by Diane Dimond on February 6, 2012
NFL Commish Goddell
I wonder if the National Football Commissioner Roger Goodell knows the information I’m about to tell you? If not, may I be the one to clue him in to the shocking criminal background of a guy named Gary who is prominently featured at NFL games … including this year’s Super Bowl?
Around 1980, when Gary was in his mid-30’s he was charged with having sex with an underage 14 year old girl named Allison. He was acquitted.
For the entire decade of the 80’s Gary was considered to be such a dangerous and chronic drunk driver that authorities banned him from getting behind the wheel for ten years. [click to continue…]
by Diane Dimond on January 16, 2012
How Many Are There in America?
It was a small but horrifying item in the Los Angeles Times. “Police are asking for the public’s help in identifying what they call a ‘serious, dangerous serial killer operating in Orange County. Police believe one person is responsible for stabbing three middle-aged homeless men. He is (considered) extremely dangerous to the public.”
Another serial killer, I thought. And then the question: How many serial killers are out there in America?
John Douglas, a former Chief of the FBI’s Elite Serial Crime Unit and author of [click to continue…]
by Diane Dimond on January 3, 2012
What Road Will The New Year Take?
Time for New Year resolutions. Mine take the form of wishes and hopes focused on how to make our crime and justice system safer, saner and more evenhanded for all.
I know some of my wishes are unlikely to come true. But I also know many of them could if we were all determined to make society work better.
I hope that the coach Jerry Sandusky scandal at Penn State University gives strength and solace to the millions of victims of child sexual abuse everywhere, no matter how old they are now. May each of them understand that society condemns every person who preys on children and that the shame isn’t theirs, it rests solely on the molester. [click to continue…]
by Diane Dimond on December 26, 2011
A Christmas Trend
It’s been a chore trying to figure out an uplifting topic for this Christmas-time column. In a space usually dedicated to the negative aspects of human nature I can think of no better time to highlight the positive.
I’m always on the lookout for trends in crime – troubled veterans returning home and becoming entangled in the justice system, questionable prisoner releases from overcrowded institutions and the recent reported decline in state’s use of the death penalty to name just a few.
But the latest trend I spotted is as far away from crime as I can imagine – and since it is so positively pervasively Christmas-y in its effect – I think it earns a mention. [click to continue…]
by Diane Dimond on December 19, 2011
Blagojevich: Famous For Being Infamous
It is an odd thing we do here in America. People who get wrapped up in scandal often become elevated to celebrity status.
You know the type of people I’m talking about – those who are caught up in sex or drug scandals, criminal suspects, or some other type of social misfit who’s every move is followed by reporters. Cameras are there as they hustle in to court, show up for their community service or just try to dodge embarrassing questions about their problematic behavior.
These folks become famous for being infamous. [click to continue…]
by Diane Dimond on December 5, 2011
A Jury Says He Killed Michael Jackson
You may not have been the least bit interested in the recent trial of Dr. Conrad Murray who was found guilty of involuntary manslaughter in the death of entertainer Michael Jackson. He has now been sentenced to the maximum – four years behind bars for giving Jackson the hospital-only anesthesia Propofol in his home every night for at least two months.
Here’s why the case is important.
The case riveted doctors across the nation. Especially doctors in celebrity studded areas of the country like Los Angeles and New York, Aspen and Nashville, Atlanta and New Mexico where concerts and movie shoots attract some of the biggest divas in the entertainment business.
As the old Hollywood saying goes, “Where there’s a star there are drugs.” [click to continue…]
by Diane Dimond on November 21, 2011
The Fight Against Child Abuse Needs A Plan
Those who fight to stop child abuse need to get some pizzazz in their campaign. They need a marketing strategy. They’ve got no slogan or badge or colored ribbon for supporters to display to acknowledge their solidarity in trying to wipe out this criminal scourge.
As everyone knows the crippling psychological effects of childhood abuse and neglect often lasts a lifetime. And if the abuse is of a sexual nature a victim can grow up to victimize others in a similar fashion. It’s an awful cycle.
Those on the front line of this fight – abuse survivors, law enforcement’s first responders, social workers, prosecutors and medical experts need an enthusiastic movement like the one launched by the family of the late Susan G. Komen who died of breast cancer in 1980. [click to continue…]
by Diane Dimond on October 31, 2011
Can There Be Too Much Sunshine?
Every state has laws that govern the public’s access to government records. From New Mexico to North Dakota – Alabama to Alaska – each have varying degrees of these so-called Sunshine Laws. The media loves Sunshine Laws because they allow easy access to information. But many on the other end of the equation don’t feel so “sunshine-y” about having their business or personal information revealed to the public. There is no state more liberal in doling out government information than Florida — nicknamed the Sunshine State — and in my opinion their Public Records Law has now put some of their own citizens at risk. [click to continue…]
by Diane Dimond on September 26, 2011
A Great American Past-time - Taking Pictures
The scene is repeated across America millions of times each year. Citizens raise their cameras to snap a picture and immortalize what they see. Taking photographs is as much of the American fabric as driving a car.
But since 9-11 that right has begun to erode like so many others: walking unencumbered onto an airplane; living without the multitude of leering surveillance cameras; gaining entrance to a public building without showing identification.
I get the reason for all the cautious security, I honestly do. I think our country is still under the threat of a terrorist attack. But some of those with badges tasked with monitoring the threat overstep their bounds in the name of national security. I can’t get over the feeling that every time they over-react the terrorists – who are determined to change our freedom loving way of life – win. [click to continue…]
by Diane Dimond on September 12, 2011
Store Surveillance of Mother With Baby in Bag
It has happened again and it breaks my heart.
A young mother in Hendersonville, North Carolina walked into a grocery store recently clutching her boyfriend’s hand on her left and a big heavy looking shoulder bag on her right – a bag that nearly scraped the ground as she walked.
The teenager headed straight for the store’s ladies’ room and stepped inside. When she re-appeared on the grocery’s surveillance video exactly four minutes later she had exchanged her red sun dress for a pair of slacks and a blouse. Her bag was casually slung over her shoulder looking a whole lot less heavy.
Within hours a store employee cleaning the restroom found a dead newborn baby in one of the stall’s trash cans. The 9-11 call to police was painful to listen to as another worker gasped between sobs and begged for help for the dead baby.
Whoever abandoned the little girl had just committed a felony. [click to continue…]
