5 boys take joy ride with sex offender

  by Christian Grantham - December 12th, 2007 - 6:21 am| BREAKING, Crime, Family, Public Safety | one comment

When police stopped Michael Ingram for swerving in traffic they found five boys ages 12 and 13 in the back seat. Not only was Ingram driving drunk, police say he is a convicted sex offender who met the boys on MySpace. News 2 was the first to bring you this story.

Ingram is a registered sex offender and not supposed to be with young boys.  But that’s exactly what he was doing Saturday, when police pulled him over and found the boys inside.

The mother of one of the boys in Ingram’s car said it all started outside Hermitage Elementary School. Ingram approached the boys and told them he knew a famous rock band and could get them autographs.

In an arrest affidavit from Saturday, the Metro police officer describes Ingram as drunk, saying he fell down on several occasions just standing.
[Sex Offender Spent Time With Young Boys Before Arrest - WKRN - 12-11-07]

Christmas shopping rage: “Shut up Brentwood twit!”

  by Christian Grantham - December 11th, 2007 - 6:05 am| Consumer Alert, Crime, Public Safety | 2 comments

That’s what 48-year-old Cynthia Strong of Bellevue told 32-year-old Tara Underwood after Underwood drove the wrong way while looking for a parking spot at the Cool Springs Galleria. Read the entire incident at ThatIsMessedUp complete with 911 audio.

Strong faces a maximum sentence of 11 months and 29 days in jail, though she has no previous record. She is due back in court on December 20.

“She was furious,” said Underwood.  “If my five-year-old had been back here he would have been terrified.  She is banging on the window freaking out.  I am afraid she is going to break the window out.  She started yelling at me screaming nasty, ugly expletives at me.  She totally threatened me, a lot.”
[Road Rage Turns Violent In Cool Springs’ Lot - WKRN - 12-10-07]

“I at no time did i utter a curse word at underwood before exiting my car. i did comment after she started her holiday cheer lecture and how someone else had taken her parking spot that i thought perhaps she was illterate since she was going the wrong way. i then proceeded to roll up my window when she called me a bitch. at that point, i parked my car and confronted her. when she stated she couldn’t hear me, i reached in her car window, snatcher her ear buds out of her ear and asked could she hear me now?!?!?”
[Cynthia Strong - December 10, 2007 @ 11:47 pm ]

“I actually thought she was rolling her window down to offer me her space that she had just left because it was a little further up from me. She is so deranged that she is actually DEFENDING her position. Maybe Ms. Strong is the one who is “not so bright here”. If she had displayed an ounce of self control or sense; she would have never come up to my car and verbally and physically attacked me. She had NO IDEA that my little innocent son was not in that car behind those tinted windows; NOR DID SHE CARE.”
[Tara Underwood - December 11, 2007 @ 1:20 am ]

Do what?

  by Christian Grantham - December 10th, 2007 - 10:12 am| Environment, Farm, Food, Race Relations | no comments

Another noose.

Police said a tenant on Delta Avenue found a noose, a letter and a burning cross in his home. Police said the tenant made the discovery after someone knocked on the door and ran away.
[Noose Found On North Nashville Doorstep - WKRN - 12-10-07]

Muncheese.

A Wisconsin cheese company made the highest bid for the Trousdale County cave at a court-ordered auction Saturday.  The Tennessean reports the firm offered $285,000 for 7 acres and the caves below. 

In 2005, authorities discovered a marijuana farm in the cave.  The former cave owner remains in jail.
[Pot Cave Will Now Be Cheese Cave - WKRN - 12-10-07]

Extremely obese motorists less likely to buckle-up

  by Christian Grantham - December 7th, 2007 - 11:55 am| Family, Health Care, Public Safety | 3 comments

One possible solution from Meharry Medical’s website would make a great stocking stuffer for obese friends and family this Christmas: a seat-belt extender.

In a study published in the November 2007 issue of the journal, Obesity, lead author David Schlundt, Ph.D., a health psychologist who leads behavioral research for the Meharry-State Farm Alliance in Nashville, reported that people who are obese have lower rates of seat belt use than their lean counterparts.

An estimated 26 percent of the United States adult population, or about 60 million people, are obese, according to 2006 data compiled by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).  For its study, the Alliance analyzed 2002 data from the CDC’s Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System. 

Researchers divided the more than 230,000 people into groups based on their body mass index (BMI), a measure of how overweight an individual is.  The rate of always wearing seat belts was 82.6 percent for non-obese motorists (BMI less than 25), 80.1 percent for overweight motorists (BMI 25-29), 76.6 percent for obese motorists (BMI: 30-39) and 69.8 percent for extremely obese motorists (BMI 40 and above). The gap climbed from 2.5 percent for overweight, to 6.0 percent among the obese, to 12.8 percent among the extremely obese.
[Obesity Blamed for Another Public Health Crisis: Preventable Death and Injury Due to Failure to Use Seat Belts - MMC - November 2007]

Apartment complex sinkhole

  by Christian Grantham - December 7th, 2007 - 10:38 am| City Government, Property, Public Safety, WKRN | one comment

Marty Potter just wants someone to fix it before someone gets hurt. Andy Cordan has the bigger picture tonight on News 2 at 5.

“I’ve called Metro Codes,” he pauses; his eyes search the sky as he counts inside his head. “At least seven or eight times,” the 37 year old tells me. “I finally called the police,” he says. “The officer got down on the edge and shined his mag light down there. He told me to call Codes. Finally someone at Codes told me to call waste water. So I’ve been calling them and nobody has returned my calls.”
[Sinkhole - ThatIsMessedUp - 12-07-07]

Murfreesboro gives key to the city to Watergate burglar

  by Christian Grantham - December 6th, 2007 - 1:52 pm| City Government, Justice, Politics | 2 comments

He was a key figure in “our long national nightmare” serving four years in jail for his role in burglarizing the Democratic Headquarters at the Watergate Hotel. Today, Murfreesboro Vice Mayor Chris Bratcher presented the keys to the city to former Nixon operative G. Gordon Liddy.

The G-Man did his nationwide radio show from WGNS on Thursday (12/6/07).  Prior to the coast-to-coast feed, Murfreesboro Vice Mayor Chris Bratcher presented G. Gordon Liddy with the Key To The City.  Mr. Liddy quickly popped-back, “But is this the key to the jail too, in case I get there?” 

G. Gordon Liddy and Radio America’s Jenn Shirley began the broadcast.  Mr. Liddy was certainly well fed while in the Heart of Tennessee.  Our friends at Kirkenburts’ Smokehouse Grill brought their famous smoked wings and other goodies so the G-Man would not get hungry.
[G. Gordon Liddy in Murfreesboro - WGNS - 12-06-07]

Classes cancelled for a football game

  by Christian Grantham - December 6th, 2007 - 11:29 am| Campus, City Government, Education | one comment

Classes for Carroll County’s McKenzie Special School District will be cancelled tomorrow in favor of a high school football game in Murfreesboro.

Football, for a day, takes priority in the school system. It’s also on the verge of taking over the town.
  
The high school’s football team is playing in the TSSAA Class 1A BlueCross Bowl for the state championship in Murfreesboro at 3:30 p.m. It’s the Rebels’ first trip to a football title game and only the school’s second trip to a state championship.

McKenzie (13-1) plays South Pittsburg (14-0), from about 30 miles west of Chattanooga, in Middle Tennessee State University’s Floyd Stadium.
[McKenzie ditches school for football - Jackson Sun - 12-06-07]

Last year, McKenzie High School was listed as a targetted school under No Child Left Behind and failed to meet federal benchmarks for graduation rates. About 46% of the students are listed as “economically disadvantaged.”

Hero fired for spying on women in a restroom

  by Christian Grantham - December 6th, 2007 - 6:17 am| County Government, Crime, Public Safety, Weirdness | no comments

Joe Reed was called a hero for being among the first responders to a national tragedy in Minneapolis in August. Now Reed has been fired from his job with the Rutherford County Emergency Management for allegedly placing cameras in the women’s restroom.

The firing comes after hidden cameras were found in a women’s restroom at the emergency center.

The hidden camera incident occurred at the Emergency Management Headquarters in Rutherford County.

After Reed was fired, the TBI was called in to look at the case.
[Rutherford Co. Official Fired, Facing TBI Investigation - WKRN - 12-05-07]

NES cut her tree down

  by Christian Grantham - December 3rd, 2007 - 12:51 pm| City Government, Environment, Law, Property, Public Safety | no comments

Nashville Electric Service cut Sandra Brown’s tree down. Tune in to her story tonight on News 2 at 5.

 
“I am a single older woman who has worked all my life to buy that little biddy land with the trees,” she says forcefully, her anger almost papable. “And I don’t appreciate you doing that like I had no rights and no feelings,” she says, the tears welling again, as she clenches her fist and talks to the camera as if it were the president of the Nashville Electric Service. “And it was an old tree to you all but it meant something to me.” She bangs her chest with her clenched fist. She holds it tight against her chest as if to keep her rapidly beating heart from exploding. “That tree enriched my life!  It enriched my grand baby’s life!  It is not right! You need to stop and think before you something like this. There are people on the other end of what you are doing.”
[Who said you could cut my tree? - ThatIsMessedUp - 12-03-07]

Learn more:

• Metro Tree Advisory Committee
• Track NES’s Tree Trimming Crew activity on this map
• list of “powerline approved” trees (.PDF) from the Nashville Tree Foundation
• NES: Power stays on thanks to tree trimming (June 2007)

Oak Hill City Manager voted 10 times despite felony conviction

  by Christian Grantham - November 30th, 2007 - 3:50 pm| BREAKING, City Government, County Government, EXCLUSIVE, Politics | one comment

A Davidson County voter registration form posted on News 2’s VolunteerVoters could put Oak Hill City Manager Bill Kraus in more legal jeopardy.

Kraus, who pled guilty to federal mail fraud in 1987, did not file to restore his voting rights as a convicted felon and has voted 10 times since registering to vote in Davidson County.

Kraus did not answer question #9 on the voter registration form which asks “HAVE YOU EVER BEEN CONVICTED OF A CRIME WHICH IS A FELONY” but signed the document affirming “I have never been convicted of a felony, or I have had my rights restored as required by law.” Kraus told News 2 he did so intentionally.

“I was told both by the court and by lawyers at the time that [the felony conviction] would place no restrictions on my civil or voting rights.”
[Oak Hill City Manager Bill Kraus Left Felony Question Blank On 2003 Voter Registration Form - VolunteerVoters - 11-30-07]

Above Kraus’s signature appears a warning stating: “Giving false information to register to vote or attempting to register when not qualified are felonies punishable by not less than one (1) year nor more than six (6) years’ imprisonment or a fine of $3,000 or both.”

Oak Hill recently retained a law firm to investigate Kraus’s criminal record when it resurfaced on News 2’s political blog. The city has not concluded its investigation.