truesee's Blog

ROSE COOPER
County Editor
2/14/2009 1:05:00 AM 

Clinton County Juvenile Court Magistrate Roger Bowling will soon be back on the bench.

Bowling, 58, who was charged Dec. 9 with two misdemeanor charges of possession of marijuana and possession of drug paraphernalia, appeared Jan. 23 in Hillsboro Municipal Court where the case was transferred after Clinton County Municipal Court Judge Chad L. Carey stepped aside. Judge David McKenna, of Hillsboro Municipal Court, and Prosecutor Fred Beery, brought the case against Bowling.

A spokesperson in the Clinton County Municipal Court said the possession of drug paraphernalia was dismissed with prejudice under a plea agreement. For the possession of marijuana charge, the court ordered a $158 bond forfeiture.

A Wilmington resident, Bowling was charged after Wilmington police executed a search warrant at his home for illegal narcotics. Police detectives found marijuana, marijuana seeds and stems, pipes with residue, rolling papers and burnt marijuana cigarettes, according to a media release from the Wilmington Police Department.

At the time the charges were filed, police said anonymous tips led to a three-month investigation. During the investigation, detectives “developed probable cause,” said police, prompting the issuance of the search warrant.

After he was charged, Bowling was removed from the bench and initially placed on paid administrative leave, according to Clinton County Juvenile Court Administrator David Hockaday.

Clinton County Probate Judge Allen Gano said Bowling was later placed on leave without pay.

Judge Gano said Bowling has gone through the steps required under the county’s drug policy. “The drug policy urges us to take steps to rehabilitate,” he said.

Bowling began rehabilitation “on his own initiative,” Gano said. “He was taking the steps that fit into the county policy. We followed that from the beginning. I’m pleased with the way he has dealt with it. I’m satisfied at the sincerity of his efforts. As the county policy would have us do, he will get a second chance,” the judge said.

There was never an indication in any of Bowling’s work performance there was a problem, Gano said.

Bowling is expected to return to the bench at the end of February or beginning of March. “This is the right thing to do under the circumstances,” Gano said. “After a good deal of consideration and discussion with him, it was an appropriate decision. He’s done the rehabilitation and I’m satisfied he will be able to perform.”

Gano said the magistrate’s decisions are always reviewed by the judge.

Bowling has served as a Clinton County magistrate for more than 10 years.

As juvenile court magistrate, Bowling oversees a number of juvenile cases, most of them traffic offenses, said Hockaday. Bowling also handles a variety of other cases, including juvenile misdemeanor drug cases.

NEW PORT RICHEY -- A 74-year-old woman went into Publix on Wednesday morning to cash in her lottery money. Then, according to authorities, three people followed her out of the store, rear-ended her car and took off with her purse -- and her $580 winnings.

Police say the burglars left the televisions, a laptop computer and a jewelry box by the door and took off on foot.

The sheriff's office said no arrests had been made.

Quick thinking, 'extraordinary heroism' prevent loss of life in blazing house

Gus G. Sentementes

The Baltimore Sun

February 14, 2009

The screams of a neighbor, a man Dawn Ryan knew only in passing, woke her about 3:30 a.m. yesterday. Looking out a window, she saw his house on fire and yelled to her husband, Jack, who called 911 and then bolted out of their Perry Hall home in his pajamas.

About the same time, Stacey Cosentino awoke to a bright orange glow beaming into her bedroom window. As her eyes adjusted, she realized her next-door neighbors' rear deck was on fire. She, too, prodded awake her husband, Richard, who jumped out of bed and ran outside.

In the middle of the night, as smoke, heat and flames buffeted them, the two men embarked on a remarkable rescue with just their hands, quick thinking and an aluminum ladder.

They saved four members of an extended family they hardly knew in the seven minutes before the first Baltimore County firefighters arrived.

"Extraordinary heroism" - that's how the Fire Department's spokeswoman described their acts, which helped rescue the family: 5-year-old Colin Chen; 7-year-old Jade Chen; father Liang "John" Chen; his wife, Chun Chen; grandfather Yan Chen; and grandmother Yu Chen.

All six were hospitalized, but the children were released from the hospital last night. The adults remained in critical condition last night; the grandfather suffered the worst injuries.

At one point, Jack Ryan ran into the burning house to rescue the grandfather, who had rushed back into the house to save his wife and grandson. Ryan found him collapsed in the foyer and yelled to Cosentino to help carry him out.

"I tried to stop him, but he ran in," Ryan, a teacher for the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, Local 24, said at his house hours after the rescue.

Sitting next to him was Cosentino, his left sneaker bearing a smear of the grandfather's blood.

"That was just the most horrible experience," said Cosentino, 42, an assistant dean at George Washington University's School of Engineering and Applied Science. "I can't even believe it."

The fire, which remained under investigation, destroyed the two-story Colonial-style home in the 5000 block of Forge Haven Drive in the Glenside Farms development. Most of the rear wall and the roof burned away or collapsed. State property records show that Yan Chen and his wife bought the house in 2002.

The flames were so intense that the exteriors of three neighboring houses were also damaged.

Elise Armacost, the Fire Department spokeswoman, said the family of six was in the home when the fire broke out. The mother, daughter and grandfather escaped on their own, though the grandfather was critically injured when he ran back inside.

Encountering one another outside the burning house, Cosentino and Ryan spotted the grandmother and boy pleading for help from a second-story front window. They yelled to her to drop the child to them but she was too scared. Perhaps overcome by heat and smoke, she at last let the boy fall into their arms, the men said.

Moments later, the woman jumped, and the men caught her. Neither woman nor child was injured in the jumps.

"That's the only picture I see right now - their faces mashed against the glass," Cosentino said.

Next, Ryan discovered that the grandfather had run back into the house, and he and Cosentino carried the unconscious man out.

Moments later, the neighbors saw the father, John Chen, standing outside a second-story window on a ledge. Dawn Ryan got an aluminum ladder, which the neighbors propped against the house for the man to climb down to safety.

The grandfather and mother were taken to the burn unit at Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical Center. Colin and Jade were sent to Johns Hopkins Children's Center. Their father and grandmother went to Maryland Shock Trauma Center but were later transferred to Hopkins.

The Ryans, who have lived in the neighborhood for six years, and the Cosentinos, who have lived there for five, said they didn't know the Chen family well. But when they saw them facing disaster, they didn't hesitate to rush to help.

"We just knew it was the right thing to do," said Dawn Ryan. "This is what neighbors do."

05:30 PM PST

DEBORAH FELDMAN 

KING 5 News

02/12/ 09

Toddler drives car into building

TACOMA, Wash. – A four-year-old boy went on a wild ride in his mom’s parked car after he managed to slip it into gear all by himself.

It happened Thursday morning at 38th Street and South Tacoma Way.

Police say the mother and her boyfriend left the boy in his car seat in the back seat as they went into a Money Tree payday loan store. The mother took the keys with her.

Somehow, the little boy unbuckled himself, climbed into the front and put the car in neutral.

The car went rolling backwards, out of the parking lot and onto a very busy 38th Street. The car did a big U-turn and ended up crashing through the front of a CompuCare store.

"First thing I did was thank God we weren't open yet because, usually, there's someone sitting by the window that the kid ran through,” said assistant manager Jeremy Franklin.

A salon next door was open and employees there heard everything.

"We heard just like this crashing sound. And like glass shattering and stuff,” said salon worker Rachael Long.

They ran outside and saw the 1995 Cadillac with a little boy inside who just wanted out.

"He just jumped out of the car, jumped into her arms, and is just sobbing,” said Long.

Tacoma Police say an officer is still writing up a report and that it is illegal to leave a child unattended inside a vehicle.

The Department of Social and Health Services says it doesn’t think it has had any contact with the family before, but it will look into the incident.

Petersburg police Detective Claiborne Hamilton (left) and Petersburg police Sgt. Chris Walker’s relationship was confirmed recently by a DNA test.

MELODIE N. MARTIN

Richmond TIMES-DISPATCH

STAFF WRITER
February 12, 2009

For most of his life, an unsolved mystery lingered in the back of Petersburg police Sgt. Chris Walker's mind.

Then one day at work, he began hearing a name that rang familiar: Claiborne Hamilton -- a Richmond police veteran and newly hired detective at the Petersburg Bureau of Police.

The name was similar to one revealed, after the death of the grandmother who had raised Walker, as that of his real father. Walker researched the name on the Internet but didn't find anyone who fit the profile.

But Detective Clay Hamilton did.

Following up on his hunch, Walker visited Hamilton's desk and casually asked him some questions. He found that Hamilton was 53, about the right age and -- matching up with his mother's account -- grew up in the Richmond area, hung out with people in Goochland County and dated a girl named Billie Joe.

Walker, 37, spoke to his mother on the phone that night and told her generally about Hamilton. She insisted that his father's first name was Clayton, not Claiborne.

Walker then asked if she knew a Billie Joe Walker.

"There was a pause on the phone, and she said, 'That's your dad,'" Walker said, referring to Hamilton. Billie Joe was his mother's old nickname, coming from Bobbie Gentry's 1967 song "Ode to Billie Joe."

Walker then called Hamilton and told him, "I think you're my father."

"It shocked me, but I always believed that there may have been a possibility at the time," Hamilton said. "When I first talked to him on the phone, I cried."

Results of a DNA test came back a week and a half ago and confirmed that the two Petersburg police officers, who never met each other before working together, are father and son.

Hamilton said he had a brief romance with Walker's mother when he was 15. She was a few years older and separated from her husband at the time.

Hamilton said he lost touch with her after she became pregnant, went back to her husband and moved away. He said he tried to locate her and the baby he suspected was his son, but was unsuccessful.

Despite the separation, Hamilton and Walker followed similar paths in life, including stints in the military and choosing to work for urban police departments despite growing up in the suburbs.

They have spent the past month getting to know each other's families: Walker's wife and 5-year-old son, and Hamilton's wife, 12-year-old son, 35-year-old daughter and granddaughter, 8. They plan to have a family get-together that will include Walker's mother.

"I feel like we've got a lot of time that we've missed. Of course you can't ever make up for lost time. We're going to do what we can to make it up," Hamilton said.

Walker credits faith, as well as fate, for bringing them together.

"There's no hard feelings from me because I knew he did everything he could to locate me. He's my dad, and I love him, and I look forward to a lot of years with him," Walker said. "God works in mysterious ways."

A regular customer at a San Francisco bank was arrested after he allegedly robbed the branch and left his ATM card behind, police said Thursday.

Daudet Muimpe, 33, walked into the Bank of America at 500 Battery St. about 3:45 p.m. Monday and asked a teller for help with his ATM card, authorities said.

Thu Feb 12, 4:27 pm ET

6:27 am EST February 11, 2009

CAPE HAZE, Fla. (AP) -- Authorities said they've arrested an Englewood East man who apparently forgot to fill up when he was robbing a gas station.

The Charlotte County Sheriff's Office said 23-year-old David Eric Hampton used a Bowie knife to rob a Cape Haze gas station early Sunday. Deputies say Hampton pulled the 12-inch blade and demanded money. But when he left, a customer followed him and called 911.

While deputies were looking for signs of the robber, a newspaper carrier told them that a man in a car matching the one from the robbery had run out of gas nearby.

Hampton was arrested several hours after the robbery and charged with robbery with a weapon and loitering/prowling. He was released Monday on $10,500 bail.

LAFAYETTE, Colo. (AP) - A man who reached into his pocket to pay for lunch at a hospital cafeteria in Lafayette accidentally shot himself with the gun in his pocket. Police and officials at Exempla Good Samaritan Medical Center said it was an unfortunate accident.

Officials said 59-year-old Steve Tapp of Thornton was treated at the hospital and released. No one else was hurt.

Officials said Tapp, who was visiting family at the hospital, shot himself in the right thigh Tuesday. Security guards responded and took the gun.

Tapp faces possible misdemeanor charges of unlawfully carrying a concealed weapon, prohibited use of a weapon and reckless endangerment.

The hospital forbids guns, although no sign was posted Tuesday stating the policy.