Police sweeps yield 87 charges in 2 weeks

        Cincinnati Police Division's Violent Crimes Task Force made 87 arrests in two weeks in a series of drug and prostitution sweeps in Over-the-Rhine.

        Plainclothed and uniformed officers made arrests Nov. 14 and Nov. 21 for a total of 37 felonies and 50 misdemeanor charges. Officials said they recovered two guns, 70.7 grams of cocaine, 277.2 grams of marijuana and $1,592 in cash.

        Police Chief Tom Streicher formed the 70-member team in July to battle the increase in shootings and crime after the April riots.

Two injured in Norwood shootings

        Police were investigating a double shooting late Friday night outsideJ Alexander's restaurant at Rookwood Commons in Norwood.

        An unidentified male and female were hurt, but their injuries did not appear to be life-threatening, said Norwood police Lt. Bruce Bisher. The shootings occurred just after 11 p.m., Lt. Bisher said. Police did not know what prompted them.

        Norwood police said the shooter, a man, remained at large and was possibly armed with a .45-caliber weapon. Neither the name nor a description of the suspect was available late Friday.

New program helps mentally troubled kids

       HAMILTON — The Butler County Mental Health Board has launched an expanded day treatment program for severely emotionally disturbed youth.

        The KEYS program calls for placing up to 24 youths at a time in a six-hour-a-day program run by St. Aloysius Orphanage.

        Children ages 6 to 14 would get three hours of counseling and three hours of schooling per day but would not stay overnight.

        The mental health board launched the program as an alternative to sending disturbed youth out of town for full residential treatment. Participation in the day treatment program is expected to cost about $28,000 a year, which officials say is about one-third the cost of residential treatment.

New shop moves into Delhi Shopping Center

        DELHI TOWNSHIP — Tenants at the Delhi Shopping Center, in the 5000 block of Delhi Pike, are joined by a new retailer: 99 Center, an Ohio and Kentucky retailer that sells all items in the store for 99 cents or less.

        The low-price items include kitchenwares, cosmetics, toys and hardware. The store replaces Haung's U.S. Karate.

U.S. attorney now Oxy maker consultant

        LOUISVILLE — The former U.S. attorney for Kentucky's Eastern District became an unpaid consultant for the maker of the painkiller OxyContin, the same drug he called “a locust plague” while in office.

        Upon leaving the U.S. attorney's job in June, Joseph Famularo became an unpaid consultant for Purdue Pharma, the pharmaceutical company that has the exclusive right to produce and market OxyContin, the Louisville Courier-Journal reported.

        Since then, Mr. Famularo has spoken on behalf of Purdue Pharma at a Kentucky meeting of police chiefs and published an op-ed piece in the Lexington Herald-Leader in which he defended the company and its product.

        Purdue Pharma officials deny any conflict in enlisting former law enforcement officials such as Mr. Famularo and said the company did so merely to strengthen its effort to combat abuse and illegal diversion of OxyContin.

        Mr. Famularo, who also had served on Gov. Paul Patton's task force on OxyContin abuse, said he's “not in the drug company's pocket.”

        “I think using publicly known figures is a way to sway public opinion,” said Dr. Sidney Wolfe, director of the Washington-based Public Citizen Health Research Group.

        Mr. Famularo was appointed two weeks ago to oversee investigations of corruption within the Kentucky Transportation Cabinet. He said he doesn't expect to continue to represent Purdue Pharma because of the demands of the new job, but “if I had more time, I would work with them.”
       

2 charged for having OSU mascot's suit

        COLUMBUS — A fairly obvious clue led Columbus police to the suspected culprits in the Brutus the Buckeye caper.

        The costume for the Ohio State mascot had been reported missing inside a stolen car. When patrol officers spotted the car behind a building near campus, they staked it out.

        Two men approached the car early Thursday morning. One of them was wearing a striped, scarlet-and-gray shirt with “BRUTUS” in block letters on the front.

        That's the mascot's shirt.

        “These were not exactly brilliant thieves,” said Sgt. Earl Smith, spokesman for the Division of Police.

        Police arrested Bryan Johnson, 39, and Michael Kay, 30, both of Columbus, detective Steve Gingery said. Both men are charged with receiving stolen property, and Mr. Johnson also is charged with burglary. Other charges may follow, Sgt. Smith said.

        The two men are not students. They were being held in the Franklin County jail.

        Safe inside the car was Brutus' big, fuzzy chestnut head.

        Thomas Phillips, who owns the car and plays Brutus, had pleaded for his alter-ego's safe return. There was a backup available for today's game at Michigan.
       

Man takes firetruck on road for Lincoln

        RAWLINS, Wyo. — A Galion, Ohio, man who drove a firetruck in President Bush's inaugural parade has taken his show on the road to honor Abraham Lincoln.

        Craig Harmon, founder and director of the Lincoln Highway National Museum and Archives, has not chosen just any road, however. He has been driving his adorned, 1964 Maxim truck along Lincoln Highway, the first transcontinental highway in the country.

        The highway, also known as U.S. 30 and Interstate 80, stretches 3,331 miles from Times Square in New York to Lincoln Park in San Francisco. This month Mr. Harmon has been passing through southern Wyoming and stopping in towns along the way.

        “The Lincoln Highway's come of age,” Mr. Harmon said in Rawlins on Tuesday.

        In each town where he stops, Mr. Harmon raises his firetruck ladder to fly a 10-by-20-foot American flag and a flag commemorating Lincoln Highway. Since Cheyenne, he has also displayed a Union Pacific flag on the ladder.

        In the inaugural parade, Mr. Harmon's truck carried famed major league baseball players Steve Garvey and Johnny Bench, Olympic gymnast Mary Lou Retton and Miss America 2001 Angela-Perez Baraquio.

        Mr. Harmon began his road trip in New York last year and plans to be in San Francisco before Christmas.

        Mr. Harmon wants to make the highway the centerpiece of a Lincoln bicentennial celebration that will take place in 2009. He also wants to collect 10 million Lincoln pennies to build a 30-ton, 7-foot statue of Lincoln, the nation's 16th president.

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