Archive
Man puts down speed strips on city street to slow traffic www.privateofficer.com
CLOVER, SC Nov 8 2011 - Neighbors who live on Forest Street say drivers speed through with no thought for the children who might be outside playing.
They’re worried someone will get hurt.
But the solution is expensive and we all know times are tough.
So one man thought he was doing the right thing, helping his neighbors out, when he took matters into his own hands.
Mike Walden stood outside his home and pointed to a truck, “my point exactly,” he says as the driver roars down the hill.
Drivers, Walden says, appear to be doing 45, even 55 miles per hour.
There is no speed limit sign on the street but signs around the town say the speed limit is 35 unless otherwise posted.
Since living on the street since January, Walden says he is now past the point of frustration.
“Just like that car there..if my kid shot out in front of that car right there..it would be too late,” Walden said.
Neighbors Michael Lambert wrote WBTV and told us he and his neighbors have made repeated complaints about speeders to the Clover Police Department.
They even started a petition to get speed bumps, but they were told it would cost more than a hundred dollars a household to get them installed.
“When you’ve got small kids in the neighborhood like this..close together and you got kids…people should automatically slow down but they aren’t doing it,” Walden said.
So what did Walden do?
He decided to install speed bumps himself, free of charge to all this neighbors. A long rubber speed bump with reflective yellow markings. He points to a spot in the street where he measured exactly where to place them. “Just wide enough where you would have to slow down.”
In the road for about an hour to two, Walden says people had no choice but to slow down. One complaint later though – and the cops were at his front door – telling him to remove them.
“They said I had no permission to put them down. I had no right actually,” Walden said.
True he didn’t. Walden says he was told to contact the state DOT. WBTV was told the same when we contacted the Clover Public Works Department, who says the state owns the road.
According to the SCDOT, it first has to be determined if the road meets the requirements for speed bumps. Even if it does, it’s not guaranteed one will be put there. It also says the state doesn’t have the money for these projects right now so it’s up to the town to find the funds.
WBTV tried to contact the Clover Police Department about neighbors’ complaints. We haven’t heard back.
Source:WBTV.com
Fugitive security guard commits suicide at sea www.privateofficer.com
KEY LARGO Fla Nov 8 2011 — The residents of Travel Trailer Town first met Noel Sosa-Ruiz about four years ago, when he swam ashore after jumping off a boat that had smuggled him into the U.S. from Cuba.
Five days ago, when Magaly Rivas saw him again, “He looked dazed, stressed,” she said. “He said he had some problems with his wife in Houston.”
Just how serious those problems were did not become clear until Friday, when, with the Coast Guard closing in, the 41-year-old Sosa-Ruiz shot and killed himself in a stolen boat that was out of gas and drifting just 20 miles off Cuba’s north coast.
Back in Key Largo, Rivas, 39, and her boyfriend Juan Carlos Leyva, 42, the boat’s owner, found a note in a van Sosa-Ruiz had been driving.
“I am condemned to die because I killed my wife and I have to leave,” read the note, written in Spanish, according to Rivas. “Forgive me.”
In Houston, Sosa-Ruiz was indeed wanted in connection with the fatal shooting of 29-year-old Yodanis Cruz-Rojas, his common-law wife and mother of their two children, the Monroe County Sheriff’s Office soon learned.
Cruz-Rojas was at work at a dental office on Oct. 27 when Sosa-Ruiz walked in, fatally shot her and fled, according to Houston police.
After the shooting, Sosa-Ruiz, a licensed security guard, apparently made his way from Texas to his sister’s house in Kissimmee. There he picked up the van he drove to Key Largo.
When Sosa-Ruiz arrived from Cuba, the residents of the trailer park — some of them Cuban immigrants themselves — assisted in his resettlement. Leyva even made a call to a cousin in Houston, who helped him find a job, according to Rivas.
But when he showed up unexpectedly last week, things were different, said Rivas.
“He seemed anxious,” she said. “He said he came here just to get away for a while. He wanted to stay busy.”
Given a room in a neighbor’s house, Sosa-Ruiz helped Leyva work on a small boat, while incessantly asking to go out on a fishing trip. Rivas said she and Leyva told him the seas were too rough for fishing.
On Thursday, Leyva was scheduled to go into the hospital for medical tests. He would stay overnight. And that is when Sosa-Ruiz apparently saw his chance, said Rivas.
Neighbors heard the engine on Leyva’s 21-foot Mako center console roar to life between 1 and 2 a.m. Friday. When Leyva returned from the hospital Friday morning, he found the boat gone and the note in the van.
After the boat theft was reported to the Sheriff’s Office, the Coast Guard was alerted, according to Deputy Becky Herrin.
At 10:30 a.m. on Friday, the Coast Guard in Sector Key West got word from the crew of a Customs and Border Protection Dash-8 aircraft: Two red flares had been fired from a center console vessel that appeared to be dead in the water and in need of assistance.
The crew of the cutter Nantucket was diverted to the vessel’s position, and an Ocean Sentry fixed-wing aircraft crew from Air Station Miami flew over to drop a radio, raft, food and a pump to the vessel.
Sosa-Ruiz retrieved only the radio and the pump. He used gasoline from the pump to get his engine started and took off toward Cuba, the Coast Guard reported.
But that fuel did not last long. Drifting again, the stolen vessel was spotted by crew aboard the cargo ship Four Nabucco about 11 miles southwest of Cay Sal Island in the Bahamas. They reported the boat’s position to the Coast Guard.
Four Nabucco crew members took down the vessel’s registration numbers. The numbers matched Leyva’s boat.
The Nantucket found Sosa-Ruiz and the Mako about 6 p.m. Friday. As the 110-foot patrol boat neared, Sosa-Ruiz fired one shot directly into his chest. The boarding team approached the vessel by smallboat, went aboard and confirmed that he was dead.
A .40 caliber Berretta, believed to be the gun Sosa-Ruiz used on himself, was found in the boat, said Herrin.
The Nantucket brought the vessel and Sosa-Ruiz’s body back to the Florida Keys on Saturday. His remains are currently in the custody of the Monroe County Medical Examiner’s Office.
In a statement, Coast Guard commander Capt. Pat DeQuattro said, “Through close coordination with our partner agencies, we were able to apprehend and keep an extremely dangerous fugitive from fleeing the country.”
But as they drove to Key West on Sunday to recover their boat, Rivas and Leyva had a much more personal take on their close call with the accused killer.
“This was just a freaky situation,” said Rivas. “I get even more stressed when I start thinking about it now. Who knows what might have happened, to me, Juan Carlos, or my two kids?
“I’m just thankful.”
Auto theft suspect steals Tucson police car, injures officer www.privateofficer.com
PHOENIX AZ Nov 8 2011— An auto theft suspect who jumped into a Tucson police cruiser Sunday morning led authorities on a wild 50-mile chase up Interstate 10 after dragging a police sergeant down the street, authorities said.
The sergeant tried in vain to pull the unidentified man out of his car as the suspect sped away, then fired a shot at the suspect when he tried to dislodge the officer by driving into a wall, Tucson police spokesman Sgt. Matt Ronstadt said.
The sergeant, Kyle Robinson, suffered minor scrapes, bumps and bruises when he eventually came loose from his car, Ronstadt said.
Other officers then chased the stolen cruiser, with one trying to ram it from behind to stop it. That maneuver failed, and a short chase by police was called off by a supervisor when the suspect began driving at extremely high speeds into oncoming traffic on a major Tucson boulevard, Ronstadt said. The supervisor followed policy forbidding pursuits for only property crimes and wasn’t aware the driver had tried to assault Robinson or that the officer had fired at him.
Other officers spotted the speeding patrol car several times as it made its way west toward Interstate 10, then started chasing the suspect again when he entered I-10 and started heading toward Phoenix.
Tucson officers lost sight of the stolen police car, but Department of Public Safety officers saw it heading out of town and took up the chase, with Tucson police right behind, Ronstadt said.
The suspect sped north on westbound I-10 at speeds in excess of 120 mph before he was finally forced to stop outside Casa Grande, Ronstadt said. He ran away but was caught, and after a struggle where an officer may have used a Taser, was finally subdued.
He had no major injuries, either from the shot fired by Sgt. Robinson or his other confrontation with officers.
Ronstadt said the wild morning began about 10:40 a.m. when an officer took a call about a suspicious vehicle parked in the desert near Davis-Monthan Air Force Base, Ronstadt said.
The officer found a stolen minivan and was trying to detain a man at gunpoint until other officers arrived when the man raw away. He led the officer into a nearby neighborhood, where he began jumping fences into yards.
Sgt. Robinson arrived and was driving on East Calle Aurora when the suspect jumped over a home’s block wall and into the street in front of him. Robinson got out of his car and gave chase, but the suspect doubled back and jumped into the officer’s car. Robinson was right behind, and tried to pull the man from his car as he began to drive away.
“He drove onto the sidewalk, into a mailbox post and straight towards a block wall, that if he had struck it would have hit right on the driver’s side where the sergeant was,” Ronstadt said.
A routine investigation into the shooting was being done, he said.
As for the suspect, he was headed back to Tucson Sunday afternoon.
“He’s facing numerous felony charges,” Ronstadt said. “I’m not sure exactly what he’ll be charged with, but they probably have a long list.”
Despite the long high-speed chase, there were no reports of any accidents.
WVA TSA officer files sexual harassement lawsuit www.privateofficer.com
The West Virginia Record reports that U.S. Homeland Secretary Janet Napolitano is named in the lawsuit filed by Gina Simmons in U.S. District Court.
She alleges that at least one instance of sexual harassment involved a supervisor.
The legal journal said Simmons alleges the sexual harassment occurred during her five years with the Transportation Security Administration. She alleges that at least one instance of sexual harassment involved a supervisor.
According to her suit, Simmons started with TSA in 2002 working at Tri-State Regional Airport near Kenova in Wayne County.
Simmons seeks unspecified damages, including back pay, interest and attorney fees.
Actor arrested for burlary in NC www.privateofficer.com
WILMINGTON, N.C. Nov 8 2011 A young actor whose television credits include “CSI” and “ER” has been arrested by Wilmington police and charged with attempting a burglary at a store that sells mobile phones.
The StarNews of Wilmington reported Monday that 18-year-old Kesun Mitchell Loder was arrested on charges of attempted breaking and entering, possession of burglary tools and carrying a concealed weapon.
Loder’s acting stage name is K’Sun Ray.
Police say Loder was arrested Saturday after cutting an alarm system cable and trying to enter a mobile phone store through a side door.
Employees confronted Loder and he ran away, but was caught by a police officer.
Source:www.charlotteobserver.com
Security aids in arrest of copper thief at Baltimore Gas & Electric www.privateofficer.com
A security guard working at the facility on the 9700 block of Belair Road saw a man enter the facility on surveillance footage and called police shortly after midnight on Nov. 3 to report a suspicious person, according to a police report.
Officers responded and found that a fence in the rear of the property had been pulled apart where it was previously damaged during earlier burglaries.
With the help of a helicopter, police located a man who matched the security guard’s description in the 4200 block of Forge Road. A pile of copper spools, marked with BGE tags, was found in the nearby woods. The total estimated value of the copper that was stolen and eventually returned to BGE is $2,360, a police report stated.
Police arrested 37-year-old David Allen Pritt, of the 11000 block of Belair Road in Kingsville and charged him with fourth-degree burglary, theft under $10,000, malicious destruction of property and trespassing, court records show.
Pritt told police during questioning that he had been at a bar and left his car there to avoid a DUI, according to a police report. Police later located Pritt’s 2002 Mercury Cougar in a parking lot in the 4200 block of Forge Road, where there are no bars nearby.
Additional investigation revealed that Pritt has visited scrapyards to sell copper and brass six times since August, the police report stated.
He was later released on $10,000 bond, court records show.
Portland park ranger injured-tumbles 70FT subduing armed man www.privateofficer.com
PORTLAND OR Nov 8 2011 – A Portland park ranger was hurt after a fall Sunday while trying to subdue a man armed with a knife in Forest Park.
Police said rangers tried to approach 50-year-old Patrick Gerard O’Donnell the the Wildwood Trail near NW Cornell Road earl in the afternoon after reports he exposed himself and harassed women who were hiking.
Police said O’Donnell pulled out a six-inch knife and tried to attack two rangers before they had a chance to talk to him. Portland park rangers are not armed.
O’Donnell and one of the rangers tumbled down a 70-foot steep embankment, police said. Both were taken to the hospital with injuries that were not life-threatening.
O’Donnell was in police custody at an area hospital.
Detectives asked anyone who had contact with O’Donnell in Forest Park or any information to call (503) 823-0451.
Source:kgw
Fired employee shoots gas station manager, himself in NC www.privateofficer.com
Police allege that Richard Vance Dixon shot 44-year-old Alex P. Little at about 2 a.m. before turning another firearm on himself at Exprezit Gas Station at 120 Linville Road.
Officers went to the station to investigate a reported shooting and found Dixon, 25, of the 2000 block of Lomond St., dead in the parking lot from an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound, according to Winston-Salem Police Department.
Police learned that Little fired Dixon from the business on Nov. 1. Dixon returned early Sunday with a handgun and opened fire, striking Little multiple times. Dixon then exited the business and obtained a shotgun from his vehicle, which he fired multiple times into the business. Dixon then shot himself, according to police.
Little was transported to Wake Forest Baptist Hospital where he was listed in critical condition. Police have notified next of kin for both men.
Chicago police officer stabbed to death by grandson www.privateofficer.com
Chicago IL Nov 8 2011 Police officer Hester Scott made a simple vow to friends and relatives who questioned the wisdom of continuing to raise a troubled grandson who’d caused her so much grief.
“I’ll fight till my dying breath to turn his life around,” she told her sister Marlene Thursday night.
Less than 24 hours later, prosecutors say, that promise had become a chilling prophecy.
Caught on Friday by Scott skipping school asleep in front of the TV in her basement in the 8800 block of South Wallace, 15-year-old Keshawn Perkins erupted in a rage, smashing her repeatedly in the head with a lamp, then stabbing her multiple times with a kitchen knife, severing her jugular, it’s alleged.
He wrapped his 55-year-old grandmother’s dead body in blanket, dragged it into the back yard and was spotted fleeing her home, covered in blood, carrying her purse, prosecutors said.
Arrested soon after, he told detectives Scott had been yelling at him for skipping class at Gwendolyn Brooks College Prep so he “hit her with the lamp until she shut up,” it’s alleged. Two bloody kitchen knifes were recovered from the basement and Perkins told police where he’d dumped the body and hidden his bloody clothes, prosecutors said.
Wearing a Juvenile Detention Center T-shirt and gray sweatpants in court Sunday morning, an expressionless Perkins was told he faces adult charges of first-degree murder and armed robbery.
His family was not in court to hear Cook County Judge James Brown deny him bail, or to hear prosecutors warn that he faces a minimum sentence of life imprisonment if convicted of murdering a police officer.
Instead they gathered at his great uncle’s home in Auburn-Gresham to mourn the woman they said had devoted her life to him and his three siblings.
Scott — a mother of two — had adopted Keshawn and his siblings seven years ago after her drug-addicted daughter could no longer care for them and they were taken into foster care, they said.
“Hester felt so bad about what had happened to her daughter and she was determined to do everything she could for the grandchildren,” her sister said.
Scott borrowed money to build an expensive addition to her home to house the four children and lavished love and attention on them, fellow officer and friend Gloria Allen said.
As a proud police officer who’d worked closely with juvenile delinquents, Scott had a special and sympathetic understanding of the difficulties faced by the families of troubled youth, Allen said.
But her world collapsed when a mentally ill Keshawn accused her of abuse in August 2007, relatives said. Though the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services eventually dismissed the allegations, the children were taken out of her care for several months, and she was stripped of her police powers pending an investigation by the Independent Police Review Authority, they said.
Four years later, she was still doing desk duty, had not had her gun or star returned to her, and was “living under a cloud” they said, urging IPRA to close it’s investigation and the department to posthumously restore Scott’s police powers so that she can be buried with her reputation intact.
DCFS spokesman Kendall Marlowe said that Illinois law prevents him from discussing the history of any investigation into Scott and Perkins “out of respect for the accused minor.”
But Chicago Police spokeswoman Sarah Hamilton confirmed that Scott had been stripped of her police powers. She referred all questions to IPRA, where general counsel Eric Muellenbach said no details on the case were immediately available Sunday.
As the investigation dragged on, threats, violent outbursts and a strong emotional attachment to his convicted felon father had seen Keshawn run away from home at least twice, his uncle Kevin Scott said.
Relatives — including Scott’s brother Theodore — and friends were fearful for Scott’s safety and had urged her to have Keshawn, who’d been diagnosed with bipolar disorder, permanently institutionalized. Just weeks ago, he’d made a fresh allegation against her, accusing her of threatening him at gunpoint, they said — an allegation her family considers absurd.
Despite all the difficulties, Scott strongly felt that looking after Keshawn and his siblings “was what God put her on this earth to do,” her sister said.
“The only thing she loved more than being a police officer was those children and if someone suggested putting Keshawn in care, she’d say, ‘That’s my grandson — who else can take care of him?’
“We haven’t just lost her, we’ve lost him, too.”
Allen added, “I was one of those who said, ‘You have to give up the kid,’ but she would not hear it. She loved that boy.”
Source:Chicago Sun-Times
Maguire’s Pub security nabs man with cocaine www.privateofficer.com
Petaluma CA Nov 8 2011 A Novato man was arrested early Saturday on suspicion of possessing and being under the influence of a controlled substance in Petaluma, authorities said.
Samuel Becker, 25, was detained by a security guard at Maguire’s Pub where he was found in a hallway allegedly snorting cocaine, Petaluma Police Sgt. Steve Nelson said Sunday.
Police were called to the Kentucky Street bar and restaurant at 1:40 a.m. and officers reported finding Becker with four bindles — or small packages — of cocaine.
Nelson did not have information Sunday about the value or the amount of the cocaine.
Becker was booked into the Sonoma County Jail and later was released on bail, jail staff said.
US Marshals -local police nab 700 fugitives in Virginia www.privateofficer.com
The agency’s joint apprehension team, working through the Fugitve Task Force arrested some 710 suspects wanted in connection with violent crimes such as kidnapping, assault, homicide and vehicle theft as well as drug and gun trafficking crimes.
All the arrests happened between October 2010 and October of this year.
“The fugitive apprehension efforts in Northern Virginia are so successful because it is a true collboration among federal, state and municipal law enforcement,” John Bolen, chief deputy U.S. Marshal for the Eastern District of Virginia said in a press release.
“We work alongside the Fairfax Police Department, Alexandria City Sheriff, Prince William County Police Department, U.S. Secret Service, FBI, Immigration Crimes Enforcement (ICE), Diplomatic Security Service and the Metropolitan Washington Airport Authority to apprehend violent criminals, including repeat offenders, child predators and those who prey on the defenseless. We track these criminals not only in Virginia, but all over the globe. If you are wanted, we will find you. There is no place to hide.”
Armed intruder shot by security officer www.privateofficer.com
Cameron County Sheriff Omar Lucio said the security guard fired at least once, but investigators did not know whether the robber was hit.
Lucio said he did not know whether the robber fired his gun.
Deputies were continuing a search for the robber Sunday evening.
Witnesses said the robbery began sometime after 1 p.m. at a game room on the eastbound Expressway 83 frontage road near White Ranch Road.
Linda Renfroe, a customer in the game room at the time, said she was standing near the front of the room when the door suddenly swung open.
“I was just standing there when the door opened and there was a guy with a gun to the security guard’s head,” Renfroe, 49, said.
“He wasn’t yelling or anything like that. It was just calm. I thought it was a joke.”
But then the man entered the room and began pointing the gun at customers, she said.
“I knew then it was for real. I thought he was going to start shooting,” she said.
Perry Clemons, 43, another customer, said the man was heading toward the game room counter.
“He looked like he just as soon shoot you as look at you,” Clemons said.
Renfroe said that at one point, the man “was trying to get the guard to give up his gun, but the guard was refusing to do it.”
The robber went behind the counter and pointed his gun at an employee, she said.
“The guy had the gun to the worker’s head and the worker was giving him money,” Renfroe said.
The robber then ran out of the room with the security guard in pursuit.
The man crouched behind some cars in the parking lot before running behind the game room, where he jumped over a wire fence into an open field on the east side of the building.
“The security guard had his weapon and the guy had his weapon. The guard kept telling him, ‘stop,’ and the guy kept going,” Renfroe said.
“He got half way across the field,” then turned.
She said he fired and the guard returned fire.
Clemons said it appeared the man was hit, but he continued running away from the scene.
“The guard probably hit him because he was moving real slow,” Clemons said.
Lucio said he did not know whether the robber fired his gun. But he said the security guard fired at least once.
The search for the man continued as of late Sunday.
Source:The Brownsville Herald
Naked man found strolling through Dulles Airport www.privateofficer.com
He also stripped off his shirt, his pants, and underwear.
An adult male observed strolling naked through Washington Dulles International Airport had very little to hide when police took him into custody Monday morning.
Airport spokeswoman Kimberly Gibbs said airport police took him into custody without incident and determined that he needed medical attention. He was taken to a local hospital.
Gibbs says police have no plans to pursue charges against the man. She says there was no security risk or disruption to passengers or air traffic.
Customer loads shotgun at TN pawnshop and shoots employee www.privateofficer.com
James Alan Greene, who’s in his 60s, went into the pawnshop at 903 Clinch Avenue and asked to see the gun.
Although it was handed to him unloaded, police say Greene apparently brought ammunition with him.
They say he loaded the shotgun and shot pawnshop employee Larry Snellings, 58, during a struggle.
Another pawn shop employee shot back at Greene and hit him.
Greene fled the store, going back to his residence. His wife called 911 shortly afterward, fearing her husband had shot himself, according to Clinton Police Chief Rick Scarbrough.
Greene was flown to UT Medical Center. Snellings was taken to Methodist Medical Center in Oak Ridge.
There’s no word on the conditions of either man
Source:WATE
Five charged in theft of Lion’s carcass www.privateofficer.com
TOLEDO, Ohio Nov 8 2011- Five people were charged Monday with trying to steal the carcass of a lion that was among dozens of exotic animals that were released from a private compound by their suicidal owner and then were shot dead by sheriff’s deputies in a big-game hunt.
Deputies said they stopped four men and a teenage boy who had loaded the lion into a Jeep several hours after the animals ran from their cages at the compound near Zanesville, in eastern Ohio.
Deputies were forced to kill 48 wild animals including bears, lions and endangered Bengal tigers after their owner, Terry Thompson, threw open their cages late in the afternoon on Oct. 18 and then killed himself on his farm.
The four men and the teen, ranging in ages from 21 to 17, were each charged with a misdemeanor count of theft, Muskingum County prosecutor Michael Haddox told The Associated Press. Each faces up to six months in jail and a $1,000 fine if convicted.
Deputies said they noticed the headlights of a vehicle near the farm and decided to stop it, according to reports released by the county sheriff’s office.
Inside the Jeep, they found a dead male lion, the deputies said. They then removed the carcass, belonging to one of nine lions that had been housed at the compound, and closed down a road to prevent anyone else from getting near the dead animals.
Prosecutors wouldn’t say what they believed the men and the boy planned to do with the lion’s body.
The four men charged were Cody Wilson, 21, of Byesville; Richard Weidlich, 19, of Cambridge; Brian Matthews, 21, of Kimbolton; and Joseph Jakubisin, 21, of Cambridge, Haddox said. The name and hometown of the boy weren’t released because of his age.
Wilson, Weidlich and Matthews didn’t have listed home telephone numbers. Jakubisin’s number was no longer in service. There was no indication the men had hired attorneys.
Deputies have said they had no choice but to shoot the lions and other animals after they charged at them and were dangerously close to neighboring homes and an interstate highway.
Nearly all the cages had been unlocked, and holes were cut in the metal fencing.
Thompson, 62, had told a farmhand a day earlier that he was upset about his marital problems and that he had a plan, according to a deputy who talked with the caretaker.
Just days before Thompson set the animals free, he told a deputy that he was having a tough time taking care of them after spending a year in prison on a gun conviction. He also was deep in debt to the Internal Revenue Service.
Thompson bought his first exotic animal, a lion cub named Simba, at an auction for his wife’s birthday about 14 years ago. He acquired other animals at auctions and from people who could no longer care for them.
Source:www.azcentral.com
Police arrest unruly passenger at Boise Airport www.privateofficer.com
BOISE ID Nov 8 2011 – Boise Police say an unruly passenger was arrested after a flight from Seattle landed at the Boise Airport Friday night.
Dorothea Seidenglanz, 37, of Boise is charged with interference with a flight crew and battery, both misdemeanors.
Several witnesses told officers the woman refused to comply with flight regulations and stop using a cell phone prior to take off. She eventually complied with the request. However, during the flight she became verbally abusive toward the flight attendant and threw a plastic cup at her, striking her in the head.
Officers believe alcohol was a factor in this incident.
The flight landed around 7 p.m. and after an investigation, Seidenglanz was arrested and taken to the Ada County Jail. She has since posted bond and been released.
Source:NWCN.com
Former government worker dangled from NY Tappen Zee bridge www.privateofficer.com
TARRYTOWN, N.Y.Nov 8 2011 – A former government worker dangled for hours from New York’s Tappan Zee Bridge with a protest sign on Monday, backing up traffic for miles before police lowered him safely to the water.
Michael Davitt, 54, of Garnerville, N.Y., had been angry about losing his job with the Rockland County mental health department, Sheriff James Kralik said.
The man swung from a rope from the midpoint of the bridge, a major crossing north of New York City that connects suburban Westchester and Rockland counties. He was hanging from a harness attached to a rope ladder about halfway between the Hudson River and the bridge roadway. According to CBS affiliate WCBS, the sign partially reads “Rockland Executive Legislature Coverup Retaliation.”
Rockland County spokesman Ron Levine said the man was let go from his job because he was unable to perform his duties. Levine said he was unsure of the man’s complaints. He said the man had applied for disability payments and had been approved.
“This is bizarre,” Levine said. “This is a very strange way of making a point.”
Sheriff’s Department Capt William Barbera told The Journal News that Davitt was a frequent protester at Rockland Legislature meetings. According to The Journal News, Davitt frequently complained at the meetings that he was unfairly fired from his county mental health job, where he worked as a substance abuse counselor. The Rockland Legislature had requested county sheriff’s deputies be present at the meetings after Davitt began acting strange, but he was never arrested for his activities.
Sheriff James Kralik told the Associated Press that Davitt had also sent the legislators letters “which some people considered threatening.”
“We decided to keep an eye on him to make sure he didn’t step over the line, and he never did,” Kralik said. “Today he not only stepped over the line, he jumped over it.”
Source:AP
