LOS ANGELES (KTLA) -- An advance man for "The Amazing Race" is dead, after he was allegedly poisoned in Uganda following a run-in with a gang of local thugs.
Jeff Rice was found dead in his hotel room.
He helped make arrangements with local officials for "Amazing Race" competitors in Africa.
Rice's production assistant remains hospitalized in a coma.
They were apparently poisoned after refusing to give up their belongings to the men.
Rice was a freelance producer. He's being remembered as a true adventurer and a wonderful father to his two children.
Maverick Entertainment is Rice's production company.
Rice and his assistant had worked on Season 20 of the show, which premiered on CBS on Sunday.
Rice had also worked on Animal Planet's "Whale Wars" and the South African version of "The Biggest Loser."
Su Jung Health Sauna was meant to be a sanctuary for its customers, with steam rooms, water fountains, a Korean cafe and comfy recliners among its many amenities.
John Spink, jspink@ajc.comThe spa was still closed with police tape Wednesday morning.
The spa was a family business, owned and operated by Korean immigrants in Norcross who were known well in Gwinnett County's thriving Korean-American community for their civic activism and charitable endeavors.
But Su Jung is now notorious as the site of a mass shooting Tuesday night that left five people dead, including the gunman.
Norcross police said an argument between family members may have led a middle-aged man to shoot and kill his two sisters, their husbands and then himself.
The bloody rampage staggered residents and officials in the west Gwinnett city of 9,000, which already has a homicide toll -- five -- that ranks as its most in a year since the FBI began tracking such data in 1985. A Norcross teen was shot to death in a home invasion earlier this month.
“Protecting human life is our top concern,” Norcross Mayor Bucky Johnson said. “It’s just too bad when people think so little of it.”
Norcross police were dispatched to the spa in the 6000 block of Buford Highway around 8:40 p.m. Tuesday after getting a report of a shooting. Officers found five [sic] victims and .45 caliber handgun at the scene. [N.S.: Officers found five bodies, but only four victims, unless, that is, the AJC now classifies killers as victims. Or is it only certain killers?]
Surveillance camera footage shows a man walking into the spa Tuesday night and talking to a victim before shots were fired, police said. About 20 people were inside the business at the time.
Four victims died at the scene, and the fifth was pronounced dead at a local hospital, Norcross police Capt. Brian Harr said.
"It was reported the suspect was at the business earlier in the day and was asked to leave by one of the female victims," Harr said in an emailed statement. "The suspect returned at approximately 8:40 p.m. and spoke briefly with a female victim and then produced a semi-auto pistol and shot the victims."
Although names have not been released pending notification of surviving family members, police said the male shooter killed his two sisters and their husbands before turning the gun on himself. All five of those killed were believed to be in their 50s or 60s.
Friends and colleagues have identified one of the victims and spa owners as 65-year-old Byung-Ok Kang.
Wednesday afternoon, authorities were still working the crime scene and had roped off the spa's parking lot with yellow tape. Harr said his department was nearing the end of its investigation.
"All the pieces are there," he said. "Now it's just a case of writing everything down and documenting it."
Members of the local Korean-American community mourned the deaths Wednesday.
Michael Park, president of the Atlanta chapter of the Korean American Coalition, told the AJC that the family had been involved in community activities and recently started attracting a more diverse clientele to their business.
“It’s a really tragic end to what was a great story, living the American dream,” Park said. "It's so shocking that it happened so close to home."
One of the spa's regular customers, Bouchra Eloualy, said she would go to unwind in the swimming pool and steam rooms.
"It was very nice in there," said Eloualy, who works at a pawn shop across the highway from Su Jung. "They were busy at all times of the day."
Kevin Kim, vice president and morning show host at Atlanta Radio Korea WPBC-1040 AM, said callers were passing rumors about the source of troubles within Kang's family. The shooting was the primary topic of interest at the station Wednesday.
"Everyone is very shocked, very depressed and very sad," Kim said.
-- Staff writers Mike Morris and David Wickert contributed to this report.
The Carter Strange Case: Anti-White Judge Gives Racist Attacker a Juvi Freebie for Attempted Murder
Victim Carter Strange, before encountering racelessness
This may be a picture of Carter Strange after encountering racelessness, but before surgery
By David in TN and Nicholas Stix
One of Carter Strange’s attackers, age 15, will not be tried as an adult. Family Court Judge Robert Armstrong “thinks the youth could be rehabilitated.” Note that Judge Armstrong left no doubt that he was more concerned with the future of an assailant who had sought to beat a young man to death, based solely on the color of his skin, than he was for the victim’s future. The judge’s misuse of the word “fear” told you where he was coming from:
Carter Strange after undergoing surgery
When we fear, that fear turns to anger, and we want the people involved to be punished, to answer for the crimes. We want justice,” Armstrong said. “But to do that, to find justice, we must look to and be guided by the law. If we are guided by fear and our anger, there can be no justice.”
Family Court Judge Robert Armstrong, during an August, 2010 trial
Well, isn’t he just full of courage!
The judge sophistically turned justice upside down, so that it became the opposite of punishment, even lying about the law, in the process.
Equating morality and law with “fear” is a generations-old Democratic framing strategy.
Note that we are talking about one of the attackers who stomped Strange almost to death, took his cell phone, so he couldn't call for help, and left him for dead. Had someone not found Strange two hours later in the dead of night, and called 911, he would have died. Thus, we are talking about a free pass for attempted murder.
The 15-year-old defendant in the racist attempted murder of Carter Strange, who was protected by Family Court Judge Robert Armstrong, talks to his lawyer Jack Swerling during a hearing, on February 7, 2012. Gerry Melendez /gmelendez@thestate.com
Previously, on the Carter Strange case, at WEJB/NSU:
Carter Strange attack
Teen’s case stays in juvenile court
Despite violence of Five Points attack, judge thinks youth could be rehabilitated
By Noelle Phillips - nophillips@thestate.com The State
Thursday, February 9, 2012
A Richland County family court judge decided Wednesday that a 15-year-old accused in a June beating of another teen in Five Points will remain in juvenile court rather than be tried as an adult.
Family Court Judge Robert Armstrong said the case caused fear and anger among the public, including himself. But he said he was obligated by law to consider eight factors in deciding whether to move a juvenile case to adult court. The teen’s chances of being rehabilitated into a responsible adult are greater if the case is handled by the juvenile justice system, the judge said.
“When we fear, that fear turns to anger, and we want the people involved to be punished, to answer for the crimes. We want justice,” Armstrong said. “But to do that, to find justice, we must look to and be guided by the law. If we are guided by fear and our anger, there can be no justice.”
The boy awaits a juvenile court hearing to determine whether he is guilty of assault and battery by a mob, robbery and conspiracy. If found guilty, he faces a maximum of 36 months in S.C. Department of Juvenile Justice custody.
The 15-year-old is one of eight teens charged in the June 20 attack of Carter Strange, a recent Dreher High School graduate who was jogging through Five Points around midnight to meet his parents’ curfew. The beating tore an artery, causing a blood clot to form between Strange’s brain and skull, Linwood Smith, Strange’s neurosurgeon, told the judge.
The 15-year-old is one of two who prosecutors wanted to stand trial in adult court. A hearing is scheduled in March to determine whether the other boy, then 14, will be tried as an adult.
Two – Tyheem J. Henrey, now 20, and Yahquann J. Gantt, now 17 – are awaiting trial in general sessions court. Police say Henrey, Gantt, the 15-year-old and the 14-year-old chased after Strange and participated in the beating.
The four others waited by their cars, and they already have been punished in the juvenile justice system for failing to report the crime.
Testimony Wednesday came from two officers at the Alvin S. Glenn Detention Center’s juvenile wing who described the 15-year-old as a model inmate, who helped others learn to read and write, led prayers during Bible study and volunteered to clean offices and fold laundry.
A psychiatrist testified the boy has a good chance to be rehabilitated because he has a higher-than-average IQ [N.S.: that means, for a black], is not mentally ill, does not have a history of substance abuse and has a supportive family. She also noted that he does not have a prior juvenile record.
The boy’s mother told the judge her son had never caused problems at home. She said he helped with chores, including babysitting three younger siblings and feeding the family dog.
The boy had moved to Columbia from Long Island, N.Y., three days before the attack to live with his mother’s cousin. The mother agreed to let her son move back to South Carolina to play football, she said.
The judge scolded the boy for risking his future by allegedly participating in the beating.
“It makes me mad that you were willing to risk everything for what you did that night,” Armstrong said. “You stepped out of character. You were not strong
enough to run away from the people who did this crime.”
Several members of Strange’s family cried after the judge announced his decision, then quickly left the courtroom.
Reach Phillips at (803) 771-8307.
* * *
I see that I made a mistake a few weeks ago, in speaking of “10 strikes, and you’re out” criminal justice for politically protected groups. (Actually, I spoke of “Florida justice,” but I was discussing the case of a black predator, who has left a trail of dead white women in his wake.) Said groups’ members get 10 strikes as juvenile offenders, and then the odometer gets rolled back to zero. Thus, the proper phrase would be, “20 strikes, and you’re out!”
Carter is actually the son of my husband's cousin, so I know this story completely. This boy is a good boy and was just on his way home from visiting a friend. He was walking home to make curfew. He wasn't there to get drugs or for any trouble....TRUST ME! He was minding his own business. These thugs jumped him while he stopped to reply to a text message from a friend. This wasn't a robbery, because they didn't take any money from his wallet. The only reason they took his phone was so he couldn't call for help. After being beaten horribly, he still tried to make it home. We are so very thankful to the people who found him 2 hours AFTER the attack. If it wasn't for him, he probably wouldn't be with us today. He is finally home and resting. Please keep Carter in your prayers. This was a hate crime and a gang related incident. We WILL not stop until justice is served!
SUNDAY, JUNE 26, 2011 7:32:00 PM EDT
Unfortunately, justice will not be served in this case. It virtually never is, where black-on-white hate crimes are concerned, unless the victim is a homosexual.
On The Today Show, on June 28, Matt Lauer Made No Mention of Race, While Speaking of Carter Strange being Beaten Almost to Death by a “Fellow Group of Teens”
Jogging home from a friend’s house shortly after midnight on June 20, 18-year-old Carter Strange called his mother to let her know that he was right down the street and would be home in a few minutes.
He never made it.
The next thing he remembers, he woke up in a hospital bed with a disfigured face, a fractured skull that required 15 staples to repair and a sense of shock at a night gone horribly wrong in an instant.
The victim of a brutal and seemingly random attack that allegedly occurred at the hands of eight teenagers ranging in age from 13 to 19 years old, the Columbia, S.C., high school graduate had a face so disfigured that his own mother did not recognize him at first sight. Now he is left to make sense of the senseless.
“I don’t know about forgiveness,’’ Carter told TODAY’s Matt Lauer in an exclusive interview alongside his parents on Tuesday. “I don’t really think about it that much. I try not to let [the attackers] be on my mind too much because I don’t know why I would. There’s really no reason for me to think about them that much.’’
After seeing their son suffer extensive injuries that have required multiple surgeries, Strange’s parents’ terror has turned to anger.
“This is not like it was a group of kids that went out and just did some property damage,’’ said John Strange, Carter’s father. “They almost took someone’s life.’’
Four of the suspects, including 19-year-old Tyheem Henry, have been charged by local prosecutors with strong-arm robbery, second-degree assault, battery by a mob and criminal conspiracy for the beating. Four more suspects are charged with criminal conspiracy in the robbery, as Strange’s cellphone was stolen shortly after he finished the call to his mother that night.
“These eight, group of guys, were set out to do someone in our community harm, and that is exactly what cannot be tolerated,’’ Columbia Police Chief Randy Scott told NBC News.
A kid who rarely missed his midnight curfew by more than a few minutes, Carter placed the phone call to his mother at 12:07 a.m. that night to tell her he would be home shortly. She called back three minutes later with no answer. When he still wasn’t home at 12:30 a.m., his father looked up his son’s phone and text messaging records on the computer.
The phone activity had stopped at 12:16 a.m. and then mysteriously started again at 1:09 a.m. When his father called one of the numbers, the phone was answered by a young girl who hung up on him twice until he was able to get her mother on the phone on the third try. He was able to gather enough information to determine that someone else had Carter’s phone, and promptly had his wife call the police.
“When he just hadn’t shown up and the later it got, we got worried,’’ John Strange said. “Then when we started seeing phone calls and text messages to numbers that weren’t familiar, that we knew were not friends of his, that’s when we went into kind of a panic mode.’’
At 3:30 a.m., the police put out a notice to look for Carter and immediately were informed that he was in a local hospital. Waiting in the hallway, his mother, Vicki, couldn’t help staring at a badly beaten man on a nearby gurney.
“I saw how bad he looked and I felt really bad for him,” she said. “My first thought was, ‘That poor guy.’
“As I looked at him, I realized his hair looked like Carter’s. I couldn’t stop looking at the gentleman on the gurney and his hair. I literally walked up, bent over and looked at him, saw his hands and realized that was Carter. I didn’t recognize him. I just knew him from his hair and his hands.’’
Her horror at her bloodied and bruised son soon turned to the comfort of knowing he was alive after hours of fearing the worst.
“I was relieved because I finally found my son,’’ she said. “Despite the condition, I finally found him.’’
He has since undergone one surgery to alleviate a blood clot in his brain as well as reconstructive surgery on his nose. To complicate matters, John Strange has just started a new job and does not have health insurance that covers the family. For now, however, despite his bruised and battered face, Carter Strange indicated that he is feeling better than he looks.
“I’m just as amazed as you are,’’ he told Lauer. “I’m actually feeling amazing compared to how I probably should be feeling.’’
Surveillance video from earlier that night shows the suspects walking around the Five Points area in Columbia, a popular night spot with bars and shopping. They allegedly turned themselves in after the footage was aired on local television and have since made no comments or legal pleas regarding the incident. Police say the group had tried to rob four other people that same night before allegedly attacking Strange.
The incident has prompted city officials to impose an emergency curfew on young people in the Five Points area. The curfew requires anyone under 17 to be off the streets from 11 p.m. to 6 a.m. in that area west of downtown and in two parks nearby.
While the parents of the suspects have insisted that they are good kids who made a bad mistake that night, the Stranges are not buying it.
“It sounds like they’re trying to make excuses and make light of the situation,’’ said John Strange. “I think at least several of them had already been in trouble before and were on probation. It’s not their first time. To say they’re good kids when they’ve already been in trouble, I just don’t understand how they can make excuses.’’
This report contains information from The Associated Press.
* * *
Alleged ringleader Tyheem Henrey, 19, is one of two suspects, with Yahquann Gant, 16, whose names have been released. (The newspapers have apparently refused to publish pictures of Gant.) I can empathize with Mr. Henrey. I always weep and beseech the Lord in court, when I’ve been caught beaten trying to beat someone to death, based on the color of his skin. Most of the media have since sent Yahquann Gant’s name down the memory hole—google for it—and none of the other six gang members’ names has been released.
[A major difference in etiquette between many black southern racists and most of their northern and western counterparts, is that some southern black racists will at least go through the motions of showing contrition, while the others will either show no emotion, or be defiant, when they aren’t insisting on their innocence. I have concluded that Southern blacks’ greater politeness is a legacy of Jim Crow. By the way: If you’re apologizing to your victim, you’re not a “suspect,” you’re a perpetrator.]
[Warning! The following video may induce vomiting, in those who still have a sense of justice!]
By Monique Williams
September 22, 2011 at 6:00 p.m. EST
Story Updated: September 22, 2011 at 6:00 p.m. EST WOLO/ABC Columbia
COLUMBIA, S.C. (WOLO) -- In Richland County Family Court, two teenagers faced a judge for their role in the savage beating of a local teenager back in June and brought the courtroom to tears with a personal apology to the victim.
The two minors, a 16-year-old and 17-year-old, received house arrest, a community evaluation and will be subjected to random drug tests in connection with their part in the Father's Day assault on 17-year-old Carter Strange. Strange was beaten nearly to death, police say, by four of eight teens who are said to be involved. Two other teens were also sentenced to house arrest earlier this week. A 16-year-old and a 19-year-old are said to be the ringleaders and will face a jury trial. Meanwhile, two remaining teens are still behind bars until it is determined if they will be tried as adults.
Tears were shed in the courtroom Thursday as the 17-year-old hugged and tearfully apologized to each family member present and to the victim himself. Carter strange says he knew that particular teen 'didn't belong in that group' and that he should have been let go a long time ago. He says is he happy the closure process is beginning but that the four young people still being investigated should 'get justice.'
In court, an attacker’s mother and the victim’s mother embrace in what I call the white forgiveness ritual. These are usually staged by the media, on behalf of the racist black attackers. David in TN witnessed the attempt by black WVLT (now WLOS) "reporter" Mario Boone to stage such a forgiveness ritual. Boone tried to sucker the white parents of gang rape-torture-murder victim Channon Christian into granting absolution to the screamingly racist parents of one of Channon’s alleged killers, Vanessa Coleman, during the latter’s August, 2010 trial. The remorseless Coleman had celebrated the gang-rapes, torture, and murders of Channon and her boyfriend, Christopher Newsom, in her diary, and her parents not only were unapologetic, but insisted that their daughter was a victim, just like Channon, and tried to pin the crimes on a white girl, Daphne Sutton, who had had nothing to do with it. Fortunately, Channon’s father, Gary, refused to play Boone’s game.
Chihuahua, Mexico, Dance Hall: Really Tough Music Critic Music Critic Kills 9, Wounds 10
By Nicholas Stix
Note than when the title of the story below says “5 norteño musicians,” it is referring to musicians who are members of a narcoterrorist drug gang (“norteños,” as in “Northerners”) who play “narcocorridos,” which are songs glorifying the gang. Bands that belong to gangs and that routinely play “narcocorridos” are the norm in Mexico, as is the glorification of cut-throats and, increasingly, the extension of gang wars to killing musicians.
Thus, when the article says, “Norteño singers in Mexico have been targeted before apparently for getting involved with drug cartels who pay them to compose narcocorridos, or ballads that glorify drug lords,” unless the designation “norteño” means something very different down there than it does up here, the singers are not “getting involved with drug cartels,” but that drug cartels are the reason for their very existence.
Note further that the unsigned story called what the drug gangsters were playing, “popular norteño music.” Since the music exists solely as “Northerner” propaganda, it can only be popular to the degree that wide swathes of the public embrace the terrorist “Northerners.” Obviously, there are some vocal dissenters to said embrace.
(Note the parallels to rap/hip-hop, in which awful “music” and crime are both the expressions of a “culture” which one must embrace, or be called a “hater” (racist) or “Uncle Tom.” East Coast and West Coast rappers have been known to kill each other in rap wars, and rappers are often affiliated with racist black gangs and black supremacist crime cults such as the Five Percenters and the Nation of Islam. Rap/hip-hop’s defenders assert that those who find such alleged music execrable may not criticize it, because they have failed to embrace the culture from which it springs. Thus, in their world, rational criticism is impossible. There is only what Carl Schmitt called “the friend-enemy relationship” (“das Freund-Feind-Verhältnis”).
In America’s Anglo-Christian tradition, which is being buried a little deeper daily under the blessings of diversity, “dissent” entails something like saying, “I think your music sucks.” The target of the insult might then respond, “Your mother wears army boots!” or “Says a guy with two tin ears!” End of story. In Mexico, “dissent” entails something like, “Bang! Bang! You’re dead, and so are the friends you came in with! (To the corpses) Oh, and your music sucks, too!”
MEXICO CITY (AP) - Mexican authorities say a masked man opened fire against a band playing popular norteño music in a Chihuahua city dance hall, killing five musicians, four customers and injuring 10 others.
Chihuahua prosecutors spokesman Carlos Gonzalez says the attack appeared to target members of the La Quinta Banda music group but the motive behind the early Saturday shooting wasn't clear. The suspect fired around 40 times with a high-caliber weapon in the Far West disco.
Among the dead was an off-duty police woman, Gonzalez said.
Norteño singers in Mexico have been targeted before apparently for getting involved with drug cartels who pay them to compose narcocorridos, or ballads that glorify drug lords.
[The phrase “really tough music critic” comes from my colleague, Brenda Walker.
