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From LA Times

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An epiphany, and an evolving philosophy of policing

Chief-designate Charlie Beck has been with the LAPD more than 30 years -- and learned from what he calls the department's 'dark days.' He hopes his ideas will infiltrate the very fiber of his officers

By Joel Rubin

November 15, 2009

In 1974, Charlie Beck -- the man poised to become the next chief of the Los Angeles Police Department -- was 21 years old, unemployed, unfulfilled and adrift.

He had spent his teenage years training as a professional dirt motorbike racer but reluctantly walked away after failing to compete at the sport's elite levels. For the first time in his life, he gave serious consideration to the profession his father, a high-ranking officer in the LAPD, had chosen.

Beck took a job assisting detectives with their office work and, intrigued by what he saw, joined the force as a part-time reserve officer. His first days with a badge on the streets of the department's Rampart area were something approaching an epiphany.

"I knew it was what I wanted to do. I was sure of it," he said. "I wasn't going to be the richest guy in the neighborhood with this job, but I knew I would be the guy that had a job that was important, that made a difference. And you add with that the fact that it was challenging. I loved the thrill of it, I loved the adrenaline. I loved the hunt, I loved the capture. I loved the whole thing."

The raw enthusiasm of a young cop would grow into something far more complicated in the years that followed. As the city devolved into a period of chaos and violence amid a drug epidemic and soaring crime, the LAPD descended along with it. Trained to follow orders and think of themselves as an occupying force, cops fell back on an aggressive style of policing that sometimes slipped into the realm of abuse.

It was a strategy, Beck would come to realize, that held no hope.

Ups and downs

After a few years as a reserve officer, Beck returned to the LAPD's training academy and emerged as a full-fledged cop in 1977. It was a time of flux, as Chief Ed Davis stepped down and Daryl F. Gates, a hard-line LAPD veteran, took over. Davis had flirted with the idea that police should build close ties with the communities they serve, but under Gates the department shifted back to an entrenched, paramilitary mentality.

As a still-green patrol officer, Beck took assignments in Rampart, South L.A., Hollywood and the Westside.

By the mid-1980s, with the crack cocaine epidemic in full swing and the city suffering a homicide rate three times what it is today, Beck had been promoted and was supervising cops in narcotics and anti-gang units in the thick of the chaos in South L.A.

With far too small a force to adequately police the city, heavy-handed, one-dimensional strategies prevailed, leading often to claims of excessive force and racism.

It was a time filled with troubling scenes. Beck recalled responding to a house his gang officers had raided to find children handcuffed and splayed on the street.

"They weren't evil people . . . they were doing what they were taught," he said of the officers. "There was no room for independent thought."

And there were deployments such as "Operation Hammer," when "we brought in all the gang units in the city and all the extra patrol units and just tried to get as many arrests as possible. It was untargeted, it didn't matter what it was. It was a declaration of war. It was supposed to be a declaration of war on gangs, but people saw it as a declaration of war on the community."

The 'dark days'

In recent interviews and speeches, Beck has shied away from talking in detail about specific incidents he witnessed or took part in, but he has not tried to shun responsibility for being a part of the force during what he refers to as the "dark days."

"I saw it not working, but I didn't have the maturity yet as a person or professionally to recognize it and to understand why," he said in a recent interview.

The 1992 riots following the verdict in the Rodney King beating were a turning point for Beck, solidifying his feeling that the LAPD's harsh policing methods were not only failing to make streets safer, but also helping set the stage for the eruption.

"I started trying to look at the job differently. I figured there had to be a way to be an effective police officer without alienating the people you were policing."

It would be a decade, however, before Beck found himself in a position to try out some of the ideas that had been taking shape in his head.

Soon after being hired as chief in 2002, William J. Bratton identified Beck, by then a captain in the department's rough Central Division, as someone who he believed had potential.

He sent Beck to run the Rampart Division, which was still recovering from a corruption scandal, and tasked him with one of the high-profile assignments aimed at winning back some of the public's confidence.

MacArthur Park, which over the years had become an open-air bazaar of drug dealing, prostitution and violence, had come to symbolize the LAPD's continued inability to maintain order, and Bratton wanted to take it back.

Initiating change

Beck seized the chance. He reached out to a nascent core of local business owners and leaned on other city agencies to return the park's lighting, sports facilities and landscaping to working order.

Specialized crime suppression units that had been aimlessly making hundreds of arrests in the park each month were ordered to stand down, and Beck instead placed the fate of the park at the feet of his own officers.

With the responsibility, though, he gave them greater discretion to think of ideas on their own -- a risky and nearly unheard-of proposition in a department that didn't encourage officers to innovate. His officers pursued federal grants and partnered with business owners to install surveillance cameras. Beck's cops reintroduced a sense of order to the park, making arrests and issuing citations for small infractions that had previously gone ignored.

"They had to own the problem," Beck said, using a favorite catch phrase. "I told them, 'This is our problem, we are going to fix this.' Everyone had to be involved. And we started talking about how we were going to do it. I told them, 'When we get done with this, we won't make any arrests in the park.' "

Every month, Beck would bring undercover officers from elsewhere in the city and record how long it took them to buy dope in the park. Within six months, he said, there was a sense of improvement. By his second summer in charge, the Pasadena Pops came to play a concert in the park, city workers stocked the pond for a kids' fishing tournament and the undercover cops were telling Beck they had to go outside the park to find drugs.

The leader's role

Beck left Rampart marked as a rising star in the department. That was when it first became apparent to him that he could move into the ranks of the LAPD's high command. He said it was gratifying to be acknowledged for his work, but he recalled with some ambiguity the momentum that swept him up and catapulted him forward.

Bratton promoted him quickly, and Beck returned as a deputy chief to South Los Angeles, where he again had success balancing an aggressive stance on crime with the need to rebuild the trust of still-wary residents. Civil rights leaders, attorneys and clergy who had clashed with police leadership over the years saw in Beck someone who wanted to hear them out. From there, Bratton brought Beck downtown to oversee the department's expansive detective bureau and increasingly depended on him to handle high-profile crises.

As he has risen through the ranks, Beck has carried with him the cautionary tale of his father. A year before Beck joined the department, George Beck, one of the highest ranking officers in the department, came under scrutiny for his role in the leak of investigative materials in a sensational murder case to an acquaintance who worked for a film production company and for accepting a personal loan from the company. He was cleared of the most serious charges but was disciplined and demoted for failing to do more to prevent the leak by others.

The embarrassment his father suffered left a mark on Beck and it is not lost on him that his father was at a similar point in his career to Beck's now. "It underscored that there is a lot of risk in being the boss," he said. "You are responsible for what your subordinates do and the relationships that you keep. And you always have to be aware of it."

That is no small thing for a man on the verge of taking over the entire LAPD, who considers among his most important assets his willingness to collaborate with people outside of traditional policing circles. "I have to be more circumspect," he said. "If I make a mistake, it will affect the whole city now."

Keeping perspective

Beck comes across as a humble, self-effacing man comfortable in his own skin. He calls elected officials "ma'am" and "sir." At a series of town hall meetings after being nominated for chief, Beck went out of his way to deflect attention. "They don't know me," he said at a meeting in Van Nuys, where he had been showered in applause. "I am just a symbol for something much larger."

In an interview, Beck recalled advice his father once gave him after he had received a promotion. "He told me, 'Remember, you just got promoted, you didn't get any smarter.' "

In the few weeks since Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa tapped his nominee, Beck has made a carefully crafted case to prove he is the right person to lead the department into the post-Bratton era.

While Bratton introduced badly needed reforms and pushed to rebuild ties with minority communities, Beck focused his attention on reshaping the upper ranks of the department and getting them to buy into his progressive ideas on policing.

Beck has presented himself as the one who will take Bratton's ideas and infuse them into the minds of the LAPD's roughly 10,000 rank-and-file officers. He is, he argues, the one who understands what it is to be an LAPD cop, the one who has their trust and thus the one who can rewire the way they think.

"The future of this organization is in our hands at this moment," Beck said in a speech following the mayor's announcement. "We have come so far in the last seven years and it is so important that we drive those changes that we've made, that we take them and put them into the DNA of this organization, so that never again will it depend solely on the leader to make a difference."

Far from an abstraction, the future of the LAPD is a personal matter for Beck. His stepdaughter, whom he raised from a young age, is a patrol officer and his son is scheduled to graduate from the LAPD academy next month.

The job, Beck said, "is the core of my existence. It's who I am."

To succeed, Beck knows he will have to persuade young cops today to make a transformation similar to the one he has made over 32 years in the LAPD. It is a daunting task and one that was weighing on his mind as he left the town hall meeting in Van Nuys.

Stepping out into the chill night air, he headed across a dark plaza to the familiar confines of a nearby police station. Inside, he found a group of young anti-gang officers preparing for their shift.

"I respect what you do. And I understand what you do," he said, slipping into an impromptu pep talk. "Believe me, I get it. When I was sitting where you are, the only thing I believed in was suppression and arrests. It took me about 20 years to come to a different conclusion. I'm going to try to close that time period for you. The only thing I ask of you is that you keep an open mind."

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-beck15-2009nov15,0,599114,print.story

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TSA is secretly watching you

Covert officers at 161 U.S. airports, including LAX, look for suspicious behaviors. The program has led to arrests on charges of drug trafficking, among others.

By Ken Kaye

November 15, 2009

Reporting from Fort Lauderdale, Fla.

You might not see them. But they're watching you.

To identify dangerous people, the Transportation Security Administration stations behavior-detection officers at 161 U.S. airports, including ones in Miami, Fort Lauderdale and Los Angeles. The officers can be anywhere, from the parking garage to the gate, looking for passengers who seem highly nervous or stressed.

They don't focus on nationality, race, ethnicity or gender, said TSA spokeswoman Sari Koshetz.

"We're not looking for a type of person, but at behaviors," she said.

Under the program, which started in Boston in 2003, a suspicious passenger might be given a secondary security screening or referred to police. Detection officers don't have the power to arrest someone.

Last year, officers required nearly 99,000 passengers nationwide to undergo additional screenings. Police questioned about 9,900 of them and arrested 813.

In one case, in March 2008, officers noticed a passenger about to board a flight from Fort Lauderdale to Charlotte, N.C. During a secondary screening, officers found an estimated $2.5 million worth of the drug Ecstasy in a carry-on bag. The traveler was arrested.

In other instances, travelers have been arrested on charges of drug trafficking, possessing fraudulent documents and having outstanding warrants, Koshetz said.

In February 2008, detection officers at Miami International Airport noted that a passenger had suspicious travel documents and was acting oddly. When he was flagged for a secondary screening, he bolted.

Police and TSA officers chased the man, who ran out of the terminal and jumped from an elevated road onto a sidewalk. He broke an arm and was arrested on charges of resisting arrest, disorderly conduct and possessing several IDs.

It's not easy to spot detection officers. Working in teams of two and clad in TSA uniforms, they blend in with those doing the security screenings.

Officers are chosen for their intelligence, maturity and ability to work with people, the TSA said. No background in behavior analysis is required. They undergo four days of behavior training, which includes trying to spot would-be terrorists, then receive 24 hours of on-the-job training.

On a recent day, detection officers Juan and Humberto -- their last names are concealed to protect their covert status -- eyeballed hundreds of passengers at Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport.

Juan started a friendly conversation with a red-eyed traveler carrying a large case. Such chats allow an officer to learn more about whether someone has malicious intentions, Juan said.

As it turned out, the case contained a music amplifier and the man was simply tired. "He was pretty calm," Juan said.

Koshetz said the TSA had established specific criteria for what is considered normal behavior "in an airport environment." She said officers react only when a passenger strays from those guidelines, which the TSA declined to reveal for security reasons.

Alex Archer, of Sunrise, Fla., a businessman on his way to Chicago, said he had no objection to being secretly watched.

"Honestly, I haven't even noticed them," he said. "They must be doing a good job. It's better to have more security than not enough."

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-airport-detection15-2009nov15,0,4151904,print.story

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FORGOTTEN COUNTRIES

Sierra Leone's crises have global reach

The public health system in the West African nation is a shambles and the government teeters on the edge. Some fear it could become another Somalia.

By Scott Kraft : Reporting from Freetown, Sierra Leone

November 15, 2009

First Of Two Parts

When the power went out that night, Dr. Ibrahim Thorlie was operating on his fifth patient of the day in a maternity hospital with a shortage of antibiotics and running water. His colleague was doing an emergency caesarean in the next room. In the corridor, a bucket on the floor held a stillborn baby.

Thorlie turned wordlessly in the darkened room and lifted his gloved hands. Sweat beaded up on his forehead like dewdrops. A nurse reached into the surgeon's pocket and pulled out his penlight, a pas de deux they had clearly performed many times before.

An aide was dispatched to start the generator and, eventually, a few low lights flickered on in the operating rooms. The rest of the hospital remained dark.

The power had failed two nights before, but no one on duty knew how to operate the generator. So Thorlie had awakened the deputy health minister, who woke the minister of energy, who contacted the electrical substation and got power restored. (The substation, it turned out, had taken a bribe to divert electricity to another neighborhood.)

It was an all-too-typical week at Princess Christian Maternity Hospital, which takes on the most difficult cases in a nation of 6 million.

Told of those events the next day, Sierra Leone's first lady, Sia Koroma, a trained nurse, sighed. "It's hair-raising, but it's true," she said. "And that's one of the government's best hospitals. The others are worse."

Bypassed by prosperity

Living standards are improving across much of the world these days. Free markets in Southeast Asia and Eastern Europe have transformed those regions into economic powerhouses. A high-tech revolution in India has lifted millions into the middle class, and the quality of healthcare has improved in the unlikeliest of places.

That tide has mostly bypassed sub-Saharan Africa. More than $1 trillion in foreign aid -- a major chunk of it from the United States -- has been pumped into Africa over the last half-century. Yet, on most of the continent, people are poorer and less healthy than before.

Since Sept. 11, 2001, world attention has been focused on the danger posed by disintegrating states such as Afghanistan, Pakistan and Somalia. Some lesser-known developing countries, though, also are incubators of strategic threats, including terrorism, narcotics smuggling, human trafficking, the small-arms trade and public health crises.

West Africa is of particular concern to world health officials. With shortages of medicine, trained doctors, reliable electricity, clean water and such basics as sterilized gloves, countries often lack the means to identify and deal with new disease threats.

"As we turn over more and more rocks in more and more places, we find more passages for disease," said Dr. Scott Dowell, director of global disease detection at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. "Most aren't going to be the next HIV or SARS, but it's pretty hard to tell which ones will and which ones won't."

Money and corruption

Sierra Leone is one of those nations where decades of foreign aid have failed to appreciably lift the fortunes of the people. The country is a charity case: 60% of its public spending comes from foreign governments and nonprofit organizations. Since 2002, it has received more than $1 billion in aid.

Yet it has the second-highest rate of infant mortality in the world, behind Angola; even Afghanistan ranks lower. The United Nations says 1 in 8 women die giving birth in Sierra Leone; the rate in the United States is 1 in 4,800. Life expectancy in Sierra Leone is 41 years; in Bangladesh it's 60.

A decade-long civil war in the 1990s drove people from the countryside into the capital, Freetown, and today a city built for 250,000 is home to 10 times that number. Tens of thousands camp out in shacks on a lush mountainside with views of the Atlantic but no clean water or electricity.

The war compelled thousands of the most educated Sierra Leoneans to go into exile in the United States and Britain. They make annual visits home, where they are known as the JCs, for "Just Comes," and are both envied and resented. A few have moved back, some to cash in on their contacts with government ministers who oversee the country's diamond and gold reserves.

The country managed a democratic election in 2007, but widespread corruption makes international donors wary. President Ernest Bai Koroma, a businessman who fled to London during the war, has cracked down with mixed results. After a judge accused of bribery was recently arrested in his chambers, lawyers pushed for rules to prevent police from arresting judges in the courthouse.

A few months ago, a 6,200-ton shipment of donated rice from Japan disappeared soon after arriving in port. When $10,000 disappeared over the summer from a project to alleviate child poverty, the director threatened to pull the plug if the money didn't reappear. It did.

But the director, Fadimata Alainchar, says that "people here are in it for themselves, and it's difficult to see that changing."

The sorry state of the country's roads has limited development. In the capital, cars and SUVs inch along narrow roads swarming with pedestrians. There are no traffic lights.

Outside Freetown, the major thoroughfares are rugged tracks of dirt and chunks of concrete. On one of those roads, a 63-year-old man named Jonathan Harding was using rocks he dug from the countryside to shore up a turn washed out by heavy rain. He once worked on a highway maintenance crew, but was fired for accusing his boss of corruption. Now he gets by on tips from passing motorists.

Even traveling to Freetown from its international airport is daunting. The distance is only 10 miles, but by land it takes at least four hours. A ferry is quicker, but often out of service. Water taxis make the journey, but frequently capsize. Most travelers use a private helicopter service, which charges $70 each way. Vintage Russian-made choppers, carrying 18 passengers each, complete the journey in a tense, thundering seven minutes.

There are a few signs of economic life. Wealthy businessmen and government officials keep two nightclubs, Old Skool and the Office, thumping until dawn, with Playboy videos on flat-screens, top-drawer Scotch on the shelves and Lexus SUVs in the parking lots. Large mansions are going up on the outskirts of the capital.

Michael Kargbo, a Sierra Leonean who ran a construction company in New Jersey before returning five years ago, says he has $1 million in construction projects underway, and his crews are building homes for government officials and the business elite.

"Most of the guys in power today are guys I either went to school with or knew in the States," he said, pausing at the site of a two-story hillside home under construction. As he spoke, Koroma's motorcade, escorted by soldiers with sirens and flashing lights, sped by. From his Mercedes, the president waved to Kargbo, who smiled and returned the greeting. As the motorcade disappeared, Kargbo said, "Business is good and getting better."

For some, perhaps. But the country remains a political tinderbox. Tens of thousands of former child soldiers, who were forced into militias that killed, raped and hacked off the limbs of victims, have melted back into society. Some, like Lamin Bangura, who became a rebel fighter at age 12, now drive motorcycle taxis, known as okadas , in the capital.

"We used to steal, but now we can make a living," said Bangura, 27. A dangerous living. Okada drivers are harassed by policemen seeking bribes and taxi drivers who resent the competition.

But large numbers of those former rebels are unemployed, and their anger, combined with their military training, poses a threat to political stability.

"We have been stigmatized by society and the government turns a blind eye," said Kabba Williams, 24, a college student who leads a group of onetime child soldiers lobbying the government to create jobs. "If there is a war, and someone is looking for mercenaries, they can find them right here, unfortunately."

The precariousness of Koroma's position was clear early this year when he left the country for unspecified medical treatment in India. His rivals attacked the headquarters of the president's party in a downtown melee involving 5,000 youths.

The government feared a coup was in the making and prepared to respond with force. But Michael von der Schulenburg, the U.N. secretary-general's representative in Sierra Leone, drove to the scene and brokered a resolution. Later, the president and his opponents signed an accord pledging support for democracy.

"If we can prove that here, in the poorest country in the world, there is a possibility to go from conflict to democracy and stability, it would be an example for other countries," Schulenburg said. "We have to keep it stable at any price, because Sierra Leone could easily become another Somalia."

'So many problems'

The most immediate crisis, though, is healthcare. The country has only two pediatricians, and Thorlie is one of four obstetricians. All work at Princess Christian.

Doctors Without Borders set up clinics in Bo, the second-largest city, during the civil war. Now it's time to begin pulling out and move to other countries in crisis, but Jan van't Land, the local director, says he's worried.

"We're in a difficult situation," he said. "If we leave, who would take over? It might create another crisis."

When Koroma took office in 2007, his wife, Sia, launched a global effort to draw attention to the public health crisis. An oil industry chemist before the war, she started a career in nursing during the couple's years in London. Her evangelical work has brought some help, but she acknowledges that progress has been slow.

"We are faced with so many problems -- illiteracy, poverty, youth unemployment and the need for gender empowerment," she said. "I'm trying to be an advocate for women and children, because they are the most vulnerable."

The first lady's office in the hilltop presidential lodge recently was filled with donated items, including sewing machines and farm tools. Outside, next to the first couple's empty swimming pool, a dozen hospital beds were stacked under an awning. The healthcare system needs a lot more than a few beds, though.

Government salaries for doctors range from $100 a month to $200 for specialists; experienced nurses earn $80. The salaries are among the lowest in the world; doctors in Ethiopia, Liberia and Nepal make more than four times as much.

To supplement their salaries, doctors negotiate payment with patients before treatment, and at the end of each day share that money with nurses and aides. If the patients don't pay, the doctors give the nurses money from their own pockets. Otherwise, Thorlie said, they won't show up.

"It's the worst thing in the world for a doctor to have to discuss payment with his patients," said Thorlie, who has been chief of medicine at Princess Christian for 25 years. "If two people come to me with a fever, and one agrees to give me 10,000 leones [about $3], who do I treat first? This situation is bad for us, and it's bad for patients."

In practice, he says, he and his doctors treat all patients, paying or not. "But for those who can afford to pay, they should pay," he said.

That sentiment has put him at odds with the Ministry of Health.

"Our policy is free medical treatment, and we have to enforce that policy," said Sheiku Tejan Koroma, appointed health minister in March. "We know that our salaries are the lowest on Earth and we need to increase them. The problem is that we don't have the money." But, he added, "this is a corrupt system we've inherited and they are more interested in their salaries than in their fellow man."

The health minister was an engineer at Texas Instruments in Dallas when President Koroma (no relation) asked him to return to Sierra Leone. His wife and three children stayed behind because he wasn't sure how long he would last. "My kids e-mail me that they want to buy expensive shoes, but I only make $500 a month," he said. "I told the president: If we don't make progress, I'm out of here."

A little over a week ago, the health minister was indicted on charges of illegally awarding contracts.

A doctor's frustration

Princess Christian Maternity Hospital is a sprawling concrete structure behind a guarded gate on one of Freetown's busiest downtown streets. Stray dogs roam the dirt courtyard, and windows in the hospital wards are cranked open to the outside air.

Thorlie, who presides over a staff of 12 doctors, wears a pressed dark tunic and a perpetual expression of weary stoicism. Though many of his colleagues left for lucrative jobs in the United States and Britain, he decided to remain in his home country. "If I didn't stay," he said, "who would?"

He was speaking in his office, where he relaxes by listening to country music. Jim Reeves' "Not Until the Next Time (Will I Cry All Night for You)" was playing on his computer.

Thorlie has grown increasingly frustrated with the Health Ministry. He had a heated argument with a ministry official recently over a proposal to outlaw home births to help reduce the infant mortality rate.

Expectant mothers in Sierra Leone often rely on "traditional birth attendants," untrained women who don't know when to refer patients to hospitals. Thorlie agreed that women need to be encouraged to come to clinics, but he argued that criminalizing home deliveries was not the answer.

"In dealing with human beings, you can't just force them," he told the ministry official. "You need their consent."

One of the obstetricians at Princess Christian, Dr. Kamson Kamara, was an emergency room doctor in Oklahoma City earning $120,000 a year when he decided to return to help his country, in a job paying $2,400. His wife, a dentist, and two children remain in Oklahoma.

The difference between his old job and this one "is the difference between earth and sky," he said, sitting in the doctors lounge between surgeries. A hospital aide knelt on the floor wiping splattered blood off the doctor's shoes -- and off a floor lamp that Kamara brought from home to use in the dimly lighted operating rooms.

"It's really pathetic," he said. "People are dying here and it's getting worse every day."

Two nurses appeared and Kamara reached into his pocket, giving each a few bills of the local currency. "I have to keep them happy," he said.

One more statistic

After the recent power outage, a pregnant 19-year-old named Maiatu Kabia was wheeled into the operating room. She was suffering from eclampsia, a life-threatening complication of pregnancy characterized by convulsions. The family had refused to give doctors permission to operate earlier.

Dr. Prince Masuba, 34 and a year out of medical school, started a C-section. He and two nurses worked for 10 minutes to push the baby out through the incision. "I don't think this baby is alive," he said.

Eventually, the stillborn baby was placed on a tray near his mother. A nurse made notations in pencil on Kabia's chart: "Uterus closed and stitched. Placenta removed. Wound closed in layers."

Six hours later, Kabia died in the recovery room.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nation-and-world/la-fg-africa-health15-2009nov15,0,5290149,print.story

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Opinion

Operation: Last Chance pays off in Hungary

A Hungarian Jewish teen has not been forgotten, 65 years after his murder. Neither has the man who may have helped kill him -- and now he will face justice.

By Efraim Zuroff

November 15, 2009

The envelope was postmarked Budapest, Aug. 25, 2004, and it arrived in my Jerusalem office about a week later. It contained more than a dozen yellowing pages detailing a decades-old murder in the Hungarian capital.

According to witness statements included with the letter, Peter Balazs, an 18-year-old Jew, was tortured and beaten to death on Nov. 8, 1944, by Hungarian soldiers for not wearing the yellow star that Jews were required to wear. Two participants in the murder were prosecuted and convicted after the war, but according to the witnesses, a third alleged attacker, Karoly Zentai, was never charged.

It was a Nazi-hunter's dream -- a near-perfect package that clearly named the perpetrator, the victim, the crime and its site. I had all the necessary details to begin an investigation.

The packet was sent by a professor of my acquaintance at the request of Adam Balazs, the victim's brother, and the accompanying letter explained that the evidence had been collected by Adam's father, Dezso, a Budapest lawyer who died in 1970. The family had been informed that Zentai was living in Perth, Australia, but had never been able to confirm his whereabouts. "Please try to find Karoly Zentai, in case he is still alive, or at least inform Mr. Balazs what happened to him," the letter concluded.

The letter's arrival was particularly gratifying, as it was a direct response to a campaign I had launched in Hungary only weeks earlier. We call it Operation: Last Chance , and it offers financial rewards for information facilitating the prosecution and punishment of Nazi war criminals. Because of the diminishing chance of bringing Nazi war criminals to justice, the Simon Wiesenthal Center had to become more proactive, and with the help of the Targum Shlishi Foundation of Miami, we launched the project in 2002 in Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia, with promising results. Hungary was the seventh country in which we instituted Operation: Last Chance, and on hearing about it, Adam Balazs decided it might be an opportunity to finally bring to justice the man suspected of murdering his brother.

It did not take me long to find a hale and healthy Charles Zentai living in Perth, and to inform the Hungarian and Australian authorities of his whereabouts and the serious allegations against him.

To Hungary's credit, its judicial organs moved quickly to bring Zentai to justice, and in March 2005, a request for his extradition was submitted to Canberra.

It was initially approved by the Australians, but before Zentai could be sent back to Budapest, his lawyers mounted a series of technical legal challenges that delayed his extradition. On Thursday, more than four years after the initial request, Australian Minister of Home Affairs Brendan O'Connor finally approved Zentai's extradition, and the accused killer will at last be returned to Hungary to face legal proceedings.

This was an important step for Australia, which had up to now failed to take successful legal action against any of the many Holocaust perpetrators who went there after World War II. Needless to say, all these delays were extremely frustrating for us -- and no doubt for the Balazs family.

Zentai's children, on the other hand, have been determined to prevent their father's extradition.

One of the most difficult encounters of my professional life was meeting with three of his kids in Perth in 2006. I was sympathetic with the shock they must have undergone when they learned of the allegations against their father, who they said was an exemplary parent. Many children of Nazis or collaborators don't want to know what their parents did in World War II, a time when many ostensibly normal people committed heinous crimes. Zentai's children were no exception. They were willing to accept that the Holocaust had taken place, but not that their father had any part in it.

Now, at long last, more than five years after the envelope with the evidence arrived in Jerusalem, there will be a decision on Zentai's fate.

Although he is accused of only one murder, Zentai's crime should not be ignored. The passage of time in no way diminishes his guilt.

Nor should he be spared prosecution due to his advanced age. While today he is frail, we should always remember that when he was in his physical prime, he is alleged to have murdered an innocent teenager simply because he was Jewish.

We must never forget our obligation to the victims of the Holocaust. The people who carried out Nazi atrocities showed no sympathy for their innocent victims, and they do not deserve to be protected simply because they were able to elude justice for decades.

Efraim Zuroff, the Simon Wiesenthal Center's chief Nazi-hunter and director of its Israel office, is the author of "Operation Last Chance: One Man's Quest to Bring Nazi Criminals to Justice."

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-oe-zuroff15-2009nov15,0,3726605,print.story

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From the Washington Times

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Sunday, November 15, 2009

Family child sex case expands with arrest

Heather Hollingsworth ASSOCIATED PRESS

LEXINGTON, Mo. | The case against a family accused of child sex abuse expanded with the arrest of a sixth relative - a 72-year-old Florida man who had called the accusations against his kin repulsive and appalling.

Darrel Wayne Mohler has been charged with raping two children in Missouri more than 20 years ago. His arrest Friday came a day after he told Associated Press that the purported child abuse by his relatives was "unspeakable."

Mr. Mohler was charged in Lafayette County, Mo., with two counts of forcible rape in 1986. Officials said he was arrested and was in custody at a jail in Ocala, Fla., near his hometown of Silver Springs.

Five other members of the Mohler family were charged earlier in the week with several felonies, including forcible sodomy, rape with a child younger than 12 and use of a child in a sexual performance.

"I can't think of words that would put this in perspective. I find it repulsive if it's true," Mr. Mohler said Thursday of his family members' charges.

Mr. Mohler said he was a disabled veteran suffering from various ailments, including lung disease. He did not return phone calls to his home Friday before his arrest.

The other men charged in the case were Mr. Mohler's brother, Burrell Edward Mohler, 77, of Independence, Mo., and his four adult sons: Burrell Mohler Jr., 53, of Independence; Jared Leroy Mohler, 48, of Columbia, Mo.; Roland Neil Mohler, 47, of Bates City, Mo.,; and David A. Mohler, 52, of Lamoni, Iowa.

The probable cause statement against Darrel W. Mohler accuses him of raping two children between the ages of 5 and 9 at an abandoned home. The statement alleges that after Mr. Mohler left the children, Burrell Mohler Sr. came to the room and warned them to "be careful because waterbeds were known to pop and they might drown in their sleep."

Darrel W. Mohler said Thursday that he never had been close to Burrell Mohler Sr.

The original complaint in the case includes allegations of bestiality, forcing children into fake marriages with relatives, and making an 11-year-old have an abortion. The Associated Press is not revealing details that could identify victims of sexual abuse.

The men have not entered pleas and did not have lawyers listed with the court clerk's office. The five men originally charged have been held on cash bonds ranging from $30,000 to $75,000. Their next court hearing is Tuesday.

Lafayette County Sheriff Kerrick Alumbaugh also said Friday that a search on a 55-acre property formerly owned by family members was completed and that he expected additional charges against the suspects.

Sheriff Alumbaugh had said earlier that investigators were focusing on the property outside Bates City, about 30 miles east of Kansas City, because there was "an indication that there are body or bodies in numerous locations." He did not elaborate.

Investigators also said they were searching for glass jars buried on the property and containing notes, written by children, about the purported abuse. Adults are said to have told children to write down bad memories and bury them there and "the memories would go away," said Sgt. Collin Stosberg, spokesman for the Missouri State Highway Patrol.

Neither Sheriff Alumbaugh nor Sgt. Stosberg would comment about any evidence that may have been found in the search.

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/nov/15/child-sex-case-for-family-expands-with-arrest//print/

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Sunday, November 15, 2009

Soldiers killed at Ft. Hood mourned across U.S.

Ryan J. Foley ASSOCIATED PRESS

KIEL, Wis. | The hundreds of people who lined the main street of a small Indiana city Saturday fell solemnly silent as a white hearse passed by on its way to the church.

Mourners streamed into a Wisconsin gymnasium to remember the soldier who once said that on her own, she could take on Osama bin Laden.

People stood before flag-draped coffins across the country Saturday during funeral services for several of the 13 victims of the Nov. 5 shootings in Fort Hood, Texas.

In Plymouth, Ind., Sheila Ellabarger had placed two foot-high American flags in the grass where she watched the procession for Army Staff Sgt. Justin DeCrow. She said her children went to school with Sgt. DeCrow and his wife - his high school sweetheart - and she knew other members of his family.

"He was killed by a terrorist, in my mind, but he was still killed in the line of duty. We owe him a debt of gratitude, him and his family and the other soldiers. We owe them our lives, our freedom," she said.

During services in Norman, Okla., snapshots from Army Spc. Jason Dean Hunt's recent wedding were projected near his casket. The 22-year-old was described as a loving husband and family man as well as a soldier who left a legacy of selflessness and service.

Brig. Gen. Ross Ridge, the deputy commander of Fort Sill in Oklahoma, asked Spc. Hunt's family to be assured that the military community was grieving with them.

In Kiel, mourners packed into the high school gymnasium Saturday for Army Staff Sgt. Amy Krueger's funeral. A visitation had been held there Friday evening where Sgt. Krueger, 29, was remembered as a determined, energetic young woman.

She joined the Army Reserves after the 2001 terrorist attacks and vowed to hunt down bin Laden. When her mother said she couldn't do it alone, the soldier defiantly told her, "Watch me."

Sgt. Krueger was to deploy to Afghanistan for a second time in December and had recently arrived at Fort Hood for training. She had been studying psychology at the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater and was a mental-health specialist who wanted to help soldiers cope with combat stress.

"Her smile would light up any room, her energy would envelop all of those around her," her parents, Jeri and David Krueger, said in a statement. "It is that smile and that energy that keeps us going throughout this difficult time."

She was what they call "Army Proud." Sgt. Krueger always wore a U.S. Army hat or shirt around town and sported a tattoo that had a tattered American flag and read: "All gave some. Some gave all. Sacrifice."

Funerals also were planned Saturday for Capt. John Gaffaney, 56, a psychiatric nurse who worked for San Diego County, Calif.; Pfc. Michael Pearson, 22, of Bolingbrook, Ill.; and Pfc. Aaron Thomas Nemelka, 19, of West Jordan, Utah.

Utah's congressional delegation, governor and the president of the Mormon church were among those expected to attend services for Pfc. Nemelka, an Eagle Scout who carried on a family tradition by joining the Army a little more than a year ago.

"Aaron was a man of few words but deep feelings and a gentle disposition," according to an obituary in Salt Lake City newspapers. "His beautiful smile and cheerful, fun-loving personality endeared him to his many friends and family members."

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/nov/15/soldiers-killed-at-ft-hood-mourned-across-us//print/

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Sunday, November 15, 2009

EDITORIAL: Justice for the unborn terror victim

THE WASHINGTON TIMES

Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan was charged with 13 counts of murder for the Fort Hood massacre, but 14 persons were killed. Army Pvt. Francheska Velez, a 21-year-old Chicago native, was six weeks pregnant when she was gunned down. Her unborn child is the 14th victim, but the death so far has been ignored by our government.

Weeks before the Nov. 5 shooting at Fort Hood, Velez had been driving fuel tankers in Iraq when she learned she was pregnant. Because of the good news, she rotated home early to take an assignment outside of the war zone. She had come to the room where the terrorist struck to fill out paperwork related to her pregnancy. Had she not been pregnant, she still would have been half a world away serving in Iraq at the time of the shootings.

Maj. Hasan can and should be held responsible for killing Velez's unborn child. The Unborn Victims of Violence Act was passed in 2004 to cover these specific circumstances. The law provides that a person, like Maj. Hasan, charged with murder under section 918 of Title 10 of the U.S. Code who caused the death of "a child, who is in utero at the time the conduct takes place, is guilty of a separate offense under this section and shall, upon conviction, be punished by such punishment, other than death, as a court-martial may direct."

The law is also known as "Laci and Conner's Law," after Laci Peterson, who was pregnant with a son to be named Conner when she was murdered by Scott Peterson in 2002.

The law covers unborn children "at any stage of development," so the fact that Velez's unborn child was six weeks old brings the statute in force. The law does not require that the shooter, in this case Maj. Hasan, "had knowledge or should have had knowledge that the victim of the underlying offense was pregnant" or that he "intended to cause the death of, or bodily injury to, the unborn child." Had he intentionally killed the unborn child, he would be tried under a separate murder charge. Recognition of the additional victim is not a capital offense, though Maj. Hasan currently faces 13 capital murder charges.

Investigators at Fort Hood are considering whether the Unborn Victims of Violence Act applies to this case. No life lost during the terrorist attack on Fort Hood should be forgotten. We urge the Army to pursue justice for Velez's unborn child, who brought her to that place on that fateful day.

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/nov/15/justice-for-the-unborn-terror-victim//print/

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From the Department of Homeland Security

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2010 Student Summer Employment Program

The Department of Homeland Security headquarters seeks motivated students looking to contribute their unique insight, skills and talents to support the important mission of securing the homeland.

Our headquarters offices offer paid summer internship opportunities for full-time and part-time college or university students. Academic credit may be awarded in accordance with the appointee's work schedule and his/her individual college or university policies.

The Department's Student Summer Employment Program offers opportunities for students to gain on-the-job experience during the summer of 2010. The following fields may include, but are not limited to the corresponding list of duties:

Business Administration

• Providing administrative support
• Compiling and preparing information
• Monitoring and tracking reports and special projects
• Monitoring and tracking funds utilization of office budget
• Preparing a variety of reports from several automated databases
• Preparing correspondence, status reports, schedules and technical reports
• Applicants to the Business Administration area may be considered for other applicable areas including Buying/Pricing/Contract Negotiation, Finance & Accounting, General Administration/Clerical, and Human Resources.
  

Buying/Pricing/Contract Negotiation

• Reviewing requests for procurement
• Analyzing requirements and recommending revisions to the statement of work
• Preparing solicitation documents
• Analyzing bids and proposals
• Recommending the award of purchase orders to senior specialists
• Assisting senior specialists by carrying out analytical contract specialist work that includes predetermined phases of assignments designed to provide broad exposure to work in the profession
  

Civil Rights & Civil Liberties/Equal Employment Opportunity (CRCL/EEO)

• Researching topics
• Helping to coordinate, and participate in, a broad scope of activities related to engagement with American Arab, Muslim, Sikh, South Asian, Middle Eastern, and Somali communities on civil rights issues
• Researching and developing enterprise-wide training on civil rights and civil liberties issues for Department staff in support of the Civil Liberties Institute
• Providing support to the Disability Policy Team in its effort to proactively integrate principles of nondiscrimination on the basis of disability in all of the Department's policies, programs and activities. This includes, but is not limited to:
  • Emergency preparedness and response
  • Assessing existing and proposed Department policies to determine whether they comply with the U.S. Constitution and other applicable laws, regulations, and policies
  • Conducting policy research and analyses on various topics to inform and guide CRCL's impact assessment and program work
  • Establishing, revising, coordinating, implementing and advising on the Civil Rights and Civil Liberties' impact of program planning and management across component lines within the Department, and with Department information sharing, law enforcement and intelligence community partners
  • Charting recommendations made through final reports issued or memos sent to components, and component responses received, to assist in the effort to monitor compliance with the implementation of our recommendations in closed complaint
  • Designing the EEO & Diversity Program's section of the CRCL website and lay foundations for building up a greater web presence
  • Drafting final agency actions for adjudication of employment discrimination complaints
  • Catalog appellate activity on findings of discrimination and reprisal in cases before the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and federal district courts
    

Communications & Public Affairs

• Participating in developing, recommending, implementing, and evaluating policy for Department press relations programs
• Providing oversight and other assistance over Department information programs involving press releases, newspapers, magazines, and other publications, as well as radio and television
  

Finance & Accounting

• Participating in the development, evaluation, analysis and interpretation of policies to resolve accounting and audit problems
• Analyzing and resolving difficult issues related to the accounting aspects of programs where the resolution of problems requires an integrated financial approach
  

General Administration/Clerical

• Supporting professional and technical staff by performing a variety of clerical duties
• Assisting higher level employees with special projects
• Performing administrative duties including the construction of forms, sorting of mail, and other correspondence, and receiving and delivering telephone messages
  

Health Affairs

• Familiarizing yourself with the structure and operations of the Office of Health Affairs
• Supporting Department activities in biodefense, medical readiness, component services, or international health affairs
• Assisting in the development of policies and procedures with regard to specific health threats
• Assisting in defining capabilities for medical first responders at the federal, state, local, tribal and territorial levels
• Supporting medical planning as it relates to the Homeland Security mission
  

Human Resources

• Providing assistance and support to Human Resources Specialist in recruitment, selection, placement, job analysis and workforce planning
• Independently performing routine technical assignments, including modifications to vacancy announcements, posting job opportunities and issuing job appointment letters
  

Information Technology

• Policy and planning
• Security
• Application software
• Operating systems
• Network service
• Data management
• Systems administration
• Customer support
• Assisting higher level employees in the planning, designing, developing, acquiring, documenting, testing, implementing, integrating, maintaining, or modifying of IT systems.
  

Intelligence & Analysis

• Performing routine intelligence operations work involving collection, analysis, evaluation, interpretation, and dissemination of information
• Compiling data from specific sources for the use of senior specialists
• Evaluating and making preliminary analyses of intelligence data in terms of adequacy of detail and coverage
  

Legal/Law

• Performing legal research
• Analyzing legal and policy implications, and presenting work products in draft form to Counsel on a variety of difficult legal problems
• Responding to inquiries and correspondence pertaining to legal matters
• Legal areas may include procurement law, immigration law, litigation, and legislation; including agency authorities and administrative law
  

Policy

• Assisting in the development and coordination of Department-wide policies, planning and programs
• Researching of historical policy documents, legislative histories and court decisions
• Identifying issues or problems
• Developing alternative solutions consistent with Department regulations and operating procedures
  

Privacy

• Working closely with the Senior Staff to identify and analyze departmental programs and policies on privacy
• Developing new procedures and guidance dealing with the applicability and impact on privacy of current and developing technologies
• Performing research on a wide variety of issues related to privacy
• Participating in the implementation of federally mandated privacy laws, regulations, policies and procedures at the Department.
  

Science and Technology

• Assisting with the development of application systems to detect explosives and concealed weapons on air cargo, passengers, and the transit systems
• Working to prevent acts of catastrophic terrorism by utilizing existing resources, or by developing new ones
• Helping to design and test cutting-edge security applications
• Assisting with the research, development and testing of new vaccines, antidotes, diagnostics, and therapies against biological and chemical warfare agents, or collaborating with researchers in national laboratories, universities, and corporations to assists with the design, development, and testing of progressive applications

All internship positions are located in the Washington, D.C. area.

How to Apply

Application Deadline: Applications must be received by 11:59 p.m. on Friday, November 27, 2009.

Application Online : Apply to Student Summer Employment Program .

Requirements: To be eligible for this program, students must be:

• A United States citizen
• Enrolled or accepted for enrollment as a full or part-time degree (diploma, certificate, etc.) student in an accredited high school, technical or vocational school, 2-year or 4-year college or university, graduate or professional school
• At least 16 years of age

Candidate finalists must undergo and successfully complete a background investigation for a security clearance. Selected candidates will be required to submit a copy of their transcripts and a letter of enrollment or acceptance for enrollment for the 2010-2011 academic school year prior to appointment.

Contact our student programs staff at internships@dhs.gov .

http://www.dhs.gov/xabout/careers/gc_1168032414916.shtm

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