Confessions: Love Triangle

 

Dear Justice,

I have been dating my girlfriend for the past 6 months and I really love her. We are perfect for each other. She makes me laugh. She cheers me up. And she’s always there for me. I definitely see a future for us, but there’s one thing I have to take care of before we can move forward. I am married and have been for the past six years. My wife and I live in separate states and I pretty much do my own thing. We have three kids and I love my kids with all my heart but I can’t stay in this relationship when I’m in love with someone else. I haven’t told my wife that I want a divorce nor have I told my girlfriend that I’m married. I don’t want to lose my girlfriend but I also don’t want to hurt my wife and kids. Justice please help me make the right decision before I ruin my life.

Sincerely,

Confused in New York

Bill Cosby's Side of the Story Against Beverly Johnson (Pictures)

CNN has responded with a fiery retort at Bill Cosby's lawyer. CNN representatives were defending a decision NOT to include Beverly Johnson's boyfriend as part of a network special. The Network described him as a criminal with an ax to grind.

Cosby's lawyer, Martin Singer countered on Friday with a pretty nasty as well. He asserted that they were rigging a story to exploit the comedian. Model, Beverly Johnson accused Cosby of drugging her in the 1980s. Singer added that Johnson spoke very highly of Cosby during this time and never mentioned the incident.

Johnson’s live in boyfriend; Mark Burk wasn’t present when the alleged drugging occurred, but she claims she has complained to him about the incident many times. CNN also stated that the relevance of Johnson saying bad things to Burk about Cosby is immaterial.

Burk also has a criminal history, multiple restraining orders keeping him away from Johnson and threats to kill her.

CNN also cites that Burk isn't credible because he filed a bogus lawsuit against Johnson for palimony. 

NYC Cop Killer's Motive Revealed (Pictures)

The man who shot and killed two New York City police officers as they sat in their patrol car had posted angry messages on social media, ranting against the government and police, New York Police Department's Chief of Detectives Robert Boyce said Sunday.

Ismaaiyl Brinsley, 28, also posted messages of self-loathing and despair and made reference online to Michael Brown and Eric Garner, African-American men who were killed by police.

"I'm Putting Wings on Pigs Today. They Take 1 of Ours, Let's Take 2 of Theirs," an Instagram post read, authorities said.

Brinsley had a lengthy criminal record. He was arrested 15 times in Georgia for assorted crimes and arrested four times in Ohio, Boyce told reporters Sunday.

He was in prison in Georgia between August 2011 and July 2013 for criminal possession of a weapon, Boyce said.

Brinsley had an address connected to him in Georgia but that appears to be his sister's home, and they are estranged, Boyce said. The gunman's connection to Brooklyn is that his mother lives there, but they are also estranged, the chief of detectives said.

On Saturday afternoon, Brinsley fired four rounds at officers Rafael Ramos and Wenjian Liu in the Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood. The officers, who were hit in head, were assigned from their normal downtown Brooklyn beat to an area of the borough with a high crime rate, authorities said.

 

New York City Police Commissioner William Bratton said the officers were shot "with no warning, no provocation."

Witnesses saw Brinsley walk to the car and assume what they described as a shooting stance.

"They were, quite simply, assassinated," Bratton said.

At a nearby subway station, Brinsley was found dead of a self-inflicted gunshot wound, authorities said.

A message from a teenage son of Ramos' showed the heartbreaking devastation the crime has caused.

"Today is the worst day of my life," 13-year-old Jaden Ramos posted on Facebook about the slaying of his father, Rafael Ramos.

"Today I had to say bye to my father," the teenager wrote. "He was (there) for me every day of my life; he was the best father I could ask for. It's horrible that someone gets shot dead just for being a police officer. Everyone says they hate cops but they are the people that they call for help. I will always love you and I will never forget you. RIP Dad."

The thin blue line

Family and friends of Ramos spoke to reporters Sunday, expressing support for police and a desire for change.

"We're just hopeful that this tragedy will not be in vain and that we will be able to heed the words of the Ramos family and bring the city together to heal," said U.S. Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, a Democrat who represents large sections of Brooklyn.

Ramos had just turned 40; Liu had been married two months ago.

Both had dreamed of being police officers, Bratton said.

"One of the unfortunate realities of policing is that you put that blue uniform on and you become part of the thin blue line between us and anarchy," Bratton said.

He sent a memo to NYPD officers about the killings, saying the officers were "targeted for their uniform, and for the responsibility they embraced: to keep the people of this city safe."

Liu and Ramos "will be remembered," he wrote. "They will join a line that is too long, a line of partners who served together and made the ultimate sacrifice together." The memo then named other officers who have lost their lives. "May God grant Officer Wenjian Liu and Officer Rafael Ramos rest.  And to all members of the service, be safe," he said.

New York Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo directed that all flags on state government buildings in New York City be flown at half-staff.

Mayor Bill de Blasio and Bratton met with the families of the victims.

"When a police officer is murdered, it tears at the foundation of our society," the mayor said. "It is an attack on the very concept of decency."

President Barack Obama condemned the shooting, and called Bratton on Sunday to express condolences for the slain officers.

"Two brave men won't be going home to their loved ones tonight, and for that, there is no justification," Obama said in a statement. "The officers who serve and protect our communities risk their own safety for ours every single day -- and they deserve our respect and gratitude every single day."

U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder called the attack "an unspeakable act of barbarism."

The suspect and his lethal travels

Brinsley arrived in New York from Baltimore but had a home in the Atlanta suburb of Union City, Georgia.

Boyce said that there is no indication that Brinsley had any gang ties, and police have found no religious statements on social media accounts that investigators continue to pour through.

Before he arrived in Brooklyn by bus, Brinsley had shot and seriously wounded an ex-girlfriend in Baltimore on Saturday morning, Boyce said. Shaneka Nicole Thompson, 29, was shot in the abdomen, Baltimore authorities said Sunday.

She is in critical but stable condition at a hospital, authorities told CNN. Investigators were able to talk to her, Boyce said. She said that when Brinsley showed up at her apartment, they argued. Her mother called during that and heard the bickering but the phone hung up, according to Boyce. The first call to 911 came at 5:50 a.m. from a neighbor who heard shots fired.

Brinsley later called the mother back and apologized for shooting her daughter, saying it was an accident and that he hoped she lived, Boyce said.

Baltimore authorities communicated to New York police Sunday at about 2:10 p.m. when Baltimore County police made a phone call to the 70th Precinct in New York to tell police there that the phone of a suspect wanted in Thompson's shooting was pinging at a location in the 70th Precinct.

The two police departments discussed an Instagram post, allegedly by Brinsley, that read, "I'm Putting Wings On Pigs Today." The posting made reference, police said, to the high-profile deaths of African-Americans Michael Brown and Eric Garner. Police officers killed both men.

"They Take 1 Of Ours, Let's Take 2 of Theirs," the post said, according to authorities. The account also displayed a handgun and a message that said it might be the poster's last message.

 

Baltimore County police also faxed a "wanted" poster to New York police with information about Brinsley.

Records show Brinsley had a lengthy arrest record in Georgia, mostly involving charges of shoplifting and illegal weapons possession, records show.

He was also charged with property damage and obstructing a police officer and pleaded guilty to many of the charges, according to police and court records.

Reaction: 'This can't happen'

The shooting shocked residents in the neighborhood.

"This can't happen. If you mad at somebody, be mad at the person that you are mad at. Now, we have two families that (are) missing somebody for the holidays," Shaniqua Pervis told CNN affiliate WABC.

"Where is your humanity? I know it's a war going on and shoutout to Eric Garner's family and everybody else who lost somebody, but you're not at his house, on his lawn. This is two (officers). You don't even know if (they were) good or bad. I don't condone this, and I'm not with it."

The woman was referring to the controversial July death of the unarmed black man after New York police officers on Staten Island wrestled him to the ground, with one of the officers wrapping his arm around Garner's neck in a chokehold.

Source: CNN

N.C. teen's death ruled a suicide; but his mother believes he was lynched (Pictures)

A 17 year old Bladenboro, North Carolina teen was found hanging in a mobile home park after he left home for a walk. Family members believe Lennon Lacy was the victim of a lynching as a result of an interracial relationship with a 31 year old woman. 

The teen's mother, Claudia Lacy says she can accept anything: even that her youngest son committed suicide, if it's proven and explained to her.

According to Lacy, local and state investigators have done neither to support their theory that Lennon Lacy hanged himself one summer night.

"That's all I've ever asked for: what is due, owed rightfully to me and my family -- justice. Prove to me what happened to my child," added Lacy.

She says she's long lost confidence in the Bladenboro Police Department and the North Carolina State Bureau of Investigation.

Currently, the FBI is looking into the teen's death and the local and state investigations that followed.

"I look for him and I don't see him. I listen for him and I don't hear him," says the grief stricken 
mother.

The last time Lacy was seen or heard of was the night of August 28. Lennon was focused on playing football and was a lineman for the West Bladen High School Knights.

His family says that night, he packed a gym bag, washed his ankle brace and hung it on the 
clothesline to dry before leaving the apartment for an evening walk.

The teen was diagnosed with asthma, and was advised by a doctor to exercise outdoors at night when the temperature and humidity dropped. Around 10:30 pm, Lennon left and headed down a dirt road.

Just before 7:30 the next morning, he was found hanging from the frame of a swing set in the center of a mobile home community. According to medical documents, his body was covered in fire ants.

Lennon's mother was called to the scene several hours later, after he'd been placed into a body bag. 

"It was unreal. It was like a dream. It was like I was not seeing what I was seeing," Lacy says.

Immediately, Lacy believed her son's death was the result of some foul play.

"He didn't do this to himself," Lacy says.

She believes Lennon was lynched.

"He may have either been strangled somewhere else or been placed there or he was hung there while people were around watching him die," Lennon's older brother, Pierre Lacey says.

However, North Carolina's Chief Medical Examiner Dr. Deborah Radisch declared his death a 
suicide.

When a state investigator asked Lacy if her son had been depressed recently, she told them he had -- because a relative had died recently. The state medical examiner cited that exchange in the autopsy report. Lacy says she did not mean that her son had been suffering from depression.

"When you just lose someone close to you, you're going to be depressed, upset, in mourning," Lacy says.

"I was shocked, disappointed. I also, initially told him how I felt - that I did not approve of it," Lacy 
says.

In the wake of his death, some wondered whether Lennon had been killed because he was in an 
interracial relationship.

A week after Lennon was buried, a local teenager was arrested for defacing his grave.

"There are too many questions and it very well could be a lynching or a staged lynching. We don't 
know -- but what we do know is there has to be a serious and full investigation of these matters," says Rev. William Barber, a national board member for the NAACP.

The NAACP hired Florida-based forensic pathologist Christena Roberts to analyze the case and Dr. Radisch's autopsy, completed for the state.

Roberts' first concern: basic physics. Lennon was 5-foot-9. The crossbar of the swing set frame he was found hanging from was 7-foot-6, according to the NAACP review. With no swings or anything at the scene on which he could have climbed, according to the review, it's unclear how Lennon reached the top.

"His size, his stature does not add up to him being capable of constructing all of this alone - in the dark," Lennon's brother says.

According to the 911 recording and the initial police report, a 52-year-old woman got the 207-pound teen down, while she was on the phone with an emergency dispatcher.

"Dr. Radisch also noted that she was not provided with photographs or dimensions of the swing set. Without this information, she would be unable to evaluate the ability to create this scenario," according to the NAACP review.

Lacy says she told investigators that the belts used to fashion the noose did not belong to Lennon.

"I know every piece and every stitch of clothes this child has -- I buy them, I know. Those were not his belts," Lacy says.

The Bladen County Coroner and Medical Examiner Hubert Kinlaw believed the belts might have 
been dog leashes.

Radisch thought that "some portion must be missing because there was no secondary cut in either belt. The cut would have been necessary to bring down Lennon's body," according to the review.

Also, the shoes Lennon was wearing when his body was found were not his, according to his family.

Lennon's brother says he left home that night wearing size 12 Air Jordan's. However, he was found wearing size 10.5 Nike Air Force shoes. Those shoes were not with Lennon's body when he arrived at the state medical examiner's office, according to the NAACP review.

"He's going to walk a quarter mile from his house in a pair of shoes that's two sizes too small after he takes off his new pair of shoes - and this is a 17-year-old black kid with a brand new pair of Jordan's on. 

He's going to take those Jordan's off and just get rid of them and put on some shoes that's not his -- we don't know where he got them from, no laces in them -- and continue to walk down this dirt road late at night to a swing set in the middle of the trailer park and hang himself," Lacey says.

"How can I believe that?" Lacey added.

There are also questions about who first declared Lennon's death a suicide.

"Dr. Radisch noted that her determination of (manner of death) in this case as suicide was based on the information she was provided by law enforcement and the local medical examiner. She would have likely called the (manner of death) 'pending' while awaiting toxicology and investigation but the (local medical examiner) had already signed the (manner of death) as suicide," according to the 
NAACP review.

However, in the summary of the case, written the day Lennon was found, the local medical examiner 
asked "did he hang self? Will autopsy tell us?" Kinlaw also left the conclusion on the manner of death "pending."

Local police and state investigators declined to speak with CNN. CNN asked to interview Radisch about the statements attributed to her in the NAACP review. Instead, a department spokesperson confirmed the exchanges through a written statement:

"The comments that were released by the NAACP were a synopsis of a professional exchange between the NAACP's independently-retained forensic pathologist and Dr. Radisch," according to a spokesperson for the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services.

Lennon's family believes there was a rush to judgment. And until someone clearly explains and proves how her son died, Lacy says she'll keep fighting until she gets answers.

"I take it one day at a time. That's all I can say," Lacy says.

Source: CNN.com