'Senior Assassin': Ohio high school principal alerts parents about students' game
UHRICHSVILLE ‒ An Ohio high school principal has sent out a letter to district parents informing them some seniors may be playing something called Senior Assassin.
Claymont High School Principal Kelsi Barnhart described it as an unofficial, non-school sanctioned game.
In Senior Assassin, students use water guns or other harmless items to "eliminate" assigned targets, who are typically classmates, Barnhart wrote. "While this game may seem like innocent fun, it can present significant safety concerns."
Those concerns include:
Public perception and safety risks. Students seen carrying realistic-looking water guns could cause alarm or confusion in public places, the principal said. In some cases, law enforcement has been called because of mistaken identity.
Risky behavior. Participants often hide, chase or ambush each other in parking lots, neighborhoods and other locations, leading to unsafe situations such as trespassing, distracted driving or accidents.
Community impact. The game's activities can sometimes cause disruptions or concerns among residents, businesses and local authorities.
Barnhart urged parents to talk to their children about making responsible choices and being aware of the potential risks involved. If students are participating in this activity, they should use brightly colored, clearly toy-like water guns and avoid any actions that could be perceived as threatening.
This article originally appeared on The Times-Reporter: Ohio principal issues warning to parents about 'Senior Assassin' game
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Los Angeles Times
6 hours ago
- Los Angeles Times
Massive sculptures worth $2.1 million stolen from warehouse in mysterious heist
The two towering sculptures comprising thousands of pounds of bronze and stainless steel took artist and filmmaker Sir Daniel Winn more than a year to complete. They vanished in a weekend. Police believe that on June 14 or 15 at least one thief made off with both 'Icarus Within' and 'Quantum Mechanics: Homme,' — sculptures valued at a combined $2.1 million — from a warehouse in Anaheim Hills. Other artwork and valuables inside the warehouse that would have been easier to move were untouched. Authorities have scant details about the heist. 'Unfortunately, we have little information but we are investigating,' Anaheim Police Sgt. Matt Sutter said. The life-sized 'Quantum Mechanics: Homme' artwork, composed of lucite, bronze and stainless steel, depicts a winged and horned man and was featured in the award-winning short film 'Creation' in 2022. It's valued at $1.8 million. A second Winn piece, 'Icarus Within,' based partially on the sculptor's chaotic childhood escape from Vietnam, is a steel and bronze sculpture that also stands 8 feet tall, weighs a ton, and is valued at $350,000. Both sculptures were being stored in a temporary facility and were last seen by warehouse workers in Anaheim Hills on Saturday, according to the Anaheim Police Department. When the workers returned to the facility Monday, both pieces were missing, according to police. Winn believes the pieces may have been stolen by an unscrupulous collector while an art recovery expert suspects the two sculptures will be destroyed for scrap metal. 'Typically these sculptures, when we do exhibitions, take about a dozen men and two forklifts to move it and a flatbed or a truck to carry it,' Winn said. 'This is not an easy task.' Winn told The Times that the last few days have been stressful and that his anxiety has been 'through the roof.' Winn is considered a blue-chip artist, meaning his work is highly sought after and has a high monetary value. The former UC Irvine medical student, who was once homeless after switching his major from medicine to art, said he blends fine art, quantum metaphysics and philosophy into his work. The Vietnamese refugee owns the Winn Slavin Fine Art gallery on Rodeo Drive and was appointed earlier this month as Art Commissioner for John Wayne Airport. The loss of his art has pushed Winn 'to a dark place,' he said, though he's found some catharsis in talking about the situation. 'These are my children,' he said of each of his individual works. 'I have no physical, organic children. Every artwork I create is my child.' The larger of two sculptures, 'Homme,' was the seventh and only unsold work in Winn's Quantum Mechanics series, which explores philosophical concepts, universal truths and tries to answer the enduring question: why are we here? The smaller 'Icarus Within' focused on Winn's struggle around the age of 9 in emigrating to the United States in the final days of the Vietnam War. The sculpture was tied to Winn's movie 'Chrysalis,' based on his memoirs, that is supposed to premier this fall. Winn said the level of sophistication in the theft led him to suspect he was targeted and that his pieces may be on the black market. He turned over a list of individuals who have recently inquired about his sculptures to police, he said. Sutter, the Anaheim Police sergeant, said this is the largest burglary he's seen in his 25 years with the department. 'We've had our share of high-end homes that were burglarized, but this type of crime, involving forklifts, trucks, crews and the sheer size of the sculptures is something I can't remember us having before,' Sutter said. Sutter said investigators are asking businesses near the warehouse for any footage that could help them identify a suspect. 'I have no idea where these sculptures are,' Sutter said. 'They could be in somebody's house or in a shipping container somewhere. That's what we're trying to find out.' Chris Marinello, founder of the dispute resolution and art recovery service named Art Recovery International, said the sculptures will likely be scrapped for their metals. Marinello said scrap yards tear apart such works into thousands of small pieces to cloak the metal's origin. 'Unfortunately, the criminals are not that bright and they don't see artwork but, instead, a sculpture worth millions that is more valuable to them for the raw metals like steel and bronze,' Marinello said. Marinello pointed to a two-ton Henry Moore bronze sculpture, known as the Reclining Figure, stolen from the artist's foundation in Hertfordshire, England in 2005. The piece was valued at 3 million pounds, but authorities believe it was scrapped for just 1,500 pounds. 'You can't sell sculptures of this magnitude on the market,' Marinello said of the Winn's stolen pieces.
Los Angeles Times
6 hours ago
- Los Angeles Times
How the LAPD's protest response once again triggered outrage, injuries and lawsuits
Bridgette Covelli arrived near Los Angeles City Hall for last Saturday's 'No Kings' festivities to find what she described as a peaceful scene: people chanting, dancing, holding signs. No one was arguing with the police, as far as she could tell. Enforcement of the city's curfew wouldn't begin for hours. But seemingly out of nowhere, Covelli said, officers began to fire rubber bullets and launch smoke bombs into the crowd, which had gathered to protest the Trump administration's aggressive immigration enforcement campaign. 'No dispersal order. Nothing at all,' she said. 'We were doing everything right. There was no aggression toward them.' Covelli, 23, grabbed an electric bike and turned up 3rd Street, where another line of police blocked parts of the roadway. She felt a shock of pain in her arm as she fell from the bike and crashed to the sidewalk. In a daze, she realized she was bleeding after being struck by a hard-foam projectile shot by an unidentified LAPD officer. The young tattoo artist was hospitalized with injuries that included a fractured forearm, which has left her unable to work. 'I haven't been able to draw. I can't even brush my teeth correctly,' she said. She is among the demonstrators and journalists hurt this month after being targeted by LAPD officers with foam projectiles, tear gas, flash-bang grenades and paintball-like weapons that waft pepper spray into the air. Despite years of costly lawsuits, oversight measures and promises by leaders to rein in indiscriminate use of force during protests, the LAPD once again faces sharp criticism and litigation over tactics used during the past two weeks. In a news conference at police headquarters last week, LAPD Chief Jim McDonnell promised 'a comprehensive review when this is all done,' while also defending officers he said were dealing with 'a very chaotic, dynamic situation.' Police officials said force was used only after a group of agitators began pelting officers with bottles, fireworks and other objects. At least a dozen police injuries occurred during confrontations, including one instance in which a protester drove a motorcycle into a line of officers. L.A. County prosecutors have charged several defendants with assault for attacks on law enforcement. Behind the scenes, according to communications reviewed by The Times and multiple sources who requested anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly, tensions sometimes ran high between LAPD commanders and City Hall officials, who pushed for restraint in the early hours of the protests downtown. On June 6 — the Friday that the demonstrations began — communication records show Mayor Karen Bass made calls to LAPD Capt. Raul Jovel, the incident commander, and to McDonnell. In the days that followed, sources said Bass or members of her senior staff were a constant presence at a command post in Elysian Park, from where local and federal officials were monitoring the on-the-ground developments. Some LAPD officials have privately grumbled about not being allowed to make arrests sooner, before protesters poured into downtown. Although mostly peaceful, a handful of those who flooded the streets vandalized shops, vehicles and other property. LAPD leaders have also pointed out improvements from past years, including restrictions on the use of bean-bag shotguns for crowd control and efforts to more quickly release people who were arrested. But among longtime LAPD observers, the latest protest response is widely seen as another step backward. After paying out millions over the last decade for protest-related lawsuits, the city now stares down another series of expensive court battles. 'City leaders like Mayor Bass [are] conveniently saying, 'Oh this is Trump's fault, this is the Feds' fault.' No, take a look at your own force,' said longtime civil rights attorney James DeSimone, who filed several excessive force government claims against the city and the county in recent days. A spokesperson for Bass didn't immediately respond to a request for comment. McDonnell — a member of the LAPD command staff during an aggressive police crackdown on immigrant rights demonstrators on May Day in 2007 — found himself on the defensive during an appearance before the City Council last week, when he faced questions about readiness and whether more could have been done to prevent property damage. 'We'll look and see, are there training issues, are there tactics [issues], are there less-lethal issues that need to be addressed,' McDonnell told reporters a few days later. One of the most potentially embarrassing incidents occurred during the 'No Kings' rally Saturday, when LAPD officers could be heard on a public radio channel saying they were taking friendly fire from L.A. County sheriff's deputies shooting less-lethal rounds. Three LAPD sources not authorized to speak publicly confirmed the incident occurred. A spokesperson for the Sheriff's Department said in a statement that the agency 'has not received reports of any 'friendly fire' incidents.' Some protesters allege LAPD officers deliberately targeted individuals who posed no threat. Shakeer Rahman, a civil rights attorney and community organizer with the Stop LAPD Spying Coalition, said he was monitoring a demonstration snaking past LAPD headquarters on June 8 when he witnessed two colleagues who were demanding to know an officer's badge number get shot with a 40mm less-lethal launcher at close range. In a recording he shared of the incident, Rahman can be heard confronting the officer, who threatens to fire as he paces back and forth on an elevated platform. 'I'm gonna pop you right now, because you're taking away my focus,' the officer is heard saying before raising his weapon over the glass partition that separated them and firing two foam rounds at Rahman, nearly striking him in his groin. 'It's an officer who doesn't want to be questioned and knows he can get away with firing these shots,' said Rahman, who noted a 2021 court injunction bans the use of 40mm launchers in most crowd-control situations. Later on June 8, as clashes between officers and protesters intensified in other parts of downtown, department leaders authorized the use of tear gas against a crowd — a common practice among other agencies, but one that the LAPD hasn't used in decades. 'There was a need under these circumstances to deploy it when officers started taking being assaulted by commercial fireworks, some of those with shrapnel in them,' McDonnell said to The Times. 'It's a different day, and we use the tools we are able to access.' City and state leaders arguing against Trump's deployment of soldiers to L.A. have made the case that the LAPD is better positioned to handle demonstrations than federal forces. They say local cops train regularly on tactics beneficial to crowd control, including de-escalation, and know the downtown terrain where most demonstrations occur. But numerous protesters who spoke with The Times said they felt the LAPD officers were quicker to use violence than they have been at any point in recent years. Raphael Mamoun, 36, followed the June 8 march from City Hall to the federal Metropolitan Detention Center on Alameda Street. Mamoun, who works in digital security, said his group eventually merged with other demonstrators and wound up bottlenecked by LAPD near the intersection of Temple and Alameda, where a stalemate with LAPD officers ensued. After roughly an hour, he said, chaos erupted without warning. 'I don't know if they made any announcement, any dispersal order, but basically you had like a line of mounted police coming behind the line of cops that were on foot and then they just started charging, moving forward super fast, pushing people, screaming at people, shooting rubber bullets,' he said. Mamoun's complaints echoed those of other demonstrators and observations of Times reporters at multiple protest scenes throughout the week. LAPD dispersal orders were sometimes only audible when delivered from an overhead helicopter. Toward the end of Saturday's hours-long 'No Kings' protests, many demonstrators contended officers used force against crowds that had been relatively peaceful all day. The LAPD's use of horses has also raised widespread concern, with some protesters saying the department's mounted unit caused injuries and confusion rather than bringing anything resembling order. One video captured on June 8 by independent journalist Tina-Desiree Berg shows a line of officers on horseback advance into a crowd while other officers fire less-lethal rounds at protesters shielding themselves with chairs and road signs. A protester can be seen falling to the ground, seemingly injured. The mounted units continue marching forward even as the person desperately tries to roll out of the way. Several horses trample over the person's prone body before officers arrest them. At other scenes, mounted officers were weaving through traffic and running up alongside vehicles that were not involved with the demonstrations. In one incident on June 10, a Times reporter saw a mounted officer smashing the roof of a car repeatedly with a wooden stick. 'It just seems like they are doing whatever the hell they want to get protesters, and injure protesters,' Mamoun said. Audrey Knox, 32, a screenwriter and teacher, was also marching with the City Hall group on June 8. She stopped to watch a tense skirmish near the Grand Park Metro stop when officers began firing projectiles into the crowd. Some protesters said officers fired less-lethal rounds into groups of people in response to being hit with flying objects. Although she said she was well off to the side, she was still struck in the head by one of the hard-foam rounds. Other demonstrators helped her get to a hospital, where Knox said she received five staples to close her head wound. In a follow-up later in the week, a doctor said she had post-concussion symptoms. The incident has made her hesitant to demonstrate again, despite her utter disgust for the Trump administration's actions in Los Angeles. 'It just doesn't seem smart to go back out because even when you think you're in a low-risk situation, that apparently is not the case,' she said. 'I feel like my freedom of speech was directly attacked, intentionally.' Times staff writers Julia Wick, Connor Sheets and Richard Winton contributed to this report.
Los Angeles Times
9 hours ago
- Los Angeles Times
Protesters gather after immigration raid targets car wash in L.A. County
Protesters gathered in southeast Los Angeles County Friday evening, facing off with masked men in fatigues after federal agents detained at least three people at a car wash in the city of Bell, according to witnesses, and visited another car wash in neighboring Maywood. The immigration action in Bell took place at Jack's Car Wash and Detailing, located in the 7000 block of Atlantic Avenue, just north of Florence Avenue. Security camera footage reviewed by The Times shows masked men wearing olive vests chasing a car wash employee, who was wearing a bright green uniform and cap. The video shows another employee — wearing a bright green cap, a white long-sleeved shirt and blue jeans — surrounded by the masked men, his hands restrained behind his back. The employee is tackled to the ground as customers and others gathered, with some taking out their phones to record videos. The man in the white-long sleeved shirt is a car wash worker who is a U.S. citizen, according to the employee's brother, Jesús Rafael Cervantes. He said his brother, who lives in Bell Gardens, wanted to defend a coworker— an action that, Cervantes said, prompted agents to detain his brother. 'Just for defending someone, they came and knocked him down. As you can see in the videos, they came and knocked him down like that, just like that. And that's unfair, that they come and grab a person like that as if he were an animal or something,' Cervantes told The Times. Protesters gathered to confront the agents in the area, which is about 6 miles southeast of downtown Los Angeles. In one video shared with The Times, a protester sprays white paint on a silver SUV and a voice can be heard saying, 'Get the ... out of here!' while others jeer. People can be seen hitting the vehicle. Officials with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security did not immediately return a request for comment. In a statement posted on social media, the agency said Border Patrol vehicles 'were violently targeted during lawful operations' in Bell and neighboring Maywood. The Department of Homeland Security said one vehicle was rammed and had its tires slashed on Atlantic Boulevard. On Slauson Avenue, a civilian struck a federal vehicle, totaling it, according to the department. The statement included photos showing silver vehicles with cracked or shattered windows. One silver SUV was shown with dented doors and scratched paint. 'The driver was arrested for suspicion of vehicular assault as a mob formed and slashed additional tires,' the department said. 'Federal law enforcement is facing an ever-escalating increase in assaults—but we will not be deterred,' the department said. 'If you assault a federal officer, you will be prosecuted.' The statement did not indicate how many were detained on immigration-related matters. The protest in Bell, a city with a large Latino and Lebanese community, comes as the federal government continues its campaign in Los Angeles to find and capture undocumented immigrants. The actions have spurred backlash from local and state officials and have forced some residents into hiding. 'We're not sure who these armed men are. They show up without uniforms. They show up completely masked. They refuse to give ID. They're driving regular cars with tinted windows and in some cases, out of state license plates. Who are these people?' Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass said at a briefing Friday night. 'If they're federal officials, why is it that they do not identify themselves?' Bass asked. Around Atlantic and Brompton avenues, crowds of people gathered, taking videos and looking at the agents — armed individuals wearing balaclavas, some carrying long weapons, wearing vests and camoflauge pants. They stood in the street near a Baskin-Robbins ice cream shop. The crowd and agents were separated by yellow tape. One woman with a bullhorn hurled obscenities at the agents and President Trump; others waved a Mexican flag and an upside-down U.S. flag, traditionally a symbol of protest or distress. 'Losers!' another woman called out. 'Go fight a real war!' Another shouted, 'Shame on you!' Elsewhere, one of the armed people wore a U.S. flag on his vest, and some onlookers called out to them. 'Are you a bounty hunter? How much is the bounty for an illegal right now?' someone on the street yelled. Cudahy Mayor Elizabeth Alcantar Loza was in Bell as the crowds gathered, and said the mood on Atlantic Avenue shifted when suddenly an unmarked silver SUV drove toward her and other people standing near her, angering the crowd. Some began to hit and throw objects at the SUV. A second unmarked vehicle attempted to do the same thing moments later, she said. 'It felt like there was a point being made to incite violence,' Alcantar Loza said. 'People were peacefully protesting, and it became something completely different because of the vehicle that was trying to drive into the crowd.' 'We've seen it across the board, folks show up to an immigration activity and then violence is enacted upon them. Then they respond and we're shown as violent protesters—when in reality folks were calm, they were chanting, they were protesting. And they tried to run people over,' she said. Just after 8 p.m., peaceful protesters waving Mexican and American flags gathered around Jack's Car Wash in Bell, as motorists honked their horns in support. 'ICE out of everywhere!!!' one sign said. 'Immigrants built this country,' said another. There was another immigration action that appeared to focus on a car wash in Maywood on Friday, according to Maywood Councilman Eddie De La Riva. Ultimately no one was taken from that business, he said. At one point, there was considerable commotion near the car wash. Video shared with The Times shows a minor collision between a blue BMW and a blue SUV with at least three agents inside, all wearing green vests. One of the passengers in the SUV opens his door in front of the slowly moving BMW, causing the BMW to hit the SUV's door. Agents detained the BMW's driver, who was later released, the councilman said, after onlookers shouted at the agents to let the driver go. By then, a crowd of protesters had formed. Fernando Botello, 39, was driving back to Maywood after picking up his girlfriend's 14-year-old son when he got an alert on his citizen app that people suspected to be immigration agents were spotted in the area. Moments later, he said, he learned that the agents were at an Xpress Wash at Slauson and Alamo avenues, just blocks from his home. When Botello got close to the intersection, he could see several vehicles were blocking the roadway. Unable to move, he got out of the car and watched the scene. He said the crowd started screaming to let the man go. He could hear people asking for the agents' badge numbers. After five minutes, he said, local police arrived. It was at that point, he said, the agents got in their vehicles and threw tear gas at a group standing on a corner near a park. A video taken by Botello shows an armed masked man standing from the ledge of an open door of a black SUV slowly driving along a street near Maywood's Riverfront Park. The video shows the agent throwing an object toward a crowd of people, and a loud bang can be heard as he gets back in the vehicle. Botello said the object was a flash bang grenade, and was tossed at people who were taking video. 'They knew what they wanted to do,' he said. As he recounted the situation, Botello paused, trying to hold back tears. 'I was upset because the people were exercising their right. They weren't hitting the officers' vehicles, they weren't in the middle of the street,' he said. 'You're punishing people for standing up for their neighbors and yourself.' 'It feels surreal. I don't know how long this is going to last.'
