Marriott-Slaterville City Receives the Dubious Honor of the Top Crime Story of March 2002 December 29, 2002 Standard-Examiner Inside Cases ran the gamut in the Top of Utah from cockfighting to murder Standard-Examiner police and courts team The Olympics, cockfights, Internet sex stings and gangland murders. Fraud rings, crooked car dealers and a rash of prescription drug robberies. High-profile trials and the public fighting back with a vengeance. When it came to crime in 2002, the Top of Utah had it all. Perhaps the most disturbing is the fact that half the alleged murders in the Top of Utah over the year were of children younger than 12 years old. (See adjoining graphics) Following are some of the highlights and low-lights of the year in crime. January The year roared in like a lion as 2002 Winter Olympics security officials began feeling the pressure of having the world at their door. Members of the Utah Olympic Public Safety Command and contracted federal, state and local law enforcement agencies had been prepar- Fighting Internet predators / 6A Weitzel found not guilty the second time around/7A B Prescription painkillers increasingly used illegally / 7A Davis and Box Elder homicide cases / 8A ing for several years prior to the Games coming, but after the attacks of Sept. 11, security was perhaps the Games' biggest question mark. Just coordinating nearly 10,000 security personnel was one of the most challenging issues of the Games, officials said. Drills also included mock security events at each of the Olympic venues from Ogden to Provo. The scenarios included crowd management, athlete transportation routes, natural disasters, massive traffic jams, bomb-sniffing dogs and even an outbreak of pick-pockets around the Olympic Medals Plaza. A 45-nautical mile umbrella was set up in airspace around Salt Lake City, a move that most private plane owners and operators at Ogden-Hinckley Airport said killed their business. March_- With the extinguishing of the Olympic Flame, the army of law enforcement also disappeared, and local police officers went back to their normal routines while trying to catch their breath, from a whirlwind two months. It didn't take long for things to get interesting. On March 17, Weber County Sheriff's deputies stumbled onto a massive cockfighting ring in the Marriott-Slaterville area. Deputies found the carcasses of 40 dead roosters scattered around two full-size fighting rings inside a warehouse, along with 61 live roosters in cages stacked up around the rings. No criminal charges were ever brought. 63