Truancy response

A reader sent this wonderful response to our Tuesday Truancy story. This may or may not be a feasible answer - that's not really my place to say. It is, however, the type of discourse that yields positive results, especially in a judicial election year.

The reader wrote the following.

"Here's an approach we may can take:

As I'm sure you're aware, automobile insurance companies offer a discount rate for families that have their children insured with them if they make good grades in school. Why can't we do the same for our schools? If a student remains in school, offer the parents a state income tax break. Parents will soon realize that it's much more of a financially sound incentive to push their children to remain in school. If the children are truant for more than three days or drop out of school then the tax break would be negated. I think that if parents took hits in their pocketbooks they would be more responsible for their children's actions."

I invite anyone to respond to this idea.

Stop the Violence...

Here are some pictures from this weekends Stop the Violence Fun Day. It really was very uplifting. Lots of folks were out enjoying the great weather.

The Stop the Violence group met again last night. Here's the story.
One of the most (potentially) important things to come out of the meeting was the announcement that the Family Links program will be applying for a Department of Justice grant called the "Weed and Seed program.

Th e grant seems like a really good fit for Anniston, combining elements of law enforcement and revitalization. The question yet to be answered is whether the essential players are willing to play along. Because it is holistic in approach, all the parts have to work together to make the whole.

Often these types of grants can come across as accusatory. Those who are already out pounding the pavement arresting the bad guys or providing services for those considered "at risk" are working as hard as they can. I'm trying to work up another article to describe the program in more detail, perhaps even visit another Weed and Seed site in Al.

LE Memorial

Just a reminder:

Calhoun County Law Enforcement Memorial

Friday (May 16) at 1:00 p.m.

Anniston’s Centennial Park at the intersection of 17th and Quintard Avenue

Mess up on my part, shooting near AJ's

Just needed to let everyone know that I made an error in reporting a story headlined "Son of AJ's owner charged with shooting man after argument at club."

Information that police received and reported when they arrested Jack David Stovall, Jr. on Tuesday, was apparently false.

Jack David Stovall, Jr. is not the son of the owners of AJ's as I reported. He is in fact the nephew of the club's operator Peggy Weekley as well as the buildings owner Allen J. Stovall, according to conversations I had with both of them this morning.

Allen said that Jack David Stovall, Sr. works as an employee at AJ's but has no ownership or management capacity.

I should have checked the information on the report with those involved. I have written a story correcting this error for tomorrow's paper. I hope the misinformation didn't cause undue harm. My apologies to those who felt wronged by the article.

-Nick

Violence meeting on Wednesday

City officials are planning a community meeting about the sexual predator on Wednesday.
This one is going to be hosted at Refuge Full Gospel Methodist Church at 401 East 22nd St. at 6 p.m.
The mayor, city council members, police chief, and others will be hosting this one (it's not the same group as the Stop the Violence meetings.)
Here's the story, which references the incidents that precipitated the meeting.

Police started calling this assailant a "sexual predator." They believe he's been responsible for a series of at least three - up to five - rape/robberies in the last six months.

Above is a photo of the guy from a bank ATM.

Oxford Police officer honored

Representatives from Oxford P.D. are headed to Washington D.C. this week to honor Lt. Dexter Holcomb who was killed on Feb. 16, 2007, after he was hit by an out-of-control school bus as he directed after-school traffic near Oxford High School.

This week Holcomb, a 20-year veteran of the Oxford police and a 22-year veteran of the Piedmont fire department, will have his name engraved into the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial.

Andy Johns wrote this story about those going.

He also covered the original incident with several stories.

We're Nick-less

Okay. Nick has a few days off, so I'll get a quick post up for y'all. It seems like there have been a lot of comments about the Sheriff and the possible deputy lay-offs. All I'm going to say is that Calhoun County is better off than some. For those of us who live in Randolph, Cleburne or Clay counties there are even fewer deputies patrolling the roads.

The two biggest things since the last post both come from Randolph County, where the Roanoke mayor entered a plea yesterday on ethics charges and a former pastor pleaded guilty to rape and sodomy charges. Almost a (scary) side note was the entire emergency radio system crashing Thursday morning.

The Roanoke mayor was indicted on 26 counts (11+ felonies) in January, but after the agreement he was convicted of only two misdemeanors. His lawyer said that if you read between the lines that means the state's case wasn't as strong as prosecutors initially thought. That's lawyer speak, but I was surprised to see the charges reduced that much.

The AG's office of course said the penalty set an example. Bonner had to pay about $3,500 back to the city for the profits is alleged to have made off of the fuel sales. Bottom line-- if you're a mayor and you want to rip off your city you can get a lot more than that.

As far as the pastor story, it's the conclusion to a case we reported here last June. Sad stuff.

Aside from that, the APD has come out and called the man responsible for several rapes in Anniston a "sexual predator," an Anniston police officer is accused of killing a dog, a judge sentences a Talladega County man to death and Riverside continues to search for a police chief.

Nick will be back Monday.

Roadside memorials being removed on Birmingham interstates

Associated Press

Updated 10:01 a.m.

BIRMINGHAM — State transportation officials are removing roadside memorials along interstates in the Birmingham area, saying they are dangerous to motorists.

Officials also are considering whether to remove markers on federal and state routes.

Birmingham Division Engineer Brian Davis of the Alabama Department of Transportation says he told district engineers to remove the markers on interstates. The division covers Jefferson, Shelby, Blount, St. Clair and Walker counties.

Full story

911 calls released as search continues for soldier's killer

Posted: May. 2, 2008

Fayetteville, N.C. — Police released two 911 calls Friday as they continued to seek information about an April 12 armed robbery outside a nightclub that left a 22-year-old Army sergeant dead.

Bank robber busted

It looks like the fella who has been robbing local banks by slipping the tellers notes, ran out of luck.
After robbing the Cheaha Bank branch in Alexandria this morning, Anniston P.D. caught up with him at Greenbriar and Quintard and took him in to custody.
Now Oxford P.D., Anniston P.D. and Calhoun County Sheriff's Office have reportedly gotten a confession out of him to three similar robberies in the past few months.

Oxford Compass Bank

Anniston Regions Bank


There's a press conference at 3:30 p.m. at the sheriff's department. More on this after that.

-Nick

Pell City chase

Our sister paper is reporting this very alarming incident near Pell City:

Police chase, shoot suspect 04-30-2008 By David Atchison PELL CITY — A high-speed chase late Tuesday ended with a man being shot by police officers.

Stop the Violence, end of the race, traffic fatality

Race weekend is over and done with. One traffic fatality was reported following the race, in the early morning hours on Monday. It appears that this had less to do with the race and more to do with the rainy weather.
A 23-year-old Chatom, Ala. woman named Lashawna Renee Jones, was killed and two others were injured when their vehicle left I-20 and hit a tree as they were headed eastbound at about the 170 mile marker on I-20. Candice Richardson, 21, and Austin Hall, 1, both of Deer Park, were taken to RMC.
Piedmont police also sent word that they busted a man on the 1000 block of Mack Alexander Road for making meth. DHR apparently asked police to search the house after they learned children lived at the residence.
Finally, last night was the third in a series of Stop the Violence meetings hosted by Anniston Funeral Services. The ideas were flowing and so was some criticism. Though the discussion was very civil, the group seems to be metaphorically edging their way through a packed church pew trying to get to their seat while not stepping on too many toes.
I'm working on a couple of stories hoping to explore more about the problems affecting violence instead of the symptoms.
Here are some of the past stories on the Stop the Violence campaign.
There is an unrelated anti-violence rally this weekend at Zinn Park beginning at 10 a.m.

Anniston murder #10

April 23, 2008

Another murder. I thought last night was too pretty a night to go killing anybody. This one apparently began with a call Wednesday about shots fired over near 1030 Cobb Avenue around 10:40 p.m.

The police found Carnell Hall, 46, of Anniston with several gunshot wounds a short distance away over at the 1000 block of West 15th Street.

He died about an hour later in the hospital.

Our breaking news links are free so here's the story.

This makes 10 murders in the city this year and 11 total in the county.

There wasn't really anything in the police report that would indicate why it happened. Anybody know anything about it?

No other violent crime briefs today!

I followed up on the city council's proposal regarding Anniston's police jurisdiction in today's paper.

Chief John Dryden and Calhoun County Sheriff Larry Amerson both had some interesting input.
Dryden basically said they will be able to focus their efforts a bit more. Amerson said he was sort of expecting it.

The sheriff said it would be easier in the long run but there will be a real challenge in the short term.

"We will do our very best to protect the residents of those areas. We just ask for their patience while we adjust," said Amerson.

Robberies, rape, and the hit-and-run

In an effort to make the police blog more "bloggy," I've been encouraged to summarize the material we report in the print version of The Star and link to the articles instead of posting the content verbatim. I'm going to do my best to continue to offer the same amount of quasi-daily information that has been provided here, but it may be a click or two away now.

Now on to today's business.

I spoke with the State Troopers yesterday. They reportedly found the vehicle they believe hit Bridget Craft, 48, while was walking on Eulaton Road back on April 18. Here's the story.

A 13-year-old girl from west Anniston also came forward this week and told police she was raped back in January by a man she met on a social networking site. This is the first of these I've seen since I've been here but I wouldn't be surprised to find that there have been others.

Finally, there were a pair of robberies - one with an arrest - in Anniston on Monday night. In one a 43-year-old man was jumped by three or four other men near Blue Mountain Road. In the other a 28-year-old was robbed by someone he knew on Old Birmingham Hwy.
Today I'm going to be looking at an Anniston City Council story from last night by Megan Nichols. Apparently the jurisdiction for Anniston Police is going to be pulled in out of the county a little bit so they can concentrate more on the city.

Anniston could cease police patrols in areas outside city limits

By Megan Nichols
Staff Writer

04-23-2008

The Anniston City Council may soon pull its police services out of the city's police jurisdictions.

The action would put those areas located outside Anniston city limits under the jurisdiction of the Calhoun County Sheriff's Office.

The council voted Tuesday night to allow city attorney Polly Russell to draft an ordinance to that effect, at the request of Councilman Stan Bennett. Bennett said he had discussed the idea with the Calhoun County Commission as well as Sheriff Larry Amerson.

"Being able to devote those officers to the city itself would allow us to increase patrols and coverage of areas that may need it," Bennett said. "It isn't something that I particularly want to do, but a decision I had to make for the citizens of the city."