Stories – Rob Kuznia

Ex-wife of NJ shooter says earlier life showed no signs of later violence and extremism

Post author By Rob
Post date December 12, 2019

(CNN)- A 41-year-old woman named Kathleen had just backed her car into the garage after doing a little Christmas shopping in Atlanta on Wednesday when a man approached her in the driveway and introduced himself as an FBI agent.

He wanted to talk with Kathleen about an individual she hadn’t spoken with since 2003: her ex-husband, David Anderson, the suspected 47-year-old gunman in a deadly shooting on Tuesday that authorities believe targeted Jewish people in a kosher supermarket in Jersey City, New Jersey.

Kathleen, who asked that her last name not be used out of concern for her safety, said this came as a shock.

“That was not the David I knew,” she told CNN, speaking by phone Wednesday evening.

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Potential culprits in mystery lung illnesses: Black-market vaping products

Post author By Rob
Post date September 24, 2019

By Rob Kuznia and Lena H. Sun

LOS ANGELES — Doorways chained shut and “Members Only” signs warn casual passersby against stopping along this five-block stretch of downtown known as the “Cannabis District.” This gritty corridor is a major hub for the estimated $9 billion black market for the state’s illicit cannabis products.

Products sold here, including a flood of counterfeit vape materials from China, are coming under scrutiny as federal authorities investigate the mysterious vaping-related lung illness that has sickened at least 530 people in 38 states and claimed nine lives.

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As hate crime laws expand, who to exclude as victims?

Post author By Rob
Post date September 10, 2019

Sept. 10, 2019

In California, a man is accused of a series of unprovoked attacks on homeless people. In Arizona, a Democratic congressman’s aide breaks the ankle of a Republican wearing a Make America Great Again hat. In Connecticut, a police officer has a brick thrown through his cruiser’s window; authorities say the suspect talked about hating cops.

All are acts of violence, but are they hate crimes? In a growing number of states, the answer is yes.

Tags Blue Lives Matter, hate crimes, homeless, Utah

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Among Some Hate Groups, Porn Is Viewed as a Conspiracy

Post author By Rob
Post date June 7, 2019

(New York Times)

Buried in the anti-Semitic manifesto of the 19-year-old man who recently opened fire in a synagogue near San Diego is a sentence in which he blames Jews for “causing many to fall into sin with their role in peddling pornography.”

It’s just one line in John Earnest’s 4,000-word screed, but the phrase offers a glimpse into a specific brand of antipathy that has been brewing in the dark corners of the web.

Accountability Featured Los Angeles News Group / Daily Breeze

Former JROTC cadet at North High in Torrance says he was sodomized in hazing ritual

Post author By Rob
Post date March 22, 2019

Rob Kuznia

August 13, 2013

In a legal battle that has quietly dragged on for three years, a former member of the Junior Reserve Officer Training Corps at North High School is accusing the Torrance Unified School District of failing to take action after he reportedly was sodomized during a hazing ritual.

The plaintiff says that the JROTC instructor in charge found out about the alleged incident but, after a brief investigation, neglected to report the case to the police or his superiors at Torrance Unified.

The teen’s family decided to contact the Daily Breeze earlier this month because the former cadet turned 18 in late June.

“The story needs to be told,” said Ricardo Rodriguez, the accuser’s stepfather, who is acting as the family’s spokesman. “The teacher didn’t report it to the school principal, the campus police or anything. They are trying to make this thing hush-hush — under the table.”

Tags hazing ritual, JROTC

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Veterans talking veterans back from the brink: A new approach to policing and lives in crisis

Post author By Rob
Post date March 20, 2019

March 20, 2019

LOS ANGELES — The former Army soldier was slumped in the back seat of a sheriff’s department squad car when Shannon Teague and Tyrone “T-bone” Anderson arrived on the scene. A couple of hours earlier, high on meth, he’d been yelling “you will die” from the front porch of a transition house for homeless veterans.

Teague made the introductions. Neither she nor Anderson wore a uniform, except for the patch on their jackets and the ID tags clipped to their shirts.

“I’m a social worker, and this is my partner, T-bone,” she told the man. “We are from the VA. You’re not in trouble.”

Encounters such as this one represent a new approach to dealing with veterans in crisis.

Tags veterans affairs

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Suffering pickaxes and dog poop, Trump’s Hollywood star has become a symbolic spectacle

Post author By Rob
Post date December 9, 2018

Dec. 9, 2018

LOS ANGELES — On the Hollywood Walk of Fame one summer night, a man with a neck tattoo knelt over Donald Trump’s star, armed with a black Sharpie.

The piece of plywood concealing the newly repaired star was already a sorry sight, defiled by spat-out gum, littered potato chips and scrawled words: “MAGA,” “SAD,” “Q-Anon.” The young man had come to add his own message.

“What’s he writing?” somebody in the bevy of onlookers murmured as Juan Larrazabal began tracing out letters.

Tags Donald Trump, Hollywood star

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Some people with dementia wander away and get lost. A bracelet can help find them.

Post author By Rob
Post date November 3, 2018

LOS ANGELES — In October 2016, a 55-year-old retired software engineer with early-onset Alzheimer’s wandered out of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art as her husband used the restroom. Nancy Paulikas hasn’t been seen since.

Kirk Moody still spends time nearly every day looking for her. “There hasn’t been a single trace,” he says.

Her disappearance and his anguish have prompted what may be the nation’s most ambitious system for tracking down people with cognitive conditions that make them prone to roaming — and getting lost.

In commuting 20 murder convicts’ sentences, California governor draws praise, condemnation

Post author By Rob
Post date September 9, 2018

LOS ANGELES — Thomas Yackley fatally stabbed two men at a party. Kimberly LaBore took part in a home invasion that ended with one person dead. Virgil Holt killed his boss at a fast-food restaurant shortly after he’d been fired.

All are among the 20 killers serving life sentences that were recently commuted by California Gov. Jerry Brown (D). With barely four months left in office, California’s longest-serving governor is granting forgiveness to record numbers of criminals.