Steve Neavling

A quick-acting student helped prevent more bloodshed Thursday afternoon during a deadly rampage by a lone gunman at a small Seattle university, the Associated Press reports.

While the gunman paused to reload, a student building monitor disarmed him, and others helped subdue him.

The shooting killed a 19-year-old man and wounded two others at Seattle Pacific University.

“There are a number of heroes in this,” Assistant Police Chief Paul McDonagh said. “The people around him (the gunman) stepped up.”

A 19-year-old man was fatally shot and two other young people were wounded after the gunman entered the foyer at Otto Miller Hall on the Seattle Pacific University campus and started shooting Thursday afternoon. When he paused to reload, a student building monitor disarmed him. The gunman had additional rounds and a knife, McDonagh said.

The gunman was not a student.

Steve Neavling

The FBI was closely monitoring a friend of the suspected Boston Marathon bombers last year and even urged him to avoid Boston’s Fourth of July fireworks, the Boston Globe reports.

The agents were ordered to “make sure they stay with Mr. [Khairullozhon] Matanov, and don’t lose him,” Special Agent Timothy McElroy told US Magistrate Judge Marianne B. Bowler in court.

Prosecutors said the 23-year-old Matanov, who was charged with obstruction of justice last week, lied about interacting with the brothers on the week of the attack.

The FBI told Matanov to stay away from the fireworks and the Boston Marathon to avoid alarming people.

Matanov, a native of Kyrgyzstan, faces up to 20 years in prison.

Steve Neavling

FBI agents spent hours testing materials inside the San Francisco home of Ryan Chamberlain this week after he was charged with possessing explosives.

ABC News reports that FBI technicians used sophisticated lab equipment to test for explosive substances in the home of the well-known political and media consultant.

The FBI received a second search warrant for the house.

“The search warrant maybe focuses more on some other items that would be of interest to us, again we are still going to collect that evidence because it’s an ongoing investigation,” FBI spokesperson Peter Lee said.

Chamberlain’s arrest follows a tip that indicated he was making a bomb in his apartment.

Washington Post
Editorial Board

Congress unanimously passed the Prison Rape Elimination Act in 2003. More than a decade later, many states are only beginning to comply with the law, and prison rape is still a disgusting and pervasive problem across the country.

According to the latest Justice Department survey, 4 percent of state and federal prison inmates had reported suffering sexual abuse in the previous year. That ratio was a staggering 1 in 10 for youths in various correctional facilities. And those results reflect only those willing to report sexual abuse to survey-takers.

Although American culture often treats it as such, rape cannot be an expected part of how the justice system punishes criminals, particularly young and vulnerable offenders. They surrender their liberty, not their humanity. Any official tolerance of sexual abuse in prisons, jails or local lockups is torture. Congress wisely decided to devote federal time and money to stamping it out.

So what’s the holdup? The law required a commission to make recommendations, then the Justice Department spent years finalizing rules for the states to follow. Last month, states had to report on their progress. Only New Hampshire and New Jersey certified that they fully comply with the law. Most of the rest instead offered “assurances” to the Justice Department that they were working on complying. The law offers states this leeway, as long as they devote a significant chunk of the federal money they get toward prison rape reform. Then there are a handful of states —Arizona, Idaho, Indiana, Nebraska, Texas, Utah and Florida — that offered no assurances that they would comply. Texas Gov. Rick Perry (R) said that the rules are too one-size-fits all and would be too costly.

To read more click here.

Steve Neavling

A federal agent committed suicide inside a Homeland Security building in Pittsburgh on Thursday afternoon, Reuters reports.

James McConaughy, 43, of Beaver Falls, shot himself and was pronounced dead at 4:19 p.m.

An autopsy is scheduled for today.

Pittsburgh police would only say that homicide investigators were called to the scene.

Homeland Security didn’t respond to questions as of Friday morning, Reuters wrote.

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