Cherokee headlines, school news, photos

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A fire at the Canterbury Ridge apartment complex Friday afternoon destroyed or damaged all 28 units in a single building, a Cherokee County Fire and Emergency Services spokesman told the AJC. The calls to 911 began around 2 p.m. at the complex, located less than two miles from fire headquarters, Tim Cavender said.

Charges have been filed against an Acworth man who police said was speeding through a Cherokee County neighborhood when he drove a car completely through a house. Cherokee sheriff's Lt. Jay Baker said investigators estimated that Shane Rainwater was going over 70 mph in a 25 mph zone on May 7 before the car he was driving left the roadway and plowed through the home on Cedar Mill Crossing.

Two men have been charged in connection with thefts at a cemetery and baseball field in Cherokee County. Arnold Fricks, 23, of Canton was arrested Monday and charged with felony theft by taking and burglary, Cherokee Sheriff's Office spokesman Lt. Jay Baker said.

The mother of Jorelys Rivera, the 7-year-old who was slain by a groundskeeper at a Canton apartment complex in December, was arrested after a domestic dispute with her partner, police said. According to a police report, officers were called to the home of Jocelyn Rivera-Ruiz in the 8300 block of Walden Crossing Drive in Canton around 6:55 p.

Once again, the state is preparing to put the I-75/I-575 toll project out to bid, in June. The project would build optional toll lanes along I-75 and I-575 in Cobb and Cherokee counties, from the Perimeter to Hickory Grove Road and to Sixes Road. The cost approaches $1 billion, to be funded largely by gas taxes paid by all Georgia drivers -- whether or not they drive the toll lanes -- and by tolls.

A Cherokee County homeowner and a sheriff’s deputy had a too-close encounter with a black bear this week, with the animal at one point stamping its feet and putting a scare into the humans, authorities said. The incident happened shortly before 8 p.m.

It had all the makings of a potential methamphetamine lab. A lot of chemicals. A garage. And a homeowner out of town. But if the two "suspects" were trying to produce meth, they weren't following the right recipe, the Cherokee County Sheriff's Office said Thursday afternoon.

Charges are pending against the man accused of driving through a Cherokee County home, police said Tuesday. Homeowner Gordon McDowell said he was at work Monday afternoon when he got a call from a neighbor: Someone had driven a car all the way through McDowell's house.

The City of Canton announced Monday it has a new police chief, Florida lawman Robert C. Merchant, brought in to restore the reputation and revive the morale of a department still trying to recover from its mishandling of the investigation into the abduction and killing of 7-year-old Jorelys Rivera last December.

The fight over the state’s role in charter schools started in many ways at Cherokee Charter Academy. So it was fitting Thursday that Gov. Nathan Deal was at the school to establish the next battleground in the dispute, with the stroke of a pen. Flanked by students and the 6-member Cherokee County delegation that pushed House Bill 797 through the legislature, Deal signed it into law, putting the charter schools question up to voters as a proposed amendment on the statewide ballot in November.

Construction is beginning on a metro Atlanta outlet mall scheduled to open next summer. The Outlet Shoppes at Atlanta, in Woodstock, is scheduled to open in August 2013. The 370,600-square-foot center about 40 minutes northwest of Atlanta was originally intended to be an outdoor-shopping lifestyle center, but the plans were changed to an discount outlet mall after the recession hit, and the open-air malls had begun to fall out of favor.

A 24-year-old Marietta man died Wednesday after the motorcycle he was driving collided head-on with a sport-utility vehicle in Cherokee County, authorities said. Derrick Ferree was on his motorcycle on Bascomb Carmel Road near Bascomb Springs in Woodstock about 5 p.

The argument that triggered a stand-off ending in the death of a Cherokee County teen was made of ordinary parent-teen trials. Lisa Messina was upset about Andrew's bad grades. She worried the 16-year-old was running with the wrong crowd. A common argument, but on Tuesday, something was different.

For 10 months a battle has raged in Cherokee County over charter schools. A bill passed by the legislature putting a charter school amendment on the ballot November has done little to clear the smoke or diffuse the heat. It has just ignited new opposition in the county and given rise to the prospect that the debate and battle could expand across the state, say opponents of the amendment that would give Georgia the power to create charter schools without local school board approval.

A Stone Mountain man has been arrested and charged with sending obscene content over the Internet to a 13-year-old girl in Canton, authorities said. Canton police detectives, assisted by DeKalb County police, arrested 24-year-old Kyle Alexander Williams at his home Wednesday and charged him with computer pornography and electronically furnishing obscene material to minors, according to Canton police.

Professional wrestler Marcus "Buff" Bagwell may have suffered a seizure just before he was seriously injured when he flipped his Jeep, according to a police report obtained by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Bagwell remained in intensive care Wednesday with several broken bones in his neck, face and jaw two days after the Cherokee County wreck, Ron Gossett, president of Universal Championship Wrestling, told the AJC.

Some people have a hard time separating work from pleasure. But for a Cherokee County firefighter and paramedic, it meant being in the right place to help save a little boy's life. Joshua Ellis and his wife had just ordered dinner Saturday night at restaurant overlooking a pool and beach in Destin, Fla.

A 2-year-old girl is in critical condition after a single-car wreck in Waleska on Friday afternoon, the Cherokee County Sheriff’s Office said. A car driven by 27-year-old Joey Holloway of Canton collided with a tree off Ga. 108 near James White Trail, Lt.

The Cherokee Department of Family and Children Services is seeking a new building to house its approximately 65 employees but the Canton City Council has twice tabled a $3.7 million deal for a facility because some members say it’s too costly and could leave taxpayers on the hook financially.

The Canton City Council voted 5-1 Thursday to put City Manager Scott Wood on probation and reassess his performance in six months. The decision came in a meeting called to address council concerns about the way Wood has handled himself and city business in recent months.

A Cherokee County man  reported missing early Tuesday afternoon remained missing on Wednesday, authorities said. Sheriff's office investigators are looking for 41-year-old Kevin Anthony Cryderman, who left the 1500 block of Hunter Trail in Woodstock on foot.

A DNA test on skeletal remains unearthed in Marietta have determined that they are not those of a 36-year-old single mother who disappeared from her mobile home in nearby Cherokee County in 1992. Cobb County police realized in the fall that the bones, found in 1993, had never been DNA tested.

Canton police said the driver of a 2011 Chevrolet Silverado apparently suffered a seizure before driving the truck into the swimming pool of a Days Inn on Friday night. Three police officer jumped into the pool of the motel at 101 Juniper Street in Canton to pull out the man and a child who was riding with him, said Sgt.

Two more arrests have been made in the beating earlier this month of a man found stuffed in the trunk of his car during a traffic stop in Alabama. Cherokee County sheriff's Lt. Jay Baker said Lyndon Baines Smith, 46, was beaten on March 4th in the Bridgemill subdivision near Canton.

The Cherokee County Sheriff’s Office canceled an alert Thursday night for a 14-year-old girl who disappeared from her family's Canton home earlier in the day. "The 14 missing girl from Canton has been located and is OK," Lt. Jay Baker, spokesman for the Cherokee Sheriff's Office, said in an email set shortly before 10 p.

A draft of a consultant’s report finally details what the Hickory Log Creek Reservoir costs Canton: about $2 million a year in bond payments, construction and operating costs. The report, evaluating the worth of the 414-acre Cherokee County reservoir, was obtained by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution through an open records request.

A Cherokee County man has been charged in the beating death of his girlfriend's dog. Juan Furlan, 19, was arrested Wednesday after a necropsy report from the University of Georgia indicated that the dog, a chocolate Chihuahua, died of multiple trauma throughout its body, said Lt.

The wife of Cherokee County's emergency management director, seriously injured when her vehicle was struck head-on by a minivan last month, has died. Donna Marie Westbrook, 49, suffered multiple leg fractures in the Feb. 10 wreck on Ga. 108 that killed the driver of the minivan.

A Cherokee County man was charged Tuesday after allegedly shooting his son-in-law during an argument, authorities said. Cherokee  Sheriff’s Lt. Jay Baker said Kamoana Hopeau, 30, of Blue Ridge went to his in-laws’ house on Bascomb Carmel Road off Ga. 92 about 7:30 a.

A community service worker who claims he was subjected to inappropriate and sexually suggestive remarks from Canton's director of Public Works said Monday he’s not satisfied that David Cangemi has been disciplined enough by the city. But the city's mayor said no more steps will be taken in the matter.

The Texas man who caused a wreck that killed him and his baby's mother was driving intoxicated at the time, Cherokee County authorities said Monday. Rick Dean Headen, 48, had a blood alcohol level of .218, slightly less than three times the legal limit in Georgia, at the time of the Feb.

Cherokee health officials said Friday an unknown number of people may have come in contact with a kitten that tested positive for rabies this week. Authorities say the gray-striped kitten with medium-length fur was at a Starbucks at 1353 Riverstone Parkway in Canton from Feb.

A Canton man was killed Friday in an early morning wreck in Cherokee County. The two-car accident happened about 2:30 a.m. on East Cherokee Drive at Union Hill Road in the Union Hill community, Cherokee sheriff's Lt. Jay Baker said. Baker said James Allen Pressley, 48, was ejected from his vehicle and died at the scene.

A 22-year-old Atlanta man is accused of beating another man, then putting him in the trunk of the victim's car and driving to Alabama, according to police. Melvin Floyd was arrested in Cleburne County, Ala., after a traffic stop Sunday and is expected to be returned to Cherokee County, Lt.

A former, longtime librarian at Reinhardt University is accused of having images of child pornography in his office, Cherokee County police said Tuesday. Michael Martinez, 59, of Esom Hill, was arrested Tuesday and charged with six counts of child exploitation, according to Lt.

A 59-year-old Woodstock man was in jail Tuesday after he allegedly pitched a fit in a Cherokee County office. When the county denied him a business license to sell ice cream from a vehicle, Charles Cormier Clifford apparently became angry -- which isn’t a crime -- but then he allegedly said he’d “shoot up the place,” which is.

An early morning fire Monday destroyed an office complex in Cherokee County, authorities said. Cherokee fire spokesman Tim Cavender said the fire on Sixes Road near Bells Ferry Road was reported just after 5 a.m. "Firefighters arrived on the scene to find heavy flames and smoke coming from the Vince Merolla Executive Suites," Cavender said.

For 15 years, hordes of shoppers have streamed into the Wal-Mart Supercenter in Canton. The hilltop along I-575 is a prime commercial location in Cherokee County, a fast-growing community with one foot in metro Atlanta and another in the North Georgia mountains.

A Canton woman was killed and several people injured in a three-vehicle wreck Thursday afternoon in Cherokee County, according to police. The wreck shortly after 3 p.m. temporarily closed part of Marietta Highway near exit 14 on I-575 while emergency responders worked to clear the wreck.

A boil water advisory has been lifted for Canton residents, city officials said Tuesday afternoon. The advisory had been in effect since Sunday following a water main break. The water main break effected areas west of I-575, including downtown Canton and an area from Ga.

There was something suspicious about a man wearing a mask and sitting in a car outside a couple of banks in Canton on Thursday. A concerned citizen called police to report seeing the masked driver in a parking lot near a CVS pharmacy and two banks at Sixes and Bells Ferry roads, authorities said.

Four people from North Georgia were arrested Thursday in a month-long drug investigation in Cherokee County. Authorities seized approximately 12 pounds of marijuana and uncovered three indoor marijuana grow operations, including 106 marijuana plants, said Cherokee Sheriff's spokesman Lt.

A 12-year-old Cherokee County boy who allegedly ran away Wednesday night is now in more trouble than ever. Authorities have filed juvenile charges against him, Channel 2 Action News reported. The youngster was last seen about 8:30 p.m. at a strip shopping center on Bells Ferry Road, across the street from Liberty Elementary School in Canton, according to the Cherokee County Sheriff’s Office.

Atlanta police on Tuesday announced a number of promotions in the wake of the retirement of one of the department’s deputy police chiefs. Deputy Chief Calvin Moss, head of the criminal investigations division, will retire Wednesday after 31 years with the department.

The mother of a murdered 7-year-old girl has sued the Cherokee County apartment complex where her family lived, saying it hired a maintenance man with a history of crimes against children who later murdered her daughter. Ryan Brunn confessed to killing Jorelys Rivera days after her body was found in a trash compactor at the River Ridge at Canton apartment complex.

A Woodstock man has been charged with spying on his neighbors through the back door of their home, police said. Craig Landrum, 26, was arrested in the early morning hours of Feb. 5 after his neighbor called Woodstock police to report that he had a prowler pinned on the kitchen floor, police said.

A Canton man was killed in ahead-on collision Friday in Pickens County, a Georgia State Patrol spokesman confirmed Saturday. Juan Cutierrez-Munoz, 51, was driving a Chevrolet Lumina when it crossed the center line on GA 108 at Old Waleska Highway around 4:30 p.

Jocelyn Rivera, mother of a 7-year-old girl murdered in late 2011 in Canton, is fulfilling her wish of creating an organization to help parents handle similar crises. "That's something that I dreamed of because I think a foundation would help [provide] moral and financial support to other families suffering like me," Rivera told Mundo Hispanico this week.

Speed was not factor in a crash that killed a Texas couple and seriously injured their 2-month-old baby, police said Monday. But Cherokee County investigators have not yet determined if alcohol was. Beer cans were found in the car, and toxicology reports are pending to determine if the father, Rick Dean Headen, was driving under the influence at the time of crash, Lt.

Moments after Ryan Brunn admitted he had killed 7-year-old Jorelys Rivera, he agreed to be re-interviewed by GBI agents wanting more insight into the killer's actions. At the end of the three-hour interview, Brunn invited the agents to visit him in prison.