American's hiding guns and loading up on am after U.N. Arms treaty signed

UNITED NATIONS -  The 193-nation U.N. General Assembly on Tuesday overwhelmingly approved the first treaty on the global arms trade, which seeks to regulate the $70 billion business in conventional arms and keep weapons out of the hands of human rights abusers.

The official U.N. tally showed 154 votes in favor, 3 against and 23 abstentions, though diplomats and U.N. officials said the actual vote was 155-3-22 due to Angola being recorded as having abstained and not voting yes. Venezuela, which said it had planned to abstain, Zimbabwe and three other countries were not allowed to vote because they were in arrears on their U.N. dues.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon welcomed the vote, saying the treaty "will make it more difficult for deadly weapons to be diverted into the illicit market and ... will help to keep warlords, pirates, terrorists, criminals and their like from acquiring deadly arms."

Iran, Syria and North Korea last week prevented a treaty-drafting conference at U.N. headquarters from reaching the required consensus to adopt the treaty. That left delegations that support it no choice but to turn to a General Assembly vote to adopt it.

The Iranian, Syrian and North Korean delegations cast the sole votes against the treaty on Tuesday.
Iran, which is under a U.N. arms embargo over its nuclear program, is eager to ensure its arms imports and exports are not curtailed, while Syria's government is embroiled in a two-year civil war and relies on arms from Russia and Iran, envoys said.
North Korea is also under a U.N. arms embargo due to its nuclear weapons and missile programs.
The treaty will be open for signature on June 3 and will enter into force 90 days after the 50th signatory ratifies it. Mexican U.N. Ambassador Luis Alfonso de Alba told reporters it normally takes two to three years for a treaty to come into force, but said he hoped it would happen sooner in this case.
Major arms producers China and Russia joined Cuba, Bolivia, Nicaragua and other countries in abstaining.
RUSSIA TAKING A HARD LOOK
A number of countries, led by India, which also abstained, complained the treaty favored exporting over importing states. Russia said Moscow would take a hard look at the treaty before deciding whether to sign it.
Several delegates told Reuters the treaty's effectiveness would be limited if major arms exporters refuse to sign it.

The United States, the world's No. 1 arms exporter, voted in favor of the treaty despite fierce opposition from the National Rifle Association (NRA), a powerful U.S. pro-gun lobbying group.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said in a statement the U.N. adopted "a strong, effective and implementable Arms Trade Treaty that can strengthen global security while protecting the sovereign right of states to conduct legitimate arms trade."
"Nothing in this treaty could ever infringe on the rights of American citizens under our domestic law or the Constitution, including the Second Amendment," he added, referring to the U.S. constitutional amendment that guarantees the right to bear arms.
The NRA opposes the treaty and has vowed to fight to prevent its ratification by the U.S. Senate when it reaches Washington. The NRA says the treaty will undermine domestic gun rights, a view the U.S. government has strongly rejected.

Syrian U.N. Ambassador Bashar Ja'afari repeated that his government opposes the arms trade treaty because it does not ban the sale of weapons to non-state actors and "terrorists" like those it says are active in Syria. The civil war there has claimed at least 70,000 lives, according to U.N. estimates.

Syria routinely refers to rebels trying to oust President Bashar al-Assad as "terrorists" backed by foreign governments.
The treaty does not ban transfers to armed groups, but says all arms transfers should be subjected to rigorous risk and human rights assessments first.
British Prime Minister David Cameron hailed the vote as a "landmark agreement that will save lives and ease the immense human suffering caused by armed conflict around the world."
SCRUTINY ON HUMAN RIGHTS
Mexico issued a statement on behalf of 98 U.N. member states saying, "an effective implementation of this treaty will make a real difference for the people of the world."
U.N. member states began meeting on March 18 in a final push to end years of discussions and hammer out a binding international treaty to end the lack of regulation over cross-border conventional arms sales.
Arms control activists and rights groups have said a treaty was needed to halt the uncontrolled flow of arms and ammunition that they say fuels wars, atrocities and rights abuses.
The Arms Trade Treaty aims to set standards for all cross-border transfers of conventional weapons. It would also create binding requirements for states to review all cross-border arms contracts to ensure that arms will not be used in human rights abuses, terrorism or violations of humanitarian law.
"The agreement of the Arms Trade Treaty sends a clear message to arms dealers who supply warlords and dictators that their time is up," said Anna Macdonald of the global development group Oxfam.
Amnesty International's Frank Jannuzi said the NRA, which claimed credit last year for persuading the United States to block the treaty in July 2012, failed this time.
"Iran, Syria and North Korea blocked consensus at the U.N., while the NRA cynically, and ultimately unsuccessfully, tried to erode the U.S. government's support through a campaign of lies about the treaty," Jannuzi said.
The main reason the arms trade talks took place at all is that the United States, the world's biggest arms trader, reversed U.S. policy on the issue after President Barack Obama was first elected and decided in 2009 to support a treaty.

Cop shoots man inside station



An officer shot and wounded an armed man inside the Vernon Hills police station early this morning, the first police-involved shooting in the north suburb, authorities said.

The man entered the lobby of the station at 740 Lakeview Parkway shortly after midnight saying he had been involved in an accident and wanted to file a report, authorities said.

"So an officer arrived to take the accident report information. And the suspect pulled out a gun and pointed it at the officer. So the officer shot the suspect," Officer Sharon Joseph told reporters outside the station, where a front glass door was shattered from the shooting.

The man was hit at least once and was taken in fair condition to a hospital. Joseph did not know whether he fired at the officer, who was not injured.
Joseph did not know whether there had been an accident or it was a ruse to draw the officer out. "That's part of the investigation," she said.

The man has not yet been positively identified and no charges have been filed, she added.

Joseph did not think anyone else was in the lobby at the time and noted that the dispatchers were behind "bullet-resistant glass."

"So that should have kept the dispatchers safe," she said.

Still, Joseph said "anybody with a handgun is a danger to everyone around. . .You have to stay on high alert at all times."

The officer has been placed on administrative leave pending the investigation, which is being conducted by the Lake County Major Crime Task Force

Chicago police officer found dead

The officer suffered a gunshot wound to the head, authorities said. His name was not being released, but he lived in the 900 block of West 129th Place. He was a 26-year veteran and was assigned to the Calumet District.
The Cook County medical examiner's office said the officer suffered an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound.
Six squad car and several unmarked police cars were parked outside the single-story brick home as uniformed and plainclothes officers stood in the driveway to the west side of the home. About 7:45 a.m., a fire truck pulled up at the home but soon left.

Police at the scene referred all questions to police news affairs. A supervisor said the situation was particularly emotional because many who had responded, including herself, had worked with the officer.

Neighbors stood outside their homes and asked what had happened. They described the neighborhood as a quiet one where many police officers live. At least three other officers live within a block of the home.

Illinois State Police barry a brother today

Whats On The Sarges Mind is giving a moment of silence and a prayer to the fallen brother.

 

 

May the road rise up to meet you.
May the wind always be at your back.
May the sun shine warm upon your face,
and rains fall soft upon your fields.
And until we meet again,
May God hold you in the palm of His hand.

A funeral will be held today for Illinois State Trooper James Sauter, who was killed in a fiery crash last week on the Tri-State Tollway.
On Monday, troopers in full dress uniform greeted mourners for a wake at Moraine Valley Church in Palos Heights. The parking lot was packed, and nearly half the cars were marked or unmarked vehicles from about a dozen police agencies.
Outside the church, Trooper Raymond Kurut said he met Sauter when the two entered the police academy four years ago, recalling his classmate's enthusiasm for the dangerous work of patrolling the highways.
"We have a term in the state police for patrol, called being a 'road dog,'" Kurut said. "Jim loved being a road dog out here more than anything else."
Sauter, a pilot, liked patrol so much that he asked to be taken out of state police air operations and was transferred back to the road shortly before the crash, state police said.
About 11 p.m. Thursday, he was in his police cruiser parked on Interstate 294 south of Willow Road in Glenview when a semitrailer truck hit the car from behind.
Both vehicles burst into flames, and Sauter was pronounced dead at the scene. He was 28.
The driver of the semi was ticketed for improper lane usage, authorities said. His name has not been released because of the pending investigation, state police spokeswoman Monique Bond said.
Sauter, a trooper since 2008, is survived by his wife, Elizabeth, and his parents. He lived in Vernon Hills but grew up in Chicago Ridge and attended Richards High School.
Sauter was still a cadet when he saved the life of a woman badly injured in a motorcycle crash on Interstate 80. He saw that no emergency vehicles had arrived, so he parked his car, grabbed a medical kit and ran across several lanes of traffic to reach the woman, Kurut said.
Sauter was able to clear the woman's airway, which was blocked with blood. She was airlifted to a hospital and survived.
"I talked to Jim that night," Kurut said. "Jim was just overjoyed he had the training and the tools and the ability to be in the right place at the right time."
Sauter was awarded the state police's Lifesaving Medal in October 2008.
Caryn Tatelli hardly knew Sauter — Sauter's wife was a baby sitter for Tatelli's three children several years ago — but she said the muscular, warmhearted trooper made an impression. When Sauter and his future wife, Elizabeth, were dating, Tatelli invited the couple to join her family at a water park in the Wisconsin Dells.
Her children, 3-year-old twins and a 7-year-old at the time, still remember Sauter.
"They all wanted to go down the water slides with (Sauter)," she said. "They still remember that feeling of being safe."
The funeral is scheduled for 11 a.m. Tuesday at Moraine Valley Church, 6300 W. 127th St.

Lyons Police officer ives his life to save others

About 14 hours after Lyons police Officer Charles Wright rescued two residents from a smoke-filled apartment building, he sat in his home Monday afternoon and downplayed his death-defying effort.
"We help people; that's what police officers do," said Wright, a 29-year veteran of the department who grew up in Lyons. "It's just routine."
Tenants of the building disagree. And while Wright's may have been the most dramatic example of heroism at the fire in the six-unit apartment building, others joined him during and after the blaze.

It began shortly after midnight when Wright was patrolling near 45th Place and Prescott Avenue in the western suburb. He noticed flames shooting from a basement apartment window and radioed for help. Then he left his car and pounded on the building's windows and a door before arriving at another apartment entrance.

Wright said he heard voices on the other side of the door. He and neighbor Mike Campos, who had seen the fire and run to the building, pulled it open. Thick black smoke flowed from the opening, Wright recalled, and he didn't stop to think.
"It was just like: Get them out," Wright said.
He stuck his head in the door, then told Campos to run around the building and try to wake people up, Campos said Monday afternoon. While Campos started shouting and pounding on windows, Wright walked inside and helped a man and young boy escape before the officer became overcome by smoke.
Lyons police officers Rob Zieman, Richard Brown, Jeff Studlow and Jennifer Markowski arrived moments later, followed by firefighters. The four officers stood by a first-floor window and persuaded tenant Mary Jones to break it and lower her toddler daughter to them, Lyons police Cmdr. Brian Kuratko said. Jones followed her daughter out the window.
Although the building was damaged extensively, all tenants survived. Authorities said the fire started in a basement apartment but had not determined the cause.
"I would say we probably all would have been trapped" if it hadn't been for the efforts of Wright, Campos and the other officers, Jones said later Monday. "No one inside knew what was going on."
Gestures of generosity occurred hours later, when Kathy Van Driska, of nearby Countryside, drove to the apartment parking lot, her small car nearly overflowing with four stuffed toy animals. She'd seen TV news reports on the fire and was moved by the plight of the four children who had to leave their homes early Monday morning, Van Driska said.
"It's just a little something for the little kids," added Van Driska, who took the toys to the Lyons Police Department. Kuratko said a local Lions Club also offered to help apartment tenants. "If something like this happened to me," Van Driska said, "I would hope someone would step up and help me out because this is terrible."
The early Monday blaze was the third time Wright, who was raised in Lyons, rescued someone trapped in a building fire. He received a congressional commendation in 1996 after he and two other Lyons officers rescued a 77-year-old visually impaired amputee from his burning home.
In addition, Markowski saved a life exactly three years ago, while working as a Westmont police officer. She and Westmont firefighter Brendan Sullivan leapt into a retention pond to help pull out an elderly couple whose car had plunged into the water.
After his rescue efforts Monday, Wright was treated at a hospital for a few hours, then went home to sleep. In his living room hours later, he said the headache and sore throat from inhaling smoke was nothing compared with the satisfaction of having done what he was meant to do.
"It's a special job, being a police officer," he said. "It takes a lot of heart to put up with some of the things we do. All the guys I worked with, I'm very proud of what they did."

Georgia town passes law requiring residents to own guns

ATLANTA  - A small Georgia town on Monday passed a law requiring the head of each household to own a gun as a way to keep crime down.

The ordinance, approved unanimously by the City Council in Nelson, is symbolic, however, because there is no penalty for violating it, according to Councilman Duane Cronic, who introduced the measure last month.

It serves as an expression of support for gun rights and sends a message to would-be criminals, Cronic said.
The measure was passed amid the debate over gun laws in the United States following the December shooting rampage in which a gunman killed 26 people at a Connecticut elementary school.
The Nelson ordinance exempts convicted felons, residents with physical and mental disabilities and those who do not believe in owning firearms, Cronic said.
Crime in Nelson, which has only one police officer, consists mainly of petty theft, Cronic said. Some 1,300 people live in the town, about 50 miles north of Atlanta.
Last month similar proposed gun ordinances were rejected in the small towns of Byron and Sabbatus in Maine.

Trial of former New Orleans mayor delayed until October

(Reuters) - The federal public corruption trial of former New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin, which was scheduled to start in late April, has been delayed until October after a joint request by prosecutors and defense attorneys, a court order filed on Monday said.

Nagin, who had chided federal officials for their slow response after Hurricane Katrina inundated New Orleans, was accused in a grand jury indictment in January of taking kickbacks in exchange for city contracts.

The joint request for more time had said, "The nature of the present prosecution is complex and involves an extensive amount of electronic and documentary discovery."
The 21-count indictment included charges of bribery, money laundering, conspiracy and tax violations. Nagin, who now lives in Texas, pleaded not guilty to all charges in February before U.S. Magistrate Judge Sally Shushan.
The trial had been scheduled to start on April 29, but was moved to October 7 under the order dated April 1 signed by U.S. District Judge Helen G. Berrigan.
Nagin was a little-known businessman when he won election in 2002 after wooing voters with promises to think outside the box and rid City Hall of patronage. He served eight years as mayor.

In 2005, after Katrina struck and several levees crumbled, Nagin's desperate plea for federal officials to "get off your asses" and help was heard worldwide. He was widely criticized after the storm for overseeing a halting recovery.

New Orleans has a history rich with political intrigue, but Nagin is the first mayor to face criminal charges.