One 55-year-old Grafton man faces several counts of domestic abuse concerning his ex-girlfriend – he beaten and tied her up after showing up uninvited at her house.
It was a Domino’s delivery man who had alerted local police after the woman mouthed “help me” during the delivery.
“It’s kind of scary. Gave him his pizza, and noticed behind him was his girlfriend. She pointed to a black eye that was quite visible. She mouthed the words ‘call police,'” recalled Joey Grundl, who was the woman’s savior. The ex-boyfriend, Dean Hoffmann, was charged with the following: kidnapping, false imprisonment, strangulation, suffocation, felony intimidation of a victim, and burglary of a building.
At 1 p.m. on 27 September 2018, the man had entered her home. The woman told Hoffmann to leave and wanted to call the police. However, Hoffmann snatched the phone, grabbed her by the waist and dragged her upstairs. He shoved her, pulled her hair and ripped her shirt. The woman tried to fight back by hitting Hoffmann in the groin, but he punched her in the face – and she ended up with a blackened eye and bloody nose while being locked up in her own bathroom.
Hoffmann then tied her hands and feet together with a power cord and shoved a towel in her mouth to silence her. The woman experienced trouble breathing and feared for the worst – until he decided to call for some Pizza from Domino’s.
After Grundl’s arrival, local authorities arrived at the house and heard the woman yell “help me” and “please come in.” Hoffmann had no choice but to open the door, got questioned and arrested.
Those people who believe that racism isn’t an issue in America any longer must be either innocent or silly. It looks like Americans have long road to go until they stop seeing people as different because of the color of their skin.
YouTube / CBS6 Albany
Marcus Bradley is a black man who has experienced racism and believes his company did nothing to protect him in the case. Namely, Bradley was a delivery truck driver for Lowe’s hardware chain in Danville, Virginia, for over 10 years and he never believed his manager wouldn’t stand for him when a customer asked for him to be replaced with a white driver for her delivery.
It was back in 2015 when Bradley delivered a truck full of items at a designated house and was about to get back to the store for the rest of the goods when he got a call from the manager. He told him Bradley won’t be getting back because the customer complained. When Bradley asked what he did wrong, the manager said the woman didn’t want a black man at her house.
YouTube / CBS6 Albany
Neither Bradley nor his colleague Alex Brooke, who was with him in the truck at the time, could believe what they had just heard.
“To me, you know, it just ain’t right for a business that we work in to go on with the woman’s wishes,” Alex said. They weren’t that mad at the customer as they were with the manager who put the client’s absurd wish before the loyal employee.
Once back at the store, another driver, a white one, was assigned for the delivery instead of Bradley and that’s when Brook refused to take part in the delivery as well. So Brook was the only person who stood by Bradley and the company replaced both of them for this particular delivery.
YouTube / CBS6 Albany
Bradley was very upset because his company did nothing to protect him.
Local news tried reaching the racist customer who kept saying she had all the right to choose who delivers things to her house and didn’t feel remorse for asking the company to replace Bradley with another employee. “No, I don’t feel bad about nothing,” she said.
In a statement, Lowe’s said that how their manager “handled” the issue with the rude customer doesn’t correspond with their policy and they are sad Bradley, a loyal employee of many years, had to go through something that upsetting and humiliating. The manager in question has since been fired.
“Under no circumstances should a discriminatory delivery request be honored as it is inconsistent with our diversity and inclusion core values and the request should have been refused,” the statement read.
This incident took place five years ago, and that only speaks of the fact that not much has changed regarding the issue of racism in our country.
Officer Shay Mikalonis was shot during a peaceful protest supporting the Black Lives Matter movement near the Circus Circus casino in Las Vegas. Mikalonis was on the job when the accident happened and the police statement released on the behalf of his family said he is now paralyzed from the neck down, on a ventilator, and unable to speak.
Mikalonis is still in a very critical condition and is treated at the trauma unit at the University Medical Center in Las Vegas.
“Shay is on a ventilator and will be for the foreseeable future or perhaps the rest of his life,” the statement read.
“He had a set back today, but the outstanding staff at UMC is working hard to get his vitals back under control.”
The suspect in the shooting has been identified as 20-year-old Edgar Samaniego who has since been arrested and held without bail in the Clark County Detention Center, charged with attempted murder and battery and firearms charges.
A devastating tragedy took place on June 6 of this year in Bayswater, Australia, after a 19-month-old girl was accidentally killed by her mother. The little girl somehow managed to get to the driveway all by herself just when her mom, Lara Elllis, was backing her car. The mother had no idea her daughter, Aurora, was there and hit her. Screams and cries could be heard, but at the time emergency arrived, they said the little girl was killed upon impact.
No one really knows how sweet Aurora got out without anyone noticing her. Needless to say, the whole family is crushed and grief-stricken as they morn the loss of their baby girl whose father always said was “the little sun that shines so bright.”
Matthew Rann, a long-life friend of the Ellis family said, “She was known as Dad’s little tradie assistant, he referred to her as, with her name meaning ‘goddess of the dawn,’ he referred to her as his little star, or his little sun, that shines so bright. In Preston’s words (Aurora’s dad), they’ve had sleepless nights, finding it hard to breathe. Feeling absolutely numb.”
Matthew started a GoFundMe page along with his wife, hoping to help Aurora’s family with the funeral expenses.
“Aurora grew wings and flew from the earth in a tragic accident that has left her little family broken,” the page reads.
DRIVEWAY SAFETY: Every year, seven children under 14-years are killed in driveway accidents. A 19-month-old was tragically killed in Bayswater at the weekend. #9NewsAt4
A huge number of people paid tributes to the little girl and hope her family would stay strong during these hard times. Many wanted to help financially, and for now, around $37,000 have been raised.
“Preston and Lara are the most genuine, giving and caring people around and now it’s our turn to help them in the most generous way we can,” the fundraiser reads.
Protests by people supporting the Black Lives Matter movement are still being held in many places all over the country. The death of George Floyd who was killed by officer Derek Chauvin after he had his knee on Floyd’s neck for nine minutes made many lose their trust in the police and are asking for the brutality by the officers to finally stop.
Many officers, however, spoke up and are asking from the public not to judge them and their profession based on what Chauvin did.
Mike O’Meara, the president of the New York Police Benevolent Association, is one of them. Recently, he held a press-conference for the media asking from them and the rest of the people to stop treating them as they are all Derek Chauvin. He started his speech saying the police is making 375 million interactions and that many positive responses a year with the public, wanting to highlight their profession is now being humiliated.
Former Minneapolis police officer Thomas Lane has been released from jail after posting $750k bail. He was charged earlier this month in connection to George Floyd’s death. https://t.co/SvlAT0ojj3pic.twitter.com/PGZbIKVz6A
He said the media is presenting stories saying how black children are afraid to go home from school fearing a cop may kill them, and says that can never happen because that’s nonsense.
“What world are we living in? That doesn’t happen. It does not happen!” he said.
“I am not Derek Chauvin. They are not him. He killed someone. We didn’t. We are restrained.
“Everybody’s trying to shame us. The legislators. The press. Everybody’s trying to shame us into being embarrassed of our profession.”
He then showed his badge and continued, “You know what? This isn’t stained by someone in Minneapolis. It’s still got a shine on it, and so do theirs.
“Stop treating us like animals and thugs, and start treating us with some respect! That’s what we’re here today to say. We’ve been left out of the conversation. We’ve been vilified. It’s disgusting.
“We don’t condone Minneapolis. We roundly reject what he did as disgusting. It’s disgusting! It’s not what we do. It’s not what police officers do.”
The video of O’Meara’s speech can be seen below.
It’s no question that reforms in the police are needed, but not all officers should be treated as bad people because one of them did something awful while on the job. The death of Floyd was a huge tragedy, yet there are many officers who would never harm any of the citizens they are sworn to protect.
A man named Zach Kincaid experienced a tragic loss. His whole world was crushed when his beloved wife and their unborn child were killed by an intoxicated driver.
Zach’s wife, Krystil, was eight months pregnant when the drunk driver identified as professional boxer Marcos Forestal hit their Chrysler minivan with his BMX. At the time of the accident, Kyistil was on the phone with Zach who could hear her cries and screams.
It was later reported by People how Forestal went life on the social media crying about his damaged car, probably still unaware of the real damage he caused. “A car crossed in front of me and look what happened to my car,” he could be heard saying.
Immediately after the incident, Helmet Police Department arrested Forestal and said he “showed symptoms of intoxication.”
The family set up a GoFundMe page to help the grieving husband and his four children with the funeral.
“When officers arrived they found the Chrysler was ‘partially on fire,’ but officers were able to quickly extinguish the flames. Despite extinguishing the fire, officials could not immediately pull the victim from her vehicle, due to the extensive amount of damage her mini-van sustained, which had pinned both the victim’s legs under the dash of her Chrysler. Firefighters used the ‘Jaws of Life’ to extricate the trapped woman from her vehicle and she was air-lifted to an area trauma center…” the page said.
Zach recalls the time his kids, two daughters, 14 and 11, and two sons, 8 and 4, went to the hospital. They believed they would meet their little baby sister, not knowing they were about to hear the news that would broke their hearts.
“They thought they had a baby sister here,” Zach said speaking to KTLA. “They got the worst news of their life. They were told that they don’t have a mom, or a baby sister, anymore.”
After the loss, Zach wanted to raise awareness of the fatal consequences of driving under influence. What is even more heartbreaking for this devastated husband and father is that his baby daughter whose name was supposed to be Avalynn wasn’t considered victim because she wasn’t born, although she was a fully grown baby inside her mother’s womb. He hopes things will change and urges people to sign the petition at change.org.
“The max sentence for killing my wife and daughter is 10 years max. The state of California doesn’t think there was intent, but I know driving recklessly in that manner, he didn’t intend anything good….” Zach wrote on his Facebook page.
“My daughter’s due date was October 9th, a 36 week old fully developed baby isnt considered a person in the state of California. How do I explain to my children this injustice. My children and I have never felt so disposable… Look at the devastation left behind that is my family and tell me it isn’t time for change….imagine if this was your family… Who will fight with me for change? Who will spread this like wild fire? Who will write their representatives and demand change?? We cannot as a society look the other way any longer. Driving drunk is intent..”
“Demand change before your family is next… I felt it was important to show my children that monsters don’t have fangs or are some mystical creatures, monsters are people and they got to see a real one yesterday. Both of my girls stood up yesterday and spoke for their mother against this monster,” Zach told People.
Forestal was sentenced to 10 years in prison, but Krystil and Avalynn’s family believes it’s not enough for what he did to them.
We hope Zach and his children would be able to overcome the grief and sadness their hearts are filled with eventually and would be able to move on. This is such a tragic story.
With the protests taking place all over the country after the killing of George Floyd by a member of the police, we still witness assaults based on race and we truly wonder if the issue of racism will ever end.
During one of the protests as part of the movement Black Lives Matter in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, a white lawyer was filmed spitting on a 17-year-old protester. The 64-year-old woman, Stephanie Rapkin, has since been arrested. She was also reported to had kneed on an officer.
A white woman named Stephanie Rapkin was so upset by the Northshore March for Georges Floyd organized by Shorewood black youth that she parked her car to block the nearly 5K ppl & then assaulted a young black man by spitting on him. Stephanie you about to lose your Law License!✊🏾 pic.twitter.com/QaYsBGzGIH
Rapkin parked her car on the way of the protesters and refused to move it. “She won’t move her car, so we can’t go. She won’t move her car,” the person filming could be heard saying.
Speaking to WDJT, the teen who got spit on by Rapkin, Eric Lucas, said he was “mentally and physically shaken to be assaulted by an adult in my own community during a pandemic.”
“That my people and me, a young black man living in a white American can one day be equal. Every day my heart stays warm with a chance of success in this cause. Winning against injustice poverty. Winning against poverty,” he added.
Rapkin not only assaulted Lucas but wrongfully accused him of pushing her first. When they confronted her and said she wasn’t telling the truth as they had her on video, she got mad and pushed another student, Joe Friedman.
As for the second incident involving Rapkin, Shorewood PD released the following, “The victim in today’s incident reported he was peacefully protesting on the sidewalk in front of suspect’s home when the suspect came out and engaged in a verbal altercation with the protesters. The victim reported the suspect then slapped both of her hands on the victim’s chest and physically pushed him.”
Rapkin was held at the Milwaukee County Jail for one night with bail set at $950.
There is no excuse for what this lawyer did. Her act disgusted the whole country.
As many people are on the streets protesting against police brutality and trying to express their rage after the tragic death of George Floyd, a police officer from Albany in New York reminds us that we should never generalize and make assumptions because of what certain individuals from the “group” did. Officer Sadaka Kedar believes people will realize that not all cops are bad, as most of them are often going above and beyond to do their job the right way and serve their citizens at the best of their ability.
Sadaka Kedar / Facebook
He felt he had to share his story along with what being a police officer truly means. His words touched many hearts and now his message is all over the internet. This is what he wanted the whole country to hear:
“I am a black man.
I am a police officer.
But I am not Derek Chauvin.
And I am not George Floyd.
I am ME.
I am compassionate and I am caring, and I will always have a very big heart….so why do you hate me?
I’ve given the socks off my feet to a homeless drunk who had no shoes.
I’ve prevented a woman from going to jail for stealing laundry detergent by paying the store for it so they wouldn’t prosecute after I her next door at a laundromat washing her children’s clothes; she was desperate and had no money.
The other day, an elderly man’s car broke down on the side of a busy road and he had no phone, so I drove him to the gas station up the block and paid for his gas.
I’m a father, a husband, a son, a brother, a nephew, a cousin, a friend….so why do you want to hurt or kill me?
I’ve stepped in and arrested the man that assaulted your grandmother. He knocked her down and snatched her purse and we chased him down and took him to jail.
A lady called 911 in a panic and told the dispatchers her 4-month-old baby wasn’t breathing. We got there before the paramedics and started compressions. BY THE GRACE OF GOD, that baby is now a happy, bright kindergartener.
A crazed man began opening fire on a large crowd. In the mass hysteria of people running away, we ran towards the gunfire to stop it.
I speak slang. Instead of hello I say, ‘Whats good yo?’ Some say I have an inner city accent, and I may not spell everything correctly or use perfect grammar…but why do you undermine me and assume I’m not smart and ignorant?
I have a high school and a college degree. I love to read books and I constantly do research to learn new skills. I graduated head of my police academy class and went on to become a course instructor for the department.
Sadaka Kedar / Facebook
I have spoken at public forums, community meetings, and in news interviews, all very well articulated, clear, and concise. I’ve put together evidence, facts and leads and helped solve and close cases. I AM BLACK AND I AM INTELLIGENT.
I listen to rap music, wear baggie jeans, and backwards fitted hats off duty. I have tattoos all across my body. But why do you profile and stereotype me?
On Thanksgiving I volunteer with Equinox, handing out dinners to families in need.
Around Christmas, I buy hats, gloves, and meal cards with my own money and hand them out. I also prepare hot meals and distribute them down by the City Mission and at a Senior Public Housing Building.
I volunteer my own time as a youth mentor. I love to visit schools and talk to the kids. I walk up and down these neighborhoods. I live in my community. I CARE ABOUT MY COMMUNITY.
I am ME.
I am not like Derek Chauvin.
I WILL NEVER treat you like George Floyd.
And there are many many more just like ME.”
Sadaka Kedar / Facebook
We would like to express our gratitude for everything Sadaka is doing for his community and we hope people will understand that there are plenty of officers like this man who only want the best for the people they serve.
