Reprinted with permission of Sun Newspapers

November 24, 2004

By Kim Wendel, Staff Writer

CHAGRIN FALLS — Bainbridge resident Justin T. English got his .38 caliber Smith & Wesson revolver back Wednesday.

On Monday, Bedford Municipal Court Judge Peter J. Junkin ruled that the gun be returned after English’s attorney made an oral argument for the gun’s return before Junkin.

Junkin had police keep the gun after English appeared before him Aug. 24. Police originally took the gun from English during a traffic stop Aug. 5. English, a passenger in a green Oldsmobile, told police immediately that he had a gun in the waistband of his pants.

English had and has a valid permit to carry a concealed weapon.

The officer said the gun was covered by English’s shirt and took the weapon. That night, police cited English for disorderly conduct.

On Aug. 12, police cited English for improper transport of a gun.

English appeared in court before Junkin Aug. 24. He was found guilty of disorderly conduct but the improper transport charge was dismissed.

After paying fines and court costs, English asked for his gun back but Junkin refused.

That seizure riled the statewide Ohioans For Concealed Carry group. "We cannot believe that the judge kept the gun when we believe he had absolutely no right to do so," OFCC president Jeff Garvas said then.

OFCC attorney Kenneth Hanson appealed Junkin’s seizure decision to the state appeals court Sept. 28. That appeal is still pending.

This was the first time in Ohio since the law allowing qualified individuals to carry a concealed weapon went into effect April 8 that a judge has kept a defendant’s gun after a case was over.

Contact Wendel at fourkim2@yahoo.com or (216) 986-5473

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Despite a dangerous history of violent robberies, some Family Dollar stores in Ohio still post signs rendering customers defenseless.

The Cincinnati Enquirer is reporting that a notorious Dollar stores robber has been sentenced to 37 years in prison for a spate of violent robberies at Family Dollar stores.

Charles Jackson, 29, was sent to prison Monday for 37 years for the robbery and armed robbery of four different Family Dollar stores and the kidnapping of some of its employees.

According to the Post, Jackson's spree against Family Dollar had many similarities:

• He walked in Oct. 11, 2003, to the Family Dollar Store in Springfield Township at 8:10 p.m. There, he tied up two store employees with dog collars and demanded they give him money from the cash register and store safe. He stole $3,462 and the store's video from its surveillance system;

• He showed a gun Nov. 11, 2003, to employees at the Norwood Family Dollar store, 3845 Montgomery Road, at 8 p.m. He stole $2,100 and the video from the store's surveillance system;

• He also used a gun Dec. 7 to threaten employees at the Kennedy Heights Family Dollar store, 6541 Montgomery Road, in a 7 p.m. incident. He forced employees to open the safe and then tied them up. He stole $1,000 and the video from the store's surveillance system.

• Finally, two days before Christmas, he pulled his most frightening robbery. As a manager at the Roselawn Family Dollar Store, 1860 Seymour Ave., was in the back of the store at about 8 p.m. with his pregnant wife and their three-year-old daughter, Jackson walked in with a gun. He used Velcro straps to tie up store employees and threatened to do the same to the child before being talked into locking her into a store bathroom. Jackson stole $4,000.

The Enquirer story goes on to state that store employees later identified Jackson in a photo lineup, which was evidence that convinced a jury to convict Jackson last month on all of the aggravated robbery, robbery and kidnapping charges against him.

After such an intimate experience with how criminals are undeterred by gun prohibition, why do some stores in this chain still post signs which distriminate against and endanger customers and employees?

The following stores post such signs in Ohio:

The Cincinnati Enquirer is reporting that a restaurant customer is being called a hero for assisting police in apprehending three suspects who authorities think may be responsible for as many 20 recent armed robberies.

"It was a great example of citizen involvement," Sgt. Roger Robbins of the Cincinnati Police Department's Robbery Task Force said Tuesday.

According to the story, two masked men with black handguns went into the McDonald's on Calhoun Street just after midnight. They took money and fled in a car, police said.

A customer in his car in the drive-through lane followed the robbers' car and used a cell phone to alert police to its whereabouts, Robbins told the Enquirer.

The three suspects in the fleeing Hyundai Elantra abandoned the car on Mulberry Street in Mount Auburn and fled on foot, but were captured on Hunt Alley in Over-the-Rhine with the assistance of a police canine.

Before abandoning the car, one of the suspects fired a shot in the direction of the customer.

The bullet struck the customer's vehicle, but did not hit him, Perkins was quoted as saying. The customer did not wish to be identified.

The Enquirer says police charged Germaine Johnson, 29, of Golf Manor, and two boys, ages 15 and 17, with aggravated robbery. The 17-year-old was also charged with felonious assault in the firing of a gun at the car containing the McDonald's customer.

Robbins told the newspaper the trio is suspected in at least 20 recent armed robberies - including street robberies, home invasions and bank robberies.

The Enquirer reported that the Hyundai Elantra used in the McDonald's robbery was stolen at gunpoint Monday afternoon on Carplin Street in Avondale. The police report says two men pointed guns at the woman driver and a witness, then took the car.

A "regular customer" of a Sterling Food Store in Toledo picked up more than a gallon of milk on his last visit - he kidnapped a woman in the parking lot.

The Toledo Blade is reporting that a Lenawee County (MI) man was arrested at his home Monday after police said he abducted and fondled a West Toledo woman.

Jose Cardenas, 52, of Madison Township is charged with abduction and gross sexual imposition by Toledo police, who told the Blade he grabbed a 29-year-old woman and fondled her inside his pickup in the 1400 block of West Alexis Road.

According to the story, the victim was walking in the 1400 block of West Alexis about noon Monday when Mr. Cardenas got out of his truck and grabbed her in front of a Sterling store at 1444 West Alexis.

Police told the newspaper Mr. Cardenas put her into his truck and fondled her. She grabbed his hand and held it until he stopped the pickup a short distance away at Alexis and Douglas Road. The victim jumped out of the truck, went to her boyfriend's nearby workplace, and reported the crime. She was not hurt, Detective Mosley said.

Police identified Mr. Cardenas through a credit card purchase he made at the store, where he is a regular customer. He also was caught on videotape at the business, Detective Mosley told the Blade.

Madison Township (MI) police Sgt. Jim Cates said Mr. Cardenas was arrested by township police after reports from township residents that they saw his picture on television.

The store at which this woman was kidnapped is part of a chain - Sterling Food Stores - that has posted signs rendering customers defenseless. For a list of this and other dangerous locations, visit OFCC's Do Not Patronize While Armed database.

The following news account documents an incident that occurred in the neighborhood of OFCC Membership Coordinator Dan White. Commentary from White follows the story.

November 22, 2004
Lorain Morning Journal

Man arrested after foot chase with cops

Police arrested man who led officers on a foot chase about 11:30 p.m. Saturday, and six police cruisers converged in the yard of a West 17th Street residence before the suspect was apprehended, according to Patrolman Dennis
Camarillo.

Police began chasing a man through central Lorain, and two police vehicles collided in a driveway close to where the man was apprehended, according to
Camarillo, whose cruiser was involved in the accident.

The chase began around 11:10 p.m. Saturday, soon after a man with a gun was reported chasing people and shooting at them near West 20th Street, according to a police report.

Click on the "Read More..." link below for more.

Some hunters may well cringe while recalling when the broadcast journalist hosted the 1975 CBS special titled "Guns of Autumn"

By Ron Schara
ESPNOutdoors.com

Dan Rather's fall from journalistic grace happened — for some of us — a long time ago. The evening of Sept. 5, 1975, to be exact.

On that night, a much younger and very dashing Dan Rather was the host of a CBS special titled "Guns of Autumn."

As some of us gathered that night to watch, those of us who called ourselves hunters were both proud to be a prime-time subject (a mighty rare event) and apprehensive about what dirty laundry a national network like CBS News, the home of heroes like Edward R. Murrow, might uncover about hunting or those who call themselves hunters.

But back then, I trusted Dan Rather, the journalist. He'd be fair, I figured.

Being a proud Texan, Rather would understand a bad seed or two shows up in any field of fine cotton, and he'd keep the pros and cons as balanced as a cowboy on a bucking bronc.

I was wrong; the cowboy hit the dirt. When the program ended, I realized Dan Rather had lent his journalistic credibility to a hatchet job on America's hunters. "Guns of Autumn" wasn't an examination of hunting; it was largely a one-hour condemnation of hunting.

Click on the "Read More..." link below for more.

On November 17, 2004, the Associated Press reported that a fledgling national union for pizza drivers is demanding better wages and training, saying the large chains have been taking advantage of them for years.

Tim Lockwood, treasurer for the Association of Pizza Delivery Drivers (Hendersonville, TN), said the union started just a couple of years ago with a few drivers talking in an Internet chat room about unfair working conditions.

"It's sort of like the thing reached critical mass. We built a Web site and they came," said Lockwood, a pizza delivery driver who declined to identify the company that employs him.

Now, the AP says, they have about 600 drivers from across the country signed up for the free union, and he feels momentum gathering for more unionization votes.

Lockwood said pizza drivers make $5.50 to $6 an hour, plus tips, and get reimbursed 50 to 75 cents per delivery - no matter how far away it is. Even worse, he said, pizza delivery is annually ranked among the most dangerous professions.

"A lighted pizza sign on a car in a bad area says, 'Look at me - I've got food, I've got cash and I'm unarmed,'" he said.

Matt Howard, a driver for a Pizza Hut in Sunbury, Ohio, found the union's site on the Internet. Now he's pushing for unionization for drivers at his shop in a vote next week, which will be run by the National Labor Relations Board.

First, though, according to the AP, he had to fight off a legal challenge from the owner of the franchise. The 25-year-old says he's had his hours cut, and his wife - who also works at the store - fears retribution.

"The company keeps calling meetings to try to talk us out of the union," Howard told the AP. "They are trying to do everything they can to take away our right to vote."

The Sunbury store declined comment Wednesday.

Howard said he thinks the seven or eight drivers at the store will approve the union idea, even though he said the owners are stacking the vote with a few managers they are labeling as drivers.

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