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Westmoreland Mall security officer injured during shoplifting caper www.privateofficer.com
GREENSBURG, Pa.Nov 6 2010 – A Westmoreland Mall loss prevention officer got punched in the face after confronting three people suspected of stealing from J.C. Penney on Thursday.
According to police, three people drove to the mall, split up and walked in from three separate entrances. Police said the trio met at J.C. Penney and two of them started stuffing clothing items into bags.
The clothes, police said, included Steelers jerseys and children’s clothing, among other items.
A female loss prevention officer followed one of the thieves and tried to grab the bags from him. That’s when the man punched the woman in the throat using both fists, police said.
The three suspects left the clothes and fled. Police said the recovered merchandise amounted to about $1,700.
Surveillance video shows the thieves, but it did not catch the assault, police said.
The victim was taken to a local hospital to be treated for her injuries.
Source:WPXI
Florida school guard caught burglarizing vending machines www.privateofficer.com
Hialeah Fla Nov 6 2010 A Hialeah security guard was caught in the act trying to pry open a vending machine at a Broward school to get at the money collected inside, Broward Sheriff’s Office detectives said Friday.
Sergio Riveron, 21, has hit at least a dozen schools in Broward and Miami-Dade County, snatching up candy money like a school bully.
Riveron also has an accomplice, Yumisani Hernandez, BSO said. Hernandez, 26, got away after deputies showed up at Deerfield Beach High School on Oct. 28 as the vending machine vandals were using a crowbar to crack another candy box.
Police said the men collected about $100 in dollars, quarters, dimes and nickels from each machine, which kind of makes you wonder do candy crimes really pay?
When Riveron was was caught, he had a list of other potential school targets.
BSO says the candy crooks hit machines at Deerfield Beach, Northeast, J. P. Taravella and Coral Springs high schools in Broward and Hialeah, Coral Park, Coral Reef, Miami Palmetto, South Miami, Coral Gables, Barbara Goleman and Miami Beach senior high schools in Miami-Dade.
Riveron also told investigators he was on the verge of becoming a police officer.
CHP Cadet dies during training www.privateofficer.com
A cadet at West Sacramento’s California Highway Patrol Academy died Wednesday at a local hospital after suffering from an unknown illness.
The CHP said 24-year-old Randy Atchison of Ceres was taken by ambulance to Sutter General Hospital Friday for the condition after a “regularly scheduled physical training session.”
There were no signs that Atchison was ill when he began training, the CHP said. The man’s family said he’d never had any other medical problems.
“Atchison is survived by his parents, James and Andrea, brothers, Zachary and Chad, a sister, Alissa, his girlfriend, Kimberlee Andrada, and a 1-month-old daughter, Kaylee Atchison,” the CHP said in a statement.
CHP Commissioner Joe Farrow expressed his sympathy to Atchison’s family in a written statement, saying that “He had a life full of promise ahead that was tragically cut short.”
It’s the first death at the West Sacramento CHP academy.
Man sues after being shot by security officer www.privateofficer.com
Officials said the shooting happened Friday after a bouncer asked Corbin Livingston to leave the El Ranchero restaurant on Old National Highway.
The guard, Lee Bailey, a former College Park police officer, said Livingston tried to run him down with his vehicle.
Police said Bailey shot Livingston, who did not have a weapon, three times.
“I think he meant to kill him. But God help him if he had because he’d have to answer to somebody above,” said Livingston’s grandmother, Carrie Peek.
Livingston was recovering from surgery.
He is suing both the restaurant and Bailey.
The Georgia Bureau of Investigation is investigating the shooting.
Source:WSBTV.com
World Famous “Tootsie’s Orchid Lounge” sued after tourists beaten by security www.privateofficer.com
NASHVILLE, Tenn. Nov 6 2010 – Tootsie’s Orchid Lounge is a must-see destination for many tourists visiting Music City.
But surveillance video raises questions about the treatment received by one visitor. Tootsie’s employees told police that the tourist himself was out of control, but the video suggests there’s much more to the story.
NewsChannel 5 Investigates asked Tootsie’s owner Steve Smith, “Have your security people ever gotten out of control?”
“Not that I know of,” he answered.
Still, Smith didn’t want to talk about the video, obtained from police files, of Tootsie’s employees pursuing a tourist who got into an argument with a bartender.
“My reputation of this establishment is fine,” Smith insisted.
When told that “we have video of one of your patrons being chased down the street,” Smith was emphatic.
“Then you show your video. You didn’t get the video from me,” said Smith.
But security guard trainer Buford Tune, who has taught some of the licensed security guards at Tootsie’s, said the 2009 incident — involving employees who are not licensed — is not what he teaches.
“Once he leaves that location, it’s over,” Tune said. “They should stop at the door.”
Instead, the video shows the tourist backing up the sidewalk. As a friend attempts to take him by the arm, the Tootsie’s employees push that friend aside, then chase the tourist out of the camera’s view.
“Now they’re becoming the aggressors — the security personnel,” Tune said.
A taxi driver, who called 911, saw what happened next.
“The old man did not do anything,” the taxi driver told a 911 operator. “They sucker punched that old man. They were out of their area. They sucker punched him across the street.”
Read Dan Herrin lawsuit against Tootsie’s Orchid Lounge (.pdf)
Read the police file on the Herrin incident at Tootsie’s (.pdf)
NewsChannel 5 Investigates asked Smith if he had seen the video.
“I’m not allowed to talk about any of the videos because I’ve been instructed by my attorney not to say anything about any of the videos, the lawsuits,” he said.
But according to a lawsuit settled by Tootsie’s, the tourist then “fell face-first off the sidewalk and onto the public street.” He required “more than 100 stitches in his head,” and suffered “a severely torn ear lobe, broken teeth, contusions, cuts and various other injuries.”
In an interview with police, a Tootsie’s employee in what appears to be a black security t-shirt claims the tourist spit in his face. But he denied touching the tourist — or even chasing him.
“I never so much as got close enough to touch him — even one finger. Never,” the employee, John Robert Martinez, said.
Martinez is a convicted felon who had knifed two men in an argument.
“Oh, that bothers me a lot,” Tune said, “that we even have a person that’s working like this in a job-related situation that he may have to step in and produce some type of authority.”
And, as our NewsChannel 5 investigation first revealed, Tootsie’s has employed several convicted felons — including a night manager with a history of armed robbery.
But regulators say there’s not much that they can do about that.
“We attempted to have a bill passed that would allow us to conduct a nationwide background check,” said Danielle Elks, executive director of the Tennessee Alcoholic Beverage Commission. “However, that bill did not pass.”
Elks said state law makes it illegal for certain convicted felons to work in a bar for up to eight years after they’ve been convicted, 10 years to own a bar.
But Michael Eugene Seay had spent 20 years in prison for a string of violent armed robberies — so he was eligible to go to work at Tootsie’s the day he walked out of prison.
“We go by the date of the conviction, not the date of the release,” Elks said. “So if the conviction took place 15 or 20 years ago, they are eligible to work at a licensed premises by statute.”
In the incident caught on video, as soon as the blue lights of police show up, the Tootsie’s employees made a beeline back to the bar.
Tune say it’s a problem when the security doesn’t want to talk to police.
“If you are going to pursue it to one point, you’ve got to pursue it all the way through,” the security guard trainer said.
“If the guy was causing a disturbance, if he was being disorderly, if he assaulted, then they should have stood right there and said, ‘I’m the one that put him out, I’m the one he assaulted, he’s been disorderly, we want to press charges.’”
That’s the way, he says, a tourist attraction that calls itself “world famous” should behave.
NewsChannel 5 Investigates asked to interview Mr. Smith to talk about what actions he took in response to the video and what he’s doing to make sure that tourists who come there are safe.
But he refused to admit that there had ever been a problem.
As for the police investigation, detectives told the tourist that, if he had behaved inappropriately, he too could be charged.
After Tootsie’s settled his lawsuit, the man decided not to cooperate with police.
Still, police tell me they have an open investigation of an assault complaint filed by another tourist in another incident.
Alabama police dispatcher killed by husband www.privateofficer.com
DECATUR, AL.Nov 6 2010 – A dispatcher with the Morgan County central dispatch center was shot to death by her husband in a domestic homicide and suicide early today, Decatur police said.
Emilie “Beth” Godfrey, age unavailable, was found dead in her home at 2018 Jefferson Ave. SW by police responding to a 911 call, a police news release said.
Stephen Godfrey, age unavailable, was found dead in the home from an apparent suicide, police said.
Police determined that Stephen Godfrey shot and killed Beth Godfrey before turning the gun on himself. Beth Godfrey had recently filed for divorce, police said.
Someone in the home called 911 at 3:41 a.m. today, but no one in the home spoke to the dispatcher, police said. A patrol officer dispatched to the home found signs of a struggle just inside the home. He entered the home and found the bodies.
Source:AL.com
