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| Hooping it up
If his playing on the basketball court can keep at least some adolescents from winding up in criminal court, then Illinois State Trooper John Paul Merrifield, a safety education officer, will just have to keep making jump shots with the Harlem All Stars, a team of comedic hoopsters with an anti-drug message.
The 6-foot-6 Merrifield, 40, was a counselor for children and teenagers at a Houston psychiatric hospital before entering law enforcement. A native of Greenville, he wanted to return to his home state and the State Police was the way to do it. “My uncle retired from the Illinois State Police, so it’s kind of in my family,” he told The St. Louis Post-Dispatch. “I thought about it for a long time.”...
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| Image makers
Unless Hollywood beckons, Clanett Boone and Mary Ann Miller, two of Baltimore’s finest, have no plans to quit their day jobs any time soon. The officers have become local heroes ever since a public service advertisement they starred in this year proved a big hit with both the community and city officials.
Boone and Miller, who had to give up their undercover work, are not to sad about the change in assignments. An 11-year veteran of the force, Miller, 34, said she was glad to give up the demanding shifts she worked as a member of a unit that collects and traces guns. Boone, who has been on the force for 19 years, said he would love to leave police work behind for a shot at acting professionally...
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| The last laugh
Supervisors at New Jersey’s Mid State Correctional Facility in Wrightstown laughed when corrections officer Robert L. Lockley Jr. complained about the unwanted sexual advances made toward him by a female co-worker. But Lockley is the one having the last laugh, after winning a $3.7-million judgment against the state in one of the few cases in the nation to address discrimination against men by women in the workplace.
The award returned on May 28 by a Burlington County jury — $3 million in punitive damages and $750,000 for emotional distress — stems from a sexual harassment claim Lockley filed in 1993 after enduring years of abuse from a senior correctional officer, Ronda L. Turner.
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Mission accomplished
Little Rock chief steps down, leaving behind a better agency
When Little Rock officials speak of Chief Lou Caudell’s legacy to the department, it is difficult to decide whether it is the enormous increase in the number of minority and female officers he brought onto the force, the expansion of the agency’s technological capabilities or his leadership in forming a more professional department.
One thing they do agree on, however, is that the LRPD Caudell left behind when he retired in late July is a better department than the one he inherited...
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