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Speaker 1: Crime Alert I Nancy Grace breaking crime needs now. Montgomery County,

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Speaker 1: Alabama judge Johnny Hardwick is assaulted and shot at his home.

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Speaker 1: He undergoes surgery for serious injuries. Suspect his own son,

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Speaker 1: Califani A. Hardwick, flees the scene, but is taken into

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Speaker 1: custody after cops find him on the highway.

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Speaker 2: Nancy Hardwick was also stabbed in the attack by his son.

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Speaker 2: Hardwick has been a circuit judge since two thousand and

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Speaker 2: one and is the current president of the Alabama Association

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Speaker 2: of Circuit Court Judges. While the circumstances leading to the

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Speaker 2: shooting remain under investigation, Californi Hardwick is no stranger to violence.

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Speaker 2: The younger Hardwicke stood trial for attempted murder in twenty fourteen,

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Speaker 2: eventually pleading the charge down to second degree assault, for

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Speaker 2: which he served no jail time.

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Speaker 1: The son, Califani Hardwick, facing charges of first degree domestic

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Speaker 1: of violence, now held without bond. Connorltka, twenty one, stunts

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Speaker 1: employees at a Kentucky Porsche dealership when he tries to

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Speaker 1: buy a car with a seventy eight million dollar check.

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Speaker 1: They refused sales, so Litka heads to the parts department,

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Speaker 1: insisting on keys, He ignores the place to leave and

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Speaker 1: employees call the police. The day before, he tried a

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Speaker 1: similar stunt at a land Rover dealership, but with only

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Speaker 1: a twelve million dollar check. Leka now facing misdemeanor charges

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Speaker 1: for criminal trespass and DC this early conduct. Maybe you

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Speaker 1: should have just paid in cash. More crime and Justice

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Speaker 1: news after this now the latest crime and justice breaking

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Speaker 1: these crime onlines.

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Speaker 3: John Lenley, the mother of a three year old Wisconsin

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Speaker 3: boy who disappeared last month, has now been charged with

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Speaker 3: additional counts of child neglect by prosecutors. This as a

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Speaker 3: judge denies her plea for a lower bond. We hear

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Speaker 3: the latest now from Sidney Sumner with Crime Online.

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Speaker 2: Elijah Vu, Katrina Bauer's son, was last seen on February

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Speaker 2: twenty at thought a home in Two Rivers, Wisconsin, where

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Speaker 2: prosecutors claim she sent him to stay with her boyfriend.

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Speaker 2: The boy has not been found despite searches by authorities

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Speaker 2: and locals, and a reward has grown twenty five thousand

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Speaker 2: dollars for information leading to his whereabouts. Last month, two

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Speaker 2: misdemeanor counts of resisting or obstructing an officer and one

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Speaker 2: felony offense of party to a crime child neglect were

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Speaker 2: brought against Bauer, a resident of Wisconsin Del's. The thirty

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Speaker 2: one year old Bauer is currently jailed on the fifteen

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Speaker 2: thousand dollars cash bond. Prosecutors for Manitowac County amended the

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Speaker 2: felony count on Thursday to include a charge of chronic

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Speaker 2: child neglect as a party to a crime. They also

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Speaker 2: filed a misdemeanor charge of child neglect against Bauer. Our

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Speaker 2: friends with WLUKTV say prosecutors presented the court with evidence

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Speaker 2: that Bauer, along with her boyfriend Jesse Vong, had left

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Speaker 2: the three year old alone for at least an hour

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Speaker 2: on February sixteenth, as they visited various places throughout Manitowac County. Additionally,

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Speaker 2: they claimed to have proof that on February fourteenth, while

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Speaker 2: temperatures outside were below freezing, Bower left a six year

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Speaker 2: old in a vehicle without the engine running. In February,

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Speaker 2: a formal charge of one felony count of party to

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Speaker 2: a crime child neglect was leveled against the thirty nine

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Speaker 2: year old Vong of two rivers. He's currently behind bars

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Speaker 2: on a twenty thousand dollars cash bond. According to a

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Speaker 2: criminal complaint, Bauer informed police that she had left her

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Speaker 2: three year old with Vong on February twelve because she

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Speaker 2: wanted him to train her son to be a man.

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Speaker 2: She planned to pick him up on February twenty third.

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Speaker 3: It was on February twentieth that Wong made a missing

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Speaker 3: persons report to police, stating that he had taken the

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Speaker 3: three year old into the bedroom with him while he

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Speaker 3: took a nap, but that when he awoke hours later,

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Speaker 3: the child was gone. Now to Texas As, Houston's police

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Speaker 3: chief is promising to rebuild public confidence in his department,

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Speaker 3: and the wake of reports that over two hundred sixty

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Speaker 3: four thousand cases of which over four thousand involved sexual assault,

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Speaker 3: had been dismissed over the previous eight years because of

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Speaker 3: a staffing shortage once again crime online. Sidney Sumner Chief Troy.

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Speaker 2: Finner said last month that officers had assigned an internal

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Speaker 2: code to hundreds of thousands of incident reports, including those

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Speaker 2: involving sexual assaults and property crimes, which meant that the

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Speaker 2: reports were hu submitted for investigation. Due to a shortage

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Speaker 2: of staff, about ten percent of the two point eight

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Speaker 2: million event reports that have been submitted during the previous

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Speaker 2: eight years are represented by this number. Finner's press conference

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Speaker 2: was held the day after Mayor John Whitmyer declared that

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Speaker 2: the public quote wants answers and accountability, and that he

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Speaker 2: will form an independent panel to examine how the police

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Speaker 2: handled the cases that were dismissed years before Finner was

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Speaker 2: appointed chief in April of twenty twenty one. The internal

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Speaker 2: code was developed in twenty sixteen and is a component

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Speaker 2: of the department's record management system. Both administrations before Finner's

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Speaker 2: made use of the system and the code. Finner stated

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Speaker 2: that after learning officers were using it, he issued an

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Speaker 2: order banning the code in November twenty twenty one. However,

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Speaker 2: on February seventh of this year, he discovered that a

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Speaker 2: sizable portion of adult sexual assault cases were still being

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Speaker 2: dismissed through use of the code.

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Speaker 3: According to Chief Finner, an internal affairs investigation is looking

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Speaker 3: into why the directive to cease using the code was

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Speaker 3: disregarded and how it was initially created as part of

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Speaker 3: the department's record system.

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Speaker 1: Thanks John, twenty three year old Nicholas Smier leaves his

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Speaker 1: family's Pennsylvania home with an unknown mail in a silver

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Speaker 1: Honda Civic. For the next two days, he doesn't show

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Speaker 1: up for his shift at Michael's craft store, and his

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Speaker 1: last cell phone paying. Two days after his disappearance, he

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Speaker 1: sends a message to a friend through discord giving him

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Speaker 1: passwords to his computer and other sites. This is the

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Speaker 1: last contact anyone has with twenty three year old Nicholas Smier.

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Speaker 1: His family says it's a very out of character for

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Speaker 1: him to disappear. They just want to know he's safe.

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Speaker 1: If you have info on Nicholas Nick Smyer, aged twenty three,

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Speaker 1: contact Pennsylvania State Police seven one seven six seven one

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Speaker 1: seven five hundred. For the latest crime injustice news, go

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Speaker 1: to crime online dot com with this crime alert.

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Speaker 3: A'm Nancy Grace.