More shocking details revealed in sexual-harassment case against Iredell deputy

By Allison Latos

(WSOC-TV)

Channel 9 has learned new details in the sexual harassment lawsuit against Iredell County Deputy Ben Jenkins, who is accused of targeting domestic violence victims.

Documents filed in federal court this week reveal allegations that behavior was condoned and committed higher up in the department.

Read the details from Channel 9 here.

For revealing new court documents related to this case, click here and here. 

A quick note

Hey, guys.

My apologies if you have received multiple e-mail notices of the same articles being published on the blog the past couple days.

I'm dusting off some cobwebs.

Thank you for your patience,

Jaime

Stealing campaign signs is no joke

No election season would be complete without a story (or five) on missing campaign signs.

But this one has a slightly different ending than most.

On Wednesday, Mac Herring - who is hoping to retain his Ward 3 seat against challenger Frank Owens - notified media and filed a complaint with the Iredell County Sheriff's Office after noticing several of his signs and a $100+ banner were stolen overnight from private property. Herring said many of his signs have been stolen from yards during the campaign season, but the last straw was his banner being taken from private county property fewer than 24 hours after he had put it up.

Herring said many signs of David Coble, who is challenging Commissioner Rhett Dusenbury for his at-large seat, were also stolen Tuesday night.

A day later, some of the missing signs - and Herring's banner - were found in the back of a pickup truck at a home on West Center Avenue. But this picture was apparently snapped beforehand:

Campaign and church barbecue signs, along with orange construction cones, litter the yard of this West Center Avenue home on Thursday morning. Two sofas were also hoisted into a toilet-papered tree. (Photo courtesy of Facebook)

Signs belonging to Herring, Coble, Owens, Dusenbury and Mayor Miles Atkins were apparently stolen to pull off a prank. 

What the pranksters may not have known is that stealing campaign signs is actually no joke. Citing N.C. General Statute 136-32(e), Mooresville Police Capt. Joe Cooke said, instead, "it is Class 3 misdemeanor for a person to steal, deface, vandalize or unlawfully remove a political sign that is lawfully placed ..." 

Cooke said both the Mooresville Police Department and Iredell County Sheriff's Office have opened investigations into the larceny.

For more on this story, click here: Mooresville Weekly or here: Mooresville Tribune.

Stranger Danger: tips to keep your children safe

Social media is abuzz today after an apparent attempted kidnapping of a 15-year-old Mooresville girl from the subdivision in which she lives.

Neighbors report that an older man in a van “grabbed” the girl yesterday at the entrance of Glynwater subdivision, across from Mooresville Municipal Golf Course. They say the girl got away. But so did her assailant. For more information, click here.

With this incident occurring on the heels of another attempted child abduction at Mooresville's Walmart just last month, area parents are naturally on edge.

To help safeguard your children from potential predators, Mooresville Police Maj. Ron Chilton says parents need to teach young people about “stranger danger.”

“While strangers may mean no harm,” Chilton says, “children need to be taught to let their parents know when a stranger is around.” He says the adult can then assess the risk.

“Parents should make sure they know where their children are at all times - this includes at home, in their neighborhoods, in a local store, or away on vacation,” he adds.

In the event a young person finds themselves in a situation of potential abduction, Chilton says, they need to draw as much attention as possible to attract help. “This might include yelling, screaming, kicking, hitting, biting or whatever they can do to draw attention to the situation” and let people know that “something isn't right.”

Bob Mangan, owner of Mangan Martial Arts Academy on Main Street in Mooresville, has spent many years as a passionate proponent of teaching self-defense techniques to children and adults. Mangan says every child should be taught how to respond in the event s/he is ever confronted by a predator.

Interestingly, one of his first tips is: do not scream “Help!” 

That word, Mangan says, is used too often by kids when they are horsing around with their peers and parents. Instead, parents should teach their children to scream, “This is not my father/mother! I don't know this person!”

“Yelling, 'Fire!' is also a good one, because it brings attention to the situation,” Mangan says, adding that the child should be taught to drop to the ground, kicking and screaming, if it is possible in the situation.

If standing, “Put yourself in a defensive posture, with your hands up, almost in a pushing motion (fighting stance),” Mangan says. “Start yelling, 'Stop! Stop! Get back! Get back!'”

“Your voice” says Mangan, “is a very powerful weapon.”

But even more powerful, he says, is awareness: “Awareness is your number-one self-defense technique.”

He offers the following tips on how NOT to become a target:

1. Don't talk on a cell phone while walking in a parking lot.
2. Don't have ear buds in if walking, running or sitting in a public place.
3. Don't travel alone.

“Predators like easy prey,” Mangan says. “The lion chases the zebras, and the one it kills is the one that stays away from the herd.”

Chilton encourages families to download the app Life360 on smartphones. “This program can allow parents to find out where their children are in real time (as long as they have the phone with them),” he says. “The program may require the phone to have GPS capability.”

For more information on self-defense techniques or courses offered by Mangan Martial Arts, please visit www.manganmaa.com or call Mangan at 704-799-3645.

Police investigating possible attempted kidnapping

Mooresville police are investigating what appears to be an attempted kidnapping in a residential neighborhood.

According to a neighbor's post on Facebook, a girl – who police say is 15 years old – was “grabbed” at the front entrance to Glynwater subdivision, across from Mooresville Municipal Golf Course, yesterday afternoon. Neighbors say the girl is okay, but the man who tried to kidnap her was not caught.

The Facebook post on the “Glynwater residents” group says the man “is an older man driving a red van with wood paneling with out-of-state plates” and that “police say he has been trolling (Glynwater) neighborhood and adjacent ones.”

Mooresville Police Maj. Ron Chilton confirms the police department is investigating, but he says he cannot confirm the remainder of the information in the posting.

He also says this apparent attempted kidnapping is not connected to last month's attempted child abduction at Mooresville's Walmart.  

In the news ...

The following two news articles of interest popped up in my Facebook feed this morning:

Rep. Robert Brawley has filed a bill to once again allow lobbyists to give unreported gifts to N.C. legislators. House Bill 640 "would roll back many of the ethics reforms passed by state lawmakers in the wake of the Speaker Jim Black scandal of 2006," reports WRAL.com. "The measure would repeal bans on gifts from lobbyists to lawmakers and relax requirements that lobbyists disclose such gifts."

Click here for WRAL's full story. I have asked Brawley for a response on Facebook; I'll post an update if he responds.

*** Edited: Rep. Brawley responded on Facebook last night. Here's what he said: 

"All the ethics laws passed after Jim Black went to jail, did nothing but make crooks out of honest people. If a person has integrity they will not be involved in unethical behavior, If they do not have integrity then no law will make them ethical, so I propose to allow people to deal with each other and report it. If the public considers the dealings unacceptable then they can speak with their vote. Much better than forcing it underground and acting as if it does not exist."

Also in the news this morning, WSOC-TV reports that due to contaminant levels, people should limit the number of fish they eat from Lake Norman and Mountain Island Lake. The N.C. Department of Health and Human Services, according to the report, says the water itself is safe, but it recommends that people eat no more than two meals a month of large-mouth bass and one meal a week of striped bass from Lake Norman. Also from WSOC's report: "The department also recommends that people not eat any channel catfish from Mountain Island Lake ... (and) that pregnant women and young children shouldn't eat largemouth bass or blue catfish from the lake, and everyone else should eat those fish sparingly."

Another woman accuses Iredell deputy of sexual abuse

A third woman has stepped forward, accusing Iredell County Sheriff's Deputy Ben Jenkins of sexual abuse.

The woman - who called the sheriff's office in 2009 to report a domestic dispute with her husband - later decided she did not want her husband to be arrested but wanted deputies to make him stay somewhere else for the night, according to tonight's report on WSOC-TV. The woman - referred to as "Jane Doe 2" - said "Jenkins told her the only way that could happen is if she stripped down naked while he took pictures of her to prove that she had not been physically abused."

For more on this story, click here.