Detroit Man Sentenced to 120 Months for CVS Drug Store Robbery

A 49-year-old Detroit man was sentenced yesterday in federal court in Detroit for armed robbery and related charges, announced United States Attorney Barbara L. McQuade. Ms. McQuade was joined in the announcement by Special Agent in Charge Robert D. Foley, III, Federal Bureau of Investigation.

Andra Coleman was sentenced by the Honorable Marianne O. Battani to 120 months in prison, to be followed by two years of supervised release.

The facts established in court are that Coleman entered the CVS Pharmacy at 8900 Telegraph in the city of Redford on January 15, 2012. Armed with a handgun, Coleman first disarmed the security guard working in the pharmacy. As the store manager saw the masked gunman, he quickly dialed 911. Employees of the pharmacy were threatened, forced into the manager’s office, and ordered to the floor. Mr. Coleman then ordered the manager, at gunpoint, to open the store safe. Coleman took about $1,500 and fled.

Officers recovered two weapons along a path that Coleman took as he fled the scene. The gun that Coleman had brought with him, fully loaded with a round chambered, had been reported as stolen in Detroit a few months earlier.

United States Attorney Barbara McQuade stated, “Criminals who commit violent crimes with guns harm our quality of life. Stiff sentences like this one are needed to protect the public.”

Special Agent in Charge Foley stated, “Gun violence instills fear in our communities and endangers lives. The FBI is committed to arresting those responsible and seeing them prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.”

The cooperative efforts of the Redford and Dearborn Police Departments, as well as the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Violent Crime Task Force, were recognized and applauded by U.S. Attorney McQuade. Assistant United States Attorney John O’Brien of the office’s Violent and Organized Crime Unit prosecuted the case for the United States.

Criminal Intelligence Analyst Course

The Dearborn Police Department, MI, is hosting an intensive 5-day Criminal Intelligence Analysis Course for intelligence officers and Crime and intelligence analysts from November 3 to November 7th 2008. The course will be presented by the Alpha Group Center for Crime and Intelligence Analysis and taught by Warren Sweeney, a thirty-year veteran of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) and former Intelligence Analysis Coordinator for the RCMP Canadian Police College in Ottawa, Ontario (Canada)

This will be a "hands-on" course that takes a "learn-by-doing," practical approach to training. Students will actually perform tasks associated with intelligence analysis work. Each participant will also receive a copy of The Intelligence Analyst's Sourcebook. Written by Warren Sweeney, this manual explains how to conduct, prepare, and present intelligence to enhance the investigative and decision-making process.

Participants will be taught how to turn data into information; how to distinguish differences between Tactical, Strategic, and Operational Intelligence; how to overcome resistance to the intelligence process, how to establish links between people, organizations, and events; how to chart events, commodity flow, and activities within the Criminal organization; how to present intelligence effectively in oral and written reports; how to use the power of the computer to assist the intelligence function; and money laundering secrets and techniques.

Tuition for the course is $525 and includes the week of instruction, the text, and related course materials. The course also fulfills the requirements of the California Department of Justice Certified Crime and Intelligence Analysis Program and may be used for Certification purposes. It is beneficial, but not required, to bring a laptop computer with you, which will permit the installation of a graphics program: ABC SnapGraphics 1.0.

To obtain a course brochure or to register for the course, please contact Diana Olson of the Alpha Group at (909) 484-2169 e-mail at: crimecrush@aol.com or contact Cpl Jeffrey Ball, Dearborn Police Department, MI, 313-943-2116, fax 313-943-3048 email jaball@ci.dearborn.mi.us. Additional information about the content of the course can also be found on the Alpha Group website www.alphagroupcenter.com.

Angles on Corrections

Police-Writers.com, a website dedicated to listing state and local police officers who have authored books, added three writers who give different perspectives on the corrections system; one is a cop who is an expert in conducting investigations in prisons; one is a cop who went to prison; and, the third wrote a thriller were the offenders skip the prison experience.

William Bell comes from a family whose involvement with law enforcement dates back to the Civil War. His own education and career spans more than thirty years. Greatly influenced by his father, a retired Police Inspector, he began with the Dearborn Police Department (Michigan) where his responsibilities included work in road patrol, SWAT, undercover narcotics, and pattern crime. For nearly twenty years the author has been employed by the Colorado Department of Corrections, where he ultimately gained his expertise with the Criminal Investigation Division. He is noted for taking the investigation of prison crime into the streets. He reflects is practical as well as academic excellence in his book, Practical Criminal Investigations in Correctional Facilities.

Lines Crossed is the true story of Alex Richardson, a Lake County Sheriff’s Department (Indiana) a narcotics detective who was ultimately sentenced to federal prison for taking a bribe from a drug dealer. His book, Lines Crossed: the True Story of an Undercover Cop, describes the activities of the County drug task force; and, “he also reveals his gambling habit, and the corruption that takes place while working narcotics.”

Alex Richardson grew up in Gary, Indiana. He left at the age of 18, joining the Army where he was a military policeman. He graduated Airborne School becoming a paratrooper, then finished his enlistment by serving in a special operations unit at Ft. Bragg, North Carolina. After his military duties he served as a patrolman on the Lake County, Indiana, Sheriff’s Department before serving over two years as an undercover detective on the Lake County Drug Task Force.

Mark Osterman, a Detroit Police Department police officer wrote two crime thrillers: Happiness is a Green Light and Justifiable Homicide. According to the book description from Justifiable Homicide, “In this sad aftermath, Jack began his secret war on crime. He joined the Detroit Police Department and rose through the ranks to become a detective. However, Jack's after-hours activities included a different method for reducing crime statistics. This one-man crusade served as judge, jury and executioner.

Police-Writers.com now hosts 429 police officers (representing 189 police departments) and their 908 books in six categories, there are also listings of United States federal law enforcement employees turned authors, international police officers who have written books and civilian police personnel who have written books.