Saturday, June 1, 2019

Officials ID Virginia Beach gunman as city employee

Officials ID Virginia Beach gunman as city employee

VIRGINIA BEACH, Va. (AP) — The gunman who killed 12 people in a Virginia Beach municipal building was identified by police Saturday as a 15-year city employee who had served in the military and was described by neighbors as quiet and rarely smiling.
Virginia Beach Police Chief James Cervera identified the gunman as DeWayne Craddock, who was employed as an engineer with the city's public utilities department. Cervera declined to comment on a motive for Friday's rampage that ended with Craddock dying in a gun battle with police. .
Authorities used a Saturday morning news conference to focus on the victims, saying 11 of them worked for the city. Another victim was a contractor trying to get a permit. They projected photos on a screen and gave each victim's name along with biographical details.
"They leave a void that we will never be able to fill," said City Manager Dave Hansen.
Hansen said that chaplains and family assistance workers worked overnight to notify family members of the dead, which he described as "the most difficult task anyone will ever have to do."
The 11 city employees who died were identified as Laquita C. Brown of Chesapeake, Tara Welch Gallager of Virginia Beach, Mary Louise Gayle of Virginia Beach, Alexander Mikhail Gusev of Virginia Beach, Katherine A. Nixon of Virginia Beach, Richard H. Nettleton of Norfolk, Christopher Kelly Rapp of Powhatan, Ryan Keith Cox of Virginia Beach, Joshua A. Hardy of Virginia Beach, Michelle "Missy" Langer of Virginia Beach and Robert "Bobby" Williams of Chesapeake. The 12th victim, Herbert "Bert" Snelling of Virginia Beach, was a contractor filling a permit.
Authorities have said the gunman opened fire with a handgun in the municipal building Friday afternoon, killing 12 people on three floors and sending terrified co-workers scrambling for cover before police shot and killed him following a "long gun battle." Four other people were wounded in Friday's shooting, including a police officer whose bulletproof vest saved his life, police have said.
Related: Virginia Beach shooting leaves at least 12 dead
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Police have said the suspect was armed with a .45-caliber handgun. Cervera said Saturday that more weapons were found at the scene and at his home, but declined to elaborate.
Dewayne Antonio Craddock, 40, was a professional engineer who had graduated from Denbigh High School in nearby Newport News in 1996 and joined the Army National Guard, according to a newspaper clip from the time. He received basic military training and advanced individual training at Fort Sill, Oklahoma. He later graduated from Old Dominion University with a bachelor's degree in civil engineering. Before going to work in Virginia Beach, he worked for a private engineering firm in Hampton Roads.
Craddock appears to have had no felony record, which would have made him eligible to purchase firearms.
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People who live near Craddock said police swarmed the small neighborhood of modest townhomes in Virginia Beach on Friday where some said he had lived for at least 10 years.
Several neighbors said Craddock was clean cut, a member of the neighborhood association board and spent time lots of time at the gym. But they also said he mostly kept to himself, especially after his wife left him some number of years ago.
Angela Scarborough, who lives in the neighborhood, said "he was very quiet . he would just wave."
She said she knew his wife, but she left some time ago. "She just left," Scarborough said. "Didn't let us know or anything."
"I'm very saddened because this is a great neighborhood," Scarborough said. "It's very sad to know that that's the way he decided to resolve the situation. It's just something I can't believe."
She added: "I would speak to him and he would speak back, but conversation-wise, I never had a conversation with him."
Cassetty Howerin, 23, who lived under Craddock, was visibly shaken upon learning from reporters that police said he was behind the shooting.
"That could have easily been me," she said.
Howerin said Craddock had cameras at his home monitoring two nice cars parked out front, including what appeared to be a Mustang. But she said she never saw him bring anyone over. She never saw him come home with groceries.
"He never really cracked a smile," she said.
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She said he seemed to be up at all hours of the night, walking around his apartment and sometimes dropping heavy things on the floor above her apartment. She also said that he was "jacked" from spending a lot of time at the gym.
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Associated Press writers Regina Garcia Cano in Washington, D.C.; Denise Lavoie in Richmond, Virginia; and Tom Foreman Jr. in Charlotte, North Carolina, contributed to this report.

Stop Human Trafficking by Quitting Game of Thrones and Pornography, Activist Says

Will Maule ChristianHeadlines.com Contributor | Friday, May 31, 2019
Stop Human Trafficking by Quitting <em>Game of Thrones</em> and Pornography, Activist Says

STOP HUMAN TRAFFICKING BY QUITTING GAME OF THRONES AND PORNOGRAPHY, ACTIVIST SAYS


A leading Christian abolitionist has said that the number one way to effectively battle the modern-day sex trafficking trade is to stop watching pornography.
Christine Caine, an international evangelist, leads global anti-trafficking organization A21, which helps police prosecute traffickers and offers care to the victims of sex slavery.
As the organization notes on its website, there are more people enslaved in the world today than “ever before in human history.” Now, through its global network of anti-slavery campaigns, A21 hopes to change that for good. The first step? Stop watching porn.
In a talk at Bethel Church’s “Heaven Come” conference in Los Angeles last weekend, Caine insisted that the pornography industry is being fueled by human trafficking and urged Christians to flee from the sordid material.
"I'll tell you how to stop human trafficking, sex trafficking overnight... if people stop watching porn...Just stop it,” Caine implored, according to Fox News
Nothing is free," she said of the adult industry, noting that many women and children are trafficked into the business. "Porn costs somebody.”
The gifted speaker also took aim at sexually explicit television shows such as Game of Thrones. 
“Here I am trying to put traffickers in jail and you're watching Game of Thrones," she said, highlighting the hypocrisy of many who claim to be working against issues of sexual slavery while watching TV shows that depict sexual promiscuity and violence.
Calling out those who seek to be “culturally relevant” by watching such a show, she asked pointedly, "how's that going to work with a trafficker?"
Instead of fueling the evil business of sex trafficking, Caine challenged believers to allow God to break their hearts for the enslaved and then to do something about it.
"The issue is not whether you are going to die, 100 percent we're all going to die," Caine declared. "The issue is will you live the life God put you on this earth to live? Will you step up into your God-given purpose and your God-given destiny and stop playing it safe, and stop living small, and start believing your God is huge and he's able to do so much more than you give him credit for..."
Photo courtesy: Willow Creek/Creative Commons, resized and cropped to 1200x627
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