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In flooded Houston, with scores of businesses closed and homes evacuated, authorities are sending a message to those thinking of looting or price gouging: Taking advantage of the situation won’t be tolerated.

Police are beefing up security over reports of looting during and after Hurricane Harvey. That includes imposing a curfew and stiffening penalties for crimes committed in the stricken area.

“We’re city that is about diversity and opportunity and all kinds of justice,” Houston Police Chief Art Acevedo told reporters at a news conference Tuesday. “But we’re not a city that’s going to tolerate people victimizing people that are at the lowest point in their life.”

Acevedo said additional police officers were heading into the Houston area and described the curfew as a “tool to assess the intentions of people that are out there.”

Mayor Sylvester Turner stated that the midnight to 5 a.m. curfew is intended to prevent criminal activity. It “exempts flood relief volunteers, those seeking shelter, first responders, and those going to and from work.”

It’s not clear how many criminal incidents have occurred in areas hit by flooding, and the police chief declined to provide statistics. “I don’t have the numbers. I can just tell you … we’re nipping it in the bud,” Acevedo said.

Fourteen people accused of looting were arrested in the past 48 hours, Harris County District Attorney Kim Ogg said in a statement released Tuesday. They will face “heftier penalties” if they are found to have broken the law in the disaster area. Burglarizing a home could mean life in prison.

“People displaced or harmed in this storm are not going to be easy prey,” Ogg said. “Anyone who tries to take advantage of this storm to break into homes or businesses should know that they are going to feel the full weight of the law. … Offenders will be processed around the clock without delay.”

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A North Carolina college is offering a bird’s-eye view to enhanced public-safety innovation with the opening of a drone academy this fall.

Located 50 miles south of Greensboro, Montgomery Community College will launch the NC Public Safety Drone Academy to prepare regional emergency service members and first responders with the needed tools to become effective and well-educated drone pilots.

The college’s drone program got off the ground last year in offering a Part 107 Prep course as well as a basic flight training class for emergency services.

“We decided to legitimize ourselves throughout North Carolina by partnering with the state Division of Aviation, Department of Emergency Services, and several local and state municipalities to create the academy,” MCC Director of Health & Public Safety Riley Beaman said.

Tuition will be waived for emergency/public-safety employees such as sheriff’s deputies, police officers, firefighters and first responders.

The 95-hour academy will focus on drone laws and regulations while offering a hands-on flight school that will expose pilots to:

Simulation Flight Time: grasping drone mechanics and basic operation through simulation;
Real-World Flight Time: after learning the basics, completing real flight time objectives and training;
Live Scenario-based Flight Objectives: focusing on fire, rescue, police, and emergency management situations and scenarios;
UAV Mobile Command Center operations training.
The college deploys a variety of more than 40 drones of all sizes – from microdrones to quadcopters, specifically the industrial grade DJ1 Matrice 100 equipped with a thermal camera.

“There’s something about North Carolina being first in flight and first in unmanned flight,” MCC Dean of Continuing Education said in a recent interview with The (Asheboro, N.C.) Courier-Tribune. “It’s been said that drones are the most impactful thing in aviation since the jet engine.”

When it comes to innovative drone education, colleges and universities are soaring – especially in North Carolina.

As earlier reported in DroneLife, Lenoir Community College now offers a drone-piloting program and several Lenoir County agencies plan to take advantage of it to receive federally-mandated training. The program grants students an associate’s degree in drone piloting – the first ever in the state. Edgecombe Community College in eastern North Carolina offers a consumer-level class.

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“A Wooster man faces criminal charges after he broke into an electroplating company he once owned and drilled holes in tanks of dangerous chemicals, Cleveland police investigators said.

The incident sent one employee to the hospital for exposure to toxic chemicals, and risked a potential environmental disaster, according to a Cleveland police report.

Benjamin Dagley, 50, is charged with breaking and entering in the Aug. 22 incident at Cleveland Plating on East 134th Street in the South Collinwood neighborhood.

Dagley was identified in police reports as a former co-owner of the business, but court records indicate he owned a similar electroplating company at the same location before Cleveland Plating took over, and he still owns the property itself.

Employees called police around 8 p.m. Aug. 22 after a security guard discovered gas escaping in one of the facility’s chemical rooms.

Surveillance footage later revealed Dagley drilled into tanks of sodium cyanide, hydrochloric acid, yellow chromate, ferrous chloride, and sulfuric acid, according to a current owner, Ed Cochran.

“If you mix the (cyanide and hydrochloric acid), you basically have the cyanide gas of World War I,” Cochran said. “It certainly would produce a toxic vapor that could kill.”

Employees told police that the released chemicals “are severe enough to cause a large scale catastrophe, and Dagley knew what he was doing,” the report says.

Potential cyanide poisoning is the reason why the 27-year-old security guard who found the leaks was taken to University Hospitals, according to Cochran and the report.

Her injuries and current condition were not immediately available, but Cochran believes she has been released from the hospital.

Firefighters and a hazmat specialist went to the building the night of the break-in, and Cleveland police and firefighters also notified the Environmental Protection Agency and U.S. Department of Homeland Security, the report says.

Cochran told cleveland.com that the business hired a hazmat firm to oversee clean-up. Within 36 hours, that process was complete and the Ohio EPA determined all chemicals were contained inside the building, with no exposure to the neighborhood, according to an EPA spokesman.

The police report does not say how Dagley managed to break into the building. Surveillance showed him walking into the property around 6 p.m., drilling holes into the containers, then leaving about 15 minutes later, the report says.

“Thank god we have security guards there 24/7,” Cochran said. “Otherwise, it wouldn’t have been discovered until (the next morning), and it would’ve been late.”

A warrant was issued for Dagley last week, but he hasn’t been arrested, court records show.

Police didn’t outline a possible motive and Cochran declined to share details due to a pending civil case in Wayne County.

Court records there and in Cuyahoga County indicate that Dagley and his companies are locked in a financial dispute over the property, its mortgage, and Cleveland Plating’s lease, among other things.

“He wants us to settle and we won’t pay, that’s why I think he’s done all this,” Cochran said.

Cleveland Plating’s current owners asked a judge for a temporary restraining order against Dagley earlier this year, saying that he entered the building April 8 and put locks on almost all the doors, court records show. The judge denied that request.

About two months later, Dagley was charged with misdemeanor assault after he returned to the property with two other people and broke into the business through a roll door, the reports and court documents say.

A security guard told police that an irate Dagley yelled at him through a crack in an office door, then slammed the door into his knee and punched him in the mouth, the report says.
One of the other men said he rode to the business with Dagley that day to “help him lock the building up,” the report says.

The assault case is still pending in Cleveland Municipal Court, court records show. Dagley’s next court appearance is scheduled for Sept. 7.”

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