Sept. 9, 2013 CNN
George Zimmerman was taken into custody Monday after an apparent domestic altercation with his wife and her father at a home in Lake Mary, Florida, police said.
"As of right now, (George Zimmerman) has been placed in investigative detention," Lake Mary police spokesman Zach Hudson said.
The incident comes two months after Zimmerman, a neighborhood watch volunteer, was found not guilty of murder in the shooting death of Trayvon Martin in Sanford, Florida.
Hudson said a gun was found in the Lake Mary home, but he added that it was not a part of the altercation.
Shellie Zimmerman, who filed for divorce last week, was the one to call 911, Hudson said.
Hudson added that police are following procedure by placing Zimmerman in investigative detention. Read More
On September 9, 1971, prisoners riot and seize control of the maximum-security Attica Correctional Facility near Buffalo, New York. Later that day, state police retook most of the prison, but 1,281 convicts occupied an exercise field called D Yard, where they held 39 prison guards and employees hostage for four days. After negotiations stalled, state police and prison officers launched a disastrous raid on September 13th, in which 10 hostages and 29 inmates were killed in an indiscriminate hail of gunfire. Eighty-nine others were seriously injured.
On September 7, 1911, French poet Guillaume Apollinaire is arrested and jailed on suspicion of stealing Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa from the Louvre in Paris. The 31-year-old poet was known for his radical views and support for extreme avant-garde art movements, but his origins were shrouded in mystery.
South African Prime Minister Hendrik Verwoerd
On September 6, 1966, South African Prime Minister is assassinated during a parliamentary meeting in Cape Town. The assailant, Demetrio Tsafendas, was a Mozambique immigrant of mixed racial descent--part Greek and part Swazi. As minister of native affairs and later as South African leader, Verwoerd oversaw the introduction and application of South Africa's racist apartheid policies.
Sept. 5, 2013 Huffington Post
Ten years after the passage of landmark legislation designed to curb and eventually eliminate rape behind bars, prisoner advocates remain confident the law can save lives.
The Prison Rape Elimination Act, signed into law by George W. Bush on Sept. 4, 2003, is the "first federal civil law to address sexual abuse in detention," according to a press release from Just Detention International.
"PREA stands today as one of the most significant human rights victories in modern U.S. history,” Lovisa Stannow, JDI’s Executive Director, said in the release. “The law acknowledged that prisoner rape constitutes a crisis – something many people denied at the time – and that the government has a duty to end this violence."
Stannow said the law has had a "transformative impact."
"Corrections facilities are more transparent, and are adopting policies and practices that were simply unheard of before PREA,” Stannow said.
The legislation mandated a nationwide survey, released in 2010, that showed the prevalence of prison rape and abuse across the country.
The survey showed that one in eight detained youths are sexually abused. That number is nine times greater for transgender youths. Overall, about 200,000 people are sexually abused behind bars every year. Read More
Lynette "Squeaky" Fromme
On September 5, 1975, an assassination attempt against President Gerald Ford is foiled in Sacramento, California, when a Secret Service agent wrests a semi-automatic handgun from Lynette "Squeaky" Fromme, a follower of incarcerated cult leader Charles Manson.
Sept. 4, 2013 ABC News
Ariel Castro, who was convicted of kidnapping, torturing and imprisoning three young women for over a decade in his Ohio home, committed suicide by hanging in his prison cell. He was characterized as a degenerate and a coward by the prosecutor from his case.
"These degenerate molesters are cowards," Cuyahoga County Prosecutor Timothy McGinty said in a statement. "They con and capture vulnerable children. This man couldn't take, for even a month, a small portion of what he had dished out for more than a decade."
"Let this be a message to other child kidnappers: There will be a heavy price to pay when you are caught," he said. "You won't enjoy the captive side of the bars."
See the Evidence from the Ariel Castro Kidnapping Case
Castro, 53, died after being found hanging in his cell at Correctional Reception Center in Orient, Ohio, Tuesday at 9:20 p.m. local time, Ohio Department of Corrections spokeswoman JoEllen Smith said.
Facility staff tried unsuccessfully to resuscitate the prisoner, according to Smith. Castro was taken to Ohio State University Medical Center and was pronounced dead at 10:52 p.m. Read More
On the night of November 29, 1988, near the impoverished Marlborough neighborhood in south Kansas City, an explosion at a construction site killed six of the city’s firefighters. It was a clear case of arson, and five people from Marlborough were duly convicted of the crime. But for veteran crime writer and crusading editor J. Patrick O’Connor, the facts—or a lack of them—didn’t add up. Justice on Fire is OConnor’s detailed account of the terrible explosion that led to the firefighters’ deaths and the terrible injustice that followed. Also available from Amazon
