Father's Day Bank Massacre

he Father's Day Bank Massacre was a bank robbery and shooting that took place on Sunday, June 16, 1991 at the United Bank Tower (now known as the Wells Fargo Bank Building) in Denver, in the U.S. state of Colorado. The perpetrator killed four bank guards as well as holding up six tellers in the bank's cash vault. An estimated $200,000 was stolen from the bank. Nearly three weeks later, on July 4, 1991, authorities arrested retired police officer James W. King, age 55 at the time, for the crime. The subsequent trial was broadcast nationally on Court TV. After a highly publicized trial and nine days of deliberation, the jury acquitted Mr. King. The crime remains unsolved and is considered a cold case. Timeline of bank heist- Bank entry and murder of guards: At 9:14 a.m. on Sunday, June 16, 1991, a man identifying himself as the bank's vice president asked for entry into the bank through a side freight elevator. He called the bank's guard room using a street-level security phone. Guard William McCullum Jr. responded by riding the elevator up from the guard room. When the elevator doors opened, the gunman forced McCullum to ride to the subbasement area of the bank. There, the gunman killed McCullum, hid his body in a storage room, and took his electric pass card. The killer made his way through the bank tunnels and up one floor to the bank's basement-level area which housed the vault and guard station. During the journey, the intruder set off an alarm at 9:20 a.m. when entering a stairwell. The intruder made his way into the vault area and first entered the guard room. There, the gunman forced two guards, Phillip Mankoff and Scott McCarthy, into a battery room. Both men were shot and killed. Investigators believed a third guard, Todd Wilson, returned to the area during or immediately after the shooting. Upon his return, Wilson was shot several feet away from the battery room where Mankoff and McCarthy lay. Upon investigation, police determined the shooter fired 18 shots during the killing spree. Before leaving the guard room and entering the vault area, the intruder removed and tampered with evidence so as to eliminate any trace of his identity. The perpetrator seized ten videotapes, bank keys, a two-way radio, and pages of the guard logbook. Holdup of tellers and robbery: Electronic records indicated that the intruder opened the vault door at 9:48 a.m. At that time, six vault employees were on duty processing cash deliveries. The intruder demanded that the employees cover their eyes and lie on the floor. He ordered the senior vault manager, David Barranco, to fill a satchel with cash from the work stations. Before leaving the scene, the assailant forced the tellers to crawl into a small room near the vault—otherwise known as a man trap. Confusing investigators, the robber neither filled up the entire bag with money nor took bundles of cash from the vault. The robber made his escape at 9:56 a.m. according to electronic records, leaving the tellers locked in the man trap. Using a broken spoon found on the man trap's door sill, the tellers freed themselves approximately 20 minutes after the robbery. Arrest and trial of James King: From the beginning of the robbery investigation, authorities suspected that the killer was associated in some way with the bank. Investigators questioned current and former bank employees until narrowing their search to James King, a retired Denver police officer as well as a former guard at the bank building. Mr. King was arrested on the evening of July 4, 1991. A jury of seven men, five women and two alternatives was chosen on the morning of May 19, 1992. The trial began the same day in the afternoon. The prosecution's case: Denver Deputy District Attorney Bill Buckley led the prosecution against King. The prosecution contended that several pieces of circumstantial and eyewitness evidence pointed to James King's role in the crime. The arguments presented by the prosecution included that King: -Once owned a .38 Colt Trooper, the same type of weapon used in the crime, but said he disposed of it because of a cracked cylinder. -Was a former employee of the bank and thus allegedly understood the security systems. -Shaved his mustache after the crime. -Purchased a larger safe-deposit box after the crime. After the trial, King lived what was described as "a hermit's existence" at his home at 665 Juniper St., in Golden, CO. He died of dementia at a nearby hospice on May 21, 2013. His wife, who had stayed with him, pre-deceased him in 2009. The defense's case: Attorneys Walter Gerash and Scott Robinson defended James King. Victims: Phillip Mankoff, age 41 William McCullum, age 33 Scott McCarthy, age 21 Toby Wilson, age 21

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in California

As of year-end 2011, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints reported 768,344 members in 1,348 wards and branches, 16 missions, and seven temples and 189 Family History Centers in California. History- Brooklyn Saints: A Mormon immigrant company, under direction of Samuel Brannon, departed on the ship Brooklyn from New York on February 4, 1846 en route to the Great Salt Lake Valley via California. The group under the direction of Brannan navigated around Cape Horn and arrived at Yerba Buena on July 31, 1846. The company of around 230 people were the first known Latter-day Saints to set foot in California. Their numbers nearly tripled the population of the small town of Yerba Buena, later renamed San Francisco. While there, Brannan and other Saints began publication of one of California's first English-language newspapers, the California Star, in October 1846. One of the Brooklyn saints, Angeline Lovett, set up a school in the old Franciscan Dolores Mission, the first English-language school in California. During the early autumn of 1846, Brannan led 20 men to the San Joaquin Valley where they founded a Mormon farming village named New Hope Colony. It soon failed as heavy seasonal storms flooded the valley, destroying their crops. Most of the Brooklyn saints left California for Salt Lake City in 1848. Mormon Battalion and California Gold Rush: In January 1847, the Mormon Battalion arrived in San Diego, having constructed the first wagon road across the southwest into Southern California. Battalion Members helped construct a number of building and public works in San Diego. They then traveled to Los Angeles where they built a fort and raised the American flag. Six discharged battalion members were at Sutter's Mill in northern California when gold was discovered there on January 24, 1848. Heading for their families in Utah, they carved the first wagon road over the Sierra Nevadas that would be used by thousands of westward bound travelers including the gold rush "Forty-Niners." Sometimes called the "49er's Highway," it is officially called the Mormon Emigrant - Kit Carson Highway. In February 1856, George Q. Cannon began publication in San Francisco of the Western Standard, a weekly periodical supportive of the Church. San Bernardino LDS colony: The first colonization from Utah to California came in 1851 when a company of about 450 saints under direction of Elders Amasa M. Lyman and Charles C. Rich of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles settled at what is now San Bernardino. The colony was the final settlement in a string of Mormon communities extending 800 miles (1,300 km) from Salt Lake City in an area known as Deseret. The community thrived, and on July 6, 1851, the San Bernardino Stake, California's first, was organized. The colony was dissolved by the Church at the advance of Johnston's Army toward Salt Lake City in 1857. Brigham Young instructed the settlers to return to Utah to colonize. About 1,400 (fewer than half) returned to Utah at the request of the church. The San Bernardino Stake was dissolved in 1857 as well as the ecclesiastical units within the stake. Significant Church growth and history 1895-1990: The Los Angeles Branch was created on March 21, 1895. In 1896, the Northern California and Southern California conferences were organized. The Sacramento Conference was added in 1898. Most missionary work around the turn of the century took place in larger population centers. On January 21, 1923, the Los Angeles Stake became the first stake to be created in the state since the San Bernardino Stake had been dissolved. The Los Angeles Stake was divided on May 22, 1927 to form the Los Angeles and Hollywood Stakes. On July 10, 1927, the San Francisco Stake was established. On February 18, 1939, 1,400 people visited the Church's exhibit at the opening day of the Golden Gate International Exposition in San Francisco. This exhibit was a visitor's center portraying a reduced-size Salt Lake Tabernacle. Eight more stakes were created in the 1930s, five in the 1940s and 30 in the 1950s. The completion of the Los Angeles and Oakland Temples soon followed. President Spencer W. Kimball spoke to members in the Los Angeles area in the Rose Bowl. An estimated 75,000 attended that event. Recent history 1990-present: At the beginning of the year 2000, California had 17 missions, more than any other state in the United States. In the state's major cities, many minority converts were taught and baptized in their native language. With a significant immigration to California from Latin America, five Spanish-speaking stakes have been organized. Various Asian and Polynesian wards function as well, and a Tonga stake was created in San Francisco in 1992. There are currently more than 200 ethnic wards and branches in California. President Gordon B. Hinckley attended the rededication of the historic Hollywood (now Los Angeles California) Stake Center on June 8, 2003. Historical reenactments: In July 1996, the sesquicentennial of the arrival of the ship Brooklyn was celebrated through reenactment of the event on a replica ship that sailed into the San Francisco Bay. Members throughout the state commemorated the anniversary with observances that included an exhibit at the San Francisco Maritime Museum, performances of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir at the Davies Symphony Hall, dedications of plaques honoring the early settlers, and pioneer activities and parades. In addition to commemorating the arrival of early LDS settlers, as well as contributions to the development of the state, members throughout California donated many hours of service in community projects sponsored by wards and stakes, including gathering supplies and food for the needy; cleaning parks, beaches and roadways; painting and repairing homeless shelters, and cleaning up graffiti. On January 18, 1997, 2,400 members re-enacted the arrival of the Mormon Battalion in California 150 years earlier. Other Mormon Battalion celebrations along the coast followed on respective anniversaries. On March 6, 1997, President Gordon B. Hinckley spoke to a record audience of the Los Angeles World Affairs Council, and on March 19, he addressed the World Forum of Silicon Valley. He also spoke at various Church events during the year. A Church-produced video depicting the discovery of gold at Sutter's Mill was donated to the state of California to be shown continuously at Marshall Gold Discovery State Park in Coloma. Membership history: Membership growth has slowed in California since 1991 due to significant out-migration of members. Disaster relief and humanitarian aid: In times of disasters, such as earthquakes, fires, and floods, members in California have donated countless hours of service, helping communities to recover. In 1997, members in San Diego donated some 40-50 tons of food to eight community agencies for the homeless and needy. In May 2003, hundreds of Los Angeles-area Muslims and members of the Pasadena California Stake joined in preparing emergency supplies for Iraqi families. With conflicts of the war with Iraq completed, a humanitarian aid day was set for May 10, 2003, where hygiene kits for some 10,000 families were completed and added to a $650,000 shipment of medical supplies and blankets donated by the Church. Moral issues: Members in the state have also taken leadership roles in moral issues such as combating pornography and have cooperated with other congregations of various interfaith endeavors. Members have been active in other moral issues including abortion, gaming, drug and alcohol abuse, and marriage. Missions: The California Mission was opened on July 31, 1846 with Samuel Brannan as president. It was discontinued in 1858 due to the Utah War, but later reopened in 1892 with Luther Dalton who began missionary labors in San Francisco and Oakland. In 1894, Karl G. Maeser relocated to California to direct the Utah exhibit on the California's mid-winter fair and to serve as president of the California Mission. In January 2015, the church announced that a new California Modesto Mission would be formed on July 1, 2015. It will comprise three stakes from the Fresno Mission and three stakes from the Sacramento Mission. With only six stakes, it will be one of the smallest missions in the United States. Communities: Latter-day Saints had a significant role in establishing and settling communities within the "Mormon Corridor", including the following in California (i.e. in the High Desert (California) region): -Barstow -Bishop -Bridgeport -Deseret -Gridley -Mormon Island -Needles -Oakland -Ridgecrest -San Bernardino -Santa Clarita -Temecula

1993 Long Island Rail Road shooting

On December 7, 1993, as a Long Island Rail Road train pulled into the Merillon Avenue station in Garden City, New York, Colin Ferguson (born January 14, 1958) pulled out his gun and started firing at passengers. He killed six and wounded nineteen before being stopped by three of the passengers: Kevin Blum, Mark McEntee, and Mike O'Connor. Ferguson's trial was notable for a number of unusual developments, including his firing of his defense counsel and insisting on representing himself and questioning his own victims on the stand. On February 17, 1995, Ferguson was convicted of the 6 murders. He was also convicted of attempted murder for wounding nineteen passengers. As of 2016, he is serving his sentence of 315 years and 8 months to life at the Upstate Correctional Facility in Franklin County, New York. Shooting: On December 7, 1993, Ferguson purchased a ticket for the 5:33 p.m. eastbound train at the Atlantic Avenue station in Brooklyn. This train stopped at the Jamaica station in Queens. Ferguson boarded the third car of the eastbound Long Island Rail Road (LIRR) commuter train from Penn Station to Hicksville, along with more than 80 other passengers. Ferguson, who sat on the southwestern end of the car, was carrying his handgun and a canvas bag filled with 160 rounds of ammunition. As the train approached the Merillon Avenue station, Ferguson drew the gun, dropped several cartridges on the ground, stood up, and opened fire at random. During the next three minutes, Ferguson killed six people and injured another 19. Some passengers mistook the gunshots for caps or fireworks until a woman shouted, "He's got a gun! He's shooting people!"[2] Ferguson walked east on the train, pulling the trigger steadily about every half second. Several passengers tried to hide beneath their seats, while others fled to the eastern end of the train and tried to go into the next car. Ferguson walked down the aisle of the train and shot people to his right and left as he passed each seat, briefly facing each victim before firing. The New York Times later wrote the motions were "as methodical as if he were taking tickets". Ferguson said, "I'm going to get you", over and over as he walked down the aisle. Other passengers farther away in the train did not realize a shooting had occurred until after the train stopped. As a crowd of panicked passengers fled from the third car into neighboring cars, one man appeared annoyed by their unruliness and said, "Be calm", before they forced a train door open and fled into the station. Two people were injured in the stampede of passengers. After the train's conductor was informed of the shooting, he decided against opening the train doors right away because two of the cars were not yet at the platform. An announcement ordering conductors not to open the doors was made; however, engineer Thomas Silhan climbed out the window of his cab and opened each door from the outside so panicked passengers could escape. Ferguson had emptied two 15-round magazines during the shooting. While he was reloading his third magazine, somebody yelled, "Grab him!" Three passengers – Michael O'Connor, Kevin Blum, and Mark McEntee – tackled Ferguson and pinned him to one of the train's seats. Several other passengers ran forward to grab his arms and legs and help hold him pinned across a three-seat row with his head towards the window and legs towards the aisle. While he was pinned, Ferguson said, "O, God, what did I do? What did I do? I deserve whatever I get." He also repeatedly pleaded with those holding him, "Don't shoot me. I'm sorry, I'm sorry." Five to six people continued to hold him pinned for some time while they awaited relief. While those who had not tackled him, but were holding him down, inquired as to the location of the gun, they were assured that it had been kicked away and that there had only been one gunman. Most, if not all passengers still in the car were concerned that no further violence take place and that the shooter be held rather than attacked. He was held down for several minutes. Soon, Andrew Roderick, an off-duty Long Island Rail Road police officer who was picking up his wife from the train, boarded the train car and handcuffed Ferguson. Victims- Six passengers died from their injuries: -Amy Federici, a 27-year-old corporate interior designer from Mineola, New York. -James Gorycki, a 51-year-old account executive also from Mineola. -Maria Theresa Tumangan Magtoto, a 30-year-old lawyer from Westbury, New York. -Dennis McCarthy, a 52-year-old office manager from Mineola. His son Kevin was severely injured. His wife Carolyn McCarthy was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1996. -Richard Nettleton, a 24-year-old college student from Roslyn Heights, New York. -Mi Kyung Kim, a 27-year-old from New Hyde Park, New York. Perpetrator: Colin Ferguson was born in Kingston, Jamaica, on January 14, 1958, to Von Herman and May Ferguson. Von Herman, a wealthy pharmacist and the managing director of the large pharmaceutical company Hercules Agencies, was described by Time magazine as "one of the most prominent businessmen in Jamaica". Ferguson's family, including four brothers, lived in a two-story home with a nanny and a housekeeper in the Kingston suburb of Havendale. Ferguson attended the Calabar High School there from 1969 to 1974, where the principal at the time described him as a "well-rounded student" who played cricket and soccer. He graduated in the top third of his class. In 1978, when Ferguson was 20 years old, Von Herman was killed in a car crash; his funeral was attended by government and military luminaries. Ferguson's mother died from cancer soon afterward. The deaths destroyed the family's fortunes. Family friends said this deeply disturbed Ferguson; he moved to the United States in 1982 on a visitor's visa. His friends supposed that he had trouble dealing with racism in America and that he felt frustrated because he couldn't find work outside of menial jobs. Ferguson met Audrey Warren, a native of Southampton County, Virginia, and married her on May 13, 1986, qualifying him for permanent U.S. residence. Ferguson and Warren moved to a house in Long Island, where they often fought, sometimes to the point that police intervention was required. On May 18, 1988, Warren obtained an uncontested divorce from Ferguson, claiming the marriage ended because they shared "differing social views". Acquaintances said Warren left Ferguson because he was "too aggressive or antagonistic" for her, and that the divorce was a "crushing blow" to Ferguson. He got a job doing clerical work for the Ademco Security Group in Syosset, New York, a hamlet of the North Shore of Long Island. On August 18, 1989, while standing on a stool to reach invoices from a filing cabinet, Ferguson slipped and fell, injuring his head, neck and back. The injury led to his termination. He filed a complaint with the New York State Workers' Compensation Board, which reviewed the matter over the next several years. Ferguson enrolled at Nassau Community College in East Garden City, where he made the dean's list three times. Also that year, he was forced to leave a class after a disciplinary hearing board found he had acted overly aggressively toward the teacher. In late 1990, Ferguson transferred to Adelphi University in Garden City, where he majored in business administration. Ferguson spoke out against coexistence with whites and routinely made calls for retributive revolution. Ferguson regularly accused others around him of racism. During one occasion, Ferguson complained that a white woman in the library shouted racial epithets at him after he asked her about a class assignment. An investigation concluded the incident never occurred. Later, Ferguson attended a symposium by a faculty member discussing her experiences in South Africa. Ferguson interrupted the professor by shouting, "We should be talking about the revolution in South Africa and how to get rid of the white people" and "Kill everybody white!" When students and teachers tried to quiet him, Ferguson started threatening them, repeatedly saying, "The black revolution will get you." He was suspended from the school in June 1991 as a result of the threats, and although he was free to reapply after the suspension, he chose not to do so. In 1991, Ferguson rented a room in the Flatbush neighborhood of Brooklyn. He was unemployed. Ferguson lived around many other West Indian immigrants. Neighbors said he dressed very neatly, but kept to himself and rarely smiled or spoke to anybody, except occasionally to say hello. His landlord Patrick Denis said Ferguson once told him, "I'm such a great person. There must be only one thing holding me back. It must be white people." In 1992, Ferguson's ex-wife Audrey Warren filed a complaint with police alleging Ferguson pried open the trunk of her car. Prior to the incident, Warren had not seen him since the divorce. In February 1992, Ferguson was arrested and charged with harassing a woman on a subway. The woman tried to sit in a vacant seat alongside Ferguson and asked him to move over, prompting Ferguson to scream at her and press his leg and elbow against her until police officers pinned him to the ground. Ferguson tried to escape the police and shouted "Brothers, come help me!" Ferguson sent letters to the New York City Police Commissioner and other officials complaining about his arrest, describing it as "viscous and racist", and claiming he was brutalized by the officers who arrested him. The New York City Transit Authority investigated and dismissed the claims. In September 1992, Ferguson was awarded $26,250 for his workers' compensation claim against Ademco Security Group. In April 1993, Ferguson insisted he was still in pain and demanded the case be reopened so he could get more money for medical treatment. In the following weeks, he visited a Manhattan law firm for a consultation. Lauren Abramson, an attorney with the firm, said she immediately felt uncomfortable and threatened by Ferguson. She asked a law clerk to sit in on the meeting because "I did not want to be alone with him", something Abramson said she had never done before. Although Ferguson was neatly dressed during the consultation, he acted strangely and identified himself by a false name before providing his real name. Months later, Ferguson made threatening calls to members of the firm, claiming they were discriminating against him. In one of the calls, he made reference to a massacre that occurred in California. The calls prompted the lawyers to start locking their inner office doors out of fear. Ferguson tried to have his workers' compensation claim reopened by the New York State Workers' Compensation Board, which reexamined the case due to his persistence, but it was ultimately rejected. The board placed Ferguson on a list of potentially dangerous people security guards were to watch out for. In April 1993, Ferguson moved to California in search of new career opportunities. He unsuccessfully applied for several jobs, including a car wash, where the manager laughed at him. Ferguson purchased a Ruger P89 9×19mm pistol at a Turner's Outdoorsman in Long Beach for $400, after waiting the 15-day period required under California's gun laws. Ferguson presented himself as a California resident by providing a driver's license he received two months earlier, which had an address of the Long Beach motel where he stayed. After Ferguson was robbed by two men, he started carrying the gun with him in a paper bag. Ferguson moved back to New York City in May 1993, because, he told a friend, he did not like competing with immigrants and Hispanics for jobs.[ Denis, his Flatbush landlord, said Ferguson appeared even more unstable upon his return, speaking in the third person about "some apocryphal-type doom scenario" that included black people rising up and striking down "their pompous rulers and oppressors". Ferguson started taking five showers a day and could be heard by neighbors repeatedly chanting at night, "all the black people killing all the white people". Denis became increasingly concerned about Ferguson's obsession with racism and apparent growing mental instability, and asked Ferguson to move out by the end of the month. "Race was an obsession with him. There was a sense that one had that this was someone who could snap."- Hugh Wilson; Adelphi University professor

Master Mahan

In the religious texts of the Latter Day Saint movement, Master Mahan is a title assumed first by Cain and later by his descendant Lamech. The title indicates that Cain and Lamech were each the "master" of a "great secret" whereby they covenanted with Satan to kill for personal gain. The term is found in Joseph Smith's translation of the Bible, Genesis chapter 5 (currently published by the Community of Christ), and as an excerpt in the Pearl of Great Price, chapter 5 of the Book of Moses, a religious text of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church). Scholars approaching the issue from a secular perspective, who argue that Smith's translation of the Bible was influenced by his cultural environment including strong local anti-Masonry, generally suggest that the term is related to "Master Mason", the highest degree of the Blue Lodge of freemasonry. Another suggestion is that the term is related to "Mahoun", a pejorative reference to Muhammad during the Middle Ages which eventually became associated with witchcraft by Smith's era. Apologists, however, generally argue that references to "Master Mahan" were restored by Smith from missing parts of the Bible, and therefore the term has middle-Eastern roots. Consequently, the LDS Church's publications suggest that the term "Mahan" could mean either "mind", "destroyer", or "great one", and one prominent Mormon apologist speculates that the term is related to Arabic and Sanskrit words meaning "keeper of a great secret". References in the Joseph Smith translation of the Bible: The reference to "Master Mahan" is found in a revision by Joseph Smith of Genesis chapter 5 of the Bible, now published in the Inspired Version of the Bible (I.V.), Genesis chapter 5, and in the Pearl of Great Price (PGP), Book of Moses chapter 5. The passage discussing the term begins after the ritual sacrifice by Cain and Abel, when God accepted Abel's sacrifice of a sheep, but not Cain's sacrifice of crops. According to this passage, the angry Cain made a secret pact with Satan, who asked Cain to: swear unto me by thy throat, and if thou tell it thou shalt die; and swear thy bretheren by their heads, and by the living God, that they tell it not; for if they tell it, they shall surely die; and this that thy father may not know it; and this day I will deliver thy brother Abel into thine hands. After entering this secret pact with Satan, Cain said, "Truly I am Mahan, the master of this great secret, that I may murder to get gain." Then, the passage comments, "Wherefore Cain was called Master Mahan; and he gloried in his wickedness." This arrangement was referred to as a "secret combination". Later, the passage states that Cain's descendant Lamech had "slain a man to his wounding, and a young man to his hurt", and Lamech "entered into a covenant with Satan, after the manner of Cain, wherein he became Master Mahan, master of the great secret which was administered unto Cain by Satan." When a man named Irad, one of the sons of Enoch who knew about Lamech's secret pact, revealed that secret to others, the passage states that Lamech killed him to enforce the blood oath of secrecy. Theories about the term's etymology: A footnote to Moses 5:31 in the LDS Church edition of the Pearl of Great Price states that "'Mind,' 'destroyer,' and 'great one' are possible meanings of the roots evident in 'Mahan'" but no further explanation is provided. In referring to this footnote, Matthew B. Brown, a Mormon apologist, has stated that he believes "Mahan" means "destroyer", because "the Hebrew word maha means 'destroy,' and the addition of an n would make the word a noun. Hence, maha(n) = destroy(er)." Some commentators have suggested that "Master Mahan" is derived or related to "Master Mason", the highest degree of the Blue Lodge of freemasonry. Brown stated that "anti-Mormon critics have long claimed that Master Mahan is a thinly veiled variation of Master Mason" and that they believe that "the presence of this title in LDS scripture clearly demonstrates that Joseph Smith plagiarized Masonic material for his creative ventures". D. Michael Quinn has suggested that this interpretation "ignores textual and linguistic context" of the passage, and as an alternative favors the interpretation of the phrase's derivation from "Mahoun". In popular culture: In the video game Assassin's Creed II, the player is required to find and decode "glyphs" in the game world that reveal more of the game's plot. Decoding a particular glyph in the game will begin a puzzle sequence in which Moses 5:31 is quoted.

2016 Pike County, Ohio, shootings

On April 22, 2016, the bodies of eight people were found in four homes in Pike County, near Peebles, Ohio, 60 miles (97 km) from Columbus, and 90 miles (140 km) from Cincinnati. Seven of the victims—six adults and a 16-year-old boy—were discovered to have been fatally shot execution-style in three adjacent houses, while the eighth victim—also an adult—was found shot to death in a fourth house in nearby Piketon. All of the victims were members of the Rhoden family. Details: The bodies were first discovered after Bobby Jo Manley, a sister of victim Dana Rhoden, came to feed pets at the homes. Police were first alerted to the bodies after receiving a 9-1-1 call about two bodies inside a home on Union Hill Road, at 7:51 a.m. EDT. While investigating that house, where two males were found dead, deputies searched two nearby addresses on the same road after receiving further calls from other relatives. There, the deputies found a total of five additional victims. At 1:26 p.m., a 9-1-1 call reported an eighth body, that of a male adult, at a fourth residence in the nearby village of Piketon. Three young children—ages 3, 6 months, and 4 days—were unharmed during the shootings, with the 4-day-old being found in bed with her mother's body. Seven adults and a 16-year-old were among those slain. The 4-day-old and the 6-month-old were placed under protective services, and the 3-year-old was put under the guardianship of his mother, who was not involved in the shootings. Victims- The eight victims were identified as: Christopher Rhoden Jr.-16; Youngest son of Dana and Christopher Rhoden Sr. Christopher Rhoden Sr.-40; Ex-husband of Dana Rhoden Clarence "Frankie" Rhoden-20; Eldest son of Dana and Christopher Rhoden Sr. Father of the surviving 6-month-old and 3-year-old children Dana Lynn Rhoden-37; Ex-wife of Christopher Rhoden Sr. Gary Rhoden- 38; Cousin of Christopher Sr. and Kenneth Rhoden Hanna May Rhoden-19; Daughter of Dana and Christopher Rhoden Sr. Mother of the surviving 4-day-old child Hannah Hazel Gilley-20; Fiancée of Clarence Rhoden Mother of the surviving 6-month-old child Kenneth Rhoden-44; Brother of Christopher Rhoden Sr. The bodies of the victims were taken to the Hamilton County Coroner's Office in Cincinnati, where autopsies found that all but one of the victims were shot multiple times. Four of the victims were shot once, twice, or three times; one was shot four times; two were shot five times; and the eighth suffered a total of nine gunshot wounds. Bruising was also found on some of the bodies, indicating the victims were beaten as well. Some of the victims were found shot in their beds. From the number of gunshot wounds on the victims' bodies, an estimated total of 32 shots were fired during the killings. On April 28, Gary Rhoden was the first of the victims to be buried, with his funeral proceedings being held in South Shore, Kentucky. Hannah Hazel Gilley was the next to be buried, on May 1 at Otway, Ohio. Funerals for the remaining victims took place on May 3 at West Portsmouth. A high amount of security was present during the May 3 funeral service. Investigation: Police believe that more than one shooter may be responsible for the killings, since two of the crime scenes were within walking distance, a third located about a mile away, and the fourth about eight miles away. Investigators briefly considered the possibility of a murder-suicide, but it was discredited as none of the victims' deaths appeared to be suicides. Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine stated that the killings were planned, premeditated, and "a sophisticated operation", citing the efforts taken by the shooter or shooters to cover up their tracks and remove any incriminating forensic evidence. All of the victims were identified as members of the Rhoden family. Surviving family members were urged by police to take precautions, and all residents of Peebles were advised to stay inside their homes the following night. An investigative task force of at least 100 members, led by the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Identification and Investigation (BCI), was assembled. More than 251 law enforcement officials were involved in the investigation overall, and sheriffs from 25 offices across Ohio offered to provide resources to Pike County. The Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Drug Enforcement Administration provided technical expertise to DeWine's office. At least five search warrants were executed, and more than 50 people were interviewed in connection with the killings, though no arrests were made so far. 79 pieces of evidence were examined, including a Facebook threat aimed at Christopher Rhoden Jr., which was posted before the shootings. On April 25, a spokesperson for DeWine's office also confirmed that marijuana was discovered at the three crime scenes on Union Hill Road, including an indoor grow house in which hundreds of marijuana plants were being grown, as well as chickens and equipment consistent with breeding chickens for cockfighting. An estimated total of 200 marijuana plants were recovered from the crime scenes and are believed to have been grown for sale and not for personal use. It is currently unknown if the marijuana was connected to the shootings, though investigators confirmed the possibility of the involvement of a Mexican drug cartel. Marijuana problems are a common occurrence in Pike County: in 2010, 22,000 marijuana plants were seized by authorities in Latham, 15 miles (24 km) west of Piketon; and a major marijuana growth site was discovered by police in August 2012, with about 1,200 marijuana plants being destroyed by investigators. In both cases, police suspected connections to Mexican drug cartels. On April 26, Dana Rhoden's father, Leonard Manley, stated that the victims knew their killer(s), citing the presence of Dana's two protective dogs. There was no indication that the dogs tried to attack anyone during the shootings, and there were no signs of forced entry at any of the crime scenes. Manley, who was not involved in the shootings, also described his daughter as having no involvement in the exposed marijuana operations, saying that "they are trying to drag my daughter through the mud, and I don't appreciate that." On May 3, following the funerals of the last six victims, authorities towed away at least three vehicles from property belonging to the Rhoden family; a spokeswoman for Mike DeWine said they were towed "as part of the investigation". Additional vehicles were towed the next day as well. They were all dropped off at the base of operations set up by the investigative task force. As of May 4, 450 tips were submitted during the investigation and 128 interviews were conducted. Reactions: Ohio Governor and 2016 U.S. presidential candidate John Kasich, who was briefed on the killings, described them as "tragic beyond comprehension". Cincinnati-area businessman Jeff Ruby offered a reward of US$25,000 for information that leads to the arrest and conviction of anyone involved in the shootings. On April 28, Ruby withdrew his reward, citing "recent complex criminal developments" in a post on Twitter.

Death of Jason Callahan

Jason Patrick Callahan, previously known as Grateful Doe and Jason Doe, was a young American man killed in a vehicle accident on June 26, 1995, in Emporia, Greensville County, Virginia. His body remained unidentified until December 9, 2015. In 2015 photographs surfaced of a young man, later identified as Jason Patrick Callahan, on the Facebook page for the John Doe. DNA testing later confirmed Callahan was indeed the unidentified man. Death: Callahan was killed in a vehicle accident, along with the driver, Michael Hager, after the car in which he was riding crashed into a pair of trees on U.S. Route 58 West, around 1:30 PM on June 26, 1995. Neither man was wearing a seat belt, which likely contributed to their deaths. Found with his body were two Grateful Dead tickets from Washington, D.C., which had been scalped, a dollar in quarters, and a yellow BIC lighter. A letter was found, depending on sources either in the John Doe's pocket or near the crash site, reading: To Jason, Sorry we had to go, see you around, call me #914-XXXX. Caroline O. and Caroline T. Bye!!!!. The phone number on the letter lacked an area code and never led to additional clues. The letter also contained a small drawing that some sources speculate depicts Jerry Garcia. The tickets were dated June 24, 1995, and June 25, 1995, respectively. Neither of the 'Carolines' have been identified. Physical description: The young man, estimated to be between fifteen and twenty-one, had long, curly brown or dark blond hair that had been dyed a reddish color, along with brown eyes. He had a tattoo of a star on his upper-left arm and another possible tattoo, which was faded, on his right, which both appeared to have been amateurishly performed. A beaded necklace was found on his neck; his left ear had been pierced but he did not wear an earring. A scar was also found on his back. He was of Caucasian descent, with no visible dental work, and his third molars were visible. However, he had cared for his teeth fairly well. At the time of the accident he was wearing a red, tie-dyed Grateful Dead T-shirt, Levi jeans, white socks and black Fila running shoes. Investigation: The vehicle's driver was identified as Michael E. Hager, 21, who may have picked the John Doe up as a hitchhiker, and who authorities speculate may have fallen asleep at the wheel, as neither of the decedents had drugs or alcohol in their bodies. It has been suggested that Hager may have agreed to transport the John Doe because of their similar styles of dress, as they both appeared to be fans of Grateful Dead. Authorities attempted to identify the John Doe through fingerprint analysis, with the aid of national databases, but were unsuccessful. When interviewed, Hager's family could not identify the passenger, who had been reported to have been riding in Hager's Volkswagen Vanagon when he stopped to give his father a letter in Williamsburg, Virginia. However, a detective from the area stated that this claim was not accurate, and that Hager had been alone when he stopped to visit his father. It is speculated that the unidentified young man had actually been picked up between Fairfax and Gloucester, Virginia. Due to the severity of the lacerations on the young man's face, mortuary photographs could not be released to the public; eventually a facial reconstruction was released. In 2012, another was created by the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. The man who originally bought the tickets found in John Doe's pocket did not remember to whom he had sold them. At least 221 missing people were ruled out as possible identities of the victim. 2015 developments: In 2015, photographs surfaced of a young man wearing similar clothing to that worn by the John Doe, and bearing a strong resemblance to the reconstruction images. The person in these photographs was named Jason and was described to have been a fan of Grateful Dead. He had not been heard from since 1995 and had lived in both Illinois and South Carolina. It had not yet been verified whether this was indeed the John Doe, and his last name had not yet been discovered, as his roommates and other friends did not recall it. Newspapers, including the New York Post, The Daily Mail and BuzzFeed, covered the story. In January 2015, law enforcement conducted a DNA test to see if the John Doe was the same man as Jason Patrick Callahan, the son of a sixty-three-year-old woman who had not seen or heard from him since June 1995, when he left home to "follow the Grateful Dead". Callahan, who was identified as the young man in the photographs, is described as having been a white male with wavy blonde hair and brown eyes, standing between 5 feet 10 inches (1.78 meters) and 6 feet (1.83 meters) tall, and weighing about 160 pounds (70 kilograms). Callahan, if he were alive, would have been thirty-eight at the time. Callahan was not reported missing by his mother until 2015. Lt. Joey Crosby, spokesman for Myrtle Beach police, stated that Callahan's mother didn't know which jurisdiction to file the report with due to the nomadic nature of Grateful Dead fans. “She attempted to report it when he went missing but didn’t know which jurisdiction to report it to,” he said. Callahan's family also stated that they presumed he had gone to "live on his own, elsewhere." DNA testing confirmed that the body was indeed Callahan.

Lyle Stevik

Lyle Stevik was the alias used by an unidentified man who committed suicide by hanging in 2001, in a motel in Amanda Park, Washington. As of 2016, his actual name has not been discovered. The man was seen alive prior to his death, including at the hotel where he died. He had checked into his room as Lyle Stevik, presumably using the name of a character from Joyce Carol Oates' novel You Must Remember This (1987). Circumstances: Stevik checked into a motel in Amanda Park after arriving in the area by bus. The clerk stated the man may have possibly been Canadian, as he was described as speaking in a similar accent. When registering for his room, he wrote the alias and the address of a different hotel, a Best Western establishment in Meridian, Idaho. The hotel was located; however, none of the staff members recognized the decedent. He was also seen walking back and forth at the side of a highway near the motel, but it is uncertain if it was before or after he paid for his room. He requested and received a second room after complaining about noise from outside. He may have used the name of a character from the novel You Must Remember This, authored by Joyce Carol Oates. In the story, the character who bore the same name, spelled as "Stevick," tried to commit suicide. Death: His body was discovered the day after he had checked into the building. However, an initial report stated that it had been more than one day. He had used his belt to hang himself inside of the closet. The belt was secured by the bar used to hang clothing. The man had also left money to pay for the night he stayed and also another note reading "suicide." Upon the discovery of the body, it was noted that the man had closed the blinds in the room and had also lined the closet, in which he hanged himself, with pillows. At the bedside table, he had left a note that contained $160 in $20 bills with the words "for the room." It is speculated that he may have committed suicide due to depression, or to quicken the pace of a fatal disease, although there were no signs of one. It is also possible that the man was native to a non-English speaking country. An investigator stated that it appeared as if the man was "seeing if he could spell" the word "suicide," as a piece of paper was located in a trash bin. He carried no luggage but had only a toothbrush and toothpaste. He wore a blue shirt in a plaid design, a gray tee shirt underneath, blue jeans, and black boots. He paid at the desk for one night's lodging, but stated he planned to stay for "a few more days". Post-mortem examination: Stevik was light-skinned but may have been of Native American or Hispanic heritage, as he had black hair and hazel eyes. It has also been stated by the local coroner's office that he may have been of an African admixture. He did have some dental work in his life, as his teeth showed evidence of previous treatment with braces. He had an old scar of a removed appendix. On his face, a mole on his chin was noted along with the fact that he had attached earlobes. The examination also indicated that he had lost a large amount of weight, up to 40 pounds (18 kg). This was estimated after the examiner noted that the size of the man's jeans were fairly large in comparison to his body. His age was estimated to be between 20 and 30 years old, placing an estimated birth date from 1971 to 1981. He may have been up to 35 years old, however, which would increase this estimation to as early as 1966. Investigation: Because Stevik was deceased for only a short time before his body was found, his fingerprints, dental characteristics, and DNA were easy for examiners to obtain. These identifying markers were placed in international databases, including CODIS; however, no matches have ever been made. It is believed that he came to the area from Port Angeles or Aberdeen, which had buses arrive in Amanda Park the same day. However, he was not recognized by either of the people who drove the vehicles. Two men who are currently missing, Alexander Craig and Steven Needham, have been ruled out as possible identities of Stevik. In April 2007, Stevik was listed as the profile of the month for "Missing from the Circle," a public service initiative launched by Lamar Associates, a law enforcement advisory organization based in Washington, D.C., to help solve cases involving missing or unidentified Native Americans.

Zodiac Killer

The Zodiac Killer was a serial killer who operated in northern California in the late 1960s and early 1970s. The killer's identity remains unknown. The Zodiac murdered victims in Benicia, Vallejo, Lake Berryessa, and San Francisco between December 1968 and October 1969. Four men and three women between the ages of 16 and 29 were targeted. The killer originated the name "Zodiac" in a series of taunting letters sent to the local Bay Area press. These letters included four cryptograms (or ciphers). Of the four cryptograms sent, only one has been definitively solved. Suspects have been named by law enforcement and amateur investigators, but no conclusive evidence has surfaced. The San Francisco Police Department (SFPD) marked the case "inactive" in April 2004, but re-opened it at some point prior to March 2007. The case also remains open in the city of Vallejo, as well as in Napa County and Solano County. The California Department of Justice has maintained an open case file on the Zodiac murders since 1969. Victim- Confirmed: Although the Zodiac claimed 37 murders in letters to the newspapers, investigators agree on only seven confirmed victims, two of whom survived. They are: -David Arthur Faraday, 17, and Betty Lou Jensen, 16: shot and killed on December 20, 1968, on Lake Herman Road, within the city limits of Benicia. Coordinates: 38°5′41.61″N 122°8′38.24″W -Michael Renault Mageau, 19, and Darlene Elizabeth Ferrin, 22: shot on July 4, 1969, in the parking lot of Blue Rock Springs Park in Vallejo. While Mageau survived the attack, Ferrin was pronounced dead on arrival at Kaiser Foundation Hospital. Coordinates: 38°7′33.56″N 122°11′27.94″W -Bryan Calvin Hartnell, 20, and Cecelia Ann Shepard, 22: stabbed on September 27, 1969, at Lake Berryessa in Napa County. Hartnell survived eight stab wounds to the back, but Shepard died as a result of her injuries on September 29, 1969. Coordinates: 38°33′48.29″N 122°13′54.43″W -Paul Lee Stine, 29: shot and killed on October 11, 1969, in the Presidio Heights neighborhood in San Francisco. Coordinates: 37°47′19.47″N 122°27′25.54″W Suspected- The following murder victims are suspected to be victims of Zodiac, though none has been confirmed: Robert Domingos, 18, and Linda Edwards, 17: shot and killed on June 4, 1963, on a beach near Gaviota. Edwards and Domingos were identified as possible Zodiac victims because of specific similarities between their attack and the Zodiac's attack at Lake Berryessa six years later. Coordinates: 34°28′11.20″N 120°10′7.14″W Cheri Jo Bates, 18: stabbed to death and nearly decapitated on October 30, 1966, at Riverside City College in Riverside. Bates's possible connection to the Zodiac only appeared four years after her murder when San Francisco Chronicle reporter Paul Avery received a tip regarding similarities between the Zodiac killings and the circumstances surrounding Bates's death. College coordinates: 33°58′19″N 117°22′52″W Donna Lass, 25: last seen September 6, 1970, in Stateline, Nevada. A postcard with an advertisement from Forest Pines condominiums (near Incline Village at Lake Tahoe) pasted on the back was received at the Chronicle on March 22, 1971, and has been interpreted as the Zodiac claiming Lass's disappearance as a victim. No evidence has been uncovered to connect Lass's disappearance with the Zodiac Killer definitively. There is also a suspected third escapee from the Zodiac Killer: Kathleen Johns, 22: allegedly abducted on March 22, 1970, on Highway 132 near I-580, in an area west of Modesto. Johns escaped from the car of a man who drove her and her infant daughter around the area between Stockton and Patterson for approximately 1½ hours. Junction 132/I-580 coordinates: 37°38′16.14″N 121°23′55.22″W Timeline- Lake Herman Road attack: The first murders widely attributed to the Zodiac Killer were the shootings of high school students Betty Lou Jensen and David Faraday on December 20, 1968, on Lake Herman Road, just inside Benicia city limits. The couple were on their first date and planned to attend a Christmas concert at Hogan High School about three blocks from Jensen's home. The couple instead visited a friend before stopping at a local restaurant and then driving out on Lake Herman Road. At about 10:15 p.m., Faraday parked his mother's Rambler in a gravel turnout, which was a well-known lovers' lane. Shortly after 11:00 p.m., their bodies were found by Stella Borges, who lived nearby. The Solano County Sheriff's Department investigated the crime but no leads developed. Utilizing available forensic data, Robert Graysmith postulated that another car pulled into the turnout, just prior to 11:00 pm and parked beside the couple. The killer apparently exited the second car and walked toward the Rambler, possibly ordering the couple out of the Rambler. Jensen appeared to have exited the car first, yet when Faraday was halfway out, the killer apparently shot Faraday in the head. Fleeing from the killer, Jensen was gunned down twenty-eight feet from the car with five shots through her back. The killer then drove off. Blue Rock Springs attack: Just before midnight on July 4, 1969, Darlene Ferrin and Michael Mageau drove into the Blue Rock Springs Park in Vallejo, four miles from the Lake Herman Road murder site, and parked. While the couple sat in Ferrin's car, a second car drove into the lot and parked alongside them but almost immediately drove away. Returning about 10 minutes later, this second car parked behind them. The driver of the second car then exited the vehicle, approaching the passenger side door of Ferrin's car, carrying a flashlight and a 9 mm Luger. The killer directed the flashlight into Mageau's and Ferrin's eyes before shooting at them, firing five times. Both victims were hit, and several bullets had passed through Mageau and into Ferrin. The killer walked away from the car but upon hearing Mageau's moaning, returned and shot each victim twice more before driving off. On July 5, 1969, at 12:40 a.m., a man phoned the Vallejo Police Department to report and claim responsibility for the attack. The caller also took credit for the murders of Jensen and Faraday six-and-a-half months earlier. The police traced the call to a phone booth at a gas station at Springs Road and Tuolumne, about three-tenths of a mile from Ferrin's home and only a few blocks from the Vallejo Police Department. Ferrin was pronounced dead at the hospital. Mageau survived the attack despite being shot in the face, neck and chest. Letters from the Zodiac: On August 1, 1969, three letters prepared by the killer were received at the Vallejo Times Herald, the San Francisco Chronicle, and The San Francisco Examiner. The nearly identical letters took credit for the shootings at Lake Herman Road and Blue Rock Springs. Each letter also included one-third of a 408-symbol cryptogram which the killer claimed contained his identity. The killer demanded they be printed on each paper's front page or he would "cruse around all weekend killing lone people in the night then move on to kill again, until I end up with a dozen people over the weekend." The Chronicle published its third of the cryptogram on page four of the next day's edition. An article printed alongside the code quoted Vallejo Police Chief Jack E. Stiltz as saying "We're not satisfied that the letter was written by the murderer" and requested the writer send a second letter with more facts to prove his identity. The threatened murders did not happen, and all three parts were eventually published. On August 7, 1969, another letter was received at The San Francisco Examiner with the salutation "Dear Editor This is the Zodiac speaking." This was the first time the killer had used this name for identification. The letter was a response to Chief Stiltz's request for more details that would prove he had killed Faraday, Jensen and Ferrin. In it, the Zodiac included details about the murders which had not yet been released to the public, as well as a message to the police that when they cracked his code "they will have me." On August 8, 1969, Donald and Bettye Harden of Salinas, California, cracked the 408-symbol cryptogram. It contained a misspelled message in which the killer said he was collecting slaves for the afterlife. No name appears in the decoded text, and the killer said that he would not give away his identity because it would slow down or stop his slave collection. "I LIKE KILLING PEOPLE BECAUSE IT IS SO MUCH FUN IT IS MORE FUN THAN KILLING WILD GAME IN THE FORREST BECAUSE MAN IS THE MOST DANGEROUE ANAMAL OF ALL TO KILL SOMETHING GIVES ME THE MOST THRILLING EXPERENCE IT IS EVEN BETTER THAN GETTING YOUR ROCKS OFF WITH A GIRL THE BEST PART OF IT IS THAE WHEN I DIE I WILL BE REBORN IN PARADICE AND THEI HAVE KILLED WILL BECOME MY SLAVES I WILL NOT GIVE YOU MY NAME BECAUSE YOU WILL TRY TO SLOI DOWN OR ATOP MY COLLECTIOG OF SLAVES FOR MY AFTERLIFE EBEORIETEMETHHPITI" — The solution to Zodiac's 408-symbol cipher. The meaning, if any, of the final eighteen letters has not been determined. Lake Berryessa attack: On September 27, 1969, Pacific Union College students Bryan Hartnell and Cecelia Shepard were picnicking at Lake Berryessa on a small island connected by a sand spit to Twin Oak Ridge. A man approached them wearing a black executioner's-type hood with clip-on sunglasses over the eye-holes and a bib-like device on his chest that had a white 3"x3" cross-circle symbol on it. He approached them with a gun, which Hartnell believed to be a .45. The hooded man claimed to be an escaped convict from Deer Lodge, Montana, where he had killed a guard and stolen a car, explaining that he needed their car and money to go to Mexico. He had brought precut lengths of plastic clothesline and told Shepard to tie up Hartnell, before he tied her up. The killer checked, and tightened Hartnell's bonds after discovering Shepard had bound Hartnell's hands loosely. Hartnell initially believed it to be a weird robbery, but the man drew a knife and stabbed them both repeatedly. The killer then hiked 500 yards back up to Knoxville Road, drew the cross-circle symbol on Hartnell's car door with a black felt-tip pen, and wrote beneath it: "Vallejo/12-20-68/7-4-69/Sept 27–69–6:30/by knife." At 7:40 p.m., the killer called the Napa County Sheriff's office from a pay telephone to report this latest crime. The phone was found, still off the hook, minutes later at the Napa Car Wash on Main Street in Napa by KVON radio reporter Pat Stanley, only a few blocks from the sheriff's office, yet 27 miles from the crime scene. Detectives were able to lift a still-wet palm print from the telephone but were never able to match it to any suspect. After hearing their screams for help, a man and his son who were fishing in a nearby cove discovered the victims and summoned help by contacting park rangers. Napa County Sheriff's deputies Dave Collins and Ray Land were the first law enforcement officers to arrive at the crime scene. Cecelia Shepard was conscious when Collins arrived, providing him with a detailed description of the attacker. Hartnell and Shepard were taken to Queen of the Valley Hospital in Napa by ambulance. Shepard lapsed into a coma during transport to the hospital and never regained consciousness. She died two days later, but Hartnell survived to recount his tale to the press. Napa County Sheriff Detective Ken Narlow, who was assigned to the case from the outset, worked on solving the crime until his retirement from the department in 1987. Presidio Heights attack: Two weeks later on October 11, 1969, a passenger entered the cab driven by Paul Stine at the intersection of Mason and Geary Streets (one block west from Union Square) in San Francisco requesting to be taken to Washington and Maple Streets in Presidio Heights. For reasons unknown, Stine drove one block past Maple to Cherry Street; the passenger then shot Stine once in the head with a 9mm, took Stine's wallet and car keys, and tore away a section of Stine's bloodstained shirt tail. This passenger was observed by three teenagers across the street at 9:55 p.m., who called the police while the crime was in progress. They observed a man wiping the cab down before walking away towards the Presidio, one block to the north. Two blocks from the crime scene, Officer Don Fouke, responding to the call, observed a white man walking along the sidewalk and stepping onto a stairway leading up to the front yard of one of the homes on the north side of the street; the encounter lasted only five to ten seconds. The radio dispatcher had alerted to be on the lookout for a black suspect, so they drove past him without stopping; the mix-up in descriptions remains unexplained to this day. A search ensued, but no possible suspects were found. The three teen witnesses worked with a police artist to prepare a composite sketch of Stine's killer; then, a few days later, this police artist returned, working with the witnesses to prepare a second composite sketch of the killer. Detectives Bill Armstrong and Dave Toschi were assigned to the case. The San Francisco Police Department investigated an estimated 2,500 suspects over a period of years. Communication from the Zodiac: On October 14, 1969, the Chronicle received another letter from the Zodiac, this time containing a swatch of Paul Stine's shirt tail as proof he was the killer; it also included a threat about killing schoolchildren on a school bus. To do this, Zodiac wrote, "just shoot out the front tire & then pick off the kiddies as they come bouncing out." At 2:00 p.m. on October 20, 1969, someone claiming to be the Zodiac called Oakland PD demanding that one of two prominent lawyers, F. Lee Bailey or Melvin Belli, appear on the local television show A.M. San Francisco, hosted by Jim Dunbar. Bailey was not available, but Belli did appear on the show. Dunbar appealed to the viewers to keep the lines open, and eventually, someone claiming to be the Zodiac called several times and said his name was "Sam". Belli agreed to meet with him in Daly City, but the suspect never showed up. On November 8, 1969, the Zodiac mailed a card with another cryptogram consisting of 340 characters. The 340-character cipher has never been decoded. Numerous possible solutions have been suggested, but none can be claimed as definitive. On November 9, 1969, the Zodiac mailed a seven-page letter stating that two policemen stopped and actually spoke with him three minutes after he shot Stine. Excerpts from the letter were published in the Chronicle on November 12 including the Zodiac's claim; that same day, Officer Don Fouke wrote a memo explaining what had happened the night of Stine's murder. On December 20, 1969, exactly one year after the murders of David Faraday and Betty Lou Jensen, the Zodiac mailed a letter to Belli that included another swatch of Stine's shirt; the Zodiac said he wanted Belli to help him. Modesto attack: On the night of March 22, 1970, Kathleen Johns was driving from San Bernardino to Petaluma to visit her mother. She was seven months pregnant and had her 10-month-old daughter beside her. While heading west on Highway 132 near Modesto, a car behind her began honking its horn and flashing its headlights. She pulled off the road and stopped. The man in the car parked behind her, approached her car, stated that he observed that her right rear wheel was wobbling, and offered to tighten the lug nuts. After finishing his work, the man drove off; yet when Johns pulled forward to re-enter the highway the wheel almost immediately came off the car. The man returned, offering to drive her to the nearest gas station for help. She and her daughter climbed into his car. During the ride the car passed several service stations but the man did not stop. For about 90 minutes he drove back and forth around the backroads near Tracy. When Johns asked why he was not stopping, he would change the subject. When the driver finally stopped at an intersection, Johns jumped out with her daughter and hid in a field. The driver searched for her using his flashlight telling her that he would not hurt her, before eventually giving up. Unable to find her, he got back into the car and drove off. Johns hitched a ride to the police station in Patterson. When Johns gave her statement to the sergeant on duty, she noticed the police composite sketch of Paul Stine's killer and recognized him as the man who abducted her and her child. Fearing he might come back and kill them all, the sergeant had Johns wait, in the dark, at the nearby Mil's Restaurant. When her car was found, it had been gutted and torched. Most accounts say he threatened to kill her and her daughter while driving them around, but at least one police report disputes that. Johns' account to Paul Avery of the Chronicle indicates her abductor left his car and searched for her in the dark with a flashlight; however, in one report she made to the police, she stated he did not leave the vehicle. Further Zodiac communications: Zodiac continued to communicate with authorities for the remainder of 1970 via letters and greeting cards to the press. In a letter postmarked April 20, 1970, the Zodiac wrote, "My name is _____," followed by a 13-character cipher. The Zodiac went on to state that he was not responsible for the recent bombing of a police station in San Francisco (referring to the February 18, 1970, death of Sgt. Brian McDonnell two days after the bombing at Park Station in Golden Gate Park) but added "there is more glory to killing a cop than a cid because a cop can shoot back." The letter included a diagram of a bomb the Zodiac claimed he would use to blow up a school bus. At the bottom of the diagram, he wrote: "Zodiac-logo crop.jpg = 10, SFPD = 0." Zodiac sent a greeting card postmarked April 28, 1970, to the Chronicle. Written on the card was, "I hope you enjoy yourselves when I have my BLAST," followed by the Zodiac's cross circle signature. On the back of the card, the Zodiac threatened to use the bus bomb soon unless the newspaper published the full details he wrote. He also wanted to start seeing people wearing "some nice Zodiac butons." In a letter postmarked June 26, 1970, the Zodiac stated he was upset that he did not see people wearing Zodiac buttons. He wrote, "I shot a man sitting in a parked car with a .38." The Zodiac was possibly referring to the murder of Sgt. Richard Radetich, a week earlier, on June 19. At 5:25 am, Radetich was writing a parking ticket in his squad car when an assailant shot him in the head with a .38-caliber pistol. Radetich died 15 hours later. SFPD denies the Zodiac was involved in this murder; it remains unsolved. Included with the letter was a Phillips 66 roadmap of the San Francisco Bay Area. On the image of Mount Diablo, the Zodiac had drawn a crossed-circle similar to the ones he had included in previous correspondence. At the top of the crossed circle, he placed a zero, and then a three, six, and a nine. The accompanying instructions stated that the zero was "to be set to Mag. N." The letter also included a 32-letter cipher that the killer claimed would, in conjunction with the code, lead to the location of a bomb he had buried and set to go off in the fall. The cipher was never decoded, and the alleged bomb was never located. The killer signed the note with "Zodiac-logo crop.jpg = 12, SFPD = 0." In a letter to the Chronicle postmarked July 24, 1970, the Zodiac took credit for Kathleen Johns' abduction, four months after the incident. In a July 26, 1970 letter, the Zodiac paraphrased a song from The Mikado, adding his own lyrics about making a "little list" of the ways he planned to torture his "slaves" in "paradice". The letter was signed with a large, exaggerated cross circle symbol and a new score: "Zodiac-logo crop.jpg = 13, SFPD = 0". A final note at the bottom of the letter stated, "P.S. The Mt. Diablo code concerns Radians + # inches along the radians." In 1981, a close examination of the radian hint by Zodiac researcher Gareth Penn led to the discovery that a radian angle, when placed over the map per Zodiac's instructions, pointed to the locations of two Zodiac attacks. On October 7, 1970, the Chronicle received a three-by-five inch card signed by the Zodiac with the Zodiac-logo crop.jpg and a small cross reportedly drawn with blood. The card's message was formed by pasting words and letters from an edition of the Chronicle, and thirteen holes were punched across the card. Inspectors Armstrong and Toschi agreed it was "highly probable" the card came from the Zodiac. Zodiac letter to Paul Avery: On October 27, 1970, Chronicle reporter Paul Avery (who had been covering the Zodiac case) received a Halloween card signed with a letter 'Z' and the Zodiac's cross circle symbol. Handwritten on the card was the note "Peek-a-boo, you are doomed." The threat was taken seriously and received a front-page story on the Chronicle. Soon after receiving this letter, Avery received an anonymous letter alerting him to the similarities between the Zodiac's activities and the unsolved murder of Cheri Jo Bates, which had occurred four years earlier at the city college in Riverside in the Greater Los Angeles Area, more than 400 miles south of San Francisco. He reported his findings in the Chronicle on November 16, 1970. Riverside attack: On October 30, 1966, 18-year-old Cheri Jo Bates, a student of Riverside Community College, spent the evening at the campus library annex until it closed at 9:00 p.m. Neighbors reported hearing a scream around 10:30 p.m. Bates was found dead the next morning, a short distance from the library, between two abandoned houses slated to be demolished for campus renovations. The wires in her Volkswagen's distributor cap had been pulled out. She was brutally beaten and stabbed to death. A man's Timex watch with a torn wristband was found nearby. The watch had stopped at 12:24, but police believe the attack occurred much earlier. A month later, on November 29, 1966, nearly identical typewritten letters were mailed to the Riverside police and the Riverside Press-Enterprise, titled "The Confession". The author claimed responsibility for the Bates murder, providing details of the crime that were not released to the public. The author warned that Bates "is not the first and she will not be the last." In December 1966, a poem was discovered carved into the bottom side of a desktop in the Riverside City College library. Titled "Sick of living/unwilling to die", the poem's language and handwriting resembled that of the Zodiac's letters. It was signed with what were assumed to be the initials rh. During the 1970 investigation, Sherwood Morrill, California's top "Questioned Documents" examiner, expressed his opinion that the poem was written by the Zodiac. On April 30, 1967, exactly six months after the Bates murder, Bates' father Joseph, the Press-Enterprise, and the Riverside police all received nearly identical letters: in a handwritten scrawl the Press-Enterprise and police copies read "Bates had to die there will be more", with a small scribble at the bottom that resembled the letter Z. Joseph Bates' copy read "She had to die there will be more", this time without the Z signature. On March 13, 1971, five months after Avery's article linking the Zodiac to the Riverside murder, the Zodiac mailed a letter to the Los Angeles Times. In the letter he credited the police, instead of Avery, for discovering his "Riverside activity, but they are only finding the easy ones, there are a hell of a lot more down there." The connection between Cheri Jo Bates, Riverside and the Zodiac remains uncertain. Paul Avery and the Riverside Police Department maintain that the Bates homicide was not committed by the Zodiac, but did concede some of the Bates letters may have been his work to claim credit falsely. Lake Tahoe disappearance: On March 22, 1971, a postcard to the Chronicle, addressed to "Paul Averly" and believed to be from the Zodiac, appeared to claim responsibility for the disappearance of Donna Lass on September 6, 1970. Made from a collage of advertisements and magazine lettering, it featured a scene from an advertisement for Forest Pines condominiums and the text "Sierra Club", "Sought Victim 12", "peek through the pines", "pass Lake Tahoe areas", and "around in the snow". Zodiac's cross circle symbol was in the place of the usual return address. Lass was a nurse at the Sahara Tahoe hotel and casino. She worked until about 2:00 a.m. on September 6, 1970, treating her last patient at 1:40 a.m. Later that same day, both Lass's employer and her landlord received phone calls from an unknown male falsely claiming Lass had left town due to a family emergency. Lass was never found. What appeared to be a grave site was discovered near the Clair Tappaan Lodge in Norden, California, on Sierra Club property, but an excavation yielded only a pair of sunglasses.[citation needed] No evidence has been uncovered to connect the Lass disappearance with the Zodiac Killer definitively. Santa Barbara attack: In a Vallejo Times-Herald story appearing on November 13, 1972, Santa Barbara County Sheriff's Office Bill Baker (ret.) postulated that the murders of a young couple in northern Santa Barbara County might have been the work of the Zodiac Killer. On June 4, 1963, high school senior Robert Domingos and fiancée Linda Edwards were shot dead on a beach near Lompoc, having skipped school that day for "Senior Ditch Day". Police believed that the assailant attempted to bind the victims, but when they freed themselves and attempted to flee, the killer shot them repeatedly in the back and chest with a .22-caliber weapon. The killer then placed their bodies in a small shack and tried, unsuccessfully, to burn it down. Final Zodiac letter: After the "Pines" card, the Zodiac remained silent for nearly three years. The Chronicle then received a letter from the Zodiac, postmarked January 29, 1974, praising The Exorcist as "the best saterical comidy, that I have ever seen". The letter included a snippet of verse from The Mikado and an unusual symbol at the bottom that has remained unexplained by researchers. Zodiac concluded the letter with a new score, "Me = 37, SFPD = 0". Later letters of suspicious authorship: Of further communications sent by the public to members of the news media, some contained similar characteristics of previous Zodiac writings. The Chronicle received a letter postmarked February 14, 1974, informing the editor that the initials for the Symbionese Liberation Army spelled out an Old Norse word meaning "kill". However, the handwriting was not authenticated as the Zodiac's. A letter to the Chronicle, postmarked May 8, 1974, featured a complaint that the movie Badlands was "murder-glorification" and asked the paper to cut its advertisements. Signed only "A citizen", the handwriting, tone, and surface irony were all similar to earlier Zodiac communications.[citation needed] The Chronicle subsequently received an anonymous letter postmarked July 8, 1974, complaining about one of its columnists, Marco Spinelli. The letter was signed "the Red Phantom (red with rage)". The Zodiac's authorship of this letter is debated. A letter, dated April 24, 1978, was initially deemed authentic, but was declared a hoax less than three months later by three experts. Dave Toschi, the SFPD homicide detective who had worked the case since the Stine murder, was thought to have forged the letter, because author Armistead Maupin believed the letter to be similar to "fan mail" he received in 1976 which he believed was authored by Toschi. While he admitted to writing the fan mail, Toschi denied forging the Zodiac letter and was eventually cleared of any charges. The authenticity of this letter remains unverified. On March 3, 2007, an American Greetings Christmas card sent to the Chronicle, postmarked 1990 in Eureka had recently been discovered in their photo files by editorial assistant Daniel King. Inside the envelope, with the card, was a photocopy of two U.S. Postal keys on a magnet keychain. The handwriting on the envelope resembles Zodiac's print, but was declared inauthentic by forensic document examiner Lloyd Cunningham. However, not all Zodiac experts agree with Cunningham's analysis. There is no return address on the envelope nor is his crossed-circle signature to be found. The card itself is unmarked. The Chronicle turned over all the material to the Vallejo Police Department for further analysis. Suspects: A number of suspects have been named. Robert Graysmith's book Zodiac advanced Arthur Leigh Allen as a suspect based on circumstantial evidence. A letter sent to the Riverside Police Department from Bates' killer was typed with a Royal typewriter with an elite type, the same brand found during a February 1991 search of Allen's residence. He owned and wore a Zodiac brand wristwatch. Allen lived in Vallejo and worked minutes away from where one of the first victims (Ferrin) lived and where one of the killings took place. In 2002, SFPD developed a partial DNA profile from the saliva on stamps and envelopes of Zodiac's letters. SFPD compared this partial DNA to the DNA of Arthur Leigh Allen. A DNA comparison was also made with the DNA of Don Cheney, who was Allen's former close friend and the first person to suggest Allen may be the Zodiac Killer. Since neither test result indicated a match, Allen and Cheney were excluded as the contributors of the DNA, though it cannot be stated definitively that it is DNA from the Zodiac on the envelopes. Current status of investigations: In April 2004, the SFPD marked the case "inactive", citing caseload pressure and resource demands, effectively closing the case. However, they re-opened their case sometime before March 2007. In 2007, a man named Dennis Kaufman claimed that his stepfather Jack Tarrance was the Zodiac. Kaufman turned several items over to the FBI including a hood similar to the one worn by the Zodiac. According to news sources, DNA analysis conducted by the FBI on the items was deemed inconclusive in 2010. In 2009, a lawyer named Robert Tarbox (who, in August 1975, was disbarred by the California Supreme Court for failure to pay some clients) said that in 1972 a merchant mariner walked into his office and confessed to him that he was the Zodiac Killer. The seemingly lucid seaman (whose name Tarbox would not reveal due to confidentiality) described his crimes briefly but persuasively enough to convince Tarbox. The man said he was trying to stop himself from his "opportunistic" murder spree but never returned to see Tarbox again. Tarbox took out a full-page ad in the Vallejo Times-Herald that he claimed would clear the name of Arthur Leigh Allen as a killer, his only reason for revealing the story thirty years after the fact. Robert Graysmith, the author of several books on Zodiac, said Tarbox's story was "entirely plausible". Retired police handwriting expert Lloyd Cunningham, who worked the Zodiac case for decades, added "they gave me banana boxes full of Allen's writing, and none of his writing even came close to the Zodiac. Nor did DNA extracted from the envelopes (on the Zodiac letters) come close to Arthur Leigh Allen." In 2009, an episode of the History Channel television series MysteryQuest looked at newspaper editor Richard Gaikowski (1936–2004). During the time of the murders, Gaikowski worked for Good Times, a San Francisco counterculture newspaper. His appearance resembles the composite sketch, and Nancy Slover, the Vallejo police dispatcher who was contacted by the Zodiac shortly after the Blue Rock Springs Attack, has identified a recording of Gaikowski's voice as being the same as the Zodiac's. The case is open in Napa County and in the city of Riverside. Retired police detective Steve Hodel argues in his book The Black Dahlia Avenger that his father, George Hill Hodel, Jr., was the Black Dahlia killer whose victims include Elizabeth Short. The book led to the release of previously suppressed files and wire recordings by the Los Angeles district attorney's office of his father which showed that he was a prime suspect in Short's murder. District Attorney Steve Kaye, subsequently wrote a letter which is published in the revised edition stating that if George Hodel were still alive he would be prosecuted for the crimes. In a follow up book, Hodel argued a circumstantial case that his father was also the Zodiac Killer based upon a police sketch, the similarity of the style of the Zodiac letters to the Black Dahlia Avenger letters and questioned document examination. On February 19, 2011, America's Most Wanted featured a story about the Zodiac Killer. A picture has recently surfaced of known Zodiac victim Darlene Ferrin and a man who closely resembles the composite sketch, formed based on eyewitness' descriptions, of the Zodiac Killer. Police believe the photo was taken in San Francisco in the middle of 1966 or 1967. Police hope someone can identify the man in the photo. Former California Highway Patrol officer Lyndon Lafferty said the Zodiac killer was a 91-year-old Solano County, California man whom he called by the pseudonym "George Russell Tucker". Using a group of retired law enforcement officers called the Mandamus Seven, Lafferty discovered "Tucker" and a cover-up for why he was not pursued. "Tucker" died in February 2012 and was not named because he was not considered a suspect by police. In February 2014, it was reported that a man named Louie Myers had confessed to a friend in 2001 that he was the Zodiac Killer, after learning that he was dying from cirrhosis of the liver. He requested that his friend, Randy Kenney, go to the police upon his death. Myers died in 2002, but Kenney allegedly had difficulties getting officers to cooperate and take the claims seriously. There are several potential connections between Myers and the Zodiac case. Myers attended the same high schools as victims David Farraday and Betty Lou Jensen. Myers also allegedly worked in the same restaurant as victim Darlene Ferrin. Myers also had access to the same sort of military boot whose print was found at the Lake Berryessa crime scene. Furthermore, during the 1971–1973 period when no Zodiac letters were received, Myers was stationed overseas with the military. Kenney says that Myers confessed he targeted couples because he had had a bad breakup with a girlfriend. While officers associated with the case are skeptical, they believe the story is credible enough to investigate. In May 2014, a book written by Gary Stewart was released, claiming his biological father, Earl Van Best, Jr., was the Zodiac Killer, without any confirmed evidence. In popular culture: The Zodiac Killer's crimes, letters and cryptograms to police and newspapers inspired many movies, novels and television productions.

Gas leak phone call scam

The gas leak phone call scam is a series of incidents in 2016. The incidents involve a person prank calling a restaurant, claiming to be a fire department official and then convincing managers to break all the windows to prevent a gas explosion occurring due a supposed gas leak. The calls have been most often placed at fast food restaurants in the United States. Incidents: A caller who identifies themselves as a firefighter or other authority figure contacts a manager or supervisor and would solicit their help in combating a gas leak at the restaurant by breaking all the windows causing thousands of dollars in damages to the establishment. Some notable incidents were: -Two calls were reported on January 30, 2016: one at a Wendy's restaurant in Phoenix, Arizona and a Burger King restaurant in Morro Bay, California. -On February 2, 2016 a Jack in the Box restaurant in Tucson, Arizona. -On April 7, 2016, a Burger King restaurant in Shawnee, Oklahoma where workers were told to break the windows due to build-up of carbon monoxide. -On April 8, 2016, a Burger King restaurant in Coon Rapids, Minnesota. -On April 10, 2016, a Jack in the Box restaurant in Indianapolis, Indiana

Protests of the Donald Trump presidential campaign, 2016

Protests have been a notable feature of the 2016 presidential campaign of Donald Trump. Led by activists who organized demonstrations inside Trump rallies, sometimes with calls to shut Trump down, and fueled by perceived incendiary language used by Trump, protesters began attending his rallies displaying signs and disrupting proceedings. On March 11, 2016, a protest in Chicago resulted in the cancellation of the event being held there after hundreds of protesters entered the arena. Protesters: Some protesters were part of organized groups such as Black Lives Matter. They sometimes attempt to enter the venue or engage in activities outside the venue. Interactions with supporters of the candidate may occur before, during, or after the event. Protesters have attempted to rush the stage at Trump's rallies. One protester, 37-year-old Paul Horner, told ABC News that he was paid $3,500 by a group called 'Women Are The Future' to "protest Donald Trump's rally in Fountain Hills." Incidents: On December 4, 2015, a Trump rally in Raleigh, North Carolina, was interrupted successively by different protesters ten times. After the tenth interruption, Trump ended the event. The protest was organized via Facebook shortly after the event was announced. Twenty-five protesters were removed from an event attended by over 7,000 people. Planning: MoveOn.org, People for Bernie, the Muslim Student Association, Assata's Daughters, the Black Student Union, Fearless Undocumented Alliance, and Black Lives Matter are among the organizations who sponsored or promoted the protests at the March 11 Chicago Trump rally. Altercations: There have been verbal and physical confrontations between Trump supporters and protesters at Trump's campaign events. Language used by Trump: Trump was criticized by some of creating aggressive undertones at his rallies. Trump's Republican rivals have blamed Trump for fostering a climate of violence and escalating tension at campaign events. Trump himself did not condemn the acts of violence that occurred at many of his rallies, and encouraged it in some cases. In November 2015, Trump said of a protester in Birmingham, Alabama, "Maybe he should have been roughed up, because it was absolutely disgusting what he was doing." In December, the campaign urged attendees not to harm protesters, but rather to alert law enforcement officers of them by holding signs above their head and yelling "Trump! Trump! Trump!". Trump has been criticized for additional instances of fomenting an atmosphere conducive to violence through many of his comments. For example, Trump told a crowd in Cedar Rapids, Iowa that he would pay their legal fees if they engaged a protester. On February 23, 2016, when a protester was ejected from a rally in Las Vegas, Trump stated, "I love the old days—you know what they used to do to guys like that when they were in a place like this? They'd be carried out on a stretcher, folks." He added, "I'd like to punch him in the face." Timeline: Protests against Trump primarily began following Trump's announcement of his candidacy, especially after stating that Mexican migrants were "bringing drugs, bringing crime, they're rapists". The protests proceeded through the rest of 2015 and into 2016. 2015: June- June 16 – Trump holds controversial announcement of his candidacy for President of the United States. June 25 – Univision cuts ties to Trump and announces it would not run the Miss USA pageant. Reggaeton singer J Balvin also cancels his future show at the Miss USA event that was to be held July. June 29 – At a luncheon in Chicago, about 100 protesters gathered across from the City Club of Chicago to demonstrate. June 30 – NBC and Televisa announce that they are no longer involved with Donald Trump. NBC states that their business partnerships were cancelled due to Trump's "derogatory statements ... regarding immigrants" and that they would "no longer air the annual Miss USA and Miss Universe pageants". July- July 1 – Clothing retailer Macy's announces that it had cut ties with Trump.[47] Mattress company Serta releases a statement that the company "values diversity and does not agree with nor endorse the recent statements made by Mr. Trump" further saying their business relationship with Trump was over. July 6 – ESPN, the Professional Golfers' Association of America and the United States Golf Association announced that they would no longer hold their events at the Trump National Golf Club in Los Angeles in 2015. July 7 – Phillips-Van Heusen Corporation, a clothing producer that made Trump's brand of clothing, announces that it would begin to cease production of Trump's brand. July 9 – In Washington, D.C., a group of protesters gathered outside of the future Trump International Hotel Washington D.C. to demonstrate and "call for a worldwide boycott of Trump properties and TV shows". July 10 – While Trump spoke at a Friends of Abe gathering, about 150 protesters gathered with signs and hitting piñatas made in the image of Trump. A smaller group of Trump supporters gathered near the protests as well causing tension with one Trump supporter beginning to jab at protesters. July 12 – Protesters interrupt Trump at a speech in Phoenix, Arizona with a large sign and were later escorted out while Trump supporters chanted "U-S-A!". July 23 – Trump arrives in Laredo, Texas and is greeted by protesters while others gathered in support. August- August 11 – About 150 protesters gathered in Birch Run, Michigan outside of a rally at the Birch Run Expo Center, gathered by the Democratic Party of Michigan due to what they called "anti-immigrant, anti-veteran statements" made by Donald Trump. August 25 - During an August 25, 2015, press conference, Univision anchor Jorge Ramos began to question Trump since before being called on. After being told "Sit down! you weren't called" and "Go back to Univision", Ramos continued to protest Trump's plan to deport illegal immigrants and their children born into citizenship in the United States. Trump motioned to his security with Keith Schiller removing Ramos from the event. Trump later meet one on one with Ramos. September- September 3 – Trump's chief of security Keith Schiller, was filmed punching a protester. October: October 14 – In Richmond, Virginia, several clashes broke out between protesters and Trump supporters. November- November 7 – Over 200 protesters, many of them Latino, demonstrate outside of 30 Rockefeller Plaza where Trump was hosting Saturday Night Live. December- December 4 – After being interrupted ten times during a speech in Raleigh, North Carolina, Trump ends his rally. December 12 – Many protesters heckle Trump during rally in Aiken, South Carolina. December 22 – Trump's speech is interrupted more than ten times at a rally in Grand Rapids, MI with dozens of protesters being ejected. Trump characterised the protesters as "drugged out", antagonized them by calling them "so weak" for not fighting security" and asked protesters why they interrupt him "in a group of 9,000 maniacs that want to kill them". 2016: January- January 4 – Protesters interrupted Trump several times in Lowell, Massachusetts, with some chanting support for Bernie Sanders and the Black Lives Matter movement. January 8 – During Trump's visit to Burlington, VT, about 700 protesters demonstrated in the City Hall Park. February- February 27 – In Valdosta, Georgia, 30 Valdosta State University students were asked to leave a college venue leased by the Trump campaign for a speech. March- March 1 – Kashiya Nwanguma attended a Trump rally in Louisville, Kentucky, with two anti-Trump signs. She reported that Trump supporters ripped her signs away, and shouted insults at her. March 10 – As Trump was being led by police from a rally in Fayetteville, North Carolina, a protester was punched by a Trump supporter. Charges of assault and battery have been filed by the Cumberland County Sheriff's Office. March 11 – During a rally in St. Louis at which Trump was "repeatedly interrupted by protesters, violence broke out between supporters of Trump and protesters, resulting in 32 arrests. A planned event for later that day in Chicago drew confrontations between supporters and protesters in the arena at the University of Illinois at Chicago before Trump could come out to speak, due to an unusually large amount of protesters, and the campaign cancelled the rally due to safety concerns. Trump stated that he made the decision himself, commenting, "I didn't want to see people get hurt so I decided to postpone the rally." March 12 – Thomas Dimassimo, a 32-year-old man, attempted to rush the stage as Trump was speaking at a rally in Dayton, Ohio. Dimassimo was stopped by Secret Service agents and subsequently charged with misdemeanor, disorderly conduct and inducing panic. March 18 – Between 500 and 600 people engaged in a stand-off outside of a rally in Salt Lake City, Utah. Police officers formed a human barricade to separate the two groups, whom largely remained non-violent. Towards the end of the rally, protesters tore down a security tent at a Trump rally in Utah and threw rocks at rally attendees as they left. Two unsuccessfully attempted to breach the entrance of the venue. Secret Service officers secured the inside of the venue and roughly 40 police officers in riot gear repelled the protesters from entering the building. No arrests were made. March 19 – Thousands of anti-Trump protesters in New York chanted "F*ck Trump!" and "Donald Trump! Go away!" as they rallied around the Trump International Tower building near 60th St. and Columbus Circle. The group was followed by dozens of NYPD officers who lined the streets with metal barricades and blocked the protesters path as they tried to cross busy intersections. After violence broke out, police pepper-sprayed the crowd, whom police refused to let cross the street. At a simultaneous protest, protesters blocked a highway leading to Trump's Fountain Hills, Arizona rally, leading to three arrests. During a separate rally in Tucson, Arizona later that night, a black Trump supporter was arrested after punching and stomping a white protester who had donned a KKK hood. April- April 14 – Hundreds of protesters gathered in a New York City Hyatt hotel against the wishes of the hotel staff. April 24 – Sean Morkys, a 20-year-old man, was arrested and charged for threatening to bomb a Trump rally in Bridgeport, Connecticut. April 26 – Clashes between Trump supporters protesting an anti-Trump resolution and anti-Trump protesters in Anaheim resulted in 5 Trump supporters including 2 girls being pepper sprayed. April 28 – Several hundred protestors in Costa Mesa, California clashed with police and Trump supporters outside the OC Fair & Event Center where Trump was holding a rally, resulting in 17 arrests and damage to five police cars. April 29 – Around 1,000 to 3,000 protested in the area surrounding Burlingame, California where Trump was to give a speech at the California GOP convention. Protesters rushed security gates at one point and were seen harassing Trump supporters. Activists blocked a main intersection outside the event and vandalized a police car. Eventually the police restored order in the area. For safety reasons Trump himself was forced to climb over a wall and enter through a back entrance of the venue. Security: Three types of security forces are generally present at Trump campaign events: United States Secret Service agents responsible for Trump's safety; local, or state, law enforcement officers responsible for the safety of everyone present; and private security details hired by Trump or by the venue. When a venue is rented by the campaign, the rally is a private event and the campaign may grant or deny entry to it with no reason given; the only stipulation is that exclusion solely on the basis of race is forbidden. Those who enter or remain inside such a venue without permission are technically guilty of or liable for trespass. Attendees or the press can be assigned or restricted to particular areas in the venue. In March 2016, Politico reported that the Trump campaign had hired plainclothes private security guards to preemptively remove potential protesters from rallies.

2016 Donald Trump Chicago rally protest

On March 11, 2016, the Donald Trump presidential campaign postponed a planned rally at the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC), in Chicago, Illinois, citing "growing safety concerns" due to the presence of thousands of protesters in and outside of his rally. Thousands of anti-Trump demonstrators responding to civic leaders' and social media calls to shut the rally down had gathered outside the arena, and several hundred more filled seating areas within the UIC Pavilion, where the rally was to take place. When the Trump campaign announced that the rally would not take place, there was a great deal of shouting and a few small scuffles between Trump supporters and anti-Trump protesters. Prelude: Plans to protest the Trump rally were launched a week in advance by a variety of community and student groups. Some 43,000 undergraduate and graduate students had signed a petition asking UIC to cancel the rally by March 6. That same day, Latino leaders in the city, led by Democratic U.S. Representative Luis Gutierrez of Chicago, issued a call to their constituents to join them in a protest outside of the UIC Pavilion, where the rally was to take place. One of many student-based protests was first proposed by 20-year-old Chicago political activist and Bernie Sanders supporter Ja'Mal Green, who had posted to Facebook a week urging others to "get your tickets to this. We're all going in!!!! #SHUTITDOWN." Green told reporters that the plan was for protestors to make noise when Trump appeared, "and then rush the stage." While "activist groups did try to disrupt the event, ... many protesters said that they learned of the demonstrations on social media and went of their own accord." MoveOn.org confirmed that it helped promote the protest and paid for printing protest signs and a banner. Among those who took part in organizing the protest included members of the UIC faculty, People for Bernie, the Black Student Union, the Muslim Student Association, the Fearless Undocumented Association, Black Lives Matter, Assata's Daughters, BYP100, and Showing Up for Racial Justice, with "black, Latino and Muslim young people" at the "core" of the crowds of protesters. Incident: The protests had begun 24 hours prior to the event with a vigil outside of UIC Pavilion. The vigil lasted until the rally was scheduled to begin. Thirty minutes after the rally was scheduled to begin, a representative of the Trump campaign came on stage and announced that the rally was postponed. The crowd immediately cheered, chanted "We dumped Trump!" and tore signs from Trump supporters. Outside the arena, protesters shouted, "We shut it down!" As Trump supporters shouted "We want Trump!", arguments, several fistfights, and small scuffles broke out between the groups. Two police officers and at least two civilians were injured during the protests. Five people were arrested, including Sopan Deb, a CBS News reporter who was covering Trump's campaign. Protesters said that they were protesting against racism and Trump's policies. Some of the demonstrators were also members of the group Black Lives Matter. A smaller number of protesters were seen carrying flags representing various groups and countries, including Mexico. John Escalante, the interim superintendent of the Chicago Police Department (CPD), said about 300 officers were on hand for crowd control. A CPD spokesman said the department had never told the Trump campaign that there was a security threat, and added that the department had sufficient manpower on the scene to handle any situation. The Trump campaign postponed the rally. The CPD and other law-enforcement authorities "were not consulted and had no role in canceling the event." Trump initially claimed he had conferred with Chicago Police but later said that he made the decision himself: "I didn't want to see people get hurt so I decided to postpone the rally." Arrests: Four individuals were arrested and charged in the incident. Two were "charged with felony aggravated battery to a police officer and resisting arrest", one was "charged with two misdemeanor counts of resisting and obstructing a peace officer", and the fourth "was charged with one misdemeanor count of resisting and obstructing a peace officer". A CBS reporter was one of those arrested outside the rally. He was charged with resisting arrest. Reactions and aftermath: After the event was postponed, Green described the cancellation of the event as a "win," saying that "our whole purpose was to shut it down... we had to show him that our voice in civil rights was greater than his voice. The minority became the majority today." Mayor Rahm Emanuel praised the Chicago Police Department's work to restore order. Trump blamed Sanders for the clashes in Chicago, insisting that the protesters were "Bernie's crowd" and that a protester who charged the stage at an event in Dayton, Ohio the following day was a "Bernie person", calling on Sanders to "get your people in line." Sanders subsequently denounced Trump as a "pathological liar" who leads a "vicious movement", and said that "while I appreciate that we had supporters at Trump's rally in Chicago, our campaign did not organize the protests." Sanders blamed Trump for propagating "birther" conspiracy theories and for promoting "hatred and division against Latinos, Muslims, women and people with disabilities." Presidential candidates- Republican: Rivals for the Republican presidential nomination criticized Trump. Senator Ted Cruz of Texas said, "When you have a campaign that affirmatively encourages violence, you create an environment that only encourages that sort of nasty discourse." John Kasich, Governor of Ohio, issued a statement saying, "Tonight, the seeds of division that Donald Trump has been sowing this whole campaign finally bore fruit, and it was ugly." Senator Marco Rubio of Florida attributed blame for the events at various parties, including the protesters, the media, and the Democratic Party, but "reserved his harshest words" for Trump, condemning him for inciting supporters who have punched and beaten demonstrators and likening him to "Third World strongmen". Democratic: Clinton, one of two Democratic presidential candidates in the 2016 election, said in a statement that the Trump campaign's "divisive rhetoric" was of "grave concern" and said, "We all have our differences, and we know many people across the country feel angry. We need to address that anger together." The morning after the incident, Clinton said, "The ugly, divisive rhetoric we are hearing from Donald Trump and the encouragement of violence and aggression is wrong, and it's dangerous. If you play with matches, you're going to start a fire you can't control. That's not leadership. That's political arson." Bernie Sanders, the other Democratic candidate, tweeted: "We will continue to bring people together. We will not allow the Donald Trumps of the world to divide us up." Media: Conservative media described protest actions as an infringement on Trump's freedom of speech. National Review editor Rich Lowry called the protest an indefensible "mob action" and wrote that "the spectacle ... will probably only help" Trump, since he "thrives on polarization and has sought to turn up the temperature of his rallies with his notorious suggestions that protesters should get roughed up." Fox News host Jeanine Pirro characterized the protesters as "abject anarchists" who had infringed upon Trump's right to free speech by "responding to activist calls at #SHUTITDOWN." Other media outlets stated that such protest actions were predictable due to Trump's rhetoric. Rachel Maddow of MSNBC said that Trump's violent rhetoric at campaign rallies resulted in the escalation of tensions: "Anybody who tells you that there is no connection between the behavior of the mob at these events and the behavior of the man at the podium leading the mob at these events is not actually watching what he's been saying from the podium." Jelani Cobb wrote in the New Yorker that "[t]he image of protesters clashing with Trump supporters in Chicago ... is the logical culmination of what we've seen throughout his Presidential campaign" as "the idea of fighting to take the country back" promoted by Trump's campaign "went from figurative to literal."