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From the Los Angeles Times

Times launching database that maps, analyzes crime reports across L.A. County

Using daily reports from the LAPD and L.A. County Sheriff's Department, The Times is providing a comprehensive stream of data on serious crimes, tracking trends and offering alerts at the neighborhood level.

By Joel Rubin, Los Angeles Times

September 30, 2010

For car thieves working the streets of Los Angeles County, few stretches of pavement are more attractive than the two blocks of Alondra Boulevard that run from the 605 Freeway to Studebaker Road. At least 20 vehicles were stolen there in a recent six-month period.

Across town, a block of Wilcox Avenue just north of Hollywood Boulevard has been the scene of more than a dozen burglaries. And the Mid-Wilshire neighborhood, which typically sees three violent crimes a week, had a recent spike of nine assaults and robberies.

These crime hot spots were culled from a new database and crime-mapping program built by the Los Angeles Times that contains information on all serious crimes recorded by the Los Angeles Police Department and the Los Angeles county Sheriff's Department, the two agencies that patrol the vast majority of the county.

Both agencies, like many other police departments throughout the country, have long used computer mapping programs internally to detect crime patterns, develop strategies and determine how to deploy officers. In recent years they have been experimenting with ways to make crime data available to the general public in bulk, electronic form — often hiring outside companies to build online crime maps or, in some cases, posting raw crime data online that can be downloaded.

The Times' crime mapping program, which debuts Thursday, goes a step further, allowing users to analyze crime statistics, search historic crime patterns and receive alerts when several crimes occur in an area over a short period of time. As is common practice when releasing information about reported crimes, the LAPD and Sheriff's Department provide the block where a crime occurs, instead of the exact address.

In some ways, providing the public with large amounts of crime data jibes with community policing — a driving philosophy in law enforcement circles based on the idea that community involvement can assist police in fighting crime. But when any type of data is made public, law enforcement and technology experts say, there's some potential for misinterpretation.

"It's always better for police departments to be as transparent as possible," said Greg Ridgeway, director of Rand Corp.'s Center on Quality Policing. "But it can be hard for the public to understand some things. The impulse will be to see that two crimes occurred on the same block on the same day and to call that a pattern or a trend" when it may not be a sign of anything unusual.

Ridgeway pointed out that a spike in the number of reported crimes might be the result of an increased police presence in an area, or it could be a sign of improved cooperation between police and residents who were once distrustful or reluctant to share information with officers.

The Times' crime mapping system also may help neighborhood leaders "better understand what's going on in our communities — not only to hold police accountable, but also to applaud them when they are doing a good job," said Scott Campbell, president of the Central Hollywood Neighborhood Council.
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Crime L.A. Mapping crime in Los Angeles cities and neighborhoods Crimes reported by LAPD and L.A. County Sheriff Search for violent crimes and or property crimes by address, by a neighborhood and by dates

As a community leader and a real estate agent, Campbell said he frequently fields questions about criminal activity in Hollywood that are difficult or impossible to answer.

The appetite for crime data has remained high, even as local governments have posted online an increasingly broad range of data — such as public servant salaries, restaurant health violations and property records — that previously could be retrieved only with a trip to City Hall.

"Crime data are the first thing citizens ask for," said Tom Lee, a director at the Sunlight Foundation, a nonprofit that advocates for greater transparency in government through the use of the Internet. "It is something that is really very relevant to their lives."

The Sunlight Foundation spearheaded an effort to analyze the quality of the U.S. government's data on federal spending and identified more than $1.2 trillion in inaccuracies. Some groups not willing to wait for government officials to act have devised computer programs to troll through public agency websites in search of data to extract, a process called scraping.

"Once it's been decided that a piece of information is public, we don't believe it makes any sense for it to be kept only at a police station somewhere," Lee said.

The Times first approached LAPD officials in the spring of 2008 with a request for an automated, electronic feed of raw crime data. In January 2009, it went to sheriff's officials with the same appeal.

The location and time that a crime occurs, as well as the name of a person arrested, is public information under California law and must be provided by law enforcement agencies upon request. But creating a replenishing stream of data on all of the roughly 8,500 serious crimes each agency handles each month was a challenge neither had considered before and tested the limits of what they were required to do under the terms of the state's Public Records Act.

Although then-LAPD Chief William J. Bratton and Sheriff Lee Baca expressed support for The Times' request, problems arose almost immediately. For the Sheriff's Department, several months passed as technical hurdles, staff shortages and bureaucracy slowed the process. When sheriff's officials provided the first set of data, thousands of crimes were omitted or incorrect.

The case of the LAPD was more complicated. The department had been paying a company to produce and maintain a crime map featured on the LAPD's website. A Times review of six months of the LAPD's crime data revealed that the vendor's software program had taken more than 1,300 crimes with irregular addresses and wrongly located them at City Hall — making the Civic Center appear to be the city's most dangerous spot. The Times also found the LAPD's map was missing roughly 40% of the crimes that had occurred.

The Times has taken numerous steps to accurately map the two agencies' crime reports. Times staff manually placed more than 10,000 crimes that could not be mapped by a computer. Currently, less than 2% of LAPD reports and less than 5% of sheriff's reports are not mapped.

The Sheriff's Department posts crime data on its website, where anyone can access it. The LAPD, on the other hand, put its crime data on a website that requires a password to gain entry. Senior LAPD officials have yet to decide whether they will follow the sheriff's lead or grant access on a case-by-case basis.

Joseph Hall, a researcher in information technology at Princeton University and UC Berkeley, called on the LAPD and Sheriff's Department to enact rules that would cement the release of crime data — even after Beck and Baca depart.

"The word 'transparency' can be a trendy one that officials toss quickly over the wall for political gain," he said. "But are these departments thinking about how to sustain the release of data? Is there a plan for supporting this into the future?"

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-crime-data-20100930,0,3875919,print.story

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FBI and LAPD join forces to solve more than two dozen homicide cases

With agents, cash and equipment to spare, the FBI offered to help police stymied by lack of cash to pay detectives overtime. Arrests were made in Minnesota, Arizona and Nevada.

By Joel Rubin, Los Angeles Times

September 30, 2010

For months, the budget crisis in Los Angeles has hamstrung and frustrated the city's homicide detectives. With no money to pay for the long hours of overtime they typically work, LAPD officials saw no choice but to force detectives to take time off from the job. Cases started taking longer to solve or going cold.

The LAPD's struggles weren't lost on Robert Clark, an FBI assistant special agent in charge of the bureau's anti-gang efforts in Los Angeles. Clark's concern grew as he watched the number of gang-related killings in the city's violent southern swatch spike in early summer. With agents, cash and equipment to spare, Clark approached LAPD officials with an unusual offer to help.

The results were striking: More than two dozen homicide cases were solved during a first-of-its-kind collaboration of the two agencies.

"I've been doing this for a long time and I've never seen anything like this," said veteran LAPD homicide Det. Sal LaBarbera. "We were able to clear cases at a pace that we never would have been able to hit. Twenty-seven homicides in three months? That's unheard of."

Though the FBI and LAPD have collaborated before, officials from both agencies said the speed with which the improvised idea came together, the scope of the assistance and its immediate effect were unprecedented.

Named Operation Save Our Streets, the effort began July 1 and teamed six FBI agents with a few dozen LAPD homicide detectives who work in some of the city's bloodiest, most gang-saturated neighborhoods. With the agents came half a dozen vehicles, badly needed computers and hard drives, and access to the FBI's forensic laboratory and surveillance equipment. Most importantly, Clark ponied up money to cover the LAPD detectives' overtime costs, allowing them to forgo the department-wide policy that sends officers home on forced leave when they accrue too many hours of additional work.

The money "kept us working — allowed us to stay at it unrestricted, in the way we need to. Without it, we would have been stuck keeping regular office hours," LaBarbera said.

The effect of the LAPD's overtime policy on homicide cases was first reported in The Times in April.

At the start, detectives and agents focused on 13 recent killings in which the detectives believed they had strong leads and a good chance of quick arrests. Within weeks, however, the scope of the project expanded as the agents began joining detectives when they rolled out to fresh crime scenes, as well as helping with cases going back several years. In all, the teams worked on 78 homicides, LaBarbera said.

Often forced to wait for the LAPD's overworked crime lab to process DNA evidence and conduct other forensic tests, LaBarbera said, detectives got quicker results from the FBI's lab. Advanced cellphone tracking technology was available, as were surveillance vans outfitted with equipment not owned by the LAPD.

The case of Shavonna Jones, a 30-year-old woman allegedly shot to death by her estranged husband on May 22, underscored the reach of the FBI. LAPD detectives had spent several weeks chasing dead ends throughout the region, but lost the husband's trail.

On information they gathered from prison inmates who knew the man, FBI agents were able to trace him to an area outside Minneapolis. Calls to the bureau's Minneapolis field office resulted in his arrest Aug. 12.

"Would we have solved the case? Probably, but it would have taken three or four times as long," LaBarbera said.

Arrests were also made in Nevada and Arizona. The oldest case solved went back two decades. In all, agents and detectives interviewed more than 250 witnesses and suspects, served more than two dozen search warrants and made 20 arrests, according to LAPD officials. In a few cases, the suspects whom police concluded were responsible for the killings were found to have died.

If there was a downside to the collaboration, LaBarbera said, it was that it was a stark reminder of what LAPD detectives might be able to do with more resources.

"There shouldn't be a cap or a limit when it comes to somebody's life," he said. "If it were my kid, I'd want 1,000 people out there working around the clock."

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-lapd-fbi-20100930,0,3710293,print.story

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U.S. sanctions 8 Iranian officials accused of rights abuses

Increasing pressure on Tehran, U.S. targets eight men who include the head of the elite Revolutionary Guard and top security officials accused in the crackdown on opposition supporters after last year's tainted presidential election.

By Paul Richter, Los Angeles Times

September 30, 2010

Reporting from Washington

The Obama administration Wednesday sanctioned eight senior Iranian officials for alleged human rights violations as it sought to increase pressure on President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's regime while reaching out to his opponents in Iran.

The eight — who include the head of the Revolutionary Guard, top security officials and prosecutors — are responsible for a number of abuses since the disputed presidential election of 2009, U.S. officials said.

"On these officials' watch, or under their command, Iranian citizens have been arbitrarily arrested, beaten, tortured, raped, blackmailed and killed," Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said in announcing the sanctions.

Any U.S. assets held by the eight officials will be frozen, and they will be barred from receiving visas or doing business in the United States. Although none of the Iranians officials are known to have sizable financial ties to the United States, American officials said they hoped that the sanctions would further discourage international businesses from doing business with Iran.

The U.S. and its allies have imposed a series of economic sanctions on Iran over the last several months in hopes of persuading it to scale back its nuclear program. The U.S. and many other nations believe that Iran's nuclear program is aimed at acquiring the ability to build a bomb. Iran insists its goal is power generation.

The eight officials sanctioned include Mohammed Ali Jafari, commander of Iran's Revolutionary Guard, which controls much of the Iranian economy , and one of his top deputies, Hossein Taeb.

The names appear to target one faction of Iran's elite: conservative hard-liners close to Ahmadinejad who are believed to have been behind the months-long crackdown against mostly peaceful Iranian protesters last year.

Left off the list is Ahmadinejad himself, as well as conservatives perceived as more moderate, such as parliament Speaker Ali Larijani or former conservative presidential candidate Mohsen Rezai.

The announcement represented the first time the U.S. has sanctioned Iranians for human rights abuses, and it marked another move by the Obama administration to show support for opponents of the regime.

On Wednesday, U.S. authorities also put into effect a prohibition on imports of Iranian rugs and carpets. Also barred are Iranian pistachios and other foods.

U.S. officials would like to see opposition groups in Iran build pressure for reform from within. But they have moved carefully out of concern that reaching out could be read as a sign that the dissenters were collaborating with the United States.

Ray Takeyh, a former Iran advisor to the administration, said the sanctions "send an important message to the Iranian government that our objections to their behavior aren't limited to technical violations of their nuclear pledges."

He said that although it was a challenge for the administration to figure out how to connect with the opposition, the U.S. gesture would be well received.

The sanctions announcement comes amid signs of increasing economic and political strains in Iran. Iran's currency has dropped more than 20% in value since March, and the Central Bank announced emergency measures Wednesday to support it, according to the semiofficial Mehr news agency.

U.S. officials contend that this year's sanctions, which have been imposed by both the United Nations and individual countries — led by the United States. and the European Union — have forced many international businesses to cut off contacts with Iran.

The sanctions do not have universal support.

Russia supported the U.N. sanctions but objected to the tougher unilateral sanctions, saying they may hurt Russian companies wanting to invest in Iran's energy sector. Russian diplomats tried to rally support at last week's United Nations General Assembly from other nations — mainly China, India, Brazil and Turkey — that also want to invest in Iranian energy.

http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-fg-iran-sanctions-20100930,0,7781734,print.story

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China raising a generation of left-behind children

The tradition of tightknit families is eroding as increasing numbers of villagers head to cities to look for work, leaving their children, estimated at 58 million nationwide, behind with grandparents.

By Megan K. Stack, Los Angeles Times

September 29, 2010

Reporting from Lizhuang, China

This is a village of empty rooms, children left behind and frail grandparents who struggle to hold it all together. Most of the able-bodied adults have left the hamlet of rutted, muddy roads and drought-withered fields of corn.

House after house, the same family tale repeats itself: The parents migrated to the big cities for work; their young children stay with grandparents, great-grandparents or any other relatives who can shelter and feed them. At the age of 10 or so, when the youngsters are considered old enough, many move into packed boardinghouses attached to their public schools.

A generation of left-behind children is growing up in China. Researchers estimate that at least 58 million — nearly a quarter of the nation's children and almost a third of its rural children — are growing up without one or both of their parents, who have migrated in search of work. More than half of those were left by both parents.

The youngsters face stark psychological and emotional challenges; many struggle to keep up with their lessons and end up abandoning school in their teens to join their parents on the road, say researchers.

Migration rates exploded over the last two decades as residents left their fading villages in droves to seek jobs in the cities. The left-behind children are the fallout of a rapid dissolution of traditional Chinese values in the rush for economic opportunity and growth, and a vivid reminder of how routine migration is in the country's lifestyle.

"Their education is always lagging behind," said Nie Mao, author of "Hurt Village," a book on the fate of the separated children. "Their safety is always compromised because they are far from their parents. Their future is not clear.

"This is a social problem in China and, as a society, we have to find a solution," Nie said.

**

At 77, Cai Zhongying is matriarch of a nearly empty homestead. From a mud road where scraggy dogs roam, the cluster of family homes looks almost splendid — a string of buildings adorned with turquoise trim and statues of birds perched on curled rooftops, still being built piece by piece with wages from Cai's faraway children.

Inside, the rooms are mostly bare. Her children and the grandchildren who left have spent virtually every bit of their money — scraped together during shifts in far-flung urban factories — to build the rooms. The cash to furnish them will have to come later. They come home once a year, if they can earn the fare and get the time off.

It's the job of Cai, along with her 78-year-old husband, to keep an eye on the houses and raise the younger children until they too become teenagers old enough to work. The couple had six children, and hopes of being cared for in old age. Instead they are locked into perpetual parenthood, raising waves of grandchildren and great-grandchildren.

These days, they are tending to two youngsters, ages 4 and 6; fields of vegetables; and a pomegranate orchard in the mountains.

"My husband just cries sometimes because the little boy is always clinging to his neck and climbing all over him," Cai said. "And my husband is exhausted."

Still, caring for these two youngsters is an improvement from recent years, when the couple had as many as six small children under their roof. Back then, they struggled to find enough food for everyone. Bitter arguments would erupt at mealtimes.

"The whole scene was a mess," Cai said. "Some of them really needed to be taken away to be with their parents. Thinking about it now, I want to cry."

**

Once home and inspiration to Pearl S. Buck, Anhui province is one of China's poorest regions. For years, people here tried to stay ahead of hunger as subsistence farmers. There is a coal mine nearby, but only a few villagers have been lucky enough to land jobs there.

For the rest, there's the road. Villagers go south and east, to the massive coastal cities of skyscrapers and suburban factories, or to bigger coal mines in more prosperous towns. To Shanghai, Pinghu and Xuzhou.

Bringing their children along means paying city school costs, sheltering them despite their own dubious living arrangements, and keeping them supervised during long work shifts. Chinese children are entitled to nine years of free public education but must pay steep fines to enroll in schools outside the town or village where their residence is registered.

"People choose to be separate from their children because they don't have any other choice," said Shi Zhengxin, secretary general of the China Social Assistance Foundation.

Despite the hardships, Shi urges parents to try to keep their children with them. Most of them will eventually end up migrating anyway, he argues, so they might as well get used to urban life.

"If they get left behind, they grow up into the second generation of migrant workers," he said. "They'll still have to come to the city to work, and it will take them much longer to adjust and learn how to live here."

There is general unease, among government officials and the intelligentsia, about the plight of the left-behind children and the fraying of the Chinese family, which traditionally prized togethernesss and intensive parenting.

The government has created migrant schools, and this year launched a program that gave children the chance to travel to the city to spend summer holidays with their parents.

But the migrant schools are notoriously inferior to the mainstream public schools , and so far just one trainload of children has gone to Beijing for a reunion with their parents.

**

As noon rolled around, Cai's husband, Li Jiachen, arranged their 6-year-old great-granddaughter on the rear rack of his bicycle and pedaled her home from school for a lunch break. Li's is a farmer's face, weathered with deep ruts; his pants were smeared with mud. He sat, lighted a cigarette and began to cry as he described the choices his family has faced.

"When I was raising my grandchildren, I could only provide them with food, nothing more," he said sorrowfully. "And then when they were 15, they all left to go work."

At other moments, Li and Cai are more sanguine. The children have never known their parents well enough to miss them, they shrug. And anyway, there is nothing unusual in their circumstances. Most of their neighbors are also grandparents raising the younger generation.

The family has faced worse. Years past, when the harvest was particularly thin, Cai was reduced to begging in order to feed her children. That seems like a long time ago now.

And like the other villagers, the family regards the en masse exit from the village as a double-edged sword. For all the emotional turmoil of shattered families, there is a new gleam of prosperity on the landscape.

The dirt roads are littered with construction materials: bricks, roofing tile and cement. Old-style houses, built from rocks bound together with a paste made from ashes, are regarded as evidence that the household's migrants haven't done their part.

Inside their home, Cai's great-granddaughter hides from visitors in the double bed she shares with her great-grandparents. There is another bed nearby, the mattress still sheathed in plastic from the factory. On the label, a Western-looking woman reclines dreamily under a nonsensical English slogan: "Salubrious endless imagination you life."

Nobody sleeps there.

"It's my son's," explains Li. Then the family turns to examine in silence the newly bought bed.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-china-left-behind-20100930,0,1411956,print.story

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Report of private detention of Chinese citizens stirs outrage

A magazine article says a security firm paid by officials arrested petitioners to prevent them from bringing their complaints of injustice to Beijing.

By Megan K. Stack, Los Angeles Times

September 29, 2010

Reporting from Beijing

The scandal has all the makings of a classic takedown in a corrupt city: Crusading journalists publish allegations of a security firm abusing people on behalf of crooked officials. Police launch an investigation and arrest the firm's top officers. Politicians hold their breath, hoping they don't get named.

Except, this being China, the officials suspected of availing themselves of the paid thugs haven't had much cause to squirm. When Beijing-based financial magazine Caijing ran a story this month describing Anyuanding Security Services as a de facto mercenary police force that snatched law-abiding citizens off the streets and locked them into secret "black jails," it wasn't the security firm that was immediately raided by police. It was the magazine.

The police move, an attempt to get the magazine to reveal sources, stemmed from a practice that's long been hidden and denied by authorities, observers said.

For years, human rights workers have said citizens who journey to Beijing with complaints of injustice often wind up in secret, makeshift prisons. But the government has repeatedly and flatly denied the existence of the black jails.

Then the headline-grabbing raid at the magazine caught people's attention; it got the Internet buzzing. The original story was quickly scrubbed from Chinese websites, but it still hung in the air, demanding an answer.

It came this week, when state-run news media reported that police had launched an investigation of the security firm. The manager and chairman of Anyuanding had been arrested, the China Daily said.

What's more, journalists at the magazine told reporters that police apologized for the raid.

"Under these circumstances, the police will face a lot of pressure if they don't investigate," said Xu Zhiyong, one of China's most prominent human rights lawyers. "That's why they finally had to do something."

According to the Caijing story, the security agents wore outfits resembling police uniforms, snatched people off the streets and sometimes physically abused them in unofficial prisons.

They were hired by smaller-city and regional leaders eager to keep their reputations clean in Beijing by silencing complaints from their home districts. The security firm was paid to round up the would-be petitioners before their gripes could be recorded, then transport them back to their hometowns.

And business was booming. Profits more than doubled to top $3 million in 2008, the magazine reported.

People online were outraged at the report, and at the government's attempt to squelch the journalists. Other publications soon took up the story. The Southern Metropolis Daily reported that officials paid as much as $45 a day for the capture and detention of a citizen.

Even the state media got involved, with the New China News Agency calling for the arrest of local officials along with company executives. (That story also was scrubbed from the official news website soon after it was published.)

Critics from all corners said the people who enlisted the company's services should not remain unscathed.

"If you only investigate this company and do nothing to the local government officials, it's not effective," said Pu Zhiqiang, a lawyer who represents Caijing. "They're not getting at the origin of the problem."

Liu Jiandong, a 58-year-old retired telecommunications employee from the southwestern city of Kunming, said he was detained by Anyuanding last year. Reached by phone this week, Liu was still seething with indignation over how he said the firm treated him.

Following a time-honored tradition of seeking redress in the capital, Liu had journeyed to Beijing last year to complain of mistreatment at the hands of his boss.

While trying to lodge a complaint in the government telecommunications headquarters, Liu said he was detained by police. He was then taken to an office belonging to Anyuanding and handed over to uniformed guards employed by the firm, he said.

In the company's custody, he and dozens of other petitioners were held in a secret jail on the outskirts of Beijing for 12 days, he said. Conditions were squalid, he said, and he saw other prisoners beaten, although he was not.

Eventually, guards took him to a train station and escorted him home, he said.

"I'm very, very angry," he said. "I'm going to sue this security company."

The company's website has been taken down, but a cached version stored on Google shows a group of improbably underfed-looking men in black. The website claimed a 3,000-person staff responsible for guard duty at shopping malls, office buildings and high-end villas.

"We have contributed positively in ensuring the safety of the customers and assisting the police to maintain social order," the website said. "And we have won recognition from all sides of society."

Recruitment materials for the firm promise a salary ranging from $134 to $224 a month, minus $30 for uniforms. All applicants should be tall, with no tattoos, psychological issues or contagious diseases.

They should also share "progressive" political thinking. As people here understand, that means it should be in line with that of the government.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-china-security-20100930,0,1751219,print.story

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A child's bike marks the area in Brooklyn where Alexander Toulouse, 8, was killed by a post office truck in 2008.

'Ghost bikes' stand in memory of fallen cyclists White bicycles placed near spots where riders were killed 'serve as a reminder' that more must be done to make roads safe, say cycling advocates and family members of victims. by Tina Susman, Los Angeles Times September 30, 2010 Reporting from New York The well-trod sidewalk beside a busy urban boulevard is an unlikely place for a young man's memorial, but there it is, chained to a signpost outside a furniture store: a man's bicycle painted ghostly white. Flowers cover the frame and snake up the signpost, and a rust-colored shawl is tied carefully to the handlebars. For months after her son Asif's death on the adjacent street, Lizi Rahman would visit the bicycle at least twice a week. Sometimes she would stand in the middle of the wide, buzzing avenue and visualize Asif, 22, riding alongside the buses, trucks, cars and other cyclists.

U.S. looks at ways to control militant websites

A House subcommittee hears testimony on sites promoting terrorist groups and extremist ideology. One expert suggests studying the sites for information, closing them or providing countering ideology.

By Jordan Steffen, Los Angeles Times

September 30, 2010

Reporting from Washington

Militant websites are becoming more accessible and appealing to Americans, experts told members of Congress on Wednesday, adding that the sites must be monitored and some should be shut down.

At the moment, though, there are no government regulations or procedures for how to keep track of, or remove, websites promoting terrorist groups and extremist ideology, the experts said.

Officials testifying at the House Foreign Affairs subcommittee on terrorism, nonproliferation and trade discussed strategies to combat websites that attempt to recruit members by using such familiar venues as Facebook and YouTube.

Subcommittee Chairman Brad Sherman (D-Sherman Oaks) said there is tension between law enforcement agencies that want to shut down these websites and intelligence agencies that believe they provide valuable information about terrorist organizations, including Al Qaeda.

Sherman said he favored shuttering key websites. "Being polite is good as long as it doesn't cost American lives," he said.

Gregory McNeal, an associate law professor at Pepperdine University, purposed a three-prong approach to countering militant websites, including studying the sites for information, closing selected sites and co-opting others by providing countering ideology. The most vital of the three approaches is removing selected websites by putting pressure on Internet service providers, McNeal said.

Of the thousands of militant websites, only 10 to 15 actually produce original content. The rest replicate links, information and media produced by the key websites, McNeal said.

Militant websites are said to have influenced several recent terrorist acts in the U.S., said Mansour Hadj, director of the Middle East program at the Middle East Media Research Institute.

Hadj said YouTube is a "primary clearing house" for Anwar Awlaki, an American who is among the most wanted terrorists. Awlaki was apparently in touch with U.S. Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, accused of killing 13 people at Ft. Hood, Texas, in November. After Awlaki's website was shut down, videos from it were moved to YouTube, which removed them just hours after the November shootings, Hadj said.

In 2007, two members of Congress, Rep. Gary Ackerman (D-N.Y.) and Mike Pence (R-Ind.), asked U.S. Internet service providers to help stop the spread of militant websites. Within two weeks, 32 of the 50 providers erased the websites from their servers, Hadj said.

"In some circumstances, screws need to be turned against these service providers," McNeal said.

But Christopher Boucek, an associate at Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, warned that legislation barring the websites is not the last step.

"Shutting down the websites will not completely lead to shutting down the sentiments behind them," Boucek told the committee.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-jihad-websites-20100930,0,4058761,print.story

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From the New York Times

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Mexican Marines Capture 30 Drug Suspects

MEXICO CITY (AP) — Mexican marines captured 30 suspected members of the Gulf of Mexico drug cartel and seized an arsenal of weapons during two days of raids in a northern border state, officials said Wednesday.

The marines, acting on intelligence obtained by the navy and other agencies, conducted the raids in Matamoros and Reynosa, two cities across the border from Texas in the state of Tamaulipas, Rear Adm. José Luis Vergara said.

The marines seized more than 50 guns, 2 shoulder-fired rocket launchers, 21 grenades and ammunition, he said.

The 30 suspects, including one woman, were marched before reporters at an air base in Mexico City, flanked by masked marines in black-and-white combat gear. The suspects were lined up in front of a helicopter, the arsenal of weapons laid out in front of them.

The navy gave no indication of how significant the arrests were in the government's efforts to destroy the Gulf cartel, which is waging a bloody turf war in Tamaulipas with its former ally, the Zetas drug gang.

Admiral Vergara said all 30 of the suspects were thought to belong to the cartel, but provided no details.

Human rights groups have begun criticizing the government's practice of parading drug suspects in front of the news media, which has become a near-weekly ritual.

Last week, opposition politicians questioned the public safety secretary, Genaro García Luna, about the practice during a congressional hearing, calling it propaganda meant to deflect the public's concerns over the violence of the drug gangs.

President Felipe Calderón said in a report to Congress this month that only 12 percent of criminal investigations during his administration had ended in convictions. Government data obtained by The Associated Press earlier this year showed that three-quarters of the drug suspects arrested since Mr. Calderón took office in 2006 have been freed.

Violence by the drug gangs has killed 28,000 people in Mexico since December 2006, when the president started to deploy thousands of troops and federal police to wrest territory from the drug lords.

In the latest violence in the border region, attackers threw an explosive at city hall in Matamoros early on Wednesday, wounding three people, the federal Attorney General's Office said.

In addition, two federal police officers were killed Wednesday at a hotel in Ciudad Juárez, which is across the border from El Paso. A police official, who insisted on anonymity, said the two officers were part of the federal police's intelligence operation.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/30/world/americas/30reynosa.html?_r=1&ref=world&pagewanted=print

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15 Children Remain Held in Nigeria

LAGOS, Nigeria (Agence France-Presse) — Gunmen who hijacked a school bus and kidnapped 15 children in southern Nigeria were negotiating with the school's owner on Wednesday, as nearby banks and shops remained closed out of fear of further attacks, the police said.

“We are intensifying our efforts to set free the 15 children,” said Geofrey Ogbonna, the Abia State police spokesman. He provided no details on the talks with the kidnappers or the police efforts to track them down.

The bus was carrying students of Abayi International School, a private nursery and primary school, when it was hijacked Monday in the city of Aba. Despite the school's name, all of the children are believed to be Nigerian and from wealthy families.

The kidnappers have demanded a ransom of $128,900.

President Goodluck Jonathan on Tuesday called the incident “utterly callous and cruel” and pledged government action to free the victims.

Scores of kidnappings have taken place in recent years in Nigeria's oil-producing Niger Delta, often carried out by criminal gangs seeking ransom payments but also by militants demanding a fairer distribution of oil revenue.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/30/world/africa/30nigeria.html?ref=world&pagewanted=print

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Shortage of Widely Used Anesthetics Is Delaying Executions in Some States

A nationwide shortage of several widely used anesthetics, which has been exasperating doctors and veterinarians for months, has now spread to the country's death rows.

Several states have postponed executions and others may soon do so because of the scarcity of thiopental sodium, a barbiturate that is central to the lethal injection process in most of the 35 states with the death penalty.

Some states face the looming expiration of their only doses and are scrambling to obtain usable vials from other states as execution dates approach. Others, by proposing alternate drugs that are not part of standard protocols, have given defendants new grounds to seek delays in court.

In California on Wednesday, the attorney general's office said it was abandoning what would have been the state's first execution in more than four years. A federal district judge had stayed the execution on Tuesday; and the decision to examine the constitutionality of new lethal injection procedures would have pushed any execution date well past Friday's expiration of the state's only supply of thiopental sodium.

It is not uncommon for manufacturing problems to cause intermittent shortages of critical medications, particularly intravenous anesthetics that yield low profits once their patents expire. But several leading anesthesiologists said this year's shortages had been severe.

“I've been practicing for 25 years and have never seen anything like the frequency and variety of drugs that are in short supply,” said Dr. Alexander A. Hannenberg of Newton, Mass., the president of American Society of Anesthesiologists.

Two executions in Kentucky were delayed this year because the commonwealth had but one dose of thiopental sodium for the three murderers who have exhausted their appeals. Officials decided last month to assign the dose to Gregory L. Wilson because his 1988 conviction for rape, kidnapping and murder was the oldest of the three. Two weeks ago, a state court judge stayed Mr. Wilson's execution indefinitely; the dose — with a shelf life of up to two years — expires on Friday

An execution scheduled in Arizona for Oct. 26, two decades after the killer's conviction, may be at risk unless the state obtains thiopental sodium in time. And an Oklahoma inmate, Jeffrey D. Matthews, succeeded in delaying his death last month by challenging the state's intent to substitute the sedative Brevital for thiopental sodium in its lethal three-drug sequence.

Oklahoma's Department of Corrections has since obtained a single dose of thiopental sodium from another state — it will not say which — and plans to use it to kill Donald R. Wackerly II on Oct. 14. A hearing the next day will determine whether Mr. Matthews can be executed using a substitute. “Now we're thinking about phenobarbital,” said Jerry Massie, a Corrections Department spokesman. “Apparently it has been used or approved for use in assisted suicides in a couple of states. It's also used by veterinarians to put down large mammals.”

Several anesthesiologists, including Dr. Hannenberg, said they had not yet heard about medical procedures being delayed because of the shortages. But he said it was nearly universal that anesthesiologists were being forced to use less familiar medications that leave patients groggier and with a higher risk of nausea and headaches.

“I have a huge concern,” said Dr. J. P. Abenstein, an associate professor of anesthesiology at the Mayo Clinic School of Medicine in Rochester, Minn., “because we're having to alter the anesthetics not for the needs of the patient but because of what's available in the marketplace.”

Hospira Inc., the only domestic manufacturer of thiopental sodium, suspended production of the drug almost a year ago because of problems obtaining its active ingredient, which is supplied by another company, according to Daniel M. Rosenberg, a company spokesman. The firm, which is based in Lake Forest, Ill., hopes to resume production in the first quarter of 2011, he said.

The company informed states this spring that it did not support the use of its products for capital punishment. Mr. Rosenberg emphasized that Hospira was not taking a position on the death penalty itself.

Thiopental sodium, also known by the trademark Pentothal, was largely abandoned by anesthesiologists two decades ago as newer drugs with fewer side effects hit the market.

But for much of this year, the current anesthetic of choice, propofol, has been difficult to obtain because of its own production difficulties. That, in turn, has revived the demand for out-of-favor anesthesia drugs like thiopental sodium, ketamine and etomidate, which have become scarce.

One of two manufacturers of propofol in the United States, Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd., stopped making the product in May after a recall and the discovery of toxic materials during a plant inspection by the Food and Drug Administration . The other manufacturer, Hospira, has issued several recalls after discovering steel particulates in propofol containers. It suspended production in March, except during tests of a new filtration system, and has not set a date to restart.

To insure some supply in the country, the Food and Drug Administration waived its usual review to allow the importation of propofol from Europe. Propofol is the anesthetic implicated last year in the overdose death of the singer Michael Jackson.

Anesthesiologists also are concerned about the growing scarcity of a muscle relaxant called succinylcholine that is used to insert emergency breathing tubes. There is no alternate drug.

Dr. Jonathan Clayton of Atlanta said he was about to cancel surgeries several weeks ago until his hospital's pharmacy managed to find a supply of succinylcholine at the last minute.

“We had made the decision that if it isn't there we shouldn't be doing surgeries,” Dr. Clayton said. “The fewer drugs you have in your armamentarium, the less flexible you are.”

A spokeswoman for the Food and Drug Administration said it had received no reports of recent adverse events caused by shifts in anesthesia. But several doctors said they would be inevitable. “I would not be surprised if there were mishaps and adverse events given the unfamiliarity people have with drugs they use infrequently,” said Dr. Mervyn Maze, chief of anesthesia at the University of California, San Francisco .

Veterinarians said they were also concerned about working with less familiar drugs. Dr. Edward J. Javorka, a small-animal veterinarian in Hobart, Ind., said he was down to his last five-milliliter bottle of propofol and worried that substitute products could endanger older animals by suppressing heart and breathing rates. “Propofol is just a sweet drug,” he said. “We have to be very cautious without it.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/30/us/30drug.html?ref=us&pagewanted=print

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Four Suicides in a Week Take a Toll on Fort Hood

HOUSTON — Four veterans of the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan died this week from what appeared to be self-inflicted gunshot wounds at Fort Hood in central Texas, raising the toll of soldiers who died here at their own hands to a record level and alarming Army commanders.

So far this year, Army officials have confirmed that 14 soldiers at Fort Hood have committed suicide. Six others are believed to have taken their own lives but a final determination has yet to be made. The highest number of suicides at Fort Hood occurred in 2008, when 14 soldiers killed themselves, said Christopher Haug, a military spokesman.

About 46,000 to 50,000 active officers and soldiers work at the base at any given time, making this year's suicide rate about four times the national average, which the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates at 11.5 deaths per 100,000 people.

The largest base in the United States, Fort Hood and the surrounding communities have suffered high rates of crime, domestic violence, suicide and various mental illnesses as wave after wave of soldiers have been deployed abroad over nine years of continual warfare, often serving more than one tour.

Last November, an Army psychiatrist, Maj. Nidal M. Hasan, was charged with killing 13 people with a pistol in a rampage at a building on the post.

On Sunday, Sgt. Michael Timothy Franklin and his wife, Jesse Ann Franklin, were found fatally shot in their house on the base.

Army investigators said they believed that Sergeant Franklin, who was 31 and had served two tours in Iraq, killed his wife and then turned the gun on himself. The couple had two small children.

Maj. Gen. William F. Grimsley, the Fort Hood senior commander, said in a statement released at a news conference on Wednesday that “leaders at all levels remain deeply concerned about this trend.”

Mr. Haug said that the general did not believe that additional measures were necessary to stop the trend and that the base already had an extensive suicide-prevention program.

But advocates for soldiers who have suffered mental breakdowns said the programs were not effective.

Cynthia Thomas runs the Under the Hood Café , an organization of antiwar activists and veterans who provide referrals for soldiers to mental health professionals. She said a stigma remained among soldiers about seeking help from Army counselors for suicidal thoughts or other mental problems. And those soldiers who do seek counseling are often given medication and put back on duty, she said.

“You don't get counseling, you get medication,” Ms. Thomas said. “These soldiers are breaking.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/30/us/30hood.html?ref=us&pagewanted=print

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Reports Say Deadline Hinders Asylum Seekers

A nurse in Zimbabwe who joined an opposition political party was assaulted after she tried to bring foreign medical supplies to a struggling hospital. A student from China who follows Falun Gong , a banned spiritual movement, left his country when most of the followers he knew were detained.

They both applied for political asylum after arriving in the United States, offering evidence that they risked attack or imprisonment if they returned to their home countries. But their requests were denied because they failed to meet a legal deadline requiring them to file their asylum claims within one year after coming here.

Since the filing deadline went into effect in 1998, about 21,000 refugees who would very likely have won asylum in this country were rejected because they did not meet it, according to a study published Thursday on the Social Science Research Network by law professors from Georgetown and Temple Universities .

“We have a very good asylum system,” said Philip G. Schrag, a Georgetown law professor who is an author of the study, “but Congress introduced this particularly arbitrary feature that has resulted in the rejection of thousands of cases that would otherwise have been granted.”

The law professors' findings are confirmed in a separate report, which will also be published Thursday by Human Rights First , a nonpartisan monitoring group, which argues that the one-year filing deadline has greatly increased costs and time delays for asylum cases in the immigration courts. According to that report, the courts have become clogged with cases stemming from missed deadlines that have distracted judges from focusing on the underlying merits of the asylum claims, which often involve life-threatening persecution for asylum seekers in their home countries.

The two reports use different methods to arrive at strikingly similar conclusions. Mr. Schrag and three other authors analyzed, for the first time, data from the Department of Homeland Security covering all asylum claims between April 1998, when the deadline took effect, and June 2009. Human Rights First examined official statistics as well as asylum cases its lawyers have handled. Both reports concern the cases of foreigners who requested asylum after they arrived in this country, saying they had a “well-founded fear of persecution,” as the law requires, if they returned to their homelands.

The United States, the world's most generous country when it comes to receiving refugees, granted asylum in more than 22,000 cases in 2009 alone. While many immigration issues have become hotly contentious, the asylum program has generally enjoyed solid bipartisan support in Congress.

Congress imposed the filing deadline as part of a 1996 overhaul of immigration law, intending it as a measure to combat fraudulent claims. But according to Professor Schrag's study, the number of asylum-seekers who missed the one-year filing deadline appears to be far higher than Congress envisioned. Out of about 304,000 asylum applications presented during the 11 years since 1998, almost one-third, or 93,000 cases, were filed after the one-year deadline, according to the study.

In all, 54,141 people, about 18 percent of all asylum applicants, were rejected because they did not meet the deadline, the study found. By comparing those cases with asylum seekers who were accepted, the law scholars determined that at least 15,792 claims, involving more than 21,000 refugees, would have been approved if not for the missed deadline.

The Falun Gong follower from China, whose first name is Simon, said in an interview Wednesday that he was not aware that the United States offered asylum until years after he came to this country in 2001 as a student. Simon, now 35, said he became a student leader of the Falun Gong movement here, joining street protests outside Chinese consulates and at the United Nations .

“Because I attended lots of public activities here, if I go back I will definitely have problems,” said Simon, who asked that his last name not be published. He said other followers who returned to China were immediately detained. He is fighting the rejection of his asylum claim in immigration court.

Other refugees who might be eligible for asylum are hampered from filing by the trauma that caused them to flee their home country, said Eleanor Acer, director of the refugee program at Human Rights First. “The refugees that are in the most difficult and distressing circumstances are the least likely to be able to file,” Ms. Acer said.

The Georgetown study also found “enormous disparities” among asylum-seekers who were rejected because they missed the deadline, based on the country they came from. While only 17 percent of Iraqis who filed late were finally rejected by immigration officers, about 75 percent of Guatemalans who filed late were rejected, the study found.

Other authors with Mr. Schrag are Andrew I. Schoenholtz, a Georgetown law professor; James P. Dombach, a Georgetown law student; and Jaya Ramji-Nogales, a law professor at Temple University .

Since 1996, immigration officials have taken finely calibrated measures to eliminate fraud in asylum claims, including criminal investigation of suspected false claims and severe penalties for confirmed fraud.

“Officials have taken a lot of different steps to squeeze the real problem of fraud out of the system,” said James W. Ziglar, a senior fellow at the Migration Policy Institute , a nonpartisan research group in Washington, who was head of the immigration service under President George W. Bush . The one-year deadline, he said, “has only operated to make the whole thing much more expensive and more unjust to asylum seekers.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/30/us/30asylum.html?ref=us&pagewanted=print

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House Passes Bill to Help With 9/11 Health Care

The House approved legislation on Wednesday that would provide billions of dollars for medical treatment to rescue workers and residents of New York City who suffered illnesses from breathing in toxic fumes, dust and smoke from ground zero.

The vote was 268 to 160, with 17 Republicans joining Democrats in support of the bill. Opposing the measure were 157 Republicans and 3 Democrats. Republicans raised concerns about the $7.4 billion cost of the program.

But the bill's fate in the Senate is unclear. Republicans have enough votes to filibuster the measure, and Senate Democrats have not shown great interest in bringing it to the floor.

The bill aroused impassioned debate on the House floor as 9/11 responders and their relatives watched from the gallery.

The vote occurred as Congress moved to finish its legislative business quickly and adjourn this week to allow lawmakers to head home to campaign before the elections on Nov. 2.

The bill calls for providing $3.2 billion over the next eight years to monitor and treat injuries stemming from exposure to toxic dust and debris at ground zero. New York City would pay 10 percent of those health costs. The bill would also set aside $4.2 billion to reopen the September 11th Victim Compensation Fund to provide compensation for job and economic losses.

In addition, the bill includes a provision that would allow money from the Victim Compensation Fund to be paid to any eligible claimant who receives a payment under the pending settlement of lawsuits that 10,000 rescue and cleanup workers filed against the city. Now, those who receive a settlement from the city are limited in how much compensation they can receive from the fund, according to the bill's sponsors.

There are nearly 60,000 people enrolled in health monitoring and treatment programs related to the 9/11 attacks, according to the sponsors of the bill. The federal government provides the bulk of the money for those programs.

Congress has previously appropriated money on an annual basis to monitor the health of people injured at ground zero and to provide them with medical treatment.

The bill's supporters have demanded that the government put in place a longer-term health program for 9/11 responders, fearful that annual appropriations are subject to the whims of Congress and the White House.

But such a program has been opposed by many Republicans, who raised concerns about creating a new federal entitlement to provide health benefits when the federal government is running a huge deficit.

On the House floor, Representative Joe L. Barton , Republican of Texas, who opposed the bill, argued that it was unnecessary given that Congress had created programs like the Victim Compensation Fund.

After noting that the compensation fund had made billions of dollars in payouts, Mr. Barton said that although “we want to help the victims,” the bill would burden taxpayers with a new entitlement program.

The bill's supporters argued that the nation had a moral obligation to help workers who risked their lives to respond to the crisis at ground zero.

“The 9/11 responders have received a lot of awards and praise, but they tell me that what they really need is health care,” said Representative Carolyn B. Maloney , Democrat of New York and one of the bill's chief sponsors.

Known as the James Zadroga 9/11 Health and Compensation Act , the bill bears the name of a New York Police Department detective who participated in the efforts at ground zero for about three weeks after the Sept. 11, 2001, attack.

He died in January 2006 after he developed symptoms common to first responders, including difficulty breathing and flulike conditions. But the cause of his death became the source of debate after the city's medical examiner concluded that it was not directly related to the 9/11 attacks.

Representative Lamar Smith , Republican of Texas, who described the bill as an “irresponsible overreach,” seized on the controversy surrounding Mr. Zadroga's death, saying, “This bill is deceptive, starting with its title.”

The vote on Wednesday was the second time this year the House had taken up the 9/11 health bill.

In July, Democratic leaders brought the bill to the floor under special rules requiring a two-thirds majority to pass it. A majority of the lawmakers in the chamber supported the bill, but the vote in July fell short of the two-thirds needed.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/30/nyregion/30health.html?ref=us&pagewanted=print

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Call to Taliban After Bomb Attempt in Times Sq.

After Faisal Shahzad planted a car bomb in Times Square, he returned to his home in Connecticut and contacted the Pakistani Taliban via computer, telling one of his handlers what he had done, federal prosecutors in Manhattan said Wednesday.

Mr. Shahzad later told the authorities that he believed that the attack on May 1 would kill at least 40 people, having monitored his target for three months through live video feeds on the Internet, to determine which areas drew the largest crowds and when they would be busiest, the prosecutors said.

Mr. Shahzad's goal was to “maximize the deadly effect of his bomb,” the United States attorney in Manhattan, Preet Bharara, told a judge in a new court filing.

Mr. Bharara's office also revealed that Mr. Shahzad told the authorities after his arrest on May 3 that he planned to detonate a second bomb in New York City two weeks later, and was prepared to conduct more attacks until he was captured or killed, the document shows.

In the filing, prosecutors asked the judge, Miriam Goldman Cedarbaum of Federal District Court, to impose a mandatory term of life imprisonment on Mr. Shahzad, who is scheduled to be sentenced on Tuesday. “The premeditated attempt to kill and maim scores of unsuspecting innocent men, women and children with a homemade bomb can only be described as utterly reprehensible,” the prosecutors said.

It is known that the Pakistani Taliban helped to develop and finance Mr. Shahzad's bombing plot, but the court filing offers new details about how he communicated with them.

It said that in the period leading up to the bombing attempt, Mr. Shahzad stayed in regular contact with the Taliban over the Internet, using software programs the Taliban installed on his laptop computer while he was training with them in Pakistan. The programs were not identified.

He communicated with his Taliban associates about the bomb he was building and the Nissan Pathfinder he had bought, as well as other topics, the government said.

The memorandum does not reveal precisely what he told the Taliban the night of his failed attempt, but the communications support Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr.'s assertion last June that “the Pakistani Taliban facilitated Faisal Shahzad's attempted attack on American soil.”

Mr. Shahzad a former financial analyst who was raised in a military family in Pakistan and earned bachelor's and master's degrees from the University of Bridgeport, pleaded guilty to 10 counts in June, including attempted use of a weapon of mass destruction.

At the time, he told Judge Cedarbaum that he spent 40 days with the Taliban in Waziristan last December and January, and received five days of bomb training.

It was there that he developed his plot with the Taliban, he told her, saying, “I made a pact with them.”

He said he wanted to plead guilty “100 times,” citing American military actions in Iraq and Afghanistan, drone strikes and other issues. “We will be attacking U.S.,” he added, “and I plead guilty to that.”

A lawyer for Mr. Shahzad, Philip L. Weinstein, had no comment on Wednesday.

In its filing, the government also revealed that during Mr. Shahzad's cooperation with Federal Bureau of Investigation agents and police detectives after his arrest, he “never expressed any remorse for his conduct.”

They said he spoke with pride about what he and his co-conspirators had done, much as he did in court when he pleaded guilty.

As part of their filing, prosecutors also released a video of a controlled detonation by the Joint Terrorism Task Force last June 29 of a bomb that was built to be “identical to Shahzad's bomb in all respects” — except that the task force bomb technicians ensured that their device would work.

The task force placed its bomb in the back of a vehicle identical to the Nissan Pathfinder that Mr. Shahzad used, and parked other vehicles nearby in order to measure the explosive effects on them, prosecutors said.

“While it is impossible to calculate precisely the impact of Shahzad's bomb had it detonated,” prosecutors wrote, “the controlled detonation conducted by the J.T.T.F. demonstrated that those effects would have been devastating to the surrounding area.”

The government also made public a video produced by the Taliban, in which Mr. Shahzad appeared and which was later released on the Internet.

The video depicts Mr. Shahzad firing a machine gun in what appears to be the mountains of Pakistan, prosecutors said. He announces that he has met leaders of the Pakistani Taliban, and that “we have decided that we are going to arrange an attack inside America.”

“I have been trying to join my brothers in jihad ever since 9/11 happened,” he is shown saying later.

In citing the video, prosecutors said Mr. Shahzad, despite a life “full of promise” with his wife and two young children, had chosen instead a “nihilistic path that celebrated conflict and death cloaked in the rhetoric of a distorted interpretation of Islam.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/30/nyregion/30shahzad.html?ref=us&pagewanted=print

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From the Chicago Sun Times

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Fed-up woman realized cavalry wasn't coming

Boy's shooting highlights need for more youth services

September 30, 2010

BY MARY MITCHELL

Chicago Sun-Times

When people get fed up, they stop waiting for help to come. On Tuesday, one South Side senior had had enough. When two boys who allegedly broke her windows were brazen enough to come back and curse her out, Margaret Matthews shot one of them in the arm.

According to the woman's neighbor, Hilda Brunt, the boys, ages 12 and 13, had been tormenting the senior for a while.

"They burned her grill up last year. They would curse her out. I told her last week we need to go and talk to his parents," Brunt told reporters.

The boys have been charged as juveniles with aggravated assault of a person over 60.

In the old days, all anyone who witnessed such menacing behavior had to do was pick up the phone and call the boys' parents.

Today, even when parents are made aware of the intolerable behavior, our laws and public policy -- not to mention the transient nature of our neighborhoods -- make it difficult for single mothers and grandmothers, particularly, to get a grip on wayward youth.

Parents who react to delinquent behavior in the same manner that parents reacted a generation ago could find themselves in a heap of trouble.

For instance, a grandmother who allegedly whipped her 12-year-old grandson with an electrical cord ended up in jail on a $50,000 bail.

Corlis Holland, 50, was charged with aggravated battery of a child for allegedly whipping her grandson at her home in the 8200 block of South Coles -- which coincidentally is only six blocks from where the other senior was tormented by a different 12-year-old.

According to reports, the whipping was the boy's punishment for ignoring the grandmother's order not to leave the block to play.

Many of you were appalled by the court's harsh treatment. After all, many of us have gotten our behinds whipped for similar infractions.

I am not suggesting that it is OK to whip someone with an electrical cord. That kind of discipline is as primitive as sending a child out to the tree for a switch.

But it troubles me that when Holland had enough of her 12-year-old grandson's disobedience, and snapped (the boy was treated for minor abrasions), the law was not on her side.

The grandmother may have gone about things the wrong way, but she was as fed up as the senior who resorted to using a gun against her 12-year-old tormenter.

Besides facing criminal charges, Holland is being investigated for abuse and neglect by DCFS, and the grandson has been sent to live with other relatives.

These unfortunate incidents show you how desperate some families are for relief.

Last week, I wrote about Ruthie Harris, a woman who adopted two boys whose birth mother was addicted to illegal drugs. When the boys arrived at Harris' home, they were malnourished and suffering from neglect and abuse.

Both boys are now in their teens. Although one boy is well-adjusted, Harris told me that the other boy has been nothing but trouble.

According to this mother, the teen breaks into cars, burglarizes the neighbors' homes and hangs out with gang members. When he gets picked up by police, within hours, he is back on her doorstep.

When her son allegedly broke into a neighbor's house and gang members came looking for him, it was the last straw.

Harris refused to let the teen back into her home.

On Monday, DCFS determined Harris was guilty of "abuse and neglect."

"They are accusing me of something that is not true," Harris told me. "I wouldn't let him come back here and get killed. I didn't want him to get hurt and be the reason for someone else getting killed."

Too often, pleas by troubled families, particularly those headed by single women, are ignored until the teen commits a felony.

The Matthews shooting could also be a consequence of having an understaffed police force.

Obviously, what Matthews felt she had to do was unfortunate.

But at some point an embattled people will stop crying out for help and start fighting back.

That it was a senior who drew this line in the sand is really pretty cool.

http://www.suntimes.com/news/mitchell/2760004,CST-NWS-mitch30.article

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79-year-old shot intruders: prosecutors  

September 30, 2010

A Cook County judge set bail at $750,000 Wednesday for one of two men who were shot -- the other fatally -- when they allegedly tried to force their way into a Ukrainian Village home Monday night.

Frank T. Obrochta, 45, of Melrose Park, has been charged with one count of murder while committing another felony, and home invasion, Cook County prosecutors said.

Obrochta and Franko Martinelli, 32, of the 2200 block of West Erie, tried to force their way into a home on West Huron about 11 p.m., encountering the 79-year-old resident, prosecutors said.

Obrochta sprayed Mace into the face of the elderly man and Martinelli punched him, prosecutors said. The elderly man then pulled out a gun and shot both Obrochta and Martinelli, prosecutors said.

Both men ran from the home, but both later collapsed, with Martinelli dying at Stroger Hospital.

The elderly man could not be reached for comment, but neighbors said he'd lived in the area for at least two decades and owns several properties in the neighborhood. The elderly man has a son who had, until recently, been living with him at the West Huron address, neighbors said.

Terry Rice, a friend of Martinelli's, described him as a kind man who'd worked as a tow truck driver for many years.

Rice said Martinelli's survivors include a 9-year-old son and an elderly mother.

http://www.suntimes.com/news/24-7/2759978,CST-NWS-Ukranian30.article

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From the White House

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What You Missed: Open for Questions on the Neighborhood Revitalization Initiative

Yesterday, the White House Office of Urban Affairs hosted a live chat on the Neighborhood Revitalization Initiative (pdf file) to support the transformation of distressed neighborhoods into neighborhoods of opportunity. Larkin Tackett, Department of Education; Luke Tate, Department of Housing and Urban Development; Thomas Abt, Department of Justice; and Richard Frank, Department of Health and Human Services; joined Derek Douglas, White House Domestic Policy Council, to discuss one of the Obama Administration's signature place-based initiatives to support and revitalize distressed communities.

Here are a few highlights from the discussion:

“We truly believe we need a great school at the center of every great neighborhood,” said Larkin Tackett, Director of Promise Neighborhoods, Department of Education.

“This collaboration is very important. . . public safety is a critical component of neighborhood revitalization. . .without it, kids can't learn, residents can't feel safe in their own neighborhoods, and resident health is threatened by drugs and violence,” said Thomas Abt, Chief of Staff, Office of Justice Programs, DOJ.

“Community resources are critical to how people live their lives,” said Richard Frank, Deputy Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation, HHS.

“Choice Neighborhoods broadens our focus...beyond the walls of the development itself to the entire neighborhood,” said Luke Tate, Special Assistant to the Secretary, HUD.

 Use the links below to skip directly to questions (questions are paraphrased):

• What other programs, beyond the Promise Neighborhoods Program, are part of White House's Neighborhood Revitalization Initiative? What metrics are you using to assess success of the Initiative?
  
  
• What lessons can be learned by previous failed attempts at "urban renewal" & to what extent can Promise Neighborhoods repair damage & avoid pitfalls?
  
  
• How will this new initiative translate housing dollars into neighborhood-wide outcomes?
  
  
• Beyond funding matches and leverage, what is the role of philanthropy in this Neighborhood Revitalization strategy?
  
  
• How is the Neighborhood Revitalization Initiative not throwing dollars at the problem?
  
  
• How does the Harlem Children's Zone model which is based on a long-term connection with a neighborhood, apply to communities that need to see short term results. How will this initiative balance short-term and long-term programs and goals?
  
  
• How do we build capacity at the local and regional level to combat the social challenges that the Neighborhood Revitalization Initiative attempts to address?
  
  
• How can small amounts of grant money, or a seed grant of $500,000 leading to fundamental change in the fabric of American society spur fundamental change?
  
  
• If a Promise Neighborhood applicant does not meet the eligibility requirements for the Promise Neighborhood planning grant, will the next stage of funding be re-opened for additional applicants?
  
  
• When you revitalize communities what impact does that have on the existing residents in those communities. How does the Neighborhood Revitalization initiative plan to balance the inevitable rise in rents and property values with the financial means of existing residents?
  
  
• How are the White House Office of Urban Affairs, the Domestic Policy Council, and the Office of Faith Based and Neighborhood Partnerships participating in the Neighborhood Revitalization Initiative?
  
  
• How do NRI programs ensure that resources go to the community?
  
  
• Will the Neighborhood Revitalization Initiative engage subject-matter experts that can contribute to successful outcomes?
  
  
• What is the priority structure for cities that have some of the most challenging metrics, and zip codes that suffer from severe economic distress?

Alaina Beverly is Associate Director of the White House Office of Urban Affairs

http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2010/09/29/what-you-missed-open-questions-neighborhood-revitalization-initiative

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From the FBI

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ON THE SOUTHWEST BORDER

The Importance of Intelligence

09/29/10

It's just before 9:30 a.m., and people are gathering in a large operations room at the El Paso Intelligence Center (EPIC) for the daily morning briefing. Soon, eyes are drawn to the maps and monitors around the room as representatives from a variety of federal and state agencies provide their most current information on crime and law enforcement activities along the Southwest border.

EPIC provides 24/7 tactical intelligence to law enforcement around the world through watch operations, analytical support, and access to a variety of state and federal databases. Led by the Drug Enforcement Administration, it is also the nerve center for intelligence efforts on the Southwest border—and home base for the FBI's Southwest Intelligence Group (SWIG).

“EPIC is a valuable asset in the fight against the cartels,” said Kevin Perkins, assistant director of our Criminal Investigative Division. That's because the timely collection and sharing of intelligence is critical to stemming the flow of illegal drugs across the border into the United States. EPIC's multi-agency approach ensures that federal, state, and local law enforcement have access to real-time intelligence.

About 300 agents, analysts, computer experts, translators, administrators, and support staff from 15 federal agencies work around the clock at EPIC to piece together raw intelligence from a variety of law enforcement databases into actionable intelligence that could lead to arrests, seizures, and the disruption of drug trafficking.

The Bureau maintains a staff of about a dozen agents and analysts at EPIC who contribute investigative and analytic resources. They also manage the SWIG, which provides additional intelligence to our key Southwest offices.

“The SWIG was created in 2009 in response to Southwest border office requests to better coordinate the intelligence that was out there,” said Keith Slotter, special agent in charge of our San Diego Field Office. “One of the issues we had in those offices was a lack of knowledge and sharing of information. It wasn't intentional—we just didn't have a good mechanism to do it.”

While Slotter was familiar with the issues his office was facing in San Diego, he often had less of an understanding of the issues faced in El Paso or Phoenix, for example. The SWIG was established to remedy this intelligence gap and to provide a big-picture look at the Southwest border.

“Now we get daily reports of raw intelligence coming from a variety of different sources,” Slotter said. “Every day I and many other people in San Diego and other divisions—several hundred people—get a two- or three-page summary of the day's events and what's going on. So I know what happened in Juarez today,” he added, “and what happened in Nogales and in other areas of interest so that we can draw some connectivity to what goes on here.”

EPIC and the SWIG provide the Bureau with a continually updated intelligence snapshot along the entire Southwest border . This is crucial because the border is the principal arrival zone for most of the illicit drugs smuggled into the country, as well as the main staging area for the subsequent distribution of drugs throughout the U.S.

 “If we are going to be able to disrupt and dismantle the drug trafficking organizations,” Perkins said, “we need excellent intelligence gathering and sharing operations. EPIC and the SWIG give us these key capabilities.”

http://www.fbi.gov/page2/september10/border_092910.html

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Former Memphis Police Officer Sentenced for Civil Rights Violations

WASHINGTON—Former Memphis Police Officer Isaac White was sentenced yesterday to 18 months in prison, two years' supervised release, and a $4,000 fine, announced Thomas E. Perez, Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights; Edward L. Stanton, III, U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Tennessee; Larry Godwin, Director, Memphis Police Department (MPD); and Amy Hess, FBI Special Agent in Charge.

On Nov. 25, 2009, White pleaded guilty to violating the civil rights of Pierre Jefferson. White admitted that in May 2008, after handcuffing Jefferson, he rammed Jefferson's head into the corner of a building, and struck Jefferson in the face several times, causing him to fall to the ground. White also admitted to kicking Jefferson after he fell to the ground.

“Police officers are entrusted with great power so that they can carry out their critical public safety responsibilities,” said Thomas E. Perez, Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Rights Division. “The Department of Justice does not tolerate excessive force, and when officers abuse their power by abusing people in their custody, the department will aggressively prosecute.”

“The citizens of the Western District of Tennessee are entitled to know that when dealing with a law enforcement officer the officer is there to protect them, not prey upon them,” said U.S. Attorney Stanton. “Accordingly, this office will pursue these cases vigorously.”

“Again this shows the partnership between the Memphis Police Department and U.S. Attorney's Office. Illegal and criminal activity will not be tolerated by the Memphis Police Department,” said Director Godwin.

“The FBI holds as one of its highest priorities the investigation of civil rights violations, and the Memphis Division will pursue those who are entrusted with protecting our citizenry and violate that trust,” said Special Agent in Charge Hess. “The FBI will continue to work with its law enforcement partners to ensure that justice is served.”

The case is a result of the continued joint efforts by the Memphis Police Department, the FBI and the U.S. Attorney's Office. The case was investigated by the FBI/MPD Joint Task Force and the Organized Crime Unit. The case was prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorneys Steve Parker and Brian Coleman, and Civil Rights Criminal Section Trial Attorney Jonathan Skrmetti.

http://memphis.fbi.gov/dojpressrel/pressrel10/me092910.htm

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Twenty-Four Arrested in Drug and Gun Sweep

CONCORD, NH—Federal, state, and local law enforcement authorities, spearheaded by the Federal Bureau of Investigation's Safe Streets Gang Task Force and the Manchester Police Department, today executed the coordinated arrests of twenty-four (24) individuals on federal drug and gun charges, announced United States Attorney John P. Kacavas. The large majority of arrests occurred in Manchester and were the product of a long-term, multi-jurisdictional investigation that resulted in the defendants' indictment by a federal grand jury in the District of New Hampshire.

U.S. Attorney Kacavas praised the work of all the law enforcement agencies involved, observing, “Our communities are safer today because of the cooperative and coordinated efforts of federal, state, and local law enforcement in identifying, locating and arresting alleged drug and weapon offenders. This sweep constitutes a major disruption in the flow of illicit drugs on our streets and I am grateful to the FBI and the Manchester Police Department for their leadership of this effort and to the brave law enforcement agents and officers who executed these arrests.”

FBI Supervisory Special Agent Kieran Ramsey stated, “The New Hampshire Safe Streets Gang Task Force continues to aggressively investigate gang members and other criminals who pose the greatest threat of violence to the safety and security of our communities.”

A list of those arrested in the sweep is below. An indictment constitutes a charge of criminal conduct and it is not evidence of guilt. A criminal defendant is presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.

The investigation was led by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) Safe Streets Gang Task Force and the Manchester Police Department, Special Investigations Unit. Members of the arrest teams included: the FBI Safe Streets Gang Task Force; the New England High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area; the United States Marshals Service; the United States Secret Service; the Immigration and Customs Enforcement; the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms & Explosives; the Department of State; the Drug Enforcement Administration; the New Hampshire Attorney General's Drug Task Force; the New Hampshire State Police; the Massachusetts State Police; the Manchester Police Department; the Nashua Police Department; the Lowell (MA) Police Department; the Lawrence (MA) Police Department; the Andover (MA) Police Department; the New Hampshire Department of Probation and Parole; the Hillsborough County Sheriff's Department; and the Strafford County Sheriff's Department.

The Safe Streets Gang Task Force initiative, part of the FBI's Violent Crimes and Major Offenders Program, was created to encourage coordinated crime fighting efforts among FBI field offices and local law enforcement partners. The mission of the Safe Streets Gang Task Force is to effectively utilize partnerships to investigate, locate, arrest, and prosecute subjects for serious federal and state crimes, including drug and weapons violations, armed robbery, bank robbery, kidnapping, and gang and drug-related violence. There are presently over 140 Safe Streets Gang Task Forces nationally.

List of defendants and charges:

http://boston.fbi.gov/dojpressrel/pressrel10/bs092910.htm

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Operation Predator: A Multi-Agency Statewide Operation Targeting Child Pornography Offenders

United States Attorney Kenneth J. Gonzales and New Mexico Attorney General Gary K. King announced today that during the past two weeks, federal, state, and local law enforcement affiliates of the New Mexico Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force executed 22 search warrants as part of "Operation Predator." Operation Predator was aimed at identifying individuals throughout New Mexico involved in the distribution, receipt, and possession of child pornography through peer-to-peer file sharing programs.

According to William Wiltse, the Security Director for Law Enforcement Systems of TLO, a company that develops law enforcement technologies that protect children and monitors for computers engaged in child pornography criminal conduct throughout the United States, more than 4000 different IP addresses have been used to view, download, and/or distribute child pornography in New Mexico since January 2010. Federal, state, and local law enforcement agencies initiated Operation Predator in recognition of the need to combat this prevalent and constantly growing epidemic within our communities.

Federal, state, and local law enforcement officers executed the unrelated federal and state search warrants at residences in Albuquerque, Bloomfield, Cedar Crest, Cimarron, Farmington, Las Cruces, Lovington, Pojoaque, Rio Rancho, Santa Fe, and Tularosa, and seized computers and computer-related evidence related to child pornography offenses. To date, eight individuals have been arrested for violating federal and state child pornography laws as part of Operation Predator:

• Isaac Adams, 34, of Albuquerque, was charged with four counts of distribution of child pornography and eight counts of possession of child pornography in the Second Judicial District Court, Bernalillo County.
  
  
• David Aguilar, 23, of Albuquerque was charged with 12 counts of possession of child pornography in the Second Judicial District Court, Bernalillo County.
  
  
• Alex Brunty, 19, of Albuquerque, was charged with nine counts of possession of child pornography in the Second Judicial District Court, Bernalillo County.
  
  
• David Hamel, 30, of Lovington, was charged by criminal complaint with 20 counts of manufacturing child pornography in Fifth Judicial District Court, Lea County.
  
  
• Brandon Hronich, 26, of Cimarron, was arrested on September 15, 2010 based on a federal criminal complaint charging distribution, receipt, and possession of child pornography. According to the criminal complaint, Hronich has admitted to a prior military conviction related to possession of child pornography. Hronich is detained pending trial.
  
  
• Richard Krisman, 36, of Rio Rancho, was charged with 30 counts of possession of child pornography in Thirteenth Judicial District Court, Sandoval County. A supplemental search warrant was acquired for Krisman's residence to seize evidence related to stolen property and identity theft.
  
  
• Shawn Perry, 36, of Santa Fe, was charged with one count of possession of child pornography in the First Judicial District Court, Santa Fe County.
  
  
• Wayne Shirley, 58, an attorney who resides in Cedar Crest, was arrested on September 28, 2010 on a federal criminal complaint charging him with distribution, receipt, and possession of child pornography. A detention hearing for Shirley is scheduled for September 30, 2010.

All other matters are pending investigation. A criminal complaint is only an accusation. All criminal defendants are presumed innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.

U.S. Attorney Kenneth J. Gonzales said:

"As I have previously stated, but bears repeating: what we can never forget about child pornography is that there are real children—little boys and little girls—who were horribly abused in order to manufacture these images of child sexual abuse. Their lives were unalterably scarred for the viewing pleasure of persons that are attracted to this type of material, the demand for which creates a worldwide market for the images and for the abuse they contain. Each and every time someone views a pornographic image of a child, that child is victimized again. The people of New Mexico are fortunate to have a Task Force comprised of well trained, experienced officers who are devoted to aggressively investigating those who sexually exploit our children via the Internet so that these offenders can be held accountable for their serious crimes."

Attorney General Gary King said:

"This operation is a good example of the strong impact law enforcement can have in stopping child predators by working together as a team. This will let parents know that they should be vigilant in order to be sure their children are safely interacting with the Internet."

The law enforcement agencies that participated in Operation Predator include: Albuquerque Police Department, Farmington Police Department, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Las Cruces Police Department, New Mexico Attorney General's Office, New Mexico State Police, Rio Rancho Police Department, Santa Fe Police Department, the United States Marshal's Office in Las Cruces, the First Judicial District Attorney's Office, the Fifth Judicial District Attorney's Office, and the Eighth Judicial District Attorney's Office. The criminal cases generated by this Operation will be prosecuted by the United States Attorney's Office, the New Mexico Attorney General's Office, and local District Attorney's Offices.

Operation Predator was brought as part of Project Safe Childhood, a nationwide initiative launched in May 2006 by the Department of Justice (DOJ) to combat the growing epidemic of child sexual exploitation and abuse. Led by United States Attorneys' Offices and DOJ's Criminal Division's Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section, Project Safe Childhood marshals federal, state, and local resources to better locate, apprehend, and prosecute individuals who exploit children via the Internet, as well as to identify and rescue victims. For more information about Project Safe Childhood, please visit www.projectsafechildhood.gov.

Operation Predator also was brought as part of the New Mexico Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force whose mission it is to locate, track, and capture Internet child sexual predators and Internet child pornographers in New Mexico. There are 59 federal, state, and local law enforcement agencies associated with Task Force, which is funded by a grant administered by the New Mexico Attorney General's Office. Anyone with information relating to suspected child predators and suspected child abuse is encouraged to contact federal or local law enforcement.

http://albuquerque.fbi.gov/dojpressrel/pressrel10/aq092910.htm

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Cyber Crime Prevention Symposium Brings Together Educators, Parents, and Children to Provide Information on Staying Safe on the Internet

Law Enforcement Joins with Private Sector to Host Symposium That will Examine Cyber Bullying, ‘Sexting,' Piracy, and Adult Predators on the Internet

LOS ANGELES—A coalition of law enforcement agencies, child advocacy groups, and private entities today are participating in the second annual Cyber Crime Prevention Symposium, a day-long seminar for more than 400 educators, parents, and middle-school students being held at the Los Angeles Police Academy.

The symposium will address a host of Internet-related security and safety issues, with panels conducting discussions on topics that include child exploitation, cyber bullying, “sexting,” and piracy. The keynote speaker at the symposium is Maryland State Police Investigator Eliott Cohen, a noted expert in online crimes against children.

A new public service announcement, "Think Before You Post," is being premiered at the Cyber Crime Prevention Symposium. “Think Before You Post,” which features actress Francia Raisa from “The Secret Life of the American Teenager,” reminds young people to be careful about what they post online and to "think" before they put any photographs or information on the Internet.

“The Internet is an extraordinary tool that is transforming commerce and education, but is also subject to abuse. Cyberspace informs us, but it also provides a hiding place for dangerous criminals, including those who seek to prey on our children,” said United States Attorney André Birotte Jr. “The Justice Department has focused significant resources on identifying and prosecuting these predators, but the first line of defense to stop the continued growth of cyber crime aimed at our youth is educating teachers, parents and students to ensure that everyone can safely use the Internet.”

Organized under the aegis of the Inter-Agency Council on Child Abuse and Neglect (http://ican4kids.org/), law enforcement agencies participating in today's conference include the Los Angeles City Attorney's Office, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the United States Attorney's Office, the Los Angeles County District Attorney's Office, the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department, the California Department of Justice and the San Bernardino County Sheriff's Department.

"With more children and adults using the Internet more than ever, law enforcement is urging parents to educate themselves about the dangers posed by emerging technologies," said Steven Martinez, Assistant Director in Charge of the FBI in Los Angeles. "Today's meeting of the minds among law, private sector and the community is an example of our collective commitment to educate children about the harmful consequences of risky behavior in cyberspace."

The Cyber Crime Prevention Symposium also features the participation of the Los Angeles County Office of Education, the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children and several private concerns, including Fox Entertainment Group, the Walt Disney Company, MySpace and Facebook.

"Law enforcement alone cannot make the world of cyber space safe for our children," said City Attorney Carmen Trutanich. "Prevention and outreach programs like this Symposium that train parents and educators are essential to keep our children safe. The committed partnership between government agencies and our community will continue to keep the dangerous and unpredictable cyber world safe for our children to learn and grow."

Symposium participants will hear remarks from Los Angeles Police Chief Charlie Beck, Los Angeles County Sheriff Lee Baca, United States Attorney André Birotte Jr., FBI Assistant Director in Charge Steven Martinez and Chief Deputy City Attorney William W. Carter.

The event is being filmed by the Department of Cinema and Television Arts at California State University, Northridge. The video being shot today will be compiled and made available to schools for use in Internet safety training.

CONTACTS:
Thom Mrozek, United States Attorney's Office, (213) 894-6947 , thom.mrozek@usdoj.gov
Laura Eimiller, FBI, (310) 996-3343 , laura.eimiller@ic.fbi.gov
Tracy Webb, Los Angeles City Attorney's Office, M: (213) 507-3817

tracy.webb@lacity.org

http://losangeles.fbi.gov/dojpressrel/pressrel10/la092910.htm

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