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Showing posts with label Funeral. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Funeral. Show all posts

Monday, July 11, 2011

Funeral Monday for Rangers fan

Shannon Stone died after falling over railing at Rangers StadiumSports anchor: Accident a reminder of "how fragile human life can be"Outfielder had heard Stone's son ask for ball and pitched one toward himRangers have set up account in Stone's nameRead more about this story from CNN affiliate WFAA.


(CNN) -- Funeral services will be held Monday for a Texas man who died at a baseball game last week.


Shannon Stone will be buried in his hometown of Brownwood, Texas. The 39-year-old firefighter fell to his death Thursday while trying to catch a ball at a Texas Rangers game.


Ronnie Hargis was seated in the stands near Stone and tried unsuccessfully to save him.


"Your first instinct is to reach out and grab him," Hargis told CNN's Don Lemon. "I tried to grab him. I couldn't catch him. He went down. As he went by me I tried to grab him again and I missed and ... it looked like he was in slow motion as he was going to the ground. There was nothing I could do but watch him fall."


In the second inning of the ill-fated game, star outfielder Josh Hamilton tossed a souvenir ball into the stands after a batter hit a foul ball. Stone stuck out his glove and reached for the ball, but lost his balance and flipped over the railing of the outfield seats. He fell about 20 feet and crashed head-first into a scoreboard, suffering fatal injuries. Stone died of blunt-force trauma, according to the Tarrant County medical examiner.


His 6-year-old son, Cooper, witnessed the tragic accident.


"It's just the cruelest of reminders of just how fragile human life can be," said Joe Trahan, sports anchor at CNN-affiliate WFAA. "The mind-boggling thing about this is that everyone's intent was right."


Trahan provided details of the incident for Lemon.


"Josh Hamilton flipped a foul ball up to a little girl an inning or so earlier," Trahan said. "And he heard at that point Cooper Stone ask for a ball. Most of the time, big-leaguers wouldn't even hear that, but he made a note of it, he's trying to do the right thing."


Rangers president Nolan Ryan, a Hall of Fame pitcher, said earlier that the club would review the height of railings at the stadium, even though they currently exceed the city's code limits.


Trahan told Lemon that club management is already working on making changes at their stadium.


"I've spoken to Rangers officials, and they tell me that there are meetings that have already taken place with city leaders, meetings with architects at the ballpark, contractors. They're trying to find a permanent solution, not a stop-gap one."


But fan-awareness also plays a crucial role at stadiums, according to Trahan.


"This is a stark and cruel reminder that (safety) is everyone's responsibility when you go to the ballpark," he said, adding that he was surprised that injuries didn't happen more often, especially "down the first and third base lines ... those are rocket shots coming off those bats."


But Trahan also said that the accident should be kept in perspective.


"We go back to the unexplainable issue of why this happened, because there have been thousands and thousands of balls hit in that area, people with gloves trying to get balls and nothing has happened until now."


The Rangers held a moment of silence before Friday night's game against the Oakland A's. Members of both teams wore black ribbons.


Flags at Rangers Ballpark in Arlington have flown at half-mast all weekend.


The team has set up an account accepting donations in Stone's honor with the Texas Rangers Baseball Foundation. Donated money has been earmarked to help the Stone family. The Rangers have donated an undisclosed sum, according to the team's website, and the A's donated $5,000.

Funeral services will be held at noon ET at the First United Methodist Church in Brownwood.

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Saturday, May 14, 2011

Palestinian teen's funeral turns violent

Palestinian youth throw stones during clashes with Israeli police on May 13, 2011, in Issawiya, East Jerusalem.NEW: Israeli police arrest four PalestiniansNEW: Several people are treated for tear gas inhalation, medical official says Witnesses say clashes erupt during funeral procession for Palestinian teen Israeli police are bracing for violent clashes as Palestinians mark ''Nakba Day''

Jerusalem (CNN) -- A funeral procession for a Palestinian teenager who died from a gunshot wound turned violent Saturday when participants clashed with Israeli police, witnesses said.

Scattered clashes between Palestinians and Israeli security forces began Friday in various locations throughout East Jerusalem, which Palestinians want named as the capital of a Palestinian state.

Palestinians hurled stones; Israelis fired tear gas. Israeli police arrested four Palestinians, said police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld.

Several people were treated for tear gas inhalation, said a Palestinian Medical Authority official. One person was injured in a beating.

Both sides were bracing for more violence as Palestinians prepared for "Nakba Day" on Sunday. Nakba, meaning catastrophe in Arabic, marks the period when more than 700,000 Palestinians were forced or fled their homes during the fighting following the creation of Israel in 1948.

Milady Ayahs, 17, was participating in a protest Friday when Israeli police shot him, his family said. He died early Saturday, according to police and his family. The incident is under investigation.

Initial reports were that no live ammunition was used by police who responded to the protests, Rosenfeld said. He said Ayahs was taken to the hospital with what appeared to be a gunshot wound to the shoulder.

Rosenfeld said police asked to perform an autopsy on Ayahs to aid the investigation, but the family declined.

Hundreds of Palestinians joined the funeral procession that began at Ayahs' family home near Jerusalem's Old City and was winding its way toward a burial ground when a number of procession-goers threw rocks at Jewish settlers and police, who in turn threw tear gas at the procession-goers.

Despite the violence, the procession continued to the al-Aqsa mosque, considered the third holiest site in Islam, where Ayash was buried.

Tensions in the streets were rising with thousands of Israeli police deployed in anticipation of increased tension surrounding Nakba Day.

At the mosque, young men in the funeral procession draped Palestinian flags on the roof -- a rare, strong political statement, according to witnesses.

CNN's Kevin Flower and Kareem Khadder contributed to this report.


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Thursday, April 14, 2011

Senators Propose Tighter Restrictions on Military Funeral Protests

Reuters

Nov. 11, 2010: Members of the Westboro Baptist Church hold anti-gay signs at Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia on Veterans Day.

A bipartisan group of senators on Thursday introduced a bill to strengthen restrictions on protests at military funerals, in response to a Supreme Court ruling in favor of a Kansas church notorious for picketing troops' funerals. 

The Supreme Court last month ruled that the Westboro Baptist Church's widely despised protests count as protected speech under the Constitution. The new proposal aims not to challenge that decision, but tighten existing restrictions to give grieving families more privacy. 

"Those who fight and die in the service of our country deserve our highest respect. Their families have earned the right to bury their loved ones in peace. The SERVE Act strikes a balance between the sanctity of a funeral service and the right to free speech," Sen. Olympia Snowe, R-Maine, said in a statement. 

The SERVE Act stands for "The Sanctity of Eternal Rest for Veterans." The bill would increase the buffer zone around military funerals from 150 feet to 300 feet, and increase the buffer around routes to the funerals from 300 feet to 500 feet. 

It would also increase the amount of "quiet time" before and after services from one hour to two hours and increase penalties. 

The Westboro Baptist Church, though, has threatened to challenge statutes across the country that restrict picketing, in light of the Supreme Court decision. 

The Supreme Court ruled 8-1, with only Justice Samuel Alito dissenting, that the protests were protected speech. 

"Speech is powerful. It can stir people to action, move them to tears of both joy and sorrow, and -- as it did here -- inflict great pain," Chief Justice John Roberts wrote in his majority opinion. "On the facts before us, we cannot react to that pain by punishing the speaker. As a nation we have chosen a different course -- to protect even hurtful speech on public issues to ensure that we do not stifle public debate." 

Other co-sponsors on the military funerals bill were: Sens. Ben Cardin, D-Md.; Dan Coats, R-Ind.; Kent Conrad, D-N.D.; Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y.; John Hoeven, R-N.D.; Kay Bailey Hutchison, R-Texas; Mike Johanns, R-Neb.; Mark Kirk, R-Ill.; Mark Pryor, D-Ark.; Harry Reid, D-Nev.; Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va.; Marco Rubio, R-Fla.; and Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H.

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