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Beer truck driver robbed of money outside ''no-guns'' IGA
Submitted by cbaus on Sun, 05/15/2005 - 06:11.Dayton’s WHIOtv.com is reporting that a man driving a beer truck was robbed at gunpoint on Thursday. As per usual, what they did not mention is that it happened outside a "no-guns" IGA grocery.
From the story:
- Authorities said the robber pointed a gun at the driver at the Westside IGA Supermarket on Germantown in Dayton.
The driver of the truck said he had his money back with him and a check from the store in his lap. He said the robber grabbed the money and ran.
The driver said he wants his company to give him a safe to keep his delivery money in, so this does not happen again.
Is this driver really so convinced putting the money in a safe will stop a robbery at gunpoint? If so, he is as naive as the store owner is for thinking that posting signs can keep out criminals with guns. Perhaps if we'd put the two of them together, they would have come up with the idea that a "no-robberies" sign on the truck would have helped...
Gun control laws don't control guns, just law-abiding people
Submitted by cbaus on Sun, 05/15/2005 - 04:10.There is a new effort under way to keep deadly weapons out of the hands of children. City Council is launching an effort to find out how guns are getting into the hands of teenagers, reported 5 On Your Side's Tony Gaskins. If you are young and want a gun in Cleveland, it's usually just a matter of asking around. One teen NewsChannel5 spoke with said it doesn't take long for a child to get a hold of a gun. Police and city leaders have seen gun violence take the lives of two teenagers in the past two months on Cleveland's east side. They now want to know where the guns are coming from. One concerned resident said the problem is not where to find a gun, but rather where they get the money to buy them. "I think it's very easy to get guns around here because they're on the black market, and for the kids to be at the age they are, they have the money because they sell drugs," said Nanette Pendergrass.
At Monday evening's City Council meeting, Council President Frank Jackson will introduce a measure to request the help of the FBI and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives to help determine where kids are getting guns. "It's a major concern that we want to get to the bottom of," said Jackson. "Who is supplying guns to children, and if we find out who they are, we're going to ask that they be prosecuted to the full extent of the law." An ATF spokesman said there are many ways guns can end up in the wrong hands. Many are stolen, some are purchased by people with clean records for criminals, and some are obtained from parents who don't keep their guns secure. Council's finance committee approved Tuesday the spending of $18,000 in police overtime, which will be used to document all weapons used in crimes to help ATF agents track the history of guns in Cleveland.
A Boardman High School student is facing serious charges after school administrators searched his car this week. They were looking for cigarettes but found much more than that. Police arrested 18 year old Stephen Suszczynski on several charges including possession of marijuana , underage possession of alcohol and having a deadly weapon in a school safety zone. Authorities say teachers smelled cigarettes on Suszczynski when he came to school and searched his car, finding a loaded semi-automatic hand gun in the glove compartment. They say he cooperated with police and said he only had the gun because he had been in a dangerous part of Youngstown the night before. Suszczynski is being arraigned in Boardman court this evening, but he could also face federal charges. Local ATF agents say they are talking to the U.S. Attorney's office about his case, since having a loaded gun in a school zone is now prohibited under federal law. If convicted he could land in prison for up to 5 years.
Mower driver charged with drunk driving
Submitted by cbaus on Sun, 05/15/2005 - 04:05.The Toledo Blade is reporting that a Deshler man who admitted he had too much to drink before he decided to drive home on a riding lawn mower was charged with drunken driving, authorities said.
From the story:
- Adam Reinbolt, 25, was arrested about 2 a.m. Sunday after the mower went into a ditch on State Rt. 18, just west of Hockenberry Road in Jackson Township, according to Wood County sheriff's reports.
Mr. Reinbolt said he was driving the mower from a friend's house to Deshler to mow lawns. When he saw a vehicle approaching from the east, he said he drove to the south side of the road to avoid the vehicle and went into the ditch.
He told the deputy he'd had "too much" beer to drink and subsequently failed field sobriety tests.
So WHY are we writing a story about a man arrested for DUI on a lawn mower on a website that focuses on self-defense rights?
Because according to the Insurance Information Institute, 75,000 accidental lawn mower injuries per year require emergency room treatment, yet less than 17,700 people received non-fatal injuries due to a firearms accident in 2001 (Centers for Disease Control).
Because when you add to that accidental number those injured intentionally, due to violent attack, the total number is still less than those injured by accident with lawn-mowers - 63,000.
Because there is no Ohio Coalition Against Lawn Mowers. Because the Million Mom March isn't ambulance-chasing and holding press conferences every time someone is injured with their Lawn Boy. Because Bob Taft isn't dictating legislation requiring that lawn mowers be stored safely and not be operated in the presence of children under 18.
But most of all, we're writing this story because unlike a firearm, no one's life has ever been saved with a lawn mower.
When Justice fails to protect
Submitted by cbaus on Sun, 05/15/2005 - 04:00.A class-action suit filed in Franklin County could mean that 12 convicted felons, most of them sexual offenders, may be back walking the streets of Geauga County sooner than expected. The Ohio Parole Board released a list of 2,700 criminals across Ohio who will be receiving new parole hearings after Franklin County courts determined that the Parole Board had not complied with a 2002 Ohio Supreme Court decision. The suit, Ankorum vs. Hagemand, filed by Assistant State Public Defender Charles Clovis, contended that the Parole Board had not given fair hearings under Ohio's 1996 truth-in-sentencing law. The Parole Board agreed to grant new hearings to the inmates beginning immediately. Board spokeswoman Andrea Dean said the process should take about 18 months.
The Ankorum list includes 623 from Northeast Ohio, 12 of whom are from Geauga County. Dean could not estimate how many of those criminals could be granted parole during the hearings. After a similar order in 2002, the board held 2,504 parole hearings and freed 1,474 inmates. Dean said the new order is different because this group of inmates committed more serious crimes. "This is a different class of inmates," Dean said. "They are very dangerous, mostly sexual offenders."
A 44-year-old man with four prior prison stints was sentenced to 26 years in prison on Wednesday after he was convicted on two counts of rape with a firearm. Antonio E. Elijah continued to insist he is innocent and that he had engaged only in consensual sex with two young women who testified at his trial that began on March 28. The cases were brought after the Miami Valley Regional Crime Laboratory matched Elijah's DNA to the women's cases. On June 21, 2001, a woman met Elijah at a downtown nightclub, and he asked her for a ride home, assistant county prosecutor Lynda Dodd said. But when the woman dropped Elijah off, he left with her cell phone, and she followed him through alleys and backyards until she became disoriented. At that point, he told her he had a gun in his back pocket and had her touch it as he also claimed he was in gang territory. He took her to a secluded park and raped her, Dodd said. On Sept. 5, 2002, Elijah offered a cheap apartment to a young, homeless woman who followed him through alleys and yards until she became lost, Dodd said. Elijah told the woman he would shoot her and his "gang" friends would shoot her boyfriend, if she ran. He took her into an isolated backyard, threatened her again and raped her, Dodd said. Judge Michael Tucker said he imposed the maximum, consecutive sentences because he found the rapes to be "the worst form" of the offenses.
A Huber Heights man, who fatally injured a childhood friend in a 2002 bar parking lot fight, cannot be sent back to prison even though a Greene County judge ruled he violated his intensive probation by going to Florida, his attorney argued on Wednesday. Defense attorney Jay Adams said Common Pleas Judge Stephen Wolaver's sentencing entries in Christopher Knuckles' involuntary manslaughter case were defective because they did not set a specific prison term that would be imposed for probation violations. Knuckles was sentenced to four years in prison in 2003 for involuntary manslaughter and released in September after serving 18 months. He was then to serve probation. During a hearing Wednesday, Wolaver ruled that Knuckles violated his probation by not reporting to his probation officer, not seeking substance abuse treatment and going to Santa Rosa, Fla., where he was arrested in March. Linda Sampson, Asher's mother, said Knuckles is a threat to her family and should face justice. "My son is 31 years old and rotting in the ground," she said. "We are due for some healing," she said. Richard W. Schulte, who represents Asher's family in a lawsuit against Bartles, said Knuckles' case has been riddled with mistakes by Wolaver and County Prosecutor William F. Schenck's office. "The guy that killed their son is going to walk free because of the prosecutors' mistakes and the judge's decisions," he said.
The FBI says a glitch in its computer database led authorities to free a man suspected of sexual assault who is now charged with killing at least two people after his release. Jeremy Bryan Jones, released on a trespassing charge in January 2004, also has been charged with a third killing in Louisiana, and he has been named a suspect in at least five other slayings in three states. "The FBI regrets this incident," Thomas Bush III, assistant director of the FBI's Criminal Justice Information Services Division, added in the statement. Jones was using an alias when he was arrested on the trespassing charge in Carroll County, Ga. Local police sent his fingerprints to the FBI, but the bureau's computer failed to match them with those of Jones, who had been wanted since 2000 in Oklahoma on a sexual assault charge, the FBI said. The FBI blamed a database error for the fingerprint mistake, adding that it was not a case of an examiner failing to make an appropriate match. The FBI said it did not realize Jones had been in the database until September, when he was charged with raping and murdering Lisa Nichols of Turnerville, Ala., that month. Jones is being held in Alabama, where a grand jury indicted him Monday on a count of capital murder. An FBI review of the incident is ongoing. A spokesman in Washington, Joe Parris, said Wednesday he could not elaborate beyond the statement. Jones also is charged with killing a 16-year-old girl in Douglas County, Ga., who was reported missing in March 2004.
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