Crime Scene

Hollywood PD sends cards to naughty

Gang members in Hollywood will get holiday well wishes from an unlikely source - the
police department.

The greeting cards (at left) are being sent to about 50 "at risk youth'' who said they were in a gang at the time of their arrest.

Along with the typical holiday pleasantries, the cards include addresses and phone numbers of the local Boys & Girls Club and Police Athletic League. It's the first year the department has sent the cards.

This from the press release sent out by the police department:

"The card contains a public service announcement in the form of a simple message. The message states that there are safe places to spend their free time and lists community based programs geared towards at risk youth.''

Man makes grandma play thug

Obviously, Michael Alfinez (left) wasn't paying attention when Bird Road Rudy got busted for posting an Internet video of himself taunting cops.

Police say Alfinez, 18, of Lake Worth, made his 85-year-old grandmother hold a semiautomatic pistol and spew profanities while he filmed her. He wanted to market the clip for a video series called Gangstas & Thugs.

But when deputies recently pulled over Alfinez on a traffic stop, they found the footage in his car and watched it. The tape also included scenes of Alfinez and his buddies shooting a .22 caliber pistol in neighborhoods around Palm Beach County.

He's being charged with elderly abuse and discharging a gun in public. His family says grandma still loves him (video link also here).

Orgies, softball and beatings

A life of drunken orgies, softball after-parties and inmate beat-downs. That's how Florida's former prisons chief, Jim McDonough, described the state's prison-guard culture in a recent interview with CNN.

McDonough said he resigned from his post earlier this month because he felt he brought sufficient reforms to the prison system in his two years at its helm. But when he got there, here's what McDonough said he found:

-Guards bought and sold steroids to bulk up and give them an edge in their highly competitive softball league.

-Guards used taxpayer funds to buy booze for big parties after softball games, something McDonough said had become "an obsession" among prison staff. "They seemed to be drunk half the time and had orgies the other half," he said.

-Guards brutalized inmates and other guards who threatened to report their behavior.

McDonough said he helped rid the prison system of this "cancer" by demoting and firing corrupt guards and prison officials. He has since accepted a job with a New York foundation that promotes criminal-justice reform.