By Kathy Haight, The Charlotte Observer
The N.C. Center for Missing Persons has issued a Silver Alert for Betty Martha Triplett, 68, who was last seen on Dysartsville Road in Morganton.
She is believed to be suffering from dementia or some other cognitive impairment. Anyone with information about Triplett should call the Burke County Sheriff’s Office at 828-443-1479.
Increase in community tips is helping them boost their success rate with cases.
From The Charlotte Observer
By Cleve R. Wootson Jr.
Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police announced Friday they have solved 80 percent of homicides they’ve investigated so far in 2010.
The department has investigated 56 killings through Friday. At this point last year, they had 53 homicides, a year in which the department reported record-low crime numbers. Last year’s clearance rate stands at about 91 percent, though investigators have had those cases for more time.
“If you commit a murder here in Charlotte, there’s an eight in 10 chance that you will get caught,” Major Vicki Foster said in a news conference.
Foster attributed the clearance rate to increased efforts by the department to get tips from the community, including hiking the reward for Crime Stoppers to $2,500.
“We’ve had an increase in tips coming in.” In the future, she said, the department will increasingly use social media websites such as Twitter to solicit Crime Stoppers tips.
She also said the department’s assault-with-a-deadly-weapon unit, which was started in 2009, has helped to take violent criminals off the streets.
“Some of that decrease is attributed to the success of the unit.”
On Friday, the department announced it had made an arrest in the death of Derek Dominick Roman, 26, who was killed in the Steele Creek area in November.
Police arrested four men who they say were involved in a drug transaction with Roman.
The men planned to rob Roman instead of buying drugs, police say, and he was shot when he resisted.
Willie Junior Lenon, 22; Zachary Tyler Rogers, 19; Shea Michael Cook, 27; and Jonathan Maurice Smith, 25, are all in Mecklenburg jail charged with murder and robbery.
From The Charlotte Observer
By Joe Marusak
Charlotte-Mecklenburg homicide detectives have arrested four men in the fatal shooting Nov. 18 of Derek Dominick Roman, 26, at the Colonial Grand at Ayrsley apartment complex on Lenox Pointe Drive.
The suspects planned to rob Roman instead of purchasing drugs from him, Officer Robert Fey said today.
When Roman resisted, he was shot, Fey said.
A neighbor found Roman unresponsive inside a third-floor apartment at the complex, which is off South Tryon Street south of Interstate 485. Roman was pronounced dead at the scene, police said.
Police on Thursday arrested Willie Junior Lenon, 22, Zachary Tyler Rogers, 19, and Shea Michael Cook, 27, and charged each with murder, armed robbery and conspiracy to commit armed robbery.
Today, police also arrested Jonathan Maurice Smith, 25, and charged him with murder, armed robbery and conspiracy to commit armed robbery.
From The Charlotte Observer
By Joe Marusak
Police shot a man after responding to a call of a woman being stabbed in a home at 77 Tribune Ave. at 10:15 this morning, city spokesman Peter Franzese said.
NewsChannel 36 PhotoThe home is at the intersection of Tribune Avenue and Dayvault Street.
Police responded after a caller to Concord Communications reported that “a man on drugs was stabbing a female” at that address, Franzese said. The caller was hysterical, he said.
Responding officers confronted one male at the home, and at least one officer shot at him, Franzese said. The male was transported to CMC-NorthEast. No officers were injured, Franzese said.
The SBI was called to investigate the shooting and agents are on the scene, Franzese said. No other details were immediately available.
Incident Highlights Growing Use of Drones Along Border, Though Most Belong to U.S.; Aircraft Returned to Mexico
by Diana Washington Valdez and Daniel Borunda / El Paso Times
A Mexican drone crashed in El Paso’s Lower Valley, sparking a federal investigation and raising questions about why the aircraft was in U.S. airspace.
A U.S. drone used over the Mexican border.
“We are collecting data about the crash. We don’t have the aircraft because it was returned to its owner,” said Keith Holloway, spokesman for the National Transportation Safety Board, which investigates aircraft crashes in the United States and in other countries that request its help.
Though the U.S. is known to use drones to patrol the border, this is thought to be the first time a Mexican drone has been reported operating at the border.
The drone crashed Tuesday on Craddock Avenue, near the intersection with Yarbrough Drive.
Holloway said the aircraft that crossed into U.S. airspace is a mini orbiter unmanned aerial vehicle developed by the Aeronautics Defense System.
According to the developer’s website, the aircraft is designed for use in military and Homeland Security missions. It can be used for reconnaissance missions, low-intensity conflicts and urban warfare.
Officials at the Mexican consul’s office in El Paso did not call back to provide details about what kind of operation the drone was a part of, how long drones have been in use or which government agency controlled it.
Vincent Perez, spokesman for U.S. Rep. Silvestre Reyes, said, “Our office was notified about the incident today (Thursday) after we asked Department of Homeland Security about the press reports on it. We don’t have all the details
yet, but we expect to receive more information.”
Reyes, D-Texas, former chief of the U.S. Border Patrol-El Paso sector, is chairman of the House Select Committee on Intelligence.
Perez said Reyes’ staff was certain that drones were not part of the equipment earmarked for Mexico under the Merida Initiative.
The North American Aerospace Defense Command would not comment on the incident and referred all questions to the Department of Homeland Security and Customs and Border Protection.
In a statement, Jenny L. Burke, spokeswoman for the Department of Homeland Security, said, “We responded to a concerned citizen’s call and recovered a small Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV), which belonged to the Government of Mexico (GOM).
“We worked collaboratively with the GOM and other U.S. federal agencies to coordinate the return of the UAV to (Mexico).”
Neither Department of Homeland Security or U.S. Border Patrol officials would say why the drone was returned to Mexico before investigators with the National Transportation Safety Board could inspect it.
Border Patrol Agent Ramiro Cordero said only that numerous agencies were involved in returning the drone to Mexico on Wednesday.
“It is an ongoing investigation,” Cordero said.
U.S. federal officials also would not disclose the exact address on Craddock Avenue where the crash occurred.
Depending on the exact point of impact, the drone might have been from a third of a mile to a half-mile inside the United States.
The El Paso Police Department was the first agency to confirm that the Mexican drone had crashed in the city.
“I was told that it crashed in somebody’s backyard, and that no one was injured. I was paged at 6:28 p.m. on Tuesday, so it happened shortly before that,” El Paso police Detective Mike Baranyay said. “We were told it was not a police matter.”
Baranyay said the U.S. Border Patrol secured the aircraft, which was transported back to one of the international bridges, where it was returned to Mexican officials.
According to http://www.defenseindustrydaily.com in 2009, Aeronautics Defense Systems of Yavneh, Israel, planned to sell Mexico’s federal police over $22 million worth of its Skystar 300 surveillance aerostats and small Orbiter UAVs.
“Mexico doesn’t make the headlines very often, but the country faces what counter-terrorist analyst John Robb has called a growing ‘open source insurgency’ of narco-traffickers and some leftist groups,” the website said.
An online site that sells weapons (www.israeli-weapons.com/weapons/aircraft/uav/orbiter/Orbiter.html) advertises the same kind of mini UAV that crashed in the Lower Valley.
John Concha, spokesman for the Fire Department, said emergency units were not sent to the crash site because no one was injured.
The crash occurred after sunset on Tuesday in the yard of a house on Craddock Drive near Yarbrough and the César Chávez Border Highway.
The homes in the former agricultural area sit on lots of one to two acres that contain large fields and tall trees.
The neighborhood is separated from Mexico by the Rio Grande, floodlights, the 15- to 18-foot tall rust-colored border fence, a chain-link fence, a line of poles with surveillance cameras and the César Chávez Border Highway.
Border Patrol agents are a part of daily life in the neighborhood, but residents said they were surprised to hear about the crash of a Mexican drone.
A U.S. helicopter flew along the Rio Grande on Thursday afternoon while Bobby Garcia, accompanied by his two dogs, did yard work at his home on Craddock Avenue near Yarbrough Drive.
“The helicopter will roam around once in a while, but nothing like that,” Garcia said after hearing about the drone incident.
Garcia lives less than a half-mile from the border.
“I feel pretty safe, I guess,” Garcia said. “If anybody crosses over, they are just making tracks to get farther north. They don’t stop here.”
Diana Washington Valdez may be reached at dvaldez@elpasotimes.com; 546-6140.
Daniel Borunda may be reached at dborunda@elpasotimes.com; 546-6102.
Robert Przasnyski, 39, and his wife, Heather, died from gunshot wounds outside his home north of Statesville. The shooting was witnessed by a friend who had accompanied Heather Przasnyski to her estranged husband’s house, investigators say.
The Iredell County Sheriff’s Office said investigators believe the officer shot his wife and then himself.
The couple’s two sons, ages 4 and 7, were inside the house, but investigators said they don’t believe the children saw the shooting.
“This is incomprehensible,” Statesville police Chief Tom Anderson told the Statesville Record & Landmark. A spokeswoman for the city said grief counselors were sent to the Statesville Police Department Wednesday.
Authorities say Heather Przasnyski, a beautician, drove to her estranged husband’s house shortly before 6p.m. Tuesday, possibly to pick up their children. The co-worker who witnessed the shootings called 911, and deputies arrived shortly afterward at the house, on Whitetail Road, off Cooper Farm Road.
The couple died at the scene. Relatives are caring for the two boys, authorities said.
Heather’s mother, Cynthia Benton, declined to talk about the shooting and the couple’s relationship but did say her daughter was a good mother.
“She was a sweet girl, and she loved her boys more than anything in this world,” Benton said.
A family member who did not want to be identified said Robert Przasnyski was a good father.
“Every story has two sides,” the family member said. “The whole thing is just horrible. It’s just horribly tragic.”
Robert Przasnyski had worked for the Statesville Police Department since 2006, and his four-year anniversary would have been Saturday. He was paid $38,000 a year, and was in good standing with the department.
He had been suspended once, for a day in 2006, when he failed to put his patrol car in park during a traffic stop and it rolled into another car, according to disciplinary records obtained by the Observer.
Investigators said they didn’t know if the couple was divorced. A check of court records indicates no divorce had been finalized, but investigators told WBTV the couple was in divorce proceedings.
Court records show Heather Przasnyski took her husband to court twice in recent months.
On Sept. 13, she asked a civil court in Iredell County for alimony and child support. That case was pending.
And on Oct. 15, she again sought child support from her husband.
Authorities hadn’t been called to the house until Tuesday, said Sheriff’s Chief Deputy Rick Dowdle. Court records show no arrests or charges against either Przasnyski.
Charlotte Observer Article written by
Observer’s staff researcher Maria David and the Statesville Record & Landmark contributed.
Cards of Sympathy and Donations For the Officers Children Can Be Sent to:
Statesville Police Dept., PO Box 1111, Statesville, NC 28687-1111; Phone # is 704.878.3583
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The 34 Year-Old Father of 2, Who Joined the Highway Patrol in 2001, Was Attending Meeting of the ‘Renegade Pigs’, a Motorcycle Club Made Up of Law Enforcement Officers
From www.digtriad.com
By Chelsi Zash
Gaston County, NC — A trooper with the NC Highway Patrol is in a New York hospital after he was hurt during a freak accident.
Trooper M.J. “Curly” Hastings, 34, was injured after he fell down a flight of stairs at a law enforcement social function in New York City with the Renegade Pigs. The group is a motorcycle club made up of law enforcement officers.
Courtesy: NC State Highway PatrolHastings is unconscious and on life support at Elmhurt Hospital in Queens, NY, according to WBTV. He has had two surgeries to control brain swelling.
The father of two joined the Highway Patrol in August 2001.
From www.digtriad.com
By Chelsi Zash
Alamance County, NC — A father of an abused 2-year-old said his son is improving after being placed in a medically induced coma Saturday.
The boy, now identified as Parker, was found unresponsive when his father returned home from work, according to Alamance County Sheriff’s Office. The father called 911 and the boy was rushed to the hospital.
Christiana Ayscue, 23, is charged with felonious child abuse resulting in serious bodily injury. Ayscue is the girlfriend of toddler’s father and lived with them on Highway 70 near Mebane.
The court documents say that “at the time the defendant inflicted the injury the defendant was providing care for the child as a babysitter.” The documents indicate Ayscue intentionally assaulted the boy, causing multiple skull fractures.
The Sheriff’s Office said Parker was initially placed in a medically induced coma because of the cranial injuries and swelling of his brain.
As of Tuesday night, he was taken off medication to allow him to awake from the induced coma. Parker’s prognosis is more positive, according to investigators.
The boy’s father, Josh Haynes, said his family is grateful for the support and prayers by the community.
Ayscue remains in the Alamance County Jail under a $750,000 bond.
WFMY News 2
From The Rock Hill Herald
Former Rock Hill Police Chief John Hunsucker Jr., who helped guide the city through the difficult period of civil rights and developed a reputation as a peacemaker, has died after a stroke following a battle with a lung disease. He was 83.
Hunsucker, who died Wednesday, was chief from 1966 to 1979, after working his way up from patrol, said one of his sons, Mike Hunsucker.
After his retirement, Hunsucker served in the 1980s as interim York County sheriff after an appointment from Gov. Dick Riley.
“His whole life was dedicated to protecting and serving people,” Mike Hunsucker said. “He was always working. He loved being a police officer.”
Hunsucker was known to the community as a fair man who earned the respect of the officers who worked for him, said Det. Jerry Waldrop, one of just two officers remaining at the Rock Hill Police Department who started careers under Hunsucker.
Hunsucker hired officers, black or white, based on ability.
“John Hunsucker was a great man and a great chief,” Waldrop said. “He was extremely fair. He was a man who knew how to listen and treat all people the same way.”
During the turbulent late-1950s and 1960s, Hunsucker was often the police officer assigned to handle civil rights demonstrations. He had to make arrests under what were, at the time, state and local laws that forced segregation.
Yet Hunsucker often, at public demonstrations, was the wall that separated angry anti-civil rights protesters from peaceful demonstrators, said his son.
“My father later became friends with many of those people demonstrating, and he stood with them many times protecting their safety,” Mike Hunsucker said. “He understood their position.”
Hunsucker was the police officer who stepped in after Freedom Riders were beaten at the Rock Hill Greyhound bus station in 1961.
David “Scoop” Williamson – one of the “Friendship Nine” black protesters in 1961, who chose 30 days in jail rather than being bailed out after being arrested for sitting at segregated McCrory’s lunch counter on Rock Hill’s Main Street – said the system was the problem, not police officers such as Hunsucker who were only enforcing unjust laws.
The protesters knew they would be arrested, and Hunsucker, a veteran officer by 1961, had been ordered by city officials to arrest and even re-arrest if it would keep the peace in the city.
“My condolences go out to Mr. Hunsucker’s family,” Williamson said. “That was a long time ago and times were different. No police officer was the problem then, and I know Mr. Hunsucker served this city for a long time and served all people – black and white – for a long time.
“I, for one, appreciate his service to all of us.”
Funeral services will be private.
From www.wsoctv.com
INMAN, S.C. — A 20-year-old man was found dead in a drainage pipe, days after his wrecked car was found nearby, authorities said.
Investigators are trying to determine how Patricio Fransisco-Franco of Chesnee ended up in the culvert, several hundred feet from his car.
Coroner Rusty Clevenger said Fransisco-Franco was found late Tuesday and identified from fingerprints. He said brush around the culvert may have hampered finding his body. An autopsy is planned.
The Highway Patrol said Fransisco-Franco’s car went off the road on a curve about 4 a.m. Saturday, hit a mailbox and fence and overturned.
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