Toplessness in NYC…..5

You seriously can’t make this stuff up, im not sure if i can take this seriously ha!…Is it against the law for a women in New York to bare her breast? According to a twenty year old ruling it is perfectly legal for men and women to be bare nude from the waist line up. However, the NYPD keeps arresting performance artist Holly Van Vost for walking NYC streets with her breast exposed for the world to see. Ms. Vost’s “unbashed nudity actually served its purpose” as the NYPD “took to reminding officers over and over again in roll call that no one should be arrested or fined for simply exposing their breasts in public.” If it is perfectly legal to bare your breast, why is it that the nypd keeps making a non law breaking arrest? Is it that the officers are not properly trained or are they trying to make a statement? Or is there something underlying here? The real questions is however, why would you want to walk around NYC topless…….haha

http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2013/05/nypd-memo-exposed-boobs-are-not-a-crime.html

Arias Trial …..4

After seeing part of the long trial on TV while skimming through channels, I came across an article on CBS News discussing the Jodi Arias trial.  This women was arrested for murdering her on-again, off again lover, Travis Alexander, in an “especially cruel” manner.  She was recently convicted of first degree murder even though she had argued it was in self defense.  Arias stabbed Alexander 29 times, slit his neck from ear to ear and shot him in the face. If this was self defense, at what point did it require such carnage to be done to a person to protect themselves?  The jury has begun to deliberate if Arias should receive the death penalty and the prosecutor, Martinez, has made it clear that she killed him in rage. “She made sure she killed him by stabbing him over and over and over again and then finishing him off by slicing his throat,” Martinez said. “It is also sure that during this attack Mr. Alexander suffered. Mr. Alexander suffered pain every time the knife went into his body, every time the knife blade struck the back of his head, and when the blade went down to his throat, it was certainly also extremely painful.” The article goes on to describe how Mr. Alexander had defensive wounds on his hands as he tried to protect himself. So the question is do you believe that Ms. Arias killed him in self defense when he was the one trying to defend himself. Would the death penalty serve her the same pain that Mr. Alexander felt as “he stood at the sink in his master bathroom and looked into the mirror with Arias behind him.”? No one will ever know the full truth of what happened, however speculations can best derive the answer to that question…but..is that justice?

 

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-504083_162-57584681-504083/jodi-arias-trial-prosecutor-says-victim-travis-alexander-suffered-pain-every-time-the-knife-went-into-his-body/

 

 

Retrial? 3

So I continue to search the web to expand my blog posts (or make some since there weren’t any) I came across talk on Newsday about opening another trial for a case that occured Sept 1994. This man was found guilty of strangling his wife to death in a Vermont home, “Prosecutors at the original trial relied exclusively on circumstantial evidence and Grega’s own statements to police that included conflicting accounts and admissions that some of his wife’s injuries were caused by rough sex they had before her death, authorities said.” After new DNA was found, 18 years already served later, a judge threw out the conviction and released him on bail…….Although it will be hard to find all of the witnesses for a retrial, rationally speaking, it should be done just to give as much justice to the crime as possible….as the article states its important for both prosecution and defense to put their “speculations” about the case aside and exchange information to fairly retry the case….however how fair is it that 18 years of this mans life are already taken away….you can’t just take something like that back…..

http://www.newsday.com/long-island/suffolk/witnesses-sought-for-retrial-of-john-grega-in-94-slaying-1.5267766

re: artwork and money laundering—-2

Who knew, I would have never thought of utilizing artwork to mask millions of dollars to be laundered across seas…..Its amazing the things people think…. Police intercepted a painting labeled “Hannibal” that was said to be worth $100, however, it ended up being worth 8 million and was being laundered from London to JFK…. “Law enforcement officials in the United States and abroad say “Hannibal” is just one of thousands of valuable artworks being used by criminals to hide illicit profits and illegally transfer assets around the globe. As other traditional money-laundering techniques have come under closer scrutiny, smugglers, drug traffickers, arms dealers and the like have increasingly turned to the famously opaque art market, officials say. ” I mean I guess it’s looked upon as a business but really? art? I like also how the article addresses The Art Dealers Association of America, whom of course denies underground criminal activity within the art world is even an issue to begin with, i guess it is important to note however that there really is no type of checks and balances dealing with the sales of artwork, as the article states, and i know first hand, within banks certain transactions flag certain paperwork that gets sent to the fed to be looked into and keep tracks on money going in and out of the banks…..this is why i dont read the news or watch it….its always something

re: the three women found

As i read the article about the three women found, im disgusted, i rarely have any time to read the media or watch the news so this is of course the first ive heard of the situation at all….nothing like waiting until the last minute to make up posts…..i think that the neighbors should have had a better understanding of what was going on in that household..i know for myself i am very aware of my surroundings and who i live near, what makes the situation even worse is that the guy Charles Ramsey is now going this 30 seconds of fame due to hisinterview that was given regarding the event, some people referred to him as the next “sweet brown”, however it still must be noted that he is heroic in his actions that helped save the women in that house

 

it is amazing though as he said that you never really truely know someone as much as you may think you do

Final Thoughts On Blogging

This class was like no other, never have i had to come up with specific thoughts pertaining to criminal justice, put them into words and then put those words onto an internet site for basically, all the world to see. However, i enjoyed every minute of it (even if it took me to the absolute last day to post every single one lol it still was a blast) and i found it quite easy to find topics to talk about because honestly, it was all personal and some of them hit home. I didnt know what to expect when i first walked into this classroom on the first day and saw only about ten people in the class but as each session went on and (so did osme of the people) i learned that blogging about certain issues can be vital to how many people read and react to certain things. For example, it obviously is the age of new techonology, nobody reads newspapers anymore (except my father) and everything is all about the newest fad, the quickest way to be on top of the hottest trend and that seemingly is blogging; putting your thoughts into well collaborated words for all the world to see and go, “i still read newspapers, this kids crazy!” With that said i hope that this class comes back next year and there are even more students who take it up because you do learn a lot even though we may get off topic in the actual classroom lol. Thanks professor for a great semester.

My Internship

When you become a senior here at St. Josephs College you are assigned a class in which you will then be assigned and internship with specific guidelines that meet your interests and give yo experience out there in the world of criminal justice. The class was taught none other than professor Barbara Morrell (she seems to teach to everything at St. Josephs – i think i even seen her as a lunch lady one time but i may have been dreaming), any who, i had chosen an internship working with Assistant D.A. Steve Kuehhas out in Hampton Bays, Long Island. I was absolutely terrified for my first day because i knew absolutely nothing about what it took to work in that office but after arriving and getting taught by some of the individuals that had also worked in that office, i had found that all you need is a sense of humor because they themselves said that – that job can be very boring sometimes and you need to make the most out of a bad situation. On top of being taught how to write-up certain documents pertaining to every court case that was going to be seen in the courtroom on the said day that i was doing my internship, i had also gotten the chance the view court cases every morning and let me tell you, there are a crapload of drunk drivers here on long island. Most of them foreign workers with no real respect for human life or regard for their free citizenship and life here in the United States but hey, lets not go there. All in all the experience was extremely valuable to my research and it related closely to everything i had learned while attending St. Josephs and when i do graduate i would hope to land a job working within that industry because again, i would like to work with people and guide them down the right path, not the path that filled with flashing lights.

College Career and Criminal Justice

Graduating highschool is of course a big step in any young persons life but for me nothing iwll compare to that day when i hold that college degree in my hand for the first time and say, ” i did it, im finally done.” You see it has taken me six years to finally even come close to achieving this dream and in a couple weeks its going to come true, college for me was hard, ive failed some classes, had trouble with some professors and family issues had sometimes taken the reigns over going to class. Nonetheless i pushed through it and after six full years within the college system, attending multiple colleges including: Suffolk County Community College, Briarcliffe College and now, St. Josephs College, i have enough credits and i know what i want to do; i want to help people. I want to help people in life become better, achieve more, i would love nothing more than to be a role model for younger generations and keep them out of the troubles that sometimes i have gotten myself into and that kept me away from putting all i can into my studies. I majored in Criminal Justice for a reason and that reason was to learn about the rights and wrongs, the laws and the boundaries and how young people like myself, can contribute to society after we gain the knowledge of this specific topic and take it out into the world. Heres to the Class of 2013, we did it!!!!!!!!

Police Officer

I was born in Florida and moved up to Long Island back in 1996, the year we when we got dumped on by that enormous blizzard and everything came to a halt due to the immense amounts of snow. So with school closed for a few days and my parents home from work, i figured that is was a good time for me to learn more about my parents past (specifically my fathers job) because he was a police officer in Florida and i thought that was the coolest thing a person can be at the time. Ill never forget the one story he told me about a routine traffic stop when he had pulled over this lady for speeding; he said everything was going by the book until he heard screeching tires coming from the lane right next to him, he turned around to shockingly see this car flipped over on its roof – grinding across the pavement with a young ’ head leaving a bloody trail. I gasped in fright and disgust because i could only imagine seeing that site and the memories that it will forever embed into my brain and till this day i still remember that story and i could only imagine what my dad had gone through as a police officer and the rest of the stuff that he had to deal with, if that was only one incident.

The Use Of Drugs and A Good Friend

We’ve all been there, you know, hanging out with your friends – having a few ice cold beers on a night when there is seemingly nothing else to do but get wasted and make stupid decisions but in regards to alcohol “the legal drug” and something that is readily available for purchase, what if we had decided to go out and buy something harder? Something with a little more kick and effect? Well, one night while i was working out after my first college class i had received a phone call from a good friend saying that one of my bestfriends, James Ghringhelli, (who lived in Virginia at the time), did up to anty and purchased some heroine. But what i didnt get was why did he? He was a very happy kid, nothing wrong from what i can see, he had a loving girlfriend, a good job and was doing well for himself. However, he did take the drug and took it in a larger dose than was “accepted” for the body to recover from and he passed away minutes after taking it. I never knew James was into drugs until the day he passed away.