Charlotte NC April 12 2019

Thirteen people since the beginning of March have now been convicted of murdering security officers.

Six others are currently in the midst of their trials charged with six other security officer murders.

Trial Underway For Security Officer Murdered in 20016

Clearwater Florida

In a murder of a Clearwater Florida security officer dating back to 2006, a trial has been set for the accused, Kenneth Missey is charged with first degree murder for the death of security guard Bill Williams.
Missey said someone else is responsible for the crime.
Missey told law enforcement all sorts of stories and pointed them to other suspects he said was responsible for the crime, but Clearwater police said none of the stories added up and charged him with murder almost a decade later.
In September of 2006, Clearwater police say Missey was wearing a mask when he barged into the Fairfield Inn and Suites on Gulf to Bay Boulevard.
Missey pointed a gun at the front desk clerk and ordered her to give him money. Bill Williams, a security guard ran into help the clerk and Missey shot him twice in the back. As Missey ran away with $400, Williams died in the hotel lobby.

Man Found Guilty of Murdering Police Officer Moonlighting As a Security Officer

Chicago IL A 31-year-old man was found guilty in the 2011 shooting death of a Chicago police officer who was moonlighting as a security guard at an Austin convenience store.
Alexander Villa was found guilty of first-degree murder, attempted murder and armed robbery by a Cook County jury late Thursday. Jurors reached their verdict at 11:30 p.m. — after more than two hours of deliberations and a four-day trial, according to the Cook County State’s Attorney’s office.
Prosecutors said Villa burst into M&M Quick Foods, where Clifton Lewis was working an off-duty security job, and opened fire, leaping over the counter to shoot Lewis as the police officer struggled to draw his gun. Co-defendant Tyrone Clay, who still is awaiting trial, allegedly snatched cash from the register — making off with $670 — while Villa took the officer’s gun.
Getaway driver Edgardo Colon, who was sentenced to 84 years in prison for his role in the murder following a 2017 trial, was called as prosecution witness, but refused to answer questions even after he was cited for contempt of court by Judge James Linn.
Lewis was an eight-year veteran of the CPD, and had only recently taken the side job at the convenience store to help pay for his upcoming wedding. He’s proposed to his longtime girlfriend just four days before his death. Lewis had an 11-year-old daughter, and was a father figure to his girlfriend’s teenage son.
Villa was the last of the three defendants charged in Lewis’ murder, with his arrest coming two years after Lewis was killed.

Security Officer’s Wife and Lover Found Guilty of His Murder

Buford GA
Nearly a year and a half after a security officer returning home from work was gunned down on his own front porch, his wife and her lover has been found guilty of his murder.
The father of three was gunned down outside his Buford home in November 2017.
A Gwinnett County jury found 23-year-old Tia Young, the wife of George Young, a security guard who was killed as he was returning from work on Nov. 16, guilty of felony murder, aggravated assault and two criminal attempts to tamper with evidence, multiple news outlets reported.
Her lover, Harvey “Tim” Lee, 39, a family friend who lived with the couple, was convicted of malice murder, felony murder and aggravated assault.

Man Receives 50 Year Prison Sentence in Murder of Security Officer

San Antonio TX

A man who pleaded guilty in the death of a longtime San Antonio Museum of Art security guard in October received a 50-year prison term Tuesday.
Benito Menesess was arrested last year and charged with murder in the death of Robert Esparza Sr., 68, who worked for more than 20 years with SAMA.
His body was found Oct. 15 at his home in the 300 block of West Harding on the South Side by co-workers who were concerned that he had not shown up for work.
Officials said Esparza was bludgeoned to death in his home.

4 Found Guilty in Murder of Armored Truck Security Officer

Houston TX Prosecutors say four Houston men face up to life in federal prison for their roles in the 2016 slaying of an armored car guard during an ATM robbery.
Jurors on Friday convicted Nelson Alexander Polk, Marc Anthony Hill, John Edward Scott and Bennie Charles Phillips Jr.
All were convicted of attempted interference with commerce by robbery and aiding and abetting discharge of a firearm during a violent crime. Hill and Polk were also convicted of aiding and abetting interference with commerce by robbery and aiding and abetting discharge of a firearm during a violent crime causing a death.
Security officer David Guzman was fatally shot in August 2016. Prosecutors also linked the four to a months-later attempted ATM robbery in which another person, suspected of shooting Guzman, was killed by officers.

Man Who Stabbed Walmart Security Agent Gets 25 Years in Prison

San Antonio TX. A man who stabbed a Walmart security officer nearly two years ago was found guilty and sentenced to 25 years in prison Thursday.
Travis Cobb was shoplifting inside the store on Bandera in July 2017 when a security agent tried stopping him.
Cobb began fighting the security agent and stabbed him several times before fleeing.
The security officer was seriously injured but survived the attack.

Washington Man Guilty in Security Officer Murder

Pasco Washington
On Tuesday, March 26, Adan Virgen-Ponce (DOB: 2-21-1981) was sentenced for the murder of Froilan Godines.
The case originated from events on February 7, 2010, when Virgen-Ponce stabbed the victim Godines while Godines was working as a security guard at a club on the 1100 block of West Lewis Street in Pasco, WA.
Virgen-Ponce entered a guilty plea to second degree murder on March 12, 2019.
The standard sentencing range for second degree murder based upon Virgen-Ponce’s criminal history is between 123 to 220 months, or approximately 10 to 18 years followed by 36 months of community custody.

Father & Son Get Life in Prison For Armored Truck Guard’s Murder

New Orleans LA
A New Orleans armored truck security officer was gunned down during a robbery attempt in 2015 and now the father and son behind the horrific crime have been sentenced to life in prison.
Judge Ivan Lemelle sentenced 25-year-old Jerome Kieffer and his father, 54-year-old Armstead Kieffer, to life in prison for their roles in a 2015 armored car robbery and an attempted armored car robbery in 2017 in which James McBride was killed.
McBride was working as a security guard for Loomis when he was killed.
The attempted robbery took place on May 31, 2017. Loomis employees were servicing an ARM at the Campus Federal Credit Union in the 2200 block of Tulane Avenue when Kieffer, Armstead and Deltoine Scott attempted to rob them at gunpoint.
Gunfire was exchanged and McBride was fatally wounded.
Deltoine Scott reached a plea deal with authorities and was sentenced to 200 months in prison back on Jan. 30, 2019.

Man Sentenced to More Than 35 years in Prison for Shooting Security Officer

Sacramento CA A man was sentenced to 35 years and four months in prison Friday for a 2017 shooting in a downtown Sacramento nightclub that injured two people.
Adrian Calderon, was convicted Oct. 15, 2018 of shooting a security guard and a patron on Aug. 11, 2017 in the now-closed Parlare Euro Lounge on charges including attempted voluntary manslaughter, according to a news release issued by the Sacramento County District Attorney’s Office.
On the day of the shooting, Calderon was at the club when he got into an argument with another patron who swung at him, according to the release.
A security guard hired by the club attempted to break up the fight and Calderon pulled out a gun and shot the patron. The bullet pierced the guard’s hand and shot into the neck of the patron, injuring them both, according to the release.
Calderon was later arrested, and asked an accomplice to meet with the guard to have him change his story, but the guard refused to meet and informed law enforcement, according to the release.
Investigators discovered jail calls and visits between Calderon and accomplices in which they planned to contact the guard, according to the release.
An accomplice’s home was searched and law enforcement found a letter from Calderon addressed to the guard asking him to say in court that he mistakenly identified Calderon as the shooter previously, offering money, employment and other bribes, according to the release.

OTHER NEWS

Wanted Suspect in 1998 Shooting of Campus Security Officer Captured

McAllen TX. A Mexican national who was on the run for two decades after allegedly shooting a campus security guard during a botched robbery attempt was extradited here Wednesday night to face a capital murder charge.
Roberto Ivanovich Ojeda Hernandez, who was 19 years old on the evening of Jan. 13, 1998, arrived Wednesday evening and will be held at the Hidalgo County sheriff’s jail on a $2 million bond while his capital murder case makes it way through the criminal court system.
That January evening, Ojeda, along with another man, is accused of storming into a South Texas College classroom where students were registering for classes and opened fired, according to Monitor archives. Security guard Carlos Hernandez, 32, was fatally shot and three students were injured.
Mexico’s Federal Ministerial Police arrested Ojeda, now 39, in July 2018 in Reynosa, according to Mexican news magazine Proceso, and the extradition process began.
“The significance of the arrest now is that it allows us to move the case and therefore the investigation forward,” McAllen Police Chief Victor Rodriguez said at a Thursday morning news conference. “The investigation was by no means complete back in 1998.”
Now that he is in custody in the U.S., McAllen police will focus on determining the identity of the second suspect and any others involved in the crime, the chief said.
Police identified Ojeda as a suspect after Mexican police traced a Mexican-registered vehicle believed to be the getaway car to him, according to Monitor archives. Police also believe he “had experience at the campus and perhaps maybe he had been involved in the (school’s) security service,” Rodriguez said.
McAllen police issued a warrant for his arrest in February 1999, and a grand jury indicted him on a capital murder charge in March of that year.

Ojeda likely spent his 20 years on the run in his native Reynosa, but neither the chief or Stephen Kam, the FBI’s assistant special agent-in-charge at its McAllen office, elaborated as to how he was located and apprehended.
STC did not have its own police force at the time of the shooting.
The school started its police department in 2012, said its chief, Paul Varville, who was present at Thursday’s news conference. Today, the department has 56 security guards and 23 police officers.
“Since Columbine (in April 1999) and those situations, colleges have been much more aware to this,” Varville said of how security has changed at college campuses over the past two decades.
“We’ve all grown in that time, including South Texas College, and we too now with this particular arrest can begin to move the investigation,” said Rodriguez.

MD Police Charge Fugitive With Murder of Security Officer

Prince George County MD. A man who has been one of the FBI’s 10 most wanted fugitives in a years-old homicide case of his fiancee was arrested in Prince George’s County on Thursday, just hours, police say, after he killed a new girlfriend in the District.
Lamont Stephenson’s alleged D.C. victim, Natina Kiah, was working as a security guard at a homeless shelter, her family said, and met Stephenson in recent weeks while he was staying there. Her body was found stabbed in her bedroom in Southeast on Wednesday night, along with her cat, according to police and family members.
Stephenson, 43, was arrested about 2 a.m. Thursday by three Prince George’s patrol officers checking a report that a man was living in an Enterprise box truck stored on a rental company lot on Annapolis Road in Lanham. Officers found him with a backpack and a weapon, which they declined to describe in a news conference Thursday night.
“He initially stated he was homeless and was just trying to get out of the weather,” said Prince George’s County Police Chief Hank Stawinski.
The arrest brought Stephenson’s years on the run in a 2014 New Jersey case to a halt. Authorities said he now is in the hands of federal authorities. It was unclear when he would make an appearance in the D.C. case or be returned to New Jersey.
In 2014, Stephenson was charged with murder two weeks after Olga DeJesus, 40, was found asphyxiated in her Newark apartment on Oct. 17. The FBI said DeJesus’s dog was also found strangled.
The FBI added Stephenson to its most wanted list in 2018 and noted he was last seen by a relative in or around Myrtle Beach, S.C., in July 2017. Authorities said he had family ties to New Jersey, Virginia, and North and South Carolina. There was a $100,000 reward for information leading to his arrest.
Authorities said they believe both killings were related to domestic issues.
At a news conference Thursday evening, Stawinski credited patrol officers Joseph Killian, Jeffrey Bragg and Eduardo Ventura with apprehending the suspect after getting an otherwise routine call from a security officer about a suspicious person. The chief said Stephenson gave police his real name and “offered that he may be wanted in connection with additional crimes.”
Stawinski said police found he was on the FBI’s most wanted list, and federal authorities took custody of him. He said authorities then learned he may be connected to a killing in the District on Wednesday.
D.C. Police Chief Peter Newsham confirmed in an interview that a warrant for Stephenson was issued in the stabbing death of Kiah, 40.
A close cousin of Kiah said relatives became concerned Wednesday when she had not called her grandchildren and her oldest daughter, as she typically did each day. Relatives went to Kiah’s apartment in the 5000 block of D Street SE in Marshall Heights and, when they did not get an response, called police.
Officers forced the door open about 8:30 p.m. and reported finding Kiah unresponsive in her bedroom. Police later determined she had been stabbed, and she was pronounced dead.
Kiah’s cousin, Shaun C. Montague, said Kiah met Stephenson about two weeks ago and that he seemed like a perfect soul mate for her. He said Kiah had told relatives they met at the shelter, but because she worked there, they assumed he did, too.
Montague said he learned after his cousin was dead that Stephenson had been homeless and occasionally stayed at the shelter.
A spokeswoman for the D.C. Department of Human Resources confirmed Kiah worked at the shelter as a security guard. Montague, who is 40 and lives in Maryland, said Kiah had introduced Stephenson to her parents recently and he had been around her four daughters — ages 14 to 21 — and her 2-year-old grandson.

30 Years Prison Sentence For Security Guard Convicted of Murder

Chesapeake VA A Virginia jury on Monday recommended a 30-year prison sentence for a former security guard who in 2017 fatally shot a Chinese immigrant who was out playing Pokemon Go.
The recommended prison sentence comes after the jury convicted Johnathan Cromwell, 23, of second-degree murder on Friday. Sentencing is scheduled for June 24, according to Nancy G. Parr, the commonwealth’s attorney for the City of Chesapeake.
Cromwell, who was also found guilty of use of a firearm in the commission of a felony, killed 60-year-old Jiansheng Chen on the night of Jan. 26, 2017, while Chen was playing the GPS-based mobile game.

Man Who Shot Security Officer at Omaha Gas Station Gets 90 to 115 Years in Prison

Omaha NE Keith McNeese has a gift of gab, a concern for kids and a pleasant presence.
Those traits made him a customer favorite as a security guard at Big Jim’s gas station at 3024 Ames Ave. in Omaha. Old-timers stopped and chatted up the 62-year-old. Depending on their age, young customers affectionately referred to him as “grandpa,” “uncle” or “unc” for short.
He had a good rapport with police and a matter-of-fact approach to handling trouble and troublemakers.
Then came the early morning hours of July 28.
Two men — he believed them to be using crack cocaine — lingered in the parking lot of the gas station. McNeese warned them: I’ll Mace you if you don’t leave.
They didn’t, and McNeese sprayed. It worked — irritating Ronnie Williams’ eyes and his pride. Drugged and drunk, Williams stormed back to the gas station about an hour later and opened fire.
Now, McNeese is paralyzed. And Williams is on his way to prison. On Monday, Douglas County District Judge Thomas Otepka sentenced Williams, 45, to 90 to 115 years in prison for the shooting.
The sentence ensures that Williams — who served 14 years in prison for a 2001 Omaha bank robbery — will not be eligible for release until his 90s, if he lives that long.

Share this post: on Twitter on Facebook