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Baltimore officer pulls gun on haunted house employee www.privateofficer.com
Sgt. Eric Janik, 37, was charged with assault and reckless endangerment for pointing his service handgun at the worker, who was dressed as Leatherface, the killer from “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre,” Baltimore County police said.
The employee, Mike Morrison, followed Janik and several other people up a staircase Sunday night at the end of the haunted house tour in a bid to get “one last scream” out of them, police said.
When the group exited into a parking lot, Janik pulled his gun and pointed it at Morrison from less than 10 feet away, according to police and Morrison, who said he dropped the chain saw, put his hands up and backed away. The saw had no chain.
Only then did Janik identify himself as a police officer, said Morrison, who retreated into the building.
“I started shaking pretty bad,” he told The Associated Press.
Another employee of the House of Screams called police.
According to charging documents, Janik smelled of alcohol and told police two different stories about what he did with the gun. First, he denied drawing the weapon, but later he said he pointed it at the ground.
Morrison and two other witnesses told police that Janik pointed the gun at Morrison’s chest.
Janik had no listed number and a voice mail for his attorney, Shaun Owens, was not immediately returned.
A security guard had been following Janik’s group, which included his 9-year-old daughter, through the haunted house because Janik appeared to be drunk when he arrived, House of Screams owner Tony Sapanero said.
Morrison said Janik’s daughter appeared to be disturbed by his act, in which he pretends to cut one woman in half and disembowel another with the chain saw.
Janik was suspended with pay after police commanders learned of what happened and could be without pay after a hearing Tuesday morning, city police spokesman Anthony Guglielmi said.
City police officers are required to carry their service weapons while off duty within city limits and can carry them at their own discretion outside the city, Guglielmi said.
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Anaheim substitute teacher arrested for having sex with student www.privateofficer.com
An Anaheim substitute teacher has been arrested on charges of having sex with an underage student, police said today.
Marc Silberman, 27, was arrested Saturday night after a Savanna High School student told police that she had sexual contact with Silberman two days earlier, according to the Anaheim Police Department.
The girl told investigators that she had met Silberman when he was teaching at the high school, police said. Police declined to release the girl’s age.
Silberman, an Anaheim resident, was booked on charges of sexual penetration with a foreign object and child annoyance, police said.
Anyone with information is asked to call investigators at (714) 765-1623.
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Police charge man in murder of UCONN student www.privateofficer.com
Two others also were charged in the fight that led to the death of 20-year-old Jasper Howard, of Miami.
John William Lomax III, 21, of Bloomfield, was arrested Tuesday morning and charged with murder, police said. His bond was set at $2 million.
Police would not discuss evidence or a motive during a news conference Tuesday. More than 40 investigators conducted more than 200 interviews and “have not stopped working,” UConn police chief Robert Hudd said.
Police charged Hakim Muhammad, 20, of Bloomfield, with conspiracy to commit assault and Jamal Todd, 21, of Hartford with pulling a fire alarm that emptied the dance early Oct. 18, triggering the fight.
Lomax, who is not a UConn student and lives 30 miles from campus, wasn’t present when the argument started and doesn’t know what it was about, but tried to break up the fight, said his attorney, Deron Freeman.
“He was just partying,” Freeman said. “Often people from out of town go to the UConn campus to party.”
Freeman said he was first told that Lomax would be charged in connection with the fight, but not with murder.
“I’m surprised,” Freeman said. “I’m curious to find out what evidence they had to secure an arrest warrant for murder. … From all the evidence I’ve heard, he was not involved in the stabbing.”
Howard, a starting cornerback whose nickname was Jazz, was stabbed outside a university-sanctioned dance, hours after helping his team to a homecoming game win over Louisville.
The entire UConn team attended his funeral Monday in Miami, where Howard was eulogized by coach Randy Edsall as “the ultimate son, he was the ultimate brother. He was the ultimate teammate. He was the ultimate friend. They didn’t come any better than Jazz.”
UConn football players said they were happy that an arrest was made, but that it was of little comfort.
“It is a little closure, but the reality is my teammate’s still not here with us,” said running back Jordan Todman.
An athletics department spokesman said Edsall did not plan to make any public statements on the arrests Tuesday.
Lomax has had a full-time job in the information technology field for the past two years and is a graduate of Bloomfield High School, Freeman said.
A fourth man, Johnny Hood, 21, of Hartford, was arrested last week and faces charges of breach of peace and interfering with police but also is not charged in the killing
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Missing animal control officer found safe www.privateofficer.com
Police say Wanda Jefferies, 52, was being treated at Grady Memorial Hospital. Police did not specify the type of treatment.
Jefferies was last seen Saturday at about 3 p.m. in the 1400 block of Sharon Street.
Authorities said they located Jefferies’ animal control truck on Lindsay Street shortly after 1 a.m. Sunday in northwest Atlanta, but there was no sign of Jefferies at the time. Police said Jefferies’ personal vehicle, a 2001 red Ford Focus, was also missing.
“She put a call into her supervisor and then left,” said Tracey Hill. Hill lives in the neighborhood and said he didn’t notice anything suspicious. “A supervisor later came, but couldn’t find the officer.”
A co-worker, who didn’t want to be identified, told the News that Jefferies has worked for Fulton County Animal Control for about a year and describes her as “a good person.”
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Samford University officer run down by shoplifter www.privateofficer.com
Just after 3pm Monday the pair were caught shoplifting inside the campus bookstore.
When confronted the men turned tail and fled to their car.
While trying to make a clean getaway the suspects hit a Samford security officer.
The officer managed to shoot out one of the cars tires and within minutes both men were taken into custody.
Campus Police Chief Mike Coppage says the suspects made some poor choices. “They were basically looking at a theft of property, but now it could be attempted murder fleeing the scene of a traffic accident with injuries and their in some serious trouble right now.”
Because both men were apprehended so quickly, the campus was never placed on lock down.
The injured security officer was taken to UAB hospital, his injuries are not considered serious.
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Detroit-Where private security is booming www.privateofficer.com
Shortly before noon on a recent Monday, T.J. Cooper sat in his red pickup, showing off his digital camera. He clicked through pictures he had taken a few weeks earlier of a man driving a truck full of radiators stolen from a vacant home here in Indian Village, one of Detroit’s last middle-class neighborhoods. No one, Cooper notes wryly, likes having his picture taken. “They try to hide their face. Or break your camera. Or,” he says, driving up a tree-lined street, “break you.” Minutes later, Cooper passes the same man, in the same truck, apparently scoping out another house.
Cooper, 29, is a private-security detective, one of many who patrol once prosperous enclaves like Palmer Woods, Boston-Edison and Indian Village. With the city’s police force cut more than 25%, private security appears to be one of Detroit’s few growth industries. Local precincts are overwhelmed with shootings and other violent crime, leaving companies that supply home protection with long customer waiting lists. “People put a premium on security when unemployment and crime go up,” says Larry Dusing, founder of Dusing Security & Surveillance, which has expanded into three neighborhoods.
Crime weighs heavily on the minds of Detroit’s middle class, although it’s an issue few residents want to discuss. In some neighborhoods, armed guards stand watch outside houses of worship; in September a pastor shot a man trying to rob his church. In others, street barricades have been set up to help deter potential thieves.
A short, plump Michigan native, Cooper worked in store security before joining Dusing about eight years ago. Now he manages Dusing’s patrols, driving around Indian Village in his truck with an orange light bar on the top. He wears a black baseball cap reading security and a bulletproof vest but travels unarmed, partly for liability reasons. He keeps his camera, equipped with a massive telephoto lens, near his lap.
An Indian Village security guard’s job is much like that of any cop on the beat. That afternoon Cooper investigated a report of suspicious activity from one of the neighborhood’s few markets. (The suspects, sitting in a brown minivan, turned out to be selling state-issued cards used to buy food.) He continued his patrol, eyeing the men walking up and down the street. “If you notice a guy stopping and staring” at a house, Cooper says, “he’s obviously up to no good.” Especially suspicious are people who walk up to homes and stuff flyers into doors. Sometimes they are testing to see whether a door is unlocked or are casing the property for valuables. “A lot of times we’ll see the same car come back three or four times in a single shift.”
(See more on TIME’s Detroit blog.)
The community of Indian Village hired Dusing in 2003, after a rash of property crimes. An estimated 15% of the neighborhood’s homes are foreclosed, a result of the national real estate crisis, which has hit Detroit particularly hard. Vacant homes are an open invitation to burglars and vandals. Neighbors install motion sensors and curtains in them and maintain the lawns to make the properties appear occupied.
Members of the Historic Indian Village Association, a local residents’ group, share the cost of private security — about $30 per household each month. Association president Doug Way, 42, moved to Detroit with his wife seven years ago and fell in love with Indian Village’s 19th century manors, built for the city’s emerging industrial barons. Footing the bill for private security is almost like paying an extra tax, he acknowledges, but it’s worth the cost. The median sale price of homes in Detroit has plunged from $59,700 in August 2005 to $8,000 just two months ago. “You could argue that one reason the homes are less expensive in the city is the level of services isn’t as high,” he says. “If there’s some way we can make this a better place to live, these homes will actually be worth a lot more in the long term.”
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NJ man kills 2yr old daughter, self www.privateofficer.com
Eric Banks was alone with his daughter, Enalla Banks, Sunday night inside the Camden apartment when the girl’s mother returned at about 8:45 p.m. and found the door locked and heard Banks screaming inside, according to a statement by Jason Laughlin, spokesman for the Camden County Prosecutors’ Office.
The mother brought relatives to the apartment and for several minutes they tried to talk with Banks through the door but his responses were incoherent, Laughlin said. Minutes later the mother called 911 and along with a building security guard and family members she tried breaking into the apartment.
When they managed to break into the apartment they found Enalla lying on the floor with her throat slashed and a fire in the kitchen, Laughlin said. The girl was rushed out the apartment by family and later pronounced dead at Cooper University Hospital.
After Camden fire officials extinguished the blaze they found Banks body, Laughlin said. He had cut his own throat and was burnt from the fire.
It is unclear at what point during the incident Banks committed suicide, Laughlin said.
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Serial mall thief nabbed by security www.privateofficer.com
About 10:15 a.m. Thursday, a Southland Mall security guard noticed a van parked in the fire lane outside the Macy’s department store. Less than a minute later, a man dashed out the store’s doors carrying a load of jeans in his arms.
The guard chased the thief, who dropped the clothing and ran a few hundred yards to a pharmacy. Hayward police joined the guard and arrested 38-year-old Roderick McGill, 38, of Oakland, without incident.
Hayward police Sgt. Steve Brown said there have been eight similar thefts from the Southland Macy’s since Aug. 19.
“The (method of operation) is the same,” Brown said. “(The thief) parks in a fire zone and leaves the driver’s door open. Within minutes, he grabs as much as possible with both arms and is out of the store and off to the races.”
Brown said that on Thursday, the thief was carrying eight to 10 pairs of Levi’s worth about $400.
He said they believe the man may have struck in similar fashion at stores in nearby cities.
“I would say Bay Fair, Fremont, any place with a mall,” Brown said.
McGill faces charges of burglary, grand theft and being under the influence of a controlled substance. The vehicle involved is a bronze 1990 Chrysler Town and Country minivan with license plate number 4FLJ414.
Anyone with information about similar crimes may call police at 510-293-7000 .
