MONROE - There's always something interesting in the police blotter and in circuit court.
We publish the police blotter and sheriff logs just as we get them. If the blotter in the paper said someone was "arrested," it's because that's how it was written in the sheriff's report or the Monroe police report.
There's the usual crimes and the common events on the blotter every day. For example, it's rare a day goes by when there isn't a car versus deer accident or someone failed to obey a traffic sign someplace in the county.
A couple of things that frequently appear can lead people to shake their heads.
For example, there are a lot of repeat offenders in both the blotter and circuit court. Their names don't need mentioned because dally readers knew them by now.
These are the people who commit a crime, get bail and then go out and commit another crime. They then face charges for the original crime, the second crime and bail jumping. Sometimes bail jumping is a felony, punishable by six years in prison, and sometimes it's a misdemeanor, punishable by nine months in jail.
In a few instances, not as rare as they should be, maybe, the person then commits another crime so he faces another criminal charge as well as another bail jumping charge.
In some cases, it's hard to keep track of what the person originally did wrong because there are three or four cases against him at once.
One other thing that seems to come up quite often are people who drive with suspended or revoked licenses.
They obviously haven't learned the rules of the road and yet they continue to drive. The fines aren't that much and there doesn't seem to be any serious consequences to their actions.
Occasionally there will be a young adult, under 25, who is on their fourth- or fifth-offense driving after revocation.
Even third- or fourth-offense drunken drivers continue to drive. Most of the time they don't have a license, which probably means they don't have insurance either, and it doesn't appear to bother them if they get arrested.
It would seem there wouldn't be as many cases of this but, as already said, there's always something interesting in the police blotter and circuit court.
* * *
In light of the recent drug search at the Monroe High School and the Monroe Alternative Charter School, an e-mail was sent to the Times about a drug search in the Brodhead school district.
Brodhead Police chief Tom Moczynski said drug dogs searched the high school building and parking lot and also searched the middle school March 18.
Moczynski said no one was arrested as a result of the search. The Brodhead Police Department does a search of the schools once or twice a year, he added.
Brodhead superintendent Charles Deery said a male sophomore student was expelled in March because he was under the influence of drugs and was in possession of drugs on school grounds. He couldn't go into any more details due to confidentiality reasons, he said.
The student expulsion was not related to the drug search, Deery said.
- Brian Gray is a reporter at The Monroe Times and can be reached at bgray@themonroetimes.com
We publish the police blotter and sheriff logs just as we get them. If the blotter in the paper said someone was "arrested," it's because that's how it was written in the sheriff's report or the Monroe police report.
There's the usual crimes and the common events on the blotter every day. For example, it's rare a day goes by when there isn't a car versus deer accident or someone failed to obey a traffic sign someplace in the county.
A couple of things that frequently appear can lead people to shake their heads.
For example, there are a lot of repeat offenders in both the blotter and circuit court. Their names don't need mentioned because dally readers knew them by now.
These are the people who commit a crime, get bail and then go out and commit another crime. They then face charges for the original crime, the second crime and bail jumping. Sometimes bail jumping is a felony, punishable by six years in prison, and sometimes it's a misdemeanor, punishable by nine months in jail.
In a few instances, not as rare as they should be, maybe, the person then commits another crime so he faces another criminal charge as well as another bail jumping charge.
In some cases, it's hard to keep track of what the person originally did wrong because there are three or four cases against him at once.
One other thing that seems to come up quite often are people who drive with suspended or revoked licenses.
They obviously haven't learned the rules of the road and yet they continue to drive. The fines aren't that much and there doesn't seem to be any serious consequences to their actions.
Occasionally there will be a young adult, under 25, who is on their fourth- or fifth-offense driving after revocation.
Even third- or fourth-offense drunken drivers continue to drive. Most of the time they don't have a license, which probably means they don't have insurance either, and it doesn't appear to bother them if they get arrested.
It would seem there wouldn't be as many cases of this but, as already said, there's always something interesting in the police blotter and circuit court.
* * *
In light of the recent drug search at the Monroe High School and the Monroe Alternative Charter School, an e-mail was sent to the Times about a drug search in the Brodhead school district.
Brodhead Police chief Tom Moczynski said drug dogs searched the high school building and parking lot and also searched the middle school March 18.
Moczynski said no one was arrested as a result of the search. The Brodhead Police Department does a search of the schools once or twice a year, he added.
Brodhead superintendent Charles Deery said a male sophomore student was expelled in March because he was under the influence of drugs and was in possession of drugs on school grounds. He couldn't go into any more details due to confidentiality reasons, he said.
The student expulsion was not related to the drug search, Deery said.
- Brian Gray is a reporter at The Monroe Times and can be reached at bgray@themonroetimes.com