Captain James Agee Will Speak And Answer Your Questions May 6

Captain James Agee of the St. Albans Police Department will speak and answer your questions at the Tuesday May 6 meeting of the Ward 4 Neighborhood Watch, 6:30PM, Crossing Church, 2031 Harrison Avenue in St. Albans' 4th ward. 


If you live in the city limits of St. Albans and you support the goals and methods of neighborhood watch as a means of improving the city of St Albans, join "Public Group For St. Albans Neighborhood Watch" on Facebook at ::https://www.facebook.com/groups/PublicGroupForSt.AlbansNeighborhoodWatch/.

Higginbotham At Large only publishes the comments of clearly identified submitters. No pseudonymous or anonymous comments will be published. By "clearly identified" I mean something like this: JosephHigginbotham@gmail.com. No Ring of Gyges for you.

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Unsolicited Advice For Newspapers Struggling to Justify Their Existence (And Sell Some Subscriptions)

The West Virginia Record discontinued my favorite part of their paper,  the county-by-county listings of new lawsuit filings, so I'm hoping they'll consider replacing that valuable information with something else that their readers can't get elsewhere: follow-up on which 13th circuit judges are letting drug dealers off easy, e.g., probation or home confinement. 

West Virginia's opaque judiciary provides The West Virginia Record or the Charleston Gazette with an opportunity. You see, in some states you can follow your local neighborhood drug dealer's case via internet but here in West Virginia there isn't a website you can log into from home to see which judge caught the case, when your local drug dealer appears in court and how that drug dealer is sentenced.  

Drug busts with their flashing blue lights, their badges, their marked police cars and their perp walks, make for good TV but where can news consumers go to find out what happened after the bust? 

As far as I'm concerned, newspapers can stop using resources on world and national news. News hounds like me have a lot of ways to get world and national news but we have very few ways to get the "hyper-local" news that the big news operations can't deliver. Newspapers should stop trying to be all things to all people. Go with the "blue ocean" strategy of being hyper-local. Let the bigger news sharks turn the news ocean red with each other's blood. Give us what they can't. Give us more local news. I'm hoping The West Virginia Record or The Charleston Gazette will start by giving us follow-up reporting on which drug dealers are being sentenced to community service or some other type of creative sentencing that will disrupt their drug-selling activities and which judges are sending these felons back to neighborhoods where 90% of the crime is drug-related.
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Higginbotham At Large only publishes the comments of clearly identified submitters. No pseudonymous or anonymous comments will be published. By "clearly identified" I mean something like this: JosephHigginbotham@gmail.com. No Ring of Gyges for you.

Keywords: Nitro, WV, West Virginia, Saint Albans, St. Albans, Dunbar, Charleston, Kanawha, Speaker bureau, speakers bureau, speaker's bureau, speakers' bureau, guest speaker, 25177, 25143, 25303, 25309, 25301, 25302, 25305, 25311, 25314, 25304, neighborhood watch, animal rights, animal welfare, no-kill, shelters, crime watch, neighborhood crime watch, ward 4,vegan, vegetarian, liberal, liberalism, progressive, 

13th Circuit Judges: A Roomful of Witnesses Heard A City Department Head Say He Can Put Drug Dealers To Work For The City So Why Won't You Let Him?

Recently, in a roomful of witnesses, I asked a  St. Albans department head this question: " If 13th Circuit judges sentenced convicted drug dealers to perform supervised, court-ordered work for you, could you supervise them and put them to meaningful work?" 

He said he could. He was very specific about what they could do. Good honest work that would prevent the city from being fined by a federal agency.

This is an example of "creative sentencing" and it would enable convicted drug dealers to actually do something more constructive than sitting around their houses wearing GPS ankle monitors calling their customers on the phone and telling them, "Hey man, I can't leave the house. You have to come here to get your cocaine, your meth, your heroin and your Opana."

I've extended this invitation to 13th Circuit judges before and I extend it here again: Pick out a First Tuesday of any month. Come talk to my neighborhood watch group. We meet at 6:30PM  at Crossing Church , 2031 Harrison Ave., St. Albans. Come tell us why we should vote for judges who won't get the drug dealers out of our neighborhood when they have the chance. We understand that the prisons are full. We understand there's no room for non-violent offenders. But we also understand that drug dealers and drugs are responsible for most of the crimes in our town. Come speak to us and tell us why we should re-elect judges who won't protect us. 










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Higginbotham At Large only publishes the comments of clearly identified submitters. No pseudonymous or anonymous comments will be published. By "clearly identified" I mean something like this: JosephHigginbotham@gmail.com. No Ring of Gyges for you.

Keywords: Nitro, WV, West Virginia, Saint Albans, St. Albans, Dunbar, Charleston, Kanawha, Speaker bureau, speakers bureau, speaker's bureau, speakers' bureau, guest speaker, 25177, 25143, 25303, 25309, 25301, 25302, 25305, 25311, 25314, 25304, neighborhood watch, animal rights, animal welfare, no-kill, shelters, crime watch, neighborhood crime watch, ward 4,vegan, vegetarian, liberal, liberalism, progressive, 

At tonight's citywide St. Albans Neighborhood Watch meeting I'll be circulating the following petition:

Petition to West Virginia’s 13^th Circuit Judges

Whereas most of our city’s crimes are drug-related, and whereas our St. Albans Police Officers risk their lives doing undercover work and arresting drug dealers, we the undersigned members of the St. Albans Neighborhood Watch will not vote to re-elect judges who allow drug felons to plea to misdemeanors nor will we vote to re-elect judges who send drug felons back to their neighborhoods on “home confinement.” Stop using West Virginia’s lack of prison cells as an excuse to send drug dealers back to our neighborhoods. Use creative sentencing to punish drug dealers and get them off our streets.

Meeting starts at 7PM at the St Albans High School auditorium.

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Higginbotham At Large only publishes the comments of clearly identified submitters. No pseudonymous or anonymous comments will be published. By "clearly identified" I mean something like this: JosephHigginbotham@gmail.com. No Ring of Gyges for you.






Keywords: Nitro, WV, West Virginia, Saint Albans, St. Albans, Dunbar, Charleston, Kanawha, Speaker bureau, speakers bureau, speaker's bureau, speakers' bureau, guest speaker, 25177, 25143, 25303, 25309, 25301, 25302, 25305, 25311, 25314, 25304, neighborhood watch, animal rights, animal welfare, no-kill, shelters, crime watch, neighborhood crime watch, ward 4,vegan, vegetarian, liberal, liberalism, progressive, 

Judges Who Won't Punish Drug Dealers : An Investment Opportunity And A Creative Sentencing Idea

Oh my, Twitter is all abuzz with news of some recent drug busts in our area. Drug busts and perp walks make good TV but reporters know that most of these drug dealers will be out on the streets again in less time than it takes to call your stock broker and invest in companies that make GPS ankle monitors. That's the silver lining, by the way; there's money to be made in ankle monitor stocks. Does Jim Cramer know about this? Perhaps if The Graduate were filmed today Mr. McGuire would tell young Ben that his future is in "GPS ankle monitors", not plastics.

At my April neighborhood watch meeting I floated this idea: Why not put drug dealers to work helping cities avoid EPA fines? For those of you who don't know yet, cities now face stiff fines if they allow debris to get into their storm water and wash into waterways so cities are now imposing fines on citizens who don't clean up their grass clippings and such. So why not put drug dealers to work cleaning the streets and doing other things to help cities with their unfunded mandates?

And if our "catch and release" judges don't like my supervised community service suggestion I am happy to hear theirs. 

Folks, ask any police officer and you'll find out that most of our crimes - break-ins, home invasions, even murders - are drug related so why aren't Kanawha County's judges using their awesome power to get drug dealers off the streets and to send a clear signal to drug dealers that if they get convicted of dealing drugs here in Kanawha  County, they'll get punishment, not ankle monitors.

And here's a word to the citizens who elected these 13th circuit judges who keep releasing drug dealers back to our neighborhoods: you elected them, you can un-elect them. Why not write a 13th circuit judge a letter and tell him/her you will hold judges accountable when they release drug dealers after the police have risked their lives arresting them.

If you live in Kanawha County and you'd like to write a judge, here's the info you need:

Kanawha County Judicial Building
P.O. Box 2351
111 Court Street
Charleston, WV 25301
304-357-0440
Fax: 304-357-0473
Here are the judges:
Judge Jennifer F. Bailey
Judge Louis H. “Duke" Bloom
Judge Tod J. Kaufman
Judge Charles E. King
Judge Paul Zakaib, Jr.
Judge Carrie L. Webster
Judge James C. Stucky
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Higginbotham At Large only publishes the comments of clearly identified submitters. No pseudonymous or anonymous comments will be published. By "clearly identified" I mean something like this: JosephHigginbotham@gmail.com. No Ring of Gyges for you.






Keywords: Nitro, WV, West Virginia, Saint Albans, St. Albans, Dunbar, Charleston, Kanawha, Speaker bureau, speakers bureau, speaker's bureau, speakers' bureau, guest speaker, 25177, 25143, 25303, 25309, 25301, 25302, 25305, 25311, 25314, 25304, neighborhood watch, animal rights, animal welfare, no-kill, shelters, crime watch, neighborhood crime watch, ward 4,vegan, vegetarian, liberal, liberalism, progressive,