Category: Cops

When will America decide that senseless killings should end?

Posted by dcrim – January 13, 2011

One thing that’s getting overlooked while columnists, commentators and presidential wannabes lob verbal grenades over what caused the tragedy in Tucson is that six innocent people were killed and 12 more wounded by a deranged young man who was able to get his hands on a weapon.

Unfortunately, as Bob Herbert of the New York Times notes, murder is a flourishing business in the United States. He points to sobering statistics that show, excluding the people killed in the terror attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, more than 150,000 Americans have been murdered since the beginning of the 21st century. Think about that number for a minute, and ask yourself why that issue merits little more than lip service.

Writes Herbert:

This endlessly proliferating parade of death, which does not spare women or children, ought to make our knees go weak. But we never even notice most of the killings. Homicide is white noise in this society. … For whatever reasons, neither the public nor the politicians seem to really care how many Americans are murdered — unless it’s in a terror attack by foreigners. The two most common responses to violence in the U.S. are to ignore it or be entertained by it. The horror prompted by the attack in Tucson on Saturday will pass. The outrage will fade. The murders will continue.

Click here for the full column.

Hangover Helpers, beware of the cane and costly telephone call

Posted by dcrim – November 27, 2010

• Your head aches, you’re hungry and your house is littered with sticky plastic cups. Who ya gonna call? Hangover Helpers.

The Boulder Daily Camera reports two University of Colorado graduates are marketing a new business by that name in Boulder, home of CU’s main campus. They’ll bring in breakfast burritos and Gatorade the morning after a party — and clean up the mess.

The Daily Camera reports that Marc Simons started cleaning party houses about a year ago for extra cash and realized he’d found a niche, despite the bad economy. He teamed up with high school friend Alex Vere-Nicoll and started Hangover Helpers. They charge $15 per roommate.

• Authorities in Callaway, Fla., say an irate 84-year-old man hit a deputy in the stomach with his cane when the officer warned him to leave a clinic where he had been cursing at an office manager.

The News Herald newspaper reports that the northwest Florida man was arrested and charged with disorderly conduct and resisting an officer. Bay County sheriff’s deputies were called to Callaway Clinic on Wednesday night because the man was yelling and cursing at an office manager.

According to a police report, the office manager asked authorities to remove the man from the clinic. Once outside, the man’s rant grew louder. When the deputy warned the man he would be arrested if he didn’t leave, the man allegedly hit the officer in the stomach with his cane. Deputies say the man also hit the officer in the leg as he was being handcuffed.

• Eugene, Ore., police didn’t have to go far to find a bank robbery suspect. They say 23-year-old Nathan Alan Bramlage was spotted after walking into the Eugene police station Wednesday to use a public phone in the lobby.

The Register-Guard reports an officer recognized the man from surveillance video of the bank robbery the day before. Detectives followed and arrested him about two blocks away. Detective Ralph Burks says Bramlage apparently assumed police wouldn’t recognize him.

Bramlage was booked into Lane County Jail on a robbery charge and told police he had used the phone to call his parents.

On campaign promises, contract negotiations and zoning squabbles

Posted by dcrim – August 10, 2010

Morning musings …

Have you noticed that every four years gubernatorial candidates in Illinois promise to “root out the corruption in Springfield,” but never do?

Wouldn’t it be nice if Democrat Pat Quinn and Republican Bill Brady would offer specific ways they plan to fix the budget mess in Illinois, rather than repeat rehearsed sound bites over and over that play to crowds but are not realistic solutions? Is it because candidates can’t say what they really think because the truth wouldn’t get them elected?

(UPDATE: Seems like the day after telling his Quincy audience that he would balance the state budget in his first year, the Brady campaign is admitting that it would take two or three years to catch up on unpaid bills, so he really wouldn’t be balancing the budget like he said he would. But the statement probably drew applause.)

Most companies offer some sort of sick time provision that allows employees to still get paid if they get sick and can’t work. Quincy police patrol officers and sergeants already are able to bank 720 hours of sick time — the equivalent of 90 days — and are paid 100 percent of every hour not used. And they are asking for 48 hours more per year in negotiations with the city. Police aren’t the only employees on the local, state or national level with this kind of perk, so is there any wonder why governments are going broke?

I’m all for people making as much money as they can. But in a climate with the highest unemployment in a generation, including an estimated 17,000 teachers this year alone in Illinois, and an economy that cannot seem to stay on solid footing, would the Quincy Federation of Teachers actually think about going on strike for more money or benefits? Do they think that’s a winnable public relations battle? Timing is everything in life, and now’s not the time.

Memo to Quincy Preserves and Dr. Louis Quintero: Let’s quit the childish (but amusing) sniping and work toward a solution. Character of the neighborhood should be the prevailing argument in zoning situations like this, but there have been too many exceptions made over the years in Quincy. (Take a look at the strip mall on the northwest corner of 20th and Maine and see if it enhances the neighborhood. And there are businesses on two other corners at that intersection.) So that means developers can buy property in residential areas cheaper than it would cost for the same thing in areas set aside for businesses. And because there always seems to be an except for every zoning rule if you have the right connections, there’s nothing the city can do about it.

Sometimes adults do the darndest things

Posted by dcrim – July 12, 2010

Sometimes fact is stranger than fiction:

• Georgia authorities have charged a 29-year-old man with aggravated assault and false imprisonment after they allege he held his mother hostage for failing to iron his clothes. Police told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution the man, who lives with his parents, wanted his mother to do some ironing because it was “woman’s work.” When she refused, authorities allege he pulled out a gun, and took his 51-year-old mother’s keys and cellphones and refused to let her leave for at least six hours. She eventually escaped and went to a police station. Authorities were able to get the man out without incident.

• An Orange County woman was sentenced to a year in jail for sending hundreds of threatening text messages — to herself. Prosecutors said Jeanne Mundango Manunga told police her former boyfriend and his sister-in-law were behind the threats. She was convicted in May of three felony counts of false imprisonment by fraud or deceit and two misdemeanor counts of making a false police report. Prosecutors said Manunga started sending the threatening messages after she and her former boyfriend stopped dating in 2008. Manunga also was placed on three years probation and ordered to pay about $50,000 in restitution.

• A middle-of-the-night ride on a lawn mower landed one Iowa man in jail. The Boone County Sheriff’s Office says deputies stopped the man on Highway 17 near Madrid after receiving reports of someone driving a mower all over the road with no headlights. Madrid is about 25 miles northwest of Des Moines. The man was arrested for drunken driving. The Sheriff’s Office says his blood-alcohol level was .190 — well above Iowa’s limit of .08. Boone County Sheriff Ron Fehr says it’s illegal in Iowa to drive any kind of motor vehicle anywhere while drunk. Fehr wasn’t sure how fast the man was going on the six-speed Bolens lawn tractor. The Des Moines Register reports that the top speed for that mower is about 5 mph.

Nothing fixes stupid like being hit with a Taser

Posted by dcrim – May 5, 2010

Steve Consalvi, a 17-year-old high school, leapt onto the field at the top of the eighth inning during Monday night’s game between Philadelphia and St. Louis at Citizen Bank Park in Philadelphia. He ran around in the outfield, waving a white towel, and dodged two security officers.

The police officer chased Consalvi for about 30 seconds before the officer used a stun gun probe to hit the teenager, who stumbled forward, slid face-first on the grass and stayed down for about 30 seconds before standing up and walking off the field.

Merrick Bobb, executive director of a Los Angeles-based nonprofit police oversight group called the Police Assessment Resource Center, said mild resistance usually doesn’t justify the use of a Taser. “Usually the resistance has to threaten some harm to the officer in order to justify the use of a Taser,” Bobb said.

Mary Catherine Roper, an attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union in Philadelphia, said she didn’t understand why the officer had to use a Taser. “How long can he really run around out there?” Roper said of the fan. “In this situation, he’s not dangerous, he’s not getting away.”

Consalvi’s mother, Amy Ziegler, put it best. “It was stupid. It was just absolutely stupid,” she told WTXF-TV.

And as Ron White likes to say, you can’t fix stupid. Unless, of course, you have a Taser. So maybe the ACLU should worry about helping people who aren’t idiots. As parents like to tell their children, actions have consequences.

It’s never good to show up drunk for a DUI sentencing hearing

Posted by dcrim – April 2, 2010

It doesn’t always take Horatio Caine to bring criminals to justice. To wit:

• A 49-year-old Montana man who apparently was intoxicated when he came to court for his trial on a felony drunken driving charge has pleaded no contest to his 11th DUI.

Thaylin Shawn Pierce, of Billings, entered the plea Thursday. He’s free on bond until his sentencing June 22. The Billings Gazette reports Pierce was charged in November 2008 after he tried to drive after being kicked out of a casino. His trial was scheduled to begin Wednesday, but the judge suspected Pierce was intoxicated.

A breath test showed Pierce had a blood-alcohol level of 0.093 percent. Negotiations for a plea agreement began. One of the conditions was that Pierce had to return to court sober the next morning to enter his plea. Pierce has nine previous drunken driving convictions in Colorado and another one in Wyoming.

• The people who witnessed a robbery attempt at an Oregon convenience store didn’t need to describe the muggers. They just needed to point.

The Mail Tribune reports the two men accused of trying to rob someone at knifepoint were arrested when they returned to get their car while officers were interviewing witnesses.

Medford police Lt. Bob Hansen says a man leaving the store late Tuesday was accosted by two men. One brandished a knife and demanded money. The would-be robbers fled when the man ran back into the store and called police.

Hansen says officers were interviewing witnesses in the parking lot when the suspects showed up. Though the men were wearing different clothes, witnesses identified them as the robbers. The men, 19 and 20 years old, were jailed on charges of attempted first-degree robbery.

• Prosecutors say an Ohio inmate’s letter to his mother included detailed instructions on how to sneak drugs to him — but lacked the correct ZIP code.

Ottawa County Sheriff Bob Bratton says the letter was returned to the Port Clinton jail where corrections officers read it along with the other incoming mail. Donald Dudrow III of Toledo was indicted Thursday on charges of attempted drug trafficking and trying to get drugs into a correctional facility.

The Portsmouth Daily Times reports Dudrow already was in jail on a probation violation.

It didn’t take Columbo to nab this dynamic duo

Posted by dcrim – February 2, 2010

There is a reason why jails face overcrowding: Stupid criminals.

The Kingsport (Tenn.) Times-News cites a release from the Sullivan County Sheriff’s Office in reporting 34-year-old James M. Denoon and 18-year-old Anthony Stout were found hiding under a truck Friday night at the Merita Bread Company.

The deputies found about $300 worth of stolen snack cakes — Zingers, Twinkies, cupcakes — stacked on the ground nearby. Finding the accused thieves was easy: Deputies only had to follow their footprints, because there was more than an inch of snow on the ground.

Denoon and Stout were charged with theft under $500 and two counts of auto burglary. It was not immediately clear if they had attorneys. Or why somebody would steal snack food.

Wisconsin cops have jolly good time on Christmas video

Posted by dcrim – December 17, 2009

Kenosha (Wis.) police officers have made a Christmas video that features their version of “The Twelve Days of Christmas.” The cops sing about gifts from their chief that include bullets, guns, jelly doughnuts, night shifts and coffee breaks.

One officer is shown with his feet up on a desk sipping coffee. Another is sitting in front of a box of doughnuts, his nose and cheek smeared with jelly. The Associated Press reports a blurb on the department’s Web site invites people who need a laugh “during this hectic time of year” to click on the video, but the site apparently is down.

After “The Twelve Days of Christmas,” traditional versions of two more carols play as pictures, which include some officers, float across the screen. If you have nearly 10 minutes to kill ….