Tuesday, August 29, 2006



Realistic females in Colorado: "Stop! I have a gun. Leave my house," shouted the 11-year-old girl. And with the words barely out of her mouth, Noel Smith opened fire. Any intruder would be dead on his back, but this was just practice. Noel, along with seven other women, was practicing her marksmanship at a session of Girls and Their Guns, a summer-long program that teaches women how to shoot and about gun safety. On the crisp Saturday morning at the Minturn firing range, shots echoed across the valley leaving the smell of gunpowder lingering in the air. Noel cocked her head, squinted her eyes, placed one leg in front of the other and squeezed the trigger. Five women lined up next to her in variations of the same stance. "I've always wanted to know what guns were like and how they were used," said Noel, who's been shooting for nearly two years and learned of the program from her karate teacher, Mathew Bayley, who teaches the gun class. "When I heard he was doing this, I really wanted to try it. ... I've been stuck to it ever since."


CA: Sheriff's deputies cleared in tasing death: "The Monterey County District Attorney's Office has completed its review of the death of Jaime Coronel, 27, from an officer-involved tasing in Castroville on Jan. 24. The office concluded that none of the deputies involved committed a crime, acting reasonably in self-defense and in defense of others. The office also determined that deputies used only the amount of force reasonably necessary to arrest or detain Coronel, to prevent his escape or to overcome resistance. The report details about 35 minutes of deputies' efforts to safely subdue Coronel atop a rooftop in Castroville the night of Jan. 24. A coroner's report determined Coronel died of acute methamphetamine and cocaine intoxication, with contributing conditions of Taser application and struggle with police. The coroner ruled the death "of accidental causes and origin."


Mad Iowa woman gets let off lightly: "Rachel Huggins,18, says she shot the man who sexually abused her. Monday she admitted to buying a shotgun, driving to Peter Sciarrotta's house, and shooting him the chest. Huggins faced up 75 years jail time for the shooting. But she will likely serve only a few. Monday, under a plea bargain, Huggins received two 5-year sentences that will run consecutively at the correctional facility near Oakdale. The sentence carries no maximum minimum, meaning she could be paroled at any time. Huggins told the court that she was a victim herself. In 2004, she accused sciarrotta of sexually abusing her. On the day of the shooting, Huggins was not taking her medication for her bipolar disorder. But she told the judge she knows what she did was wrong. Sciarrotta was investigated but never charged with sexual abuse. He was not at Monday's sentencing. A family member told Channel 13, that Sciarotta has recovered from the shooting and just returned to work at the Newton Correctional facility last week".

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