Crime and Public Safety
From Bedford County Sheriff’s Office: [This morning at approximately 3am] the Bedford County Sheriff’s Office was involved in a pursuit in the Goodview area of Bedford County. The vehicle passed a Deputy in the area of 15818 Stewartsville Road (Wonder Drug) traveling at 90+ MPH. The driver of the vehicle attempted to elude the Deputy but crashed in the curves at Goodview Road and Goodview Town Road. The crash resulted in a rollover, ejecting one female occupant and partially ejecting the driver. Total of five occupants from Pennsylvania were in the vehicle. All five were transported to RMH and fortunately the injuries were not critical. Charges were obtained on the driver, Patrick Leblanc, age 25 of Thompson, Pennsylvania for reckless driving and felony eluding law enforcement.
MGN
Two working fires in Roanoke. Officials posted on Facebook that Roanoke Fire-EMS was dispatched after 3 am this morning to a fire in the 400 block of 8th Street SE. That fire is reportedly under control. Roanoke Fire-EMS is also on the scene of a working fire in the 1200 block of 12th Street NW. No further details are available at this time.
(AP) A jury has awarded millions of dollars in damages against white nationalist leaders for violence that erupted during the 2017 Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville. After a nearly monthlong civil trial, a jury in U.S. District Court in deadlocked on two key claims Tuesday but found the white nationalists liable on four other counts. The jury awarded slightly more than $25 million to nine people who suffered physical or emotional injuries during two days of demonstrations. The lawsuit accused some of the country’s most well-known white nationalists of plotting the violence, including Jason Kessler, the rally’s main organizer; Richard Spencer, who coined the term “alt-right”; and Christopher Cantwell, a white supremacist who became known as the “crying Nazi.”
From Franklin County Sheriff’s Office: Fentanyl, a powerful synthetic opioid analgesic, has taken over this country’s substance abuse epidemic by force. Similar to morphine, but with 50 to 100 times the potency, fentanyl is a legal opioid that is commonly prescribed for pain control. In this drug epidemic, fentanyl is being added to illicit substances to increase its potency and many users are not aware that it is cut into the drugs that they are purchasing. Recently, the DEA sent an alert to law enforcement agencies to be aware of counterfeit pills that have entered into the United States that are laced with fentanyl. An increase in overdose fatalities have been attributed to this takeover of fentanyl and counterfeit pills.
The Franklin County Sheriff’s Office is dedicated to the aggressive pursuit of illegal use and sale of dangerous, illicit drugs in an effort to protect all within this community. From July 2021 to November 2021, the Narcotics Division with the Franklin County Sheriff’s Office has continued an extended drug investigation that has led to 94 individuals receiving 243 indictments directly related to drug activity. These indictments include the following:
Distribution of Marijuana <1/2 Ounce 9 charges
Possession and/or Sale of Schedule I or II Drugs 198 charges
Possession and/or Sale of Schedule III Drugs 12 charges
Possession and/or Sale of Schedule IV Drugs 8 charges
Possession of Schedule V Drugs 1 charge
Distribution of Schedule VI Drugs 1 charge
Firearms Possession related to Drug Activity 9 charges
Child Abuse related to Drug Activity 5 charges
Sheriff Overton would like to recognize the significant hard work, dedication, and time that members of this office give to this cause each and every day. Many of these cases go unseen to the general public, although they are very important interventions. This office will continue to work diligently to combat the substance abuse concerns throughout Franklin County.
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PETERSBURG, Va. (AP) — A grand jury in Virginia has indicted a police officer on charges that he misused a stun gun on an unarmed man.
The Richmond Times-Dispatch report s that a Petersburg Circuit Court grand jury on Thursday indicted Petersburg Police Lt. Jason Sharp, 50, on two misdemeanor assault charges.
Sharp’s attorney, Doug Ramseur, said his client is “completely innocent” of the charges and properly used a Taser on the man, believing he was armed and dangerous.
Sharp, a 20-year veteran of the Petersburg Bureau of Police, is scheduled to make an initial court appearance on Dec. 16. He was placed on administrative leave pending the outcome of his case.
Powhatan Deputy Commonwealth’s Attorney Rob Cerullo was appointed to handle the case as a special prosecutor.
The charges against Sharp stem from an encounter with a man outside his home on Oct 4. Cerullo said police responded to a report that a man had two handguns tucked in his waistband and was possibly carrying a rifle. The man sustained minor injuries when Sharp shocked him twice with a stun gun, according to Cerullo.
(ABC News) A Wisconsin jury has acquitted Kyle Rittenhouse on all charges in his homicide trial. The 18-year-old fell to the ground after hearing the verdict. “The jury, which represented our community in this trial, has spoken,” lead prosecutor Thomas Binger said.
Earlier this week, Binger said the state would not comment after the verdict.Rittenhouse pleaded not guilty to two felony counts of first-degree recklessly endangering safety, first-degree reckless homicide and first-degree intentional homicide and attempted first-degree intentional homicide, claiming he shot three men, two fatally, in self-defense during a 2020 protest. A charge of violating a curfew that was imposed during the protests in Kenosha was dropped during the trial.
The charges stemmed from the fatal shootings of Joseph Rosenbaum, 36, and Anthony Huber, 26, and a shooting that left 27-year-old Gaige Grosskreutz wounded. During his testimony, Rittenhouse said he shot all three men with an AR-15-style semi-automatic rifle in self-defense. “I didn’t intend to kill them. I intended to stop the people who were attacking me,” Rittenhouse repeatedly said, at one point breaking down and sobbing on the witness stand.
FRANKLIN COUNTY, Va. – Virginia State Police is investigating a single vehicle crash, which resulted in a fatality. The crash occurred Wednesday, (Nov 17) at 7:27 p.m. on Sontag Road, one mile west of Mount Carmel Road in Franklin County. A 2002 Ford Taurus was traveling east on Sontag Road, when the vehicle ran off the right side of the roadway, overcorrected, crossed the roadway, and struck several trees.
The driver of the Ford was identified as Devin Xzavier Brandon, 19, of Rocky Mount, Va. Mr. Brandon was not wearing his seatbelt and died at the scene. The crash remains under investigation.
FRANKLIN COUNTY, Va. – Virginia State Police is investigating a single vehicle crash, which resulted in a fatality. The crash occurred today, (Nov 18) at 12:35 a.m. on Virgil H Goode Highway, one tenth of a mile north of Doe Run Road.
A 2003 GMC Sonoma was traveling north on Route 220, when the vehicle ran off the left side of the roadway and struck the guardrail.
The driver of the GMC was identified as Cleo Ray Sloan, 71, of Rocky Mount, Va. Mr. Sloan was wearing his seatbelt and died at the scene.
The crash remains under investigation.
On November 16, 2021 at approximately 3:40 p.m., Roanoke Police were notified by the City of Roanoke E-911 Center of a person with a gunshot wound 1300 block of Rorer Avenue SW. Responding officers located an adult male with a non-life threatening injury outside of a residence on Rorer Avenue. Roanoke Fire-EMS transported the man to Carilion Roanoke Memorial Hospital for treatment. No suspects were located on scene and no arrests have been made at this time. This is an ongoing investigation and further details are limited. Anyone with information about this incident is asked to call (540)344-8500 and share what you know. You can also text us at 274637; please begin the text with “RoanokePD” to ensure it’s properly sent. Both calls and texts can remain anonymous.
A Floyd County woman is charged with bringing loaded handgun to airport screening at Roanoke-Blacksburg Regional Airport. She becomes the sixth person that TSA screeners have caught this year with a firearm in carry-on bags at ROA. The woman told officials she forgot she had it with her. She faces weapons charges and federal financial civil penalties.
NEWS RELEASE: ROANOKE, Va. – Transportation Security Administration officers stopped a Willis, Virginia, resident from carrying her .357 revolver onto her flight at Roanoke-Blacksburg Regional Airport on Sunday, Nov. 14. The handgun was loaded with five bullets.
TSA officials detected the handgun in the woman’s carry-on bag. They immediately alerted the airport police, who responded to the checkpoint, confiscated the weapon and cited the woman on weapons charges. The woman told officials that she learned that her flight was delayed so she placed the gun into her handbag to head back to town and when she returned to the airport, she said she forgot that she had her loaded handgun in her handbag.
In addition to being cited by the police, she now faces a stiff federal financial civil penalty for carrying a loaded gun to a TSA security checkpoint.
Passengers are permitted to travel with firearms in checked baggage if they are properly packaged and declared at their airline ticket counter. Firearms must be unloaded, packed in a hard-sided case, locked, and packed separately from ammunition. Firearm possession laws vary by state and locality. TSA has details on how to properly travel with a firearm posted on its website. Travelers should also contact their airline as they may have additional requirements for traveling with firearms and ammunition.
TSA reserves the right to issue a civil penalty to travelers who have guns and gun parts with them at a checkpoint. Civil penalties for bringing a handgun into a checkpoint can stretch into thousands of dollars, depending on mitigating circumstances. This applies to travelers with or without concealed gun carry permits because even though an individual may have a concealed carry permit, it does not allow for a firearm to be carried onto an airplane. The complete list of civil penalties is posted online. If a traveler with a gun is a member of TSA PreCheck®, that individual will lose their TSA PreCheck privileges.
When an individual shows up at a checkpoint with a firearm, the checkpoint lane comes to a standstill until the police resolve the incident. Guns at checkpoints delay travelers from getting to their gates and inconvenience other passengers who are in the checkpoint line.
TSA Firearms Caught at Roanoke-Blacksburg Regional Airport checkpoints, 2017 to 2021
| Year | 2017 | 2018 | 2019 | 2020* | 2021* |
| Guns caught | 3 | 6 | 5 | 1 | 6 |
*Significantly fewer passengers than previous years due to the pandemic.
Nationwide, TSAofficers detected 3,257 firearms on passengers or their carry-on bags at checkpoints last year, although the total number of passengers screened at airport checkpoints across the country fell by 500 million compared to 2019 due to the pandemic. The result was that twice as many firearms per million passengers screened were detected at checkpoints in 2020 compared to 2019. In 2020, TSA caught approximately 10 firearms per million passengers as compared to about five firearms per million passengers in 2019. Of the guns caught by TSA in 2020, about 83 percent were loaded.