Black man receives sentence after stabbing stranger in face on bus, yelling racial slurs at victim



The Los Angeles County District Attorney's Office said the sentence against Gerald Pitts was intended to show that law enforcement officials take racially motivated violence seriously.

Santos Tejas Gonzalez was trying to get around Pitts on a Los Angeles Metro Bus in March 2023 when Pitts yelled racial slurs at Gonzalez.

'Gerald Pitts attacked a complete stranger because of his race or perceived race, repeatedly stabbed him, and kept attacking him even after the victim fell from the bus.'

When Gonzalez tried to get off the bus at the next stop to avoid further confrontation, Pitts stabbed him in the face and kicked him in the head after the victim fell off the bus.

At one point before Gonzalez fell to the ground outside the bus, the knife can be seen protruding from his face in a graphic bus surveillance video the district attorney's office released.

The victim also was stabbed numerous times in the abdomen, arm, and hand.

Pitts was arrested and charged with attempted murder along with additional crimes, including a hate crime designation. In June, a jury found the 67-year-old guilty, and on Thursday Pitts was sentenced to life in state prison plus another seven years.

"A hate crime is more than just a criminal act against one person; it tears at the fibers that hold our community together," L.A. County District Attorney Nathan Hochman said in a statement.

"These crimes are meant to intimidate entire communities and weaken the trust that holds us together. Gerald Pitts attacked a complete stranger because of his race or perceived race, repeatedly stabbed him, and kept attacking him even after the victim fell from the bus," Hochman added. "We're grateful the victim survived and relieved that he is continuing to recover. This kind of violence is exactly what hate crime laws are meant to address."

The district attorney did not mention Pitts' race in his press release, and news outlets also neglected to mention it. However, Pitts' booking record listed him as a black man.

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Hochman tied the attack on Gonzalez to other hate crimes committed in L.A. County, including one on a transgender shopkeeper.

"This office will not tolerate hate incidents and crimes in our communities and will respond with the full force of the law," Hochman added.

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New bodycam video shows sheriff's deputies fatally shooting knife-wielding male who authorities say stabbed deputy



Newly released bodycam video from the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department shows deputies fatally shooting a knife-wielding male who authorities said stabbed a deputy last month in a Lancaster parking lot.

The video was released Tuesday; the incident occurred June 20 after deputies responded to a 911 call, KABC-TV reported.

'Stop reaching.'

"Hey, I just want to make a report of a guy with some knives, swinging them in public," the caller told a dispatcher, KABC said, citing an audio recording the sheriff's department released.

Surveillance video shows three sheriff patrol vehicles arriving at the scene, the station said, adding that authorities said the suspect — identified as Robert Castro — is seen in the video walking away from the deputies and across a parking lot.

"Before Deputy #1's patrol vehicle came to a stop, Castro turned and rapidly walked in the deputy's direction," the sheriff's department said in a statement, according to KABC. "Castro then ran at Deputy #1, drew a knife, stabbed the deputy, and Deputy #1 discharged his service weapon."

A second deputy also opened fire and then checked on the other deputy, who was bleeding from a stab wound, authorities said, according to the station.

Investigators said the body camera video shows Castro removing a knife from his pocket before the stabbing, KABC reported.

Following the initial confrontation, the second deputy is heard ordering Castro not to move, the station said.

"When Castro moves his hand, Deputy #2 commands him to 'Stop reaching,'" the sheriff's department said, according to KABC, adding that the second deputy then opens fire.

Castro was taken to a hospital where he was pronounced dead, the station reported, adding that the injured deputy also was taken to a hospital and treated for the stab wound.

Authorities said Castro was in possession of three knives at the time of the incident, KABC noted.

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Image source: Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department

"Following notification of this incident, DOJ's California Police Shooting Investigation Team initiated an investigation in accordance with AB1506 mandates," California Attorney General Rob Bonta's office said in a statement last week, KABC reported.

After the state's Department of Justice investigation is complete, it will be turned over to the department's Special Prosecutions Section within the Criminal Law Division for independent review, the station said, citing a news release.

You can view the full sheriff's department video here.

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How a psychic, New Age hippie led me to Catholicism



In 1993, I moved to an industrial city north of Prague, about 30 miles from the Czech/German border. Usti nad Labem had been around for almost a thousand years, but after half a century of socialist dictatorship, anything old had been replaced with hideous prefab housing estates and pollution-spewing chemical plants. It did have an old church from the 14th century, but I never went inside. It was just a relic of a time when being stupid and superstitious was the only option.

I had gotten a job teaching English to engineers at a local natural gas distribution company. I was a 22-year-old Ivy League liberal arts graduate. I had no experience or knowledge worth sharing, of course, and my students were older, with careers and families, and they treated me with deference anyway, as well as with kindness and hospitality. In return, I pitied them as hopelessly trapped in their small lives. I was meant for something bigger. I had no idea what, but I figured it would announce itself eventually.

Within seconds of meeting a girl at a party, he realized they had been lovers in prerevolutionary France, until he was garroted for trying to rescue her from prostitution.

East of Eden

I fell in with the small community of foreigners in town — about 10 Americans along with a few Brits and Canadians — but kept my distance. They weren’t the kind of friends I had in mind for myself — they were too provincial and unsophisticated.

Especially strange to me was a hulking gentle giant from Los Angeles named Chad. He was pushing 30 and lived off savings he had accumulated from a series of showbiz-adjacent jobs, including sales for a porn video distributer and caretaking an old Beverly Hills mansion now used for film shoots.

The mansion had been the site of a lurid, high-society murder-suicide in the '20s and was haunted. He told us of strange encounters he’d had there alone late at night, the distant sound of piano music, which abruptly stopped as he moved toward it; a heavy, nauseating feeling of malice that descended upon him in certain rooms, the eerie sensation of being shoved.

These stories held our attention, but they didn’t seem like a big deal to him. He had always been particularly sensitive to the supernatural, he said, and he had an endless supply of anecdotes bearing this out.

'Star 80'

There was overwhelming mutual attraction he shared with a girl within seconds of meeting her a party, only to realize they had been lovers in prerevolutionary France, until he was garroted for trying to rescue her from prostitution. He had vivid explorations of the lost city of Atlantis in lucid dreams, leaving him with an aching sense of being in exile. He was a connoisseur of 1970s femininity and could talk at length about the unearthly beauty and spiritual depth of murdered Playboy Playmate Dorothy Stratten, whose distinct presence he could often feel, no matter where he was in the world.

I found all this unforgivably hokey. And I felt it reflected badly on me and my future. But I had to admit he was funny and intelligent. We became friends, even though I secretly regarded him with detached, ironic amusement. I enjoyed the matter-of-fact, unpretentious way he delivered even his boldest claims. Once, in one of my regular hungover tailspins of anxiety, I asked him if he wasn’t afraid of nuclear war. He sighed with slight exasperation and explained that obviously the higher beings protecting Earth would never allow it.

This idea didn’t reassure me, but his relaxed, confident demeanor did. And I began to realize that maybe thinking crystals were nonsense didn’t make me a better person. Even if Chad weren’t the conduit to the spirit world he claimed to be, he was uncommonly empathetic and perceptive when it came to other people, which is why we all liked to be around him. Whereas my constantly shifting sense of who I was and what it all meant kept me in a state of agitated self-obsession.

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NurPhoto/Getty Images

Under the bridge

I was too educated to believe that evil left some kind of spiritual mark on a place, but just 50 years ago, this city I used as the backdrop for my inner drama had been ceded to Hitler. Then, it was bombed by Americans. And just after the war, it was the site of a brutal massacre, in which a mob of Czechs attacked their ethnic German neighbors, shooting and stabbing some 100 men, women, and children and throwing them off the town bridge. Maybe Chad was a kook, but at least he made me consider that there might be something at stake in this world. That it mattered what we did and even what we thought. That transcendent good and evil were real and could touch us.

These abstract musings lost their appeal when Chad moved back to California and I moved to Prague. I was finally where the action was. Here the visionaries weren’t so gauche as to talk about communing with the dead or the melancholy of old souls lost in the slipstream of time. They were there to summon the coming techno utopia, which required optimism and an eagerness to let go of the past.

I was on board, but I was also undisciplined and easily discouraged. Everywhere I looked I saw monuments to martyrs: the heretic priest burned at the stake, the ordinary civilians killed in the doomed uprising against the Nazis, the young medical student who set himself on fire to protest the Soviet occupation. Their resolve, like my frantic strivings, seemed meaningless in the face of oblivion.

Settling down

The obvious cure for this self-indulgent, existential dread was to move to New York City and get serious about my life. I temped and lived in cramped apartments in cool neighborhoods and got a low-paying but status-signaling media job. I ran into an old college girlfriend with a sensible career and many of the same friends I’d had. We got married and had children, and we relocated to her hometown of L.A., which I’d heard so much about from Chad.

Chad had moved to a small town outside Sacramento with a wife and son. My wife and I were still in the thick of it, upwardly mobile and cultured, with high expectations for ourselves and our kids. It went without saying that we were good, tolerant people. Church was an occasional, unobtrusive reminder to be grateful and give back. We didn’t have any commitments that might make things awkward with our friends or put us at odds with our community.

I was comfortably settled but still imagined myself as on the verge of transformative, clarifying success. Until one day I didn’t. I wasn’t special, my kids would soon abandon me, and I was going to die. I tried to ease the panic with therapy, running, and Ram Dass videos on YouTube.

Auto-da-Facebook

A goth girl I did plays with in high school re-emerged on Facebook as a devout Catholic stay-at-home mom and pro-life activist. After a few pointless arguments, I calmed down and started reading everything she posted without comment. It was fascinating to imagine being so gullible and narrow-minded. I watched videos she linked to and read books she mentioned. I embedded myself in this bizarre, backwards culture.

A few months later, I was sitting in my car, saying the rosary for the first time, just to see what would happen. I guess I showed her.

I entered the Catholic Church about a year later. Just before the COVID lockdowns, I got a call that Chad had had a massive stroke. We hadn’t been in touch for years. I gave money to his recovery fund and got added to a text group of friends and family who unselfconsciously offered their prayers and invoked the healing power of God’s mercy. I was surprised at how natural I felt doing the same. And how praying actually felt like doing something helpful. I still include him in my daily rosary.

Maybe it’s just guilt that I haven’t written or called, but I like to think he can pick up on it somehow. If so, I hope he humors me, like I humored him 30 years ago.

The truth about Flock cameras: ‘We are the sheep, and they are controlling us’



What started as a plan to track license plates has evolved into something far more expansive, according to automotive expert Lauren Fix. And on “Stu and Dave Do America,” she warns that the rapid expansion of surveillance technology is only getting worse.

“So, you’ve heard about the Flock cameras. Why do they call them ‘Flock’? That’s my first question. Are we the flock?” Fix asks, before answering, “Oh, yes we are. We are the sheep, and they are controlling us.”

“The truth is, they’re supposed to track your license plates, but they don’t. They track the car, the picture of your car, the bumper sticker on your car, ... wherever you’ve been. Do you have a cargo container on your roof? Do you have a bike rack? Do you have a dent? Do you have a scratch? All of that is being tracked,” she continues.


“And it’s not just at one intersection. It’s at every intersection,” she adds.

And Americans aren’t happy with the heightened surveillance.

“One guy got arrested for sitting in a lounge chair. Like, he brought a folding chair out and on a pole like you would use in a pool, he put a piece of cardboard in front of the camera, and he got arrested for obstructing justice,” Fix explains.

“So, again, it was a misdemeanor, but it’s still all B.S.,” she says. “So, the bottom line is, why do you need to have these cameras on the roads?”

But they’re not just on the roads.

“They’re in parks. They’re in schools. They’re at Home Depot. They’re on every single FedEx truck. And don’t worry, they just put it on 400,000 school buses that are supposed to stop when people bypass the bus, where kids are loading and offloading,” Fix explains.

“They’re supposed to take a picture of that person, and you get a ticket,” she continues, noting that the families bringing their children out to the bus are then being photographed too.

“But it gets worse. So many people have complained about these Flock cameras that many cities, including Los Angeles, said, ‘You know what?’ The city of Los Angeles said, ‘We’re going to cancel our contract. Instead, we’re going to go with another company called Axon,’” she says.

This company, Fix warns, makes Flock cameras “look like child’s play.”

“They’ve moved it to the whole next level. They have gone even farther, and they’re making contracts with people that have ended their Flock camera systems,” she explains.

“They will be putting their cameras on every single light post. No permits, no requirements, just putting them on every single light post. That’s about 450 million around the world. And that means every light post on every street will have a camera,” she continues.

Fix claims there’s also a link between the new “kill switch” in cars and this new surveillance system.

“These dots are connected, and I will tell you, you’re not going to be happy,” she adds.

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Los Angeles ‘apostle’ goes viral for dramatic exorcisms — but there’s a dark side of her ministry people are missing



Kathryn Krick is the head pastor of Five-Fold Church in Los Angeles. As a self-proclaimed apostle, she has built a large social media following through viral videos of her deliverance ministry.

Many clips of Krick’s “deliverances” capture events that are often described as shocking, including people convulsing, screaming, shaking, and falling to the ground. In some cases, demons supposedly speak through the person being delivered, using alternate voices and admitting defeat. Testimonies include claims of instant freedom from mental health struggles, suicidal thoughts, addictions, and eating disorders, among others.

But BlazeTV host Allie Beth Stuckey isn’t convinced Krick’s ministry is as honest as it claims to be. On this episode of “Relatable,” Allie dives into Krick’s complicated background and the “three main distinctives” of her ministry that concern her: Krick’s “self-proclaimed title of apostle,” “her theatrical exorcisms and healings,” and “her guaranteeing spiritual blessings for financial donations.”

Background

After first pursuing careers in acting and electronic dance, Krick was launched into deliverance ministry when she attended a “healing, anointing, and impartation conference in L.A. led by Tanzanian minister [and] self-proclaimed prophet GeorDavie,” who Allie says “built a following around claims of miraculous healings, deliverance from demons, while also cultivating a lavish lifestyle, a very successful business empire, and an extensive media presence in Tanzania.”

Apparently during that conference, GeorDavie “called Krick out from the crowd by name, delivered a personal prophecy to her telling her that she had been chosen to become an apostle of Jesus Christ who would reach the nations and through whom God would perform many miracles,” Allie recounts.

Krick then embarked on her apostolic journey, claiming GeorDavie as “her spiritual father.” Even though the charismatic preacher has been “accused of sexual misconduct, with multiple women alleging that he propositioned them for sex, according to Christian Post,” Krick, Allie says, fiercely defends him, telling anyone who criticizes or questions him, “Get behind me, Satan!”

Even though her ministry started small, viral social media posts of her performing “miracles” has allowed her church to grow into a mega-congregation and her social media following to swell to “2.5 million followers.”

Apostolic calling

Because “the apostles were personally chosen by Christ,” Allie believes the age of the apostles is over. The idea that God has restored the offices of apostle and prophet to lead the current church, however, comes from a movement called the “New Apostolic Reformation.”

“This is the belief that in order to have any sort of revival, in order to be legitimate Christianity ... we must have modern-day apostles and prophets that are basically self-appointed [to] lead us into that revival. It must look, according to this loosely associated group of people, like Kathryn Krick,” Allie explains.

She notes that the New Apostolic Reformation treats the “biblical cannon [as] a limitation on what we must be and do,” which is why she rejects it and the ministries that flow from it.

Theatrical ‘deliverances’

While Allie believes that Christ delivers believers from death, Satan, and sin, she is highly skeptical of “deliverance ministries” that promise freedom from demonic spirits, sin strongholds, and other ailments.

“Typically, deliverance ministries are predicated on the idea that it must be convulsion; it must be seizing; it must be this kind of theatrical ... performance,” she says.

Allie then plays several viral clips of Krick’s “deliverances.” In the first, a woman supposedly possessed by a demonic spirit convulses and falls to the ground, screaming, “No, she is mine!” as Krick commands the spirit to leave. In the second, Krick, counting down from three, commands all evil spirits to detach from a man, who flops around on the stage, even after the “deliverance” is over. A third clip captures her blowing into a microphone, flailing her arms at a crowd of people who seem to be dramatically blown back as she passes.

“Also, we see the same people being delivered over and over again in her videos. She has actually been exposed for ‘healing’ the same people repeatedly,” Allie adds, citing an article that “compiled these different examples of the same people in different events being exorcised.”

She then plays several Krick videos that seem to feature the same people supposedly being delivered from demons over and over again. “I guess you could say they were exorcised of a demon and then the next night they were, you know, already possessed again. ... We don’t see examples of that kind of thing happening in Scripture,” Allie says, speculating that these repeaters are actually people who have been “tapped to continue to come back to these events to make it seem extremely sensational.”

Seed sowing

Another issue Allie takes with Krick’s ministry is her encouragement to “sow seeds of faith” or, in other words, “to give money to her ministry with the expectation that doing so will release God’s blessings.”

“Seed faith teaching is part of the broader prosperity gospel, which teaches that God intends believers to experience health and material wealth in this life, and actually that is a guarantee of having the right kind of faith and sufficient faith in God — even though that is the opposite of what Jesus teaches over and over again, the opposite of the experience of the disciples and the apostles,” Allie explains.

“Krick teaches that while we can pray for deliverance, it may not come unless that financial seed is sown, unless you are donating to her ministry,” she adds.

She then plays a video of Krick giving her seed-sowing spiel.

“If you were delivered today, I encourage you to sow a special seed to seal this deliverance, as it says in Psalms that every covenant there is a sacrifice and when every covenant’s made. So, there’s a new covenant of freedom that God’s made with you today, so sow this seed,” she says in the clip.

In another video, Krick speaks to a mother whose young son is writhing on the ground supposedly due to a demonic attack. Krick tells her, “God is going to free him completely. ... Sometimes it’s not just about commanding the demons, but there’s other keys that need to be unlocked, and one of them is to sow seeds.”

When the mother reveals that she’s been tithing 10% of her wages, Krick responds with, “God’s saying more because 10% is what’s God’s, so now we need to sow specifically for his deliverance.”

“And even when God puts on your heart to even sow a seed right now online or something, you know, like, right now, this is what God wants you to do,” she added.

“She needs to give more than 10% of her tithe in order for her son to be healed, and some deliverance is more complicated than the others. Chapter and verse. ... Where do you see that?” Allie asks skeptically.

“These people who are teaching false things, they are betting that you don’t read your own Bible. They are betting upon your ignorance. They are using their supposed apostolic authority to make you ignorant of what the word of God says so that you continue to go to them as your only source of truth and healing.”

To hear more of Allie’s in-depth breakdown, check out the full episode above. To enjoy more of Allie’s upbeat and in-depth coverage of culture, news, and theology from a Christian, conservative perspective, subscribe to BlazeTV — the largest multi-platform network of voices who love America, defend the Constitution, and live the American dream.

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