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Brinks guard shoots-kills robbery suspect www.privateofficer.com
A Brinks security guard shot and killed a would-be robber who attacked him while he was making a routine stop at a South Miami-Dade health clinic Friday, according to witnesses.
After the 2 p.m. shooting outside the Doris Ison Health Center, 10300 SW 216th St., Miami-Dade police arrested two other suspects after a search of surrounding neighborhoods.
Miami-Dade police have not identified the dead man. Those arrested also were not identified. According to investigators, shots were fired when three subjects, armed with firearms, attempted to rob an armored truck crew making a pick up or delivery at the health center located at 10300 SW 216th Street,” a Miami-Dade police statement said late Friday.
One employee of the health center, who did not want to be identified, told The Miami Herald that the shooting took place after the apparent robber attacked the Brinks security guard. The guard, said the witness, then shot the man outside the health center, which remained under lockdown for hours as police officers swarmed the area in search of the other suspects.
Miami Herald news partner WFOR-CBS 4 reported that police found the other suspects less than a mile away at the Cutler Creek Town Homes.
They reported that police officers went house to house and then surrounded one home.
Much of the area surrounding the health clinic and the neighborhood near the townhomes was swarming with police officers following the shooting.
La Petite Academy, a day care center on 216th Street in Cutler Bay, was placed on lockdown for hours, with parents not allowed to pick up their children, the station reported.
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UCONN student charged in $1 billion marijuana operation www.privateofficer.com
Authorities say UConn law student John M. Belanger was a high-level operative in a $1 billion international marijuana operation. At the same time, others say, he was a doting father.
Their 9-year-old son would stay with his grandparents when Belanger wasn’t around, the child’s mother, Jessica Reddick, said Friday.
Reddick — who broke off her relationship with Belanger nine years ago but kept up a custody fight — said she had an inkling that Belanger might have been into something illegal, but had no idea of the size and the scope of the operation outlined by police.
Reddick, 25, of Massachusetts, said it appears now that Belanger led a double life.
Belanger, 27, was indicted June 10 as part of a two-year investigation that led to the arrests of more than 45 people from Quebec to Florida on charges of smuggling about $1 billion worth of high-grade, hydroponic marijuana across the Canadian border over a four-year period.
Belanger, of Hartford, was one of 13 people indicted June 10 in a bust called Operation Iron Curtain, which involved federal and Canadian officials and New York police. He was arrested in Hartford on July 7.
Authorities said the operation smuggled about 300 pounds of marijuana a day into cities in the Northeast and Miami, though they don’t say any of the drugs moved through Connecticut.
Belanger recruited, hired and coordinated a team that smuggled the pot from Canada across the border into New York, authorities said. He was an assistant to Steven Sarti, 23, of Brossard, Quebec, who was arrested in June on a variety of drug trafficking charges as the leader of the operation, a press release from the U.S. Department of Justice states.
The marijuana was grown in eastern Canada and smuggled across the border, often crossing through Native American reservations, using boats or snowmobiles, authorities said.
“He put on his glasses, he was the law student,” Reddick said. “He took them off, he was … I don’t know, it’s crazy. I knew he was out and about very often, but I didn’t know where. My son would stay with his grandparents a lot. I wish, for my own sake, that I knew what he was doing.”
Reddick said she and Belanger, who had lived in Dudley, Mass., had a relationship when they were both in their mid-teens.
“We were young. We were not smart,” she said.
She said Belanger was awarded custody of their son in 2000. Reddick had generous visitation rights.
“We were both caring parents. I was working as a receptionist in a salon during the day and going to hairdressing school at night. John was with his girlfriend at the time, and I guess the judge felt he could provide something more stable. … And John was very smart.”
Belanger attended Bryant College in Rhode Island before UConn. His senior honors project at Bryant, submitted in April 2007, was titled “The Modern Application of the ‘Best Interests of the Child’ Theory in Custodial Law.”
Reddick said Belanger married his girlfriend, and they later divorced.
“My son never wanted for anything. John was always good to him and made sure he had everything he needed. My son was happy and comfortable,” said Reddick. Her son now lives with her.
On July 16, Reddick filed a request for full custody in Superior Court in Rockville, where Belanger had lived.
“I did it in case John got out on bond,” said Reddick.
A UConn professor who taught Belanger, who has completed two years at the UConn School of Law, described him as a regular student.
Authorities say UConn law student John M. Belanger was a high-level operative in a $1 billion international marijuana operation. At the same time, others say, he was a doting father.
Their 9-year-old son would stay with his grandparents when Belanger wasn’t around, the child’s mother, Jessica Reddick, said Friday.
Reddick — who broke off her relationship with Belanger nine years ago but kept up a custody fight — said she had an inkling that Belanger might have been into something illegal, but had no idea of the size and the scope of the operation outlined by police.
Reddick, 25, of Massachusetts, said it appears now that Belanger led a double life.
Belanger, 27, was indicted June 10 as part of a two-year investigation that led to the arrests of more than 45 people from Quebec to Florida on charges of smuggling about $1 billion worth of high-grade, hydroponic marijuana across the Canadian border over a four-year period.
Belanger, of Hartford, was one of 13 people indicted June 10 in a bust called Operation Iron Curtain, which involved federal and Canadian officials and New York police. He was arrested in Hartford on July 7.
Authorities said the operation smuggled about 300 pounds of marijuana a day into cities in the Northeast and Miami, though they don’t say any of the drugs moved through Connecticut.
Belanger recruited, hired and coordinated a team that smuggled the pot from Canada across the border into New York, authorities said. He was an assistant to Steven Sarti, 23, of Brossard, Quebec, who was arrested in June on a variety of drug trafficking charges as the leader of the operation, a press release from the U.S. Department of Justice states.
The marijuana was grown in eastern Canada and smuggled across the border, often crossing through Native American reservations, using boats or snowmobiles, authorities said.
“He put on his glasses, he was the law student,” Reddick said. “He took them off, he was … I don’t know, it’s crazy. I knew he was out and about very often, but I didn’t know where. My son would stay with his grandparents a lot. I wish, for my own sake, that I knew what he was doing.”
Reddick said she and Belanger, who had lived in Dudley, Mass., had a relationship when they were both in their mid-teens.
“We were young. We were not smart,” she said.
She said Belanger was awarded custody of their son in 2000. Reddick had generous visitation rights.
“We were both caring parents. I was working as a receptionist in a salon during the day and going to hairdressing school at night. John was with his girlfriend at the time, and I guess the judge felt he could provide something more stable. … And John was very smart.”
He took three tax courses with me and was always very engaged,” Richard Pomp said. “I had no indication whatsoever he could be involved with this. He was very unpretentious. We should, of course, remember that he has a presumption of innocence and has only been accused. But he didn’t drive a flashy car or anything like that. He was just a regular student.”
One of the three tax courses Belanger took was Indian Tax Law, Pomp said.
Belanger also served as Dean for a Day, purchasing the prize at a charity auction conducted by the Public Interest Law Group in the spring of 2008, UConn spokesman Michael Kirk said. Belanger got to sit in the dean’s office for a few hours, and proceeds from the auction went to fund public interest fellowships, which pay students who work at public interest law firms, such as Legal Aid.
“The university is aware of the situation and is taking it very seriously,” Kirk said in a statement.
Belanger was charged with conspiracy to possess with intent to distribute more than 1,000 kilograms of marijuana, conspiracy to import more than 1,000 kilograms of marijuana and conspiracy to launder monetary instruments.
Officials said they seized more than $7 million, about 2½ tons of marijuana and more than 60 pounds of cocaine during the bust.
The organization transported the marijuana in heat-sealed bags inside large duffel bags labeled with a number and customer identification or destination, the press release states.
The drug ring used two primary routes for smuggling drugs across the border. One went through a secluded wooded area near Churubusco, N.Y., via couriers led primarily by Anthony Plata, 28, of Montreal, who was also indicted, authorities said.
The second went across the St. Lawrence River and through the Snye, Quebec, compound of another indicted man, Richard Todd Adams, 35, of Summerton, Ontario, on Akwesasne Mohawk Indian territory, authorities said.
The Department of Justice release went on to say the smuggling operation was meticulous. The smugglers used rental vehicles that traveled in tandem with “blocking” vehicles, which scouted ahead for police and tipped off the couriers.
Belanger’s case has been transferred to the federal court in the Northern District of New York. An arraignment date has not yet been set, and it is not clear whether Belanger is still in Hartford or in transit to New York.
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Armored cars under seige in Arizona www.privateofficer.com
Bandits targeting armored cars have federal agents and bank operators on a heightened state of alert and are pushing the Valley to record-breaking territory for armored-car heists in a single year.
A single group is responsible for most, if not all, of the seven armored-car robberies in the Phoenix area this year, said Lance Leising, an FBI special agent and the bureau’s bank-robbery coordinator in Arizona
At least one of the men uses a long-barreled assault rifle in the robberies that resembles an AK-47, Leising said, and the other typically carries a handgun.
They strike when guards are making deposits or picking money up, and the men frequently arrive in a stolen car and flee on foot or in a white sedan.
There’s a $50,000 reward for information that leads to their arrests and convictions, and with little for authorities to go on, agents are hoping that bounty will erode any honor among thieves.
“We don’t have good photos, so we’re not expecting someone to look at a photograph and recognize that person,” Leising said. “Someone already has knowledge that this group has come into a large amount of money.”
Both men are described as Black and in their 20s, with one man standing between 5 feet 6 inches and 5 feet 10 inches tall with a slight build and the other between 5 feet 10 inches and 6 feet 1 inch tall, with a heavy build.
The spike in armored-car robberies was disturbing enough that Loomis Armored sponsored a meeting in Phoenix last month where nearly 50 representatives from banks and law enforcement came together with security experts to share ideas about ways to curb the trend.
The cause for concern is legitimate: As bold as bank robberies are, the majority are pulled off with a threatening note, and acts of violence were committed in only 4 percent of the 6,849 robberies reported to the FBI last year.
The Phoenix area is also on pace to set a new high mark for bank robberies in a single year, with another occurring in Scottsdale on Tuesday.
Armored-car robberies are more dangerous and frequently more violent.
“It takes a lot of planning and guts to attempt one, and the success rate is very small,” Leising said. “They’re going after armed guards.”
In one of Phoenix’s more notorious cases, Jason Derek Brown, 40, is suspected of killing Robert Palomares, a 24-year-old armed guard, outside an Ahwatukee Foothills movie theater in November 2004.
The FBI says Brown escaped with more than $56,000, and he remains on its Ten Most Wanted Fugitives list.
Brown is Leising’s case, too.
“Bank robberies, armored-car robberies, they’re an unusual crew, they’re usually charismatic, very sociable. Banks and armored cars are kind of the ultimate of robbery,” he said.
The trend in armored-car robberies mirrors the bank-robbery spike the area has seen in recent years, but there is some good news on that front since a half-dozen law-enforcement agencies created a task force in May to address the problem.
The 10-member team has made 40 arrests, accounting for 97 of the 139 bank robberies committed in the Valley so far this year.
With detectives from different agencies working side-by-side on a daily basis and showing up to crime scenes together, the crooks have a harder time skirting the law by hopping from city to city, Leising said.
When agents shut down the “Raggedy Ann” bandit earlier this year, the suspect had moved her operations from Phoenix to Tucson after a spate of media attention.
When the bandit robbed a bank in Tucson, authorities there alerted task-force members here who placed unmarked units along Interstate 10 and ultimately pulled over the car they’d been searching for in the Valley, with the suspected “Raggedy Ann” bandit behind the wheel.
As for the notion that the spike in robberies was tied to the recession, the undulating pattern over the last six years, including a high in the boom-year of 2005, points to other factors.
“People ask me all the time why do these guys do this and the answer is desperation,” Leising said. “Nine times out of 10 when I’m interviewing these guys, it’s got something to do with drugs.”
Robberies
2009 – 160*.
2008 – 236.
2007 – 175.
2006 – 166.
2005 – 228.
2004 – 161.
2003 – 116.
*Through Tuesday.
Source: FBI
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Police find 150 dead dogs in freezers at Michigan home www.privateofficer.com
Dearborn Police Chief Ronald Haddad said the 56-year-old man found Wednesday in the suburban Detroit home with the animals may have been living with an increasing number of dogs for up to three or four years.
“The house was in complete disarray, very cluttered and, with 100-plus dogs running around in there, very filthy,” he said.
A criminal investigation was under way at the two-story brick home, Haddad said. He said the case could be forwarded to prosecutors for possible animal-cruelty charges.
Haddad said 112 live dogs had been removed from the home as of Friday, and police believe about five more may be hiding inside. He declined to release details about the breed of the dead dogs.
The man living in the house was taken to a local hospital for observation. He had no health insurance and a mental impairment that stemmed from rubella as a child, and had lived for years alone in the home after his parents retired to Florida, said lawyer James G. Schmier, who was acting as a family spokesman.
“I think this is a very human story of a guy who had some very severe mental issues,” Schmier said.
Neighbors in the past had complained of an odor at the Dearborn home, which had a neatly cut lawn and manicured bushes. But this week was the first time officials got inside, and crews needed masks to breathe.
Trash was piled from floor to ceiling in places, and feces and urine was throughout the home. Forty-two ailing and feces-covered dogs were rescued Wednesday. Crews returned Thursday and found more than 60 dogs, and about 10 more were rescued Friday, police said.
The smell, noticeable from the street Thursday and Friday, may have been contained previously because windows were closed and covered.
The rescued dogs were taken to the Dearborn Animal Shelter, where residents brought dog food donations and filled out pet adoption applications. Sandra Boulton, a spokeswoman for the shelter, said the dogs were either Chihuahuas or Chihuahua mixes, and while most had long nails and fleas, they were relatively healthy.
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Parking meter officer charged with thefts www.privateofficer.com
A Coral Gables employee has been arrested and charged with grand theft and organized fraud after he was allegedly caught taking coins from the city’s parking meters and turning them over to his father in a school parking lot.
Rolando Hernandez, 37, was paid $16.35 an hour as a parking meter collector for the city, which hired him in 2006. But police say he was taking home considerably more.
Found in his father’s truck after the two were stopped Monday: $3,584.95 in coins.
Police said Hernandez told them he had been doing the same thing three times a week for about six months, taking the coins to the change machine at Publix so he could exchange them for paper bills.
“He would keep a separate container, fill the container, and then take it to Publix to change the coins to dollars,” the police report stated.
Hernandez was charged with third-degree grand theft and organized fraud of up to $20,000, both felonies. Police could only charge him for the money they found Monday. Police Chief Richard Naue said there could be more charges filed against Hernandez because they are still investigating.
Hernandez, who listed his address as 2450 SW 78th Ave., posted $5,000 bail and was out of jail Tuesday. He has been suspended without pay by the city as police continue to investigate.
Naue said Monday’s take was extraordinary because Hernandez had taken on an additional route for another employee who could not come in that morning. But the chief said Hernandez told police he averaged $800 each time he skimmed, which is $2,400 a week and about $57,600 in total.
“But we don’t know exactly how much it is,” Naue said. “It could be more, it could be less.”
Police began to follow Hernandez and other employees after “the parking department noticed some fluctuation of revenue,” Naue added. “While they felt that because of the economic times, less people were shopping and so less people were coming, that didn’t really account for the sharp drop-offs and the spikes so they started to look with some concerns that it possibly might be someone inside.”
Employees collect the coins in the mornings and bring them to the parking department. The money is counted and then sent to the bank in an armored car.
Police had Hernandez under surveillance at 5 a.m. Monday as he collected coins from parking meters. They followed him to the parking department, in the same building as the police station, where he turned in “some of the money,” wrote Det. Andrew Cachinero in his report.
Police followed as he then drove his city vehicle to South Miami Senior High School, 5210 SW 69th Ave., where he met his father in the parking lot by the baseball field, the report says. Both men were seen taking coins from the rear of the city vehicle and putting them into a bucket. They then hoisted the bucket into the bed of the black pickup and drove away.
Jose Hernandez was stopped first at the corner of Southwest 68th Avenue and Southwest 48th Street. Within eyesight of the detectives: the bucket of coins in the truck’s bed. They also found more coins in the toolbox attached to the bed.
Rolando Hernandez drove back to where his father’s pickup was and was quickly arrested. His father was not arrested, but had to be treated by fire-rescue because he became agitated, and the officers were concerned about his health.
“We firmly believe he had no knowledge of what his son was doing,” Naue said. “He was called by his son to meet him and he came from a construction site. He was certainly taken off guard.”
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SEIU reaches agreement for Kaiser Permanente security www.privateofficer.com
The Service Employees International Union’s Local 1877, which represents 2,000 security guards who watch over Kaiser Permanente health care facilities nationwide, says a tentative contract agreement with a private security company, reached Wednesday, could avert the threat of a strike, which appeared imminent a few weeks ago.
The Oakland-based union’s bargaining committee reached a provisional agreement with Securitas, the private security company that Kaiser contracts with for security personnel, on July 22. That agreement requires ratification by members.
Securitas Security Services USA Inc., based in Parsippany, N.J., has 450 branch offices and employs more than 100,000 security guards, according to its Web site. Officials there could not immediately be reached for comment.
As recently as July 1, the union said talks had broken down over what it called Securitas’ refusal to restore the “affordable health care coverage” the security guards had under a contract with a prior contractor. Securitas implemented deep cuts in employer-paid coverage, causing costs for deductibles, prescription drugs and copays to increase dramatically, resulting in coverage that was “definitely inadequate in our view,” said an SEIU spokeswoman. Under the new contract, union members would pay lower co-pays and no deductibles, according to the union.
About 1,600 or 80 percent of the union members work at facilities in California for Oakland-based Kaiser, a $40 billion health care behemoth with more than 8.6 million enrollees, 35 hospitals and more than 400 clinics nationwide.
The bulk of the security guards in the local, who reside in California, will vote on the proposal Saturday. The new contract, which was unanimously recommended by the bargaining committee, would “restore” benefits that were eliminated in February when Kaiser replaced its former security contractor, Inter-Con, with Securitas, according to the union. It would also slightly boost minimum hourly wages.
The contract, if approved, would be the SEIU local’s first with the company, the union says. Other Securitas security personnel who work at Kaiser facilities in the Washington, D.C, area and Colorado are expected to vote on the proposed contract next week, said SEIU spokeswoman Rachele Huennekens.
SEIU’s property service division represents 300,000 janitors, security officers, airport workers and other service workers nationwide, including 40,000 in California who are part of SEIU United Service Workers West.
Officials at Securitas’ offices in Westlake Village and Walnut Creek were not available to answer questions about the proposed contract.
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