violent Archives - Home Safety Tech Pros

Twenty-Two Charged in Imperial Valley Takedown of Violent Drug Trafficking Organization Linked to Beltran Leyva Cartel

homesafetytechpros — Sun, 04 May 2025 09:29:19 +0000

Twenty-two alleged members of a transnational drug trafficking organization with ties to the Sinaloa-based Beltran Leyva Cartel were indicted by a grand jury.

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Shiprock Man Sentenced to Federal Prison for Violent Assault

homesafetytechpros — Fri, 02 May 2025 10:47:03 +0000

Tyrell Jordan Benally of Shiprock has been sentenced to four years in prison for a brutal attack that left the victim with life-threatening injuries.

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One of the most violent Jan. 6 rioters sentenced to 8 years

homesafetytechpros — Sun, 10 Nov 2024 07:12:00 +0000

Zachary Alam (U.S. Attorney’s Office).

A Virginia man who smashed windows in the Speaker’s Lobby moments before Ashli Babbitt was shot and killed by a U.S. Capitol officer during the Jan. 6 riots was sentenced to eight years in prison.

Zachary Jordan Alam, 32, learned his fate this week. In addition to the prison time, he was also given 36 months of supervised release and ordered to pay $4,484 in restitution by U.S. District Judge Dabney L. Friedrich, a Donald Trump appointee, the U.S. Attorney’s Office announced in a press release.

Alam told the court he wanted a full pardon after Donald Trump takes office in January and defended his actions, even though he said he knew they were illegal, reported NBC News’ Ryan Reilly, who has covered these cases extensively and written a book about them: “Sedition Hunters: How January 6th Broke the Justice System.”

“Trump just won the presidential election less than 48 hours ago,” Alam said. “Was the 2021 transfer of presidential power warranted? I don’t think so.”

Alam was convicted in September of assaulting officers, civil disorder, destruction of government property, trespassing, disorderly conduct and picketing in a Capitol building.

He helped other rioters scale barriers propped as make-shift ladders outside the Capitol. He entered the building at 2:17 p.m. through a broken window adjacent to the Senate Wing emergency exit doors, according to the statement of facts filed in his criminal caase.

Alam spent 30 minutes inside roaming around. On one floor, he tried to kick in a door. On another floor, he threw a red velvet rope from a balcony at police officers below, court documents said.

At 2:33 p.m., he was corralled in the Will Rogers corridor, where he yelled at officers, laughed, argued with other rioters, and joined the mob that pushed through the police line.

Later, he went to the Speaker’s Lobby, where he looked through the glass door inside as members of Congress and staff were evacuating the chamber.

“I’m going to f— you up,” he shouted at the front of the mob multiple times in the faces of officers standing guard.

Alam moved to the doors, punched the glass repeatedly with his fist, and shattered three glass door panes as members.

As he punched the door, Alam pushed up against three officers standing guard. Alam rallied the crowd, announcing that “the problem” was with the House members. Alam then used a black helmet to smash out three glass panes.

As he was leaving the area, Alam called out to fellow rioters, “we need guns, bro … we need guns.”

In the government’s sentencing memo, seeking 136 months of incarceration – or more than 11 years – prosecutors said the defendant was one of the most violent and aggressive rioters that day.

“As established at trial, he spent the day antagonizing officers and inciting other rioters, culminating in his repeated violent and forceful attempts to reach congressional members and staffers as they frantically evacuated the House floor,” prosecutors said.

Prosecutors said that after he was arrested on Jan. 30, 2021, at a motel in Denver, Pennsylvania, agents found evidence of his flight and his plans to dispose of evidence connecting him to Jan. 6. They found Alam’s journal, recording his reflections of that day and his plans to flee and conceal his identity, including setting up new bank accounts and using a “burner” phone to conceal his identity and location from law enforcement.

In his sentencing memo asking for 57 months – or nearly five years incarceration – Alam’s attorney, Steven Metcalf, said he traveled alone, did not physically injure anyone, and left the building after Babbitt was shot by an officer in front of Alam. His client has acknowledged the seriousness of his charges, Metcalf wrote. He also said Alam has become a public figure of scrutiny on both the left and the right of the political mayhem ensuing following Jan. 6 and has been villainized as an “Antifa activist, anarchist, and even a federal agent, banned from so-called patriot groups,” Metcalf wrote.

“Here, Mr. Alam is lost in this world. He is a loner, one who went to the Capitol on his own, and acted at times in a manner he may have believed others wanted him to act,” Metcalf wrote. “Alam wanted to fit in, it did not matter with whom, Alam just wanted to fit in somewhere because he has been rejected by everyone else in his life.”

Alam is a medical school dropout whose father is of Palestinian descent, and his mother is of Pennsylvania Dutch descent, the document said. Dropping out of medical school strained his relationship with his father. After his Jan. 6 arrest, the relationship took another wrong turn. His struggles include living for a time in a storage unit, where he would sneak in and out so others would not see him.

He showered at a local gym to get ready for the day with proper hygiene. Then COVID hit, and all the gyms closed.

“Something then changed in Alam,” the memo said. “This is how Alam ended up in his position on January 6, 2021.”

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Cop sued for allegedly showing teens obscene, violent videos

homesafetytechpros — Wed, 18 Sep 2024 14:12:08 +0000

Trabuco Hills High School in Mission Viejo, California (Screengrab via KTLA).

Just days after he was hit with a civil lawsuit for showing a group of teens obscene videos, an Orange County, California, sheriff’s deputy has officially been stripped of his license to work as a law enforcement officer.

Justin Raymond Ramirez, 34, faced criminal charges in February 2023 for showing four teenage girls videos that were pornographic, violent, and otherwise inappropriate — all while working as a school resource officer at Trabuco Hills High School in Mission Viejo. According to prosecutors, during a school lunch break in September 2022, two girls approached Ramirez’s patrol car and the officer showed them a video of a couple engaging in sexual intercourse. The girls then called two additional girls over to the car and Ramirez showed the video to all four students. The students were all 15 or 16 years old.

Prosecutors went on to describe the disturbing video:

After a few moments, another man enters the room with a knife. He stabs the first man and proceeds to repeatedly stab the woman on the bed. The woman ultimately goes lifeless as a pool of blood appears on camera. In addition to showing this video to the students, Ramirez sent the video by phone to another deputy sheriff in 2021.

Prosecutors said that a second video Ramirez shared with the group of teens showed two men smoking a controlled substance together and one man blowing smoke from the substance “into the rear end area of the other man.”

The two videos, along with a third that showed a severe dog bite sustained by a woman, were found on Ramirez’s cellphone by police and matched descriptions provided by the students. Additional searches of Ramirez’s cellphone showed other images that appeared to be inappropriately taken from crime scenes, nude photos of Ramirez on police grounds, and a video of a couple having intercourse that appeared to be recorded through the window of a private home.

When one student’s parent notified the school about the incident, authorities referred the case to the Orange County District Attorney’s Office for prosecution.

At the time, Orange County District Attorney Todd Spitzer said in a statement, “Ramirez had no business being in a position of trust around children — and he abused that position of trust in a truly disgusting way.” Spitzer also noted at the time that Ramirez resigned from the Sheriff’s Department in December 2022.

In April 2023, Ramirez entered a court-ordered diversion program that permitted him to avoid jail time for the misdemeanor criminal charges against him related to the videos.

After holding a hearing in March, the California Commission on Peace Officer Standards and Training (POST) revoked Ramirez’s license to work as a law enforcement officer in the state on Thursday. The commission’s decertification decision will be forwarded to a national database of ineligible officers.

The commission’s decision came days after a civil lawsuit was filed against Ramirez and Orange County Sheriff Don Barnes by a family of one of the teen girls who said Ramirez showed her the videos.

According to the Orange County Register, the lawsuit filed by the family alleged that the teen had been reluctant to tell her parents about seeing the video and felt “extreme emotional distress” at losing trust in police. The girl’s mother said in the lawsuit that when she called authorities about the matter, she “emphatically” told a dispatcher multiple times that she did not want anyone sent to her home, because she did not want police involved to know where she lived.

According to the Orange County Register, the mother claimed that despite assurances that a different law enforcement agency would respond to the mother’s complaint, Ramirez and another deputy showed up at the family’s residence. According to the complaint, Ramirez “had a strange grin on his face” while the mother explained her concerns — all while the mother was unaware that Ramirez himself was the officer in question.

The lawsuit also reportedly alleged that later, the mother received an apologetic call from Barnes, who said he was “just as angry as she was.”

Ramirez was also a defendant in a federal wrongful death lawsuit stemming from the 2019 death of Chong Tok “Richard” Rha following a violent struggle as the officers tried to take Rha into custody. Though Ramirez was cleared of any criminal charges related to Rha’s arrest, the Orange County Board of Supervisors agreed to a $1.5 million settlement of the civil claim filed by Rha’s family.

Counsel for Ramirez could not immediately be reached for comment.

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Lawyer who threatened wife may have violent history: Cops

homesafetytechpros — Sun, 15 Sep 2024 03:34:13 +0000

Background: West Country Club Road in Aventura, Florida (Google Maps). Inset: Andrew Zelmanowitz (Miami-Dade Corrections & Rehabilitation/WPLG).

A Florida attorney accused of holding a gun to his wife’s head after assaulting her may have a long history of domestic violence, according to police.

Andrew Zelmanowitz, 42, is accused of second degree felony robbery, depriving a victim of medical care, and misdemeanor assault, Miami-Dade County Court Records show. According to local ABC affiliate WPLG, Zelmanowitz’s wife went to police on Wednesday and told them he has “continuously beaten her” — and that things had escalated.

The station, citing an arrest report, says that the violence began at around 6:15 p.m. on Wednesday when Zelmanowitz’s wife, who is not identified in the story, asked him to read a note to her.

“Zelmanowitz arose from the bed, grabbed [her] by the throat and began choking and pushing her,” the arrest report says, according to WPLG. “As a result her head had struck the television.”

The attorney’s wife reportedly tried to call 911 “while Zelmanowitz continued to push her,” the report says. He “forcefully” pulled his wife’s from her hand, and when she tried to run, he allegedly shoved her into their closet, “causing her to hit the shelves, and proceeded to shove her to the floor.”

He then allegedly threatened her life.

“I will kill you,” he said after physically getting on top of his wife, according to the arrest report. He allegedly continued to choke her at that time. Although his wife screamed for help, Zelmanowitz covered her mouth with his hands, the report said.

Seconds later, the lawyer got off his wife and grabbed his gun from a safe. He allegedly placed the gun on the floor next to his wife’s head.

According to police, the victim told them she had previously taken the bullets and hid them because of her husband’s violent past, and she wasn’t sure if he pointed it at her, as she was face down and crying at that point.

Zelmanowitz’s wife was eventually able to flee the bedroom. Police reported seeing bruises on her forearms and upper arms. Zelmanowitz was eventually arrested Thursday after getting home from work. Police reportedly said he tried to leave as a police car approached, but he was pulled over.

WPLG reported that the couple has two children together, but the children did not witness the alleged attack.

Zelmanowitz was reportedly booked into the Turner Guilford Knight Correctional Center on a $6,000 bond. Records indicate that he is no longer in custody, and was issued a “stay away order” as part of his pretrial release conditions.

The Florida Bar lists Zelmanowitz as an attorney in good standing and an employee of the Berger Singerman law firm in Fort Lauderdale. He was admitted to practice law in the state in 2009 and does not have a disciplinary record.

WPLG reported that the Berger Singerman website described Zelmanowitz as a partner and member of the firm’s dispute resolution team, but his profile appeared to have been taken down as of Saturday afternoon.

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