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Former Police Chief Testifies That Shower Posse Stockpiled Weapons & Explosives

Former police chief yesterday revealed that in the last decade, the west Kingston-based ‘Shower Posse’, or ‘Presidential Click’ gang – under the direction of Christopher ‘Dudus’ Coke – “invested” in a stockpile of firepower that made it a significant threat to the State.

Ellington said police intelligence shows that the gang made significant investments in an arsenal of weapons that included 50-calibre rifles, shoulder-mounted weapons, as well as explosives after a deadly firefight in 2001 between members of the security forces and thugs loyal to Coke in the west Kingston community of Tivoli Gardens.

“This represented a shift away from stand-off single-target weapons to group-target weapons, which was new and significant in terms of how criminals were arming themselves in Jamaica,” said Ellington, who was giving evidence before the West Kingston Commission of Enquiry.

He said that the level of investment, coupled with the high level of organisation displayed by the ‘Presidential Click’, made it a “non-traditional, insurgency level” threat to the authority of the State way beyond the capabilities of any other criminal gang operating across the island.

“None [of them] were on the scale of the Tivoli Gardens gang. The Clans [Clansman] and One Order gangs would be the two in the wings that would pose a significant threat, but they were not as organised as the Tivoli Gardens gang,” Ellington told the three-member panel.

“They didn’t make the kind of social investment in communities as the Tivoli Gardens gang did – buying loyalties and actually appearing to operate like a state within a state,” he underscored.

Jamaica Observer

Top Former Atlanta Educators Sentenced To 20 Years For Racketeering In APS Cheating Scandal

Via CNN:

There was nothing routine about a sentencing hearing Tuesday in Atlanta that wrote the final legal chapter of one of the most massive school cheating scandals in the country.

Educators were convicted April 1 of racketeering and other lesser crimes related to inflating test scores of children from struggling schools. One teacher was acquitted.

One by one, they stood, alongside their attorneys, before Fulton County Superior Court Judge Jerry Baxter.

In this system, a jury decides guilt or innocence, the judge metes out punishment.

Throughout the five-month trial, Baxter has been pointed. Until Monday, he said he planned to sentence the educators to prison. When verdicts were reached, he ordered them directly to jail.

But on Monday he changed his mind and decided to allow prosecutors to offer them deals that would have allowed them to avoid the possible 20-year sentence that racketeering carries.

[See Video] on CNN

And that’s why there were sparks when some of the educators, flanked by their attorneys, did not directly and readily admit their responsibility.

Baxter was not pleased. He raised his voice numerous times and shouted at attorneys. Some attorneys shouted back. At one point, one of the defense lawyers said he might move to recuse the judge and the judge retorted that he could send that attorney to jail.

“Everybody starts crying about these educators. This was not a victimless crime that occurred in this city!” Baxter said.

‘Search your soul’

“Everybody knew cheating was going on and your client promoted it,” Baxter said to an attorney representing Atlanta Public Schools educator Sharon Davis-Williams, who Baxter sentenced to seven years in prison.

Davis-Williams was ordered to perform 2,000 hours of community service and pay a $25,000 fine.

Repeatedly, Baxter appeared frustrated when more educators did not simply accept the deal and plainly vocalize their guilt.

“These stories are incredible. These kids can’t read,” he said.

“This is the time to search your soul,” Baxter said. “It’s just taking responsibility. … No one has taken responsibility that I can see.”

In 2013, a Fulton County grand jury indicted 35 educators from the Atlanta Public Schools district, and more than 20 took a plea deal. Among them were teachers, principals and testing coordinators.

The cheating is believed to date back to 2001, when scores on statewide aptitude tests improved greatly, according to a 2013 indictment. The indictment also states that for at least four years, between 2005 and 2009, test answers were altered, fabricated or falsely certified.

A review that former Gov. Sonny Perdue ordered, determined that some cheating had occurred in more than half the district’s elementary and middle schools.

Michael Bowers, a former Georgia attorney general who investigated the cheating scandal, said in 2013 that there were “cheating parties,” erasures in and out of classrooms, and teachers were told to make changes to student answers on tests.

“Anything that you can imagine that could involve cheating — it was done,” he said at the time.

During his investigation, he heard that educators cheated out of pride, to earn bonuses, to enhance their careers or to keep their jobs, he said.

The cheating allegedly involved the top educator in the district, ex-Atlanta Public Schools Superintendent Beverly Hall.

Hall said she was innocent. Suffering from cancer, she died before she could stand trial.

The sentences

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution‘s investigative journalism is credited with first examining the corruption within the city’s public school system. On Tuesday, the newspaper published photos of each of those who took plea deals and the sentences they received.

* Donald Bullock was first. Witnesses testified that Bullock urged them to change test answers, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported. The former testing coordinator was ordered to serve five years probation, six months of weekends behind bars, pay a $5,000 fine and perform 1,500 hours of community service. As part of his deal, Bullock agreed to waive his right to appeal.

* Angela Williamson, a former teacher, was ordered to serve two years in prison. She was ordered to pay a $5,000 fine and perform 1,500 hours of community service.

* Pamela Cleveland, a former teacher, was ordered to serve one year home confinement, pay a $1,000 fine and perform 1,000 hours of community service. “I am guilty of the charges against me,” Cleveland said in court.

* Michael Pitts, a former schools executive, was accused of telling teachers to cheat and then telling them not to talk to Georgia Bureau of Investigators who were looking into the scandal. He was ordered to serve seven years in prison, perform 2,000 hours of community service and pay a $25,000 fine.

* Tamara Cotman, a former schools administrator, was ordered to serve seven years in prison, pay a $25,000 fine and perform 2000 hours of community service.

* Dana Evans, a former principal, was ordered to serve one year and perform 1,000 hours of community service.

*Tabeeka Jordan, former assistant principal, was ordered to serve two years in prison, perform 1,500 hours of community service and pay $5,000 fine

* Theresia Copeland, a former test coordinator, was ordered to serve one year in prison, perform 1,000 hours of community service and pay a $1,000 fine.

* Diane Buckner-Webb, a former teacher, was ordered to serve one year in prison, perform 1,000 hours of community service and pay a $1,000 fine.

CNN’s Steve Almasy contributed to this report.

WATCH: A Brinks Truck Door Flies Open And Makes It Rain On Motorists On A Texas Freeway

Imagine you’re minding your business riding and all of a sudden it starts raining…. money.

This wishful scenario happened to quite a few ~~lucky~~ dumbstruck motorists down in Texas when a Brinks money truck’s door flew open as it was traveling at highway speed down Interstate 20. The “money rain” created pure chaos ~~and multiple fender benders~~ on I-20 as motorists when into sheer pandemonium trying to “get to the money”.

Surprisingly, the truck rode for 7 miles leaving behind a trail of nothing but cold hard c-a-s-h.

~~Remind me to get behind Brinks on the highway~~!

Via Cox Media Group National Content Desk:

At first, Joel Aldridge though the sudden reduction in speed on Interstate 20 in Texas was due to an accident.

But then he saw people stopping their cars and rushing to the side of the road. When a man passed by him with two handfuls of cash, Aldridge began filming the chaotic scene.

According to a statement from the Weatherford Police Department, the door of a Brinks Armored truck flew open while it was traveling on the highway.

A “substantial” amount of cash was lost over a 7-mile stretch of I-20.

Police officials want to remind everyone that “finders keepers” does not apply in this case.

According to the police statement, “Weatherford Police will investigate and potentially prosecute any individual that has picked up any of the loose money and not returned it to either Brinks or the Police Department.”