Police officer caught on camera beating a teenager

October 4, 2022 No Comments

A video of an Oklahoma police officer beating a 17-year-old boy and driving his knee to his neck during an arrest is currently trending online.

Footage of Sunday’s “attack” shows the deputy and other officers trying to restrain the teen on the ground at the Tulsa State Fair.

As the police officers struggled to place the teen in handcuffs, the deputy punches him, then pushes his knee hard into the boy’s neck as onlookers screamed “He’s a f—king kid, y’all!”

The deputy then drags the teen who has seemingly gone limp across the asphalt with his face to the ground, before putting him in handcuff.

According to police, the teen was drunk and acting belligerent while waiting in line for a ride. Several people complained and police responded.

The teen, who is white, began mouthing off and, according to cops, using racist language toward a black deputy. That’s when all the trouble began.

Tulsa County Sheriff’s Captain Mike Moore backed up the actions of his officers, reportedly saying “the deputies were required to use the force necessary” when the teen “continued to resist and continued to fight deputies.”

The Sheriff’s Office is now reviewing the matter.

Entertainment

Teenager spends 6 years digging underground cave after fight with his parents

June 1, 2021 No Comments

Andres Canto was 14-years-old when his parents rejected his idea of going to the local village donned in a tracksuit.

What could be seen by many as a minor argument angered Canto so much that he looked for ways to vent. This he did by using his grandfather’s axe to dig a hole in the family garden.

After six years of digging, Canto’s mancave boasts of steps, a living room, and a bedroom. Furthermore, it has a heating system, music, and Wi-Fi tethered from his smartphone.

He revealed that there was something therapeutic about digging in the evenings when he got back home from school, which turned him into a part-time excavator.

“It’s great, I have everything I need. It can be tiring to work here as it is wet and there is not much air going around, but I have found my own motivation to keep on digging every day,” he revealed, as reported by The Mirror.

Canto’s bizarre project got a boost when his friend Andreu joined him with a pneumatic drill, and the two chiselled a 10-foot dwelling underground.

For a project that began with him pushing out the soil using buckets, Cante began researching excavation techniques and created a homemade pully to aid in taking out the rubble.

Sometimes I came across a big stone and it could be frustrating after hours of digging that I had done almost nothing,” the youngster explained.

Canto reveals that the main challenges he faces are occasional floods during the rainy season, as well as insects, spiders and snails.

He even learnt how to reinforce the ceilings through arched entrances and reinforced columns, ensuring that the cave did not crumble.

Entertainment, Lifestyle

“I had to endure seeing the person that raped me when I was a teenager all the time.” — Demi Lovato

March 17, 2021 No Comments

Demi Lovato has said she was raped as a teenager while working for the Disney Channel.

The 28-year-old revealed in her documentary Demi Lovato: Dancing with the Devil that the person faced no consequences after she came forward.

The singer does not say who the offender was, only that she “had to see this person all the time” afterwards.

“My MeToo story is me telling somebody that someone did this to me and they never got in trouble for it,” says Demi Lovato in it, according to Variety’s review.

“I’ve just kept it quiet because I’ve always had something to say, and I’m tired of opening my mouth.”

The YouTube docuseries tackles issues in Demi Lovato’s life such as trauma, addiction and her relapse into a drug overdose in 2018.

She speaks about her alleged rape saying: “We were hooking up but I said – hey, this is not going any farther.

“And that didn’t matter to them, they did it anyways. And I internalised it and I told myself it was my fault because I still went in the room with him.”

She says she coped through self-harm, and going through the eating disorder bulimia.

In the series, she also talks about a “promise ring” which was worn by some young stars including herself and the Jonas Brothers, as a commitment to only have sex after marriage.

“So what, I’m supposed to come out to the public after saying I have a promise ring? Six months later, I’m supposed to say, well I had sex, even though it was rape? Some people aren’t going to see it that way.

https://emp.bbc.com/emp/SMPj/

The series also shows the damage Demi’s drug overdose had in 2018. She was taken to hospital after being found unconscious at her Los Angeles home.

“My doctors said that I had five to 10 more minutes.”

After suffering three strokes and a heart-attack, she’s previously said she had been “left with brain damage and I still feel the effects of that”.

Those effects include blurry vision that means she can’t drive and made reading difficult.

Weeks before the incident, she released a song titled Sober, in which she revealed that after six years of sobriety: “I’m not sober any more.”

Demi has previously been open about her struggles with addiction and bulimia, including in her 2017 YouTube Originals documentary Simply Complicated.

She re-launched her singing career at last year’s Grammy Awards and sang the national anthem at the 2020 Super Bowl.

In January, she sang on a TV special which marked US President Joe Biden’s inauguration.

Demi Lovato: Dancing with the Devil will appear on YouTube from 23 March.

World News

Police in Pakistan recover teen girl after alleged forced conversion and marriage

November 3, 2020 No Comments

Teen girl was recovered by police in Pakistan

A 13-year-old Christian girl in Pakistan who was allegedly abducted and forced to convert and marry a Muslim man has been rescued, officials said.

The recovery of the girl came nearly a month after the girl’s parents alleged that she was abducted by Ali Azhar, 44.

The courts had failed to act earlier because they accepted statements the girl gave saying she was 18 and had married of her own free will.

But pressure from campaign groups and a public outcry prompted action.

Leaders from the Catholic Church in Pakistan and human rights groups demanded that the court ruling be reconsidered, arguing that the girl had been forced to give her statement after entering a child marriage. Protesters also took to the streets in Pakistan’s capital, Karachi.

On Monday, the Sindh High Court ordered police to find the teenager. She was recovered later in the day and will remain in protective custody until a court hearing on 5 November.

Her alleged abductor was arrested later the same night and is due to appear in court on Tuesday.

The girl’s family first reported her missing on 13 October. Two days later, according to Christian Organisation the Centre for Legal Aid, Assistance and Settlement (Claas), her father was informed that Mr Ali had produced a marriage certificate stating that she was 18 and had converted to Islam.

The family claimed the identification papers were fake, but when the case went to court on 27 October the Sindh High Court granted custody to the girl’s alleged abductor. The court also offered protection from the girl’s family.

The decision was condemned by human rights and religious groups. “It is the responsibility of the state to… protect its citizens, especially minor girls,” Joseph Arshad, a local archbishop, told news outlet Crux Now at the time.

Father Saleh Diego, vicar general of the Archdiocese of Karachi, also addressed the issue of forced conversions, telling the Catholic News Agency that “a 13-year-old cannot decide about her religion. She is an innocent girl… [she] still has a lot to learn about her own religion.”

In late October, the family’s lawyer Jibran Nasir said the girl’s parents had filed a harassment petition on her behalf.

Sindh High Court initially dismissed this application, but later reversed the decision following protests. The girl is now under the court’s protection, though Mr Nasir hopes she will soon be returned to her family.

“[The] safest place for a child is with her parents,” he said in a Twitter post. “Hopefully [the[ court will return her to [her] parents soon after [the] next hearing.”

According to a recent United Nations report, child marriages are still commonplace across South Asia. In Pakistan, nearly 25% of women in their early 20s were married by the time they are 18, the report found