Miami-Dade officer buys food for mom caught shoplifting | Bay News 9

A police officer in south Florida was so moved by the plight of a struggling single mother who was caught shoplifting that she helped her out.

Miami-Dade Police Officer Vicki Thomas purchased $100 in groceries for Jessica Robles, who admitted she made a decision to shoplift groceries out of desperation.

“I asked her, ‘Why would you do that? What would make you do that?’ ” said Thomas, the officer who stopped Robles. “And she said, ‘My children are hungry.”

Robles said she found herself in a situation where she looked at her the children, 12-year-old Anais and two younger boys, and realized she had no money left for food.

“Not fun, to see my brother in the dirt hungry, asking for food, and we have to tell him, ‘There is nothing here,’ ” Anais told WSVN, fighting back tears as she recalled how she had to tell her little brothers, ages 2 and 6, that they were out of food.

Instead of taking Robles into custody, Thomas ran her criminal history and found nothing major. The officer saw Robles was not a habitual shoplifter, so she charged her with a misdemeanor and a notice to appear in court.

Thomas also took an extra step to help Robles and her children. “I made the decision to buy her some groceries because arresting her wasn’t going to solve the problem with her children being hungry,” she said.

WE LOVE OUR DOGS

Healthy house food for man best friend

Instructions

1.Combine seven cups of a quality protein source with five cups of a carbohydrate. Good protein sources include meat, poultry and fish, such as beef or turkey. Carbohydrates you could add are brown rice, pasta or potatoes. Mix these cooked ingredients together in a large bowl.

2.Puree a combination of four cups of cooked fruits and vegetables together. Use a 3/4 to 1/4 ratio of vegetables to fruit, or three cups of vegetables to one cup of fruit. Fruits and vegetables that are healthy for dogs include blueberries, carrots, green beans, apples, pears, strawberries and bananas. Avoid grapes, raisins and onions. Add the puree to the meat and carbohydrate mixture and combine well.

3.Add three tbsp. of canola oil to the mixture, along with 1/2 tsp. of salt and a daily multivitamin or mineral supplement. Divide the recipe into four equal servings and feed your dog two servings a day. Refrigerate the rest.

FoodCORE

Each year, foodborne diseases cause illness in 1 in 6 Americans (or about 48 million people), resulting in about 128,000 hospitalizations and 3,000 deaths. FoodCORE is a program supported by CDC that helps states detect and respond to multistate foodborne disease outbreaks.

In 2011, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) monitored 15–40 potential food poisoning clusters each week and investigated more than 200 multistate clusters of foodborne disease in people. These investigations led to 17 recalls of contaminated foods.

The foods involved in these clusters are many and varied, which can complicate the investigation of foodborne disease outbreaks. Fast and effective outbreak investigations are therefore needed to identify and remove contaminated food from the market to prevent additional illnesses. Identifying contaminated foods and learning how the contamination happened also help public health officials develop ways to prevent similar outbreaks in the future. However, most state health departments lack the resources to perform comprehensive foodborne disease surveillance and to conduct rapid, coordinated detection and response to multistate outbreaks. FoodCORE is a program supported by CDC that helps states improve their capacity to detect and respond to multistate foodborne disease outbreaks.

What is FoodCORE?

“FoodCORE” stands for Foodborne Diseases Centers for Outbreak Response Enhancement. The FoodCORE centers work together to develop new and better methods to detect, investigate, respond to, and control multistate outbreaks of foodborne diseases. Efforts are primarily focused on outbreaks caused by bacteria, including Salmonella, Shiga toxin-producing Escherichia coli (STEC), and Listeria. The ability to detect and investigate viral and parasitic foodborne disease outbreaks will also be strengthened. FoodCORE in action

Investigating outbreaks of foodborne disease

During the program’s first year (October 1, 2010 to September 30, 2011), the FoodCORE laboratories received a total of 8,264 Salmonella, 916 STEC, and 89 Listeria isolate-yielding specimens; of these, 7,677 (93%) Salmonella, 787 (86%) STEC, and 83 (93%) Listeria isolates, respectively, were from patients with distinct cases of illness.

FoodCORE resources supported additional capacity for epidemiologic interview and investigation, resulting in an increased proportion of ill persons for whom epidemiology programs attempted an interview. Data from the first half of year one were combined and used as a comparative baseline for the last quarter of year one. For Salmonella infections, the average proportion of ill persons with an attempted interview increased from 88% (range 53-100%) at baseline to 94% (range 78-100%) during the last quarter. The average proportion of attempted interviews for ill persons with STEC infection increased from 90% (range 60-100%) during baseline, to 97% (range 89-100%) during the last quarter. For Listeria infections, the average proportion of cases with an attempted interview remained at 100% for all of year one.

In addition to attempting an interview for the majority of reported ill persons, FoodCORE centers also improved the timeliness of interviews. The average turn-around time from notification to first attempted interview decreased as follows: for Salmonella cases, from 1.3 days (range 0-3 days) during baseline to 0.6 days (range 0-2 days) during the last quarter; for STEC infections, from 2.7 days (range 1-5 days) during baseline to 0.6 days (range 0-1 day) during the last quarter; and for Listeria infections, from 7 days (range 3-11 days) during baseline to 0.7 days (range 0-1 day) during the last quarter.

Better, faster, and more complete foodborne outbreak investigations

Leveraging laboratory, epidemiology, and environmental health capacity, the centers have successfully used FoodCORE resources to improve the way they conduct outbreak investigations and to strengthen routine foodborne disease response activities. FoodCORE centers have built capacity for both routine and surge responses, making faster, more complete investigations possible. Using FoodCORE resources, the centers have solved outbreaks that would not have been solved otherwise, thereby preventing illnesses. These additional resources have supported collection and analysis of foodborne disease-related data and records, resulting in more rapid food recall actions. Identifying suspected and confirmed contaminated foods associated with illness helps mitigate ongoing outbreaks, but also informs prevention and education efforts to keep similar outbreaks from happening in the future.

FoodCORE is establishing model practices for the detection, investigation, response, and control of foodborne diseases. FoodCORE centers work collaboratively to identify and implement public health practices that can help shorten the time it takes to identify a source of infection and pinpoint how and why contamination occurred, in order to limit additional illnesses and help prevent future outbreaks.