Officer Matt Steed's partner loves illegal drugs. When she's at work, getting that next fix is the only thing on her mind. So it's not surprising that she spends a lot of time in the back of a police car. Her name is Kelli. She's a 3-year-old chocolate Labrador retriever, a drug-sniffing canine cop. Steed is Kosciusko's K-9 officer. "She can find all types of drugs," Steed said, naming a wide range of substances, from marijuana and methamph-etamine to heroin and ecstasy -- even money. "She's real alert, energetic and nosy ... just a typical Lab." [continues 611 words]
Vancouver police Chief Jamie Graham has "cut the baby in half" with a decision worthy of Solomon, says a Simon Fraser University ethics expert. But Mark Wexler, a professor of applied ethics, says Graham's decision to fire two of the six police officers involved in the beating of three drug dealers in Stanley Park won't end up satisfying anyone. "These are what I call 'dirty-hands' decisions, which means you're damned if you do and damned if you don't," said Wexler. "He's essentially saying, 'With the wisdom of Solomon we can indeed cut the baby in half.'" [continues 432 words]
Attorney General Defers Plan For New Drug-Crime Bureau FRANKFORT, Ky. -- Gov. Ernie Fletcher's proposed budget for the next two years would restore cuts that Fletcher made in this year's budgets of local prosecutors and Attorney General Greg Stumbo, and Stumbo has agreed to defer his plan for a Kentucky Bureau of Investigation. Stumbo said his willingness to shelve creation of the bureau, his major campaign promise, wasn't "the critical part" of getting the funding restored and some more money added, but "I'm sure it didn't hurt." [continues 865 words]
Police forces will continue to launch zero tolerance operations against the possession of cannabis, despite its legal downgrading, if trading in the drug creates local law and order problems. The legal change in the drug's status - from Class B to Class C - has been accompanied by a presumption that adults caught in possession of small amounts will lose the drugs but will not be arrested. However, local police commanders could still arrest those in possession at certain times to remove the market for suppliers involved in violence and intimidation. [continues 589 words]
A TOP Scotland Yard officer today fuels the row over the downgrading of cannabis by dismissing as "pointless" the way police have had to arrest people caught with the drug. Sir Ian Blair, deputy Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, said it had been "grossly inefficient" and placed too much of a burden on individual police officers on patrol. In a letter to The Times, Sir Ian discloses that the new regime for enforcing the cannabis laws is based on the Metropolitan Polices advice to Ministers and officials in the Home Office. [continues 652 words]
This year's fictitious Bud Bowl has a different match-up: Instead of a tussle between animated helmet-wearing Budweiser bottles and its arch-rival Bud Light, the company will be taking on a real world rival - - a White House that claims drinking leads to drug use. Over the past twenty years, since what AdWeek.com calls the "electrifying introduction of Apple's Macintosh which transformed the final showdown of the football season into the greatest advertising event of the year," the National Football League's Super Bowl has become Super Sunday for advertising agencies and multinational corporations. Nearly as remarkable as the game itself are the advertisements which keep some viewers from hitting their remotes, especially during one-sided games like last year's Tampa Bay Buccaneers' rout of the Oakland Raiders. [continues 1293 words]
FORT VALLEY - Maj. Terry Deese said Tuesday that a bid for sheriff is the next step in his 21-year career at the Peach County Sheriff's Office. Deese, 49, second in command as chief deputy at the sheriff's office, announced his candidacy Tuesday. Long-term Peach County Sheriff Johnnie Becham is retiring. The run for sheriff will mark Deese's first entry into the political arena. He'll run on the Democratic ticket in the July 20 primary. Qualifying is April 26-30. The sheriff's election is Nov. 2. [continues 458 words]
What can I say? I guess it's starting to feel a bit like Miami around here these days. I was out when my partner left the house at 3:30 Saturday afternoon to do a bit of shopping. I got home from a meeting exactly 30 minutes later. When I drove into the carport, I saw that our back door was open. I called out and headed for the back deck. One pane of glass was broken right next to the back door lock and glass was scattered across the kitchen floor, surrounding a rock the size of a potato. One of our cats was asleep on a chair. [continues 620 words]
