National Roundup . . .

Ohio
Man finds wife with lover, bites off part of ear
TOLEDO, Ohio (AP) — An Ohio man admits he attacked his wife’s lover and bit off part of the man’s ear after finding the pair in bed together.

Virgil Bates III told a judge in Toledo that he went home in June to find out if his wife was lying about breaking off an affair.

The 40-year-old Bates says he found them in bed and put his wife’s lover in a headlock. He told the judge the man bit his arm and that’s when he bit back.

Bates pleaded guilty to aggravated assault Monday.

An assistant prosecutor says the top part of the victim’s ear couldn’t be repaired and his medical treatment was “extremely painful.”

Prosecutors tell The Blade newspaper that they’ll recommend probation and time at a correctional treatment facility for Bates.

New York
Cops: Man sought X-ray weapon to attack Muslims
ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) — An upstate New York man accused of trying to assemble a mobile X-ray device meant to kill people at a mosque and an Islamic center is on trial in federal court.
Glendon Scott Crawford of Galway has pleaded not guilty to three charges, including conspiracy to use a weapon of mass destruction. The trial began Monday in Albany.

His attorney says Crawford was targeted in an elaborate FBI plot, that no crime otherwise existed and the device was harmless.

Eric Feight of Hudson was arrested with Crawford in June 2013. He pleaded guilty six months later to providing material support to terrorists for building a remote control for the machine. His sentencing is scheduled for September.

Federal authorities say Crawford initiated the plot.

Crawford, an industrial mechanic for General Electric, has been jailed since his arrest.

California
Report: Police fir­ed too much during robbery
STOCKTON, Calif. (AP) — A new report says the 600 shots police fired at the chaotic end to a California bank robbery that left a hostage dead were excessive and unnecessary, with some officers only firing their weapons because other officers were shooting.

The report released Monday by the nonprofit Police Foundation also found some Stockton police officers opened fire with their colleagues standing right in front of them. The report said a lack of planning was partly to blame for the unnecessary shooting.

“In reviewing dispatch tapes and in response to interviews, the review team determined there was no planned response for when the suspect vehicle stopped,” the report concluded. “This lack of planning, along with the number of officers involved, created a level of chaos that was difficult to manage and overcome.”

The July 2014 shootout left two of the suspects and a hostage, Misty Holt-Singh, dead. Police have said Holt-Singh, 41, was struck by 10 of the bullets officers fired as she was used as a human shield by the sole surviving suspect, Jaime Ramos. Ramos has been charged with three counts of murder in addition to robbery, kidnapping, carjacking and gang counts. He has pleaded not guilty.

Stockton police had requested the review by the Police Foundation. Police Chief Eric Jones said in a statement the department intends to learn everything it can from the report and use it to improve.

“There are elements of this report that are tough for us to read,” he said. “But it’s important that we be as brave in reviewing this incident as our officers were in responding to it.”
Joe Marchelewski, a spokesman for the law firm representing Holt-Singh’s family, said the firm had no immediate comment on the report. It has scheduled a news conference with Holt-Singh’s husband, Paul, on Tuesday for a discussion of the Police Foundation report and the Singh family filing a lawsuit. The family’s attorney, Gregory Bentley, has said police should not have fired on the robbers as long as Holt-Singh was exposed to danger.

Police Foundation President Jim Bueermann praised Stockton police as heroes in a foreword to Monday’s report, saying no police agency in the country had ever dealt with a similar situation.
The three suspects, armed with handguns and an AK-47, robbed a Bank of the West branch on July 16 and took three women hostage before fleeing in a bank employee’s SUV.

Holt-Singh, one of those hostages, had gone to the bank with her 12-year-old daughter, who sent a text message to her father, according to the report. “Leave work. Bank got robbed. They took mom,” the message read.

The suspects then led police on an hour-long pursuit and gun battle during which they fired about 100 shots from the AK-47 and shot up more than a dozen police vehicles.
Officers texted loved ones during the pursuit, some fearing they might not survive, according to the report.

One of the hostages, bank manager Kelly Huber, was shot by one of the suspects and either jumped or was pushed out of the vehicle. The other hostage, Stephanie Koussaya, a bank teller, said she couldn’t believe the suspect in the back was shooting at police, according to an interview included in the Police Foundation report. She realized police were firing back and tried to duck behind the driver, but one of the suspects pushed her up.

She said she eventually jumped from the SUV.

“When I saw the SWAT team and its vehicle, I knew it was going to go badly. I knew I had to get out,” she said, according to the Police Foundation report. “My whole thing was, ‘I wasn’t going to die that day.’ “

Washington
Appeals court upholds sentence in 1993 slayings
SPOKANE, Wash. (AP) — A Washington appeals court has upheld the 85-year prison term for a man convicted of killing a Yakima County family.

The Yakima Herald-Republic reports that the appeals court in Spokane rejected Joel Ramos’ argument that a Yakima County Superior Court judge couldn’t sentence him to consecutive adult sentences because he was 14 at the time of the 1993 slayings.

Ramos’ attorney, Nancy Collins of the Washington Appellate Project, says she needs to review the decision before deciding whether to appeal to the state Supreme Court.

Ramos and another boy, Miguel Gaitan, were 14 when they murdered four members of the Skelton family, of Outlook, in March 1993.

Ramos pleaded guilty to first-degree murder in the deaths of Michael Skelton, his wife Lynn, and their children, 12-year-old Jason and 6-year-old Bryan.