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From LA Times

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Wilson High School track athlete killed after football game in Long Beach

Friends and family gathered today at Woodrow Wilson High School in Long Beach to mourn the death of a 16-year-old honors student and track athlete who was gunned down as she and her friends were leaving a football game the night before.

Melody Ross, a junior in advanced-placement honors and a pole vaulter on the track team, was randomly hit by gunfire that also injured two young men, police said.  It is not known if the shooting was gang-related. No arrests have been made.

Ross was identified by her uncle, Sam Che, who said their family emigrated to Southern California in the mid-1980s from Cambodia.  “We escaped the killing fields,”  said Che, 36.

Ross was dressed as Supergirl  for the homecoming game against Polytechnic High School that was attended by many other students in costume on the day before Halloween.  Ross was “an innocent kid” said Mario Morales, the Wilson High football coach.

“It's very disconcerting. I'm sick to my stomach when something like that happens and you have an innocent kid involved,” Morales said. He said he heard five to  seven shots  as he was leaving the stadium after his team's loss to Poly.

A homecoming dance attended by about 200 students was underway on campus when the shots were fired, said Long Beach Unified School District spokesman Chris Eftychiou. The sparsely attended event for the school with 4,500 students was locked down while police and school district security combed the campus for the perpetrators, he said.

Extra security had been brought in for the sold-out game pitting longtime rivals Wilson and Poly, said Eftychiou, adding that police told school officials they had no indications the shootings stemmed from the schools' "healthy rivalry." Poly beat Wilson in the Friday night matchup, 34-15.

Counselors will be at school Monday to talk with Ross' classmates and any other students who feel the need to talk about the incident, said Eftychiou, describing the violence as a rare occurrence even in vicinity of the suburban school.

Ross' classmates gathered at a pedestrian crossing along Ximeno Avenue near the football stadium exit to leave flowers and light candles by the curb where she was shot. They hugged each other, and some sat against the school fence or on the grass with their heads down, pondering the loss of a friend they described as polite and well-liked.  A passerby in a green Toyota truck yelled out: "Police need to do their job!"

Ross, who attended the game with her 17-year-old sister, Emily, a senior at Wilson, died at St. Mary Medical Center about half an hour after the 10 p.m. shooting. At least one bullet struck her in the side, Che said.

The young men, 18 and 20, who were struck suffered non-life-threatening injuries, said Long Beach Police spokeswoman Sgt. Dina Zapalski. Their identities were not released.

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

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L.A. is seeing its police officers in a new light

Crime is down and a degree of trust is taking hold. Many credit Bratton and say they hope the trend continues.

By Scott Gold, Catherine Saillant and Joe Mozingo

November 1, 2009

Hilda Samayoa did something a few weeks ago that would have been highly unusual in her South Los Angeles neighborhood not too long ago: She called police to report that a gang had set up shop in a nearby house.

She did so, in part, because of growing confidence among residents that the Los Angeles Police Department will help them out. Given that distrust between the community and police has historically run deep -- and lingers today -- police are still surprised when they get a call like hers.

Acting on the tip, officers raided the gang house and arrested 15 people, as well as seizing four weapons and a cache of narcotics. Samayoa and her two daughters say the little street has been transformed, with no more menacing men lurking on the corners. "They vanished," said one of Samayoa's daughters. "The work that [the police] did showed that they cared."

The progress the LAPD made under Police Chief William J. Bratton in the last seven years can be measured as much in the sweeping drop in crime as in the little interactions that reflect an easing of tensions.

Residents across the city say they hope the trend outlasts the personality as the mayor selects a new chief to replace Bratton, who officially stepped down Saturday.

From 2002 to now, the department's stats show dramatic drops in every major category of crime: drops of 53.1% for homicides, 38.6% for rapes, 66.9% for aggravated assaults, 28.6% for robbery.

Robert Fields, a dentist who's run a practice in Van Nuys for 38 years, said gangs used to rule the neighborhoods surrounding his business district. Street crime and graffiti along Van Nuys Boulevard kept customers away.

Now, with regular bike patrols and cleaner streets, pedestrians throng the sidewalks to shop.

"Ever since he's been chief, things have gotten better," said Fields, 65. "They're still likely to break into cars, but everything is less."

In the Valley, gang homicides have fallen 60%, rapes 55% and carjackings 63%, according to LAPD statistics.

But does it really change people's perception of crime when they hear four shootings per month instead of five?

Magdalena Zacahula, 52, and her 13-year-old daughter, Denaly, said they didn't sense any change in Highland Park.

Walking along Figueroa in the middle of the day two weeks ago, they stumbled on two gangbangers in a vicious fight, hitting each other with tire irons. "We had to go into the dress store," said Denaly. "They were bleeding and everything."

Zacahula never lets her daughter walk alone. She accompanies her to school -- a private Catholic school because the public school is too dangerous, in her view.

Denaly listed a slew of recent shootings, mostly between the Avenues and Highland Park, two local gangs. Homicides in the area are still high. There were 26 in 2002. There were 26 in 2008.

"There's a lot more drive-bys," she said. "There should be more police here."

Bratton clashed early with the City Council over his desire to increase the department by more than 3,000 officers, for a total force of 12,500. He found an ally in Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and has slowly upped hiring, but he has been constrained by the budget. There are now 10,005 officers, 828 more than he started with.

Bill Koontz, chairman of the Mar Vista Community Council's safety and security committee, said Bratton has managed to be effective even without a big increase in boots on the ground.

"The police have become more efficient," said Koontz, who also sits on the community police advisory board of LAPD's Pacific Division. "Overall, he has been able to do a lot more with a lot less. Los Angeles has far fewer cops than New York but is still getting the same types of crime reduction numbers."

Crimes in Mar Vista and most other parts of the Westside tend to be those against property, such as burglaries and vandalism, rather than shootings or rapes. There were 8,681 reported property crimes in the Pacific Division in 2002, and 5,748 in 2008, a 34% drop.

Koontz praised Bratton's use of crime statistics to figure out where problems existed and how much manpower was needed to resolve them. He hopes the next chief continues this.

In South Los Angeles, Samayoa attributes much of Bratton's success to giving his captains more authority and pushing them to interact with community leaders -- a definite change in approach in an area where the police were long viewed as an occupying force.

But she says the relationship has a long way to go. Too often it hinges on a handful of officers. When those responsive officers are transferred or promoted, she said, "we have to start all over again."

Samayoa, who runs a local neighborhood watch, is unique in her fearlessness to confront gangs with no shield of anonymity. "They know what we do," her daughter said.

Adela Barajas, a community activist who grew up on Long Beach Avenue in South L.A., agreed that the new chief must find a way to continue "bridging the relationship" with the community.

She also said it will be crucial for the new chief to continue to expand the use of gang intervention workers, street-level liaisons between the gangs and police.

Police have reported marked success using gang intervention to augment traditional crime-suppression tactics, but many police officers are wary at best, and it remains a controversial strategy.

"Law enforcement is not all about suppression," said Barajas. "They should be partners."

Like most other civic leaders in South L.A., she said she was not concerned that the three finalists are white men.

"Humane values are what matters," she said. "We are interested in fairness, in someone who will treat everyone the same -- regardless of whether you are in South L.A. or Beverly Hills."

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-lapd1-2009nov01,0,4397912,print.story

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Six bodies found at rapist's Cleveland home

Ex-con Anthony Sowell is arrested nearby after the grisly discovery. Police review missing-persons reports since his 2005 release from prison in an attempt to identify the apparent murder victims.

Associated Press

November 1, 2009

Cleveland

A convicted rapist who fled before police arrived to arrest him on new rape charges was arrested Saturday in his neighborhood after police found six decomposing bodies at his home.

Police spokesman Lt. Thomas Stacho said that Anthony Sowell was walking down the street on the east side of Cleveland when authorities spotted him and took him into custody.

Sowell initially denied that he was the man authorities were looking for, but admitted his identity as officers began fingerprinting him, Stacho said. Charges against him are pending.

Officers initially identified three bodies at Sowell's home, Stacho said. Powell Caesar, a spokesman for the Cuyahoga County coroner's office, said that three more bodies were confirmed Saturday.

As of Saturday, autopsies had been performed on all six bodies but no cause of death or names were announced.

The first two bodies were found Thursday night when police went to Sowell's home to arrest him on charges of felonious assault and rape. Police say he had spent 15 years in prison for a 1989 rape.

Cuyahoga County Coroner Frank Miller identified two bodies as those of black females and said that one had died of a violent death ruled a homicide. No race or gender was determined for the others.

Police established a command post in the neighborhood to take missing-person reports and additional information on outstanding missing persons in the neighborhood.

Teresa Hicks, 48, was among the neighbors who said they were relieved about the arrest but left with a heightened fear of crime. She said she has known Sowell since high school.

"He was crazy," she said from her porch Saturday. "Sometimes he would just go off if he didn't have his way."

Darren Dunlap, 38, frequently visits the neighborhood to see his brother or friends. He said Sowell was known for borrowing money and looking for scrap metal to sell.

Hicks said that she didn't think Sowell had a job but that she understood from conversations with him that he lived on a monthly check. She said she didn't know its source.

Police were checking crime reports to find matches for similarities to the 1989 rape or the most recent allegation against Sowell.

Minutes before the arrest was made, police Chief Michael McGrath tried to reassure parents that it was safe for their children to go trick-or-treating in the neighborhood if they followed standard precautions like avoiding strangers and staying in groups.

Detectives with a search warrant found two bodies Thursday on the third floor of a duplex and began checking a fresh grave dug in the basement. The bodies were in an advanced state of decomposition, suggesting they'd been in the home a long time.

Police were checking missing-persons reports dating back to June 2005, when Sowell was released from prison.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-rapist1-2009nov01,0,1596176,print.story

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Navajo hope stimulus cash closes a revolving prison door

Limited jail space is keeping criminals on the street, but a Justice Department grant is set aside to help.

By Kate Linthicum

October 31, 2009

Reporting from Tuba City, Ariz.

More than 50,000 people are arrested across the Navajo reservation each year -- yet there are only 59 jail beds here.

Officials say the lack of jail space has led to a revolving door for criminals, most of whom are released within a day of being booked, and few of whom serve out an entire sentence.

"It's been a horrendous situation," said Hope MacDonald-Lonetree, a Navajo council delegate. "You can't assure the safety of the police and judges and the prosecutors when you have the perpetrators running around. And it affects the courts because people aren't willing to be witnesses."

Tribal leaders are hoping that may change soon, thanks to a $224-million Justice Department stimulus grant that has been set aside to build and repair jails on Indian land. The Navajo Nation, the country's largest tribe, received the biggest share of the money -- more than $74 million for the construction of three new jails.

The jails will add 144 beds to the Navajo reservation and will house alcohol counseling programs to help curb the high rate of repeat alcohol-related arrests, which corrections officials say is the main cause of overcrowding.

The money comes after years of unsuccessful Navajo lobbying for more federal help with law and order.

The federal government is required to fund jails on reservations as part of its trust responsibility to the nation's tribes. The Bureau of Indian Affairs pays to run jails on Indian land, and the Justice Department pays to build them.

But the BIA has a bad track record with tribal jails -- a 2004 Interior Department Inspector General report of Indian detention facilities found that some "were egregiously unsafe, unsanitary, and a hazard to both inmates and staff alike."

The Justice Department has for the last several years had an annual budget of less than $10 million to construct facilities and fund repairs for the 80 or so existing jails on reservations across the country.

Indian advocates say overcrowded and underfunded tribal jails have contributed to disproportionately high rates of crime in Indian country. According to a Justice Department survey, Indians experience almost twice as much violence as the rest of America.

On the Navajo reservation, which straddles 27,000 square miles of Arizona, New Mexico and Utah, tribal officials say gang activity is at an all-time high, and chronic alcoholism and substance abuse have helped make domestic violence and drunk driving common.

There have been no jail facilities constructed here since a juvenile facility was built in the 1980s.

Two years ago, two of the tribe's main jails were condemned and closed, leaving just three jails, in the towns of Shiprock, Window Rock and Crownpoint. Those facilities -- cinder-block structures built in the 1950s and 1960s -- are barely habitable, corrections officials say, and are so overcrowded that jail workers are frequently forced to release prisoners early to make room for new ones.

"We're always playing musical chairs -- or musical jail beds," said Delores Greyeyes, who heads the Navajo Nation Department of Corrections. "We just pump [prisoners] through."

Navajo courts are responsible for prosecuting only misdemeanor crimes -- such as burglary, battery and drunk driving -- and the maximum punishment for a conviction is one year in jail and a $5,000 fine. Inmates accused of committing felonies are transferred to prisons off the reservation and are prosecuted federally.

Peterson Wilson, the prosecutor for the Tuba City District, one of nine judicial districts on the Navajo Nation, said, "A lot of crimes go unreported because there's an impression that we won't hold the criminal." And prosecutors and judges are disinclined to push for harsh sentences when they know there's no place to house criminals, he said.

He hopes the new jails, which will be built next year in Tuba City; Kayenta, Ariz.; and Ramah, N.M., will help fix that.

Tuba City, the biggest town on the reservation, received the largest single Justice Department grant -- $38 million for a 62-bed jail. It will offer inmates mental health and alcohol rehabilitation counseling.

Although alcohol is illegal on the Navajo Nation, alcoholism is widespread, and the vast majority of inmates are booked for public intoxication. Jails have become a catch-all for people who need help, McDonald-Lonetree said. She hopes the rehab programs will help stop that.

"We don't want to have to build another 100-bed facility in the future. We don't want to go into the business of warehousing individuals like the rest of America does," she said. "We want to rehabilitate people."

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-navajo-jails31-2009oct31,0,1829406,print.story

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Mexican farmworker activist, 14 others slain

Margarito Montes Parra, who had styled himself as a modern-day Zapata, made many enemies as he helped farmworkers in land disputes. His convoy was ambushed in Sonora.

By Tracy Wilkinson

November 1, 2009

Reporting from Mexico City

A flamboyant farmworker organizer who called himself a modern-day Emiliano Zapata has been slain in a brazen ambush that also killed 14 members of his family and staff, officials said Saturday.

Prosecutors in the border state of Sonora, where the slayings occurred, said they were investigating a number of possible motives. Sonora, like much of Mexico, has been hit by a wave of killings tied to drug-trafficking gangs.

The union leader, Margarito Montes Parra, was killed in the southern part of Sonora bordering the state of Sinaloa, a major center for the production and transport of marijuana and heroin.

The farmers whom Montes represented often find themselves trapped in the drug war, with traffickers forcing them to work illicit crops. But Montes also had chalked up numerous enemies in tumultuous land disputes over more than two decades.

Montes, his wife and two children were traveling in a small convoy with at least 11 other relatives and staff members to a rural hacienda Friday afternoon when they were ambushed by several assailants armed with large-caliber weapons, investigators said. All 15 were shot to death, they said.

Red Cross workers arrived at the scene to find bullet-riddled bodies on the side of the road. There were reports that three people in the group had survived.

The killings sent a chill through peasant activist groups that often have a testy relationship with the Mexican government. Several organizations joined Saturday to demand a thorough investigation "to the final consequences" and to ask for protection for leaders.

"This was an attack not just against a union leader but against the work we do," said Norma Patino, an official with COCYP, an umbrella group of peasant and popular organizations. "This hurts the work of all of us."

Montes was the head of the General Popular Union of Workers and Farmers, which has tens of thousands of members. He has led peasants and squatters in claims for vast chunks of countryside, disputes that have on occasion turned violent.

A university-educated engineer, Montes got his start in the late 1980s, and quickly rose to prominence, styling himself after Zapata, the Mexican revolutionary land reform hero, and recovering thousands of acres of property for union members.

His enemies, including major landowners, branded him a thuggish thief. And other critics who at one time shared his goals of agrarian reform complain that Montes became the kind of rural chieftain that he had long challenged. At the time of his death, he owned properties that included a thoroughbred horse ranch.

Montes was always aware of the wrath he inspired and the dangers that it brought. Before Friday's killings, he had already lost a son and a brother to violence.

Landowners "certainly have participated in press campaigns against me and conspired in meetings where they said they must eliminate the cancer that I represent," Montes told The Times in 1991 , after his brother's death.

"I carry a gun because they carry a gun."

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-mexico-shooting1-2009nov01,0,5435105,print.story

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Opinion

The real Villaraigosa era begins now

In many ways, the mayor's people and policies have mirrored those of his predecessor, James Hahn. The departure of Police Chief William Bratton may change that.

By Robert Greene

November 1, 2009

The second and final terms of City Controller Laura Chick and City Atty. Rocky Delgadillo ended in July, and now, with the departure of Los Angeles Police Chief William J. Bratton, so does the second and final term of Mayor James K. Hahn.

Hahn? Wait a minute, you say. He had no second term. He's been gone from City Hall for four years, soundly defeated by Antonio Villaraigosa in their second mayoral showdown.

Voters thought they were making a clean break when they rejected Hahn in 2005. Villaraigosa was a breath of fresh air: a Latino mayor for an increasingly Latino city, an electric personality, a figure who could recapture for Los Angeles the national spotlight and finally fulfill the city's destiny as the international metropolis of the future.

But Villaraigosa's first term largely failed to deliver real change. The mayor's plan to improve schools sputtered; his housing initiatives ran aground in court; his (remarkable) achievement in securing funding for a "subway to the sea" has yet to result in new track; his anti-gang program never demonstrated much success. His achievements came primarily in the areas where he followed in Hahn's footsteps.

How different, really, would the last few years have been with Hahn still at the helm? Campaign rhetoric notwithstanding, the new mayor embraced the previous administration's policies. Environmental responsibility, labor peace, progressive politics, forward-looking transit, affordable housing -- all were hallmarks of the Hahn era. And as for Hahn's most lasting legacy -- his selection of Bratton -- the chief remained the dominant force in Los Angeles civic life during Villaraigosa's first term. The craftiest politician, the best communicator, the defining presence was not the mayor who landed on the cover of Newsweek and, later, in the nationwide gossip columns, but the chief handed down to him by his predecessor.

Hahn was a mayor in the Los Angeles tradition, steady and calming rather than dynamic. So it was almost unsettling when he picked the Boston-accented, New York-attuned Bratton to be police chief. Wouldn't the chief's outsized personality dwarf the mayor? Hahn didn't seem to mind.

When Villaraigosa inherited Bratton, he had the political smarts not to try to outshine him, as difficult as it may often have been given Villaraigosa's obvious relish for the spotlight. Villaraigosa also knew not to mess with Bratton's successes -- declining crime rates, a more professional department, vastly improved community relations. And although Villaraigosa had previously helped derail his predecessor's bid to expand the Police Department to 10,000 officers, once he became mayor, he made the target his own and stuck to it tenaciously -- and wisely.

On the environment too, Villaraigosa's first term was in many ways simply a continuation of Hahn's. Before the current mayor began calling for 20% of city power to be produced from renewable sources by 2010, his predecessor had set a goal of 17% by 2017. Hahn began the city's retreat from dependence on coal-fired power plants, something Villaraigosa has pledged to fully achieve by 2020. Hahn oversaw a deal to get container vessels to begin plugging in to electric power at the port rather than running on polluting fuels during loading and unloading.

It was also Hahn who made affordable housing a city priority, and brought in attorney and nonprofit-housing expert Mercedes Marquez to run the Housing Department, where she stayed -- and provided Villaraigosa some of his best housing successes -- until earlier this year, when President Obama tapped her for a key post in the Department of Housing and Urban Development.

Even Villaraigosa's strong support of unions can't be viewed as a departure. Many key labor unions, remember, were so happy with Hahn that they stood by him in his reelection fight rather than flee to Villaraigosa, despite the challenger's impeccable pro-labor credentials. Villaraigosa campaigned on a message of change, but in fact what he promised was to up the ante on Hahn's agenda. More environmentalism, more affordable housing, more potholes filled, better transit. He would out-Hahn Hahn.

In some ways, Villaraigosa's first term reached back even further. Many of the people he hired to his top staff had also served Mayor Richard Riordan. And both Villaraigosa and Hahn echoed Riordan's pledge to make Los Angeles "the safest big city in America." Yes, it is Villaraigosa who has come closest to achieving the goal. But his real achievements in reducing crime and remaking the relationship between the LAPD and the community it serves are largely the result of Hahn's decision to pick Bratton.

There was the usual coming and going of top staff and general managers during Villaraigosa's first term, but this summer, after the second inauguration, many of the bigger players held over from Hahn's tenure -- and Riordan's -- submitted their resignations. In addition to Marquez, losses included Chief of Staff Robin Kramer, who had the same job in the Riordan administration. And now, of course, Bratton.

The departures will hurt -- particularly that of Bratton. The mayor no longer will be able to prop up his resume on the basis of the achievements of talent selected by his predecessor.

With Bratton and the others gone, Villaraigosa will have to show, on his own, whether he has the goods to lead Los Angeles. Over the last four years, he often seemed more manic than driven, more fumbling than creative. His City Hall at its best looked, in many ways, like -- well, like Hahn's.

Hahn II has now concluded. With Bratton on his way back to the East Coast, the real Villaraigosa era now gets underway.

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-oe-greene01-2009nov01,0,5205157,print.story

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From the Daily News

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Bratton turns in badge, keys

Bill Bratton turned in his badge, keys and his uniform's silver stars Saturday in a ceremony marking the official end of his seven years as Los Angeles police chief.

Bratton, who is leaving for a private-sector job, handed over power to interim chief Michael P. Downing, who will oversee the department until a permanent chief is hired. Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa on Monday is expected to name his nominee for chief among three finalists, with a City Council confirmation vote expected by Nov. 10.

Bratton walked out of the Police Administration Building without speaking to reporters.

Downing, head of the LAPD's Counter-Terrorism and Criminal Intelligence Bureau, praised Bratton for helping change the culture of the department.

He called Bratton "the great American police chief," saying he encouraged officers to develop innovations, to travel and observe other policing techniques, and to bring back "best practices" to be utilized by the LAPD.

"My role is to shepherd the department, to keep the rhythm" established by Bratton, Downing said, as well as "provide a smooth and seamless transition" for the LAPD.

Bratton, 62, is taking a job as chief executive officer at Altegrity Security Consulting, a private security firm based in Virginia.

http://www.dailynews.com/breakingnews/ci_13685236

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Mayor's pick for chief will be announced Monday

Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa will announce his choice for Los Angeles' next police chief on Monday, ending almost three months of behind-the-scenes jockeying among LAPD insiders for the job.

The next chief, replacing William J. Bratton who officially left the office Saturday, will be one of three LAPD veterans tapped by the Police Commission as finalists: Deputy Chief Charlie Beck, Assistant Chief Jim McDonnell and Deputy Chief Michel Moore.

The mayor has said he will push for City Council confirmation of his appointee Nov. 10, after a round of meeting with City Council members and community groups.

Deputy Chief Michael Downing will manage the department in the interim.

The selection will culminate a national hunt that ultimately ended with the police commission interviewing 13 candidates, including 11 from the LAPD command staff.

Bratton, 62, had urged the mayor and the police commission to name his successor from within the department.

The former chief left to work for the Falls Church, Va.-based global security firm Altegrity, which specializes in bringing "professional, modern criminal justice systems" to post-conflict nations like Afghanistan and Iraq.

http://www.dailynews.com/news/ci_13681622

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"Operation Gratitute" winning hearts and minds in Afghanistan and Iraq

Or all that candy you've got left over today because you had fewer than expected kids come to your door.

Here's a suggestion: Donate the candy to U.S. troops in Afghanistan and Iraq so they can hand the sweets out to local kids there to help show them we're not a country of monsters and bullies.

More than 1,200 dentists around the country have registered to buy back Halloween candy from kids for $1 a pound.

They'll give the donated candy to our Operation Gratitude - www.opgratitude.com - which will send it along with other items as holiday care packages to our troops serving in Afghanistan and Iraq.

"The troops tell me they use the candy and donated beanie babies to hand out to kids while they're on patrol," says Valley resident Carolyn Blashek, who started Operation Gratitude.

"It's all about winning hearts and minds." And trust.

If you want to get involved and save your child a few cavities while doing a good thing go to www.halloweencandybuyback.com .

You just enter your zip code and how far you're willing to drive to drop off the candy at a participating dentist.

"I wanted to do something to tell the troops overseas that we think of them and thank them for their relentless work," says Dr. Vram Kargodorian. "It's an act of goodwill while also promoting healthy living in children."

His dental office will be collecting candy from 9 a.m.-6 p.m. Monday and Tuesday at 11200 Corbin Ave., Suite 100, Porter Ranch.

Also paying kids $1 a pound for their candy are Drs. Allen and Kelly Smudde, whose dental office is at 27450 Tourney Road, Suite 250, in Valencia.

"We didn't want to take away the fun and excitement of dressing up and gathering massive quantities of candy on Halloween," said office manager Melissa Garcia.

"But rather than gathering all that candy for your children's consumption, we thought that it would be fun to have your kids give it all away."

I'm not sure that's the kind of fun kids have in mind for their Halloween candy, but maybe parents could help them understand the good it will do thousands of miles away.

"Each child will be able to write thank you notes to the troops as they are surrendering their candy," Garcia said.

The Smuddes' office will be open from 3:45 to 6 p.m. on Monday, for kids to drop off their candy. There are other Valley dentists participating nearer your home so check the Web site.

The drop-off program was started a few years back by Dr. Chris Kammer, a dentist in Wisconsin.

"He called and asked me if I'd take the candy for our troops," Blaschek said. "The first year we had 20 dentists nationwide giving us candy.

"Last year it grew to 100, and this year over 1,200 dentists have signed up. We'll collect a minimum of 50 tons of candy from all over the country."

Fifty tons. That's a lot of young hearts, minds and trust our troops in Iraq and Afghanistan can win.

http://www.dailynews.com/breakingnews/ci_13682101

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From the Washington Times

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Sunday, November 1, 2009

Why enable pornographers?

Alan Sears

Not long ago, President Obama addressed America's schoolchildren, asking them to take personal responsibility for their choices and always strive for excellence.

Unfortunately, while he's preaching responsibility to the next generation, his Justice Department is turning a blind eye to those who would destroy that generation's future for personal gain.

Earlier this year, I was one of nearly 400 pro-family advocates from across the nation's political, philosophical and legal spectrums who signed a letter to Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr., asking him to meet with concerned citizens and step up his department's efforts to combat what has become a multibillion-dollar stranglehold on the minds and souls of millions of American men, women and children.

In response, we received one short form-letter paragraph two months later from a department official assuring us our input was valued and our concerns were being considered "carefully." Since then ... nothing but crickets.

The tepid response is all the sadder because our request didn't seem an unreasonable one to make of the man who, 11 years ago, was one of the few members of the Clinton Justice Department who seemed to take the threat of pornography seriously. At the time, as deputy attorney general, Mr. Holder boldly called for stronger enforcement of pornography and obscenity laws, saying:

"Priority should be given to cases involving large-scale distributors who realize substantial income from multistate operations and cases in which there is evidence of organized crime involvement.

"However," he added, "prosecution of cases involving relatively small distributors can have a deterrent effect and would dispel any notion that obscenity distributors are insulated from prosecution if their operations fail to exceed a predetermined size or if they fragment their business into small-scale operations.

"Because of the nature of the Internet and the availability of agents trained in conducting criminal investigations in cyberspace," Mr. Holder said, "investigation and prosecution of Internet obscenity is particularly suitable for federal resources."

What a difference a decade makes. Today, the evil has proliferated. The number of both large- and small-scale distributors has multiplied many times over, and federal resources are even more indispensable.

However, under Mr. Holder's direction, the Justice Department is taking a profoundly laissez-faire attitude toward a criminal enterprise making pervasive use of the Internet to facilitate the efforts of child molesters to infect children with their profoundly warped and perverse ideas about sexual activity and deviancy.

Ironically, Mr. Holder made his comments in 1998 - the same year Congress passed the Children's Online Protection Act (COPA), a minimal effort to hold back the pornographers by blocking explicit teaser photos and video clips on Web sites easy for children to access and by requiring credit cards and adult access codes to enter hard-core porn sites.

It was a small step in the right direction, but the American Civil Liberties Union and its sister organizations tripped COPA coming out of the gate. The legislation immediately was swarmed by lawsuits - protesting the undue burden placed on adults who wanted to get their dehumanizing images as quickly and easily as possible - and earlier this year, the U.S. Supreme Court declined review of the law.

That, combined with the Justice Department's apathy, leaves the gates of the mental playgrounds wide open for those who believe, in the favorite phrase of the North American Man Boy Love Association (a major beneficiary of the government's passivity), that "sex after 8 is too late," and that every child is "fair game."

Sane souls, to be sure, find those concepts sickening and appalling. But then, to believe what NAMBLA does, what the ACLU does, what, apparently, the current Justice Department in Washington does, you have to make some incredible leaps of faith and logic.

You have to believe that the men who wrote our Constitution despised Christian faith and morals and were indifferent to the concerns of parents for their children's mental and emotional well-being - but were always deeply committed to the protection of deviants and pornographers.

You have to believe groups like the Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts are a pernicious threat to the souls of our nation's youth - but that the men and women who salivate over pornographic images mean our youngsters no harm.

You have to believe that immersing oneself day after day in deviant sexual imagery has no discernible impact on one's mind, morals, habits, attitudes or relationships with children and people of the opposite sex.

You have to believe that - if the government would just leave them alone - young people living in a culture awash with hypersexualized imagery, language, programming, fashion and entertainment and given instant and unlimited access to technology, will deliberately discipline themselves not to send "sext" messages or lewd pictures of themselves and others over their cell phones, laptops and home computers. In other words, you have to believe the unbelievable to justify defending the indefensible.

Faced with the astonishing apathy of so many judges, legislators and government officials on an issue with such devastating implications for our most vulnerable citizens, it's hard not to think that those who would pay any price to sustain their lucrative traffic in pornography are delighted to have found federal law enforcers who buy into their agenda.

Of course, the pornographers have the best lawyers and public relations teams billions can buy - and besides, they'll get their money back and then some. But their profits, and this Justice Department's passivity, are already costing the rest of us two things a great nation can ill afford to lose: the high moral ground and the souls of our children.

It's hard to believe that's the future our president, a man who so beautifully and publicly demonstrates his love for his daughters, wants for any of our children.

Alan Sears is president, chief executive officer and general counsel of the traditional-values Alliance Defense Fund and was executive director of the Attorney General's Commission on Pornography under President Reagan.

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/nov/01/why-enable-pornographers//print/

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From the Wall Street Journal

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Passport Reveals a Suspected Terrorist's Journey

By NEAL E. BOUDETTE

The German passport of Said Bahaji, who is believed to have helped the hijackers who carried out the Sept. 11 attacks, was recently found in Pakistan. In an undated photo, he is seen with sister Maryam, his German mother Annaliese and Moroccan father Abdullah.

In 2001, a few days before the Sept. 11 attacks, a German engineering student named Said Bahaji unexpectedly announced to his family he had a job waiting for him at a Pakistani computer company and he flew to Karachi, leaving behind his wife and infant son.

In the aftermath of the attacks, Mr. Bahaji, the Muslim son of a German mother and Moroccan father, was found to have rented and shared an apartment with two suspected World Trade Center hijackers, including Mohammed Atta, the believed ringleader, and a third Arab man who tried to take flying lessons in the United States.

Little had been heard from Mr. Bahaji since then until this week, when a German passport believed to be his was recovered by Pakistani troops in an abandoned militant compound.

Pakistani authorities suspect Mr. Bahaji is one of the al Qeada leaders helping the Taliban fight government forces in the rugged South Waziristan region.

U.S. and German investigators believe he helped the Hamburg based terrorists with logistics like obtaining travel documents and setting up computers.

In a 2002 interview, Mr. Bahaji's aunt, Barbara Arens, said her nephew "might have been tricked into going to Pakistan." Ms. Arens said she was once close to Mr. Bahaji but stopped talking to him when he adopted increasingly fundamentalist views in the late 1990s. "Half of me thinks he's guilty."

Even before Sept. 11, 2001, German authorities thought Mr. Bahaji was up to something. Born in Germany, he spent most of his youth on his father's family's large farming estate in northern Morocco. He returned to Germany in 1996 to attend a technical university in Harburg, a working-class suburb of Hamburg.

At that time, Mr. Bahaji held moderate beliefs, and even had a love affair with a Catholic woman he met in a year-long preparatory program for foreign students, according to close relatives who spoke to The Wall Street Journal. Heartbroken when it ended, he sought solace in Islam and at al-Quds, a Hamburg mosque frequented by extremists, these relatives said.

There he got to know Mamoun Darkazanli, a Syrian merchant who shared a bank account with a man believed to have masterminded the 1998 bombings of two U.S. embassies in Africa. Because of his association with Mr. Darkazanli, Mr. Bahaji was watched for a time by German police.

What they saw seemed like a normal student. Called for military service, Mr. Bahaji moved out of student dorm and in November 1998 rented an apartment with Mr. Atta and Ramzi Binalshibh, the Yemeni whose efforts to take flying lessons in the U.S. were foiled when he was denied a visa. Mr. Binalshibh was eventually captured and has been held since then at Guantanamo Bay.

A part-time resident of the apartment Mr. Bahaji rented was Marwan Al-Shehhi, the suspected pilot of the second plane to hit the World Trade Center.

In August 1999 Mr. Bahaji he moved out of the apartment and in October married Nese Kul, an 18-year old he met through her stepfather, Ibrahim Scholz, a German convert to Islam. The wedding at al-Quds was attended by many university friends, including Messrs. Atta, Al-Shehhi, Binalshibh and Darkazanli.

Mr. Bahaji and his wife moved into a two-room, ground floor apartment at Bunatwiete 23 across from a Harburg elementary school. A year and a half later, Ms. Bahaji gave birth to a son, Omar, who has the dark eyes and hair of his father, relatives said.

Family members said Mr. Bahaji was thrilled to be a father, but three months later he sent an email to his mother saying he would probably have to go away an unexpected "internship" to complete his degree, perhaps as soon as Aug. 20 and perhaps even abroad, "if God wills it."

He signed it "Saidchen"--German for "little Said"--according to a print-out of the message that was reviewed by The Wall Street Journal.

On Sept. 2, 2001, Mr. Bahaji's sister Maryam, Mr. Scholz, and Nese Bahaji's mother Aise gathered at the cramped Bunatwiete apartment to wish him off. The following day, Mr. Scholz drove Mr. Bahaji to the airport and he boarded the plane, investigators now know, with two men traveling with false identities.

Within hours after the World Trade Center collapsed, investigators spotted the link between Mr. Atta and Mr. Bahaji. At 2 a.m. on Sept. 12, German police raided into Mr. Bahaji's Harburg apartment. Television footage showed Nese Bahaji, carrying Omar, going into police headquarters for questioning. She was later released.

Letters and phone calls from Mr. Bahaji to his mother and other relatives have been intercepted by authorities. He last called his mother, Anneliese Bahaji, in 2007, according to people familiar with the evidence German authorities have gathered.

A few weeks after the attacks, In October 2001, his mother's answering machine recorded message that begins with an international operator's voice, people who have heard the message said. Then a male caller says, "Hello?…Hello?…Hello?"

"It's Said. It's a call for help," his aunt, Ms. Arens said. "Who do you call when you're in trouble? Your mother."

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB125701328437820869.html?mod=WSJ_hpp_MIDDLTopStories#printMode

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