A part-time police officer has reportedly been charged for allegedly abusing his girlfriend’s young children with a Taser-like weapon.
Kevin McCann, 47, of Lawrence Township, Ohio, has been charged with two counts of felonious assault and two counts of felony child endangering. McCann allegedly used a Taser-like weapon this on Christina Robinson’s 3-year-old daughter and 2-year-old son, the Canton Repository reports.
Authorities do not believe McCann shocked the children and they do not believe the weapon he allegedly used in this incident was given to him as part of his official duties, according to the newspaper.
Robinson, 22, also of Lawrence Township, is charged with four counts of felony child endangering.
Both suspects were arraigned Wednesday and denied all charges. They remain in the Stark County Jail with bond set at $500,000.
The two children in question and a younger sibling have been placed with a relative with supervision provided by the Stark County Department of Job and Family Services, the newspaper reports.
CHARLOTTE, N.C. — A Charlotte-Mecklenburg police officer has been charged with sexually assaulting two female motorists while in uniform and operating his patrol car.
Charlotte-Mecklenburg Officer Marcus Jackson, 25, was charged with sexual battery, second-degree sex offense, extortion, kidnapping, indecent exposure and two counts of felonious restraint. He was being held in lieu of bond totaling $360,000 ahead of a court hearing Thursday, according to jail records. The records did not indicate whether he had an attorney, and a jail spokesman did not immediately return a call seeking information.
Jackson was immediately fired after his arrest Wednesday night, Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Chief Rodney Monroe said.
“To have one of our own involved in such a despicable act is not only a violation of the public trust, but a complete dishonor to this officer and every officer that wears this badge,” Monroe said. “We work very hard to gain and maintain the public’s trust, and this knocks us backward.”
The case began after a relative reported Monday that a 17-year-old girl said she was ordered into Jackson’s car on Dec. 18, driven to another location, and assaulted. The girl said the officer had been wearing his uniform and driving his marked patrol car.
On Tuesday, a 21-year-old woman told detectives she’d been assaulted under similar circumstances the previous night, Monroe said.
Both of the reported incidents happened between 11 p.m. and 2 a.m. in east Charlotte, where Jackson was on duty.
“It is profoundly disappointing when one of our police officers engages in such heinous conduct,” Mayor Anthony Foxx said in a statement. “It obscures the fact that the vast majority of our officers are dedicated, hardworking people.”
Monroe added that “it would be naive” to think others had not been assaulted by Jackson, according to a report Thursday in the Charlotte Observer.
The police chief reportedly released Jackson’s photo at a news conference in the hopes that other potential victims will come forward.
20 Camden police cars fail state inspection
By Matt Katz
Inquirer Staff Writer
If the people in charge of enforcing the rules of the road are violating the rules themselves, whom are you going to call?
The state Department of Labor and Workforce Development, apparently.
The agency has cited the Camden Police Department for a “serious” violation after finding that 20 of its vehicles, mostly Ford Crown Victoria police cruisers, were in violation of state inspection laws. The vehicles had expired inspection stickers, stickers showing they had failed inspection, or no stickers at all.
The sticker on one vehicle, a Ford van, expired in September 2002.
City Business Administrator Christine Tucker said the cars and vans, which were observed by a state inspector while parked in a police lot, were part of the “reserve fleet.” They are not assigned to operational police units and are usually not used.
“I’m not going to say they’ve never been driven, but . . . they’re not part of the 250 vehicles we keep in service,” she said.
All the vehicles now will be inspected, and those that are no longer functional will be scrapped, she said.
The state has ordered the city to rectify the problem by Jan. 28 or face a fine of $350 per violation per vehicle – a potential $7,000 – every day.
Specifically, the department was cited for not providing “a place of employment which was free from recognized hazards.”
“Some of [the cars] don’t have heaters. Some of them, the steering doesn’t work. Some have problems with brakes,” said John Williamson, president of Camden Fraternal Order of Police Lodge 1.
Williamson said a police officer had issued the complaint that spurred the inspection after he was reprimanded for declaring a beat-up car “out of service.”
“A lot of these vehicles are unsafe,” Williamson said.
Senator John Kerry’s daughter, Alexandra Forbes Kerry, was arrested early this morning on suspicion of DUI.
It went down in Hollywood at 12:40 AM. Alexandra, a 36-year-old film producer and director, was pulled over for a traffic stop, then arrested and booked at LAPD’s Hollywood station. She was released at 5:25 AM.
Cops tell us Alexandra violated a traffic law which got their attention. They then conducted a field sobriety test and it appeared she was under the influence of an intoxicant. She was then placed under arrest. At that point, cops asked her to take a preliminary alcohol screening test in the field, but she refused.
Cops took her to the station and then conducted a formal blood alcohol test which showed a level of .06. Under California law, the legal limit is .08, but a driver can still be prosecuted — even under a .08 reading — if the vehicle is being operated unsafely due to alcohol.
The inside word — the L.A. City Attorney probably won’t prosecute Alexandra because generally they won’t go after people with under a .08 unless the driving is really crazy.
Jason Anderson Charged With Manslaughter As Police Release Shocking Car Crash Tape (VIDEO)
Milford police released video today of a deadly collision that killed two teens in June.
The dashboard cam of a police cruiser shows a speeding Officer Jason Anderson pass on the right side of the road and barrel into Ashlie Krakowski and David Servin as they made a left-hand turn. Servin died at the scene. Krakowski died later at the hospital.
Anderson was driving 94 mph and did not have his lights or siren on. Even worse, the officer was not responding to a call and had no reason to be speeding.
The officer has been charged with manslaughter but is on paid leave from the department.
Police Used Taser on 10-Year-Old Girl in Arkansas
OZARK, Ark. (AP) — Ozark Police Chief Jim Noggle says one of his officers used a Taser on a 10-year-old girl who was combative when the officer tried to get the her into a patrol car to be taken to a youth shelter. Read more here.
Police: Would-be Seattle ninja accidently impales himself on fenceSEATTLE — Seattle police say a man who thought he was ninja was impaled on a metal fence when he tried to leap over it.
An officer who was looking for an assault victim nearby Monday night heard the man screaming for help.
Police supported him to prevent further injuries until medics arrived and took him to a hospital, where he was in serious condition in intensive care on Tuesday.
Police spokeswoman Renee Witt wrote in a department Web site posting that officers thought the man might have been involved in the reported assault, but he insisted he was just a ninja trying to clear a 4- to 5-foot-tall fence.
Witt says the man was “overconfident in his abilities,” and that alcohol likely
played a role.
Sent from: Jeff H. from WA.
His name was not released.
Tenn. trooper suspended over white pride e-mail
Fri Nov 13, 3:40 pm ET
NASHVILLE, Tenn. – A Tennessee state trooper who accidentally sent an e-mail proclaiming white pride to 787 state employees has been suspended for 15 days without pay and will have to attend diversity training.
The e-mail from Trooper Brent Gobbell states, in part, “You rob us, carjack us, and shoot at us. But, when a white police officer shoots a black gang member … you call him a racist.” It also includes a list of racist epithets.
The state Department of Safety says Gobbell sent the e-mail to himself so he could print a copy. He did not realize he had also sent it to hundreds of state employees.
An investigation revealed that Gobbell later deleted his responses to the original e-mail and attempted to delete the original too. Gobbell has apologized.
Sarnia cop arrested on sex charges
SARNIA — A Sarnia police officer is in custody facing sex charges involving alleged victims under the age of 16.
On Wednesday, a news release by Sarnia police chief Phil Nelson stated that the unidentified officer was the subject of an investigation by Chatham-Kent police.
The accused has been arrested and was remanded into custody. The accused was scheduled for a bail hearing in Chatham on Thursday.
According to Nelson, the name of the accused officer is not being released in order to protect the identities of the victims.
The officer has been charged with two counts of sexual assault and two counts of sexual interference.
The Canadian criminal code describes the offence of sexual interference as involving an accused who “for a sexual purpose, touches, directly or indirectly, with a part of the body or with an object, any part of the body of a person under the age of 16 years.”
Nelson said the accused officer was already “before the court on other criminal matters” prior to the arrest on sex charges.
Further details about the case were unavailable at press time.
A motorised chair that saw a man arrested last year when he drunkenly drove it into a parked car has been sold on eBay – for $10,099.99.
Walter Wobig, the Police Chief in Proctor, Minnesota, says international media attention helped fuel the bidding.
The chair was built by Dennis LeRoy Anderson – who pleaded guilty to driving the motorized chair with a blood-alcohol level nearly four times the legal limit.
Photographer detained for taking photos of the LA subway system
By David Markland
November 8th, 2009 @ 10:25 PM Law Enforcement, Mass TransitThe photographer “Discarted” has gone done it again and threatened national security by violating the laws of the MTA and taking photos of the Los Angeles subway system that he could very likely end up selling to Al Qaeda. Seems perfectly reasonable that he be detained by LA Sheriffs, right?
Except that there is no rule prohibiting public photography in Los Angeles subway systems. And any detainment would require a reasonable suspicion of the subject having committed a crime… which may have occurred, but the only unusual activity the Sheriff ever cites is Discarted’s act of taking photos.
After handcuffing Discarted, the sheriff doing most of the talking, Officer Richard Gylfie, is heard threating threatening to put him the FBI’s “hit list” and will be flagged and detained before boarding planes, trains, or other forms of transportation where an ID is checked. And why? Apparently for not shivering in fear to Gylfie’s demands to tell him why he’s taking photos… or maybe I’m missing something.
As if it needs repeating, photography is allowed in public spaces, including the subway system. Its a shame that the same people who we pay to enforce our laws are blatantly ignorant of this, and instead abuse the power that we bestow upon them to harass and intimidate.
The AP has a story today suggesting the sheriff in the Balloon Boy Hoax case is very dumb indeed.
First of all, he fell for a story that was absurd on its face. There is no way anyone would believe that little piece of silver foil would have enough hot air or helium or whatever it was was supposed to be in it to displace its own weight, along with the weight of a six year-old boy. Anyone who’s seen the lead balloon episode of “Mythbusters” knows enough about buoyancy to see that the balloon supposedly carrying Balloon Boy could not have held his weight.
Baltimore, Oct 27 (THAINDIAN NEWS) A Baltimore city police officer Sgt. Eric Janik, was charged after he pulled a gun on a haunted house employee at the end of his act, authorities said Monday.
“The thirty-seven year old Sgt. Eric Janik, was charged with assault and reckless endangerment of life for pointing his service handgun at the worker, who was dressed as Leatherface, the killer from “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre,” Baltimore County police said.
“The employee, Mike Morrison, followed Janik and several other people up a staircase Sunday night at the end of the haunted house tour in a bid to get “one last scream” out of them”, police said.
ABBEVILLE, Ala. — The Abbeville City Council recently upheld the termination made by the city’s police chief of a 22-year-old officer charged charged with choking a 15-year-old until he passed out, the Dothan Eagle reports. Click here to read more!
October 25, 6:00 PMKittson County Top News ExaminerKen Korczak
A small-town cop allegedly went rouge big-time as he careened off on a major theft spree, lifting high-ticket items from the very citizens and local merchants he was sworn to protect. Click here to read more.
Jury awards $1.5 million in arrest of traffic supervisor
A federal jury on Friday awarded more than $1.5 million to a supervisor in the city’s Traffic Management Authority after finding that four Chicago police officers conspired to violate her civil rights when she was arrested during a dispute over a parking ticket.
Jacqueline Fegan hunched over the plaintiff’s table in U.S. District Judge Joan Lefkow’s courtroom and wept at word of the verdict. She alleged the officers permanently injured her wrist when she was handcuffed and tossed into a police squadrol on Michigan Avenue.
While on her normal patrol, Fegan had come upon the four officers in a dispute with a traffic aide. She testified that Officer Robert Reid became furious when she refused to take care of a parking ticket he had received on his personal vehicle when he responded to a police call.
After being warned about jaywalking, Fegan said she was grabbed when she walked back to her car, handcuffed and arrested.
Lawyers for the officers, who declined to comment after the verdict, argued to jurors that it was Fegan who threw her clout around and that she was arrested when she stepped into heavy traffic along the Magnificent Mile.
Jennifer Hoyle, a spokeswoman for the city’s Law Department, said the city was disappointed with the verdict and considering its options.
The jury awarded Fegan $1.25 million for emotional distress and more than $300,000 for medical treatment and lost wages.
Fegan’s lawyer, Craig Tobin, said his client has been through the wringer. “It’s been a long, arduous fight,” he said.
A car in Florida was recently issued seven parking tickets that its owner continually ignored, possibly because he was dead.
His body was in the back seat of the car during all the citations, a fact overlooked by the officers who handed out the tickets.
The corpse belonged to John Waldo, an engineer who had been reported missing since Feb. 11. Cops do not suspect foul play, but then again, this is the force that missed the dead guy seven straight times.
All is not well in the great state of Texas, where Louis Guthrie, a Harris County police lieutenant with 17 years of experience, was fired from his job for “oppression” after launching a full scale investigation into a local car wash. Why? Because the bikini clad women who worked there seemed to be making questionable business decisions?
Sadly, no.
Apparently, Guthrie’s wife reported that 16 dollars were missing from her car, and he wanted to get to the bottom of it. After cordoning off the entire scene with tape and forcing the business to close for an hour, Guthrie and other officers questioned the employees about the theft, an overreaction that a spokesman for the sheriff’s office called “clearly a violation of sheriff’s policies.” Guthrie, who is planning to appeal the decision, is spending the weekend on his couch, a piece of furniture he has reason to believe stole as much as $2.50 in change out of his pants pockets, and is intentionally concealing it in it’s cushions.
Dead Men Can’t Park
Dead in the back of his van, was given numerous parking tickets before police discovered his body weeks later, according to the deceased’s daughter. Jennifer Morales says she told New York City cops that her father, George, has been missing since May.
Authorities in Myrtle Beach, SC, accidentally released Richard Daniel Wines, pictured, from jail after Wines pretended to be fellow inmate Jonathan Gardner.
Gardner had been scheduled to be released on Saturday, but when he fell asleep Wines, 18, secretly took his place. Wines, who had been sentenced to just five days in jail on public intoxication charges, also left with “a black baseball cap, a black doo-rag, a white towel, a snake skin belt, a watch with a brown band, a set of house keys, $2 worth of loose change, a cigarette lighter, silver necklace, a wedding band and a pair of gold earrings.”
Officer reprimanded after duck incident.
Officer Venus Michaud, 35, admitted “testing” her can of Oleoresin Capsicum by spraying a short burst in the air while three to five Muscovy ducks were nearby, according to the Oct. 17 letter of reprimand. Close by was another Kenneth City employee, Lori Griffith. Michaud was in uniform and smoking a cigarette at the time.
A Michigan cop, who’d obviously been hit over the head with a billy club one time too many, levied criminal charges against a man who used an open, public Wi-Fi network outside the cafe that was running it.
A man is suing the Kissimmee Police Department for an arrest over mints. When officers pulled Donald May over for an expired tag, they thought the mints he was chewing were crack and arrested him.
May told Eyewitness News they wouldn’t let him out of jail for three months until tests proved the so-called drugs were candy…
May was pulled over for an expired tag on his car. When the officer walked up to him, he noticed something white in May’s mouth. May said it was breath mints, but the officer thought it was crack cocaine.
“He took them out of my mouth and put them in a baggy and locked me up [for] possession of cocaine and tampering with evidence,” May explained.The officer claimed he field-tested the evidence and it tested positive for drugs.
The officer said he saw May buying drugs while he was stopped at an intersection. He also stated in his report May waived his Miranda rights and voluntarily admitted to buying drugs.
May said that never happened.”My client never admitted he purchased crack cocaine. Why would he say that?” attorney Adam Sudbury said.
May was thrown in jail and was unable to bond out for three months. He didn’t get out until he received a letter from the Florida Department of Law Enforcement and the State Attorney’s Office that test results showed no drugs were found.
“While I was sitting in jail I lost my apartment. I lost everything,” he said.
While May was behind bars, the Kissimmee Police Department towed his car and auctioned it off. He lost his job and was evicted. Now May is suing the city for false arrest and false imprisonment. He wants to be compensated for the loss of his car and job.
May’s attorney and the city of Kissimmee discussed a possible settlement last year, but failed to reach an agreement.
