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Fayetteville, Northwest Arkansas – The U. S. Marshals Service and the Northwest Arkansas Sex Offender and Violent Crime Task Force recently surpassed a monumental mark. “This month marks 1000 fugitive arrests for the task force,” said Deputy U. S. Marshal Dewaine Allen.
The Task Force began its work in November 2007, with a grant of more than $500,000. The grant was written and is administered by the Benton County Sheriff’s Office, but funding is close to an end. Without additional funding, the NWA Sex Offender and Violent Crime Task Force will have exhausted all resources in March 2010, and effectively conclude operations through the Benton County funding. The U. S. Marshals Service will continue operating the task force, but with limited resources.
According to Deputy Allen, “The grant monies have been used to purchase Task Force Officer vehicles, emergency lighting, radios and other equipment for officers.” The grant was also used to lease a private office space in Springdale until operations could be relocated to the U. S. Marshals Service office in Fayetteville. “Relocating saved us considerable funding, but resources are at an end, and we need additional funding to operate,” said Deputy Allen. Computers, phones, and overtime were also paid from the grant. “Unless additional resources are obtained, the task force will lose its most valuable resource…our administrative assistant, who is paid by the Benton County Sheriff’s Office via the grant,” said Deputy Allen.
The NWA Task Force and its many partners have arrested more than 1000 fugitives since inception. The task force performs sex offender compliance checks throughout Northwest Arkansas, and in its new location serves as the “Fusion Center”, a central location where sex offenders report to initially register, as well as update registration information such as employment, vehicle information, and residence status. Sex offenders from Benton County, Springdale, and Fayetteville currently report to the Fusion Center on a weekly basis.
The Northwest Arkansas Sex Offender and Violent Crime Task Force is comprised of the U. S. Marshals Service, Benton, Washington, Madison, and Carroll County Sheriff’s Office, as well as Fayetteville, Springdale, Rogers, Siloam Springs, and the Bentonville Police Departments. The Arkansas Department of Community Corrections is also a valued member. The Benton County Sheriff’s Office currently manages the grant that funds the task force.
Every year, the U.S. Marshals and its associated task forces throughout the country arrest more fugitives than all federal law enforcement agencies combined. Last year, this number was more than 73,000 state and local fugitives and more than 36,000 federal fugitives. Additional information about the U.S. Marshals can be found at http://www.usmarshals.gov/
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An alleged pot farmer was released on bail after the local cops smelled marijuana wafting from his Fayetteville home in Northwest Arkansas. The pot farm was located in the 3000 block of N. Old Missouri Road, Fayetteville, AR, practically next door from a neighborhood school.
Police reported thay found a dozen mature marijuana plants and another two dozen younger buds inside a growing chamber.
The growing operation was elaborate, based on the description. Growing lights and reading material for growing marijuana were also siezed by the authorities in Fayetteville.
Hey kids, remember: just say no.
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A Northeast Los Angeles gang leader with connections in Northwest Arkansas described by police as a monster who boasted in rap lyrics about his hatred of police and his love of killing was sentenced to death Friday for the murder of two rival gang members and the girlfriend of a third.
Timothy Joseph McGhee, 35, sat handcuffed in an orange jail uniform as Superior Court Judge Robert J. Perry said McGhee treated killing "as some kind of perverse sport, as if he was hunting human game." "He is a committed killer," Perry said.
Authorities described McGhee as a thrill killer who was among the most feared members of the long-entrenched Toonerville gang, which claims as its turf a largely middle-class area north of Los Feliz Boulevard between San Fernando Road and the Los Angeles River.
I just finished reading Forbes magazine’s list of America’s Fastest-Dying Towns . I wondered, could Rogers-Bentonville-Lowell find itself on this same list in years to come?
Sure, Walmart is doing good now, but what if…. What if WMT sales slowed, or even reversed (as they did in their international division). What if WMT laid off staff, or outsourced or flat out moved out of the Northwest. Would vendors do the same? Who would fill the houses, the factories, the office buildings? Who would eat at the restaurants, join the chamber, buy a new car?
Diversify the economy now for the days when WMT struggles to find their way, seems to be the answer. What do you think?
The Starbucks at Pinnacle Hills Promenade in Rogers, Arkansas closed last week. Who really cares, except the mall employees.
Seattle-based Starbucks Coffee Co. announced in July it would close three locations in Northwest Arkansas.
The Starbucks at 105 Dixieland Road in Lowell is already closed. Also planned to close is the Starbucks at 3351 Pinnacle Hills Parkway, near the Embassy Suites in Northwest Arkansas.
Rumor has it that coffee addicts living in the Pinnacle Hills Country Club are taking life into their own hands and driving 10 minutes across town to get their fix at the Iron Horse Coffee Shop on 2nd Street in the dilapilated Historic downtown Rogers business district.
Mass Transit in Northwest Arkansas stinks. I would love to see a light rail but that’s a bit of a pipe dream. What I’d like to see is a regionwide bus service that goes out west to Lincoln / Siloam Srpings, Gravette in the northwest, and West Fork to the South with maybe a line to Eureka Springs.
I think light rail, maybe street car would be the best in my opinion. Buses are needed but hard infrastructure is worth so much. People will work so much more to utilize something like hard infrastructure than a soft one like a bus route. Just me talking though, it won’t happen anytime soon. I don’t see why the railroad doesn’t include a stop in Fay for its tourist thing
Northwest Arkansas teens like to get pregnant. The state now has the nation’s fourth-highest teen birth rate, barely beat out by Mississippi, Texas and New Mexico for that lamentable title, a new federal report says.
Arkansas’ teen birth rate was more than 50 percent higher than the national average in 2006, according to new state statistics released Wednesday by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
In 2006, over 6% of all teen girls aged 15 to 19 in Arkansas got pregnant, just a small fraction less than Mississippi, New Mexico, and Texas. The mean age at first birth significantly decreased from 2005 to 2006 for Arkansas girls, as well. Arkansas’ first-time moms are the youngest in the U.S., second only to Mississippi.
To local conservatives, it’s not clear to them why Arkansas, with 63 births per 1,000, was among the worst states among teen pregnancies, at fourth place. However, experts have blamed Arkansas’ bad record on increased abstinence-only health education in Arkansas that does not teach teens how to use condoms and other contraception.
Other factors include the escalating cost of some types of birth control and their unavailability in some Northwest Arkansas communities, said Carmen Adams, who directs teen health programs for a Northwest Arkansas Teen Health Clinic.
A variety of factors influence teen birth rates in Arkansas, including culture, poverty and racial demographics. Sexy media portrayals of celebrity pregnancies, including the hit movie, Juno, don’t help, either. "They make it out to be very glamorous," said Adams.
Over 435,000 of the nation’s 4.3 million births in 2006 were to mothers ages 15 through 19. That was about 21,000 more teen births than in 2005.
Click Here to read the new state statistics released by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Experts are now warning us that the economy will worsen in 2009 for Northwest Arkansas residents. We warned you in 2006 that 2009 will be worse than 2006. It’s called trickle-down economics, folks.
Northwest Arkansas decline started with decelerating new housing starts, then drifted into commercial real estate. Suddenly, everyone’s equity dried up from crashing stock markets and property values. People stopped spending, credit froze-up. Energy prices spiked. Credit Cards max’ed out. Everyone freaked-out. Everyone stopped spending, afraid Armageddon was just around the corner.
The Northwest Arkansas economy was supposed to be bullet-proof. Because of chicken, hogs, trucks, and cheap stuff from China. Tell me it just isn’t so, grandma. You promised me a rose garden. My rose is wilted. I’ve been stuck with thorns.
I’ve been banned from Starbucks – er’ I mean Starbucks got the hell out of Northwest Arkansas. Granite City took one look and left as fast as they came. I can name dozens of businesses that have come and gone, each welcomed with hype in the local news about how great this place was going to be once they got here. Who else will turn and run?
So, we’re watching long-time local businesses collapse, friends going bankrupt, newcomers asking where’s the growth. Neighbors asking who’s going to mow the lawn of the half-built house next door.
Illegals are moving in. They’re bringing their drugs and crime. They overrun our classrooms, sleep in our hospitals. So I’m told by our congressman.
Here come the gangs. I can see the graffiti on the buildings on Eighth Street and Walnut Street in Rogers to prove it.
Downtown Rogers sucks as bad as it did in 1998, in fact probably worse. Downtown Fayetteville merchants hangs on in spite of a crappy football team. Springdale downtown looks like Tijuana. Downtown Lowell? Don’t ask me. I’m pissed off.
Who’s going to turn off the lights? What will happen next?
Hey, I’m optimistic. After the you-know-what-hits-the-fan, then the world will recover, mommy will send me back to school, and everything will turn out just fine. Until then, enjoy your humble pie.
4029 television is reporting that after a year that Fayetteville and Washington County saw a credit crisis, record unemployment and an overall slump in consumer spending, sales of alcohol in Northwest Arkansas remain strong. Especially the cheap stuff. Grab a Old Milwaukee beer and read the article: Liquor Sales Still Strong In A Down Economy
A handgun was used in the robbery of the manager of the Highway Inn in Northwest Arkansas about 10 p.m. New Year’s Day.
The suspect is about 5 feet 10 inches tall, 170 pounds with black hair and a teardrop tattoo near his right eye, Fayetteville Arkansas police said.
He was last seen fleeing on foot from the motel at 1140 N. College Ave. Fayetteville, Arkansas wearing a charcoal gray jacket, with black jeans and an undisclosed amount of money, police said.
