Monthly Archives: August 2012

Florida IRAS Cameras Catch Pot Smoker

Caught on camera

In Orlando, Florida, an Innovative Response to Improve Safety, or an IRIS Camera, stopped a crime in progress.  This was also the first time that this camera system was used to intervene during the middle of the criminal activity.  What crime? Was it Murder, rape, maybe terrorism, no it was someone thought to be smoking pot.  The police officer viewing the activity assumed Joe Haywood and two other individuals were smoking Marijuana and dispatched an officer right away to stop the illegal activity.  When a patrol car arrived on scene, the man with the alleged marijuana swallowed the substance. The officer then said he saw a marijuana leaf stuck on Haywood’s teeth.  Haywood was arrested and the others were let go. He has retained an attorney and plans on suing the police department.

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Pills, by Flickr user Jean, licensed by Creative Commons

Big Pharma Settles at $151 million After Inflating Prices to Make Illegal Profit

Big Pharma

The McKesson Corporation, a company that distributes wholesale pharmaceutical products, has just settled a lawsuit for $151 million with 29 different states including Washington DC.   After an 8 year investigation McKesson has been found guilty of inflating prescription drug prices in order to make an illegal profit.  This investigation found that McKesson had overbilled over 1,400 brand name drugs by up to 25% from 2001 to 2009. Some of these prescriptions included Adderall, Allegra, Ambien, Celexa, Lipitor, Prozac, and Ritalin.

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The Sweet Taste of Freedom… And Revenge

It puts the lotion on!

On August 20th a St. Louis teen tasted freedom for the first time in 3 long years.  She has allegedly been held captive in the Belleville, Illinois home of Steven Johnson since April 2009.  The teen has told investigators that while trapped in Johnson’s house she endured daily beatings and sexual assaults which led to her becoming pregnant with Johnson’s child.  The teen also claimed that she was forced at gunpoint by Johnson to stay in the house.  A SWAT team invaded the house and arrested Johnson and his mother.  While rading the house, the SWAT team found a gun as well as large amounts of Marijuana and Cocaine.  Steven Johnson has been charged with a felony count of aggravated criminal sexual abuse, illegal possession of a deadly weapon, possession of drugs with intent to distribute, and promotion of prostitution.

Militia Group Murders Solider and Girlfriend

Land of the free

Four soldiers from the 4th Brigade combat team of the Army’s Third Infantry Division have been tried for the murders of Michael Roark and his girl friend Tiffany York.  The two were murdered execution style by Anthony Peden, Christopher Salmon, and Michael Burnett right outside Fort Stewart in Georgia by the orders of Private Isaac Aguigui.  The four soliders including Roark had formed an anarchist militia group, Forever Enduring Always Ready (F.E.A.R.), recruiting troubled and distressed soldiers.  The militia group’s plans had been to overthrow the government and assassinate the president.  Private Aguigui had invested $500,000 of his dead wife’s insurance money to start the militia group.  They had used $87,000 of the insurance money to buy semiautomatic weapons and materials for bombs.  Aguigui had even purchased land in Washington State so he could carry out his plan to blow up a dam and poison the state’s apple crop.

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The Fire Rises: Hells Angels Lawsuit Heats Up

Fire rises

Hells Angels, the infamous motorcycle group from southern California, are filing suit in federal court against the United States. The dispute stands over the US’s ban of foreign members of the gang entering the country. Members of the Hells Angels have been convicted of multiple crimes, including drug trafficking, extortion, and other felonies in North America, South America, Europe.  The U.S. has classified the Hells Angels as a “known criminal organization,” but due to the suit the government is in the process of fielding the request for an injunction in which they cannot associate the Hell’s Angels with violence and crime.

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