US police officer who shot teenager resigns

Darren Wilson insists he acted in accordance with the law
US police officer Darren Wilson - who fatally shot unarmed black teenager Michael Brown in the Missouri town of Ferguson - has resigned from the force, his lawyer Neil Bruntrager says.
Mr Bruntrager told US media the resignation was effective immediately.
Mr Wilson himself has been quoted by as saying he had taken the step because of threats of violence if he stayed.
Ferguson and other US towns and cities saw rioting after a jury decided Mr Wilson should not be charged.
BBC Washington correspondent Tom Esslemont says that to many in Ferguson, it was only a matter of time before Mr Wilson resigned.
The 9 August shooting in the St Louis suburb and last week's state grand jury decision triggered a nationwide debate over relations between black communities and law enforcement.
'Resignation letter'
The St Louis Post-Dispatch newspaper said the 28-year-old Mr Wilson had decided to step down after his police department received threats that violence would follow if he stayed on as an employee.

An undated family snapshot of Michael Brown

Demonstrators flooded on to the streets of Ferguson after the grand jury verdict, with several buildings set alight

It was the latest bout of rioting since the August shooting
The newspaper published what it said was his resignation letter, which read: "I have been told that my continued employment may put the residents and police officers of the City of Ferguson at risk, which is a circumstance that I cannot allow.
"For obvious reasons, I wanted to wait until the grand jury made their decision before I officially made my decision to resign.
"It was my hope to continue in police work, but the safety of other police officers and the community are of paramount importance to me. It is my hope that my resignation will allow the community to heal."
In a subsequent telephone interview on Saturday evening, the paper quoted Mr Wilson as saying: "I'm resigning of my own free will. I'm not willing to let someone else get hurt because of me."
He added that resigning was "the hardest thing I've ever had to do".
Family 'crushed'
Earlier this week, Mr Wilson told US media that before the shooting, Mr Brown had pushed him back into his car, hit him and grabbed at his drawn gun, and said that he felt "like a five-year-old holding on to [US wrestler] Hulk Hogan".
The policeman said he had feared for his life.
Mr Brown's supporters said he was attempting to surrender to the policeman when he was shot. Some witnesses said the teenager, who was unarmed, had his hands up.
However, the state prosecutor said physical evidence had contradicted some of the witness statements.
The family of Mr Brown, who was 18, have said they felt "crushed" by the decision.
Their son was killed after being shot six or seven times.
Many in the African-American community had called for Mr Wilson to be charged with murder, but after three months of deliberation a Missouri grand jury - of nine white and three black members - made no recommendation of charges.
The decision means Mr Wilson will not face state criminal charges over the shooting.
Protests - some but not all of them violent - followed in a number of US cities, including New York, Washington and Los Angeles.
More than 100 people were arrested during the demonstrations.
The US justice department has also launched a federal investigation into whether Mr Wilson violated Mr Brown's civil rights.

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11 feared killed in Rivers gun attack

By Jimitota Onoyume
About eleven persons were feared dead in Omoku, headquarters of Ogba Egbema Ndoni local government area of Rivers State, following a shooting spree by gunmen who stormed the area Friday night and yesterday afternoon.
Community sources told Sunday Vanguard that the gunmen, who  wore masks, shot indiscriminately for several hours on Friday night, adding that they later fled when men of the Joint Task Force, JTF, engaged them in a  shootout. The gun were said to have regrouped, yesterday afternoon, to continue the shooting at the market.
Sources feared  the shooting may not be unconnected with plans by some politicians to hijack the collection of Permanent Voter Cards  which commenced in the area on Friday.

File: Port Harcourt  during a recent crisis.
Among those killed, sources said, was  a chieftain of the All Progressives Congress (APC) who was simply identified as Godspower.
The Chairman of the local government area, Mr Austin Ayamadu, who condemned the incident, appealed to residents to remain calm, assuring that security men had taken charge of the area. Ayamadu said the gunmen went from one street to the other shooting before security men swung into action.
The Chairman, who could not confirm the death toll, said some persons died in the incident.
“Unknown gunmen invaded Omoku and started by killing an elder of the APC and  some  other people were also killed. The figure I  cannot immediately say because of the security situation, but it is more than five”, he said.
Rivers State  Police Public Relations Officer, DSP Ahmad Muhammad, who confirmed the  development, said it was a clash between rival cult groups, stressing that security men were on top of the situation.

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U.N.: Number of Ebola cases now tops 16,000

The number of confirmed, probable and suspected cases of Ebola in the current outbreak has surpassed 16,000, according to the World Health Organization, with nearly 7,000 deaths from those cases.
The United Nations' health agency issued its latest numbers Friday, focusing on how Ebola has affected Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone -- the three countries where the vast majority of cases have occurred.
Liberia has been hit hardest, with the WHO reporting 7,244 confirmed and potential cases as well as 4,181 deaths.
Both numbers reported Friday are significantly higher than those released earlier in the week. The WHO and other health agencies have long said the scale of the Ebola outbreak is likely significantly worse than even the current high numbers indicate, because many people died before they could be diagnosed and many contracted the disease in remote areas without ready access to health care.
The U.N. health agency recently noted that the situation in Liberia has stabilized in the past five weeks, after the rate of new cases declined from mid-September through mid-October.
The one country where WHO has reported a significant uptick -- with 385 new confirmed cases during the week of November 23 and 533 in the previous week -- is Sierra Leone.
Ebola and similar contagious diseases are not new to Africa, but the latest outbreak has been particularly virulent and deadly. About 60% of those infected have died from the virus, according to WHO.
The rapid infection rate fanned concerns that, due to the relative ease of international travel, Ebola might spread outside the continent. In fact, there have been new cases of Ebola in the United States and Spain, though such incidences remain a tiny fraction of the overall outbreak.
The United Nations has urged countries worldwide to pitch in, asking in September for nearly $1 billion to help Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone in their efforts to control the deadly disease.
While experimental drugs and treatments have been used to treat Ebola, there's no known vaccine that can prevent the disease...

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63 escape death as plane crash lands in Ilorin

By Demola Akinyemi
59 passengers and four crew members aboard an Overland  Airlines plane  escaped death, yesterday, in Ilorin, Kwara State capital,  when the jet crash landed.
The aircraft, with  registration number, 051175/1176, was said to be on its way to Ibadan when it developed fault.
Sunday Vanguard gathered that no casualty was recorded in the incident that happened around 5.30pm at the Ilorin International Airport.
Some passengers on board the aircraft  commended the pilot who they claimed averted what they believed could have been a fatal accident.
One of the passengers,Mr Samuel Ajala, however, complained about the lackadaisical attitude of the staff of the airline to their plight as they were said to have been left unattended to after the incident.

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Sick paedophile jailed after blackmailing girls aged 13-15 to send him nude pictures on Snapchat

Vile Aaron Finnie, 20, forced the girls to comply by telling them he would commit suicide and even sent one a picture of him with a gun to his head

A sick paedophile who lured girls as young as 13 into sending him naked pictures on Snapchat has been jailed.

Vile Aaron Finnie, 20, ensnared 11 different girls aged between 13 and 15 into sending or receiving indecent images.

The court heard how he would look for girls on Facebook, then move his messaging to Snapchat, where images are not recorded permanently.

Finnie used emotional blackmail to force the girls to comply, telling them he would commit suicide and even sent one a picture of him holding a gun to his head.

He targeted girls living close to his home address and tried to arrange meetings and sleepovers with them.

On one occasion he even had to be escorted off school premises after turning up and an after-hours club to take a 15-year-old schoolgirl home with him.

Creep: Aaron Finnie lured girls as young as 13 into sending him naked pictures on Snapchat

Finnie has now been told he will spend three years behind bars for his crimes.

Prosecuting, Mr Joss Ticehurst, told Exeter Crown Court, he plagued young girls on Facebook, persuading them to meet up with him.

He said: "He befriended girls on Facebook and Snapchat, sending images of his erect penis and seeking to obtain photographs of them in return.

"There were 11 girls who were treated in this way. It appears there has been more extensive contact with other young girls but they do not appear on the indictment.

"There were 7,000 pages of Facebook conversations with young females and he was a prolific Facebook user who was looking for girls to make friend requests to.

"There were numerous Facebook conversations going on with a number of different people at the same time which were all of a sexual nature and indicated he was seeking to meet girls."

Mr Ticehurst said many of the girls were upset and flustered by his demands for pictures and shocked and frightened by his threats to commit suicide.

Police found 7,000 pages of Facebook messages on his computer and believe he may have been involved in sexualised conversations with many more girls.

He was arrested and bailed twice with conditions not to contact girls on the internet but carried on doing so until he was finally remanded in custody earlier this year.

Finnie, from, Paignton, Devon, admitted eight counts of sending indecent messages, six of causing under age girls to send him images, and one of causing a child to engage in sexual activity.

Finnie was sentenced to three years behind bars for his crimes and ordered to sign the Sex Offenders' Register for life, when he appeared in court on Friday, November 28.

Sentencing, Judge Francis Gilbert, QC, said: "You befriended 11 girls who were under 16 online and asked them to send you indecent photographs, despite knowing their ages.

"You also sent indecent images of yourself. You threatened to commit suicide and sent a picture of you holding a gun to your head.

"Can you imagine the stress that would have put upon a young girl. She must have been very, very distressed.

"These are serious offences and are all the more reprehensible because you continued to offend in the same way in deliberate and obvious breach of your bail conditions."

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