Armed security guards legal pot store www.privateofficer.com

Heavily armed security guard legal pot store www.privateofficer.com

SACRAMENTO CA. April 13 2008 ― Held up with a shot gun, a local medical marijuana shop owner roughed up by two suspects looking for pot.

Then days later another shop nearby is also robbed.

The question: Are the crimes connected?

Surveillance video from March 29th shows two men entering Hugs Alternative Care on Stockton Blvd. looking to buy medical marijuana. But police say one pulls a shotgun out and forces the staff to the rear of the store.

The owner who didn’t want to be identified says the second gunman had a pistol. “And he was hollering, hurry it up, hurry it up or I’ll blow your head off and I told him, you know what shut up. Yeah, shut up. I said you know I’m doing it as fast as I can and that’s all I can do,” explained the owner. Police say they got away with more than $30,000 worth of marijuana. “

I think I grabbed his hand and the gun was going like that,” says security guard, Randee Gains. And then today more than a week later security guard Randee Gains was trying to protect this medical marijuana facility near 14th and Broadway when two guys armed with a shotgun and pistol tried to force their way in, but Randee and other staff members fought back.

You could still see blood on Randee’s uniform from the fight and the bruises on his head. The suspects ran away without any marijuana.

Back at Hugs, they’re building a bullet proof wall and window. This is the second time they’ve been robbed. “Yeah this time they hit me big time,” says Hugs owner.

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Civil rights activist guilty of incest www.privateofficer.com

from the Washington Post

Loudoun County VA. April 13 2008
A Loudoun County jury yesterday found former civil rights leader James L. Bevel guilty of incest and said he should spend 15 years in prison for having sex with one of his daughters in the 1990s when they lived in Leesburg.
The seven-man, five-woman jury also gave Bevel, a 71-year-old Christian minister and confidant of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., a $50,000 fine. Under Virginia law, the judge can reduce the jury’s sentence but cannot increase it.
Circuit Court Judge Burke F. McCahill revoked Bevel’s bond, and the defendant was taken into custody. Bevel’s court-appointed attorney, Bonnie Hoffman, said he might appeal.
Bevel was convicted of unlawfully committing fornication while he lived with the daughter, Jamese Machado, from Oct. 14, 1992, to Oct. 14, 1994. The Washington Post does not identify victims of sexual assault without their permission. Yesterday, Machado said she wanted to be named.
The felony charge grew out of a discussion some of Bevel’s grown daughters had at a family reunion in 2004 about experiences with their father when they were children. The daughters confronted their father, who said he performed sex acts to guide and train them, prosecutors said. In September 2005, Machado filed a complaint with Leesburg police. She testified that her father began sexually abusing her when she was 6 and that she became an alcoholic.
In their closing arguments yesterday, prosecutors told the jury that a comment Bevel made about pregnancy in a taped phone conversation with Machado was the “damning” piece of evidence against him.
In the 1 1/2 -hour call, recorded by Leesburg police without Bevel’s knowledge in 2005, Machado asked her father about his motivation for having sex with her when she was 14 or 15, and why afterward he asked her to use a vaginal douche.
Bevel responded, “Because I had no interest in getting you pregnant,” prosecutors said.
Assistant Commonwealth’s Attorney Nicole Wittmann recalled Bevel’s denial that he had sex with Machado, and then she posed the question, “How do you get someone pregnant without having sex with them?”
In the year since she filed charges against her father, Machado has changed her name to Aaralyn Mills. But she was referred to as Machado during the four-day trial.
Bevel was a front-and-center figure in the civil rights movement of the 1960s. He organized the 1963 Children’s Crusade in Birmingham, Al., and was a leader of the Freedom Rides to desegregate public accommodations throughout the South in the early 1960s. He helped organize the March on Washington in 1963 and the Selma-to-Montgomery march in Alabama in 1965. Along with civil rights icons Jesse Jackson and Andrew Young, Bevel witnessed the April 4, 1968, assassination of King.
On Wednesday, Bevel suggested to the jury that the charge was part of a conspiracy, though he did not say by whom. “Someone has plotted to destroy my reputation, my being,” he said.
Hoffman sought to poke holes in Machado’s testimony, asserting, for example, that while she testified to many specific details about her life she could not pinpoint the year her father allegedly had sex with her.
Hoffman also reminded the jury of testimony by Bevel’s eldest daughter that Machado planned to write a book, presumably about the allegations.
The public defender told the jury to focus on the charge and not on other interactions Bevel had with Machado. Hoffman asked Bevel whether he had ever rubbed Machado’s chest — another allegation she has made but one that is not part of this criminal case.
“Yes, I have engaged in rubbing [her] chest in an educational context,” he said. Bevel testified that as a minister and a teacher, he has educated people, including his children, on the “science” of sex and marriage.
Assistant Commonwealth’s Attorney Gigi Lawless reminded jurors of testimony from several Bevel family members about two meetings in which they discussed the allegations. At a meeting outside Selma in 2004, they gave Bevel an affidavit that accused him of being a pedophile and having sex with Machado.
They said they prepared the document because they feared that Bevel would sexually abuse his youngest daughter.
Some family members testified that Bevel did not deny the allegations.
The jury reached its verdict after several hours of deliberation. During the sentencing phase, in which jurors considered a range of five to 20 years in prison, Wittmann called one witness: Machado. “The hardest part is that I love my father and I wish he loved me as much,” she said tearfully.
Hoffman played a 40-minute documentary for the jury about the role King, Bevel and others played in the civil rights movement.
Then Wittmann told the jury, “There are two Reverend Bevels. . . . While he did a lot of wonderful things, he also did some horrific things.”

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Woman sues store over shoplifting arrest www.privateofficer.com

BROOKSVILLE FLA April 13 2008 — A Brooksville woman arrested in December for shoplifting from Belk department store is now suing the store security guard who tackled her as she tried to make her getaway.
Amy Ulm, 32, filed a civil lawsuit seeking damages in excess of $15,000 on April 4 for negligence, battery and false imprisonment. It alleges that the security guard, Bill Allen, tackled Ulm, threw her to the ground and unlawfully restrained her.
The suit stands opposite to a Hernando County Sheriff’s Office arrest report that alleges Ulm stole merchandise, resisted a store employee and assaulted the security guard.
Here’s how the arrest report recounts the events at the Belk’s in Brooksville on Dec. 27:
Allen reported seeing Ulm enter the store wearing a low-cut pink shirt and pink pants. After picking out a few items from the women’s department, she went to the dressing room and emerged wearing a silver knitted shirt over her pink one.
Ulm went to pay for a few other items in her hand but not the new shirt on her back.
As she tried to leave, Allen stopped her and asked her to come to his office. Ulm refused and kept walking toward the exit.
Allen then grabbed Ulm to detain her and she kicked him in the groin and bit his right hand and forearm.
He then was “forced to take (her) to the ground” and restrained her until deputies arrived, the report states.
Inside her purse investigators reported finding a black knitted shirt with a Belk’s price tag and a tag for the shirt. The total value of the items was about $80.
Allen was treated at the scene for his injuries, but Ulm was taken to Brooksville Regional Hospital. She suffered cuts on her knuckles and bruising on her arms and above her left eyebrow.
Ulm’s lawsuit states she suffered permanent injuries, the loss of an important bodily function and permanent scarring or disfigurement.
It does not mention any of the three misdemeanor criminal charges, which are still pending.
Her attorney, Pedro Morales of Lakeland, was not available for comment.

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Fleeing shoplifter hits two people with car www.privateofficer.com

Fleeing shoplifter hits two with car www.privateofficer.com

Seattle WA. April 13 2008

By: Bryan Hill

Security News Magazine

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Police and sheriff deputies say that they are looking for a fleeing shoplifter who had no regard for life as he made his getaway from a local grocery store.
King County sheriff’s deputies say that they are actively searching for the man they say is accussed of shoplifting and hitting two people with his car as he got away.
“The force the suspect used to get away turned the misdemeanor shoplifting offense into a felony robbery,” Sheriff’s Sgt. John Urquhart said.
The shoplifting incident took place April 4 about 5:20 p.m. at Albertsons, 20600 108th Ave. S.E., just east of Kent.
A store security officer followed the suspect to his car after seeing the suspect take several items from the store without paying for them. As the security officer approached him,the man got into his car, which had been waiting with the engine on, deputies reported. At this point the security officer tried to stop him but the man quickly and recklessly backed out of the parking space, striking the security officer.
A 45-year-old Kent woman who was walking through the parking lot also was hit by the car and knocked to the ground, deputies said.
The woman and the officer suffered cuts and bruises. They were treated at the scene by fire department personnel.
The suspect was described as white, in his early 20s, about 5 feet 8 inches tall and 150 pounds. He wore a dark Ecko-brand hoodie, khaki pants and black high tops. He was driving a white Honda Accord with a damaged front bumper. The car also was missing the left rear hub cap.
Anyone with information is asked to call the King County Sheriff’s Office at 206-296-3311.

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Doctor sent to prison for drugs for sex crimes www.privateofficer.com

Chicago IL. April 13 2008

submitted by Steve Hale

A suburban podiatrist accused of trading prescription drugs for sex was sentenced to six years in prison today as part of a plea deal with Kane County prosecutors.
Dr. Steven P. Loheide received the prison term after pleading guilty to illegally providing the prescription painkiller Vicodin to two women patients in exchange for sex, prosecutors said.
Loheide also was sentenced to two years’ probation for illegally videotaping at least two dozen of those sexual encounters at his East Dundee office — using a camera hidden in a stack of towels, authorities said.
“I consider your conduct in this case to be an enormous betrayal of the public trust,” Kane County Judge Donald Hudson said as he sentenced the 64-year-old doctor.
The sentence means Loheide likely will spend less than three years behind bars, though he is barred from ever practicing medicine again under the terms of his plea agreement. His probationary sentence will begin once he is released from custody, officials said.
Loheide — who had practiced for more than 35 years — already has surrendered his medical license, defense attorney Timoth Mahoney said.
Prosecutors said Loheide had illegally traded the drugs for sex in 2005 and in early 2006, ordering such large quantities of Vicodin that he was barred by federal regulators in March 2006 from being able to dispense prescription drugs.
After the ban, Loheide obtained another, similar drug, Tramadol, which is not a controlled substance, to continue trading it for sexual encounters, prosecutors said.
Last October, Loheide was arrested for illegal eavesdropping after he secretly videotaped his office receptionist changing clothes at his medical office.
The arrest led to the investigation that in February resulted in multiple drug and illegal eavesdropping charges being filed against him.
The prison sentence combined with the probation is an appropriate punishment for the doctor, prosecutors said.
“It’s a good resolution because he’s being punished for his illegal actions that occurred over a number of years,” said Assistant State’s Attorney Greg Sams.
As part of his plea deal, Loheide also admitted videotaping his receptionist — and was sentenced to two years’ probation for that offense.
Wearing orange jail fatigues, his hands shackled at his waist, Loheide said little during the sentencing and didn’t offer any apology.
Loheide has been in custody on $50 million bail since February

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Family of slain man sues mall, security company www.privateofficer.com

Orlando Fla. April 13 2008

The family of a man gunned down inside the Boynton Beach Mall on Christmas Eve 2006 as crowds of last-minute shoppers milled about filed a negligence and wrongful death lawsuit Friday against the mall and its security company.Toussaint and Bertrude Charlemond along with heir daughter, Claumise Charlemond, accuse The Simon Group and Control Security Services of providing inadequate security and of failing to protect Berno Charlemond from “foreseeable acts.”Jesse Cesar opened fire on Berno Charlemond, 24, outside JC Penney, according to police, who suspect the men were members of feuding Haitian-American gangs.Cesar, 22, was shot to death six months later at a busy Orlando shopping center.

My client’s parents vehemently deny he was a gang member,” said Delray Beach attorney Ken Metnick, who represents the Charlemond family. “Regardless of who he is and what he was, his parents have a claim for losing the companionship of their son. Their mental loss is the same as any parent who loses a child. If you run a shopping center you are supposed to keep people safe.”The Simon Group issued a prepared statement Friday.”We are disappointed that the family has taken this action and plan to defend the lawsuit at the appropriate time and in the appropriate manner,” said Lydia Gilmore, portfolio vice-president of Simon Property Group. “We are confident in the security program at the Boynton Beach Mall.”A representative for Control Security Services could not be reached Friday, despite an attempt by telephone.

According to Metnick, witnesses have confirmed that four men jumped his client and pummeled him to the ground long before a gun appeared. Security should have taken action right then, Metnick said.”There’s no indication that the security guard policed the mall. No witnesses even saw a security guard. Security didn’t say stop or go to the police,” he said.

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Robots may soon protect people, places and things www.privateofficer.com

By Michelli Murphy
Arizona Daily Star

TEMPE AZ. April 13 2008 — If the sci-fi predictions of the 1950s had come true, laser-wielding robots might be threatening humans.
Instead, modern-day robots are too busy doing household chores to wage war.
At the Intel Corp.-sponsored Arizona Robotics Competition Friday, student-designed robots worked to prove themselves as future security guards for the home and office
Engineering teams from the University of Arizona and Arizona State University vied for robotic superiority in the threehour contest at ASU’s Brickyard in Tempe.
The UA took first place in the competition, which required the robots to map out the testing ground, detect fire and locate objects and human intruders.
To the likely disappointment of sci-fi junkies, these robots are all about safety and practicality.
“The market is home,” said Charles Higgins, an associate professor in the UA Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering.
“We don’t want the robot to kill people or run over the cat,” said Higgins, who served as a technical adviser to the UA’s five-member team.
The UA team members are Thanh Ho, John Stockbauer , Joe Joyce, Michael Anderson and Tony Leung.
Anthony Lewis, also a UA ECE associate professor, served as a team adviser.
Four student teams ranging from five to seven students competed in the event — with three of those teams coming from ASU.
The testing ground was an office space filled with tan-colored cubicles and a few cardboard boxes to serve as obstacles.
School rivalry was apparent as opposing teams cheered when confused robots crashed into cubicle walls or began turning endless circles.
The robots serve as final “capstone” engineering projects for all the students.
The contest is designed to “foster innovation” more than create a product, said Marcos Garciaacosta, Intel’s business alliance manager.
“We want to get brains going. The work the students are doing now is setting the stage for tomorrow,” he added.
Robots on the market today are already being used as office helpers.
Mobile Robots Inc. provides robots that can do everything from deliver mail to offer security or butler service. But the company’s security bot — named Agent 007 — costs nearly $35,000.
The purpose of the student project was to develop a home-security robot that could be bought by average people, Higgins said.
The Roomba — an automated vacuum from iRobot Corp. — is a great example of a successful home robot, he added.
“It was made at a low price of about $150, then sold for $200 to $300. People will buy robots at the price,” Higgins said.
As the technology matures, security robots can be built for less, he added.
The future of the home-robotics market is looking good, according to a market research report by Robotic Industries Association.
By 2015 the market will be worth $15 billion, said the report, out in December 2007

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Police officer arrested for sale of drugs www.privateofficer.com

Lakeland GA. April 13 2008

By: Rick McCann

Ntl. Assoc. Private officers

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Investigators with the Georgia Bureau of Investigations, the state agency that investigates serious crimes, felonies, corruption and police misconduct are saddened to announce that a local police officer has been charged with felony drug charges.
Police say that twenty five year old Brian King, a police officer for the city of Lakeland Georgia was arrested just outside of Homerville Friday night.
During his arrest, police say that he King was in possesion of powder cocaine, crack cocaine and some other drugs yet to be identified.

The GBI did not say what caused them to investigate King or if other arrests are expected in the case but there are some rumors flying around in this small community.
King lives in Homerville and is a police officer in nearby Lakeland. The Georgia Bureau of Investigation says King will be charged with four counts of possession of drugs with the intent to distribute them.
Lakeland police chief Robbie Grantham tells us King has been let go from the department. The chief says this kind of behavior will not be tolerated.

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Husband and wife team charged in thefts www.privateofficer.com

Husband and wife team charged with theft of video games www.privateofficer.com

VINELAND NJ April 13 2008– A Millville couple were charged with shoplifting 38 video games valued at more than $1,000 at Kmart on South Delsea Drive after loss prevention agents stopped them on the way out of the store.
Ramon Mercado, 29, and Danielle Mercado, 28, of the 200 block of East Broad Street, were released on summonses pending court action.
A security officer saw the suspects on a surveillance camera around 2 p.m. Thursday and told police she recognized them as being involved in another shoplifting incident around the same time the previous day, police said. The woman opened game packages, took out the disks and gave them to her husband, who put them in his coat pocket, police said. The suspects are accused of taking five disks valued at $99.95 on Wednesday and 33 games Thursday valued at $915.56.
The couple’s four children — ages 11, 4, 3 and 1 — were with them along with a 32-year-old Millville woman who took custody of the children during the arrest, police said.

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Officer leaves gun in store’s bathroom www.privateofficer.com

Prescott AZ. April 13 2008

By; Rick McCann

Ntl. Assoc. Private Officers

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A Prescott police officer says that mother nature called at about the same time that he received another emergency call, this one from the police dispatcher.
He hurried out of the grocery store restroom so fast that he never noticed that he had left behind a very important and a very dangerous piece of equipment, his gun.

Police say that the officer went back to the store when he realized it but, you guessed it, the gun was gone.
Fearing that the gun may have gotten into the wrong hands, police decided to keep it all quiet to see what happened. They had hoped that a good samaritan had picked up the weapon and took it home for safe keeping or that someone might even try to pawn the handgun
But as they waited, there was no response and no one tried to sell the weapon so the police had to go public about the misdeed of the officer.

Police Lt. Ken Morley said that they had been searching for the gun since March 24, when officer John File went into a bathroom at a Fry’s store and put his gun on the back of the toilet. File got an emergency call and forgot to pick up his pistol when he left.
Morley says police were worried that a child or teenager had found the gun and reviewed security store tapes but saw only adults.

Morley says an anonymous caller directed officers to a mail box in Prescott Valley Thursday and they found the .40-caliber Glock handgun inside.
Morley did not say if Officer File received any type of disciplinary actions for the incident.

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Hair salon manager busted for selling stolen products on Ebay www.privateofficer.com

Sheboygan Wi April 13 2008

By: Bryan Hill

Security News Magazine

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Some might say that they were curious or supsicous, others might even say nosey. Whatever the case, store employees, not the police made a huge discovery after conducting a covert investigation on their boss.
Sheboygan police say that they were called to Tuesday by Regis Hair Salon officials, who informed officers they had become suspicous that the store manager had been stealing hair products from the salon and were able to locate and purchase several items from 23 year old Kerchee Thao on eBay.

The products were identified as being shipped from Thao’s address.

Thao admitted to the thefts after her arrest, and said she had been taking items over the last 18 months, making a profit of between $12,000 and $14,000.

A search of her home, 1436 New Jersey Ave., revealed about 125 hair care items stolen from the salon.Police estimate as much as $50,000 worth of merchandise might have been taken from the store by Thao.
Kerchee Thao, who had worked as a manager at Regis Beauty Salon in Memorial Mall, faces up to five years in prison and a fine of $25,000 if convicted of felony theft. She is free after posting a $500 cash bond, a jail official said.
Thao had been promoted to manager in November 2007.

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2 Arrested for pulling knife on security officer www.privateofficer.com

Cookeville TN. April 13 2008

By: Rick McCann

Ntl. Assoc. Private Officers

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Police responded to a very dangerous situation at a local department store that could have really caused some injuries to people an officer said.
Officers were called in reference to an alleged shoplifting, which store employees said had escalted to someone having a weapon and security agents being in trouble.
Officers resonded to the Sear’s store and found that loss prevention employees had confronted an alleged shoplifter, later identified as Chris Koscielski, 30, as he was leaving the store and asked him to return inside but the man refused. Koscielski refused and when agents asked a second time to return to the store, Koscielski pulled out a knife and began threatening the employees.The store employees then defended themselves and tackled Koscielski and knocking the knife from his hand, two of the employees fought with the alleged shoplifter until they got him under control and were about to escort him back to the store’s security office.

That’s when a female, later identified as Carol Quarles, 26, grabbed the knife from the ground and demanded the release of the man. She was holding the weapon to us and demanding that we let the male go and it was a bit scary a loss prevention agent later said.“Ms. Quarles held the knife until an unknown citizen took it from her. No one knew the citizen and I was unable to locate her,” said Officer Jamey McCurry.
“I observed a man on the surveillance camera taking items the security agent said.. We confronted the man as he was leaving the store but he refused to cooperate. When we asked him again to enter the store, he pulled out a knife and began threatening us,” said a department store employee. We were just doing our jobs.

The two were charged with aggravated assault with a weapon, and Koscielski has also been cited for shoplifting.
It could have really gone bad an officer later said. Luckily, no one got hurt this time.

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Teacher arrested for having child porn www.privateofficer.com

Teacher arrested for having child porn at school www.privateofficer.com

TAMPA Fla. April 12 2008

By: Rick McCann

Ntl. Assoc. Private Officers

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Authorities say that Charles Russell Young was known as a turn-to tech guy at Pierce Middle School, so it was no surprise when he offered to let a school resource officer take Microsoft’s new “Vista” operating system for a spin on his personal laptop.
But Deputy Ed Perez of the Hillsborough County Sheriff’s office says as he was using the computer he saw an alarming file name under a “recent files” tab, then made a shocking discovery on the teacher’s computer: underage boys engaged in sex acts.
Perez began an investigation and contacted detectives and school officials as they began researching his hard drive files further.
.
The investigation actually began after the Dec. 12, 2007, incident. Investigators obtained a search warrant, and officials with the Florida Department of Law Enforcement inspected the computer.
The images, 60 in all, were also sent to and determined by the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children to be part of a series of five separate sets of child pornography found on Young’s hard drive.
Young, 63, was taken into custody and on Wednesday he admitted to downloading and viewing the child pornography.
Hillsborough County schools spokesman Steve Hegarty said Young has been out of the classroom since “late last year” but remains employed by the school system as the investigation continues

Young, 8418 of Woodlake Drive, was charged with 60 counts of child pornography possession and booked into the Orient Road Jail. He was released late Wednesday, his 63rd birthday, after posting $50,000 bail.

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