Omen: Shootings & Violence

5/20/07, GALVESTON, Texas - A woman blames the devil, and not her husband, for severely burning their infant daughter in a microwave, a Texas television station reported. Eva Marie Mauldin said Satan compelled her 19-year-old husband, Joshua Royce Mauldin, to microwave their daughter May 10 because the devil disapproved of Joshua's efforts to become a preacher. "Satan saw my husband as a threat," Eva Mauldin told Houston television station KHOU-TV.

5/17/07, HERMOSILLO, Mexico - Mexico confronts surging violence: Police chased the remnants of a criminal assault force through mountains near the Arizona border on Thursday after kidnappings and gunbattles that left at least 22 people dead.

5/17/07, NAGAKUTE, Japan, A former Japanese gangster shot a police officer dead after wounding his own son and daughter and another police officer and was still holed up in his home with a hostage after more than 17 hours. In the latest shootout to rattle Japan, the police officer was shot Thursday evening while his colleague who had been hit earlier was being rescued. The standoff comes a month after a gangster shot a fellow organized crime figure in a Tokyo suburb and hid in an apartment before shooting himself, and another gangster shot dead the mayor of Nagasaki, shocking a country where gun control is tough and shootings are rare.

5/17/07, PHILADELPHIA, Pennsylvania , Teen 'afraid every day' as gun violence soars: Isaac Diaz walks through the toughest parts of North Philadelphia each day on his way to and from high school. But what really scares the 18-year-old senior is lying in his own bed at night. He can hear the gunshots then. "Last year it wasn't so often. Now it's as often as every night." The numbers put Philadelphia on a pace well ahead of a bloody 2006, when 406 people were slain by others in the so-called City of Brotherly Love. It was the first time homicides topped the 400 mark since 1990. "In the 70s, I mean, if somebody came up and they had a zip gun -- which was a homemade gun -- that was big time," he said. "Now if, if you don't have an AK-47 or a sawed-off shotgun or a 9 mm, even if you pull out a .38, they laugh at you because, 'Is that all you've got?'

5/15/97, TOKYO, Japan, A teenage boy carrying a severed head walked into a Japanese police station Tuesday saying he killed his mother, the latest in a series of grisly dismemberments that have horrified a nation renowned for its low crime rates.

5/10/07, DAYTONA, Florida, A 10-year-old boy was convicted Thursday in the beating of a homeless Army veteran that left the man so severely injured he required reconstructive surgery.

5/1/07, JACKSONVILLE, Florida - Police said six men were shot about 2:30 p.m. Tuesday in what police described as related drive-by shootings in a Talleyrand neighborhood just northeast of downtown.

4/29/07, KANSAS CITY, Mo. - A man driving a dead woman's car shot a police officer, then opened fire in a parking lot and a mall Sunday, authorities said. By the end of the day, four people, including the gunman, were dead.