Archive
OFFICER DOWN Mariano Rodríguez-Maldonado
Agent
Mariano Rodríguez-Maldonado
Puerto Rico Police Department, Puerto Rico
End of Watch: Monday, November 21, 2011 Bio & Incident Details
Age: 37
Tour: 7 years
Badge # Not available
Cause: Automobile accident
Incident Date: 11/21/2011
Weapon: Not available
Suspect: Not available
Agent Mariano Rodríguez-Maldonado was killed in an automobile accident as he and his partner responded to a call in Luquillo at approximately 3:30 am.
He and his partner were responding to a call involving a mental patient causing a disturbance at a gas station. They were traveling along PR-3 when their patrol car left the roadway at the intersection of Fortuna and struck the highway divider, which impaled the vehicle’s passenger side. Agent Rodríguez-Maldonado, who was riding as the passenger, suffered fatal injuries. His partner suffered severe leg injuries.
Agent Rodríguez-Maldonado had served with the Puerto Rico Police Department for seven years.
Please contact the following agency to send condolences or to obtain funeral arrangements:
Superintendent General Emilio Diaz-Colon
Puerto Rico Police Department
PO Box 70166
San Juan, PR 00936
Phone: (787) 792-1234
Federal judge sends Alabama to prison for distributing child porn www.privateofficer.com
MOBILE, Alabama Nov 22 2011 — A Chickasaw man caught with thousands of images of child pornography on his home computer will go to prison for 8 years, a federal judge in Mobile ruled last week.
Michael Elbert Mitchell faced a mandatory-minimum prison sentence of 5 years in prison for distribution of child pornography. Advisory sentencing guidelines called for a prison term of at least 17½ years.
U.S. District Judge Kristi DuBose said she has struggled over what constitutes a fair sentence for child pornography, one that addresses the seriousness of the offense but is not excessive. She said she has researched many child pornography cases to get a sense of how federal judges treat the crime across the country.
“It has ranged, even in this district, from probation to 260 months for the same or very similar conduct,” she said. “The main thing is, this has to stop.”
Assistant U.S. Attorney Sean Costello urged a much longer sentence. He noted that investigators found 219 videos on the defendant’s computer — including one showing the rape of a 6-year-old — and nearly 7,000 illicit pictures. Costello said Mitchell used a file-sharing program to trade images with users around the world.
“The material itself is horrifying,” he said. “He was part of this market. … There are thousands and thousands of children who were abused so that he could be entertained.”
Defense attorney Walter Honeycutt said extremely long prison sentences have not prevented others from downloading child pornography. He compared it to the futility of crack cocaine sentences, which Congress recently moved to shorten. He agreed the pictures and videos on his client’s computer were bad, but added, “He didn’t make those images. He looked at them.”
Mitchell got a vote of support from Troy Tatum, the general manager of Lamar Advertising Co., where the defendant has worked for 27 years.
“He’s just had a stellar work history with us,” Tatum said. “He was a great employee.”
Psychologist Thomas Bennett testified that he diagnosed Mitchell has suffering from depression. But he said he believes Mitchell poses a very low risk to return to child pornography or molest a child.
Mitchell vigorously agreed.
“I would never touch a child,” he said. “I love children. I love laughter. I’m just sorry this all happened.”
Source:AL.com
Retired New York City police officer ordered to take down 9-11 flag www.privateofficer.com
Parkland Fla Nov 22 2011 A retired New York City police officer living in Florida has been ordered to take down his flag commemorating September 11 by his homeowners’ association, WPLG reports.
Richard Wentz, who helped victims out of the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001, has been told he has just days to take down his flag or face possible legal action.
“That flag means the world to me. Other than my children, that flag means the world to me,” said Wentz.
A letter from the Fairways at Heron Bay association said the flag detracts from the aesthetic harmony of the surrounding properties. Wentz said he was confronted by Patricia Favata, president of the property’s board of directors, according to the station.
No one was at Favata’s home when WPLG Local 10 tried to talk to her.
Wentz said he ran into Tower 1 and started pulling out people before the building collapsed. He said he lost 43 friends and colleagues that day.
Wentz says he now has cancer, from breathing in all the particles during the cleanup of Ground Zero.
“I will not take that flag down. That flag will remain up. I don’t care how many fines they want to give me, how many notices they want to give me, I refuse to take that down,” Wentz told the station.
Source:www.foxnews.com
East St Louis man killed, security officer shot at nightclub www.privateofficer.com
EAST ST. LOUIS IL NOV 22 2011 A man shot multiple times in the parking lot of an East St. Louis nightclub on Sept. 24 has died.
Det. Michael Floore said 23-year-old Brandon Davis was pronounced dead around 6 p.m. today.
Davis, of East St. Louis, was leaving Denese’s Place, at 218 Collinsville Avenue, around 2:18 a.m. when a man who appeared from the rear of the club began chasing him. Davis was shot multiple times, Floore said. A female club patron was shot twice and a security guard was shot once in the chaos.
Floore would not say where Davis had been wounded or whether a motive had been determined for the shooting. The conditions of the others who were shot also are unknown.
No funeral arrangements had been made, Floore said.
Davis is the 23rd homicide in the city in 2011.
Anyone with information is asked to call Detective Michael Floore at 618-482-6841 or Illinois State Police Special Agent Michael Swindle at 618-346-3760. People who want to remain anonymous can call CrimeStoppers at 866-371-8477.
Undercover investigation results in arrests of suspected organized shoplifting ring members www.privateofficer.com
Chicago IL Nov 22 2011 An undercover investigation targeting organized theft rings throughout Cook County has resulted in the arrest of more than 50 people, according to State’s Attorney Anita Alvarez.
The month-long Operation “Whoville” was coordinated by the State’s Attorney’s Regional Organized Crime Task Force, a group of law enforcement and retail partners formed last year to combat the growing crime of organized retail theft and fencing.
“These theft groups are very sophisticated,” Alvarez said, at a news conference Sunday morning. “They have the ability to fence these items and know exactly where to take them.”
The undercover sting operation that began in October took place at Orland Square Mall in Orland Park, Woodfield Mall in Schaumburg and several stores along North Michigan Avenue in Chicago
Merchandise recovered included name-brand clothing, jewelry, over-the-counter medicines, baby formula and DVDs.
One of those arrested, Phillip Mazurk, 65, of Skokie, allegedly stole a vase worth more than $5,000 from a Michigan Avenue boutique, authorities said.
“The task force was created to be more proactive, not just reactive,” Alavarez said, adding that consumers, who “take a direct hit in their pocketbooks as a result of these crimes,” receive the greatest benefit when the task force sees results.
Working alongside the task force were several area police departments and the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s Homeland Security Investigations team.
Orland Park Police Chief Tim McCarthy said Orland Square Mall has seen a rise in retail theft. He called the partnership with the task force “a reliable force multiplier.”
“This is an ongoing effort that will find us waiting for them in the future,” McCarthy said.
The retail industry loses approximately $30 billion each year to retail crime, which results in an added loss of $77 million in tax money not collected, Alvarez said.
The task force has grown to more than 800 participating law enforcement agencies and retailers who share resources and information on theft rings in the Chicago metro area and neighboring states.
“We’ve been given the ability to target some of the same bad guys we’ve been chasing for years,” said Dan Ensing, a loss prevention investigator at Dominick’s.
Source:herald-news
University of New Hampshire campus police arrest 50 during concert www.privateofficer.com
Paul Dean, executive director of public safety, said police on Sunday were still trying to verify the names and addresses of the people arrested and that he would release the names on Monday once they’d been confirmed.
“We’re only about 12 hours out from this,” he said at 12:30 p.m. Sunday. “It’s not in anyone’s best interests to release information that might not be accurate. We don’t want to give you some names and find out somebody lied to us.”
Dean said 32 adults and 2 juveniles are facing charges that include public intoxication, alcohol possession, assault, assault on a police officer, criminal trespassing and theft.
As many as 5,000 people were at the Whittemore Center Saturday night for a concert by the Swedish disc jockey Avicii.
“Percentage-wise, it’s a small percentage” of those attending the concert who caused the problem, Dean said.
While police were dealing with the crowd, firefighters extinguished a fire at a storage facility at the university’s recycling center that fire officials said was suspicious. The state Fire Marshal’s Office has been asked to investigate the fire, UNH media relations officer Erika Mantz said Friday night.
Source:union-leader.com
Police increased use of License Plate Readers have some questioning privacy rights www.privateofficer.com
Washington DC Nov 22 2011 An armed robber burst into a Northeast Washington market, scuffled with the cashier, and then shot him and the clerk’s father, who also owned the store. The killer sped off in a silver Pontiac, but a witness was able to write down the license plate number.
Police figured out the name of the suspect very quickly. But locating and arresting him took a little-known investigative tool: a vast system that tracks the comings and goings of anyone driving around the District.
Scores of cameras across the city capture 1,800 images a minute and download the information into a rapidly expanding archive that can pinpoint people’s movements all over town.
Police entered the suspect’s license plate number into that database and learned that the Pontiac was on a street in Southeast. Police soon arrested Christian Taylor, who had been staying at a friend’s home, and charged him with two counts of first-degree murder. His trial is set for January.
More than 250 cameras in the District and its suburbs scan license plates in real time, helping police pinpoint stolen cars and fleeing killers. But the program quietly has expanded beyond what anyone had imagined even a few years ago.
With virtually no public debate, police agencies have begun storing the information from the cameras, building databases that document the travels of millions of vehicles.
Nowhere is that more prevalent than in the District, which has more than one plate-reader per square mile, the highest concentration in the nation. Police in the Washington suburbs have dozens of them as well, and local agencies plan to add many more in coming months, creating a comprehensive dragnet that will include all the approaches into the District.
“It never stops,” said Capt. Kevin Reardon, who runs Arlington County’s plate reader program. “It just gobbles up tag information. One of the big questions is, what do we do with the information?”
Police departments are grappling with how long to store the information and how to balance privacy concerns against the value the data provide to investigators. The data are kept for three years in the District, two years in Alexandria, a year in Prince George’s County and a Maryland state database, and about a month in many other suburban areas.
“That’s quite a large database of innocent people’s comings and goings,” said Jay Stanley, senior policy analyst for the American Civil Liberties Union’s technology and liberty program. “The government has no business collecting that kind of information on people without a warrant.”
But police say the tag readers can give them a critical jump on a child abductor, information about when a vehicle left — or entered — a crime scene, and the ability to quickly identify a suspected terrorist’s vehicle as it speeds down the highway, perhaps to an intended target.
Having the technology during the Washington area sniper shootings in 2002 might have stopped the attacks sooner, detectives said, because police could have checked whether any particular car was showing up at each of the shooting sites.
“It’s a perfect example of how they’d be useful,” said Lt. T.J. Rogers, who is responsible for the 26 tag readers maintained by the Fairfax County police. “We see a lot of potential in it.”
The plate readers are different from red-light or speed cameras, which issue traffic tickets and are tools for deterrence and enforcement. The readers are an investigative tool, capturing a picture of every license plate that passes by and instantly analyzing them against a database filled with cars wanted by police.
Police can also plug any license plate number into the database and, as long as it passed a camera, determine where that vehicle has been and when. Detectives also can enter a be-on-the-lookout into the database, and the moment that license plate passes a detector, they get an alert.
It’s that precision and the growing ubiquity of the technology that has libertarians worried. In Northern Virginia recently, a man reported his wife missing, prompting police to enter her plate number into the system.
They got a hit at an apartment complex, and when they got there, officers spotted her car and a note on her windshield that said, in essence, “Don’t tow, I’m visiting apartment 3C.” Officers knocked on the door of that apartment, and she came out of the bedroom. They advised her to call her husband.
Even though they are relatively new, the tag readers, which cost about $20,000 each, are now as widely used as other high-tech tools police employ to prevent and solve crimes, including surveillance cameras, gunshot recognition sensors and mobile fingerprint scanners.
License plate readers can capture numbers across four lanes of traffic on cars zooming up to 150 mph.
“The new technology makes our job a lot easier and the bad guys’ job a lot harder,” said D.C. Police Chief Cathy Lanier.
The technology first was used by the postal service to sort letters. Units consist of two cameras — one that snaps digital photographs and another that uses an optical infrared sensor to decipher the numbers and letters. The camera captures a color image of the vehicle while the sensor “reads” the license plate and transfers the data to a computer.
When stored over time, the collected data can be used instantaneously or can help with complex analysis, such as whether a car appears to have been followed by another car or if cars are traveling in a convoy.
Police also have begun using them as a tool to prevent crime. By positioning them in nightclub parking lots, for example, police can collect information about who is there. If members of rival gangs appear at a club, police can send patrol cars there to squelch any flare-ups before they turn violent. After a crime, police can gather a list of potential witnesses in seconds.
“It’s such a valuable tool, it’s hard not to jump on it and explore all the things it can do for law enforcement,” said Kevin Davis, assistant chief of police in Prince George’s County.
The readers have been used across the country for several years, but the program is far more sophisticated in the Washington region. The District has 73 readers; 38 of them sit stationary and the rest are attached to police cars. D.C. officials say every police car will have one some day.
The District’s license plate cameras gather more than a million data points a month, and officers make an average of an arrest a day directly from the plate readers, said Tom Wilkins, executive director of the D.C. police department’s intelligence fusion division, which oversees the plate reader program. Between June and September, police found 51 stolen cars using the technology.
Police do not publicly disclose the locations of the readers. And while D.C. law requires that the footage on crime surveillance cameras be deleted after 10 days unless there’s an investigative reason to keep it, there are no laws governing how or when Washington area police can use the tag reader technology. The only rule is that it be used for law enforcement purposes.
Does the increased use of license tag readers raise privacy concerns?
“That’s typical with any emerging technology,” Wilkins said. “Even though it’s a tool we’ve had for five years, as it becomes more apparent and widely used and more relied upon, people will begin to scrutinize it.”
Such scrutiny is happening now at the U.S. Supreme Court with a related technology: GPS surveillance. At issue is whether police can track an individual vehicle with an attached GPS device.
Orin Kerr, a law professor at George Washington University who has been closely watching the Supreme Court case, said the license plate technology probably would pass constitutional muster because there is no reasonable expectation of privacy on public streets.
But, Kerr said, the technology’s silent expansion has allowed the government to know things it couldn’t possibly know before and that the use of such massive amounts of data needs safeguards.
“It’s big brother, and the question is, is it big brother we want, or big brother that we don’t want?” Kerr said. “This technology could be used for good and it could be used for bad. I think we need a conversation about whether and how this technology is used. Who gets the information and when? How long before the information is deleted? All those questions need scrutiny.”
Should someone access the database for something other than a criminal investigation, they could track people doing legal but private things. Having a comprehensive database could mean government access to information about who attended a political event, visited a medical clinic, or went to Alcoholics Anonymous or Planned Parenthood.
Maryland and Virginia police departments are expanding their tag reader programs and by the end of the year expect to have every major entry and exit point to the District covered.
“We’re putting fixed sites up in the capital area,” said Sgt. Julio Valcarcel, who runs the Maryland State Police’s program, which now has 19 mobile units and one fixed unit along a major highway, capturing roughly 27 million reads per year. “Several sites are going online over the winter.”
Some jurisdictions store the information in a large networked database; others retain it only in the memory of each individual reader’s computer, then delete it after several weeks as new data overwrite it.
A George Mason University study last year found that 37 percent of large police agencies in the United States now use license plate reader technology and that a significant number of other agencies planned to have it by the end of 2011. But the survey found that fewer than 30 percent of the agencies using the tool had researched any legal implications.
There also has been scant legal precedent. In Takoma Park, police have two tag readers that they have been using for two years. Police Chief Ronald A. Ricucci said he was amazed at how quickly the units could find stolen cars. When his department first got them, he looked around at other departments to see what kind of rules and regulations they had.
“There wasn’t much,” Ricucci said. “A lot of people were using them and didn’t have policies on them yet.”
The technology first came to the Washington region in 2004 as a pilot program. During an early test, members of the Washington Area Vehicle Enforcement Unit recovered eight cars, found 12 stolen license plates and made three arrests in a single shift. Prince George’s police bought several units to help combat the county’s crippling car theft and carjacking problem. It worked.
“We recover cars very quickly now. In previous times that was not the case,” said Prince George’s Capt. Edward Davey, who is in charge of the county’s program. “Before, they’d be dumped on the side of the road somewhere for a while.”
Now Prince George’s has 45 units and is likely to get more soon.
“The more we use them, the more we realize there’s a whole lot more on the investigative end of them,” Davey said. “We are starting to evolve. Investigators are starting to realize how to use them.”
Arlington police cars equipped with the readers regularly drive through the parking garage at the Pentagon City mall looking for stolen cars, checking hundreds of them in a matter of minutes as they cruise up and down the aisles. In Prince William County, where there are 12 mobile readers, the units have been used to locate missing people and recover stolen cars.
Unlike in the District, in most suburban jurisdictions, the units are only attached to police cars on patrol, and there aren’t enough of them to create a comprehensive net.
Virginia State Police have 42 units for the entire state, most of them focused on Northern Virginia, Richmond and the Tidewater area, and as of now have no fixed locations. There is also no central database, so each unit collects information on its own and compares it against a daily download of wanted vehicles from the FBI and the state.
But the state police are looking into fixed locations that could capture as many as 100 times more vehicles, 24 hours a day, with the potential to blanket the interstates.
“Now, we’re not getting everything — we’re fishing,” said Sgt. Robert Alessi, a 23-year veteran who runs the state police’s program. “Fixed cameras will help us use a net instead of one fishing pole with one line in the water waiting to get a nibble.”
Beyond the technology’s ability to track suspects and non-criminals alike, it has expanded beyond police work. Tax collectors in Arlington bought their own units and use the readers to help collect money owed to the county. Chesterfield County, in Virginia, uses a reader it purchased to collect millions of dollars in delinquent car taxes each year, comparing the cars on the road against the tax rolls.
Police across the region say that they are careful with the information and that they are entrusted with many pieces of sensitive information about citizens, including arrest records and Social Security numbers.
“If you’re not doing anything wrong, you’re not driving a stolen car, you’re not committing a crime,” Alessi said, “then you don’t have anything to worry about.”
Source:Washington Post
Austin’s University United Methodist Church employee charged in theft www.privateofficer.com
Audrea Curtis, 49, has been charged with third-degree felony theft, the affidavit said. She is not currently in custody, according to jail records.
The affidavit said that Curtis was employed at the church’s Early Childhood Center. She had been using a credit card the church gave her to make official purchases for her own personal transactions, the affidavit said. Curtis spent $14,736 using the credit card on clothes at Ross, a bill from Austin Community College, beauty shops and auto repair, the affidavit said.
When advised of her credit card debt, Curtis withdrew the cash from the church’s bank account because she could not pay it off herself.
On April 22, Curtis was reported as having withdrawn $21,876 in cash from the church’s bank account despite not being authorized to do so, the affidavit said. Curtis regularly went to the bank to make deposits for the church, so the bank mistakenly assumed she was a signer on the account, the affidavit said.
“She advised she has a problem and uses shopping as a kind of stress therapy and did not mean for this to get this out of control,” a detective said in the affidavit.
The church has been left with a credit card debt of about $23,000 because of Curtis’ actions, the affidavit said.
Employee robs store after being fired www.privateofficer.com
Police said the operator of the Ghana Mini Mart told the worker around 5:30 p. m. that Friday would be his last night of employment. The operator then took one of her children to the restroom and, upon returning moments later, found the employee gone.
The employee is suspected of taking $400 from the cash register and $1,400 from the woman’s purse, police said.
NJ woman charged in $3000 retail theft www.privateofficer.com
On Nov. 11, Rhonda Fulton, 19, was stopped by a loss prevention employee in the mall, according to an arrest warrant filed in Freehold Township Municipal Court. She was allegedly found in possession of $2,854.50 worth of merchandise in two shopping bags.
According to the warrant, Freehold Township Police Officer Kevin Cherney responded to scene, and Fulton was allegedly also found with $413.50 worth of merchandise from Banana Republic and Aerie. In addition, Fulton was allegedly found with a clear plastic bag containing marijuana, according to the warrant.
Fulton was arrested on two counts of shoplifting and one count of possession of a controlled dangerous substance.
She was remanded to Monmouth County Correctional Institution on $7,000 bail.
Two people charged with Walmart felony theft www.privateofficer.com
Boiling Springs SC Nov 22 2011 Two people were arrested on drug charges after deputies found them in possession of $1,100 worth of stolen merchandise at the Boiling Springs Walmart early Saturday.
According to online jail records, Darren Paul Millwood, 37, of 2 Doctor’s Park Drive B, Spartanburg, was charged with shoplifting third or subsequent offense, resisting arrest with assault and two counts of possession of a controlled substance.
Samantha Kayla Caldwell, 22, of 322 Milliken Ave., Spartanburg, was charged with shoplifting and two counts of possession of a controlled substance.
An incident report said a Walmart employee was in her car at the store about 3 a.m. and saw a man come out with two cases of beer, put them into a car and go back into the store. The employee notified a manager, since it was after hours for beer to be sold.
Employees watched as Millwood and Caldwell went through the store, picking up items and layering on clothes from the racks, the report said. Deputies waited outside the entrance for Millwood and Caldwell to come out.
When Millwood came out, a deputy tried to place him under arrest, and Millwood tried to run, the report said. When the deputy caught him, Millwood hit him in the face, according to the report. Millwood fought with deputies until they handcuffed him, the report said.
Caldwell was arrested without incident. He had on several layers of clothing from Walmart that had not been paid for, the report said. Millwood had a large hunting camera in his pants and other items in his pockets. Makeup, jewelry, beauty aids, cameras and electronics belonging to Walmart were found in the pair’s car, the report said. Total value of the items came to $1,100.55.
Deputies searched the pair and found three different prescription drugs on Millwood and two different drugs on Caldwell that neither had prescriptions for, the report said.
Millwood and Caldwell remained at the Spartanburg County Detention Center on Sunday night.
Millwood’s bond was set at $5,000 and Caldwell’s was $3,000.
Source:goupstate.com
TSA security officer arrested for sexual assault of woman www.privateofficer.com
Manassas VA Nov 22 2011 A Transportation Security Administration worker was arrested near his Manassas, Va., home for allegedly sexually assaulting a woman after he flashed his badge and was dressed in his work uniform.
Harold Glenn Rodman, 52, allegedly approached two women early Sunday morning, The Washington Post reported. The women said Rodman sexually assaulted one of them and ran away, the paper reported.
The alleged victim was described as a 37-year-old woman. WTOP reported that the two women were in a car when they were approached. One woman was allegedly assaulted after she stepped out of the car to talk with the suspect, the station reported.
While police conducted an investigation, Rodman reportedly left his home and matched the description provided by the alleged victim, The Post reported.
He was arrested and charged Monday with aggravated sexual battery, object sexual penetration among other charges, the paper reported. He was held without bond and is due back in court in January.
A TSA official confirmed to Fox News that a worker in Manassas was arrested and was promptly removed from security operations pending an investigation.
“This individual was immediately removed from security operations pending an investigation. The Privacy Act precludes the agency from disclosing additional information regarding personnel actions,” the official said.
“TSA holds its personnel to the highest professional and ethical standards, and investigates all allegations of misconduct. TSA is working closely with local law enforcement on this matter,” a TSA statement read. “The disturbing allegations against this individual in no way reflect the work of the more than 50,000 security officers who every day ensure the security of the traveling public.”
The latest allegations come less than a month after a woman said an agent left an inappropriate note about a sex toy she was carrying on a trip from the U.S. to Ireland.
Source:www.foxnews.com
Two armed Hattiesburg men arrested at nightclub www.privateofficer.com
Hattiesburg police arrested Freddie McDuffie and Rodrick Devon Walker Thursday night after someone allegedly tipped off club security the two men were armed.
Police said club security searched and then detained the pair until police arrived. Both are charged with possession of firearms. Walker is charged with possession of a firearm by a convicted felon.
Police also say the gun in McDuffie’s possession was stolen.
Source: WDAM
Houston police charge 4 people in murder of grocery store employee www.privateofficer.com
HOUSTON TX Nov 22 2011—Three men and one woman have been charged in connection with last week’s fatal shooting of a southeast Houston grocery store employee.
Angelica Serrano, 20, Jessie Nelson, 19, Daniel Porter, 21 and Ralph Alonso, 23, have been charged with murder in the shooting death of 29-year-old Warren White.
The motive may have been drug-related, according to the Harris County District Attorney’s Office.
Police said the four suspects went to White’s job at the Food Town in the 15600 block of Old Galveston Highway on November 16.
White had just clocked out after his shift around 9 p.m. when he was told someone was tampering with his vehicle in the parking lot. He went outside to confront the suspects and was shot multiple times. He died at the scene.
The suspects then fled in a small red vehicle.
The four suspects appeared in a Harris County Courthouse Monday morning. According to the District Attorney, Serrano allegedly sold drugs for Alonso and White allegedly stole from her, which led to the confrontation in the parking lot.
Each suspects’ bond was set at $50,000.
Source:khou.com
Security officer attacked with machete in Maryland www.privateofficer.com
Takoma Park MD Nov 22 2011
Police have two men in custody after one allegedly tried to kill a Mogotillo’s Restaurant security officer with a machete.
The two men were arrested Sunday for attempted murder, first-degree assault, second-degree assault, resisting arrest, carrying a concealed deadly weapon, possession of a concealed deadly weapon and possession of marijuana, Takoma Park Police said.
Elder Molina-Umana, 23, of Hyattsville and Antoni Rivas-Melendez, 24, of Glen Dale are being held at the Montgomery County Central Processing Unit.
Around 1:46 a.m. Sunday morning, a Takoma Park Police Gang Investigator was at Mogotillo’s Restaurant in the 7600 block of New Hampshire Ave. after receiving information about increased gang activity, police said.
While at the restaurant, the officer observed a male, later identified as the restaurant’s security officer, running from the front of the restaurant toward the
parking lot, police said. The security officer was being chased by Molina-Umana with a machete.
The officer identified himself to Molina-Umana and ordered him to drop his weapon. He dropped the machete and fled, police said. Molina-Umana was taken into custody after a short foot pursuit.
Further investigation revealed that a second suspect, Rivas-Melendez, also attempted to assault the security officer. He was found to be in possession of a butterfly-style knife as well as a small amount of marijuana.
The security officer said he told the two suspects they couldn’t leave the restaurant with an open container of alcohol. The suspects became angry and left, but after a short amount of time they returned to fight the security guard, police said. Rivas-Melendez charged at the security guard with fists raised and was pepper-sprayed by the guard. Molina-Umana then brandished a machete and struck the security officer in the head causing a serious but non-life threatening injury, police said. Both suspects are affiliated with a gang, police said.
