I don't really have a problem with this...

CIA memo details procedures for breaking detainees

WASHINGTON, Aug 26 (Reuters) - Sleep deprivation, "insult slaps", water dousing and "walling", or slamming a detainee's head against a wall, were techniques used by CIA interrogators to break high-value detainees, according to an agency memo.

The memo, sent to the U.S. Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel on Dec. 30, 2004, was released on Monday under a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit filed by Amnesty International USA and the American Civil Liberties Union.

U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder on Monday named a special prosecutor to probe Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) prisoner abuse cases.

His decision, which promises political headaches for President Barack Obama, came after the Justice Department's ethics watchdog recommended considering prosecution of CIA employees or contractors for interrogations in Iraq and Afghanistan that went beyond approved limits.

"The goal of interrogation is to create a state of learned helplessness and dependence conducive to the collection of intelligence," the memo, outlining procedures for handling captured al Qaeda leaders sent to CIA "black site" prisons, said.

The document, first reported by The Washington Post, said prior to an interrogation session, detainees may be stripped and held in a "vertical shackling position" to begin sleep deprivation.

Once the interrogation begins, the "insult slap" on the face may be used when the interrogator needs to immediately correct the detainee, the memo said.

The document said "walling" was one of the most effective interrogation techniques for wearing down detainees physically.

"An HVD (high-value detainee) may be walled one time (one impact with the wall) to make a point or 20 to 30 times consecutively when the interrogator requires a more significant response to a question," the document said.

Interrogations at CIA prisons occurred in special cells outfitted on one side with a plywood wall to prevent severe head injuries, The Washington Post reported.

The paper said agency spokesman George Little noted that the interrogation programme operated under guidelines approved by top legal officials of the Bush administration.

"This programme, which always constituted a fraction of the CIA's counterterrorism efforts, is over," Little was quoted as saying.

CIA officials have also noted that harsh techniques were reserved for a small group of top-level terrorism suspects believed to be knowledgeable about the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, the Post said.

Former U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney criticised Obama's ability to handle national security after the special prosecutor was appointed.
Cheney, who has emerged as a vocal defender of Bush administration policies since leaving the White House, said the intelligence obtained from harsh interrogation techniques had saved lives.

"The people involved deserve our gratitude. They do not deserve to be the targets of political investigations or prosecutions," he said in a statement.

Holy crap. Are we apologizing for this sort of thing? At least we are not ripping out finger nails and electrocuting testicles (not officially), but I don't think we should treat these guys with love and understanding. They are likely to really be killers, and if we get it wrong a few times, then we apologize, offer the innocent some money, and if they refuse and won't shut up..... they disappear. Gotta break a few eggs to make an omelet.

CASH FOR CLUNKERS = SUCKERS!!!

Cash for Clunkers = SUCKERS

Alright, lets get to the point: who is really going to benefit from the so-called Cash for Clunkers Redistribution of Income? 

DEALERS:  So far most of them are afraid they aren't going to get paid, and if they do, will it cover the costs associated with taking in all these POC vehicles and transporting them to their destruction?  Who is paying for the destruction, by the way?  But for now, the straggly and hungry wolves roaming car lots are just happy to see sheep return to the aisles.

BUYERS:  What is the best way to fuck up your credit?  Trade in an old (but paid off) jalopy for a new car with a great new payment!  And don't forget the insurance rates on a new car are much higher than on your old car.... I believe this will end the same way the Zero Percent Financing spree resulting from the September 11th attacks did:  massive repossessions.  Only this will take just a few month, not a year like it did then.

TAX PAYERS:  Riiight.... who do you think is paying for this?  Santa?  Have you heard the new phrase "ten year deficit " projections?  This means we are not raising taxes just now.... we are getting you slobs used to hand outs first.  There will be health care, stimulus spending, all the grand and glorious things with pretty utopian names or acronyms, all slop for greedy, lazy piggies.  But ten years from now.... when Obama cannot possibly still be in office, the bill comes due.  To be laid at the feet of a different president, and different taxpayers... who probably are too young to have gotten much benefit out of this stupid spending spree.

I have said it before: the economy runs in cycles, it goes up and down.  Sometimes a little farther than we'd like.. but it cycles back eventually.  Raising ta taxes and government spending is not the answer.  Paradoxically, lowering taxes is the answer.  The more money I keep from my paycheck is what drives the economy: if I spend it.. you sell something, and the guys who made it and delivered it all get something from my buying.  If I save it in a bank, the bank loans it out and someone buys something.  Put put goes the economy.  Taking more from me when I am already hurting and then giving it away as a "stimulus" generates nothing but anger from me and a feeling of entitlement from the recipient.

BEHOLD:  CLASS WARFARE.

Travel Expert To Skip Ariz. After Gun Display

Arthur Frommer Stops Short Of Issuing Travel Boycott

 

Arthur Frommer wrote on his Web site, "I will not personally travel in a state where civilians carry loaded weapons onto the sidewalks and as a means of political protest."

 

Frommer was referring to a gathering of protesters, some of whom carried firearms, including an AR-15 semi-automatic rifle slung over one man's shoulder.

 

"I not only believe such practices are a threat to the future of our democracy, but I am firmly convinced that they would also endanger my own personal safety there," Frommer said in his blog.

"And therefore I will cancel any plans to vacation or otherwise visit in Arizona until I learn more. And I will begin thinking about whether tourists should safeguard themselves by avoiding stays in Arizona."

Phoenix police said the gun-toters at Monday's event didn't need permits. No crimes were committed, and no one was arrested.

Gun-rights advocates said they were exercising their constitutional right to bear arms and protest, while those who argue for more gun control said it could be a disaster waiting to happen.

Arizona is an "open-carry" state, which means anyone legally allowed to have a firearm can carry it in public as long as it's visible. Only someone carrying a concealed weapon is required to have a permit.

"The continued tolerance of extremists carrying guns is a frightening development which strikes at the heart of the political process and endangers the ability to carry out a reasoned debate," Frommer wrote.

 

He wasn't an extremist, he was a law abiding Libertarian Crackpot with an agenda of self promotion.  There is a difference ya know....

No! do you really think so?

Many deported felons just sneak back across border
U.S. pushing prosecution, lengthy prison terms to deter re-entry

by Daniel González - Aug. 16, 2009 12:00 AM
The Arizona Republic .

The goal of the U.S. government's expanding program to rid the country of foreign-born criminals is clear: Find illegal immigrants who commit violent crimes and deport them so they no longer pose a threat to the public.

The government has successfully deported hundreds of thousands of foreign-born criminals in recent years. But a significant number have come back again, illegally, to the United States, often to commit more crimes, according to government data and interviews with law-enforcement authorities, federal prosecutors and criminal-defense lawyers.

There are no broad government statistics on how many deported criminals re-enter the United States illegally, but arrests by Border Patrol agents in the Tucson region alone suggest the number is high. In fiscal year 2008, 16 percent of the 317,696 immigrants arrested by agents in Tucson, one of nine sectors on the U.S.-Mexican border, were charged with felony counts of re-entering illegally, either because they had prior felony convictions in the U.S. or previously had been formally deported. Crossing the border illegally is typically a misdemeanor.The illegal re-entry of people who have been deported, especially those with criminal histories, represents one of the most vexing and persistent problems in the government's stepped-up effort to battle illegal immigration. The government doesn't have the resources to prosecute all of them, and in the past most were simply just deported again.
There is no easy answer, especially as authorities struggle with shrinking budgets and increasing responsibilities.

But now to deter re-entry, the government is beefing up efforts to prosecute violent criminals who come back to the country after they've been incarcerated and then deported, sentencing the most dangerous and egregious offenders to lengthy prison terms, rather than just automatically sending them back home.

The goal is to prevent deported criminals who re-enter the U.S. from committing more crimes and to deter others from re-entering, said Joseph Koehler, an assistant U.S. attorney in Phoenix who supervises a unit that prosecutes these cases.

The only way to deter violent criminals who get "formally kicked out of the country" and repeatedly return is to "make it very clear that there is a sanction for coming into the United States," Koehler said.

But even that is no guarantee that a criminal prosecuted for re-entering the country illegally, sent to prison and then deported again won't sneak back into the country.

"I'd say it happens fairly frequently," Koehler said. "It certainly is not the majority of the people we prosecute, but there are a significant number who do."

Jessica Vaughan, director of policy studies at the Center for Immigration Studies, a think tank in Washington, D.C., that favors less immigration, said prosecuting deported criminals who return to the United States is effective at preserving public safety because it takes criminals off the street.

"These are not just people coming to work as bus boys," she said. "They are coming to return to a life of crime."

But, she said, it is difficult to say whether prosecuting deported criminals actually deters them or others from re-entering illegally.

"The only way to stop that is to have better security at the border," she said.

Atmore Baggat, a defense attorney who has represented immigrants charged with felony counts of illegal re-entry, said deported immigrants often return for jobs or because their spouses or children are still in this country, not necessarily to commit crimes.

He said many often do not realize the penalty for re-entry can be so harsh.

"I don't know how much the government impresses upon them the penalties for coming back," he said.

Federal officials say deportees are given plenty of warning, including a written statement that notifies them that re-entering the U.S. illegally is a federal offense that could cost them up to 20 years in prison. Helloooo? They are criminals.....they commit crimes.... they are not planning on being caught, so they don't really think about penalties in the here and now.... duh.

Marc Rosenblum, a senior policy analyst at the Migration Policy Institute, a nonpartisan research organization in Washington, D.C., said the United States has tried developing programs with other countries to integrate deported criminals into their homelands rather than just "dumping them at the border or kicking them off an airplane." But those efforts fell off following the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, he said.

Rosenblum said, however, that countries are often reluctant to take in deported criminals.

"When you talk about real bad guys, they are not real attractive to take back," Rosenblum said.

He said there is strong public support for deporting illegal immigrants who commit crimes and for prosecuting those who return. But, he stressed, studies have shown that illegal immigrants tend to commit fewer crimes than people born in the United States.

The U.S. government is deporting more criminals than ever before.

In fiscal year 2008, ICE deported 369,221 people, 31 percent of whom had criminal records. The year before, 35 percent of the 291,060 people deported had criminal records.

Over the past two years, Immigration and Customs Enforcement also has greatly ramped up a program to identify illegal immigrants in the federal prison system and deport them. In fiscal 2008, ICE began proceedings to deport 46 percent more illegal-immigrant criminals than it did the previous year and 225 percent more than in fiscal year 2006, according to the agency's annual report.

Those numbers do not include the more than 78,000 illegal immigrants who have been placed in deportation proceedings over the past five years through a separate ICE program that trains state and local jail officials on how to identify inmates who are in the country illegally.

In Arizona, the number of people prosecuted for felony re-entry jumped 300 percent from 1997 to 2007, according to the Justice Department. Nationwide, prosecutions increased 150 percent during the same period.

Vincent Picard, an ICE spokesman in Phoenix, said the agency's Detention and Removal Operations has placed highest priority on those who "pose the most danger to our community," primarily illegal immigrants who have been convicted of violent crimes and major drug offenses.

From Jan. 1 through June 30 of this year, the ICE office in Phoenix had initiated 1,497 such cases, more than any other ICE office in the nation. The San Antonio office initiated the second-highest number, 997, and 96 percent of those cases were accepted for prosecution.

The U.S. Attorney's Office in Phoenix, however, because of limited resour- ces, accepted less than half of the Phoenix cases, 659, according to ICE records.

Nationwide, ICE has initiated 9,954 cases through June 30; 6,462 were accepted for prosecution.

Koehler, the assistant U.S. attorney in Phoenix, said the office can't keep up with all the cases, despite the addition of four prosecutors over the past year. As a result, the office focuses on the worst offenders, including deported immigrants with violent criminal histories and illegal immigrants who have re-entered multiple times.

"In a world of limited resources, you always have to prioritize your targets," Koehler said.

Illegal immigrants who aren't prosecuted are deported again. Koehler acknowledged that there is a chance some will return and commit more crimes.

"I think that there is always a class of people that is hard to deter from committing further crime," he said.

Killing thugs: You're Doing it Right!

Top cop Raymond Kelly says Harlem Blue Flame Co. owner "Shotgun Gus" shot in self-defense

BY Tanyanika Samuels and Corky Siemaszko

DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITERS

Sunday, August 16th 2009, 4:00 AM

Charles "Gus" Augusto, in the Blue Flame Corp., where he shot four robbers with his shotgun, killing two, and wounding two .

New York's top cop on Saturday defended the shotgun-toting Harlem businessman who became a reluctant hero by blasting the bandits terrorizing his store.

Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly said Charles (Gus) Augusto "acted in self-defense" when he killed two thugs and wounded two more on Thursday.

"He certainly had the right to defend himself and his co-workers," he said. "I know he took no pleasure in this thing. It was the toughest day of his life."

Kelly spoke as officials prepared to arraign the two tough guys who survived being shot by Augusto on Thursday.

"No one could take pleasure in taking a life, but all indications are he acted pursuant to New York penal law," Kelly said of Augusto.

A 72-year-old businessman who has operated the Blue Flame restaurant supply store for decades, Augusto grabbed his gun after the invaders burst into his store and began beating up his store clerk.

Augusto said he told the alleged ringleader, 29-year-old James Morgan of Manhattan, they had no money and pleaded with him to let them go. But Morgan wouldn't listen and resumed pistol-whipping Toxie (JB) Hall.

So Augusto fired three times, killing Morgan and 21-year-old Raylin Footmon. Shamel McCloud and Bernard Witherspoon, both 21, staggered bleeding out of the store and were quickly caught by cops.

"I would have been happy if they'd all run out of the door," Augusto told The Daily News on Friday when he reopened his store on West 125th St. "I'm sick to my stomach over it."

Augusto also bristled at being called a hero.

"I would have felt like a hero if I could have talked that kid into going home," he said.

Asked if he had another weapon in case somebody else tried to rob him, Augusto said, "I'm not going to tell you that."

It was later discovered that Augusto did not have a permit for the shotgun, which he had purchased more than 20 years earlier - and had hoped he would never have to fire.

Police officials said Saturday that shotgun owners are required to register their weapons with the city - unlike permits needed for handguns. Augusto's shotgun was registered.

Augusto stayed home Saturday and the store was closed.

The front door was still pitted from the shotgun blasts. And on the sidewalk, specks of blood were still visible.

Sometimes you just need to remember the good times.

Tip your hat and thank the man. Would America be the same without him?

Way to go Gus!!!

Blue Flame owner kills two: Harlem's restaurant supply owner shoots two dead after botched robbery

BY Kerry Burke, Alison Gendar and Bill Hutchinson

DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITERS
Friday, August 14th 2009, 5:07 AM




Charles Augusto, (in blue shirt and white T-shirt) owner of the Kaplan Brothers Blue Flame Co. is led out after apparently shooting four people with a shotgun during a robbery.

A shotgun-wielding owner of a Harlem restaurant-supply company blasted two robbers to death and wounded two others on Thursday when he caught them pistol-whipping his employee, police said.
Turning the tables on the brutish bandits, 72-year-old Charles (Gus) Augusto opened fire with a 12-gauge shotgun he kept handy for such occasions, cops and witnesses said.

"He's been robbed before, so I'm not totally amazed," said Stefany Blyn, who rents a space above the store from Augusto.

"They ran into some tough stuff today," witness Vernon McKenzie, 48, said of the stickup men, including one whose bloody corpse was splayed on the sidewalk in front of Augusto's store on W. 125th St. near Amsterdam Ave.

The robbers stormed into the business, Kaplan Brothers Blue Flame, just after 3 p.m. demanding cash.

"He did a large cash business," a police source said. "They were probably watching the place and made a move after a sell."

Neighbors said Augusto, who was not charged last night, had sold a stove earlier in the day.

The stickup crew - three 21-year-olds and a 29-year-old - came prepared with a pistol and plastic handcuffs. They tried to tie up two of Augusto's employees - a 35-year-old man and his 47-year-old female co-worker, said Deputy Police Commissioner Paul Browne.

"The male employee started to struggle, and then, as he did that, the perp with the gun struck him once in the head," Browne said.

"... That's when the owner opened fire with the shotgun."

As the bandits bolted from the store, Augusto squeezed off three blasts from the pistol-grip shotgun from 20 to 30 feet away from the pistol-whipped employee.

He was deadly accurate. The four bandits - who were all from Manhattan - were hit.

Two of the robbers were struck in the back. One, identified as James Morgan, dropped dead inside the store among the sparkling gas stoves, a pistol near his body.

The other - Raylin Footmon, a nephew of a cop in the NYPD's 25th Precinct - made it across the street before collapsing on the sidewalk, police and witnesses said. He was later pronounced dead at St. Luke's Hospital.

The furious employee who had been pistol-whipped ran out of the store and leaned over the mortally wounded Footmon, cursing at him, witnesses said.

The worker went back into the store and dragged Morgan's body onto the sidewalk, yelling at him and kicking him, witnesses said.

"He stood over the body cursing him and shaking him, even though he was dead," said Matthew Viane, 38, who lives in the neighborhood. "He was screaming at him and stomping him. "He [the employee] said, 'You were going to kill me? Now you're dead!'"

Viane said he overheard the 35-year-old employee - whom cops took away from the scene in handcuffs, but later released - thanking Augusto.

"Gus, you saved my life. You saved my life," Viane quoted the worker as saying.

A man who worked at Blue Flame a couple of years ago unloading trucks said Augusto was just sticking up for himself.

"He's a respectable businessman. ... He wouldn't hurt a fly. He found a deer by his house and nursed him back to health. He loves animals," said the man, who declined to give his name.

Cops followed a bloody trail to Amsterdam Ave., where they found the third suspect, Bernard Whitherspoon. He was in police custody last night at St. Luke's where he was being treated for his wounds. He was in stable condition.

The remaining robbery suspect, Shamel McCloud, was nabbed at 128th St. and St. Nicholas Terrace after being identified by a witness. He was also in stable condition at St. Luke's last night.

Augusto told cops he bought his shotgun after a robbery nearly 30 years ago. Browne said it was unclear Thursday night if Augusto has a license for the weapon.

"He's being treated as a witness and the victim of an attempted robbery," Browne said of Augusto. "He has not been arrested or charged."

A police source said that if Augusto is hit with a charge, it will be a minor one. "It doesn't look too bad for him," the source said.

OK, dragging the guy outside, kicking him and yelling at him as he expires is a bit much. But this is New York, you know how they get when you piss them off.

Hey wait a minute..... I'm Paul and I don't support that kind of thing...

 

 

"A government which robs Peter to pay Paul can always depend on the support of Paul." George Bernard Shaw (1944)

Of course they do.

Officials see rise in militia groups across US

Aug 12 12:09 AM US/Eastern By EILEEN SULLIVAN Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) - Militia groups with gripes against the government are regrouping across the country and could grow rapidly, according to an organization that tracks such trends. The stress of a poor economy and a liberal administration led by a black president (of course, it's our closeted racism... why not? ) are among the causes for the recent rise, the report from the Southern Poverty Law Center says. Conspiracy theories about a secret Mexican plan to reclaim the Southwest are also growing amid the public debate about illegal immigration. Bart McEntire, a special agent with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, told SPLC researchers that this is the most growth he's seen in more than a decade. "All it's lacking is a spark," McEntire said in the report. It's reminiscent of what was seen in the 1990s—right-wing militias, people ideologically against paying taxes and so-called "sovereign citizens" are popping up in large numbers, according to the report to be released Wednesday. The SPLC is a nonprofit civil rights group that, among other activities, investigates hate groups. Last October, someone from the Ohio Militia posted a recruiting video on YouTube, billed as a "wake-up call" for America. It's been viewed more than 60,000 times. "Things are bad, things are real bad, and it's going to be a lot worse," said the man on the video, who did not give his name. "Our country is in peril." The man is holding an AR-15 semiautomatic rifle, and he encourages viewers to buy one. While anti-government sentiment has been on the rise over the last two years, there aren't as many threats and violent acts at this point as there were in the 1990s, according to the report. That movement bore the likes of Timothy McVeigh, who in 1995 blew up a federal building in Oklahoma City and killed 168 people. But McEntire fears it's only a matter of time. These militias are concentrated in the Midwest, Pacific Northwest and the Deep South, according to Mark Potok, an SPLC staff director who co-wrote the report. Recruiting videos and other outreach on the Internet are on the rise, he said, and researchers from his center found at least 50 new groups in the last few months. The militia movement of the 1990s gained traction with growing concerns about gun control, environmental laws and anything perceived as liberal government meddling. The spark for that movement came in 1992 with an FBI standoff with white separatist Randall Weaver at Ruby Ridge, Idaho. Weaver's wife and son were killed by an FBI sniper. And in 1993, a 52-day standoff between federal agents and the Branch Davidian cult in Waco, Texas, resulted in nearly 80 deaths. These events rallied more people who became convinced that the government would murder its own citizens to promote its liberal agenda. (Kinda hard not to come to that conclusion. Weaver's wife and son were unarmed, and you could have just starved the Davidians out eventually.) Now officials are seeing a new generation of activists, according to the report. The law center spotlights Edward Koernke, a Michigan man who hosts an Internet radio show about militias. His father, Mark, was a major figure in the 1990s militia movement and served six years in prison for charges including assaulting police. Last year, officials warned about an increase in activity from militias in a five-year threat projection by the Homeland Security Department. "White supremacists and militias are more violent and thus more likely to conduct mass-casualty attacks on the scale of the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing," the threat projection said. A series of domestic terrorism incidents over the past year have not been directly tied to organized militias, but the rhetoric behind some of the crimes are similar with that of the militia movement. For instance, the man charged with the April killings of three Pittsburgh police officers posted some of his views online. Richard Andrew Poplawski wrote that U.S. troops could be used against American citizens, and he thinks a gun ban could be coming. (If you are a crazy liberal killer, it's poignant and worthy of analysis. If you are a crazy conservative killer, it's the vanguard operation of a secret militia plot.... God forbid we just call them crazy.) The FBI's assistant director for counterterrorism, Michael Heimbach, said that law enforcement officials need to identify people who go beyond hateful rhetoric and decide to commit violent acts and crimes. Heimbach said one of the bigger challenges is identifying the lone-wolf offenders. One alleged example of a lone-wolf offender is the 88-year-old man charged in the June shooting death of a guard at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington. (Lone wolf my ass. How about "hate filled, crazy-ass motherfucker?" We give too little credit to the effects of being an out of touch with humanity psycho) 1. Plant a scary militia story. 2. Cause gun owners to buy more guns and ammo out of fear of the eventual militia crackdown. 3. Point to increase in weapons ownership as proof of growing militias. 4. Scare more people into buying weapons....

Faces of Woman

It's not insulting. If you're not a woman, you've never been on the receiving end of these looks.

Nice.....

HEADLINE: Man Dies After Taser Used.....

Phoenix police kill man after seeing him stab woman

by Meghan Boehnke - Aug. 2, 2009 05:45 PM
The Arizona Republic

Two Phoenix police officers shot and killed a man, 53, after watching him stab a woman in his bedroom and then turn on them.

The woman, 48, who police think is the man's common-law wife, is in critical condition with several stab wounds to the chest, said Detective James Holmes, police spokesman.

Police arrived at the couple's home on Cochise Drive near 19th and Peoria avenues shortly before 2 p.m. Sunday. When they got to the scene the couple's 14-year-old son told officers his father was stabbing his mother inside the home. The boy, who had a friend visiting, first asked his neighbor for help. When the neighbor went inside, the father threatened him.

Four officers entered the house tactically. They saw the man in the bedroom stabbing his wife and demanded he dropped his weapon. When he didn't, one of the officers used a taser on him.

The man tried to cut the probes on the taser before turning on the officer who deployed it. Two other officers then shot three to four bullets at the man, said Holmes. The man was pronounced dead at the scene.

Police are unsure what the couple was arguing about.

The two officers will be put on paid administrative leave, as with all officer involved shootings.

Yeah, the taser didn't cause his death... but it makes an attractive headline.

Sad

July 30, 2009

Time: Approximately 1118 Hours
Location: 3200 N. 37th Street
Report #: 2009-91213316
Victim: Jose Favela-Lopez
H/M 52-years-old

Suspect: UNKNOWN

On July 30, 2009, at about at about 11:18 a.m., the Phoenix Police Department received a call of "unknown trouble" at the apartments located at 3200 N. 37th Street. When they got there, they found Jose Favela-Lopez had been murdered inside one of the apartments. Mr. Favela-Lopez was the manager of the apartments and had been preparing the apartment he was found in for future tenants. In addition, he had been spending time in the apartment to prevent possible vandalism, which could occur because it was vacant. The cause of death is not being released.

The case is on-going and at this time, there is no suspect information. Investigators are asking for help from the community. If anyone saw or heard something or has any information about this incident, they are encouraged to call the Phoenix Police Department, Violent Crimes Bureau at (602) 262-6141 or "SILENT WITNESS" at (480) W-I-T-N-E-S-S. For Spanish, call (480) T-E-S-T-I-G-O.

 

For all I know, Mr. Favela-Lopez was armed.  I am not here to say "a gun in his hand would have prevented this."  I am here to say let the cops do their jobs and don't put yourself in harms way.