A shipping container filled with hamburger patties was stolen from a storage lot in New Jersey Tuesday, and police are searching for the meat thieves. 

The 40-feet refrigerated container, filled with 3,000 cartons of hamburger patties worth $100,000, had been sitting on a trailer inside the BMG Logistics lot at 720 W. Edgar Road in Linden, according to police.

The container was set to go to the Netherlands, where the Hilton-brand hamburgers were to be distributed to Hilton Hotels overseas. 

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At about 10:30 p.m. Monday, someone broke into the lot and drove the trailer out of the yard, surveillance video shows. 

The 2006 trailer had a California license plate: 4HR1817. 

Anyone with information is asked to contact Linden Police. 

NBCNewYork.com

Darryl Webb / Reuters, file

Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio was re-elected for his sixth term in November.

An explosive device sent to "America's toughest sheriff" was intercepted by police in Arizona on Thursday, officials said.

A suspicious package addressed to Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio's downtown Phoenix headquarters was X-rayed by officers in Flagstaff, Ariz., according to authorities.

A bomb team later destroyed the device.

The FBI, U.S. Postal Inspection Service and Flagstaff Police were investigating.

Arpaio, 80, has earned headlines nationwide as a result of his tent city jail and immigration roundups.

The controversial lawman was re-elected for his sixth term in November.

Reuters contributed to this report.

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Arizona sheriff orders armed 'posse' to patrol schools

Feds end probe of 'America's toughest sheriff;' no charges

A University of Pittsburgh grad student who was nervous about her ability to teach a class instead made two bomb threats so it would be canceled, campus police said.

Online court records don't list an attorney for Nancy Bruni, 34, of New Kensington, Pa., who didn't immediately return a call seeking comment on charges of terroristic threats, and threatening to use a weapon of mass destruction.

Pitt police charged the School of Arts & Science grad student earlier this week with phoning in a threat, and then leaving a note about a bomb in a campus restroom on March 20, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reported Thursday.

Police eventually traced the call to her phone and confronted Bruni last week, when she allegedly confessed to making both threats.
 
Bruni told police she suffers from anxiety, depression and obsessive-compulsive disorder and had stopped taking her medications because her health insurance had recently ended.

That anxiety led her to search for a way to cancel the class scheduled from 6:30 p.m. to 8:30 p.m., police said in a criminal complaint.

Bruni was angry when campus police didn't alert students after the phone threat, so she left the note saying: "Two bombs will be detonated in Posvar hall on March 20th 6:30 p.m. 730,'' the complaint said. The note corresponded to the 5 p.m. call that referenced bombs going off at 6:30 and 7:30 that evening, police said.

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When students found the note, two notified Bruni while one called campus police. When the school again didn't alert students to evacuate, Bruni's students became upset and she used that as an excuse to cancel the "Health and Illness'' class herself, police said.
 
Pitt spokesman John Fedele said police searched the building with a bomb-sniffing dog and explosive detectors, but didn't alert students because the threats were deemed "lower level.''
 
Bruni wasn't arrested, but is being mailed a court summons to appear for a June 12 preliminary hearing.

NBC10.com

Arlington County Police Department

Kareem Jorif was arrested after allegedly throwing a meat cleaver in the maternity ward of Virginia Hospital Center.

A bizarre incident involving a meat cleaver in a hospital maternity ward landed a man behind bars.

Kareem Jorif, 34, of Arlington, Va., is charged with multiple counts of attempted malicious wounding and carrying a concealed weapon.

Jorif went into the maternity ward at Virginia Hospital Center last week and got into an argument when he was told he couldn't go into a patient's room, police said.

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Jorif allegedly pulled out the knife from his waistband and used it to bang on a door before tossing it into the patient's room, according to police.

Investigators said he'd gone to the hospital to tell the woman her baby's father couldn't visit because he'd just been arrested.

Jorif was being held without bond.

Max Ortiz / The Detroit News via AP

Bystanders react after shots were fired inside the at the Park Medical Centers building in Detroit and the structure was set ablaze on Tuesday.

DETROIT -- A man identified by employees as a former maintenance worker opened fire Tuesday inside a Detroit medical facility, sending workers and visitors screaming and rushing for the doors just moments before the building erupted in flames.

Crews digging through the gutted Park Medical Centers building hours after the fire recovered the remains of a man and a woman, Detroit police said Tuesday night in a release.

Authorities did not release the identities of the dead, pending autopsies, but police had been searching for 35-year-old medical assistant Sharita Williams and the fired maintenance worker, who relatives said was her ex-boyfriend.

Williams' mother, Antha Williams-Hill, told The Associated Press that one of her daughter's co-workers told her that the man threatened her daughter inside.

"He said, 'You think I'm playing with you?'" Williams-Hill said. "He told the other girl, 'I think you better get out of here.' The girl left and said she then heard two shots."

Last week, Sharita Williams was granted a personal protection order against the man, according to Wayne County Court records.

Dr. Stuart Kirschenbaum, a podiatrist who operated his private practice from the building for about 30 years, said he heard a security guard yell that the gunman "had taken Sharita and is shooting at other people in the building."

Destroyed in the blaze, Kirschenbaum said, was his collection of boxing gloves, personal letters and photos of boxing great Joe Louis. He estimated the memorabilia were worth about $100,000.

Dwane Blackmon, Detroit police homicide inspector, declined to identify the maintenance man as the suspect but said everyone else inside except the woman and male suspect appeared to have escaped the blaze.

Investigators were unable to quickly go deep into the one-story building, described by tenants as also having a basement, due to fears of the structure's integrity.

Williams-Hill said she was asked to go to the coroner's office to identify whether the deceased woman was her daughter "because of the condition of the body."

She said her daughter had been dating the married maintenance man for more than a year, but their relationship was rocky and Sharita eventually began seeing someone else and even moved out of the city and into a Detroit suburb to get away. However, he refused to leave her alone, Williams-Hill said.

This story was originally published on Wed Apr 10, 2013 3:54 AM EDT

A Connecticut animal control officer was arrested on Monday on a warrant charging her with animal cruelty.

Karen Lombardi, 59, voluntarily surrendered herself at the Woodbridge Police Department on Monday morning and was arrested on an outstanding arrest warrant charging her with one count of cruelty to animals, according to police.

The arrest stems from an investigation into an incident at the Woodbridge Animal Control facility in November 2012, according to police who said they are not releasing additional information now.

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Lombardi was released on a promise to appear in New Haven Superior Court on April 19. 

She's 81 years old and her age didn't get in the way of fighting back a thief.

Violet Mackiewicz had a robber reach into her car Wednesday and grab her purse. Her next instinct was to chase after him. The incident happened outside a post office in Cromwell, Connecticut.

"I'm going to be 82 next month. I said, 'Oh my god, I'm running,'" said Mackiewicz, who was walking to her car in the parking lot.

"I think I look like an easy target. Little old lady. Who knows? He doesn't know me though. What I'm capable of."

Mackiewicz had driven to the post office to pay her bills when a man lunged into her car and said: "Don't talk, lady. Don't do anything ma'am."

She added: "Then he grabbed my pocketbook and he ran."

Mackiewicz says she sat in shock and screamed for a moment but then she took action.

"I ran after him. I didn't know I could run," Mackiewicz added, saying the man was too fast. "I don't know. I thought maybe I could catch the car or something."

But she did manage to get a look at him and his black car before calling Cromwell police. She describes him as clean shaven and in his mid-30s. She says her biggest concern at the time was "my glasses. I said I need my glasses."

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"It does happen occasionally but not a lot," said Lou Tobias of Cromwell police, who say that these types of crimes are more common in shopping plazas; and what Mackiewicz did isn't necessarily a good idea.

"I certainly wouldn't recommend chasing after him. I don't know what she would have done if she had actually caught him."

Mackiewicz says she was still shaken up. But now that she's gotten her license and check book back, "Next week I will have forgotten all about it. Life goes on, right."

Mackiewicz says the robber got away with a couple hundred dollars of cash.

Anyone who witnessed the incident is urged to contact Cromwell police at 860-635-2256. 

WILLIAMSON, W.Va. - A drug-fighting West Virginia sheriff was shot to death as he ate lunch in his car on Wednesday and the suspected gunman was wounded and captured after a chase, police said.

Mingo County Sheriff Eugene Crum was at a parking lot in the city of Williamson when a man ran up and shot him, then fled in his own vehicle, Williamson Police Chief Dave Rockel said at a news conference.

Authorities identified the suspect as Tennis Melvin Maynard, 37, of Ragland, West Virginia.

Maynard fled south on U.S. Route 52 about 8 miles when his vehicle crashed into a bridge, said Captain Dave Nelson of the West Virginia State Police.

After the crash, Maynard got out of his vehicle, raised his weapon and was shot by a Mingo County sheriff's deputy, Nelson said.

Police officials did not say how seriously Maynard was injured. He was taken to a hospital in Logan, West Virginia, and then flown by helicopter to another hospital in Huntington, West Virginia, police said.

Williamson Daily News via AP

Mingo County Sheriff Eugene Crum.

The shooting followed other recent attacks on law enforcement officials in the United States, including the killings of two prosecutors in Texas and the Colorado prisons chief.

Williamson is a coal-mining town of about 3,000 people in southwestern West Virginia.

Crum, a former magistrate, took office as sheriff at the beginning of the year. He had launched a campaign called "Zero Tolerance" to clamp down on local drug trafficking, which centers on illegal prescription drugs.

The National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund said 28 officers had been killed in the line of duty in the United States since April 3, 2012, including 13 killed with firearms.

This story was originally published on Thu Apr 4, 2013 3:54 AM EDT

CHICAGO -- Three men wearing women's clothes hit an upscale store in Chicago's fashionable Oak Street shopping district on Tuesday, and the store manager says it's not the first time.

In fact, nearly a half dozen Oak Street merchants, including Jimmy Choo, Moncler and Barneys, have been hit, mostly in broad daylight.

In Tuesday's heist, an employee of Furla says she knew something was up almost immediately after the trio of cross-dressers walked into the store.

"The first time they came they were casing the store for a long time," Deborah Himmel explained.

Then two weeks ago the bandits in drag were back -- briefly -- and made off with a bunch of purses.

"They were not even in here 10 seconds," said Himmel. "It happens so fast you don't have time to react."

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Police said the burglaries are connected by the a similar M.O. and suspect description: two to three black men all wearing female clothing. One of the men is stocky. Only one does the talking, police said, while the others remain silent, casing the store before they hit and escape toward Michigan Avenue with their loot.

Himmel said the bandits use a bag from Forever 21 to carry their goods. She said the "leader" stands about 5 feet, 7 inches tall and is very thin and has long, straight hair.

"Today it was in a headband. Last time in a little ski cap," she said.

But Himmel said the men don't wear high heels.

"You can't run in heels," she said.

Furla store managers say they haven't had a problem in their roughly six years of business. A surveillance system ordered prior to the string of robberies is scheduled to be installed Wednesday.

SEATTLE -- A suspected drunken driver slammed into a family crossing the street in a residential Seattle neighborhood, critically injuring a baby and his mother and killing his grandparents, authorities said. The grandparents had recently moved from the Midwest to be near the newborn child. 

Karina Schulte, 33, and her 10-day-old son were in critical condition Tuesday afternoon, said Liz Hunter, a spokeswoman for Harborview Medical Center in Seattle. Grandparents Dennis Schulte, 66, and Judith Schulte, 68, died at the scene Monday.

Judith Schulte's sister, Susan Morton, said the retired Indiana couple were walking Monday afternoon with their daughter-in-law and the baby when they were stuck.

Karina Schulte "had the baby in a sling on the front. He just hit all four of them," said Morton, of Cottonwood, Minn., in a telephone interview.

Mark Mullan, 50, was ordered held on $2.5 million bail during a court hearing Tuesday. He is being held on investigation of vehicular homicide and vehicular assault. Prosecutors have until Thursday to formally charge him.

In court documents, a Seattle police officer investigating the crash said he smelled alcohol on Mullan's breath and that Mullan showed impairment during sobriety tests. A preliminary test showed a blood-alcohol level of 0.22 percent, nearly three times the legal limit of 0.08, the officer said in court documents.

No valid license
Mullan told police he was unable to see the pedestrians at an intersection in a residential neighborhood because the sun was in his eyes, according to court documents.

His license was suspended at the time of the crash, according to the documents.

"He does not have a valid license," said Brad Benfield, a spokesman with the Department of Licensing.

It was unclear Tuesday whether Mullan had legal representation. A message left with an attorney who represented him in a drunken driving case in December was not immediately returned Tuesday.

Mullan didn't answer reporters' questions as police led him away from the scene of the crash in handcuffs Monday. Police said he stopped after the crash and was cooperative. A phone number listed for Mullan was disconnected.

Morton said Karina Schulte, who is from Chile, is a pediatric nurse specialist and is dedicated to her work.

Dennis and Judith Schulte were both longtime high school teachers; she taught English and was a head guidance counselor for years, while he taught math.

They had moved to Seattle from Kokomo, Ind., in February to witness the birth of their first grandson.

They had planned to spend six months in Seattle to be near their son and his family. They were renting an apartment near the intersection where they were killed.

"They were so elated. This is their only grandchild," Morton said. "They wanted to be there when he was born. They got to hold him and be there with him for 10 days."

Related:

Police: Drunk driver causes 15 crashes, kills woman, smashes into restaurant

4 dead, 8 injured after driver crashes into Las Vegas bus stop

Curbing drunken drivers: Should ignition interlock be required on every car?

Glynn County Detention Center/AP

De'Marquise Elkins, 17, is accused of fatally shooting a 13-month-old baby in the face and wounding his mother during their morning stroll in Brunswick, Ga.

BRUNSWICK, Ga. -- An anonymous tip led to arrests in the shooting death of baby who was killed in a stroller, police said on Sunday.

The Brunswick Police Department said that they received a tip that someone was crouched in the back seat of a vehicle as it drove away from the shooting on Thursday.

The Glynn County detective's division spent hours following up on the tip and eventually arrested a 14-year-old suspect. The boy's statements led them to take 17-year-old De'Marquise Elkins into custody.

Elkins is charged with murder in the death of 13-month-old Antonio Santiago. The baby's mother, Sherry West, said she was walking home when Elkins and a younger boy approached and asked her for money.

Elkins' family says he did not shoot the baby.

The Associated Press

SAN DIEGO -- A man was fatally shot at close range by a semi-automatic assault rifle Saturday evening outside a fast-food restaurant, authorities confirmed.

The shooting happened at around 5:30 p.m. PT (8:30 a.m. ET)  in the parking lot of a Carls' Jr. on Sweetwater Road in National City, Calif. The gunman fled the scene after fatally injuring a male victim.

The victim was shot approximately 10 times from a distance of about 10 to 15 feet, according to Lt. Robert Rounds. When police arrived, the victim was lying on the ground in critical condition.

He was transported to UCSD Medical Center, but died a short time later.

Police immediately began searching the area for the suspect, who fled the parking lot in a white 1970s Ford pickup truck with an orange stripe on it.

Investigators roped off the parking lot in the Sweetwater Town and Country Shopping Center with crime scene tape as they searched the area for bullet casings.

'Boom-boom-boom-boom'
Witnesses Muhammed Camran and Michael Ybarra told NBC 7 San Diego that they were right across the street at the time of the shooting, playing golf at a nearby golf course.

The sudden sounds of gunfire shocked both of them.

“We were over here at the golf course just hitting some balls and we hear a loud ‘boom.’ The first one was really distinctive like ‘boom-boom-boom-boom’ and we kind of ducked because it was out of nowhere,” recalled Camran.

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Meanwhile, witness Trevor Hermann was working at Pet Mart, less than 200 yards from the scene of the deadly shooting.

“I was helping a customer, looking at dog food, and then all of a sudden we heard all of the gunshot. Then I went out and thought it could have been someone's backfire from a truck, but I didn’t think that much, and then I looked further away and there was a guy just lying there,” he explained.

Hermann said he saw the suspect speeding away in an orange and white truck that drove right past his storefront.

“It had a little bit of speed on it and it went away a little quick, and that’s how I knew it was that truck that did the shooting,” he added.

Police say witnesses describe the suspect as a Hispanic male wearing a black-hooded sweatshirt. He was last seen driving east on Sweetwater Road in the distinctive truck.

The shooting victim's name has not yet been released. A report from the county Medical Examiner's office confirms the man was a 43-year-old National City resident.