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SunTrust bank teller charged with grand theft www.privateofficer.com
DeFuniak Springs Fla Sept 30 2010 resident Jennifer Lynn Dockery, 30, of West Park Lane was arrested on Sept. 27 on felony charges of Grand Theft of more than $8,500 in cash from SunTrust Bank.
The arrest was made after DeFuniak Springs Police Detectives working in conjunction with SunTrust Bank’s Security Division, investigated a theft of funds by a bank teller identified as Dockery.
Dockery’s cash drawer was audited on August 19th and was found to be short. After this was found bank officials notified regional managers who immediately initiated an internal investigation.
This incident was then reported to the Criminal Investigations Division of the DeFuniak Springs Police who investigated further. Detectives and bank security determined that Dockery had taken varying amounts of cash from her drawer over a six-month period of time, ranging from March to August of this year.
Dockery was able to cover up the missing funds by “force balancing” her drawer until the audit on August 19th when the theft was uncovered. After a full investigation Dockery was arrested on the felony charge of Grand Theft.
Dockery was booked and released from the Walton County Jail on $10,000 bond.
Security pioneer Murray Levine will receiuve award www.privateofficer.com
According to the award nomination, Murray Levine is an industry pioneer who “thought outside the box long before the concept became a … commonly used phrase.” Levine’s 51-year career has helped to raise the standards of excellence of the contract security industry, to increase levels of service and to facilitate expansion into new markets.
Mr. Levine’s creation of the Custom Protection Officer (CPO) program – and its distinctive tan uniform with a purple pinstripe on the leg – raised the recruiting bar for security officers. Mr. Levine saw that the success of a security officer is built on background, training, pay levels and incentives. He also understood the importance of a vertical market strategy and targeted industries such as banking, transit, gated communities, nuclear and petrochemical, and local government as opportunities for high-quality security officers.
“I am particularly proud of my father Murray Levine for his many years as a visionary and leader in our industry,” said Drew Levine, President, G4S Secure Solutions. “He has been a tremendous positive influence and role model for me, as he has been for many here. His greatest rewards have always come from seeing how his ideas benefit the company and its employees. There is no one in the industry that deserves this honor more, and on behalf of everyone here at G4S, I offer our heartfelt congratulations.”
The award is named for Colonel Edgar B. Watson, who served the private security community for 35 years at Security Forces, Inc Charlotte, North Carolina, and served with NASCO for 14 years, including his chairmanship in 1989-90. Established in 1994, the award is given in recognition of an individual’s contributions to the private security industry as a whole including their superior leadership, commitment to higher standards, advocacy for increased positive awareness and valor in their duties as a security representative.
There are 11 past winners of the award, including George Wackenhut, who was Murray Levine’s mentor. The National Association of Security Companies (NASCO) is the nation’s largest contract security trade association, representing private security companies that employ more than 250,000 of the nation’s most highly trained security officers servicing every business sector.
For more information visit http://www.g4s.us or call 800-275-8305.
Source:Press Release
Security officer accidentally kills self www.privateofficer.com
By: Rick McCann/Staff
PRIVATE OFFICER NEWS
http://www.privateofficer.com
Police investigating the death of a man found in a vehicle at a local business now believe that he accidentally shot himself in the leg in Marysville and bled to death before he could call for help.
The Daily Herald of Everett reports the 57-year-old man worked as a security guard at a movie theater. When he failed to return home Saturday his wife found him dead in his car in the parking lot.
Police Cmdr. Robb Lamoureux (LAM’-or-oh) says the bullet hit a femoral artery, and man apparently passed out. A cell phone dialed to 911 was found between his legs.
Police have not yet identified the man.
Doing more with less-police say crime is rising www.privateofficer.com
Washington DC Sept 30 2010 Police chiefs across the country say that they are feeling the effects of the nation’s economic downturn directly, with budget cuts forcing them to reduce their ranks and leading to fears that the downturn in crime will soon be reversed.
In Sacramento, beset by California’s financial woes, homicides are up 43 percent this year, assaults on police are up 13 percent, and Chief Rick Braziel said he had to eliminate his vice unit.
In Phoenix, Chief Joe Harris said he does not have the funds to fill more than 10 percent of his officer jobs and knows he will not be filling any vacancies for another three years. Harris had to put 50 of his 95 school resource officers back on the streets, though school resource officers are seen as crucial tools in fighting gangs.
In Lawrence, Mass., the need to keep officers answering 911 calls forced Chief John J. Romero to eliminate the units focused on drugs, domestic violence, auto theft, insurance fraud and gangs, he said. This summer, when the cuts took effect, auto thefts immediately soared.
“It’s what’s happening to all police departments, I get it,” Romero said, in a city of 73,000 where crime had dropped 60 percent since 1999. “But it’s had a major impact on our city.”
In Washington on Thursday, more than 100 police chiefs and law enforcement experts are gathering to discuss whether the economic downturn is fundamentally changing the way police departments do their jobs. The gathering is sponsored by the D.C.-based Police Executive Research Forum, which surveyed more than 600 state and local law agencies earlier this month and found they had sustained an average budget cut of 7 percent this year. Department budgets had increased 6 percent on average the prior year.
“For the longest time,” said Chuck Wexler, the forum’s executive director, “people thought that the police didn’t matter, didn’t affect the crime rate. Now we’ve seen that’s not true.” He said improved policing helped drive the number of homicides in New York City down from 2,200 in 1990 to 466 last year. Homicides are up 13 percent in New York City so far this year, he said.
In the District, homicides dropped from 454 in 1993 to 143 last year.
But the tactics that reduced crime, Wexler said, such as placing officers in schools, targeting high-crime areas and focusing on particular crimes, “are now being eroded, across the country.”
In interviews, several chiefs said that their first priority was answering calls for service, and placing enough officers on the street means taking them from somewhere else. The Minneapolis police had to eliminate their narcotics unit, Wexler said, and the Boston police cut their bicycle and mounted patrol squads.
In Montgomery County, Chief J. Thomas Manger said he once had officers in every high school in the county. Now he has none in the middle schools and is down to nine school resource officers, who must shuttle between more than 30 schools.
“The rapport with kids is diminished, and that proved to be invaluable,” Manger said. “We were preventing things from happening, we were solving crimes that had occurred. There’s going to be a lot less of that.”
In addition to reductions in police funding, typically one of the last places that cities and counties cut, other reductions in social service funding have added headaches for law enforcement.
In Sacramento, Braziel said, mental health services were cut for the third straight year. Inmates are being released early from prison, but without job training, since those programs were also cut. There are fewer probation officers Jobs are scarce, and support groups such as Alcoholics Anonymous or Narcotics Anonymous are declining, Braziel said.
“Even the people who want to do the right thing when they get out,” Braziel said, “they can’t. So they jump right back into where they were comfortable.”
Though Sacramento had made significant crime reductions, “the trend line is starting to go back up,” Braziel said.
Braziel said he is reaching out to other financially strapped departments in his region to see how they might pool resources.
Phoenix also has seen a drastic drop in crime. But Harris said if that trend reverses, he has perhaps 500 fewer officers to police a city of 1.6 million. “We won’t have enough officers,” he said.
In Prince William County, Col. Charlie T. Deane, chief of police, said he had to eliminate all four officers from the county’s middle schools, and educational anti-gang and anti-drug programs were cut. In Fairfax County, Chief David M. Rohrer said he cut half of his crime prevention officers, who oversee neighborhood watch and training groups, and all eight of the officers assigned to elementary schools.
Manger said he had to cut his community outreach squad, which helped communicate with Montgomery County’s growing Hispanic population.
Recently, in the Langley Park area, Manger said a man had barricaded himself inside an apartment. When officers eventually entered the apartment, using a “dynamic entry” device which knocks down doors with a loud bang, the man was already dead, and no shots were fired, he said.
But onlookers got the impression that officers had shot the man, Manger said, and rumors ran wild: “I’ve still got an entire community that thinks we killed this guy.” He said his community outreach officers once would have flooded the Hispanic neighborhood and calmed fears, but now, “I don’t have that . . . It really puts us at a disadvantage.”
D.C. Police Chief Cathy L. Lanier said she had not had to make significant cuts yet, though she has 100 unfilled vacancies. But the city’s population continues to grow, she said, and “I’m getting a little nervous” about managing the force when the budget has dropped from $520 million to $440 million.
Source:Washington Post
Mississippi dentist missing in Atlanta www.privateofficer.com
TUPELO, MS Oct 5 2010 (AP) – Authorities say a Tupelo dentist who had been missing since Sunday has been found dead in Alabama, the victim in an apparent car accident. Dr. Thurmond Beasley was 67.
Beasley was driving home from a visit with relatives in Georgia when the one-vehicle wreck occurred. A road crew saw his car Thursday while performing work on Interstate 20 near Anniston, Ala., according to a press release from the Tupelo Police Department.
Anniston Coroner Rudy Rooks told The Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal that Beasley died from blunt force trauma.
Beasley was reported missing by his family after failing to arrive home from the weekend trip.
Atlanta GA Sept 30 2010
A longtime Tupelo, Miss., dentist is missing after visiting family in Atlanta, police said. Thurmond Beasley checked out of the Hyatt Regency Hotel on 265 Peachtree Street in downtown Atlanta and has not been heard from since, police said.
“According to a family member, he called for his vehicle to be brought around for him … that’s his last known whereabouts,” Capt. Chuck Bunn of the Tupelo police told the AJC.
Beasley, 67, keeps in frequent contact with his family by cell phone, Bunn said. When they didn’t hear from him Sunday afternoon, and when he didn’t arrive home by that evening, they contacted the police, Bunn said.
Beasley has been a dentist in Tupelo for 35 years, and had appointments scheduled Monday, Bunn said.
Authorities in Atlanta are helping the Tupelo, Miss., police department in their investigation. Beasley’s family – daughter, son and brother — came to Atlanta Wednesday to meet with police, Bunn said.
Police said Beasley was last seen driving his 2004 black Lexus 300. The car has tinted windows and an “Omega Psi Phi” fraternity license tag on the front and a Meharry Medical School Alumni tag border around that.
The Mississippi license plate tag number is: LFH500.
Police did not give a complete description of Beasley, but they did provide a photo of him.
Anyone with information is asked to call the Tupelo Mississippi Police at 662-841-6546
Omaha police officers shot-suspect wounded in hospital shooting www.privateofficer.com
OMAHA, Neb. Sept 30 2010 – Two officers were hit and a suspect was critically injured in a shooting at Creighton University Medical Center on Wednesday morning, Omaha police said.
Police spokesman Jacob Bettin said the officers suffered minor wounds. Authorities have not released the names of the officers and the suspect.
The shooting occurred inside the hospital, Bettin said, but he would not say where. He said investigators were interviewing several witnesses and that the first call about the shooting came in to police at 9:19 a.m.
Omaha television station KETV reported that witnesses said the shooting occurred in or near the cafeteria.
Hospital employees outside the center declined to answer questions from The Associated Press.
Investigators were checking to see whether the suspect was connected to an incident early Wednesday morning in suburban Ralston, Bettin said.
Omaha television station WOWT said officers had been chasing a man sought in a domestic dispute in La Vista, but that the officers ended the chase when it reached dangerous speeds. The report said that a short time later, a little after 12:30 a.m., the man’s vehicle crashed in Ralston, which is just north of La Vista. He escaped.
Late Wednesday morning, police and security officers were stationed outside the hospital. Police stopped anyone leaving the hospital to check if they had already spoken with investigators inside.
Patients with appointments were allowed inside.
Bettin said the hospital remained in partial lockdown to protect the crime scene and evidence.
Creighton University Medical Center is one of two trauma centers in Omaha. The hospital sits a few blocks north of downtown and has 334 beds. It is affiliated with Creighton’s medical school.
It has a network of nearly 300 physicians who practice in eastern Nebraska and western Iowa.
Source:AP
