Group items tagged

LOS ANGELES | June 7, 2011 Mike Yepremyan was a 19-year old Armenian-American with his whole life ahead of him. A good-looking kid with dreams of space-flight, he was a sentimental young man who once delivered a single rose to every girl in Los Angeles Baptist High on a Valentine's Day the year before his death. Just a month before he died, he asked his parents about becoming an organ donor and when his life ended so unsuspectingly, Mike helped many others carry on their lives with their families. In November of 2009, Yepremyan's life ended after a text message sent to his girlfriend set off a series of events that would change lives forever. "With what appeared to be a sweeping punch aimed at the back of Mike's head....there was a boom and a shower of sparks," witnesses said according to a report in the Los Angeles Times while describing the shooting incident in which Hombert "Mike" Yepremyan was killed. Apparently, the killers escaped that November night in 2009 in a BMW. The driver of the BMW was later discovered to be Vahagn Jurian, 22, of Van Nuys, described in courtroom testimony as the cousin of "Kat." Yepremyan's girlfriend had become close with Kat who Yepremyan referred to as a "bitch" in a text message he sent to his girlfriend that November night in 2009 that set off a series of events that ultimately took his life. More than a year after his murder, Hombert Mike Yepremyan's parents had almost given up hope that their son's murderer would ever be apprehended until police had tracked whom they believed had killed Yepremyan - in Puerto Rico. Federal marshals on the island surrounded Zareh Manjikian's apartment complex in Carolina, Puerto Rico. Manjikian, now 23, finally appeared and was whom police believed escaped in the BMW driven by Jurian. Marshals followed him into a neighboring beach town and when opportunity knocked, U.S. Marshal's arrested Manjikian who was taken away in handcuffs. When Yepremyan's father received a call from a detec

WASHINGTON, D.C. | January 19, 2012 The Mayors for Freedom to Marry campaign will meet on Friday in Washington, the nation's capital, to garner support for same-sex marriages nationwide. The campaign is led by the Mayor of San Diego, California, Jerry Sanders. Joining Sanders in Washington is Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa as well as the mayors of Boston, Chicago and Houston. Freedom to Marry was fonuded in 2003 by Evan Wolfson, the father of the modern marriage movement. The campaign's mission is to garner support, grow the national majority for marriage and end federal marriage discrimination through the repeal of the Defense of Marriage Act. The San Diego Mayor, previously opposed to same-sex marriage, in a Los Angeles Times report states that he "could not accept the idea that his daughter Lisa is less worthy of forming a lasting relationship because she is a lesbian."