Related Posts:

• No Related Posts

A driver said he thought he was about to die when an Interstate 5 bridge span collapsed in Washington state, plunging his pickup and another car into the Skagit River below.

Dan Sligh, his wife and another motorist found themselves waist-deep in water when the freeway crumbled moments after the bridge was clipped by an oversized truck, he told NBC affiliate KING5 of Seattle.

State officials said the rescue had been “amazing” and warned of major traffic disruption following the complete closure of the section of the road, near Mount Vernon.

Sligh, a Command Master Chief Petty Officer with the U.S. Navy, said the accident was “like a Hollywood movie unfolding in front of your eyes – up close and personal.”

He said he managed to release his seat belt and climb out of his mangled truck to shallower water, despite fearing he had dislocated his shoulder.

His wife also escaped, and was being kept in the Skagit Valley hospital where she was being treated for internal bleeding.

“I thought we were done,” Sligh told KING5 outside the hospital late Thursday. “When I look at all the carnage, all the metal, I assumed that was it at that point. But here we stand.

The couple waited 90 minutes on the roof of pickup awaiting rescue, he said, adding that the other driver was not seriously injured.

“I’m OK. I’m beat up. I feel like I rode a rodeo bull or something.”

I-5 is the main freeway that runs up and down the West Coast between the Canadian and Mexican borders, and traffic was significantly backed up in both directions overnight.

AP Photo/seattlepi.com, Joshua Trujillo

People offer spontaneous prayer after an Interstate 5 bridge collapsed over the Skagit River between Mt. Vernon and Burlington, Wash. on Thursday.

In a statement, Washington Gov. Jay Inslee said an investigation has been launched “to confirm” witness reports that an oversized truck struck the metal arches that cover traffic crossing the bridge.

“I’m thankful there were no fatalities,” the statement added. “This is an opportunity for us to pull together to show strength of character and patience and good citizenship as we deal with this disruption.”

The 1,112-foot steel truss bridge, built in 1955, was described by the Washington State Department of Transportation, after an inspection in August 2010, as “somewhat better than minimum adequacy to tolerate being left in place as is.”

Diversions have been set up and plans are already underway to install a replacement span, said Bart Treece, a spokesman for the department, describing the lack of more serous injuries as “amazing”.

The section of the freeway carries 71,000 vehicles a day, he said, warning significant delays were likely over the Memorial Weekend.

“If you can reduce trips or take another route, that would help,” he said.

The minimum vertical clearance on the bridge (distance from the road to something a truck can bump into) is 14.5 feet. The standard height is 16 feet.

Inslee’s statement added: “We will be involved in a vigorous and diligent effort to get traffic flowing again through the Skagit bridge corridor and I will issue an emergency proclamation [Friday] to make sure we have the resources to do so as quickly as possible.

State inspection reports submitted to the Federal Highway Administration were reviewed by NBC News. That overall evaluation of the structural condition on the bridge corresponds to a score of 5 on a scale from 0 (worst) to 9 (best).

The bridge received identical scores on inspections in 2010, 2008 and 2006, and is on a schedule for inspection every 24 months, as generally required by federal regulations. State officials said Thursday evening they were working to make public a copy of the latest inspection report, presumably from 2012.

The bridge was of a “fracture critical” design, as are 18,000 bridges nationwide, meaning it could collapse if even one part failed.

Even after the bridge collapse that killed 13 people in Minneapolis in 2007, a haphazard system of inspections continued, with federal authorities choosing not to require re-inspection of all the fracture-critical bridges.

In a survey of every state by msnbc.com in 2008, only six states and the District of Columbia said they began to recheck all their fracture-critical bridges.

Officials in Washington state, like in most states, said they performed special inspections of only their few dozen bridges of the particular deck-truss design used in Minneapolis.

The bridge that fell Thursday did go on to receive its regular inspections in 2008 and 2010, according to the federal records, called the National Bridge Inventory.

NBC News’ Andrew Rafferty and Justin Kirschner contributed to this report.

Related Posts:

• No Related Posts

John Moore / Getty Images

U.S. Border Patrol agent Ryan Bell looks for drug smugglers on the bank of the Rio Grande at the U.S.-Mexico border on May 21, near Hidalgo, Texas.

John Moore / Getty Images

Cars drive from Matomoros, Mexico, left, across the U.S.-Mexico border at the Rio Grande on May 21, into Brownsville, Texas. The area is active for legal international commerce as well as drug smugglers bringing their product north from Mexico into the United States.

John Moore / Getty Images

A U.S. Border Patrol agent searches for drug smugglers near the Rio Grande at the U.S.-Mexico border on May 21, near Hidalgo Texas.

John Moore / Getty Images

Mexican Army troops stand guard on the Mexican side of the Rio Grande at the U.S.-Mexico border on May 21, near McAllen, Texas.

John Moore / Getty Images

The Mexican border town of Matomoros is seen on the Rio Grande across the U.S.-Mexico border on May 21, near Brownsville, Texas.

John Moore / Getty Images

A suspected drug smuggling scout paddles his raft back across the Rio Grande into Mexico from the U.S. side of the border on May 21, near Hidalgo Texas.

John Moore / Getty Images

Related Posts:

• No Related Posts

FAYETTEVILLE, Tenn. — Authorities say two men have been charged in six killings, including a toddler and unborn baby, near the Tennessee-Alabama border last fall during a dispute over drug dealing.

Lincoln County Sheriff Murray Blackwelder announced on Thursday that 36-year-old Henry Burrell, of Fayetteville, Tenn., and 35-year-old Zakkawanda Moss, of New Market, Ala., are charged with six counts each of first-degree murder. The two men are jailed in Alabama on unrelated charges.

Officials say three women, a man, toddler and unborn baby were slain last October.

According to the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation, Burrell and Moss were drug dealers who worked with one of the victims, Warren Crutcher. Officials believe the pair decided Crutcher was ripping them off, and the killings occurred while Burrell and Moss were looking for drugs and money.

Source: huffingtonpost.com

Related Posts:

• No Related Posts

CONCORD, N.H. — A woman convicted of sexually exploiting her 14-year-old daughter to produce child pornography was sentenced Thursday to 40 years in prison by a federal judge who called her conduct “shocking” and “egregious.”

“The damage you have done to your daughter is incalculable,” Judge Paul Barbadoro told the 43-year old woman.

The daughter, now 15, said in a videotaped statement played in court that her mother was normal for 13 years.

“I love my mother very much,” the girl said. “My mother is not the monster she is made out to be.”

The Associated Press doesn’t typically identify people who say they are victims of sexual assault and is not naming the woman, a Manchester lawyer, to avoid identifying her daughter.

A jury convicted the woman in January of transporting her daughter across state lines to produce child pornography, possessing child pornography and sexually exploiting her daughter to produce child pornography. She had faced up to 100 years in prison, which was the sentence federal prosecutors sought.

Two men testified that the woman made cellphone videos of them having sex with her daughter, and jurors viewed a 7-minute video prosecutors say she made of herself performing oral sex on the girl.

Defense attorney James Moir said Thursday that the woman’s life fell apart when her husband left her in 2011 and she turned to alcohol and drugs after 10 years of being a good Christian.

The judge said the woman, who has been incarcerated since her arrest in November and has been barred from having contact with her daughter, had used her daughter as “bait” to lure younger men for her own sexual gratification.

The woman, wearing a county jail uniform, shook her head and spoke briefly before she was sentenced.

“In July 2011 my world crashed, and I fell apart,” she said. “Being separated from my daughter is the greatest pain I have ever felt. Baby, I’m so sorry.”

Prosecutor Helen Fitzgibbon told the judge the daughter feels guilty and believes she is to blame for her mother’s predicament, a notion the judge said further illustrates the depth of the harm and damage the woman has done to her.

“She is 100 percent victim,” the judge said, calling the mother “100 percent perpetrator.”

The judge said he did not impose a life sentence on the woman to let her daughter know she had been heard.

Moir, the defense attorney, had asked for a 15-year sentence, saying the recordings, one of which shows the daughter having sexual intercourse for the first time in a Canadian motel room three weeks after she’d turned 14, were not made for profit or distribution but were a “sort of warped memento.”

The daughter did not testify and appeared in the courtroom for the first time to hear the verdict, to which she and her mother showed no reaction.

Moir said after court that he will appeal the conviction, and he declined to comment on the sentence.

U.S. Attorney John Kacavas said he was satisfied with the woman’s 40-year sentence.

“It effectively is a life sentence,” Kacavas said. “It removes her from society and eliminates any threat she poses to minors and adolescents.”

Source: huffingtonpost.com

Related Posts:

• No Related Posts

Related Posts:

• No Related Posts

Officer Michael A. Dotro, 36, was arrested at his home in Manalapan Thursday. He faces charges of attempted murder and aggravated arson.

Prosecutors said Dotro, who worked with Captain Mark Anderko in the Edison Police Department, intentionally set fire to Anderko’s home in Monroe Township at about 4 a.m. Monday. The blaze was extinguished within about 15 minutes but heavily damaged the two-story colonial.

Anderko was inside the house at the time with his wife, two children and 92-year-old mother, prosecutors said. The children’s bedrooms were in front of the house, their windows inches away from where the aluminum siding melted from the heat of the flames.

Neighbor Haarika Reddy said the fire started from outside the home and the smoke detector couldn’t pick up on it immediately, but the family dog sensed the flames and woke Anderko’s wife, who in turn alerted the rest of the family and escaped.

No one was hurt.

Dotro, who has been an Edison police officer for nine years, was suspended from his job with pay. Bail has been set at $5 million.

Lawrence Bitterman, the attorney for Dotro, told NBC 4 New York it was “completely incomprehensible that Mike would be capable of something like this.”

Anderko, who has been on the Edison police force for 24 years, is currently one of several defendants in a lawsuit filed by another captain in the department, which has been embroiled in controversy for decades and internal lawsuits for the last several years.

Both the Middlesex County prosecutor’s office and the state attorney general’s office, who have been investigating the Edison Police Department, are looking into the arson.

Capt. Bruce Polkowitz, the president of the local police union, said Wednesday he was stunned by the attack on Anderko’s home.

“It’s unprecedented. I’ve never heard of anything like this, an attack on a police officer,” he said. “Mark is a genuinely good person, a great family man. This whole police department, from a union point of view, we’re doing whatever we can to help him out. I spoke to him yesterday, he’s as good as can be expected. Our hearts go out to him.”

– Pat Battle and Andrew Siff contributed to this report.

Source: nbcnewyork.com

Related Posts:

• No Related Posts

A preliminary 5.7 earthquake struck in Northern California on Thursday, the U.S. Geological Survey reported.

The epicenter of the quake was centered 6 miles west northwest of Greenville, and 26 miles southwest of Susanville.

Initial reports said the quake, which struck at 8:47 p.m., was a magnitude 5.9.

A 5.7 magnitude quake is considered moderate, but has the potential to cause considerable damage.

Chief meteorologist Mark Finan at NBC affiliate KCRA said the quake was felt at the station’s studios in downtown Sacramento, about 145 miles south of the epicenter.

There was no immediate reports of damage or injuries.

Reuters contributed to this report.

Related Posts:

• No Related Posts

Actress Amanda Bynes was arrested in her New York apartment Thursday night on charges of reckless endangerment, tampering with evidence and criminal possession of marjuana, NBC New York reported.

The doorman of the building called police to report that Bynes was smoking marijuana in the lobby, sources told the station. Before officers arrived, Bynes, 27, had gone back to her 36th floor apartment, and when police came to her apartment, she reportedly tossed the water pipe out the window.

Sources told NBC New York that Bynes was taken to Roosevelt Hospital to undergo a psychiatric evaluation, then to a Midtown police station to be processed, and was expected to spend the night in jail and appear in court on Friday.

Bynes is on probation for three years for driving with a suspended license and also has a DUI case pending in southern California. She moved to New York last fall.

In April, Bynes drew attention for shaving half of her head, and she’s been a vocal poster on Twitter. In December, charges in two separate hit-and-run incidents against her were dismissed.

As a child actress, she starred in the sitcom “All That” and in her own sketch comedy show, “The Amanda Show.” She also appeared in numerous films.

In 2012, Bynes announced that she had retired from acting, an announcement she had also made in 2010 and later revoked.

Related Posts:

• No Related Posts

The defense team for George Zimmerman, the man charged with second-degree murder in the Florida shooting death of unarmed teenager Trayvon Martin, has released a trove of texts and photos from Martin’s cell phone — but it’s not clear whether they’ll be admissible in trial.

The newly released evidence, posted to a website run by Zimmerman’s defense team on Thursday, includes texts from Martin where he discusses being suspended from school and smoking marijuana. He also shows an interest in guns in several texts.

This comes just days before a key hearing next Tuesday that will determine the admissibility of certain evidence at the trial.

The 25 photos released by Zimmerman’s team include some of Martin that have already circulated widely online, as well as some new ones, including one where Martin shows his gold teeth to the camera while sticking up his middle fingers, and a close-up picture of a gun that the defense says was taken from Martin’s camera, although it’s not evident from the photo who is holding the gun.

Martin, a black 17-year-old, was shot to death by Zimmerman on Feb. 26, 2012, in Sanford, Fla., in a case that set off racial tensions around the country.

Zimmerman, a former neighborhood watch volunteer of white and Hispanic descent, has pleaded not guilty, claiming he shot Martin in their gated community after Martin attacked him.

In one of the text conversations, sent 12 days before his death, Martin tells a friend he has been suspended from school for fighting.

“Why you not in school?” a text he receives asks.

“Suspended.”

“I thought you was going out with ur friend,” the reply says.

“Naw my ol g say she dont want me home caus she think ima get in mo trouble,” he texts back.

Martin’s texts also indicate he may have been curious about guns.

“U gotta gun?” reads a text from Martin’s phone, sent on Feb. 18, 2012, to a friend of his who was on the phone with him on the night of the shooting.

“You want a 22 revolver” asks someone in a text he receives that day.

Three days later, Martin mentioned a caliber of gun while asking a friend in another text, “U wanna share a .380 w.[redacted]?”

Other texts released allude to problems Martin was having at home and with authorities.

“My mom just told me i gotta mov wit my dad,” says one from Nov. 22, 2011. “She just kickd me out.”

Later that day, a text says, “Da police caught me outta skool.”

Marijuana references are scattered throughout the texts. Some of the newly released photos show Martin blowing smoke and what appear to be marijuana plants.

Jeff Deen, a former assistant state attorney in Florida and the head of a state agency that represents criminal defendants, said that strict rules having to do with character evidence will likely make Martin’s texts and photos inadmissible at trial.

“What does his mom saying he needs to live with his dad for a while say about why he was shot?  Nothing,” he said. “Generally, reputation evidence is not admissible in court.”

But Mark O’Mara, the lead defense attorney for Zimmerman, said he will try to use the new evidence during Zimmerman’s trial on June 10.

But an attorney for Martin’s family argued that the pretrial evidence release consisted of “irrelevant red herrings.”

“Is the defense trying to prove Trayvon deserved to be killed by George Zimmerman because of the way he looked?” Benjamin Crump said in a statement on Thursday.

“If so, this stereotypical and closed-minded thinking is the same mindset that caused George Zimmerman to get out of his car and pursue Trayvon, an unarmed kid who he didn’t know. The pretrial release of these irrelevant red herrings is a desperate and pathetic attempt by the defense to pollute and sway the jury pool.”

Martin’s death spurred a national conversation about guns and Florida’s expansive “Stand Your Ground” self-defense law, which allows people to use deadly force if they believe they are in danger of being injured or killed.  In April, Zimmerman waived his right to a pre-trial “Stand Your Ground” immunity hearing, guaranteeing his June trial before a jury.

On Thursday evening, Zimmerman’s defense team also filed a request for a delay in the trial.

Editor’s note: George Zimmerman has sued NBCUniversal for defamation, and the company has strongly denied his allegations.

Related Posts:

• No Related Posts