A fire drill is certainly a better situation than what happened in January 2004 when I was at the City-County building in Indianapolis. A co-worker and I had driven down to Indy from South Bend and had just exited an elevator on the 5th floor near the circuit court. The alarm sounded and a sheriff’s deputy came running by to announce that the alarm wasn’t a drill. My co-worker and I found a stairwell with an emergency alarm bar that immediately sounded as soon as we opened the door. As we entered the stairwell, we could see police officers running up the stairs as streams of people were traveling down to the first level to evacuate. We could smell smoke — never a good thing. It turned out there was a trash fire in the basement. The evacuation was orderly and we were given the “all-clear” after watching firemen enter and exit the building after about a half-hour.

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Technorati Tags: fire drill, urban peril

That’s the headline after a wild police chase through the streets of Hialeah, Florida — a Miami suburb –endangered innocent citizens and responding police officers.

Why was the suspect — who remains innocent until proven guilty in a court of law — captured after expending so much effort to escape from law enforcement?  Saggy pants prevented him from sprinting quickly across a busy Miami street after bailing out from his moving car.

Next time you’re running from the police after bailing from a moving car, make sure that you’ve fastened your belt. Otherwise, you’re going to feel the 50,000 volts of the taser gun. Better yet, don’t run from the police. They have radios and helicopters and they’re going to catch you sooner or later.

Video: Saggy pants foil escape after wild Florida police chase

Video: Car chase suspect tasered after wild chase through Miami area streets

Note that the raw video tells the story fairly quickly, but isn’t the packaged new story aired on the Miami television more exciting with the addition of the high energy sound track? It almost makes the raw video of the police chase and subsequent tasering a little boring.

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Technorati Tags: helicopter, Hialeah Florida, Miami, police chase, taser, urban peril

Fairfield police and other agencies are searching for the gunman who shot Matt Garcia and California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has offered a $50,000 reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the suspect.

While police search for a suspect, friends of Matt Garcia had nothing but praise for the 22-year-old who sought to make a difference in his community.  Said friend Ryan Kelly in a San Francisco Chronicle report: “Most kids in Fairfield couldn’t give a damn about this city, but Matt loved Fairfield.”

“I don’t know what it was, but he thought this was our place, and he was going to make it better no matter what,” said Ryan Kelly.

Video: Friends say Matt Garcia was targeted because of his anti-gang efforts 

Video: Friends and supporters remember Fairfield Councilman Matt Garcia

If the allegations are true about those who attacked Fairfield Councilman Matt Garcia, it reminds people that gangs and criminals are terrorists among us who are willing to destroy the fabric of our nation for their own interests.

However, some questions have been raised about the suspect’s description, reports CBS 5 KPIX.

Police continued searching for the gunman, who fired multiple shots at Garcia while he was talking in a female friend’s driveway in the 5000 block of Silverado Drive on Monday night.

Sources close to the investigation told CBS 5 on Friday that Garcia’s friend, Jennifer Tarbell, had offered police three different accounts of what happened that night and provided detectives a “questionable suspect description.”

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Technorati Tags: Matt Garcia, urban peril

Video: Workers rescued from side of Indianapolis skyscraper

The rescue came a day after window washers left dangling outside of their Miami, Florida building were also rescued in a similar way.

Miami window washers are rescued by firefighters

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Technorati Tags: urban peril