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CHICAGO - Chicago police said Tuesday that the 14-year-old who posed as an officer drove a patrol car and aided in an arrest, and that seven officers face disciplinary reviews for the "lax" behavior that allowed the teen's escapade to happen.
"They weren't paying attention," Superintendent Jody Weis said at a news conference announcing the completion of the investigation. "They were lax. I'm very upset. This whole incident is very disturbing."
The teenager, an aspiring police officer, allegedly wore a uniform and entered a South Side police station through an unlocked back door around 1:30 p.m. on Jan. 24. He was issued a radio and rode with a patrol officer for more than five hours, at times using the terminal in the squad car and responding to five assignments, Weis said.
Authorities previously said the teen did not drive a squad car, but Weis said Tuesday that the boy - who is too young to drive in Illinois - spent two hours behind the wheel. The boy also helped in the arrest of a suspect who allegedly violated a protection order.
"He brought the arm into the middle of his back so handcuffs could be placed on him," Weis said.
The boy returned to the station at 7:37 p.m., when a supervisor discovered the teen was not wearing a complete uniform and had no weapon, Weis said. The teen was arrested at 7:40 p.m.
"This is absolutely unacceptable," Weis said. "We were very fortunate that a lot of tragic things didn't happen."
The boy has pleaded not guilty in juvenile court to impersonating an officer. He is no longer in custody but must wear an electronic monitoring device.
The department's Internal Affairs Division has recommended discipline for each of the seven unidentified officers who remain on the job. The Bureau of Professional Standards, which Weis created a year ago to oversee the Internal Affairs Division, will review the recommendations. The officers also have the chance to appeal.
Discipline can range from an oral reprimand to dismissal, but Weis would not comment more specifically on what the officers might face.
Weis also has asked the U.S. Secret Service for an independent security review after the security breach.
Man wrestles crazed ninja kangaroo after it invades family home
*( Mark Graham/AP), From Times OnlineMarch 9, 2009
The intruder made no sound as it smashed through the bedroom window of a suburban Australian house and started bouncing on the bed where chef Beat Ettlin and his partner Verity Beaman were sleeping.
Only half awake, Mr Ettlin and Ms Beaman had very different ideas about what was happening in their bedroom. "I thought it was a lunatic ninja coming at us through the window," Mr Ettlin told The Times. "That seemed to make about as much sense as anything else that was happening. I just couldn't comprehend what was going on."
His partner, cowering under the blankets, thought to herself: "This is one big possum."
She told The Times: "When Beatt said ?It's OK, it's just a kangaroo', I thought it's really not OK. I thought ? now this could be really dangerous. I was absolutely terrified."
The family was asleep in their Canberra home in the early hours of Sunday morning when they were alerted to an intruder in their courtyard by the barking of their terrier.
As Mr Ettlin got up to investigate, a huge dark shape smashed through the window and began jumping up and down on the bed where his wife was huddled under the blankets with their daughter Beatrix, 9.
"I really didn't know what was happening," said Mr Ettlin. "I just saw this black thing jumping on the bed and bouncing against the wall. The bed collapsed on one side under his weight. When I realised it was a kangaroo at first I was relieved but he was going crazy trying to escape."
The terrified animal gouged holes in the bed and smeared blood on the bedroom walls before bounding down the hall to the bedroom of their son, Leighton, 10, who hid behind his teddy bears screaming: "There's a kangaroo in my bedroom".
Mr Ettlin said: "I thought that's enough, I can't have this any more.
"I knew this was a big threat to my family, it could really have hurt us. My wife and daughter were terrified, they were screaming as they hid under the blankets and my son was trying to hide behind his little teddies. I had to do something."
Wearing only his underwear, Mr Ettlin, a chef originally from the Swiss city of Stans, jumped on the two-metre high kangaroo from behind and got it in a headlock. Using his entire body weight to pin the kangaroo down, he wrestled it down the corridor and out the front door.
"I really felt its power," he said. "It was trying to escape and I knew I had to make sure it didn't get up again because it could really have hurt me, and hurt my family." With one hand he opened the front door and pushed the marsupial into the night.
"It took only a few minutes," he said. "And all that time there was no sound at all. I could feel the kangaroo breathing really hard and fast against my body but he didn't make a sound. All I could hear was Verity's screams.
"When it was all over I had a few scratches on my legs, and there wasn't much left of my underwear."
The drama played out in Garran, a suburb of Canberra near a reserve that is home to a number of grey kangaroos and the family, who only moved to their new home three weeks ago, believe that their intruder must have been one of these local animals. Neighbours have told them that a large kangaroo had recently been seen grazing on their front lawn, said Ms Beaman, an English teacher.
"The poor thing, he was terrified," she said. "He must have got stuck in our courtyard, and was terrified by the dog's barking so leapt for a dark space to escape. But that dark space was our bedroom."
Describing her husband as a "hero in torn underwear", she said: "He's quite burly, but it was a struggle for him to control the kangaroo."
Eastern grey kangaroos are common around Canberra's forested urban fringe and have become so numerous that there is an debate about the need to cull them to stop them ruining the habitat.
It is not unusual for them to invade the city, particularly during droughts when they come in search of water and food. Normally timid, they become aggressive if they feel threatened and, with the potential to reach six feet in height, can seriously injure humans. Four years ago a woman was attacked as she walked her poodle in a Canberra street and another woman watched as a kangaroo killed her golden retriever.
Greg Baxter, a Queensland University lecturer on Australian native animals, said that kangaroos rarely invade homes but have done so in the past when panicked.
"It is very unusual, but when kangaroos become panicked they lose all sense of caution and just fly for where they think they can get away," he said.
Wildlife authorities confirmed today that they had received a phone call saying an injured kangaroo had entered the caller's home and left.
On the same day that we mentioned during a radio spot the Michael Irvin-Everett McIver scissors-to-the-neck routine, reports have surfaced of another NFL player assuming the role of McIver.
And of his girlfriend playing the part of the Playmaker.
Hayes was treated and released from a Tampa-area hospital.
The girl, 19-year-old Shevelle Bagley, faces charges of aggravated battery with a deadly weapon. She was freed on $25,000 bond.
Hayes, 21, was a sixth-round draft pick last year from Florida State. He is one of the candidates to replace Derrick Brooks, who nearly two weeks ago was cut. But in a much different way.
The only logical explanation is:
I'm about to die and this is my Jacob's Ladder
On the same day that we mentioned during a radio spot the Michael Irvin-Everett McIver scissors-to-the-neck routine, reports have surfaced of another NFL player assuming the role of McIver.
And of his girlfriend playing the part of the Playmaker.
Hayes was treated and released from a Tampa-area hospital.
The girl, 19-year-old Shevelle Bagley, faces charges of aggravated battery with a deadly weapon. She was freed on $25,000 bond.
Hayes, 21, was a sixth-round draft pick last year from Florida State. He is one of the candidates to replace Derrick Brooks, who nearly two weeks ago was cut. But in a much different way.
That's just how we say "Hello" here in Florida. Dont get me started on how we ask "How ya doin?"
BELLEVUE, Wash. – You forgot to buckle up, dummy! A commuter who put a homemade dummy in the passenger seat to sneak into the car pool lane was caught Wednesday near Seattle. But it wasn't because a cop realized the passenger was fake. Instead, the State Patrol trooper noticed the dangling belt buckle on the passenger side and suspected a seat belt violation.
Patrol spokeswoman Christina Martin told The Herald of Everett that the driver acknowledged trying to beat traffic by using the HOV lane.
He created his passenger by draping a rain jacket over plastic piping, topping it off with a Halloween mask of Gandalf, the "Lord of the Rings" wizard, a beard and a baseball cap.
The trooper issued a $124 ticket and confiscated the dummy.
COTTONWOOD - A bobcat walked into a roadside bar in Cottonwood.
What happened next was not a joke but "pandemonium": two or three minutes of chivalry, cellphone cameras and people jumping on top of pool tables to get out of the way.
When it was over, two people were scratched and bleeding, and the bobcat was gunned down by police in a parking lot on Main Street.
All that's left now is a barroom story that is sure to become legend.
And a series of rabies-vaccine shots.
"This was a rabid animal," said Zen Mocarski of the Arizona Game and Fish office in Kingman. "You've seen the cartoon Tasmanian Devil? That's a bobcat with rabies."
The bobcat spent Tuesday night frightening people across the small town about 100 miles north Phoenix.
At 10:30, police say, a woman thought she hit something with her car.
When she went to check on the animal, a man standing nearby told her she might not want to get too close to it.
When she turned to thank the man, the cat pounced, scratching her on the face and running into the night.
The bobcat then appeared in a Pizza Hut parking lot, scaring a worker before vanishing again.
At about 11:40, three people walked out of the Chaparral, a neighborhood bar with signs for Schlitz, Budweiser and Coors over the entrance. Tuesday is free-pool night.
"I said goodnight," said bartender Scott Hughes, 41. "Next thing I know, they are running back in, followed by the bobcat.
"One jumped on the pool table, and two more jumped onto the bar."
The bar's video camera recorded what happened next.
The bobcat chased two people around a pool table.
Then, the animal stopped.
Snarl for the camera
That's when people took out their cellphone cameras to get a picture.
Hughes told Kyle Hicks that he should not get too close to the bobcat.
"A bartender is supposed to command authority," Hughes said. "But he didn't listen to me."
In the video, Hughes can be seen reaching down to move Hicks.
That's when the cat jumped on Hicks' face, scratching him under his left eye and behind his right ear.
"Yeah, it didn't feel too good," Hicks said.
Hicks then knocked the animal to the ground.
"Look up 'pandemonium' in the dictionary," Hughes said. "That's what this bar was."
The 20 or so patrons started scrambling toward the back door. But so did the bobcat, which was now looking for a way out.
That's when Derek Oliver showed you can find a good man late at night in a Cottonwood bar.
"He was coming right towards two women," Oliver said. "So, I pushed them out of the way. That's when he got me. It wrapped itself around my leg."
Worse yet, the bobcat was moving up Oliver's leg.
"I punched it in the face real good," Oliver said.
The animal laid still for a moment, then it ran back out the front door.
By this time, police had arrived and found the animal in the parking lot.
Gunshots, rabies shot
"It started walking towards one of my officers," said Sgt. Gary Eisenga of the Cottonwood Police Department.
The officer shot the animal, killing it.
Witnesses said they heard three shots.
"We've had calls to that bar before, but never for a bobcat," Eisenga said.
By Thursday afternoon, Hicks had received his first of five rabies shots.
"In the arm," Hicks said. "They don't do it in the abdomen anymore. Thank God."
Straying Husband Caught by Google 'Cheat' View
*Tuesday, March 31, 2009
A furious British wife has called in divorce lawyers after spotting her husband's car parked outside another woman's house ? on Google.
She saw the Range Rover while using the Internet giant's new Street View service to snoop on a female friend's home.
The hubby had claimed he was away on business, but his missus recognized his SUV immediately because of its blinged-up hubcaps.
The love cheat is not the only husband trapped by Google's controversial new 360-degree photo search, which covers 25 cities and towns throughout Britain.
Top media lawyer Mark Stephens said: "I was talking about the Range Rover case when another divorce lawyer came up to say his firm was dealing with the same sort of thing. People are getting caught out on Google. I suspect the husband's lawyers will claim it was an invasion of privacy that will cost him his marriage and Range Rover."
In what is either the weirdest Russian crime story of the year so far or a new low in yellow crime journalism, a female hair stylist in the Kaluga region is suspected of holding an armed robber in captivity as a sex slave for two days after he unsuccessfully tried to knock over her beauty salon.
Attentive Crime Watch readers will need little more than the first paragraph of this post to understand that this bizarre saga was relayed by the intrepid crime hacks over at the web site Life.ru, which, together with newspaper Tvoi Den, is setting the bar extremely high for sensationalist scoops.
According to Life.ru, the events unfolded on the evening of March 14 as the stylist was wrapping up her shift at the salon in the Kaluga region town of Meshchovsk.
The robber, a 32-year-old man identified by Life.ru as "Viktor," burst into the salon at around 5 p.m. waving a pistol and ordered all of the stylists and clients to hit the floor and toss him their money.
At this point, 28-year-old Olga, whom Life.ru describes as a "delicate" girl trained in martial arts, was apparently still standing when she offered to hand over her cash. But when Viktor tried to accept her contribution, Olga surprised him with a quick punch to the chest, knocking the wind out of him before she flipped him to the ground.
Olga proceeded to tie Viktor up with a hair-dryer cord, gagged him and dragged him into a storage room.
Curiously, Life.ru reports, Olga instructed the others to keep working, telling them that the police would soon arrive.
But this feel-good moment for the good guy proved ephemeral. Things soon turned ugly, according to Life.ru.
The police did not come. And after the other stylists and clients went home for the evening, Olga told Viktor to "take off his underwear" and, with apologies to John Cougar Mellencamp, let her do as she pleases, lest she call the cops, Life.ru said.
She tied him to the radiator with handcuffs covered in frilly pink fabric, gave him some Viagra and had her way with him several times over the next 48 hours. When she finally let him go on the evening of March 16, Viktor had been "squeezed like a lemon," Life.ru reported.
First, he went to the hospital to have his injured genitals treated; then he went to police and filed a complaint asking that Olga be brought up on criminal charges for committing "actions of a sexual nature" that left him with injured sexual organs, according to a copy of the complaint posted on Life.ru.
Olga was apparently incensed when she learned of the complaint. She had, after all, even tried to be nice to her purported captive.
"What a jerk," Life.ru quoted her as saying. "Yeah, there were a few times. But I bought him new jeans, gave him food and drink, and gave him 1,000 rubles when he left."
The following day, Olga filed a complaint with police, asking that Viktor be charged in the salon robbery. Life.ru posted a copy of her statement as well.
"I don't know what's going to happen now," the web site quoted a local police officer as saying. "We could put both of them behind bars: him for robbery, her for rape and assault."
I'm exhausted.
The only logical explanation is:
I'm about to die and this is my Jacob's Ladder
A Bakersfield father is accused of biting out one of the eyes of his small child and similarly mutilating the other eye, leaving the child blind.
After attacking the child, 34-year-old Angel Vidal Mendoza Sr. quickly left his apartment in a wheelchair, entered a backyard of a nearby vacant home and attacked his own legs with an ax, severely injuring himself, Bakersfield police reported.
The child, 4-year-old Angelo Mendoza Jr., later told police, "My daddy ate my eyes."
Doctors at Mercy Hospital said it is unknown whether the child will regain vision in his right eye.
Child Protective Services cannot discuss the case, CPS program director Brian Parnell said. But in cases of serious abuse, the child is taken into protective custody, he said.
Some foster homes have specialized medical training, but more such people are needed, he said.
The boy's mother, Desirae Marie Bermudez, 23, was not present during the incident. There is a $15,000 warrant for her arrest for failing to complete a drug treatment program in late 2008, court documents say.
A search warrant report said the father "was displaying symptoms of being under the influence of PCP."
Both he and Bermudez were charged with being under the influence of PCP in a 2006 criminal case. Both pleaded no contest to child endangerment charges in that case, records say.
So why was the boy still living with the father?
CPS officials say there has to pretty much be serious physical abuse -- major bruises or broken bones -- before a child is taken away from his parents automatically.
In cases where parents are using drugs, CPS will definitely check on the child, Parnell said. But they won't necessarily remove the child. That all depends on the extent of the drug abuse or the availability of other care -- relatives or neighbors -- for the children, he said.
The incident happened in the early evening of April 28 at the apartment the father and son share at 422 Ohio Drive near Terrace Way and Madison Street in southeast Bakersfield.
Police and search warrant reports say:
On the morning of April 28, Mendoza asked neighbor Elizabeth Rodriguez, 36, for a ride to a work-related appointment later in the day.
At 6 p.m., she sent her 12-year-old son to get Mendoza. The boy said Mendoza opened his door slightly and looked nervous, but didn't let him in. Mendoza said he would be right out.
But a few minutes later, Rodriguez saw Mendoza rolling his wheelchair quickly away.
The 12-year-old boy and another neighbor went to Mendoza's apartment and discovered the child on the floor.
Meanwhile, witnesses told police a man was yelling and screaming in a wheelchair from the backyard and hitting his legs with an ax.
Mendoza, who remains in custody in lieu of $1 million bail, is charged with mayhem, torture, child cruelty and inflicting an injury to a child.
He's scheduled for a May 20 hearing.
His criminal history dates back to 1998 and includes convictions for drugs, battery, check forgery and a misdemeanor child endangerment.
The only logical explanation is:
I'm about to die and this is my Jacob's Ladder
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