Repo Man Visits an Illinois Police Dept.

• Play CBS Video Video Cops Feel Heat of Economy

  Some Florida counties have come to the aid of an Illinois police dept. forced to give up most of its cruisers. As Dean Reynolds reports, the cars were repossessed due to the county's economic hardship.

• Photo

  (CBS)

(CBS) To say that Cairo, the seat of Alexander County, Ill., has seen better days is a cruel understatement. The county of 8,000 people is half-a-million dollars in the red, and the recession has made a bad situation worse.

Cairo's police department has just had most of its cruisers repossessed, reports CBS News National Correspondent Dean Reynolds. The recession has reduced tax revenues all over the country, forcing government agencies to cut their budgets. A survey of police departments found 66 percent of them were facing cuts this year.

"God willing, we're going to protect these people and we're gonna continue with what we got. We're used to struggling. We're used to struggling," said Sheriff David Barkett with a laugh.

The situation got so bad this month that the bank repossessed five of his seven cruisers. Four of them sit in the bank parking lot now, shorn of their emergency lights, antennas and seals. In addition to losing his cruisers, the sheriff lost three-fourths of his staff, most of them deputies,
to budget cuts. At its peak, the staff had 29 full and part timers. Now there are five.

"I'd say it's very extreme when it effects the protection of lives and property," said Barkett.

Barkett patrols in an SUV the governor loaned him. He works extra-long hours with help from volunteers and Ill. state troopers.

"Altogether it's about a 92 to 93 mile round-trip. It's a big area for just four or five people to cover," said Barkett.

Things look a little brighter today thanks to a couple of Florida counties who heard about Barkett's problems. They had older cruisers they didn't need and are shipping them to their car-needy colleague.

"I couldn't imagine that so that's why I felt it was so important to reach out and offer him what we could," said Sheriff Ken Mascara, of St. Lucie County, Fla.

Getting the cruisers is a step in the right direction for Barkett. Now all the sheriff needs is to get his deputies back to drive them.

Seizing the opportunity

Upper Marlboro Woman Charge

GREENBELT, Md. -- Federal prosecutors say a woman has been sentenced to nearly four years in prison for her role in a mortgage fraud scheme.

Fifty-two-year-old Cheryl Brooke of Upper Marlboro also had a preliminary forfeiture judgment of more than $2 million entered against her on Wednesday.

Prosecutors say Brooke and others aired television advertisements that offered to help people improve their credit, and save their homes from foreclosure. However, the defendants took control of the homes and then failed to pay mortgages on them, causing the original owners to default.

This is becoming the norm where someone figures out a way to take advantage of the unsuspecting. Bernie Madoff Day showed America with a perfect scheme that any thing can be done with a diabolical plan. My heart goes out to the thousands of people who have been bamboozled out of their money and lost their home simply from a scam. Now that we have the culprit what do we really do with them? The fact is the money is gone, and its not coming back. Even though she will be sentenced, what is that really going to do? I mean it will ease the pain for a few minutes but what about the lifetime of damage that was created by the schemer.

The damage that these elite criminals have created is nothing short of a natural disaster, you never no it coming and after it does you wonder how are you going to regroup. No one should be left in the cold but realistically speaking after the damage is done, what do they really do?

Many of people are sitting with their hands in their pockets wondering how will I make it.

Elderly bank robbery suspect in San Diego says mortgage drove him to crime

A 69-year-old man with severe medical problems has apologized for robbing a San Diego bank and says he needed money to pay his mortgage to prevent him and his 73-year-old wife from becoming homeless.

In a jailhouse interview with NBC 7/39, Michael Casey Wilson said he needed $50,000 to pay off a 17% mortgage when he walked into the Bank of America branch in the City Heights neighborhood on Monday.

Wilson told a teller he would detonate a bomb in a briefcase unless she handed over money, authorities said. He walked out with more than $100,000 but was arrested a few blocks away on the porch of a house, apparently exhausted.

"I've never done a bad thing in my life," Wilson told a television reporter. "But you get desperate; I guess you throw all that ... out the window."

Wilson, 5 feet 8 and 250 pounds, walks with a cane. His attorney said in a brief appearance in court that Wilson suffers from "major" ailments. Wilson listed those for the TV station as severe arthritis, sleep apnea, heart problems and an emotional issue.

Wilson pleaded not guilty to three charges Thursday in San Diego County Superior Court. He remains in jail on $50,000 bail. No explosive was found in the briefcase.

Wilson said his scheme was to kidnap the bank manager, take a cab to the San Diego airport, drop the manager there and then take a cab to his home. He said he had considered what would happen if he got caught.

Kanye West InterruptsTaylor Swift's, what gives

When I watched the VMA and witnessed Kanye actions, I was shocked... The rumor was that he had been drinking. Sometime alcohol gives you a fantastic and original ideal. I think that he is realizing that maybe his Epiphany was not such a good thing. I think that just escorting you out of the show was not enough. Maybe they should give you the ass hole of the year award for your stupid behavior!

Snake with foot found in China

A snake with a single clawed foot has been discovered in China, according to reports.

Snake that grew a foot out of its body Photo: CEN/Europics

Dean Qiongxiu, 66, said she discovered the reptile clinging to the wall of her bedroom with its talons in the middle of the night.

"I woke up and heard a strange scratching sound. I turned on the light and saw this monster working its way along the wall using his claw," said Mrs Duan of Suining, southwest China.

Mrs Duan said she was so scared she grabbed a shoe and beat the snake to death before preserving its body in a bottle of alcohol.

The snake – 16 inches long and the thickness of a little finger – is now being studied at the Life Sciences Department at China's West Normal University in Nanchang.

Snake expert Long Shuai said: "It is truly shocking but we won't know the cause until we've conducted an autopsy."

A more common mutation among snakes is the growth of a second head, which occurs in a similar way to the formation of Siamese twins in humans.

Such animals are often caught and preserved as lucky tokens but have very little chance of surviving in the wild anyway, especially as the heads have a tendency to attack each other.

Indian teen tossed from train loses leg

NEW DELHI, India (CNN) -- Doctors had to amputate the leg of a 13-year-old snack vendor who was thrown off a moving train after he reportedly did not have money to bribe a guard, authorities said Sunday.

Part of Mohammed Salahuddin's leg was removed below the knee after it was badly damaged after the fall, said Amit Lodha, a railway police superintendent.

According to published reports, the suspect allegedly hurled Salahuddin off the train on Thursday in anger because he did not have Rs 10 (20 cents) to pay in bribes for selling snacks on board.

"The (arrested) constable has denied these allegations. But he indeed has been found to have thrown the boy out of the train," Lodha told CNN.

The guard was sent to jail Sunday for the incident, which took place in India's Bihar state, officials said. He faces attempted murder among other charges.

In August, Indian prime minister Manmohan Singh admitted his country was faced with "pervasive corruption".

"The malaise of corruption, so sapping of our efforts to march ahead as a nation, should be treated immediately and effectively," Singh warned

Police found body of missing girl in wall

Police in Conn. say a body has been found in a building where a Yale University graduate student Annie Le, vanished.

The human remains were found inside a wall in a Yale laboratory by Connecticut State Police just after 5 p.m., reports CBS affiliate WFSB - Hartford. It was in an area holding utility cables that run between floors. More than




100 police officials have been searching for Le since Tuesday, when she was last seen.

New Haven's assistant police chief says officials presume the body is that of the missing doctoral student. He says Le's family has been told. Police also say the missing persons investigation is now being treated as a homicide.

New Haven Assistant Police Chief Peter Reichard says the body has not been identified as doctoral student Annie Le, who has been the focus of a massive police search since she vanished in the building on Tuesday.

Le swiped her identification card to enter the building that morning, but there was no record of her leaving, despite some 75 surveillance cameras that cover the complex. Investigators pored over blueprints and surveillance video footage while searching for her.

Le was from Placerville, California. She was set to get married Sunday in Syosset, N.Y., on Long Island's north shore.