ALERT: Serial Killer Sought in Tampa

ALERT: Tampa officials fear a serial killer is on the loose, after the unidentified individual (below) separately approached and shot three pedestrians during the past two weeks.

Police believe the victims had no connection to each other and may have been targeted at random.

One, in fact, was on the street where the killer gunned him down solely because he got off a metro bus "at the wrong stop."

The slain include, so far, a woman in her early thirties and two men in their early twenties -- all about the same age demographic as the unknown serial killer, judging by surveillance footage.

The tactical shooting deaths occurred within a ten-block area of Seminole Heights and have residents in that neighborhood terrified, a police spokesperson conceded; especially since Halloween is fast approaching and the hooded suspect is still at large.

So long as Florida's newest serial killer does remain on the loose though, he swore, officials intend to maintain a heavy police presence throughout the city.

They are urging citizens of all ages, even schoolchildren, to exercise maximum caution whenever going out, ideally doing so "only in pairs" or "in groups," if possible.

For added measure famed vigilantes, the Guardian Angels, will also be patrolling Tampa's streets now.

Authorities are offering a reward of $25,000 for any information leading to the apprehension of the mystery gunman. They've noted, however, that they have "no leads as yet" and "no motive" either for this apparent killing spree.

Eponymous Rox

Were Ohio Family Executions Drug Related?

The "sophisticated" Ohio family executions that left eight relatives dead last week were likely linked to a pot growing operation.

Marijuana plants were discovered at "several" of the crime scenes, according to the newest case updates.

Police don't yet want to say whether drugs are the reason the victims were all shot to death "execution style" in their homes on April 22nd -- many as they slept -- but a "major" dope ring with "ties to a Mexican cartel" had recently been busted in the area.

The well-orchestrated bloodbath in Pikes County targeted adult family members as well as young adults and teens. At least three toddlers were also found, unharmed but close by, at separate locations.

The slain have been confirmed as 44yo Kenneth Rhoden; 40yo Christopher Rhoden Sr.; 38yo Gary Rhoden; 37yo Dana Rhoden; 20yo Clarence “Frankie” Rhoden; 20yo Hannah Gilley; 19yo Hanna Rhoden; and 16yo Christopher Rhoden Jr.

Investigators are still trying to patch together the events that preceded the Ohio family mass murder and may have identified some persons of interest, but still have no suspects and haven't charged anyone.

They say they're anticipating a "lengthy investigation" before arrests can finally be made because the killers "did everything they could to hinder prosecution," though what precisely that entailed hasn't been disclosed yet.

A law enforcement spokesman did inform reporters yesterday that over four dozen people have already been questioned and “18 pieces of evidence are now at the state crime lab" for analysis by the BCI. 

Naturally, the murdered family's pot crop was also impounded.

At this point in their homicide probe police don't believe the gunman (or gunmen) was among the dead, since they're convinced the slayings were not the result of a domestic squabble that descended into deadly violence.

They're urging anyone with information to contact 911 or the state attorney's office.

A wealthy Ohioan is additionally offering a $25,000 reward for tips which will lead to the murderer/s swift apprehension and prosecution.

EPONYMOUS ROX

MISSING PERSON REWARD: Nick Wilcox

$10,000 Reward

 

After numerous fundraising events, the family of 24-year-old Nick Wilcox is able at last to offer a monetary reward for information that will lead to closure in his disappearance last month.

 

"Bad case, good case, I hope to bring him home," the young man's sister, Andrea Wilcox, vowed when she announced the $10,000 reward to reporters this week.

 

Wilcox was last seen alive on New Year's day when he was being physically removed by unnamed bouncers from a disreputable and now defunct downtown Milwaukee bar, the Irish Rec Room. No explanation was ever provided for why his forced removal was necessary.

 

Additionally, police who were stationed in squad cars just outside the establishment that night claimed they witnessed nothing. They also say they have "no leads" regarding the Wilcox disappearance and have stopped searching for him.

 

Over the past decade or more, Milwaukee has been the scene of many similar ejections of young men from riverside pubs, which far too often has led to weird nonrecreational drowning deaths. Apparently with that in mind, police divers had immediately searched an area in the Milwaukee river where the "ice appeared to be disturbed" but reported that Wilcox wasn't in it.

 

The city of Milwaukee is also notorious for mysterious dash cam malfunctions in police cruisers -- an unbelievable 80% fail rate has been reported by patrol officers. That means valuable video feed from the specific units poised outside the Irish Rec Room to make arrests the night Nick Wilcox was ousted by security will likely never be retrieved.

 

Dash-cam failure and police brutality are two issues the residents of Milwaukee have finally decided to confront head on in 2013 as they seek once and for all to take the hiring, firing, and disciplining of cops out of the hands of police.

 

If successful,  they'd be the first in the land to implement this significant legislative overhaul -- for two  plus centuries law enforcement agencies throughout the United States have policed themselves and exercised sole discretion over who will or will not be members of the force.

 

Milwaukee citizen activists are hoping their sweeping reform proposal, combined with the mandatory installation in all squad cars of reliable dashboard cameras, will usher in a new era of 100% police accountability and guarantee greater public safety in their neighborhoods as a result.

 

In the meantime, Wilcox's loved ones will continue canvassing the particular Milwaukee neigborhood where he was last known to be in, as well as handing out and hanging up new fliers with reward information.

 

Nick Wilcox is six-foot-two, between 180 and 200 pounds, and has blond hair and blue eyes. He was wearing a grey shirt, dark pants and black shoes when he vanished. More details can be found at the Facebook page Find Nick Wilcox.

 

BACKFIRE & BLOWBACK: Why a good cop went bad (Chris Dorner's on the rampage)

UPDATE 2/10/13 (MORE UPDATES HERE): Living up to their ugly reputation, LAPD cops have begun shooting at innocent motorists now: In a deranged bid to capture and kill their former colleague, Chris Dorner, trigger-happy officers "mistook" two Hispanic women delivering newspapers for the hulking six-foot, 270-pound man, and also shot up another vehicle which didn't even match his truck's description. Equally desperate is their police chief's belated offer to reconsider Dorner's allegations of police corruption and wrongful discharge. The former cop still remains at large, despite a massive manhunt for him and a million-dollar bounty. (Original story below.)

 

Cop framed by LAPD for reporting police brutality wages "war"

 

Well, the world's most notoriously corrupt police department has got a really big problem on their hands now. A six-foot, 270 pound, sharp-shooting, mad-as-hell kind of problem that, no matter how hard top brass tries, they can't easily sweep under the rug this time.

Especially when he's considered "armed and dangerous" and gunning for them.

Officer Christopher Dorner was fired by the infamous Los Angeles Police Department a couple years ago for reporting a colleague's excessive use of force during an arrest. The officer Dorner turned in had kicked and punched an unarmed, handcuffed mental patient already in custody, and had, in fact, been flagged many times for similar acts of brutality before the incident. 

Dorner's report against his fellow officer was also substantiated by the visibly-battered victim himself as well as other parties who'd examined the man's facial injuries and recognized their origin.

Yet, predictably, it was Dorner who was punished. He was fired for his whistleblowing on the pretext of "filing a false statement."

The aggrieved ex-cop has since then tried in vain to restore his good name but exhausted all his legal venues and appeals this year without success. 

So he's posted his manifesto  and farewell online (read it below), exposing the Los Angeles Police Department's dirty laundry in it. And he's also gone on a bloody rampage, taking potshots at and killing some of LAPD's dirtiest.

"The department has not changed since the Rampart and Rodney King days," Dorner reveals. "It has gotten worse. Those officers involved in the Rampart scandal and Rodney King incidents have since been promoted to supervisor, commanders, and command staff, and executive positions."

A panicked LAPD has just launched a massive manhunt for the rogue ex-cop, and tightened security around their men in blue in response. They have also vehemently denounced their former officer's disclosures as "self-serving."

Crossing the "Blue Line"

 
In general they think of themselves as a brotherhood, not as our public servants, not as our law enforcers. They think of themselves as above the law.

And as with any fraternal order there are rules all police officers are expected to abide by, secrets which must be kept, and consequences which must be paid by those who cross the Blue Line and betray another "brother" who's guilty of unlawful conduct.

Taken to the extreme, this produces a nefarious mindset leading to a culture of licensed thugs capable of organized and vicious criminality, such as in the Rodney King beating or the Rampart CRASH unit scandal which saw nearly 100 of LAPD's so called finest charged with evidence tampering, witness intimidation, murder, bank robbery, gun-for-hire schemes, drug dealing, and even the unpunished assassination of famed east coast rapper, Christopher Wallace (a.k.a. 'Biggee').

In reporting similar police abuses, Christopher Dorner unwittingly crossed that Blue Line, and although he didn't mysteriously end up with a bullet in the back, as some before him have been known to do, the man still paid a heavy price.

The lesson is clear and underscored as often as necessary: Cops aren't supposed to snitch on other cops, regardless of how crooked they may be. Period.

Drawing the red line

Cops who turn in other cops can end up either dead, derailed, or defamed. Those aren't choices, by the way; it's up to the powers-that-be to determine which penalty is appropriated.

Dead, derailed, and defamed men usually tell no tales, of course, but heavily armed ex-officer Christopher Dorner, with his red line in the sand that he's daring the LAPD to cross now, has turned that theory on its head.

Plus, he's hardly being silent:

"From 2/05 to 1/09 I saw some of the most vile things humans can inflict on others as a police officer in Los Angeles. Unfortunately, it wasn't in the streets of LA. It was in the [confines] of LAPD police stations and shops (cruisers). The enemy combatants in LA are not the citizens and suspects, it's the police officers...

"They take photos of your loved ones recently deceased bodies with their cellphones and play a game of who has the most graphic dead body of the night with officers from other divisions. This isn't just the 20 something year old officers, this is the 50 year old officers with significant time on the job as well who participate... 

"I am here to change and make policy. The culture of LAPD versus the community and honest/good officers needs to and will change. I am here to correct and calibrate your morale compasses to true north."

"Armed and dangerous"

He's an idealist and reacting just as you might expect a heavily-armed, shattered idealist would. But Dorner doesn't have any delusions about his mission and his fate. He fully expects to be terminated. 

Still, the former policeman is mad as hell and doesn't give a damn anymore. He plans on taking out as many crooked cops as possible, he says, before his own annihilation.

"Suppressing the truth will leave to deadly consequences for you and your family," Dorner warns members of the LAPD currently hunting for him. "There will be an element of surprise where you work, live, eat, and sleep. I will utilize ISR at your home, workplace, and all locations in between. I will utilize OSINT to discover your residences, spouses workplaces, and children's schools. IMINT to coordinate and plan attacks on your fixed locations. Its amazing whats on NIPR. HUMINT will be utilized to collect personal schedules of targets...

"Whatever pre-planned responses you have established for a scenario like me, shelve it. Whatever contingency plan you have, shelve it. Whatever tertiary plan you've created, shelve it. I am a walking exigent circumstance with no OFF or reset button."

(Haha--best of luck to you, Sir Exigent. It's a shame to lose a good cop.)
 

 

READ DORNER'S UNEDITED MANIFESTO IN ITS ENTIRETY, PLUS ANONYMOUS' HACKED MESSAGE TO THE LAPD, ON THE KILLING KILLERS' QUOTE ME PAGE