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North Carolina trooper arrested on drug charges www.privateofficer.com
William Wheeler, 35, of Cary, was arrested Tuesday on prescription fraud allegations.
According to warrants filed with the court, Wheeler doctor shopped to get prescriptions for medications containing Codeine and Hydrocodone – a powerful and addictive pain killer.One warrant says Wheeler went to one doctor and got a prescription, but didn’t tell the doctor he would be seeing his primary care physician in seven days.
A second warrant says Wheeler filled a prescription at a CVS pharmacy, and then called his doctor to say the pharmacy was out of the medication and asked for a prescription to be called into a second pharmacy.
Wheeler is a first sergeant at the training academy on Garner Road in Raleigh. He’s been with the department since 1998.
A Highway Patrol spokesman says Wheeler was already on leave pending an internal investigation of the same allegations. Once the Patrol completes its internal investigation, it will be up to the agency’s commander to decide Wheeler’s job status. The Patrol spokesman says the filing of criminal charges by the State Bureau of Investigation could add aggravating factors to the Patrol’s own investigation.
Wheeler was booked at the Wake County Magistrate’s Office and released on a written promise to appear in court Wednesday morning.
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Wal-Mart shoplifting escalates to robbery www.privateofficer.com
A Findlay man who police say walked away from Wal-Mart last month without paying for a six-pack of beer and a quart of motor oil was indicted Tuesday by Hancock County grand jury.
James J. Hernandez, 41, 225 George St., was charged with robbery, a second-degree felony, in connection with an April 21 incident at the Trenton Avenue retail store.
According to police, Hernandez failed to pay for the items and then swung at a store security officer who attempted to detain him. The officer was not seriously injured, and Hernandez fled the scene, police said.
He was not apprehended that day, but was identified by store security, who had previously encountered the defendant at the business, according to authorities.
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Jackson police officer, school guard charged with extortion www.privateofficer.com
By: Rick McCann
Private officer News Network
http://www.privateofficer.com/ – Jackson police investigators have arrested a police officer and a school security guard and charged them with extortion charges.
Police spokesman Jeffery Scott says the pair are accused of extorting money from owners of local convenience stores. He points out that all the store owners involved are of Indian descent.
Scott did not go into detail about the internal investigation but said that the department had received information about officers “shaking down” store owners and that the investigation led them to Officer Deshawn Howard, 28, who works out of Precinct Two.
Cedric Body, 40, a security guard with Jackson Public Schools was also implicated in the extortion and was arrested.
Both are charged with one count of extortion and have bonded out of jail. Police say that the investigation is continuing and that both could face further charges.
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Shoplifter slashes security officer’s throat www.privateofficer.com
By: Rick McCann
Private Officer News Network
http://www.privateofficer.com/
Authorities charged a homeless man with a long history of run-ins with the law with robbery after a shoplifting incident at a local retails tore.
Police say 57-year-old Justy Ballard tried to steal merchandise Saturday from the Family Dollar Store on Reading Road in Avondale. When a security officer tried to stop Ballard from leaving he pulled a box cutter and slashed the security guard’s throat and mouth.
Responding officers were able to locate Ballard and took him into custody.
Ballard appeared in court Tuesday and a judge set bond at $200,000 today for two counts of aggravated robbery.
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Shoplifting arrest yields pound of marijuana www.privateofficer.com
Karriem T. Lang, 38, is charged with two felonies — grand larceny and petty larceny (third offense).
Police were called to the Town Center around 12:30 p.m. after receiving a report that a shoplifter had left Target, 811 Town Center Drive, with two digital book covers worth more than $400. Lang was then spotted nearby in Books-A-Million, 801 Town Center Drive.
Police said Lang tried to flee, but was apprehended inside the store near a restroom. A book and more electronic items worth $124 that were reportedly stolen from the bookstore were recovered.
A search of Lang’s car turned up a pound of suspected marijuana that was hidden inside three plastic bags and a bowl of coffee grounds, according to police.
The suspected drugs have been sent to a forensic lab for analysis.
Lang is being held at Middle River Regional Jail in Verona.
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Hospital security thwarts kidnapping www.privateofficer.com
Police got the call from the Ocean Springs Hospital around 9:00 a.m. Monday. Officers who arrived on the scene first found security officers holding the two men at gunpoint.
Witnesses told police it looked like Royce Fairley, 18, and Thomas Fairley, 27, were trying to force another man into a trunk at gunpoint. The man was later identified as Steverson Fairley, 51, the brother’s father.
This all stemmed from a domestic dispute That happened April 5. Steverson Fairley allegedly shot and wounded his estranged wife, Gloria.
Royce and Thomas Fairley have been charged with aggravated domestic assault. They are in the Ocean Springs Municipal Jail awaiting an initial appearance. A bond will be set at that time.
Anyone with any information concerning this incident are asked to contact Detective Lott at the Ocean Springs Police Department at 228-875-2211.
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Man drowns in the Potomac trying to rescue child www.privateofficer.com
washingtonpost.com
As she had for each of the past eight days, Cristina Castro went to the banks of the Potomac River yesterday morning to look for her son. She crossed a footbridge over the C&O Canal, then saw the police cars parked at the water’s edge and patrol boats circling. An officer intercepted her before she could reach the water.
He told her the news. She fell into her sister’s arms, sobbing.
A police helicopter had spotted her son’s body along the shoreline just after 9:30 a.m., about 200 yards south of Fletcher’s Cove. It was the end of a heartbreaking nine-day search for 11-year-old Jorge Castro and Hau Nguyen, 37, who died after jumping in to try to rescue the boy. Nguyen was found Saturday.
The boy had slipped on rocks and fallen into the river while fishing with his father and brothers below Chain Bridge on April 26. Nguyen, who did not know the family, is thought to have gone in after the boy with another man and Jorge’s father, Elijio Ramirez, 37, of Reston.
The incident has brought together two families — one from Vietnam, one from Mexico. For much of last week, as police boats, helicopters and recovery dogs swept the river, groups of Hispanic construction workers, Vietnamese monks and the family and friends of both victims came to search the muddy banks and pray at the spot where the two had disappeared.
Nguyen, who worked as an auto mechanic at a Manassas area garage, is survived by his wife, Hong Thuthi Vo, and their son, Henry, who turns 2 on Father’s Day. Daughter Susan is 9.
District police Lt. Paul Niepling said he will recommend that a public service medal be awarded to Nguyen’s family.
The drownings happened on a Sunday. Ramirez had custody that weekend of his and Castro’s sons — Brian, 14, James, 13, and Jorge, 11 — and brought them to the rocky shores of Potomac Gorge for a day of fishing.
Nguyen was there, too, enjoying a day off. “Whenever he had time, he wanted to go fishing,” said Vo, who works in a nail salon.
The Potomac was high that day, churning at 25,000 cubic feet per second, twice its median flow. It was a volume of water that carried the equivalent of 1.5 million pounds of force — 65 school buses — every second. Jorge, who could not swim, lost his footing and was swept away in an instant.
His father dived in after him. Ramirez grabbed his son and pulled him close as the two bobbed along. A third man had also jumped in but was quickly pushed back to shore. Ramirez did not know that Nguyen had gone in as well.
The Potomac is 30 to 40 feet deep in parts of that area, and beneath the river’s surface, boulders and steep channels form swirling eddies and powerful currents. Soon they were drawing Ramirez and his son downward.
Ramirez held his son’s head above water as long as he could, he said, but their jeans and sneakers had soaked up the chilly water like sponges, weighing them down. “I tried to take off my shoes, my pants,” Ramirez said, speaking Monday evening, his face ashen after another day of searching the riverbanks. “Then I felt a whirlpool pulling us apart.”
Another current pulled the boy from Ramirez’s hands. He looked back as the river carried him downstream and the distance between father and son grew. “I saw him two more times,” he said. “Then he went under.”
Police said both bodies are at the medical examiner’s office undergoing forensic tests to confirm identities, but the body found yesterday was that of a child and the man found Saturday has Nguyen’s identifying features.
Still, the long search for Jorge, who lived in Winchester, and Nguyen, of Falls Church, has left both families devastated and exhausted. Though police recovery teams began looking for the boy immediately, Nguyen was not reported missing until the day after the incident. He had not come home Sunday afternoon, and the next day his family and friends found his car parked near Chain Bridge.
Nguyen’s wife and Thanh Vo, her brother, said Nguyen was a strong swimmer who had grown up along a river in Vietnam and had jumped into the Chesapeake Bay to rescue a friend a few years ago. “He just loved the outdoors,” Thanh Vo said. “If he saw someone needing help like that, he’d just jump in.”
But Lt. Niepling said no level of swimming ability can save someone in soggy clothes who is trapped in a strong current. “If you jump in, even with a lifejacket on, you’re as vulnerable as the person [already] in the water,” he said.
Nguyen’s widow said her husband was a “good man, a sweet man,” who “you loved the first time you talked to him.”
When my son grows up, I want him to be like his dad,” she said.
When Vo and the rest of Nguyen’s family went to the river last week, they met Castro and Ramirez, and the boy’s family brought her to the spot where the accident occurred. Vo said she felt like the boy’s parents shared her loss, and she theirs.
At one point, Cristina Castro and Vo began walking along the shoreline together. “It was hard for us to understand each other,” said Castro, who like Vo speaks limited English. Vo took Castro’s hand, and the women helped each other up the muddy, rocky shoreline.
“We have the same feeling,” said Vo. “She lost her baby. I lost my husband. I don’t feel anything bad toward her.”
The women continued walking, Castro said, telling each other that Vo’s husband and Castro’s son were lost together somewhere in the woods, waiting to be rescued.
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Wal-Mart security agent stabbed by shoplifter http://www.privateofficer.com
By: Rick McCann
Private Officer News Network
privateofficer.com
Police said that the stabbing occurred just after 5 p.m. in the parking lot of the Wal-Mart on U.S. 36, as the security agent was chasing a shoplifter.
Police said the security officer had tried stopping a shoplifter when that person turned and stabbed the security officer several times.
The assailant fled the area on foot after the attack and police was searching for him.
Police said that the loss prevention agent was transported to a hospital with stab wounds but do not believe his injuries were life-threatening.
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Church music minister charged with molesting boys www.privateofficer.com
fox16.com Wednesday morning the Saline County Sheriff plans to arrest a church music minister again. More teenage boys are accusing 56-year-old David Pierce of sexual indecency. All attended First Baptist Church of Benton.
Tuesday night, Pierce was out of jail on his sexual indecency charge after a judge set his bond at a court appearance last week. Sheriff Bruce Pennington planned to arrest him again at 9 a.m. Wednesday. “There have been other people to come forward and through the investigation this is reason for the arrest,” Pennington said.
Sheriff Pennington planned to announce the charges Wednesday, but he did say at least two more teenage boys who attended the church accuse Pierce of additional crimes.
FOX16 went to Pierce’s home to see what he has to say about all this but no one answered the door. Tuesday night there was no word from First Baptist Church either.
But in the past, Pastor Rick Grant has said he’s heartsick because of all this and he’s asking the faithful to pray for all those involved. Pennington said, “This is a shocking experience for everyone. Not just the church community but the community as well.”
Sheriff Pennington says even after the arrest this won’t be over. His office is investigating even more allegations. Regardless of the outcome of this case, it’s reminding people in positions like Pierce’s of the responsibility they have to their communities. “They have to strive harder to show that they are what they say they are,” Pennington said.
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Sears shoplifter charged with robbery www.privateofficer.com
Brett Davis
Private Officer News Network
http://www.privateofficer.com/ — An Elizabeth man was arrested on robbery charges Sunday after a shoplifting attempt at a Sears turned into a scuffle with store security agents, police said
Jerome Mayers, 41, is accused of trying to steal two portable speakers and a pair of boxer shorts from the Woodbridge Center store.
Video surveillance showed that at about 2:55 p.m. Sunday, Mayers left the store without paying for the items, which he had in a shopping cart, police said. When a loss prevention agent confronted him outside, Mayers allegedly pushed the cart at him, causing him to fall down.
Police say Mayers then tried to run away, but was wrestled to the ground and restrained by two other security agents.
Mayers was arrested by police, processed and taken to the Middlesex County Adult Correction Center in North Brunswick, where he was held in lieu of $20,000 bail.
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Mall of America security faces “Profiling” lawsuit www.privateofficer.com
A man has filed a federal lawsuit against the Mall of America, accusing mall security officers of racial profiling and has already gained the state’s support.
With the findings of the state’s investigation on his side, Bobbie Allen sued the mall Tuesday, seeking $100,000 and new diversity training for security.
According to the suit, the then-42-year-old Minneapolis man was waiting in one of the mall’s courtyards for a store employee when security officers put him under surveillance.
“He did display some suspicious behaviors, moving around, checking his watch, it was not normal behavior,” said MOA spokesman Dan Jasper.
He says Allen would not show officials identification, give his name, or answer their questions. Security, trained in behavior detection, called Bloomington Police that has a substation in the mall. After a half-hour, the questioning ended with no arrest or charges.
Allen is claiming he was discriminated against, the victim of racial profiling, and was falsely imprisoned.
“We can’t wait to tell our story because we believe this is completely without merit because we don’t tolerate discrimination and never will,” Jasper stated.
But the Minnesota Department of Human Rights says they’ve sided with Allen—finding ‘probable cause’ that he was ‘subjected to illegal discrimination because of his race.’
“Someone is looking for a lot of money here. The truth is we did nothing wrong,” Jasper said.
When 5 EYEWITNESS NEWS attempted to contact Allen via phone, he hung up.
His attorney, Dorene Sarnoski, also declined to do a recorded interview and says she’d rather try the case in court.
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