6 cops shot - 4 dead

LINDENHURST, Illinois (CNN) -- Police say a man shot two police officers -- one of them critically -- and then barricaded himself inside a Lindenhurst supermarket Monday evening. He continued to hold dozens of police at bay into the early morning hours of Tuesday, officials said.

The incident began around 6 p.m. Monday when the Illinois State Police undercover officers involved in a gun trafficking investigation confronted a suspect about a block from Eagle Country Market in Lindenhurst, said Capt. Dave Sanders, of the state police.

The suspect shot two policemen and then barricaded himself inside the market, Sanders said.

Deputy Chief Fred Heidecke with the Lake Co. Sheriff's Office described the suspect as a white male. He said law enforcement officials are in phone contact with the man and are trying to figure out a peaceful solution to the standoff.

Heidecke said no hostages were taken and everyone had been accounted for from the store.

A 38-year-old police officer with two bullet wounds was taken to Advocate Lutheran General Hospital in Park Ridge, where spokeswoman Barb Pool said he had come out of surgery and was in critical but stable condition.

The second officer was shot twice in his bullet-proof vest and taken to Provena St. Therese Hospital in Waukegan, where he was treated and released. Hospital spokesman Larry Stanley said the office had a bruised chest, but that was the extent of his injuries.

Lindenhurst is a community of 8,000 about 44 miles north of Chicago.

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Two police officers shot to death



MISHAWAKA, Ind., Dec. 13 (UPI) -- Two police officers were fatally shot Saturday in a community near South Bend, Ind., by a gunman who then turned the gun on himself.

The police were responding to a call that shots had been fired at a house containing several young children along with the suspect, wndu.com reported.

The suspect answered the door, had words with the Mishawaka town officers, and went back in the house. The second time the man could be seen on a front porch, officers rushed him, witnesses said.

The police and suspect traded shots at close range. With one officer dead at the scene and another officer dying of his wounds the man identified as 30-year-old Raymond Gilkeson went into a nearby house wounded, sat down in the kitchen, told the residents to leave, and then shot himself.

Killed were Cpl. Tom Roberts, a 14-year veteran, and patrolman Bryan Verkler, who had served two and a half years.

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TWO Police Officers Shot to Death; Suspect Surrenders

Los Angeles Times (subscription), CA

Two police officers responding to a call from a man asking to speak to

the FBI were shot to death in an apparent ambush. A suspect was in custody.

Sgt. ...

http://www.latimes

Use found for duct tape...LUBBOCK, Texas (AP) -- A Texas judge ordered a defendant's mouth to be taped shut after the man kept interrupting his lawyer and the judge during an aggravated assault trial.

For about 20 minutes Tuesday, Carl Wiley, 36, ignored pleas from state District Judge Jim Bob Darnell and his own mother to keep quiet during a hearing outside the jury's presence.

Finally, Darnell ordered bailiffs to seal Wiley's mouth with duct tape.

"He was being very disruptive and he was trying to fire his second court-appointed attorney, and I informed him that when the attorney is appointed by the court, only the court can fire the attorney," Darnell said.

"Mr. Wiley continued to interrupt him," Darnell said, referring to attorney Steve Hamilton, "so the court duct-taped his mouth until the jury came in. Then I had him removed from the courtroom."

Hamilton declined to comment on the incident or on his client's conviction later Tuesday for ramming his vehicle into his estranged wife's car. She was not injured.

No sentencing date has been set.

Latest on th almanac killers...Subject: Almanac logic



In ''Inventing a Nation,'' the inimitable Gore Vidal has his own peculiar explanation for why we Americans have ''so many academic histories of our republic and its origins.'' We want to ''gaze fixedly on the sunny aspects of a history growing ever darker.'' That's why, he says, we have ignored Benjamin Franklin's dire warning in 1787 that our Republic was likely to become corrupted and end in despotism. Instead of realizing that Franklin was correct in his prediction and that we have already arrived at this awful moment of corruption and tyranny, we celebrate Franklin as ''the jolly fat ventriloquist of common (almanac? pr) lore, with his simple maxims for simple folk.'' So much for all those recent best-selling biographies.

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9900E4D9173DF937A25751C1A9659C8B63

Tis the season for miracles!