EX ALDERMAN NEWSLETTER 302 AND CHESTERFIELD 247 November 6, 2017 SECURITY AT TOWN AND COUNTRY TARGET STORE AND T&C POLICE CAPTURE LONG TIME DRUG ADDICT THEIF AND RECOVER STOLEN PROPERTY: Jeremy Waters had been a drug addict for over 20 years according to his mother. On Friday May 20, 2016 he was shoplifting at the Target Store in Town and Country Crossing. The security manager of the store reviewed video of Waters after an employee found empty boxes of products from the electronic departments in a changing room. She saw Waters arrive in a pickup truck enter the store, gather items in a shopping cart, go into a dressing room, later check out only buying a few items and hiding other items in the cart. She was able to determine that at least $754 worth of items were stolen and possibly more. Det. Hunt of the Town and Country Police was also able to determine that Waters was seen stealing or attempting to steal at the Wal Mart in St. Charles, MO. The regional security office for Lowes Stores also had video of Waters stealing from their stores. Det. Hunt obtained a telephone number for the 35-year-old Waters mother. She told Det. Hunt that her son had been a drug addict for about 20 years. The last she had heard he was living out of his truck or at inexpensive motels. A wanted was issued for Waters that including the license number and description of his truck. Officers of the Bridgeton PD found the truck and Waters on May 24, 2016 at the Economy Inn and Suites on St. Charles Rock Road. Waters was arrested. Town and Country Officers responded to the motel and towed Waters pickup truck back to the T&C police station. They also got a search warrant for the truck and the motel room. 1
They recovered $1,602 of stolen items. Here are some of the items recovered from he motel room per the police report: 2
Here is a portion of Waters arrest record that we could find. 06/03/16 Burglary and Stealing St. Louis PD 02/16/17 Sentenced to 7 years prison 05/31/16 Felony Receiving Stolen Property St. Ann PD 04/24/17 Sentenced to 7 years prison 05/20/16 Fel Stealing amended to Fel Rec Stolen Prop Town and Country PD 04/24/17 Sentenced to 7 years prison 08/23/12 Leaving the Scene of Accident St. Louis PD Driving While Revoked 05/15/12 Leaving the Scene of Accident St. Charles CO Sheriff s Office 09/18/13 sentenced to 10 days County Jail 04/14/12 Felony Stealing Over $500 Manchester PD Felony Property Damage Felony Resisting Arrest 04/02/14 Probation revoked sentenced to 4 years prison 03/22/12 Felony Stealing Over $500 Bridgeton PD 03/31/14 Probation revoked sentenced to 5 years prison 12/27/11 Felony Stealing Over $500 St. Louis CO PD 3/31/14 Probation revoked sentenced to 5 years prison 07/15/06 Assault Law Enf Officer/Resisting arrest St. Peters PD 06/16/08 Fined $500 on each charge 03/02/01 Unlawful Use of Drug Paraphernalia St. Charles CO Sheriff s Office 06/26/02 fined $200 OUTCOME: On April 24, 2017 Waters pled guilty to the Town and Country charge and other charges. He was sentenced to seven-years in prison. 3
17-YEAR-OLD GETS TWO MOVING VIOLATION CITATIONS IN 6 DAYS AND THE COURT SYSTEM TURNS HER INTO A SERIAL ILLEGAL PARKER: On April 8, 2017 Haley Nicole Hollins, 17 of Ferguson was clocked doing 91 MPH on EB I-64 near Highway 141 by Town and Country Police Officer Doll. It was 11:01 PM on a Saturday night. She was pushing a little 2017 Chevy Spark to the limit. Six days later on April 14 Haley got a moving violation citation from the County Police. 4
On Wednesday June 28 at 2:02 PM Haley was stopped and cited by the Clayton Police for not wearing her seatbelt. ($10 fine) OUTCOME: On June 27, 2017 Haley s downtown lawyer got her moving violation issued by the County Police reduced to a $100 parking violation. On August 24, 2017 after moving the 91MPH in a 60 MPH zone citation to the St. Louis County Associate Circuit Court she pled guilty to yet another amended charge of Illegal Parking, before Judge Mary Ott. Apparently Town and Country Prosecutor Ed Sluys did not bother to check and see that Hollins had just two months earlier had a moving violation reduced to Illegal Parking or he simply did not care in indentifying a young but bad driver. He reduced the charge to Illegal Parking. Judge Ott, who also did not care, she fined Haley Hollins $150. DRIVING 92 MPH IN A 60 WITH A SUSPENDED LICENSE ALWAYS A BRIGHT MOVE: Kevin Murillo, 22, then of St. Charles, Missouri and now of Maryland Heights is not very bright. With a license suspended or revoked and in one case with drugs in the car he keeps speeding and giving the cops a reason to stop him. 08/23/17 Speeding 45/30 Pending Bridgeton PD 08/17/17 Speeding 89/60 Pending Town and Country 05/24/17 Driving While Revoked Pending St. Ann PD 04/08/16 Driving While Revoked In Warrant Florissant PD Poss of Drug Para In Warrant 05/10/15 Speeding 92/60 PG 08/24/17 $225 fine Town and Country Driving While Suspended reduced to Illegal Parking $150 fine 5
OUTCOME: On August 2, 2017 Town and Country prosecutor Ed Sluys amended the 12-point Driving While Suspended citation to a No-Point Illegal parking charge. Murillo s lawyer had moved the case to St. Louis County Associate Circuit Court. Judge Ott fined Murillo $150 for the amended Illegal Parking charge. He pled guilty to the Speeding charge and was fined $225 which should have carried 2 points. A week before his appearance on the two Town and Country citations he was cited again in Town and Country on August 17, 2017 for speeding 89 MPH in a 60 Zone on I- 64 at Hwy 141. That case has been continued to December 7, 2017 when Ed Sluys or Judge Niehoff will have a chance to waive a wand and turn it into a parking ticket. The day before his court appearance on the two 2015 Town and Country citations he was cited by the Bridgeton PD for speeding. THINGS OBSERVED AT MARI de VILLA: I like to think that after 30 years in law enforcment and 10 years as a sportswriter I m pretty observant. But I m amazed how often my wife can prove me wrong. 6
The very impressive four sided London Street clock at the west end of Mari de Villa on Clayton Road at Jo Carr Lane has been up for a while. I have been meaning to get a photo of it. I was sure it was installed in the last six months. Imagine my surprise when I contacted the owner of Mari de Villa Fred Wieseman and learned that it was installed a little over a year ago. It was purchased from a Florida company. He did not mention the price. A website in Great Britain had the price around $20,000. A company in Westfield, MA would only provide a price upon request. A company in Cincinnati also does not provide prices on its website. ALSO SEEN IN THE AREA: We have seen someone picketing Maria de Villa and a reader sentint this photo. We asked Fred Wiesehan what this is all about. We told us it was a former employee from 20 years ago. The next time we see the man with the sign we will ask him. 7
TOWN AND COUNTRY REAL ESTATE 1835 Manor Hill Dr. We recently showed you this house that wasunder contract on Manor Hill Drive in Thornhill Estates. We mentioned that despite being remodeled in 2007 and recenlty getting a new roof a contract is in from a builder. The sale has gone through and this house with the new roof will soon meet a bulldozier. 8
And here is the proposed new house. Here are three more proposed new houses in T&C: #1 Rutherford Lane Proposed new house 9
2488 Oak Spring Proposed new house at 2488 Oak Springs 11 Bellerive Country Club Grounds In the day of 2 and 21/2 story McMasions and even Masions, here is an unusual sight. It is a proposed ranch house with a walkout basement, 10
MEDIA: This is how it read in the online edtion of the Post-Dispatch: O'Fallon, Mo., police pursuit ends in crash, suspect in custody By Christine Byers St. Louis Post-Dispatch 18 hrs ago (2) O'FALLON, MO. A police pursuit that started in O'Fallon ended in a crash Sunday at Interstate 270 and Ballas Road, where the driver was taken into custody. The pursuit began at 8:16 p.m. near Highway K and Babble Creek Lane and ended about 20 miles away when the driver crashed, according to Diana Damke, an O'Fallon police spokeswoman. The driver, who suffered non-life-threatening injuries, was arrested. Damke was unsure whether he was taken to a hospital for treatment or what prompted the chase. "He is a suspect in some investigations," she said, declining to elaborate. This begged the question, Where is the intersection of I-270 and Ballas? Since they are parrell streets they don t intersect. A reporter should know the locations along I-270. A reporter should also know where Ballas Road is since it has two large hospitals on it along with a major shopping center and two police stations. The pursuit ended on EB I-64 east of I-270 at Ballas Road. The suspect in the pursuit was Christopher M. George, 34, of St. Charles. 11
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LONGVIEW FARM PARK COLOR CHANGE: Red is the new color for the barn at Longview Farm Park. We were unable to get a comment from the horses of their opinion of the color change. JUST IN TIME FOR HALLOWEEN: Once again the Board of Aldermen have operated with blinders on with no one mentioning the obvious. In 2010 a park employee removed all of the honeysuckle from the interior of the park. The invassive weed was choking out trees, obstructing views and making it dangerous and impossible for walks in the wooded area. 13
honeysuckle in 2010. This was the out of control Again in 2014 without having staff control of the growth of honeysuckle it took over the park again. An outside contactor was hired to cut, pull up and remove the honeysuckle and return the views and ability to walk inthtw woods. Now in 2017 the park has been taken over by overgrown honeysuckle. The city failed to maintain the work it did time after time, causing more expense and a more dangerous park for users. You used to be able to see the trail around the pond from this picnic table. Now all you see is 7-foot high honeysuckle. 14
This young tree should be dead soon from deer rutting. If the deer don t get it the honeysuckle will choke it out next year. From where I took this photo you used to be able to see the barn and corral through the woods. Now you only see honeysuckle.. 15
Loving couple being photographed in the haunted honeysuckle forest. Actually I thought these professional photographers were not suppose to be blocking bridges. While the city is paying to have the Longview Park barn re-sided with new metal siding for the second time they have refused to maintain the interior of the park after having all the honeysuckle removed. If you look at the condition of Preservation Park,(falling apart with parts of it in dangerous condition and a section closed) it appears as if the city has no land management skills. Look at the overgrown Longview Park and then think how the city is about to sink another $5,000,000 into the proposed Town Square. If they can t take care of what they currently have what business do they have increasing the size of property to try and maintain? UNAPPROVED CHESTERFIELD NEWSLETTER 247 November 6, 2017 16
65-YEAR OLD SHOPLIFTER WHO ASSAULTED, CHOKED AND TRIED TO TAKE THE GUN OF A CHESTERFIELD POLICE OFFICER, HAS ALL CHARGES REDUCED TO MISDEMEANORS. We reported on the arrest back in our March 13, 2017 Newsletter, Now that the defendant Hok Chan, 65, has been convicted of amended charges we have obtained the police report. The report spells out a very frightening incident for the Chesterfield Police Officer who first arrived at outside of Wal Mart and attempted to arrest the suspect on 02/23/17 at 5:45pm for shoplifting. Officer Krumm told the suspect, Hok Chan to stop. He was ignored. He then stood in front of Chan and put up his arms, hands and palms forward telling Chan to stop. Chan kept walking and Officer Krumm grabbed his shoulder to stop him from fleeing, That wass when Chan swung at Officer Krumm. We will let Officer Krumm tell the rest of the story. This is from his police report. 17
What did Chan steal where he was trying to choke out a police officer and get his gun? Here was the loot: I know some people claim police brutality, when a small Chinese man has to be subdued by five officers. However over 30-years in law enforcement I have been involved in several events where it took four or five officers to subdue one person. Often drugs and/or mental illness are in play. I know of one case in 1984 where a person attacked an off-duty reserve police officer who was shopping in a supermarket. The reserve officer was actually a Post Office clerk and rode with us two nights a month. He was in on the arrest of the person who assaulted him several weeks earlier. One of the officers who responded to the supermarket wanted to try and avoid any appearance of the police giving this guy a beating, so he placed his metal Kel-Light flashlight on a newspaper box (remember I 18
said this was in 1984) so he would not be tempted to use the light as a weapon. However as three of us wrestled this guy out the doors we went right into the Kansas City Star news box and the flashlight fell off and hit the guy right in the head. OUTCOME: BACK TO OFFICER KRUMM AND CHAN: Here is what Chan was charged with: 1) The felony charge of Attempting to Disarm a Peace Officer While Performing Official Duties was reduced to a misdemeanor Peace Disturbance charge. Chan pled guilty on 08/01/17, was sentenced to six months in jail, but was immediately placed on 1-year probation by Judge Nancy McLaughlin. 2) The Resisting Arrest charge was reduced from a felony to a misdemeanor. Chan was sentenced to one year in jail, but was immediately placed on a 1-year probation term. 3) The misdemeanor Assault Charge stood and Chan was sentenced to 1-year in jail but was immediately placed on a 1-year probation term. 19
4) The stealing charge was dismissed by the prosecutor s office. FALL COLORS: The really vibrant colors I m used to seeing in the last week of October, just haven t been out yet. Two years ago we shot spring colors in the Arrowhead Estates subdivision behind Faust Park. This fall I went back to Arowhead hoping for some good fall colors. This shot of the pond in the Arrowhead Estates subdivision was very nice looking to the east POLICE BLOTTER: Here are the calls the Chesterfield Police answered last week: 20
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Assaults appeared to be the crime of the week. There seven reported minor assaults ranging from a school bus to homes to the Fox and Hound. Auto Thefts are climbing. IN 2015 there were 17 auto thefts in Chesterfield. In 2016 there were 31. There were 23 auto thefts in Chesterfield through the first three quarters in 2017. Then there were seven stolen auto in October, bringing the 2017 totals to 30 with two months to go. In the most recent thefts Chesterfield Police report they have arrest one juvenile and are looking for two other suspects. 23
CHARLOTTE S RIB FINISHES IN 2 ND PLACE FOR AN ITEM NOT ON THEIR MENU: Charlotte s Rib now only participates in the Wildwood BBQ competition annually. This year they finished tied for first place in the Chef s Choice competition and a tie breaker left them with the very large second place trophy. They also finished in sixth place in the Pork category and in fifth place for desserts. Owner Lisa Schwarz keeps recipes and even what was entered a secret. If she does well in the Wildwood competition one year she will use the same entry the next. She explained that she competes against only a few other restaurants and their menu items, but mostly against weekend BBQ people who are in contests throughout the year. For that reason when Charlotte s Rib competes at the Wildwood BBQ contest it is with special items that are not on the menu at the restaurant. We were able to find out that the chef s choice that finished tied for first involved a filet steak stuffed with crab cake and shrimp. The fifth place desert was a pecan pie cheesecake. We aren t sure what pork item finished sixth. 24
Charlotte s Rib finished 36 overall, but Lisa was right, most of the names ahead of Charlotte s were not restaurants. Charlotte s Rib finished 40 th overall in the Ribs category but again almost all the entries in front of Charlotte s were backyard BBQ ers. MUSIC: I don t know what it is. I have not been able to take a decent photo of the always vibrant and attractive Anita Rosamond for close to a year. It shows what a bad photographer I am despite having over 150 photos printed in magazines and newspapers from 1988 to 2000. Anita is becoming a Wednesday evening regular at the Parkside Grill on Clayton Road in Wildwood. She is performing there two and three times a month and fills the place up. Mark the chef will not disappoint you and the excellent food is abundant and reasonably priced. His brisket special is special. Here is a photo I took last year of Anita with Jerry Moser at the Parkside. To the right is one I took of Anita and her sister signing a duet five years ago. DEAN CHRISTOPHER MADE IT A HALLOWEEN TREAT AT ONE-19-NORTH. Dean opened the show walking to the mic as the Frankenstein portrayed by Peter Boyle in Mel Brook s 1974 Young Frankenstein. His first number was Monster Mash where he was Boris Karloff, the switched to Peter Lorre and finished as Lon Chaney. In the second set he returned to a Halloween song and did the Adams Family singing it as the Rat Park, Frank, Dean and Sammy. 25
Boris Karloff Christopher doing the Monster Mash, it was a graveyard smash. NEWSLETTER COMMENTS: The number-one comment I get from readers is not about the political activities, crime, money, sex and other scandals. No the number one comment I get is about spelling and editing. I have had several very talented people offered to review and edit this newsletter. My reluctance has been timeliness. I need to get it sent out to our old list of subscribers and to the web manager on time. 26
1) Editing: it is easy to edit someone else work. I did it for years as a police supervisor correcting police reports. For five years I had the title of editor for a news service. But to be honest it is tough to edit your own work. I will proof read a newsletter three or four times and still miss a usage or spelling error. If it was by someone else I would find a mistake immediately. 2) Sub heads: I often use sub heads after a larger print in bold headline. The subheads are often not complete sentences. That is done on purpose. 3) The other problem. I do most of the writing on the newsletter at night, often as late as 4 o clock in the morning. Unfortunately due to a fairly serious heart condition I have I need to take a lot of medication. Some of the medication I only take after I know I will no longer be driving a car. However, it does create a bit of a problem looking at a computer screen and proof reading. 27
Above are all meds I start taking after I m done driving, but when I still have three or four hours of work on the newsletter. REGULAR ON THE ESTATE SALE SCENE DIES: Having done estate sales almost every Saturday or Sunday for nine years I developed some favorites among the people who put on the sales. Joan and David, the crew at Davis Place, Steve and Sheri, Maggie from Webster Groves and J&M. We were very sad to see that the M in Joanne and Mary died last week. We were also surprised to see that she was 82, only because she was so active at these weekly sales. Her obit said the death was sudden. My wife had just seen her two weeks earlier at an estate sale. Joanne & Mary often had sales in Ladue, Clayton and Creve Coeur. LONGTIME CHESTERFIELD RESIDENT DIES ON VACATION: Joe Bonwich, who lived with his wife Jennifer for decades in the Green Trails subdivision on Greymore Drive died on October 31 after collapsing in a Florida airport while on vacation. Bonwich was the restaurant critic for St. Louis Magazine and for 12 years for the Post- Dispatch. He was 58. There was a long obit in the Post-Dispatch, but I realize there are many people in West County who don t read the P-D. 28
IDENTITY CRISIS: We pointed out last Christmas how Schiller s Camera on Manchester Road did not want to admit there were in The City of Rock Hill. They advertised they were located between McKnight Road and Brentwood Blvd in BRENTWOOD. Portions of McKnight are in high end Ladue and a portion of Brentwood Blvd is in affluent Clayton. However, Schiller s is located now and has been for 50 years in Rock Hill. Now the last remaining Lucky s Market has a map in the Post-Dispatch claiming they are located on Manchester at McKnight. That s a lie. (The Lucky s in Ellisville went out of business in last month.) Lucky s is located on Manchester Road at the intersection of 900 block of N. Rock Hill Road. McKnight Road is across the street. There is a Phillips 66 station and a CVS drug store located on the corner of McKnight and Manchester, not Lucky s. For years Rock Hill has been a blue collar working class town with a 25% African- American population. The business district along Manchester Road has served Ladue, Glendale and Warson Woods far more than Rock Hill residents, ranging from banks, in the past liquor stores, drug stores, medium and high end restaurants, fast food and service stations. Unfortunately two of the businesses don t want to use the words Rock Hill. 29
Not in Brentwood, but in Rock Hill HERE IS THE WORST: Why would you buy an expensive car like a Mercedes Benz if the dealer is lying to you about their location? When you go to the Mercedes-Benz of Chesterfield website, a message box pops up. Here is what I wrote: Why would I want to buy a Benz from you if you are lying about where you are located? You are not close to Chesterfield and you never existed in Chesterfield and moved to O'Fallon. How do I know you won't lie about much more? Here is their reply: My apologies for any confusion. i am unsure what you are referring to. We are located at 951 Technology Drive. O'Fallon, MO 63368. Here is my email to Mercedes-Benz in Germany: Why do you allow a dealership to claim they are in an affluent city, when in fact they are not and they are not even located in the same county?. You have a Dealership named Mercedes Benz of Chesterfield that is not located in Chesterfield, Mo nor has 30
ever been located in the City of Chesterfield in St. Louis County, Missouri. They are located in O'Fallon, Missouri in St. Charles County, Missouri. Why does M-B allow a dealer to lie to potential customers on something as basic as their location? Chesterfield Mayor Bob Nation told me he stopped by the dealership in O Fallon, Missouri in St. Charles County on Thursday November 2. They seemed like nice people, said Mayor Nation. They are trying to identify themselves with Chesterfield. They said they were told by Mercedes Benz to use Chesterfield to help their sales. Mayor Nation thought it was a nice show of how much value is in the name of Chesterfield. I thought otherwise. First the dealership is lying to the public who they are. They are using the name Chesterfield hoping to draw people from a more affluent area (Chesterfield) to O Fallon, not famous for its million dollar homes. O Fallon with a population of 84,009 has a median income of $74,961. Chesterfield with a population of 47,777 has a median income of $97,777. If the Mercedes-Benz dealership in O FAALON, Missouri wants to be associated with a wealthy community why didn t they call themselves Mercedes-Benz of Ladue with a median income of $188,264 or Mercedes Benz of Frontenac with a median income of $131,257 or Town and Country with a median household income of $166,263. Why not call if Mercedes Benz of Beverly Hills, California where the median household income is only $102,415. While the other two local Mercedes-Benz dealers (Plaza Motors on Olive Blvd. in Creve Coeur and Mercedes Benz of St. Louis located on Hampton Avenue in of all places The City of St. Louis) accurately claim where they are located, these folks in O Fallon have to lie. I asked Bob Nation how he thought the mayor and elected officials of O Fallon, Missouri felt about the dealership lying calling itself Mercedes Benz of Chesterfield. I bet they kind of resent it, said the mayor. 31
ANOTHER GOODBEY AT THE CHECKOUT LINE: My whole life I have had favorite checkout cashiers who were always funny and fun to talk to even if it was for only 3 minutes or less. Regular readers might remember when we featured a photo of Mary Ann, who retired from Schnucks in Des Peres. Anita and Sue are cashiers at the Des Peres Dierberg s where I ll skip a short line and wait in a long line just to say hi. Stephanie Shaner was in that category at the Town and Country Fresh Thyme store. We learned that November 3 was her last day, but she did not go far. She will be working the customer service desk at Home Depot, just a few stores away. Mary Ann from December 2012 Stephanie November 2017 CARTOONS: What amazed me this week was there were no Kevin Spacey cartoons, but there were still plenty of Hillary cartoons coming off the drawing board. 32
This cartoon brought back fond memories. In a law enforcement career that lasted 30 years I m guessing I wrote just under 10,000 speeding tickets. In Chevy Chase, Maryland Connecticut Avenue cut the town in half. It was a 30 mph limit zone. The six lanes were all narrow under the standard 12 feet in width. We would not write speeding tickets until someone was doing 20 MPH over or at least 50 MPH. I would hear the same question that was asked the trooper in this cartoon, from pissed off Washington DC Type-A s.. My answer was always, Do you realize how dangerous those real criminals are. I could get hurt or shot. 33
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