The You Shoot Me, I'll Shoot You Back . . . Later, Mindset

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I get upset anytime I read of children being the innocent victim of violence. Drive by shootings happens daily across this country. Durham, NC is no exception and that was proven in a harsh and violent way recently.


On the afternoon of Oct 23 Troy Lee Howard and two children 1-year-old Au-Nestii Hagans and 3-year-old Anaryiion Hagan were struck by bullets in a shooting on Driver Street. The children were inside their home and Howard was outside at a neighbor’s home. When police arrived they were told '3 masked men' drove up in a car and began shooting. However, at that time the police did not know if Howard was the intended victim or not.

Apparently a few days earlier on Oct 17, Tavarez Brown of Spruce Street was on Fern Street when he was the target of a shooting. Allegedly the shooting was perpetrated by John Tarver. So Brown decided you shoot me, I'll shoot you back. Later. So, on the Oct 23rd Tavarex Brown allegedly gathered his buddies, Jaunarais King and Arthur Clendenning and drove over to Driver Street and began shooting at John Tarver. The bullets missed Tarver but did hit the 2 children who were inside their nearby home. John Tarver shot back but his bullet struck Troy Lee Howard instead of his intended victims.

Residents of the neighborhood complained that shootings were becoming commonplace yet noone would give names of anyone who could have been involved. When police made a public plea -Help us help you - they received tips of possible shooters’ names.

Now, after the arrest of the alleged shooters, it seems a cousin of the victim Troy Howard says Arthur Clendenning was not a part of the foray of the 23rd. Allegedly Clendenning was at a home across the street from the Hangan's house. Even mom of the children. Dominique Hagans, says he couldn't have been one of the 3 shooters in the car because he was with her sister across the street and was the one who called to report the shooting. (Okay fine, but was he involved any way in some other manner such as contacting Brown and advising Tarver was outside his home?) I'd like to know how long he had been at Chandria Myers home. Had he arrived at the time the shootings happened or was there already? He could've been in the car, exited, then hotfooted it over to Myers home to make himself a part of an after the fact reaction and not the shooting action. Remember folks LE was told the day of the incident there were 3 Masked Men in the car - So if it wasn't Clendenning in the car, who else was involved?

The sad fact of all this is, all four of the accused have previous convictions on drug charges and Arthur Clendenning, Tavarez Brown and Jaunarais King also have convictions for carrying a concealed weapon. Brown was convicted of a couple assault charges previously. He was on probation. John Tarver was also on probation. Had all four still been in jail perhaps these children and Mr. Howard would not have been shot.

Even sadder is that two small babies were victims’ of others violent lifestyles. I am glad Mrs. Hagans is moving her children away from that street. They need to move forward and not be afraid in their home. I 100% agree with her comment as stateed in http://www.wral.com/news/local/story/10294259/
- "People just need to sit down and think about their actions sometimes. They actually don't affect (just) themselves. They affect other people (and) other people's families and children."

I'm also glad tips came in to police. I hope each of those involved goes to prison and serves a long full sentencing term without parole and is not given a short term sentence then probation. It's time to stop the violence in that neighborhood. Apparently two previous shootings occurred there over last 6 months when the victims were sitting on their porches. The residents need to move past this, whether Clendennings is an innocent bystander of the incident where Howard and the children were shot or not. He has a violent past so let him deal with his own legal problems and take back your streets! Gather neighbors and friends and make a pack to involve police with cleaning up the neighborhood of violent offenders. Keep the tips coming. Make it known, If you come on our street, to our neighborhood with your weapons and intent to harm, we'll turn you over to police - Then you are on your own. If the people believe Clendenning wasn't one of the shooters and knows who the alleged 3rd person in the car was, they need to call LE and advise them. After all, the police can't read minds. Let the cops do their job.

A Disturbing Case of Extreme Compassion

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Back in January a young woman was at her home and in the shower. A masked man, Christopher Bayer, welding a knife pulled back the shower curtain, pulled her out the bathroom and put her on the bed, held her down and cut her face when she struggled. Bayer is 21 and the young woman apparently around 19/20. I surmise the age since she mentioned in her impact statement that she didn’t have previous relationship with Bayer but they did go to same high school. Bayer was 2 grades ahead of her. Bayer told the police she and he were face book friends. In her statement she wrote that her family and the defendant’s family were acquainted and his family was kind, caring and supportive people. She did not verify their FB friendship.

The whole impact statement is very disturbing. I have to wonder why so soon after the attack Bayer was before a Judge and sentenced. I am worried that the victim had pressure from both families to agree to allow him to pay such a small price for his crime. And do it so soon, get it over with. He was violent, obviously knew who she was, and masked himself; probably in hope she wouldn’t recognize him. The Judge at the request of the victim and family sentenced Bayer to 6 months in jail, gave her a restraining order and gave him 5 year probation. He cannot contact her before 2019. The defendant stated she wanted him to have a chance to rehabilitate. The Assistant DA said the family wants Bayer to get psychiatric treatment; according to what I read he may have to go through sex offender counseling if the jail counselors feel he needs it.

Her impact statement details classic victim PTSD, including panic attacks and I pray she can go back to college and continue her education after they release him. She couldn’t read the statement herself, after a couple sentences her mother had to take it and read the statement for her.

This is a PDF of her statement: http://www.whec.com/whecimages/shower.attack.vic.statement.pdf  

Although I believe in compassion in some cases, this ‘extreme’ compassion disturbs me. I think they should have given him a much longer sentence in jail and still be on probation after release. Bayer apologized, said he was sorry for the 'victim’s family' and his family for his actions. But that doesn’t read like an apology to his victim. Just her family.

Violence Over A Parking Space

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I will never understand how someone can commit horrific violence of rage against others, and due to that lack of understanding, I see negatives when reading of it. On February 25, 2011, in New York, Lana Rosas decided to stand in a parking space and wait for her boyfriend to arrive so (according to reports in news) they could dine out. She wanted to save the parking spot for him.


Oscar Fuller wanted to park his car in the spot Lana was standing in so he could (according to reports in news) attend a birthday party. According to his account he ‘politely’ asked Lana to step aside so he could park and she refused. Mr. Fuller then exited his vehicle and she began punching him in the eye and face. Fuller claims self defense and reflex action for hitting Lana so hard it pulled her off the ground and caused her to drop to the concrete. Mr. Fuller fled the scene but Lana’s boyfriend saw the altercation and rushed to Lana’s defense. He also got the tag number of the car Fuller was driving.

Paramedics rushed an unconscious Lana to the hospital; she is still in a coma and fighting for her life. Doctors have removed part of her skull due to brain swelling. As they were treating Lana at the scene and later rushing her to the hospital, Mr. Fuller calmly went to that birthday party.

Fuller says he regrets hitting her and wishes it’d never happened. He blames his reflex actions on his teen years when he was attacked and cut on the face. The scars of that cut are still visible on his face today. However, it seems Mr. Fuller has a history of committing assault and drug possession.  Fuller is a big man, 5-feet-7 weighing at least 150 pounds. Lana weighs 100 pounds and is 4-foot-11.

I do not know if the altercation was caught on a camera or if Lana’s boyfriend or some other bystander just witnessed it, but ‘no excuse’ is a good excuse for doing what he did. So far as I know, we only have his word that Lana attacked him first. He claims he is a man of God and does not hit women. I ask, if she did throw the first punch, why did she? Did Fuller threaten her and that was why he exited his car, to carry out that threat? I personally see no reason he should have left his car if he did not intend to harm her in some way.

I am a bit upset that while Lana lies in a hospital bed fighting for her life, Oscar Fuller is out on bail living his.

A 'Monster' Rapist is in Detroit

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I’ve been breathing a sigh of relief since the TX rapist of elderly women, dubbed ‘The Twilight Rapist’, was apprehended earlier this month. I thanked God and felt appreciation that his victims and others who lived in fear could now go about their life knowing he was in jail. Any person who violently abuses the elderly is the lowest of the human race to me and doesn’t deserve to walk freely with the good people of this country.

My happiness over the ‘Twilight Rapist’ capture was short lived after reading of yet another serial rapist. This predatory rapist is stalking the streets of Detroit’s east side, and he uses a gun to abduct, rob and rape his victims. Several young women, aged between 17 and 33 have become victims of this excuse for a human being. Earlier on LE wouldn’t give out the number of women this lowlife had terrorized and violated. But they reported in http://detnews.com/  that he’d robbed and raped seven women since January 1, 2011. These ladies, according to reports, abducted near bus stops were taken to a secluded area. Most of the victims were walking alone but one was in her vehicle when her car was bumped from behind. She exited her car to check for damage; it was then that he abducted and attacked her.

This rapist is terrorizing the women in Detroit’s east side and I pray the ‘Monster’, as the police chief appropriately called him, is caught soon. The police have distributed several sketches of him from descriptions his victims have given them. He is a black man believed to be in his 30s with a slim build and is about 5' 9" tall. The rapes occur between 7 p.m. and 7 a.m.. Fortunately, everything that can be done to find him is being done. Volunteer citizens and activist groups are watching as their family, friends and other women go to or arrive at bus stops; so are the police.

I am appalled that such disgustingly violent people live among us but also well aware it's a fact they exist. These victims are trying to live an honest life the best they can, just as the TX victims were doing, but violence of a coward with a gun disrupted their life. I do not know what the minimum (or maximum) sentence is for rape in Michigan but if a weapon is used, I feel it should be, at the least, imprisonment for life. These women deserve no less. They need to know the justice system didn’t ignore or throw away the violence against them with a five or a ten-year sentence where the rapists can be paroled after 2 or 3 years to violate another woman. That, to me, would be re victimizing the victims.

http://www.bakersfieldnow.com/news/local/42705867.html

And he was being watched by whom? Just what was Riley doing in the group home? Was it for so called 'therapy' so he would be a good boy when out in public?

But an upside, somewhat, of the story of child molesters: http://www.news10.net/news/local/story.aspx?storyid=57610&catid=2

Hooray! Good work Placard County, CA! Still, I wonder how many years of that 16 year sentence this slime will actually serve in prison? This isn't the first time he's sexually attacked children. Justice for the victim, via his own guilty plea, of the recent child rape improved over a previous one- they only gave him 6 years in 1984 -