City Councilman Steve Schewel is inviting Durham residents to run the American Tobacco Trail with him.

"Let's take the trail back by running it together," he said, in a notice published through the Partners Against Crime email lists.

Schewel said he plans to run five miles on the ATT for four Tuesdays in a row, starting Aug. 28. He's starting at the trailhead at Blackwell Street and Lakewood Avenue, going 2.5 miles south, turning around and coming back.

That section includes the area where several runners have been attacked this summer.

Schewel invites anyone who'd like to go along – running or walking, as far as one likes – to meet him at the trailhead:

Aug. 28, 6:30 p.m.
Sept. 4, 5 p.m.
Sept. 11, 6:30 p.m
Sept. 18, 6 p.m.
 

Expect the report to show the crime rate in this eastern Wake County town remains low.

 
With another teen shot to death, leaders in Southeast Raleigh are calling for action bold enough to grab the attention of the White House.

  Early Monday morning, police found Rodriquez D’Shay Burrell shot muliple times at 500 Haywood St. Shortly afterward, activist Daniel Coleman called for citizens to march and pray through the neighborhood on Saturday in hopes of reclaiming the streets from violent youth crime. They will meet in front of the vacant lot at 500 E. Cabarrus St. at noon.

  "My friends," Coleman wrote in an e-mail to community leaders, "this madness has to stop."

   But just last week, Raleigh's black leadership called for a nationwide summit or panel that would address youth violence's cause from every angle. Hopes are that an event would be large and innovative enough to attract the attention of President Barack Obama. Perhaps each legislator across the state could forward a resolution to Washington calling for attention to the problem, said Bruce Lightner, who said his Raleigh funeral home buried four youths last year.

   "It needs to be put on his radar screen," Lightner said  in a meeting at The News & Observer. "We can start a groundwell."

Durham deputies want you to be aware of the "Jail Bond Money Order Scam."

Last week, someone called an owner of the Charmas Churrascarla restaurant in Brightleaf Square claiming to be a deputy from the Durham County Sheriff's Office. The person said a restaurant employee was arrested for DUI and needed bail money. The person wouldn't give the name of the employee but their generic description matched a server who wasn't working that day, deputies said. The scammer wanted her to bring the money to a Wal-Mart.

When the woman got to Wal-Mart, the scammer wanted the money transfered to a "friend." That's when the owner started asking questions and the scammer hung up. 

What helped the scammer is that he kept the owner on the phone the entire time, which didn't allow the owner to contact the employee, deputies said. When confronted with such a call, no information should be provided over the phone. Bond transactions only happen at the jail, either through a bondsman or by giving cash to a magistrate. 

A conversation online regarding a recent story about a teenager charged with possession with intent to sell illegal drugs includes people making false statements and assumptions about the News & Observer's policies.

The paper has not printed the name and address of a "minor" in this case. Under North Carolina criminal law, 16-year-olds are automatically treated as adults. They are charged and defended in adult courts under the same rules that apply to older people in trouble with the law. We have over the years reported that this aspect of state law is a subject of debate among law enforcement people and advocates for children. North Carolina is thought to be among just three states that treat 16-year-olds as adults in criminal courts, regardless of the seriousness of the alleged offense.

In this case, the 16-year-old faces felony drug charges. In setting our policies, we use the law as a guideline. North Carolina law also allows children under 16 to be charged as adults under certain circumstances. We print those names. Generally, we do not name young people charged as juveniles. An exception might occur in the case of an egregious crime of high public interest. Such a step would not be taken lightly. We would not print the name without a careful consideration of the impact and a deliberation that engaged senior editors in the decision.

There are also false statements being made that the N&O withholds mug shots (police booking photos) of some people accused of crimes. A regular reader of the print edition, or a visitor to our Web site, will certainly find many photos of all kinds of people facing serious charges. We use mug shots unless police do not make them available. We don't write a lot of stories about people accused of minor offenses, thus we generally don't run photos of people accused of misdemeanors.

Linda Williams

Senior Editor

From Thursday's Duke University police log:

7:25 p.m., Southgate - Breaking & Entering (belated).  At about 3:30 a.m. this date, a female student awoke to find a male student in her room urinating in a trash can.

Robert Thomas Perry, 57, was arrested Friday on charges of indecent exposure. Two witnesses told police they saw a man exposing his penis at the park and filed a complaint.

Perry, whose address was listed as 8 Caspian Court, was released on $1,000 bail and given a court date of Oct. 28.

When contacted Sunday, Robert Clark, one of two witnesses who made the complaint, declined to comment.

Calls to Perry's residence were not returned Sunday.

Thomas Earl Carr, 37, of 2508 Shenandoah Ave. in Northgate Park was arrested Saturday on three drug charges.

Arrest warrants said Carr had 64 baggies of heroin that he intended to sell, containing a total of 10 grams of the drug. Carr also was charged with trafficking the drug and having drug paraphernalia, the plastic baggies. 

 He was being held late Sunday at the Durham County jail in lieu of $30,000 secured bond. 

Larry Pollard, a lawyer-turned-businessman and former neighbor of convicted murderer Michael Peterson, has scheduled a news conference Thursday morning to try to bolster his hypothesis that an owl killed the novelist’s wife.

Pollard has insisted for more than four years that a neighborhood owl swooped down on Kathleen Peterson the night in 2001 that she was found dead at the base of a staircase in a pool of blood.

Prosecutors and police have put little stock in his theory, and Peterson’s defense lawyers did not mention the possibility during trial, but Pollard has continued to pore over investigative reports.

One SBI evidence report, Pollard says, mentions a microscopic feather found in Kathleen Peterson’s hand with some of her hair.

Pollard says that evidence was not listed in subsequent reports. He wants the case reopened. He'll make his case again at 11 a.m. Thursday outside the Durham County courthouse.

District Attorney David Saacks declined to comment about Pollard’s claims. Jim Hardin, the former DA  who tried the case, has said before that there was no evidence of an owl attack.

From the Duke University police log this morning:

August 7, 2008 

5:23 a.m.  Duke Hospital North. Larceny. A delivery person reported the theft of 4 bins of berries from the loading dock.

(Only two possibilities come to mind — it was either a bear, or someone who really likes smoothies.)