‘It shattered my world’: an Ohio soccer coach, sexual misconduct and the system that has protected him


Candice Fabry finished training with the under-nine girls team she coached and drove to El Camino Real, a restaurant in Toledo, Ohio. Fabry knew the restaurant from her time as a player with the University of Toledo women’s soccer team. Players would often go there and, according to a team joke, the restaurant didn’t necessarily have the best margaritas in Toledo but it definitely had “the most-known”.

It was July 2007, and Fabry was planning to meet University of Toledo women’s soccer coach Brad Evans and his wife at El Camino Real – as well as the team’s assistant coach Jennifer Whipple. Fabry had previously played for four years on the University of Toledo women’s soccer team, who compete in the Mid-American Conference.

Fabry, her playing career cut short by injury, was planning to announce at the restaurant that she would accept an invitation from Evans to join the team’s staff for the new season as an unpaid volunteer assistant coach – the first step on the ladder for many people wanting to become a college soccer coach.

As Fabry recalls, she arrived at the restaurant still wearing her training gear – T-shirt and shorts – and saw Evans, his wife, and Whipple at the bar. There was cheering and hugs when she told them she would join the staff.

The group moved to a table on an outside patio and at some point in the evening Evans left the group. While Evans was absent, Fabry needed to use the bathroom. She left Evans’ wife and Whipple at the table and walked back into the restaurant, past the hostess table and a closet area near the bathroom.

“The next thing I remember is a tug on my arm and [Evans] pulling me,” recalls Fabry, who says Evans pulled her into an alcove in the restaurant.

https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2022/jul/06/brad-evans-allegations-toledo-soccer-coach-sexual-misconduct-system

It gets worse. And this man is still coaching, involved in youth soccer.

‘It shattered my world’: an Ohio soccer coach, sexual misconduct and the system that has protected him


Candice Fabry finished training with the under-nine girls team she coached and drove to El Camino Real, a restaurant in Toledo, Ohio. Fabry knew the restaurant from her time as a player with the University of Toledo women’s soccer team. Players would often go there and, according to a team joke, the restaurant didn’t necessarily have the best margaritas in Toledo but it definitely had “the most-known”.

It was July 2007, and Fabry was planning to meet University of Toledo women’s soccer coach Brad Evans and his wife at El Camino Real – as well as the team’s assistant coach Jennifer Whipple. Fabry had previously played for four years on the University of Toledo women’s soccer team, who compete in the Mid-American Conference.

Fabry, her playing career cut short by injury, was planning to announce at the restaurant that she would accept an invitation from Evans to join the team’s staff for the new season as an unpaid volunteer assistant coach – the first step on the ladder for many people wanting to become a college soccer coach.

As Fabry recalls, she arrived at the restaurant still wearing her training gear – T-shirt and shorts – and saw Evans, his wife, and Whipple at the bar. There was cheering and hugs when she told them she would join the staff.

The group moved to a table on an outside patio and at some point in the evening Evans left the group. While Evans was absent, Fabry needed to use the bathroom. She left Evans’ wife and Whipple at the table and walked back into the restaurant, past the hostess table and a closet area near the bathroom.

“The next thing I remember is a tug on my arm and [Evans] pulling me,” recalls Fabry, who says Evans pulled her into an alcove in the restaurant.

https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2022/jul/06/brad-evans-allegations-toledo-soccer-coach-sexual-misconduct-system

It gets worse. And this man is still coaching, involved in youth soccer.

Russian troops are hitting the bottle so hard that they're banned from buying alcohol in some regions of partly occupied territories in Ukraine, according to General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine.

The soldiers are getting so drunk while trying to fight in the war in Ukraine that they’re causing serious incidents in the southeastern Zaporizhzhia region of Ukraine, the Ukrainian military said.

“This leads to numerous disciplinary violations and serious misdemeanors,” the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine said Wednesday.

The drunken Russian troops’ excessive habit to enjoy a tipple is allegedly causing car accidents, firearm violations, and other incidents while intoxicated.

In a somewhat incongruous move, the Russians are relying on a Santa Claus impersonator, Ivan Sushko, to fend off the wasted Russian troops from buying any alcohol—including beer—in Mykhailivska and Rozdol.

Russian troops, though, have been raiding and grabbing assets from local businesses in Zaporizhzhia, according to the Ukraine Crisis Media Center.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/russian-troops-are-getting-so-drunk-in-ukraine-theyre-banned-from-buying-alcohol?ref=home

They will be making home brew next. You heard that here first.

Robert “Bobby” Crimo allegedly confessed to police that he “seriously contemplated” carrying out another attack shortly after he “dressed up as a girl” and opened fire at the Highland Park Fourth of July parade, killing seven people.

After a bond hearing on Wednesday, Lake County Sheriff’s Office Deputy Chief Christopher Covelli told reporters that Crimo decided against carrying out the second massacre at a July 4 celebration in Madison, Wisconsin, because he “hadn’t put enough thought or research into” the other celebration.

Covelli said authorities are still piecing together Crimo’s alleged motive but he noted that the 21-year-old “had some type of affinity toward ‘4’ and ‘7’ and [the] inverse of ‘7,’ ‘4.’”

During the bond hearing, Assistant State Attorney Ben Dillon said that Crimo admitted to using three 30-round clips in his Smith and Wesson MNP 15 to attack parade-goers, stopping to reload twice. Afterward, Dillon added, Crimo told investigators he fled the rooftop he used as a sniper’s nest but unintentionally left his rifle behind when it fell out of his bag.

That gun, prosecutors said, was instrumental in identifying Crimo, who is now being held without bond on seven counts of first-degree murder.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/robert-bobby-crimo-confessed-to-highland-park-fourth-of-july-parade-massacre-prosecutors-say?ref=home

He wouldn't have lasted long if he'd tried that in my home town

The leader of a convoy of truckers that has protested by driving slowly around the Beltway was arrested Wednesday morning in the District after the group drove vehicles to a street on the national Mall.

D.C. police said David Riddell was wanted on a warrant from Maryland.

The Maryland State Police charged Riddell, 57, a trucker from Ohio, with disobeying a lawful order from police and willfully driving a vehicle at a slow speed “impeding normal and reasonable traffic movement.”

The group had been called the “People’s Convoy.” But a small group spun off and rebranded as the “1776 Restoration Movement,” and drove on I-495 on the July Fourth holiday, slowing traffic.

It could not immediately be determined how many trucks were in the District. D.C. police did not comment beyond confirming the arrest; a Maryland State Police spokesman confirmed that a warrant had been issued for Riddell’s arrest.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/07/06/truck-convoy-arrest-dc/?itid=hp_local

about damn time!

Political scientist Dr. Lawrence Britt wrote an article about fascism (“Fascism Anyone?,” Free Inquiry, Spring 2003, page 20). Studying the fascist regimes of Hitler (Germany), Mussolini (Italy), Franco (Spain), Suharto (Indonesia), and Pinochet (Chile), Dr. Britt found they all had 14 elements in common. He calls these the identifying characteristics of fascism.

Instead of posting the first 4 paragraphs, I'm posting the 14 characteristics and leaving the meat of the article for y'all to peruse.

1.Powerful and Continuing Nationalism
2.Disdain for the Recognition of Human Rights
3.Identification of Enemies/Scapegoats as a Unifying Cause
4.Supremacy of the Military
5.Rampant Sexism
6.Controlled Mass Media
7.Obsession with National Security
8. Religion and Government are Intertwined
9.Corporate Power is Protected
10.Labor Power is Suppressed
11.Disdain for Intellectuals and the Arts
12.Obsession with Crime and Punishment
13.Rampant Cronyism and Corruption
14.Fraudulent Elections

https://dorseteye.com/the-14-characteristics-of-fascism/

See how close we are....we're hanging by a thread. Some states are closer than the national government.

Soaring inflation and the rising cost of living have forced millions around the world to tighten their purse strings. In Japan, that toll has even trickled down to penguins.

At Hakone-en Aquarium in the Kanagawa prefecture south of Tokyo, zookeepers are buying their animals cheaper food to cut costs. Instead of being offered the usual fatty aji (Japanese horse mackerel), penguins and otters have been feeding on saba—a slimy, less expensive protein—since May.

Some of the animals refuse to eat the cheaper food. While some peck at it gingerly, others flat out turn their beaks up at it.

“Even if they’ll take it in their beaks, they’ll just spit it out,” Hiroki Shimamoto, the head zookeeper at Hakone-en, told VICE World News.

https://www.vice.com/en/article/3adqzk/penguins-refuse-to-eat-inflation-japan

"We have standards, you know."

Congress is still uncovering the events that took place during the Jan. 6 insurrection. But 11 members of the far-right Oath Keepers militia, including their leader Stewart Rhodes, have been charged with seditious conspiracy for their role.

The federal indictment unsealed on Jan. 13, 2022, marked the first time serious sedition charges had been brought against any of the hundreds of accused Capitol rioters. Prosecutors allege that Rhodes and 10 co-conspirators intended to stop the peaceful transfer of presidential power from former President Donald Trump to President Joe Biden that day.

Rhodes’ trial, especially, will help shed light on the motivations and plans for the Capital riot, as his presence and personality permeate the organization. It’s scheduled to begin July 11.

The Oath Keepers have been a major player in America's far-right patriot movement since the group formed in 2009, during a resurgence of anti-government ideology around that time. The original patriot movement came together in the early 1990s, and its core ideas were center-stage during deadly standoffs between armed civilians and the federal government, like in Ruby Ridge, Idaho, and Waco, Texas.

According to prosecutors, the Oath Keepers crafted their plan to storm the Capitol over the course of two months, starting just days after Biden was declared the winner of the 2020 presidential election.

https://www.vice.com/en/article/5d3pqx/who-are-the-oath-keepers

Very comprehensive article, explaining where the Oaf Kreepers came from and all their activities since formation. I urge you to read it. They are far more insidious than the Proud Boys.

Nate Looney is a Black man who grew up in Los Angeles, a descendant of enslaved people from generations ago. He’s also an observant, kippah-wearing Jew.

But he doesn’t always feel welcome in Jewish spaces — his skin color sometimes elicits questioning glances, suspicions and hurtful assumptions. Once, he walked into a synagogue dressed for Shabbat services in slacks and a buttoned-down shirt and was told to go to the kitchen.

“The last thing you want to happen when you go to a synagogue to attend a service,” Looney said, “is to be treated like you don’t belong.”

Now Looney is in a position to do something about that, after being named to the new role of director of community, safety and belonging for the Jewish Equity Diversity and Inclusion team at the Jewish Federations of North America, or JFNA, in April. He believes he can channel his painful personal experiences into healing divisions and changing perceptions, and help make a trip to the synagogue a spiritual rather than a scarring encounter for Jews of color.

In this new role, Looney has been tackling the delicate task of producing guidelines on how to be more welcoming of Jews of color, even as synagogues and community centers strengthen security in the wake of recent attacks including mass shootings in Pittsburgh and Poway, California. The concern is that such boosted security increases the likelihood of racial profiling incidents affecting congregants of color.

It’s a relatively small but growing demographic. A Pew Center survey in 2021 showed just 8% of U.S. Jews identify as Hispanic, Black or Asian, but that nearly doubled to 15% among respondents aged 18 to 29. The poll also found that 17% reported living in a nonwhite or multiracial household.

https://apnews.com/article/religion-north-america-cf9c43072b0eda725692315ca7c7f243

California Gov. Gavin Newsom last week pardoned Sara Kruzan, a victim of teen sex trafficking who spent nearly two decades in prison after she killed her abuser and has since become a national advocate for prison reform.

Kruzan was sentenced to life without the possibility of parole in September 1995 for killing George Gilbert Howard as he attempted to sexually assault her. Howard sex trafficked her for years, starting when she was a teenager.

Kruzan was tried as an adult at age 16.

In December 2010, then-Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger commuted Kruzan’s sentence to 25 years to life, according to Newsom’s pardon, which was issued Friday. By 2013, Kruzan was again resentenced to a total term of 19 years to life, and then-Gov. Jerry Brown released her after she had served 18 years in prison.

Newsom’s pardon says Kruzan has “transformed her life and dedicated herself to community service.”

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/newsom-pardons-woman-killed-sex-trafficker-spent-decades-bars-rcna36614

She should never have been tried as an adult in the first place, and anyway, it sounds like self-defense. (and maybe she committed a public service, because who knows how many other young women he trafficked?)