Javier Florez buys his way out of chokey

Atletico Junior’s Javier Florez was driving home from a defeat in Columbia’s Copa Mustang tournament in July when he was hassled by a group of fans. Instead of rising above their torments, the midfielder decided to let his gun do the talking. A 27-year-old electrician named Israel Campillo was murdered when he fired several shots at the group.

Florez surrendered himself to the police shortly after the incident, and admitted that he was drunk at the time. Despite admitting to a very heinous crime, the troubled star has been released from prison after paying 150m pesos ($75,000) to the victim’s family.

In addition to compensating the family, Florez had to pay a fine of just 1.5m pesos ($750) in order to get out of prison.

With such lenient punishments, is it any wonder that Colombia has a world-beating murder rate?

Whoa! Someone needs to chill out!

Generally speaking, the internet is a wonderful place where cats play keyboards, people have good natured batfights and opinionated morons can become famous.

However, Jack Wilshere probably isn’t sharing our enthusiasm for this big ol’ network of computers, as some vicious anonymous commenters have been using it to threaten his ladyfriend. The Daily Star done a story what sez:

FOOTBALL ace Jack Wilshere has called in police after a jealous female “fan” threatened to murder his girlfriend.[…] devoted fans have posted page after page of messages on internet sites.

But when pictures of his girlfriend - named online as Lauren Neal - were posted, so were threatening and spiteful messages.

On one site, a jealous girl calling herself “xCupCakes” wrote: “gah, lets kill her please?”

Another said: “She’s not good enough for him”, while one claimed she looked “like a boy”.

‘xCupCakesx’ strikes us as a misguided teenage Jack Wilshere fan, rather than a muderous psychopath, but nevertheless Hertfordshire police have “taken the threat very seriously”.

Scary update: Here’s the relatively harmless thread from which this story came. Thanks to Jonny for the tip.

Javier Flórez shoots a supporter for calling him “weak”

As Andrés Escobar discovered fifteen years ago, Colombian football and gunpoint murders go together like peas and carrots. The latest victim of this unfortunate harmonious relationship is a fan of Atletico Junior, who pushed Javier Flórez over the edge.

Apparently, the midfielder was driving home after a defeat to Once Caldas in the Apertura tournament when a group of youths started hassling him. When they shouted “Weak! Weak!” at him, he allegedly got out of his car and started firing. 27-year-old electrician Israel Campillo was killed after finding himself on the wrong end of two bullets.

Witnesses claim the footballer fled the scene on foot, at which point enraged locals in the Barranquilla neighbourhood destroyed his car with stones.

Flórez has since handed surrendered himself to the police.

[Marca]