What started as a report of a convenience store robbery near the campus of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology last night has sprawled into a chaotic manhunt for the perpetrators of the recent terrorist attack on the Boston Marathon. The deadly pursuit, involving a policeman's murder, a carjacking, a violent chase with thrown explosives, and the death of one suspect, has resulted in Governor Deval Patrick ordering an unprecedented lockdown of the entire Boston metropolitan area as an army of law enforcement searches house by house for the remaining gunman. The Associated Press has identified the duo as Tamerlan Tsarnaev, 26, and his 19-year-old brother Dzhokhar A. Tsarnaev, who remains at large. Both are immigrants from wartorn Chechnya in southwestern Russia. The Guardian liveblog is good for quick updates, and Reddit's updating crowdsourced timeline of events that has often outpaced mainstream media coverage of the situation. You can also get real-time reports straight from the (Java-based) local police scanner.
posted by Rhaomi on Apr 19, 2013 - 4937 comments

Timeline: Christopher Dorner is a former U.S. marine and police officer with the Los Angeles Police Department. He is wanted in the largest manhunt in LAPD history. Dorner is wanted for the alleged murder of a police officer and a young couple from Irvine (though evidence linking the murders to him is still largely circumstantial). During the ongoing investigation, LAPD officers have wounded various civilians in three separate cases of mistaken identity. In once incident, officers fired dozens of shots at a car in Torrance, CA, wounding two women who were delivering newspapers. [more inside]
posted by fantodstic on Feb 10, 2013 - 724 comments

Two weeks ago 34 striking miners were shot dead by police at the Marikana platinum mine in South Africa. Now, using laws once used by the apartheid regime to prosecute black activists fighting for democracy, the remaining 270 miners from the protest have been charged with their fellow workers' murders.
posted by dng on Aug 30, 2012 - 33 comments

Man confesses to Tupac Shakur robbery and shooting Dexter Isaac, now serving a life sentence for murder, told AllHipHop.com that he robbed Shakur outside the Quad Studio in Manhattan in November 1994 on the orders of hip hop management mogul James "Jimmy Henchman" Rosemond. [more inside]
posted by Uther Bentrazor on Jun 15, 2011 - 23 comments

(NSFW) In the 1980's, a brilliant university student named Issei Sagawa went ahead and killed and, uhm, ate one of his fellow classmates. VBS TV interviews Issei Sagawa, who became a celebrity in Japan after walking free, having been deemed "sane, but evil" by a team of psychologists in France. "Was Sagawa suffering from a mental disorder? Was he really a sexual psychopath? Probably both. By his own admission, Issei Sagawa says that he had to possess a caucasian woman completely, and the only way this overwhelming need could be truly satisfied was by eating her." [more inside]
posted by fantodstic on Dec 21, 2010 - 107 comments

"'It's been a magical evening,' Joel says as the Great Khali hits the Undertaker with a dustbin lid." Jon Ronson (and son) journey into the world of WWE to investigate the death of Chris Benoit.
posted by fearfulsymmetry on Dec 8, 2007 - 18 comments

Ghost In The Machine "I have a murderer's music on my iPod and, almost reflexively, I couldn't help but think of him while listening to these songs—they were his songs, songs he gave me. [...] Listening to his music put me inside [his] head. [...] I wanted to throw up." [more inside]
posted by rossination on Apr 13, 2007 - 41 comments

Pim Fortuyn Murder Suspect is Environmental Activist The suspect mainly concerned himself with the fight against bio-industry and fur farms. Mr Fortuyn just recently said he would lift the scheduled ban on raising animals for furs.
posted by nobody_knose on May 7, 2002 - 33 comments

A family of six was found dead in a case of murder-suicide, authorities in Oregon said Friday. Bryant, the father, became estranged from several branches of his family, including his parents, three brothers and a sister. The other family members were Jehovah's Witnesses and the split appeared to involve differences over religious beliefs. In other news, An angry, mysterious preacher told Andrea Yates that she was evil, that her children were damned, and that only death could save her. Mr. Yates testified that the preacher had taught him and his wife that children are lost forever to God, and therefore damned to eternal hellfire, if they are not "saved" by the time they are 13 or 14. Are we regressing to the religions produced nightmares of the Middle Ages?
posted by semmi on Mar 16, 2002 - 49 comments

Drunk Russian diplomat kills Canadian woman
He claimed immunity and was sent home. Should ambassadors be held accountable by local laws in extreme circumstances such as these?
posted by Starchile on Jan 31, 2001 - 32 comments