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Student sues school system over drug sting www.privateofficer.com
Student sues school system over drug sting http://www.privateofficer.com
Concord High School student John Huckins, 17, was arrested last month on a charge of possession of a controlled substance with intent to distribute. He has not entered a plea, but school officials suspended him for the rest of the school year.
Bishop Brady High School Principal Jean Barker set up a meeting with Huckins on a cell phone she confiscated from one of her students, according to police reports.
She received a text message from Huckins stating, “Yo, you need a bag?” according to police reports.
Barker pretended to be the phone’s owner and told him to meet outside the back door of her Catholic school, then called police.
When Huckins showed up March 6, he was arrested with a quarter-ounce of marijuana, police said.
Barker did not return phone messages to The Associated Press. She defended her actions to The Concord Monitor, saying Huckins’ willingness to bring drugs onto school property placed her school at risk.
Huckins’ attorney, Mark Howard, disagreed.
“It is a crime in the state of New Hampshire to elicit a drug offense if you are not either a police officer or working under the direction of a police officer,” Howard said.
Police refused to comment.
While his criminal case is pending, Huckins has sued the Concord School District, Superintendent Chris Rath and his principal, Gene Connelly, over his suspension. Huckins is attending classes until a judge reaches a decision.
“John is very interested in staying in school and finishing out the school year,” Howard said. “He couldn’t be any more embarrassed or humiliated about this.”
The lawsuit alleges the school district neglected to provide the written charges against him and inform him he could bring a lawyer to his suspension hearing.
Concord School District attorney John Teague acknowledged that a mistake was made initially but said the charges were refiled correctly.
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Student’s car firebombed over MySpace comments www.privateofficer.com
Student’s car firebombed over MySpace comments http://www.privateofficer.com
The car outside Cross Keys High School was destroyed.
“I was actually pretty scared my car was right next to it and everybody was like, ‘It’s going to blow up, it’s going to blow up,’ and I was like, that’s my car,” said Rebecca Ramage.
Ramage, a senior at Cross Keys High School showed Channel 2’s JaQuitta Williams the black spots that are still on her 1986 white Mercedes. Ramage said she parked next to a light blue Lincoln Continental in the school parking lot. Police said teenagers tossed a homemade bomb inside the Lincoln.
“It was orange and black flames coming up from the car,” said Ramage.
DeKalb County school police said they quickly caught the students responsible. They arrested a 16-year-old and 18-year-old Hafez Abdulkadir.
Police said the incident began because a rival gang said something bad about another gang on a MySpace page.
“A lot of that goes on anyway, so we’re concerned but most people don’t pay it any mind. Stuff like that always goes on,” said student Arianne Lovet.
Authorities said the suspects came to the parking spot twice, the first time was to knock out the windows of the car and the second time was to throw the homemade bomb inside.
No one was hurt in the incident. Police continue to investigate. ATLANTA –
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Former police officer kills self after arrest www.privateofficer.com
Former police officer kills self after arrest http://www.privateofficer.com
Authorities aren’t releasing much information in this appearant suicide but do say that 48-year-old Kenneth John Griffin suffered fatal self-inflicted injuries at the Oklahoma County jail and was pronounced dead at OU Medical Center.
Police Master Sergeant Gary Knight says officers stopped Griffin Wednesday afternoon on Southwest 15th Street and arrested him on an outstanding warrant for solicitation to commit murder complaint.
Police and the FBI have declined to release further details, referring questions to the Oklahoma County District Attorney’s office.
Prosecutors say they can’t comment because the case is under seal.
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Riot at school leads to 30 arrests www.privateofficer.com
Riot at school leads to 30 arrests http://www.privateofficer.com
Police say that a fight in a Memphis school cafeteria resulted in about 30 students being cited into Juvenile Court.
The incident which started at Pyramid Academy late Thursday morning was the second such fight at a Memphis school in three days.
Authorities say numerous officers were dispatched as the fight involving at least fifty students or more escalted and as more officers arrived they took 14 students into custody, charging them with inciting a riot. Seventeen others were cited for disorderly conduct.
Memphis city schools officials said the argument began in the community and came into the school. On Tuesday, Memphis police arrested 17 students at Northside High School, charging them with assault, disorderly conduct and inciting a riot.
Authorities did not say whether or not these schools had school resource officers assigned to them or if there were any injuries at either incident.
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Police shoot, kill teen with pellet gun www.privateofficer.com
Officers shoot, kill teen with pellet gun http://www.privateofficer.com
Police responding to a call of a person with a gun outside an apartment complex shot and killed a teenager who was holding a pellet gun. While officers day that they had no way of knowing that the gun was not real, family, friends and some living at the complex say that they could tell the difference.
Rafael Christian moved with his family from Cincinnati about five months ago to escape violence that had claimed his friends’ lives, his family said. He died Wednesday evening from police gunfire.
The 16-year-old was fatally shot by Marietta police when they arrived at the apartments and found two suspicious people, one holding a weapon. The weapon turned out to be a pellet gun that resembled a semi-automatic handgun, police said.
“They ended a life,” said Anita Dixon, Christian’s aunt.
Christian and four friends were hanging out at the Bentley Manor apartment complex on Bentley Road about 6:30 p.m. Wednesday. He was showing his friends the air-powered pellet gun he had recently bought.
Marietta police, meanwhile, responded to a report of someone with a gun, police said.
“Nobody knew the police were coming,” one of Christian’s friends, Kenny Drake, said. “All they said was, ‘Freeze!’ One told me, ‘You move, I shoot.’”
Two of the teens tried to flee, but Dwayne Conley, 14, said he stopped when an officer drew a gun on him.
Christian continued to run for another 20 yards, went around the corner of a nearby building and was shot by two officers, Drake said.
Police said the officers on the scene believed Christian’s pellet gun to be a Beretta .22 caliber semi-automatic pistol. “It looks like your standard automatic weapon,” police spokesman Mark Bishop said.
Someone who had seen the boys with the weapon thought it was a real handgun. We didn’t just come in guns blazing an officer said. Despite what family members may think.
“He told the police, ‘Don’t shoot. It’s a fake gun,’” said Caliph Hudson, who watched the incident from his apartment window. authorities are questioning that as the investigation continues.
Phillips called Atlanta activist Markel Hutchins on Thursday to help her sort out the situation. Hutchins, who is running this fall to unseat U.S. Rep. John Lewis (D-Atlanta), said he met with Marietta police Chief Dan Flynn and noted some discrepancies in the police story and the teens’ account of what happened.
“I’m going to ask for a higher degree of authority to look into this,” Hutchins said. “I’m going to ask the Georgia Bureau of Investigations to get involved.”
Asked why he ran, Drake said that was a natural reaction for young black males approached by seemingly hostile police. “That’s the first instinct for anybody when you see police with guns,” Drake said.
Airsoft and pellet guns are being a real problem for law enforcement officers said Kenny Wentworth, a 22 year veteran of an area police department. When officers roll up and see someone holding what looks like a gun, there’s not a whole lot of time to ask, is that real?
Authorities also that that the weapon in question, an airsoft pistol comes with an orange safety tip on it, but that it had been removed to make the gun appear real.
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Murder at hospital was domestic related www.privateofficer.com
Murder at hospital was domestic related http://www.privateofficer.com
Pineville police arrested a Rock Hill, S.C., man Thursday in connection with the slaying of a nurse’s aide, whose body was found Wednesday night in the parking lot of the hospital where she worked.
Jesus Rangel, 26, is being held without bond in a Mecklenburg County jail this morning, charged with murder. Virginia Yvonne Sanchez, 23, was found dead in a car in the parking lot of Carolinas Medical Center-Pineville, where she had worked since December. She appeared to have been strangled, police said.
Rangel and Sanchez knew each other but were not romantically involved, police told WCNC-TV, the Observer’s news partner.
Rangel turned himself into police about 3 p.m. Thursday, Rock Hill police Lt. Jerry Waldrop told the Rock Hill Herald.
“He said he was wanted in Pineville,” Waldrop told the Herald. “He knew he was wanted in connection to this.”
Rangel has no criminal record in South Carolina, according to the state’s department of corrections. Court records also show no criminal record for Rangel in North Carolina.
He faces an initial court hearing at 1 p.m. Monday in Charlotte.
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Homeland Security Federal Officer Commits Suicide www.privateofficer.com
Homeland Security Federal Officer Commits Suicide http://www.privateofficer.com
Local police say that an officer with the Department of Homeland Security’s Federal Protective Service shot and killed himself this morning on a downtown Portland sidewalk, police said.
Sgt. Brian Schmautz, a spokesman for the Portland Police Bureau, said the officer called the Portland dispatch center for the Federal Protective Service at 5:30 a.m. and spoke with a dispatcher and and told them that he was outside the old Gus. J. Solomon U.S. Courthouse at 620 S.W. Main Street. As he talked with dispatchers he told them that he was going to kill himself.
“Their dispatchers called our dispatchers, but by the time officers arrived, he had already shot himself,” Schmautz said.
Officers found the man’s body on the sidewalk next to the old courthouse’s south side, on Southwest Madison Street between Broadway and Southwest Sixth Avenue
Schmautz said the man, who was approximately 50 years old, and was assigned to the courthouse.
According to the Department of Homeland Security’s Web site, “Federal Protective Service provides law enforcement and security services to over one million tenants and daily visitors to federally owned and leased facilities nationwide
Portland police did not release any perosnal about the federal officer, his name or if he was in uniform when he committed suicide.
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Woman with disability files complaint against college security www.privateofficer.com
Woman with disability files complaint against college security http://www.privateofficer.com
Both the school and Albuquerque police are now investigating.
Polly Songer said she suffers from seizures and is accompanied by a service dog named Alex that can detect the episodes before they start.
The dog was with her Thursday on University Boulevard SE near the campus when the guard allegedly cut across three lanes of traffic directly in front of her.
“I had to slam on my brakes,” Songer told KRQE News 13. “My service dog got thrown to the front of the car.”
She said Alex whimpered, she honked her horn, and then the guard got out of his car armed with his baton.
Songer claimed the guard yelled obscenities at her through the window and then smashed out one of her brake lights with his baton.
“I was dumbfounded,” Songer told KRQE News 13.
The guard was placed on paid administrative leave for one day. The school said the guard has worked there for several years and has no prior record.
“Pending the outcome of that investigation we will of course take any action that is appropriate,” Samantha Bousliman of CNM said. “We hope for that investigation to be thorough and accurate, and that’s the reason that we are working very hard not to taint it in any way by commenting on it until it’s complete.”
Songer is a former student at CNM, and school officials told KRQE News 13 they’ve had run-ins with her in the past. Songer said she was a target because guards did not like her service dog being with her in class.
The guard is back on duty but has been assigned to a different duty pending the outcome of the investigations.
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Child dies in fire, parents arrested www.privateofficer.com
Child dies in fire, parents arrested http://www.privateofficer.com
A 3-year-old boy died in a Friday morning fire at a west Mobile apartment, and police say both his parents are responsible for his death.
Christian Foster was alone at home and locked in his room — the doorknob tied by an electric cord to another door — when a fire erupted there at about 1 a.m., said Steve Huffman, Mobile Fire-Rescue Department spokesman. Firefighters found the boy beneath his bedcovers, but Huffman said Christian was pronounced dead at Springhill Medical Center.
His parents, Brandon Gurley, 24, and Elizabeth Foster, 23, have been charged with manslaughter. Police spokesman Officer Eric Gallichant said Gurley also faces a charged of possession of a controlled substance.
The fire occurred at Orleans Place Apartment Homes in the 3900 block of Michael Boulevard near Azalea Road. A cat and her three kittens also died in the blaze, which was contained in the child’s room, Huffman said.
Elizabeth Foster told investigators that she was the last person to leave the apartment, leaving Christian by himself, Huffman said.
Foster was taken to Mobile County Metro Jail, where she was released Friday afternoon after making $3,000 bail, according to records.
Police later arrested Gurley, who returned to the apartment complex Friday afternoon while investigators were still there, Gallichant said. He had a controlled substance in his pocket, Gallichant said.
Christian was the couple’s only child, Gallichant said, although Foster has another 3-month-old son whom she took with her when she left the apartment.
Gurley was booked into jail later Friday afternoon, Gallichant said.
Neighbors first noticed smoke coming from the apartment and called the fire department, Huffman said. One neighbor even attempted to break into the apartment to save anyone inside, Huffman said, but was unable to get in because of the heavy smoke. Huffman said firefighters found the front door open when they arrived.
The fire caused smoke damage in the one bedroom apartment and water damage to a downstairs apartment, Huffman said.Gallichant said that when Foster returned home from work, fire and police investigators were already at the scene, and Christian had been taken to the hospital.
A neighbor, 26-year-old Michael Baker, said Friday that he will always remember Christian’s blue eyes and his laughter. Baker said Christian often played with his son, 5-year-old Jaylen Baker.
“I just keep thinking about Christian, seeing him every day … and looking at his big blue, eyes,” Michael Baker said. “I just can’t believe it’s Christian. I can’t fault the mom, because the mom is a good mom.”
According to Huffman, test results revealed that the boy had a toxic level of carbon monoxide in his system.
His carbon monoxide level was 57, “which was above the lethal dose of 40,” Huffman said.
Neighbor Kasey Koon, 20, said Friday that he has lived at the apartment complex for more than a year and had been teaching Christian how to play video games.
“I feel bad for all of them, especially the little kid,” Koon said. “I was teaching him to play Mario on the Nintendo just the other day.”
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Greyhound passengar accusses security of assault www.privateofficer.com
Greyhound passengar accusses security of assault http://www.privateofficer.com
Cle
veland Oh. April 19 2008
A Chicago man who traveled through Cleveland Wednesday accused a security guard of abusing him during a fracas at the downtown Greyhound terminal.
Marques Jackson, 24, arrived in Cleveland about 2 a.m. to catch a connecting bus to New York City. The short stop instead turned into a struggle between Jackson and security guards, according to a police report.
Security guard Donald White, 52, is accused of punching Jackson. Police made no arrests and no charges had been filed Thursday
The security guards at the station work for local company Metro Cleveland Security Inc. White declined to comment Thursday, but company Vice President Terry Zacharyj said his firm was reviewing the matter.
Zacharyj said he was surprised by the allegations because guards and Greyhound employees said Jackson was the aggressor. White punched Jackson in self-defense, Zacharyj said.
“[Greyhound] called to tell me what a good job Donald did,” Zacharyj said.
The scuffle happened while Jackson and other passengers waited to board the bus.
White and Jackson argued and guards attempted to keep Jackson off the bus. The guards pepper-sprayed Jackson and took him to a back office, where White and Jackson exchanged blows, according to the police report.
But Jackson and at least four witnesses told police that guards provoked and hit Jackson unnecessarily.
Jan Cheema, 45, of New Jersey, said White cursed at Jackson when Jackson could not find his ticket before boarding. Jackson responded verbally — but not unreasonably — to White’s bullying, Cheema said.
After guards took Jackson to the office, he rushed back to the bus with a welt on his face, Cheema said. Shocked passengers tried to intervene, she said.
“If you get off the bus, they’re going to kill you,” Cheema remembered telling Jackson.
Seth Richardson, 52, of Chicago, said the security guards harassed Jackson for about 40 minutes.
He pulled the kid off the bus and started shoving him around,” Richardson said of the security guard. “He hit the kid on the head with the flashlight. The guy Tasered him and they sprayed him in the face with Mace. Three security guards were bullying him. It made no sense.”
Richardson, who is a former security supervisor, said Greyhound is irresponsible for “putting men like this in the terminal.”
“It was disgusting and totally unprofessional,” he said. “Basically these three guys were committing battery on an innocent person.
“If you restrain someone and don’t arrest him, you’re committing a crime.”
Mark Long, 36, of London, Ohio, said he saw White take Jackson into an office and push him against a wall. The guard put his forearm to Jackson’s throat and punched him in the face, Long said.
Long said he was shocked that a couple of Greyhound employees did not intervene.
“They weren’t concerned about the victim,” Long said. “They were concerned about what someone could see.”
Greyhound is conducting an internal probe to determine if drivers and terminal workers acted appropriately, said spokesman Dustin Clark.
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3 Security officers slashed by shoplifter www.privateofficer.com
3 Security officers slashed by shoplifter http://www.privateofficer.com
A 37-year-old Mount Vernon man was arrested for slashing three security officers with a razor knife as he tried to steal 10 containers worth of mozzarella cheese from the Associated Supermarket on South Broadway, police said today.
All three security officers were treated at a local hospital for cut wounds.
One officer, a 33-year-old Bronx resident, was slashed on both forearms as he and two other guards tried to detain Dormouth Carlton of 155 Union Ave., police said.
Another security officer, a 27-year-old Yonkers man, suffered a slash to the left wrist. The third victim, a 31-year-old Bronx man, suffered a cut to the left ring finger and to the forehead.
Police said the incident happened at 6:40 p.m. Wednesday when a cashier noticed that Carlton appeared to be hiding items under his clothing in her check out line.
He was confronted by the store security staff and denied he was trying to pilfer items.
As he tried to push past the security officers, police said, a physical confrontation broke out at the 529 S. Broadway store. Police said Carlton brandished the razor knife and began to stab guards.
Yonkers police were called, but the three wounded security officers had subdued Carlton by the time they arrived.
The knife was recovered, police said.
Carlton is charged with first-degree robbery, second-degree assault, felonies; third-degree assault, fourth-degree criminal possession of a weapon and fifth-degree criminal possession of a weapon, misdemeanors.
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Wackenhut looses another million dollar contract www.privateofficer.com
Wackenhut looses another million dollar contract http://www.privateofficer.com
We made a mutual decision that this wasn’t going to work out and they decided to go ahead and award it to another contractor,” said Wackenhut spokesman Marc Shapiro.Metro spokeswoman Dianne Williams said the two sides agreed “this is not working out” but emphasized that “nobody is at fault.”
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