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American History >
American Civil War >
▼ Primary Sources ▼
In May, 1863, Joseph E. Johnston ordered General John Pemberton to attack Ulysses S. Grant at Clinton, Mississippi. Considering this too risky, Pemberton decided to attack Grant's supply train on the road between Grand Gulf and Raymond. Discovering Pemberton's plans, Grant attacked the Confederate Army at Champion's Hill. Pemberton was badly defeated and with the remains of his army returned to their fortifications around Vicksburg.
After two failed assaults, Grant decided to starve Pemberton out. This strategy proved successful and on 4th July, Pemberton surrendered Vicksburg. The western Confederacy was now completely isolated from the eastern Confederacy and the Union Army had total control of the Mississippi River.
American Civil War Encyclopedia
▲ Main Article ▲
(1) In his autobiography, Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant , Ulysses Grant explained the importance of capturing Vicksburg.
Vicksburg was important to the enemy because it occupied the first high ground coming close to the river before Memphis. From there a railroad runs east, connecting with other roads leading to all points of the Southern States. A railroad also starts from the opposite side of the river, extending west as far as Shreveport, Louisiana. Vicksburg was the only channel, at the time the only channel connecting the parts of the confederacy divided by the Mississippi. So long as it was held by the enemy, the free navigation of the river was prevented. Hence its importance. Points of the river between Vicksburg and Port Hudson were held as dependencies; but their fall was sure to follow the capture of the former place.
(2) Order sent by Major-General Ulysses Grant to Major-General William Sherman at Vicksburg (8th December, 1862)
You will proceed, with as little delay as possible, to Memphis, Tennessee, taking with you one division of your present command. On your arrival at Memphis you will assume command of all troops there. As soon as possible move them down the river to the vicinity of Vicksburg, and with the co-operation of the gunboat fleet under command of Flag-officer Porter proceed to the reduction of that place in such manner as circumstances, and your own judgment, may dictate.
The amount of rations, forage, land transportation, etc., necessary to take, will be left entirely with yourself. The Quartermaster at St. Louis will be instructed to send you transportation for 30,000 men; should you still find yourself deficient, your quartermaster will be authorized to make up the deficiency from such transports as may come into the port of Memphis.
(3) Thomas W. Knox, New York Herald (18th January, 1863)
Throughout the battle the conduct of the general officers was excellent, with a few exceptions. General Sherman was so exceedingly erratic that the discussion of the past twelve months with respect to his sanity, was revived with much earnestness.
All through the long December day the wounded lay upon the hill uncared for by either contending party. The ground was
that for which there had been so fierce a contest, and, while we could not take possession of it, the rebels did not choose to occupy it. Daybreak, sunrise, noon, sunset and night, and still the wounded uncared for. What must have been their suffering!
On the morning of Wednesday, the 31st of December the firing had been entirely stopped, and the rebels consented to receive a flag of truce. Five hours were allowed for burying the dead and taking away the wounded, and at the end of the
time the work was accomplished. A few of the rebels came out and talked freely with the bearers of the flag. They stated
that after the 1st of January they should shoot every officer captured, and put the privates at work on fortifications, with
ball and chain, in retaliation for the emancipation proclamation of the President. They expressed the utmost confidence in their ability to hold Vicksburg against the force now before it. From their statements it was inferred that Price was in command at Vicksburg, and that Tilghmans division was to arrive there on that day. There were evidently strong grounds for their hopes. They were well posted as to our strength, and informed us of the exact number of our transports and gunboats, and gave the number of men in the expedition with surprising accuracy.
All the slightly wounded had been taken to Vicksburg as prisoners of war, and we were allowed to bring away only those that we found on the ground. The rain and cold combined, with fifty hours' continued exposure, had left but few men alive. Had the flag been taken out and received on the afternoon subsequent to the battle, there is little doubt that many lives would have been saved. Doctors Burke and Franklin attended as best they could to the wants of the sufferers. By some criminal oversight there had been little preparation for battle on the part of Sherman's medical director, and the hospitals
were but poorly supplied with many needed stores. Since the battle General Sherman has persistently refused to allow a hospital boat to go above, though their detention in this region is daily fatal to many lives. The only known reason for his refusal is his fear that a knowledge of his management will reach the people of the North.
(4) John Pemberton, letter sent to each of his four division commanders at Vicksburg (Ist July, 1864)
Unless the siege of Vicksburg is raised, or supplies are thrown in, it will be necessary very shortly to evacuate the place. I see no prosoect of the former, and there are too many great, if not insuperable obstacles in the way of the latter.
(5) Ulysses Grant, Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant (1885)
On 3rd July, 1863, about ten o'clock a.m. white flags appeared on a portion of the rebel works. It was a glorious sight to officers and soldiers on the line where these white flags were visible, and the news spread to all parts of the command. The troops felt that their long and weary marches, hard fighting, ceaseless watching by night and day, in a hot climate, exposure to all sorts of weather, to diseases and, worst of all, to the gibes of many Northern papers that came to them saying all their suffering was in vain, that Vicksburg would never be taken, were at last at an end and the Union sure to be saved.
At three o'clock Pemberton appeared at the point suggested in my verbal message. Our place of meeting was on a hillside within a few hundred feet of the rebel lines. Pemberton and I had served in the same division during part of the Mexican War. I knew him very well therefore, and greeted him as an old acquaintance.
This news, with the victory at Gettysburg won the same day, lifted a great load of anxiety from the minds of the President, his Cabinet and the loyal people all over the North. The fate of the Confederacy was sealed when Vicksburg fell. Much hard fighting was to be done afterwards and many precious lives were to be sacrificed; but the morale was with the supporters of the Union ever after.
Civil War Battles


Today, the Vietnamese Ministry of Transport approved the Airports Corporation of Vietnam (ACV) – which operates 21 of the country's airports – to invest in the expansion plan for Tan Son Nhat Airport (SGN), designed by French airport operator Groupe ADP's consulting subsidiary, ADP Ingénierie (ADP-I).
Alongside a third passenger terminal and parking area south of existing airport buildings, ADP-I's designs call for construction of a new cargo terminal and an MRO station to the airport's north. The total expansion is projected to cost over $1.3 billion, excluding site clearance costs, according to Vietnam Net.
The new cargo and MRO buildings will be built on a 157-hectare piece of land north of the airport that is currently occupied by a golf course, and will ultimately have capacity for five million tonnes of cargo, according to local news VN Express. Further details regarding the cargo terminal's designs are yet to be determined.
The new extension project is necessary in enabling anticipated growth in cargo volumes at SGN, which would otherwise be inhibited by its current flight congestion and rapidly-shrinking space for cargo.
Last year, Saigon Cargo Service Corporation – a ground handler operating at SGN – deputy managing director Nguyen Thai Son told our sister publication Cargo Facts that it only had limited space left to handle extra cargo while its competitors were already completely full. Nguyen also said at the time that the handling company were expecting an increase in pharmaceutical and perishable traffic to and from Europe and were preparing to handle that through training and pursuit of CEIV-Pharma certification. He also said that there was a need for more freighter aircraft at SGN.
In addition to approving expansion plans at SGN, the government recently approved the construction of the new Long Thanh Airport. The country has also received increased attention from cargo logistics industry providers – last year, JD.com invested in Vietnamese e-commerce platform Tiki, DHL extended same-day delivery service to the country, and sources told our sister publication, Cargo Facts, that Amazon will likely build a warehouse at SGN.
For the expansion of SGN, the Ministry of Transport is responsible for overseeing cooperation between ADP-I and its Vietnamese counterpart, Airport Design and Construction Consultancy (ADCC), in completing adjustments to the expansion plan requiring mechanisms and policies to implement the projects.


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redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


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Every time you work on task log your efforts spent for the task. Select date for which the time is spent. Quickscrum allows selection of resource to allow Scrum Master to log efforts for any of his team member.
1. Go to Edit Task.
3. Click on Log Efforts button, where you may log your spent efforts.
Provide detail for the effort spent on task.
Date on which efforts are to be logged.
Time spent in hours for the given description.
Select team member who has spent time for the task.


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Q: Two-way encryption which only the owner can view This is related to : Two way DB encryption secure even from the Admin
I am developing a mail client, and which would pull emails from the user's IMAP. For faster retrieval speed, the client will cache the user's email in the database.
Right now all the emails' body are encrypted using two-way AES256, and each user has his own encryption key. However, to further secure the system, I am looking for a way such that the encryption is only two-way for the user, in case the database is compromised -- either through a data dump via injection or there's an unauthorized access (such as the attacker has obtained the password).
Can this be done?

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


How Important Home Energy Audit Is?
Is there an unusual increase in your energy consumption? Are you not satisfied with the comfort that you feel even your HVAC system is in full blast? Well, one thing's for sure. You need a home energy audit.
What is Home Energy Audit?
A home energy audit is your way of knowing the energy flow and consumption in your household. Through this, you will be notified which part of your home allows for great heat loss and in which part should you bend your energy consumption to enhance savings.
DIY or Professional Home Energy Audit?
You can do a home audit yourself by walking through the area and have a visual review on the corners of your home. You can also hire professional home auditors to conduct inspection and testing using equipment fit for the process.
Energy audits uncover the problems which you think do not take place in your home. While most homeowners consider it as another expense, that is way further than the truth. A professional home audit is your first step in attaining these important benefits.
With home energy audit, you'll know if you need to upgrade your home insulation or you have malfunctioning heating and cooling systems. These are the common cost of high energy bill. Indoor leaks and ventilation problems are also given attention. And if you respond to these issues, you'll find obvious beneficial changes in your energy bill.
After finding leaks and possible escapes of needed air which bring inconsistent cooling or heating inside, it's just right to seal them. So your home will be as convenient as you want it to be.
Home energy audit can also determine if you have poor indoor air quality. This can be a big problem to your health since it brings allergies and respiratory issues. Home audit will also notify you of the presence of radon, carbon monoxide and other dangerous gases.
Home audit also has a good impact to the environment since it reduces your carbon footprint.
Need a home energy audit? Call the certified experts at Albers Air Conditioning and Heating.


Congratulations, Stephanie Olivieri, the July winner of a book from Michael Wiese Productions for posting goals. To be entered in next month's drawing post August 2018 Goals here or weekly goals during the month of August on the Facebook page or in the Facebook group.
Join #GoalChat every Sunday at 7pm Pacific/10pm Eastern. Go to Tweetchat.com and follow the hashtag.
Post August 2018 Goals in the comments or weekly goals on Facebook for your chance to win a book from Michael Wiese Productions.
Here are the goals posted on the Facebook Page and in the Group in August.
Aadip Desai Finish my application for a writing lab.
Jim Katzaman Besides my daily posts, I've started drafts on two other articles — one for me to post and another for elsewhere.
Isobel Duncan Get at up 2,000 words in total.
Bill Kelly I hope to finish the current chapter.
Tony Gee Revising first half of second book.
Vivienne Bretherick My protagonist Rose and her cat Mr.Tibbs, have been drifting through my mind all week. I have to get this short story finished!
Daniel Escurel Occeno To publish as many of my ebooks with the new covers. Change some of the descriptions. Tags as well. Someone suggested that I limit my audience with the tag "romance". "Novel" is plenty. Any comments?
Hedi Boubecker Write and edit every morning, I hope i'll last !
Tracie Crum Bautista To write every day this week, even if it's just a paragraph.
Mercy Fae Author To actually get some writing done!
Sarah Glenn Set up blog posts and ads for an online sale. Work on a scene for the WIP if energy allows.
Alan Paine Come up with promotion ideas for my new books!
Warren Paul Glover Decide whether or not to accept an option agreement.
Shannon Luders-Manuel I started revamping my website, so I'd like to get that completed. Basically just polishing it up and making it stronger.
Sandra de Helen Finish reading the poetry book from The Rumpus. Upload ten more reviews by Lori. Start selecting poems for my FB page idea. Read and review another book.
Stephanie Olivieri Revisions on the novel and drawings to go in it.
Sandra de Helen Apply for a residency. Review projects, set realistic goals for next week.
April Bing Still recovering from surgery but my goal is to get some blog posts done!
E.M. Shue just to sit and write, I'm on a messed up work schedule.
Vivienne Bretherick I have a short story that's almost finished. I want to get it finished and sent out into the universe by the end of the week. I have time off work this week so its not an unreasonable goal, just need to stay focused and resist cleaning house for a day or two.
Tanya Bailey I'm writing my novel's first draft old school, pan in a scribbler, if I can get at least 3 pages written and a start on my blog post then I'll be happy.
Destiny Pifer Well I am dealing with another rejection letter and some anxiety issues right now but I am still planning to eventually sit down and write again.
Daniel Escurel Occeno Force myself to get some work finished.
Edward Anderson 30,000 words on my novel and 3 articles.
Isobel Duncan I have 183 words left to type.
Daniel Escurel Occeno Procrastination, laziness, and just did not want to do anything. It all happened during the week. Good thing there is this week. Maybe I should get some multivitamins.
Sophie de Merteuil It's almost three in the morning, I have to go to yoga at 8, and instead of sleeping I just drafted and outlined two articles for Vocal Media. Erratic but ah well haha. I'm an artist not an engineer.
Bill Kelly I've made a little progress, but I've been in a great deal of pain for most of the week. The pain has kept me from concentrating. A friend wants me to write some political commentary that he wants to submit to some places that would publish political commentary. I bounced a few ideas off him and wrote one draft commentary. I've added a little bit to my book. In the book, I go through a few scenarios, and sometimes, the setup to one scenario is the same as the setup to another. That allows me to do some copy-and-paste that will give me more words in a hurry but not really more new content.
Robbin Lewis-Hurley I didn't meet my goal completely but I am closer than I have ever gotten before. Woot! Still have the same goal for this week. 1k words per day. Finalized first draft by the end of August.
Petrea Burchard Your posts are so encouraging and I feel like a shlub for not having a lot of writing/networking goals right now! BUT an editing client is keeping me busy, so until they run out of things for me to do I can sock away some $$. So that is my goal for this week!
Tracy Gerhardt-Cooper Make some goals for July after being sidetracked by sickness this weekend.
Candy Neely Arrington I have an article due Monday. My goal is to finish it by Friday.
Kimberly Johnson Louis Submitting work to greeting card companies. Look for writing contests or freelance work online.
Erica Cottrill Writing skills across a wide range of deliverables, from traditional PR to blogs to published articles. Looking for more freelance projects and am focusing on social media to get the word out!
Sherry Sheridan Hayes-Peirce Write three blogs for deadlines next week!
Nicole Reid Edit my last nano (20 pages) and maybe 1k—light week because I have other projects to complete.
Daniel Escurel Occeno To make my ebooks with the new covers "live" for purchase. Then set up my 3 collections on ebooks of short stories for kids and short stories and novelettes. Someone on a comment suggested it. After going over those again I agreed with the idea. More so for print-on-demand paperbacks.
E.M. Shue 8k in words on my WIP and my blurb for the same WIP done.
Rebecca Caesar I would like to finish writing at least one chapter this week. My summer schedule is chaotic (but fun).
Swati Goswami To have more retainer freelance content writing projects and to have more followers of my travel and lifestyle blog.
Lois Paige Simenson Revise Ch 7, 8, 9 for my critters.
Michele Miles Gardiner Editing my manuscript before I hand it off to my copy editor–like cleaning before the housekeeper comes (not that I have someone to help with my house. I wish!). I recently discovered I have a THING for em dashes, so those are getting tidied.
Musawale Annemarie find time to write my Harlequin even with the amount of work I have to do. Keep social media to bare minimum.
Mercy Fae Author Set up GoodReads Author page, and give out some of the ARC's for reviews.
Brian Leggett I'm putting together an outline for a new screenplay I plan to write. It's a bit difficult putting together this outline, but I'm still going to do it.
Robbin Lewis-Hurley My goal for this week is to write 1k words per day. So far I've made it 3 days this week.
Christy Jackson Nicholas New release comes out Wednesday! Also, working on my new WIP. Hoping to get in 5,000 words this week.
Jill Giambruno Start, and finish, chapter one!!!
Shannon Simcox To write every day this week!
Robbin Lewis-Hurley My goal is to finish the first draft of my non-fiction book. Half way there. Woot!
Pam Martin Find more client work (quickly!), write a least 3 chapters on the switched WIP (hoping for 10K words or more), and finish two short client pieces.
Daniel Escurel Occeno To finalize the new covers of my already self-published ebooks and publish the ebook with the new covers.
Mercy Fae Author Pre-order set up for my novel. Now just working on advertising.
Jo Moon Finish novella and run some more Ads!
Pam Martin Write a short story tied to the book series, write 1-2 chapters on the WIP, redo the chapter synopses for the new series first book (I didn't like what I have), and write some query letters about possible articles.
Daniel Escurel Occeno Continue to self-publish my stories on ebooks with the new covers.
Andrea Noor outline ideas into possible articles.
Kimberly Bea Finish revisions on Draft 6 and send it to my mentor by Sunday.
Fawn Spencer Finish a book I'm editing for another author, and then either finish my sewing book or start something new to try to get something started for Camp Nano.
Daniel Escurel Occeno For the month of July my goal is to decide on self-publishing with print-on-demand paperbacks. Making new covers on my ebooks and was a suggestion it gave me 3 new book ideas. A collection of my short stories for a print edition along with my novelettes. I only have ebooks right now.


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Posts Tagged 'photography'
Women are from Venus -- Raygun Studio practices the art of deception using new, more intuitive 3D software. Stunningly realistic and provocative details has put the image shop in the forefront of a new wave of advertising imagery. Credit: Michael Tompert/Cade Martin
Raygun Studio unwraps the mystery of fantastic CGI effects
"In a way I'm like a photographer," says Tompert, who considers himself an image artist. "I build images that look like reality. The content might have fantastic elements, which in many cases are client requests. If the client wants a Venus flytrap made entirely of chocolate, I want the chocolate to look so real you can taste it."
Tompert started his own company after several years retouching product images for Apple and using 3D tools in the design of many of the icons, logos, and concept visualizations. Now in his own shop for design and advertising imagery, Tompert has wide berth to play in his signature style.
Techniques at Raygun triangulate traditional photography, digital retouching, and computer-generated imagery (CGI) from 3D models. For many years, CGI technology seemed impractical for photographers and graphic designers. But Tompert explains that CGI tricks are now within reach, even for Mac-adherents like himself.
3D gets un-PC
A new generation of fast microprocessors and intuitive rendering software has made this kind of fictional photography possible. One of the leading developers, Luxion, has released its high-speed rendering application KeyShot not only for PCs but for Macs, finally bridging the gap between CGI in the world of graphic artists.
Tompert has worked with 3D rendering since the 90s, gaining some experience in car ads and other product shots. "Automotive styling is where 3D CGI originated," he says. "Photographing cars can get extremely involved." By taking the same CAD used to design and manufacture a vehicle, graphic artists could render it with realistic materials and composite it into any scene. They could plop SUVs onto desert plateaus or park luxury cars on European cobblestones, without the immense effort of on-location photo shoots.
The problem in the past, Tompert says, was that the 3D CAD and best rendering technology resided almost exclusively on the PC side of the fence. As a consequence, the software demanded a highly technical "engineer-y" mentality that one has come to associate with PCs. You would have to mix your own material palette by tweaking dozens of optical properties. Setting up the lighting environment required the same sort of math-heavy pre-planning.
Taking his best shot -- Raygun Studio's Michael Tompert at a shoot, mounting his Nikon D300 to a Kaidan spherical pano tripod head for a HDRI. Photo by Montse Llaurado
The worst part of the older, slower rendering apps was you couldn't see what you were creating. Previews often gave only a solid-color fill of surfaces. To see the actual interplay of light, reflections, and shadows – the convincing details — you had to process a final render, which sometimes took hours. It was a bit like planning a fireworks display when all the rocket labels were in Chinese. You never knew what you were going to get until you fired it off.
For many intuition-based visual artists, this amount of techie tedium was more than they could bear. Tompert, however, soldiered through the technical demands for years, collecting a wide variety of 3D Mac tools, like Strata 3D, Amapi, Poser, Modo, and Cinema 4D. Luxion technology, however, offered something new in its application Keyshot. Tompert was one of the application's earliest adapters.
"KeyShot provides an interface worthy of the name Mac OS. I think it will open up CGI to a much larger audience in the photography and graphic art world, including people that were initially turned off and were unwilling to jump the hurdles."
Re-touch & go
Incorporating 3D CGI details into an image works similarly to composting one photo into another in Photoshop. In the title example featured here, Tompert makes a paintbrush swipe in Photoshop of his background image of the on-location beach scene, making an empty space in the waves in roughly the position he wants the flying saucer. He imports in the preview image from the Bunkspeed application from the backend, just as if it was another Photoshop document. The UFO model appears within the stroke. He can go back and forth between the two applications to perfect the positioning and light effects.
"The real breakthrough with the Luxion technology is that it is real time," says Tompert. "This allows me to work truly visually, play with the scene, experiment, and find things accidentally." In contrast to renderers past, the KeyShot preview generates the entire scene just as it will appear in the final, including all the light sources, high-fidelity materials, and every tiny detail of reflections, refractions, and shadows.
If Tompert rotates the UFO model slightly, the KeyShot preview immediately re-processes the scene, and the new results appear in the PhotoShop brushstroke. Like a rapidly developing Poloroid, the preview starts out fuzzy at first, but within a few seconds a tinny spacecraft gains clarity.
One advantage comping with a 3D model rather than a static image is that the objects in the KeyShot scene are movable and voluble in real time. Tompert can tilt, rotate, or re-size the 3D model until the prop is naturally poised in the Photoshop composite. KeyShot automatically recalculates the lighting effects in the new preview.
"Luxion KeyShot is basically a photo studio in a box. You have lights, a stage, and bring in your props. You can save your stage and open it up a month later and the lights are still on, the scene exactly the way you left it, without any dust gathering," explains Tompert. "Another difference is you can change the materials of your props." If Tompert clicks on another material from the library palette, the preview would start again, giving him a UFO in glass instead of metal within a few seconds.
"I just love how I can be creative and spontaneous in KeyShot with 3D models. I can dial in the lighting and materials in real time. I can see the reflections and refractions run up and down the models in the real environment just like in a photo studio, rather than having to pre-plan or calculate the shot."
A real gem -- To produce the luminous effect in Gillette's shower gel ad, Raygun Studio rendered a 3D model using Bunkspeed SHOT's diamond material. The high level of light scattering gives the image radiance as well as depth.
Materially different
The Luxion KeyShot application has taken off with the graphic art crowd (besides releasing a parallel product for Mac users) because that the software comes standard with an extensive library of pre-mixed shaders that perfectly match real-world materials: woods, metals, enamel finishes, even translucent substances like glass or liquids. Artist can jump right into rendering models in a sort of paint-by-numbers simplicity, without all the technical complexities.
Tompert often likes to trade out different materials to make unconventional choices to see he gets better light performance in a scene. In Raygun Studio's recent ad image for Gillette's new shower gel, Tompert rendered a 3D decoy of the showering man in solid diamond to produce exaggerated light scattering. "You can push beyond the limits of a real-world photo studio. You can make glass that sparkles more than diamond, metals that reflect more than chrome."
Setting up -- The original HDRI backplate used in the UFO crash image above.
A higher range of possibilities
"Since I work with KeyShot frequently now, I have been shooting more of my own HDRIs especially on bigger productions. Doing my own HDRIs not only makes for incredible realism but turns out to be a great way to connect with everybody on the creative team at the day of the shoot," says Tompert. "It's a way to span the real working world of photographer to the virtual world of the computer."
Tompert initially relied on the library of HDR studio and on-location images that come along with Luxion's software. Now with equipment to create his own, he has no limits to where he can apply CGI.
A HDRI is a high dynamic range image, which picks up many more intensities in an environment that conventional photography. A 3D HDRI and the background 2D photograph ideally are taken at the same time to capture the same play of light. But in practice, one can also improvise. In the spacewoman image, the photographer Cade Martin created the backplate image of the fashion model in Washington. Weeks later, Tompert took a 360-degree HDRI at the beach in California which approximated the original scene.
"HDRIs capture a sphere that includes the whole dynamic range of radiance, from the flares on the sun to the tread underneath a rear tire," he explains. "Shooting your own HDRIs requires a bit of specialized hardware, whether it's a DSLR with a fisheye or a Spheron scanning camera. Then you need quite a bit of post-processing, either in Photoshop or in specialized tools for stitching and blending. It's not for the faint of heart, but it allows you to add any item imaginable into a photographed scene. It's a good idea to work with available HDR images for a while and study how they work, or tweak existing HDRIs in Photoshop to get an understanding of how they affect a scene before going out and investing in equipment and software to shoot your own."
Creating a splash
The next frontier for Raygun Studio CGI experiments is modeling realistic fluids. Water – whether it occurs in rain-drenched streets, mountain cascades, or just in a pitcher on a table – has traditionally been a trouble spot for photo retouchers, since it is nearly impossible to remove water elements from their original context in with 2D tools. Tompert has found ray tracing a way to sidestep this problem. Now, with the addition of other 3D software tools, he has been pushing liquids closer to center stage.
"I am very interested in physics modeling which is coming along lately as the Macs are getting powerful, or should I say, almost powerful enough, to allow this kind of thing." Tompert will generate 3D splashes, spills, or pours in applications like RealFlow or MoGraph in Cinema 4D. "It makes for some very organic and amazingly realistic models which open up other possibility for CGI beyond the usual product shots. Most of the things I wind up using in my final images are not really not planned out; camera views just 'spoke' to me and I would take screen shot of them and just drop them into Photoshop and finish it off."
Pacific Heights -- A collaboration with San Francisco photographer Erik Almås, who shot the girl and the skyline, while Raygun Studio contributed the rest from rendered CGI models. Local shop Jellysquare performed the post-production and compositing.
A realistic outlook for Mac users
The advertising industry have acquired a taste for CGI-composite photography, and according to Tompert, its appetite continues to grow. At first, CGI was a way to create less expensive glamor shots for products, but now ad agencies recognize that hyper-real compositions that tell a story can reach a deeper psychology. As Tompert's examples show, CGI craft can convey a mood or experience that can be imagined, but not — ordinarily –photographed.
"As CGI gets more accessible, the trend will accelerate. Even more implausibly fantastic and hyper-real constructs of the imagination will be the default for imagery in advertising," predicts Tompert. "It will be interesting to see how far that trend will push the envelope. And like a lot of Mac-based applications, there's a tendency to democratize what used to be arcane. CGI won't be viewed as impenetrable. The new apps will take the big fear out of 3D and bring in a lot more people who are not very technical yet very creative. 3D tools are now opening up an avenue to express their vision."
Written by Brett Duesing, Obleo Design Media. A version of this story appeared in BPT Magazine Issue 22. Editor's note: at the time of publication, this article referenced Bunkspeed HyperShot. Bunkspeed had announced its new product line, formally called HyperShot, would be called SHOT. Forthcoming releases of SHOT, however, were limited to the Windows platform. Technology from the former HyperShot rendering application transferred to Luxion, which does offer an application for Mac users under the name KeyShot. Michael Tompert reports that Raygun Studio is now producing effects in KeyShot for Mac. The product name has been updated in this article to reflect these industry changes.
About Raygun Studio
Raygun Studio, a digital retouching and CGI studio in Palo Alto, California, fuses photography, retouching, and CGI for the best in photorealistic effects. Founded in 2005 by image artist Michael Tompert represented by Kate Chase of Tidepool Reps, Raygun Studio has quickly grown a client list of design firms and agencies small and large, including BBDO, Butler Shine, Chiat/Day, Crispin Porter, Tolleson Design, Ogilvy and Y&R. For more examples from the Raygun Studio portfolio, please visit: www.raygunstudio.com.
Luxion KeyShot's Power of Transformation
For professional photographers, the most exciting software releases in recent years was the introduction of KeyShot, a new approach to 3D rendering from Luxion, which made a marked departure from the engineering mentality usually associated with CAD. Rendering used to require a large skill set, constant adjustments, and many hours to process a single 3D scene. KeyShot, on the other hand, seemed made for artists. The debut boasted stunning real-time high-resolution previews, an extensive palette of perfect industrial-design materials, and automatic self-shadows that gave an instant illusion of depth to any CAD object.
With this year's release of KeyShot's follow-up, we take a sneak peek into how studios have incorporated Luxion's CGI technology into their work. All these examples feature cars, the most expensive product to shoot professionally. In these cases, however, no photographs of the cars were ever taken. The photographers produced the product images solely through CGI transformations of 3D models.
Basic Black: Vond Studios, London
www.vondstudios.co.uk
"The local supercar club came to us with the idea of using a rare car like Gallardo Nera as an appealing promotional image. As soon as we got the CAD model, we were supposed to render some previews for approval," explains Michal Baginski, a designer at Vond Studios, which builds images for automotive, product-design, and architectural clients.Vond Studios took no photos for the project. Baginski's team used the backgrounds, materials, HDRI files, and lighting schemes from the software package. The flawless realism on the first render, Baginski says, is arguably better than what would come off of camera rolls after a studio shoot.
"In KeyShot, we were able to do it in minutes. The idea was to have minimal in-studio setup, so we tested a few colors of KeyShot backgrounds and stayed with standard black. For the lighting, we just loaded one of the photo studio bundle purchased from the online store and adjusted it for an even reflection that would accent the geometry of the car," he says. "After the image was done, we just applied some smoke and flares in our image processing software on top of the actual render. It was easy as that.We completed all the images within one day."
On Location: David Burgess
www.david-burgess.com
Just as Luxion KeyShot's standard backgrounds can mimic various studio settings, photographers' own outdoor shots can create the illusion of on location settings with the aid of High Dynamic Range Images (HDRIs). And they can even do the rendering outdoors.
"I shot the backplate and HDRI at the same time and at the same location," says London photographer David Burgess of his colorful ad images for the Ford Interceptor. Seconds after taking the shots, he found a piece of shade from the Nevada sun and processed the image in the Luxion software.
"I had my laptop with me so I could work with the CGI model as I shot the backgrounds to make sure I liked the way the image was looking," he says. "It is much easier to shoot alternative backgrounds when you work this way as opposed to doing everything later in the hotel or back at your studio.
"I think this was only made possible with KeyShot, as any other software would not have allowed me this freedom to look at a full color, working CGI model with complete HDRI lighting on a laptop on location. KeyShot is the only real solution for photographers who work visually rather than technically."
Read more about the new KeyShot from Luxion at www.keyshot.com.
[Portions of this article appear in the February 2009 issue of Professional Photographer: www.professionalphotographer.co.uk]

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


text:
1899: Claude Branton, gallows photograph
Add comment May 12th, 2019 Headsman
Claude Henry Branton was noosed in Eugene, Oregon on this date in 1899, with the last words, "I haven't much to say. I hope for God's sake no one will try to run my folks down on account of this. They are innocent. I hope people will learn a lesson from this and tread on the right path. I hope to meet you all in the other world. I ask this for Jesus's sake. Amen."
Branton with another young farmhand named Courtland Green murdered rancher John Linn when the three were in the wilderness driving horses to Oregon's McKenzie River Valley for sale. The motive was the thousand dollars or so that they thought that Linn was carrying; instead, the two killers found only $65 to split: he'd wisely given his ready cash to a friend for safekeeping before setting out.
And now they had to explain why they were arriving as a duo when they had set out as a trio.
A retrospective (May 20, 2018) from the Redmond (Ore.) Spokesman compares their subsequent situation to Melmoth the Wanderer, vainly sounding the valley for someone to give them an alibi.
The two of them decided what they needed was to find some rustic sucker willing to perjure himself by swearing that he had seen the three of them together, bringing the horses down.
And so commenced Branton and Green's Melmoth-like wanderings through the McKenzie valley, horses in tow, looking for friends old and new who would be willing to perjure themselves in exchange for the pick of the herd.
Branton even made a fake beard so that he could pretend to be Linn at one spot. This didn't work, though, because the rancher he was trying to fool recognized his voice.
The two of them tried several times to sell the horses, too, but no one would take them because Linn wasn't there to sign the bill of sale.
Eventually the two murderers split up, Branton fleeing out of the state and Green into the bottle. But neither man found his refuge secure. Conscience and drink overcame Green's composure and he revealed the crime (he ended up with a life sentence). Branton unwisely returned to Eugene without realizing that the murder had been exposed, and was instantly arrested.
There were about 50 official witnesses to the hanging, which took place within a stockade outside the Lane County courthouse while a large crowd milled outside or sought elevated vantage points in order to steal a glimpse. A few years later, a similarly raucous scene outside a similar "private" hanging in Portland, the Beaver State moved all executions indoors to the state penitentiary at Salem.
1974: Leyla Qasim, Bride of Kurdistan - 2018
1775: William Pitman, for murdering his slave - 2017
1868: Robert Smith, the last publicly hanged in Scotland - 2016
1543: Jakob Karrer, Vesalius subject - 2015
1625: Not Helene Gillet, beheading survivor - 2014
1936: Buck Ruxton, red stains - 2013
1388: Three evil counselors of Richard II - 2012
1730: James Dalton, Hogarth allusion - 2011
1641: Thomas Wentworth, Earl of Strafford - 2010
1993: Leonel Herrera, perilously close to simple murder? - 2009
1916: James Connolly, socialist revolutionary - 2008
1880: Edwin Hoyt, in Bridgeport
1898: Alfred C. Williams
1866: Anton Probst, "I only wanted the money"
1854: William Lipsey and James Logan, in gold rush Coloma
1841: Peter Robinson, Tell-Tale Heart inspiration?
1851: Ruben Dunbar, Destructiveness and Combativeness
1852: Adam Wimple, his executioner's lodger
Entry Filed under: 19th Century,Capital Punishment,Common Criminals,Crime,Death Penalty,Execution,Hanged,Murder,Oregon,Pelf,USA
Tags: 1890s, 1899, claude branton, eugene, may 12, photography
1974: Leyla Qasim, Bride of Kurdistan
1 comment May 12th, 2018 Headsman
On this date in 1974, Kurdish activist Leyla Qasim was hanged by the Ba'ath regime in Baghdad.
A middle daughter among four brothers from the heavily Kurdish Khanaqin district, Qasim joined the Kurdish Student Union as a student at Baghdad University in the early 1970s.
The Iraqi government had fought a running war against Kurdish rebels throughout the 1960s, resolved only by a tenuous truce; by the spring of 1974 armed conflict began again.
Visible Kurdish activists living right in the capital became a natural target.
Qasim and four male companions were arrested in late April, accused of plotting against Iraq (various accounts have this down to a hijacking scheme or cogitating the murder of Saddam Hussein). They were tortured, condemned in a televised trial, and executed together.
She purportedly gave her family the last words of a proper martyr: "I am going to be [the] Bride of Kurdistan and embrace it."
She's still regarded as a Kurdish heroine and many families confer her name on their daughters.
1899: Claude Branton, gallows photograph - 2019
1952: Night of the Murdered Poets
1925: Sheikh Said Piran, Kurdish rebel
1915: 20 Hunchakian gallows
1943: 186 prisoners at Plotzensee Prison
1942: Mykhailo and Olena Teliha, Ukrainian artists
1942: Joan Peiro i Belis, Catalan anarchist
Entry Filed under: 20th Century,Activists,Capital Punishment,Death Penalty,Disfavored Minorities,Execution,Famous,Hanged,History,Iraq,Kurdistan,Martyrs,Mass Executions,Racial and Ethnic Minorities,Torture,Treason,Wartime Executions,Women
Tags: 1970s, 1974, baghdad, leyla qasim, may 12
1775: William Pitman, for murdering his slave
Add comment May 12th, 2017 Meaghan
(Thanks to Meaghan Good of the Charley Project for the guest post. -ed.)
On this date in 1775,* plantation owner William Pitman was hanged for murder in King George County, Virginia.
Pitman had a reputation as a brutal man and was no stranger to the Virginia courts; he had been making appearances since the 1750s. So perhaps it was not surprising that he got strung up eventually.
Virginia Gazette, Apr. 21, 1775
What is surprising, indeed perhaps unprecedented, is that the murder victim was one of his own slaves.
The Virginia Gazette, which published the sole surviving account of the incident, says that Pitman, "in liquor" and "in the heat of passion" lost his temper, "tied his poor negro boy by his neck and heels," and beat him with a large grapevine before stomping him to death.
Pitman can hardly have been the first, or the last, slaveowner to slaughter his own "property" but it was usually impossible to get a conviction because blacks were not allowed to testify against whites in court. In this case, however, two white people — Pitman's own son and daughter — sealed the case by giving evidence against their father.
The Gazette, writing on April 21, said Pitman had "justly incurred the penalties of the law" and said hopefully that the story might be "a warning to others to treat their slaves with moderation, and not give way to unruly passions, that my bring them to an ignominious death, and involve their families in their unhappy fate."
* Pitman's hanging "yesterday" is reported in the Saturday, May 13 issue of the Virginia Gazette — a different Virginia Gazette from the one quoted in this post, as it happens: three competing papers used this same branding; the report in this post's body on the circumstances of Pitman's conviction comes from Dixon and Hunter's Gazette, while the May 13 item establishing the hanging date is from Alexander Purdie's Gazette.
Purdie's May 13 edition further adds that when the sheriff came to fetch him on the fatal day, "Pitman made some resistance, but was soon overpowered; he behaved with decency at the place of execution, and attributed his unhappy fate to the effect of intemperate drinking."
1786: Hannah Ocuish, age 12
1784: Richard Barrick, Massachusetts highwayman
1721: Joseph Hanno, "miserable African"
1721: Christiana Bell
1788: John Price Posey, "superlative villain"
1896: Four in New Mexico, in three different towns
1648: Alice Bishop
Entry Filed under: 18th Century,Capital Punishment,Common Criminals,Crime,Death Penalty,Execution,Guest Writers,Hanged,History,Murder,Other Voices,Public Executions,USA,Virginia
Tags: 1770s, 1775, may 12, william pitman
1868: Robert Smith, the last publicly hanged in Scotland
Robert Smith hanged in Dumfries on this date in 1868 — the last man publicly executed in Scotland* before the advent of private hangings later that same month of May.
Though inclement Scottish weather kept the crowds at bay on the occasion, Robert Smith was a notorious villain for his season in the public eye, as the ensuing newspaper reports will attest.
His death mask is still kept at the Dumfries Museum and Camera Obscura.
The Sheffield & Rotherham Independent, Feb. 8, 1868:
FRIGHTFUL CRIMES IN DUMFRIES-SHIRE
On Sunday, the Scotch police apprehended in Carlisle, Robert Smith, whitewasher, aged 20, for an awful crime. On Saturday evening, near Cummertrees, Dumfries-shire, he took a girl, aged 14, into a wood, where he robbed her of 7s. 6d., hung her to a tree, and when dead cut her body down. Afterwards he entered a cottage at Longford, and stabbed a woman named Jane Paterson so fearfully about the neck that death is expected.
The following are additional particulars of this shocking crime: — A murder bearing a horrible resemblance to that lately committed at Alton has just startled the county of Dumfries. It appears that on Saturday afternoon, between 3 and 4 o'clock, a young man, named Smith, who earns a living by jobbing and labouring about the country, was observed by a woman, named Patterson, to take into a wood near to Cummertrees, a village between Annan and Dumfies, a girl, about fourteen years of age.
The woman, as it turned out, had been observed by the ruffian, for some time afterwards he entered her house at Longford-cottages and felled her to the ground. While down he attacked her with his knife and inflicted five stabs about her neck. Her cries alarmed three young men who were passing, and who rushed in to her assistance. The ruffian had meanwhile escaped.
On the poor woman recovering, she related what she had seen near the wood. Information was given at the nearest police-station, and on the party going to the wood they saw a horrible sight. The girl with whom the villain had been seen was found to have been robbed and murdered, after another atrocious crime had been committed. The murderer had hanged her up to a tree & then cut down her body.
Pursuit was at once commenced, and Smith was apprehended on Sunday. He had gone to a farm-house, where blood was observed on his clothes, and in his pocket was found a leather shoelace tied in a noose. There is little doubt that he is the murderer.
The atrocious affair has created the utmost horror. Another account states that the poor little girl is the daughter of a shoemaker at Cummertrees, named Scott, and that she was going to Annan to purchase groceries; that she stopped for shelter at a cottae on the road, and the supposed murderer, Robert Smith, a farm labourer, aged 20, known in the neighbourhood, arranged to accompany her. The man and girl left the cottage together at noon, and the latter was never seen alive again. It was 3 in the afternoon before Smith returned to the cottage and made the murderous attack upon the woman, with the design, as it is supposed, of preventing her from giving evidence against him.
Some additional facts have come to light.
It appears that the prisoner had, after murdering the little girl, gone on to Annan, and there purchased a pistol, with the necessary ammunition, such as powder, shot, and caps. The pistol has since been found in Longford Cottage, and the woman, who can tell a short story, states that after being struc she heard a pistol fired off, though she was stunned at the time.
Robert Smith, or Colvan, the perpetrator of the shocking outrage, is a native of Eaglesfield, near Kirtlebridge, in the county of Dumfiresshire. His mother died when he was about eight years of age. He was then taken charge of by an uncle, named Michael Smith, whose name he has since borne, though Colvan is his right name.
At the age of nine he was cast on the world to fight for himself. He commenced to work about some limekilns in the neighbourhood, and subsequently as a farm servant. During last harvest he found work on Longford Farm, where also the husband of the woman he so brutally mangled was employed.
Mrs. Creighton is progressing more favourably than was at first anticipated, and hopes are now entertained of her recovery.
Nottinghamshire Guardian, Apr. 24, 1868:
THE DUMFRIESSHIRE MURDER.
At the Dumfries Spring Court of Justiciary on Tuesday, Robert Smith, alias Colwin, was charged with the murder, on the 1st of February last, of Thomasina Scott.
The deceased, a girl of tne, was the daughter of a small shopkeeper at Cummertrees. On the morning in question she left home to go to Annan, a neighbouring town, and on her way thither she called at the house of an acquaintance, Mrs. Creighton.
The prisoner, who was a farm labourer, was in the house at the time, and when the deceased departed he too left the house. Some distance from that place the two were seen together.
Two hours later the prisoner returned alone, made a desperate attempt on the life of Mrs. Creighton, and then fled.
Subsequently the deceased was missed and a search in a plantation in the locality discovered her violated and murdered body. Death had been caused by strangulation.
The prisoner pleaded guilty to having committed a criminal assault. — His counsel contended that he was at the time in the state of mind called "moral mania." — The Jury returned a verdict of guilty; and the prisoner was sentenced to be hanged on the 12th May.
Cheshire Observer and Chester, Birkenhead, Crewe and North Wales Times, May 16, 1868:
EXECUTION AT DUMFRIES.
On Tuesday morning, at eight minutes past eight o'clock, Robert Smith, or Colvin, was hanged at Dumfries Goal [sic], for the murder and rape of Thomasina Scott, a girl, on the first of February last.
Since his conviction the culprit seemed thoroughly resigned to his fate, and recognised the fact that the atrocity of his crime placed the commutation of his sentence beyond the reach of hope.
He expressed contrition for what he had done, and had written to th emother of his victim, asking her pardon.
His demeanour was, however, firm, and even stolid; and though he listened with attention to the ministrations of the chaplain (the Rev. Mr. Cowans), their effect upon him was not very visible. On Monday night he took supper at seven, and the chaplain remained with him till eight; when asked, he declined to receive any other minister.
The culprit rose about six on Tuesday morning. He stated that he had slept well — never better in his life; and, while taking breakfast, he conversed about his impending death with the utmost equanimity. The county authorities assembled in the prison about half-past seven, shortly after which the executioner, Thos. Asern, of York (Calcraft being retained to hang Barrett), was introduced to the condemned man.
He submitted to the process of pinioning, and in the procession to the scaffold he walked with firmness. On the platform he never once faltered, but stood with patience while the hangman rectified an error which he had made, and through which the noose had to be taken off and readjusted.
The drop fell at eight minutes past eight; the culprit struggled and swung a little, but in two minutes the body ceased to quiver.
The weather was raw and wet, and, in consequence, the assembled crowd was small. Some women shrieked when the unfortunate youth was led up the ladder, but otherwise all was orderly.
* By coincidence, Dumfries also hosted Scotland's last public hanging of a woman.
1858: James Seale, on the heath with Thomas Hardy
1843: Allen Mair, irate
1865: Edward William Pritchard, MD
1862: Mary Timney, the last woman publicly hanged in Scotland
1846: The last civil executions in Portugal
1896: Fred Behme, evangelical Methodist
1833: Ira West Gardner, creepy stepfather
Entry Filed under: 19th Century,Capital Punishment,Common Criminals,Crime,Death Penalty,Execution,Hanged,History,Milestones,Murder,Public Executions,Rape,Scotland
Tags: 1860s, 1868, cummertrees, dumfries, may 12, robert smith, thomas asern, thomasina scott
1543: Jakob Karrer, Vesalius subject
osing his head on May 12, 1543 made Jakob Karrer von Gebweiler's name in the annals of art and and medicine.
The remains of the Basel felon — who attacked his wife with a knife when she discovered his bigamous marriage — were turned over after execution to Andreas Vesalius.
That brilliant Flemish doctor was in the midst of a proper Renaissance leveling up of medicine, lifting it past the centuries-long thrall of ancient Greek physician Galen.
Human dissection was essential to Vesalius's project, as it was alike to many other medical men and to artists too. In his career, Vesalius's cunning scalpel stripped numerous cadavers for students and urban grandees. With Karrer, Vesalius performed a public dissection, articulating Karrer's skeleton.
Gifted to the university there, the skeleton was restored in 1985 and can be seen to this day at the Institute of Anatomy in Basel, Switzerland — one of the very earliest still-preserved articulated skeletons.
Why is it a Basel criminal who enjoys this distinction?
From Wikipedia's library of De Humani illustrations.
Because in 1543, Vesalius was in that city* to work with printer Johannes Oporinus, even then publishing the physician's magnum opus De Humani Corporis Fabrica. Vesalius personally transported to Oporinus the famously gorgeous and detailed woodcuts of Titian's pupil Joannes Stephanus Calcarensis that made De Humani a smash hit in Vesalius's own time and one of the most treasured artifacts of Renaissance scholarship.
* There's still a street named for Vesalius in Basel.
1599: Beatrice Cenci and her family, for parricide
1831: Julien Sorel, in The Red and the Black
1828: Antoine Berthet, Stendhal inspiration
1551: Alice Arden, husband killer
1676: Marie-Madeleine-Marguerite d'Aubray, Marquise de Brinvilliers
1594: Ishikawa Goemon, bandit
1699: Madame Tiquet, "nothing more beautiful"
Entry Filed under: 16th Century,Arts and Literature,Attempted Murder,Beheaded,Capital Punishment,Common Criminals,Crime,Death Penalty,Execution,History,Public Executions,Sex,Switzerland
Tags: 1540s, 1543, anatomized, anatomy, andreas vesalius, art, art history, basel, johannes oporinus, may 12, medicine
1625: Not Helene Gillet, beheading survivor
On this date in 1625, Helene Gillet went to the scaffold in Dijon to suffer beheading for infanticide.
But it was the executioner and not Helene who came down from it in pieces.
Helene was the beautiful 21-year-old daughter of a royal chatelain, the sort of well-to-do folks who would own monogrammed blankets that proved quite incriminating when found wrapped around an abandoned dead infant in the woods. Helene would claim that its origin was a family tutor who forced himself upon her, and also insist without further explanation on her innocence of the child's fate — though the latter little entered the picture since an edict from 1556 made it capital crime to conceal pregnancy and childbirth.
Thanks to her status, she was entitled to the dignity of a beheading, rather than an ignoble dispatch by rope. But all else for Helene Gillet was shame: her father disowned her and forbade any intervention on her behalf; only Helen's mother accompanied her to Dijon to appeal against the sentence.
It is said that in the course of her appeals to the Parlement of Dijon, the mother attracted the sympathy of the Bernadine abbey there, one of whose inmates ventured to prophesy that "whatever happens, Helene Gillet will not die by the hand of the executioner, but will die a natural and edifying death."
Parlement begged to differ.
On Monday, May 12th, the young woman was led to the hill of Morimont (present-day Place Emile-Zola) by the executioner of Dijon, Simon Grandjean. Monsieur Bourreau was in an agitated state that day, whether from pity for his victim, or from an ague that had afflicted him, or from whatever other woes haunted his life. When you're the executioner of Dijon you can't just call in sick or take a mental health day.
The scaffold on which the whole tragedy was to unfold was a permanent edifice, albeit far less monumental than the likes of Montfaucon. Its routine employment was attested by the permanent wooden palisade and the small stone chapel comprising the arena — features that would factor in the ensuing scene.
Having positioned Gillet on the block, our troubled executioner raised up his ceremonial sword and brought it crashing down … on her left shoulder. The blow toppled the prisoner from the block, but she was quite alive. To cleanly strike through a living neck with a hand-swung blade — to do so under thousands of hostile eyes — was never a certain art; there are many similar misses in the annals. Often, an headsman's clumsiness in his office would incite the crowd: the legendary English executioner Jack Ketch was nearly lynched for his ten-thumbed performance beheading Lord Monmouth; the hangman of Florence had been stoned to death by an enraged mob after a badly botched execution in 1503.
The Dijonnaise were no more forgiving of Grandjean. Hoots and missiles began pelting the platform as the pitiable condemned, matted with blood, struggled back to the block — and Grandjean must have felt the rising gorge and sweated hands of the man who knows an occasion is about to unman him.
Grandjean's wife, who acted his assistant in his duties, vainly strove to rescue her man's mettle and the situation. One chop would do it: the struggling patient would still, the archer detail would restrain the angry crowd. Madame Grandjean forced Gillet back to the block, thrust the dropped sword back into the executioner's hands with who knows what exhortation.
What else could he do? Again the high executioner raised the blade and again arced it down on the young woman's head — and again goggled in dismay. Somehow, the blow had been half-deflected by a knot of Helene Gillet's hair, and nicked only a small gash in the supplicant's neck. Now hair is a decided inconvenience for this line of work and it was customary to cut it or tie it up — even the era of the guillotine gives us the infamous pre-execution toilette. Even so, the idea of a strong and vigorous man brandishing a heavy executioner's sword being so entirely frustrated by a braid puts us in mind of an athlete short-arming a free throw or skying a penalty kick for want of conviction in the motion.
This is, admittedly, a retrospective interpretation, but if Grandjean had any inkling of what was to follow one could forgive him the choke.
Having now seen the vulnerable youth survive two clumsy swipes, the crowd's fury poured brickbats onto the stage in a flurry sufficient to drive the friars who accompanied the condemned to flee in fear for their own lives. Grandjean followed them, all of them retreating to the momentary safety of the chapel as the attempted execution collapsed into chaos.
The steelier Madame Grandjean tried to salvage matters by completing what her husband could not — and seized the injured Gillet to haul her off the platform to the partial shelter of the stone risers by which they had ascended, like a tiger dragging prey to its lair. No longer bothering with the ceremonial niceties of the office, Madame Grandjean simply began kicking and beating Gillet as she drew out a pair of shears to finish her off in violent intimacy.
But the raging mob by this time had pushed through the guards and overrun the palisades, and fell on the melee in the midst of Madame Grandjean's fevered slashing. The executioner's wife was ruthlessly torn to pieces, and the cowering executioner himself soon forced from his refuge to the same fate.
Helene Gillet, who had survived a beheading, was hauled by her saviors bloody and near-senseless to a nearby surgeon, who tended her injuries and confirmed that none of them ought be fatal.
What would happen to her now?
The prerogatives of the state insist against the popular belief in pardoning an execution survivor.
We don't have good answers for this situation even today; that a person might leave their own execution alive seems inadmissible, even though it does — still — occur.
But Helene Gillet was obviously a sympathetic case, and as a practical matter, the office of Dijon executioner had suddenly become vacant. The city's worthies petitioned as one for her reprieve.
As it happened, King Louis XIII's younger sister Henrietta Maria had on the very day preceding the execution been married by proxy to Louis's ill-fated English counterpart Charles I. This gave the French sovereign good occasion for the very palatable exercise of mercy, "at the recommendation of some of our beloved and respected servants, and because we are well-disposed to be gracious through the happy marriage of the Queen of Great Britain."
The Parlement of Dijon received the royal pardon on June 2, and formally declared Helene Gillet's official acquittal.
The fortunate woman, having had a brush with the sublime, is said to have retired herself to a convent and lived out the best part of the 17th century there in prayer.
There's a 19th century French pamphlet of documents related to this case available from Google books.
1788: Not Jean Louschart, rescued by the crowd
1611: Three accomplices of Elizabeth Báthory, the Countess of Blood
1739: Seven of nine Williamsburg malefactors
1803: Joseph Samuel survives three hangings
1724: Half-Hangit Maggie Dickson
Entry Filed under: 17th Century,Abortion and Infanticide,Beheaded,Capital Punishment,Common Criminals,Crime,Death Penalty,Execution,Executions Survived,France,History,Lucky to be Alive,Murder,Nobility,Not Executed,Pardons and Clemencies,Public Executions,Women
Tags: 1620s, 1625, dijon, helene gillet, may 12, simon grandjean
1936: Buck Ruxton, red stains
12 comments May 12th, 2013 Meaghan
On this date in 1936, Buktyar Rustomji Ratanji Hakim, also known as Buck Ruxton, was hanged in Strangeways Prison for the murder of his common-law wife, Isabella, and their maid, Mary Jane Rogerson.
A general practitioner of Persian descent, Ruxton was born in India and moved to the United Kingdom in 1930 to set up practice in Lancaster.
He met a married Englishwoman, Isabella Van Ess, and took up with her after her divorce. Although they never legally married and Ruxton actually already had a wife he'd left behind in India, they lived as man and wife and had three children, and she took his last name.
Ruxton had a reputation as a good doctor and a compassionate one who waived his fees for indigent. He wasn't nearly as good a husband as he was a physician, however: he was extremely jealous of his charming, sociable wife and continually accused her of infidelity with little actual evidence of it.
The neighbors overheard violent arguments, and Isabella would occasionally take the children and leave, seeking refuge at her sister's home. At one point she reported her husband to the police for domestic violence, but they paid little attention to her complaints.
On September 15, 1935, Ruxton flew into one of his rages, stabbed his wife five times in the chest, beat her and strangled her with his bare hands. He battered the maid to death as well, since she had been unlucky enough to witness it. A clever little rhyme memorialized the story, one of its various versions is printed below:
Red stains on the carpet, red stains on the knife
For Dr. Buck Ruxton had murdered his wife
The maid servant saw it and threatened to tell
So Dr. Buck Ruxton, he's killed her as well
Ruxton dismembered both bodies in the bathtub and dumped the parts in a stream near the Scottish border, over a hundred miles from Lancaster. There were thirty pieces in all, leading the press to call the case the "Jigsaw Murders."
In an effort to hinder identification, Ruxton removed the victims' teeth and skinned their faces. This turned out to be too clever by half: once the bodies were found in late September, the precision of the cuts told authorities that the killer was someone with anatomical knowledge and surgical skill, which narrowed the suspect pool considerably.
This filter, combined with the realization that one of the newspapers Ruxton used to wrap up some dismembered bit was a special edition copy sold only in Lancaster and Morecambe, led the cops to Ruxton and not many others. It wasn't long before the pieces — sorry — fell into place.
Meanwhile, exciting new forensic techniques, helped firm up identification of the corpses: authorities superimposed a photograph of Isabella over one of the skulls and found a dramatically jury-friendly visible match.
Isabella Ruxton, in life and death.
Forensic entomology (in this case, the gross but useful technique of checking the age of the maggots infesting the corpses) helped pinpoint the date of death.
Ruxton was arrested on October 13, nearly a month after the double murder.
The Ruxtons' charlady told the police that on the day Isabella and the maid disappeared, Ruxton came to her house early and told her not to come in to work. The next day, when she arrived at the Ruxtons' house, she found it in a state of disarray with the carpets removed and a pile of burnt material in the backyard. A neighbor couple also had helpful recollections: Ruxton had persuaded them to come and help out at his house, saying he'd cut his hand while opening a can of peaches and he needed to clean up quickly because decorators were coming over. They scrubbed his walls and he gave them some bloodstained carpets and clothing.
Given all this evidence, there was little Ruxton's defense attorney could say for him.
The defense tried to challenge the identification of the bodies, but the superimposed skull picture was quite convincing. Ruxton admitted his guilt prior to his execution and signed a short confession. He was hanged in spite of a petition with 10,000 signatures asking for mercy.
The Ruxton case, a smashing tabloid hit in its day, has been the subject of its own book, T.F. Potter's The Deadly Dr. Ruxton: How They Caught a Lancashire Double Killer. It's also featured in many general true crime books, including Colin Wilson and Damon Wilson's Crimes of Passion: The Thin Line Between Love and Hate, Colin Evans's The Casebook of Forensic Detection: How Science Solved 100 of the World's Most Baffling Crimes, and Harold Schechter's A to Z Encyclopedia of Serial Killers.
1949: Jake Bird
1921: Mailo Segura, a Montenegrin in Alaska
1912: Thomas Jennings, fingerprinted
1900: Bill Brown, Sonnie Crain and John Watson
Entry Filed under: 20th Century,Capital Punishment,Common Criminals,Crime,Death Penalty,Disfavored Minorities,Doctors,England,Execution,Guest Writers,Hanged,History,Murder,Notable Sleuthing,Other Voices,Racial and Ethnic Minorities
Tags: 1930s, 1936, buck ruxton, domestic violence, entomology, forensics, isabella ruxton, lancaster, mary jane rogerson, may 12, strangeways prison
1730: James Dalton, Hogarth allusion
On this date in 1730, career criminal James Dalton was executed at Tyburn.
Detail view (click for full image) of James Dalton's wig box depicted in the boudoir of prostitute Moll Hackabout in Hogarth's A Harlot's Progress.
Crime ran in the family for young master Dalton; his father hanged upon the information of notorious (and himself eventual gallows-bird) Jonathan Wild. According to the Ordinary of Newgate's report, our day's principal "went between his Father's Legs in the Cart, to his fatal Exit at Tyburn."*
Who knows but what naughty urchins (or parents) in the throng were deterred by that affecting spectacle. For the Daltons, it was more like Take Your Child to Work Day.
While the elder Dalton's skills ran towards card-sharping, young master James went in for the more conventional varieties of larceny — both those practiced by stealth, and those practiced by force.
These pursuits saw him twice transported to America, for which we have to thank the English judiciary on account of Dalton's resultant biography at Early American Crime.
(In)famous for his many dalliances, Dalton's exploits could move copy in their day — and their author transgress the lines between the underworld and "legitimate" celebrity.
"In the height of all our Robberies" [Dalton] and his companions "used to go to the Playhouse, dressed like Gentlemen," and that once, while watching The Beggar's Opera, "Captain Macheath's Fetters happening to be loose," one of them "call'd out, Captain, Captain, your Bazzel is undone." The real thieves, having shown up the actors with their superior knowledge of both irons and cant, then retired in style to an alehouse, "in four Chairs, with six Lights before each Chair."**
Just another hanged thief.
Except, also not — because while his career in malefaction would undoubtedly have added up to a death sentence, his condemnation was secured upon the word of a perjurer upon a very doubtful charge.
A character named John Waller, an "affidavit man" whose profession was supplying bogus testimony to hang whomever could be hanged where a reward was available, insisted that Dalton had robbed him upon the roads. Dalton vigorously denied (and even rebutted with evidence) this charge even while admitting his general life of crime, but it was upon this dubious offense against Waller that he stretched his neck. Dalton died at Tyburn with three others, though a fifth member of their party, one Hugh Norton or Haughton, managed to cheat the executioner by hanging himself in his cell.†
It was the rough justice of the 18th century, a time frequently admitting opportunity to repay tit for tat.
In this case, the professional perjurer who hanged Dalton was two years later convicted himself after making a bogus accusation of highway robbery. Waller was condemned by the court to stand in the pillory at the Seven Dials — a dangerous punishment cousin to the era's death penalty, inasmuch as the mob violence thereby invited not infrequently proved fatal.
John Waller bombarded with refuse in the pillory.
Waller had quite a reputation, but the fury of the crowd was nothing next to that of James Dalton's brother, Edward — who, with a confederate, brazenly climbed onto the platform, wrenched the "assize man" out of his pillory, and savagely beat him to death.
* Cited in this impressive compendium of Dalton-related primary sources.
** Andrea McKenzie, "The Real Macheath: Social Satire, Appropriation, and Eighteenth-Century Criminal Biography," Huntington Library Quarterly, Vol. 69, No. 4 (December 2006), with the quotes supplied by a 1730 publication called "The Life and Actions of James Dalton (the Noted Street-Robber)"
† Norton/Haughton was posthumously hanged in chains the next day.
1763: Hannah Dagoe, violently
1739: Dick Turpin, outlaw legend
1814: Six slaves in Guyana
1777: William Dodd, mind wonderfully concentrated
1726: The Gypsy outlaws of Hesse-Darmstadt
1788: William "Deacon" Brodie, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde inspiration
1670: Claude Duval, gentleman highwayman
Entry Filed under: 18th Century,Arts and Literature,Capital Punishment,Cheated the Hangman,Common Criminals,Crime,Cycle of Violence,Death Penalty,Disfavored Minorities,England,Execution,Hanged,History,Pelf,Public Executions,Racial and Ethnic Minorities,Theft,Wrongful Executions
Tags: 1730, 1730s, james dalton, jonathan wild, london, may 12, Tyburn
1641: Thomas Wentworth, Earl of Strafford
On this date in 1641, the doomed English monarch Charles I regretfully sacrificed one of his ablest ministers to the headsman.
Thomas Wentworth and loyal doggie, painted c. 1639 by Anthony van Dyck.
Thomas Wentworth, Earl of Strafford had cut his teeth in Parliament in the 1620s as an advocate of the rights of the Commons as against those of the king, but the notion that he'd be hoisted by his own petard would be little comfort to a King soon destined to find himself in similar straits.
After Parliament forced through the 1628 Petition of Right (and Wentworth's pro-monarchist personal rival George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham had been conveniently assassinated) Wentworth went over to the king's camp with the sententious declaration
The authority of a king is the keystone which closeth up the arch of order and government.
The authority of that king, which Wentworth now worked vigorously to uphold during the crown's Parliament-free Personal Rule of the 1630s, also elevated Wentworth to higher honors.
He would have occasion to exercise his own "personal rule" as dictatorial viceroy in Ireland, and when push came to shove between King and Commons, advocated the most tyrannical measures to compel the compliance of obstinate Englishmen.
By 1640, Wentworth had become in the eyes of his enemies the very embodiment of the monarch's every sin, and when Charles was obliged by his deteriorating situation to summon Parliament once more, its first order of business was the impeachment of this obnoxious retainer. When Wentworth skillfully repelled the charges and won acquittal on April 10, his parliamentarian opponents simply passed a bill of attainder condemning him to death anyway.
The only thing that stood in the way of the chop was the signature of that ruler whom Wentworth had served so loyally. As Charles dithered — for he had personally guaranteed Wentworth his safety upon his most recent summons to London — popular hatred for the Earl threatened to escalate the crisis into something much more dangerous for the throne.
In one last gesture of fealty, Wentworth dashed off a note to his sovereign, magnanimously releasing him from any obligation save political calculation.
Sire, out of much sadness, I am come to a resolution of that which I take to be the best becoming me; and that is, to look upon the prosperity of your sacred person and the commonwealth as infinitely to be preferred before any man's private interest. And therefore, in few words, as I have placed myself wholly upon the honour and justice of my peers, I do most humbly beseech you, for the preventing of such mischiefs as may happen by your refusal to pass this bill, by this means to remove this unfortunate thing forth of the way towards that blessed agreement, which God, I trust, shall for ever establish betwixt you and your subjects. Sire, my consent herein shall acquit you more to God than all the world can do beside. To a willing man there is no injury done; and as, by God's grace, I forgive all the world with a calmness and meekness of infinite contentment to my disloding soul, so, Sire, I can give the life of this world with all cheerfulness imaginable, in the just acknowledgment of your exceeding favours; and only beg that, in your goodness, you would vouchsafe to cast your gracious regard upon my poor son and his three sisters, less or more, and no otherwise, than their unfortunate father shall appear more or less guilty of this death. (Quoted here)
This letter's place in the annals of sacrificial loyalty is compromised only slightly by its author's dismay upon finding out that his feckless majesty had quickly taken up the offer:* Wentworth rolled his eyes heavenward and exclaimed
Put not your trust in princes, in a son of man, in whom there is no salvation.**
But the miscalculation was done.
Two days after Charles signed off, Wentworth was beheaded on Tower Hill to the rapture of an audience supposed to have numbered 200,000 strong.
Strafford Led to Execution, by Paul Delaroche, with Thomas Wentworth, Earl of Stafford, receiving the blessing of his ally, the imprisoned Archbishop William Laud.
1642 pamphlet illustration of the beheading, from here.
As things went from bad to worse for Charles in the years ahead, he would have many occasions to regret the sacrifice of so loyal and energetic a minister … and to lament, upon hearing his own death sentence, that he was suffering divine judgment for this date's act of expedient faithlessness.
A few books about Thomas Wentworth
* In acceding to the sentence, Charles proposed giving Strafford the best part of a week to prepare himself. Parliament ignored that request and set the execution for the very next day.
** That's Psalm 146:3.
1540: Thomas Cromwell
1803: Robert Emmet, "let no man write my epitaph"
1618: Walter Raleigh, age of exploration adventurer
1645: William Laud, given to the devil
1554: Lady Jane Grey, the Nine Days' Queen
Entry Filed under: 17th Century,Arts and Literature,Beheaded,Capital Punishment,Cycle of Violence,Death Penalty,England,Execution,Famous,History,Ireland,Martyrs,Nobility,Political Expedience,Posthumous Exonerations,Power,Public Executions,Treason,Wrongful Executions
Tags: 1640s, 1641, anthony van dyck, art, charles i, English Civil War, george villiers, hippolyte delaroche, london, loyalty, may 12, monarchism, monarchists, petition of right, politics, thomas wentworth, tower hill, william laud
1993: Leonel Herrera, perilously close to simple murder?
6 comments May 12th, 2009 Headsman
On this date in 1993, Leonel Herrera was executed by lethal injection in Huntsville, Texas, for shooting two policemen. Herrera's last statement averred,
Herrera's sister Norma self-published this book about the case — keeping a promise to her executed brother.
I am innocent, innocent, innocent. Make no mistake about this; I owe society nothing. Continue the struggle for human rights, helping those who are innocent, especially Mr. Graham. I am an innocent man, and something very wrong is taking place tonight. May God bless you all. I am ready.
Well, Herrera wasn't the first to go to his death maintaining his innocence. The circumstances (and circumstantial evidence) of the crime rate on the forgettable side.
But Leonel Torres Herrera was a bit different from his cousins in hopeless protestation: while he died this evening, his name lived on … in a landmark Supreme Court decision
Herrera v. Collins
Years after Herrera was convicted and death-sentenced, multiple affidavits were produced to the effect that his late brother, Raul, was the real killer.
This evidence was naturally pursued with gusto by the condemned man.
Unfortunately, a claim like Herrera's of "actual innocence" faces a very high bar when raised in appellate courts, once a prisoner has already been convicted and their presumption of innocence become a presumption of guilt.
That this arbitrary rule of the game has a defensible rationale — could any criminal justice system operate if prisoners could continually relitigate their cases while memories fade and evidence ages into obsolescence? — does not make it the less Kafkaesque for individual prisoners, some of whom are in fact innocent.
Herrera presented this problem in unusually stark terms. Lacking any procedural violation upon which to hang his hat as an appeals issue, his claim pitted substance against form in the Supreme Court. (Oral arguments at Oyez.org)
You already know how it ended.
Chief Justice William Rehnquist's opinion patiently explained a jurisprudential truism loftily uncolored by any experience in life liable to introduce a sense of kinship with a Hispanic man charged with a Texas cop-killing who uncovers too late the evidence that could save him.
"[A]ctual innocence" is not itself a constitutional claim.*
Instead, the Court recommended — tongue no doubt planted firmly in cheek — that Herrera apply for executive clemency, a dead letter procedure in Texas used exclusively in a good cop/bad cop routine opposite the black robes.
"Judicial restraint forbids relieving you," says the court. "Go ask the governor."
"The courts have thoroughly reviewed the case," intones the governor. "May God have mercy on your soul."
Herrera himself may or may not have been innocent. At the end of the day, he went down because the game was rigged against him: his exculpatory evidence was not available at trial, when it might have introduced "reasonable doubt" — as Rehnquist's opinion put it, "in state criminal proceedings the trial is the paramount event for determining the guilt or innocence of the defendant." Once that evidence became available deep in the appeals process, it was procedurally barred, and far from such a slam-dunk exoneration that any institutional actor would stick his, her or its neck out to lift Leonel Torres Herrera from the gurney.
Justice Harry Blackmun's dissent retorted,
Just as an execution without adequate safeguards is unacceptable, so too is an execution when the condemned prisoner can prove that he is innocent. The execution of a person who can show that he is innocent comes perilously close to simple murder.
Whether "simple murder" happened in Huntsville this night in 1993, perhaps no one can really say with certainty.
But as DNA evidence and other forensic advances in the intervening years have increasingly eroded confidence in the reliability of the justice system that metes out death, Herrera v. Collins stands as a key precedent in a case now before the Supreme Court — in which states (joined by the Obama administration) are asking the justices to agree that convicted prisoners have no right to cheap, simple, and frequently dispositive DNA testing that may not have been available when they were tried.
Given the composition of the court (including three holdovers from the Herrera majority), that decision figures to have Leonel Herrera rolling over in his grave.
* Rehnquist conceded a theoretical possibility that extraordinarily persuasive evidence could generate relief on due process grounds. Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas went much further, claiming that prisoners had no right to anything but their trial and their (procedural) appeals.
1993: Ruben Cantu, an innocent child?
1992: Billy Wayne White, after 47 minutes
1936: Bruno Richard Hauptmann, The Most Hated Man in the World
1936: Rainey Bethea, America's last public hanging
1887: Parsons, Spies, Fischer and Engel, the Haymarket Martyrs
Entry Filed under: 20th Century,Capital Punishment,Common Criminals,Crime,Death Penalty,Disfavored Minorities,Execution,Innocent Bystanders,Lethal Injection,Murder,Notable Jurisprudence,Racial and Ethnic Minorities,Texas,USA,Wrongful Executions
Tags: 1990s, 1993, 8th amendment, harry blackmun, herrera v. collins, huntsville, leonel herrera, may 12, supreme court, william rehnquist


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Bob's Burgers: "An Indecent Thanksgiving Proposal"
"An Indecent Thanksgiving Proposal"
The "holiday episode" of a TV show tends to work in one of three ways. It can be a celebration of an idealized form of the holiday—you know the kind, where people come together, have some tension, then learn the True Meaning of Armistice Day or the like. Sometimes the holidays are primarily used to dress up a fairly conventional episode, as in "Full Bars" a few weeks ago. And very rarely, you get the episode that will subvert the meaning of the holiday—yet even those, which may appear transgressive, often end up idealizing the holiday in a weird way.
Holiday episodes are often at their best when they manage to combine all three. Classic Simpsons provides a great model for how to both subvert and respect common television tropes. Bob's Burgers continues that, and you can see a lot of influence of great Simpsons episodes in "An Indecent Thanksgiving Proposal." Bob's obliviousness to his family's ambivalence toward something he loves, his caddishness when he doesn't get what he wants, the family's easy corruptibility, and the resolution of them embracing their weirdness over that corruption are all quite recognizable.
But there's a side to Bob's Burgers—its embrace of its characters' weirdness even when that's bad—that makes it stand out. Most shows have some kind of celebration-of-quirkiness, yes, but it's the sort of quirkiness that makes the focal characters smarter, funnier, and just plain better better than "normal," non-focal characters. Bob's Burgers takes more of a warts-and-all approach. The kids are funny, definitely, but they're funny in a way that makes it very difficult for them to make friends or be respected by their teachers.
I think it's demonstrated most, however, in the show's approach to drug use, as opposed to abuse. Linda's treated as someone who loves alcohol (without quite being an alcoholic), and Bob seems to pretty easily overuse drugs he has access to, like absinthe in this episode, or his painkillers in "Burgerboss," or even crack back in "Sheesh! Cab, Bob?" But these things aren't judged and pushed toward conventional morality, which even The Simpsons has done with its portrayal of alcohol use. This isn't to say that Bob's Burgers celebrates substance abuse. Bob's overuse of painkillers in "Burgerboss" is hilarious but it's also clearly understood by the characters and the audience that he's gone too far. But it is treated with sympathy instead of judgment. Overdoing drugs is something that Bob happens to do, not something he can or even should transcend simply by trying really hard.
Bob's overuse of absinthe in "An Indecent Thanksgiving Proposal" is even a net positive. Mr. Fischoeder offers five months rent if the family pretends to be his family. This corrupts the parents for rent money, and corrupts the kids by gamifying their fake love of Fischoeder love when he offers them prizes to be the best children. Bob doesn't like this, but it's only when the absinthe kicks in that he actually does anything about it. Bob's fascination with drugs is weird and hilarious and honest. And its honesty is what gets his family out of trouble. The true meaning of Thanksgiving on Bob's Burgers is that family is important, but so is inebriation—"Hey mom, are you hallucinating yet?" "Not yet. I need more."
Of course, all that sympathy works especially well when the jokes land. Bob starts us off by describing his last rent payment: "I know I used a lot of pennies, but…"
"Season Premiere of Game Of Thrones" is one of Gene's favorite holidays.
"Just like I'm going to get into Shelby's parts. Her ladyparts." "Which are the ladyparts?" "The vagina and the heart." Tina has grown wise.
"If you teach me to shoot, I'll teach you to regret teaching me to shoot." Louise drives a hard bargain.
"What's he saying!" "I don't know! He's murmuring!" The way insanity becomes contagious is one of the series' best joke forms.


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If you're reading this right now, that means that the unthinkable has happened. Someone you know has been arrested and you want to get them out of jail. You probably have a lot of questions about what to do. The process of getting someone out of jail can seem overwhelming at first, but in actuality, it is a very simple and straightforward procedure. On this page, you'll find all of the information you need in order to make informed decisions about what to do in this situation. This is a free service provided by Angels Bail Bonds. If at any time you wish to talk to a friendly and professional bail agent confidentially, you can do so by calling us now!
What happens when someone is arrested in Hawthorne?
When someone is arrested in Hawthorne they are taken to the Hawthorne Police Station Jail and processed as an inmate. As part of this process, their fingerprints are taken and checked against a number of databases to determine their identity and if they have any outstanding warrants. A mug shot is also taken. After they have been checked into Hawthorne Police Department Jail they are eligible to be bailed out of jail. The Hawthorne City Jail is a short term holding facility; inmates will be transferred to the Los Angeles County Jail. It will be a much faster process to bail an inmate out of the Hawthorne Police Station Jail than it is at the Los Angeles County Jail.
How much does it cost to bail someone out of the Hawthorne jail?
Once the inmate has been processed into jail their bail amount will be determined. In order to be bailed out of jail, there are a few options. 1. Put up the full amount of the bond with the court. This money must be certified funds. All of this money will be returned once the case has been resolved in court. 2. Employ the services of a bail bondsman, who typically charge 10% of the total bond amount. The fee, a bail bondsman charges, is a non-refundable, one-time fee for posting the bond. This money is paid to the bail bondsman for the service of putting up the full bond amount with the court. In addition to paying the 10% to the bail bondsman, someone will also have to sign on behalf of the defendant as the indemnitor, guaranteeing that they will make all of their court appearances and that they are financially responsible for that person in case they don't go to jail.
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Where is the Hawthorne Police Department?
The Hawthorne Police Department's headquarters is located at: 12501 Hawthorne Boulevard, Hawthorne, CA, 90250. You can call the department at 310-349-2700. You can also visit the department's website for further information. The Hawthorne Police Department was founded in 1922. The department currently has 100 sworn officers and 50 civilian staff. The police station lobby is open from 7am to 8pm, Monday through Thursday and 7am to 9pm on Friday and Saturday.
Where is the Hawthorne Jail?
The Hawthorne City Jail is located in the same complex as the police department. It is located at 12501 Hawthorne Boulevard, Hawthorne, CA, 90250. You can phone the jail at 310-349-2700. The Hawthorne Police Station Jail is a sub-station of the Los Angeles County Jail System. Inmates can be transferred to the Los Angeles County Jail.
Who is the chief of police in Hawthorne?
Robert Fager is the chief of police in Hawthorne. Chief Fager began is his Hawthorne law enforcement career in 1990. In 1996, he was the recipient of the South Bay "Medal of Valor" award. He was appointed to the chief position in 2010. In conjunction with his law enforcement career, he is an Executive Board Member to the Los Angeles Interagency Metropolitan Police Apprehension Taskforce.
Who is the mayor of Hawthorne?
Alex Vargas is the mayor of Hawthorne. Mayor Vargas was born and raised in Hawthorne. He graduated from St. Bernard High School and then attended California State University in Dominguez Hills. He graduated with a Bachelor's degree in Physics. Later, he earned a Master's degree in Physics from California State University, Long Beach. Mayor Vargas was elected to the Hawthorne city council in 2009; in 2010 he became mayor pro tem of Hawthorne. He was elected as Mayor in 2015.
Who are the representatives for Hawthorne?
Hawthorne is in the 35th Senate District in the California State Senate and is represented by Democrat Isadore Hall III. Within the California State Assembly, Hawthorne is in the 62nd Assembly District and is represented by Democrat Autumn Burke. Hawthorne is in the 43rd district in the United States House of Representatives, represented by Democrat Maxine Waters.
Demographic data about Hawthorne
As of 2010, the population in Hawthorne is 84,293. This is a slight increase from 84,112 that was listed in the 2000 census. The population of Hawthorne consists of the following: 27,678 (32.8%) White, 23,385 (27.7%) African-American, 565 (.7%) Native American, 5,642 (6.7%) Asian, 974 (1.2%) Pacific Islander, 22,127 (26.3%) from other races, 3,922 (4.7%) from two or more races and 44,572 (52.9%) Hispanic of any race.
Fun Facts about Hawthorne
The city of Hawthorne is part of Los Angeles County. The city was incorporated in 1922 and currently encompasses six square miles. The city is situated near the Los Angeles International Airport and the Port of Los Angeles. Hawthorne is home to the Beach Boys, Jim Thorpe, and Northrop Aircraft. Marilyn Monroe lived her until she was six years old. The city was founded in 1905 by BL Harding and HD Lombard, as the "Hawthorne Improvement Company." The city was named for New England author, Nathaniel Hawthorne, who happened to share a birthday with one of the town founder's daughters.
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