We hear stories about bank robberies almost every day in the Valley, but it’s not too often that the suspect in the robberies is a former bank teller. Almost as infrequently is the suspect a woman.Danyelle Gerrie, 25, allegedly is the exception to the apparent rule.Gerrie was arrested yesterday for a string of…
Maricopa County Supervisor Don Stapley filed an amended claim against the county for wrongful prosecution last week while waiting for a decision by the state Court of Appeals on his 2008 criminal prosecution. Oral arguments in what’s known as Stapley One (on account of there being a Stapley Two case)…
The Phoenix Police Department received a call the other day. It was a Gaylord Barnes, a 22-year-old Phoenix resident, who alerted cops that he’d just gotten done masturbating in front of a 2-year-old girl.Officers responded to the house where Barnes did the deed — which belonged to his neighbor, who…
The Mesa Police Department needs the public’s help in tracking down a missing man with mental-health problems.Mesa Police Detective Steve Berry tells New Times that 42-year-old Carlos Polanco was dropped off by his sister at his doctor’s office on Monday morning. When the sister returned to pick him up, he…
If you’ve never heard of animal “crush” videos, you’re lucky. They’re sick, cruel, and depraved. Yet people watch them — legally.”Crush” films are videos of people stepping on animals — usually larger and arguably more pain-susceptible animals — until they crush them to death.Again, we’re not card-carrying members of PETA,…
Trying to tell your parents the cocaine they found in your room is baking soda might work. Trying to pass that cocaine off as baking soda to cops is another story.A Pinal County man learned that lesson the hard way after cops found him in possession of the (ahem) baking…
The game of “he started it” has come to an end, and it turns out that the Hells Angels are the ones who started a gunfight with a rival motorcycle gang last month. The gunfight netted precisely zero deaths, despite more than 50 shots fired.A recently released police report about the shootout…
A Phoenix woman who sent her daughter and other teens to rough up her ex-boyfriend has been sentenced to 1.75 years in prison. Katherine Faye White supplied her daughter, the daughter’s 20-year-old friend and three minor teens with a Taser, crowbar, duct tape and other supplies needed for the job. Her instructions,…
Police are still looking for leads in a robbery at the Hyatt Place Hotel in downtown Scottsdale early Tuesday, in which a man wearing a wig helped himself to cash in the front-desk register. Not an unusual crime. But we find the man’s actions just following the unarmed robbery a…
A former Valley soccer coach pleaded guilty today to attempted sexual conduct with a minor and charges related to possessing nude pictures of his roommate’s little boys. Before his November 2008 arrest, Daniel Cope worked for two years for the American Youth Soccer Organization, coaching games in Phoenix, Tempe,…
We would never encourage anyone to rob a bank. But if recent history tells us anything, it’s not hard to do — unless you’re an idiot.It seems that nearly every day we get a press release from a Valley police agency telling the story of some thief who robbed a…
As the saying goes: “goodnight, sleep tight, and don’t let the bed bugs bite.” For a Phoenix man, he may have included “or set your apartment on fire” to the end of that bedtime rhyme because he’s blaming bedbugs for a blaze at his Phoenix apartment.He’s not saying the tiny…
A Chandler homeowner opened fire on suspected gang members who had infiltrated his party early Sunday and attacked him while trying to steal a keg of beer.Two of the suspects were killed at the scene in a neighborhood near Ray Road and Arizona Avenue. Cops have arrested eight other gang…
Police on Tuesday released a sketch of the woman suspected of throwing acid on another woman in Mesa last week. Mesa police released a sketch of the woman suspected of throwing acid on another woman last week. The attack left the victim with burns on her face and chest, and…
If you needed a reminder not to drink and drive this holiday weekend …A 40-year-old woman from Sells, Arizona is facing negligent homicide, criminal damage and driving under the influence charges in connection with the death of a U.S. Border Patrol agent. Cops said that based on field sobriety tests,…
We’re hearing a lot about acid attacks these days — now there’s been one in Mesa. Police report that a 41-year-old woman stepped out of her vehicle in her driveway at about 1 p.m. yesterday when a woman walked up and threw acid on her. She then ran away through the…
A 21-year-old Navy man received a 10-year prison sentence in Maricopa County Superior Court today for the murder of his rival for the love of a 48-year-old Chandler schoolteacher.Sixto Balbuena stabbed 18-year-old Samual Valdivia on April 10, 2009, after catching the younger man at the house of Tamara Hofmann, a…
Dr. Emilio Luna, the west Phoenix pediatrician accused of distributing child porn on a public file-sharing system, was the only one who had used his laptop computer, federal agents allege. A complaint filed by agents in court gives more details as to why Luna was arrested, and what kinds of…
Just when you think things can’t get any sicker… Phoenix pediatrician Emilio Luna has been charged by the U.S. Attorney’s Office with distributing thousands of child porn photos into an online, public file-sharing system. The office didn’t offer too many details in its news release beyond that, other than the fact that…
Keith King, the less-than-better half of a marriage built on stolen luggage, pleaded guilty today to a raft of charges that should put keep him away from the airport for a while. King’s wife, Stacy King, was sentenced last month to three-and-a-half years in prison following her own guilty plea…
A Chandler man with a history of violence against his former wife was arrested Tuesday on suspicion of hiring a man to shoot the woman in the head. Michael Stephen Sawins, 33, of 875 West Pecos Road, #1165, gave his .22-caliber Derringer pistol to his friend and former roommate,…
Joe Watson’s gonna have a lot of time to work on his poetry-for-snacks business. The former writer for New Times, (who also spent time scratching for the Arizona Republic and East Valley Tribune) was sentenced last week to 12 years in prison for his role as the “Salon Bandit.”…
