local shelter are only partially true.

The owner, Donna Oklatner, spoke with Fox 29 about how her hefty pet, Powder, made it to the Camden County animal shelter in Blackwood, and then into the national headlines.

The 68-year-old woman says she put Powder up for adoption (video: MyFoxPhilly) and a shelter official picked up the cat, with her permission. (Recent media reports said that the cat was found abandoned and taken to the shelter.)

"It broke my heart to give him up.  I could not take care of him.  I love him.  It broke me heart. I wanted him to have a good home," Oklatner said.

She and her husband had their South Jersey house foreclosed and the husband then had to go to a nursing home.

Because Oklatner is staying with friends, she had to make the decision for Powder to go to the shelter for adoption.

"Nobody would take him," Oklatner said. "And then one of the neighbors -- I'm not going to say where, but a friend of mine -- said, 'Listen. We know you can't afford to have Powder.' And it's not because he ate too much. It was because of the foreclosure and my not having a home, a place to go. So, they said they would take him and put him in a shelter."

A shelter official contacted by Fox 29 confirmed on Wednesday night that the cat was picked up for adoption, and not abandoned.

The official said the cat is 11 years old and a male.

When asked about how the cat got so big, the former owner replied, "I guess he ate a lot of food."

Initial reports indicted that the cat, nicknamed by the shelter Princess Chuck, was found wondering the streets of Vorhees.

Officials at the Camden County Animal Shelter in Blackwood said they received the cat Saturday from Animal Control after the cat was found outdoors, without a collar, in Voorhees.

That directly contradicts the woman's story about how the cat came to the center for adoption.

The Shelter's newest resident quickly became an Internet sensation when it became known that he was almost as big as the world's biggest known house cat.

Search begins for new police chief The president of the Board of Police Commissioners, Col. Chris Goodson, addresses members of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch Editorial Board this morning. (Erik M. Lunsford/P-D) By Jeremy Kohler ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH 07/30/2008
The St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department has begun its search for a new chief.

Letters are going out soon to 28 candidates eligible to succeed St. Louis police chief Joe Mokwa, asking them to consider applying for the job. By state law, the candidate pool is limited to officers in the department ranked captain or higher.

Meanwhile, members of the board visited several St. Louis media outlets today to defend their handling of an investigation into the police department's relationship with a private towing company.

In a visit with the Post-Dispatch editorial board, board President Chris Goodson and Vice President Julius Hunter said they were stung by suggestions in the media that the police department needs more oversight and that the board did not thoroughly investigate the department's dealings with the company, St. Louis Metropolitan Towing, before declaring on July 18 that there was no criminal wrongdoing.

"There is one thing that sort of grips me and gripes me," Hunter said, "and that is ... I wonder if, as some of the swipes are being taken at the board, if there is a general understanding of what the current board of police commissioners does."

Hunter said the board members are hard-working, accountable and thoroughly in touch with the community -- not "political hacks and flaks."

Read more about the police board's comments in Thursday's Post-Dispatch.

FROM: http://www.stltoday.com/stltoday/news/stories.nsf/stlo
uiscitycounty/story/8D5B7D8AE186BB4F86257496006C0221?Op
enDocument

 

 

I have been away from my computer for some time now. I am back for the time being.

I have some reflections on the "March for Oneness" that occurred in North St. Louis on June 1, 2008.

First, it is good that attention is being brought to the inordinant numbers of homicides committed so far this year. It is also equally good that this attention was focused on the very neighborhoods that have seen such tragidies. Light needs to be shed upon this problem as well as the community affected and the people who are suffering because of it.

Second, it is also a great thing that this has been brought up by an eccumenical group of Christians and Muslim people. Tragidy like this transcends religion and religious beliefs.

Third, it is extraordinarily great that MEN, not women are stepping up to the plate and seeing where they are responsible in dealing with the trouble young males that are committing these crimes. It is not enough that these young men should be locked up in the justice system for that would be a waste of our precious resources.

With that being said, I have some criticisms as well.

I was sharing my thoughts with a fellow-passenger on a Metro bus one day. She is Black and obviously has seen much too much tragidy in her life. She said "all the marching and speeches will not change a 'darn' thng." I tend to agree. I have to ask, is this Movement a "knee-jerk" reaction to the skyrocketing murder rate of 2008??? What is the intentions of the Founders of the Movement? What is their purpose? How are they to attain their goals?? What is their game plan???

I have some suggestions.

We need a Movement towards Healing of Racism in our Entire Nation. We need to go back to the Beginning of when this all happened; to the enslavement of Black men, women and children. The Great Black Diaspora from Africa. This can be done with historians to keep the focus. ALL People, Black and White must participate in order for this to work. The effects of Slavery is still being felt in the 21st Century. If you notice the use of the "B" word in Rap Music, it is similar to the "W" word (Wench) in the way slave sellers described the Black women on the auction block. Their main purpose was to breed more slaves for the Slave Owners.

I am using the same treatment model that was employed by Terence Reel in his book, I Don't Want to Talk About It, which he expounds on the treatment of Male Depression. He says that in order to have complete healing, you must go back at least two generations (to granddad, who abused dad, who eventually abused his son). We have to treat the entire Community in a Wholistic approach.

I am in the midst of researching this matter. I hope to write a proposal paper and submit it to Historians, Philosophers, Theologians, Psychologists, Sociologists, Social Workers, Politicians and anyone else who would be interested in this process.

Just a thought:

Our society has confused itself with gender identity. A man can have surgery and take hormones for the rest of "his" life, dress as a woman and change "his" name legally. But, does that truly make "him" a "woman???" If you look at the DNA sequence, it will have an "X" chromosome in the 22nd strand and a "Y" chromosome in the 23rd strand (indicating that the subject is "male.").

Conversely, a woman can have surgery, take hormones for the rest of "her" life, dress as a man and change "her" name legally. Does that truly make "her" a man?? The DNA sequence will show an "X" chromosome in the 22nd strand and an "X" chromonsome in the 23rd strand (indicating that the subject is  "female").

Question: Can a "woman" have breast reduction surgery, take hormones (and retain all female reproductive organs), dress like a "man," act like a "man," legally change "his" name to a "male name" and yet, be pregnant?? Is this subject truly a "man" or a "woman?"

Comments welcomed!

The recent story about the off-duty St. Louis County police officer and his family on St. Patrick's Day was most disturbing! The officer allegedly flourished his side arm to a property owner because that officer wanted to park there, on the property owner's private land! The City Police responded and made a report. I don't know if the officer was ever arrested, but the City Circuit Attorney's Office has taken the case "Under Advisement."

In my experience with St. Louis City Emergency Medical Services and spending much time in the various police district houses (where we were assigned to), I begin to understand the process of our Criminal Justice System. The term, Under Advisement" meant (at the time) that the Circuit Attorney was not planning to take any action in the case. This means that the case will not be pursued nor will the defendant be tried in court. Therefore, this St. Louis County police officer will not be charged nor tried under State Law for "flourishing a weapon in public."

What are your thoughts on this matter??

HAVANA —The Cuban National Assembly voted Raúl Castro as its new president on Sunday, the first time the country has had a new leader since his brother Fidel seized power in 1959.

Skip to next paragraph Enlarge This Image Jose Goitia for The New York Times

Raúl Castro at a meeting of the Cuban National Assembly in Havana on Sunday. More Photos »

Multimedia Audio Slide Show Three Days With Fidel Slide Show Fidel Castro Resigns as President Related Adiós: A Future to Wince At (February 24, 2008) Cuba and the World Wonder: Now What? (February 21, 2008) Castro Quits One Role, but May Not Be Done Yet (February 20, 2008) Times Topics: Raúl Castro | Fidel Castro | Cuba

Mr. Castro, the 76-year-old armed forces minister, had been widely expected to be named president by the 614 members of the assembly. Mr. Castro, dressed in a gray suit and steel-colored tie, cast the first vote for president of the assembly with a smile and wave at about 11:15 a.m. Fidel Castro was said to be too ill to attend the meeting, and he voted through a proxy.

The ballot contained 31 names for the top positions in the country, among them president, minister of interior and minister of the armed forces. The delegates have no choice, because there is only one name for each position. The candidates were not immediately made public.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/24/world/americas/24
cnd-cuba.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin

RecessionWikipedia, the free encyclopedia - Cite This Source

''' In macroeconomics, a recession is a decline in any country's gross domestic product (GDP), or negative real economic growth, for two or more successive quarters of a year. However, in the United States the official designation of recessions is done by the business-cycle dating committee of the National Bureau of Economic Research (Feldstein, 2007). The American National Bureau of Economic Research defines a recession more ambiguously as "a significant decline in economic activity spread across the economy, lasting more than a few months." A recession may involve simultaneous declines in coincident measures of overall economic activity such as employment, investment, and corporate profits. Recessions may be associated with falling prices (deflation), or, alternatively, sharply rising prices (inflation) in a process known as stagflation. A severe or long recession is referred to as an economic depression. A devastating breakdown of an economy is called economic collapse. Newspaper columnist Sidney J. Harris amusingly distinguished terms this way: "a recession is when you lose your job; a depression is when I lose mine."

Market-oriented economies are characterized by economic cycles, but actual recessions (declines in economic activity) do not always result. There is much debate as to whether government intervention smoothes the cycle (see Keynesianism), exaggerates it (see Real business cycle theory), or even creates it (see monetarism).

Causes of recessions

The precise causes of recession are the subject of fierce debate among academics and policy makers although most would agree that recessions are caused by some combination of endogenous cyclical forces and exogenous shocks. For example, Keynesian economists and Real business cycle theorists would all disagree about the precise cause of the business cycle breakdown, but most would agree that purely exogenous factors like the price of oil, weather conditions, or a war could by themselves cause a temporary recession, or, conversely, increase short term economic growth. Keynes himself, however, pointed out that when interest rates become too small – below about 2% – then people no longer have an incentive to save, preferring to hold money for what he called "transactions demands." If there are no savings, banks get no money with which to make loans, and it is this drying up of savings – and loans – that causes the regular business cycle to break down. Austrian school economists hold that it is an inflation of the money supply that causes modern recessions, and that recessions are positive forces in that they are the market's natural mechanism of undoing the misallocation of resources present during the boom or inflationary phase. Most monetarists believe that the cause of most recessions in the United States is this mishandling of the money supply, while an extreme change in the structure of the economy is responsible for very few.

Comments welcomed!

I saw this on PBS recently.

 

The Debt Dilemma

February 15, 2008

To many Americans, the national debt is an impenetrable problem of charts and graphs — worrisome, certainly, but too big, too complicated, too specialized to understand.

Scott Bittle and Jean Johnson, of Public Citizen, are out to change that with a simple message: the federal debt is indeed a big problem, but it can be understood by everyone and solved together. Bittle and Johnson join Bill Moyers on THE JOURNAL to talk about their irreverent book about the national debt, WHERE DOES THE MONEY GO, and the user-friendly Web site they help maintain as part of a nationwide project to educate the public about the national debt. FACING UP has been developed in partnership with The Brookings Institution, The Concord Coalition, the Heritage Foundation, Public Agenda and Viewpoint Learning.

 

The deficit and the debt.According to the website, FACING UP, when we talk about a budget crisis:

"We are really talking about two tightly interrelated problems here, the deficit and the debt. The short-term problem we face is that the federal government routinely runs a deficit — that is, in most years the government is spending much more than it takes in."

In WHERE DOES THE MONEY GO?, Bittle and Johnson list six things everyone needs to know to understand the federal budget crisis:

The Budget Debate: Parking-lot Version:

1. For thirty-one out of the last thirty-five years, the country has spent more on government programs and services than it has collected in taxes.

2. Every year the government comes up short, it borrows money to cover the difference. We've now built up a very big debt —roughly $9 trillion, and yes, that is trillion with a t.

3. The country will have humongous additional expenses over the next couple of decades as the baby boomers begin to retire and need more medical care.

4. There is no realistic way government can lower taxes (or even keep them at current levels), spend money on everything people want the government to do (at least according to the polls), and still end up with a balanced budget.

5. If we keep on going the way we're going, the debt will get bigger and begin to endanger the U.S. Economy and our own personal finances and plans. And the government won't have enough money to pay for Social Security and Medicare for the boomers and still do what most of us expect government to do.

6. A substantial portion of the country's debt is held in foreign countries. Right now, these foreign investors consider U.S. Government bonds one of the safest places in the world to put their money, but they could decide at some point that Europe or China or some other place is a better bet. This would be the global equivalent of a store clerk seizing your credit card and cutting it up.

Reprinted by permission. To find out more about the book, visit PUBLIC AGENDA ONLINE

Scott Bittle

Scott Bittle manages public opinion research and analysis at Public Agenda, including both its research department and PUBLIC AGENDA ONLINE, which has been twice nominated for a prestigious Webby Award by the International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences.

An experienced editor and reporter who has worked for both online and print publications, Mr. Bittle is involved in the production of citizen education guides and is lead author of Public Agenda's Confidence in U.S. Foreign Policy Index. He also served as an exit poll analyst for NBC News in the 2006 elections.

Mr. Bittle holds a Bachelor of Arts in communications and journalism from Rowan University of New Jersey.

Jean Johnson

Jean Johnson is Executive Vice President of Public Agenda and head of its Education Insights division, which works to enhance public and community engagement in public education. As a member of Public Agenda's senior staff, she has developed and managed research and communications projects on a wide variety of issues. She has authored or co-authored Public Agenda studies on education, families, religion, race relations, manners and civility, retirement, welfare, and health care.

Along with WHERE DOES THE MONEY GO, Ms. Johnson is also the principal author of LIFE AFTER HIGH SCHOOL: YOUNG PEOPLE TALK ABOUT THEIR HOPES AND PROSPECTS, and WHERE WE ARE NOW: 12 THINGS YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT PUBLIC OPINION AND PUBLIC SCHOOLS. She is lead author of REALITY CHECK, which tracks attitudes among parents, students, teachers, principals, superintendents and others on key education reform topics.

In addition to her work at Public Agenda, Ms. Johnson is a director of Sugal Records, a small, New York-based classical music recording company. Ms. Johnson graduated from Mount Holyoke College, and holds master's degrees from Brown University and Simmons College. Have questions? You can ask Jamieson yourself on the blog. We'll have some answers for you next week. -->

-->

Guest photos by Robin Holland

 

Published on February 15, 2008.

http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/02152008/profile3
.html

 

I saw this on PBS recently. Looks very interesting!

Corporations are taking benefits from workers by calling them "freelancers."

Temporary workers and independent contractors make up nearly a third of the U.S. workforce, and represent a growing asset to companies who rely on freelance flexibility. But corporations are using the designation "freelancer" to avoid paying health care and other benefits, even though many of these workers put in the same hours as their covered counterparts. NOW looks at the effect of this tactic on the lives and personal economy of freelance workers.

Program Resources» Video
» Audio [mp3, 48kbps]:
Stream, Download, Podcast
Transcript
-->» Print
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» Contact Us
» E-mail this page to a friend We also examine an Enterprising Idea to help independent workers manage their personal needs, including benefits, networking and investment help. Freelancers Union, founded by former labor lawyer and MacArthur grant recipient Sara Horowitz, provides a safety net for over 60,000 workers, but how is it viewed by the traditional labor movement?

This is part of NOW's series on social entrepreneurs called "Enterprising Ideas"

More From NOW: Benefits Denied | Freelancers Up Close | What is a Freelancer? | Enterprising Ideas | Feedback Forum | Transcript -->
Related Reports Janitor Justice
A Living Wage
Food Fight

Topic Search: Business, Employment, Income Related Links:

Freelancers Union Website

Gawker: Coverage of "permalancer" issues

(KTVI - myFOXstl.com)  --  After years of complaints from nearby residents and businesses and a murder this week, new attention is being focused on Larry Rice's homeless shelter downtown. Charles Jaco reports neighbors they have sympathy for the homeless. Some say the New Life Evangelistic Center and its residents are not a problem. But many would like the city, or some agency, to take action against a shelter at the epicenter of an epidemic of police calls.

On Wednesday, November 29, 2006, I was evicted from my apartment in Spanish Lake, MO. I found myself at this homeless shelter for the night. First, I did not have any kind of winter coat (mine was lost in the eviction). The shelter did not provide me with one even when we had the ice/snow storm of November 20-30. I had two sweaters and a car with excellent heat that saved my life. We were herded into a several large rooms that had bunk beds without linens (I don't expect linens) and was given a blanket. I did not feel safe in a room full of men that were talking loudly. That night, the security guard had an argument (almost to physical fighting) with a staff person. The second night, we were overfilled to capacity.  The building did not have any heat (in fact one room was colder than a walk-in freezer in any restaurant. Several men had to sleep in that room! I slept on the floor on a mat. A man treatened me if I was anywhere near his "spot." That Friday, I got my disability check and went to a motel. I slept very well in that motel because when I was in the homeless shelter, I could not get to sleep.  Despite being homeless, I was still courteous and considerate to all people I met.

If the builing commissioner's office would inspect the building, it would be closed down. If the health department would inspect the building, it would be closed down. If the fire marshal's office would inspect it (it had many battery-operated smoke detectors that were "chirping" meaning that the batteries were low) and found that the fire escapes were not well marked and lighted, it would be closed down. I have heard that there were many attempts to investigate that shelter, but someone in the mayor's office would shut it down.

BTW, Rev Rice did nothing to help me (other than a mat and a blanket). Those that did help me were; Catholic Charities-Housing Resource Center, St. Patrick's Center, the St. Vincent DePaul Society, Fr. Bob Wirth, CSsR, Fauncey, Steve and Russ (personal friends). I would give to those organizations. Rev Rice did nothing!

Feb 15, 2:16 PM EST

NIU gunman stopped taking medication

By CARYN ROUSSEAU and DEANNA BELLANDI
Associated Press Writers

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Campus Shooting

DEKALB, Ill. (AP) -- The man who gunned down five people at Northern Illinois University in a suicidal rampage became erratic after halting his medication and carried a shotgun to campus inside a guitar case, police said Friday.

The man, 27-year-old former student Stephen Kazmierczak, was also wielding three handguns during Thursday's ambush inside a lecture hall.

Two of the weapons - the pump-action Remington shotgun and a Glock 9mm handgun - were purchased legally less than a week ago, on Feb. 9, authorities said. They were purchased in Champaign, where Kazmierczak was enrolled at the University of Illinois.

A spokesman for the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms said the other two guns were also legally purchased and traced to the Champaign gun shop, but the ATF was still determining when Kazmierczak picked them up.

Kazmierczak had a valid Firearm Owner's Identification Card, which is required for all Illinois residents who buy or possess firearms, authorities said.

The gunman's father, Robert Kazmierczak, briefly came out of his single-story house in Lakeland, Fla., to talk to reporters.

"Please leave me alone. I have no statement to make and no comment. OK? I'd appreciate that. This is a very hard time. I'm a diabetic and I don't want to go into a relapse," he said before breaking down crying.

He then went back inside his house, which has a sign on the front door that says "Illini fans live here."

President Bush talked by telephone with NIU President John Peters and said people will be praying for the families of the victims and for the Northern Illinois University community.

Campus Police Chief Donald Grady said investigators recovered 48 shell casings and six shotgun shells following the attack in Cole Hall. The gunman paused to reload his shotgun after opening fire on a crowd of terrified students in a geology class, sending them running and crawling toward the exits. He shot himself to death on the stage of the hall.

Kazmierczak, whose first name was earlier listed as Steven, was taking some kind of medication, Grady said.

"He had stopped taking medication and become somewhat erratic in the last couple of weeks," Grady said, declining to name the drug or provide other details.

Correcting information his office released earlier Friday, DeKalb County Coroner Dennis J. Miller said five students, not six, were killed in the rampage, in addition to the gunman. Miller said the higher victim total was the result of confusion over the fate of a patient taken to another county for treatment.

"There was a miscommunication," Miller said.

The motive of the killer, who graduated from NIU in 2006 but was a student there as recently as last year, was still not known. Grady said Kazmierczak was an "outstanding" student while at NIU and authorities were still trying to determine why he would kill. There was no known suicide note.

"We were dealing with a disturbed individual who intended to do harm on this campus," Peters said.

Witnesses said the gunman, dressed in black and wearing a stocking cap, emerged from behind a screen on the stage of 200-seat Cole Hall and opened fire just as the class was about to end around 3 p.m. Officials said 162 students were registered for the class but it was unknown how many were there Thursday.

John Giovanni, 20, of Des Plaines said the gunman calmly fired at the greatest concentration of students.

"He was shooting from the hip. He was just shooting," said Giovanni, who turned and ran so fast that he lost a shoe. "I was running but I was hurtling over people in the fetal position."

Peters said four people died at the scene, including three students and the gunman. The other died at a hospital. The teacher, a graduate student, was wounded but was expected to recover.

Miller released the identities of four victims: Daniel Parmenter, 20, of Westchester; Catalina Garcia, 20, of Cicero; Ryanne Mace, 19, of Carpentersville; and Julianna Gehant, 32, of Meridan.

Another victim, Gayle Dubowski, a 20-year-old sophomore from Carol Stream, died at a Rockford hospital, Winnebago County Coroner Sue Fiduccia said.

The killer had been a graduate student in sociology at Northern Illinois as recently as spring 2007, Peters said. He also said the suspect had no record of police contact or an arrest record while attending Northern Illinois, a campus with 25,000 students about 65 miles west of Chicago.

The gunman was a student at the University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign, Chancellor Richard Herman said. The university is about 140 miles south of Chicago.

Lauren Carr said she was sitting in the third row when she saw the shooter walk through a door on the right-hand side of the stage, pointing a gun straight ahead.

"I personally Army-crawled halfway up the aisle," said Carr, a 20-year-old sophomore. "I said I could get up and run or I could die here."

She said a student in front of her was bleeding, "but he just kept running."

"I heard this girl scream, 'Run, he's reloading the gun!'"

More than a hundred students cried and hugged as they gathered outside the Phi Kappa Alpha house early Friday to remember Parmenter. Flowers, candles and small notes were left in the snow near Cole Hall. Flags were flying at half-staff. At a house across the street, a hand-drawn banner made out of a sheet said: 'NIU We Pray 4 U'

The campus was closed on Friday. Students were urged to call their parents and were offered counseling at any residence hall, according to the school Web site.

The school was closed for one day during final exam week in December after campus police found threats, including racial slurs and references to shootings earlier in the year at Virginia Tech, scrawled on a bathroom wall in a dormitory. Police determined after an investigation that there was no imminent threat and the campus was reopened. Peters said he knew of no connection between that incident and Thursday's attack.

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Associated Press writers Carla K. Johnson, Michael Tarm, David Mercer, Martha Irvine, Nguyen Huy Vu, Sarah Rafi, Mike Robinson, Anthony McCartney in Lakeland, Fla., and photographer Charles Rex Arbogast contributed to this report.

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Question: Was the Kirkwood kilings of recent and two years ago a symptom of a "greater" issue of Racism in our region?

[This should be a Philosphical debate.]