For the past two weeks, we have been scrolling down the top 10 stories of the year 2010. Here is the top story of 2010:
It was like a shootout from the wild-west. On February 15th, two Starke County officers tried to serve a felony warrant on Michael Drogosz at Bass Lake.
After he failed to come out, officers called for a SWAT team. Before those officers could arrive, officers Don Ferguson and Bill Dulin took fire from inside the residence. With bullets whizzing too close for comfort, the officers fired back in self defense.
A second frightening event then unfolded, as John Brooke in body armor approached the home on foot. John Brooke, it was reported at the time, was carrying an assault rifle. Officer Fred Baker was in the vicinity and it was felt he would have been in imminent danger had shots been fired. It ended well, when tear gas flushed Drogosz from the home.
But that was not the end of the story, as police found a cache of guns, and molotov cocktails that law enforcement officers subsequently found out were to be used in the robbery of one or more Starke County banks.
Drogosz was sentenced to 70 years in prison and the other arrested participants either have been sentenced, or are awaiting trial. What it showed was that just because we live in a peaceful rural county, crime can break out in many ways. Since the event, the police have upgraded their firepower and training.
