Police Dispatcher

Name: Bonnie Tyler Employer: Seal Beach Police Department Thumbs up: "I have to make quick decisions that affect people's safety and property with information I get from questioning and listening, never seeing. I thrive on the challenge. I never have two days or even two hours alike. I handle many tasks at once and the fast pace doesn't stress me in a negative way. I like having a job that allows me to be of service to others."

HOUSTON -- A north Texas man is accused of carving a pentagram into his 6-year-old son's back, telling a police dispatcher that he did it because 12-12-12 was a “holy day,” police said. Brent Troy Bartel was charged with aggravated assault with a deadly weapon Wednesday, Richland Hills police Sgt. Nathan Stringer told the Los Angeles Times. Bartel was arrested shortly after he called 911 at 12:10 a.m., according to a statement police released to The Times. “What's going on there?

An internal investigation by the Oxnard Police Department concluded Tuesday that a police dispatcher acted inappropriately when she ran a records check on a caller to the 911 emergency system. Chief Harold Hurtt said that while the dispatcher had the authority to check for outstanding warrants held against Helene Golemon, it was "not appropriate in this particular case."

The tip was an unusual one, especially in a city often ranked as the safest in the nation. The caller, who identified himself as a concerned parent, told an Irvine police dispatcher that he had seen a woman driving erratically, parking at Plaza Vista School, and hiding drugs in her car's back seat. He had more help to offer: He knew the culprit's name. And he had a license plate. Based on that call on the afternoon of Feb. 16, 2011, Irvine police pulled school volunteer Kelli Peters from the elementary school classroom where she was working and searched her car. They found a bag with marijuana, Percocet and Vicodin.

More than 100 friends and co-workers turned out Tuesday for the funeral of Leah J. Clark, a Newport Beach police dispatcher who was killed last week in a hit-run auto accident. Even as Clark was remembered at services at Paramount Mortuary, California Highway Patrol investigators appealed to the public for information about the accident.

A former senior police dispatcher has plead guilty to grand theft by embezzlement from the Police Department and has been sentenced to three years' probation, authorities said. Sean O'Connor, 23, was also ordered by Municipal Court Commissioner Kristi Lousteau to perform 200 hours of community service, pay a $500 fine and make restitution to the department. He was also ordered to pay court costs.

A tractor-trailer rig lost its cargo today, spilling 5,000 live chickens onto Interstate 70, state police said. "Chickens are everywhere," a police dispatcher said after the pre-dawn accident in southwestern Pennsylvania. Police closed a stretch of the highway until the chickens--dead or alive--were rounded up.

As Florida braced itself for what could be the biggest day of protest yet in the Trayvon Martin case, police revealed new details that depict the slain 17-year-old as the aggressor and appear to support George Zimmerman's claim that he was acting in self-defense when he shot the teenager. Martin was killed one month ago today. That's one month of justice denied, according to protesters who are expected to amass throughout the day to continue their demand for Zimmerman's arrest in the Sanford, Fla. case.

Fire swept through a barn at a boarding stable today, killing three people and at least 16 horses, authorities said. Two people were injured in the blaze at Snowbird Acres Farm, police dispatcher Eric Travena said. A Hackettstown Hospital spokesman said the three dead were two adults and a child who apparently lived above the stalls where the horses were kept. Their identities were not immediately known.

An aftershock to Wednesday morning's mild earthquake was felt about 12 hours later but again caused no serious damage or injuries, authorities said Thursday. The Center for Earthquake Studies at Southeast Missouri State University here recorded the second tremor Wednesday night, a police dispatcher said. Its magnitude was 3.0, contrasted with the magnitude 4.6 initial quake.

ATLANTA - On the night George Zimmerman fatally shot unarmed black teenager Trayvon Martin in Florida, a witness said he saw some of the scuffle - and described a black man in a dark hoodie on top of a white or Latino man, punching him repeatedly, "mixed martial arts style. " Then there was a pop, the witness told police, according to documents made public Thursday in Zimmerman's second-degree murder case. Soon, he said, the man in the hoodie was "laid out in the grass. " The detail, one of many in a trove of discovery records released by prosecutors, could bolster Zimmerman's contention that he acted in self-defense on the night of Feb. 26, after he called police and reported Martin as a suspicious character in his neighborhood.

Was Trayvon Martin circling George Zimmerman's vehicle before the neighborhood watch volunteer and the unarmed teenager engaged in their now-infamous -- and tragic -- scuffle? That is the assertion that Zimmerman has made numerous times to investigators, according to a new report in the Orlando Sentinel, citing a source familiar with the criminal investigation into Martin's slaying by Zimmerman in February at a gated community in Sanford, Fla. According to the Sentinel, the source said Zimmerman told police he was so worried by Martin's behavior that he rolled up his windows to avoid trouble.

An interim police chief has been chosen in Sanford, Fla., where the controversial handling of the Trayvon Martin slaying has sparked national outrage and a mess over who should be the city's top law enforcement official. A news release Tuesday announced that Sanford's city manager, Norton N. Bonaparte Jr., had selected as interim chief Richard Myers, a 35-year police veteran who formerly headed the Colorado Springs, Colo., police department. Myers is expected to begin leading the department at the end of this week.

George Zimmerman, the neighborhood watch volunteer who shot an unarmed teenager, was released from jail about midnight Sunday, two days after a Florida judge set his bond at $150,000. Zimmerman's attorney, Mark O'Mara, said in court Friday that Zimmerman would probably continue to live in hiding while he awaited his trial date, as he had done for weeks leading up to his April 11 arrest on second-degree murder charges in the slaying of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin. An initial decision by police and prosecutors in Sanford, Fla., to decline to arrest Zimmerman after his fatal Feb. 26 encounter with Martin, an African American, set off protests and debate nationwide over perceived racial disparities in the justice system.

ATLANTA - George Zimmerman apologized to the parents of the unarmed black teenager he fatally shot, as a Florida judge set his bail at $150,000, offering the former neighborhood watch volunteer a path to freedom after more than a week in jail. By midafternoon Friday, Zimmerman was still in custody, but his freedom was "being worked on as we speak," said Jimmy Woods, a spokesman forMark O'Mara, Zimmerman's attorney. Zimmerman, 28, appeared in the Sanford, Fla., courtroom at 9 a.m. in a dark suit and gray tie, his hair in a buzz cut, his hands bound by a chain circling his waist.

George Zimmerman, a neighborhood watch volunteer, faces a second-degree murder charge for shooting Trayvon Martin, an unarmed black teenager in Sanford, Fla., the special prosecutor in the case announced Wednesday. In a televised news conference, State Atty. Angela B. Corey outlined the charges in the case that has sparked national demonstrations calling for Zimmerman's arrest. “I can tell you we did not come to this decision lightly,” Corey told reporters. “We do not prosecute by public pressure.” She said her office had filed information with the charge.

A driver was arrested on suspicion of fatally hitting a 75-year-old pedestrian, police said Monday. The accident happened about 7:05 p.m. Sunday on Pacific Coast Highway, north of Mariner Drive, police dispatcher John Liebl said. Gawin Arron Thomas, 31, of Long Beach, who was driving a van, struck Robert George Schmitt of Huntington Beach, Liebl said. Police could not say if Schmitt had been in a crosswalk.

More than 1,000 residents were evacuated early today because of a chlorine gas leak at the city's water treatment plant, but police said later the danger appeared to be passing without incident. "We've already opened up some roads. The cloud (of gas) is fading," police dispatcher W. G. Walker said at about 9:45 a.m. EDT. Chlorine gas, which is used to purify water, can be fatal if breathed.

George Zimmerman reportedly has an experienced criminal defense attorney in his corner now. The Neighborhood Watch volunteer who says he shot an unarmed teenager, Trayvon Martin, in self-defense Feb. 26 had been represented by a solo practitioner, Craig Sonner, who had never defended anyone accused of homicide. But late Tuesday, veteran criminal defense attorney Craig Uhrig told Orlando television station WOFL that he was joining the case. Uhrig often works with Sonner, the Orlando Sentinel reported.  Zimmerman, 28, has not been charged, but the case is under investigation by state and federal authorities.

SANFORD, Fla. — The nation's leading civil rights advocates and outraged everyday people packed this laid-back lakeside community Monday to demand the arrest of the man who killed African American teenager Trayvon Martin, even as police sources portrayed the unarmed youth as the aggressor. Beneath an incongruously cheerful Florida sun, the passionate but well-behaved crowd marched, chanting and shouting, toward the Sanford Civic Center. Inside, the City Commission ceded most of its regularly scheduled meeting to Martin's grieving parents, their lawyer and a roster of civil rights luminaries who criticized the city's leadership and its handling of a case that, to some, symbolizes lingering racism and a justice system that too often fails black victims of violence.