Edition 4-2-05

 

Response to 911 call

Thank you for allowing me to respond to your recent e-mail concerning the way in which the State Police at Troop E in Montville responded to 911 calls reporting the tragic accident that claimed the life of Justin Sawyer. Everyone at the Department of Public Safety feels deeply sorry for the Sawyer family’s loss and sincerely regrets the remarks that were made to the 911 callers by Trooper Robert Peasley. I also appreciate and understand your reaction to the Trooper’s handling of the calls. Please let me explain the actions I’ve taken and the reasons for doing so.

After learning of the incident, the Commanding Officer of the Connecticut State Police ordered the Internal Affairs Unit to investigate the circumstances surrounding the 911 calls. Specifically, the Internal Affairs Unit was ordered to determine the specific order in which the 911 calls were received at the Troop, the remarks made by both Trooper Peasley and the dispatcher with whom he worked that day, and their actions in dispatching both State Police Troopers and emergency medical personnel to the scene. In doing so, Internal Affairs investigators interviewed every witness to the accident and all emergency services responders. The investigators also reviewed all available police and ambulance dispatch records and tape recordings of the 911 calls that reported the accident.

Internal Affairs investigators determined that, in response to a call for help, Trooper Peasley responded rudely and unprofessionally. When told of the street bike accident on Incinerator Road, Trooper Peasley said “too bad,” and hung up the phone. In response to the next call from that scene, Trooper Peasley told the caller that State Police would respond and added “[you] shouldn’t be playing games.” About the same time, the dispatcher working with Trooper Peasley took another call from the scene and assured the caller that help was on the way. Importantly, the investigation revealed that despite the Trooper’s unprofessional, rude and inappropriate comments, both State Police and EMS personnel were dispatched promptly to the crash scene. Indeed, the reporting witness estimates that the first State Trooper arrived within five minutes of the accident. In short, the evidence shows that neither the dispatcher nor Trooper Peasley ignored the calls for help. They dispatched help to the scene within seconds of the first call.

Nevertheless, there is no doubt that Trooper Peasley fell far short of conduct that Connecticut residents expect – and the Connecticut State Police demand – from a Trooper. For that reason, Trooper Peasley, who has an unblemished 18-year career and who has often been praised by the public and his superiors for his dedication, has been suspended for 15 days without pay.

The State Police has a long and proud tradition of dedication to the people of this state. That tradition rests on the selfless efforts of many brave men and women who regularly place themselves in harm’s way to protect others. Some have made the ultimate sacrifice in doing so. This incident tarnishes that tradition and embarrasses this proud agency. At the least, we hope that we have learned from it and that it will not be repeated.

More importantly, our hearts go out to Justin Sawyer’s family and friends. And if the remarks of the Trooper have added in any way to their grief, we are deeply sorry.

Thank you again for writing and for allowing me to respond.

Sincerely,

Leonard C. Boyle

COMMISSIONER

 

 

Abate of Florida 
Next State Meeting

 

6th Annual Tampa Bay Tattoofest Silverworld.com 
4500 West Cypress Street, Tampa, FL 
3/31/2005 Through 4/3/2005 

Safe Place
Poker Run
DATE: APRIL 3, 2005
TIME: 10am
 LOCATION: Tony D’s (corner of Cortez and 41) First bike out at 11 am.

Sahib Motor Corps
/Hoosier Bar
Poker Run 4-10-05
Theo 941-377-2834
shamrocksj@aol.com

2nd Annual Ride To Remember 
May 7, 2005, 
9 a.m.
Coachman Park, Clearwater

QWhy didn't the skunk call his parents? 
ABecause his phone was out of odor! 

Pilling is caused by items rubbing against each other in the washer and dryer. Prevent it by turning susceptible clothes inside out and washing them in a mesh bag or a drawstring pillowcase. 

An old man, Mr. Smallwood, was living the last of his life in a nursing home. 
One day he appeared to be very sad and depressed.

Nurse Tracy asked if there was anything wrong. 

"Yes, Nurse Tracy," said Mr. Smallwood, "My private part died today, and I am very sad." 

Knowing her patients were forgetful and sometimes a little crazy, she replied, "Oh! , I'm so sorry, Mr. Smallwood, please accept my condolences." 

The following day, Mr. Smallwood was walking down the hall with his private part hanging out of his pajamas, when he met Nurse Tracy. 

"Mr. Smallwood," she said, "You shouldn't be walking down the hall like that. Please put your private part back inside your pajamas." 

"But, Nurse Tracy," replied Mr. Smallwood, "I told you yesterday that my private part died." 

"Yes, you did tell me that, but why is it hanging out of your pajamas?" asked Nurse Tracy. 

"Well," he replied. "Today's the viewing"

NEWMARKET -- A ranking Hells Angel drew a six-year penitentiary term yesterday for cocaine trafficking, the stiffest drug sentence handed to an Ontario biker since the Hells Angels expanded into the province more than four years ago.

Thomas Craig, 52, was secretary of the Angels' downtown Toronto chapter when he was arrested in April of 2003, during a three-year, $3-million police investigation -- Project Shirlea -- that swept up 14 Hells Angels and 70 associates on hundreds of charges.

Mr. Craig and his wife, Sharon Vibert, however, both admitted helping orchestrate the investigation's principal target, a well-oiled cocaine business run out of a seedy Scarborough tavern, Country Bebops on Shropshire Drive, near Kennedy and Ellesmere Roads.

He nonetheless appeared cheerful as he and Ms. Vibert were handcuffed and led away. "See you in a bit," he called out to a police officer at the back of the tiny courtroom.

His six-year sentence, which was in addition to three months of pretrial custody, means he can apply for full parole in two years and day parole in one. His first stop will be Millhaven Institution, west of Kingston, where newly sentenced federal prisoners are classified

More significant for police and prosecutors was the proven link to Ontario's Hells Angels, who this month opened their 16th chapter in Hamilton and have long insisted they have nothing to do with the cocaine trade.

The 400-plus charges reflected that wide sweep -- so did the 6.2 kilos of cocaine, 17 kilos of marijuana, $200,000 in cash, 18 guns and six sets of body armour that were seized, along with other drugs.

Proving those charges, however, was another matter.

With dozens of defence lawyers demanding disclosure, Mr. Sabbadini and the other prosecutor assigned to the case were so swamped they decided to pare it down. 

As a result, charges against more than half of the accused were dropped.

Among the 30 or so others, some have already entered guilty pleas. None, however -- including Mr. Craig and Ms. Vibert -- has admitted that the Hells Angels as an organization took a role in any of the drug deals.


update A new set of highly critical flaws has been discovered in Microsoft's Internet Explorer and Outlook programs, according to research company eEye Digital Security. 

The vulnerabilities allow for remote code execution with no actions from the computer user, eEye said. Although the flaws would not allow self-propagating worms to infiltrate a system, there is the potential of attackers installing backdoor Trojans without a person's knowledge, Ben Nagy, an eEye senior security engineer, said Friday. 

"If a user is tricked (into going) to a site carrying malicious code, they can become infected by just surfing across a banner ad," Nagy said. 

eEye notified Microsoft several days ago of the flaws in the default installation of Outlook and IE and is giving the software giant time to develop a patch before releasing details on which versions of the software are affected, Nagy said. 

Google says it will dramatically ramp up the storage available with its Gmail Web-based e-mail service, raising the bar for rivals in the sharply competitive business for the second time in a year. 

The Mountain View, Calif.-based Web giant on Friday plans to double the free storage on Gmail from 1GB to 2GB, said Georges Harik, Gmail product management director. After that, Google will add a yet-to-be-determined amount of extra storage daily, with no plans to stop.

The move highlights the seemingly inexhaustible storage needs of a small group of heavy e-mail users, and the sharply falling costs of online storage. Lifting predefined storage caps for Web-based e-mail could have broader ripple effects, Harik said, changing the way people think about quotas from something that is set in advance to something that grows with the user.

"We wanted to make sure we have a plan in place for when people reach their storage limit," he explained. "We don't want people to worry that they might run out."

Google first broke the e-mail mold on April 1, 2004, with an announcement so bizarre that many assumed it was an April Fools' Day joke. Gmail's 1GB of free storage at the time was widely thought to exceed the lifetime needs of most e-mail users. By contrast, rivals such as Yahoo and Microsoft offered about 10MB of storage, seeking to charge customers who wanted more.

My Practical Living Will 

I, _________________________ (fill in the blank), being of sound mind and body, do not wish to be kept alive indefinitely by any artificial means.

Under no circumstances should my fate be put in the hands of peckerhead politicians who couldn't pass ninth-grade biology if their lives depended on it. 

If a reasonable amount of time passes and I fail to sit up and ask for a margarita or rum runner, it should be presumed that I won't do so ever again. When such a determination is reached, I hereby instruct my spouse, children and attending physicians to pull the plug, reel in the tubes and call it a day.

Under no circumstances shall the members of the Legislature enact a special law to keep me on life-support machinery. It is my wish that these boneheads mind their own damn business, and pay attention instead to the health, education and future of the millions of Americans who aren't in a permanent coma and who nonetheless may be in need of nourishment.

Under no circumstances shall any politicians butt into this case. I don't care how many fundamentalist votes they're trying to scrounge for their run for the presidency in 2008, it is my wish that they play politics with someone else's life and leave me alone to die inpeace.

I couldn't care less if a hundred religious zealots send e-mails to legislators in which they pretend to care about me. I don't know these people, and I certainly haven't authorized them to preach and/or crusade on my behalf. They should mind their own damn business,too.

If any of my family goes against my wishes and turns my case into a political cause, I hereby promise to come back from the grave and make his or her existence a living hell.



_____________________________________ _____________ Your signature date 

Thank you Santa

Word of the Day

alameda \al-uh-MEE-duh\ noun 

: a public promenade bordered with trees 

Example sentence:
Artist Diego Rivera visited Mexico City's picturesque alameda as a young boy, and he later wove the park's tree-lined pathways into one of his murals. 

Did you know?
Residents of the American Southwest may remember the "álamo" in "alameda." This "álamo" is not the 18th-century Franciscan mission that was the site of a key battle in the fight for Texas independence, however, but the Spanish name for the poplar tree (the mission , the Alamo in San Antonio, Texas, was named for the trees that grew near it). Spanish speakers used "álamo" as the basis for their word "alameda," which can name either a grove of poplars or a tree-lined avenue. English speakers found "alameda" so appropriate for a shady public promenade that they borrowed it as a generic term in the late 1700s. And yes, the Spanish "alameda" and nearby poplar trees also contributed to the naming of the city of Alameda, California.
Miriam-Webster online