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November 2008 |
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By MATT NICHOLS
Staff Writer
A former Wapakoneta law enforcement officer’s future is now in the hands of seven state Supreme Court justices.
Former Wapakoneta Police Chief Dave Harrison’s 6-year-old sex crime case reached the pinnacle in Ohio’s court system Wednesday, as justices heard arguments from Harrison’s attorney Dean Boland and state prosecutor Scott Longo.
Each party had 15 minutes to present their case to the justices. After both attorneys argued their cases, a single word in Harrison’s sentencing entry and a grilling delivered to Longo by justice Maureen O’Connor left Boland optimistic about his client’s future.
In June, 2003, Harrison plead guilty to a six-count bill of information after child pornography was found on his computer. After entering his plea, the man who served as police chief from 1988 to 2002 was sentenced to one year in jail.
Seven months after he completed his sentence, it was discovered by county prosecutors that Harrison should have been sentenced with an additional five years of mandatory post release control, or probation.
During a court hearing, Harrison was given the option to either be re-sentenced or withdraw his plea. Harrison chose the latter, taking things back to square one.
With the plea withdrawn, the state of Ohio slapped Harrison with a 23-count indictment which he was ultimately found guilty of and sentenced to six years in prison.
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Monday, 15 September 2008 |
By MATT NICHOLS
Staff Writer
High winds, remnants of Hurricane Ike, hit the area Sunday causing two semitrailers to overturn on Interstate 75 and numerous trees limbs to fall and electric power lines to fail.
The storm’s high winds wrecked havoc on those traveling on Interstate 75, Ohio Highway Patrol Wapakoneta Post Sgt. Tom Brookhart said.
Brookhart said shortly after 6 p.m. a gust of wind toppled over two semitrailers with empty box trailers on I-75 at the U.S. 33 overpass. One semitrailer was northbound while the other was heading south.
Brookhart said the drivers of the semitrailers were taken to Lima Memorial Health Systems for minor injuries. Traffic was diverted onto entrance and exit ramps for approximately a 90 minutes while the semitrailers were righted and removed.
At approximately 2 p.m. Sunday, reports of downed trees, poles and power lines began to flood into city dispatchers, Police Chief Dave Webb said.
“Our first call was a trampoline that blew into a house and by 3:40, we had more than 150 calls of power outages,” Webb said.
Webb said by the time night fell, damage reports were widespread across the city.
Some of the more major reports included a tree and pole down at the intersection of Ohio and Plum Streets, a power pole down at the intersection of Circle and Jacobs streets, a major electric pole down at the 200 block of East Harrison Street and a power pole on top of a vehicle at the intersection of Hengstler and County Road 25A. Numerous calls of sparking transformers were also received by the office.
Wind damage that affected Wapakoneta was mirrored across the county, Auglaize County Sheriff’s Office Chief Deputy Mike Eberle said.
Eberle said reports of downed trees and poles were widespread across the county, though reports of damaged houses and vehicles were minimal. Eberle said the major issue the storm brought to the county was power outages.
“There are outages scattered all over the county,” Eberle said. “Places north of St. Marys have power, places south of it don’t. It’s just really scattered.”
Eberle said damage estimates have not yet been made.
Auglaize County Homeland Security and Emergency Management Agency Director Troy Anderson said Sunday’s top wind gust in the county topped out between 62 to 65 mph sometime between 3 and 6 p.m.
Anderson said there were numerous calls of downed trees and poles, but he added three buildings still under construction, still only stick built were blown down.
“They way it is looking now the most damaged parts were Cridersville, Wapakoneta, St. Johns and those areas,” Anderson said. “The winds were coming out of the west then the southwest and then the north.”
Anderson said scores of trees and limbs fell during the winds, as did power lines across the county. As of press time, a portion of eastern Auglaize County was still without electric service.
“A few new construction buildings collapses,” Anderson said. “For the most part, most of the damage we are seeing is a lot of crop damage on corn — that’s all bent over.”
Anderson said outages in St. Johns and the Uniopolis areas can be traced back to troubles with electricity provide Dayton Power and Light. As of press time, 180,000 of its customers were without power.
Anderson blamed the wind storm on a combination of Hurricane Ike pushing into the country’s midsection as well as an incoming cold front. When the two fronts met, high winds were the result.
“The best thing for us was that we didn’t have any precipitation to hamper safety or visibility,” Anderson said. “With us still having downed power lines and utility crews out, we need to think about our safety.”
In St. Marys, the east circuit failed for approximately an hour as crews worked to repair a downed power line. Electric Distribution Superintendent Jerry Wolfe said despite the outage, the city’s electrical grid held up well during the storm.
“The first call out was at about 3:30 p.m. and they came in at 8:30 p.m.,” Wolfe said. “It seemed like it held up fairly well and there were some parts of town that were without power for maybe an hour.”
Wolfe said city crews are scheduled to walk the city’s lines to clean up any damage from the storm. The city will be without one truck as Wolfe said he dispatched the vehicle and two workers to Yellow Springs to assist with cleanup efforts.
The first call of a downed tree came into the St. Marys Police Department at 2:30 p.m.
In New Bremen, the power system held up and Village Administrator Wayne York reported no power outages. York attributed the fact to a tree trimming program put in place following a 2004 ice storm.
“We had some limbs and some tree come down but we did not have any outages,” York said. “New Bremen aggressively trims trees and limbs that are along our electric lines so we are able to stay out of trouble.”
Like St. Marys, York said a crew from New Bremen is scheduled to arrive in the northeastern Ohio city of Wadsworth to provide mutual aid. York said this is the first time in five years crews have ventured out of the area to provide assistance.
“We are in good shape and they aren’t,” York said. “That’s the whole point of mutual aid agreements — it is our turn to help.”
Staff Writer Mike Burkholder contributed to this story. |
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Last Updated ( Tuesday, 16 September 2008 )
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