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Congratulations on doing the right thing and having everyone go home in good condition.

I hope the dad reconsiders his driving habits. You see a lot of those single-vehicle rollovers.

- Jim

Mankind is not perfected yet.

In Houston at the intersection of Bellaire and Fondren two teenage girls were crossing the street around 6:30 p.m. Wednesday. The driver of an SUV struck one of the girls. The victim flew up on the air and landed on the hood of a second vehicle.

Both drivers fled. The driver of the first SUV also struck another vehicle.

The victim was taken to the hospital with head injuries and broken bones.

One suspect was arrested a short time later.

http://www.click2houston.com/news/Arres ... index.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Anyone familiar with the area of Bellaire and Fondren will not be entirely surprised by this incident. Calling it a wretched hive of scum and villainy would trivialize the situation. These major streets in Houston are dangerous for pedestrians in any case.

- Jim

Getting back on the ugly original topic, "the body of an unidentified white male was found in a vacant lot in the 5400 block of Broadway on Saturday."

"According to police, the body had been there for several days, but people thought he was sleeping until he started to smell."

The area where this happened is a large unoccupied area, maybe 20 or 30 acres, off Broadway. It is not clearly visible from the street. Homeless people go there to drink, use drugs, and do what-all.

http://galvestondailynews.com/story/255674" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Ironically, nearly every police car in town probably drove past there several times, as the police station is north on 54th Street.

- Jim

VoiceofReason wrote:Having a CHL and carrying makes me more likely to stop and help someone. I imagine this is true for other CHLs also.

I don't know that having a CHL per se or being armed leads directly to doing anything. (I can't think of plenty of things it shouldn't lead a person to do, like escalating road rage.)

I think a certain type of personality formed by education and training leads a person to prepare for various possibilities, whether it's carrying a weapon or other tools, having emergency supplies on hand, being observant, or taking the initiative in situations.

I had a flashback this morning to an episode that must have occurred in the 1970s when I lived in Chicago. I looked out the window and saw a man sleeping or passed out on the front porch. I was pretty sure he wasn't dead—you can tell. I literally poked him with a stick because I didn't want him to grab me if I woke him up. It turned out he had been drunk and had no idea how he got there.

Good thing for him it wasn't freezing cold when he lay down in the middle of the night.

- Jim

03Lightningrocks wrote:I can see how folks w'ould think this. The last thought I would have is that it was a real dead person. I drove by a dead guy one morning several years ago and thought he was sleeping...

You'll never do it again, though.

When I was a kid my father saw someone slumped over in a parked car on our block. He went to check, and it turned out to be a dead man. (I never did find out what he died of.)

After that I always think dead first.

BTW, day laborers and illegal immigrants are good candidates for robbery. Because they don't have bank accounts, they often carry a lot of cash. The women tend to become victims of Jack the Ripper-type rapists or killers.

- Jim

Darwin will step in eventually, but it will be messy and ugly.

- Jim

How do you enforce that?

It never has been done in a just or humane manner. Ancient societies had castration, human sacrifice, and infanticide (often called by the euphemism of exposure). More recently it was forced sterilization and abortion.

- Jim

P.S.: I don't know two words of Vietnamese, but this is the same story:
http://vietnamnet.vn/vn/quoc-te/28237/c ... o-toc.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Now the Vietnamese (at least those who have Internet connections) can shake their heads about what idiots Americans are.

- Jim

Child abuse, neglect, and murder weren't exactly what I had in mind when I started this thread. Sad to say, those crimes are so common that they aren't news unless they are uniquely heinous.

Back in the 1990s, the Chicago Tribune printed a photo and brief account of every child that was intentionally killed in the city during the previous year. It went on for pages. Most were killed by mothers' "boyfriends" or other household or family members. Most were killed by beating, asphyxiation, or other hands-on violence. A few were killed by starvation, thirst, or other neglect. It was heartbreaking.

Also the average actual prison time served by killers of children was in the range of three years—less than they would have served for selling dope.

P.S.: At the risk of hijacking my own thread, this is a report on actual prison time served in Illinois: http://www.idoc.state.il.us/subsections ... art2.shtml" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Except for murder, the average time served is less than five years.
A class X felony in Illinois is the most serious type of violent felony short of murder—attempted murder, aggravated assault, rape, kidnapping, etc.

Child killers often are convicted of less serious violations such as negligent homicide, abuse, neglect, or endangerment.

With this thread, I was more struck by the casual disregard of people stepping over corpses, or, as in the recent case, driving around with a corpse in their front seat. (I'm surprised the cops didn't catch the guy driving in the car-pool lane.)

- Jim

At least they left their kids in a hospital.

Tuesday around 3 a.m., near Sweetwater (Abilene area), a 22-year-old sperm donor threw his 4-year-old son into a stand of cactus at the side of I-20.

The boy was rescued by a citizen and had some 500 cactus spines removed.

The "father" claimed to have a religious revelation. He is facing felony charges.

http://www.reporternews.com/news/2011/j ... left-on-i/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

- Jim

Incidents rarely pass the threshold required for posting to this thread (thank God).

In Houston early this morning a deputy constable stopped a car moving with the headlights off.

The officer observed that the windshield was shattered and the driver had blood on his face.

The officer then observed...

stop here if you are squeamish ...

"a body in the passenger seat, partially underneath the dashboard and with a severed leg."

The driver claimed to have no idea what happened.

The driver was arrested and charged with felony failure to stop and render aid involving a fatality and driving while intoxicated.

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/met ... 30000.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

- Jim

Yeah, when people say, oh, just another drunk passed, out and keep walking, it's not a good neighborhood.

- Jim

In Marina Del Rey, Florida, a man apparently shot himself in the head on the balcony of his appartment early this week. His body was draped over the railing for four days. Neighbors thought it was a Halloween display.

http://www.ktla.com/news/landing/ktla-m ... 1861.story" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

- Jim

Residents of a apartment complex in Bethany, Oklahoma (OK City area) ignored a man who was lying on the ground unconscious. One stated that he thought the man was drunk.

Police eventually were called hours later and found that the man had been shot in the head. He was brought to a hospital in critical condition.

http://newsok.com/bethany-shooting-vict ... le/3380442" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

- Jim