......... NEWS
of the Day - October 24, 2009
on
some LACP issues of interest ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
NEWS
of the Day
- October 24, 2009
on
some issues of interest to the community policing and neighborhood
activist
EDITOR'S NOTE: The following group of articles from local
newspapers and other sources constitutes but a small percentage
of the information available to the community policing and neighborhood
activist public. It is by no means meant to cover every possible
issue of interest, nor is it meant to convey any particular
point of view ...
We present this simply as a convenience to our readership ...
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From LA Times
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A neighborly new police headquarters
It's not magical, but the new Los Angeles Police Department building downtown is a surprisingly successful piece of urban design.
By CHRISTOPHER HAWTHORNE
Architecture Critic
October 24, 2009
From the earliest stages of the design process, architects for a new Los Angeles Police Department headquarters downtown have been torn between two very different goals: giving the building a meaningful civic presence and keeping it safe from potential attack.
Architects Paul Danna and Jose Palacios have been determined all along to make a case that the LAPD -- dramatically enlarged and haltingly reformed by its outgoing chief, William J. Bratton -- belongs literally and symbolically in the heart of the civic center. But their designs have also suggested a building defensive and essentially suburban in its attitude toward the city, one stepping back 75 feet from the curb on three sides as a precaution against car and truck bombs and featuring a window pattern along Spring Street meant in part to thwart snipers.
The welcome surprise of the completed headquarters, which will be officially dedicated this morning, is the extent to which it succeeds as urban design -- not by magically resolving those contradictions but by seeing them, at least at the sidewalk level, as an opportunity.
Danna and Palacios, of the firm AECOM, worked with landscape architecture office Melendrez to create pockets of neighborly, pedestrian-friendly space in the building's sloping main plaza, which faces First Street and City Hall, and on a number of its edges. On Second Street they carved out room for a 1-acre park, edged by planters and benches -- some of which do double duty as security barriers -- and a rich variety of trees. To the east, they pulled a restaurant and a 420-seat auditorium -- neither of which is subject to the department's setback guidelines, which are designed primarily to protect LAPD office space -- from the mass of the main headquarters and placed them as free-standing structures along Main Street.
Collectively, these gestures have adroitly turned the LAPD's anxieties about security -- which are also, frankly, anxieties about the contemporary city -- into a force for effective urbanism. Space that might have languished as a no-man's-land of concrete and protective bollards has instead become open and usable.
They also point up an irony of Bratton's recent complaints about the bronze animal sculptures, by artist Peter Shelton, that sit atop limestone pedestals along the building's Spring Street side. Whatever you make of Shelton's eight-member menagerie, it is precisely the designers' treatment of the building at the pedestrian level that has helped salvage it as a piece of civic architecture.
As a presence in the skyline, alas, the headquarters -- 10 stories tall and covering 500,000 square feet -- remains cautious and largely unimaginative, a well-appointed office building wrapped in limestone panels and broad expanses of glass and taking the shape of a massive letter L, with long arms pointing east and north. A sharp-edged roof slices across and covers that L, giving the impression that much of the structure is wedge-shaped and opening up a large plaza that offers carefully framed views from the First Street side toward St. Vibiana's Cathedral and from the Main Street edge toward City Hall.
Danna and Palacios have tried to create a new home for a powerful institution -- one often connected in the public imagination with scandal or intimidating force -- that looks from certain angles like a place to sell life insurance.
If the LAPD's old headquarters, Welton Becket's crisply modern, almost delicate 1955 Parker Center, came to represent the "Dragnet"-era city and a simpler approach to policing, its new one, despite its lesser achievement as a piece of architecture, is freighted with symbolism far more complex. It suggests the multilayered institution Bratton leaves behind -- an LAPD technologically advanced and newly robust if far from entirely redeemed.
Inside, the building is architecturally straightforward. A shallow lobby offers views down to a public-records hall at basement level and, through floor-to-ceiling glass, out to the main plaza. Huge floor plates are stacked above, creating mostly open-plan, cubicle-filled office space that is served at each level by a dramatic corridor facing east and overlooking the city.
In total, the LAPD's recent surge of construction has cost $437 million. That figure includes not only the new headquarters but three other structures: a garage and mechanics facility on Main Street that is decorated with green and gray steel-mesh panels and was designed by John Friedman Alice Kimm Architects; yet another garage, this one underground, planned for Judge John Aiso Street; and a data center on East Temple.
All that room for parking makes you wonder how many LAPD employees even flirt with the idea of taking public transit. It has also managed the unfortunate trick of squeezing St. Vibiana's, so smartly restored two years ago, between giant LAPD bookends: the headquarters to the northwest and the Main Street garage to the south.
Despite its insistent mass and mostly straightforward forms, the appeal of the headquarters building along the street, and the pockets of open space it has created, may soothe some lingering frustration among downtown residents about its location. As Caltrans made plans to give up its old building on the site and construct a home across Main Street, many hoped the site bounded by Main, Spring, First and Second would become a civic park. A 1997 master plan for downtown, in fact, explicitly called for a park there.
But Bratton and city leaders saw the site as the perfect spot for the LAPD to build a replacement for the aging Parker Center two blocks away. For its part, Parker Center appears poised to move into the center of a preservation debate, as city officials consider preliminary plans to replace it with a new administrative building as large as 700,000 square feet.
Some downtown residents are still shaking their heads at the brazenness of the deal-making that quashed the park plans and brought the LAPD to First and Main.
Still, thanks to its surprising openness, the headquarters is a better neighbor, and a more attractive piece of public architecture, than the preliminary designs gave us any reason to expect.
For now, L.A. council agrees to maintain size of LAPD despite budget shortfall
October 23, 2009 | 4:58 pm The Los Angeles City Council agreed today to maintain the Los Angeles police force at 9,963 officers this year, but members said they would assess the city's ability to maintain that size of the force on a monthly basis.
With the council trying to close a $405-million budget shortfall this year, Council President Eric Garcetti said the city would proceed with new police academy classes only “as we can afford them.”
Each month, the LAPD, city personnel officials and top budget analysts will be required to submit reports to the council detailing attrition rates, retirements and the number of recruits scheduled to enter the academy.
Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa pledged in 2005 to add 1,000 officers to the police force for a total of 10,181. The council's action, he said in a statement today, will allow the Police Department to “maintain the current deployment levels that have allowed our city to reach historic crime reductions.”
4th teen from same Palo Alto high school commits suicide
October 23, 2009 | 1:49 pm
For the fourth time in less than six months, a student from one Palo Alto high school has committed suicide, authorities say. The boy stepped in front of a train at the same location where three other students have killed themselves since May.
CalTrain spokeswoman Tasha Bartholomew said the latest suicide of a student from high-performing Gunn High School occurred at 10:50 p.m. Monday. Another Gunn student, a boy, 17, killed himself the same way at the same spot at 8:20 a.m on May 5.
His death was followed by the suicide of a girl, 17, on the tracks at 9:59 p.m. on June 2. The third suicide occurred at the same location on Aug. 21 at 10:45 p.m.
Palo Alto police told the San Jose Mercury News that police are limiting publicity about the suicides for fear of a growing cluster.
"The research we're being told is that the more we talk about it and romanticize it, the easier it is that mentally ill or depressed people will make that leap,'' Sgt. Dan Ryan was quoted as saying. "We're taking a stand and not releasing more information."
Ryan was unavailable today, and another detective in the department's juvenile section did not return a telephone inquiry.
Suicide clusters are relatively rare, although they have existed since ancient times.
One study found that between 1% and 5% of all teen suicides in the U.S. occur in clusters, taking the lives of 100 to 200 teenagers a year. Suicide contagion has involved prison inmates, marines, religious sects and Native Americans, but in the U.S. teens and young adults make up most of the clusters, according to Suicide and Mental Health Assn. International.
Clusters have included friends or acquaintances from a single school or church and also teens who have never had any direct contact with one another, according to the organization. Some share an "environmental stressor," the association said.
The Centers for Disease Control reported that four teenagers in a New Jersey suburb committed suicide on March 11, 1987 by locking themselves in a garage with a car engine running. Six days later, a 17-year-old boy and a woman, 20, attempted suicide in the same garage by the same means, the centers reported. The garage door was later removed.
"Anecdotal evidence suggests that suicides early in a cluster may influence the persons who commit suicide later in the cluster," the centers reported. "There is also research evidence that exposure to a suicide that was not part of a cluster may lead certain persons to take their own lives."
Two swine flu clinics open today for uninsured and at-risk L.A. County residents [Updated]
October 23, 2009 | 11:28 am
Hundreds of people who face the greatest risk from swine flu infections and do not usually have access to medical care began receiving free H1N1 vaccines this morning at county health clinics in Encino and Culver City.
"Though flu may not be considered by some to be a serious illness, some groups are at higher risk, and they especially should get vaccinated to protect themselves and their loved ones,” said Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa at the Balboa Sports Complex in Encino.
The two clinics are the first in Los Angeles County since the vaccine became available, and are occurring as cases of swine flu are surging in the state. Shipments of vaccine have been slow to arrive , frustrating physicians and others. California has received 1.7 million doses of H1N1 vaccine so far out of 20 million doses expected this season.
Starting at 9 a.m., public health staffers at a clinic designed to serve the underinsured began immunizing people who face the greatest risks of infection – pregnant women, those from 6 months to 24 years old and adults between the ages of 25 and 64 who have chronic health problems. Because infants younger than 6 months cannot be vaccinated for the swine flu, parents and caregivers are also urged to get immunized.
People with insurance are urged to get the vaccine from their healthcare providers as it becomes available in coming weeks. Vaccinations may also be available at chain pharmacies starting the first week of November.
“Preventing the flu is both an individual responsibility and a community effort,” said county Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky. “Our county Department of Public Health will be working with several partners to conduct H1N1 vaccine clinics in cities and unincorporated areas throughout the county. The public should know that through these efforts, everyone at high risk will have an opportunity to protect their health with this vaccine.”
The clinics are taking place today from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. at the Balboa Sports Complex, 17015 Burbank Blvd. in Encino; and from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. at Veterans Memorial Auditorium, 4117 Overland Ave. in Culver City. More are scheduled over the weekend and in coming weeks. To see a list of upcoming clinics, click here .
“Vaccine is one of the most effective ways to prevent the spread of flu,” said Dr. Jonathan E. Fielding, the county's public health officer. “I urge all those in the vaccine priority groups, which are based on their risk for a severe case of H1N1, to join me in getting the vaccine. Prevention starts with you.”
[Updated at 11:54 a.m.: Nearly 1,000 people were waiting for immunizations in Encino, with an orderly line snaking from the sports complex, across the parking lot and past athletic fields. The first person in line, Alexa White of Reseda, arrived at midnight.
She has only one lung, which puts her at greater risk of complications from the flu. After entering the gymnasium, people answer medical questions and sign a waiver before receiving the vaccination, either in injectable or nasal-mist form. The vaccines arrived by refrigerated truck this morning. Fielding and Yaroslavsky were the first and second people to receive the shots.]
Police in Inland Empire seeking man who abducted two girls
October 23, 2009 | 10:56 am
Police are asking for the public's help in finding a man they believe abducted two teenage girls at gunpoint in separate incidents in Chino and Fontana. In at least one case, the man tried to sexually assault his captive.
In that incident, a man approached a 15-year-old girl from behind as she walked to school around 6:20 a.m. Thursday in the 13200 block of Ballestros Avenue near Chino and Ramona avenues in Chino, said Michelle Van Der Linden, a spokeswoman for the Chino Police Department.
The man, who was armed with a black, semi-automatic handgun, forced the girl into a silver car, Van Der Linden said.
“He drove her around the block, where he attempted to sexually assault her and rob her,” Van Der Linden said.
The teenager was not assaulted but her abductor rifled through her bag before dropping her off at the spot where he had originally confronted her.
A similar incident occurred last week in Fontana, Van Der Linden said. Fontana police officials were not immediately available for comment, but Van Der Linden said a young girl was abducted under circumstances similar to what the Chino teenager experienced.
“They appear to be similar cases,” said Van Der Linden. “The description of the suspect and the car are similar.”
The suspect is described by Chino police as a Latino, between the ages of 25 and 35 with clean-shaven, clear skin, short dark hair and wearing prescription wire-framed square glasses. He was wearing a light gray zippered hoodie jacket, a white shirt and dark baggy pants, police said.
The vehicle is described as a silver, two-door coupe with a third brake light to the rear on the trunk.
“We're hoping that someone recognizes this individual and contacts the Chino police," Van Der Linden said.
Anyone with information is asked to call the Chino Police Department at (909) 628-1234.
Antelope Valley crime rate continues downward trend
October 23, 2009 | 9:12 am
An overall decline in the number of serious crimes in Lancaster and Palmdale for the third quarter of the year is helping to continue a downward trend in the crime rate for the Antelope Valley, officials said.
In Lancaster, the crime rate decreased by 21% between July and September, with an overall improvement in the rate by 23% since the beginning of the year. Palmdale saw an 11% decrease in its crime rate in the third quarter, and experienced a 9% drop in the rate of serious crimes for 2009.
Lancaster's crime rate improvement so far this year represents 1,043 fewer serious crimes than during the same period in 2008, law enforcement officials said Thursday. Serious crimes include homicide, rape, robbery, burglary, assault, larceny and grand theft auto.
While there were eight homicides in Lancaster in the first nine months of both 2008 and 2009, rapes fell from 47 to 42; robberies from 266 to 247; assaults from 590 to 477; burglaries from 1,208 to 952; and grand theft auto from 392 to 350.
Palmdale's crime rate drop since the beginning of the year represented 252 fewer crimes than for the same period last year, officials said, although the number of homicides, assaults and rapes registered a slight uptick in the third quarter.
For example, there were four murders in the third quarter of 2008, compared with five in the third quarter of this year. Sheriff's department officials said that one of the last quarter's murders resulted in two deaths, though it was a single incident.
Rapes went from 15 to 17 and assaults from 130 to 145. Burglaries increased in Palmdale in the first six months of the year, but the formation in August of a burglary suppression task force helped to produce a reduction in such crimes in the third quarter, said Anne Ambrose, Palmdale's director of public safety and community relations.
There were 16 fewer burglaries in Palmdale between July and September, compared with the same period last year.
“We're seeing a downward trend,” Ambrose said.
Officials in Lancaster and Palmdale attributed the overall decrease in the crime rate of their cities to sheriff's deputies' taking a more aggressive and innovative approach to tackling gang-related violent crimes.
Lancaster's Mayor. R. Rex Parris also credited “a faith-based community which is willing to get involved and improve our neighborhoods, and most importantly, citizens who have stood up to make Lancaster the safe community we all want and deserve.”
Asylum seeker realized her dream but now is missing
After years on the run, Gilda Ghanipour stumbled upon a retired immigration judge and his Pepperdine law students, who championed her quest for asylum. She won her case. But she doesn't know it.
By Duke Helfand
October 24, 2009
Gilda Ghanipour has spent the last nine years on the run.
Abandoned by her Muslim family for converting to Christianity, she has shuttled from one address to the next, terrified of being deported to her native Iran, where apostasy can be punished by death.
Last year, Ghanipour stumbled upon a retired immigration judge and his Pepperdine University Law School students, who championed her quest for asylum.
Ghanipour won the case. But she doesn't know it.
The devoutly religious woman vanished shortly before the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services delivered on her dream at the end of August.
Her Pepperdine legal advocates are desperately searching for her -- calling churches she frequented, scouring prison databases, knocking on doors where she once lived.
Somewhere in Los Angeles, they believe, Ghanipour is wandering alone, as she has for most of the last decade, probably clutching her beloved Bible, possibly sleeping in a homeless shelter or in someone's spare bedroom.
Police haven't been able to find her. The coroner has no record of her. Efforts by The Times to locate her through relatives, churches and homeless advocates also were unsuccessful.
The disappearance of the 49-year-old Ghanipour, who speaks three languages and once attended medical school, is especially difficult for those at Pepperdine Law School's Asylum Clinic.
Gilda, as they've known her, was their first client. She offered the lawyers-in-training an early taste of victory. They have only a grainy black-and-white photo to remind them of her thick black hair, her proud smile, her opinionated ways. And they are worried, knowing that Ghanipour has been in ill health.
"Part of me doesn't want to celebrate until we find her," said Kristin Heinrich, a third-year law student.
Ghanipour recounted her life story in declarations accompanying her asylum application. According to the written statements, she spent her childhood in the city of Arak and her adolescence in Tehran, about 200 miles to the north. She married in 1979 shortly after graduating from high school and moved with her husband to Germany to escape the strict fundamentalist rule of the Islamic Revolution.
While in Germany, she studied medicine. She periodically visited relatives in California and returned briefly to Iran on several occasions to help her father sort out her mother's will. While touring historical sites on one of those trips, according to her declarations, she was arrested by the Iranian secret service and interrogated about suspicions that she was a German spy.
The experience left her shaken. Divorced from her husband in Germany, she accepted an invitation to join her relatives in California, arriving in June 2000 on a six-month visitors visa, she wrote in the asylum papers.
While staying with a cousin in Diamond Bar, she had an encounter that would change her life. An evangelical Christian family knocked at the door. Their message about God's love through Christ resonated with Ghanipour, who had never been especially religious but had experienced what she described as an encounter with God after her mother's death years before in Iran.
"I immediately knew in my heart that this is what I was looking for," she wrote in her asylum declaration. "And on the 30th of November 2000, while on a legal visit in the U.S., I received Jesus Christ as my savior and became a Christian believer."
The decision alienated her family. "One by one my relatives turned away from me," she wrote.
With no family, no job and an expired visa, Ghanipour wandered from place to place, relying on the kindness of friends, many from churches she attended. Her asylum paperwork listed 25 addresses in the last five years alone, including locations in Woodland Hills, Glendale, North Hollywood, Sherman Oaks, Inglewood, Hawthorne and Ontario.
"She was afraid she would be arrested and removed" from the United States, said Bruce Einhorn, a retired federal immigration judge who runs Pepperdine's Asylum Clinic. "She lived on the run."
Ghanipour tried repeatedly to resolve her immigration problems. She filed for an extension of her visa, only to see it rejected because the wrong fee had been submitted, she wrote in her asylum paperwork. That happened, she wrote, because a Sherman Oaks notary who had posed as an immigration attorney provided an outdated form, defrauding her of money in the process (she did not say how much).
She met with other attorneys, one of whom advised her to hold off on her legalization efforts because of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. Another suggested that she "pray and ask Jesus Christ to reveal the truth" about the notary who allegedly scammed her.
Ghanipour prayed often and fervently. Faith was the one constant in her life.
"She seemed to be a very committed Christian," recalled Roger Bosch, the associate pastor of outreach at Lake Avenue Church in Pasadena, where Ghanipour was baptized in 2004 and attended services and Bible study.
"She was always concerned that her life would reflect her faith," he said.
Ghanipour disappeared from the church about four or five years ago, Bosch said. She drifted to homes and churches across the region, landing in June 2008 at the Union Rescue Mission on L.A.'s skid row. A case manager there referred her to the Pepperdine Legal Aid Clinic, which is housed in the mission. The clinic's attorneys typically do not handle immigration matters, so they turned to Einhorn.
At the time, Einhorn was preparing to open a new legal clinic at Pepperdine to represent indigent asylum clients, particularly those who faced religious persecution. Ghanipour filled the bill.
But by applying for asylum, Ghanipour would be doing precisely what she had tried to avoid all these years: bringing herself to the attention of immigration authorities.
Einhorn informed her of another risk. The majority of asylum seekers, he explained, are rejected and wind up being referred for removal proceedings in Immigration Court. But Ghanipour insisted on pressing ahead.
In May, she appeared with Einhorn and another clinic attorney before an asylum officer with the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. The interview lasted 6 1/2 hours. Einhorn and Ghanipour returned two weeks later, hoping for a decision, but were told that it would be mailed.
Then, in late July, Ghanipour disappeared. Her cellphone went dead. She no longer returned e-mails. Her legal advocates were surprised by her silence because she had been so persistent and vocal about her case.
Sleeping in the cockpit? It happens, aviation experts say
The issue of pilot fatigue is under scrutiny after two Northwest pilots overshot a Minneapolis airport this week after possibly nodding off.
By Hugo Martin
October 24, 2009
White-knuckle airline passengers who are already shaken by news that two Northwest Airlines pilots are under investigation for overshooting a Minneapolis airport after possibly nodding off won't want to hear this: Some pilots say cockpit catnaps happen.
"Pilots on occasion do take controlled naps," said Barry Schiff, an aviation safety consultant and retired TWA pilot. "So this is not without precedent."
Although the Federal Aviation Administration prohibits pilots from catching a few z's in the cockpit, several airline pilots say they are surprised that napping mishaps haven't happened more often, considering longer work schedules for pilots and advances in aviation that make planes easier to fly.
The issue of cockpit siestas came under scrutiny this week after the FAA and the National Transportation Safety Board announced they were looking into why Northwest Flight 188, from San Diego to Minneapolis, overshot its airport by 150 miles before turning around.
According to the FAA, the crew of the Airbus A320, carrying 147 passengers, stopped responding to air traffic controllers and ignored airline dispatchers using a data link, similar to a text message. The FAA notified the military, which put Air National Guard fighter jets on alert at two locations, although none took to the air.
The pilots became aware of the situation after a flight attendant apparently alerted them through the intercom because the cockpit doors are locked during flight.
When the plane landed, the pilots told federal investigators that they lost track of their location because they were in a heated argument over airline policy. Delta Air Lines, which owns Northwest, declined to comment except to say the pilots had been suspended pending completion of the investigation.
Most of the passengers on board didn't seem to realize anything was wrong until the plane landed nearly 75 minutes late.
Amy Kieffer, a passenger, told a television reporter that at one point the captain addressed the passengers on the public address system, saying, "After some back and forth and bickering, we should be landing in 15 or 20 minutes."
Ian Gregor, a spokesman for the FAA, said investigators didn't know why the pilots were out of contact but they would look into the possibility that both were asleep.
"It's certainly something we will look at," he said.
If investigators conclude that the Northwest pilots were snoozing at 37,000 feet, several current and retired pilots say, it wouldn't be a surprise.
"Fatigue is a real problem," said Sam Mayer, an American Airlines pilot and spokesman for the Allied Pilots Assn., the union that represents 11,500 American Airlines pilots. "I don't know what happened [in Minneapolis] but I wouldn't be surprised if they were asleep."
And it wouldn't be the first time.
A Go airline flight last February overshot Hilo International Airport in Hawaii by more than 20 miles. The pilots admitted to federal officials that they fell asleep in the cockpit while the plane was on autopilot. An NTSB report on the incident said there was an 18-minute interval during which no one could reach the flight by radio.
One of the pilots later told investigators that he regularly took planned naps in the cockpit but that this was the first time he had inadvertently fallen asleep. Phoenix-based Mesa Air Group Inc., which owns Go, fired both pilots.
In 2004, a pilot admitted to federal officials that he and the first officer on an Airbus A319 fell asleep on a "red eye" flight from Baltimore to Denver. They awoke to frantic radio calls from the air traffic control tower.
But perhaps the most eye-opening incident took place in 1998, when all three pilots on a Boeing 747 from Seoul to Anchorage nodded off in the cockpit. The plane landed safely but the captain admitted that he and his crew made several minor navigational errors because of fatigue.
"Each time when I awoke," the captain told federal aviation officials in an anonymous report that didn't name the airline, "the other two crew members were also asleep."
Mayer and other pilots blame fatigue and increasing economic pressure on airlines to push pilots to work the maximum hours allowed under FAA rules.
"We have trips now that have five legs a day for several days in a row," Mayer said. "After you work one of these shifts, you feel like you have been hit by a truck."
Federal regulations on how many hours a pilot can work before taking a break are complicated. In simple terms, a pilot can be on duty for up to 16 hours but is not allowed to be in the air for more than eight hours straight in a 24-hour period, according to FAA officials.
Still, pilots complain that airlines often count the drive time to and from the airport as "rest time" between flights.
Another possible factor in such napping incidents is the level of automation in modern planes. Once a passenger plane reaches a cruising altitude, pilots do little more than monitor the gauges, keep an eye on the weather and communicate with ground control, according to pilots.
"When you reach cruising altitude, there is not much demand on one's time and energy," Schiff said. "There is not a lot going on."
And pilots can't rely on flight attendants to shake them awake. Since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, cockpit doors have been locked after takeoff. The attendants can communicate with the pilots via an intercom system.
The Air Transport Assn., the trade group that represents most major airlines, declined to comment on the Minneapolis incident, pending the outcome of the investigation.
Still, pilot fatigue is such a growing concern that FAA Administrator Randy Babbitt in June appointed a 20-member committee of airline representatives, pilots and others to recommend rule changes.
The panel's recommendations have not been released but a letter signed by several airline executives has leaked out. The letter, obtained by the pilots union, said the airlines would support "controlled cockpit napping" on long-haul flights, among other changes. "Controlled cockpit napping" involves short naps -- 15 to 20 minutes -- that pilots take in turn.
Such naps are allowed on long-haul international flights, where flight crews with three or more pilots can take turns sleeping in bunks behind the cockpit. The FAA has yet to signal a change on the policy that prohibits cockpit naps by domestic carriers.
Jason Goldberg, an American Airlines pilot for 12 years, said he had not seen a pilot snooze in the cockpit but was certain it happened. Although he believes that pilots are often overworked, he rejects the idea of "controlled cockpit naps."
"It's a bad practice," he said. "You have one guy falling asleep and now you are relying on the other guy to stay awake. It's a safety issue."
United States files formal extradition request for Roman Polanski
Associated Press Updated: 10/23/2009 11:35:31 AM PDT
GENEVA - The United States has asked Switzerland to hand over Roman Polanski to authorities in California, where he could serve up to two years in prison for having sex in 1977 with a 13-year-old girl, Swiss authorities said Friday.
The Justice Ministry said in a statement that Washington filed its formal extradition request late Thursday. The 76-year-old filmmaker has been in Swiss custody since his arrest Sept. 26 as he arrived in Zurich to attend a film festival.
The request has been forwarded to Zurich authorities, who will hold a hearing on an unspecified date to decide whether Polanski should be sent back to Los Angeles. If extradition is approved, Polanski may appeal the decision to Switzerland's top criminal court and, theoretically, to the Federal Supreme Court.
That means the director of such film classics as "Rosemary's Baby" and "Chinatown" could remain in a Swiss jail for months more of legal wrangling, even though legal experts say he has little chance of avoiding a return to the United States after 31 years as a fugitive.
The maximum sentence Polanski can receive in California is two years, the Justice Ministry said.
"In the American case, he declared himself guilty of having sexual relations with a minor," spokesman Folco Galli told Europe-1 radio. "According to American law currently in force, the maximum penalty for the crime in question is two years in prison."
Galli later told The Associated Press that the sentence couldn't be longer because Polanski could only be punished for the crime that is the basis of his extradition. He said the U.S. informed the Swiss of the maximum sentence in its filing.
In Paris, Polanski's lawyer said the director would fight extradition.
"He will oppose this request and continue to ask to be released until the request is examined," Herve Temime said.
The U.S. had until late November to file for extradition, but the Swiss were already asking on Oct. 5 that the Americans expedite the process, according to documents obtained by the AP.
In an e-mail exchange obtained by the AP under U.S. public records request, Los Angeles prosecutors noted that the "Swiss were very eager to receive an advance English copy of our papers" and "the sooner that the Swiss knew we had filed formal papers the better."
There was no mention in correspondence of the intense public scrutiny over Polanski's arrest in the Alpine country, which tipped off U.S. authorities that he was expected five days before his apprehension at Zurich's airport.
Swiss officials have defended the move as routine procedure. But several politicians and commentators have argued that Switzerland may have cooperated too energetically, and that recent U.S.-Swiss troubles over wealthy American tax cheats and Swiss banks may have provided motivation for the arrest.
Polanski, who won a 2003 directing Oscar in absentia for "The Pianist," was accused of raping the 13-year-old girl after plying her with champagne and a Quaalude pill during a modeling shoot in 1977. He was initially indicted on six felony counts, including rape by use of drugs, child molesting and sodomy.
Polanski pleaded guilty to the lesser charge of unlawful sexual intercourse. In exchange, the judge agreed to drop the remaining charges and sentence him to prison for a 90-day psychiatric evaluation. Polanski was released after 42 days by an evaluator but the judge said he was going to send him back to serve the remainder of the 90 days. Polanski then fled the country on Feb. 1, 1978, the day he was to be sentenced.
A French native who moved to Poland as a child, Polanski has lived in France since fleeing the United States. France does not extradite its citizens.
Polanski has been fighting since his arrest to be released from jail. He suffered a serious setback earlier this week when the Swiss Criminal Court rejected his appeal because of the high risk he would flee justice again. It turned down a bail payment of his Alpine chalet in Gstaad, house arrest and electronic monitoring as conditions for his release.
The loss appeared to prompt some rethinking of his defense, when one of Polanski's lawyers said Wednesday that it was possible that the director might voluntarily return to face justice in the United States.
But that suggestion was quickly rejected by another attorney representing Polanski.
U.N.'s Goldstone Report is Magna Carta for terrorists
By Rabbi Marvin Hier and Rabbi Abraham Cooper Updated: 10/23/2009 09:54:35 AM PDT
THE climactic battle in the war against global terror has been fought - and the civilized world lost. Invoking the newly minted Goldstone fact-finding report investigating the Jewish state for its recent military action against the 8,000 rockets from Gaza's "Hamastan," the U.N.'s "Human Rights" Council has now voted for surrender.
The vote was 25 to 6, with 11 abstentions, to condemn Israel for "war crimes" and "crimes against humanity." The U.S. - which recently rejoined the council in hopes of "reforming" it - voted no, as did Italy, Ukraine and the Netherlands. The U.K. and France boycotted the vote entirely.
Not even in classic Hollywood westerns was the good guy ever expected to fight strictly according to Marquis of Queensbury Rules when the innocent heroine's fate was at stake. But today, there's been a role reversal where, even in life-and-death wartime battles, the good guys are being held up to impossible standards of morality while the bad guys like Hamas in Gaza brazenly take civilians hostage as human shields and escape U.N. condemnation.
We seem to have forgotten that war is something you engage in when you are at wit's end and there are no other solutions. It is not like attending a boxing match where there's a referee to keep both combatants from hitting below the belt.
Any veteran will tell you that war is hell, especially when your opponents are die-hard fanatics who hate life and can't wait to settle down in paradise with their 72 virgins.
With this insidious vote, the U.N. Human Rights Council has surrendered the civilized world to these practitioners of evil and delivered this message to Osama bin Laden: "Come out of your cave, all-compassionate Osama, architect of the 9-11 attacks, and give us the best terms we losers can hope for."
What the members of the council chose to forget were the wise words of U.S. Supreme Court Justice Robert H. Jackson, who once observed that even the hallowed U.S. Constitution's Bill of Rights "is not a suicide pact." He gained this perspective while serving as chief prosecutor at the Nuremberg Trials. It was there where Jackson brought to justice "the aggressor nations" that destroyed the peace of the world and unleashed the Holocaust.
Now, Judge Richard Goldstone has perverted the judgments at Nuremberg and has put into place instead a dangerous, false morality that renders the struggle against nonstate terrorists hopeless and unwinnable.
It didn't have to go that way in Geneva. Certainly, many member states in the hall from Russia to Kuwait to Pakistan, China and Afghanistan were squirming in their seats when the one person in the room who has actually fought terrorists in Afghanistan, Col. Richard Kemp, called their bluff and said this to them at the debate:
"Based on my knowledge and experience, I can say this: during Operation Cast Lead the Israeli Defense Forces did more to safeguard the rights of civilians in the combat zone than any other army in the history of warfare... The IDF took extraordinary measures to give Gaza civilians notice of targeted areas, dropping over 2 million leaflets, and making over 100,000 phone calls. Many missions that could have taken out Hamas military capability were aborted to prevent civilian casualties... War is chaos and full of mistakes... but mistakes are not war crimes."
Goldstone himself seems to have finally begun to realize what genie he let out of the U.N. bottle. He expressed his shock that the 36 paragraph UNHRC resolution deleted any and all criticism of Hamas. Too late, Judge - you have authored what may become the Magna Carta of al-Qaida, Hezbollah, Hamas and of generations of terrorists yet unborn.
During the 1990s, Goldstone fleetingly met with Simon Wiesenthal, who lost 89 relatives in the Holocaust. One can only imagine the horror of the famed Nazi hunter, were he still alive, at Goldstone's lending his name to a document that implicitly would equate Gen. Eisenhower with Hitler and Bibi Netanyahu with Khalid Meshaal. Wiesenthal understood in his bones that there are no moral equivalents between those who are forced to send their young people to fight terrorists and those who look at every newborn as a potential suicide bomber.
The purpose of today's global infrastructure of NGOs and humanitarian law is to uphold human rights, not render nation states powerless before the terrorist beast. We all yearn for the prophesied day when "justice (shall) roll on like a river, righteousness like a never-failing stream." But until then, we should shred Goldstone's Folly and re-introduce all member states to the lessons and warnings of Nuremberg.
Rabbi Marvin Hier is dean and founder, and Rabbi Abraham Cooper is assistant dean, of the Simon Wiesenthal Center and Museum of Tolerance in Los Angeles.
RICHMOND | John Allen Muhammad's attorneys said Friday they are asking Gov. Tim Kaine to spare the life of the mastermind behind the 2002 sniper attacks that left 10 dead in the D.C. area because he is too mentally ill to be executed.
Muhammad's attorneys used an unconventional video presentation to plead for his life, compiling recorded interviews with attorneys, mental health experts and witnesses to illustrate Muhammad's mental illness instead of a written clemency request. Muhammad is scheduled to be executed Nov. 10.
Jonathan Sheldon said he and other attorneys for Muhammad met with Mr. Kaine's staff on Thursday to present the 40-minute video of recorded interviews set over graphic information.
A Kaine spokeswoman would not confirm the meeting took place or say whether the governor had received the clemency request. Mr. Kaine typically does not act on clemency petitions until after condemned inmates have exhausted their appeals.
Mr. Sheldon plans to file an appeal with the U.S. Supreme Court on Nov. 3.
Mr. Sheldon said he felt like the video would make a "more genuine argument" than a lawyer's written pleas. Virginia has no guidelines on the form of a clemency request.
"Certainly, clemency in almost every case calls for you to make a compelling argument, because clemency is an extraordinary remedy," Mr. Sheldon said in a telephone interview.
Mr. Sheldon said he did not plan to publicly release the video until after the Supreme Court appeal is filed.
A summary of the clemency request posted on the Sheldon firm's Web site said execution was not justified because of Muhammad's "severe mental illness as illustrated by brain damage, brain dysfunction, neurological deficits as well as his psychotic and delusional behavior." His attorneys say this was exacerbated by the Gulf War Syndrome he suffered as a sergeant in the first Iraq war.
The announcement says a juror in the case has said that she would not have sentenced Muhammad to death if she had known of his severe mental illness.
The U.S. Supreme Court has banned executing the mentally ill.
"Life in prison without the possibility of parole has and will keep the people of Virginia safe," the announcement states.
Muhammad was sentenced to death for the slaying of Dean Meyers, who was shot at a Manassas gas station. Myers was one of 10 people killed over a three-week period in 2002 by Muhammad and his teenage accomplice Lee Boyd Malvo. Malvo is serving a life sentence.
In August, a three-judge panel of the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals unanimously rejected Muhammad's claims, including that he should never have been allowed to act as his own attorney for a portion of his trial because he was too mentally ill.
Last month, Mr. Kaine said on his monthly call-in radio show on WTOP Radio that he couldn't think of any reason he would stop the execution.
"I know of nothing in this case now that would suggest that there is any credible claim of innocence or that there was anything procedurally wrong with the prosecution," Mr. Kaine said.
But Mr. Kaine promised to review any clemency request.
Mr. Kaine, a Roman Catholic, is opposed to the death penalty, but has allowed nine executions in the nation's second-busiest death chamber since he took office in 2006. He commuted one sentence because he said the man was too mentally ill to be executed.
Mr. Sheldon said he had faith that Mr. Kaine would carefully consider Muhammad's arguments.
Federal officials have warned promoters of more than 140 products sold over the Internet about fraudulent claims that they can prevent, treat or diagnose swine flu.
Bogus products include devices and sprays that claim to sterilize the air or surfaces, and dietary supplements claiming to boost the immune system. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration says it even has found fake Tamiflu being sold online without a prescription.
Officials say the problem has grown in recent weeks as vaccine is delayed and real Tamiflu continues to be reserved for only the sickest flu patients.
Fraudulent products emerged shortly after the swine flu did last spring - about 10 a day, said Alyson Saben, head of a swine flu consumer fraud team the FDA formed. That slowed over the summer as the flu abated, but lately "we are seeing new sites pop up," she said.
Most worrisome: sites claiming to sell Tamiflu directly to consumers. The FDA bought and tested five such products. One contained powdered talc and generic Tylenol - no Tamiflu. Several others contained some Tamiflu but were not approved for sale in the U.S.
"We have no idea of the conditions under which they were manufactured. They could contain contaminated, counterfeit, impure or subpotent or superpotent ingredients," Miss Saben said.
Tamiflu and Relenza are the only drugs recommended for treating swine flu.
Senior Official With a Storied Past Tries to Emulate FBI
By JOHN LYONS
MEXICO CITY -- When pressed about why Mexico is struggling in its battle with illegal-drug cartels, Genaro García Luna, the nation's top police official, likes to put his inquisitors on the spot with a question: Would you encourage your child to become a Mexican cop?
The reputation of Mexican police is so poor that even Mr. García Luna, a stocky, frenetic man with close-cropped hair, would have given the same answer not long ago. As a young domestic intelligence officer at Mexico's spy agency in the 1990s, he says, he would have been "offended" if anyone referred to him as a cop.
Now, it is his job to change all that. Mexican President Felipe Calderón tapped the 41-year-old to rebuild Mexico's police from scratch amid a drug war that's claimed at least 13,000 lives since Mr. Calderón took power nearly three years ago. The centerpiece of Mr. García Luna's plan: persuading college-educated sons and daughters of the middle class to become part of a new, professional police corps.
"We've had a corrupt, uneducated police force, without a budget, driving stolen vehicles and basically decomposing for 40 years," says Mr. García Luna, an engineer by training who was known in his younger days for tailing suspects on his motorcycle and personally leading raids on kidnapping rings. "I want to break historical inertias."
Mexico's future may depend on it. Unable to rely on the police, Mr. Calderón has deployed 45,000 soldiers to confront drug gangs by patrolling hot spots, giving cities such as Ciudad Juarez across the border from El Paso, Texas, the feel of war zones. But experts say military occupations are a short-term fix because traffickers ultimately scurry to set up shop somewhere else. Corralling drug gangs for the long term requires the kind of deep detective work that can uncover money transfers, drug shipments and bribe payments.
Mexico is seeking the capability to pull off the kind of operation announced Thursday by U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder: the near-simultaneous, multi-U.S. city arrests of 300 members of the Mexican "La Familia" drug cartel, which has trafficked a flood of methamphetamine into the U.S. while terrorizing Mexico's Michoacán state.
While this week's arrests were a U.S. operation, La Familia is a also key front in Mr. García Luna's drug war. Responding to the July arrest of a top La Familia boss in Michoacan, the group captured, tortured and killed a dozen of Mr. García Luna's federal agents -- some of whom were working with the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration on investigations.
"This is not a one-country problem, and solving it will take more than a one-country solution," Mr. Holder said Thursday. "La Familia's attacks against Mexican law enforcement officials only make the valiant effort of our friends and partners across the border more heroic."
Mr. García Luna has modeled his new Federal Police force after the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation and other international agencies, with modern equipment, technology and enhanced investigative powers like wiretaps. His plan is to gradually replace the army on the drug war's front lines with this two-and-a-half year-old force of around 40,000 cops. For now, the army is still in place, and the government won't give a timeline for pulling the troops out.
The challenge is enormous. The average Mexican cop never made it past the eighth grade. Some can't read or write. Many Mexicans' only contact with a beat cop comes when they pay $5 bribes to get out of traffic stops. In some cities like Tijuana, well over half the local cops have recently failed lie-detector tests, according to one former city official familiar with the tests. In 2007, local cops in the Pacific resort town of Rosarito ambushed a new police chief drafted to help clean things up. He lived, but his bodyguard didn't.
Mr. García Luna's supporters, including senior officials in the Calderón government and a group of businessmen he helped when members of their families were kidnapped over the years, see him as a Mexican Eliot Ness, the 1930s-era Chicago crime fighter. They say he is risking his life -- four of his top aides have already been gunned down -- to keep the nation from disintegrating into a narco-state. They point out that so far his Federal Police have seized nearly 30 tons of cocaine and arrested more than 300 prominent traffickers.
Critics, including some opposition lawmakers, deride him as a wannabe J. Edgar Hoover, the FBI's first director, and say his efforts are plagued by incompetence and ethical lapses. Like Mr. Hoover, they say, he has used strong-arm tactics against critics, trumping up legal charges against them to compel their silence. In his zeal for boosting the image of the Federal Police, he admitted to staging a kidnap rescue for the benefit of television cameras. During a raucous, eight-hour appearance before congress in September, opposition lawmakers blasted him for failing to keep Mexico's murder rate from soaring this year.
A rash of scandals among those close to him hasn't helped Mr. García Luna build credibility. Though he has never been charged with a criminal act or implicated in a corruption scandal, some of his senior aides have. Last year, his top antidrug commander was arrested and charged with helping a cartel. He is in jail awaiting trial. Another officer in Mr. García Luna's anti-kidnap squad was arrested for allegedly organizing phony police checkpoints to abduct victims on behalf of a kidnapping gang. She is being held for possible trial by Mexico City authorities.
"García Luna should resign because at this point his credibility has been so damaged that it is threatening his whole project," says Alberto Islas, who runs a Mexico City-based consulting firm that has worked on drug-war issues for the Calderon government. "The debate has become about him, rather than the police institution he wants to build."
Mr. García Luna says he is clean, and he says the fact that his aides were arrested shows that corruption is no longer tolerated. He says all arrests he has made have been on legitimate warrants. He compares the state of Mexican police to that of 1970s New York, which inspired movies like "Serpico," where Al Pacino plays a lone clean cop in sea of corruption. His voice fills with vehemence when his record is challenged. "There is an end to this film," he says. "We're going to do this, you'll see. Remember me."
The Bribe or the Bullet
Much of the skepticism about whether Mr. García Luna can succeed is rooted in the history of Mexican law enforcement. The government has announced plans to reform its police so many times over the decades that it is hard for some to take new attempts seriously.
Popular wisdom holds that eventually, law-enforcement officials in Mexico must choose between plata , the money of a bribe, or plomo , the lead of an assassin's bullet. In 1997, Mexico's antidrug czar, Jesús Gutiérrez Rebollo, was caught on a drug-gang payroll, and is now behind bars.
"What Gutiérrez Rebollo taught us is that you just never know," says a senior Calderón administration official who supports Mr. García Luna. "But at the end of the day, you have to trust the guys you've got, or else you have nothing."
Mr. García Luna's reliability is a concern for U.S. security officials as the two nations draw closer in the drug fight. The U.S. has begun transferring $400 million in drug aid for Mexico, by far the biggest commitment since the Gutiérrez Rebollo case shattered U.S. confidence. Around half of this money will flow to Mr. García Luna, mainly in the form of Black Hawk helicopters and other equipment.
To give the new federal force a fighting chance, Mr. García Luna has provided officers with souped-up patrol cars, body armor, AR-15 assault rifles and an array of technology including surveillance balloons that hover above cities. He guards these assets jealously, and senior Federal Police officers say he gets particularly upset when an officer crashes one of the fleet of Dodge Charger squad cars he acquired.
For the first time, Mexico is putting together a national database of vehicle registrations, arrest warrants, jail inmates and other data, a crucial tool for nabbing fugitives.
Of course, all the fancy technology in the world can't take down drug gangs if the police themselves remain corrupt and inefficient. That is where Mr. García Luna's plan to recruit middle-class college graduates comes in. Many in this demographic have a hard time finding good jobs in a sluggish economy where the highest paying positions still tend to go to the elites. And though Mexican law enforcement has always favored brawn over brains, recruiting primarily from the lower classes, Mr. García Luna says the world's best police agencies actually have it the other way around: "When I first visited the FBI, I realized most everyone there had master's degrees. Why can't we do that?"
The experiment began in earnest in June as Mr. García Luna began recruiting thousands of college grads from top universities to form a new division of investigative agents at the Federal Police. Around 1,300 have since graduated from two months of course work at a new police academy in the town of San Luis Potosi and are now receiving three months of field training. Mr. García Luna says he plans to hire around 10,000 new investigators.
The rest of the officers will be required to have high-school diplomas -- a standard that previous national forces haven't imposed -- and will go through similar field training.
A Clear Career Path
It is the investigative unit in particular that Mr. García Luna hopes will spearhead a fundamental change in the way Mexican police operate. Until now, police have built cases mainly around confessions of witnesses, a situation ripe for accusations of coercion. Instead, these new officers will build cases based on collecting evidence, such as phone records.
To attract them, the base pay of a federal police agent has been raised by more than 30% to around 16,000 pesos per month, or about $1,200, more than many white-collar jobs pay. All recruits get access to cut-rate mortgages, health care and a retirement plan.
That was enough to convince Juan Pablo Viay, a 35-year-old father of two who was recently laid off from his job at Chrysler's Mexico City corporate headquarters. Now he is training at the police academy and hopes to apply his white-collar skills, like analyzing spreadsheets, to crime fighting. With his wife and parents worried for his safety, he is pinning his hopes on an analyst job that would keep him largely out of the line of fire.
The increased pay alone won't be enough to stem the tide of corruption, says Mr. García Luna, since a drug gang can always offer more money. That's why new recruits are tested to gauge their susceptibility to bribes, including a lie-detector test and a follow-up a visit to the recruit's home. More broadly, by offering an upward career path, cops have an incentive to stay on the straight and narrow, says Mr. García Luna.
For Elizabeth Mendoza, a 29-year-old Federal Police recruit, the decision to sign up was a mix of economic need and a desire to do something to help her country. She quit her job as an administrator at a truck manufacturer after seeing a TV advertisement for the Federal Police that promised merit-driven promotions.
These days, Ms. Mendoza, a married mother of one, gets up before dawn for a 6 a.m. assembly of recruits in a large courtyard at the Police Academy. Standing at attention as the sun rises, she and other recruits sing the national anthem and a new Federal Police hymn -- commissioned by Mr. García Luna in a bid, he says, to build esprit de corps.
Along with hundreds of other aspiring cadets clad in a uniform of jeans and white shirts, Ms. Mendoza attends classes on conducting investigations, collecting evidence and giving testimony, as well as shooting weapons and cuffing suspects. She is surrounded by recruits with a similar economic and social background. Eighty percent have never held a weapon before.
More than half of Ms. Mendoza's instructors hail from the U.S., Spain, Colombia and other nations where agents often have university-level educations. The presence of overseas instructors sends a powerful message for young Mexican recruits who lack homegrown models of professional police, says Academy Director Severino Cartagena.
On a recent Thursday along a main highway in Ciudad Juárez, José Menera, a 34-year-old chemical engineer turned Federal Police officer, nabbed a man driving a load of marijuana in a hidden compartment in his gas tank. The young officer did it from the air-conditioned cab of a high-tech roadside scanning machine purchased under Mr. García Luna's overhaul.
Catching the 'Ear Cutter'
Mr. García Luna took an unlikely path into police work. Raised in a working-class enclave of Mexico City, he was a 19-year-old mechanical engineering student when he took a job with a new Mexican spy agency, the CISEN. He rose fast, and was sent for training exercises with the FBI and at police agencies in Spain and elsewhere.
Among his first assignments was tracking an urban guerrilla group that specialized in kidnapping. His defining moment came in 1998, when he assembled a covert squad that captured Daniel Arizmendi, a former cop turned leader of a violent kidnapping ring. Mr. Arizmendi had become a national terror, popularly called the "Ear Cutter" for his practice of slicing off victims' ears and sending them to families to pressure them to pay ransom.
In 2001, newly elected President Vicente Fox tapped him to head up the Federal Judicial Police. Arriving at the Judicial Police headquarters in a rough Mexico City barrio, he found crumbling offices reeking of sewage. The few beat-up computers on desks were not connected by a network. Bullet proof glass separated the chief's office from the police themselves. Some officers drove stolen cars and employed freelance thugs called "madrinas" to enforce their will on the streets.
Mr. García Luna tried to modernize the force, culling nearly half of the 6,000 officers after they flunked lie-detector tests or other aptitude measures. But his plans to form a new force, the Federal Investigative Agency, fell apart after many of the fired police went to court and won reinstatement. Soon AFI agents were being implicated in crimes.
He got another chance. In 2006, Mr. Calderón named him to the cabinet level post of Public Security Secretary. Starting from scratch, Mr. García Luna took the best men from the AFI and made them the core of the new Federal Police.
Even if Mr. García Luna proves he is clean, his biggest obstacle may be time. Mexican politicians are not big on institutional continuity, meaning the Federal Police could be dismantled and Mr. García Luna pushed out the door after elections in 2012.
"These ideals, when voiced by generations of citizens, are what made it possible for me to stand here today. These ideals are what made it possible for the people in this room to live freely and openly when for most of history that would have been inconceivable. That is the promise of America. That is the promise we are called to fulfill. And day by day, law by law, mind by changing mind, that is the promise we are fulfilling."
I came to work in the White House because I thought I'd be able to change people's lives in real and tangible ways here. I believed that President Barack Obama would not only be the type of leader who would bring about real change, but also that he would put in place a team of committed public servants across the federal government -- smart and gifted leaders, straight and gay, women and men, as diverse as America -- who would work tirelessly to improve the lives of all Americans, including the LGBT community. And I haven’t been disappointed.
I know many don’t think things are changing fast enough. The President shares your urgency. This month, speaking at the HRC National Dinner, he said "while progress may be taking longer than you’d like as a result of all that we face... do not doubt the direction we are heading and the destination we will reach."
While our long-term focus is on major legislative goals like repealing Don't Ask Don't Tell and DOMA, passing an employment non-discrimination act, and providing domestic partner benefits for federal employees, we are also working daily to find ways to make life a little better and a little fairer for LGBT Americans.
We saw this very clearly this week: HUD Secretary Shaun Donovan announced a series of proposals to ensure that HUD’s core housing programs are open to all, regardless of sexual orientation or gender identity; he also commissioned the first-ever national study of discrimination against members of the LGBT community in the rental and sale of housing.
On the same day, HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius announced a plan to establish the nation’s first ever national resource center to assist communities across the country in their efforts to provide services and support for older LGBT Americans.
And just a few weeks ago, the Administration on Aging at HHS issued its first ever grant to an LGBT Aging Services Program through its Community Innovations for Aging in Place initiative to the LA Gay and Lesbian Community Center.
Every day so many of us working in the Obama Administration ask: How can we ensure that our time here makes the lives of LGBT Americans living across this country safer, fairer, and a little better? We know how much work is ahead of us. Some items will take longer than others. But the shift since January is clear, and progress at every level will continue.
Day by day, law by law, mind by changing mind. That is the promise we are fulfilling.
Brian Bond is Deputy Director of the White House Office of Public Engagement
