Seeking a shot at free clinic

Thousands line up for wristbands that will afford them sorely needed treatment.

Molly Hennessy-Fiske

April 25, 2010

Nearly 5,600 people lined up outside the Los Angeles Sports Arena on Sunday, many camping out in the cold on the sidewalk overnight, to claim wristbands and a chance for free dental and medical treatment at a massive health clinic this week.

"It's kind of hard to ignore," said organizer Don Manelli. "Somebody waits all night outside to see a dentist — that tells you something."

The seven-day clinic, which starts Tuesday, will include vision exams, mammograms and diabetes screening, among other services. A team of more than 300 volunteer doctors, dentists and other medical professionals each day will see patients from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m.

When the gates opened Sunday morning, the line for wristbands snaked around the arena and reflected the face of America's uninsured and underinsured. Most of those seeking treatment came from throughout Los Angeles County, but some drove from neighboring counties. Many were unemployed, disabled or retired. But there were also workers of all ages, some with children, who said they could not afford health insurance. Some were illegal immigrants. Most of those with insurance, including government plans, said their coverage did not include dental or eye care.

By 6 p.m., all slots for Tuesday and Wednesday had been taken. Organizers plan to announce later this week when they will distribute the remaining wristbands for the other days.

Anthony Jackson, 71, a retired nurse and mail clerk, shivered in his wheelchair under a worn brown comforter. Jackson needs new bifocals and dental work, but he said Medicare, the federal health insurance program for seniors, does not cover either now. Waiting next to Jackson was his in-home health aide, who also needed to see a doctor.

Another patient, Penny Zellman, drove up from Garden Grove at 4 a.m. with her husband, Jason, and daughters, Julia, 8, and Alexis, 4. Zellman lost her job as a pharmacy technician two weeks ago — shortly before she would have qualified for family health insurance. Her husband, who works in vacation sales, does not have insurance. He needs two root canals, and Alexis needs eye surgery.

Because they both work, the Zellmans do not qualify for Medi-Cal, the state's health insurance program for low-income families.

"We're happy for whatever they can do," said Penny Zellman, who got wristbands for the whole family.

Remote Area Medical, a Tennessee-based nonprofit, held a clinic last year at the Forum in Inglewood that drew more than 6,300, but many had to be turned away because of a lack of volunteers. Now, organizers are trying to enlist enough volunteers to treat 8,400 patients.

The Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum Commission is donating the space, and the organizers are providing the bulk of the supplies and equipment, Manelli said.

Phyllis Vincent, 59, of Pasadena is a background actor without health insurance who needs new glasses and a tooth extraction. She was turned away from the Forum clinic but got a wristband Sunday. Vincent said the line was long but went quickly because volunteers were better organized than last time.

"They learned a lot from last year," she said. "It's just that the need is so great."

The line included many single adults and a few families who fall into the gap between Medi-Cal and Medicare. There were few uninsured young professionals.

"We told a lot of people who definitely need it," said Eric Gutierrez, 31, of Burbank, an actor and behavioral therapist who got a wristband after waiting in line since 2 a.m.

"I'm surprised not to see more people our age," said Skye Noel, 28, an actress and dance teacher who lives near MacArthur Park and had encouraged others to get wristbands. "I know hundreds of actors, and they're not here."

Megan Jones, 23, of Santa Clarita, got in line at noon Saturday. She needs a root canal and to have her four wisdom teeth removed.

Jones, like many of those in line, has a job but earns $300 a week. Her part-time work at a real estate title company does not come with health insurance. Like many young professionals, she figured she could live without insurance. Then she discovered she needed a $1,200 tooth extraction. She said her jaw is so swollen, it hurts to chew.

"How am I supposed to live off of $300 and pay thousands of dollars to have my teeth fixed?" said Jones, who lives with her parents. The clinic, she said, is "a dream come true."

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-free-clinic-20100426,0,3565514,print.story

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Armed man held at N.C. airport after Obama departs

From the Associated Press

11:31 PM PDT, April 25, 2010

ASHEVILLE, N.C. — An armed man spotted at a North Carolina airport parking lot just after President Obama's airliner departed told an officer he wanted to see the president and had a car equipped with police gear, including a siren and flashing lights, authorities said.

Joseph Sean McVey, 23, of Ohio, was charged with going armed in terror of the public, a misdemeanor, said airport police Capt. Kevan Smith. A jail officer said it appeared McVey did not have an attorney.

Security was heightened at the airport because Obama was leaving after spending the weekend vacationing in Asheville. He was headed to a memorial service for 29 West Virginia coal miners killed in an explosion.

At about 2 p.m. local time, airport police saw McVey get out of a maroon car with Ohio plates and that he had a sidearm, Smith said. Both airport police and the Secret Service questioned him and he was taken into custody. The suspect was not near the president's plane, which had just departed, and was in a rental car return lot that is open to the public, Smith said.

His car was equipped with clear LED law enforcement-style strobe lights in the front and rear dash, Smith said. The car also had a mounted digital camera in the front window, four large antennas on the trunk lid, and under the steering wheel was a working siren box. Smith said McVey was not in law enforcement.

When McVey got out of the car, he was listening to a handheld scanner and radio that had a remote earpiece, Smith said. Police said he was monitoring local agencies and had formulas for rifle scopes on a note in his cup holder. Police did not immediately elaborate on what the formulas might mean and Smith was not available to comment late Sunday.

McVey gave authorities an Ohio driver's license, but a computer check failed to show the number was valid, police said.

When Officer Kaleb Rice asked him what he was doing, McVey told him he heard the president was in town and wanted to see him.

Rice removed the firearm and took McVey into custody. He was being held at the county jail on $100,000 bond.

The investigation into what McVey was doing with a gun, with formulas for rifle scopes and why his car was equipped with police gear was continuing, Smith said. The Secret Service had no comment on the arrest, deferring to airport police.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-naw-obama-airport-20100426,0,2462912,print.story

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Iraq war veteran may be denied citizenship

Ekaterine Bautista served honorably for six years and earned a Combat Action Badge, but she used a relative's name. She fears deportation.

By Anna Gorman, Los Angeles Times

April 26, 2010

Just five days before Ekaterine Bautista planned to become an American citizen, she got a call from the federal government: Her swearing-in ceremony had been canceled pending further investigation.

Bautista was devastated. An illegal immigrant from Mexico, she had served six years in the U.S. military — including a 13-month tour of duty in Iraq — and was eligible to apply for naturalization under a decades-old law.

But approval of her case depended on the discretion of citizenship officials. Bautista had served in the military under a false identity, that of her U.S. citizen aunt, Rosalia Guerra Morelos.

She passed the civics exam, completed all the paperwork and received a letter telling her to show up at the Los Angeles Convention Center on March 31. Then the call came.

"Yeah, I made a mistake," Bautista, 35, said. "But if you look back at my records, I never did anything wrong in the military. On the contrary."

Sitting in her father's home in East Los Angeles, Bautista proudly looks through a thick binder of commendations and certificates, including the Combat Action Badge. She says she was promoted to sergeant within three years. She pulls out photos: one showing her hugging her friends in her unit in Germany, another showing her in uniform at the base she guarded in Iraq. The name on her uniform reads Guerra.

Like many other soldiers, Bautista decided to enlist just days after Sept. 11.

"It was a calling," said Bautista, who was a teenager when her mother brought her to the U.S. "I felt the need to join because it was the right thing to do, and also because of my daughter. I had to protect my daughter."

She called an Army recruiting office, but they told her that a Mexican passport wasn't enough and that she had to be a U.S. citizen or a green-card holder to enlist. So she asked her family for permission to use the identity of her aunt, a U.S. citizen who lived in Mexico. With their blessing, Bautista walked into a Montebello recruiting office and introduced herself as Rosalia Guerra Morelos. She presented a driver's license, birth certificate and Social Security number.

As part of the 1952 Immigration and Nationality Act, noncitizens who serve in the military one year during peace time or one day during wartime are eligible to apply for fast-tracked citizenship. In 2002, President George W. Bush issued an executive order and invoked the wartime law as of Sept. 11, 2001.

Between September 2001 and March 2010, more than 58,000 men and women in the armed forces were naturalized, according to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. The agency doesn't track how many were undocumented.

There have been similar cases to Bautista's, including that of Mexican illegal immigrant Liliana Plata, who bought a stolen Social Security card in Los Angeles so she could join the military and later became a decorated airman serving in Iraq as Cristina Alaniz. She was honorably discharged from the Air Force in 2003 after the real Alaniz discovered her identity had been stolen.

Many immigrants have been raised in the U.S. and are drawn to the armed forces for the same reasons as native-born Americans: a steady job, the military lifestyle and patriotism, said Margaret Stock, an Alaska-based immigration attorney who specializes in military cases and is an officer in the Army Reserve.

"Many are very patriotic, even though it's not officially their country," she said, speaking as a private citizen.

Unfortunately, Stock said, cases like Bautista's are difficult to detect because there is no biometric registry of U.S. citizens. They are also potentially dangerous, as American citizens have access to different jobs and security clearance in the military, she said.

Eugene Fidell, who teaches military justice at Yale Law School, said that enlisting under a false identity is a crime and is taken very seriously by the government. "It's deeply frowned upon," he said. "It really is fraud."

But in some cases, he said, if the person served honorably, the government should exercise discretion and grant citizenship.

When she enlisted, Bautista said, she didn't know that immigrants who served in the military could become citizens.

After basic training, Bautista was stationed in Germany and assigned as a food service specialist. In 2004, she deployed to Iraq and guarded the base in Baqubah.

On June 8, 2004, a car driven by a suicide bomber approached the gate and immediately exploded. "It was like in the cartoons — people flying everywhere," she said.

Bautista was knocked off her feet. Three people landed on top of her. "They were my shield," she said. "They saved me."

After a few seconds, Bautista said, she stood up and saw blood and body pieces everywhere. She ran to get medical supplies and helped bandage fellow soldiers and Iraqi citizens who worked on the base. Bautista's commanding officer and two Iraqi civilians were killed. More than a dozen soldiers and Iraqi citizens were wounded. "It was chaos," she said, tears falling down her face.

Back in Germany, she settled into the routine of military life. She fell in love, but even he didn't know her true identity. She didn't tell fellow soldiers that she had a daughter.

But in 2008, Bautista was called into an office by her superiors. They told her they knew who she really was. She asked to talk to an attorney.

"I tried to retain my military bearing at all times," she said. "I tried not to show any emotion."

But inside, she was scared. Would she be arrested? Kicked out of the Army? Deported? The military launched an investigation and confiscated the documents bearing her aunt's name.

Several of her fellow soldiers and superiors wrote letters on her behalf. In one, a superior described how Bautista helped the wounded before tending to herself after the explosion and wrote that she was "an exceptional role model." "It will be a shame for the Army to get rid of an outstanding soldier like this," the letter read.

In the end, Bautista was honorably discharged and arrived in Los Angeles in July 2009. Having to leave the military, she said, still hurts. Even now, she wishes she could return to Iraq.

"When you are in a war zone, you create like a family," she said, her voice cracking. "It's hard to leave your brothers and sisters behind."

Her daughter, Mizhrua Bautista, 15, who was born in the U.S., said she understands why her mother wanted to join the military so badly that she used a different name. "Not a lot of people are willing to do that and put their life in danger to help out her country," she said. "I want to see her get her citizenship."

After the call canceling the ceremony, a follow-up letter said citizenship officials wanted a passport she had obtained fraudulently. Bautista's attorney, Noemi Ramirez, said she had already given citizenship officials a receipt showing that the military had confiscated the passport.

Ramirez said she admires her client's dedication to America and said she deserves citizenship. "The fact that she served in the military, went to Iraq and was in the line of fire outweighs the immigration violation she committed," she said, adding that Bautista was not high-ranking and did not have security clearance.

U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services spokeswoman Mariana Gitomer said she couldn't comment on the case but said it's not unusual for the agency to need further clarification.

"It doesn't mean that they are not going to be naturalized," she said. "It just means we have to look into the case a bit more."

Until her case is resolved, Bautista can't drive, work or receive veteran's benefits. Even though she wishes she could have done so with her own name, Bautista said she doesn't regret joining the military.

"Now that I look at my daughter," she said, "it was worth it."

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/iraq/complete/la-me-immig-army-20100426,0,4712923,print.story

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U.S. prosecutors rattle, but don't break, Mexican cartels

More Mexican drug lords are getting stiff prison terms, but they're quickly replaced.

By Richard A. Serrano, Tribune Washington Bureau

5:22 PM PDT, April 25, 2010

Reporting from Washington and San Diego

Using drug and racketeering statutes and extradition agreements, federal prosecutors are sending a steady parade of Mexican drug lords into U.S. prisons. Although that is having a chilling effect on the smuggling cartels, there is no sign that the convictions are breaking the organizations, which are growing more violent, according to U.S. officials and other experts.

Ten cartel leaders from Mexico have been convicted in U.S. courts in the last two years, while three in Chicago and a fourth in Brooklyn, N.Y., have been indicted in major drug racketeering operations involving tons of heroin, cocaine and marijuana.

In the last few weeks in San Diego alone, four cartel figures were convicted of leading organizations that smuggled tons of the drugs into the U.S., carried out assassinations and spent millions of dollars bribing Mexican authorities. The men were given sentences ranging from 30 years to life in prison with no chance of parole.

It was hoped that the prospect of U.S. prison time would begin deterring drug violence along the border. U.S. officials say it is having some effect, citing drug lords still at large who admit to being frightened at the prospect of extradition to the U.S. They also say the tactic disrupts the cartels' activities.

But authorities on both sides of the border acknowledge that the cartels have simply promoted lieutenants to the vacant leadership positions and that the violence, especially in the last two years, has turned uglier — in the streets and within the cartels, where junior members are fighting one another for control.

"In Mexico, there are hundreds of thousands of young men who are in organized crime and are … ready to step up when a leader at any level is captured and taken prisoner," said Tony Payan, a political science professor at the University of Texas-El Paso, who for a decade has studied border violence.

"While it is good to catch one of these guys, in the end it's a little like winning a battle even if you're losing the war. To me it's a little bit like tilting at windmills."

R. Gil Kerlikowske, director of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy, agreed in a separate interview that the convictions were not breaking the cartels. "I don't think there's any doubt there are people who will replace those folks," he said. "But it is the disruption of the cartels that is helpful, and the chilling effect it causes."

Justice Department spokeswoman Laura Sweeney said the convictions had helped federal agents and prosecutors gather valuable intelligence on the inner workings of the cartels. She added, "The strongest message we send is the one sent jointly by Mexico and the United States each and every time an individual is extradited to either country to face justice, leaving no safe haven on either side of our border."

The U.S. prosecutions are having some effect. This month, Ismael Zambada, known as "El Mayo," a leader in the Sinaloa cartel, told a Mexican journalist he was worried about his son Vicente Zambada, who was extradited to Chicago in February in the racketeering case there.

Ismael Zambada has been indicted in that case too. He conceded that he might be arrested "at any moment, or never." He would consider suicide over the rest of his life in a U.S. prison. "I don't know if I would have the guts to kill myself," he said. "I want to think that yes, I would."

U.S. District Judge Larry A. Burns in San Diego has handed down stiff sentences. Once these prisoners were millionaires and lived in fortified Mexican villas. Now they come into his courtroom in orange jail jumpsuits and are marched away in handcuffs.

In November 2007, Francisco Javier Arellano Felix, one of the leaders of the Arellano Felix drug trafficking organization, who pleaded guilty to money laundering and running a criminal enterprise, asked for "forgiveness from all those people on both sides of the border who I have affected by my wrongful decisions and criminal conduct. Please forgive me."

"If I had the power to change and undo the things that I have done," he said in a letter written in Spanish and translated by his attorney, "I would."

Burns was not in the least moved. "Your name will live in infamy associated with all these terrible things," he said. "It is a record of callousness. It's a record of cruelty. … All of the mayhem and the murder and the intimidation, all of that has happened, and today is the day of accounting."

He gave the 37-year-old life in prison, and then tacked on another 20 years.

Jorge Aureliano Felix (unrelated to Arellano), 57, a former Mexican police official who provided security for drug loads to pass through Baja California, had spent 41/2 years in a Mexican prison before being extradited to face charges of racketeering and drug smuggling in Burns' courtroom. On March 29, as he heard Burns describe allegations of "torture and murder," he suddenly had to be escorted out of the courtroom so he could vomit. When he was returned, Burns sentenced him to 30 years in prison, followed by deportation to Mexico if he lived that long.

In Houston in February, Osiel Cardenas Guillen, head of the Gulf cartel that pushes cocaine up through south Texas, was sentenced behind locked doors, with armed guards circling the courtroom of U.S. District Judge Hilda G. Tagle. Guillen had been convicted of drug dealing, money laundering, murder and assault.

"I apologize to my country, Mexico, to the United States of America, my family, to my wife especially, my children, for all the mistakes I made," he told the judge.

She gave Cardenas, 42, who reportedly is cooperating with U.S. law enforcement officials, 25 years in prison and ordered him to forfeit $50 million in assets. He already had served eight years in Mexico since his capture for running cocaine through his home state of Tamaulipas.

"Innocence lost — that is your legacy to your country, to our communities on both sides of the border and to society," the judge told him.

Next up is Efrain Perez, who appears before Burns on May 3 in San Diego. He pleaded guilty in October to cocaine and marijuana smuggling, and is looking at 30 years and a $250,000 fine. His life in the cartel is over.

"This is not a business you can retire from," said Payan, the El Paso professor. "Very few grow old in this business."

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-cartels-prison-20100426,0,7916204,print.story

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A neighborhood watch with firepower

James 'Jackrabbit' Jackson keeps an eye on Detroit's streets at a time when police are scarce.

By Robert Faturechi, Los Angeles Times

April 26, 2010

Reporting from Detroit

As far as neighborhood welcomes go, this one was a bit rough. James Jackson knew as much, but in Detroit's bleak Jefferson-Chalmers neighborhood, there isn't much time for subtlety these days.

"Just so you know," he told his newly moved-in neighbor. "There's probably gonna be some shooting tonight."

An older woman across the street had testified in court that morning against associates of a suspected drug dealer who was purportedly known to shoot up witnesses' homes. Anticipating revenge, Jackson had promised the woman he'd stand watch.

"What do you mean shooting ?" the new neighbor asked. "Should I call the police?"

"Call the police?" Jackson shot back. "Shoot, I am the police."

In many ways, that's true. For three years, the 61-year-old Jackson, a retired Detroit police officer, has patrolled the streets of a neighborhood that was once propped up by the city's mighty carmakers but is now a mausoleum for vacant homes.

With his video camera, he films the criminals who have filtered in: drug dealers working off the stoops of abandoned homes, burglars casing houses still occupied, chop-shop operators dismantling cars.

Some people grumble about Jackson's methods, but generally criticism is rare. For many residents, his unsanctioned crime-fighting is a godsend, a source of hope for the neighborhood after the city closed and consolidated the police precinct, along with several others, as Detroit's revenue and population fell.

Surveillance cameras are mounted on many of the vintage 1930s homes, installed by Jackson and residents he's joined forces with, and more are on the way via a local business group. Street corners are spotted with bright yellow signs with a blunt warning: "See what you do today on TV at 36th Dist. Court tomorrow."

On the night he kept watch for the woman who testified, he sat on his porch across the street from her house. A clock radio murmured old-school R&B melodies, just low enough to pique Jackson's hearing and keep him alert to other sounds, a technique he learned on a special unit of the Detroit police force.

A couple hours after midnight, a Chevy Suburban — probably belonging to the suspected drug dealer — rolled onto Chalmers Street, just beneath the road's canopy of naked dogwood branches.

It crept past boarded-up brown brick homes before climbing Jackson's driveway. Its headlights panned across the front porch.

Jackson's face was still cloaked in darkness, but in his hands the black metal of the 12-gauge shotgun gleaned in the light. Both men were motionless.

"I was more worried about the … paperwork," Jackson said. "It's a whole lot of paperwork when you shoot somebody."

The Suburban backed out, and drove off.

The ‘Jackrabbit'

Rumbling through Jefferson-Chalmers in his flat-bed truck, Jackson surveys his turf, his torso — stocky like a snowman's — bobbing in the cab.

Neighborhood residents, good and bad guys alike, know him by one name: Jackrabbit. The nickname originated decades ago when he was looking to name the towing operation he started on the side. It was suggested by his then-4-year-old son and plays off Jackson's fast and friendly service.

On patrols these days, he can hardly go a block without hearing the shouts.

"Jack-RAB-bit!" called one man, strolling with two women.

"You gonna get in trouble hanging out with them big-legged women," he shouted back, his chuckles like toots from an air horn. They all laughed.

Jackson isn't alone in his crime-fighting. Frustrated about police cuts — today's department is down to 2,960 officers, from almost 4,000 in 2002 — some communities have commissioned private patrols.

Local media have been abuzz with the case of Tigh Croff, 31, who was charged with shooting and killing a man he found burglarizing his house. Croff, a resident of the notoriously underserved east side, had been victim to multiple break-ins before. When he pulled into his driveway in December to find two men in his home, police say, he chased one down.

"I told him he was going to die, and I shot him," Croff reportedly told police.

Some commentators have sympathized with Croff. One columnist even compared the chances of a burglar on the east side getting arrested to winning the lotto.

A place abandoned

The Jefferson-Chalmers neighborhood wasn't always this way.

Its waterfront location along the Detroit River once made the neighborhood a prime location for factory workers and professionals, a solidly middle-class group — and lured Jackson there in the 1960s.

He remembers the Vanity Ballroom on Jefferson Avenue as a hotspot for upscale nightlife, drawing tuxedo-clad men and women in flowing skirts. The majestic red, green and orange brick Art Deco structure is now closed, its rusted steel gates falling off the hinges.

After the racially charged 1967 riots, many of the neighborhood's well-to-do fled. Crack cocaine ravaged the area in the 1980s, and factory closures have followed in recent years.

Among the videos that gave Jackson his start was his footage — taken while hidden in some bushes — of a Wendy's fast-food restaurant that had been missing supplies. In the shaky video recording, a man is seen breaking in through the drive-through window.

Jackson says he submitted the video to police, and an arrest was made soon after. Turns out the thief had been selling Wendy's napkins and cooking oil to a local greasy spoon.

So far, Jackson has managed to stay in the good graces of police, careful to frame his work as nonviolent. When it comes to talking guns, he's coy.

"We don't talk about firepower. We never say neither way," he said. But then he added, "Whatever they got, we can match it."

Jackson often conducts surveillance from afar, recording with a long lens. When he chooses to get more aggressive — pulling up right next to or standing across the street from a suspected drug peddler — his targets generally move along.

He admits he once drew a weapon when one man began to approach his car, mouthing obscenities.

"I just waved my pistol out of the window," he recalled.

Lately, his prime target has been a suspected drug dealer who took hold of an elderly woman's home months ago — after befriending her grandson — and allegedly began hawking pills off the stoop. With the help of Jackson's surveillance, police shut down the operation.

But the suspect has regrouped and is known to cruise Jefferson-Chalmers in his signature Chrysler 300 — silver and shiny.

Detroit police Lt. Charles Flanagan credits Jackson with helping to close cases he wouldn't have been able to solve otherwise: shootings, drug sales, home invasions. Flanagan said Jackson's videos had not been used in court, but the on-the-ground tips he and other residents provide are launching pads for police investigations.

"He knows what he's doing," Flanagan said. "He's the eyes and ears of that neighborhood."

Black-and-whites have become a rare sight since the neighborhood's police precinct was closed. On a recent afternoon, Jackson and two friends could hardly believe it when a patrol car rolled through.

"Oh, Lord!" hollered one.

"You better take a picture," said the other.

Jackson ran after the cruiser. "False alarm," Jackson shouted after checking in with the officer. "He's on his lunch break!"

Along with the anemic police presence, residents struggle to cope with growing vacancy. Cruising through Jefferson-Chalmers, Jackson can hardly catch a breath as he rattled off the abandoned homes and businesses like an auctioneer.

"Empty … empty … empty," he said. "This one here is empty. Crack got a hold of them."

To stymie spreading vacancy, Jackson and other residents have begun welcoming squatters into abandoned homes, as a line of defense against scavengers who rip out copper pipes, wires and cast iron. A couple of squatters was even given a turkey by residents last Christmas.

For Jackson, the goal isn't always damning videotape. Sometimes he just wants criminals to know someone's watching. On a recent patrol, in the middle of conversation, his eyes darted to the rear-view mirror.

"There he is."

The silver Chrysler.

The driver — hooded and bug-eyed — was in the midst of an exchange with the driver of a car parked next to his.

Without hesitation, Jackson spun his truck around, pulling up next to the silver sedan. The Chrysler driver looked up to Jackson, and stared intently, their faces just a few feet apart. Neither flinched.

Finally, Jackson nodded. The other man nodded back, and slowly moved on.

"He knows my game. I know his," Jackson said. "They're like rats man; you turn on the lights and they run."

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-jackrabbit-20100426,0,2282484,print.story

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From the New York Times

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Growing Split in Arizona Over Immigration

MESA, Ariz. — They stood a few miles from each other, but as far apart as heat and cold.

Clutching a copy of a Spanish-language article on the tough new law making it a state crime for illegal immigrants to be in Arizona and requiring those suspected of being violators to show proof of legal status, Eric Ramirez, 29, still waited on a corner for work. He nervously kept watch for the police and wondered what his future held.

“We were already afraid, and I was thinking of leaving for California,” Mr. Ramirez said as he waited on the corner in a heavily Latino enclave already drained of people by the recession and the fear of police harassment. “We shop in their stores, we clean their yards, but they want us out and the police will be on us.”

In a nearby neighborhood, Ron White, 52, said he felt a sense of relief that something was finally being done about “the illegals” — whom he blames for ills like congregating on the streets, breaking into homes in his neighborhood, draining tax dollars and taking jobs from Americans.

“I sure hope it does have an effect,” Mr. White said of the new law as he packed his car with groceries. “I wouldn't want to show proof of citizenship, but I also don't feel it is racial profiling. You are going to look different if you are an alien, and cops know.”

Immigration has always polarized residents of Arizona, a major gateway for illegal immigrants. But the new law signed by Gov. Jan Brewer on Friday has widened the chasm in a way few here can remember.

The law — barring expected legal challenges before it takes effect this summer — also gives the local police broad powers to check documentation “when practicable” of anyone they reasonably suspect is an illegal immigrant.

It has already shaken up politics in the state, and it sets the stage for a rematch on a national debate between the punitive and the practical solutions to the nation's illegal immigration issue.

But the arguments are less abstract in Arizona, home to an estimated 450,000 illegal immigrants and to the busiest stretch of illegal crossings along the Mexican border.

While demonstrators massed at the Capitol, including a few thousand Sunday afternoon denouncing the law as unconstitutional and an open invitation for racial profiling, the undercurrents that gave rise to the bill pushed as strong as ever.

The sponsor of the bill, a state senator and retired sheriff's deputy whose passion is to drive out the state's illegal immigrants and deter more from coming, lives here in Mesa, a Phoenix suburb that is the state's third-largest city.

It has landed in the cauldron of debate, with a former police chief publicly warring with the county sheriff over the merits of his “crime suppression” sweeps a couple of years ago that focused on illegal immigrants.

Mesa has grown blisteringly fast in the last few decades, to about 450,000 residents from 63,000 in 1970, with Southern California-style walled subdivisions and gated communities blanketing former farmland.

The economy soared until recently, but the blitz of development proved unsettling to some.

Illegal immigrants flowed in, too, to tend the yards, fix the roofs and commit their share of crimes, though police officials have said at no greater rate than the rest of the population.

About a fifth of the residents are Hispanic. But they live mainly in enclaves like Reed Park, a stretch of boxy apartment buildings dotted with “for rent” signs, bodegas blaring Mexican music and older homes.

This is Rosalia Miñon's Mesa, and she fears it. Even before the new law, she and her fellow illegal immigrant neighbors did not venture out often for fear of being stopped by the police or immigration agents.

Ms. Miñon is struggling to make ends meet, because more employers than ever are asking for Social Security cards and checking their validity under a heretofore rarely enforced 2007 state law that provides penalties for employers who do not check. She prays every morning as she steps out the door, “because we go out and we do not know if we are coming back.”

Alfredo Hernández-García, 22, who is not a legal resident but is married to a woman who is, already lies low, fearing he will be deported and separated from his wife, who will soon give birth.

“This is going to tear apart families, and what good does that do?” he said, relaxing at an apartment building near a park he rarely ventures into. “What is the government here going to do if we all go and it affects the economy?”

Like others, Mr. Hernández-García said the wait for legal authorization to immigrate from Mexico runs several years, sometimes even a decade or more.

“And all the jobs are here,” he said. “There is nothing in Mexico, and now it is so violent. Who wants to go back?”

The businesses catering to Latinos are suffering. At Mi Amigos, a bodega, the manager, Rigoberto Magaña, glanced at the emptiness of the store at midday and said it was typical.

“Our business is way, way down, and so is everybody else's here,” Mr. Magaña said. “Nobody comes out.”

Just a short drive away, a subdivision encircles a golf course.

This is Kent Lowis's Mesa, and he fears for it.

“This law might kick some of these immigrants out,” said Mr. Lowis, 76, a retiree who has lived here for more than 30 years and does not like all the change. “They vandalize the golf course, throwing flags in the ponds. Burglaries. There are too many immigrants. I get tired of seeing all these people standing on the corner.”

Such sentiments propelled the bill through the Republican-controlled Legislature, with supporters listing well-publicized cases in which illegal immigrants committed rapes and shot and killed police officers.

The sponsor, State Senator Russell K. Pearce, a Republican, said it would give the police a tool to weed out criminals before they act and help foster a climate of toughness that would discourage more immigrants from coming.

Governor Brewer, a Republican, said as she signed the bill into law on Friday that she believed that a majority of Arizonans supported it, though there is no independent assessment of the assertion. A poll released two days before said that a majority of likely voters in Arizona supported the bill, but it used an automated telephone query that some pollsters find questionable and it was conducted before the heavy onslaught of news media coverage.

No Democrats in the Legislature supported the bill, and only one Republican voted against it.

While those opposed to the law are making the most noise, the quiet support can be found here, though some people are uneasy about being cast as anti-Hispanic and several people interviewed declined to be named out of concern they would be thought of as prejudiced.

“I don't want people to be afraid to come,” said Pam Sutherland, who is a window manufacturer and a fan of the crime sweeps but is also concerned about the state's image. “I just want them to do it legally.”

For many, though, support for the law comes down to a way to vent frustration that, in their view, the federal government has not done enough to control immigration — particularly in a state on the border where reports of drug busts, houses overcrowded with illegal immigrants and people dying in the desert trying to get here fill the airwaves.

“We can see Washington isn't going to do anything,” Mr. White said. “So why not Arizona? I think Arizona is the one state with the bigger problem with it.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/26/us/26immig.html?ref=us&pagewanted=print

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Mississippi Assessing Damage by Tornado

YAZOO CITY, Miss. — Carolyn Veazey fought back tears on Sunday outside the remains of her home, hoping to find her missing cat and unsure of her next move, a day after a deadly tornado tore through town.

Chain saws buzzed through fallen pine trees that still blocked nearby roads. Neighbors on Old Benton Road, whose homes were destroyed or damaged, piled furniture and other property onto open-air trailers.

“It's very overwhelming, it definitely is,” said Mrs. Veazey, 67, her voice cracking as she looked at personal belongings scattered on the floor of her home. “It's never happened to me. I'm kind of blown away.”

Mrs. Veazey was one of hundreds of Mississippians affected Saturday by violent weather that led to damaging winds and powerful tornadoes, including one that cut a path from the Mississippi River through Yazoo City.

The tornado left destruction that was about three-quarters of a mile wide through rural parts of Mississippi. The storm, the state's worst natural disaster since Hurricane Katrina in 2005, left 10 people dead. Two people were also killed by storms in Alabama, The Associated Press reported.

Roofs were blown from buildings and hundreds of towering pine trees were snapped throughout Yazoo County, which has about 28,000 residents and is the home county of Gov. Haley Barbour . Hundreds of people remained without power on Sunday.

Mrs. Veazey said she was lucky. Earlier last week, a colleague at the downtown Yazoo City department store where she works asked her to take the Saturday shift; Mrs. Veazey agreed.

If she had stayed home, she said, she probably would have been in the living room — the same room where the tornado destroyed a large window, turned her couch 90 degrees and slammed a recliner against the back wall.

Much of the rest of Mrs. Veazey's house was in the same disarray: photographs thrown over the floor, mud splattered on the walls and furniture, and part of her roof missing. Untouched were two plaster angels on the wall between two spare bedrooms.

On Sunday, state emergency workers, the American Red Cross and the Salvation Army set up headquarters at a shopping center and began an extensive relief effort for storm victims.

Salvation Army volunteers grilled hamburgers and distributed lunch to volunteers and storm victims. The Red Cross also delivered meals. The Mississippi Highway Patrol limited access to areas with the worst damage.

The state also put nearly 80 National Guard members on duty; an additional 40 Highway Patrol officers were deployed to the affected areas.

Mr. Barbour, on hand to monitor relief efforts, said that the destruction was concentrated but that the extent of the damage was amazing. He said he was pleased with the quick response to the disaster.

“We made the decision after Katrina that we were going to be in a position to take care of ourselves for 72 hours just in case there were troubles with transportation, logistics, etc.,” Mr. Barbour said.

Mike Womack, director of the Mississippi Emergency Management Agency, said that he was also pleased with the swift response to the disaster and that his agency expected to complete a second sweep of the affected area by late Sunday.

“We should have search-and-rescue completed by the end of the day,” Mr. Womack said. “I've not gotten any reports of any additional injuries or fatalities than have been identified, which is good news.”

Initial damage assessments by the state emergency agency showed that at least 188 homes had been damaged in four counties: Warren, Monroe, Holmes and Attala. Exact figures were not available for Choctaw and Yazoo, two of the hardest hit counties.

Mr. Womack said he expected teams with the Federal Emergency Management Agency to arrive by Monday.

“Based on our flyover of the area, we feel like there is sufficient damage to potentially get some federal assistance through FEMA for these families,” Mr. Womack said. “This is a very large storm, one of the widest tracks we've ever seen, one of the longest tracks continuously that we've ever seen — a very, very large tornado.”

Clear skies and 80-degree temperatures, a stark difference from Saturday, made cleanup bearable for most storm victims.

While some victims salvaged their personal property, other people helped clear roads of fallen trees or worked with relief agencies as volunteers. The strong scent of snapped pine trees filled the air.

Mitchell Saxton, 55, said he was at his restaurant, Ribeye's Steak House on Old Benton Road and U.S. Highway 49, when the storm hit. He quickly grabbed his son, family and friends and piled nine people into a walk-in freezer until the storm passed.

“It was on top of us: TVs came flying off the walls in my sports bar,” he said as he walked through the building. “We probably stayed in the freezer 12 to 15 minutes.”

Mr. Saxton said he planned to bulldoze the remains of his shattered restaurant and rebuild.

“It's a bad situation, sad,” he said. “But at the same time I was just thankful to the Lord we were all here.”

Earnest J. Moore, 59, who lives next door to Mrs. Veazey, also was thankful.

Mr. Moore had just sat down in his kitchen to eat a lunch of fried chicken when the storm hit. He rushed from the table, he said, ran outside, got caught by the winds, jumped into his red pickup truck and fell to the floor.

The tornado lifted the truck and slammed it back down; the windows were shattered, and storm debris slammed into Mr. Moore's head.

A tree fell onto his house.

“It's destroyed,” said Mr. Moore, whose head was bandaged. “I'm just waiting on my insurance.”

Next door, Mrs. Veazey's two sons and a group of longtime friends drove from Pearlington in South Mississippi to offer their help. They brought food, supplies and generators.

“This is pretty close to Katrina all over again,” said Jerry Veazey, 45, one of Mrs. Veazey's sons.

Mrs. Veazey said that she could not wait to thank the co-worker who asked her to work the Saturday shift and that she was thankful her family was there to help her.

Now, she said, she hopes she finds Duff, her 1-year-old cat.

“I still don't know where my cat is,” she said. “He hasn't showed up. He has a big old orange stripe. I hope he shows up.

“I left him in the house to go to work, but I haven't seen him,” Mrs. Veazey said. “I'm sure he was scared. He just can't fend for himself.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/26/us/26tornado.html?ref=us&pagewanted=print

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More American Expatriates Give Up Citizenship

WASHINGTON — Amid mounting frustration over taxation and banking problems, small but growing numbers of overseas Americans are taking the weighty step of renouncing their citizenship.

“What we have seen is a substantial change in mentality among the overseas community in the past two years,” said Jackie Bugnion, director of American Citizens Abroad, an advocacy group based in Geneva. “Before, no one would dare mention to other Americans that they were even thinking of renouncing their U.S. nationality. Now, it is an openly discussed issue.”

The Federal Register, the government publication that records such decisions, shows that 502 expatriates gave up their U.S. citizenship or permanent residency status in the last quarter of 2009. That is a tiny portion of the 5.2 million Americans estimated by the State Department to be living abroad.

Still, 502 was the largest quarterly figure in years, more than twice the total for all of 2008, and it looms larger, given how agonizing the decision can be. There were 235 renunciations in 2008 and 743 last year. Waiting periods to meet with consular officers to formalize renunciations have grown.

Anecdotally, frustrations over tax and banking questions, not political considerations, appear to be the main drivers of the surge. Expat advocates say that as it becomes more difficult for Americans to live and work abroad, it will become harder for American companies to compete.

American expats have long complained that the United States is the only industrialized country to tax citizens on income earned abroad, even when they are taxed in their country of residence, though they are allowed to exclude their first $91,400 in foreign-earned income.

One Swiss-based business executive, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of sensitive family issues, said she weighed the decision for 10 years. She had lived abroad for years but had pleasant memories of service in the U.S. Marine Corps.

Yet the notion of double taxation — and of future tax obligations for her children, who will receive few U.S. services — finally pushed her to renounce, she said.

“I loved my time in the Marines, and the U.S. is still a great country,” she said. “But having lived here 20 years and having to pay and file while seeing other countries' nationals not having to do that, I just think it's grossly unfair.”

“It's taxation without representation,” she added.

Stringent new banking regulations — aimed both at curbing tax evasion and, under the Patriot Act, preventing money from flowing to terrorist groups — have inadvertently made it harder for some expats to keep bank accounts in the United States and in some cases abroad.

Some U.S.-based banks have closed expats' accounts because of difficulty in certifying that the holders still maintain U.S. addresses, as required by a Patriot Act provision.

“It seems the new anti-terrorist rules are having unintended effects,” Daniel Flynn, who lives in Belgium, wrote in a letter quoted by the Americans Abroad Caucus in the U.S. Congress in correspondence with the Treasury Department.

“I was born in San Francisco in 1939, served my country as an army officer from 1961 to 1963, have been paying U.S. income taxes for 57 years, since 1952, have continually maintained federal voting residence, and hold a valid American passport.”

Mr. Flynn had held an account with a U.S. bank for 44 years. Still, he wrote, “they said that the new anti-terrorism rules required them to close our account because of our address outside the U.S.”

Kathleen Rittenhouse, who lives in Canada, wrote that until she encountered a similar problem, “I did not know that the Patriot Act placed me in the same category as terrorists, arms dealers and money launderers.”

Andy Sundberg, another director of American Citizens Abroad, said, “These banks are closing our accounts as acts of prudent self-defense.” But the result, he said, is that expats have become “toxic citizens.”

The Americans Abroad Caucus, headed by Representative Carolyn B. Maloney, Democrat of New York, and Representative Joe Wilson, Republican of South Carolina, has made repeated entreaties to the Treasury Department.

In response, Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner wrote Ms. Maloney on Feb. 24 that “nothing in U.S. financial law and regulation should make it impossible for Americans living abroad to access financial services here in the United States.”

But banks, Treasury officials note, are free to ignore that advice.

“That Americans living overseas are being denied banking services in U.S. banks, and increasingly in foreign banks, is unacceptable,” Ms. Maloney said in a letter Friday to leaders of the House Financial Services Committee, requesting a hearing on the question.

Mr. Wilson, joining her request, said that pleas from expats for relief “continue to come in at a startling rate.”

Relinquishing citizenship is relatively simple. The person must appear before a U.S. consular or diplomatic official in a foreign country and sign a renunciation oath. This does not allow a person to escape old tax bills or military obligations.

Now, expats' representatives fear renunciations will become more common.

“It is a sad outcome,” Ms. Bugnion said, “but I personally feel that we are now seeing only the tip of the iceberg.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/26/us/26expat.html?ref=us&src=me&pagewanted=print

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From Fox News

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Advocates seek ways to protect homeless from crime

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Sobs overcome Susanne McGraham-Paisley when she thinks about her mentally ill brother who lived for years on a city sidewalk — John McGraham died when a man doused him with gasoline and set him ablaze.

She believes the murder was spurred by a warped hatred of homeless people, yet she has managed to find forgiveness for Ben Martin, a former barber who has pleaded guilty to the October 2008 killing.

"It's awful, when I think of my brother burning to death...," she said amid tears, "... just awful. Ben Martin was sick, mentally sick. He had a thing against homeless people and he took it out on my brother."

Martin, 31, faces life in prison without parole when he's sentenced on Wednesday.

McGraham-Paisley and many homeless advocates argue McGraham's murder should be classified a hate crime, saying these type of attacks show bias just like racially or ethnically motivated crimes and should carry stiffer prison terms.

In California, which ranks second in the nation in homeless crimes, an Assembly bill would give homeless people, or public interest groups on their behalf, the right to seek redress by suing their attackers for civil rights violations.

With prisons already overcrowded, "the appetite for any kind of penalty enhancement is limited," says Will Shuck, spokesman for Assemblywoman Bonnie Lowenthal, the Long Beach Democrat who authored the bill.

"This is a way around the physical problem that still addresses the issue," he said.

In Los Angeles County, the sheriff's department has started tracking crime against the homeless. More law enforcement agencies plan to join the effort while training police officers to be more sensitive to transients.

Outreach teams of formerly homeless youths will go into schools to teach about the causes of homelessness. The homeless have also been included in the county's anti-prejudice programs.

"It's important to provide protections any way you can," said Robin Toma, executive director of the county's Commission on Human Relations.

Other cities and states including Cleveland, Seattle and Alaska have designated homeless people as a protected class, alongside other vulnerable populations such as the elderly and disabled. This type of classification can make sentences harsher.

Pressure for homeless hate-crime laws, which have been adopted in Maine, Maryland and Washington D.C., has been mounting in recent years as attacks against transients started rising with the popularity of videos called "Bumfights." Producers ply homeless people with alcohol in return for doing humiliating acts on videotape.

In 2007, the National Coalition for the Homeless reported 160 attacks against homeless people — including 28 fatalities — up from 142 in 2006. The number of attacks dropped in 2008, after major retailers removed the DVDs, but there may now be a similar threat.

A European Internet video game called "Bumrise," which debuted in the U.S. in February, allows players to assume the role of a homeless character moving up from a cardboard box to a Manhattan penthouse by pickpocketing, collecting cans, fighting and panhandling.

"This all kind of normalizes abuse toward a population that is just so unprotected," said Neil Donovan, the coalition's executive director.

Still, many say attacks against the homeless are hard to classify as hate-fuelled violence because the crimes do not involve derogatory symbols or epithets. Others point to homelessness as a transitory state, unlike race, gender or ethnicity.

The key element in homeless crime, they say, is the victim's weakness.

"They are crimes of opportunity — you do it because it's easy," said Mark Potok, spokesman for the Southern Poverty Law Center, which monitors hate groups. "These crimes are, in effect, a way of making the powerless feel powerful."

Homeless people say safety is a constant concern. Many buddy up at night or arm themselves with knives or boxcutters. Joe Thomas, a 60-year-old Vietnam veteran who's been living on the streets of downtown LA for the past year, said he seeks out benches in well lit areas.

"You have people who have a thing about people being homeless," he said. "We had kids coming down here about three months ago, hitting people in the head with a baseball bat."

Deanna Weakly said women are particularly vulnerable. She spent the last four years homeless before obtaining a federally sponsored apartment last month.

With far fewer shelter beds for women, security guards often demand sex or food in exchange for a cot, she said, so she spent nights catnapping on buses, then moved into a county hospital lobby. If men made advances, she screamed at the top of her lungs to scare them off.

"I'd be wandering around at 3-4 in the morning with my bags, looking for a place to sleep. I was always kind of ready to give up my life," the 50-year-old former real estate agent said. "I always had to have my guard up."

For McGraham-Paisley, her older brother's death has made her painfully aware of the plight of homeless people and what she says is a woeful lack of compassion for them.

"My brother did not make a choice to be homeless. He was mentally ill. We didn't abandon him. We tried to get him help. We'd contact agencies and they said they'd go out there, but we'd never hear back," she said. "That person is a human being. There has to be a solution."

http://www.foxnews.com/us/2010/04/25/advocates-seek-ways-protect-homeless-crime/

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