logo
Crime Alert: Tips sought in Tilden Township retail theft

Crime Alert: Tips sought in Tilden Township retail theft

Yahoo4 hours ago

Crime Alert Berks County, a citizen crime-fighting group, is offering cash rewards of up to $10,000 to anyone supplying tips that lead to an arrest in this case or any other case or crime.
Tipsters with crime information can call 877-373-9913 anytime or contact Crime Alert at its website at www.alertberks.org or via the AlertBerks smartphone app. No one will ask the name of the caller, who will be assigned a code number.
Unsolved cases are featured regularly in the Sunday Reading Eagle.
Offense: Retail theft
Location: Lowe's, 20 Wilderness Trail, Tilden Township
Date and time: March 15 at about 11:40 a.m.
Police synopsis: Tilden Township police are seeking the public's assistance identifying the females involved in this retail theft incident. Anyone with information is asked to contact Crime Alert or call investigators directly at 610-562-9001.
Tilden Township Police are seeking suspects in a retail theft at Lowe's, 20 Wilderness TrailTilden Township Police are seeking suspects in a retail theft at Lowe's, 20 Wilderness Trail

Orange background

Try Our AI Features

Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:

Comments

No comments yet...

Related Articles

'A good day': Detained U.S. citizen said agents bragged after arresting dozens at Home Depot
'A good day': Detained U.S. citizen said agents bragged after arresting dozens at Home Depot

Yahoo

time25 minutes ago

  • Yahoo

'A good day': Detained U.S. citizen said agents bragged after arresting dozens at Home Depot

A 37-year-old U.S. citizen who was tackled to the ground and arrested after filming federal agents at Home Depot on Thursday said he was held for more than an hour near Dodger Stadium, where agents boasted about how many immigrants they arrested. 'How many bodies did you guys grab today?' he said one agent asked. 'Oh, we grabbed 31,' the other replied. "That was a good day today," the first agent responded. The two high-fived, as he sat on the asphalt under the sun, Job Garcia said. Garcia was released on Friday from a downtown federal detention center. No apparent criminal charges have yet to be filed. He is one of several U.S citizens arrested during enforcement operations in recent days. Department of Homeland Security officials say some have illegally interfered with agents' jobs. In response to questions about why Garcia was arrested and if he'd been charged, a spokesperson for the U.S. attorney's office in L.A. recommended a reporter contact the Department of Homeland Security. DHS and U.S. Customs and Border Protection did not respond to a request for comment. Garcia said he was shaken by what he heard while he was detained. 'They call them 'bodies,' they reduce them to bodies,' he said. "My blood was boiling." Garcia, a photographer and doctoral student Claremont Graduate University, had been picking up a delivery at Home Depot when someone approached the customer desk and said something was unfolding outside. "La migra, La migra," he heard as he walked out. He quickly grabbed his phone and followed agents around the parking lot, telling them they were "f— useless" until he came to a group of them forming a half-circle around a box truck. A Border Patrol agent radioed someone and then slammed his baton against the passenger window, his video shows. Glass shattered. He unlocked the door as people shouted. In the video, a stunned man can be seen texting behind the wheel. He had apparently refused to open his door. It's unclear from the footage what happened next, but Garcia said an agent lunged toward him and pushed him. "My first reaction was to like push his hand off," he recalled. Then, he said, the agent grabbed his left arm, twisted it behind his back and threw his phone. The agent brought him to the ground and three other agents jumped in, Garcia said "Get the f— down sir" and "give me your f— hand. You want it, you got it, sir, you f— got it. You want to go to jail, fine. You got it," an agent can be heard saying in the video. "You wanted it, you got it," the man yelled. An agent handcuffed him so hard "that there was no circulation running to my fingers," Garcia said. Pinned down, Garcia had difficulty breathing. "That moment, I thought I could probably die here," he said. The agent put Garcia's phone back in his pocket. The recording kept running. As Garcia was put into a vehicle, his video captured an agent twice saying: "I've got one back here." "You got one what?" Garcia shot back. "You got one what?" He said an agent told him in broken Spanish to "wait here,' though it could not be heard on the video. "I f— speak English, you f— dumbass," he clearly shouts back. No agent asked if he was an American citizen, he said. Nobody asked for identification. 'They assumed that I was undocumented," he said later in an interview. The video ends after about four minutes, while he is waiting in the van. Read more: Raid at a Home Depot in Hollywood shatters an immigrant refuge Garcia asked an agent to get his wallet from his car, so he could prove he was a U.S. citizen. Another agent retrieved his ID, but he remained handcuffed. They were so tight, his hands began to swell. The agents switched him to handcuffs that looked like shoelaces. They took off around a corner, stopped to shuffle him into another van and sped off down the 101 Freeway. "I smeared my blood in their seat," he said. And he thought, "They're going to remember me." With him in the van was a Mexican man, face downcast, who said his wife was six months pregnant. "My wife told me not to go to work today," the man said. "Something doesn't feel right," he said she told him. "It broke my heart," Garcia said. "I wish he was the one who got away when they were trying to grab me." On what he described as a ramp going into Dodger stadium near Lot K, Garcia was taken out of the car and told to sit on the asphalt as agents shuffled detainees into different vans and processed them for about an hour. A woman ran his background for criminal offenses. It felt surreal and enraging. 'They were trying to build some sort of case," Garcia said. He told The Times he was arrested at 17 for driving without a license. After they transported him, agents later fingerprinted him and tried to interrogate him. The agent said they wanted to "take your side of the story." Garcia declined. He said he overheard an agent tell someone, 'Trump is really working us." While held at a downtown detention facility, he met Adrian Martinez. Martinez, a 20-year-old Walmart worker and also a U.S. citizen, had been arrested on Tuesday while he tried to stop the arrest of a man who cleaned a shopping center in Pico Rivera. The two spoke for about 10 minutes, as Martinez waited to go to court. "You're the Walmart kid, right?" he asked him. Garcia told him what had unfolded outside the Home Depot. "That's exactly what happened to me," he said Martinez told him. "They were bullying this older guy. I didn't like that so I went and confronted them and they put their hands on me and I pushed their hands off.' U.S. Atty. Bill Essayli posted a photo of Martinez on X and said he "was arrested for an allegation of punching a border patrol agent in the face after he attempted to impede their immigration enforcement operation." Martinez was charged in a criminal complaint with conspiracy to impede a federal officer. The complaint makes no reference to a punch, but alleges that Martinez blocked agents' vehicles with his car and then later a trash can. 'A complaint generally contains one charge and does not include the full scope of a defendant's conduct, or the evidence that will be presented at trial," said Ciaran McEvoy, a spokesperson for the U.S. attorney's office in L.A. "Considering this is an active case, we will not be providing further comments outside of court proceedings.' Martinez was released Friday on a $5,000 bond. 'U.S. Attorney Essayli and U.S. Border Patrol Sector Chief Gregory Bovino outrageously alleged that Adrian assaulted a federal agent," Martinez's attorneys said in a statement. "However he has not been charged with an assault charge because he didn't assault anyone, and the evidence of that is clear." Garcia said his cellmate was worried about these protests. He asked, "Don't you think the protesters who are out there destroying property, rioters, is a bad look?" 'Rioting is the language of the unheard," he said, riffing on a quote from the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. Sign up for Essential California for news, features and recommendations from the L.A. Times and beyond in your inbox six days a week. This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.

'Cracking heads': Trump, DOJ moves signal end of reforms after George Floyd movement
'Cracking heads': Trump, DOJ moves signal end of reforms after George Floyd movement

Yahoo

time33 minutes ago

  • Yahoo

'Cracking heads': Trump, DOJ moves signal end of reforms after George Floyd movement

When George Floyd was killed by a Minneapolis police officer five blocks from her home, Nichole Subola visited the site of his death again and again, trying to wrap her mind around it. Police reform seemed within reach as she watched the global impact of the protests. The floral arrangements, drawings and signs filled the streets in a place that came to be known as "George Floyd Square." Five years later, Subola, 59, isn't sure if local police will follow through on their commitment now that the Trump administration is abandoning federal consent decrees in cities that promised real change in training and hiring practices. More: An officer partially blinded a teen amid George Floyd protests. Was force excessive? "There's a consensus here that the police need to do better, but it's so hard to erase what happened viscerally," she said. "There's just no trust in the police, not for me and my community, and other parts of the city, there just isn't. I don't think it was there to begin with." Millions poured into the country's streets demanding systemic change in the wake of Floyd's murder on Memorial Day − coupled with the fatal shooting of Breonna Taylor by Louisville police two months prior. Many believed America was turning a corner in terms of police accountability. Even Trump, who rarely criticized police action, called Floyd's death a "very sad event" in a May 27, 2020 tweet. "Justice will be served," he said. Much of that was snatched away in the years that followed, most notably in 2021 when Congress failed to pass sweeping reform package dubbed the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act. During Biden's presidency, federal investigators started a dozen "pattern or practice" probes into police departments across the nation, including Phoenix, Trenton and Memphis. None yielded any court-binding consent decrees, however, and then came the largest setback of all: Donald Trump returning to the White House. The president's team has now swung the pendulum in the opposite direction from five years ago, even attempting to rescind findings of constitutional violations in the cities where Floyd and Taylor lost their lives. Experts and voters on both sides of the debate say the U.S. Justice Department's decision on May 21 establishes a new political order for the country's ongoing police accountability debate, including the possibility of pardoning officers convicted by federal prosecutors during the Biden years. Among Trump's allies in the law enforcement ranks, there are cheers among those who argue consent decrees micromanage departments and were overused by the previous administration. Police reforms are better handled by local elected leaders and residents, who know their public safety needs better than Washington, said Jason Johnson, president of the Law Enforcement Legal Defense Fund, which supports officers who are prosecuted or fired for actions while in the line of duty. "It should be a patchwork," he said. "Law enforcement is local, so the police in Minneapolis should conduct themselves in the way the citizens of Minneapolis want." But those on the other side of the fence assert the president is giving police officers a green light to do as they please. Jim Mulvaney, an adjunct professor at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice, who previously served as deputy commissioner of New York state's human rights division, points out Trump often encouraged law enforcement to be rougher on certain suspects during the campaign. "He signaled back then that hard-handed law enforcement was what he wanted," he said. "Not obeying the Constitution, but cracking heads." Pulling back from those consent decrees coincides with a larger sea change at the Justice Department, which has reportedly lost 70% of its civil rights division lawyers since January. Administration officials have also shifted the division's focus toward enforcing the president's executive orders, such as combating antisemitism in higher education, ending alleged radical indoctrination in public schools and defending women's rights from "gender ideology extremism" in athletics and other areas. Up until the DOJ's announcement this month, Mulvaney said there has been a long-held presumption that the federal government would keep local law enforcement in check. "They've now been told, don't worry about it. And I think that that's only going to encourage bad behavior and at a very high cost," he said. Many activists and voters who spoke with USA TODAY echoed those concerns, but emphasized they aren't giving up on racial equality or seeking changes to law enforcement. Instead of lobbying Congress or engaging in large acts of civil disobedience, different forms of resistance are being spotlighted. "The solutions have never come from the system; they always came from people in the community. So I think this could be an opportunity to build more of that energy if we use it properly," said Rodney Salomon, 37, of Neptune Township, N.J., co-founder of KYDS, Konscious Youth Development & Service, a nonprofit that focuses on transforming communities through mindfulness, restorative practices and youth leadership. Others point to seeking change through economic actions like the Black-church led boycott of Target after the retail giant quashed its diversity initiatives. The company's first-quarter sales fell 3.8%, compared to analysts' estimates of a 1.08% decline. They are looking to find innovative ways to protect residents through technology, such as Selwyn Jones, a Floyd relative who developed the MYTH app, which would send out a panic alert to a person's emergency contacts when they're involved in a police interaction in real time. Kay Harris, 72, who lived in Asbury Park, N.J., through the city's race riots in the 1960s, said federal oversight is critical, but balancing the scales may have to come from other branches of government, such as the courts. "We cannot depend on the local precincts to do it themselves. I mean that is why we are in the position we are in right now," she said. "That doesn't mean that all police officers are unethical, but there are just too many rogue police officers who do just what they want." Asbury Park, for instance, settled at least five suits in roughly a decade involving allegations of racial discrimination. The victims were awarded $1.9 million in defense and settlement costs, city officials say. "If (Trump) is the law and order president, then he should ensure that law and order is followed appropriately," Harris said. "He is trying to roll things back to the 1950s." The Trump administration's decision to walk back reform efforts came days before the fifth anniversary of Floyd's murder on May 25, 2020. That timing wasn't lost on Justin Thamert, of Foley, Minnesota, a town about 65 miles north of Minneapolis, who said emotions remain raw. "I don't think anybody's gotten over it," he said. The 34-year-old mechanic, who voted for Trump last fall, said the Biden administration turned its back on law enforcement and made officers feel afraid to do their jobs. But he isn't sure federal authorities should abandon reform efforts in Minneapolis, which include minimizing the need to use force; investigating allegations of employee misconduct; and providing confidential mental health wellness services to officers and other public safety personnel. "I wouldn't shut the door," Thamert said. "I think (Minneapolis) will need help. I don't agree with them completely pulling out." Leaders in the cities where Taylor and Floyd died have been quick to pledge, regardless of the Trump administration's reversal, that they will seek to continue implementing changes to their law enforcement operations. Minneapolis was "making more progress towards the reforms" than most other municipalities in the country under a consent decree, Mayor Jacob Frey noted, citing a recently released independent evaluator's report. The report found the department had reduced its backlog of use-of-force cases under review from more than 1,100 to about 400 in the last six months. "The people in this city have demanded change for years and we're going to make sure we get this done," Frey told USA TODAY. Like many local officials, Frey, a Democrat, who is seeking reelection this year, has walked a political tightrope in the wake of controversial police encounters. He was criticized by Trump as a "very weak radical left mayor" in 2020 for his handling of the unrest that engulfed the city, but was slammed by left-leaning activists for opposing a 2021 ballot initiative that sought radical change and completely overhaul the police department with a new public safety agency. The plan would have shifted oversight from the mayor's office to the city council. However, 56% of voters rejected that idea. Frey said Minneapolis is standing by the court-ordered reforms, emphasizing that homicides and shootings are down. The city is rolling out new use-of-force measures, improving community engagement and making sure its work is transparent and accountable, he said. "So Donald Trump can do whatever he wants," Frey continued. "The bottom line is, regardless of what the White House does, we are moving forward, anyway." Similarly, Louisville officials immediately used the DOJ's decision to unveil a 214-page plan mirroring similar goals set by the Biden administration. It calls for hiring an independent monitor for up to five years who will help develop a plan covering use of force, community policing, misconduct investigations and behavioral health response. "We as a city are committed to reform," said Louisville Mayor Craig Greenberg, a Democrat seeking reelection next year, at a May 21 press conference. There are some omissions in Louisville's new plan, however. The trimmed-down local plan removed a line about the use of Tasers that mandated officers learn about "the risks to persons exhibiting signs of mental illness, substance use, or experiencing behavioral health crisis," according to the Courier-Journal, part of the USA TODAY Network. Antonio Brown, 39, participated in the Louisville protests almost daily in the summer of 2020. He said his faith in federally supported police reforms waned after Trump was reelected. "I'm not surprised by what Trump's administration is doing, but I do wonder what our mayor is going to do, because he ran on change," Brown said. Other city officials and local activists have expressed skepticism about Greenberg, who contested some findings in the original 2023 federal report that determined the Louisville police department "unlawfully discriminates against Black people in its enforcement activities." Critics point out that the independent monitor's contract under the local plan is only renewable for up to five years, for instance. Greenberg also hasn't committed to rehiring the city's inspector general, who is charged with examining police misconduct and has butted heads with Louisville police since 2021. "It's definitely going to get worse if we don't see any change," said Brown, a machine operator at a local manufacturing company. "This is why we came outside –for reform. So if we don't get reform... I'm not going back in." As advocates on both sides of the police accountability debate decipher what Trump's about-face means for those communities, some are now focusing on what his administration might do next as allies seek to redefine the summer of 2020. Conservative activists have publicly lobbied for the president to pardon Derek Chauvin, the former Minneapolis police officer convicted of Floyd's murder. Trump previously said that he wasn't considering pardoning Chauvin. But, Minneapolis officials said they are prepared for an emergency response with state and federal authorities while calming the waters. Frey pointed out, for example, that even if Chauvin were to be pardoned by Trump from his 21-year federal sentence, that would not free the former officer for his 22-year state sentence for second- and third-degree murder. By law, Trump doesn't have the power to pardon state sentences. In recent weeks, Trump's suppoters have publicly called for the same reprieve to be extended to former Louisville police detective Brett Hankinson, one of three officers who raided Taylor's apartment in 2020. He faces a life sentence after being found guilty last fall by a federal jury of violating the 26-year-old ER technician's civil rights. Right-leaning advocates noted Hankison was acquitted on state charges in 2022, and spotlight that no one was injured as a result of his gunfire on the night Taylor was shot to death. "Hankison should be completely (absolved) of any wrongdoing," Brandon Tatum, a former Arizona police officer turned YouTube political commentator, told his roughly 1.6 million Instagram followers on May 14. Tatum argued Hankinson is more deserving of a pardon than Chauvin, adding that he reached out to leaders in Congress to contact the White House on behalf of the former Louisville officer. Johnson, of the law enforcement defense fund, has called on the Trump administration to take a closer look at other cases they describe as "politically motivated," including a 2023 case involving a Massachusetts police sergeant facing federal charges for filing a false report. He said his group has not actively advocated for Hankinson's pardon, but that it does, "believe he is a good candidate for clemency." Trump has already wielded his executive authority in such a manner during his first week in office when he pardoned two Washington, D.C. police officers convicted last fall in the death of 20-year-old Karon Hylton-Brown, who was riding a moped on a sidewalk without a helmet when he ignored instructions to stop. Jerrod Moore, 44, an Atlanta construction inspector, said federal authorities investigating these type of case could have done more to weed out bad officers. He said changes coming from the national level have proven to be unreliable, and that he wouldn't be surprised if Trump pardoned more police officers convicted of violating people's constitutional rights in the coming years. "He's very selective about who he wants to pardon, and if he does, it will be an officer in one of the more egregious crimes," Moore said. "It's very clear who his target audience is. Look who he's pardoned already." Contributing: Charles Daye, Stephanie Kuzydym, Josh Wood, Keely Doll, Marc Ramirez, USA TODAY Network This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Trump, DOJ moves signal shift for police accountability after Floyd

Proud Boys who stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6 sue government for $100 million
Proud Boys who stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6 sue government for $100 million

Yahoo

time33 minutes ago

  • Yahoo

Proud Boys who stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6 sue government for $100 million

WASHINGTON – Five members of the right-wing extremist group the Proud Boys who stormed the U.S. Capitol during the Jan. 6 insurrection and were later pardoned by President Donald Trump are suing the government for more than $100 million. They allege the Justice Department and FBI violated their constitutional rights after arresting and jailing them for their participation in the effort to stop Congress from certifying former President Joe Biden's election victory in 2020. The Proud Boys and their families were subjected to forceful government raids, solitary confinement and cruel and unusual treatment, they argue in their lawsuit, which seeks $100 million in damages plus 6% post-judgment interest. The group, which filed the lawsuit June 6 in a federal court in Florida, includes Henry 'Enrique' Tarrio, Zachary Rehl, Ethan Nordean, Joseph Biggs and Dominic Pezzola. In 2023, a jury convicted Tarrio, Rehl, Nordean and Biggs of entering a seditious conspiracy against the U.S. government. In several trials, each of the leaders of the group had been issued lengthy prison sentences, ranging from 22 to 15 years. On the first day of his return office in 2025, President Trump issued a sweeping clemency order, granting pardons to almost all of the more than 1,500 defendants who stormed the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6 and issuing sentence commutations to 14 others. In interviews with USA TODAY in February, most of the plaintiffs in the lawsuit defended their actions on Jan. 6 and said unequivocally they would do the same thing again. Some, including Tarrio and Rehl, hinted at the possibility of running for public office in the future. Read more: Sheriff? Congress? Criminal Justice reformer? Freed Proud Boys leaders have big plans 'I am an intelligent individual, and I've done a lot in the community as far as activism is concerned," Rehl said. "So, I'm experienced in that respect, and I believe I can really represent the people in a good way.' Contributing: Reuters Zachary Schermele is an education reporter for USA TODAY. You can reach him by email at zschermele@ Follow him on X at @ZachSchermele and Bluesky at @ This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Proud Boys who stormed Capitol sue government for $100 million

DOWNLOAD THE APP

Get Started Now: Download the App

Ready to dive into a world of global content with local flavor? Download Daily8 app today from your preferred app store and start exploring.
app-storeplay-store