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Police: (black) drunk driver kills popular (White) chef in homicidal slaughter hit and run
  St. Petersburg, Florida -- A man fleeing police early Saturday hit two men crossing the street -- killing a popular chef walking home -- and was later found at a bar. At dawn, friends of Aaron Jerome Davis who worked at The Kitchen St. Pete made a memorial at the crash scene. About 2 a.m., Jason Mitchell was driving at a high rate of speed. The police DUI squad saw him and attempted to stop the vehicle as it slowed. Mitchell accelerated at a very high rate, clearly indicating that he was not going to stop.
Jason Mitchell continued accelerating southbound, running the red light. Two pedestrians, Aaron Jerome Davis and Brian Lee LaFrance, were crossing 2nd Street. The pedestrians had the green light and the crossing signal on the pedestrian control. Witnesses were stopped in the southbound curb lane, just north of the crosswalk. The Dodge passed the witnesses, running the red light and striking the two pedestrians.
LaFrance was sideswiped and spun onto the pavement. Davis was projected onto the hood and windshield, before vaulting over the roof. Davis, a chef at The Kitchen St. Pete, came to rest on the west sidewalk of 2nd Street.
Jason Mitchell drove off the southwest corner of the intersection, striking two concrete light pillars, ripping the right front wheel off of the vehicle. Jason Mitchell continued scraping along, coming to final rest. Mitchell and his passenger exited the vehicle and fled. With the assistance of club staff, the two subjects were apprehended at Push Ultra Lounge.
LaFrance was transported to Bayfront Health St Petersburg in critical condition and has since been stabilized. He was released from the hospital on Sunday. Davis was pronounced deceased at the scene.
Mitchell has been charged with vehicular homicide, DUI manslaughter, aggravated fleeing and eluding, leaving the scene of a crash involving death, and DUI serious bodily injury. While in custody in the Breath Testing Center of police headquarters, Mitchell attempted to escape and was quickly apprehended. Mitchell has bee arrested before for grand theft auto, fleeing police, giving a false name to law enforcement, and possession of marijuana, cocaine, crack.
According to a Facebook post, Davis was on headed home from his job as a chef at The Kitchen St. Pete. The post was by 400 Beach Seafood and Tap House, where his wife, Anastasia Granucci Davis, is executive chef. Her employer posted a link to announcing that C1 Bank branches are accepting donations for a fund dedicated to Anastasia, who is due to deliver the couple's second child this week. - (Black-on-white) |
TRENTON, Mich - A 65-year-old man is murdered in Trenton for the city's first homicide in 10 years. More than a month later, police have a person of interest in the case, Aaron Syndney Marshall. Marshall, 35, is sitting in Wayne County Jail tonight and may soon be facing charges for the death of George Hite. The Detroit man was charged Tuesday with lying to a peace officer during a violent crime investigation and with being a habitual offender. Hite's niece, Sharon Fox, says "I hope they arrest whoever did it and they rot in jail. That's where they deserve to be." On March 11, Hite was found strangled to death inside his condo he shared with his elderly mother. Police say Hite met Marshall - an ex-con with a long history of brushes with the law, at the casino. Police believe there are more people involved, but the relationship Hite made with Marshall at the casino possibly cost him his life. There was no forced entry into the condo, which means Hite let his killers in. There they strangled him with a belt and left him for dead. "Must have been something," Fox said. "He must have won and somebody followed him home. Instead of just asking for the money, kills him for nothing." A motive is still unclear, but police believe women may also be involved. - (Black-on-white)
MIAMI - A taxi cab driver arrested in a shootout with police in Miami and North Miami has been identified as 29-year-old Frantzy Armand. Miami police said Armand was involved in an altercation at a taxi cab stand along Northwest 79th Street Tuesday afternoon, shortly before a police officer pulled him over. Police said Armand got out of his car and fired at the officer with an assault rifle. The officer was identified as a 28-year-old rookie, who has only been on the force for about eight months. Police said a good Samaritan, William Ramirez, pulled up alongside the officer and told him to get in his van while Armand continued shooting in their direction. Police said Armand took off in the police cruiser. Armand is also accused of shooting a passing driver in the area of Northeast 123rd Street and 15th Avenue. The 
GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. — The man who threatened and raped a woman as she walked in Grand Rapids last year entered a guilty plea on Monday. Martae Rose pleaded guilty to first-degree criminal sexual conduct, unlawful imprisonment and assault with intent to rob. The assault happened in October 2014. Police said the young woman had just gotten off the bus and was walking when a man grabbed her, put a gun to her head and threatened to kill her. He told her to give him money, but she didn’t have any. He then walked with her to a secluded area and raped her. He threatened to kill her again before leaving, and she then called police. Rose was arrested a couple of weeks later after he was identified as the attacker through DNA evidence. Also Monday, Rose pleaded guilty to an unrelated armed robbery in August 2014. 
A man who killed his girlfriend and her mother in their Redondo Beach apartment in 2012 was convicted today of two counts of first- degree murder. Jonathan Scott Chacon, 26, faces life in prison without the possibility of parole for the Feb. 28, 2012, killings, which he claimed were committed in self-defense. Chacon was arrested the next day in Mexico. Chacon 
A 20-year-old man and a 13-year-old girl are facing murder charges after the sheriff says they planned and murdered the teen's mother. Lenoir County Sheriff Ronnie Ingram says 20-year-old Roderick Wyche and a 13-year-old girl are both charged with murder and conspiracy to commit murder. Sheriff Ingram says the two met at the library in La Grange a few weeks ago and started a relationship. The girl's mother who is the murder victim, 33-year-old 
"Got a text my phone saying, 'Hey, can you come get Ethan? Mom is dead. Somebody stabbed her.' To get a text like that, I froze up,” said Dethlefson’s boyfriend of two years, Jonathan Mewborn. Mewborn was helping Dethlefson raise her three kids, a 13, 6, and one-year-old. 
MEMPHIS, TN - 
ANNAPOLIS, Md. — For the first time, the wife of an Anne Arundel County police officer shot in the line of duty speaks out, as he remains in the hospital. Now police release new information on the two suspects in custody. Police say it’s a miracle that the officer is alive. He’s in good spirits at Shock Trauma. Meanwhile, the suspects are now behind bars for what police believe was originally planned as an armed robbery that took a wild turn. Fighting back tears, the wife of Corporal 
A 43-year-old Violet man accused of homosexually assaulting 
MIAMI BEACH, Fla. - A convicted burglar accused of raping a woman at a South Beach lifeguard stand in 2013 has been arrested. Blitz Santana Monestine, 30, was arrested last Thursday and charged with sexual battery, false imprisonment, battery and resisting an officer without violence. Police said DNA tests linked Monestine to the rape in December 2013. A second man involved in the case has not been identified. Police said Monestine and the other suspect raped the victim at the 17th Street lifeguard stand after she left a nightclub on May 5, 2013.
PLUM, Pa. — Plum police arrested a man whom they said tried to lure 
SEATTLE — A south Seattle woman was hospitalized with severe burns Monday after she was set on fire, allegedly by a jealous boyfriend. Detectives are searching for the suspect who they identified as 62-year-old John Turner. “She was hollering and screaming, running back and forth,” Patricia Workenh said of the attack Sunday night. Workenh could only watch as her good friend, 
ATLANTA — In one of the biggest cheating scandals of its kind in the U.S., 11 former Atlanta public school educators were convicted Wednesday of racketeering for their role in a scheme to inflate students' scores on standardized exams. The defendants, including teachers, a principal and other administrators, were accused of falsifying test results to collect bonuses or keep their jobs in the 50,000-student Atlanta school system. The racketeering charges carry up to 20 years in prison. Most of the defendants will be sentenced April 8.
Delaware prison officials say three inmates scaled a wall to escape a corrections center in Wilmington, but two have been caught. The Department of Correction says the three work release inmates climbed the wall at the Plummer Community Corrections Center on Sunday night and ran off. Two of the men were caught late Monday, but officials say they are still looking for 19-year-old Tommy Broomer, who was serving three months for violating probation after a carrying a concealed deadly weapon conviction. 
Surveillance video from an Overbrook bar shows the gunman who refused to pay a cab driver and then fired a shot at the taxi as it drove away from a West Philly street, police said. The suspect hailed the cab near 56th and Market streets around 1:30 a.m. on April 1 and asked the driver to make multiple stops, including one at the Good Times Bar located at 5527 Lancaster Ave., before dropping him off at his final destination about a block away, officials said. Police described the gunman as a black man about 20- to 25-years-old, with a light complexion, a thin build and standing about 5-feet 11-inches tall. He was wearing a dark colored Champion hooded sweatshirt, tan pants and brown shoes, officials said. 
A man is in custody after he allegedly held his ex-girlfriend and her son hostage during a standoff situation in Chester Monday morning. Investigators say the ordeal began around 8 a.m. when two children at a Chester School told a school resource officer that their mother and 5-year-old brother were being held hostage by a man armed with a gun, later identified as 26-year-old Allen Freeman. He has a lengthy criminal record for thefts, drugs and other related incidents. 
SAN FRANCISCO -- Former San Francisco 49er and Oakland Raider player Kwame Harris faces some serious criminal charges Monday after being arrested Sunday evening for several hit-and-run crashes and allegedly trying to bite an officer's hand while under the influence of drugs, according to authorities. San Francisco police arrested Harris Sunday Night on allegations that he struck several cars and assaulted an officer by trying to bite him while under the influence of drugs. Police said it was a miracle no one was hurt in this series of hit-and-run incidents allegedly committed by the former pro football player.
The 46-year-old Brooklyn man convicted earlier this year in the 2013 hit-run crash that killed a pregnant woman, her husband, and ultimately their child, was sentenced Monday to 25 years to life in prison. 
Investigators would focus and determine whether Ron Lane's death was the result of a hate crime. Lane's relatives say people "knew he was homosexual." Stancil was a former student at Wayne Community College and worked with Lane in the print shop as part of a work-study program. A relative of Lane's said that Lane fired Stancil, but police have not said if that's why Lane was killed. Relatives of Lane said they believe Stancil was fired for bringing drugs to the workplace. Stancil's mother, Debbie Stancil, claimed Lane "made inappropriate sexual advances toward him," which upset her son. "He was very upset when the person that's deceased was making advances to him. He told him to stop and he kept on," she said. "I urged him to go to a counselor to tell them and ask to get switched to another work-study before this happened.
Dawn Nguyen
A 79-year-old Philadelphia tool repairman sentenced to life in prison for fatally shooting a man who robbed him has died in prison. 
The Missouri Supreme Court has rejected the claim that a man scheduled to be executed next week is not competent to be executed. Andre Cole is scheduled to die Tuesday evening by lethal injection for the 1998 stabbing death of a friend of his ex-wife’s. Cole’s lawyers offered the findings of a psychiatrist that Cole is depressed and has symptoms of psychosis, specifically delusions that keep him from understanding why he would be executed. The Court found that he is competent, in part, by reviewing audio recordings of telephone conversations in which it says Cole demonstrated that he understands his sentence and the reason for it. Cole was convicted of stabbing 
But for a bolt of lightning, Van Dralan Dixson might have been labeled a rapist in 1992. The strike killed Dixson’s accuser, leaving prosecutors without a victim. Dixson was off the hook. It took 23 years, several more victims and an interstate manhunt, but Dixson, 40, finally received the epithet when he pleaded guilty to a series of 2013 sexual assaults that terrorized South Dallas. For taking the plea deal, he’ll spend his life in prison. He’ll serve 30 years before he is eligible for parole. Dixson copped to four counts of aggravated sexual assault — police say he was responsible for as many as nine attacks – and two counts of aggravated robbery.
FRESNO, Calif. — Ex-NFL running back Lawrence Phillips is suspected of killing cellmate in California prison. Phillips’ cellmate at Kern Valley State Prison was found lifeless early Saturday and later pronounced dead, prison spokesman Lt. Marshall Denning said in a statement. Phillips, 39, was once one of the nation’s top college football players at Nebraska. He is suspected of killing 
PHILADELPHIA — ATF officials announced a $10,000 reward for any information leading to the identification those responsible for the abduction, assault and robbery of a woman from Jewelers’ Row earlier this month. Authorities say one person has been arrested in connection with the incident and the search continues for two others. Officials say 31-year-old Khayree Gay was taken into custody in South Carolina on Friday. He now faces federal robbery and kidnapping charges. The ATF’s reward is in addition to a $10,000 reward offered by the City of Philadelphia Mayor’s Office. Police say on April 4th, three men grabbed the 53-year-old woman from a parking garage, dragged her into a van then beat, robbed and used a taser on her for hours. She was eventually found and hospitalized.
Milwaukee police say the driver of a van who struck and killed 
A badly burnt bouncer from Florida is fighting for his life as police search for the scoundrel who set him on fire late Sunday outside a Port St. Lucie watering hole. The incident occurred after the punk was tossed out of Neely’s Grog House. The staff refused to accept a personal check from
An 81-year-old man is suspected of fatally stabbing his great-granddaughter’s ex-boyfriend after a birthday party for the pair’s 1-year-old daughter in Brooklyn. “My great-grandfather tried to break up the fight; that’s how it happened,” said a distraught woman who refused to give her name, but was identified by neighbors as Amber, the victim’s ex. The incident unfolded at around 2:15 a.m. after Amber and ex-beau 
Police say the woman, 21-year-old 
NORRISTOWN, Pa. — The man who was sentenced to death last year for killing a ten-month-old girl and her grandmother in King of Prussia was back in Montgomery County Court today, arguing for a new trial or to get his death sentence overturned. 
PASSAIC – A 21-year-old Clifton man is accused of throwing lit firecrackers outside a synagogue and yelling 
An Oklahoma reserve deputy says he thought he grabbed his Taser stun gun -- but instead had inadvertently pulled his service revolver -- when he fatally shot a suspect being handcuffed. The officer, 
LAKELAND -- The family of a Lakeland man killed in a fatal car crash Friday is reacting to charges being filed in the crash. Police have arrested 20-year-old Antonio Jones on a vehicular homicide charge along with burglary, grand theft and fleeing to elude. Officers said Jones was driving a stolen SUV when it crashed head on into 
Jordan and Tommy Gray's 3-year-old daughter
Two college students have been arrested for allegedly sexually assaulting a woman in Panama City Beach, FL, in an incident that hundreds of bystanders did nothing to stop according to local authorities. Delonte’ Martistee, 22, and Ryan Austin Calhoun, 23, both students at Troy University in Alabama, were arrested Friday and charged with sexual battery by multiple perpetrators according to a statement from the Bay County, FL Sheriff’s Office.
The victim of a rape comes forward nearly five years after she says she was attacked. The suspect in that rape investigation is now facing charges of Second Degree Sexual Assault. Erique Spencer Harris, 22, had a preliminary hearing scheduled on Friday, April 10, 2015. The victim came forward on March 23, 2015 about an incident that happened at a home in Beckley in Sept. 2010. 
A 29-year-old Arcadia man who was out on bail in a sexual battery case when he allegedly abducted a woman off the street and raped her for hours was charged in that case. Philippe Mengi Brian Lutete was already facing charges of false imprisonment by violence and sexual battery by restraint in connection with an alleged attack last November. Prosecutors amended the felony complaint to include five additional charges: two counts of forcible rape and one count each of kidnapping to commit rape, forcible oral copulation and assault with intent to commit rape in the most recent case. 
Authorities have arrested a man accused of raping a woman in Harvey last year. And Jefferson Parish Sheriff's Office investigators are still searching for his accomplice. Charles Williams, 26, of Harvey was booked Wednesday (April 8) with aggravated rape. He and an unidentified man are accused of assaulting a 30-year-old woman on Dec. 30. The woman told investigators that she and a male companion met up with two men to buy cocaine. The woman and her companion got into a car with the men to make the transaction. But the woman's companion paid for the drugs with a counterfeit $100 bill. When the two men discovered the money was fake, the woman's companion quickly jumped out of the vehicle and fled. The two men, with the woman still in the car, drove around looking for her companion with no success. The men are accused of pulling over to the side of the road and raping the woman.
NASHVILLE, Tenn. — Rapper and reality TV star Nelly is facing felony drug charges after being arrested in Tennessee on Saturday. Tennessee Highway Patrol said that Nelly, whose real name is Cornell Haynes, was pulled over about 9:20 a.m. because the bus he was riding in failed to display a U.S. Department of Transportation and International Fuel Tax Association sticker. Troopers smelled marijuana when they reached the bus. When troopers searched the bus, they found five rocks that tested positive for meth, as well as a small amount of marijuana and drug paraphernalia. Troopers also say they found numerous handguns. 
A Philadelphia mother accused of abandoning her quadriplegic son in the woods before skipping town to see her boyfriend has been arrested. Nyia Parler, 41, was taken into custody by authorities in Montgomery County, Maryland overnight Saturday on charges including aggravated assault, simple assault and neglect of a care-dependent person. Police say she traveled to Maryland from Pennsylvania either last Sunday or Monday after leaving her 21-year-old wheelchair-bound son in a wooded park with nothing but a blanket and a Bible. Parler's son, who is non-verbal and suffers from cerebral palsy, was found on Friday night lying beneath a rain-soaked blanket and a pile of leaves on the ground, 10 feet from his wheelchair and the Bible. 
Jennifer Beaver, 
The action came after renewed allegations by women alleging decades-old sexual assaults. Cosby has strongly denied wrongdoing and has never been criminally charged. 
A Manhattan straphanger learned a hard lesson Saturday morning about giving the stink-eye to a violent stranger on a subway train. The female straphanger made the mistake of casting a stern look at to a belligerent woman who was threatening and cursing out a toddler-aged child. When the train pulled into the Fulton Street station, the berserk woman stormed up to the woman who gave her the glare and hit her on the right side of the head with the same bottle she’d been threatening to strike the child with, police said.
Tampa, FL -- A 25-year-old man was found guilty on Friday of killing a University of Tampa student in 2009. The jury deliberated more than three hours on Friday before returning the verdict against David Williams. He also was found guilty of robbery and attempted robbery. Shortly after hearing the verdict, Williams also received his sentence: life in prison without the possibility of parole. Williams was accused of murdering University of Tampa student
Six students (Robert Bailey, then aged 17; Mychal Bell, then 16; Carwin Jones, then 18; Bryant Purvis, then 17; Jesse Ray Beard, then 14; and Theo Shaw, then 17) were arrested in the assault of Barker. Mychal Bell was initially convicted as an adult of aggravated battery and conspiracy to commit aggravated battery. His convictions were overturned on the grounds that he should have been tried as a juvenile. Before a retrial in juvenile court, Bell pled guilty to a reduced charge of simple battery. The other five defendants later pled "no contest" to the same offense, and were convicted. 
A 20-year-old Kansas man plotted to kill American soldiers with a vehicle bomb at the Fort Riley military base, an attack he planned to carry out on behalf of the ISIS terror group, prosecutors announced Friday. John T. Booker, also known as 
A police officer who was honored for his role during the Boston Marathon bombings was released from the hospital, the city's police department said today, a day after they released video of him being shot. The Boston Police Department described officer 
A 28-year-old Tuscaloosa man was arrested Tuesday and charged with the sexual abuse and sodomy of 
HARRISBURG -- Harrisburg police took David Barksdale by surprise when they showed up at his home with an arrest warrant. Police said he seemed shocked when officers announced the man was being charged in the death of his 83-year-old roommate. 
PHILADELPHIA - Philadelphia Police are investigating a violent aggravated assault in the Olney section of Philadelphia. Two women have already been arrested for their involvement in the assault, but authorities are still looking for several additional suspects. Police have released surveillance footage of the April 7th attack that took place just before 7:00 p.m. on the 5500 block of North 5th Street. Officers responded to a report of a fight in the street, and arrived on location to find 
ATLANTA - Atlanta police say a second suspect, 25-year-old Shontavious Chestnut, was arrested in Pensacola, Florida in connection to the murder of 
PITTSBURGH —A judge has declared a mistrial after jurors were unable to reach a verdict in the trial of a man charged with having killed a woman found dead in the basement of a vacant Pittsburgh house more than a decade ago. Forty-two-year-old Michael Molina is charged in the murder of 21-year-old 
Charlotte-Mecklenburg police have charged a Gastonia man with murder following a shooting Tuesday, authorities said Thursday. David Benjamin McCullough, 63, was served with the murder warrant Thursday morning. At 4:30 p.m. Tuesday, police responded to the 4400 block of Ridgevalley Drive, where they found 
Four-time confessed murderer, Craig Price, threatened prison guards in Florida and made mention of his gruesome crimes of the late 1980's. "I'm going to kill every officer I can get my hands on, just like I killed those little kids,” said Price, according to a disciplinary report. Now 41-years-old, Price has been behind bars for 26 years. In 1989, he was only 15, but bulky and 280 pounds when he confessed to four murders in his Warwick neighborhood. 