NEWTON – He’s quick with a joke and he loves a good story, but the Catawba County jail hallways have stopped ringing with the laughter of Capt. Bob Riley, of the Catawba County Sheriff’s Office.

Friday was his last day on the job. Today he’s a retiree.

“I love this job,” Riley said. “If I could do it all over again, I’d start tomorrow.”

Now that he’s stepped away from law enforcement, it’s his old DARE days that he’s missing.

He worked at elementary schools where he connected with kids and did his best to steer them away from drugs and trouble. His favorite memories are of a time 20 years ago when he would drive his patrol cruiser into the housing projects and ask who wanted to go roller skating.

Children would flock around him and would take carload after carload to Skateland where every child got a free piece of pizza, a drink and rollerskates for the afternoon. He’d keep driving until every kid who wanted to skate was skating. When it was all over he’d take them home carload by carload.

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LEXINGTON, N.C. — After being shot over a year ago, Charlie Goforth is becoming acclimated to a different side of law enforcement.

Goforth, 33, sustained a shot to his mid-foot near his right ankle after responding to an incident on North Point Drive. Authorities alleged 27-year-old Jerome David Poole fired at deputies when they found him exiting someone else’s home.

One of the shots struck Goforth. Poole was released from the hospital in early January 2014 after being shot multiple times during ensuing crossfire. His charges, which included attempted murder for allegedly firing at deputies, were dismissed after Poole was deemed “incapable” of proceeding in court due to significant brain damage from the gunshot wound in the shootout with deputies.

“Right now, the case is currently considered inactive,” Goforth said during a recent interview. “Due to his injuries, he’s right now deemed incompetent to stand trial from his injuries. He’s actually been released from prison.”

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HOKE COUNTY, N.C. (WTVD) — The tragedy in Charleston raises the question of how we can protect our own places of worship.

Now, Hoke County Sheriff Hubert Peterkin wants to help bring a sense of security to churches that generally welcome anyone with open arms.

“I remember as a child, you could go in the church anytime day or night,” said Pastor Toby Neal, of the Hillcrest Baptist Church. “It didn’t matter. The doors were never locked.”

For Neal and other church ministers, the horror of the Charleston shootings is a revelation.

“We don’t want to push anybody out of the church, and we are not,” said Neal. “Anybody that comes in is welcomed, but at the same time someone we don’t know, never seen before we’re definitely going to keep an eye on them.”

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Apex, N.C. — Any traffic stop is scary – for the driver, who may have done something wrong, and for the officer who doesn’t know what to expect.

While most drivers can adopt common-sense tactics to defuse that tension – communicate clearly and politely, keep hands visible, stay in the vehicle – those with disabilities or special needs face an additional challenge. This weekend in Apex, those drivers can get special training to help them anticipate and ease some of the anxiety of a traffic stop.

Twenty-year-old Kyla Ponciano has cerebral palsy and is unable to drive without her mother present, but, after Police Encounters training, she hopes to get her license soon.

“She really wants her independence, and she says this one way to get it,” her mother, Sheryl Ponciano, said.

Trainer Michael Macario, of the Raleigh Police Department, counseled Kyla Ponciano to tell an officer about her disability and the fact that it might delay her responses and reactions.

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Raleigh, N.C. — What started as a petty theft turned into a life lesson in community for a Wake County girl.

On May 22, the Bradshaw family came home to find their door pried open. Thieves had bypassed the computer, television and video game system but made off with a collection of costume jewelry from the bedroom of 10-year-old Jana Bradshaw.

“They didn’t take anything worth any monetary value,” mother Lisa Bradshaw said, “but it was worth a lot to her.” Most of the pieces had been given to Jana by her grandfather.

Deputy Chris Jackson of the Wake County Sheriff’s Office was moved by Jana’s loss to do more than just investigate the theft.

“It just came upon my heart to do something positive in this young girl’s life because I didn’t want her to remember the negative of this incident,” he said.

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The National Rifle Association (NRA) and Grassroots North Carolina (GNRC) — are on the warpath again over North Carolina’s pistol purchase permit law. We say again because two years ago the two gun advocate organizations tried to repeal our state’s pistol permit law. They contend our system in place since 1919 — that’s been updated — is outdated and should be loosened.

They want North Carolina to replace its Pistol Purchase Permit system (PPP) with the FBI’s National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) that’s used by other states. It’s used in North Carolina now when one buys a shotgun or a rifle (long guns), but not handguns.

The North Carolina Sheriffs’ Association — Carteret County Sheriff Asa Buck is president — and all but three sheriffs out of 100 across the state oppose this because they know it would most assuredly not be in our best interest!

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SANFORD — When the agents of the Drug Enforcement Division of the Lee County Sheriff’s Office initiated what would become a year-long investigation into major cocaine and methamphetamine operations in 2013, they were focused on arrests and winning convictions, not on recognition and winning awards.

But the investigation, which resulted in 25 arrests and the seizure of about $800,000, 15 vehicles, 11,000 grams of cocaine and 8,000 grams of crystal methamphetamine, caught the attention of the N.C. Narcotics Enforcement Officers’ Association, and Lee County agents traveled to Carolina Beach this week to receive the NCNEOA’s Investigation of the Year award.

“It’s awesome,” said Lee County Narcotics Capt. Bryan Allen of the recognition. “It’s a very prestigious award. I’m kind of at a loss for words. I’ve got an awesome group of guys. In my opinion, to be recognized by the NCNEOA for having one of the top cases in North Carolina really says a lot.”

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YORK COUNTY, SC The York County Sheriff’s Office recently extended a helping paw – several of them, actually – to a sheriff’s office in North Carolina.

York County donated two bloodhounds to the Brunswick County Sheriff’s Office in southeast North Carolina. Star and Missy are 2 1/2 years old and are products of the York sheriff’s office K-9 training program, for which the agency is known nationwide, spokesman Trent Faris said.

“They’re dogs that have been trained by us and we donate them to other law enforcement agencies that are in need of bloodhounds,” he said. “We have seven puppies that are currently being trained that are bred by our other bloodhounds.”

The Brunswick sheriff’s office for several years had two bloodhounds named Bonnie and Clyde, said Deputy Chris Powell, Clyde’s handler.

“We tragically lost Clyde last year in July,” said Powell, a K-9 handler of six years.

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Years ago, when Burt Reynolds was the biggest movie star in the world, he was in the movie “Starting Over.” His character had just gone through a divorce, and a friend urged him to “call me if anything goes wrong.”

His reply: “Can I call you if anything goes right?”

That line came to mind this week while reading about the smartphone app from North Carolina’s chapter of the ACLU. It will allow you to record and automatically submit cellphone videos when you think law enforcement officers do something wrong.

Will it allow us to submit videos when cops do something right?

Some law enforcement officials are wary of the efficacy of such an app, fearing that it might lead to people interfere in what is already a dangerous job. Eddie Caldwell, representative of the N.C. Sheriffs Association, said, “most law enforcement is like that Ivory soap commercial. They’re 99.44 percent pure. They’re not perfect, but they’re close.”

The imperfect ones are the ones most agitated by the app, I’m guessing.

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Scammers pulling off the Grandparent scam have found a new way to get their money. A Charlotte-area senior recently reported paying $26,000 to grandparent scammers using Apple iTunes gift cards, supposedly to bail a grandchild out of jail on DWI charges.

At the scammer’s direction, the grandparent purchased 52 Apple iTunes gift cards over three days, each card loaded with $500. The scammer, still masquerading as the grandchild, got the grandparent to read off the numbers on the back of the cards over the telephone and made off with the money.

Scammers are constantly looking for new methods to update old cons. Traditionally, the grandparent scam asks victims to wire money via Western Union or Moneygram. Now, some scammers have started demanding payment via prepaid credit card, reloadable debit card or gift card

To protect yourself from the grandparent scam and similar frauds:

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