There are no "routine" traffic stops.

Officer Shot, Killed During Traffic Stop

Lt. Eric Shuhandler A 12-Year Veteran Of Gilbert Police Department

POSTED: 6:43 am MST January 29, 2010

UPDATED: 8:43 am MST January 29, 2010

PHOENIX -- More than 20 investigators are at the scene where a Gilbert Police Department veteran was shot and killed during a routine traffic stop late Thursday evening.

According to a representative from the Gilbert Police Department, Lt. Eric Shuhandler, a 12-year veteran of the department, was shot once in the parking lot of a Fry's Marketplace at Val Vista Drive and Baseline Road.

"Two Mesa police sergeants were across the street, just north of Baseline," said spokesman Sgt. Mark Marino. "They heard the shot that was fired. They came over almost immediately (and) discovered Lt. Shuhandler."

Shuhandler was transported to the Maricopa Medical Center, where he was pronounced dead, police said.

The two suspects were spotted near Greenfield and Baseline roads, and officers chased them on U.S. 60 to Superior, police said. Both men were hit during a shootout with officers at the end of the pursuit.

During the pursuit, the suspects threw debris from the work truck, disabling two patrol cars and a civilian vehicle, police said.

Both suspects are in stable condition with non-life-threatening injuries, authorities said.

The Arizona Department of Public Safety will take the lead in the investigation of the pursuit and the shootout on U.S. 60, a DPS representative said. The road will remain closed until officers have finished gathering evidence.
Take the perps out of the hospital and shoot them both.  Save the time, trouble and cost of a trial.  I don't want to hear the wailing and lamentations of their mothers, sisters or baby-mamas.  I want them dead, today would be good.  Oh gee, is this politically incorrect?  Maybe mean or insensitive?  So is shooting officer Shuhandler. 
I demand an eye for an eye, I think God does too.

DPS confronts man with children on I-17

Garcia told authorities that their car had broken down, but officers found no car in the area. When officers asked Garcia to move to the other side of the guardrail with the children, he began to act frantic, authorities said. With the 5-year-old in his arms, Garcia started walking north into traffic, leaving the 6-year-old on the shoulder.

The officer attempted to calm Garcia down by stepping back, but Garcia continued into the next lane. Because traffic was light at the time, Garcia made it to the far lane, adjacent to the HOV lane.

Drivers noticed Garcia and came to a stop, allowing the officer to run into the road. Two Phoenix police officers traveling in unmarked cars arrived at the scene.

As Garcia became cornered, he claimed to have a gun. Officers used a Taser and forced him to the ground, according to DPS.

Officers discovered he had a fully loaded .45-caliber Taurus pistol, extra ammunition and a glass smoking device in his pockets. A check of the pistol revealed it was stolen.

Both children were unharmed and taken into Child Protective Services custody. CPS has begun an investigation.

Garcia was arrested and taken to the Fourth Avenue Jail. He could face charges of child abuse, threatening or intimidating, misconduct involving weapons, aggravated assault on a police officer, endangerment, possession of drug paraphernalia, obstruction of a highway, and theft and possession of stolen property.

I could walk to the site of this and not break a sweat.

PHOENIX (AP) - Authorities say a suspect in a domestic violence incident was shot and killed after he pulled out a gun and two Phoenix police officers opened fire.

Sgt. Tommy Thompson says neither of the officers, both 35-years-old, were injured in the shooting Monday night.

According to Thompson, the officers were investigating a domestic violence situation when they spotted a 51-year-old man who turned out to be a suspect in the case. When the officers attempted to contact the man, he pulled out a gun and the officers shot him.

The man's name has not been released. The officers are being placed on administrative leave pending an investigation, which is standard procedure.

Dear John.....

Former Ariz. congressman plans run against McCain

 

 PHOENIX (AP) - Former Arizona Congressman J.D. Hayworth says he's planning to run against John McCain for his U.S. Senate seat.

Hayworth told The Associated Press late Friday that he stepped down as host of his radio program on KFYI-AM, a conservative radio talk show in Phoenix. Legally, he wouldn't be able to host the program and be an active candidate.

Hayworth was ousted from his Congressional seat in 2007 after 12 years in office by Democrat Harry Mitchell, and has hosted the radio show for the past few years.

Hayworth says he's not formally announcing a run for the Senate seat, but that "we're moving forward to challenge John McCain."

He added that he's had a wonderful time at KFYI, but "it's time to enter public life again."

Dear John:  You lost the presidential election because you weren't conservative enough.  You had to bring in Sarah Palin to bump up your creds, and since she wasn't going to be president, we didn't vote for you.  You really have lost the conservative base in you home state, being such a liberal and all.  JD was in the house for 12 years (good enough).  He's amiable, well spoken and can whip your tired old ass. 

PS. Thanks for the Viet Nam service, we still consider you a war hero.  But then we still consider Charles Barkley and Michael Jordan to be Basketball players too.

Hmmmm....

 

 

Why is it, when a Republican gets elected, the voters are described as “angry” and when a Liberal Democrat gets elected, suddenly the voters are “enlightened, yearning for hope and change”?

Ah, those quaint customs South of the Border....

Human head found by tomb of Mexican drug lord Beltran Leyva

 

Mexico City - A human head and a red flower were found Sunday by the tomb of Mexican drug lord Arturo Beltran Leyva, who was killed by Mexican security forces in a raid last month. The office of the Attorney General of the state of Sinaloa said that an employee of the Jardines del Humaya cemetery in the city of Culiacan, about 1,200 kilometres northwest of Mexico City, had informed them of the finding. Several suspected drug bosses are buried in that cemetery.

Mexican authorities did not immediately know the identity of the person whose head was laid on the steps of access to the tomb with a flower in one ear. The rest of the body was found inside a plastic bag in the same cemetery, by the tomb of Gonzalo "El Chalo" Araujo, a boss of the Sinaloa drug cartel who was killed in October 2006.

Beltran Leyva, a former boss of the Sinaloa cartel, died on December 16 in a clash with members of the Mexican Navy in Cuernavaca, about 70 kilometres south of Mexico City.

The drug lord known as "El Barbas" had created in 2008 a new cartel under his own family name, after splitting with the Sinaloa cartel. He was regarded as one of Mexico's most dangerous drug traffickers.

Violence linked to organized crime claimed over 7,700 dead in Mexico in 2009, according to a count made by the daily El Universal.

Obama stumps for Coakley; Scott Brown holds counter-rally

By Matt Viser, Eric Moskowitz, and Martin Finucane, Globe Staff

President Barack Obama urged Massachusetts voters at a Boston rally today to cast their ballots for Democrat Martha Coakley, saying she would fight for working people while her opponent, Scott Brown, is marching in "lockstep" with Washington Republicans who want to return to the failed policies of the Bush-Cheney administration.

Yeah, those eight years were pretty sucky.  Must be why he was elected twice.

"Where we don't want to go now is backwards," (Since when does he impersonate Yoda?)  Obama told a crowd of 1,500 Coakley supporters at a Northeastern University gymnasium. "We've got so much work left to do. ... I can't do it alone. I need leaders like Martha by my side so we can kick it into high gear, so we can finish what we've started." 

This country won't willingly trash itself ya know...

Obama traveled to the city to lend a hand to Coakley, the state's attorney general, because she is facing an unexpectedly tough challenge from Brown, a previously little-known state senator, in a race that could be crucial to the president's success in pressing his agenda in Washington. The president's appearance will be a key test of his ability to reenergize his dispirited party, the Globe reported this morning.

The president's speech was briefly interrupted by a shout of "Abortion! Abortion! Innocent Blood!" Two men and an 8-year-old boy were escorted out of the room by police. One of the men could be seen holding a placard that read, "Jesus loves all babies."

Brown held a competing rally at about the same time at Mechanics Hall in Worcester that was attended by 2,200 people, with other people spilling over into two additional rooms.

The rally's speakers included a number of Massachusetts sports and entertainment celebrities, including former Red Sox ace Curt Schilling; Doug Flutie, the former Boston College and NFL quarterback; John Ratzenberger, the actor who portrayed "Cliff" on the TV show "Cheers," and Brown's daughter, Ayla, a BC basketball player and former American Idol contestant.

One sign said, "The president may be in Boston, but the real people of Mass. are here with Scott Brown in Worcester."  And we cool like dat.......

Some of the sports figures likened the feeling at the rally, which came just two days before the election, to that of a locker room before a team goes out to win a championship.

"This feels to me like a clubhouse on the morning of Game 7," said Schilling, a World Series hero for the Red Sox.  AND ARIZONA DIAMONDBACKS!!!!!!

"I stand before you as the proud candidate of Democrats, Republicans, and independents across Massachusetts, north and south, east and west," Brown told the crowd. "I will serve no faction but Massachusetts. I will pursue no agenda but what is right. I will be nobody's senator but yours."

"Friends and fellow citizens, I'm Scott Brown, I'm from Wrentham, I drive a truck and I'm asking for your vote," said Brown, who has made much of the fact that he owns a pickup truck with 200,000 miles on it.

But Obama told people at the Boston rally, "You've got to look under the hood," saying that Brown had a record of voting with the Republicans 96 percent of the time and it would be "hard to suggest" he would be independent from the Republican agenda.

Coakley told the crowd that "people are angry at the policies of the past that frankly rewarded the wealthy and left Main Street behind" and that people "deserve someone who's going to tackle the tough problems and get us back on track."

"Scott Brown is on the side of Wall Street CEOs. I'm on the side of taxpayers. I'm on your side to make sure that we change this," she said.

A series of Massachusetts elected officials spoke to the crowd before Obama took the stage. Victoria Reggie Kennedy, the widow of Edward M. Kennedy, whose death opened up the seat the Brown and Coakley are vying for, also spoke.

"As Teddy would say, Jan. 19 is the date, Massachusetts is the state, and Martha Coakley is our candidate," Kennedy told the crowd.  And then he would say, "errrr, ahhhh, weah are da broads at?  I, errr ahhh, seem to have misplaced my gin rickey.... errrrrahhhh."

Outside in the streets earlier today, an energetic crowd of thousands, most of them young people, stood in lines that stretched about a half-mile, hoping to get into the event.

Many held Coakley campaign signs. Some said they had been waiting for hours. Sarah Jane Vaughan, 31, of Arlington, said she was attending the event because she wanted to support Coakley. "It is nice right now that everyone is energized," she said.

Dozens of Brown supporters were also there, holding signs for their candidate bearing messages such as, "Make Obama frown, Vote for Scott Brown" and "What makes Dems vote Red, Big Bad Brown!"

Coakley entered the special election, which is on Tuesday, with a huge advantage: Registered Democrats in Massachusetts outnumber Republicans three-to-one, and the GOP hasn't won a US Senate seat here since 1972. But Brown has apparently tapped into a discontented electorate and appears to be making headway with the unpredictable independents who make up the majority of the voters.

If Brown were elected, it could have an immediate impact on the debate over health care reform in Washington. Brown has promised to be the 41st vote against the president's health care reform bill in Washington, while Coakley has promised to be the 60th vote for it. Political pundits are saying a victory by Brown could put Obama's entire agenda in Washington in jeopardy and foreshadow a seismic political shift in Washington toward the GOP.

Come on Mass.  Do what's right.

Independent Joseph L. Kennedy, who is no relation to the famous Massachusetts political family, is also running.  Not even sure why we brought him up.