Sunday, July 10, 2005

Suspect mentions missing girl in blog

This is one way to drive traffic to your web site.
Suspect mentions missing girl in blog - PittsburghLIVE.com Suspect mentions missing girl in blog

MINNEAPOLIS -- The convicted sex offender accused of kidnapping two children in Idaho wrote about a missing Minnesota girl on his Weblog, and investigators are now looking into whether he might have had anything to do with her disappearance.

I want the authorities to check every lead. But, some in power seem to be going hog-wild about the internet and computers.

In other news, from Friday's PG, we learn of another bone-headed mistake from a school bus driver. The kicker at the very end of the story, police seized his computer.

Driver who forgot kids is charged

July 8, 2008, Jonathan D. Silver, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

A Kennedy school bus driver was arrested yesterday on charges that he left two 4-year-olds with special needs belted into their seats for more than two hours in his driveway and never dropped them off at school.

Milton Kappert Sr., 65, was released on his own recognizance after being arraigned before McKees Rocks District Judge Mary Ann Cercone.

"Stupid mistake," Kappert said, shaking his head as he sat in Cercone's office.

Allegheny County police charged him with two counts each of reckless endangerment and endangering the welfare of children.

Police noted that the temperature was in the 80s on June 30, and the children's parents said in interviews with the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette that the youngsters were sweaty or excessively thirsty upon returning home.

In an affidavit, detectives said Kappert picked up the children to take them to the Early Learning Institute in Kennedy but they never arrived.

Kappert needed to go to the bathroom, but decided he could not wait for a line of buses unloading students at the school so he went to his home on Ellwood Court nearby, police said.

Kappert told police he left the children belted into their seats with their windows opened about six inches and went into his house. He spent five minutes in the bathroom, took a five-minute phone call and "then forgot that the children were still on the bus and went into his 'normal afternoon routine.' "

Police said Kappert told them he did not realize his error until 2:10 p.m., when the son of Samantha Ray of Ingram walked into his house. The other boy, the son of Leanne McClean of Robinson, was still in his seat.

Kappert works for the Montour School District, which provides transportation services to the Early Learning Institute's Kennedy facility. He said he has driven a bus for eight years and is a former electrician.

The district has put Kappert on unpaid leave pending an internal investigation.

Kappert's attorney, Michael Santicola, said police seized Kappert's computer.

Make no mistakes, please. One can't agree with wrong-headed actions, especially against children. I wonder, why in the world did the police take his computer.
As a footnote, it is great to have back-ups, off site no less. It is great to have services such as Gmail and Blogger.com. Then the data and applications are off site and can't be "taken" by "greedy authorities" for little reason.
I hope to learn that this a bus driver gave the police plenty of other, valid reasons for the taking of his computer. Tell me those reasons, please. Or, what might they be?

1 comment:

Mark Rauterkus said...

Gmail?
See http://Gmail.Google.com.

If you'd like a gmail account, email me. I'll hook you up with an invite to join there, as supply exists on my end. There is no charge. It is a fine service. Even as a back-up, it does a dandy job.