(CBS News) An NYPD undercover detective has now been arrested in connection with an attack on a family in an SUV by a group of motorcyclists, reports CBS News’ John Miller.

The officer is expected to be charged with criminal mischief for allegedly banging on and breaking the rear window of the SUV. The detective waited four days before coming forward to the NYPD and he allegedly made false statements about his involvement, reports Miller.
In other news, there is new video of the road rage attack in New York City in which several men appear to be kicking the driver of an SUV while he laid on the ground. Police say Alexian Lien was pulled out of his vehicle. Another man is seen stepping in to stop the assault.  (read more)

NEW YORK – A defiant motorcyclist caught on video smashing an SUV window with his helmet after a wild chase in upper Manhattan gave the middle finger to reporters in court Sunday.
Reginald (Reggie) Chance, 37, was in Manhattan Criminal Court facing assault and gang assault charges in the brutal beating of Alexian Lien when he flipped off reporters with both middle fingers moments before he appeared in front of a judge.
Chance is the rider wearing a black leather jacket, in the viral video of the Sept. 29 chase, who violently smashes the driver’s window with his helmet, the criminal complaint alleges.

[…] Once they trapped the vehicle, the thugs even tried to grab Lien’s wife, who was inside with the couple’s 2-year-old, a witness who’s being hailed as a good Samaritan said Sunday. (more…)

LAKEWOOD, Wash. (AP) – A 20-year-old active-duty soldier was stabbed to death in a parking lot at the 12500 block of Pacific Highway Southwest around 2:30 a.m., officials say.

Three soldiers were walking from Joint Base Lewis-McChord along Pacific Highway SW when a group of men in a car drove by and someone inside shouted a racial comment toward the white soldiers, the Lakewood Police Department said.
“One of the soldiers yelled back something about the suspects treating combat soldiers with disrespect,” Lt. Chris Lawler said.
(more…)

Report: 5 off-duty New York City police officers were among bikers in SUV beating incident – @eyewitnessnyc http://t.co/wZ2PWCusaY

— Breaking News (@BreakingNews) October 5, 2013

NEW YORK (WABC) — Eyewitness News has learned that among the bikers on the Henry Hudson last weekend, were five off-duty NYPD officers.

Sources say at least two detectives witnessed the attack on Alexian Lien and did not directly intervene. And investigators are still working to determine what role, if any, was played by the other three officers. (more…)

….  When it was his turn at the register, he asked the 23-year-old employee for a $1.41 Swisher Sweet cigar, according to Lakewood sheriff’s deputies.   The man handed the woman a dollar bill.
When she told him he needed an additional 41 cents, he protested and threatened her, authorities said.
The man can be seen trying to grab the cigar out of the employee’s hand, but she was able to put it behind the counter out of his reach.

Police say she then asked the man to leave the store. But instead of leaving, the video shows the man leaning over the front counter and punching the woman in the face with his right hand. (article)
(more…)

By now everyone is familiar with the incident in New York where a family driving a Range Rover was surrounded by a pack of motorcyclists. Then terrorized. We’ve now watched 72 hours of media reporting on this *incident*, and have had the opportunity to see the bikers, their attorneys, their families and their friends talking on television about it.

Has anyone else noticed there is a stark undiscussed racial component to this story?
(more…)

We’ve often talked about the marked similarity between these trying times and the similarities to the time just prior to the awakening in Poland which spurred the Solidarity Movement.
Indeed, in Poland then, just like in the U.S. now, the media was selling one central planning script yet a divergent reality existed in the street – amid the people.
It took the people of Poland to actually walk into the street and recognize they had been fooled. They thought for years their individual desires for freedom and smaller government put them in the minority.  Individually they each believed their government was operating with the consent of the governed.  However, they were wrong.
Once the ordinary citizen made the decision to take to the street they recognized their views and perspectives were actually held in the majority. The media was merely selling a guise on behalf of the centralized governing body. (more…)

There are few, if any, positive aspects to the national spotlight and attention surrounding the George Zimmerman case.   A review of mandatory minimum sentences could be one of those outcomes. 
A new trial announced today in the case of Marissa Alexander.   Spotlighting a prosecutorial charge put upon by Angela Corey, the 4th District State Attorney’s Office in Jacksonville Florida; and a mandatory 20 year minimum sentence imposed by the judge after conviction.
The case is controversial, not so much for the conviction, but more for the sentence.

Under Florida’s mandatory minimum sentencing guidelines Marissa Alexander was sentenced to TWENTY years in prison for firing a warning shot in her kitchen when her husband was confronting her.   They had a troubled, at times violent, history together.
Good construction of the factual backstory HERE. 
There are two sides to every story, and in this case the actual conviction –based on the evidence– as found by a jury, was correct.   However, the sentencing was excessive based on the actual event.  A sentence structured around a charge, and mandatory 10-20-life guideline when a firearm is used in the commission of a charged and convicted  felony. 
[excerpt from MSN News]  …  The 1st District Court of Appeal in Tallahassee said in Thursday’s ruling that the trial judge made a “fundamental error” when he instructed the jury that Alexander was required to prove self-defense beyond a reasonable doubt. (more…)

The slow motion *public* train wreck continues.   Shellie Zimmerman and her attorney Kelly Sims sit down with Ryan Julison’s pal, Matt Lauer.  
D’oh….  
…And Sims, good grief….. look at the noggin’ on that Sims fellow and tell me he’s not trying out for a part in Alien Nation, the TV series.
(New York Daily News) Shellie Zimmerman, 26, told NBC’s ‘Today’ she is conflicted about what happened the night her controversial husband fatally shot the unarmed 17-year-old. Her doubts surfaced after an explosive domestic violence incident at a family home in Florida, she said. But she stopped short of claiming Martin was a victim of racial profiling.

The estranged wife of George Zimmerman said that since the couple’s spat at a family home in Florida she now has doubts about her husband’s innocence for killing Trayvon Martin.
Shellie Zimmerman, speaking publicly for the first time since she told cops her husband threatened her with a gun on Sept. 9, told NBC’s ‘Today’ that the man she loved changed dramatically after he was acquitted for the murder of the unarmed 17-year-old.
“This person that I’m married to, that I’m divorcing, I’ve kind of realized now that I don’t know him,” she told Matt Lauer on Thursday. “And I really don’t know what he’s capable of.” (more…)

Gee, I wonder why you never heard of this race-based mass shooting incident in North Carolina, which took place while the trial of George Zimmerman was ongoing ?   Hmmm… couldn’t possibly be because the media hold any disposition toward not spotlighting race-based spree shootings when the black attacker specifically asserts his chosen targets were white people. No, wait…
GREENVILLE, N.C. (AP) — A man who shot four people near a Greenville Wal-Mart in June picked out his victims because they were white, according to several indictments handed down against him.

Lakim Faust had more than 100 rounds of ammunition when he started shooting at people at a law firm and a shopping center in June, authorities said.
A grand jury indicted Faust on 14 charges Monday, including four counts of attempted first-degree murder.
Faust, who is black, picked out his victims based on their race, according to the indictments. The documents didn’t specify why Faust wanted to shoot white people, and police have not talked about why he picked out his targets. (more…)