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Walmart shopper followed home and robbed www.privateofficer.com
Walmart shopper followed home and robbed http://www.privateofficer.com
Two Cairo, Ill., men followed a 70-year-old woman from Wal-Mart in Cape Girardeau to her Themis Street home to steal her purse May 11, according to charges filed by Cape Girardeau County prosecutors.
David J. Pierce, 19, and Lavar N. Pierce, 18, face a single count each of second-degree robbery. The charge is a felony, punishable by up to 15 years in state prison. Warrants for both men were issued Monday.
A juvenile also faces charges in juvenile court in connection with the robbery, said Sgt. Barry Hovis, a spokesman for the Cape Girardeau Police Department.
None of the suspects is in custody, Hovis said.
According to a sworn statement filed with the charges, the Pierces and the juvenile gave conflicting accounts of their involvement in the theft.
The victim in the case told police she had noticed a maroon sport utility vehicle following her from Wal-Mart. When she turned onto Themis Street in the west side of Cape Girardeau, the SUV followed but passed by when she turned into her driveway. As she was unloading groceries, the woman told police, her purse was ripped off her right shoulder and the thief jumped into the SUV.
The SUV was stopped at Silver Springs Road and William Street, where the victim identified the juvenile suspect and the vehicle.
The juvenile told Detective Darren Estes that he had been invited to ride with the Pierces from Cairo, Ill., to Cape Girardeau, where the trio dropped a woman off on Sprigg Street, then went to Wal-Mart. Once at the west-side store, the Pierces said “they needed to find a woman so they could get some money for gas to drive back to Cairo,” Estes wrote in the sworn statement.
The juvenile admitted taking the purse because the Pierces had told him that if he did not, they would have to stay overnight in Cape Girardeau. The juvenile said the Pierces went through the purse when he returned with it and gave him $10 of the $40 found there.
Both David Pierce and Lavar Pierce blamed the juvenile for planning the theft, directing them on which car to follow and that, while the juvenile gave both of them money after the incident, they were unaware the money was stolen.
David Pierce told officers that the juvenile directed Lavar Pierce to drive to West Park Mall, where he got out, crouched behind a truck and returned, giving David Pierce $23 and Lavar Pierce $15. All three went into the mall and bought dental grills and sunglasses, David Pierce told police, according the sworn statement.
Lavar Pierce denied accepting any money from the theft.
The purse was discovered under a car in the mall parking lot.
Bringing the Pierces back to Cape Girardeau County for trial could require formal extradition hearings once they are arrested by Illinois authorities, Hovis said.
Both purse snatchings and robberies where the victim is stalked from a store to home are rare in Cape Girardeau, Hovis said. “I would consider it very uncommon here,” he said. “The victim was very upset about it.”
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Thieves destroy war memorial for scrap metal www.privateofficer.com
Thieves destroy war memorial for scrap metal http://www.privateofficer.com
Pieces of a statue of a WWI doughboy statue were scattered outside the Anderson American Legion hall where the memorial stood.
The destruction turned out to be for nothing, since metal in the statue has no value at recycling centers. Police think the thieves were hoping the memorial contained copper, but the statue is made of zinc.
“This particular doughboy has no metallic or metal value,” said Robert Rainey, the man who funded the statue eight years ago.
“I’m overwhelmed — completely overwhelmed,” Marty Hoag told WYFF-TV. Hoag was once the commander at the American Legion post.
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Security agent assaulted with brass knuckles www.privateofficer.com
Security agent assaulted with brass knuckles http://www.privateofficer.com
A St. Cloud man was arrested Friday night after he punched a loss prevention officer who was trying to detain a woman for shoplifting, police said.
Aaron Timothy Forcier, 24, was wearing brass knuckles when he punched the officer at Cub Foods, 250-33rd Ave. S, said St. Cloud police Sgt. Jeff Oxton. Police were called there about 7 p.m. after a report of a fight in the parking lot.
The 27-year-old loss prevention officer was trying to detain Ashley Rose Chaika, 24, of St. Cloud on suspicion of shoplifting, but while the officer was trying to detain Chaika, Forcier punched the officer, Oxton said.
The loss prevention officer was taken to St. Cloud Hospital and treated for minor injuries, Oxton said.
Chaika was cited and released for misdemeanor theft by shoplifting, and Forcier was taken to Stearns County Jail, where he was booked on possible charges of second-degree assault and gross misdemeanor possession of a dangerous weapon.
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FBI takes cues from MySpace to solve robberies www.privateofficer.com
FBI took cues from MySpace to solve robberies http://www.privateofficer.com
It was the middle of last year, when “takeover-style” robberies were beginning to hit an uneasy Mobile, that the FBI stumbled across a promising lead: MySpace.
Now, investigators contend that the social networking Web site was a place where the alleged young robbers named their confederates, taunted lawmen and boasted of new-found wealth.
“It’s kind of shocking that they would put some of the things they put up there,” said Tim White, the acting assistant special agent in charge of the FBI office in Mobile
Although those Web pages are down now, agents said they were extremely valuable early in the investigation, showing men dressed in hooded sweatshirts and masks, pointing guns and waving fistfuls of $20 bills.
Federal and local law enforcement officials have made nearly a dozen arrests and said they have begun to dismantle the “hoodies,” so named by the FBI for the attire worn during robberies trademarked by an aggressive style of corralling employees and customers to seize control.
Particularly important to the case, officials said, were the April 25 arrests of three men accused of robbing the Navigator Credit Union on Airport Boulevard: Darryl Demetrius Davis, 21, and cousins Timothy Larmount King, 23, and Daveron Devour King, 20.
“We’ve not had a takeover robbery since,” said Mobile police Deputy Chief James Barber.
Still, he added, “I can safely say we’ve only put our hand on half of the members.”
White said the first break came with the arrest of Brent Labarron Pugh, whom officials charged with a carjacking and robberies of a bank and credit union last summer. A federal jury earlier this year acquitted Pugh on the carjacking charge but convicted him of the two robberies, and a judge sentenced him to more than 18 years in prison.
White said investigators researching Pugh on the Internet found his name on the MySpace page of Gerrell Stallworth.
The Web site featured an illustration of a handgun shooting out wads of cash. Big, block letters proclaimed: “FREE BRENT PUGH YOU FBI BITCHES.”
Stallworth’s “friends list” proved a gold mine, White said, leading to MySpace pages of several other men.
“It was a surprise to us. It certainly was a surprise to me, being a 47-year-old investigator,” White said. “It’s not my generation’s way of communicating with each other. … Fortunately, we have some younger people working for us.”
Gullatte Hunter III, who represented Pugh during the trial, has said he does not believe his client was involved in any kind of gang.
Stallworth, meanwhile, faces robbery charges in state court. That case has been sent to a Mobile County grand jury.
Stallworth’s attorney, Rick Williams, said he knows nothing about his client’s MySpace page or alleged connections to other crimes. He said that his client has not been charged in federal court, where most bank robberies are prosecuted.
“I do know that if the FBI has sufficient evidence on someone, they don’t hesitate,” he said. “They go pick them up.”
White, who served a stint in the FBI’s Los Angeles field office, said the so-called hoodies lacked trademarks of the gangs he investigated there, such as tattoos, colors and hierarchical structure and territory.
But he said the young men in Mobile demonstrated a level of coordination and cooperation indicative of a criminal enterprise. “We’ve got some very good evidence that once they think they find a better way to do it, they share it,” White said.
He believes the men even ran their own bail-bonding service of sorts. When one would get arrested, White said, others would commit a robbery to come up with bail money. He said investigators have good evidence to support the scenario, although he declined to provide details.
Officials said they were amazed by the brazen behavior of some of the young men charged in the robberies.
An FBI agent said that Pugh arrived at the Williamson High School prom last year sporting a white tuxedo with dark shades and began throwing cash into the air “like it was raining money.”
A photo from the event shows Pugh holding fistfuls of cash. He and two other men are surrounded by other promgoers, some fanning out money, and a wad of bills rests atop one man’s head.
The photo apparently did not make it onto MySpace, but other pictures of youths holding money did, White said.
Robert French, a professor of emerging digital media at Auburn University, said young people often lose their sense of awareness on the Internet. French cited JuicyCampus.com, a Web site started last year that spreads anonymous gossip from college campuses.
“I think there’s this belief by students — and everybody — that they’re anonymous,” he said
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NYPD Eye In The Sky www.privateofficer.com
NYPD Eye In The Sky http://www.privateofficer.com
A dramatic close-up of Lady Liberty’s frozen gaze fills one of three flat-screen computer monitors mounted on a console. Hundreds of sightseers below are oblivious to the fact that a helicopter is peering down on them from a mile and a half away.
“They don’t even know we’re here,” said crew chief John Diaz, speaking into a headset over the din of the aircraft’s engine.
The helicopter’s unmarked paint job belies what’s inside: an arsenal of sophisticated surveillance and tracking equipment powerful enough to read license plates — or scan pedestrians’ faces — from high above the nation’s largest metropolis.
Police say the chopper’s sweeps of landmarks and other potential targets are invaluable in helping guard against another terrorist attack, providing a see-but-avoid-being-seen advantage against bad guys.
“It looks like just another helicopter in the sky,” said assistant police chief Charles Kammerdener, who oversees the department’s aviation unit.
Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly has said that no other U.S. law enforcement agency “has anything that comes close” to the surveillance chopper, which was designed by engineers at Bell Helicopter and computer technicians based on NYPD specifications.
The chopper is named simply “23″ — for the number of police officers killed in the Sept. 11 attacks.
The $10 million helicopter is just part of the department’s efforts to adopt cutting-edge technology for its counterterrorism operations.
The NYPD also plans to spend tens of millions of dollars strengthening security in the lower Manhattan business district with a network of closed-circuit television cameras and license-plate readers posted at bridges, tunnels and other entry points.
Police have also deployed hundreds of radiation monitors — some worn on belts like pagers, others mounted on cars and in helicopters — to detect dirty bombs.
Kelly even envisions someday using futuristic “stationary airborne devices” similar to blimps to conduct reconnaissance and guard against chemical, biological and radiological threats.
Civil rights advocates are skeptical about the push for more surveillance, arguing it reflects the NYPD’s evolution into an ad hoc spy agency.
“From a privacy perspective, there’s always a concern that ‘New York’s Finest’ are spending millions of dollars to engage in peeping Tom activities,” said Donna Lieberman, executive director of the New York Civil Liberties Union.
Police insist that law-abiding New Yorkers have nothing to fear.
“Obviously, we’re not looking into apartments,” Diaz said during a recent flight. “We don’t invade the privacy of individuals. We only want to observe anything that’s going on in public.”
The helicopter’s powers of observation come from a high-powered robotic camera mounted on a turret projecting from its nose like a periscope. The camera has infrared night-vision capabilities and a satellite navigation system that allows police to automatically zoom in on a location by typing in the address on a computer keyboard.
The surveillance system can beam live footage to police command centers or even to wireless hand-held devices.
“The commander on the ground can see what we’re seeing,” Diaz said.
On this flight, the helicopter used the camera to look for signs of trouble at several key transportation sites: the decks of Staten Island ferry terminal, the stanchions of the Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge, the giant air vents feeding the Lincoln Tunnel. All of them passed inspection.
Without leaving Manhattan airspace, the chopper also was able to get a crystal-clear picture of jetliners waiting to take off from LaGuardia Airport and to survey Kennedy International Airport’s jet fuel lines, which were targeted in a plot uncovered last year.
The chopper has helped track down fleeing suspects, including a recent case of a gunman who had shot his wife in Queens. As officers on the ground worried about how to approach the suspect’s car, the camera in the sky hovered overhead, peeked inside the vehicle and found that he had already shot and killed himself.
During Pope Benedict XVI’s recent visit, 23 patrolled the skies, at one point receiving a call from officers who had spotted a suspicious man with a camera on a rooftop near the pontiff’s residence. Diaz radioed back that it was a false alarm.
“There was a modeling shoot going on,” he said.
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Woman assaults store manager during theft www.privateofficer.com
Woman assaults store manager during theft http://www.privateofficer.com
Police responded to Stop & Shop at the East Gloucester Plaza at 7:04 p.m. Thursday after receiving a report of woman shoplifting. Officers say that when they arrived they arrested Kathleen Fitzgerald, 43, of 2 Pooles Terrace, Rockport.
Police said that they were told that Fitzgerald had tried to leave the store without paying for more than $250 in food. When the store manager tried to stop her, police said, Fitzgerald fought him off and scratched him. She then proceeded to her vehicle and then struck him with a car door.
Store personnel were able to detain her until police arrived and now Fitzgerald faces charges of larceny, assault and battery and assault and battery with a dangerous weapon.
Fitzgerald was taken into custody and transported to the jail where she was held on a bond.
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Shoplifter with baby arrested www.privateofficer.com
Shoplifter with baby arrested http://www.privateofficer.com
The Lawrence Eagle-Tribune reported Joel Barbosa, 23, of Lawrence, stuffed the shrimp in his jacket and placed the formula in the bottom of his shopping cart, according to police.
Police said the total value of the goods was over $100
Barbosa was arrested and charged with shoplifting. His wife was called to the store to pick up the baby.
Police said Barbosa had four warrants for shoplifting.
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Mall fire under investigation www.privateofficer.com
Mall fire under investigation http://www.privateofficer.com
A fire rescue spokesman says a mall security officer on patrol smelled smoke in the building and called firefighters in to investigate.
“Upon our arrival, we found heavy smoke in the mall,” said Deputy Chief C.R. Brown.
That’s when back-up units arrived. More than a dozen fire trucks were lined up outside the Palm Beach Gardens Mall Sunday morning.
“There’s a lot of what we call fire load here, a ton of space and we’re not going to take chances with that,” said Brown.
Firefighters searched the mall and found that the blaze started in the cash register area of the mall’s Crabtree and Evelyn store.
The mall’s fire sprinkler system had already kicked on, putting out the fire before they arrived. “There’s about 60 percent damage to the stuff inside the Crabtree store.”
A mall spokesperson says the damage to some neighboring stores is minor.
“We have American Eagle and XXI Forever that have some water damage, but they still will be open today and we had a little damage from Hamilton and Pottery Barn just from water seeping through the walls,” said mall spokesperson David Haysmer.
Firefighters credit the mall’s sprinkler system with quickly getting the electrical fire under control.
“The sprinklers did what they were supposed to do,” said Brown, “It is once again attributed to the fire protection system in the mall and other commercial buildings, they really do work.”
Crabtree and Evelyn was closed today while American Eagle and XXI Forever opened late due to the water damage.
Fire officials say that the fire is under investigation.
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Man arrested for theft of womans underwear www.privateofficer.com
Man arrested for theft of ladies underwear http://www.privateofficer.com
An 18-year-old man was cited after allegedly attempting to steal 12 pair of women’s underwear from a Mall of the Bluffs store Thursday
Council Bluffs police reports indicated officers were called to Deb Shops at 1 p.m. after reports of an attempted theft.
Reports stated a Deb employee witnessed Tyler Bernholtz of Denison conceal women’s underwear and attempt to leave the store. Bernholtz was detained by the store until officers arrived.
Officers found 12 pair of women’s underwear, valued at $67.47, and returned the merchandise to the store. Bernholtz was cited for fifth-degree theft and released.
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Walmart employee charged with rape of customer www.privateofficer.com
Walmart employee charged with rape of customer http://www.privateofficer.com
It happened Wednesday in Caldwell. The Wal Mart employee is accused of stalking and raping one of store’s customer.
The teenage victim is described as being developmentally challenged.
“Are you Alejandro Fernandez Gonzalez?” asked Canyon County magistrate Judge Richard Schmidt.
“Yes,” replied Gonzalez.
Gonzalez, 27, is charged with first degree kidnapping, rape and second degree stalking.
Caldwell Police say he works at Wal Mart on the Boulevard where he’s been stalking an 18-year-old female customer for some time now.
“For some reason, he took an interest to her and would follow her frequently, including following her home. There were complaints made about that,” said Caldwell Police Chief Chris Allgood.
Allgood says Gonzalez followed the developmentally-delayed teenager Wednesday while she shopped at the retailer.
That’s when Gonzalez is accused of making contact with the woman and offered her a ride home. She accepted.
“He didn’t drive her home, he drove her in the opposite direction. She attempted to leave and he would not allow her to,” said Allgood.
“She was transported to a storage unit in the area, where he raped her,” said Allgood.
Canyon County Prosecutor Virginia Bond expects to subpoena Wal Mart’s records because this is not the first time the family had issues with Gonzalez while shopping.
“You mean back in June, where he was advised by the victim’s mother now to stay away from her?” asked Bond.
Wal Mart provided this statement regarding its employee:
“We take the safety and security of our customers and associates very seriously. The associate in question is currently suspended without pay until the outcome of the case. At that time, we will take appropriate action.”
Allgood confirms Gonzalez does not have a previous criminal record, but now he’s facing serious charges.
“The indictment has charged rape two different ways — one is by force, the other is that the victims is incapable because of permanently unsound mind to give legal consent,” said Bond.
The bail for Gonzalez is $500,000. He will go to district court on May 30 to face these charges.
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Private prison guard gets jail for sex with inmate www.privateofficer.com
Private prison guard sent to jail for sex with inmate http://www.privateofficer.com
Sutter County Superior Court Judge Chris Chandler also placed 45-year-old Mark Susoeff of Linda on probation for three years.
Susoeff admitted having oral sex with the woman in January 2007 when he was working at the Leo Chesney Community Correctional Facility.
The judge called the act “beyond stupid” and “disgusting.”
The minimum-security prison is run by Texas-based Cornell Companies, which has a contract with the state Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation to house female inmates.
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