Preorder now!!!

Amazon.com: A Firefighter Christmas Carol: And Other Short Stories eBook: Brown, Douglas R., Murphy, Steve, Brown, Becca: Kindle Store

Normalization of Thievery in the Internet Age

Anyone who has downloaded a pirated movie or Napstered their favorite music has stolen. It’s plain and simple. You can justify it anyway you like. Call it sharing if that makes you feel better. But I’ve never shared my CDs with someone I’ve never met in some state or country thousands of miles away. It doesn’t really amaze me that people steal in this way, because it’s easy and it seems to be human nature to try and get all you can for as little as you can expend. What does amaze me is how cavalier and unashamedly people do it now. I wonder if stores suddenly went to the honor system and stripped their businesses of employees and cameras and consequences for thievery, would these same people illegally downloading music, books, and movies now justify taking whatever they wanted from the store? Not all of them would, I suspect, but a surprising number of people would somehow justify it. I mean, if you really, really want that new IPhone and funds are a little tight, Apple’s got bigger pockets than you after all.  I get it. It’s your right to have that phone. I’ll tell you what, let’s call it Iphone sharing with Apple. Does that make you feel better?

Whether it’s the amazon fire stick with Kodi or the guy at the end of the street selling bootleg DVDs, everyone seems to be stealing nowadays. And worse, everyone seems to think it’s ok. I’ve yet to hear an excuse as to why it’s ok to download the new Deadpool movie on the day it’s released. In fact, the responses when I ask my friends why it's OK to take that movie are worse than not being able to give me a legitimate reason. Their responses are blow off waves at my sanctimonious questioning. As you read this, you’re either one of two people. You’re either thinking I’m right and stealing is wrong, or that I’m being a virtuosic prude and you deserve the entertainment you didn’t pay for. And that’s the problem. The same people who think I’m a prude because I make it a point to not steal intellectual property are likely people who would never walk into a Barnes and Noble (are they still around?) and walk out with a couple books stuffed into their jackets. Or would they? Once the consequences of stealing are gone . . .

I guess the reason I’m particularly annoyed today is because I woke up this morning and came across an article on Facebook from a larger online site that was remarkably similar to a blog I wrote in December. What made it particularly frustrating was that the author actually says in the article that the basis of the article (his theory) comes from a fan who recently wrote about the same topic. Hm. Here’s a screenshot from the story where the author admits to stealing his theory.

The whole article is based on that statement. And here’s my blog http://epertase.blogspot.com/2017/12/everyone-we-love-dies-my-walking-dead.html where I lay out such a theory.

In December.

Of last year.

Shared on multiple Walking Dead fan sites.

This other article from Ranker.com has had over 272,000 clicks. My blog? A few hundred. Sour grapes? Maybe. Did this article’s author steal my premise and repackage it as his own? I’m not so egotistical to think he saw MY article or that I’m the only one who has thought of the premise behind it, but he did write that his article was a fan’s written theory and gave no credit to that fan. So even if the article wasn’t stolen from my blog (which it probably wasn’t in all reality) my point still stands. He stole it from somewhere, regardless of whether it was from me or not. He is making money via clicks off of someone else’s work. In the internet age, there are no recourses for people who have their intellectual property stolen. And no repercussions for the thief.

I once took a picture of a couple firefighter friends acting silly at the station and wrote a blog about it. It’s here if you wanna take a look. http://epertase.blogspot.com/2012/02/pranks-turning-harmless-pictures-into.html That was in 2012. That picture (with no link to my blog or credit to me) routinely shows up on my FB feed from a site called firefighter funnies. Why do I see it? Not because I created it or that I’m a fan of the site, firefighter funnies, but because I’m friends with a lot of firefighters. When they come across that picture they think it’s funny and share it without ever knowing I took it in the first place. How many clicks has firefighter funnies gotten from my picture? If every couple years it shows up on my feed out of the blue from others who have discovered it, I’d say quite a few.

Coming up with premises, writing a coherent article or blog, or penning a story is long, hard work. Unless you’re a large corporation, there is little recourse you can do when that work is stolen. Hell, even the big, powerful movie studios can’t protect their property.

The most frustrating of these stories, to me, is this next particular one. I think it perfectly and painfully demonstrates my above point that the general public has normalized thievery. The reason this one is so frustrating is because of the personal nature of how it happened. I was recently at the fire house and a guy from another station was filling in. I’d talked to this guy a few times in the past, but it wasn’t like we were best buds or anything. When we had some down time he sought me out and told me how he was writing a book. I assumed he did this because he had heard I had written a few and wanted to pick my brain. He told me it was going to be a werewolf story which piqued my interest for obvious reasons if you know about my book, Tamed. After 20 minutes of listening to his idea (far from original, but I digress), I gave him some publishing advice and mentioned my own writing career. I told him how I, too, had written a werewolf book (which I’m confident he already knew) and asked him if he’d read it. He said he hadn’t. As we stood there talking he pulled out his phone and a minute later said, “I’ve got it.”

Pleasantly surprised I asked, “You just bought my book?” It's always a warm and fuzzy feeling when someone is convinced to buy your book on the spot while talking about it.

Without missing a beat he answered, “No. I never buy books. I downloaded it from a pirate site. I have hundreds of books. Ad movies too.” He held up his phone and there was my book, Tamed, in his library. Instead of being ashamed that he had just stolen my book, he was proud like he had gamed the system. The problem was I was the system. That fact was lost on him. He continued boasting about how he never pays for his media while I stood amazed. Now imagine that. A guy who, no doubt, considers himself a moral individual had no qualms about stealing my book right in front of me and, worse yet, bragging about it to the actual creator of it. There was no thought in his mind that this could be considered a dickhead thing to do. And that’s the problem. I asked him why it wasn’t stealing and he looked at me like I had suddenly grown a second head. I ended the conversation, made note that this guy was a fuckhead who I would avoid in the future, and went on about my day. But I admit I was a bit salty, if you couldn’t tell.

I come from a unique position on this topic. I’ve created art that has actually been stolen to the profit of others. Normalization of online thievery happened years ago and continues to this day. There is no way to fight it. Somehow, if you take a stand against stealing online material in this internet based world, you are now the pariah. You’re now the uptight prude. My friends roll their eyes at me when I call it stealing. I don’t know how we got here, but if you’re a creative person, good luck in the future.

Now, if you’ll excuse me I’ve got a friend holding the movie theater exit door open and if I don’t get there soon I’ll actually have to purchase a ticket. Yikes. Gotta go.

Free for your Kindle

Grab my horror collection, Death Alarm,  for free until Sun. for your Kindle.

Surprise

At 1:30 AM the other night at the fire house, our engine was dispatched on what is called a service run. Basically, that means we have a call that isn't an emergency, but the person who called 911 didn't know how to handle whatever fix he found himself in. This call, we soon learned, was a water problem. And by water problem, I mean water was pouring through the ceiling into this guy's apartment from the apartment above.

Yes, people call 911 for everything.

Anyway, we told the guy to call his landlord and he said his landlord didn't answer. He also said that the upstairs resident didn't answer when he pounded on her door.

Although we aren't plumbers and this was anything but a life-or-death emergency, we figured we'd try and help. We went into the basement and turned off the water to the offending apartment which after a couple of minutes stopped the heavy flow of water into the caller's apartment.

But that wasn't the end of the call. What if the water was from an overflowing bathtub and someone was injured or worse?

We needed to check.

Before we bashed down the door, we tried knocking and yelling with no response. Our last attempt before smashing in the door was to check for an open window. Luckily, one of the windows was cracked open and, since we are the fire department, we happened to have a ladder.

I sent the new guy up the ladder so he could open the door for the rest of us. He shouted into the room before he climbed through the window which was a good thing. We wouldn't want him to have a run-in with a dog, or a gun, or both. He found his way through the dark apartment to the front door and let us in for our search.

The old, weathered hardwood floors were flooded with at least two inches of water. I felt a little on edge walking into her hallway with a flashlight. I have to tell you, I had a little hesitation as I walked through the hallway in anticipation of what I might find in the next room.

That's because a few years ago, I was doing the exact same thing after a woman called and asked us to check on her family member since she hadn't talked to him and was worried that he had been depressed. When I went into this guy's basement, I turned the corner from the stairs and almost walked face-first into his body. hanging from the rafters. It didn't take much experience to realize he had been dead for quite awhile. The only way I can explain walking into something like that is comparing it to seeing a ghost. Not in a spiritual way, but in a surreal, somewhat creepy and unexpected way.

But back to the other night. As three of us sloshed through the apartment and rounded the hall to the bedroom, we found a young lady lying unconscious on the bed. She was as naked as the day she was born, but that didn't seem too out of the ordinary since it was very hot and humid outside and the apartment didn't have air conditioning.

My first reaction was that she was dead, or had OD'd or something of that nature since we had made a ton of noise getting into the apartment. One of the other two firefighters shouted, "Hey," with no reply. I dug through my bunker pants for a pair of gloves so I could check her pulse and sent someone for our EMS kits. The other firefighter shouted, "Hey" again and this time the lady nearly jumped through the ceiling with a screech that startled the hell outta me. She screamed over and over, "What are you doing in here?" like a vinyl on permanent skip.

We turned away as she wrapped herself in a blanket. I tried to explain why we were in her apartment, but her panicked shouting drowned out my voice. Calmly and repeatedly, we told her to relax and that we were the fire department. Slowly, she settled down. With her mood changing from panic to embarrassment and ultimately to understanding, I explained, "You've left water running somewhere and you're flooding your downstairs neighbor." I told her we would step out of the apartment to give her some privacy while she gathered herself and that she could come out and talk to me when she was ready.

When she eventually came out, she was obviously embarrassed, as anyone would be. We talked for a few minutes and I apologized for scaring her.

That wasn't our last call of the night, but definitely the strangest. To make our night even more odd, we were called for another service run where a young lady had taken out her trash and locked herself out of her apartment. Making things worse, she had two young babies still inside. Luckily, she too had a slightly opened upstairs window for us to climb through.

That's the way the fire department works sometimes. In the last year I haven't had a single call where we needed to climb into someone's window (other than if their house was on fire, that is), yet last shift we did it twice during one night. All in all, it was an interesting evening, with no fires and no injuries—just a lot of ladder climbing, a naked lady and 2 babies oblivious of the goings on in their homes.

Things Seen While Working in the ‘Hood

Most of you probably know that I am a firefighter. You may also know that I spend a lot of my shifts working in a rough section of Columbus at station 15. The following is a little taste of my most recent day at work.

It was about 90° outside. First thing in the morning we responded to a routine medic run which was the typical start to a day at 15s. Then, at noon-ish, we had a report of a house fire. Wearing all of our gear in this sweltering heat is like wearing a furnace. Sure, the fire is hot anyway, but in reality the actual firefight only lasts a few minutes. That's when the long task of overhaul (searching and extinguishing hot spots) begins.

Did I mention it was 90°?

I was the lieutenant on ladder 15 for the morning and we were the first ladder on the scene of the fire. The house was a vacant, one-story, brick house where kids had been seen hanging out as of late. There are tons of these vacant houses throughout the district, and the city, for that matter. Anyhow, for fun I suppose, the teenagers decided to set the house on fire. It was a pretty routine fire and we put it out rather quickly.

As part of the ladder company on this particular fire, our duties were to cut the bars off of the windows in case a firefighter needed a quick escape, help the interior crew locate the fire and get to it within the walls, and set up lights and fans to help improve the interior conditions. It was also our job to find anyone that might be trapped, but being a small vacant house, that was accomplished right away. After an hour or so of cleaning up, we headed back to the station.

If you had thrown me into a swimming pool, I would have probably been dryer than I was inside my gear when I got back to the station.

For the rest of the afternoon I worked with the engine crew, where we proceeded to chase open hydrants for most of the day. In the poorer neighborhoods during the summer, it is common for the residents to open the fire hydrants to keep cool. They use pipe wrenches and sometimes stolen fire hydrant wrenches among other more clever ideas. For example, one of those orange milk crates can open a hydrant if used in the right way. The kids in the neighborhood play in the water spray in the middle of the street. I have even shut off hydrants in the past at busy intersections where the kids would wait for red lights before running out into the street to play in the hydrant spray. Then, when the traffic light turned green again, they would go back to the sidewalk and wait. As you can imagine, this is dangerous on all sorts of levels. Maybe the most frustrating part about closing hydrants for the entire day is that parents are often with the kids and are just as disrespectful.

Unfortunately, it is our job to shut off the hydrants, so that makes us the enemy in their eyes. On the day before my shift, someone even threw a rock at Engine 15 as it pulled away from a hydrant they’d just shut off. Thankfully, the rock didn’t hit any of my buddies on the rig. Dangerous.

Other times, while we are shutting off hydrants, kids (and sometimes adults) kick the water at us or spray us with squirt guns. And they aren't doing it in playful ways, either. Most of the time the parents sit on the porch and laugh while we explain why the hydrants have to be shut down. It's unbelievable.

You have to understand that we don't want to take away the kids’ fun; it's just that open hydrants can be very dangerous for them and for us. Besides the traffic danger, the extreme pressure from the hydrants can violently knock the smaller kids to the street. For the fire department, the danger goes even deeper. If a person opens a hydrant in one neighborhood and we have to fight a fire on the next street over, the illegally open hydrant can take valuable water away from our attack on a working fire and hinder our efforts to extinguish the fire by drastically reducing the pressure from our hose lines. That turns into a danger for the civilians and firefighters inside the burning house.

Let's get back to the other day. While shutting off the same hydrant for the third time in four hours, we saw one of the kids running away with a pipe wrench. When we returned to shut the hydrant off for the fourth time, this same 12- or 13-year-old boy gave us the middle finger and repeatedly shouted for us to “f” off, although he wasn't polite enough to abbreviate the "f" part. All the while several adults watched from the porches and laughed about it.

We could call the police (which we do quite often), but they rarely do much about the hydrants. I mean, what could they really do? Threaten to arrest everyone in every neighborhood? And charge them with what? We do have a process in place in which the water department will come out and lock the problem hydrant with a device that only we can open, but that just kicks the can down the road or, more specifically, to the next hydrant. It would be great if the water department would lock all of the hydrants, but apparently that isn't cost effective. So, instead of eliminating the problem, we play this game of scooping buckets of water out of a boat with a huge hole in it.

That's about enough on the subject of hydrants. I just thought you might be interested in seeing what goes on in neighborhoods throughout the country in periods of hot weather.

Totally off the hydrant subject, but something new I learned:

On the way back from our last hydrant shut-off of the day, I saw a sign on a telephone pole that I thought was strange and worth adding here. The sign said, "We buy diabetic test strips" and it had a phone number along the bottom. For the life of me, I couldn't figure out why any company would buy someone's presumably used test strips. Do you have any idea why someone would put up a sign like that? Well, I asked engine 15s’ driver and he gave me the answer. It turns out they aren't buying used test strips, but new ones. Why is that, you may ask. It's actually pretty clever. Not all people who get their test strips for free from Medicare use them as often as they are supposed to use them. Instead, they can sell them to this company. The company turns around and sells the test strips at a profit to people without Medicare or insurance. Maybe my mind doesn't work in that way, but I've never considered a scheme like that in my life.

That was just another day in the ‘hood. I'll go home, have a couple days off, and then start over again. Hopefully, it's not 90°. And if it is 90, hopefully I won't get hit by a rock.

Working in the Inner City

Regular followers of this blog probably already know that I am a lieutenant for a large central Ohio fire department and I have been working mostly in the inner city for the last year. For firefighters, working in the inner city also means living in the inner city for 24 hours out of every 72. It is almost like a second home. We sleep there, eat there, and take emergency calls there.


On nice days we leave our bay doors open and a lot of times we sit out on the ramp (we call it ramping), but it is basically just a way for us to be a part of the neighborhood. Doing this makes us approachable for people needing help or people simply wanting to chat. With this blog I wanted to give you a little glimpse into working in that kind of an area. Let me preface this by saying there is a lot of good that happens around there, but this blog will mostly focus on the bad. Hey, I'm trying to paint a specific picture here. Here are just a few of the interesting things that you may not have imagined could happen.


Sometimes the neighborhood is very noisy and very violent. If you have ever heard of the gang the Bloods, then you'll understand how violent when I say there is Blood turf only a few blocks away from our station.


Nightly, police helicopters fly overhead so often that we don't even bother looking up at them anymore. They are just there, like airplanes for someone living near an airport. At least once a month I am approached at my vehicle as I am either getting ready to leave work or getting ready to start my shift. The person who approaches me usually asks for money. Typically, the story is that the person is out of gas and needs a few bucks to get to wherever they need to go, but sometimes the story is a little more clever.


On a typical New Year's Eve, the gunfire at midnight sounds literally like a war zone. Celebratory automatic gunfire explodes from around the station and continues for quite some time. If you're quiet enough you can hear some of the bullets land on the roof as they make their way back to earth. You know, gravity and all. The other medics tell me they have responded to calls where bullets have come back down and struck people in the tops of the heads or shoulders, though I haven't been on any of those calls yet.


Our parking lot is surrounded by an 8 or 10 foot chain-link fence topped with barbwire that we lock every night. Even doing that, there has been times where the fence has been cut and firefighters with full tanks of gas on the night before find themselves stopping at the gas station on the way home.


With that said, let's get to last night. I was on the engine. My driver was another medic and is a friend of mine. Here's a quick side note about him: During his first week on company out of the academy (13 or so years ago), he responded to a fire. As he knelt on the front porch to put on the facepiece of his SCBA (Self-contained breathing apparatus or air tank) he heard a loud pop and felt pain in his knee. He knew right away what had happened and he shouted, "I've been shot." Turns out he was right. The fire had heated ammunition within the house to the point that it went off and my friend successfully tried to catch one of the bullets with his knee. Yeah, ouch. Not a great way to start a career.


Anyway, back to last night. As a couple of us walked into the apparatus bay for who knows what reason, we heard multiple distinct, rapid-fire gunshots somewhere right outside the station. We immediately shut the bay doors and waited for the police and what was sure to be a run. Within a minute, our tones went off and we were dispatched to a street one block west of the station on an auto accident. Before we reached the truck, the dispatcher called on the phone and told us not to respond until the police arrived on the scene because the accident was from a shooting. We waited about 30 seconds until the police had everything secured and then we hurried to the scene. Because of the nature of my job and the sensitivity over talking about details, whether those details concern an on-going investigation or HIPPA laws for patients, I'm not going to get into what we found. I will say that we did find a person who had been shot and we did what we do to help him. The last I heard, he was in stable condition at the ER.


Here is the news report if you want to know more along with some video of the aftermath.


So, that was the start of my night. The amazing thing about that call is that it isn't something entirely unusual. I've only been spending most of my shifts at this station for a year now, but the other firefighters tell me this kind of thing happens quite often. The night didn't get much better, although none of the other calls were much worth mentioning here. Let's just say we were busy. In 24 hours, Engine 15 responded to 18 calls. That's busy.

Death Alarm

For as long as I can remember I have been fascinated by horror stories. In fact, the first fiction I had ever written was a horror story when I was a preteen. I wrote about my terrible first tale here.

Anyway, over the last few years while writing my various novels for Rhemalda Publishing, I wrote a few horror short stories. If I suddenly had an inspired idea I'd literally stop everything else and write that story. A lot of times that story would be horror. I decided it might be fun to put out three of those stories in a collection on Amazon.

When I heard about Amazon's Kindle Select program where they allow Kindle books to be given away for free for a limited time, I knew I needed to do this. So, starting today (Wednesday, March 7, 2012) through tomorrow (Thursday, March 8, 2012) I will be giving away my horror collection for free.

If you have a Kindle or a tablet like an Ipad (simply download the Kindle app to your device) you can grab my collection for free. If for no other reason, check it out for Steve Murphy's amazing cover. And if you miss this deal, the good news is that the collection is still available for less than 3 bucks. Can you say, "such a deal?"

So, download Death Alarm, give it a read, and if you like what I've written please review my collection on Amazon. To make it even easier, I have provided a link. Also, do me a huge favor and share this deal with your friends and social media. I hope to give away a ton of books.

Here is the cover copy for Death Alarm:

From the author of Tamed and The Light of Epertase trilogy come Douglas R. Brown's twisted tales of the macabre. In this three-story collection, Douglas explores the devastating depths of mental illness, the evil that burns within men who kill, and angels who aren't always what they seem.

In the title story, Death Alarm, Douglas uses his real-life experiences as a career firefighter to explore the consequences when those who go to the rescue become those most at risk. When pure evil battles the noblest of professions, the blood will flow like water from the very hydrants that firemen use every day.

Following the title story is a psychological tale entitled Janitor. Working the nightshift in a run-down factory, Jeb quickly realizes he may not be alone. What does the man dressed in black want with him? And can Jeb keep his sanity long enough to find out?

Closing out the collection is a brutal story titled Skelwaller Lane where sometimes even the most horrible behavior can be justified if only you listen to how the true story begins.

In addition, Douglas, by way of Rhemalda Publishing, has included an exclusive 2-chapter preview of his newest break-through novel, Tamed, where werewolves are sold as pets. Recently called, "the Jurassic Park of werewolf stories," Douglas is excited to give you a peek with this free preview.

In the Death Alarm short stories, Douglas grabs you by your arms.

And then he chops them off. Sensitive stomachs need not continue.

Enjoy.

5AM

This is a very difficult blog for me to write and probably hard for a lot of people to read so this is your fair warning. You can turn back now, it's not too late.

I'm a firefighter/paramedic and I began writing five years ago as a way to deal with a terrible emergency call. Read my previous post about that call here. The reason for writing this blog today is no different.

On the Saturday before Christmas last December, I was working at Fire Station 15 in Columbus, Ohio. I had been asleep for a couple of hours when the fire tones startled me awake at around 5AM. Within seconds I had my bunker pants on and was climbing into the ladder truck. Before I was in the truck, the fire tones sounded again, which wasn't a typical occurrence. The dispatcher reported that the police were already on the scene and had confirmed a working fire, explaining the quick second tone.

I knew from the address and the time of night that Ladder15 would likely be the first ladder on the scene and that my job (among other jobs) would be to search whatever was on fire for victims who might be trapped.

Remember, I'm still trying to get my bearings after going from a deep sleep (actually firefighters never sleep soundly at the fire house, but you get the jest) to full adrenaline rush within an instant. Ever wonder why firefighters routinely die of heart attacks within a few hours of fire calls? Or shortly after retirement? Well, that stress on a person's heart is part of the reason. There's another reason, and I'm getting to that now.

Before we pulled out of the station, our dispatcher announced that two children were still in the burning apartment (probably confirmed by the police on the scene). I get chills just writing that line and not the good kind of chills either. So now, as I was getting my gear on, slinging my air tank onto my back, and strapping my TIC (Thermal Imaging Camera) to my coat, I was also game-planning how my crew and I were going to get to those kids.

Every second seemed like forever and the ladder couldn't move fast enough. Engine 4 marked on the scene and further confirmed every firefighters' biggest fear: yes, there were kids inside. Before we turned onto the street of the fire, we saw the bright orange glow above the surrounding apartment buildings. We turned onto the court where the unit on fire sat. Flames were blowing from every upstairs window.

I mentally sized up the structure in hopes of finding a possible way for my crew and I to get to where the kids would most likely be found at that time of night (upstairs). A part of me knew no one could survive in those conditions, but another part hoped beyond hope that the kids had made it downstairs and could still be rescued.

As we jumped from the ladder and started toward the inferno, our chief called me to the command post. He told me to get onto the roof of the attached unit and get a ventilation hole cut. I can't remember the exact timing, but I believe it was around this same time that Engine 4 knocked down the fire a bit and reported two fatalities inside. A fire that had gotten that intense and large before the first fire truck even arrived meant conditions inside weren't likely to be survivable.

My crew and I slung ladders to the roof, gathered chainsaws and other tools, and did what we were told to do. My heart hurt while we cut that hole, but we had a job to do. Even as I worked, I knew my crew, along with every firefighter on the scene, had just been kicked in the gut. We put out the fire like we always do, but this fire was something more--something far worse--than the others. The remainder of our job (as Ladder 15) after ventilating the roof consisted of various tasks that forced us to work where the two children lay.

I'm not going to go into details here, I see no reason, but I will say that such a horrible morning changes a person. I deal with these things better nowadays as I gain years and experience, but nothing prepares a person for what I saw. I live with those memories and the thought of what could have been if the fire was only discovered a few minutes sooner and we were called in time. Damnit, we would have found those kids, I know it. You wanna know why I'm so confident? Because Columbus firefighters, like firefighters around the world, are very skilled and dedicated to walking through literal Hell in order to find you and your family if you need us. We do it often and sometimes we win. Other times, like that Saturday morning, we lose, and that loss takes something from all of us. Fire is a merciless, unforgiving beast. Those kids didn't stand a chance and my heart is still heavy for them. I'll never forget what I saw that day but I will work as hard as I can to not have to see it again. Unfortunately, as was the case that morning, it isn't always up to me.



Update: This report was on local news today following up on this story.