MO woman accused of stealing credit cards during babysitting jobs
BALLWIN, Mo. – The St. Charles County Police Department issued a warning Monday about a suspected babysitter thief.
The suspect, 48-year-old Laura Templeton of Ballwin, has allegedly been preying upon unsuspecting mothers. There were three known victims and possibly more, police said.
Templeton came recommended through Facebook groups and a babysitting service called Care.com and showed up for jobs with her 11-year-old daughter, police said. In at least three cases, moms found their credit cards were missing after Templeton was done babysitting.
The most recent known case was November 23.
“She went through the lady’s home and stole her wallet and her credit cards and her debit cards…then she went shopping,” said Val Joyner of the St. Charles County Police Department. “She made several fraudulent purchases: household goods, holiday purchases, and gas. She did this approximately 30 minutes after she left the victim’s home.”
She used the victim’s credit cards for six purchases at a Walgreens in Ballwin and a Petro Mart in Chesterfield for a total of $376.76, according to a court document.
The purchases were recorded by surveillance cameras, police said.
She used a card stolen from a babysitting job in Wentzville in August at the Mobil on the Run on Wentzville Parkway, according to prosecutors. She allegedly tried to use a stolen card at the nearby Walmart and simply left the store with $295.42 worth of items in her cart when the card was denied.
Templeton’s been charged with five counts of felony stealing and two counts of credit card fraud but she remains at large.
“We’re just encouraging anyone who feels they may have been victimized or may even know where she is, to contact us (at 636-949-3000, ext. 2523),” Joyner said.
Templeton also tried to use cards stolen while babysitting in Richmond Heights but the cards were denied, according to police.
Photo Credit: fox2now.com
San Diego County Sheriff’s Deputy Gets Less Than 4 Years in Prison for On-Duty Misconduct With 16 Women
A former San Diego County sheriff’s deputy who admitted to on-duty misconduct with 16 women was sentenced Tuesday to nearly four years in prison.
Richard Fischer, 33, had pleaded guilty to multiple charges including assault and battery by an officer back in September.
The women said Fischer groped, hugged or tried to kiss them while he was on the job.
However, only two sexual misconduct charges were filed against Fischer, and those were dropped as part of a plea deal.
The sentence included 44 months in prison followed by 16 months of post-release supervision.
The San Diego Union Tribune reports that the judge chose not to order Fischer to register as a sex offender.
The former deputy and the Sheriff’s Department are also named in numerous lawsuits. The county has already paid out $900,000 to settle several suits.One of the claims against Fischer came from a former San Diego State student who alleged he groped her after a 2012 traffic stop and that she was pressured by deputies not to file a formal complaint.
Photo Credit: ktla.com
Maine man charged with turning church playroom into meth lab
A Maine man has been charged with turning a kids’ playroom in a Methodist church into a meth lab.
Matthew Anderson, 33, was busted after officials at Buxton United Methodist Church alerted police on Thursday to “suspicious activity” inside an upstairs playroom at the house of worship, Buxton police said.
Officers then called in the Maine Drug Enforcement Agency after finding “items that are consistent with the manufacturing process of methamphetamine,” the force revealed in a statement.
Anderson was charged with unlawful operation of a methamphetamine lab. He was being held in York County Jail after failing to post his $50,000 bond, police say, and is due in Alfred Superior Court on Jan. 24.
via: https://nypost.com/2019/12/08/maine-man-charged-with-turning-church-playroom-into-meth-lab/
Photo Credit: Buxton Police Department
Oregon mom accused of having sex with 14-year-old boy she met on Snapchat
An Oregon woman was arrested last week for allegedly having sex with a 14-year-old boy who attended the same school as her daughter after she connected with him on Snapchat, a report said.
Rheta Leanne Melvin, 36, was busted at her home in the town of Riddle on Thursday — a day after she allegedly had sex with the teen in the backseat of her car, KTVL reported, citing a police report.
Melvin first reached out to the boy last Tuesday on the social media app. The two then exchanged sexually explicit images, the boy told police.
Following the alleged sexual encounter, the boy told police Melvin pressed him via Snapchat to meet up again, but he refused.
The teen’s mother then found out and called police.
Melvin allegedly admitted to police to “sexting” a young boy she thought was “either 17 or 18,” the report said.
She also copped to sending nude photos and videos, but denied having sex with the 14-year-old.
Melvin was hit with a number of charges, including rape, sodomy and sexual abuse.
Photo Credit: Douglas County Sheriff’s Office
Runner who slapped TV reporter’s behind is banned from future races
The pervy jogger who slapped a TV reporter’s behind during a 10K in Georgia has been identified by officials — and banned from future races.
Watch the video via New York Post
Race organizers had immediately vowed to find the handsy creep who left WSAV-TV anchor Alex Bozarjian feeling “violated, objectified, and embarrassed” while she reported on Saturday’s Savannah Bridge Run.
“Yesterday afternoon we identified him and shared his information with the reporter and her station,” the Savannah Sports Council tweeted, without revealing his name publicly.
“We will not tolerate behavior like this at a Savannah Sports Council event,” the council said in another post. “We have made the decision to ban this individual from registering for all Savannah Sports Council owned races.”
In a video viewed more than 10 million times, Bozarjian was seen recoiling in shock as a runner in a hat and sunglasses smacked her as he ran past.
“To the man who smacked my butt on live TV this morning: You violated, objectified, and embarrassed me,” Bozarjian tweeted later on Saturday, alongside footage of the on-air assault. “No woman should EVER have to put up with this at work or anywhere!! Do better.”
A Savannah Police Department spokesperson says officers have talked with Bozarjian and “are definitely going to be working with her in any capacity on how she’d like to move forward with this incident.”
The reporter has yet to comment on the creep’s identity — and has not said whether she plans to press charges.
Arizona man registers swarm of bees as emotional support animals
An Arizona man’s emotional support animal is creating quite a buzz.
Prescott Valley, Ariz., resident David Keller thinks the application process to register an emotional support animal is too easy — so he tried registering a swarm of bees as his service pet.
It worked.
“A lot of people thought it was hilarious and a lot of people were getting upset,” Keller tells CBS affiliate WTRF-TV. He recently went on a website called USAServiceDogRegistration.com and successfully uploaded a random photo of a beehive as a service animal “to bring awareness to the issue that anyone could do this,” he explains.
Keller was inspired to go through with the registration after seeing a service dog that was visibly untrained. “I could very easily tell that it was not a service animal because it was pulling the owner to the parking lot,” says Keller. “I was thinking that it’s just too easy to get these animals to be service animals.”
The website he used to register his swarm is one of many that make the application process for emotional pets too easy, experts say.
“They’re very silly. They don’t mean anything. You can go pay for a registry on one of those websites and basically you’re just paying for a piece of paper and to put a name on a list,” service dog trainer Jaymie Cardin tells WTRF. With registration so easy, how an animal acts is a better way to tell if it’s worthy of the title.
“Training is how you tell whether it’s a service animal or not,” says Cardin.
And not all animals can be trained: Only dogs and miniature horses may be used as service animals, according to federal law.
Many other species are currently given the title, however, including a squirrel, peacock, monkey and alligator. Miniature horses remain cleared to fly as service animals, although emotional support dogs in tutus were recently booted off a flight after showing “signs of distress.”
“It’s making people believe all animals are service animals when they’re not. And there’s a clear difference,” says Keller.
Some purportedly trained service pets have mauled children and airplane passengers. Restaurateurs still face hefty fines for refusing individuals with service animals.
via: https://nypost.com/2019/12/09/arizona-man-registers-swarm-of-bees-as-emotional-support-animals/
Photo Credit: nypost.com
Man Arrested After Video Captures Apparent Mass Shooting Plot Rehearsal at San Diego Hotel
A man was arrested after authorities received a tip that he had posted videos online that appear to show him pointing weapons and practicing to carry out a mass shooting from a downtown San Diego hotel room.
Steve Homoki was scheduled to be arraigned Monday, the San Diego Union-Tribune reported. He was arrested last week at his home on suspicion of possessing assault weapons, possessing high capacity magazines and child endangerment, the newspaper said.
Homoki, 30, was jailed in lieu of $20,000 bail. It wasn’t known if he has an attorney.
Authorities identified Homoki during an investigation that began Dec. 2 when the San Diego Joint Terrorism Task Force received a tip “concerning very distressing Youtube videos threatening firearm violence linked to San Diego,” Lt. Shawn Takeuchi of the San Diego Police Department said in a statement.
Following a two-day investigation, authorities served a search warrant at Homoki’s home in the Spring Valley area east of San Diego, seizing “several firearms” and arresting Homoki, police said.
In a pair of YouTube videos posted Sept. 17 and 18, a man can be seen inside a hotel room pointing multiple weapons toward the windows a few floors above ground level, the newspaper said. Pedestrians walk just below and across the street, unaware of the guns being aimed at them. The videos appear to be from a body-worn camera.
According to court documents obtained by KNSD-TV, the videos were likely recorded in March 2019, when Homoki allegedly checked into the Sofia Hotel under the false name Stephen Anderson — a moniker similar to the one he used to post the videos.
In one video, the man points a handgun and a rifle with a scope toward the closed window of the hotel room.
In a second video, the room is strewn with bullets, several firearms and a mannequin head, among other items, the newspaper reported. After pulling the trigger on an unloaded rifle and then tossing it away, the man recording the video picks up another rifle and mumbles to himself, “One down, more to go.”
Suspect: Videos ‘blown out of proportion’
Homoki said the videos “got blown out of proportion” but conceded, “Obviously, looking back, it looks like if anybody else were to see it, it doesn’t look good.”
He said he did not mean to cause anyone any harm.
“Hopefully, they can see it the way I do, that I do not wish to cause harm to anybody, this is not an act of terrorism at all,” he said.
Lt. Shawn Takeuchi with the San Diego Police Department said the tip from the community was crucial.
“This arrest is an example of a community member coming forward with information that posed an immediate threat to San Diegans,” Takeuchi told KFMB. “The San Diego Police Department would like to thank the community for their shared efforts to keep everyone safe.”
Scott Brunner, the head of the FBI’s San Diego office, called the arrest an “extraordinary accomplishment” and commended the task force for their quick work in locating and apprehending Homoki.
“The extraordinarily swift investigative efforts put forth by the dedicated Agents and Officers of the San Diego JTTF quickly identified, located and arrested Mr. Homoki, preventing further incident,” a statement from Brunner said. “Just three days ago Mr. Homoki was an unknown poster of disturbing videos and is now behind bars, his threats neutralized.”
Photo Credit: CNN
Walmart apologizes for Christmas sweater with apparent drug reference
NEW YORK — Walmart is saying sorry for making available a Christmas sweater with an apparent drug reference.
The sweater featured an image of Santa Clausbehind a table with three white lines that look similar to cocaine lines. Below the image is the phrase “Let it snow.” The Global News, a Canadian news organization, first reported the apology .
“These sweaters, sold by a third-party seller on Walmart.ca, do not represent Walmart’s values and have no place on our website,” Walmart said in a statement on Saturday. “We have removed these products from our marketplace. We apologize for any unintended offense this may have caused.”
The sweater did not appear to be available as of Sunday night. Walmart declined to comment further on Sunday.
Third-party sellers are able to make products available on Walmart Marketplace — a portal on which Walmart can approve sellers to use its website.
Walmart has faced similar issues before. In 2017, the company apologized for an offensive slur used by a third-party seller in a product listing on its website.
And it’s not the first time this holiday season that a third-party seller has brought scrutiny to a major online retailer. Earlier in December, Amazon pulled Christmas ornaments showing the Auschwitz concentration camp. Images used showed the train tracks leading to the entrance of Auschwitz II-Birkenau and a number of scenes inside the camps, where around 1 million Jewish people are estimated to have been killed during World War II.Amazon removed the products when the Auschwitz Memorial tweeted about them.
Photo Credit: Walmart
Customer punched over taking too long at register in Florida Walmart
CAPE CORAL, Fla. – Police have charged a Cape Coral man with battery after he reportedly punched another customer in the checkout line at a Walmart store.
It happened Wednesday evening at the Neighborhood Market store on Pine Island Road at Nicholas Parkway.
According to Cape Coral Police, 69-year-old Henry Harvey became angry over customers ahead of him in line taking too long at the register.
An argument resulted in Harvey punching the victim in the head. Officers later located Harvey at his home and arrested him.
The victim was not seriously injured.
via: https://fox2now.com/2019/12/06/customer-punched-over-taking-too-long-at-register-in-florida-walmart/
Photo Credit: fox2now.com
‘I Got Tired of Hunting Black and Hispanic People’
NEW YORK — At a police station tucked into an end-of-the-line subway terminal in South Brooklyn, the new commander instructed officers to think of white and Asian people as “soft targets” and urged them to instead go after blacks and Latinos for minor offenses like jumping the turnstile, a half-dozen officers said in sworn statements.
“You are stopping too many Russian and Chinese,” one of the officers, Daniel Perez, recalled the commander telling him earlier this decade.
Another officer, Aaron Diaz, recalled the same commander saying in 2012, “You should write more black and Hispanic people.”
The sworn statements, gathered in the last few months as part of a discrimination lawsuit, deal with a period between 2011-15. But they are now emerging publicly at a time when policing in the subway has become a contentious issue, sparking protests over a crackdown on fare evasion and other low-level offenses.
The commander, Constantin Tsachas, was in charge of more than 100 officers who patrolled a swath of the subway system in Brooklyn, his first major command. Since then, he has been promoted to the second-in-command of policing the subway system throughout Brooklyn. Along the way, more than half a dozen subordinates claim, he gave them explicit directives about whom to arrest based on race.
Those subordinates recently came forward, many for the first time, providing signed affidavits to support a discrimination lawsuit brought by four black and Hispanic police officers.
The officers claim they faced retaliation from the New York Police Department because they objected to what they said was a long-standing quota system for arrests and tickets, which they argued mainly affected black and Hispanic New Yorkers.
The authorities have deployed hundreds of additional officers to the subways, provoking a debate about overpolicing and the criminalization of poverty. Videos of arrests of young black men and of a woman selling churros in the subway system have gone viral in recent weeks. Demonstrators have taken to the subway system and jumped turnstiles in protest.
Six officers said in their affidavits that Tsachas, now a deputy inspector, pressured them to enforce low-level violations against black and Hispanic people, while discouraging them from doing the same to white or Asian people.
Tsachas declined to comment when reached by telephone this week, but his union representative said the inspector denied the allegations of misconduct. The Police Department also declined to address the allegations.
The department has said in the past that its enforcement of fare evasion is not aimed at black and Hispanic people.
More than three years ago, when Tsachas was promoted to his current rank, the police commissioner at the time, William J. Bratton, said that allegations Tsachas pushed quotas were false.
“I have full faith and support in him,” Bratton said. He added that Tsachas had “the requisite skills and comes highly recommended.”
Most of the people arrested on charges of fare evasion in New York are black or Hispanic, according to data the Police Department has been required to report under local law since 2017.
Between October 2017 and June 2019, black and Hispanic people, who account for slightly more than half the population in New York City, made up nearly 73% of those who got a ticket for fare evasion and whose race was recorded. They also made up more than 90% of those who were arrested, rather than given a ticket.
Some elected officials have complained about the apparent racial disparity in arrests, saying it may indicate bias on the part of officers or an unofficial policy of racial profiling by the police.
“The focus of black and brown people, even if other people were doing the same crime, points to what many of us have been saying for a while,” the city’s public advocate, Jumaane Williams, said. “The same actions lead to different results, unfortunately, depending on where you live and an overlay of what you look like.”
Enforcement has surged nearly 50% in 2019, as city police officers issued 22,000 more tickets for fare evasion this year compared to 2018, according to Police Department data from Nov. 10.
While the affidavits focus on a time period that ended nearly five years ago, they suggest at least one police commander openly pushed racial profiling when making arrests in the subway.
“I got tired of hunting Black and Hispanic people because of arrest quotas,” one former officer, Christopher LaForce, said in his affidavit, explaining his decision to retire in 2015.
In the affidavits, the officers said that different enforcement standards applied to different stations across Transit District 34, which spanned stations across South Brooklyn: Brooklyn’s Chinatown in Sunset Park; neighborhoods with large Orthodox Jewish communities; a corner of Flatbush that is home to many Caribbean immigrants; and the Russian enclave around Brighton Beach.
“Tsachas would get angry if you tried to patrol subway stations in predominantly white or Asian neighborhoods” LaForce said in his affidavit. He added that the commander would redirect officers to stations in neighborhoods with larger black and Hispanic populations.
Diaz, who retired from the Police Department last year, described in his affidavit how on one occasion Tsachas seemed irritated at him for having stopped several Asian people for fare evasion and told him he should be issuing tickets to “more black and Hispanic people.”
At the time, Diaz said, he was assigned to the N Line, which passes through neighborhoods with large numbers of Chinese Americans. He had arrested multiple residents of that neighborhoods for doubling up as they went through the turnstiles, according to his affidavit.
Other officers described similar experiences. Some of the officers claimed in affidavits that Tsachas urged his officers to come up with reasons to stop black men, especially those with tattoos, and check them for warrants.
Of the six officers, all but one is retired. They are all black or Hispanic. The affidavits were given to The New York Times by one of the four officers who has sued the Police Department, Lt. Edwin Raymond.
The allegations in the affidavits were bolstered by a police union official, Corey Grable, who gave a deposition in June in the same lawsuit that recounted his interactions with Tsachas. He recalled Tsachas had once complained about a subordinate who Tsachas said seemed to go for “soft targets.”
Unsure what that meant, Grable asked if the officer was ticketing old ladies for minor offenses? Tsachas responded: “No, Asian.”
Grable, who is black, asked, “Would you have been more comfortable if these guys were black or Hispanic?”
“Yes,” Tsachas replied, according to Grable’s recollection.
Tsachas joined the Police Department in 2001 and patrolled public housing developments in Harlem for five years. He later analyzed crime patterns in Queens and across the city before being transferred to the Transit Bureau. He was a captain in 2011 when he was appointed to command Brooklyn’s District 34, a position he held for at least four years.
In 2015, he took command of neighboring Transit District 32, where Raymond, who is currently suing him, worked. At the time Raymond held the rank of police officer.
Raymond has charged in the lawsuit that Tsachas blocked his promotion by giving him a low evaluation as punishment for not making enough arrests.
Raymond, who is now a patrol supervisor in Brooklyn, recorded a conversation in October 2015 in which Tsachas encouraged him to arrest more people and gave an example of the sort of arrest he did not want: a 42-year-old Asian woman with no identification arrested on a charge of fare beating.
“That’s not going to fly,” he said, according to the recording, first described in a New York Times Magazine article.
Raymond, who still had the rank of police officer at the time, responded that it was unconstitutional to consider race when deciding whom to arrest. Tsachas, a captain at the time, then apologized, saying the comment “didn’t come out the way it’s supposed to.”
Raymond said he believed Tsachas should not have been promoted. “It’s a spit in the face of communities of color that this man is given more power after being exposed as a bigot,” he said.
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.
© 2019 The New York Times Company
via: https://currently.att.yahoo.com/news/got-tired-hunting-black-hispanic-165530610.html
Photo Credit: Celeste Sloman/The New York Times