Man Injured While Saving Pet From Pit Bull

  By NewsChannel 36 Staff; www.WCNC.com

  August 5, 2010

  ALBEMARLE, N.C. — An Albemarle man is recovering after he and his dog were attacked by a pit bull.

Gene Atkins is recovering after he and his dog were attacked by a pit bull.

 Gene Atkins told NewsChannel 36 he was walking his dog down the street when a neighbor’s pit bull escaped from its yard and attacked his dog.

 Atkins said he tried to get the pit bull off his dog by prying its jaws open with his hands.

 ”He would have chewed her all to pieces if I hadn’t grabbed him,” Atkins said. “And me and him was rolling around on the highway, and I was holding on to him.”

 Atkins was treated at a local hospital for cuts to his face and hands. His dog was taken to a local vet and is expected to be OK.

 The pit bull is under quarantine for the next 10 days while Stanly County Animal Control investigates.

Gun Range Owner Wins Fight Against Town

 By TONY BURBECK / NewsChannel 36
E-mail Tony: TBurbeck@WCNC.com;www. WCNC.com

August 4, 2010

WESLEY CHAPEL, N.C. — A shooting range owner won his two-year battle with the Village of Wesley Chapel after the North Carolina Court of Appeals ruled in his favor.

Wesley Chapel’s fight against Dr. Michael Land cost the town an estimated $80,000, officials said. Town leaders will meet Monday to decide what’s next.

Neighbors say the land use issue might be over, but not their attempts to shut down the shooting range over safety concerns.

The National Rifle Association examined the range and said it met or exceeded industry standards and posed no threat to the neighborhood. A separate study by an engineer on behalf of neighbors disputes the NRA’s findings.

It sounds like warfare in the middle of Kathy Patterson’s slice of heaven in horse farm laden Union County.

“You can’t sit in your backyard and talk to somebody sitting next to you. You have to yell,” Patterson said.

Machine guns at Land’s shooting range fire up to 900 rounds a minute next to Patterson’s house.

“It shakes your house,” Patterson said. “I have a right to be safe on my property.”

Wesley Chapel town leaders agreed.

It slapped a cease and desist order on the range, saying it was illegal because it violated land use laws and didn’t have permits when it was built back in 1988. The town also passed a firearms ordinance — due mostly to Land’s range — prohibiting gunfire within 450 feet of homes, businesses or schools.

Two years ago Land said he would fight the town tooth and nail. He did — and he won.

The North Carolina Court of Appeals ruled Tuesday that Land complied with all rules, didn’t need a permit, didn’t alter the range’s use and is grandfathered in, meaning the firearms ordinance town leaders passed doesn’t apply to Land’s range.

The town spent about $80,000 fighting Land in court. That was neighbor Garry Hager’s tax money.

“I hate to see my tax dollars go to that but I understand why they probably had to,” Hager said.

Patterson says she’s not done fighting. “There are other issues we’re pursuing,” she said.

Town leaders plan to talk about their defeat next Monday and decide if it is still a battle worth trying to take to the North Carolina Supreme Court.
 
The Land family says it will be at Wesley Chapel’s meeting Monday, victorious and gloating.

“I will speak my peace, too,” Patterson said.

Land says he is happy the court upheld his property rights and says he spent about $42,000 fighting Wesley Chapel.

Thieves Avoid Jail Time by Keeping Loot Value Low

 by GLENN COUNTS / NewsChannel 36
E-mail Glenn: GCounts@WCNC.com; www.WCNC.com

 Posted on August 4, 2010

  CHARLOTTE, N.C. — If you work in a local office building you may have seen Michael Williams and Wesley Patterson. If you work in the jail, you have definitely seen the pair.

 Williams and Patterson have been arrested 150 times between the two of them, but never stay in jail long because they never steal enough to be charged with a felony.

 ”That’s pretty frustrating. You would think they are gaming the system,” says Aaron Case, an office employee.

 Sgt. Travis Pardue with the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department says office complexes like the ones across from SouthPark Mall, Carmel Crossings and buildings in uptown have been targeted.

 Pardue says the suspects are smooth. They dress and act the part.

 ”Appearing to fit in, at least not creating any initial suspicions,” explains Pardue.

 Brian Dickerson, a salesman, says the suspects would have slipped by him.

 ”In a big office space people just assume you’re supposed to be there,” Dickerson says. “I don’t think I would be suspicious.”

 Dickerson says he thinks that puts businesses at a disadvantage.

 ”You don’t want to lock yourself off from the rest of the world and scare everybody. You want a friendly business environment,” he explains.

 Police say even in an open environment it’s important to secure your personal belongings, like purses, wallets, cell phones and computers.

 Officers also say it’s important to challenge strangers who come into an office, and if Williams and Patterson are in your building, police suggest you call 911.

New York Sex Offender Caught in Women’s Bathrooms in Charlotte, NC

Sex offender caught in women’s bathrooms

 by NewsChannel 36 Staff, http://www. WCNC.com

 August 5, 2010

 CHARLOTTE, N.C. – Police say a convicted sex offender from New York has been found in women’s restrooms in uptown Charlotte.

 A security guard at the Bank of America Corporate Center on N. Tryon Street found Todd Daniel Miller, 43, in the women’s restroom on July 19 and called police.

 She told the officers that she recognized him because she found him hiding in the same bathroom on July 15. 

 Miller was arrested and charged with trespassing and disorderly conduct.  He has been banned from Bank of America by the security company.

2 Dead, Dozens Hurt in School Bus Crash in Missouri

By JIM SALTER, Associated Press Writer – August 4, 2010

GRAY SUMMIT, Mo. – Two buses carrying high school band students to an amusement park Thursday slammed into a freeway wreck that happened right in front of them, crushing a pickup truck and killing its driver and one of the students. Dozens of other students were treated for injuries.

AP – Rescue personnel work at the scene of an accident involving two school buses and a tractor-trailer Thursday, …

The wreck near Gray Summit, about 40 miles west of St. Louis, happened when the pickup truck rear-ended a semi cab that had slowed down because it was nearing a construction zone, state police said. The first bus, which was carrying female band members from John F. Hodge High in St. James, slammed into the back of the pickup, then was launched on top of it after it was rear-ended by the second bus, State Highway Patrol Cpl. Jeff Wilson said.

Slideshow:Deadly school bus crash near St. Louis

At least 42 students were taken to hospitals, most with injuries not considered life-threatening.

The students were on their way to a Six Flags amusement park some 10 miles from the crash site.

“My goodness. You send your children off to Six Flags, you don’t expect this to happen,” Missouri State Highway Patrol Sgt. Dan Crain said. “Being parents, we cannot imagine how difficult this is.”

Joy Tucker, the superintendent of the St. James school system, said the town was devastated.

“It’s been a horrible, horrible day in our community, and we’ll never get over this.”

Ashley Wiehle, a spokeswoman for SSM Cardinal Glennon Children’s Medical Center in St. Louis, said 36 children were taken to that hospital, and that each appeared to be in good condition. They were to be examined as a precaution, Wiehle said.

Six more children were taken to St. John’s Mercy Medical Center but their injuries and their conditions were not known, hospital spokeswoman Bethany Pope said. One of those victims later was flown by helicopter to Cardinal Glennon because that hospital had a higher-level pediatric trauma unit.

Four other victims were taken with minor injuries to St. Clare Health Center in Fenton, Mo., a spokeswoman said.

Highway Patrol Cpl. Jeff Wilson said the driver of the first bus moved into the passing lane to give a distressed vehicle in the shoulder more room. She was checking her rearview mirror while returning to the right-hand lane when she noticed the first impact but could not stop in time, hitting the pickup. The second bus then rear-ended the first, vaulting the first bus onto the top of the pickup, which was crushed.

The buses were segregated by gender, with girls in the first and boys on the other, Wilson said.

The pickup was barely recognizable in the tangled wreckage. Hours later, crews using a crane gently lifted the buses off of the crushed wreckage to try to clear the freeway, which was closed going eastbound. Traffic backed up in that direction for as much as 10 miles.

Wilson said it was too soon to say if any of the drivers would face charges.

___

Associated Press writers Jim Suhr in St. Louis, Chris Blank in Jefferson City, and Heather Hollingsworth and Bill Draper in Kansas City contributed to this report.

Obama Restores Rank of Disgraced Vietnam General

By PAULINE JELINEK and ROBERT BURNS, Associated Press Writers  – Wed Aug 4, 2010

WASHINGTON – More than 30 years after his death, an Air Force general has been exonerated of charges that he violated presidential restrictions on aerial bombing during the Vietnam War and that he ordered the falsification of records to conceal the missions.

AP – In this 1972 file photo, Gen. John D. Lavelle, right, talks with then Senate Armed Services Committee 

John D. Lavelle was forced to retire in April 1972 at the rank of major general — two stars below the rank he held as commander of air operations in Vietnam — after being relieved of duty for ordering unauthorized airstrikes against North Vietnamese military targets.

He maintained his innocence during congressional hearings held after his dismissal.

He died in 1979.

The story took a new twist in 2007 with the publication in Air Force Magazine of an article by a retired Air Force general, Aloysius Casey, and his son, Patrick Casey. They used declassified documents and transcripts of President Richard Nixon’s Oval Office audio tapes to show that Nixon had secretly authorized more aggressive bombing in North Vietnam in February 1972.

The Caseys also wrote that such attacks had been authorized in late 1971 and early 1972 by top U.S. officers, including Adm. Thomas H. Moorer, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Army Gen. Creighton T. Abrams, the overall U.S. military commander in South Vietnam.

Lavelle’s family petitioned the Air Force to correct his record and restore his rank. It said the decision in 1972 to relieve him of duty was based on “woefully incomplete” evidence.

The family’s legal petition to the Air Force said the Nixon tapes show that “he was a ‘scapegoat’ and in fact had acted within the authority expressly granted to him by the president and communicated to him through classified communications between the chief of Pacific Command, the secretary of defense and others.”

A copy of the petition and other legal documents in the case were obtained by The Associated Press on Wednesday.

In 2008 the Air Force Board for the Correction of Military Records found no evidence that Lavelle caused, directly or indirectly, the falsification of records or that he was even aware of their existence.

The board also agreed with the family’s assertion that the 1972 decision had been based on incomplete information and that the White House and others withheld important facts.

“After thoroughly reviewing the evidence of record and noting the applicant’s contentions, we find sufficient evidence the retirement grade in which the member was nominated was the result of material error — an incomplete record,” the board concluded.

It added: “It is clear the White House, the Department of Defense and the Joint Chiefs of Staff all possessed evidence which, if released, would have exonerated him.”

In a written statement Wednesday, the Air Force said its board found that once Lavelle learned about the falsified reports — which pertained to false claims of hostile fire by North Vietnamese forces — he took action to ensure that the practice was stopped.

The Air Force board recommended, in light of the new information, that Lavelle be reinstated to the rank of general. Defense Secretary Robert Gates endorsed the recommendation and President Barack Obama has asked the Senate to confirm Lavelle to the rank of general.

The Lavelle family issued a statement Wednesday praising the decision to exonerate the general.

“The president’s nomination is a major milestone in the effort to publicly restore General Lavelle’s outstanding record of military service, his honor and his good name,” it said.

Lavelle’s widow, Mary Jo Lavelle, 91, thanked all involved.

“Jack was a good man, a good husband, a good father and a good officer,” she said. “I wish he was alive to hear this news.”