Category: Hate Crimes

Report: Lead Found In Hundreds of Chicago Homes’ Water

Here we go again.

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Toxic lead was found in tap water drawn from nearly 70% of 2,797 homes across Chicago within the past two years, according to a Chicago Tribune analysis of results from the tested water. The daily newspaper published a report on that analysis Thursday.

Tap water in three of every 10 homes included in the analysis had lead concentrations above 5 parts per billion, the Tribune reported.

Lead can leach from certain kinds of pipes as water travels from utilities to home faucets. The US Environmental Protection Agency has set its limit for lead in tap water at 15 parts per billion — but for bottled water, according to the US Food and Drug Administration, the limit is 5 parts per billion.

Lead exposure can affect nearly every system in the body, and no safe blood lead level in children has been identified, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. That’s why the concentrations found in Chicago are raising a few eyebrows.

“My immediate take is that Chicago has a lead problem,” said Dr. Philip Landrigan, dean for global health at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai and an expert on environmental pollution in children, who was not involved in the Tribune’s analysis.

However, “nobody should panic here. This is a problem that has to be dealt with, but it’s not a cause for panic,” he said. “In the meantime, fortunately, children can be protected here simply by switching water sources,” such as by drinking bottled water.

Lead is a naturally occurring metal found deep within the ground and has been used in a variety of products, including paint, pipes, gasoline, batteries and even cosmetics. Yet to the human body, lead exposure can be toxic.

“Exposure is especially dangerous for young children and for pregnant women because the developing brain of a fetus in the womb or a young baby is very sensitive to lead, and even very low levels of lead exposure can cause brain injury in a child with loss of IQ and disruption of behavior,” Landrigan said. “So people have to take this quite seriously.”

Megan Vidis, a spokeswoman for the Chicago Department of Water Management, said in a statement to CNN on Thursday that the city’s water beats the standards set by the EPA year after year.

The department “takes a proactive approach to mitigating lead in our water system by introducing corrosion control into water mains; providing residences and businesses with complete instructions for flushing whenever there is any water infrastructure work being done in the vicinity; and free lead testing of drinking water,” the statement said.

Um, yea ok.

Read the rest of this article here.

Is it a coincidence that Chicago, like Detroit, is a predominately urban city with this ongoing lead issue? Could racial demographics be the delay in getting these lead filled pipes replaced in these particular cities?

Please leave a comment & let me know what you think.

Missouri Man Reveals Years-Long Pen Pal Friendship With Cult Leader Charles Manson

FOX 5 San Diego – Ken Dickerson of St. Louis says he sent letters, postcards, and drawings back and forth with notorious cult leader Charles Manson for several years while he was in prison.

The Tate murders in Beverly Hills were gruesome and the story captivated the nation. Manson would spend 46 years behind bars for those crimes – and ultimately died in prison – but he used some of his time to write and call a man from Missouri, according to KTVI.

Dickerson said he began communicating with Manson in 2005 and the communication ended sometime in 2012. During that time, Manson sent him drawings, postcards, autographs, and long, rambling letters that were difficult to read.

Manson also called Dickerson often – as many as three calls a day some weeks.

The repeated contact gave Dickerson a look into this criminal mastermind.

“I set the school on fire in third grade and I ain’t been back since,” Manson said on a recorded cassette tape.

In describing his relationship with Manson, Dickerson said, “It’s no different than anyone else for the most part, outside of not being able to hang out with the dude.”

When asked why he would want to communicate with Manson, Dickerson said, “He was there, he was alive, he was someone of importance to history.”

A history that included a brutal, two-day murderous rampage in August 1969. “Helter Skelter” as it was called, was Manson’s motivation to kick-start a race war.

Did Dickerson ever think about Manson Family’s victims?

“I just separated the two. I took that guy that I’ve read about in books and stuff and put him over there and I put the other guy in my ear,” said Dickerson. “…For the most part, when I talked to him, we talked about art and music.”

There were also glimpses of Manson’s life behind bars, according to Dickerson. Manson mentioned during one conversation that he had been beaten up and in the fight, his guitar had been destroyed.

“When his guitar got busted over his head he felt like he just lost his dog,” said Dickerson. “Because of who he is, he would get taken advantage of a lot and used. He also got upset when some of the women he spoke to would start talking to other people in the unit, nah, he didn’t like that.”

Dickerson claimed Manson never asked him for anything and only wanted friendship, companionship, and someone to talk to about music. When asked why he recorded the conversations with Manson, Dickerson claimed, “He asked if I was recording it and I said no. He said you should. You don’t know what you’re missing. This is a part of history.”

When asked if he thought Manson was evil, Dickerson said, “He acted insane when he wanted to and acted evil when he wanted to or he could be a little puppy.”

Charles Manson died in November 2017 at the age of 83. Dickerson knows that many people see Charles Manson as an evil man that was the mastermind behind some of the most brutal murders in history.

When Dickerson’s mother told him Manson had died, he was disheartened.

“I actually did feel like I lost a friend,” he said. “I know that sounds, I don’t know the right word to use, but it did feel like I lost a friend.”‘

Interesting. If you could be a pen pal to any notorious crime figure who would it be and why?

Join the discussion.

Italian Racist Shoots & Kills 6 Black People In Macerata, Italy Over “Racial Hatred”

MILAN (AP) — A right-wing extremist suspected of shooting six Africans in central Italy was “lucid and determined, aware of what he had done” and exhibited no remorse, an Italian law enforcement official said Sunday.

Luca Traini, 28, remained jailed as police investigated him on multiple counts of attempted murder with the aggravating circumstance of “racial hatred” for the Saturday attacks in the Italian city of Macerata.

The five men and one woman wounded in the two-hour drive-by shooting spree are from Nigeria, Ghana, Gambia and Mali, according to RAI state television.

The suspect was an unsuccessful candidate last year in a local election for the anti-migrant Northern League political party. Italy’s ANSA news agency quoted acquaintances saying he previously had ties with the neo-fascist Forza Nuova and CasaPound parties.

Photographs released by police showed Traini with a neo-Nazi tattoo prominently on his forehead and an Italian flag tied around his neck.

Col. Michele Roberti, the Carabineri commander in Macerata, told Sky TG24 that Traini demonstrated no remorse for the two-hour rampage and “it’s likely that he carried out this crazy gesture as a sort of retaliation, a sort of vendetta” for the gruesome slaying of a teenager a few days earlier.

A Nigerian man has been arrested in the death of Pamela Mastropietro, 18. Her remains were found in two suitcases days after she walked away from a drug rehab community.

Read the entire story: Hitler book, supremacist flag found in Italy suspect’s home — Atlanta Daily World