Mississippi
Dog comes home with surprise: Bag of marijuana
LAUREL, Miss. (AP) - Officials say a family dog in Mississippi recently came home with more than a bone or toy to play fetch - the pup had a big bag of marijuana.
The Jones County Sheriff's Office says in a statement that narcotics deputies were sent to the home Saturday to investigate the unusual incident.
According to the statement, the homeowner told deputies that when his dog came home with the bag, he initially thought it was garbage. But he inspected it and found that it contained a leafy substance that smelled like marijuana.
Authorities say they recovered about a pound of the drug. How or where the dog got the bag is not known.
Florida
Woman: Hospital flushed her miscarried baby
FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. (AP) - A woman is suing a Florida hospital, saying an employee flushed the remains of her miscarried child down the toilet.
Linda Gomez filed suit last week in Palm Beach County court against Wellington Regional Medical Center, seeking unspecified damages for emotional trauma.
Her attorney, Kennan Dandar, said Tuesday she went to the hospital's emergency room in July 2014 because she was experiencing bleeding 19 weeks into her pregnancy.
Dandar said that while waiting for a doctor, Gomez went into the bathroom and miscarried. She cut the umbilical cord with her fingernails after being unable to summon help, he said.
He said an unidentified worker eventually heard her screams, entered the bathroom and flushed the toilet as Gomez watched, screaming, "No, no, no, my baby." At 19 weeks, an average fetus weighs between 6.5 to 8 ounces, is 6 to 7 inches long and has limbs that are proportional to the body.
"She saw the face of her child. It is what she remembers in her nightmares," Dandar said.
The employee then told Gomez to return to the waiting room, he said. He said the employee didn't act in a panic, but was "calm, cool and collected."
Dandar says Gomez and her family immediately asked hospital officials to retrieve the baby from its sewage collection system so she could give the child a Christian burial, but they refused. He said his client was 17 or 18 at the time and married.
"It was very callous how they (the hospital) approached this," he said.
He said the miscarriage and its aftermath sank Gomez's husband into a deep depression and he died a year later in a traffic accident.
Jay Cohen, the hospital's attorney, said in a statement that he could not comment specifically on Gomez or her case because of federal privacy laws, but said the hospital "intends to defend itself vigorously."
Louisiana
Rap song believed to be recorded by inmate probed
ANGOLA, La. (AP) - Authorities in Louisiana believe rapper C-Murder recorded and released a rap song while in prison.The Advocate reports that the rapper, whose real name is Corey Miller, released a video for a new single, "Dear Supreme Court," last week.
The rapper is serving a life sentence at Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola for killing a 16-year-old in a nightclub in 2002.
The video for "Dear Supreme Court/Under Pressure" features an actor in a red baseball cap and sunglasses playing Miller in partial close-ups. Other than a quick exterior of a penitentiary, the setting is a cell, though it's actually just a set.
The Louisiana Department of Corrections began looking into how Miller managed to record material from behind bars in January, when reports of a new album first surfaced, spokeswoman Pam Laborde said Tuesday.
Miller was questioned by prison officials and claimed not to have recorded anything while at Angola. He insisted that any material released by his record company was recorded before he was incarcerated, Laborde said.
The video includes shots of people holding signs in front of the state Supreme Court building that say "Justice" and "Free C. Miller."
Miller has a formal request for a new trial pending before the Supreme Court. That request, which alleges a juror was pressured to vote to convict him and says two new witnesses will testify that Miller wasn't involved in the killing, was denied by a state appeals court in late 2015.
Miller was convicted in 2003 for shooting 16-year-old Steve Thomas during a brawl at a Harvey nightclub, but a state district judge ruled prosecutors withheld information about the criminal background of a witness and granted Miller a new trial. He was convicted again by a 10-2 jury verdict in 2009.
South Carolina
Family reaches settlement after police shooting
COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) - The family of a 19-year-old man who was fatally shot by a South Carolina police officer last year has settled its wrongful death lawsuit against the city of Seneca for $2.15 million.
The settlement, nearly 10 times higher than a figure offered last week by city leaders, comes as a federal investigation continues into the officer's actions. State prosecutors have said they won't pursue charges of their own.
Eric Bland, the attorney for the family of Zachary Hammond, announced the settlement agreement in a news release Tuesday. He and Hammond's parents planned to discuss the matter Wednesday afternoon at a news conference. Attorneys representing the city didn't immediately return a message seeking comment.
The settlement doesn't admit fault on the part of the city, the police chief or the officer who shot and killed the unarmed teenager in an attempted undercover drug arrest on July 26. The officer said he fired because he was afraid of being run over by Hammond's fleeing car. Hammond was white, as is the officer.
According to the family's wrongful death lawsuit, filed last year, Lt. Mark Tiller threatened to blow Hammond's head off before shooting him and another officer gave the dead teen's body a high-five.
Dashcam video of the shooting shows Tiller yelling at Hammond to put up his hands and stop his car, but he instead drives away before being fatally shot. In the video, the officer grabs the left front fender of the gray sedan as the car keeps moving away in the parking lot of a fast food restaurant. The officer shoots as the car drives by.
The car then moves out of view of the camera, but the audio picks up the sounds of crying, and an officer telling someone to again put their hands up.
Tiller has previously said through his attorney that he thought Hammond was threatening to run him over and fired to protect himself. Local prosecutors have said that Tiller's actions didn't meet the standard for criminal prosecution on the state level, noting that the officer was forced to decide in less than three seconds whether to fire his gun and that evidence supports his position.
Published: Thu, Mar 31, 2016
