News Cut: September 28, 2011 Archive

The Jackson trial

Posted at 11:28 AM on September 28, 2011 by Bob Collins
Filed under: Crime and Justice

Despite our tendency to avoid all coverage of celebrity-related trials in Los Angeles, there's no way any fan of pop culture can ignore the tape that was played in the trial of Michael Jackson's doctor yesterday.

The brain can process complex things. But it will certainly struggle with the notion that this person...

 

... is also this person...

Los Angeles County Deputy District Attorney David Walgren blamed Dr. Conrad Murray for Jackson's death, saying he abandoned "all principles of medical care" when he used the surgical anesthetic propofol to put Jackson to sleep every night for more than two months.

What was in Cassie Gordon's head?

Posted at 2:16 PM on September 28, 2011 by Bob Collins (1 Comments)
Filed under: Crime and Justice

When Katherine "Cassie" Gordon was killed on I-394 in Golden Valley last week, it wasn't the first time she saw the business end of a police officer's gun, according to her brother.

The Star Tribune reports the woman tried to get help eight weeks earlier from Fairview Southdale Hospital after telling police the "spirit" of Satan was inside her, but the hospital, citing privacy policy, isn't saying what treatment she received, if any.

That information has gotten her brother, David Stollbrack, wondering what else was in his sister's head and when it all started to go wrong for her? He says he hadn't seen her for some time, but knew she had been troubled. Today, he says, he's been thinking about an incident following the 1972 killing of Minneapolis police officer Inno Suek, that he says his sister occasionally talked about.

"My family went on vacation over the Thanksgiving holiday. While we were away, (brothers)Michael, Johnny, and Cassie were home and a guy named Frank Gavenda committed a liquor store robbery, and killed an off-duty cop. As the search went on, they came over to my family home because he was associated with my brother, Johnny. They came to the door and knocked on the door. Cassiee came to the door and they said, 'Open the door! We're looking for Frank.'"

"She said, 'Do you have a warrant?'"

"The cop drew his pistol, banging on the glass, pointed it at her and said, 'Open the door, bitch, or I'm going to blow you away.' And you know what? I don't think that ever went away. Was that the voices in her head that wouldn't go away? The demons? She was only 18 then," he recalled.

"All I know is she was successful. Very smart, and very beautiful and when she wanted to do something, she got it done," he said.

Mr. Stollbrack says his sister had been driving back and forth between Minnesota and California. "She raised a good family," he said, noting a son is a music producer in California.

(1 Comments)

Is an RC airplane a threat?

Posted at 4:11 PM on September 28, 2011 by Bob Collins (6 Comments)
Filed under: Crime and Justice

A Massachusetts man has been indicted today for conspiring to blow up the Capitol and Pentagon with a radio-controlled (RC) airplane.

This should spawn a series of TV reports on the dangers of the suspiciously innocuous toy.

Someone should ask, "is this even possible?" In its indictment, the Justice Department said, "Remote controlled aircraft are capable of carrying a variety of payloads (including a lethal payload of explosives), can use a wide range of takeoff and landing environments, and fly different flight patterns than commercial airlines, thus reducing detection."

It's not a new concern, perhaps. Check out this 2004 thread on an RC forum in which a person asks what RC model of airplane could hoist the most amount of weight. By the middle of the thread, at least one participant was starting to get suspicious of why someone was asking about the payload capacity of RCs.

Prosecutors said the suspect "ordered a remote controlled aircraft. He also received from undercover agents on Tuesday C-4 explosives (or at least he thought) , six fully-automatic AK-47 assault rifles (machine guns) and grenades."

According to the indictment, the man ordered a miniature F-4 Phantom jet, and an F-86 Sabre jet, capable of carrying 25 pounds of explosives. Anyone could order one, although this particular company reports the $179 model is sold out:

But the manufacturer says the flying weight of the model is 13 pounds, thanks primarily to its very large motor.

Stuffing it full of 25 pounds of explosives? It's unlikely an aircraft whose flying weight is 13 pounds could perform well in the air at 38 pounds, if it could get off the ground at all, but maybe.

The amount of fuel it would require -- unless it was going to be launched from the front steps of the Capitol -- would need to be considerable.

Certainly, 25 pounds of C4 is a considerable blast. This is what 20 pounds would look like:

That's if the explosive were inside blowing out. Ferdaus, who majored in physics, must also have been aware that if you fly something as light as a balsa-wood RC airplane into a granite dome, it's (a) going to be bounce off and (b) if it does explode, the impact of the blast would be away from the structure in question. On 9/11, the jetliners had the mass and speed to penetrate inside the World Trade Center and Pentagon, and then explode.

In his planned attack on the Pentagon, the man allegedly intended to use only 5 pounds of C4 per plane.

In any event, there's no indication from the indictment, which is quite detailed, that Ferdaus ever did a flight test with his toy to see whether it could carry the payload he wanted to deliver. That would be a great story for an enterprising reporter who wouldn't mind getting a visit fro the FBI.

Far more serious, perhaps, than the threat posed by the RC, is what Ferdaus allegedly intended to do after the Capitol dome collapsed: storm the Capitol and shoot everyone still alive.

(6 Comments)