凍結 天然氣 火車 Frozen Gas Train

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Justices’ Ruling Expands Rights of Accused in Plea Bargains

By ADAM LIPTAK

Published: March 21, 2012

WASHINGTON — Criminal defendants have a constitutional right to effective lawyers during plea negotiations, the Supreme Court ruled on Wednesday in a pair of 5-to-4 decisions that vastly expanded judges’ supervision of the criminal justice system.

The decisions mean that what used to be informal and unregulated deal making is now subject to new constraints when bad legal advice leads defendants to reject favorable plea offers.

“Criminal justice today is for the most part a system of pleas, not a system of trials,” Justice Anthony M. Kennedy wrote for the majority. “The right to adequate assistance of counsel cannot be defined or enforced without taking account of the central role plea bargaining takes in securing convictions and determining sentences.”

Justice Kennedy, who more often joins the court’s conservative wing in ideologically divided cases, was in this case in a coalition with the court’s four more liberal members. That alignment has sometimes arisen in recent years in cases that seemed to offend Justice Kennedy’s sense of fair play.

The consequences of the two decisions are hard to predict because, as Justice Antonin Scalia said in a pair of dissents he summarized from the bench, “the court leaves all of this to be worked out in further litigation, which you can be sure there will be plenty of.”

Claims of ineffective assistance at trial are commonplace even though trials take place under a judge’s watchful eye. Challenges to plea agreements based on misconduct by defense lawyers will presumably be common as well, given how many more convictions follow guilty pleas and the fluid nature of plea negotiations.

Justice Scalia wrote that expanding constitutional protections to that realm “opens a whole new boutique of constitutional jurisprudence,” calling it “plea-bargaining law.”

Scholars agreed about its significance.

“The Supreme Court’s decision in these two cases constitute the single greatest revolution in the criminal justice process since Gideon v. Wainwright provided indigents the right to counsel,” said Wesley M. Oliver, a law professor at Widener University, referring to the landmark 1963 decision.

In the context of trials, the Supreme Court has long established that defendants were entitled to new trials if they could show that incompetent work by their lawyers probably affected the outcome. The Supreme Court has also required lawyers to offer competent advice in urging defendants to give up their right to a trial by accepting a guilty plea. Those cases hinged on the right to a fair trial guaranteed by the Sixth Amendment.

The cases decided Wednesday answered a harder question: What is to be done in cases in which a lawyer’s incompetence caused the client to reject a favorable plea bargain?

Justice Kennedy, joined by Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen G. Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan, acknowledged that allowing the possibility of do-overs in cases involving foregone pleas followed by convictions presented all sorts of knotty problems. But he said the realities of American criminal justice required to the court to take action.

Some 97 percent of convictions in federal courts were the result of guilty pleas. In 2006, the last year for which data was available, the corresponding percentage in state courts was 94.

“In today’s criminal justice system,” Justice Kennedy wrote, “the negotiation of a plea bargain, rather than the unfolding of a trial, is almost always the critical point for a defendant.”

Quoting from law review articles, Justice Kennedy wrote that plea bargaining “is not some adjunct to the criminal justice system; it is the criminal justice system.” He added that “longer sentences exist on the books largely for bargaining purposes.”

One of the cases, Missouri v. Frye, No. 10-444, involved Galin E. Frye, who was charged with driving without a license in 2007. A prosecutor offered to let him plead guilty in exchange for a 90-day sentence.

But Mr. Frye’s lawyer at the time, Michael Coles, failed to tell his client of the offer. After it expired, Mr. Frye pleaded guilty without a plea bargain, and a judge sentenced him to three years.

A state appeals court reversed his conviction but said it did not have the power to order the state to reduce the charges against him. That left Mr. Frye roughly where he started, with the options of going to trial or pleading guilty without the benefit of a plea deal.

Justice Kennedy wrote that Mr. Frye should have been allowed to try to prove that he would have accepted the original offer. But that was only the beginning of what Mr. Frye would have to show to get relief. He would also have to demonstrate, Justice Kennedy wrote, that prosecutors would not have later withdrawn the offer had he accepted it, as they were allowed to do under state law. Finally, Justice Kennedy went on, Mr. Frye would have to show that the court would have accepted the agreement.

There was reason for doubt that Mr. Frye could prove that prosecutors and the court would have ended up going along with the original 90-day offer, as Mr. Frye was again arrested for driving without a license before the original plea agreement would have become final.

Justice Scalia, in a dissent joined by Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel A. Alito Jr., called all of this “a process of retrospective crystal-ball gazing posing as legal analysis.”

The second case, Lafler v. Cooper, No. 10-209, concerned Anthony Cooper, who shot a woman in Detroit in 2003 and then received bad legal advice. Because all four of his bullets had struck the victim below her waist, his lawyer incorrectly said, Mr. Cooper could not be convicted of assault with intent to murder.

Based on that advice, Mr. Cooper rejected a plea bargain that called for a sentence of four to seven years. He was convicted, and is serving 15 to 30 years.

Justice Kennedy rejected the argument that a fair trial was all Mr. Cooper was entitled to.

“The favorable sentence that eluded the defendant in the criminal proceeding appears to be the sentence he or others in his position would have received in the ordinary course, absent the failings of counsel,” he wrote.

A federal judge in Mr. Cooper’s case tried to roll back the clock, requiring officials to provide him with the initial deal or release him. Justice Kennedy said the correct remedy was to require the plea deal to be re-offered and then to allow the trial court to resentence Mr. Cooper as it sees fit if he accepts it.

Justice Scalia, here joined by Chief Justice Roberts and Justice Thomas, said this was “a remedy unheard of in American jurisprudence.”

“I suspect that the court’s squeamishness in fashioning a remedy, and the incoherence of what it comes up with, is attributable to its realization, deep down, that there is no real constitutional violation here anyway,” Justice Scalia wrote. “The defendant has been fairly tried, lawfully convicted and properly sentenced, and any ‘remedy’ provided for this will do nothing but undo the just results of a fair adversarial process.”

Stephanos Bibas, a law professor at the University of Pennsylvania and an authority on plea bargaining, said the decisions were a great step forward. But he acknowledged that it may give rise to gamesmanship.

“It is going to be tricky,” he said, “and there are going to be a lot of defendants who say after they’re convicted that they really would have taken the plea.”

Justice Kennedy suggested several “measures to help ensure against late, frivolous or fabricated claims.” Among them were requiring that plea offers be in writing or made in open court.

This article talks about how the Supreme Court case will effect plea bargains in Arizona.

1984 is here, even if it is a few years late!

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Computer chips keep track of students in Brazil

Mar. 22, 2012 12:15 PM

Associated Press

SAO PAULO -- Grade-school students in a northeastern Brazilian city are using uniforms embedded with computer chips that alert parents if they're cutting classes, the city's education secretary said Thursday.

Twenty thousand students in 25 of the of Vitoria da Conquista's 213 public schools started using T-shirts with chips earlier this week, secretary Coriolano Moraes said by telephone.

By 2013, all of the city's 43,000 public school students -- aged 4 to 14 -- will be using the chip-embedded T-shirts, he added.

The "intelligent uniforms" tell parents when their children enter the school building by sending a text message to their cell phones. Parents are also alerted if kids don't show up 20 minutes after classes begin with the following message: "Your child has still not arrived at school."

"We noticed that many parents would bring their children to school but would not see if they actually entered the building because they always left in a hurry to get to work on time," Moraes said in a telephone interview. "They would always be surprised when told of the number times their children skipped class.

After a student skips classes three times parents will be asked to explain the absences. If they fail to do so the school may notify authorities, Moares said.

The city government invested $670,000 to design, test and make the microchipped T-shirts, he said.

The chips are placed underneath each school's coat-of-arms or on one of the sleeves below a phrase that says: "Education does not transform the world. Education changes people and people transform the world."

The T-shirts, can be washed and ironed without damaging the chips, Moraes said adding that the chips have a "security system that makes tampering virtually impossible."

Moraes said that Vitoria da Conquista is the first city in Brazil "and maybe in the world" to use this system.

"I believe we may be setting a trend because we have received many requests from all over Brazil for information on how our system works," he said.

Uncle Sam is spying on you

U.S. to keep data on citizens with no terror ties

by Eileen Sullivan - Mar. 22, 2012 08:53 PM

Associated Press

WASHINGTON - The U.S. intelligence community will be able to store information about Americans with no ties to terrorism for up to five years under new Obama administration guidelines.

Until now, the National Counterterrorism Center had to destroy immediately information about Americans that already was stored in other government databases when there were no clear ties to terrorism.

Giving the NCTC expanded record-retention authority had been urged by members of Congress, who said the intelligence community did not connect strands of intelligence held by multiple agencies leading up to a failed bombing attempt on a U.S.-bound airliner on Christmas 2009.

"Following the failed terrorist attack in December 2009, representatives of the counterterrorism community concluded it is vital for NCTC to be provided with a variety of datasets from various agencies that contain terrorism information," Director of National Intelligence James Clapper said in a statement late Thursday. "The ability to search against these datasets for up to five years on a continuing basis as these updated guidelines permit will enable NCTC to accomplish its mission more practically and effectively."

The new rules replace guidelines issued in 2008 and have privacy advocates concerned about the potential for data-mining information on innocent Americans.

"It is a vast expansion of the government's surveillance authority," Marc Rotenberg, executive director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center, said of the five-year retention period.

The government put in strong safeguards at the NCTC for the data that would be collected on U.S. citizens for intelligence purposes, Rotenberg said. These new guidelines undercut the Federal Privacy Act, he said.

"The fact that this data can be retained for five years on U.S. citizens for whom there's no evidence of criminal conduct is very disturbing," Rotenberg said.

"Total Information Awareness appears to be reconstructing itself," he said, referring to the Defense Department's data-mining research program that began after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks but was stopped in 2003 because of privacy concerns.

The Washington Post first reported the new rules Thursday.

The Obama administration said the new rules come with strong safeguards for privacy and civil liberties, as well.

The NCTC was created after the Sept. 11 attacks to analyze and integrate intelligence regarding terrorism.

New counterterrorism guidelines

New counterterrorism guidelines permit data on U.S. citizens to be held longer

By Sari Horwitz and Ellen Nakashima, Published: March 22

The Obama administration has approved guidelines that allow counterterrorism officials to lengthen the period of time they retain information about U.S. residents, even if they have no known connection to terrorism.

The changes allow the National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC), the intelligence community’s clearinghouse for terrorism data, to keep information for up to five years. Previously, the center was required to promptly destroy — generally within 180 days — any information about U.S. citizens or residents unless a connection to terrorism was evident.

The new guidelines, which were approved Thursday by Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr., have been in the works for more than a year, officials said.

The guidelines have prompted concern from civil liberties advocates.

Those advocates have repeatedly clashed with the administration over a host of national security issues, including its military detention without trial of individuals in Afghanistan and at Guantanamo Bay, its authorization of the killing of U.S.-born cleric Anwar al-Awlaki in a drone strike in Yemen, and its prosecution of an unprecedented number of suspects in the leaking of classified information.

Officials said the guidelines are aimed at making sure relevant terrorism information is readily accessible to analysts, while guarding against privacy intrusions. Among other provisions, agencies that share data with the NCTC may negotiate to have the data held for shorter periods. That information can pertain to noncitizens as well as to “U.S. persons” — American citizens and legal permanent residents.

The director of national intelligence, James R. Clapper Jr., has signed off on the changes.

“A number of different agencies looked at these to try to make sure that everyone was comfortable that we had the correct balance here between the information-sharing that was needed to protect the country and protections for people’s privacy and civil liberties,” said Robert S. Litt, the general counsel in the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, which oversees the NCTC.

Although the guidelines cover a variety of issues, the retention of data was the primary focus of negotiations with federal agencies. Those agencies provide the center with information such as visa and travel records and data from the FBI.

The old guidelines were“very limiting,” Litt said. “On Day One, you may look at something and think that it has nothing to do with terrorism. Then six months later, all of a sudden, it becomes relevant.”

Since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, the government has taken steps to break down barriers in information-sharing between law enforcement and the intelligence community, but policy hurdles remain.

The NCTC, created by the 2004 Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act, collects information from numerous agencies and maintains access to about 30 data sets across the government. But privacy safeguards differ from agency to agency, in some cases hindering timely and effective analysis, senior intelligence officials said.

“We have been pushing for this because NCTC’s success depends on having full access to all of the data that the U.S. has lawfully collected,” said Rep. Mike Rogers (R-Mich.), chairman of the House intelligence committee. “I don’t want to leave any possibility of another catastrophic attack that was not prevented because an important piece of information was hidden in some filing cabinet.”

The shootings at Fort Hood, Tex., and the attempted downing of a Detroit-bound airliner on Christmas Day 2009 gave new impetus to efforts to aggregate and analyze terrorism-related data more effectively.

In the case of Fort Hood, Maj. Nidal M. Hasan had had contact with Awlaki but that information had not been shared across the government. The name of Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the suspect in the 2009 airliner plot, had been placed in a master list housed at the NCTC but not on a terrorist watch list that would have prevented him from boarding the plane.

Officials said the privacy safeguards in the new guidelines include limits on the NCTC’s ability to redistribute information to other agencies.

“Within the intelligence community, there’s one set of controls for terrorism purposes, a stricter set of controls for non-terrorism purposes, and an even stricter set of controls for dissemination outside the intelligence community,” an official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity. An entire database cannot be shared; only specific information within that data set can be shared, and it must be with the approval of the agency that provided the data, the official said.

Privacy advocates said they were concerned by the new guidelines, despite the safeguards.

The purpose of the safeguards is to ensure that the “robust tools that we give the military and intelligence community to protect Americans from foreign threats aren’t directed back against Americans,” said the American Civil Liberties Union’s national security policy counsel, Michael German. “Watering down those rules raises significant concerns that U.S. persons are being targeted or swept up in these collection programs and can be harmed by continuing investigations for as long as these agencies hold the data.”

Other homeland security experts said the guidelines give officials more flexibility without compromising individual privacy.

“Five years is a reasonable time frame,” said Paul Rosenzweig, a former senior Department of Homeland Security policy official. “I certainly think 180 days was way too short. That’s just not a realistic understanding” of how long it takes analysts to search large data sets for relevant information, he said.

Drug tests to get unemployment???

I find it outrageous that the government requires employees and employers to pay this "unemployment insurance tax", and then the government wants to skip out on making the insurance payments if an employee uses drugs.

Second I find it outrageous that our government masters are forcing people to submit to a "search" of their body without having the required "probable cause", which sounds like it violated the 4th Amendment against searches.

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Drug test for unemployed advances in Arizona House

Screening would be required to get benefits

by Mary Jo Pitzl - Mar. 22, 2012 10:55 PM

The Republic | azcentral.com

If you're out of work, Arizona lawmakers want to make you take a drug test before you get an unemployment check.

And the unemployed worker would have to pay for it.

Arizona state Sen. Steve Smith, R-Maricopa, said he wrote Senate Bill 1495 to ensure people who get unemployment benefits are deserving. He doesn't consider anyone who uses drugs fit for assistance.

"If you are so fortunate to live in a nation to get an unemployment check ... when you're down on your luck, the very least you should be able to do is prove you're of sound mind and body to earn -- earn -- that benefit," Smith told members of the House Appropriations Committee on Thursday.

The committee passed the measure Thursday on a 7-6 vote over the protests of the business community and concerns about conflicts with federal law.

It will now be considered by the full House of Representatives. While its prospects there are shaky, it is the latest in a trend of attempts to erect hurdles for people who rely on government help.

In the past two years, 20 states have considered laws requiring drug tests for unemployment beneficiaries, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. Indiana is the only state where a bill passed.

Last year, the Arizona Legislature considered a bill to drug-test anyone on food stamps. The bill eventually died.

This year's bill would require the state Department of Economic Security to set up a drug-testing program.

Any first-time applicant for unemployment benefits who gets a positive drug-test result would have to wait 30 days to retest and could not get benefits in the meantime.

Those already receiving benefits would face random tests, and anyone who failed would lose his or her current month's pay and be required to take monthly tests for the next six months.

The bill would require unemployed workers to pay for their tests, which run $35 to $45 at one Valley lab. However, Smith said, drug tests can be had for $20.

As of mid-March, 81,999 Arizonans were receiving unemployment checks of $240 a week, according to the DES. The money comes from a tax paid by employers. In exchange for participating in the program, employers receive a federal tax break.

Arizona provides 26 weeks of unemployment benefits, after which the federal government provides additional weeks.

"We've got to get our fiscal house in order," Smith said, adding that the bill is needed to end "waste, fraud and abuse" in state and federal programs.

Smith's arguments didn't go over well with committee members. Even those who voted for the bill indicated they might be a "no" if the bill isn't further changed.

"We're chasing the wrong federal program," said Rep. Vic Williams, R-Tucson. "This is not a welfare program."

The assumption that people who file unemployment claims are drug abusers is "wrong-minded," Williams said. The recession has swelled the number of people on unemployment, he said, not sloth or drug abuse.

"We are going down the wrong road in Arizona when so-called conservative programs go after the business community," he said.

Representatives of the Arizona and Greater Phoenix chambers of commerce and numerous other businesses opposed the bill.

Marc Osborn, representing the Arizona Chamber of Commerce & Industry, said the bill could imperil the federal tax break for employers. He said the U.S. Department of Labor has noted several areas where SB 1495 conflicts with federal law.

In a letter to the state DES, which administers unemployment, Gay Gilbert, administrator of the federal Office of Unemployment Insurance, said it is unconstitutional to require a drug test as a condition for unemployment benefits.

Gilbert added that federal law also requires anyone denied unemployment benefits to appeal, which is not included in the Arizona bill.

The requirement for the person to pay for drug-testing costs also is troublesome, Gilbert wrote, because it could discourage people from applying for benefits in a timely manner -- which could run afoul of a requirement to provide benefits quickly.

Smith called the concerns a "bluff," saying he doubts the federal government would enforce restrictions by removing the tax break.

However state Rep. Nancy McLain, R-Bullhead City, said she doesn't want to take that gamble. It's employers who would suffer, said McLain, who owns a small business.

Appropriations Chairman John Kavanagh, R-Fountain Hills, proposed an amendment to authorize a drug-testing program that fits with federal law. It passed.

The federal law, changed last month by Congress, lets states drug-test unemployment applicants in two cases: If the individual was fired for drug abuse, or if the person is seeking a job that requires drug testing. People receiving unemployment benefits are expected to search for jobs.

Rep. Justin Olson, R-Mesa, said the fix is simple: Amend the bill to require drug testing in those two circumstances. That way, Arizona employers would still comply with the federal unemployment program.

Smith indicated he might not accept those limitations. He's interested in a wider test of unemployment recipients. In Indiana, the year-old drug-testing law allows, but does not require, employers to report people who fail a pre-employment drug test. If the state confirms those results, the individual can lose unemployment benefits, said Valerie Kroeger, a state spokeswoman. She did not have statistics on program results.

Kroeger said another Indiana program has found little problem with drug abuse among the unemployed. State policy requires people who enroll in a job-training program to take drug tests.

Of the 2,500 people who have enrolled in the program, 97.5 percent tested clean.

Russell Pearce a soldier in Christian ‘war on women’

Letter: Pearce a soldier in ‘war on women’

Posted: Thursday, March 22, 2012 3:41 pm

Letter to the Editor

Russell Pearce is back saying that he is “100 percent pro-life” and “100 percent for freedom”. It is unfortunate that Pearce does not recognize that by denying women the right to make decisions concerning their bodies, there is no freedom. Pearce is just one more foot soldier in the Republican Party’s War on Women.

Tom Kenney

Gilbert

Russell Pearce a soldier in Republican ‘war on women’

Letter: Pearce a soldier in ‘war on women’

Posted: Thursday, March 22, 2012 3:41 pm

Letter to the Editor

Russell Pearce is back saying that he is “100 percent pro-life” and “100 percent for freedom”. It is unfortunate that Pearce does not recognize that by denying women the right to make decisions concerning their bodies, there is no freedom. Pearce is just one more foot soldier in the Republican Party’s War on Women.

Tom Kenney

Gilbert

ASU Students protest Sheriff Joe Arpaio

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Students stage another protest of Arpaio, immigration policies

Mar. 23, 2012 05:20 PM

The Republic | azcentral.com

Scores of mostly college and high school students marched in downtown Phoenix Friday afternoon to protest Sheriff Joe Arpaio and his continued crackdown on illegal immigrants.

The protesters gathered at a park near Central Avenue and Fillmore Street and began marching about 3:30 p.m. toward a downtown building where Arpaio and his office leases space. The marchers were planning to go from there to the state Capitol by 17th Avenue and Jefferson Street.

It was the second time in three days that young people have staged a protest of the Maricopa County Sheriff -- in the first instance, the event was staged by Dream Activist, an online organization that's encouraging young undocumented immigrants to "come out of the shadows" by getting arrested.

Friday's protest was coordinated by the Arizona State University chapter of Movimiento Estudiantil Chicano de Aztlán (MEChA), a student organization that promotes political participation for social change. About 600 students from across the nation are in town for the 2012 National MEChA Conference. Jose Rios, an ASU student and one of the conference's planners, said the event also got assistance from PUENTE, a group that seeks to promote human rights.

In the earlier protest Tuesday, just outside Trevor Browne High School in northwest Phoenix, six people, including two juveniles, were arrested by Phoenix police on suspicion of disrupting a thoroughfare and disorderly conduct. That event drew about 150 people and led to a shutdown of a portion of 75th Avenue.

Dream Activist has organized acts of civil disobedience in more than six cities in recent years, including the one in Phoenix, that have resulted in the arrests of more than 60 young undocumented immigrants, many of them students or recent graduates, a group spokesman said earlier this week.

At Tuesday's march, protesters repeatedly chanted "undocumented and unafraid" during the nearly 4-hour protest.

Some held signs reading "Support the DREAM Act!" and "We will no longer remain in the shadows."

Secret Service thugs investigage woman for saying "Pretend it's Obama"

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Obama comment made during Santorum visit probed

by Sarah Eddington - Mar. 23, 2012 04:59 PM

MONROE, La. -- A comment made by a spectator during Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum's visit to West Monroe has led to a Secret Service investigation.

Santorum was at the Ouachita Parish Sheriff's Office Rifle Range on Friday morning as part of his campaign through Louisiana before Saturday's Republican presidential primary.

While Santorum was firing off some rounds from a gun at a paper target before delivering his campaign speech , an unidentified woman in the crowd shouted: "Pretend it's Obama."

Santorum, who was wearing protective shooting ear muffs at the time, later told reporters he didn't hear the woman's "absurd" remark.

"It's a very terrible and horrible remark, and I'm glad I didn't hear it," he said.

A representative from the Secret Service confirmed the incident and the fact that the agency is looking into the matter, but couldn't provide further details.

"We are conducting the appropriate investigative steps," said George Ogilvie, public affairs officer for the Secret Service.

Albuquerque cops get $300 to $500 for each person they shoot???

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Officers Get Union Checks After Shootings

By Jeff Proctor / Journal Staff Writer on Fri, Mar 23, 2012

Twenty Albuquerque police officers involved in shootings in 2010 and 2011 received payments from the police union of either $300 or $500, the Journal has learned.

A written statement from Albuquerque Police Officers Association President Joey Sigala and Vice President Felipe Garcia said the payments are to cover some expenses for officers who have been involved in “critical incidents” and their families “to find a place to have some privacy and time to decompress outside the Albuquerque area.”

“We do not determine where they go or for how long, we simply give them some means of obtaining this critical time to gather their thoughts and emotions after a stressful incident,” the statement said.

Top city officials said they had been unaware of the practice and didn’t want to comment until they talked to union officials; the father of one man shot by a police officer blasted the practice as “bounty.”

The APOA statement – issued in response to an inquiry from the Journal based on a document showing the payments in 2010 and 2011 – said officers typically received the payments within the first couple of days after the shootings.

A photo and Albuquerque Police Department information about Gary E. Atencio was on a screen during a news conference Thursday identifying Atencio as the man who was shot by police after a high-speed chase.

Sigala and Garcia declined to be interviewed, and their statement did not say whether union officials offer the payments or whether officers have to ask for them.

Sigala did not respond to a question asking whether officers involved in three shootings this year had, or would, receive the payments.

The statement seemed to indicate the practice has gone on “for years,” but did not say whether it is an official APOA policy or exactly how long it has been done.

Police Chief Ray Schultz said he was unaware of the practice.

In fact, Schultz said through a spokesman he was not aware of such a practice when he was a member of the union, and he did not receive any money from the APOA after he was involved in a shooting after an armed robbery in 1986.

Schultz declined through a spokesman to comment on the practice, saying he wanted to speak with Sigala first.

The city provides counselling for officers involved in shootings and other critical incidents.

Albuquerque Chief Administrative Officer Rob Perry said the union is entitled to do as it wishes with its money and declined further comment until he learned more about the payments.

Family members of the 20 men shot by APD officers in 2010 and 2011 blasted the payouts, calling them an apparent “bounty.”

“It’s unbelievable to find this out,” said Mike Gomez, whose son, Alan, was fatally shot by APD officer Sean Wallace last year. “This just sounds like a reward system, a bounty. If it’s in these cops’ minds that they’re going to get rewarded if they shoot someone, even if they don’t kill them, that’s just not good.”

Wallace was among those who received $500 in 2011. He also received $500 after a non-fatal shooting in 2010.

The statement from Sigala and Garcia said the payments are intended as support for officers.

“We also believe that any claim or assertion that these were somehow cash payments for the officer merely ‘shooting someone’ are absolutely ridiculous and false,” the statement says. “We hold onto the honor and dignity of our profession and would never engage in such callous and hurtful behavior.”

In all, 23 APD officers shot people during 20 incidents last year and the year before. Fifteen of those shootings were fatal.

Internal union financial documents obtained by the Journal show 20 of the officers received union payments. Of those, 16 received $500, two were paid $300, one received $800 and a payment of $1,000 went to one officer.

Also, $500 in union funds went to an officer who did not fire any shots but was involved in an incident that ended when another officer fatally shot a man.

The documents show more than $10,000 went to officers involved in shootings.

The statement from Sigala and Garcia said the union only makes “partial payments of up to $500 to help cover the costs” of out-of-town stays.

“In many cases, it has been less,” the statement says. “There were no disbursements over $500, and any costs … which are over $500 are for other union-related matters.”

The 20 officer-involved shootings in 2010 and 2011 have drawn an angry response, with critics flooding City Council meetings, holding protests and demanding Schultz’s resignation and more accountability from APD.

Critics have pointed out that the majority of those shot were Hispanic men in their 20s and 30s.

All the shootings that have worked through the review process have been ruled justified through APD’s internal affairs process and by grand jury review after presentation by the District Attorney’s Office.

The U.S. Department of Justice is considering whether to conduct a full-scale investigation to determine whether APD has a pattern or practice of violating civil rights.

Financial review

The documents obtained by the Journal were prepared by union Treasurer Matt Fisher earlier this month after members demanded to see a breakdown of how APOA money was being spent.

The demands came after Fred Mowrer, the union’s lawyer, sent an email to board members saying $259,000 had been spent on salaries and “union work” during the past two years – at a time when the APOA was supposed to be pinching pennies in anticipation of a court battle against the Berry administration over police contracts.

The union sued Mayor Richard Berry in 2010, contending he illegally backed out of an agreement signed by the previous administration to raise APD pay. The city won the first round, but the union appealed to the state Court of Appeals, which hasn’t yet ruled.

APOA members voted last week to hire an outside firm to audit the union’s finances for the past two years and to require more financial accountability going forward. Members will also consider next month whether the president’s and vice president’s union salaries should be cut.

The moves followed revelations at a March 15 APOA meeting from Sigala that he and Vice President Felipe Garcia have paid themselves more in salary from union dues than they previously acknowledged publicly, and that Sigala’s wife was paid about $6,000 for working on “special projects” and filling in as a temporary administrative secretary.

— This article appeared on page A1 of the Albuquerque Journal

Source

Berry: Shooting Payouts Must End

By Jeff Proctor / Journal Staff Writer on Sat, Mar 24, 2012

A defiant police union President Joey Sigala said late Friday that the union will continue to financially support officers who have been involved in shootings, despite calls earlier in the day from the mayor and police chief for the practice to stop.

Mayor Richard Berry said in a statement that he was “shocked” to learn of the practice and said it “needs to end now,” while Police Chief Ray Schultz called the payments “troubling.”

A Journal story published Friday revealed that the union had paid more than $10,000 to officers involved in shootings, dating to the start of 2010.

In all, 23 APD officers shot people during 20 incidents last year and the year before. Fifteen of those shootings were fatal.

Internal union financial documents obtained by the Journal show that 20 of the officers received union payments. Of those, 16 received $500, two were paid $300, one received $800 and a payment of $1,000 went to one officer.

The documents did not indicate whether officers involved in three shootings this year also received checks, but APOA leaders on Thursday explained and defended the practice.

Outside an emergency meeting of the union board at Albuquerque Police Officers Association headquarters Downtown, Sigala said the union has made cash payments and supported in other ways officers involved in shootings and other “critical incidents” for more than 20 years.

Sigala said he did not know whether the payments were made in nearly every shooting case — as they have been during his tenure as president — under previous union administrations.

But he said the practice has been well-known among rank-and-file police officers, as well as the department’s “upper administration.”

On Thursday, Schultz said he was not aware of the practice, adding that it was not in place when he was a member of the union and that he did not receive any money from the APOA when he was involved in a shooting after an armed robbery in 1986.

On Friday, he issued a statement through a spokeswoman.

“What we have learned about this practice thus far is troubling,” the statement said. “We support our officers when they are placed in these critical incidents. However, we recognize the union is further putting these officers in an untenable situation that we don’t agree with.”

Asked Friday whether Schultz specifically knew about the payments, Sigala said: “The chief has been the chief for a long time.”

Sigala said he and union Vice President Felipe Garcia have been making decisions on whether officers involved in shootings should get financial support. Going forward, he said, the entire 20-member union board will decide on a case-by-case basis which officers will get money.

The payments are limited to $500, Sigala said, adding that larger amounts shown in the documents mean officers also have done other union work.

Berry criticized the payments.

“I cannot stand aside and condone this practice — it needs to end now,” the mayor said in a prepared statement. “We all support our fine officers, but I have directed Chief Schultz to work with the union to ensure this practice no longer continues.”

The mayor declined through a spokeswoman to elaborate.

Sigala said Berry has “no idea what it’s like” to be a police officer faced with a decision about using deadly force and should not have condemned the payments out of hand — especially without speaking with union leaders.

Sigala and Garcia said in a statement Thursday that the payments were to cover some expenses for officers who have been involved in “critical incidents” and their families “to find a place to have some privacy and time to decompress outside the Albuquerque area.”

The father of one of the men fatally shot by an APD officer in the past few years described the payments as “bounty.”

The city provides counseling for officers involved in shootings and other critical incidents, and all officers are placed on leave with pay after a shooting.

City leaders “understand that supporting officers is important,” Sigala said. “So do we.”

Money questions

The documents obtained by the Journal were prepared by union Treasurer Matt Fisher earlier this month after members demanded to see a breakdown of how APOA money was being spent.

The demands came after Fred Mowrer, the union’s lawyer, sent an email to board members saying $259,000 had been spent on salaries and “union work” during the past two years — at a time when the APOA was supposed to be marshaling its resources in anticipation of a court battle against the Berry administration over police contracts.

The union sued Berry in 2010, contending he illegally backed out of an agreement signed by the previous administration to raise APD pay. The city won the first round, but the union appealed to the state Court of Appeals, which hasn’t yet ruled.

APOA members voted last week to hire an outside firm to audit the union’s finances for the past two years and to require more financial accountability. Members will also consider next month whether the president’s and vice president’s union salaries should be cut.

The moves followed revelations from Sigala at a March 15 APOA meeting that he and Garcia have paid themselves more in salary from union dues than they previously acknowledged publicly, and that Sigala’s wife was paid about $6,000 for working on special projects and filling in as a temporary secretary.

One union member confirmed that Sigala and Garcia said during the meeting that they had paid themselves about $36,000 and $28,000, respectively, in salaries funded by dues last year.

Sigala last month told the Journal he receives about $26,000 annually for union work — on top of his $52,374 APD salary — and Garcia makes $19,500 a year plus his city salary, which is the same as Sigala’s.

— This article appeared on page A1 of the Albuquerque Journal

Source

BREAKING: Mayor, APD Chief Call For Halt To Shooter Payouts

By Jeff Proctor / Journal Staff Writer on Fri, Mar 23, 2012

Mayor Richard Berry and APD Chief Ray Schultz have issued statements calling for a halt to the police union’s practice of issuing $500 checks to officers involved in shootings.

Here’s the mayor’s statement:

“The administration has nothing to do with how the union conducts their business, but I was shocked yesterday when made aware of this practice. I cannot stand aside and condone this practice– it needs to end now. We all support our fine officers, but I have directed Chief Shultz to work with the union to ensure this practice no longer continues.”

“What we have learned about this practice thus far is troubling. We support our officers when they are placed in these critical incidents. However, we recognize the union is further putting these officers in an untenable situation that we don’t agree with. After discussions with Chief Schultz this morning, the union has agreed to hold an emergency board meeting to discuss suspending the practice.”

The statements are in response to this morning’s Journal story, which you can read here.

Pick up a copy of tomorrow’s paper for continuing coverage.

Source

New Mexico police in shootings get cash

Mar. 23, 2012 10:46 PM

Associated Press

ALBUQUERQUE - Albuquerque police officers involved in a rash of fatal shootings over the past two years were paid up to $500 under a union program that some have likened to a bounty system in a department with a culture that critics have long contended promotes brutality.

Mayor Richard Berry called Friday for an immediate halt to the practice, which was first reported in the Albuquerque Journal during a week in which Albuquerque police shot and killed two men.

Since 2010, Albuquerque police have shot 23 people, 18 fatally.

"The administration has nothing to do with how the union conducts their business," Berry said in a statement, "but I was shocked yesterday when made aware of this practice. I cannot stand aside and condone this practice. It needs to end now."

Although the union said the payments were intended to help the officers decompress from a stressful situation, one victim's father and a criminologist said it sounded more like a reward program.

"I think it might not be a bounty that they want it for," said Mike Gomez, the father of an unarmed man killed by police last year, "but in these police guys' minds, they know they are going to get that money. So when they get in a situation, it's who's going to get him first? Who's going to shoot him first?"

Maria Haberfeld, chair of the Department of Law & Police Science at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York, said she found the program disturbing.

"I'm not a psychologist. I'm a criminologist. But if you give somebody a monetary incentive to do their job, usually people are tempted by the monetary incentive," she said.

Other law-enforcement officials called speculation of a bounty system ridiculous.

"Frankly, it's insulting and very insensitive that somebody would believe that a police officer would factor in a payment for such a difficult decision," said Joe Clure, president of the Phoenix Law Enforcement Association.

It takes 6 years to fire a cop for murder????

Officer in Bell Killing Is Fired; 3 Others to Be Forced Out

By MATT FLEGENHEIMER and AL BAKER

Published: March 23, 2012

The New York City police detective who fired the first shots in the 50-bullet barrage that killed Sean Bell in 2006 has been fired, and three others involved in the shooting are being forced to resign, law enforcement officials said on Friday.

The decision came after a Police Department administrative trial in the fall found that the detective, Gescard F. Isnora, had acted improperly in the shooting that killed Mr. Bell on what was supposed to have been his wedding day and that he should be fired.

“There was nothing in the record to warrant overturning the decision of the department’s trial judge,” Deputy Commissioner Paul J. Browne said on Friday night.

Law enforcement officials said word of Police Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly’s decision came late Friday. Detective Isnora, an 11-year veteran, will not collect a pension, one official said. “He loses everything,” the official said.

Three other officers — Detectives Marc Cooper and Michael Oliver, who fired shots at Mr. Bell; and Lt. Gary Napoli, a supervisor who was at the scene but did not fire any shots — are being forced to resign.

Detectives Isnora, Cooper and Oliver were acquitted in a criminal trial in 2008 on charges of manslaughter, assault and reckless endangerment.

A fourth officer who fired his gun during the episode, Detective Paul Headley, has already left the department, and a fifth, Officer Michael Carey, was exonerated in the department’s administrative trial.

Detective Cooper and Lieutenant Napoli, who worked in the department for more than 20 years, will receive their pensions, a law enforcement official said. Detective Oliver, who has served for 18 years, may collect on a pension on the 20th anniversary of his start date, the official said.

The shooting of Mr. Bell, 23, who did not have a gun, occurred in the early morning on Nov. 25, 2006, as Mr. Bell and two friends were leaving a strip club in Jamaica, Queens, where they had been celebrating. The case drew widespread scrutiny of undercover police tactics.

Prosecutors questioned the judgment of the shooters, with one arguing in the department’s trial that Detective Isnora overreacted, leading to “contagious firing” from those who followed his cue.

Detective Isnora testified that he thought Mr. Bell and a friend were about to take part in a drive-by shooting. He has said he believed, after overhearing a heated argument in front of the strip club, that the friend had a gun.

In July 2010, the city agreed to pay more than $7 million to settle a federal lawsuit filed by Mr. Bell’s family and two of his friends.

Sanford A. Rubenstein, a lawyer who has represented the Bell estate and the two men wounded along with Mr. Bell, said, regarding Detective Isnora, “The police commissioner followed the trial judge’s ruling, which was clearly appropriate based on the evidence.” Of the other disciplined officers, Mr. Rubenstein said, “I think the fact that they’re no longer on the police force is appropriate.”

Mr. Isnora’s lawyer, Philip E. Karasyk, said, “The commissioner’s decision to terminate Detective Isnora is extremely disheartening and callous and sends an uncaring message to the hard-working officers of the New York Police Department who put their lives on the line every day.”

Michael J. Palladino, the president of the Detectives’ Endowment Association, called Detective Isnora’s firing “disgraceful, excessive, and unprecedented.”

He continued: “Stripping a police officer of his livelihood and his opportunity for retirement is a punishment reserved for a cop who has turned to a life of crime and disgraces the shield. It is not for someone who has acted within the law and was justified in a court of law and exonerated by the U.S. Department of Justice.”

Many detectives were bracing for the decision after Deputy Commissioner Martin G. Karopkin, acting as the trial judge, recommended the punishment in November.

One law enforcement official said that, as the reality of the decisions sink in, they could have a drastic impact on how detectives view their work, particularly in the department’s undercover programs.

William K. Rashbaum contributed reporting.

Plea ruling to have little impact in Arizona

Plea ruling to have little impact in Arizona

by Dennis Wagner - Mar. 23, 2012 11:12 PM

The Republic | azcentral.com

A U.S. Supreme Court decision this week that was widely described as a game-changer in the criminal-justice system will probably have little impact in Arizona, experts say, because state courts established a similar rule more than a decade ago.

On Wednesday, the nation's high court issued two findings that establish a defendant's constitutional right to effective legal counsel concerning plea bargains. The court was split 5-4 in both rulings, and Justice Antonin Scalia decried the majority opinion in dissent. He suggested that the court's verdict would open a floodgate of litigation from convicts arguing that they were mis-informed about plea deals.

Legal experts in Arizona generally disagreed, noting that the Court of Appeals here in 2000 reached a similar decision in a case known as State vs. Donald. Since then, Arizona judges have routinely conducted so-called Donald hearings before trial to ensure that defendants are adequately informed about plea offers.

In fact, the Supreme Court majority cited Arizona's practice as evidence that a defendant's right to competent representation can be protected without upending the justice system.

Robert McWhirter, training director with the Pima County Attorney's Office and a board member of Arizona Attorneys for Criminal Justice, a non-profit organization of defense lawyers, said the national ruling may have a "limited impact" as some prison inmates hear of the decision and try to challenge their convictions.

In the long run, however, McWhirter said the justice system will be improved. Other states will have to initiate procedures similar to the Donald hearings, and defense lawyers may have to explain plea offers in writing for their clients. Once reforms are in place, McWhirter said, he anticipates less litigation, not more.

"What the Donald hearings have done is save a huge amount of resources by preventing efforts for post-conviction relief," he said. "Sure, guys are going to jump up in their jail cells now and say, 'My attorney didn't tell me (about a plea offer).' But those cases will be weeded out pretty quickly, and it will pass."

McWhirter and Greg Parzych, another defense lawyer, said the significance of the Supreme Court ruling was overblown in some news reports, perhaps because of Scalia's vitriolic dissent.

Defendants who accept plea deals typically are found guilty on reduced charges and face less-severe penalties.

The Supreme Court decisions stem from cases in Missouri and Michigan. In the first, a drunken-driving suspect named Galin Edward Frye was not even told about the plea deal offered before his conviction. In the second, a shooting suspect named Anthony Cooper rejected an agreement after his lawyer incorrectly advised that conviction for attempted murder was impossible because the victim was wounded below the waist.

Justice Anthony Kennedy, writing the majority opinions, noted that more than 97 percent of all federal convictions result from negotiated pleas. Although defendants are not entitled to such deals, he said, the Sixth Amendment guarantees competent legal advice when they are offered.

That decision does not mean charges get dropped. Rather, cases must be returned to lower court for a finding as to whether the defendant is entitled to accept the earlier plea or, under some circumstances, a new offer from prosecutors.

The Arizona Court of Appeals case, although distinct in detail, seems to have presaged the Supreme Court decision.

Victor Gene Donald was charged with multiple armed robberies in 1993. His attorney allegedly failed to explain that, under a plea offered by prosecutors, he would serve "soft time" and get out of prison within four years. Donald went to trial and was convicted; he was sentenced to a full 10 years in prison.

Acting as his own attorney, Donald successfully appealed. Then-appellate Judges Noel Fidel and Thomas Kleinschmidt returned his case to the trial court based on the same legal reasoning that emerged from the Supreme Court this week.

A complete file was not immediately available, but online records from Maricopa County Superior Court and the Arizona Department of Corrections indicate Donald pleaded guilty in 2002, received an eight-year sentence and was released immediately due to time already served.

Former Maricopa County Attorney Rick Romley, who was in office at the time, applauded the Supreme Court decision. Noting that the vast majority of criminal cases are resolved early with plea deals, he said, "If you believe in our justice system and fundamental rights, it only flows to have competent counsel in the very beginning of the process."

Bill Montgomery, the current county attorney, agreed that the federal ruling will have a negligible impact on prosecutions in Arizona. However, he denounced a portion of the Supreme Court opinion that says some criminal statutes are adopted with excessive penalties so that prosecutors can pressure defendants into pleading guilty.

Montgomery described that section of the ruling as "crap" and "total, unmitigated BS," adding, "I think that's malpractice" by the nation's highest judges.

Arizona Attorney General Tom Horne disagreed with other Arizona lawyers, describing Wednesday's federal ruling as "troublesome" and "a big change."

Horne said "ineffective counsel" has always been defined as legal representation so incompetent that a defendant is deprived of the right to a fair trial with reliable results. Now, he said, criminal suspects can be convicted in fair trials yet have the guilty verdict overturned because they were misinformed about earlier plea deals.

"A lot of questions are being raised," Horne said. "I disagree with the ruling, but we're going to live with it."

The article about the Federal Supreme Court ruling is here.

Events focus on genocide awareness

Events focus on genocide awareness

Film screenings, exhibits on display around the Valley

by Luci Scott - Mar. 25, 2012 09:18 PM

The Republic | azcentral.com

April is Genocide Awareness Month in Arizona, and it kicks off early with a screening of a documentary, "The Last Survivor," on Tuesday at Arizona State University in Tempe.

One of the film's directors, Michael Kleiman, will be present to talk about the making of the film and how genocide survivors can be helped.

The film, to be screened at 6 p.m. in Room 241-C in ASU's Memorial Union, tells stories of survivors and focuses on genocide prevention and civic activism.

Another film, "Kony 2012," about African war criminal Joseph Kony, will be shown at 7 p.m. April 3 in Room 228 of the Memorial Union.

The film is being presented by the non-profit group Invisible Children, which works to combat the practice of using children as soldiers. This film is longer than the one that has gone viral on the Internet and stirred controversy over its accuracy.

On April 2, Scottsdale Community College will host an interactive event with two features: booths staffed by international groups and Camp Darfur, described as a traveling refugee camp consisting of a group of tents representing previous and current genocides.

The daylong activity will be in the mall west of the Applied Sciences Building.

"It brings attention to the ongoing genocide in Darfur, Sudan," said John Liffiton, co-coordinator, with Larry Tualla, of the college's Honors Program, the host of the activities.

Visitors will learn about modern Darfur as well as such previous mass murders as the Holocaust, the Turks' slaying of Armenians during World War I and mass killings in Cambodia and Rwanda.

"When people think of the Holocaust, they think of World War II, but genocide is still happening today," Liffiton said.

He is a professor in the college's English department and director of the English as a Second Language Program.

Camp Darfur is open to the public April 3-4 at GateWay Community College, 108 N. 40th St.

On April 5, a screening of "Kony 2012" is scheduled for 7 p.m. in the auditorium of Dobson High School, 1501 W. Guadalupe in Mesa. It is free and open to the public.

An entire day of activities for the students will include guest speakers and films as well as the Camp Darfur exhibit, said English teacher Kim Klett, who teaches a course on the Holocaust.

For more information, go to darfurandbeyond.org.

Video shows OK police dragging man at airport

Video shows OK police dragging man at airport

Authorities in Oklahoma City are investigating a Feb. 20 incident in which a handcuffed man, accused of trying to sneak past a security checkpoint at Will Rogers World Airport, was reportedly dragged, face-down, by his feet after being tased several times by Oklahoma City Police officers, according to News9.com in Oklahoma.The incident was captured by surveillance cameras.

“What we have seen on the video caused us some concern,” said Captain Dexter Nelson with the Oklahoma City Police Department. “That’s why we launched the investigation.”

A police report from February 20 showed James Heidebrecht tried to enter a secure area. When an officer confronted Heidebrecht, the suspect claimed he was part of the CIA and was at the airport to meet presidential candidate Newt Gingrich.

The man can be heard in the security footage claiming, “I’m with the CIA.” In the police report, officers described Heidebrecht as combative. The security video shows one officer shoved Heidebrecht to get the man away. That was then an officer fired his taser, striking Heidebrecht. The audio from the recordings revealed that officers repeatedly commanded the suspect to “put your hands behind your back.”

Videotaping the police is punishable by a beating????

Police committee OKs $100,000 settlement with videographer

By Brian Haynes

LAS VEGAS REVIEW-JOURNAL

Posted: Mar. 26, 2012 | 10:23 a.m.

The Metropolitan Police Department will pay $100,000 to a Las Vegas man who said he was beaten by an officer as he shot video from his driveway.

The police Committee on Fiscal Affairs unanimously approved the settlement with Mitchell Crooks on Monday.

The payment settles the federal civil rights lawsuit filed by Mitchell Crooks, whose video of the confrontation with officer Derek Colling became an Internet hit. Crooks filed his lawsuit in November, eight months after his run-in with Colling on a dark cul-de-sac in the southwest valley.

Crooks was videotaping police from his driveway the night of March 20, 2011, as officers investigated a burglary across the street near East Desert Inn Road and South Maryland Parkway. As Colling was driving away, he stopped his car, got out and approached Crooks.

He ordered Crooks to stop filming, and when Crooks refused, Colling beat him, according to the lawsuit.

Crooks was arrested for battery against an officer, trespassing and resisting arrest, but the charges were dropped.

An internal investigation concluded that Colling, a six-year veteran, violated several department policies. Police would not release the specific policy violations. Sheriff Doug Gillespie fired Colling in December. Colling is fighting his termination.

Contact reporter Brian Haynes at bhaynes@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0281.

Cops demonizing Trayvon Martin to justify his murder???

Police in Florida demonizing slain son, mother says

Mar. 26, 2012 12:35 PM

Associated Press

SANFORD, Fla. -- Trayvon Martin had been suspended from school for marijuana when the unarmed teenager was shot to death by a neighborhood watch volunteer, a family spokesman said Monday.

Martin, 17, was suspended by Miami-Dade County schools because traces of marijuana were found in a plastic baggie in his book bag, family spokesman Ryan Julison said. Martin was shot Feb. 26 by George Zimmerman while he was visiting Sanford with his father.

Martin's mother, Sybrina Fulton, and family attorneys blamed police for leaking the information about the marijuana to the news media in an effort to demonize the teenager. [This isn't the first time cops demonized their enemies and it won't be the last]

"The only comment that I have right now is that they killed my son and now they're trying to kill his reputation," Fulton told reporters. [Sadly I suspect the woman is correct about that!!!]

The Sanford Police Department insisted there was no authorized release of the suspension information but acknowledged there may have been a leak within the agency. City Manager Norton Bonaparte Jr. said the source of the leak would be investigated and the person responsible could be fired. [But the person responsible almost certainly won't be found]

"We do not condone these unauthorized leaks of information," Bonaparte said. [Are his fingers crossed???]

Martin family attorney Benjamin Crump said the link between the youth and marijuana should have no bearing on the probe into his shooting death. State and federal agencies are investigating, with a grand jury set to convene April 10.

"If he and his friends experimented with marijuana, that is completely irrelevant," Crump said. "What does it have to do with killing their son?" [Nothing, nada, zippo! But the cops will use any lame excuse to demonize him to justify the murder in the eyes of the public!]

Also Monday, the state Department of Juvenile Justice confirmed that Martin does not have a juvenile offender record. The information came after a public records request by The Associated Press.

Zimmerman, 28, claimed he shot Martin in self-defense and has not been arrested. Because Martin was black and Zimmerman has a white father and Hispanic mother, the case has become a racial flashpoint that has civil rights leaders and others leading a series of protests in Sanford and around the country.

In another development, city officials named a 23-year veteran of the Sanford police department as acting chief. The appointment of Capt. Darren Scott, who is African-American, came days after Chief Bill Lee, who is white, temporarily stepped down as the agency endured withering criticism over its handling of the case.

"I know each one of you -- and everyone watching -- would like to have a quick, positive resolution to this recent event," Scott told reporters. "However, I must say we have a system in place, a legal system. It may not be perfect but it's the only one we have. I urge everyone to let the system take its course." [I think the cops are saying the system sucks so don't complain?]

Professional football players Ray Lewis and Santonio Holmes are joining civil rights leaders Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton at a rally in Sanford later Monday. Also joining the rally are comedian Sinbad and leaders from the Urban League and ACLU.

Commissioners with the city of Sanford will also meet Monday for the first time since they gave Lee a no confidence vote.

Martin's parents plan to address them. The meeting was moved from City Hall to the Sanford Civic Center to accommodate the expected large crowd.

Martin was returning to his father's fiancee's home from a convenience store when Zimmerman started following him, telling police dispatchers he looked suspicious. At some point, the two got into a fight and Zimmerman pulled out his gun.

Zimmerman has not spoken in public about the shooting. His lawyer, Craig Sonner, has denied there was any racial motive in the shooting.

A man identified as a friend of Zimmerman said Monday the neighborhood watch volunteer would tell the teen's parents he's "very, very sorry" if he could.

Speaking on ABC's "Good Morning America," Joe Oliver said George Zimmerman is not a racist and has virtually lost his own life since the shooting.

"This is a guy who thought he was doing the right thing at the time and it's turned out horribly wrong," Oliver said.

On NBC's "Today" show, Oliver said he had spoken with Zimmerman's mother-in-law, who said Zimmerman was remorseful.

"I learned that he couldn't stop crying for days after the shooting," Oliver said.

Sanford cops continue to demonize Trayvon Martin

Police investigated Trayvon Martin over jewelry

Mar. 27, 2012 03:55 PM

Associated Press

SANFORD, Fla. -- Women's jewelry and a watch found in Trayvon Martin's school backpack last fall could not be tied to any reported thefts, the Miami-Dade Police Department said Tuesday.

The Miami Herald in its Tuesday editions reported that it had obtained a Miami-Dade Schools Police Department report that showed the slain teenager was suspended in October for writing obscene graffiti on a door at his high school. During a search of his backpack, the report said, campus security officers found 12 pieces of women's jewelry, a watch and a screwdriver that they felt could be used as a burglary tool.

Martin's fatal Feb. 26 shooting in Sanford, Fla., by neighborhood watch captain George Zimmerman has caused a national firestorm. His family and people at rallies all over the country have demanded the arrest of Zimmerman who says he shot the unarmed 17-year-old in self-defense. Martin was black and Zimmerman's father is white and his mother, Hispanic. Martin's family and their supporters believe race played a part in the decision not to charge Zimmerman.

The Herald reported that when campus security confronted Martin with the jewelry, he told them that a friend had given it to him, but he wouldn't give a name. The report said the jewelry was confiscated and a photo of it was sent to Miami-Dade Police burglary detectives. Miami-Dade school officials declined Tuesday to confirm the report when contacted by The Associated Press, citing federal privacy laws regarding students.

Miami-Dade Police confirmed that it had been asked by school police to help identify the property taken from Martin's backpack. It notified school police that the jewelry did not match any that had been reported stolen.

Martin had previously been suspended for excessive absences and tardiness and, at the time of his death, was serving a 10-day suspension after school officials found an empty plastic bag with marijuana traces in his backpack.

His parents and their lawyer, Benjamin Crump, have said such reports are irrelevant to the shooting and part of an attempt to demonize Martin. Crump did not return calls to The Associated Press on Tuesday.

Meanwhile, black Democratic members of the Florida Legislature are demanding that a special session be called to consider whether to repeal the state's seven-year-old "Stand Your Ground" law, which eliminated a person's duty to retreat when threatened with seriously bodily harm or death.

Sanford police have cited the law as the reason Zimmerman wasn't arrested after the shooting. They are also demanding that a task force appointed by Gov. Rick Scott to examine the shooting and any changes needed to state law begin work immediately instead of waiting for the police investigation to conclude.

"Whether self-defense was a legitimate factor, the law remains intact -- with all the same components still in place for more killings and additional claims of self-defense, warranted or not," state Sen. Chris Smith wrote in a statement to the governor. "...I'm sure you will agree that delaying the work of the task force -- possibly up to one year or longer -- suits no purpose other than to allow more tragedies to unfold."

But Scott and other Republicans have insisted that the state should wait until ongoing police investigations are completed.

Republican Rep. Dennis Baxley, one of the sponsors of the law, said that "when things have cooled off a little bit I think it's worthy to sit down and say is there legislation that is needed."

In Sanford Tuesday, the city manager said that hiring an outsider to run the police department is a priority to help cool tensions caused by Martin's death and the investigation.

Manager Norton Bonaparte said officials were working with the nonprofit group Police Executive Research Forum to identify potential candidates.

Police Chief Bill Lee temporarily stepped down after outrage erupted over the police department's handling of the shooting.

Darren Scott, a 23-year veteran of the Sanford Police Department, was named acting chief. Lee is still employed with the department and receiving his salary.

At a news conference Tuesday, Bonaparte and Scott refused to answer any questions about an information leak to the media. The leak contained an account by Zimmerman that said Martin was the aggressor in a fight leading up to the shooting. Officials have said they will investigate where the leak came from.

"We have a legal system in place and we ask that people let it take its course," Darren Scott said. "I am concerned with everyone's concerns, but I will not comment on the investigation."

Lawmakers call airport screeners ineffective, rude

Source

Lawmakers call airport screeners ineffective, rude

Mar. 26, 2012 02:52 PM

Associated Press

WASHINGTON --House members of both parties on Monday teed off against the agency in charge of airport and port anti-terrorist screening, saying it uses ineffective tactics, wastes money on faulty equipment and treats travelers rudely.

"We're not cattle," said Rep. Gerald Connolly, D-Va., adding that 'barking orders" undermines the good work of the Transportation Security Administration.

TSA officials told a hearing that airport screening is getting better for U.S. travelers, because the agency is moving away from a one-size-fits-all system. Instead, the TSA is expanding programs to identify travelers posing a risk, while allowing those who provide personal information in advance to go through a fast line.

A report by the Government Accountability Office, Congress' investigative agency, agreed with lawmakers that several key programs of the TSA have been flawed.

Stephen Lord, director of the GAO's homeland security program, offered the investigators' assessment of the TSA at a joint hearing of the committees on Transportation and Infrastructure; and Oversight and Government Reform: The findings:

--TSA deployed its Screening of Passengers by Observation Techniques program nationwide before determining whether it was valid to use behavior and appearance to reliably identify passengers posing a risk. It was not known whether any of those caught were terrorists. Rather, the program nabbed illegal aliens, drug offenders, those carrying fraudulent documents and people with outstanding warrants.

--While 640 full-body scanners were deployed to detect both liquids and metals, some of the units were not being used regularly, thereby decreasing benefits of machines that cost $250,000 each to buy and install.

--The Transportation Worker Identification Credential program used for 2.1 million workers at ports and on ships has been unable to provide reasonable assurance that only qualified individuals can acquire the card.

Christopher McLaughlin and Stephen Sadler, two TSA assistant administrators, emphasized that help is on the way, but spent most of the hearing fending off lawmakers' angry comments.

McLaughlin said TSA is working on easing the checkpoint experience for children and senior citizens, including ending a requirement for them that shoes be removed and conducting less intrusive pat downs.

He said that the TSA Pre-Check system, the fast-lane screening program, has been expanded to a dozen airports and more than 500,000 passengers and received positive feedback. He said any U.S. citizen in the Customs and Border Protection's trusted traveler programs will qualify for streamlined screening when flying from 14 international locations.

None of this satisfied the committee members.

Oversight Chairman Darrell Issa, R-Calif., said TSA wasted millions of taxpayer dollars developing equipment that didn't work, leaving in its wake "a dire picture of ineffectiveness."

Rep. Tom Petri, R-Wis., said TSA treated traveling Americans "like prisoners."

The chairman of the Transportation Committee, Republican John Mica of Florida, said faulty equipment was hauled away from a storage site "as our investigators were appearing on the scene."

And Issa read comments from Americans who accepted his Internet invitation to write about their experiences on the committee's Facebook site.

A Marine in dress blues said he was forced to remove his trousers because his shirt stays spooked a screener. A disabled person complained about constant groping. So did a traveler with a medical device that can't go through machines generating radiation. And a 61-year-old traveler who had an artificial leg since age 4 gave up traveling, tired of having her breast checked rather than her leg.

Rep. Steve Cohen, a Democrat from Memphis, said screeners went through all the items of a woman known as one of the richest in his town.

He said it should have been obvious from her expensive possessions that "this woman wants to live."

L.A. County sheriff's officials may have overpaid for work, equipment

L.A. County sheriff's officials may have overpaid for work, equipment

By Robert Faturechi, Los Angeles Times

March 27, 2012

Los Angeles County sheriff's officials overpaid a private contractor nearly $11 million for work that wasn't needed and aircraft equipment they already had, according to allegations in a sheriff's memo obtained by The Times.

The internal report recommended that supervisors within the emergency air support division be investigated for potential conflicts of interest and violations of county purchasing rules. Aero Bureau supervisors, the report states, allowed the Carlsbad avionics firm, Hangar One, to bill for unjustified expenses while outfitting a fleet of helicopters.

Sheriff's officials paid the firm for 3,888 hours of installation work for each aircraft. Compared with the industry standard, the internal memo states, that's eight times more man-hours than needed.

"This per aircraft amount cannot be justified," sheriff's Sgt. Richard Gurr wrote in the report, calling the charges "extremely excessive."

In other instances, Aero Bureau officials purchased special equipment from the firm despite already having a well-stocked inventory. The department spent almost $500,000, for example, on 42 night-vision goggles when the dozen they already had were "sufficient to support any LASD mission." On another occasion, they picked up 20 sets of water safety gear when none were needed.

The division made six-figure purchases without the required approval of the Board of Supervisors. "They have purposely bypassed the established purchasing code protocols," the memo states. "LASD Aero Bureau managers have potentially violated numerous L.A. County Codes and Guidelines."

The memo echoes allegations made by a former lieutenant within the air division, reported earlier this month by The Times. Retired Lt. Edison Cook sued the department, alleging bid rigging and intentional delays to calls for emergency air support to justify more overtime pay.

Sheriff's officials have said allegations of impropriety within the Aero Bureau are being investigated. The department had previously probed allegations of improper relationships with contractors but found no wrongdoing. Nonetheless, sheriff's officials sent their findings to the district attorney for review. Additionally, the county's auditor-controller looked into the alleged financial irregularities and found no problems, according to sheriff's spokesman Steve Whitmore.

An attorney defending the county against Cook's lawsuit said the retired lieutenant was "a disgruntled former employee" whose allegations were "meritless, based on gossip and innuendo."

However, Gurr's memo and other internal documents reviewed by The Times show Cook's concerns were shared by others.

One internal memo, by Sgt. Paul Hanley, warns the division's captain, Louis Duran, that time sheets may have been manipulated. In one case, a deputy was listed for a special day shift, despite reports from other employees "that he was never there."

In another instance, a supervisor was listed as working a fill-in shift, but Hanley states, "I was told that he was not seen all day." Two other deputies were listed as manning a particular aircraft, Air 8, during one shift, even though a separate log of missed calls for service during that time period showed "that several calls were unanswered … because there was no Air 8."

During the period of the alleged manipulation, Sheriff Lee Baca was regularly warning the Board of Supervisors, which controls his budget, about the negative consequences of funding cuts, often including a detailed accounting of calls for service that the Aero Bureau had to miss.

Other issues raised in Gurr's memo include:

•The purchase of a searchlight for almost $43,000, about $15,000 more than what police elsewhere had paid.

•More than $1.7 million paid for "extras" that "were not installed in the helicopters" and may have not had proper approval.

•The bidding process "appears to have been manipulated" to include requirements so narrow that only Hangar One would qualify, despite far more experienced firms being available for the work.

A call to the Hangar One office went unanswered.

robert.faturechi@latimes.com

LAPD officer profiled Latinos in traffic stops

LAPD officer profiled Latinos in traffic stops, internal probe concludes

By Joel Rubin, Los Angeles Times

March 27, 2012

A white police officer has been targeting Latino drivers for traffic stops because of their ethnicity, a Los Angeles Police Department investigation concluded — marking the first time the department has found that one of its officers had engaged in racial or ethnic profiling.

For decades, the question of profiling — "biased policing," in LAPD vernacular — has bedeviled the department. Accusations that the practice was commonplace throughout the 1970s and '80s alienated the LAPD from the city's minority neighborhoods. And, despite dramatic reforms that have boosted the department's image in recent years, complaints of profiling have persisted, with hundreds of officers being accused of bias each year. Until now, none of those complaints has been substantiated.

The finding is a milestone for the department and was met with praise from John Mack, a member of the department's civilian oversight board and a longtime civil right activist who has been critical of the department's handling of such cases.

"It means we've come a very long way," he said.

The investigation into Patrick Smith, a 15-year veteran who worked alone on a motorcycle assignment in the department's West Traffic Division, found that he was stopping Latinos based on their ethnicity. He is accused of deliberately misidentifying some Latinos as being white on his reports — presumably in an effort to conceal their ethnicity, according to multiple sources with knowledge of the case who requested their names not be used because police personnel issues are confidential.

At a meeting last month, LAPD Chief Charlie Beck reviewed the evidence against Smith and heard from members of his command staff who recommended the officer be found guilty. Beck signed off on the investigation's findings and ordered Smith sent to a disciplinary hearing, where the department will attempt to have him fired, the sources said. In Los Angeles, the police chief cannot fire an officer unilaterally, but instead must let a three-person board hear the case and decide if the firing is warranted. The panel could also exonerate Smith, who was relieved of duty during the investigation, sources said.

Smith, 55, did not respond to an email seeking comment, and the Police Protective League, which represents rank-and-file officers, declined to comment.

Profiling complaints typically arise from traffic or pedestrian stops, in which the officer is accused of targeting a person solely because of his or her race, ethnicity or other form of outward appearance.

The question of how commonly profiling occurs in the LAPD has long been a topic of pointed debate. A 2008 study of LAPD data by a Yale researcher found blacks and Latinos were subjected to stops, frisks, searches and arrests at significantly higher rates than whites, regardless of whether they lived in high-crime neighborhoods. At the time, Beck's predecessor, William J. Bratton, acknowledged isolated cases of profiling may occur but angrily dismissed the notion of a widespread, systemic problem. The data used in the study, he said, was several years old and did not reflect the attitudes of current LAPD officers.

Whether perception or reality, about 250 formal allegations are brought against officers each year. The fact that all the allegations, until Smith, were cleared was due to the murky nature of the allegation, police officials have said. Because profiling cases hinge on what officers are thinking in the moment they make a stop, it was all but impossible to determine whether they were motivated by a racial bias unless they confess, officials said. "We cannot climb inside the head of the officers," was a familiar Bratton refrain.

That explanation wore increasingly thin on members of the Police Commission. At a meeting in 2010, Mack said, "I've heard many times that we can't get inside an officer's head, but somehow, some way, we need to figure out a way to get to the facts. I'm not talking about a witch hunt, but I am talking about reaching a point where we can say with confidence that these claims have been very fairly and very thoroughly investigated."

The pressure on the department to overhaul its racial profiling investigations came, in large part, from the U.S. Department of Justice. Until 2009, the LAPD was under a federal consent decree that the Justice Department imposed in 2001 following the Rampart corruption scandal. It required the department to complete sweeping reforms on many issues and to submit to near-constant audits and monitoring.

The U.S. District Court judge who eventually freed the LAPD from the decree found that the department had completed most, but not all, of the required reforms. On racial profiling, the judge kept federal authorities in an oversight role for a time to assess the quality of the LAPD's investigations and the Police Commission's ability to monitor the issue.

Resentful of the continued federal oversight, department officials set about overhauling profiling inquiries. They created a special team of investigators to examine profiling complaints that focused on possible constitutional rights violations instead of trying to decipher the mind set of the officers.

The department suffered an embarrassing setback in 2010 when Justice Department officials became aware of a recording that captured two LAPD officers being dismissive of racial profiling complaints. "So what?" one said, when told that other officers had been accused of stopping a motorist because of his race. The second officer is heard saying that he "couldn't do [his] job without racially profiling."

The officers' comments, Justice officials wrote in a letter to the LAPD, spoke to a "perception and attitude of some LAPD officers on the street" and suggested "a culture that is inimical to race-neutral policing." That drew the ire of Beck, who said the Justice Department was unfairly using a few examples to make the case for a widespread problem.

Since then, the ongoing work of the new bias investigation unit and increased oversight by the commission has satisfied Justice Department officials, who cleared the LAPD of continued oversight on the issue.

Smith, sources said, first came under suspicion when multiple people he stopped filed complaints against him. It is unknown how many people he is accused of improperly stopping or misidentifying in his records.

joel.rubin@latimes.com

Ex-school police officer to pay $309,000 in shooting hoax

Ex-school police officer to pay $309,000 in shooting hoax

By Andrew Blankstein, Los Angeles Times

March 27, 2012

Jeffrey Stenroos, the former Los Angeles school police officer who staged his own shooting last year in a bizarre hoax that caused three schools to be locked down and forced the closure of streets across the western San Fernando Valley, will pay the city a lump sum of $309,000 in restitution, authorities said Monday.

In exchange for the restitution, Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Richard Kirschner agreed to let Stenroos post bail from Los Angeles County jail pending the outcome of an appeal.

The lion's share of the payment was to compensate the city of Los Angeles for deploying more than 500 officers, plus traffic management workers. The restitution also will be discussed at a court hearing next month.

"It's highly unusual to receive such a large amount in a lump sum, but we welcome receiving the money," said William Carter, chief deputy to City Atty. Carmen Trutanich. He said the money, raised by Stenroos' friends and family, is expected to be received by the city Wednesday.

Stenroos, 31, was convicted in September of planting false evidence, insurance fraud and other crimes. The sentence came after Stenroos underwent a 90-day psychological evaluation to assess whether he should go to prison or receive probation.

In December, Stenroos was sentenced to five years in county jail, but Kirschner said he would have to serve only two years if he met the terms of his probation, which included completing 400 hours of community service.

The Jan. 19, 2011, hoax triggered a massive and costly hunt for a fictitious assailant, and it brought a swath of the Valley to a standstill for hours.

Stenroos, a seven-year veteran of the school police, was found by a passerby in apparent pain on the sidewalk near El Camino Real High School in Woodland Hills. Stenroos told authorities that he had been following up on a report of a car burglar in the area when a man with a ponytail and bomber-style jacket shot him in the chest and fled. Stenroos' bulletproof vest had apparently saved him from serious injury or death.

Believing that there was a gunman in the area, more than 550 police officers combed the quiet neighborhoods near the school, conducting door-to-door searches and keeping an eight-square-mile area locked down for 10 hours.

Police were suspicious of Stenroos' account almost from the outset. A spent shell casing found at the scene and bruising on Stenroos' chest seemed to support his story. But the officer gave investigators conflicting accounts of how the shooting had unfolded.

Authorities said Stenroos told them that only one shot had been fired, then changed his story to say that there had been several. In the days after the shooting, he dodged investigators who wanted to question him further.

During the trial, an LAPD detective testified that Stenroos admitted faking the attack, confessing that he had accidentally shot himself while trying to clean his weapon — an explanation that remains doubtful. Prosecutors and police officials have alleged that Stenroos may have shot himself intentionally to gain attention.

Stenroos' attorney, Tim Murphy, said at the trial that the officer had been sitting in his office at the school when he accidentally shot himself while cleaning his gun. After realizing he was not seriously injured, Stenroos went about his patrol duties, was overcome by delayed pain from the impact of the bullet and fell to the sidewalk.

andrew.blankstein@latimes.com

Cops arrest man for shooting burgler!!!

Cops: Man, 80, charged after shooting burglar in his Englewood home

By Rosemary Sobol Tribune reporter

7:19 a.m. CDT, March 27, 2012

Charges have been filed against an 80-year-old man after he shot a burglar who had broken into his home in the Englewood neighborhood on the South Side, police said.

Homer Wright, of the 6400 block of South Morgan Street, was inside his home about 6:30 a.m. Monday when 19-year-old Anthony Robinson broke through several boards and entered through a rear bathroom window and tried to steal some liquor, police said.

Wright, who told police he owns a bar, grabbed a handgun and shot Robinson in the lower right leg, police said.

Robinson, of the 6000 block of South Wood Street, was charged with felony burglary after he was treated at St. Bernard Hospital and Health Care Center and released.

Wright was charged with one felony count of unlawful use of a weapon after police discovered he has two prior weapons convictions from 1968 and 1994, officials said. Records show Wright also was convicted of theft in 1990.

Wright turned his gun over to detectives.

Both men are expected in Cook County Criminal Court today.

rsobol@tribune.com

Attack dogs provide cops with hours of sadistic fun

Source

Neglected police dog figures into former Watsonville cop's 'excessive force' case

By Donna Jones, Santa Cruz Sentinel

Posted: 03/26/2012 09:18:41 PM PDT

WATSONVILLE -- A former police dog who is now the subject of an alleged animal abuse case bit a suspect several times before his handler, a Watsonville police officer, ordered the German shepherd to stop in a March 2009 incident, according to recently filed court documents.

Watsonville officials said the officer, Francisco Ibarra, used "excessive force" in the incident involving the dog named Ingo and fired the veteran officer in May 2010.

Ibarra, who has been fighting to be reinstated in the job he held for more than a dozen years, faces new allegations after Monterey County officials said they found Ingo severely emaciated and dehydrated in the backyard of Ibarra's Salinas home in February.

Ibarra's lawyer Kate Wells said her client has had a "rough, really rough, rough time" since what she termed his "unlawful termination," including a stroke just weeks later and chronic unemployment for almost two years.

On March 16, she filed a petition with Santa Cruz County Superior Court, seeking judicial review of City Manager Carlos Palacios' decision to ignore the city Personnel Commission's December finding that the firing was unwarranted.

Wells, who argues Ibarra was fired due to his work as police union president, said in addition to the petition filed March 16 in Santa Cruz County Superior Court, she intends to file a lawsuit on Ibarra's behalf seeking damages.

Police Chief Manny Solano, citing his responsibility to keep personnel matters confidential, has declined to discuss Ibarra's termination other than to say in a statement to the media last May that it came after "thorough and independent investigations into multiple incidents."

According to the court documents on the 2009 incident, Ibarra said he stopped a vehicle after he noticed a minor traffic code violation and because he thought the driver might be intoxicated and the trunk appeared to be overloaded. When both the officer and driver got out of their vehicles, Ibarra said he thought the man he was trying to question was preparing to attack him with a razor blade. He attempted to subdue the man, and when he thought he was losing control, pushed a button to release Ingo from the rear seat of the patrol car to assist him. He said he allowed the dog to continue to bite the man as another officer came on scene to prevent an escape.

The Personnel Commission found that while Ibarra's report on the incident was not entirely accurate, a video showed he "was justified in seeking the assistance of the canine."

In the second incident, involving Ibarra's response to a domestic dispute on March 17, 2009, the commission also found Ibarra "did misstate a fact in his report" but that the misstatement was not "material."

The commission said while some lesser form of discipline might be appropriate, firing was not.

Wells said the commission was in a position to judge the credibility of witnesses.

"These people testified under oath," she said.

But in his statement upholding the termination, Palacios says Ibarra not only used excessive force but that he was "dishonest" with Internal Affairs investigators and the Personnel Commission.

Palacios said Ibarra falsified reports to justify or cover up his actions. In the March 17, 2009, report, Palacios noted, Ibarra wrote that he "noticed" a man's nose was bleeding, but failed to mention he had hit the man in the nose, an action caught on video.

Contrary to the Personnel Commission's perception, Palacios says the video shows a "compliant, unarmed" suspect who shows no indication of having or trying to use a weapon before, unprovoked, Ibarra "puts his right arm around (the man's neck) and takes him to the ground." Eighteen seconds into the ensuing struggle, Ibarra released Ingo remotely and then held the suspect up for several seconds, facing the oncoming dog.

Though the man committed no serious crime and didn't attempt to flee until he was threatened with the dog, he was bitten several times in the torso, back and buttocks, Palacios said. The man was later found to have been driving with a suspended license, but was never charged because the "District Attorney considered the excessive force and untruthful report to be a 'serious problem,'" according to Palacios' report.

Palacios also cited other instances of misconduct by Ibarra, including on two occasions taking guns from his family members and omitting their names and the circumstances for the seizures from police reports. He was disciplined with a 20-hour suspension in 2005. In 2007, he was suspended for 40 hours for failing to intervene when another officer engaged in excessive force on a handcuffed suspect.

Solano declined to comment on the termination Monday. But he did speak about Ingo.

He said Ibarra raised the $7,500 to purchase Ingo in 2008, and under a contract with the police department, he owned the dog.

"We would have loved to retain the dog," Solano said. "We were bound by the contractual agreement."

Solano said the arrangement wasn't unusual. The department has had K-9 units since the 1982, and in some instances it has purchased the dogs. In others, officers or nonprofit groups acquired them. In all cases, the dogs are approved by the department, and both the dog and the officer must be trained and certified before going on patrol.

Ibarra, who faces two misdemeanor charges for neglecting the dog, could not be reached to comment Monday.

Wells said she hadn't spoken to her client about the allegations, but previously Ibarra had told her Ingo had suffered from diarrhea and had lost weight.

"I know he loves his dog," Wells said. "He and his dog were partners. It doesn't make sense to me."

When Monterey County SPCA officials seized Ingo in February, the dog weighed 55 pounds, about 25 less than a healthy 5-year-old German shepherd.

Ingo has recovered in the care of the SPCA of Monterey County.

Follow Sentinel reporter Donna Jones on Twitter @DonnaJonesSCS.

FDA scores illegal drugs to be used in a murder????

And of course if you or me were involved in scoring illegal drugs to be used in a murder, we would also be charges with some form of murder. Will the FDA bureaucrats who helped get the drugs for this murder be charged with murder? I doubt it.

Of course that's how our government hypocrites operate. One set of rules for us and a second for our royal rulers.

Source

Judge: FDA allowed state to illegally gain execution drug

by Michael Kiefer - Mar. 27, 2012 11:55 AM

The Republic | azcentral.com

A U.S. District Court judge on Tuesday morning found that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration violated the law by allowing Arizona and other states to bypass regulations while importing unapproved drugs to carry out executions by lethal injection.

The ruling was made in a lawsuit filed in the name of Donald Beaty, an Arizona Death Row inmate who was executed last year.

The drug sodium thiopental, a short-acting anesthesia, that was used in executions. became unavailable in mid-2010 because its sole U.S. manufacturer had ceased production. That fall, The Arizona Republic first reported that Arizona corrections officials had obtained the drug from a distributor in London, although FDA officials were saying that it was not possible to import the drug; such exports also violated Bristish law and were shut down shortly afterward. In late December 2010, FDA officials told The Republic that it would exercise "enforcement discretion" on the matter.

E-mails obtained through Freedom of Information requests later showed that FDA officials had allowed the shipments. In April 2011, the drug was seized from some states by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, and in June 2011, Arizona was told it could not use its supply, one day before Beaty's execution. Beaty was executed using a different drug.

In his ruling Tuesday, Judge Richard Leon of the District Court for the District of Columbia, wrote, "In the final analysis, the FDA appears to be simply wrapping itself in the flag of law enforcement discretion to justify its authority and masquerade an otherwise seemingly callous indifference to the health consequences of those imminently facing the executioner's needle. How utterly disappointing!"

Dale Baich of the Federal Public Defender's Office in Phoenix said, "The states that have imported non-FDA approved drugs are now on notice that those drugs are illegal."

"War on Bath Salts" already lost

2) The "war on drugs" is a war on the American people and a war on the "Bill of Rights"

Source

Legislature targets drugs in 'bath salts' as formulas change

by Alex Ferri - Mar. 27, 2012 09:27 PM

The Republic | azcentral.com

Despite a new state law that bans certain ingredients used to make a synthetic drug known as "bath salts," manufacturers found a way to tweak their formulas to keep the drug on store shelves.

So, legislators are at it again -- this time trying to find a longer-term solution to banning such drugs.

The Senate Rules Committee will vote again on House Bill 2388, which would allow the Arizona State Board of Pharmacy to ban the chemicals used in bath salts.

The bill failed in the committee Monday over concerns about its constitutionality, but Sen. Linda Gray, R-Phoenix, said at a Tuesday news conference that she expects the bill to pass on its second vote.

Gov. Jan Brewer in February signed into law a bill banning seven primary chemicals in bath-salt drugs. But drug manufacturers began to use modified versions of the old chemicals that aren't specifically prohibited by the law, Gray said, a loophole that HB 2388 aims to eliminate.

Gray said the Legislature can't always keep up with banning every new substance drug manufacturers use in bath salts because the Legislature isn't always in session and is sometimes slow-moving.

The bill would allow the Board of Pharmacy to ban the sale of the modified chemicals while the Legislature isn't in session and allow lawmakers to pass bills that would make those chemicals illegal at a later date, Gray said.

This procedure is essential, Gray said, because it helps the state keep up with drug manufacturers and ban their new substances more quickly.

But some senators still think the bill gives an unconstitutional amount of authority to the Board of Pharmacy. Gray said Senate Majority Leader Andy Biggs, R-Gilbert, persuaded enough members of the Rules Committee to vote against the bill in its first vote for that reason.

Gray said Biggs and Sen. Ron Gould, R-Lake Havasu City, still oppose the bill, but she expects other members of the committee to change their vote.

Biggs and Gould did not return phone calls Tuesday afternoon.

Gray said the bill gives the Board of Pharmacy a limited amount of power and is therefore constitutional.

If the Rules Committee passes the bill, it will head to the Senate Committee of the Whole before being voted on in the full Senate and House.

The drug had been sold legally over the counter at stores and online. It has side effects similar to methamphetamine or cocaine.

Phoenix officer could face charges over breast photos

Source

Phoenix officer could face charges over breast photos

by Laurie Merrill - Mar. 27, 2012 06:58 PM

The Republic | azcentral.com

A Phoenix police officer could face criminal charges after snapping photographs of his ex-girlfriend's breasts and including the cutline, "I am going to miss these," Chandler police said Tuesday.

The woman, who had been dating Officer Jason Toth for several months, said she never consented to having him take the pictures.

Toth, a 25-year veteran who has been placed on administrative leave at his house, told his supervisor that the woman is a drinker and that she had, in fact, given permission for the photos to be taken.

Chandler police have submitted the case to the Maricopa County Attorney's Office with a recommendation to charge him with surreptitious photographing.

The photo depicts the Chandler woman asleep on her couch with her shirt up and her breasts exposed.

According to a Chandler Police Department report, Toth sent her a copy of the photo in early March, which frightened the woman, whose name is being withheld by The Republic. She had already grown wary of Toth, whom she said lied to her, yelled at her, ignored her and insulted her, according to the report.

The woman told police she feared Toth had drugged her the night he photographed her and wondered if he had taken other pictures too. She remembered him trying to take a photo of her when she was on the toilet, according to the report.

He sent her nude photos of himself, but she told Chandler police she did not respond in kind.

In a 2010 incident, a female Transportation Safety Administration employee filed an internal compliant against Toth, saying he sent her nude pictures of himself and "harassing texts," the police report said. The woman did not wish to push charges, the report says.

On March 14, Toth was handcuffed, read his rights, fingerprinted and photographed by Chandler police and told he was under arrest. He was released until a court appearance, said Chandler Sgt. Joe Favazzo.

The woman has obtained an order of protection and Toth has relinquished his service weapons.

Toth, who'd been assigned to the airport bureau before his arrest, is also the subject of an internal investigation by Phoenix police.

FBI spies on California Muslims

FBI said to have gathered intelligence on California Muslims

Dan Levine Reuters

7:24 p.m. CDT, March 27, 2012

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - U.S. civil liberties advocates said on Tuesday the FBI had engaged in secretly collecting intelligence about Muslims in the San Francisco Bay area in recent years, including details about a sermon delivered at a mosque.

The American Civil Liberties Union called for an inquiry into the FBI's data collection, citing investigative practices from between 2004 and 2008 that it said raised the possibility of privacy violations.

The FBI defended its actions, saying the information in question was gathered as part of authorized law-enforcement activities, some intended to bolster ties with the Muslim community.

Police monitoring of Muslim organizations has been a concern across the country. According to reports by the Associated Press, the New York Police Department kept tabs on Muslim neighborhoods in New York and surrounding areas by sending undercover officers into mosques, meetings of college campus groups and local businesses, and keeping records of what they found.

The ACLU said records obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request showed FBI agents visited the Seaside Mosque in northern California five times in 2005. Government personnel documented the subject of a sermon and discussions about a property purchase for a new mosque.

The FBI also met with representatives of a Turkish-oriented non-profit group called Bay Area Cultural Connections and used one meeting participant's cellphone number to search Department of Motor Vehicle records and obtain detailed information about him.

"By exploiting the good faith of Muslim groups and their members, the FBI is undermining community support for the government's legitimate law enforcement activities," Mike German, the ACLU's senior policy counsel and a former FBI agent, said in a statement.

The FBI labeled information collected from its "mosque outreach" program as "positive intelligence" and disseminated it to other agencies, "placing the people and organizations involved at risk of greater law enforcement scrutiny as potential national security threats," the ACLU said in a statement.

"The FBI is casting a cloud of suspicion on American Muslim religious organizations based on their faith alone, which raises grave constitutional concerns," Julia Harumi Mass, an ACLU staff lawyer, said.

FBI Assistant Director Michael Kortan responded that some of the information was collected through FBI activities designed to strengthen its relationships in the community.

"Since that time, the FBI has formalized its community relations program to emphasize a greater distinction between outreach and operational activities," Kortan said in a statement.

(Reporting By Dan Levine; Editing by Steve Gorman, Cynthia Johnston and Eric Beech)

If you don't love the government you must be a criminal???

Source

U.S. militia members cleared of conspiracy to attack government

by Ed White - Mar. 27, 2012 10:24 PM

Associated Press

DETROIT - A federal judge on Tuesday gutted the government's case against seven members of a U.S. militia, dismissing the most serious charges in an extraordinary defeat for federal authorities who insisted they had captured homegrown rural extremists poised for war.

Judge Victoria Roberts said the members' expressed hatred of law enforcement didn't amount to a conspiracy to rebel against the government. The FBI had secretly planted an informant and an FBI agent inside the Hutaree militia starting in 2008 to collect hours of anti-government audio and video that became the cornerstone of the case.

"The court is aware that protected speech and mere words can be sufficient to show a conspiracy. In this case, however, they do not rise to that level," the judge said on the second anniversary of raids and arrests that broke up the group.

Roberts granted requests for acquittal on the most serious charges: conspiring to commit sedition, or rebellion, against the U.S. and conspiring to use weapons of mass destruction. Other weapons crimes tied to the alleged conspiracies also were dismissed.

"The judge had a lot of guts," defense attorney William Swor said. "It would have been very easy to say, 'The heck with it,' and hand it off to the jury. But the fact is she looked at the evidence, and she looked at it very carefully."

The trial, which began Feb. 13, will resume Thursday with only a few gun charges remaining against militia leader David Stone and son Joshua Stone. They have been in custody without bond for two years.

Prosecutors said Hutaree members were anti-government rebels who combined training and strategy sessions to prepare for a violent strike against federal law enforcement, triggered first by the slaying of a police officer.

But there never was an attack. Defense lawyers said highly offensive remarks about police and the government were wrongly turned into a high-profile criminal case.

David Stone's "statements and exercises do not evince a concrete agreement to forcibly resist the authority of the United States government," Roberts said Tuesday. "His diatribes evince nothing more than his own hatred for -- perhaps even desire to fight or kill -- law enforcement; this is not the same as seditious conspiracy."

U.S. Attorney Barbara McQuade declined to comment. Two years ago, when militia members were arrested, she said it was time to "take them down."

The FBI had put a local informant, Dan Murray, inside the militia in 2008 and paid him $31,000. An FBI agent also was embedded. Steve Haug posed as a trucker and spent months secretly recording talks with Stone. Haug told jurors that he was "shocked" by Stone's knowledge of explosives.

NYPD terrorizes people in private buildings???

March 28, 2012, 11:29 am

Suit Accuses Police of Violating Rights of Residents in Private Buildings

By AL BAKER

A civil rights group filed a federal lawsuit on Wednesday accusing the New York Police Department of carrying out tens of thousands of unjustified stops in privately owned buildings in the city where the landlords have authorized officers to enter and given them keys.

The suit, which seeks class action status, mirrors a claim in a separate federal lawsuit against the Police Department involving stops inside public housing projects.

The Police Department has come under intense criticism for its stop-and-frisk practices, which detractors say unfairly and overwhelmingly targets blacks and Latinos. The Police Department argues that its tactics have contributed to a sharp reduction in crime.

The suit, filed Wednesday in Federal District Court in Manhattan, involves what is known as the “Clean Halls” program and includes 16,000 buildings throughout the city, many of them in the Bronx. Landlords who participate in the program register with the Police Department.

Civil rights lawyers say police officers view the invitation to enter — denoted by a metal sign outside a building — as a license to roam hallways, laundry rooms and stairwells questioning people and making arrests on charges of trespassing that are sometimes unjustified. Some residents feel compelled to carry identification when doing mundane tasks like retrieving mail or doing laundry for fear of being arrested for trespassing, the suit said.

Beyond that, officers have extended this practice to sidewalks around the buildings that participate in the program, according to lawyers for the New York Civil Liberties Union.

Besides residents, visitors and people in the vicinity of the buildings are often stopped by the police.

At a news conference in Manhattan on Wednesday, several plaintiffs spoke of living under such conditions that too often feel like a police state.

Undercover high school narc gets 12 busts in 8 months

Narcotics agent Alex Salinas spent 8 months attending high school pretending he was student and that resulted in 12 high school students being arrested on petty drug charges!!!!

If this entry level pig was being paid $50,000 a year which is what most Phoenix area cops start at that means each of the 12 arrests for petty drug charges cost the taxpayers almost $3,000.

Source

Policeman goes undercover to bust U.S. students

Mar. 28, 2012 07:34 AM

Associated Press

EXETER, California -- The student called himself Johnny Ramirez. But he was actually 22-year-old Alex Salinas, an undercover narcotics officer.

Eight months later, the ruse was up, and a school-day police sweep with the help of the young policeman ended with a dozen California students in custody on drug charges.

Some people wondered how the deception could have gone on for so long. Others lamented that the problems of the big city had come to the quaint community.

"It's amazing we were able to keep a secret in this little town for that long," said Police Chief Cliff Bush, who had been searching for years for just the right officer. "People in little towns tend to know everything about everybody."

Leading the campus sweep this month was the tall, lanky Salinas, dressed in a crisp black uniform and combat boots of the Exeter Police Department.

Still, there was no mistaking the boyish face and the wide smile gleaming with braces.

"A lot of jaws dropped when they saw me," Salinas said. "They knew me as that kid at school that they hung around with, and then the next thing they're in handcuffs and I'm in a uniform."

The sting got more attention from the media than a drug bust of 12 students normally would because of something the police chief now laments: It happened the same week as the debut of the Hollywood comedy "21 Jump Street," which features -- you got it -- undercover cops fighting crime at a school.

Chief Bush insisted it was not a case of life imitating art.

"A day or two later I became aware of the movie," Bush said. "The last thing I would do is check movie premieres. This just happened to coincide with the movie's release."

There had been no major complaints about drug dealing at the 1,000-student school that sits within sight of the police station, but Bush said he had been thinking for years about doing an undercover sting to send a message.

One day last summer, he ran into Salinas, who was weeks away from graduating from the police academy.

Bush eventually approached Salinas with the plan. With it came a full-time job -- an offer Salinas wouldn't refuse.

As Johnny Ramirez, Salinas attended football games and pep rallies. He purposely landed himself in detention so he could meet people outside of the four classes he attended before reporting each afternoon to the county drug task force headquarters for briefings and homework assignments. He made a Facebook page and friendships, which made the deception hard for him to bear.

"There were a few students I got to know who are good kids, and I did feel kind of bad for being their friend and then being something different," he said.

Only the principal, vice principal and Johnny's guidance counselor knew about the operation, school Superintendent Renee Whitson said.

"Even I didn't know the name he'd go by," she said.

Eventually students sold the new kid marijuana and cocaine, the prescription painkiller hydrocodone and the muscle relaxant Soma.

"There was certainly no celebration on the day of conclusion. It was a very sad day," Whitson said. "These are our students. We hope this is the necessary wakeup call to make this positive for their lives."

Only three of the arrested students are older than 18, and one student's parents were also arrested for investigation of methamphetamine possession.

In the end, large quantities of drugs were not confiscated, and none of the arrests involved trafficking significant quantities, though many purchases were for amounts that exceeded "personal use," Salinas said.

Was it worth keeping an officer off the streets and on a school campus for eight months?

Yes, Chief Bush said. But he is almost embarrassed that the undercover operation has drawn so much publicity, mostly because of his own bad timing regarding the film release. [I suspect Police Chief Bush means yes, because it was a jobs program that helped his police officer get paid, not that it helped remove any major or even minor criminals from the street]

"This is what I was trying to avoid, that we busted the local Scarface at the high school," Bush said, making reference to another Hollywood movie, about a drug kingpin. "Turns out they were just tiny amounts, but if you've got just one kid dealing drugs at school, that's too many."

The chief hopes the arrests have a lasting impact on all students, though he does realize he might have created a problem of another kind.

"I'd hate to be the new kid at school next year," he said. "They won't make very many friends.

Source

Cop goes undercover to bust California students

By TRACIE CONE, Associated Press

EXETER, Calif. (AP) — On his second trip through high school, former C-student Alex Salinas got a lot of A's.

He was 22, however, and an undercover narcotics officer going by the name Johnny Ramirez. When his first semester progress report showed a 3.25 average, the baby-faced police rookie made a mental note: Stop turning in homework assignments.

Eight months later, the ruse was up, and Exeter, a bucolic citrus-growing community in California's Central Valley, was turned on its ear after a school-day police sweep ended with a dozen Exeter High students in custody on drug charges.

Some people wondered how the deception by Salinas could have gone on for so long in the small town of just 10,000 people. Others lamented that the problems of the big city had come to the quaint community of antique shops and historic murals set amid a stunning backdrop of the snow-capped Sierra Nevada.

"It's amazing we were able to keep a secret in this little town for that long," said Police Chief Cliff Bush, who had been searching for years for just the right officer to pull off the undercover ploy. "People in little towns tend to know everything about everybody."

Leading the campus sweep this month was the tall, lanky Salinas, dressed in the crisp black uniform and combat boots of the Exeter Police Department instead of the T-shirts and sneakers he had worn as Johnny Ramirez.

Still, there was no mistaking the boyish face and the wide smile gleaming with braces.

"A lot of jaws dropped when they saw me," Salinas said. "They knew me as that kid at school that they hung around with, and then the next thing they're in handcuffs and I'm in a uniform."

The sting got more attention from the media than a drug bust of 12 students normally would because of something the chief now laments: It happened the same week as the debut of the Hollywood comedy "21 Jump Street," which features — you got it — undercover cops fighting crime at a high school.

Chief Bush insisted it was not a case of life imitating art.

"A day or two later I became aware of the movie," Bush said. "The last thing I would do is check movie premieres. This just happened to coincide with the movie's release."

There had been no major complaints about drug dealing at the 1,000-student school that sits within sight of the police station, but Bush said he had been thinking for years about doing an undercover sting to send a message.

One day last summer, he ran into Salinas, who was weeks away from graduating from the police academy. Salinas had ridden along with Bush years earlier when the chief was still a patrolman.

Bush eventually approached Salinas with the plan. With it came a full-time job on the city's 17-member Police Department — an offer Salinas wouldn't refuse.

As Johnny Ramirez, Salinas attended Monarch football games and pep rallies. He purposely landed himself in detention so he could meet people outside of the four classes he attended before reporting each afternoon to the county drug task force headquarters for briefings and homework assignments. He made a Facebook page and forged friendships, which made the deception hard for him to bear.

"There were a few students I got to know who are good kids, and I did feel kind of bad for being their friend and then being something different," he said.

Only the principal, vice principal and Johnny's guidance counselor knew about the operation, school Superintendent Renee Whitson said.

"Even I didn't know the name he'd go by," she said.

Still, a moment of panic erupted on the first day of school last fall when a teacher pointed to the new kid and joked, "We've got a new narc on campus. They tell me he's wearing a green shirt." Johnny Ramirez's shirt was green.

Eventually students sold the new kid marijuana and cocaine, the prescription painkiller hydrocodone and the muscle relaxant Soma.

"There was certainly no celebration on the day of conclusion. It was a very sad day," Whitson said. "These are our students. We hope this is the necessary wakeup call to make this positive for their lives."

As the school year winds down, the arrested students are in the midst of review board hearings. Only three are older than 18, and one student's parents were also arrested for investigation of methamphetamine possession.

In the end, large quantities of drugs were not confiscated and none of the arrests involved trafficking significant quantities, though many purchases were for amounts that exceeded "personal use," Salinas said.

Was it worth keeping an officer off Exeter's streets and on a school campus for eight months?

Yes, Chief Bush said. But he is almost embarrassed that the undercover operation has garnered so much publicity, mostly because of his own bad timing regarding the release of "21 Jump Street."

"This is what I was trying to avoid, that we busted the local Scarface at the high school," Bush said, making reference to another Hollywood movie, this one about a drug kingpin. "Turns out they were just tiny amounts, but if you've got just one kid dealing drugs at school, that's too many."

The chief hopes the arrests have a lasting impact on all students, though he does realize he might have created a problem of another kind in Exeter.

"I'd hate to be the new kid at school next year," he said. "They won't make very many friends."

Court rules Sheriff Joe's pink underwear is a form of punishment!!!!

Arpaio responds to ruling critical of pink boxers

Mar. 28, 2012 05:56 PM

Associated Press

An Arizona sheriff known for making prisoners wear pink underwear asked an appeals court Wednesday to reconsider its ruling that criticized jail officers' decision to force the colorful boxer shorts onto a mentally ill inmate who erroneously believed the officers were trying to rape him.

The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals had ruled in a case brought by the estate of inmate Eric Vogel against Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio that the mandatory pink undergarments were a form of "punishment without legal justification." The court also said it was fair to infer that the selection of pink as the color was meant to symbolize the loss of prisoners' masculinity.

An Arpaio lawyer who asked the court to reconsider its March 7 ruling had argued its statement about the underwear appearing to be punishment without justification was improper and that no one had an opportunity to present evidence on that issue.

"It trivializes the constitution to make a federal case out of the color of jail garb," wrote Eileen Dennis GilBride, who is representing Arpaio at the appeals court.

Joel Robbins, the attorney representing Vogel's estate, said the court wasn't issuing a judgment on the constitutionality of mandatory pink underwear for all prisoners and instead was pointing out that the issue shouldn't be ignored in this case.

"It's just a comment they made as they ruled on the case," Robbins said.

The court noted that no attorney on either side of the case questioned whether the dressing of prisoners in Arpaio's jails is a due-process violation when applied to inmates who are not convicted of a crime.

The appeals court had thrown out a 2010 jury verdict in favor of Arpaio's office and ordered a new trial in a lawsuit brought by Vogel's estate.

Vogel refused to get out of his street clothes after he was arrested in November 2001 for assaulting an officer who was responding to a burglary call. A group of officers in Arpaio's jail stripped Vogel and put him in pink underwear and other prison clothing as he shouted that he was being raped. Robbins said the officers didn't sexually assault Vogel.

Vogel, who was determined by a counselor to be paranoid and psychotic, died less than a month later, after he and his mother got in a minor car accident. Vogel ran several miles from the scene back to his home. He died the next day, and medical examiners concluded the cause was cardiac arrhythmia.

The sheriff's office has said it started dyeing the jail-issued underwear in the 1990s as a way to discourage inmates from taking home the undergarments after they were released from custody.

Inmate screams 'Go Cowboys' before execution

Texas man executed for 10-month-old boy's death

Mar. 28, 2012 05:03 PM

Associated Press

HUNTSVILLE, Texas -- A convicted child sex offender was executed Wednesday for the beating death of a 10-month-old boy he was baby-sitting at a home in Dallas.

Jesse Joe Hernandez smiled and laughed at times before receiving a lethal injection for the slaying of Karlos Borja 11 years ago.

"God bless everybody. Continue to walk with God," the 47-year-old Hernandez said. Moments later, he shouted "Go Cowboys!" in honor of his favorite football team.

As the drugs took effect, the condemned man repeated his appreciation for those he knew who had gathered to witness the execution. "Love y'all, man," Hernandez said. "... Thank you. I can feel it, taste it. It's not bad."

He took about 10 deep breaths, which grew progressively weaker until he was no longer moving. Ten minutes later, at 6:18 p.m. CDT, he was pronounced dead.

<SNIP>

Cops kill unarmed man, then blame 911 caller for the police murder???

Source

911 caller arrested in Pasadena police shooting

By Richard Winton and Adolfo Flores, Los Angeles Times

March 29, 2012

The investigation into a controversial police killing of a college student last weekend took a dramatic twist Wednesday when Pasadena authorities arrested a 911 caller, alleging his fabrication led to the shooting.

An officer shot 19-year-old Kendrec McDade on a narrow street in the city's Northwest district about 11 p.m. Saturday.

Police were dispatched to the scene after a man, identified as Oscar Carrillo, called 911. He said two armed men had stolen his laptop computer and backpack as he was buying tacos at a stand on Orange Grove Boulevard.

But on Wednesday, officials said that Carrillo, 26, lied to police about the existence of a gun and that detectives now believe neither McDade nor the other person were armed.

Carrillo was arrested on suspicion of involuntary manslaughter.

"Mr. Carrillo emphatically indicated a gun was involved ... that is very important. It sets the platform for the mind-set of the responding officers," Pasadena Police Chief Phillip Sanchez said at a news conference Wednesday.

On a 911 tape released by police, Carrillo is heard saying first that one of the suspects had a gun and later that both were armed.

Here is an excerpt:

"Two guys ... just put a gun in my face," the caller said.

"It was two guys.... Oh my God."

The dispatcher asked for details about the attackers and in which direction they fled.

"Did they have any weapons?" the dispatcher asked.

"Yeah, they have a gun," the caller responded.

"Do you remember anything about the gun?" the dispatcher asked.

"Both have a gun, man," the man said. "They run away from me."

Sanchez said that after more interviews, Carrillo admitted to detectives that he lied about the gun.

But Sanchez said a security camera video shows that the two young men were involved in the theft of a backpack from Carrillo's car. Sanchez alleged that McDade was a lookout in the theft.

The officer who fired was sitting on the driver's side of his cruiser. He shot McDade after the teenager allegedly made a motion toward his waistband, Pasadena police Lt. Phlunte Riddle said. The officer used the cruiser to block McDade's path, she said. "It was close range less than 10 feet," she said. A second officer, who was chasing McDade on foot, also opened fire, "fearing for [the] other officer's safety," Riddle said.

McDade, a football standout at Azusa High School who attended Citrus College, died of his injuries at Huntington Memorial Hospital. Police spent the next two days looking for a gun or the stolen laptop computer, but said they found neither.

The case has generated concern on the part of the American Civil Liberties Union as well as the National Assn. for the Advancement of Colored People.

Seeking to appease those and other community concerns, Pasadena police asked the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department's Office of Independent Review to investigate the shooting.

Police officials have declined so far to release the officers' names. The department has also put a security hold on McDade's autopsy report.

"There is a great number of questions unanswered here…. The bottom line is this young man was not armed when he was shot dead. The underlying question is they said he is an armed robbery suspect, but they never recovered a gun," said Earl Ofari Hutchinson, of Los Angeles Urban Policy Roundtable, before the chief's news conference. "He is not a gangbanger or a drug dealer."

The shooting occurred in a neighborhood where tensions between African American residents and police have surfaced. McDade was African American. Police did not reveal the race of the officers.

Those who knew McDade said they cannot believe what happened.

"He was a good kid who was never in trouble, never got suspended from school or anything like that," said Joe Scherf, head football coach at Azusa High. "His mother was always behind him, making sure he was doing the right thing. I remember she pulled him out of practice when he got a really bad grade."

Sanchez began his news conference Wednesday by saying that the shooting was a "tragedy for the McDade family, the City of Pasadena and police officers."

richard.winton@latimes.com

adolfo.flores2@latimes.com

Cops steal $3.9 million in gas from the city of Los Angeles???

Source

L.A. can't explain $7 million in fuel bills

By Kate Linthicum, Los Angeles Times

March 29, 2012

Despite a concerted effort at Los Angeles City Hall to track the use of taxpayer-purchased fuel, more than $7 million in gasoline and other fuel has gone missing in recent years, according to an audit to be released Thursday.

At dozens of city fueling sites, millions of gallons of fuel was pumped without any record of where it went, the audit showed. City Controller Wendy Greuel, whose office conducted the investigations, said some of the unaccounted-for gasoline may have been used for personal vehicles.

The unexplained transactions occurred despite a $12-million fuel tracking system the city put in place more than a decade ago. Most departments don't effectively use the system to monitor employees, Greuel said, a situation that she said is "indicative of the failures that are plaguing the city."

"This would just not be acceptable in the private sector or any other place," said Greuel, who is running for mayor.

Every year the city spends close to $29 million buying 14 million gallons of gasoline, natural gas and diesel fuel to power vehicles including garbage trucks, helicopters and police cruisers.

Some employees are issued fuel cards. Using a keypad each time they fill up, they're expected to input their vehicle number and an odometer reading. Other city employees are assigned to vehicles that are equipped with a high-tech system that automatically logs the vehicle number, mileage and quantity of gas pumped during fueling.

But those tracking systems can be bypassed, either manually or with so-called "master cards" that are assigned to each of the city's 141 fuel sites.

The tools to bypass the tracking system are supposed to be used only when normal systems fail. But auditors found they were used to dispense millions of gallons of fuel over a 22-month period beginning in 2009.

Master cards were swiped 56,000 times to pump $2-million worth of fuel, the audit found, and another $1.2 million in fuel was pumped using the manual bypass. In most cases, there was no paper trail showing why the backup was used and for which vehicle.

At 22 Los Angeles Police Department fueling sites, an override button meant for emergencies was used to pump $3.9 million in gas.

The audit found other problems as well, including 94,000 suspicious transactions in which the odometer reading input at the time of fueling was lower than it had been during the previous fueling. Irregularities like those should trigger reviews, Greuel said.

Since 1999, the city has paid an outside company to help it monitor fuel levels and usage. Every fuel transaction is recorded in a database managed by the Department of General Services, which in turn makes the data available to other departments. But according to the audit, only the Police Department analyzes fuel transaction data on a regular basis.

kate.linthicum@latimes.com

Opps, they are not terrorists

3 refugees cleared in Phoenix airport fake-bomb plot

Prosecutors cite 'new information' in bid to end case

by Amanda Lee Myers - Mar. 29, 2012 09:02 PM

Associated Press

All charges have been dropped against three African refugees who were accused of putting a fake bomb through security at Phoenix's airport in a possible "dry run" for a terror attack.

U.S. District Judge Neil Wake dropped the charges against Luwiza Daman, Asa Shani and Shullu Gorado on March 13 at the request of a federal prosecutor who cited new information in the case, according to court documents.

"Based on the new information, further prosecution is not in the interest of justice," Assistant U.S. Attorney Joseph Koehler wrote in his motion to dismiss the charges.

Koehler did not explain what the new information was and a spokesman for the U.S. Attorney's Office refused to elaborate, saying it was not part of the public record.

Daman's attorney, Philip Seplow, told AP that he thinks the government simply realized the refugees were not guilty and the whole thing was a big misunderstanding, partially because of a significant language barrier.

Daman, Shani and Gorado are from war-torn Eritrea and spent years in refugee camps before getting asylum in the United States. Gorado speaks some English, while Daman and Shani speak only their native language, a dialect known as Kunama.

Daman, Shani and Gorado had been charged with a felony count of causing what appeared to be an explosive device to go through a security checkpoint at Sky Harbor International Airport on Aug. 5.

Authorities said that Daman had a suspicious item in her bag as she went to board a plane to Des Moines, Iowa. They said Shani had taped the items together and gave the package to Gorado, who gave it to Daman to take on the flight.

The package turned out to be a container of a pastelike food similar to tahini, with a cellphone taped to it. But authorities said it looked just like an improvised explosive device when it went through an X-ray machine. Investigators said the item suggested that the group could have been testing airport security.

Wake had ordered the three refugees to be released from custody in October as their court case proceeded, ruling that they did not pose a threat to the public.

Video of Zimmerman in Trayvon Martin case raises questions

Video of Zimmerman in Trayvon Martin case raises questions

By Donna Leinwand Leger and Melanie Eversley, USA TODAY

Forensic experts say newly released video by police of the man who shot Trayvon Martin raises more questions than it answers — but that's not stopping droves of amateur sleuths on TV, Twitter and Facebook from scrutinizing it anyway.

"I think the public should not draw any conclusions from this at all," said Grant Fredericks, who once headed the forensic video unit for the Vancouver (British Columbia) Police Department.

The video should be just a fraction of the evidence available to police as they investigate George Zimmerman's claim that he shot and killed Trayvon, 17, after the teenager allegedly punched the neighborhood watch volunteer in the nose and slammed his head against the ground, Fredericks said.

The Feb. 26 shooting in Sanford, Fla., has brought national attention because Trayvon's family claims Zimmerman killed the unarmed youth after racially stereotyping him. Trayvon was black. Police say Zimmerman is white; his family says he is Hispanic.

Zimmerman's brother, Robert Zimmerman Jr., told CNN Thursday that reports his brother was chasing the teen are "absolutely false" and that he "was not patrolling the neighborhood. He was going to a store, Target."

Robert Zimmerman said the voice heard screaming on 911 tapes is that of his brother, who acted to save his own life. He said George Zimmerman "was very disappointed that none of the neighbors had come out" to help him. He said his brother would have been dead "if he had not acted decisively and instantaneously.''

The police security camera video shows Zimmerman exiting a patrol car and entering the Sanford Police Department about 35 minutes after the shooting. Images of Zimmerman's head and face reveal no obvious cuts or gashes, but at one point, a police officer inspects the back of his head. Zimmerman's lawyer, Craig Sonner, told NBC's Today the video supports his client's story because the officer may have been looking at an injury.

The public weighed in on social media sites. Many expressed disbelief at Zimmerman's claim that he fired in self-defense, and pointed to the grainy video as proof.

Trayvon's family and supporters say Zimmerman's lack of apparent injury in the video shows he lied about the teen attacking him.

Forensic video expert David Notowitz, founder of the National Center for Audio and Video Forensics, says much work remains before investigators can draw evidence from the video. "Right now, people are jumping to frantic conclusions," he said.

Contributing: William M. Welch

Deleted Pinal County Sheriff's Office files spur investigation

Deleted Pinal County Sheriff's Office files spur investigation

by Dan Nowicki and Lindsey Collom - Mar. 30, 2012 12:14 AM

The Republic | azcentral.com

Pinal County Sheriff Paul Babeu's office, already under investigation for on-the-job political activity, now is the focus of an inquiry into the possible destruction of public records.

Pima County Attorney Barbara LaWall is looking into whether sheriff's officials unlawfully deleted more than 6,200 electronic files, most of them e-mails. Tampering with public records is a Class 6 felony under Arizona law.

Meanwhile, a separate federal investigation into possible violations of the Hatch Act, which makes it illegal for certain government workers to participate in partisan political activities, has been expanded to include Babeu and several of his top assistants, including spokesmen Tim Gaffney and Elias Johnson, as well as Cheryl Chase, director of community relations and a supervisor candidate.

Records obtained Thursday by The Arizona Republic in response to a public-records request show that, on March 9, Pinal County Manager Fritz Behring asked the state Attorney General's Office and LaWall for help in investigating what he said was the potential destruction of public records. The following week, the U.S. Office of Special Counsel expanded its ongoing Hatch Act politicking inquiry.

Babeu, a Republican candidate for the U.S. House in Arizona's new 4th Congressional District, could not be reached to respond to the allegations of tampering with public records or the separate federal investigation into the political activities of several key aides.

"The Pinal County Sheriff's Office has never deleted public records which have been requested, whether by media or any other entity," Gaffney said.

The Sheriff's Office, he said, deleted only files, mostly calendar entries, from shared e-mail accounts to free up storage space because e-mail boxes were nearing capacity. He said that was done only after "county IT notified our office they had copied the sheriff's computer and hard drive and it was all archived."

According to Behring's March 9 e-mail to Solicitor General David Cole, members of the county's information-technology department were searching computers in the Sheriff's Office, gathering material to respond to a public-records request. That request was submitted by The Arizona Republic and sought, among other things, all e-mails sent and received by Babeu, Gaffney and Johnson from Aug. 15 to Sept. 30, which includes the period the sheriff's former boyfriend says he was threatened.

While IT staff was conducting research before March 7, Behring's e-mail says, they found a file on a drive that contained 7,220 documents, mostly e-mails. When they went back on March 7, that same file contained only 818 documents.

State law says a person commits the crime of tampering with a public record if, "with the intent to defraud or deceive," he or she intentionally "destroys, mutilates, conceals, removes or otherwise impairs the availability of any public record." Violations are punishable by six to 18 months in prison.

Hunt for e-mails

Behring wrote to Cole that he could "no longer say with any confidence that the records your office requested have been preserved without immediate assistance from the attorney general."

Cole is overseeing an ongoing investigation into whether Babeu abused his power by allegedly threatening a Mexican ex-boyfriend with deportation, a charge that Babeu has vehemently denied.

Amy Rezzonico, a spokeswoman for Cole and Arizona Attorney General Tom Horne, told The Republic on Thursday that the public-records probe is being handled by LaWall's office.

Pinal County Attorney James Walsh wrote LaWall on March 9 -- the same day Behring contacted Cole -- to declare a conflict of interest on issues involving Babeu and his office and to ask her to take over cases involving public records and possibly other matters. Chris Straub, LaWall's chief civil deputy county attorney, would neither confirm nor deny an investigation.

Behring's e-mail message to Cole, on which Walsh was copied, was sent at 9:18 a.m. Walsh's letter to LaWall was e-mailed at 3:10 p.m.

Walsh said Thursday that he refers any matter requiring an investigation into one of his clients to another prosecuting agency.

"In this case, there was some allegation that records were there one day and weren't there the next, and I thought it was required that someone else handle it," Walsh said.

In an e-mail to The Republic on Thursday afternoon, Gaffney said that to make room in the county e-mail system, "calendar appointments dating back to January 1st of 2009 were deleted." It was done after county IT notified the Sheriff's Office its e-mail had been archived, Gaffney said.

"The Pinal County Sheriff's Office has never deleted public records which have been requested, whether by any media or any other entity," Gaffney wrote. "All records requests have not only been fulfilled but the information has been preserved."

Expanded inquiry

Another letter obtained by The Republic indicates that the U.S. Office of Special Counsel's separate inquiry into possible violations of the Hatch Act has expanded to look at Babeu; Steve Henry, his chief deputy who is running to succeed him in this year; Chase, a former state lawmaker; Gaffney, director of communications and grants; and Elias Johnson, a public-information officer.

The Hatch Act, a 1939 federal anti-corruption law, primarily aims to keep politics out of the federal government workplace, but it also can apply to state and local workers if their jobs are linked to federal funding.

The Republic first reported in February on a federal Hatch Act investigation into Babeu's office, but the March 14 letter from Treyer Mason-Gale, an attorney in the U.S. Office of Special Counsel's Hatch Act division, clarifies the probe's scope. Mason-Gale asked Richard Jones, Pinal County's chief information officer, to search the electronic communications of Babeu, Henry, Chase, Gaffney and Johnson for a list of specific keywords related to Babeu's congressional campaign, including "election," "exploratory," "fundraiser," "donation."

The list of search terms also includes "sheriffpaul.com," Babeu's congressional-campaign website, and "DeRose," the last name of Chris DeRose, Babeu's campaign manager and personal attorney. Mason-Gale instructs Jones to search all electronic files, including the tapes backing up Babeu, Henry, Chase, Gaffney and Johnson's e-mail accounts, portable data-storage devices such as USB flash drives and hard drives.

Mason-Gale's letter asked that Jones provide "information or assistance" on or before March 27.

"The request is made for law-enforcement purposes and in connection with an official investigation being conducted by the U.S. Office of Special Counsel," Mason-Gale wrote.

Ann O'Hanlon, a spokeswoman for the Office of Special Counsel, said her office does not confirm or deny ongoing cases or comment on investigations.

Gaffney said that the Sheriff's Office has been cooperating with the investigation and that congressional politics have been kept out of PCSO.

"The sheriff uses his own vehicle when traveling to campaign events," he said. "Many of our near 700 full-time staff support the sheriff politically, yet everyone knows political activity must be done on personal time and with private resources."

Johnson said county IT staff members were in his office this week to copy information from his computer's hard drive, but he hadn't been told why. He said data were also copied from hard drives of computers used by Babeu, Gaffney and Chase.

Johnson said he hadn't before heard his name come up as part of the Hatch Act investigation.

"The work I do is for the Sheriff's Office," Johnson said, adding that his computer "is free for anybody, from federal investigators or members of the public, to come see whenever they want. (The data) is obviously all requestable. I say have at it."

Big police powwow in Phoenix???

Members of U.S. police hubs to meet in Phoenix area

by JJ Hensley - Mar. 30, 2012 10:23 PM

The Republic | azcentral.com

It was an idea born out of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks that has grown to become the backbone of law-enforcement agencies around the country.

Next week, more than 600 members of federal, state and local law-enforcement agencies will gather in downtown Phoenix for an annual meeting that allows those participating in 77 "fusion centers" around the country to share ideas and receive training on crime-fighting and counterterrorism topics including intelligence analysis, interagency cooperation and protection of civil liberties.

Each fusion center receives information from the public and law-enforcement agencies in its region and shares the material with other centers around the country. The centers played a key role in coordinating information from different state agencies to thwart the attempted bombing of New York's Times Square in 2010 and also helped coordinate a major drug bust on Arizona's Tohono O'odham Reservation that same year.

In Arizona, employees from more than 20 agencies work at the center, housed in a nondescript brick building in north Phoenix. The federal Department of Homeland Security paid for the $5.3 million complex. Taxpayers pick up the salaries for employees, all of whom work for different federal, state and local agencies.

Next week's sessions in downtown Phoenix are closed to the public, but fusion-center administrators organizing the conference said explaining the nature of the fusion centers and assuaging concerns about civil-liberties violations are among their priorities when discussing the centers with the public.

"There are times when we get suspicious activity reported to us by law enforcement or the public, and it really is about how someone is dressing or talking or worshiping, and we push that back and say, 'That's not appropriate.' So it's an education piece as well," said Ron Brooks, chairman of the Criminal Intelligence Coordinating Council.

But the focus on protecting civil liberties while combing through the mountain of tips generated by the public and law-enforcement agencies was not always among the top priorities for some who envisioned the role of the fusion centers, Brooks said.

In the days and weeks after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, amid a palpable sense of fear and vulnerability, there was a movement in some circles to disregard civil liberties in the name of vigilance, Brooks said.

He concedes that some segments of the population will always view fusion centers as the "Big Brother" focused on imams and anti-government compounds, but the extensive training offered at the convention is designed to reinforce the point that police focus on how people behave, not their beliefs and backgrounds.

The centers have also become a crucial backstop to agencies facing increased budget cuts. The agencies have grown to rely on the information gathering and analysis that the federally funded fusion centers provide, said Mike Sena, president of the National Fusion Center Association.

And they're not just focused on terrorism.

Brooks and Sena work with a fusion center in the San Francisco Bay Area, which includes Oakland and one of the busiest container-shipping ports in the country. Officers at the fusion center work with officials at the port to prevent potential terrorist activity, but Brooks said they also work with police in Oakland on a more pressing issue: the city's violent crime.

"The citizens of Oakland, their daily terrorism is that violence," Brooks said. "We're worried about the al-Qaida attack, the self-radicalized homegrown extremism attack, the far-right violence, but we're also worried about everyday crime that impacts our community."

Federal funding for state, local and tribal law-enforcement agencies has decreased by 64 percent in the last two years, Brooks said. Many smaller agencies cannot afford to train or employ an information analyst to deploy their diminished resources where they're needed most.

The fusion centers can fill that void, Sena said.

Do you prefer the French Police State to the American Police State???

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Fighting Terrorism, French-Style

By STEVEN ERLANGER

Published: March 30, 2012

FRANCE and the United States have different notions of liberty, equality and fraternity, though the words look roughly the same in both languages. Methods of combating homegrown terrorism — another French word dating from 1789 — are also quite different, stemming from different histories, legal systems and conceptions of the state.

The horrors in Toulouse — the murders of seven people in a bit more than a week by Mohammed Merah, a 23-year-old French citizen of Algerian-born parents who claimed membership in Al Qaeda — created a fierce debate in France about whether the police and security services failed to identify him in time. The police also failed to take him alive, making it harder to discover the true breadth of his contacts and of his path to terrorism.

Mr. Merah clearly slipped through the French net, which relies heavily on human intelligence and judgment. The French are asking why, and whether he might have been more easily identified by the more automated — and expensive — American-style reliance on computerized monitoring of phone calls and the Internet. That question is unanswerable, of course. But the differences between the two countries and their methods are considerable.

“In the United States, it is the system that counts; in France, it is the men,” says Marc Trévidic, a senior investigating magistrate for terrorism in France.

After 9/11, the Americans threw enormous resources of manpower, money and computer time into the “global war on terrorism,” which was also about tracking the potential terrorist at home, in a country with a tiny and mostly well-integrated Muslim population. The French, with a colonial history, have been dealing with terrorism (and Islam) for much longer. With the largest number of Muslims in Europe — nearly 10 percent of the population, often concentrated in poorer neighborhoods — and closer proximity to the Middle East and North Africa, France has focused more on preventing the recruitment of potential terrorists through a regular infiltration of mosques and radical Islamic networks.

Partly because of their history and partly because of more limited budgets, the French rely more on human contacts, local intelligence and human resources and less on automated phone tapping and surveillance than the Americans do. That can make the French well informed but less systematic, less able to “connect the dots” than the Americans, who have tried to learn from their own failure to uncover the 9/11 plot before it happened. In general, Judge Trévidic said, the French have one-tenth of the resources of the Americans for any given case.

The French state is highly centralized, not federal. Fed up with a series of bombings in the 1980s, France tried to better coordinate domestic and foreign intelligence with the establishment in 1984 of the Unité de coordination de la lutte anti-terroriste (the coordination unit of the anti-terrorist struggle), or Uclat, and tried something similar within the Justice Ministry.

French law governing intelligence was reformed in 1986 and refined again after 1995 and 2001, with another reform in 2006 by Nicolas Sarkozy, then interior minister, to give even more margin of maneuver to the investigating judges and the police. The Central Directorate of Domestic Intelligence was founded in 2008 as a merger of the intelligence services of the Interior Ministry, which were responsible for counterterrorism and counterespionage, and of the state police.

THE fight against terrorism is more decentralized in the United States. That is not without complications. The tensions among the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Central Intelligence Agency and local or state agencies are legendary, especially between the F.B.I. and the New York Police Department, which has its own counterterrorism intelligence unit. That tension forms a sometimes entertaining, sometimes disconcerting spine for Christopher Dickey’s 2009 book, “Securing the City.”

“France is a country with only two police forces,” Mr. Dickey notes, “both national, so there is less rivalry among agencies.”

Legally, too, the French have centralized terrorism cases in one court and tried to reintegrate procedures for fighting terrorism into regular law, but with more flexibility for terrorism investigations to act on suspicion, order wiretaps or surveillance and hold suspects for a longer period of time. The United States is still trying to reconcile due process of law with fighting terrorism — look at the difficulty in finally shutting the detention center at Guantánamo Bay, or whether to hold criminal trials or military tribunals for detainees like Khalid Shaikh Mohammed.

While easy to oversimplify, the French state also has a lot of power to pry into the lives of citizens and arrest suspects in the name of pre-emption.

“France has a very aggressive system, and before 9/11 they were centralizing the intelligence process and fixing laws to let them grab people very early to disrupt anything in advance,” says Gary Schmitt, an intelligence expert and resident scholar in security studies at the American Enterprise Institute. “They do a lot of things, including telephone intercepts, that make the Patriot Act look namby-pamby. In the U.S., we talk of pre-emption in military terms, but the French talk of it on the home front, to discover plots and conspiracies.”

The French approach has been criticized for overzealousness, racial bias and the abuse of civil rights. And, when it fails, it faces scathing criticism. Why were the authorities unable to stop the cold-blooded murder of seven unarmed people, three soldiers, three children and a rabbi, shot in cold blood by a man who was already on France’s radar for his trips to the Afghan-Pakistani border and his interest in Salafist Web sites?

Not since 1995, when a spate of bombings terrorized Paris, have the French faced an attack on the scale that occurred in Toulouse — some things are clearly working. Still, for the French, that is little consolation, just as America’s success in preventing another 9/11 on its soil can do little to atone for the errors that preceded it.

The Paris bureau chief of The New York Times.

Maïa de la Baume contributed reporting.

Glendale Police are shaking down gay men????

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Police: Glendale man gropes undercover officer

by Jose Zavala - Mar. 30, 2012 03:11 PM

The Arizona Republic-12 News Breaking News Team

A Glendale man was arrested Wednesday at a city park after he allegedly groped an undercover police officer in a public restroom.

Glendale police were conducting an undercover operation at Thunderbird Paseo Park, near 67th Avenue and Greenway Road, after receiving reports of sexual acts occurring in one of the park bathrooms.

About 4:40 p.m., Frank Camacho Rosalin, 53, allegedly followed an undercover officer into the restroom and asked him how often he frequents the park, according to Maricopa County court records.

Rosalin proceeded to walk towards the officer who was standing against one of the restroom walls. He then groped the officer over the outside of his clothing without his permission.

The officer pushed Rosalin's hand away and exited the restroom. He advised the other officers in the area and they arrested Rosalin without incident.

Rosalin told police he was sorry and he would never return to the park or do that type of thing again if they gave him a warning, according to the court records.

He was taken to the Glendale Detention Facility where he was booked and processed for one count of sexual abuse.

Rosalin admitted to groping the undercover officer without permission, the filing said. He also admitted that he has gone to the park before to meet other men, the document said.

It is not known if Rosalin was under the influence of drugs or alcohol at the time of the offense.

Military surplus a bonanza for law enforcement

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Military surplus a bonanza for law enforcement

G.W. Schulz,Andrew Becker, California Watch

Saturday, March 31, 2012

San Francisco may be known for antiwar movements and peace rallies, but when local law enforcement agencies needed help with supplies, they've turned to the U.S. military.

Over the past two decades, San Francisco authorities have acquired infrared devices, combat helmets, chemical protective gloves, vehicles and even a boat as discarded hand-me-downs free of charge from the Department of Defense.

In total, the San Francisco police and sheriff's departments have taken $1.4 million in equipment, from a $20 pair of evidence boxes to "climber's equipment" worth $325,000 in 1996.

Several other government agencies in California also have tapped the vast supply of free military surplus goods, equipping themselves with assault-style weapons and even tanks, first as part of the war on drugs and later in the name of fighting terrorism.

The agencies and their employees accumulated more equipment during 2011 than any other year in the program's two-decade history, according to a California Watch analysis of U.S. Department of Defense data.

A total of 163,344 new and used items valued at $26.2 million - from bath mats acquired by the sheriff of Sonoma County to a full-tracked tank for rural San Joaquin County - were transferred last year to state and local agencies.

Police nationwide sought $498 million worth of equipment, including 60 aircraft and thousands more weapons than in 2010. Listed dollar amounts are based on what the military initially paid for the equipment.

More than 17,000 public agencies across the nation - including police, sheriff and fire departments - have taken advantage of the equipment giveaway of an estimated $2.8 billion since Congress enacted laws in the 1990s that created the program.

For the sheriff of Orange County, it was hundreds of flashlights, exercise equipment, four trumpets and gun parts. The Vacaville Police Department got "combat coats," pistol holsters and canteens.

The Alameda County Sheriff's Department, which in years past picked up a $4.4 million, 85-foot patrol boat as well as a grenade launcher, in 2011 asked for four rifles and more than 200 pillowcases, along with tools, a $200 medical treatment table and other equipment.

The program is run online and open to law enforcement and other public agencies that sign up with the Department of Defense. Once the goods are transferred, the civilian police departments are responsible for maintenance and storage. Offensive capabilities

Police are allowed to sell or transfer the military surplus after a year. But weapons and anything else with "offensive military capability" can't be sold - the equipment technically belongs to the Department of Defense and is considered on permanent loan to the civilian police agencies.

The program has ballooned despite congressional largesse that since 2002 has resulted in billions of dollars worth of homeland security grants - including $3.8 billion for California alone - set aside for disaster preparation and counterterrorism.

Erroll Southers, a former top state homeland security official, said the combat-ready equipment can look intimidating to the public, but it enhances safety during critical, high-stress calls.

"I don't know how it could not look threatening, but that's not the intent," said Southers, now an adjunct professor at the University of Southern California.

Officials attribute the recent surge in demand to better promotion and outreach, an influx of equipment with the war in Iraq winding down, and money woes that have left police across the state scrambling to fill their needs.

"State and local budgets are rapidly diminishing and dwindling, so they're getting pretty creative about looking for alternative sources of equipment," said Twila Gonzales of the Defense Logistics Agency, which oversees military transfers to police.

Tactical vehicles

On New Year's Eve 1984, Kenneth Mohar, a 39-year-old with a history of alcohol abuse, stood in the doorway of his Concord home, pointing a hunting rifle at his roommate's head. After an argument, Mohar shot and killed the roommate in the driveway.

When local police arrived, they feared Mohar wasn't finished. So they dialed up the nearby Concord Naval Weapons Station to ask if they could borrow something: a Peacekeeper armored personnel carrier.

Nearly three decades later, Concord police no longer need to borrow armored trucks. In November, the military's excess equipment program enabled the city to obtain its own 8 1/2-ton bulletproof tactical vehicle, among other discarded equipment.

"Without the surplus program, these are probably items that we as an agency couldn't afford," said Concord police Lt. Bill Roche. "It provides us with an ability to remain competitive with the criminal community."

Much of the gear sought last year across California had nothing to do with firearms or bulletproof vehicles and served more everyday needs - treadmills, parkas, computers, tweezers, cameras and office supplies.

Big-ticket items

But some agencies have used the program to get big-ticket items that might otherwise be no more than a fantasy under today's budget belt-tightening.

The Santa Barbara County Sheriff's Department has taken in more than $13.8 million worth of surplus equipment since the late 1990s, including four helicopters that account for much of that money.

Spokesman Drew Sugars said the aircraft help deputies reach lost or stranded hikers in isolated areas of the county that include parts of the Los Padres National Forest.

Other departments can't resist free machinery that most people would have difficulty imagining on America's streets, even if it might not fit their image or needs.

The San Joaquin County Sheriff's Office, for example, last year picked up a full-tracked tank, even though it had a sophisticated, $532,000 mobile-command vehicle that it bought with federal grant money. A spokesman said the county has since gotten rid of the tank because it didn't meet the agency's "mission needs."

Demand for surplus equipment doesn't appear to be slowing.

"There's a lot of competition for it," said Sgt. Jon Zwolinski, who leads the effort to track down excess property for the Sacramento County Sheriff's Department. "The longer you delay in ordering it, the more likely the chances someone else is going to get it. So you just have to be quick on the draw." Searchable database

Look up free military surplus equipment in your community at links.sfgate.com/ZLIS.

California Watch, the state's largest investigative reporting team, is part of the independent, nonprofit Center for Investigative Reporting. www.californiawatch.org. gwschulz@cironline.org, abecker@cironline.org

F*** those public records laws, we are the police

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Pinal Sheriff Babeu aide says he did not know e-mail rules

by Lindsey Collom - Mar. 30, 2012 11:31 PM

The Republic | azcentral.com

Pinal County Sheriff Paul Babeu's director of communications said Friday that he deleted numerous files last month that had been preserved under a public-records and law-enforcement request as part of a state investigation and that he was unaware county policy prohibits employees from such activity.

Tim Gaffney said he routinely deletes e-mails, sometimes as soon as he receives or sends them, to free up space in his system and never makes electronic or paper copies of the records because he knows the county's information-technology department maintains archives.

The county e-mail policy, which is posted on the county's public website, advises employees that their e-mails are presumed to be public records and that employees should save them.

"Once communications have been preserved as documents in the appropriate format, the documents shall be deleted from the electronic mail system," the policy states. It goes on to say that the "Arizona State Library, Archives and Public Records Department does not recognize server backups as a public record."

Gaffney said he was unfamiliar with details of the policy.

"I'm sure I've read it, but I don't have any memory of it right now," he said. "I don't know anything that I individually was required to keep on the fact that I thought they (e-mails) were saved by IT as they are with any municipality."

The Pima County Attorney's Office is looking into whether the Pinal County Sheriff's Office unlawfully deleted e-mails, an inquiry that began after county officials discovered missing computer files while they were processing a public-records request and executing a request by the state solicitor general to preserve electronic records and other files as part of an inquiry.

Pinal County Manager Fritz Behring asked the state Attorney General's Office and Pima County Attorney's Office for help on March 9, according to documents obtained Thursday by The Arizona Republic in response to a public-records request.

Behring had been asked to preserve records and other evidence on behalf of a state solicitor general's investigation into whether Babeu had abused his power by allegedly threatening a Mexican ex-boyfriend with deportation, a charge Babeu has vehemently denied.

In a Feb. 24 letter obtained by The Republic, Todd Lawson, assistant attorney general, asked Behring to preserve for 90 days any e-mails and attachments, call logs, text and multimedia messages, faxes, voicemails and instant messages pertaining to Babeu. The request also asked Behring to preserve a list of items issued to or utilized by Babeu such as cellphones, smartphones, and laptop and desktop computers.

Heather Murphy, Pinal County communications director, said the county has worked to comply with the 90-day litigation hold request since it arrived and was doing so when the missing-files issue came up.

"We have taken any and all known and responsible means to preserve this information," Murphy said, adding that she couldn't be specific due to the ongoing investigation.

According to Behring's March 9 e-mail to Solicitor General David Cole, members of the county's information-technology department were searching computers in the Sheriff's Office, gathering material to respond to a public-records request. While IT staff conducted research before March 7, Behring's e-mail said, they found a file on an employee's P: drive that contained 7,220 documents, mostly e-mails. When they went back on March 7, that same file contained only 818 documents.

Gaffney said he deleted only e-mails to free up storage space because his system and those of others in the office were nearing capacity. He said that was done only after "county IT notified our office they had copied the sheriff's computer and hard drive and it was all archived." He also said he did not know what the P: drive was.

"I can tell you I didn't delete any files other than the e-mails I talked to you about in my Groupwise (e-mail) account," Gaffney said. "If they want to tell me specifically it was this person, I'm happy to research it and find out what happened. But without (that), I have no specifics."

Gaffney said he keeps e-mails in the Groupwise system until he reaches maximum storage capacity, "at which point they're deleted, but they're still saved on the county server."

He said that no one in the county has told him so but that it's been his understanding for as long as he's been a government employee that e-mail files are automatically backed up on a county server. The county says any backup must be done by the employee.

Murphy said the IT department was freezing information as part of the litigation hold when it found the files on the P: drive. It was not archiving the material.

"There is a difference in archives and freezing the tapes in case they prove to be of investigative value," she said. "The tapes are frozen in case they should become relevant in the course of a law-enforcement investigation."

The county's e-mail system is on a separate server, apart from where the P: drive is stored. Each employee has a user folder within the county's network where items can be archived at far larger quantities than allowable in an electronic mailbox. Only individual employees and main county IT staff have access to these files.

Employees can choose to set up their e-mail accounts to automatically archive items to their P: drive folders. But the act of deleting an e-mail or other files from a mailbox would have no impact on what information is stored on the P: drive.

According to the county's e-mail policy, employees are responsible for preserving public records to include e-mails. How long the records must be preserved is set by department managers, but at minimum must adhere to standards set by the Arizona State Library, Archives and Public Records Department.

County Information Technology staff in early March more than tripled the size of electronic mailboxes for Gaffney, Babeu and Elias Johnson, a Sheriff's Office spokesman, records show. They were the only county officials to receive a storage upgrade from 1.5 gigabytes to 5 gigs.

"This will allow you to keep more e-mail in the live e-mail system," Rick Jones, the county's chief information officer, said in an e-mail to the men on March 2. "With the additional space please do not archive any e-mail local (directly to the computer) or to the network. If you begin to run out of space please contact me and IT will attempt to expand your e-mail boxes if server resources allow."

One national legal expert said it's unusual for prosecutors to pursue cases related to the destruction of public records except in extreme cases.

"Whenever a public official destroys records while some investigation into criminal wrongdoing is under way, or sometimes even just a civil suit, and if it's the case that the records may be relevant, there is at least the possibility that prosecutors could seek to characterize that as destruction of evidence," said Peter Scheer, an attorney and executive director of the San Francisco-based First Amendment Coalition, a non-profit organization that focuses on government-transparency and freedom-of-speech issues.

"Also relevant is whether there is an archive of identical records. If he simply is deleting duplicates and is quite confident that there is a copy of everything deleted, then that would certainly undermine any allegation or suspicion of destruction of evidence.

"But you sort of also have to ask the question: When you're under scrutiny from every possible direction, why would you choose that moment to clear out the hard drive? If you're out of space, you could go get a new hard drive for very little money. There's no need to create a whole new set of political and legal headaches."

Republic reporter Dan Nowicki contributed to this article.

Police Are Using Phone Tracking as a Routine Tool

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Police Are Using Phone Tracking as a Routine Tool

By ERIC LICHTBLAU

Published: March 31, 2012

WASHINGTON — Law enforcement tracking of cellphones, once the province mainly of federal agents, has become a powerful and widely used surveillance tool for local police officials, with hundreds of departments, large and small, often using it aggressively with little or no court oversight, documents show.

The practice has become big business for cellphone companies, too, with a handful of carriers marketing a catalog of “surveillance fees” to police departments to determine a suspect’s location, trace phone calls and texts or provide other services. Some departments log dozens of traces a month for both emergencies and routine investigations.

With cellphones ubiquitous, the police call phone tracing a valuable weapon in emergencies like child abductions and suicide calls and investigations in drug cases and murders. One police training manual describes cellphones as “the virtual biographer of our daily activities,” providing a hunting ground for learning contacts and travels.

But civil liberties advocates say the wider use of cell tracking raises legal and constitutional questions, particularly when the police act without judicial orders. While many departments require warrants to use phone tracking in nonemergencies, others claim broad discretion to get the records on their own, according to 5,500 pages of internal records obtained by the American Civil Liberties Union from 205 police departments nationwide.

The internal documents, which were provided to The New York Times, open a window into a cloak-and-dagger practice that police officials are wary about discussing publicly. While cell tracking by local police departments has received some limited public attention in the last few years, the A.C.L.U. documents show that the practice is in much wider use — with far looser safeguards — than officials have previously acknowledged.

The issue has taken on new legal urgency in light of a Supreme Court ruling in January finding that a Global Positioning System tracking device placed on a drug suspect’s car violated his Fourth Amendment rights against unreasonable searches. While the ruling did not directly involve cellphones — many of which also include GPS locators — it raised questions about the standards for cellphone tracking, lawyers say.

The police records show many departments struggling to understand and abide by the legal complexities of cellphone tracking, even as they work to exploit the technology.

In cities in Nevada, North Carolina and other states, police departments have gotten wireless carriers to track cellphone signals back to cell towers as part of nonemergency investigations to identify all the callers using a particular tower, records show.

In California, state prosecutors advised local police departments on ways to get carriers to “clone” a phone and download text messages while it is turned off.

In Ogden, Utah, when the Sheriff’s Department wants information on a cellphone, it leaves it up to the carrier to determine what the sheriff must provide. “Some companies ask that when we have time to do so, we obtain court approval for the tracking request,” the Sheriff’s Department said in a written response to the A.C.L.U.

And in Arizona, even small police departments found cell surveillance so valuable that they acquired their own tracking equipment to avoid the time and expense of having the phone companies carry out the operations for them. The police in the town of Gilbert, for one, spent $244,000 on such equipment.

Cell carriers, staffed with special law enforcement liaison teams, charge police departments from a few hundred dollars for locating a phone to more than $2,200 for a full-scale wiretap of a suspect, records show.

Most of the police departments cited in the records did not return calls seeking comment. But other law enforcement officials said the legal questions were outweighed by real-life benefits.

The police in Grand Rapids, Mich., for instance, used a cell locator in February to find a stabbing victim who was in a basement hiding from his attacker.

“It’s pretty valuable, simply because there are so many people who have cellphones,” said Roxann Ryan, a criminal analyst with Iowa’s state intelligence branch. “We find people,” she said, “and it saves lives.”

Many departments try to keep cell tracking secret, the documents show, because of possible backlash from the public and legal problems. Although there is no evidence that the police have listened to phone calls without warrants, some defense lawyers have challenged other kinds of evidence gained through warrantless cell tracking.

“Do not mention to the public or the media the use of cellphone technology or equipment used to locate the targeted subject,” the Iowa City Police Department warned officers in one training manual. It should also be kept out of police reports, it advised.

In Nevada, a training manual warned officers that using cell tracing to locate someone without a warrant “IS ONLY AUTHORIZED FOR LIFE-THREATENING EMERGENCIES!!” The practice, it said, had been “misused” in some standard investigations to collect information the police did not have the authority to collect.

“Some cell carriers have been complying with such requests, but they cannot be expected to continue to do so as it is outside the scope of the law,” the advisory said. “Continued misuse by law enforcement agencies will undoubtedly backfire.”

Another training manual prepared by California prosecutors in 2010 advises police officials on “how to get the good stuff” using cell technology.

The presentation said that since the Supreme Court first ruled on wiretapping law in 1928 in a Prohibition-era case involving a bootlegger, “subtler and more far-reaching means of invading privacy have become available to the government.”

Technological breakthroughs, it continued, have made it possible for the government “to obtain disclosure in court of what is whispered in the closet.”

In interviews, lawyers and law enforcement officials agreed that there was uncertainty over what information the police are entitled to get legally from cell companies, what standards of evidence they must meet and when courts must get involved.

A number of judges have come to conflicting decisions in balancing cellphone users’ constitutional privacy rights with law enforcement’s need for information.

In a 2010 ruling, the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, in Philadelphia, said a judge could require the authorities to obtain a warrant based on probable cause before demanding cellphone records or location information from a provider. (A similar case from Texas is pending in the Fifth Circuit.)

“It’s terribly confusing, and it’s understandable, when even the federal courts can’t agree,” said Michael Sussman, a Washington lawyer who represents cell carriers. The carriers “push back a lot” when the police urgently seek out cell locations or other information in what are purported to be life-or-death situations, he said. “Not every emergency is really an emergency.”

Congress and about a dozen states are considering legislative proposals to tighten restrictions on the use of cell tracking.

While cell tracing allows the police to get records and locations of users, the A.C.L.U. documents give no indication that departments have conducted actual wiretapping operations — listening to phone calls — without court warrants required under federal law.

Much of the debate over phone surveillance in recent years has focused on the federal government and counterterrorism operations, particularly a once-secret program authorized by President George W. Bush after the Sept. 11 attacks. It allowed the National Security Agency to eavesdrop on phone calls of terrorism suspects and monitor huge amounts of phone and e-mail traffic without court-approved intelligence warrants.

Clashes over the program’s legality led Congress to broaden the government’s eavesdropping powers in 2008. As part of the law, the Bush administration insisted that phone companies helping in the program be given immunity against lawsuits.

Since then, the wide use of cell surveillance has seeped down to even small, rural police departments in investigations unrelated to national security.

“It’s become run of the mill,” said Catherine Crump, an A.C.L.U. lawyer who coordinated the group’s gathering of police records. “And the advances in technology are rapidly outpacing the state of the law.”

U.K. planning surveillance program

Group: U.K. planning surveillance program

All messages would be tracked, industry official says

by Raphael Satter - Apr. 2, 2012 12:11 AM

Associated Press

LONDON - The U.K. government is preparing proposals for a nationwide electronic surveillance network that could potentially keep track of every message sent by any Briton to anyone at any time, an industry official briefed on the government's moves said Sunday.

Plans for a massive government database of the country's phone and e-mail traffic were abandoned in 2008 following a public outcry. But James Blessing of the Internet Service Providers' Association said the government appears to be "reintroducing it on a slightly different format."

Blessing said that the move was disclosed to his association by Britain's Home Office during a meeting in recent weeks.

Britain's Home Office declined comment, saying an announcement would have to be made to Parliament first -- possibly as soon as next month.

There was no indication of exactly how such a system would work or to what degree of judicial oversight would be involved, if any.

A Home Office spokesman insisted that any new surveillance program would not involve prying into the content of e-mails or voice conversations.

"It's not about the content," the official said, speaking anonymously in line with office policy. "It's about the who, what, where and when."

In a statement, the Home Office said it's vital that police and intelligence services "are able to obtain communications data in certain circumstances to investigate serious crime and terrorism, and to protect the public."

Authorities already have access to a huge wealth of communications data, although the standards for retaining it differ depending on whether, for example, conversations are carried out over the phone, in an e-mail, or over an instant-messaging program.

Generally, authorities request such information during an investigation. A standardized mass-monitoring program capturing of every e-mail, every post and every tweet would spell the creation of a formidable new surveillance regime.

"It is not focusing on terrorists or on criminals," Conservative lawmaker David Davis told the BBC. "It is absolutely everybody."

The revamped surveillance plans were first reported by Britain's Sunday Times newspaper.

Source

Britons Protest Government Eavesdropping Plans

By ALAN COWELL

Published: April 2, 2012

LONDON — British lawmakers and rights activists joined a chorus of protest Monday against plans by the government to give the intelligence and security services the ability to monitor the phone calls, e-mails, text messages and Internet use of every person in the country.

In a land where tens of thousands of surveillance cameras attest to claims by privacy advocates that Britain is the Western world’s most closely monitored society, the proposal has touched raw nerves, compounding arguments that its citizens live under what critics call an increasingly intrusive “nanny state.”

The debate in recent years has pitted those who justify greater scrutiny by reference to threats of terrorism and organized crime against those who cleave to more traditional notions of individual privacy.

But the current proposal would go a step further, raising the question of how security agencies can themselves keep track of a proliferation of newer technologies such as Skype, instant messaging and social networking sites that permit instant communication outside more traditional channels.

“What we do need to make sure is that as technology changes we are able to maintain our current capability in this area,” a spokesman for Prime Minister David Cameron said, speaking in return for anonymity under departmental rules.

The Home Office said the new measures were vital to provide police and security services with “communications data to investigate serious crime and terrorism and to protect the public.”

Under the proposal, made public in The Sunday Times of London, a law to be introduced this year would allow the authorities to order Internet companies to install hardware enabling the government’s monitoring agency, known by its initials, GCHQ, to examine individual communications without a warrant.

A similar effort to enhance the authorities’ powers was made by the previous Labour government in 2006, but it was abandoned after ferocious opposition, including from the two parties that now form the coalition government — the dominant Conservatives and the smaller Liberal Democrats — and are now re-introducing the same legislation..

Currently, government eavesdroppers and police need a warrant to monitor specific communications. But the new system would permit the authorities to track communications data like “time, duration and dialing numbers of a phone call or an e-mail address,” the Home Office said in a statement.

“It does not include the content of any phone call or e-mail, and it is not the intention of the government to make changes to the existing legal basis for the interception of communications,” the statement said.

Nick Clegg, the deputy prime minister and a Liberal Democrat, defended the plan, saying he was “totally opposed to the idea of governments’ reading people’s e-mails at will or creating a new central government database.”

“The point is, we are not doing any of that and I wouldn’t allow us to do any of that,” he said, arguing that the authorities wanted to update “the rules which currently apply to mobile telephone calls to allow the police and security services to go after terrorists and serious criminals and updating that to apply to technology like Skype, which is increasingly being used by people who want to make those calls and send those e-mails.”

However, opponents, like the Conservative lawmaker David Davis, said the measures would give the authorities far greater powers to intrude into areas that have traditionally been private.

“It is not focusing on terrorists or criminals,” Mr. Davis said. “It is absolutely everybody. Historically, governments have been kept out of our private lives.”

“Our freedom and privacy has been protected by using the courts, by saying, ‘If you want to intercept, if you want to look at something, fine; if it is a terrorist or a criminal, go and ask a magistrate and you’ll get your approval.’ You shouldn’t go beyond that in a decent, civilized society, but that is what is being proposed.”

“This is an unnecessary extension of the ability of the state to snoop on ordinary innocent people in vast numbers,” he said.

“The problem we have had in the past is this information has been leaked, lost, stolen,” said Malcolm Bruce, a Liberal Democrat member of Parliament. “I think there would be very, very real concerns that it could be open to all kinds of abuse.”

“We have had a situation where police have been selling information to the media,” he said, referring to testimony at a judicial inquiry into media ethics and practices. “I think we are in a very, very dangerous situation if too much information is being passed around unnecessarily,” he said.

GCHQ stands for Government Communications Headquarters, which is run in close collaboration with the National Security Agency in the United States.

It is one of three British intelligence agencies, along with the domestic MI5 security unit and the overseas MI6 secret intelligence service. Its operations are conducted mainly from its headquarters near the spa town of Cheltenham, where most of its 5,500 staff members work, according to its Web site.

Information gathered by GCHQ has played a major part in the security service’s efforts to foil purported terrorist plots since the July 7, 2005, London bombings.

British officials have taken to warning that London will be a potential target for terrorism when it hosts the 2012 Olympics this summer, strengthening the case for enhanced powers to intercept communications. But opponents of the proposed legislation are pointing out that the coalition came into office promising to respect individual rights.

Nick Pickles, director of a privacy advocacy group called Big Brother Watch, said “no amount of scare-mongering can hide the fact” that the planned law had been attacked by lawmakers in all major parties. “The government has offered no justification for what is unprecedented intrusion into our lives, nor explained why promises made about civil liberties are being junked,” he said.

He was in prison when the murder occurred!!!!

Source

More records indicate that inmate was in jail when 1992 double murder occurred

By Steve Mills, Chicago Tribune reporter

April 2, 2012

The Illinois attorney general's office has opened an in-depth examination of how Cook County prosecutors have handled the trial and nearly two decades of appeals in a controversial 1992 double murder case that sent a teenager to prison for life, even though records showed he was in a Chicago police lockup when the crime occurred, according to court documents and interviews.

At issue is whether prosecutors failed to turn over key information to defense lawyers that would have helped the case of Daniel Taylor, whose defense at trial seemed ironclad: that he had been arrested on unrelated charges before the murders occurred and was not released until after.

Taylor's case, in turn, casts doubt on the entire criminal investigation, since eight suspects in all confessed and implicated each other.

A three-judge panel of the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that included Judge Richard Posner recently found Taylor's claims were worth pursuing and took the unusual step of granting his request to file a second appeal in federal court — a move that could lead to a new trial. And that was before the attorney general's office began digging deep into the case and uncovered additional documents it said were not turned over to Taylor.

"When combined with the testimony of (a) newly revealed witness and the newly disclosed police reports," the judges wrote in an order late last year, "this is strong proof that Taylor's participation in the crime was physically impossible. In contrast, the circumstances surrounding the non-videotaped confession are suspect."

The case against Taylor and the seven other defendants was the focus of the Tribune's 2001 investigation "Cops and Confessions." Five of the eight defendants were convicted and sent to prison, and Taylor was sentenced to life without possibility of parole. The Tribune has continued to investigate the case. Among the subsequent revelations: A Taylor co-defendant said he and several other men committed the murders and that Taylor and the others who were arrested are innocent.

In some cases, crucial documents or witnesses that can turn a prosecution upside down do not surface for years. That it is happening in a case that has received such scrutiny may raise questions about who in the prosecutors' office had knowledge of the documents and why they were allegedly withheld.

The failure to turn over material that can help a defendant's case at trial is among the most serious violations a prosecutor can commit.

The current inquiry began as the attorney general's office took over the federal appeal from Cook County prosecutors, a routine job for litigators in the office of Attorney General Lisa Madigan.

As lawyers dug deeper into the case and began to review the state's attorney's files, they found additional documents that, under the law, they believed should have been turned over to Taylor's trial attorney but had been withheld, according to filings in federal court and correspondence between the attorney general's office and Taylor's current attorney.

Those documents would have bolstered Taylor's defense at trial, the court filings say.

"It's simply unacceptable that this evidence has remained hidden for 19 years," said Karen Daniel, an attorney at the Center on Wrongful Convictions at Northwestern University law school and Taylor's lawyer. "The correct thing for the state's attorney to do now is to go into court immediately and have the conviction set aside. ... Daniel has been locked up for more than half his life, for a crime he didn't even commit and without the benefit of a fair trial. Any further delay only magnifies the injustice."

Dan Kirk, chief of staff for Cook County State's Attorney Anita Alvarez, said prosecutors were cooperating with the attorney general's office. He said they were studying the case file as quickly as possible to determine if prosecutors had an obligation to turn over the documents and whether they were withheld.

"We don't know at this point whether they were turned over or not. But we're going to find out," said Kirk, who described the effort as a challenge because of the age of the case. "I don't feel comfortable taking anybody's word for it until we ourselves do an exhaustive review."

Sally Daly, Alvarez's spokeswoman, put a finer point on the issue, saying the office considers the claim "an unsubstantiated allegation."

"We're working with the attorney general," Daly said. "We're also reviewing the entire case file, to analyze the matter and to review the notes that have been raised in the context of the totality of the entire case. We're trying to do this as quickly as possible."

Taylor was 17 and living mostly on the streets when he and the others were charged with the November 1992 shooting deaths of Sharon Haugabook and Jeffrey Lassiter. According to the confessions, the shootings stemmed from a dispute between Lassiter and one of the suspects, Dennis Mixon. Mixon later admitted he and at least two other men, one of them now in prison for another murder, committed the crime.

Taylor was questioned by police about two weeks after the murders. But after police obtained a statement from him, Taylor remembered he had been locked up on the night of the arrests, and he told detectives. They then began to investigate his claim and found records that showed Taylor was, in fact, behind bars. Police then said they found evidence that undercut that claim and supported Taylor's confession.

At trial, prosecutors told jurors that Taylor's confession tied him to the crime; indeed, all eight suspects implicated all the others in their confessions. Seven of the eight — all except for Mixon — have maintained their innocence. Prosecutors at trial were Thomas Needham — who became a top aide to former Mayor Richard Daley, then a top Police Department lawyer and now is in private practice — and Jeanne Bischoff, who is still in the prosecutors' office.

Needham and Bischoff could not be reached for comment.

Taylor's lawyer, Nathan Diamond-Falk, showed jurors an enlarged arrest report and bond slip showing Taylor was arrested two hours before the 8:45 p.m. murders, taken to the now-shuttered Town Hall police station at Halsted and Addison streets, and was not released until 10 p.m.

Police officers from the station testified in Taylor's defense, but the testimony was less than robust in part because Taylor's lawyer did not have all of the documents generated in the case. Prosecutors undermined the officers' testimony, too, suggesting they were covering up for breaking police rules by releasing Taylor early.

The issue of what prosecutors turned over to the defense has been simmering in the case for some time. In the Tribune's investigation, documents were found that were not turned over to Taylor's trial attorney. Those showed police were trying to find a man who shared a lockup cell with Taylor. That man told the Tribune that once police found him and he said he remembered being locked up with a young black man, the police lost interest in him and never contacted him again. Had Taylor's trial lawyer had the reports, he could have called the man as a witness to try to bolster the alibi that he was behind bars.

That was the issue the federal appeals court recently ruled on and said bolstered Taylor's claim he could not have committed the crime.

The new documents are handwritten notes of interviews of the officers working at the station the night Taylor was arrested. They were prepared by David Styler, a prosecutor who now works forAon Corp., who made the grand jury presentation in Taylor's case. In the notes, several of the officers are certain Taylor was in the lockup when Taylor and the records say he was. One officer, James Gillespie, is quoted saying "he's convinced" that Taylor was there at 10 p.m., words that are stronger than his trial testimony. A sergeant is quoted saying Taylor was in the lockup when he left work at 9 p.m.

Styler and Gillespie could not be reached for comment.

Other officers working in the station that evening, according to the notes, also provided information that supported Taylor's alibi.

In court filings and correspondence, the attorney general's office says these notes should have been given to Diamond-Falk before trial but it believes they were not. The office says the notes are important because they "arguably memorialize potentially exculpatory conversations with police officers tending to corroborate (Taylor's) alibi defense."

Officials at the attorney general's office declined to comment.

Those notes go to the heart of Taylor's defense and would have allowed Diamond-Falk to question the police officers more effectively as well as fend off prosecutors' attempts to undermine Taylor's alibi. It is the second time documents have surfaced that likely hindered Diamond-Falk's ability to defend Taylor, who is being held at Menard Correctional Center.

Diamond-Falk declined to comment, saying he was likely to become a witness as Taylor's appeals continue in federal court.

"The statements of the police officers supported (Taylor's) defense. They did not support the prosecutors' suggestion at trial that the police lockup records were falsified or inaccurate," said Daniel, Taylor's attorney. "Prosecutors are required by law to disclose this type of evidence."

Taylor's case now is in both federal and state court, and he said he remains hopeful he can finally prove his innocence and win his freedom.

smmills@tribune.com

Amnesty International accuses Arizona of abuse in prisons

Amnesty International accuses Arizona of abuse in prisons

by Bob Ortega - Apr. 3, 2012 12:01 AM

The Republic | azcentral.com

Arizona's state prisons overuse solitary confinement in cruel, inhumane and illegal ways, particularly for mentally ill prisoners and juveniles as young as 14, the human-rights group Amnesty International charges in a report to be released today.

According to the report, which is to be delivered to the governor and state lawmakers, Arizona prisons use solitary confinement as a punishment more than most other states or the federal government.

document Report | document ACLU lawsuit | Suit: Inmates denied adequate care

The group found that some inmates are held in isolation for months and sometimes years, and it called on the state to use the practice only as a last resort and only for a short duration.

In addition, it asked that the practice not be used against children or people who are mentally ill or have behavioral disabilities. The group also called on state officials to improve conditions for prisoners in solitary confinement and to act to reduce the high number of suicides in Arizona's prisons.

Arizona Department of Corrections officials said they had not read the report Monday and were unable to comment.

According to the DOC, 3,130 inmates, or 8 percent of the state prison population, were being held in the highest-security, maximum-custody units as of Friday, and most were confined alone.

Although maximum-security inmates include those who are violent and may represent a threat to other inmates or staff, Amnesty noted that Arizona's own figures show that 35 percent of inmates in maximum security were committed for non-violent crimes.

Amnesty International's report cited sources who said prisoners are regularly assigned to maximum security for relatively minor rule violations or disruptive behavior, often because they have mental-health or behavioral problems.

The report noted cases of Arizona inmates who have been in solitary confinement continuously for 15 years. Amnesty said that various international human-rights treaties and experts, including the United Nations' Special Rapporteur on Torture, have called on states to limit the use of solitary confinement to exceptional circumstances, for short periods and to prohibit solitary confinement of children 17 and younger.

Amnesty's report found that 14 children 14 to 17 years old had been held in maximum custody at the Rincon unit in the Tucson state prison, under conditions similar to those of adults: 22 to 24 hours a day in their cells, limited exercise alone in a small cage and with no recreational activities.

Because children and adolescents are not fully developed physically and emotionally, they are less equipped to tolerate the effects of isolation, according to studies cited in the report.

Some charges in the Amnesty report echo those raised in a federal lawsuit filed by the Americal Civil Liberties Union and the Prison Law Office last month, alleging that Arizona's Department of Corrections doesn't provide adequate mental-health and medical care.

The state has not responded to that suit, and the Corrections spokesman said the department wouldn't respond to any parts of the Amnesty report that related to that litigation.

Last July, Corrections officials declined to meet with Amnesty representatives from London who were visiting Arizona, nor allow them to visit the Eyman state prison, which houses about 1,950 maximum-security inmates.

A spokesman said Corrections Director Charles Ryan had other commitments. In a letter to Amnesty, Ryan cited security concerns in declining their visit request. On that same tour, Texas and California correctional officials met with Amnesty's representatives, and California permitted them to visit maximum-custody units.

About 1 percent of federal inmates are held in conditions similar to Arizona's, according to data from the Federal Bureau of Prisons.

The U.S. holds more prisoners in solitary confinement than any other country in the world, Amnesty said.

With more than 8 percent of Arizona's inmate population in maximum security and a large portion of those inmates in solitary, the state's rate puts it at the high end among U.S. states, most of which hold from 1 to 3 percent of their inmates in some form of solitary confinement.

Most Arizona maximum-security inmates are isolated in "special management units," windowless cells that, contrary to the U.N. Standard Minimum Rules for Treatment of Prisoners, have no direct access to sunlight or fresh air, and have lighting that is dimmed at night but left on 24 hours a day, the Amnesty report said.

Inmates in SMU units are not allowed to work. They typically receive two daily meals in their cells, have no contact with other inmates and are allowed out of their cell no more than three times a week for two hours for exercise and showers, in many cases in a windowless room with nothing except tall walls and a mesh over the roof.

Amnesty cited allegations that the cells are no longer steam-cleaned between inmates, so that food, urine and feces are stuck on the walls and food slots.

Both Amnesty International and inmates contacted by The Arizona Republic expressed concern that the conditions in solitary may contribute to Arizona's high prison suicide rate, which was double the national average last fiscal year. Seven of the 10 most recent suicides in state prisons were by inmates being held in solitary in maximum-security cells, according to Corrections death reports.

While many states, including California, New York, Massachusetts, Vermont, Ohio, Mississippi and Wisconsin, bar placing seriously mentally ill inmates in solitary because the social isolation and sensory deprivation can lead to further psychological deterioration, Arizona does not.

Amnesty cited reports that serious mental illnesses often go undiagnosed in Arizona prisons because of a lack of mental-health staff and inadequate screening and monitoring.

Amnesty reported that mental-health staff don't have weekly rounds, visiting maximum-security inmates only when there's a crisis, and consulting with them at their cell door.

It noted the ACLU lawsuit, which alleges that prisoners in solitary wait an average of six to eight months to see a psychologist, with some waiting more than a year. One prisoner diagnosed with serious mental illness spent two years in solitary without seeing a psychiatrist despite repeated requests and referrals by staff, according to the suit.

Amnesty noted 43 suicides listed by Corrections from October 2005 to April 2011 and said that of the 37 cases in which it was able to collect information, 22 -- or 60 percent -- took place in maximum-custody solitary units. There have been at least eight more suicides since April 2011 and 16 other deaths that the department described only as "under investigation."

In letters to The Republic, inmates have raised concerns similar to those in the Amnesty report. "While on suicide watch here at SMU-1, the lights stay on all night and make it impossible to sleep -- all day, all night," wrote Dustin Brislan, an inmate with a serious mental illness in solitary confinement at Eyman.

"Lack of contact, of seeing the outside, seeing any bit of sunlight, smelling fresh air, all of that has increased my mental illness. I'm only allowed recreation every other day, where I'm put in a windowless cell off area."

The Eyman prison is the only one in Arizona not accredited by the National Commission on Correctional Health Care, which requires that prisoners being held in solitary confinement have at least weekly contact with mental-health staff.

By contrast, North Dakota's prison system hasn't had a suicide in 12 years, and none in maximum security since the early 1990s, according to that state's director of corrections and rehabilitation, Leann Bertsch.

"People with mental illness do very poorly in isolation," she said, "so we work with them intensively because we don't want them staying in isolation for long."

That means constant supervision, daily visits with behavioral counselors, and other interventions by trained staff as part of a comprehensive suicide-prevention policy.

The Amnesty report also questioned why Arizona's Corrections Department requires all prisoners sentenced to life to spend at least their first two years in solitary confinement, regardless of whether they pose a threat to other inmates or guards.

"There appears to be no valid reason," the report said. American Bar Association standards call for prisoners to be kept in solitary more than a year only if the prisoner poses a "continuing, serious threat."

Many states have reduced solitary confinement in recent years, often under court order, only to find that their costs drop and prisoners behave better when they aren't in solitary.

Mississippi cut the use of solitary by 80 percent in 2007, and Maine by 60 percent last year.

Amnesty International said Arizona should:

• Reduce the number of prisoners in isolation to only those who are a serious and continuing threat.

• Improve overall conditions, provide more out-of-cell time, better exercise facilities, meaningful education and rehabilitation programs.

• Introduce measures to allow some group interactions and association to benefit inmates' mental health and provide incentives for better behavior.

• Remove all serious mentally ill prisoners from solitary and prohibit them from being placed in solitary.

• Improve mental-health monitoring; take steps to reduce suicide, including more humane conditions in suicide watch cells; and prohibit solitary confinement of prisoners under 18.

Are the Phoenix police listening to your cell phone calls????

Study: Cellphones tracked by police without warrants

Apr. 2, 2012 10:33 PM

Staff and wire reports

Local police departments across the country are tracking cellphones without a warrant, according to documents obtained by the American Civil Liberties Union.

The ACLU surveyed about 200 state and local law-enforcement agencies across the country and found that only a handful of them said they obtained "warrants based on probable cause" before tracking cellphones. Most other agencies had laxer standards for tracking cellphones. In Lincoln, Neb., for instance, local police can obtain the GPS location of cellphone users "without demonstrating probable cause," the group said in a statement.

As a result, the ACLU concludes that there are "unclear or inconsistent legal standards from town to town that frequently fall short of probable cause," questioning whether the practice is constitutional.

Congress is considering a bipartisan bill that would require police to obtain a warrant to track cellphones or GPS devices, as well as banning phone companies from sharing such data without their customers' consent.

"The lack of legal clarity surrounding the use of electronically obtained location data, also known as geolocation information, means that there are no clear rules for how this data can be used, accessed or sold by law enforcement, commercial entities or private citizens," Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., a co-sponsor of the bill, said in a news release last June when he introduced the bill.

Police in the Phoenix area are reluctant to talk about their investigative practices, but acknowledge that tracking cellphones can be a valuable investigative tool, for criminal investigations and for dealing with emergencies that could include a missing child or a lost person.

Gilbert police responded to an ACLU public-records request by saying they spent $244,000 to buy cellphone-tracking equipment in 2008. The purchase included a $150,000 grant from a federal Homeland Security program and $94,195 in funds seized as asset forfeiture from criminal enterprises under the federal Racketeering, Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act.

A letter signed by Gilbert Chief Tim Dorn said police do not keep specific records on when and under what circumstances the equipment is used. Phoenix and Mesa police said they do not have cellphone-tracking equipment. The Maricopa County Sheriff's Office also said it does not own cellphone-tracking equipment.

Sgt. Trent Crump, a Phoenix police spokesman, said the department doesn't conduct any cellphone surveillance without a court order, either a search warrant or a subpoena.

He said the last type of electronic surveillance available to police without a court order was GPS trackers placed on cars, but that investigative technique was recently overturned by the Arizona Supreme Court.

Phoenix police and the Sheriff's Office said that cellphone companies typically demand court orders before turning over information to their agencies. Peoria police said they also seek a court order to obtain cellphone information, unless there is an emergency situation where someone's life is in danger or if there is evidence a crime is in the process of being committed.

Sgt. Mark Clark, a Scottsdale police spokesman, said his agency obtains a court order to trace cellphones when legally required to do so.

The situation also varied in other parts of the country.

In correspondence with the ACLU, the District of Columbia police acknowledged using cellphone data, including location information, but declined to release the legal standards it uses for obtaining cellphone-location records, saying such matters were "law-enforcement sensitive" and thus should not be made publicly available.

Fritz Mulhauser, staff attorney for the ACLU's local branch for the District of Columbia, says the local police offered a few more details about their cellphone-tracking policy after being pressed by a local council member.

"Chief (Kathy) Lanier on February 24 acknowledged in a letter before the agency annual performance-oversight hearing that MPD had sought 684 cell-location records in the 20 months before that date," said Mulhauser, noting that the ACLU's original query yielded "little information."

The Washington Post and Republic reporter Jim Walsh contributed to this article.

High court OKs routine jailhouse strip searches

High court OKs routine jailhouse strip searches

by Mark Sherman - Apr. 2, 2012 10:35 PM

Associated Press

WASHINGTON - Jailers can perform invasive strip searches on people arrested even for minor offenses, an ideologically divided Supreme Court ruled Monday, with the conservative majority declaring that security trumps privacy in an often dangerous environment.

In a 5-4 decision, the court ruled against a New Jersey man who was strip searched in two county jails following his arrest on a warrant for an unpaid fine that he had, in reality, paid.

The decision resolved a conflict among lower courts about how to balance security and privacy. Prior to the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks, lower courts generally prohibited routine strip searches for minor offenses. In recent years, however, courts have allowed jailers more discretion to maintain security, and the high court ruling ratified those decisions.

In this case, Albert Florence's nightmare began when the vehicle driven by his wife was pulled over for speeding. He was a passenger; his 4-year-old son was in the backseat.

Justice Anthony Kennedy said the circumstances of the arrest were of little importance. Instead, Kennedy said, Florence's entry into the general jail population gave guards authorization to force him to strip and expose his mouth, nose, ears and genitals to a visual search in case he was hiding anything.

"Courts must defer to the judgment of correctional officials unless the record contains substantial evidence showing their policies are an unnecessary or unjustified response to problems of jail security," Kennedy said.

In a dissenting opinion joined by the court's liberals, Justice Stephen Breyer said strip searches improperly "subject those arrested for minor offenses to serious invasions of their personal privacy." Breyer said jailers ought to have a reasonable suspicion someone may be hiding something before conducting a strip search.

Breyer said people like Florence "are often stopped and arrested unexpectedly. And they consequently will have had little opportunity to hide things in their body cavities."

Florence made the same point in his arguments: He said he was headed to dinner at his mother-in-law's house when he was stopped in March 2005. He also said that even if the warrant had been valid, failure to pay a fine is not a crime in New Jersey.

But Kennedy focused on the fact that Florence was held with inmates in the general population. In concurring opinions, Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Samuel Alito said the decision left open the possibility of an exception to the rule and might not apply to someone held apart from other inmates.

xxx

More of the old "do as I say, not as I do" from our government masters!!!!

http://eastvalleytribune.com/local/article_7eaf7e2e-7de2-11e1-935d-001a4bcf887a.html

FBI investigates AG Horne for campaign finance violation accusations

Posted: Tuesday, April 3, 2012 4:13 pm

By Mike Sakal, Tribune

The FBI is investigating Arizona Attorney General Tom Horne for allegations of colluding with an independent expenditure committee that spent more than $500,000 on ads attacking his Democratic opponent during the 2010 election campaign, according to a complaint.

Don Dybus, who volunteered during Horne’s campaign for attorney general and serves as one of his prosecutors in the AG’s Tucson office, filed the complaint with Arizona Secretary of State Ken Bennett’s office in February. Dybus said in the complaint that the funds were facilitated by Kathleen Winn, then chairwoman for the Business Leaders for Arizona, and that Horne promised Winn a job.

Winn now works as Horne’s director of community outreach. Dybus contends that the Business Leaders of Arizona received $115,000 from Horne’s brother-in-law in California to help pay for the ads attacking Horne’s opponent, Felecia Rotellini.

A spokesman in Bennett’s office would not say when the complaint was forwarded to the FBI, but said on Tuesday the office did so quickly after receiving it and reviewing it.

“We felt it was appropriate to send it to at least one law enforcement agency,” said Matthew Roberts, a spokesman for Bennett’s office. “We receive complaints quite often during election cycles, and this one appears to be dealing with allegations from the last election cycle.”

Roberts said the office would not comment on whether the FBI was the only law enforcement agency that the complaint was forwarded to, but said that any time there’s a campaign finance violation, it’s subject to some kind of enforcement.

State law prohibits coordination between candidates and independent expenditure committees that support them. Under state law, if someone is found in violation of illegally receiving campaign contributions, the fine can be three times as much as the amount illegally received, plus the amount that was illegally received or coordinated.

“The investigating authority is looking into it and if they find something, I’m sure they’ll let us know,” Roberts said.

In the complaint, Dybus invoked his whistleblower protection rights, something Horne said Dybus was only doing to protect his job as he had already planned to terminate him.

In a statement issued by Horne, he also denied any wrongdoing, said he never promised a job to Winn and has not been contacted by the FBI.

“When Don Dybus sent his letter, he knew he was about to be fired,” Horne said. “He sent the letter to the Attorney General’s Office indicating that he could not be fired.

According to Horne’s statement, Sharon Collins, manager of the Tucson office, asked Dybus why he sent a letter of charges, as referred to in his letter; Collins said Dybus responded: “I knew that Rick Bistrow (the Chief Deputy in the Attorney General’s office) was about to fire me, and I was afraid of losing the health insurance.”

“Of my own personal knowledge I am absolutely certain that there was no such coordination, and if there is any investigation, and it is fair, it should reach the same conclusion,” Horne added. “The fact is that extraordinary care was exercised to avoid coordination.”

On Tuesday, Dybus told the Tribune that Horne’s response was “laughable” and that he had already heard numerous times throughout the year that he was going to get fired. He also said that he had too much information to sit on and said he had a reasonable belief that Horne was involved in wrongdoing.

“I have no qualms about doing this. I’d do it again in a heartbeat, said Dybus, who said he was contacted by a law enforcement agency about the investigation but would not say which one.

On Horne’s response that Dybus was trying to protect his job by becoming a whistleblower, “I’ve heard that 12 times in the last 12 months,” Dybus said. “I got tired of hearing it, frankly. When you’re going to fire somebody, you fire them. You don’t talk about it; you do it. I was a vice president of Clear Channel. I know when people are going to get fired. You don’t beat around the bush about it. With these knuckleheads, management by fear has worked on a lot of people. My attitude was that they could kiss my ass. I was one of Tom Horne’s strongest supporters, one of his biggest confidants.”

Contact writer: (480) 898-6533 or msakal@evtrib.com

Chandler messy yard cops crackdown on properties with trash and weeds

Crackdown begins on properties with trash and weeds

City mass mails code-violation reminders

by Edythe Jensen - Apr. 2, 2012 10:07 AM

The Republic | azcentral.com

Downtown Chandler is bustling, but some neighborhoods a short trek from popular restaurants, tree-lined walkways and art-enhanced landscapes are battling blight.

Northeast of Arizona Avenue and Chandler Boulevard, well-maintained historic homes are beside others with weeds, trash and boarded-up windows.

David Mascarenas, a 56-year-old Chandler native, who grew up in the area, said he is frustrated by growing numbers of neighbors who park vehicles in front yards, often on top of dirt where lawns once grew.

"I'm not looking for the tyranny of an HOA, [He wants the tyranny of jackbooted government messy yard cops which are far worse!!!!] just some consistencies on the basic things, like not allowing eyesores," he said.

Malcolm Hankins, the city's neighborhood-preservation manager since January, said the process takes time and his office recently has targeted several areas of the city for mass mailings followed by code-inspector visits. Among the areas is the historic Silk Stocking neighborhood south of Mascarenas' Lundquist Manor subdivision.

Last month the city mailed 465 notices to every address between Chandler Boulevard and Galveston Street, Arizona Avenue and Hamilton Street, requesting that recipients "assess your property and make improvements if needed." If violations are not corrected, owners or occupants can receive violation notices and fines, the mailing said.

The notice asks owners or occupants to remove weeds, improve dirt yards with gravel or grass, keep inoperable vehicles out of public view, remove debris and maintain exteriors of homes and fences.

"We are trying to be systematic in our approach, letting residents know we're coming through and these are the things we look at," Hankins said.

The process takes time and the first contact can be an informal request to clean or fix. If there is no improvement, an inspector issues a violation notice and gives the property owner time to remedy the problem. If the owner does not comply, citations and fines can follow.

"There are a lot of little steps in any given case," Hankins said. "Some people ask for more time and we grant extensions. We don't use a cookie-cutter approach. The priority is trying to contact the property owner."

Notices went out this year to three other areas: west of Chandler Fashion Center, south of downtown and north of Ray Road in east Chandler.

Mary Lou Perkins, a longtime resident, who last year helped gain the Silk Stocking neighborhood's inclusion in the National Register of Historic Places, received a city letter and is pleased with Hankins' comprehensive approach.

"We've seen some improvements since he sent out those letters," Perkins said. "The man across the street had his front porch full of stuff. . . . He put it in the backyard where nobody can see it."

Speculation during the real-estate boom, foreclosures, rentals and multiple families living in one home have contributed to Perkins' neighborhood's problems. Committed neighbors are doing what they can to make things better, she said. She is working with a group that is staging an April 21 "Live, Love" effort, in which volunteers help residents with landscaping and painting.

Mascarenas said his neighborhood a few locks north isn't getting the attention it needs. It was not among the areas that received mailed notices.

"You have a set of rules and you can't pick and choose who you allow to break them. . . . [That is 100 percent BS!!! The messy yard laws are selectively enforced and the messy yard cops selectively pick which people to selectively enforce the laws against!] I'm sure Jay (Mayor Jay Tibshraeny) doesn't have neighbors parking their cars on the front lawn," Mascarenas said.

Mascarenas recently e-mailed addresses and photos showing parking violations to city-code offices and the mayor, whom Mascarenas said is a former Chandler High classmate. Hankins said most of the photos are in the area that he is now targeting and will be examined by his inspectors in the coming weeks.

A longtime elementary school teacher, Mascarenas is loyal to his hometown. He passed up chances to move even when he was teaching in Buckeye, commuting 120 miles a day.

"I grew up here. My parents grew up here. My kids grew up here. I like Chandler," Mascarenas said.

Chandler code notice

Mailed to residents whose neighborhoods have been targeted for property-maintenance inspections and advises them make improvements.

Yard maintenance: Remove weeds; grass higher than six inches; uncultivated, dead or dry plant growth.

Vehicles: Make sure all vehicles are operable with current registration and parked on an improved surface.

Outside storage: Remove debris and outside storage of personal property that is visible from outside the property boundary.

Exterior surfaces: Windows, roofs, structures and fences must be sound and without deteriorated surfaces. City mass mails code-violation reminders

Pinal County Sheriff's Office balks at turning over laptops

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Pinal County Sheriff's Office balks at turning over laptops

by Lindsey Collom - Apr. 3, 2012 11:12 PM

The Republic | azcentral.com

The Pinal County Sheriff's Office is not cooperating with efforts by the county's information-technology department to inspect some computer equipment as part of a federal investigation into potentially unlawful on-the-job political activity, according to e-mails obtained by The Arizona Republic.

The e-mails show that staff members said Sheriff Paul Babeu directed them on March 28 not to turn over laptops for two employees as requested by the U.S. Office of Special Counsel, which is investigating possible violations of the Hatch Act. The e-mail was sent the same week that department spokesman Elias Johnson said county IT staff members had been collecting data from his desktop computer, Babeu's and those of two other employees.

The laptops in question are used by Chief Deputy Steve Henry and community-relations Director Cheryl Chase, who along with Babeu are targets of the investigation into the Hatch Act, which makes it illegal for certain government workers to participate in political activities. Babeu said the laptops will not be turned over for review because they contain sensitive law-enforcement information, according to e-mails.

When asked Tuesday why the Sheriff's Office hadn't turned over the laptops, commmunications and grants Director Tim Gaffney, who also is a focus of the investigation, said the office is "fully cooperating" with the inquiry.

"Cheryl Chase's laptop is available," Gaffney wrote. "Chief Henry's laptop contains sensitive law-enforcement operation plans, attorney-client privileged documents and national-security and law-enforcement intelligence briefings. Only sworn law enforcement are authorized to access or possess such documents.

"We are working directly with the Office of Special Counsel to ensure they are able to obtain whatever information they need."

When asked by The Republic if the Sheriff's Office had made the laptops available for review, Gaffney said he would not comment on the investigation.

County officials are still trying to comply with the Office of Special Counsel's requests, e-mails show. As of Tuesday afternoon, the Sheriff's Office had not turned over either laptop to the county for review, e-mails showed.

If the Sheriff's Office refuses access to the laptop, the U.S. Office of Special Counsel could issue a subpoena.

The special counsel is focusing on Babeu, a candidate for the new District 4 seat in Congress, and several of his top aides, including Gaffney and Johnson. Also being looked at are Chase, a supervisor candidate, and Henry, who is exploring a run for sheriff.

It is one of three ongoing investigations of Babeu and the Sheriff's Office.

Arizona Solicitor General David Cole is investigating abuse-of-power allegations against Babeu, who is accused of threatening to deport his former boyfriend in an attempt keep their relationship secret.

Cole also is investigating allegations that the boyfriend, Jose Orozco, hacked Babeu's campaign websites.

The Pima County Attorney's Office is investigating whether Babeu's office unlawfully destroyed more than 7,200 electronic files, most of them e-mails.

Pima County Attorney Barbara LaWall was asked to investigate March 9 after Pinal County officials discovered the missing computer files while they were processing a public-records request and executing a Feb. 24 request by the state solicitor general to preserve electronic records and other files for an inquiry. Gaffney has said he deleted e-mails and calendar items to free up storage space after IT officials told him they had archived records.

That records request was submitted by The Republic and sought, among other things, all e-mails sent and received by Babeu, Gaffney and Johnson from Aug. 15 to Sept. 30, which includes the period the sheriff's former boyfriend says he was threatened.

Cole said Tuesday that the Sheriff's Office has cooperated but that "there hasn't been much" evidence to obtain.

Adam Miles, policy director for the Office of Special Counsel, would not comment Tuesday on the level of compliance from Babeu's office.

In general, Miles said, if the focus of an inquiry is not cooperative, his office can subpoena the information it seeks. Investigators try to negotiate with agencies and typically use legal means as a last resort.

In a letter last month, Treyer Mason-Gale, an attorney in the U.S. Office of Special Counsel's Hatch Act division, asked Richard Jones, Pinal County's chief information officer, to search the electronic communications of Babeu, Henry, Chase, Gaffney and Johnson for a list of specific keywords related to Babeu's congressional campaign, including "election," "exploratory," "fundraiser" and "donation." Mason-Gale's letter asked that Jones provide "information or assistance" on or before March 27.

Records obtained this week show that analysts in the county's IT department e-mailed sheriff's officials at 7:41 a.m. on March 28, asking to pick up laptops. At 3 p.m., the same analyst again e-mailed, saying, "We need to get those laptops by end of business today to comply with an investigation."

Sixteen minutes later, Matt DiMuzio, a Sheriff's Office computer technician, responded, declining to make the laptops available: "I have spoken with sheriff paul the laptops at this time contain sensitive law enforcement documents and information that is not privileged information at this time."

In a March 29 e-mail interview with Gaffney, The Republic asked if the agency was "cooperating with the Hatch Act investigation."

"Yes from the very beginning," he wrote.

Cops frame another man for murder????

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Conviction in 1984 South Pasadena murder overturned

By Jack Leonard, Los Angeles Times

April 4, 2012

A Los Angeles County judge has overturned a 1985 murder conviction in the fatal shooting of a maintenance man in South Pasadena, finding that sheriff's detectives failed to disclose records pointing to another possible suspect and may have improperly influenced witnesses.

Superior Court Judge Suzette Clover made the ruling after the prosecution's key witness recanted, telling the judge at a hearing that he never got a good look at the killer and felt pressured to make a positive identification after tentatively identifying Frank O'Connell as the gunman during a photo lineup.

O'Connell, whose conviction was based largely on eyewitness testimony, has maintained that he had nothing to do with the killing.

"It's been a long time coming," said Verna Wefald, one of his attorneys. "Until you step into somebody else's shoes and live that nightmare, it's impossible to imagine how a person endures."

O'Connell, a former Glendora High School football star, was sentenced to 25 years to life for the murder of Jay French, who was gunned down Jan. 5, 1984, in a carport area of the State Street apartment complex where he lived and worked.

As he lay fatally wounded, French told two police officers that he didn't know the killer but that the gunman had been in a yellow Ford Pinto. The dying man also told his wife that the killer looked like someone who associated with his ex-wife, whom he had been fighting in court over custody of their young son.

Detectives linked O'Connell to the shooting after learning that he had recently had a romantic relationship with the victim's ex-wife. He also matched the description from witnesses of a tall, slender blond gunman.

A tenant in the apartment complex, Daniel Druecker, had seen the shooting and identified O'Connell as the gunman from a photo lineup. Druecker's testimony was the linchpin of the case against O'Connell, and he testified that he was sure O'Connell was the killer.

But last summer, Druecker returned to the same Pasadena courtroom where O'Connell had been convicted more than a quarter century ago. Facing him, on either side of the audience, were the families of French and O'Connell — just as they had been for the trial.

Druecker testified that he had barely caught a glimpse of the gunman's profile and had not been wearing his glasses. He felt pressured and intimidated by the investigators and the justice system, he said, so never admitted that he really didn't know whether O'Connell was the man he had seen.

"I felt that I couldn't back out," he told the court. "I ruined a man's life."

The district attorney's office argued that Druecker's recantation was unreliable and denied that investigators pressured him.

Prosecutors noted that Judge Sally Disco — who convicted O'Connell after he opted for a trial before a judge instead of a jury — found the case against him to be "overwhelming." Among the evidence she highlighted was a police sketch of the gunman based on Druecker's description that she said bore a "striking resemblance" to O'Connell.

But in her ruling last week, Clover described the sheriff's identification procedure with Druecker as "suggestive" and faulted detectives for not turning over notes from their investigation. Those notes showed that a neighbor of the ex-wife who testified that he had seen O'Connell driving a yellow Pinto station wagon had failed to positively identify O'Connell from a photo lineup.

The same sheriff's notes also revealed that another boyfriend of the victim's ex-wife was suspected of trying to kill French four years earlier. That man was described as tall with sandy or blond hair.

Clover ruled that the detectives' notes probably would have changed the outcome of O'Connell's trial had they been turned over to the defense. The judge also cited several sworn declarations presented by O'Connell's defense from people who said the victim's ex-wife confessed to being involved and said O'Connell was innocent.

Prosecutors could appeal the ruling or retry the case. A retrial appears unlikely given Druecker's recantation. A district attorney's spokeswoman said the office will announce its plans at a court hearing April 17. Until then, O'Connell remains in prison.

French's older sister, Jolene Cordova, said her family was disappointed with Clover's decision and believes that O'Connell was responsible for the killing. Cordova said that the case had been thrown out on a "technicality" and that the victim's family blames investigators for not ensuring that the case was airtight back in the 1980s.

"If they had done their job better in 1985, we wouldn't be here today," she said. "It's like reliving it all over again."

Kate Germond, the director of the nonprofit Centurion Ministries, which advocates for the release of inmates it contends were wrongfully convicted, said Clover's ruling struck at the heart of the prosecution's case. Germond, who investigated O'Connell's case for about 15 years, said her client learned about the ruling on Tuesday.

"He's in a complete and utter state of shock," she said. "We know Frank O'Connell is innocent."

jack.leonard@latimes.com

Grayslake police chief charged with drunk driving after Wisconsin crash

Grayslake police chief charged with drunk driving after Wisconsin crash

By Deanese Williams-Harris Tribune reporter

11:04 a.m. CDT, April 4, 2012

The Grayslake police chief was charged with drunk driving after he and his wife were involved in a crash while returning from a restaurant just over the state line in Wisconsin, authorities say.

Matt McCutcheon was turning onto Route 45 in Silver Lake when he struck a car on the highway around 10 p.m. Friday, according to the police report. No one was injured in either car.

Responding officers said they found McCutcheon, 46, standing outside his black Honda when they arrived. He was swaying and almost lost his balance as he pulled out his wallet and showed his police badge, according to the police report.

"I could smell a strong odor of intoxicants coming from his breath," reported Kenosha County Deputy William Soppe. "I also observed the subject's eyes were bloodshot and were glossy. The subject's speech was very slow."

When he asked McCutcheon if he had been drinking, the police chief said he had a few beers with dinner.

Asked if he was carrying a gun, McCutcheon lifted up his shirt and displayed a 9mm handgun in his waistline, the police report states. Soppe said he removed the gun and found seven live rounds in it, one of them in the chamber.

McCutcheon refused a sobriety test and was taken to Aurora Hospital where a blood sample was drawn. While at the hospital, the police chief said he and his wife had been to the Twin Oaks Country Inn in Wilmot and that he had three vodka martinis.

The police chief was charged with operating while under the influence and taken to Kenosha County Jail, according to the police report.

McCutcheon has been serving as police chief of Grayslake since Larry Herzog stepped down last summer. He was named the permanent replacement just two months ago after a nationwide search drew 120 applicants. His salary is estimated at $130,000. He has been on the force since 1991.

Mayor Rhett Taylor, who conducted the search, said the incident is being investigated but there has been no change in McCutcheon's status for now.

“If the investigation confirms the media reports, this would constitute unacceptable conduct for an individual in the position of Grayslake police chief,” Taylor said.

Witnesses told police that McCutcheon had been driving erratically before the accident, and that they could hear the tires of his car squeal as he made a sharp turn onto the highway.

One witness said she was driving along a county road, headed for Route 45, when the black Honda pulled up behind her. She told police the driver of the Honda "was speeding up and slowing down multiple times." The witness said she thought the car was going to follow her across the highway but then she saw the car "squeal its tires and make a sharp turn to go south" and then hit a silver Dodge.

Other witnesses said it appeared the Honda "made a last-minute decision to make the turn" and was going too fast, according to the police report. After the crash, the police chief got out of the car and "appeared dazed and confused," the report states.

McCutcheon told police on the scene that his wife was still in the car and asked how she was doing, the report said. A deputy walked over to the car and McCutcheon's wife was sitting in the passenger seat. She said she was not hurt.

McCutcheon refused treatment and said he was not going to the hospital. The officer told McCutcheon he needed to conduct a sobriety test but McCutcheon said he was refusing everything, according to the report.

McCutcheon was taken to the hospital and charged with operating a vehicle while intoxicated.

dawilliams@tribune.com

5 ex-cops sentenced in Katrina killings case

5 ex-cops sentenced in Katrina killings case

Apr. 4, 2012 03:01 PM

Associated Press

NEW ORLEANS -- Five former New Orleans police officers were sentenced Wednesday to prison terms ranging from six to 65 years for their roles in deadly shootings of unarmed residents in the chaotic days after Hurricane Katrina, with the judge lashing out at prosecutors for two hours on their handling of the case.

Police shot six people at a bridge on Sept. 4, 2005, killing two, less than a week after Katrina made landfall. To make the shootings appear justified, officers conspired to plant a gun, fabricate witnesses and falsify reports. The case became the centerpiece of the Justice Department's push to clean up the troubled New Orleans Police Department.

Kenneth Bowen, Robert Gisevius, Anthony Villavaso and Robert Faulcon were convicted of federal firearms charges that carried mandatory minimum prison sentences of at least 35 years. Retired Sgt. Arthur "Archie" Kaufman, who was assigned to investigate the shootings, was convicted of helping orchestrate the cover-up.

Faulcon, who was convicted on charges in both fatal shootings, faces the stiffest sentence of 65 years. Bowen and Gisevius each face 40 years, while Villavaso was sentenced to 38. Kaufman received the lightest sentence at six years.

Afterward, U.S. District Judge Kurt Engelhardt accused prosecutors of cutting overly lenient plea deals with five other officers who cooperated with the civil rights investigation. The former officers pleaded guilty to helping cover up the shooting and are already serving prison terms ranging from three to eight years.

"These through-the-looking-glass plea deals that tied the hands of this court ... are an affront to the court and a disservice to the community," Engelhardt said.

The judge also questioned the credibility of the officers who pleaded guilty and testified against those who went to trial.

In particular, the judge criticized prosecutors for seeking a 20-year prison sentence for Kaufman, yet Michael Lohman, who was the highest-ranking officer at the scene of the shooting, received four years under his deal for pleading guilty to participating in the cover-up.

One of Kaufman's attorneys, Steve London, said his client was pleased the judge sentenced him to a few years less than the guidelines, which had called for about eight to 10.

"This judge recognized that the government put liars on the stand to testify and convict other people," London said.

Engelhardt heard several hours of arguments and testimony earlier Wednesday from prosecutors, defense attorneys, relatives of shooting victims and the officers. Ronald Madison and 17-year-old James Brissette died in the shootings.

"This has been a long and painful six-and-a-half years," said Lance Madison, whose 40-year-old, mentally disabled brother, Ronald, was killed at the bridge. "The people of New Orleans and my family are ready for justice."

Madison individually addressed each defendant, including Faulcon, who shot his brother: "When I look at you, my pain becomes unbearable. You took the life of an angel and basically ripped my heart out."

Madison also said he was horrified by Kaufman's actions in the cover-up: "You tried to frame me, a man you knew was innocent, and send me to prison for the rest of my life."

Lance Madison was arrested on attempted murder charges after police falsely accused him of shooting at the officers on the bridge. He was jailed for three weeks before a judge freed him.

The Rev. Robert Faulcon Sr. told the judge his son "didn't go looking for trouble."

"He was on duty and he was called to do a job, and that's what he did to the best of his ability," the elder Faulcon said.

None of the officers addressed the court before they were sentenced.

Katrina struck on Aug. 29, 2005, leading to the collapse of levees and flooding an estimated 80 percent of the city. New Orleans was plunged into chaos as residents who hadn't evacuated were driven from their homes to whatever high places they could find.

Officers who worked in the city at the time but were not charged in the bridge case on Wednesday told Engelhardt of the lawlessness that followed the flood, and that they feared for their lives.

On the morning of Sept. 4, one group of residents was crossing the Danziger Bridge in the city's Gentilly area in search of food and supplies when police arrived.

The officers had received calls that shots were being fired. Gunfire reports were common after Katrina.

Faulcon was convicted of fatally shooting Madison, but the jury decided the killing didn't amount to murder. He, Gisevius, Bowen and Villavaso were convicted in Brissette's killing, but jurors didn't hold any of them individually responsible for causing his death.

All five officers were convicted of participating in a cover-up.

Doper judge gets his pills from convicts he sentenced

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Judge's pill addiction puts cases in question

Probe: Tenn. jurist made buys at court site

by Sheila Burke - Apr. 4, 2012 09:02 PM

Associated Press

KNOXVILLE, Tenn. - A Tennessee judge was so addicted to prescription drugs during his final two years on the bench, he was having sex and buying pills during courtroom breaks, at times purchasing from convicts he had previously sentenced, an investigation found. His behavior has called into question many of the cases he presided over, including one of Knoxville's most notorious murders.

Many people didn't realize Criminal Court Judge Richard Baumgartner had a problem until he stepped down from the bench and pleaded guilty in March 2011 to a single count of official misconduct. It would be eight months later before the seriousness of the judge's drug problem was revealed, casting uncertainty about whether Baumgartner was sober enough to be sitting on the bench.

Another judge has tossed out the convictions from the high-profile murder case and ordered new trials. Other defendants are hoping for a similar outcome, and bids for new trials from the many people convicted in Baumgartner's court could overwhelm the criminal-justice system in Knox County, Tennessee's third-largest county with more than 400,000 residents. Baumgartner was one of three judges in the county who heard felony cases.

"We're getting pleadings almost daily now from people in the penitentiary filing habeas corpus saying, 'Let me out, too.' It's raining over here," said Knox County District Attorney General Randy Nichols.

Baumgartner left the bench to seek drug treatment before pleading guilty to misconduct. A special judge handed Baumgartner a sentence that allowed him to wipe the felony conviction off his record if he stayed out of trouble. The sentence also allowed Baumgartner to avoid jail time and keep his pension.

The judge who sentenced Baumgartner has since said he would have come down harder on him had he known the full details of the criminal investigation. The U.S. attorney's office is also investigating.

Baumgartner, 64, could not be reached for comment and his attorney didn't return phone calls seeking comment.

Baumgartner, a criminal-court judge in Knoxville since 1992, got addicted to painkillers he was prescribed for pancreatitis caused by chronic alcoholism, according to the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation file. His physician told authorities that Baumgartner acknowledged being a pill addict but disregarded the doctor's advice to retire.

The district attorney went to Baumgartner in 2010 because he was concerned about the judge's health. Nichols said it was widely known that Baumgartner suffered a variety of health issues. "I never suspected narcotics," the prosecutor said.

Although only a small portion of the investigative file on the former judge has been released to the public, it shows a man completely consumed by his addiction.

The judge looked around for multiple doctors who would prescribe him oxycodone, hydrocodone and generic Xanax and Valium. When the prescriptions weren't enough, he turned to convicts he had punished -- and their friends.

One of his suppliers was Deena Castleman, a woman who graduated from Baumgartner's drug court. Castleman told authorities that she regularly supplied the married judge with pills and sex, sometimes during breaks from court. The woman, who is nearly half his age and has a history of arrests, told TBI agents that she and the judge even engaged in sexual activity several times in the judge's chambers.

Castleman's name appears frequently in the investigative file. She told agents the judge sometimes paid her bills and provided money for her to make bail after she got arrested. She also said the judge falsified the results of a drug test after she tested positive for drugs.

Another judge sentenced Castleman in December to serve six years in prison for convictions that included possession of prescription painkillers, a charge indirectly related to Baumgartner.

Baumgartner, according to the file, frequently visited Castleman while she was hospitalized for a brief period in 2009. Nurses told investigators that the judge would often visit the woman during breaks from a high-profile trial that was televised. And they said that Castleman appeared to be high after the judge visited her. Authorities later confiscated illicit prescription drugs from her room.

The judge's sole misconduct charge stemmed from his dealings with Chris Gibson, a felon on probation in Baumgartner's court. He said the judge would come by his house every two to three days to buy pills.

Russell Pearce is a hypocrite who loves government pork????

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Give Worsley a shot at Senate seat

Apr. 5, 2012 12:00 AM

Russell Pearce has worked for state government for over 40 years.

For a man who claims to dislike government and government workers, he sure likes the paycheck and benefits.

I guess it's alright for Pearce to feed at the trough of taxpayer money for all these years but not alright for others.

Bob Worsley is a businessman with a proven track record. Let's give him a shot at the state Senate seat that Pearce is also running for.

-- Bill Acree, Phoenix

Iraq the same police state it was when Saddam was in power???

From this article it sure sounds like Iraq is the same police state it was when Saddam was in control. The only difference is now Iraq is an American police state run by a puppet government placed into power by the American Empire.

Source

Iraq weighs expanding human-rights restrictions

by Alice Fordham - Apr. 4, 2012 09:16 PM

Washington Post

BAGHDAD - The Iraqi government is debating proposed laws that would impose strict controls on freedom of speech and association, prompting fears that the authorities are playing a growing and increasingly oppressive role in citizens' lives.

As the country settles into its new identity as a sovereign state, about four months after the departure of the last American troops, some Iraqis are nervous that the government is moving back toward the heavy-handed monitoring of citizens that was a hallmark of life under dictator Saddam Hussein.

In Parliament, there has been fierce debate of several draft laws. One would carry harsh penalties for online criticism of the government. Another would require demonstrators to get permission for any gathering.

Local and international human-rights groups say the proposed legislation is vague and would give the government power to move against people or parties critical of the government.

"In Iraq, we need to respect all the ideas," said an activist and blogger known as Hayder Hamzoz who is campaigning against a proposed information-technology law that would mandate a year's imprisonment for anyone who violates "religious, moral, family, or social values" online.

The proposed law also contains a sentence of life imprisonment for using computers or social networks to compromise "the independence of the state or its unity, integrity, safety."

Hamzoz, who does not use his real name out of concern for his safety, said the legislation is intended to allow the government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki to control social media. The government essentially did just that more than a year ago, when it swiftly smothered an uprising inspired by the Arab Spring revolts sweeping the region.

Activists and nongovernmental organizations have criticized the proposed laws that would impose rules on gatherings and forbid meetings in religious establishments, universities and government buildings for anything other than the facilities' primary purpose.

Many argue that the country, which is emerging from more than 30 years of autocracy under Hussein and then years of conflict and instability after the U.S. invasion, needs tough laws to establish clear ground rules.

Deputy: Sheriff's captain took inmate golfing in Catalina

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Sheriff's captain took inmate on island golf outing, deputy says

April 5, 2012 | 9:02 am

Convicted jewel thief Frank Carrillo thought he had hit the lottery when he was transferred from Men's Central Jail in downtown Los Angeles to the tiny jail in the town of Avalon on bucolic Catalina Island.

Then he met Jeff Donahue, the Los Angeles County sheriff’s captain in charge of the department's Avalon force, and life got sweeter.

Donahue wanted a few pointers on his golf swing and thought Carrillo, a former golf pro, could help him. They drove together in a patrol jeep to a hilltop golf course, where Carrillo gave Donahue a free lesson, Carrillo said.

Donahue, Carrillo said in a phone interview, “has this swing that's old school and risky, but he hit it every time. I would probably say he's a 14 or a 15 handicap. Not too bad."

Donahue, now on medical leave, is currently under investigation for an inappropriate relationship with an inmate. The allegations were detailed in a complaint by one of Donahue’s subordinates.

Carrillo, 41, who has since been released, believes it was his charm, record and good behavior that earned him the transfer to Catalina. He initially made headlines for stealing a World Series championship ring from a former Dodger at a charity golf event.

He eventually pleaded guilty to charges related to a string of golf course heists involving cash, Rolex watches and other jewelry valued in the tens of thousands of dollars.

Once ensconced in the island jail, he broached the idea of leaving the station to play some golf. He had a good reputation as a pro golfer in Canada, and Donahue thought it was a good idea.

"I knew it was a crazy thing to say," Carrillo recalled. "But the first thing he said was, 'Maybe I need a few pointers.'"

A deputy at the station, Willian Cordero, complained about the incident and was subsequently transferred off the island. Sheriff's officials are strictly forbidden from fraternizing with inmates. Excursions off site are rarely granted and require special security clearances when they are.

Cordero also alleges Donahue told him the golf outing had been cleared by Sheriff Lee Baca, who had been on the island in July for a charity event.

Carrillo confirmed that account, saying Baca knew him from charity golf tournaments in the past and spoke to him during a tour of the station. The outing came up, Carrillo said, and Baca seemed to approve, characterizing the excursion as "rec time."

Baca's spokesman Steve Whitmore denied Carrillo's recollection.

"They may have said hello, a conversation may have occurred, but Baca never condoned this guy going out and playing golf," Whitmore said. "He would never do that. He would never condone taking a trusty out and having them go play golf."

Cook Co. assault weapon ban unconstitutional???

State Supreme Court revives challenge to Cook Co. assault weapon ban

By Ray Long Tribune reporter

11:24 a.m. CDT, April 5, 2012

In a unanimous opinion, the Illinois Supreme Court breathed new life into a challenge to Cook County’s ban on assault weapons today.

The justices said it wants Circuit Court to hear evidence on whether assault weapons get the same Second Amendment protections as handguns. They ruled the lower court's dismissal of the Second Amendment argument was improper.

Cook County banned the sale or possession of assault weapons in 1993. The ordinance included details of what constituted an assault weapon and examples of banned guns, but it was aimed at “high-capacity, rapid-fire” rifles and pistols. The law was expanded in 2006 to ban large ammunition magazines.

The ban was challenged by three Cook County residents who said they had perfectly valid reasons to own the prohibited weapons, from hunting to target shooting to personal protection. They argued that the law was too vague and too broad, with little connection to the goal of increasing public safety.

The Circuit Court ruled the ordinance was constitutional, as did the state appeals court.

Then the U.S. Supreme Court struck down a Chicago ordinance that essentially banned handguns. It held that the Second Amendment establishes a fundamental right to possess a handgun for self-defense.

The Illinois appeals court reviewed the case in light of the new federal ruling but still found the Cook County ban was constitutional. But the Illinois Supreme Court says the issue needs a closer look.

The key question is whether high-capacity, fast-firing weapons should be considered ordinary guns that get full Second Amendment protection or treated like machine guns and other special weapons that can be restricted.

In an opinion written by Justice Mary Jane Theis, the high court said it was too early in the case to say conclusively whether assault weapons, as described in the ordinance, should fall within the scope of the Second Amendment. At this point in the case, neither side has been able to argue sufficiently to come down either way in the case, justices said.

Contributing: Associated Press

LAPD steals the property of homeless people

The homeless and a fight for L.A.'s sidewalks

April 5, 2012

Now that the homeless are prohibited from camping overnight on Ocean Front Walk in Venice, many have migrated to other spots in the beach town. After numerous complaints about trash, city workers, accompanied by police, raided the new areas last month and confiscated unattended belongings, prompting a lawsuit from a civil rights attorney.

According to the suit, filed on behalf of 11 named homeless people, employees of the Los Angeles Police Department and the

Department of Public Works seized property found on 3rd Avenue in Venice that included birth certificates, food stamp eligibility cards, prescription medication, wallets with cash, and even laptop computers. Bystanders apparently insisted that the items had not been abandoned. Nevertheless, they were carted off to a landfill. After intervention from Los Angeles Councilman Bill Rosendahl, some people were able to retrieve some of their belongings from the dump.

The city is currently barred by injunction from seizing the property of the homeless in the downtown skid row area, and rightly so. Nor is there any reason why officials should be able to sweep through Venice and collect the belongings of the homeless there. The bags and carts of street dwellers contain the essentials of their lives. People sometimes park their belongings on sidewalks while they go to shower or find a meal. Confiscating them is an unsatisfactory solution to the problem.

No one disputes that city officials have a right to keep the streets clean and clear. Or that police are allowed to confiscate items that pose a danger to public safety or health. The only question is how to balance the city's interest in cleanliness, safety and order with the constitutional protection against unreasonable seizures.

Devising a workable policy on homelessness is extremely difficult. But simply confiscating the property of people who the courts have said have a right to be on the streets is unacceptable and inhumane. Some alternative is necessary. City officials say they will continue to do these cleanups but will give advance warning. Possibly, the city could provide some kind of safe storage area where people could go to reclaim their belongings, or to temporarily stash them instead of leaving them on a sidewalk. There is already such a facility downtown — a secured warehouse, paid for by the Central City East Assn., that provides bins for people to store clothes and small possessions free of charge.

No single solution will completely satisfy everyone involved in this situation. But residents, police and the homeless need to negotiate a compromise that balances the interests of all.

6 percent of Maricopa County employees lied about their smoking habits to get lower insurance rates

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Maricopa County employees who fibbed about smoking to see hike in premium

by Michelle Ye Hee Lee - Apr. 5, 2012 09:29 PM

The Republic | azcentral.com

Hundreds of Maricopa County employees caught fibbing to their health insurer about their smoking or who refused nicotine testing will now pay higher health-insurance premiums under a new county policy.

As a result, the county will collect an additional $327,360 in health-insurance premiums, with the money going into an employee-benefits fund.

The controversial mouth swabs began a year ago, when all county workers were told to submit to saliva testing for nicotine or lose an annual insurance-premium discount of $480 offered to those who do not use tobacco products.

The requirement spurred an outcry among some who said it was an invasion of privacy and would allow the county to collect sensitive health information.

Of the 11,089 employees covered by health benefits, 682 declined to take the saliva test or took the test and failed. In either case, they lost the premium reduction.

Test results raised the proportion of employees presumed to be smokers from 11.6 percent to 17.8 percent, according to county data. That is closer to federal-government rates showing that about 18 percent of federal employees smoke, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Prior to the swabs, employees self-reported on tobacco use by filling out paperwork declaring they did not use. But the number of employees reporting themselves as smokers was too low compared with national statistics, said Chris Bradley, director of the county's Department of Business Strategies and Health Care Programs.

"We were obviously very happy it wasn't 19 or 20 percent, but it did validate that we needed the test," Bradley said.

Employees who passed the test will not be swabbed again this year. They likely will be tested every three years, Bradley said.

The CDC estimates that each employee who uses tobacco costs an employer an additional $3,400 per year, county spokeswoman Cari Gerchick said.

This fiscal year, the county also will offer the non-tobacco-user deduction as an incentive for employees who sign up for the county's smoking-cessation classes. The change mirrors a move at the federal level to encourage smokers to quit.

The Federal Employees Health Benefits program in 2011 for the first time offered all federal employees, retirees, spouses and dependents smoking-cessation medications and counseling approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

Employees who enroll in county smoking-cessation classes can receive the premium incentive as long as they continue taking the classes once a week for six weeks during their lunch hour. They also will be swabbed for nicotine use six months after they complete their stop-smoking classes. Their incentives last another three years if they pass.

The county's health plan offers a two-month supply of prescription medication for smokers enrolled in the program. Those who remain nicotine-free at the six-month checkpoint will be eligible for up to $500 worth of smoking-cessation medication per insurance year.

"It's just a little added bonus incentive to try to get you into the class and get you to quit," said Lee Connelly, supervisor of the smoking-cessation program at the county Department of Public Health.

The county's ongoing strategy to invest in wellness includes spending $42,000 from its benefits fund to expand its fitness centers. Fitness areas opened in February at county facilities near 29th Avenue and Durango Street, said Janet Russell, county wellness coordinator.

The facilities are open 24 hours a day, and can be accessed with county badges. The goal is to make fitness equipment more accessible for employees who work at or live near the Durango campus, Russell said.

Russian arms dealer sentenced to 25 years

Oh, you mean the American government is run by a bunch of hypocrites who think it is OK for the American Empire to murder anybody on the planet, but get upset when the people we terrorize attempt to defend themselves???

Source

Russian arms dealer sentenced to 25 years

by Tom Hays - Apr. 6, 2012 08:13 AM

Associated Press

NEW YORK -- The notorious arms dealer Viktor Bout, dubbed the Merchant of Death, made it clear he had heard enough in court, although a federal prosecutor was only two minutes into an argument urging a harsh prison sentence.

"It's a lie!" Bout blurted out in English -- a rare show of raw defiance for a defendant facing a possible life term on Thursday in federal court in Manhattan.

Despite Bout's outburst and his insistence that he was framed, he received only the mandatory minimum 25 years in prison in a case that demonstrated the U.S. government's determination to bring him to justice.

The way federal agents went about capturing Bout -- an elaborate sting that lured him to Thailand -- appeared to play in his favor at his sentencing.

U.S. District Judge Shira Scheindlin said 25 years -- not the life sentence wanted by prosecutors -- was sufficient and appropriate because there was no evidence the 45-year-old Bout would have been charged with seeking to harm Americans if not approached by informants posing as Colombian rebels.

"But for the approach made through this determined sting operation, there is no reason to believe Bout would ever have committed the charged crimes," she said.

Bout's sentencing came four years after his arrest in Bangkok, where he was held before his extradition to the U.S. for trial in late 2010, and months after a jury convicted him of four conspiracy charges relating to his support of a Colombian terrorist organization.

The judge also ordered a $15 million forfeiture.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov was quoted by the Russian news agency ITAR-Tass as saying Friday in Astana, the capital of Kazakhstan, that he will discuss the sentence with Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton.

"We are not being guided by a desire to take revenge, but by the desire to ensure the observance and respect of the rights of our countryman. We will actively support the appeal that Bout's lawyers plan and in any case will secure his return to his homeland."

"We have legal instruments for this in relations with the United States," he is quoted as saying.

Separately, the Foreign Ministry said in a statement: "The Russian Foreign Ministry is taking all necessary measures for the return of Viktor Bout to his homeland, using existing international legal mechanisms. This matter, without a doubt, will remain among our priorities in the Russian-American agenda."

The statement called the sentence "baseless and biased."

"In spite of the unreliability of the evidence, the illegal character of his arrest with the participation of U.S. special services agents in Thailand and the subsequent extradition, American legal officials, having carried out an obvious political order, ignored the arguments of lawyers and numerous appeals from all levels in defense of this Russian citizen," it said.

For nearly two decades, Bout built a worldwide air cargo operation, amassing a fleet of more than 60 transport planes, hundreds of companies and a fortune reportedly in excess of $6 billion -- exploits that were the main inspiration for the Nicholas Cage film "Lord of War."

His aircraft flew from Afghanistan to Angola, carrying everything from raw minerals to gladiolas, drilling equipment to frozen fish. But, according to authorities, the network's specialty was black market arms -- assault rifles, ammunition, anti-aircraft missiles, helicopter gunships and a full range of sophisticated weapons systems, almost always sourced from Russian stocks or from Eastern European factories.

In the months before the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, U.S., British and United Nations authorities heard growing reports that Bout's planes and maintenance operations, then headquartered in the United Arab Emirates, were aiding the Taliban while it sheltered al-Qaida militants in Afghanistan. Bout later denied that he worked with the Taliban or al-Qaida -- and denied ever participating in black market arms deals.

In 2008, while under economic sanctions and a U.N. travel ban, Bout was approached in Moscow by a close associate about supplying weapons on the black market to the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC.

Bout was told that the group wanted to use drug-trafficking proceeds to pay for surface-to-air missiles and other weapons, making it clear it wanted to attack helicopter pilots and other Americans in Colombia, prosecutors said. He finalized the phony deal with the two DEA informants in a bugged hotel room in Bangkok in March 2008.

Throughout the case, Bout maintained he was a legitimate businessman who wasn't selling arms when the American operatives came knocking.

But in court papers, federal prosecutors said the government initiated its investigation in 2007 because Bout "constituted a threat to the United States and to the international community based on his reported history of arming some of the world's most violent and destabilizing dictators and regimes."

The Merchant of Death moniker was attached to Bout by a high-ranking minister at Britain's Foreign Office, who had drawn attention to his 1990s notoriety for running a fleet of aging Soviet-era cargo planes to conflict-ridden hotspots in Africa.

The nickname was included in the U.S. government's indictment of Bout, and U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara referenced it when he announced Bout's extradition in late 2010, saying: "The so-called Merchant of Death is now a federal inmate."

After the sentencing, Bharara in a statement called the sentence "a fitting coda for this career arms trafficker of the most dangerous order."

Death penalty doesn't work.

Source

Fighting to Repeal an Execution Law They Once Championed

By ADAM NAGOURNEY

Published: April 6, 2012

PLACERVILLE, Calif. — The year was 1978, and the California ballot bristled with initiatives for everything from banning gay teachers to cracking down on indoor smoking. Both lost. But one, Proposition 7, sailed through: expanding the state’s death penalty law to make it among the toughest and most far-reaching in the country.

The campaign was run by Ron Briggs, today a farmer and Republican member of the El Dorado County Board of Supervisors. It was championed by his father, John V. Briggs, a state senator. And it was written by Donald J. Heller, a former prosecutor in the New York district attorney’s office who had moved to Sacramento.

Thirty-four years later, another initiative is going on the California ballot, this time to repeal the death penalty and replace it with mandatory life without parole. And two of its biggest advocates are Ron Briggs and Mr. Heller, who are trying to reverse what they have come to view as one of the biggest mistakes of their lives.

Partly, like most death penalty opponents, they changed their minds for moral reasons. But they also have a political argument to make.

“At the time, we were of the impression that it would do swift justice, that it would get the criminals and murderers through the system quickly and apply them the death penalty,” Mr. Briggs, 54, said over tea in the kitchen at his 100-acre farm in this Gold Rush town, where he grows potatoes, peppers, melons, watermelons, cherries and (unsuccessfully, so far) black Périgord truffles.

“But it’s not working,” he said. “My dad always says, admit the obvious. We started with 300 on death row when we did Prop 7, and we now have over 720 — and it’s cost us $4 billion. I tell my Republican friends, ‘Close your eyes for a moment. If there was a state program that was costing $185 million a year and only gave the money to lawyers and criminals, what would you do with it?’ ”

California is not the first state to reconsider the death penalty in an era when questions have been raised about its morality and effectiveness. And even with these unusual advocates — and a new argument, that the death penalty has cost the state a fortune but produced only 13 executions in 34 years — the repeal faces tough going.

This is a state with a history of colorful crimes and criminals; polls here invariably find strong support for executions. Indeed, the older Mr. Briggs says that, unlike his son, his mind remains unchanged.

But Ron Briggs and Mr. Heller bring to this campaign a powerful and evocative story: a bid for personal redemption and a call for renewed consideration of the arguments they themselves once made in favor of the death sentence.

“It’s been a colossal failure,” Mr. Heller said in his Sacramento office. “The cost of our system of capital punishment is so enormous that any benefit that could be obtained from it — and now I think there’s very little or zero benefit — is so dollar-wasteful that it serves no effective purpose.”

Mr. Heller said that when the elder Mr. Briggs asked him to draft the initiative, using skills he learned working for the legendary Manhattan district attorney Frank S. Hogan, he wholeheartedly supported executions. “The fact that it was upheld every time it went to the Supreme Court shows it was well drafted,” Mr. Heller said of Proposition 7, ruefully. “I don’t take pleasure in that anymore.”

The two men add a personal element to a death penalty debate that is clearly evolving here, as opponents marshal an argument of waste in a state that is bleeding money. A report last year found that California was spending $184 million a year on a cottage industry of lawyers, expert witnesses and supersecure prisons to deal with the death row population created by Proposition 7.

“The cost is the most politically neutral argument,” said Paula M. Mitchell, a Loyola Law School professor and one of the authors of the report. “We’ve debated the morality of the death penalty for decades. We’ve tried very hard to focus on the objective cost issue, because that’s something that people who differ on all the other issues can reach a consensus on.”

Mr. Briggs said that argument “is going to capture a lot of Tea Partiers. Conservative Republicans should take a real hard look at it. I’m going to do my best to make sure they do. I have very good conservative credentials.”

A Field Poll in September found a jump in the number of Californians who would favor life without parole over the death penalty for someone convicted of first-degree murder, to 48 percent last year from 37 percent in 2000. Over all, 68 percent said they supported the death penalty for serious crimes.

“Whenever you just ask about the death penalty in and of itself, the public continues to support it,” said Mark DiCamillo, the director of the Field Poll. So the attempt to rescind it is “going up against established opinion, which is a tall order,” he said.

Kent Scheidegger, the legal director for the Criminal Justice Legal Foundation, which supports the death penalty, said cost “is probably the only argument that has any chance. The people have heard all the other arguments for years and it has never gotten any traction.”

But he added: “Justice is what we have government for. Why forgo justice for dollars?”

Mr. Briggs and Mr. Heller are not the only high-profile names associated with the campaign to end executions. Jeanne Woodford, a former warden at San Quentin State Prison, is one of the leaders, along with Gil Garcetti, a former Los Angeles district attorney. “We’re laying off teachers, we’re laying off firefighters,” Mr. Garcetti said. “This is crazy.”

Mr. Briggs said his views began to change after he learned about the case of a woman who had been shot and sexually assaulted in 1981. The attacker — who also killed a woman in the assault — remains entangled in appeals, forcing the victim to continue to face him. ‘I just thought about the horror for her that we did,” he said. “He committed a crime in ’81. What a lousy system.”

The other factor? “I started going back to church,” said Mr. Briggs, a Roman Catholic.

When he wrote the initiative, Mr. Heller said, he gave no thought to its cost. “I am convinced now that it has never deterred anyone from committing a murder,” he said. “In my mind, I realized what I did was a big mistake.”

The older Mr. Briggs, who is 82, was nationally known as an advocate of conservative causes, especially an initiative, which failed to pass, requiring the dismissal of homosexuals who worked as schoolteachers. Leaning out the window of his pickup truck along a narrow road on the farm, Mr. Briggs said the other day that he was as sure of the death penalty today as he was in 1978.

“One guy said to me, ‘How do you know it works?’ ” he said “ ‘Well,’ I said, ‘I went to see Aaron Mitchell get executed and I never read in the paper that he ever killed anybody again.’ ” He was referring to a man executed in 1967 for killing a police officer.

“It’s the system that doesn’t work,” Mr. Briggs said. “Your car’s not working either if you can’t turn the damn key on, and they’ve turned the damn key off.”

How will he vote on his son’s initiative? “I’m going to vote no,” Mr. Briggs said with a laugh, flipping the ignition on his truck.

Not that Ron Briggs has given up. “I have made it by mission to get his support for life without parole,” he said. “That may be a high bar, but that’s my mission.”

Critics cast doubt on new Ariz. prison health-care contractor

Source

Critics cast doubt on new Ariz. prison health-care contractor

by Bob Ortega - Apr. 6, 2012 10:57 PM

The Republic | azcentral.com

The private contractor taking over health care in Arizona's prisons promises significant improvements in care while saving money, in effect saying it will do more with less. But critics charge that Wexford Health Sources' record elsewhere suggests that sometimes it fails to live up to its promises and may do less with less.

Arizona's Department of Corrections, fighting a federal lawsuit that accuses it of providing grossly inadequate health care, issued a contract to Wexford this week as part of the state Legislature's attempts to save money by privatizing prison health care.

Wexford, which is due to take control of operations by June 1, said in its contract with the state that it will:

• Hire the equivalent of at least 781 full-time health-care workers, a number that is a 30 percent increase from Corrections' current health-care-staffing level.

• Offer the 600 current correctional health-care employees first crack at the jobs and won't cut the salaries of any of those workers it hires.

• Have nursing staff on hand at every state prison 24 hours a day, seven days a week, which is not currently the case.

• Provide every correctional officer in the system 40 hours of training on dealing with mentally ill inmates.

• Have its medical staff monitor inmates in isolation daily and have mental-health staff see those inmates at least weekly, representing a significant increase in frequency.

The company promises to do all this for $116.3 million a year, which is more than the $111.3 million the Department of Corrections spent on health care last fiscal year. In that year, 20 to 25 percent of health-care positions were unfilled, with the department slow to replace employees who left before the pending privatization.

But Wexford's budget would be less than the roughly $120 million the department projected spending this fiscal year. Wexford plans to keep $5.4 million as profit and spend $2.7 million on out-of-state administrative expenses. It is headquartered in Pittsburgh.

Some prison-system observers are raising questions about whether the company can provide the savings the state hopes for while providing significant improvements in service.

"There are reasons for great skepticism" that Wexford can deliver what it promises, said Caroline Isaacs, director of the Tucson office of the American Friends Service Committee, a prison-watchdog group. "One is that Wexford has a clear pattern of not living up to its commitments in other contracts," and another, she said, is that the Department of Corrections has a history of failing to hold other contractors, such as private-prison operators, accountable when they haven't lived up to the terms of their contracts.

Lowering expenses

Wexford spokeswoman Wendelyn Pekich said the company is still identifying, in cooperation with Corrections, where it can cut costs and improve efficiencies while providing what she termed "an industry-standard quality of care." As possible areas for improvement, she cited more efficient staffing patterns, improved training and record keeping, and use of telemedicine -- diagnosing patients remotely via video.

Rep. John Kavanagh, House Appropriations Committee chairman, who led the push in the Legislature for privatizing correctional health care, said he expects the company will cut costs and save the state money by, for example, bringing into the prisons some services for which inmates are now transported.

The switch to privatization comes at a time when the state is fighting a lawsuit over allegations of inadequate prisoner care and defending itself against accusations by Amnesty International of inhumane treatment of prisoners.

A federal lawsuit, filed against the Department of Corrections last month by the American Civil Liberties Union and the Prison Law Office of San Quentin, Calif., alleges that inmates have died, been disfigured or permanently harmed by poor medical care in state-run prisons and that mentally ill inmates held in isolation often go months without seeing a psychologist or getting counseling.

If privatization improves care, that's a bonus for Kavanagh, R-Fountain Hills. "The caliber of service wasn't an issue" in the state prison system at the time lawmakers voted to privatize prison health care, he said. Lawmakers weren't aware of the allegations -- which he stressed are not yet proved -- in the ACLU lawsuit.

The impetus for privatization, Kavanagh said, "was always to save money in tough economic times."

In the contract, Wexford offered some specific examples of ways it may save money: for example, hiring an oral surgeon who will travel a circuit of the prisons to extract teeth and perform other procedures for which inmates currently must be taken to outside providers, escorted and transported by correctional officers.

Wexford noted in the contract that it and the state also will save money beginning in 2014, when the majority of inmates will become Medicaid-eligible and reimbursement rates for Medicaid will increase by half because of changes related to the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.

However, the contract and bid documents provided to Corrections by Wexford raise questions about how fully the company disclosed performance issues elsewhere. Wexford lists 20 contracts it said ended either because the company lost a rebid or didn't rebid, among other reasons. Some problems

In one example, Wexford said it opted not to renew a contract with Clark County, Wash., that expired at the beginning of 2010. Wexford noted that an independent audit "cited several instances of poor operations, which were already in effect when Wexford Health took over the contract" in 2007.

Although there were pre-existing problems, that audit, by the Institute for Law and Policy Planning, was more critical than Wexford admitted. It concluded that "Wexford has systematically failed to comply" with its contract and had failed to provide adequate staffing, properly licensed staff, and adequate and timely medical service.

The auditors, who said they examined Wexford's record elsewhere, wrote that "past experience in other counties reveals that jail administrators typically put up with Wexford's cost cutting and substandard level of care until the problems become too egregious to be borne."

Wexford disputed the allegations.

In Mississippi, Wexford said that a 2007 audit by a state legislative committee made "recommendations related to documentation and record keeping."

Wexford didn't disclose that the audit was harshly critical of both the company and state corrections officials for failing to provide timely, adequate medical care. Nor did it disclose that the audit said Mississippi's Department of Corrections failed to collect $931,310 in fines its chief medical officer recommended against Wexford after the company charged the state for more staff members than it actually provided.

Mississippi's Department of Corrections didn't respond to requests for comment. In its bid documents, Wexford said that it addressed the audit's concerns and that Mississippi renewed its contract. Wexford said that, in Mississippi, it collaborated with the American Civil Liberties Union to get a consent decree lifted last year that had been imposed by a federal court, requiring that state to improve its correctional medical care. ACLU officials in Mississippi did not respond to requests for comment.

Wexford's bid noted a $12,500 fine by New Mexico's Department of Corrections in 2006 "for infirmary rounds/physicals not conducted within contracted time frames," an issue it said it corrected. Wexford didn't mention that a 2007 audit by a state legislative finance committee reported extensive medical-staff shortages and long delays in reporting inmate deaths, among other problems.

Wexford disclosed that it was fined $106,000 by Ohio's Correction Department in 2009 for contract violations for what it described as "non-critical incidents," such as failing to fill a vacancy or comply with procedures for disposing of used "sharps." In its bid document, Wexford said it addressed the problems and has been in compliance with its Ohio contract ever since.

Wexford listed other fines, including $50,000 by Chesapeake, Va., in 2006 for staffing shortages; three fines totaling $273,000 by Florida's Department of Corrections in 2005 for what it described as "service-delivery issues that were resolved" before the contract's end; and a $68,000 fine by the Broward Sheriff's Office in Florida in 2003 for delays in providing medical services.

The company also noted in its bid document that, over the five years ending Sept. 1, 2011, it received 794 formal or informal legal claims, including many that it termed "frivolous 'alleged deliberate indifference' " suits. The company said it settled 18 claims confidentially for a total of $252,425 and won six claims in court. Arizona's contract

Arizona's contract with Wexford took effect Tuesday and goes into full operation June 1. It gives the Department of Corrections authority to impose fines or suspend or terminate the contract for violations of its terms. The fine amounts vary according to the severity and extent of the violation, from $10,000 for an act of deliberate indifference that risks an inmate's health or safety to those of $25,000 a day or more. Corrections also will have on-site monitors at every prison and will conduct quarterly audits, according to the contract.

One state health-care employee, who asked not to be identified, said that whatever happens with Wexford, "the only way to go is up." According to allegations in the ACLU/Prison Law Office suit, Corrections systematically and unconstitutionally fails to provide adequate care to inmates and has done so for years. The department has not filed a legal response to the allegations.

LAPD shakes down homeless people living in Hollywood Hills

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Hollywood Hills sweep rousts 25 homeless people

By Sam Quinones, Los Angeles Times

April 7, 2012

Jay, a homeless man sleeping near a Hollywood freeway onramp, awoke to the voices of police Friday morning.

Los Angeles Police Department officers Julie Nony and Paula Davidson had rooted out an encampment of nine transients — including Jay — who were sleeping along the Highland Avenue onramp to Highway 101.

Nony and Davidson were part of a team of roughly two dozen officers and sheriff's deputies who fanned out across Hollywood, trudging through wild-land hills and along freeway embankments looking for homeless people. The transients were told to move out but also were offered social services.

"Time to get up," Nony told Jay. "Are you on parole or probation?"

Startled, Jay responded that he wasn't but said he was in treatment for drug addiction and was taking methadone. The encampment was strewn with bedding and wrappers for hypodermic needles and In-N-Out French fries, along with handwritten signs asking for money.

"I promise not to buy drugs," read one.

In all, officers removed 25 transients and cited four of them for misdemeanors. In one case, officers hiked with a man into the hills well above the Hollywood cross, overlooking the Ford Theatres and the Hollywood Bowl, and helped him carry out luggage, several plastic bags of belongings, sleeping bags, a tent and a Darth Vader mask. They drove him to a homeless shelter.

In hilly areas of Hollywood, the homeless start fires, which are a danger to area residents and the transients themselves, said sheriff's Deputy Jason Elkins.

In the urban areas, "we're getting hit by property crimes," such as auto break-ins and home burglaries, said LAPD Capt. Bea Girmala, commander of the department's Hollywood Station. "The suspect descriptions, when we get them, are often of transients."

"This is the United States of America," Girmala said, "and we have people living in the bushes."

Hollywood has long been a magnet for homeless people. The area offers social services, police said, and is far from the drugs and violence of downtown's skid row.

"You walk through skid row and everybody is just bombarding you with drugs," said Jay, who declined to give his last name.

Almost half of the people officers removed declined any services and walked off into the city, their belongings in aquamarine plastic bags provided by police.

"We have to bring [the resources] to them," said Girmala. "Sometimes we strike out."

sam.quinones@latimes.com

A fog of drugs and war

Of course the only sane solution to this drug problem is to legalize all drugs and stop the government from playing doctor, psychologist, priest and mommy.

Source

A fog of drugs and war

By Kim Murphy, Los Angeles Times

April 7, 2012, 3:24 p.m.

SEATTLE — U.S. Air Force pilot Patrick Burke's day started in the cockpit of a B-1 bomber near the Persian Gulf and proceeded across nine time zones as he ferried the aircraft home to South Dakota.

Every four hours during the 19-hour flight, Burke swallowed a tablet of Dexedrine, the prescribed amphetamine known as "go pills." [Nothing wrong with taking a little "speed" to help you stay awake!!! Of course if Patrick Burke was a civilian truck driver or college student taking some dexes to stay awake this would be a crime he would be jailed for using illegal drugs] After landing, he went out for dinner and drinks with a fellow crewman. They were driving back to Ellsworth Air Force Base when Burke began striking his friend in the head.

FOR THE RECORD:

An earlier version of this story said that Bart Billings, a former military psychologist, hosts an annual conference at Camp Pendleton on combat stress. He now holds the conference at other venues.

"Jack Bauer told me this was going to happen — you guys are trying to kidnap me!" he yelled, as if he were a character in the TV show "24."

When the woman giving them a lift pulled the car over, Burke leaped on her and wrestled her to the ground. "Me and my platoon are looking for terrorists," he told her before grabbing her keys, driving away and crashing into a guardrail.

Burke was charged with auto theft, drunk driving and two counts of assault. But in October, a court-martial judge found the young lieutenant not guilty "by reason of lack of mental responsibility" — the almost unprecedented equivalent, at least in modern-day military courts, of an insanity acquittal.

Four military psychiatrists concluded that Burke suffered from "polysubstance-induced delirium" brought on by alcohol, lack of sleep and the 40 milligrams of Dexedrine he was issued by the Air Force.

In a small but growing number of cases across the nation, lawyers are blaming the U.S. military's heavy use of psychotropic drugs for their clients' aberrant behavior and related health problems. Such defenses have rarely gained traction in military or civilian courtrooms, but Burke's case provides the first important indication that military psychiatrists and court-martial judges are not blind to what can happen when troops go to work medicated.

After two long-running wars with escalating levels of combat stress, more than 110,000 active-duty Army troops last year were taking prescribed antidepressants, narcotics, sedatives, antipsychotics and anti-anxiety drugs, according to figures recently disclosed to The Times by the U.S. Army surgeon general. Nearly 8% of the active-duty Army is now on sedatives and more than 6% is on antidepressants — an eightfold increase since 2005.

"We have never medicated our troops to the extent we are doing now.... And I don't believe the current increase in suicides and homicides in the military is a coincidence," said Bart Billings, a former military psychologist who hosts an annual conference on combat stress.

The pharmacy consultant for the Army surgeon general says the military's use of the drugs is comparable to that in the civilian world. "It's not that we're using them more frequently or any differently," said Col. Carol Labadie. "As with any medication, you have to look at weighing the risk versus the benefits of somebody going on a medication."

But the military environment makes regulating the use of prescription drugs a challenge compared with the civilian world, some psychologists say.

Follow-up appointments in the battlefield are often few and far between. Soldiers are sent out on deployment typically with 180 days' worth of medications, allowing them to trade with friends or grab an entire fistful of pills at the end of an anxious day. And soldiers with injuries can easily become dependent on narcotic painkillers.

"The big difference is these are people who have access to loaded weapons, or have responsibility for protecting other individuals who are in harm's way," said Grace Jackson, a former Navy staff psychiatrist who resigned her commission in 2002, in part out of concerns that military psychiatrists even then were handing out too many pills.

For the Army and the Marines, using the drugs has become a wager that whatever problems occur will be isolated and containable, said James Culp, a former Army paratrooper and now a high-profile military defense lawyer. He recently defended an Army private accused of murder, arguing that his mental illness was exacerbated by the antidepressant Zoloft.

"What do you do when 30-80% of the people that you have in the military have gone on three or more deployments, and they are mentally worn out? What do you do when they can't sleep? You make a calculated risk in prescribing these medications," Culp said.

The potential effect on military personnel has special resonance in the wake of several high-profile cases, most notably the one involving Staff Sgt. Robert Bales, accused of murdering 17 civilians in Afghanistan. His attorneys have asked for a list of all medicines the 38-year-old soldier was taking.

"We don't know whether he was or was not on any medicines, which is why [his attorney] has asked to be provided the list of medications," said Richard Adler, a Seattle psychiatrist who is consulting on Bales' defense.

***

While there was some early, ad hoc use of psychotropic drugs in the Vietnam War, the modern Army psychiatrist's deployment kit is likely to include nine kinds of antidepressants, benzodiazepines for anxiety, four antipsychotics, two kinds of sleep aids, and drugs for attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder, according to a 2007 review in the journal Military Medicine.

Some troops in Afghanistan are prescribed mefloquine, an antimalarial drug that has been increasingly associated with paranoia, thoughts of suicide and violent anger spells that soldiers describe as "mefloquine rage."

"Prior to the Iraq war, soldiers could not go into combat on psychiatric drugs, period. [This is 100 percent BS. During Vietnam US troops routinely smoked marijuana on the battle field, which of course was illegal, but that didn't stop them.] Not very long ago, going back maybe 10 or 12 years, you couldn't even go into the armed services if you used any of these drugs, in particular stimulants," said Peter Breggin, a New York psychiatrist who has written widely about psychiatric drugs and violence.

"But they've changed that.... I'm getting a new kind of call right now, and that's people saying the psychiatrist won't approve their deployment unless they take psychiatric drugs."

Military doctors say most drugs' safety and efficacy is so well-established that it would be a mistake to send battalions into combat without the help of medications that can prevent suicides, help soldiers rest and calm shattered nerves.

Fueling much of the controversy in recent years, though, are reports of a possible link between the popular class of antidepressants known as selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) — drugs such as Prozac, Paxil and Zoloft, which boost serotonin levels in the brain — and an elevated risk of suicide among young people. The drugs carry a warning label for those up to 24 — the very age of most young military recruits.

Last year, one of Culp's clients, Army Pfc. David Lawrence, pleaded guilty at Ft. Carson, Colo., to the murder of a Taliban commander in Afghanistan. He was sentenced to only 121/2 years, later reduced to 10 years, after it was shown that he suffered from schizophrenic episodes that escalated after the death of a good friend, an Army chaplain.

Deeply depressed and hearing a voice he would later describe as "female-sounding and never nice," Lawrence had reportedly feared he would be thrown out of the Army if he told anyone he was hearing voices — a classic symptom of schizophrenia. Instead, he'd merely told doctors he was depressed and thinking of suicide. He was prescribed Zoloft, for depression, and trazodone, often used as a sleeping aid.

The voices got worse, and Lawrence began seeing hallucinations of the chaplain, minus his head. Eventually, Lawrence walked into the Taliban commander's jail cell and shot him in the face.

"They give him this, and they send him out with a gun," said his father, Brett Lawrence.

Up until the Burke case, there had been few if any recent rulings exonerating military defendants claiming to be incapacitated by medications.

Burke's case may have marked a turning point. Four Army doctors concluded that he wasn't mentally responsible for his actions — a finding none of them would have made had he been merely drunk.

"Three drinks over an entire evening is not enough to black somebody out, but I don't remember 99% of what happened over the rest of that evening," Burke said in an interview. "It was kind of like I was misfiring on the cylinders."

***

Both the American Psychological Assn. and the American Psychiatric Assn. in a 2010 congressional hearing urged the Army to stay the course on psychotropic drugs.

The real danger, said the psychologists' spokesman, M. David Rudd, dean of the college of social and behavioral science at the University of Utah, is if soldiers are frightened out of access to potentially life-saving medication.

The Army surgeon general's office said no one without specific approval is allowed to go on deployment using psychotropic drugs, including antidepressants and stimulants, until they've been stabilized. Soldiers who need antipsychotic agents are not allowed to go to combat.

But are those precautions enough? Julie Oligschlaeger said her son, Chad, a Marine corporal based at Twentynine Palms, came home from his second tour in Iraq in 2007 complaining of nightmares and hallucinations. He was taking trazodone, fluoxetine, Seroquel, Lorazepam and propranolol, among other medications.

"I didn't realize how many pills he was on until it was too late," said Oligschlaeger. "He sometimes would slur his words, and I would think, 'OK, are you drinking? What is going on?' And he'd say, 'Oh, I'm taking my pills, and I'm taking them when I'm supposed to.' I never thought to look."

In 2008, two months before Chad was scheduled to get out of the Marines, start college, and marry his fiancee, the young corporal was found dead on the floor of his room in the barracks. An autopsy concluded the death was accidental due to multiple-drug toxicity — interactions among too many drugs.

At the memorial service, Oligschlaeger looked her son's commander in the eye and reminded him that Chad had waited in vain for a bed in a combat stress treatment facility. "I asked him, 'Why didn't you have your eyes on your Marine?'" she said. "He didn't answer me. He just stood there with his hands behind his back. And he looked at me."

kim.murphy@latimes.com

The Gilbert police are listening to you cell phone calls!

Source

Gilbert police can track cellphones to locate suspects

by Jim Walsh - Apr. 5, 2012 09:55 AM

The Republic | azcentral.com

Gilbert police can track cellphones to locate suspects wanted for violent crimes, as well as missing or suicidal people, by using highly specialized surveillance equipment.

But police resent any inference that they are trampling on constitutional rights to privacy by acting like spies, saying they only use the equipment in a narrow set of circumstances after obtaining a court order. Gilbert appears to be one of the few Valley police agencies to operate such equipment.

Gilbert police acknowledge that the equipment is a powerful investigative tool, arguing it can make the difference between life and death and help get dangerous people behind bars. [You mean like harmless pot smokers???]

"In all cases, we get court orders. We're not here to circumvent the law,'' said Sgt. Bill Balafas, a Gilbert police spokesman. " We're not out here to eavesdrop on people. We don't want to create bad case law.'' [Yea sure! We got a gun and a badge and that means we can do anything we feel like!]

Gilbert's capability to track cellphones was revealed last week in a New York Times story that described a national study by the American Civil Liberties Union. An ACLU survey of 200 law enforcement agencies found that some obtained court orders before tracking cellphones while others did not.

"Technology is far outpacing the privacy laws. Police Departments are taking advantage of this to do an end-run around the Fourth Amendment,'' said Alessandra Meetze, executive director of the ACLU's Arizona chapter.

She said the Gilbert, Glendale and Flagstaff police departments, along with the Maricopa and Pinal County sheriff's offices, confirmed that they used the cellphone tracking investigative techniques. The Times story cited Gilbert as an example of a small police department that obtained the cellphone tracking equipment to bypass the expense of having cell carriers get the information for them.

MSNBC.com went a step further, questioning why a small police department in an affluent suburb would spend $244,000 on "a futuristic spy gadget that sounds more at home in a prime-time drama.''

The 2008 purchase was revealed by Gilbert police in response to an ACLU Public Records request. The device was obtained with a $150,000 federal grant through Arizona's Homeland Security program, The remaining $94,195 came from asset forfeitures from accused criminals. [Almost all of the people arrested by Homeland Security are for drug war crimes, not terrorist crimes. And of course most of the assets forfeitures are stolen from people that commit victimless drug war crimes]

Balafas said the MSNBC story treated Gilbert unfairly.

"If your loved one is out there missing or threatening suicide, wouldn't you want us to use this equipment?'' he said.

He also said Gilbert's equipment cannot monitor cellphone conversations, and is used solely to find people.

Meetze said she is pleased to hear Gilbert is obtaining court orders but called for more accountability.

"That's definitely a positive sign. We would like to see written policies to back that up,'' she said. "The public would have no idea of when police are using an extremely powerful technology.''

She said the ACLU would like to see police keep a record of when Gilbert uses the equipment and under what circumstances.

In reaction to the national spotlight, Balafas said Gilbert Police Chief Tim Dorn directed his staff to develop a formal policy on cellphone tracking. The department will consider whether to create a log or some other record, he said.

"It falls under the premise of being transparent'' as the department increasingly uses cutting-edge technology in many facets of law enforcement to improve efficiency and effectiveness, Balafas said.

Stringent guidelines set up by the department's legal adviser are followed, he said. Gilbert detectives also have used high-tech equipment to help other law enforcements agencies but insist that the same policies be followed, Balafas said.

David Gonzales, U.S. marshal for Arizona, said agencies that operate sophisticated surveillance equipment must be careful not to violate anyone's rights.

"If there are abuses of these types of investigative techniques, it creates a hardship for law enforcement. [What a lie!!! It creates a hardship for the people that the police illegally used the investigative techniques against, not the police! And of course for the people falsely arrested as a result of illegal police surveillance it will cost them thousands and possibly hundreds of thousands of dollars in legal fees] It creates bad case law,'' Gonzales said.

Andrew Thomas, Lisa Aubuchon stripped of their legal licenses

Thomas, Aubuchon stripped of their legal licenses

Disciplinary panel disbars former Maricopa County attorney

by Yvonne Wingett Sanchez and Michael Kiefer - Apr. 10, 2012 09:19 AM

The Republic | azcentral.com

Former Maricopa County Attorney Andrew Thomas and his onetime deputy, Lisa Aubuchon, were stripped of their law licenses today as a disciplinary panel handed down the toughest sanctions possible for ethical violations in a case that attracted national interest.

The panel also suspended Rachel Alexander, another Thomas deputy, from practicing law for six months and one day for her role in filing a federal civil racketeering lawsuit against judges and county officials.

The disbarment of Thomas and Aubuchon had been widely discussed as a possibility by members of the legal community. But the length of Alexander's suspension came as a surprise because the independent Bar counsel had recommended a shorter suspension.

The three attorneys can, and likely will, appeal the sanctions. None were present.

The discipline was handed down this morning by a three-member panel appointed by the Arizona Supreme Court to hear their cases.

"It's about the victims," said John Gleason, independent Bar counsel who prosecuted the case for the bar. "We gave them the opportunity to tell their story, and they won."

Together, they faced allegations of 33 ethical violations stemming from years of political and legal battles within Maricopa County government.

Though the battles that landed the attorneys before the State Bar of Arizona reach back to at least 2006, the investigation of the three began two years ago, a month before Thomas resigned as county attorney to run unsuccessfully in the Republican primary for state attorney general.

Thomas is implicated in 30 of the charges, Aubuchon in 28, and Alexander in seven. The disciplinary panel will consider each charge separately.

Charges cover a variety of allegations, including conflict of interest for holding press conferences to denounce the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors, which was his client, and threatening county officials with litigation; falsely claiming a judge had filed Bar complaints against Thomas, in order to have the judge removed from a case; and seeking indictments against county officials to burden or embarrass them. In one case, the charges allege, Thomas and Aubuchon brought criminal charges against a county supervisor even though they knew that the statute of limitations had already expired on the offenses.

The most serious allegations involve filing criminal charges against a sitting Maricopa County Superior Court judge without probable cause in order to stop a court hearing. Several of the allegations of ethical misconduct revolve around a federal civil racketeering lawsuit claiming that judges and county officials conspired against Thomas and Sheriff Joe Arpaio. The independent Bar counsel appointed by the Arizona Supreme Court claims that the three prosecutors were incompetent in drafting the racketeering complaint, and that they filed it for purely political reasons against people they had already charged criminally or who they thought had filed earlier Bar complaints against them.

Given the number of complaints and the difficulty Thomas and the others had in mounting their defenses during the four-month-long hearing process, O'Neil is expected to come down hard on the three prosecutors.

Any sanctions imposed would take place 30 days from today. Appeals to the Arizona Supreme Court would have to be filed within ten days, and the respondents are expected to request stays of sanctions pending appeal, which could take another six months.

The Supreme Court could then choose to hold further hearings and could reverse or uphold any part of the disciplinary judge's ruling, or send it back to the disciplinary court for hearings there.

If the ruling is upheld, Thomas and Aubuchon can apply for reinstatement of their law licenses; they would have to demonstrate "by clear and convincing evidence" that they are rehabilitated, competent, and fit to practice law, and that they have complied with all of the court's orders. Alexander, meanwhile, also can apply for reinstatement of her license, but must re-take the Bar exam and also demonstrate that she is rehabilitated.

The eight weeks of trial brought testimony from a who's who of county government officials, including Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio and his former chief deputy, David Hendershott, who worked together with Thomas and his attorneys on many of the alleged corruption cases.

Two of the four retired Superior Court judges who were targeted by Arpaio and Thomas broke down on the stand during testimony. Sheriff's deputies testified about their discomfort with the way investigations against county officials were carried out, saying they took documents home to protect themselves and were asked to swear to facts they knew nothing about.

If you are interested in other crimes that Sheriff Joe Arpaio, Andrew Thomas and Lisa Aubuchon have committed against the citizens of Maricopa County check out this URL it is full of articles on these government criminals that have been terrorizing the citizens of Phoenix and Maricopa County for years.

Ariz. ethics panel disbars ex-Maricopa prosecutor Thomas

Posted: Tuesday, April 10, 2012 9:50 am

Associated Press

An Arizona ethics panel on Tuesday moved to disbar Maricopa County's former top prosecutor for failed corruption investigations he and America's self-proclaimed toughest sheriff conducted targeting officials with whom they were having political and legal disputes.

The three-member disciplinary panel of the Arizona courts found that ex-County Attorney Andrew Thomas violated the professional rules of conduct for lawyers in bringing criminal charges against two county officials and a judge in December 2009.

All three cases were dismissed after a judge ruled that Thomas prosecuted one of the officials for political gain and had a conflict of interest in pressing the case. Other county officials and judges who were at odds with Thomas and his top ally, Sheriff Joe Arpaio, in disputes also were investigated by the pair, but weren't charged with crimes.

Lawyers pressing the case against Thomas said officials, judges and attorneys who crossed Thomas and Arpaio in disputes were often targeted for investigations.

Thomas and Arpaio contended they were trying to root out corruption in county government, while the targets of the prosecutions said the cases were trumped up.

The decision marked the first official comment by the state's legal establishment on the validity of the investigations.

Arpaio does not face any punishments in the disciplinary case, but investigations of county officials and judges by the sheriff's anti-public corruption squad took center stage at hearings in the Thomas case.

Separate from the attorney disciplinary case, a federal grand jury also has been investigating Arpaio's office on criminal abuse-of-power allegations since at least December 2009 and is specifically examining the investigative work of the sheriff's anti-public corruption squad.

At Thomas' disciplinary hearing, the sheriff testified in September that he didn't follow the investigations closely and farmed out those cases to his then-top assistant. The former Arpaio aide had testified earlier that some allegations contained in the charges against the judge weren't in fact crimes.

Thomas was accused of bringing criminal cases against County Supervisors Don Stapley and Mary Rose Wilcox to embarrass them and knowingly filing false bribery and obstruction of justice charges against then-Superior Court Judge Gary Donahoe.

The panel ruled against Thomas and Lisa Aubuchon, one of his former deputy prosecutors, on the charges. Aubuchon also will be disbarred.

"Justice has been served for Maricopa County," Wilcox said.

The ethics board also found that Thomas and Aubuchon conspired with Arpaio and his former top aide, David Hendershott, to intimidate the judge. Still, the panel declined to sanction Thomas and Aubuchon on that violation.

Thomas and Aubuchon have 10 days to file an appeal with the state Supreme Court.

Donahoe was charged with bribery after the judge disqualified Thomas' office from its investigation into a construction of a court building. The judge was about to hold a hearing on Thomas' request to appoint special prosecutors to handle investigations against the officials, but that hearing was called off after the charges were filed against the judge.

Thomas said the decision to charge the judge had nothing to do with the decisions the judge issued against his office.

During his testimony, Thomas defended the investigations and said one of his aides had warned that charging Stapley would hurt him politically, but he brought the charges against the county supervisor because it was the right thing to do.

Stapley was accused, among other things, of getting mortgage loans under fraudulent pretenses. Wilcox was accused of voting on contracts involving a group that had given her loans and never filing conflict-of-interest statements.

Thomas, a Harvard Law School graduate, served as the county's top prosecutor from more than five years before resigning in April 2010 to run an unsuccessful campaign for state attorney general.

Thomas was known for confronting illegal immigration, prosecuting metro Phoenix's Baseline Killer and Serial Shooter cases and pursuing criminal cases against county officials.

Alabama man gets 3 days in jail for wearing saggy pants

Source

Crime of fashion? Alabama man sentenced to jail for saggy pants

Associated Press

Posted: 04/11/2012 09:54:15 AM PDT

PRATTVILLE, Ala. -- Authorities in central Alabama say a man has been given a three-day jail sentence for contempt of court for wearing so-called saggy pants.

Twenty-year-old LaMarcus D. Ramsey was in Autauga County Circuit Court on Tuesday to enter a plea on a charge of receiving stolen property.

Circuit Judge John Bush told Ramsey his blue jeans were sagging too low and gave him the three-day stint. The judge told Ramsey to buy pants that fit or a belt when he gets out of the county jail.

The judge says he finds it disrespectful and a disruption when people wear pants below their waistline in his chambers.

Calls to Ramsey's public defender were not immediately returned.

Source

Sagging pants gets man 3 days in jail

9:11 AM, Apr. 11, 2012

PRATTVILLE — A Prattville man was given a three-day jail sentence Tuesday for contempt of court after his wardrobe didn’t pass judicial muster.

LaMarcus D. Ramsey, 20, was in Autauga County Circuit Court to enter a plea on a charge of receiving stolen property. Circuit Judge John Bush took exception to the fact that Ramsey’s blue jeans were sagging too low. The three-day stint will be served in the Autauga Metro jail.

“You are in contempt of court because you showed your butt in court,” a visibly irate Bush told Ramsey. “You can spend three days in jail. When you get out you can buy pants that fit, or at least get a belt to hold up your pants so your underwear doesn’t show.”

Peoria, Arizona cops know every where you drive!!!!!

License-plate readers raise concerns for some in Peoria

Council has questions; PD chief offers assurances

by Sonu Munshi - Apr. 11, 2012 10:01 AM

The Republic | azcentral.com

Peoria police officials have requested $45,000 in the coming fiscal year for equipment to discourage speeding near schools and neighborhoods, and technology to capture license-plate data.

The latter raised privacy concerns for some council members at a recent budget meeting.

As drivers pass by an area, a license-plate reader could record plate information, which police could use to investigate crimes, Police Chief Roy Minter Jr. said.

The reader would be attached to a mobile trailer that shows drivers their speed.

Councilman Dave Pearson questioned who would have access to the recorded data, how it would be used and how the department would make sure the data are not just being gathered indiscriminately. He offered an example of a divorce attorney potentially requesting that information to track down someone's movements in a neighborhood.

Councilman Tony Rivero said he had some concerns about whether the data recorded would be transmitted securely.

Minter replied the data would be shared only to solve crimes and that it would be transmitted and kept securely.

The police chief said there have been discussions among law-enforcement agencies nationwide over some of the concerns the council members raised, but license-plate readers do have a legitimate law-enforcement use.

"The way the courts have looked at it so far is that there's no difference in a police officer standing on a corner looking at a license plate going by or what the reader captures," Minter said.

This isn't the first time the department would be using a reader. The Peoria Police Department about a year and a half ago began using two license-plate readers mounted on patrol cars. It has used the readers in high-density areas such as near retail shops to identify stolen vehicles, stolen license plates, and vehicles associated with active warrants. There have been about a dozen "hits" since the department began using the readers.

Police spokesman Jay Davies said the city currently retains data for a maximum of two years, although it is evaluating that retention protocol.

The requested mobile reader could be placed in an area and capture data with minimal maintenance or operational support, according to a budget report.

Davies said the department could deploy a stationary reader in an area with a specific crime trend, and then search data captured and related vehicle description for any matches of suspect vehicles or plates that may be associated with these crimes.

"This is a more "real time" use, versus the benefits of the mobile LPRs," Davies said.

Other Valley cities, including Phoenix, Mesa and Avondale, have used readers to solve auto thefts and to track felons.

Pearson later said he hadn't realized the department already used readers. He said there have to be limits on how government uses the information gathered.

As part of its budget requests, police also sought to continue the use of an unarmed security guard in City Hall instead of a sworn police officer. Police officials said the change, which was made about two months ago, would put a police officer back on the streets and be fiscally prudent.

The total police budget is proposed at $37.5 million for the coming year, up more than 5 percent from the current year's budget.

El Mirage raises revenue with photo radar speed traps????

Source

Speed, red-light camera tickets overwhelm El Mirage staff

El Mirage raises funds, but citation volume stresses staff

by Dustin Gardiner - Apr. 11, 2012 08:31 AM

The Republic | azcentrtal.com

When El Mirage installed photo-enforcement cameras on Grand Avenue last summer, the cameras flashed so often that a former city employee likened it to a strobe light or lightning storm.

The cameras have since inundated the small Northwest Valley city with speed and red-light cases, generating about $1.3 million in photo-ticket revenue so far this fiscal year. As many as 8,000 potential violations have been backlogged for police review at a single time.

Although the cameras have been successful at nabbing speeders, the heavy caseload has strained city staff. It has also raised questions about the intent of the program.

Many cities use photo enforcement, but El Mirage is among a handful of cities in Arizona that are allowed to operate traffic cameras on a state highway. The city made a special agreement with the Arizona Department of Transportation to place them on Grand Avenue, U.S. 60.

Most speed cameras were removed from Arizona highways in 2010 after the state Department of Public Safety opted to end its contract with vendor Redflex Traffic Systems.

El Mirage announced in August that Redflex would install fixed cameras at the intersection of Grand and Primrose Street. After a two-week grace period, the cameras started snapping. Drivers traveling 11 miles per hour or more over the 45 MPH speed limit are ticketed.

The standard fine is $241 for a red-light ticket and $232 for a speeding citation, with the fine increasing based on the amount over the posted limit. • 234 additional drivers get El Mirage refunds for tickets

Need debated

City leaders at the time portrayed Grand and Primrose as a dangerous intersection, circulating a photo of a pickup truck that was crushed in an accident last June. In a news release, Mayor Lana Mook said she witnessed the grisly "speed-related" accident.

"I looked out my window after hearing a very loud noise and literally saw this pickup hurtling through the air and clearing the guardrail before finally coming to rest in the drainage ditch along Grand Avenue," Mook said. "If these cameras will encourage safer speeds in our community, then we should try them out."

A police activity log describing the accident states that the truck driver admitted he was texting while driving. It lists the driver's texting as the contributing factor.

Mook did not respond to a request for comment on this article before press time.

El Mirage did not provide the state with a crash study or history, according to an ADOT spokesman. Its agreement with ADOT says the city will provide documentation justifying a need for photo enforcement based on "an adverse crash history" and other information about the intersection.

City Manager Spencer Isom said in an e-mail Monday that the city had "provided/made available" collision data for ADOT.

Councilman Jim McPhetres has been critical of the city's photo-enforcement programs. He cited the city's collision statistics, which indicate there were 39 crashes at the Grand intersection in three years. None of the accidents resulted in a fatality or serious injury, according to the report.

"With that piece of information, I'm not sold that those cameras were put in there for public safety," McPhetres said. "It didn't appear that the intersection is that dangerous to begin with."

Mook has maintained that the purpose of the cameras is to enhance public safety, not bring in money.

"I would be thrilled if we made no money," she told Fox 10 during an interview about the Grand cameras last year. "If we just reduced the speed and made it safer, I would be happy." Staff strained

Processing tens of thousands of photo-enforcement citations generated by the Grand cameras has created a demand for additional police officers and court staff. Both departments have struggled to keep up with the caseload.

The city judge and police chief both recently asked the City Council to increase their budgets to hire extra staff to help review and process cases. Each citation must be reviewed by a police officer.

City Judge James Mapp said the court's caseload doubled last year after the camera was activated. He said the "flood of cases" will increase even more after the Police Department hires additional personnel to process and forward the citations to the court.

"This doubling of case filings has resulted in the need for overtime for some clerks, including unpaid overtime worked by salaried employees on nights, weekends, and holidays," Mapp wrote in a memo, adding that he has even been pressed to open mail and process fines.

City staff requested spending $160,000 to hire three temporary Police Department employees -- one full time and two part time -- and $100,000 to hire two more full-time court clerks. The council approved both.

According to city officials, the balance in its photo-enforcement fund was $437,000 as of mid-February. Isom said the program will be able to cover any associated costs.

"It's a tool that I can successfully use to help at least raise the awareness and get people to slow down," Police Chief Steven Campbell said of the program. "And I think that's the ultimate goal."

Andrew Thomas - I'm not a crook!!!!!

Source

Thomas defends record as chief county prosecutor

by Michael Kiefer and Yvonne Wingett Sanchez - Apr. 11, 2012 11:26 AM

The Republic | azcentral.com

At a raucous outdoor press conference, former Maricopa County Attorney Andrew Thomas on Wednesday denounced once again the corruption that he says he aimed to fight, defending his record as chief county prosecutor despite an order Tuesday to disbar him.

"Arizona continues to have some of the worst corruption the country," Thomas, surrounded by sympathetic Tea Party supporters, said at a Wednesday morning news conference in downtown Phoenix.

While Thomas supporters tussled with anti-Thomas protesters, Thomas shouted to be heard above the argument.

Thomas and former Deputy County Attorney Lisa Aubuchon, who joined Thomas at the Wednesday news conference, were ordered disbarred a day earlier by an Arizona Supreme Court disciplinary panel. The panelt found clear and convincing evidence of ethical misconduct when the pair investigated and sought to prosecute county politicians, judges and others deemed political enemies.

Another Thomas deputy, former Deputy County Attorney Rachel Alexander, was ordered suspended from the state Bar for six months and a day in the same case.

Thomas said Wednesday that he has not yet decided whether he will appeal, but he said he is going to campaign for a voter initiative to end public corruption. He also said he has a contract to write a book, the subject of which he would not divulge.

As he spoke, his suppoprters held signs such as "Keep Andrew Thomas," "Remember Justice for All," and "Don't Believe the Liberal Media."

Supporter Charlene Hansen said Thomas was disbarred because the "liberal media continues to perpetrate lies about his administration and only writes what benefits Democrats."

Protesters against Thomas also showed up, at times interrupting his remarks by shouting things like, "Where is your friend Arpaio now?" One held sign that read "Arpaio and Thomas, Lock Them Up."

"Someone has to fight for justice," Thomas said, comparing himself to Mahatma Ghandi and Martin Luther King Jr.

Disciplinary sanctions against Thomas and his two former deputies are to take effect May 10, but the sanctions could be stayed until any appeals are heard. Disbarment would strip them of their ability to practice law in Arizona and could hinder their ability to practice in other states.

The Arizona Supreme Court has the discretion to decide whether consider appeals. It can uphold a disciplinary ruling without comment, remand a case to the disciplinary judge for further consideration or accept jurisdiction and write an opinion with or without holding further hearings.

Maricopa County, meanwhile, is considering whether to continue to pay any future legal bills for Thomas and Alexander. Aubuchon's attorney is handling her case for free, but the legal fees of the other two prosecutors have been paid by the count

Andrew Thomas and Lisa Aubuchon Disbarred

Andrew Thomas and Lisa Aubuchon Disbarred -- Read Panel's Opinion Here

By Ray Stern Tue., Apr. 10 2012 at 9:22 AM

Andrew Thomas, former Maricopa County Attorney, was disbarred this morning by the three-member disciplinary panel of the Arizona State Supreme Court.

So was his former deputy, Lisa Aubuchon.

Former Deputy County Attorney Rachel Alexander's law license was suspended for six months and one day.

The disciplinary panel dismissed a few charges, but it found "clear and convincing evidence" that Thomas and Aubuchon abused their prosecutorial powers while trying to prosecute county Supervisors Mary Rose Wilcox and Don Stapley, Superior Court Judge Gary Donahoe, and others. The panel found that Thomas and Aubuchon launched unethical attacks on their political enemies.

Thomas and Aubuchon's attempted prosecutions were not in the interests of justice; often they were only aimed at embarrassing or burdening their enemies, the panel found.

Thomas and Aubuchon acted with dishonesty and failed to cooperate with the State Bar, the panel found.

Thomas, Aubuchon, and Alexander skipped this morning's hearing.

The panel's decision can be appealed by all three.

The ruling by the disciplinary panel means that Thomas and Aubuchon are stripped of their law licenses for five years. The licenses are not automatically reinstated after that period, either.

Thomas will need to reapply with the State Bar and show evidence that he's been rehabilitated, says ethics attorney Denise Quinterri, a former Bar Counsel for the Arizona State Bar. The reapplication process will be rigorous, she says.

"He can't just come in and say 'You're right, I'm sorry,'" Quinterri says.

Though Thomas and Aubuchon lose only their Arizona law licenses, Quinterri says it's unlikely another state will accept them as lawyers -- not without, again, evidence they've been "rehabilitated."

The extra day on top of the six-month suspension for Alexander has a special meaning under State Bar rules -- it means that she also has to go through a tough reapplication process to regain her license.

Federal Lawsuit Against Arpaio and Andrew Thomas to Proceed

Federal Lawsuit Against Sheriff Joe Arpaio and Former County Attorney Andrew Thomas to Proceed; No Immunity, Judge Rules

By Ray Stern Tue., Apr. 10 2012 at 6:53 PM

Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio and former County Attorney Andrew Thomas were blasted in a court ruling on Monday, the day before Thomas found himself disbarred.

As we pointed out earlier today, the 247-page opinion by the state Supreme Court panel that disbarred Thomas made it clear that Arpaio had collaborated with Thomas to abuse the rights of their political enemies.

Yesterday's ruling by U.S. District Judge Neil Wake is another bombshell. Wake, in ruling to keep lawsuits by current and former county officials afloat, describes the actions of lawmen and their trusted aides who cast aside basic legal scruples.

The ruling also seems to explain the recent settlements by the county for some of those who sued.

First, here's list of the plaintiffs and defendants in the consolidated lawsuit who are suing Arpaio, Thomas and Maricopa County (leaving out the spouses' names, which you can see if you click on the link below, anyway):

PLAINTIFFS:

• Gary Donahoe, retired Superior Court judge
• Susan Schuerman, County Supervisor Don Stapley's executive assistant
• Sandi Wilson, deputy county manager
• Conley Wolfswinkel, developer, et al
• County Supervisor Mary Rose Wilcox
• County Supervisor Don Stapley
• Barbara Mundell, retired Superior Court judge

• Joe Arpaio, sheriff
• Andrew Thomas, former County Attorney who was stripped of his law license
• Dave Hendershott, former chief deputy and right-hand man of Sheriff Arpaio's
• Peter Spaw, deputy county attorney
• Maricopa County, the government entity

Wake questions that notion before denying various motions to dismiss by Arpaio and Thomas. In the densely worded, well-researched, 79-page ruling, Wake outlines his reasons for allowing the various claims in the case, including malicious prosecution, abuse of process, wrongful institution of government of civil proceedings and defamation, to proceed.

The ruling labels the 2009 federal racketeering lawsuit against county officials, judges and lawyers by Arpaio and Thomas as "patently frivolous." Arpaio, Thomas and their aides weren't acting as true law officers when they filed that RICO suit, so they aren't immune from civil actions arising from it, Wake wrote.

Each of the plaintiffs' several claims, which often overlap, are examined. For example, Wilson and Donahoe both claimed "abuse of process." Wake dismisses that claim for Wilson because it's too similar to her claim of malicious prosecution, which he is allowing to proceed. But Wake says Donahoe has more than a fair claim of abuse of process:

...To the extent Donahoe is alleging abuse of process for Defendants' actions related to hiring a process server to serve Donahoe with the federal RICO suit, whom they knew or should have known had been previously prosecuted for threatening to kill Donahoe, this is quintessentially the type of allegation that supports a claim for abuse of process.

The defenses of Arpaio and Thomas are also frowned upon by Wake on the defamation claims by Mundell, Donahoe, Schuerman and Wilson. The negative claims about the judges and county employees by Arpaio and Thomas were not "merely opinion," Wake ruled. Because the alleged facts were often distributed to the public in the form of news releases, and because the releases came from the highest authorities in county law enforcement, "the Court concludes that an average person could see the allegedly defamatory statements as implying facts."

As mentioned, the county has already settled with some of the folks from this consolidated lawsuit. Arpaio, Thomas and other defendants may still be on the hook.

Thomas, of course, no longer can practice law -- but if this lawsuit against him and the other defendants keeps up, he'll soon be in need of money.

Underage drinking arrest to cost Pinal County $3.5 million

Source

Attack at 2011 County Thunder festival spurs suit vs. sheriff

Lawmen: Pinal County brass violated our rights

by Lindsey Collom - Apr. 10, 2012 09:39 PM

The Republic | azcentral.com

Two lawmen who say they were assaulted while on patrol at Country Thunder last year are suing Sheriff Paul Babeu and staff, county prosecutors and concert promoters.

Pinal County Sheriff's Detective Andrew Goode and state Department of Public Safety Officer Hugh Grant say their rights were systematically violated by PCSO and the Pinal County Attorney's Office in the wake of an attack that left Goode partially disabled and Grant the subject of an internal-affairs investigation.

The men filed suit Monday in Pinal County Superior Court on the one-year anniversary of the incident. Country Thunder, an annual four-day music festival held in Florence, begins Thursday.

"This is about not so much going after someone but about getting relief based upon serious harm these individuals have suffered," said attorney Gary Lassen, who is representing Goode and Grant. "Mr. Goode is going to walk around with this pain and disability for the rest of his life, and it's sad because ... his chosen career path, for which he is very dedicated, has been impaired."

Records filed in Superior Court recount the events this way:

On April 9, 2011, Goode and Grant were on plainclothes patrol at Country Thunder to root out underage drinkers when they noticed several women standing on a raised platform overlooking a campsite, hollering at passers-by to show their breasts.

In the course of trying to stop the activity, Grant arrested an intoxicated woman -- identified in the suit as Julie Keys -- on suspicion of public nuisance. As he led her away, Grant was struck from behind, knocked to the ground and placed in a choke hold. The suit identifies Grant's attacker as Ronald Keys, Julie's husband.

Ronald Keys attempted to flee but was chased down by Goode, whose knee was injured in the struggle to detain him. The injury left Goode with 14 percent permanent disability. He was on medical leave for months before returning to modified duty.

Within minutes of arrest late on a Saturday afternoon, Keys was in a Sheriff's Office vehicle and booked into the Pinal County jail on suspicion of aggravated assault, resisting arrest and obstruction of justice, his arrest record showed.

But that's where events began to deviate from typical arrests in Pinal County, according to the suit and e-mails shared with The Arizona Republic.

Defendants typically have an initial appearance before a judge within 24 hours of arrest. On weekends, those appearances are at 8:30 a.m. and 3:30 p.m., the lawsuit says. The suit says a Sheriff's Office official picked up a pro-tem judge to give Keys an immediate initial appearance and, upon his release, drove him back to Country Thunder. The suit claims the Sheriff's Office administration and Lt. Blake King, who was on duty and filed a report on the incident months later, tried to steer the investigation because the suspect was a friend of Tucson police and several witnessing Tucson officers claimed it was a "bad arrest."

According to the suit, "PCSO Lieutenant Blake King and 'the administration' were going to sweep this case under the rug from day one."

Tim Gaffney, Sheriff's Office director of communications and grants, issued this statement Tuesday: "On April 9th, 2011 an alleged assault took place at Country Thunder. The assault allegations were fully investigated by our office. Once the investigation was completed, all information was turned over to the Pinal County Attorney's Office for possible charging. The decision was made at their office that the facts of the case did not support any criminal charges."

In a Nov. 4 letter, Deputy County Attorney Richard Platt notified Goode that the office would not file felony charges. The decision "does not mean we concluded that no crime was committed," Platt wrote. He did not supply a reason other than to say the decision was made "carefully and in accordance with office policy and charging guidelines." Julie Keys' charge had been dismissed months prior.

Kostas Kalaitzidis, a county-attorney spokesman, would not comment on the suit. He said Ronald Keys' case was turned over to the Yavapai County Attorney's Office late last fall, but a call for comment was not returned Tuesday.

In their suit, Goode and Grant have alleged due-process violations, assault and battery, negligent and intentional infliction of physical and emotional distress, negligent supervision and hiring, defamation and victims' rights violations. The pair seek compensation of an unspecified amount to include attorney fees. Records show Goode and Grant previously filed claims with the county for $2.5 million and $1 million, respectively, but Lassen said they received no response.

Source

Case of cops behaving badly at music festival results in suit vs. Babeu

Tim Steller Arizona Daily Star

Thursday, April 12, 2012 12:00 am

When Tucsonan Ronnie Keys tackled a plainclothes police officer at the Country Thunder music festival last year, the result was predictable: He was booked into jail, accused of aggravated assault on an officer.

But what happened next you might not expect, and it led the two arresting officers to file a lawsuit this week against the Pinal County Sheriff's Department.

That night, April 9, 2011, Pinal sheriff's deputies brought in a judge after hours, and he released Keys on his own recognizance after a few hours in jail. Then a Pinal County lieutenant worked to clear the arrest record, and officers drove Keys back to the festival.

The arresting officers say in their suit the reason Keys was treated so well is who he was hanging out with: off-duty Tucson police officers with a campsite at the festival, where a "Titties and Beer" sign hung from a scaffold and young women exposed their breasts.

In their lawsuit, Pinal County Sheriff's Office Detective Andrew Goode and Arizona Department of Public Safety Officer Hugh Grant say the sheriff's department's administration was "going to sweep this case under the rug from day one."

However, the off-duty and retired Tucson officers present at the scene accused Grant and Goode of failing to identify themselves when they came into the officers' enclosed campsite. They said Keys, the son of two retired Tucson officers, was only trying to defend his wife from what appeared to be a male attacker.

His father, retired Tucson Officer Dennis Keys, said via Facebook: "Ronnie is completely INNOCENT of the charges from that evening and was totally justified in his actions."

Pinal County Sheriff Paul Babeu's office said in a written statement the incident was fully investigated: "Once the investigation was completed, all information was turned over to the Pinal County Attorney's Office for possible charging. The decision was made at their office that the facts of the case did not support any criminal charges."

Platform at campsite

To understand the incident, you need to understand the landscape at Country Thunder - this year's version begins today outside Florence - and a bit of its culture. The festival sells RV campsites in an area apart from the concert stages. Some attendees stay at the campground for the whole four-day festival, going out to the stages to see favorite acts.

And some of the campsites get rowdy. The top security officer for Country Thunder in 2011, Glenn Rea, told a Pinal County deputy investigating the incident that he "has received numerous complaints about this particular group over the past two years."

Officer Mikeal Allen, the son of a retired TPD sergeant by the same name, told internal-affairs investigators that he and others set up their campsite with six RVs, parked in a rectangle to create a private interior area. It's a spot that deputies working the festival know is run by Tucson officers, and they sometimes use it as a refuge, Tucson Officer Todd Griffith told investigators.

"Our camp's kind of like a little break area for the Pinal County guys," he said.

On one side of the campsite, the Tucson officers set up a platform about 10 feet high. Allen said the platform is to view the stage, drink, hang out and enjoy the view.

But Rea, the event security officer, said the activities there were more ribald. He said he saw women on the platform exposing their breasts and asking others to expose theirs. One complaint was that people on the platform asked a 15-year-old girl to show her breasts, Rea said.

Fracas in the Mud

That sort of activity is what prompted Goode and Grant's interest in the camp about 5 p.m. on that rainy Saturday. Both officers, who were working in plain clothes in order to detect underage drinkers, told investigators they heard a commotion.

When they approached, Goode and Grant said, they saw three women standing on the platform yelling to different people "Show us your (breasts)" and throwing beads to those who complied, Mardi Gras style.

Goode said he pulled out his badge, announced "sheriff's office" and told the women to get down. Then he and Grant entered the campsite. When Julie Keys came down, Grant, the DPS officer, put her in handcuffs and began walking her out.

Grant said Keys was struggling as he walked her out through the mud, and the off-duty officers demanded to see Grant's badge, which he flashed at them. Grant and Julie Keys, who acknowledged being quite drunk in a police interview, fell in the mud, and then got up.

That's when Ronnie Keys, a recently discharged Marine, came running up from behind Grant and tackled him, putting pressure on his neck that Grant said made it hard for him to breathe.

Grant managed to pull his gun out, and Ronnie Keys ran about 30 feet away before pausing. Then Goode, the Pinal County detective, tackled Keys. But in the process, Goode's leg got stuck in the mud, and he suffered serious leg injuries including a severed ligament and a fracture.

Allen, retired Tucson Officer Gary Schad and others disputed the arresting officers' stories. They said Grant charged aggressively into the camping area, that neither officer properly identified himself, and that Grant treated Julie Keys roughly as he arrested her, forcing her into the mud.

Ronnie Keys, in a later interview, said he didn't know Grant was an officer before he tackled Grant, and that he never would have done so had he realized it.

Quick Release

Ronnie Keys was booked into the Pinal County jail, accused of two counts of aggravated assault against an officer, along with resisting arrest and obstruction of justice, but that soon changed. The Tucson officers declined to give substantial written statements and said they would only speak with a Pinal County officer with the rank of lieutenant or above, Lt. Blake King said in a report filed in September, five months after the incident.

King went to the officers' campsite and interviewed witnesses, consulted with Pinal Chief Deputy Steve Henry and decided it was a "bad arrest." After consulting a deputy county attorney, King arranged for Judge Pro-Tem Henry Gooday to come to the jail and give Keys a special initial appearance. Gooday ordered him released on his own recognizance.

Then King arranged for Keys to be driven back to the festival.

Later, King lamented in an email to Deputy County Attorney Paul Ahler that he had not intervened earlier: "Unfortunately, the subject booked for the Agg Assault had been finger printed before I could have a chance to get him released. If you can, please attempt to have his DPS record of this cleared."

In their suit, Grant and Goode accuse the sheriff's department of negligent hiring for bringing King on board as a Pinal County lieutenant, which they claim is "beyond his capabilities." When Babeu, then a Chandler police officer, became Pinal County sheriff in 2009, he hired King - then a $30-an-hour Chandler officer - as a salaried lieutenant making the equivalent of $42 per hour.

Cross complaints

In the aftermath of the incident, on April 12, 2011, Tucson officer Allen filed a complaint against Grant with the DPS. The DPS found the next month that Grant had behaved "reasonably" given the circumstances.

Then, in May, Grant filed a complaint with TPD against Allen and Schad, who has since retired, accusing them of breaking the department's rules for off-duty police by not helping him when he was being tackled, and when Goode tackled Keys. The department's internal investigation determined Grant's accusation was "unfounded."

Tucson police Capt. Rick Wilson said off-duty officers must intervene when their help is required, but sometimes intervention causes more harm than good. As to the off-duty officers' behavior at Country Thunder, Wilson said the department must balance officers' responsibilities against their rights.

"Members are not permitted to engage in off-duty conduct that paints the department in a negative light," Wilson said, noting the public wouldn't necessarily know the officers camped at Country Thunder were police. Wilson added, "They have certain rights as citizens to express themselves in certain ways that the department doesn't have control over."

-----------------

Other problems for Babeu

The lawsuit filed this week against Pinal County Sheriff Paul Babeu is the latest worry for him and his department, coming after three outside investigations began this spring.

Perhaps the biggest of those is an investigation by the U.S. Office of Special Counsel. The office is looking into possible violations of the Hatch Act, which prohibits certain political activities by public officials working in their official capacities at local agencies receiving federal funds.

On March 14, the office requested that Pinal County perform computer searches for information regarding five Sheriff's Office employees: Babeu, Chief Deputy Steve Henry, community relations director Cheryl Chase, communications director Tim Gaffney and spokesman Elias Johnson.

The office's request sought information related to Babeu's run for Congress and Henry's run to replace Babeu as sheriff among other topics.

A separate investigation began about the same time last month into the poss

Contact reporter Tim Steller at tsteller@azstarnet.com or 807-842

Pepper-spraying of Calif. students 'not reasonable'

Review: Pepper-spraying of Calif. students 'not reasonable'

By Michael Winter, USA TODAY

The pepper-spraying of University of California-Davis students in November during a campus police operation to remove an Occupy encampment was "not reasonable use of force" and should have been prevented, a task force has concluded.

The 190-page report was especially harsh on UC-Davis Chancellor Linda P.B. Katehidid and her leadership, but it did not recommend any disciplinary actions against administrators or police. However, the task force urged systemwide changes in policing at the 10 campuses of the University of California.

The methodical spraying by a UC-Davis police lieutenant Nov. 18 was captured on video and went viral through social media and YouTube. Two protesters were taken to the hospital and nine others were treated.

Pepper-spray was "not reasonable use of force," the report concluded, noting that officers had not been trained to use the larger canisters deployed and that there were alternatives. The review said the use of pepper spray "should have and could have been prevented."

The report found that university officials believed that most protesters were not students and that they were concerned about violence by "non-affiliates," or what used to be called outside agitators.The task force, headed by former California Supreme Court Associate Justice Cruz Reynoso, determined that "these concerns were not supported by any evidence obtained" by Kroll Consulting, a firm specializing in police procedures hired to interview officers and review policies and procedures.

The report faulted UC-Davis administrators and the campus police for weak or confusing leadership and communications, as well as poor understanding of the law and legal rights.

The report also found a "considerable lack of leadership" and "many breaches of protocol" in the way police handled the eviction of demonstrators from the Quad.

Officers "apparently felt that they were surrounded by a hostile mob" and that pepper spray was necessary to get them and those arrested out safely. But the report found officers could removed students non-violently.

The report had harsh words for the campus police.

"The command and leadership structure of the (campus police) is very dysfunctional. Lieutenants refused to follow directives of the chief," it said.

Campus Police Chief Annette Spicuzza was put on leave after the confrontation.

The Sacramento Bee has an extensive report.

UC Davis pepper spray incident 'should and could have been prevented'

Report: UC Davis pepper spray incident 'should and could have been prevented'

By Sam Stanton

sstanton@sacbee.com

The 190-page pepper spray report is now on the UC-Davis website, www.ucdavis.edu, and comes to a stark conclusion:

"The pepper spraying incident that took place on November 18, 2011, should and could have been prevented."

The report by the Cruz Reynoso task force found that UC Davis officials were highly concerned by other Occupy protests and the possibility that students could be endangered by protests from outside.

The first tents went up Nov. 17 on the UCD quad, but by then university officials had already determined that camping on the Quad is not legal but could be troublesome to stop.

The biggest concern was from harm that could come to students from outsiders drawn to campus by the protests, with UCD administrators "repeatedly" voicing that concern, the report states.

"As our report will indicate these concerns were not supported by any evidence obtained by Kroll."

The report found that UCD officials were being told that most of the protesters were "non-affiliates," people from outside campus who were not students. Campus Police Chief Annette Spicuzza, now on leave from her post, estimated 80 percent of the Quad campers were not students, an assertion challenged by student affairs staffers and others, the report found.

The chief's assertion "has not been substantiated," the report found.

Even if it had been true, the report, concludes, "this concern would not justify ordering the immediate dismantling of the encampment."

Chancellor Linda P.B. Katehi told investigators for the report that she envisioned "a limited operation in which police would demand that the tents be taken down but would use no other force," the report found.

But other top-level officials did not get that message because the chancellor "did not effectively communicate this" during deliberations on what to do.

Spicuzza, the police chief, initially tried to convince officers not to wear riot gear or use batons or pepper spray, but she was unsuccessful, the report states.

"There is also evidence that she wanted her officers to withdraw if they encountered resistance," the report found, but because investigators could not interview her they did not come up with additional details.

No one in the campus leadership took responsibility for ensuring they understood the way the police operation was to be handled, the report found.

It also found evidence of disagreement over when the operation should be done. Katehi wanted the tents removed during the day, and police moved in for a 3 p.m. deadline.

But one dispatcher said Spicuza had said "we should go in at night."

"No member of the leadership team recalls such concerns...," the report found.

There also was confusion over whether officers had a basic legal right to remove the tents, and even on the day of the incident were questioning whether removing the tents during the day was legal because the prohibition was against "overnight camping."

The report found that key decisions were made without enough explanation, that they "were often understood to mean different things to different people."

"These poorly understood decisions were then communicated to the Police Department as 'executive orders,'" the report found.

The report also found a "considerable lack of leadership" and "many breaches of protocol" in the way police handled the incident.

With a 3 p.m. deadline for the students to leave, the police "entered the Quad at 3:15 p.m. in a skirmish line."

Over the next 15 or 20 minutes, police gave at least six orders for protesters to disperse, then began moving to take down the tents and make arrests at 3:35 p.m.

At about 3:47 p.m., as police waited for transportation to remove the arrestees, "the crowd surrounded the police and arrestees" and some time before 4 p.m. the pepper spray was used.

But the report found police did not follow state or national guidelines in such an event, and that Lt. John Pike, seen on video spraying students, and another officer involved in the planning had failed to arrange for transportation.

Officials also failed to warn Davis Police, "the closest quick-reaction force" if there was a problem, of what was about to occur on campus.

That, the report found, was a "significant oversight."

The report also addresses one of the key unanswered questions: why did Pike resort to using pepper spray?

Officers indicated that "they apparently felt that they were surrounded by a hostile mob" and that the use of the pepper spray was necessary to get themselves and their arrestees out of the Quad.

But the report found that there may have been alternatives to using the pepper spray.

For instance, "Officer F.," who is not named because of a court fight that redacted most officer names, was able to walk through the crowd and place suspects into a police car.

"Officer P was able to step over a line of seated protesters and walk through the crowd to met with Davis PD who arrived to provide mutual aid," the report found.

"Lt. Pike's actions and body language include stepping over seated protesters to get to their faces, a move that would not generally be undertaken with a hostile crowd," the report found.

It added that Pike was able to return 20 minutes after the pepper spraying without riot gear on and that he and another officer asked protesters to remove some tents.

"The tents were removed without incident," the report found.

The report also found that officers had not been trained in the use of the larger pepper spray canisters that were deployed and that its use was "not reasonable use of force."

"The command and leadership structure of the (campus police) is very dysfunctional," the report adds. "Lieutenants refused to follow directives of the chief."

This conclusion stemmed in part from "heated exchanges" Spicuzza and her underlings had about how to proceed with the operation and her eventual "concession that her officers will do things their own way and there is nothing she can do about it."

The report finds fault with many administrators from Katehi on down for failing to specify what actions should be taken, leaving orders that it was "not to be like Berkeley," where an earlier demonstration had turned ugly.

But is especially harsh about the failure of police leadership to insist that the operation be undertaken at 3 a.m., as they wanted, instead of Katehi's preference for 3 p.m. that Friday. A nighttime operation might have drawn fewer protesters, but Spicuzza failed to object to the afternoon timing, the report found.

The report also addresses the notion that video of the incident shows police were facing a hostile crowd chanting "If you let them go, we will let you leave." That chant was being made, the report found, but was being shouted down by "the majority of the crowd almost as quickly as they started."

"Nor did they appear to reflect an actual intent by the crowd to prevent police from leaving with their prisoners," it found. Pike and another officer "were able to move through the crowd freely" and stepped over seated protesters three times "just minutes before Lt. Pike sprayed those same protesters."

The report does not recommend disciplinary action, but has a number of recommendations about how to improve communication and the police force, and how to better respect the freedom of speech and unique aspects of life on a university campus.

The Kroll report, the investigative effort the task force relied on, also is detailed and highly critical at times.

It found that the use of pepper spray "was flawed and unnecessary," but also blamed "the systemic and repeated failures" of UCD administrators that "put the officers in the unfortunate situation in which they found themselves."

Articles & Photos on UC Davis Pepper Spraying

Should the U.S. legalize hard drugs?

Should the U.S. legalize hard drugs?

By George F. Will, Published: April 11

Amelioration of today’s drug problem requires Americans to understand the significance of the 80-20 ratio. Twenty percent of American drinkers consume 80 percent of the alcohol sold here. The same 80-20 split obtains among users of illicit drugs.

About 3 million people — less than 1 percent of America’s population — consume 80 percent of illegal hard drugs. Drug-trafficking organizations can be most efficiently injured by changing the behavior of the 20 percent of heavy users, and we are learning how to do so. Reducing consumption by the 80 percent of casual users will not substantially reduce the northward flow of drugs or the southward flow of money.

Consider current policy concerning the only addictive intoxicant currently available as a consumer good — alcohol. America’s alcohol industry, which is as dependent on the 20 percent of heavy drinkers as they are on alcohol, markets its products aggressively and effectively. Because marketing can drive consumption, America’s distillers, brewers and vintners spend $6 billion on advertising and promoting their products. Americans’ experience with marketing’s power inclines them to favor prohibition and enforcement over legalization and marketing of drugs.

But this choice has consequences: More Americans are imprisoned for drug offenses or drug-related probation and parole violations than for property crimes. And although America spends five times more jailing drug dealers than it did 30 years ago, the prices of cocaine and heroin are 80 to 90 percent lower than 30 years ago.

In “Drugs and Drug Policy: What Everyone Needs to Know,” policy analysts Mark Kleiman, Jonathan Caulkins and Angela Hawken argue that imprisoning low-ranking street-corner dealers is pointless: A $200 transaction can cost society $100,000 for a three-year sentence. And imprisoning large numbers of dealers produces an army of people who, emerging from prison with blighted employment prospects, can only deal drugs. Which is why, although a few years ago Washington, D.C., dealers earned an average of $30 an hour, today they earn less than the federal minimum wage ($7.25).

Dealers, a.k.a. “pushers,” have almost nothing to do with initiating drug use by future addicts; almost every user starts when given drugs by a friend, sibling or acquaintance. There is a staggering disparity between the trivial sums earned by dealers who connect the cartels to the cartels’ customers and the huge sums trying to slow the flow of drugs to those street-level dealers. Kleiman, Caulkins and Hawken say that, in developed nations, cocaine sells for about $3,000 per ounce — almost twice the price of gold. And the supply of cocaine, unlike that of gold, can be cheaply and quickly expanded. But in the countries where cocaine and heroin are produced, they sell for about 1 percent of their retail price in the United States. If cocaine were legalized, a $2,000 kilogram could be FedExed from Colombia for less than $50 and sold profitably here for a small markup from its price in Colombia, and a $5 rock of crack might cost 25 cents. Criminalization drives the cost of the smuggled kilogram in the United States up to $20,000. But then it retails for more than $100,000.

People used to believe enforcement could raise prices but doubted that higher prices would decrease consumption. Now they know consumption declines as prices rise but wonder whether enforcement can substantially affect prices.

Kleiman, Caulkins and Hawken urge rethinking the drug-control triad of enforcement, prevention and treatment because we have been much too optimistic about all three.

And cartels have oceans of money for corrupting enforcement because drugs are so cheap to produce and easy to renew. So it is not unreasonable to consider modifying a policy that gives hundreds of billions of dollars a year to violent organized crime.

Marijuana probably provides less than 25 percent of the cartels’ revenue. Legalizing it would take perhaps $10 billion from some bad and violent people, but the cartels would still make much more money from cocaine, heroin and methamphetamines than they would lose from marijuana legalization.

Sixteen states and the District have legalized “medical marijuana,” a messy, mendacious semi-legalization that breeds cynicism regarding law. In 1990, 24 percent of Americans supported full legalization. Today, 50 percent do. In 2010, in California, where one-eighth of Americans live, 46 percent of voters supported legalization, and some opponents were marijuana growers who like the profits they make from prohibition of their product.

Would the public health problems resulting from legalization be a price worth paying for injuring the cartels and reducing the costs of enforcement? We probably are going to find out.

georgewill@washpost.com

Andrew Thomas & Sheriff Joe Arpaio's crimes to cost Maricopa County $2 million???

Document: County aims to settle claims for about $2 million

by Michelle Ye Hee Lee - Apr. 12, 2012 11:31 AM

The Republic | azcentral.com

Maricopa County Manager David Smith recommended settling three county officials' claims for a total of nearly $2 million because legal advisers said it would be less costly than litigating them in court, according to a document obtained by The Arizona Republic.

All three officials claim they were damaged by errant investigations conducted over the last three years by former Maricopa County Attorney Andrew Thomas, who was ordered disbarred this week, and Sheriff Joe Arpaio.

Smith's offers would respectively settle claims filed by Maricopa County Supervisor Mary Rose Wilcox for $975,000; Susan Schuerman, executive assistant to Supervisor Don Stapley, for $500,0000; and retired Superior Court Judge Barbara Rodriguez Mundell for $500,000.

The deals are not yet final.

Retired Superior Court Judge Christopher Skelly, acting as a mediator, analyzed the claims and recommended the settlement amounts, saying it is uncertain how a jury would decide if the three cases went to court, according to the document.

It would cost between $3 million and $6 million in adverse attorneys' fees if the jury "awarded even nominal damages to each of these three plaintiffs" and between $2 million and $4 million in defense expenses "even if the jury returned defense verdicts in all three cases," according to the document.

On April 9, U.S. District Court Judge Neil Wake denied motions to dismiss some of the claims against the county, which include malicious prosecution, abuse of process, defamation and unconstitutional retaliatory conduct, exposing the county to more legal liability, the document said.

"These plaintiffs will most probably prevail and be awarded reasonable damages and, when they do, they will recover their attorneys' fees," Skelly warned Smith in an e-mail.

"It will cost a small fortune to work up and try these cases just to go get adverse verdicts in some amounts, added to which will be the plaintiffs' attorneys' fees," Skelly wrote.

Smith has authority to negotiate and settle claims relating to Arpaio and Thomas investigations into various county officials. Whether the county manager has ultimately approval of settlements is under discussion."

Phoenix Police Officer sentenced to 46 years in prison

Former Phoenix officer sentenced for bank robberies

by John Genovese and Brennan Smith - Apr. 13, 2012 08:41 PM

The Arizona Republic-12 News Breaking News Team

A former Phoenix police officer has been sentenced to nearly 46 years in prison for his role in a string of bank robberies in 2006, according to Maricopa County Superior Court officials.

Judge Joseph Kreamer sentenced Chad Michael Goulding, 41, to 45.75 years in prison on Friday, court spokeswoman Karen Arra said.

A jury found Goulding guilty Feb. 1 on 61 counts of kidnapping, 16 counts of armed robbery, five counts of aggravated assault and five counts of theft.

FBI agents arrested the former policeman in December 2010 in connection with the robbery of more than $133,000 from five Valley banks between June and November 2006. He had faced a 95-count indictment accusing him of a rash of Bank of America robberies in Chandler, Glendale, Mesa and Scottsdale.

Goulding resigned from the Phoenix Police Department in August 2005 after 13 years of service following an internal investigation and a positive steroids test.

In November 1996, Goulding was among a group of Phoenix officers involved in the fatal shooting of 16-year-old Julio Valerio. The incident drew outrage from minority groups and community activists, leading to changes in department policy on use of force.

Secret Service agents like high class hookers????

Source

Misconduct alleged against Secret Service agents

Apr. 13, 2012 09:55 PM

Associated Press

CARTAGENA, Colombia -- A dozen Secret Service agents sent to Colombia to provide security for President Barack Obama at an international summit have been relieved of duty because of allegations of misconduct.

A caller who said he had knowledge of the situation told The Associated Press the misconduct involved prostitutes in Cartagena, site of the Summit of the Americas. A Secret Service spokesman did not dispute that.

A U.S. official, who was not authorized to speak publicly on the matter and requested anonymity, put the number of agents at 12. The agency was not releasing the number of personnel involved.

The Washington Post reported that Jon Adler, president of the Federal Law Enforcement Officers Association, said the accusations related to at least one agent having involvement with prostitutes in Cartagena. The association represents federal law enforcement officers, including the Secret Service. Adler later told the AP that he had heard that there were allegations of prostitution, but he had no specific knowledge of any wrongdoing.

Ronald Kessler, a former Post reporter and the author of a book about the Secret Service, told the Post that he had learned that 12 agents were involved, several of them married.

The incident threatened to overshadow Obama's economic and trade agenda at the summit and embarrass the U.S. The White House had no comment.

Secret Service spokesman Ed Donovan would not confirm that prostitution was involved, saying only that there had been "allegations of misconduct" made against Secret Service personnel in the Colombian port city hosting Obama and more than 30 world leaders.

Donovan said the allegations of misconduct were related to activity before the president's arrival Friday night.

Obama was attending a leaders' dinner Friday night at Cartagena's historic Spanish fortress. He was due to attend summit meetings with regional leaders Saturday and Sunday.

Those involved had been sent back to their permanent place of duty and were being replaced by other agency personnel, Donovan said. The matter was turned over to the agency's Office of Professional Responsibility, which handles the agency's internal affairs.

"These personnel changes will not affect the comprehensive security plan that has been prepared in advance of the president's trip," Donovan said.

U.S. Secret Service agents leave Colombia over prostitution inquiry

U.S. Secret Service agents leave Colombia over prostitution inquiry

By David Nakamura and Joe Davidson, Published: April 13

The U.S. Secret Service is investigating allegations of misconduct by agents who had been sent to Cartagena, Colombia, to provide security for President Obama’s trip to a summit that began there Friday.

Edwin Donovan, an agency spokesman, said that an unspecified number of agents have been recalled and replaced with others, stressing that Obama’s security has not been compromised because of the change. Obama arrived in Cartagena on Friday afternoon for this weekend’s Summit of the Americas, a gathering of 33 of the hemisphere’s 35 leaders to discuss economic policy and trade.

Donovan declined to disclose details about the nature of the alleged misconduct. But Jon Adler, president of the Federal Law Enforcement Officers Association, said the accusations relate to at least one agent having involvement with prostitutes in Cartagena.

In a statement, Donovan said the matter has been turned over to the agency’s Office of Professional Responsibility, which serves as the agency’s internal affairs unit.

“The Secret Service takes all allegations of misconduct seriously,” Donovan said. “These personnel changes will not affect the comprehensive security plan that has been prepared in advance of the President’s trip.”

Adler said the entire unit was recalled for purposes of the investigation. The Secret Service “responded appropriately” and is “looking at a very serious allegation,” he said, adding that the agency “needs to properly investigate and fairly ascertain the merits of the allegations.”

The Washington Post was alerted to the investigation by Ronald Kessler, a former Post reporter and author of several nonfiction books, including the book “In the President’s Secret Service: Behind the Scenes With Agents in the Line of Fire and the Presidents They Protect.”

Kessler said he was told that a dozen agents had been removed from the trip. He added that soliciting prostitution is considered inappropriate by the Secret Service, even though it is legal in Colombia when conducted in designated “tolerance zones.” However, Kessler added, several of the agents involved are married.

There have been other incidents involving Obama’s security detail over the past year.

In November, Christopher W. Deedy, a federal agent with the State Department’s Bureau of Diplomatic Security, was charged with second-degree murder after shooting a man during a dispute outside a McDonald’s in Hono­lulu. Though Deedy was off-duty at the time, he was on the island to provide advance security arrangements for Obama’s trip to the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit.

In August, Daniel L. Valencia, a Secret Service agent, was arrested on suspicion of drunken driving in Decorah, Iowa, where he was helping arrange security for Obama’s bus trip through three Midwestern states. Valencia, who was off-duty at the time of the arrest, was recently sentenced to two days in jail with credit for time served, and a fine of $1,250.

South American governments want to end drug war!!!

Of course the American government is going to stick it's head in the sand and pretend we are winning the insane, unconstitutional drug war.

Source

At Latin America summit, Obama to face push for drug legalization

By Christi Parsons and Brian Bennett, Los Angeles Times

April 13, 2012, 4:45 p.m.

CARTAGENA, Colombia — President Obama will highlight trade and business opportunities in Latin America at a regional summit in Colombia this weekend, but other leaders may upstage him by pushing to legalize marijuana and other illicit drugs in a bid to stem rampant trafficking.

Obama, who opposes decriminalization, is expected to face a rocky reception in this Caribbean resort city, which otherwise forms a friendly backdrop for a U.S. president courting Latino voters in an election year. But the American demand for illegal drugs has caused fierce bloodshed, plus political and economic turmoil, across much of the region.

Colombia's president, Juan Manuel Santos, wants the 33 leaders at the Summit of the Americas to consider whether the solution should include regulating marijuana, and perhaps cocaine, the way alcohol and tobacco are. Other member states also are calling for that dialogue despite the political discomfort it may cause Obama back home.

"You haven't had this pressure from the region before," said Michael Shifter, president of the Inter-American Dialogue, a think tank in Washington. "I think the [Obama] administration is willing to entertain the discussion, but hoping it doesn't turn into a critique of the U.S. and put the U.S. on the defensive."

Obama also is expected to take flak from leaders frustrated by the lack of U.S. movement on two other troublesome issues, immigration reform and the long-standing embargo of Cuba. Cuban leaders are not participating in the summit, but many regional governments oppose the U.S. policy of embargo.

In internal debates, White House officials have weighed the risk of talking about decriminalization, which is still taboo for many U.S. voters, against concern about alienating leaders who bear the brunt of the battle against the heavily armed cartels that supply most marijuana, cocaine and methamphetamines to U.S. markets.

White House officials say Obama will not change his drug policy. They hope to keep talk of legalization behind closed doors while he focuses publicly on other tactics, including improving security forces, reforming governance and enhancing economic opportunities.

The call for change comes from front-line veterans of the drug wars, including Colombia. Santos says he has the moral authority to seek new solutions because his country's citizens and security forces have spilled so much blood fighting drug traffickers.

Also leading the charge isGuatemala'spresident, Otto Perez Molina. After a pre-summit meeting with leaders of Costa Rica and Panama, he called for a "realistic and responsible" discussion of decriminalization in Cartagena.

"We cannot eradicate global drug markets, but we can certainly regulate them as we have done with alcohol and tobacco markets," he wrote in the British newspaper the Observer on April 7.

White House officials plan to argue that no evidence indicates legalization would slow the flow of narcotics or reduce drug-related killings. Vice President Joe Biden offered a preview in Miami Beach last month.

"We should have this debate, and the reason is to dispel some of the myths that exist about legalization," Biden told reporters. "There are those people who say, 'If you legalize, you are not going to expand the number of consumers significantly.' Not true."

U.S. officials also will emphasize administration efforts to reduce illicit drug use in the United States, the world's largest consumer of cocaine and other illegal drugs.

The Justice Department, for example, has added special courts that can sentence drug abusers to treatment programs instead of prison. And the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, assuming it survives Supreme Court review, requires the medical industry to treat substance abuse as a chronic disease.

Marijuana use in America has increased by 15% since 2006, but cocaine use has dropped by 40% in that time, according to theU.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Experts say the global market for cocaine is unchanged because use in Europe more than doubled in the last decade.

The idea of regulating and taxing the production and sale of illegal drugs isn't new. A panel led by former United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan and past presidents of Mexico, Brazil and Colombia concluded in a report in June that the drug war had "failed" and recommended easing penalties for farmers and low-level drug users.

That doesn't make the issue any easier for Obama.

"I don't think anybody thinks the current policy works right now, but public opinion hasn't gotten to the point of accepting the idea of legalization," said David Damore, a political scientist at the University of Nevada-Las Vegas who writes about U.S. and Latino politics. "There's nothing to be gained from it politically, and it opens you up to an attack."

cparsons@latimes.com

brian.bennett@latimes.com

Parsons reported from Cartagena and Bennett from Washington.

America is out of touch with the rest of the world???

Source

U.S, Canada alone on Cuba at summit

by Vivian Sequera - Apr. 14, 2012 10:32 AM

Associated Press

CARTAGENA, Colombia -- A summit of 33 Western Hemisphere leaders opens Saturday with the United States and Canada standing firm, but alone, against everyone else's insistence that Cuba join future summits.

The Sixth Summit of the Americas has also taken on a tabloid tinge with 12 U.S. Secret Service agents sent home for alleged misconduct that apparently included prostitutes and days of heavy pre-summit poolside drinking.

U.S. President Barack Obama has been clinging stubbornly to a rejection of Cuban participation in the summits, which everyone but Canada deems unjust.

"This is the last Summit of the Americas," Bolivia's foreign minister, David Choquehuanca, told The Associated Press, "unless Cuba is allowed to take part."

The fate of the summit's final declaration was thrown into uncertainty Friday as the foreign ministers of Venezuela, Argentina and Uruguay said their presidents wouldn't sign it unless the U.S. and Canada removed their veto of future Cuban participation.

Vigorous discussion is also expected on drug legalization, which the Obama administration opposes. And Obama will be in the minority in his opposition to Argentina's claim to the British-controlled Falkland Islands.

The charismatic Obama may be able to charm the region's leaders as he did in 2009 with a pledge of being an "equal partner," but he will also have to prove the U.S. truly values their friendship and a stake in their growth.

"The United States should realize that its long-term strategic interests are not in Afghanistan or in Pakistan but in Latin America," the host, Colombian President Juan Santos, said in a speech to business leaders at a parallel CEO summit on Friday.

In large part, declining U.S. influence comes down to waning economic clout, as China gains on the U.S. as a top trading partner. It has surpassed the U.S. in trade with Brazil, Chile, and Peru and is a close second in Argentina and Colombia.

"Most countries of the region view the United States as less and less relevant to their needs -- and with declining capacity to propose and carry out strategies to deal with the issues that most concern them," the Washington-based think tank the Inter-American Dialogue noted in a pre-summit report.

Stereotypes of ugly Americans were, unfortunately, reinforced on summit eve with misconduct allegations

A caller who alerted The Associated Press to the case said the misconduct involved prostitutes.

A Secret Service spokesman did not dispute that. Nor did the U.S. official who, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the matter's sensitivity, put the number of agents sent home at 12. The agency was not releasing the number of personnel involved.

One employee of the hotel where the agents stayed, the beachfront Caribe, said the agents drank large quantities of alcohol at the poolside daily for about a week before being dressed down by a supervisor and sent home Thursday. The employee spoke on condition of anonymity because he feared for his job.

Obama faced challenges enough at the summit without that distraction.

Cuba was proving the biggest.

Ecuadorean President Rafael Correa was boycotting the summit over Cuba's exclusion, while moderates such as Santos and President Dilma Rousseff of Brazil said there should be no more America's summits without the communist island.

Obama's administration has greatly eased family travel and remittances to Cuba, but has not dropped the half-century U.S. embargo against the island, nor moved to let it back into the Organization of American States, under whose auspices the summit is organized.

Another big issue will be drug legalization, which the Obama administration firmly opposes. Santos left it off the official agenda but has said all possible scenarios should be explored and the United Nations should consider them.

Meeting with Argentine President Cristina Fernandez at his request, Obama can expect to discuss that country's claim to the Falkland Islands, known as the Malvinas by the Argentines, after Argentina lost a war with Britain 30 years ago while trying to seize them.

Among the hemisphere's leaders, there is nearly unanimous support for Argentina's position.

One potentially prickly confrontation for Obama was averted Saturday when Venezuela's foreign minister announced that President Hugo Chavez would skip the summit. The minister, Nicolas Maduro, said Chavez took the decision because of a medical recommendation.

Chavez was heading instead to Cuba to continue treatments for cancer.

He has grabbed the spotlight at past summits. But, suffering from an unspecified type of cancer, he has lately been shuttling back and forth to Cuba for radiation treatment.

Secret Service scandal deepens

Secret Service scandal deepens

11 agents, 5 military members involved

by Libardo Cardona - Apr. 14, 2012 11:28 PM

Associated Press

CARTAGENA, Colombia - An embarrassing scandal involving prostitutes and Secret Service agents deepened Saturday as 11 agents were placed on leave, and the agency designed to protect President Barack Obama had to offer regret for the mess overshadowing his diplomatic mission to Latin America.

The controversy also expanded to the U.S. military, which announced that five service members staying at the same hotel as the agents in Colombia may also have been involved in misconduct. They were confined to their quarters in Colombia and ordered not to have contact with others.

The alleged activities took place before Obama arrived Friday for meetings with 33 other regional leaders.

Put together, the allegations were an embarrassment for an American president on foreign soil and threatened to upend White House efforts to keep his trip focused squarely on boosting economic ties with fast-growing Latin America. Obama was holding two days of meetings at the Summit of the Americas with leaders from across the vast region before heading back to Washington tonight.

The Secret Service did not disclose the nature of the misconduct. The Associated Press confirmed on Friday that it involved prostitutes.

The White House said Obama had been briefed about the incidents but would not comment on his reaction.

"The president does have full confidence in the United States Secret Service," presidential spokesman Jay Carney said when asked.

Carney insisted the matter was a distraction more for the media than for Obama. But Secret Service Assistant Director Paul Morrissey said in a statement: "We regret any distraction from the Summit of the Americas this situation has caused."

Rep. Peter King, chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, told the AP on Saturday that "close to" all 11 of the agents involved had brought women back to their rooms at a hotel separate from where Obama is now staying.

The New York Republican said the women were "presumed to be prostitutes" but investigators were interviewing the agents.

King said he was told that anyone visiting the hotel overnight was required to leave identification at the front desk and leave the hotel by 7 a.m. When a woman failed to do so, it raised questions among hotel staff and police, who investigated. They found the woman with the agent in the hotel room and a dispute arose over whether the agent should have paid her.

King said he was told that the agent did eventually pay the woman.

The incident was reported to the U.S. Embassy, prompting further investigation, King said

The 11 in question were special agents and Uniformed Division officers. None was assigned to directly protect Obama. All were sent home and replaced, Morrissey said.

The Secret Service says the incidents have had no bearing on its ability to provide security for Obama's stay in Colombia.

The U.S. Southern Command said on Saturday that five service members assigned to support the Secret Service violated their curfew and may have been involved in inappropriate conduct. Carney said it was part of the same incident involving the Secret Service.

Col. Scott Malcom, chief of public affairs for Southern Command, said of the five service members: "The only misconduct I can confirm is that they were violating the curfew established." He said he had seen the news reports about the Secret Service agents involved in alleged prostitution but could not confirm whether the service members also were involved.

The military is investigating.

The Secret Service agents had stayed at Cartagena's five-star Hotel Caribe.

A hotel employee, speaking on the condition of anonymity for fear of losing his job, said the agents arrived at the beachfront hotel about a week ago and said the agents left the hotel Thursday.

Three waiters at the hotel told the AP the agents were drinking heavily during their stay.

11 Secret Service agents put on leave amid prostitution inquiry

11 Secret Service agents put on leave amid prostitution inquiry

By David Nakamura and Ed O’Keefe, Published: April 14

The U.S. Secret Service on Saturday placed 11 agents on administrative leave as the agency investigates allegations that the men brought prostitutes to their hotel rooms in Cartagena, Colombia, on Wednesday night and that a dispute ensued with one of the women over payment the following morning.

Secret Service Assistant Director Paul S. Morrissey said the agents had violated the service’s “zero-tolerance policy on personal misconduct” during their trip to prepare for President Obama’s arrival at an international summit this weekend.

“We regret any distraction from the Summit of the Americas this situation has caused,” Morrissey said in a statement.

The rapidly unfolding scandal has upstaged Obama’s trip to the summit, where he is discussing trade and the economy with 32 other heads of state. Though the agency has said Obama’s security was not compromised, the allegations of misconduct have brought intense scrutiny to an agency that had not had a major lapse since 2009, when two party crashers entered the White House uninvited.

The situation deteriorated further Saturday when the Defense Department announced that five military personnel, who are staying at the same hotel, violated curfew Wednesday night and have been confined to their rooms. The department will conduct its own investigation upon their return to the United States, said Air Force Gen. Douglas Fraser of the U.S. Southern Command, where the military personnel were from.

Fraser said he was “disappointed by the entire incident and . . . this behavior is not in keeping with the professional standards expected of members of the United States military.”

Rep. Peter T. King (R-N.Y.), chairman of the Homeland Security Committee, said Saturday that Secret Service officials conducting an internal investigation told him that the staff at the Hotel Caribe summoned local police after discovering a woman in the room of one agent after 7 a.m., against the hotel’s policy for visitors of paying guests.

Although the agent eventually paid the woman and she left, King added, police reported the incident to the U.S. Embassy, which informed the Secret Service. The agency quickly recalled the agents and replaced them with a new team before Obama’s arrival Friday afternoon at the Hilton a few blocks away.

King praised the agency for removing the men involved, but he added that “everything they did was a violation of proper conduct.”

“First of all, to be getting involved with prostitutes in a foreign country can leave yourself vulnerable to blackmail and threats,” King said. “To be bringing prostitutes or almost anyone into a security zone when you’re supposed to protect the president is totally wrong.”

Briefing reporters in Cartagena, press secretary Jay Carney said the White House learned of the incident Thursday and Obama was informed Friday.

“This has not been a distraction,” Carney said. “It has been much more so for the press than for the president, who is going on with his work here.”

The Hotel Caribe is in Bocagrande, a seaside district of Cartagena. It’s not a colonial hotel, like those in the old walled city, but rather an elegant, decades-old structure that is considered a national patrimony. Locals consider it a good place to party — there is a beachfront bar-restaurant in front of the hotel and inside it has gardens and bars.

Any presidential trip, but especially those abroad, involve immense manpower and logistical planning that can take place weeks before the president arrives, experts said.

Typically, on a foreign trip, more than 200 federal officials from the Secret Service, Defense Department and White House staff are sent to the site two weeks ahead of the event. Once the president arrives on Air Force One, usually with a support plane and press charter plane in tow, an additional 200 people or more join the original group.

Several people familiar with the Cartagena investigation described a night of partying by members of the advance team, who created enough of a disturbance in the Hotel Caribe that hotel employees asked the group to quiet down more than once.

Prostitution is legal in Colombia, but soliciting women for paid sexual favors is against Secret Service policy. It is not clear how many of the 11 agents, some of whom are reportedly married, had sexual encounters with the women or whether it was clear to all of them that the women expected to be paid.

One person with close ties to the Secret Service, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to speak freely about an ongoing investigation, said he was told by agents that the woman involved in the dispute “freaked out” after she was not paid and banged on walls and doors in the hotel hallways.

But King described a calmer scene. He said that under hotel policy, any overnight guest of a paying guest must leave photo identification at the front desk and leave the hotel by 7 a.m. the next morning.

According to King, one of the 11 women had not left the hotel by 7 a.m. Thursday, prompting hotel officials to knock on the door of the room. When nobody answered, hotel officials summoned police officers, King said.

Once police opened the door, the woman and the agent had a brief dispute over payment, King said, but the agent eventually paid the woman and she left.

Colombian police made no arrests because prostitution is legal in the country, but they turned over to the embassy a list of U.S. personnel staying at the hotel.

King said U.S. Secret Service Special Agent in Charge Paula Reid, based in Miami, rushed to remove the officers from the country Thursday.

Ralph Basham, director of the Secret Service from 2003 to 2006, said he spoke with current agency Director Mark J. Sullivan, and Basham called the agents’ alleged conduct “totally out of bounds.” But Basham defended the agency’s quick action in removing the agents from Cartagena.

“Clearly, they made a huge mistake,” he said. “But to try to tie this somehow to impacting the security of the president of the United States is just outrageous. It did not.”

Staff writers Joe Davidson, Peter Finn and Scott Wilson and correspondent Juan Forero contributed to this report. Wilson and Forero reported from Cartagena.

Prostitute scandal: '20 or 21' women involved, officials say

The problem I have with this is our government masters are always giving us the "do as I say, not as I do" line of BS. It's OK for them to hump prostitutes, but they want to put us serfs in jail when we hire a hookers.

Also I am pretty angry about the one Secret Service agent who tried to cheat his hooker out of the money she earned. Again, our government masters will quickly put us serfs in jail if we don't pay our bills, but here is a police officer working for the Secret Service who cheats a prostitute out of her hard earned wages.

Source

Prostitute scandal: '20 or 21' women involved, officials say

Apr. 17, 2012 11:55 AM

Associated Press

WASHINGTON -- At least 20 foreign women and as many Secret Service officers and Marines met at a hotel in Colombia in an incident involving prostitution, and lawmakers are seeking information about any possible threat to the U.S. or to President Barack Obama who arrived for a conference soon after, congressional officials said Tuesday.

In briefings throughout the day, Secret Service Director Mark Sullivan told lawmakers that 11 members of his agency met with 11 women at a hotel in Cartagena and that more foreign females were involved with American military personnel.

Obama and some key congressional Republicans, meanwhile, said they continued to support Sullivan.

"The president has confidence in the director of the Secret Service. Director Sullivan acted quickly in response of this incident and is overseeing an investigation as we speak in to the matter," said White House spokesman Jay Carney.

Sullivan shuttled between meetings with lawmakers Tuesday, outlining what his investigators in Washington and in Colombia have found about the incident.

"Twenty or 21 women foreign nationals were brought to the hotel," Sen. Susan Collins, the ranking Republican on the Homeland Security Committee, said Sullivan told her. Eleven of the Americans involved were Secret Service, she reported, and "allegedly Marines were involved with the rest."

Meanwhile, Sullivan told the chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee that the 11 Secret Service agents and officers were telling different stories to investigators about who the women were. Sullivan has dispatched more investigators to Columbia to interview the women, said Rep. Peter King, R-N.Y.

"Some are admitting (the women) were prostitutes, others are saying they're not, they're just women they met at the hotel bar," King said in a telephone interview. Sullivan said none of the women, who had to surrender their IDs at the hotel, were minors. "But prostitutes or not, to be bringing a foreign national back into a secure zone is a problem," King said.

The scandal overshadowed Obama's visit to a Latin America summit over the weekend and embarrassed the U.S.'s top military brass. Pentagon press secretary George Little said that military members who are being investigated were assigned to support the Secret Service in preparation for Obama's official visit to Cartagena. He said they were not directly involved in presidential security.

The Secret Service sent 11 of its members, a group including agents and uniformed officers, home from Colombia amid allegations that they had hired prostitutes at a Cartagena hotel. The military members being investigated were staying at the same hotel.

The Secret Service personnel were placed on administrative leave, and on Monday the agency announced that it also had revoked their security clearances.

Lawmakers in both the House and Senate are looking into the allegations, with King's committee devoting four investigators. He said it's not yet clear whether he'll call hearings on the matter. He, too, said he's standing behind Sullivan.

Cops investigating Andrew Thomas followed, threatened

FBI ran sting in Andrew Thomas probe

Counsel followed by private investigators

by Yvonne Wingett Sanchez, and Michael Kiefer - Apr. 14, 2012 08:48 PM

The Republic | azcentral.com

John Gleason knew he was being followed as soon as he checked into the Arizona Biltmore.

Shortly after he was appointed independent Bar counsel to investigate allegations of ethical misconduct against former Maricopa County Attorney Andrew Thomas and two former Thomas deputies, he received a call from a law-enforcement officer in Phoenix. He was warned that he would be closely watched.

It was April 2010.

Gleason, an ex-cop who now works as lead counsel for the Colorado Supreme Court's attorney regulation section, picked out two men in the Biltmore's lobby. One was pointing a camera in his direction, making no effort to remain unseen.

Over the next several months, Gleason and his co-counsel, James Sudler, were followed by private investigators and possibly Maricopa County sheriff's deputies, they told The Arizona Republic in a recent interview.

Nothing ever came of the odd goings on in the investigation, but their tale offers vivid evidence of how tensions arose during the legal and political showdown.

There is no question that the two attorneys were tailed by private investigators. The defense attorney who hired the PIs billed Maricopa County for the surveillance, and admitted the tactic to The Republic in August 2010.

What was rumored at the time, but not reported, was that FBI agents were tailing the private eyes and sheriff's deputies who were tailing the attorneys. And the FBI apparently believed the people conducting the surveillance of Gleason and Sudler were going to up the ante.

In May 2010, FBI special agents enlisted Gleason and Sudler for an undercover sting, wiring Biltmore hotel rooms and a hallway with high-tech cameras and listening devices in hopes of catching someone doing something illegal. It is unclear what they expected to find, and the FBI still isn't saying.

Gleason recalled the FBI agents telling him they "had credible evidence" that sheriff's detectives or their representatives might plant incriminating evidence on the two Colorado lawyers in order to discredit them.

A law-enforcement official knowledgeable about the FBI operation confirmed for The Republic that a sting operation took place over the course of several days. But that official said the focus of the sting was not the Sheriff's Office. He said the focus was on Thomas, his former deputy, Lisa Aubuchon, and people potentially working on their behalf after it came to the FBI's attention that Gleason and Sudler were being followed.

Though Gleason and Sudler never learned the outcome of the sting, the law-enforcement official said late last week that nothing ever came of it.

A Maricopa County sheriff's official called the story "far fetched."

"I know of no surveillance and never heard of this," said Deputy Chief Jack MacIntyre.

The story underscores the bizarre nature of events that began with the prosecution of county officials and ended with last week's disbarment of Thomas and Aubuchon and suspension of former Deputy County Attorney Rachel Alexander. It also hints at the lengths to which federal agents have gone trying to build a case against Thomas, Aubuchon and by extension, against Sheriff Joe Arpaio and his former chief deputy, David Hendershott, both of whom worked closely with Thomas.

On the day Gleason checked into the Biltmore, he saw two men in the lounge near the check-in desk.

"They just looked like cops," he said. "I saw one guy stand and take pictures of us."

Later, he said, FBI agents showed the pictures to him.

Gleason and Sudler wondered at that point what they had been thrust into.

"The whole nature of what we were doing changed in my mind," he said.

At first, Gleason wanted to keep the information from his superiors at the Colorado Supreme Court, afraid that they would take him off the case for security reasons. Sudler only learned they were being tailed one evening when a Crown Victoria with California plates followed their car around and around a roundabout on the Biltmore's access road. FBI agents were not able to trace the car's license plates.

They were followed to lunch at Tom's Tavern in downtown Phoenix and to Postino WineCafe in Arcadia by two men driving a county car.

Gleason and Sudler subsequently changed the way they traveled in Phoenix.

They were counseled by security experts at the Arizona and Colorado supreme courts, and worked out a contingency plan with local police in case they were arrested by sheriff's deputies. They retained a criminal defense attorney. And for a time, they rotated hotels, ultimately settling at the Biltmore because of its security.

They used aliases. Gleason took the last name "Wolf," after a character in the movie "Pulp Fiction." Sudler chose the last name "Bourne," after the lead character in the spy thriller "The Bourne Identity."

They used prepaid, disposable cellphones to prevent their conversations from being recorded.

At one point, Gleason said, someone published his phone numbers, and he began to receive hundreds of threatening phone calls for his work on the Thomas case.

Then came the FBI's call. Gleason said agents told him they had solid evidence that he and Sudler would be set up at the Biltmore. Gleason cursed his luck. His wife was coming to visit him that weekend from Colorado. But he and Sudler met with two agents in the Biltmore lobby and agreed to be the bait for the sting.

Gleason and Sudler said the FBI rented two "dummy rooms" at the hotel and brought in clothes, toiletries and suitcases to make it look as though the attorneys were staying there. Gleason and Sudler were actually staying in separate adjoining rooms next door.

The FBI used high-tech wireless microphones and cameras the size of pen nibs. Gleason and Sudler said six FBI agents and two technology officials spent six hours wiring the dummy rooms.

Sudler recalled taking photos of shampoo bottles and clothes as he left his room to make sure they were in the same place when he returned.

"I was scared to death," Sudler said. "I was freaked out about going into my own hotel room at night. I checked behind curtains."

Gleason recalled, "They were dead serious about this. They didn't have any doubt that something was about to happen."

And then ... nothing did.

The agents and the equipment were gone. Gleason and Sudler never heard another word about the operation.

In Albuquerque, an uproar over shootings by police

In Albuquerque, an uproar over shootings by police

By Michael Haederle, Los Angeles Times

April 14, 2012, 9:02 p.m.

ALBUQUERQUE — Mike Gomez was in Las Vegas on business last May when an early-morning phone call delivered terrible news: His son Alan had been shot dead by an Albuquerque police marksman.

The 22-year-old construction worker had been acting erratically while in the throes of drug-induced hallucinations, said police. They mistakenly believed he had a gun and was holding two people hostage.

The shooting was one of 23 officer-involved shootings, 17 of them fatal, since January 2010, a string that has given Albuquerque one of the highest police shooting rates in the country. Critics charge the Police Department is out of control and are calling for the police chief to step down.

Wrongful-death lawsuits have mounted. In July 2011, the city agreed to pay $950,000 to the family of Roderick Jones, an unarmed security guard who in 2009 was shot in the back by an officer. That officer was later fired.

In March, officers fatally shot two suspects, and the Albuquerque Journal disclosed that the police union had been giving officers involved in shootings up to $500 so they could leave town amid the intense media coverage that typically follows an incident.

Gomez and other relatives of police shooting victims called the payments a "bounty" for killing civilians. "That's like a reward system," said Gomez, who is among those suing the department. "When they give them a $500 check, they can do anything with it — buy beer, buy a TV."

Mayor Richard Berry and Police Chief Ray Schultz disavowed the practice, which made national headlines, and two union leaders resigned. Interim police union president Greg Weber said that from now on, officers would simply be reimbursed for their travel expenses.

"It was never about paying somebody to shoot a citizen," he said. "It was about supporting the officer in their time of need."

The department's reputation took another hit last year when it was found that a detective who had shot a man during a traffic stop had listed his occupation on his Facebook page as "human waste disposal," while another detective had posted politically and racially charged remarks on his Twitter and MySpace pages.

Relatives like Gomez and civil rights groups, such as the League of United Latin American Citizens, have staged rallies and protested at City Council meetings while calling for the Justice Department to launch a civil rights investigation.

Schultz, who has led the department since 2005, said that episodes of officer-on-citizen violence "seem to go in cycles," and that such incidents appeared to be on the rise nationally, due in part to a growing number of people with untreated mental health problems.

TheWashington, D.C.-based Police Executive Research Forum, meanwhile, reviewed the department's practices and made nearly two dozen recommendations, most of which have been implemented, according to Schultz.

Where recruits once needed only high school diplomas, they now must have 60 hours of college credit, he says, plus the police academy is de-emphasizing its "paramilitary" culture.

Uniformed officers now carry Tasers, Schultz says, and all have lapel-mounted video cameras to record citizen encounters. Dispatchers and officers are taught how to identify people with signs of mental illness, and supervisors are automatically routed to scenes where someone is reported to have a weapon.

Schultz acknowledges the shootings have caused family members pain and drawn unflattering attention to the department. "Our goal has always been to try to minimize that force situation," he says. "A lot of people are watching us to see how successful we are."

FCC - F*ck the 5th Amendment, answer our questions or we will fine you $25,000!!!!

Source

FCC aims to fine Google $25,000 for impeding data-collection probe

By Andrea Chang

April 15, 2012, 9:54 a.m.

Google is facing a $25,000 fine for refusing to cooperate with a Federal Communications Commission investigation into the tech giant's data-collection practices.

The world's largest search engine came under fire two years ago when it was revealed that its popular but controversial street-mapping program -- in which cars snap photos of homes, intersections and other neighborhood features -- was also picking up sensitive information from home wireless networks such as email and text messages, passwords and Internet usage history.

The FCC, which filed its 25-page report Friday, said despite Google admitting wrongdoing at the time, the company has since "deliberately impeded and delayed" the agency's probe into the matter, according to the New York Times.

Specifically, the FCC said Google was not responding to email requests for more information and was refusing to identify the employees involved.

Despite the relatively small fine, the FCC noted that the data collection was legal because the information was not encrypted, according to the New York Times.

The investigation raises a fresh round of questions over the right to privacy in an increasingly digital world. In a recent statewide poll, the vast majority of Californians said they were worried about the data collected by smartphone and Internet companies, and most said they distrust even firms that are known for having tens of millions of users, such as Facebook.

Calls and emails to Google were not returned Sunday morning.

Two years ago, a separate probe by the Federal Trade Commission into Google's Street View project led the agency to announce that it was satisfied with the tech firm's explanation into its data-collection practices and would not impose any fines.

MCSO releases agreement terms in discrimination case

MCSO releases agreement terms in discrimination case

by JJ Hensley - Apr. 15, 2012 10:53 PM

The Republic | azcentral.com

The draft agreement the U.S. Justice Department presented to resolve allegations of discrimination in the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office contains detailed descriptions of the steps the Sheriff's Office needs to take to restore community trust, improve data collection and make information more accessible to suspects, family members and inmates.

The agreement also explicitly states that a court-appointed monitor who would oversee the sheriff's efforts to resolve the discrimination claims would not be designed or intended to take over the role and responsibility of Sheriff Joe Arpaio.

The agreement was supposed to serve as the basis for the negotiations, which were halted before they could begin last week after a dispute arose over the role a court-appointed monitor would play in ensuring the Sheriff's Office complied.

The dispute is now likely headed to court.

Arpaio and his attorneys said the monitor, as defined in the draft agreement, would usurp the powers of the elected sheriff.

"The monitor shall not, and is not intended to, replace or assume the role and duties of the defendants, including the sheriff," the agreement states.

The Justice Department released findings from its three-year investigation in December, and the two parties were to begin negotiating this spring with the explicit threat of a federal lawsuit if negotiations were unsuccessful. But exchanges between attorneys for the two parties, which were recently released, indicate the negotiations were more of an aspiration, with dates scheduled and frequently canceled. Each side blames the other for the lack of progress.

The Justice Department's allegations of widespread discrimination in the Sheriff's Office appear headed to court after Deputy Assistant U.S. Attorney General Roy Austin cut off communication with Arpaio's attorneys last week and said it would be best to let a court resolve the claims.

A Justice Department representative could offer no timetable last week on when the agency would take legal action against the Sheriff's Office.

Negotiations between Arpaio's representatives and the Justice Department were supposed to take place in private, with the 128-page draft agreement serving as a starting point. After negotiations broke down, the Sheriff's Office fulfilled a standing public-records request and released a copy of the agreement.

The document offers the first view of how the federal government wanted to resolve the discrimination its investigators claim to have found in the Sheriff's Office. Suggestions included new efforts to engage the community, collect better data, create new bureaus within the Sheriff's Office to improve access and accountability, and require hours of additional training intended to hammer home the perils of racial profiling and the benefits of constitutional police practices.

The wide-ranging agreement was designed to address discrimination allegations in patrol operations and in the sheriff's jails, but the document focuses on several general areas.

Immigration enforcement: Under the terms of the agreement, the Sheriff's Office could continue to operate a human-smuggling unit and a work-site enforcement squad that focused on employees suspected of committing identity theft or fraud to get jobs, though neither could continue to use volunteer posse members during the operations. The agreement also would eliminate the use of the sheriff's immigration hotline unless the information contains credible evidence of a crime.

Training and data collection: Every element of the agreement included a training regimen for deputies, regardless of where they work. Supervisors in the human-smuggling unit would require an extra eight hours of training on supervising deputies engaged in sensitive operations. The agency also would have to change how it tracks and collects data on traffic stops, for example, with requirements including annual traffic studies and a breakdown of search and seizures by unit, shift, geographic area and demographic type.

Language access and staffing: To resolve allegations that non-English-speakers do not have adequate access to information in the jails, the Sheriff's Office would need to create a Language Access Unit with duties that include establishing quality controls for authorized interpreters. The Sheriff's Office also would need to add more supervisors in the agency to reduce the ratio of deputies to supervisors, a proposal that Arpaio's chief deputy, Jerry Sheridan, said could cost millions of dollars annually.

Community outreach: Sheriff's patrol deputies and supervisors would be required to participate in at least two public meetings a year, with six meetings held in each of the sheriff's patrol districts. The agreement also would require the Sheriff's Office and a Police Community Advisory Board to present a program on the sheriff's bias-free policing policies at every high school in Maricopa County, and calls for the Sheriff's Office to hold community meetings within 30 days of crime-suppression operations.

In addition to the many internal controls detailed in the agreement, the county would be required to establish and pay for an Office of Inspector General to ensure the Sheriff's Office is complying with the terms of the agreement.

Each of the elements in the agreement would be long running if not permanent, with the Inspector General and terms of the agreement in place for at least a decade.

Sheridan said that the words and actions of Justice Department lawyers since the release of the profiling allegations have contradicted some of the agency's written and public statements. Sheridan said Austin's reference to the need for a "culture change" in the Sheriff's Office, and the characterization of Arpaio's office as the most egregious example of racial profiling in U.S. history, stand out in the minds of the sheriff's representatives. Everything Justice Department representatives say is filtered through that context, Sheridan said.

While an optimistic negotiator might have seized on the language that dictates the monitor will not assume the role of the sheriff, skeptics in Arpaio's office focused on a passage that gave the monitor "the opportunity to review and approve all new guidelines and plans before their implementation" in the Sheriff's Office.

"We're starting from a position where we don't believe what they're telling us," Sheridan said. "When I read this document and the words of Roy Austin are bouncing around in my head -- that they have to change the culture of the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office because we are racist -- that's the frame of reference."

Robotic TSA thugs check ID at airports

Source

TSA tests airport check-in system

By Bart Jansen, USA TODAY

By Josh T. Reynolds, for USA TODAY

The Transportation Security Administration is testing a system that checks identification and boarding passes by machine rather than the standard visual check by officers.

The tests began last week at Washington-Dulles International Airport and will start Tuesday at George Bush Intercontinental Airport in Houston and April 23 in San Juan, Puerto Rico. The review will last several months, gauging such things as how fast passengers move through the line and how accurate the machines are.

While TSA officers have been checking identification with black lights and magnifying glasses, the machines are geared to recognize all valid identification, ranging from driver's licenses to tribal IDs and U.S. and foreign passports.

TSA hopes the machines will do a more efficient job weeding out fraudulent documents and getting passengers to their planes.

"For efficiency, it is fantastic," says Domenic Bianchini, TSA director of checkpoint technology. "We think it's a valuable technology, and we think over time we will see the real value added."

As demonstrated at Dulles, passengers step up to the TSA desk and scan the bar codes of their boarding passes, like a can of soup at the self-checkout at a grocery store. The TSA officer scans the identification, which the machine authenticates and compares with the boarding pass.

The machine doesn't store any personal information about the passenger, says Greg Soule, a TSA spokesman.

A discrepancy can lead to more questions or checking the identification more closely. When a TSA officer had a question last week about the identification of a bespectacled man in khakis and a dark blazer, she scrutinized the driver's license under a magnifying glass and then asked a few more questions before sending the passenger on his way.

If a fraudulent document is found, the passenger is referred to law-enforcement officials for possible charges.

The first 30 machines cost $3.2 million, Soule says. Three companies — BAE Systems Information Solutions, Trans Digital Technologies and NCR Government Systems — provided the initial machines that were customized for TSA.

LA cops routinely get away with murder - literally!

Rift appears between Beck and Police Commission over discipline

By Joel Rubin, Los Angeles Times

April 15, 2012, 8:19 p.m.

Los Angeles Police Chief Charlie Beck is under fire from his civilian bosses, who increasingly are troubled by his reluctance to punish officers who are found to have killed or wounded people unjustifiably.

"If this pattern continues, it could undermine the entire discipline system and undermine the authority of the commission," said Robert Saltzman, a member of the Police Commission and associate dean at USC law school. "It runs the risk of sending the message to officers that there will be no consequences."

The dispute marks a rare point of contention for Beck and the commission, a five-member panel that oversees the Los Angeles Police Department and has otherwise heaped praise on the chief for his performance.

Since Beck took over as chief in late 2009, the commission has ruled on about 90 incidents involving officers who fired weapons or used other deadly force. In almost all of them, Beck concluded the officers used force appropriately and urged the commission to clear them of wrongdoing. The board followed his guidance most of the time.

But in four shootings — in which three people were killed and three others wounded by police gunfire — the commission went against the chief's recommendations and ruled the officers' use of lethal force was inappropriate.

In each of those cases, Beck either refused to impose any punishment on the officers or gave them only a written reprimand, The Times has found. In a fifth incident, Beck agreed that the officer had been wrong to fire his gun but nonetheless chose not to punish him.

The chief's apparent unwillingness to suspend or demote officers, or to initiate the process to fire them, in these types of cases has worried a majority of the commission. Beck, they say, is ignoring their conclusions that the officers made serious, often deadly, mistakes. And they fear the lack of punishment may be sending a dangerous message to the LAPD's rank-and-file officers that the consequences for a bad shooting are minimal.

"Sometimes the chief just needs to set a tone and, through his actions, send a message about what kind of conduct is acceptable," said commission President Richard Drooyan, an attorney who served as a high-ranking official in the U.S. attorney's office. Drooyan emphasized that he does not expect the chief to impose a punishment in every case, but said, "If we find there was a very serious transgression … we'd expect there to be some consequences."

John Mack, the board's vice president, shares the concerns of Drooyan and Saltzman. Alan Skobin, who soon will step down after several years on the board, has been a lone voice of opposition to the trio, saying he believes Beck is right to focus on retraining officers involved in questionable shootings instead of punishing them. The fifth commission member, Debra Wong Yang, said Beck's record on deadly force cases "raise questions in my mind," but she wants to see if it continues before drawing conclusions.

Although the number of cases in question is small, the public's perception of the LAPD is strongly affected by controversial police shootings and the department's response to them. "The most important thing the department does," Drooyan said, "is that it uses force."

Beck defended his decisions, saying he imposes harsh punishments when they are appropriate but refuses to come down harshly on officers who, he believes, acted within the department's policies and tried their best during stressful, dangerous encounters. "I see things from a different perspective than they do," he said of the commissioners. "I have to be able to align my discipline with my review of the occurrence."

The friction underscores an odd, and some say dysfunctional, division of power in Los Angeles. The city's charter gives the commission the authority to decide whether a police officer's use of deadly force was justified. But decisions on how to discipline officers reside with the police chief.

In Los Angeles, the success or failure of past police chiefs to lead the large, often roiling Police Department has rested in large part on how they handled discipline.

The legacy of Daryl F. Gates, the influential, controversial leader from 1978 to 1992, was tarnished by his reputation for being too tolerant of crass, brutish behavior. By contrast, Bernard C. Parks relished his reputation as a disciplinarian but was ousted after a tumultuous term in which he lost the support of rank-and-file officers who viewed him as vindictive. When William J. Bratton succeeded Parks, he announced to officers that "the game of 'Gotcha' in this department is coming to an end" — a line that won him considerable leeway from the rank and file.

In deadly-force cases, however, Bratton took a decidedly harder line than Beck. An internal LAPD report obtained by The Times tallied 14 shootings over a two-year period in which the commission ruled officers had violated the department's policies on using force. In all but two of the shootings, Bratton suspended the officers or recommended they be fired. (In Los Angeles, a disciplinary hearing panel, not the chief, decides whether to fire a police officer.)

The current discord over the shooting cases has played out almost entirely during private meetings Beck and the commission have each week, but was on display briefly last month at a public commission meeting. A commission report questioned whether it had been appropriate for Beck to give reprimands twice to a detective who was involved in two similar deadly-force cases.

In both shootings, which occurred about a year apart, the detective repeatedly fired a shotgun into cars carrying armed-robbery suspects. The commission found the officer had been justified firing the first few volleys, but that subsequent rounds had been excessive because the officers were no longer under threat.

Drooyan, Mack and Saltzman all registered their concern about Beck's decision to let the detective off with the reprimands, saying they worried it was too lenient and could send the wrong message.

"Well, the chief is very aware of the message he needs to send to the department," Beck shot back tersely. "This is the chief's purview."

The killing of Steven Washington, an unarmed man with a learning disability, brought the tension into perhaps its sharpest relief. In the 2010 shooting in Koreatown, two gang enforcement officers drove up slowly behind Washington, who was walking alone on a sidewalk just after midnight. The officers said later that they were investigating a suspicious noise, according to the department's internal review of the incident.

Allan Corrales, the officer riding in the passenger seat, told investigators he drew his weapon as they approached because Washington had moved a hand to his waistband as if reaching for a gun. As the patrol car pulled alongside Washington, Corrales said the 27-year-old turned suddenly with an object in his hand that Corrales thought was gun, pointed it at the officers and began to approach the car.

With Washington about 5 feet away, Corrales fired once through the car's open window, striking Washington in the head. Corrales' partner, who had jumped out of the car, fired but missed.

Washington had had nothing in his hand. A cellphone was found still clipped to his waistband.

When he reviewed the case last year, Beck faulted the officers for using poor tactics — namely their failure to get out of their car and approach Washington on foot — but concluded the decision to shoot Washington was reasonable because of his movements.

The commission did not agree. Not only were the officers' tactics flawed, but their claim that Washington appeared armed and had acted menacingly wasn't believable, the commission concluded. "The available evidence," the commission wrote in a report on the incident, "did not support [the officers'] account" and indicated Washington "did not engage in any conduct that posed a threat warranting the use of lethal force." In a unanimous vote, the commission found the officers had violated the department's use-of-force policy and that the shooting was not reasonable.

Beck, in turn, chose to give the officers retraining courses and "conditional reprimands," according to records compiled by The Times. The reprimands essentially are warnings to the officers that they will receive serious punishments if they misuse force again.

Corrales and his partner did not respond to requests for comment. And members of the commission and Beck would not comment specifically on any of the cases in question because officer discipline is confidential under state law. But speaking generally about the chief's record on deadly-force cases, Mack said, "The chief needs to be careful not to go overboard with this softer approach. If it's carried to the extreme, then where is the accountability?"

Beck objected strongly to the notion he is letting his officers off easily. His decisions on whether to punish officers are guided, in large part, by his belief that there are two basic categories of officer misconduct, he said. The first he refers to as "mistakes of the heart" and the other "mistakes of the mind."

The chief said he has no tolerance for mistakes of the heart, which he described as acts committed out of malice or anger or some other emotion that the officer fails to control.

And, in fact, Beck did punish two officers involved in deadly-force cases that seem to fall into this category. In one, Beck suspended an officer 15 days for an off-duty road rage incident, in which the officer fired three times at another vehicle. In the other, Beck moved to have an officer fired after he was involved in an off-duty shooting in a bar parking lot. Both times Beck recommended to the commission that it find the officers acted inappropriately.

With mistakes of the mind, however, Beck's approach is far different. To him these are mistakes made by officers, who, in the chief's eyes, were trying their best in fluid, often perilous situations that demand split-second decisions.

"Those to me are more appropriately handled through retraining," he said. "I believe they were trying to do the right thing, where they were in a difficult situation. They made a mistake, a tragic mistake. Tragic as it was, I tried to rehabilitate them."

joel.rubin@latimes.com

Why people falsely confess to committing murder

The "9 Step Reid Method" is essentially an interrogation which uses psychological rubber hoses to mentally beat a suspect into confessing to a crime.

It is very effective and people routinely confess to crimes they did not commit. Of the almost 300 cases people were released from death row when DNA testing proved they did not commit the crime, a large number of then had made false confessions admitting their guilt.

As the article says "False confessions are usually the result of brainwashing, wearing people down or physical abuse" and that is how the "9 Step Reid Method" works.

Source

Experts examine Lake County's 'epidemic' of false confessions

By Lisa Black, Chicago Tribune reporter

11:05 p.m. CDT, April 15, 2012

Juan Rivera, exonerated through DNA in the 1992 rape and murder of an 11-year-old Waukegan girl, returned to Lake County on Sunday for the first time since he was released from prison in January to join a panel discussion on false confessions.

"I am very angry. I am very disappointed that I lost half my life," said Rivera, 39, who added that he wrestles with his emotions, feeling that he should be at peace after 19 years in prison.

"This is a struggle that I go through every day. I don't sleep well. I don't trust anyone," said Rivera, speaking at Lake Forest College.

About 75 people attended the event, which also featured panelists Rob Warden, executive director of Northwestern University's Center on Wrongful Convictions, and Jed Stone, a longtime criminal defense lawyer in Waukegan.

Stone challenged prosecutors and judges to stop ignoring an "epidemic" of false confessions that result in wrongful convictions. He suggested the problem could be partially resolved if officials videotaped all interrogations and made sure that detectives who interview a suspect have no prior knowledge of the case.

He also called for prosecutors to stop relying on police that they know to be dishonest as witnesses, saying he could name five in Lake County.

"I know who is a truth-teller, and I know who I wouldn't buy a car from — and so do the prosecutors," Stone said.

The public generally has a hard time understanding why someone would admit to a crime they did not commit, said Warden, who suggested that police interrogations be limited to four hours per session.

"Our research shows that truthful confessions tend to come relatively quickly," he said. Rivera, for instance, was interrogated off and on for more than 23 hours during one session.

False confessions are usually the result of brainwashing, wearing people down or physical abuse, Warden said.

Rivera's case, he said, was probably an example of when "people are simply worn down to the point they will say absolutely anything to stop the interrogation, thinking: 'If I can just sleep, I'll clear this up tomorrow.'"

"It happens everywhere," Warden said. "It happens nationally. We really need to start taking this phenomenon seriously."

Both candidates for the state's attorney's job, Democrat Chris Kennedy and Republican Michael Nerheim, attended the panel, as did friends and family of people involved in other high-profile cases in Lake County.

During a question-and-answer session, Paul Calusinski stood up and spoke in defense of his daughter, Melissa Calusinski, recently sentenced to 31 years for killing a toddler at a Lincolnshire day center.

Another man handed out fliers advertising a "10,000 Man March Against Injustice" planned for Saturday in North Chicago that stems from the death of Darrin Hanna, 45, who died in November after a violent encounter with police.

Officers tackled, punched and used a Taser on Hanna while trying to subdue him after reports that he was beating a pregnant woman. A Lake County coroner's autopsy blamed his death on chronic cocaine use and sickle cell disease, along with police restraint and trauma.

lblack@tribune.com

Politicians trade retirement money for police & fire union votes???

Source

Another Madigan shenanigan

April 16, 2012

There are the state of Illinois pension problems — created by politicians, terrifying in scope, and increasingly lethal to school funding, health care and other spending needs.

Then there is House Speaker Michael Madigan's pension problem — citizens growing smarter every day about what Springfield has done to them:

Many of this state's taxpayers have caught on to the crude barter system that long lurked in the shadows: In return for reliable campaign support, Illinois politicians gave public employee unions hugely unaffordable pension and retiree health care benefits. Because those obligations didn't have to be funded immediately, the politicians could divert money to other purposes. They also figured they'd be gone when the dreadful costs of their giveaways erupted.

Thus did the state of Illinois become a massive retirement system that, during work hours, delivers services.

This barter system, then, helped the pols and the unions at the expense of taxpayers and their priorities. Now many of those taxpayers are up in arms — which makes incumbents nervous during an election cycle. Some legislators have confided to us that their constituents are furious about taxpayers' nearly $200 billion in unfunded pension obligations and other state debts. Last year's 67 percent hike in the personal income tax rate, with virtually every penny of that revenue bound for the sinking pension system, makes those constituents even more furious. Read our incoming correspondence for a month and you might be surprised at how many Illinoisans comprehend that the tax increase is an exclusively Democratic production.

So Madigan understandably wants to be perceived as protecting the pension system — if only he can protect his House Democrats from that rising voter fury. Last week he proposed a state constitutional amendment that would increase the difficulty of giving future pension sweeteners to public employees throughout Illinois. If adopted, his amendment would require the Legislature to approve pension increases by a three-fifths vote.

One inconvenient truth: Madigan, who turns 70 on Thursday, is in his 42nd year as a House member, having spent the bulk of that epoch as speaker. Most of the pension barters that have sabotaged taxpayers, as well as public workers who risk pension fund insolvencies, occurred on his watch. With his approval.

So forgive us if we're amused by this notion of Madigan as the Michael-come-lately eager to crack down on pension sweeteners. It's as if, having witnessed his colleagues torch and scorch Illinois from border to border, Madigan now wants to outlaw arson.

The speaker's loyalists would note that he genuinely understands the depth of the state's pension crisis. That's one reason why he regularly squelches proposed pension sweeteners by shunting those bills to slow but certain death in his Rules Committee.

The loyalists also stress that he has co-sponsored, with House Republican leader Tom Cross, legislation that would reduce pension benefits earned in future years by today's state employees.

If Madigan really wants to rescue the pension system and the taxpayers who help fund it, he needs to deliver on that promise. Pass the Madigan-Cross bill or something just as substantial.

But if he's hell-bent on changing the constitution, he should offer a very different amendment.

The most convenient excuse for lawmakers who oppose meaningful pension reforms is their stated belief that the Illinois Constitution guarantees — until death — the pension scheme that was in place on the first day of a worker's public employment. Yes, we think this is absurd, as do five world-class Chicago law firms that have examined the constitutional question. But the lawmakers, perhaps fearful that they're dead wrong in their certainty, have ducked our invitation to pass real reforms and let the courts resolve their legality.

How about it, Speaker Madigan. With apologies to James Madison, we'll donate to you and state government the following amendment, short and sweet:

The Pension Clause of the Illinois Constitution shall not be deemed a suicide pact requiring any government to let retiree benefits reduce it, and its taxpayers, to penury. Life is long, circumstances change, and what looks affordable today might be unaffordable a few decades from now.

That construct, Mr. Speaker, would do far more to protect public pensions for retirees than your proposed limitations on new sweeteners. Steer this freebie into the Illinois Constitution and you'll be remembered as the leader who oversaw decades of disastrous pension votes but, in his fifth House decade, enabled his fellow Democrats to vote for major pension reforms.

Keep trying to outlaw arson after having watched the Prairie State burn, though, and history will be less kind: You'll be remembered as the leader who stood face to face with a crisis he helped create and ... tried to make voters look away.

GSA executive asserts right to remain silent

Source

GSA executive asserts right to remain silent

Apr. 16, 2012 11:32 AM

Associated Press

WASHINGTON -- The central figure in a General Services Administration spending scandal has asserted his right to remain silent at a congressional hearing.

Jeffrey Neely had been placed on leave as a regional executive in Western states earlier. On Monday, he was called before the House Oversight Committee.

Neely, who could face a criminal investigation, was largely responsible for an $823,000 Las Vegas conference in 2010. Three other congressional committees are investigating the conference and a culture of overspending by the agency.

The conference was the subject of a highly critical report by GSA inspector general Brian Miller. Taxpayers picked up the tab for a clown, a mind-reader, bicycles for a team-building exercise, parties and what Neely called a pre-conference scouting trip.

GSA is in charge of federal buildings and supplies.

Cops handcuff dangerous 6 year old girl

Source

Ga. police defend handcuffing kindergartner for tantrum

Apr. 17, 2012 10:05 AM

Associated Press

MILLEDGEVILLE, Ga. -- Police in Georgia handcuffed a kindergartner with her arms behind her back after the girl threw a tantrum, and the police chief defended the action as a safety measure.

The girl's family demanded Tuesday that their central Georgia city change policy so that other children aren't treated the same way. They say the child was shaken up by the ordeal.

While it's unusual to see a young child handcuffed in school, it's not unheard of. School officials around the nation have wrestled with the issue of when it's appropriate to call police on a student.

Salecia Johnson, 6, was accused of tearing items off the walls and throwing books and toys in an outburst Friday at Creekside Elementary School in Milledgeville, according to a police report.

Police said a small shelf thrown by the child struck the principal in the leg during the fracas. The child also jumped on a paper shredder and tried to break a glass frame, the police report states.

The school called police. When an officer tried to calm the child in the principal's office, she resisted, police say. She "was restrained by placing her hands behind her back and handcuffed," a police report states.

A juvenile complaint was filed, accusing the girl of simple battery and damage to property.

The police department's policy is to handcuff people when they are taken to the police station, regardless of their age, interim Police Chief Dray Swicord said.

"The reason we handcuff detainees is for the safety of themselves as well as the officer," he said Tuesday.

The girl's aunt, Candace Ruff, went with the child's mother to pick her up from the police station. She said Salecia had been in a holding cell and complained about the handcuffs.

"She said they were really tight. She said they really hurt her wrists," Ruff said. "She was so shaken up when we went there to pick her up."

The police chief said the girl was taken to the police department's squad room, not a holding cell, and officers there tried to calm her and gave her a Coke.

Officials at Creekside Elementary did not immediately return calls Tuesday.

The girl was suspended and can't return to school until August, her mother, Constance Ruff, told WMAZ-TV, which first reported the story.

"We would not like to see this happen to another child, because it's horrifying. It's devastating," her aunt told The Associated Press.

Elsewhere in the U.S., incidents involving students, police and handcuffs have raised difficult questions for educators, parents and policymakers.

In Florida, the use of police in schools came up several years ago when officers arrested a kindergartner who threw a tantrum during a jelly bean-counting contest. Since then, the overall number of student arrests in Florida has declined, but those for minor offenses have increased on a percentage basis.

FBI didn't notify framed convicts that lab screw up falsely convicted them

Source

Convicted defendants left uninformed of forensic flaws found by Justice Dept.

By Spencer S. Hsu, Published: April 16

Justice Department officials have known for years that flawed forensic work might have led to the convictions of potentially innocent people, but prosecutors failed to notify defendants or their attorneys even in many cases they knew were troubled.

Officials started reviewing the cases in the 1990s after reports that sloppy work by examiners at the FBI lab was producing unreliable forensic evidence in court trials. Instead of releasing those findings, they made them available only to the prosecutors in the affected cases, according to documents and interviews with dozens of officials.

In addition, the Justice Department reviewed only a limited number of cases and focused on the work of one scientist at the FBI lab, despite warnings that problems were far more widespread and could affect potentially thousands of cases in federal, state and local courts.

As a result, hundreds of defendants nationwide remain in prison or on parole for crimes that might merit exoneration, a retrial or a retesting of evidence using DNA because FBI hair and fiber experts may have misidentified them as suspects.

In one Texas case, Benjamin Herbert Boyle was executed in 1997, more than a year after the Justice Department began its review. Boyle would not have been eligible for the death penalty without the FBI’s flawed work, according to a prosecutor’s memo.

The case of a Maryland man serving a life sentence for a 1981 double killing is another in which federal and local law enforcement officials knew of forensic problems but never told the defendant. Attorneys for the man, John Norman Huffington, say they learned of potentially exculpatory Justice Department findings from The Washington Post. They are seeking a new trial.

Justice Department officials said that they met their legal and constitutional obligations when they learned of specific errors, that they alerted prosecutors and were not required to inform defendants directly.

The review was performed by a task force created during an inspector general’s investigation of misconduct at the FBI crime lab in the 1990s. The inquiry took nine years, ending in 2004, records show, but the findings were never made public.

In the discipline of hair and fiber analysis, only the work of FBI Special Agent Michael P. Malone was questioned. Even though Justice Department and FBI officials knew that the discipline had weaknesses and that the lab lacked protocols — and learned that examiners’ “matches” were often wrong — they kept their reviews limited to Malone.

But two cases in D.C. Superior Court show the inadequacy of the government’s response.

Santae A. Tribble, now 51, was convicted of killing a taxi driver in 1978, and Kirk L. Odom, now 49, was convicted of a sexual assault in 1981.

Key evidence at each of their trials came from separate FBI experts — not Malone — who swore that their scientific analysis proved with near certainty that Tribble’s and Odom’s hair was at the respective crime scenes.

But DNA testing this year on the hair and on other old evidence virtually eliminates Tribble as a suspect and completely clears Odom. Both men have completed their sentences and are on lifelong parole. They are now seeking exoneration in the courts in the hopes of getting on with their lives.

Neither case was part of the Justice Department task force’s review.

A third D.C. case shows how the lack of Justice Department notification has forced people to stay in prison longer than they should have.

Donald E. Gates, 60, served 28 years for the rape and murder of a Georgetown University student based on Malone’s testimony that his hair was found on the victim’s body. He was exonerated by DNA testing in 2009. But for 12 years before that, prosecutors never told him about the inspector general’s report about Malone, that Malone’s work was key to his conviction or that Malone’s findings were flawed, leaving him in prison the entire time.

After The Post contacted him about the forensic issues, U.S. Attorney Ronald C. Machen Jr. of the District said his office would try to review all convictions that used hair analysis.

Seeking to learn whether others shared Gates’s fate, The Post worked with the nonprofit National Whistleblowers Center, which had obtained dozens of boxes of task force documents through a years-long Freedom of Information Act fight.

Task force documents identifying the scientific reviews of problem cases generally did not contain the names of the defendants. Piecing together case numbers and other bits of information from more than 10,000 pages of documents, The Post found more than 250 cases in which a scientific review was completed. Available records did not allow the identification of defendants in roughly 100 of those cases. Records of an unknown number of other questioned cases handled by federal prosecutors have yet to be released by the government.

The Post found that while many prosecutors made swift and full disclosures, many others did so incompletely, years late or not at all. The effort was stymied at times by lack of cooperation from some prosecutors and declining interest and resources as time went on.

Overall, calls to defense lawyers indicate and records documented that prosecutors disclosed the reviews’ results to defendants in fewer than half of the 250-plus questioned cases.

Michael R. Bromwich, a former federal prosecutor and the inspector general who investigated the FBI lab, said in a statement that even if more defense lawyers were notified of the initial review, “that doesn’t absolve the task force from ensuring that every single defense lawyer in one of these cases was notified.”

He added: “It is deeply troubling that after going to so much time and trouble to identify problematic conduct by FBI forensic analysts the DOJ Task Force apparently failed to follow through and ensure that defense counsel were notified in every single case.”

Justice Department spokeswoman Laura Sweeney said the federal review was an “exhaustive effort” and met legal requirements, and she referred questions about hair analysis to the FBI. The FBI said it would evaluate whether a nationwide review is needed.

“In cases where microscopic hair exams conducted by the FBI resulted in a conviction, the FBI is evaluating whether additional review is warranted,” spokeswoman Ann Todd said in a statement. “The FBI has undertaken comprehensive reviews in the past, and will not hesitate to do so again if necessary.”

Santae Tribble and Kirk Odom

John McCormick had just finished the night shift driving a taxi for Diamond Cab on July 26, 1978. McCormick, 63, reached the doorstep of his home in Southeast Washington about 3 a.m., when he was robbed and fatally shot by a man in a stocking mask, according to his widow, who caught a glimpse of the attack from inside the house.

Police soon focused on Santae Tribble as a suspect. A police informant said Tribble told her he was with his childhood friend, Cleveland Wright, when Wright shot McCormick.

After a three-day trial, jurors deliberated two hours before asking about a stocking found a block away at the end of an alley on 28th Street SE. It had been recovered by a police dog, and it contained a single hair that the FBI traced to Tribble. Forty minutes later, the jury found Tribble guilty of murder. He was sentenced in January 1980 to 20 years to life in prison.

Tribble, 17 at the time, his brother, his girlfriend and a houseguest all testified that they were together preparing to celebrate the guest’s birthday the night McCormick was killed. All four said Tribble and his girlfriend were asleep between 2 and 4:30 a.m. in Seat Pleasant.

Tribble took the stand in his own defense, saying what he had said all along — that he had nothing to do with McCormick’s killing.

The prosecution began its closing argument by citing the FBI’s testimony about the hair from the stocking.

This January, after a year-long effort to have DNA evidence retested, Tribble’s public defender succeeded and turned over the results from a private lab to prosecutors. None of the 13 hairs recovered from the stocking — including the one that the FBI said matched Tribble’s — shared Tribble’s or Wright’s genetic profile, conclusively ruling them out as sources, according to mitochondrial DNA analyst Terry Melton of the private lab.

“The government’s entire theory of prosecution — that Mr. Tribble and Mr. Wright acted together to kill Mr. McCormick — is demolished,” wrote Sandra K. Levick, chief of special litigation for the D.C. Public Defender Service and the lawyer who represents Gates, Tribble and Odom. In a motion to D.C. Superior Court Judge Laura Cordero seeking Tribble’s exoneration, Levick wrote: “He has waited thirty-three years for the truth to set him free. He should have to wait no longer.”

In an interview, Tribble, who served 28 years in prison, said that whether the court grants his request or not, he sees it as a final chance to assert his innocence.

“Ms. Levick has been like an angel,” Tribble added, “. . . and I thank God for DNA.”

Details of the new round of hair testing illustrate how hair analysis is highly subjective. The FBI scientist who originally testified at Tribble’s trial, Special Agent James A. Hilverda, said all the hairs he retrieved from the stocking were human head hairs, including the one suitable for comparison that he declared in court matched Tribble’s “in all microscopic characteristics.”

In August, Harold Deadman, a senior hair analyst with the D.C. police who spent 15 years with the FBI lab, forwarded the evidence to the private lab and reported that the 13 hairs he found included head and limb hairs. One exhibited Caucasian characteristics, Deadman added. Tribble is black.

But the private lab’s DNA tests irrefutably showed that the 13 hairs came from three human sources, each of African origin, except for one — which came from a dog.

“Such is the true state of hair microscopy,” Levick wrote. “Two FBI-trained analysts, James Hilverda and Harold Deadman, could not even distinguish human hairs from canine hairs.”

Hilverda declined to comment. Deadman said his role was limited to describing characteristics of hairs he found.

Kirk Odom’s case shares similarities with Tribble’s. Odom was convicted of raping, sodomizing and robbing a 27-year-old woman before dawn in her Capitol Hill apartment in 1981.

The victim said she spoke with her assailant and observed him for up to two minutes in the “dim light” of street lamps through her windows before she was gagged, bound and blindfolded in an hour-long assault.

Police put together a composite sketch of the attacker, based on the victim’s description. About five weeks after the assault, a police officer was talking to Odom about an unrelated matter. He thought Odom looked like the sketch. So he retrieved a two-year-old photograph of Odom, from when he was 16, and put it in a photo array for the victim. The victim picked the image out of the array that April and identified Odom at a lineup in May. She identified Odom again at his trial, telling jurors her assailant “had left her with an image of his face etched in her mind.”

At trial, FBI Special Agent Myron T. Scholberg testified that a hair found on the victim’s nightgown was “microscopically like” Odom’s, meaning the samples were indistinguishable. Prosecutors explained that Scholberg had not been able to distinguish between hair samples only “eight or 10 times in the past 10 years, while performing thousands of analyses.”

But on Jan. 18 of this year, Melton, of the same lab used in the Tribble case, Mitotyping Technologies of State College, Pa., reported its court-ordered DNA test results: The hair in the case could not have come from Odom.

On Feb. 27, a second laboratory selected by prosecutors, Bode Technology of Lorton, turned over the results of court-ordered nuclear DNA testing of stains left by the perpetrator on a pillowcase and robe.

Only one man left all four partial DNA profiles developed by the lab, and that man could not have been Odom.

The victim “was tragically mistaken in her identification of Mr. Odom as her assailant,” Levick wrote in a motion filed March 14 seeking his exoneration. “One man committed these heinous crimes; that man was not Kirk L. Odom.”

Scholberg, who retired in 1985 as head of hair and fiber analysis after 18 years at the FBI lab, said side-by-side hair comparison “was the best method we had at the time.”

Odom, who was imprisoned for 20 years, had to register as a sex offender and remains on lifelong parole. He says court-ordered therapists still berate him for saying he is not guilty. Over the years, his conviction has kept him from possible jobs, he said.

“There was always the thought in the back of my mind . . . ‘One day will my name be cleared?’ ” Odom said at his home in Southeast Washington, where he lives with his wife, Harriet, a medical counselor.

Federal prosecutors declined to comment on Tribble’s and Odom’s specific claims, citing pending litigation.

One government official noted that Odom served an additional 16 months after his release for an unrelated simple assault that violated his parole.

However, in a statement released after being contacted by The Post, Machen, the U.S. attorney in the District, acknowledged that DNA results “raise serious questions in my mind about these convictions.”

“If our comprehensive review shows that either man was wrongfully convicted, we will promptly join him in a motion to vacate his conviction, as we did with Donald Gates in 2009,” Machen said.

The trouble with hair analysis

Popularized in fiction by Sherlock Holmes, hair comparison became an established forensic science by the 1950s. Before modern-day DNA testing, hair analysis could, at its best, accurately narrow the pool of criminal suspects to a class or group or definitively rule out a person as a possible source.

But in practice, even before the “ ‘CSI’ effect” led jurors to expect scientific evidence at every trial, a claim of a hair match packed a powerful, dramatic punch in court. The testimony, usually by a respected scientist working at a respected federal agency, allowed prosecutors to boil down ambiguous cases for jurors to a single, incriminating piece of human evidence left at the scene.

Forensic experts typically assessed the varying characteristics of a hair to determine whether the defendant might be a source. Some factors were visible to the naked eye, such as the length of the hair, its color and whether it was straight, kinky or curly. Others were visible under a microscope, such as the size, type and distribution of pigmentation, the alignment of scales or the thickness of layers in a given hair, or its diameter at various points.

Other judgments could be made. Was the hair animal or human? From the scalp, limbs or pubic area? Of a discernible race? Dyed, bleached or otherwise treated? Cut, forcibly removed or shed naturally?

But there is no consensus among hair examiners about how many of these characteristics were needed to declare a match. So some agents relied on six or seven traits, while others needed 20 or 30. Hilverda, the FBI scientist in Tribble’s case, told jurors that he had performed “probably tens of thousands of examinations” and relied on “about 15 characteristics.”

Despite his testimony, Hilverda recorded in his lab notes that he had measured only three characteristics of the hair from the stocking — it was black, it was a human head hair, and it was from an African American. Similarly, Scholberg’s notes describe the nightgown hair in Odom’s case in the barest terms, as a black, human head hair fragment, like a sample taken from Odom.

Hilverda acknowledged that results could rule out a person or be inconclusive. However, he told jurors that a “match” reflected a high likelihood that two hairs came from the same person. Hilverda added, “Only on very rare occasions have I seen hairs of two individuals that show the same characteristics.”

In Tribble’s case, federal prosecutor David Stanley went further as he summed up the evidence. “There is one chance, perhaps for all we know, in 10 million that it could [be] someone else’s hair,” he said in his closing arguments, sounding the final word for the government.

Stanley declined to comment.

Flaws known for decades

The Tribble and Odom cases demonstrate problems in hair analysis that have been known for nearly 40 years.

In 1974, researchers acknowledged that visual comparisons are so subjective that different analysts can reach different conclusions about the same hair. The FBI acknowledged in 1984 that such analysis cannot positively determine that a hair found at a crime scene belongs to one particular person.

In 1996, the Justice Department studied the nation’s first 28 DNA exonerations and found that 20 percent of the cases involved hair comparison. That same year, the FBI lab stopped declaring matches based on visual comparisons alone and began requiring DNA testing as well.

Yet examples of FBI experts violating scientific standards and making exaggerated or erroneous claims emerged in 1997 at the heart of the FBI lab’s worst modern scandal, when Bromwich’s investigation found systematic problems involving 13 agents. The lab’s lack of written protocols and examiners’ weak scientific qualifications allowed bias to influence some of the nation’s highest-profile criminal investigations, the inspector general said.

From 1996 through 2004, a Justice Department task force set out to review about 6,000 cases handled by the 13 discredited agents for any potential exculpatory information that should be disclosed to defendants. The task force identified more than 250 convictions in which the agents’ work was determined to be either critical to the conviction or so problematic — for example, because a prosecutor refused to cooperate or records had been lost — that it completed a fresh scientific assessment of the agent’s work. The task force was directed to notify prosecutors of the results.

The only real notice of what the task force found came in a 2003 Associated Press account in which unnamed government officials said they had turned over results to prosecutors and were aware that defendants had been notified in 100 to 150 cases. The officials left the impression that anybody whose case had been affected had been notified and that, in any case, no convictions had been overturned, the officials said.

But since 2003, in the District alone, two of six convictions identified by The Post in which forensic work was reassessed by the task force have been vacated. That includes Gates’s case, but not those of Tribble and Odom, who are awaiting court action and were not part of the task force review.

The Gates exoneration also shows that prosecutors failed to turn over information uncovered by the task force.

In addition to Gates, the murder cases in Texas and Maryland and a third in Alaska reveal examples of shortcomings.

All three cases, in addition to the District cases, were handled by FBI agent Malone, whose cases made up more than 90 percent of scientific reviews found by The Post.

In Texas, the review of Benjamin Herbert Boyle’s case got underway only after the defendant was executed, 16 months after the task force was formed, despite pledges to prioritize death penalty cases.

Boyle was executed six days after the Bromwich investigation publicly criticized Malone, the FBI agent who worked on his case, but the FBI had acknowledged two months earlier that it was investigating complaints about him.

The task force asked the Justice Department’s capital-case review unit to look over its work, but the fact that it failed to prevent the execution was never publicized.

In Maryland, John Norman Huffington’s attorneys say they were never notified of the findings of the review in his case, leaving them in a battle over the law’s unsettled requirements for prosecutors to turn over potentially exculpatory evidence and over whether lawyers and courts can properly interpret scientific findings.

In Alaska, Newton P. Lambert’s defenders have been left to seek DNA testing of remaining biological evidence, if any exists, while he serves a life sentence for a 1982 murder. Prosecutors for both Huffington and Lambert claim they disclosed findings at some point to other lawyers but failed to document doing so. In Lambert’s case, The Post found that the purported notification went to a lawyer who had died.

Senior public defenders in both states say they received no such word, which they say would be highly unlikely if it in fact came.

Malone, 66, said he was simply using the best science available at the time. “We did the best we could with what we had,” he said.

Even the harshest critics acknowledge that the Justice Department worked hard to identify potentially tainted convictions. Many of the cases identified by the task force involved serious crimes, and several defendants confessed or were guilty of related charges. Courts also have upheld several convictions even after agents’ roles were discovered.

Flawed agents or a flawed system?

Because of the focus on Malone, many questionable cases were never reviewed.

But as in the Tribble and Odom cases, thousands of defendants nationwide have been implicated by other FBI agents, as well as state and local hair examiners, who relied on the same flawed techniques.

In 2002, the FBI found after it analyzed DNA in 80 selected hair cases that its agents had reported false matches more than 11 percent of the time. “I don’t believe forensic science truly understood the significance of microscopic hair comparison, and it wasn’t until [DNA] that we learned that 11 percent of the time, two hairs can be microscopically similar yet come from different people,” said Dwight E. Adams, who directed the FBI lab from 2002 to 2006.

Yet a Post review of the small fraction of cases in which an appeals court opinion describes FBI hair testimony shows that several FBI agents gave improper testimony, asserting the remote odds of a false match or invoking bogus statistics in the absence of data.

For example, in testimony in a Minnesota bank robbery case, also in 1978, Hilverda, the agent who worked on Tribble’s case, reiterated that he had been unable to distinguish among different people’s hair “only on a couple of occasions” out of more than 2,000 cases he had analyzed.

In a 1980 Indiana robbery case, an agent told jurors that he had failed to tell different people’s hair apart just once in 1,500 cases. After a slaying in Tennessee that year, another agent testified in a capital case that there was only one chance out of 4,500 or 5,000 that a hair came from someone other than the suspect.

“Those statements are chilling to read,” Bromwich said of the exaggerated FBI claims at trial.

Todd, the FBI spokeswoman, said bureau lab reports for more than 30 years have qualified their findings by saying that hair comparisons are not a means of absolute positive identification. She requested a list of cases in which agents departed from guidelines in court.

The Post provided nine cases.

Todd declined to say whether the bureau considered taking steps to determine whether other agents intentionally or unintentionally misled jurors. “Only Michael Malone’s conduct was questioned in the area of hair comparisons,” Todd said. “The [inspector general] did not question the merits of microscopic hair comparisons as a scientific discipline.”

Experts say the difference between laboratory standards and examiners’ testimony in court can be important, especially if no one is reading or watching what agents say.

“It seemingly has never been routine for crime labs to do supervision based on trial testimony,” said University of Virginia School of Law professor Brandon L. Garrett. “You can have cautious standards, but if no one is supervising their implementation, it’s predictable that analysts may cross the line.”

‘Veil of secrecy’

A review of the task force documents, as well as Post interviews, found that the Justice Department struggled to balance its roles as a law enforcer defending convictions, a minister of justice protecting the innocent, and a patron and practitioner of forensic science.

By excluding defense lawyers from the process and leaving it to prosecutors to decide case by case what to disclose, authorities waded into a legal and ethical morass that left some prisoners locked away for years longer than necessary. By adopting a secret process that limited accountability, documents show, the task force left the scope and nature of scientific problems unreported, obscuring issues from further study and permitting similar breakdowns.

“The government has hidden behind the veil of secrecy to shield these abuses despite official assurances that justice would be done,” said David Colapinto, general counsel of the National Whistleblowers Center.

The American Bar Association and others have proposed stronger ethics rules for prosecutors to act on information that casts doubt on convictions; opening laboratory and other files to the defense; clearer reporting and evidence retention; greater involvement by scientists in setting rules for testimony at criminal trials; and more scientific training for lawyers and judges.

Other experts propose more oversight by standing state forensic-science commissions and funding for research into forensic techniques and experts for indigent defendants.

A common theme among reform-minded lawyers and experts is taking the oversight of the forensic labs away from police and prosecutors.

“It’s human to make mistakes,” said Steven D. Benjamin, president-elect of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers. “It’s wrong not to learn from them.”

More specifically, the D.C. Public Defender Service, Benjamin’s group and others said justice would be served by retesting hair evidence in convictions nationwide from 1996 and earlier. “If microscopic hair analysis was a key piece of evidence in a conviction, and it was one of only a limited amount of evidence in a case, would it be worthwhile to retest that using mitochondrial DNA? I would say absolutely,” said Adams, the former FBI lab director.

The promised review by federal prosecutors of hair convictions in the District would not include cases before 1985, when FBI records were computerized, and would not disclose any defendant’s name. That approach would have missed Gates, Odom and Tribble, who were convicted earlier.

Representatives for Machen, the FBI and the Justice Department also declined to say why the review should be limited to D.C. cases. The Post found that 95 percent of the troubled cases identified by the task force were outside the District.

Avis E. Buchanan, director of the D.C. Public Defender Service, said her agency must be “a full participant” in the review, which it has sought for two years, and that it should extend nationwide. “Surely the District of Columbia is not the only place where such flawed evidence was used to convict the innocent,” she said.

Staff researcher Jennifer Jenkins and database editor Ted Mellnik contributed to this report.

Don't count on the Supreme Court to protect your Constitutional rights

Supreme Court reverses 9th Circuit to shield private lawyers

By David G. Savage

April 17, 2012, 11:03 a.m.

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court has shielded private lawyers and possibly others working for cities, counties and school districts from being sued for violating the rights of citizens and employees.

A 9-0 decision announced Tuesday blocks a lawsuit against a Southern California attorney who was accused of ordering an illegal search of a firefighter’s house.

A judge had shielded the fire chief of the Inland Empire city of Rialto and two fire department inspectors from being sued for the allegedly illegal search under the rule that gives public employees a “qualified immunity” from suits when they are doing their jobs. But the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals said that this governmental immunity did not extend to Steve Filarsky, a private lawyer who advised the city on conducting internal investigations.

Disagreeing with the 9th Circuit, Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. said it made no sense to expose private lawyers working for the government to personal liability when public employees doing the same job are shielded. He said many small cities like Rialto cannot afford to have lawyers on their staffs and must rely at times on private attorneys.

“This case is a good example: Filarsky had 29 years of specialized experience as an attorney in labor, employment and personnel matters, with particular expertise in conducting internal affairs investigations,” the chief justice wrote. “The City of Rialto certainly had no permanent employee with anything approaching those qualifications.”

Shielding private lawyers from almost all personal liability is necessary for “ensuring that talented candidates are not deterred from public service,” Roberts said in Filarsky vs. Delia.

The case arose when Nicholas Delia, a firefighter in Rialto, became ill after responding to a toxic spill in 2006, and he missed several weeks of work. The city became suspicious of his extended absence and hired a private investigator to check on him. The investigator observed Delia buying rolls of fiberglass insulation from a home improvement store, and city officials suspected he might be doing construction work at home when he was supposedly recovering.

Filarsky questioned Delia about the building supplies. The firefighter admitted he bought the materials, but had done no work.

In order to put the suspicion to rest, Filarsky recommended the fire chief tell Delia he must show the materials to fire inspectors. Delia objected, and his attorney averred that such a forced search of his house would violate the 4th Amendment’s ban on unreasonable searches.

Undeterred, the fire chief ordered Delia to put the rolls of insulation on his front lawn. Delia did as ordered. The fire inspectors thanked him and left. Delia and his attorney then followed through with their vow and sued the fire chief, the inspectors and Filarsky claiming his constitutional rights had been violated.

A federal judge threw out the claims and ruled all the city officials were immune because they did not violate a “clearly established constitutional right.” In Tuesday’s decision, the Supreme Court said Filarsky deserved to be immune as well.

Small town official accused of stealing $30M

Prosecutors: Dixon CFO embezzled $30M

By Andy Grimm Tribune reporter

2:17 p.m. CDT, April 17, 2012

The chief finance officer of the small town of Dixon embezzled more than $30 million over the last six years and used the money to finance a lavish lifestyle that included horse stables in Illinois and Wisconsin, federal prosecutors alleged.

Rita Crundwell, 58, was charged with a single count of wire fraud Tuesday and was taken into custody. Federal agents served warrants and seized contents of her bank accounts, seven trucks and trailers, a $2 million motor home and a Ford Thunderbird—all of which prosecutors allege were paid for with money taken from city bank accounts by Crundwell.

Crundwell, who has been comptroller of the northwest Illinois town of 15,000 since the early 1980s, was scheduled to appear in U.S. District Court in Rockford this afternoon, according to a statement from U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald’s office.

The federal indictment alleged Crundwell raided millions from the town’s accounts, including $3.2 million since just last fall. The thefts came to light when she took vacation and an employee filling in for her noticed suspicious transactions in several city accounts.

Bank records obtained by the FBI allegedly show Crundwell illegally withdrew $30,236,503 from Dixon accounts since July 2006 , money she used, among other things, to buy a 2009 Liberty Coach Motor home for $2.1 million; a tractor truck for $147,000; a horse trailer for $260,000; and $2.5 million in credit card payments for items that included $340,000 in jewelry.

agrimm@tribune.com

Mesa Police Officers Paid to March in Gay Pride Parade

Source

Mesa police officers join Phoenix Pride Parade

Chief OKs department's participation despite objections from within

by Jim Walsh - Apr. 18, 2012 09:17 AM

The Republic | azcentral.com

A contingent of Mesa police officers will make history this weekend while demonstrating their commitment to diversity.

Despite opposition from some within the ranks, Chief Frank Milstead authorized officers to march in the Phoenix Pride Parade for the first time and refused to change his decision when some officers objected.

Officers have the option of marching in uniform or in plain clothes on their own time. No one is required to march. The officers and members of the Mesa Human Relations Advisory Board will display a Mesa Police Diversity Team banner.

Milstead said his motivation was to support diversity, oppose discrimination against all minorities and support all segments of the community served by Mesa police. Gay and straight officers are expected to march.

"This is a moment to galvanize us, not polarize us," he said. "We have to support each other through all aspects of this job. We all take risks to do this job. Officers give their lives to do this job."

Brandi Sokolosky, executive director of Phoenix Pride, said the parade has always been supported by police agencies. She said the Peoria, Glendale, Phoenix and Tempe police have set up recruiting booths at the Pride Festival, which follows the parade. Mesa also has recruited at the festival.

But Sokolosky said Mesa would become the first police agency to have officers march in uniform during her five years as executive director, and likely would become the first to do so in the event's history.

"They have definitely come a long way," Sokolosky said, noting that her partner, a veteran Phoenix officer, had to hide her sexual orientation for years because it was against Phoenix police policy to be a lesbian.

"Any time you have a group like a police department or a public-service agency who feel they are free to be the people they are without repercussion, that's fantastic," she said.

Milstead said he was surprised when his decision rankled some officers, so much so that the chief took the unusual step of meeting with about 30 who were opposed.

Although the meeting was private, one officer wrote in an e-mail that wearing a uniform while marching in a "gay parade" would set a potentially dangerous precedent for employees supporting a "political agenda."

Some officers attending the meeting with Milstead interpreted marching in the Phoenix Pride parade in uniform as an endorsement of being gay or the gay lifestyle.

But Milstead said he does not interpret the parade or festival as a political event but as an opportunity to support diversity and tolerance.

"This isn't an endorsement of anything," he said.

He said officers were cheered when they marched in Mesa's Martin Luther King Day parade when it was controversial in the 1990s and that helped establish a better relationship with the Black community.

Police administrators addressed the issue in response to a request by Lt. Deanna Cantrell, who heads the Mesa Police Diversity Team, for authorization to march in the parade. Cantrell, who was promoted last week to commander, declined comment.

"Everyone agreed we had participated in many community events and parades. There is no reason why we can't participate in this parade," Milstead said.

In a statement, the Mesa Police Association said it acted in a "mediating role'' in helping to arrange the meeting with Milstead. MPA President Ryan Russell did not take a position on the parade during the meeting, telling Milstead that he had heard from officers who support and oppose his decision.

The association also offered a polo shirt, with a Mesa police logo, to officers who do not want to wear their uniform in the parade.

All members who respond to an emergency during the parade would be covered legally by the MPA, the association said.

Time for a cleanup operation at Maricopa County HQ

Time for a cleanup operation at Maricopa County HQ

“I will demand effectiveness in the sheriff’s office, increase citizen involvement and serve one term and take the office out of politics.”

--

Twenty years ago, a candidate for Maricopa County sheriff made a pledge to serve only one term and to spend that term working to professionalize the office of sheriff by turning it into an appointed post.

The agency was mired in controversy at the time over the botched investigation into the 1991 massacre of nine people at a Buddhist temple west of Phoenix. The man responsible for the botch job, Sheriff Tom Agnos, was running for re-election.

Agnos’ challenger, a guy by the name of Joe Arpaio, said the job was too important to be left to a politician.

“Nor do I want to use my last year on the job to campaign to be re-elected,” he said.

Arpaio was a man before his time. About 20 years before his time, as it turns out.

For several years, we’ve watched the Maricopa County wars – the bombs bursting in midair over what started as a budget dispute and the resulting hemorrhaging of taxpayer money.

We all know how it’s turned out, with former Maricopa County Attorney Andrew Thomas disbarred and Arpaio under investigation. But remember, too, that neither Supervisor Mary Rose Wilcox (she who is poised to collect nearly $1 million from taxpayers) nor Supervisor Don Stapley (still awaiting his bonanza) was exactly vindicated.

The charges against Wilcox -- stemming from allegations that she voted to grant funds to Chicanos Por La Causa while contracting for business loans from one of the group’s subsidiaries – were dismissed due to prosecutorial misconduct. The Pima County judge never considered the merits of the case. The charges against Stapley – related to suspected misuse of campaign funds – were also dropped but the Gila County attorney noted that Stapley could have been prosecuted for seven felonies.

So we are left with a mess and an opportunity.

Two words: charter government.

The state constitution allows voters in Maricopa and Pima counties to reshape county government. The current system, with its five elected supervisors and seven elected “row officers”, leaves everybody and nobody in charge and ample turf to be protected (always at taxpayer expense).

In 1996, after the county teetered on the brink of bankruptcy even as Arpaio sued the supervisors for cutting his budget, voters authorized an effort to create a more professional operation. A voter-selected committee proposed a seven-member Board of Supervisors, with the chairman elected countywide. The plan called for non-partisan elections, term limits and an option for converting “row officers” -- sheriff, county attorney, treasurer, recorder, assessor, superintendent and court clerk -- into appointed posts.

Exactly as Arpaio had proposed in 1992 but opposed by 1996.

Voters turned it down flat.

That, however, was then and this is now, when the bills are mounting and the smoke is refusing to clear. In other words, a good time to consider a clean-up operation. The supervisors could initiate the process or it could be done by voter petition.

Former Phoenix Mayor Paul Johnson, who sat on the 1996 charter committee, says he believes voters might support reform now, despite the inevitable political opposition.

“It’s probably one of the few times it would be able to happen because right now the public, I think they’re disgusted with what they are seeing,” Johnson said. “There’s a level of …. corruption that they see involved in their government. But given a chance to change it, I think right now would be an ideal time.”

Count Arpaio out.

The five-term sheriff says he quickly came to realize that his 1992 campaign vow – one term and an appointed sheriff -- was a mistake.

“I made a critical mistake when I said that,” he told me Tuesday. “I learned right off when I took office what stupid, stupid remarks I made because I know I would have been fired 20 years ago if I had to report to some governor or mayor or council or city manager. I would not have had the luxury to do what I felt was right for the people that I serve.”

Arpaio, like Wilcox, is now running for his sixth term and beyond that, who knows?

“Is it going to be my last term? I don’t know,” he said. “I'm not lying to you, I don’t know. I’ll be what, 84? I’ll be like Ironside (a TV detective). Remember he was in a wheelchair, so if I have to be in a wheelchair, I’ll have my machine gun with me.”

More on Andrew Thomas disbarment

Andrew Thomas deadline to appeal disbarment Friday by Michelle Ye Hee Lee and Michael Kiefer - Apr. 17, 2012 10:39 PM The Republic | azcentral.com Former Maricopa County Attorney Andrew Thomas has until Friday to decide if he will appeal his disbarment, but Maricopa County will not be picking up the legal bill if he does. Members of the Board of Supervisors, meanwhile, disagree as to whether their board colleague, Mary Rose Wilcox, deserves a $975,000 settlement negotiated by the county manager. At least two of three county supervisors who can vote on the settlement oppose it. Under Arizona law, the settlement requires the approval of just one county supervisor and the county treasurer, according to County Attorney Bill Montgomery. County Manager David Smith told The Arizona Republic that three supervisors suggested in a private meeting Monday that they did not want to pay any more legal expenses to defend Thomas. Smith, Montgomery and the county risk-management director also attended that executive session. Thomas and former Deputy County Attorney Lisa Aubuchon were ordered disbarred last week by a state Supreme Court ethics panel for errant investigations into county officials. Rachel Alexander, another former Thomas aide, was suspended for six months and a day in the same case. County risk management has notified attorneys for all three former prosecutors that the board does not intend to fund their appeals, Smith said. Aubuchon has already filed her notice of appeal. Alexander, like Thomas, has not yet announced her decision. "(The board members) give a sense of direction (in executive session) and we're allowed to talk about what it is we need to do in order to carry out that sense of direction from the board," Smith said. Supervisors Max Wilson, Andy Kunasek and Fulton Brock attended the meeting. Two others, Wilcox and Don Stapley, are suing the county claiming damages from investigations by Thomas and Sheriff Joe Arpaio. Because they have conflicts of interest, they cannot make decisions on the matter. Montgomery said the board is within its authority to decide not to authorize "monies to cover attorney fees for the appeals of the Bar disciplinary cases." The county's Declaration of Trust for the Self-Insured Risk Trust Fund says the county does not have to pay to defend a county employee if it has been adjudicated that "his or her action or omission constituted bad faith, gross negligence, and/or willful and wanton misconduct, or other excluded conduct or circumstances ... in the conduct of his or her duties." Thomas remained defiant in his statement to The Republic: "By firing my lawyers for no less than the third time, the Board of Supervisors and county officials ensured I cannot properly defend myself against their accusations -- even as several of them sue the county over these same events. Every day my anti-corruption efforts, which cost me my law license, are more and more vindicated. We have become Mexico, where prosecutors are targeted, threatened and punished for doing their job." Smith, who has authority to negotiate and offer settlements, brokered a deal to pay $975,000 to Wilcox based on legal advice from retired Superior Court Judge Christopher Skelly, who, acting as mediator, determined that Wilcox's settlement would be less costly than litigating it in court. Final approval would require a vote from one supervisor and County Treasurer Charles "Hos" Hoskins. Kunasek and Wilson have said they oppose the Wilcox settlement. "If somebody wants to get reimbursed for legitimate expenses ... incurred in this mess, I'd be supportive of that -- but I'm not going to sign off on anything beyond that" like damages or loss of business, Kunasek said. He said he believes the current settlement offer covers more than legal expenses, and he would rather see the case go to court. Wilson, who has received dozens of e-mails and calls to his office regarding the Wilcox settlement, has been responding to residents that "as Chairman of the Board I wouldn't think of signing or supporting it." Brock declined comment but said through his chief of staff, Bruce Bartholomew, that he has not yet been asked to sign off on the settlement. If he were to be asked, he would weigh the potential costs based on analyses by county risk-management experts and "very strongly consider signing it," Bartholomew said. Hoskins said he has not decided and would wait to see settlement documents. How county officials respond could have political consequences, since Hoskins, Kunasek, Wilcox and Wilson are up for re-election this fall. According to Skelly's analysis, Maricopa County is spending an average of $88,000 a month in legal fees related to those cases. He said it is uncertain how the cases would play out in court. Now that the disciplinary panel issued a ruling saying that Thomas targeted Wilcox for political reasons, Colin Campbell, Wilcox's attorney, said, "The county is in a worse state of liability than before." Wilcox is among about 10 county officials who have filed abuse-of-power claims against the county. Among the others, two have been settled for $500,000 each, two for $100,000 each, and one for an undisclosed amount.

Jan Brewer is an enemy of the Second Amendment!!!

Brewer vetoes bill allowing guns on public property by Alia Beard Rau - Apr. 17, 2012 11:10 PM The Republic | azcentral.com Gov. Jan Brewer rebuffed gun-rights advocates by vetoing for a second time a bill to allow guns on public property, and sent a strong message that such a proposal would need wider support from police, cities and the public before she would sign it. [Which shows Jan Brewer thinks government not not for the "people" but rather for royal rulers like her, and government bureaucrats like cops] Brewer's veto of the bill, which could have let guns into city halls, police stations, county courts, senior centers, swimming pools, libraries and the state Capitol, was the latest setback for a push to expand the right to carry guns in public places in Arizona. Legislative efforts to put guns on university campuses, just outside K-12 school grounds and in homeowners associations all appear to have run into roadblocks this session. Citing U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia in her veto letter, Brewer, who vetoed a similar bill last year, recognized the legitimacy of laws banning guns in sensitive places such as schools and government buildings. "The decisions to permit or prohibit guns in these extremely sensitive locations -- whether a city council chamber or branch office staffed with state workers -- should be cooperatively reached and supported by a broad coalition of stakeholders, including citizens, law-enforcement officials and local government leaders," Brewer wrote in her veto letter. House Bill 2729, sponsored by Rep. David Gowan, R-Sierra Vista, was pushed by the Arizona Citizens Defense League, a gun-rights group. It proposed making it legal for people to enter public property with a weapon unless the property was secured by either a state or federal certified law-enforcement officer or an armed security guard and metal detectors. National and state gun-advocacy groups supported the bill. Cities, counties, law-enforcement agencies and business organizations opposed it, saying they would have had to either let guns into buildings where the public would rather not have them or pay millions of dollars to provide the security required to keep them out. A study conducted by legislative staff estimates that security costs for a government entity to ban guns could have ranged from $5,000 to $113,800 per public entrance in the first year with ongoing costs of $54,400 to $108,800 per year. Brewer said the fiscal impact was one reason she opposed the bill, but she also mentioned broader concerns and even went as far as to offer a warning to gun lobbyists who may try again next year. "While I appreciate the efforts of the bill sponsor ... there must be a more thorough and collaborative discussion of the proper place for guns in the public arena," Brewer wrote. Charles Heller, communications director of the Arizona Citizens Defense League, criticized Brewer's decision. "We expected more from an alleged friend of freedom," he said. "This means that some people will still be deluded into thinking that a sign (banning guns in public buildings) makes them safe." He declined to comment on whether his group may try to run the bill again next year, but he said it will change one tactic. "We just need to put more letters on her desk next time she's thinking about vetoing so she knows how much people care about freedom," he said. Gowan did not return a phone call seeking comment. Bill opponents were thrilled at the veto -- and this session's trend against expanding gun rights. "Hallelujah," said Sen. Paula Aboud, D-Tucson. "It seems as if (Brewer) is saying that the public is not asking for these bills. She got it. Thank goodness." Aboud said she hopes the gun-advocacy lobbyists get it, too. "Twice run, twice passed, twice vetoed," she said. "How many times is it going to take for people to figure it out? This is making our state a laughing- stock." A similar bill passed the Legislature last year, but Brewer vetoed it, saying it was poorly written. Brewer said her concerns from last year were not addressed in the new version. Arizona ranks among the most pro-gun states in the nation. Two years ago, it became one of only a handful of states to allow people to carry concealed weapons without a permit. Hildy Saizow, president of the grassroots group Arizonans for Gun Safety, said Arizonans don't want these bills. "Finally, we're getting some common sense in here saying, 'No, this is bad public-safety policy, and we're not going to allow this to happen,'" Saizow said. "No guns on college campuses, no guns in public events, no guns around schools. The gun lobby has hit its limit, and for good reason."

Secret Service agent tries to cheat $800 hooker out of her fee

Escort Recounts Quarrel With Secret Service Agent By WILLIAM NEUMAN Published: April 18, 2012 CARTAGENA, Colombia — A Secret Service agent preparing for President Obama’s arrival at an international summit meeting and a single mother from Colombia who makes a living as a high-priced escort faced off in a room at the Hotel Caribe a week ago over how much he owed her for the previous night’s intercourse. “I tell him, ‘Baby, my cash money,’ ” the woman said in her first public comments on a spat that would soon spiral into a full-blown scandal. The dispute — he offered $30 for services she thought they had agreed were worth 25 times that — triggered a tense early morning struggle in the hallway of the posh hotel involving the woman, another prostitute, Colombian police officers arguing on the women’s behalf and American federal agents who tried but failed to keep the matter — which has shaken the reputation of the Secret Service — from escalating. Sitting on a couch in her living room wearing a short jean skirt, high-heeled espadrilles and a tight spandex top with a plunging neckline, the woman described how she and a girlfriend were approached by a group of American men at a discotheque. In an account that tracked with the official version of events coming out of Washington, but could not be independently confirmed, she said the men bought a bottle of Absolut vodka for the table and when that was finished bought a second one. “They never told me they were with Obama,” she said. “They were very discreet.” A taxi driver who picked up the woman at the Hotel Caribe the morning of the encounter said he heard her and another woman recount the dispute over payment. When approached by The Times, the woman was reluctant to speak about what occurred. As she nervously told her story, a friend gave details that seemed to corroborate her account. There was a language gap between the 24-year-old woman, who declined to give her full name, and the American man who sat beside her all night and eventually invited her back to his room. She agreed, stopped on the way to buy condoms but told him he would have to give her a gift. He asked how much. Not knowing he worked for President Obama but figuring he was a well-heeled foreigner, she said she told him $800. The price alone, she said, indicates that she is an escort, not a prostitute. “You have higher rank,” she said. “An escort is someone who a man can take out to dinner. She can dress nicely, wear nice makeup, speak and act like a lady. That’s me.” By 6:30 the next morning, after being awoken by a telephone call from the hotel front desk reminding her that, under the hotel’s rules for prostitutes, she had to leave, whatever deal the two had agreed on had broken down. She recalled that the man told her he had been drunk when they discussed the price. He countered with an offer of 50,000 pesos, the equivalent of about $30. Disgusted with such a low offer, she pressed the matter. He became angry, ordered her out of the room and called her an expletive, she said. She said she was crying at that point and went across the hall, where another escort had spent the night with a second American man from the same group. Both women began trying to get the money. They knocked on the door but got no response. She threatened to call the police, but the man’s friend begged her not to, saying they did not want trouble. Finally, she said, she left to go home but came across a policeman who was stationed on the hallway and called in an English-speaking colleague. He accompanied her back to the room and the dispute escalated. Two other Americans from the club emerged from their rooms and stood guard in front of their friend’s locked door. The two Colombian officers tried to argue the woman’s case. A hotel security officer arrived. Eventually, she lowered her demand to $250, which she said was the amount she has to pay the man who helps find her customers. Eager to resolve the matter fast, the American men eventually gave her a combination of dollars and local currency worth about $225, and she left. It was only days later, once a friend she had shared her story with called to say that the dispute had made the television news, that she learned that the man had been a Secret Service agent. She was dismayed, she said, that the news reports have described her as a prostitute as though she walked the streets picking up just anyone. “It’s the same but it’s different,” she said, indicating that she is much more selective about her clients and charges much more than a streetwalker. “It’s like when you buy a fine rum or a BlackBerry or an iPhone. They have a different price.” The woman veered between anger and fear as she told of her misadventure. “I’m scared,” she said, indicating she did not want the man she spent the night with to get into any trouble but now feared that he might retaliate against her. “This is something really big,” she said. “This is the government of the United States. I have nervous attacks. I cry all the time.” The Secret Service declined to comment on the woman’s account. Among the issues under review is whether the security personnel went out that night looking for prostitutes or whether they encountered them where they had been drinking. “There was no evidence that these women were seeking these guys out — that they were waiting for Secret Service agents — but all of that is being looked into,” said Representative Peter T. King, the chairman of the House Committee on Homeland Security. Mr. King, who was briefed on the matter on Tuesday by Mark Sullivan, the Secret Service director, said that the Secret Service agents at the hotel had provided conflicting reports about the night’s events. “Some of them were saying they didn’t know they were prostitutes,” he said. “Some are saying they were women at the bar. I understand that there was quite a bit of drinking.” When a reporter read the woman’s account to him over the phone on Wednesday, Mr. King said, “Nothing you are telling me contradicts what I have been told.” He said that there was no evidence that the women obtained information about the president’s security, but he added: “That is still be looked at.” He said that investigators believe the youngest woman involved was 20 years old. As for cooperating with the American investigators who are seeking to interview as many as 21 different women who they believe may have spent the night with American security officers in advance of Mr. Obama’s arrival, the woman who was involved in the payment dispute said she was not interested in that. She said she was planning to leave Cartagena soon. Michael S. Schmidt contributed reporting from Washington.

Secret Service scandal is not new

Secret Service scandal is not new

Apr. 19, 2012 12:00 AM

I worked as a military Spanish-language translator for a decade in Latin America.

I worked with the National Security Agency, Drug Enforcement Administration and various U.S. dipolomatic employees.

The behavior of the U.S. Secret Service agents and military personnel in Colombia is the norm, not the exception.

Your tax dollars at work!

-- JD Ricks, Mesa

Secret Service agent screws hooker out of $575

Source

Prostitute scandal: 3 Secret Service employees out

Apr. 18, 2012 04:30 PM

Associated Press

WASHINGTON -- The prostitution scandal at the Secret Service claimed its first casualties Wednesday. The agency announced three agents are leaving the service, even as separate U.S. government investigations were under way. The tawdry episode took a sharp political turn when presumptive Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney said he would fire the agents involved.

The Secret Service did not identify the three agents leaving the government or eight more it said remain on administrative leave. In a statement, it said one supervisor was allowed to retire and another will be fired for cause. A third employee, who was not a supervisor, has resigned.

The agents were implicated in the prostitution scandal in Colombia that also involved about 10 military service members and as many as 20 women. All the Secret Service employees who were involved had their security clearances revoked. "These are the first steps," said Rep. Pete King, R-N.Y., chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, which oversees the Secret Service. King said the agency's director, Mark Sullivan, took employment action against "the three people he believes the case was clearest against." But King warned: "It's certainly not over." King said the agent set to be fired would sue. King said Sullivan had to follow collective bargaining rules but was "moving as quickly as he can. Once he feels the facts are clear, he's going to move." The scandal, which has become an election-year embarrassment for the Obama administration, erupted last week after 11 Secret Service agents were sent home from the colonial-era city of Cartagena on Colombia's Caribbean coast after a night of partying that reportedly ended with at least some of them bringing prostitutes back to their hotel. The special agents and uniformed officers were in Colombia in advance of President Barack Obama's arrival for the Summit of the Americas. A White House official said Wednesday night that Obama had not spoken directly to Sullivan since the incident unfolded late last week. Obama's senior aides are in close contact with Sullivan and the agency's leadership, said the official, who requested anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly. In Washington and Colombia, separate U.S. government investigations were already under way. King said he has assigned four congressional investigators to the probe. The House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, led by Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., sought details of the Secret Service investigation, including the disciplinary histories of the agents involved. Secret Service investigators are in Colombia interviewing witnesses. In a letter to Sullivan, Issa and Rep. Elijah Cummings of Maryland, the committee's ranking Democrat, said the agents "brought foreign nationals in contact with sensitive security information." A potential security breach has been among the concerns raised by members of Congress. The incident occurred before Obama arrived and was at a different hotel than the president stayed in. Sen. Chuck Grassley, the ranking Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee, said news of the three agents leaving Secret Service was a positive development. "I've always said that if heads don't roll, the culture in a federal agency will never change," the Iowa lawmaker said in a statement. "Today's personnel actions, combined with the swift removal and investigation, are positive signs that there is a serious effort to get to the bottom of this scandal." New details of the sordid night emerged Wednesday. A 24-year-old self-described prostitute told The New York Times that she met an agent at a discotheque in Cartagena and after a night of drinking, the pair agreed the agent would pay her $800 for sex at the hotel. The next morning, when the hotel's front desk called because the woman hadn't left, the pair argued over the price. "I tell him, 'Baby, my cash money,'" the woman told the newspaper in an interview in Colombia. She said the two argued after the agent initially offered to pay her about $30 and the situation escalated, eventually ending with Colombian law enforcement involved. She said she was eventually paid about $225. Romney told radio host Laura Ingraham on Wednesday that "I'd clean house" at the Secret Service. "The right thing to do is to remove people who have violated the public trust and have put their play time and their personal interests ahead of the interests of the nation," Romney said. While Romney suggested to Ingraham that a leadership problem led to the scandal, he told a Columbus, Ohio, radio station earlier that he has confidence in Sullivan, the head of the agency. "I believe the right corrective action will be taken there and obviously everyone is very, very disappointed," Romney said. "I think it will be dealt with (in) as aggressive a way as is possible given the requirements of the law." When asked, the Romney campaign would not say whether he had been briefed on the situation or was relying upon media reports for details. At least 10 military personnel who were staying at the same hotel are also being investigated for misconduct. Two U.S. military officials have said they include five Army Green Berets. One of the officials said the group also includes two Navy Explosive Ordinance Disposal technicians, two Marine dog handlers and an Air Force airman. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because the investigation is still under way. Secret Service's Office of Professional Responsibility, which handles that agency's internal affairs, is investigating, and the Homeland Security Department's inspector general also has been notified. Sullivan, who this week has briefed lawmakers behind closed doors, said he has referred to the case to an independent government investigator. Col. Scott Malcom, a spokesman of U.S. Southern Command, which organized the military team assigned to support the Secret Service's mission in Cartagena, said Wednesday that an Air Force colonel is leading the military investigation and arrived in Colombia with a military lawyer Tuesday morning. The troops are suspected of violating curfews set by their commanders. "They were either not in their room or they showed up to their room late while all this was going on or they were in their room with somebody who shouldn't be there," Malcom said. Lawmakers have called for a thorough investigation and have suggested they would hold oversight hearings, though none has yet been scheduled. The incident is expected to come up next week on Wednesday when Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano appears before the Senate Judiciary Committee for a previously scheduled oversight hearing. House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, said that for now, he is interested in what actually happened. He did not address how much responsibility Obama should bear for the scandal or whether Congress should hold hearings on it.

More on AG Tom Horne dropping Fiesta Bowl corruption cases

Tom Horne defends delay in ceding 1 Fiesta Bowl case

Inquiry involving allies was not handed over right away

by Craig Harris - Apr. 18, 2012 11:23 PM

The Republic | azcentral.com

Attorney General Tom Horne did not recuse his office from handling a Fiesta Bowl investigation involving powerful political allies until after one of his deputies recommended misdemeanor charges against them, documents obtained by The Arizona Republic show. Horne said Wednesday he had no knowledge that charges had been drafted in the cases and transferred the cases immediately last fall after learning they involved lobbyist Kevin DeMenna and a political-consulting and lobbying firm, HighGround. No HighGround employees were specifically identified in a draft indictment drawn up by Horne's office. "I don't have any motives here other than to avoid being involved with people whom I knew," Horne said. HighGround's founder and president is noted GOP strategist Chuck Coughlin, a close adviser to Gov. Jan Brewer whose firm assisted with the attorney general's 2010 campaign. DeMenna has had a professional relationship with Horne since the attorney general served in the Arizona Legislature from 1997 to 2001. DeMenna also is a key fundraiser for the Republican Party. Though Horne said he handed over the investigation of HighGround and DeMenna to Maricopa County Attorney Bill Montgomery as soon as he became aware they were involved, documents show Horne was informed months earlier the case involved several lobbyists. A Maricopa County Attorney's Office memo obtained by The Republic shows Horne was present at a late April 2011 meeting where the investigation of the Fiesta Bowl lobbyists was discussed. Earlier that month, he was questioned by The Arizona Republic about his relationship with lobbyists and whether that could influence his investigation. Those events occurred roughly six months before he turned the lobbyist investigation over in October to Montgomery's office. During that same April 2011 meeting, Horne withdrew from another Fiesta Bowl-related investigation involving state legislators who took tickets and accepted free trips to out-of-state college football games, citing a conflict of interest. But he wanted his office to investigate Fiesta Bowl lobbyists, according to a Maricopa County Attorney's Office memo. Horne's position regarding the lobbyists changed last fall, when he declared a conflict of interest. On Oct. 24, his office sent an assistant attorney general's research documents and charging recommendations regarding the lobbyist cases to Montgomery. By then, Montgomery was well into his investigation of the referred case regarding lawmakers who had received Fiesta Bowl gifts. In December, Montgomery announced he would not prosecute legislators or lobbyists, citing vagueness in state laws and the lack of "evidence leading to criminal liability." When asked recently about his decision not to prosecute the lobbyists, Montgomery said there was no reasonable likelihood of convicting DeMenna or HighGround. The lobbyists said Montgomery's decision was correct because they and their firms did nothing illegal. DeMenna said he was unaware until he was recently contacted by The Republic that he had been identified for charging by a prosecutor in the Attorney General's Office. "The (state) prosecutor in this case was wrong," Coughlin said. "We complied with the law. There is confusion about this law in some circles. Not here. Not here at HighGround." According to Coughlin, it was the duty of the Fiesta Bowl's primary lobbyist to report the expenditures for which HighGround was later questioned. Coughlin said he reported those expenditures to the person he considered the bowl's primary lobbyist, Gary Husk. Portions of the state's draft indictments, obtained by The Republic through a formal request to Montgomery's office, alleged HighGround and DeMenna, as lobbyists, knowingly failed to report expenditures benefiting lawmakers during out-of-state trips paid for by the bowl from 2002 to 2004 and 2007. The penalty for such misdemeanor violations is a fine of up to $20,000 for a business, and up to six months in jail or a $2,500 fine for an individual. The records indicate Horne took a much different approach in waiting so long to declare a conflict of interest in the lobbyist cases, as opposed to the early declaration of conflict in the elected officials' cases. "Attorney General Horne has been inconsistent on when he does and when he doesn't have a conflict of interest," said former U.S. Attorney Paul Charlton, who has tangled with Horne's office over legal matters involving the state Independent Redistricting Commission. "A more careful attorney general would have decided that (conflict-of-interest) fact far earlier." Horne spokeswoman Amy Rezzonico said the office conflicted itself out of the investigation involving Fiesta Bowl lobbyists as soon as Horne became aware of involvement of HighGround and DeMenna, and the charging decision ultimately was up to Montgomery. "The timing is not suspect," Rezzonico said. "At the time it became personal knowledge for Tom Horne is when we conflicted off. ... It was nothing more than when the information was delivered to him." But records and news reports indicate Horne knew his office was investigating HighGround and other lobbyists about six months before he declared the conflict of interest. An April 7, 2011, Arizona Republic story said HighGround employees were contributors to Horne's 2010 campaign. That story also said HighGround principals hosted a fundraiser Horne held at Rezzonico's home on March 28, 2011, the same day the Fiesta Bowl turned over to the Attorney General's Office details of an internal investigation of wrongdoing at the bowl. That Fiesta Bowl report mentions HighGround or Coughlin 39 times. Horne was asked about a potential conflict of interest with lobbyists, according to the April 7, 2011, story. He responded then that campaign contributions do not "have anything to do with investigating criminal activity." Records obtained from Montgomery's office also indicate that on April 27, 2011, Horne attended a meeting with prosecutors in his office and Montgomery regarding the Fiesta Bowl investigation. Horne said Wednesday he had "no memory" of that April meeting. When a Maricopa County Attorney's Office memo was read to him over the phone noting his attendance, Horne then said he may have attended. However, he added, his focus at the time was not on HighGround or DeMenna. Instead, it was on Husk, who remains under investigation by Horne's office but has denied any wrongdoing and has not been charged. The memo, written by County Attorney's Office detective Mark Stribling, makes clear Horne made reference to a group of lobbyists. "AG Tom Horne again stated that he intends to retain jurisdiction of all matters including those involving lobbyists," the memo says. An April 28, 2011, Arizona Republic story also raised questions about Horne's relationship with Fiesta Bowl lobbyists, including HighGround. At that time, Horne dismissed insinuations from the Democratic Party chairman that his office could not be impartial in its investigation of the lobbyists, saying it was his job to be nonpartisan. Attorney General's Office investigation The Attorney General's Office, under a previous administration, had been investigating the Fiesta Bowl since summer 2010 to determine whether bowl employees had illegally been reimbursed for making campaign contributions to politicians. The state investigation ramped up after the bowl in March 2011 -- a few months after Horne took office -- released its own investigative report. That report alleged widespread financial mismanagement, disclosed that gifts had been given to elected officials and concluded employees had been reimbursed for making campaign contributions. In early April 2011, the chairman of the Arizona Democratic Party publicly questioned Horne's integrity in investigating the Fiesta Bowl, accusing the Republican attorney general of being too cozy with lobbyists at the center of the probe. One of the lobbying firms identified at that time was HighGround. Horne brushed aside the criticism and allowed his office to continue the investigation of Fiesta Bowl lobbyists. That same month, however, he asked Montgomery to investigate the elected officials who had received gifts or traveled at the bowl's expense, citing a conflict of interest because some of the politicians could be his clients as attorney general. For roughly the next seven months, from April to October 2011, Assistant Attorney General Todd Lawson and special investigators worked on the Fiesta Bowl case. During that time, indictments were drafted against HighGround and DeMenna, and cases also were built against current and former Fiesta Bowl employees who were subsequently charged with crimes. The Attorney General's Office declined to allow Lawson to comment for this story. A state prosecutor since May 2000 who specializes in white-collar fraud cases, Lawson recommended one misdemeanor charge against HighGround and three misdemeanor charges against DeMenna. To support his recommendations, Lawson wrote lengthy memos and provided dozens of pages of documentation. Rezzonico said the assistant attorney general's recommendations regarding HighGround and DeMenna never were vetted by supervisors, and she said it is common for prosecutors to draft indictments that are never taken to a grand jury. Recommendations for the Legislature Montgomery, also a Republican, concluded last December that he could not prove criminal intent because of inconsistent state laws, vague reporting requirements for elected officials and lobbyists, and insufficient Fiesta Bowl records to support a prosecution. However, Montgomery did compile a set of recommendations for the Arizona Legislature to consider to clear up what he called confusion in the law, and he suggested a ban or strict limits on the value of gifts lawmakers could receive. The GOP-controlled Legislature has not adopted any of Montgomery's suggestions. Additional reform proposals from the Arizona Secretary of State's Office, which governs lobbyist and candidate disclosures, also have not been passed. The governor supports changes that provide for greater clarity and transparency regarding gifts and interactions with lobbyists, according to a written statement provided to The Republic. In discussing questions raised in the records received by the newspaper, Montgomery said there may have been a "technical violation of the law." But he reiterated that there was not a reasonable likelihood of conviction. In Montgomery's analysis, state law is not clear enough in delineating when lobbyists must report their spending on public officials. That leads to questions about whether a conviction is possible. "One prosecutor's approach to a statute may not be consistent with how another prosecuting agency would approach the issue or agree with the interpretation of a statute," Montgomery said. He declined to disclose what his office's own prosecutors and investigators recommended in regards to charging the lobbyists. "It doesn't matter. It was my decision," Montgomery said. "I am the only one to be held accountable for that." Charlton, a former U.S. attorney, agreed that a supervisor may override a line prosecutor's recommendation if there is disagreement over the likelihood of success. Laws on lobbyists disclosing expenditures Coughlin and DeMenna said in interviews that neither they nor their firms acted illegally, and that they were not required to make disclosures because they were contractors or consultants, not primary lobbyists for the Fiesta Bowl. "I can't imagine the basis for a (charging) recommendation," DeMenna said. "I'm a big fan of disclosure and overfiling. But I'm not sure what we would have had to appropriately file." Coughlin said his firm was not required to report because it was not the "designated lobbyist" for the Fiesta Bowl. As a hired lobbyist, he said, HighGround was only required to report its expenditures on lawmakers to the Fiesta Bowl's primary lobbyist. Had he also reported it, he said, the spending would have been doubly reported. Coughlin said that Lawson was mistaken in his interpretation alleging violations of lobbyist-disclosure laws, and he suggested that partisan considerations were to blame: Lawson, the assistant attorney general who recommended charges, has been active in the Democratic Party. Lawson was directed by Rezzonico not to discuss the matter with The Republic. Amy Chan, the state elections director, said anyone registered as a lobbyist with the Secretary of State's Office has an obligation to report expenditures or anything of value provided to public officials. Both HighGround and DeMenna were registered lobbyists for the bowl when they made the expenditures, according to records from the Secretary of State's Office. Chan told Coughlin as much in an e-mail exchange Wednesday. In that e-mail, which Coughlin copied to The Republic, Chan also told Coughlin, "I would not expend resources chasing this type of reporting down and asking lobbyists to amend prior reports." A campaign-finance expert who represented the state said that Arizona laws are clear on what lobbyists must disclose. "When a lobbyist makes an expenditure for a legislator or a state employee, the lobbyist has to disclose that expenditure," said Jim Barton, who formerly represented the Citizens Clean Elections Commission, the Secretary of State's Office and the Independent Redistricting Commission. Though Montgomery chose not to prosecute lawmakers or lobbyists citing statutory vagueness, Lawson's investigative analysis concluded that the state campaign-finance laws would permit successful prosecution of bowl employees who made campaign contributions that were reimbursed. The Attorney General's Office pursued those charges. This year, it obtained guilty pleas from five current or former Fiesta Bowl employees who engaged in a campaign-finance conspiracy. The U.S. Attorney's Office, meanwhile, obtained a guilty plea to a federal conspiracy charge from another former employee.

Special courts for homeless people???

Source

Phoenix-area special court aimed at helping homeless

by Michelle Ye Hee Lee - Apr. 18, 2012 10:06 PM

The Republic | azcentral.com

Gov. Jan Brewer last week signed into law a bill allowing Valley Municipal and Justice courts to participate in a special court that helps homeless people get back on their feet by resolving their low-level offenses.

Municipal and Justice-of-the-Peace courts have jurisdiction over cases that happen within their respective geographic boundaries.

Homeless people are vulnerable to citations that land them in those courts for offenses like vagrancy or trespassing. Many are charged multiple times in various jurisdictions, and it is difficult to resolve those charges without transportation or money. There are higher priorities, like eating.

If warrants are issued, they prevent the defendants from being reintegrated into society because they can't get housing, a job or a driver's license.

The goal of homeless court is to remove barriers for those living on the streets who have committed victimless, low-level offenses.

"How do you help people be restored to the mainstream community from homelessness? It's a very difficult thing when you've got no home, no phone, no address, no anything to be able to start pulling yourself up," Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Norm Davis said.

Tempe, Phoenix and Glendale Municipal Courts saw that need and began holding homeless court together in 2006. Phoenix Municipal Judge Kevin Kane presides over the Regional Homeless Court held monthly at the county's Human Services Campus in downtown Phoenix and hears cases from any of those three cities.

Senate Bill 1152, sponsored by state Sen. Adam Driggs, R-Phoenix, expands Regional Homeless Court to all 50 Municipal and Justice courts in Maricopa County. It requires the Superior Court's presiding judge to determine who is eligible for homeless-court referrals and allows a Municipal Court judge or a justice of the peace to refer cases that meet the criteria. Davis said most of the courts so far have agreed to participate.

Since March 2008, 1,050 people have been interviewed to go through homeless court, and 392 have been placed on the docket to go before the judge. Sixty-four warrants have been quashed and 781 citations heard.

Cases referred to homeless court already are adjudicated. They involve mainly misdemeanors or low-level civil offenses. They must be victimless crimes. The defendant works with his or her caseworker to apply to be on the homeless-court docket. There is a background check for outstanding felonies or a history of violence.

A common scenario often involves defendants who became homeless and began living in their cars. They lost their job and can't pay for car insurance or registration, and they are cited for it. Their car gets impounded. Their license is revoked, and now they owe fines. They are still homeless.

Defendants must be working toward employment and have completed community-service requirements in lieu of fines or restitution owed to the court. They must be sober. They also need to go through a transitional program, through which they receive services such as substance-abuse treatment and life-skills training.

During this month's homeless court, some defendants did not show up because they were starting a new job or interviewing for one. That's OK at homeless court. It means they're making progress.

For each defendant, Lodestar Day Resource Center's case manager, Tammie Staley, presents a report on his or her progress. The judge asks defendants about what they have learned. If their paperwork is in order and they have fulfilled all requirements, the judge clears their case.

"The whole idea is to try to help homeless people address all of their outstanding issues," Kane said.

Paul Babeu's Lieutenants Display Poor Judgment

Paul Babeu's Lieutenants Display Poor Judgment -- Apparently a Disease in His Department

By Monica Alonzo Fri., Apr. 13 2012 at 3:17 PM

Pinal County Lieutenant Tamatha Villar was busted by the Arizona Department of Public Safety -- not once or twice, but three times -- for going at least 94 miles per hour in her county-issued car.

She wasn't responding to emergency traffic. On one of those occasions, her 10-year-old son was a passenger in the car. And even though she received two previous warnings for the same offense, she did not receive a single citation, courtesy of the Department of Public Safety.

Villar has been rewarded by being one of two members of the Pinal County Sheriff's Office nominated by Paul Babeu to attend the FBI National Academy, a prestigious program that fewer than one percent of law enforcement officers will experience.

Her colleague, fellow Lieutenant Blake King, also is attending the National Academy.

And, as New Times recently reported, King apparently wanted to cover up the arrest of Ronald Keys, a man accused of attacking an Arizona DPS officer and seriously injuring a PCSO detective as he resisted arrest last year at Country Thunder, a music festival that draws throngs of country-music fans to Florence every year

King, who asked a deputy Pinal County attorney to get rid of Keys' arrest record from a DPS database, also decided the night of the arrest -- without speaking to the officers who were involved and injured in the incident -- that the DPS officer made a "bad arrest."

Keys is the son of retired Tucson police officers, and King apparently is "friends" with some of the Tucson cops who were at "Camp Titties and Beer," a Country Thunder campground occupied by off-duty Tucson cops and the site of the attack on the DPS officer.

Within hours of the arrest, King also concluded that the DPS officer and the PCSO detective, who were working undercover, didn't properly identify themselves when they entered the camp.

We haven't seen their nomination packets, but we can't imagine they included Villar's penchant for violating traffic laws, or King's extraordinary efforts to apparently cover up the arrest of a suspect accused of attacking fellow cops.

According to the FBI, nominees must "possess an excellent character and enjoy a reputation for professional integrity."

She and PCSO Lieutenant Blake King started the 10-week program in Virginia on April 1.

Anyone else in Villar's shoes, of course, almost is guaranteed to get slapped with a ticket for excessive speed and would face criminal speeding charges. That is, any private citizen would face a driver's-license suspension of at least a year after even that many stops at such a high speeds, And with a child in the car, forget about it!

While state law dictates speed limits around schools and neighborhoods, it also specifically states that "no person shall ... exceed eighty-five miles per hour in other locations."

After the third time Villar was pulled over by a DPS officer, that agency filed a formal complaint with PCSO, and it triggered an internal investigation.

She was given a letter of reprimand, which included an admonishment to "make a conscious effort to observe and obey the posted speed limit," to "refresh" herself on state traffic laws, and to "practice improved time management, leave earlier to ensure you will be on time."

Tim Gaffney, a spokesman for the PCSO, tells New Times that rumors that Villar was traveling at speeds in excess of 100 m.p.h. are not true since there is a device on her county car "which prevents it from traveling over 94."

He also says that Villar, a 12-year employee of the PCSO, never asked not to receive a ticket and was honest during the internal investigation.

"While there were never any civil or criminal charges ever filed, our office still did a Professional Standards investigation and Lieutenant Villar received a "Letter or Reprimand" from her immediate supervisor," Gaffney said. "This is the first form of discipline she has ever received during her law enforcement career."

Regarding having her child in the car, Gaffney simply said it was allowed under Pinal County Vehicle Use Policy, since she was on her way home from work.

Perhaps it's allowed under a policy, but it calls into questions Villar's judgment -- putting a child in danger by traveling at such a speed. And what about King's judgment -- serving as a ranking law enforcement official and asking a county attorney to erase an arrest record?

However, given the type of judgment their own boss has displayed, we'd have to say that professional judgment doesn't seem to top the charts at the Pinal County Sheriff's Office

CIA wants to murder suspected terrorists in Yemen!

I wonder when the DEA will ask permission to use drone strikes in the USA to murder people who "might" be drug dealers???

This sure brings up memories of the book "1984"! Can you imagine the CIA flying drones around the world on a 24/7 basis, so they can kill "suspected" criminals on a moments notice with a drone launched missile???

And of course this comes on President Obama's shift who was labeled as anti-war by the lefties. Sadly President Obama is just as bad of a tyrant as President Bush was.

Source

CIA seeks new authority to expand Yemen drone campaign

By Greg Miller, Published: April 18

The CIA is seeking authority to expand its covert drone campaign in Yemen by launching strikes against terrorism suspects even when it does not know the identities of those who could be killed, U.S. officials said.

Securing permission to use these “signature strikes” would allow the agency to hit targets based solely on intelligence indicating patterns of suspicious behavior, such as imagery showing militants gathering at known al-Qaeda compounds or unloading explosives.

Violence in Yemen has repeatedly erupted between government and opposition forces, as well as between the government and al-Qaeda.

The practice has been a core element of the CIA’s drone program in Pakistan for several years. CIA Director David H. Petraeus has requested permission to use the tactic against the al-Qaeda affiliate in Yemen, which has emerged as the most pressing terrorism threat to the United States, officials said.

If approved, the change would probably accelerate a campaign of U.S. airstrikes in Yemen that is already on a record pace, with at least eight attacks in the past four months.

For President Obama, an endorsement of signature strikes would mean a significant, and potentially risky, policy shift. The administration has placed tight limits on drone operations in Yemen to avoid being drawn into an often murky regional conflict and risk turning militants with local agendas into al-Qaeda recruits.

A senior administration official, who like others spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive internal deliberations, declined to talk about what he described as U.S. “tactics” in Yemen, but he said that “there is still a very firm emphasis on being surgical and targeting only those who have a direct interest in attacking the United States.”

U.S. officials acknowledge that the standard has not always been upheld. Last year, a U.S. drone strike inadvertently killed the American son of al-Qaeda leader Anwar al-Awlaki. The teenager had never been accused of terrorist activity and was killed in a strike aimed at other militants.

Some U.S. officials have voiced concern that such incidents could become more frequent if the CIA is given the authority to use signature strikes.

“How discriminating can they be?” asked a senior U.S. official familiar with the proposal. Al-Qaeda’s affiliate in Yemen “is joined at the hip” with a local insurgency whose main goal is to oust the country’s government, the official said. “I think there is the potential that we would be perceived as taking sides in a civil war.”

U.S. officials said that the CIA proposal has been presented to the National Security Council and that no decision has been reached. Officials from the White House and the CIA declined to comment.

Proponents of the plan said improvements in U.S. intelligence collection in Yemen have made it possible to expand the drone campaign — and use signature strikes — while minimizing the risk of civilian casualties.

They also pointed to the CIA’s experience in Pakistan. U.S. officials said the agency killed more senior al-Qaeda operatives there with signature strikes than with those in which it had identified and located someone on its kill list.

In Pakistan, the CIA “killed most of their ‘list people’ when they didn’t know they were there,” said a former senior U.S. military official familiar with drone operations.

The agency has cited the Pakistan experience to administration officials in arguing, perhaps counterintuitively, that it can be more effective against al-Qaeda’s Yemen affiliate if it doesn’t have to identify its targets before an attack. Obama, however, ruled out a similar push for such authority more than a year ago.

Increasing focus on Yemen

The CIA, the National Security Agency and other spy services have deployed more officers and resources to Yemen over the past several years to augment counterterrorism operations that were previously handled almost exclusively by the U.S. Joint Special Operations Command.

The CIA began flying armed drones over Yemen last year after opening a secret base on the Arabian Peninsula. The agency also has worked with the Saudi and Yemeni intelligence services to build networks of informants — much the way it did in Pakistan before ramping up drone strikes there.

The agency’s strategy in Pakistan was centered on mounting a drone campaign so relentless that it allowed no time between attacks for al-Qaeda operatives to regroup. The use of signature strikes came to be seen as critical to achieving that pace.

The approach involved assembling threads of intelligence from multiple sources to develop telltale “signatures” of al-Qaeda activity based on operatives’ vehicles, facilities, communications equipment and patterns of behavior.

A former senior U.S. intelligence official said the CIA became so adept at this that it could tell what was happening inside an al-Qaeda compound — whether a leader was visiting or explosives were being assembled, for example — based on the location and number of security operatives surrounding the site.

The agency might be able to replicate that success in Yemen, the former intelligence official said. But he expressed skepticism that White House officials, including counterterrorism adviser John O. Brennan, will approve the CIA’s request.

The situation in Pakistan’s tribal territory “is far less ambiguous than in Yemen,” the former official said. “Brennan has been deliberate in making sure targets we hit in Yemen are terrorist targets and not insurgents.”

As a result, the CIA has been limited to “personality” strikes in Yemen, meaning it can fire only in cases where it has clear evidence that someone on its target list is in a drone’s crosshairs.

Often, that requires information from multiple sources, including imagery, cellphone intercepts and informants on the ground.

Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, or AQAP, as the Yemen-based group is known, has not been linked to a major terrorist plot since its failed attempt to mail parcels packed with explosives to addresses in Chicago in 2010. The death of Awlaki in a CIA drone strike last year is thought to have diminished the group’s ability to mount follow-on attacks.

But U.S. counterterrorism officials said that Awlaki’s death did not extinguish the group’s determination to attack the United States and noted that other key operatives — including Ibrahim Hassan al-Asiri, who designed the bombs used in the parcel plot — remain at large.

A quickening pace

The pace of U.S. airstrikes in Yemen is still far from the peak levels in Pakistan, but it is on a distinctly upward trend, with about as many strikes so far this year as in all of 2011.

Which U.S. entity is responsible for each strike remains unclear. In Pakistan, the CIA carries out every drone strike. But in Yemen, the United States has relied on a mix of capabilities, including drones flown by the CIA and the Joint Special Operations Command, as well as conventional military aircraft and warships parked off the coast.

The JSOC has broader authority than the CIA to pursue militants in Yemen and is not seeking permission to use signature strikes, U.S. officials said.

Obama administration officials have refused to provide details of how militants are targeted or to disclose the identities of those killed.

Asked to explain the surge in strikes this year, U.S. officials denied that there has been any change in authorities. Instead, they attributed the pace to intelligence-gathering efforts that were expanded several years ago but are only beginning to pay off.

“There has never been a decision to step up or down” the number of strikes, said a senior U.S. official involved in overseeing the Yemen campaign. “It’s all intelligence-driven.”

The Long War Journal, a Web site that tracks drone operations, estimates that there have been 27 strikes in Yemen since 2009 and that 198 militants and 48 civilians have been killed.

Awlaki was killed last September, six weeks after the CIA began flying armed drones over Yemen. This year, one senior AQAP operative has been killed: Abdul Mun’im Salim al Fatahani, who was suspected of involvement in the 2000 attack on the USS Cole in Yemen, was killed in January by a drone strike in Abyan province, according to the Long War Journal.

Staff writers Karen DeYoung and Julie Tate contributed to this report.

Oregon man says FBI was behind his torture in Abu Dhabi

Oregon man says FBI was behind his torture in Abu Dhabi

April 18, 2012 | 4:33 pm

An Oregon man is seeking asylum in Sweden, saying he was tortured while in the United Arab Emirates by interrogators cooperating with the FBI as it tried to investigate a Portland mosque.

Yonas Fikre says he was arrested in June and taken to an Abu Dhabi prison, where he was beaten, threatened and isolated during three months of detention. Fikre told reporters he was asked about the Masjid as-Sabr, spurring him to ask his interrogators whether they worked for the FBI.

The Associated Press quoted Fikre as saying that they first denied working with Americans, but later “when I was getting beaten, they did admit that the FBI knew exactly what was happening and they were working with the FBI."

The Portland mosque, which Fikre had attended, has been linked to suspects in two cases in the last decade: a 19-year-old who allegedly plotted to set off a bomb in Portland, and a group of seven people indicted for conspiring to wage war against the United States.

Fikre's case, originally reported by Mother Jones magazine, has been spotlighted by a Washington-based Islamic advocacy group, which argues that it reflects a broader threat to the rights of American Muslims.

"This disturbing case fits a pattern of proxy detention in which American Muslims are detained in other nations or prevented from returning home in a manner that is clearly designed to circumvent their constitutional rights," the Council on American-Islamic Relations wrote to the Department of Justice.

A Portland FBI spokeswoman told the Associated Press that she could not discuss specifics of the case, but said agents were thoroughly trained about what was acceptable under U.S. law. Human rights activists say that such "proxy detention" echoes the practice of "extraordinary rendition," which involves transferring suspects for interrogation in countries that cooperate with the United States, and that it opens the door to torture.

In a videotaped interview released by his lawyers and shared online by Mother Jones, Fikre says that years earlier, while he was in Sudan, he was questioned about the mosque by men who identified themselves as FBI agents and told him he was on the federal no-fly list.

Fikre said they asked him to be an informant and he turned them down.

Scottsdale cop who killed 6 people to retire on $4,546/mo pension???

Source

Officer involved in 7 shootings up for disability retirement

by Ofelia Madrid - Apr. 19, 2012 01:45 PM

The Republic | azcentral.com

An independent medical exam will determine whether the Scottsdale officer who fatally shot six people on duty is eligible for accidental disability retirement.

Officer James Peters, 37, who has been with the Scottsdale Police Department since 2000, has filed for accidental disability, which means that he suffered an injury on the job that prevents him from doing his job. On Thursday, the Scottsdale board of the Public Safety Personnel Retirement System voted to send Peters to an independent medical exam to determine if he is eligible.

The board is expected to vote on whether to approve or reject the application in the coming months.

Peters submitted his application for retirement on April 12. According to the application, which city officials released with his medical information redacted, he would be eligible for a monthly pension of $4,546.

The independent medical exam is the first step to determine whether the board will approve Peters' application, said Michael Anthony, a lawyer representing the board. Peters' doctor already has submitted reasons supporting why Peters is eligible for accidental disability retirement.

Neither Peters nor a representative for him was present at the Thursday meeting, held at the Scottsdale Police and Fire Department Headquarters.

Peters was involved in seven shootings since 2002, six of them fatal, including the most recent incident on Feb. 14.

That day, Peters shot 50-year-old John Loxas after police were called to a house in the 7700 block of East Garfield Street, near Hayden and McKellips roads. Neighbors had called 911 earlier and said Loxas had threatened them with a handgun.

Peters, a former member of the department's SWAT team, was one of six officers who responded to the call. He fired at Loxas as he was holding a child in front of him. Police said the shots were fired to prevent Loxas from re-entering the house with the child.

Police recovered a loaded pistol in the house.

Peters was placed on administrative leave after the shooting, which is standard procedure.

Each of Peters' previous shootings have been determined justified through an internal investigation, as well as an external investigation by the Maricopa County Attorney's Office.

His previous fatal shooting occurred in March 2010, when Peters shot and killed a man suspected in a string of bank robberies. At the time, The Republic reported that the city had settled in 2009 with the family of one of the people involved in a different fatal shooting for $75,000 but denied liability.

In another case, Peters was honored for his actions in responding to a hostage situation and the hostage thanked the officer for saving his life and shooting the suspect.

Cops always take the 4th and 5th, you should too!!!!

Source

Babeu files subpoenaed in on-the-job politicking inquiry

by Lindsey Collom - Apr. 19, 2012 11:21 PM

The Republic | azcentral.com

The federal agency investigating Pinal County Sheriff Paul Babeu and several of his top aides involving possible unlawful political activity has issued two subpoenas after the Sheriff's Office refused to turn over two laptops for inspection.

Documents obtained by The Arizona Republic show the subpoenas were issued April 10 by the U.S. Office of Special Counsel, which is investigating possible violations of the Hatch Act.

The subpoenas were issued one week after Communications Director Tim Gaffney, who also is a target of the investigation, told The Republic in an e-mail that his "office is fully cooperating with the Office of Special Counsel inquiry. ... We are working directly with the Office of Special Counsel to ensure they are able to obtain whatever information they need."

The special counsel is looking into allegations that Babeu and several key aides were working on his congressional campaign with county resources or while on the clock. Babeu is running for Congress in Arizona's conservative 4th District against state Sen. Ron Gould and Rep. Paul Gosar, R-Ariz. He is expected to face both tonight in Prescott in the first debate of the campaign.

The special counsel is also investigating similar allegations regarding Chief Deputy Steve Henry's exploratory campaign for Pinal County sheriff.

The Hatch Act makes it illegal for certain government workers to participate in political activities.

The inquiries began late last year with an initial request for information. After that, Treyer Mason-Gale, an attorney with the federal office's Hatch Act Unit, sent a "request for information or assistance" to the county's chief information officer, seeking a detailed search of electronic equipment and files in the Sheriff's Office.

While trying to comply with that request, the information-technology department asked for access to the laptops of Henry and Cheryl Chase, director of community relations. E-mails obtained by The Republic via a public-records request show that an employee said Babeu directed him to deny access to them.

Gaffney later said that Chase's laptop would be made available but that the office had concerns about sensitive law-enforcement information on Henry's laptop.

Information from the laptops and other searches requested in Mason-Gale's letter was due on March 27. That deadline was not met.

The separate subpoenas, which were sent to the Sheriff's Office and Board of Supervisors, set a Monday deadline for compliance. They also expanded the scope of the information sought.

Babeu's office was told to provide all documents "referring to or relating to the candidacy and/or campaign" of Babeu and Henry beginning Nov. 1. The subpoena defines documents as "writing or records of every kind or character" to include electronic and written communication, notes, video and audio recordings, photographs, interoffice memos, and any kind of accounting and financial record.

At the same time, Pinal County was told to provide the same information required of the Sheriff's Office, as well as documents resulting from a keyword search of all electronic files of the Sheriff's Office stored on county servers and the tapes of backed-up e-mails for Babeu and his top aides. The county was also instructed to conduct a forensic search of the original hard drives for any desktop, laptop and tablet computers used by Babeu, Henry, Gaffney, Chase and spokesman Elias Johnson.

The special-counsel inquiry is one of three ongoing investigations of Babeu and the Sheriff's Office.

Arizona Solicitor General David Cole is investigating abuse-of-power allegations against Babeu, who is accused of threatening to deport his former boyfriend in an attempt keep their relationship secret. Cole also is investigating allegations that the boyfriend, Jose Orozco, hacked Babeu's campaign websites. Babeu requested that inquiry.

The Pima County Attorney's Office is investigating whether Babeu's office unlawfully destroyed more than 6,000 electronic files, most of them e-mails.

David Selden, an attorney retained this week to advise Pinal County management, the Board of Supervisors and IT staff, said the county won't meet the subpoena deadline. But he has "every reason to believe" the Office of Special Counsel is satisfied with the county's compliance thus far.

"The county has a plan for how to respond to the Office of Special Counsel, produce documents that the office has requested, and do so in a way that we believe is economical for the taxpayers ... cooperative with the Sheriff's Office, and respectful of any interest the Sheriff's Office has with respect to (sensitive) documents," Selden said Thursday.

Mary O'Grady, an attorney hired this month to counsel the Sheriff's Office in civil matters, said Thursday that "we're working with the Office of Special Counsel to respond, and we don't have any other information to provide at this time."

Failure to obey the subpoena may lead to a U.S. District Court order, which if ignored could result in a contempt-of- court charge.

Earlier this month, a policy director for the Office of Special Counsel said investigators try to negotiate with agencies and typically use legal means as a last resort.

Special-counsel spokeswoman Ann O'Hanlon would not comment on the investigation. In general, she said, the issuance of a subpoena doesn't always mean that an agency did not comply with a records request.

"There is such thing as a friendly subpoena, and this happens with us sometimes," O'Hanlon said. "If an entity wants to give us the information we're asking for, but is restricted from doing so -- or believes they could be in some kind of legal trouble if they did -- then a subpoena protects them and enables them to give us the information without compromising themselves."

Search warrant??? We don't need no stinking search warrant!!!!

Source

Officer shouted racial slur before 2nd cop killed black man

By Richard Liebson, The (Westchester, N.Y.) Journal News

WHITE PLAINS, N.Y. – An officer named in a police-brutality lawsuit shouted a racial slur at a black man before another officer killed him, a lawyer for the dead man's family said.

City Police Officer Steven Hart can be heard on audiotapes using the N-word as he stood Nov. 19 at the apartment window of Kenneth Chamberlain Sr., 68, trying to persuade him to open his door, said Randolph McLaughlin, the Chamberlain family lawyer.

"He's outside, at the window, tapping, tapping, tapping, and you hear him say, 'Mr. Chamberlain, Mr. Chamberlain. Stop. We have to talk, n-,' " McLaughlin said Thursday.

Chamberlain, a retired Westchester County corrections officer and former U.S. Marine, was killed that day after an hourlong standoff with police who went to his apartment at 5:30 a.m. when his medical alert alarm went off, apparently by accident. Family members said Chamberlain, who had a chronic heart condition, told police he had no emergency and that he was all right, but officers insisted on coming inside.

"Here you have a white officer outside a predominantly African-American housing unit, using the N- word," McLaughlin said. "What is going on in the White Plains Police Department?"

Police said Chamberlain was "emotionally disturbed" and screaming at officers, and they were concerned someone else might have been in the apartment in some type of danger. An autopsy showed that Chamberlain had been drinking.

White Plains' public safety commissioner, David Chong, said Chamberlain attacked officers with a hatchet and a knife and ignored orders to drop his weapons.

Despite being shot with a stun gun and bean bags, police said Chamberlain kept coming at them and was killed when Officer Anthony Carelli fired a shot that went through Chamberlain's arm and into his chest as he was about to stab an officer.

Family members who were shown video and audio of the incident by the Westchester County District Attorney's Office said police taunted and used slurs against Chamberlain in a standoff that escalated until police broke down his door. The audio was recorded by a telephone hooked up to Chamberlain's life-alert device, and the officer was identified in the transcript.

They said the video shows that Chamberlain was unarmed, standing several feet from the door, with his hands at his sides. Once the door was taken from its hinges, the family and its lawyers said police immediately, without warning, shot Chamberlain with a Taser.

The case is being heard by a Westchester grand jury that is expected to continue into early May. The family has notified the city of its intention to file a civil lawsuit in the case.

Edgar Maraud, 30, sued Hart and another officer in federal court in December, claiming that he was falsely arrested and beaten by Hart in an incident on Jan. 15, 2011.

Maraud said Thursday that he had just left a bar at about 2 a.m. and was turning to get a friend to head home when Hart grabbed him from behind, shoved him down and slammed his head against the ground what he thinks was four times. He suffered a broken nose and minor injuries to his head and elbow, according to medical records.

"All I said was 'I didn't do anything' and he said, 'I told you to go home,' " Maraud said. "It was a lie. There was no reason for me to get beat up like that."

Maraud, 30, is Hispanic and said he felt racially profiled that night, even though neither officer mentioned his ethnicity. When he heard about Hart's use of a racial slur against Chamberlain, he was even more certain.

"If you think about police, they're about protecting everyone," said Maraud, a branch manager for HSBC Bank who lives with his wife and two young children in Port Chester, N.Y. "He shouldn't be on the police force."

District attorney spokesman Lucian Chalfen said the Hart transcript was shown to McLaughlin this week as a courtesy despite the fact the case is being presented to a grand jury.

"The D.A. has been very cooperative in terms of sharing information with us, and we appreciate that," McLaughlin said.

Murdering a gang banger is a badge of honor for LAPD cops???

Secret clique in L.A. County sheriff's gang unit probed

By Robert Faturechi, Los Angeles Times

April 20, 2012

Los Angeles County sheriff's detectives have launched a probe into what appears to be a secret deputy clique within the department's elite gang unit, an investigation triggered by the discovery of a document suggesting the group embraces shootings as a badge of honor.

The document described a code of conduct for the Jump Out Boys, a clique of hard-charging, aggressive deputies who gain more respect after being involved in a shooting, according to sources with knowledge of the investigation. The pamphlet is relatively short, sources said, and explains that deputies earn admission into the group through the endorsement of members.

The sources stressed that the internal affairs investigation is still in its early stages and that little is known about the Jump Out Boys' behavior or its membership.

Still, sheriff's officials are concerned that the group represents another unsanctioned clique within the department's ranks, a problem the department has been grappling with for decades.

Last year, the department fired a group of deputies who all worked on the third, or "3000," floor of Men's Central Jail, after the group fought two fellow deputies at an employee Christmas party and allegedly punched a female deputy in the face. Sheriff's officials later said the men had formed an aggressive "3000" clique that used gang-like three-finger hand signs. A former top jail commander told The Times that jailers would "earn their ink" by breaking inmates' bones.

Other cliques — with names like Grim Reapers, Little Devils, Regulators and Vikings —- have been accused of breeding a gang-like mentality in which deputies falsify police reports, perjure themselves and cover up misconduct.

The investigation into the Jump Out Boys is focused on the sheriff's Gang Enforcement Team. The unit is divided into two platoons of relatively autonomous deputies whose job it is to target neighborhoods where gang violence and intimidation area concern.

The sources, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the case was ongoing, described parts of the memo to The Times. The pamphlet extols hard work and other positive virtues, but there is concern that some of the language conflicts with department expectations.

Most notably, sources said, was a positive depiction of officer-involved shootings. A distinction is made, sources said, between cops who have and cops who have not been involved in shootings.

But the attitude is troubling because officer-involved shootings, even those that are within policy, are expected by the department to be treated as events of last resort. Sheriff's officials have warned against forming rogue subgroups because they threaten to stress allegiance to the clique and subvert loyalty to the department and its policies.

Sheriff Lee Baca's spokesman said the department is taking the issue seriously, and detectives are gathering evidence and conducting interviews.

"We're going to be looking at this right now, but it really could be a fantasy, something that's not true but right now we're going to find out exactly what is and what isn't and that will determine what our next step is," spokesman Steve Whitmore said.

Whitmore declined to discuss details of the investigation or the contents of the document. Asked about the language that portrays shootings in a positive light, he said, "The last thing anybody wants to do in law enforcement is shoot a weapon."

Whitmore said Baca understands that deputies might bond and form social groups with close co-workers but prohibits cliques when "it does not embrace the integrity to do what is right."

Historically, within the Sheriff's Department, the groups have been tied to patrol stations. In one instance, a federal judge called one of those groups, the Lynwood Vikings, a "neo-Nazi, white supremacist gang" that had engaged in racially motivated hostility. As part of a 1996 settlement, the county agreed to retrain deputies to prevent such conduct and pay $7.5 million to compensate victims of alleged abuses.

Affiliation with such groups reaches the highest levels of the department, all the way up to Baca's second-in-command, Paul Tanaka, who the sheriff acknowledged in an interview last year still had his Vikings tattoo.

In February, The Times reported allegations that a supervisor inside the sheriff's Compton station aimed a gun at the head of a fellow sergeant, who alleged the threat was part of a vendetta motivated by ties to a secret deputy clique.

Maria Haberfeld, a professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York who specializes in police ethics and training, said police subcultures can provide officers with much needed support in a dangerous job. But she said that closeness can become problematic.

"Solidarity is one of the main things of police subculture," she said, "so the closer the group, the higher the possibility that various cases of misconduct will be covered up."

robert.faturechi@latimes.com

State lawmakers take jab at federal government with terrorism, public land bills

State lawmakers take jab at federal government with terrorism, public land bills

Posted: Thursday, April 19, 2012 4:36 pm

By Howard Fischer, Capitol Media Services

Unable to unilaterally kill a federal anti-terrorism law, state legislators have settled for the next best thing: threatening to send those who help enforce the law to jail.

SB 1182 would make it illegal for any state official, agency or employee to enforce or attempt to enforce two sections of the new National Defense Authorization Act. Those sections deal with when the federal government can detain people — including U.S. citizens — suspected of involvement in terrorism.

The legislation, which passed the House Thursday on a 34-24 vote, would make helping the feds with that a misdemeanor. That even includes state and local police.

A nearly identical version already has been approved by the Senate.

But that isn’t the only jab the Legislature took Thursday at Washington.

On a separate voice vote, the House gave preliminary approval to legislation demanding the U.S. government give up title to all of its public lands in Arizona and give them to the state.

SB 1332 would allow the state to keep what it wants. And it would retain 5 percent of the net proceeds of anything it sold off, giving the balance to the federal government.

Sen. Al Melvin, R-Tucson, conceded he does not expect Washington to suddenly give Arizona the deed to millions of acres of federal land here.

The federal government controls nearly 48,000 square miles, about 42 percent of the state.

Melvin’s bill wants all of it, not including about 5,800 square miles of military bases and more than 4,000 square miles of national parks, though it does demand national monuments and wilderness areas.

Nor does Melvin foresee the state using police to seize the land.

But he figures the legislation, which already has gained Senate approval in slightly different form, will provide the legal basis for a lawsuit.

More to the point, Melvin noted that other states are pursuing similar measures. And Utah’s governor signed a law last month demanding back what the feds own.

“What I envision is something like Obamacare,” he said, where two dozen states filed suit and successfully got the U.S. Supreme Court to review the legality of federal action. “I’m hoping the attorneys general in Western states band together in a similar action.”

Melvin’s original plan said if the feds refuse to surrender the land, then the state would tax it. But that provision was removed after House attorneys said that was illegal, leaving only the demand.

The legislation about police also deals with a contention that the federal government has overreached and is acting illegally. But Sen. Sylvia Allen, R-Snowflake, who has her own measures challenging federal ownership of land in Arizona, said this one is potentially far more serious.

That law, signed at the end of last year by President Obama, gives him authority “to use all necessary and appropriate force” to detain, without trial, certain people. That includes not only those who planned or aided in the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks but anyone who “substantially supported al-Qaeda, the Taliban or associated forces.”

And that includes U.S. citizens.

The law also authorizes military trials.

State lawmakers already have voted to condemn the law. But Allen said that’s not enough.

She said anyone who works for the state or local government should be barred from having anything to do with enforcing that law. And Allen said she sees nothing wrong with threatening those who do with arrest.

“Policemen aren’t above criminal penalties,” she said. “If they speed, they can get a ticket, if they punch somebody they can be brought up on charges.” [Yea, they can be charged, but they almost never are charged. Cops can and do literally get away with murder!]

This, said Allen, is no different.

“If you help the federal government to arrest citizens who have due process, then it’s a misdemeanor,” she said. And that carries a potential six months in jail.

Rep. Steve Farley, R-Tucson, said Allen is right in objecting to the federal law, but wrong on her approach.

“I strongly support the intention behind this bill,” he said, calling the NDAA “a real problem.”

But he said the criminal penalties make no sense.

“We’re putting our own law enforcement officers in a hopeless double bind where they’re committing a state crime if they try to stop a federal crime,” Farley said. “I don’t know that we want to put our law enforcement officials in that position.”

Allen does not see it that way. In fact, she said her legislation helps police enforce their sworn duty to obey both the state and federal constitutions.

She then ticked off a list of where the NDAA conflicts with constitutional rights, the right to a speedy trial, aid of counsel, confront witnesses and a speedy trial. And that doesn’t even take into account the freedom from unreasonable searches and seizures as well as a prohibition on excessive bail.

“They’re supposed to uphold the constitution,” she said of police. “And they turn right around and they go against many provisions of it?”

Allen said nothing in her legislation will stop a police officer from making an arrest.

“It’s going to stop them from allowing or participating,” she said. “In Arizona, we uphold the Constitution and protect our citizens’ due process. I don’t know why that’s kind of strange.”

But Allen stressed that she’s not trying to protect those who conspire against the country. She said the only thing her measure does is ensure anyone who is accused is guaranteed the constitutional due process. And if they’re guilty? “I hope they go to jail and rot there,” she said.

Mesa police officer says the police are corrupt!!!

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Richardson: Arizona lacking in good, honest law enforcement leaders

Posted: Friday, April 20, 2012 10:17 am

Guest Commentary by Bill Richardson

Good and honest law enforcement is the cornerstone of a nation of laws. Unfortunately Arizona has serious problems in that regard when it comes to its elected and appointed law enforcement leadership.

This week’s announcement that ex-Maricopa County Attorney Andy Thomas was disbarred for ethical breaches was another sad chapter in the failings of Arizona law enforcement’s leadership. He is also reportedly under investigation by the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

Thomas hasn’t been the only Arizona law enforcement officer to attract attention from authorities.

Three weeks ago, it was reported Arizona Attorney General Tom Horne, Arizona’s top law enforcement officer, was under investigation by the FBI for possible illegal fundraising activities during the 2010 election. This isn’t Horne’s first brush with the law. In 1973, Horne was banned for life from being “associated with any broker, dealer, investment adviser or registered investment company” by the U. S. Securities and Exchange Commission for violating anti-fraud provisions of federal securities laws, and filing false financial reports.

On top of Thomas and Horne, it’s no secret the FBI has been looking into the activities of Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio and his former Chief Deputy Dave Hendershott for possible civil rights violations.

Arpaio’s tough-on-crime protege Pinal County Sheriff Paul Babeu is under investigation for allegations stemming from an admitted love affair gone bad with a man suspected of being an illegal alien. Babeu is also reportedly being looked at by the feds for using taxpayer resources in his congressional campaign. Steve Henry, Babeu’s chief deputy and candidate for Pinal sheriff, is also reportedly under investigation over campaign issues.

Questionable law enforcement leadership conduct isn’t limited only to elected officers.

In 2005, it was reported by the Arizona Republic that Glendale Police Chief Andrew Kirkland resigned following his “inappropriate” relationship with a subordinate female officer.

In 2009, KPHO CBS 5 News reported current Tempe Police Chief Tom Ryff admitted it was his voice on an audio tape telling a subordinate officer to lie to his sergeant in order to get out of work so the officer and Ryff could “step out on their wives.”

During the 2010 Arizona Senate confirmation hearing of Arizona Department of Public Safety Director Bobby Halliday, it was revealed Halliday was involved in a disturbance that was reported to police. Halliday was also quizzed about his coziness with the trucking industry, an industry regulated by DPS. After Halliday’s confirmation, DPS altered its policy and prohibited officers from making “administrative stops” on trucks, which do not require probable cause but are done to check drivers’ log books and look for safety violations. Later, Assistant Director Jack Hegarty, Halliday’s head of the highway patrol, was linked to a trucking industry lobbyist. Hegarty took an early retirement following a complaint involving possible ethical violations.

And in 2011, it was reported by the Republic that Quartzite police chief Jeff Gilbert was under investigation for abuse of power for targeting political enemies of the town council, and Goodyear police chief Mark Brown retired suddenly after questions regarding his involvement in a “cover-up” of police misconduct during a death investigation.

These are just a few examples of recent law enforcement leadership misdeeds in Arizona.

Law enforcement leaders are supposed to set an exemplary example for subordinates and the community. Those officials with character flaws are easy prey for anyone looking to corrupt our system. Law enforcement is only as good and honest as those who lead the protectors of the public.

Arizona has no minimum standards to be a police chief. Sheriffs need only be registered voters. Prosecutors must be lawyers. In some cases, police chiefs don’t even have to pass a polygraph test like a new officer would. Elected officials are exempt from polygraphs.

Arizona has some great chiefs, sheriffs and prosecutors. But some aren’t what Arizona needs.

It’s time to change how chief law enforcement officers are selected.

If law enforcement fails, so does Arizona’s future.

Retired Mesa master police officer Bill Richardson lives in the East Valley and can be reached at bill.richardson@cox.net.

Mike Tyson says he got prison official pregnant

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Mike Tyson says he got prison official pregnant

Apr. 20, 2012 01:07 PM

Bang Showbiz

Mike Tyson claims to have gotten a prison officer pregnant when he was in jail.

The 45-year-old retired boxer - who served three years of a six-year prison sentence for rape in 1992 and returned to jail for nine months in 1998 following a road rage conviction - revealed the woman in question did not have the child, but he refused to elaborate on any other details.

Asked by ESPN host Rick Reilly what he has left out of his one-man show 'Mike Tyson: Undisputed Truth', he said: ''I didn't talk about getting a prison official pregnant.

''Oh yeah. In prison, stuff happens. But she had no baby.''

Former heavyweight champion Mike - who has eight children - also discussed the many drugs he used to take, describing the substances, both legal and prescription, as his ''little friends''.

He said: ''I just liked morphine, but I had to take a lot of it because it didn't stay in your system for a long time.

''And I'd have my cocaine, and I had my marijuana, and I had my Cialis and Viagra and my little friends all sitting there.''

Cops like doctors love to bury their mistakes!!!

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Man convicted of murder who proclaimed his innocence to be freed

By Jack Leonard, Los Angeles Times

April 21, 2012

Frank O'Connell sat in the same Pasadena courtroom where more than a quarter of a century ago he was sentenced to life in prison for a murder he insists he did not commit.

In front of him, a new judge on Friday delivered the words he had long awaited: He could go free on bail.

Behind him, his relatives sobbed with relief. His lips trembling and with tears in his eyes, O'Connell turned to look at his son, who was just 4 when a judge convicted him of gunning down a maintenance man at a South Pasadena apartment complex.

Nearby, O'Connell's mother blew kisses at him. Then he was embraced by one of the attorneys on a legal team that had worked for 15 years to win his freedom.

"I'm going home," said a still-handcuffed O'Connell as he walked past photographers in the packed courtroom.

The scene capped an emotional hearing that followed L.A. County Superior Court Judge Suzette Clover's decision last month that O'Connell should receive a new trial. The judge found that sheriff's detectives during his first trial had failed to disclose evidence pointing to another possible suspect and may have improperly influenced witnesses.

On Friday, Clover repeated that O'Connell's right to a fair trial had been violated in 1985 when the "evidence was withheld from both the [prosecution] and the defense that goes directly to the issue of Mr. O'Connell's guilt or innocence." Back then, O'Connell had opted for a judge to determine his guilt rather than a jury, and the evidence that was used to convict him "has now been, to some degree, called into question," Clover said.

Over the objections of the district attorney's office, which had argued that the conviction should stand, the judge set O'Connell's bail at $75,000 — the same amount as during his original trial.

"I'm just on cloud nine," said his mother, Rosemarie, as her family waited in hopes of his quick release. "I've always known that he's innocent.... I'm going to hug him. I'm going to not let him go."

Prosecutors, however, are still reviewing whether there is enough evidence to retry O'Connell for the shooting of Jay French. French's relatives attended Friday's court hearing with photos of him smiling with his own son on his lap.

They said they believed O'Connell was guilty and hoped prosecutors would retry the case. The district attorney's office is expected to announce a decision by May 18.

"He's going to be out, but Jay's gone," said French's niece, Gina DeVito

French's wife, Gina French, rushed to his side shortly after the gunshots on Jan. 5, 1984. She recalled on Friday how her dying husband told her that he believed his ex-wife, Jeanne Lyon, had something to do with the shooting. Lyon and French were embroiled in a bitter custody battle over their son, Jay Jr.

Then pregnant with the victim's son, Gina French attended Friday's hearing with the boy, Bryan, now 27.

"The pain will never stop," she said.

O'Connell's family expressed sympathy for French's relatives but said they had lost O'Connell for nearly three decades as a result of his wrongful conviction.

"Our nightmare is over, but theirs is not," said one of O'Connell's sisters, Kathy Baker. "You only dream about this day, but you never believe it will happen."

Detectives focused on O'Connell as a suspect after learning that he had recently had a romantic relationship with the victim's ex-wife, who was never charged in the case and denied any involvement in the killing. O'Connell, a former football star at Glendora High School, also matched the description from witnesses of a tall, slender blond gunman.

The prosecution's star witness was Daniel Druecker, a tenant in the State Street apartment complex where the shooting occurred. Druecker identified O'Connell as the gunman from a photo lineup and testified that he was sure O'Connell was the killer.

At the trial, Judge Sally Disco described the case against O'Connell as "overwhelming." Among the evidence she highlighted was a police sketch of the gunman based on Druecker's description that Disco said bore a "striking resemblance" to O'Connell. She sentenced him to 25 years to life.

But O'Connell never wavered in maintaining his innocence. His cause was eventually taken up by Centurion Ministries, a nonprofit organization that advocates for the release of inmates it contends were wrongfully convicted.

Last year, Druecker returned to court and testified that he had barely caught a glimpse of the gunman's profile and had not been wearing his glasses. He said he felt pressured and intimidated by the investigators and the justice system and therefore never admitted that he really didn't know whether O'Connell was the man he had seen.

In her ruling, Clover described the sheriff's identification procedure with Druecker as "suggestive" and faulted detectives for not turning over notes from their investigation. Those notes revealed that another boyfriend of the victim's ex-wife was suspected of trying to kill French four years earlier. That man was described as tall with sandy or blond hair.

The judge also cited several sworn declarations presented by O'Connell's defense from people who said the victim's ex-wife confessed to being involved and said O'Connell was innocent. Lyon, the victim's ex-wife, could not be reached for comment.

O'Connell posted bail but had yet to be released as of Friday night.

Another of his sisters, Libby Carrasco, said he planned to bring his mother flowers and chocolates, go to the beach and Disneyland, and visit the grave of their father, who died in 1994.

"It's unbelievable," she said. "I can't wait to hug him."

jack.leonard@latimes.com

Arizona Prison guard busted with child porn on his computer

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Florence prison officer had child pornography, authorities say

by Cassandra Klapp - Apr. 20, 2012 09:47 PM

The Arizona Republic-12 News Breaking News Team

A state corrections officer in Florence was arrested on suspicion of 10 counts of sexual exploitation of a minor after investigators said they found child pornography on his personal computer, the Pinal County Sheriff's Office reported Friday.

Jeffrey Williams, 46, of Casa Grande, was arrested April 12 after an investigation that began earlier this month when a Casa Grande computer-repair technician called authorities to report finding videos of children being sexually abused on a computer that Williams reportedly brought in for repair, the Sheriff's Office said.

Three law-enforcement agencies were involved in the investigation.

Williams was arrested at the Arizona State Prison Complex-Florence, where he works. He was moved to protective custody the next day for his own safety because of his job. It is unclear how long he worked for the state Department of Corrections.

Pinal County Sheriff spokesman Elias Johnson said Williams admitted to downloading and uploading child pornography.

Web sites help identify corrupt police officers

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When police officers use social media, their departments see risks

PR headaches, ethical questions driving policies

by Lindsey Collom - Apr. 17, 2012 11:11 PM

The Republic | azcentral.com

A growing number of police agencies are implementing policies to guide employees' on- and off-duty use of social media.

The Mesa Police Department has a work group to explore the issue, and the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office just widened the scope of its officer-conduct policy to include websites like Facebook, MySpace and Twitter. The Pinal County Sheriff's Office adopted a social-media policy in November.

As more law-enforcement agencies are using networking websites to engage their communities, departments are weighing in on the role social media play in the personal lives of their employees and warning of the dangers.

Attorneys have used social-media profiles to discredit officer testimony in court. And officer posts are responsible for more than a few public-relations headaches.

"There's usually a catch-all at most law-enforcement agencies that our conduct, even off duty, needs to be in line with the agency," said John Ortolano, president of the Arizona Fraternal Order of Police. "They call it the 'headline test.' This is a profession that doesn't end when you take your uniform off."

To minimize the potential for harm, police agencies are addressing the issue through policies to educate employees about social media, make clear department expectations and outline acceptable and prohibited uses. But labor experts say those standards are likely to change as case law evolves.

When developing social-media guidelines, law-enforcement agencies nationwide have taken their cue from the International Association of Chiefs of Police. The association's model policy, issued in August 2010, says sworn and civilian employees "should be mindful that their speech becomes part of the worldwide electronic domain."

The policy defines social media as Internet-based resources that incorporate user participation and user-generated content, such as social-networking sites, microblogging sites, photo- and video-sharing sites, wikis, blogs and news websites.

The association's position is: What an officer posts online may reflect poorly on the department and the profession, even if the speech was made while the officer was acting as a private citizen. "Therefore, adherence to the department's code of conduct is required in the personal use of social media," the policy states.

Stacey Dillon, president of Public Safety Authority Medias, a local public-relations firm specializing in law enforcement, advises police associations and their membership about using social media.

"My advice that I've given to the associations really falls in line with some of the case law," Dillon said. "If you can educate your members not to be on social media, do it. It's opened up a wealth of investigations that have been unnecessary and have created tremendous issues for the livelihood of front-line officers."

'A continuum'

A Peoria police sergeant was demoted and suspended without pay in February after he posted on his Facebook page a photo of a group of high-schoolers, some posing with guns and one holding a bullet-riddled T-shirt featuring an image of President Barack Obama.

Veteran lawman Pat Shearer, who is appealing the decision, posted the photo days before Obama visited the Valley in January. The Secret Service looked into the issue, but officials deemed it a local police matter and did not pursue it further.

Shearer got into trouble for being identifiable as a Peoria police officer on his personal Facebook page, in violation of the department's social-media policy.

Police Chief Roy Minter Jr. in February announced that Shearer, who has been with Peoria police for 25 years, would be disciplined with a demotion to the rank of officer and suspended without pay for two weeks.

The Peoria Police Department has not released details of the investigation.

Will Aitchison, a labor lawyer in California for more than 30 years and author of "Rights of Law Enforcement Officers," explained what factors come into play in similar inquiries.

He said an employee's social-media conduct can be judged by weighing these elements: Was there any deliberate effort made to link the communication to the job? How much public attention did it get? What was the nature of the communication?

What to do about potential violations of a social-media policy would depend on how clear the rules were, how employees in similar circumstances had been treated and whether the kind of speech had a high or low degree of constitutional protection, Aitchison said.

"I think it's all a continuum," he said. "If an off-duty police officer says something like, 'I hope they kill Obama,' and they do nothing to associate themselves with the fact they are a police officer, the continuum suggests there's a far less likelihood an employer can dismiss an employee. Different is if they say it while using their badge and their gun off duty."

In an appeal notice, Shearer acknowledged that he violated policy when he posted a picture of himself in full uniform, although that was not what sparked his trouble or the internal investigation that followed.

Shearer said he was "embarrassed that the photograph was affiliated with the Peoria Police Department, and I take full responsibility for placing the photograph on my Facebook page along with a photograph portraying me in full uniform."

"However," he said, "such actions do not warrant demotion and an 80-hour suspension."

Shearer said that he agreed that discipline was warranted but that it should be one or the other, not both.

Questionable online activity by law-enforcement officials doesn't always trigger an inquiry into whether a department's social-media policies were violated.

Pinal County Sheriff Paul Babeu has admitted posting suggestive photos of himself online and sending naked photos to a former boyfriend. He made the admission after several images appeared in the pages of a weekly publication.

Law-enforcement professionals say that if Babeu were anyone else, he'd likely be questioned about his conduct. But Tim Gaffney, Sheriff's Office director of communications and grants, said the office will not launch an internal-affairs inquiry while another investigation is taking place. The state's solicitor general is looking into abuse-of-power allegations against Babeu.

Solicitor General David Cole was asked in late February to look into any civil or criminal violations that may have been committed by Babeu or Jose Orozco, a former Babeu boyfriend and campaign volunteer accused of hacking into the sheriff's social-media accounts and posting unflattering messages.

"The solicitor general's investigation will outline many of the facts of this case, which will help better explain why, at this point, an internal-affairs investigation will not be conducted," Gaffney said.

Babeu's revealing photos were part of an article about Orozco, a Mexican immigrant who claimed Babeu and his attorney tried to pressure him into keeping quiet about their relationship. One image was a screen grab of Babeu's profile on a gay dating site where users openly solicit sex and share intimate details. The sheriff posed in his underwear for the profile photo, his face slightly obscured.

The Pinal County Sheriff's Office social-media policy warns employees that questionable social-networking activity can "reflect poorly" on the profession and cast doubt on a person's judgment.

Aitchison said Babeu's online profile "sounds awfully close to constitutionally protected."

"Elected officials, I think, are held to a completely different standard, and that is the standard set by the electorate," he said. "There are places in this country where what the sheriff did would be viewed by the electorate as very troublesome. There are other places in this country that people could care less."

It is unclear from the policy who in the agency would step in to investigate if the department's top official was suspected of violating the policy, but Aitchison said voters could weigh in. Free-speech issue?

The Supreme Court has ruled in favor of government employers limiting private speech.

A case often cited by experts is The City of San Diego vs. John Roe, which involved a police officer who claimed his termination violated his First Amendment and 14th Amendment rights to free speech.

Roe was fired for selling videos that showed him engaging in sexually explicit activity. He did not specifically name his employer, but he identified himself as a member of law enforcement on his eBay profile and wore a police uniform in at least two videos.

In its 2004 decision, the high court recognized a government employee's right to speak on matters of public concern as they relate to governmental policy. A government employee can also expect First Amendment protection for off-duty speech or expression not related to the job, unless the employer can give a reason "far stronger than mere speculation" to justify its regulation, the court declared.

The court sided with the Police Department, saying it "demonstrated legitimate and substantial interests of its own that were compromised" by Roe's speech.

However, law-enforcement officials don't need to identify themselves as such in order to impede the department's mission, said Lt. Brian Lee, a spokesman of the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office.

"If I have a social-networking site, even if I don't say I'm a deputy with the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office, if people recognize me as such, I can be held responsible," he said.

But that paradigm may not hold true for long as it relates to public officers and the Web. Personnel law in this area is rapidly evolving, Aitchison said.

"I think the way the law on this is going to shake out, employees whether it be you or someone working down at the airport or police or firefighters, they're going to say things off duty in social media that will make the employer uncomfortable," he said, "but they're going to have the right to say them." Overarching themes

For now, the overall theme found in the social-media policies of the Pinal County Sheriff's Office and Peoria Police Department is the standard.

Adopted in November, the Sheriff's Office policy applies to "all forms of communication," electronic and print. In the section titled "Prohibited speech, expression and conduct," the policy says that, to meet the organization's safety, performance and public-trust needs, an employee should refrain from any social-media activity that will "compromise or damage the mission, function, reputation or professionalism of the Pinal County Sheriff's Office or its employees."

Gaffney said an employee found to have violated the office's social-media and Internet policy, "depending on the circumstances or specifics of the instance or situation ... may (be) subject to disciplinary action, or no action."

Sheriff's officials won't comment on whether Babeu's conduct -- e-mailing and texting naked photos or his online profile in which he stated he was seeking friendship, a relationship or a sexual encounter -- aligned with his office's policy. Babeu has said the photos were meant to be private.

"These were photographs that are mine that I sent to an individual that was meant only for their observation, not to be splashed on the Internet or on TV or anything like that," Babeu told reporters after Orozco went public. "And there still needs to be some bounds for privacy. ... This is in my private, my personal life. What I do in my private and personal life is my business."

The Peoria Police Department policy exempts "texts, pictures, video, audio, etc., sent from one consenting adult to another that are intended to be private." The Pinal County Sheriff's Office policy does not address the issue.

Republic reporter Sonu Munshi contributed to this article.

Former Phoenix officer accused of attack faces court

Former Phoenix officer accused of attack faces court

He is charged with hitting suspect who may have used slur

by JJ Hensley - Apr. 22, 2012 08:46 PM

The Republic | azcentral.com

A former Phoenix police officer faces criminal prosecution in the wake of allegations that he struck a handcuffed suspect in the parking lot of a Phoenix apartment complex last year and fired pepper spray at the inmate after the handcuffs were removed.

Former Officer Jason Brooks resigned from the department last September after internal investigators confronted him with allegations that he struck Ervin Nez Jr. in the upper torso several times while Nez was handcuffed, then sprayed him. Another officer also faces disciplinary action for initially failing to report what he witnessed with Brooks.

Brooks pleaded not guilty to assault charges in a March court appearance and is due back in court this week.

Nez was arrested on suspicion of assaulting Brooks by kicking the officer, but prosecutors dropped the charges.

Police say Nez repeatedly used racial slurs against Brooks, who is Black, during the encounter.

Robert Kavanagh, an attorney representing Brooks, said he is approaching the case with an understanding that Brooks' conduct was justified after Nez tried to kick him.

Kavanagh, who has represented other officers accused of crimes in recent years, also said the decision to charge Brooks criminally reflects a trend in how police agencies and prosecutors approach officers suspected of violations.

"Tough case," Kavanagh said. "Ten years ago, this would not have been criminal, it would have been handled internally. I don't know what the difference is now."

Brooks and another officer arrived at an apartment complex near 29th Street and Greenway Parkway about 3 a.m. on Sept. 5 in response to a security guard's report of a transient in the complex, according to court documents.

Security guards at the Palomino Pointe apartments already had handcuffed Nez, and, according to Officer Jared Adair's report, Nez was "continually yelling," first at security guards and then at police officers.

"He was very belligerent and continued to try to stand up," Adair wrote. "After several attempts to stand up, Ervin Nez Jr. became angry and kicked Officer Brooks in the left leg with his right leg. Officer Brooks was not injured."

Adair's statement served as the justification for an assault charge against Nez that was dropped a week later at the request of prosecutors.

That's where the story might have ended, had another officer not come forward with a different version of events.

The next morning, an unnamed officer reported allegations that Brooks had struck Nez several times while Nez was handcuffed, according to Sgt. Trent Crump, a Phoenix police spokesman.

The second version of events, which included details about Brooks allegedly striking Nez in the chest while Nez was handcuffed and pepper-spraying Nez after the cuffs were removed, also alluded to Brooks' motivation: Nez's repeated use of a racial slur against Brooks.

"There are things, as reasonable people, we look at and say, 'There's a lot of provocation there.' And the conduct the suspect engaged in is some of the most serious and vulgar comments you can make," Crump said. "A reasonable person might lose self-control, but we believe, on the department, you can't react simply because of someone's verbal provocation. We have to be bigger than that."

Brooks resigned when he was confronted with the allegation, according to Crump.

Those allegations later turned into a felony assault charge against Brooks. If elements of allegations against an officer meet the threshold of a felony offense, a Phoenix police officer can be fired, according to department policy.

"Our position is he (Brooks) used reasonable force and he was justified when the guy kicked him," Kavanagh said. "We're just going to have to work through this thing."

Ex-deputy faces trial in assault, torture of wife, rival

Ex-deputy faces trial in assault, torture of wife, rival

April 23, 2012 | 7:12 am

A trial is scheduled to begin Monday for a former L.A. County sheriff's deputy accused of torturing and sexually assaulting his wife and a man believed to be her lover in an Irvine office after learning of their affair.

Robert Avery McClain, 38, of Irvine, is charged by Orange County prosecutors in connection with eight felonies, including aggravated mayhem, torture, rape and sodomy in the Sept. 28, 2008, incident. He has entered pleas of not guilty and not guilty by reason of insanity. He faces multiple life sentences if convicted.

The Orange County district attorney's office asserts that McClain drove to the leasing office where his wife, 31 at the time, worked. Her lover, then 23, lived in the complex. McClain and the two went to the office's break room, where he used a knife to stab the man and carve into his face "like a pumpkin," prosecutor John Cristl said. Cristl told jurors in a hearing last week that McClain also forced his wife to shoot a gun aimed at her lover, but the chamber wasn't loaded. Prosecutors showed jurors slides of the office before the alleged attack and the blood-soaked carpet afterward.

Public defender Darren Thompson painted a different picture of McClain, describing him in a soft voice as a deeply rooted family man who snapped after learning of his wife's infidelity.

Sheriff Babeu - F*ck the Hatch Act - I'm a royal rulers

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Pinal County Sheriff Paul Babeu ads raise politicking questions

by Rebekah L. Sanders - Apr. 23, 2012 10:31 PM

The Republic | azcentral.com

Pinal County Sheriff Paul Babeu's new campaign ads for Congress feature at least six of his Sheriff's Office employees praising his conservative values.

By using the subordinates in the two 30-second spots, Babeu may have violated federal law that restricts elected officials from using their official resources to help campaigns, even if the employees volunteered.

But Babeu's campaign consultant says he doesn't believe the campaign erred by filming the employees, because they volunteered to appear on their personal time. He argues that the ads, unveiled Monday, will help voters learn about Babeu from people who know him well.

Most of the employees are top Pinal County Sheriff's Office managers and staunch allies of Babeu's, including community-relations Director Cheryl Chase and several deputies.

Babeu and Chase, along with other top sheriff's aides, are targets of an investigation by the U.S. Office of Special Counsel, which is looking into possible violations of the Hatch Act. The federal agency, which opened its inquiry in December, subpoenaed records and laptops from Pinal County this month, looking for records linked to Babeu's campaign for a seat in Arizona's 4th Congressional District.

The Hatch Act makes it illegal for certain government workers to participate in political activities.

Ann O'Hanlon, a spokeswoman for the Office of Special Counsel, said featuring employees in campaign ads likely would violate the same law because it could be seen as coercion.

Even if the employees volunteered, "when somebody is a subordinate, they're a subordinate. They don't really have free will. They do something because you're the boss."

She said if a full investigation of the ads were launched, the details would be teased out. "(But) it's very difficult for a boss to have some sort of a favor done by an employee without it having an element of coercion because that boss has power over you."

Under the heading "Use of authority/coercion" on its website for state and local employees, the Office of Special Counsel tells elected officials that it is not acceptable to ask underlings to help on campaigns.

"Because it is inherently coercive for a supervisor to ask a subordinate employee to contribute to a political cause, the Hatch Act would prohibit an elected official from asking subordinate employees to help or contribute to" his or her re-election campaign, the site says.

Chris DeRose, Babeu's campaign consultant, also pointed to the Office of Special Counsel's website in defending Babeu's use of employees, saying, "Nobody in the ad was a federal employee, much less a 'more restricted' federal employee."

He initially cited a page of the website with instructions guiding federal employees. When told there was a separate page dealing with state and local employees, DeRose said he still did not see a problem.

Many of the employees who appeared in the ads stood beside Babeu, and in some cases spoke in support of him, at a news conference in February. At that time, Babeu admitted he was gay and said he had exchanged suggestive photos with a former boyfriend but denied ever threatening the man with deportation to keep their relationship secret.

The two ads running on television show a range of employees and other people vouching for the sheriff's commitment to lower taxes, border security and support of small businesses.

"Paul Babeu has served our country in uniform and as a sheriff, and I trust him," Pinal County jail official Jayme Valenzuela says in one ad.

"I trust Paul Babeu to do the right thing," Chase says. In another ad, she says, "Paul's always been pro-life. I like that."

Both Valenzuela and Chase were at the news conference.

None of the employees is in uniform in the ads. No names or titles are given. And nothing distinguishes the employees from a Pinal County businessman, a personal friend and other people who appear.

DeRose said it isn't misleading to viewers that the employees aren't identified.

Instead, the ads "feature testimony from people who know Paul and who support him. It's a chance for voters who haven't gotten to meet him to hear directly from people who do."

DeRose said each employee freely participated.

"I'm not aware of anything that would prevent county employees from volunteering on their personal time to express their beliefs," he said.

None of the employees contacted immediately responded to requests for comment.

Two Phoenix political consultants unaffiliated with any of the 4th District campaigns said it was a bad idea for Babeu to use his subordinates as testimonials in his TV spots.

"It takes away the credibility of the message," said Sean Noble, a Republican political consultant and a campaign veteran.

"It diminishes it greatly once it gets exposed that these are people who work for him."

Jaime Molera, who was a senior adviser to U.S. Sen. Jon Kyl's 2006 campaign, said the decision to use Pinal County sheriff's officials while already under investigation for possible Hatch Act violations and other issues will only stoke voters' doubts about Babeu.

"Your opponents are just going to play that up to the hilt," Molera said. "It's a no-brainer. For them to do that just throws fuel on the fire."

The ads received mixed reactions from Babeu's opponents for the 4th District, a Republican stronghold that covers most of rural, northwestern Arizona, from Lake Havasu City to Yuma to Florence.

Freshman U.S. Rep. Paul Gosar called the sheriff's use of staff in the ads "absolutely egregious."

"Pinal County deserves better in a sheriff," Gosar said in a written statement, "and rural Arizona deserves much more in their congressman."

But Babeu's ads didn't cause much concern for the campaign of state Sen. Ron Gould.

Campaign consultant Chris Baker said Gould sees Babeu as "irrelevant."

"He can run ads until the cows come home, talking about what a conservative he is," Baker said. "But the voters know too much about Paul Babeu by now."

Republic reporter Dan Nowicki contributed to this article.

Feds want to lock up accused criminals indefinitely

Source

Justice Dept. says predator law covers non-violent offenders

By Brad Heath, USA TODAY

WASHINGTON – The Justice Department is asking federal courts to let it cast a wider net in its effort to indefinitely lock up accused sexual predators, urging judges to detain men who have never been convicted of sexual assaults.

By law, the government can detain sex offenders after their prison sentences end if it can prove that they have a serious mental illness and have molested children or committed other "sexually violent" crimes. In court filings, government lawyers have argued that the law also applies to men who have been convicted of crimes that did not result in physical harm, including threatening phone calls and exhibitionism. If courts agree, those men could remain in federal prison until psychologists say they are safe to set free.

Critics fear the government's interpretation would give Justice Department lawyers and prison psychologists too much power to decide who should be kept in custody. "This is the government exercising its most awesome power based on very, very vaguely worded standards," said Eric Janus, a law professor who has studied civil commitment laws.

That system is already under scrutiny. A USA TODAY investigation in March found that the department's effort to lock up accused predators has been beset by long delays and questionable medical determinations that kept dozens of men incarcerated for as long as five years even though they did not meet the requirements for detention.

Next month, Justice Department lawyers will ask an appeals court in Richmond, Va., to find that a man who made obscene telephone calls in which he threatened to rape and murder random women fits the definition of someone who committed "sexually violent" conduct.

Government lawyers have also asked a federal judge in North Carolina to find that a man who exposed himself to children in a supermarket met the law's definition of "child molestation."

In another case last month, the department convinced a federal judge that alcohol dependence and drug abuse are illnesses serious enough to justify civil commitment.

Few of the 20 states that have their own civil commitment systems expressly allow detention for such "hands-off" crimes.

The Justice Department declined to comment. The department's prison psychologists objected to such a broad interpretation, in part because of fears that "it would result in reviewing people who didn't need to be certified," said Anthony Jimenez, the former head of the civil commitment system.

Sexual predators rarely committed under Justice program

Sexual predators rarely committed under Justice program

By Brad Heath, USA TODAY

Updated 3/19/2012 11:34 AM

BUTNER, N.C. – Inside the sprawling federal prison here is a place the government reserves for the worst of the worst — sexual predators too dangerous to be set free.

Six years ago, the federal government set out to indefinitely detain some of the nation's most dangerous sex offenders, keeping them locked up even after their prison sentences had ended.

But despite years of effort, the government has so far won court approval for detaining just 15 men.

Far more often, men the U.S.Justice Department branded as "sexually dangerous" predators remained imprisoned here for years without a mandatory court hearing before the government was forced to let them go, a USA TODAY investigation has found. The Justice Department has either lost or dropped its cases against 61 of the 136 men it sought to detain. Some were imprisoned for more than four years without a trial before they were freed.

Dozens of others are still waiting for their day in court. They remain in a prison unit where authorities and former detainees said explicit drawings of children are commonplace, but where few of the men have received any treatment for the disorders that put them there.

Despite that, neither the Justice Department nor other watchdog agencies have offered any public assessment of how well the federal civil commitment law works.

For this investigation, USA TODAY reviewed all 136 cases that have been brought to court, drawing on thousands of pages of legal filings and dozens of interviews with attorneys, psychologists and former detainees.

The outcomes documented by that review have raised questions about a system meant to control men too seriously ill to control themselves. A federal appeals court in Richmond, Va., has already called delays in bringing the men to trial "troubling," and suggested that they could raise concerns about the detainees' constitutional right to due process. And Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner, R-Wis., one of the law's key supporters, said "there will be somebody who will have to answer" for them.

"We need to be very, very careful in a free society about a system in which a group of people can make statements that result in someone being deprived of their liberty for a future crime," said Fred Berlin, the director of the Sexual Behaviors Consultation Unit at the Johns Hopkins Hospital. "If it's going to be done, it has to be done in a just and fair manner."

Many of the men the government sought to detain have been found guilty of molesting children or brutal sexual assaults. One killed a woman . U.S. Bureau of Prisons psychologists certified that the men also suffer from mental abnormalities making them "sexually dangerous," a determination that keeps them locked up while their cases are reviewed. By law, a federal judge must ultimately decide whether the government can prove the inmate is too dangerous to be released.

But in case after case, those determinations have come into question. In at least two cases, the government could not prove the men had committed crimes serious enough to justify committing them. Others had not been found guilty of a "hands-on" sex offense in decades. Some psychological assessments failed to fully account for men's ages, a key factor when assessing risk.

A spokesman for the Bureau of Prisons, Chris Burke, said officials certify inmates as dangerous after "careful assessments by mental health professionals."

Anthony Jimenez, a psychologist who ran the commitment system for the Bureau of Prisons in 2007 and 2008, said officials had little time to prepare when Congress instructed them to start sifting out the most dangerous offenders as part of a broader crackdown on sex crimes. Some prison psychologists they turned to had no experience doing those types of reviews, he said.

"It was rushed, and initially, I believe, quality probably suffered," he said. About the documents

To investigate the 136 civil commitment cases the U.S. Justice Department has filed so far, USA TODAY reviewed thousands of pages of court documents and other public records. About 290 of the documents are published online with this story. Those documents offer important information about the government’s reasons for declaring that people are “sexually dangerous” and the reasons many of the men were ultimately released.

Wherever possible, USA TODAY redacted from those documents the names and other identifying details of victims of sex crimes. It did so because the newspaper has a long-standing practice of not naming the victims of sex crimes. Some of the documents also include graphic language describing sexual conduct.

'Totally haphazard and inconsistent'

Sean Francis was in prison for a series of graphic phone calls in 2008 when psychologists first considered committing him as sexually dangerous. On the phone, Francis had threatened to rape and murder female college students in three states, sometimes offering chilling details about whom they lived with or the car one woman drove , according to court records. He also had been accused of raping a college student years earlier, though he was not arrested and has never been charged with a sexual assault.

The prison officials who reviewed his case decided he didn't meet the legal criteria for detention as a sexual predator, and he was released from prison. In 2009, Francis was arrested and sent back to prison for violating the terms of his probation , which prohibited him from viewing pornography.

His probation officer told prison officials , "I don't see how your office could draw any conclusion other than civil commitment," according to court records. Worst of the worst

The number of people certified as “sexually dangerous” by federal prison officials, subject to review by a federal judge:

Psychologists looked at his case again and certified him as sexually dangerous .

Francis' attorneys said they never understood what had changed. "It was totally haphazard and inconsistent," one of Francis' attorneys, Woody Webb, said. Whatever it was, it was enough that Francis was moved to Butner's sex offender unit, where he said he passed the days sleeping late, crocheting and listening to an AM/FM radio.

"I don't look in the mirror and say I'm proud of who I see," Francis, now 33, said last month. "But I didn't belong in there."

In late January, two years after he arrived at Butner, a federal court agreed.

U.S. District Judge Terrence Boyle questioned in a written order whether the government could prove Francis had ever committed the "sexually violent conduct" the law requires as a prerequisite to detaining someone, and said the Justice Department hadn't proved he was dangerous. The Justice Department has appealed.

Two weeks later, guards summoned Francis and another inmate over a loudspeaker, told them to collect their belongings and gave them bus tickets home. Francis took the bus to the New York City suburbs, where he moved in with his father and stepmother and found a job.

Francis said he's trying to keep a low profile. He's required to wear a GPS ankle bracelet, which he hides under his sock. Despite the federal government's effort to detain him indefinitely as a "sexually dangerous person," under New York law, he isn't required to register as a sex offender.

Never making it to trial

About 2,000 people a year end up in federal prison for sex crimes, but only the most dangerous qualify for commitment.

To successfully commit a person, government attorneys have to prove three things: First, that he molested a child or committed a violent sex crime; second, that he has a mental disorder; and third, that his illness means he will have "serious difficulty" refraining from new sex crimes if freed.

The last step is the hardest, in part because studies have repeatedly found that most sex offenders are never convicted of another sex crime.

In the 1980s, a devastating series of studies suggested that psychologists' predictions about who was dangerous were no more reliable than a coin toss. So in the years that followed, researchers analyzed records on thousands of sex offenders, looking for the telltale markers that could identify groups of people most likely to re-offend. What they came up with is a lot like the system insurers use to figure out which types of people are most likely to have an accident.

Early on, Bureau of Prisons reviewers "just didn't have the same expertise" as outside psychologists in making those assessments, said Amy Phenix, a California psychologist who helped train them. In some cases, outside experts — brought in to review the cases years later — concluded the inmates didn't belong in Butner, she said. "There were differences of opinion, and in some cases it was left up to the U.S. attorney to make decisions about what to do."

Still, even fellow detainees said they were surprised the day Andrew Galo walked out Butner's front gate.

Galo had been in prison for taking sexually explicit photographs of his girlfriend's 13-year-old daughter when the Justice Department declared him too dangerous to release; before that, he had spent time in prison in Pennsylvania for sexually abusing two nephews, according to court records . "Everybody was shocked. It was like, why are they letting him out?" said Philip Katon, who spent three years at Butner before the government dropped his case, too.

At least 40 of the 136 commitment cases the government has brought so far — nearly one in three — ended when the Justice Department simply dismissed them. Frequently, it did so years after the men's criminal sentences had ended. In at least eight of those cases, court records show the government found other ways to keep the men locked up, but many of those convicted — including men with long track records of abusing children — simply went free.

The Justice Department would not comment on its reasons for dismissing particular cases. Spokesman Charles Miller said attorneys consider "the totality of the circumstances," including the person's "age, health status, change of circumstances, supervised release terms, family support and the opinions of all of the forensic experts."

In at least some of the cases, however, Justice Department attorneys conceded in court they simply didn't have enough evidence. Last year, for example, the department acknowledged that "a more detailed review" of its case against Wayne Hicks — who had then been detained since 2007 — showed that the government "will not be able to meet its burden." The Justice Department dismissed the case; Hicks went to live at a Raleigh, N.C., homeless shelter.

In another case last year, the Justice Department dropped its effort to commit Joseph Edwards, who had been convicted of hitting a girl over the head with a rock, dragging her down an embankment by her hair and raping her. Three years after he was detained at Butner, a prison psychologist told prosecutors she didn't think Edwards could be committed.

Six months later, the Justice Department dropped the case and let Edwards go.

Jimenez, the former head of the bureau's certification review process, said officials consulted with lawyers before declaring someone dangerous, but ultimately based decisions on their own clinical judgments — even when they weren't convinced the evaluations would hold up in court.

"It's not a willy-nilly, 'this guy looks like a bad guy' process," he said. "If we thought someone was really dangerous but there wasn't a strong legal case, we might very well still push it for the public interest.

"Hopefully justice is served in the end," he said.

On paper, Katon, too, seemed like a good candidate to be committed. Before he went to federal prison for lying about his criminal record on an application to buy a rifle, he had been found guilty of molesting a 26-year-old disabled woman in Vermont. Before that, he had been convicted of molesting his then-girlfriend's three children, and was accused of assaulting her cousin, according to court records . Past offenses alone cannot show whether someone is mentally ill or likely to commit new crimes but are often among the key considerations.

Katon arrived at Butner in 2008, months before he was supposed to be released; he said prison officials told him he was being moved there from a South Carolina prison as a steppingstone on his way back to Vermont. Two months later, he was certified as sexually dangerous. "It was actually scary to be there because you didn't know if you were going to stay or if they were going to release you. It's like everybody's thrown into a hat and they pick some people out. It's scary not knowing what they're going to do with you," he said.

His time at Butner ended as abruptly as it began. In August — after being detained for more than three years — the Justice Department dismissed its case against him and put him on a bus to Vermont, where he lives with his mother outside Burlington. He registered as a sex offender, but said he isn't required to wear a GPS monitoring device or avoid contact with children, something other men released from Butner have been required to do. His probation officer has given him permission to go to Upstate New York sometimes to play bingo.

The Justice Department has never explained publicly why it dropped the case.

"I've changed a lot," Katon said. His crimes "were just something that happened out of the blue, and will never happen again."

Cases fall apart in court

The government's determinations have fared little better before federal judges. Records show the Justice Department has lost more trials than it has won.

Its cases have crumbled because of weak evidence, faulty psychological evaluations and an inability to convince judges the detainees have mental conditions so serious they will find it difficult to not re-offend.

In December, for example, a judge in Raleigh rejected the government's attempts to commit Markis Revland. By law, the government can only commit someone who has molested a child or committed another violent sex crime. Revland's criminal record, though extensive, didn't seem to include either — he had been convicted on child pornography charges, and of public urination and indecent exposure. The government based its case instead in part on a staggering string of confessions Revland made during a prison-run treatment program: 149 victims .

Such confessions are often suspect. Some sex offenders volunteer for treatment programs in part to escape danger from fellow inmates. Courts have said those who don't admit to past crimes face the risk of being thrown out of the program.

Revland's confessions were especially problematic. According to the latest census, only about 114 children live in Revland's small Iowa town. Despite the shocking number of children he told psychologists he had abused, he had never been charged with sexual abuse. And many of the crimes he said he committed would have occurred when he was in state prison. Revland declined to be interviewed but testified he invented all 149 victims to satisfy his therapists because he feared he would be kicked out of the program and sent back to Leavenworth, Kan., where he said he had been violently attacked by other inmates .

Revland "would be the Charles Manson of child molesters if even a small portion of the 149 incidents had actually happened," U.S. District Judge Bernard Friedman wrote in a December order freeing him. "And yet the government offered no evidence to independently verify that any of these incidents occurred or that any of them — even one — ever resulted in investigation or prosecution."

Even when the government can prove someone committed sex crimes, it has struggled to show he remains dangerous.

Andrew Swarm was first diagnosed as a pedophile more than a decade ago. He collected child pornography on the Internet, and molested at least three young girls, according to court records . But Swarm also seemed to go out of his way to get caught. He gave one 10-year-old girl he fantasized about what appeared to be an explicit drawing of himself, knowing she would give it to her parents . After he inappropriately touched an 11-year-old, he gave her a note warning that "I want to kiss and touch you in ways that I shouldn't. I need you to make sure I get help and don't have the chance to do this," according to court records.

Swarm said he agonized over his impulses. He tried to get treatment. He tried to get caught. He tried to castrate himself with rubber bands . "I don't go out and molest children. I've never done that," he said. "It was such a misery in the first place to have these feelings. It was a nightmare."

The government certified him as sexually dangerous in 2007. At the time, he was serving a four-month sentence in prison for violating his probation by not telling his probation officer quickly enough that a friend had briefly left him alone with a young child, and that another girl had climbed onto his lap while he was visiting relatives before he shooed her off.

"There was no harm, no foul," said the girl's father, whom USA TODAY agreed not to name to protect his daughter's privacy. He said he and his wife plan to ask Swarm's probation officer whether they can resume visiting him. "I honestly don't think he's dangerous," he said.

The judge who ultimately heard Swarm's commitment case — nearly four years after he was detained — agreed and released him .

Delays that span years

More than 40 other men have been waiting a year or longer to find out what a federal court will do with them.

The cases have dragged on in part because the Bureau of Prisons typically waited until the final weeks of their sentences to certify most of the men as dangerous, effectively guaranteeing they would remain incarcerated months or years longer. Burke, the prison system spokesman, said the agency "intends for the process to be completed well in advance of an inmate's scheduled release date." Jimenez said the Bureau of Prisons' policy was to make those decisions more than a year in advance so prisoners would know whether or not they are going home when their prison sentences end.

So far, the government has met that mark only once, though the three men it certified so far this year were closer to that goal. Since the law began, half of the men were certified within a week of when they were scheduled to be released, court records show. Fourteen were certified on the same day they were supposed to go home.

The hearings were delayed longer when a federal court in Raleigh ordered most of the cases be put on hold — sometimes before the men had been appointed lawyers — while legal challenges to the civil commitment law worked their way through courts. Lawyers for most of the detainees never challenged that decision. "It seemed like it had a low likelihood of success," said Eric Brignac, an attorney with the Federal Public Defender's office in Raleigh.

One of those challenges, brought on behalf of a man named Graydon Comstock and four others, reached the U.S. Supreme Court in 2010. The justices upheld the law, finding that Congress "has the constitutional power to act in order to protect nearby (and other) communities from the danger federal prisoners may pose." Their decision came 3½ years after Comstock — who had been convicted of possessing child pornography, and who had confessed to patronizing child prostitutes while working overseas — was first locked up as sexually dangerous in November 2006. It wasn't until then that the Justice Department and lawyers appointed to represent the five men started hiring experts to scrutinize the cases in anticipation of trials. That process took another year.

"Things take time," said former U.S. attorney George Holding. "These men are accused of being a threat to society, and the system has to play itself out."

It was November 2011 before a judge reviewed Comstock's case. By then, Comstock was 69 and had already suffered from prostate cancer, a heart attack and a stroke . His hearing in a federal courtroom in Raleigh lasted two days; when it was over, Judge Friedman concluded the government couldn't show he was dangerous and released him. Comstock moved in with his sister, a college English instructor, in Arkansas. Now, mainly, he tries not to be noticed.

"When I heard about this law, I assumed it was for the most dangerous people, and I assumed it wasn't me," Comstock said. "I said I wouldn't be convicted, and I wasn't. But it took six years to get there."

Courts, too, have expressed growing frustration at the delays.

"They're in it for four years and change," Judge Boyle complained last year during one court hearing . "There's no horizon. It's just darkness."

The federal court in Raleigh sped up the process this year, scheduling more cases for hearings. But there are still at least 26 men waiting for their cases to be decided who have now been locked up an additional three years by the civil commitment program. One man, Thomas Matherly, has awaited a trial since 2006; it's now scheduled for later this month. The delays have been so significant, at least two of the 15 men the government successfully committed have already gone home.

Miller said the Justice Department is "satisfied with the way these cases are now being expedited."

Though ostensibly locked up because they are mentally ill and in need of treatment, only a handful have enrolled in Butner's treatment program for sex offenders. Their lawyers urged them not to, because anything they tell their psychologists is likely to be used against them at trial .

That means those who are being released are going home with little help preparing for life outside prison. A few of the detainees found jobs within the prison: cooking, cleaning or working at a factory that makes eyeglasses for inmates, said another former detainee, Jeffrey Neuhauser. One detainee briefly taught a GED program.

'I don't think he can change'

At least nine of the men who were let go without being committed have been convicted of new crimes or have violated probation. Two were found guilty of felonies; another has agreed to plead guilty to a felony later this month.

Among them, Jay Abregana stands out. His record was already sordid when the government certified him as sexually dangerous — he had been convicted of mailing pictures of himself having oral sex with a teenage boy and of exposing himself to a 12-year-old in a movie theater. In prison, he was kicked out of a sex offender treatment program after he performed oral sex on five inmates. When he got out, he violated his probation by having "sexual contact " with a 17-year-old in a shopping mall bathroom, and using the Internet to reach out to three other boys , one just 10.

Psychologists certified that Abregana was sexually dangerous in 2007. In 2008, a federal judge ordered the government to release him , concluding the Justice Department couldn't prove his attraction to boys who had reached puberty was a sufficiently serious mental disorder, or that he would have "serious difficulty" not re-offending.

Abregana had been free for less than two years when he introduced himself to a 12-year-old boy he met at a video game store. Abregana bought the boy gifts in exchange for sex, according to court records and the boy's mother, whom USA TODAY agreed not to name to protect her son's privacy. He also recorded the abuse.

The boy's mother said she suspected something was wrong. One afternoon, she said, she found her son with a cellphone, something the single mother of five couldn't afford to buy him. Then she said she intercepted a text message from "Jay," asking her son to call before coming over.

"Why?" she wrote back.

Abregana wrote that his brother had just gotten out of jail, she said. Abregana's identical twin brother, Jed, has a sordid record of his own; he was convicted of sexual assault and spent time in federal prison for viewing child pornography . But the government had not certified him as sexually dangerous.

At first, the boy denied anything had happened. But the next morning, he came to her in tears and told her the truth, his mother said. She called the police. Abregana pleaded guilty last year and was sentenced to 20 years in state prison.

"I'm a firm believer that people can change," the mother said. "But I don't think he can change."

Now, she worries about her son, who's 13, in therapy and still gets teased about what happened by classmates and siblings. And she worries about Abregana, and whether 20 years in prison will be long enough to stop him from hurting someone else.

Contributing: Amanda Muscavage

Andrew Thomas won't appeal disbarment

Andrew Thomas won't appeal disbarment

by Michael Kiefer - Apr. 24, 2012 01:23 PM

The Republic | azcentral.com

Former Maricopa County Attorney Andrew Thomas anounced Tuesday that he will not appeal his disbarment.

Thomas, who served as county attorney from 2005 until he resigned in April 2010 to run for higher office, was stripped of his law license April 10 for ethical misconduct. Among the most serious findings of his disciplinary hearing were that he filed a frivolous federal racketeering lawsuit against judges and county officials and that he pressed criminal charges against a Superior Court judge without probable cause.

One of his former deputies, Lisa Aubuchon, was also disbarred, and a second deputy, Rachel Alexander, was suspended from practicing law for six months and a day. Both have given notice that they intend to appeal the sanctions against them.

Thomas nonetheless maintains his innocence of the findings against him, and he accused the court system of conspiring against him in his disbarment.

His statement Tuesday, in its entirety, said:

"I have decided not to appeal the ruling that took my law license. My accusers, the Board of Supervisors, once again have fired my lawyers, ensuring I cannot properly defend myself or my anti-corruption efforts. Also, because of the extensive relationships between the Supreme Court and the judges and officials I've sued or prosecuted, the court cannot possibly be impartial and will only rubberstamp the railroad job I have just been through."

"Though I have suffered a grave injustice, this sacrifice was not in vain. I promise, before God and my community, to seek reforms so that the powerful and corrupt are no longer above the law."

NYPD steals condoms from hookers to harass them!!!

Source

Condoms as evidence are unhealthy, advocates say

Apr. 17, 2012 02:33 PM

Associated Press

ALBANY, N.Y. --Advocates for sex workers want New York to become the first state to ban police officers from confiscating condoms as evidence in prostitution cases, saying it has a chilling effect on disease protection.

To bolster their case, a group issued a report Tuesday showing that fear of police harassment and arrest has prompted some prostitutes to carry fewer or no condoms and have sex without them, despite massive government giveaways.

"We did find, which is a good thing, that sex workers generally carry condoms and use condoms," said Sienna Baskin, an attorney with the Sex Workers Project at the Urban Justice Center in Manhattan

But prostitutes also say police also confiscate condoms as a kind of harassment, she said. In surveys, several sex workers said city police took their condoms without arresting them.

Calls to the New York Police Department and Manhattan district attorney's office were not immediately returned Tuesday.

State Sen. Velmanette Montgomery, a Brooklyn Democrat and sponsor of the bill to ban condom evidence, said she has been told the bill get on the calendar for committee consideration in the Republican-controlled Senate. She said a similar measure has previously passed the Democrat-controlled Assembly.

"We are not endorsing prostitution," Montgomery said. "It is simply related to the fact that over 100,000 people right now are infected with HIV and AIDS in New York City."

Alexandra Waldhorn, spokeswoman for the city health department, said Tuesday that the city opposes the pending legislation.

Kate Hogan, a prosecutor who is the former president of the state district attorneys' association, said the real goal of prostitution cases is "to get the pimps and the sex traffickers." Giving up supporting evidence would be giving them "a lot of leeway we don't want to give them," she said.

In a bid to curb the spread of sexually transmitted diseases, New York City health officials began giving out free condoms in 1971 and say they have given out 192 million since 2007. In a similar program, the state health department said it distributes more than 10 million annually.

The 2010 and 2011 surveys of sex workers were conducted by the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene and by the PROS Network, a coalition of workers and advocates.

The network survey included 35 people who said they worked in the sex trade, with 15 saying police had taken or destroyed their condoms and only five of those saying they were arrested. Six said they had sex later that day or night, and half used a condom.

Of 63 people in the city survey, 36 said their condoms were taken and 26 said they were arrested.

In 2009 in New York City, there were 1,802 arrests for prostitution, a misdemeanor, and 927 arrests for loitering for the purposes of engaging in prostitution, a lesser charge, according to the report.

Human Rights Watch researchers Kathleen Todrys and Megan McLemore said preliminary results from their study of sex workers in New York City, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Washington, D.C., raise similar concerns about groups with high rates of HIV infection -- 10 to 14 percent -- and high risk for transmission.

McLemore said San Francisco police began photographing condoms for evidence instead of confiscating them after city supervisors in 1996 passed a resolution directing police not to take condoms as evidence, part of that city's effort to address the AIDS crisis. That still keeps pressure on businesses such as strip clubs and massage parlors to not take free condoms from outreach workers because they still can be used in prosecutions, she said.

TSA screeners allegedly let drug-filled luggage through LAX for cash

The TSA and the so called "war on terror" is just a lame excuse to flush the 4th Amendment down the toilet and expand the "war on drugs"

Source

TSA screeners allegedly let drug-filled luggage through LAX for cash

April 25, 2012 | 1:08 pm

Four current and former Transportation Security Administration screeners have been arrested and face charges of taking bribes and looking the other way while suitcases filled with cocaine, methamphetamine or marijuana passed through X-ray machines at Los Angeles International Airport, federal authorities announced Wednesday.

The TSA screeners, who were arrested Tuesday night and Wednesday morning, allegedly received up to $2,400 in cash bribes in exchange for allowing large drug shipments to pass through checkpoints in what the U.S. attorney in Los Angeles called a “significant breakdown” of security.

In addition to the two current and two former screeners, prosecutors also indicted two alleged drug couriers and a third who allegedly tried to smuggle 11 pounds of cocaine but was nabbed when he went through the wrong security checkpoint.

The TSA employees “placed greed above the nation’s security needs,” Andre Birotte Jr., U.S. attorney for the Central District of California, said in a statement.

The 40-page indictment outlines five alleged smuggling incidents over a six-month period last year. In one incident, screeners schemed to allow for about eight pounds of methamphetamine to pass through security, then went to an airport restroom where he was handed $600, the second half of the payment for that delivery, according to prosecutors.

Briane Grey, acting special agent in charge of the DEA in Los Angeles, said the scheme was particularly reprehensible because it took place at LAX.

“The defendants traded on their positions at one the world’s most crucial airport security checkpoints, used their special access for criminal ends, and compromised the safety and security of their fellow citizens for their own profit,” he said in a statement.

The indicted screeners are Naral Richardson, 30, and Joy White, 27, who were both fired by TSA last year; and John Whitfield, 23, and Capeline McKinney, 25, both currently employed as screeners. All four have been taken into custody, and face up to life in prison if convicted.

The accused drug couriers are Duane Eleby, 28, who is expected to surrender, and Terry Cunningham and Stephen Bayliss, both 28, who are both at large.

The TSA’s security director at LAX said the agency was assisting with the investigation. “While these arrests are a disappointment, TSA is committed to holding our employees to the highest standards,” Randy Parsons said in a statement.

TSA defends pat-down of 4-year-old

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TSA defends pat-down of 4-year-old

Apr. 25, 2012 09:56 PM

Associated Press

WICHITA, Kan. -- The grandmother of a 4-year-old girl who became hysterical during a security screening at a Kansas airport said Wednesday that the child was forced to undergo a pat-down after hugging her, with security agents yelling and calling the crying girl an uncooperative suspect.

The incident has been garnering increasing media and online attention since the child's mother, Michelle Brademeyer of Montana, detailed the ordeal in a public Facebook post last week. The Transportation Security Administration is defending its agents, despite new procedures aimed at reducing pat-downs of children.

The child's grandmother, Lori Croft, told The Associated Press that Brademeyer and her daughter, Isabella, initially passed through security at the Wichita airport without incident. The girl then ran over to briefly hug Croft, who was awaiting a pat-down after tripping the alarm, and that's when TSA agents insisted the girl undergo a physical pat-down.

Isabella had just learned about "stranger danger" at school, her grandmother said, adding that the girl was afraid and unsure about what was going on.

"She started to cry, saying 'No I don't want to,' and when we tried talking to her she ran," Croft said. "They yelled, 'We are going to shut down the airport if you don't grab her.'"

But she said the family's main concern was the lack of understanding from TSA agents that they were dealing with a 4-year-old child, not a terror suspect.

"There was no common sense and there was no compassion," Croft said. "That was our biggest fault with the whole thing -- not that they are following security procedures, because I understand that they have to do that."

Brademeyer, of Missoula, Mont., wrote a public Facebook post last week about the April 15 incident, claiming TSA treated her daughter "no better than if she had been a terrorist." The posting was taken down Wednesday. Another post said the family had filed formal complaints with the TSA and the airport.

The TSA released a statement Tuesday saying it explained to the family why additional security procedures were necessary and that agents didn't suspect or suggest the child was carrying a firearm.

"TSA has reviewed the incident and determined that our officers followed proper screening procedures in conducting a modified pat-down on the child," the agency said.

The statement noted that the agency recently implemented modified screening procedures for children age 12 and younger to further reduce the need for pat-downs of children, such as multiple passes through a metal detector and advanced imaging technology.

"These changes in protocol will ultimately reduce -- though not eliminate -- pat-downs of children," the statement said. "In this case, however, the child had completed screening but had contact with another member of her family who had not completed the screening process."

U.S. Sen. Jon Tester, a Montana Democrat, pressed the TSA for more information Wednesday. Tester, a member of the Senate Homeland Security Committee, said he was concerned the TSA went too far.

"I am a staunch advocate for effective transportation security, but I'm also a strong advocate for common sense and the freedoms we enjoy as Americans," Tester wrote to TSA Administrator John Pistole. "Any report of abuse of the power entrusted to officers of the TSA is especially concerning -- especially if it involves children."

In a phone interview from her home in Fountain Valley, Calif., Croft said Brademeyer tried to no avail to get TSA agents to use a wand on the frightened girl or allow her to walk through the metal detector again. She also said TSA agents wanted to screen her granddaughter alone in a separate room.

"She was kicking and screaming and fighting and in hysterics," Croft said. "At that point my daughter ran up to her against TSA's orders because she said, 'My daughter is terrified, I can't leave her.'"

The incident went on for maybe 10 minutes, until a manager came in and allowed agents to pat the girl down while she was screaming but being held by her mother. The family was then allowed to go to their next gate with a TSA agent following them.

Croft said that for the first few nights after coming home, Isabelle had nightmares and talked about kidnappers. She said TSA agents had shouted at the girl, telling her to calm down and saying the suspect wasn't cooperating.

"To a 4-year-old's perspective that's what it was to her because they didn't explain anything and she did not know what was going on," Croft said. "She saw people grabbing at her and raising their voices. To her, someone was trying to kidnap her or harm her in some way."

TSA screeners allegedly let drug couriers through LAX for cash

TSA screeners allegedly let drug couriers through LAX for cash

By Victoria Kim, Los Angeles Times

April 26, 2012

The man with eight pounds of methamphetamine in his carry-on bag stood in the snaking security line at Los Angeles International Airport's Terminal 4, inching toward the checkpoint, when a TSA screener approached.

But it wasn't to stop the contraband, according to prosecutors. It was to make sure it got through.

The screener, John Whitfield, allegedly told the man to get to the back of the line so he and his luggage would get to the X-ray machines when Whitfield's shift started. That way, he would be the one watching the meth show up on screen; and in exchange for $1,200, Whitfield allowed it through, according to a federal indictment unsealed Wednesday.

Authorities filed trafficking and bribery charges against Whitfield and three other current and former Transportation Security Administration screeners, alleging that they received thousands of dollars in cash bribes in exchange for turning a blind eye on drugs packed in suitcases.

The case represents a "significant breakdown of the screening system," U.S. Atty Andre Birotte Jr. said in a statement, adding that the accused screeners "placed greed above the nation's security needs."

David Herzog, the assistant U.S. attorney prosecuting the case, said the scheme had implications beyond drug trafficking.

"In this case it was narcotics; we want to make sure the next time it's not other dangerous materials," he said. Herzog added that all the drugs were seized before they left the airport.

The 40-page indictment details half a dozen incidents between January and July of 2011 in which the screeners allowed drug couriers or sources working with federal authorities to smuggle cocaine, methamphetamine or marijuana into airport terminals to be taken onto outbound flights. Also charged in the indictment are three suspected drug couriers who are accused of bribing the screeners.

The alleged orchestrator was Naral Richardson, a 30-year-old former TSA employee, authorities said. Richardson, according to prosecutors, would arrange for the courier and the screener to meet ahead of time and give the screener a cellphone to be used to coordinate the "pass-through."

It was Richardson who prosecutors allege set up Whitfield's June 2011 plot. Whitfield allegedly asked Richardson if it would be "white girls" or "Green Bay Packers" he would be helping through security. Neither, he was told — it wasn't cocaine or marijuana, but "crystal," or methamphetamine.

The 23-year-old screener allegedly instructed the drug courier to say he had a pacemaker so that he would get a hand pat-down and eliminate the possibility of a random bag search. Once the eight pounds of methamphetamine had safely passed through, Whitfield allegedly met the drug courier in a bathroom and received his payment, the indictment states.

Another alleged pass-through ended as a foiled attempt. Screener Joy White allegedly gave a courier carrying about 11 pounds of cocaine instructions to come through her X-ray machine in Terminal 6, then walk through a secure tunnel to Terminal 5, where his flight was to depart, court documents show. The alleged courier, Duane Eleby, instead went through security at Terminal 5, and was promptly arrested when another TSA screener spotted the cocaine in his suitcase, authorities said. Eleby was later released.

At the time of their next job two weeks later, Richardson and White told a courier secretly working with the Drug Enforcement Administration that the last drug runner was "sitting in a jail cell because he had not only gone to the wrong lane, he had gone to the wrong terminal," the indictment alleged.

In a separate instance, screener Capeline McKinney, who wasn't operating an X-ray machine when a drug courier arrived at the checkpoint, opened up a new security lane for the courier and allowed through two bags with about 44 pounds of cocaine, prosecutors alleged.

An attorney for McKinney, Ellen Barry, said they were waiting to see what evidence the government turns over. Her client appeared in court Wednesday still in her TSA uniform, Barry said.

Although Whitfield and McKinney are currently employed as screeners, Richardson and White were previously terminated by the TSA for reasons unrelated to the trafficking and bribery case, according to authorities. All four have been taken into custody and face up to life in prison if convicted.

Eleby is expected to surrender to authorities Thursday. Of the other alleged drug couriers, Terry Cunningham remains at large and Stephen Bayliss is in state custody.

The TSA's security director at LAX said the agency was assisting with the investigation.

"While these arrests are a disappointment, TSA is committed to holding our employees to the highest standards," Randy Parsons said in a statement.

victoria.kim@latimes.com

TSA screening 'hurt my privates,' lawmaker say

TSA screening 'hurt my privates,' lawmaker says

by Ben Mutzabaugh - Apr. 26, 2012 10:41 AM

USA Today

A Texas congressman is at loggerheads with the Transportation Security Administration over a pat-down last week that he says "hurt my privates."

"Freshman Rep. Francisco Canseco, R-Texas, said the San Antonio Transportation Security Administration (TSA) officer handled that sensitive moment of the screening process roughly, causing him pain," writes FOX News Latino, one of several media outlets reporting on the incident.

"As he was moving up my leg, he moved his hand aggressively up to my crotch and he hurt me," Canseco adds to the Politico. "The natural reaction is when someone goes for your crotch and it hurts, you're going to pull back -- and my right arm came down and moved away his hand briskly."

Canseco's response didn't sit well with the officer, who told the congressman he himself may have been "assaulted" with the brush-away.

Politico reports "it took 20 minutes for police to untangle the spat, but no charges were filed and no citations were issued."

However, that didn't end Canseco's run-ins with the TSA. He was again selected for additional screening during another trip this week. Canseco thinks the incidents are related, though the TSA says both checks were random and part of the normal security process.

Regardless, Canseco is speaking out. He says he understands the need to be vigilant on airport security matters, but says the agency needs to find a way to put fliers through that process in a more dignified manner.

"I'm seeing firsthand what happens," Canseco says to KSAT TV of San Antonio, making reference to passenger complaints about the TSA. "What happened to me probably happens 10, 20 times a day to a lot of good citizens. You feel that your dignity is being assaulted, you feel like you're being assaulted. And it's not right, especially (when) you see 4-year-old children being patted down and searched out or 80-year-old ladies."

US Marines shove Brazilian prostitute out of van???

Brazilian prostitute tied to Marines plans suit

Apr. 26, 2012 10:36 AM

Associated Press

SAO PAULO -- A Brazilian prostitute plans to sue the U.S. Embassy, three Marines and a Brazilian staff member for injuries caused when she allegedly was pushed out of a van in Brasilia.

Attorney Cezar Britto says his client will sue for injuries, medical expenses and lost income.

He describes Romilda Aparecida Ferreira as a "sex professional and dancer" who met the four at a nightclub on Dec. 29, 2011. She and three other women left with the men in three vehicles.

Britto says that after an argument, one Marine tossed her from the vehicle. She broke her collarbone, two ribs and punctured a lung.

The State Department says the woman was outside, trying to open the door of the moving vehicle.

The Marines were returned home and had their ranks reduced.

Bill on Colorado City police dies in House

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Bill on Colorado City police dies in House

by Mary Jo Pitzl - Apr. 25, 2012 08:36 PM

The Republic | azcentral.com

The House of Representatives on Wednesday killed a bill that would have replaced Colorado City's local police force with Mohave County sheriff's deputies.

The prolonged debate cut across partisan, ideological and religious divides and resulted in a 25-28 defeat for Senate Bill 1433.

Attorney General Tom Horne lobbied for the bill, which he said was necessary to ensure local police follow the law and not the dictates of Warren Jeffs, former president of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. Jeffs is now in a Texas prison, serving a life sentence for sexual assault on underage girls.

But the two lawmakers who represent the area, representatives Doris Goodale, R-Kingman, and Nancy McLain, R-Bullhead City, successfully led opposition to the bill, which was sponsored by their Senate seatmate, Sen. Ron Gould, R-Lake Havasu City.

McLain said the bill seeks to punish current law-enforcement officers for offenses committed by previous officers.

The bill says if a town has had at least half of its police officers' certifications revoked by the Arizona Peace Officers Standards and Training Board in the past eight years, the town no longer can authorize its police force. That's been the case for Colorado City.

But McLain argued that the town has a new set of officers, who are called marshals in the isolated community along the Arizona-Utah border.

Four of the community's six marshals have been certified by the training board, she said, and the other two are new hires.

"Things have been changing in Colorado City," McLain said.

Horne made a last-minute attempt to salvage the bill, sending lawmakers a letter from the court-appointed receiver who controls most of Colorado City's assets.

In that letter, receiver Bruce Wisan said without the change in police authority, "the FLDS Church will continue to control and direct the officers of the Colorado City Marshal's Office."

Wisan needs law-enforcement cooperation to carry out his duties, which have included dissolving some of the assets held by the United Effort Plan Trust. The trust holds most of the town's property and other assets.

L.A. deputy charged with sex crimes with teen Explorer

L.A. deputy charged with sex crimes with teen Explorer

April 26, 2012 | 11:19 am

A Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputy was arrested this week and charged with sex crimes against a teenage girl enrolled in the department’s program for youths interested in law enforcement.

Deputy Manuel Enrique Perallon Jr. was charged with one felony count of oral copulation of a minor and misdemeanor child molesting. The deputy’s victim, authorities said, was a 16-year-old girl enrolled in the sheriff's department’s Explorer program.

Perallon, 36, was in charge of overseeing the volunteer youth program at the Cerritos station. Sheriff’s officials received information last year that the deputy was engaged in an “inappropriate relationship” with a teenage Explorer and a probe was launched, said sheriff’s spokesman Steve Whitmore.

The investigation determined that Perallon had victimized the teen, Whitmore said, over the span of several months, sometimes while the deputy was on duty.

Supervision and auditing of the youth program has been heightened as a result, Whitmore said, though sheriff’s investigators do not believe Perallon had other victims.

The deputy faces a maximum prison term of four years. Following the felony charge, he was relieved of duty without pay.

“All crimes are heinous, especially ones like this,” Whitmore said. “Not only is it illegal, but it’s categorically unacceptable.”

The sheriff’s Explorer program is an incubator for youth interested in careers in law enforcement. Teen volunteers are allowed to assist law enforcement in basic tasks and are provided guidance in how to become cops once they’re older.

ACLU sues Border Patrol over traffic stops on Northern border

ACLU sues Border Patrol over traffic stops Apr. 26, 2012 02:51 PM Associated Press SEATTLE -- The American Civil Liberties Union filed a lawsuit Thursday against the U.S. Border Patrol seeking to bar agents from making traffic stops, saying people are being pulled over and questioned "without reasonable suspicion." The lawsuit stems from tensions between immigrants and the expanded presence of Border Patrol agents on Washington state's Olympic Peninsula, which doesn't share a land border with Canada. "People are being stopped based solely on their appearance and ethnicity. This is unlawful and contrary to American values," said Matt Adams, legal director of the Northwest Immigrant Rights Project, which also joined the lawsuit. "No one in a car should be stopped and interrogated by government agents unless the law enforcement officer has a legal basis to do so." The ACLU and the Northwest Immigrant Rights Project filed the lawsuit on behalf of three peninsula residents who have been stopped by Border Patrol agents. One of them is Ernest Grimes, a prison guard at Clallam Bay Corrections Center and a part-time police officer, who said he was pulled over in 2011. The lawsuit says the agent approached Grimes, who is black, with his hand on his weapon while yelling at him to roll down his window. The lawsuit alleges the agent provided no reason for the traffic stop while he interrogated Grimes about his immigration status. Grimes was wearing his guard uniform at the time. The other two men in the lawsuit are Latino U.S. citizens. Jose Sanchez, a prison guard, said Border Patrol agents have stopped him numerous times and questioned him about his immigration status. In one instance, agents told Sanchez they were pulling him over because his windows were too dark, but they didn't ask for his car insurance or registration. The other man represented in the suit, 18-year-old Ismael Ramos Contreras, was with a group of friends when four agents pulled them over. The lawsuit says one of the agents tried to take the keys out of the ignition and interrogated the teenagers but never provided a reason for the stop. Ramos also was asked for his immigration status outside a courthouse in Forks. "The Border Patrol's actions have created a climate of fear and anxiety for many people living on the Olympic Peninsula. The residents in this suit all are U.S. citizens who worry that they could be stopped and questioned without reason any time they drive or are passengers in cars," said Sarah Dunne, the ACLU's legal director. The lawsuit says traffic stops by Border Patrol agents violate the Fourth Amendment and exceed the agency's legal powers. It seeks to bar such stops until agents are trained on what constitutes reasonable suspicion. The suit also asks the court to require that agents file paperwork justifying each traffic stop and make it readily available to a court-appointed special master. The lawsuit is seeking a class-action status. An email to the Border Patrol Thursday morning was not immediately returned. But the agency has said it is following its mandate to enforce the country's immigration laws and protect the border and shoreline from terrorists, drug smugglers and other illegal activity. After the Sept. 11 attacks, President George W. Bush ordered U.S. Customs and Border Protection, which oversees the Border Patrol, to beef up its presence on the U.S.-Canada border, which is almost twice as long as the U.S.-Mexico border. In 2007, the northern border had nearly 1,100 agents. Now it has more than 2,200. In the same period, the number of agents in the Blaine sector, which covers the border area west of the Cascades, went from 133 to 331. Over the years, Border Patrol enforcement practices common on the southern border, such as highway checkpoints, have been implemented along the northern border, miffing residents on the Olympic Peninsula, the area's congressman and local authorities. Agents cut back on road and ferry checkpoints after objections mounted. Tensions rose last year after a forest worker drowned following a foot chase with a Border Patrol agent. The Mexican national jumped into a frigid river to elude the agent. His body was found entangled in roots three weeks later. The Olympic Peninsula is home to rural towns around the edge of the Olympic National Park. Many immigrants from Mexico and Guatemala have moved there to work in the forests picking salal, an ornamental leaf.

Refusing to give out public records costs Sheriff Joe $45,000

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Arizona Republic, 12 News settle lawsuit with MCSO over records

County pays $45,000 to Republic, 12 News

by Michael Kiefer - Apr. 26, 2012 10:37 PM

The Republic | azcentral.com

The Arizona Republic and 12 News have settled a lawsuit with the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office over its refusal to promptly turn over public records detailing an investigation of misconduct in that office.

On Thursday, the county submitted a check for $45,000 to the newspaper and the TV station, which share a newsroom, to cover a portion of their litigation costs in obtaining the public records.

A Maricopa County Superior Court judge last December awarded $50,546 in attorney's fees in the lawsuit after the news organizations won release of the records they sought. The Sheriff's Office appealed the judgment for fees, and the parties settled for the amount paid Thursday.

"I hope the award and payment will prompt the Sheriff's Office to think carefully before instinctively withholding public records," said attorney David Bodney, who represents The Republic and 12 News.

"We're glad to have prevailed in this lengthy legal struggle with the Sheriff's Office. At its heart, this case was about accountability within the department and transparency to the public for how the sheriff runs his office," said Randy Lovely, senior vice president for news and audience development for Republic Media/Phoenix.

But Deputy Maricopa County Attorney Tom Liddy, who represented Sheriff Joe Arpaio's agency in the matter, said the settlement was reached only to save taxpayers the cost of further litigation.

"We were correct and The Arizona Republic was wrong," Liddy said. "The sheriff did everything he could to turn over the documents and to protect the private information of individuals mentioned in the report as required by law."

But when a new judge took over the case, Liddy said, the Sheriff's Office felt it would be too costly to defend further.

"I didn't want to spend $100,000 to $150,000 of taxpayer money over a squabble with The Arizona Republic," he said.

Bodney said, "It really shouldn't cost a person money to get a public official like Sheriff Arpaio to comply with the Public Records Law."

"Ideally, taxpayers should not be liable for this payment, and the best news is that the sheriff settled the case instead of appealing it as he threatened to do," Bodney said.

On April 14, 2011, the news organizations filed a request under the Arizona Public Records Law for a copy of an investigative report prepared by Pinal County Sheriff Paul Babeu detailing internal Sheriff's Office activities that eventually led to the firings of then-Maricopa County Sheriff's Chief Deputy David Hendershott, Deputy Chief Larry Black and Capt. Joel Fox. Fox's termination was appealed and a decision is pending before the county Merit Commission.

The investigative report sought by The Republic and 12 News included a 1,022-page summary, 400 pages of findings and 20,000 pages of transcripts and other documents.

Arpaio denied the request for its release, saying that it should remain confidential while the three men were still employed by the office or appealing their firings. The Republic and 12 News sued.

"They cited a hodgepodge of reasons for withholding the Babeu report, so it appeared the sheriff was merely stonewalling," Bodney said. "Plainly, the Babeu report identified public corruption at the highest levels of the Sheriff's Office. It was not a flattering look at some very public officials, and of course the sheriff himself."

Days later, the Sheriff's Office began releasing pieces of the report, but refused to release it in its entirety until ordered to do so by a Superior Court judge in mid-November. It revealed, among other things, that Arpaio had been made aware of some instances of misconduct and mismanagement in his organization. Issues identified in the report ranged from financial problems and inappropriate campaign fundraising to abuse of employees and ignoring sex-crime investigations to focus on pet projects.

The settlement of attorney's fees was finalized Tuesday, the same day that Hendershott, Black and Fox filed a lawsuit against the county and the Sheriff's Office alleging defamation of character because of the contents of the Babeu report and its release to the media.

Reporter Michelle Ye Hee Lee contributed to this story.

Pinal Sheriff Paul Babeu target of $2.1 million claim

Pinal Sheriff Paul Babeu target of $2.1 million claim

by Lindsey Collom - Apr. 26, 2012 09:32 PM

The Republic | azcentral.com

The ex-vice mayor of Apache Junction, his wife and their son have filed a $2.1million claim against Pinal County Sheriff Paul Babeu.

In the claim, filed earlier this week, Robert "R.E." Eck, Cynthia Eck and Robert Eck III allege the sheriff ordered a deputy to pursue "baseless" aggravated-assault charges, among others, against the then-vice mayor and his son in 2009.

A Pinal County Superior Court judge dismissed the case against the Ecks on Jan.5, less than two weeks before the matter was set for trial.

The claim says Babeu's "malicious order to prosecute" resulted in the tarnishing of the elder Ecks' reputation and career, loss of wages because of a successful recall election, more than $70,000 in attorney's fees, marital strife and exacerbated health problems. His son, according to the claim, also suffered "emotional distress and depression related to the ordeal and incurred legal fees defending against the spurious charges."

The incident took place in October 2009. According to a report by the Pinal County Sheriff's Office, the father and son's truck was stopped at a red light in Apache Junction behind a motorcycle ridden by Eric and Christina Martinez.

What happened next is disputed by both parties.

The Ecks contend that Eric Martinez got off the motorcycle, approached their vehicle and punched the elder Eck hard enough to knock him out. The truck lurched forward and struck the motorcycle, pinning Christina Martinez beneath it.

Eric Martinez says that moments earlier, he had to swerve to avoid colliding with the truck as it exited a parking lot near the intersection. Martinez said the younger Eck got out of the truck and attacked first, and he struck back by slapping the young man in the face. He said he punched the father to stop him from ramming into the motorcycle but it didn't work.

Apache Junction police turned the investigation over to the Pinal County Sheriff's Office to avoid a conflict because the older Eck was the city's vice mayor at the time. According to the claim, Babeu also had a conflict of interest: The sheriff supported an opposing candidate in the recall effort.

Tim Gaffney, director of communications and grants for the Sheriff's Office, released this statement Thursday in response to the filing:

"The Apache Junction Police Department requested that we conduct this investigation to avoid any possible conflicts with a high-profile local-elected official. The investigation was handled by our office in the same manner as it would be for any other individual. This is a serious case involving impaired driving, where Mr. Eck struck a motorcycle stopped at a traffic light and subsequent threat with a dangerous weapon and assault occurred. The case was investigated thoroughly by our deputies and the findings were forwarded to the County Attorney's Office for charging. Sheriff Babeu had no direct involvement in this investigation. Sheriff Babeu stands behind our deputies and their investigation."

Nearly a year passed before a Pinal County grand jury indicted the elder Eck on two counts of aggravated assault, criminal damage and DUI. His son was also charged.

Eck was successfully recalled in March 2011.

Eric Martinez was acquitted of misdemeanor assault charges. He and his wife are involved in a civil suit against the Ecks in Maricopa County Superior Court.

House approves cybersecurity bill

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House approves cybersecurity bill

Plan urges companies', feds' cooperation to halt attacks

by Donna Cassata - Apr. 26, 2012 11:24 PM

Associated Press

WASHINGTON - The House ignored Obama administration objections Thursday and approved legislation that encourages voluntary action by corporations to help stop electronic attacks on critical U.S. infrastructure and private companies.

On a bipartisan vote of 248-168, the GOP-controlled House backed the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act, which would encourage companies and the federal government to share information collected on the Internet to prevent electronic attacks from cybercriminals, foreign governments and terrorists.

"This is the last bastion of things we need to do to protect this country," Rep. Mike Rogers, R-Mich., chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, said after more than five hours of debate.

More than 10 years after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, proponents cast the bill as an initial step to deal with an evolving threat of the Internet age.

The information sharing would be voluntary to avoid imposing new regulations on businesses, an imperative for Republicans.

The legislation would allow the government to relay cyberthreat information to a company to prevent attacks from Russia or China. In the private sector, corporations could alert the government and provide data that could stop an attack intended to disrupt the country's water supply or take down the banking system.

The Obama administration has threatened a veto of the House bill, preferring a Senate measure that would give the Homeland Security Department the primary role in overseeing domestic cybersecurity and the authority to set security standards.

The Senate bill remains stalled. House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, said the administration's approach is misguided.

"The White House believes the government ought to control the Internet, government ought to set standards and government ought to take care of everything that's needed for cybersecurity," Boehner told reporters at his weekly news conference.

"They're in a camp all by themselves."

Several Republicans and Democrats warned of potential government spying on its citizens with the help of employers.

What the Secret Service could learn from drunken sailors

What the Secret Service could learn from drunken sailors

By Roberto Loiederman, Published: April 26

Roberto Loiederman, a merchant seaman from 1966 to 1974, is a writer in California. He co-authored “The Eagle Mutiny,” an account of the 1970 mutiny on a U.S. vessel.

What happened in Cartagena, Colombia, with the Secret Service seems unsavory to me, but not for the reasons you might think.

I make no judgments about men spending a night with escorts. As far as I’m concerned, those who take a holier-than-thou attitude about this are like Inspector Renault in “Casablanca” when he says he’s “shocked, shocked” to discover there is gambling at Rick’s Cafe . . . just before someone hands him his winnings.

No, what the Secret Service agents apparently did seems unsavory because of my own experiences.

More than 40 years ago, I was a merchant seaman. Whenever our ship would get to port — any port — we’d hurry to an area near the docks filled with bars and women. Valparaiso or Santos, Pusan or Saigon, Djibouti or Cartagena — the only changes, from port to port, were the local women’s ethnicity and language.

As a seaman, what other options do you have? You’re in a strange city for a few days. You’re with other hardworking, hard-playing guys. And you’ve got cash in your pocket. So you go to a bar, drink more than you should, smile at the women buzzing around, maybe dance with one and then — for a pre-arranged fee — take her to a hotel room.

I imagine the Secret Service agents in the scandal du jour went through similar steps. Of course, the current situation is different from what I remember. The women involved in the Secret Service scandal are “escorts,” not the type of ladies who hang out with seamen, as a Colombian woman in question made clear to the New York Times. The bar where the U.S. personnel met these women is an upscale discotheque, not some mosquito-ridden dive. Like us, the Secret Service men drank far too much, but it was expensive vodka, not cheap whiskey.

There’s another major difference: One of the Secret Service agents did something no self-respecting seaman would have done.

When I worked on ships, seamen were a superstitious lot. When there was a bad storm, while the ship pitched and rolled, the crew, unable to eat or sleep, would gather in the messroom and grumble. Anyone who remembers Coleridge’s ancient mariner knows that seamen don’t blame the wind and tides for bad weather and rough seas. Rather, they blame a fellow member of the crew — someone who has, say, killed an albatross. During storms, they’d mumble darkly that a crew member had “Jonah’d” the ship — done something wicked, while ashore, that caused the seas to rise up and take revenge.

Inevitably, someone would point out that the likely cause of the foul weather was that one of our crew had committed the worst sin of all: not paying a whore. All would nod gravely. In my day, seamen were convinced that this was such a serious infraction it could threaten a ship’s survival. More than once I saw fellow crew members, who’d come back to the ship so drunk they couldn’t remember where they’d been, make superhuman efforts to send money to a woman ashore in a desperate attempt to avoid the curse of the unpaid prostitute.

I thought about this while reading about the scandal in Cartagena. It appears that getting drunk and going back to the hotel with the women wasn’t, in itself, what got the Secret Service personnel into trouble. What got them busted was that someone in their group refused to pay an escort the pre-arranged price. One of the escorts wanted $800. She said that a Secret Service agent offered her $30. (To put that figure in perspective, it’s more or less what seamen used to pay in Cartagena 45 years ago for all-night companionship.)

The stereotype of “spending like a drunken sailor” is true. We prided ourselves on spending our money foolishly. Working on a ship headed to Latin America was known as a “romance run” because it would often end up costing us more than we made. But we didn’t care. We’d give a woman whatever she asked for. If the requested price was steep — like, say, $800 — we’d keep enough for the taxi back to the ship and give her whatever we had.

I don’t want to romanticize the seedy life of merchant seamen, but if the Secret Service personnel involved in this scandal had played by the same rules and followed the same ethical standards as the drunken sailors I used to work with, there would have been no confrontation, and they might still have their jobs.

Sadistic cop permanently blinds woman while having pepper spray fun

Source

Officer Allegedly Blinds Woman with Pepper Spray

4:16 a.m. PDT, April 27, 2012

BEAUMONT, Calif. (KTLA) -- A Beaumont police officer accused of permanently blinding a woman with pepper spray pleaded not guilty on Thursday to four felony charges.

A Riverside County grand jury last week indicted officer Enoch Clark on charges of assault with great bodily injury and other felonies.

On February 21, Clark sprayed pepper spray in the face of Monique Christina Hernandez, 32, while he tried to arrest her on suspicion of driving under the influence, the city of Beaumont said in a statement.

Clark allegedly fired the spray from 12 inches away using a JPX device, which shoots spray at speeds of 400 miles per hour and is supposed to be used at a minimum distance of five feet, Hernandez's lawyer Milton Grimes said in an interview.

"She did nothing to warrant him putting a gun -- a pepper-spray Taser gun -- to her forehead and pulling the trigger, causing her right eye to explode and causing severe nerve damage in her left eye to the extent that she's not been declared totally blind," Grimes said.

Hernandez suffered severe injuries to both of her eyes, Grimes said.

Clark is charged with assault likely to cause great bodily injury, assault with a less-lethal weapon, assault under the color of authority and use of force causing serious bodily injury.

He is now free on $50,000 bail.

Clark has been placed on administrative leave by the Beaumont Police Department.

Mayor Rahm Emanuel refuses to talk about disabled girl's lawsuit against police

Mayor says he can't talk about disabled girl's lawsuit against police

By David Heinzmann and John Byrne Tribune reporters

12:42 p.m. CDT, April 27, 2012

A day after a federal court likened the Chicago Police Department’s handling of a mentally ill woman to throwing her in a lions den, Mayor Rahm Emanuel said he wants to talk about the issue but can’t until Christina Eilman's lawsuit is closed.

The federal appellate court on Thursday rejected an appeal by the city that led to a two-year delay in the case. The lawsuit was filed nearly six years ago, in the months after the then-21-year-old former UCLA student was gravely and permanently injured in an assault that occurred after police arrested her at Midway Airport and released her 7 miles away in one of the city’s most crime-ridden neighborhoods.

Emanuel’s office has been forced to pay an increasing amount of attention to the financial cost of police misconduct lawsuits, mostly for cases that originated under the administration of former Mayor Richard Daley. Emanuel said he can’t fully address the issue with regard to the Eilman case because of the pending litigation.

"There's a review to that, and I can't comment on it given it is both -- any comment on that process right now, while that's at trial. At the end of that, I want to speak to the general question” raised in a reporter’s questions Friday.

In stark language that legal experts said was constitutionally sound but possibly offensive, the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled Eilman's family can proceed with a lawsuit claiming Police Department negligence placed her in danger that led to her sexual assault and catastrophic injury.

The three-judge panel ended more than 18 months of silence on the issue and rejected the city's attempt to stop the case. The lawsuit has had so many delays, the reputed gang member convicted of attacking Eilman before she plummeted from a seventh-floor window was paroled from prison Wednesday.

The city's appeal had asked the court to dismiss the case against 10 police officers, arguing the police had no responsibility to take care of Eilman, who had been arrested after creating a disturbance at Midway Airport in May 2006.

Rather than dwell on the question of police responsibility for providing medical care, the judges said there was evidence of a clearer constitutional violation, that officers had taken Eilman from a relatively safe place — Midway Airport — and ultimately left her in a dangerous place seven miles away, at 51st Street and Wentworth Avenue.

In reciting the narrative of what happened that night, Chief Judge Frank Easterbrook suggested the police showed little regard for the danger they were putting Eilman in when they released her.

"She was lost, unable to appreciate her danger, and dressed in a manner to attract attention," Easterbrook wrote, noting she was wearing a cutoff top and short shorts. He added "she is white and well off while the local population is predominantly black and not affluent, causing her to stand out as a person unfamiliar with the environment and thus a potential target for crime."

After she wandered away from the police station, Eilman was lured into the last standing high-rise of the Robert Taylor Homes, where she was assaulted before plummeting from a seventh-floor window. She suffered massive trauma, including a severe brain injury, shattered pelvis and numerous broken bones. She now lives with her parents near Sacramento and requires around-the-clock care.

Legal experts said the ruling is consistent with well-established federal law.

"Contrary to what most people think, the police don't have a constitutional duty to protect people from harm. But they do have a duty to not put people in harm's way, in other words not to make things worse, and that's what the court found here," said Craig Futterman, a law professor at the University of Chicago Law School, who has led both litigation against the Police Department as well as research into the department's oversight practices.

"It's a jury call. But there is a constitutional duty, and that's been established for a long time."

David Franklin, a constitutional law scholar at DePaul University College of Law, agreed that the court's ruling pointed out an often misconstrued point about the Constitution.

"Where the police crossed the line from merely not providing help to actively doing harm was by dropping her off near the Robert Taylor Homes wearing skimpy clothes and without her cellphone," Franklin said. "Even though it was a private individual who physically injured her, the police can be held constitutionally liable for leaving her much worse off than they found her."

Franklin also noted that some may find the court's language troubling.

In the opinion, Easterbrook also referenced an earlier 7th Circuit opinion noting that throwing someone into a "snake pit" would violate their rights.

"As for the court's potentially offensive analogy between Taylor Homes and a 'lions' den' or a 'snake pit,' well, I suppose that's why federal judges have life tenure."

The appellate court took an usually long time to decide the appeal from city of Chicago lawyers, which was filed in February 2010. Eilman's attorney had filed three motions asking the appellate court to hurry up, and recently he asked the federal trial judge to move forward with the part of the case not on appeal.

The trial judge, Virginia Kendall, was still weighing whether to take the unusual step of splitting the case in two when the appellate ruling came down. The judge had indicated that if she did move forward, the case would go to trial by October.

Eilman's parents, Rick and Kathleen Paine, released a written statement lamenting the lengthy appeal. They have said the physical injuries she endured made her bipolar disorder worse. Because she has no insurance, she is dependent on state aid for medical care.

"Christina's tragedy continues. Six years of litigation without a trial compounds the tragic circumstances here. And, it's time the City's Corporation Counsel's Office stop the incessant delay," they said. "We look forward to a public forum — a Federal courtroom — for all to see and hear how certain police officers and the City turned away from helping a young disabled person in desperate need."

City officials cited an order from the District Court judge asking parties not to discuss the case publicly as a reason to not comment on the ruling from the appellate court.

Pretrial testimony and court filings in the case outlined a series of questionable decisions after Eilman was picked up at Midway. Police ignored a commander's instructions to take her to a hospital for a psychiatric evaluation, according to sworn testimony in the case, and instead transported her to the Wentworth District lockup in one of the city's highest crime areas. She was held there overnight.

The next evening, after hours of psychotic behavior by Eilman, police released her with no assistance or direction.

In the appellate ruling, Easterbrook wrote that police knew Eilman was suffering a bipolar breakdown and that responsibility for the injuries she suffered has to be decided in a trial. The appellate court eliminated two of the officers from the case, ruling they didn't make decisions that could have deprived Eilman of her rights.

This is the second time recently the 7th Circuit has issued harsh opinions rejecting the city's claims that officers should be immune from lawsuits. Earlier this year the city reached a $6.2 million class-action settlement after a March 2011 ruling written by Judge Richard Posner, one of the judges on the Eilman case, lambasted the city's mass arrest of demonstrators during a 2003 Iraq War protest.

Without comment from the city, it's impossible to say how the appellate ruling will influence the Eilman case. But in the Iraq War protest case, city officials acknowledged that the appellate ruling made it clear they needed to settle.

One reason such decisions can lead the city to settle is that lawyers now know that if they roll the dice with a jury and don't like the outcome, they could have few options to appeal, Futterman said.

"Should a jury find these officers are liable ... that jury verdict is highly likely to stick," he said. "It's a powerful statement of law."

dheinzmann@tribune.com

Sheriff can be sued for violence that occurs in his prison

Supreme Court rejects bid to shield Sheriff Lee Baca from lawsuit

April 30, 2012 | 8:32 am

The U.S. Supreme Court refused Monday to shield Los Angeles County Sheriff Lee Baca from being sued for racial gang violence in the jails he supervises.

The justices without comment turned down an appeal from the county’s lawyers, who argued Baca cannot be held personally liable for the stabbing of an inmate since he had no personal involvement in the incident.

Instead, the court let stand a decision of the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, which said Baca can be sued for “deliberate indifference” to the inmate’s rights since he was on notice of the jailhouse violence and failed to take action to stop it.

Dion Starr says he was stabbed 23 times by Latino gang members at the Central Men’s Jail in 2006. He also says he was kicked in the face by a guard who saw the incident and refused to come to his aid. In his suit, Starr named Baca as well as the guards and deputies who were at the scene.

Sonia Mercado, a lawyer for Starr, said it is important that the county sheriff be named in the suit.

“Unless the supervisor is held accountable, nothing will change. This horrendous misconduct will continue,” she said.

Timothy Coates, a Los Angeles lawyer, appealed to the high court in December, urging the justices to throw out the claim against the sheriff. He said plaintiffs’ lawyers try to win big damages judgments by naming top officials, whether or not they had a personal role in the actual case.

“If you are the head of an agency, you are a big target, and you can get dragged into lots of lawsuits,” he said.

Judges in California had been split over whether there was enough evidence for the suit against Baca to go forward. U.S. District Judge George Wu in Los Angeles threw out the claim against the sheriff in 2008, since there was no evidence personally linking Baca to the jailhouse stabbing.

The Supreme Court in 2009 also made it harder to sue top officials. In a 5-4 decision, it threw out a suit against former U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft seeking to hold him liable for the arrest and jailhouse beating of Muslim men following the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

The court said plaintiffs need specific facts showing a top supervisor was directly involved in a constitutional violation. Afterward, a divided 9th Circuit allowed the suit against Baca to go forward.

The C.I.A.’s Misuse of Secrecy

The C.I.A.’s Misuse of Secrecy

By JAMEEL JAFFER and NATHAN FREED WESSLER

Published: April 29, 2012

IN Yemen, Pakistan and elsewhere the C.I.A. has used drones to kill thousands of people — including several Americans. Officials have aggressively defended the controversial program, telling journalists that it is effective, lawful and closely supervised.

But in court, the Central Intelligence Agency refuses even to acknowledge that the targeted killing program exists. The agency’s argument is based on a 35-year-old judicial doctrine called Glomar, which allows government agencies to respond to requests under the Freedom of Information Act, or FOIA, by refusing to confirm or deny the existence of the records that have been requested.

The doctrine sometimes serves a legitimate purpose, but the C.I.A. has grossly abused it, in cases relating to the targeted killing program and other counterterrorism operations. It is invoking the doctrine not to protect legitimately classified information from disclosure, but to shield controversial decisions from public scrutiny and to spare officials from having to defend their policies in court.

The doctrine owes its name to a ship called the Hughes Glomar Explorer, which the C.I.A. used in the early 1970s to salvage a sunken Soviet submarine. When The Los Angeles Times exposed the effort in 1975, the agency tried to suppress coverage, asking news organizations not to publish follow-up stories. Harriet A. Phillippi, a journalist for Rolling Stone, filed a FOIA request to learn more about the C.I.A.’s effort. The C.I.A. refused to confirm or deny the existence of the records Ms. Phillippi had requested.

The C.I.A.’s response was unusual. Ordinarily, an agency served with a FOIA request is required to produce a list of relevant records. The agency must then release the listed records or cite specific legal justifications for keeping them secret. In the Glomar case, the C.I.A. argued that there were circumstances in which it was impossible for an agency to acknowledge even the existence of relevant records without also revealing some fact that the government had a right to withhold.

There are indeed cases in which merely confirming or denying the existence of certain records would reveal a classified fact, such as whether a particular person is a covert intelligence agent or the current target of lawful surveillance.

Those cases, however, are far less common than the C.I.A.’s increasingly frequent reliance on the Glomar doctrine would suggest. A study by the National Security Archive shows that federal court opinions cited the doctrine three times as often in the decade after 9/11 as in the quarter-century preceding it.

There has been a qualitative shift, too. Most of the cases before 2001, including the 1976 Glomar case, involved relatively narrow intelligence-gathering programs that were plainly within the C.I.A.’s mandate. More recently, the agency has used the Glomar doctrine to shield exceptionally controversial programs, and even unlawful conduct, including the torture and rendition of terrorism suspects.

The doctrine has also been invoked since 9/11 to shape public debate. A slew of administration officials have already spoken about the targeted killing program to reporters, both anonymously and on the record, and President Obama himself answered questions about the program during an online town hall. Thus the Glomar doctrine is not serving to keep the targeted killing program a secret, but rather to control which facts about the program are made public, and when. Not coincidentally, the C.I.A.’s reliance on the Glomar doctrine also makes it more difficult for individuals injured by the agency’s counterterrorism policies to challenge those policies in court.

Without pressure from outside, the C.I.A. is unlikely to end its manipulation of the classification system. But the Justice Department, which represents the C.I.A. in court, could decline to defend questionable invocations of the doctrine. President Obama, who at some important junctures has been receptive to arguments for transparency, could direct the C.I.A. to answer FOIA requests that it would prefer to evade.

In one of the American Civil Liberties Union’s cases relating to the targeted killing program (a case in which The New York Times is also involved), the government recently told the court that officials “at the highest level” are re-evaluating the government’s stance on the secrecy of the targeted killing program. This is a noncommittal statement, but perhaps a promising one. The administration should direct the C.I.A. to abandon its pretense that the very existence of the targeted killing program is a secret. It should also direct the C.I.A. to release the legal memos that authorized the program and the evidence it relied on to carry out the drone strikes that killed three Americans in Yemen last year.

If the administration fails to change course, the courts should intervene. The Glomar case itself supplies a useful map. While the appeals court in that case accepted the legitimacy of the Glomar doctrine, it found that the C.I.A. had not sufficiently justified its reliance on it. It ruled that Ms. Phillippi, the reporter, could submit written questions to the agency and depose agency personnel in order to “clarify the Agency’s position or to identify the procedures by which that position was established.” Faced with the prospect of actually having to defend its Glomar invocation, the C.I.A. opted for limited disclosure instead.

The C.I.A.’s manifest abuse of the Glomar doctrine undermines public confidence in the classification system, distorts public debate about issues of extraordinary importance, and enables an agency with sweeping authority — including the authority to kill — to operate with insufficient public oversight. The president, the attorney general and the federal courts have the power to end this abuse, and they should.

Jameel Jaffer is a deputy legal director at the American Civil Liberties Union, where Nathan Freed Wessler is a fellow in the National Security Project.

Scottsdale cops start at $50K and say they are underpaid!!!!

Source

Scottsdale police brass say rookie salary not competitive

by Beth Duckett - Apr. 28, 2012 09:14 PM

The Republic | azcentral.com

Concerns about Scottsdale's competitiveness in the marketplace have ignited a debate over the pay and benefits of public-safety employees, who are leaving the city for other opportunities.

Rookie police officers in Scottsdale earn the lowest salary of all major cities in metro Phoenix, according to a compensation study comparing Scottsdale with similar Valley police departments.

"We don't have a problem in our top pay. We do have a problem in our bottom pay in terms of being competitive in the marketplace," Police Chief Alan Rodbell told the City Council last week.

Chet Anderson, past president of the Scottsdale Fraternal Order of Police, said at least one employee falls under the federal health and nutrition program for women, infants and children, commonly abbreviated WIC. "But it would not surprise me if there were more cops and certainly civilian employees," he said.

Additionally, Scottsdale officers receive the fewest personal days, holidays and sick days, said Jim Nolan, Scottsdale Fraternal Order of Police president.

Scottsdale, which pays starting officers an average $49,878, is losing police personnel for better pay and benefits, department officials confirmed.

Last year, Scottsdale's police force lost 26 experienced employees, Nolan said.

"We've seen people leaving in droves, and that's going to continue," said Jim Hill, president of the Police Officers of Scottsdale Association.

"What we're seeing is we're no longer competitive," Hill said. "We're not even in the top tier."

Rodbell, who oversees a public-safety department of 924 full-time-equivalent positions, said police staffing has dipped.

Since 2009-10, the department has eliminated 63 positions, with plans to ax another 10 next fiscal year.

Among major Valley cities, Scottsdale ranked lowest in starting salary, second to Gilbert, which pays its rookie officers $50,544.

Since a peak in 2007-08, Scottsdale has spent less every year on police overtime, though the city projects a slight increase this fiscal year.

By dividing the police budget of each city by the number of sworn officers, Mayor Jim Lane said Scottsdale could gain a better comparison.

"We want to be competitive and we want to be properly served, and we don't want to cut morale and the kinds of situations that developed because of the difficulties police officers and maybe even firefighters have had with the current situation," Lane said.

Councilwoman Lisa Borowsky supported increasing the starting salary for new police officers, which "doesn't necessarily increase the budget" if the city lowered the salaries of higher-paid police officials.

But Councilman Ron McCullagh said that adjusting salaries won't make a difference if employees are retiring or leaving on their own volition.

He urged city officials to look "from the standpoint of the budget," projected in 2012-13 to be $112.6 million for public safety, the biggest slice of the financial plan.

"I'm trying to figure out how to get this number from $112 million to $100 million," McCullagh said. "We have other departments where we have cut staff. ... The point is, how much public safety can the city afford? How much should they afford?"

FBI agents stop crime plot they created!!!!

FBI agents are heroes for stopping a crime they created????

This sounds a lot like the firemen that want to be recognized as heroes for putting out fires they started.

Source

FBI: 5 men wanted to blow up Ohio bridge

May. 1, 2012 07:42 AM

Associated Press

CLEVELAND -- Federal authorities say five men have been arrested in an alleged plot to blow up a bridge near Cleveland.

The FBI said Tuesday there was no danger to the public because the explosive devices were inoperable and were controlled by an undercover FBI employee.

The men were arrested Monday on charges of conspiracy and trying to use explosive to damage property affecting interstate commerce. They range in age from 20 and 35. Authorities say at least three of the men are self-described anarchists and are not tied to international terrorism.

The FBI says the target of the plot was a bridge over the Cuyahoga Valley National Park in the Brecksville area, roughly 15 miles south of downtown Cleveland.

Only terrorists chew khat

When I lived in Los Angeles before khat was made illegal you could go to Little India and buy khat there.

Source

Britain arrests 7 on suspicion of funding terror

May. 1, 2012 07:18 AM

Associated Press

LONDON -- Seven people have been arrested in Britain on suspicion of financing terrorism in Somalia by smuggling a leaf that can produce a mild high into the United States, officials said Tuesday.

Scotland Yard said the group was arrested as part of an operation that involved Homeland Security Investigations, the investigative branch of U.S. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement.

The operation was investigating a network suspected of illegally exporting a leaf known as khat from the U.K., where it is legal, to the U.S. and Canada, where it is a controlled substance, Scotland Yard said.

"Law enforcement had developed leads, in the U.K. and U.S., that khat was being transshipped through the U.K., then illegally smuggled into the United States," said Ross Feinstein, a spokesman for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. "The proceeds generated by this illegal activity (were) then transferred back to Somalia."

He added that U.S. law enforcement is continuing to work closely with its counterparts overseas on the investigation.

British police said one woman and six men were arrested early Tuesday at four separate residences in London, Coventry and Cardiff, Wales.

Those four homes are being searched along with seven other residential addresses and a business address in Coventry, police added.

Police said the seven people arrested in the early morning raids are suspected of involvement in funding a terrorist organization and laundering the proceeds of crime for that purpose.

All of the suspects have been brought to a London police station for questioning.

1 in 10 teens smoking pot frequently

Source

1 in 10 teens smoking pot frequently

by Jennifer C. Kerr - May. 1, 2012 10:52 PM

Associated Press

WASHINGTON - More teens are smoking marijuana, with nearly one in 10 lighting up at least 20 times a month, according to a new survey of young people.

The report by the Partnership at Drugfree.org, being released today, also says abuse of prescription medicine may be easing a bit among young people in Grades 9 through 12 but still remains high.

Partnership President Steve Pasierb said the mind-set among parents is that it's just a little weed or a few pills -- no biggie.

"Parents are talking about cocaine and heroin, things that scare them," Pasierb said. "Parents are not talking about prescription drugs and marijuana. They can't wink and nod. They need to be stressing the message that this behavior is unhealthy."

Use of harder drugs, cocaine and methamphetamine, has stabilized in recent years, the group's survey indicated. But past-month usage of marijuana grew from 19 percent in 2008 to 27 percent last year. Also alarming, Pasierb said, is the percentage of teens smoking pot 20 or more times a month. That rate went from 5 percent in 2008 to 9 percent last year, or about 1.5 million teens toking up that frequently.

Alex, 17, in Houston, said he started smoking pot at age 13, mostly on the weekends with friends.

"I just liked being high," said Alex, who is in a recovery program and asked that his last name not be used. "I always felt happier. Everything was funnier, and my life was just brighter."

Alex then started abusing prescription drugs at 14. He blacked out one day at school, got arrested and ended up in rehab. After being sober for two years, Alex slipped and smoked pot last month. Still, he said he hopes to work toward a more sober life.

The findings on marijuana track closely with those in a recent University of Michigan study sponsored by the National Institute on Drug Abuse, part of the National Institutes of Health. That study also found marijuana use rising among teens the past few years, reversing a long decline in the previous decade.

The partnership study suggests a link between teens who smoke pot more regularly and the use of other drugs. Teens who smoked 20 times or more a month were almost twice as likely as kids who smoked pot less frequently to use Ecstasy, cocaine or crack.

Other findings:

One in 10 teens reports using prescription pain medication, Vicodin or OxyContin, in the past year. That's down from a peak of 15 percent in 2009 and 14 percent in 2010.

Just over half of Hispanic teens say they have used an illicit drug, such as Ecstasy or cocaine, in the past year. That compares with 39 percent for White teens and 42 percent for African-American teens.

The Marijuana Policy Project, which advocates legalization, said making pot legal for adults might help cut teen usage.

"We definitely don't think that minors should be using marijuana any more than they should be drinking or using tobacco, but arresting people for doing that never stops minors," said Morgan Fox, a spokesman for the group.

"If we remove marijuana from the criminal market and have the market run by responsible business people that have an incentive to check IDs and not sell to minors, then we might see those rates drop again," Fox said.

The partnership's study was sponsored by the MetLife Foundation. Researchers surveyed 3,322 teens in Grades 9-12 with anonymous questionnaires that the youngsters filled out at school from March to June 2011. The study had a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.

Based in New York, the Partnership at Drugfree.org is formerly the Partnership for a Drug-Free America -- perhaps best known for the "This is your brain on drugs" ads of the 1980s and 1990s.

The non-profit group launched its new name in 2010 to position itself as more of a resource to parents and to avoid the misperception that the partnership is a government organization.

Secret Service agents only cheated 3 prostitutes out of their money???

Posted at 10:00 AM ET, 05/02/2012

Secret Service employees paid 9 of the 12 women involved in Colombia sex scandal, agency says

By Ed O'Keefe

U.S. Secret Service personnel tied to last month’s night of heavy drinking, partying and sexual encounters in Cartagena, Colombia paid 9 of the 12 women they became involved with, officials said. None of the women was found to be connected to terrorist organizations or drug cartels.

The Hotel Caribe in Cartagena, Colombia, where 135 U.S. Secret Service personnel stayed during President Obama’s trip last month. (MANUEL PEDRAZA - AFP/GETTY IMAGES) Secret Service officials on Tuesday night submitted 24 pages of written answers to congressional committees investigating the scandal. The agency considers the document “law enforcement sensitive” and is asking the committees not to release it publicly, according to congressional officials who have read the responses.

Agency investigators have interviewed 9 of the 12 women involved — who range in age from 20 to 39 — and plan to speak with the others soon as part of their ongoing probe.

In all, the Secret Service deployed 175 agents and officers to Colombia last month for President Obama’s trip to the Summit of the Americas. Of those, 135 employees stayed at the Hotel Caribe where the prostitution scandal unfolded, congressional officials said.

Two of the 12 employees implicated in the scandal were supervisory criminal investigators; three were snipers and another three were members of a Secret Service counterassault team. Their careers ranged in length from two years to 22 years, the congressional officials said.

Nine of the 12 employees successfully completed polygraph exams, but three employees refused to take them, including the supervisor whose decision not to pay a woman led hotel management and local police to alert U.S. Embassy officials to the misconduct, congressional officials said.

At least three congressional committees are tracking the unfolding scandal and the Department of Homeland Security inspector-general is also conducting a broader inquiry into how the agency responded to the misconduct.

“We’re going to use this as a base to operate from, but we’re also waiting for those statements from the women,” House Homeland Security Committee Peter King (R-N.Y.) said Tuesday night. “That will fill in a lot of the gaps.”

DEA forgets about prisoner and locks man in cell for 5 days!!!

San Diego college student left in cell says he drank his urine

May 2, 2012 | 8:38 am

A San Diego college student who was forgotten by federal drug agents and left in a holding cell for five days without food or water or access to a toilet says he drank his own urine to survive.

The man, identified by news outlets as 23-year-old UC San Diego engineering student Daniel Chong, was detained for questioning along with eight other people during an April 21 raid in which agents seized guns, ammunition and various drugs, according to the DEA.

The suspects were taken to the DEA's San Diego-area headquarters in Kearny Mesa, Fox5 San Diego reported. While being processed, they were moved around the five cells at the facility, according to the agency's statement.

Each was questioned in separate interview rooms and frequently moved around between rooms and cells.

"Seven suspects were brought to county [jail] after processing, one was released, and [Chong] was accidentally left in one of the cells,'' the DEA statement reads.

Despite Chong's shouts and his pounding and kicking on doors and walls in the holding cell, agents failed to realize they had forgotten about him until five days later, Chong told NBC San Diego.

He said he had to drink his own urine to stay alive, eventually began hallucinating and at one point tried to kill himself by breaking his glasses and using glass shards to cut his wrists.

Medics took Chong to a hospital, where he was admitted to an intensive-care unit and kept under physicians' care for several days, he said. Medical staffers told him he had nearly died of kidney failure, he told the station.

The Drug Enforcement Administration offered no explanation for how agents could have lost track of Chong and failed to hear his cries for help.

"DEA plans to thoroughly review both the events and detention procedures on April 21st and after,'' according to the prepared statement about the case.

Magic gremlin steals cops citation books and writes tickets???

Did a magical gremlin steal the cops citation books and write the tickets? Or are the cops lying? Source

Expert says bogus tickets may not have been written by accused officers

By John Carpenter, Special to the Tribune

6:35 a.m. CDT, May 2, 2012

A Chicago Police Board hearing on the proposed firing of two officers allegedly involved in a bogus-ticket-writing scheme wrapped up Tuesday, with city officials saying the cops disgraced the department and have to go, and the officers reiterating their claim that someone stole their citation books to further the harassment of an Orland Park motorist.

A handwriting expert called by the officers testified that it is "more probable than not" that someone other than Officers Horst Hegewald and Paul Roque filled out the seven false tickets at the heart of the hearing. Lawyers for the city called this "very weak" evidence that should be dismissed.

Twenty-four bad tickets in all were written against Mark Geinosky between 2007 and 2008. All were thrown out. But Geinosky, who testified that he thinks they were tied to his contentious divorce proceeding, is suing five police officers in the matter.

Hegewald and Roque are two of five officers named in a police investigation. Two other officers have, respectively, resigned and been terminated on unrelated charges. A fifth is serving with the Air National Guard in Afghanistan; he has not been notified of the charges.

The investigation leading to Tuesday's hearing was not started until after the case was publicized in the Tribune's What's Your Problem? column in early 2009.

Jordan Shea, representing the Police Department, maintained in closing arguments that the case is a simple one, given that the tickets in question came from citation books issued to the two officers and that the tickets were written on nights they were on duty and in the general neighborhoods in which they were working. One of the rules they are charged with violating is bringing discredit on the department.

"If there is any act that can bring discredit on the Chicago Police Department, it's the act of falsely accusing a citizen of an offense they did not commit," Shea said.

But Dan Herbert, representing the police officers, assailed a police Internal Affairs investigation into the matter, calling it "slipshod."

Herbert said the delay in starting the investigation hurt his ability to mount a defense, citing Geinosky's own frustration as he tried without success to get police to look into the matter.

"You heard Mark Geinosky," Herbert said in his closing argument. "He's talking about how he got blown off by everybody. He had no other choice but to go to the Tribune."

The officers took the stand as well, both reiterating that they did not write the bogus tickets and don't know who did.

Hegewald, who testified that he was a "heavy ticket writer," pointed to the fact that his citation book, from which the bad tickets to which he is linked came, had a gap of five months between the last tickets he wrote and the false ones. During that gap, he was writing tickets from another book.

Hegewald said he does not recall specifically but believes the book in question was turned in because it was out of date, and that whoever wrote the bogus tickets pulled it from a poorly monitored box containing other out-of-date citation books.

Roque, meanwhile, said his ticket book was not in his possession on the night the bad tickets were written. He said that on that night he went out on patrol with a third officer, prompting them to request an uncaged patrol car better suited for a three-man team. His book remained in a different car.

The case now moves to the Police Board, which will review transcripts and videotape of the two-day hearing and then hand down a ruling of whether the officers are guilty or not guilty of the charges.

Tuesday's hearing featured Ellen Mulcrone Schuetzner, a forensic document examiner hired by Herbert on behalf of the officers. Mulcrone Schuetzner said she looked at known examples of their writing as well as the tickets in question.

"I found that there were indications they may not have been written by the known authors," she said.

Under cross-examination by Shea, representing the Chicago Police Department, Mulcrone Schuetzner acknowledged that her finding is low on the scale of determinations laid out in standards for document examiners.

Also appearing were several Chicago Police Department officers who supervised Hegewald and Roque. All expressed strong support for the officers, saying they would welcome them back if they are reinstated.

Lt. John Riordan, now assigned to the 8th District, also testified as to what he said are lax controls for police citation books, especially when they become obsolete. Old books must be turned in and new ones issued on a regular basis, usually because fines have increased. Officers are ordered to turn in old books. But Riordan said that usually means someone puts out a cardboard box, and officers toss the old books in.

"There's no real control over it. They set up a box for people to throw them in as they walk by," Riordan said. He also said it is common for officers to continue to write tickets using obsolete citation books, even if they have been told to turn them in.

Andrew Thomas may bear hearing expenses

Andrew Thomas may bear hearing expenses

by Michael Kiefer - May. 1, 2012 09:19 PM

The Republic | azcentral.com

Disbarred former Maricopa County Attorney Andrew Thomas and two deputies could be liable for more than $554,000 in costs and expenses related to their disciplinary hearings.

Thomas' attorney said the county should be required to pick up the tab, but county officials are not so sure.

Maricopa County has already paid $1,066,645 to defend Thomas in the disciplinary hearing that ended in his disbarment April 10, and $327,281 to defend his former deputy, Rachel Alexander, who was suspended from practicing law for six months and a day. Lisa Aubuchon, a third former prosecutor who also was disbarred, was defended for free during the hearing, but the county paid her earlier attorneys more than $264,000.

Under state Bar rules, attorneys who undergo disciplinary proceedings are liable for expenses incurred during the hearings and investigations. In Thomas' case, an administrative fee of $4,000 was assessed, plus $550,869 in expenses, including the costs of transportation, hotel, meals and expert witnesses between March 2010 and March 2012 by Independent Bar Counsel John Gleason and his staff.

Aubuchon and Alexander will be assessed administrative fees of $6,000 each because they are filing appeals of their sanctions. How much they and Thomas ultimately pay, if anything, will be determined by Arizona Supreme Court Presiding Disciplinary Judge William O'Neil.

Thomas has until May 11 to object to the amount. His attorney, Don Wilson, said he will ask O'Neil for an extended deadline until the Alexander and Aubuchon matters are finalized in order to better allocate liability among the three.

Then, Wilson said, "I think the county is liable for it," noting that the county has paid the costs of other prosecutors who faced Bar disciplinary hearings.

"Of course, there's never been an amount this big," he said.

Wilson also sent a note to the county asking if it was going to refuse to cover the costs for Thomas.

County spokeswoman Cari Gerchick said the county has paid for other attorneys' liability after Bar discipline, but "I don't know how far it went with any other lawyer. This is clearly an unusual situation in terms of cost."

Republic reporter Michelle Ye Hee Lee contributed to this article.

Arizona to murder another prison inmate???

"Department of Corrections repeatedly varies from its own policies in carrying out death sentences"

Halt to execution sought over inconsistent procedures

by Michael Kiefer - May. 2, 2012 10:46 AM

The Republic | azcentral.com

Attorneys for an Arizona prisoner who is scheduled to die later this month on Tuesday asked for a preliminary injunction against his execution because the state Department of Corrections repeatedly varies from its own policies in carrying out death sentences.

Samuel Lopez is scheduled to be executed on May 16 for the murder of a Phoenix woman in 1987.

Similar arguments were knocked down in U.S. District Court last December and again in February. The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals weighed in on the February case and put Corrections Department lawyers on notice, though the court allowed two executions to go forward. A third execution since then was carried out in April.

The argument has swirled since 2007, when the Department of Corrections and attorneys representing prisoners began hammering out a protocol for executions. Tuesday's filing claims that the protocol has been changed numerous times, most recently in January, and that the department has not been able to adhere to it.

In February, for example, the department switched from a three-drug to a one-drug protocol two days before an execution because it discovered that one of the other required drugs had passed its expiration date. In March, a federal judge ruled that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration had illegally allowed Arizona and other states to import death-penalty drugs from England in 2010 and 2011.

Among the ongoing issues have been the backgrounds and qualifications of the medical staff who perform the executions, and their repeated use of a catheter that is surgically implanted in an artery in the prisoner's groin.

"I'm astounded that Arizona is the only state that has to perform surgery to carry out an execution," said Assistant Federal Public Defender Dale Baich.

In a memorandum accompanying Tuesday's motion for preliminary injunction, Baich noted that the so-called femoral catheter was used in the February execution of Robert Towery and the April execution of Thomas Kemp, even though autopsies showed that both men had suitable veins for easy catheter insertion in their arms.

Towery, the memorandum said, was stuck 11 times in his arms, wrist and groin before the execution doctor succeeded in inserting a catheter in his groin. The process requires a long needle that threads a wire into the vein, along which a plastic tube is slid, followed by the catheter itself, which is stitched or stapled into place.

Towery also asked to speak to Baich, his lawyer, during the time the surgery was being performed, but was denied, the memorandum says.

In his motion, Baich asked the court to stop the Lopez execution and allow time to further argue the protocol lapses.

Sadistic prison guards love vicious dogs!!!

Dog ordered put down gets new life as prison guard

May. 2, 2012 09:16 AM

Associated Press

NEW ROADS, La. -- The bad dog of the neighborhood has received a life prison sentence.

The wolf dog hybrid named Chief -- once ordered destroyed for aggressive behavior -- will become a guard dog at Louisiana's maximum security prison.

The Advocate reports (http://bit.ly/JoUefp) that District Judge James Best on Tuesday signed an order turning over Chief to the state prison system, which plans to put the dog to work at the Louisiana State Penitentiary.

Best had ordered euthanasia for Chief last month after his neighbors in Pointe Coupee Parish testified that the dog would frequently escape from his owners' property and terrorize them.

Deputy Warden Bruce Dodd said prison officials read about the dog and decided he could have a productive life guarding the perimeter of the 18,000-acre prison farm at Angola.

Wolf dog to patrol Angola Penitentiary

Wolf dog to patrol Angola

By Terry L. Jones

Westside bureau

May 02, 2012

NEW ROADS — A state judge granted a reprieve Tuesday to a wolf dog hybrid he ordered destroyed for aggressive behavior, instead “sentencing” the animal to serve a life term as a guard dog in the Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola.

Judge James Best of 18th Judicial District Court signed an order releasing custody of Chief to the Louisiana Department of Public Safety and Corrections at the request of prison officials who want to use the animal as a guard dog at Angola.

Area residents testified in Best’s courtroom last month that Chief would frequently escape from his owners’ property and terrorize them. After hearing from the witnesses, Best ordered Chief — of British Colombia wolf and German shepherd ancestry — to be euthanized.

A Pointe Coupee Parish animal control ordinance states that all dogs must be confined to an owner’s property, or secured on a leash when they are not.

Best said shortly after his ruling that he was contacted by Angola Warden Burl Cain, who wanted to take Chief into custody for guard dog service at the state’s 18,000-acre maximum security prison.

“When we saw this dog in the paper, we thought it would be a shame to euthanize (it),” Deputy Warden Bruce Dodd said.

According to the memorandum of understanding Best signed Tuesday, the state prison has developed a program in which hybrid dogs such as Chief are deployed at night within perimeter fencing encircling the prison’s individual camps.

Dodd said the program, which also makes use of surveillance cameras, has helped secure the prison following personnel layoffs related to recent budget cuts.

“We actually breed wolf hybrids here and raise them,” Dodd said.

Dodd said Chief’s aggressive behavior would make him a perfect fit among the dozen or more wolf dog hybrids already on duty at the prison.

“That’s the purpose of them,” Dodd said. “We don’t want them to be vicious killers, but to be aggressive. They become a security measure.”

Although elated that Chief won’t be put to death now, the dog’s previous owner, Vicky Smith, said she doubts Chief would do well in his new surroundings.

Smith said she purchased the wolf dog as a 5-week-old puppy for her son, who raised and cared for him since then.

“He’s not going to do well without us,” she said of Chief. “We’re his family. I think he’s going to be really, really stressed. We keep him inside our air-conditioned home. I feed him oatmeal for breakfast. You think they’re going to feed him that?”

According to the understanding between Angola and the court, all of the prison’s dogs are “well kept and given top veterinarian care.”

Despite witness testimony, Smith said, Chief is harmless and has never “bit or hurt anyone.”

“It’s not right what they’re doing,” she said. “I was going to sell my house and move out of the parish to keep my dog. I want my dog back, but once he goes to Angola I don’t think I’ll get him.”

Parish officials said Chief would be taken to Angola on Wednesday.

Dodd said the dog will spend some time training with a handler before going on patrol.

“I’m just glad for the dog,” Best said Tuesday afternoon after signing the order. “It’s a beautiful ending and the community got some relief. The dog is going to provide good service and be well taken cared of.”

Ohio deputy orders inmates to dance, gets fired

Ohio deputy orders inmates to dance, gets fired

May. 3, 2012 06:50 AM

Associated Press

AKRON, Ohio -- A northeast Ohio sheriff's deputy has been fired for ordering five jail inmates to dance to a song by Usher in exchange for privileges such as using a phone or microwave.

Media outlets citing an internal report say the Summit County sheriff fired the 35-year-old deputy this week for mistreating inmates, acting inappropriately and having a cellphone in the jail, apparently used to play the music.

The report says the deputy invited colleagues to watch April 11 as inmates danced. The Akron Beacon Journal reports one inmate did the worm, while another said he did the robot so he could use the phone to contact relatives after a family member's death.

Investigators say the deputy admitted his mistake but said he was only trying to ease tension in the jail.

Obama wants to give the cops free access to your phone!!!

Source

Obama administration urges freer access to cellphone records

By Jeremy Pelofsky

Reuters

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Congress should pass a law to give investigators freer access to certain cellphone records, an Obama administration official said on Thursday, in remarks that raised concern among advocates of civil liberties and privacy.

Jason Weinstein, a deputy assistant attorney general in the Justice Department's criminal division, argued that requirements for warrants at early stages of investigations would "cripple" prosecutors and law enforcement.

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled this year that a warrant was needed to put a GPS satellite tracking device on a suspect's vehicle, prompting questions about other instances where probable-cause warrants should be needed to obtain information in the rapidly changing world of mobile devices.

Federal courts around the country are split on whether to require warrants for records of phone usage collected at towers that transmit cellphone signals, Weinstein told a conference.

While prosecutors have been told to get warrants to put a tracking device on a vehicle or to track the precise GPS location of a person via their cellphone, they should not be needed to obtain data from the towers, Weinstein said.

"There really is no fairness and no justice when the law applies differently to different people depending on which courthouse you're sitting in," he said at the "State of the Mobile Net" conference sponsored by the Congressional Internet Caucus Advisory Committee.

"For that reason alone, we think Congress should clarify the legal standard," he said.

One civil liberties advocate sought to challenge that assertion, saying the Obama administration had made the same argument during the Supreme Court GPS case and it had been soundly rejected.

"Not one justice accepted the Department of Justice's argument in that case. It got zero votes," Greg Nojeim, senior counsel at the Center for Democracy and Technology, said during the conference. "We're all here, the criminals are not taking over the country."

While some proposals have been made in Congress to address concerns and confusion about when a warrant is needed as new technologies emerge, the chances of legislation passing are considered slim because it is an election year and little legislation is expected to pass.

Democratic Senator Ron Wyden of Oregon and Republican House of Representatives member Jason Chaffetz of Utah proposed a bill last year trying to detail a legal framework, including requiring a warrant for acquiring location information for a person; however the legislation has not advanced.

Woman to sue over Maricopa County jail conditions

Woman to sue over Maricopa County jail conditions

Officers ignored inmate with plastic bag over her head for more than 40 minutes

by JJ Hensley - May. 3, 2012 10:05 PM

The Republic | azcentral.com

A woman booked into Maricopa County's Fourth Avenue Jail in late February held a plastic garbage bag over her head for more than 40 minutes in a holding cell before sheriff's detention officers noticed or took action, even though at least two officers put other detainees into the cell while the woman lay motionless on the floor with the bag over her head.

Now Angela Rose Metzger, 44, is planning a claim against the Sheriff's Office for what her attorney says is a culture of neglect in Maricopa County jails that stretches back decades.

"I think the most important aspect is the question of, 'How often does this happen in this jail?' " said Joy Bertrand, a Phoenix attorney. "We see in the footage another prisoner face down and not moving for a period of time, and no one offers her assistance, either. These are the kind of incidents that the U.S. Department of Justice and (U.S. District Court) Judge (Neil) Wake have been calling on the jail and Sheriff Arpaio to fix."

But Wake's 2008 ruling that conditions in the jail are unconstitutional, and the way the Sheriff's Office chose to address Wake's ruling, might have inadvertently contributed to how Metzger injured herself. As part of the sheriff's efforts to improve unsanitary conditions that were criticized by Wake, the agency began using plastic bags in garbage cans -- the same kind of bag that Metzger used to attempt to commit suicide.

Two detention officers received additional training and formal counseling after Metzger's incident.

"Our officers down there try to do the best they can with what they have. Sometimes it can be chaotic, but there's no excuse to miss something like that," said Sheriff's Capt. Brian Lee.

Metzger had been booked into the jail late in the evening of Feb. 28 on suspicion of assaulting her husband. Metzger concedes she was heavily under the influence of prescription pills. She believes she told Phoenix police and firefighters that she was suicidal.

But police records do not include any mention of suicide, according to a police spokesman, and records of the two calls to Metzger's home that night do indicate that she denied a paramedic's offer to go to the hospital. Instead, she chose to remain home with her family.

Police returned to the home less than an hour later and arrested Metzger on suspicion of striking her husband, said Phoenix police Sgt. Trent Crump.

"Our officers did their due diligence. We're not going to let impairment keep us from booking a domestic-violence suspect," Crump said. "Nowhere in the report does her family indicate that she is a hazard to herself, nor is it even brought up that she is a danger to herself."

Once Metzger got to jail, medical screeners who work for the county's Correctional Health Services would have asked Metzger about her condition and mental state, and then sought psychological care or moved her to a special holding facility if she showed signs of being suicidal. The Sheriff's Office referred nearly 1,900 inmates to psychological care last month. It books about 9,000 people into jail on a monthly basis.

Metzger said the prescription drugs caused her to black out and she does not remember the incident. She ended up in a holding cell with a few other women.

Surveillance footage from inside the cell shows Metzger stumbling around the small rectangular cell for about 90 minutes before she lay on the floor. Eventually, she drags herself across the cell floor toward a trash can from which she removes the bag and places it over her head and torso.

More than 30 minutes later, though Metzger had barely moved in that time, a detention officer drops off an inmate who steps over Metzger's body while the officer leaves. Less than five minutes later, another detention officer looks into the cell, but the officer also does not take any action with Metzger.

It is not until a third officer drops another inmate off in the cell that a jail employee notices Metzger, removes the bag and calls others to begin performing medical treatment.

"Whether she's so out of it that she thinks (the bag) is a blanket, whether she was committing suicide, whether she didn't know where she was, it doesn't matter," Bertrand said. "She is completely at the mercy of the jail. It is their responsibility, when they see someone engage in dangerous behavior, to stop the behavior, not wait and see how it plays out."

Hospital records indicate Metzger was crying and breathing normally when she arrived at St. Joseph's Hospital and Medical Center about 3:40 a.m., and she was released back to the sheriff's custody about two hours later. Tests showed Metzger had abnormal levels of benzodiazepine, an antidepressant, in her system.

Part of the discipline meted out to sheriff's officers in the case included training on how to pay closer attention to inmates during security walks, which are scheduled every 25 minutes -- another outcome of Wake's federal court ruling.

"We're always looking to improve things," Lee said. "We're happy that something more serious didn't happen."

Judge dismisses Arizona drug case for prosecutor's misconduct

Judge dismisses Arizona drug case for prosecutor's misconduct

May. 4, 2012 08:37 AM

Associated Press

TUCSON -- A federal judge in Tucson has dismissed a drug-smuggling case because of a prosecutor's misconduct.

U.S. District Judge Cindy Jorgenson says she wants to ensure the U.S. attorney's office takes the misbehavior seriously.

The Arizona Daily Star reports that Aurora Lopez-Avila was found with 23 pounds of cocaine in her car in 2009 in Nogales and pleaded guilty in February 2010. She then rescinded the plea and went to trial in November 2010, claiming she had been forced to take the car across the border.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Jerry Albert read from a plea hearing transcript at her trial where she answered no to a question about being threatened.

U.S. attorney's office spokesman Bill Solomon said last Friday's ruling is a reminder of a prosecutor's ethical and constitutional responsibilities. [Don't make me laugh! Saying prosecutor and ethics in the same sentence is an oxymoron!]

Key figure in 'dirty DUI' stings pleads guilty

Source

Key figure in 'dirty DUI' stings pleads guilty

Vivian Ho,Demian Bulwa

Friday, May 4, 2012

OAKLAND -- The stardom-seeking private investigator at the center of an East Bay law enforcement scandal pleaded guilty Friday to eight criminal counts in an agreement with federal prosecutors.

Christopher Butler, 50, pleaded guilty to charges including extortion, robbery and conspiring to deal drugs during a hearing in U.S. District Court in Oakland.

Butler and Norman Wielsch, a former state Department of Justice agent who led an antinarcotics task force in Contra Costa County, were indicted last year. The two once worked together as Antioch police officers.

They were accused of crimes including stealing marijuana and methamphetamine from police to sell, embezzling cash and opening a massage parlor in Pleasant Hill that served as a front for prostitution.

Butler had sought fame - and a reality television deal - by hiring "Mommy P.I.s," attractive women whose job was to lure men into cheating on their wives.

But Butler was exposed for using actors to fake some of the stings. And he was charged with bribing a Contra Costa County sheriff's deputy, Stephen Tanabe, with cocaine and a gun to make drunken-driving arrests of men he was investigating - so-called "dirty DUI" stings.

He admitted to that crime at his hearing Friday. He also admitted to executing a fake arrest of the teenage son of a client who suspected the boy was selling drugs.

Butler said he and Wielsch had stolen methamphetamine from police evidence lockers and sold at least a pound of the drug for $9,800.

He also admitted to conspiring with Wielsch to establish the Pleasant Hill brothel, and to collecting more than $10,000 from the business that allegedly went to Wielsch in exchange for protection for the operation from law enforcement.

In addition, Butler admitted to stealing prostitutes' cell phones and laptop computers.

Wielsch, 51, has pleaded not guilty to similar charges and remains free on bail. Tanabe, who is no longer a sheriff's deputy, has also pleaded not guilty.

In the same courtroom Friday, an associate of Butler, former San Ramon police officer and vice cop Louis Lombardi, was sentenced to three years in prison by U.S. District Judge Saundra Brown Armstrong.

Lombardi had admitted to nine felonies, including stealing $40,000 in cash while on the job and pocketing drugs during searches.

Lombardi, 39, worked as Wielsch's second-in-command on the now-disbanded Centra Contra Costa Narcotics Enforcement Team from 2005 to 2009. He was arrested in April 2011, two months after Wielsch and Butler, and pleaded guilty in January.

Lombardi admitted that Wielsch had once given him half a pound of marijuana, which he then sold to a confidential informant in Arizona and split the profits with his former boss.

In court papers, prosecutors depicted Lombardi as an opportunistic man who used the power of his badge to steal large sums of cash as well as petty items, including a bottle of whiskey and a pair of sunglasses.

But in court, prosecutors asked the judge for a lenient sentence, explaining that Lombardi he was cooperating with law enforcement and accepted responsibility for his crimes.

Lombardi tearfully apologized to his family and to police officers for "destroying" the reputation of law enforcement.

"There's nothing I can do to bring that back," he said. "I'm deeply sorry."

Lombardi's lawyer, Dirk Manoukian, said the former officer had begun taking drugs as a form of self-medication after rupturing a back disc during a 2008 arrest. As part of his sentence, he must undergo drug treatment while in prison.

Armstrong, a former Oakland police officer, also ordered Lombardi to pay $7,500 in restitution to the city of San Ramon.

"It is a sentence that allows everyone to start healing and moving forward," Manoukian said. "It was a sentence that we expected. It was very appreciated. Mr. Lombardi has worked very hard since being arrested to right the wrongs he committed."

Vivian Ho is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. vho@sfchronicle.com

Gilbert police: AJ officer's son's shooting of sister an accident

Source

Gilbert police: AJ officer's son's shooting of sister an accident

Officer's son fired gun, hitting sister

by Jim Walsh - May. 6, 2012 09:29 PM

The Republic | azcentral.com

Gilbert police have concluded that a March 20 incident where the 10-year-old son of an Apache Junction police officer shot his sister with his father's service weapon was accidental. The officer, however, has been subjected to "corrective action" by his department.

Police found the boy's "unexpected and uncharacteristic decision to pick up the gun was unimaginable to all parties involved." The 12-year-old girl, who was shot in the shoulder, was treated at Phoenix Children's Hospital and released the next day.

Apache Junction Detective Jesus "Mike" Ramirez left his Glock pistol in a holster on the rear seat of his unmarked police car, along with his ballistic vest and a police rifle contained in a zippered case, as he was leaving his Gilbert home to take the children to school.

The boy was sitting in the backseat, next to the police gear, while his sister was in the front passenger seat. The children's names are being withheld by The Arizona Republic because of their ages.

A police report said Ramirez got out of the car to close a malfunctioning garage door and heard the shot.

He stopped the bleeding and rushed his daughter to Mercy Gilbert Medical Center, 2 miles away, because he thought it would be faster than waiting for an ambulance. He used his personal car because the police car would need to be examined as a crime scene.

In a prepared statement, Apache Junction Police Chief Jerald Monahan said corrective action has been taken with the officer but refused to describe the specific discipline.

"There is nothing the department can do to further the lesson the officer has already learned by this accident," the statement said. "This situation has created a learning opportunity that will only strengthen our policy and practices as well as the meaning of being a gun owner whether you are a law-enforcement officer or not."

Gilbert police found no evidence of criminal intent by the boy.

"Oh, my God, I'm sorry," the report quoted the boy as saying.

The girl told police she didn't realize she had been shot until her parents told her. She told police she felt pain, saw blood and noticed a bullet hole in the car seat. She initially shunned her brother's apologies, refusing to give him a hug or talk to him.

Ramirez and his wife, Wendy, told police that they had repeatedly warned the children to never touch guns.

Wendy told police that her husband stores his weapons in a gun safe inside the house, and the children have been warned, "It's a gun, not a toy; don't put your finger on the trigger."

Ramirez told police he placed his gear inside a zippered case on the back seat of his unmarked 2012 Ford Taurus because he had "a lot of stuff" stored in the trunk.

"Mike was shocked by the entire incident and cannot understand why (the boy) chose to handle the gun," the report said. "Mike said it is not uncommon for his gear to be in the back seat when he takes the kids to school and he does not understand what motivated (the boy) to handle the gun today."

Ramirez told Gilbert police his son had never fired a gun but had expressed interest in going to a firing range.

Gilbert police concluded no crime occurred, saying that Ramirez's actions did not rise to the level of criminal negligence, which requires a "substantial risk" and a "gross deviation" from applicable norms.

US drone strike murders suspected criminals in Yemen

Currently the American Empire is using drones to murder suspect, but not convicted criminals in Pakistan and Yemen. I don't think it would be that big of deal for our royal rulers to start using the same tactics to kill suspected criminals in the USA.

Source

Suspected U.S. drone kills two Yemeni al Qaeda men

By Mohammed Mukhashaf

ADEN, Yemen | Sun May 6, 2012 4:37pm EDT

(Reuters) - Two Yemeni members of al Qaeda were killed by a missile strike on their car on Sunday, in what residents and the al Qaeda-linked Ansar al-Sharia group described as a U.S. drone attack.

The Yemeni government called the attack an air strike. Washington and Yemen do not acknowledge U.S. drone attacks on militants in the country, which have taken place regularly for years.

Yemen's branch of al Qaeda has plotted abortive overseas attacks and is a major concern for Washington, which is waging an assassination campaign against suspected members using drone and missile strikes.

The car was struck in the Wadi Rafad valley in Shabwa province in east Yemen, residents there said.

Yemen's government and the al Qaeda-linked group both identified one of the men as Fahd al-Qasaa, who escaped from prison in 2005 after being convicted of a role in the 2000 bombing of the USS Cole warship in Yemen's port of Aden. That attack killed 17 U.S. sailors.

Residents gave the name of the other man as Fahed Salem al-Akdam.

Residents said the aircraft that fired the missile had been sighted in the sky. No one else was travelling in the vehicle or killed in the incident, they said.

The Yemeni government said Qasaa had been on its most-wanted list of militants.

"Fahd was a leading figure in the terrorist organization al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula. (He) was one of Yemen's most wanted terrorists," a statement from the Yemeni embassy in Washington said, adding Qasaa was also known as Abu Hudhayfa.

The authorities have claimed to have killed Qasaa before, but an al Qaeda statement appeared to confirm the death.

"Al Qaeda affirms the martyrdom of the Fahd al-Qasaa in an American attack this afternoon in Rafad," said a statement sent to Reuters by Ansar al-Sharia, a militant group operating in lawless areas of south and east Yemen.

Yemen's Defence Ministry said on its website that a third al Qaeda operative was arrested in Aden along with another man.

Yemen descended into disorder last year when an uprising against long-serving leader Ali Abdullah Saleh split the armed force into warring factions.

Militants seized chunks of territory in south Yemen during the uprising against Saleh, a staunch U.S. ally. They killed about 100 Yemeni troops in a single attack near one of those areas in March.

Saleh resigned this year, and the United States wants his successor to unify the armed forces and use them to fight al Qaeda more robustly.

But the covert use of drones has angered the public in Yemen as it has in other countries such as Pakistan, where Washington uses unmanned aircraft to kill its enemies in secret.

The tactic is seen by many residents as a form of extra-judicial execution that also endangers people not directly targeted and risks boosting support for militants.

A Yemeni official said earlier on Sunday that two Belgian nationals of Arab descent could be deported after being detained last month on suspicion of involvement in militant activities.

Ebrahim Bali and Ezzeddine Tuhairi were detained on April 13 at Sanaa's airport as they tried to enter the country, he said. A Belgian Foreign Ministry spokesman confirmed the arrest and said Brussels was seeking consular access to them.

"They were arrested on suspicion of planned terrorist activities in Yemen. We are in a process of negotiation with the Belgian government. We expect them to be deported...within days," the Yemeni official said.

LAPD murder where a drug dealer was shot in the back is justified by cops!!!!

Beck, civilian panel again at odds on shooting

By Joel Rubin, Los Angeles Times

May 7, 2012

When the members of the Los Angeles Police Commission met behind closed doors last month to decide if a cop had been right to kill Dale Garrett, the two bullets in Garrett's back raised serious concerns.

Det. Arthur Gamboa had insisted that Garrett left him no choice but to shoot when he pulled a knife and threatened to kill the detective during a botched drug bust. LAPD Chief Charlie Beck and the commission's own watchdog agreed, recommending the oversight board find that Gamboa's decision to open fire was within department rules.

But for a majority of the five-person commission, errors and inconsistencies in Gamboa's account, along with the fact that he shot Garrett in the back, could not be ignored. In a divided vote, the commission concluded the detective was not believable. The shooting, the panel ruled, violated the LAPD's policy on when officers are justified in using lethal force.

With that decision, the shooting became the latest in a series of incidents in which Beck and his civilian bosses disagree on whether an officer's decision to use deadly force was appropriate. These cases have given rise to a rare vein of tension between the chief and commissioners, who otherwise have heaped praise on Beck since he took over the department 2 1/2 years ago.

Believing the officers in these cases were justified to open fire, Beck has either refused to impose any discipline on the officers or let them off with a simple reprimand in the earlier cases, The Times reported last month. That has left a majority of the commission increasingly concerned that Beck is undermining their authority and sending a dangerous message to the LAPD's rank-and-file officers that the consequences for a unjustified shooting are minimal.

Beck must now decide how, if at all, to punish Gamboa and his partner for a deadly encounter that even the chief agrees was marred by mistakes.

It was shortly after noon on a cool, cloudless day in May when Gamboa and Det. Ronald Kitzmiller, members of a narcotics enforcement team, stepped out of the LAPD's downtown headquarters and headed for their station about a mile away, according to an internal LAPD report. The copy of this report, and another one written by the commission, obtained by The Times, concealed the officers' names. Gamboa was named in a different department document, and an attorney representing Garrett's family named Kitzmiller.

Walking down Spring Street, they soon approached the bustling intersection at 5th Street, where trendy restaurants and stylish lofts put a pleasant gloss over the block's alternate, less savory reality. For years, Spring and 5th — especially the southwest corner – has been a stamping ground for drug dealers, who skulk about and whisper offers of prescription pills, pot, and other drugs to passersby.

On a whim, the detectives decided to do some undercover work, according to the department report.

Kitzmiller pulled a $5 bill from his wallet, marked it with a pen and handed it to Gamboa. Dressed in street clothes that concealed his badge and handgun, Gamboa leaned against a wall on the corner as Kitzmiller watched from across the street, the commission summary said. Within a minute or two, Garrett, 51, approached, saying "Weed, Klonopin, weed, Klonopin," Gamboa told investigators.

Gamboa asked for a Klonopin, a prescription drug that can give the sensation of intoxication, and told investigators that Garrett "quickly, forcefully grabbed — snatched the $5 from my hand, knocking it down in a rude manner." As Garrett kept walking, Gamboa said he followed, demanding his pill.

What happened next is not clear.

In an interview shortly after the shooting, Gamboa told investigators that Garrett, while a few feet ahead, stopped and turned clockwise to face him while unfolding a large knife. "I am going to kill you," the detective recalled Garrett saying. He insisted that he shot Garrett twice in the chest.

An autopsy, however, showed both bullets had struck Garrett on the left side of his back, making Gamboa's account impossible. In February, Gamboa returned to the street corner with his commanding officer to go through the sequence of the shooting. This time, he said, Garrett had turned in the opposite direction.

A witness standing nearby told investigators that Garrett only turned at his waist, instead of spinning around completely. This, Beck said in his review of the shooting, could explain how Garrett was shot in the back. Or, Beck speculated, Garrett may have faced the detective and then continued to turn away, exposing the left side of his back. The chief, however, did not address how Garrett could have posed a deadly, immediate threat to the detective if either of these scenarios were accurate.

Another witness disputed this version altogether, saying Gamboa and Kitzmiller "sneaked up" behind Garrett and startled him, according to the commission's report.

A knife was found under Garrett's body, although the reports by the commission and chief do not clarify if it was found with the blade out or folded.

Beck and Commission President Richard Drooyan declined to comment on the case. The detectives did not respond to e-mails requesting comment.

The chief and commission agreed that the detectives' decision to conduct a spur-of-the-moment drug operation was, in the commission's words, "in clear conflict" with department rules and training guidelines. In particular, they found that Kitzmiller, who served as a supervisor in the detectives' narcotics unit, should have known better.

For these actions, Beck could choose to discipline the men.

But the decision to shoot Garrett, Beck concluded, was reasonable. An officer in the same situation would have responded as Gamboa did, he said.

Drooyan and Commissioners Robert Saltzman and John Mack saw things differently. The evidence, the commissioners wrote in their report, "did not support an objectively reasonable belief that [Garrett] presented an imminent threat of death or seriously bodily injury" when Gamboa fired.

joel.rubin@latimes.com

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