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Veteran Maui firefighter died while on duty www.privateofficer.com
Maui HI Jan 21 2012 A veteran Maui firefighter died while on duty at a firehouse Wednesday night.
Firefighter Duane Ibarra, 50, was found unresponsive at 6:22 p.m. inside the Makawao Fire Station, according to Maui Now.
The 20-year veteran of the department was later pronounced dead.
“The Maui Fire Department and the entire Maui County ohana (family) would like to extend our sincere condolences to the Ibarra family,” officials said in a statement.
The cause of Ibarra’s death has not been released.
Three Camden County Fla school buses stolen www.privateofficer.com
CAMDEN COUNTY, Fla.Jan 21 2012 - Several questions are perplexing investigators about the theft of three school buses in Camden County.
How do thieves steal three school buses? How do they hide them? And what are they going to do with them?
When school officials returned this week after the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday, they found three buses missing from the Camden County Schools bus yard.
Officials said they went immediately to a security camera to find out what happened. Surveillance video shows one of the buses being driven off the lot last Friday. Investigators did not want to release the video because they said there are some clues on it that they don’t want the public to see.
“A car drives in and then drives back out with three busses,” said Mark Stewart, of Camden County Schools. “So, undoubtedly, they brought three people with them.”
Investigators believe the thieves hotwired the buses. They’re just trying to figure out why.
“We have a couple of theories and motives,” said Richard Sapp, of the Kingsland Police Department. “We believe they may be scrapping them for metal and get the money for them or ship them overseas.”
School officials said they have another theory about what the crooks have in mind.
“When we auction off buses in the summer, we know some get sold for scrap, but some also get sold and transported to South America or overseas where they use them,” Stewart said. “Unfortunately, these were very good buses and not ones we would typically auction.”
The buses were insured, so replacing them is not the problem.
It’s difficult to hide a yellow school bus. There was one report that they were seen Friday night on Interstate 95 heading south near Fernandina Beach. But that’s where the clues stop.
Police are getting some help from the Georgia Bureau of Investigation and the Department of Homeland Security.
“We are really not sure what the motive could be for using these school busses,” Sapp said of why Homeland Security is involved. “We are hoping it’s just to use it for scrap metal and get the money out of it. We are just not sure, and we want to be on the safe side.”
Camden County school officials said they have not had this happen before, although they said it has happened in neighboring counties.
Source:WJXT
TSA officer and wife charged in theft of iPad’s from a passenger’s luggage www.privateofficer.com
MIAMI Fla Jan 21 2012 – Police have arrested a TSA officer and his wife after authorities said they stole then tried to sell two iPads from a passenger’s luggage.
The victim, Steve, said he departed from Miami International Airport and traveled on a cross-country Christmas flight, when he discovered some very important items were missing from his luggage. “My gifts were outside the box, and we had gift wrapping torn everywhere,” said Steve.
Steve was missing two brand-new iPad 3Gs he had purchased for his brother and sister. Steve said he reluctantly packed the wrapped iPads in a brown bag, then he put the brown bag inside another suitcase and checked his luggage at the American Airlines counter. “I trusted the system, that they would take care of my bags,” he said.
However, Steve did not realize the electronics were gone until he arrived home in Los Angeles. “As I was re-wrapping the gifts, I opened up the iPad box,” Steve said, “and I noticed that the iPads were missing.”
The iPad chargers remained in the boxes, however. Steve said, “You just don’t go through someone else’s luggage and take whatever you want to take. It’s not like a free-for-all, you know?”
On Thursday, Miami-Dade detectives arrested the alleged thief, TSA officer Michael Pujol, along with his wife Betsy.
Pujol told police he slid the iPads inside a secret pocket in his uniform.
According to police, Betsy took the goods her husband stole and put them up for sale on Craigslist, where police caught it. “The buyer then gave information [about] whom he received it from, and they traced it back,” Steve said.
TSA released the following statement: “TSA holds its security officers to the highest professional and ethical standards and has a zero tolerance policy for theft in the workplace. Allegations of misconduct and theft are aggressively investigated and swift action is taken to end the federal careers of offenders.”
Authorities managed to return one of the stolen iPads to Steve. “This is the iPad that he returned back. He said, ‘I’m still working on the other one, but there’s going to be an arrest that’s going to be made,’” Steve said.
Travelers like Degennes Ford say you have to be careful when traveling with valuable luggage. “If you want to be safe, ship your luggage ahead,” Ford said, “and that’s exactly what I did.”
Both Pujol and his wife have bonded out of the Miami-Dade County Jail. 7News tried to contact them for comment, but the couple was not at their Homestead home at the time.
Pujol is no longer working at MIA. Miami-Dade Police are hoping to recover the second iPad.
Source:www.wsvn.com
Army Spc. Kip Lynch gets 80 years in prison for killing his wife and infant daughter www.privateofficer.com
Anchorage AK Jan 21 2012 An Anchorage Superior Court judge on Friday sentenced former Army Spc. Kip Lynch to 80 years in prison for killing his wife and infant daughter in April 2010, two months after returning from what soldiers in his unit testified was a hellacious tour of duty in Afghanistan.
Judge Michael Spaan said the Army could’ve done more to help Lynch, 22, cope with suspected emotional problems brought home from war.
A jury convicted Lynch last year for the deaths of 19-year-old Racquell and 8-month-old Kyirsta. Public defender Dan Lowery said the ex-soldier has accepted the verdict even though he doesn’t remember shooting Kellie and Izzy, as they were known, multiple times with a .45-caliber pistol engraved to commemorate his deployment.
Lynch was deeply affected by the year spent fighting in two of the most dangerous parts of Afghanistan in 2009 and 2010, Lowery said Friday during the second day of Lynch’s sentencing hearing. Judge Spaan later agreed, to a certain extent, saying Lynch’s experiences were probably a factor in the killings — not an excuse and not the only factor — and that the voluntary treatment offered by the military wasn’t enough.
“You did serve your country, and you did so honorably and well,” Spaan said. “And this country may have let you down.”
Two members of Lynch’s three-soldier team — a close-knit group of friends and part of the 4th Brigade Combat Team based at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson –testified about their time together in Afghanistan, where they were stationed at two combat outposts near the country’s border with Pakistan.
The enemy attacks came daily, said Sgt. Kevin O’Brien, starting off Friday’s testimony.
“We counted it once, and we went two months getting attacked every day,” O’Brien said. “There was no let-up. You weren’t safe on the base, you weren’t safe off the base.”
A psychologist testified Thursday that Lynch might have suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder and depression from the yearlong deployment. The soldiers who spoke Friday said that, among the 100 or so men they served with on that deployment, there were multiple suicides or suicide attempts afterward. Some were kicked out of the Army for drug or alcohol abuse. The Army released some for mental and emotional reasons, they said.
The soldiers showed signs of stress while in Afghanistan, O’Brien said. Some were getting gray hair or going bald, he said.
“You sort of flip a mental switch. You either live in fear of dying every day or you laugh it off. My team chose to laugh it off,” O’Brien said. “We saw children killed in the crossfire, some from friendly fire, some from enemy fire. I saw more dead bodies than I can count.
“You just to shut those things out and decide to deal with it when you get home.”
Lynch seemed to do fine under the stress and was a brave soldier and excellent marksman, O’Brien said. A soldier’s first reaction to gunfire is usually to drop to the ground, and some want to stay there, but Lynch always jumped back up and moved forward when ordered into a firefight, he said.
“You call it ‘embracing the suck.’ Just going out there and embracing it. You can live with it and get stressed out by it, or you can embrace it and become it,” O’Brien said. “He was somebody I wanted by my side all the time.”
In one attack, rocket-propelled grenades started hitting the unit’s trucks, followed by small-arms fire and mortars. Lynch had the presence of mind to find the spotter for the enemy mortars and called his commanders for help from an attack helicopter, O’Brien said.
“It saved a lot of lives by doing that,” he said.
‘DID YOU SEE IT COMING?’
Lynch and his wife had been in many arguments before the deployment, usually because she would put him down, O’Brien said. The fighting continued when Lynch returned from the deployment, and Lynch would say that he wanted to go back to Afghanistan.
“Her and Kip had a very volatile relationship, and she wasn’t very nice to him. She was just mean,” O’Brien said. “My impression was they were both young and shouldn’t be together.”
Lynch would shut down and just let her yell, O’Brien said. “But it didn’t seem like it would result in this,” he said.
O’Brien and fellow military police officer Sgt. Michael Diehm, who also testified Friday, were the ones who found the bodies of Lynch’s wife and daughter, as well as a badly wounded Lynch, in the family’s South Anchorage apartment.
“At any point after coming back, did you see it coming?” asked prosecutor Emma Haddix.
“No,” O’Brien said.
“I didn’t think that would happen to him. He seemed stronger than most people,” Diehm testified later. “He was the most calm, laid-back guy I knew.”
Diehm said that when Lynch and his wife fought, Lynch was usually the one to “disengage.”
“That or he’d just take it,” Diehm said.
O’Brien is headed back to Afghanistan in May, Diehm next month.
‘THERE’S NO BIRTHDAY CARD TO SEND’
Later in the hearing, Racquell’s mother, Christy Kulik, testified by phone from Florida. She had been unable to get to Anchorage due to flight cancellations from a winter storm in Seattle.
Kulik told Lynch that she still loved him and would continue to write him. She said her daughter would’ve turned 21 in 12 days.
“There’s no birthday card to send or present to wrap, or phone calls,” Kulik said. “Kip’s entire family can visit him, write him letters. It’s because of this very selfish act, by losing his temper, he took that away from me and my family.”
Lynch did not deserve leniency, she said.
Prosecutor Gustaf Olson said Lynch’s actions were not the result of a lack of impulse control, but instead a thought-out plan to kill his wife. “This built up,” he said.
After Lowery spoke, with Lynch glancing at his lawyer and blinking repeatedly, it was Lynch’s turn to address the court.
“I accept full responsibility for what happened to my wife and daughter,” he said, reading a letter he’d written. “I myself was once an enlisted soldier in the United States military, a guardian expected to protect them from danger, which I failed to accomplish.
“I lost a piece of my family that mattered the most. They brought love and in passing left us with pain,” he said. “My love for Racquell and Kyirsta will always remain. They will forever be in my heart. I hope you all have the same mentality and outlook for yourselves but also for them.
“I’m asking for forgiveness from my entire family and friends, especially those closest to us, including this honorable court, my community and the state of Alaska.”
The court then went into recess, with Spaan set to return at 1:30 p.m. with his sentence for Lynch. Under state guidelines, Spaan could’ve sentenced Lynch to a maximum of 198 years. State prosecutors asked for 109 years, with Lynch’s defense requesting the minimum of 40.
Lynch’s expression didn’t change as the judge admonished him for the double murder, “a crime for no reason,” Spaan said.
“You could’ve left, you could’ve walked away, you could’ve gotten divorced, you could’ve gotten a girlfriend. Those are different options that society tolerates,” Spaan said. “But the option to kill them both was not an option that would be dismissed.”
Prosecutors say Lynch will likely be eligible for parole when he’s in his mid-70s.
Source:www.adn.com
Woman’s death at Warsaw Falls possible suicide www.privateofficer.com
Tonawanda NY Jan 21 2012 Police have elected not to release the identity of a 20-year-old Town of Tonawanda woman found dead Thursday at the base of a waterfall in Wyoming County, deeming the death a suicide.
The woman’s father contacted police in Warsaw around 8 p.m. Wednesday, authorities said, and urged them to search the area above Warsaw Falls.
“The father had received a text message from the woman indicating she was at the Warsaw Falls and that she was looking for ‘inner peace,’ ” Village of Warsaw Assistant Police Chief Shawn Heubusch said.
After several failed attempts to contact the woman, he said her father drove from Tonawanda to Warsaw in an effort to locate her.
An exhaustive foot search by police turned up footprints in the snow above the 150-foot waterfall.
A more than four hour search by land, water and air later resulted in the discovery of a body at the base of the falls located on private property adjacent to Warsaw Village Park.
Conditions were described by rescuers as “treacherous” in the secluded area surrounding the falls.
The woman was pronounced dead at 7 a.m. Thursday, after a rope rescue team spent two hours in worsening weather conditions trying to retrieve the woman’s remains.
“Temperatures were in the low teens in the area. The terrain the firefighters were looking at was very icy. The area itself is treacherous even on a good day,” Heubusch said.
The Wyoming County Rope Rescue Team pulled the woman’s remains from the gorge, after a water rescue team discovered the body. Wyoming County Emergency Services and Erie County helicopter search teams also aided in the search.
“We usually have a few calls a year up there for different reasons. Every one that I’ve been on has ended happily. I don’t know of any other fatalities out there since I’ve been working here,” Heubusch, who has been with the department since 1997, said.
An autopsy is scheduled to determine the exact cause of death.
Source:Tonawanda News
Man faces prison, deportation after conviction in Dover stabbing case www.privateofficer.com
DOVER DE Jan 21 2012 — A man convicted of stabbing a security guard at a Dover nightclub Oct. 23 has been sentenced to four years in prison. He then faces deportation, according to authorities.
Francisco Pasqual Lopez, also known as Francisco Lopez Ernandez, of Dover pleaded guilty Jan. 12 to charges of felonious assault and escape. He was sentenced Wednesday by Judge Elizabeth Lehigh Thomakos in Tuscarawas County Common Pleas Court in New Philadelphia.
It is expected that the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency will deport Ernandez directly from prison after he serves the sentence, according to Assistant County Prosecutor Scott Deedrick. Ernandez, who is believed to be at least 30 years old, has six aliases and was in America despite being deported twice previously, Deedrick said.
The judge stated that Ernandez’ conduct warranted the maximum penalty, but she didn’t want to burden Ohio taxpayers for all of the costs associated with that sentence when he shouldn’t have been in the country anyway, Deedrick said.
Ernandez, initially known only as “Chico,” was indicted by a county grand jury on second-degree felony charges for felonious assault with a deadly weapon (a knife), felonious assault, and escape.
Deedrick said the 43-year-old security guard from New Philadelphia was stabbed once in the side. The victim suffered a punctured lung and lost much of his spleen because of the stabbing, Deedrick said Wednesday. The victim stated he remains in significant pain, which limits his activity and ability to work. The holidays were ruined for his family, he added in a written statement.
Ernandez had a reputation for being violent and forcibly had been removed from the bar on previous occasions, Deedrick said, adding that he stabbed the guard while being ejected. Dover police arrested Ernandez Oct. 23 at LaRumba nightclub and restaurant after the stabbing, reported at 1:44 a.m. He was taken to the police station, where he slipped out of his handcuffs and ran out the back door.
He was arrested by Dover police and Tuscarawas County sheriff’s deputies Oct. 28 at a residence in Goshen Township off state Route 416.
Source:Times Reporter
NYPD officer commits suicide on duty during argument with girlfriend www.privateofficer.com
NEW YORK NY Jan 21 2012 – The NYPD says a police officer committed suicide while on duty Thursday night by shooting himself while responding to a call in Queens.
The 28-year-old officer, whose name has been withheld, was found lying on 211th Street in Hollis Hills. He was pronounced dead at the hospital.
According to reports, investigators say the officer had been arguing with his girlfriend on the phone before he shot himself.
Authorities say the officer had responded with his partner to a call about a series of car break-ins in the area.
Tulsa man shoots himself to death while police questioned him about child pornography www.privateofficer.com
A spokesman for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement says special agents were questioning the man at his Tulsa home Thursday morning as part of an ongoing investigation into child pornography.
Tulsa police officer Jason Willingham tells the Tulsa World that the man told agents that he had to use the restroom.
Police say the man died shortly before 10 a.m. His death remains under investigation.
The Tulsa County Sheriff’s Office has an agreement with ICE to work together on local issues
Indiana security company under fire for not being licensed www.privateofficer.com
Aaron Durham, the owner of N.S.A. Security, said he had no idea a complaint had been filed against him with the state. Now he is questioning whether he is actually under investigation, or if this is just a competing company trying to drive him out of business.
Aaron Omanson, the president of Indiana Defensive Firearms, says he filed a complaint with the Private Investigator and Security Guard Licensing Board after Durham came to his store looking to buy equipment, but could not supply proof he had a business license.
“He was asking about purchasing body armor, Mace, tasers, firearms and airsoft guns and he really raised a number of red flags for me,” says Omanson.
Omanson says he strictly sells to law enforcement agencies and licensed private security companies, which is why he refused to sell anything to Durham.
After taking a closer look, Omanson discovered Durham’s company was not listed among the licensed security businesses that are all listed on the state’s website.
That is when Omanson decided to take his findings to the state. However when confronted about it, Durham said he had no knowledge of the complaint.
“Yes. We do not have a company license but that is because it is a very lengthy, extensive, expensive process,” says Durham.
Durham says he is in the middle of the application process and that he must wait until the next monthly board meeting to have his application reviewed.
Another independent security company, The Midwest Community Protection Agency, says what Durham is doing is wrong and unsafe.
Midwest Community Protection Agency’s Director of Operations Rod Smith questions anyone who can not pass the application process in place to obtain a valid license for the industry stating, “Well, what you run into is that there are no checks and balances system for the quality of people that are committing this work. What are their qualifications, are they qualified to do this, or is this just someone who woke up one morning and decided I can protect these people?”
The Indiana Attorney General, who would be in charge of investigating any complaints brought to the licensing board’s attention, says that by law they cannot confirm or deny if a complaint has been made or if they are conducting an investigation.
Felon attacks security officer with dog spray www.privateofficer.com
San Jacinto CA Jan 21 2012 A felon who San Jacinto police say attacked a security guard with dog spray was arrested Thursday.
A woman was shopping at a business in the 1800 block of South San Jacinto Avenue shortly before 10 a.m. A clerk recognized something stolen in the woman’s purse as she was paying for other items, according to a San Jacinto police statement.
A loss-prevention officer for the store stopped the woman, Chante Park, as she walked outside.
The woman’s boyfriend, Sammy Young Weakley, 49, thought Park was being attacked by the security guard and sprayed the guard with dog repellent, police said.
Dog repellent is a natural pepper spray, often used by mail carriers to defend against dogs on their routes.
Weakley fled and the store notified police, who found him nearby on Seventh Street. He was arrested on suspicion of being an ex-felon in possession of a chemical agent, according to jail records.
Weakley pleaded guilty in 2007 to felony fraud charges and was sentenced to 16 months in prison, court records state.
Police booked Weakley at the Smith Correctional Facility in Banning. Bail has been set at $50,000.
Park was cited and released on suspicion of shoplifting.
Police are asking anyone with information to call 951-654-2702.
Morehead High School teacher charged with sexual assault of student www.privateofficer.com
Eden NC Jan 21 2012 On Wednesday, a Morehead High School teacher was charged with sexual activity with student by a teacher and resigned from her position.
According to a press release from the Eden Police Department, Whitney Dow Buck, 38, of 640 Rob Tom Road in Eden, who served as a business teacher, has been arrested without incident by the department.
Police said they received information indicating Buck was having inappropriate sexual contact with a male student less than 18 years of age.
The information was passed along to Lieutenant Clint Simpson and Detective Ben Curtis, who were able to secure a warrant for Buck’s arrest.
According to a press release from Rockingham County Schools, Buck has served as a business teacher at the school since August 2010. She resigned from her position Wednesday.
The school system said in a press release that a tip was given to the police, who immediately notified school administration and school personnel. An investigation took place leading to the arrest of Buck.
“We thank the Eden Police Department for working with us and keeping us involved,” said Jonathan Craig, the Rockingham County Schools Executive Director of Human Resources.
After the arrest, a phone notification was sent to all parents at Morehead High School.
Rockingham County Schools does conduct criminal background checks on all employees.
“We have a zero-tolerance policy for this type of conduct and we base our response to this on our policy and state code,” Craig said.
A substitute taught Buck’s classes on Thursday, according to RCS spokesperson Karen Hyler.
Hyler said if a student has concerns or knows something like this is happening, they should tell any adult they trust. Counselors within the school and the school district are available to talk with students if they feel they need to, according to Hyler.
“We feel sorry this happened,” Craig said. “We’re really concerned for the well-being of our students and about the well-being of the student involved and the teacher involved.”
Craig said in situations like this, people don’t often realize the lasting ramifications it has on both the student and the teacher.
Buck is being held on a $15,000 secured bond and was ordered to appear in Wentworth District Court on February 8.
The investigation is ongoing and police are asking anyone with additional information regarding this case to contact Simpson or Curtis at the Eden Police Department at (336) 623-9755 or 623-9240
VCU police officer re-arrested on felony porn charges www.privateofficer.com
RICHMOND, VA Jan 21 2012- A VCU police officer that once patrolled Broad Street and the VCU campus found himself facing more charges Thursday.
Five felony warrants are on file for the arrest of James Deford for possession of child pornography.
The five new charges spelled out in a grand jury indictment are graphic and disturbing, but they detail exactly what images and videos Deford is accused of downloading.
“They spell out a file name so that if it involves a minor, it can be proven,” says CBS 6 legal analyst Todd Stone. “ It’s done pretty regularly.”
The indictment also has the disturbing details that the pictures and videos are of young victims ages one to ten, involved in sexual acts.
“The court, I’m sure, will look at this more critically because he was in a position of trust,” says Stone. “[He’s] certainly expected to know better, to obey the law because he was enforcing the law.”
Deford was a sergeant with the VCU Police Department until he was suspended back in November. But he was interviewed as recently as 2009 by VCU’s student-run broadcast program “Insight,” offering safety tips to students.
Initially, the FBI and a Richmond Police task force swooped in and arrested Deford charging him with two counts of distribution of child pornography. But those charges were “null prossed” Thursday, taking a back seat to the new possession charges, which if proven, could mean more time behind bars.
“First possession is a Class 6 felony, meaning up to five years,” says Stone. “Every one after that is a Class 5, meaning up to 10 years. In the end he could be facing 45 years.”
And remember “null prossed” doesn’t mean the charges are gone. If prosecutors fail to get a conviction in Chesterfield, Stone says the Richmond charges would most likely be back on the table.
According to deputy at the Chesterfield County Jail, Deford turned himself in late Thursday evening.
Source:WTVR
St Louis police officer, brother indicted in drug scheme www.privateofficer.com
ST. LOUIS MO Jan 21 2012 Several years ago, St. Louis police stopped regularly checking packages for drugs at delivery services like UPS and FedEx.
But employees of those companies may never have known that as, according to federal charges, Sgt. Larry J. Davis still made the rounds. Since Oct. 1, 2010, Davis allegedly collected parcels suspected of containing marijuana but took many home instead of the crime lab.
Davis, 46, of St. Louis, and his brother Linus R. “Bob” Davis, 42, of St. Louis County, were arrested Thursday on two felony marijuana counts: conspiracy to possess with intent to distribute and possession with intent to distribute.
U.S. Attorney Richard Callahan said that Larry Davis “would visit some of the private package companies, they assumed he was acting in his official capacity and he would seize certain packages that looked suspicious. Some of the packages made their way to the police department lab, but the greater number did not.”
Prosecutors said the Davis brothers later sold the drugs.
It is not clear how Sgt. Davis was alerted to the presence of the packages. Investigators may use drug-sniffing dogs or look for a parcel’s appearance, origin or destination.
Larry Davis’s lawyer, Neil Bruntrager, said his client will plead not guilty Monday when he is arraigned. “All the evidence has not been reviewed,” Bruntrager cautioned, saying, “We are concerned that people are rushing to judgment.”
Scott Rosenblum, the lawyer for Linus Davis, said “We’ll plead not guilty and look at all the evidence.”
Both defendants were released on $25,000 unsecured bail after making a court appearance Thursday.
Sgt. Davis, a supervisory sergeant in the Central Patrol Division’s Special Operations Group, was responsible for investigating gangs and illegal drug sales. He was suspended without pay last week when the department learned of the investigation, and his home was searched.
He has also served in the Fifth & Ninth Districts, the Narcotics and Vice-Narcotics divisions.
Sgt. Davis, who is married and has a grown daughter, has been the subject of three internal affairs investigations throughout his career that resulted in discipline. He received a one-day suspension in 1990 for a procedure violation, a written reprimand for a radio violation in 2008 and a written reprimand last year for a procedure violation.
The police department paid $20,000 in March 2010 to settle a federal civil lawsuit in which a man, Robert Beene, alleged that Sgt. Davis and another officer, seeking information about a drug house, handcuffed him and took him to a bluff overlooking the Mississippi River. He claimed in the suit that Davis beat him, the other officer put a gun to his head and threatened to kill him and both threatened to throw him off the bluff, the suit claims.
Reached Thursday by telephone, Beene’s lawyer, James Rohlfing, said, “We settled the case in mediation, so there’s no admissions by anybody that Mr. Davis did anything.”
Rohlfing said that officers admitted taking Beene into custody and detaining him, but denied the rest. He said internal affairs detectives did investigate the allegations, but he was not certain of the outcome.
Linus Davis works in construction and is divorced.
Police released a statement after Thursday’s arrests, saying the department had “fully cooperated with this investigation” and would “continue to be vigorous in our efforts to root out any and all persons whose actions may comprise the integrity of the organization.”
They referred questions to federal prosecutors.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Hal Goldsmith, who is handling the case, declined to comment.
Source:www.stltoday.com
Bridgeton Police officer arrested for controlled substance-steroids charges www.privateofficer.com
BRIDGETON NJ Jan 21 2012 — A four-year veteran of the Bridgeton Police Department (BPD) was arrested Wednesday night by members of his own department shortly after reporting for duty.
Robert W. Smith, 31, of Williamstown, was apprehended by members of the police department and Cumberland County Prosecutor’s Office on narcotics-related charges at around 10 p.m. that evening.
The charges include possession of a a controlled dangerous substance (oxandrolone anabolic steroids), possession with intent to distribute, distribution and distribution within a school zone.
Smith, who had been assigned to the department’s patrol bureau, was lodged in the Salem County Correctional Facility on $75,000 cash bail. He was “immediately suspended without pay with intent to dismiss pending final criminal case disposition,” according to BPD Chief Mark Ott.
Smith was in possession of 60 pills of Anavar, a brand of the controlled dangerous substance in question, according to court documents.
When asked if the department tested for steroids at the time of hiring, Ott said they did not and that “the state doesn’t do it anywhere that I’m aware of.” He declined to comment on how long the department may have known about Smith’s activities, what tip led to his arrest and who he may have been selling the substances to.
BPD Capt. Michael Gaimari said authorities received information Wednesday afternoon pertaining to Smith’s suspected involvement. The department conducted “an expedient, but thorough, investigation utilizing the department’s Professional Standards, Patrol and Criminal Investigation bureaus,” according to a press release Thursday.
Authorities indicated the investigation is continuing.
Police said there is no indication other Bridgeton officers are involved nor any of the suspected criminal activity occurred while the officer was on duty.
Source:nj.com
Two Chicago men arrested for bar fight www.privateofficer.com
Tinley Park IL Jan 21 2012 Two Chicago men were arrested after getting into a fight Jan. 11 with a bouncer at a downtown Tinley Park tavern, police said.
Steven K. Hanley, 27, was charged with assault, and Ryan T. Hanley, 29, was charged with battery and resisting police in the disturbance at Teehan’s Tavern, 17329 Oak Park Ave., according to police.
They said officers arrived at the bar about 12:35 a.m. to find the bouncer, a 24-year-old Orland Hills man, on the ground and the Hanleys shirtless and screaming at police.
The bouncer told police that the two men arrived at the bar about 11:30 p.m., started to fight each other and he broke it up and told them to leave. Once outside, Steven Hanley asked to re-enter the bar to get his coat, but the bouncer told him to stay outside and he would get the coat for him, police said.
Ryan Hanley then became angry, started screaming at the bouncer, raised his fists and came after him — causing the two to begin wrestling with each other shortly before police arrived, according to police.
Ashville armored car guard charged in $20,000 theft www.privateofficer.com
ASHEVILLE NC Jan 21 2012 — A guard at an Arden armored car company is facing an embezzlement charge after police say he stole $20,000 in cash.
Paul Russell Webb, 66, is accused of taking the money from Loomis Fargo Trucking on Glenbridge Road earlier this month.
Asheville police got involved after company security began investigating missing money, Asheville police Lt. Wally Welch said.
About a week after the investigation began, Webb returned the money and told officers he took it to “prove a point about lax security” at the business, Welch said.
He was charged with embezzlement Wednesday.
Webb was released on a written promise to appear in court.
Shooting-attempted kidnapping at Hickory Hollow Mall www.privateofficer.com
NASHVILLE, Tenn.Jan 21 2012- One person was injured in a shooting at Hickory Hollow Mall Friday night. The shooting happened just after 8 p.m.
Police said that as a woman was leaving the mall she was rushed by two men armed with guns that forced her to get into her car and demanded money. It was unclear what happened inside the vehicle, but somehow the woman managed to get away. The victim fled back into the mall and brought two of her male friends back out to the car with her.
Officials said when the suspects saw the victim and her friends coming out of the mall they fired several shots. One 27-year-old man was hit in the shoulder and transported by ambulance to Vanderbilt University Medical Center.
Police have not said if the suspects were in custody in relation to this case. The identity of the victim also had not been released.
Source:newschannel5.com
