Story #2

County votes 5-2 denying law enforcement funds

Thursday night’s county commission meeting was the setting for a heated debate between County Sheriff Gus DiCesari and the commission members, led by Commission President Anne Chenn. DiCesari pressed the county for additional law enforcement funds to be used to replace eight police cruisers, each of which accumulated more than 150,000 miles and that DiCesari claims are becoming “too costly to maintain...and they spend more time in the repair shop.” Additional law enforcement funds would also be used to hire five sheriff’s deputies. 

DiCesari was backed by commission members Anita Shenuski and Raymond Laybourne, who suggested during the meeting that the county spend money on the sherrif’s department and less on programs for county migrant workers. Shenuski and Laybourne claim that funds would be better spent protecting “local residents.” Chenn and Commissioners Valerie Dawkins, Faith Ellis, Jose Gardoz and Roland Grauman strongly advocated for the some 5,000 migrant families in the community, highlighting the fact that many migrant workers have “become permanent members of the community.” 

DiCesari claims that in his 27 years as sheriff, this is the first time the department has been without an equipment budget. Cenn claims the county is without the $580,000 needed to replace the police cruisers and to hire new deputies and that the sheriff’s department will simply have to make due this year. “My deputies can’t keep driving these old vehicles,” DiCesari claims, “Something bad is going to happen.” Chenn suggested that deputies not drive their cruisers home each day as is the current practice and thus save milage and make more cars available, even though cruisers parked around neighborhoods is a crime deterrant. 

A vote was held and the commission voted 5-2 against the request for additional law enforcement funds. 

Story #1

Think your work day started off grimly? Well, as long as you were not involved in the crash this morning on Interstate 790, your day was probably okay. At 6:45am, two northbound tractor trailers collided, beginning a chain reaction crash that ultimately included four tractor trailers and 14 cars, several injuries, and fatalities. 

The mechanical mess was so great and chaotic that police officers on the scene had trouble identifying passengers and drivers with their cars, according to Police Sgt. Albert Wei. 

“When I arrived,” says Fire Chief Tony Sullivan, “it looked like a war zone with bodies laying along the road, people covered with blood next to their cars, emergency workers running from place to place trying to help the injured, and sirens wailing in the distance.” Firemen had to actually cut the roofs off of three cars in order to reach the passengers inside. The city’s total number of ambulances were deployed to the scene, and back up was called from four nearby cities. The crash, says Sullivan, had a total of two fatalities both belonging to car drivers. Twenty others were injured, four seriously. Two of the worst injuries were air-lifted to the trauma center in Statesville. “In the 18 and a half years I’ve been with the fire department,” says Sullivan, “I’ve never seen anything that bad.”

The multi-vehicle crash has completely close Interstate 790, and traffic has been rerouted to Interstate 690. As of 10am this morning, traffic on the east side of the city was still backed up as it had been for three hours and without an idea of when it will reopen, according to Wei.