EMS RESPONDER: NJ Sheriff's Ambulances Fill Void as Volunteer Squads Shrink

Passaic County's Sheriff's Department is the only one in the state that operates its own ambulance squad. In most other counties, the sheriff's officers do what civilians do in an emergency. They call 911.

"Why would you not?" Monmouth County Undersheriff Ted Freeman said. "Every town has its own first-aid squad. Right now, the volunteer services are doing an outstanding job."

The same can't be said in Passaic County, where, like in most of North Jersey, membership in volunteer squads has declined sharply with the onset of the economic recession.

WLWT: Sheriff Under Fire For Cutting Patrols, Not Administrators

CINCINNATI -- Sheriff Simon Leis has come under fire for laying off deputies who patrol the streets while protecting his higher paid administrators from budget cuts. Leis declined comment Tuesday, but he has previously said the administrators were vital to department operations.

CNN: Sheriff: Stranded fishermen 'should have known better'

(CNN) -- An Ohio sheriff had harsh words for ice fishermen who had to be rescued Saturday after high winds and rising temperatures caused an ice floe to break away and strand about 150 of them on Lake Erie.

LIVINGSTON DAILY: 911: Police trying power grab

The director of the Livingston County 911/Central Dispatch and Emergency Management Department says there's an underlying force in the recently reported rift between his department and local law enforcement.

Dick Winsett, in his first extended interview about the issue, told the Daily Press & Argus that the Livingston County Sheriff's Department wants to regain control of Emergency Management, which left the department in 1993."I think so," Winsett said when asked if he felt the Sheriff's Department was trying to pull a "power grab." "(Sheriff Bob Bezotte) would like to have the Emergency Management program. It started off there."

Bezotte doesn't deny he wants the program back, but he did refute the claim that it was a power grab."It's not a power play, it's accountability," Bezotte said. "That's what it comes down to."

LA TIMES: Jurors in Michael Carona case wrestled personal feelings

They listened to the government's secretly recorded tapes over and over. They heard what the prosecution's star witness had to say and didn't believe him.

Yet in the end, the jurors who acquitted former Orange County Sheriff Michael S. Carona of five of six felonies Friday were most swayed by U.S. Dist. Judge Andrew Guilford's instruction that they must keep an eye on the calendar.

VERNON BROADCASTER: Sheriff says combining departments is feasible, would be well-handled

Vernon County Sheriff Gene Cary told the county’s emergency management committee last week that combining the sheriff’s department with the county’s emergency management department would work.

Cary responded to a letter that was sent to the emergency management committee by area emergency medical technicians, who asked that the departments be kept separate.