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A Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputy was killed Thursday when his motorcycle crashed during a pursuit in Lancaster.

Deputy Pierre Bain, 45, a 14-year veteran, was following a speeding car about 5:35 p.m. when he entered the intersection of Avenue K and 20th Street on a green light. A car alongside him veered into his lane, said acting Los Angeles County Sheriff Larry Waldie.

Bain swerved to avoid it and “the car just nipped the bike, and the bike went down,” Waldie said.

Bain’s motorcycle hit a tree, and he was thrown off the bike and into another tree, then into another, and suffered massive injuries, Waldie said. Fire officials said he was in full cardiac arrest at the scene.

He was stationed in the sheriff’s Lancaster station, Waldie said. No one was ticketed or arrested, a sheriff’s spokeswoman said.

Bibb County, Georgia

Deputy Joseph Whitehead, 36, was shot at a house on Atherton Street sometime before 1:30 a.m. and died at The Medical Center of Central Georgia, authorities said.

Antron Dawayne Fair, 21, Damon Antwon Jolly, 20, Cynthia Greene, 20, Thomas Mason Porter Jr., 22, and a fifth person all were charged with murder, according to police.

Deputies were fired upon by occupants of the house, and though the deputies were wearing protective vests, Whitehead was fatally shot in the face, sheriff’s Capt. David Davis said.

Whitehead was pronounced dead sometime after 2 a.m., officials said.

Davis said investigators found drugs and guns inside the home during the search.

The squad serves warrants every week, sometimes several times a week, Davis said.

“There’s nothing routine in something like this. This is just what they do,” Davis said of the searches.

Davis said as a matter of policy, the way the search was conducted will be examined.

“Any time something like this happens it has to be looked at from every angle,” he said.

Davis called the situation tragic.

“This deputy and the ones with him, they are on the front lines protecting the citizens,” Davis said. “He was an excellent officer all the way. Every section he has worked in he’s done a excellent job.”

“They put their lives on the line every day,” Sen. Robert Brown, D-Macon, told the AP. “We have a very serious problem with drugs and the violence that is associated with it in our community in Bibb County. This is just one example of how precarious their lives are.”

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Tampa, Florida
Documents cast light on the conduct of a Tampa police sergeant under review for his squad’s behavior.

Police Sgt. Gene Strickland is waiting to hear what discipline he could face in recent internal affairs investigations calling into question his conduct and leadership.

Documents released this week by the Tampa Police Department show that his decisions as a squad leader have drawn other criticism.

In a May 2005 memo, Strickland told his supervisors that he had directed his squad to manipulate traffic signals at three Tampa Heights intersections with a traffic control device called a “pickle” that allows the user to dictate how long a light stays red.

The operation took place on four or five occasions stretching back to 2004, he said.

Officers kept the stoplights at each intersection red long enough for them to check the license plates of cars and see if they were stolen.

He said he hoped the method of checking tags on stopped cars would allow officers to “box in” the cars and “to negate the probability of vehicular pursuits of stolen cars.”

Department officials said the tactic netted no stolen cars. More important, his bosses weren’t pleased with his methods.

“In the police business, you have to have a reason to stop somebody,” said Chief Steve Hogue. “When you keep somebody at a traffic light beyond the normal cycle of it, then you’re essentially detaining that person.”

In his memo, Strickland wrote that he usually employed the practice late at night, during light traffic flow. The three intersections he cited: Scott Street at Nebraska Avenue, North Boulevard at Ross Avenue and Florida Avenue at Indiana Street.

Strickland, 49, has had his conduct as a leader questioned again in the months since.

In February, an internal affairs investigation upheld allegations against three other officers who were found to have violated the department’s code of conduct and its policy against sexual harassment.

That same investigation found that Strickland, the squad leader and a 25-year department veteran, “never intervened or disciplined the offenders properly,” according to the investigation. Tampa police spokeswoman Laura McElroy called it “a very low moment for TPD.”

Days later, another inquiry found that Strickland and Cpl. David Watt should have intervened on a traffic stop during which several officers traded curses and insults with a 23-year-old man after pulling him from his car when he refused to sign three citations. The man was also stunned with a Taser, all while hundreds of Ybor City patrons watched.

Another recent IA investigation also found that while Watt was justified in shooting at a 45-year-old man during an undercover drug buy with Strickland in December 2004, the officers were at fault for using guns not authorized by the department.

In his first five years, Strickland received 14 commendations, two minor disciplinary actions and outstanding to above-average ratings on evaluations.

Police spokeswoman Laura McElroy said Strickland has been placed on desk duty while awaiting the conclusion of the disciplinary process. He could not be reached for comment Wednesday.

Investigators will not file charges in the tragic accident that killed a police officer in New Jersey. The six-year veteran of the Watchung Police Department was killed when he lost control of his car in pursuit of a suspect.

Police stress that this was not a high speed chase and that the driver the officer was pursuing had no idea he was trying to catch up with her.

Officer Matthew Melchionda was reportedly trying to catch up to a suspicious car when he lost control of his own vehicle and slammed into a tree. He was just 31.

Eyewitness News Reporter Jim Dolan has the story.

Matthew Melchionda was just 31-years-old and had six years on the Watchung Police force. Last night, he was asked by another police officer to pull over a suspicious vehicle.

As he crossed over into North Plainfield, he had to swerve to miss an oncoming car. He lost control and slammed into a tree.

The sheared off top of the Watchung Police car was thrown back on the car, a mangled mess of twisted metal wrapped around a tree in Jim Edmonson’s front yard.

Edmonson: “There was a tremendous thud. The whole house shook … I jumped up, I was on the couch and looked outside and saw the car wrapped around the tree in my front yard. It was just devastating.”

Neighbors from as far as a block away heard it and came out to help. But there was little they could do.

“There was a lot of chaos … there was a detective on scene. He was at the car immediately yelling out the officer’s name. Everybody was outside because everyone pretty much heard it … he was trying to pull the car’s passenger side door open,” an eyewitness said.

“I helped and we weren’t able to get him out, but the fire department came,” another eyewitness said.

The woman in the minivan was not hurt and there no charges were filed against her.

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An eight year veteran of the Assumption Parish Sheriff’s Office in Louisiana was recently shot and killed in the line of duty. He was fired upon just slightly above his bullet proof vest by a combative suspect

A press release issued by the sheriff of Assumption Parish states that Sergeant Jeremy Newchurch, 31, was working with seven other agents assigned to the Assumption Parish Narcotics Task Force. They were in the process of locating suspects wanted for felony warrants associated with undercover drug operations and doing surveillance work in high drug traffic areas.

When the officers approached an illegally parked vehicle believed to be the site of drug deals, suspect Byron Meads, 22, floored his car in reverse to evade them, crashing into a ditch along the roadway. Subsequently, a struggle ensued in which Meads fought to take control of an officer’s firearm. The weapon discharged, striking Sergeant Newchurch in the upper chest region.

At 8:37 p.m. on March 1, 2006, a radio transmission was called in to the Assumption Parish Dispatch Center by a deputy indicating that an officer was down. Deputy Newchurch was immediately transported to Assumption Community Hospital where he was later pronounced dead.

Sergeant Newchurch belonged to both the Uniform Patrol Division and the Assumption Parish Narcotics Task Force. The Plaincourtville resident lived in the Assumption Parish Community all his life.

Meads was immediately taken into custody and charged with First Degree Murder of a Police Officer, Aggravated Flight from an Officer, and Possession with intent to distribute crack cocaine.

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The woman who was injured Wednesday night after a police cruiser crashed through her apartment during a high-speed chase was in serious condition Thursday night, according to the University of Virginia Medical Center in Charlottesville.

She had been in critical condition earlier Thursday.

Police say they’re investigating the chase and wreck, which started with a traffic stop in a residential neighborhood around 6 p.m. Wednesday.

The injured woman, Dorothy Swao, 35, of 335 G Rockingham Drive, was taken first to Rockingham Memorial Hospital, and then to U.Va.

The center did not release specific details on her condition, or the nature of her injuries.

The Officer

Brian Latuga, 23, the Harrisonburg officer who was driving the car that crashed into the apartment, remained at Rockingham Memorial Hospital on Thursday with “non-life-threatening” injuries to his back and arm, according to a police statement.

Lt. Kurt Boshart, the department’s spokesman, said police are still investigating the incident and are concerned for both of the injured.

“There is nothing more disheartening for us than knowing there is a young woman at U.Va. Hospital,” Boshart said. “We do not want anybody getting hurt in this community.”

The Chase

The high-speed chase along West Gay Street began on Collicello Street, where officers with CHARGE, the Combined Harrisonburg and Rockingham Gang Enforcement unit, stopped Jamie Scott Blanton, of Westminster, Md. The officers stopped him for a “traffic infraction,” the statement says.

Blanton, 33, drove away and the officers gave chase, according to the statement. Latuga, on patrol nearby, joined the pursuit shortly after it began, police say. When the chase approached Rockingham Drive, Blanton turned left on the drive, where Gay Street ends, the statement says.

But Latuga did not make the turn and his cruiser went airborne, crashing into Swao’s apartment some 40 feet away, according to police.

Other officers continued the chase on Va. 42 North, until the pursuit was called off when speeds exceeded 100 mph, the statement says.

Police captured Blanton around 9:30 at the Super 8 Motel on South Main Street in Harrisonburg. His car was found in Timberville.

Multiple Charges

Blanton faces three misdemeanors and three felonies, according to the police statement.

All the charges except driving without a license, a misdemeanor, stem from the chase.

Blanton is charged with two counts of reckless driving and eluding a police officer, a felony, and two counts of failure to stop and render assistance at the scene of an accident involving injuries.

Citing the ongoing investigation and a desire to release only confirmed facts, Boshart didn’t give further details of the chase.

“We do want to be forthcoming,” he said. “But I have to make sure the information is factual.”

He wouldn’t say why the gang task force had stopped Blanton, or whether police knew his identity when the chase began.

Other factors, including how fast Latuga was driving when his cruiser left the road, are also still under investigation, police say.

Latuga started with the department in March 2005 and finished his training in November.

Two-Fold Investigation

While Blanton escaped the scene, Boshart said he is the one responsible for the crash.

“The officer came out here with the intent to do his job,” Boshart said. “Jamie Blanton created the situation and, accordingly, he’s being charged.”

But police are also conducting an administrative investigation, the results of which will be public, Boshart said.

The investigation will review Latuga’s decision to pursue the suspect through a residential neighborhood at high speeds.

They will compare the circumstances of the chase to guidelines in police procedures, Boshart said, adding that the department won’t rush to conclusions.

He said it’s easy to criticize split-second decisions after the fact, but that doing so is not necessarily right.

“The decisions we ask officers to make are tough,” he said. “This pursuit was over in 30 seconds. It’s not easy.”

The Virginia Municipal League, which insures the city of Harrisonburg, is also investigating the wreck and the chase.

The investigation is just beginning, and specific details aren’t available, said Tim Ailsworth, the deputy director of the league’s insurance division. But he said the investigation will consider whether Latuga was negligent and whether the chase was within the scope of his job.

The results could help determine whether sovereign immunity, which protects governments from lawsuits, applies in this case, Ailsworth said. Sovereign immunity is based on a decision by the Virginia Supreme Court, Ailsworth said, and allows government agencies to act quickly without being second-guessed.

Two NYPD officers are under arrest tonight for knowingly protecting an illegal business, a brothel in Queens. It was operating at 57-24 164th Street in Flushing.

Eyewitness News reporter Jeff Rossen is live at the courthouse in downtown Brooklyn where the officers appeared before a judge. This is a 30 page complaint and in it there are some serious details about this case and also a confession by the two police officers that they protected this illegal brothel in exchange for money and sexual favors.

Jerry Svoronos clammed up outside court today, a New York City police officer in trouble with the law, along with his partner, officer Dennis Kim.

The trouble started at a house that looks like any other in Flushing. It was, prosecutors say, a Korean brothel, sex for money at all hours of the night.

Sixteen Korean women, all illegal aliens, were arrested along with the alleged brothel owners. Police officers Dennis Kim and Jerry Svoronos were arrested in the sting. They work out of the 109th Precinct in Queens.

Prosecutors say the two cops protected the brothel by keeping the NYPD off its back and even went a step further by raiding competing brothels to keep this one in business, and to keep the cops’ arrest record high.

In the court complaint, officer Kim confesses saying “I wanted to be the number one cop, you know? Because I wasn’t making sergeant, I wasn’t smart enough.”

According to the complaint, the officers accepted a few hundred dollars in cash, sexual services at the brothel and bar bills paid for.

Neighborhood Resident: “It’s disgusting because they are supposed to protect us.”

The officers were released late this afternoon and both of them have been placed on modified duty with the NYPD.

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This is an hidden camera project was carried out by a police watchdog group called “The Police Complaint Center”.

pretty interesting…