Currently browsing: law enforcement

Calling for help for a beloved ‘birdie’

She’ll probably want to smack me for calling her that.

As someone who’s been victim to identity theft, my heart goes out to Raven and her family. She recently posted about her family’s findings about her grandfather (now deceased) who was being abused by his caretaker. That in itself is heinous, but to add insult to injury, his caretaker had also stolen his identity and depleted his savings, writing checks and using his credit cards. Reading her story infuriated me, not only bringing back my personal memories dealing with FuckHead, but also in thinking about how I would feel if my beloved Gramps had been treated that way by one of his caretakers.

An open call for help

Those who have been keeping up with this journal over the past week or so are already familiar with the situation I am in, for the most part. For anyone else, here is an overview. I did not put in a cut, as I really need everyone to see this.

My grandfather died at the age of 94 about 8 days ago. This followed an emergency trip to the hospital, where it was found that he had bled out through an intestinal tear. My parents decided to put him in hospice care rather than subject him to radical or invasive procedures, which was in accordance with his wishes. He died about 18 hours later.

At this point my parents started trying to put his affairs in order. As they filled out the death certificate, a nurse took my mother and her sister, my aunt, aside to tell them that she believed my grandfather had been severely abused by his caretaker, and if they had been able to save him, she would have personally intervened to keep him from being sent back to his caretaker to spare him a great deal of pain. He had bruises in several stages of healing all over his body, and possibly worse injuries as well.

The hospital records, over 100 pages corroborated this abuse pattern over the past few years. However, Texas, the state where he resides does not have a mandatory abuse reporting policy apparently, so no one bothered to report it to adult protective services. Then, as my mother tried to continue putting his affairs in order, she was stunned to realize that this same caretaker had used my grandfather’s credit cards to make purchases and drained his entire life savings to the point where he did not even have any money to live on. Even two days after his death, this woman was still writing checks in his name, obvious forgeries of his signature on each.

This explained to us several references in his letters about being tired of living and wishing God would take him away from his pain. None of us knew this was going on, and apparently even my grandfather’s financial advisors noticed the pattern but did not see fit to notify the rest of the family for whatever reason.

My family contacted the Lubbock, Texas police and were told flatly that they refused to get involved at all and would not pursue the case or try and find the caretaker. They contacted adult protective services and found out that the police should have suggested an autopsy to prove abuse, but it was too late as my grandfather had been cremated. Apparently they can only intervene if there is a live person to question or an intact body. The attorney they found also basically told my mother that this was not a winnable case. After contacting the credit card companies about the theft of my grandfather’s identities, one company told my mother that they too refused to get involved at all.

At this point, we just want to see the caretaker prosecuted for her fraud, have the bills in my grandfather’s name cleared and make sure the woman does not do this to anyone else’s loved ones. The money, my grandfather’s savings that he had been building since just after the Depression, when he first started building his accounting firm is probably not retrievable, though it would be wonderful if it was.

This is an open request for help from me and my family. If you have any suggestions at all of how we can at least get someone to help us on this, we would be very grateful. Please re-post this to lists and pass it along, as any help at this point would be welcome. We are drowning in bills that were run up by this caretaker, and the police, lawyers, and credit company will not help us. The only people who have aided us are the hospital staff, who have come forward with statements. However, this does not really help since the police will not listen and my family does not know where else to turn.

I can’t pretend to know how Raven is feeling. I know it has got to be frustrating as hell when local authorities, credit companies, and legal venues are not helping in even pursuing possible prosecution of the caretaker! That woman took the old man for everything he had (and physically abused him on top of that!!) and left a mountain of bills in her financially destructive wake for the family to sort out.

Anyone with ideas or advice for Raven and her family, please take a moment to leave a comment on her post.

Humpday Hilarities

Today’s funny comes from my darling husband:

What the Hell, Saban?

I’ve tried very hard to keep a positive outlook about our team and our coach. We started the season out great last year, but quickly fell into an abysmal losing-streak that continued through the end of the season — it seemed that we just couldn’t get out of the rut, couldn’t get things together in time. I’d had a lot of hope for the next upcoming season. But little by little I can see that the coach I *thought* we had, we don’t really have at all.

I’m fired up, I’m mad, and I just gotta say: What the Hell, Saban?

Within the 14 month span of your reign at Alabama, eight football players have been arrested. Five of which occurred on The Strip. If you ask me, it’s high time you institute some tougher rules, a curfew, and light a fire underneath the ass of each and every one of those boys!

What Alabama needs is a coach who can LEAD these boys and turn them into men, but we don’t have that. Apparently we have the ACLU Coach of the Year. What the hell happened to your infamous “rough” training regimen? Or the leadership we’ve been promised?

Let’s examine recent events …

There’s starting linebacker Prince Hall, who has been “suspended indefinitely” for “for violating team rules.” And this isn’t the first time this has happened for Hall either. In fact, he began the 2007 season with a one-game suspension for “violating team rules” and went on to be suspended for a half later on in the season.

It sounds to me like he needs a “come to Jesus” talk with you, Coach.

Earlier this week, Rashad Johnson was arrested for disorderly conduct at The Strip (what a surprise!). This guy is a team captain, and he is setting a VERY BAD example for the other (younger) players on his team!

What are you doing about this, Coach?

And then there’s redshirt defensive end Jeremy Elder who was arrested last week for robbing two students. Last I read, he’s been dismissed from the team and withdrawn from the school altogether. While I agree that the punishment in this case was swift and just, the fact of the matter is that he didn’t have the notion impressed on him enough that he needed to stay OUT of trouble in order to play.

Anyone with half a brain can remember that if they screw up they can’t play anymore, IMO.

Moving onwards back, we have two walk-ons who were arrested in December for assault. Quarterback Thomas Darrah and fullback Jacob Vane were restricted to “scout team duty” and were not allowed to play in any games. That’s a good start, but again these boys didn’t have the notion impressed on them enough either.

In August, Simeon Castille was arrested for disorderly conduct — at The Strip.

In July, Roy Upchurch and Brandon Fanney were arrested for disorderly conduct — also at The Strip. (Anyone seeing a pattern here?) In that same incident, Brandon Deaderick was arrested and charged with criminal mischief, resisting arrest and providing a false name to police.

This is just me, but …

If any one of these were my kid, I’d get in his face and say, “Screw up again, and you’re out of here.” It’s not hard, and you need to seriously grow a set and show these kids that if they act like punks, they’ll be treated like them — toss ‘em out on their ass!

Good job, Jeff Co sheriffs!

On the way home from the gun show in Bessemer Saturday, we were coming up on the I-65 Walker Chapel exit. We were starved and wanted to grab a quick bite to take home with us. There was an 18-wheeler pulled over with a couple of Jefferson County sheriff cars. The truck driver was outside the back end of the truck, with the doors open and one of the sheriffs climbing inside.

I mentioned to Jim, “Looks like a drug search.” We went on and I didn’t think anything else about it, other than I had almost snapped off a few pics as we drove by.

This was just posted to the MyFoxAL feeds:

Breaking News: Record Cocaine Bust

BIRMINGHAM, Ala (WBRC-TV MyFoxAL.com) — The Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office has announced that they have conducted what could be one of the largest cocaine seizures in the state of Alabama and probably the largest in Jefferson County.

On January 26, the Highway Safety Unity stopped a tractor trailer traveling North on I-65 near Walker’s Chapel Rd.

Upon inspection of the trailer, 265 pounds of cocaine was discovered.

The shipment was believed to be heading to the North-East of the country to be turned into crack-cocaine. The value of the drugs was approximately 7.2 million dollars.

Resident Mexican Alien Jose Luis Magana of Edinburg, Texas was arrested and charged with cocaine trafficking. He is being held under a 1 million dollar bond.

Edit: And this was just posted to the Birmingham News feeds:

265 pounds of cocaine seized in highway bust

Investigators confiscated 265 pounds of cocaine being smuggled in a truck traveling Saturday on Interstate 65 near Walker’s Chapel Road, the Jefferson County Sheriff’s Department announced.

The bust is believed to be one of the largest cocaine seizures in state history and the largest ever in Jefferson County, according to the department.

Authorities believe the cocaine was destined for the northeast where it would have been converted to crack cocaine with a street value of about $7.2 million.

The driver of the truck, Jose Luis Magana of Edinburg, Texas, was taken into custody and is being held in the Jefferson County Jail on a $1 million bond on charges of trafficking in cocaine.

The Sheriff’s Highway Safety Unit found the drugs and made the arrest.

Birmingham News staff

A Mexican immigrant. I’d guess illegal, but the media never reports that kind of thing anymore. Anyone surprised? That’s a prime example of the kind of element we DON’T want coming here. (Wishing more of the outspoken pro-immigration community would denounce these kind of lowlifes that seem to keep sneaking up here!)

Anyway … I knew should’ve snagged those pics. Oh well, ’tis a cool catch for the local sheriffs dept! :cool: