By Jen Myers

Ah . . . remember the good old days when the KIDS got drunk at the prom? Like when some members of the Dracut High class of '93 got wasted and arrested at Loon Mountain in New Hampshire, ruining the "fun" for generations to come?
Well, times have changed. Kids, parents and schools have become more aware. There are assemblies about prom safety, mock drunken driving crashes staged at high schools, and school-sponsored after-prom parties.
A group of Lowell Catholic High School kids did the right thing. They hired a limo -- an immense stretch Cadillac Escalade number from Lynette's Limousine Service in Wilmington to make sure they got to their prom and back home again safely.
Think again.
While they were dancing the night away at the Westford Regency Friday night, the driver apparently had other plans.
When he picked them up at 11 p.m., the kids say he was slurring his words.
The students, including Bianca Crowley of Billerica and her date John Harris of Lawrence, said they saw him gulping out of a cup and noticed the smell of alcohol, likely rum, while he was driving.
Eventually, they convinced him to pull into the parking lot of the Showcase Cinema in Lowell. The kids got out of the car and called their parents and police. They also called two classmates, who arrived and parked the limo in so the driver could not leave before the police arrived. See, they produce some smart kids over there at Lowell Catholic.
They said the driver begged them not to call the police, got rid of the cup he was drinking from, smoked a cigar and threw-up.
The kids stood outside the cinema in their fancy clothes and watched the police administer a sobriety test and haul him away.
The kids are upset about what happened, what could have happened and that they paid $1195 for this "adventure."
I tried to call the General Manager of Lynette's, Marco Delgado, but he had "stepped out." I left a message, but have not heard from him yet. I am awaiting a press release from the LPD with more information.
This is not the first time a driver from Lynette's has found himself on the wrong side of the law . . . .
Check out Sunday's Sun for the full story.

Here is Mr. Brian Harrison, 45, of Tewksbury, as he was booked for OUI.

Campbell, 48, of Pelham, was apparently a little angry on Tuesday.
Police got two calls from Campbell's neighbors at the Pro Lynn Apartment Complex, 45 Bridge St., by the time Master Patrol Officer Eugene Stahl got there about 1 p.m.
Stahl found Campbell and tried to calm him down.
Police say Campbell responded by threatening to kill his neighbors.
Stahl responded by trying to arrest Campbell for criminal threatening.
Police say Campbell responded by attacking Stahl.

And this is when police say Campbell really went a little berzerk.

Stahl, being attacked, used his Taser on Campbell, but despite the 50,000 volts of electricity a Taser produces, Campbell just grabbed the Taser prongs and ripped them out of his body.

Stahl went a step further and used pepper spray on Campbell.
Police say that didn't help either.

Backup was on the way, though, and eventually a total of five officers were able to physically restrain Campbell, handcuff him, and haul him into the station. He was also charged with assault on a police officer, resisting arrest, and disorderly conduct.
Campbell was cooling his heels behind bars last night, held on $5,000 cash bail. Hopefully he'll be a little more amiable when he appears in Salem District Court on Wednesday morning.

Lt. Gary Fisher said it's not unheard of for someone to overcome a taser, though.
"Some people have the stamina to be able to do it," he said.

I've gotta tell you. Campbell doesn't look like he enjoyed the experience.
Here is the booking photo.

UMass-Lowell spokeswoman Patti McCafferty e-mailed me today to note that the student being held on bail in the assault case from earlier this week, 22-year-old Clayton Dawson, is no longer a student at the University.

Follow this link for a refresher on what he's accused of.

I tried to get a few more details, but McCafferty said she couldn't say more.
"Under privacy laws, I can only say that as of yesterday, he is no longer a student here," McCafferty wrote.

Dawson's still a student in Lowell District Court, though. He's got a dangerousness hearing scheduled for Wednesday.

So, Monday morning in Billerica, a senior citizen (man in his late 60's, police told me), answered a knock on his front door a little before 8:30 a.m., and found himself face to face with a handgun and a stranger with a mask on his face.
The guy demanded money, got it and fled.
Nearby detail officers got to the scene within 30 seconds and helped secure the scene and keep the scent trail fresh.
Police used a K9 and tracked the suspect to a home nearby. An arrest was made within half an hour. Police say Matt Hill, 23, of 6 Kenilworth St., is charged with armed robbery while masked and home invasion. He is pictured here.

Police say the victim had no idea who Hill was. It was a random assault.
Police also used the Code Red system, which notifies homes in the area about the incident. It was just the second time they used it, I'm told. It's like reverse 911, except it can call way more people all at once since it is setup through a private contractor.
Go here for more information on Code Red.

Bridget Scrimenti did some video on this too.

I was at home when I got the Lowell Police press release identifying the man killed at the substation in Lowell yesterday. Read all about it here.

About one second after reading Ren's home address I realized who he was though.

He had been charged, though I'm told he wasn't the shooter, with attempted murder in connection with a Sept. 28 shooting right outside of his house. Ngy "Dreamer'' Meak, 31, of Lowell, was hit by a shotgun blast on Mary Theresa Terrace on Sept. 28 during a fight outside of a party about 4 a.m. Meak was taken to Brigham & Women's Hospital in Boston but soon recovered.

Ren was arrested almost immediately and charged with armed assault with intent to murder and assault and battery. He was initially held, but later released on bail. It wasn't until early February that police arrested Michael Vangpa, of 50 Pine St., Unit 22, on a warrant charging him with armed assault with intent to murder in connection with the same incident. Police said Vangpa was the shooter, but that Ren was still charged for his participation, which was never described to me in detail.

I also wrote about the tire theft arrests that Ren was apparently fleeing from. You can read that story here if you forget.

Superintendent Lavallee told me there had been several similar thefts around the city recently, but police only had enough evidence to charge these guys with the one they were caught in the act of.

Unlike the newspaper's main website, I have to approve all comments on this blog. I'm going to go ahead and tell you right now that I won't be approving any comments that are out of line on this. This kid is dead, and that's the end of this story. We have an obligation to report on who this kid was, but I won't approve comments that are tasteless.

Here's our video on the death. This one wasn't shot by me.

Police say she is now behind bars.

Detectives got a warrant and arrested Angelique Johnson, 29, of Lowell, out on Newton Avenue in Dracut on Tuesday afternoon about 6 p.m.
Detectives told me all along that they thought the blonde hair was a wig, and it looks like they might have been right.
Johnson had red hair when arrested yesterday.

She is charged with unarmed robbery in connection with the March 26 robbery at TD BankNorth, 350 Westford St., Lowell.

No one was saying anything about this arrest this weekend, but I think it's interesting.

http://www.lowellsun.com/breakingnews/ci_12073162

Just when those of us in the newsroom thought we had heard the last of former Middlesex Register of Probate John Buonomo, an e-mail from Attorney General Martha Coakley arrives.
Press Conference: 4:15 p.m.

In case you forget who Buonomo is, he's a 57-year-old Newton man who got caught doing THIS back in August, 2008.

That's a cash machine in the basement of the Middlesex Register of Deeds building in Cambridge, and District Attorney Jerry Leone says that's Buonomo opening it up to steal some cash. They caught him on camera over a dozen times.
That case is still pending, but it led Buonomo to resign on Sept. 7.

Well, the news from Coakley is that Buonomo was allegedly up to no good way before that.

Based on an investigation by Coakley's Office and the Office of Campaign and Political Finance, Buonomo has been charged with stealing ever since 2004.
Stealing how much? About $100,000, according to Coakley. (Guess he couldn't find a cash machine that would change a $100,000 bill).

Coakley says Buonomo had two schemes.
In one, he wrote himself checks from his campaign committee, supposedly because he had used his own cash to buy postage for campaign materials. Not true, says Coakley. He was just pocketing the cash, she said.
In the second scheme, Buonomo would write checks to Piro Printing, in Somerville, for printing of campaign materials. Coakley says there weren't real printing jobs, though.
Piro Printing owner, Marc Piro, of Wilmington, would cash Buonomo's checks, keep $500 for himself, and give Buonomo back the rest of the cash, sometimes as much as $15,000. Coakley said this was tantamount to laundering the money.
Piro even provided invoices and paperwork, which Buonomo submitted to OCPF to try and cover his tracks.

Piro and Buonomo were both indicted Tuesday afternoon. Both men are charged with larceny over $250, personal use of campaign funds, and willfully misleading investigators. Buonomo is facing two counts each of those first to charges.
They will both be summonsed to court and arraigned at a date to be announced.

Here in the newsroom, we'd love to know just what Buonomo was spending all this money on, but Coakley wouldn't say. She said all that matters to investigators is that it was used for personal expenses. Even if she knows what it was spent on, she's not saying.

The folks at OCPF couldn't tell me exactly how many fraudulent transactions there were between Piro and Buonomo, but here is a list of all the expenditures Buonomo reported in his campaign finance reports. If you're wondering what the difference is, it's that OCPF wouldn't tell me whether all of these transactions were fraudulent.
Piro Printing Payments in Buonomo's Campaign Finance Reports

And last but not least, if what I wrote in the paper today, plus the information here in the blog, isn't enough to satisfy your curiosity about this case, here is the Audio of Coakley's press conference on Tuesday afternoon.

Salem, N.H., is a great haven for shoplifters, with plenty of stores and easy highway access.
But, a place to steal shrimp?
Four times this month, someone stole frozen shrimp from the Market Basket, more than $500 total. Police say the store finally got their man, when they confronted 46-year-old John Silvera of Methuen. Employees apparently tried to stop Silvera, who accosted a store manager in an escape attempt. He was arrested on charges of shoplifting, simple assault and being a fugitive from justice. Silvera was arraigned and held on $100,000 bail.
Police say Silvera was wanted in Oklahoma on a charge of drug trafficking and in Massachusetts on a larceny charge.
In other five-finger-discount news, police arrested a Dracut woman at Macy's. Workers said the woman’s 3-year-old daughter was seen pushing a stroller with $765 in stolen merchandise hidden in it. Yashoda Sukhavasi, 30, was released on $1,000 bail. The girl was released to her father’s custody.

Well, I was going to put up some safety tips tonight, but my plans got changed.

As I was standing at the main desk of the police station about 6:30 trying to find an accident report on a bus crash, police got a 911 call that a guy in a red shirt had just aimed a rifle at a car on 18th Street in Centralville.

I got interested, left the station, and started making my way toward Centralville as I listened to the radio broadcasts.
The local route officers got to the scene but the guy in the red shirt ran into his house just as the cruiser pulled up with its blue lights on.

Within a minute or two, probably less, other cruisers were there, and about the time I was getting close to the scene Sgt. Don Crawford could be heard on my portable scanner saying police had "a barricaded person."

I got to the scene, got as close as I would ever want to get to such a situation and found a nice spot to stay the heck out of the officers' way while I could still snap some photos and shoot video. (on the sidewalk of a home down the street and behind shoulder-high fence, next to one of those new maroon trash bins).
Photos came out alright, although they're a bit grainy since it was getting dark and they were zoomed.

I was struck by how calm and actually friendly Officer Finn sounded speaking through a bullhorn to the guy in the house. I always figured officers in this situation would be a lot less reassuring, and more like the "come out with your hands up. Don't make us come in there," stuff you hear in cheesy movies from some guy with a robotic voice.

While Finn was using the bullhorn, the guy's wife kept trying to call him. He wouldn't even answer calls from her cel phone or return the messages she was leaving him. She told police she thought he only had a pellet gun, but that's just not the kind of thing officers can take a chance on once it's been pointed at a passing car.
This went on for a good 30 to 40 minutes.

Eventually, I lucked out in that I had my flip camera filming just as the guy, who I later learned was George Gibb, 48, of 62 18th St., walked out of the house and gave up.

When Gibb first walked out, you couldn't see one of his hands, which is why you hear some shouting at first. I couldn't tell if his hand was actually in his pocket, or just hidden at his side, but no one was getting closer to him until they could see it.
Then at at the end he moved toward an officer a bit just as they approached him.
We can't report much on medical conditions and police can't comment, but it really made me wonder if he was a bit out of it. The cops at the scene didn't seem to know him, which is usually a sign they don't have history with a guy.

Gibb seemed fairly calm at the scene, and I overheard him say "I'm sorry" at one point, although I'm not sure what police were saying to him. Police said that since he had pointed a gun at a passing car he was charged with assault with a dangerous weapon.
That it wasn't a real gun doesn't matter. Just like using a fake gun in an armed robbery doesn't matter. Plus, I forgot to ask police, but I think a pellet gun is considered a dangerous weapon anyway.

It shows how tough a situation like that can be, though. I saw the pellet gun as it came out of the house. I grew up a hunter in Pennsylvania with a 30.06, a .243 and a .22, and I can tell you that when an officer walked out of the house with that gun at sunset I couldn't tell if it was real or not. It had one heck of a big scope for a pellet gun too.
Is there a reason for a scope on a pellet gun?

And that was Wednesday night. After writing two other stories, I'm out of here for my two days off.