Published: November 28, 2008 11:31 pm      

POLICE NOTEBOOK: Taser brings down this career criminal

Sometimes you just have to know when to stop a life of crime.

Perhaps that moment has arrived for Fabian Carter.

After a Gazette news carrier found footprints in the snow leading up to almost every parked car in the 3200 block of Niagara Avenue in the early morning hours of Nov. 20, she called police. They responded and that’s when the fun with Fabian began.

Carter began by bolting in front of Officer Phillp Tripi’s patrol car, almost becoming a hood ornament. Tripi gave chase, pursing Carter through six different backyards and hopping six fences, four chain link and two stockade for those of you keeping track.

The fleeing fugitive then grabbed a child’s bike (the preferred getaway vehicle of Falls’ criminals) and attempted to speed away, only to encounter Officers Rob Lynch and Jim VanEgmond. Lynch and VanEgmond were driving the police version of a grocery-getter, the so-called prisoner wagon, on their way to the Niagara

County Jail.

Lynch and VanEgmond managed to maneuver the wagon to cut Carter off and ordered him to stop. When he didn’t, VanEgmond used his Taser to stop Carter and take him into custody.

Carter’s loot, from rummaging through several cars, was $40.62 in change, a handheld Yahtzee game, a pack of cigarettes, a Chapstick, three lighters and a pocketknife.

No stranger to police, he’s already been arrested nine times this year, Carter suggested he may be ready to turn over a new leaf.

“I gotta quit doin’ this (stuff),” Carter said. “I ain’t never got Tasered before.”

Wrong kind of vision

While many folks have experienced life transforming religious visions, I’m not sure it was that kind of vision that a guy from Barbados, via Brooklyn, was looking for when he told Customs and Border Protection agents at the Lewiston-Queenston Bridge he was bringing 100 vials of Holy Water home from Canada.

Warren Maynard made that declaration to Customs agents as he tried to cross the border into the U.S. on Oct. 16. Suspicious agents decided to pull Maynard over for a secondary inspection and a drug sniffing K-9 had a decidedly positive reaction to the box containing the so-called religious items.

Agents tested the contents of the bottles and discovered that 42 of them contained liquid Ketamine. A powerful animal tranquilizer, Ketamine, also is known as Special K on the street.

It will produce visions, most of them powerfully hallucinogenic and not even remotely religious.

Maynard now faces federal charges of possessing and importing a controlled substance.

A new sergeant in town

Congratulations to the newest sergeant in the Niagara County Sheriff’s Department.

Deputy Kevin Smith rose in the ranks last week after 10 years in road patrol. Smith began his career with the sheriff’s department as a corrections officer in 1997.

He is an academy instructor, a member of the aviation unit, the honor guard, a field training officer and a hostage negotiator. That’s a resume that would be tough to top.

Oh, did we mention that Smith is also the commander of security forces for the 107th Airlift Wing at the Falls Air Reserve Station.

A well-deserved promotion.

Contact reporter Rick Pfeiffer

at 282-2311, ext. 2252.