| Fellow students arrested in shooting death of Dallas teen, classmates say Apr 2nd 2012, 19:17 By msnbc.com staff The two people arrested and charged in the weekend shooting death of a 15-year-old were freshmen in the same Dallas-area high school, students told NBCDFW.com. Friends said they believed the three were having a sleepover when something led to the shooting of Nahum Martinez. Martinez was killed early Saturday and his body was left lying on a street in Wylie, a Dallas suburb.
Friends at Wylie East High School said getting over the death of the track and cross country runner will not be easy. "It's just so hard knowing that he's gone. He's not coming back, ever," NBCDFW.com quoted freshman Sasha Parkinson as saying. "We just hope it was an accident and pray to God it was an accident," said freshman Julia Lopez. Some wondered if the death was the result of bullying. "He was bullied. Many people were mean to him. I don't know why. He was the nicest person," said Parkinson. "Maybe not bullied to the point they'd shoot him, maybe like teasing, but not enough to kill him," said freshman Edwin Walker. The district said it had never received any reports that Martinez was bullied, NBCDFW.com reported. Monday night, runners were dedicating their track meet to Martinez. During a memorial Sunday night, nearly 200 people met at the school as some ran Martinez's run route in his honor. More content from msnbc.com and NBC News: Follow US News on msnbc.com on Twitter and Facebook | | Gunman kills, wounds people at small Calif. university Apr 2nd 2012, 18:52 A gunman opened fire Monday morning at a small Christian university in Oakland, Calif., killing at least five people and wounding several others, police said, before a potential suspect was taken into custody. The Associated Press reported that at least five people had died in the shooting, citing sources. The Oakland Police Department said a possible suspect was in custody. "No imminent public safety threat appears to exist in immediate area," the Oakland Police Department said on its twitter account. Earlier, police said more than one person had been killed but they were not more specific.
Four of the wounded were taken away by ambulance, while others were being cared for outside the building, the Oakland Tribune reported. Police had been looking for a gunman described as a Korean man in his 40s who allegedly carried out the attack on Oikos University, the San Francisco Chronicle reported. The man had a heavy build and was wearing khaki clothing, the police said. Oikos says it aims to educate “emerging Christian leaders” and offers courses in theology, music, Asian medicine and nursing. More content from msnbc.com and NBC News: Follow US News on msnbc.com on Twitter and Facebook |  Oaksterdam 'cannabis college' raided by DEA, IRS Apr 2nd 2012, 18:34  Noah Berger / AP With marijuana proponents chanting behind them, federal agents raid Oaksterdam University in Oakland, Calif., on Monday. By msnbc.com news services Federal authorities raided Oaksterdam University, a “cannabis college” in northern California, on Monday morning. Agents with the Internal Revenue Service, Drug Enforcement Agency and U.S. Marshals were spotted outside the medical marijuana facility, with some entering the site with power saws and a sledgehammer and other carrying out bags of material to a van, nbcbayarea.com and the San Francisco Chronicle reported.
Two other buildings in the city’s cannabis district -- known as Oaksterdam -- were also raided. Calls and emails seeking comment from the IRS, DEA and Oaksterdam were not immediately returned. But IRS spokeswoman Arlette Lee told local media that the probe was under seal in a Northern District Court and the agents were serving a federal search warrant. Federal prosecutors have recently been stepping up pressure on medical cannabis dispensaries, forcing hundreds to close, the Chronicle reported. They maintain that federal law trumps California's 1996 voter-approved law legalizing medical cannabis. The raid comes about two weeks after the Oakland City Council approved doubling the number of medical marijuana dispensaries, approving four new potential operators, the Oakland Tribune reported. Many view Oaksterdam as the heart of California's pot legalization movement. In business since 2007, Oaksterdam was founded by Richard Lee -- the main backer of the 2010 state ballot measure that would have legalized marijuana for recreational use if it had passed, nbcbayarea.com reported. Oaksterdam University teaches classes on how to cultivate marijuana plants for personal use. More content from msnbc.com and NBC News: Follow US News on msnbc.com on Twitter and Facebook |  FBI questions people in Trayvon Martin case, begins 'parallel investigation' Apr 2nd 2012, 16:58 Lawyers for the family of slain Florida teen Trayvon Martin say they will ask the Department of Justice to investigate the handling of the investigation into the 17-year-old's death. NBC's Kerry Sanders reports. By Michael Isikoff, NBC News SANFORD, Fla. -- FBI agents on Monday were questioning potential witnesses in the Trayvon Martin shooting, confirming to NBC News that the agency had begun a "parallel investigation" that focuses on whether the teen's civil rights were violated. Agents are seeking information on George Zimmerman's background and whether he was racially motivated when he pursued Martin after calling a 911 police dispatcher about his presence in the community, an FBI official told NBC. The agents were at the Retreat at Twin Lakes, where Martin was shot dead by Zimmerman, the gated community's neighborhood watch captain.
The state of Florida is conducting its own investigation in the shooting and that one is being overseen by a special prosecutor. Although the Justice Department two weeks ago publicly announced it would examine potential civil rights violations, the arrival of bureau agents represents a new phase in inquiries into the case. A senior law enforcement official confirmed that one potential piece of evidence is records of Zimmerman's prior 911 calls to police dispatchers. The call sheets show that five of seven phone calls Zimmerman had made since last August involved what he viewed as suspicious activity by young men identified as "black males." But the call sheets do not indicate whether Zimmerman was asked about the race of the suspects or volunteered that information. Zimmerman, who has not come forward to talk about the shooting, acknowledged to police that he shot Martin but insists it was self-defense. The incident has sparked outrage in many quarters because Martin, who was black, was unarmed. Craig Sonner, Zimmerman's lawyer, has insisted that his client, who has a white father and Hispanic mother, is not racist. "This was not a case of racial profiling," he told NBC News on Sunday. "George Zimmerman is not a racist." Sonner told Reuters on Monday that Zimmerman would turn himself in to police should he be charged. Also Monday, lawyer's for Martin's parents said they would ask the Justice Department to investigate the local prosecutor's interactions with police handling the probe into their son's death. The Justice Department initiated a query on March 19, but the family wants them to look into possible interference by State Attorney Norm Wolfinger's office with the Sanford police investigation of Martin’s Feb. 26 death, NBCMiami.com reported. The Sanford Police Department requested an arrest warrant from Wolfinger’s office in the shooting, but the state attorney's office held off until the case could be reviewed further, according to NBCMiami.com. Experts: Screams on 911 call not Zimmerman
Video shows Zimmerman after shooting Two audio experts who have analyzed the 911 tapes from the fatal evening have determined that Zimmerman was not the person heard crying for help. "The tests concluded that it's not the voice of Mr. Zimmerman," said Tom Owen, of Owen Forensic Services LLC and chair emeritus for the American Board of Recorded Evidence. Asked if he thought such tests would be admissible in court, Owen said "yes" and noted he had recently used similar testing in testimony at a Connecticut murder case that involved a 911 call. More content from msnbc.com and NBC News: Follow US News on msnbc.com on Twitter and Facebook | | Archives and Silicon Valley firm bend under rush for 1940 census records Apr 2nd 2012, 05:07 By Bill Dedman, Investigative Reporter, msnbc.com Embarrassed by a computer system that crumbled under public demand, the National Archives and Records Administration said Monday that it's working to add more servers for the release of 1940 Census records. For more users the wait to see records on family members from the Great Depression era will go on for a while longer. The Archives had hired Inflection, a Silicon Valley database company, to run the computers, but frustrated users lit up Facebook and Twitter with complaints about images that were said to be "loading" but never arrived. "Our testing indicated NARA and Inflection could handle the load, but 1.9 mil visitors caused issues we're working to resolve," the Archives said via Twitter. Later it added, "We'll let you know as soon as we have another update - thank you for your patience, we know it's incredibly frustrating." Even agency officials, during the webcast to kick off the day, couldn't get images to load when they tried to look up their own relatives. In Springfield, Ohio, Facebook user Val Lough commented on our page: "It's very sweet of them to put all of these records on line. It would be even nicer of them to make the records VISIBLE. None of them will download, I have a browser window opening that's 'loading' the documents and has been for about 20 minutes. You might want to find out what their issues are. It would be faster to mail a public records request to the National Archives." Many others are tweeting about delays. The National Archives says it is putting more servers online to handle the crush. At one point, the Archives said, its computers were receiving 100,000 hits per second. Hey, you've waited 72 years to see these records, so what's another day or two. Earlier: A time capsule from 1940 was opened on Monday at 9 a.m. ET, and we invite readers to share what they find. If you use the new records to find information about the loved or lost in your family, please post a note in the comments below or on our Open Channel page on Facebook. U.S. Census records for individuals from April 1, 1940, protected until now by a 72-year privacy law, are now public for the first time, revealing details about millions of Americans from that day, as the country lingered in a Great Depression, still a year away from entry into war in Europe and the Pacific. "I'm so excited!" Gary Robert Del Carlo of Martinsburg, W.Va., posted on Facebook. "Maybe for the first time ever, I'll be able to find out something about my father. All I have is my birth certificate with his name, date of birth, state born in, and that he was in the Army stationed in Washington State. His military records burned up in St. Louis in a fire in 1973. They would have told me a lot. Wrote for his birth certificate, and there was no records of his birth. I have done nothing but hit brick walls every which way I turn. I'm praying I find something useful tomorrow, anything."
NPR describes the release as the "Super Bowl for Genealogists." Librarians around the country are ready to provide assistance. At the Family History Library in Salt Lake City, the staff will be serving cake and providing help. When the 120,000 census takers counted 132,164,569 people living in the country on that day, the information collected included the address, whether the house was owned or rented, value of the home or monthly rent, is it considered a farm, names of adults and children, familiy relationships, sex, race, age, place of birth, citizenship, residence five years earlier, education. And for a small subset of people, about 5 percent, they were asked about place of birth of mother and father, language spoken in the home as a child, veteran status, wars served in, Social Security status, occupation, employment status, occupation, number of weeks worked in 1939, income and, for women, whether they had been married more than once, age at first marriage, and number of children ever born. There is a catch. As the records go online, they can't be searched by name. For a city it's helpful to know an exact address, but often you can work with a neighborhood (near the corner of Canal and Varrick streets in New York City). Your public library may have old city directories or telephone directories from that period, allowing you to look up people by name to find an address. For a rural area, you need to know at least the county and the name of the town or township. Genealogists, librarians and volunteers will begin the work of indexing the records, which eventually will allow searches by name. Two sites, the commercial Ancestry.com and the Mormon Church's FamilySearch.org, have announced plans to provide indexes to their customers as quickly as possible, with some images going online on Monday. FamilySearch and Ancestry.com started putting images from the Census files online early on Monday, but for now without a name index. For now, you must know at least an approximate address to get started. You use that address to find an "enumeration district," which in a big city might be only a few blocks, and would be a larger area in a small town. Another approach, for those interested in a specific place, is to look at all the records for your block or street. If your area was settled in 1940, who lived there then, and what were their lives like? Your goal: With that district number, you can look on the Census website at the online copy of the form filled out by the census taker in 1940. In 70 years, it has gone from paper to microfilm to computer. Here are resources to help you with the search (links open in a new window), though as with most things in life, the key is: Ask a librarian.
|  Driver in deadly motor home crash was teen with restricted license Apr 1st 2012, 21:51 A motor home carrying 18 family members crashes into a ravine in Kansas, killing five people and injuring four others. Msnbc.com's Dara Brown reports. By msnbc.com news services Updated 3:30 p.m. ET: A 17-year-old boy with a provisional driver's license was at the wheel of a converted semitrailer when it crashed on a Kansas highway Sunday, killing five family members and injuring 13 others, The Associated Press reported. Adam Kerber's license includes several restrictions, according to the Minnesota Department of Public Safety, including a requirement that all occupants of the vehicle wear seatbelts when available. Only two of the 18 people aboard were belted in, but it wasn't clear if belts were available for those passengers riding in the trailer. The large extended family was returning from a trip to see a motocross race when the accident occurred, authorities said Monday. Updated 9:30 a.m. ET: The motor home, which was actually a modified Freightliner box truck, was carrying 18 family members on their way back to their homes in Minnesota and pulling a trailer, the Minnesota Star-Tribune reported. Their vehicle lost control and crashed through a guard rail on Interstate 35 near Williamsburg, Kan., and plunged into a ravine, according to Kansas Highway Patrol. Those killed were members of the Kerber family, according to the Star-Tribune, which ran an auto shop outside of Jordan, Minn. The Kansas Highway Patrol identified the dead as Melissa Kerber, 24, and Tom Kerber, 25, of New Prague, Minn., and Jessica Kerber, 10, Joy Kerber, 14, and James Kerber, 14, of Jordan, Minn. Pauline Kerber, 46, of Jordan, Minn., a widowed mother of 12, was in critical but stable condition Monday morning. Her son, driver Adam Kerber was in critical condition. Others injured ranged from 2 to 30 years old, according to a report in the Kansas City Star. They were sent to at least five different area hospitals for treatment. NBC News affiliate KSHB 41 Action News said the side of the group's trailer had "G-Dogg Racing.com" on the side of it. Several motocross bikes were seen inside the trailer. Passers-by stopped to help before first responders arrived. One of them, Mary Mohn, told the station: "We looked down the embankment and realized this was a very significant accident." NBC News affiliate KSHB 41 Action News, The Associated Press and msnbc.com staff contributed to this report. More content from msnbc.com and NBC News: Follow US News on msnbc.com on Twitter and Facebooke | |
