Like most other law enforcement agencies in Northeast Georgia, the Commerce Police Department participated in the investigation leading to the Friday evening arrest of Jamie Hood for the murder of Athens police officer Elmer “Buddy” Christian March 22.
Hood surrendered at 10:20 p.m. on live TV at a location just off the Commerce Road following an intense manhunt. Four hostages with Hood at the time were unharmed.
“Our canine unit and four detectives were involved,” said Commerce chief of police John Gaissert.
Officers from more than 20 agencies worked on the case that spread into adjoining counties.
Commerce officers, along with Jackson County and GBI officials, searched an apartment at Jackson Hills based on information developed in the case. The search yielded nothing.
“Those kinds of actions are based on leads,” Gaissert explained. “From an operational standpoint, any information that comes in has to be vetted. It is assigned to different teams, which try to corroborate or validate the lead, hopefully leading to an arrest. This was based on a lead. They are going to follow every possible lead.”
Sometimes, Gaissert said, such actions as the Jackson Hills search serve only to rule out bad information.
“The point is, when there is an incident such as this, it requires agency assists from multiple jurisdictions,” Gaissert said last Friday as the manhunt intensified. “There is not enough manpower for an agency to conduct by itself. We are also protecting citizens. He (Hood) could turn up just as easily here as well as Madison County or Elberton. This subject could surface anywhere in a three-county area. I view this as protecting the citizens of Commerce just as much as if they were out here on Elm Street.”
Gaissert said his officers took part in “extremely vital undercover operations, intelligence gathering and protection details at the request of FBI and GBI.”
“Our boys acquitted themselves well last week,” he concluded. “This thug had a drug connection in Commerce.”
According to a report from Athens Police Department, Athens police officers were investigating an alleged kidnapping and carjacking at 12:53 p.m. Tuesday, March 22, that occurred earlier on Winterville Road. Officers were following up on a possible location of a named suspect, Hood, who was thought to reside in the Sycamore Drive area.
Senior Police Officer Tony Howard observed a red Chevrolet Suburban driven by a person he knew to be a relative of the suspect. When he stopped the subject vehicle, the driver appeared to be compliant. The passenger in the subject vehicle, Jamie Hood, at some point, exited the suburban and shot Howard.
A second officer, Senior Police Officer Jerry Johnson, heard the shots and took the driver into custody. The shooter, Hood, had run from the traffic stop site and encountered a third responding officer. Hood shot into the police vehicle and struck Christian, who was fatally wounded.
Howard was transported to a local hospital and is expected to recover from his gunshot wounds. Johnson was not injured.
“When it first occurred, there was information that he was headed back toward Madison or Jackson County on Old Hull Road,” Gaissert said. “We had our units and county units — everybody was rolling — on (Hwy.) 334, 441, Seagraves Mill Road. We were trying to cover all access to the area.”
Eight Commerce officers in four CPD vehicles participated in Christian’s funeral procession Sunday.
http://www.dcor.state.ga.us/Divisions/Corrections/PrivatePrisons.html
"The Georgia Department of Corrections (GDC) currently has contracts with two private prison companies to house 5,376 offenders.
In 1997, through a bid process, GDC entered into contracts with Cornell Companies, Inc. to build and operate D. Ray James prison in Folkston, and with Corrections Corporation of America (CCA) to build and operate private prisons in Alamo (Wheeler Correctional Facility) and in Nicholls (Coffee Correctional Facility)."
http://www.corpwatch.org/article.php?id=867
"What is the most profitable industry in America? Weapons, oil and computer technology all offer high rates of return, but there is probably no sector of the economy so abloom with money as the privately run prison industry.
Consider the growth of the Corrections Corporation of America, the industry leader whose stock price has climbed from $8 a share in 1992 to about $30 today and whose revenue rose by 81 per cent in 1995 alone."
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Of course, this doesn't even cover the construction of these facilities which employ tens of thousands. We've got problems here in the United States, and they have very little to do with tax rates on high income earners nor immigration.