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Authorities say woman “committed suicide” by jumping from alaska cruise ship www.privateofficer.com
“Based on evidence and information to date, it does not appear to be foul play,” spokeswoman Sally Andrews said from Seattle. “From what we have seen to date, it appears to be a suicide. Of course, the final determination will be made by the investigating authorities with whom we are cooperating fully.”
But Amber Malkuch’s ex-brother-in-law told reporters that would surprise him.
Scott Malkuch said he last saw Amber, 45, at a graduation party in June.
Amber Malkuch’s body was found Monday afternoon after a massive search stretching over 80 miles.
“They have confirmed that is the woman we’re looking for due to finding her ID on her person,” Petty Officer Jon-Paul Rios said.
Alaska State Troopers were to begin an investigation Tuesday when the cruise ship docked in Sitka. A spokeswoman said the agency was not ready to determine it was a suicide.
“We still have to do our investigation, and we’re not going to make any guesses at this time,” troopers spokeswoman Megan Peters said. “It is too premature to label it anything but a death investigation.” Suicide is “certainly a possibility, but we need to investigate and we need to make sure.”
Among those who will be questioned will be Malkuch’s traveling companion and anyone else who could help explain how she disappeared off the vessel.
Malkuch was reported missing by a traveling companion Monday morning when the Zaandam was in Glacier Bay National Park, about 75 miles northwest of Juneau. She was last seen hours earlier after she ordered room service, when the vessel was near Alaska’s Douglas Island.
The crew of a commercial helicopter operated by Ketchikan-based TEMSCO Helicopters that was helping in the search found the body at about 4:30 p.m. Monday on the west side of Douglas Island, about 12 miles northwest of where the passenger was last seen, Chief Petty Officer Dana Warr said.
The body was taken to Juneau, and troopers said an autopsy would be standard procedure.
Warr said there was no immediate sign that any of the Zaandam’s survival gear was missing. Footage from the ship’s security cameras will likely be reviewed, the Coast Guard said.
The 780-foot-long Zaandam can carry about 1,430 passengers and 600 crew members
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Boston armed guards run amuck, police say www.privateofficer.com
Armed security guards within Boston are not individually licensed, and Boston Police have no idea about most of these guards’ backgrounds.
City Councilor Rob Consalvo has filed an ordinance that would require all armed security guards be registered with the Boston Police. Thus, the BPD would know the backgrounds of the guards, and also know how many guards are present at any time at particular places.
Consalvo often sees a group of fatigued and armed security guards outside a bank at City Hall (and there are also armed security guards in the Parkway), and most people believe they are actually police, but they aren’t. Consalvo has been asked numerous times by residents about the armed guards.
“This is a preemptive effort to regulate the armed guard industry like most other cities do,” said Consalvo. “This is about coordinating with the BPD [of security guards] who are in our city, on our private ways, with guns. If something happens like 9/11 or at the Holocaust Museum … so when police are responding, they know who’s there and how many security guard are there.”
Calls to the Wackenhut Corporation, an international security guard company, the same company that was present at the Holocaust Museum when a white militant opened fire, were not returned.
Consalvo said that several companies have supported the legislation, but Wackenhut has yet to embrace it.
Right now, Boston Police do not have full listings of armed security guards at different locations. Some security companies have registered their individual employees with the city and continue to let the BPD know about their employees, but some do not.
The BPD would also train the guards and give them certification. The security companies would have to pay the fees that go with the training and certification, said Consalvo. His legislation would require individuals to be a special officer of the BPD in case something were to happen.
“They [would] become special police officers in an event or special incident. What if something were to happen? Right now they wouldn’t have the legal authority, but to stand there. But the public thinks they’re police officers,” he said.
“Right now, we assume the companies who have hired them did necessary background checks, CORI checks and firearm training. There’s nothing that tells us that, we don’t know this,” said Consalvo.
The Boston Police Patrolman’s Association is 100 percent behind the legislation, said Jim Barry, legislative agent for the BPPA.
“These are unregulated armed security guards throughout Boston,” said Barry. “They skirt the local laws by registering as private detectives. But they’re uniformed. They’re not private detectives.”
Said Barry, “We would know where these individuals are, and know when we’re answering a call whether it’s a holdup call [or something else] so we would know if we have another armed individual there. We are also responsible to the public that they’re properly trained.”
Both Barry and Consalvo said the legislation would add uniformity to the relationship between the security guard industry and the BPD.
Several other states already require individual security guards to be licensed, including Connecticut, New York, Rhode Island and Vermont.
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KY physical ed teacher accused of student relationship www.privateofficer.com
Coach Michael “Eddy” Wilson taught physical education and coached girls basketball at Butler High School for several years with a good record, but recently, JCPS records indicate parents began coming forward with allegations they were hearing from their children about a relationship between Wilson and an unidentified student.
Parents and students registering for classes at Butler Monday were shocked by the allegations. “Teachers, in my perspective, are there to teach me, not to do anything more,” said Tachae Sowell, an incoming freshman at Butler.
“It’s sickening, and it’s scary too,” said Thereasa Sowell, Tachae’s grandmother.
After reviewing the complaints, JCPS spokeswoman Lauren Roberts said school officials conducted an investigation.
“We did, after reviewing records and evidence, confirm that there was indeed an improper relationship with the student,” Roberts said. “I know everyone is asking does that mean there was a sexual relationship – we were not able to verify that. But there was indeed, based on phone records, an inappropriate relationship under way between the two of them.”
And according to cell phone records, the student and Wilson exchanged more than 555 text messages and calls totaling more than 5,000 minutes from December 2008 to April 2009 – and many of those calls and texts were after midnight.
JCPS’s investigation also revealed that Wilson allegedly took the student on a ski trip to Paoli Peaks in Paoli, Indiana, and that the two reportedly spent a lot of time together after school hours.
The investigation took an unexpected twist, Roberts says, because “students were being charged $3 to not participate in some activities such as running; and then in a couple of cases, there were some students who said their grades were improved based on paying. At least 100 students were able to tell us they paid money or had knowledge of others who tried to get out of class.”
According to the investigation, school officials found over $1,000 in Wilson’s desk. Wilson said he was going to use the money to pay the basketball team’s expenses.
Students registering for Butler told us they’re relieved Wilson won’t be there this year.
“I like gym, and I don’t want a teacher looking at me that way,” Sowell said. “I don’t’ like that type of attention from an adult.”
In a statement given by Wilson to JCPS, he said that he was just being a mentor to that student.
Wilson was hired at Butler in 2003, and had no previous disciplinary problems or complaints before being fired last week.
JCPS has notified Child Protective Services about the issue.
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Thief steals wrong bag from armored guard, leaves cash behind www.privateofficer.com
Harris County sheriff’s deputies said an armed man approached the Loomis Security Company guard as he carried a money bag to the entrance of the store in the 13700 block of the East Freeway at about 9:20 a.m. Friday.
The man yanked the money bag from the guard’s hands and ran to a light-colored car, possibly a Chevrolet Malibu, investigators said.
Detectives said the money bag had just a clipboard inside. There was no cash.
The man was described as black, 17 to 25 years old, 6 feet 1 inch tall with a slim build, light complexion, large eyes and a thin beard. He was last seen wearing a navy blue shirt, jeans and a New York Yankees baseball cap.
Anyone with information is asked to call Crime Stoppers at 713-222-TIPS.
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Alabama sheriff tells Governor to send in National Guard www.privateofficer.com
Jefferson County Sheriff Mike Hale, facing a $4.1 million budget cut enacted Tuesday morning, has asked the state to help pay his deputies’ salaries or to put National Guard troops on the streets.
Just hours after a Jefferson County Circuit Court judge allowed the County Commission to cut the sheriff’s budget, Hale contacted Gov. Bob Riley to request the help. Without state aid, he wrote in a letter to Riley, his office “cannot provide the level of public safety that residents of Jefferson County deserve and expect.”
“If state funding of deputies’ salaries is not an option, then I must call upon you to activate the National Guard,” the letter to Riley said.
Hale, in an interview, said Guard troops could be sworn in as deputies and used to supplement regular patrols. It would be the first use of the National Guard in a law enforcement capacity in the county since the civil rights era, he said.
The sheriff said the budget cut likely will force him to begin laying off deputies in early September. Deputies providing security at the county courthouse, where the commission’s offices are located, will be among those to go, he said. Lt. Randy Christian, a sheriff’s office spokesman, said as many as 188 deputies and 300 civilians out of more than 700 employees may be laid off. That would leave just enough workers to staff the county’s two jails.
Hale said he spoke to Riley, who asked him for a more detailed report on the situation today. Efforts to reach Riley for comment Tuesday afternoon were not successful.
Circuit Court Judge Joseph Boohaker Tuesday morning lifted an injunction that had barred the County Commission from cutting the sheriff’s budget while the commission and the sheriff were negotiating the size of the cut. After a closed-door meeting that lasted nearly an hour, Boohaker said early Tuesday it was clear the sheriff and the commission were at an impasse.
“Further negotiations (in court) will bear no fruit. We have reached that point today,” Boohaker said.
The commission moved to slash the sheriff’s budget as part of across-the-board cuts meant to address the county’s deep financial crisis. The cuts, amounting to one-third of most departments’ budgets, were necessary because a court earlier this year ruled that the county’s occupational tax is illegal. The half-percent tax, levied on wages earned in the county, raised about $6 million a month for the county and provided about 25 percent of its general fund revenue.
The commission initially tried to cut the sheriff’s budget by $5.1 million, prompting the sheriff’s lawsuit that blocked the cut. Boohaker ruled July 16 that the $5.1 million cut was “`arbitrary and capricious” and blocked it while the two sides tried to reach a resolution. On July 28 the commission voted for the $4.1 million cut, which the court again blocked, until Tuesday.
Jim Priester, an attorney representing the County Commission, said Hale should not have tried to get favorable treatment for his department. Hale’s attorneys had argued in court that the sheriff’s office was legally entitled to preferential treatment.
“We really wish the sheriff would be a team player,” Priester said.
Hale, who said county commissioners did not respond to his repeated requests for meetings outside of the courtroom, had suggested a $2.9 million cut, but that proposal was not considered by the commission. The county sheriff is an elected official whose budget is supplied largely by the county, but he has the authority to decide how it is spent, and he does not answer to the commission
Hale said he’s already looking for alternative sources of revenue in an attempt to limit the number of layoffs that will be necessary. He’s asked members of Alabama’s congressional delegation for help in freeing up $700,000 in “ex-officio” funds collected in drug raids and other seizures.
Federal regulations bar the sheriff from using the money for salaries, so Hale has asked Rep. Spencer Bachus to determine whether rules limiting the use of the funds can be suspended, he said.
Hale said he’ll do everything within his power to keep deputies on the payroll through the end of the fiscal year, Sept. 30.
“If I have to write a check myself to the deputies, I’ll do that,” he said.
After the judge issued the ruling Tuesday morning, County Commission President Bettye Fine Collins held out hope that the state legislature could meet in a special session and pass a law reinstating the occupational tax.
“This is a bad situation for everybody,” she said.
Late Tuesday, Hale declined to speculate about the probability that Guard troops will join his deputies on patrol.
“I know the business community doesn’t want to see the National Guard patrolling,” he said. “I know the citizens don’t want to see the National Guard patrolling … It’s not my first choice. My first choice was to win in court.”
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