Police demand boy go to doctor because of fall during horseplay

GLENWOOD SPRINGS, Colorado - January 7, 2008 - Nearly a dozen members of a police SWAT team in western Colorado punched a hole in the front door and invaded a family's home with guns drawn, demanding that an 11-year-old boy who had had an accidental fall accompany them to the hospital, on the order of Garfield County Magistrate Lain Leoniak.

The boy's parents and siblings were thrown to the floor at gunpoint and the parents were handcuffed in the weekend assault, and the boy's father told WND it was all because a paramedic was upset the family preferred to care for their son themselves.

Someone, apparently the unidentified paramedic, called police, the sheriff's office and social services, eventually providing Leoniak with a report that generated the magistrate's court order to the sheriff's office for the SWAT team assault on the family's home in a mobile home development outside of Glenwood Springs, the father, Tom Shiflett, told WND.

WND calls and e-mails to Garfield County Social Services were not returned, and Leoniak, who earlier served as a water court clerk/referee, also was not available.

Sheriff Lou Vallario, however, did call back, and told WND he ordered his officers to do exactly what the magistrate demanded.

"I was given a court order by the magistrate to seize the child, and arrange for medical evaluation, and that's what we did," he said.

According to friends of the family, Tom Shiflett, who has 10 children including six still at home, and served with paramedics in Vietnam, was monitoring his son's condition himself.

The paramedic and magistrate, however, ruled that that wasn't adequate, and dispatched the officers to take the boy, John, to a hospital, where a doctor evaluated him and released him immediately.

The sheriff said the decision to use SWAT team force was justified because the father was a "self-proclaimed constitutionalist" and had made threats and "comments" over the years.

However, the sheriff declined to provide a single instance of the father's illegal behavior. "I can't tell you specifically," he said.

"He was refusing to provide medical care," the sheriff said.

However, the sheriff said if his own children were involved in an at-home accident, he would want to be the one to make decisions on their healthcare, as did Shiflett.

"I guess if that was one of my children, I would make that decision," the sheriff said.

But he said Shiflett was "rude and confrontational" when the paramedics arrived and entered his home without his permission.

Ed. Note:  So Sheriff Vallario, you would lie, cheat, steal, and even murder, if you were only order to do so by a magistrate judge or other superior?!  This is one more example of a mindless, stupid bureaucrat who cannot think beyond his nose and cannot do anything he is not specifically programmed to do.  Below is contact information for the vile creatures responsible for this unforgivable atrocity perpetrated on law abiding Americans.  The youngster is likely mentally traumatized for life.

Fascist Pig #1 poor excuse for a human
Garfield County Magistrate Lain Leoniak
Colorado 9th Judicial District
970-945-5075

Fascist Pig #2 poor excuse for a human
Garfield County Sheriff Lou Vallario
970-945-0453

Fascist Pig #3 poor excuse for a human
Chief Executive Lynn Rennick
Garfield County Social Services
970-945-9191  option #4  option #1

January 2, 2008 - By 2014 the Army may issue more than combat gear to deploying soldiers. University of Connecticut researchers are developing an implantable chip that would be injected under soldiers' skin to help monitor vital health information while they are out in the field.

“It sounds like science fiction but it's not,” said Fotios Papadimitrakopoulos, professor of chemistry and associate director of the Institute of Materials Science at UConn. “We're taking components from traditional biology and nanotechnology and trying to marry them.”

Six UConn faculty members have been working to create a nanosensor, just millimeters in length and width, that will be used to monitor soldiers' glucose and lactose to make sure the soldiers are not exhausted and are receiving proper nutrition.

While the research has been ongoing for the last decade, the Army has become involved over the past five years in helping develop the technology. The $471 billion defense spending bill that President Bush signed on Nov. 13 included $1.6 million for UConn's program.

“The Army has a tremendous interest in the well-being of their soldiers and they want to make sure they are in tip-top shape,” Papadimitrakopoulos said. “The Army has made a big effort in monitoring their soldiers remotely.”

ENGLAND - January 2, 2008 - A couple were banned for life from a shopping center - because they were taking photos of their beloved grandchildren.

Kim and Trevor Sparshott were ordered to stop taking photos because they were causing a security threat.

They were thrown out of the center after they took out a camera to snap the look on the youngsters' faces when they turned up unexpectedly.

The couple were on a four-day break from their home in Spain and wanted to surprise their family by arriving at the center, in Fareham, Hants, while they were shopping.

But when they went to take a photo, a security guard pounced and ordered them out.

The guard then insisted that cameras were banned because of the risk of a terrorist attack - and barred the bemused couple for life.

Speaking from her home in Malaga, Spain, Mrs. Sparshott, 51, said: "I couldn't believe it. I was so shocked. He said we had committed an act of terrorism.

"At first I wanted the ground to swallow me up whole because it was so embarrassing - but then I got really angry."

Mr. Sparshott, 52, added: "Instead of being a nice surprise for our family it turned into a nightmare. I was furious.

"In these worrying times we understand the need for caution, but surely a quiet word when he first saw us would have stopped all this unpleasantness."

The couple, who had been visiting their daughter, who lives in Gosport, Hants, with her husband and children, returned to Spain in shock.

They wrote a letter of complaint to the center, and received a reply from manager Pam Gillard who said taking photos was a security risk.

In the reply to the Sparshotts, Ms. Gillard said: "By the sounds of it my officers/duty manager didn't explain the position very clearly and for that I apologize."

Speaking after the incident, she added: "Fareham Shopping Centre is private property and has a policy to support the security of the shops, where the taking of photographs needs prior permission.

"The Sparshotts are welcome back to the center."

Ms. Gillard refused to comment further on the center’s security policies, but added that the camera ban was not because of a terrorist threat.

The situation has amazed civil rights campaigners, who say the center’s reaction was totally inappropriate.

Roger Smith, director of civil liberties group Justice, said: "The key is proportionality - it is quite reasonable to have restrictions on what people can do, but this is just daft.  It seems completely over the top."

INDIANAPOLIS - January 2, 2008 - A grocery store customer in Indianapolis is being credited with halting an armed robbery by pulling his own weapon and pointing it at the assailant until police arrived.

According to a report in the Indianapolis Star, Charlie Merrell, 51, was in a checkout line at a grocery store called Bucks IGA on the city's south side when a "masked man jumped a nearby counter and held a gun on a store employee."

The police report cited by the newspaper said the incident happened at 5:17 in the afternoon Monday as Merrell was doing some year-end shopping.

"While the suspect was demanding cash from the workers," according to the police report, "Merrell pulled his own handgun, pointed it at the robber and ordered him to put down his weapon."

The newspaper noted that Officer Jason Bockting, in his documentation of the incident, said when the suspect seemed to hesitate, "Merrell racked the slide on his gun to load a round in the chamber."

At that point, the report said, "the suspect placed his gun and a bag of cash on the counter, dropping some of the money … the suspect removed his mask and lay on the floor."

Merrill, meanwhile, held the suspect at gunpoint until officers arrived and took him away in handcuffs.

Police reported Merrell had a valid permit to carry the handgun, and they recovered an unloaded .380-caliber handgun and $779 cash from the suspect.

Police records show Dwain Smith, 19, was being held in the Marion County Jail on a bond of $30,000 on initial charges of robbery, criminal confinement, pointing a firearm, battery and carrying a handgun without a license.

Ed. Note: You have a God-given right to defend your life and the lives of your brethren.  If Charlie Merrell did not have a government-issued permit to carry a weapon, he likely would have been arrested, even though he acted courageously and for a just cause!  Is this really the Land of the Free?

LONDON – December 30, 2007 - Individual privacy is under threat in the United States and across the European Union as governments introduce sweeping surveillance and information-gathering measures in the name of security and controlling borders, an international rights group has said in a report.

FORT WORTH, Texas - December 30, 2007 - A passenger on a Fort Worth bus says the T Bus Service discriminated against her religion.

ORLANDO, Florida - December 26, 2007 - The State Attorney's Office has decided not to prosecute a 10-year-old girl who brought a steak knife to school to cut her lunch. After a review of the child's school record, prosecutors determined charges should be dropped, Assistant State Attorney Ric Ridgway said today.

Teachers saw the child using a 4 1/2 inch kitchen knife to cut her steak at lunch on Dec. 13. They notified the Marion County Sheriff's Office and she was arrested on a felony weapons charge. She was also suspended from school for three days.

Investigators with the Department of Juvenile Justice then interviewed the child and looked at her clean school and behavioral record. They recommended that charges should be dropped and the State Attorney's Office agreed.

"She has an excellent school history, no disciplinary problems, good grades and nothing whatsoever to suggest she was a troubled child," Ridgway said.

Ed. Note: Why would you allow your children to spend one more day in public school/government indoctrination centers?  If you don't take your children out of public school NOW, then you are a bad parent!


Please call and voice your outrage at this abuse of official power.  How much more psychological and physical trauma will you allow your children to endure at the vicious hands of mindless bureaucrats?

Bill McCollum
Florida State Attorney General
850-414-3300

Ed Dean
Marion County Sheriff
352-732-8181