Canarsie cops honored for key collars
Four of the 69th Precinct’s officers were honored as cops of the month during the most recent meeting of the precinct’s Community Council.
Homage was paid to P.O. Lutfi Dalipi, P.O. Yishin Park, P.O. Robert Orlando and P.O. Jovanni Jennings during the January get-together, which was held at the Hebrew Educational Society, 9502 Seaview Avenue.
Dalipi was named the January Cop of the Month because of a gun collar he made, working in conjunction with his lieutenant. In the incident, Dalipi recovered a loaded firearm, explained Captain Milt Marmara, the precinct’s commanding officer.
This was not his only achievement during January, Marmara went on. In addition, he said, Dalipi “arrested another individual who had committed two armed robberies of gas stations” in the area. The individual is also suspected of having done additional robberies in the area of East New York, Marmara told the group.
While they were unable to be present at the meeting, the Cops of the Month for November and December were also recognized for their efforts on behalf of the community.
The November Cops of the Month, Orlando and Jennings, were singled out for arresting four individuals armed with three guns and a machete who were burglarizing what Marmara described as “a drug house,” where, he added, police uncovered “roughly 30 pounds of marijuana.”
Despite the fact that the suspects were “shooting” inside the house, Marmara said, the two officers successfully “apprehended them without firing a single shot.”
Park, the Cop of the Month for December, snagged the recognition, said Marmara, for having “arrested three individuals who had just shot someone after a large bar fight.”
The officers received a stack of certificates from local elected officials recognizing their efforts. In addition, Dalipi, who was present during the meeting, received what Marmara smilingly referred to as“a strong handshake again” from his commanding officer.
By Helen Klein
LINK
Stuttgart’s K-9 Unit
Stuttgart Junior High students received two visitors Monday afternoon. Stuttgart Police Department K-9 Officer Nolan Woodell and his partner Tia were on hand to give a demonstration of Tia’s capabilities to the crowd.
Tia, a Belgium Shepard (Malinois), is seven years old and considered a Sergeant in ranking.
“Tia is higher ranked than myself,” Woodell told the students.
Woodell is not Tia’s first handler, but has been partnered with her for nearly a year. They have learned together with required training and her living with him personally, he explained, to the group.
Students received two demonstrations from Tia, first with SPD School Resource Officer Kenneth Williams putting on the bite sleeve. The dog was allowed to attack the officer going straight for the arm and not letting go until hearing a command from Woodell.
Tia can receive commands in Dutch, a Germanic language, and also English. Her reward or “pay check” is a tennis ball, which the officer carries with him at all times.
Woodell patted the “suspect” down and Tia focused, when Williams dropped his arms after being told to keep them up, Tia attacked.
“She keeps her eyes on the suspect at all times, she is always watching,” Woodell said.
The second demonstration allowed students to visibly see methamphetamine and where the drug was hidden inside a patrol unit. Tia was allowed to walk around the vehicle and quickly alerted on the vehicle directly were the drug had been hidden.
Tia was trained to be a passive dog, which means she does not alert by scratching or barking she simply points with her nose in the seated position to let her handler know where she is alerting. She once again was awarded with her tennis ball.
Students also were able to look through William’s patrol unit.
By Leigh Kreimeier
LINK/PICS
Sniffing out crime
The town hopes its newest police dog will sniff out crime just as well as his pooch predecessor.
Enzo, a 17-month-old, black German Shepherd, was picked to replace Axle, a German Shepherd who patrolled Cary and Carrboro for the past seven years. Axle recently retired.
“We are so grateful for the Axle’s service to our police department and the local communities over the years, and we look forward to having Enzo do the same,” said Cary Police Maj. Tony Godwin.
Cary started its K-9 program in 2005. In the past two years, the town has used its dogs to investigate over 600 cases.
Axle helped locate missing seniors and children, tracked runaway suspects and found concealed drugs and money. And he met more than 3,000 children and their parents during community events.
Axle’s handler, Officer Seth Everett, is now training with Enzo in Chapel Hill. The team works on agility drills, narcotics detection and other tracking skills. “It’s going really well so far,” he said. “We hope to be out of training and working on cases in March.”
The town paid $6,500 for Enzo and will spend $2,000 more to train him for three months. Some of that money came from the police department’s Citizens Assisting Police team, which donated $1,000.
Mayfair Animal Hospital and Veterinary Specialty Hospital provides free veterinary services for all of the dogs in the K-9 program. A dog-food maker will feed the dogs for free, too.
The town says police dogs are worth the investment, and they’ll be recruiting a third dog in March.
“They have capabilities we as humans don’t have,” Godwin said. “They can do so much for us because their sense of smell exceeds our own. K-9s are a fantastic tool.”
By Sadia Latifi
LINK
New Decatur City School SRO has a nose for her job
Maddie is a two-year-old tail wagging, slurpie kissing bundle of love who never meets a stranger.
She’s the new k-9 partner of school resource officer Mike Landrum.
“Maddie is what we would refer to as a detector dog,” Landrum said
And like other dogs, she had a big price tag, “Decatur Police Department spent over 7 thousand dollars for Maddie and mine training,” added Landrum.
Some of that money was raised by the citizens police academy, and a private security company.
Landrum said the school system will foot the bill for food and vet bills.
Supervisor of school system safety, Phil Hastings, says Maddie is the first full time k-9 SRO in Alabama, with a nose for drugs and more.
“Contraband certainly would include illegal drugs, alcohol, black powder, which could be used in weapons or fireworks,” Hastings said.
He said she can also detect items legal, but against school rules, “For example certain medications, our students can’t just carry their medications with them, whether it’s Tylenol or some medication a doctor gives them.”
He adds that Maddie will be able to educate younger students in the classroom.
And she has the right combination of a friendly personality, temperament and intelligence for her job.
By Bobby Shuttleworth
LINK/VIDEO
Yappy Hour in Vero Beach to benefit K-9 Officers
Blue Ribbon Boarding and Grooming is holding “Yappy Hour 2” to benefit the K-9 units of Indian River County.
The money raised will provide the dogs with the bulletproof vests needed to protect their lives while in the line of duty.
The event is Feb. 21 at Ti Amo Sempre from 3-6 p.m.
There will be grand raffle prizes. There will be a menu sampling available and a cash bar with a percentage of proceeds going to the cause. Entertainment includes the presentation ceremony of the K-9s receiving their new vests, a K-9 demonstration as well as an evening of music by DJ Elton.
LINK
Wayne Co. Sheriff, churches offer free gun locks
Sheriff officials and Detroit-area churches are offering an “unlimited supply” of free gun locks.
Sheriff Benny Napoleon said Tuesday the effort is spurred by the county’s skyrocketing number of concealed weapons requests and recent cases involving children caught with firearms.
Napoleon tells The Detroit News that the county received 13,843 permit applications in 2009, up from 9,300 in 2008, and has received an average of 61 requests per day in 2010. There are currently 41,687 active concealed pistol license holders in Wayne County.
The gun locks are being supplied by Project Child Safe, an organization that distributes them to police departments nationwide. They can be obtained at the sheriff’s office in downtown Detroit or at several churches.
LINK
Officer, credit union employee praised
Centralia Police Chief Bob Berg said a veteran police officer and a TwinStar Credit Union employee are heroes after a harrowing ordeal at the Centralia business Monday.
No one knows how the day would have played out had the employee not mouthed “he has a gun” to Officer Neil Hoium as he responded to a report of suspicious activity at the bank, Berg said.
The woman twice mouthed the words, police said, after a man held a semi-automatic handgun to her head and a short-blade knife to her throat.
She met Hoium at the credit union’s front door. Hoium, who worked for the Chehalis Police Department for more than 20 years before being hired in Centralia about four months ago, grabbed the woman and pulled her away from the building. “Had she not told him that, I do not know what action the suspect would have taken,” Berg said.
Hoium fired two shots at the suspect, who fled. Officers responded at 6:42 p.m. after the woman’s co- worker called police from the parking lot when the woman inside screamed and dropped her phone.
Hoium will be placed on administrative leave, per department policy, while an outside law enforcement agency reviews the incident.
Berg said it appears Hoium was justified in firing his weapon.
By Eric Schwartz
LINK
Passaic County S.W.A.T. team gets new armored wheels
Passaic County’s now ready to meet the War on Terror — or a more routine domestic hostage case — with 17,000 pounds of rolling steel, bullet-proof glass, and a machine gun turret.
Built more like a tank than a police car, the $400,000 BearCat is the latest addition to the county Sheriff’s Department S.W.A.T team.
Sheriff Jerry Speziale said the new BearCat replaces an old converted bread truck that the S.W.A.T team had been using in hostage situations. Speziale said there’s really no comparison between the two: The bread truck was customized slapdash, its thin metal walls easily pierced by a bullet and its windshield easily shattered.
Not so with the BearCat. Encased in steel and shatter-proof glass, the vehicle is strong enough to withstand a bomb blast and keep going.
The 1999 massacre at Columbine High School forever changed the idea of “readiness” among law enforcement. The BearCat is manufactured by Lenco Armored Vehicles of Pittsfield, Mass., and the county’s model was delivered to the Sheriff’s Department in mid-December. It was paid for with a $200,000 grant from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and $195,000 in money seized by the county Prosecutor’s Office during drug raids, Speziale said.
The vehicle’s link to national security aside, Speziale said the BearCat could be most useful in domestic hostage situations, which occur fairly frequently in Passaic County. In December, before the BearCat arrived, a Wanaque man barricaded himself in his home and threatened to start shooting. The S.W.A.T team responded in the converted — and vulnerable — bread truck. The man eventually surrendered without incident.
Speziale said the BearCat would have given the S.W.A.T. members many more options at the scene. With the vehicle, the S.W.A.T team can get inside a building quickly — which could make it easier to get at a gunman and free hostages. Capt. Scott Hockwitt, commander of the county S.W.A.T team, said the BearCat is powerful enough to plow through brick walls. “You’re not going to stop us,” he said.
Besides the strength of its hull and chassis, the vehicle’s compartment is airtight with its own oxygen supply that can last for up to 10 hours. That makes it useful for chemical, biological and nuclear events.
There’s a throw-phone inside the vehicle attached to a steel cable that can be launched inside a building to establish communications. The intercom system has “ears” that can amplify a conversation that is happening many yards away, Speziale said.
And although Passaic County isn’t exactly a war zone, Speziale said the nation’s War on Terror and rash of high school massacres require worst-case-scenario kinds of preparations — “In today’s world, training, preparedness and equipment like the Bearcat is essential in avoiding a catastrophe.” he said.
- The BearCat is diesel-powered and can go up to 70 mph.
- It gets about 7 miles to the gallon of diesel fuel.
- It carries up to 12 S.W.A.T. (Special Weapons and Tactics) team members.
By Richard Cowen
Fort Hood Police Officers to Join First Lady At State of the Union Address
Fox News has learned that two Ft. Hood police officers will be the First Lady’s guests will be at Wednesday night’s State of the Union address.
Sgts. Kimberly Munley and Mark Todd will join Mrs. Obama in her box overlooking the House floor. It is a long standing tradition for the First Lady to invite special guests to sit with her during a State of the Union address.
The two police officers were responsible for stopping the November 2009 attack at Fort Hood, Texas, for which Army Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan is accused of killing 13 people.
In addition to Munley and Todd, there will be four other military related guests seated with the First Lady. They will include a a recently retired Iraq veteran who was shot in the face, recovered and is now working at the Department of Transportation in Colorado; an Army soldier recently back from Iraq; and two National Guard spouses (one of whom is a Marine veteran herself and is finishing her education under the Montgomery GI Bill.)
Stay tuned to Fox News and Row 2, Seat 4 for more details. We’ll be getting Mrs. Obama’s full guest list Wednesday morning.
LINK
Share this Blog
