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Virginia man gets prison time for assault on security officer www.privateofficer.com
Waynesboro VA April 28 2011 A Waynesboro man is headed to jail for an attack that left a security guard with permanent injuries.
A judge found Christopher Neal Root guilty of assault-and-battery Tuesday. Prosecutors say the 26-year-old sucker-punched a guard in the neck at Eastside Speedway in 2009.
The victim suffered a series of strokes, and lost feeling in part of his body.
Root faced a malicious wounding indictment, but was convicted of the lesser assault charge.
He was ordered to serve the maximum 12 months in jail.
Source:News29
Maryland police hunt armored car robbers www.privateofficer.com
Clinton MD April 28 2011 Two men wearing ski masks used an assault rifle to hold up the driver of an armored car Monday afternoon in Clinton, Prince George’s police said.Source:Gazette.net
West Virginia hospital security officer cut stopping burglary suspect www.privateofficer.com
HUNTINGTON, W.Va. April 28 2011 — A Cabell Huntington Hospital security guard was cut with a pocket knife after trying to stop a man from breaking into an employee’s car.
According to a criminal complaint filed with the Huntington Police, security guard James Smith questioned a man who was getting out a vehicle in the parking lot.
Smith says the suspect, Shane Burton, ran from him. Smith chased him to the 1500 block of Columbia Avenue, where a bystander helped Smith tackle and take Burton into custody.
During the struggle, Burton cut Smith on the arm with a pocket knife. Smith was treated at Cabell Huntington Hospital.
Security officers were able to track down the CHH employee whose car was broken into. She told them she thought she locked her car. She said her purse was in her trunk and that her wallet was missing, which had credit cards, a bank card, cash, her checkbook, drivers license, social security card and insurance cards inside.
When Burton was caught, the victim’s driver’s license, credit card and cash was found in pocket.
Her checkbook and an emergency hammer were found in an alley near the parking lot.
Burton is charged with a misdemeanor count of breaking and entering and a felony county of malicious wounding.
He is being held in the Western Regional Jail on a $20,000 bail.
Source:WSAZ
Security officer sliced breaking up hotel fight www.privateofficer.com
Columbia MD April 28 2011 A Columbia man was arrested Sunday morning and charged with attacking another man with a knife at a hotel in Linthicum, according to the Anne Arundel County Police Department.
Timothy Lewis Hall, 29, of 10223 Brighton Ridge Way, has been charged with two counts of first-degree assault, two counts of second-degree assault and two counts of reckless endangerment, police said.
Police were called at about 2:40 a.m. for reports of a stabbing at the BWI Airport Marriott on the 1700 block of W. Nursery Road.
There had been an argument between two men – Hall and an unnamed 28-year-old man – that led to Hall pulling out a knife, police said.
The 28-year-old man tried to get the knife away from Hall but ended up suffering a hand injury, police said. He was taken to Harbor Hospital in Baltimore, treated and released.
A hotel security guard also was injured while trying to separate the men, suffering a laceration on the back of his neck, police said. He was taken to the Baltimore Washington Medical Center in Glen Burnie, treated and released.
Hall was also treated for a hand injury, police said.
Illegal Mexican immigrant found working as Anchorage police officer www.privateofficer.com
ANCHORAGE, Alaska April 28 2011 — A Mexico-born illegal immigrant working as a police officer in Alaska was caught only after the U.S. citizen whose identity he stole applied for a passport, authorities said Tuesday.
Rafael Espinoza, who has dual citizenship, lives outside of the U.S. and recently applied for a passport, Anchorage Police Chief Mark Mew said. Around that time, the officer using Espinoza’s name applied for a passport renewal under the same identity, according to police and federal authorities.
Rafael Mora-Lopez, 47, was arrested last week after federal agents processing his renewal request discovered the alleged fraud. He has pleaded not guilty to a federal charge of passport fraud, which carries a maximum 10-year sentence.
Mew said the man whose identity Mora-Lopez stole is a real person, but had no “no record in the United States, beyond the fact that he existed.”
Authorities said documents revealing Mora-Lopez’s true identity were found in his home.
Mora-Lopez has formally resigned from the police department, where he worked for six years, Mew said. He was a well-regarded swing-shift patrol officer, winning an award after he and another officer conducted CPR on a person last year, Mew said.
The chief said Mora-Lopez also was on the verge of receiving a letter of recognition for working with authorities to rescue someone with a broken leg from Anchorage’s treacherous coastal mudflats.
Authorities said Espinoza and Mora-Lopez have no known criminal records, which helped the officer elude detection when he was hired.
Mew said the department conducted a pre-employment criminal background check and that Mora-Lopez passed a polygraph test. A national fingerprint check also turned up empty.
Since Espinoza was living outside the country, that likely explained a lack of tip-offs, such as dual federal income tax filings.
A federal release order dated Tuesday said Mora-Lopez posted a $50,000 bond and listed electronic monitoring as a condition for release. He was ordered to home confinement on Friday at his arraignment.
Mora-Lopez’s attorney, Allen Dayan, did not immediately return a call Tuesday.
Officials have said it’s too early to predict implications of the case, such as any repercussions over Mora-Lopez’s testimony in past criminal trials or his work in cases ranging from traffic tickets to arrests and domestic violence calls.
The case also complicates benefit procedures, such as paying pension earned by Mora-Lopez under the assumed identity, Mew added.
Mora-Lopez is married with a child, and has lived in Anchorage since the late 1980s, his attorney said in court. His wife could not immediately be reached by phone Tuesday.
The case is similar to one involving a Mexican national who took the identity of a dead cousin who was a U.S. citizen in order to become a Milwaukee police officer. Oscar Ayala-Cornejo was deported to Mexico in 2007.
Mora-Lopez’s arrest comes two months after another Anchorage police officer, Anthony Rollins, was convicted of sexually assaulting women while on duty.
Source:www.miamiherald.com
Tacoma senior citizen charged with kidnapping-rape www.privateofficer.com
John Joseph Hauff Jr, 66, is charged with kidnapping, rape and assault. Police say he picked up the 24-year-old woman on Aurora Avenue April 2. She secretly texted her boyfriend with Hauff’s address and license plate number.
Hauff was arrested a few days later..
Investigators say they found a “torture room” in Hauff’s mobile home with whips, syringes, belts and two devices for administering electric shocks. The walls were eight inches thick, making it virtually soundproof.
Searchers from several agencies in King and Pierce counties also searched the property for any evidence related to missing person cases.
Police also released photos of the outside of the home and of the 1998 Mercury Sable station wagon that he allegedly used to pick up the woman.
Anyone who has been victimized by Hauff or recognizes the building or the car is asked to call Seattle Police at (206) 233-5000. Police say they are not interested in investigating any prostitution or drug crimes in relation to this case.
Source:King5
Preachers file lawsuit after their arrest for reading the bible www.privateofficer.com
Hemet CA April 28 2011 People standing in line on the morning of February 2 at the Hemet, California, Department of Motor Vehicles had no choice but to listen to a man from Calvary Chapel read the Bible.
A security guard asked Mark Mackey to stop. He refused to do so and was later arrested. After his arrest, the two men who had accompanied him, assistant pastor Brett Coronado and Ed Flores, were arrested for impeding business. Coronado and Flores reportedly did not read the Bible out loud.
According to their attorneys’ press release, “The men believed that they had a First Amendment right to free speech as they were standing in a planter within the parking lot and were located on public property. Further, they were not interfering with any business of the DMV and were not yelling or disturbing the peace.”
The men were charged with violating California Penal Code Section 602.1:
(a) Any person who intentionally interferes with any lawful business or occupation carried on by the owner or agent of a business establishment open to the public, by obstructing or intimidating those attempting to carry on business, or their customers, and who refuses to leave the premises of the business establishment after being requested to leave by the owner or the owner’s agent, or by a peace officer acting at the request of the owner or owner’s agent, is guilty of a misdemeanor, punishable by imprisonment in a county jail for up to 90 days, or by a fine of up to four hundred dollars ($400), or by both that imprisonment and fine.
(b) Any person who intentionally interferes with any lawful business carried on by the employees of a public agency open to the public, by obstructing or intimidating those attempting to carry on business, or those persons there to transact business with the public agency, and who refuses to leave the premises of the public agency after being requested to leave by the office manager or a supervisor of the public agency, or by a peace officer acting at the request of the office manager or a supervisor of the public agency, is guilty of a misdemeanor, punishable by imprisonment in a county jail for up to 90 days, or by a fine of up to four hundred dollars ($400), or by both that imprisonment and fine.
(c) This section shall not apply to any of the following persons:
(1) Any person engaged in lawful labor union activities that are permitted to be carried out on the property by state or federal law.
(2) Any person on the premises who is engaging in activities protected by the California Constitution or the United States
Constitution.
(d) Nothing in this section shall be deemed to supersede the application of any other law.
Advocates of Faith and Freedom is representing the trio and has filed a complaint against the arresting officer and the California Department of Motor Vehicles. The complaint asks for a jury trial, compensatory damages and a permanent injunction against the Department of Motor Vehicles and its staff, employees and representatives from arresting or trying to stop religious speech at the Department of Motor Vehicle premises.
Police arrest man for attacking gay security guard www.privateofficer.com
Davie Fla April 28 2011 A Davie man is facing hate crime charges after an attack on an openly gay man that police said was the bloody conclusion to an ongoing dispute fueled by the victim’s sexual orientation.
John William Koontz, 62, was ordered held without bail Tuesday.
He was arrested Monday after police said he walked up to Miguel “Angel” Rodriguez, 46, outside a CVS in the 5200 block of Southwest 34th Street in Davie and repeatedly punched and kicked him while shouting insults.
“I’m gay, that’s what I am … and now he uses that against me,” Rodriguez said in a telephone interview Tuesday.
Koontz was charged with aggravated battery and a hate crime. To label an assault a hate crime, investigators and prosecutors must prove the victim was targeted because of race, color, sexual orientation or other personal factors. A hate-crime designation is added to other criminal charges, elevates them to felony status and may mean stiffer penalties under Florida law.
According to a Davie police complaint affidavit, Rodriguez works as a security guard for Everglades Mobile Home Park, where both men live.
About 5:30 p.m Monday, Koontz approached Rodriguez as he was entering the pharmacy and made an anti-gay remark to him, the affidavit said.
Koontz then hit Rodriguez in the face, causing him to fall to the ground, according to the affidavit. Koontz then straddled Rodriguez, punched him and kicked him in the face, the Davie police document says.
Rodriguez said he pepper sprayed Koontz, but was unable to stop him. When Koontz punched him, his eyeglasses were smashed, he said.
“I thought he was going to kill me,” he said.
Two CVS employees were able to separate the men and called police. Rescuers took Rodriguez to Memorial Hospital Pembroke, where he was treated and released Monday night.
Koontz was arrested and taken to the Broward County Main Jail where police found a small key in his pocket. He also was charged with obstructing justice through unlawful possession of a concealed handcuff key, a third-degree felony, and violating probation from a recent marijuana possession charge.
Rodriguez’s father, Jack Gilmer, was inside the CVS picking up medicine when the attack happened.
“I heard Miguel screaming my name and when I got to the front he was laying on the floor with his face all beat up, bleeding,” Gilmer said Wednesday. “It was definitely a hate crime.”
Rodriguez said the feud between the two men began about three weeks ago when Rodriguez, who guards the mobile home community’s entrance, called police after he said Koontz was harassing him and visitors near the gate. He said Koontz has since continued to verbally harass him.
Speaking almost 24 hours after the attack, Rodriguez said his face remained swollen and throbbing. Though physically and emotionally drained, he said he was keeping a positive spirit.
“I’m scared … but at least I’m alive,” he said
Source:SunSentinel
TSA screeners find baton in luggage www.privateofficer.com
The unnamed man was arrested for possessing a deadly weapon about 7:20 a.m. during a search of his carry on bag, said Nico Melendez, TSA spokesman. The man was planning to fly to Oakland.
The weapon, a collapsible baton, was identified by a security officer who saw it in the x-ray machine.
Initially 8 inches in size the baton expands, making it a deadly weapon, Melendez said.
The man did not tell officials why he had the weapon with him.
Airport police are notified every time an illegal item goes through a checkpoint, which happens fairly often, Melendez said.
Throwing stars were discovered in a bag over the weekend and several rounds of ammunition were discovered last week at local airports. And a gun was discovered at a Sacramento airport about a week ago.
“That is all stuff that shouldn’t be in the airport and we need to remind passengers that there are consequences to bringing these items,” Melendez said.
Source:www.sbsun.com
Arizona sheriffs say US Border Patrol ordered them to stop catching illegal immigrants www.privateofficer.com
COCHISE COUNTY, AZ April 28 2011– An Arizona sheriff says U.S. Border Patrol officials have repeatedly told him they have been ordered to reduce — at times even stop — arrests of illegal immigrants caught trying to cross the U.S. border.
Cochise County Sheriff Larry Dever stated that a supervisor with the U.S. Border Patrol told him as recently as this month that the federal agency’s office on Arizona’s southern border was under orders to keep apprehension numbers down during specific reporting time periods.
“The senior supervisor agent is telling me about how their mission is now to scare people back,” Dever said in an intervie. “He said, ‘I had to go back to my guys and tell them not to catch anybody, that their job is to chase people away. … They were not to catch anyone, arrest anyone. Their job was to set up posture, to intimidate people, to get them to go back.”
Dever said his recent conversation with the Border Patrol supervisor was the latest in a series of communications on the subject that he has had with various federal agents over the last two years. Dever said he plans to relay the substance of these conversations when he testifies under oath next month before the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs.
“I will raise my hand to tell the truth and swear to God, and nothing is more serious or important than that,” he said. “I’m going to tell them that, here’s what I hear and see every day: I had conversation with agent A, B, C, D and this is what they told me.”
Dever’s charges were vigorously denied by a commander with the U.S. Customs and Border Protection.
“The claim that Border Patrol supervisors have been instructed to underreport or manipulate our statistics is unequivocally false,” Jeffery Self, commander of the U.S. Customs and Border Protection Joint Field Command in Arizona, said in a written statement.
“I took an oath that I take very seriously, and I find it insulting that anyone, especially a fellow law enforcement officer, would imply that we would put the protection of the American public and security of our nation’s borders in danger just for a numbers game,” he said. “Our mission does not waiver based on political climate, and it never will. To suggest that we are ambiguous in enforcing our laws belittles the work of more than 6,000 CBP employees in Arizona who dedicate their lives to protect our borders every day.”
In recent days, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano has said the U.S.-Mexican border is more secure than ever, and Homeland Security officials have used recent statistics to support those claims.
“There is a perception that the border is worse now than it ever has been,” Napolitano said at the El Paso border crossing last week. “That is wrong. The border is better now than it ever has been.”
Dever doesn’t agree.
“Janet Napolitano says the border is more secure than it’s ever been. I’ve been here for 60 years, and I’m telling you that’s not true,” he said.
The sheriff of Santa Cruz County, which borders Dever’s Cochise County to the west, said, “This is news to me,” when asked about reports that border agents were being told to turn illegal immigrants back to Mexico rather than arrest them.
“It comes as a complete surprise that that would be something that’s going around,” Santa Cruz County Sheriff Tony Estrada said. “I meet with Dever all the time and I have great respect for him, so I expect he’d come forward and say what he knows and give the source.
“Not knowing who the source is, how reliable that source is, I really don’t have much of a position,” Estrada said. “I’ve been around a real long time and haven’t heard anything like this. By the same token, you learn new things every day.”
Both sheriffs are elected officials. Dever is a Republican, Estrada, a Democrat.
Others have questioned the methodology and conclusions of the Homeland Security numbers showing the border is more secure.
Mark Hanna, CEO of Real Life Enterprises, a Phoenix-based technology integration and security company, has testified before the Arizona Senate about what he called Homeland Security’s flawed methodology used to compile border security statistics. Hanna maintains the numbers are dangerously misleading.
Hanna, who is currently working on a private/public partnership pilot program along the Arizona border, said he attended a February conference at which Michael Fisher, chief of the United States Border Patrol, and Mark S. Borkowski, assistant commissioner for technology and innovation acquisition, U.S. Customs and Border Protection, showed off charts indicating arrests were decreasing and argued the border was more secure. The charts also showed an increase in marijuana seizures along the border and an increase in Border Patrol agents.
But those charts left out crucial data, Hanna said.
“Since we don’t know how many illegal crossings are occurring, then a decrease in apprehensions might mean that there are fewer illegal crossings, and the border is more secure. But it could also just as easily mean that more illegal border crossings are occurring, and we’re just not catching as many. In order to know how secure the border is, you need to know how many are crossing and the threat level of those who are crossing illegally,” he said.
“It is a very dangerous condition for the secretary of Homeland Security to be using incomplete data to form such a conclusion, and then repeatedly announce these conclusions as fact,” he said.
The Department of Homeland Security did not return repeated requests for comment on Hanna’s specific challenges to the agency’s methodology.
Whatever the methodology, Dever said the numbers don’t accurately describe what’s happening on the ground.
“We do not know who’s crossing that border, but that anyone who wants to can. That’s the message our nation needs to hear, that anyone who wants to can, and is. And our own Department of Homeland Security does not have clear definition of what securing the border even means,” Dever said.
“People are disgusted, the smiles are gone off their face, their general sense of welfare been taken away from them and until that’s returned you can throw all the numbers on the board. … I’ll tell Napolitano, in spite of all of your declarations and efforts to the contrary, things are not safe. No, they are not secure.
“You can use your numbers to say it’s more secure, but it does not define a sense of safety or well-being. You can say it’s more secure, but it’s more dangerous than ever.”
Source:AP
Jacksonville teacher arrested for molestation of child www.privateofficer.com
JACKSONVILLE, Fla.April 28 2011 — A Duval County middle school teacher is in jail after being arrested on sex-related charges.
Robert Bryan Luke, 35, faces one count of lewd/lascivious molestation and two counts of sexual battery, after someone accused him of being involved in oral sex and inappropriate touching with an underage person. One of Luke’s sexual battery counts revealed the victim is under the age of 12.
Duval County Schools spokesperson Jill Johnson said she didn’t know if the victim was a student, but a Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office police report shows that the incidents occurred inside the school and further indicates that the victim is a male.
The victim’s legal guardian filed the complaint with the sheriff’s office on Saturday, according to the JSO report, and Luke was arrested Monday evening. Investigators said Luke denied the allegations.
During a news conference, JSO detectives said Luke had been accused of acting improperly before, while he was a substitute teacher at Southside Middle School in September 2007.
Luke became a full-time employee at Lake Shore Middle School in 2008, Johnson said, and the school board did a full background screening on him prior to hiring him.
Johnson also noted that there was no disciplinary action noted in his employee files since he’d been employed at the school.
No hearing has been scheduled yet for Luke.
Until Luke’s case is completed he will remain an employee of Duval County Schools, but Johnson said he has been removed from the classroom.
Source:First Coast news
Deputy sheriff, second man charged with having sex with minor www.privateofficer.com
Rialto CA April 28 2011 Sheriff’s investigators have arrested a 27-year-old Rialto man suspected of having sex with the same 16-year-old girl that a Highland-based sheriff’s deputy is alleged to have had sex with.
Jason Anguiano was taken into custody at about 9p.m. Monday after a search warrant was served at his home.
When asked if Anguiano was being accused of having sex with the same police Explorer that Deputy Nathan Gastineau was accused of having sex with, sheriff’s spokeswoman Jodi Miller said yes.
“It’s the same girl,” Miller said.
Deputy Nathan Gastineau was arrested Friday on suspicion of committing lewd acts with a minor after the Sheriff’s Department received information he may have had a sexual relationship with a 16-year-old girl from the Explorer program he ran.
Investigators said they recovered “evidence” at Anguiano’s home after they served the warrant but did not elaborate. They arrested him without incident on suspicion of unlawful sexual intercourse with a minor and possession of a dangerous weapon.
Deputies from the sheriff’s Crimes Against Children Detail investigating the allegations against Gastineau identified Anguiano as a suspect, Miller said.
“It’s part of the same investigation,” she said. “(Anguiano) was identified as a second subject.”
But Anguiano is not connected to the Sheriff’s Department in any way nor is he connected to the Highland Explorer post, Miller said.
Anguiano was booked Monday night at Central Detention Center in San Bernardino. He posted $25,000 bail about 6:45 a.m. Tuesday, authorities said. Gastineau is also out on bail.
The District Attorney’s Office has yet to file charges against either man
Source:www.sbsun.com
CT adds K-9 police teams to trains and buses www.privateofficer.com
New Haven, Conn. April 28 2011 – If you take the train or the bus in Connecticut, you’re going to notice some extra security soon. State troopers and their K-9 dogs will be patrolling Metro-North and Shore Line East Commuter trains and bus stations.
“I think to the extent that it’s something new, I think people are going to be surprised, just like I am about it. In the end, I think we’re all concerned with terrorism,” said commuter Paul White.
Thanks to an almost $2 million grant, Connecticut State Police have a new Mass Transit Security Unit, that includes five canine explosive detection teams.
“The traveling public, and the commuting public, likes to see security, and wants to see security. They want to feel safe when they commute,” State Police Lieutenant J. Paul Vance said.
Official say there is already a vast security system with the MTA and Amtrak police, along with Connecticut police squads, but in a post 9-11 world there is no such thing as too much security.
“To have these five dogs and their trainers available, to mix up the security, to make sure at any given time, one of these dogs may be walking up your train, or at your station, or checking your bag, I think is an important message that we’ve got to get out there,” Governor Dannel Malloy said.
“The goal is prevention, obviously. Prevention, and enabling our citizens to feel safe, to provide that extra layer of safety to them through this program,” State Police Captain L.J. Fusaro said.
The campaign, “See Something, Say Something” is well known to commuters now, but with an added dimension, because for the dogs it’s “Smell Something, Speak Something”.
“I think it’s a great idea. All the protection you can get. It’s the best there is,” one woman said.
Source:WTNH
New Jersey man charged with assaulting security guards www.privateofficer.com
Police said just before 11 p.m. on April 23, Christopher Friscia, 19, was refused re-entry into the Huguenot Manor Catering Hall in New Paltz where the teen night was being held.
As he was being escorted off the property by in-house security and the off-duty officer working the security detail there, he began to fight and injured both men. The security guard was punched in the face and the off-duty officer suffered a broken hand.
Friscia was arrested by responding New Paltz officers who were called in to assist
Buffalo man charged with impersonating police and security www.privateofficer.com
BUFFALO, N.Y.April 28 2011 – A convicted sex offender and felon was arrested on Tuesday for impersonating a police officer.
State Police say they arrested 46-year-old James Lewis of Buffalo after an investigation revealed he had a number of items he used to lead the public to assume he is a cop. Police say he had a bullet proof vest with “POLICE” written on the back, a badge that said “Special Police,” a forged NYS Security Guard License, patches and collar brass for uniforms with “Police” and “Lieutenant,” and two gun belts that contained handcuffs, pepper spray, a stun gun, and police baton. One of the belts held a starter pistol while the other held a BB gun, both of which resembled real handguns.
Police say Lewis was operating an unlicensed security company under the name of First Response Law Enforcement. He has been charged with second degree criminal possession of a forged instrument, two counts of third degree criminal possession of a weapon, second degree criminal impersonation, unlawful possession of noxious materials, and operating as an unlicensed security guard under the general business law.
Lewis is being held in the Erie County Holding Center in lieu of $250,000 cash or bond. He is due back in court on May 2nd at 2 p.m.
Source:Wivb
