Officer

GRAND RAPIDS — A former Benton Harbor police officer will head to prison for 30 months for corruption. A federal judge also required Bernard Hall Junior to pay $10,000 in restitution to the Benton Harbor Police Department. Hall pleaded guilty in September to falsifying search-warrant affidavits, embezzling police funds, illegally seizing suspects' money and property, and conspiracy to violate civil rights. A grand jury indicted him last July, one month after he resigned. Investigators say he was the supervisor of another former Benton Harbor police officer, Andrew Collins.

MICHIGAN CITY - City police on Monday were still looking for two men who bailed out of a moving car during a chase, leaving a passenger in the back seat. Police said they tried to stop the car Sunday night because it matched the description of a vehicle involved in a shooting two days earlier. The car sped across the Eighth Street bridge over Trail Creek, then the men bailed out, leaving a woman in the back seat screaming as officer Rob Grant dove into the vehicle head first.

Hamlet police say one of their officers had no choice but to shoot and kill a dog that attacked him at a home while he was carrying out an investigation. READ THE POLICE DEPARTMENT'S DESCRIPTION OF THE INCIDENT HERE WSBT is looking into this story and will bring you more information if and when it becomes available.  

LAGRANGE, Ind. (AP) — Authorities say a sheriff's deputy has been treated and released from a Fort Wayne hospital after he was shot when another deputy's gun accidentally fired as they struggled to take a man into custody. LaGrange County Sheriff Terry Martin said the bullet struck Deputy Ed Flowers in the buttock and exited through the thigh. The officers were responding to a domestic call about a woman lying on U.S. 20 west of LaGrange, about 45 miles east of South Bend.

Police say a South Bend officer responding to a medical call flipped his cruiser over in a crash involving another car. This happened around 12 a.m. Saturday at the intersection of Brookfield and Huron in South Bend. Police say Patrolman Jeff McKee was driving the wrong way down Brookfield when he clipped another car with two passengers, spun out and flipped over. Everyone involved in the accident is OK. As is customary with all officer-involved crashes, the F.A.C.T.

ST. JOSEPH COUNTY — A St. Joseph County officer is off the job Monday after he was hurt while making a Sunday arrest. Police were called to the 17000 block of Irongate Court in northern St. Joseph County where 18-year-old Daniel Kocks was threatening to kill his parents and throwing things at them. When police tried to arrest Kocks, he started throwing punches at them. Corporal Nick Hartley went to the hospital for a sprain to his lower back. Kocks faces charges for battery, intimidation and resisting arrest.

MICHIGAN CITY -- A 19-year-old Michigan City man who police say ran from a traffic stop and was shot while struggling with an officer over his gun was charged with two felonies and two misdemeanors on Monday. A state police news release detailed the events: On Wednesday, June 20, two Michigan City officers in uniforms and assigned to the Safe Streets Team stopped a 2011 Chevy Malibu for an alleged traffic violation on Welnetz Road at 5:53 p.m. Four people were in the car, including Daniel Sherrod Jr. Sherrod ran from the traffic stop scene, with one of the two officers in pursuit.

A lawsuit against a Benton Harbor police officer will go forward after a suspect died while in custody. A federal appeals court says the officer does not have immunity. That means jurors can determine whether the officer disregarded risks by keeping Doyle Jackson in a squad car for 40 minutes after a struggle in 2007. Jackson was then taken to the Berrien County jail where a nurse found him unresponsive. He died at a hospital. Jackson was allegedly drunk and had been hit with a stun gun at least a dozen times.

Police say an officer was struck on the head by an unruly suspect on Tuesday. Police received a call about a possibly suicidal person in the 4000 block of West State Road 120. They say Alvin Yoder wouldn’t follow their commands and became aggressive. An officer used her Taser on Yoder and was struck in the head during the struggle, say police. Yoder was taken to Parkview LaGrange Hospital because it was suspected that he ingested a large amount of drugs.

A two-vehicle accident just before 7 a.m. Friday involved an Elkhart Police officer. A passenger vehicle was on its side after the collision at the intersection of Nappanee and Thornton streets. Medics were called to treat the person in the passenger vehicle. An Elkhart Police dispatcher told WSBT the officer was OK. View Larger Map Stay connected to wsbt.com, WSBT-TV, WSBTRadio960AM and our South Bend Tribune news partners for updates on this story.

NORTH WEBSTER - A Kosciusko County man is behind bars after falsely accusing a North Webster police officer of committing murder. In May, detectives with the county sheriff's department started an investigation into allegations made against the police officer. North Webster Town Marshal Greg Church told investigators he had been contacted by the Tennessee Bureau of Investigations, who said they received an e-mail from a Kosciusko County man identified as Michael Roy Wiggins, 32, North Webster.

Two top officers belonging to a police department in St. Joseph County, Michigan won't be reporting for duty this morning. The White Pigeon Chief of Police and one of his sergeants are now facing a punishment from the village council for a drunk driving incident earlier this year. In April, Sergeant William Burgoyne and Chief Lynn Baker were both off-duty when they were involved in a rollover accident in Branch County.  Both men had a blood alcohol content of .13. Facing pressure from the community to take action, The White Pigeon Village Council suspended Burgoyne for five days without pay, and Baker was also given five days off for actions unbecoming an officer.

Neighbors have released the name of the suspect in a horrific crime Sunday morning on the south side of South Bend at the Irish Hills Apartments complex.  It started around 5 a.m. when a frantic mother living at the complex called police saying her husband was stabbing their 6-year-old daughter.  Before it ended, the little girl was dead and police had shot and killed Edward Mwaura. It was a sound of terror that some Irish Hills Apartment residents awoke to Sunday morning   “I heard them screaming from my apartment and I live up the ways a little bit,” said Angela.

MERRILLVILLE, Ind. (AP) - Court documents say a truck driver from Oregon punched a northwestern Indiana police officer more than 10 times before the officer shot his attacker. Prosecutors filed battery and resisting arrest charges on Wednesday against 43-year-old Craig Strand of Portland, Ore., for the Monday confrontation outside a Planned Parenthood clinic in Merrillville. Police say Strand remained hospitalized under heavy sedation following surgery for a gunshot wound to the abdomen.

MOORE, Okla. (AP) - The Oklahoma Medical Examiner's Office says 51 people have been killed by a tornado that hit suburban Oklahoma City on Monday afternoon. Spokeswoman Amy Elliott says the death toll is expected to rise. According to CNN, the Oklahoma City Police Deptartment confirms 7 of the dead are children from Plaza Towers Elementary School in Moore.

NILES --   We told you the bomb squad was at the Niles Post office investigating a suspicious package. WSBT has learned that package was empty. Police say a woman saw the box on top of a trash can outside the post office and called police. The box had no markings on it. Police used a robot to learn the box was empty and have since cleared the scene.

You've likely been pulled over at some point in your life on a routine traffic stop and maybe you got a ticket, but have you ever had the officer ask you for cash up front? This happened recently to a South Bend truck driver in Dowagiac. And what the law officer did, asking for cash up front, was a surprise to him and probably would be for many drivers, but it's completely legal. It was supposed to be like any other delivery for truck driver Edwin Mays. "And I got about two blocks and the next thing I seen was lights flashing," Mays said.

SOUTH BEND -- A clerk at a local convenience store has filed a civil lawsuit against three South Bend police officers alleging "intentional and/or negligent infliction of emotional distress" and violation of his civil rights, among other claims. The lawsuit names officers Eric Mentz, Michael Stuk and Aaron Knepper along with former interim police chief Charles Hurley, Mayor Pete Buttigieg and the city as defendants. The complaint was filed Friday in St. Joseph Circuit Court on behalf of Jonathan Ferguson, a clerk at 7-Eleven, 1827 Miami St. According to court documents, Ferguson began working at the store last summer.

Kosciusko County police say two suspected methamphetamine manufacturers led officers on a 100 mph pursuit on Tuesday, throwing meth materials out of their car windows as they ran. Just before 8:30 p.m. Warsaw Narcotics and Kosciusko County Drug Taskforce officers went to a mobile home park on County Road 100 South about 4 miles west of Warsaw to serve warrants. Police say two men in a green Pontiac drove up but then quickly drove off when they spotted the officers. The suspects were throwing materials used in the manufacture of meth out of their windows as they sped away, according to police.

A former St. Joseph County jail officer accused of stealing from a former inmate is expected in court today. Investigators say Trevor Reynolds used the inmate's debit card to take money out of an ATM and fill up his car with gas. Sheriff Mike Grzegorek has said he has surveillance video, photographs and receipts to prove Reynolds stole more than $600. Reynolds told the sheriff he bought the debit card from the inmate. When offenders are booked into the jail with cash on them, officers put that money onto a debit card, which they get back when they're released.