Archive
Grove City officer guilty of exposing self at store www.privateofficer.com
Officer Steven Howard, a member of the Grove City Police Department for 25 years, pleaded guilty to exposing himself inside a Columbus Kohl’s store in July.
The police department relieved him of his duties, 10TV News reported.
Howard was in charge of managing the Youth Services Bureau, but did not have direct contact with children, police said.
He received a 60-day jail sentence for the exposure charge and must attend counseling, 10TV News reported.
Macy’s security officer cut during brawl www.privateofficer.com
By: Brett Davis/Staff
PRIVATE OFFICER NEWS
http://www.privateofficer.com/
During the brawl, the men slammed into a set of mannequins, breaking at least one of them. Harden then cut 60-year-old security guard Joseph Boyce’s hand with the dummy part after Boyce tried to break up the melee.
Both Hardin and McCoy where charged with felony assault, with Hardin being released on a $3,000 bond and McCoy being released with no bail, according to The Post.
The two will next appear in New York Criminal Court on March 12th for a hearing on the felony charges, according to the New York District Attorney’s Office.
Navy dogs die because of contractor neglect www.privateofficer.com
AP Report — The Navy says that three dogs died and dozens more were in poor health after being neglected by a private security contractor in Chicago that had been hired to train the dogs to detect explosives.
A team of military handlers discovered the dogs last October at a facility run by Securitas Security Services USA after the Navy terminated a $7.5 million contract.
Navy spokesman Capt. William Fenick said that of the 49 dogs discovered, two were dead and the rest were in poor health. Another dog died soon after being recovered.
Securitas Security Services did not immediately provide comment.
The incident was first reported by The Virginian-Pilot, which says it obtained a picture of one of the rescued dogs, whose rib cage and hip bones were protruding.
The discovery is the latest in a string of contracting woes for the Defense Department. Lawmakers and government watchdog groups say they are concerned that the military is relying too heavily on outside vendors to do many of the jobs that should be handled internally.
In December 2008, the Navy signed a $350 million contract with Lockheed Martin Corp. to help guard its installations. The five-year contract included $7.5 million for 49 highly specialized K-9 units to sniff out explosives. To meet the K-9 requirement, Lockheed in turn hired Securitas Security Services, headquartered in Parsippany, N.J.
But after the dogs failed to demonstrate they could perform as promised, the Navy canceled the contract in July, Fenick said. The team of handlers were sent three months later to pick up the dogs from the Securitas’ dog-training facility near Chicago.
Fenick declined to say how much the Navy had already paid Lockheed under the agreement, saying that the contract details are under review.
The state of Illinois is conducting a separate investigation into the allegations.
Fenick said that of the 46 dogs that survived, eight were adopted privately and the rest were deployed at various Navy installations after having completed training.
Burbank police charge teacher after student encounters www.privateofficer.com
The 33-year-old English and social science teacher was booked on suspicion of lewd or lascivious acts with a child of 14 or 15 years and was held on $400,000 bail, Burbank police Sgt. Robert Quesada said to CBS affiliate KCAL.
“She said she had sexual relations with one of her students,” Quesada said.
Police interviewed the boy “and confirmed that the acts did occur” between March and September of 2009.
Burbank police spokesman Keith Sterling told The Associated Press the boy was 14 at the time.
Beck is scheduled to be arraigned Wednesday on four counts of unlawful sex with a person under 16, and one count of oral copulation with a person under 16, according to Contra Costa Times.
Prosecutors say the married mother of three faces up to seven years in prison if convicted of all charges.
Anyone with information on the case was urged to call Burbank police Detective Wally Schilling at (818) 238-3254
Lifelock Inc to pay $12 million to settle FTC claims www.privateofficer.com
The FTC said on Tuesday the settlement bars LifeLock and its principals from making “deceptive claims” and requires the Tempe, Arizona-based company to take “more stringent measures” to safeguard the personal information of customers.
The FTC said LifeLock has advertised since 2006 that it could stop identity theft for consumers who buy its $10 per month service. But it said the company’s fraud alerts did not protect customers from misuse of existing accounts, the most common form of the crime.
Todd Davis, LifeLock’s chief executive, has been known for putting his Social Security number in ads to show confidence in his service. Such numbers are normally coveted by thieves who use them to illegally obtain loans or make purchases.
“While LifeLock promised consumers complete protection against all types of identity theft, in truth, the protection it actually provided left enough holes that you could drive a truck through,” FTC Chairman Jon Leibowitz said in a statement.
Under the settlement, LifeLock cannot misrepresent that its service provides “complete protection against all forms of identity theft by making customers’ personal information useless to identity thieves.”
In an interview, Davis said “we don’t agree with the FTC’s interpretation” of the ads, saying LifeLock and the FTC “had differing views about how the company in the past should have sounded the alarm about the rapid increase in identity theft.”
He said LifeLock began a new ad campaign nearly a year ago that “clarifies better what our service provides and what consumers should expect” and that many parts of the FTC action “no longer reflect our current practices.”
Davis said he was happy to resolve the matter.
According to Javelin Strategy & Research, 11.1 million Americans were victims of identity fraud in 2009, up 12 percent from a year earlier. The total fraud amount rose more than 12 percent to $54 billion, it said.
The FTC said $11 million of the settlement will be used for customer refunds. The rest will go to the office of Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan for distribution to the states.
Alaska, Arizona, California, Delaware, Florida, Hawaii, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Missouri, Mississippi, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Vermont, Virginia, Washington and West Virginia participated in the settlement, the FTC said.
Davis said he no longer puts his Social Security number in LifeLock ads. He said the number was breached once, when it was used in 2007 to obtain a $500 payday loan. LifeLock has more than 1.5 million customers, he said.
The case is FTC v. LifeLock Inc, U.S. District Court, District of Arizona, No. 10-00530.
Police charge man with murder of bank guard www.privateofficer.com
Eric Rose, whose last known address was in the 1000 block of 33rd St., was taken into custody Tuesday by members of the Warrant Apprehension Task Force on a warrant charging him with murder, police said.
Police said the victim, James E. Ball Sr., 38, tried to quell a dispute over a woman between two men who had left a nightclub.
Relatives and friends of the victim first learned of the arrest from a reporter. “This is a relief,” said Ball’s brother, Austin, speaking from the family home in northwestern Baltimore County. He said he never heard of the suspect named by police and that Ball’s family is doing as well as could be expected.
“We’re just trying to take one day at a time,” he said.
Ball’s 70-year-old mother, Sarah, said an arrest doesn’t bring her son back, but she added, “It helps. We’re just living day by day.”
On Feb. 20, Ball, a father of two, was working his second job of the day as a security guard outside the Bank of America building at 10 Light St. near the Inner Harbor. About 2 a.m., a man and his girlfriend walked by. The woman went to the couple’s car; the man paused to chat with Ball, who was a friend.
Police said a group of men approached the car and made unwanted advances toward the woman. Ball and his friend intervened. One man in the group pulled out a handgun and fired nine times, aiming at Ball’s friend, police said. The friend escaped unscathed, but two bullets hit Ball.
Court records show Rose was convicted in September 2006 on charges of armed robbery and received eight years in prison with all but two years suspended. After his release from prison, he was placed on three years of supervised probation. It was not immediately clear how detectives determined Rose was the suspect.
Ball had remained close with his family and the friends he made growing up on Fulton Avenue in West Baltimore, where a small cadre of young boys formed a bond and vowed to stick together, stay out of trouble and be good fathers for their children. Ball and one of his best friends, whom he met at the age of 5, lost their fathers at a young age.
His best friends, Damien Vincent, 38, who lives in Baltimore, and Michael Taylor, 39, who lives in suburban Washington, came to Baltimore after Ball’s death to help Ball’s girlfriend break the sad news to the couple’s two children, 6-year-old James Ball Jr. and 10-month-old Justin.
The friends had vowed to help raise each other’s children and that’s what Vincent and Taylor have started doing. Taylor, reached at his federal job in Washington, said, “I’m at a loss for words” when told of the arrest.
Nightclub security officer stabbed repeatedly www.privateofficer.com
Thomas L. King Jr. and three friends tried to enter R.C. Dugan’s on Hempstead Turnpike when the 40-year-old man working as a security guard denied entry to all four because they were underage on Feb. 26, police said.
King “became enraged and fought with the victim, stabbing and slashing him several times in the face, head, throat and abdomen, causing severe physical injury to the victim,” police said in a statement.
King then fled the scene. First Squad detectives later arrested King at his home and charged him with assault and possession of a dangerous weapon.
He will be arraigned at First District Court in Hempstead on Tuesday.
Bonnie & Clyde pair hitting Ala-Fla banks www.privateofficer.com
It’s a real life Bonnie and Clyde. In two small South Alabama towns there have been two bank robberies over the last few days. The latest was Monday afternoon at United Bank in Flomaton, where surveillance cameras caught the pair in action. The video shows them calmly pass notes, demanding money in certain denominations. When they got their money, they calmly walked out.
“It was a well thought out plan. Because looking at the video you would just think they were everyday, ordinary people doing their banking business,” Flomaton Police Chief Terri Tolbert said.
Chief Tolbert said the robbers even told the tellers not to put dye packs in with the cash.
“They specifically said, ‘Do not put those in there,’” she said.
MULTIPLE ROBBERIES
If it sounds like the suspects have done this before, that’s because authorities believe they have. A similar robbery was committed last Thursday at a Wachovia Bank in Florala, Alabama. The surveillance pictures from the two robberies show a pair of suspects that look very similar.
“They both wore the same type of headgear. The male having a toboggan and the female having a ball cap on with a pony tail,” Chief Tolbert said.
Authorities say the difference between the two robberies is how they left. In the Florala robbery they left on foot. In Flomaton, they fled down the highway in an old Chevy pickup truck.
SUSPECTS DESCRIPTIONS
The suspects are young, white, and have slim builds. According to witnesses, the female has a large tattoo on the right side of her neck. Authorities are warning banks along the Florida-Alabama line to be vigilant and asking anyone with information to come forward. The police want them caught before they strike again.
Security arrest 6 in identification sweep www.privateofficer.com
Officers from Metro Enforcement, a private security firm, conducted an identification check of all the residents in the 216-unit complex and detained six people who were later arrested by Rockford Police.
Four were arrested for criminal trespassing, one person for possession of marijuana and another for possession of cocaine, said Larry Hodges, director and co-owner of Metro Enforcement.
“We attempted to grab everyone we could for identification checks, and that’s what led to what we got,” he said.
What the 15 Metro Enforcement officers and two canines had was a melee resulting in clashes between nonresidents and Metro Enforcement officers.
“One person was shot with a Taser gun, and one officer was punched in the face,” Hodges said.
For liability reasons, Rockford Police officers do not carry Taser guns, but Metro Enforcement officers do carry the controversial weapons.
In addition to trespassing and drug possession charges, Hodges said he anticipates aggravated battery charges being filed by the Winnebago County State’s Attorney’s office.
“The state law changed two years ago where striking a security officer in the line of duty is the same charge as striking a police officer,” he said.
Concord Commons is a former Rockford Housing Authority complex that changed hands in November and is now owned by the Rockford Housing Development Corporation and managed by the Mid-Northern Management Group.
Metro Enforcement is contracted to police Concord Commons, and two other Mid-Northern Management properties, Auburn Manor and Wildberry Village, as well as all Rockford Housing Authority complexes.
“We’re just trying to get the message out that (Concord Commons) and the Housing Authority is not the place to deal drugs and take advantage of people who live there,” Hodges said.
“There’s a lot of good people who live there. There’s a lot of kids here, and we have to break the cycle. If that’s (drug dealing) all the kids see, that’s what they are going to be doing.”
