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Investigator kills himself at Mobile County Sheriff HQ www.privateofficer.com
Sheriff Sam Cochran said the sergeant “became very distraught” about 3 p.m. and barricaded himself inside a workroom in the back of Sheriff’s Office headquarters on S. Royal Street.
When fellow employees spotted the sergeant, armed with his service weapon, they called for help — and soon negotiators were on the other side of the workroom door talking to the man, Cochran said.
More than 80 employees were ushered away from the room and the building was placed under lockdown as the negotiators talked to the sergeant for an hour and 40 minutes, Cochran said.
“But we could not convince him to surrender his weapon,” Cochran said.
At 4:40 p.m., the sergeant fired a single shot, killing himself. He was pronounced dead at the scene.
Sheriff’s Office spokesman Maj. Chad Tucker said the 51-year-old sergeant worked as an investigator with the department for several years. He declined to say what had upset the man, saying only “we are still looking into everything, and all we can say now is that he was obviously very distraught.”
The sergeant’s name was withheld Tuesday night because his family had yet to be notified.
“He was very well-liked and respected,” Cochran said.
The shooting remained under investigation Tuesday, Cochran said, in part because “we certainly want to know if there’s anything we could have done to change the outcome.”
Two charged with cooking dope in hotel room www.privateofficer.com
Wednesday, October 21, 2009
Following a lead, police staked out the motel Saturday and waited for Jermaine Marisett to leave. Police pulled him over on a traffic stop and found cocaine in the vehicle. When they went back to the hotel with a search warrant, police found 56 grams of crack cocaine, 8 grams of powder cocaine and marijuana inside Marisett’s room.
Marisett was charged with Possession of Marijuana and Trafficking Cocaine. Taquita Woodson was charged with Possession of Marijuana, Possession of a Controlled Substance, and Trafficking Cocaine.
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Security officer injured in bus accident www.privateofficer.com
The crash happened Saturday on Central Avenue at the I-25 overpass. Surveillance video on the bus first broadcast on Eyewitness News 4 has now been seen around the country. It shows passengers and security guard Christian Moore being tossed around inside the bus at the moment of impact.
Luckily, no one was seriously injured.
On Sunday, Moore was back to work providing security on city buses and talked about the experience.
“I was by the back doors standing and I just felt the first impact and I kind of braced myself to hold on,” said Moore. “The second impact came that I felt and I just kind of flew forward.”
It’s the nature of Moore’s job to protect passengers on city buses, but Saturday’s crash was something he wasn’t expecting during his shift.
“Just bracing for impact, knowing that we were going to hit it,” he said.
Police say a car turned left in front of the bus headed westbound on Central Avenue. It was too late for the bus’ driver, Albert Sandoval, to stop the 30 ton vehicle in time.
“I was hoping it would stop. I was pressing the brake and it just kept going like in slow motion,” said Sandoval.
The bus slammed into the car and kept going until the whole mess smashed into the interstate overpass.
“When I felt the first impact I was kind of just waiting to stop and when I was looking out the windshield and realizing we weren’t going to stop, the pillar [of the overpass] was coming closer and closer, and that’s when I held on tighter and tighter, getting ready for it,” said Moore.
Remarkably, most of the injuries were minor.
“Sore. I’m a little sore,” said Moore. “My wrist hurts a little bit and I think that’s just from gripping the bar and the being forced to let go, and then my back [hurts] from landing on my back.”
A man near Moore was thrown into a pole on the bus during the crash.
“He right away started letting me know that his jaw was hurting,” said Moore. “I didn’t know what happened. I thought maybe I accidentally kicked him when I was flying.”
Moore says he’s thankful no one was badly hurt, including the driver of the car.
“[The car was] pretty mangled. To tell you the truth, I was really surprised to hear him talking to us. When he told us his name it was kind of like, ‘Oh, thank you,’” said Moore.
Police say the driver of the car was at fault for running a light. He was taken to a nearby hospital with injuries. It took rescue crews two hours to pull him out of the wreck.
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TSA agent nabbed in laptop computer thefts www.privateofficer.com
Troy Davis was an officer with the Transportation Security Administration at Philadelphia International Airport.
Authorities say a baggage handler spotted Davis removing a laptop from a suitcase on March 31 and hiding it behind an explosive-detection machine.
The baggage handler notified supervisors, who discovered four laptops and a game console hidden behind the machine.
Davis, a 36-year-old from Willingboro, N.J., pleaded guilty Monday to theft charges in federal court. He is scheduled to be sentenced Jan. 19.
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Police charge man being disorderly at MD. mall www.privateofficer.com
Salisbury police say that on Saturday, Oct. 17 at around 6:15 p.m., officers responded to a report of a disorderly person in the food court of the mall. Police say that upon arrival, officers met with members of mall security who pointed out the suspect who was drinking alcohol and acting in a disorderly fashion.
Police say the suspect, identified as 35-year-old Michael Andrew Hodges of Hebron, refused the officers’ requests to leave the mall and was arrested. Police say that as he was taken into custody, Hodges assaulted the two arresting officers.
Hodges was charged with two counts of second-degree assault, disorderly conduct and failure to obey a lawful order. He was turned over to the custody of Wicomico Central Booking.
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Burglary suspect escapes security at airport www.privateofficer.com
The suspect, wanted on burglary charges, was identified by airport security as he tried to board a Greyhound bus departing from the airport.
He fled on foot when officers pursued him, leading a chase through the airport terminal. Officers lost sight of him in the parking lot, they said.
City and county police were called to assist, and used two canines and high-beam lights to search the airport and surrounding area for about an hour.
As of The Tribune’s deadline, they had not found the suspect, believed to be armed.
The airport stayed open during the search.
Airport security received a tip from South Bend police about the suspect earlier Monday.
With trains, buses and airplanes leaving daily from the airport, security officers are often called by police to look for suspects, said Lt. Carl Stopczynski with airport security.
“We get calls a lot about so-and-so leaving town,” he said.
But the tips are usually inaccurate and rarely lead to a chase through the terminal,
Stopczynski said.
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Joyce Meyer Ministries sued in murder case www.privateofficer.com
Jack Carey, a lawyer representing the relatives of Sheri Coleman, filed an addition Monday to a lawsuit against Joyce Meyer Ministries, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported Tuesday. Carey said the ministries might have been able to prevent the killings.
Christopher Coleman, who worked as security manager for the Ministries, has been charged with three counts of first-degree murder. He allegedly strangled Sheri Coleman, 31, and their sons, Garett, 11, and Gavin, 9, May 5.
Previously, the Ministries was only a respondent-in-discovery, the newspaper said, which allowed lawyers for the plaintiffs to get information.
Coleman allegedly sent threats to himself and the Ministries before the killings in an effort to cast suspicion on someone with a grudge. The lawsuit says the Ministries did not report the threats to police, something its officials deny.
While it is not part of the lawsuit, Carey told the Post-Dispatch Coleman’s employer also knew he was having an affair, which he pursued during business trips.
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Akron Ohio mayor says he was “Set-Up” on traffic stop www.privateofficer.com
The mayor of Akron said a 911 call reporting him for erratic driving over the weekend was orchestrated for political purposes.
In a statement released Monday, Mayor Don Plusquellic said an Akron firefighter and his girlfriend set him up, following him from a restaurant and then dialing 911 to report him to police.
Plusquellic said he was celebrating an Akron police officer’s birthday at the restaurant Saturday night and was on his way home when a police officer stopped him on West Market Street.
Plusquellic said the officer approached his car and told him about the 911 call, and after asking him several questions, the officer decided not to take any further action and let Plusquellic go.
The mayor said the firefighter and his girlfriend took video footage of Plusquellic at the restaurant before placing the 911 call, apparently before they even observed Plusquellic driving.
Plusquellic said the police officer handled the situation properly and responsibly.
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OnStar helps police end pursuit www.privateofficer.com
When two Visalia, Calif., police officers swung their cruisers behind a sport utility vehicle that had been carjacked at gunpoint early Sunday, they prepared for a dangerous high-speed chase.
The 2009 Chevrolet Tahoe roared away with officers in pursuit, but shortly after the suspect made a right turn, operators at General Motors Co.’s OnStar service sent a command that electronically disabled the gas pedal and the SUV gradually came to a halt.
The flustered thief got out and ran, but was quickly nabbed after he climbed several fences and fell into a backyard swimming pool, police said.
It was the first time since OnStar began offering the service in the 2009 model year that it was used to end a chase that could otherwise have had dire consequences.
“He wouldn’t have pulled over if OnStar hadn’t have shut the vehicle down,” said Visalia Police Sgt. Steve Phillips. “Generally pursuits end in a collision.”
The whole thing began when Jose Ruiz, 33, of nearby Lindsay, Calif., was sitting in his Tahoe in a lighted parking lot about 3 a.m. Sunday while his cousin was talking on a cell phone in the passenger seat. Out of the corner of his eye, Ruiz saw a man walking toward him.
“He already had a gun out,” Ruiz said Monday.
The man pointed a sawed-off shotgun at Ruiz and ordered both men to get out of the Tahoe and empty their pockets. Ruiz’s cousin at first refused, but Ruiz told him to obey, knowing that OnStar could find the stolen truck with a global positioning system.
“I was afraid he was going to shoot my cousin. My cousin was arguing with him,” Ruiz recalled.
The cousin relented and the man sped off in the truck. Ruiz then sprinted for a nearby pay telephone to call police, but ran into a sheriff’s deputy on her break who notified Visalia police.
Officers quickly contacted OnStar and got Ruiz’s permission to find the vehicle. Police spotted it a few miles away, but as officers made a U-turn to pursue it, the Tahoe sped off at a high speed, Phillips said.
The suspect made a turn, and police dispatchers told the pursuing officers that OnStar was about to disable the Tahoe. It then rolled to a halt, and the robber was quickly captured.
The 21-year-old suspect was jailed and faces preliminary charges of robbery, carjacking, possession of stolen property and resisting arrest.
OnStar President Walt Dorfstatter said it took only 16 minutes from the time OnStar was notified for the vehicle to be stopped.
Visalia Police Chief Colleen Mestas said the new technology kept officers, other motorists and even the suspect out of a dangerous chase.
“Considering the violent crime that this suspect was wanted for, I was just amazed,” she said.
Police chases often end in death, many times for the people in the pursued vehicles, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. Last year, 334 people were killed nationwide in crashes that stemmed from police pursuits, including five police officers, 235 people in the chased vehicles and 77 who were in cars or trucks not involved in the chases.
Ruiz said police returned his Tahoe, cell phone and wallet to him that night. The only thing they didn’t get back was some cash taken from his cousin.
The stolen vehicle slowdown feature isn’t offered on all GM vehicles yet, but the company hopes to expand it to the entire lineup as models are updated. For 2010, the feature is on 18 of the 30 models equipped with OnStar, a communication service that also can give directions or call for help if a car is in a crash. Dorfstatter said it will take several years for all GM models to get the feature.
Mestas, whose city is about 50 miles southeast of Fresno, hopes that both technology like OnStar and more police aircraft can minimize the dangers of chases.
“It would be nice to have a day in law enforcement that you didn’t have to actively pursue suspects at high speeds,” she said.
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Florida deputies kill wild boar near festival www.privateofficer.com
Police in Pinellas Park, Fla., said they shot and killed a 200-pound wild boar after the animal was spotted near a local church festival.
Officers fatally shot the large animal Sunday evening after determining the boar posed a potential threat to residents and motorists, the St. Petersburg (Fla.) Times reported.
The decision came after animal control officers and a Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Tampa Bay representative failed to subdue the animal, police said in a release.
Following the shooting near a Sacred Heart Catholic Church festival, the boar was taken to an SPCA site for disposal.
The Times said Sunday’s shooting marked the second time in six months that a wild boar posed a public threat in Pinellas County, Fla.
The latest incident comes months after a woman in St. Petersburg was attacked by a huge wild boar.
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Former NFL player charged with murder www.privateofficer.com
St. Tammany deputies arrested former NFL player Terreal Bierria for the murder of Soron Salter.
“We know that drugs was involved,” St. Tammany Parish Sheriff Jack Strain said Tuesday. “We believe that the altercation began over the drugs. We think that was the first blow was from what we believe was a knife.”
Roughly 20 minutes after the murder, detectives said, Bierria checked himself in to the emergency room at North Shore Hospital, with lacerations to his arms and hands. Hospital staff then notified police.
Bierria is charged with first-degree murder. He’s being held in the St. Tammany Parish Jail without bond.
Bierria and Salter were childhood friends, investigators said, and played football together at Salmen High School. Bierria went from Salmen to the University of Georgia, then played two seasons as a defensive back with the Seattle Seahawks, in 2002 and 2004.
“We have seen nothing to indicate that their past behavior would have led to yesterday’s events,” Strain added. “So there was nothing in their history we should have recognized, or someone should have known that would have caused this to happen.”
Deputies said, Bierria has refused to speak to them about his role in Salter’s death. Investigators said Tuesday, they do not believe anyone else was involved in Salter’s death, but they said, the investigation is on-going.
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