Dozens of people are signing up to see who will be top dog in a local hot dog eating contest.

“The hot dog eating contest is one of a kind and has never been done here,” said Tony Scudiero, St. Jo Frontier Casino General Manager.  “We wanted to do a promotion that was similar to the national contest but on a little smaller scale.”

Scudiero is referring to the Nathan’s International Hod Dog Eating Contest held every 4th of July where thousands of people descend on Coney Island to try to eat the most hot dogs.

He said the casino decided not to hold their contest on Independence Day because of the number of activities already taking place around the casino with the annual fireworks display so they decided on July 18.

“We’re always looking for new things to find out what our customers of the people in this area like so we just thought what the heck let’s try a hot dog eating contest and if it works we’ll bring it back next year,” said Scudiero.

The contest will be held Saturday, July 18 at 2 p.m. at the St. Jo Frontier Casino.  It’s free but participants must be 21 to enter.  A $1,000 grand prize will be awarded to whoever can eat the most dogs.

“We’ll be cooking quite a few hot dogs here on a large scale,” said Scudiero. “We could probably be looking at 2,000 hot dogs so that we don’t run out.”

As of Friday afternoon there were already 25 people signed up for the contest.  Participants have until July 17 as of closing time to sign up with the St. Joe Frontier Casino, it’s free to participate.

“We would love to have at least 50 for our first ever hot dog contest,” he said. “Amateurs only, no professionals.”

Unlike the national hot dog eating competition, Scudiero said participants will not have to eat any buns, it’s hot dogs only.

“We wanted to make it a little simpler and hopefully a little less difficult on participant’s stomachs,” he said.

 

The St. Joseph Police Department is urging area residents to get to know one-another.

“When I was a kid and when most of us were kids we had a neighborhood and people knew what was going on and they knew the guy next door and they knew what the neighbor’s drove so when they saw a different car in the driveway they knew it didn’t belong there,” said Sgt. Greg Gilpin, Crime Prevention officer with the St. Joseph Police Department.  “Anymore and it’s not just St. Joe it’s all over the place we kind of got just a group of homes where people go to work, come home, pull in the garage and don’t come back out until it’s time to go to work or school or something.”

The department even took to social media to try and combat “Neighborhood Isolation.”  In a Facebook post the department asked residents to try and get out this summer to visit their neighbor’s and get back to knowing who lives around them.

“How well do you know your neighbors…I mean really know them? Do you know them by name, what they drive, where they work, and when they are usually at home? Unfortunately many people would answer no,” the post said.

Gilpin said he feels technology has been a big factor in the change over the years.

“I kind of think of that Tracy Lawrence song ‘If the world had a front porch like we did back then,’ you know when people sat on the front porch and got to know people,” Gilpin said. “But everybody’s so busy with technology that instead of talking to them they just send them a text.  They never really talk to somebody face-to-face.”

He said getting to know your neighbors can be a big factor in security.

“If you look over at your neighbor’s house and you see a red truck backed up to a garage and some guy loading stuff up out of the garage to an officer driving down the street that might not look suspicious but if you know that that neighbor is usually at work this time of day and that he drives a brown 4-door car and that doesn’t look right to you pick up the phone and give us a call,” Gilpin said. “I think just people had a better idea of what was going on around them because they spent more time outside.”

So Gilpin is asking residents to make an effort to get to know their neighbor’s this summer.

“I’d just like people to get outside, and meet people face-to-face and introduce themselves,” Gilpin said. “If somebody new moves in, walk over and say ‘Hi’ and introduce yourself.  That’s kind of the way neighborhood’s used to work.”

 

 

A man’s life was saved Thursday in St. Joseph when a police officer stopped to see what was going on.

“Officer Kyle Graham was en-route to a call last night, he observed a subject along the side of the road bleeding profusely from his arm.  He stopped, rendered first-aid, applied a tourniquet to the arm, contacted an ambulance, the ambulance arrived and rushed the gentleman to the hospital,” Commander Eric Protzman said. “He had a cut to a brachial artery.  Had it not been for officer Graham’s quick actions the gentleman would have lost blood and probably been deceased.”

31-year-old Graham has only been with the St. Joseph Police Department since January of this year. He was on his way to a report of a stolen vehicle call on Lake Avenue just before 7 p.m. when he notice the man on the side of the road.

“You never know when you respond somewhere what you may come across, what you may encounter so you need to be prepared and ready to do whatever with what may come up,” Protzman said.

The man was taken to Mosaic Life Care for treatment.  Protzman did not know the cause of the man’s injury when the St. Joseph Post spoke to him.  However, he said the Police Department will likely recognize Graham’s quick actions that saved the man’s life.

“We have a procedure we go through,” Protzman said. “We have an awards panel that looks over incidents and determines what the appropriate recognition would be.”

 

The St. Joseph Police Department is looking for three suspect after a woman was allegedly tased with a stun gun trying to prevent her store from being robbed.

Officers responded to Famous Footwear located at 5201 N. Belt Highway around 1:40 p.m. to a report of a woman being assaulted trying to prevent a robbery.

Officer Scott Vanover said the store manager attempted to stop alleged shoplifters who then pushed her out of the way. He said the suspects went to leave in their vehicle and the store manager followed attempting to get their license plate number.

“A black male grabbed a taser and chased the store manager,” Vanover said. “Tased her once knocking her to the ground.”

Vanover said the store manager got back up and tried to get away when the man tased her again and hit her.

She sustained only minor injuries and refused medical treatment.

Police have released descriptions of three suspects wanted in connection with this incident.  Commander Eric Protzman said police are looking for a black man around 5’5 of medium build with curly blond hair, a black female around 5’10 skinny with a shaved head, and a black female with long wavy hair.   The vehicle they drove away in is described as a white car, possibly a Pontiac Grand Prix.

Protzman said authorities are currently looking into the possibility of surveillance footage that may help in the investigation

Anyone with information is asked to call the St. Joseph Police Department or the TIPS Hotline at (816) 238-TIPS.

A St. Joseph Woman has been charged for a second time this year with Misusing “911”.

58-year-old Haleh Lameh was charged Wednesday with a misdemeanor in Buchanan County for Misusing “911”.

According to court documents, Lameh called the emergency line four times on Tuesday. When police responded they found her reports to be false each time.

“The Defendant has called the 911 emergency line a total of forty two times since 01/01/2015,” Timothy Schweder, a Detective for the St. Joseph Police Department said in his sworn statement. “According to Officer reports and the Buchanan County/City of St. Joseph, Mo. Police, Fire and EMS Dispatching records the defendant is a habitual 911 emergency line abuser.”

During the course of the investigation Schweder said it was determined that Lameh does not have an accurate account of how many times she had called 911 in the recent past and that she becomes intoxicated on a daily basis.

It’s the second time this year Lamah has been charged with the same crime. According to online court record, in April Lameh was sentenced to three days behind bars after pleading guilty to Misusing 911 on April 4th.

She has three prior arrests for 911 abuse.

An arraignment is set for Friday.

Lameh is currently being held on $5000.00 cash bond.