KABC – Los Angeles
Investigators treating Abilene police officer's death as a homicide

The off-duty officer found dead in his Texas home Monday was likely the victim of a homicide, according to police.

Authorities say the manner of Abilene police Officer Don Allen's death is "clearly suspicious" and there is no indication that he was targeted at random.

Family members found the 27-year-old's body at his home in the nearby city of Clyde.

Law enforcement blog LEO Affairs, citing local news site Big Country Homepage, says Allen may have been murdered in a coordinated attack. According to LEO Affairs, a search warrant of cell tower data contained these details:

This ruling isn’t official, but a direct quote from the documents reads, “Communication occurred between multiple parties to plan and carry out the murder. [The officer filing the warrant] believes cell towers within the 10-mile radius will have captured transaction between the suspects who were involved in this murder.”

When asked about the likelihood of Allen being targeted by several people in a premeditated attack, Clyde Police Chief Robert Dalton replied, “We have no direct information that would say that’s the case. I’m not sure where that came from. Of course we’re not releasing all the information because it’s an active investigation. We try not to comment on the number of suspects.”

The Clyde Police Department, which received a 911 call after 7 p.m. Monday, reached out to the Abilene Police Department and Texas Rangers for assistance. All three agencies are working with the FBI to investigate the incident. Allen’s body was taken to the Tarrant County Medical Examiner’s Office for an autopsy.

Dalton said a lot of misinformation is swirling around concerning Allen’s death.

“One of those rumors is that there was some kind of anti-police message left at the scene. That is entirely untrue,” he said in an interview with Yahoo News Wednesday. “We do not have any evidence at this time that Mr. Allen was targeted because he was a police officer.”

Dalton also wanted to reassure Clyde residents that law enforcement has no evidence that suggests they are in harm’s way.

“It’s a small town and there is some uneasiness right now, but we have no reason to believe that other members of the public are in danger.”

During a press conference Tuesday, Abilene Police Chief Stan Standridge addressed what many had been thinking: Allen’s is the latest in a spate of violent police officer deaths.

“I do not want to police in a community where it’s an us-versus-them mentality,” Standridge said. “If we get there, we’ve lost. We have not lost.”

Before joining the Abilene Police Department, Allen was an officer in Cisco, Texas, for a year and five months. He served as a Texas peace officer for a total of three years and three months.

Standridge described Allen as a “great man and great peace officer.”

“Parents should not have to bury their children,” he said, “and this family certainly needs our love and prayers during this time.”

A representative from the Texas Rangers was not immediately available for comment.

Wochit
Wrongly Convicted Brothers Each Get $750K Payout

RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — When two brothers were released after three decades of wrongful imprisonment, they struggled to adapt to an outside world neither had experienced since they were teenagers. The older one has managed to adjust and keep his "head up high," but the younger one, according to his family, is a broken man.

On Wednesday, the state of North Carolina sought to make amends, awarding each man $750,000 for the time they spent behind bars after they falsely confessed to taking part in the killing of an 11-year-old girl.

Henry McCollum, 51, appeared calm as a state official approved the maximum payout under the law to him and half-brother Leon Brown, 47. Brown did not attend the hearing; he is in the hospital, suffering from mental health problems including post-traumatic stress disorder, the brothers' lawyer said.

McCollum and Brown were released last September after a judge threw out their convictions, citing new DNA evidence that points to another man in the 1983 rape and slaying of Sabrina Buie. McCollum had been the longest-serving inmate on North Carolina's death row. Brown had been sentenced to life in prison.

They were pronounced innocent in June by Gov. Pat McCrory, who issued pardons that made them eligible for compensation.

McCollum, who has been living with his sister in the Fayetteville area, said the money will enable him to support himself and help his family.

View gallery

Henry McCollum holds a framed copy of his pardon before a hearing on compensation by the state for h …

"My family, they have struggled for years and years," he said. "It's hard out there for them, and I want to help them."

Their attorney said the money will be put in a trust and invested so that the brothers can live off the earnings and won't have to work.

North Carolina is among 30 states that have laws for compensating people wrongfully convicted, according to the Innocence Project. But North Carolina stands alone with its Innocence Inquiry Commission, set up to investigate disputed cases. It performed the DNA testing that set the brothers free.

Sabrina's body was found in a soybean field in rural Robeson County, with a cigarette butt, a beer can and two bloody sticks nearby.

Attorneys for the two brothers say that they were scared teenagers with low IQs and that investigators berated them and fed them details about the crime before they signed confessions saying they were part of a group that killed the youngster. McCollum was 19, Brown 15.

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In an Aug. 26, 2014 file photo, Leon Brown speaks with a reporter at the Maury Correctional Institut …

But the DNA on the cigarette didn't match either one of them, and fingerprints on the beer can weren't theirs either. No physical evidence connected them to the crime.

The current district attorney for Robeson County, who didn't prosecute McCollum and Brown, has said he is considering charging the man whose DNA was found on the cigarette butt. That man is in prison for another murder.

McCollum listed some of the things he enjoys about freedom: "Being out here, to be able to breathe the air. To be able to walk around as a free man. To be able to walk down that street with my head up high."

Meanwhile, Brown has been hospitalized at least six times in the last year for mental health problems that include hallucinations and deep depression, attorney Patrick Megaro said.

Both men were bullied and attacked behind bars, and Brown was sexually assaulted repeatedly by other inmates, according to a lawsuit brought by Megaro against county authorities and others.

The brothers were initially given death sentences. In 1988, the state Supreme Court threw out their convictions and ordered new trials. McCollum was again sent to death row, while Brown was found guilty of rape and sentenced to life.

The Associated Press normally does not identify victims of sexual assault, but Megaro said Brown and his family were willing to make the information public to show how he suffered.

The men's sister, Geraldine Brown, said her brother Leon is "really sick" from his time in prison.

"He did not go in that way," she said. "They snatched him from my mother as a baby."

View Gallery

Wrongly convicted brothers each get $750K payout

Henry McCollum, 51, and Leon Brown, 47, both spent time on death row for a crime they didn't commit.
Horrifying details

Sep 3, 2015

Michael Snyder

(RINF) – Did you know that the UN is planning to launch a “new universal agenda” for humanity in September 2015? That phrase does not come from me – it is actually right in the very first paragraph of the official document that every UN member nation will formally approve at a conference later this month. The entire planet is going to be committing to work toward 17 sustainable development goals and 169 specific sustainable development targets, and yet there has been almost a total media blackout about this here in the United States. The UN document promises that this plan will “transform our world for the better by 2030“, and yet very few Americans have even heard of the 2030 Agenda at this point. Instead, most of us seem to be totally obsessed with the latest celebrity gossip or the latest nasty insults that our puppet politicians have been throwing around at one another. It absolutely amazes me that more people cannot understand that Agenda 2030 is a really, really big deal. When will people finally start waking up?

As I discussed in a previous article, the 2030 Agenda is taking the principles and goals laid out in Agenda 21 to an entirely new level. Agenda 21 was primarily focused on the environment, but the 2030 Agenda addresses virtually all areas of human activity. It truly is a blueprint for global governance.

And later this month, nearly every nation on the entire planet is going to be signing up for this new agenda. The general population of the planet is going to be told that this agenda is “voluntary” and that it is all about “ending poverty” and “fighting climate change”, but that is not the full story. Unfortunately, there is so much positive spin around this plan that most people will not be able to see through it. Just check out an excerpt from a piece that was published on the official UN website yesterday…

The United Nations General Assembly today approved a resolution sending the draft ‘2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development’ to Member States for adoption later this month, bringing the international community “to the cusp of decisions that can help realize the… dream of a world of peace and dignity for all,” according toSecretary-General Ban Ki-moon.

“Today is the start of a new era. We have travelled a long way together to reach this turning point,” declared Mr. Ban, recounting the path the international community has taken over the 15 years since the adoption of the landmark Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) towards crafting a set of new, post-2015 sustainability goals that will aim to ensure the long-term well-being of our planet and its people.

With world leaders expected to adopt the text at a 25-27 September summit in New York, the UN chief said Agenda 2030 aims high, seeking to put people at the centre of development; foster human well-being, prosperity, peace and justice on a healthy planet and pursue respect for the human rights of all people and gender equality.

Who doesn’t “dream of a world of peace and dignity for all”?

They make it all sound so wonderful and non-threatening.

They make it sound like we are about to enter a global utopia in which poverty and inequality will finally be eradicated. This is from the preamble of the official 2030 Agenda document…

This Agenda is a plan of action for people, planet and prosperity. It also seeks to strengthen universal peace in larger freedom. We recognise that eradicating poverty in all its forms and dimensions, including extreme poverty, is the greatest global challenge and an indispensable requirement for sustainable development. All countries and all stakeholders, acting in collaborative partnership, will implement this plan. We are resolved to free the human race from the tyranny of poverty and want and to heal and secure our planet. We are determined to take the bold and transformative steps which are urgently needed to shift the world onto a sustainable and resilient path. As we embark on this collective journey, we pledge that no one will be left behind. The 17 Sustainable Development Goals and 169 targets which we are announcing today demonstrate the scale and ambition of this new universal Agenda.

If it is a “universal agenda”, then where does that leave those that do not want to be part of it?

How will they assure that “no one will be left behind” if there are some nations or groups that are not willing to go along with their plan?

The heart of the 2030 Agenda is a set of 17 Sustainable Development Goals…

Goal 1 End poverty in all its forms everywhere

Goal 2 End hunger, achieve food security and improved nutrition and promote sustainable agriculture

Goal 3 Ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all at all ages

Goal 4 Ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all

Goal 5 Achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls

Goal 6 Ensure availability and sustainable management of water and sanitation for all

Goal 7 Ensure access to affordable, reliable, sustainable and modern energy for all

Goal 8 Promote sustained, inclusive and sustainable economic growth, full and productive employment and decent work for all

Goal 9 Build resilient infrastructure, promote inclusive and sustainable industrialization and foster innovation

Goal 10 Reduce inequality within and among countries

Goal 11 Make cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable

Goal 12 Ensure sustainable consumption and production patterns

Goal 13 Take urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts*

Goal 14 Conserve and sustainably use the oceans, seas and marine resources for sustainable development

Goal 15 Protect, restore and promote sustainable use of terrestrial ecosystems, sustainably manage forests, combat desertification, and halt and reverse land degradation and halt biodiversity loss

Goal 16 Promote peaceful and inclusive societies for sustainable development, provide access to justice for all and build effective, accountable and inclusive institutions at all levels

Goal 17 Strengthen the means of implementation and revitalize the global partnership for sustainable development

Once again, many of those sound quite good.

But what do many of those buzzwords actually mean to the elite?

For instance, what does “sustainable development” actually mean, and how does the UN plan to ensure that it will be achieved globally?

This is something that was discussed in a recent WND article…

But what is “sustainable development?”

Patrick Wood, an economist and author of “Technocracy Rising: The Trojan Horse of Global Transformation,” says it’s clear the U.N. and its supporters see sustainable development as more than just the way to a cleaner environment. They see it as the vehicle for creating a long-sought new international economic order, or “New World Order.”

Wood’s new book traces the modern technocracy movement to Zbigniew Brzezinski, David Rockefeller and the Trilateral Commission in the early 1970s.

And Wood is quite correct. The environment is a perfect vehicle for the elite to use to bring in their version of utopia, because just about every possible form of human activity affects the environment in some way. Ultimately, they hope to centrally plan and strictly regulate virtually everything that we do, and we will be told that it is necessary to “save the planet”.

And they will never come out and openly call it a “New World Order” because “sustainable development” sounds so much nicer and is so much more acceptable to the general population.

Needless to say, there wouldn’t be much room for individual liberty, freedom or good, old-fashioned capitalism in the world that the elite are trying to set up. In fact, the U.N.’s number one sustainable development official has essentially publicly admitted this…

“This is probably the most difficult task we have ever given ourselves, which is to intentionally transform the economic development model, for the first time in human history,” Figueres, who heads up the U.N.’s Framework Convention on Climate Change, told reporters in February.

“This is the first time in the history of mankind that we are setting ourselves the task of intentionally, within a defined period of time, to change the economic development model that has been reigning for the at least 150 years, since the industrial revolution,” Figueres said.

They plan to “intentionally transform the economic development model”?

And so what will this new system look like?

How will they achieve this “utopia” that they are promising us?

Sadly, they are just selling the same lies that have been sold to people for thousands of years. Paul McGuire, the co-author of a new book entitled “The Babylon Code: Solving the Bible’s Greatest End-Times Mystery“, commented on this recently…

Deep inside every man and woman is the longing for a far better world, a world without war, disease, death, and pain. Our present world is a cruel world in which every life ends in death. From the beginning of time Mankind has sought to use science and technology to create a perfect world, what some would call Utopia or Paradise. As the Human Race began to organize itself, a Scientific or Technocratic Elite rose to power by promising the masses that they could build this perfect world. Ancient Babylon represented the first historical attempt to build paradise on earth.

In ancient times, Babylon was the very first attempt to create a type of “global government”, and ever since then the global elite have been trying to recreate what Babylon started.

The promise is always the same – the elite swear that they have finally figured out how to create a perfect society without poverty or war. But in the end all of these attempts at utopia always end up degenerating into extreme forms of tyranny.

On September 25th, the Pope is traveling to New York to give the opening address at the conference where the 2030 Agenda will be launched. He will be urging all of humanity to support what the UN is trying to do. There are countless millions that implicitly trust the Pope, and they will buy what he is selling hook, line and sinker.

Don’t be fooled – the 2030 Agenda is a blueprint for a New World Order. Justread the document for yourself, and imagine what our world would actually look like if they have their way.

They want to fundamentally transform our planet, and the freedom that you are enjoying today is simply not acceptable. To the elite, giving people freedom and liberty is dangerous because they believe it hurts the environment and causes societal chaos. According to their way of thinking, the only way to have the kind of harmonious utopia that they are shooting for is to tightly regulate and control what everyone is thinking, saying and doing. Their solutions always involve more central planning and more control in their own hands.

So what do you think?

Should we hand the global elite that kind of power and control?

If not, then we all need to start speaking out about this insidious agenda while we still can.

Sep 3, 2015

Michael Snyder

(RINF) – Russian President Vladimir Putin has introduced legislation that would deal a tremendous blow to the U.S. dollar. If Putin gets his way, and he almost certainly will, the U.S. dollar will be eliminated from trade between nations that belong to the Commonwealth of Independent States. In addition to Russia, that list of countries includes Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. Obviously this would not mean “the death of the dollar”, but it would be a very significant step toward the end of the era of the absolute dominance of the U.S. dollar. Most people don’t realize this, but more U.S. dollars are actually used outside of the United States than are used inside this country. If the rest of the planet decides to stop accumulating dollars, using them to trade with one another, and loaning them back to us at ultra-low interest rates, we are going to be in for a world of hurt. Unfortunately for us, it is only a matter of time until that happens.

When I first read the following excerpt from a recent RT article, I was absolutely stunned…

Russian President Vladimir Putin has drafted a bill that aims to eliminate the US dollar and the euro from trade between CIS countries.

This means the creation of a single financial market between Russia, Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and other countries of the former Soviet Union.

“This would help expand the use of national currencies in foreign trade payments and financial services and thus create preconditions for greater liquidity of domestic currency markets”, said a statement from Kremlin.

For a long time, tensions have been building between the United States and Russia over Syria, Ukraine, the price of oil and a whole host of other issues. But I didn’t anticipate that things would get to this level quite yet. It is expected that Putin’s new bill will become law, and this is only one element of a much larger trend that is now developing.

You see, the truth is that Russia and China have both been dumping dollar-denominated assets for months. The following comes from a recent piece by Mac Slavo…

Last year Russia began unloading massive amounts of their US dollar reserves. In the month of December 2014 alone Putin sold some 20% of the country’s U.S. Treasurys, a move that further increased tensions surrounding what can only be described as economic warfare between East and West.

Then, as if part of a coordinated effort, this summer it was revealed that China had implemented a similar strategy,dumping half a trillion in dollar denominated assets.

But that’s just the beginning of the end for the US dollar. Amid a major meltdown in Chinese stock markets the People’s Republic sold off billions in dollar assets last week in what was reported to be an effort to stabilize their collapsing financial markets.

And now, as Russia’s economy collapses under the weight of American and European sanctions, including what many believe to be widespread downward manipulation of oil prices, Vladimir Putin is sending a clear signal to the central bank of the world’s reserve currency.

China has the second largest economy on the entire planet, and Russia has the tenth largest. In recent years, these two superpowers have become much tighter. For example, just consider this headline from Sputnik News that I came across just today: “Crippling US Foreign Policy Draws Russia, China Closer Together“.

And I don’t know if you have noticed, but U.S. relations with China have turned rather sour lately. Lots of accusations about spying and trade violations have been flying around, and just this week five Chinese warships were spotted off the coast of Alaska. In the months ahead, expect our relationship with China to continue to unravel.

If China and Russia were to both fundamentally reject the U.S. dollar at some point, much of the rest of the world may choose to follow suit.

So why is that important?

The fact that most of the nations of the world use our dollars to trade with one another creates a tremendous amount of artificial demand for our currency. In other words, the U.S. dollar is valued much higher than it otherwise would be just because it is the de facto reserve currency of the planet.

As a result, we can import massive amounts of products at super cheap prices. When we go to Wal-Mart or the dollar store, we can fill up our carts with lots and lots of ridiculously inexpensive stuff. Our standard of living is way higher than it actually should be.

And because the U.S. dollar is used so widely in global trade, major exporting nations end up with giant piles of our currency which they have been willing to lend back to us at ultra-low interest rates. This has made it possible to fund our massively bloated federal government and to go 18 trillion dollars in debt.

If the rest of the world stops using our dollars and stops playing our game, we will be in a tremendous amount of trouble. The cost of imported products would absolutely skyrocket and our standard of living would go way down.

In addition, the federal government (along with state and local governments) would have to pay much more to borrow money which would rapidly create a gigantic debt crisis.

So Russia knows where they could really hurt us. Most of the “power” that America currently projects around the world is based on having the de facto reserve currency of the planet. If you take our financial power away, we would be far, far less imposing on the global stage. Sadly, the truth is that the U.S. military is rapidly shrinking and has largely been defanged by the Obama administration.

A lot of people that will read this article will not understand this, but it is very, very important to keep an eye on this emerging Russian/Chinese alliance. I believe that it is going to play a critical role in world events during the years ahead.

So do you agree with me or do you disagree? Please feel free to join the discussion by posting a comment below…