Ryn Gargulinski

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Tucson police cuts? You bet. No layoffs but plenty of frustration, reductions in wake of Prop. 400 failure

The Tucson Police Department will be tightening its already overloaded belt in the wake of the of the recent election results.

Tucson police/Ryn Gargulinski

But we saw that coming.

A majority 62 percent voted no to Proposition 400, which would have led to a one-half cent increase in Tucson city sales tax to help fund “core” services – things like firefighters and cops.

Please try not to start any blazes or create any mayhem or traffic crashes during these tough times.

While Tucson Police Chief Roberto Villaseñor promised no layoffs of commissioned personnel in his Nov. 3 memo to City Manager Mike Letcher, he did note other reductions in service that will kick in Dec. 5.

These reductions are hitting when the Tucson police force is already at nearly the lowest it has been in the past 10 years – with 145 fewer sworn members than a mere two years ago.

Welcome to the new Tucson.

On the flipside, frustration is through the roof.

“There has been a palpable increase in the use of psychological services by all members of the department, both sworn and non-sworn,” Villaseñor wrote in the memo.

“Feedback from a wide cross-section of employees over the past several months through our internal audit process has increasingly pointed toward frustration of being asked to do more with less, and simply being unable to meet the expectations of the public due to decreased staffing.”

Welcome to the new America.

Emergency calls, of course, will remain a top priority, as will follow-up investigations that serve to put the bad guys – or gals – behind bars.

That means some other stuff has got to go.

The number of traffic division cops will go down, moving 20 officers from traffic duties to patrol squads.

“Only collisions with injury, those with suspected impaired drivers, or those blocking the roadway will generate a police response, with the remainder being directed to Internet or callback reporting,” the memo said. Additionally, the Arizona Department of Public Safety will once again be overseeing enforcement of commercial vehicle codes within city limits.

A number of bicycle officers will bite the dust, with 26 of them moved to patrol squads.

“This will restrict the current proactive response capability of field divisions to address neighborhood nuisance issues.”

Seven officers assigned to recruiting and academy functions are moving from their current functions into the field, “reducing the department’s training and future hiring capabilities.”

Five detectives are going from their current assignments with the Office of Internal Affairs to vacant detective positions with the Property Crimes and the Crimes Against Persons divisions. Internal Affairs will be reorganized “to ensure the continued vigorous investigation of both internal and external complaints.”

When all the dust is settled from the changes, coupled with the inability to fill vacant positions that arise, the Tucson police force is expected to be at 200 fewer members than it was in 2008.

“At best, the department can add as many as 50 new positions in addition to attrition each budget year if fully funded to do so,” Villaseñor writes. “A concerted effort to return to staffing levels of November 2008 would take a minimum of five to six fully funded years from the beginning of such an effort.”

Ouch.

“As the department moves forward with these changes I expect that there will be considerable frustration from our community. While I intend to remain as responsive as possible to the needs of the community the department simply cannot meet all of the commitments we have met in the past because of the financial reductions we have already experienced, and more importantly, that we will experience now that we know the result of the elections,” Villaseñor’s memo concludes.

“It is with a heavy heart that I must make these changes, particularly because I fully expect that further, more devastating cuts will need to be implemented in the coming months to address the financial constraints facing the City overall.”

Welcome to the new world.

[tnipoll]

What do you think?

Did you vote yes or no on Proposition 400?

Do these changes sound horribly drastic and ineffective or do they make sense?

Tucson man shot dead for being in 'wrong place at wrong time' – Killer of Julius Lat still on the loose

Julius Lat used to always say he would never make it to age 30, said his fiancée Jessica Catalan. He didn’t.

He instead ended up fatally shot in the head Aug. 6 – at age 24 – with his death following two days later on Aug. 8.

Jessica Catalan and Julius Lat/MySpace photo

While he may be gone, Catalan is making sure he’s not forgotten – and calling on anyone with information to come forward – as Lat’s killer is still on the loose.

Catalan is hoping the full story, rather than leaving the report of his death as a vague “group fight,” might jog some memories and result in some leads.

The story of Lat’s death actually starts two days prior to his shooting, with the death of Catalan’s 35-year-old cousin. The cousin, who lived with the couple, accidentally shot himself. Catalan, Lat and others had spent Aug. 6 at a car wash to raise funds for her cousin’s burial to honor his last wishes.

When Catalan and Lat returned to their home at South Freemont Avenue and East Calle Nevada, near the intersection of South Park Avenue and East Irvington Road, a neighbor told them some guy had been hanging out near their house all day.

The man had moved across the street and was in the liquor store by the time they returned.

“We didn’t know who he was or what he wanted,” Catalan said, adding she heard the guy had been acting suspiciously around the building, changing his clothes in the bushes, sitting on a bench next to a young girl.

Thinking he might have known her cousin who died, Catalan called her cousin’s girlfriend to come check out the guy to see if she recognized him. The girlfriend came by with about five or six guys, friends of the departed cousins, and the girlfriend bolted across at the street to the liquor store to check out the strange man.

“The guys went with her,” Catalan said. “Unfortunately, one out of the bunch was not a well-headed individual.”

She got about halfway across the street, realized she didn’t recognize him and then turned around. But the guys went to confront the strange man.

The non-well-headed friend “was already heated. Emotions were high. Everybody was not taking my cousin’s death very well,” Catalan said. It didn’t help the family learned that, after “busting their butts” with an all-day car wash raising funds for a burial, the cousin’s parents already picked to have him cremated.

Lat walked into this climate, into the group of guys that included five of the cousin’s friends and the man from the liquor store.

“He was telling everybody that’s enough, just leave it alone,” Catalan said of what she heard of the incident. “He said ‘Let’s go back to the house.’” In addition to Catalan, the house contained her three kids as well as one of her female cousins and that woman’s two kids.

Julius Lat and Jessica Catalan/MySpace photo

“There were two women and five kids in the house,” Catalan said. “Julius wanted to make sure we were safe.”

They were. Julius wasn’t.

A man who had been standing off to the side – that didn’t even appear to be part of the fray – suddenly came forward and pulled a gun out of his backpack, Catalan said.

He aimed the gun at the “non-well-headed” cousin’s friend and pulled the trigger.

“He missed that friend, he missed another friend – and ended up hitting Julius in the head,” Catalan said. “His body fell on Suarez Tire Shop property.”

Police were on the scene immediately and Lat was taken to University Medical Center. Once in the operating room, however, surgeons could not operate.

“He started bleeding out of everywhere,” Catalan said. “The IV lines, the puncture wounds, everything. They thought the best thing to do was bandage him up and help him breathe.”

Catalan was still at the scene of the crime at the time, where her anxiety “shot through the roof” and her blood pressure started soaring.

She was taken to University Physicians Center – where she found out she was pregnant with Lat’s child.

She made her way to Lat’s hospital bedside as soon as she was able and stayed there until he was officially declared dead two days later.

Catalan miscarried near the end of October.

All this, and, yes, the killer is still on the loose.

“They got away through the neighborhood,” Catalan said of the two suspects. “There were witnesses but no one is coming forward.”

The initial report from police in August describe the suspects as: “Hispanic males, 18 to 25 years old. One male was 5’ 11” tall and wearing a black Raiders jersey. The other male was 5 7” tall with a thin build, wearing a light colored polo shirt and carrying a black backpack.”

Catalan reminds people they can remain anonymous when leaving any tips.

Her own phone calls to the police went from once a day, to once a week, to now once a month, on the sixth, the day Lat was shot.

The couple only knew each other for about six months, but had no doubt they clicked.

They met through a mutual friend when Lat was released from prison February after serving two years on a burglary charge. The two got tattoos of each other’s names two weeks after they met.

“He was soft spoken, very quiet and reserved,” Catalan said of the Hawaiian native. “I’m very loud, outspoken. He would laugh and say we level each other out.”

Her three kids, too, adored him, looked at him as a role model.

“He was a good guy, a stand-up guy,” she said. “He was all about respect. He was just at the wrong place at the wrong time.”

Police – and Catalan – urge anyone with information on the suspects to call 911 or 88-CRIME.

Original post at: http://rynskiblogski.files.wordpress.com/2010/11/latjessica21.jpgdead/2010/08/10/shot-down-during-south-side-fight-julius-lat-24/

Pregnant girlfriend beaten, brutalized, dragged by hair – Boyfriend sentenced to 25 years

Hitting a woman is cowardly enough. But hitting a pregnant woman is one of the lowest crimes a guy can muster. A federal judge seems to agree, sentencing a man found guilty of brutalizing his pregnant girlfriend to 25 years in prison.

Thinkstock image

Phillip Gomez, 29, did more than hit his girlfriend once or twice, according to a news release from the District of Arizona’s U.S. Attorney’s Office – he left her with more than 40 bruises all over her body, permanent scars from lacerations on her face and such a severely beaten head that both her eyes were swollen shut.

She had to be flown to the hospital via emergency helicopter.

Gomez, of the Gila River Indian community, kept up his assault for three or four hours. Not only did he punch, beat and kick the woman who was carrying his child, but he repeatedly dragged her around by her hair, according to evidence presented at the trial.

As if his fists and feet were not enough, Gomez ripped a stereo speaker off the stereo unit and used that as a weapon, too.

Gomez also forced his girlfriend to shower after the attack – in a feeble effort to wash away bloody evidence. Photos of the scene revealed blood and hair clumps littered throughout the house.

Gomez’s brother walked in during the brutal assault – but did nothing to stop it. The attack only ended when the girlfriend’s mother came home and called 911.

Tapes of the call reveal Gomez yelling in the background, “She made me.”

“She made me.”

Too bad he wasn’t also found guilty of being delusional.

His last push at keeping all charges out of court was repeatedly calling his severely injured girlfriend at the hospital, trying to convince her not to show up in court.

While she was reluctant to take the stand at first, she gathered up her courage and offered some powerful – and apparently damning – testimony.

Such a move may have likely changed her status to hero rather than statistic.

Gomez was found guilty in May of assault resulting in serious bodily injury, assault with a dangerous weapon and kidnapping. He was sentenced this week by U.S. Judge Susan R. Bolton to a quarter-century behind bars.

Domestic violence continues to be one of the most common crimes, with Tucson police statistics alone noting thousands of assaults every year. More than 4,500 domestic violence assaults were reported so far in 2010, with tallies from 2009 and 2008 at no fewer than 5,100 and 4,900, respectively.

The players:

The investigation in this case was conducted by the Gila River Police Department and the FBI. The prosecution was handled by Sharon Sexton and Leta Hollon, Assistant United States Attorneys, District of Arizona, Phoenix, Arizona.

The quote:

“The sentence of 25 years is a just sentence given the brutality the defendant inflicted on the woman who was bearing his child,” said U.S. Attorney Dennis K. Burke. “This man brutalized the victim for almost four hours and later tried to convince her to not come forward. I want to commend my prosecutors who worked tirelessly to obtain justice in this case.”

[tnipoll]

What do you think?

Is 25 years enough for this fine fellow or should authorities throw away the key?

Would you have the courage to come forward after such an ordeal?

El Tour de Tucson bicycle ride gears up for Nov. 20: Route map, safety tips, and $3.5 million brain injury lawsuit settlement – UPDATE with more info

Bicycles in the annual El Tour de Tucson will be streaming through the streets Nov. 20 – hopefully this year without any life-threatening brain injuries or a $3.5 million lawsuit.

Gary Stuebe, of Surprise, was the recipient of both the 2008 brain injury and the recent lawsuit settlement, according to Fox11AZ.

Crash damage to car in 2008 El Tour/Tucson Citizen file photo

The latter came from suing Pima County and the El Tour organizers. The former came from a 91-year-old driver who turned in front of a stream of about 60 bicyclists on West Ina Road during El Tour two years ago, causing 10 of them to smash into his vehicle and tumble from their cycles, notes a past Tucson Citizen article.

Stuebe, 41 at the time, was the most seriously injured of the pack. He was taken to a Phoenix hospital’s neurological institute in critical condition and spent three months in a coma.

Kind of puts a damper on the ride.

The 91-year-old driver was later identified as William Arthur Wilson, one of the guys who worked on the country’s first atomic bomb that was eventually dropped on Hiroshima during World War II.

Wilson’s scientific mind must have been a bit rusty on that particular day, as he reportedly got out of his vehicle, looked at the damage to his car and the cyclists sprawled on the street – then hopped back into his vehicle and drove away.

Awarding the $3.5 million settlement must have been a fairly easy decision.

Stuebe, who amassed at least $1.5 million in medical bills for multiple brain surgeries following the crash, was declared by the court to be mentally incompetent due to his brain injuries, a report on Tucson Bike Lawyer says. His wife acts as his legal guardian.

Atomic-bomb-maker Wilson got a much less severe sentence. He didn’t get any jail time for the crime of leaving the scene of an accident. He was instead sentenced in 2009 to three years probation and loss of his driving privileges. Wilson also must stay in a Georgia assisted living center, far from the heart of Tucson and the El Tour route.

Bicyclists – and motorists – preparing for this year’s ride may want to keep the Stuebe story in mind and note a few other points brought to us by the Pima County Sheriff’s Department.

El Tour de Tucson 2007 winner Carlos Hernandez of Hermosillo, Mexico/Tucson Citizen file photo

About 9,000 cyclists are expected to show up for this year’s 28th annual event, which begins at 7 a.m. and ends at 6 p.m. Nov. 20 at West Church and East Pennington streets.

Expect delays.

The route makes a counterclockwise loop around Pima County, with intersections being shut down by uniformed law enforcement throughout the day as bicyclists pass through.

Expect delays.

Use caution at all intersections that day, the sheriff’s department says, while we say perhaps give your vehicle a rest altogether.

Go for a walk instead. Perhaps it would be a good idea to ban driving on El Tour day, or at least the El Tour route, altogether.

With no motorists on the road, the bicyclists are apt to be safer and less likely to be injured or go through what Stuebe had to suffer.

[tnipoll]

El Tour de Tucson route map 2010:

El Tour de Tucson route map 2010/Pima County Sheriff's Department CLICK ON MAP for larger image

UPDATE:

Gary Stuebe’s lawyer, Stephen Leshner, sent an e-mail noting he has a more comprehensive write-up on the crash and subsequent lawsuit at http://www.aztrialblog.com/tp-101022105841.shtml

Leshner says Stuebe was in a coma for 40 days, not three months, as reported from other sources.

Other interesting info includes:
Settlement with driver was made out of court for undisclosed amount, based on driver’s part in the crash.
The $3.5 million from county and organizers “is to be paid entirely from insurance benefits purchased by the El Tour organizers and Pima County; no taxpayer funds were involved.”
Stuebe’s wife, Angela, happens to be a neurosurgical nurse at the Barrow Neurological Institute, where Stuebe was treated.

The update on Stuebe’s condition is also promising:

“Gary is now living at home with Angela and his children. He is looking forward to returning to work. He has been able to return to the gym and start working out in the hope of regaining the top physical condition he was in at the time of the collision. While Gary has many challenges ahead because of his injuries, due to the settlements, Gary’s financial future is secure. Gary and Angela are truly remarkable people, and faced this tragedy with grace and determination. I’m proud to have been their lawyer, and I will always be their friend.”

What do you think?

Should Mr. Atomic bomb have gotten a harsher sentence?

Should driving be banned altogether for El Tour?

Vampire craze hits new level of stupid: Obsessed fans biting each other, sucking blood

We’ve seen bad fads come and go – think Cabbage Patch Kids and polyester leisure suits – but we’ve yet to see one that literally sucked as bad as all this vampire mania.

Vampire craze all fun and games until someone sucks up HIV/Thinkstock

First came the slate of vampire TV shows and movies, ranging from True Blood to Twilight. The latter has the added bonus of featuring actors that look dead or dying even when out of character.

Then we had all the merchandise showcasing these dead or dying people. This included the usual T-shirts, posters, bumper stickers and pillows. It also included a bit more unusual items, like the putty-faced Twilight star shower curtain and even a Twilight glow in the dark adult toy.

Still, it was not enough.

Now the mania has tread one step closer to madness with people actually emulating the Draculian creatures.

Yes, vampire-happy folks, mainly teens and 20-somethings, are now biting each other and sucking each other’s blood.

We could say fine and dandy, if these people want to flit about in their little vampire circles slicing up each other’s skin and then sucking on each other’s wounds, so be it.

Parents with teens engaging in the mania may disagree, as the practice can be a bit of health hazard – and parents get the medical bills.

Thanks to the legions of bacteria that dance about in the human mouth, human bites are actually more hazardous than animal bites.

In addition to the risk the bite becoming infected, blood-suckers also have the chance of licking up a blood borne disease.

Nothing like a nice mouthful of HIV or hepatitis B or C to warm the cockles of a cold, dead vampire heart.

And the vampire obsession is not necessarily containing itself to a little circle, but spreading out like big flapping bat wings.

A couple of pseudo-vampires in Arizona, Aaron Homer, 24, and Amanda Williamson, 21, allegedly stabbed a homeless guy when he didn’t let them drink his blood, says the NY Daily News.

Homeless man Robert Maley, 25, who could not have been all that homeless since he was living in the couple’s apartment, told cops that he would let the duo drink his blood in the past but was stabbed when he mocked the duo’s “religion” and just said no.

Maley ended up arrested on a probation violations while Homer was charged with aggravated assault. Both pseudo-vampires were also charged with false reporting to police, since they made up some story about Williamson being stabbed when police showed up and found a trail of blood.

We’re still waiting of reports far beyond stabbing, perhaps with teens sealing and burying  each other in coffins or maybe even pounding wooden stakes through each other’s hearts.

While vampires can be sexy – provided you’re turned on by gleaming fangs and putrid pale skin – sexiness is not the main reason behind the craze.

Vampire obsession is so hot for one simple reason – teens have run out of things that shock their family and friends.

Even sticking a safety pin through their eyelid no longer gets many people to even blink. There’s no more shock value of tattoos, sniffing glue, smoking pot or listening to angry songs that tell them to go out and shoot people.

Heck, many of the parents or pals themselves have likely indulged in some of these now-passé practices.

But sucking blood is new, now, exciting – and a good way to stir up an otherwise ho-hum and so dreadfully mortal existence.

[tnipoll]

–

Ryn Gargulinski is a poet, artist, performer and TucsonCitizen.com Ryngmaster who used to like vampires until everyone got so gaga about them. Her column appears every Friday on Rynski’s Blogski. Her art, writing and more is at RynRules.com and Rynski.Etsy.com. E-mail rynski@tucsoncitizen.com.

Who shot Pinal Deputy Puroll: Bloody shirt prime evidence to prove ambush by drug smugglers

First we had that pesky O.J. Simpson glove. Then came Monica Lewinsky’s blue dress.

Pinal County Deputy Purrol's bloody T-shirt/submitted photo

Now we have Pinal County Sheriff Deputy Louie Puroll’s bloody T-shirt.

Puroll’s bullet-holed shirt is officially being turned over to the Arizona Department of Public Safety – and his shooting case being re-opened – in the wake of reports that question the veracity of Puroll’s account of what happened out in the desert April 30, according to a news release from the sheriff’s office.

To recap, 53-year-old Puroll, a 15-year-veteran with the sheriff’s office, was wounded on his left side while out tracking drug smugglers near Antelope Peak.

“He was ambushed and shot,” says a May 9 letter from Sheriff Paul Babeu, with the shooting resulting in a multi-agency sweep. “There were over 100 illegals apprehended within our security perimeter in the remote desert area south of I-8 and west of Casa Grande, just within 24 hours we were there.”

Two medical examiners, one from New York and the other out of Michigan, told the Arizona Republic there is no way Puroll was shot from afar.

He had to be “within inches” of the weapon, not 25 yards away, claims Dr. Michael Baden, co-director of the New York State Police Medicolegal Investigation Unit and former chief medical examiner for New York City.

“This was fired at contact range . . . with the muzzle of the gun lying against the skin,” the Republic quotes Dr. Werner Spitz, co-author of the textbook “Medicolegal Investigation of Death” and the retired chief medical examiner of Detroit’s Wayne County.

Close-up of Pinal County Deputy Purrol's wound on his back/submitted photo

Neither doctor treated Puroll and both made conclusions based on photos of the wound.

“If in fact a rifle was fired at Deputy Puroll within a couple of inches as Dr. Baden and Dr. Spitz have concluded,” a release from Babeu’s office says, “burn marks and residue will be present on the shirt.”

Other “law-enforcement experts” question why Puroll was patrolling alone and how smugglers got away with large loads of marijuana if so many searchers were on the scene, the Republic story adds.

The case had already been closed. Both the Pinal County Sheriff’s Office and the Arizona Department of Public Safety had concluded their criminal investigation and confirmed Puroll’s account of what transpired. But now the sheriff’s office is re-opening it for further investigation.

Egads – was the shooting staged only to get some attention? Is all this mumbo jumbo about dangers in the desert, like rampantly running armed drug smugglers, really just a myth?

Hopefully the shirt will help with the answers – provided, of course, it fits better than some bloody gloves.

[tnipoll]

Pinal County Deputy Purrol's wound/submitted photo