High ranking Morgan Hill cop considered for Gilroy’s top security post
GILROY
Two of the three finalists competing to be the city’s next police chief are a woman and a black man, and if the city council selects either of them, it would a first for the Gilroy Police Department’s highest seat, according to sources.
The Morgan Hill Times has learned that Morgan Hill Police Cmdr. Joe Sampson could become Gilroy’s first black police chief, and Chief Denise Turner of the King County Sheriff’s Department in Seattle, Wash., could be the department’s first woman chief. The third applicant is San Jose Police Department Deputy Chief Donald Anders. The city council is expected to vote on the matter in closed session Dec. 17.
Morgan Hill Police Department Chief Bruce Cummings declined to comment on Sampson’s potential move, and City Manager Ed Tewes deferred all questions to Sampson himself.
Morgan Hill Councilman Greg Sellers said Sampson’s departure would be a loss for the city because he has done such an outstanding job.
Assault victim drunk during attack
Gilroy
A 14-year-old girl seriously injured in an assault last Sunday morning was extremely intoxicated at the time of the attack, according to police.
Police responded to a report of a fight at 1:32 a.m. on Church Street between Ninth and Eighth streets. When officers arrived on the scene, they found the Hispanic teen, whose name and address police withheld because she is a juvenile, intoxicated and in need of serious medical attention.
The girl was flown to a San Jose trauma center, where she remained Tuesday in serious but not life-threatening condition, Sgt. Chad Gallacinao said.
There were no weapons used in the assault and it is unknown whether the incident was gang-related, he said. However, Gallacinao would not say how many people assaulted the teen or whether the teen had been at a party previous to the attack because he did not want to jeopardize the investigation or corrupt future witness reports.
December 2006 plane crash: Pilot error
GILROY
A flying teacher’s inadequate supervision led to a tailspin that sent a plane crashing into a Gilroy sewage plant last December, killing all three people on board, according to a report by the National Transportation Safety Board.
The report examined circumstances surrounding a Dec. 18, 2006 accident when a plane spiraled down in southwest Gilroy at 3:54 p.m. The twin-engine plane was in good working order, but 26-year-old flight instructor Shoki Haraguchi was not paying enough attention while a student pilot practiced flying without power from one engine, according to the report.
The accident’s probable cause is “the certified flight instructor’s failure to maintain directional control of the airplane and inadequate supervision of the flight, which resulted in a stall/spin,” the report continued.
The plane took off with the instructor and student pilots Yoshiyuki Kato, 27, and Yasushi Miyata, 38, from the Reid-Hillview Airport in San Jose about 1 p.m. that day.
After about three hours, the trio leveled out to about 4,000 feet and practiced velocity minimum control drills, in which the power of the left engine was reduced while the right engine continued at moderate speeds. This is a standard drill while learning how to fly a multi-engine plane because it mimics what would happen if one engine failed, said instructor Jim Grant of Amelia Reid Aviation at Reid-Hillview Airport in San Jose.
Gilroy bank robbed at gunpoint
GILROY
A man robbed a bank teller at gunpoint late Wednesday afternoon at Union Bank of California at the corner of First Street and Wren Avenue.
Bank employees were still counting losses Wednesday night, police said.
At 4:51 p.m., a man described as a clean-shaven white man wearing a dark, hooded sweatshirt and a black baseball cap walked into Union Bank at 805 First St., police said. Using a black handgun, he demanded a teller give him money, probably from the cash till, Sgt. Daniel Castañeda said.
Once the man had the money, he ran outside and got into a blue-green Ford four-door sedan – possibly made in 2005 – and headed northbound on Wren Avenue, police said. The car had white paper where the license plates would be.
After the robbery, the bank closed its doors two hours early while police conducted interviews. The bank was mostly filled with employees, but possibly had two customers inside at the time, Castañeda said. Police did not know how much had been taken as of 7:15 p.m. because employees were still calculating the loss.
