FATAL COLLISION:6 Teens Killed, 2 Injured In SUV Crash in Ohio

WARREN, Ohio –  A sport utility vehicle carrying eight teenagers crashed into a guardrail Sunday morning and flipped over into a swampy pond in northeast Ohio, killing five boys and a girl, while two other boys escaped, the state highway patrol said.

Highway Patrol officials say speed was a factor in the violent early morning crash of a sports utility vehicle that killed six teenagers in the northeast Ohio.

The Honda Passport veered off the left side of a road, hit a guardrail and overturned just south of the city of Warren, about 60 miles east of Cleveland, Lt. Anne Ralston said. Investigators say it came to rest upside down in the swamp and sank with five of the victims trapped inside. A sixth who was thrown from the SUV during the crash was found under it when the vehicle was taken out of the water.

The two survivors escaped and ran to a nearby home to call 911, the highway patrol said.

Ralston didn't know where the teens were headed when the crash happened at about 7 a.m. She didn't have any information to release on possible causes or factors in the crash, but the highway patrol planned a news conference for Sunday night.

"All I know is my baby is gone," said Derrick Ray, who came to the crash site after viewing his 15-year-old son Daylan's body at the county morgue. He said he knew that his son, a talented football player who was looking forward to playing in high school, was out with friends, but didn't know their plans.

A pile of blue, green and copper-red stuffed bears grew at a makeshift memorial at the crash site along a two-lane road tightly bordered with guardrails on either side in an industrial area. The sport utility vehicle had sheared off tall cattails along the guardrail.

There were also notes at the memorial, including a letter from Daylan Ray's 12-year-old half-sister, Mariah Bryant, who said she had learned they were related only in the past year.

"It hurts, it really does, because they are so young and, like, they could have had so much more to life," she said. "We just really started getting close, and it's hard to believe he's gone."

Two of the teens, both 15, were brought to a hospital in full cardiac arrest, St. Joseph Health Center nursing supervisor Julie Gill said, and were pronounced dead there. She said they were treated for hypothermic drowning trauma, indicating they had been submerged in cold water.

The two who survived, 18-year-old Brian Henry and 15-year-old Asher Lewis, both of Warren, were treated for bruising and other injuries and released, she said.

All those killed were ages 14 to 19, authorities said. State police identified them as 19-year-old Alexis Cayson; Andrique Bennett, 14; Brandon Murray, 17; and Kirklan Behner, Ramone White and Ray, all 15. The Highway Patrol said Alexis was the only female in the vehicle. It wasn't clear who was driving.

Rickie Bowling, 18, a friend of Behner, sobbed at the crash scene as she recalled his playfulness and reputation as a cut-up.

"He was one of a kind," she said. "Everyone knew him in the neighborhood. In school, he always made everyone laugh."

Bowling said the tragedy highlighted the importance of savoring life. "Basically, enjoy every second in life," she said. "Enjoy life while you've got it and while you're here and enjoy people that you love."

She said she would rely on her faith in the difficult days ahead. "The only way to look at it is on the bright side: he's in a better place," she said.

Jasmine McClintock, 22, a friend of a victim, visited the crash scene and said it should serve as a warning for parents to be aware of their children's activities.

"I hope it's an eye-opener for parents," she said while watching the slow ripple of the pond water littered with debris, some apparently from the crash.

McClintock said she was troubled by the question of what the victims were doing out at that hour, not knowing if they had been out all night or left home early.

"That's the part that boggles my mind. It's like on a Sunday if you're not going to church, what are you doing at 7 a.m. out driving," she asked.

All eight were from Warren. It's not believed that any of them were closely related, the highway patrol said.

Near the Pennsylvania state line, Warren is a mostly blue-collar city that was hit by the decline of U.S. steel mills; it has more than 41,000 residents in the industrial Mahoning Valley region.

View the original article here

Crash calls for heads to roll

Heads must roll ... AFL boss Andrew Demetriou and chairman Mike Fitzpatrick. Source: David Caird / News Limited

Enough of the pulpit-pounding and furious finger waving ... let's see the guillotine.

As dramatic as Thursday's announcement about corruption in Australian sport was, it failed to leave the scorch marks created by naming names, dates and places.

The fear of multiple defamation cases saw the handbrake on the release of names but we have been told the curtain of deceit will eventually be ripped down and the naming and shaming will come in time.

Don't count on it. Not with the sports taking charge now.

If the Australian Crime Commission was so confident of its findings it should have blown the roof off the scandal by naming names, like the day when Melbourne Storm were exposed as salary-cap cheats.

By not outing anyone they incriminated everyone.

It is essential Australian sport learns who is dirty, if only to learn who is clean.

A decade ago international cricket had a day like this when anti-corruption chief Paul Condon released a document about widespread match-fixing in cricket, revealing threats to players' lives.

He made dam-busting headlines around the globe and was branded the great crusader but he didn't name names and the dramatic announcement was followed up with ... nothing.

Not a single charge. He was all hot air.

Heads must roll here.

On Thursday we heard probably a fifth of the story.

Beneath hard core accusations of drug peddling by unnamed sports scientists and doctors, and drug use by players, there is a disturbing appearance of words such as "suspected", "could", "potentially" and "possibly" in the report.

For goodness sake fellas, just give it to us straight. Did they or didn't they?

Sports Minister Kate Lundy, sounding like she had just had breakfast with Dirty Harry, claimed: "If you want to dope and cheat, we will catch you. If you want to fix a match, we will catch you."

Really? Can anyone name me a big-name Australian sportsman caught by Australia's drug police for performance enhancing drugs? The Storm's Rodney Howe, Richmond's Justin Charles and ... ?

Perhaps Lundy's line should have read: "If you want to dope we will catch you and then let you go, twice."

That's the thing. The AFL may be duty bound by its own system to keep their problems to themselves under its three strikes policy.

The word has been on the streets for ages that doping has been rampant in Australian sport yet barely anyone gets caught.

This was, however, a chastening day for Australia because historically our discerning gaze has been focused beyond our own shores when it comes to major drug scandals to the likes of Ben Johnson, Marion Jones and Lance Armstrong.

Now it's us and we can't blame our headache tablets or our Mum's diet pills.

Australia is about a decade behind US drug police, who are far more aggressive and have dragged American sports up with their standards.

Australian sport had been so focused on testing for traditional steroids and recreational drugs it let steroid substitutes like peptides - the big issue here - sneak through its dropped guard.

Alarm bells rang for drug authorities when the detection of these drugs in customs soared 100 per cent last year.

AFL seems destined to be the hardest hit by this scandal.

You only had to watch the early episodes of Underbelly, which pitched mafia figures sitting in the grandstands at football training, to know that in Melbourne, the worlds of drugs and sport and money laundering are disturbingly intertwined.

With a 140 per cent mark-up on the sale of some illegal supplements, you can understand why the underworld are so keen to be involved, especially since if anyone gets caught the athlete may be banned for life but the man in the dark sunglasses who sold him the drug gets nothing.

It sure beats peddling cocaine.

AFL is the sport that most trusted those mysterious sports science medicos who introduced the super-supplement culture.

The paranoia that comes with fearing you are going to be left behind prompted the clubs to match your frothing test tube with my Dr Who.

AFL players were ripe for these supplements because they train to breaking point and their bodies crave artificial regeneration.

Dr Robin Willcourt, who tested the blood of the Essendon players, found they were alarmingly down in testosterone and hormones because the players were so exhausted.

The great benefit of the "bust" is not that it will catch the cheats but that it will shake up the entire system.

Fear is a much greater weapon than force. Everyone is terrified now. This season there will be players checking Minties wrappers to make sure they are clean.

Surely we will never again witness a system where Essendon players, with about as much personal willpower as a lemming following its mates over a cliff, headed off site to get injected with mysterious substances after signing a waiver form.

Essendon have got what they deserved - a shameful dressing down. It will be a surprise if coaches James Hird and Mark Thompson survive the endless inquisitions that must follow.

Never again will sports boffins be as powerful as they were in recent seasons.

Sports like cricket will surely regret handing over the core of their selection philosophy to the men in white coats, some of whom think a googly is an internet search engine.

The match-fixing allegations about as-yet unnamed sports are fascinating, as was the reaction of sports officials at yesterday's press conference where soccer and rugby union officials denied match-fixing claims and AFL and rugby league bosses sat there looking as guilty as the kids with chocolate lips when asked who stole the last donut.

It was the first of many uncomfortable moments to come.

View the original article here

Crash calls for heads to roll

Heads must roll ... AFL boss Andrew Demetriou and chairman Mike Fitzpatrick. Source: David Caird / News Limited

Enough of the pulpit-pounding and furious finger waving ... let's see the guillotine.

As dramatic as Thursday's announcement about corruption in Australian sport was, it failed to leave the scorch marks created by naming names, dates and places.

The fear of multiple defamation cases saw the handbrake on the release of names but we have been told the curtain of deceit will eventually be ripped down and the naming and shaming will come in time.

Don't count on it. Not with the sports taking charge now.

If the Australian Crime Commission was so confident of its findings it should have blown the roof off the scandal by naming names, like the day when Melbourne Storm were exposed as salary-cap cheats.

By not outing anyone they incriminated everyone.

It is essential Australian sport learns who is dirty, if only to learn who is clean.

A decade ago international cricket had a day like this when anti-corruption chief Paul Condon released a document about widespread match-fixing in cricket, revealing threats to players' lives.

He made dam-busting headlines around the globe and was branded the great crusader but he didn't name names and the dramatic announcement was followed up with ... nothing.

Not a single charge. He was all hot air.

Heads must roll here.

On Thursday we heard probably a fifth of the story.

Beneath hard core accusations of drug peddling by unnamed sports scientists and doctors, and drug use by players, there is a disturbing appearance of words such as "suspected", "could", "potentially" and "possibly" in the report.

For goodness sake fellas, just give it to us straight. Did they or didn't they?

Sports Minister Kate Lundy, sounding like she had just had breakfast with Dirty Harry, claimed: "If you want to dope and cheat, we will catch you. If you want to fix a match, we will catch you."

Really? Can anyone name me a big-name Australian sportsman caught by Australia's drug police for performance enhancing drugs? The Storm's Rodney Howe, Richmond's Justin Charles and ... ?

Perhaps Lundy's line should have read: "If you want to dope we will catch you and then let you go, twice."

That's the thing. The AFL may be duty bound by its own system to keep their problems to themselves under its three strikes policy.

The word has been on the streets for ages that doping has been rampant in Australian sport yet barely anyone gets caught.

This was, however, a chastening day for Australia because historically our discerning gaze has been focused beyond our own shores when it comes to major drug scandals to the likes of Ben Johnson, Marion Jones and Lance Armstrong.

Now it's us and we can't blame our headache tablets or our Mum's diet pills.

Australia is about a decade behind US drug police, who are far more aggressive and have dragged American sports up with their standards.

Australian sport had been so focused on testing for traditional steroids and recreational drugs it let steroid substitutes like peptides - the big issue here - sneak through its dropped guard.

Alarm bells rang for drug authorities when the detection of these drugs in customs soared 100 per cent last year.

AFL seems destined to be the hardest hit by this scandal.

You only had to watch the early episodes of Underbelly, which pitched mafia figures sitting in the grandstands at football training, to know that in Melbourne, the worlds of drugs and sport and money laundering are disturbingly intertwined.

With a 140 per cent mark-up on the sale of some illegal supplements, you can understand why the underworld are so keen to be involved, especially since if anyone gets caught the athlete may be banned for life but the man in the dark sunglasses who sold him the drug gets nothing.

It sure beats peddling cocaine.

AFL is the sport that most trusted those mysterious sports science medicos who introduced the super-supplement culture.

The paranoia that comes with fearing you are going to be left behind prompted the clubs to match your frothing test tube with my Dr Who.

AFL players were ripe for these supplements because they train to breaking point and their bodies crave artificial regeneration.

Dr Robin Willcourt, who tested the blood of the Essendon players, found they were alarmingly down in testosterone and hormones because the players were so exhausted.

The great benefit of the "bust" is not that it will catch the cheats but that it will shake up the entire system.

Fear is a much greater weapon than force. Everyone is terrified now. This season there will be players checking Minties wrappers to make sure they are clean.

Surely we will never again witness a system where Essendon players, with about as much personal willpower as a lemming following its mates over a cliff, headed off site to get injected with mysterious substances after signing a waiver form.

Essendon have got what they deserved - a shameful dressing down. It will be a surprise if coaches James Hird and Mark Thompson survive the endless inquisitions that must follow.

Never again will sports boffins be as powerful as they were in recent seasons.

Sports like cricket will surely regret handing over the core of their selection philosophy to the men in white coats, some of whom think a googly is an internet search engine.

The match-fixing allegations about as-yet unnamed sports are fascinating, as was the reaction of sports officials at yesterday's press conference where soccer and rugby union officials denied match-fixing claims and AFL and rugby league bosses sat there looking as guilty as the kids with chocolate lips when asked who stole the last donut.

It was the first of many uncomfortable moments to come.

View the original article here