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From LA Times

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Police say Huntington Park hit-and-run suspect turns herself in

Vega fled in a 1993 Chrysler Concorde, officials said, but later turned herself in to Whittier police.

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/

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Infant killed in Van Nuys gang shooting

Police said the shooting that killed a 4-month-old boy and injured two others in Van Nuys early this morning was prompted by an argument between rival gang members.

The baby, Andrew Garcia, was being fed by a family friend who was holding him inside a car parked at 14300 Kittridge Street, close to the site of a party. Anna Contreras, 28, the friend, and Eric Ramirez, who was standing outside the car, also were shot and injured.

LAPD Det. James Nuttall said the baby's  father “is linked to a criminal street gang” and that Ramirez is a known gang member. Contreras and the boy's mother have no criminal history, he said. The group had been at the party about a block and a half away, Nuttall said. Two suspects, believed to be members of a rival gang,  got into an argument with the group near the car  between midnight and 12:30 a.m., Nuttall said.

One of the two suspects fired a shotgun six times and both fled on foot, police said. Ramirez, 18, was shot, along with Contreras and the baby.

The infant was “caught in the middle of a gang confrontation,” Nuttall said. “It's a disturbing crime scene.”

Contreras, who is pregnant, and the baby were transported to UCLA Medical Center, where the child died shortly afterward. Contreras was in stable condition. Ramirez walked to nearby Valley Presbyterian Hospital.

Nuttall says police are asking for the public's help in identifying the suspects involved and says, “Somebody has to come forward.”

Anyone with information about the crime can call police at (818) 374-0040.

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/

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After several tries, U.S. officials finally nab Roman Polanski in 1970s rape case [Updated]

Three decades after he fled the United States following his arrest for unlawful sex with a 13-year-old girl, Roman Polanski was taken into custody in Zurich this morning and faces extradition to Los Angeles.

Polanski, the famed film director whose career continued to flourish even after fleeing for Europe, was arrested as he arrived in the Swiss city to accept an award at the Zurich Film Festival.

The Los Angeles County district attorney's office learned last week that Polanski had plans to travel to Zurich this weekend, said Sandi Gibbons, spokeswoman for the district attorney's office.

Prosecutors sent a provisional arrest warrant to the U.S. Justice Department, which presented it to  Swiss authorities. On at least two previous occasions, the district attorney's office has received reports that Polanski had travel arrangements to countries with extradition treaties with the U.S. and prepared paperwork for his arrest, Gibbons said.

A source familiar with the investigation told The Times that the U.S. Marshals Service had come close to arresting Polanski half a dozen times or so over the past few decades -- though several of those opportunities presented themselves in the last two years.

"For one reason or another, it just didn't work out," said the source, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the case was ongoing. "There are so many variables."

The source said Polanski always was very careful about when and where he traveled. But as new questions arose in recent years about the fairness of his case, the source said Polanski appeared to become more at ease about travel.

Thomas Hession, head of the Marshals Service's  Los Angeles office, would not comment on specifics of the case but said authorities moved quickly on each lead. "Any time information was developed, the L.A. County district attorney's office and the Marshals Service immediately acted on it."

Asked if prosecutors would ask that Polanski be sentenced to time behind bars if he were returned to the U.S., Gibbons said, “We've always maintained this is a matter between Polanski and the court. … We initially recommended prison time for him, but I can't see into the future.”

An attorney for Polanski, Chad Hummel, declined to comment. “Right now, we're not in a position to say anything,” he said.

[Updated 1:00 p.m. : In a statement, three Los Angeles attorneys representing Polanski  indicated the arrest came as a surprise. The lawyers have been representing him in an ongoing attempt to have the case against Polanski dismissed on the grounds of prosecutorial and judicial misconduct.

"We were unaware of any extradition being sought and separate counsel will be retained for those proceedings,” wrote attorneys Douglas Dalton, Chad Hummel and Bart Dalton. Their request to have the 1977 charges against Polanski dismissed is currently pending before the state Court of Appeal.

The organizers of the Zurich Film Festival expressed “great consternation and shock” over Polanski's arrest and said the program honoring his films would go on in his absence.

 A spokeswoman for the event, Nikki Parker, wrote in an e-mail that neither Polanski nor the organizers considered his legal status in the U.S. an issue in attending the festival because he often traveled to Switzerland and even owned a home there.

“There was no concern whatsoever,” Parker wrote. ]

Polanski, now 76 and a married father of two, asked the court to throw out the entire case based on new allegations of prosecutorial and judicial misconduct detailed in an HBO documentary last year. The L.A. district attorney's office argued that he could not make such a request while a fugitive, and an L.A. judge earlier this year agreed. A 1997 attempt at settling the case also failed.

Polanski was arrested 31 years ago at a Beverly Hills hotel after a 13-year-old girl accused him of sexually assaulting her during a photo shoot at actor Jack Nicholson's house.

A 1978 arrest warrant, issued after he failed to appear at his sentencing on the statutory-rape conviction, is still in effect, and he would be taken into custody upon arrival on U.S. soil. The director of "Chinatown" and "Rosemary's Baby" has not returned to the U.S. since then but continues to work as a director, winning an Oscar for "The Pianist."

Polanski's stay in Switzerland could be brief if he opts to return to Los Angeles.

“If he agrees with an extradition, he could be sent to the U.S. in the next days,” said Guido Ballmer, a spokesman for the Swiss Federal Department of Justice and Police.

But if Polanski declines to come back without a fight -- perhaps a more likely scenario given his three decades as a fugitive -- the court process could be quite lengthy, Ballmer told The Times.

The appeals process has several layers and could last months, if not longer.

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2009/09/after-several-tries-us-officials-finally-nab-roman-polanski-in-1970s-rape-case.html#more

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Roman Polanski's attorneys stunned by arrest

Director Roman Polanski and his attorneys were stunned by his arrest in Switzerland on Saturday on a child sex charge filed decades ago in Los Angeles, according a French newspaper report.

“We absolutely were not expecting such an arrest, in so far as he regularly goes to Switzerland, and he's done so for several years,” lawyer Herve Temime told Le Figaro , adding that Polanski “even owns a chalet situated in the Gstaad," a Swiss ski village.

Polanski was arrested 31 years ago at a Beverly Hills hotel after a 13-year-old girl accused him of sexually assaulting her during a photo shoot at actor Jack Nicholson's house.

A 1978 arrest warrant, issued after he failed to appear at his sentencing on a statutory rape conviction, is still in effect, and he would be taken into custody upon arrival on U.S. soil. The director of "Chinatown" and "Rosemary's Baby" has not returned to the U.S. since then but continues to work as a director, winning an Oscar for "The Pianist."

Temime told Le Figaro, “At no time, up until today, has he been under an investigation by the Swiss justice [system].  Generally speaking, Roman Polanski never stopped traveling all over the world despite the existence of an American arrest warrant.”

The lawyer said that Polanski was able to inform his wife of the arrest, and that “his wife and his children were very shocked ... ; however, they remain supportive and confident.”

Temime said he would be flying to Zurich, Switzerland, tonight with Polanski's wife to meet with Polanski's Swiss lawyer, and plead for his release.

“We are going to argue a defense based on the extradition procedure,” he explained. 

Temime said there is “a problem” with the extradition order because “the supposed victim withdrew [her claim] many years ago.”

“Humanely, it seems to me unbearable that 30 years after the events, a 76-year-old man, who obviously presents no danger to society, and whose reputation on the artistic and personal level is clearly established, can be subjected to a single day in jail,” the lawyer said.

In a statement, the director's three Los Angeles attorneys, Douglas Dalton, Chad Hummel and Bart Dalton, who are representing him an ongoing attempt to have the case against him dismissed on the grounds of prosecutorial and judicial misconduct, said, “We were unaware of any extradition being sought, and separate counsel will be retained for those proceedings."

Their request to have the 1977 charges against Polanski dismissed is pending before the state Court of Appeal.

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/

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Samantha Geimer, Polanski's victim, doesn't back prison time for the director

Geimer was 13 years old when Polanski allegedly plied the aspiring model with Champagne and Quaaludes and told her he was photographing her for French Vogue. The 1977 incident occurred in a bedroom in Jack Nicholson's house. Actress Anjelica Huston, who was also in the home, was a potential witness. Polanski was arrested in L.A. and pleaded guilty to one count of unlawful sexual intercourse with a minor. He then fled to France.

Geimer, now a mother of four, has said repeatedly and publicly that she thinks Polanski was treated unfairly and expressed a desire for the case to be resolved without prison time.

When Polanski sought to have the rape charge dismissed in 2008, she told The Times she welcomed an opportunity finally to end the case. "It's been a long time," she said. "I don't wish for him to be held to further punishment or consequences."

In 2003, she wrote an Op/Ed piece for The Times saying the case should not be a barrier to him winning an Academy Award:

Now that he's been nominated for an Academy Award, it's all being reopened. I'm being asked: Should he be given the award? Should he be rewarded for his behavior? Should he be allowed back into the United States after fleeing 25 years ago? Here's the way I feel about it: I don't really have any hard feelings toward him, or any sympathy, either. He is a stranger to me. But I believe that Mr. Polanski and his film should be honored according to the quality of the work. What he does for a living and how good he is at it have nothing to do with me or what he did to me. I don't think it would be fair to take past events into consideration. I think that the academy members should vote for the movies they feel deserve it. Not for people they feel are popular.

Polanski ended up winning best director for "The Pianist."

She could not immediately be reached for comment on the director's arrest in Zurich . He's in Swiss police custody awaiting extradition to Los Angeles after being arrested there in connection with the rape case.

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2009/09/polanskis-cause-has-a-backer-in-his-victim-.html#more

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Supreme Court to consider juvenile 'lifers'

Does life without parole for minors who didn't kill constitute cruel and unusual punishment?

By David G. Savage

September 28, 2009

Reporting from Washington

Joe Sullivan was 13 years old when he and two older boys broke into a home, where they robbed and raped an elderly woman. After a one-day trial in 1989, Sullivan was sentenced to life in prison with no chance for parole.

Terrance Graham was 16 when he and two others robbed a restaurant. When he was arrested again a year later for a home break-in, a Florida judge said he was incorrigible. In 2005, Graham received a life term with no parole.

The two young convicts represent an American phenomenon, one the Supreme Court is set to reconsider in the fall term that opens Oct. 5. At issue is whether it is cruel and unusual punishment to imprison a minor until he or she dies when the crime does not involve murder.

According to Amnesty International , "The United States is the only country in the world that does not comply with the norm against imposing life-without-parole sentences on juveniles."

Nearly all of the estimated 2,500 U.S. prisoners serving life terms for juvenile crimes, the group said, were guilty either of murder or of participating in a crime that led to a homicide. But 109 inmates are serving life sentences for other crimes committed when they were younger than 18.

Sullivan's and Graham's lawyers do not claim the young men deserve to go free.

"We are not asking for Mr. Graham to be released any time soon," attorney Bryan Gowdy said. "We are asking the court to declare unconstitutional a sentence of life without parole for these crimes. It would be entirely different if Mr. Graham had a meaningful opportunity for parole."

The question will be an early test of whether Justice Sonia Sotomayor, a former prosecutor, will align herself with the court's tough-on-crime conservatives or join with its liberals to strike down prison policies perceived as going too far.

Sullivan's and Graham's cases will be heard in November. Many lawyers and prosecutors said that until the Supreme Court agreed this year to take up the issue, they were unaware of juveniles receiving such sentences.

Sullivan, now 33, has been in prison for 20 years. The Florida appeals court and the state Supreme Court refused to review his sentence. When his case reached the U.S. Supreme Court, Florida Atty. Gen. Bill McCollum said the appeal should be dismissed on the grounds that it was too late to raise the issue of cruel and unusual punishment.

A lawyer for Graham has called his client's life sentence freakish and unfair. A second youth who participated in the restaurant robbery hit an employee with a club. He was later arrested for robbing a gas station and sentenced to three years in prison. He has since been released.

Florida leads the nation in sending teenagers to prison for life with no possible parole for crimes such as burglary, assault or rape. It has at least 77 such inmates. California and six other states also have at least one.

"This is a hidden group. They don't get a lot of attention because there was no homicide," said Paolo Annino, a law professor at Florida State University who has compiled national data on these prisoners .

California officials said they were unaware of having four such inmates until they checked their database at Annino's request. Two years ago, California joined many other states in prohibiting the sentencing of young offenders to life in prison.

But that measure did not affect inmates who had already been sentenced.

Annino and others point to two trends in the 1980s that led to juveniles serving life terms. First was the national move to abolish parole, reflecting fears that violent criminals could not be safely released. Second was the increased prosecution of young criminals as adults.

In defense of its life-in-prison policy, Florida's lawyers have pointed to several deadly attacks on European visitors carried out by young criminals.

These violent incidents were "threatening the state's bedrock tourism industry," Florida's lawyers said in the opening paragraph of their brief to the Supreme Court in the Graham case .

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-court-preview28-2009sep28,0,4278423,print.story

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Defense Secretary Robert Gates says severe sanctions on Iran could work

Gates says additional sanctions may force an economically squeezed Iran to change its nuclear policy. He questions the value of military strikes.

By Paul Richter

September 28, 2009

Reporting from Washington

Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates said Sunday that the severe sanctions the West is threatening against Iran could force a change in the Islamic Republic's nuclear ambitions, especially since the country is already under severe economic distress.

Speaking as officials from six world powers prepare to meet with Iranian negotiators this week to discuss Tehran's nuclear program, Gates noted that the unemployment rate for Iran's young people is 40%, and asserted that past economic sanctions "are having an impact."

Severe additional sanctions could cause the Iranians to change their policies, Gates said on ABC's "This Week."

Gates played down, as he has in the past, the value of military strikes, saying at most they could only retard Iran's nuclear program by an estimated one to three years.

"The reality is, there is no military option that does anything other than buy time," he said in an interview on CNN's "State of the Union" program.

Despite international outrage over the disclosure last week that Iran has been building a secret uranium enrichment plant near Qom, contentious debate is expected among world powers over the wisdom and efficacy of further economic sanctions.

The threat of Israeli military strikes on Iran hangs over the discussion of the nuclear program. Gates said U.S. officials are trying to persuade Israel to refrain from military action while the international efforts to negotiate an end to the suspected nuclear weapons program are underway.

"We've obviously been in close touch with them, as our ally and friend, and continue to urge them to let this diplomatic and economic sanctions path play out," he said on CNN.

Iran, meanwhile, announced that it had successfully test-fired short-range missiles during military drills by the Revolutionary Guard, in an apparent show of force ahead of Thursday's talks. And today, state television said the nation had tested medium-range missiles, Reuters reported.

The tests came at the end of weeklong military exercises planned before last week's disclosure of the underground nuclear site.

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton acknowledged Sunday that the sanctions that have been imposed by the United Nations Security Council and individual countries are "leaky."

But she said on CBS' "Face the Nation" that world powers have learned more about how to use sanctions in their recent effort to halt North Korea's nuclear and missile programs.

Asked whether Russia, a key player on the Iran issue, would join the effort to impose sanctions despite its economic interests in Iran, Clinton made no promises.

But she said that Russia "has begun to see many more indications that Iran is engaging in threatening behavior" and has been "very supportive" of the international sanctions on North Korea.

Clinton said that in this week's meeting, the burden will be on Iran to prove its assertions that its program is for only peaceful purposes. She said that nothing short of opening up the facilities to inspection would do.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-gates-iran28-2009sep28,0,7500100,print.story

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An Afghan in Muncie, Ind.: Enrolling in U.S. Life 101

A translator leaves Kabul to become a college freshman in Indiana. Lesson 1: 'Everything is regulated here.'

By David Zucchino

September 28, 2009

Reporting from Muncie, Ind.

Khalid Fazly arrived on U.S. soil last month carrying his mother's homemade cookies, a prayer rug, dried dates and thousands in $100 bills tucked into his trousers.

He was pretty certain he was prepared for America.

Except for a car trip to Pakistan, Fazly had never been outside Afghanistan. Now he almost certainly is the only freshman at Indiana's Ball State University who has been threatened with death by the Taliban, survived insurgent ambushes and braved roadside bombs.

In Afghanistan, Fazly worked as a translator and "fixer," or problem-solver. His fluent English and engaging personality helped Western reporters, including those from The Times, negotiate Afghanistan's treacherous politics and strict customs.

Now Fazly sits in English classes with students from China, South Korea and Saudi Arabia, a 26-year-old occasionally overwhelmed by his immersion in American culture. He's still inquisitive and extroverted but also hesitant and uncertain at times.

Take American women, for instance. So far they confound him.

"They wear very short skirts, which I didn't expect to see right on the street," Fazly said as he walked past coeds one recent day. Like most young men in Afghanistan, where the sexes are strictly segregated, Fazly has had little contact with unmarried women other than his five sisters.

And then there are American drivers. They're so polite. They stop for pedestrians. They don't park on the sidewalk or drive the wrong way on one-way streets, as drivers do in Kabul.

"Everything is regulated here," Fazly said. "They have rules for everything. In Kabul, you can drive any way you like."

And don't get him started on tipping or taxes.

On the other hand, he said, it's refreshing not to worry about car bombs and kidnappings.

Just before he left Kabul in late August, Fazly said, he received two phone calls from a man who claimed to represent the Taliban. He accused the translator of being a spy because he worked for Americans. If he didn't stop, he would be killed.

Fazly ignored the threat. He even voted in Afghanistan's national elections, despite Taliban threats to cut off the finger of anyone spotted with the purple ink stains used to identify voters. He arrived in Muncie, Ind., with a faint stain still visible on his forefinger.

In Afghanistan, reporters relied on Fazly's street savvy and carefully calibrated sense of risk. He got journalists close enough to danger to get the story, but not so close that they were harmed.

The day before New York Times reporter David Rohde was kidnapped in November, Fazly advised him not to take a trip to meet with a Taliban commander. Rohde went anyway and was seized in Fazly's home province, Logar, which the translator considered so dangerous that he didn't go there himself.

"He was right," said Rohde, whose newspaper reported that he escaped in June.

And now that Fazly is out of Kabul, he worries about friends left behind. Sultan Munadi, another interpreter, was killed Sept. 9 during a commando raid that rescued kidnapped New York Times reporter Stephen Farrell .

Only a handful of Afghan applicants are granted U.S. student visas -- 338 in 2008, the last year for which figures are available, according to the Institute of International Education. India sent 94,000 students to America that year. Of the 500 international students at Ball State this academic year, four are Afghans.

Fazly was persuaded to apply by Kenneth Holland, dean of the school's international program, who had employed the translator when he traveled to Afghanistan in 2006.

Holland said he was impressed by Fazly's intelligence, industriousness and sense of humor. An Afghan policeman once ordered Fazly, who was driving Holland through the countryside, to ask the American whether Fazly had kidnapped him. Fazly dutifully asked Holland in English, then informed the officer, in Dari, that, no, the American says he has not been kidnapped.

Fazly was reluctant to give up his lucrative work with Western reporters -- the source of the $100 bills, which now are safe in a Muncie bank account. But he decided he could build a more productive life with a U.S. education.

In class, Fazly is more fluent in English and more outspoken than most of the other international students. In Writing 151, he easily spouted off terms like "dependent clause" and "conditional tense."

"Give someone else a chance, Khalid," professor Jamila Jones said after Fazly rattled off several answers.

She did, however, point out one problem with Fazly: "He does have a tendency to be a little late."

He promised to be more prompt; he was still on Afghan time, he said, where appointment times are mere suggestions.

Because his only new friends so far are international students, he wants to get to know more Americans, whom he considers friendly and helpful.

"They're very nice people, but they don't come forward too much," he said. "In Afghanistan, when people don't know you, they will approach you and ask you about yourself."

Fazly rents a room in an off-campus house owned by a convert to Islam. A "God Bless America" sign out front has been altered to read "Allah Bless American Muslims." He used the washing machine there to do his own clothes for the very first time.

"We need to get some good Afghan recipes from Khalid's mother and teach him how to cook," said Holland's wife, Julie Barker Lebo, an assistant professor at Ball State whom Fazly calls "my American mother."

When Fazly's luggage was delayed for four days, Lebo took him shopping for clothes, including a pair of shorts. Afghan men never wear shorts, but Fazly finally wore them on campus one day, looking game but uncomfortable.

Fazly said he intends to return to Afghanistan after earning a bachelor's degree, perhaps in political science or international relations.

In Kabul, he said, many top ministry officials have American educations. He hopes to land a job in a ministry that works to improve the lives of Afghans. He considers the government there corrupt and ineffective, he said.

"I want to be part of an honest government," he said. "And who knows? Maybe someday I'll run for president."

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-afghan-in-muncie28-2009sep28,0,3349321,print.story

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From the Daily News

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Shootings bring increased LAPD presence

VAN NUYS - A 4-month-old boy was killed and a woman and man were wounded Sunday in the most wrenching among a week of gang shootings that prompted the LAPD to send extra officers to the San Fernando Valley to try to stem the violence.

The infant's death in Van Nuys came hours after the fatal shootings of two men on a street in Canoga Park and the wounding of a man at a gas station in Panorama City, and hours before the wounding of a man in Pacoima.

The previous Sunday, a man and a boy were killed and a boy was wounded at a housing project in Pacoima.

"The Valley has experienced a terrible weekend," Los Angeles Police Deputy Chief Michel Moore said Sunday afternoon, calling it a "stark contrast" with a generally improving trend in local violent-crime statistics.

Moore said the LAPD was responding with a "full-court press" aimed at catching the shooters and suppressing further trouble.

He also said dozens of extra officers from elsewhere in Los Angeles were to be deployed in the San Fernando Valley on Sunday night.

Although the shootings are thought to be gang-related, Moore said investigators so far had found no sign of a wave of gang retaliations or any other connection to explain the bloody week.

But "no one does this kind of violence in a vacuum," Moore said, calling on anybody with knowledge of the shootings to phone LAPD detectives at 877-527-3247 (877-LAPD247). Tipsters may remain anonymous.

The 4-month-old was shot just after 1 a.m. Sunday in the 14300 block of Kittridge Street in Van Nuys.

The three victims were part of a group of people - also including the baby's mother and father - who got into a verbal confrontation with two men outside what was initially reported to be a gang party, LAPD Officer Norma Eisenman said.

One of the two men used a shotgun and fired six times into the group before he and the other man fled on foot.

Andrew Garcia, 4 months old, was shot in the head and pronounced dead at Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center. Anna Contreras, 28, who had been feeding the baby in a car, remained hospitalized Sunday and is expected to survive. Eric Ramirez, 18, who had been standing outside the car, was treated at a hospital and released.

Contreras and Ramirez were not the infant's mother and father, Eisenman said.

The suspects had not been identified and were last seen on foot northbound on Sylmar Avenue after the shootings, which occurred in the neighborhood east of Van Nuys Boulevard and south of Vanowen Street.

The men are described as Hispanics, 18 to 22 years old, 5-foot-8 to 5-foot-10, wearing white T-shirts. One had a shaved head, and the other appeared to weigh about 200 pounds.

Meanwhile, police said detectives had identified suspects in the deaths of two men found lying in the street in the 8800 block of Independence Avenue in Canoga Park at 2:44 a.m. Saturday after officers responded to a report of gunfire.

The suspects' names were being withheld from the public so as not to jeopardize the investigation and pursuit.

The victims were identified by police as Guillermo Mendoza, 21, and Isidor Meza, whose age was not reported.

In another incident that appears to be gang-related, a man was shot in the stomach while in his car at a gas station in Panorama City at 2 a.m. Saturday morning.

Police say the victim, a man in his 30s, was inside his vehicle at the Arco station at Roscoe Boulevard and Ventura Canyon Avenue when two men in a car described as a dark black Honda or Mercury pulled up and asked him where he was from.

When the victim replied, "nowhere," one of the suspects shot into the car. The victim was transported to a local hospital.

On Sept. 20, a 20-year-old man and a 16-year-old boy were killed and a 15-year-old boy was wounded in a shooting inside the San Fernando Gardens housing project in Pacoima. Police said those shootings also appeared to be gang related.

Police say that investigation was continuing.

Moore called the spate of shootings "a stark reminder that while we talk frequently of the crime reduction we've seen in the Valley and in Los Angeles, the violence is still way too much."