Bibliography

Outlaw Hunters; Crawford, Amy; http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/outlaw-hunters-163405565/; August 7, 2010

Lizzie Brown Halliday, the Worst Woman on Earth; Levine, David; http://www.hvmag.com/Hudson-Valley-Magazine/October-2015/Lizzie-Brown-Halliday-The-Worst-Woman-On-Earth/; September 24, 2015

http://www.casebook.org/victims/carrie.html

Capital crimes and criminals executed in northern Dakota Territory and North Dakota, 1885-1905; Vyzralek, Frank; ndcourts.gov; October 19, 2000

http://atlas.thc.state.tx.us/Details/5507016553

Last Full Size Train Robbery in Texas, Hudspeth, Brewster; http://www.texasescapes.com/FEATURES/Last_fullsized_train_robbery_Texas/train_robbery.htm;

http://www.pennlive.com/midstate/index.ssf/2011/11/exclusive_jerry_sandusky_inter.

htmlhttp://www.pennlive.com/midstate/index.ssf/2012/10/jerry_sandusky_gets_30-60_year.html

https://www.trumanlibrary.org/trivia/assassin.htm

http://www.shapell.org/manuscript/harry-truman-assassination-attempt

• “Seven die as plane crashes in flames“. (October 11, 1933) New York Times p. 1 (pay site)
• “Plane crash laid to blast in air“. (October 12, 1933) New York Times p. 3 (pay site)
• “Seek ‘bomber’ of plane“. (October 16, 1933) New York Times p. 7 (pay site)

http://www.kent.edu/may-4-historical-accuracy

http://www.nytimes.com/learning/general/onthisday/big/0504.html

Conclusion

Crime had been prevalent throughout American history and continues to be through this day.  Crime effects people of all races, genders and social status, as we have seen, but, to make our country safer, we must learn from these mistakes and forge a new, safer path.

Penn State Child Sex Abuse Scandal: 2011

image: wikipedia

In 2011 one of the most socking cases of child sex abuse came to light from Penn State University in Pennsylvania.  Eight children (now adults) came forward to accuse coaching legend Jerry Sandusky of sexually assaulting them on the Penn State campus, and claimed that various other members of the PSU faculty had knowledge of the abuse.  Some of the abuse claimed all the way back from the 1970s, early in Sandusky’s career.  Sandusky fervently denied abusing the children, only claiming that “innocently showered” with some young boys, whatever that means, there was no sexual abuse. When the members who were higher up in the faculty heard about the scandal, they initially sided with Sandusky.  However, once more and more reports came to light and more faculty members claimed they had knowledge of the incident, Penn State retracted their statement.  Sandusky was eventually charged and convicted of sexual assault on a minor and sentenced to 30-40 years in prison.

Among the faculty members who were released from their jobs was legendary football coach Joe Paterno, who had coached the team for nearly 50 years.  Paterno’s betrayal and dismissal from the team was a devastating blow to people’s view of Penn State University.  In 2011 Penn state had 1000 less students enroll in it’s freshman class and were also fined $13 million by the NAACP.

Sources

http://www.pennlive.com/midstate/index.ssf/2011/11/exclusive_jerry_sandusky_inter.html

http://www.pennlive.com/midstate/index.ssf/2012/10/jerry_sandusky_gets_30-60_year.html

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/penn-state-scandal-the-financial-fallout/

DC Sniper: 2002

map: wikipedia

For 23 days in 2002 terror reigned over the citizens around the nations capital.  17 people were killed and 10 more were injured as an unidentified shooter patrolled the rooftops of Washington DC and Virginia.  The killings began in February 2002 and continued until late October of that year.  At first, it was believed that the killings in DC and Virginia were unrelated until the Washington police were able to connect the rifle used in both shootings.  The first shooting in DC however, was the first shooting where witness were able to identify a white cargo truck wit two men inside speeding away from the scene.  The randomness of the shootings led officers to suspect that the killings were not personal.  The FBI timelines the attacks as followed:

October 2:  Man killed while crossing a parking lot in Wheaton, Maryland
October 3:  Five more murders, four in Maryland and one in D.C.
October 4:  Woman wounded while loading her van at Spotsylvania Mall
October 7:  13-year-old-boy wounded at a school in Bowie, Maryland
October 9:  Man murdered near Manassas, Virginia, while pumping gas
October 11:  Man shot dead near Fredericksburg, Virginia, while pumping gas
October 14:  FBI analyst Linda Franklin killed near Falls Church, Virginia
October 19:  Man wounded outside a steakhouse in Ashland, Virginia
October 22:  A bus driver, the final victim, killed in Aspen Hill, Maryland
October 24:  Muhammad and Malvo arrested in Maryland

Soon after the Oct 22 shooting, the police found a blue Chevy car containing a high powered rifle that they soon identified as the rifle used in the killings, belonging to John Allen Muhammad and Lee Boyd Malvo, whom were promptly arrested, tried and convicted for the killings.  Muhammad was executed by lethal injection in November 2009 while Malvo is currently serving several life sentences for the killings.

The Central Park Jogger: 1989

image: fourthandfourteenth.com

In 1989, five young men were arrested in New York City under suspicion that they ad assaulted a young woman in the middle of the night.  The woman had been beaten, raped and sodomized.  My grandfather was one of the detectives who had worked on the case as a member of the NYPD.  All five boys made confessions of assault in police interrogation, however, none of them confessed to the rape, but all four implicated the “Puerto Rican kid in the hoodie”.

May 4th Massacre: 1970

image: wikipedia

May 4th 1970 is a day that still lives in infamy.   It was on this day that 4 Kent State University students were killed by the National Guard during a protest of the Vietnam war.  The protests had been taking place over a number of days, with the days earlier one being broken up via use of tear gas.  Although he had given the order for the Guard to patrol the campus, then president Richard Nixon stated: “This should remind us all once again that when dissent turns to violence it invites tragedy. It is my hope that this tragic and unfortunate incident will strengthen the determination of all the nation’s campuses, administrators, faculty and students alike to stand firmly for the right which exists in this country of peaceful dissent and just as strong against the resort to violence as a means of such expression.”  The shooting not only effected several universities around the US, but also impacted the politics of the time as well.  Nixon’s aide H.R. Hadelman believed that The End of Powers and Watergate were results of the shooting.

Despite the widespread coverage even up to this day, misinformation and inaccuracies still  plague the story.  Even a modern US History textbook by Mary Beth Norton depicts the incident incorrectly: “In May 1970, at Kent State University in Ohio, National Guardsmen confronted student antiwar protestors with a tear gas barrage. Soon afterward, with no provocation, soldiers opened fire into a group of fleeing students. Four young people were killed, shot in the back, including two women who had been walking to class.” (Norton et al., 1994, p. 732) Unfortunately, this short description contains four factual errors: (1) some degree of provocation did exist; (2) the students were not fleeing when the Guard initially opened fire; (3) only one of the four students who died, William Schroeder, was shot in the back; and (4) one female student, Sandy Schreuer, had been walking to class, but the other female, Allison Krause, had been part of the demonstration. (via kent.edu).

Although several National Guardsmen were tried for the shootings, all of the subsequent cases were dismissed as the men are believed to have acted on an order, leaving the families of the students with no sense of justice.

sources:

http://www.kent.edu/may-4-historical-accuracy

http://www.nytimes.com/learning/general/onthisday/big/0504.html

The Murder of Tupac Shakur- 1996

image: HipHopDX.com

Tupac Shakur was an American rapper, actor and record producer.  He is largely regarded as one of the pioneers of hip-hop and rap, as well as one of the greatest rappers of all time.  On Setp. 7 1996, Shakur attended a Mike Tyson boxing match with his acquaintance Marion “Suge” Knight.  The two men left tg=he match at approximately 11:15 PM and entered Knight’s car.  As they pulled away from the arena where the fight was held on their way to a charity event, a white Cadillac pulled up next to the car.  Suddenly, shots rang out; Shakur was hit four times in the abdomen while Knight was, incredibly, only grazed by a bullet.  Shakur was rushed to the hospital where he died of his injuries days later.

To this day, the case has yet to be solved.  Though this has been one of the highest profile murder investigations of the past 50 years, the witnesses refused to cooperate with police, giving them very few details.  Many friends and family members are very vocal in saying that they know who killed Shakur, but little to no evidence is available to support these theories.  Journalist Chuck Philips of the LA Times believes that the shooting was gang related retaliation for a conflict Shakur had gotten into earlier that evening with a member of the Southside Crips, a Compton inner city gang.  However, others believe that it was part of the East coast-West coast feud between rappers from those respective regions, the mastermind being Shakur’s rival the Notorious B.I.G.  There are even theories that the man accompanying Shakur that night, Suge Knight, had a role to play in the rappers death.  Regardless, 21 years after the murder, there are many people who hope the case will be solved, though, according to the Las Vegas Police Department, it is extremely unlikely at this point.

Atlanta Temple Bombing of 1958

image: southernspaces.org

October 12 1958 started out as any normal day in Atlanta, Georgia.  People were going about their daily routine when suddenly, there was an explosion from the Hebrew Benevolent Congregation.  Most of the building suffered serious damages, but luckily, nobody was killed or injured in the blast.  During this period, Atlanta was known as the city “Too Busy to Hate”, and this very much shook the city’s motto as the bombing was clearly an anti-Semetic attack.  Soon after the explosion,  Very soon after the bombing, five suspects were arrested.  Only one suspect, George Bright, waa ever tried and aquitted of the bombing.  The other suspects were released soon after Bright’s trial and the bombing is technically still unsolved to this day.

Worse that the bombing itself was the fear put into the minds of the Jewish residents of Atlanta, 1000 of whom belonged to the temple.  However, most fears were quickly dispelled by Atlanta mayor William Hartsfield, who stated on television, “Whether they like it or not, every political rabble-rouser is the godfather of these cross burners and dynamiters who sneak about in the dark and give a bad name to the South. It is high time the decent people of the South rise and take charge.”  (link: http://crdl.usg.edu/cgi/crdl?action=retrieve;rset=001;recno=1;format=_video).  The actions were also condemned by President Eisenhower, who pledged to back an FBI investigation.  The city and many foundations raised money for the nearly $100k in damage to the temple.

While the temple bombers may have intended to create a division between the Atlanta Jewish community and the rest of the people, what it really did was help bring them together.

1933 United Airlines Boeing Explosion

image: historicwings.net

One October night in 1933, an aircraft touched down in Chesterton, Oklahoma.  Only it didn’t touch down on the runway.  The aircraft had crashed after people had reported hearing an explosion just minutes earllier followed by a second explosion after the crash.  Soon after the crash, policemen and the FBI rushed to the scene.  One agent described the investigation “”Our investigation convinced me that the tragedy resulted from an explosion somewhere in the region of the baggage compartment in the rear of the aircraft. Everything in front of the compartment was blown forward, everything behind blown backward, and things at the side outward.”  The medical examiner concluded that the explosion occurred from somewhere in the baggage area, most likely caused by a nitroglycerin agent.  Despite a grueling investigation into the case, no suspects were ever identified or arrested and the case remains unsolved to this day.

Sources:

• “Seven die as plane crashes in flames“. (October 11, 1933) New York Times p. 1 (pay site)
• “Plane crash laid to blast in air“. (October 12, 1933) New York Times p. 3 (pay site)
• “Seek ‘bomber’ of plane“. (October 16, 1933) New York Times p. 7 (pay site)

The Truman Assassination Attempt

image: history.com

November 1, 1950 started out as any other day for President Harry Truman.  In fact, he believed that he had earned himself a well deserved nap that day.  He retreated to his room in the Blair House (where the Truman family lived while the White House was undergoing renovations), undressed and fell asleep on what seemed like a lazy Monday afternoon.

 

image: google.com                         image: news.dm

On that very same Monday, however, two Puerto Rico Nationalists were conspiring to assassinate the president.  Their names were Oscar Collazo and Griselio Torresola (left and right respectively).  The two men had been planning the assassination as a means to bring attention to Puerto Rican independence and to the nationalist party to which they belonged.  The two men charged the house from opposite sides and engaged in a fierce shootout with the secret service and DC Police.  One officer managed to fire a shot that hit Torresola in the head, killing him instantly.  Collazo continued to fire at the men and was able to reach the steps of the house where he collapsed from a bullet wound.  Interestingly, the only bullet from Collazo’s gun that hit one of his targets was the last shot he fired.

Collazo was rushed to a nearby hospital where he was treated, and eventually recovered from his wounds.  He was tried and convicted on attempt on the president’s life and was sentenced to death.  However, President Truman commuted his sentence to life imprisonment.  His sentence was further commuted by President Jimmy Carter and he was released from prison in 1979.

While Americans usually remember the big assassinations that have occurred during our nation’s history, such as Lincoln or JFK, we mustn’t forget that our elected leaders have faced many more dangers to their lives.  This was the first attempted assassination on a president by an insurgent group rather than a single individual, and luckily they were stopped.

Sources: https://www.trumanlibrary.org/trivia/assassin.htm

http://www.shapell.org/manuscript/harry-truman-assassination-attempt