News

Fatal Shark Attack; New South Wales at Shelly Beach    

Ariel Williams

408/400 words

The King of the Ocean

Photo courtesy of NY Daily News

Most recently, there was a shark attack  in Australia's New South Wales at Shelly Beach on February ninth. Tadashi Nakahara, a 41 year old Japanese man was rushed ashore and, according to BBC.com, he was given first aid by his friends after being bitten, but with both of his legs severely amputated, he bled to death very quickly and died. Carla Herreria explains in a Huffington Post article that,  “The incident occurred when Nakahara was waiting for a wave 30 feet off Shelly Beach in New South Wales, Australia...[This] was Australia's sixth shark-related death within 12 months, according to the Australian Associated Press.

Shark attacks have been occurring since as early as the 1900’s. The deadliest reported attack was on July 30th, 1945, when two torpedoes fired by a Japanese submarine struck the USS Indianapolis at the Pacific island of Tinian. The ship literally split in two and its crew, most without life rafts, jumped, or were tossed into the Pacific. Then, the next day, sharks began to arrive at the site. First a few, then more and more were attracted to the area. The sharks bit and killed several of the men, all of whom were already suffering from exposure and lack of food and drinkable water. Four long days passed before a rescue vessel came. Rescuers found 579 men dead, some chewed to pieces (Jennifer Viegas, Discovery.com).

Everyone knows that the beach is the place to be during the summer, but you might think twice after you hear about the recent shark attacks happening all over the world.  Daniel Bucher, a senior lecturer in marine biology at Southern Cross University, believes that “sharks are known to travel down Australia's east coast and hunt more actively during the summer when the water is warmer.” (HuffingtonPost.com) Most unprovoked shark attacks occur in North American waters, including Hawaii and the Caribbean. “ With nearly 300 total shark attacks from 2004 to 2013, Florida tops the charts for the place with the highest shark activity” (Kristen Rodman,Accuweather.com). Just last year alone, 72 shark attacks occurred worldwide, 48 occurring in the United States, 28 in Florida alone (International Shark Attack File).

   

Scorching Summer

468/500 words
by: Jhadai McDonald

Mercury rising
Photo by rebuildingchampions.com

"For the ten years of me living here, never have I ever been so worried about any upcoming summer vacations- now, I am," stated Susan Colding, a resident of Maplewood Township in New Jersey. "This spring, though it has not ended, has already proven to be one of the hottest in history and I can already tell that this summer will be brutal." A mother of three, Colding is worried about the predicted temperature increases and how it will undoubtedly affect her children. According to the Farmer's Almanac, It is predicted that: "While warm weather will initially be slow to establish itself, by July summer heat will have arrived in full force across much of North America...the Central and Northern Plains will swelter through a warm-to-hot summer. To the east of the Mississippi, it won’t be as much a hot summer as it will be a humid summer. Oppressively levels of humidity will make for many uncomfortable days (and nights)."

Based on this observation, there is a good chance that scorching temperatures will present themselves and will most likely cause a flood of expenses to greet people. Hydration is a must; therefore, bottled water will be a hot commodity for residents who will experience this dry period, ice-cream companies will also make a lot of money from the truck that drive around neighborhoods to sell their sweet treats, and pools and beaches will be flooded will people trying to cool off from the burning heat. One father, also a resident of Maplewood, Bruce Fowler observed that he is already spending a lot just to keep his one-family home cool during the spring and is already buying boxes of bottled water in preparation for what this summer will bring, “ My youngest son has been pressuring me to get a pool installed and I haven’t granted him that wish as yet, but it is definitely lingering in my mind.” But although both resident Colding and Fowler agree that this summer will present more bad than good, Debbie Morris, a South Orange resident opposes that idea. “In the past, we’ve had pretty bad summers and I don’t think this one is the paragon of it all. Though I do not have my own pool, I don’t believe that people have to ‘prepare themselves’ as if it were the end of the world.”

Though many residents are planning vacations and trips outside of Maplewood, Morris plans to stay at home just like in the winter, “We should all treat summer as any other season: Winter...we stay home, Spring...we’re mostly home...Fall...we’re gettin’ ready to hibernate haha.” Although opposing viewpoints were seen, there is no doubt that this summer is hot and fast approaching. Therefore, get ready the way you like and enjoy this scorching summer however you want.

Cop VS Teenage Girl- The Pool Party Chaos

Former officer Casebolt sitting on 15 year old Dajerria Becton

Photo courtesy of: nbcnews.com

By Maya Bryant

689/600

On June 5, 2015 an unfortunate incident occurred at a pool party in Mckinney, Texas. Police officer, Eric Casebolt, was caught on video being extremely aggressive towards unarmed teens during an end of year pool party.  This video that went viral by June 6^th and there has been outrage throughout the nation. The video showed the former officer pinning a teenage girl in a bikini to the ground with extreme force and pulling his gun on other teens at the party.

Casebolt was responding to a call about a fight that witnesses told The Huffington Post, “…fight broke out after white people at the pool started making racist comments towards black teenagers.”  The police department released a statement say they were responding to a “disturbance involving multiple juveniles at the location, who do not live in the area or have permission to be there, refusing to leave.” They also said they did receive many calls saying the teens were fighting.  The teenage girl, Tatiana, recalled that the fight started when two older white females insulted her, which led to both women attacking her. A witness, Benét Embry, said “he had not seen a fight involving blacks and whites.

The video shows Casebolt cursing and shouting at the teens as the officers attempted to gather them. The girl who was featured in the video, Dajerria Becton, when interviewed by KDFW-TV, said she had been invited to the party and not part of the fight that the police were responding to. According to a statement released by Casebolts’s lawyer, ”he was not targeting minorities when he wrestled a black teenage girl to the ground and brandished his gun outside a pool party.” The boy who shot the video, Brandon Brooks, told a TV station during an interview, “I was one of the only white people in the area when that was happening, you can see in part of the video where he tells us to sit down and he kinda like skips over me and tells all my African-American friends to go sit down.” He also included that the fight that brought the police to the party was between a mom and a girl and not most of the teens the police were actually going after.

There has been great debate on whether the actions taken by Casebolt were racially motivated or not. He and his lawyer claim that his actions weren’t racially motivated and that he only acted the way he did because of the “emotional toll” responding to two suicide calls prior, had inflicted. Many people beg to differ. Arthur Chu, a writer for the Daily Beast said, “In the heat of the moment, when cops come to assess a potentially dangerous situation, they’ll target whomever seems disruptive or out of place. And when you’re the privileged race, you’re never the one who’s out of place…Privilege means being presumed not dangerous until proven harmful, not innocent until proven guilty, and not shoved down to the ground and restrained, in Casebolt’s words, ‘until we get this figured out.’ “ Many people agree with Chu, that the officer was too quick to judge based on race. A father of a teen at the party, Jahi Bakari said, “We will not accept the fact that a grown man, an adult officer, will handle a female like that,” which was also a common response by outraged viewers of the video and members of the community. Witness of the event, Embry, said “This was not a racially motivated event at all. This whole this is being blown completely out of proportion…I may or may not agree with everything that the police officer did, but I do believe he was trying to establish order.”

Casebolt resigned after the video was leaked. At the press conference where the police chief announced his resignation, he said, “Our policies, our training, our practice, do not support his actions, he came into the call out of control, and as the video shows, was out of control during the incident.” Because he resigned, internal affairs is no longer investigating but there have yet to be any charges filed against him.