RETAIL SECURITY/LOSS PREVENTION NEWS ROUND-UP by; Rick McCann www.privateofficer.com

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LAKEWOOD CO. TEENS CAUGHT SHOPLIFTING COUGH SYRUP Police responded to King Soopers at 7984 W. Alameda Ave. at 3:38 p.m. Oct. 26 on a report of teenagers attempting to steal cough syrup. Using security cameras, loss prevention officers watched the two boys, a 15-year-old from Englewood and an 18-year-old from Lakewood, conceal several boxes of Robitussin and attempt to leave the store. When the officers confronted the boys, the 15-year tried to get away and kicked the officers. He was handcuffed after a brief struggle with officers and store employees. Police found four boxes of Robitussin in the 15-year-old’s pockets. He was arrested on suspicion of robbery and booked at the police station. The 18-year-old was given a summons on suspicion of shoplifting and released.

MILLVILLE N.J. — Eugene Mitchell Jr., 45, of North High Street, was arrested Wednesday for shoplifting after he tried to conceal four containers of CDs from the North 2nd Street Walmart in his pants. The containers of CDs were worth $22 each. He was released on his own recognizance.

JEFFERSON COUNTY, N.Y. — State police break up a major shoplifting ring in Jefferson County. The arrests are the result of an eight month investigation at the Wal-Mart Supercenter in LeRay and the Wal-Mart in Watertown.
Authorities arrested a total of 13 people on charges ranging from larceny to possession of stolen property.

ROUZERVILLE VA – Two Waynesboro men are in Franklin County Jail, one of them on drug charges, after they allegedly tried to steal a computer, DVDs and CDs from Wal-Mart at 12751 Washington Township Blvd.Michael Ernst Brown, 25, of 12075 Hess Ave. was committed to the jail in lieu of $100,000 bond, and Robert Lee Bennett, 57, of 27 Cleveland Ave. was jailed on $50,000 bond, police said.The incident occurred at 5:12 Sunday night, according to a news release from Washington Township police.
Brown, who police said had a large amount of cash and cocaine on him, became disruptive while being searched at the police station and had to be subdued with a TASER stun gun, according to the report.He was charged with criminal conspiracy to commit theft, two counts of retail theft, resisting arrest, tampering with evidence, possession of cocaine, possession with intent to deliver and possession of drug paraphernalia according to police.Bennett was charged with criminal conspiracy to commit theft and retail theft.
Both men were arraigned before Magisterial District Judge Richard Alloway, Pleasant Hall

Georgetown MD. An 18-year-old Ocean View woman was arrested for allegedly shoplifting at the Georgetown Wal-Mart.
Kendra P. Kachel is alleged to have removed several items from display and put them into her purse. She then attempted to leave the store without paying for the items. When she was approached by store personnel, she pushed them and attempted to run out of the store. Kachel was charged with robbery 2nd degree; she was released on an unsecured bond.
In a separate incident at the Wal-Mart, 36-year-old Howard W. Bowman of Bridgeville was arrested after store personnel observed him placing items inside his coat and walk out of the store without paying for them. Bowman was charged with shoplifting and released on a criminal summons.

FLORENCE — A Southampton man was charged Tuesday in the theft of about $800 worth of merchandise from a drugstore, police said.
Timothy Haas, 30, was arrested at a motel in Lumberton after an investigation into the theft of shampoo, aspirin and heartburn medication from the Rite Aid store on Route 130 on Oct. 25, police said.
Several of the stolen items were recovered from Haas’ motel room during the arrest, police said.
Haas was charged with shoplifting and lodged in Burlington County Jail in Mount Holly on $20,000 bail, police said.

WHITE PLAINS N.Y. – A security officer from The Westchester mall and employees from two mall stores were arrested on multiple felony charges Tuesday, accused of using stolen credit cards to buy gift cards.Otis Jackson, 24, of 4 Windsor Terrace, White Plains; Gerald Joseph, 23, of 168 N. Lawn Ave., Elmsford; and Anthony Jesus Perez, 26, of the Bronx were picked up at the 125 Westchester Ave. mall Tuesday afternoon. All are charged with felony counts of second-degree forgery, third-degree grand larceny and fourth-degree criminal possession of stolen property. They’re also all charged with fifth-degree conspiracy, a misdemeanor.Detective Lt. Eric Fischer said Jackson, a mall security guard, is accused of bringing stolen credit cards to the Foot Locker store, where Joseph works, and Lady Foot Locker, where Perez works. Joseph and Perez, who police say knew the cards were stolen, put them through to purchase a total of $3,900 worth of gift cards Oct. 25, authorities said. The scheme was discovered by one of the store managers.Bail and court information was not available.

HOUSTON TX. It may be necessary for them and convenient for contractors, but day laborers who wait outside a southwest Houston Home Depot say they’ve been running into trouble with the store’s security guards.
On any given day, there are about 100 men who gather in the store’s parking lot, looking for work.
The day laborers claim security guards hired by the store to patrol the parking lot have been running them off the property, sometimes physically shoving them off the sidewalks.
Some of the laborers even claim they’ve been sprayed with pepper spray.
One worker said a guard pulled him off of a contractor’s truck after he’d already been hired.
“Home Depot decided to take a hard-line attitude towards the day laborers because of the chaotic nature of hiring day laborers on their property,” immigrant rights activist Maria Jimenez said.
Activists admit some of the fault lies the laborers who run to cars as they roll into the lot. They say they want the store to designate an appropriate waiting area for the workers, as long as the alleged harassment stops.
In a statement, Home Depot acknowledged the laborer’s complaints but said they are only looking out for their customers.
“In the interest of safety and convenience, along with feedback we receive from our customers, we maintain our non-solicitation policy to keep people from loitering on our property.”

Mesa AZ. A woman was arrested in connection with the theft of more than $1,000 worth of merchandise from 11 Arizona Mills stores, police said. Angela Thomas, 46, was arrested after getting away from the mall’s loss prevention staff when she was suspected of shoplifting, booking reports show. Police said Thomas took empty bags into 11 stores that day and shoplifted from all of them. Tempe police found Thomas across the street from the mall after she fled the mall’s staff.She was arrested at 5:30 p.m. Wednesday on suspicion of shoplifting on the 4600 block of South Priest Drive, near U. S. 60.

Alamogordo N.M. Shoplifters of every age, lifting goods from belts to gasoline, were picked up by police over the weekend.
Friday’s shoplifting list, according to Alamogordo Department of Public Safety police logs, includes a young man and an old man.
Patrick Grande, 75, of Deming, was issued a non-traffic citation for shoplifting Friday, according to the logs. He paid for $20 worth of gas, then allegedly pumped $38 in gas without paying to make up the difference. He is to appear in Municipal Court.
Also in the logs, Joshua Oglesby, 27, of 1302 1/2 Michigan Ave., was arrested Friday for shoplifting at Lowe’s Pay and Save. Oglesby allegedly concealed steaks on his person and tried to leave the store without paying for them. He was released on an unsecured bond to appear in Municipal Court.
While tending to the alleged steak lifter, police found Kelly Vargas, 29, also of 1302 1/2 Michigan Ave., at the store with Oglesby. Logs state DPS gave Vargas a non-traffic citation for trespassing. She had, on another occasion, been issued an order not to trespass at Lowe’s.
“They were together,” DPS Sgt. Hal Alton said of Vargas and Oglesby. “She’d been previously warned not to be at Lowe’s, I don’t know why.”
Like Oglesby, Vargas is to appear in Municipal Court.
Saturday also saw its share of shoplifting action as two 14-year-old girls were referred to the Juvenile Probation and Parole office for it. According to logs, the girls allegedly attempted to remove two belts from Wal-Mart without paying for them.
Both girls were released to their parents pending notification by JPPO.

FLINT TWP. MI. – Police have arrested a suspect in the Oct. 22 and Oct. 24 attacks on female shoppers at the Genesee Valley and Courtland Center shopping malls.
Flint Township police Sgt. Gene DuBuc said officers from Burton, Flint Township and the Flint Area Narcotics Group took an individual into custody in connection with all three incidents about 8:30 p.m. Monday.
Details about when and where the arrest occurred were not immediately available this morning.
The Genesee Valley attack occurred about 5 p.m. Oct. 24, when a Montrose woman, 26, was assaulted and her car stolen in the parking lot outside the J.C. Penney store.
The suspect punched her in the face and head several times before shoving her inside her car, but she was able to slide out the other side of the vehicle and run back into the store. She was treated for minor injuries at Hurley Medical Center.
The woman’s vehicle was recovered the next morning at Courtland Center shopping mall in Burton, where police later learned another female shopper had been abducted in her own vehicle about an hour after the Genesee Valley attack.
In that case, the victim was driven to a remote location and raped, then driven back to the Flint area.
A similar attack occurred two days earlier at Courtland Center, when a man matching the same general description forcibly abducted and raped a female shopper as she walked to her car outside the mall’s food court about 6:30 p.m. Oct. 22.
Police from all three agencies are preparing a joint statement on additional details of the ongoing investigation.

VINELAND N.J. Police arrested Brian Carey, 23, of Chew Avenue, Franklinville for shoplifting merchandise totaling $341.84 at 7 p.m. Friday at Rite Aid in the 500 block of East Landis Avenue.–
Police arrested Michelle Hernandez, 23, of South Third Street for shoplifting three girdles, valued at $96.50, at Boscov’s in Cumberland Mall on Saturday afternoon.

ATHENS OH. Two people are facing felony charges Wednesday afternoon after police say they shoplifted a hefty amount of merchandise from an area shopping center.
Athen’s city police say Tuesday, a Walmart security guard witnessed two women and a young boy leaving the store without paying for their items.
When stopped by the security guard, the suspects, Teresa Estep, Serena Craig-Cooper and the young boy were found with more than sixteen hundred dollars worth of stolen merchandise on them.
Estep and Craig-Cooper are charged with felony theft.
They are both out of the Southeast Ohio Regional Jail on bond.
The juvenile could also face charges for his involvement in the crime.

Topeka KS. Police officers responding to a report of a shoplifting arrested a woman in connection with drug offenses.
Police spokeswoman Kristi Pankratz said officers responded at about 8:40 p.m. Monday to Wal-Mart, 1301 S.W. 37th St., regarding a shoplifter.
Pankratz said the person attempted to leave the store without paying for items and was approached by a store loss prevention officer, who then notified police. Responding officers then found drug paraphernalia on the person.
Maryolita Adams, 38, of Topeka, was arrested and booked into the Shawnee County Jail in connection with theft, possession of drug paraphernalia and possession of crack cocaine.

HOUSTON TX. – An off-duty Fort Bend County sheriff’s deputy working security for West Oaks Mall fired his weapon twice at a motorist who apparently attempted to run over him Sunday evening after being ordered to stop.Police are looking for the driver, who escaped along with two other suspected shoplifters.
Glen Duran, a deputy assigned to the county jail, was called by store clerks after three men were caught shoplifting at the Macy’s store just before 6 p.m., said Victor Senties, spokesman for the Houston Police Department. The three suspects had been followed by security personnel inside the store where they were reportedly seen going from department to department, throwing items over their shoulders. As the suspects were leaving the store, Duran was summoned and followed them into the parking lot.Reports said when he ordered the men not to get into their car, they jumped in and the driver put the car in reverse in an attempt to hit the deputy, who fired two shots at the fleeing vehicle.No one was apparently hit by the bullets, said police, as the suspects fled.

PORTSMOUTH N.H. A shoplifter pled guilty and requested that the court transport her to a methadone clinic during her thirty incarceration. Megan Glidden made the unusual request Friday in court and the judge answered that he would think about it and let her know within a week

100 Arrested In O’Hare Security Breech www.privateofficer.com

100 Arrested in O’hare Crackdown www.privateofficer.com

More than 100 arrested at O’hare Airport Crackdown http://www.privateofficer.com
Chicago,IL. Nov.8 2007

- More than 20 people were arrested Wednesday for allegedly using fake badges to gain access to secure areas of O’Hare Airport.

Federal authorities said the arrests are the culmination of an eight-month investigation. Many of the suspects arrested are illegal immigrants, according to US Customs officials.It boils down to security at O’Hare International Airport and who should have access to the tarmac and other sensitive areas at the airport. Immigration officials announced Wednesday that 25 people at this point have been arrested after this eight-month federal investigation. Two of those people face federal charges. They both work for Ideal Staffing Solutions in Bensenville. That is a temporary employment agency.

The first person arrested Wednesday is Mary Gurin, 36, from Carpentersville and a corporate secretary at the company. The other person arrested is Norinye Benitez. She is also working at Ideal Staffing Solutions. Both face charges for harboring illegal aliens for financial gain and misusing Social Security numbers.

The two defendants allegedly provided undocumented workers with deactivated airport security badges issued in other names. That allowed those workers to bypass the security screening system in place at O’Hare Airport.

The 23 suspects are going to start facing state charges Thursday.

“Government can’t be too vigilant when it comes to airport employees gaining access to secure areas, especially if they lie about their identities, and we have no idea who they are or what their true intentions may be,” said Elissa Brown, special agent-in-charge.

“We can have no tolerance for people who set up businesses for people with fake identities to have access to secure areas of the airport,” said Patrick Fitzgerald, U.S. attorney, Northern District of Illinois.

Twenty-five people are now in custody. According to the feds, 24 of them are in this country illegally. The legal proceedings began Wednesday afternoon at the federal court in downtown Chicago.

The state attorney’s office in Cook County told ABC7 that they are still trying to execute some arrest warrants and are still looking for 81 other people

Priest arrested for stalking talk show host www.privateofficer.com

NEW YORK N.Y. Nov. 9 2007– New York prosecutors said a priest has been arrested on charges of stalking late-night talk show host Conan O’Brien.

A spokeswoman for the Manhattan prosecutor’s office said the Rev. David Ajemian of the Archdiocese of Boston was arrested while trying to enter a taping session of NBC’s “Late Night” last week.

He’s accused of writing threatening notes on parish letterhead and contacting O’Brien’s parents.
Court papers say the suspect referred to himself as “your priest stalker” in one note, and complained of not being allowed to see an earlier taping of the show.
The note asked: “Is this the way you treat your most dangerous fans?” It, and others, were signed “Padre.”
The priest, who’s on leave, could face up to a year in prison if convicted of aggravated harassment and stalking.
O’Brien is not commenting.

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On the run for 33 years, law comes knocking www.privateofficer.com

On the run for 33 years, the law comes knocking www.privateofficer.com

Frankston TX. Nov. 9 2007

On the run for 33 years, Deborah Gavin knew the day would come when the long arm of the law would catch up to her.

She just didn’t expect that day to be Wednesday
The 53-year-old Gavin, who escaped from a Georgia prison while serving time for armed robbery in Gwinnett County in the early 1970s, said as much to U.S. Marshals as they cuffed her outside her home in Frankston, Texas.
In the intervening years, Gavin moved from state to state, living in Tennessee, Florida and Texas. She met and married Richard Murphey, changed her last name and bore two children, authorities said.
She earned a nurse’s license and worked at a nearby hospital. When her back and heart conditions worsened and she was too weak for the rigors of a medical ward, Gavin started a quilting business from inside her two-story home.
And through it all, Gavin kept clean.
“As far as we know, she’s been completely clear,” said Ricky Myrick, chief investigator with the Georgia Department of Corrections. “There were no hits on fingerprints. We’ve never been notified by any agency that her prints matched those of someone they arrested.”
For her husband, her past was a mystery.
“Things in her past, she’d get upset if I brought them up,” said Richard Murphey, 63. “I didn’t push her.”
Deborah Gavin, aka Debra Ann Gavin or Debbie Gavin, was convicted of armed robbery in Gwinnett County on Feb. 11, 1972, and sentenced to serve seven years at the Georgia Women’s Correctional Institution at Hardwick in Baldwin County.
Corrections officials could not immediately provide details on the robberies. Their computerized records don’t go that far back, they said.
Jason Watson, a corrections employee assigned to the U.S. Marshal Service’s Southeast Regional Fugitive Task Force who traveled to Texas to arrest Gavin, also was at a loss about the details.
“That was before I was born,” Watson said sheepishly. “Trying to [efficiently] get paperwork from that time is like trying to find [Jimmy] Hoffa’s body.”
Records show Gavin escaped from the facility five times, once fleeing as far away as Louisiana. Each time she was recaptured and reincarcerated.
On July 23, 1974 — a month after her last recapture — Gavin once again broke loose. This time, she disappeared.
A new life
A year after her escape, Gavin met her husband, Richard Murphey, while she worked as an assistant in his construction business in Plano, Texas. They moved to Frankston sometime in the 1980s, and soon after, Gavin became a registered nurse.
She worked for about a decade at East Texas Medical Center, about 24 miles from Frankston. There, said her husband, doctors nicknamed her “Gestapo.”
“If a patient was hurting, she was good at going after the doctors. She just kept at them [to come check on the patients],” Murphey said.
At home after work, Gavin loved to quilt. So much so that when the problems in her lower back worsened — she suffered from Paget’s disease, a bone disorder — and when she could not longer work because of heart problems, she decided to parlay her hobby into a job.
But the business never quite took off, Murphey said. “She couldn’t bend over the sewing machine.”
Over the years, Gavin disclosed bits and pieces of her past to her husband, but painted her role in the robbery as that of an unwitting accomplice.
The way Gavin told it to her husband, she was passed out in the back seat of a car while riding around with two friends. She awoke to find cops surrounding the car, and learned that the driver had robbed a store while she was knocked out.
“She said the prosecutor told her he didn’t care if she didn’t take part,” Murphey recounted. “He was going to make an example out of her.”
Gavin told her husband she simply walked out of the correctional institute after her conviction. Security was lax, and the 20-year-old had her whole life ahead of her.
“She said, ‘Why am I in here when I didn’t do nothing?’ So she decided to go,” Murphey said.
“I believed her.”
The hunt is on
Enter the U.S. Marshal Service’s Southeast Regional Fugitive Task Force. The force, with officers from more than two dozen agencies, works full-time nabbing fugitives. Since its inception in 2003, the task force has picked up people in more than 11,000 felony investigations — an average of seven each day.
“If the case comes to the Marshal Service, it never goes away,” said Supervisory Inspector James Ergas. “Someone is always on the case.”
The hunt for Gavin wound through much of the Southeast until investigators determined she could be found in Frankston living under the name Deborah Murphey.
Since Monday morning, marshals watched the house on North Elm Street to make sure Deborah Murphey was indeed Gavin. To talk to her and verify her identity, they posed as city municipal employees and told her they were checking on a work order at the house.
“Thirty-three years is a long time,” Ergas said. “They didn’t want to jump a 53-year-old woman and drive her to the ground if it was the wrong person.”
At 2 p.m. Wednesday, the marshals surrounded her house and knocked.
Gavin came to the door with a shotgun, heard them out and surrendered peacefully.
“We expected her to say, ‘That’s not me, that’s not me,” Watson, the corrections employee, said. “She just said she knew this day was going to come. But she hadn’t prepared for it yet.”
Before being escorted away, Gavin placed a phone call to her husband, who was at work at a construction site.
“All she said was when I got home, she wasn’t going to be there,” Murphey said.
The future
The next step in bringing Gavin to justice is to extradite her back to Georgia, but she has indicated she will fight it, authorities said.
What ultimately happens to her is up to the parole board, said Myrick, the corrections official.
The board will take into consideration several factors in determining whether she will serve out the six years remaining in her sentence. Among them, her age, her health and how she’s conducted herself over the years.
Murphey remains hopeful.
“She’s not the same person she was. She’s changed,” he said. “They can see that, can’t they?”
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Victim of rape sues hospital;security www.privateofficer.com

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FORT WORTH TX. Nov 9 2007 — They were placed in side-by-side rooms at Huguley Memorial Medical Center.
The 47-year-old woman, battling depression, was on suicide watch.
Perry James Brown, a 60-year-old felon with a history of mental problems and drug abuse, had been transferred to Huguley from another hospital days before, after being detained by Fort Worth police for dancing and yelling incoherently in the street.
Late on the night of Dec. 17, 2005, Brown positioned his pillows and clothes on his bed to make it look like he was asleep. He then snuck into the woman’s room, placed a trash can in front of her door, and proceeded to rape her into the next morning as she lay heavily sedated, powerless to stop the attack.
In January, Brown pleaded guilty to sexual assault in exchange for a four-year prison sentence.
On Tuesday, attorneys for the victim filed a lawsuit in Dallas County against Huguley and the hospital’s security company, Smith Security, alleging that they were negligent in allowing Brown to wander the hospital unchecked.
The suit seeks unspecified damages.
“It’d be obvious to anybody: You don’t put someone that even police know is a severe risk to themselves and others alone and unrestrained in a room,” said Dallas attorney Michael Sawicki, who is representing the victim along with Houston attorney Cyndi Rusnak.
“It’s like leaving a rabid dog in a hallway of a school,” Sawicki said. “You can’t be shocked if he bites somebody.”
Kurt Adamie, a Huguley spokesman, said the hospital was aware of the lawsuit Wednesday. “Due to patient privacy laws, we’re not able to make a comment at this point,” he said.
Court and prison records show that Brown has an extensive criminal and mental history.
According to Texas Department of Criminal Justice records, Brown served time in prison in 1969 for assault with intent to commit murder with malice and again in 1973 for armed robbery.
According to Tarrant County court documents from the sexual assault case, two psychologists noted that Brown suffered from schizoaffective disorder, bipolar disorder with psychosis and substance abuse, including crack cocaine and alcohol.
One psychologist noted that Brown had a history of noncompliance with medical treatment and had been hospitalized multiple times for mental reasons.
On Dec. 15, 2005, Brown was detained after Fort Worth police officers found him walking and dancing in circles around a cab on a downtown street and babbling incoherently, according to probate records.
When questioned, Brown could not give officers his name, the day of the week or the name of the city he was in.
He was taken to John Peter Smith Hospital after officers noted that he appeared to be a danger to himself and others. There, the lawsuit states, Brown sat naked on the floor yelling at people around him.
The next day, Brown was transferred to Huguley’s psychiatric ward after an initial evaluation at John Peter Smith Hospital also determined that he posed a threat to himself and others.
Despite this, the lawsuit states, Brown was placed in an unlocked room next to the 47-year-old woman.
Brown snuck into the woman’s room late on the night of Dec. 17, according to a police report.
The lawsuit states that the victim was powerless to protect herself due to two medications she’d been given that left her incapacitated but still conscious of what was happening to her.
The victim told police that she told Brown “no” after he crawled into her bed but that he only started making weird sounds and told her, “I love you. Jesus loves you. Everything is OK.” She said that she tried to bang on the wall and yell for help but that no one came.
The attack was interrupted when a nurse on rounds walked into the room about 12:40 a.m. Dec. 18 and found Brown on top of the victim.
Huguley was sued over another sexual assault at the hospital in October 2003 by a male nurse. Kenneth Wayne Downs is serving a 20-year prison sentence.
In the spring, Huguley and Medical Staffing Network, a healthcare staffing firm, reached a $1.2 million out-of-court settlement with a 62-year-old stroke victim who was injected with a drug to make her sleepy, then sexually assaulted.

Family finds paths led all to police career www.privateofficer.com

Miami Florida Nov. 9 2007

As children, Jessica Townsend caught lizards and toads in the backyard of her Hialeah home as her sister Brandy played with Barbies and put on make-up.
The sisters grew up in the same house and attended the same schools, graduating from Hialeah High School. But that was where the similarities ended.
”I was the girly one and she was the tomboy,” said Brandy, 22. “We never had the same friends or liked the same things.”
As they grew up, Brandy developed a taste for electronic and New Age music; Jessica came to prefer hard rock and heavy metal.
Jessica played soccer and softball in high school and studied French and German. Brandy danced ballet, sang in the chorus and studied early child education.
They lived in the same house but they never really hung out together.
But there was a common bond in the family.
Their parents, Everett and Wendy Townsend, not only worked for Miami-Dade police, but also met at the county police headquarters then located in downtown Miami.
”They basically grew up at the police station,” Wendy said.
The daughters also ended up working as clerks for the police department.
But even then, Brandy wanted to study marketing or education and Jessica, with a love for animals, hoped to become a veterinarian.
Then, one day in 2006, Jessica, 21, had an experience that would change her life.
”I went on a ride-along and saw what the day of a cop was like and I loved it because it is never the same and you are not behind a desk locked in an office,” Jessica said.
“Every day is different; there is no routine for an officer.”
She decided to follow in the footsteps of her father and was sworn into office in March.
Brandy, too, was attracted to police work because of the variety. She did not go on a ride-along but she paid attention to what the officers were doing and was impressed when Jessica signed on. She was sworn in on Nov. 2.
So the siblings now carry the badge, just like their dad — and the 22-year veteran couldn’t be more surprised.
”I never really encouraged them to be police officers. I thought they were college-bound and, now, all of a sudden, I see them both in their uniforms and it is so strange,” said Townsend, who is based at the Miami-Dade Northwest District station in Miami Lakes.
But he fully supports their decision to join and he tells them that safety is always first in their line of work.
And if there is one thing somebody could have told him when he started his career — and which he can now tell his daughters — it is this: “Manage your money wisely.”
”I wish somebody would have advised us on money management to be better off in retirement financially and with things like life insurance,” he said. “I think everybody could benefit from that guidance.”
Wendy, who is Townsend’s ex-wife, is pleased her daughters work in law enforcement.
”I wanted to be an officer myself when I was young but, instead, I married one,” said Wendy, who has worked for the police department for 25 years and is a network manager.
”Being an officer is just like being in a family,” she said. “Everybody really takes care of each other. You’ll make the strongest bonds of friendship. In no other job do you see that fraternity among everybody, not in the private industry. Plus, it is a stable career because there is always a need [for the police].”
But the job requires a lot of dedication, Jessica said. “Police officers work a lot. When you are off, you have to go to court. When you think you can leave, you get held back. And you can never have your lunch when you want to.”
But when she can, it is often with Brandy.
”We now have lunch together and talk about our days. Plus, I know if I have any question about the job, I can ask her because she has more experience,” Brandy said.
Or she can ask Dad, who “loves being a police officer.”
”Policing is a wonderful career,” Townsend said. “It is not only about finding the bad guy; it is also about getting to know and help your community and guiding young people.”
Wendy and her daughters have been living in the same house in Hialeah for 19 years. Five years ago, a new ”wonderful” addition came on the scene, when Jade Carrillo, Jessica’s daughter, was born.
”She is very proud that I am a police officer; she shows me off among her friends,” said Jessica, who has passed on her passion for animals to her daughter.
Jade already knows the difference between a toad and a frog and between a gecko and a salamander. She can also name many fish and she can catch butterflies.
Brandy is hoping that in 10 years she will be in community affairs.
Jessica, who is based at police headquarters in Doral and wants to be in traffic homicide, for now will keep on crossing paths with her dad at the station, having lunch with Brandy, who is in training, and visiting her mother whenever she has to pass by the main office.
It’s all in the family.

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Shoplifter kidnaps shopper during escape by; Rick McCann www.privateofficer.com

Gilroy Ca. Nov. 11 2007

Gilroy police late Friday were searching for a man they say kidnapped a woman after carjacking her vehicle on Camino Arroyo in the Kohl’s department store parking lot.
About 6 p.m., a security officer called police to report that a man had entered Kohl’s at 6765 Camino Arroyo and had begun stealing cologne.
The security officer followed the man outside. When the man noticed the security officer, he began running toward Mimi’s Cafe, about 100 yards away. With the security officer in pursuit, the man got into the front passenger side of a small gray sport-utility vehicle with a woman in the driver’s seat, said Sgt. Jim Gillio.
The security officer told police the woman threw her arms into the air and screamed, “What’s going on, what’s going on?” When the man started the car and put the vehicle in gear, the woman yelled, “Help me, help,” as he forced her to drive the car away, Gillio said.
The security officer chased the SUV on foot, but was unable to stop it.
The SUV had a license plate similar to 5ASV516 and a spare tire attached to the rear door. It was last seen heading west on 10th Street, possibly to Highway 101.
The suspect is described as Latino between 25 and 30 years old, about 5-foot-10 and 180 pounds, with black hair, and a slight beard. He was wearing a black baseball cap with a white emblem, a green short-sleeve shirt with a white t-shirt underneath,black baggy pants, and white tennis shoes. The victim was a Latina in her 30s with dark shoulder-length hair. Police had not located a suspect, victim or vehicle late Friday.
Anyone with information was asked to call Gilroy police at (408) 846-0350.

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Security Officer Assaulted By Wanted Felon by; Rick McCann www.privateofficer.com

Jacksonville aRK. Nov. 11 2007

Anthony Ezell, 23, of Jacksonville was arrested after an assault at the Little Rock Air Force Base visitor center.
According to the Jacksonville Police Department report, Ezell went to the visitor center with his girlfriend, Angela Killingsworth, to get a pass on base, which requires an identification check. When Ezell’s driver’s license check revealed a JPD warrant listed in the Arkansas Crime Information Center database, Ezell fled from the security center and jumped into Killingsworth’s vehicle. Ignoring security guards’ orders to stop, Ezell backed up the vehicle, striking the security guard in the arm.
Security guards sprayed Ezell with pepper spray, but he managed to flee the scene.Officers caught up with Ezell a short time later in the 1000 block of Gregory Street. Leaving the car, Ezell again ran from police, but was located behind a home on Gregory Street. Jacksonville Fired Department ambulance service responded to LRAFB to treat the security guard for an injury to his hand. He was transported to Rebsamen Medical Center for further treatment and Ezell was transported to JPD, where he was booked on charges of felony aggravated assault, misdemeanor fleeing and two counts of failure to appear. His bond was set at $5,500.00

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ASSAULT VICTIM WINS SUIT AGAINST MALL, SECURITY www.privateofficer.com

Sunday, November 11, 2007

SEXUAL ASSAULT VICTIM WINS SUIT AGAINST MALL, SECURITY WWW.PRIVATEOFFICER.COM

HOUSTON TX. NOV 11 2007
— A woman who was abducted at the Galleria and sexually assaulted has won a civil lawsuit against the mall and its security firm.
A Harris County jury on Thursday awarded the woman more than $3 million in damages stemming from the 2003 attack in a parking garage at the luxury shopping center.
The victim, who worked at the mall, sued the Galleria’s parent company, HG Shopping Center, L.P., and its security provider, IPC International Corp.
The suit accused the shopping center and the security company of not warning employees that a predator had attacked other women in the mall’s parking garages that summer.
“It’s a wake-up call to the Galleria that you need to enhance your security,” said the woman’s attorney, David Matthews. “When you know there’s a pattern of crime in the parking garages you must warn employees and customers.”
Joe Garnett, an attorney for IPC, said the firm is considering its options, including an appeal. HG’s attorney could not be reached for comment.
Juan Reyes Solis, 24, was convicted last year of aggravated sexual assault and sentenced to 80 years in prison for the attack on the woman.