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Security officer shoots suspected drunk driver www.privateofficer.com
Police say that around 2:15 a.m. Sunday, the security guard was attempting to detain a male he deemed too intoxicated to drive at the Oakleaf Village Apartments on Airline near Dyna in northeast Houston.
According to police, the security guard stood in the path of the driver to try to prevent him from driving away.
The suspect put the car in gear and drove toward the security guard striking him, say police.
The security guard, say officials, discharged his pistol at the fleeing driver. The driver managed to leave the scene. It’s unclear if he was hit.
Police say the security guard did sustain a leg injury during the incident.
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GM starts selling cars on Ebay www.privateofficer.com
About 225 of California’s 250 GM dealers are set to take part in the program. They will be selling Buick, Chevrolet, GMC and Pontiac vehicles on cobranded Web sites through eBay’s online auto marketplace, eBay Motors, until Sept. 8. The cars will also be searchable through eBay Motors and eBay’s main site.
The trial is part of Detroit-based GM’s turnaround plan, making more official a practice some of its dealers had already participated in on their own. It expands an existing partnership covering GM certified used vehicles sold through eBay.
It also marks a shift for San Jose, Calif.-based eBay, since most of the vehicles sold on eBay Motors — a site that sells various types of vehicles and auto parts — have traditionally been used.
Starting Tuesday, eBay visitors will be able to visit Web pages like gm.ebay.com and chevy.ebay.com, where they can browse new 2008 and 2009 vehicles, ask dealers questions and figure out financing.
The cobranded sites will also include a Web tool currently on eBay Motors that helps shoppers determine if they’re qualified to trade in their old car for money toward a new one under the government’s just-refilled “cash-for-clunkers” stimulus program.
Car buyers will be able to choose between the two standard options currently offered on eBay Motors: Negotiating a price with a dealer through the site or purchasing right then at a fixed price. Cars will be picked up at the dealerships.
EBay Motors Vice President Rob Chesney said the companies decided to run the trial in California because there are many tech-savvy consumers there. EBay users who live outside California can contact dealers to see if they’re willing to sell and ship vehicles to them, he said.
The test comes a month after GM made an unusually quick exit from bankruptcy protection with ambitions of becoming profitable and building cars people are eager to buy. Once the world’s largest and most powerful automaker, new GM is now leaner, cleansed of massive debt and burdensome contracts that would have sunk it without additional federal loans.
GM CEO Fritz Henderson said in July that the company was working on an experiment that would let eBay users in California bid on vehicles or buy them at a fixed price. Dealers were to distribute the cars. At the time, no deal had been completed, though.
Mark LaNeve, GM’s vice president of U.S. sales, believes that getting the auto maker directly involved in new online sales will give customers a larger sense of security about buying a car on the Web. Currently, many consumers research new cars online, but most still go down to a dealer to make the actual purchase.
He’s hoping it generates more interest in GM vehicles in California — a market he said the company needs to improve in.
For eBay, the program fits in with its strategy of growing its market for goods that are still new but not necessarily the latest models. It’s also a chance to get more people interested in making new, large purchases on a site whose past is steeped in the sale of hard-to-find collectibles. The sale of used cars on eBay is already proof that consumers are getting more and more comfortable buying higher-priced items online, Chesney said.
“New cars are like the next frontier of that,” he said.
The companies would not give financial details of the deal, but GM spokesman John McDonald said it is an arrangement that they think will be profitable for both firms.
If the companies feel the trial is successful, they want to expand it across the country. Lorrie Norrington, president of eBay marketplaces, said eBay may eventually try doing the same thing with other auto makers, too.
Inder Dosanjh, a Dublin, Calif.-based dealer who owns four GM dealerships and currently sells used cars on eBay, said the program shows GM is trying to step outside the box and find new ways to sell cars. He plans to list all his new inventory on eBay this week.
“I think they should have done this a long time ago,” he said.
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250 Injured in Chino prison riots www.privateofficer.com
Fifty-five inmates were taken to area hospitals with serious injuries, said Lt. Mark Hargrove, prison spokesman.
None of the facility’s employees was hurt in the melee, which broke out at about 8:20 p.m. Saturday at the Reception Center West facility, Hargrove said. Guards used pepper spray, “less lethal force, and lethal force options” to regain control by 7 a.m. Sunday, he said.
The scene of the violence was the medium-security housing facility with seven units, each of which houses about 200 inmates, he said.
Some 80 officers responded to the riot, during which a housing unit was heavily damaged by fire, he said.
The institution was placed on lockdown pending an investigation into the cause of the fighting, and visiting privileges were suspended.
Hargrove said several other prisons in southern California were placed on lockdown as a result of the riot at the Chino facility and the possible need of reallocating prison staff to Chino.
Aref Fakhoury, acting warden for the California Institution for Men, said police departments from the cities of Chino, Chino Hills and Ontario, and the Chino Valley Independent Fire District aided in quelling the violence.
The inmates’ injuries ranged from stab wounds and slashes to head trauma, Hargrove said. Some were considered life-threatening.
Hargrove said inmates used “weapons of opportunity,” such as broken glass during the riot.
Images taken from the scene showed flames coming from the building as a helicopter hovered overhead.
A similar riot broke out in December of 2006, Hargrove said.
Chino is located about 35 miles east of Los Angeles.
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Florida inmates make-sell Hot Sauce www.privateofficer.com
They came up with the recipe and started selling it in 2005. Since then, horticulture instructor Allen Boatman estimates they’ve made $10,000 on the sauce. Each bottle is $7.
The income is used to keep up the greenhouse and buy basic supplies.
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Off-duty campus officer pursues wrong-way driver www.privateofficer.com
An off-duty campus police officer on his way to work Sunday morning chased down a wrong-way driver on I-85, forcing him to the side of the road after the driver had already caused one minor accident.
UNC Charlotte Officer Alan Bridges, 25, said he quickly weighed the consequences before deciding to turn his Nissan Altima around to pursue the driver the wrong way on the interstate in Rowan County near China Grove.
“I would rather have done something and gotten in trouble, than done nothing and had someone get hurt,” Bridges said. “To me, it was worth it.”
There was little traffic at 5:40 a.m. when Bridges, driving south toward Charlotte, was almost hit by a black Honda Accord heading the wrong way. He phoned the N.C. Highway Patrol, as he turned to follow, and remained in touch with the dispatcher throughout the incident.
As the two cars both drove in the wrong direction at about 60 mph, the driver would only honk his irritation at the off-duty officer – who did not have blue lights or a siren on his car to help him deliver his desperate message.
Bridges pulled in front of the driver, waved at him and tried to signal him to pull over. Then, he saw two sets of headlights, side-by-side, coming toward them on the two-lane stretch of I-85. Not wanting to add to the already-harrowing situation, Bridges said he pulled back behind the suspect and slowed down, hoping the driver would see the oncoming cars and pull out of the way.
But he didn’t. And the two oncoming cars hit each other as they swerved, trying to squeeze into one lane.
Even after the accident, the driver continued on his way north, seemingly unaware, Bridges said. The officer decided to risk causing another accident to get the driver to pull over. Bridges pulled in front with his hazard lights activated, then slowed to the point that the driver had to pull over. “I kind of boxed him in,” Bridges said.
The entire pursuit went on for at least a mile.
The wrong-way driver was arrested, but Rowan County authorities refused to release his name and charges. An official at the jail said the driver made bond and was released. Officials at the Highway Patrol, which handled the investigation, could not be reached for detailed comment but confirmed the general events of the incident.
After successfully stopping him, Bridges and the driver waited for the Highway Patrol to arrive.
“He was very apologetic. He didn’t even know he was on the wrong side of the road,” Bridges said. “It was just good that no one got hurt.”
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Private police not going over well in U.K.
The full extent of moves to hand police powers to civilians – including issuing on-the-spot fines, giving lawful orders to the public and accessing confidential information – is revealed today following an EDP investigation.
Norfolk police top brass and the security firms involved say that the Home Office scheme which sees selected and carefully vetted individuals handed limited police powers will make our streets safer by “extending the police family”.
But members of the rank-and-file and magistrates fear it could lead to the dilution of traditional policing – and even the creation of third-tier “private police forces”.
Accredited individuals are able to deal with low-level anti-social behaviour and direct traffic. They can be called upon to guard crime scenes and are considering hiring out their services to carry out routine patrols in high streets. It is a criminal offence to disobey them.
However, they can only use their powers on the premises of the businesses that hire them – not to protect the wider community.
David Benfield, general secretary of the Norfolk Police Federation, said: “The natural inference is that those who can afford to pay will receive a better service than those who can’t.
“There are also issues around accountability, safety and data protection. Has this been properly investigated or is this another attempt at cost cutting by a government clearly worried about the funding of policing?
“Do they want a professional police service or do they want a wider police family which will not necessarily provide the same service?”
There are currently 50 people in Norfolk who have been given the powers, mainly security and housing staff. This is expected to rise by the end of the year. Nationally there are more than 1,400 – roughly the size of an average police force.
The scheme is also in operation in Suffolk, where street wardens, park rangers and security staff have been accredited, and Cambridgeshire, where accredited security guards run the campus at Addenbrooke’s Hospital.
Chairman of Norwich magistrates Paul Allen said: “The biggest problem is that the public simply don’t know about it. Why would somebody obey a lawful order from a security guard when they don’t understand that they are accredited by the police?”
The scheme sees privately employed workers, mainly security and housing staff, carry police identification and wear Home Office approved badges. Their employers pay an annual subscription to Norfolk police for the privilege. They cannot arrest suspects but powers include:
Norfolk police has an agreement with Norwich-based security firm EventGuard to protect crime scenes during major investigations such as murders in order to free-up officers for other duties.
EventGuard managing director Nigel Briggs said the firm was looking to further extend its role and is in discussion with high street retailers to provide routine city centre patrols on a contract basis.
He added: “We can be the eyes and ears of the police and be places where it is not always possible for them to be.
“But we are constantly looking for new ways in which we can use our police powers and, as a business, it’s a great selling point.”
Full details of the scheme have come to light after the EDP highlighted magistrates’ concerns over the use of fixed penalty notices. Since then the 30,000-strong magistrates association has hit out at the scheme.
John Howson, deputy chairman, said: “Our concern is that here we have essentially a ‘third-tier’ police force that is now including security guards and door supervisors. These people need to check the Police National Computer to see if the person has a criminal record. We don’t think it appropriate for these people to have that access.”
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Man arrested after holding up K-Mart with greeting card www.privateofficer.com
Police said Davis walked into the Kmart on Madison Street this past weekend and handed a clerk a greeting card on which he wrote that he wanted drugs and would start shooting if anyone said a word.
He escaped before police arrived.
Early Monday morning, police arrested Christopher Davis. They found the 19-year-old hiding in a shed on Gratton Road.
He is being held at the Montgomery County detention center.
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