they suggest a rather different picture than your glib snark
Man testifies about kidnapping, torture
'Gory' details ahead in West Campus assault trial, lawyer says.
By Steven Kreytak
AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF
Wednesday, June 03, 2009
Adrian Lopez said that by the time he ended up held captive in the closet of an empty West Campus house in September, the group of men who held him there had punched him, beaten him with a bat and hit him with a shotgun so brutally that he was convinced he was going to die.
In his own blood, he wrote the street-name initials of his attackers on the closet wall, he told a Travis County jury Tuesday.
"I thought I was going to die, so that would help the investigators pinpoint who it was," said Lopez, whom the men had accused of taking heroin from one of them ...
http://www.statesman.com/news/content/news/stories/local/06/03/0603vanfossen.html Man Who Burned Woman With Utensil Sentenced
Man Gets Four Life Terms In Prison
POSTED: 3:55 pm PDT June 2, 2009
UPDATED: 4:42 pm PDT June 2, 2009
SALINAS, Calif. -- ... Aniano Olea was sentenced to four consecutive life terms for the crime of torture for a series of crimes, including burning the victim with a heated kitchen utensil on June 7, 2007, prosecutors said.
Olea was also convicted on three counts of mayhem, 12 counts of spousal beating, four counts of criminal threats, stalking and dissuasion of a witness.
During the sentencing, Judge Robert Moody indicated that Olea serially imprisoned and brutalized women.
Among Olea's crimes was tattooing the word "Adulteress" on the victim's forehead in June of 2006 ...
http://www.ksbw.com/news/19638396/detail.htmlReports on torture of Ukrainian sailors of hijacked ship confirmed
KYIV, June 2. /UKRINFORM/. The Ukrainian Foreign Ministry has confirmed reports that Ukrainian sailors on board the Ariana, a ship earlier seized by Somali pirates, have been subjected to torture, Ministry Spokesman Vasyl Kyrylych said at a briefing on Monday.
He said that Ukraine's Embassy in Greece had confirmed that the pirates were trying to influence the crewmen using force to meet their demands as soon as possible ...
http://bsanna-news.ukrinform.ua/newsitem.php?id=9310&lang=enBy CLYNTON NAMUO
Union Leader Correspondent
Tuesday, Jun. 2, 2009
DOVER – A home invasion last month in Durham was done to rob alleged drug dealers of 10 pounds of marijuana and $30,000 cash during a drug buy, though not nearly that much appears to have been taken, police said yesterday ...
Police said four men, two of them armed with handguns, entered the Durham home at about 10 p.m., found the occupants, ordered them to the floor and bound their hands and legs with duct tape. The fifth man, Dionne, remained outside in a car waiting.
The four men inside harassed and threatened the four occupants as they searched for money and drugs, stealing electronics and computers along the way, police said ...
Assistant County Attorney Jennifer Chase said the assailants demeaned the victims by pouring beer on one man, pistol whipping one and defecating on one. She said they also threatened to torture them with a hammer and to return to the home and do worse ...
http://www.unionleader.com/article.aspx?headline=Invasion+victims+describe+torture+threats&articleId=465c8d04-6d84-4ab1-83e5-c8f7ac3a633eFilAm activist accuses military of torture
Seeks Supreme Court protection
By Lira Dalangin-Fernandez, Thea Alberto, Tetch Torres
INQUIRER.net
First Posted 13:46:00 06/02/2009
MANILA, Philippines-- (UPDATE 3) A Filipino-American activist who went missing for six days has claimed that she was tortured by military operatives and asked the Supreme Court for protection.
In her petition for a Writ of Amparo, Melissa Roxas said she was detained blindfolded and in handcuffs in what she presumed was Fort Magsaysay in Laur town, Nueva Ecija province, a major military camp in the north.
There, Roxas said her captors repeatedly told her that she was being held because she was a member of the CPP-NPA (Communist Party of the Philippines-New People’s Army) ...
“I did not answer and he would hit me on the chest strongly and I would lose breath and gasped for air after and then he would press my throat with his thumb and say ‘Huh…huh…huh!’ and I would gag and then he would hit me on my jaws, ringing my ears and numbing my jaws,” Roxas said ...
http://globalnation.inquirer.net/news/news/view/20090602-208434/FilAm-activist-accuses-military-of-tortureTeen model escapes "abusive" Malaysian prince
Teenage U.S.-Indonesian model Manohara Odelia Pino .. has returned to her family in Indonesia with tales of abuse, rape and torture at the hands of a Malaysian prince, after her dramatic escape with the help of Singapore police. Manohara Odelia Pinot, 17, told reporters she was treated like a sex slave after her marriage last year to Tengku Temenggong Mohammad Fakhry, the prince of Malaysia's Kelantan state.
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2009-06/02/content_11476470.htm Posted at: 06/01/2009 11:25 PM
Updated at: 06/01/2009 11:45 PM
By: Kumi Tucker
Police investigate connections in shooting, kidnapping, torture
ALBANY - ... "Mr. White was very upset that he could not recover the safe from Scott, and what he did was call Scott's sister and arranged to meet her in Albany, said Troy Police spokesman Detective Sgt. David Dean.
Police said White went to Albany, and took the sister from Elk Street early Thursday morning, as leverage to get back the safe.
"During the course of several hours, tortured her, beat her, caused serious lacerations to her hands and her face, also broken bones," said Albany Department of Public Safety Spokesperson James Miller.
"During the time they were doing that, they were calling her brother, Branson Scott on the phone. He could hear her crying," said Dean ...
http://wnyt.com/article/stories/S957911.shtml?cat=300 Dad accused of blinding son by biting out his eye faces torture charge
Associated Press
Posted: 05/30/2009 11:09:04 AM PDT
Updated: 05/30/2009 11:09:05 AM PDT
BAKERSFIELD, Calif. — A Kern County judge ordered a father to stand trial on charges stemming from allegations he mutilated his 4-year-old son's eyes.
Thirty-four-year-old Angelo "Angel" Mendoza made his first appearance Friday in Kern County Superior Court, and waived his right to a preliminary hearing.
Mendoza is charged with mayhem, torture and child cruelty after an April 28 attack on his son Angelo Mendoza Jr. The boy's left eye was bitten out and his right eye damaged and blinded. Police reports say Mendoza then hacked his own legs with an ax.
Mendoza wore a hospital gown and sat in a wheelchair throughout the short hearing ...
http://www.mercurynews.com/breakingnews/ci_12485187?nclick_check=1 Attacked judge taken off Tracy teen case
May 28, 2009 6:00 AM
STOCKTON - The judge in the case of four people accused of torturing a Tracy teenager has been taken off the case at her own request, a court official said ... Michael Schumacher; his wife, Kelly Lau; their neighbor Anthony Waiters; and the boy's former guardian, Caren Ramirez, have been indicted on charges of torture and child abuse, accused by prosecutors of holding the 16-year-old boy captive at a Tracy home until his Dec. 1 escape ...
http://www.recordnet.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20090528/A_NEWS/905280322 New trial for Ill. inmate who claimed police abuse
May 22, 2009
CHICAGO (AP) — An inmate who claimed police tortured him into confessing to two murders he didn't commit was granted a new trial Friday after 18 years behind bars.
Circuit Judge Clayton Crane granted the request from Victor Safforld, 38, following a hearing this week that included evidence Safforld was tortured. Based on his confession, Safforld was sentenced to death for murder. The sentence was later commuted to life ...
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5hfrUHCBjTKmm7mv7HojiFbRVD6CwD98BIKR00UAE detains ruling family member over torture
Reuters
Last updated 08:34 12/05/2009
Abu Dhabi prosecutors have detained a member of the Gulf emirate's ruling family as they investigate a video that appears to show him torturing an Afghan man, the Judicial Department said.
The move, reported by the official WAM news agency, is the first reported investigation of a member of the ruling family of Abu Dhabi, the capital of the United Arab Emirates ...
The video, aired last month by the US network ABC, shows the Afghan being abused with an electric cattle prod, beaten with whips and a plank of wood with a nail in it, and driven over by a car at a desert location in 2004. One of the men, who ABC said is Sheikh Issa, a brother of the UAE crown prince, pours what the network said was salt into the man's wounds. A man in police uniform also takes part ...
It is not clear who filmed the scenes but ABC said the incident had arisen out of a financial dispute ...
http://www.stuff.co.nz/world/2403463/UAE-detains-ruling-family-member-over-torture Torture a hallmark of Phoenix's drug kidnappings
... Her four children bawling, Valencia was hustled into a bedroom where an armed man fondled her and threatened to rape her if she didn't tell him where Andrade hid his money, according to the report.
After beating and binding Andrade, one of the kidnappers put a gun to Valencia's head. His message: We're taking your husband and SUV. We'll be watching your house. If you call the cops, he's a dead man ...
http://www.cnn.com/2009/CRIME/05/19/phoenix.drug.kidnappings/