Harris County may look to reserves for Sheriff’s Office
Members of Commissioners Court said Tuesday that the county may need to exempt the Sheriff’s Office from a hiring freeze and dip into reserve funds to increase the number of deputies, even as the court cuts millions in spending from other departments.
A $1.36 billion preliminary budget discussed at Commissioners Court would be about $52 million less than what Harris County will have spent in the year ending Sunday.
Most of the county budget is funded by property taxes, and decreasing property values likely will reduce the amount of taxes collected, according to a report by the county budget office.
The preliminary budget would reduce Sheriff’s Office spending from $424 million this year to $361 million in the coming year. Commissioners accepted the preliminary budget with few changes. They are scheduled to officially adopt a spending plan on March 9.
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Officer buys groceries for shoplifting suspect
I ran this article before, but I didn’t have the officer’s pic and I think he deserves recognition.
Thanks for sending the second article, Jeannette!
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AP Photo Bozeman Police Officer Marek Ziegler poses for a photo Wednesday in Bozeman. Ziegler purchased groceries for a man after arresting the suspect for theft from a grocery store.
Bozeman Police Officer Marek Ziegler was called to Van’s IGA last Friday night to check on a shoplifting report.
The 33-year-old officer has been on the Bozeman force for three years. He is a K-9 handler and works nights, from about 9 p.m. to 7 a.m.
When he got to the grocery store on North Seventh Avenue, employees told Ziegler that a 32-year-old man had stuffed food and “pens, pencils, maybe markers, things for his kids” into his coat.
The officer arrested the man, cited him for theft and then released him.
But the story didn’t end there.
Ziegler had asked the man why he had been stealing.
“He was really upset,” Ziegler said this week. “Basically, he told me he’s having a hard time and can’t provide the food for his family right now, so that’s why he was stealing.” Ziegler already had the man’s address, but asked for the man’s phone number.
“I told him, Give me 15 minutes,’ and I went and got him some food.” Ziegler ran to Wal-Mart, picked up a few frozen pizzas and delivered them to the man’s house.
“Obviously, as a police officer, I have a job to do, but we’re still human, too,” Ziegler said.
When the officer handed over the food, the man shook his hand and thanked him for understanding, Ziegler said.
And then Ziegler kept the story to himself.
However, a Bozeman Daily Chronicle reporter was at the 911 dispatch center that night. She overheard tidbits of the officer’s report that he was going to buy the man some food. The Chronicle sought out the story. Ziegler wasn’t seeking attention for his good deed.
“These guys, they just don’t really brag about things like that,” Acting Police Chief Marty Kent said. “It wouldn’t surprise me that he wouldn’t say anything.” Ziegler shrugged off the idea that he had done something out of the ordinary.
“It’s just what we do to take care of each other,” he said.
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93-year-old’s love of dogs helps police, draws neighbor’s curiosity
At 93, passion got Marion Jordan in trouble. At least that is what her neighbors thought.
“Everybody in this building was just, ‘What in the world is going on? What’s happening and why?’” Jordan said with a big smile.
You see, Jordan, whose home has statues and stuffed German Shepherds everywhere, missed having a real dog. She has owned four in her life.
“I have sure missed my dogs,” she said. “They’re my best friends, my very best friends. There is nothing like a German Shepherd. They are the smartest dog.”
So a few years ago, her son-in-law asked Aurora Police K9 Unit to stop by.
“Muskit has been the dog I’ve seen each year. I just adore that dog and the officers are wonderful,” Jordan said.
That is what got the 93-year-old in trouble, sort of.
“This friend of mine who has since passed away, she told everybody, ‘Well, they’ve gone to see Marion and they’ve got a drug-sniffing dog with them.’ So everybody said, ‘Marion, what’s going on?’” Jordan said.
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Drug dog added to Sheriff’s Department arsenal
The newest member of the Fond du Lac County Sheriff’s Department might be the most excited to fight crime.
With his tongue hanging out, panting set on overdrive, and a motivation to sniff every deputy who walked by, Macy “Mace” Brown made his first visit last week to a department that has not had a drug sniffing/human tracking dog in six years.
Sheriff Mick Fink named the chocolate lab after the street his department is located on and the color of a deputy’s uniform.
When Lenore C. Hutter died in 2002, she left the Sheriff’s Department $50,000 for use in its K-9 program. Then Sheriff Gary Pucker placed the money in an account at the Fond du Lac County Treasurer’s Office. The accrued interest of more than $18,000 will pay the $5,000 price tag for Mace and his training.
Fink said the original $50,000 will remain untouched and he does not anticipate a need to reach into the tax levy to pay for Mace’s care.
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New recruit: Beckley Police bloodhound begins work
She wears a pink collar, never leaves her handler’s side and is even gentle enough to be trusted around children.
But Artemis, the Beckley Police Department’s new bloodhound K-9, is by no means weak. City officers say her powerful sense of smell — 100 times stronger than a human’s — will help police find fleeing suspects and missing children.
Beckley P.D. has, according to a release, had great success in its work with German shepherds and Rottweilers. These dogs were used for narcotics detection, tracking and suspect apprehension. The opportunity later arose to increase the K-9 unit’s size to four and expand its overall capabilities.
The department obtained Artemis (a.k.a. “Artie”) from 832 K-9’s Deputy Dogs, Kody Snodgrass Memorial Foundation. The organization, according to its Web site, is dedicated to providing law enforcement agencies with bloodhounds trained for police work and at little or no charge.
Duke and Angie Snodgrass started the foundation in memory of their son, Lake County (Fla.) sheriff’s Deputy Kody Snodgrass. Kody Snodgrass, a bloodhound handler, was killed in a motorcycle accident in 2001.
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Pioneering Police: Black History Month observance honors Winston-Salem’s early black officers
The first black police officer joined the Winston-Salem Police Department in 1941, but he did not wear a uniform and was assigned to work as a special officer with a concentration on juvenile delinquency among black youth.
Within five years, the late Officer John Joyce had joined the uniformed division and worked as a regular police officer, Police Chief Scott Cunningham said yesterday.
Joyce and two other early officers were honored yesterday afternoon at the first annual Winston-Salem Police Department celebration of Black History Month. The celebration was held at Carl Russell Recreation Center.
“Where we are today is a product of what our pioneers have put forth,” Cunningham told an audience of about 100 people, who turned out for the event.
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Police Officers Pick Up Hockey Sticks To Remember Fallen Officer
Greensboro police officers remembered a Winston-Salem officer killed in the line of duty Sunday.
The Greensboro Police Department hosted a charity hockey game at the Ice House of Greensboro in honor of Sgt. Mickey Hutchens.
Officers told WFMY News 2 that the event is about supporting all officers and remembering the sacrifices made on the job.
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Wildlife G-men on patrol: Outdoor scofflaws keep agents bus
The grizzly bear claws, once sickle-shaped daggers used for digging and defending, could be dangling harmlessly now from the mirror of a pickup truck, or adorning a piece of jewelry such as a bracelet.
In 2009, three grizzly bears were illegally shot dead in northwest Montana. Adding insult to injury, two had their claws cut off.
Shooting grizzlies, a threatened species, is illegal. So is selling wildlife and animal parts such as claws.
Brian Lakes, a special agent for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service who is investigating the Montana grizzly deaths, hopes to get his own claws into the perpetrators. But the cases are testing his investigative mettle.
Remote crime scenes in the wilderness, where Lakes walks the beat, do not easily give up their secrets.
“It’s the old paraphrase, ‘Shoot, shovel and shut up,’” Lakes said. “That’s common.”
The grizzly killings are just a sampling of the wildlife crimes Lakes and two other USFWS special agents investigate in Montana.
The agents are, in effect, G-men — only for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, not the FBI. Their job is investigating and solving federal crimes against wildlife such as grizzlies, eagles and fish and hunting the people who kill or sell them or both.
Lakes alone has 20 active cases on his desk. Some are routine.
“And then you have long-term, covert and undercover investigations,” he said.
Frozen forensic evidence is kept in a freezer at Lakes’ office outside of Great Falls.
READ ENTIRE ARTICLE HERE/PICS
Girl Says She Tried To Fend Off Policeman’s Attackers
Thank God there are still decent people around to help…
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A 15-year-old schoolgirl says she tried to fend off other teenagers beating an off-duty police officer before helping to drag him to safety.
Constable John Connolly, who was walking his dog, and other residents had moved in to stop a fight when he was set upon by a group of youths.
Mr Connolly, 39, suffered serious injuries that include a fractured skull, multiple fractures to his face, a broken jaw, a broken ankle, a collapsed lung, and abrasions and bruises about the body.
He also lost teeth in the attack and was taken to Middlemore Hospital unconscious and in a critical condition.
The 15-year-old girl, who did not want to be identified, said her cousin had been challenged to a fight by a girl at Tuakau College.
She and three others went to the school to find her and things turned nasty when they left.
“A group of about 50 people came up to us and started asking for fights,” she told the Herald on Sunday.
“Then the cop came up and told us to break it up.”
At that point, “they just ended up gang-bashing him”, she said.
“I was trying to fend them off,” she said.
“Me and my cousin and my sister tried to pull everyone off him.”
The attackers fled and left Mr Connolly lying in the middle of the road.
“Me and another boy lifted him off the road on to the footpath,” the girl said.
“My sister called the police. He had a bleeding lip and a fractured head. He was knocked out for a while.”
Superintendent Mike Bush described the attack as serious and sustained and said Mr Connolly had come close to dying.
He said police and had a good idea who the offenders were, with gangs thought be involved.
About 30 or 40 people were present and they would all be interviewed, he said.
“We already have encouraging information which would suggest who the offenders for the attack are and will certainly be speaking to those people within a very short time.”
Mr Bush said police were particularly concerned that groups of people could turn on members of the public doing a good deed, regardless of whether they were off-duty police officers or not.”
He would not say if police believe some of the attackers were from Tuakau College.
He said anyone who saw the fight, including a bus driver and a truck driver who stopped at scene, should call police.
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