Tuesday, January 17, 2012

Suspect Held in Shooting of Fort Bliss Soldier

Suspect Held in Shooting of Fort Bliss Soldier

January 17, 2012
El Paso Times
by Adriana M. Chavez and Daniel Borunda

Police arrested a 29-year-old man Monday in connection with Sunday's shooting death of a Fort Bliss soldier.

Craig Allen Graham faces a murder charge and two counts of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon. He remained in the El Paso County Jail Monday in lieu of a $650,000 bond.

Two other victims who were wounded during the shooting, which took place shortly after 2 a.m. Sunday, were also soldiers stationed at the post, Fort Bliss officials confirmed Monday.

All three victims were 21 years old. Officials couldn't confirm whether Graham is a current or former member of the military, but according to a Facebook profile belonging to Craig Graham, he was stationed in Afghanistan and suffered serious injuries in a 2010 motorcycle crash.

The shooting apparently took place outside of the Fussion nightclub at 4304 Dyer. Residents in the area reported hearing several gunshots.
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The power of empathy, peer groups support with understanding

The power of empathy
Peer groups help veterans, police and moms of kids with special needs
8:42 AM, Jan. 17, 2012

Written by
MaryLynn Schiavi
For NJ Press Media


What do police officers, military veterans and mothers have in common?

They all fall into the category of those who help and support others — but often, do not get the help and support that they need, according to Cherie Castellano, the driving force behind the creation of three Central Jersey-based peer-to-peer support programs.

The programs, offered by the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey, are proving that empathy, which arises from walking in the shoes of another, creates a powerful connection and support for those in crisis.

That, in turn, helps both parties heal.

Castellano is a crisis intervention professional and program manager at the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey’s Behavioral HealthCare division in Piscataway.

She is the director of Cop2Cop, which she established over a decade ago prior to the terror attacks of Sept. 11, 2001; NJ Vet2Vet, established in 2005; and Mom2Mom, established in late 2010, which offers support and guidance to mothers of children with special needs.
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A soldier's fatal burden

A soldier's fatal burden
January 17, 2012 - 2:34PM

John Birmingham

When we think of soldiers, we think of the things they carry on the outside. The rifle. The bayonet. The camouflage pattern of a uniform. A helmet. Boots. Perhaps a canteen or a poncho or a hand grenade. And when we think about these things we might see them, but we don’t actually think about them, about their uses and their true meaning and how they make a soldier so very different from us that we can never really understand him or her.

What we don’t think about are the things a soldier carries on the inside. The things that make him or her exactly the same as us. Take away the rifle and bayonet, strip off that uniform, whether starched and pressed or tattered and bloody, and the soldier is merely a man or a woman.

Noble in reason, as Hamlet knew deep in his melancholia, infinite in faculties, admirable in form and movement, but like Hamlet and like you and I, prey to the anxieties and slights and failings of our common humanity.

The hard and melancholy things a soldier carries inside are the same as those we carry, but more so. They love each other as we do, they know fear, as we do, the cry sometimes and exult at others. They know boredom and frustration and resentment and rage. But sometimes, because of the extremes at which they must live and die and – lets not forget – kill, they know those things more intensely than we can ever imagine.

It destroys them. Not all of them, not all the time. But the strange, unnatural intensities of a soldier’s life and the proximity to violent death in which it is lived during war time destroys many, many more of them than the commonplace demands of life do us.

Perhaps that’s why, in the US, which has been at war for over 10 years now, a serving member of the military takes their own life every 36 hours. Perhaps it is significant that of those suicides, the heaviest numbers are to be found among infantrymen – the soldiers on whom the most grievous and intense demands are laid.

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Homes Evacuated and Streets Closed During Stand-off with Armed Man

Homes Evacuated and Streets Closed During Stand-off with Armed Man


Updated: Jan 16, 2012 6:46 AM EST

Several residents on Green Bay's west side were evacuated Sunday night, as police were involved in a stand-off with an armed man.

The incident lasted about five hours.

Police were called to Thrush St., just south of Velp Ave. about 9:30 Sunday night.

Police blocked off streets in the area, including Velp, and people in nearby homes were told to evacuate or hide in their basements for safety.

Police say the man had threatened suicide, but a woman he was related to was also in the home, plus he had fortified the house, had several guns, and was recently in the military.
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Waverly police seize guns from distraught man

Waverly police seize guns from distraught man
WAVERLY, Iowa --- Authorities seized a loaded handgun and a military-style rifle after being called about a distraught man on Saturday.

Waverly police took the man, whose name wasn't released, to the Waverly Health Center for observation after he was detained without incident during a traffic stop on Bremer Road at about 9:40 a.m.
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