Two injured in Northwest shooting

unidentified gunman riding in a car near the U Street corridor in Northwest Washington opened fire Thursday afternoon, injuring two people, according to police and a D.C. council member.The shooting took place around 2:40 p.m. at 14th and V Streets NW. The intersection is one block north of the busy U Street corridor.Council Member Jim Graham (D-Ward 1), who said he was briefed by police, said authorities are investigating whether the shooting stemmed from a rivalry between two gangs, the “7th and O St. crew” and the “9th and R St. crew.”One victim was shot in the ankle, said Officer Tisha Gant, a police spokeswoman. A second victim also was injured, but the extent of that person’s injuries were not clear. Both were transported to a local hospital.Graham said authorities are looking for a...

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Drug gangs are beginning to muscle into a new territory: Central America – an action that is likely to cost U.S. taxpayers.

Even by the brazen standards of cocaine cowboys, what happened a few months ago at an air force base here set new levels for audacity: Drug traffickers snuck onto the heavily guarded base and retrieved a confiscated plane.Confederates at the airbase had already fueled and warmed up the motors of the Beechcraft Super King Air 200, a workhorse of the cocaine trade. Within days, it would be again hauling dope from South America.The stunt was a black eye for the Honduran military, and just one of many signs that parts of Central America have fallen into the maw of international organized crime, threatening decades of U.S. efforts to stanch the tidal wave of drugs headed to American cities and towns.Washington has spent billions of dollars to help push drug cartels out of Colombia, and to confront...

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U.S. warns on travel to five more Mexican states

U.S. State Department on Friday broadened its travel warning on Mexico to include parts of five additional states, including a highway where suspected drug gangs shot two U.S. customs officials in February.The warning advises U.S. government personnel and American citizens to defer nonessential travel in certain parts of Jalisco, Nayarit, San Luis Potosi, Sonora and Zacatecas.It outright bans U.S. employees from traveling to Colotlan and Yahualica, two cities in the central-west state of Jalisco near the Zacatecas border due to increasing drug gang violence."Concerns include roadblocks placed by individuals posing as police or military personnel and recent gun battles between rival transnational criminal organizations involving automatic weapons," the State Department warning said.The restrictions...

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'R.I.P. Daddy': Man sentenced in Seattle killing

A purported gang member who killed a 24-year-old Seattle man was sentenced Friday to 15 years in prison.Pleading guilty to second-degree murder in March, Jymaika S. Hutson, admitted to killing Tyree Lee on April 28, 2007.Lee, regarded by law enforcement as a member of a Central District street gang, was shot to death outside a friend's home. Hutson, 32, had been a member of a rival gang, though he has since insisted that he abandoned the gang after a shotgun blast left his face severely scarred.As his brother’s son looked on in a T-shirt reading “R.I.P. Daddy,” Tyrone Lee Jr. told King County Superior Court Judge Steven Gonzalez that Hutson’s actions four years ago left his family shattered.Tyrone Lee noted that the young men were raised in the same community and had known...

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Californian funeral parlour has become popular with gangs because cemetery shootouts in the 1980s made members reluctant to gather for funerals

Californian funeral parlour has decided to move with the times with drive-through viewing of an open casket. The owner of Robert L. Adams Mortuary, Peggy Scott Adams, said it meant well-known locals could be viewed en masse; older mourners wouldn't have to leave their cars; and those afraid of funeral parlours wouldn't need to go inside. The covered and paved 3.6m-wide drive-through has a bulletproof glass display window, which is visible from the street. "It's a unique feature that sets us aside from other funeral parlours," Ms Scott Adams said. "You can come by after work, you don't need to deal with parking, you can sign the book outside...

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Two British tourists have been shot dead in Florida in what is thought to have been a street robbery that went wrong.

James Cooper, 25, and James Kouzaris, 24, had been holidaying with family and friends in the Gulf coast town of Sarasota.The two men were found riddled with bullets 50 feet apart in a residential area off the tourist trail after police were called to the scene.Officers found the first body surrounded by up to 20 shell casings before discovering the second victim nearby in the early hours of Saturday morning. Local residents had reported what they thought was 'machine gun fire'.  A 16-year-old boy has been arrested and charged with two counts of murder. James Cooper - who had posted pictures of himself on Facebook from exotic locations around the world - was shot dead three days after his 25th birthday.  He had previously visited Ecuador, Taiwan, Argentina, Vietnam and Laos. Mr Cooper...

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