by Craig Fernandez | Sep 23, 2018 | eNews
Associated Press
MADISON, Wis. — The Latest on this week’s shooting at a software company in Wisconsin (all times local):
4:05 p.m.
Authorities have identified four officials who shot their weapons at a gunman killed after he opened fire on his co-workers at a Wisconsin software company.
Officials say WTS Paradigm employee Anthony Tong wounded four people at the company’s Middleton headquarters Wednesday before he died in the shootout. The Middleton Police Department says two officers shot at Tong: Richard O’Connor and Tyler Loether. O’Connor has worked at the department since 1998, while Loether started in 2012.
The Dane County Sheriff’s Office says two of its deputies fired their weapons in the shootout: 21-year veteran David Lambrecht and Matthew Earll, who has served there for 11 years.
The officers and deputies have been put on paid administrative leave until the official investigation is finished and the district attorney issues a ruling.
___
11:33 a.m.
Two people shot by a colleague this week at a Wisconsin software company have been discharged from a Madison hospital.
UW Health spokesman Gian Galassi said Saturday that a third patient remains hospitalized in fair condition. Galassi says the two discharged patients were released Friday.
Authorities say WTS Paradigm employee Anthony Tong wounded four people at the company’s Middleton headquarters on Wednesday before police killed him in a shoot-out. One victim was only grazed.
A search warrant made public Friday shows that one of the victims was shot 10 times.
Middleton Police Chief Chuck Foulke has said Tong was not legally allowed to buy a gun. In 2004, Tong had his concealed-carry permit revoked in South Dakota after police said he was acting delusional and paranoid.
Tong’s motive remains a mystery.
by Craig Fernandez | Sep 23, 2018 | eNews
By Meghan Giannotta and Lauren Cook amNewYork
NEW YORK — A man shot and killed a woman who is believed to be his ex-girlfriend and wounded the woman’s new boyfriend before turning the gun on himself inside a Queens apartment Friday morning, police said.
A 911 call from a neighbor led police to the residence on 77th Street, where the bodies of Regan Smith, 31, and the suspected shooter, 47-year-old Nelson Giron, were recovered around 7 a.m. The second man, identified as a 43-year-old off-duty Yonkers police officer, was found with a gunshot wound to the shoulder and what was believed to be two stab wounds, police said. He was transported to Elmhurst Hospital Center, where he underwent surgery and was expected to survive.
A second 911 call came in before officers arrived, according to Chief of Detectives Dermot F. Shea, and investigators believe it was made by Smith before she died. She told the emergency operator, “I’ve been shot by my boyfriend” and “to send the police,” before disconnecting the line, Shea added.
Officers arriving at the scene found the door to the second-floor apartment locked, then heard as many as 10 shots fired, Shea said. Following protocol, the officers secured the area and called for backup and an emergency services unit.
A preliminary investigation found Smith suffered at least one gunshot wound to the head. Giron died from what appeared to be a self-inflicted gunshot wound, police said. One firearm was recovered from the scene near his body, according to Shea.
It’s believed that all three had served in the military, Shea said.
Police believe Smith and the injured man were currently romantically involved. Shea said police had recently been called to the area for an incident involving the suspect and two victims.
“On Monday, we had several calls to this general vicinity. We had an incident involving a car being keyed, and it involved the three individuals,” he said.
A spokesman for the Yonkers Police Department said the off-duty officer who was shot has been on the force for more than four years.
“The Yonkers Police Department offers its sincere condolences to the families of the victims and their colleagues,” the spokesman said, adding that no further information would be released by Yonkers police since the NYPD is the lead investigating agency.
The investigation is continuing.
by Craig Fernandez | Sep 23, 2018 | eNews
By Joel Mills Lewiston Tribune
LEWISTON, Idaho — Nez Perce County Sheriff Joe Rodriguez apologized Saturday for a meme his wife posted to his Facebook page that mocked women who don’t immediately report sexual assault.
“It’s problematic for anybody,” Rodriguez said of posting such material. But he agreed that it was especially problematic for an elected law enforcement official. “I don’t take anything of this sort lightly. I don’t care if it was 30 years ago. It takes a lot for someone to come forward and say ‘This happened to me.’ ”
The meme (an internet term for a picture usually accompanied by humorous text) showed a photograph of a very old woman in a negligee with the words, “My ass was groped in 1886 and I waited till now to tell about it.” Rodriguez said he immediately deleted the post once he learned of it.
Delayed reporting is highly common for victims of sexual assault, making it one of the most underreported crimes. The issue came into intense national focus over the past week after psychologist and professor Christine Blasey Ford alleged that Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh sexually assaulted her at a high school party in 1982. Kavanaugh has denied the allegation. (See related story, Page 1A.)
Social media users widely shared the post on Rodriguez’s Facebook page, which drew extensive and intense criticism. Some even called for his resignation. But Rodriguez said his wife, Julie Rodriguez, inadvertently posted the meme on his page instead of hers because they share the same home computer.
“She believed she was on her Facebook page,” he said. “I don’t go on Facebook very much for this very reason.”
Julie Rodriguez said she has stopped following national news very closely, and was unaware of the Kavanaugh nomination and the furor over Ford’s allegation.
“It was just a bad choice for me,” she said through sobs. “I guess I didn’t think about it before I posted it.”
She apologized, adding that she was especially sorry for any harm she may have done to her husband’s reputation. Julie Rodriguez described the sheriff as a compassionate man who goes above and beyond to help others.
Sheriff Rodriguez said he understands how difficult sexual assault cases are to prosecute and that victims have to fight through the attached social stigma and the other recriminations that come with reporting.
“If you don’t have somebody who wants to testify, it’s hard to pursue,” he said while acknowledging how hard the decision to report can be.
But he wanted to assure county residents that his department takes all reports of sexual assault seriously, and has officers who are trained in comforting victims. The prosecutor’s office also has victim advocates who can help shepherd them through the process, Rodriguez said. Nez Perce County Prosecutor Justin Coleman said the time of an offense or status of the offender doesn’t matter when reporting sexual violence.
“We know how difficult it is to come forward and how horrendous it is to go through the criminal justice process when you’ve been victimized,” Coleman said in a written statement to the Lewiston Tribune. “We have people in place to help, some of the best trained detectives in the area and victim advocates and prosecutors in my office who are the most passionate professionals I’ve seen on these cases and the people they assist.”
Coleman added that his office has held several individuals accountable in the past year in cases where years had passed since the crime was initially committed. He encouraged victims to call Lewiston police at (208) 746-0171.
“I do want to make something absolutely clear though: victims of sexual assault, rape … any kind of sexual crime, should please not hesitate to come forward and report the crimes committed against them, no matter how long ago it was,” Coleman said.
by Craig Fernandez | Sep 23, 2018 | eNews
Miami Herald
MIAMI — It was a scene out of any old gangster movie. Dozens of flashing cop car sirens blared and lit up the night. Hundreds of rounds of ammunition could be heard piercing the air.
It ended after a 56-second barrage of gunfire and only one man was shot and killed. No police officers were injured.
Alexander Carballido, an ex-con on probation and released from prison in July for carjacking and assaulting a police officer and who was wanted for sodomizing a man earlier in the day during a home invasion, lost a battle with at least a dozen cops in a shootout not far from Miami International Airport, several law enforcement sources told the Miami Herald.
Police said Carballido, 40, was firing at them with an AK-47. They said they found several other weapons in the vehicle. At least a dozen officers from multiple agencies opened fire on Carballido during the exchange.
“The FBI was investigating a fugitive case. The suspect of this investigation fled the scene. And he was armed,” FBI spokesman Brian Waterman said after the shootout. “He (the suspect) was involved in a hate-crime investigation.
Law enforcement sources said they began trailing Carballido Thursday after being informed of an armed home invasion earlier in the day in which he performed a lewd act on a man. At about 8 p.m., he began firing at police from his vehicle near the intersection of Northwest 72nd Avenue and Seventh Street.
The intense gunfire was captured on cellphone video by a woman on the balcony of an apartment overlooking the crime scene.
Mid-morning Friday, Miami police were knocking on the door of a home in the 8600 block of Southwest 34th Terrace. Police, who had not officially released Carballido’s name, said they were trying to notify his next of kin about the man’s death.
Carballido, 44, spent nearly a decade in prison for carjacking, aggravated assault on a police officer and fleeing and eluding police. In that case, police said, he pushed his girlfriend out of his car, tried running over a Miami cop, then crashed it. He then carjacked a woman with a machete and was later arrested at Mount Sinai Medical Center on Miami Beach.
After those offenses, a police spokesman said, “What we’re talking about is a cracked-out, machete-wielding moron who went on his on personal countywide crime spree.”
by Craig Fernandez | Sep 22, 2018 | eNews
RapidSOS announced they are partnering with Google to deliver life-saving 911 caller location information to public safety agencies nationwide. With the U.S. activation of Android Emergency Location Service (ELS), emergency communications centers using the free RapidSOS Next Generation 911 (NG911) Clearinghouse will now receive faster and more accurate caller location for 911 calls from Android devices.
Due to outdated infrastructure, public safety agencies today often receive no data around an emergency besides a voice connection and a broad estimate of location. The FCC estimates that faster response from improved location for 911 calls could save over 10,000 lives annually.
Android ELS, a service supported on 99% of Android devices, transmits faster and more accurate emergency location both indoors and outdoors to emergency services during a 911 call. With this announcement, emergency location from Android devices is now being delivered to emergency communications centers in the U.S. via the RapidSOS NG911 Clearinghouse, a secure source of emergency data that is offered as a free service to every public safety agency nationwide.
“Emergency Location Service in Android has made a profound impact on emergency response in the 15 countries where it is live today,” said RapidSOS CEO, Michael Martin. “This partnership between Google and RapidSOS puts life-saving data directly into the hands of 911 telecommunicators in the United States via modern NG911 mechanisms.”
“I’ve been in 911 for over 20 years and for the longest time we had to wait for someone else to fix the wireless location challenge,” said Bob Finney, 911 Communications Director at Collier County Sheriff’s Office. “With ELS and RapidSOS, we can actually take action in the emergency communications center to improve the safety of our citizens.”
The NG911 Clearinghouse is currently integrated in over 1,000 emergency communications centers nationwide, covering more than 100 million Americans. Agencies not yet connected can start receiving data from the NG911 Clearinghouse today through one of two methods:
Any emergency communications center can access data from the NG911 Clearinghouse today with RapidLite, a 100% free, secure, web-based tool for public safety agencies. Authorized agencies can request an account in minutes at
. RapidSOS partners with all major public safety software companies to integrate data from the NG911 Clearinghouse directly in existing dashboards and workflows. Public safety officials can
.
The announcement of nationwide Android ELS activation comes after a January 2018 pilot project conducted by Google and RapidSOS to deliver ELS location to emergency communications centers in the U.S. Throughout the pilot, participating emergency communications centers reported several incidents, from medical emergencies to car crashes, where faster and more accurate location contributed to an accelerated emergency response, saving lives. To see the full results and learn more about the pilot project, download the report
.
Like this story? Want to know why tens of thousands of law enforcement people receive stories like this in their email twice a week?
