Homeless in Arizona

Mass murderer Jan Brewer kills again

Arizona executes inmate for 2 murders in 1987

Arizona executes inmate for 2 murders in 1987

by Michael Kiefer - Aug. 8, 2012 11:48 AM

The Republic | azcentral.com

Daniel Cook, who killed two people in Lake Havasu City in 1987, was executed by injection this morning in Florence.

Cook, 51, was emotional as he apologized to family members of one of his victims and had trouble finishing his last words. "I'd like to say I'm sorry to the victims' family. I know that's not enough." He sobbed and tried to catch his breath, then suddenly said, "Where am I?"

He looked frantically at his lawyers when the drugs hit him. Then, 35 minutes later, he was pronounced dead.

Cook's lawyers had filed a last-ditch appeal for a stay of execution with the U.S. Supreme Court, but it was rejected this morning. On Tuesday night, Cook was provided his last meal, consisting of eggplant lasagna, garlic cheese mash potatoes, roasted brussel sprouts, broiled asparagus, ice cream and root beer.

His execution was Arizona's fifth so far this year, and more could be scheduled. The most Arizona has conducted in a year was seven in 1999.

Cook was sentenced to death for the murders of Carlos Cruz Ramos, 26, and Kevin Swaney, 16, in Lake Havasu City.

He came within a day of being executed last year when the U.S. Supreme Court stayed his execution to explore whether he had been poorly defended during his early appeals.

Cook had respresented himself at trial, and neither he nor his first appellate lawyers raised the severe sexual and physical abuse that Cook suffered as a child as mitigating evidence that might have persuaded a judge to sentence him to life in prison instead of death.

But ultimately, the Supreme Court turned down the case, and other state and federal courts refused to stay the execution.

The crimes were brutal.

Cook shared an apartment with Cruz Ramos and John Matzke; the three worked together at a restaurant.

On July 18, 1987, Cook quit his job and started drinking and smoking methamphetamine with Matzke. When Cruz Ramos realized that the other two had stolen $90 from him and he complained, they overpowered him, stripped off his clothing and bound him to a chair.

Then they beat and sodomized him, burned his genitals with cigarettes and put a staple through his foreskin. Matzke told investigators that Cook ranted about the CIA and called Cruz Ramos a Sandinista spy and waited until midnight, "the witching hour," which Cook thought was the best time to kill him.

They tried to strangle Cruz Ramos with a sheet and then put a pipe over his throat and stood on it until he was dead and then threw his body in a closet.

Two hours later, Swaney stopped by the apartment. Cook took Swaney to the closet and showed him the body. Then, as Swaney cried, Cook stripped him and sodomized him, too, and then strangled him.

At his clemency hearing Aug. 3, Cook said he had no memories of the murders and only learned of them when Matzke woke him after the binge and showed him the bodies.

Matzke went to the police, confessed to the murders and implicated Cook. Matzke was allowed to enter a plea deal for 20 years in prison in exchange for his testimony against Cook. He was released from prison in July 2007.

The Associated Press contributed to this story.

License-plate scanners let government track your travels

Source

License-plate scanners let gov't track your travels

August 05, 2012 12:00 am

Tim Steller Arizona Daily Star

When you drive the highways of Southern Arizona, the government may be taking a picture of your license plate, recording where you were and when.

The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration has installed automatic license-plate readers along Interstate 19 and uses them along other highways, like Arizona 86. Some local agencies in Arizona, such as Tucson police, also sometimes use readers in patrol cars.

The agencies using the devices say they are largely for detecting stolen cars and drug loads, and that information on innocent vehicles goes nowhere. But some people worry that the readers are ripe for abuse.

"They take pictures of everyone who goes past the camera," said Anjali Abraham, public policy director for the American Civil Liberties Union in Arizona "Everybody's sharing in this pool of information about us, about how we move around in our day. It's being accessed at all levels of government, perhaps quite easily."

For residents of the border area, the readers are just the latest element of surveillance added to daily life, along with checkpoints on the highways, sensors in the ground and drones in the air.

Last week, the ACLU filed public-records requests in 38 states seeking detailed information about how law enforcement agencies are using the license-plate readers and the data they collect. In Arizona, the group filed requests with the Tucson, Chandler and Phoenix police departments, as well as the Pinal County Sheriff's Office and the Arizona Department of Public Safety.

However, the DEA may be the most visible user of the readers. The agency has installed one set of equipment along southbound Interstate 19, just south of the Border Patrol's checkpoint at kilometer 40. It's a set of a dozen devices that look like cameras and lights on stands, powered by a generator attached to a trailer.

"We cannot provide specific locations of the scanners, only that they are located in the Southwest border states including Arizona; doing so can potentially compromise ongoing investigations and threaten the safety of our agents and the public," a DEA spokeswoman, Special Agent Ramona Sanchez, said in an email.

License-plate readers "are used to monitor and target vehicles commonly used to transport bulk cash and illegal contraband along U.S. interstates," she wrote. "They promote information sharing and coordination" through a mechanism that notifies authorities when common links between investigations are identified.

The DEA has also used clusters of readers along Arizona 86 and other highways on the Tohono O'odham Nation, an area frequented by smugglers.

Last year, Tohono O'odham Police Chief Joseph Delgado told The Runner newspaper that the devices also were being used in two places along Federal Route 15 and along Federal Route 42 in the northern part of the reservation.

A Tohono O'odham spokesman did not return emails seeking comment.

The DEA has reduced the length of time that it keeps the information collected from two years to 180 days, an agency spokesman told the California Watch news agency last month.

Tucson police don't retain any of the information collected by the readers they use, said Sgt. Maria Hawke. They use readers as part of an auto-theft task force operated by Arizona DPS, often by driving through apartment-complex parking lots and checking for stolen cars.

"What essentially happens is the reader is a mechanism used to do those queries. The reader doesn't retain the information," she said.

Members of a group that raised concerns about the Border Patrol's checkpoint on I-19 were not especially worried about the privacy considerations involved in license-plate checks, said Rich Bohman, president of the Santa Cruz Valley Citizens Council. They were more concerned about the lights used with the scanners at night, because they can distract drivers, especially elderly ones, Bohman said.

"From my own personal standpoint, if this is effective in helping stop money and guns from traveling into Mexico, I think our citizens would support it," he said.

There is some public resistance to license-plate readers. In June, public protests forced the DEA to drop a proposal to install readers along Interstate 15 in southwestern Utah.

But things like this are just the way of the future, said David Shirk, director of the Trans-Border Institute at the University of San Diego.

"Governments and law enforcement have so much capacity today, thanks to technology, to monitor our every day movement," Shirk said. "To me, license plate readers on freeways is the least of our problems.

Contact reporter Tim Steller at 807-8427 or tsteller@azstarnet.com

Phoenix Block Watch allocations draw questions

Source

Phoenix Block Watch allocations draw questions

Youth programs get portion of crime-prevention money

by Connie Cone Sexton - Aug. 8, 2012 11:01 PM

The Republic | azcentral.com

Since 2008, more than $1.5 million of taxpayer money for Phoenix neighborhood crime prevention that could have been awarded to traditional Block Watch programs was given to programs designed to steer youths from crime, even though some question whether the latter is effective.

An Arizona Republic analysis of the past five years of Phoenix Neighborhood Block Watch grant awards found that more than one in five grants benefited youth programs, including Wake Up Clubs, sports or academic programs.

• Quinceañera, movie nights among funding requests

The money was used to take children to Lake Pleasant, the Arizona Science Center, Kartchner Caverns and other destinations as a reward for participating in a Phoenix police-led after-school program and for completing community-service projects.

Meanwhile, at least 15 traditional Block Watch grant applicants initially received no funding this year from the annual pool of $1.2 million, despite requests for items such as security lighting and cameras to catch graffiti vandals. However, at least three of those groups were later granted at least partial funding on appeal. The Phoenix City Council is expected to vote on final allocations in the next few weeks.

Crime-prevention specialists, while acknowledging the benefits of teaching children values like respect for police officers and community service, question whether the emphasis -- to deter children from a life of crime -- is effective.

Voters created the Phoenix Neighborhood Block Watch Grant Program with Proposition 301, a sales-tax increase passed in 1993. Today, those who oversee it are divided over the best way to fight crime. For some, it's getting neighbors to monitor their streets, installing security lighting or Block Watch signs, using walkie-talkies for neighborhood patrols and holding community events to promote crime prevention. For others, it means continuing to invest in programs for youth.

Since 2008, more than $36,000 paid for youth sports at Granada East School in central Phoenix. In May, the City Council approved $7,600 for 2012-13 to pay coaches, referees, league fees and transportation for boys and girls to participate in basketball, soccer, baseball and softball.

In 2011, the Wilson Coalition neighborhood in southeast Phoenix received $9,800 to pay for after-school playground, library and gym supervisors for students at Wilson Elementary School.

Phoenix officials said there is anecdotal evidence that youth programs curb crime but could not provide research to back that up. Some members of the city Block Watch Oversight Committee question the investment.

"They sound like good programs, but do they really prevent crime? An argument can be made that it's not," said John Schroeder, a member of the City Council-appointed Block Watch Oversight Committee, which reviews grant applications and makes recommendations.

Every year, neighborhood groups in Phoenix may apply for up to $10,000 for a crime-prevention project. The Phoenix Police Department, which administers the Block Watch program, presents the committee's recommendations to the City Council. The newest round of grants were approved in May without discussion.

For the fiscal year that began July 1, about $224,000 has been designated for 24 Wake Up Clubs. That's 18.6 percent of total funding.

Of the 211 applications, 25 groups were initially unfunded. Among the rejections: Tatum Park Neighborhood Block Watch in northeast Phoenix, which requested $6,100 for projects that included solar lights for security; and Discovery at Villa de Paz in southwest Phoenix, which sought $9,800 for a flashlight camera to catch vandals. Funding questioned

Most of the youth money has supported about two dozen Wake Up Clubs.

The programs are held one hour a week after school and for about five weeks during the summer. Phoenix police officers serve as class leaders -- some making $60 or more an hour -- working with children on community-improvement projects or homework.

During the past four years, each club was given $3,000 to $5,000 to pay for police officers to operate an individual program. Another $3,000 to $5,000 was awarded to fund admission and transportation costs to various attractions or to travel to community-service projects. The field trips, sometimes done in summer, are for children who participate in Wake Up Club meetings during the school year.

Phoenix police Officer Robin Ontiveros, who oversees the Wake Up Clubs, said she has seen the difference they make in the lives of children. "It's very effective because it's run by the Police Department. It's like a mentoring program."

Wake Up Clubs were started in 1995 by the department's Community Effort to Abate Street Crime, after a drive-by shooting of a 4-year-old in south Phoenix spurred residents to ask for help.

Critics say funding for Wake Up Clubs may benefit the community in the long run but hurt groups seeking money for crime-fighting programs. Schroeder questions the money going to youth programs and wants to see research and statistics on their impact.

The first year northeast Phoenix resident Jerry Cline was on the Block Watch Oversight Committee, he noticed all Wake Up Club applications were identical, seeking the same amounts of money to take kids to the same places. By the second year, he started asking questions. This year, he said there were a lot of "conversations" about whether the clubs should continue to be funded through Block Watch.

"When you get close to running out of money, you start thinking whether you should use the money to fund other projects," Cline said.

This year, for the first time since 2010, most Wake Up Club requests were not fully funded. Still, the oversight committee didn't make drastic cuts, except in the case of one school, Simpson Elementary, which last year sent kids on 30 field trips with Block Watch funds.

For fiscal 2012-13, Simpson's Wake Up Club was given $6,198 of their $10,000 request. Most clubs saw their $8,900 to $10,000 requests trimmed by only $100 or $200. 'Faith' and fairness

Phoenix Mayor Greg Stanton said he believes children's programs "pay long-term dividends" and said he takes the oversight committee's recommendations on "faith" that it knows what's best for the community.

Judy Welch, captain of the Villa de Paz Block Watch, near Camelback Road and 102nd Avenue, disagrees. She said her group's request for a flashlight camera to catch graffiti violators was denied. She doesn't think it's right that funding instead went to Wake Up Clubs.

"What do they have to do with crime prevention?" she asked. "Block Watch money is about graffiti and vandalism. ... You'd have to have a lot of research into following these kids for years to find out if it helped."

Abby Dunton, coordinator for the Farmington Park Block Watch near 91st Avenue and Lower Buckeye Road, said her group was denied $10,000 for an audio, solar-powered, bilingual flashing-beacon system to help pedestrians at a busy crosswalk. During an appeal to the oversight committee last week, her project was approved.

For Cline, of the oversight committee, the question about Wake Up Clubs remains, "How does it deter crime?" Early intervention

Crime prevention takes many forms, including Wake Up Clubs, said Phoenix police Officer Deb Iodice, the Block Watch Program coordinator. Officers talk to the kids about things like bullying and drugs.

"You can see the wheels in their head turning," Iodice said.

Iodice acknowledges that the city can't quantify how many crimes are prevented this way. "There's no great way to track it. I think that's a disservice, but we're here to educate people," Iodice said.

She understands the criticism of using crime-prevention money for an after-school program. "Sometimes the program kind of gets a negative vibe because it costs a lot of money, but I think it's a fantastic program," Iodice said.

Daniel Morales, a prevention coordinator at Touchstone Behavioral Health, a non-profit organization that works to help young people lead productive lives, said getting kids to feel better about themselves can help keep them from underage drinking, drug use and getting into trouble.

Miguel "Mickey" Villarreal, 14, said he took his Wake Up Club experience in middle school seriously. "It helped me open up and be more accepting of others. And they teach you the consequences of drugs and getting into trouble. I've seen my older brother grow up and make the wrong decisions."

Villarreal, now a freshman at Trevor Browne High School in west Phoenix, returned this summer to volunteer with a Wake Up Club.

Republic reporters Ofelia Madrid, Matt Dempsey and Samantha Bush contributed to this article.

Phoenix Police waste tax dollars on parties & unconstitutional activities

• $9,920 spend on quinceamera party, which is a Mexican version of a sweet 15 party.
• $8,895 spent on unconstitutional Youth Bible Camp
• $2,685 spent on movie party nights

Quinceanera, movie nights among Phoenix grant requests

by Connie Cone Sexton - Aug. 8, 2012 10:42 PM

The Republic | azcentral.com

Patrolling streets with flashlights, installing security cameras and publishing newsletters with neighborhood alerts are traditional approaches to fighting crime.

But Phoenix Block Watch funding also is fulfilling unusual requests that some say can be just as effective.

A quinceamera: In 2011, La Familia Neighborhood Association in south-central Phoenix requested and received $9,920 for its "Alcohol-Free Quinceanera." The grant paid for 22 girls and boys ages 12 to 18 to take self-awareness classes, learn about alcohol prevention and clean up the neighborhood for the community quinceanera, a coming-of-age ceremony for 15-year-old Hispanic girls. The grant paid for an event coordinator and instructors in dance, music and sewing; and for a sound system, fabric and sewing supplies.

Youth Bible camp: In 2011, Faith Missionary Baptist Church requested and received $8,895. About $1,900 went to the church for a Bible camp and Community Outreach Day of Celebration. The Block Watch grant also paid for classes on character building, cultural awareness, the criminal-justice system and reducing gang activity.

Movie nights: In 2010, the Canyon Corridor Community Coalition in central Phoenix requested and received $2,685. Most of that paid for a license to put on six multilingual movie events to improve social bonds among neighbors.

Sex offender arrested for petty, trivial probation violations.

Source

Sex offender living near Mesa school arrested

Posted: Thursday, August 9, 2012 6:15 am

By Deborah Stocks, ABC15

A Mesa man on probation for a sex offense is in custody after violating terms of the probation by having contact with a young family member and keeping pornographic materials in his home.

According to court documents, 33-year-old Aaron Peeples was not permitted to have contact with minors, but family members hid the child from probation officers when they visited the residence.

Peeples' residence near Guadalupe and Power roads was searched and pornographic magazines and other material were reportedly found in a locked room.

Peeples reportedly admitted that the materials were his and that he looked at pornography on the Internet.

He also admitted to running his own business on Craigslist, in spite of being prohibited from Internet use.

Police recommended Peeples remain in custody because he lives just four houses away from an elementary school and family members were hiding the fact that he had contact with a minor family member.

Peeples was charged with three counts of probation violation.

Cops make mountains out of molehills???

Source

Phoenix man sentenced for shining laser at two commercial airliners, police helicopter over Valley

Posted: Wednesday, August 8, 2012 6:41 pm

By Mike Sakal, Tribune

A Phoenix man who shined a green laser light at two commercial airliners and a police helicopter in the west Valley last fall was sentenced Wednesday to 90 days in jail and three years of supervised probation for actions described as “reckless” and potentially catastrophic.

Michael Andrew Cerise, 47, whose actions temporarily blinded three pilots, received the sentence for three counts of endangerment from Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Karen Potts, according to the Maricopa County Attorney’s Office.

About 9 p.m. on Nov. 9, 2011, the Phoenix Police Department Air Unit responded to a call of lasers being pointed at passing commercial aircraft from the ground in the area of 86th and Highland avenues. When the police helicopter arrived over the area, the pilot was hit with a green laser, causing temporary partial blindness. Another officer in the aircraft was able to see that the source of the laser was a man standing at his patio door. [If the cop flying the helicopter was injured and temporally blinded how come the guy wasn't arrested for some sort of felony assault??? - My guess is the pilot wasn't injured at all!]

Ground units were directed to the residence and the defendant was questioned by police. After initially denying that he pointed any lasers at the sky, Cerise produced the green laser which he had hidden in his couch cushions, according to the Maricopa County Attorney’s Office.

“The consequences of this defendant’s reckless actions could have been unbelievably catastrophic to passengers in the air and residents on the ground,” Maricopa County Attorney Bill Montgomery said in an office-issued statement. “This case should send a clear message to anyone thinking about pulling a senseless stunt like this. Pointing lasers at aircraft is dangerous, stupid and illegal. If you do it, we will catch you and punish you.”

Cerise pointed the laser at a U.S. Airways flight carrying approximately 200 passengers and a Frontier Airlines flight carrying approximately 130 passengers.

The U.S. Airways flight, which was on final approach, was forced to alter its course by 90 degrees in order to avoid the laser strikes, according to the county attorney’s office.

Authorities had received reports of similar incidents throughout an eight-month period leading up to Cerise’s arrest, according to Jerry Cobb, a spokesman for the Maricopa County Attorney’s Office.

Cerise, who told authorities he bought the laser at a yard sale, said he was just curious to see how far the light would shine into the sky.

Contact writer: (480) 898-6533 or msakal@evtrib.com

Jackbooted rent-a-cop shakes down Clay Thompson???

Source

I'm now a persona non grata in Encanto

So are you familiar with the Encanto neighborhood in Phoenix? If not, I can tell you it's a pleasant, probably historic part of town more or less north of McDowell Road and west of Seventh Avenue.

Lots of beautiful, older homes, most of them with very nice landscaping. Not a place where I probably could ever afford to live, and maybe neither could you. I don't know. However, I do happen to have some friends who live there.

I have some personal business that sometimes takes me that way and when I do it has been my wont to drive idly around Encanto admiring the houses and the landscaping and daydreaming about who lives in what houses.

Actually, I found a great idea for a birthday gift for a friend of mine by driving around in there and part of the beautiful landscaping project of my miserable back yard came from there.

So I was doing just that the other day when I got waved down by a rent-a-cop on a golf cart who wanted to know what was my business there and he'd had a complaint and if I couldn't explain myself I should leave. I was so flabbergasted I just drove away.

Anyway, to the best of my knowledge, no one matching my description or that of any middle-aged newspaper columnist or driving a vehicle matching the description of such a person has ever been suspected or accused in the Encanto neighborhood of committing an act of breaking-and-entering, burglary, money laundering, child abuse, armed robbery, embezzlement, public intoxication, stealing sugar packs from diners, rioting in the streets, not keeping tires properly inflated, vandalism, bootlegging, animal cruelty. voter fraud, arson, defaulting on a student loan, treason, tax evasion, mass murder, truancy, drug-dealing, cheating at Uno, bribery, malfeasance in office, smuggling undocumented aliens, aiding and abetting, bank fraud, public indency, identity theft or gawking at the women Olympic beach volleyball players.

OK, maybe that last one.

So residents of Encanto, you can rest easy. No middle-aged newspaper hack will be ravaging your neighborhood. I have kicked the dust of Encanto from my sandals.

And if (inappropriate term) ever want to send me a question or enter one of my contests, think twice. I'm not sure I like your looks.

Reach Thompson at clay.tompson@arizonarepublic.com or 444-8612.

Phoenix officers demoted over video file $2.9 million claim

Phoenix officers demoted over video file $2.9 million claim

by Dustin Gardiner - Aug. 9, 2012 10:03 PM

The Republic | azcentral.com

Four Phoenix police officers accused of showing photos of corpses in a video slide show during a holiday party have filed a $2.9 million notice of claim against the city.

The department suspended and demoted the officers, formerly part of the night detective squad, earlier this year after receiving an anonymous complaint about the video. Their unit had worked non-criminal deaths, such as suicides, drug overdoses and grisly car accidents.

Officers Courtney Mayo, Howard Pacifico, Brandy Villareal and Jeffrey Johnson state in the claim that the city improperly characterized the video, defamed them and caused severe emotional distress. They are seeking monetary damages, and they want the department to reinstate them to their old positions.

Phoenix officials were served with the claim late last week. They said an internal investigation into the officers' actions is being conducted.

When the incident came to light in February, acting Police Chief Joe Yahner and Mayor Greg Stanton swiftly condemned the officers' actions, saying they were outraged that the officers had shown victims of crime in an inappropriate manner. The department also put two supervisors in the night unit on administrative leave.

"I am extremely disappointed in the unprofessional conduct and the total lack of respect shown to those we are trusted to serve," Yahner said at the time.

Mayo said the city's actions resulted in the loss of her first child due to a second-term miscarriage, which her obstetrician attributed to stress. The claim says she was portrayed as a "monster" and could not defend herself because of a departmental gag order.

"No matter what demand could be made upon the city, nothing will ever restore what she lost," the notice states.

Phoenix spokesman Jon Brodsky said the city is reviewing the claim and could not comment. The Police Department's internal inquiry continues, but the officers have returned to work and have been cleared of any criminal conduct.

A notice of claim is a precursor to a lawsuit and is required before somebody can sue a government entity. Mayo is asking for $2 million to settle the dispute; the other officers are each asking for $300,000.

According to the claim, the officers said they showed the video once, at a party last December with members of their squad, and it included 28 photos of non-homicide death investigations. They contend the slide show was personal and documented "memorable moments, experiences and inside jokes the squad had shared that year."

Their claim states that city officials made defamatory comments about the officers before the department properly investigated the situation and that the officials created a false perception that the photos depicted victims of crimes.

Republic reporter JJ Hensley contributed to this article.

Details surface in sex-misconduct allegations vs. Phoenix officer

Source

Details surface in sex-misconduct allegations vs. Phoenix officer

by Cecilia Chan - Aug. 9, 2012 06:52 PM

The Republic | azcentral.com

Christopher J. Wilson remains in jail without bail Thursday as more details surfaced about the allegations of sexual misconduct with two teenage boys.

Police allege in court records that the 43-year-old former Phoenix police officer had oral sexual encounters with a 17-year-old at his home and at the 17-year-old's apartment. Court records indicate that a single encounter with the 14-year-old occurred at the 17-year-old's apartment.

Wilson resigned from his job of 13 years after he was arrested Tuesday to escape being fired, police said.

The court has appointed Wilson an attorney. A preliminary hearing is set for Aug. 17.

Wilson was a liaison to the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community, and police say he met his victims through his official role.

According to documents released Thursday, the 17-year-old told police he was sitting on a couch watching a movie at Wilson's Phoenix home in April or May and described the encounter.

In the second incident on July 4, the 14-year-old boy and the older teenager were in the teenager's apartment, when Wilson dropped in for a visit.

The second sexual encounter involved both the victims and Wilson, records indicate.

Wilson admitted to police he knew the teenagers were underage, court records show.

Although the acts were consensual, police said there is no consent when minors are involved.

Police don't expect more victims to step forward.

Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano is a sexist pig???

Lawsuit alleges Janet Napolitano sexism

by Kevin Robillard - Aug. 10, 2012 10:01 AM

POLITICO.COM

The lawsuit, which was filed in Washington federal court, came to the fore Friday with reports in both New York tabloids -- the Post and the Daily News. It was first reported Wednesday afternoon by Debbie Schlussel, a conservative blogger who has appeared on Fox News' "The O'Reilly Factor" and has written for the Post's op-ed page.

The suit, by James Hayes, a special agent in charge of New York City investigations for Immigration and Customs Enforcement federal court accuses Suzanne Barr, ICE's chief of staff, of regularly harassing male employees. Barr was Napolitano's chief of staff when the latter was governor of Arizona.

The lawsuit accuses Barr of calling a male ICE agent into her hotel room and asking to have oral sex with him, and says Barr once stole another male ICE official's BlackBerry and sent a message to his female superior indicating the agent was attracted to his boss. It also says Barr relocated three male agents' desks to the men's bathroom at ICE headquarters.

According to the Post and Daily News, Hayes' suit accuses Napolitano of freezing him out in favor of Dora Schriro,who is now the head of New York City's Department of Corrections and previously led corrections departments in Arizona and Missouri. Before he took over in New York, Hayes was the director of ICE's detention and removal operations. Schriro was brought in as a special adviser to Napolitano on those topics, and began replacing Hayes in meetings, according to the lawsuit. The lawsuit says Schriro is a close friend of Napolitano's.

"ICE doesn't comment on unfounded claims and will respond to Mr. Hayes's allegations as appropriate through the judicial system," ICE spokesman Brian Hale said in a statement.

Hayes is seeking $335,000 in damages.

The Republic is a member of the Politico network

Mesa police testing high-tech fingerprint scanners

Source

Mesa police testing high-tech fingerprint scanners, glasses-mounted cameras

Posted: Friday, August 10, 2012 10:01 am

By Garin Groff, Tribune

If Mesa police suspect you’re up to no good and want to identify you quickly on the street, it turns out they’d like you to just give them the finger.

OK, not THAT finger. Make it a couple of other digits.

Some officers are now requesting suspects let police scan both index fingers with a new mobile phone-sized device that can identify people in seconds without making a time-consuming trip to a fingerprint scanner at the downtown jail.

The wireless device is one of two high-tech instruments police are deploying this summer, along with 50 glasses-mounted cameras that record every interaction officers have with suspects.

The fingerprint scanners were tested in July at DUI checkpoints and worked without problem, said Bill Kalaf, Mesa’s executive director of intelligence-led policing.

Police with the device hold it in front of a suspect, who presses an index finger on a screen until the gadget buzzes to confirm a successful scan. The suspect repeats the process with the other finger.

“It can’t get much simpler,” Kalaf said. “All you do is push a button and it tells you what to do.”

The information is sent wirelessly to The Arizona Automated Fingerprint Identification System, which has more than 2 million prints. The device quickly responds whether there is a match or not.

If the print matches, the device’s screen will display the person’s name, date of birth, picture and whether the database includes DNA.

Results usually come back in two minutes or less, but sometimes within 30 seconds.

“Training is all of about 10 to 15 seconds,” Kalaf said. “Officers love it because it’s so simple to use.”

Kalaf said the quick results help police confirm identities much easier when people don’t have identification with them, lie to officers or have fraudulent documents. [As I said before per Hiibel v. Nevada you are not required to give ID to the police and, the police can't legally arrest you for refusing. But sadly a crooked cop will quickly break the law and violate your Constitutional rights if he thinks you are a criminal]

Police hope the mobile scanner can help police work more efficiently because the only other option to get a fingerprint is to drive a suspect to the downtown jail. Kalaf said the device should be welcome to people who can be cleared on the street, because they won’t have to have police take them downtown for fingerprinting. [As I said before per Hiibel v. Nevada you are not required to give ID to the police and, the police can't legally arrest you for refusing. But sadly a crooked cop will quickly break the law and violate your Constitutional rights if he thinks you are a criminal]

Mesa is testing six devices now with patrol officers. If Mesa is pleased after a roughly six-month test, it will consider arming more of its nearly 300 patrol officers with them. The scanners are on loan from Morpho, a manufacturer of identification and security products. The scanners cost $500 to $1,000 each.

Police are also continuing to test cameras mounted on officers by equipping 50 police with cameras as soon as September. Mesa has tested an earlier generation of the cameras but wants to keep evaluating their potential to help police record evidence at a scene and to help document officer behavior when the public files a complaint.

The cameras are built by Scottsdale-based Taser International, a major supplier of stun guns. Police will seek volunteers to wear the cameras for a year-long test.

The cameras record all the time and download information to a small hard drive that officers can’t erase. That allows police supervisors to see an entire interaction and not just a provocative segment that’s taken out of context, police Chief Frank Milstead said.

Milstead said that since so many things are now filmed by smart phones, police should be able to have their own recording. The cameras should reduce police abuse claims that are false, because Milstead said people who wage misconduct allegations typically drop the matter when they learn an interaction has been recorded.

“It’s hard to argue with something that’s on tape,” he said.

Contact writer: (480) 898-6548 or ggroff@evtrib.com

Source

Device helps Phoenix-area police check fingerprints faster

Portable device latest example of technological advancements revolutionizing police work

by Jim Walsh - Aug. 31, 2012 10:18 PM

The Republic | azcentral.com

The driver of a Ford Mustang was pinned in his car in west Phoenix, the victim of a fatal collision with a driver police suspect was impaired.

A Phoenix police sergeant used the latest technological advancement in law enforcement, a MorphoIDent, which is about the size of an iPhone, to scan the index finger on both of the victim's hands. The sergeant plugged the device into the computer in his patrol car. A minute or two later, the screen flashed the victim's name: Ronald A. Lowe, 32, of Phoenix.

"We're not always dealing with criminals and dangerous people. We are dealing with victims," said Sgt. Trent Crump, a Phoenix police spokesman. "It makes us more efficient in the positive identification of the victim and moving forward to the next of kin."

The MorphoIDent saved the delay caused by traditional identification methods, which could include fingerprinting the victim and sending the prints to the records section, or having the Maricopa County Medical Examiner's Office identify him or her.

The device is the latest example of technological advancements that have revolutionized police work, making suspects easier to track and evidence more readily available. Police say the device makes it possible to quickly match fingerprints with those stored in a statewide databank. It does not store or capture fingerprints for other purposes.

The Phoenix, Mesa, Tempe and Glendale police departments are using the devices in a free pilot program launched by the manufacturer, MorphoTrak of Alexandria, Va., said Eve Fillon, a company spokeswoman.

The Arizona Department of Public Safety is also participating. In three months, the Peoria, Yuma and Lake Havasu City police will get the portable scanners, along with the Yuma County Sheriff's Office. Bill Lamoreaux, a spokesman for the Arizona Department of Corrections, said the agency uses the device to check the identity of inmates at intake and release.

MorphoTrak, a division of Safran, a French company based in Paris, is hoping Valley agencies eventually will make the same decision as Tucson police, who ordered MorphoIDent devices after an earlier pilot program.

But efficiency and accuracy don't come cheap. Each unit has a list price of $1,717, although the actual per-unit cost depends upon the number of devices purchased, Fillon said.

Mesa police are using the device in patrol functions and as a tool in investigations of driving under the influence of drugs or alcohol as part of a six-month pilot project, said Sgt. Tony Landato, a police spokesman.

He said criminals often lie to police about their identity to avoid arrest. "We live in an era when identify theft is rampant. This is a tool we can use to deal with that epidemic," Landato said.

He said the device also allows officers to detain people for as short a time as possible while police rule them out as suspects.

The device is already showing promise in Mesa, though the pilot program started July 4.

In July, a Mesa officer chased a suspect in a domestic-violence case through a supermarket and detained him.

The man refused to identify himself, but the officer used the MorphoIDent to positively identify him as a suspect in an Apache Junction homicide case and to rule him out as a suspect in the domestic-violence incident, Landato said.

"The whole idea is to get the right information to the right officer" during an incident or an investigation, said Bill Kalaf, Mesa's executive director of intelligence-led policing. "You don't want to let the bad guy go."

Another man lied about his identity to an officer at Mesa's light-rail station. The officer used the MorphoIDent to positively identify him and arrested him on suspicion of providing false information to police.

"I absolutely love it. It's another tool in our toolbox," said veteran Mesa patrol Officer Todd Reed, one of six officers using the device.

Reed said he had a case a couple of years ago in which the MorphoIDent could have averted an error. A man used his brother's identity during a traffic stop and was arrested and charged under the wrong name. Police didn't discover the error until the man who was unjustly charged reported it to clear his name, he said.

Mesa already is planning its next technological advancement through another partnership with MorphoTrak. It may begin testing a prototype version of a new product under development, the Morpho Lift, within the next few months.

The Morpho Lift would allow crime-scene technicians to record fingerprints at a crime scene, download them to laptop computers and run them through the Automated Fingerprint Identification System databank, Fillon said.

Landato said such rapid identification of fingerprints at a crime scene would allow detectives to track down suspects before they have a chance to flee.

"When you can track down people within a few hours, rather than waiting a day or two for prints to be processed, that could have a major impact," he said.

Fillon said the Mesa Police Department is the only agency in Arizona under consideration for testing of the Morpho Lift at this time.

2 former Border Patrol agents convicted of smuggling migrants in high-profile corruption case

2 former Border Patrol agents convicted of smuggling migrants in high-profile corruption case

By Associated Press, Published: August 10

SAN DIEGO — Two former Border Patrol agents were found guilty Friday of smuggling hundreds of people into the U.S. in Border Patrol vehicles.

Raul and Fidel Villarreal were convicted of charges that they brought illegal immigrants into the U.S. for money and received bribes by public officials, and counts of conspiracy to launder money. Prosecutors said Raul Villarreal started a ring that smuggled in Mexicans and Brazilians and made Fidel Villarreal, his older brother and a fellow agent, one of his first recruits.

Both brothers pleaded not guilty in one of the highest-profile corruption cases to sting the Border Patrol since it went on a hiring spree during the last decade. Raul Villarreal had been a public face of the patrol, frequently appearing on television as an agency spokesman.

The federal probe began in May 2005 with an informant’s tip to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Investigators installed cameras on poles in areas where migrants were dropped off, planted undercover recording devices, put tracking instruments on Border Patrol vehicles and followed a smuggling load by airplane.

The prosecution also relied on accounts of alleged accomplices and migrants who entered the country illegally, including some who identified Fidel Villarreal in photographs. One 24-year-old Brazilian woman said she paid $12,000 to be taken across the border in “a police car.”

Prosecutors said the brothers were tipped off about the investigation in June 2006, prompting them to flee to Mexico.

Shortly after they settled in Tijuana, a district police commander in the Mexican border city who allegedly shuttled Villarreals’ customers in squad cars was killed in a hail of about 200 bullets. The brothers were arrested in October 2008 — more than two years after abruptly quitting the Border Patrol — and extradited to the U.S. to face federal charges of human smuggling, witness tampering and bribery.

David Nick, Raul Villarreal’s attorney, had argued the prosecution relied on witnesses who had a strong motive to lie and surveillance yielded no evidence of wrongdoing by his client.

Nick said he couldn’t comment on the verdict because of a gag order. A message for Fidel Villarreal’s attorney was not immediately returned.

The brothers were scheduled to be sentenced Nov. 16. They face a maximum of 50 years in prison and at least $1.25 million in penalties.

Other defendants in the case include Armando Garcia, who was also found guilty Friday of charges of smuggling illegal immigrants for money, bringing illegal immigrants into the U.S. and conspiracy to launder money. Another, Claudia Gonzalez, pleaded guilty in Dec. 2009 and was due for sentencing Sept. 10.

U.S. Attorney Laura E. Duffy praised the agencies involved in prosecution, saying in a statement that stopping “corruption and maintaining the integrity of our federal border enforcement personnel is critical to U.S. border security.”

Chicago cop whose home was raided is awarded $565,000 in damages

Chicago cop whose home was raided is awarded $565,000 in damages

By Annie Sweeney, Chicago Tribune reporter

9:02 p.m. CDT, August 10, 2012

When Chicago police broke into his Austin home with guns drawn and a search warrant, Markee Cooper Sr., a cop himself, and his family could only look on as drawers and closets were searched for crack cocaine based on an alleged informant's tip.

On Friday, a federal jury awarded Cooper and his family $565,000 in damages after finding one officer at fault for a falsified warrant and two others responsible for the illegal 2007 search.

The officer and his wife testified at the trial that their two young sons, Markee Jr., 13, and Zion, 8, were traumatized at seeing their father confront a roomful of cops with guns before kneeling to the living room floor and handing over his badge and weapon.

"It's a horrible experience for a child to see or even think about," Cooper's wife, Sherita, said after the verdict was announced. "I'm just glad that justice was served."

The city of Chicago will have to pay $450,000 in compensatory damages awarded by the seven-woman, three-man jury, said Cooper's attorney, Brendan Shiller. The jury also assessed punitive damages against three of five officers — money they will be responsible for paying, Shiller said.

Officer Sean Dailey, who testified that he secured the warrant based on information from an informant named "Lamar" who told him crack was being sold out of the second-floor apartment in the Cooper's building, was assessed by far the most — $100,000. Sgt. Salvatore Reina was found liable for $10,000 and former Lt. Dennis Ross for $5,000.

Gregory Mitchell, an attorney for the officers, declined comment on the verdict.

The often murky use of confidential informants by police was at the center of the two-week trial.

Cooper's legal team argued that Dailey either made up the informant or was reckless by making no effort to try to verify the tip. They pointed to the sketchy information Dailey initially had about Lamar's background — no last name, phone number or address.

"I think this verdict shows that the informant didn't exist, and he made it up," Shiller said of Dailey. "And if he made up an informant, the city needs a better policy to prevent this from happening again."

The officers' attorneys argued that Dailey played by the rules, informing the Cook County state's attorney's office before going to a judge for the warrant. Dailey testified that the same informant had given him three previous tips that led to criminal charges. That the information turned out to be bad was not intentional, the defense argued.

"That's called, 'I ain't perfect,'" Mitchell said during closing arguments Thursday. "Was it serious? Yes. Was it malicious? No."

Cooper, a nine-year police veteran, is assigned to the department's elite Organized Crime Division, working undercover investigations that often involve getting warrants.

He testified at trial that he thought he was the victim of a home invasion when he first heard someone breaking into his residence, only to find about a dozen plainclothes officers with guns drawn.

asweeney@tribune.com

Cop car crashes into light rail train???

CTA Brown Line train and police squad collide on NW Side

Staff report

9:26 p.m. CDT, August 10, 2012

An unmarked Chicago police squad car and a CTA Brown Line train collided this afternoon on Kedzie Avenue just north of Wilson Avenue as an officer was coming to the aid of her partner, officials said.

The accident happened about 4 p.m. and involved an Albany Park tactical unit police vehicle and a CTA Brown Line train, according to police sources.

Preliminary reports said the gates were down for a Loop-bound train and when the train passed, the vehicle went around the gates not expecting the Kimball-bound train, according to a CTA spokeswoman. The vehicle and the Kimball-bound Brown Line train collided, she said. Brown Line tracks run at ground level from the Rockwell to Kimball stops.

The injured officer was coming to the aid of her partner, who was chasing someone on foot, police said. They could not immediately say why police were after the person.

The injured officer was being treated in serious condition as of tonight.

Shuttle bus service was used through the area while the cleanup and investigation continued, but as of 7:50 p.m., service had resumed on the Brown Line, according to the CTA Website.

The officer was able to remove herself from the vehicle after the crash, said Police News Affairs Officer Veejay Zala.

A CTA employee was also taken to an area hospital in good condition, according to Fire Media information. Zala said the CTA employee was the engineer of the train and was taken to Swedish Covenant Hospital for observation.

The accident was under investigation, Zala said.

chicagobreaking@tribune.com

U.S. soldier in WikiLeaks case claiming harsh treatment

U.S. soldier in WikiLeaks case claiming harsh treatment

His superiors ordered it, documents say; lawyer wants all charges dismissed

by David Dishneau - Aug. 10, 2012 11:56 PM

Associated Press

HAGERSTOWN, Md. - A U.S. Army private charged in a massive leak of government secrets claims his harsh pretrial treatment during nine months in a military prison was directed from high up the chain of command and warrants dismissal of the entire case, according to documents his civilian lawyer released Friday.

The 110-page motion alleges Pfc. Bradley Manning developed a rash from being forced to sleep beneath a stiff, suicide-prevention blanket and suffered an anxiety attack due to harassment by guards. It repeats well-publicized claims that Manning was forced for several days to surrender all his clothing at night and stand naked in his cell for roll call. For several days in January 2011, he was forbidden to wear his eyeglasses and forced to strip down to his underwear during the day, the motion contends.

The Defense Department has said that Manning's treatment properly conformed to the "maximum custody" or "prevention of injury" classifications in which he was held in Quantico, Va., from July 29, 2010, to April 20, 2011, when he was moved to medium-security confinement at Fort Leavenworth, Kan.

Manning's lawyers claim there was no legal or medical justification for the harsh restrictions, and that his custody status contradicted the recommendations of multiple psychiatrists.

Manning's lawyers intend to have Manning testify about his Quantico experience during a hearing Oct. 1-5, according to the document.

Military prosecutors didn't immediately respond Friday to a request for comment on the motion posted by Manning's civilian attorney, David Coombs, on his website.

In an accompanying summary, Coombs wrote that he recently became aware of emails revealing that the brig officer who ordered the restrictions was acting on orders from an unidentified, three-star general.

Manning faces 22 charges for allegedly sending hundreds of thousands of diplomatic cables and war logs to the secret-spilling website WikiLeaks while working as an intelligence analyst in Iraq.

Feds: Arrests violate Mississippi students’ rights

Published: August 11, 2012 3:00 a.m.

Feds: Arrests violate Miss. students’ rights

HOLBROOK MOHR | Associated Press

JACKSON, Miss. – Officials in east Mississippi operate a “school-to-prison pipeline” that incarcerates students for disciplinary infractions as minor as dress code violations with a policy that affects mostly black and disabled children, the U.S. Justice Department said Friday.

The Justice Department said police in the city of Meridian routinely arrest public school students without determining whether there’s probable cause when the school wants to press charges for a violation. Federal authorities say the students are then denied due process in youth court and on probation.

The Justice Department did not outline specific allegations of wrongdoing against the school district in a letter to state and local authorities.

Once arrested, the youth court puts the students on probation, sometimes without proper legal representation, according to the letter. If the students are on probation, future school violations could be considered a probation violation that requires them “to serve any suspensions from school incarcerated in the juvenile detention center,” the department said.

That means if a student is on probation and then gets suspended for a minor infraction like “dress code violations, flatulence, profanity, and disrespect,” the student could have to serve that suspension in the detention center.

“The students most severely affected by these practices are black children and children with disabilities in Meridian,” the Justice Department said.

The department said if the matter isn’t corrected soon, it will sue the Lauderdale County Youth Court, the Meridian Police Department and the Mississippi Division of Youth Services, a division of the state Department of Human Services. The Division of Youth Services is involved the probation system.

The letter said the findings are the result of an eight-month investigation. The letter also said that Lauderdale County Youth Court Judges Frank Coleman and Vel Young pledged to cooperate in the investigation but “consistently denied DOJ access to information about the policies and practices” of the court and directed the city of Meridian to deny the department access to files concerning children.

Will the cops use a dead mans blinking to frame an innocent person?

Source

Ohio murder trial hinges on dying man's eye blinks

by Lisa Cornwell - Aug. 11, 2012 12:14 PM

Associated Press

CINCINNATI -- Paralyzed and hooked up to a ventilator, David Chandler was just days from death when police arrived at his hospital room to question him about the person who shot him. They wanted to know if he could identify a suspect, and they had a photo to show him.

Chandler was unable to communicate except with his eyes as he lay in bed attached to myriad tubes and with a brace around his neck. His eyes opened barely more than a slit at times; he was instructed to blink three times for yes and twice for no. One detective quizzed him, and another videotaped his responses.

Chandler didn't respond with blinks to every question in the 17-minute video, and there were solo blinks. But triple blinks came in response to repeated questions asking if he knew the shooter and whether the person in the photo was the culprit.

An upcoming murder trial hinges on the videotape of those blinks, a rare effort by a prosecution to show a defendant has been identified by gesture: the nod of a head, squeeze of a hand, blink of an eye.

Legal experts say such cases -- while not unheard of -- are unusual, and dying identifications relying on gestures rather than words are often not used in trials because of concern over reliability or differing interpretations. But some have been used in murder cases around the U.S. that have ended in convictions.

Challenges facing jurors in such cases include determining whether victims are fully aware of what is being asked and are in control of their movements.

"People blink naturally anyway, so the question could be whether the blinking is really identifying someone or is automatic or the result of something going on medically," said Michael Benza, a visiting professor of law at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland.

Chandler, 35, was shot in the head and neck as he sat in a car early Oct. 28, 2010, in Cincinnati. He remained paralyzed from his injuries when police interviewed him Nov. 2. He eventually went into a coma, dying 10 days later.

The man authorities say he identified, 34-year-old Ricardo Woods, is charged with murder, felonious assault and weapons counts and faces up to life in prison if convicted. A hearing in the case is set for Monday, which had been the original trial date. The judge could set a new trial date at the hearing.

Prosecutors would not comment on motive, although authorities have suggested the Cincinnati men knew each through drug deals. Woods has previous convictions in Hamilton County for aggravated robbery, felonious assault and trafficking in cocaine.

The defense suggests that Chandler's condition and drugs used to treat him could have affected his ability to understand and respond. Woods' attorney, who tried unsuccessfully to block the video evidence, insists the blinks are inconsistent and unreliable.

"There are times when detectives asked questions and he didn't blink at all, and other times there are too many blinks," said attorney Kory Jackson.

Prosecutors insist Chandler clearly identified Woods as the gunman.

"While the case is unusual, we believe -- and the judge agreed -- that the victim's interview and identification of the defendant as his assailant is reliable," prosecutor's spokeswoman Julie Wilson said.

Judge Beth Myers of Hamilton County Common Pleas Court ruled that jurors could see the videotape, saying she found the blinks reliable. She said they were made by pronounced, exaggerated eye movements and not by involuntary blinking.

During the hospital interview, Chandler also was asked whether he knew the shooter's name. The detective drew a pen across an alphabet list, asking Chandler to blink three times to indicate the first letter of the name or nickname.

The detective stated that Chandler blinked three times when the pen stopped on "O," although the alphabet was turned away from the camera. Authorities allege Woods was at times known as "O," but Jackson says there is no record of that.

Jackson also contends that police erred and "were too suggestive" when they asked Chandler to identify one photo without other choices.

Jonathan Rapping, a law professor at Atlanta's John Marshall Law School, believes the use of only one photo rather than the typical array of photos may prove problematic. Using one photo violates a defendant's constitutional right to a fair trial if it is unnecessarily suggestive and increases the likelihood of misidentification, he said.

"Clearly showing one photo is suggestive that 'this is the person,'" Rapping said.

But he said that when a victim and a suspect know each other, it can be argued there is less chance for a mistaken identification.

Prosecutors said they could use one photo because they contend Chandler knew the suspect and the identification came quickly after the crime.

"The bottom line is that the judge allowed it into evidence," Wilson said.

Victims' dying declarations based on nonverbal identifications have been used in other murder cases.

In Oklahoma City, a man was convicted in 1985 of first-degree murder and arson in the burning death of his wife, who could not speak due to her injuries and survived only two days. But she was able to nod to identify her husband as the person who poured gasoline on her and set her on fire.

In Boynton Beach, Fla., two men were convicted of first-degree murder and attempted robbery in the 2007 shooting of a man who was left paralyzed and unable to speak before he died. But he was able to identify both defendants by blinking his eyes when shown photo lineups.

Assistant State Attorney Andrew Slater in Florida's Palm Beach County said he was careful to show the court that the family also had communicated with the victim through blinks and detail the steps police took to establish them as legitimate responses.

"I think I was able to show he knew what he was doing, and that is what gave the identification procedure reliability," Slater said, adding that videotape of such blinks "should be even better" for establishing reliability.

FBI says Insane Clown Posse fans are a criminal street gang???

"they plan to sue the F.B.I. for having classified their fans -- or Juggalos, as they're more widely known -- as a loosely organized hybrid gang in its 2011 National Gang Threat Assessment report"

Their logo looks pretty cool, but to be honest I have never heard their music.

My only question is doesn't the FBI have any real criminals to hunt down, who have committed real crimes other then liking the music of Insane Clown Posse.

Source

Insane Clown Posse to sue F.B.I. on behalf of Juggalos

by Ed Masley - Aug. 11, 2012 04:45 PM

The Republic | azcentral.com

The Insane Clown Posse announced onstage at the 13th annual Gathering of the Juggalos on Thursday, Aug. 9, that they plan to sue the F.B.I. for having classified their fans -- or Juggalos, as they're more widely known -- as a loosely organized hybrid gang in its 2011 National Gang Threat Assessment report. This is according to Spin, whose article went on to note that such classification puts them on the level of Bloods, Crips, and the Aryan Brotherhood.

An article in Rolling Stone quote the Juggalo entry in the National Gang Threat Assessment report.

"Although recognized as a gang in only four states," the document reads, "many Juggalos subsets exhibit gang-like behavior and engage in criminal activity and violence/ Law enforcement officials in at least 21 states have identified criminal Juggalo sub-sets, according to (National Gang Intelligece Center) reporting."

The Spin article quotes Violent J, who told fans ICP would sue the F.B.I. "no matter what it costs or what it takes... The main fact is, we're not just layin' down and taking it up the (expletive)." This resulted in not only cheers but also some fans crying, according to Spin.

In an interview with Vice, the rapper said, "This lawsuit isn't just for the fans. It's also for the good people who work at Psychopathic Records. There are 30 employees. Some of these people started off when we were 18 years old, but now some of them have been working here for 20 years. That's their career now. They have kids, and wives, and husbands. Next thing you know, they're working for a gang."

ICP legal counsel, Howard Hertz of Hertz Schram PC, has released a statement that reads: "We are seeking individual Juggalos whose rights have been violated as a result of the mistaken belief that they are a 'gang member.' If you or someone you know has suffered any negative consequence with an employer, governmental representative, including law enforcement, border patrol, airline security, or other local, state or federal governmental agency or employee as a result of your status as a Juggalo, we want to know about it."

Gun grabbers using doctors and shrinks to do their dirty work

Source

'Warning behaviors' sought to stop killings

by Bob Ortega - Aug. 11, 2012 11:00 PM

The Republic | azcentral.com

It can seem all but impossible to understand why anyone would commit a mass murder as Jared Loughner did near Tucson last year, as James Holmes is accused of doing in Aurora, Colo., last month, as Wade Michael Page did at a Sikh temple in Wisconsin last Sunday, and as happens, on a smaller scale, about 20 times a year in the United States.

Often, the specific "why" for a murderous rampage stays hidden within the twisted delusions or obscure psychosis of a particular killer. But forensic psychologists and other behavioral scientists are increasingly identifying reasons that can predispose someone to commit mass violence, and "warning behaviors," such as a fast- growing fascination with weapons and violence, that should signal the need for intervention.

"We'll never be able to predict which individual, out of many, will carry out an act of targeted violence," says J. Reid Meloy, a forensic psychologist and professor of clinical psychiatry at the University of California-San Diego.

But, Meloy said, it's often possible to identify people who fall into high-risk groups and to take some action to intervene -- from requiring counseling to restricting someone's access to weapons to seeking involuntary commitment, or many other steps in between.

"These strategies are being applied all over the country every day now, by mental-health professionals, teams in corporate settings and universities, by law-enforcement officers," he said. While he declined to offer specific examples, citing privacy concerns, he said there are many cases where the risk is being reduced, though it's impossible to say whether an act of violence is actually being stopped.

After Seung-Hui Cho killed 32 people and shot 17 others at Virginia Tech in April 2007, Virginia began requiring all universities across the state to create threat-assessment teams, groups including security or law enforcement, psychologists, counselors and administrators. The teams identify when an individual could pose a risk and consider how to respond. Many large corporations also have established threat-assessment teams or policies.

Meloy said he's working on a case now in which he's helping to plan a strategy to handle a person engaged in threatening behavior in a workplace setting "where a mass shooting could be carried out relatively easily."

Intervening often isn't simple or easy. People in schools or workplaces may report worrisome behavior, but the information may not get to the right authorities, or they may not take what, in retrospect, may seem like the right steps. Or there may be other limitations.

Before the Virginia Tech shooting, Cho had been identified as stalking women and setting a fire in a dorm, both potential "warning behaviors" of further danger, said clinical psychologist and attorney Brian Russell of Lawrence, Kan. Campus police took Cho to a mental-health agency, which sent him to state court for an involuntary-commitment hearing. But when Cho's attorney asked to keep his record clean by letting him go to outpatient mental-health treatment voluntarily, the judge agreed.

"He checks in, he immediately checks out, and gets guns he couldn't have gotten with a court order for inpatient mental treatment or a judicial commitment," said Russell.

Loughner, who pleaded guilty Tuesday to last year killing six people and wounding 13, including then-Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, had been suspended from Pima Community College after a series of run-ins with police and college administrators. On Oct. 7, 2010, three months before his attack outside a Tucson-area Safeway, police delivered a letter to the home of Loughner's parents, saying he couldn't return to college until a mental-health professional confirmed that he didn't pose a danger to himself or others.

Well before James Holmes was arrested on charges of killing 12 people and wounding 58 at an Aurora, Colo., movie theater on July 20, University of Colorado psychiatrist Lynne Fenton raised concerns about his behavior with members of the university's behavioral-evaluation and threat-assessment team. The team reportedly never investigated Holmes, though, because he had dropped out of the university.

"The problem is that most people who are seriously mentally ill aren't going to do anything violent, and our ability to predict dangerous behavior is not that great," said Richard Cooter, an associate professor of forensic psychology at George Washington University in Washington, D.C. "If you tried to commit everybody who said something odd or weird or pick your term, you'd be locking up a lot of people."

Richard S. Adler, a clinical and forensic psychiatrist in Seattle, agreed. "It is exceptionally hard to predict who will be violent. The fact of the matter is I could see you today and you're relatively safe and tomorrow you could be not safe." Focusing on behaviors

In trying to understand what leads someone to commit mass murder, forensic psychologists sometimes focus on specific behaviors that show a growing or accelerating risk of violence. They also analyze the psychiatric and personality traits common to different types of mass killers.

Politically motivated terrorism aside, most mass murderers fall into one of three broad categories, many researchers say:

Those exhibiting psychopathic behavior. "At the core of the psychopath is always a profoundly malignant narcissism," said Russell. "They focus on what they need, and feel an entitlement to get what they need at the cost of anything to anyone else." In a 2004 study of 64 mass murderers, forensic psychologist Meloy said the pathological, narcissistic belief that they had a "right" to kill was ubiquitous.

Those who are delusional. They maintain a persistent, irrational belief in the face of contrary facts, said forensic psychologist David Bernstein of New York City. "Those beliefs become their reality. There's an arrogance involved," he said. Particularly of someone with paranoid delusions, "you believe people are conspiring against you; there is something about you that is so special, people are plotting against you in some way."

Those who are severely depressed and suicidal. Loughner can be included in this category, though he also is severely delusional and heard voices, according to his psychologist, Christina Pietz. She diagnosed Loughner as schizophrenic, a type of psychosis, and spent more than a year treating his illness with medications and therapy before U.S. District Court Judge Larry Burns ruled Loughner mentally competent last week, clearing the way for him to plead guilty.

Adolescent mass killers, such as Columbine High School shooters Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, who killed 12 students and a teacher in April 1999, differ from adult mass murderers in some ways. One study, in 2000, found that adolescents are more likely to collaborate with others, are more likely to reveal clues -- Facebook postings, for example -- that they are planning something, and are less likely than adult killers to commit suicide. A 1999 study found that, in common with adults, youthful killers often were seen as loners, showed strong interest in violence and violent fantasies, and spent a lot of time planning the mass murder, which was usually triggered by some perceived rejection or disciplinary action.

Among the traits that many mass murderers -- adolescent or adult -- share are anger and a delusional sense of self-justification.

"Most of us learn to let things go, to see when something happens that it's not that big a deal in the scheme of things," said Bernstein. "These people focus and ruminate on their perceived wrongs; it becomes all-consuming. They feel they're correcting an injustice -- they're not the monster, the other people are the monsters."

On Aug. 3, 2010, for example, after he was forced to resign for stealing beer from the Hartford Distributors' warehouse where he worked, Omar Thornton pulled two Ruger semiautomatic pistols out of his lunch box and shot eight people to death. He called 911 before committing suicide, ranted about racism no other worker there perceived, and said "these people here are crazy," adding that he wished he'd shot more of them.

"All these guys are angry about something," said Cooter. Speaking of Page, the Sikh temple killer, he said that "from what I can tell, he wasn't psychotic; he was just an angry guy." Holmes, who dyed his hair to resemble the movie character The Joker, "obviously has a massive delusional system revolving around Batman, is probably schizophrenic too, and was very angry," possibly about failing in his studies at the University of Colorado, said Cooter, who emphasized that he doesn't have personal, direct knowledge of either case. Signaling intentions

Some "warning behaviors" seem obvious, like a growing fascination with weapons, a focus on violent fantasies or previous mass killers, and expressed threats that may be subtle or direct.

A Secret Service study in 2002 found that in 81 percent of school-shooting cases, at least one person knew about the plans in advance; and in 93 percent, people around the attackers noted disturbing behaviors ahead of time, such as acquiring guns or writing poems or essays on homicidal themes.

A study last year said most adult mass killers, too, signal their intent in some way, though not to their actual target.

Often, too, there's what psychologists call an "energy burst warning," a sudden jump in activities relating to the target.

Loughner, who is due to be sentenced to multiple life terms on Nov. 15, was a prime example, according to a citation in a recent study in the journal Behavioral Sciences and the Law.

In the dozen hours before the shooting, Loughner dropped off film at a Walgreens with photos of himself in a red g-string holding a Glock pistol next to his crotch; he checked into a Motel 6; left a phone message with a friend; posted a photo of the Glock to his MySpace page and wrote "Goodbye friends." He did several Web searches on "assassins" and "lethal injections." He tried to buy ammunition at a Walmart but left when a clerk expressed concern about his behavior. He went to another Walmart and bought ammunition and a black diaper bag, was stopped by a police officer for running a red light, went home but ran away when his father confronted him and asked what was in the bag, then went to a Circle K, from where he took a taxi to the Safeway where Giffords was meeting constituents.

But of course, no single person saw all of these behaviors at the time.

Could any of the people he ran across in those 12 hours have seen a red flag? As the 2011 study notes, "Warning behaviors can only constitute warnings if the behaviors are detected."

In his 2004 study of 64 mass killings, Meloy noted "there was often pre-offense knowledge of specific and generalized threats among third parties, and they failed to act to prevent the killings" and "most people who had overheard a threat seemed to have dismissed it as incredible or implausible."

Though he concedes that in many places mental-health care options are limited and inadequate, Meloy, who calls himself an optimist, makes two observations.

The first is that, for all of the media attention to mass killings, the 20 incidents a year that occur on average means they remain exceedingly rare in a country of more than 311 million people.

The second: "After 9/11, New York came up with a catchy phrase, 'See something, say something.' If you're going to maintain a safe community and social fabric, and if someone is behaving in ways that concern you, you have to say something," says Meloy. "And I think, increasingly, people are willing to do that."

Doctors target gun violence as a social disease

Source Sounds like the gun grabbers are trying to do their dirty work with doctors and shrinks now.

Doctors target gun violence as a social disease

by Marilynn Marchione - Aug. 11, 2012 09:04 AM

Associated Press

MILWAUKEE -- Is a gun like a virus, a car, tobacco or alcohol? Yes say public health experts, who in the wake of recent mass shootings are calling for a fresh look at gun violence as a social disease.

What we need, they say, is a public health approach to the problem, like the highway safety measures, product changes and driving laws that slashed deaths from car crashes decades ago, even as the number of vehicles on the road rose.

One example: Guardrails are now curved to the ground instead of having sharp metal ends that stick out and pose a hazard in a crash.

"People used to spear themselves and we blamed the drivers for that," said Dr. Garen Wintemute, an emergency medicine professor who directs the Violence Prevention Research Program at the University of California, Davis.

It wasn't enough back then to curb deaths just by trying to make people better drivers, and it isn't enough now to tackle gun violence by focusing solely on the people doing the shooting, he and other doctors say.

They want a science-based, pragmatic approach based on the reality that we live in a society saturated with guns and need better ways of preventing harm from them.

The need for a new approach crystallized last Sunday for one of the nation's leading gun violence experts, Dr. Stephen Hargarten. He found himself treating victims of the Sikh temple shootings at the emergency department he heads in Milwaukee. Seven people were killed, including the gunman, and three were seriously injured.

It happened two weeks after the shooting that killed 12 people and injured 58 at a movie theater in Colorado, and two days before a man pleaded guilty to killing six people and wounding 13, including then-Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, in Tucson, Ariz., last year.

"What I'm struggling with is, is this the new social norm? This is what we're going to have to live with if we have more personal access to firearms," said Hargarten, emergency medicine chief at Froedtert Hospital and director of the Injury Research Center at the Medical College of Wisconsin. "We have a public health issue to discuss. Do we wait for the next outbreak or is there something we can do to prevent it?"

About 260 million to 300 million firearms are owned by civilians in the United States; about one-third of American homes have one. Guns are used in two-thirds of homicides, according to the FBI. About 9 percent of all violent crimes involve a gun -- roughly 338,000 cases each year.

Mass shootings don't seem to be on the rise, but not all police agencies report details like the number of victims per shooting and reporting lags by more than a year, so recent trends are not known.

"The greater toll is not from these clusters but from endemic violence, the stuff that occurs every day and doesn't make the headlines," said Wintemute, the California researcher.

More than 73,000 emergency room visits in 2010 were for firearm-related injuries, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates.

Dr. David Satcher tried to make gun violence a public health issue when he became CDC director in 1993. Four years later, laws that allow the carrying of concealed weapons drew attention when two women were shot at an Indianapolis restaurant after a patron's gun fell out of his pocket and accidentally fired. Ironically, the victims were health educators in town for an American Public Health Association convention.

That same year, Hargarten won a federal grant to establish the nation's first Firearm Injury Center at the Medical College of Wisconsin.

"Unlike almost all other consumer products, there is no national product safety oversight of firearms," he wrote in the Wisconsin Medical Journal.

That's just one aspect of a public health approach. Other elements:

--"Host" factors: What makes someone more likely to shoot, or someone more likely to be a victim. One recent study found firearm owners were more likely than those with no firearms at home to binge drink or to drink and drive, and other research has tied alcohol and gun violence. That suggests that people with driving under the influence convictions should be barred from buying a gun, Wintemute said.

--Product features: Which firearms are most dangerous and why. Manufacturers could be pressured to fix design defects that let guns go off accidentally, and to add technology that allows only the owner of the gun to fire it (many police officers and others are shot with their own weapons). Bans on assault weapons and multiple magazines that allow rapid and repeat firing are other possible steps.

--"Environmental" risk factors: What conditions allow or contribute to shootings. Gun shops must do background checks and refuse to sell firearms to people convicted of felonies or domestic violence misdemeanors, but those convicted of other violent misdemeanors can buy whatever they want. The rules also don't apply to private sales, which one study estimates as 40 percent of the market.

--Disease patterns, observing how a problem spreads. Gun ownership -- a precursor to gun violence -- can spread "much like an infectious disease circulates," said Daniel Webster, a health policy expert and co-director of the Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Policy and Research in Baltimore.

"There's sort of a contagion phenomenon" after a shooting, where people feel they need to have a gun for protection or retaliation, he said.

That's already evident in the wake of the Colorado movie-theater shootings. Last week, reports popped up around the nation of people bringing guns to "Batman" movies. Some of them said they did so for protection.

Cops using 15 mph school zones to raise revenue

Source

With school starting, police remind all to pay attention

by Jackee Coe - Aug. 11, 2012 07:34 AM

The Republic | azcentral.com

Not only should returning students be mindful of their classwork, but they, their parents and those on the road nearby should be well-schooled in safety.

With classes back in session, Southeast Valley police encourage drivers, parents and students to pay attention to their surroundings and property.

Police the first few weeks of school have saturation patrols in school zones to reduce collisions with bicyclists, pedestrians and other vehicles. Increases in thefts of bicycles and personal-electronic devices have led police to remind the public to keep a close eye on belongings.

Chandler students returned to school July 23. Tempe, Gilbert and Mesa students returned this week. Students at Arizona State University return Aug. 23.

Tempe Police Chief Tom Ryff said officers see an increase in traffic and property crime at the start of the school year, so partnering with other city departments, school districts, community groups and the Governor's Office of Highway Safety is key for their back-to-school campaigns.

"We just want to make sure that we're out in front of this," Ryff said, "and that we not wait for a tragedy to occur." [Translation from government double speak to English - We are using this as an excuse to raise revenue by writing people tickets for trivial traffic violations]

Drivers must be aware of students walking and riding bicycles near schools, police say.

Collisions involving bicycles and pedestrians have risen in the Southeast Valley. In Gilbert, bicycle collisions increased from 123 in 2009 to 239 in 2011, including one fatality. Pedestrian collisions rose from 27 in 2009, with one fatality, to 32 in 2011, including one fatality.

Fatal collisions in Tempe have decreased from seven in 2009 to one through July 2012, but collisions are on pace to increase from 4,649 to about 4,750 in 2012. Bicycle accidents in Chandler stayed relatively steady from 65 in 2009 to 68 in 2011, but there were already 26 in the first quarter of 2012.

Police said people can avoid collisions by not text messaging, talking on a cellphone or listening to a portable music player while walking or riding a bicycle. [Hmmm... Arizona law makes it illegal for motorists to text and drive, but cops are exempted from the law. Sounds like another one of those double standards where cops don't have to obey the law. For the record I think it is stupid to text or talk on a cell phone while driving a car or bicycle, but just because it is stupid doesn't mean it should be illegal.]

"Your attention is divided when you have your ear buds in your ears and you're facedown texting and you're walking down the sidewalk or down the street," Tempe police Lt. Scott Smith said.

It's imperative that drivers keep an eye out for bicycles and pedestrians, who Chandler police Sgt. Joe Favazzo said usually are "not on the driver's radar at all."

Chandler Detective Seth Tyler said state law requires bicyclists to ride on the road and follow state traffic laws. He encouraged them to stop at all intersections and driveways, and walk their bikes across crosswalks, in which case they are considered pedestrians.

Another issue, officers say, is the growing number of thefts of bicycles and personal electronic devices.

"The biggest property crime we have is bike theft and even though most people would think, 'It's bike theft, it's not the end of the world,' but to a student it's a big lifestyle impact to have their bike stolen," ASU police Assistant Chief Jim Hardina said.

Bicycles often are stolen because they are locked improperly or not locked at all, he said.

Hardina recommended using two locks: a cable lock to loop through both wheels, the frame and onto the bike rack, and a U-lock through the back wheel and frame and onto the bike rack.

It also is important for owners to register bicycles, which serves as a deterrent to would-be thieves. ASU students can register their bikes online at cfo.asu.edu/bike-theft.

Chandler requires all bike owners to register their bikes with the Police Department. They can do so by bringing them to any Chandler police station.

While police departments don't separately track thefts of personal devices, Tempe police Sgt. Josie Montenegro said resource officers constantly take an "overwhelming number" of reports of stolen electronic devices.

"Most of the time they're quick thefts," she said. "Someone just leaves it on a desk for a second and they turn around and the phone's gone."

There's no substitute for vigilance when it comes to personal items, Mesa police Sgt. Anthony Landato says.

Police recommend people record the serial numbers of their bicycles and electronic devices. Safety tips for drivers, bicyclists and pedestrians

For drivers:

• Be very aware of surroundings, especially around schools.

• Follow posted speed limits and no-passing zone signs.

• Wear seat belt.

• Avoid text messaging or talking on a cellphone.

For bicyclists:

• Be aware of surroundings.

• Use bike lanes when provided.

• Cross at crosswalks and intersections, not midblock.

• Wear a Department of Transportation-certified helmet.

• Avoid listening to music or talking on a cellphone.

• Follow the same traffic laws as vehicles.

For pedestrians:

• Be aware of surroundings.

• Cross at crosswalks and intersections, not midblock.

• Avoid listening to music or talking on a cellphone.

Source: Southeast Valley police departments

Bicycle thefts

Chandler

2009: 180

2010: 231

2011: 239

2012 (through May): 108*

Gilbert

2009: 85

2010: 57

2011: 83

2012 (through June): 61

Mesa

2009: 409

2010:462

2011: 515

2012 (through June): 279

Tempe (June through May)

2010: 570**

2011:584**

2012: 603**

Arizona State University (August through July)

2010: 497***

2011: 428***

2012: 488***

Source: Southeast Valley police departments

Florida cops forcibly remove woman's tampon searching for illegal drugs

Of course if you are familiar with how the cops routinely violate our Constitutional rights, it sounds like a normal everyday thing a crooked cop would do.

Source

Mom's tampon pulled out during stop, lawsuit says

Aug. 10, 2012 02:43 PM

A Florida woman filed a lawsuit that claims a police officer forcibly pulled out her tampon during a strip search along the side of a road, according to video from Pix News.

Leila Tarantino, who was traveling with her two kids, says she was pulled over after she allegedly rolled through a stop sign and pulled out of her vehicle before she was searched.

The lawsuit says a female officer pulled out the tampon during the search. She then was left waiting in a patrol car for two hours, she claims..

Source

Leila Tarantino, Florida Mom, Says Officer 'Forcibly' Removed Her Tampon During Traffic Stop

Posted: 08/10/2012 11:20 am Updated: 08/10/2012 5:47 pm

Leila Tarantino, a Florida mother, was pulled over for rolling through a stop sign last July. But what should have been a routine traffic stop allegedly turned into a nightmare.

Tarantino says that officers pulled her from her car at gunpoint, strip searched her and "forcibly" removed her tampon on the side of the road. Now, she's suiing.

Tarantino says she was wrongfully pulled over by an officer with Florida's Citrus County Sheriff's Department, according to the Broward-Palm Beach New Times. In the suit, Tarantino says that although she came to a complete stop, a passing officer hooked a U-turn and pulled her over.

Here is the disturbing account of the incident -- which Tarantino's children allegedly saw while sitting in the backseat -- as reported by the New Times' Chris Sweeney:

The cop then placed Tarantino in the back of the squad car, where she allegedly sat for two hours. When backup arrived, Tarantino was strip searched on the side of the road, where passing motorists could see everything.

Then, in a gruesome twist, a female officer "forcibly removed" a tampon from Tarantino. Presumably, the cops were looking for drugs, but the lawsuit notes that a drug-sniffing dog was never called in, and cops never found any contraband or anything illegal.

Five male officers and one female officer were involved.

“None of the officers had any individualized suspicion” about the plaintiff, Tarantino's attorneys write, according to an excerpt from the lawsuit obtained by news agency RT.

The “Citrus County Sheriff’s Department had nothing in its policy and procedures manual regarding when and how it is legal and proper for its officer to perform a strip search and its failure to train its officers evinces a deliberate indifference to the constitution rights of Citrus County citizens.”

Tarantino's attorneys say their client was "unreasonably searched and subjected to intrusive, substantial and unwarranted invasions of privacy," according to RT.

No drugs were found in the search.

Tarantino is now seeking monetary damages, the amount of which will be determined in a trial, and payment of her attorney's fees, according to WTSP 10 News.

UPDATE:

The Citrus County Sheriff's Department has denied the accusations put forth by Tarantino. In a statement obtained by Tampa's ABC Action News, the department said a traffic stop did occur on July 17, 2011, but that the events that proceeded it were not as Tarantino described.

"No strip search was conducted, and the plaintiff's tampon was never forcibly removed by any deputy," read the statement. "It is the Sheriff's Office intent to aggressively defend itself against these malicious allegations."

Source

Cops strip search mom at roadside,'forcibly' remove tampon while kids look on

An August 10 article posted at Alex Jones' website, InfoWars.com, makes one thing abundantly clear: If you're going to roll through a stop sign in Citrus County, Florida, be prepared to suffer the consequences. Especially if you're a woman.

In a lawsuit filed against the Sunshine State, Leila Tarantino claims she was ordered out of her car at gunpoint and subjected to a strip search on the side of the road, while her children watched from the backseat of her car. All for failing to come to a complete stop at an intersection.

Tarantino claims she did come to a complete stop, but even if she didn't, she says she didn't deserve the treatment she received.

A passing police officer flashed his lights and pulled her over, immediately drew his weapon and pulled her from the car, while Tarantino's children watched from the backseat. Then, refusing to tell her why he'd pulled her over he placed her in the back seat of his squad car, where she was forced to sit for two hours.

According to the lawsuit, four more male officers and one female officer were called to the scene to assist.

Tarantino was strip searched twice at the side of the rode, in full view of all male officers, everyone passing by and her children who were still in the back of her car. Worse, yet, during one of the public strip searches the female officer forcibly removed Tarantino's tampon.

The lawsuit points out that no drug sniffing dogs were used in the search and none of the officers found any weapons, drugs, contraband or anything illegal to indicate such invasive search procedures. Further, none of the officers had any personal suspicions about Tarantino before the searches were conducted.

Scarier still is item 19 of the lawsuit:

“Upon information and belief, it is the practice of the Citrus County Sheriff's Department to perform strip searches on individuals without probable cause, or to perform those on individuals who have not been charged with any crime or charged with non-serious misdemeanors, and to perform those searches without protecting the rights of the person being searched.”

According to the lawsuit filed by Tarantino, Sheriff Jeffrey J. Dawsey either ordered, authorized, condoned, approved or assisted in the strip search and the five male officers and one female officer were acting under his authoritym and “Upon information and belief, Sheriff Jeffrey J. Dawsey planned, orchestrated, participated in, and approved each official act and inaction in this series of events.”

Tarantino's lawsuit also holds the officers themselves responsible for violating her constitutional rights:

“At all relevant times, John Doe Officers 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and Jane Doe Officer were under a duty to prevent their fellow law enforcement officers and Sheriff Jeffrey J. Dawsey from violating the United States Constitution. (They) had an adequate opportunity to intervene and prevent (Tarantino's) constitutional rights from being violated, but instead assisted in the violation.”

Tarantino, who eventually received a citation for violating restrictions on her driver's license, is suing the State of Florida for an amount to be determined at trial and she insist that at least one of her constitutional rights be upheld: the right to a jury trial.

Source

Tarantino sues Florida police over strip search

Published: 10 August, 2012, 01:52

Leila Tarantino was pulled over for rolling through a stop sign last year, but being caught by the cops wasn’t what surprised her. The woman has filed a lawsuit because she claims an officer “forcibly” removed her tampon during a strip search.

Attorneys for Tarantino have filed a civil action suit against the government of Citrus County, Florida, Sheriff Jeffrey Dawsey and six unnamed police officers whom she says were involved in an irregular traffic stop last July that constitutes what they believe is excessive use of force.

According to the claim filed last week in US District Court in Florida, Tarantino was detained by police for around two hours on July 17, 2011 after allegedly disobeying a posted stop sign in Beverly Hills, FL. The woman’s attorneys claim that a cop had originally flagged their client through the sign after she stopped at an intersection, but immediately after she was pulled over by the same officer, who then approached Tarantino’s car at gunpoint.

The claim continues to allege that Tarantino was handcuffed and detained while her children waited in the backseat of her car without ever being charged with a crime. During her detainment, an unnamed Jane Doe officer frisked and strip searched the woman “twice at the side of [a] busy road, in plain view of passersby.”

“During one of the strip searches,” they claim, Tarantino “had a tampon forcibly removed” by the female officer.

“None of the officers had any individualized suspicion” about the plaintiff, her attorneys write, and the “Citrus County Sheriff’s Department had nothing in its policy and procedures manual regarding when and how it is legal and proper for its officer to perform a strip search and its failure to train its officers evinces a deliberate indifference to the constitution rights of Citrus County citizens.”

The attorneys are saying that Tarantino’s rights are violated multiple times during the incident, during which they say she was unreasonably searched and subjected to intrusive, substantial and unwarranted invasions of privacy. They have demanded a jury trial to try and take the matter to course, where they hope to have the defendants charged with battery and intentional infliction of emotional distress.

Source

Woman claims deputies strip searched and forcibly removed feminine hygiene product on roadside

Posted: 08/10/2012

Beverly Hills, FL - A Citrus County woman claims she was frisked, strip searched and had her tampon forcibly removed by Sheriff Deputies during a traffic stop in 2011, according to a lawsuit filed by her attorney, Michael Sechrest.

According to the lawsuit, Leila Tarantino was driving on South Columbus Street in Beverly Hills, Florida with her children on June 11th of last year when she approached a stop sign and came to a complete stop.

The lawsuit claims that when Tarantino drove forward, an unnamed deputy traveling in the opposite direction turned around to stop Tarantino. The lawsuit also says the deputy got out of his cruiser with his gun pointed at Tarantino’s car and called for backup.

Over the next two hours, four more officers, including a female, arrived on scene, Tarantino’s lawsuit alleges. These five people proceeded forward with the strip search on the side of the road, in front of Tarantino’s children, and with the permission of Sheriff Jeffrey Dawsey, according to paperwork filed in District Court.

Citrus County Sheriff’s Office has fired back at Tarantino, stopping short of calling her an outright liar.

In a statement to ABC Action News, the Citrus Count Sheriff’s Department wrote:

"The Citrus County Sheriff's Office wants to go on record as saying the allegations made in this lawsuit are not only ludicrous, but completely untrue. Yes, a traffic stop was conducted on July 17, 2011. The plaintiff was issued a criminal citation for violation of restrictions on her driver's license. She also was issued a written warning for rolling through a stop sign.

No strip search was conducted, and the plaintiff's tampon was never forcibly removed by any deputy.

It is the Sheriff's Office intent to aggressively defend itself against these malicious allegations.

Tarantino has been arrested multiple times in the past for drug possession, driving under the influence and domestic battery. "

ABC Action News left a voicemail for Tarantino’s attorney.

NYPD murders marijuana smoker

Well the pot won't kill you but cops who are brainwashed to hate marijuana smokers will kill you like they murdered Darrius Kennedy in New York City.

After the cops murdered Darrius Kennedy they demonized him as they always do to people they kill. The cops told the media that Darrius Kennedy was a big time criminal who had been arrested 7 times for marijuana possession.

Wow, that terrifies me. Not not that Darrius Kennedy had been popped 7 times for smoking pot, but that the police will murder a person for the victimless crime of smoking marijuana.

Source

In NYPD shooting, many witnesses follow the chase

Aug. 12, 2012 02:54 PM

Associated Press

NEW YORK -- Lincoln Rocha had just taken some photographs of his wife while they visited crowded Times Square on a hot summer day when he saw a man nearby start to back away from police officers who were talking to him.

When they reached out to try to grab hold of the man, Rocha said, "He just went for his knife." The officers went for their guns, and Rocha went for his camera.

"When I saw the officers draw their guns, I was sure they would kill him," the Brazilian tourist said Sunday, the day after the man, 51-year-old Darrius Kennedy, was shot to death by police, who said he had lunged at officers with the 11-inch (28-centimeter) kitchen knife.

"If they're going to kill him, I want to take some pictures, I want to record it," Rocha said.

Kennedy was smoking marijuana near the military recruiting station in Times Square about 3 p.m. Saturday when officers first approached, police said. It was the beginning of an encounter that would stretch for seven of the most crowded blocks in New York City in midafternoon and end a few minutes later with 12 gunshots and many witnesses.

As officers spoke to Kennedy, he became agitated, pulled out the knife and began to put a bandanna on his head, police said. He ignored repeated orders to drop the knife and began backing away from them, continuing for blocks as he waved the knife and drew many officers into a slow-speed pursuit that itself lured onlookers.

Rocha said the unusual scene was the first time he had ever seen anything like it in any of his several visits to New York City.

"You see something like this, you want to record it," he said. And in Times Square, crowded with countless tourists, street vendors and New Yorkers, many others apparently felt the same way.

Though Rocha stayed put, held back by his wife's insistence, the others following the chase pulled out cellphones to capture footage and, in some cases, offer commentary.

"They're going to shoot you, boy," a man's voice is heard yelling on a video that an onlooker provided to The New York Times.

Numerous officers can be seen going down the street in another video on the website of the New York Daily News.

According to the police, officers pepper-sprayed Kennedy six times but he held onto the knife throughout, wiping the spray off his face. Finally, he lunged at police and two officers shot him in the torso, police said.

In one video segment, police cars with sirens blaring pull up as gunshots are heard. Officers moved quickly to corral onlookers.

Kennedy was pronounced dead at Bellevue Hospital.

Rocha acknowledged that it made a difference that Kennedy was only holding a knife, and that there were so many officers on scene.

"If it was a gun, a revolver, I don't know that people would stay there and take pictures," he said.

"I just stayed because I saw he was holding a knife," Rocha said. "I was behind the officers, I knew he couldn't reach me."

Kennedy, who lived in Hempstead, New York, and was a native of South Carolina, had been arrested 10 times, including seven for marijuana possession, police said. In 2008, he was taken to a hospital for observation after knocking down garbage cans in Times Square.

Officials Defend Fatal Shooting of a [pot smoking] Man Near Times Square

Source

Officials Defend Fatal Shooting of a Knife-Wielding Man Near Times Square

By PATRICK McGEEHAN

Published: August 12, 2012

The New York police officers who fatally shot a knife-wielding man after he escaped arrest near Times Square did what they were trained to do, city officials and experts on police procedure said Sunday.

The confrontation occurred on Seventh Avenue.

Two officers fired 12 shots at the man, Darrius H. Kennedy, after he ignored their orders on Saturday to drop the long kitchen knife he had been waving as he skipped backward down Seventh Avenue, frightening the tourists wandering around on a summer day, police officials said. At least seven of those bullets hit Mr. Kennedy, including three shots to the chest, the police said.

Raymond W. Kelly, the police commissioner, said that he thought “the police responded appropriately” and that the number of rounds the officers fired was not unusual. Police officials said officers tried six times to subdue Mr. Kennedy with pepper spray, without effect. None of the officers at the scene had Tasers or other stun guns, the police said.

Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg agreed with Mr. Kelly, saying the officers “probably acted in responsible ways” in trying to stop “somebody who must have been mentally deranged.” He added that “taking a knife and going after other people, particularly police officers, isn’t something that a sane person would do.”

Police officials said they did not know whether Mr. Kennedy, 51, had a history of mental troubles. But they said that in October 2008, he was taken to Bellevue Hospital Center for a psychiatric evaluation after he was found knocking over garbage cans in Times Square. Paul J. Browne, the Police Department’s chief spokesman, said he did not know the results of that evaluation.

A month later, in November 2008, Mr. Kennedy was arrested near Lincoln Center after he threatened to harm police officers with a screwdriver when they tried to stop him from harassing drivers on Broadway, Mr. Browne said. He was sentenced to 40 days in jail for resisting arrest.

Mr. Kennedy had not had any run-ins with the New York City police since then, according to Mr. Browne. He said the police believed that Mr. Kennedy had been unemployed but did not know where he had been living. The last known address for him was in Hempstead, on Long Island.

Marcus Bryan, 27, who sells self-produced CDs in Times Square, said he had spoken several times to the man who was shot on Saturday, though he did not know his name. He said the man would dress up as a ninja, in black clothing with a black mask, and do back flips for tips.

Keith Watson, 31, who was selling tickets to a comedy club, also identified the man who was shot as “the Times Square ninja,” but did not know his name. “He’s never had an actual blade before,” Mr. Watson said. “It was a play sword. He’s a regular here.”

An aunt of Mr. Kennedy’s, Mary Johnson, said by phone that she had not noticed anything out of the ordinary when her nephew visited her home in Hempstead in June. She said he had been living in Manhattan in recent years, doing odd jobs like cleaning buildings.

Ms. Johnson was critical of the police. “This could have been handled in a different way,” she said. “It doesn’t take 12 or 15 bullets to kill a horse, so it wouldn’t take that many to kill a person.”

But Charles H. Ramsey, commissioner of the Philadelphia Police Department, said officers were trained to aim for “center mass,” not the limbs of a suspect, when using deadly force.

“You can’t just sit and watch people get hacked to death or have an officer get slashed,” Mr. Ramsey added.

The episode — bizarre even by the standards of Times Square — sent tourists running for cover (or their cellphone cameras), but nobody other than Mr. Kennedy was in danger of being shot, Mr. Browne said. He said that no police officers or civilians were in the line of fire when the two officers shot their 9-millimeter pistols from close range.

By that point, the police had backed Mr. Kennedy up to the entrance of an office building on Seventh Avenue near 37th Street and had hemmed him in with a patrol car parked perpendicular to the sidewalk, Mr. Browne said. The two officers in that car jumped out and ordered Mr. Kennedy to drop his weapon, a nearly foot-long kitchen knife with a six-inch blade.

When he moved within three feet of the officers, still holding the knife, the police said, they let loose a burst of bullets, drawing gasps from the rapt witnesses. Some of them had trailed the police down the avenue, capturing the drama in photographs and video.

One officer fired nine shots, and the other fired three, Mr. Browne said. He added that neither officer previously fired a weapon in the line of duty.

Wendy Ruderman, Michael Schwirtz and Kate Taylor contributed reporting.

$100 million security system at JFK no match for broken down jet skier

Stranded jet-skier saunters through JFK safeguards

By PHILIP MESSING and ERIN CALABRESE

Posted: 12:43 AM, August 12, 2012

EXCLUSIVE

Some safety net.

A stranded jet-skier seeking help effortlessly overcame the Port Authority’s $100 million, supposedly state-of-the-art security system at JFK Airport — walking undetected across two runways and into a terminal, The Post has learned.

Motion sensors and closed-circuit cameras of the Perimeter Intrusion Detection System, or PIDS, were no match for Daniel Casillo, 31, of Howard Beach, who easily breached the system meant to safeguard against terrorists.

Casillo’s adventure began at a Rosedale watering hole, where he was hanging out with friends when they decided to go out racing their watercraft.

“They were trying to see who had the fastest jet skis, like idiots,” said his girlfriend, Deanna Cowan.

But Casillo’s ride broke down in the dark waters of Jamaica Bay at around 7:45 p.m. — and his pals didn’t notice they had left Casillo behind.

With his craft taking on water, he called Cowan in a panic.

“He said, ‘I’m stuck!’ and told me to call his friend Albert to come out and tow him in,” Cowan, 28, recalled.

But help didn’t come, and the stranded Casillo swam three miles toward the only thing he could see — the lights of Runway 4-Left, which sticks out into the bay.

“He didn’t want to go that way, because you’re not allowed to go over there,” Cowan told The Post.

Dripping wet and in a bright-yellow life jacket, Casillo climbed the perimeter fence, which is eight feet high, and walked across that runway and intersecting Runway 31L — and made it all the way to Terminal 3 without anyone noticing.

Casillo was finally apprehended when he approached a Delta Airlines worker near Gate10. He was charged with criminal trespass.

“All his IDs, his money, his car keys — they’re all gone. They sunk with the jet ski,” Cowan said.

The highly touted PIDS system, which was first announced in 2009, has proven to be a boondoggle, having never fully come online after a series of troubling delays.

“The Port Authority PBA has been concerned about the failure of the PIDS system for quite some time. We have brought this to the attention of former Executive Director Chris Ward, who failed to act,” Robert Egbert, spokesman for the PA PBA.

The PA, which runs the airport, says that it has stepped up patrols and is reviewing the incident and that it plans to meet with PIDS maker Raytheon this week about the breach.

NYPD Cops murder man for driving motorcycle illegally.

Source

Bronx man who died in dirt bike flight a good guy: family

By C.J. SULLIVAN and JESSICA SIMEONE

Posted: 8:17 PM, August 12, 2012

A Bronx man who was killed trying to flee cops on a dirt bike was a building super who looked out for neighborhood kids and encouraged them to stay out of trouble, his family said today.

Eddie Fernandez, 28, was pronounced dead after his dirt bike was accidentally rammed from behind by a cop car in Hunts Point around noon Saturday, law-enforcement sources said.

His neighbor and longtime pal, Adalberto “Adam” Gonzalez — who was on the back of the bike and urging him to flee cops at the time — suffered only minor scrapes and was taken into custody.

“[Eddie] tried to teach kids to stay out of trouble with carpentry and painting. He was just learning to ride that bike. He was a good kid, it’s a terrible accident,’’ said his grieving cousin, Jose Lopez, 36.

Police at the scene after a cop car struck the dirt bike duo in The Bronx. Eddie Fernandez, right, later died.

Fernandez and Gonzalez had just purchased their Honda dirt bikes less than two months ago and were still learning how to ride, friends said.

On Saturday afternoon, cops first noticed that Gonzalez had been riding his own bike the wrong direction down a one-way street but did not pursue him, possibly because of the dangers of chasing someone on that kind of bike, sources said. He did not have a helmet or license, they said.

A few minutes later, the cops spotted Gonzalez on his bike again, and as they approached him on foot, he hopped off and ran to a dirt bike that Fernandez was on, yelling, “Move! Move! Police is comin’!”

Fernandez drove off with Gonzalez on his bike. He also didn’t have a helmet or license.

Less than a block away, the pursuing patrol car struck them, slamming the duo down onto the pavement, according to law-enforcement sources.

The impact killed Fernandez, witnesses said.

Paul Babeu for Pinal County Dictator???

Source

Pinal Sheriff Paul Babeu lines up election allies

by Lindsey Collom - Aug. 12, 2012 10:53 PM

The Republic | azcentral.com

In the three months since abandoning a bid for Congress to run for re-election, Pinal County Sheriff Paul Babeu has been lining up allies and opining on issues outside the bounds of law enforcement.

It began in late May, when Babeu announced he'd formed a "Law & Order Team" with a Pinal County attorney candidate. Since then, he has formed other alliances with at least three hopefuls for county supervisor and a write-in candidate for constable.

He's split the cost of shared mailers and signs that give him second billing, and he lent his voice to recorded telephone messages in support of those he wants to see in office.

Babeu's efforts are part of what some candidates, elected officials and observers say appears to be attempts to broaden his influence in county government.

The sheriff has made no secret of his desire to oust the two sitting Democrats with whom he's had a contentious relationship on the Board of Supervisors, which is expanding from three to five members.

"I'm working hard to convince Pinal voters to give Republicans a chance to lead for once," Babeu wrote in an e-mail response to questions posed by The Arizona Republic, "and we'll show them we can prioritize public safety and still cut property taxes, reduce impact fees and streamline the process for permitting new business."

But some critics, including Gold Canyon resident and civil-rights activist Roberto Reveles, think Babeu is trying to seed top elected offices in the county with allies.

Babeu said as much in a candidate questionnaire posted on azcentral.com, according to Reveles. When asked about the top goal for his first 100 days in office, Babeu responded, "I will work with an entirely new board of supervisors to reshape the direction of Pinal County. To prioritize public safety, reduce the cost of impact fees that retard business and job growth and reduce taxes. I'm hopeful that Pinal County will shed many of the political leaders of the past and there shall be a brighter promise and refocus on our limitless future."

"Impact fees and taxes are now to come under control of the sheriff?" Reveles said during the public-comment section of a county supervisors meeting last week. "Yes, it can happen if Team Babeu Board of Supervisor candidates like Cheryl Chase and Pat Prince succeed in hoodwinking the public. Voters, it's time to end Paul Babeu's fantasy of one-man rule over Pinal County."

When asked about the perception that his "dream team" was a power grab that could override the county's system of checks and balances, Babeu said he was confident that the candidates he backs would make "decisions based on what is right for Pinal County and the citizens" -- something he said is lacking today.

"The current Board of Supervisors unfortunately involves politics when making decisions related to public safety in Pinal County," Babeu wrote in his e-mailed response. "Employees of the sheriff's office and the citizens we serve would like to see a Board of Supervisors (that) truly cares and prioritizes the safety and security of the citizens we serve."

David Smith, former Maricopa County manager who retired in April after more than 17 years, said Babeu's campaign alliances are an example of classic political back-scratching.

"It's not a surprise for a sheriff or one of the other officers to try to get candidates friendly to them in offices with the promise of some kind of return of favor when it comes to the budget or other resources the board could give to that countywide elected officer," said Smith, who has been credited with fixing a $65 million county deficit by reining in the spending of county departments and elected officials.

"It's political deal making. (Maricopa County Sheriff Joe) Arpaio would like to do that to this board, but I don't know if he could get anybody to run."

Endorsement's effect

In a statement announcing his alliance with Babeu, presumptive Republican nominee for county attorney Lando Voyles said he was joining forces with the sheriff "to fight crime, seek justice and protect our Pinal families. Clearly, we need a prosecutor -- NOT a politician -- as our county attorney. Imagine what can be accomplished with a pro-active Sheriff and tough prosecutor, who backs up our law enforcement and brings a heavy hand against the criminals? Crime will be reduced, victims shall receive justice and our county will be far safer."

Chase, who is running for supervisor in District 2, declined comment for this story. Her joint campaign signs with Babeu are staked nearly every mile along Hunt Highway, the major thoroughfare in the San Tan Valley-based district.

A former state lawmaker, Chase ran Babeu's 2008 campaign for sheriff and continued in that role for some time while drawing an annual salary of $72,571 as the Sheriff's Office director of community relations. She resigned in June to focus on her own campaign, which is chaired by Babeu.

Prince, who is running for supervisor in an area covering Apache Junction and Gold Canyon, was most recently volunteer coordinator of the sheriff's Citizens on Patrol program. She joined the program under the previous administration but said she left earlier this year to avoid the appearance of a conflict.

Prince denied any fealty to Babeu and said she is "not a puppet or in the pocket of any candidate for office, any developer or any powerful citizen."

"I strongly feel that Sheriff Babeu has made significant positive changes and progress within PCSO," Prince said by e-mail. "Sheriff Babeu knows better than anyone that I am not a 'rubber stamp' for him or any other elected official."

Still, she's accepted his endorsement in her campaign to represent District 5.

Babeu and three other politicians -- Arizona Corporation Commission Chairman Gary Pierce, U.S. Rep. Paul Gosar and former county Supervisor Bryan Martyn -- were identified as "Conservative leaders (who) support Pat Prince" on a campaign mailer. Babeu has also voiced a "robocall" on Prince's behalf.

It could help or hurt her depending on how voters feel about Babeu, said Bruce Merrill, a veteran Arizona political scientist.

"One of the most powerful means of advertising is association, where you associate one person or product with something that is more highly valued. The idea is that transfers the way our brains are wired," he said. "If you have a positive image of one person, then your brain literally processes that (associated) person as positive also. Of course, negative too.

"I would think in the case of Babeu, he's had some pretty bad publicity, particularly for right-wingers and conservatives, so in this case, it would probably be more of an attempt to help him than to help the other people."

Babeu has faced difficulties in the six months since a former boyfriend accused him of abuse of power. Jose Orozco, a Mexican national, alleges he was threatened with deportation if he went public with his story. He did in February.

The first-term sheriff has strongly denied that he threatened to have Orozco removed from the country. In addition to an abuse-of-power investigation by the Arizona solicitor general, which Babeu requested, he and his top aides are the subject of an inquiry by the U.S. Office of Special Counsel into prohibited politicking. An investigation by the Pima County Attorney's Office over the alleged destruction of public records closed in July without charges. Not part of 'dream team'

Supervisor candidate Todd House, who is battling Prince for the Republican nomination in District 5, said he was promised Babeu's endorsement but "that evidently didn't hold water." He learned of Babeu's choice when Prince's mailer arrived.

"Paul is assembling a certain group of supervisors he wants to see in office," House said. "He called it his 'dream team,' and quite honestly, I'm not part of his dream team."

House speculates it's because "I have some backbone and I want to stand up for what's right." He also said Babeu's camp knows of his support for County Manager Fritz Behring, whom the sheriff recently began to include in blanket criticism of county supervisors. House said he approves of Behring's performance and sees him as a conservative who's trying to make improvements in the county --namely by improving government efficiency and working to hold leaders accountable --but needs more support.

"Paul and I are good friends but, in the same right, I'm going to run for supervisor and I'm going to do what's best for the county," House said. "I'm not going to be curtailed by Paul."

House said he isn't worried about losing Babeu's endorsement. He raised $4,770 -- nearly double what Prince had raised -- in the first five months of the year, according to campaign-finance rolls.

What does worry House is the possibility Babeu's influence will be "taking the voice away from the people." But Babeu contends the people have already spoken.

The sheriff points to a county-commissioned survey as proof. In the 2010 survey, respondents indicated that crime and public-safety issues should be among county government's chief priorities. Nearly all respondents -- 97 percent -- said they either "strongly supported" or "somewhat supported" spending more on public safety. Less than a third of 3,000 households selected at random completed the National Research Center's survey. The margin of error was plus or minus 3 percentage points.

Babeu said he's endorsing only candidates who "will support public safety, which according to the survey is the top priority of the citizens of Pinal County."

Mom arrested for leaving child in cool 92 degree car!!! Bond set at $105,000

Source

Mom Arrested After Children Rescued From Hot Car

KTLA News

7:31 p.m. PDT, August 12, 2012

CUDAHY (KTLA) -- The extreme heat gripping the Southland [LA metro area] put two small children in jeopardy -- and their mother behind bars.

Arely Amaya, 18, was arrested on suspicion of child endangerment after allegedly leaving her year-old son and 2-week-old daughter locked in a car while she went shopping along the 7900 block of Atlantic Avenue.

The temperature outside was 92 degrees and the car interior was about 10 to 15 degrees hotter, according to a press release from Los Angeles Sheriff's Department.

A passerby saw the children and alerted authorities. A deputy was able to break into the car and rescue the children, who were "hot and moist to the touch."

"The window was partially cracked. I stuck my arm in, unlocked the car, and pulled the children out," Deputy Mejia said.

The children were taken to a hospital for treatment.

Authorities estimate the children were in the car for 20 to 25 minutes.

Amaya was in custody in lieu of $105,000 bail and faces possible felony charges.

Deputy Maricopa County attorney faces ethics claims

Deputy Maricopa County attorney faces ethics claims

by Michelle Ye Hee Lee - Aug. 13, 2012 09:42 PM

The Republic | azcentral.com

A state Bar ethics complaint has been filed against Deputy Maricopa County Attorney Peter Spaw containing charges of ethical misconduct stemming from his role in prosecuting a 2010 federal racketeering suit.

The complaint does not specify what sanctions might be sought against Spaw.

In the complaint, the Independent Bar Counsel alleges that even though Spaw knew a racketeering suit brought against retired judges and county officials was not viable, he nonetheless helped former County Attorney Andrew Thomas and a deputy, Rachel Alexander, prepare the suit. The details of Spaw's role came to light during testimony in ethical-misconduct hearings for Thomas, Alexander and another former Thomas deputy, Lisa Aubuchon.

The complaint blames Spaw for failing in his duties as Alexander's supervisor.

This is the fourth Bar complaint against county prosecutors relating to the racketeering suit. Thomas and Aubuchon were disbarred this spring for pursuing the suit and other prosecutions against county officials, supervisors and judges. Alexander was suspended for six months and a day.

MCSO: Mesa man arrested in Craigslist bestiality case

Source

MCSO: Mesa man arrested in Craigslist bestiality case

by Haley Madden - Aug. 13, 2012 09:44 PM

The Arizona Republic-12 News Breaking News Team

After a two-month investigation, Maricopa County deputies arrested James Naylor, who authorities say agreed to meet with an undercover detective and a canine hoping to arrange sexual activity with the dog.

The 47-year-old man connected through Craigslist with canine owners willing to offer their dogs for sexual activity, said Christopher Hegstrom, a Maricopa County Sheriff's Office spokesman.

The husband and father of one met with the undercover canine Monday in Mesa, and deputies made an arrest before anything occurred, official said. Naylor is facing bestiality charges, a Class 5 felony, Hegstrom said.

"It took a little negotiation and several conversations, but we finally got him to meet with us," Sheriff Joe Arpaio said. "It was sickly what this this man was trying to do."

Maricopa County Sheriff's Office have arrested six men in connection to bestiality during the past year, and three have been convicted, Hegstrom said.

Arpaio has sent two letters to the CEO of Craigslist insisting the site take more responsibility for the content and to acknowledge the criminal activity occurring on the site. He has not gotten a response, Arpaio said.

Fast and Furious: House files suit vs. Holder

Source

Fast and Furious: House files suit vs. Holder

Aug. 13, 2012 09:41 AM

Associated Press

WASHINGTON -- The Republican-run House on Monday asked a federal court to enforce a subpoena against Attorney General Eric Holder, demanding that he produce records on a bungled gun-tracking operation known as Operation Fast and Furious.

The lawsuit asked the court to reject a claim by President Barack Obama asserting executive privilege, a legal position designed to protect certain internal administration communications from disclosure.

The failure of Holder and House Republicans to work out a deal on the documents led to votes in June that held the attorney general in civil and criminal contempt of Congress. The civil contempt resolution led to Monday's lawsuit.

Holder refused requests by the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee to hand over -- without preconditions -- documents that could explain why the Obama administration initially denied in February 2011 that the gun-walking tactic was used.

"Portentously, the (Justice) Department from the outset actively resisted cooperating fully with the committee's investigation," the lawsuit said.

"Among other things, the department initially declined to produce documents; later produced only very limited numbers of documents in piecemeal fashion; refused to make available to the committee certain witnesses; and limited the committee's questioning of other witnesses who were made available," it said.

The Justice Department previously said that it would not bring criminal charges against its boss. Democrats have labeled the contempt citations a political stunt.

Numerous lawmakers said this was the first time a Cabinet official had been held in contempt.

The lawsuit asked that:

--The executive privilege claim by Obama be declared invalid.

--Holder's objection to the House records subpoena be rejected.

--The attorney general produce all records related to the Justice Department's incorrect assertion in early 2011 that gun-walking did not take place.

Given recent experience, the Republican-controlled committee's lawsuit could result in a compromise or an appeal by the losing side.

In 2008, a federal judge rejected the George W. Bush administration's position that senior presidential advisers could not be forced to testify to the House Judiciary Committee. The decision was regarded as vindication of Congress's investigative powers.

But the ruling also said that Congress's authority to compel testimony from executive branch officials was not unlimited. The Bush administration appealed, but after Barack Obama became president in 2009, the newly elected Congress and the administration reached a settlement. Some of the documents at issue in the case were provided to the House and former White House counsel Harriet Miers testified.

The battle over congressional subpoenas for documents and testimony arose when Congress looked into whether political motives and White House involvement had prompted the dismissal of U.S. attorneys.

Dozens of 'innocent' prisoners could be freed

Source

Dozens of 'innocent' prisoners could be freed

By Brad Heath, USA TODAY

Dozens of federal prisoners who are locked up even though prosecutors concede they are "legally innocent" could soon be released under new orders from the U.S. Justice Department.

Neither Justice Department lawyers nor defense attorneys would speculate Monday how many innocent prisoners eventually might be released.

The department confirmed Monday that it had instructed its lawyers to abandon legal objections that could have blocked — or at least delayed — the inmates from being set free. In a court filing , the department said it had "reconsidered its position," and that it would drop its legal arguments "in the interests of justice."

The shift follows a USA TODAY investigation in June that identified more than 60 people who were imprisoned for something an appeals court later determined was not a federal crime. The investigation found that the Justice Department had done almost nothing to identify those prisoners — many of whom did not know they were innocent — and had argued in court that the men were innocent but should remain imprisoned anyway.

Neither Justice Department lawyers nor defense attorneys would speculate Monday how many innocent prisoners eventually might be released. Some who were convicted of other crimes might receive shorter sentences; others might be tried for different offenses.

Chris Brook, the legal director of the ACLU of North Carolina, called the move "an encouraging first step," but said "much more has to be done for these wrongly incarcerated individuals." He said the department still had not offered to identify prisoners who were sent to prison for something that turned out not to be a federal crime.

Federal law bans people from having a gun if they have previously been convicted of a crime that could have put them in prison for more than a year. In North Carolina, however, state law set the maximum punishment for a crime based in part on the criminal record of whoever committed it, meaning some people who committed crimes such as possessing cocaine faced sentences of more than a year, while those with shorter records face only a few months.

For years, federal courts there said that didn't matter. If someone with a long record could have gone to prison for more than a year, then all who had committed that crime are felons and cannot legally have a gun, the courts maintained. But last year, the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals said judges had been getting the law wrong: Only people who could have faced more than a year in prison for their crimes qualify as felons. Its decision meant thousands of low-level offenders are not committing a federal crime by having a gun.

In many cases, prosecutors did not dispute that prisoners convicted of gun possession before that decision were innocent, but argued that they should remain locked up because of strict laws that limit when and how inmates can challenge their convictions. The department's new instructions directed prosecutors to drop those arguments.

Justice spokeswoman Adora Andy said the department had "decided to take a litigating position designed to accelerate relief for defendants in these cases who, by virtue of a subsequent court decision, are no longer guilty of a federal crime." She declined to elaborate on the details of the department's instruction. In at least one case on Monday, the government asked a court to set aside a defendant's gun possession conviction.

The shift was met with cautious praise Monday from defense lawyers scrambling to file challenges based on the court's ruling. Eric Placke, an assistant federal public defender in Greensboro, N.C., said it was "an appropriate response, a fair response, by allowing things to be handled on the merits rather than based just on procedural defenses."

One of those prisoners, Travis Bowman, said in an e-mail that he was hoping for "another chance at life" if his gun possession conviction is overturned. Bowman was sentenced to 10 years in federal prison for being a felon in possession of a firearm; he was arrested after a high-speed police chase through rural Murphy, N.C. Under the appeals court's ruling, his prior convictions weren't serious enough to make having a gun a crime.

Bowman said he didn't know he was innocent until USA TODAY contacted him earlier this year. He later asked a federal judge in North Carolina to release him. "If that happens, I got so much stuff I wanna do with my life," he said.

Many of the practical effects of the Justice Department's new instructions remained unclear on Monday.

The legal issue underlying the gun possession cases could also have implications for many other federal inmates. That's because a person's felony record plays a key role in deciding how long a prison sentence he will receive when he's convicted of a federal crime. Hundreds of inmates have already gone to court arguing their prison sentences are too long because at least one of their prior convictions no longer qualifies as a felony under the appeals court's decision.

The ACLU, which last week asked Justice officials to do more to help the inmates, estimated last week that as many as 3,000 people could be eligible to either be released or have their sentences reduced. because of the 4th Circuit's decision. The department did not say on Monday whether it would also drop its legal objections in those cases.

TSA 'chat-downs' investigated at Boston's Logan airport

Source

TSA 'chat-downs' investigated at Boston's Logan airport

By Bart Jansen, USA TODAY

WASHINGTON – The Department of Homeland Security is investigating complaints from airport security officers that the "chat-down" program at Boston's Logan airport has become a magnet for racial profiling.

The Transportation Security Administration said Monday that the department's inspector general will examine the complaints that Middle Easterners, Hispanics and blacks have been targeted in the program. The New York Times reported Sunday that 32 TSA officers at Logan made the complaints.

The chat-down program at Boston and Detroit airports is at the fore of TSA's effort to focus security on the riskiest passengers, rather than treating all travelers the same.

Under the year-old program, officers pose casual questions to all passengers before they screen their carry-on bags to look for deception or hostility that could lead to more interrogation.

The Times reported that officers say their co-workers were targeting minorities, thinking that the stops would lead to the discovery of drugs, outstanding arrest warrants and immigration problems in response to pressure from managers.

"If any of these claims prove accurate, we will take immediate and decisive action to ensure there are consequences to such activity," the TSA said in a statement. "Profiling is not only discriminatory, but it is also an ineffective way to identify someone intent on doing harm."

Chat-downs, as opposed to physical pat-downs of passengers, grew from TSA's behavioral-detection program, which fields 3,000 officers to look for suspicious people at airports nationwide.

Chat-down questions — Are you traveling alone? Where did you stay when you were here? — may seem innocuous, but the TSA says its goal is to detect behavior such as lack of eye contact or fidgeting that could signal a possible terrorist or criminal. If a passenger refuses to answer the questions, TSA will search their carry-on bags.

The TSA says its programs are designed to comply with civil rights policies of the departments of Justice and Homeland Security. The agency says officers "are trained and audited to ensure referrals for additional screening that are based only on observable behaviors and not race or ethnicity."

Critics in Congress such as Rep. John Mica, R-Fla., who chairs the Transportation Committee, have been skeptical that security officers can be trained to spot such subtle behavior, however, and some have urged an end to the program.

Rep. Bill Keating of Massachusetts, the top Democrat on the Homeland Security Committee's oversight subcommittee, called for a hearing to investigate the complaints.

"There is no place for racial or ethnic profiling in our security policies, period," Keating says. "These are serious accusations that urgently need to be investigated."

Lawsuit says FBI violated religious rights of Muslims

O.C. mosque spying case centers on alleged FBI informant

August 14, 2012 | 9:23 am

A hearing is scheduled in federal court in Santa Ana on Tuesday in a high-profile lawsuit involving the FBI’s alleged use of an informant to conduct surveillance inside Orange County mosques in the years after the 2001 terrorist attacks.

Revelations of the surveillance, said to have occurred in 2006 and 2007, sparked anger and dismay in the Muslim community when it was disclosed in 2009. Many Muslims say a climate of suspicion toward them after 9/11 has harmed their community and severely inhibited their freedoms of speech and faith.

An FBI agent testifying in a criminal trial in February 2009 said the agency had sent an informant into several Orange County mosques to collect evidence about a man accused of ties to Al Qaeda. Another man, Irvine resident Craig Monteilh, later stepped forward to claim that he had been the informant.

The lawsuit, filed by the Council on American-Islamic Relations and the American Civil Liberties Union, contends that the FBI illegally targeted mainstream Muslims through its actions, violating their rights to freedom of religion.

Tuesday’s hearing is on motions by attorneys for the U.S. Justice Department who want the lawsuit dismissed, saying defending it could lead to state secrets being disclosed.

Tucson & Pima County bureaucrats are paid very well

Also the city of Tucson didn't include police officers in it's salary list it gave the Star. Cops are vary well paid. In the Phoenix area an entry level cop starts at about $50,000 a year. Higher ranking cops in the Phoenix area routinely make over $100,000 a year. And for most cities, the wages they pay cops are over 50 percent of the cities budget.

Source

Top 1,000 city salaries dwarf area's average pay

192 municipal workers make $100K or more as road bond pends

August 05, 2012 12:00 am • Darren DaRonco and Rob O'Dell Arizona Daily Star

If you feel a tad underpaid in your current job, you may want to consider dropping off an application at the city of Tucson or Pima County.

An Arizona Daily Star review of city salaries last year showed the 1,000th highest-paid employee earned $72,411, which is $37,000 more than the average Tucsonan.

Pima County paid its 1,000th top earner $63,258, about $28,000 more than the average resident pulls down.

Collectively, those top 1,000 city paychecks clock in at $89.4 million, excluding benefits and pensions. For the county, it was $85.3 million.

Tucson pays 192 employees $100,000 or more and spent $22.1 million total on those salaries, or roughly $2 million more than what the city is asking taxpayers to approve for a road repair bond in this November's bond election.

In comparison to similar communities in the region, the Star's analysis shows Tucson trends toward the high side in how much it pays its top workers. Only Mesa showed a higher figure for its 1,000th salaried employee, at nearly $78,000.

The city provided the Star with its own spreadsheet that showed its 1,000th highest-paid employee makes $50,939, but that list did not include any sworn police or fire officials. As with most municipalities, fire and police salaries make up a large portion of the highest-paid employees.

Of the five municipalities reviewed, Tucson spent the most for fire and police - it paid $39 million to 441 police officers and $22 million to 221 firefighters. Pima County paid $22 million for 291 law-enforcement personnel. The county does not offer fire services. The other cities paid between $31 million and $34 million for police and between $18 million and $22 million for fire.

Mayor Jonathan Rothschild said these numbers only represent the top quarter of Tucson employees. If you looked at similar positions around the country, the city's wages would be either comparable or lower, he said.

"If you compare like jobs to like jobs, such as attorney to attorney, engineer to engineer, in similar-sized cities and to the private sector, I think you will see that the employees are not overpaid," Rothschild said. "You are looking at a lot of advanced-degree personnel and senior staff, not the average employee."

In fact, he said, the city loses numerous highly skilled employees each year because it can't match what other cities can pay.

"We regularly lose employees to other cities around the state, to the county and to the private sector because those folks pay more," he said. "There are over 4,000 employees in the city, down over 20 percent from several years ago."

He said talented employees come at a price and those employees are integral to the quality of life in a city.

"I would not want to live in a place where the people responsible for my water, sanitation system, police, fire, and managing the finances of one of the largest organizations in the region are not competitively paid," Rothschild said. [Translation - I'm a government bureaucrat and I think us government bureaucrats should be well paid!]

Finance Director Kelly Gottschalk said comparing Tucson's pay scales to other cities does not accurately reflect the environment in which the city must compete with other companies for skilled employees.

She said companies like Raytheon, Tucson's health-care industry, the University of Arizona and others consistently lure city workers away with higher pay. She said the city needs to find a way to retain workers, since the work the city performs is vital to a healthy community.

"You just can't take a number and compare it," Gottschalk said. "We are a $1.3 billion corporation. The decisions we make affect people's lives both now and in the future. It's not OK in the environment we are in to start skimping on pay."

She said the top salaries of Tucson police officers are an example of how numbers can be misconstrued. Even though police make up a large part of the top 1,000 paid employees, a recent Arizona League of Cities and Towns survey showed Tucson police are among the lowest paid in the state, just above Yuma.

The city's human resources director, Lani Simmons, said the public needs to weigh in on what kind of services it wants to receive from the city and how much it is willing to pay for quality.

Simmons said most of the jobs that draw a top-1,000 paycheck require college degrees - and those jobs command higher salaries. [Not really. Entry level police officers start at around $50,000 and you don't even need a high school diploma to be a cop in Arizona!]

City Councilwoman Regina Romero said she was surprised by the figures and wonders if residents are getting a good return on their investment. [But don't count on him to vote to reduce the salaries of those over paid bureaucrats who work for the city. He can count on those overpaid bureaucrats voting for him, if he continues to pay them well]

"For me, it's about are you doing your job well," Romero said. "It's about accountability."

She said it's time for City Manager Richard Miranda to take a look at how the city sets its compensation so workers on the lower end of the pay scale are not sacrificing so the top can continue to enjoy high salaries.

"If you are making that kind of money, you need to be accountable to the people of Tucson," she said. "I think the city of Tucson is due for a review of its compensation. We need to do a classification review because one hasn't been done since 2000."

Romero also worries if a well-paid workers protected by civil-service rules are interested in following instructions from poorly paid elected officials on the council.

"Problems occur when bureaucracy doesn't understand the relationship between them and the mayor and council," she said. "If our professionals are being paid well, they need to understand mayor and council set the rules and they have to comply with policy." [And when they don't they should be fired by the mayor and council, but the mayor and council never fire anybody!]

County Administrator Chuck Huckelberry said county salaries are aligned with salaries in similar fields.

"Given our range of professional services in law, courts and medical services where we employ a large number of attorneys, judges and medical professionals, the salary comparisons look reasonable," Huckelberry said in an email. "It should also be remembered county employees have not received a general salary increase for five years." [Yea, and he forgot to mention that most of those attorneys and judges are used to run the "War on Drugs" which arrests and jails people for the victimless crime of using marijuana or other drugs. Arrests for victimless drug war crimes account for about two thirds of the people in American prisons]

City Councilman Steve Kozachik said the high salaries could raise a red flag for voters this November.

"The message being sent to the taxpayers is that we can pay our workers several times the local median wage, and we also want your tax money to fix the roads. Much as I would like to see the road bonds pass, we just can't get out of our own way and keep making decisions that give people the right to question how we spend their tax money," Kozachik said.

Kozachik said he would like to see the money distributed a little more evenly, so workers on the bottom would see a little more pay each month.

"I voted 'no' on the salary increase because it disproportionately rewards the people at the top end of the salary scale, increases our structural deficit because they'll carry higher pensions into retirement, and ignores the fact that the front-line workers could have had a legitimate increase" if raises had been offered only to employees at the lower end of the pay scale, he said. "It's sort of a Marie Antoinette situation, the rich get richer and the rest can eat cake, if they can afford it."

Contact Darren DaRonco at 573-4243 or ddaronco@azstarnet.com

Yes the cops are out to get you!!!!

Deputies to bad guys: We're going to get you

Pima program targets troublemakers who plague neighborhoods

Jamar Younger Arizona Daily Star

High Impact Offenders program

A handful of photographs are pinned to a board on the wall across from sheriff's Sgt. William Phillips' desk.

The photos show men smirking, displaying menacing looks or, in the case of one man, giving an obscene gesture toward the camera.

The men in the photos are people whom Phillips and the deputies under his command spend long hours trying to learn more about.

They are the focus of the Pima County Sheriff's Department High Impact Offender Program, which aggressively targets criminals who continually cause problems in their neighborhoods.

The goal of the program is to identify known criminals and catch them in the act of committing minor and nuisance crimes in hope of getting them off the streets before more serious crimes are committed.

All the people targeted by the unit have been identified as repeat offenders and will receive no breaks from sheriff's deputies.

If they are caught driving over the speed limit, jaywalking or throwing a cigarette butt on the ground, they're getting a ticket.

If they get caught fighting, driving drunk or stealing an ornament from someone's front yard, they're going to jail.

"If there's any arrestable offense, they're going to jail," Phillips said.

All of the people identified as high-impact offenders have numerous misdemeanor arrests and are usually connected to drug activity, burglaries, intimidation and other crimes, said Capt. Byron Gwaltney, commander of the Sheriff's Department patrol division.

The program, which is part of the department's Directed Patrol Unit, began about six months ago after Gwaltney challenged his commanders to evaluate how they handled crime.

"It's not just maintain, not be status quo, but to be aggressive in our enforcement efforts," he said.

The program began in the San Xavier substation, on Tucson's south and southwest sides, and in Green Valley, but was expected to expand to all of the sheriff's substations this month, Gwaltney said.

When the deputies are notified of a problem in a neighborhood, they conduct surveillance, work with residents to develop leads and use other methods to investigate the problem.

The deputies will examine what crimes are taking place and where the incidents are occurring to determine who is responsible, Gwaltney said.

"Once we can identify the predatory type of criminals in the neighborhoods, now it doesn't matter where or what, we found the 'who,' " he said. "What we do is focus on that person or persons that we know through intelligence is probably responsible for the vast majority of the predatory crimes in the neighborhood."

The Sheriff's Department is monitoring at least seven people believed to be responsible for the majority of criminal mischief in their neighborhoods. Deputies have made about 20 arrests of those people, sometimes arresting them multiple times, Gwaltney said.

Some previous offenders, such as Christine Munn, have been arrested and sent to prison.

According to Phillips, Munn was the first target of the program when she was suspected of receiving stolen property in exchange for drugs. She is now serving time in state prison for theft and dangerous-drug-violation charges, according to Arizona Department of Corrections records.

Other targets have moved out of their neighborhoods or renounced their criminal ways, giving deputies a reason to stop following them, Gwaltney said.

"The goal is to identify them and target them until they're gone," he said.

A meticulous process

Tracking down criminals and connecting them to illegal neighborhood activity is a painstaking process that forces the deputies to rely on investigative leads, surveillance technology, crime analysis and conversations with neighbors.

Sometimes deputies will notice trends in certain neighborhoods, such as an increase in metal theft, or they'll receive a complaint from a neighbor.

The deputies can analyze reports, stop vehicles and spend many hours watching a home before they identify a suspected criminal.

"The important part of it, as well, is just because several people on the street point to John Doe as the bad guy doesn't mean we round up a posse and go after John Doe," Gwaltney said. "That just gives us a direction to look.

"It might turn out that he might be a pest, might be an annoyance, might need a speeding ticket once in a while. But he's not worth our efforts."

20 deputies

There are about 20 deputies who work in the program, including seven who work with Sgt. Phillips, a supervisor in the Directed Patrol Unit.

On a recent night, Phillips and his team monitored a home on the southwest side for several hours, using a video camera to track activity there.

Deputies had received complaints of disorderly conduct at the home, as well as reports of frequent vehicle traffic, which can indicate drug-dealing, Phillips said.

Some deputies sat in unmarked cars while watching the vehicles leaving the home.

Those deputies coordinated with others in marked patrol vehicles who were tasked with making a traffic stop if a suspicious vehicle broke a traffic law.

The officers previously stopped a vehicle that left the home weeks earlier and arrested two armed-robbery suspects, he said.

On this night, the deputies saw a suspicious SUV visit the home a couple of times.

Phillips, driving a marked patrol vehicle, decided to stop the SUV on Valencia Road after the driver failed to use a turn signal.

When the vehicle stopped, the driver got out and ran into the dark desert. Phillips pulled his gun on the two men who remained.

Two other deputies soon arrived and, with their guns drawn, made the two men get out of the vehicle and walk backward, as a way of keeping control, before placing them in handcuffs.

The rest of Phillips' team arrived to question the two men and look for the man who escaped.

He was never found that night.

After questioning the two men, deputies arrested one of them on a warrant and took him to jail.

The other man was released at the scene, but he had to wait for his friends to give him a ride home because the SUV was impounded.

Despite the lengthy investigations, sheriff's officials believe the program will have a positive long-term impact on neighborhoods throughout the county.

"It's around to stay. As long as it's administered, it's something we'll do until we find the next-best thing to do," Gwaltney said.

Contact reporter Jamar Younger at jyounger@azstarnet.com or 573-4115.

Bill Montgomery threatens to jail people involved with legal medical marijuana

If us civilians threatened a group we didn't like with physical violence we would be thrown in jail for assault. Sadly when government tyrants like Bill Montgomery commit crimes like that, they are not prosecuted like us civilians would be. Source

Montgomery's threats do little

Aug. 16, 2012 12:00 AM

The Republic | azcentral.com

Maricopa County Attorney Bill Montgomery, like county attorneys across Arizona, is no fan of the state's medical-marijuana program.

He worries that a combination of cash and drugs will attract criminals. He's concerned that state employees implementing the program are at risk of federal prosecution. He warns that the voter-passed initiative conflicts with federal drug laws, which ban the cultivation, sale and use of marijuana.

His concerns are well grounded. But that doesn't excuse the saber rattling he engaged in last week.

Growing and selling marijuana is illegal, Montgomery said, and neither the Arizona Medical Marijuana Act or the awarding of licenses for dispensaries through a lottery changes that.

"Anyone who received their lucky ball by (the Department of Health Services), if they open a dispensary in Maricopa County, they're subject to prosecution," he said at a news conference. "I intend to enforce the law."

If he had been warning potential dispensary operators that federal drug agents and prosecutors have targeted stores in other states, that would have been one thing. Potential operators already know that.

But he was threatening state prosecution, and that seems an empty threat. It's unlikely any jury would convict a business owner operating under a state license, the possession of which required jumping through multiple and expensive hoops. How could someone operating with state permission be found guilty of violating state law? It just doesn't make sense.

"My statement that they are 'subject to prosecution' is not a guarantee of prosecution," Montgomery told The Arizona Republic on Wednesday. "Law enforcement still has to put a case together for us to review and a reasonable likelihood of conviction is still the charging standard."

Which, translated into the real world, means state charges are highly unlikely. Federal charges may be a different matter, but Montgomery can't control that.

Montgomery's warning made for good TV, but that's all.

His more significant contribution comes in a West Valley case, where a potential pot dispensary wants a court to force Maricopa County to give it zoning verification, which is required to apply for a state permit. In that case, Montgomery is trying to insert the issue that federal law pre-empts the state measure. If he's successful, no dispensary will open anywhere.

There would be complaints that Montgomery and the courts are overruling the will of the people. Voters, though, cannot pass measures that violate constitutional provisions.

Medical-marijuana laws raise issues about federal and state powers. It may be odd for states-right advocates such as Gov. Jan Brewer and Attorney General Tom Horne to now argue that federal law pre-empts a voter-approved state measure, but politics takes odd twists.

And it doesn't change the fact that this is a legitimate question. If federal law prevails, then medical marijuana is dead.

It's better to achieve that result through a substantive court case than by issuing unreasonable threats of prosecution. Montgomery should know the difference.

Public safety CEO steals $500,000 from government

Indictment in Bellwood pay scandal

Roy McCampbell accused of stealing more than $500,000 from west suburb by manipulating employment contracts

By Joseph Ryan and Joe Mahr, Chicago Tribune reporters

6:50 a.m. CDT, August 16, 2012

Two years ago, Roy McCampbell said in a Tribune investigative story that he earned every penny of his $472,000 salary by holding 10 different village positions.

Today he faces indictment.

The former Bellwood village administrator, McCampbell, 57, of Schiller Park, faces eight felony counts of theft and four felony counts of official misconduct, according to court records.

The grand jury indictment accuses him of stealing more than $500,000 from the west suburban village, in part by manipulating his employment contracts and deceiving the Village Board about them.

A spokeswoman for Cook County State's Attorney Anita Alvarez said her office would not elaborate on the charges until next week's scheduled arraignment.

McCampbell's attorney, Craig Tobin, said his client has done nothing wrong and has been made a political scapegoat by leaders of the struggling near west suburb.

A 2010 Tribune investigation revealed that McCampbell had been paid $472,255 in 2009 for holding 10 job titles — from mayoral assistant to public safety CEO — in the town of 20,000 and from cashing out a generous allowance of unused sick and vacation time. When McCampbell retired early the next year, the pay spike inflated his annual pension to about a quarter of a million dollars — then the highest of any retiree in the statewide pension system that serves municipal workers outside Chicago.

Bellwood officials said at the time that they didn't know McCampbell was making so much money and that they turned over records from their own investigation to Alvarez's office. The village filed a lawsuit against McCampbell late last year, accusing him of fraud.

McCampbell told the Tribune in 2010 that village officials signed off on all of his pay. "I didn't hold a gun to anybody's head to get this," he said.

He said he worked for his big paycheck — the capstone of a lengthy government career that stretched from being a teenage public works employee to a political player in the near west suburbs.

While little-known outside government circles, McCampbell was at the forefront of the push to bring red-light cameras to the suburbs, once touting that Bellwood's first camera made so much money it was like a "casino type of operation."

A licensed attorney, McCampbell cut his teeth in management posts for the villages of Schiller Park and Franklin Park. In the mid-1990s he served as a Leyden Township trustee and headed business services at Triton College.

In his resume provided to Bellwood, McCampbell touted his work with law enforcement, including once being named by the state's attorney to an environmental task force. In previous jobs, according to his resume, he "directed the news media to focus on issues away from the entity's negative experience."

But actions in his last position would be dogged by negative perceptions that led to embarrassing headlines over costly development gambles, the lawsuit accusing him of fraud and now a grand jury indictment alleging Class X felonies punishable by up to 30 years in prison.

Once the state OK'd red-light cameras in Chicago, McCampbell and other Bellwood officials began pushing for the state to allow suburbs to install them, which the General Assembly did in 2006.

Bellwood quickly installed one at an intersection that leads to an entrance ramp for the Eisenhower Expressway. McCampbell then boasted at an Illinois Municipal League seminar that the camera's fines raised $60,000 to $70,000 a month, calling the take a "guaranteed amount of money" and fueling complaints that the cameras were meant merely to shake down motorists.

By then, McCampbell's pay had skyrocketed in the village. In 2002 he made $144,000, roughly in the range of what many suburban village managers made. By 2009 his compensation soared as he added new job titles: comptroller, public safety CEO, finance director, corporation counsel, budget director, human resources director, mayoral assistant, property commission director and development corporation chief administrative officer.

His contracts ensured that he was given a car and gas paid for by taxpayers, who also covered his pension contributions and premiums for health and life insurance.

The sparse grand jury indictment, filed Aug. 9, accuses McCampbell of creating a "false impression" to the Village Board by orally misstating the salary increases in his contracts.

That mirrors allegations McCampbell faces in the village's lengthy lawsuit, which accuses him of secretly inflating his salary while ruining the village's finances.

Court records show that McCampbell was not arrested and is set to appear in court Tuesday. In the meantime, as a government retiree, he is set to collect about $237,000 in pension payments this year, though his pension could be slashed if he is convicted of a crime related to his work in Bellwood.

McCampbell's attorney accused Alvarez of being "politically motivated" in charging his client in an effort to advance Bellwood's lawsuit.

"We have no doubts that when the facts come out he will be vindicated," Tobin said. "He was a good and faithful public servant."

jbryan@tribune.com

jmahr@tribune.com

Jan Brewer only supports the 10th Amendment when it fits into her plans

On the other hand Jan Brewer has a double standard and she says the 10 Amendment doesn't apply to Arizona's medical marijuana law and that the Federal government has a right to declare Arizona medical marijuana law which is Prop 203 null and void.

Source

Brewer bars public benefits for illegal immigrants

by Daniel Gonzalez and Yvonne Wingett Sanchez - Aug. 15, 2012 11:20 PM

The Republic | azcentral.com

As young undocumented immigrants on Wednesday celebrated the start of a new federal program allowing them to apply to stay and work temporarily in the United States, Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer issued an executive order telling state agencies not to grant driver's licenses to program participants.

Brewer's order, issued late in the day, reiterates that state agencies are required to deny licenses and other public benefits to all undocumented immigrants, even those who gain approval under President Barack Obama's new "deferred action" program.

Wednesday was the first day that as many as 1.76 million undocumented immigrants under the age of 31 nationwide who were brought to this country as minors could begin applying to stay and work in the U.S. for two years. As many as 80,000 in Arizona could be eligible to apply.

Earlier in the day, Maricopa County Community Colleges announced that students who get work authorization through deferred action would be eligible to apply for in-state tuition, but hours later, district officials said they would reconsider the decision because of Brewer's order.

State law currently requires undocumented immigrants to pay out-of-state tuition, which costs significantly more.

"It's really, really disappointing," Dulce Vazquez, 21, an undocumented immigrant from Mexico who lives in Phoenix, said about the prospect of still being denied a driver's license.

About 150 to 200 people, many of them undocumented immigrants, marched to the state Capitol on Wednesday night to protest Brewer's order.

"She shattered my dreams today," said Lorenzo Santillan, 24, of the Arizona Dream Act Coalition, one of the protesters.

Members of the coalition said Brewer's order shows the deferred-action program is only a stopgap measure. They said that a more permanent solution is needed, such as the Dream Act, a law that has languished in Congress that would allow undocumented immigrants to eventually gain citizenship if they attended college or joined the military.

"It's a reality check for everyone who thinks deferred action is the best thing out there," said Yadira Garcia, 23, an undocumented immigrant from Mexico who lives in Phoenix.

Brewer has been sharply critical of Obama's immigration policies, saying he hasn't done enough to control illegal immigration or secure the border. She has called the deferred-action program "backdoor amnesty."

The program has created confusion in many states unsure how to treat undocumented immigrants who receive deferred action.

White House and Department of Homeland Security officials have repeatedly stated that receiving deferred action does not amount to legal residency or a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants, only a chance to stay and work in the U.S. temporarily without fear of being deported.

In her executive order, Brewer essentially said that undocumented immigrants granted deferred action will not be recategorized as lawful residents. The order is intended to cut through some confusion created by the president's program, Brewer spokesman Matthew Benson said.

"As the (DHS) has said repeatedly ... these individuals do not have lawful status," Benson told The Republic. "They are able to remain in the country and not be deported and not be prosecuted, but they do not have lawful status."

Regina Jefferies, a Phoenix immigration lawyer who chairs the Arizona chapter of the American Immigration Lawyers Association, said Brewer's order contradicts state law.

She said that deferred action existed before the program started on Wednesday and that there are "many, many" instances in Arizona of immigrants granted deferred action for other reasons who have received licenses.

She said Brewer will likely face a lawsuit.

Brewer's order bars undocumented immigrants who receive deferred action from public benefits that include state-subsidized child care; KidsCare, a children's health-insurance program; unemployment benefits; business and professional licenses and government contracts, Benson said.

Brewer's order does not address tuition to community colleges or the state's universities.

On Wednesday, the Maricopa Community Colleges announced that undocumented immigrants who received work authorization through deferred action would be able to apply for in-state tuition because federal work authorization cards are among the documents that qualify to establish "legal presence" in the state.

But after Brewer's order, colleges spokesman Tom Gariepy said officials were reconsidering the decision.

Carmen Cornejo of the Arizona Dream Act Coalition said thousands of undocumented immigrants dropped out of college when they were forced to pay out-of-state tuition, which at Maricopa Community Colleges is $317 per credit compared with $76 per credit for in-state students.

Attorneys for the Arizona Board of Regents, the governing body that oversees the three state universities, are still analyzing what effect the deferred action could have on tuition, said Katie Paquet, a regents spokeswoman.

Benson, however, referred to a state law stating that those who are not "a citizen or legal resident of the United States or who is without lawful immigration status is not entitled to classification as an in-state student."

"It's illegal," Benson said. "Any public institution that is seeking to grant in-state tuition to these individuals, should beware: It's against the law."

Republic reporter Haley Madden contributed to this article

Migrant lawyers say Brewer edict contradicts law

Source

Migrant lawyers say Brewer edict contradicts law

by Daniel González - Aug. 16, 2012 11:16 PM

The Republic | azcentral.com

Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer's executive order telling state agencies to deny driver's licenses to illegal immigrants granted work permits through President Barack Obama's deferred-action program has ignited a debate that likely will spread to other states.

On Wednesday, the same day the deferred action took effect nationally, Brewer ordered state agencies to initiate policies to make sure any undocumented immigrant granted deferred action wouldn't receive a driver's license or other public benefits. But her order contradicts the current practice in Arizona, which issues driver's licenses to illegal immigrants who have been granted work permits as part of other types of deferred action.

The latest deferred-action program is aimed at young illegal immigrants brought to the U.S. as minors who have no other way to legalize their status. Those approved will be given a two-year deferment from deportation as well as the opportunity to apply for work permits, essentially allowing them to stay and work in the U.S. As many as 80,000 undocumented immigrants in Arizona may be eligible.

Governors of other states that have followed Arizona's lead in taking tough stances against illegal immigrants may again follow Brewer and try to block those who receive deferred action from getting a driver's license, analysts say. Other states, such as California, that have taken a more lenient approach may allow them to get driver's licenses.

Arizona's Motor Vehicle Division lists employment-authorization documents, or work permits, issued by the federal government as one of the 22 primary types of documents it accepts as a requirement for issuing a driver's license. It also requires a secondary document, such as a birth certificate or a bank card.

Immigration lawyers and civil-liberties advocates say the MVD has been issuing driver's licenses to immigrants who receive employment- authorization documents through deferred action and other immigration proceedings for years.

"It's pretty clear that as long as you have deferred action and you do have a work permit, then you are eligible to receive a driver's license," said Alessandra Soler, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Arizona. "So we think that the state law is very clear that it already accepts the employment-authorization document for the purposes of state-issued IDs, as does federal law."

Regina Jefferies, chair of the Arizona Immigration Lawyers Association, said undocumented immigrants who receive work permits while awaiting the outcome of other immigration proceedings -- among them proceedings for refugees, domestic- violence victims and undocumented immigrants fighting their deportation cases -- also routinely receive driver's licenses.

"What the governor is saying in her executive order is contrary to state law," Jefferies said.

The Arizona Department of Transportation, which oversees the Motor Vehicle Division, did not respond to repeated requests seeking confirmation that undocumented immigrants who receive work permits through deferred action or other immigration proceedings currently receive driver's licenses.

Instead, it issued a written statement saying that the guidelines for issuing driver's licenses are being reviewed.

"To obtain an Arizona driver license or identification card, Arizona law requires proof of identity, age and lawful presence under federal law to be in the United States, and it has since 1996," the statement said.

Brewer's spokesman Matthew Benson said undocumented immigrants who participate in Obama's program differ from other categories of non-citizens who have received deferred action in the past because those categories have been authorized by Congress in federal law.

"It is because of that congressional authorization that those individuals have authorized presence -- not due to deferred action," Benson wrote in a statement.

In an interview with The Republic, he added: "The 'dreamers' here, they don't have any congressional authorization. President Obama just waved his magic wand and made this happen. But it wasn't authorized by federal law or the Congress."

But under the Immigration and Nationality Act, which was passed in 1952 and essentially serves as the nation's immigration law, the Cabinet secretary overseeing immigration departments has discretionary authority over deferred actions, not Congress.

Still, Benson stood by his statement, saying the Governor's Office has sought legal advice.

"The feds could clear this up very easily if they just came out and said, 'Yes, they have federally authorized status,' " Benson said.

Benson could not say whether Brewer has tried to get an answer on that question from the Obama administration.

The ACLU could file a lawsuit against the state if the DMV decides not to grant driver's licenses to undocumented immigrants who receive work permits through the program, Soler said.

"We are going to have to see how this process is implemented and what the practical effects are going to be," Soler said.

The debate over whether undocumented immigrants granted deferred action should get driver's licenses is expected to spread to other states, said Ann Morse, program director of the Immigration Policy Project at the National Conference of State Legislatures.

White House and Department of Homeland Security officials have said undocumented immigrants who receive deferred action through the program are not being given any legal status or a path to citizenship, only the chance to work in the U.S. temporarily without being deported.

Federal officials have left it up to the states to sort out how to deal with illegal immigrants granted deferred status. But the question is whether deferred action establishes legal presence, if not legal status, Morse said.

"My instinct is each state is going to have to review its own laws," Morse said. "Particularly with driver's licenses, this has been a very contentious area of state and federal authority."

Armando Botello, a spokesman for the California Department of Motor Vehicles, said the state grants driver's licenses to immigrants with work permits, including through deferred action.

The state will continue that practice, he said.

Muzaffar Chishti, director of the Migration Policy Institute's office at New York University, said Arizona is the first state to attempt to deny driver's licenses.

Republic reporter Yvonne Wingett Sanchez contributed to this article.

Los Angeles to hire condom cops to police porn movie sites???

Source

Los Angeles officials consider hiring porn film condom cop

By JOHN ROGERS, Associated Press

Posted: 08/17/2012 08:25:47 AM PDT

LOS ANGELES (AP) -- Hey all you adult film stars, the porn police could soon be on the beat.

After the Los Angeles City Council adopted an ordinance earlier this year, it appointed a committee to study how such a law might be enforced. After months of committee meetings, the city's administrative officer issued a 47-page report Wednesday offering some proposals. Among them: contracting with a licensed medical professional to conduct periodic inspections of film productions to ensure condoms are being used.

The law was adopted in January after the AIDS Healthcare Foundation, which had lobbied for years for safer sex practices on adult film sets, gathered enough petition signatures to put the issue before the city's voters.

The group has since gone on to place a similar measure, covering all of Los Angeles County, on the November ballot. If adopted by voters, it would supersede the city regulations and place enforcement on the county's Public Health Department.

Along with considering hiring a prophylactic policeman, the city's administrative officer also suggested officials implement a fee to pay for inspections. An amount wasn't suggested, but the report estimated it could range anywhere from $3,472 to $2,204, depending upon how many film permits for adult movies are issued.

The report also said a study by the Los Angeles Fire Department indicates that more than 100 condom cops might be needed to adequately enforce the law, at a cost of $1.7 million or more a year.

Last year, the city issued 22,684 permits for filming in Los Angeles, only 480 of which were for porn flicks, officials said. The rest were mainly for mainstream movies and television shows.

Industry officials have said many smaller companies don't bother to get permits, while the larger ones film many of their movies on closed studio sets, which are exempted from the new law.

"I just find that the whole issue is ridiculous and unnecessary," said Diane Duke, executive director of the Free Speech Coalition, which represents the adult film industry. "When you look at what it will cost the city of LA, with the extreme budget problems the city is already having, to create a bureaucracy, to have inspectors see if adult film performers are wearing condoms seems absurd."

She added there has been only one confirmed case of HIV connected to the adult film industry since 2004.

Officials with the AIDS Healthcare Foundation did not respond to messages for comment Thursday. However, they have said in the past that there have been nine reported cases of HIV involving porn actors since 2004, which shows the potential for actors to become infected in their private lives and then transmit the virus through their work.

Colorado shooting prompts gun bills in big states

Source

Colorado shooting prompts gun bills in big states

Aug. 16, 2012 02:33 PM

Associated Press

SACRAMENTO, Calif. -- Democratic leaders in three big states have used this summer's Colorado mass shooting to push bills that would crack down on assault weapons and ammunition sales, rekindling a debate that has not gained much traction in Congress or the presidential campaign.

In Illinois, Gov. Pat Quinn proposed that his state enact a strict ban on assault weapons, similar to California's. New York lawmakers have proposed wide-ranging legislation that would limit weapons purchases.

California Attorney General Kamala Harris and the Democratic state Senate leader back a bill that would make it more difficult and time-consuming to reload assault weapons. The chairmen of public safety committees in California's Assembly and Senate co-authored a bill that would require dealers to report purchases of large quantities of ammunition to law enforcement authorities.

The suspect in the July 20 Colorado shooting, James Holmes, legally bought 6,000 rounds of ammunition online without raising authorities' attention. He had four weapons, including an assault rifle, on him after the rampage that killed 12 people and injured 58 at a midnight movie screening.

"California sets the pace for the country. If there's no action in Congress, we better do something here and hope it catches fire in other states," said state Sen. Leland Yee, a San Francisco Democrat who authored the legislation that would slow down the process of reloading an assault weapon with a new magazine.

With strong support from Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo, New York lawmakers have offered a similar rationale for proposing a series of bills that together would give their state the nation's toughest gun control laws.

"I think there is appetite for reform," Cuomo told reporters this week. "I think that's a good thing, and I think that's one of the issues I'm going to have at the top of the list next January."

Because California's legislative session ends in a few weeks and most others are done for the year, this summer's proposals will be addressed in earnest when lawmakers return next year. Some could be altered as lawmakers and governors test the appetite for reform in the months ahead.

But the push in some of the nation's most populous and liberal-leaning states illustrates a national divide, often along party lines, over whether the public should have unfettered access to military-style weaponry and ammunition.

"It's time for the people to band together in our state ... and do something about these weapons. We should remember those who lost their lives," Quinn said last month after he added his gun control proposal onto a bill that had dealt with ammunition sales.

New York state Sen. Michael Gianaris has proposed legislation limiting firearms purchases to one a month, requiring background checks for all gun sales, a firearms safety course for gun buyers and a cooling-off period before a gun could be picked up after purchase. It also would require that sales of firearms and ammunition be reported within 24 hours.

Fellow Democratic Sen. Jose Peralta also introduced a bill that would prohibit the sale or purchase of more than 500 rounds of ammunition during any 30-day period.

"The recent rash of gun violence makes clear that enough is enough," Gianaris said in a statement.

The leaders hope the legislation will go further than gun control bills have in Congress, where Republicans are generally opposed to further restrictions and Democrats are reluctant to engage on the issue during a presidential election year.

After the Colorado shooting, two Democrats introduced a bill that would prohibit the general public from buying thousands of rounds of ammunition by mail or online.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, a Democrat, said the Senate's schedule is too crowded to allow a debate on gun control this year and has been noncommittal about whether Congress would consider the issue next year. The White House has said President Barack Obama will not push for stricter gun laws this year.

U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein, a Democrat from California, complained after the Colorado shooting that Congress has failed since 2004 to renew the federal assault weapons ban she authored a year after a gunman killed eight people in a San Francisco high-rise in 1993.

Nor will Congress take up the bill introduced after the Colorado shootings by U.S. Sen. Frank R. Lautenberg of New Jersey and Rep. Carolyn McCarthy of New York.

"The reality is that these tragic shootings will continue if we can't break the gun lobby's stranglehold on Congress," Lautenberg said in a statement.

Since 1990, the National Rifle Association's political action committee and individuals associated with the NRA have contributed nearly $19 million to members or candidates for Congress, with 82 percent of those contributions going to Republicans, according to The Center for Responsive Politics in Washington, D.C.

The National Rifle Association did not respond to repeated messages left by The Associated Press over several days. Sam Paredes, executive director of Gun Owners of California, said the state's current laws are already working and don't need to be tougher. He cited a 2010 state attorney general's report that found less than 4 percent of the weapons used in violent crimes and sent to state crime labs were assault weapons.

"We're governed by people who have an inordinate fear, a knee-jerk, visceral, emotional reaction to guns," Paredes said.

The divide is not just between states and the federal government, but also between Democratic- and Republican-leaning states.

In Wyoming, for example, the Republican-dominated Legislature recently passed a bill allowing residents to carry concealed guns with no permit or background check. Texas Gov. Rick Perry, a Republican, defended gun rights even after a shooting this week near Texas A&M University that killed three people including a police official and the gunman.

Dan Gross, president of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, said the gun control proposals were a step in the right direction.

"There are places where we're seeing kind of the hopeful signs," he said. "But right now, there are far too few of them."

Arpaio sweeps now irrelevant

Arpaio sweeps now irrelevant

At some point, Judge Murray Snow will render a decision in the civil rights lawsuit brought against Sheriff Joe Arpaio by the American Civil Liberties Union.

After the ruling, there will be a political explosion. Arpaio will either have been vindicated in eyes of his supporters or proven a bigot in the eyes of his critics. Before the explosion renders dispassionate analysis entirely useless, it’s worth taking a look at the issues in the case. They are not as monumental as the political explosion will make them out to be.

This case is primarily about the immigration sweeps Arpaio used to conduct. In those sweeps, Arpaio’s deputies would flood a geographical location and stop as many cars as possible for the sort of technical violations, such as a cracked windshield, that cops usually overlook.

In the trial and in other forums, Arpaio’s office has tried to say that the sweeps were about other things than just trying to find as many illegal immigrants as possible. But that’s a silly waste of time and disingenuous. The sweeps were clearly about using traffic stops as a pretext to find illegal immigrants. That’s the way Arpaio’s office kept score, as undisputedly established by the triumphant press releases it would issue after the sweeps were conducted.

According to the plaintiff’s statistical expert, sheriff deputies working the immigration sweeps were 50 percent more likely to stop Latinos than deputies working the same day someplace else. Arpaio’s lawyers tried to discredit the conclusion, but that again seems like a waste of time. The overwhelming majority of illegal immigrants in Arizona are from Mexico and Latin America. If the object is to find as many illegal immigrants as possible, and it was, it makes sense to conduct the sweeps where there are larger concentrations of Latinos.

I have condemned these sweeps from the beginning. They violate a founding principle of the United States, that people shouldn’t be subject to disproportionate scrutiny by the government because of who they are, rather than for what they do. During these sweeps, lawful Latino residents were more likely to have the condition of their cars and their driving habits flyspecked by sheriff deputies than non-Latinos. That ain’t right.

But because it isn’t right doesn’t mean that it is unconstitutional or illegal. Disparate effect isn’t the end of the legal inquiry.

I leave it to Snow to sort through the confused muddle the courts have made of where the line lies between a lawful and an unlawful stop. What I will say is this: Arpaio’s sweeps are now irrelevant.

Arpaio has been stripped of his federal immigration authority. So, his office can no longer directly check the immigration status of those stopped. And under the Obama administration’s new enforcement guidelines, nothing is going to happen to illegal immigrants who haven’t committed serious crimes even if Arpaio’s deputies find them.

The futility of the sweeps is presumably why Arpaio hasn’t conducted one in quite a while.

The lawsuit alleges discriminatory action outside the sweeps, but the claims are thin gruel. There are some allegations by some individuals of discriminatory treatment, but they are vigorously disputed by the deputies involved.

The plaintiff’s statistical expert says that deputies who are involved in the sweeps are more likely to stop Latinos afterwards and that stops of Latinos tend to take longer.

Approximately 30 percent of all stops by the sheriff’s office are of Latinos, roughly proportional to their percentage of the population. If officers who participate in sweeps are 15 percent more likely to stop Latinos later, as the expert asserts, that means that 35 percent of their subsequent stops are of Latinos. And the average stop for Latinos is just two and a half minutes longer than for non-Latinos, and less than 15 minutes in both cases.

None of this adds up to Arpaio being the new Bull Connor.

What it does add up to is a sheriff who is indifferent to harassing legal Latinos and non-Latinos in his sweeps and indifferent to well-founded concerns of minorities in general about being subjected to disproportionate law enforcement scrutiny.

Those are things for voters to weigh irrespective of how Snow rules.

US turning Afghanistan into a police state???

U.S. plans to beef up rural police forces in Afghanistan

By David S. Cloud, Los Angeles Times

August 17, 2012, 7:27 p.m.

WASHINGTON — The Obama administration plans to double the size of a rural police force in Afghanistan and arm it with heavier weapons to fight insurgents as U.S. troops withdraw, despite Pentagon and Afghan government concern about the village self-defense units becoming predatory criminal gangs or defecting to the Taliban.

The danger was highlighted Friday when a new member of the Afghan Local Police shot and killed two U.S. special operations troops and wounded a third moments after they gave him his service weapon during a ceremony for new recruits in the western province of Farah.

The attacker, who had joined the force just five days earlier, was about to take part in his first weapons-training session on a firing range. Instead, he opened fire on the American troops and fellow police. He was killed by return fire.

It was the latest in an intensifying spate of lethal "insider" attacks on NATO troops by Afghan soldiers, police and other government forces, causing growing alarm at the Pentagon. Afghan security forces have killed 24 Americans and 15 other Western soldiers so far this year. Nine have died in the last 11 days.

A 122-page report by the Defense Department's inspector general reveals glaring problems within the rural police system, which was set up with U.S. backing two years ago and has become a pivotal part of the American strategy to safeguard territorial gains and maintain political stability as Western nations withdraw most combat forces by the end of 2014.

U.S. Marine Gen. John Allen, the commander of the NATO military force in Afghanistan, has ordered the 16,000-strong rural police force to be increased to 30,000 officers over the next two years, and then possibly expanded further.

In addition to equipping the police officers with AK-47 assault rifles, the Pentagon this year began supplying them with Russian heavy machine guns after local commanders complained that they were outgunned by Taliban insurgents.

The report, issued last month, credits the police with "significant and unexpected success" in expelling insurgent fighters from some remote villages and districts.

But many Afghan officials worry that the widely dispersed units will evolve into marauding criminal gangs or free-wheeling militias loyal to local warlords after departing U.S. forces stop paying their salaries, according to the inspector general's report.

"Why would I arm the villagers when they may use those weapons against the [government] in the future?" provincial governors and district chiefs in eastern Afghanistan asked U.S. special forces officers, according to the report.

For that reason, officials at the Afghan Ministry of Defense are opposing U.S. plans to double the size of the village guard force and increase its firepower, the report notes.

Local elders are supposed to guarantee the loyalty of police in the villages where they are recruited. But adding thousands more recruits over the next two years increases the risk that insurgents will infiltrate the force and that village units could become private armies for local leaders, the report warns.

Regular Afghan police in each province are supposed to oversee the local units. But there is "very little trust" between the two forces because provincial police are afraid that the village guards "would use their weapons against them," a senior U.S. logistics officer told investigators.

The Afghan Ministry of Interior is supposed to supply and pay the village police officers. But the system is weak, the report says, in part because the units are scattered in remote areas and because of concern about "arming future hostile ethnic militias."

Many of the village police officers are from predominantly Pashtun areas. The Taliban is heavily Pashtun.

Army Gen. David H. Petraeus, who now heads the CIA, proposed creating the Afghan Local Police in 2010 when he commanded the war in Afghanistan. President Hamid Karzai initially resisted, concerned that some Afghan officials would try to use the units as private militias.

Petraeus eventually won Karzai's support by promising that the Ministry of Interior, which the central government controls, would oversee and pay the force. He also said the program would be temporary, with the village units incorporated into the regular police or disbanded.

With the insurgency still raging, his successor, Gen. Allen, has abandoned those plans.

Allen plans to keep the local police force intact after 2014 and use it as a "strategic hold force" to help keep insurgents from returning to areas in the east and south that U.S. troops have managed to clear, the report says.

Allen has ordered the U.S. special operations command to look at expanding the local police to more than the current authorized level of 30,000, though the final size hasn't been decided.

"The long-term plan is to keep them around," said Col. Tom Collins, a spokesman for Allen. "All these things come down to funding, however."

It is cheaper and quicker to train and equip local defense units than regular army and police.

With international funding drying up, Afghan security forces are expected to shrink in size in coming years from 352,000 to 280,000 or less, creating more need for local police, U.S. officers said.

The latest "insider" attacks haven't bolstered confidence in the police, however. In addition to Friday's attack, local police have taken part in at least three recent fatal shootings.

Last week, an Afghan officer helping train local police gunned down three special operations Marines in Helmand province. In another incident, a member of a local police unit gunned down a U.S. Armysergeant at a checkpoint in Paktika province, near the Pakistan border.

In late March, a policeman in Paktika province killed nine fellow officers. He first slipped drugs into their tea, then slaughtered them after they passed out.

U.S. officials say the attackers have various motivations. Some have personal grievances, others undergo "self-radicalization" after seeing anti-Western propaganda describing Americans and allies as infidels. Still others are Taliban sympathizers who infiltrate the Afghan security forces.

Allen said this year that more than half of the attacks involved Taliban supporters.

In a statement this week, Mullah Mohammed Omar, the secretive Taliban leader believed to be living in Pakistan, praised insurgents for secretly joining the Afghan army and police to "easily carry out decisive and coordinated attacks, inflicting heavy losses on the enemy both in life and equipment." Other insurgents desert to the Taliban, he said, "carrying their heavy and light weapons and ammunition, after leaving the ranks of the enemy."

david.cloud@latimes.com

Times staff writer Laura King in Kabul, Afghanistan, contributed to this report.

Cops that break the Blue Code of Silence will be fired???

Whistle-blower let go as reserve deputy

Justin Berton

Updated 11:01 p.m., Friday, August 17, 2012

A law enforcement whistle-blower who told investigators he witnessed a Contra Costa County sheriff's deputy conduct a "dirty DUI" arrest has been relieved from duty in what he said was retaliation for breaking the police code of silence.

William Howard of Danville worked as a reserve in the Sheriff's Department for 19 years until he was dismissed Tuesday without explanation and ordered to turn in his uniform and weapon.

A department spokesman, Jimmy Lee, described Howard's release as an internal matter and declined to discuss it. Reserves are "at will" employees and are subject to dismissal without cause, according to California state law.

Howard told The Chronicle he was ostracized by fellow officers, chided by commanders and removed from prime assignments in the months after he cooperated with internal affairs investigators who were building a criminal case against former Deputy Sheriff Stephen Tanabe, 49.

"I knew I was doing the right thing," Howard said. "But I didn't anticipate the extent of anger that would be directed toward me."

Howard's Feb.23, 2011, statement played a critical role into the investigation of Tanabe, an associate of private investigator Christopher Butler, 50, of Antioch.

A federal grand jury later indicted Butler and Tanabe on conspiracy charges alleging they worked in cahoots to arrest three men Butler had targeted on behalf of his clients - the ex-wives of the targeted men.

Butler was allegedly paid by the women to carry out the "dirty DUIs" (drunken-driving arrests) to sully the men with criminal records for pending divorce and custody battles.

In May, Butler pleaded guilty to the conspiracy charge, as well as additional drug charges, and remains in federal prison in Dublin as he awaits sentencing next month. A judge dropped another count that accused him of compensating Tanabe with cocaine and a pistol for taking part in the arrests.

Tanabe has pleaded not guilty and remains free on bail.

Volunteer reservists

The Sheriff's Department uses about 60 volunteer reservists. All are certified peace officers and are allowed to perform duties of varying responsibility to assist full-time officers. As a part-time reserve deputy, Howard earned $15,000 to $20,000 each year in per diem salary and was covered by the department's health insurance for injuries suffered on the job.

A Navy veteran, Howard carried a department-issued weapon, worked court security and was regularly assigned to the Marine Patrol unit.

He joined the sheriff's office after retiring from a career as a construction executive and overcoming a bout with colon cancer.

"After surviving cancer, being a reserve deputy was an important and significant way for me to strengthen my community," he said. "I took on a lot of responsibility and worked every task I was assigned no matter how dangerous, difficult or unpleasant."

In return, he received numerous letters of commendation and pointed to several year's worth of quarterly evaluations where supervisors consistently awarded him the highest marks and noted his professionalism and positive attitude toward the job.

On patrol in Danville

On Jan. 14, 2011, Howard was partnered to ride with Tanabe and patrol Danville.

In an affidavit, Howard told investigators he heard Tanabe make eight to 10 phone calls on his cell phone to a person Tanabe referred to as "my p.i. friend."

Howard told investigators it appeared Tanabe was receiving updates about a targeted individual from the friend.

Tanabe eventually pulled over Mitchell Katz, a Livermore winemaker, moments after Katz drove away from the Vine wine bar on Hartz Avenue.

After Katz was booked on suspicion of drunken driving, Tanabe and Howard returned to patrol. Howard told investigators Tanabe then confessed the arrest was a "set up" and that Tanabe had used the term "dirty DUI" to describe the incident.

Howard told The Chronicle the events leading to Katz's apprehension and during his jailing raised some red flags, yet he did not suspect he was in the midst of what federal prosecutors later described as an "elaborate ruse."

"I had no reason to think he shouldn't be given the benefit of the doubt," Howard said of the more experienced deputy. "I wondered if I might be learning something different, and it would all come into focus, because it always had in the past."

Stashing a bag

Four weeks later, on Feb. 16, after Butler's arrest was splashed across the news, Howard told investigators Tanabe showed up at his home in an agitated state and revealed his "p.i. friend" was Butler. Howard also said the deputy feared police would search his home and handed the reserve deputy a black plastic bag to stash in his attic.

Howard said he lost sleep the first night he had the bag, then decided to turn it over to his commanding officer. The bag contained an assault rifle.

After Howard's name was revealed in a search warrant and affidavit issued for Tanabe's arrest, he said his life in the department took a turn for the worse.

In a meeting he believes was designed to intimidate him, Howard said one commander told him, "If you were a regular I would have fired your ass."

Another officer who broached the DUI scandal allegedly told Howard, "I knew Tanabe and I liked him. And I don't know you at all."

Howard said he was removed him from Marine Patrol and assigned to the civil unit to assist with foreclosure notices and evictions - the "Siberia" of the department.

On April 12, Howard met with Sheriff David Livingston and said he complained about the disparaging treatment. He said he hoped the county's top law enforcement official would spread the word that Howard should be thanked instead of criticized.

"That was pretty naive of me," Howard said. "He told me to get a thicker skin."

Livingston said of the exchange, "Because it is a confidential matter, I cannot comment even as it applies to a former volunteer."

Howard said while he had no regrets about coming forward, he did regret the negative publicity the scandal had hoisted upon the department.

"Not every cop is corrupt," Howard said. "But you know what, I know why a lot of cops don't speak up - because the system punishes them."

Justin Berton is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. E-mail: jberton@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @justinberton

Government is the cause of the problem, not the solution

Source

Surprise man accused in gun threat at court building in Phoenix

by Cecilia Chan - Aug. 17, 2012 03:01 PM

The Republic | azcentral.com

A 41-year-old Surprise man was arrested Friday accused of threatening security staff with a gun after he was denied entry to a court building in Phoenix, the Maricopa County Sheriff's Department reported.

Darren Murphy was booked at the 4th Avenue Jail on one count of threatening or intimidating, a class one misdemeanor, officials said.

Murphy attempted to enter the Central Court Building in downtown Phoenix through a public entrance but court security during a search found an empty .308 casing in his pocket, officials said.

Security staff informed Murphy that he was prohibited not from entering the court building with the casing and that he had to return it to his car, or check it in with them.

Murphy became agitated and argued with security over the denial, officials said.

After the security staff asked Murphy to leave the building, he said, "I have a gun outside and if you have a problem I will go get it," officials said.

Murphy left the building but Sheriff's deputies soon located him outside the court building, sitting on a rock.

Deputies arrested Murphy after they found he was carrying a loaded, semiautomatic 9mm handgun, officials said.

Murphy admitted to deputies that after he made the comment to court security, he retrieved the weapon from his car at 1st Avenue and Jackson Street, and then returned to the court property.

Maricopa County Attorney Bill Montgomery is a drug war tyrant!!!!

Hear Me Out: Should medical marijuana winners be prosecuted?

Posted: 8:41 AM

“Why [medical marijuana] dispensary operators should be open to prosecution”: By Bill Montgomery, Maricopa County Attorney

The question, as posed, is based on a false premise, as there is no legal basis for prosecuting anyone simply for winning the DHS lottery, nor has this ever been a position advocated by my Office.

The real question is whether anyone who opens and operates a dispensary in Maricopa County could be subject to prosecution, and the answer is yes for the following reasons:

1) Acting on the legal advice provided by my Office, Maricopa County is not issuing the necessary zoning certification to dispensary owners which would allow them to obtain a state license to operate. Without this necessary county approval, dispensary operators who open for business are also violating the Arizona Medical Marijuana Act (AMMA). [Sounds like Maricopa County Attorney Bill Montgomery created this problem himself by ordering Maricopa County not to issue the necessary zoning certification. He can fix the problem by letting the county issue the zoning certifications, of course he hates medical marijuana users and would rather prosecute them, then let them legally smoke their pot as Prop 302 allows]

2) More importantly, regardless of whether a dispensary obtains an operating permit, they are in violation of state law prohibiting the possession, use, production, sale or transportation of marijuana (ARS § 13-3405). Such cases will be reviewed for prosecution by the County Attorney’s Office. [That is 100 percent BS!!! These dispensaries are 100 percent legal under Arizona's medical marijuana law which is Prop 203!!! Maricopa County Attorney Bill Montgomery should know that. And if he doesn't he is too stupid to be the county attorney and should resign. Maricopa County Attorney Bill Montgomery is letting his irrational hate for marijuana smokers get in the way of using logic and reason when it comes to Prop 203!]

3) Notwithstanding the first point above, the AMMA is in direct conflict with federal law, specifically the Controlled Substances Act, which prohibits the manufacture, importation, possession, use and distribution of marijuana. Article VI, Clause 2 of the U.S. Constitution, commonly known as the Supremacy Clause, holds that all state judges must follow federal law when a conflict arises between federal law and state law. [Again more BS from Maricopa County Attorney Bill Montgomery. The 10th Amendment says that any powers not given to the Feds are reserved for the states and the people. Many legal experts say that all the Federal drug laws are unconstitutional because of the 10th Amendment. Of course don't expect the Supreme Court to agree with that!] Acknowledging the legitimacy of the federal Supremacy Clause is not, as some have claimed, an attempt to enforce federal law. It is a recognition of the impact our federal Constitution has on our ability to enforce state laws.

4) Dispensaries that have opened in other states have proven to be magnets for other serious crimes because they provide ready access to two things that many criminals seek: cash and drugs. [First so what! Second this is also true of liquor stores and drug stores like Walgreens! Are you arguing that the state should shut down those stores too? Last this is also true of gun stores too. They have lots of cash, and while they don't have drugs they do have guns, which is something else criminals seek. Do you want to shut down gun stores?]

5) At the very least, would-be dispensary operators should wait until a court rules on the issue of the federal preemption of state law. I anticipate this will occur in relatively short order in the pending lawsuit filed by White Mountain Health Center against Maricopa County.

6) Finally, dispensary owners should recognize the threat of federal prosecution is very real. [Well then resign from your job as Maricopa County Attorney, and get hired by Uncle Sam and let President Obama pay you to prosecute them for federal violations of the drug laws.] Prosecution policies change from one administration to the next, and with a Presidential election less than 90 days away, we may be looking at a very different set of priorities from the U.S. Department of Justice when there is a change in administrations.

LA pigs punch Venice teenager in the face

Family Claims Police Brutality Against Venice College Student

KTLA News

8:29 a.m. PDT, August 20, 2012

VENICE, Calif. (KTLA) -- A 20-year-old Venice man and his family are calling for justice, claiming police pinned him to the ground and punched him in the face after he was already subdued.

KTLA spoke to Ronald Weekley Jr., who was jailed for resisting arrest, moments after he was released on Monday morning.

Weekley, a student at Xavier College in Venice, said he was skateboarding in front of his home Saturday afternoon when Los Angeles police officers detained him and threw him to the ground.

"I turned around to two cops running directly at me and throwing me on the ground, putting my arms behind my back and tying my legs to my arms and telling me I was resisting arrest," Weekly recalled.

The family provided KTLA with a video of the incident, which shows four officers surrounding Weekly as he lies prone on the ground.

There is a point on the video where an officer can be seen punching Weekley in the head with his fist.

Police claim that Weekley was resisting arrest, but he maintains he couldn't have done anything to fight back, even if he wanted to.

"With four police officers on me like they are the video, there's nothing I could do," he said. "When the officers were striking me in the face, I could do nothing but scream for help."

Weekley says he suffered a broken nose, a broken cheekbone and a concussion.

"It's embarrassing, it hurts," he said, fighting back tears. "I didn't do anything. All I did was get on my skateboard."

Authorities say Weekley was wanted on three outstanding misdemeanor arrest warrants.

His father, Ron Weekley Sr., said those warrants were for violating curfew several years ago, and they were not the probable cause for the stop.

He said the arresting officer told him that he stopped his son because he was riding his skateboard on the wrong side of the street.

"In terms of this stop it's quite immaterial that Ron had warrants for curfew two or three years ago," Weekley Sr. said.

The family says that they believe Weekley was racially profiled and they're demanding justice, as well as changes within the police department.

"We want the chief of police to not only do an investigation, but we want him to train his officers better becasue they work in ethnic communities," Weekley Sr. said.

The LAPD says that the incident is being investigated by internal affairs and will be reviewed at the highest level of the department.

In a statement, LAPD Cmdr. Andy Smith told KTLA: "An officer may use reasonable and necessary force to affect an arrest, overcome resistance or prevent the escape of a suspect."

He added: "Use of force by offices may include striking a suspect with an officers' fist if the suspect is resisting arrest."

Smith said he did not know if the officers involved had been put on leave.

Prosecutors’ Overreaching Powers Go Unchecked

Laro Nicol accepted a plea bargain for having parts that could be used to make a machine gun. He got 2 years. If he had demanded a trial by jury and was convicted he would have spent 20+ years in prison.

Kevin Walsh accepted a plea bargain for having assaulting a police officer. After he accepted the plea bargain he spent 6 more months in prison. If he had demanded a trial by jury and was convicted he would have spent 20+ years in prison.

A lot of people get angry when I defend Kevin Walsh because he is a racist. But just because Kevin Walsh is a racist doesn't make it right for the government to railroad him.

Source

Prosecutors’ Overreaching Goes Unchecked

Angela J. Davis

Angela J. Davis is a professor of law at American University. She is a former director of the D.C. Public Defender Service and the author of "Arbitrary Justice: The Power of the American Prosecutor."

Updated August 19, 2012, 7:00 PM

Prosecutors are the most powerful officials in the criminal justice system. They decide whether criminal charges should be brought and what those charges should be, and they exercise almost boundless discretion in making those crucial decisions. Prosecutors alone decide whether to offer the defendant the option of pleading guilty to reduced charges. When one considers the fact that more than 95 percent of all criminal cases are resolved with guilty pleas, it is very clear that prosecutors control the criminal justice system through their charging and plea bargaining powers.

Unchecked power in the hands of prosecutors is as much a threat to our democracy as it is with any other government official, if not more.

Equally problematic is the fact that the charging and plea bargaining decisions are made behind closed doors, and prosecutors are not required to justify or explain these decisions to anyone. If a prosecutor treats two similarly situated defendants differently -- charging one but not the other or offering a better plea offer to one -- it is almost impossible to challenge such differential treatment. The lack of transparency in the prosecution function also leads to misconduct, like the failure to turn over exculpatory evidence -- a common occurrence made famous by the prosecutors in the Duke lacrosse and Senator Ted Stevens cases.

We live in a democracy in which we hold accountable those to whom we grant power, but we have fallen short when it comes to prosecutors. State and local prosecutors are presumably held accountable through the electoral process, but few voters know enough about the prosecution function to make a meaningful decision at the ballot box. When prosecutors run for office, they don't talk about their charging and plea bargaining policies (if such policies even exist). With a few notable exceptions, most prosecutors run on a "tough on crime" message, providing little, if any, information about anything else. There is even less accountability on the federal level where U.S. attorneys are appointed by the president.

The Supreme Court has consistently deferred to prosecutors in a series of cases, including claims of race-based selective prosecution and the failure to turn over exculpatory evidence. Bar counsel offices rarely bring charges against prosecutors who have violated ethical rules.

Unchecked power in the hands of prosecutors is as much a threat to our democracy as it is with any other government official, if not more. Prosecutorial decisions often result in a loss of liberty and even life. We must do a better job of holding prosecutors accountable -- at the ballot box and through bar counsel prosecutions, when appropriate.

Source

The Problem With Mandatory Minimums

Rachel E. Barkow

Rachel E. Barkow is the Segal Family professor of regulatory law and policy and the faculty director at the Center on the Administration of Criminal Law at New York University.

Updated August 19, 2012, 7:00 PM

By almost any measure, federal prosecutors wield too much power. Because many federal laws govern similar behavior and are written broadly, prosecutors commonly have multiple charges from which to choose. This means they typically have many sentencing ranges to choose from as well. Thus, they can – and do – threaten defendants who want to exercise their trial rights with charges that will carry longer sentences (sometimes decades longer) than the charges they will file if defendants plead guilty. On average, federal defendants who refuse to waive their right to a jury trial receive a sentence three times longer than those who plead. And with the prevalence of mandatory minimum laws, a prosecutor’s charging decision often dictates a sentence that a judge is powerless to avoid. It is no wonder 97 percent of federal convictions are the result of guilty pleas.

Far from eliminating disparity by curbing judicial discretion, mandatory minimums simply shift power to prosecutors.

To rein in this power, Congress should no longer pass laws with mandatory minimum sentences. Far from eliminating disparity by curbing judicial discretion (their stated purpose), studies show that mandatory minimums simply shift power to prosecutors (who file charges with those mandatory minimums disproportionately against defendants of color).

Judges should scrutinize what charges a prosecutor threatens to bring if a defendant were to go to trial instead of plead, to ensure that the threatened trial charges do not carry a sentence disproportionate to the defendant’s conduct. Pleas must be voluntary, and some threats are unduly coercive.

And United States attorneys should make sure that the prosecutor who investigates a case and who would be responsible for taking it to trial does not make the charging decision. A fresh set of eyes should make sure that any threatened charges carry a sentence proportionate to a defendant’s conduct -- and are not a penalty for exercising the constitutional right to a jury trial.

Source

The Right to Appeal Is an Issue of Fairness

Nancy Gertner

Nancy Gertner, a former U.S. federal judge, is a law professor at Harvard Law School.

Updated August 19, 2012, 7:00 PM

As The New York Times editorial noted, even in our uber-market economy, certain things should be beyond bargaining, but are not. You can waive your right to a trial by pleading guilty in exchange for concessions from the prosecutor. And 97 percent of federal defendants do just that.

You can’t bargain away your right to counsel; you shouldn’t be allowed to bargain away your right to appeal.

But there have to be limits. You can’t bargain away your right to counsel in a guilty plea deal; you shouldn’t be allowed to bargain away your right to appeal. A defendant agreed to plead guilty before me in Massachusetts in exchange for a waiver of his right to appeal. The government insisted it was a limited waiver, fairly bargained for; the man had a lawyer. He could appeal if I sentenced above the parties’ recommendation or made an error in computing his criminal record. But if I or probation made other mistakes that could have resulted in a lower sentence, there was no review. Nor could he appeal based on new legal principles; none of the recent Supreme Court decisions that have had a seismic effect on sentencing or on evidence would affect him. Significantly, the government gave up none of its appellate rights. For them, my errors would be open season.

The right to appeal should not be in the marketplace. Rejecting the appeal waiver, I said that however attractive "the idea of maximizing a defendant's power by allowing him to sell whatever he has, the market for plea bargains, like every other market, should not be so deregulated that the conditions essential to assuring basic fairness are undermined.” Judge John Kane put it even more strongly, looking at the impact of appeal waivers on the criminal justice system as a whole -- undermining the role of the appellate courts to review sentences for fairness and consistency.

Having a lawyer is not enough. It can be a lawyer who didn’t communicate the prosecutor’s offer, or didn’t mention, say, the immigration consequences of the plea, or who simply cut corners. Indeed, under the current sentencing guidelines, if the lawyer is zealous, conducts a pretrial investigation, files motions asserting client’s rights, his client runs the risk of losing “points” under the federal sentencing system, which could result in a higher sentence. In fact, during my judicial tenure, it was not unusual to see probation staff dig up issues that the lawyer had missed in his rush to deal. Mistakes, in short, are bound to be made.

This market is no longer a marginal part of the criminal justice system. As Justice Anthony Kennedy noted recently, this bargaining is the system. Procedural protections are inadequate; the playing field, unequal. Still, every appeals court has found appeal waivers to be constitutional. They did not have to; the Constitution, after all, doesn’t even mention plea bargaining. It is an issue of fairness. Rather than being protective of a defendant as they should, the appeals courts have permitted an already well-armed government to demand even more.

Teacher gets 5 years for sex with 5 students

Source

Teacher gets 5 years for sex with 5 students

Aug. 17, 2012 06:02 PM

Associated Press

FORT WORTH, Texas -- A former North Texas high school teacher was convicted Friday and sentenced to five years in prison for having sex with five 18-year-old students at her home.

The Tarrant County jury decided on the sentence for Brittni Nicole Colleps, 28, of Arlington after nearly three hours of deliberation. It took jurors less than an hour to find her guilty earlier in the day of 16 counts of having an inappropriate relationship between a student and teacher. The second-degree felony is punishable by two to 20 years in prison per count.

The former Kennedale High School English teacher had sex with the students at her home over two months in 2011, authorities said.

Colleps is married and has three children. She turned herself in after a cellphone video of one encounter that involved multiple students emerged. That video was shown at trial.

Three former students who testified Thursday said that they did not consider themselves victims and did not want to see their former English teacher prosecuted. The three were football and track athletes.

Arlington police Detective Jason Houston testified that charges were filed because "18 or not, it's a crime" for a teacher to have sex with her students.

Two former students told jurors their relationships with Colleps began with the exchange of text messages that quickly turned sexual.

A 19-year-old testified that he had gone to Colleps' home twice with friends and they all engaged in sexual conduct.

A former student who is now 20 testified that he engaged in group sex and recorded his last encounter on a cellphone. He said initially the students spoke of the importance of keeping their activities quiet because they didn't want their teacher to get in trouble.

The 20-year-old also said when school officials called him into the office to question him in May 2011, he denied the trysts at first because "I was trying to save her."

Colleps' husband was serving in the military overseas at the time of the encounters. Christopher Colleps said Friday that he is mad at his wife, but stands by her "because 'til death do us part means 'til death do us part."

He said putting her in jail would punish him and their children for something they had no control over.

Kennedale is a town of about 7,300 residents near Arlington, eight miles southeast of Fort Worth.

Michael Wayne Hash has murder charges dismissed after 12 years in prison

Source

Va. man Michael Wayne Hash has murder charges dismissed after 12 years in prison

By Susan Svrluga, Published: August 20

CULPEPER, Va. — Sometimes in recent months, Michael Wayne Hash would head out to his parents’ garage, where they’d moved most of the paperwork from his case into four giant plastic tubs and three chest-high filing cabinets, and he would read through the files his mother had meticulously organized: sentencing orders, affidavits, transcripts, opinions.

“I would love to see these gone,” he said earlier this summer. “But I don’t think we’ll ever stop talking about [the slaying] till it’s actually solved.”

On Monday, Hash walked out of the Culpeper County courthouse with the charges against him dismissed, 12 years after being wrongly convicted of murder. Fairfax County Commonwealth’s Attorney Ray Morrogh, who had been brought in to reassess a case that has raised widespread concerns about deceit and misconduct, asked the judge to dismiss all charges and lift any legal constraints against him.

Now 31, Hash hugged his mother tightly when she burst into tears. He struggled for words as the decision began to sink in.

“It brings validity to what we’ve said all along,” Hash said, “that this was never right.”

What it does not do is solve the lingering question: Who murdered 74-year-old Thelma B. Scroggins?

The investigation, Morrogh said, isn’t over.

The crime

Hash was 15 in 1996 when Scroggins, an elderly church organist who lived in his neighborhood near Culpeper, was shot four times in the head. He was 19 when he and two friends were accused of killing her. Hash was convicted of capital murder and sentenced to life in prison without parole.

Earlier this year, a federal judge ruled that Hash was being wrongly held, citing extreme police and prosecutorial misconduct, such as coaching witnesses, failing to disclose a plea deal with a key witness and moving him to another county’s jail for two nights to expose him to a known snitch. The judge said Hash had made a convincing show of actual innocence.

Hash was released from prison to his parents’ home in Virginia, but the judge gave the commonwealth six months to decide whether to try Hash again.

So Hash has been waiting for this day, for Morrogh to deliver his decision.

Even as he has enjoyed the simplest of everyday freedoms — being able to close a door, eat with a fork, walk in the woods — he has been haunted by a sense of unreality, of disbelief, similar to what he had felt throughout the past 12 years.

All through his arrest and trials and imprisonment, he said, he kept thinking, “This is a nightmare I’m going to wake up from.”

Nor did the past six months feel real. “Maybe this is a good dream,” he used to think. “Maybe I will wake up and I’m still in prison.”

Reality check

The sense of unreality started, he said, when police woke him up at his grandmother’s trailer one morning in 2000, took him to a small interrogation room and slammed a three-foot-tall stack of binders onto a table. They showed him a videotape of a friend he had grown up with saying he had been there when Hash had killed someone.

When he was arrested, he said, all he could think was, “This can’t be happening.”

It was almost like I was present, but I wasn’t,” he said.

Hash has maintained his innocence from the beginning.

There was no physical evidence connecting him to the crime.

But one of the other suspects testified against him. (That suspect served nearly seven years in jail. Last year he recanted his testimony and said he had no reason to believe Hash had anything to do with the slaying.) An estranged cousin said she had heard the three teenage boys talking about the killing. And a drug dealer who was briefly in the same cellblock said Hash had confessed to the crime.

The third suspect, who police had said was the ringleader, had already been acquitted.

Throughout his trial, Hash said, he believed he would be acquitted: The stories didn’t add up. It seemed clear that witnesses were lying and that he knew nothing about Scroggins’s death.

Then he heard the verdict.

“Everything went blank,” he said. The next morning, he woke up in the “hole” — solitary confinement, where officers kept him on a 24-hour suicide watch in the days after the trial — when someone shoved a newspaper underneath the door with a bang. On the front page was a big picture of his face and the headline “Hash found guilty.”

He said that was when he realized he had not just woken up from a bad dream. He was awake. And it was real.

New resolve

It wasn’t until he got to state prison that Hash was able to snap out of a long period of depression. Another inmate told him he had to defend himself, “to get my hands on every document that I could pertaining to my case,” Hash said.

The thing that kept him going, he said, “was just my resolve that I was innocent. This was not going to be final. I was not going to accept it.”

Other people began to help. His mother found letters that raised doubts about one witness. Shawn Armbrust at the Mid-Atlantic Innocence Project took on his case, and lawyers from a firm, Hunton & Williams, volunteered to help. Stanley Lapekas, an investigator with the firm, began digging into the original suspect in the case — even finding his gun, which could not be ruled out as the slaying weapon by state experts.

In February, Senior U.S. District Judge James Turk ruled that Hash was being wrongly held and that he had satisfied the legal standard for actual innocence. Turk cited problems with the investigation, the prosecution and Hash’s trial counsel, including the acknowledgment late last year by former Culpeper County sheriff Lee Hart and then-Commonwealth’s Attorney Gary Close that Hash had been moved to another jail in order to expose him to a known informant; that investigators had provided crime-scene information to at least one witness and guided answers to their questions; that two witnesses had failed polygraph tests and one had since recanted his testimony; and that there is significant evidence that another suspect may have committed the crime.

Morrogh was appointed special prosecutor and given six months to decide whether the commonwealth should retry Hash.

Still not free

From the moment he was released on bail, Hash knew he wasn’t really free.

“Culpeper still has him in the palm of their hand,” his mother, Pam Hash, said this spring.

He began slowly, slowly trying to get used to life outside prison — and learn how to be an adult.

His first trip to the grocery store, he was so staggered by the variety of foods available that they spent three hours there, his mother said. He went fishing. He started going with his parents to antique malls and bringing home small finds, such as a broken old laptop that he is now intent on fixing. He baked lasagna from scratch. He celebrated his 31st birthday with a big family party in April. He started taking photographs. He stockpiled bags of candy — Sour Patch Kids and Dum Dums and licorice — in a huge plastic tub under his bed. He started dating one of the only friends who stuck by him after his arrest. He went to a bluegrass concert. He talked his mother into riding a roller coaster. (She still regrets it.)

He began to think about possible careers; he had thought he might like to own a car-repair business someday, before he was locked up. Now he thinks he might make a pretty good lawyer.

Cellphones and computers have changed, people seem more rushed, and he is a whole lot less trusting than he used to be. That is part of what kept him thinking about the special prosecutor’s impending decision.

“You can understand his distrust in the system,” given the past 12 years, his attorney Matthew Bosher said. “So that was hanging over his head.”

Said Hash: “I learned that people will do horrible things under pressure, that pressure makes people do stupid things and make stupid decisions. I also learned that a lot of people are built differently than others. . . . A lot of people are susceptible to influence. That was a hard thing for me to understand.”

The players

Close, the commonwealth’s attorney who oversaw the case and who eventually admitted that he had discussed transferring Hash in order to expose him to the known informant, resigned in the days after the judge’s ruling. His second-in-command, Paul Walther, took his seat and is running for reelection against a challenger who says it is time for a clean slate.

The sheriff at the time, Hart, declined to comment on the case.

Scott Jenkins, one of the lead investigators, whose role the judge described as “outrageous misconduct . . . because it was intentional, and not merely negligent,” is now Culpeper County sheriff.

Jenkins has said in court documents that he had very serious concerns about the conviction of Hash. On Monday evening, he issued a statement saying that he could not defend his actions at this time without jeopardizing an open investigation but that he took issue with Turk’s opinion and that the department’s focus “is, and always has been, to seek justice for Thelma Scroggins.”

Hash and his family have talked, endlessly, about who did what, why people lied, why the initial suspect was never detained. Hash said he hopes people will be held accountable, that the public will see the truth.

“The priority to me is proving to everyone that I’m innocent and righting everything else that’s wronged,” he said. “If I can do that without ruining someone’s life, then that’s the path I prefer.”

Most of all, over the past few months, he waited.

“We just can’t wait for it to be over,” said his father, Jeff Hash. “He has a new life to start.”

It felt terrible walking into the courthouse Monday morning, Mike Hash said; he used to sit in his jail cell and look out the tiny window and dread his appearances there during his first appeals. He sat in a pinstriped suit Monday and stared straight ahead, swallowing occasionally as he listened to Morrogh.

After the judge spoke, Pam Hash said, “I wanted to clap. I wanted to holler.” But they had been given such stern instructions about silence in the courtroom that she was afraid to make a peep.

Once outside, though, she said, “There are not enough words to say how happy I am.”

When asked about the ongoing investigation — Morrogh did not rule out charges against Hash in the future — she said she was glad Morrogh was continuing to try to find Scroggins’s killer. “All my family feels the same way,” she said.

Albemarle County Sheriff J.E. “Chip” Harding said he hoped that the people who helped bring about Hash’s conviction would be brought to justice, as well.

Mike Hash had trouble taking it all in.

“I sat in prison 12 years planning out everything I could do” when released. But now, he said, “honestly, I don’t know.”

His girlfriend hugged him, and he kissed her forehead.

Then standing outside the courthouse with family and friends — a free man who badly wants to know who killed Thelma Scroggins — Hash was able to laugh.

“Let’s get out of here,” he said, “before we get arrested for causing a public disturbance.”

Man behind bars 2 years after judge orders release

Source

Man behind bars 2 years after judge orders release

By Victoria Kim and Weston Phippen, Los Angeles Times

August 21, 2012, 5:33 a.m.

Daniel Larsen was in a California prison serving a life sentence when he received the news he had awaited more than a decade. A federal court in Los Angeles had thrown out his conviction for carrying a concealed knife.

Two judges concluded that jurors who convicted Larsen would never have found him guilty had they heard from additional witnesses who saw a different man with the knife. Larsen's attorney, who has since been disbarred, failed to adequately investigate the case and identify the witnesses before the trial, the judges found.

But two years after he was supposed to be released, Larsen remains behind bars while the California attorney general appeals the decision. The state's main argument: He did not file his legal paperwork seeking release on time.

California Atty. Gen.Kamala D. Harris, whose office maintains that evidence still points to Larsen's guilt, accuses him and his attorneys of filing a petition seeking his release more than six years after he was legally required to do so. Prosecutors question whether the judges had the authority to hear Larsen's petition for release.

The standoff offers a window into what is often a defendant's last chance to have a criminal conviction overturned.

Larsen turned to the federal court to file a habeas corpus claim after exhausting his appeals in California state courts. In overturning Larsen's conviction, the federal court found he was "actually innocent" under the law because it had no confidence in the outcome of the original trial.

Prosecutors have long been frustrated by the seemingly endless appeals from inmates claiming innocence, many of whom were convicted on solid evidence. [again more evidence that prosecutors would rather keep 100 innocent people in prison if it prevents one guilty person from getting out of prison] Robert Weisberg, a professor at Stanford Law School, said the attorney general appears to be trying to prevent an onslaught of legal claims by prisoners who have tenuous arguments. States want to make it nearly impossible for inmates to reopen their cases in federal court, which force prosecutors to retry cases in which they have already won convictions, he said.

"What they're saying is, this guy had his chances. At a certain point the music has to stop, and a case just has to be closed," Weisberg said. "We're afraid that lots of people who were not unjustly convicted are going to be encouraged to frame their case as the injustice of the century."

Larsen's attorneys say prosecutors are interested only in a win for win's sake. They contend that evidence that Larsen is innocent is strong enough to overcome any need to meet legal deadlines.

The wrangling over byzantine legal rules governing federal habeas corpus laws could take several more years to resolve.

On Monday, Larsen's supporters delivered copies of online petitions to the attorney general's office in downtown Los Angeles demanding the man's release.

"He's living in legal limbo just waiting to be released," said his fiancee, Christina Combs.

The attorney general's office declined to comment.

Larsen's legal saga began in June 1998 at a parking lot outside a Northridge bar.

Two police officers responded to a report of a bar fight and testified that they saw Larsen take a shiny metal object out of his waistband and throw it under a car. They said they searched the area and found a double-edged knife about 6 inches long.

Larsen's attorney, Michael Edward Consiglio, did not call any witnesses on Larsen's behalf, despite his client's claims of innocence. Jurors found him guilty and, because Larsen had two prior convictions for burglary, he qualified for a lengthy prison term under the state's three-strikes law and was sentenced to 28 years to life.

From prison, Larsen contacted nine different attorneys for help until the California Innocence Project picked up his case in 2002.

After the group's legal claims were repeatedly rejected in state courts, the organization filed a last-ditch habeas corpus case in federal court in 2008. A year later, U.S. District Court Magistrate Judge Suzanne H. Segal heard what jurors at Larsen's initial trial never did — testimony from three witnesses who said they saw a different man, not Larsen, with the knife.

Among the new witnesses was a correctional officer visiting from Tennessee who formerly served as a police chief in North Carolina, and his wife. After listening to the witnesses, the judge described Larsen's claims as one of the "extraordinary cases where the [prisoner] asserts his innocence and establishes that the court cannot have confidence in the contrary finding of guilt." She found that Larsen's attorney failed to provide a competent defense.

U.S. District Judge Christina A. Snyder agreed and ruled that Larsen could be released even though his legal claim missed the federal court's deadlines.

Larsen, who had not told his family that he was fighting his case, called with news that he would be coming home soon. He told his brother Todd he was counting the days to meeting his nephew and niece for the first time.

Then came the attorney general's appeal. Prosecutors asked that Larsen remain behind bars during the appeal, saying he was a danger to society. Snyder concluded there was no evidence that Larsen posed a public threat. But she delayed her order until the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals resolves the legal dispute.

"He was about 14 days from walking out the door," said one of his attorneys, Wendy Koen, who told Larsen about the appeal during a prison visit. "He was tasting freedom."

A 1995 U.S. Supreme Court decision said that prisoners found to be "actually innocent" should be released even if they had not followed all legal technical requirements. The next year, Congress passed a new law with stringent time limits on when inmates could file habeas corpus cases in federal court. But the nation's highest court has never ruled on whether those deadlines apply in cases in which there is evidence of "actual innocence." Appellate courts across the nation disagree on whether they do.

The attorney general's office, in its court filing, cited Congress' action in arguing that Larsen missed his chance to seek federal relief. Prosecutors strongly disagreed with the federal judges, saying Larsen's case did not meet the standard of "actual innocence."

As Larsen remains behind bars, the appeal is slowly winding through the system. In June, the attorney general's office requested a 45-day extension to file its brief. In July, the office asked for an additional 30 days.

Combs, his fiancee, said Larsen had been eager to start his new life on the outside.

"Then the conversations turned from weeks to months and now it's been a year," she said.

Now, they are making plans to get married — even if it's behind bars. Larsen's cellmate will be his best man.

victoria.kim@latimes.com

weston.phippen@latimes.com

WikiLeaks and Free Speech

WikiLeaks and Free Speech

By MICHAEL MOORE and OLIVER STONE

Published: August 20, 2012

WE have spent our careers as filmmakers making the case that the news media in the United States often fail to inform Americans about the uglier actions of our own government. We therefore have been deeply grateful for the accomplishments of WikiLeaks, and applaud Ecuador’s decision to grant diplomatic asylum to its founder, Julian Assange, who is now living in the Ecuadorean Embassy in London.

Ecuador has acted in accordance with important principles of international human rights. Indeed, nothing could demonstrate the appropriateness of Ecuador’s action more than the British government’s threat to violate a sacrosanct principle of diplomatic relations and invade the embassy to arrest Mr. Assange.

Since WikiLeaks’ founding, it has revealed the “Collateral Murder” footage that shows the seemingly indiscriminate killing of Baghdad civilians by a United States Apache attack helicopter; further fine-grained detail about the true face of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars; United States collusion with Yemen’s dictatorship to conceal our responsibility for bombing strikes there; the Obama administration’s pressure on other nations not to prosecute Bush-era officials for torture; and much more.

Predictably, the response from those who would prefer that Americans remain in the dark has been ferocious. Top elected leaders from both parties have called Mr. Assange a “high-tech terrorist.” And Senator Dianne Feinstein, the California Democrat who leads the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, has demanded that he be prosecuted under the Espionage Act. Most Americans, Britons and Swedes are unaware that Sweden has not formally charged Mr. Assange with any crime. Rather, it has issued a warrant for his arrest to question him about allegations of sexual assault in 2010.

All such allegations must be thoroughly investigated before Mr. Assange moves to a country that might put him beyond the reach of the Swedish justice system. But it is the British and Swedish governments that stand in the way of an investigation, not Mr. Assange.

Swedish authorities have traveled to other countries to conduct interrogations when needed, and the WikiLeaks founder has made clear his willingness to be questioned in London. Moreover, the Ecuadorean government made a direct offer to Sweden to allow Mr. Assange to be interviewed within Ecuador’s embassy. In both instances, Sweden refused.

Mr. Assange has also committed to traveling to Sweden immediately if the Swedish government pledges that it will not extradite him to the United States. Swedish officials have shown no interest in exploring this proposal, and Foreign Minister Carl Bildt recently told a legal adviser to Mr. Assange and WikiLeaks unequivocally that Sweden would not make such a pledge. The British government would also have the right under the relevant treaty to prevent Mr. Assange’s extradition to the United States from Sweden, and has also refused to pledge that it would use this power. Ecuador’s attempts to facilitate that arrangement with both governments were rejected.

Taken together, the British and Swedish governments’ actions suggest to us that their real agenda is to get Mr. Assange to Sweden. Because of treaty and other considerations, he probably could be more easily extradited from there to the United States to face charges. Mr. Assange has every reason to fear such an outcome.The Justice Department recently confirmed that it was continuing to investigate WikiLeaks, and just-disclosed Australian government documents from this past February state that “the U.S. investigation into possible criminal conduct by Mr. Assange has been ongoing for more than a year.” WikiLeaks itself has published e-mails from Stratfor, a private intelligence corporation, which state that a grand jury has already returned a sealed indictment of Mr. Assange. And history indicates Sweden would buckle to any pressure from the United States to hand over Mr. Assange. In 2001 the Swedish government delivered two Egyptians seeking asylum to the C.I.A., which rendered them to the Mubarak regime, which tortured them.

If Mr. Assange is extradited to the United States, the consequences will reverberate for years around the world. Mr. Assange is not an American citizen, and none of his actions have taken place on American soil. If the United States can prosecute a journalist in these circumstances, the governments of Russia or China could, by the same logic, demand that foreign reporters anywhere on earth be extradited for violating their laws. The setting of such a precedent should deeply concern everyone, admirers of WikiLeaks or not.

We urge the people of Britain and Sweden to demand that their governments answer some basic questions: Why do the Swedish authorities refuse to question Mr. Assange in London? And why can neither government promise that Mr. Assange will not be extradited to the United States? The citizens of Britain and Sweden have a rare opportunity to make a stand for free speech on behalf of the entire globe.

Michael Moore and Oliver Stone are Academy Award-winning filmmakers.

Cops won't let Cooper Barton wear his Michigan Wolverines shirt

Jesus, don't these pigs have any real criminals to hunt down????

Five-year-old Michigan Wolverines fan punished for wearing 'Big House' shirt at Oklahoma City elementary school

Published: Tuesday, August 21, 2012, 3:10 PM

Philip Zaroo | pzaroo@mlive.com By Philip Zaroo | pzaroo@mlive.com

Five-year-old Michigan Wolverines fan Cooper Barton was asked to turn his "Big House" t-shirt inside out by the principal at his Oklahoma City elementary school.

The OK state is saying "no way" to the mitten.

A five-year-old Oklahoma City boy was told by his principal at Wilson Elementary School to turn his University of Michigan t-shirt inside out.

The shirt violated Oklahoma City Public School dress code, which prohibits students from wearing apparel from any college school other than those located in Oklahoma.

Lest any Wolverines fans take it personally, the rule actually goes further and bans professional sports team apparel as well – even clothing from the NBA's Oklahoma City Thunder.

School officials, with the help of an Anti-Gang Task Force, created the rule in 2005 in order to combat gang problems.

But Shannon Barton, an avid Michigan Wolverines fan, says her son Cooper wasn't harming anyone, nor disrupting class with his "The Big House" t-shirt. And he's certainly no gang member.

"They should really worry about academics," she told News 9. "It wasn't offensive. He's five."

After hearing the complaint, Superintendent Karl Springer agreed to review the rule, which some see as overreaching.

"This has presented an opportunity to review the current OKCPS District Dress Code Policy that has been in place since 2005," he said in a statement. "It states that clothing bearing names or emblems of all professional and collegiate athletic teams (with the exception of Oklahoma colleges and universities) are prohibited. In cooperation with the Oklahoma City Police Department Gang Task Force, the policy was approved in 2005 after concerns that nationwide gangs used popular sports clothing to represent individual gangs. As when any policy is questioned; OKCPS administration will review the policy to determine if changes need to be made."

Do you think this rule goes too far? And have you ever been a victim of "sports discrimination"?

Email Philip Zaroo at pzaroo@mlive.com or follow him on Twitter at twitter.com/philipzaroo.

Government bureaucrats pay themselves very well.

I don't have a problem with folks in the private sector paying themselves very well. We are not forced to do business with folks in the private sector.

Of course when government bureaucrats decide to pay themselves very well we are forced to pay them, because after all we can't pick and choose what government services we want.

Source

Bay Area public officials break bank with unused sick time

By Thomas Peele, Daniel Willis and John Woolfolk

Posted: 08/21/2012 11:12:23 PM PDT

By taking advantage of one of public employment's most lucrative and little-known perks, more than 370 Bay Area government workers who retired last year took home final paychecks that topped $50,000 apiece, and often considerably higher.

Six of them received payments of more than $200,000, including a city finance director who walked away with more than $354,000.

How'd they do it? By amassing hundreds -- and in a few instances, thousands -- of unused hours of vacation, sick, comp and personal time over the years, and then cashing it in on their way out the door at what is almost always the highest pay rate of their careers. [As opposed to the pay rate at the time they earned the vacation, sick or comp pay]

From Silicon Valley to the Wine Country, top administrators, police officers, firefighters, government lawyers, engineers, clerks, nurses and others received more than $50,000 each, combining last year for more than $30 million, most of it for unused sick days. That is enough money to add about 190 police officers to Bay Area streets for a year or about 375 teachers to local classrooms.

"These amounts are staggering," said Kris Vosburgh, executive director of the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association, a watchdog group. "It's like you just won on 'The Price Is Right.'"

The payouts are revealed in a new Bay Area News Group analysis of an unparalleled collection of government compensation data compiled by this newspaper.

Two hundred ninety-six local agencies have responded to the newspaper's request for 2011 compensation figures, which are now posted on Bay Area News Group websites. The analysis of retirees' final paychecks is a snapshot from about 54 percent of 541 agencies in the region, because dozens have yet to respond. Of the 296 agencies that released data, 48 of them paid at least one person more than $50,000.

That money represents only a fraction of what governments shelled out for unused time last year. Payroll data also shows hundreds of Bay Area public employees received smaller payouts totaling millions of dollars more for time off they didn't use.

Those payments are an expensive reminder of an enduring legacy of benefits negotiated in rosier economic times that are now plaguing local governments across the country. And while public employees are quick to argue they earned every penny by giving up vacation and not calling in sick, allowing workers to bank so much unused time off is a practice seldom seen outside government.

Firefighters top list

Firefighters averaged the highest payouts in the newspaper's survey, about $93,000 each. Government administrators averaged about $87,000 and police about $86,000. Workers with other job titles averaged $71,000 in payouts. While school employees can retire with banked time off, they tend to take home much smaller lump sums.

In San Jose alone, 126 workers cashed out more than $50,000 each -- to the tune of $11.8 million. And that wasn't even the city's total bill for unused time off last year. Combined with others who received buyouts of less than $50,000, San Jose paid out $21.2 million in 2011 -- enough to pay the average salary and benefits of 120 city police officers for a year. Ironically, 2011 was the first year in the city's history that it was forced to lay off cops, 66 in all.

The East Bay's biggest city, Oakland, paid out $50,000 or more to 12 retirees last year.

Even a single six-figure final check for a retiree can put a severe dent in the finances of a smaller government. Take the struggling Solano County city of Fairfield, which uses volunteers to help keep City Hall operating only four days a week. As its veteran finance director, Robert Leland, neared retirement last year with more than two years of banked time off, the city had to budget for his final check. The damage: $354,000.

Like officials at many governments, current Fairfield Finance Director David White said he didn't have records to show from which years his predecessor saved that time or what his pay rate was when he banked it.

"The time was accrued throughout his tenure with the city. The rate of pay was his final rate of pay," White wrote in an email when asked for year-by-year details.

Paying more for past

And therein lies the great benefit to employees of saving time off: Governments pick up the tab based on a retiree's final rate of pay, not what he was paid when the time was accrued.

"It's a huge issue," said Mountain View Mayor Mike Kasperzak, who heads the League of California Cities. "(Governments) have to put money aside" for payouts. "People earn (time off) at $10 an hour and cash it in at $25. You make money on your time."

Hayward police Lt. Mark Mosier's final paycheck tells that story: He received $143,000 from 47 weeks of unused vacation and sick time when he retired in 2011. It was time he'd saved over a 26-year career that began when he was paid $12.50 an hour, city records show. All 47 weeks were paid at Mosier's top hourly rate at retirement of $75.15, more than six times higher than his starting pay. Mosier did not respond to repeated phone calls.

At most agencies, the one-time payments don't affect employees' pensions or their overall retirement package. Yet the ability to accrue thousands of hours of time and turn it into, in effect, a bonus at retirement is unique to government work, said Mark Johnson, an Arlington, Texas-based benefits consultant.

"Building up banked vacation at a limitless rate is just not seen in the private sector," he said. "It dates back 30 or 40 years, historically, when municipal employee pay was much lower than the private sector, but the benefits were better."

But as government pay became more lucrative in large states, vacation and sick time policies were slow to change.

Even as local agencies now scurry to limit accruals for new hires, payouts to veteran employees have reached "crisis level in a lot of states, especially California and Illinois," Johnson said.

The local data shows most money appears to be for unused sick time. Mountain View, for instance, paid eight people a total of $397,482 for sick time and $169,692 for unused vacation. Richmond paid $275,359 in sick time to five workers and $196,018 for other time.

San Jose's dilemma

Leaders in San Jose have wrestled for years with how to curb payouts. The city caps vacation accumulation at 320 hours but has what deputy city manager Alex Gurza called a "very generous" sick leave policy that allows most employees who have worked at least 15 years to bank as many as 30 weeks -- 1,200 hours -- of unused time.

Police and firefighters get more: unlimited sick time buyouts after 20 years of employment at their final pay rate.

The City Council last year voted to impose limits on four unions in 2012, but a former librarian sued, calling her $28,080 of banked sick pay a guaranteed retirement benefit. The suit remains unresolved.

Many of San Jose's top policymakers sit atop substantial leave nest eggs themselves. Police Chief Chris Moore expects to get close to $200,000 for unused time and has said he'd retire and claim it rather than lose the windfall if the city tries to modify its policy.

"I have a significant amount tied up in that," Moore said. "It's not something I would just walk away from."

Smaller governments are dealing with similar issues, the newspaper's analysis shows.

In Fairfield, no policies were in place to limit how much time Leland could bank or force him to use it.

"He worked a lot of hours," City Manager Sean Quinn said. "(Leland) was a one-man operation."

His payout, plus those to two other 2011 retirees who received more than $203,000 combined, forced Fairfield to negotiate union agreements that limit employees to 350 additional vacation hours on top of what they currently have on the books, Quinn said.

But even with caps, governments can still owe retiring employees six-figure payouts.

When Kevin Duggan retired as Mountain View city manager in 2011, he received $135,000 for unused vacation, sick time and personal leave, the newspaper found. Each had been capped.

Duggan had more than 1,800 hours of banked sick time, but was paid for only 528 of those hours, at 55 percent of his final pay, according to the city. His vacation payout was similarly limited.

Governments must balance the need to compensate employees fairly with efforts to limit costs, Duggan said. Caps on vacation accruals might be fair, he said, but public servants should be allowed to save up enough time to take an occasional extended vacation.

Paying for unused time off at intervals throughout a career -- say, every five or 10 years -- is another option some governments are considering. Not only does that avoid massive payouts when an employee leaves, it means they are paid at a rate closer to their salary when the time was accrued, Duggan said.

Six-figure final paychecks are only part of the problem as governments across California face mounting retirement expenses and scramble to reform runaway pension costs. Few foresaw the dilemma when most of today's government retirees were new on the job.

"The reforms don't have to be draconian to reform this issue," said Vosburgh of the taxpayer group. "We want to be fair to the public employees. But cashing out at the highest rate of pay? We just can't afford it."

Contact Thomas Peele at tpeele@bayareanewsgroup com. Follow him at Twitter.com/thomas_peele. Follow the collection and posting of government pay costs at Twitter.com/publicsalaries.

Bacon in park not anti-Muslim act

Bacon in park not anti-Muslim act, caller says

Aug. 22, 2012 07:24 AM

Associated Press

NEW YORK -- The caller said he was putting it out for seagulls and raccoons to eat, not as an anti-Muslim statement.

The Staten Island Advance said the message was left Tuesday on a reporter's voicemail.

The caller said "It was not any ... anti-Muslim act, and I did not want to offend anybody."

The NYPD is investigating the incident as a possible hate crime. It was informed of the call but declined to discuss it.

Three packages of bacon were found Sunday in a section of the New Dorp Beach park.

Muslims are barred from eating pork because pigs are considered unclean.

White Powder Mystery Solved

Phoenix police and firefighters will remember it as "the Mystery of the White Powder."

The call came about 10:30 a.m. Monday. A citizen alerted the Phoenix Fire Department that Daisy, his golden retriever, became ill after eating white powder off a sidewalk in the Moon Valley area, near Ninth Avenue and Thunderbird Road.

"The man told us his dog sniffed and licked the stuff and came back in the house and vomited," Division Chief Terry Garrison said. "The guy put two and two together and figured there might be something very wrong with that white powder."

The firefighters hit the street. Those first at the scene found a daunting sight: White powder all through the neighborhood.

It was deposited in odd, arrowlike stripes on the sidewalks, and a breeze had apparently scattered it onto lawns and landscaping stones.

"Our people said, 'Hey, this could be hazardous material. We better take some precautions,' "Garrison said.

The fire department sent 12 big fire engines to the scene, carrying a total of about 60 firefighters.

The Phoenix Police Department sent eight motorcycle officers, one motorcycle sergeant, one motorcycle lieutenant, two field officers, one field sergeant, one detective and a public information officer, a spokesman said.

The cops closed off an area of about 2 square miles. Children at the local elementary and middle schools were kept inside. Neighbors were warned not to get near the mysterious white stuff.

Some firefighters gathered samples of the powder. Most sat for hours under the shade of trees and firetruck umbrellas, navy blue T-shirts soaked with sweat from the 106-degree heat.

Some chatted with nearby golfers.

Some complained.

Many cheered when the fire department's "goody" truck showed up, stocked with fresh Gatorade and trail mix.

One local resident emerged from his house, gazed around in wonder, and asked police who had been murdered.

Television news reporters reported the white powder crisis as their 5 p.m. lead story on at least two stations. It led the 10 p.m. news on most stations.

The fire department called in a hazardous-material company to vacuum up the substance. Children were removed from harm's way and driven home on buses or by worried parents.

Finally, at 11 p.m., the six men operating the huge vacuum cleaners were finished. The firefighters and the cops packed up and departed. Residents went to bed.

And as they slept, an anonymous caller to the fire department solved the mystery of the white powder. Garrison said it was a woman who declined to leave her name.

"She said she was with a jogging club, and they had put flour on the sidewalks Saturday to mark where people were supposed to jog in an event they had," Garrison said.

"She said she was real sorry, and hung up."

The Arizona Republic
September 10, 1997
By William Hermann and Christina Leonard

Cops manufacture new evidence to prove handcuffed man killed himself???

Source

Police: Man shot in squad car called girlfriend

By Jeannie Nuss, Associated Press

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. – Police in Jonesboro say the girlfriend of a man shot to death in the back of a squad car told an investigator he had called her from the car and said he had a gun.

In a four-page statement police offered several new details about the investigation into the July 28 death of Chavis Carter, 21. Earlier this week, an autopsy report ruled that Carter's death was a suicide.

Carter's girlfriend, who was not identified in the report, also told the investigator that Carter said he loved her and that he was scared, according to the police statement. Phone records showed Carter made two calls, at least one of which was from the back of the patrol car, police said.

Benjamin Irwin, a Memphis, Tenn., lawyer representing Carter's family, said in an emailed response early Thursday that "in previous reports and information we had about (the girlfriend) was that no mention of a gun during the call was included. …

"After watching the other witness interviews, I can only speculate that the interview involved a lot of leading questions by the investigator."

Police have been facing criticism since they said officers searched Carter twice but didn't find a gun before he was fatally shot in a patrol car. Race is also an issue in the case because Carter was black and police have said the two officers who stopped the truck he was in are white.

The police statement said there appears to be no doubt that an officer missed the gun when he initially patted Carter down.

"It is presumed that Carter secreted the gun in the rear of the car after the pat-down but before the cuffing and second search," the statement said.

The statement said it was meant to be "a brief preliminary investigative summary" and noted that the investigation into Carter's death isn't complete. However, the statement said evidence and witness statements support the medical examiner's conclusion that Carter killed himself.

"I think the critical points still remain that this young man was in police custody," Irwin said Wednesday. "He lost his life at a time when they had a responsibility and duty to protect him."

Spokesman Sgt. Lyle Waterworth didn't respond to an email or phone message seeking further comment.

Police also said they tracked down a man from a video on Carter's phone who said he sent Carter a text message asking him to bring him a gun shortly before his run-in with the officers. That man also said Carter was involved with a drug deal involving 4 ounces of marijuana, police said.

Police have said officers found marijuana on Carter when they searched him. The autopsy report also said he tested positive for meth and other drugs.

The police statement also said blood spatter on Carter's right hand showed his hand was close to the contact wound on his right temple. Blood was also on a rear passenger door of the patrol car, police said. [Hey, I bet there was blood all over the squad car, but that doesn't mean Carter killed himself!]

Officers and bystanders said the patrol car doors and windows were closed and that the officers weren't near the car until Carter was found, police said.

"This virtually eliminates any possibility that the fatal wound was caused by any weapon other than the one recovered in the rear of the vehicle and that its discharge was caused by Carter," police said in the statement.

The Arkansas state crime lab confirmed Wednesday that it did not perform gunshot residue testing on Carter, saying it doesn't do that kind of analysis on victims of homicides or suicides.

The confirmation came after Jonesboro Police Chief Michael Yates told The Associated Press that the department had requested the testing but that it wasn't done because of the agency's policy.

The lab's chief criminalist, Lisa Channell, said the testing can indicate whether a person was in an environment with gunshot residue, but "it cannot tell you whether the person pulled the trigger or not."

The crime lab's policy is not new. A 2001 memo sent to law enforcement officers said being in close proximity to a gun when it's fired can lead to positive gunshot residue test results and that negative gunshot residue results don't mean someone didn't fire a gun.

Still, Irwin questioned why the test wasn't conducted.

"To me, that's horrible," he said.

Police previously released video recorded from dashboard cameras the night of the shooting, but the footage didn't appear to show when officers found Carter slumped over and bleeding in the backseat of a patrol car as described in a police report.

Police said there were problems with the audio and video that explain the absence of a gunshot or noise on the recordings.

Irwin, Carter's family's lawyer, didn't buy that explanation.

"These things are crystal clear from a reception standpoint and from a functioning standpoint," he said. "And then they just malfunction for three minutes when this young man lost his life? I am just not ready to accept that as the answer."

The police statement came less than an hour before Carter's mom marched with the Rev. Jesse Jackson and other supporters in Jonesboro.

"We hope that people concerned about justice, white and black, would find some common ground as we pursue this case of justice," Jackson told reporters in Memphis, Tenn., hours before the Jonesboro march. "We simply want justice and fairness in the land. … We are convinced the explanations given so far are not credible ones."

Giving In to the Surveillance State

Op-Ed Contributor

Giving In to the Surveillance State

By SHANE HARRIS

Published: August 22, 2012

IN March 2002, John M. Poindexter, a former national security adviser to President Ronald Reagan, sat down with Gen. Michael V. Hayden, the director of the National Security Agency. Mr. Poindexter sketched out a new Pentagon program called Total Information Awareness, that proposed to scan the world’s electronic information — including phone calls, e-mails and financial and travel records — looking for transactions associated with terrorist plots. The N.S.A., the government’s chief eavesdropper, routinely collected and analyzed such signals, so Mr. Poindexter thought the agency was an obvious place to test his ideas.

He never had much of a chance. When T.I.A.’s existence became public, it was denounced as the height of post-9/11 excess and ridiculed for its creepy name. Mr. Poindexter’s notorious role in the Iran-contra affair became a central focus of the debate. He resigned from government, and T.I.A. was dismantled in 2003.

But what Mr. Poindexter didn’t know was that the N.S.A. was already pursuing its own version of the program, and on a scale that he had only imagined. A decade later, the legacy of T.I.A. is quietly thriving at the N.S.A. It is more pervasive than most people think, and it operates with little accountability or restraint.

The foundations of this surveillance apparatus were laid soon after 9/11, when President George W. Bush authorized the N.S.A. to monitor the communications records of Americans who analysts suspected had a “nexus to terrorism.” Acting on dubious legal authority, and without warrants, the N.S.A. began intercepting huge amounts of information.

But the N.S.A. came up with more dead ends than viable leads and put a premium on collecting information rather than making sense of it. The N.S.A. created what one senior Bush administration official later described as a “mirror” of AT&T’s databases, which allowed ready access to the personal communications moving over much of the country’s telecom infrastructure. The N.S.A. fed its bounty into software that created a dizzying social-network diagram of interconnected points and lines. The agency’s software geeks called it “the BAG,” which stood for “big ass graph.”

Today, this global surveillance system continues to grow. It now collects so much digital detritus — e-mails, calls, text messages, cellphone location data and a catalog of computer viruses — that the N.S.A. is building a 1-million-square-foot facility in the Utah desert to store and process it.

What’s missing, however, is a reliable way of keeping track of who sees what, and who watches whom. After T.I.A. was officially shut down in 2003, the N.S.A. adopted many of Mr. Poindexter’s ideas except for two: an application that would “anonymize” data, so that information could be linked to a person only through a court order; and a set of audit logs, which would keep track of whether innocent Americans’ communications were getting caught in a digital net.

The N.S.A. sorely needs such restrictions now. Under current law, it isn’t allowed to monitor the communications of an American citizen or permanent resident without a court order. But it can collect data if one party to a communication is believed to be outside the United States. Recently, the office of the director of national intelligence admitted that on at least one occasion, the procedures that shield citizens’ and legal residents’ private information from spying eyes had been deemed “unreasonable under the Fourth Amendment” by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, which oversees such monitoring.

Senator Ron Wyden, an Oregon Democrat, has questioned whether “backdoor” monitoring of citizens’ communications is occurring. Intelligence officials told Mr. Wyden that they couldn’t determine how many people inside the United States had their communications collected because checking the N.S.A.’s databases to find out would itself violate the privacy of those people. In other words, the protection of privacy rights is being invoked to cover up possible continuing violations of those same rights.

Why have we not seen the same level of public outrage as in 2003? Many Americans seem willing to give up their digital privacy if it means the government has a better chance of catching terrorists. Consider the revealing intelligence that millions of us give to Facebook — willingly. These days, we are more likely to be outraged by airport screening, and its public inconvenience and indignity, than by unseen monitoring.

Members of Congress rarely object because they don’t want to be seen as obstructing legal surveillance. But whether this surveillance is legal, and verifiably so, is an open question, and depends upon a complex law that even most lawmakers don’t understand. One can’t easily mount an opposition to a confusing statute that governs a secretive process.

The law governing the N.S.A. can accommodate greater oversight, and if the agency thinks otherwise, it should be open to amending the law. Had the agency’s leaders actually listened to everything Mr. Poindexter had to say, they might not find themselves telling the American people: “We’re not spying on you. Trust us.”

Shane Harris, a senior writer at Washingtonian, is the author of “The Watchers: The Rise of America’s Surveillance State.”

Was Kristine Bunch framed for arson by the Greensburg, Indiana police???

Source

Ind. mom convicted in son's death in fire released

Associated Press

By CHARLES WILSON

GREENSBURG, Ind. (AP) — Kristine Bunch hugged her mother and her teenage son, basking in the warm Indiana sunshine for the first time Wednesday afternoon following 16 years behind bars for a murder she said all along she didn't commit.

Jailers released the grinning 38-year-old woman, who had traded her olive green jail clothes for a new dress, less than a half-hour after a Decatur County judge granted her $5,000 cash bail at the suggestion of prosecutors. The state plans to try her again on murder and arson charges for the 1995 fire that killed her 3-year-old son.

The whirlwind that followed her arrest in 1996, when she was accused of setting the blaze that destroyed her Greensburg mobile home and claimed her son Tony's life, seemed like a bad dream at the time, Bunch said. "I was in shock," she said.

Being released from prison was like a dream, too, but "in a good way," she said.

"Now, it's like I can't believe it's happening," Bunch said.

The Indiana Court of Appeals last week ordered the local court to allow Bunch's release on bond while she awaits her second trial. The appeals court ordered a new trial in March, finding that the evidence used to convict her was outdated, weak and wrongly withheld from the defense.

Bunch's attorney, Ron Safer, said prosecutors "did exactly the right thing" by asking for a low bond, but he was disappointed they still planned another trial in light of scientific advances that he said suggest there was no real evidence of arson.

Prosecutors have had little to say except that they are seeking a gag order to restrict attorneys' public comments on the case. A hearing on their request is scheduled for Aug. 30, and Bunch was ordered to attend.

In the meantime, Bunch said she will live with her 58-year-old mother, Susan Hubbard, and her 16-year-old son, Trenton, in nearby Columbus, Ind. The family was taking Bunch out Wednesday night for her first meal besides prison food in years, at a seafood restaurant in Columbus.

Bunch said she looked forward to doing the everyday things that most people take for granted, like shopping, eating out, and using the Internet, which she has never seen.

"I can learn how to Facebook," she said. "All my friends tell me they're on Facebook."

But of all the technological changes since she was last out of prison, Bunch said cellphones, which have evolved from unwieldy boxes with thick antennas to sleek little machines, impress her the most.

"I'm amazed by the cellphones," she said.

Television and frequent visits by her mother and son kept her aware of changes in the outside world. "He introduced me to Harry Potter," Bunch said of her son. Now, she hopes to be able to teach the teen how to drive.

Bunch was sentenced to 60 years in prison in 1996 after a Decatur County jury convicted her of murder and arson. The same judge who sentenced her denied a 2006 petition for post-conviction relief based on new evidence.

Prosecutors said Bunch poured kerosene in the bedroom of her son, Tony, and the living room of their mobile home and lit it on fire. No clear motive was ever established, but they said Bunch had asked a friend to take custody of the boy about a year before the fire so she could "get away from it all" and that she had made inconsistent statements about the blaze.

The Center on Wrongful Convictions said investigators at the time misinterpreted burn patterns as indicating an accelerant and that there was no evidence of arson. They also argued that advances in toxicology showed the child would have died from fire, not smoke inhalation, had the blaze been set in his room.

"It was horrible, but I knew if I held on to my faith that justice would prevail. The truth usually has a way of coming out," Hubbard, Bunch's mother, said.

Bunch said a prison ministry helped her maintain her faith while she was in prison. "I knew it was going to work out in the end," she said.

While locked up, Bunch earned her GED and a college degree. She said she plans to go to law school if acquitted. She wants to work in criminal law, representing inmates who have been wrongfully convicted.

"There's still a lot of work to be done. There's still a lot of people in my situation," Bunch said.

_____

Follow Charles Wilson on Twitter: https://twitter.com/CharlesDWilson

Why are they wasting Arizona tax dollars to enforce Federal Law???

Last time I checked both Arizona Attorney General Tom Horne and Maricopa County Attorney Bill Montgomery where employees of the state of Arizona, not the Federal government.

If Arizona Attorney General Tom Horne and Maricopa County Attorney Bill Montgomery want to enforce the Federal marijuana laws they should resign from their jobs as Arizona elected officials and get hired by the Federal government as prosecutors.

Until then they should stop wasting our tax dollars in their personal war against Arizona medical marijuana users.

Yes Arizona's Prop 203 does conflict with Federal law and if they don't like it they should resign.

But if they don't like it they should resign from their jobs instead of using our tax dollars to carry out their personal war against the legal users of medical marijuana.

Source

Prosecutors challenge Arizona medical marijuana law

Aug. 23, 2012 10:42 AM

Associated Press

The two Republican prosecutors are continuing so-far-unsuccessful efforts against the medical marijuana program being established after being authorized by Arizona voters two years ago.

Horne and Montgomery made separate but coordinated requests Thursday for a ruling on the legality of Arizona law as part of a case pending in Maricopa County Superior Court.

That case involves a Sun City medical marijuana dispensary applicant who sued when county officials wouldn't provide zoning clearances needed under the medical marijuana law.

The prosecutors ask a judge to dismiss the applicants' lawsuit on grounds that Arizona's law is illegal.

Cops demonize JP candidate for victimless crime arrest

Source

Justice of the Peace candidate Benny Arce has record

Arce pleaded guilty to '98 misdemeanor

by Eugene Scott - Aug. 23, 2012 09:56 PM

The Republic | azcentral.com

There aren't many six-figure jobs for those without high-school diplomas. But Maricopa County justices of the peace, who make life-changing decisions for others in court, earn one of the state's highest-paid salaries for elected offices.

Yet the post also has some of the loosest qualifications. Not only do candidates not need a diploma, they don't need legal training, either.

Candidates aren't even required to have a squeaky-clean background.

At least one candidate running in the "downtown precinct" has a criminal background. He pleaded guilty in 1999 to furnishing obscene material to a minor.

Benny Arce, 51, hung up on a Republic reporter when contacted about the case. He faces fellow Democrat and incumbent Jimmie Hernandez in Tuesday's election. Libertarian Thane Eichenauer is running as a write-in candidate.

The winner will serve for two years and earn $101,500 annually, according to the Maricopa County Justice Court Administration.

As part of a plea agreement, Arce pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor and was sentenced to three years of probation, which the court terminated several months early.

Elections officials say there's nothing to stop Arce from running for office.

"If they are registered to vote, they can run for office," said Yvonne Reed, spokeswoman for the Maricopa County Elections Department. "You can have a felony and have it cleared and register. If that should occur again, you have to go to court and have your name cleared."

Criminal history

Arce is a disc jockey on his own Phoenix-based online radio station, KRCK Radio.

He has lived in downtown Phoenix since he was a child and has stayed in the area to give back to the community, according to his website.

Arce was director of the Arizona Latin Association, a non-profit organization focusing on programs to keep inner-city youths out of gangs. In addition to serving as a local radio personality, Arce's website said he was a youth counselor at Metro Youth Centers and the Phoenix Downtown YMCA.

In July 1998, fliers, which featured partially clothed women, were passed out to minors and adults publicizing a party. Arce was held responsible, because the Arizona Latin Association, which Arce led at the time, hosted the party. He also was the disc jockey and master of ceremonies at the event.

The party featured a dance contest in which female participants removed their clothing while dancing. Male contest participants licked whipped cream off the females, according to court records. Undercover police officers discovered teenagers as young as 13 at the party.

In court records, Arce said there was never any intent to promote sexual activity, but police held him responsible because he was the person in charge of the event.

Monica Brown, a Phoenix police officer working the event, requested that Arce serve jail time. She said Arce did not understand the severity of his actions and continued to host similar events after being warned by police.

After reviewing the case, probation officer David Thompson did not recommend incarceration, saying Arce's intent was to provide a place for teenagers to safely socialize. He lacked extensive criminal history and played an influential role in the Hispanic community, Thompson said.

Justice qualifications

A recent case involving a northwest Valley justice of the peace put the spotlight on qualifications for the justices, who hear cases such as evictions, domestic-violence complaints and civil lawsuits under $10,000.

The Arizona Supreme Court removed Phillip Woolbright from office following an ethics investigation for dodging a court server and other misconduct. He will not be able to serve any judicial office or perform any judicial duties in Arizona for five years.

Woolbright oversaw cases from Peoria, Sun City and parts of Glendale.

Woolbright, in a response to the case, had noted he was a relatively new judge without legal training and limited judicial experience.

To run for justice of the peace, an Arizona resident must be at least 18, be able to read and write English and be a qualified voter in the precinct where he or she would serve.

Arizona is one of the few states where justices of the peace run partisan races and among about 20 states that don't require law degrees.

Republic reporter Sonu Munshi contributed to this article.

Tom Horne files papers to shut down marijuana dispensaries

That is an outright lie. A servant servers you and does work for you. I servant does not order you around and control your life.

They are really government tyrants who think they are our royal masters.

In this case both Attorney General Tom Horne and Maricopa County Attorney Bill Montgomery hate pot smokers and are using our tax dollars in their personal vendetta against medical marijuana users in an attempt to over turn Prop 203.

Source

AG files court papers to ultimately halt licensing of Arizona medical marijuana dispensaries

Posted: Thursday, August 23, 2012 10:52 am

By Howard Fischer, Capitol Media Services

In legal papers filed in Maricopa County Superior Court, Attorney General Tom Horne argued that voters are legally powerless to authorize anyone to sell marijuana as long as it remains illegal under federal law.

The real goal is to get a ruling declaring the state and federal laws in conflict. Horne said that will then allow him to direct the state Department of Health Services to halt the current process of licensing up to 126 dispensaries to sell the drugs.

Horne is not seeking to invalidate the approximately 30,000 cards which the health department has issued to people who have a doctor's recommendation to use the drug. He said there is a technical legal difference to how Arizona law is worded that he believes allows state officials to provide the cards as identification.

But Horne said that, as far as he is concerned, there is "no legal way'' for those people to get their drugs. Not only does he believe that dispensaries are illegal, he contends the state is powerless to allow marijuana users to grow their own drugs.

Maricopa County Attorney Bill Montgomery filed similar paperwork in the same case.

Montgomery, however, takes an even narrower view of the law: He believes the state-issued cards to medical marijuana users also are preempted by the federal Controlled Substances Act.

Lancaster to launch aerial radar surveillance over neighborhoods

Lancaster to launch aerial radar surveillance over neighborhoods

August 24, 2012 | 8:59 am

The city of Lancaster plans to launch a new aerial surveillance system to monitor neighborhoods for crime.

The technology, called the Law Enforcement Aerial Platform System, will be attached to a piloted single-engine Cessna.

It's basically a radar system that will give deputies a bird's-eye view of what's happening on the ground.

The tool is similar to drones that are used by the military to survey war zones, with the difference that those are remote-controlled rather than attached to a plane.

Authorities say the technology will prove invaluable for the city because it's so large and spread out, and deputies can't be everywhere at once.

It could also help during natural disasters like fires or earthquakes by providing an aerial view of the situation.

Opponents have expressed concerns about government snooping, but city leaders insist that the surveillance will only be used to fight crime.

The Sheriff's Department plans to deploy LEAPS for 10 hours a day, at a coast of about $300 an hour. That adds up to about $90,000 per month and more than $1 million per year -- a hefty price tag in the cash-strapped city.

But city officials say that it's worth the investment to combat a recent spike in crime.

Armored American vehicle attacked in Mexico

I suspect it is because the American government realizes that because of the American government's foreign policy American government employees are hated worldwide.

Source

2 U.S. government employees reportedly shot in Mexico

Aug. 24, 2012 10:44 AM

Associated Press

MEXICO CITY -- Two U.S. government employees were shot and wounded in an attack on their vehicle south of Mexico City on Friday, a law enforcement official said.

The two were riding in an armored U.S. Embassy vehicle when they came under fire on a highway leading to the city of Cuernavaca.

The official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said both were hospitalized, one with a wound to the leg and the other hit in the stomach and hand.

The official said the wounded were not agents of the Drug Enforcement Agency or FBI. [Why are DEA and FBI agents in Mexico???? Duh! Because they are helping Felipe Calderon with his "drug war", which we started]

The U.S. Embassy had no immediate comment.

A Mexican army official said the sport utility vehicle with diplomatic plates was found after a report about a shootout on the highway. The army official was not authorized to be quoted by name. He said a Mexican navy captain was also in the vehicle, but was not injured.

The Toyota SUV was riddled with bullets, most concentrated around the passenger-side window, indicating possible involvement by experienced gunmen. [I guess our American government masters don't pay much attention to the advice they give us which is to buy American!]

Attacks on diplomatic personnel are extremely rare in Mexico.

In 2011, one U.S. Border Patrol agent was killed and one wounded in a drug gang shooting in northern Mexico.

Lie detector tests are at best 80% accurate

Source

Colorado worker awaits new polygraph in flap over department mergers

Posted: 08/24/2012 12:01:00 AM MDT

By Lynn Bartels

The Denver Post

A state worker who flunked a polygraph test he was required to take when his agency merged with the Colorado Department of Public Safety said he was accused of using "countermeasures" to try to influence the outcome.

As a result, Phil Deeds said he wasn't allowed to work at the Port of Entry after it became part of Public Safety and that he sat at home collecting a paycheck for about three weeks in July.

"They kept telling me, 'You're breathing weird. I think you're lying to me,' " Deeds said of the polygraph test. "I said, 'No, I'm not.' "

The 34-year-old Lakewood man said he was allowed to retake the polygraph Thursday. He said he won't learn of any decision until next week.

Deeds is on temporary assignment with the Colorado Department of Labor and Employment.

He is one of 15 state employees in limbo because they were not able to meet a Public Safety requirement that its workers pass a criminal check and a polygraph test. The state originally said 19 workers were affected but released the revised figure of 15 on Thursday.

The Denver Post reported that the workers in question were originally hired by state agencies that didn't require the polygraph or criminal check but that those operations this year were folded into the Department of Public Safety.

The state has worked to find other jobs in other departments for the 15 employees, and as of Thursday all have received at least temporary assignments.

The issue infuriated many online readers.

"These workers should have been fired and replaced with honest citizens," one person wrote.

Public Safety spokesman Lance Clem said some employees simply declined to go through the process, "like people who travel by train or car because they don't like the airport security screening."

He added there was a misunderstanding about the department's use of the test.

"People who apply are not on trial when they apply for a job here," he said. "The polygraph is part of the process used to determine whether a person could be hired."

Jim Davis, director of Public Safety, said some employees who were deemed to have provided deceptive answers or used countermeasures during their polygraphs were brought back for another test "in an attempt to determine what the issue is."

He did not have the exact number retested.

In some cases, the question that was a problem revolved around drug use, he said.

"What we did say on several occasions is if you are willing to stop using marijuana — you cannot use marijuana and work for the Department of Public Safety — then we'll hire you on a probationary basis and understand we will test you a couple of times over the next year," Davis said.

At least one person then refused the transfer and at least one promised to give up smoking pot, he said. Again, he did not have exact numbers.

"We're trying to be reasonable here," Davis said. "The failure of a polygraph exam or deception on a polygraph exam in and of itself is not enough to keep a person from being transferred into the Department of Public Safety."

But lawyer David Lane was critical of polygraph tests, saying, "Law enforcement is in love with polygraphs, and I'm not sure why."

"I think liars can pass polygraphs and truth-tellers can fail polygraphs," he said. "That's why they're not admissible in court."

Four state agencies — the Port of Entry, the Division of Emergency Management, Homeland Security and the firefighting component of the state Forest Service — were moved from other operations under the Department of Public Safety. Most mergers were effective July 1.

"We were told, 'Hey, you know what, this merger is not going to affect you guys; it's going to be a smooth transition,' " Deeds said. "In April, we were told, 'Hey, before you arrive, you need to pass this polygraph and this background check.' I didn't have a problem for the most part."

Until, of course, he found out the results.

Deeds said his goal is to return to work as a Port of Entry officer, although the Department of Regulatory Affairs on Thursday informed him of a job possibility.

Lynn Bartels: 303-954-5327, lbartels@denverpost.com or twitter.com/lynn_bartelssai

All 9 Empire State shooting victims hit by police

All 9 Empire State shooting victims hit by police

by Tom Hays - Aug. 25, 2012 09:43 AM

Associated Press

NEW YORK -- New York authorities confirm that all nine bystanders caught in the crossfire of a shooting outside the city's iconic Empire State Building were wounded by two police officers who had never fired their weapons on duty.

Officer Craig Matthews fired seven times and Officer Robert Sinishtaj fired nine times at Jeffrey Johnson on a busy Friday morning after Johnson shot a former co-worker to death and then pointed his pistol at them.

Police had said nine bystanders likely were wounded by stray or ricocheting police bullets, and Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly confirmed that Saturday.

He says that based on ballistic tests and other evidence, "it appears that all nine of the victims were struck either by fragments or by bullets fired by police."

Get your 4th Amendment rights back!!!!

Source

TSA opens fast lane through airport security

Prescreening to let some breeze through security

by Emily Gersema - Aug. 24, 2012 11:14 PM

The Republic | azcentral.com

The Transportation Security Administration has launched a program at Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport that could allow thousands of frequent fliers to accelerate their trip through security.

The Pre-Check program, which begins Tuesday, will give approved "trusted travelers" access to an expedited line at the airport's Terminal 4, which serves US Airways passengers. These travelers can skip some of the usual tasks that slow screenings -- removing shoes, belts and jackets, and separating laptops and plastic bags filled with lip balm and liquids.

And although the TSA will begin the program at only one Sky Harbor checkpoint, officials hope to expand to checkpoints serving other airlines, possibly affecting hundreds of thousands of travelers.

Travel-advocacy groups have pushed for expedited security programs for years. And Sky Harbor will become the 23rd airport in the nation to implement Pre-Check.

However, some fliers question the fairness of such programs: Participants must first qualify as frequent fliers, and they have to pay a fee and undergo background checks.

Some critics have said the government is treating the average traveler as a "second-class citizen" because Pre-Check is available only to frequent fliers.

But TSA officials say it's not about saving travelers' time, it's about using their resources more effectively.

How it works

As Rochelle and Willard Mears, of Sun City West, waited to board a US Airways flight last week, they said they would like to avoid much of the aggravation associated with flying.

Willard Mears has had double knee replacements, so a trip through security can be tedious. "I go through the whole pat down," he said.

To qualify for Pre-Check, the Mears, like other travelers, would have to take several steps.

Either they must accrue enough miles on US Airways to earn frequent-flier membership, or they must obtain special federal background clearance through one of the U.S. Customs and Border Protection's three trusted traveler programs: Global Entry, NEXUS and SENTRI.

The programs charge fees -- from $50 to around $122 -- and applicants must pass an extensive background check, including an interview.

Once they've signed up, the frequent fliers' plane tickets will feature a special bar code that allows them to go through the expedited screening lane at their airlines' security checkpoints at participating airports.

Pre-Check participants also can bring their children 12 and younger through the faster screening lane. U.S. military members who carry a Common Access Card -- including those with the reserves and the National Guard -- also are cleared for Pre-Check.

TSA has no estimates on Pre-Check's reduced wait times. However, customs' studies show its trusted-traveler programs have reduced wait times for participants by an average of seven to 20 minutes.

TSA can remove Pre-Check status at any time, and the agency conducts recurrent background checks. If the government labels a passenger a terrorist, the TSA will add that person's name to the "no fly" list, and TSA will deny boarding to the person and he or she could face federal prosecution. If a passenger misbehaves or harasses agents, TSA also can add the person to a watch list, which requires more thorough security screening. Program expansion

TSA spokesman Nico Melendez said the agency is working to broaden the Pre-Check program to other airlines and airports.

So far, the agency has focused on airlines with frequent-flier programs because "we just have more information about those people. And the more information we have, the more confident we are that they don't pose a threat," Melendez said.

TSA so far has access to frequent fliers' information from five airlines: Alaska, American, Delta, United and US Airways. The agency reviews travelers' information and, if they pass the agency's background check, sends them an invitation to "opt in" to Pre-Check. Airlines have had to share passenger information with the federal government since 9/11.

In the case of Sky Harbor, the agency started with Terminal 4, Checkpoint A, which is the main gateway to US Airways flights. Generally, airlines rent a series of gates and a single checkpoint leads to those gates.

Last year, more than 40 million people flew in and out of Sky Harbor, and an estimated 8 million -- 20 percent -- were on US Airways flights, according to the federal Bureau of Transportation Statistics.

There is not a timeline yet for the program's full expansion at Sky Harbor. But the program has expanded quickly. The TSA started testing it at Boston Logan International Airport last year. Since then, an estimated 2 million travelers have obtained Pre-Check clearance. Security backlash

For years, the Washington, D.C.-based U.S. Travel Association urged the federal government to launch trusted-traveler programs after surveys showed people took trains and buses or drove long distances instead of flying -- just to avoid the hassle of TSA security checks.

Although the industry group applauded Pre-Check's expansion this year, the group's president and CEO, Roger Dow, said the federal government risks further deterring travelers from flying if it doesn't find a way to make its trusted-traveler programs accessible to more people.

"We must ensure Pre-Check is not just an enhancement to elite frequent-flier programs, focus on expanding enrollment in the program to average American travelers and allow greater cross-enrollment for Pre-Check passengers," Dow said in a statement earlier this year.

Melendez said TSA about a year ago decided to expand Pre-Check because it frees agents to focus on more thorough screenings of passengers whom it knows little about or whom it regards as potential security threats, such as those on its extensive Terror Watch List, a large list the agency thoroughly screens before allowing to board.

"This is about becoming more effective with our resources," Melendez said. "If we know more about certain passengers, we don't have to spend as much time on screening them, so we can focus more on passengers we don't know as much about."

The agency has faced criticism over concerns about privacy rights. The consumer protection group Electronic Privacy Information Center has argued, unsuccessfully, that the federal government should limit which government agencies and workers can access trusted-travelers' information, including fingerprints and Social Security numbers.

But for some, applying for federal clearance might be worth the hassle.

During his layover in Phoenix this week, Todd Hughes of Mechanicsville, Md., said he thought the program could be especially useful for parents with young children. When his wife flew with their young daughter, he remembered she would have to carry the child, plus baby gear, a stroller and her own carry-on items, through security.

"Anything that would reduce some of those steps would help," Hughes said.

TSA's Pre-Check program

The expedited-screening program is open to passengers who clear a federal background check and are frequent fliers with five airlines: Alaska, American, Delta, United and US Airways.

The program also is open to passengers who participate in these U.S. Customs and Border Protection trusted-traveler programs: Global Entry, NEXUS and SENTRI.

Global Entry is for all international and domestic travel; NEXUS is for U.S. and Canadian travelers who frequently go through ports on the U.S.-Canadian border; SENTRI is for U.S. citizens and Mexican nationals who frequently pass through ports on the U.S.-Mexico border. (Customs is working on merging the three into a single program.)

All three programs require an application fee. SENTRI costs $122.25. NEXUS is $50 to apply. Global Entry is $100.

Source: http://www.tsa.gov/what_we_do/escreening.shtm.

Arizona National Guard General fired!!!!

Brig. Gen. Michael Colangelo fired for unknown reasons

Brig. Gen. Michael Colangelo of the Arizona's Air National Guard has been fired for unknown reasons.

Source

State Air National Guard leader dismissed

by Dennis Wagner - Aug. 24, 2012 11:20 PM

The Republic | azcentral.com

The commander of Arizona's Air National Guard has been fired in the wake of an investigation by the Air Force Inspector General that was prompted by subordinate officers whom he had fired for alleged misconduct.

Brig. Gen. Michael Colangelo, who also served as assistant adjutant general, was terminated from his state position Aug. 14 and given a 31-day notice that his military services are no longer needed, said Maj. Gen. Hugo Salazar, the Arizona National Guard commander. While the investigation was prompted by the officers' complaints, Salazar said he fired Colangelo because of "a breakdown in trust, not the investigative findings."

Colangelo, a Guard member for half of his 34-year military career, declined comment. But state records regarding his termination include an e-mail exchange between Colangelo and Salazar, the Guard's top commanders. The exchange came while Colangelo was attempting to enlist help in preserving his job from Gov. Jan Brewer, who oversees the Arizona National Guard.

Brewer declined comment.

Salazar confirmed Friday that Colangelo was the subject of an investigation prompted by complaints of retaliation from former Air Guard commanders who had been fired.

After the Inspector General ruled that Colangelo had abused his authority, Salazar issued a written reprimand in July, and also a memorandum warning that Colangelo would be dismissed if charges against him were not overturned.

Colangelo, who contested the Inspector General findings, wrote a rebuttal letter challenging Salazar's disciplinary action. The Inspector General report is not likely to be released publicly for several months.

In an Aug. 10 e-mail to Salazar, Colangelo expressed a sense of betrayal: "Sir. Your deceit and very obvious dishonorable intentions toward me are leaving me no choice but to seek relief outside of the immediate chain of command." Colangelo complained that the reprimand and warning memo were "irrational and unfounded," and that Salazar knew the Inspector General findings were false.

Salazar responded within hours, telling Colangelo: "Your email below is beyond inappropriate; it is false and blatantly disrespectful ... Effective immediately I am suspending you from both of your positions in AZNG with an eye toward removal.

"I am saddened that this action has become necessary, particularly when considering your many years of service ... But your actions leave me no choice. I have lost confidence in your judgment."

The Arizona National Guard is a state agency that reports to the governor under the Department of Emergency and Military Affairs, based at the Papago military installation in Phoenix. It comprises about 5,500 personnel -- including 1,400 full-time soldiers and airmen -- who may be called to federal service under the Department of Defense. Besides serving in combat theaters, National Guard soldiers and airmen take part in border security, counter-narcotics operations, disaster response and other domestic operations.

The guard is divided into Air and Army branches under the leadership of Salazar, known as the adjutant general.

"It's about the relationship," Salazar said of the dismissal. "My action against him was just because I wanted to go in a different direction. He was not terminated for the I.G. complaints."

The National Guard did not immediately provide documentation sought under Arizona's public-records law, and Salazar declined comment on specifics of the Inspector General's findings. But he confirmed the probe was sought by Air Guard officers who had been fired by Colangelo, with Salazar's approval, for alleged misconduct within the past couple of years.

Those dismissed were: Brig. Gen. Gregory Stroud and Col. Randall Straka, both with the 162nd Fighter Wing; and Col. Gregg Davies and Lt. Col. Thomas "Buzz" Rempfer, both with the 214th Reconnaissance Group.

None of the former Air Guard officers could be reached for comment, and details of their dismissals were not available.

In a letter to Brewer, Colangelo's wife, Robin, said her husband was "relieved from his job for making the tough right choices" that included termination of subordinates for unethical behavior. Robin Colangelo's letter includes allegations challenging the integrity of Salazar and other officers. She implored Brewer to investigate.

Another letter to the governor came from Ulay Littleton, of Tucson, a brigadier general who retired in 2010 after 37 years with the Air National Guard. Littleton wrote that he was still a commander when the Air Guard scandal first erupted, and he knows the Inspector General report to be a "hatchet job."

"Additionally, I believe MG (Maj. Gen.) Salazar is using the report as a means to get rid of Gen. Colangelo since he views Gen. Colangelo as a threat to his continuing as the Arizona Adjutant General," Littleton concluded.

In an interview, Littleton described Colangelo as "one of the finest officers I've ever worked for," and said his termination is "a gross injustice."

As assistant adjutant general and Air Guard commander, Colangelo was in charge of the 162nd Fighter Wing at Tucson International Airport, which conducts international pilot training; the 161st Air Refueling Wing at Sky Harbor International Airport, which conducts KC-135 aerial refueling missions; the 107th Air Control Squadron at Luke Air Force Base, which trains weapons directors; and the 214th Reconnaissance Group at Davis-Monthan Air Force Base, where MQ-1 Predator drones are based.

Colangelo had previously commanded the state's Joint Counter Narco-Terrorism Task Force, which provides intelligence assistance to law enforcement, and helped establish the Predator program that operates unmanned surveillance aircraft.

Mom arrested for not reporting daughter sexual affair!!!!

Source

PV teacher in custody for sex with teen

by Chris Cole - Aug. 24, 2012 04:12 PM

The Arizona Republic-12 News Breaking News Team

A Paradise Valley High School teacher was arrested Thursday on suspicion of engaging in sexual conduct with a 17-year-old female student from the school, police said.

Jordan Doneskey, 26, was booked into jail on suspicion of five counts of sexual conduct with a minor, according to the Phoenix Police Department.

A Paradise Valley administrator reported the suspected relationship to Phoenix police after being made aware of it by a member of the school community, according to Marty Macurak, Paradise Valley School District's communications director.

Doneskey, who taught English and worked with the yearbook and newspaper, admitted he had sexual relations with the student and that he knew she was a minor, police said.

The student's 49-year-old mother was also taken into custody on suspicion of child abuse and failure to report, according to police. Authorities didn't release the mother's name to protect the identity of the victim.

The mother, who works as a social worker, admitted she was aware of the relationship and authorities believe that she had allowed the sexual conduct to take place at her house, police said.

Police said the girl was a willing participant in the sexual relationship, which had been taking place since April.

The Department of Public Safety immediately invalidated Doneskey's fingerprint clearance card upon his arrest, preventing him from returning to his classroom, Macurak said. He was also placed on paid leave, as required by state law.

There was no indication that Doneskey, who was hired in 2009, had relationships with any other students at Paradise Valley, Macurak said.

Allegations that LAPD officers resold weapons for profit probed

Source

Allegations that LAPD officers resold weapons for profit probed

August 25, 2012 | 10:15 am

A report released Friday by the Los Angeles Police Department's independent watchdog raised serious questions about the possible resale of handguns by officers.

The allegations, if true, could be a violation of federal firearm laws and city ethics regulations.

The LAPD is now investigating whether members of its elite SWAT unit took advantage of their assignments to purchase large numbers of specially made handguns and resell the weapons for steep profits.

The ongoing inquiry is the LAPD's second attempt to understand what happened with the handguns. Police officials opened the investigation only after Inspector General Alex Bustamante raised concerns that a previous attempt to look into the gun dealings had been badly "deficient," according to Bustamante's report.

Because the initial investigation was so lacking, little is known about the alleged gun sales. Bustamante's report, which will be presented to the L.A. Police Commission on Tuesday, was based on the initial inquiry, which did not answer basic questions about the allegations, including how many officers were involved, the number of guns sold and when the sales were carried out. The LAPD's current investigation is expected to be completed in about a month, Bustamante wrote in his report.

Suspicion about gun sales first arose in 2010, when the commanding officer of the LAPD's Metropolitan Division, which includes SWAT, ordered an inventory of the division's firearms, the report said. The officer responsible for conducting the count discovered that SWAT members had purchased between 51 and 324 pistols from gun manufacturer Kimber and were "possibly reselling them to third parties for large profits," according to the report.

If the officers had purchased the guns for personal use, there would probably have been no suspicions raised. However, the possible resale of hundreds of guns by a unit of only 60 officers was unusual.

Kimber sold the guns, which bore a special "LAPD SWAT" insignia, to members of the unit for about $600 each — a steep discount from their resale value of between $1,600 and $3,500, the report said. The unique SWAT branding was first struck several years earlier, when the department contracted with Kimber for a one-time purchase of 144 of the pistols.

The inventory also discovered that two companies not affiliated with the LAPD — Cinema Weaponry and Lucas Ranch Gun Sales — were involved in the transactions with Kimber. Lucas Ranch Gun Sales was charging fees "for facilitating the transfer of the pistols from Kimber to officers," according to the report.

Jim Manhire, who owns Lucas Ranch, said in an interview that the SWAT officers relied on him, as a registered gun dealer, to complete the state and federal registration process that must be done for all weapons. The .45-caliber guns, he said, were purchased by the officers directly from Kimber and shipped from the manufacturer to Manhire. After he had registered the weapons, the officers picked them up, Manhire said.

Manhire could not recall how many officers had him register guns and was unaware whether the officers then resold the weapons. He denied that he was paid to register the guns, saying that he only received reimbursement from the officers for registration fees charged by authorities.

Cinema Weaponry is owned by Michael Papac, according to the state's business registry. Papac's name does not appear on LAPD employee rosters. He did not return calls seeking comment.

The officer conducting the inventory identified several SWAT members whom he suspected of being involved in improper gun dealings, Bustamante's report said. He reported his findings to the division's commanding officer, who, in turn, relieved one officer of duty and notified the department's Internal Affairs office.

Neither the officer relieved of duty, the others suspected of being involved, nor the person who conducted the inventory were interviewed for the investigation, and no attempt was made to determine how many guns had been purchased from Kimber, Bustamante wrote. In the end, the department concluded that it had no policy governing such activity, and so closed its investigation, according to the inspector general report.

Regardless of whether the LAPD has a policy governing gun sales by officers, Bustamante noted that "the purchase of firearms with the intent to immediately transfer the weapon to a third party may violate city ethics regulations and federal firearm laws." The report did not specify which regulations and laws may have been violated.

Police officials declined to comment on the case, citing the ongoing investigation. Deputy Chief Mark Perez, head of the department's Internal Affairs Group, acknowledged that the initial investigation had been "hastily and not very well done," but could not explain why. The person looking into the matter was not available, he said.

-- Joel Rubin

DNA frees another man framed by Texas police for murder

Texan wrongly convicted of rape freed after 24 years in prison

By Molly Hennessy-Fiske

August 25, 2012, 6:00 a.m.

HOUSTON — In what’s becoming a familiar scenario in Texas, a man has been freed after spending years behind bars for a crime he did not commit.

David Lee Wiggins, 48, of Fort Worth was imprisoned in 1989 for rape, largely because the 14-year-old victim picked him out of photo and live lineups. His fingerprints did not match any at the crime scene. Still, he was sentenced to life in prison.

But this month DNA testing excluded Wiggins, and on Friday, State District Judge Louis Sturns in Fort Worth approved a motion overturning his conviction and freed him.

Before Wiggins is officially exonerated, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals must accept the judge's recommendation or the governor must grant a pardon.

“This was the beginning of the final chapter in his 24-year ordeal: He walked free today,” Wiggin’s attorney, Nina Morrison of the New York-based Innocence Project, told the Los Angeles Times. “He lost half of his life to this wrongful conviction. It’s a startling reminder of the toll it takes.”

Morrison, who attended the hearing, said Wiggins spoke briefly after the judge’s ruling. Wiggins said he was not bitter, she said, and did not blame the victim who mistakenly identified him as her rapist.

Wiggins plans to live with his brother in Texas, said Morrison, whose office has handled his case since 2007. His immediate plans included spending time with family and eating a hamburger.

After the hearing, Wiggins went out to lunch with about 10 former Texas prisoners who had been exonerated. Among them was Michael Morton, who was exonerated in the Austin area last October after serving 25 years for his wife’s 1986 murder. Morton drove to the hearing to stand in solidarity with Wiggins, Morrison said, “to shake his hand and tell him, ‘I’m here for you.’”

For lunch, Wiggins had a hamburger, fries and a Coke.

“He said it was fantastic,” Morrison added.

Morrison said the Tarrant County District Attorney’s Office worked with her from the start, agreeing to DNA testing and acknowledging Wiggins’ innocence.

“If current state-of-the art DNA testing had been available in 1989, there is no doubt Mr. Wiggins would have been acquitted,” Tarrant County Dist. Atty. Joe Shannon said in a statement, adding that his office would continue to cooperate with “legitimate requests” for post-conviction DNA testing.

“The job of this office is not just to convict, but to see that justice is done,” Shannon said.

Wiggins would be the second person to have a conviction overturned by DNA in Tarrant County since Texas legislators passed a law in 2001 allowing inmates to request post-conviction DNA testing. Next door in Dallas County, more than 30 people have had convictions overturned in that time, thanks in part to the Dallas district attorney's conviction integrity unit.

In Texas, 84 people have been exonerated since 1989, according to the National Registry of Exonerations created by the University of the Michigan Law School and the Center on Wrongful Convictions at Northwestern University School of Law.

After his conviction is formally reversed, Wiggins will be eligible for $80,000 a year in compensation and added benefits that the state provides to those wrongfully convicted.

She said Wiggins talked Friday about fellow inmates he left behind who insist they’re innocent but don’t have DNA evidence to help prove it. He plans to try to help them and other inmates pursuing claims like his, Morrison said.

“He knows in this case the witness made an honest but terrible mistake,” she said, “He’s choosing to look forward and help others.”

Lancaster's surveillance flights raise privacy fears

Lancaster's daily aerial surveillance flights raise privacy fears

August 25, 2012 | 9:02 am

Lancaster this week embarked on what experts say is a first-of-its-kind aerial surveillance over the city, using a small Cessna plane.

The plane, equipped with sophisticated video equipment, is set fly a loop above the city for up to 10 hours a day, beaming a live video feed of what's going on below to a Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department dispatch center.

The camera will inevitably pick up scenes of mundane day-to-day life. Officials said they planned to use the video only to track reports of crimes in progress, traffic collisions and other emergency situations.

About a few hours into its maiden flight Friday, the plane's video feed captured its first incident: a motorcycle rider who had crashed at 20th Street East and Avenue K. Using the video, deputies in the dispatch center were able to help paramedics assess the situation before they got to the scene. Later, the department got word that a group fight was brewing at Eastside High School. The plane moved into position and conducted surveillance above the campus. No fight occurred.

It has become common for law enforcement agencies to use aerial surveillance, including streaming video, during breaking crime situations. Some are even beginning to use drones for police work.

But Lancaster appears to be the first city where a camera will send video continuously to the ground, to be used as an integral part of daily policing.

For years, Lancaster officials have been exploring better ways to patrol the far-flung city. Mayor R. Rex Parris said he talked about various ideas, including drones, with aviation pioneer Dick Rutan and eventually settled on the concept the city is now putting into operation.

The city spent $1.3 million on the initial contract with Aero View, the Lancaster-based company that developed the program and will operate the planes. Beginning in a year, the city will pay about $90,000 a month for the service. Eventually, Parris said he hoped to add a second plane for greater coverage, and Aero View President Steve McCarter said the technology could be expanded to feed the video footage directly to deputies' patrol cars.

"This will allow us within five seconds of a call to get some eyes on location. If some robber is fleeing deputies, we get to learn where, thanks to this technology," Parris said. "In law enforcement, for a long time it has been known that it is a deterrent if a criminal believes there is a strong likelihood of apprehension."

When the plane is in the air, it will record every incident deputies respond to, Sheriff's Capt. Robert Jonsen said.

The plane's pilot, an Aero View employee, does not see the encrypted video feed. A watch deputy in the dispatch center guides the camera, and images can be viewed only with a special access code.

"We are very aware of privacy issues," Jonsen said, adding the videos will be stored for two years. "The protocol requires that the system be only used to monitor criminal activity."

Despite officials' assurances, the American Civil Liberties Union requested detailed records on the program last November, when the city approved the contract. Peter Bibring, senior staff attorney for the ACLU of Southern California, said the organization had reviewed sample footage, which allayed some of their fears, but not all.

"As far as we can tell, the system isn't capable of seeing in any greater detail than your average pilot or helicopter pilot," Bibring said.

Had the system been capable of facial recognition, it would have presented more serious apprehension, he said. But Bibring said the ACLU was still concerned about infrared sensors and the potential to monitor and store data on people who are not suspected of a crime.

-- Abby Sewell and Richard Winton

Will DNA testing free Doug Prade????

Source

Ohio inmate hopes DNA proves bite mark wrong

by Amanda Lee Myers - Aug. 25, 2012 11:31 AM

Associated Press

CINCINNATI -- A former Ohio police captain who has spent 14 years in prison, largely because of a bite mark found on his ex-wife's blood-soaked body, now has new DNA test results that his attorneys say prove his innocence.

If a judge agrees, Doug Prade could become the latest of more than a dozen prisoners across the country to be set free after comparisons between their teeth and bite marks found on victims turned out to be wrong.

An Akron judge, in a ruling that could come as early as October, could exonerate Prade, order a new trial or find that the DNA test isn't strong enough for either.

"'I told you I was innocent. Now there's proof,'" the 66-year-old Prade said after getting the test results back, according to his attorney, Carrie Wood with the Cincinnati-based Ohio Innocence Project.

Once considered cutting-edge science, bite-mark comparisons have been under fire for more than a decade. Across the country, at least 11 prisoners convicted of rape or murder based largely on bite mark-comparisons were exonerated -- eight of them with DNA evidence. At least five other men more were proved innocent as they sat in prison awaiting trials.

Some forensic dentists have renounced the practice altogether, while many say it's still a useful tool if applied properly.

In Prade's case, a new test has found that male DNA -- taken from around a bite mark on a lab coat that his ex-wife was wearing when she was killed -- is not his.

The test conducted for free by the private DNA Diagnostics Center in Fairfield, Ohio, wasn't widely available at the time of Prade's trial.

Prade said Thursday that he hopes the results are enough to free him, although he'd be happy with a new trial.

"For them to find what I had known all that time was no surprise to me," he told The Associated Press in a phone interview from a central Ohio prison. "I guess it was an epiphany to everyone else -- 'Hey, this guy was telling the truth.'"

While Prade's attorneys say the new test is proof that Prade is innocent, prosecutors are arguing that the male DNA could have gotten on the coat before or after Margo Prade was killed, although further testing on other parts of the lab coat didn't turn up any male DNA.

Both sides have good arguments, said Mitchell Holland, director of Penn State's forensic science college.

"That DNA source is not from the captain," he said. "What's not clear is whether that DNA was saliva deposited from the bite mark during the crime."

He said one way for the defense to strengthen its argument would be to get DNA profiles on as many detectives, forensic analysts and lawyers who may have handled the lab coat since the killing in an effort to exclude them as matches, too.

Margo Prade, a 41-year-old prominent Akron doctor, was found slumped in her minivan outside her office on Nov. 26, 1997. She had been shot six times and had a bite mark on the back of her arm that suggested she fought her attacker.

There were no witnesses and no fingerprints, and the murder weapon was never found.

Prade, a 30-year veteran of the Akron police department, was initially publicly exonerated. But, he was arrested three months after the murder, with officials citing forensic evidence that later turned out to be bite-mark analysis.

At Prade's trial, prosecutors hinged much of their case on the bite mark, which left an impression through Margo Prade's blouse and lab coat.

A forensic dentist testified for the prosecution that he was sure Prade was responsible for the mark, while a defense expert said that his teeth couldn't have left it. A third expert for the prosecution said there was no way to be certain that Prade made the mark but that it was consistent with his teeth.

Jurors found Prade guilty of aggravated murder after deliberating for less than six hours following the week-long trial, and Prade was sentenced to life in prison; he will not be eligible for parole until 2024.

Prade said that 14 years in prison, mostly amid the general population, has been "hell on Earth."

"I mean, it's one thing if someone is guilty of something to be here, but to be not guilty and here is even worse," he said.

Richard Souviron, a forensic dentist in Coral Gables, Fla., whose bite-mark analysis helped convict serial killer Ted Bundy in 1979, said he's troubled by Prade's case, considering the bite on Margo Prade was made through two layers of clothing.

He also said that responsible forensic dentists don't tell jurors that a suspect's teeth exactly match bite marks on a victim, adding that many bite marks can leave similar impressions.

"You cannot make a positive match between a bite mark and a suspect to the exclusion of everyone in the world. It can't be done," he said. "And if you go through two layers of clothing ... you're going to have much less detail."

In Bundy's case, Souviron compared bite marks, including three unique scrape marks, found on the body of Lisa Levy, a Florida State University student who had been beaten, strangled and sexually assaulted in a sorority house. Three of Bundy's chipped teeth matched three unique scrapes on the bite.

In other cases, forensic dentists have used a similar method of comparison, but have been wrong. Even with competing testimony that bite marks didn't match the people on trial, juries found them guilty.

"With a bite mark, you can literally take a tracing or a model (of teeth) and a jury can sit there and put them together and say, 'Yeah, I see,'" Souviron said. "It's very, very powerful and very scary if you're wrong."

Cops want to flush First Amendment to stop prostitution???

Source

ASU study: Backpage's ads mostly for prostitution

by JJ Hensley - Aug. 25, 2012 05:17 PM

The Republic | azcentral.com

Nearly 80 percent of the ads posted on the adult-services section of the classified website Backpage.com are for prostitutes, according to an Arizona State University research project that studied content posted on the site during a week in May.

The research project drew on the expertise of law-enforcement officers to identify prostitution ads based on certain commonly used words and phrases and to identify minors based on factors including the girls' development. The researchers compared ads for services offered in Phoenix and in Philadelphia between May 12 and May 20, offering the first detailed glimpse at content on the classified site that has spawned critics around the country who accuse the site's parent company, Village Voice Media, of Phoenix, of profiting off prostitution ads and exploiting women and young girls.

An attorney for Village Voice Media, an alternative-weekly conglomerate that includes the Phoenix New Times, questioned how the researchers determined what ads were for prostitution and the ages of girls and women advertised on the site.

The ads in question typically include photos of women in lingerie asking men to meet them at specific locations.

The study looked at more than 2,000 ads posted on the site in Phoenix and Philadelphia, because of their comparable size. The researchers said they found more than 900 advertisements offering sex or prostitution in Phoenix, out of 1,145 postings, and nearly 650 ads offering sex or prostitution, out of 903 ads posted in Philadelphia during the week of the study.

The researchers reported 88 girls to Phoenix police who they believed to be under the age of 18. Phoenix police said they rescued three of the girls though at least one has since been featured on the site.

Law-enforcement officers from around the country routinely monitor the site to gather information about the prostitutes who advertise there, along with their pimps and customers. But Phoenix police have declined to say the site's operators are complicit in illegal activity.

The ASU research reinforced the Phoenix vice squad's belief that the Valley is a hub for prostitution, whether the women and girls are full-time Arizona residents or operating on a circuit rotating among cities in the Southwest.

"It illustrates the scope of the problem here in Phoenix," said Lt. Jim Gallagher, who oversees a unit that attempts to treat prostitutes as trafficking victims while targeting the men and women who control them.

"It confirmed a lot of what we already knew," Gallagher said. "But what we knew, we didn't know enough of."

Dominique Roe-Sepowitz, the ASU professor in the School of Social Work who spearheaded the study, said she wants to expand the research to other cities in the hopes of better understanding the role of Internet advertising in prostitution and human trafficking.

Backpage has come under attack from critics around the country who have taken steps that include staging protests in Phoenix and New York, drafting legislation in Washington state to hold the company criminally liable for promoting commercial sex trafficking and getting attorneys general from 46 states, including Arizona, to sign a letter asking the company to ensure it enforces policies that prevent illegal activity on the site. Last month, a federal judge in Washington approved Backpage's request for an injunction to prevent the legislation from taking effect.

All that attention could be having a double-edged influence on Backpage: An online classified research service found that ads posted on the site decreased by more than 6 percent from June to July, but the number of unique visitors to the site increased 4.3 percent during the same time.

Liz McDougall, an attorney representing Village Voice Media on the issue, has said shutting down the site, as its critics have requested, would only drive the activity to off-shore Web services where U.S. law-enforcement agencies would have little or no authority to force operators to cooperate with investigations.

McDougall said her goal is to make the site a leader in developing adult-services advertising guidelines that can be implemented throughout the industry. The site has 80 people committed to reviewing ads and reporting suspected minors to law enforcement.

The ASU researchers, who received some training from Phoenix police on how to identify minors and what code words and acronyms might signal prostitution ads, said none of the minors they flagged were spotted by Backpage.

McDougall, who questioned the study's methodology, said in an e-mail that anyone with information on how to identify minors or other victims of trafficking or exploitation should not keep that knowledge to themselves.

"If an experienced Phoenix police vice/ lieutenant, or any other law-enforcement agent or person, knows of accurate methods to identify ads for illegal adult activity, including what specific language and acronyms in ads mean and especially how to identify persons under age 18 (minors), I would hope that he or she would share that information with Backpage .com and all other online service providers who monitor their services to help prevent illegal and exploitative activity," McDougall wrote.

San Francisco police chief Greg Suhr makes $321,577

Source

S.F. police chief highest-paid U.S. cop

Phillip Matier and Andrew Ross, Chronicle Columnists

Updated 10:22 p.m., Saturday, August 25, 2012

San Francisco isn't the nation's biggest city, and it's certainly not the most crime ridden. But that doesn't mean it can't have the country's highest-paid cop.

With a total pay of $321,577, San Francisco Police Chief Greg Suhr won top honors last year among the nation's police bosses. He also happened to be the highest-paid department head in San Francisco city government.

By comparison, Los Angles Police Chief Charlie Beck, whose city has a population roughly 10 times San Francisco's, makes $307,291. New York Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly brings home $205,180.

According to the city's payroll records, Suhr earned a base salary of $302,577 in fiscal 2011-12, but thanks partly to something called longevity pay - a sweetener for cops who have been on the force for 27 years - the chief saw his earnings boosted by $19,000.

Suhr says he's not surprised he's at the top of the pay heap, given that San Francisco has "one of the best-compensated police departments in the country, in one of the most expensive cities in the country."

Fire Chief Joanne Hayes-White came in second in the city salary sweepstakes at $310,458 - including $17,573 in similar pay premiums for education and training.

Jennifer Johnston, spokeswoman for the Human Resources agency, said the city has considered eliminating premium pay for higher-ups, but that without it, the bosses wouldn't be making much more than the rank-and-file.

In all, a record 401 San Francisco city workers made more than $200,000 in the past fiscal year, with overtime included.

The top earner was Assistant Fire Chief David Franklin, one of six deputies assigned to work 24-hour shifts in firehouses. He pulled down $333,490, including more than $140,000 in overtime and other pay.

As usual, the list of high earners is mainly made up of police, fire, Muni and public health employees.

One of the real eye-catchers is the Muni electronics mechanic who ranked fifth in city government in overall pay.

The mechanic, Khoa Trinh, who works on buses, light-rail vehicles and trolley cars, was paid a base salary of $106,036 - but he pulled down $163,856 in overtime and $23,478 in other extras, to boost his total earnings to $293,370.

Plenty of Muni brethren joined Trinh atop the money pile. Ten street supervisors and three mechanics earned more than $200,000 apiece last year, and all of them more than doubled their base salaries with overtime.

"It's frustrating as hell," said one Muni higher-up, who asked not to be named because of the sensitivity of the issue. "It's a big black box, and I don't know how to untangle it - and I'm on the inside."

Tough sell: Support for Gov. Jerry Brown's tax hikes is a lot softer than it appears, and the reason may be that his main selling point - that a no vote means a $5 billion cut to education - lacks the punch it once packed.

The most recent poll by Policy Analysis for California Education and the University of Southern California showed that 55 percent of voters surveyed supported Brown's call for a quarter-cent sales tax hike, plus an income-tax increase for individuals making more than $250,000 and couples topping $500,000.

However, when the 1,041 respondents were told the three arguments that tax opponents are likely to make - that the Legislature just "voted to spend billions on a high-speed rail to nowhere, raised salaries for their senior staff and just found millions of dollars in unspent funds" in the Parks Department - support dropped to 49 percent.

And here's the twist - education, which Brown portrays as the tax hike's main beneficiary, now comes in fifth on the list of voters' concerns - behind the economy, jobs, the state budget deficit and ending "wasteful government spending."

Strange bedfellow: Suspended San Francisco Sheriff Ross Mirkarimi has a new defender: conservative icon and family values crusader Phyllis Schlafly.

Mirkarimi's "marital melodrama ... shows the idiocy of domestic-violence laws and the extremism of the feminists whose ideology paints men as innate batterers and women as victims of the patriarchy," Schlafly writes in the right-leaning World Net Daily.

Schlafly says Mirkarimi has endured "six months of demeaning publicity and headlines."

"The accused has my sympathy," she writes, "even though he is a left-wing Democrat."

Schlafly also praises former San Francisco Mayor Art Agnos for standing up to the "feminist lobby" to defend Mirkarimi, calling him "one brave San Franciscan."

Incidentally, the Mirkarimi case is already starting to play out in the upcoming San Francisco supervisorial races. Last week, District Seven candidate F.X. Crowley shot off a letter to supporters, urging them to tell the supervisors to bounce the sheriff for good.

San Francisco Chronicle columnists Phillip Matier and Andrew Ross appear Sundays, Mondays and Wednesdays. Matier can be seen on the KPIX-TV morning and evening news. He can also be heard on KCBS radio Monday through Friday at 7:50 a.m. and 5:50 p.m. Got a tip? Call (415) 777-8815, or e-mail matierandross@sfchronicle.com.

Unneeded 1,000 bed Arizona prison contract will go to private firm

Source

Arizona prison contract will go to private firm

Corrections Department will award 1,000-bed deal to 1 of 5 contenders

by Craig Harris - Aug. 26, 2012 11:08 PM

The Republic | azcentral.com

The state Department of Corrections plans Friday to award a private prison contract for 1,000 medium-security beds for men, citing a lack of beds for violent offenders and a projected increase in the overall inmate population.

Five out-of-state companies are vying for the contract. The value of the deal has not been disclosed while the state reviews the bids, but it likely will be worth millions of dollars annually. Sites being considered are in Coolidge, Eloy, Florence, San Luis and Winslow.

The contract comes even though the state's overall prison population is expected to remain flat the next two years and increase only slightly thereafter. State records also show it's more costly for taxpayers to have private businesses run prisons.

According to state records, there currently are about 2,000 empty beds in Arizona's prison system, which houses 39,876 male and female inmates. Critics of the prison expansion point to those empty beds as a key reason why the state doesn't need to spend more money on beds.

State Corrections Director Charles Ryan acknowledged the empty beds but said the state has a shortage of permanent medium-security beds -- an 11-bed deficit as of Friday. Most of the empty beds are in minimum-security or women's facilities, and the populations cannot be mixed.

Ryan said the shortage will get worse by 2016, when the total prison population is projected to increase by about 600 more inmates, to 40,477 prisoners. Ryan said the increased projections are based on historical growth trends from the past five fiscal years. He added that the state doesn't foresee a significant decline in sex offenders or violent criminals, who would be housed in medium-security prisons.

"We need the medium (security) beds," Ryan said. "This is an issue of preparing and planning for the future."

The contract calls for up to 2,000 medium-security beds. The first 500 would come online in January 2014. The next 500 would be in place in January 2015. The Legislature has not determined when, or if, the remaining 1,000 beds would be added, but their decision would be based on increases in the medium-security population.

The state also plans to build a 500-bed maximum-security facility in Buckeye that's scheduled to open July 1, 2015. The cost for that facility is projected at $50 million. The Legislature allocated $20 million toward the new facility this budget year, which began July 1.

Corrections records also show that in fiscal 2011 there were 296 fewer prisoners than the previous year, and this past fiscal year that ended June 30, there were 304 fewer inmates for a total of 39,877.

Ryan attributed the overall decline to fewer parole revocations, fewer illegal immigrants being placed in state custody and an overall downturn in crime, but he still contends the additional beds are needed.

He said 735 of the empty beds are in women's facilities, where men can't be housed. There are another 1,127 empty beds at minimum-security prisons for men, but male inmates at medium-security sites can't be transferred there because the sites are not as secure, and there would be safety risks to other inmates, officers and the public. It would be cost-prohibitive, he said, to retrofit a minimum-security facility for more serious offenders.

"You can't mix and match," Ryan said. "You have to keep them separate."

Ryan said the 15,500-plus medium-security inmates are not allowed to work outside a prison's secured perimeter, and they typically are serving sentences that average 9.7 years. Just more than half of them have been sentenced for violent crimes, including assaults, sex offenses and robbery. The rest are serving time for drug offenses, drunken driving, forgery, theft and burglary, according to Corrections records. Business model criticized

Records show it's more expensive to have private companies operate prisons.

The most recent information available shows the average daily cost per inmate in a state-run medium-custody facility in 2010 was $48.42, while the average daily cost for an inmate in a similar private facility was $53.02. That translates into a 9.5 percent higher cost per inmate for a private prison.

If the new private 1,000-bed facility operates at just 90 percent capacity, the annual cost for taxpayers would be $17.4 million, based on 2010 figures. A state-run facility, under the same scenario, would cost taxpayers $15.9 million annually.

Ryan countered that Arizona saves up-front construction costs by having a private company build the facility. The coming contract also calls for the state to assume ownership of the facility in 20 years.

Rep. Cecil Ash, R-Mesa, disagrees with Ryan's conclusions.

"Private prisons are the wrong business model," Ash said. "They are in the business for profit. The problem is most legislators just don't pay attention to this issue. Inmates don't vote, and the public doesn't see the inmates. They are out of sight, out of mind."

Ash, who is running for a justice of the peace position and will not return to the 2013 Legislature, is one of the few Republicans who have publicly opposed adding private prison beds, saying they waste taxpayers' money. Other outspoken opponents include the American Civil Liberties Union, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and the American Friends Service Committee, a Quaker group and watchdog organization.

"For-profit prison corporations are not accountable to Arizona taxpayers," said Caroline Isaacs, American Friends Service Committee program director.

She also contends they are not subject to the same transparency, reporting or oversight requirements as government agencies, and she believes the for-profit prison industry is getting a contract because it has exercised its political muscle in Arizona by hiring a cadre of lobbyists and made campaign contributions to influential legislators.

At least one of the companies, Corrections Corporation of America, employs one of Gov. Jan Brewer's key advisers as a lobbyist, and former Arizona U.S. Sen. Dennis DeConcini serves on the company's board. Who's bidding

Arizona got into the private prison business in 1993, with a facility in Marana in southern Arizona.

Today, about 6,500 Arizona inmates or about 16 percent of the inmate population are in private prisons. The state houses roughly 33,000 inmates in 10 complexes across Arizona. The overall Corrections budget is about $1 billion.

Management & Training Corporation and the GEO Group Inc. currently have contracts at five prisons in Phoenix, Florence, Kingman and Marana. Both are bidding for the additional medium-security beds. The other bidders are Corrections Corporation of America, Emerald Correctional Management and LaSalle Corrections. All five are headquartered outside Arizona.

Following steady growth in the inmate population, the Department of Corrections in 2009 sought bids from private prison operators for an additional 5,000 beds in Arizona.

During the bidding process, three inmates escaped July 30, 2010, from Management & Training Corporation's private prison in Kingman. Two of the escapees are accused of murdering an Oklahoma couple who were vacationing in New Mexico.

An Arizona Department of Corrections review of the Kingman facility after the escape found numerous deficiencies with training and equipment, including an alarm system that issued false alarms so frequently that staff members began to ignore them.

The state suspended the bidding process after the escape and revised a bid for 5,000 beds. That bid was canceled and a new request for up to 2,000 beds was issued after the prison population forecast changed. The Legislature most recently authorized funding for 1,000 of the 2,000 beds.

Local debate

While the American Friends Service Committee and ACLU have adamantly opposed the addition of private prison beds, many residents in communities that may house the inmates have been very supportive, Ryan said.

That was the case earlier this month at a public hearing in Florence, known as Arizona's prison capital for its state-operated and private prisons.

Florence's mayor, town officials and the schools superintendent all voiced support for more inmate beds, after they were told by GEO Group that the company's proposal to build a new 1,000-bed prison would create 200 construction jobs, 260 jobs at the facility and a $12 million annual payroll. The company, however, would not say how much the company pays its guards.

"We are proud of our institutions, and proud to have a much-needed service to the state," Florence Mayor Tom Rankin said during the hearing. "It will create more jobs, and more jobs means more people will shop here."

Rankin also took a shot at critics of the proposed prison, saying they didn't live in his community and shouldn't try to derail a jobs creator.

But opponents, including Isaacs, countered that any new prison was a waste of money for all Arizona taxpayers.

A GEO executive had to correct himself during the hearing for saying the company had never had an escape at one of its facilities after an opponent pointed out that an escape had occurred in 2006 at a GEO facility in Florence. Last year, when The Republic was examining the bidders for new private prisons, the newspaper found that at least 27 escapes have been reported from GEO facilities over the previous seven years, including one in Texas that led to a murder.

Pablo Paez, a GEO spokesman, said the Florence escape occurred at a low-security DUI-offender facility shortly after the company took over from a prior operator. He added the other escapes predominantly occurred at low-security facilities, such as halfway houses where offenders are placed in the months nearing their release. During other questions from opponents, GEO officials at least twice attempted to take control of the meeting from Corrections Director Ryan by telling the critics that their allotted time to speak had ended, when it had not. Ryan allowed the critics to continue.

"It was evident that the representatives from the local community are very supportive of the proposed facility," Paez later said. "Unfortunately, during any public hearing, outside interest groups which are not related to the local community can at times overtake a meeting and bring up issues that are not related to the community's views on the proposed project. This can lead to spontaneous exchanges which unfortunately can take away from the central purpose of these public hearings, which should be for the local community to express its views on the proposed project."

GEO officials did not attempt to cut short comments from supporters of its proposal.

Reach the reporter at craig.harris@arizonarepublic.com or 602-444-8478.

Cops help witnesses pick the "correct" criminal in lineups???

Source

LAPD reluctant to change its handling of photo lineups

By Jack Leonard and Joel Rubin, Los Angeles Times

August 24, 2012, 8:13 p.m.

The veteran LAPD detectives showed the witness to a slaying an array of six mug shots — the suspect in the fourth slot.

The witness, an off-duty security guard, said the third photo resembled the killer. Det. John Zambos encouraged her to keep looking.

She indicated two more photos — the fourth and sixth.

"I kept seeing you go to four.... And you kept returning to four," Zambos said, according to a transcript reviewed by The Times. "Was [there] a reason why you kept comparing everybody to No. 4?"

The detectives then showed the witness a separate photo of the man in the fourth position. Eventually, she selected him as the killer.

The LAPD detectives' conduct, which emerged during a murder trial, is one of several cases across the country that has helped prompt a rethinking of the age-old methods of police interviews. As a result, a growing number of law enforcement agencies are abandoning the practice of allowing detectives who know the identity of a suspect to conduct photo lineups.

The change, proponents say, is needed to guard against influencing witnesses with subtle, unintentional comments and gestures — or more heavy-handed techniques.

Police in Denver and Boston have adopted the new lineup practices. Last month, Virginia recommended that its law enforcement agencies use the method, which is also required or recommended in New Jersey, Connecticut, North Carolina, Texas and other states.

David Angel, head of the Santa Clara County district attorney's conviction integrity unit, said the change can strengthen prosecutions. "If you can tell juries that you have done everything you can to minimize mistakes, it is only going to help your case," said Angel, whose department spearheaded similar reforms a decade ago.

But in most police agencies, including Los Angeles, case investigators continue to handle lineups. In California, police and prosecutors have opposed uniform guidelines on conducting eyewitness identifications, arguing that claims of police influence are exaggerated.

Facing questions from the city's Police Commission last year, Los Angeles Police Department Chief Charlie Beck said there was no guarantee that the new method was any better — and it might be worse.

Detectives assigned to a case, Beck said, have the best chance of building a rapport with their witnesses and recognizing if a fearful or hostile witness is holding back information.

"If you decide you want to put your thumb on the scale of justice, you can do it either way," Beck told The Times. "If you don't adhere to the rules, either process is flawed. It's more important to do them correctly than it is which process you use."

The push for reforms stems from a broader effort in law enforcement to improve what is an unreliable process under any circumstances.

False identifications are the leading reason for wrongful convictions, and studies show that eyewitnesses select the wrong person about a fifth of the time.

In a highly publicized case last year, Los Angeles police admitted they wrongly accused a man of beating a baseball fan outside Dodger Stadium after multiple witnesses identified him in lineups as the attacker.

Police photo lineups are often conducted behind closed doors without being recorded, but Zambos and his partner, Det. Leo Kerchenske, did record theirs.

The Times reviewed several slaying cases handled by Zambos and Kerchenske after the LAPD investigated them for misconduct involving a photo lineup.

Transcripts from several eyewitness interviews recorded by the detectives and other records show the investigators engaging in conduct that ranged from seemingly innocuous verbal cues to erasing a recording of a witness making an identification.

The Times asked several identification experts to review a transcript of the detectives' photo lineup with the security guard who had witnessed the slaying and selected the photograph in the fourth slot.

Roy Malpass, a recently retired psychology and criminal justice professor at the University of Texas at El Paso, described it as "the most amazing example of bias I've ever read."

Malpass criticized the detectives for steering the witness away from her initial choice and showing her a different photo of the suspect, a move that psychologists say singles out one person as the suspect and can distort a witness' memory.

Former LAPD Deputy Chief David Doan, who oversaw the department's detectives until his retirement in November, agreed the detectives erred in showing the second photo. "That's not acceptable," Doan said. "It's suggestive."

The identification helped lead prosecutors to file a murder charge against the suspect, Marlon Morales. Morales denied involvement in the killing, saying he was at a Pasadena church at the time.

During the 2007 trial, Morales' attorney attacked the detectives' handling of the photo lineup. "If I told you this is what happened and we didn't have a tape, you probably wouldn't believe me," Carol Ojo told jurors.

Jurors acquitted Morales. The witness, Alice Caver, however, insisted the detectives did not influence her. "In my heart, I truly believe it was him," she said in an interview with The Times.

Zambos and Kerchenske declined to comment for this report.

Psychologists who study eyewitness identifications say detectives can unintentionally influence witnesses with seemingly insignificant comments. Telling witnesses "take your time," for example, can suggest they are expected to make a choice, even if they are unsure.

At a murder trial this year, a defense attorney accused Kerchenske of trying to steer a witness after the witness said she didn't recognize anyone. "I know there's nobody on here," the witness told him.

"Well, let's go one at a time," the detective responded.

The witness asked whether there were other pictures, but Kerchenske kept her focused on the photos. She eventually selected the detective's suspect, Anthony Parker.

A jury deadlocked 8 to 4 in favor of acquitting Parker, but a second panel of jurors convicted him during a retrial this year. His attorney is seeking a new trial.

Researchers are divided on whether using case investigators or unconnected interviewers would lead to more accurate photo identifications. They add that very little research has been done to compare the two methods.

Some studies have concluded that independent interviewers showing photos one at a time, instead of simultaneously, reduces the chance of a false identification. Other researchers caution that such procedures cut the likelihood that a witness will make a pick at all, and so reduce the number of correct identifications.

A California commission that examined problems in the state's justice system recommended in 2006 that all law enforcement agencies adopt the new methods. One commissioner was then-LAPD Chief William J. Bratton, who approved a pilot program in the LAPD.

But Dist. Atty. Steve Cooley's office raised concerns, and the project was never launched. An aide to Cooley said the reforms would require more staff and could create problems in court if some of the county's police agencies adopted different lineup methods from others.

"We prosecute thousands of cases," said Devallis Rutledge, a special counsel to Cooley. "How many can you point to where it was shown that the police consciously or unconsciously influenced an eyewitness identification?"

One advantage of the reforms, proponents say, is that the new method keeps detectives from deliberately manipulating witnesses during lineups.

Zambos and Kerchenske came under scrutiny from LAPD supervisors for their conduct during an investigation into the fatal shooting of a suspected gang member in the city's Green Meadows neighborhood.

The detectives showed a photo lineup that included a possible suspect to the victim's friend, who they believed had seen the shooting but was reluctant to help. The 17-year-old pointed to the photo of an innocent man.

The detectives left the room. They were convinced the teenager had made the choice deliberately to avoid cooperating, according to police records. Kerchenske deleted a recording of the interview, and the pair returned to the interview room. This time, the witness selected the suspect.

Police are required to preserve all evidence and turn over anything that might suggest that a defendant is innocent. The detectives testified at a preliminary hearing months later but did not say the key witness initially identified another person.

In December 2007, nine months after the interview and with the trial approaching, Kerchenske admitted in an interview with a supervisor that he had erased the recording, saying that Zambos had told him to. In a hearing before trial, Superior Court Judge Eleanor J. Hunter described the detectives' conduct as "outrageous" and "totally unacceptable."

Jurors deadlocked on the murder charge, with all but one in favor of acquittal. The judge dismissed the case, and the LAPD launched an internal investigation into the detectives' conduct.

Kerchenske, a 25-year department veteran, retired soon afterward. Zambos, a 31-year veteran, was suspended for 15 days, according to a source who requested anonymity because police discipline matters are confidential.

Department officials said Zambos was also reassigned from homicide cases to an administrative position, where he remains.

jack.leonard@latimes.com

joel.rubin@latimes.com

Tunnels used in the "War on Drugs"

I could tell the cops how to stop these tunnels from being dug, but they won't listen to me.

Hell, any idiot can tell the cops how to stop these tunnels from being dug.

Simply re-legalize drugs and these tunnels will stop being dug the very next day.

The police are mostly trained on how to use physical force & violence

At the Chandler-Gilbert Community College wanna be cops have to take 139 hours of instruction on guns and fighting compared to a 44 hours of instruction on criminal law.

Yuma cops ordered to return marijuana they stole

Yuma deputies ordered to return seized pot

Howard Fischer Capitol Media Services

PHOENIX - Sheriff's deputies will have to deliver three-quarters of an ounce of marijuana to a California woman if a Yuma County court commissioner gets her way.

Lisa Bleich said it's not like she's ordering the deputies to become drug suppliers, pointing out that Valerie Okun had a valid medical marijuana card when the drugs were seized from her.

The commissioner said all she is requiring is that the property be returned to its rightful owner.

Bleich acknowledged that marijuana remains illegal under federal law. But she rejected county legal arguments that delivering the drugs to Okun would make the deputies guilty of illegal drug distribution under the federal Controlled Substances Act.

Now the case is before the state Court of Appeals. And what those judges rule about conflicts between Arizona's voter-approved medical marijuana law and the federal Controlled Substance Act could set precedent for a number of other suits based in the same issue.

Court records show Okun was stopped in early 2011 at a Border Patrol checkpoint along Interstate 8.

Attorney Michael Donovan said officers searched her vehicle after a dog alerted on it, and found marijuana and hashish.

Rather than charge her under federal laws, the officers wrote up what amounts to a citation for violating Arizona drug laws, turning the matter over to county officials.

Okun has a medical marijuana card issued in California. And the Arizona law honors valid cards from other states, so as a result, five months later, the case was dismissed.

Okun then filed for return of her property, with a judge ordering its release.

When Yuma County Sheriff Ralph Ogden refused, the judge ordered both sides to submit legal arguments to Bleich.

In what appears to be the first ruling in Arizona of its kind, Bleich rejected arguments by prosecutors that federal laws making possession and distribution of marijuana a crime override Arizona's 2010 voter-approved law.

"Congress did not intend to trample on the rights of the state to make their own laws pertaining to illegal drugs and medical marijuana use," the commissioner wrote earlier this year. "It further implies that state laws pertaining to medical marijuana use can coexist with federal law without conflict."

Bleich found that a police officer would be violating federal drug laws only "if he or she intended to act as a drug peddler rather than a law enforcement official."

And citing a ruling from a California appellate court, she said it "seems exceedingly unlikely" that federal prosecutors would ever arrest a police officer for simply complying with a court order to return a patient's medical marijuana.

But Yuma County Attorney Jon Smith said that "doesn't resolve the fact that people shouldn't be forced to do things that are otherwise illegal under our state and/or federal law."

In arguments to the appeals court, Deputy Yuma County Attorney Edward Feheley, citing federal law, wrote, "The sheriff is prohibited from delivering marijuana to a person he knows has no right to possess marijuana - even for medical purposes."

Feheley also argued the Arizona Medical Marijuana Act has no specific provision requiring or authorizing a court to return confiscated marijuana.

Donovan, arguing for return of the drugs, countered that the voter-approved law spells out that medical marijuana legally possessed "is not subject to seizure or forfeiture."

He warned the judges that if courts do not order the return of the marijuana, police could thwart the whole Arizona Medical Marijuana Act by simply taking the drugs from those who are otherwise entitled to possess them under the state law.'

DUI Checkpoint Saturday, Sept 1

DUI Checkpoint Saturday, Sept 1

August 16, 2012

BLYTHE, Calif – The Blythe Police Department and the California Highway Patrol will conduct a sobriety and driver's license checkpoint on Saturday, September 1 from 8:00 p.m. to 2:00 a.m. in the City of Blythe, where a significant number of DUI-related collisions and DUI arrests have occurred. Officers will screen drivers passing through the checkpoint for sobriety and for a valid driver's license. Drivers found to be under the influence of alcohol or other drugs will be arrested, and unlicensed drivers may be cited and have their cars towed.

"DUI arrests can be embarrassing and expensive, but they're easy to prevent," said Chief Steve Smith "If you're drinking, hand your keys over to a designated sober driver, or call a taxi or sober friend for a ride home. Don't risk an arrest – or worse, a serious injury or even death."

The purpose of the sobriety checkpoint is to reduce the number of traffic collisions related to intoxicated drivers and hit and run collisions. The checkpoint will serve as a reminder to use designated drivers and not drink and drive. Our message is simple: if we catch you drunk, you will be arrested.

It is the goal of the Blythe Police Department and the California Highway Patrol to continue providing public awareness on the dangers of drinking and driving, and the laws concerning driving without a driver’s license. Motorists approaching a checkpoint will observe traffic signs, information and police officers advising that a checkpoint is ahead. Once diverted into a lane, motorists will be delayed a moment while an officer explains the purpose of the checkpoint.

Funding for this checkpoint comes from the California Office of Traffic Safety through the Avoid the 30 Coalition. We can all help make our streets safer, please report Drunk Drivers – Call 911.

Last push to block Arizona prison deal

Source

Last push to block Arizona prison deal

Elected officials, educators, religious groups unite to urge Brewer to halt 1,000 new beds

by Craig Harris - Aug. 28, 2012 10:42 PM

The Republic | azcentral.com

In a last-ditch effort, private-prison opponents called on Gov. Jan Brewer on Tuesday to scuttle a contract that is expected to be awarded Friday for 1,000 medium-security beds for men.

A coalition of elected officials, educators and faith leaders sent an open letter to Brewer, saying the beds are costly and unnecessary. They also contend the five out-of-state companies bidding to run a new prison facility have histories of questionable management practices and safety problems.

"We know this is an uphill battle, but it's still well worth fighting," said Caroline Isaacs, program director for the American Friends Service Committee, a Quaker group and watchdog organization. "I know we are the underdog."

Brewer, who was at the Republican National Convention in Tampa, could not be reached for comment. But Matthew Benson, her spokesman, said sufficient correctional facilities are a critical component of public safety.

"Gov. Brewer supported these additional prison facilities because she recognizes the state faces a shortage of medium- and high-security beds in the near-term, a situation that would place the safety of both inmates and correctional staff in jeopardy," Benson wrote in an e-mail to The Arizona Republic.

At the end of this week, the Arizona Department of Corrections is slated to award the bid. The contract calls for up to 2,000 medium-security beds if the prison population increases. The first 500 beds would come online in 2014, while 500 more would be added the following year. There's no timetable for the potential 1,000 remaining beds. Sites being considered are in Coolidge, Eloy, Florence, San Luis and Winslow.

The contract comes even though the state's overall prison population is expected to remain flat the next two years and increase only slightly thereafter. State records also show it's more costly for taxpayers to have private businesses run prisons.

State Corrections Director Charles Ryan has acknowledged that the state has an overall surplus of roughly 2,000 beds. But he also has said that Arizona has a shortage of permanent medium-security beds and that the problem is expected to get worse in 2016.

The Department of Corrections on Tuesday declined to comment on the letter.

The letter sent to Brewer has more than 50 signatures, including current and former state legislators as well as a Pima County supervisor, Tucson's mayor and a few Tucson City Council members. Nearly all the officials are Democrats. Other private-prison opponents include the Arizona Civil Liberties Union, clergy and religious groups.

In addition to questioning the cost of new private-prison beds, the letter says state records show all five of Arizona's privately managed facilities had higher staff turnover and lower scores for guards on core competency tests compared with public-prison correctional officers.

"There is ample evidence to suggest that for-profit corporations are not accountable to the citizens and taxpayers of Arizona," the letter states. "As private companies, they are not subject to the same transparency requirements or checks and balances as the Department of Corrections, despite the fact that they are performing the same functions and are paid with taxpayer dollars."

Ex-inmate files $6.2 million claim against MCSO

Ex-inmate files $6.2 million claim against MCSO

Ex-inmate alleges jail officials left her with bag over head

by JJ Hensley - Aug. 28, 2012 10:16 PM

The Republic | azcentral.com

A woman who sat in a jail cell for more than 40 minutes with a garbage bag over her head before any deputy took action has filed a $6.2 million notice of claim against the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office and county administrators.

Angela Chavez-Metzger, 44, claims sheriff's detention officers were negligent, that they showed deliberate indifference to her medical needs and that sheriff's personnel intentionally subjected her to substandard treatment during her late-February jail stay because she is Hispanic.

Sheriff's Deputy Chief Jack MacIntyre said a review of the incident left sheriff's officials with the impression that Chavez-Metzger was using the garbage bag for warmth, and he criticized the decision of Chavez-Metzger's attorney to "play the race card" when the bag would have obscured her ethnicity. [If you ask me I would think that anybody that is putting a plastic bag over their head is attempting to commit suicide. Why didn't Sheriff Joe's goons try to stop her for that reason???]

"She's forgetting that her client was inside a trash bag and reported her name to be Metzger," MacIntyre said. "This is not a little plastic bag that fits snugly over the head, it's a 25- to 30-gallon plastic bag that, from everything we saw, she used to keep warm." [From what I know about physics those plastic garbage bags don't keep you warm. When we have a cold wave people are told NOT to use plastic bags to cover their plants because they do not retain heat]

Chavez-Metzger had been booked into the jail late in the evening of Feb. 28 on suspicion of assaulting her husband. She concedes she was under the influence of prescription pills and says she believes she told Phoenix police and firefighters that she was suicidal. The assault charge was dismissed last month.

The claim briefly mentions Chavez-Metzger's interaction with Phoenix police and notes that her medical conditions should have been known to sheriff's detention staff members because she told them about negative reactions to medication during prior stays in Maricopa County jails.

County administrators for years have been trying to purchase and install an electronic-health-records system that would automatically provide information about inmates and their medications to employees of Correctional Health Services, the taxpayer-funded agency responsible for providing health care in the jails.

Those efforts are part of the county's attempt to get out from under the court-ordered oversight that has been in place since U.S. District Judge Neil Wake issued a ruling in 2008 that found conditions in the jails fell short of constitutional standards that prohibit cruel and unusual punishment.

Chavez-Metzger's claim takes those efforts into account along with the U.S. Justice Department's findings that the Sheriff's Office engages in discrimination to draw a picture of an agency that consistently falls short of accepted standards in law enforcement. [On the other hand when it comes to abusing people and violating their Constitutional rights Sheriff Joe's goons get an A+]

Chavez-Metzger's attorney, Joy Bertrand, also represents the family of an inmate who died in the sheriff's custody earlier this year. A medical examiner's report into the cause and manner of Raymond Anthony Farinas' death is pending, but Bertrand said there is a pattern of mistreatment in Sheriff Joe Arpaio's jails that is not hard to discern.

"The first thing is that all my clients in these circumstances are Hispanic, and the next thing would be this indifference to the needs of these human beings in their custody," Bertrand said. "The jail is making a pretty consistent record that they treat their inmates worse than Joe treats his police dogs."

Chavez-Metzger was unresponsive when detention officers and medical personnel discovered and began to treat her, but a sheriff's administrator said she was breathing and had a pulse when she was taken to the hospital.

MacIntyre pointed out that Chavez-Metzger was released from the hospital after a short stay and had no injuries.

Bertrand said the damages to her client were evident enough to warrant a claim.

U.S. workers shot in Mexico may be CIA employees

Well at least when the CIA isn't smuggling cocaine or other drugs to finance the clandestine overthrow of governments our American rulers don't like.

Source

U.S. workers shot in Mexico may be CIA employees

By William Booth and Greg Miller, Published: August 28

TRES MARIAS, MEXICO — Mexican President Felipe Calderon apologized to the United States on Tuesday for an attack last week in which two U.S. government workers were wounded when Mexican federal police fired multiple rounds at their armored U.S. Embassy vehicle.

Speaking at a forum on Mexico’s security situation, Calderon turned to U.S. Ambassador E. Anthony Wayne and promised that the Mexican attorney general would get to the bottom of the case. Calderon also suggested that 12 federal police officers arrested Monday for alleged involvement in the shooting might have ties to criminal organizations.

Calderon’s comments coincided with new indications that the wounded U.S. officials were CIA employees. The agency link was first reported in the Mexican media. U.S. public records suggest that the name reportedly used by one of the shooting victims was a CIA cover identity associated with a post office box in Dunn Loring, Va. The agency declined to comment.

Calderon also did not address those reports Tuesday.

The CIA has expanded its presence in Mexico significantly in recent years as part of a broader U.S. effort to assist the Mexican government’s crackdown on drug cartels. Former senior CIA officials said the agency has shared intelligence with Mexico and helped its elite counter-narcotics teams root out corruption and identify officers with ties to drug lords.

But the former officials said the CIA has been frustrated by delays that can last months before Mexican authorities mount operations based on U.S.-provided intelligence and acknowledged that lingering mistrust makes the agency reluctant to share its most sensitive information even with vetted Mexican units.

Top Mexican officials have long denied or played down links between the CIA and their military.

The two U.S. employees and a Mexican navy captain serving as an interpreter were heading Friday to a navy training camp south of Mexico City when, the U.S. Embassy says, they were ambushed.

One of the wounded men was attached to the U.S. Embassy in Mexico City, and the other appeared to be in Mexico on temporary assignment, according to U.S. law enforcement officials and diplomats who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the case is under investigation.

Officials with the FBI, the Pentagon and the Drug Enforcement Administration have said that the men were not employees of their agencies. The State Department also has declined to comment on whether the men were agency employees.

But an examination of public records suggests that the name used by one of the men may be fictitious, with similarities to others created by the CIA to provide cover for its officers overseas.

Shortly after the shooting, major Mexican news organizations identified one of the U.S. officials as Stan D. Boss, a name associated with a post office box at a Dunn Loring mail facility tied to at least one previous CIA cover identity that was publicly exposed. Records indicate that Boss was issued a Social Security number in Texas in 2004. Beyond that, the records are largely blank, with not even a date of birth associated with the name.

That same Dunn Loring post office is linked to dozens of other names that have similarly scant records and to Social Security numbers issued around the same time. Among the previous holders of post office boxes at that location was an individual named Philip P. Quincannon, who apparently does not exist but who was listed as an officer with at least two aviation companies suspected of involvement in CIA rendition flights after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

Within hours of the attack Friday, Mexican media were publishing two names that they said belonged to the victims. Mexican media outlets first mentioned a CIA connection to the case Tuesday morning.

The Mexican news media reported, and U.S. law enforcement officials later confirmed, that the Americans came under attack by Mexican federal police officers who were dressed in civilian clothes and driving civilian vehicles.

According to the accounts, the Americans were driving the embassy armored car when they were confronted at a checkpoint by a carload of Mexican federal police officers. The Americans, threatened by what appeared to be civilians brandishing military weapons, quickly fled the scene.

Soon after, a total of four vehicles, all civilian and all containing Mexican federal police personnel, got into a high-speed chase, shooting at the fleeing Americans, according to the accounts.

The Americans sped down a winding, potholed mountain road, past pastures and small farms. An officer in the Mexican army on patrol in the hills said the area was not a hot spot for drug cartels but was beset by small-time thugs who kidnapped victims and stole their phones and credit cards. The victims were often left tied to trees.

The Americans were eventually surrounded and the federal police fired multiple rounds at their vehicle, close enough to see who was inside, according to an account in the newspaper La Jornada.

Some Mexican law enforcement officials have said that the confrontation was caused by confusion — that the federal police were in the area chasing kidnappers who had seized the head of the National Anthropology Museum.

A spokeswoman for the museum said it had no reports indicating that anyone from the institute had been kidnapped.

Miller reported from Washington. Julie Tate in Washington and Gabriela Martinez in Mexico City contributed to this report.

Bodyguard for Santa Clara County Supervisor George Shirakawa

Santa Clara County Supervisor George Shirakawa Jr., sheriff on the prowl for new bodyguard

By Tracy Seipel

tseipel@mercurynews.com

Posted: 08/28/2012 09:42:30 PM PDT

The bodyguard originally assigned to protect Santa Clara County Supervisor George Shirakawa Jr. has quietly returned to work as a county jailer after a lawsuit filed by his own union accused Sheriff Laurie Smith and the county of playing favorites and not properly posting the job.

Alex Flores, a longtime friend of Shirakawa’s, had served as the supervisor’s “Dignitary Security Officer’’ since February, but since July 23, he’s been working as a jail deputy, the sheriff’s office confirmed.

Smith said Flores was reassigned as a result of the lawsuit. She said she could not comment further, citing pending litigation. Nevertheless, Smith said her department has posted a job opening for a replacement to protect the board president from potential harm, though Shirakawa has said he has not received any direct threats. But this time, it will be a deputy sheriff and not someone from the jail, Smith said.

“We may put in a person who requires training, and we may put someone in who has training, but we have not selected a person,” Smith said.

Assigning a bodyguard for the board president — believed to be a first for the county — and the training required became an issue after a June 19 board agenda revealed that Shirakawa was trying to send Flores to a three-day bodyguard training course in Las Vegas for $895 at taxpayers’ expense.

When the news about Shirakawa’s agenda item surfaced in this newspaper on the day of the vote, the supervisor asked that the item be pulled from the agenda. He later said that Smith had alerted him the day before that she was uncomfortable the training was taking place in Las Vegas.

Smith at the time said her office would instead try to find an executive protection training course that would be closer to home and cost taxpayers less money.

Asked whether he still thinks he needs a bodyguard, Shirakawa said yes. This month, Deputy Jeremy Holborn has been filling in as needed.

“It’s not about me, it’s about the position,” Shirakawa said, referring to Smith’s offer to him and previous board presidents to participate in a yearlong pilot program to study personal security services. Supervisors Liz Kniss and Dave Cortese both turned down the protection. Supervisor Ken Yeager, who will be the board’s president next year, said he doesn’t plan to ask for a bodyguard, but Supervisor Mike Wasserman said he’ll determine whether it’s needed when his term for board president comes up later.

Yet Smith said it’s important to complete the pilot program this year.

“I am the expert where security needs to be, and I don’t think anybody can argue with my credentials about that,” Smith said.

Asked if she considered a bodyguard to be a waste of taxpayers’ money, Smith would only say that there will be a cost analysis to determine the program’s effectiveness once it’s completed.

But John Roeder, president of the Silicon Valley Taxpayers’ Association, which is suing the county over the validity of a proposed one-eighth-cent general sales tax hike on the Nov. 6 ballot, questioned how such a pilot program would be assessed.

“If we’ve had 100 years of no injuries to the board of supervisors, and we have no injuries this year, how do you judge whether it was a success or not?’’ Roeder asked.

The bodyguard assignment angered members of the Santa Clara County Correctional Peace Officers Association, of which Flores is a member. In a lawsuit filed April 13 against the county, Smith and Chief of Correction John Hirokawa, the union said all three illegally tried to circumvent the civil service system. The suit alleges that Smith and the county “secretly appointed” Flores to full-time responsibilities in Shirakawa’s office “without providing other employees any opportunity to apply for the new position.”

The lawsuit also challenged whether a jail guard could be moved to the security guard position without a change in job classification. And it accuses the county of assigning a correctional cadet to full-time jail duties, even though he had not completed correctional officer training approved by the California Board of Corrections.

“These violations are exactly what the civil service system is designed to prevent: politically motivated appointments of unqualified applicants,” says the 15-page lawsuit.

The lawsuit asked that both Flores and the cadet be reassigned.

Deputy County Counsel Cheryl Stevens confirmed Flores’ move back to the jail and said that the second allegation was erroneous because the cadet, at the time the suit was filed, was not a jail guard, but only “shadowing” another jail guard. He has since completed his training, Stevens said.

Lance Scimeca, the union’s president, declined to comment on the matter as did the union’s Sacramento-based attorney, Jeffrey Edwards.

Flores, who was hired by the county in April 2007 as a jail guard, has known Shirakawa since the supervisor coached him in football at Yerba Buena High School. The bodyguard position paid Flores less than the $95,000 he is paid at the jail and required him to receive some firearm training.

Contact Tracy Seipel at 408 275-0140.

New Times can sue Sheriff Joe Arpaio for false arrest

News execs can sue Arpaio for arrest, court rules

Aug. 29, 2012 12:10 PM

Associated Press

Two newspaper executives who were arrested by Sheriff Joe Arpaio's office after a series of critical articles can sue the man who calls himself America's toughest sheriff.

The 9th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals on Wednesday overturned a lower court ruling that Phoenix New Times co-owners Michael Lacey and Jim Larkin could not sue authorities for the 2007 arrest. The men were arrested after revealing that Arpaio's allies in the Maricopa County attorney's office obtained a grand jury subpoena to identify sources for articles about the sheriff. Arpaio and the prosecutors eventually backed off.

The court ruled the executives could sue Arpaio for false arrest and violations of their First and 14th Amendment rights, among other claims.

New Times is an alternative weekly that is part of Village Voice Media.

I am putting all the articles about the New Times lawsuit against Sheriff Joe Arpaio which includes the lawsuits of Michael Lacey & Jim Larkin against Sheriff Joe Arpaio into this URL. Of course all those lawsuits will also include articles about the New Times lawsuit against the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office which includes the lawsuits of Michael Lacey & Jim Larkin against the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office.

Nurse Claims Excessive Force by LAPD During Traffic Stop

Source

Nurse Claims Excessive Force by LAPD During Traffic Stop

KTLA News

9:03 a.m. PDT, August 29, 2012

PACOIMA, Calif. (KTLA) -- Two LAPD Foothill Division officers are under investigation following the beating of a woman that was captured on surveillance video.

The use-of-force incident occurred during a traffic stop on August 21 near a Del Taco in Tujunga.

The alleged victim has been identified as 34-year-old Michelle Jordan, of Sunland, who is the mother of a toddler and a registered nurse.

Police say Jordan was pulled over for a cell phone violation and got out of her car and became confrontational with the officers.

According to Jordan, she merely got out of her car, and the next thing she knew she was being slammed to the ground and handcuffed.

Then, as she was then escorted over to the police car, she was slammed to the ground a second time.

Jordan was booked for resisting arrest, and later released.

She sustained some serious injuries, shown in the photographs provided by her attorneys, who say they believe this was a clear case of excessive force.

"I think we've all seen the LAPD try to portray an image of a kinder, gentler Los Angeles Police Department, and when the cameras are on them, they stand up to that standard," said attorney Arthur Corona.

"Unfortunately, when they don't think that the camera are on them, you get what we have today -- an abuse of a person's civil rights for no apparent reason, unjustified use of force and a celebratory, congratulatory 'fist bump' after they've done their deed," Corona said.

One of the officers involved was a 22-year veteran of the force, while the other was a probationary officer.

"My initial review of the officers' statements and the recorded video cause me to have serious concerns about this use of force," LAPD Chief Charlie Beck said in a statement.

"We will investigate this thoroughly and hold our officers accountable for their actions," Beck said.

Law enforcement officials who viewed the footage described it as "very troubling" and said the officers' actions would be "difficult to explain."

The LAPD said the officers reported the incident to their supervisor, as required by department policy.

"Based on the statement of the arrestee and the contents of the video, a personal complaint was initiated," the LAPD saiid. "The two officers have been assigned to non-field duties pending the outcome of the investigation."

Source

LAPD commander removed in probe of rough arrest

Associated Press

LOS ANGELES (AP) — A Los Angeles Police Department commanding officer has been removed amid an internal investigation into a videotaped beating in which officers tackled a handcuffed registered nurse to the ground, police Chief Charlie Beck said Wednesday.

Beck said previously that he had "serious concerns" about the use of force against Michelle Jordan, 34, who was arrested in the Tujunga area on Aug. 21 after being stopped for talking on a cellphone while driving, police said.

Jordan got out of the car and cursed the two officers who stopped her, witnesses and Jordan's husband told KNBC-TV.

Fast-food restaurant surveillance video obtained by the TV station (bit.ly/NVptHP ) showed officers taking her to the ground. After she is handcuffed and walked to a police car, the 5-foot-4 woman is tackled a second time by an officer who lands on top of her.

"She made some unwise moves," her attorney, Sy Nazif, told the station. "But certainly nothing that warranted a physical assault from the LAPD."

Photos show scrapes on Jordan's face, shoulders and chest.

The officers involved in the incident have been removed from patrol duty until an LAPD investigation is complete. One is a 22-year veteran and the other is a probationary officer with 10 months on the force.

Beck said at a news conference Wednesday that Capt. Joseph Hitner of the department's Foothill Division was "severely deficient in his response," Beck said.

"Proper steps were not taken, including appropriate notifications and the removal of the involved officers from the field," Beck said. "Because of these issues, I have removed him from his command and initiated downgrade procedures. Every Los Angeles police officer, regardless of rank, will be held accountable for their actions." [Yea, sure. At best these crooked piggies will get a slap on the wrist, at worst they will be give a few days off WITH PAY, while internal affairs pretends to investigate the crime]

Secret Service Agent leaves gun in plane bathroom

Agent leaves gun in Romney plane bathroom

By David Jackson, USA TODAY

TAMPA -- Some embarrassment for the Secret Service on the campaign trail.

An agent accidentally left an unattended gun in a bathroom aboard Mitt Romney's charter plane, and a reporter found it.

The agent has been pulled from Romney's security detail.

The incident occurred Wednesday as Romney traveled from the Republican convention in Tampa to a speech in Indianapolis.

In a statement, the Secret Service said, "we take the care and custody of our equipment, especially firearms, very seriously. We will deal with this matter internally and in an appropriate manner."

Reports CBS News:

The weapon, presumably left behind in the bathroom by accident, was discovered by a CBS News/National Journal reporter, who alerted a flight attendant about the gun. A member of the Secret Service on board the plane was informed and retrieved the gun.

Romney has traveled with Secret Service protection since early February and has an armed detail assigned to him at all times. His wife, Ann, was just assigned her own detail -- albeit a smaller one -- last Friday.

Mexicans see a losing battle in the war on crooked police

Source

Mexicans see a losing battle in the war on crooked police

By Richard Fausset, Los Angeles Times

August 29, 2012, 8:00 p.m.

MEXICO CITY — In the midst of a violent drug war, President Felipe Calderon fired crooked cops by the hundreds, and hired new ones — rigorously vetted and college educated — by the thousands. Salaries were doubled, new standards imposed and officers were subjected to extensive background checks.

A trustworthy federal police force was to be one of the most important legacies of Calderon's six-year term. And yet, just months before he is to leave office in December, the president found himself apologizing "profoundly" this week for an incident in which federal police allegedly opened fire on an SUV with diplomatic plates, injuring two Americans.

A dozen federal police officers are being detained while the Mexican attorney general's office investigates the incident. Many of the details remain unclear, including what may have motivated officers to open fire on the vehicle, which was traveling through dangerous countryside south of Mexico City.

The CIA has declined to comment on reports in U.S. and Mexican media that the Americans were CIA agents. They were heading to a Mexican military installation where they were serving as trainers.

But since the incident, which occurred just two months after a shootout involving crooked federal officers that left three dead at the Mexico City airport, the denunciations of the police have been withering. For many here, whether the attackers turned out to be corrupt or just bumbling, Calderon's new and improved federal police force is just more of the same.

In the Mexico City newspaper Reforma, columnist Roberto Zamarripa accused the police of being "guardians of the refuges of criminal operators," despite a lack of evidence that they were linked to drug gangs. A cartoonist for the paper El Universal drew a federal policeman in front of the Americans' bullet-riddled SUV. "We thought they were common citizens," the cartoon cop explained.

In Chapultepec Park, a 19-year-old peanut vendor laughed when asked whether the force had changed for the better.

He laughed again when asked to give his name, as though anyone would be foolish enough to do so when the police were so crooked.

"Here, everything runs on money," he said. "The drug cartels have enough money to give to the federal police, and everybody else, to control everything they do."

Mexicans have long been wary of police at all levels. Officers are notorious not only for soliciting the little bribes known as mordidas, but for shaking down innocents, running kidnapping rings, and serving as security forces and death squads for the drug gangs. One 2010 poll found that only 8% of respondents felt strong confidence in the police.

Mexican officials know that re-establishing trust between citizens and police is one key to winning their war against the narco cartels. A forum Tuesday sponsored by the citizen group Causa en Comun, was titled "Joining Forces: Citizens and Police," and among those in attendance were Calderon and the U.S. ambassador, Anthony Wayne.

Calderon used the occasion to apologize for the shooting, "whether it was due to negligence, or lack of training, or lack of trustworthiness, or by complicity."

"These acts are not acceptable, and are being fully and rigorously investigated," he said.

Mexican news organizations identified one of the wounded Americans as Stan D. Boss. According to public records, that name is among dozens who share a post office box in Dunn Loring, Va., that apparently has been used for people with CIA aliases.

High-profile embarrassments to Mexico caused by the federal police may serve to further complicate the already-daunting task awaiting President-elect Enrique Peña Nieto, who has vowed to pursue the drug cartels using the same aggressive strategy as Calderon, relying on both the federal police and the military.

Like Calderon, the new president will be faced with the monumental task of fighting the drug war while trying to strengthen and reform the shaky institutions on its front lines. Peña Nieto has vowed to continue to the "professionalization" of the national police, and hopes to further expand its ranks, to 50,000 officers from 36,000.

At the forum this week, Calderon boasted of steps he had taken to clean up the police: When he took office, he said, there were no "confidence control" measures for police. Now, he said, there were 38 centers dedicated to law enforcement background checks.

He described police reform as a work in progress.

"Cutting down the tree of corruption will take many chops," he said. "Those great trees don't fall with one chop. You have to hack it again and again."

But recent events have raised doubt about whether Calderon's new tree will be any healthier.

A Ciudad Juarez businessman who accused federal police of trying to kidnap him and shake him down for cash was found stabbed to death in his home in April. Ten officers were arrested in September on suspicion of extortion and other crimes, and are in custody awaiting trial.

The airport shootout in June pitted officers against officers. One group was attempting to arrest another on suspicion of involvement with an international cocaine smuggling operation. The suspects shot and killed three of the responding officers. Police officials have been criticized for confronting dangerous suspects at the busy airport, and for arresting only one of the three suspects.

The latest attack occurred Friday when an armored SUV carrying the Americans and a Mexican navy officer were confronted by a vehicle on a dirt road near the highway that connects Mexico City with the popular tourist destination of Cuernavaca.

According to the Mexican navy, passengers in the intercepting vehicle showed their arms, and when the driver of the Americans' SUV tried to evade them, they opened fire. The SUV was eventually chased by four vehicles, and reportedly was hit by more than 30 bullets.

The 12 detained officers are suspected of the crime of "abuse of authority." But neither the Mexican nor the U.S. government has clarified whether the attack was an act of crooked police or brazen and bumbling ones. Families of the detained officers have said the police were investigating a kidnapping in the area.

Despite such incidents, Robert C. Bonner, a former administrator of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration and a former commissioner of Customs and Border Protection, said Calderon has made real progress in changing the culture of the federal police.

Incidents of corruption were practically inevitable, given the pervasiveness of the cartels and their cash. Most important, he said, will be whether Mexican officials carry through with punishment of officers found to be dirty.

"It's really important that the government take swift action against those who've gone to the dark side, if you will," said Bonner, now the senior principal of the Sentinel HS Group, a Vienna, Va.-based consulting firm. " And I see that happening in Mexico in a way you wouldn't see 10 or 15 years ago."

But observers like Carlos Puig say Mexicans remain unconvinced. In a column in the newspaper Milenio, Puig noted that Calderon's public safety secretary used to go to public meetings at the beginning of the president's term and ask: "How many of you here would like your kids to be police?"

Back then, few or none would raise their hands.

"I'm afraid that six years later, if the secretary were to ask the same question in front of a citizen audience," Puig wrote, " he'd receive the same answers as before."

richard.fausset@latimes.com

Cecilia Sanchez and Daniel Hernandez of The Times' Mexico City bureau contributed to this report.

DNA frees man who spent 17 years in prison for murder

Source

Murder charges being dismissed after 17 years

Staff report

11:09 a.m. CDT, August 30, 2012

After reviewing DNA tests, prosecutors say they are dismissing charges against a man who has been in prison since 1997 for a murder that occurred during a home invasion on the South Side.

Alprentiss Nash, 37, was sentenced to 80 years for the death of Lion Stroud. According to prosecutors, Nash was wearing a black ski mask when he broke into Stroud's home in 1995. The mask was found near the crime scene, they said.

Cook County prosecutors opposed Nash's request for DNA testing on the ski mask, but the Illinois Appellate Court later ordered it. Testing was done on skin cells found on the mask, and the genetic profile was matched to an inmate who recently was paroled from prison after serving time for a drug conviction.

Nash's attorney, Kathleen Zellner, requested additional testing and the state's attorney's office agreed.

In an interview at Menard Correctional Center earlier this year, Nash said he hoped the DNA results would lead to his release. "I'm tired of doing time," he said.

Chicagobreaking@tribune.com

2 years in prison for killing a stray cat????

Source

Transient gets prison for skinning, eating cat

Aug. 29, 2012 01:20 PM

Associated Press

A transient accused of skinning and eating a cat while camping inside a Phoenix warehouse and music venue has been sentenced to two years in prison.

Maricopa County prosecutors say 24-year-old Russell Christopher Hofstad also was sentenced Wednesday to four years' probation after his prison term.

Hofstad guilty last month to burglary and cruelty to animals.

The building's owners reported a burglary Jan. 18 after they opened the warehouse and heard blaring music.

Police found Hofstad inside with his face painted and the cat's tail and intestines around his neck.

Hofstad told police he killed the cat because he was hungry and planned to use its skeleton as party decorations.

Police say Hofstad also told them that he decided to camp in the building because he had attended events there.

I witnessed a Mesa cop attack a man at the light rail station

The man was just walking across the street and was in the middle of the street near the light rail train tracks when a cop pulled up with, got out of his car and then used some martial arts tactic that looked like a judo throw to toss the man to the ground.

The man who was attacked did absolutely nothing to provoked the attack.

Feds - No charges to be filed against Sheriff Joe & Andrew Thomas

When there is a slim chance that Obama could win the election in Arizona Emperor Obama is certainly not going to press charges against the most popular politician in Arizona, who is also the biggest criminal in Arizona.

Source

Feds shut down criminal investigation of Arpaio, Thomas; no charges to be filed

by Dennis Wagner, JJ Hensley and Yvonne Wingett Sanchez - Aug. 31, 2012 11:52 PM

The Republic | azcentral.com

Federal prosecutors closed an exhaustive four-year FBI criminal investigation and grand-jury probe targeting Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio, former County Attorney Andrew Thomas and their top deputies, saying there will be no indictments.

Ann Birmingham Scheel, acting on behalf of U.S. Attorney John Leonardo, announced the decision in a three-paragraph news release distributed at 5 p.m. Friday. Neither she nor anyone else from the office was available to comment.

However, in a letter to Maricopa County Attorney Bill Montgomery, Scheel listed the allegations that were investigated -- civil-rights violations, misuse of public money, perjury -- and said prosecution was declined because of a lack of evidence or an insurmountable burden of proof.

Arpaio, a Republican who is running for a sixth term in November, said he anticipated the outcome: "I never had any doubt. ... Once again, I send my appreciation to the federal government for their hard work in clearing my office.

"If I did something wrong, there would be indictments floating all over the place," Arpaio said.

Paul Penzone, Arpaio's Democratic challenger, said the outcome is hardly vindication, nor does it exonerate Arpaio for "lost dollars, failed investigations and at best questionable practices."

"This is not something that law enforcement should celebrate, it's something of great concern," said Penzone. "There are obvious failings in the Sheriff's Office. The fact that they did not rise to a level of criminal indictment does not lessen that they are failings."

Thomas, who resigned as county attorney and was later disbarred for ethical misconduct, issued a written statement saying, "The Justice Department acknowledged the obvious: A jury of citizens simply would not indict a prosecutor who had done his job. ... The real losers in the political witch hunt that just ended are the people of Arizona. Prosecutors no longer attempt to fight corruption or illegal immigration in Arizona because they fear being targeted and disbarred."

In her letter to Montgomery, Scheel said the "comprehensive investigation" failed to uncover sufficient evidence for criminal charges, which require a judge or jury to find defendants guilty beyond reasonable doubt.

She emphasized that her inquiry has no bearing on a racial-profiling case filed against the Sheriff's Office in May by the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division. A verdict in that case, which focuses on alleged discriminatory practices in county jails and in sweeps aimed at undocumented immigrants, would be based on the civil standard, a preponderance of evidence, rather than more rigorous "beyond a reasonable doubt" standard used in criminal cases.

Mitchell Rivard, a DOJ spokesman, echoed that point. "The announcement of the U.S. Attorney of the closure of the criminal case has nothing to do with the civil case that the department has brought," he said.

The federal investigation began in 2008 after former Phoenix Mayor Phil Gordon and other local officials expressed concerns about Arpaio abusing his power to the local FBI head. Nearly two years later, the probe expanded when, at the request of Maricopa County Supervisors, the federal agents were cross-deputized to investigate potential state crimes. Among the issues investigated and the prosecutorial conclusions:

Credit cards: County supervisors sought a probe of possible misuse of so-called P Cards used by members of the Sheriff's Office. Scheel said investigators found "no evidence or allegation of MCSO employees stealing county funds," although financial records indicated expenditures were not properly documented.

Jail funds: County supervisors reported evidence that the Sheriff's Office was using up to $84 million earmarked for jails to pay expenses and salaries not related to the detention program. Scheel said because there was no evidence that any sheriff's employee personally profited from the "misspending," prosecutors would not be able to prove criminal intent.

Perjury: Thomas and one of his attorneys, Lisa Aubuchon, were accused of committing perjury when they asked a sheriff's official to swear out a complaint accusing Superior Court Judge Gary Donahoe of hindrance, obstruction and bribery in an attempt to prevent him from holding a hearing tied to the appointment of special prosecutors to work county corruption cases. Though the state Bar disbarred Thomas and Aubuchon, Scheel said federal prosecutors would not be able to prove they knowingly lied in the court papers.

Civil-rights violations: Scheel concluded that it "is not enough to show that Judge Donahoe was subjected to conduct that was abusive or even unconstitutional" because the Justice Department also would have to show beyond reasonable doubt that Thomas and Aubuchon specifically intended to violate his rights.

Scheel said investigators also considered charges against Thomas and Aubuchon for depriving Donahoe of his profession or livelihood, but could not meet "the heavy burden of proof necessary to obtain a criminal conviction."

Moreover, Scheel suggested, civil court and the state Bar are appropriate venues to deal with Thomas' alleged abuse of power for political purposes. "The criminal process is not the proper vehicle to address the conduct that (was) brought to our attention."

Reaction to the decision was swift and furious.

A spokesman for the Arizona Republican Party, on behalf of chairman Tom Morrissey said, "It is good to see this witch hunt has come to an end. I find it bizarre when a man is hounded for doing his job by those who refuse to do theirs."

However Colorado attorney John Gleason, who conducted the ethics investigation of Thomas and Aubuchon for the state Bar, said he was disappointed in federal prosecutors.

"We believe that the work that we did and the testimony that was presented presents a strong case that crimes were committed," he said.

Aubuchon expressed relief that the probe was over: "I'm glad they understand what perjury is -- unlike the Bar witch hunt that ensued -- and that they realized that this was just disagreement about the charges."

Randy Parraz, head of Citizens for a Better Arizona, which launched a "Joe's Got to Go" campaign to defeat Arpaio in November, said he was disappointed in the outcome.

"People's lives have been damaged and hurt and violated by the sheriff, and it is unfortunate that they are going to walk away and not pursue any of these things," he said. "It sends the wrong message that they haven't done anything wrong, which serves him (Arpaio) well in an election year."

In addition to the still outstanding Justice Department civil-rights complaint, the Sheriff's Office faces a lawsuit filed by Manuel de Jesus Ortega Melendres, a Mexican tourist who was arrested and detained for nine hours while visiting the U.S. legally. Melendres' allegation of racial profiling became a class-action lawsuit covering every Latino driver stopped by sheriff's deputies in the past five years. Plaintiffs and defendants submitted closing arguments earlier this month, but U.S. District Judge Murray Snow has not yet reached a verdict.

Arpaio and Thomas also were defendants in 10 federal lawsuits filed by elected county supervisors, county administrators and retired judges, four of which are still pending.

The lawsuits stemmed from so-called government-corruption investigations in 2008 and 2009 by the sheriff and prosecutor, who had filed criminal cases and a federal racketeering lawsuit against the officials. Plaintiffs claim they were wronged by those investigations and charges.

Five plaintiffs obtained settlements ranging from $75,000 and $500,000 each.

A $975,000 settlement for county Supervisor Mary Rose Wilcox remains in dispute and has not yet been paid. If the court approves her settlement amount, the final payment would be well over $1 million with attorney's fees and interest.

Lawsuits filed by Donahoe, Supervisor Don Stapley, Deputy County Manager Sandi Wilson and businessman Conley Wolfswinkel remain unresolved.

As of April, Maricopa County had spent at least $3.2 million in litigation costs and settlements relating to these federal lawsuits, according to a Republic analysis of county spending.

Wilcox expressed shock at the U.S. attorney's decision, stammering for words. "I can't believe it. I can't imagine why they would do that, when there's so much evidence there, particularly from the Thomas case," she said. "I just am floored."

Retired Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Barbara Mundell said that a 2009 civil racketeering suit brought against her by Arpaio and Thomas was meant to "intimidate, harass, discredit and humiliate." Mundell, who settled her counter-lawsuit for $500,000 earlier this year, declined comment on the U.S. attorney's decision.

Former Maricopa County Attorney Rick Romley, who came out of retirement briefly to replace Thomas, worked with the U.S. Attorney's Office on the case, providing them records and access to key witnesses.

Romley said he was "truly puzzled" by the decision not to prosecute. "To say there was insufficient evidence, with the amount of information that we sent their way, sends a horrible message."

Susan Schuerman, executive assistant to Maricopa County Supervisor Don Stapley, suggested the decision is an injustice to all who see themselves as victims of an abuse of power by the sheriff.

"Having lived through this and witnessed all of these outrageous behaviors ... I'm shocked that no charges would be brought," she said. "It's all politics. I think this is bigger than they are (the Justice Department). I think the Justice Department was inept in their handling of this, and I have almost no faith left."

Reporters Michael Kiefer and Michelle Ye Hee Lee contributed to this story.

Unneeded Arizona private prison contract awarded to CCA, of Nashville

Source

Arizona private prison contract awarded to Tenn. firm

by Craig Harris - Aug. 31, 2012 10:12 PM

The Republic | azcentral.com

The state Department of Corrections on Friday evening awarded a multimillion-dollar private-prison contract to Corrections Corporation of America, which has employed lobbyists close to Gov Jan. Brewer in its effort to win the bid.

CCA, of Nashville, will operate a 1,000-bed medium-security private prison in Eloy, with the option to run another 1,000 beds if the inmate population for serious offenders increases.

CCA, a publicly held company that reported $162.5million in profits last year, was one of five bidders for the contract. The firm is politically connected to Brewer, who has pushed for the prison expansion.

Until mid-July, CCA employed Chuck Coughlin, an influential lobbyist who is a close friend and an adviser to Brewer. And, state lobbying records show CCA also employs Policy Development Group, a lobbying firm that includes Paul Senseman, Brewer's former spokesman.

"If you place two of your lobbyists at the right and left hand of the governor of the state and she has the final say and oversight of the Department of Corrections, I would say that's a pretty smart business strategy," said Caroline Isaacs of the American Friends Service Committee, a Quaker group and opponent of Arizona's private-prison expansion.

Steve Owen, a CCA spokesman, said the company won the bid through a rigorous procurement process, and he credited the support of Eloy and others in Pinal County for helping CCA win.

"A lot of companies bid for this contract. We were selected on the merits of our proposal," Owen said. "CCA's proposal provides Arizona an existing prison that is staffed by experienced corrections professionals, provides established rehabilitation programs, and meets and exceeds industry standards for safety and security."

Bill Lamoreaux, a corrections spokesman, said lobbying firms had no influence on the decision-making process.

"The award was based on the evaluation of the proposals from the prospective vendors and was not influenced by lobbyists and/or consultants from any of the submitting firms. The award decision was the responsibility and decision of the Department of Corrections," Lamoreaux said.

Attempts to reach Brewer's office, Coughlin and Senseman were unsuccessful after the Department of Corrections announced just before 6 p.m. that that CCA had won the bid.

The state granted the contract even though Corrections records show that it's cheaper for taxpayers to have the state run a prison. The move comes as the state's overall prison population has declined the past two years, is expected to remain flat the next two years and then increase only slightly thereafter.

The contract calls for CCA to be paid a per diem rate of $65.43 per bed. The most recent information available shows the average daily cost per inmate in a state-run medium-custody facility in 2010 was $48.42. The award to CCA is 35percent more than what it cost the state to house and monitor inmates two years ago.

Corrections Director Charles Ryan has justified the extra cost for a private-prison operator because he said the state is not laying out additional cash to build a new prison, and the private firm needs to recover its cost for a facility.

However, CCA is not building a new prison in Eloy. Instead, it's using an existing prison, according to Owen.

The contract calls for 500 beds to come online in January 2014. The next 500 would be in place in January 2015. The Legislature has not determined when, or if, the remaining 1,000 beds would be added, but the decision would be based on increases in the medium-security population.

If CCA operates the Eloy facility at 90percent of capacity for the 1,000 beds, it would make nearly $21.5million annually.

The company houses more than 80,000 inmates in more than 60 facilities, including six in Arizona. CCA's Arizona facilities house inmates from other states. CCA board members include former U.S. Sen. Dennis DeConcini, D-Ariz., and Anne Mariucci, an Arizona Board of Regents member.

State corrections records, as of Friday, show there are 2,002 empty beds in Arizona's prison system, which houses 39,843 male and female inmates in state-operated and private prisons.

The records show that 1,153 of the empty beds are in minimum-security facilities and 724 others are in women's prisons. There's a shortage of 31 medium-security prison beds.

Ryan has said despite the overall surplus of beds, the state cannot place medium-security inmates in minimum-security facilities because of safety concerns. Also, men cannot be housed in female prisons.

A group of elected officials, most of whom are Democrats, along with clergy members and representatives of civil-rights groups, this week asked Brewer to intervene and stop the contract. The governor, who supported the additional beds, declined.

"The bottom line is we need to protect safety while protecting taxpayer dollars, and expansion of private prisons does neither," said state Rep. Chad Campbell, D-Phoenix.

Show Low Fire Department Chief is a big time embezzler???

Show Low Fire Department investigated amid missing funds

by Dennis Wagner - Aug. 31, 2012 10:04 PM

The Republic | azcentral.com

Show Low police are investigating years of suspected embezzlement from the town's fire department that was uncovered just as longtime Chief Ben Owens retired with honors.

Sgt. Justin Hart, investigations supervisor, said detectives are seeking help from the state auditor as they go through thousands of pages of financial documents, trying to determine how much money is missing and where it went.

He described the loss as "significant."

Dennis Koenig, chairman of the Show Low Fire District, said, "I don't know what the amount is, but I can use the term 'substantial.' "

Owens could not be reached for comment. He twice served as president of the Arizona Fire Chiefs Association and in July received the organization's Lifetime Achievement Award.

Koenig said discrepancies were discovered in June, weeks before Owens was to leave the department after nearly two decades of service. As an investigation began, Koenig said, Owens canceled a retirement party that was to include state and federal officials.

Koenig said the chief's daughter, Talie Cluff, who served as the fire department's manager for more than a dozen years, resigned late last month. Her fiance, Chris Jessop, who already had been appointed as the department's new chief, also resigned after being given a 30-day notice of discipline or termination.

Neither Cluff nor Jessop could be reached for comment.

Hart said no arrests have been made and the case may take weeks to unravel.

Koenig, who has been on the district board 23 years, said he knows Chief Owens well and is disheartened by the scandal. "He was very well liked, very well respected," Koenig added. "I still, in my heart, want to believe that Ben didn't know."

Gary Hatch, president of the state Fire Chiefs Association, said Owens received the lifetime achievement award one day before news broke that funds were missing. "It came as a shock to all of us," added Hatch, who is chief of the Hellsgate Fire Department near Payson.

The Show Low Fire Department is run by an elected board and has 40 employees, with an annual budget of $4 million. It serves about 15,000 people in and around Show Low. Koenig said the board has been forced to make spending cuts, but has not resorted to layoffs, service reductions or an increased tariff from property taxes.

Koenig said it appears funds may have been misdirected over a long period of time. "I'm not sure we'll ever know how long," he added. "We have not recovered any money at this point, but we are in the process. We do have a pretty good idea where it went."

In the meantime, Koenig said the fire district's accounting practices and nepotism policies are being revised.

NYC wants to make ice picks illegal????

Source

The Ice Pick Seems Antiquated, but It Still Shows Up on the Police Blotter

By WENDY RUDERMAN

Published: August 31, 2012

The young man staggered down a city street as blood flowed from a puncture wound. The weapon used in the steely attack — an ice pick — was sticking out of his lower back.

A common household tool that doubled as a lethal weapon for the members of Murder Incorporated can still be found in stores. It is perfectly legal to buy one.

The scene was reminiscent of an era in the 1930s and ’40s when members of a notorious Brooklyn murder syndicate left a trail of bodies riddled with ice-pick holes. This attack, however, was set in modern-day New York City, specifically, on Aug. 21, at 4:20 p.m. in the Norwood section of the Bronx.

While guns top the list of weapons used in violent assaults, every so often, a crime is committed with a weapon that is suggestive of a different era and seems mystifyingly out of place in the New York City of today.

One such weapon is the ice pick — often associated with the 1940 murder of the Russian Marxist revolutionary Leon Trotsky: He was killed with an ice pick’s cousin, an ice ax, while he was in exile in Mexico, by an assassin who, acting on the orders of Joseph Stalin, crept up behind Trotsky and slammed the ice ax into his skull.

“There is no prohibition right now against carrying an ice pick in New York City,” said City Councilman Peter F. Vallone Jr., chairman of the Public Safety Committee, “which is interesting because I don’t know of any legitimate use for an ice pick.”

“I think the ice pick went the way of the milkman,” he added.

Not so. Plenty of hardware stores around the city still sell ice picks.

At NHS Hardware on Bainbridge Avenue in the Bronx, a worker, Jose Santana, strode toward the back of the store and grabbed a $3.89 model, whose wrapper said that it was of “professional quality” and “high carbon steel,” from a display of ice picks hanging from a peg.

“There are some weird people looking for this,” Mr. Santana said with a hint of a smile. “It’s weird, no?”

The demand is greater than the store chooses to meet: because the store has a policy restricting the sale of ice picks to anyone under the age of 21, it has sold only two in the past six months or so.

“Some guy might buy this for torturing people,” another worker, Victor Reynoso said. “Sometimes they come to buy, but we don’t sell. If you are going to buy this, you have to show me ID.”

There was a time when the ice pick was an essential household tool. At the turn of the 20th century, Hudson River ice-harvesting was a vibrant industry and scores of icemen sold big blocks of ice, packed in sawdust and hay, from horse-drawn wagons.

Back then, ice picks were certainly used as makeshift weapons too, said Kathleen Hulser, an adjunct professor of public history and museum studies at the Eugene Lang College, New School.

“The icemen would deliver this large solid chunk of ice and you’d then use an ice pick to stab the thing and get some ice off,” Professor Hulser said.

“So every house had an ice pick,” he added, “and you know the way it is, somewhere in the city, tempers fray and the ice pick is close at hand when people are losing it.”

In the late 1920s and early 1930s, the ice-harvesting industry evaporated, replaced by “a mechanical household machine,” as the refrigerator was referred to in a 1927 article in The New York Times.

Just when it seemed the ice pick served no purpose, a Brooklyn organized-crime syndicate, known as Murder Incorporated, found a deliberately sinister use for the otherwise antiquated tool. Historians estimate that the gangster ring carried out 400 to 1,000 contract killings. In more than a few cases, the victim met with his death at the end of an ice pick.

According to newspaper accounts, two young Brooklyn “underworld characters” were found dead in a vacant lot in New Jersey in 1932. Their bodies, each stabbed at least 20 times with an ice pick, were stuffed into sewn sacks. One victim had only one cent in his pocket.

In 1944, a jury found Jacob Drucker guilty of the murder of Walter Sage, a Brooklyn moneylender whose body was found “riddled with ice-pick holes” and strapped to a slot machine frame.

Let me put it to you this way,” said a former New York City police detective. “An ice pick stabbed through the temple and through the brains was not uncommon in homicides.”

Richard Kuklinski, a convicted killer and self-described hit man, said he had used ice picks and chain saws as weapons.

Back then, mobsters used ice picks not only because the tool was easy to get and did the job, with a needlelike shaft that, unlike a knife, could glide around bones and puncture organs, but also because an ice pick instilled fear. It was employed to send a message, said the detective, Thomas D. Nerney, 72, who joined the New York Police Department in 1966 and worked in virtually every homicide squad in the city before retiring in 2002.

“Murder is not only to take somebody’s life away, but to terrorize,” Mr. Nerney said. “The word goes out: ‘Hey, do you want to wind up in the Hudson River wearing a concrete overcoat? Do you want to wind up in a landfill somewhere, stabbed with an ice pick?’ That was the message that went out to the people who didn’t comply with the rules of the Mafia.”

In the decades after Murder Incorporated, the city’s Sicilian crime families, like the Lucheses and Gambinos, took hold, gaining power and notoriety from the 1950s through the ’80s.

Richard Kuklinski — known as the “Iceman” because he froze his victims’ bodies to hamper the determination of the time of death — claimed he had killed more than 200 people as a hit man for Newark’s DeCavalcante crime family and New York City’s mob families.

He bragged about killing people with ice picks and chain saws, among other devices.

The ice pick never completely disappeared as an implement of crime, but it seems to have rebounded as one recently.

Late last year, a Bronx man, John Martinez, was dubbed the Ice-Pick Bandit by prosecutors and the news media after being caught and convicted of a series of robberies and burglaries. On separate occasions, Mr. Martinez brandished an ice pick and terrorized six women, stealing cash, jewelry and cellphones. In one case, Mr. Martinez threatened to stab a woman’s child if she did not hand over more cash.

The recent attack in the Bronx unfolded when an unidentified man, apparently lying in wait inside a parked car, ambushed two young men, ages 19 and 20, on the corner of East 208th Street and Perry Avenue. A witness described seeing one victim with the ice pick jutting out of his back.

The attacks were not fatal, though one victim was seriously injured. A police spokesman said the motive remained unknown and no arrests had been made.

Under the city’s consumer-protection and public-safety laws, it is illegal to sell a box cutter to anyone under 21. Retailers who break the law face a maximum $500 fine for each violation.

When asked whether the law also applied to ice picks, Mr. Vallone said it did not — and then got to thinking: Why not? The question prompted him to draw up a bill that would amend the law to include a ban on the sale of ice picks to anyone under 21. He said his committee would probably hold a public hearing on the proposal in the next several months.

“I would entertain expanding it further, banning all public possession, once we learn, during the hearing process, whether there are any legitimate uses in this day and age for an ice pick,” he said in a phone interview on Wednesday.

Mann Rosa, 32, who lives on Perry Avenue about a block from the scene of the recent attack, said ice picks were back in vogue among street gangs all across the city.

“The ice pick, from what I know, is the new thing,” Mr. Rosa said, noting how easy it was to buy and conceal. “It’s definitely the new wave.”

Toward the end of the conversation, almost as if he had an afterthought, Mr. Rosa said he had been stabbed repeatedly with an ice pick about two years ago during a street fight. He rolled up the sleeve of his T-shirt to reveal two dime-size wounds, not unlike scars from a smallpox vaccination, on his shoulder and upper arm.

“I was stabbed once in the chest, once in the back and twice in the arm,” Mr. Rosa said; it took 12 stitches to close the wounds. Asked if the police ever caught the perpetrator, Mr. Rosa laughed and shook his head. “We got this thing called street justice. We don’t go to the cops over something like that.”

Man can't get custody of son because FBI says ICP fans are criminals

Source

Arizona Juggalo Shawn Wolf Fights for Custody of His Son

By Anthony Sandoval Mon., Aug. 27 2012 at 8:30 AM

Shawn Wolf is a Juggalo -- one of countless fanatics of rap outfit Insane Clown Posse. But outside of his punk appearance, there isn't that much that's unusual about the 31-year-old. Sure, he sports a three-inch goatee and his hair is buzzed into a slicked-back mohawk, but he's a remarkably normal guy: He's currently enrolled in online classes at Full Sail University, he encourages his kids to participate in sports, he likes to grill with Sweet Baby Ray's barbecue sauce, and he likes dogs (cat dander makes his tear ducts swell up).

Like any other Juggalo worth his salt, Wolf and his wife Esther made the trek from their home in Cottonwood to Cave-In-Rock, Illinois, two weeks ago for the annual Gathering of the Juggalos. The 1,545-mile drive proved to be extra-special as Violent J and Shaggy 2 Dope unveiled "probably the biggest announcement of our career."

At the festival, the duo declared that they would be launching a lawsuit against the FBI for branding Juggalos a hybrid gang last year and aiding fans who have been adversely affected by the classification. Spin Magazine caught Wolf breaking down after the announcement, reporting, "He'd lost custody of his young son solely because of his ICP fandom." But that's not exactly accurate. "The magazine got it wrong," Wolf says. "They said I lost custody of my son. I did not lose custody of my son. Basically, I never had custody."

Wolf was only 15 years old when he found out Tammy Baxter was eight months pregnant. The two went to high school together and had hooked up at a party. "I ran into her when she moved back to Cottonwood, and I saw that she was pregnant," Wolf says. "She let me know that it might be mine, so we did a paternity test and confirmed it." For the first six months after the birth of his son, he tried to fill the role of teenage father, until Baxter decided to leave Arizona for California. Without much warning, she made the move, claiming she had a better job lined up.

The immediate years following the sudden disappearance of his son and his mother proved to be pivotal for Wolf. In that time, he stumbled onto the world of the Insane Clown Posse and their rabid following, and he battled a brief addiction to meth. When he was 21, he was arrested for possession of a stolen vehicle, a marijuana pipe, and a crack pipe. He claims the resin found in the pipes was used against him, but that he didn't actually have drugs on him at the time. He's been sober for 10 years now.

"As far as my criminal background goes, that made me who I am today," Wolf says without remorse. "I am a much better person now because of it."

Eventually, he tracked down Baxter's address, and began writing letters to his boy. The letters went unanswered. He even sent Christmas gifts, only to have them returned. Finally, Baxter reached out to him out of the blue asking for help and in the summer of 2008, Wolf was reunited with his son, now 12 years old. The visit went well and the parents agreed to have him visit again the following year. Instead, Baxter sent him to a boys' home and disappeared again shortly thereafter.

After that, Wolf remained in constant contact with the home and attorneys in an attempt to gain legal custody of his son. That meant succumbing to a background check and scheduling a visit with a social worker from the state of California. "I was all up for them looking up my criminal background, and knowing my criminal past," he says. "I'm trying to get custody of a kid; I knew all that stuff needed to be disclosed. Before their visit I put all of that on the table, and suddenly after their visit, my criminal background became an issue."

We followed the same path as the social worker that came out to visit Wolf at his home in July 2010, meeting his family in his living room to talk, staying for lunch, and inspecting his bedroom. As part of her case study, the social worker had to look at every room in the home to make sure it was a safe and nourishing environment. The assessment seemed to go off without a hitch, until they walked into his bedroom.

"We go into my room and I start to explain what ICP means to me, because my room is totally decked out in ICP gear," Wolf says.

He's been a die-hard fan of the crazy clowns since he was 16 years old, falling in love with the group at his first show at the old Club Rio venue in Tempe. "I think I've missed two shows since 1996," he says. Over that time, he has amassed an entire wardrobe of ICP clothing and wall-to-wall Juggalo paraphernalia, including body art. Everything from set lists to bloodstained jerseys and bottles of Faygo dot his room. "I start to tell her what it means to me, and she starts saying how it might not be a good environment," Wolf says about being a Juggalo. "To me, it means to respect life and realize the miracle of life every day, to have your eyes opened to things and to be open-minded."

But like the FBI, the state of California saw something dangerous in the graphic nature of the band's music and image. His request for custody was denied, but custody has been temporarily bestowed to Wolf's mother and the child is living in Arizona once again. He sees it as a partial victory but plans to keep on fighting.

"I do not want help on my case from ICP," he says. "I want to help Juggalosfightback.com, and I hope to get us all off of the gang list. I'm not expecting ICP to come to Arizona to fight for me personally. Simply by us being off of the gang list, that's what's going to help me.

"There's a criminal element to just about anybody," Wolf explains. "You go to a biker rally and people get stabbed there. Is there a criminal element to church? What about all of these priests that are child molesters?"

Unless the FBI removes Juggalos from their list, Wolf will continue to be "gang-affiliated," but he'll keep calling it what he has for most of his life: family.

Cops says homeless prostitutes not allowed to have children???

Source

Police: Mesa woman takes child to park, leaves to have sex

by Danielle Grobmeier and Domenico Nicosia - Aug. 30, 2012 10:10 PM

The Arizona Republic-12 News Breaking News Team

A 43-year-old Mesa woman was arrested Tuesday on suspicion of child abuse after police say she left her 6-year-old child in a park for four hours so the mother could have sex with two men, a court document says.

A witness reported that the woman, identified as Laurie Lee Kelly, left her child in Evergreen Park near Country Club and University drives with two transients who were drinking beer, Maricopa County Superior Court documents say.

The witness asked the child if she knew where her mother was, and the child didn't, the document says.

When police arrived at the park, Kelly, who is an instructional assistant with Mesa Public Schools, was found sitting in a grassy area with a man, the document says.

According to the document, Kelly told police that she bought beers for random strangers and asked them to watch her daughter while she "went to make some money." Kelly said she had sex with two men, police reported.

According to the document, the witness told police several different people watched over the child for four hours in which the child had no water and no way to escape the heat.

Kelly told police she was worried about her daughter and knew she had placed her in harm's way. She told officers she had "a manic sexual rage inside of her, which she cannot control," according to the documents.

Mesa Public Schools officials said Kelly worked in the class, much like a teacher's aide, at Whitman Elementary School near Country Club Drive and McKellips Road.

"The criminal allegations against her are serious, and if substantiated would be grounds for immediate termination per district policy," Helen Hollands, director of communications and marketing at Mesa Public Schools, said in a written statement.

Hollands said Kelly has been assigned to home with pay.

Source

Updated: Mesa mom with 'sex rage' leaves her child at park

ABC15

Laura Lee Kelly

Posted: Thursday, August 30, 2012 1:58 pm

ABC15 and Tribune

Police arrested a Mesa mother after she left her child in the park with "complete strangers" to satisfy her sexual urges Tuesday.

She has since been released from jail, according to the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office. The circumstances surrounding her release are not yet known.

According to court documents, witnesses told police officers on Tuesday that 43-year-old Laura Lee Kelly left her child with two transients more than four hours in the afternoon heat without water at Evergreen Park off Country Club Drive near University Drive.

Police officers wrote that Kelly admitted to leaving her child and told them, "She came to the park and bought beers for some random strangers whom she later asked to watch her 6-year-old daughter while she went to make money."

Court papers also show Kelly told officers, "She had sex with one male and performed oral sex on another."

When officers first approached Kelly she was sitting in a grassy area with a male. He told officers Kelly was "coming and going all afternoon and even asked him if he 'wanted to (expletive)'".

According to court papers, Kelly later admitted to officers it was a bad idea to leave her child with complete strangers she provided alcohol to.

According to the documents, "she felt a manic sexual rage inside of her which she cannot control and needed to have sex."

Kelly, who worked as an instructional assistant at Whitman Elementary School in the Mesa Unified School District, has been placed on leave with pay pending the outcome of the investigation, according to Helen Hollands, district spokeswoman. Kelly had worked at the school since spring of 2012 and had passed a background check.

Ken Bennett parties while the Arizona elections crash and burn!!!!!

Source

Ken Bennett, vendor meet amid website woes

by Yvonne Wingett Sanchez - Aug. 30, 2012 11:43 PM

The Republic | azcentral.com

Turns out, Secretary of State Ken Bennett's trip to Tampa for the GOP National Convention wasn't just to politic.

Arizona's chief elections officer missed Tuesday's state primary, but he was able to meet with the Tampa-based vendor who rendered his official elections results website virtually useless on election night.

SOE Software had worked with Bennett's office to overhaul the elections website, but on Tuesday the site was balky, difficult to load and flashed error messages.

On Twitter, Facebook and azcentral comments, voters and observers complained about the site and criticized Bennett for leaving town.

"Trying to watch the election results tonight on the Secretary of State's website was an exercise in frustration!" wrote former Arizona congressional candidate Sydney Hay on her Facebook page. "Hope Ken Bennett is having a good time in Tampa."

According to his Facebook posts and photos, Bennett was having a blast. But he said via text message that he also worked in a meeting with senior officials from SOE Software, the company his office contracted with for technology services.

Bennett and his spokesman, Matt Roberts, who was also in Tampa, would not comment on the site's problems, nor would the office make IT staff available to answer questions.

The office did not immediately respond to a public-records request seeking information about SOE Software's contract, and the company did not return calls seeking comment.

Alan Ecker, a spokesman with the Arizona Department of Administration, said the contract for the technology services was competitively bid and that three out-of-state companies applied for the contract. Ecker said the state has paid SOE Software nearly $765,000 since October 2010 for services to state government, but he could not say whether those services were tied to the work on the election website. That information, Ecker said, is housed with the secretary of state.

Roberts wrote that the "office is disappointed" that some people had problems with the site but said staff will work with the contractor to "make it better."

It's unclear if the problems will be fixed by the Nov. 6 general election.

Russell Pearce beaten but still a force

Russell Pearce beaten but still a force

2nd loss puts him at political crossroads

by Yvonne Wingett Sanchez - Aug. 31, 2012 12:08 AM

The Republic | azcentral.com

Russell Pearce's primary loss this week may spell the end of his legislative career but could open the door for him to continue to push his agenda in Arizona and on the national stage.

The GOP heavyweight who led the Arizona Senate, authored the state's controversial immigration law Senate Bill 1070 and vaulted into the national spotlight with his hard-line crusade against illegal immigration, failed to make the post-recall political comeback he'd hoped for in Tuesday's state legislative primary election.

"He took an incredible gamble, and he lost," said Mike O'Neil, a public-opinion pollster. "I think it says his heyday has run its course. He had one issue and a very extreme position on that one issue. I think they're (Mesa voters) saying Russell Pearce is too extreme. We've had enough -- ease up."

But Pearce is still powerful in the Arizona GOP, serving as the the party's second-in-command. Some insiders believe Pearce could soon make a run for the top post, where he would then have the power to influence the party's priorities and messages.

He also likely still has a role as one of the national voices of illegal-immigration enforcement, which remains a hot issue nationally. GOP leaders at the Republican National Convention endorsed an immigration-platform plank that supports Arizona-style laws aimed at cracking down on illegal immigration.

"I don't think this was necessarily a referendum on immigration policy," said Dan Stein, president of the Federation for American Immigration Reform, a Washington, D.C., group that advocates more immigration enforcement. "I don't see any diminution in broad public support for candidates that are wanting to support state-level, Arizona-type models." Campaign missteps

Throughout the primary, Pearce attempted to rebrand himself as a politician who cared about issues beyond illegal immigration, more than a dozen political observers and public officials told The Arizona Republic. But, in the end, he could not overcome the perception that he was obsessed with just one issue.

Voters in this Mesa district, which includes a heavy mix of Mormons and Catholics, grew weary of Pearce's "mean-spirited" tone of wanting to starve out "every last soul" who was undocumented, observers said.

Pearce's tone on illegal immigration turned off members of both faiths, said Mesa Councilman Dave Richins, a Mormon.

"The dehumanizing tone of illegal immigration quit resonating because people knew better, they'd served them (immigrants) in their hometowns and they knew the situations they were trying to escape," Richins said, referring to church missions. "You had Mormons and Catholics who looked at that rhetoric and said, 'Wait a minute, that's not right.' "

And at a time when Pearce was one of the Legislature's most powerful politicians, he stopped communicating with his hometown officials on issues other than illegal immigration, from impact fees to education.

"There was a lack of consideration, a lack of trying to understand or learn what our concerns were or what we could offer to the discussion," Mesa Mayor Scott Smith said. "We were on different pages, and that bred a lot of frustrations."

Pearce's campaign, much like his political career, was wounded by missteps, most of them self-inflicted, according to observers and his own campaign manager.

The public lashed out against Pearce for a Facebook post questioning the heroism of the victims of the Colorado movie-theater shooting. He was dogged by perceptions that he is motivated by racism, with his opponents using his own e-mails to allege SB 1070 was racially motivated. He was haunted by allegations from the recall election that he or his campaign put up a sham candidate to pull votes away from Pearce's opponent.

Pearce's one-time ally Gov. Jan Brewer did not endorse him during the primary. His opponent outspent and outraised him. And even his longtime friend, political consultant Chuck Coughlin, advised him early on to not run.

Pearce's campaign manager, Constantin Querard, acknowledged Pearce was partly to blame for the negative news but said Democrats and the media demonized him.

"The sheer volume of lies can be tough to overcome," he said. "And after a while, it's hard to come back from that. You get here by an accumulation of a lot of factors -- some of the wounds are self-inflicted; most of them are -- but at the end of the day, it doesn't matter."

Pearce did not return repeated calls for comment.

His brother Lester Pearce, who lost his primary race for Maricopa County supervisor, defended his brother's record before the election and blamed Democrats, moderate Republicans, attorneys and the media for Russell's expected loss.

Asked what Russell would do if he was defeated, Lester said, "Riding off in the sunset and enjoying life."

Long public career

With his barrel chest and gruff style, Pearce, 65, is an Arizona native with long ties to the Mesa district he once represented. He and his wife, LuAnne, have five children and 13 grandchildren.

Pearce has been a public servant almost his entire adult life.

He worked for the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office for 21 years, starting as a deputy and moving up to chief deputy under Sheriff Joe Arpaio. He was shot in the line of duty in 1977 during a struggle with three Latino teens.

Tom Freestone, a former county supervisor, has known Pearce since 1978, when he would lobby the Board of Supervisors on behalf of the sheriff's office.

Freestone, like many of Pearce's friends, pointed out that his entire career should not be overshadowed by his focus on immigration.

He recalled that Pearce "gets committed to something, attacks the problem full-steam ahead and doesn't raise his head up. That's how he got things done."

Before becoming a lawmaker, Pearce served as a justice of the peace and director of the state Motor Vehicle Division.

Gov. Jane Dee Hull fired him from the MVD in 1999 after state officials accused Pearce and two aides of altering the drunken-driving records of a Tucson woman so she could keep her license. Pearce denied involvement, which the Attorney General investigated. That office ultimately determined it was a personnel issue and not a criminal matter.

Pearce served in the Arizona House of Representatives from 2000 to 2008, then moved to the Senate in 2009.

His GOP colleagues in 2010 elected him Senate president. His tenure as leader of the Senate was fraught with controversy, including limiting media access and allowing senators to carry firearms on the Senate floor. He was also widely criticized for taking tens of thousands of dollars worth of free trips and game tickets from the Fiesta Bowl.

That year, he sponsored SB 1070 and rocketed to the national spotlight, where he became a hero to supporters of illegal-immigration enforcement.

His tenure coincided with the rise of the tea party, which like Pearce, promoted strict conservative interpretations of the Constitution. That "anti-government, anti-tax, anti-immigrant mentality really helped him push bills through the Legislature," said Todd Landfried of Arizona Employers for Immigration Reform, which opposes SB 1070.

But Pearce went too far with some of his colleagues in 2011 when he introduced a series of immigration-related bills, including a pair aimed at mounting a challenge to birthright citizenship. and others that required businesses to become immigration agents. The business community stepped in and 60 CEOs signed a letter urging Pearce to stop the barrage of immigration bills while the state tried to jump-start the economy and bring jobs to Arizona.

"Everyone wants to fix illegal immigration, but he's going way further than anyone else and long after it makes sense," said Tyler Montague, a Mesa Republican who voted for Pearce every election during the last decade up until last year, and then helped run Jerry Lewis' campaign against Pearce in the November recall.

People just want to move past this era."

Next steps

It's unclear what's next for Russell Pearce. Some speculate he could go on a national speaking tour or become the leader of a political-action committee. Others suggested he could play a larger role in state party politics.

Coughlin advised Pearce before the primary to give up on vindication and, instead, start a national PAC to spread his hard-line message on illegal immigration to the faithful.

"I didn't think, as his friend and somebody who knows him and knows his heart on these matters ... that it was in his best interest to run," Coughlin said, adding that he encouraged Pearce to go national with his message because "he has a very passionate base of support that feel that he's being martyred and victimized."

Pearce didn't take the advice, and Coughlin offered his condolences to his friend on election night via text message.

Querard said Pearce's career is far from over and believes the former lawmaker could be more effective as a leader of the "conservative movement," without the constraints that come with being an elected official.

"In Arizona and nationally, he's still a big draw," Querard said before the election. "Win or lose, he will remain a hero to a really large, meaningful number of people who have the utmost respect and admiration for him."

Insiders pointed out that Pearce could play a more powerful role in state politics. On election day, he was handing out fliers and stumping for precinct-committee candidates. The current GOP chairman's term expires in January.

Stein said Pearce's loss has no broader implications nationally. He said many Americans still support conservative measures to combat illegal immigration, including tough immigration enforcement.

"I don't think there's any real national lesson here; it just shows that every legislative district is unique and different," Stein said.

Reach the reporter at yvonne.wingett@arizonarepublic.com or 602-444-4712.

You can go to jail if you report government lies and crimes

Author of bin Laden book may face legal action

Aug. 30, 2012 06:03 PM

Associated Press

WASHINGTON -- The Pentagon's top lawyer has informed the former Navy SEAL who authored a forthcoming book describing details of the raid that killed Osama bin Laden that he violated agreements to not divulge military secrets and that as a result the Pentagon is considering taking legal action against him.

The general counsel of the Defense Department, Jeh Johnson, wrote in a letter transmitted to the author on Thursday that he had signed two nondisclosure agreements with the Navy in 2007 that obliged him to "never divulge" classified information. Johnson said that after reviewing a copy of the book, "No Easy Day," the Pentagon concluded that the author is in "material breach and violation" of the agreements.

Johnson said the department is considering pursuing against him "all remedies legally available to us."

Johnson addressed his letter to Mr. "Mark Owen," using quotation marks to signify that that this is the author's pseudonym. His real name is Matt Bissonnette. Bissonnette referred requests for comment about the letter to his publisher, who was not immediately available.

Five LAPD officers under investigation in death of woman

Five LAPD officers under investigation in death of woman

The South L.A. altercation, in which an officer stomped on the woman, was captured on a patrol car's video camera.

By Joel Rubin, Angel Jennings and Andrew Blankstein, Los Angeles Times

August 31, 2012

At least five Los Angeles police officers are under investigation in the death of a woman who stopped breathing during a struggle that included an officer stomping on her genital area and the use of additional force by others to take her into custody, police officials confirmed Thursday.

The altercation in front of her South Los Angeles apartment was captured by a patrol car's video camera.

When asked by The Times about the incident, LAPD Cmdr. Bob Green confirmed that one officer, while trying to get Alesia Thomas into the back of a patrol car, threatened to kick Thomas in the genitals if she did not comply, and then followed through on her threat.

After officers forced Thomas into the back seat of the police car, she is seen on the video breathing shallowly; she eventually stopped breathing.

"I take all in-custody death investigations very seriously," LAPD Chief Charlie Beck said in a statement late Thursday. "I am confident we will get to the truth no matter where that leads us."

The incident came to light a day after Beck announced he was transferring a captain from his command after a separate videotaped incident in which officers were shown slamming a handcuffed woman to the ground. Beck said that video raised concerns and that the department was investigating the officers.

The Thomas case occurred in the early morning hours of July 22 after she left her 3-year-old and 12-year-old children at the LAPD's Southeast Area station, according to a department account released the following day. Green, who oversees the Southeast Area station, confirmed that Thomas tried to surrender custody of the children to police because she was a drug addict and felt she could not care for them.

Officers went in search of Thomas, finding her at her home in the 9000 block of South Broadway. After questioning her briefly, the officers attempted to arrest her on suspicion of child endangerment, the department's account said.

Thomas "began actively resisting arrest" and one of the officers took her to the ground by sweeping her legs from beneath her, the LAPD's official account said. Two others handcuffed Thomas' hands behind her back and attempted to lead her to a patrol car while a supervising sergeant observed, according to the department's version.

Two more officers were summoned as Thomas continued to struggle. Green confirmed that Thomas was a large woman. A "hobble restraint device" — an adjustable strap — was tightened around Thomas' ankles to give the officers more control and she was eventually placed in the back of the patrol car, the LAPD account said.

The official account, however, made no mention of what Green confirmed was a female officer's questionable treatment of Thomas.

The department's account said officers immediately notified paramedics. It is unclear whether the officers attempted to resuscitate her and how much time passed before paramedics arrived. Thomas died shortly after being transported to a hospital.

A neighbor who witnessed part of the incident told The Times he did not see officers do anything wrong and described Thomas as the aggressor.

Gerald McCrary Sr., 55, said he was awakened by the commotion and saw police wrestling with Thomas, who managed to break free from plastic handcuffs. The officers secured her with metal handcuffs and tried to calm her down as she sat against a wall, McCrary said.

"They were talking to her, asking her to calm down, that everything will be all right," he recalled. They brought Thomas some water to drink.

"My heart hurts. I can't walk anymore," he recalled Thomas telling police.

Two officers escorted her down the stairs in her apartment complex, one on each arm. McCrary eventually followed and said he saw Thomas in a patrol car "shaking her head against the back seat." Some time later, he saw her sprawled out on the sidewalk without a blouse. Paramedics had just arrived.

McCrary said police interviewed him on two separate occasions about the incident but never mentioned that Thomas was dead.

Charmaine Hood, McCrary's live-in caregiver, also witnessed Thomas' encounter with police. She said officers were trying to help Thomas.

"I didn't see them try to harm her in any shape or fashion," Hood said. "I seen them protect her from hurting herself."

Beck's statement said he wanted to find out whether Thomas had been under the influence of any drugs or suffered from a medical condition that could have caused her death before he passed judgment on the officers.

Four police officers and the sergeant were removed from field duties immediately after the incident and the department is conducting criminal and administrative investigations into the officers' conduct.

News of the investigation comes after Beck transferred Capt. Joseph Hiltner from the department's Foothill Division following another videotaped police confrontation.

The Aug. 21 incident began when the officers pulled over Michelle Jordan at a Del Taco restaurant in Tujunga because she was holding a cellphone while driving. As the 5-foot 4-inch Jordan left her vehicle, she allegedly failed to comply with officers' commands to get back into the car and was slammed to the ground by the male officers and placed in handcuffs, according to police officials.

While cuffed, she was led to the officers' patrol car. Moments later, she was slammed again to the pavement, apparently with more force, by one of the officers, who was much larger than Jordan, the officials said. The video footage appears to show the two officers exchanging high fives after Jordan was taken down.

Beck said he believed the captain "was severely deficient in his response" for failing to notify superiors and remove the two involved officers from the field. The chief said he ordered the footage shown at roll calls when officers begin their shifts.

Hiltner, a 34-year LAPD veteran, could not be reached for comment.

joel.rubin@latimes.com

angel.jennings@latimes.com

andrew.blankstein@latimes.com

Times staff writer Robert J. Lopez contributed to this report.

Pinal Sheriff Paul Babeu won't be charged with any crimes

Source

Pinal Sheriff Paul Babeu exonerated

Will not face criminal charges related to allegations that he abused his authority

by Rebekah L. Sanders - Aug. 31, 2012 11:38 AM

The Republic | azcentral

Pinal County Sheriff Paul Babeu will not face charges related to allegations that he abused his authority, the Arizona Attorney General's Office announced Friday.

A seven-month criminal investigation by Solicitor General Dave Cole concluded Babeu committed no criminal violations.

A former boyfriend had accused Babeu of threatening his immigration status if he didn't keep quiet about the relationship. Babeu repeatedly denied making any threats. Babeu, who won the Republican primary in the Pinal County Sheriff's race on Tuesday, requested the independent investigation.

The inquiry also was closed with no charges filed against Babeu's former boyfriend, Jose Orozco.

The allegations ruined Babeu's campaign for Congress. He dropped out in May and returned to Pinal County to run for re-election. Babeu now faces an independent and Democratic candidate in the November general election.

Sex for cigarettes

FBI: Phoenix prison worker accused of sex with inmates

by Chris Cole - Aug. 31, 2012 10:19 AM

The Arizona Republic-12 News Breaking News Team

A kitchen supervisor at a federal prison in Phoenix was arrested this week on suspicion of having sexual relations with two inmates in exchange for cigarettes, according to federal court documents.

Carl David Evans was taken into custody on suspicion of two counts of sexual abuse of a ward and one count of providing or possessing contraband in a prison, authorities said.

Footage of Evans engaging in oral sex with two of the inmates he supervises in the kitchen was captured by FBI agent Tyler Woods after being informed of the relationships in June, according to documents.

A graphic affidavit filed by Woods detailed the numerous times both inmates, identified as "E.D." and "J.I.," performed and received oral sex with Evans before being given cigarettes and smoking them.

The medium security Federal Correctional Institution is located is off Interstate 17, north of Carefree Highway.

The sexual acts took place in the food storage area to which only Evans and other staff members had the key, documents said.

Woods set up a hidden video camera in the storage area because there was no video surveillance already covering that area, according to documents.

Evans is seen wearing his staff uniform in the camera footage, documents said.

In an interview conducted by authorities on Tuesday, "E.D." said he's been involved in the sexual relationship with Evans since April, according to documents.

"E.D." told authorities he felt pressured to not tell anyone and continue engaging in the sexual acts with Evans because he didn't want to lose his job in the kitchen, documents said.

"E.D." sold the packs of cigarettes he would receive from Evans to other inmates for roughly $130-150, according to documents.

When "J.I." was interviewed, he told authorities he had heard rumors of the relationship between Evans and "E.D." and wanted to be a part of it in order to get access to food and cigarettes. "J.I." said he engaged in sexual relations with Evans and "E.D." three times since becoming involved with them about a month ago, documents said.

Kathleen Winn runs private business out of Arizona Attorney General's office????

Source

AG Director does private business on company time

Tom Horne's office releases hundreds of pages of documents at Republic's request

by Yvonne Wingett Sanchez and Bob Ortega - Aug. 31, 2012 12:37 PM

The Republic | azcentral.com

Kathleen Winn, the person at the center of a political scandal swirling around the Arizona Attorney General's Office, was performing private real estate work on government time and was believed by coworkers to be the source of information leaked to the media about another employee, records show.

The Arizona Republic obtained hundreds of pages of records Friday morning through a public-records request filed in June with the agency. The Attorney General's Office produced heavily-redacted e-mails, memos and internal investigative records that provide some insight into Winn's activities since Horne hired her shortly after he took office in 2011.

The records included internal investigations performed by Horne's own state investigator Margaret "Meg" Hinchey, who is on paid administrative leave from the agency.

In June, Hinchey filed a $10 million notice of claim, accusing Horne and his top staff of engaging in a cover-up, alleging that he and the office overlooked potentially criminal behavior by Horne, protected his political allies in the office and retaliated against her after she reported the information to the FBI.

Hinchey has said she has evidence of Horne's involvement in illegal activity, and that she stumbled upon information tied to Horne's alleged involvement with an independent expenditure committee chaired by Winn while investigating another matter.

Hinchey and another Attorney General's Office employee have alleged that Horne collaborated with Winn on an independent expenditure to help elect Horne in 2010. It is illegal for candidates to collaborate with independent expenditure committees.

The FBI is collaborating with the Maricopa County Attorney's Office on that investigation, in which subpoenas have been issued. Neither law enforcement agency has confirmed the existence of the probe.

Horne did not immediately respond to a request seeking comment on the new records.

Asked why he allowed Winn to perform private business on government time, Horne's spokeswoman responded, "Horne felt that Ms. Winn had an ethical responsibility to complete these transactions. These transactions were few, did not require substantial work, and did not interfere with her duties as an AG employee."

However, records show Winn's personal business was extensive, with co-workers telling Hinchey she actively approached them about doing mortgage business.

Winn did not respond to a voice mail seeking comment.

Horne and his top staff have denied all allegations of wrongdoing. Horne has called Hinchey's allegations "absurd," saying the accusations were motivated by her liberal politics.

The records largely focus on Hinchey's internal investigations into Winn's work on private real estate business while on state time, as well as her potential involvement in leaking information to the media about Horne's hiring of Carmen Chenal, a longtime confidant and employee.

Records released Friday show employees believed Horne gave Winn permission to work on mortgage transactions while on the job. Several co-workers indicated in interviews with Hinchey that they were uncomfortable with her private work on state time. E-mails and backup materials suggest Winn worked to secure home loans and solicited co-workers' business while on the job in the AG's office. One employee told Horne she was concerned about Winn's personal business and Horne reportedly responded, "It's OK that she does it."

An Aug. 22 memo from Horne's deputy chief, Rick Bistrow, cleared Winn of any wrongdoing. He wrote that Horne blessed Winn's activities and that she had "an ethical responsibility" to complete transactions for clients.

Bistrow wrote that Horne advised Winn she could perform private business while working in the Attorney General's Office, but that it "must not interfere with her work at the AGO."

Other records focus on Hinchey's inquiry into allegations that an employee leaked information to the Phoenix New Times for a 2011 story. The author of that story, Stephen Lemons, told The Republic on Friday that Winn was not the source of the information. He declined to discuss his sources, as is common journalism practice.

After the story published, Horne in July 2011 handpicked Hinchey to conduct "a confidential internal investigation" to determine if someone within the office had leaked information to the newspaper regarding his hiring of Chenal.

Records show many of the people Hinchey interviewed while investigating the potential breach suspected Winn was the leak. It is unclear if Winn was the source of the information to the newspaper.

The documents also show Winn was suspected of blogging on the New Times' website on the Chenal stories. The suspected posts were both positive and negative.

"Chenal will have to prove herself..." one said. Another stated, "...obviously someone is jealous of Chenal. The 'facts' are not accurate and were provided by someone with an axe (sic) to grind ... this is tabloid trash."

Another post appears to accuse Felecia Rotellini, Horne's Democratic opponent in the 2010 campaign, of feeding information to New Times for the story.

Winn told co-workers she suspected others in the office of being the leak. Hinchey also noted that Winn told Horne she personally made a call to "her source" at the New Times and that she learned the identity of the source. The names of those she suspected were redacted by the Attorney General's Office from documents released Friday. In them, however, Hinchey wrote that she doubted Winn's story and that the newspaper was unlikely to disclose its source.

Reach the reporter at yvonne.wingett@arizonarepublic.com or 602-444-4712.

How do you spell revenue? DUI tickets.

Source

Nearly 400 DUI arrests in Arizona this weekend

by Jackee Coe - Sept. 2, 2012 01:49 PM

The Republic | azcentral.com

Police statewide have arrested nearly 400 people on suspicion of DUI so far during heavy enforcement for Labor Day weekend, authorities said.

According to numbers released Sunday morning by the state Governor's Office of Highway Safety, police have made 382 DUI arrests since Wednesday.

Of those, 40 arrests were for aggravated DUI, 342 for misdemeanor DUI, 115 were extreme DUI, which is a blood-alcohol content of 0.15 or higher, and 62 drug DUI arrests, GOHS said.

Those numbers are down from last year's holiday enforcement. Between Sept. 1 and 6, 2011, police arrested 617 people on suspicion of DUI, including 93 aggravated DUI, 524 misdemeanor DUI, 192 extreme DUI and 69 drug DUI, according to GOHS numbers.

The average blood-alcohol content is up from 0.149 last year to 0.155 this year.

Officers have stopped 7,875 people so far this year, compared to 13,839 last year. There have been 309 designated drivers this year, down from 673 last year.

Officers statewide will continue their saturation patrols, including around lakes and rivers, Sunday and Monday, Governor's Office of Highway Safety Director Alberto Gutier said.

"Tomorrow's a big day," he said. "This is a big weekend for law enforcement, not to get people arrested but to keep people safe."

Gutier said he expects this year's numbers to increase as enforcement continues, but hopes they remain lower than last year's, which he said means they're getting the message out.

The highway safety office has worked with the Arizona Department of Transportation to display its safety messages on more than 100 digital message boards across the state highways and freeways. The messages remind people to wear their seat belts, ensure children are buckled into child-safety and booster seats, and to get a designated driver.

One message reads, "Drive hammered, get nailed. Get a DD, not a DUI," while another urges motorists to "Buckle up Arizona, it's the law."

Officers have issued 246 seat-belt citations and 41 child-restraint citations so far this year, down from 443 and 59, respectively, last year.

"It's a great message," Gutier said. "I hope that people heed to it."

The Governor's Office of Highway Safety state DUI enforcement efforts will be featured prominently in a 1-hour special airing on the National Geographic Channel at 10 p.m. Sunday that is part of the "Taboo" series. The episode also will include doctors treating people in emergency rooms.

It will use footage filmed over Labor Day weekend last year to highlight how Arizona officers enforce the state's DUI laws. It will feature officers from the Phoenix, Scottsdale, Tempe and Mesa police departments, Maricopa County Sheriff's Office, Department of Corrections and Department of Public Safety, as well as Maricopa County Attorney Bill Montgomery and Sheriff Joe Arpaio.

Babeu exonerated - Did you expect anything else???

Source

Babeu exonerated in case involving illegal immigrant he had a relationship with

Posted: Friday, August 31, 2012 11:25 am

By Mike Sakal, Tribune

Pinal County Sheriff Paul Babeu, accused earlier this year of abuse of power for threatening to deport a Mexican illegal immigrant he was having a relationship with, will not be facing charges, Solicitor General Dave Cole announced Friday.

The announcement comes less than 72 hours after the openly gay Babeu won Tuesday’s Republican primary election over three Republican challengers — Derek Arnson, Tom Bearup and Jack McClaren.

Babeu, who was the first Republican sheriff elected in Pinal County in 2008, will face Democrat Kevin Taylor and independent Ty Morgan in the November general election.

Cole said he oversaw a seven-month investigation into Babeu and the allegations after Arizona Attorney General Tom Horne was screened from the process to avoid any potential conflicts of interest, according to a statement from Cole’s office.

Earlier this year, Babeu asked the Attorney General’s Office to investigate claims made by Babeu’s former boyfriend, Jose Orozco, who accused Babeu of abuse of authority, threats, and intimidation. In addition, Babeu accused Orozco of theft of property and identity theft stemming from Orozco’s handling of Babeu-related websites and Twitter accounts.

Pictures of Babeu and Orozco also had surfaced on a gay website. Orozco had been paid to work on Babeu’s congressional campaign.

“The Attorney General’s Office will not file charges against either Babeu or Orozco,” Cole said in an office-issued statement “The investigation determined that Babeu did not commit any criminal violations and further concluded that, although Orozco conducted himself in a manner that may constitute a violation of the law, there was no reasonable likelihood of conviction on anything more than a misdemeanor charge. It would be an inappropriate use of already-limited resources to prosecute Orozco for a misdemeanor.”

On Friday, Babeu continued to contend that the allegations against him were false and he knew he would be exonerated all along.

In a statement issued by Babeu, he said, “I knew how this would end, because I knew the truth, yet I had to prove my innocence. Today, I’m fully cleared of these false attacks designed to ruin me. Some in the media worked their agenda hard to prove me guilty, regardless of the facts. In America, everyone is supposed to be innocent until proven guilty, yet I had to prove my innocence. The 400,000 citizens that I serve saw through these election year attacks and media sensationalism. The fact that I’m gay doesn’t matter. I want to be judged by the value I add to my community, by my performance and results. We won 42 percent more votes than my closest opponent in the Republican primary. The people who know me best, know we’ve done an exceptional job as Sheriff and that these allegations were false.”

Adnan Horan, the lawyer representing Orozco, was unavailable for comment on Friday.

Contact writer: (480) 898-6533 or msakal@evtrib.com

How do cities spell revenue??? Photo radar speed traps!!!!

Some Arizona cities still snap speeders on state highways

by Dustin Gardiner - Sept. 3, 2012 11:29 PM

The Republic | azcentral.com

Two years after Gov. Jan Brewer moved to end Arizona's much-debated photo-enforcement program in the face of vehement opposition, cameras are still flashing on some state highways.

Eight cities and towns have quietly made agreements with the state allowing them to place speed or red-light cameras on roadways within their boundaries. The camera sites range from major expressways in metro areas to state routes cutting through rural towns.

And the practice could expand, with at least three communities looking to add highway cameras.

The issue has raised eyebrows among some state lawmakers, who question how an Arizona agency handles municipalities' requests to install photo systems and believe that police officers, not cameras, should decide who gets a ticket. Several had thought the issue moot after the state Department of Public Safety ceased its speed-camera program in 2010 and officials removed the devices from Valley freeways.

Elected leaders in cities and towns that use the cameras contend it's an issue of local control because they have jurisdiction to enforce traffic laws on the highways in question. They say photo enforcement helps save lives by slowing traffic on dangerous roads passing through their communities.

"These are cases of local communities making local decisions about traffic-enforcement measures," said Doug Nintzel, a spokesman for the Arizona Department of Transportation. "We have viewed this as a local community and law-enforcement issue."

Cameras have gone up along state highways in Chandler, Tucson, El Mirage, Show Low, Star Valley, Prescott Valley, Superior and Globe. However, Globe officials recently voted to end the program. The earliest local cameras existed before the DPS program, though several are newer.

It's not just city residents who are affected. Each community has positioned cameras along busy thoroughfares, resulting in tens of thousands of tickets arriving in the mailboxes of out-of-town drivers each year. Camera use expands

Since the state's speed cameras went dark, municipalities have received permission from ADOT to conduct photo enforcement on highways, and such programs are still growing.

Last summer, the northwest Valley city of El Mirage installed cameras at an intersection along heavily-trafficked Grand Avenue, also known as U.S. 60 and part of the federal highway system. The cameras began flashing so often, the city's former police lieutenant said they were like strobe lights or a lightning storm.

More than 10,300 motorists, many from nearby Surprise and Sun City West, have since paid tickets. The minimum fine is $232 for 11-15 miles per hour over the speed limit, though some violators can attend traffic school.

At least three additional municipalities, Casa Grande, Sierra Vista and Huachuca City, are working with the state to get permission to add cameras along highways in their communities, according to Nintzel.

ADOT has generally given cities and towns permission to install photo-enforcement cameras on state rights of way where the municipality takes the lead on enforcing traffic laws and responding to emergencies.

On highways in many parts of the state, DPS has delegated much of its law-enforcement responsibilities to local police departments for the portion of the roadways that run through their communities. ADOT generally owns and maintains the roads and thus must issue permits for camera installation.

The agency has granted every municipality's request to install photo systems, setting a precedent, some say, that would be difficult to change. Nintzel said the state reviews requests for photo enforcement on a "case-by-case basis." Flood of complaints

The cameras have caught the attention of a handful of conservative lawmakers and municipal leaders who question the impact on public safety and the state's review process for issuing permits.

Upset violators have shown up at council meetings and court hearings and written letters protesting what they see as an ineffective or "Big Brother" policing tactic.

Ellen Holcomb, 70, of Sun City Grand, said she received her first speeding ticket from El Mirage last year. She was cited for driving 11 miles over the 45-mile-per-hour speed limit, and she thinks the state should prevent cities from using photo cameras on highways.

"For quite a while, I just avoided that whole area because I was so irritated about it," Holcomb said. "To me, it was kind of a scam. I still think a real cop does more to deter bad driving."

El Mirage officials say the cameras improve public safety and free up police to focus on more serious problems. The mayor did not respond to a request for comment.

Rep. Debbie Lesko, whose new district includes El Mirage, is initiating meetings with ADOT and the city after she received complaints from residents. Rep. Jack Harper and Sen. Judy Burges, who represent a neighboring district, said they've also heard gripes about highway photo enforcement.

"I think that they should be taken down," Burges said. "I thought it was going to end. It hasn't. But I don't want to dictate to the cities, either."

In the Tucson area, state Sen. Frank Antenori, an outspoken critic of photo enforcement, has led an effort to try to prevent Sierra Vista from installing red-light and speed cameras on a busy state route running through town. The city is proceeding with plans to install cameras at four locations.

Globe leaders voted 5-1 in July to end the camera program just a year after the devices were installed at intersections. A vocal group of residents complained photo enforcement created a negative view of the city as a speed trap.

Local decision

Matthew Benson, a spokesman for the Governor's Office, said although Brewer has made her objections to photo enforcement known over the years, the decision still should be made locally. He emphasized that highway photo enforcement exists on a much smaller scale than the DPS program.

"This is much more limited in scale and scope," Benson said. "You've only got (eight) instances of this throughout the state."

From the outset, critics lambasted the state's photo-enforcement program as a money-making tool. Former Gov. Janet Napolitano shepherded the program in 2008 and estimated it would generate $90 million in the first year. Actual revenue fell far short.

DPS ended the state's contract with vendor Redflex Traffic Systems in mid-2010. Redflex removed its 78 fixed and mobile cameras, which had been concentrated on Valley freeways.

Elected leaders and police chiefs in municipalities with highway photo-enforcement programs today contend that cameras have reduced speeding, prevented serious crashes and eased the burden on local law enforcement.

In Show Low, the police department has reported a roughly 18 percent decrease in accidents since the city introduced speed and red-light cameras in 2009. Last year, the city had 255 accidents. Three highways run through the quiet, alpine community, creating a sometimes deadly confluence of local and through traffic.

"Local control is still something that's very important to the citizens of our community," Mayor Daryl Seymore said, adding that when a highway runs through a city, its leaders should make the call.

Oversight questioned

Most municipalities must enter into a contract with the state before their camera vendor can receive a permit to install a highway system. The contracts have usually required that municipalities provide ADOT with an accident history for the proposed camera locations, showing the need for photo enforcement.

But an Arizona Republic analysis of the state's review process found that such oversight requirements have varied by municipality, depending on the state's agreements regarding local jurisdiction over the roads.

Chandler and Tucson, for example, were not required to sign separate agreements before beginning photo enforcement. Nintzel said the cities have made agreements with ADOT that give them more control to operate the roads, negating the need for a permit.

Speed and red-light cameras have been installed at four intersections in Chandler along busy Arizona Avenue, a highway also known as Arizona 87. ADOT turned jurisdiction of much of the road over to the city because it functions more like a local street than a highway, Nintzel said.

In El Mirage's case, an ADOT representative said the city did not provide a written crash report, as required by the agreement, and provided the justification "verbally at a meeting." City Manager Spencer Isom noted the city submits routine accident reports to the state as required.

Opponents of El Mirage's cameras, including a city councilman, have said accident stats released by the Police Department show it's not a dangerous intersection. In the three years before the cameras went up, there were 39 crashes at the site. That's less than half as many as the nearest intersection of Grand Avenue in Surprise.

The city has yet to release its accident statistics for the year since photo-enforcement cameras were installed. City officials said they will hold a council meeting tonight to discuss the figures.

More on this topic

Highway traffic cameras expand

Cities and towns have received permission from the Arizona Department of Transportation to place traffic cameras on state highways. Eight have installed photo-enforcement systems, and the practice is likely to expand. Here's a list of municipalities with existing highway camera systems.

CITY / FIXED CAMERA SITES / HIGHWAY

Chandler / Four / Arizona 87 (Arizona Avenue)

El Mirage / One / U.S. 60 (Grand Avenue)

*Globe / Five / U.S. 60, U.S. 70

Prescott Valley / Two / Arizona 69

Show Low / Five / U.S. 60, Arizona 260

Star Valley / Information not available / Arizona 260

Superior / Two / U.S. 60

Tucson / One / Arizona 77 (Oracle Road)

*Globe city leaders have decided to end the city's photo-enforcement program.

Note: The chart includes only photo-enforcement cameras on state highways. It does not include cameras operating on city roads.

Sources: ADOT, various city officials

Phoenix Messy yard cops ticket women for giving away water.

Source

Phoenix water-giveaway dispute goes viral

Christian group challenges Phoenix over demand for permit

by Emily Gersema - Sept. 3, 2012 10:01 PM

The Republic | azcentral.com

Once word got out that Phoenix officials had stopped a Peoria woman from giving away water during an event in downtown Phoenix, it triggered a tsunami of commentary in the blogosphere. A Virginia-based Christian-rights organization even threatened to sue the city on her behalf.

The Rutherford Institute has demanded the city apologize to Dana Crow-Smith, who said Phoenix officials violated her constitutional rights at the First Friday Art Walk on July 6 when they told her she needed a vendor's permit to hand out cold bottles of water on a private lot at 919 N. First St.

Crow-Smith, who had said she was also publicly expressing her Christian faith while she handed out the water, could not be reached for comment.

Bloggers and conservative political groups are outraged over the incident. A group called "We Like Small Government" posted a link to a news story about the incident and invited its Facebook fans to "LIKE THIS if you think overbearing permitting requirements such as this should be repealed."

The Rutherford Institute said Crow-Smith believed she was standing mostly on the public sidewalk where she thought she wouldn't have needed a vendor's permit, but she may have inadvertently stepped onto the private lot.

A city memo about the incident said Crow-Smith was violating the "mobile vendor" ordinance, which requires a vendor operating on private property to obtain a city permit for "vending, selling, serving, displaying, offering for sale or giving away goods, wares, or merchandise or food from either a mobile vending unit or a mobile food vending unit."

City Manager David Cavazos said it's a "fairness" issue for the permitted merchants selling their art, food and other wares at First Fridays.

Rutherford Institute attorney Doug Drury wrote a letter to Phoenix officials on Aug. 9, saying Crow-Smith's water giveaway was legal since she was giving passers-by water, not selling it. "Ms. Crow-Smith's conduct was a manifestation of her sincerely held religious beliefs," he added.

He then demanded the city apologize and assure Crow-Smith that officials won't interfere again with her water-distribution effort. He also asked the city to train law-enforcement officials "on proper enforcement of the city's code ... and pay proper regard to citizens' exercise of First Amendment rights."

Crow-Smith won't get an apology from the city anytime soon. City officials are standing by their inspector.

In a response to Drury on Aug. 17, Assistant City Attorney Janis Haug pointed out the inspector gave Crow-Smith a warning instead of issuing a citation or arresting her over the potential violation.

"In the future, to avoid any misunderstanding and so that Ms. Crow-Smith may fully and safely exercise her constitutional rights, we encourage Ms. Crow-Smith to exercise her rights within the confines of the public sidewalk," Haug wrote.

Councilman Sal DiCiccio disagreed with the city's decision to stop Crow-Smith.

"That's a freedom-of-speech issue," he said. "They (citizens) have a right to do that."

The Rutherford Institute recently had another disagreement with the city. It defended a Phoenix pastor, Michael Hashem Salman, when the city jailed him after accusing him of repeated building-safety-code violations for hosting large church gatherings in his private home.

In that case, the Rutherford Institute also accused the city of violating his constitutional rights. The city denied the accusation, saying it was a safety matter.

Salman's story continues to evolve. Last week, the Arizona Attorney General's Office obtained an eight-count indictment that accuses him of fraud, forgery and theft to illegally obtain state health-care benefits for himself and his family.

Mexican President Felipe Calderon blames guns and dopers for murders he caused

Source

Mexico leader says US shares blame for drug violence

Outgoing Mexican President Felipe Calderon blamed loose US gun laws and American addicts for fueling his country's drug violence as he defended his controversial anti-cartel offensive on Monday.

Presenting the final annual report of his presidency, Calderon insisted that his 2006 decision to deploy thousands of troops to round up drug traffickers was not to blame for the relentless crime wave plaguing the country.

The conservative leader, whose single six-year term ends December 1, said the wave of murders and kidnappings was linked to brutal turf wars being waged between Mexico's ultra-violent drug cartels.

But he also pointed his finger at the United States, saying criminals were able to arm themselves with powerful guns after Washington lawmakers refused to renew a law banning the sale of assault weapons such as AK-47 rifles in 2004.

The United States, he said, "is co-responsible for this grave problem because they are the consumers, they are the providers of funds and they are the providers of weapons."

"We firmly express the need to slow the flow of criminal weapons and cash fueling the violence in our country," he said in a speech delivered in Mexico City's National Palace.

More than 50,000 people have been killed in drug-related violence since 2006, when Calderon unleashed the military against drug traffickers.

The president touted successes in his strategy, saying that 22 of Mexico's 37 most wanted criminals had been either captured or killed while his government implemented "historic" judicial and security reforms.

But Calderon said the end of the US assault weapon ban in 2004 "allowed criminals to have almost unlimited access to all types of weapons" which considerably increased their firepower against the state and rival groups.

"This fueled the spiral of violence, which began around the same time," he added.

Calderon will be succeeded by Enrique Pena Nieto, of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), who has vowed to continue the anti-cartel offensive but to shift its focus to reducing everyday violence.

Using "animal cruelty" as an excuse to create a jobs program for cops and prosecutors

Source

Animal cruelty laws under scrutiny in Phoenix

Task force seeks to close loopholes

by Emily Gersema - Sept. 2, 2012 09:27 PM

The Republic | azcentral.com

A Phoenix task force focused on preventing animal cruelty has found what it says are shortcomings in state animal-cruelty laws that have enabled some suspects to avoid prosecution.

The group recently started work on a legislative proposal to close the loopholes -- particularly in cases of cruel neglect and abandonment of animals. Its members say current laws are vague.

Phoenix City Council members Michael Nowakowski and Thelda Williams created the 11-member group this year after a tipster found nine dog carcasses in a vacant south Phoenix lot.

Nowakowski and Williams co-chair the task force, and nearly all the other members represent the Phoenix Police Department, city Prosecutor's Office or animal-welfare organizations.

The task force said because of some vague language in Arizona laws that set the standards for what constitutes animal neglect, cruelty and abandonment, prosecutors cannot pursue some cases.

Arizona law

States and the federal government do not track animal-cruelty crimes or convictions, so it is impossible to measure the prevalence of animal-cruelty crimes.

Last year, Phoenix police investigated 298 complaints of animal cruelty and abandonment. The bulk -- 203 cases -- involved abandoned animals, and police couldn't find the owners.

Police dismissed 37 cases after finding no crime. However, they arrested suspects in 38 cases, and city prosecutors took 17 of them to court.

Task-force members believe some of those dismissed cases might have led to convictions if the state had clearer language in its animal-cruelty laws.

The state's primary animal-cruelty statute focuses on general acts of cruelty, neglect and abandonment. It also includes intentional acts that hurt or kill an animal.

Under part of the law, animal neglect and abandonment, including a failure to seek treatment for sick and injured animals, are Class 3 misdemeanors. Convicted offenders face a maximum sentence of 30 days' imprisonment and up to $500 in fines unless the state finds aggravating circumstances -- such as repeated offenses -- that would allow for harsher sentencing. City prosecutors handle the misdemeanor cases in municipal court.

The other portion of the animal-cruelty law focuses on intentional cruel mistreatment that injures or kills the animal. In those cases, animal cruelty is prosecuted as a Class 6 felony, and convicted offenders face a sentence of up to two years in prison and up to $150,000 in fines.

County attorneys prosecute these cases in Superior Court.

Changing the law

Rep. Kate Brophy McGee, R-Phoenix, is leading the Phoenix group's effort to clarify the laws. The group hopes to introduce legislation after the session begins again in January.

She said the group wants to define what constitutes cruel confinement, abandonment, neglect and shelter for an animal; require handlers and owners give their animals potable water as a standard of care; include "torture" as a felony crime in the animal-cruelty statute; and outlaw "horse diving" (having a horse dive into a pool from at least 40 feet above the water).

Phoenix police said they have never encountered a case of horse diving. However, Williams and horse advocates are concerned about potential incidents.

Lastly, the group also wants to consider enhancing current penalties or setting new minimum sentencing requirements and fines.

"Basically, we are combing different statutes in different states for definitions that would allow for appropriate (police and rescuer) intervention," McGee said.

She said the changes should also strengthen city and county attorneys' ability to prosecute.

Arizona Humane Society investigator and task-force member Christopher West encounters loopholes every day.

West said the state's vague legal language hampers authorities' ability to aid and remove animals from dangerous situations -- such as dogs left with unsafe water and animals left outside in 100-plus-degree heat.

For example, the law requires owners to provide adequate shelter, "but right now there is no definition for 'shelter,' " West said. "What is shelter -- a shack, protection from the elements?

"An animal should have the ability to stand up, lie down, stretch his legs in a comfortable manner," West said.

Deputy City Prosecutor John Tutelman said some of the cruelest cases are tied to another crime: domestic violence. The task force may consider harsher penalties in cases where a violent and vengeful partner abuses the person's pet or kills it.

"Those are probably the (cases) that offend prosecutors the most," Tutelman said. "What we are talking about here are people who have a pet that really is a part of their family -- an innocent part of their family -- and to have them subject to abuse the same way someone in a bad relationship is subject to abuse -- it's just tragic for the person who is being abused and for the animal."

Tutelman said the task force has taken on a big job to improve laws to protect animals and the community.

"We're dealing with everyone from people who don't know and are ignorant (in care) -- and we want to educate them -- to people who are intentionally harming animals, people who deserve to be punished for that kind of conduct," he said.

Sheriff Joe's goons raise revenue by popping drunken boaters???

Source

Sheriff's office patrolling Lake Pleasant for drunk boaters

Posted: Monday, September 3, 2012 2:20 pm

Ashley Loose and Courtney Carlmark, ABC15

Deputies have been keeping a close eye on drivers and boaters this Labor Day weekend, reminding those celebrating the holiday to be responsible and to always put safety first.

Nearly a thousand visitors have been out at Lake Pleasant for the weekend and spending time on the water.

Eight Maricopa County Sheriff's deputies were assigned to patrol the waters on boats and jet skis Monday.

Deputies will be watching out for various safety violations including operation, speed, child safety and alcohol safety.

As of Monday morning, MCSO had given out seven Operating Under the Influence citations.

Boaters and jet skiers are being reminded to travel at a safe speed and in the correct direction of water traffic, especially during the busy holiday weekend.

Children under 12 years of age on the water must wear life jackets to ensure safety.

Andy Bahn with MCSO warns those celebrating with alcohol to do so responsibly.

Avoiding a charge of Operating Under the Influence, or an OUI, can be done by drinking water, watching alcohol consumption and most importantly, having a designated driver, Bahn said.

Brahn said getting an OUI is similar to getting a DUI but does not result in the loss of your drivers license. He said it could cost a hefty fine and require boater safety classes.

Even a few drinks can put you and other boaters at risk. [Yea sure. A petite 100 pound woman hits the magic .08 point and is legally drunk after 1 beer. I am a little bit bigger and I am legally drunk after 2 beers]

"You get so many people out here and everyone's trying to have a good time, but it's dangerous enough without adding alcohol," said boater Jeff Jenson. He took his family to the lake early to avoid the party crowd.

The Salt River and other popular tourist spots have also implemented safe water programs and urge residents to be responsible over this Labor Day weekend.

Mesa cops use helicopter & SWAT team to search for crank caller in California

Source

Police: Mesa school locked down after parent calls 911, lobs gun threats

Posted: Friday, August 31, 2012 12:37 pm

By Mike Sakal, Tribune

Mesa police are considering charges against a man they say called 911 Thursday and made threats against people attending a curriculum night at Mesa’s Las Sendas Elementary School. According to police, the man said he had a high-powered rifle, that he would to shoot those in attendance and burn his house down.

Police say the man, a parent of students at the school at 3120 N. Red Mountain Road in east Mesa, is estranged from his wife and called 911 from a cell phone while at a casino in California at about 6:30 p.m. The school went into lockdown for about an hour during the incident, according to Sgt. Anthony Landato, a Mesa police spokesman.

The man’s name has not been released while Mesa police investigate.

It initially was believed that the man was calling from the family’s home near the school, but after police contacted his wife at the curriculum night where a number of school staff and parents were, she told police that he was not in the area.

However, as a precautionary measure, police swarmed the neighborhood with SWAT officers assisted by a police helicopter and searched the family’s home near the school, but cleared the residence after officers discovered that he was not there.

Landato told the Tribune on Friday that the man has a history with police and, following a recent incident, underwent some kind of mental evaluation.

It wasn’t known how many people were inside the school at the time of the lockdown, but Mesa Unified School District spokeswoman Helen Hollands said police had instructed the district to lockdown the school. Later, the district contacted the families of students at the school via an automated voicemail message.

Part of the message included: “Tonight, during our curriculum night, a neighborhood incident caused the Mesa Police Department to put our school on lockdown. Parents, staff and students remained in lockdown for approximately one hour while the police worked to resolve the nearby situation.”

Las Sendas Elementary serves slightly more than 800 students in kindergartern through the sixth grade, Hollands said.

The man possibly could be facing charges such as disorderly conduct, improper use of the 911 system, threatening and intimidating or disruption of a school system.

The investigation is ongoing, Landato added.

Contact writer: (480) 898-6533 or msakal@evtrib.com

Off-Duty Cop Arrested for DUI After Crashing into House

Off-Duty Cop Arrested for DUI After Crashing into House

KTLA News

7:49 a.m. PDT, September 5, 2012

SIMI VALLEY, Calif. (KTLA) -- An off-duty police officer was arrested on suspicion of driving under the influence after he crashed his pickup truck into a house in Simi Valley Tuesday night.

The accident happened at 10:22 p.m. on Royal Avenue at Blackstock Avenue, Simi Valley police said in a news release.

The driver was traveling eastbound on Royal and failed to negotiate a curve in the road at Blackstock Avenue, police said.

The pickup knocked down a telephone pole and hit a house, coming to a rest on its roof, on the retaining wall of a second home.

When officers arrived, they found that bystanders had helped the driver, 42-year-old Jeffrey Sweet, of Simi Valley, get out of his vehicle.

No other people or vehicles were involved in the crash, according to police.

Sweet, an off-duty police officer employed by the Beverly Hills Police Department, didn't have any visible injuries, but he was transported to the Simi Valley Hospital for a complaint of pain.

During their contact with Sweet, officers observed symptoms that suggested he might be under the influence of alcohol or drugs.

He was medically cleared and then booked on suspicion of driving under the influence.

Royal Avenue was closed because of all the debris from the crash, and two homes were evacuated becasue Sweet's vehicle sheered the gas service line to one house

Ventura County Fire Department personnel were able to close the gas line, preventing a fire from erupting.

Royal Avenue was closed west of Sequoia Avenue to Blackstock Avenue while Southern California Edison crews repaired the damaged poles.

Drivers were advised to avoid the area until at least noon on Wednesday.

Investigators from the Beverly Hills Police Department Professional Standards Unit responded to the scene.

They will conduct an internal administartive investigation alongside the Simi Valley Police Department's DUI investigation.

L.A. can't randomly seize possessions of homeless, court rules

L.A. can't randomly seize possessions of homeless, court rules

September 5, 2012 | 11:15 am

Los Angeles and other cities are barred by the U.S. Constitution from randomly seizing and destroying property the homeless temporarily leave unattended on city streets, a federal appeals court decided Wednesday.

Upholding a court order against Los Angeles, a panel of the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled 2-1 that the personal possessions the homeless leave for a short time on city sidewalks may be taken only if the possessions pose an immediate threat to public safety or health or involve criminal evidence.

Even then, the court said, the city may not summarily destroy the property and must notify the owners where they can pick it up.

The ruling stemmed from a court fight over a Los Angeles city ordinance aimed at cleaning up the city’s skid row. The city last year posted notices on the streets warning homeless people that their possessions had to be removed during street-cleaning days. City workers, accompanied by police, then seized and destroyed property they found unattended.

Homeless individuals sought and obtained a court order to stop the seizures, and the city appealed.

In ruling against Los Angeles, the 9th Circuit said violating a city ordinance does not strip a person of his or her 4th Amendment right against unlawful seizure of property.

“Were it otherwise, the government could seize and destroy any illegally parked car or unlawfully unattended dog,” Judge Kim McLane Wardlaw, appointed by former President Bill Clinton, wrote for the majority.

A dissenting judge argued that the homeless had been given adequate warning to remove their possessions and were provided with a warehouse for storing them.

“Common sense and societal expectations suggest that when people leave their personal items unattended in a public place, they understand that they run the risk of their belongings being searched, seized, disturbed, stolen or thrown away,” wrote Judge Consuelo M. Callahan, appointed by former President George W. Bush.

Judge OKs 'papers please' part of Arizona immigration law (SB 1070)

Updated: Judge OKs 'papers please' part of Arizona immigration law

Howard Fischer/Capitol Media Services

Posted: Wednesday, September 5, 2012 4:06 pm

By Howard Fischer, Capitol Media Services

A federal judge on Wednesday virtually cleared the way for Arizona to require police to question suspected illegal immigrants.

In a 12-page ruling, U.S. District Court Judge Susan Bolton rejected pleas by various civil rights groups for a new injunction to bar enforcement of what has been dubbed the "papers please'' provision of Arizona's SB 1070. That section spells out that if police have stopped someone for any reason, they must inquire about their immigration status if there is reason to believe they are in this country illegally.

Challengers argued there was no way to enforce Subsection 2(b) without engaging in racial profiling.

Bolton, however, said there is no evidence of that, at least not now, pointing out that the provision has never gone into effect. That is the result of an injunction Bolton issued two years ago in a challenge to the law brought by the Obama administration which argued the measure illegally conflicts with federal law.

In June, however, the U.S. Supreme Court said Bolton was wrong to reach such a conclusion, at least before seeing how Arizona actually would enforce the law. That resulted in this new request for an injunction, this one based on complaints of racial bias.

But Bolton said this new challenge has the same flaws as the one the high court rejected.

"This court will not ignore the clear direction in the (earlier) opinion that Subsection 2(b) cannot be challenged further on its face before the law takes effect,'' Bolton wrote. She said lawsuits contesting the legality of the provision are appropriate only after the law takes effect.

Gov. Jan Brewer, who signed the 2010 law, said Wednesday's ruling does not mean police will start questioning people today. The governor said she believes it could take a few weeks for the formal order allowing implementation of the section to be enforced.

The ruling was not a total setback for foes of SB 1070.

Bolton did agree to bar Arizona from enforcing another section of the law which makes it a crime to transport, conceal, harbor or shield an illegal immigrant from detection. She said that provision conflicts with federal law.

Despite that, Brewer declared the decision a major victory for Arizona. She said it preserves "the heart of SB 1070.''

Brewer acknowledged the legal victory is limited to the specific question before the judge: Is there evidence that the law can be enforced only in a discriminatory manner. That leaves open the possibility -- one the U.S. Supreme Court itself suggested in June -- that there will be future challenges if there are claims of racial profiling.

The governor said she is fully aware of that possibility.

"As I've always said, SB 1070 must be enforced fairly, effectively and without compromising civil rights or the Constitution,'' she said.

"I know the world is watching,'' Brewer continued. "But I know that our state and local officers are up to the task.''

Wednesday's ruling drew criticism from Dan Pochoda of the American Civil Liberties Union, one of the groups involved with the new challenge. He said that Bolton wrongfully focused on the lack of evidence of current harm while ignoring the fact that SB 1070 itself is racially motivated.

During a court hearing last month, foes argued there were racial motivations behind the legislation. As proof they presented statements and e-mails from legislators, including former state Sen. President Russell Pearce, R-Mesa, the sponsor of the legislation, which they said showed the legislation was specifically designed to target Hispanics.

"We believe that we demonstrated that it was a discriminatory intent that motivated, at least in part, the Legislature in passing 1070,'' Pochoda said. He said that is enough to get an injunction, even absent any evidence anyone actually was the victim of discrimination.

"That should have been discussed and considered,'' Pochoda said.

But Bolton, during that hearing, telegraphed that she wasn't buying that argument.

The judge said even if some legislators did have racial motives, the legislation had to be approved by a majority of the House and Senate and signed by Brewer. Bolton said there was "clearly no evidence'' that the majority of everyone who voted for the bill "had a discriminatory intent.''

"I think it was the wrong decision,'' added attorney Linton Joaquin of the National Immigration Law Center, another group challenging the law.

He acknowledged that the Supreme Court in June rejected the idea of barring enforcement of Section 2(b) before it even took effect.

But Joaquin said that case focused only on arguments by the Obama administration that SB 1070 was preempted by federal law. He said this case was focused on the likelihood of racial profiling.

Joaquin said one option is to ask the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the injunction that Bolton refused to provide. Another is to let the law take effect and wait for a clear case of racial profiling.

That will result in yet another round of legal fights, likely making its way again to the Supreme Court. But the justices are clearly anticipating seeing the issue again.

In his ruling earlier this year upholding Section 2(b) on its face, Justice Anthony Kennedy, writing for the high court fired a warning shot across the bow of police agencies, Kennedy said he and his colleagues might reach a different conclusion if there is evidence that people are being unfairly stopped or detained for long periods of time.

The key, Kennedy said, is how Arizona implements SB 1070.

While Section 2(b) will be allowed to take effect, at least for the time being, Bolton felt different about the provision making it a state crime to harbor and transport illegal immigrants. She said that is an area where Arizona may not intrude, pointing out these activities are a federal crime.

"Permitting the state to impose its own penalties for the federal offenses here would conflict with the careful framework Congress adopted,'' Bolton wrote. She said it is "immaterial'' that this provision of SB 1070 has the same goals as federal immigration law.

With that ruling, there now are four sections of SB 1070 that have been blocked. While the Supreme Court in June overruled Bolton on Section 2(b) it did ratify her ruling against three other sections which would have given state and local police the power to charge illegal immigrants with violating state laws for:

- Seeking work in Arizona without being in this country legally;

- Failing to carry federally issued registration cards;

- Allowing warrantless arrests if there is "probable cause'' a person committed an offense that makes them removable from the country under federal law.

Human Rights Watch: Evidence of wider U.S. waterboarding use

From this article it sounds like the American government isn't any better then the 3rd world dictatorships we routinely criticize for human rights violations.

Source

Human Rights Watch: Evidence of wider U.S. waterboarding use

By Sarah El Deeb, Associated Press

CAIRO – Human Rights Watch said it has uncovered evidence of a wider use of waterboarding in American interrogations of detainees than has been acknowledged by the United States, in a report Thursday that details further brutal treatment at secret CIA-run prisons under the Bush administration-era U.S. program of detention and rendition of terror suspects.

The report also paints a more complete picture of Washington's close cooperation with the regime of Libya's former dictator Moammar Gadhafi in the wake of the 9/11 attacks. The U.S. handed over to Libya the Islamist opponents of Gadhafi that it detained abroad with only thin "diplomatic assurances" that they would not be mistreated, and several of them were subsequently tortured in prison, Human Rights Watch said.

The 154-page report features interviews by the New York-based group with 14 Libyan dissident exiles. They describe systematic abuses while they were held in U.S.-led detention centers in Afghanistan — some as long as two years — or in U.S.-led interrogations in Pakistan, Morocco, Thailand, Sudan and elsewhere before the Americans handed them over to Libya.

"Not only did the U.S. deliver (Gadhafi) his enemies on a silver platter, but it seems the CIA tortured many of them first, said Laura Pitter, counterterrorism adviser at Human Rights Watch and author of the report.

"The scope of the Bush administration abuse appears far broader than previously acknowledged," she said.

The report comes days after the Justice Department announced it would not bring criminal charges against any CIA personnel over severe interrogation methods used in the detention and rendition program. Investigators said they could not prove any interrogators went beyond guidelines authorized by the Bush administration. Rights activists and some Obama administration officials say even the authorized techniques constituted torture, though the CIA and Bush administration argue they do not.

Any new instances of waterboarding, however, would go beyond the three that the CIA has said were authorized.

Former President George W. Bush, his Vice President Dick Cheney and the CIA have said that the method was used on only three senior al-Qaeda suspects at secret CIA black sites in Thailand and Poland — Khaled Sheikh Mohammed, Aby Zubayda and Abd al-Rahman al-Nashiri, all currently being held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. The technique involves pouring water on a hooded detainee's nose and mouth until he feels he is drowning.

The 14 Libyans interviewed by Human Rights Watch were swept up in the American hunt for Islamic militants and al-Qaeda figures around the world after the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks. They were mostly members of the anti-Gadhafi Libyan Islamic Fighting Group who fled in the 1980s and 1990s to Pakistan, Afghanistan and African countries. The group ran training camps in Afghanistan at the same time al-Qaeda was based there but it largely shunned Osama bin Laden and his campaign against the United States, focusing instead on fighting Gadhafi.

Ironically, the U.S. turned around and helped the Libyan opposition overthrow Gadhafi in 2011. Now several of the 14 former detainees hold positions in the new Libyan government.

The accounts of new uses of simulated drowning came from two former detainees, Mohammed al-Shoroeiya and Khaled al-Sharif, who also described a gamut of abuses they went through. The two were seized in Pakistan in April 2003 and taken to U.S.-run prisons in Afghanistan, where al-Shoroeiya was held for 16 months and al-Sharif for two years before they were handed over to Libya.

In Afghanistan, they were shackled in cells for months in variety of positions, often naked in almost total darkness with music blaring continuously, left to defecate and urinate on themselves. For example, al-Sharif spent three weeks seated on the ground in his cell with his ankles and wrists chained to a ring in the wall, forcing him to keep his arms and legs elevated. He said he was taken out of his shackles once a day for a half-hour to eat.

For the first three months, they were not allowed to bathe. "We looked like monsters," al-Shoroeiya said.

Al-Shoroeiya described being locked naked for a day and a half in a tall, narrow, half-meter-wide (1 1/2-foot-wide) chamber with his hands chained above his head, with no food as Western music blasted loudly from speakers next to his ears the entire time.

At another point, he was stuffed into a 1 meter by 1 meter (3 foot by 3 foot) box resembling a footlocker and kept there for more than an hour as interrogators prodded him with long, thin objects through holes in the side of the box.

Both he and Sharif said they were repeatedly taken to a room where they were slammed against a wooden wall and punched in the abdomen.

Al-Shoroeiya said one female American interrogator told him, "Now you are under the custody of the United States of America. In this place there will be no human rights. Since September 11, we have forgotten about something called human rights," according to the report.

Al-Shoroeiya described being waterboarded, though he did not use the term. He said he was put in a hood and strapped upside down on a wooden board. Freezing water was poured over his nose and mouth until he felt he was suffocating. During several half-hour interrogation sessions, they would waterboard him multiple times, asking him questions in between while a doctor monitored his body temperature.

"They wouldn't stop until they got some sort of answer from me," he told HRW.

Al-Sharif described a similar technique. Instead of being strapped to a board, he was put on a plastic sheet with guards holding up the edges, while freezing water was poured over him, including onto his hooded face directly over his mouth and nose.

"I felt as if I were suffocating," he told HRW. "I spent three months getting interrogated heavily … and they gave me a different kind of torture every day. Sometimes they used water, sometimes not."

Asked about the new accounts, CIA spokeswoman Jennifer Youngblood said the agency "has been on the record that there are three substantiated cases" of the use of waterboarding.

She said she could not comment on the specific allegations but noted the Justice Department's decision not to prosecute after it "exhaustively reviewed the treatment of more than 100 detainees in the post-9/11 period — including allegations involving unauthorized interrogation techniques."

The Obama administration has ordered a halt to waterboarding and many of the severe techniques authorized by its predecessors.

Others of the 14 former detainees in the Human Rights Watch described similar conditions as al-Shoroeiya and al-Sharif, particularly three held in the same U.S.-led prisons in Afghanistan.

One of them, Majid Mokhtar Sasy al-Maghrebi, said he nearly went insane in isolation after months being shackled naked in dark, freezing cells with music blaring, pounding his head against the wall and screaming, "I want to die, why don't you just kill me?"

Another, detained in Mauretania, said that during interrogations by a foreigner he believed was American, his wife was brought to the detention center; his captors showed him his wife through a peephole and threatened to rape her if he did not cooperate.

Human Rights Watch said the U.S. failed in its post-9/11 campaign to distinguish between Islamists targeting the United States and those who "may simply have been engaged in armed opposition against their own repressive regimes.

"This failure risked aligning the United States with brutal dictators," the report said.

Eight of those interviewed were handed over to Libya in 2004 — the same year then-British Prime Minister Tony Blair made a public rapprochement with Gadhafi and Anglo-Dutch oil giant Shell signed a major exploration deal off the Libyan coast, the HRW report noted. The remaining six were transferred to Libya over the two following years.

All were jailed by Gadhafi's regime, most of them freed only after his fall. Most said they were not physically tortured — perhaps a result of Gadhafi's attempts to mend fences with the West — but were kept in solitary confinement for long periods. Several, however, told HRW they were beaten and tortured, including being given electrical shocks.

The report also calls into question Libyan claims that one figure handed over by the Americans, Ibn el-Sheikh al-Libi, committed suicide in a Libyan prison. Al-Libi was held in U.S. secret prisons for years after 2001 and gave information under torture by the Egyptians that the Bush administration used to justify the 2003 invasion of Iraq but was later discredited. After his handover, Libyan authorities said he hanged himself in his cell. But HRW researchers said they were shown photos of his body that showed signs of torture.

Messages to Libya from the CIA and British intelligence among the Tripoli Documents published by HRW indicated the United States and Britain were eager to help Libya obtain several senior LIFG figures, including its co-founders, Abdel-Hakim Belhaj and Sami al-Saadi.

Belhaj and his then-pregnant wife were detained by Malaysia with the help of British intelligence and then handed over to the CIA in Thailand, where he told HRW he was stripped and beaten. They were then taken to Libya, where Belhaj was imprisoned.

After Belhaj arrived in Libya, a message believed to be from the then-head of counterterrorism at British intelligence congratulates the Libyan intelligence chief. Britain's help "was the least we could do for you and for Libya to demonstrate the remarkable relationship we have built," he wrote.

————

AP reporter Adam Goldman in Washington contributed to this report.

Police chiefs urge limits on use of drone aircraft

After all police departments are into "empire building" and they will use any excuse or reason to increase the size of their budget and the number of employees that work for them.

I wouldn't doubt if in a longer period of time the cops start asking to use drone air strikes to kill suspected criminals and destroy suspected locations used by alleged criminals. They are currently used for this in Iraq, Afghanistan and other third world countries in which the DEA and American military operate in.

Source

Police chiefs urge limits on use of drone aircraft

Want them to be unarmed, suggest warrants for surveillance

by Kevin Johnson - Sept. 6, 2012 11:02 PM

USA Today

The nation's largest consortium of police officials is calling for the limited use of unmanned drones in local law enforcement operations and urging that the controversial aircraft -- now popular weapons on international battlefields -- not be armed.

The first national advisory for the use of unmanned aircraft issued by the International Association of Chiefs of Police comes as federal lawmakers and civil rights advocates have expressed deep concerns about the vehicles' use in domestic law enforcement, especially in aerial surveillance.

Only a handful of police agencies, including the Mesa County, Colo., Sheriff's Department, are currently using unmanned aircraft. But Don Roby, chairman of the IACP's aviation committee, said an increasing number of departments are considering unmanned aircraft for such things as search and rescue operations, traffic accident scene mapping and some surveillance activities.

"It's very important that people understand that we won't be up there with armed predator drones firing away," said Roby, a Baltimore Police Department captain. "Every time you hear someone talking about the use of these vehicles, it's always in the context of a military operation. That's not what we're talking about."

In cases in which a drone is to be used to collect evidence that would likely "intrude upon reasonable expectations of privacy," the IACP's new guidelines recommend that police secure search warrants before launching the vehicle.

On the question of arming drones, however, the IACP issued its most emphatic recommendation: "Equipping the aircraft with weapons of any type is strongly discouraged. Given the current state of the technology, the ability to effectively deploy weapons from a small (unmanned aircraft) is doubtful ... (and) public acceptance of airborne use of force is likewise doubtful and could result in unnecessary community resistance to the program." ACLU urges privacy laws

The American Civil Liberties Union applauded the police group for "issuing recommendations that are quite strong in some areas."

"At the same time, we don't think these recommendations go far enough to ensure true protection of privacy from drones," the ACLU said, adding that privacy protections needed to be enshrined in law, "not merely promulgated by the police themselves."

Some proposed legislation, including a bill proposed by Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., is calling for authorities to secure warrants before all uses, except in cases when the aircraft is being used to patrol the borders, when there is a threat of terror attack or in cases when life is threatened

Racists Glendale cops arrest Jerice Hunter for murder

Source

Mom of missing Glendale girl arrested, accused in her murder

by D.S. Woodfill and Lisa Halverstadt - Sept. 6, 2012 09:55 PM

The Republic | azcentral.com

The Glendale Police Department has arrested Jerice Hunter on suspicion of murdering her 5-year-old daughter, Jhessye Shockley, nearly a year after authorities and neighbors first searched for the girl.

Hunter was arrested at a Mesa apartment about 1:30 p.m. after a Maricopa County grand jury handed up an indictment on charges of first-degree murder and child abuse, authorities said.

The arrest was announced late Thursday afternoon during a news conference at the Glendale police headquarters. Hunter was booked into Fourth Avenue Jail.

"Our hope is that the announcement today will allow the healing process to begin," said interim Glendale Police Chief Debora Black.

Hunter was arrested peacefully and without incident. Black said it took authorities 11 months before obtaining the indictment in order to accommodate the landfill search and to build a good case.

"I think the outcome speaks for itself," she said.

"While our hopes and prayers of finding Jhessye were not realized," Black said, "we are confident with the indictment and arrest of Jerice Hunter today we will achieve our second goal of securing justice for Jhessye."

The announcement comes nearly a year after Jhessye was reported missing from her home near 45th and Glendale avenues.

Police spent days scouring the area. Neighbors and community members who had never met the family stood on street corners passing out fliers and knocked on doors. All puzzled over how the girl might have disappeared.

But then police announced they believed Hunter, who had served time in a California prison for abusing her older children, disposed of her daughter's body in a Tempe trash bin before she reported the 5-year-old missing. An older sister later told police she last saw Jhessye beaten and bruised, looking like "a zombie," in her mother's bedroom closet.

Police later said they suspected Jhessye's body had been taken to Butterfield Station Landfill in Mobile, and they spent weeks going through trash in hopes of finding her remains. More than 280 people from more than 13 agencies sifted through roughly 9,500 tons of compressed garbage.

But authorities did not recover Jhessye's body or any evidence linked to the case despite weeks of searching.

In an emotional June news conference announcing the end to the search, police leaders promised to bring justice for Jhessye.

Maricopa County Attorney Bill Montgomery said he firmly believes his office secured the appropriate charges in the case based on the investigation and will now "proceed with the sole goal of providing justice for Jhessye and to bring closure to the community."

Montgomery acknowledged the challenge of securing a guilty verdict in a murder case with no body, but said he's done it in other cases in the past few years. He also believes the Shockley murder trial will prove no different.

"The totality of the evidence developed over the course of the (Shockley) investigation and with the quality of the evidence that was obtained ... led us to believe that there was reasonable likelihood of conviction at this point in order for us to be able to move forward."

Authorities declined to discuss details of the evidence or any witness testimony that made the indictment possible.

Black said she does not plan to continue searching for the body after the exhaustive but fruitless search due to the volumes of garbage there. Investigators believe that the girl's body remains in the landfill.

Investigators had not found any new evidence recently that suddenly made the arrest and indictment possible. Rather, it was the evidence gathered over the past year.

Lisa Vance, Hunter's cousin who raised Jhessye for 41/2 years while Hunter was in prison on child-abuse charges, said the news was welcome.

"Absolutely overwhelmed is the word for it," she said, describing her reaction to the news. "It's been a long time coming."

"We want to thank the Glendale Police Department for all of their hard work and everything they've done," Vance said. "We greatly, greatly appreciate that, and we want the world to know that we appreciate it."

Source

Glendale police: Mother of Jhessye Shockley arrested, faces murder and child abuse charges

Posted: 09/06/2012

GLENDALE, AZ - A woman facing charges for the murder of her daughter was booked into jail on a $500,000 bond.

Glendale police said Jerice Hunter was arrested Thursday for the murder of Jhessye Shockley.

Glendale Interim Chief of Police Debora Black said during an afternoon press conference that Hunter was arrested without incident around 1:30 p.m. at her home in Mesa.

Glendale police, working in conjunction with the Maricopa County Attorney’s Office and other law enforcement partners, moved forward with the case after a warrant was issued for the arrest of Hunter, based upon a Grand Jury indictment handed down late Thursday morning.

"We believe that Jhessye is at her final resting place at the Butterfield Station Landfill," said Black. "There's nothing to be gained by continuing to search that, we searched the most likely area and did not have success, our efforts were exhausted."

Police ended an unsuccessful search for the girl at the landfill at the end of June after 96 search days.

While Jhessye, who was 5 years old at the time of her disappearance, has not been located, Maricopa County Attorney Bill Montgomery said that the lack of a body does not provide an impediment to the case.

"My office has successfully prosecuted homicide cases over the last couple years where the body was never found," Montgomery said during the news conference, "and certainly in this particular instance with the totality of the evidence gathered over the course of the investigation and the quality of the evidence that was obtained not only securing an indictment, also led us to believe there was a reasonable likelihood of conviction at this point."

Black said it took until now to make this arrest in the case because of the time it took to search the landfill.

Hunter faces a count of first degree murder, a class 1 felony and dangerous crime against children and child abuse, a class 2 felony and dangerous crime against children.

Police have said they believe Jhessye's body was disposed of days before her mother reported her missing at an apartment complex near Glendale and 45th avenues on October 11, 2011.

Hunter had spoken to the media several times since Jhessye's disappearance, maintaining her innocence. "Does it look like I hurt my daughter? Does it look like I hurt her?" she asked on one occasion.

“For the past 11 months, the men and women of the Glendale Police Department and our partners from local, state and federal law enforcement worked tirelessly to accomplish two goals: to find Jhessye and to hold the person responsible for her disappearance accountable. We are confident with the indictment and arrest today, we will achieve our second goal of securing justice for Jhessye,” Black said.

“I commend our law enforcement partners for their refusal to give up on this case. Thanks to their diligence and hard work, we now have an opportunity to seek justice for Jhessye and uncover the truth behind her disappearance,” Montgomery said.

Police records show Jhessye's siblings told investigators Hunter had abused Jhessye and kept her in a closet where they heard screams.

Hunter was arrested last November on one felony count of child abuse, but was released from jail because charges were not filed against her before a deadline passed, according to the Maricopa County Attorney's Office.

Get more information on the Jhessye Shockley investigation from the Glendale Police Department.

Glendale cops: Jerice Hunter is Black so she must have committed the murder!!!!

Source

Judge imposes $500,000 bond on missing Glendale girl's mom

by D.S. Woodfill - Sept. 7, 2012 09:24 PM

The Republic | azcentral.com

A judge imposed a $500,000 bond on Jerice Hunter, the Glendale woman accused of murdering her 5-year-old daughter.

Hunter, who was arrested Thursday without incident in an apartment complex near Broadway Road and Horne in Mesa, is scheduled to be arraigned at 8:30 a.m. on Thursday by Commissioner Brian Reesin the murder case of Jhessye Shockley.

A grand jury handed up an indictment Thursday on charges of first-degree murder and child abuse against Hunter in the disappearance of Shockley.

Hunter's lawyer, Scott Maasen, said he spoke with Hunter shortly after her arrest and she maintains she's innocent.

"She's professed her innocence from day one, that's never changed," he said. "She's had nothing but care and concern for her daughter."

Maasen said he has yet to hear the evidence the Maricopa County Attorney's Office has against her, but still criticized prosecutors, saying he doubts their evidence is strong enough to win a guilty verdict.

"You have a homicide case without a body," he said. "That's certainly going to be a challenging case. It's going to be an uphill battle (for prosecutors)."

Maasen said the amount of time it took for authorities to arrest Hunter in the case also makes him doubtful, saying, "It's fair to assume that there's a lack of evidence."

Jerry Cobb, a spokesman for the County Attorney's Office, declined to comment for this article and declined interview requests with anyone in the office, citing their policy not to speak about active cases.

Glendale police have also declined to disclose the evidence collected by investigators.

Jhessye was reported missing from her Glendale home near 45th and Glendale avenues on Oct. 11, 2011.

Police spent days scouring the area. Neighbors and people who had never met the family stood on street corners passing out fliers and knocked on doors. All puzzled over how the girl might have disappeared.

But then police announced they believed that Hunter, who had served time in a California prison for abusing her older children, disposed of her daughter's body in a Tempe trash bin before she reported the 5-year-old missing. An older sister later told police she last saw Jhessye beaten and bruised, looking like "a zombie," in her mother's bedroom closet.

Police later said they suspected Jhessye's body had been taken to Butterfield Station Landfill in Mobile, and they spent weeks going through trash hoping to find her remains. More than 280 people from more than 13 agencies sifted through roughly 9,500 tons of compressed garbage.

But authorities did not recover Jhessye's body. In an emotional June news conference announcing the end to the search, police leaders promised to bring justice for Jhessye.

Interim Glendale Police Chief Debora Black said at a Thursday news conference that it took authorities 11 months before obtaining the indictment in order to search for Shockley's body and to build a good case.

Maricopa County Attorney Bill Montgomery said at the conference he believes his office secured the appropriate charges in the case based on the investigation and will now "proceed with the sole goal of providing justice for Jhessye and to bring closure to the community."

Republic reporter Lisa Halverstadt contributed to this article.

Cops routinely spin the facts to make themselves look like heroes

Source

Richardson: Police PIOs should give facts, not spin

Retired Mesa master police officer Bill Richardson lives in the East Valley and can be reached at bill.richardson@cox.net.

Posted: Friday, September 7, 2012 7:30 am

Guest commentary by Bill Richardson

On Jan. 28, 2012, Scottsdale Police Lt. Ron Bayne shot and killed Jason Prostollo. Prostollo was highly intoxicated, reportedly five times the legal limit to drive, and had a piece of broken pool cue in each hand as he walked towards Bayne and other officers, including a K-9. According to news reports, Bayne fired two shots into Prostollo, one of which hit the K-9 that was attacking Prostollo.

Officer-involved shooting investigations are lengthy and complex and can take months to complete. They involve a criminal portion to determine if any laws were broken and an internal inquiry to determine if the shooting was within departmental policy. [And just why are those investigations so lengthy and complex compared to when a normal criminals kills somebody as opposed to a police criminal? Well probably because the cops are spinning the facts to in an attempt to make the police criminals look like a hero, instead of a criminal!]

The day after the shooting, and before any investigations and reviews by Scottsdale Police and the Maricopa County Attorney’s Office were completed, Scottsdale Police Sgt. Mark Clark, the police information officer, told the media the department’s version of events. Some would refer to Clark’s explanation of what happened as “spin.”

In the Jan. 30, 2012 Arizona Republic story, “Man killed by Scottsdale police was former Marine,” Clark used colorful and leading language like “split-second decision” and “officers felt their lives were in danger,” even though he was the only officer who fired. He even went so far as to proclaim “a Taser or pepper spray was not used because of the windy conditions that morning.” It was as though he was justifying the use of deadly force instead of reporting the facts and waiting for the investigation to be completed.

While Bayne’s use of force may be justified, spinning a story in a particular direction can be dangerous and damaging to the public’s trust when an investigation later shows an officer wasn’t justified in their actions.

Spinning is what Clark and a host of other police lieutenants, sergeants, officers and highly paid civilian staff, some who are former television celebrities, sometimes do in their PIO duties.

Too often the story told is about making an agency or its boss look good and not the facts.

In the July 4, 2012 East Valley Tribune story, “Tempe crime down; Ariz. Mills not auto theft haven it once was,” statistics attributed to the Tempe Police Department website show how crime in Tempe was down 41 percent of the last decade.

Sounds good, doesn’t it?

Yet according to the FBI, Tempe’s serious crime rate is up 4.8 percent from 2010 to 2011 — in 2011 there were 59 serious crimes comitted per 1,000 residents — and Tempe continues to have the highest serious crime rate in the East Valley at a rate that’s over double the average crime rate for other East Valley cities.

Crime is down nationally and across Arizona.

Crime being down is no cause for alarm, but when crime is actually climbing and significantly higher than everyone else’s, there’s cause for serious concern. High crime rates are seldom talked about publicly by police officials.

I still can’t get an answer from police on why Tempe crime is so high.

PIOs also control the information that is released to the media and access to those who can answer questions. For a state with a public records law that’s designed to keep the public informed, it’s sometimes very difficult to get information when a police agency doesn’t want to talk or takes the position they have to be sued to get them to obey state law.

Scottsdale and Tempe aren’t the only agencies with PIOs who spin information.

While a PIO spin show designed for the media and to placate the public may be good for a department’s image, it’s not good for a public that needs to believe and trust the police.

The public’s right and need to know shouldn’t be what police officials want us to know. It should be the facts that allow us to make decisions about crime in our community, police conduct and how best to support law enforcement or demand change.

Crime grows best when the public is kept in the dark.

While PIOs can do an important job, the bottom line is they should stick with the facts and skip the spin.

LA County Sheriff hires crooked Maywood Police Officers???

Sheriff hired several problematic Maywood officers as deputies

A report from the Sheriff's Department watchdog says one fired his gun while driving and another had been let go by a previous agency for lying.

By Robert Faturechi and Jack Leonard, Los Angeles Times

September 7, 2012

Los Angeles County sheriff's officials hired several problematic cops from the disbanded Maywood police force last year, including one who drunkenly fired his gun while driving and another who was let go from another police agency for dishonesty, according to a report released Thursday.

The Sheriff's Department has been criticized before for less than thorough hirings, a practice some critics say has contributed to recent problems in the jails with deputies allegedly abusing inmates and smuggling contraband into the lockups.

The troubled Maywood police force was disbanded and replaced by the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department in 2010, as the city faced financial trouble and laid off nearly all of its employees. Maywood officials said they had no choice because the city could not obtain insurance, the consequence of too many lawsuits in the past, many involving the Police Department, which had a reputation for employing heavy-handed and under-qualified officers.

A Times investigation in 2007 found that the Maywood Police Department had become a haven for misfit cops who had been pushed out of other law enforcement agencies for crimes or serious misconduct. At least a third of the then-37 member force had left other police jobs under a cloud or had brushes with the law while working for Maywood.

When the Sheriff's Department was commissioned to take over, officials agreed to consider hiring some of the disbanded force's cops. Many were rejected.

But according to the report by the Office of Independent Review, four "questionable" applicants made it through.

One of the applicants had admitted getting drunk at a friend's house, then later leaving in his car and firing his duty weapon toward the home. But when stopped at the time by police who heard shots fired, the officer said he wasn't responsible and had no knowledge of the incident. He was eventually convicted of a misdemeanor of discharging a firearm.

Another applicant was being investigated by the Maywood Police Department for perjury, a probe that was never concluded because the agency had disbanded. A court had found that the officer had "deliberately and calculatedly" testified on the stand about information that had been suppressed, according to the report. In another instance, that officer was accused of trying to hit a police commissioner with his car, then threatening several others involved with the commission. According to the report, the investigation into the incident was not thorough.

A third hire had been fired from another law enforcement agency for dishonesty, after he lied to his supervisor, according to the report. The applicant had been dinged for dishonesty at least once before, when years earlier he was applying to be a deputy, and admitted to reading "how to beat a polygraph exam" on the Internet before his interview.

Sheriff's spokesman Steve Whitmore pointed out that the decision to hire the Maywood cops was made by the previous undersheriff, and that as deputies, "they've all done pretty well."

He said that such reports from the department's watchdog are what Sheriff Lee Baca had hoped for when he proposed creating the oversight agency.

"That's exactly what the sheriff wants the OIR to do, to bring up these issues and bring them to the light of day," Whitmore said.

The report also included details about sheriff employee misconduct, which recently concluded in significant suspensions, terminations or resignations.

A dozen deputies were discharged after being arrested on suspicion of committing crimes, including one who was convicted of having unlawful sexual conduct with an inmate and four others convicted of driving under the influence. Another deputy was found guilty of violating a domestic violence protective order and one more admitted committing insurance fraud.

Michael Gennaco, who heads up the OIR, credited the department with taking swift action against sheriff's employees accused of wrongdoing. Last year, he noted, marked the highest number of resolved cases in which the department attempted to fire civilian or deputy employees: 60.

"The department has got the resolve to remove deputies who … shouldn't be wearing a badge," he said.

robert.faturechi@latimes.com

jack.leonard@latimes.com

Cops hate it when they can't steal stuff from homeless people!!!!!

Source

Homeless vendors sell beer on the streets — and dodge police

By Sam Allen, Los Angeles Times

September 6, 2012, 7:28 p.m.

At 10 a.m. on a recent weekday downtown, suited workers were riding elevators up skyscrapers on Bunker Hill. Down on the sidewalks, loft-dwellers, coffee cups in hand, walked their dogs.

At the corner of 5th and San Pedro streets, a few steps from the drug and alcohol rehab center, the local soup kitchen and the patch of sidewalk where he bunks most nights, Josh Richard was selling beer to other homeless men.

One by one, his customers approached, handing over $1.50 for cans of Colt 45, Steel Reserve or Heineken that he kept hidden in a blue cooler beneath a shopping cart. Government checks had arrived a few days before. Business on skid row was good — as it has been all year.

It wasn't so long ago that police would have quickly closed down Richard's business and chased him away from this corner.

But recently, the dynamic shifted. A federal court order last year blunted the Los Angeles Police Department's authority to seize objects from the sidewalks, a ruling that was upheld this week on appeal. At the same time, the number of people sleeping on skid row's streets has increased, by 70% since 2010 to about 1,200 total. Crime is up as well.

Some blocks have become clogged with encampments built from shopping carts, baby strollers, wheelchairs, blankets and tarps. As long as the possessions can be moved, advocates argue, the homeless are not obstructing the sidewalk.

Richard is one of several homeless beer vendors who police say take advantage of the cluttered conditions to hide their operations.

Though the LAPD can no longer seize unattended property of the homeless, officers are still trying to crack down on illegal beer selling, and that has created a cat-and-mouse game on skid row.

The burden for that task has fallen on officers such as Deon Joseph. A burly veteran beat cop on skid row, Joseph has made it his mission to take on Richard and the other beer vendors.

The vendors typically work in small crews, Joseph said, using clusters of shopping carts to conceal their operations and lookouts to watch for police. One group has even gone so far as to send people into the LAPD station on 6th Street to ask whether Joseph is on duty.

Officer Joseph is on a first-name basis with some of his beer-selling adversaries: Josh, Rick, Shark. "I know pretty much everybody and what they're doing," he said.

The illegal beer sales only exacerbate the grim atmosphere on skid row, Joseph says. Residents at nearby shelters and single-room occupancy hotels have complained about the stands, saying the operators are drunk and rude to women.

Joseph recently tried to reason with one of the vendors, explaining to him that he was selling beer on a street where addicts were trying to rebuild their lives. But the vendor wasn't interested.

"That seems to be the mantra of all these guys who are out there on 5th and San Pedro: 'We're here, we're going to make money, we've gotta do what we've gotta do,' " Joseph said. "It's simple supply and demand."

When officers make arrests, the vendors are usually back at work after a few days in jail — or replaced by others eager to take over the turf. So Joseph takes a different approach: to be a constant presence, shooing the vendors away and burying them in warnings and citations.

Richard says he's not worried. His hunch is that in the daily chaos and crime of skid row, Joseph and the LAPD will find more pressing tasks.

"Here's the thing about the cops — they try to control it, but they can't be two places at once," Richard said. "They can't catch us all."

::

Richard, 27, first arrived on skid row in 2002 as a drug dealer, fresh out of Washington High School in South Los Angeles. Back then, the area was considered the West Coast's leading drug bazaar, and city officials struggled to deal with both the huge homeless population and the crime.

"There were tents everywhere back then," Richard recalled."You couldn't even walk down the sidewalk."

Richard was arrested for the first time in 2003, after a police horse on Spring Street sniffed the cocaine he was carrying. Over the next seven years, he was convicted of five different offenses, ranging from drug possession to assault and burglary, and spent three years in prison.

When he was released in February, Richard returned to skid row and noticed a beer vendor who seemed to be doing good business. By the end of the month he'd gathered some old friends together and taken over the spot.

On a recent morning, skid row was bustling with activity and the beer business was brisk.

Richard was wearing a white tank top, baggy blue shorts and black slippers, greeting customers just a few feet from where he sleeps most nights. Tattoos covered his neck and biceps; a Newport cigarette dangled from his mouth.

Richard's friend, Mo, watched over the cooler, telling Richard the number of cans and bottles left inside. Most of the men who help with the operation are compensated with free drinks. Richard kept an obsessive eye over the supply.

"Colt 45, it does it every time!" one of the patrons joked as he slipped two cans into a plastic bag.

The LAPD was out in force. One patrol car passed Richard's corner at a slow crawl, the officers staring him down.

Just the day before, Richard's crew of workers was confronted by Joseph, who warned the men they'd be taken to jail if he saw them sitting on the sidewalk. Richard stood up and then, when Joseph drove away, started selling beer again.

By noon, the supply was down to just a few cans. Richard sent a friend across the L.A. River to a liquor store in Boyle Heights.

Soon after, a tall woman stumbled up to the corner, flashed a $20 bill at Mo and asked for drugs.

"Just beer here," Mo responds. "Colt 45."

A brief argument ensued before Richard intervened. "Don't nobody sell no dope right here!" he yelled. "Take yourself around the corner! Go that way!"

Richard says he doesn't deal drugs any more and doesn't tolerate drug users on his corner. He thinks the LAPD will leave him alone if he keeps the operation "respectful."

But Joseph sees beer sales as a link to other types of crime.

"Narcotics and alcohol are a driving force of a lot of our crime — you can't separate the two," Joseph said. "In this 50-block radius … it all goes together. And if you don't deal with it all, you're just spinning your wheels."

::

Since opening the beer operation in February, Richard says he's saved about $2,000. On a lunch break that recent afternoon, he used some of the cash to buy a new boom box from a stall in the Toy District, then stopped for a cheeseburger on 7th Street.

Heading back toward his corner, he turned up San Julian Street, into the heart of skid row's drug trade. Dozens of people lingered on the sidewalk, dazed beneath the afternoon sun. Three LAPD cruisers rolled slowly by.

"Ladies and gentlemen, there is no sitting on the sidewalk," an officer said over a loudspeaker. "If you've got crack pipes, Brillo pads, push rods, anything illegal, get rid of it before you leave right now. And just don't come back."

"That's Joseph," Richard said as he heard the voice. "That's the big fish."

Richard crossed over to the other sidewalk, past the LAPD cars. But before he can turn off San Julian, a voice calls out from behind.

"Hey!" Joseph yells. "Mind if I holler at you real quick?"

Richard walks back slowly, stepping off the curb onto the street. Joseph hovers over him in black sunglasses.

"I'm not warning you guys anymore about sitting over there on 5th Street, all right?" Joseph said. "From now on it's going to be citations, the next time it's arrest. I'm not warning you anymore."

Richard answered politely, giving his full name and birth date.

Moments later, the showdown is over. Richard hurries away, grinning as he walks to his corner.

"I got no time to worry about that," he said. "They gotta catch me first."

::

The next day turned out to be Richard's last at 5th and San Pedro. Joseph issued citations to two members of his crew, and Richard decided to relocate to a new spot a couple blocks away.

To Officer Joseph, it was a sign that his strategy was working — slowly. The technique, coupled with recent city cleanups on skid row, is helping police "take the streets back, bit by bit," he said.

"Josh has had plenty of warnings," Joseph said. "If he's back over on 5th and San Pedro with beers, I'm going to follow through on my word. And everybody out there knows I'm a man of my word."

A few days later, Richard was at his new corner, sitting alone on top of his cooler and cradling the new boom box. Business had plummeted, but he wasn't giving up.

"Police is trippin'," he told a customer who had found him at the new location. "But I still got beer."

sam.allen@latimes.com

Judge thinks cops should be able to rape women???

Source

Hey victim: it's your fault you got groped

Police officer gets drunk, drives to a bar and sexually assaults a woman. Specifically, he puts his hand under her skirt and fondles her genitals. (see Arizona Daily Sun story here.)

DPS Officer Robb Gary Evans gets fired and probation. The victim, meanwhile, gets a lecture from the judge.

"If you wouldn't have been there that night, none of this would have happened to you," Coconino County Superior Court Judge Jacqueline Hatch told the woman.

Yeah, the judge really said that.

The cop got off easy, with a little help from his friends, who questioned the jury verdict.

I particularly like the comment from the cop's former partner: "These people put their lives on the line every day. I hope you'll be lenient on him. To me, this is one way we can give a little back to those in law enforcement who give so much to us every day."

Puts a whole new spin on the idea of thanking police officers for their service, doesn't it?

Gee, and we wonder why victims of sexual assault are reluctant to come forward?

No jail time for Flagstaff cop in bar groping

No jail time for Flagstaff cop in bar groping

September 06, 2012 9:05 am

By ERIC BETZ Sun staff reporter

After being convicted by a jury earlier this summer of sexual abuse for groping a woman in a bar, ex-DPS Officer Robb Gary Evans walked out of a Coconino County Superior Courtroom on Wednesday morning having been sentenced to two years of probation.

Evans received credit for the four days of jail time he served in Coconino County jail.

Prosecutors contended that he drank eight beers and then drove himself to the Green Room, where he flashed his badge in an attempt to get into a concert for free. While inside, he walked up behind the victim, who was a friend of a friend, put his hand up her skirt and then ran his fingers across her genitals.

When bouncers threw him out, Evans told them he was a cop and they would be arrested.

The 43-year-old former Arizona Department of Public Safety officer was facing between six months and 2 1/2 years in prison, but the crime was eligible for probation. He will not be required to register as a sex offender, according to the sentence.

The judge said she considered the defendant's lack of a criminal record and strong community support in her sentencing.

She also advised the victim to be more vigilant.

BAD THINGS CAN HAPPEN IN BARS

A jury convicted Evans of sexual abuse, a class 5 felony, on July 2.

DPS fired Evans shortly after his criminal conviction and following an internal investigation, according to officials.

The judge sentencing Evans, Coconino County Superior Court Judge Jacqueline Hatch, said she hoped both the defendant and the victim would take lessons away from the case.

Bad things can happen in bars, Hatch told the victim, adding that other people might be more intoxicated than she was.

"If you wouldn't have been there that night, none of this would have happened to you," Hatch said.

Hatch told the victim and the defendant that no one would be happy with the sentence she gave, but that finding an appropriate sentence was her duty.

"I hope you look at what you've been through and try to take something positive out of it," Hatch said to the victim in court. "You learned a lesson about friendship and you learned a lesson about vulnerability."

Hatch said that the victim was not to blame in the case, but that all women must be vigilant against becoming victims.

"When you blame others, you give up your power to change," Hatch said that her mother used to say.

VICTIM HOPES OTHERS STAND UP

The victim, a local Flagstaff professional, told the court that she had been harshly criticized by members of the community and even friends who accused her of ruining the defendant's life by pursuing prosecution.

"I sincerely hope this trial will prevent other women from being victimized in the future," she said. "I am more exhausted than I have ever been. I stood up for what happened to me for reasons bigger than me."

Evans also pinched another woman on the buttocks an hour before sexually abusing the victim in this case, according to a witness. The judge ruled before trial that the incident would be prejudicial if it was allowed to be admitted as evidence.

When asked for comment, Coconino County Attorney David Rozema said that the victim's character and commitment in this case were a key part of the prosecution and subsequent conviction by the jury.

He said that more victims are now reporting sex crimes and called their courage "exemplary."

"Victims need to feel safe to report and assist prosecution," Rozema said. "They bear no responsibility for the actions of those who commit sex crimes against them. Offenders alone must be held accountable."

VERDICT QUESTIONED

Before the sentencing, character witnesses for the defendant questioned the jury's guilty verdict.

Prosecutors criticized that testimony, which was given in person and by letter, as trying to cast Evans as the victim of some conspiracy by detectives, prosecutors, bouncers at the Green Room and the victim herself. Some 25 letters were submitted on Evans' behalf, many from current and former law enforcement officers.

Deputy Coconino County Attorney Jonathan Mosher said that he was not asking for any greater punishment for Evans because he was a cop, but simply that he not be granted any less of a punishment, either.

A woman who said she was a former intimate partner of Evans told the judge that the behavior was completely out of character for the defendant.

"His losses at this point go farther than anything that could be handed down here," she said.

The woman said Evans has lost his job and will likely lose his house because of it. She also said that because he's now a felon, he will have lost the ability to hunt, which numerous "hunting buddies" told the court was one of Evans' chief passions.

His defense attorney said he was also disturbed that he would no longer be able to vote.

ASKING FOR LENIENCY

"These people put their lives on the line every day," Evan's former partner said. "I hope you'll be lenient on him. To me, this is one way we can give a little back to those in law enforcement who give so much to us everyday."

Others also asked for leniency.

"I don't necessarily agree with the way this case got to be here," former Flagstaff Police Lt. Randy Weems told the judge.

Weems was recently a candidate for Flagstaff chief of police.

"This is the second time in 25 years that I feel the system didn't work," he later added.

Evans' defense attorney, Bruce Griffen, picked up on that same line of argument, referring to it as a "very disputed case."

"Sometimes, the bigger you are, the harder you fall in this line of work," he said.

Griffen did concede that his client likely should not have been in a bar that night and been so intoxicated, but he said Evans had not entered a bar since his arrest.

Judge Hatch expressed her concern with the amount of alcohol Evans drank that day and said that "Joe blow" would have been considered dangerous if he were driving.

"As a law enforcement officer you're held to a higher standard," Hatch said. "If you didn't want to be held to a higher standard you shouldn't have become a law enforcement officer."

In addition to probation, Hatch sentenced the defendant to 100 hours of community service and prohibited him from possessing or consuming alcohol during his probation.

If Evans breaks any part of his probation, he could still be sentenced to as much as 2 1/2 years in prison.

Eric Betz can be reached at 556-2250 or ebetz@azdailysun.com.

Groper gets probation while victim gets a lecture

A state police officer gets drunk, gets in his car and drives to a Flagstaff bar, where he proceeds to put his hand under a woman’s skirt and skim his fingers across her genitals.

He gets probation. She gets a lecture.

From the judge.

A female judge, no less.

“If you wouldn’t have been there that night, none of this would have happened to you,” Coconino County Superior Court Judge Jacqueline Hatch told the victim this week.

Translation: you asked for it.

The judge’s remarks have created a stir in Flagstaff.

“I’m not necessarily sure I’m surprised,” Myra Ferell-Womochil, director of community-based services for Northland Family Help Center, told me. “It’s not to reflect on this one particular judge, It’s to reflect on the culture at large. When 25 percent of the female population has been sexually assaulted or been victims of attempted assault, that means it’s normal. This is a normal occurrence.”

Clearly then, it’s time for a new normal.

There is just so much wrong with this story I hardly know where to start. So let’s go back to the beginning, as reported by Eric Betz of the Arizona Daily Sun.

Department of Public Safety Officer Robb Gary Evans, 43, knocks back eight beers on a summer night in 2011, according to prosecutors, then drives himself to the Green Room, a bar in downtown Flagstaff, where he flashes his badge in order to get in without having to pay the cover charge.

He proceeds to ooze charm and sophistication thoughout the nightclub, pinching one woman on her backside, according to a witness, then groping the victim, the friend of a friend.

She complains and he gets tossed out of the bar, whereupon our hero announces that he’s a cop and the bouncers would be arrested.

The woman decides to prosecute and loses some friends in the process, people who evidently don’t find it particularly offensive to have some stranger’s paws all up into her business. Either that, or they just don’t believe that a woman should stand up for herself.

A trial is held in July and a jury in finds the groper guilty of sexual abuse, a class-five felony, punishable by up to two-and-one-half years in prison.

Evans’ pals and even a former candidate for Flagstaff chief of police question the verdict and on Wednesday they asked the judge to go easy on their friend, who was fired as a result of his felony conviction. I particularly like the plea delivered by an old girlfriend.

“These people put their lives on the line every day,” she told the judge. “I hope you’ll be lenient on him. To me, this is one way we can give a little back to those in law enforcement who give so much to us every day.”

Oh for the days when a simple thank-you-officer was enough, but I digress.

The real shocker in this case came not from friends and police officers who brushed off this guy’s conduct.

Not from the minimal sentence imposed by Judge Hatch: probation plus community service.

Not even from Hatch’s decision to spare Evans from having to register as a sex offender -- something that would have been mandatory had his victim been underage.

The stunner was judge’s if-you-hadn’t-been-there lecture.

After blaming the victim, the judge went on to explain that she wasn’t blaming the victim but that women must be vigilant against becoming victims.

“When you blame others,” she said, “you give up your power to change.”

In other words, it’s the victim’s fault that some drunk cop fondled her.

Speaking of the power to change, judges are elected in Coconino County and Hatch will be on the ballot in 2014. The longtime public defender was appointed to the bench by Gov. Jan Brewer in 2010 to fill a vacancy. Voters then elected her in November 2010.

Hatch didn’t return a call to explain her philosophy on victims of sex crimes but she did issue an apology on Friday, saying her comments were “poorly communicated.” Also not to be found was Evans’ attorney, Bruce Griffen, who in court called this a “very disputed case.”

What’s indisputable is that a jury has spoken and so has a judge – loud and clear.

And you wonder why victims of sexual assault are reluctant to come forward?

LA cops kick *ss first, think last!!!!!

Source

Investigators slam Sheriff Baca, Tanaka in jail violence probe

September 7, 2012 | 10:52 am

Investigators for a blue-ribbon commission probing allegations of abuse and deputy misconduct in L.A. County's jails issued a searing critique Friday of how Sheriff Lee Baca and his chief deputy managed the department.

Baca failed to adequately monitor and control his deputies' use of force against inmates and was ignorant of significant problems in the jails, the panel's investigators reported.

Tanaka Baca's management "insulated" him about some of the allegations, investigators said. Those commanders knew about problems with deputy cliques in the jails but failed to do anything about it. Once Baca learned of the problems, the investigators said, he failed to hold his top deputies accountable.

The panel's investigators -- who are pro bono attorneys -- also focused criticism on Undersheriff Paul Tanaka, saying there was "substantial evidence" that Tanaka urged deputies to be aggressive and "work in the gray area" of law enforcement. The investigators said there was evidence that Tanaka discouraged supervisors from investigating alleged deputy misconduct and "vetoed" efforts to address deputy cliques.

The commission will discuss the findings in more depth later Friday.

Baca and Tanaka could not immediately be reached for comment. But in testimony before the commission in July, both strongly defended their records, though Baca admitted some mistakes.

"We know we screwed up in the past," Baca told members of the county Citizens' Commission on Jail Violence. "I'm a guy that says let's go forward .... I just need this commission to understand the limits of digging up dirt that doesn't have any water going into it."

[Updated at 11:02 a.m.: While investigators found that the majority of deputies were hard-working and ethical, they concluded that other deputies had a “disturbing mind-set” that valued using force first rather than as a last resort. In addition, some department leaders tolerated and even expressly encouraged "a code of silence" in which jailers were reluctant to report excessive force and other problems.

Last month, a federal grand jury demanded that sheriff's officials turn over all correspondence they have had with the blue-ribbon commission.

The subpoena suggests that federal authorities, in the midst of a widespread investigation of the jails, are expanding their probe to include allegations unearthed by the commission.

In recent months, the county panel has heard testimony from current and former sheriff's supervisors who have publicly alleged that top managers fostered a culture of abuse inside the jails.

But many more sheriff's employees have spoken to the commission privately. The subpoena could inadvertently force those sheriff's officials to out themselves to the department as informants.

In addition to seeking documents, federal authorities have been conducting interviews with current and former sheriff's officials, some of whom have told The Times that the questions have gone beyond jail issues to include other allegations of misconduct.

Federal prosecutors last year subpoenaed The Times for information about online commenters who complained about jailer misconduct, but that subpoena was withdrawn after the newspaper's attorneys objected.

The FBI's secret investigation of the jails was revealed last year when The Times reported that the bureau had smuggled a cellphone through a corrupt jailer at Men's Central Jail to an inmate working as a confidential federal informant.

Since then, public scrutiny of the jails has intensified. Among the revelations was that top sheriff's officials had raised alarms in internal memos about jailers crafting narratives to impose "jailhouse justice" and supervisors allowing the behavior to go unchecked by conducting shoddy investigations. A retired jail commander told The Times that he tried to take his warnings about gang-like deputy cliques to Baca but was ignored.

Alarmed by the allegations, the county Board of Supervisors created a commission to examine jail abuse. The panel has not yet issued its findings, but its ongoing investigation has included dozens of interviews with sheriff's officials and others. Only a handful have testified before the commission publicly.

Check out these previous articles on the police.

More articles on the police.