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Jul
23
CourtView alerted chop shop sting suspects
Filed Under crime, Gary Police, Lake County, police | 1 Comment
Lake County, Indiana police running a sting operation to capture auto theft suspects ran into trouble when the Lake County court’s computer system called CourtView showed warrants were issued in the case.
The Post-Tribune reports that suspects were alerted that warrants had been issued when they received letters from attorneys who had been alerted by CourtView to existence of a new criminal cases. It is a common practice for Lake County attorneys to send out letters to potential clients to advise of their services when a new case is filed in court.
Writes Chelsea Schneider Kirk in Procedural blunder may have hampered sting:
As the Lake County Sheriff’s Department lauded a nine-month auto theft sting leading to charges against at least 20 people, a Gary Police Department official close to the investigation said warrants left unsealed for the suspects created problems for officers.
“They were already getting letters from attorneys,” Gary Police Cpl. William Clouse said. “You know what, we’ve never had an issue like this where … the information was out.”
The upshot is that police arrested at least 20 suspects, according to news reports.
Mar
6
8 shot in Gary. Social media breaks story.
Filed Under crime, Facebook, Gary Indiana, Gary Police, social networking, Twitter | 9 Comments
Northwest Indiana social media reports about a shooting at a Gary skating rink on Friday beat the traditional news media to the story.
Local Twitter user Gioperation asks the local newspaper about reports that were circulating on Facebook and Twitter that eight children were shot at a Gary, Indiana skating rink about 10 a.m. Saturday morning:
@nwi any truth to the 8 kids shot last night at the Gary skating rink- couldn’t find it in your newspaper online.
A search of the local newspapers in Northwest Indiana and Chicago Breaking News on Saturday morning showed no reports of the Friday evening shooting.
Writes Gioperation about not finding the news of the skating rink shooting this morning:
@Chris_Hedges do you know why there is not reports of the shooting last night at the skate rink in Gary last night- buzzing on FB!
Gioperation in a response to one of my questions said that he had first heard of the Gary skating rink shootings via Facebook:
@Chris_Hedges Here is the one that started it all – http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?v=feed&story_fbid=361015320488&id=1207179871
About 5 p.m. this evening, the Northwest Indiana Times reports the Gary, Indiana skating rink shooting incident via the Associated Press.
Authorities say eight teenage boys were shot while leaving a Gary skating rink where they were attending a concert.
The AP report about the 8 teens shot at the skating rink originated at the Post-Tribune sometime today:
Gary Police Cpl. Gabrielle King said Saturday “all chaos broke loose” when a fight broke out during the event and security advised attendees to leave Skate World, 4415 W. 5th Ave. in the Commons shopping center.
King said no arrests have been made. …
Police identified the wounded as: Shaquille Hughes, 15, shot in right side; Marcus Ratliff,14, shot in right wrist; Justin Bodley, 16, shot in the leg; Junan Washington, 18, shot in left ankle; DaVonte Biddings, 16, shot once in back; Marquel Croock, 16, shot in stomach; Kesean Philon, 14, shot in left leg; Stephan Danzy, 17, shot in left leg.
