Ex-worker blamed in plant shooting
Taylor, Mich. A man who had just been fired from his job at a paper plant returned to his workplace with a handgun and shot two colleagues, killing one of them, authorities said.
The suspect, identified only as a 31-year-old Detroit man, was expected to be arraigned today, police Lt. Frank Canning said Saturday.
Police in the Detroit suburb were called Friday afternoon and told that an employee was firing shots in the International Paper Co. plant, said police Sgt. Mary Sclabassi.
She said the gunman had just been dismissed because the company wasn’t satisfied with his performance. The shooter went to his vehicle, got a handgun, returned to the building and shot the supervisor who fired him. He then shot a woman who tried to intervene, Sclabassi said.
She said the wounded supervisor and another employee who wasn’t shot tackled the shooter, took the gun away and held him until police arrived.
Man pleads guilty in phony registrations
Defiance, Ohio A man pleaded guilty to charges he filled out phony voter registration cards in the names of Mary Poppins, Dick Tracy, Michael Jordan and George Foreman.
Chad Staton, 22, faces up to a year in prison and a $2,500 fine on each of 10 counts of false registration at his sentencing April 13. He pleaded guilty on Thursday.
Election officials spotted the phony registration forms and notified the Defiance County sheriff, who arrested Staton in December. Officials said Staton had fraudulently filled out more than 100 forms.
A woman told authorities she paid Staton cocaine to sign up voters for the November election. Rather than getting legitimate voters, Staton filled out the phony forms, authorities said.
The woman, Georgianne Pitts, 41, was found dead in her Toledo home in early December. Officials said she died from an accidental overdose of prescription medication.
Marine recruit’s death prompts suspensions
Columbia, S.C. Four more Marines have been suspended while authorities investigate the death of a recruit who died during a training exercise, military officials said Saturday.
The four Marines saw a drill instructor grab recruit Jason Tharp by the shirt and hit him in the chest, according to a video shot by Columbia television station WIS a day before Tharp died. The drill instructor was suspended earlier.
Tharp, of Sutton, W.Va., drowned Feb. 8 in a swimming pool while participating in a water-survival training course at Parris Island.
Military officials have acknowledged the drill instructor’s actions violated regulations.
Released inmate turns himself in
Canton, Ohio An inmate released by mistake by jail officials in Ohio arranged his own way back to the prison in Colorado where he still has two more years to serve. He even called to say he was on his way.
Stark County jailers let Ricky Lee Claycomb go on Tuesday after he was acquitted of a rape charge he had been brought to Ohio from Colorado to face. Jail officials apparently never saw the paperwork to return him to the prison.
“We don’t know exactly what happened,” Sheriff Tim Swanson said.
Claycomb, 37, called his mother in Henderson, Colo.
She sent him money for a bus ticket. After the two-day trip to Colorado, Claycomb visited her long enough to have oatmeal and peaches for breakfast and pizza for lunch, and then his brother drove him to Colorado’s Fremont Correctional Facility in Canon City.