Crime

Over the weekend hundreds of activists rallied in Philadelphia to mark the murder of a local trans woman. Today there’s a break in the case. The Philadelphia Inquirer reports: A man has been arrested in the fatal shooting of a transgender woman in Philadelphia’s Logan section. Pedro Redding, 24, has been taken into custody in the Oct. 6 killing of …

NBC News reports: A large crowd gathered in Center City to call for justice and equality for transgender men and women in the wake of a brutal murder. The 5th Annual Philly Trans March took place Saturday afternoon at Thomas Paine Plaza, less than a week after Kiesha Jenkins, a 22-year-old transgender woman, was killed by a group of men …

Via the Associated Press: Holding signs saying the president was not welcome, more than 200 gun-rights activists protested Barack Obama’s visit on Friday to Oregon to meet with the families of victims of last week’s campus killings. The protesters stood outside Roseburg airport as Obama left a helicopter and got into a limousine that whisked him away for the private …

President Obama reportedly may circumvent Congress and issue an executive order requiring expanded background checks for gun purchases from high-volume dealers. The Washington Post reports: The proposed executive action aims to impose background checks on individuals who buy from dealers who sell a significant number of guns each year. The current federal statute dictates that those who are “engaged in …

Spencer Stone, the US Airman who recently won international accolades for thwarting a shooting on a Paris train, has been critically stabbed after he and a group of friends left Badlands, a popular gay disco in the Sacramento neighborhood known as Lavender Heights. The Sacramento Bee reports: Officers were called at 12:46 a.m. Thursday to the 2100 block of K …

The Philadelphia Inquirer reports: Philadelphia police have asked for the public’s help in finding the men who attacked and killed a transgender woman in Logan in the wee hours of the morning Tuesday. Kiesha Jenkins, 22, of North Philadelphia, had been riding in a car that dropped her off at 13th and Wingohocking Streets around 2:30 a.m., said homicide Capt. …

According to Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal, the real culprit in the Oregon massacre is the shooter’s father for being an anti-gun advocate who was never in his son’s life. Seriously. Apparently single mothers bear zero responsibility in the outcome of their children. Talking Points Memo reports: “This killer’s father is now lecturing us on the need for gun control and …

Mediaite recaps last night’s show: “Perhaps the clearest sign of how little we want to talk about mental health is that one of the only times it’s brought up is, as we’ve seen yet again this week, in the aftermath of a mass shooting, as a means of steering the conversation away from gun control,” Oliver said. After playing clips …

Teabagistan is flipping out over a column published yesterday in the New York Daily News. An excerpt: One terrorist group is responsible for more civilian deaths since December 2012 (the Sandy Hook massacre) than Al Qaeda, Boko Haram, Hamas and the Taliban. Yet it is the only nearly-state sponsored terrorist group that is not listed by the U.S. State Department …

After a firestorm of criticism on social media and from prominent Democrats, Bush tried to backpedal: “There are all sorts of things that happen in life,” Bush said. “Tragedies unfold almost, look, you just read the papers and you see a child dies in a pool and drowns. And parents want to pass a law to do something and you …

“We hardly know any of the details about this horrific tragedy – What kind of gun was used? How did the shooter obtain it? What is the motive? Does the shooter have a history of mental illness? Was this an act of terror? With few facts, Obama is quick to admittedly politicize this tragedy to advance his liberal, anti-gun agenda. …

Authorities have identified the Oregon shooter as 26 year-old Chris Harper Mercer, who was not a student at the college. In an online dating profile Mercer reportedly described himself as a mixed-race “conservative Republican” who was “not religious, but spiritual.” Shortly after the August on-camera murder of two Virginia journalists, Mercer wrote a blog post in which he expressed admiration for …

“The American people are horrified by these never-ending mass shootings. Our hearts go out to the families and friends of the innocent victims. As a nation, we must do everything we can to put an end to this awful epidemic of senseless slaughter. We need a comprehensive approach. We need sensible gun-control legislation which prevents guns from being used by …

A visibly furious President Obama tonight delivered a fiery reaction to today’s Oregon massacre at a just-concluded White House press conference. The president takes at the podium at the 23-minute mark in the clip below. WATCH this.

Oregon Live reports: The shooter at Umpqua Community College on Thursday asked people to state their religion and then started firing, one student said. Kortney Moore, an 18-year-old, told the News Review she was sitting in her writing class when a bullet blasted through the window. She saw her teacher shot in the head then noticed that the shooter was …

Via CNN: Preliminary information indicates 10 people were killed and more than 20 others injured in a shooting at Oregon’s Umpqua Community College on Thursday, said Oregon State Police spokesman Bill Fugate. Douglas County Commissioner Chris Boice told CNN that the shooter is in custody. It was not immediately clear whether the shooter was injured. ATF agents were on the …

Going viral at Live Leak is a video of a ranting man smashing a bus shelter ad for the gay hook-up site Squirt.org. The man claims to have nine children and to have served in the Marine Corps, therefore his “motherfucking First Amendment” rights mean that he does not “have to put up with that shit.” The location of the …

It was a year ago last week that a mob brutally attacked a gay couple in Philadelphia and we may finally see a resolution in the case next month. Philadelphia Gay News reports: At a proceeding Thursday morning, defendants Phillip Williams, Kevin Harrigan and Kathryn Knott were rescheduled for another pre-trial bring back Oct. 15. Prosecutor Mike Barry told PGN …

Stick around for the end. Talking Points Memo recaps last night’s show: “Last Week Tonight” — with the help of some popular crime show actors — presented a new Miranda rights speech Sunday night to include important qualifiers about public defenders. “Fifty years after the Supreme Court gave everyone the fundamental right to an attorney, even if you can’t afford …

New York City news outlets and blogs are lighting up today after a ferocious pit bull attack in the Bronx left two men hospitalized. The attack has spurred renewed calls for the city to ban the breed. The New York Daily News reports: A Bronx woman ordered her two pit bulls to viciously attack a 62-year-old man Friday morning as …