Wiretap Yields Major Berks County Drug Bust

Map of Pennsylvania highlighting Berks County (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

For four months, members of Berks County District Attorney John T. Adams’ drug task force eavesdropped on the cellphone conversations of a Pennside resident and others suspected of selling large quantities of cocaine, heroin and marijuana in the county.

The state Superior Court approved Adams’ application for a nonconsensual wiretap in February to listen to the conversations of Robert Sanfiel, 47.

By that time, Adams said Thursday, the detectives had been investigating Sanfiel for six months, but early on didn’t know the size of the operation.

The investigation culminated early Thursday when investigators began a roundup of 25 people accused of being involved in the organization.

Read more:  http://readingeagle.com/article.aspx?id=477562

Crime Is Focus Of Community Forum

Map of Pennsylvania highlighting Berks County (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

With quality of life one of the top factors businesses consider in deciding to move into a community, the Greater Berks Chamber of Commerce & Industry focused on one local quality-of-life issue at its “State of the Community” breakfast Friday: crime.

Panel members, chief among them Berks County District Attorney John T. Adams, said crime is not as bad as it might seem.

“There’s a misperception of the rate of crime in the city,” Adams told more than 100 Chamber members gathered at the Crowne Plaza Reading, Wyomissing.

He noted that, comparing the local rates of murders, robberies and assaults with comparable cities and counties in the region, Reading and Berks are in the middle of the pack, not worst of the pack.

Read more:  http://readingeagle.com/article.aspx?id=463136

Reading Crime Summit’s Initial Plans Move Forward

Map of Pennsylvania highlighting Berks County (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

As promised, Berks County Commissioner Chairman Christian Y. Leinbach issued a report Friday detailing progress made since a Jan. 18 summit on crime in Reading and Berks.

After the summit, Leinbach had pledged that he, District Attorney John T. Adams and Mayor Vaughn D. Spencer would distribute a public update in five areas:

City-county cooperation: A meeting between city and county officials has been set for March 11 at 1 p.m. in City Council chambers.

The meeting will be open to the public to observe, but will not be a forum for public comment, Leinbach said.

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Altoona-Area Leaders To Visit Berks County, Talk Crime, Revitalization

A contingent of Altoona-area leaders plans to visit Berks County to elaborate on a privately led revitalization and law enforcement effort in Blair County that has won praise from Gov. Tom Corbett.

A visit in the opposite direction – Berks officials going to Blair – was one of five strategy points that emerged from last month’s crime summit.

Officials in both areas said that visit was still likely to happen.  But Randy Feathers, named by Corbett’s office as a facilitator in getting the two communities together, said the Blair-to-Berks visit would happen first.  It is scheduled for Feb. 21.

Read more:  http://readingeagle.com/article.aspx?id=448703

Reading Crime Summit Yields Plan

Map of Berks County, Pennsylvania, United States with township and municipal boundaries (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Editor’s note:  Look what happens when people get together to work on a problem!  Reading needs to be the focus.

The cause of curtailing violent crime in Reading and Berks County got a push forward Friday afternoon as more than 100 public and private leaders conducted a long-awaited crime summit.

Gov. Tom Corbett and U.S. Sens. Bob Casey Jr. and Pat Toomey were among the participants in the closed-door session held at the Crowne Plaza Reading in Wyomissing.

Lasting two hours and 15 minutes, the summit produced a five-point set of initiatives that county officials pledged to pursue immediately.  Those ranged from strengthening county-city cooperation to a fact-finding trip to learn about a community program in Altoona.

Berks District Attorney John T. Adams and Christian Y. Leinbach, county commissioners chairman, were at the center of preparations for the summit.

Read more:  http://readingeagle.com/article.aspx?id=444689

Crime Stats For Reading Give Some Solace

Map of Berks County, Pennsylvania, United States with township and municipal boundaries (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

A week before a summit to address crime in Reading and Berks County, District Attorney John T. Adams pointed out that Reading is not on a list of the 100 most dangerous cities in the nation.

“This is good news,” Adams said Friday. “We are happy that we are not on the list of the most dangerous cities. I believe this is a result of the cooperative effort among law enforcement agencies.”

But officials said that does not lessen the need for next week’s meeting because the report from NeighborhoodScout.com indicates that 89 percent of the cities are safer than Reading.

“I do not see this as any great win,” Reading Police Chief William M. Heim said.

Read more:  http://readingeagle.com/article.aspx?id=443204

Reading Crime Summit Objectives Outlined

Map of Berks County, Pennsylvania, United States with township and municipal boundaries (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Momentum toward creating a new, multijurisdiction approach to attacking crime in Reading and Berks County gathered quickly at a Thursday meeting called by county officials to plan next month’s crime summit.

The summit is set for Jan. 18, but District Attorney John T. Adams, county commissioners and others made it clear that a push to redeploy area law enforcement assets would start before then.

Their main reason was that, summit or not, there appears to be little hope of getting significant help from the financially strapped state and federal governments to deal with city and county crime.

“It is using our existing resources and redeploying them more effectively than we have in the past,” said state Sen. Judy Schwank, a Ruscombmanor Township Democrat. “I don’t see a cavalry coming.”

Read more:  http://readingeagle.com/article.aspx?id=435148