“I did the best with what they (the county commissioners) gave me. If it wasn’t enough, don’t blame me, don’t blame this department,” said Sheriff Billy Johnson.

Johnson said he is suing the commissioners to get a determination of whether he should use his limited budget to carry out obligations defined by law or put more patrol cars on the streets.

“I just can’t do it anymore,” he said. “I have to have the court explain to the commissioners and to me what my statutory duties are.”

The Ashtabula County Jail has confined as many as 140 prisoners. It now houses only 30 because of reductions in the staff of corrections officers.

All told, 700 accused criminals are on a waiting list to serve time in the jail.

Are there dangerous people free among the 700 who cannot be locked up?

“There probably are,” Sheriff Johnson said, “but I’m telling you, any known violent criminal, we’re housing them. We’ve got murderers in there.”

Ashtabula County is the largest county in Ohio by land area.

Ashtabula County Common Pleas Judge Alfred Mackey was asked what residents should do to protect themselves and their families with the severe cutback in law enforcement.

“Arm themselves,” the judge said. “Be very careful, be vigilant, get in touch with your neighbors, because we’re going to have to look after each other.”

Ashtabula County gun dealers and firearms instructors tell WKYC their business has really picked up since the Sheriff’s Department cutbacks began some months ago.

“That’s exactly why they are coming, so that they can protect themselves,” says Tracy Williams, a certified firearms instructor in Jefferson. “They don’t feel that they are protected. They want to be able to protect themselves.”

Williams says interest in his classes has doubled recently, and many of those coming are people who he would not normally expect to have interest in obtaining a concealed carry permit.

“And as far as him (Judge Mackey) telling you to arm yourselves and protect yourselves, you don’t have any other option,” Williams told WKYC. “We don’t have the law enforcement out here to handle it right now.”

Ashtabula County, where unemployment is higher than the state average, is asking voters to approve a one half per cent sales tax increase in May.

The tax hike would raise the tax in the county to seven percent.

People whose residences are an easy target could be woken in the middle of the night by officers trying windows and doors.

The initiative, code-named Operation Golden, is being launched in a bid to cut break-ins.

It is being trialled by Cheshire Police, who say residents who fall foul of their checks will be roused with a lecture from officers on what they could have lost.

But there is bound to be concern that the police may scare some elderly residents as they pose as burglars.

And with the political debate raging about the rights of homeowners to defend their homes, there is the danger the police themselves may be attacked by people who fear they are genuine intruders.

Insp Gareth Woods, who is heading up the operation, admitted some people will not be happy about the early hours wake-up calls.

He said: ‘If we’re told to get lost then that’s a risk we take. It’s a difficult balance to strike.

‘The bottom line is officers get a mixed reception when doing anything like this, but I say to any of my officers that if they see an insecure car or house to let the owner know, no matter what time of day or night.

He added: ‘Obviously we will be very discreet and won’t be trying every door. We will target areas where we have intelligence burglaries will be happening.’

The operation is starting in Macclesfield and will be rolled out across East Cheshire.

It has been prompted by statistics which show nearly 40 per cent of all burglaries are carried out through unlocked doors or open windows.

Police and community support officers are also distributing thousands of door-hanger cards which list security checks to be carried out before householders leave home.

Chief Insp Peter Crowcroft said: ‘There are burglars who specialise in sneak-ins. They walk around streets, nipping in and out of gardens and trying doors.

‘Most of them don’t care if anyone is in the house. Even if the family is in the next room watching TV, the criminal will walk in, grab a bag, purse or some other item of value and be out again in seconds.

Source: Daily Mail

Officers will activate the cameras, about the size of a Bluetooth device and attached by a headband above the ear, every time they respond or make contact with a person. At the end of the officer’s shift, the recording will be downloaded to a central server.

Chief Rob Davis said the devices, to be tested by 18 patrol officers, are a technological advance comparable to the advent of police cars, two-way radios and the 911 emergency system.

San Jose is the first major U.S. city to try out the devices, known as AXON.

The cost of the trial is being shouldered by maker Taser International of Scottsdale, Ariz. But if the trial leads to full-fledged use, equipping the entire 1,400-officer department will be expensive. At $1,700 per kit and a $99 per officer monthly fee, the system could cost $2,888 per officer in the first year, or $4 million.

Davis said he expected the price would decrease, and he hoped that the department would be able to find grants to defray the cost.

The kit includes a camera, a control piece and a computer that can hang from the belt. In the pilot project, officers have been directed to switch on the camera as they are about to contact a civilian. The cameras, equipped with an audio recorder, align with the officer’s vision, and can be later switched to standby mode.

Afterward, the officer can switch the camera to a “buffer” mode, where it still records limited segments of video, and a nonrecord mode. The officer may review the tape at any time, but it may not be erased. At the end of the shift, the device’s memory is downloaded onto a central server.

Davis said commanders will randomly review the tapes, to evaluate the system and to gather information that could help assess police policies and procedures.

Officers, he said, welcomed the devices.

“I used it this morning in making an arrest,” said officer William Doane, one of the AXON test pilots. “It verified what I saw.” In the two days of testing, he generally remembered to turn on the AXON before incidents, but sometimes forgot to turn it off afterward, he said. Overall, he said, “It’s a good system.”

The devices could provide evidence of crimes, timely information about suspects, help with police training and be a resource in investigations of complaints against police and deterrence of public misbehavior, Davis said. Critics, however, are interested in how the cameras might prevent police from overstepping bounds.

Over several months, groups representing Latinos, Asians and African-Americans have criticized San Jose police for too easily resorting to force. Per capita, San Jose police make more arrests for resisting arrest than does any other major California city, according to a Mercury News investigation.

Criticism spiked after police fatally shot a mentally ill man, Daniel Pham, in May and after a cell phone video showed officers apparently beating Phuong Ho, a San Jose State University student from Vietnam.

A detailed review by the Mercury News showed that San Jose police have repeatedly used force in incidents that began as seemingly benign situations. In response, Davis has formed a panel to review the department’s use of force.

In 2008, police received 117 use-of-force complaints, but said none of the complaints was justified.

Jayadev said he was concerned about who would have access to AXON tapes. Given the department’s reluctance to release evidence, such as 911 tapes, he said he fears the camera tapes might prove to be a tool for police but be denied to residents facing criminal charges or criticizing police conduct.

Davis said that the department will balance privacy concerns in making the camera footage available to the public.

Jayadev also pointed out that the trial of AXON mirrors the introduction of Tasers in 2004, soon after police killed a knife-wielding woman in her kitchen.

When Davis became one of the first big city chiefs to arm all his officers with Tasers, the idea was to save lives and reduce violent contacts.

“Of course, they didn’t,” Jayadev said. “We can’t solve our problems with a new piece of gadgetry.”

Although officers are already bearing vests, weapons and radios, most of them welcome adding a camera to record their actions, Davis said. In addition, he said, “We’re making it so it has cachet.”

A leading critic of the department welcomed the cameras as a tool to provide useful evidence, but dismissed their significance as a solution to rocky police-community relations.

“The AXON project is unfortunately a positive thing right now because the level of distrust is so high,” said Raj Jayadev, director of the community organization Silicon Valley De-Bug. “But it doesn’t address the more fundamental problem: What stereotypes police may carry when they see people of color on the street and make assumptions about character.”

No one else was injured.

The 25-year-old suspect, Raymond Martinez of the Bronx, and his brother were trying to dupe tourists into buying CDs along Broadway and 46th Street just before noon when he was recognized by a sergeant who runs a task force that monitors aggressive panhandling, Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly said.

The officer, Sgt. Christopher Newsom, asked them for their tax identification, which allows peddlers to sell on the streets. But Martinez took off running, through to the Marriott Marquis hotel’s passenger drop-off area.

Newsom pursued, and Martinez turned and fired with a Mac-10 9mm machine pistol that held 30 rounds; he got off two shots before it jammed, police said. The officer fired four times, striking the suspect in the chest and arms and killing him, Kelly said.

“We’re lucky the weapon jammed,” Kelly said.

The commissioner said the shooting preliminarily appeared to be within department guidelines, which allow for deadly force when an officer’s life is threatened.

Dave Kinahan, a tourist from Boston, was parking his car in a spot below street level at the hotel when he saw one man shooting another.

“I was 20 yards away,” Kinahan said. He said he thought, “Is this real or this a movie?”

The hotel is located in the Broadway theater district in the heart of Times Square. The Marquis Theatre, where “White Christmas” is now playing, is in the hotel. Bullets from the gunfight shattered the window of the Broadway Baby gift shop and a side window of the box office on the street, police said.

Duncan Stewart, a Broadway casting director for National Artists Management Co., has a 12th-floor office that overlooks Times Square. He said he was on the phone when he heard three loud pops.

Stewart has worked in Times Square for the past three years. He has gotten used to seeing the weird and wacky, but almost never anything violent.

“It’s bizarre. It’s one thing to see the Naked Cowboy day after day in Times Square, but a shooting is something different altogether,” he said.

Police say Martinez and his brother, who is in custody, were working a scam in which they would approach tourists, ask them their names, then write the names on the CDs and demand payment of $10. They claim the CDs are original work they’ve created, but it’s unclear if that’s true. They had already been given a summons by officers this year for not having identification.

Martinez had been wanted for assault in the Bronx. The gun he used in the shooting was reported stolen in Richmond, Va., on Oct. 28, police said.

He also had with him several business cards from gun dealers there, but it’s not clear if he was also selling weapons, police said.

One of the cards had a handwritten message on the back: “I just finished watching ‘The Last Dragon.’ I feel sorry for a cop if he think I’m getting into his paddy wagon,” according to police. It’s unclear who wrote the message, which apparently references the 1985 martial arts movie.

NYPD spokesman Paul Browne said officers pay special attention to scams and panhandling during the holidays. Specialized units are set up in areas, including Times Square and Canal Street, where stolen goods, knockoffs and scams are prevalent.

“We focus on them this time of the year, because they’re preying on tourists during the Christmas holidays,” Browne said.

NYPD Capt. Edward Winski of the Midtown precinct, where the shooting occurred, said arrests involving sellers on the streets have increased in the past few years. So far this year, there have been more than 400 arrests involving illegal and licensed peddlers around Times Square.

But some say peddlers get a bad rap.

“I think they get treated tougher than they actually are,” said Zach McCabe, a comedian who has been passing out fliers for his shows for nearly a year on the strip of Broadway where the CD peddlers often stop tourists.

He said he didn’t think the vendors harass people. “I don’t see it. I see them talking to people.”

A few hours after the shooting, the area had returned to the normal holiday bustle, even as dozens of police officers surrounded the hotel.

Donna Anderson of Murray, Utah, was staying at the Marquis. She was intrigued by what happened — not scared.

“I wanted to get a picture of the crime scene,” she said.

Associated Press writers Sara Kugler, Colleen Long, Adam Goldman and Chad Roedemeier contributed to this report.

Argentine lawmakers pushed, punched and threw chairs at each other during a raucous session to choose the president of a northern province’s lower house. Riot police rush to the scene to break up the fight

Pierce County sheriff’s spokesman Ed Troyer told reporters that Maurice Clemmons, 37, was one of several people investigators want to talk to and that he could not be called a suspect at this point.

In a news release, the sheriff’s office said Clemmons has an extensive violent criminal history from Arkansas, including aggravated robbery and theft. Clemmons also recently was arrested and charged in Pierce County in Washington state for third-degree assault on a police officer, and second-degree rape of a child.

In 1989, Clemmons, then 17, was convicted in Little Rock for aggravated robbery. He was paroled in 2000 after then-Gov. Mike Huckabee commuted Clemmons’ 95-year prison sentence. Huckabee, who was criticized during his run for the Republican presidential nomination in 2008 for the number of clemencies and commutations he granted, cited Clemmons’ age at the time of the sentence.

After his release from prison, Clemmons violated his parole and was returned to prison in July 2001. He was released March 18, 2004, according to the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette newspaper.

The four officers were with the 100-member police department of Lakewood, which adjoins the unincorporated area of Parkland, where the shootings took place. The city identified the victims as Sgt. Mark Renninger, 39; Ronald Owens, 37; Tina Griswold, 40; and Greg Richards 42.

Troyer said one of those officers fought with the gunman and may have wounded him before the officer died just outside the doorway. He told reporters that investigators were asking area medical providers to report any people wounded by gunshots.

Troyer said investigators believe two of the officers were shot dead while sitting in the shop, and a third was killed after standing up. The fourth apparently struggled with the gunman out the doorway and “gave up a good fight,” getting off a few shots before he was either shot there or succumbed to earlier wounds.

“We believe there was a struggle, a commotion, a fight … that he fought the guy all the way out the door,” Troyer said.

He added, “We hope that he hit him.”

Troyer said the gunman entered the coffee house and walked up to the counter as if to place an order. A barista saw a gun when the man opened his jacket and fled out the back door. The man then turned and opened fire on the officers as they sat working on their laptops, killing the three men and one woman in what Troyer described as a targeted ambush.

Troyer said the attack was clearly targeted at the officers, not a robbery gone bad.

“This was more of an execution. Walk in with the specific mindset to shoot police officers,” he said.

Troyer said the officers were catching up on paperwork at the beginning of their shifts when they were attacked at 8:15 a.m. Sunday.

“There were marked patrol cars outside and they were all in uniform,” Troyer said.

There was no indication of any connection with the Halloween night shooting of a Seattle police officer. The suspect in that shooting remains hospitalized.

“We won’t know if it’s a copycat effect or what it was until we get the case solved,” Troyer said. “We don’t even have a suspect ID right now.”

Troyer estimated that a couple of hundred officers from the Washington State Patrol and multiple surrounding police agencies in the area were at the crime scene, with some coming on their own time.

On Sunday night, a motorcade of dozens of police cars and motorcycles with lights flashing escorted the bodies of the four officers from the crime scene to the Pierce County medical examiner’s office in Tacoma. The motorcade rolled under a giant American flag hanging from fire truck ladders.

“We have no motive at all,” Troyer said. “I don’t think when we find out what it is, it will be anything that makes any sense or be worth it.”

Two employees and a few other customers were in the shop during the attack. All were interviewed by the Pierce County sheriff’s investigators.

“Some are in shock. They are very upset,” Troyer said. “They are the ones who are going to put together for us how this happened.”

The Forza Coffee Shop, part of a popular local chain, is on a side street near McChord Air Force Base in Tacoma, about 35 miles south of Seattle. The shop is in a small retail center alongside two restaurants, a cigar store and a nail salon.

Brad Carpenter, founder and owner of Forza Coffee, said his staff was OK and being interviewed by police, and that his main concern was for the families of the police officers.

“I’m a retired police officer, so this really hits close to home for me,” said Carpenter, of nearby Gig Harbor.

Troyer said the Lakewood officers were two blocks outside their jurisdiction, and the coffee shop was a popular place for officers from surrounding jurisdictions to meet and share information.

Streets around the coffee shop were blocked off late Sunday morning, and a police helicopter hovered over a large crowd of investigators. TV video showed police taking possession of a pickup truck parked in a grocery store in Parkland.

Troyer said investigators were checking surveillance video from multiple sources, trying to identify a possible getaway car.

Dave Gabrielson, a clerk at Foot Mart about a block away from the coffee shop, told the newspaper all was quiet when he opened the store at 8 a.m. About 30 minutes later, “All of a sudden a million cops were zooming up and down the road,” Gabrielson said.

He said he saw officers bring a police dog into a nearby apartment complex.

Last month, Seattle police officer Timothy Brenton was shot and killed Halloween night as he was sitting in a cruiser with trainee Britt Sweeney. Sweeney was grazed in the neck.

Authorities say the man charged with that shooting also firebombed four police vehicles in October as part of a “one-man war” against law enforcement. Christopher Monfort, 41, was arrested after being wounded in a firefight with police days after the Seattle shooting. He remains hospitalized in stable condition, the hospital said Sunday.

The officers killed Sunday were a patrol squad made up of three officers and their sergeant. No threats had been made against them or other officers in the region, sheriff’s officials said. Their families have been notified.

“We lost people we care about. We’re working to find out who did this and deal with him.” Pierce County Sheriff Paul Pastor told reporters at the scene.

Washington Gov. Chris Gregoire said she was “shocked and horrified” by the killings.

“Our police put their lives on the line every day, and tragedies like this remind us of the risks they continually take to keep our communities safe,” she said in a written statement. “My heart goes out to the family, friends and co-workers of these officers, as well as the entire law enforcement community.”

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Associated Press Writer Rachel La Corte in Olympia and Photographer Ted S. Warren in Parkland contributed to this report.

Watch as a patient police officer in Texas puts up with a friendly black cat clinging to him during a recent traffic stop. The ways of the affectionate feline were captured by the patrol car’s dashcam.