In brief: Gunman kills noted journalist
Hrant Dink, the most prominent voice of Turkey’s shrinking Armenian community who stood trial for speaking out against the mass killings of Armenians by Turks, was shot and killed in broad daylight Friday at the entrance to his newspaper’s offices.
Just hours after a gunman pumped two bullets into the journalist’s head, thousands marched down the bustling street where he was slain. They blocked traffic, carried posters of Dink and shouted slogans in favor of free expression.
Late Friday, Istanbul’s governor announced that three people were arrested, CNN-Turk television reported without giving further details.
Most Turks assumed the shooting was politically motivated, a reaction to Dink’s public statements that the mass killings of Armenians around the time of World War I constituted genocide. Nationalists see such statements as insults to the honor of Turks and as threats to national unity.
Phoenix
Sex offender posed as boy, police say
A charter school alerted authorities to a 29-year-old sex offender who tried to enroll there, pretending he was just 12, in what sheriff’s officials said Friday may have been an attempt to lure children into sexual abuse.
The Yavapai County Sheriff’s Office also said Neil Havens Rodreick II conned two men he was living with and having sex with into believing he was a young boy. One of them, 61-year-old Lonnie Stiffler, called himself Rodreick’s grandfather when he tried to enroll him at Mingus Springs Charter School as “Casey Price.”
“This is the weirdest case I’ve seen in 18 years,” sheriff’s spokeswoman Susan Quayle said. “If it wasn’t so sad it would be funny.”
A total of four men were in custody in the case Friday on various charges, including fraud, forgery, identity theft, and failure to register as a sex offender.
Washington
Sub commander relieved of duty
The Navy announced Friday it relieved the commander of a nuclear submarine that was involved in an incident that killed two sailors.
On Dec. 29, rough seas swept four American sailors from the deck of the submarine off the coast of southwestern England. The USS Minneapolis-St. Paul was leaving Plymouth harbor when the sailors were knocked into the water by surging waves. The four men were taken to a hospital in Plymouth, where two were pronounced dead.
According to officials, an initial review determined the incident was avoidable and due in part to a poor decision by the commander. A formal investigation is still under way.