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Wednesday, August 14, 2013

California Teenager Answers Questions About Kidnapping

Hannah Anderson, the 16-year-old California girl rescued last weekend in the Idaho wilderness after being held hostage for six days, shared extraordinary details of her ordeal as she fielded dozens of questions on a social media account, since deleted, that her family and friends say belonged to her.

Hannah AndersonSan Diego Sheriff’s Department, via Associated Press Hannah Anderson

Ms. Anderson was abducted by a longtime family friend, James Lee DiMaggio, 40, who is suspected of killing her mother, Christina Anderson, and 8-year-old brother, Ethan, and setting his home east of San Diego on fire. He was shot and killed by F.B.I. agents on Saturday during the rescue operation.

In the exchanges, Ms. Anderson publicly mourned the loss of her mother and brother. She also explained why she had not spoken up when people on horseback came upon her and Mr. DiMaggio hiding in the wilderness, saying she had not wanted them to be killed.

One person asked, “Do you wish u could have killed him?” She replied, “I could never kill someone.”

But, when asked whether she would have preferred that he spend his life in prison, she said, “He deserved what he got.”

While the authorities would not confirm that Ms. Anderson was behind the open and candid exchange on her longtime Ask.fm account, family members told NBC News that the account belonged to her. She answered questions from late Monday until the account was closed on Wednesday.

People asked a wide range of questions, including how she managed during her captivity and how she was coping with the loss of her mother and brother. Here are unedited excerpts of some of the exchanges:

So your mom and eathan were just at his house for no reason and the thing went off and they caught of fire and burned?

He told us he was losing his house because of money issues so we went up there one last time to support him, and to have fun riding go karts up there but he tricked us.

Y was it uncomfortable to see ur dad?

Well personally it’s kinda hard to see any guy adult right now.

Do you know why he did it?

Because he’s physco

I hope he burns in hell.

Me too.

Did he tell u that he had a crush on u or was that a roomer?

Yes he did he said it was more of a family crush like he had feelings as in he wanted nothing bad to happen to me.

Why didn’t you tell your parents he creeped you out?

Because he was a close family friend and my dads Bestfriend and I didn’t want to ruin anything between them.

What were you doing when they found you?

Sitting on the ground.

Did u cry a lot?

Yes.

Happy your ok. Stay strong don’t have to answer this but did he do anything sexual in any way?

Can’t answer that.

Did he make you help him put the tree branches on his car?

Yes he threatened me if I didn’t help.

What things did you loose in the fire?

My family. Phone. iPod. My dog. My ID some money.

Do you wish u could have killed him?

I could never kill someone.

Are you happier they shot him or would you have wanted him to have life in prison?

Shot him. He deserved what he got.

Did u talk to hikers? When u were in the woods? Cuz the news said that the hikers said that u were calm

I had to act calm I didn’t want them to get hurt. I was scared that he would kill them.

She also answered questions about her favorite color (pink), what she wanted to be when she grew up (a firefighter) and the man she hoped to marry (Zac Efron).

Asked if she believed in God, she responded, “Absolutely.”

When a question came from a group of people identifying themselves as reporters, seeking to interview her, she replied: “No please leave me alone. All you guys don’t know the story. And don’t need too. You already got a lot of things mixed up. So please just leave me and my family alone so we can heal. Thank you.”

Tips, sources, story ideas? Please leave a comment or find me on Twitter @jenniferpreston.



California Teenager Answers Questions About Kidnapping

Hannah Anderson, the 16-year-old California girl rescued last weekend in the Idaho wilderness after being held hostage for six days, shared extraordinary details of her ordeal as she fielded dozens of questions on a social media account, since deleted, that her family and friends say belonged to her.

Hannah AndersonSan Diego Sheriff’s Department, via Associated Press Hannah Anderson

Ms. Anderson was abducted by a longtime family friend, James Lee DiMaggio, 40, who is suspected of killing her mother, Christina Anderson, and 8-year-old brother, Ethan, and setting his home east of San Diego on fire. He was shot and killed by F.B.I. agents on Saturday during the rescue operation.

In the exchanges, Ms. Anderson publicly mourned the loss of her mother and brother. She also explained why she had not spoken up when people on horseback came upon her and Mr. DiMaggio hiding in the wilderness, saying she had not wanted them to be killed.

One person asked, “Do you wish u could have killed him?” She replied, “I could never kill someone.”

But, when asked whether she would have preferred that he spend his life in prison, she said, “He deserved what he got.”

While the authorities would not confirm that Ms. Anderson was behind the open and candid exchange on her longtime Ask.fm account, family members told NBC News that the account belonged to her. She answered questions from late Monday until the account was closed on Wednesday.

People asked a wide range of questions, including how she managed during her captivity and how she was coping with the loss of her mother and brother. Here are unedited excerpts of some of the exchanges:

So your mom and eathan were just at his house for no reason and the thing went off and they caught of fire and burned?

He told us he was losing his house because of money issues so we went up there one last time to support him, and to have fun riding go karts up there but he tricked us.

Y was it uncomfortable to see ur dad?

Well personally it’s kinda hard to see any guy adult right now.

Do you know why he did it?

Because he’s physco

I hope he burns in hell.

Me too.

Did he tell u that he had a crush on u or was that a roomer?

Yes he did he said it was more of a family crush like he had feelings as in he wanted nothing bad to happen to me.

Why didn’t you tell your parents he creeped you out?

Because he was a close family friend and my dads Bestfriend and I didn’t want to ruin anything between them.

What were you doing when they found you?

Sitting on the ground.

Did u cry a lot?

Yes.

Happy your ok. Stay strong don’t have to answer this but did he do anything sexual in any way?

Can’t answer that.

Did he make you help him put the tree branches on his car?

Yes he threatened me if I didn’t help.

What things did you loose in the fire?

My family. Phone. iPod. My dog. My ID some money.

Do you wish u could have killed him?

I could never kill someone.

Are you happier they shot him or would you have wanted him to have life in prison?

Shot him. He deserved what he got.

Did u talk to hikers? When u were in the woods? Cuz the news said that the hikers said that u were calm

I had to act calm I didn’t want them to get hurt. I was scared that he would kill them.

She also answered questions about her favorite color (pink), what she wanted to be when she grew up (a firefighter) and the man she hoped to marry (Zac Efron).

Asked if she believed in God, she responded, “Absolutely.”

When a question came from a group of people identifying themselves as reporters, seeking to interview her, she replied: “No please leave me alone. All you guys don’t know the story. And don’t need too. You already got a lot of things mixed up. So please just leave me and my family alone so we can heal. Thank you.”

Tips, sources, story ideas? Please leave a comment or find me on Twitter @jenniferpreston.



Today’s Scuttlebot: Larry Ellison on Apple Going Down and Google’s ‘Evil’ Things

The New York Times's staff scours the Web for interesting and peculiar items. Tuesday's selections include a video interview with Charlie Rose in which Larry Ellison, Oracle's chief executive, sees a dark future for Apple without Steve Jobs.

Scores Killed in Crackdown on Morsi Supporters

CAIRO â€" Egyptian security forces killed scores of protesters and wounded hundreds of others on Wednesday in a daylong assault on two sit-ins by Islamist supporters of the ousted president, Mohamed Morsi, that set off waves of violence in the capital, Cairo, and across the country.

By afternoon, the interim government appointed by Gen. Abdul-Fattah el-Sisi had declared a one-month state of emergency across the country, suspending the right to a trial or due process. The declaration returned Egypt to the state of virtual martial law that prevailed for three decades under President Hosni Mubarak before he was forced to step down in 2011.

Mohamed ElBaradei, the interim vice president and a Nobel Prize-winning former diplomat who had lent his reputation to convincing the West of the military-appointed government’s democratic intentions, resigned in protest, a spokeswoman said.

The government imposed a 7 p.m. curfew across much of the country. Clashes and gunfire broke out even in well-heeled precincts of Cairo far from the sit-ins, and by afternoon streets across the capital were deserted. Outside Cairo, mobs of Islamists angry about the crackdown attacked a police station in the Giza governorate, burned down at least two churches in rural southern Egypt, and raged through the streets of Alexandria and other cities.

After a six-week standoff with the demonstrators, the scale and brutality of the attack â€" with armored vehicles, bulldozers, tear gas, snipers, live ammunition and birdshot â€" appeared to extinguish any hope of a political reconciliation that might persuade Mr. Morsi’s Islamist supporters to participate in a renewed democratic process under the auspices of the military-appointed government.

Instead, the crackdown was the clearest sign yet that the old Egyptian police state was re-emerging in full force, defying the protests of liberal members of the interim cabinet, Western threats of a cutoff of aid or loans, and the risk of a prolonged backlash of violence by Islamists angry about the theft of their democratic victories. It was a level of violence that might have crushed the January 2011 uprising that ousted Mr. Mubarak if military and police forces had unleashed it that time, although back then the security forces faced a broader spectrum of protesters before the struggles over the political transition divided the Islamists and their opponents against each other.

By late afternoon, the Egyptian health minister had put the number killed in violence across the country at about 130, including at least four policemen, and said about 900 had been injured. But the large number of dead and critically injured Egyptians whom New York Times reporters saw moving through various makeshift field hospitals in Cairo indicated that the final death toll would climb much higher.

At least one protester was burned alive in his tent. Many others were shot in the head and chest. Some of the dead appeared to be in their early teens, and young women assisting in a field hospital had stains on the hems of their abayas from the pools of blood covering the floor.

Tens of thousands of Morsi supporters had moved into the protest camps, many with their families. The fatalities in the attack included the 17-year-old daughter of a prominent Islamist lawmaker in the dissolved Parliament, Mohamed el-Beltagy.

“This is the beginning of a systematic crackdown on the Muslim Brotherhood, other Islamists and other opponents of a military coup,” said Emad Shahin, a professor of political science at the American University on Cairo. “It is an attempt to begin a new phase of a police state under military control behind a civilian facade â€" this is what they are trying to do.”

As for the American threats to cut off aid or block international loans, Professor Shahin said, no Egyptians â€" generals, liberals, Islamists or scholars â€" ever took them seriously. “In the end, the West will back the winning side,” he said. “That is how dictators think, and to a certain extent it is true.”

A spokesman for President Obama said the United States was continuing to review the $1.5 billion in aid it gives Egypt, most of it in the form of military equipment. The spokesman, Josh Earnest, said the violence “runs directly counter to pledges from the interim government to pursue reconciliation” with the Islamists.

He said the United States condemned the renewal of the state of emergency and urged respect for basic rights, like the freedom of assembly and peaceful demonstrations. But he stopped short of writing off the interim government, and said the United States would continue to remind the government of its promises and urge it “to get back on track.”

The Islamists vowed to continue their fight. Speaking to journalists after the death of his daughter, Mr. Beltagy, the Islamist parliamentarian, declared, “The police state has come to an end,” and asserted that Egyptians across the country would rise up to defend democracy. The dead gave their lives “for the cause of God, for Egyptians to lead lives of dignity and honor.”

The attack began about 7 a.m. when a circle of police officers began firing tear gas at the protest camps and plowing down tents with bulldozers. The Egyptian Interior Ministry had said it planned to choke off the protests gradually, at first by cutting off supplies of food and water, blocking new entry to the sites and leaving one safe exit for those who sought to leave.

But by about 8 a.m., the smaller sit-in, near Cairo University, had been demolished in a cloud of tear gas. At the larger sit-in, near the Rabaa al-Adawiya mosque, several thousand appeared trapped inside with no safe exit as snipers fired down on those attempting to flee, and riot police officers with tear gas and birdshot closed in from all sides.

There was no evidence that the Islamists had stockpiled weapons inside the encampment, as Egyptian state media had claimed. Instead, Islamists converging on Rabaa from around Cairo hurriedly broke pavement into rocks or mixed Molotov cocktails for hurling at the police. A few were armed with makeshift clubs, or sought to use garbage pail lids or even a swimming kickboard as shields.

For a time in the late afternoon, the Islamists succeeded in pushing the police back far enough to create an almost safe passage to a hospital building on the edge of what remained of their camp. They had moved cars into place as fortifications, and two long rows of men were passing stones hand to hand to try to build new barricades.

The passage was safe except for a roughly 20-yard stretch in front of the hospital doors, where snipers still fired down from both sides. A series of Islamist marchers from around the city were able to enter the encampment, bolstering its numbers even as the shooting continued.

But shortly before dusk, soldiers and police officers launched a renewed push, seizing control of the hospital and tearing down the last tents and central stage erected at the core of the camp. The protesters had nowhere left to hide, said Morad Ali, a Muslim Brotherhood spokesman who had been inside the camp, and they were forced at last to flee.

Journalists were also caught in the violence. Sky News, the British satellite television service, said one of its veteran cameramen, Mick Deane, was killed. The circumstances were not clear.

Mohamed Soltan, a spokesman for the protesters, told Al Jazeera that a cameraman working with the protesters had been shot and killed by a sniper while filming on a stage. There was no official confirmation of the shooting.

Egyptian state television sought to downplay the police violence, beginning the day with reports that the camps were being cleared “in a highly civilized way.” Later, state television broadcast footage of what appeared to be an Islamist wielding an assault rifle.

After an emergency meeting in the midday, the interim government issued a statement praising the security forces for their courage and restraint while blaming the Islamists for any loss of life.

“The government holds these leaders fully responsible for any spilled blood, and for all the rioting and violence going on,” the statement said.

The government also renewed its pledge to pursue a military-based political blueprint for the country’s future in “a way that strives not to exclude any party from participation.”

Mayy El Sheikh contributed reporting from Cairo, and Alan Cowell from London.



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Updates on Security Crackdown in Egypt

The Lede is following events in Egypt on Wednesday, where the security forces used deadly force to disperse sit-ins by supporters of the deposed president, Mohamed Morsi.

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10:08 A.M. State of Emergency Declared in Egypt

Amid varying reports of how many Islamist protesters have been killed by the security forces in Cairo, and reports of attacks on Christian churches, a one-month state of emergency has just come into force in Egypt, according to journalists and rights workers monitoring state television.