Face Flesh-Eaters of Florida

[XLFD]

This crime is anything but sensational, but is really hard to classify.  It happened down in Florida, just the other day, and like the altercation between Treyvon Martin and George Zimmerman it involved two men of different ethnicities, where the black man was allegedly shot and killed by someone trying to prevent another violent crime from continuing. 

But that may be where the similarities end, as the rest of the narrative sounds like something from a George Romero film about the walking dead.  As wrongful use of bath salts are being claimed to have been the cause of the psychosis of face-hungry Rudy Eugene, expect Ludington Police Chief Mark Barnett to outlaw Calgon in the greater Ludington area in the near future.

 

Police sources have identified the homeless victim in a horrific, bloody assault in which a naked North Miami Beach man chewed off a large portion of another's man's face, as first reported by the Miami Herald and CBS Miami.

Ronald Poppo, 65, is in critical condition at Jackson Memorial Hospital's Ryder Trauma Center, just blocks from where he was attacked by 31-year-old Rudy Eugene in broad daylight Saturday on the Downtown off-ramp of Miami's busy MacArthur Causeway.  [Here is the aftermath of the attack, be warned, it is fairly gruesome.]

According to CBS, Poppo's arrest records -- mostly for the sort of petty crime common among the homeless -- show he has lived in New York City and New Orleans but suggest he has spent at least a good deal of his time in Miami since 1978. He is not found in Miami-Dade court records after a 2006 trespassing charge.

Strangely, Saturday's savage attack is apparently not the first time Poppo has been seriously injured Downtown. The Miami New Times reports that he was shot in Miami's Bayfront Park by an unidentified person in 1976, spending five days at Jackson. His given address at the time was a local Salvation Army.

Gruesome photos circulating the web suggest that if Poppo survives Saturday's assault, he may do so without much of his face. Hospital employees have so far not been able to contact any of Poppo's family, according to CBS.

"It was not only grotesque, it was just very sad, the amount of blood," Sgt. Javier Ortiz, vice president of the Miami Fraternal Order of Police, told the Associated Press. "It was very sad to see what happened to this gentleman that had his face eaten."

Miami Police have so far disclosed few details about the incident, in which Eugene was shot dead by a police officer. But an eyewitness who was riding his bike nearby told WSVN he flagged down a police officer after coming across Eugene, stark naked, chewing off Poppo's face.

"The guy was, like, tearing him to pieces with his mouth, so I told him, 'Get off!'" said Larry Vega. "The guy just kept eating the other guy away, like, ripping his skin."

But Vega said when the police officer yelled at Eugene to back away, the naked man merely raised his head "with pieces of flesh in his mouth," growled, and began chewing again. The officer then shot Eugene once, and when Eugene continued to attack Poppo's face, shot him multiple times until he was dead.

Investigators suspect that Eugene may have been suffering from a drug-induced psychosis, possibly prompted by an LSD-like new drug called "bath salts."

Cassandra Metayer, who went to middle and high school with Eugene and whose cousin was once married to him, said the attack wasn't consistent with his personality.

“This type of behavior is very unexpected,” she told the Herald. “He was a good person, a true friend. He was a nice, outgoing ready-to-help-anybody kind of guy.. I’m not just saying that; he really was that person."

[This story is from the Huffpost, Miami edition]

[Sweater Cows!]

People (esp.Chief Barnett)do realize that the drug is not actually bath salts right? People are not actually using calgon and the like to get high! It is a designer drug that comes in a powder form.

" From WEBMD webMD-Bath Salts

Why are they called bath salts?

"It’s confusing. Is this what we put in our bathtubs, like Epsom salts? No. But by marketing them as bath salts and labeling them 'not for human consumption,' they have been able to avoid them being specifically enumerated as illegal," Horowitz says.

What do you experience when you take bath salts?

"Agitation, paranoia, hallucinations, chest pain, suicidality. It’s a very scary stimulant that is out there. We get high blood pressure and increased pulse, but there’s something more, something different that’s causing these other extreme effects. But right now, there’s no test to pick up this drug. The only way we know if someone has taken them is if they tell you they have.

The clinical presentation is similar to mephedrone [a chemical found in other designer drugs], with agitation, psychosis, and stimulatory effects. Both of these agents should be of concern, as severe agitated behavior, like an amphetamine overdose, has occurred.

A second concern is the ongoing suicidality in these patients, even after the stimulatory effects of the drugs have worn off. At least for MDPV, there have been a few highly publicized suicides a few days after their use," Horowitz says.

Are bath salts illegal?

"You can find them in mini-marts and smoke shops sold as Ivory Wave, Bolivian Bath, and other names," Horowitz says. "The people who make these things have skirted the laws that make these types of things illegal. While several states have banned the sale of bath salts, ultimately it will have to be a federal law that labels these as a schedule 1 drug, which means it has no medicinal value but a high potential for abuse, and declare them illegal."

[XLFD]

I (and I hope Mr. Barnett) have read up enough to know that the bath salts are nothing Calgon or Mr. Bubbles would put out, but thanks for that further explanation.  It will be interesting to find out what Mr. Eugene's autopsy reveals, and whether this initial conclusion had any merit.  

[Willy]

If the attacker had been white and the victim black, how would the news media handled this story. "Whites going crazy,   eating blacks for snacks" would be the headlines all over the Country. The liberal press would have had a field day with this story. Obama would have ordered all whites to take a mental test to assure that the rest of whites would not barbecue the remaining unconsumed black population. Hysteria would be propagated by Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton.

[XLFD]

In a related story, a Kenyan Maryland college student murdered, dismembered, and ate the heart and brain of a Nigerian he was living with.  Sounds like we have a trend.

http://www.myfoxdfw.com/story/18673043/killer-cannibal-admits-eatin...