PHOENIX — A shooting during an undercover drug operation in Phoenix has left three people dead, including one police officer and two suspects, authorities said.

Two other officers were wounded in the gunbattle Wednesday night, with one in critical condition at a Phoenix hospital and the other in stable condition.

The names of the three officers, all from the Chandler Police Department, were being withheld until their families were notified, authorities said.

Police did not disclose details of the drug bust or what triggered the shootout at a south Phoenix home.

The suspects who died were pronounced dead at the scene, police said. Two others were hospitalized with non life-threatening injuries and two more were detained and being questioned.

TV news helicopters showed the three officers being taken out of the home on stretchers about 7 p.m. Wednesday. The officer who died was pronounced dead at St. Joseph's Hospital and Medical Center in Phoenix

http://www.wackbag.com/showthread.php?t=112682

This guys gets my vote ... to bad I don't live in his county.

Hawk

Flags were being lowered to half-staff Monday in Buffalo, New York, after two firefighters died inside a fire-engulfed building, city officials said.

The firefighters were responding to reports that at least one person was trapped in the building.

"Today is a very tragic day in the city of Buffalo," Buffalo Mayor Byron Brown said at a news conference. "Our hearts are broken right now, and we are all saddened by this terrible tragedy."

The cause of the blaze is under investigation, and the remains of the building are being searched to determine if anyone else perished inside, Buffalo Fire Commissioner Michael Lombardo said.

Emergency officials received a call around 3:50 a.m. that "someone [was] banging on a wall and calling for help" from inside the burning building, Lombardo said. Video footage showed the top level of the two-story brick building fully engulfed in flames. A convenience store was on the building's first floor.

Lombardo identified the two victims as Lt. Charles "Chip" McCarthy, 45, and Jonathan Croom, 34 -- two men he said he knew personally. They died when the first floor of the building crashed into the basement, trapping them both.

It is the first time Buffalo firefighters have died while on duty in more than a decade, according to CNN affiliate WKBW-TV in Buffalo.

Between 200 and 300 firefighters from the area showed up at the scene Monday morning to pay their respects, Lombardo said.

"This is a family, and we lost two members of our family today," he said.

Lombardo described Croom as "a young firefighter coming up." The 10-year veteran of the Buffalo Fire Department is survived by his fiancée and a 9-month-old child.

McCarthy, a 22-year veteran of the department, leaves behind a wife, three children and a 6-month-old grandchild.

"Chip was always -- the place you could find him was in the fire, doing his job," Lombardo said of McCarthy. "There was probably nobody that did it better."

Here is the link to the story above: http://www.cnn.com/2009/US/08/24/buffalo.firefighters.killed/index.html

Full story

15 officers caught in FBI drug sting

Cops allegedly were hired by dealers for protection

(CNN) -- After nearly four years of hoping, waiting and praying, an Ohio family learned Sunday their missing son died in Iraq.

A 2004 memorial at Glen Este High School in Ohio in honor of Sgt. Keith Matthew Maupin.

"It hurts -- it really hurts. You go through four years of hope," said Carolyn Maupin, whose son, Staff Sgt. Keith Matthew Maupin, was captured by insurgents in April 2004.

"It's like a letdown to me. I'm trying to get through that right now."

His father, Keith Maupin, said military officials informed the family Sunday afternoon that the remains of the 24-year-old Army reservist had been identified.

"Every parent knows the possibility exists that they may have to face the death of their child when they volunteer to go to war," he said. "However, those who are fortunate make peace with that and support their soldier, because they enlisted at their own free will."

A Defense Department official also confirmed the identification, saying the remains of the 24-year-old were found last week but DNA results just came in.

Maupin and another soldier, Sgt. Elmer Krause, were captured by insurgents April 9, 2004, after their convoy came under attack near Baghdad International Airport. A week later, Maupin was shown on a videotape, surrounded by several armed masked men.

Krause's body was found two weeks later.

Later that summer, Al-Jazeera aired a videotape purportedly showing the execution of Maupin, but U.S. officials haven't confirmed the identity of the person on the tape.

The U.S. Army continued to promote Maupin, who was a specialist in the Army Reserves at the time of his capture, to sergeant and then staff sergeant as they searched for him.

Three U.S. troops remain missing in the five-year-old Iraq war: Pvt. Byron W. Fouty and Spc. Alex R. Jimenez have been missing since their military convoy was raided west of Mahmoudiya May 12.

Spc. Ahmed K. Altaie disappeared October 23, 2006, and his status was changed to "missing-captured" nearly two months later. CNN Pentagon correspondent Barbara Starr contributed to this report.

March 25, 2008

We rarely announce anything regarding commercial cheats and hacks. However, we are aware of the numerous "You Tube" type videos and posts on various sites where hackers who sell cheats make claims that are false but sound believable about PunkBuster and hack detection status. We receive numerous emails daily by concerned honest players regarding advertisements for undetectable hacks, etc. The truth is that via recent enhancements to PunkBuster's detection capabilities, we have cracked down hard on cheaters who pay for hacks in the games we support. Some commercial cheat sites have closed down due to our new methods and others have private forums where punks routinely complain about getting caught with the "undetectable" hacks, demanding refunds, etc. We have always maintained a strict policy of not giving money to punks, but thanks to community volunteer moles who have helped us obtain access to private hacks via donations of their time, etc., PunkBuster has been catching hacks from virtually all commercial cheat sites in recent weeks and months.

One of the recent enhancements involves our memory scanner which aggressively scans for patterns included in known cheats (public and private). A commercial hack site where we have had recent success catching their subscribers has recently staged a few demonstrations of inserting text-based patterns via certain chat-related systems such as IRC, Instant Messaging, etc. directly into the memory of computers. These are specific text patterns that we have deployed in some supported games in the recent past. It is clear that many of the demonstrators are cheat-supporters willingly participating in the demonstration, but there is evidence that some innocent players had PunkBuster violations triggered during the past few days by the hackers who sent specific text patterns into the chat programs that were open during gameplay. We are removing these text based patterns from our system and encourage admins to not ban for PB violations that occurred during the past few days.

Online gamers who play with other programs running should always enable security features in their messaging and chat programs to deny auto-download of files and only accept downloads from people they know and trust. As always, from PunkBuster's standpoint, if a known cheat pattern is in the memory of the computer during gameplay, then a violation will be triggered. We have always suggested closing other programs while you are playing multiplayer games on PunkBuster servers and that remains the safest policy. Leagues that require chat room usage for competitive play should take steps to ensure that only league participants have access and suspicious activity should be reported to us when there are concerns about manipulating the system.