Stories
Slash Boxes
Comments

SoylentNews is people

posted by CoolHand on Monday July 27 2015, @03:59AM   Printer-friendly
from the backpage-bada$$ dept.

The Washington Post reports that an internet escort in Charleston, W.Va., may have saved her own life and the lives of many other women, when she shot and killed an alleged attacker who showed up at the woman's home on July 18 after answering an escort ad she had placed on Backpage.com. Neal Falls showed up with multiple pairs of handcuffs and a Subaru full of weapons and tools, including a shovel, knives, a bulletproof vest, a machete, bleach, trash bags, sledgehammers and axes. In Falls's pocket, police said, was a list of names of potential future victims, all of whom are sex workers who advertised on Backpage. Investigators are trying to determine whether Falls is responsible for a string of slayings targeting sex workers in Ohio and Nevada. "We are entering his DNA profile into CODIS, which is a national crime DNA database, to see if it matches any previous submissions from anywhere in the United States," says Steve Cooper, the Charleston Police Department's chief of detectives. "If his DNA has been located in any other crimes and his profile was entered into CODIS, there will be a match."

From the moment Falls showed up at the home of his latest alleged victim, he turned violent. "I knew he was there to kill me," says the victim who asked not to be identified. Falls pulled a gun on her and began strangling her. "When he strangled me he just wouldn't let me get any air. I grabbed my rake and when he laid the gun down to get the rake out of my hands, I shot him. I just grabbed the gun and shot behind me." Local authorities are treating the shooting as an act of self-defense. According to Cooper, "when we find multiple sets of handcuffs, a machete, an axe, a bulletproof vest and container of bleach, the first thing that comes to an investigator's mind is, 'This is a serial killer kit.'"


Original Submission

 
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.
Display Options Threshold/Breakthrough Mark All as Read Mark All as Unread
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
  • (Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday July 28 2015, @12:21AM

    by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday July 28 2015, @12:21AM (#214616) Journal

    You cite an example proving the guy's point

    Note that it doesn't actually prove the guy's point.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 28 2015, @12:57AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 28 2015, @12:57AM (#214636)

    >> You cite an example proving the guy's point
    >
    > Note that it doesn't actually prove the guy's point.

    Yes it does. The NL legalized prostitution in 2000 and yet sex trafficking still continues.

    Or are you doing that minutiae thing again where since it doesn't exactly match the hyperbole it actually disproves the intent? Because that's a game for people who retreat into literalism when the real world is too complicated for them.

    • (Score: 2, Insightful) by khallow on Tuesday July 28 2015, @01:25AM

      by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday July 28 2015, @01:25AM (#214640) Journal

      The NL legalized prostitution in 2000 and yet sex trafficking still continues.

      The solution is imperfect so it doesn't count?

      Or are you doing that minutiae thing again where since it doesn't exactly match the hyperbole it actually disproves the intent? Because that's a game for people who retreat into literalism when the real world is too complicated for them.

      Hyperbole such as:

      In theory you can have legal prostitution but it always seems to devolve into a mess of human trafficking and abuse.

      The minutiae argument wins yet again. I recognize that there were, even by our standards some particularly hyperbolic statements made on the perfection of legalizing prostitution. That wasn't what I responded to nor defended.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 28 2015, @02:50AM

        by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 28 2015, @02:50AM (#214677)

        > The solution is imperfect so it doesn't count?

        Where is there proof that it was a solution at all?

        > Hyperbole such as:

        Yes. That is the exact phrase I was referring to.

        > The minutiae argument wins yet again.

        It is so weird that you can say that and actually mean it. Its like you are a computer or something. If there is a syntax error that negates the entire meaning of the argument.

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 28 2015, @03:37AM

          by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 28 2015, @03:37AM (#214692)

          Where is there proof that it was a solution at all?

          Its called "harm reduction". It'll happen no matter what, and there's nothing we can do to stop it, so we should try to make it as safe as possible for the workers. See this [harmreduction.org] page and just replace "drug use" with "prostitution".

          And your argument that it hasn't completely eliminated sex-worker trafficking is the nirvana fallacy [logicallyfallacious.com]. The goal is not to eliminate it completely but significantly reduce its occurrence and harms.

        • (Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday July 28 2015, @02:02PM

          by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday July 28 2015, @02:02PM (#214835) Journal

          Where is there proof that it was a solution at all?

          I treat it as a solution hence circularly it is. Now, I think what you're really asking is if it is a solution that works. I don't know. We never got that far until now.