Category: CNN Regional

By Taj Simmons

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    BLOOMINGTON (WRTV) — A 60-year-old homeless man now has no front teeth after he was punched steps away from Indiana University’s Sample Gates over the weekend. The punch was caught on camera and shared on social media.

Bloomington Police say 60-year-old Bobby Ballard was beaten around 11:30 p.m. at Kirkwood Avenue and Dunn Street on Friday night. They say a person grabbed Ballard’s phone when he was sitting near People’s Park, and Ballard was hit when he went to confront them about the theft.

BPD arrested two suspects for the aggravated assault on Monday: 25-year-old Avery Williams and 21-year-old Khalil Morris. Indiana University tells WRTV neither man was enrolled at the school.

Another homeless man, 29-year-old Shawn Sullivan, was shot and killed at the intersection of Morton and Howe Streets the same night. Police are still searching for suspects in that case.

Ballard is part of a homeless community that regularly gathers in People’s Park. WRTV spoke with members of the community after police arrested the suspects, but only one person would talk on the record because they were afraid someone else would assault them.

“I’ve always been afraid of that. I always watch my back,” said the person, who wished to remain anonymous. “We don’t want to hurt anybody else, and we don’t want to get hurt ourselves.”

The person said he knew Ballard before the incident and has since talked with him after the assault.

“It hurt to see him with his teeth missing because he’s a good person, and he did not deserve that,” he said.

A fundraiser for Ballard’s dental care has raised more than $8,000 in the three days after the assault.

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By Nydia Han and Cheryl Mettendorf

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    PHILADELPHIA (WPVI) — A Chester County mom has birthed a new business after having a hard time bottle-feeding one of her own babies, offering a cute solution to a serious problem many new moms face.

“When I had my son Blake, he was a breastfed baby and we had a really hard time with getting him to take a bottle,” said Julianne Gardner, owner of Bottimals.

The first time Blake refused breast milk in a bottle, Gardner was about to get her first post-partum haircut.

“Just trying to feel like myself again,” she said.

While she was in the salon chair, her husband called.

“My hair was soaking wet and he calls me. I can hear the baby screaming in the background and he said, ‘You have to come home. He won’t take the bottle,'” she recalled.

She soon realized bottle refusal was common, forcing some moms to even quit their jobs.

“That really creates a vicious cycle of stress for a family,” Gardner said.

So she started to search for a solution,

“I worked in research for 13 years. I have a degree in biology,” she said.

She said there’s research that shows the scent of mom elicits the sucking reflex in babies.

And that was the basis for Bottimals, a bottle combined with an animal lovie that has a heart-shaped pad.

“So mom wears it in her bra to actually absorb the scent of her mammary glands,” she said.

When another caregiver feeds the baby, a piece of mom is there.

“You put the pad with mom’s scent in the pocket of the levy, and then it just slides onto the bottle to keep mom’s scent close to the baby,” she explained.

Baby also has a cute stuffed animal for company.

“They can touch it, they can feel it. Babies love sensory objects,” Gardner said.

Gardner launched Bottimals this past June. She has a website and sells the product for $29.99 in 15+ stores.

She said as she was building her biz, she reached out to other baby product entrepreneurs on Linked In and Instagram.

“And I can’t tell you how many people I actually heard back from who were willing to talk to me for 15 minutes, 30 minutes, just to help me get to that next step,” she said.

She’s also grateful for strangers like Maddy Thomford, who tested the product after seeing Julianne’s post on Facebook.

Maddy tried it with her daughter Charlotte the first time she left her then six-month-old with a bottle and Grandma.

“The combination of having that scent, I think of me, and knowing like, okay, this is someone I’m comfortable with. She did great,” said Thomford.

Gardner runs the Bottimals business out of her house in Phoenixville, doing most of her work when her two young kids are sleeping.

“Really, any time that I can fit it into our schedules, so I can still be a mom at the same time,” Gardner added.

Gardner said Bottimals can also be great for any baby who gets distracted while drinking a bottle or just doesn’t seem to want to finish for some reason.

Right now, she has just the bunny Bottimal but said she plans to expand to other animals in the near future.

For more information, visit Bottimals.com.

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By Dean Fioresi

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    California (KCAL, KCBS) — Six people were arrested over the weekend for allegedly trying to fly a banner from the Hollywood Sign, police said.

In a post on Instagram, Los Angeles Police Department officers from the Hollywood station said that the suspects “trespassed all the way up to the Hollywood Sign,” where they tried to hang a banner from the second “O.”

It’s unclear exactly what message the banner was attempting to portray.

Police, working with L.A. City Park Rangers arrived at the area and took all six of the suspects into custody without further incident. They didn’t note what charges they may face.

The social media post showed an image taken from an aerial angle, with the suspects gathered around the base of the sign as they tried to hang the banner. More images also showed the suspects kneeling as they were placed in handcuffs, with the Hollywood Sign in the background.

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By Joan Murray

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    WILTON MANORS, Florida (WFOR) — A trained MMA fighter said he relied on his skills — and faith — when a stranger broke into his family’s South Florida home last week.

It happened last Saturday, Sept. 27, in Wilton Manors, just north of Fort Lauderdale.

“I’m prepared. It’s not my first time; I don’t feel pain,” said Henny, the mixed martial artist who subdued the intruder.

Henny said his nephew woke him frantically that morning, warning that a man was inside their living room.

“I don’t have guns; I wasn’t looking for a knife — just God and my hands, that’s it,” he said.

The accused intruder, identified as Austin Carasani, appeared before a judge just hours later with visible injuries. Carasani’s face was black and blue from the encounter.

Carasani told Wilton Manors police he had been drinking at a local club and “was attempting to go to his friend Paul’s house who resides in the area.”

Henny’s sister, Patrizia Rojas, and her husband were in Miami when they got a panicked call from their teenage son about the break-in.

“He was screaming, ‘Mom, call police, someone has broken into the house,'” Rojas recalled.

Neighbor Andreas Gomez described what he saw: “The guy was freezing and they started punching him in the face.”

As of Tuesday, Carasani remained in Broward jail on a $20,000 bond. No one answered at his Deerfield Beach address.

Henny said he has no regrets about how he handled the situation.

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By Kayla Moeller

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    YUBA COUNTY, California (KMAX, KOVR) — The Yuba County District Attorney’s Office held an emotional and tense press conference on Tuesday, sharing body cam footage from the moments leading up to Marysville Police Officer Osmar Rodarte’s death six months ago.

Rodarte was shot and killed on Kestrel Court in Olivehurst during a transnational drug trafficking bust in March. He was the first Marysville officer killed in the line of duty in more than a hundred years.

“Osmar is a hero. His last act was doing the right thing, protecting his buddy,” Marysville Mayor Chris Branscum said.

In the body cam footage, you can hear Rodarte calling out to his fellow officer as he goes to cover an open area of the room where they found drug trafficker Rick Oliver hiding out. Moments later, gunfire erupted.

“I got your back” was one of the last things Rodarte said before he was killed.

“Officer Rodarte spun around right where he was. Sgt. Trumm stepped to the left and Sgt. Trumm, when he was interviewed, said he saw the flash from Oliver’s firearm before he fired,” District Attorney Clint Curry said.

Oliver’s autopsy report shows that at the time of the incident, he was extremely high on methamphetamine. So high, Curry said Oliver initially thought it was a typo when he read the numbers.

“More than I’ve ever seen in my career on someone that’s not already dead from methamphetamine intoxication,” Curry said.

The investigation found that 10 shots were fired between the two officers. Oliver was struck seven times and died within seconds.

Curry said that Oliver fired a single round, which hit just below Rodarte’s vest, ultimately killing him.

“Osmar had a wife, two little boys, 7 and 6,” Curry said. “Obviously, he had more family than that and a law enforcement family, and there are a lot of people struggling with the should of and the could of.”

The investigation found the officers couldn’t see Oliver holding the revolver when they entered the room because he was standing behind stacked storage bins.

“The biggest takeaway [is that] Sgt. Trumm, Osmar Rodarte and their team, they did what we trained them to do that day,” Curry said. “They’re heroes.”

The investigation determined that Rodarte and Trumm acted in self-defense.

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