Middleburg’s Community Newspaper Volume 12 Issue 5
B E L O CA L BUY LOCAL
OP ITY AND SH R COMMUN SUPPORT OU
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LOCALLY
September 24, 2015 ~ October 22, 2015
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Council Supports Police Middleburg Town Council Report
A
Dan Morrow
t this month’s, September 10, regular meeting of the Middleburg Town Council, Vice Mayor Darlene Kirk introduced, and Council adopted without opposition, a resolution “ . . . expressing the Town’s full support for all law enforcement officers, in particular those serving the Middleburg Police Department, the Loudoun County Sheriff’s Department and the Virginia State Police and encouraging citizens everywhere to stand up for the safety of those police officers across the country that protect and serve them.” Noting that “ . . . the Town has always had good police officers,” Kirk “ . . . explained that she wanted the Town to stand up for law enforcement “in light of what was happening around the country.” Presented with a signed copy of the resolution, drafted by Town Clerk Rhonda North, Police Chief A.J. Panebianco expressed his appreciation of the gesture and promised to communicate Council’s support to his officers and to police organizations with which he and his department are affiliated around the state. Vice Mayor Kirk expressed her hope that “other jurisdictions” would adopt similar resolutions. Intruder
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Later in Thursday’s Council Session, Police Chief Panebianco reported on a recent incident in Fauquier County affecting the safety of one of his own officers. An intruder, he told Council, had broken into one of his officer’s houses while the officer was out jogging. Once inside, the intruder allegedly barred one door of the house by jamming a chair under the front doorknob, then proceeded to help himself to the officer’s uniform shirt, badge, and several items from a gun belt. The officer’s gun, Panebianco emphasized, was not taken. Though the front door barred, the back door apparently wasn’t, leaving it as the only way into the house for the returning officer, or out the house for the intruder. “The situation,” Panebianco noted, could have become dangerous. Happily, officers from the Warrenton Police Department were in the area, ostensibly thanks to calls they had received related to other suspicious activities in the neighborhood. Hearing a Middleburg Police officer shouting commands to an apparent intruder, they intervened, and quickly arrested a suspect found actually wearing the Middleburg Police officer’s missing uniform shirt. The suspect, according to Chief Panebianco, was taken quickly taken into custody, then legally released, only to be arrested again the next day, accused of stealing a purse. Panebianco told Council that, in view of the potentially very dangerous circumstances, his officer had performed well and