Boy, 12, Kills Man Attacking Mother

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/04/01/AR2008040101090_pf.html

Md. Boy, 12, Kills Man Attacking Mother
Officials Undecided On Filing Charges

By Avis Thomas-Lester and Hamil R. Harris
Washington Post Staff Writers
Wednesday, April 2, 2008; A01



The 12-year-old boy had finished his homework and was playing a video game when he heard his mother cry out. Rushing to her aid, he found her on the kitchen floor, straddled by a fellow resident of their Prince George's County boarding house, the man's hands wrapped tightly around her neck, the boy said yesterday.

"I kept saying, 'Stop! Stop! Stop!' " the boy said, describing the events of Monday night. "But he just ignored me. He didn't stop. He just kept hurting her."

The boy said he grabbed a knife and swung, slashing 64-year-old Salomon Noubissie across the neck and opening an artery. Noubissie was fatally wounded.

The mother, Cheryl Stamp, said she did not immediately understand what had happened. "What did you do?" she said she asked her son.

"He didn't say anything," she said. "But I knew when I looked in his eyes. I said, 'Oh, Lord.' "

Law enforcement officials were reviewing evidence yesterday and had not decided whether to file charges. Their preliminary account of the incident broadly matches that of the boy and his mother.

The case presents exceedingly unusual circumstances: Rarely is a 12-year-old implicated in a homicide, and even less often does a child that age take a life to protect his mother.

"In Maryland, there can be a legitimate defense of third parties in the event of a violent attack," State's Attorney Glenn F. Ivey said. "That is a possibility in this case."

Yesterday, Stamp and her son were secluded in the boarding house on Roosevelt Avenue in the Landover area, curtains closed and doors locked against reporters and neighbors.

Like other neighbors, Turan Queen said she stood by the child. "His reaction was to help his mother," she said. "This was a 12-year-old defending his mother."

Stamp and her son agreed to be interviewed by Washington Post reporters, in part to explain the boy's actions. The Post is not naming the boy because he is a minor.

Efforts to contact Noubissie's family were unsuccessful.

Stamp said she and Noubissie, a Cameroonian immigrant, moved into the boarding house within days of each other about three months ago. They became fast friends, she said.

Stamp said that she is unemployed and that Noubissie had told her he was studying to be a psychiatrist. She said the boarding house is owned by Noubissie's nephew, a Massachusetts resident.

On Monday night, she said, Noubissie was not himself. He started to yell at her and grab her hair, she said. He was speaking in his native French, as he often did, but this time in "a devilish voice," she said. "He was talking crazy," Stamp said.

She said she tried to use "reverse psychology," ordering him to leave the kitchen and go to his room to calm down. His response was violent, she said.

"He threw me into the door so hard it hit my back, and it made my chest start hurting," she said. "Then he threw me to the floor. He threw me down and started choking me. I think that's when my son came in. . . . He protected me."

The boy, who is 5 feet 6 inches tall and weighs 175 pounds, said he acted because he thought he had no choice. "He was hitting her with the broom; then he was choking her," the boy said. "I told him to stop."

He grabbed a knife that he said his family had last used to cut turkey at Thanksgiving dinner.

"I knew I had to kill him so he would stop hurting my mother," he said.

Once she was freed, Stamp said she yelled upstairs for someone to call police. She said her son took her by the arm and led her into their bedroom.

Nearby, Noubissie was flailing and yelling, Stamp and her son said. As the door closed, she noticed the blood coming from his neck. "I didn't know where all that blood was coming from," she said. "He was talking in that language -- loud."

Stamp said she did not realize for several moments that her son, and not she, had been responsible for inflicting the injury that caused Noubissie to release her.

In the bedroom, as they waited for police, the boy did not speak, Stamp said. She sat on a couch, looked down and saw the bloody knife, she said.

Noubissie was alive when police arrived, Stamp said. He was combative with the officers, she said, even as he bled heavily. He died at a hospital. Police sources confirmed her account.

Stamp, who has two adult children and a 17-year-old daughter who lives with the girl's father, said the tragedy was the second to befall her family. She supports herself and her son from "widow's benefits" she has received since her husband fatally shot himself more than 20 years ago. Her eldest son, 27, witnessed the suicide, she said. "I've had enough drama in my life," she said.

The 12-year-old boy said yesterday that he was not happy about what he had done but that he knew that it was the right thing.

"I just asked God again to protect me and my mother," he said. "I told God that I had stabbed him because he was killing my mother. I know he understands, and I think he will keep us safe now."

After the stabbing Monday night, after police had left and neighbors returned to their homes, the two sat and held each other. There was no sleep that night for either.



Officials are deciding whether or not to file charges!?!?!?!?!?!?
WTF?

They should be stepping over each other to give him a scholarship and the key to the city!

When you're ready for a new pickup

Here you go. This thing rocks!



And more

http://www.hummer.com/h3t/microsite/h3t.jsp?tabName=newsTab

12"

Of snow Bobbe!

Mother Nature takes one last spit at global warming.

We got 12" of snow in about 8 Hours Friday. It was dropping at the rate of 2" an hour at one point.

It was bound to happen eventually

Tae Kwon Do has become fodder for a "serious" full length parody film.

Jeff Healey R.I.P

Jeff Healey, rock/blues/Jazz musician extraordinairre died at 41 on the eve of the release of his latest CD (it's out btw).


Jeff Healey died on March 2 I've just learned. Quite upset about that, I had one of his recent CD's playing last week and all of them are on my iPod.
He's always been one of my favorites and we even played one of his songs at our wedding.
Having gone blind as a baby from retino blastoma, Jeff battled cancer his entire life.
You may remember him as the bar band from the silly "Roadhouse" movie with Patrick Swayze (funny how people slam it yet they've all seen it).
I was a fan of Jeff's even before the movie came out and just heard rumor last week that Swayze has cancer as well.
Another rumor has it that some Roadhouse characters were based on another character some of us know.

What a great loss to the world.





And another great one, this one won't allow embedding, so click on the link
http://youtube.com/watch?v=TwbJDt-p2L8



From http://jeffhealey.com/home.htm

Guitarist and bandleader Jeff Healey dies in Toronto hospital
Following a lengthy struggle with cancer, Healey passes away on the eve of the release of a new blues rock album
Jeff Healey, arguably one of the most distinctive guitar players of our time, died today (Sunday March 2) in St. Joseph’s Hospital, Toronto. He was 41, and leaves his wife, Cristie, daughter Rachel (13) and son Derek (three), as well as his father and step-mother, Bud and Rose Healey, and sisters Laura and Linda.
Funeral and memorial arrangements are pending.
Robbed of his sight as a baby due to a rare form of cancer, retino blastoma, and he started to play guitar when he was three, holding the instrument unconventionally across his lap. He formed his first band at 17, but soon formed a trio which was named the Jeff Healey Band.
After his appearance in the movie Road House, he was signed to Arista records, and in 1988 released the Grammy-nominated album See the Light, which included a major hit single, Angel Eyes. He earned a Juno Award in 1990 as Entertainer of the Year.
Two more albums emerged on Arista, with lessening success as the ’90s passed. Various "best-of" and live packages were released, and he recorded two more rock albums, before turning to his real love, classic American jazz from the ’20s, ’30s and ’40s.
By then, however, Healey was an internationally-known star who had played with dozens of musicians, including B.B. King and Stevie Ray Vaughan, and recorded with George Harrison. Mark Knopfler and the late blues legend, Jimmy Rogers.
A family man with a three-year-old son and a 13-year-old daughter he preferred to stay close to home. "I’ve traveled widely before — been there and done that," he told friends, determined to avoid the lengthy, exhausting tours that marked his life in his twenties and early thirties.
A long-running CBC Radio series saw him in the role of disc jockey — My Kinda Jazz was a staple for a while, but in recent years he had hosted a programme with a similar name on Jazz-FM in Toronto. A highlight of his broadcasts was always the use of rare — and rarely heard — music from his 30,000-plus collection of 78-rpm records.
As his rock career wound down as the millennium came, he recorded a series of three album of early jazz, playing trumpet as well as acoustic guitar in a band he called Jeff Healey’s Jazz Wizards. The most recent was It’s Tight Like That, recorded live at Hugh’s Room in Toronto in 2005, with British jazz legend Chris Barber as guest star.
At the time of his death he was about to see the release of his first rock/blues album in eight years, Mess of Blues, which is being released in Europe on March 20, and in Canada and the U.S. on April 22. The album was the result of a joint agreement between the German label, Ruf Records, and Stony Plain, the independent Edmonton-based label that has released his three jazz CDs.
Mess of Blues was recorded in studios in Toronto, with two cuts recorded at the Jeff Healey’s Roadhouse in Toronto and two at a concert in London England. The backup group on the upcoming CD — the Healey’s House Band — played with him regularly at the downtown Roadhouse, and at a previous club bearing his name in the Queen-Bathurst area.
Early last year, Healey underwent surgery to remove cancerous tissue from his legs, and later from both lungs; aggressive radiation treatments and chemotherapy, however, failed to halt the spread of the disease.
Despite his battle with cancer, he undertook frequent tours across Canada with both his blues-based band and his jazz group; he was set for a major tour in Germany and the U.K. and was to be a guest on the BBC’s famed Jools Holland Show in April.
Remembered by his musicians — and his audiences — for his wry sense of humour as well as his musical playfulness, Healey was a unique musician who bridged different genres with ease and assurance.
To send messages of condolence, share your memories of Jeff and leave your comments please sign the guestbook:
http://www.blogger.com/www.jeffhealey.com/wishes

Steve Perry at 60?

Now this is an athelete

The Kai is still considered a fairly "primitive" breed.

They are not that far removed from pack hunters and not entirely domesticated.

They were kept in packs in the mountainous Kai prefecture of Japan. After WWII most Japanese breeds were dying off. The Japanese people were barely able to survive, let alone keep pets and breed them.

However in the mountains, the hunters used the dogs as sustanence. No good dogs, no food.

Subsequently, years later when the pure Japanese breeds were brought back by afficianados, other breeds had to be bred into the lines to get stable traits and conformation.

The Kai is now considered the most pure of the traditional Japanese breeds. They were still a strong, distinct, viable breed.

For centuries used to hunt wild boar, bear and stag and one of their most enduring qualities is their bond that they develop with one person, their soul mate. The Kai and Akita are revered by the Japanese for this quality and loyalty.

There are around only 3-400 currently in the US.

One of the conformation traits is a gait that shows effortless physical endurance and the ability to run for hours while hunting game.

Well, I can attest to that.

Got home Sunday from Mushtaq's and my Male Kai had broken the gate and was long gone. Tracks everywhere but it could have been hours that he was gone.
Rode/walked around for hours until dark and no sign of him.

The prey drive in Kai is still very strong and for this reason they are a leash-only dog. You can train them to come and be off leash but it takes massive amounts of time and even then, if a rabbit bolts, all bets are off.

I resignedly went to bed Sunday night not wanting to believe he was long gone.

Take a look at this map

http://www.mapquest.com/maps/3111+Sara+Ln+Hamilton+MI+49419-8503/?#a/maps/l::3111+Sara+Ln:Hamilton:MI:49419-8503:US:42.643139:-85.962859:address:Allegan+County/m:hyb:12:42.643138:-85.962859:0::/io:0:::::f:EN:M:/e

We live right at the edge of the forest. If you scroll down and to the east, you can see the forest goes for miles. If he was lost in there, there's no way to find him back.

Oh, and it was 20degrees overnight.

I went throught the motions at work Monday just to keep my mind active.

Mostly I was worried something bad had happened to him.

Rode around again yesterday afternoon to no luck and went home.

About 6PM we got word that he was on the trail about 6 acres to the direct south, it fronts the forest and many people walk it so he must have been working his way back home from the smells.

We walked that trail for over an hour and it was getting dark. You don't want to be in that forest after dark either.

No more than leaving the trail we got word he was in the neighborhood.

Just down the road two cars had him surrounded and he lit off again.

Cole got within 10 feet and I got within 40 feet. He saw me, slowed and kept right on going at full effortless run. Everyone remarked, "Man is he fast"

I'm sure he was pretty scared and confused though.

I rode around again until dark and once again resignedly went home with the solace that he made it through the previous cold night.

Left the garage door open with a coat smelling like me laying out overnight.

Decided not to go to work this morning as I was already feeling lousy and Roberta had the nasty flu. Figured I'd sleep in and then go looking again.

Kristen left for school at 7:05.

And at 7:15 we heard whining at the garage door! Had we left for work we would have missed him.

As for him? Well he sure looks none the worse for wear, bastard.

But he sure walks like he's been rode hard and put away wet! I'm sure he'll sleep all day.

Me? I went to work anyway.