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thislvllaby · 7 years

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i don’t know what im doing with my life so i made a list of my characters and then like picked my number one ship for them cause im trash idk man just like let me enjoy this

alayna i literally dont have any ships for her i dont even have friendships for her someone help her

drew x zoe ( @likethe8osfilms ) they’re just like... the og okay. i can’t even tell you

angie x ruben ( @fndingnvrland ) these two!! oh my gosh these two!! they’re just everything good and pure. they’re the only thing good and pure in angie’s whole life. and just like. i love when i do like any thread with juliet or phe or anyone and i reference back to them because SOULMATES OKAY

avalon x nathan ( @hurtpeoplearelethal ) otp: we’re a dream that’s dead. the angst!! the cuteness!! theyre in love and they can’t handle anything and they’re both so emo but so like puppy dog cute like idk i wanna cuddle them i want them to cuddle EACH OTHER

bay x dustin ( @hurtpeoplearelethal ) this one was so hard cause like... dustin? eleanor? cooper? all soulmates. how do i handle anything? i chose dustin because just like. idk who bay would even be without dustin. nothing really. they’re best friend cows. they need each other.

ben x gemini ( @highoninfinities ) hey remember when they’re actually made for each other BYE

allison x scott ( @brokenmvses ) dont even look at me with this one

lilah x jonah ( @likethe8osfilms ) sometimes i just think about this innocent baby child giving him her virginity for christmas what was that

emmy x leo i was trying to like just do ships where like i have the person who wrote the opp like connected but this one is just... theres never been anyone else whose connected w her like that i cant. he’s everything to her okay,

frankie x dustin ( @hurtpeoplearelethal ) THE ACTUALLY FUCKING OG OTP wow okay like we didnt plan this and they just blessed us with so much angst and fighting and kissing and wow the love okay im gone

genevieve x mason ( @likethe8osfilms ) mason’s the only guy gen hasn’t regretted and that’s saying something cause i mean... it’s mason #amirightladies jk i love mason matlin bye

hadley x will ( @hurtpeoplearelethal ) sorry she just doesn’t even like have any other ships at all and this thread didn’t even fully happen but oh swell

hope x carter ( @likethe8osfilms ) much to drew’s dismay, been an otp since actual day 1

imogen x eleanor ( @highoninfinities ) this ship is wild. i’m worried about them. they’re everything awful lbr. its like jd and tasty coma wife. asking for trouble.

juliet x dustin ( @hurtpeoplearelethal ) how did they become my otp for juliet? literally how? like this was a temp ship like theyre whole purpose was misc backstory and like somehow they gave me feels suddenly karen how do you do that

kc x cricket ( @highoninfinities ) hi how did we ever think they were just a brotp. theyre SUCH an otp. like just. heres me a sucker for bffs bein in love honestly like no one gets kc like cricket and they’re just. she makes him happy and they have so much fun together and i forget that this isnt a canon thing in kcs canon verse and it makes it impossible for me to play actual canon kc tbh

lily x remus ( @brokenmvses ) sometimes i feel bad for loving this ship so much cause like the otp should be lilyxjames but also im completely unapologetic

lily luna x scorpius again this is just the only ship ive ever had for this character and like i still always want it back im not even gonna lie tbh dont look at me

logan x crispin ( @hurtpeoplearelethal ) another ship i never meant to ship!! they were also like never supposed to be anything they were just friends and then SUDDENLy i shipped it like i dont even know why do we do this karen

lucas x zoe ( @highoninfinities ) wow how many brotps turned otps will we have? how many? another ship where if they arent the otp they’re the brotp tho. like i feel like i find a way to write zoe into all of lucas’ verses cause shes just... shes the bff man. but i mean yeah, lucas was always in love with zoe so like lbr. and she was what he needed after the shit show that was thucas so

mckay x crispin ( @hurtpeoplearelethal ) sweet summer babies. this ship is like almost just cute and innocent except of course we had to make it angsty but still somehow theyre just cute and babies i dont know man but i love them

ophelia x adam ( @brokenmvses ) this ship started as a joke?? can u belieb it?? like literally it was just like this dumb little headcanon about them both being lgbt activists and suddenly they were in love damn thank u for fulfilling dreams i didnt know i had

quentin x eleanor ( @highoninfinities ) borderline canadian incest. that’s all.

zig x maya ( @deejaysindie ) all im gonna say is i miss them. please give me all the threads already. just let me throw zig at you deejay damn

#rambles | ooc #long post

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rolandfontana · 5 years

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Coping With Unsolved Murders: ‘My Son Speaks from the Grave’

On a Friday night in late June, Glenn Lamont Travers Jr., 21, was in a car leaving an apartment complex in midtown Newport News, Va., when someone opened fire.

Travers, the car’s front-seat passenger, was struck with a bullet that tore into his neck artery. He died at the hospital three hours later.

It was the second slaying in the neighborhood in two days. The day before, Eimaja Jada Harri, 24, was found just inside her front doorway, shot to death.

The killings mark two of the 18 slayings in Newport News, a harbor city of 183,000 in a region that has long been home to the U.S.Navy.

Hampton, Va., police officers investigate the scene of a homicide in 2018. Photo by Jonathon Gruenke/Daily Press

Of the 43 homicides in Newport News and nearby Hampton in 2018, 28 of them — or 65 percent (including the Travers and Harri killings— so far remain unsolved.

That frustrates Travers’ mother, Pamela Travers, who claims her son named the man he believed set him up for the killing in a recording taped on a police officer’s body camera before he died

“My son is speaking from the grave,” she said. “What more do they need?

Newport News Police Chief Steve Drew said he can’t talk in detail about open cases, but he’s met twice with Pamela Travers. He said the lead detective went over the case with her to tell her how things stand, and what’s still needed to close it.

“I get it — she’s hurting,” Drew said. “In her mind, she didn’t feel like we were doing enough. We had a good conversation. I would be frustrated, too.”

But it’s a killing, he said, that the chief is determined to solve.

“I’m not stopping until they’re all cleared,” Drew said.

A Daily Press tally found that 137 people were killed by homicide in the region in 2018. That exactly matched 2017’s total, though it was 16 percent lower than the 163 killings recorded in 2016.

Tragic Roll Call

The homicide victims died in domestic arguments, robberies, retaliations, drug deals gone bad, and all manner of random arguments between strangers, acquaintances and friends. They were shot in their homes or on the street from passing vehicles. They were killed in child abuse and in murder-suicides.

Five of the 50 people killed in the Peninsula area were under 18 — two-month-old and one-year-old boys killed in what police say were child abuse, a 12-year-old boy killed by his mother in a murder-suicide, and two 17-year-olds shot outside.

It’s a roll call of tragedy.

The cases include Rodney Livingston, 37, who Newport News police say was stabbed to death by his then-15-year-old son after an argument that began over the boy’s failure to clean his bedroom.

A 20-year-old pregnant woman, Tiara Jefferson, was killed — and her unborn child also lost — when someone opened fire on her car in May. Jefferson’s two-year-old daughter has now lost both her parents to gunfire, with the child’s father killed in 2016, also in a car that came under fire.

Table courtesy of Daily Press

In Hampton, 32-year-old Joshua David Williams was slain in January 2018 for being $3 short on a drug debt, prosecutors say.

Of the 50 slayings in the Peninsula area in 2018, 30 of the dead — or 60 percent — were black males, while 11 were white males, six were black females and three were white females. The overwhelming number of accused killers were of the same race as their victims.

Guns were the weapon of choice.

Of the 50 area killings, 43 of them — or 86 percent — were a result of gunfire. Another four people died in stabbings, one person was strangled to death, and two children were killed in suspected child abuse.

A National Problem

Unsolved homicides are a national problem. An FBI report last fall found nearly 40 percent of the murders around the U.S. in 2017 were still “open cases”—a little over 6,000.

See also: Cities Under Pressure to Improve Homicide Clearance Rates

The record in the Newport News area, however, tracks far higher. Some 71 percent of the killings—numbering 17—remain unsolved.

Of Hampton’s 18 homicides, eight of them — just 44 percent — are deemed cleared

Hampton Police Chief Terry Sult cautioned against reading too much into the numbers, saying several factors can drive homicide arrest rates up or down.

“When you talk about gang involvement, drug involvement, those tended to be down a little bit, while domestics were up a little bit,” he said of 2018, saying domestics are often easier to clear.

“But looking at statistics year to year are merely a barometer. You can’t really make definitive determinations.”

Drew, the Newport News chief, said there’s a lot of work to do — but he vows that his investigators are up to the task.

“Twenty-four homicides is 24 too many,” Drew said. “And make no mistake. Every one of these numbers that we talk about are people. It’s an individual. It’s not about numbers and statistics.

“Am I satisfied that there are only seven cleared? Absolutely not. I don’t think anybody should be happy with seven.”

Drew noted that 16 of the 24 killings investigated by his department were in the first half of 2018, meaning that “we’re moving in the right direction.”

Last fall, Drew moved three more detectives to the homicide unit, bringing the team to 10 investigators. He also moved a time-consuming task — investigating nonfatal shootings — to other detectives. In 2018, for example, there were 90 total shootings in the city, with most being nonfatal.

“I needed to lighten that load off my homicide detectives so they focus on the homicides — the witnesses, the forensics evidence, working with the commonwealth’s attorney and all that,” he said.

Drew also pointed out that the Newport News police in 2018 cleared a significant number of homicides — eight of them — that happened in prior years.

Arrests from prior years, Drew said, indicate that unsolved slayings aren’t ever put into the dustbin, and that every case is still looked at. Two of the new homicide detectives, he added, will focus exclusively on cold cases.

“We’re not stopping,” he said.

Where Are the Witnesses?

But aside from staffing issues, a number of other factors drive the low clearance rate.

A recurring challenge for detectives is getting witnesses to the crime to provide information to police. Investigators say they often know who committed a slaying — or have a very good idea — but that the “no snitch” culture sometimes stymies the cooperation police need to make the arrest.

Drew said he routinely hears at community meetings about witness fears.

“It’s easy to say people don’t give us information and they know (what happened), but I balance that with, ‘We’re leaving, but those individuals still live in this neighborhood, and there’s still a concern there,’ ” he said.

“I understand that, and this department understands that … We have to decrease that fear.”

Since he took the department’s helm in June, Drew said he’s trying to encourage more trust, with police and community groups knocking on more doors after killings.

People don’t need to give their names or “hang outside with a banner,” he said. “But what I do want is for people to not feel afraid in the neighborhoods they live in. I want them to take that back.”

Sult, Hampton’s police chief, said another problem is that fears of retribution for witnesses — real or imagined — can spread quickly on social media.

All it takes, he said, is “one person that’s mad at you because you looked at him wrong” or “dating so and so,” resulting in lies being put out. That spreads quickly, he said, transforming into “so and so is a snitch about John Smith being killed on the sidewalk.”

“It doesn’t have to be true, that so and so is a snitch, but that can be life threatening on the street,” Sult said.

“So the issue is more than trusting the police. There’s a fear of reprisal through social media … All of a sudden it becomes a life threatening environment for that individual.”

The polarization in the country, he added, “helps underscore the distrust on the ground level and the boots level” regarding law enforcement. Families, churches and community groups, he said, are part of the solution.

“It’s about public trust,” Sult said. “The building of trust in the community starts with the police department, but it doesn’t stop there.”

Drew, for his part, said he’s encouraging citizens to give tips. He’s also telling his officers that “we’ve got to be more proactive” in jumping on leads and knocking on doors.

“If a tip comes in about something unusual that a resident ‘found in the bushes,’ and the police response isn’t immediate, he said, “People think, ‘Why should I call?’”

“Maybe there’s nothing to it at all,” Drew said. “But I want to make sure we’re investigating stuff right away.”

Additional reading: Fixing America’s Cold Case Crisis (James Adcock)

FBI Data Crime in the United States, 2017

This is a condensed and slightly edited version of a story that appeared in the Daily Press in Newport News, Va., reprinted with permission. Read the full story here.

Coping With Unsolved Murders: ‘My Son Speaks from the Grave’ syndicated from https://immigrationattorneyto.wordpress.com/

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lilixbetty-blog · 5 years

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Chapter 4 part 2 (pg9-11)

He shifts uncomfortably and puts his hand out to me. ‘It was a pleasure to meet you.’

‘Do you think there will be sparks?’ he asks quietly.

My eyes widen. I know there will be sparks because I’ve felt them already. His mocking injects some bravery into me and my petite hand lifts to meet his. And there they are again. Sparks. Not electricity firing off all over the cafe, causing us both to gasp or jump back in shock, but there’s something there, and instead of firing outward, it’s shooting inward, ricocheting all over my body, making my heart beat faster and my lips part. I don’t want to let go, but he flexes his palm, prompting me to release him.

Then he turns and strides out, without another word or look to suggest that he felt something too. Did he? What was that? Who is he? My palms rise to my cheeks and I rub furiously, trying to scrub some sensibility into me. I’m way too intrigued by him, and no amount of sightseeing or quilting with my grandmother is going to distract me from where my thoughts are wandering to, not after that brief but enlightening conversation. I’m getting into unknown territory – dangerous territory. After my years of avoiding all men, even the decent ones, I’m finding myself encouraging one who looks like he should definitely be left alone.

There’s a pull, though – a very powerful pull.

I’ve been away with the fairies all week. Every time the cafe door swings open, I look for him. But he’s never there. A dozen men over the last four days have asked me my name, my number, or they’ve told me what stunning eyes I have. And each one I’ve wished could be Jughead.

I’ve been busy churning out perfect coffee after perfect coffee, and I even waitressed at another posh function for Pop on Tuesday, hoping he’d be there. He wasn’t.

I’ve always tried to keep my life simple, but now I’m craving a complication – a tall, dark-haired, mysterious complication.

It’s Saturday, and Kevin has humoured me, tagging along for a walk through the Royal Parks. He knows there is something on my mind. He kicks a pile of leaves as we traipse down the middle of Green Park, towards Buckingham Palace. He wants to ask, and I know he won’t hold out for much longer. He’s made all of the conversation, while I’ve returned one-word answers. I’m not going to get away with it for much longer. I’m clearly absent in mind, and I could probably muster up the energy to feign my normal self, but I don’t think I want to. I think I want Kevin to press me so I can share Jughead with him.

‘I’ve met someone.’ The words fall from my mouth, breaking the comfortable silence between us. He looks shocked, which is okay because I’m quite shocked, too.

‘Who?’ he asks, pulling me to a stop.

‘I don’t know.’ I shrug, lowering my bum to the grass and picking at some of the blades. ‘He turned up at the cafe a few times and also at a gala ball where I waitressed.’

Kevin joins me, his handsome face morphing into a big grin. ‘Betty Cooper has been affected by a man?’

‘Yes, Betty Cooper has most definitely been affected by a man.’ It feels like such a relief to share my burden. ‘I can’t stop thinking about him,’ I admit.

‘Ah!’ Kevin throws his arms in the air. ‘Is he hot?’

‘Stupidly.’ I smile. ‘He has the most amazing eyes. As blue as the sky.’

‘I want to know everything,’ Kevin declares.

‘There’s nothing more to tell.’

‘Well, what did he say?’

‘He asked if I was involved with anyone.’ I try to sound casual, but I know what’s coming.

His eyes widen as he leans forward. ‘And you said?’

‘No.’

‘It’s happened!’ he sings. ‘Thank the fucking Lord, it’s finally happened!’

‘Kevin!’ I scold him, but I can’t help laughing too. He’s right; it has happened, and it’s happened hard.

‘Oh, Betty.’ He sits up straight, looking all serious. ‘You don’t know how long I’ve been waiting for this. I need to see him.’

I scoff, pushing my hair over my shoulder. ‘Well, that’s unlikely. He appears quickly and disappears faster.’

‘How old?’ The excitement on Kevin’s face is like nothing I’ve ever seen before. I’ve made his day – probably his month, or even his year. He’s tried relentlessly to drag me out to bars, even willing to make them straight bars if it means I’ll tag along. Kevin has been in my life for eight years, just eight, although it could be forever. The ‘it’ boy at school, all of the girls swooned over him and he dated them all, but he had a little secret – a secret that saw him ostracised once it was discovered. The cool kid was gay. Or eighty per cent gay, as Kevin has always claimed. Finding him behind the bike sheds, beaten to a pulp by some of the college kids, was the beginning of our friendship.

‘I’m guessing late-twenties, but he seems older. You know, very mature. He always wears very expensive-looking suits.’

‘Perfect.’ He rubs his hands together. ‘Name?’

‘J.J,’ I say quietly.

‘“J.J”?’ Kevin’s face screws up into a disapproving frown. ‘Who is he? James Bond’s boss?’

A burst of laughter flies from my mouth, and I giggle to myself while my friend looks on, waiting for confirmation that my muse has a proper name. ‘He signed with J.J’

‘Signed?’ His confusion deepens, as does his scowl. I’m not sure if I should divulge this part.

‘He didn’t like my coffee and chose to let me know by writing it on a napkin. He signed it J.J, but I’ve since found out that his name is Jughead.’

‘Oooohhh, sexy but unique! But the cheek!’ He’s shocked, displaying a similar reaction to what I did, but then his face straightens and he narrows his eyes on me. ‘And how did that make you feel?’

‘Inadequate.’ I say the word without thought, and I don’t stop there. ‘Stupid, angry, irritated.’

Kevin’s smiling now. ‘He drew a reaction?’ he asks. ‘You got a little mad?’

‘Yes!’ I breathe, completely exasperated. ‘I was really pissed off.’

‘Oh my God! I already love him.’ He stands and puts his hand out to pull me up. ‘I bet he’s completely taken by you, like most men on God’s green earth.’

Accepting his offer, I let him pull me to my feet. ‘They’re not.’ I sigh, reflecting on the brief words that we exchanged; on one line in particular: I’m quite fascinated by you, as well.

Does fascinated equal attracted?

‘Trust me, they are.’

I’m suddenly eager to spit it all out and see what Kevin makes of it. ‘I was a millimetre away from his lips.’

Kevin inhales sharply. ‘What do you mean?’ His back straightens, and he narrows his eyes on me. ‘Did you bottle it?’

‘No, I was the one pushing it.’ I’m not even ashamed. ‘He said he couldn’t and left me in the ladies’ feeling like a desperate idiot.’

‘Were you mad?’

‘Furious.’

‘Yes!’ His hands slap together, and I’m yanked into his embrace. ‘This is good. Tell me more.’

I spill the whole thing – the dropped champagne, Jughead’s ‘business associate’, the way he approached me afterwards just to warn me off.

When I’m done, Kevin hums thoughtfully. It’s not the reaction I was expecting or that I wanted. ‘He’s a player. Not the right man for you, Betty. Forget about him.’

#chapter 4

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