Roughing-up reported at St. Louis march
ST. LOUIS — Several people have claimed that they were roughly arrested by St. Louis police last weekend even though they were not participating in protests over the acquittal of a white former officer in the killing of a black suspect.
Protests continued Saturday, when police arrested at least 22 people at the upscale Galleria mall, where more than 200 demonstrators marched and chanted among shoppers. The demonstrators later moved to the Ritz-Carlton hotel in Clayton, Mo.
Last Sunday, 120 people were arrested — most for failing to disperse — about two hours after vandals broke some windows and threw objects at officers. The officers used a tactic called “kettling” that boxed in demonstrators and others in the area.
Police said people were arrested only if they didn’t follow orders to disperse, but some people said they had nowhere to go because police had boxed them in.
One of those people was an undercover police officer who was mistaken for a suspect who was carrying chemicals that could be sprayed on officers, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported. When the man refused to show his hands, he was knocked down and hit several times while his hands were tied behind his back, and his mouth was bloodied, the newspaper reported.
On Friday, Mayor Lyda Krewson asked the director of public safety to investigate how the officer was treated.
Nursing student’s killer gets life term
SAVANNAH, Tenn. — A Tennessee man agreed Saturday to a sentence of life in prison plus 50 years for the kidnapping, rape and killing of nursing student Holly Bobo.
Judge C. Creed McGinley told a jury that Zachary Adams made a deal with prosecutors just minutes ahead of his sentencing hearing. Adams, 33, was convicted Friday of murder, especially aggravated kidnapping and aggravated rape after an 11-day jury trial.
Under the agreement, Adams received a state prison term of life without parole for Bobo’s killing. He was sentenced to consecutive terms of 25 years for the kidnapping and rape.
Bobo was 20 when she disappeared from her home in rural Parsons on April 13, 2011. Her remains were found by two men hunting for ginseng not far from her Decatur County home in September 2014.
Bobo’s vanishing led to a vast search of the farms, fields and barns of western Tennessee. The Tennessee Bureau of Investigation has said the Bobo investigation is the most exhaustive and expensive in the agency’s history.
But investigators found no DNA evidence connecting Bobo to Adams. Instead, they relied on testimony from friends and jail inmates who said Adams spoke of harming Bobo.
2 officers injured in Connecticut gunfire
NEW HAVEN, Conn. — Two New Haven police officers were shot by a man who is believed to have shot his wife first, police said Saturday.
The two officers were responding to a domestic shooting at the multifamily home Saturday morning, police said.
When the officers arrived, police said, the 51-year-old victim had fled the home after being shot. She was taken to a hospital and was listed in critical condition.
The two officers were shot after they tried to find the suspect, police said. They are expected to be survive.
Police said the suspect, identified as John Douglas Monroe, 51, pointed a gun at SWAT officers who then shot Monroe in the basement of the home. Monroe was hospitalized with serious injuries.
Mass killer sentenced 3 years after plea
SANTA ANA, Calif. — A California man who killed eight people at a hair salon in 2011 was sentenced Friday to life without parole.
Scott Dekraai, a 47-year-old former tugboat operator, received eight consecutive life terms for the slayings of his hairstylist ex-wife, with whom he was locked in a custody dispute, his ex-wife’s co-workers and others in the seaside community of Seal Beach.
Dekraai pleaded guilty three years ago, but his case has dragged on because of a long-running scandal over authorities’ use of jailhouse snitches to cull information from him and others housed in jails in Orange County.
While authorities can receive information from informants, they can’t have informants deliberately seek out details from inmates who have legal representation.
Dekraai apologized to the victims’ relatives, many of whom were gathered in the courtroom, and acknowledged that he could have found a peaceful solution to his problems.
A Section on 09/24/2017