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Fishing closed from LA. to FLA.
VENICE, La. May 2 2010 – The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration is closing commercial and recreational fishing from Louisiana to parts of the Florida Panhandle because of the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.
In a news release sent Sunday afternoon, NOAA said the closure begins immediately and will last for at least 10 days.
NOAA Administrator Jane Lubchenco says government scientists are taking samples from the waters near the spill to determine whether there is any danger.
The fishing ban extends between Louisiana state waters at the mouth of the Mississippi River to waters off Florida’s Pensacola Bay.
Crews have so far had little success stemming the flow from the ruptured well on the sea floor off Louisiana or removing oil from the surface.
Commercial and recreational fishing closed from LA. to Fla.
VENICE, La. May 2 2010– The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration is closing commercial and recreational fishing from Louisiana to parts of the Florida Panhandle because of the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.
In a news release sent Sunday afternoon, NOAA said the closure begins immediately and will last for at least 10 days.
NOAA Administrator Jane Lubchenco says government scientists are taking samples from the waters near the spill to determine whether there is any danger.
The fishing ban extends between Louisiana state waters at the mouth of the Mississippi River to waters off Florida’s Pensacola Bay.
Crews have so far had little success stemming the flow from the ruptured well on the sea floor off Louisiana or removing oil from the surface
OFFICER DOWN MINNESOTA
Maplewood Police Department
Minnesota
End of Watch: Saturday, May 1, 2010
Biographical Info
Age: 49
Tour of Duty: 26 years
Badge Number: Not available
Incident Details
Cause of Death: Gunfire
Date of Incident: Saturday, May 1, 2010
Weapon Used: Gun; Unknown type
Suspect Info: Shot and killed
Sergeant Joseph Bergeron was shot and killed at approximately 7:00 am while attempting to question two men in connection with an earlier carjacking incident.
He located the men near the intersection of English Street and Arlington Avenue, in St. Paul, approximately 10 minutes after responding to reports of the carjacking. As he exited his patrol car one of the men approached him and immediately opened fire, fatally wounding him.
A passerby who heard the shots and witnessed the shooter running from the scene immediately went to Sergeant Bergeron’s aide and used his radio to call for assistance. He was transported to Regions Hospital where he was pronounced dead.
Approximately four hours after his shooting an officer assigned to the crime scene’s perimeter noticed one of the suspect’s walking out of nearby woods near Ivy Avenue and Prosperity Avenue. The officer confronted the suspect, who then struck him in the face with the toolbox, breaking his nose and fracturing his eye sockets. The officer was able to fatally shoot the suspect during the ensuing struggle over control of the officer’s weapon.
The second suspect surrendered to officers two hours later without further incident.
Sergeant Bergeron had served with the Maplewood Police Department for 26 years. He is survived by his wife and twin daughters.
Agency Contact Information
Maplewood Police Department
1830 County Road B East
Maplewood, MN 55109
Phone: (651) 249-2600
Please contact the Maplewood Police Department for funeral arrangements or for survivor benefit fund information.
OFFICER DOWN TEXAS
Calhoun County Constable’s Office – Precinct 5
Texas
End of Watch: Saturday, April 10, 2010
Biographical Info
Age: 63
Tour of Duty: Not available
Badge Number: 975
Incident Details
Cause of Death: Heart attack
Date of Incident: Saturday, April 10, 2010
Weapon Used: Person
Suspect Info: Apprehended
Constable John Brown suffered a fatal heart attack shortly after struggling with a suspect he was attempting to arrest.
Constable Brown was providing security at an event at a local pavilion when he recognized a person known to have open warrants. He requested backup from the Calhoun County Sheriff’s Office before approaching the man.
When the responding deputy arrived, Constable Brown stated he would speak to the subject and attempt to move him to a more secluded location at the pavilion before attempting to arrest him in order to avoid a disturbance.
The subject followed Constable Brown to the location and the two spoke briefly before Constable Brown informed him he was under arrest. The suspect immediately began resisting and a struggle ensued between the man, Constable Brown, and the deputies.
The officers were able to subdue the man and he was placed in the back of the deputy’s patrol car. Constable Brown collapsed moments later. Several off duty medical personnel at the pavilion immediately began CPR. A responding ambulance transported him to a local hospital where he passed away a short time later.
Agency Contact Information
Calhoun County Constable’s Office – Precinct 5
PO Box 485
Port O’Connor, TX 77982
Phone: (361) 550-7734
Please contact the Calhoun County Constable’s Office – Precinct 5 for funeral arrangements or for survivor benefit fund information.
Slidell security officer shoots at robbers www.privateofficer.com
Slidell Police Department spokesman, Capt. Kevin Foltz said two men entered the drug story Saturday morning armed with handguns, wearing masks and latex gloves. Foltz said the security guard, realizing something was not right, pulled out his firearm and fired twice at the robbers. One of the robbers fired back once. One bullet went into the counter, the other in the wall, and one of the security’s guard’s bullets went through the front door, smashing the glass. Foltz said that no one was injured during the shooting.
Both suspects then ran out of the store. A customer, went outside and saw them doing down Dale Street. When police arrived, the witness told police that the two men were hiding in a backyard.
Police go into the backyard and were able to capture one of the robbers. Foltz said the man, “faked a seizure,” but was arrested and booked with attempted armed robbery. Police are still looking for the other suspect.
Foltz said investigators believe the two men might be the two men who robbed the Shell station on Brownswitch Road last Sunday night. As of Saturday afternoon, police were still looking for the other suspect. Foltz said more details would be released tomorrow.
MN. police officer gunned down in ambush www.privateofficer.com
Maplewood Police Sgt. Joseph Bergeron, 49, was fatally shot while responding to a reported carjacking. A jogger on a nearby trail heard the shot that killed Bergeron, a married father of two and a 26-year police veteran, and turned back around to see two suspects fleeing, police said.
The jogger used the officer’s radio to call for help, and the carjacking victim warned police that at least one of the suspects was armed.
“We’re all grieving,” Maplewood Police Chief David Thomalla said. “He’s one of the finest people I know, and he was murdered today senselessly.”
The attack set off an hours-long search by more than 100 officers from over a dozen law enforcement agencies. Officers brandished automatic rifles and police helicopters circled overhead as they searched a wooded area and neighborhoods east of Lake Phalen, near the shooting scene.
Nearly four hours after the shooting, a man darted out of the woods holding a toolbox and an officer tried to question him. The two scuffled, and authorities said the officer shot the man multiple times. Police identified the man as Jason John Jones, 21, of St. Paul, and said he was one of the shooting suspects.
The officer suffered a broken nose and possibly a fractured eye socket, St. Paul police chief John Harrington said. The officer’s name hasn’t been released, which Harrington said is standard in an officer-involved shooting.
About two hours later, police closed in on the second suspect – Joshua Michael Martin, 21, of Saint Paul – at a nearby apartment near the border of St. Paul and Maplewood, in a neighborhood dotted with small storefronts and well-established older homes.
Martin threatened and tried to commit suicide, but was taken into custody with non-life threatening injuries, authorities said. He was booked into jail on the probable cause charge of murder.
Bergeron was the 17th officer to die in the line of duty in the state since 2000, according to the Minnesota Law Enforcement Memorial Association.
He leaves behind a wife and two daughters.
In a statement late Saturday, his family said Bergeron was a private, hardworking citizen whose “first job was being an excellent dad, husband, brother and friend to many.” The family thanked the jogger who called for help and law enforcement officers who responded.
“We will miss him. We will miss him terribly,” Thomalla said.
Nightclub shooting leaves security officer injured www.privateofficer.com
Multiple Spartanburg County sheriff’s deputies first responded to a Chelsea Street residence near Girlz Cafe, 1136 E. Blackstock Road, Moore. They were trying to resolve a parking issue caused by the club’s patrons about 5:20 a.m. Saturday when they heard gunshots followed by “50 to 75 people … screaming and running away from the club,” according to an incident report.
Deputies have not released the names of the victims. Spartanburg County Sheriff’s Master Deputy Craig Bradley said in a statement that one 20-year-old man shot in the chest was listed in serious condition.
A 20-year-old woman was shot in the left arm, and a 20-year-old man, who works at the club as a security guard, was shot in the left thigh.
Two men who live near the establishment — part of a small commercial structure not far from Dawkins Middle School — said there are no problems when Girlz Cafe serves soul food during normal hours, but they are “losing sleep” because things are “out of hand” when a crowd comes to the business after 2 a.m. on weekends.
The men said the after-hours patrons park on private property, and that has led to previous disturbances.
According to the incident report, deputies secured the area and found two victims in the parking lot. The man shot in the chest was inside the club.
A deputy interviewed the female victim at the hospital. She said two large fights occurred, and security turned on the lights and told people to leave after the second fight. The woman said she was walking to her vehicle when she heard shots, felt a “sharp pain” and saw a “large amount of blood” coming from her arm.
The deputy also interviewed the security guard, who said two girls began fighting. The guard said he pulled out his stun gun to break up the fight. He then went to help another security guard escort another customer when the shots started. He said he ducked down behind some cars and noticed he had been shot.
Bradley said deputies believe from preliminary reports that a white SUV, possibly a Jeep Cherokee, was involved.
Anyone with information on this case is asked to contact the Spartanburg County Sheriff’s Office at 864-503-4527 or provide information anonymously by calling CrimeStoppers at 1-888-CRIME-SC.
Shoplifter dies in high speed police chase www.privateofficer.com
Kenneth Stephen Carter, 37, died after police said driver Eliot Alfred Carvajal, 37, led police on a vehicle chase reaching 80 mph and slammed into a telephone pole about 20 miles from where the incident began .
The chase brought out three different law enforcement agencies, sent three people to the emergency room and killed another person when the car crashed into a telephone pole about
It all started as a shoplifting incident at the Walmart at 12900 I-35 when police said they were called about a theft.
According to the Travis County Sheriff’s Department, an employee at a North Austin Walmart suspected a man of shoplifting.
Police said when they got there, they saw three men eluding them in a 2001 blue Honda Accord and traveling through lights at speeds up to 80 mph. After 20 minutes of pursuit, the suspect’s car – with four people inside – crashed into a telephone pole right in front of Spec’s off 290 and Mopac .
The impact killed Carter and injured three others: Hiram Espitia, 23; Gary Powell, 18; and Carvajal.
Espitia was taken to University Medical Center Brackenridge with life-threatening injuries, while Powell was treated at the hospital and released Tuesday.
Meanwhile, officials released Carvajal Wednesday after he was treated. Authorities have charged him with the second-degree felony of intoxication manslaughter and evading arrest, a third-degree felony. He is currently in custody.
The pursuit ended up involving Sunset Valley and Austin police. Authorities said the investigation into the crash is not complete and that other charges are still possible.
Coastal Louisiana stuck between the oil and the water www.privateofficer.com
Up and down four-lane La. Route 23, which runs between two protective earthen levees, aluminum skiffs share driveway space with pickups. Meanwhile, a sign outside the Fill-A-Sack convenience store in Boothville proudly advertises gas with “ZERO ETHANOL” – a subtle homage to the oil industry’s tank farms and refineries that line the roads between here and New Orleans.
There’s an old adage that oil and water don’t mix. But in this lacy fringe of marsh grass and mud, drilling and fishing have, for the most part, blended peacefully.
Some wonder if the massive spill from BP LLC’s Deepwater Horizon well will upset that delicate balance.
Like most people around here, Ken Frelich has a stake in both industries. His family has owned Frelich Seafood in Empire since 1973; they also ferry oil crews to the offshore rigs.
If some in the community are angry at the oil industry right now, it’s because they feel helpless.
“You can only do so much,” says Frelich, 43, as he takes a break from selling shrimp and crawfish at his store off La. 23. “It’s like waiting for a hurricane.”
The April 20 explosion that sank BP’s oil platform nearly 50 miles offshore has been spewing an estimated 210,000 gallons of crude a day.
One area of Frelich’s livelihood threatens to destroy the other. But he knows it was an accident.
“There are hundreds and hundreds of rigs out there, so accidents happen,” he says. “There are so many car wrecks on the road, nobody is surprised when one happens. When there’s an accident on an oil rig, everybody hears about it.”
Mark Trahan agrees.
Sipping a Heineken and munching on chicken fingers at Empire’s Delta Marine Bar and Grill, Trahan, 47, recalls the motorcycle accident that brought an end to his career in the oil fields. In 2004, he started a fishing guide business.
“People don’t understand this place,” he says, adjusting a visor emblazoned with the words “Capt. Mark.” ”It’s a give and take. Without oil companies, I couldn’t take people fishing.”
But no disaster this big has ever happened in these parts. And the uneasy balance between oil and water is being tested as never before.
In the Boothville-Venice School gymnasium, shrimper Eric Tiser switches into fishmonger mode.
“Fresh Gulf shrimp, $2 a pound!” the stocky man in the cap and stained rubber boots shouts. “The last shrimp left in Plaquemines Parish! Already dipped in oil for you – black crude oil!”
Hundreds of people packed the gym for the chance to get basic safety training from a BP contractor, in hopes of getting paid to help with the cleanup. Crabber Bret Ainsworth says it’s the least the company can do for the area’s fishermen.
“If we can’t crab or sell seafood for the next three or four years, we’d like a job doing SOMETHING,” says Ainsworth, 51, who’s been fishing these waters since he was 18.
In an exploration plan filed with the federal government, BP downplayed the possibility of an accident at the well. Even if there was one, the company assured officials, “due to the distance to shore (48 miles) and the response capabilities that would be implemented, no significant adverse impacts are expected.”
Louisiana has lost hundreds of square miles of wetlands in recent years, the breeding ground for many of its most commercially valuable species. Ainsworth and others already blame oil-related canal dredging and boat traffic for much of the erosion.
“After (Hurricane) Katrina, we lost thousands of miles of coastline,” he says, his bald head flushing red. “What is oil 2 inches thick going to do on the beaches? Is the grass going to grow THROUGH that, or is the grass going to die and we’re going to lose more?”
Down at the Venice Marina, Matt O’Brien sits on a deck staring across at the steel skeleton of what will soon be his wholesale shrimp dock.
“I came down here to sit and look at my business going up,” the 39-year-old O’Brien said as he dragged on a Salem 100. “I’m not getting as much enjoyment out of it as I thought I would.”
O’Brien used to service the oil companies’ rigs and drive their trucks. He had just gotten into the fish business when Hurricane Katrina wiped him out in 2005.
A contractor is scheduled to put the “skin” on his building Monday, but O’Brien has told them to hold off bringing the ice machine.
“It couldn’t have been worse timing,” said O’Brien, who lives in a houseboat at the marina and visits his wife and four children in Hattiesburg, Miss., when he can. “Now that this has happened, I don’t expect to buy no shrimp this year.”
O’Brien is loath to speak ill of BP. He knows this was an accident, and the area couldn’t survive without the oil jobs.
Still, he’s frustrated, and he’s scared. So is Earl Armstrong.
Armstrong, 66, runs crew boats for the oil companies. His son Matt, 31, trawls for shrimp, shark, drumfish – whatever he can find.
When your livelihood depends on something as capricious and unforgiving as the sea, he says, it comes with the territory.
“A fellow asked me one time what would it take for me to leave this parish. And I told him, ‘Well, when it runs out of mud. When there’s no more land to stand on,’” he says with a laugh. “This is home.”
Actor sues Academy of Motion Pictures, security for assault www.privateofficer.com
Michael Avmen filed the lawsuit accusing the Academy of illegal false imprisonment, as well as intentional and negligent infliction of emotional distress. He filed the lawsuit in the Central District Superior Court in California on April 27, according to FoxNews.com.
The damages requested in the suit are for claims that the couple were “injured in health, strength and activity” and “sustained injury to his and her body and shock and injury to their nervous system,” according to FoxNews.com
Avmen claims in the suit that tickets for the ceremony on March 7 were “tentatively confirmed,” but both Avmen and his publicist were unsuccessful in finding a full confirmation before the ceremony, despite several attempts.
Once at the event, Avmen claimed that he and his wife were taken by an usher from the hotel they were staying at to an area where he could speak with an Academy employee named Kim he had talked to before about attending.
The suit further claims that Avmen and his wife were then led onto the red carpet by the usher, but were then immediately treated differently, according to Courthouse News Service.
The two were taken to what was described in the lawsuit as a “detention center” and were questioned about how they accessed the red carpet area without tickets. They were then accused of lying and trespassing, according to FoxNews.com.
Avmen and his wife were held at by the ushers for about six hours, despite repeated requests to be allowed to simply leave and go back to their hotel. Around 10 p.m. Los Angeles police officers arrived at the area where the ushers kept Avmen and his wife.
The couple was then taken to a police station, but no charges were filed and Avmen said the officers apologized profusely for how the two were treated by the Academy staff.
The Academy has not commented about the case.
“If I or some ‘regular’ individual acted as The Academy did, we would be in prison right now. I want, and I will show that these people aren’t above the law,” Avmen said in a statement. “Security is one thing, but this was outside the realm of excessive. My wife and I have suffered, and there has been a great injustice enforced.”
Student steals bus, crashes into police cruiser www.privateofficer.com
