Posted on 08/22/2002 11:52:27 AM PDT by PJeffQ
Richland County Sheriff's Department
LEON L. LOTT, JR.
Sheriff
NEWS ADVISORY
AUGUST 22, 2001 Contact: Lt. Joseph Pellicci
(Work) 691-9025
(Pager) 765-6205
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FOUR TEENAGERS ARRESTED IN SHOOTING DEATH OF FEDERAL PROSECUTOR
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The Richland County Sheriff's Department, the City of Columbia Police Department, and the FBI have announced that four arrests have been made in the August 20th shooting death of Michael Messer. Messer, 49, of Morton Grove, Illinois, was shot and killed at approximately 9:55 p.m. Monday evening in the 800 block of Laurens Street during an attempted robbery by four teenagers.
Messer and Richard Ferguson of Naperville, Illinois were in Columbia attending a federal training seminar at the National Advocacy Center on the University of South Carolina Campus. The two assistant federal prosecutors were walking back to the Advocacy Center from Five Points when the incident occurred. Ferguson was also shot during the attempted robbery, but managed to escape, receiving a gunshot to his right arm.
The four suspects arrested in Messer's murder are:
* Abram Douglas Braveboy, dob of 12/7/82, 2113 Tammy Drive, Columbia
* Cichey Levar Mayo, dob of 2/7/84, 8308 Old Percival Rd, Columbia
* Bryan Murray, dob of 10/6/84, 7920 Spring Flower Rd., Columbia
* Willie James Murphy, Jr., dob of 5/23/85, 125 Leeside Circle, Columbia
Braveboy was arrested August 21st at the Richland County Sheriff's Department. Mayo, Murray, and Murphy were arrested at their respective homes by authorities this morning. Each of the four suspects is facing the following charges:
-murder
-assault and battery with intent to kill
-conspiracy to commit armed robbery (multiple counts)
-armed robbery (multiple counts)
-attempted armed robbery (multiple counts)
The charges stem from five separate incidents involving the suspects, beginning with a random shooting August 17th at the Sonic restaurant on Two Notch Road, and ending with numerous armed robberies on the evening of August 20th. An older model gray Volvo was a common link in many of the crimes.
Richland County Sheriff's investigators broke the case with the arrest of Braveboy. Tuesday morning, August 21st, Braveboy was driving a gray Volvo on Two Notch Road when his vehicle was struck by Sheriff Lott's car during the pursuit of the Bank Of America robbery suspect.
Braveboy drove off before deputies arrived, but Tuesday afternoon, Braveboy's mother came to the Sheriff's Department to report that her son was involved in an accident with a police officer. When investigators discovered the car in question was an older model gray Volvo, they received consent to search the vehicle and discovered several items connected to the murder and robberies.
"We were able to solve this case through, what I call, divine intervention," Richland County Sheriff Leon Lott said. "The chances of me running into the murder suspect during the pursuit of another suspect are a million to one. But there is no question that through the diligent efforts of my department, the City of Columbia, the FBI, and the U.S. Attorney's Office, these individuals would eventually have been arrested. We're just thankful the arrests were made before any more innocent people were harmed."
3000 people were murdered on 9/11.
Over 200,000,000 people were murdered by police states.
You do the math.
You want to stop crime, put a cop on the street. You want to fill out reports, put a cop in an easy chair and let him watch tv...
"despite all the ACLU half truths and spin, in every city where it has been used, crime is down dramatically."
Crime could be reduced even further if the government imitated curfews and began putting cops on every corner. Think about it, every time you take a walk someone checks your paperwork. Sound familiar?
Freedom bears inherent risk but I for one would rather take my chances of being mugged than being followed around from place to place by this not so well meaning parent.
No. Although dissidents in Britain - who lack guns - have successfully attacked spy cameras and traffic cameras by lassoing the camera head with ropes tied to car bumpers, the weak point of typical spy camera and traffic camera systems in the U.S. is that large ground-level box containing the control electronics; see photos.
Which require a lens. I saw the pix, and the cams are indeed
quite high, but I still contend that a well placed paintball
will foul the lens, regardless of control boxes on the ground.
Shoot the camera head with a paintball - a difficult shot at a small object about twice the height of a utility pole, and whatever agency runs the system cleans it up within a couple days. Sure, you can keep messing up the lens - and they can keep cleaning it up, probably eventually giving up on it.
But shoot that ground-level control box (see photo) - an easy shot at a big target - with a deer rifle, and its $10,000+ in electronics are ruined and a complex repair is needed. Best of all, you can do it from hundreds of yards away - out of the spy camera's vision!
All for it unless SCANA uses it to spot employees eating Maurice's Barbecue.
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