Child Killing Cop To Face Third Trial

In Detroit, Michigan, Joseph Weekley may face a third trial in March for killing a young girl during a 2010 police raid after two previous trials ended with deadlocked juries.

Seven year old Aiyana Stanley-Jones was essentially murdered as police executed a search warrant for a murder suspect.  Weekley entered the home and immediately fired 1 shot directly at the child who was sleeping on the couch, striking her in the neck and killing her.  The police department then lied and tried to make up a story about the grandmother charging at the officer, but because the raid was being followed by a camera crew for the television show The First 48, in this instance, their deceit was exposed.  The producer said the film footage blatantly contradicted the story that the Detroit police tried to make up.

The fact that they are having to try this case a third time is yet another example of the preferential treatment police receive from the US 'injustice' system whenever they do something wrong.  It's also telling that none of the dozens of officers initially involved and trying to cover up this murder has faced any serious repercussions.

Click here to learn more about child safety incidents.

Making Sure The Baby Is Breathing

Parents have long been known to sneak a peak at their sleeping infant just to make sure he's still breathing. For those especially anxious parents, you can now buy a baby monitor that actually tracks their vital signs.  For just $249, this Sproutling baby monitor will measure your baby's vitals through an ankle monitor attached to the baby, and then send them to your smart phone.  The device will also "learn" the baby's behaviors (such as nap time) with the idea that it will help parents plan.

An interesting gismo, but I fear this is the perfect example of technology increasing anxiety rather than diminishing it.  When considering that false positives are common even among hospital devices, or that common conditions such as the occasional infant sleep apnea could set off an alarm, chances are this device will merely insure a lot more panicked runs to the nursery, only to find out that baby is breathing after all.

Click her to learn more about infant safety

Kids With Guns At School

This week a second grade boy sparked a full scale lockdown in two schools in Middleton, Idaho. His crime; bringing what turned out to be a toy gun to school.  Police discovered the toy gun after 45 minutes of searching the school, and then the boy was suspended.  The lesson?  Talk to your kids about weapon safety, and where toy guns should and should not go.  It might also be a good idea to give your child's backpack a quick look-over as you send them off in to school. 

In Clayton Missouri,  three kindergarten students found a loaded hand-gun on the playground while out at recess at their elementary school.  Thankfully, no injuries were reported.  But this type of scenario is how many gun accidents happen: kids stumble upon a weapon, assume it to be a toy, and then tragically find out otherwise. It appears the kids did the right thing by leaving it alone and telling a teacher.  Both of these examples show us why it is so important to talk to your kids about all types of gun safety.

Click here to teach kids about gun safety

Supreme Court to Decide What T-shirts Your Kids Can Wear

The Supreme Court convenes this week. It will be taking up the case of one of the stupidest over-reactions in all of American history . . . and we've seen some doozies in our time.

Francis Schmidt was suspended from his job as an art animation professor of a New Jersey college for making threats against the school.  So what was his offense?  He took a photo of his 7-year-old-daughter and uploaded it to his Facebook page.  This little girl happened to be wearing a T-shirt that read: "I will take what is mine with fire and blood."  If that phrase sounds familiar, it's probably because it is a well known phrase from the hit show Game of Thrones, and the t-shirt the girl was wearing was simply a piece of fan merchandise.  Never the less, the school interpreted this unrelated and incidental act as a violation of the schools Zero tolerance policy.  Schmidt was banished from campus, told to see a psychiatrist, forced into a promise that he would not wear clothes with "questionable statements."

Cases such as this serve as an example of how much of an illusion most of the rights we think we have are, and also about the collateral damage that results when paranoia over safety is taken too far.

Click here to learn more about Zero Tolerance School Policy