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From the Los Angeles Times

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Four Loko incident in Washington state raises alarm about caffeinated alcoholic drinks

Nine people were sickened after consuming Four Loko, or 'blackout in a can,' and other alcohol. Several states have asked the FDA to determine whether caffeinated alcoholic beverages are safe.

by Kim Murphy, Los Angeles Times

October 27, 2010

Reporting from Seattle

Even by the extreme standards of typical college mayhem, the small-town college party in central Washington this month looked bad.

Police were initially called to a supermarket parking lot, where they found a girl passed out in the back seat of a car next to a boy with a bloody nose. At the private house the two had just left, three girls were sprawled on a bed, a barely conscious young man was being dragged out of the backyard, a girl was prostrate on the bathroom floor and three young people were splayed senseless in a car outside.

The scene was so bizarre that that many partygoers, most of them students at Central Washington University in nearby Ellensburg, believed they had fallen victim to a date rape drug.

Instead, police and medical investigators have in large part blamed the heavy consumption of Four Loko, also known as "blackout in a can," for the chaotic scene of sickened young people.

The 23 ½-ounce can of fruity malt liquor sold in Washington and many other states packs 12% alcohol, the equivalent of drinking four or more beers and a cup of strong coffee. Vodka, rum and other alcoholic drinks also had been consumed, investigators said.

College officials and law enforcement agencies throughout the country are increasingly sounding alarms against Four Loko and others like it, which they say are little more than a binge drinker's dream.

This week Central Washington University officials announced they are temporarily banning the brews on campus. New Jersey's Ramapo College announced a similar ban after a surge in alcohol intoxication cases since the beginning of the school year, with about half a dozen of involving Four Loko. And the Food and Drug Administration is investigating whether caffeine and alcohol can safely be mixed and consumed as a single beverage.

Several attorneys general across the country, including California and Washington, have urged the FDA to move quickly. Washington Atty. Gen. Rob McKenna said Monday that barring national sales restrictions, he will seek a ban on caffeinated malt liquor beverages in his state.

"They're marketed to kids by using fruit flavors that mask the taste of alcohol, and they have such high levels of stimulants that people have no idea how inebriated they really are," he said.

The drink's growing popularity took on an even darker overtone this month in New York, when one of three men abducted and tortured by gang members in the South Bronx said he was forced by his abductors to consume 10 cans of Four Loko.

The nine Central Washington University freshmen hospitalized after the Oct. 8 party had blood alcohol levels ranging from .123 to .35, with a concentration of .30 or more considered potentially fatal, officials said. All had consumed Four Loko, some in combination with other alcoholic beverages.

In New Jersey, "one of the students said he'd had three tins of this beverage Four Loko and several shots of tequila all in the space of an hour," said Ramapo College President Peter Mercer. "His blood alcohol level was 0.4, which was five times the legal limit."

The FDA has registered 27 manufacturers of caffeinated alcoholic beverages, from elite vodkas to fruit-flavored alcohol drinks with names like Liquid Charge, Max Fury and Torque, many of which also feature ingredients like ginseng, taurine and guarana, often described as stimulants.

At $2.50 a can, Four Loko has won an enthusiastic following among young partyers. A recent article in Yale University's Daily News notes the beverage's unofficial Facebook page — named "Four Lokos are blackouts in a can and the end of my morals" — has 74,680 fans, more than Hillary Clinton, Nelson Mandela and Christine O'Donnell combined.

"WARNING: You will remember absolutely nothing in the morning, probably acted like a slut, and possibly tried to fight someone. It's a Four Loko thing," the page warns.

A variety of YouTube videos show young people chugging the brightly colored cans and bopping to a growing variety of Four Loko theme songs that are now downloadable as MP3s and telephone ring tones.

Phusion Projects LLC of Chicago, which manufactures Four Loko, said in a statement it is "upset … when our products are abused or consumed illegally by underaged drinkers," but emphasized it is wrong to place all the blame for the Washington incident on Four Loko because police found evidence that beer and hard liquor also had been heavily consumed.

"The events in central Washington this month were inexcusable. And most would expect our company to disagree with recent decisions to ban our products from college campuses… We do not. We agree with the goals that underlie those sentiments," the company said.

Phusion officials also pointed out that consuming caffeine with alcohol is common, whether it's having coffee after a meal with wine, or drinking a rum and Coke, an Irish coffee, or more commonly lately, a Red Bull energy drink with vodka.

In response to a 2008 lawsuit filed by the Washington, D.C.-based consumer advocacy group Center for Science in the Public Interest, two major manufacturers of caffeinated energy drinks, Anheuser-Busch and Miller Brewing Co., agreed to take their beverages off the market.

The lawsuit cited a study by the Wake Forest University School of Medicine, which found that young drinkers of so-called alcospeed beverages were more likely to binge drink, become injured, ride with an intoxicated driver or be taken advantage of sexually than drinkers of conventional alcoholic drinks.

"The real problem is the drinker thinks they're more alert and less impaired than they actually are," said David Schardt, senior nutritionist at the consumer advocacy group. "They keep drinking to the point of being in danger of alcohol poisoning. And that can lead to death."

Few studies have been able to measure the physical effects of combining alcohol and caffeine, which is one of the areas the FDA is expected to examine before moving forward on any regulation.

"The increasing popularity of consumption of caffeinated alcoholic beverages by college students and reports of potential health and safety issues necessitates that we look seriously at the scientific evidence as soon as possible," Joshua Sharfstein, principal deputy commissioner of food and drugs, said in a statement this week.

Ashley Stubbs, a 20-year-old junior who heads a network of upper-division college students who help mentor freshmen, said many students involved in the Oct. 8 party still don't believe that simply drinking Four Lokos could have caused the devastating effects they experienced.

"There's a feeling of disbelief that it's just the caffeinated alcoholic beverages that caused this incident," she said. "I would say that it's really a small minority of kids at Central Washington that are putting themselves out and drinking excessively."

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-blackout-in-a-can-20101027,0,3274510,print.story

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Kidnapped Mexican names names, including his sister's

In a 'narco-video' with rifles pointed at his head, the brother of the former attorney general of Chihuahua says she took bribes and ordered killings. She says her brother was coerced to lie.

By Ken Ellingwood, Los Angeles Times

October 27, 2010

Reporting from Mexico City

The gunmen pointed rifles at his head, demanding answers. The captive named names. He had lots to say about the Juarez drug cartel.

But this drug war interrogation, captured on a "narco-video," carried a twist.

The handcuffed man before the camera was no nameless cartel henchman. He was the kidnapped brother of Patricia Gonzalez, the former top prosecutor of Mexico's most violent state, and his account was startling: that his sister took bribes to protect the so-called Juarez cartel and even ordered several high-profile killings.

The video, one of many aired during the 4-year-old drug war, created an unusual stir in Mexico after it appeared on YouTube on Monday, four days after Mario Gonzalez was kidnapped in the northern state of Chihuahua.

Patricia Gonzalez, a reform-minded prosecutor whose term as Chihuahua's attorney general ended this month, confirmed that the man in the video is her brother.

But she insists the allegations are bunk — induced at gunpoint, most likely by disgruntled current or fired police agents, to avenge her efforts at rooting out dirty cops.

"During six years, I received threats from police, ex-state police and organized crime groups," Patricia Gonzalez told The Times on Tuesday in an e-mail exchange. "The motive for the kidnapping, I believe, is related to revenge by the drug cartels and some state police or ex-police who resisted working with institutional transparency and a new model of justice."

She said her brother was unfamiliar with the topics he was discussing and appeared to have been coerced through "physical and psychological torture" into making damning statements.

The former prosecutor said a tip-off that police were involved was the telltale brown-and-cream paint scheme of the cubicle where the interrogation was taped, which she said resembled cubicles in the state prosecutor's offices.

By Tuesday afternoon, Mario Gonzalez's whereabouts were still unknown.

Gov. Cesar Duarte, who took office three weeks ago, tiptoed around the ticklish questions raised by the video, including the possible involvement of active-duty police in kidnapping Mario Gonzalez, an attorney. In a radio interview Tuesday, Duarte denied that the video was shot in a state-owned building.

To some human rights advocates, the Gonzalez kidnapping is further sign of the perils facing public officials in Mexico, where mayors, prosecutors and police have been among the roughly 30,000 people slain in drug-related violence since President Felipe Calderon launched his offensive against drug cartels in 2006.

Mario Gonzalez, seated in a chair and surrounded by five masked gunmen in military-style camouflage, showed no outward signs of having been beaten before the 10-minute interrogation.

A questioner off-camera shouts questions and Gonzalez, in a black T-shirt, appears eager to provide a robust account. His version includes a who's who of Chihuahua officials, army generals, lawyers and reputed drug lords and hit men.

In the video, Gonzalez claims to have served as middleman between La Linea, a Ciudad Juarez-based gang closely tied to the Juarez cartel, and his sister, who became attorney general in Chihuahua in 2004. The Juarez group is at war with a rival cartel from the northwestern state of Sinaloa, and both have charged that public officials favor their foes.

Mario Gonzalez alleges that his sister ordered several infamous killings, including that of Juarez newspaper journalist Armando Rodriguez, who had written unflatteringly about her family's legal woes shortly before his slaying in 2008.

Patricia Gonzalez said most of the cases mentioned in the video were already solved.

As attorney general, Gonzalez often spoke against deep-rooted police graft and won praise from reformers and American law-and-order experts for the state's efforts to modernize courts and root out corrupt officers. Chihuahua was one of the first states in Mexico to institute U.S.-style oral trials.

Nonetheless, suspicions of drug-related corruption long swirled around her boss, former Gov. Jose Reyes Baeza, and, to a lesser degree, around Gonzalez. Drug ties were never proved, though.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-mexico-video-20101027,0,6579106,print.story

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Former Iraqi Foreign Minister Tarik Aziz stands at attention in 1998 as the national anthem is played at a conference in Baghdad. His son says Aziz was not involved in crimes against humanity.

Tarik Aziz, spokesman for Saddam Hussein's regime, is sentenced to death Aziz, formerly Iraq's foreign minister and deputy prime minister, is to be executed for his part in the persecution of Shiite Muslim dissidents. He gained worldwide prominence as the Westernized face of Hussein's government. by Liz Sly and Raheem Salman Los Angeles Times October 27, 2010 Reporting from Baghdad Tarik Aziz, known worldwide as the international spokesman for Saddam Hussein's regime, was sentenced to death Tuesday for his part in the past persecution of Shiite Muslim dissidents, some of whom now occupy prominent roles in the Iraqi government.

Aziz, 74, listened impassively as the sentence was read at Baghdad's Supreme Criminal Court. Dressed in a casual black shirt and wearing his trademark owlish spectacles, he appeared frail and sickly, gripping the handrail of the prisoner's dock as the judge spoke.

"Did you hear?" the judge asked, after concluding his remarks. "Yes," Aziz responded weakly before being ushered out of the courtroom, according to televised video of the hearing.

Aziz, who suffered a stroke in January, has frequently predicted that he would die in jail because of his ill health, family members say. His lawyers have 30 days to appeal, but judging from previous cases involving former regime members, the effort would probably not succeed and Aziz could face the hangman shortly after that.

Four other former members of the Hussein regime also received death sentences in the case Tuesday, including Hussein's former secretary Abed Hameed and former Interior Minister Sadoon Shaker.

A sixth defendant, Hussein's half brother Watban Ibrahim Hassan, was acquitted for lack of evidence. But he has been sentenced to death in another case.

A member of Iraq's Christian minority, Aziz shot to prominence during the 1991 Persian Gulf War as foreign minister. He was later promoted to deputy prime minister, a post he held until the Baath Party regime fell and he surrendered to U.S. forces in April 2003.

With his impeccable English, urbane manner and fondness for whiskey and cigars, Aziz presented a Westernized face to the international community. He appeared on TV screens around the world to defend the regime's invasion of Kuwait, its defiance of international sanctions and its refusal to cooperate with United Nations inspectors looking for weapons of mass destruction.

In the days leading up to the U.S. invasion, rumors spread that he had been killed attempting to flee the country. In response, Aziz made a dramatic appearance on television, brandishing a pistol and vowing that he was "ready to fight the aggressors."

Aziz had been sentenced to several previous prison terms for other crimes committed during the Hussein years, but this was his first death sentence. In delivering the verdict, the judge cited the imprisonment, torture, execution and forced exile of tens of thousands of Shiite opponents of the regime in the late 1970s and early 1980s. At that time Hussein felt threatened by the surge of politicized Shiite religiosity sweeping across the region in the wake of the Islamic Revolution in neighboring Iran.

Among those forced to flee was current Prime Minister Nouri Maliki, whose Shiite Islamic Dawa Party was the main target of the crackdown. The founder and revered leader of the party, cleric Mohammed Bakr Sadr, was hanged in 1980, reputedly after suffering severe torture.

Aziz's son, Ziad Aziz, told CNN that his father had never been involved in any of the crimes against humanity perpetrated by the former regime. He accused Maliki and the Dawa Party of using him to exact revenge against others.

"This is a cruel, vengeful, political verdict against a man who served his country and became a victim of the religious parties in Iraq," he said. "He was a man who served his country and sacrificed for it professionally."

The elder Aziz has resolutely defended Hussein from his jail cell on numerous occasions, telling Britain's Guardian newspaper in August that "history will show he served his country."

Whooping cough cases top 6,000 in California

More than 6,000 Californians have been infected with whooping cough, according to updated totals released by the Department of Public Health.

As of late Tuesday there were 6,257 cases of whooping cough, also known as pertussis, in California, an increase of 279 cases from the previous week. The epidemic is the largest to strike California since 1950, when 6,613 cases were reported.

Put another way, there are 16 cases of pertussis for every 100,000 people in California, the highest incidence since 1959, when there was a rate of 16.1 cases per 100,000 people.

Of the 10 who have died from pertussis so far this year, all were infants younger than three months, and nine of them were Latino. Health officials have previously said that Latino babies are overrepresented in part because they are more likely to live in larger households, with more opportunities to be exposed to someone with whooping cough.

Newborn babies are at highest risk of dying from whooping cough, and are usually infected by a coughing family member. Health officials say the only way to protect newborns is to give pertussis vaccinations to everyone who will have contact with the baby, creating a cocoon around those too young to be immunized. Anyone who is coughing should avoid contact with newborns.

Marijuana bundles found in truck tires.

A day on the weed beat in San Diego by Tony Perry - San Diego October 26, 2010: A trucker with 269 pounds of marijuana hidden in the tires of his 1976 Kenworth tractor/trailer was caught coming into the U.S. from Mexico at the Otay Mesa border crossing, U.S. Customs and Border Protection said Tuesday. A drug-sniffing dog alerted officers who found 44 packages worth $134,000, officials said. The driver, a 39-year-old Mexican national from Tijuana, was arrested. James Dean Stacy, 46, former owner of a marijuana storefront in Vista in northern San Diego County, pleaded guilty Tuesday in federal court to felony manufacturing of marijuana.  Drug Enforcement Administration agents found 95 marijuana plants during a raid on Stacy's "Movement in Action" store.

Marijuana profiling

Though they use marijuana less, more blacks than whites are arrested for it, a new study shows.

October 27, 2010

White people between the ages of 18 and 25 use marijuana at a higher rate than their black peers, according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, so you would naturally assume that young white people would also have a higher arrest rate for marijuana possession than young black people. But that's not the case. A report released last week found that police in California's biggest cities arrest blacks for possession at four, five and even 13 times the rate of whites. It is this unequal enforcement of the marijuana laws — and the consequences for the African American community — that have led the California NAACP, along with the National Black Police Assn., to support Proposition 19. This page opposes Proposition 19, but regardless of whether the measure succeeds or fails, the racial inequity is real and should not continue unaddressed.

According to the new study, issued jointly by the California NAACP and the Drug Policy Alliance, blacks in Los Angeles are arrested for possession of marijuana at seven times the rate of whites; in San Diego, at six times the rate. In Torrance, the numbers are particularly striking, with blacks arrested at 13.8 times the rate of whites. Indeed, the phenomenon occurs in every county in the state and involves almost every police department. The upshot for those arrested, even if they don't end up in prison, is a permanent record that has lifelong consequences. Most marijuana possession arrests do not lead to long prison sentences these days, but having an arrest record and the stigma of being a "drug offender" negatively affects opportunities for employment and housing and higher education. Such information also is visible to credit agencies, licensing boards and banks. California recently downgraded the charge to an infraction — a positive step — but collateral damage is still likely; the low-income people most commonly arrested would have the most difficulty paying the fines for the infraction — and failure to do so would bring the charge back to a misdemeanor.

Why are blacks arrested at such disproportionate rates? The report concludes that it's not personal prejudice or racism on the part of police officers. The NAACP says it is the result of the long-standing strategy of saturating minority communities with officers who then overzealously stop and frisk people. Were such a strategy pursued in a white community, a high number of arrests would result there as well. The police say they are simply trying protect the citizens in high-crime areas.

Supporters of Proposition 19 say the solution is to legalize marijuana for all. But that's addressing a symptom, not the problem. The real culprit is not marijuana laws but policing practices that vary wildly from community to community. That's why Proposition 19 is not the answer.

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/editorials/la-ed-arrests-20101027,0,4344002,print.story

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OPINION

Grass-roots immigration reform

Nearly half of California's likely voters have a favorable view of immigrants, including those without papers.

by Tim Rutten

October 27, 2010

Fundamental change usually proceeds from the bottom up, which is why it often blindsides most politicians and much of the media.

For example, the "tea party"-style rage that is this election cycle's defining characteristic grows out of a broad, if inchoate, sense that the American economy no longer apportions prosperity or opportunity in anything close to an equitable fashion. As David Cay Johnston reported Monday, last year the 74 highest-paid Americans each earned an average of $519 million annually — or about $10 million a week. That was up from $92 million the year before. At the same time, every measure of ordinary Americans' pay — total, average and median — fell from the previous year. Adjusted for inflation, median pay was actually less than it was 10 years ago.

Marriage equality is another question on which change is pushing up from the grass roots, with polls showing that increasing numbers of Americans now regard it as a civil rights issue. That's overwhelmingly true among the young, no matter their region or background.

Something similar may be occurring when it comes to immigration reform. As a Times/USC poll reported Sunday, nearly half of California's likely voters have a favorable view of immigrants, including those without papers. Fully 59% said that undocumented immigrants who have lived and worked here for at least two years should be allowed to remain. That's particularly significant because California is home to more immigrants than any other state.

You could catch a glimpse of this new consensus Sunday at Dolores Mission Church in Boyle Heights, one of those places where the better angels of our city's nature tend to speak most clearly. Dolores, set among public housing projects, is among Los Angeles' poorest Roman Catholic parishes and long has been run by the Jesuits, the largest and most influential of the church's religious orders. Sunday, hundreds of people of all ages and ethnicities — parishioners, students at the order's schools and lay associates of its social justice initiatives — gathered to assist at a Mass on behalf of comprehensive immigration reform. As one of the celebrants, Homeboy Industries' Father Gregory Boyle, put it, they were there to "to imagine a circle of compassion and then to imagine no one standing outside that circle."

Afterward, Father John McGarry, the Mass' principal celebrant and the Jesuits' California superior, read a letter calling for comprehensive immigration reform signed by those present and sent to President Obama and members of Congress. Among the essential steps the Dolores declaration urges are "a path to legalization that ensures that undocumented immigrants have access to full rights; a legal employment structure for future workers that protects both migrants and U.S. workers; and expedited reunification and emphasis on family unity for all immigrants."

The latter point carried a particular resonance Sunday because the most moving of the Dolores speakers was a middle-aged woman named Natividad, a Salvadoran immigrant who spoke of what her life and that of her six young children had been like since their father was deported. Afterward, Father Scott Santarosa, Dolores' pastor, drew my attention to a wrenching aspect of the remarks she delivered in matter-of-fact Spanish: She spoke as though she no longer had a husband and of how her youngest sons believed their father dead.

On Monday, during an interview with the popular Spanish-language radio personality Eddie "Piolin" Sotelo, Obama blamed Republicans for blocking comprehensive immigration reform. That's partly true. When congressional Republicans recently frustrated passage of the so-called DREAM Act, which would have provided a path to citizenship for some undocumented young people who attend college or serve in the armed forces, pollsters measured a steep increase in the enthusiasm of likely Latino voters.

It's also true, though, that this administration's enforcement of our broken immigration laws has been nothing short of draconian. This month, Obama's Homeland Security secretary, Janet Napolitano, proudly announced that we deported a record number of people in the last fiscal year — some 1,080 men and women a day, or nearly 393,000 in all. Less than half of those people will have committed any crime other than being here without papers.

How many families, like Natividad's, will be caught up in tragedy as a consequence? The Times/USC poll suggests that political expediency and common sense, at long last, may have begun to converge on this issue.

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-1027-rutten-20101027,0,6776750,print.column

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EDITORIAL

When blasphemy is a crime

A study of blasphemy laws and human rights shows why the U.N. shouldn't encourage such rules.

October 27, 2010

The United Nations General Assembly may soon vote — not for the first time — in favor of a resolution opposing the "defamation of religions." The idea, which may sound appealing at first blush, is particularly championed by Islamic countries, which would like to go even further and have the condemnation enshrined in international law.

But a new report by Freedom House, a Washington-based human rights organization, demonstrates how such policies have too often been used by countries to suppress freedom of speech and freedom of religion, leading to serious human rights abuses.

Freedom House examined laws against blasphemy and religious insults in Algeria, Egypt, Greece, Indonesia, Malaysia, Pakistan and Poland. Some were more aggressive in enforcing the laws than others, and penalties varied from fines to imprisonment to death sentences. But in every nation it studied, Freedom House found violations of international human rights norms.

Some of the laws purport to shield more than one religion from verbal abuse. As a practical matter, however, anti-blasphemy laws generally protect the majority faith. For example, Freedom House found that in Greece, blasphemy laws "are used only to prosecute cases of perceived blasphemy against the Orthodox Church." In Indonesia, the laws "have been used mostly to target blasphemy against Islam" by minority Islamic sects, Christians and followers of indigenous religions.

The laws also are used to target journalists, artists and political dissidents. In Egypt, Freedom House notes, several bloggers currently detained for alleged blasphemy have written critically about the government. In Poland and Greece, artists have run afoul of blasphemy laws, though convictions have been overturned on appeal. Even in those cases, Freedom House says in its report on Greece, blasphemy prosecutions impose financial burdens on the defendants and have a chilling effect.

Attacks on religion can be deeply offensive, which is why believers of many faiths pleaded with the Rev. Terry Jones not to burn copies of the Koran last month. But even many of his critics recognized that he had the constitutional right do so, just as adherents of other faiths (or of no faith) are free in this country to question, and even mock, Christianity.

Some argue that such freedom is a luxury that can be enjoyed only in stable, democratic societies like the United States. According to this argument, developing multicultural societies need blasphemy laws to prevent religious strife. But Freedom House demonstrates that the evenhanded application of such laws is an illusion.

The United Nations should be working to abolish blasphemy laws, not endorse them.

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/editorials/la-ed-blasphemy-20101027,0,7183900,print.story

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From the New York Times

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Death Toll Rises After Twin Indonesia Disasters

JAKARTA, Indonesia — Indonesia struggled to aid survivors on Wednesday after an earthquake, tsunami and volcanic eruptions struck separate parts of the country, killing hundreds and driving tens of thousands from their homes.

In the worst hit region of the Mentawai Islands, health and rescue workers were still trying to reach some isolated areas nearly two days after a 7.7-magnitude quake sent a tsunami more than 10 feet high crashing into coastal villages.

Ade Edward, the emergency head of West Sumatra Province's Disaster Management Agency said at least 272 people were killed and 412 were missing, The Associated Press reported. Thousands more have been displaced.

At the same time, aid workers on the island of Java, 750 miles to the east, scrambled to provide water, food and medicine to more than 13,000 people driven from their homes after Mount Merapi erupted, killing at least 25 people and spewing hot gas, ash and debris over the densely populated countryside.

Bad weather and powerful waves delayed efforts to reach many of the survivors in the Mentawais, an isolated, impoverished region west of Sumatra Island, Mr. Edward said.

“All along the coast, people have fled up into the hills because quakes are happening nearly on the hour,” Mr. Edward said. “These quakes are forcing us use to set up temporary shelters. It's really tough work.”

Ships and helicopters had been sent to the islands, along with medical teams, shelters, medicines and two electricity generating barges, Mr. Edward said. Downed communications meant radio was the only way of communicating with many areas, he said.

“There's a risk of fresh water shortages and the problems that come with that, like diarrhea,” he said. “We still haven't sent water purification kits. We're still in the emergency needs phase in these first three or four days.

“Most of the people killed were Mentawai locals out to sea or on shore fishing. People on land felt the quake and ran to higher ground. The people at sea had no idea there was a quake.”

The two disasters, which struck within 24 hours of each other, prompted President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono to cut short a visit to Vietnam, where he was carrying out a bilateral visit and was due to attend a summit of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations on Thursday. Mr. Yudhoyono was scheduled to fly to the West Sumatran city of Padang and then visit the Mentawais, a statement said.

In Java, much of the Wednesday was consumed with counting the cost of earlier eruptions that took place Tuesday night. Although the authorities had warned of the danger, many locals waited until the last minute to evacuate to safer ground.

Among those killed on the slopes of Mount Merapi was Penewu Suraksohargo, popularly known as Mbah Maridjan, an elderly man appointed as the spiritual guardian of the mountain by the late former sultan of the nearby city of Yogyakarta, Hamengkubuwono IX.

A journalist and a Red Cross volunteer were among 15 people killed along with Mr. Maridjan when superheated gases and hot ash shot down into his village, Kinahrejo, flattening homes and leaving behind the scorched bodies of humans and livestock scattered in the open and in ruined buildings, said Oka Hamid, a local Red Cross official.

“We couldn't get the bodies out of there at night. We had to wait until the morning, since we couldn't get our cars through the debris,” he said, adding that the village was “totally destroyed.”

Priyadi Kardono, a spokesman for the national Disaster Management Agency, said Mr. Maridjan, a national celebrity throughout Indonesia who was widely believed to have a supernatural connection with Mount Merapi, did not believe an eruption was imminent.

Much of Indonesia lies in the seismically active Pacific “ring of fire,” a series of fault lines stretching from the Western Hemisphere through Japan and Southeast Asia. Experts said that the earthquake was not big enough to have disturbed the volcano, and that the two events were most likely not related.

The tsunami, set off by a 7.7-magnitude undersea quake, slammed into the southern part of the remote Mentawai Islands, wreaking havoc in villages and, the authorities believe, sweeping scores out to sea. The islands are a popular destination for foreign surfers, particularly Australians. The surge reached as high as 10 feet and advanced as far as 2,000 feet inland, officials at the Health Ministry's crisis center said.

The earthquake occurred along the same fault that produced a 9.1-magnitude quake on Dec. 26, 2004, spawning a tsunami that killed an estimated 230,000 people around the Indian Ocean. The hardest-hit area was in Aceh Province in northern Sumatra.

Monday's quake was along a shorter section of the fault, about 500 miles southeast of the 2004 rupture, that last had a major quake in 1833, said Leonardo Seeber, a research scientist at Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory of Columbia University in Palisades, N.Y.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/28/world/asia/28indo.html?_r=1&ref=world&pagewanted=print

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E-Mail Spam Falls After Russian Crackdown

MOSCOW — You may not have noticed, but since late last month, the world supply of Viagra ads and other e-mail spam has dropped by an estimated one-fifth. With 200 billion spam messages in circulation each day, there is still plenty to go around.

But police officials in Russia, a major spam exporter, say they are trying to do their part to stem the flow. On Tuesday, police officials here announced a criminal investigation of a suspected spam kingpin, Igor A. Gusev. They said he had probably fled the country.

Moscow police authorities said Mr. Gusev, 31, was a central figure in the operations of SpamIt.com, which paid spammers to promote online pharmacies, sometimes quite lewdly. SpamIt.com suddenly stopped operating on Sept. 27. With less financial incentive to send their junk mail, spammers curtailed their activity by an estimated 50 billion messages a day.

Why the site closed was unclear until Tuesday, when Moscow police officials met with reporters to discuss the Gusev case. The officials' actions were a departure from Russia's usual laissez faire approach to online crime.

They accuse Mr. Gusev of operating a pharmacy without a license and of failing to register a business. On Tuesday, they searched his apartment and office in Moscow, according to Lt. Yevdokiya F. Utenkova, an investigator in the economic crime division of the Moscow police department.

Lieutenant Utenkova said the search of the apartment turned up seven removable hard drives, four flash cards and three laptops. Specific, computer-crime related charges may follow after police examine their contents, she said. The investigation began Sept. 21, six days before SpamIt.com closed.

Mr. Gusev's lawyer, Vadim A. Kolosov, said in a telephone interview that his client was not the owner of SpamIt.com and had never sent spam e-mail, but declined to respond to specific questions.

The drop-off in spam since SpamIt.com went down had been noted by companies in the United States that monitor the Internet.

“We've seen a sustained drop in global volumes,” Henry Stern, a senior security analyst at Cisco Systems, said in a telephone interview from San Francisco. The company pinpointed the closure of Mr. Gusev's site as the cause for this easing up.

If individual computer users have not noticed changes in spam traffic, it may be because many people have learned to use spam filters that insulate them from the junk that continuously circulates on the Internet.

Kaspersky Lab, an antivirus company based in Moscow, said there had been a notable drop in mass e-mail in the United States that advertised prescription drugs — to about 41 percent of all spam at the end of the September from 65 percent at the beginning of the month. The figures are comparable in Western Europe, the company said. Many of the pharmaceuticals sold through Web sites promoted by spammers are believed to be counterfeit.

Other computer security companies had reported similar reductions in prescription drug spam, although they cautioned that spam volumes were volatile and often spring back to previous high levels. On a typical day, spam accounts for about 90 percent of all e-mail traffic on the Internet.

Mr. Gusev and SpamIt.com have been widely known in computer security circles, and he had lived openly in Moscow. Spamhaus, an international nonprofit that monitors global spam, listed the SpamIt.com organization as the world's single largest sponsor of spam.

Last year, the Russian-language version of Newsweek reported that Mr. Gusev's sites were connected to the same computer server farm in St. Petersburg, Russia, called Russian Business Networks, that was identified in a 2009 report by online security experts with NATO as a source of the attacks on Georgia in 2008.

Mr. Gusev filed suit against Newsweek in a Moscow court, denying links to spamming suggested in the article. That case is still pending. In that suit, he cited phone calls from The New York Times to his lawyer seeking comment as evidence that the article harmed his reputation.

Why, after years of ignoring spammers, Russian authorities have now acted has left online security experts puzzled.

SpamIt.com had operated in a gray area of Russian law, cybersecurity researchers said. They said it had paid commissions to other parties that had directed traffic to various sites operating under the name Canadian Pharmacy, using a Russian online settlement system. Mr. Gusev has denied in blog posts that he promoted spam.

The spammers, meanwhile, operated entirely in the shadows, using networks of computers that had been remotely infected with viruses, known as botnets, and turning them into relay stations for sending e-mail from anywhere in the world.

Some American security experts have said that the spamming operation in Russia appears to have been protected by Russian authorities — whether for reasons of corruption, national pride or state security.

Because most victims of online crime, and the targets of unwanted spam advertising, are in Europe and the United States, Russian police have typically seen little incentive to prosecute online crime, analysts say.

But recently, President Dmitri A. Medvedev of Russia has been seeking to expand and legitimize the domestic Russian Internet industry — and move it away from its reputation as a playground for hackers, pornographers and authors of darkly ingenious viruses.

In June, Mr. Medvedev visited California to meet with Silicon Valley executives. The SpamIt.com site closed two weeks before the reciprocal Silicon Valley trade delegation, led by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger of California, arrived in Moscow on Oct. 10.

Computer security researchers have conjectured that spamming gangs have sometimes been co-opted by the intelligence agencies in Russia, which provide cover for the spamming activities in exchange for the criminals' expertise or for allowing their networks of virus-infected computers to be used for political purposes — to crash dissident Web sites, for example, or to foster attacks on foreign adversaries.

The Russian government has denied orchestrating computer attacks beyond its borders.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/27/business/27spam.html?ref=world&pagewanted=print

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Pope Says States Have Right to Defend Borders

VATICAN CITY — States must treat migrants with dignity but have the right to regulate immigration and defend their borders, Pope Benedict XVI said on Tuesday.

The pope made his comments in his message for the Roman Catholic Church's World Day of Migrants and Refugees, touching on a subject that has caused tensions between the church and governments in European countries, including France and Italy.

He said everyone had the right to leave home to seek better conditions of life in another country.

”At the same time, states have the right to regulate migration flows and to defend their own frontiers, always guaranteeing the respect due to the dignity of each and every human person,” he said.

He said immigrants had the duty to integrate into their host countries and respect their laws and national identities.

The challenge, he added, was to ”combine the welcome due to every human being, especially when in need, with a reckoning of what is necessary for both the local inhabitants and the new arrivals to live a dignified and peaceful life”.

The French government came under fire from the local Catholic Church and the European Union earlier this year over its expulsion of Roma migrants after police cleared several illegal camps and forcibly repatriated the migrants.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/27/world/europe/27pope.html?ref=world&pagewanted=print

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Angola: U.N. Reports Gang Rapes on Congo Border

At least 30 women were kept as prisoners in a dungeonlike structure and gang-raped over several weeks at the border with Congo, then left naked in the bush, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said Tuesday.

The women were among more than 150 Congolese citizens who had arrived in Bandundu Province in southwestern Congo after being expelled from neighboring Angola.

Congolese frequently work as laborers in the mining districts that line the border between the central African nations.

An agency spokeswoman said the men in the group were also brutalized. At least three people were killed, including two men and a 27-year-old woman who died after being raped repeatedly.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/27/world/africa/27briefs-ANGOLA.html?ref=world&pagewanted=print

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Toxic Metals Tied to Work in Prisons

Inmates and employees at 10 federal prisons were exposed to toxic metals and other hazardous substances while processing electronic waste for recycling, a four-year investigation by the Justice Department's inspector general found.

A report issued last week by the Office of the Inspector General said unspecified amounts of that waste were shipped overseas, possibly to undeveloped countries. Reports have multiplied in recent years that electronic waste is being dumped in developing nations, where it can harm local populations by leaching into groundwater or attracting scavengers who are exposed to toxic elements.

Despite the finding of exposure, however, the inspector general, Glenn A. Fine, said he could link no health problems to the recycling work in the prisons, although he did not rule out that a link could be established in the future.

That did little to assure critics of such prison-based programs.

“We have said all along that prisoners should not be managing toxic waste, and the federal government should never allow the export of such wastes to developing countries,” said Jim Puckett, executive director of the Basel Action Network, a group that advocates for rigorous standards for recycling electronic waste.

“Now we are finding out that not only did the federal government continue to allow it,” Mr. Puckett said, “they were doing it themselves and may still be doing it to this day.”

The recycling work is overseen by Unicor, a unit of the Federal Bureau of Prisons that employs inmates to manufacture items like furniture and license plates. Since 1997, it has accepted contracts for recycling computer monitors, televisions, printers and other electronic waste.

Although the study covered 10 prisons that recycled electronic waste, two — the Federal Correctional Institution in Dublin, Calif., and La Tuna in Anthony, Tex. — had ended those operations by the time the inspector general's field investigation opened in 2006.

As of 2009, Unicor employed 1,000 workers at seven prisons processing 39 million pounds of electronic materials. The Federal Correctional Institution in Elkton, Ohio, stopped recycling electronic waste in 2008. Operations continue at the federal prisons in Fort Dix, N.J.; Marianna, Fla.; Texarkana, Tex.; Atwater, Calif.; Leavenworth, Kan.; Lewisburg, Pa.; and Tucson.

After complaints arose several years ago that the work was making prisoners sick, the inspector general, working with several other federal agencies, conducted 200 interviews, reviewed 10,000 pages of documents and inspected the computer records of Unicor personnel.

While the inquiry did not definitively link any long-term health effects to recycling work, it found evidence of wrongdoing, like exposing prisoners to lead and cadmium. The inspector general's office said that it referred the evidence to the Justice Department's environmental crimes section but that ultimately no prosecutions were pursued.

The report, which totaled more than 400 pages, noted that Unicor had halted the most dangerous of the recycling activities, smashing glass, in 2009.

Criminal charges were pursued for some other offenses uncovered in the investigation of Unicor's recycling, including theft and wire fraud.

Unicor cast the report not as an indictment but as a bill of clean health.

“Based on the results of biological monitoring and hundreds of interviews with staff and inmate workers, the O.I.G. determined that exposure to toxic metals during current disassembly activity is negligible,” said Traci Billingsley, a spokeswoman for the Bureau of Prisons.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/27/science/earth/27waste.html?ref=us&pagewanted=print

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Shootings At Military Sites Are Linked

The same gun was used to shoot at the Pentagon and the National Museum of the Marine Corps in Northern Virginia earlier this month, the F.B.I. said Tuesday. A Marine recruiting station in Chantilly, Va., outside Washington, was shot at overnight Monday, and investigators are trying to determine whether that shooting is related.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/27/us/27brfs-SHOOTINGSATM_BRF.html?ref=us&pagewanted=print

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OPINION

Arizona: Citizenship Proof For Voting Is Struck Down

by JOHN SCHWARTZ

A three-judge panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit struck down a state law that requires people to provide proof of American citizenship to register to vote, saying the law conflicts with the federal National Voter Registration Act.

Nina Perales, national senior counsel for the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, said that few illegal immigrants tried to register, but that 30,000 citizens had been rejected for registration under the law, which voters passed in 2004.

Islamophobia and Homophobia

As if we needed more evidence of America's political polarization, last week Juan Williams gave the nation a Rorschach test. Williams said he gets scared when people in “Muslim garb” board a plane he's on, and he promptly got (a) fired by NPR and (b) rewarded by Fox News with a big contract.

Suppose Williams had said something hurtful to gay people instead of to Muslims. Suppose he had said gay men give him the creeps because he fears they'll make sexual advances. NPR might well have fired him, but would Fox News have chosen that moment to give him a $2-million pat on the back?

I don't think so. Playing the homophobia card is costlier than playing the Islamophobia card. Or at least, the costs are more evenly spread across the political spectrum. In 2007, when Ann Coulter used a gay slur, she was denounced on the right as well as the left, and her stock dropped. Notably, her current self-promotion campaign stresses her newfound passion for gay rights.

Coulter's comeuppance reflected sustained progress on the gay rights front. Only a few decades ago, you could tell an anti-gay joke on the Johnny Carson show — with Carson's active participation — and no one would complain. (See postscript below for details.) The current “it gets better” campaign, designed to reassure gay teenagers that adulthood will be less oppressive than adolescence, amounts to a kind of double entrendre: things get better not just over an individual's life but over the nation's life.

When we move from homophobia to Islamophobia, the trendline seems to be pointing in the opposite direction. This isn't shocking, given 9/11 and the human tendency to magnify certain kinds of risk. (Note to Juan Williams: Over the past nine years about 90 million flights have taken off from American airports, and not one has been brought down by a Muslim terrorist. Even in 2001, no flights were brought down by people in “Muslim garb.”)

Still, however “natural” this irrational fear, it's dangerous. As Islamophobia grows, it alienates Muslims, raising the risk of homegrown terrorism — and homegrown terrorism heightens the Islamophobia, which alienates more Muslims, and so on: a vicious circle that could carry America into the abyss. So it's worth taking a look at why homophobia is fading; maybe the underlying dynamic is transplantable to the realm of inter-ethnic prejudice.

Theories differ as to what it takes for people to build bonds across social divides, and some theories offer more hope than others.

One of the less encouraging theories grows out of the fact that both homophobia and Islamophobia draw particular strength from fundamentalist Christians. Maybe, this argument goes, part of the problem is a kind of “scriptural determinism.” If religious texts say that homosexuality is bad, or that people of other faiths are bad, then true believers will toe that line.

If scripture is indeed this powerful, we're in trouble, because scripture is invoked by intolerant people of all Abrahamic faiths — including the Muslim terrorists who plant the seeds of Islamophobia. And, judging by the past millennium or two, God won't be issuing a revised version of the Bible or the Koran anytime soon.

Happily, there's a new book that casts doubt on the power of intolerant scripture: “American Grace,” by the social scientists Robert Putnam and David Campbell.

Three decades ago, according to one of the many graphs in this data-rich book, slightly less than half of America's frequent churchgoers were fine with gay people freely expressing their views on gayness. Today that number is over 70 percent — and no biblical verse bearing on homosexuality has magically changed in the meanwhile. And these numbers actually understate the progress; over those three decades, church attendance was dropping for mainline Protestant churches and liberal Catholics, so the “frequent churchgoers” category consisted increasingly of evangelicals and conservative Catholics.

So why have conservative Christians gotten less homophobic? Putnam and Campbell favor the “bridging” model. The idea is that tolerance is largely a question of getting to know people. If, say, your work brings you in touch with gay people or Muslims — and especially if your relationship with them is collaborative — this can brighten your attitude toward the whole tribe they're part of. And if this broader tolerance requires ignoring or reinterpreting certain scriptures, so be it; the meaning of scripture is shaped by social relations.

The bridging model explains how attitudes toward gays could have made such rapid progress. A few decades ago, people all over America knew and liked gay people — they just didn't realize these people were gay. So by the time gays started coming out of the closet, the bridge had already been built.

And once straight Americans followed the bridge's logic — once they, having already accepted people who turned out to be gay, accepted gayness itself — more gay people felt comfortable coming out. And the more openly gay people there were, the more straight people there were who realized they had gay friends, and so on: a virtuous circle.

So could bridging work with Islamophobia? Could getting to know Muslims have the healing effect that knowing gay people has had?

The good news is that bridging does seem to work across religious divides. Putnam and Campbell did surveys with the same pool of people over consecutive years and found, for example, that gaining evangelical friends leads to a warmer assessment of evangelicals (by seven degrees on a “feeling thermometer” per friend gained, if you must know).

And what about Muslims? Did Christians warm to Islam as they got to know Muslims — and did Muslims return the favor?

That's the bad news. The population of Muslims is so small, and so concentrated in distinct regions, that there weren't enough such encounters to yield statistically significant data. And, as Putnam and Campbell note, this is a recipe for prejudice. Being a small and geographically concentrated group makes it hard for many people to know you, so not much bridging naturally happens. That would explain why Buddhists and Mormons, along with Muslims, get low feeling-thermometer ratings in America.

In retrospect, the situation of gays a few decades ago was almost uniquely conducive to rapid progress. The gay population, though not huge, was finely interspersed across the country, with  representatives in virtually every high school, college and sizeable workplace. And straights had gotten to know them without even seeing the border they were crossing in the process.

So the engineering challenge in building bridges between Muslims and non-Muslims will be big. Still, at least we grasp the nuts and bolts of the situation. It's a matter of bringing people into contact with the “other” in a benign context. And it's a matter of doing it fast, before the vicious circle takes hold, spawning appreciable homegrown terrorism and making fear of Muslims less irrational.

After 9/11, philanthropic foundations spent a lot of money arranging confabs whose participants spanned the divide between “Islam” and “the West.” Meaningful friendships did form across this border, and that's good. It's great that Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, a cosmopolitan, progressive Muslim, got to know lots of equally cosmopolitan Christians and Jews.

But as we saw when he decided to build an Islamic Community Center near ground zero, this sort of high-level networking — bridging among elites whose attitudes aren't really the problem in the first place — isn't enough. Philanthropists need to figure out how you build lots of little bridges at the grass roots level. And they need to do it fast.

Postscript: As for the Johnny Carson episode: I don't like to rely on my memory alone for decades-old anecdotes, but in this case I'm 99.8 percent sure that I remember the basics accurately. Carson's guest was the drummer Buddy Rich. In a supposedly spontaneous but obviously pre-arranged exchange, Rich said something like, “People often ask me, What is Johnny Carson really like?” Carson looked at Rich warily and said, “And how do you respond to this query?” But he paused between “this” and “query,” theatrically ratcheting up the wariness by an increment or two, and then pronounced the word “query” as “queery.” Rich immediately replied, “Like that.” Obviously, there are worse anti-gay jokes than this. Still, the premise was that being gay was something to be ashamed of. That Googling doesn't turn up any record of this episode suggests that it didn't enter the national conversation or the national memory. I don't think that would be the case today. And of course, anecdotes aside, there is lots of polling data showing the extraordinary progress made since the Johnny Carson era on such issues as gay marriage and on gay rights in general.

On another note: Here's my review of “American Grace”. (I should note that the authors' exposition of the “bridging” dynamic comes in the context of interfaith tolerance, not gay-straight tolerance. But I have little doubt that they think the dynamic applies to both contexts.)

http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/10/26/islamophobia-and-homophobia/?pagemode=print

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From the Chicago Sun Times

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Killing brings gang crackdown

60 arrests target Black Souls after teen shot on West Side in August

Chicago Police said Tuesday that they kept a promise to gang members that they would target an entire gang if one of its members was involved in a murder.

On Aug. 17, police and prosecutors met with gang members -- including the Black Souls -- at the Garfield Park Conservatory on the West Side. The gang members were warned and also were offered job placement services. They heard from residents who begged them to stop the killing.

Police said they held a follow-up meeting with members of various gangs in the Cook County Jail on Sept. 8 to deliver the same message: tell your gangs to stop shooting or your fellow gang members will be targeted.

"This must end, and it must end now," Police Supt. Jody Weis said. "This is not a negotiation."

Cook County prosecutors have brought the charges in the Black Souls investigation, but federal charges also are possible, Weis said.

The initiative was launched in the Harrison District on the West Side, where there were 41 murders this year through September compared with 39 over the same period in 2009. If the program is deemed successful, it will be expanded to other parts of the city, officials say.

David Kennedy, a professor at New York's John Jay College of Criminal Justice, helped launch the anti-violence approach about 15 years ago in Boston.

"The gang starts to police itself," Kennedy said.

He said the strategy drove down murders in Boston and dozens of other cities such as Cincinnati. But Chicago and Los Angeles, which are both piloting the strategy, will provide the biggest test, he said.

Kennedy said the strategy was responsible for 40 to 60 percent decreases in murders in other jurisdictions.

"I am cautiously optimistic that we will get there," he said.

Deputy Police Chief Brian Murphy put gangs in the Harrison District on notice: the next gang-related murder will result in the same kind of investigation targeting the entire gang, he said.

"They've been warned," Murphy said.

http://www.suntimes.com/news/24-7/2838630,CST-NWS-gangs27.article

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From the Department of Homeland Security

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An engineer from the University of Missouri studies a glass pane after a test explosion.

Glass That Won't Break...The Bank Creating an inexpensive and standard-sized blast-proof glass alternative from Department of Homeland Security Whether in a hurricane, tornado, or bomb attack, a leading cause of injury and death is often fast-flying shards of glass. Explosions and high winds can cause windows in buildings to shatter—spewing jagged pieces of glass in every direction. A Pentagon report on the 1996 Khobar Towers bombing in Saudi Arabia, for example, noted: Two of the 19 deceased had injuries known to be caused by glass fragments that were severe enough to cause death even without other contributing forces. Of the remaining 17 deceased, 10 had glass injuries that were significant and which may have caused death even without blunt force trauma. Thus, for 12 of 19 deaths, glass fragmentation was a significant factor. More than 90% of the people injured suffered laceration injuries, many of which were significant. Installing blast-resistant glass in buildings that are potential targets of attacks or in regions prone to severe weather can save lives.

But current blast-resistant glass technology—the kind that protects the windows of key federal buildings, the president's limo, and the Popemobile —is thicker than a 300-page novel?so thick it cannot be placed in a regular window frame. This makes it very difficult—and expensive—to replace standard glass windows in present structures.

With an international research grant from the Department of Homeland Security's Science and Technology Directorate (S&T), a team of engineers from the University of Missouri and the University of Sydney in Australia is working to develp a blast-resistant glass that is lighter, thinner, and colorless, yet strong enough to withstand the force of an explosion, earthquake, or hurricanes winds.

Unlike today's blast-resistant windows which are made of pure polymer layers, this new design is a plastic composite that has an interlayer of polymer reinforced with glass fibers—and it's only a quarter-inch thick.

The project team recently subjected their new glass pane to a small explosion. “The results were fantastic,” exclaimed Sanjeev Khanna, the project's principal investigator and an associate professor of mechanical engineering at Missouri. “While the discharge left the pane cracked, the front surface remained completely intact.”

The secret to the design's success is long glass fibers in the form of a woven cloth soaked with liquid plastic and bonded with adhesive. The pane is a layer of glass-reinforced clear plastic between two slim sheets of glass. Even the glue that holds it all together is clear. Think of it as a sandwich: the slim sheets of glass are the two slices of bread; the liquid plastic and long glass fibers make up the crunchy peanut butter in the middle.

The glass fibers are typically 15 to 25 micrometers in diameter, about half the thickness of a typical human hair. The small size results in fewer defects and a decreased chance of cracking. The strong glass fibers also provide a significant reinforcing effect to the polymer matrix used to bind the fibers together. The more fibers used, the stronger the glass reinforcement. And while traditional blast-proof glass usually has a greenish tint, special engineering renders the polymer resin transparent to visible light.

Engineers expect the new design will be comparable in cost to current blast-proof glass panes, but lighter in weight. At only a quarter-inch thick, this newly engineered composite would slip into standard commercial window frames, making it much more practical and cost-efficient to install.

“Designing an affordable, easy-to-install blast-resistant window could encourage widespread use in civilian structures, thereby protecting the lives of occupants against multiple threats and hazards,” notes John Fortune, manager of the project for the Infrastructure and Geophysical Division at S&T.

To date, the glass has been tested with small-scale prototypes. “In future tests, the size of the glass panels will be increased by two to four times to determine the effect of size on blast resistance,” said Khanna. The goal is to create blast-resistant panes as large as 48 by 66 inches—the standard General Services Administration window size for qualification blast testing—that can still be cost-effective. While dependent on results from upcoming tests, Khanna hopes this glass could become commercially available in three to four years.

http://www.dhs.gov/files/programs/gc_1288121930966.shtm

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How Fusion Centers Help Keep America Safe

Secretary Janet Napolitano's speech today to the International Association of Chiefs of Police (IACP) in Orlando, Fla., is a good opportunity to update the American public on the important role that state and major urban area fusion centers are playing in keeping our country safe.

Fusion centers grew out of a recommendation of the 9/11 Commission, which found that the federal government had no systematic way for sharing information and intelligence with state and local governments.

Today, we have a national network of 72 recognized fusion centers -- one in every state and 22 in major urban areas – and, with Department of Homeland Security support, they are being woven into the national and homeland security fabric of the United States.

What does that mean for the American people? It means you now have a dedicated and well-trained group of men and women in your own communities, working with DHS, FBI, and other federal partners, to keep your police officers, firefighters, public health and safety officials, and other first responders informed about terrorist, criminal, and other homeland security threats.

The DHS Office of Intelligence and Analysis, where I serve, takes information and intelligence from across DHS and the national Intelligence Community, processes and analyzes it, and then shares it with the fusion centers, often in joint products with the FBI. The fusion centers then disseminate it to the some 18,000 state, local, tribal, and territorial law enforcement organizations, and to thousands more first responders throughout the country. They also support the FBI-led Joint Terrorism Task Forces in their terrorism investigations.

Conversely, fusion centers provide the federal government with critical information and subject-matter expertise from the state and local level, enabling the effective communication of locally-generated information about terrorism back to Washington.

Fusion centers have already proven their value in countering terrorist attacks. For example, they played important roles in the case of the attempted Times Square bombing by Faisal Shahzad and the plot to bomb New York subways by Najibullah Zazi.

DHS is working with each center to improve its baseline level of operational capability. Through the use of grant funding, each center is expected to achieve and maintain the capacity to receive and share threat-related information generated by the federal government, as well as the capacity to gather, assess, analyze, and share suspicious activity reports generated by local law enforcement and the private sector. These same baseline capabilities also ensure that fusion centers establish and maintain privacy and civil liberty protections.

In addition, the DHS Office for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties, and the DHS Privacy Office, provide privacy, civil rights, and civil liberties training to all DHS intelligence officers before they deploy to the fusion centers, and support the training of all fusion center personnel nationwide.

Secretary Napolitano has talked about how our homeland security begins with hometown security.  Fusion centers are vitally important tools for keeping both our home towns, and our homeland, safe.

Bart R. Johnson Principal Deputy Under Secretary for Intelligence and Analysis Department of Homeland Security

http://journal.dhs.gov/2010/10/how-fusion-centers-help-keep-america.html

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From the Department of Justice

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Attorney General Holder Speaks at the International Association of Chiefs of Police Annual Conference

Orlando, Fla. ~ Tuesday, October 26, 2010

Thank you, Mike [Carroll]. It is a pleasure to be with you and – once again – to be a part of this annual gathering. I want to thank you – and the IACP's leadership team, Board of Directors, members, and many supporters – for inviting and welcoming me back.

Without question, I am in good company today. It is an honor to join with some of the most active and effective police chiefs in the country, as well as law enforcement innovators from around the world. And it is a special privilege to share the stage with so many leaders I have long admired and, now, rely on each day. In particular, I want to join you in welcoming General [Oscar] Naranjo – an indispensible partner in combating drug trafficking and violent crime, and an example for police officers across Columbia and far beyond. Thank you for being with us, General, and for helping us build on the traditions of service and progress – and the unparalleled record of achievement – that the IACP has established over the last century.

Today, we strengthen these traditions. And, together, we breathe new life into the IACP's founding principles – that the art and science of police work cannot be advanced in isolation; that local public safety challenges often demand large-scale solutions and engagement; and that a commitment to cooperation – and to the highest standards of professional conduct – is the most essential thread of the thin blue line.

As our nation's Attorney General, as a prosecutor and former judge, as a lifelong admirer of law enforcement and the brother of a retired Port Authority officer, I am proud to support your critical work. And, this morning, I am eager to discuss the goals that we share and the investments that we must make to bring these policing strategies and capabilities to the next level.

Last year, when I joined you all in Denver, I delivered a message on behalf of the administration and my colleagues at the Department of Justice. To each of you – and to all of our law enforcement partners – I pledged that, “We got your back.”

Today, I've traveled to Orlando to discuss some of the ways we are working to make good on this promise – and to reaffirm my commitment to ensuring your success and your safety.

In the year since we last gathered, much progress has been made. Recent investments in technology and research are paying off, allowing you to work more quickly, effectively, and collaboratively – and to accomplish more with less. Through our support of state and local Fusion Centers and Joint Terrorism Task Forces, new pathways for communication have been cleared. And with growing participation in the Nationwide Suspicious Activity Reporting Initiative, and the use of cutting-edge information exchange systems like N-DEx, our ability to connect the dots has never been greater.

Because of your efforts, national crime trends are heading in the right direction. In our inner cities, rural areas, and tribal communities, neighborhoods have been transformed. Countless lives have been improved and saved. And, despite unprecedented threats and historic budget constraints, so many of your precincts and departments are not simply surviving. They are thriving.

Of course, I realize that this progress has not come easily. It is the product of your leadership; of tireless work and tough decisions. And it is the direct result of great – and, all too often, ultimate – sacrifice.

Just weeks after we left last year's conference, many of you came together again – under different and devastating circumstances. Some of you traveled hundreds of miles to get to Lakewood, Washington – where, on November 29th, four police officers sat together in a coffee shop, preparing for a work day they would not live to see. At 8:30 that morning, they were ambushed by a gunman and killed in cold blood – targeted, and murdered, simply because of the uniforms they wore and the public service they provided.

These victims – Officers Griswold, Owens, Renninger, and Richards – were members of Lakewood's police department. But they were also part of something much larger – a law enforcement community that spans borders and jurisdictions; a law enforcement family bound by common cause and rare courage.

More than 20,000 people attended a memorial service in their honor. Police cruisers from across the country lined up in a processional that stretched for miles. It was a moving display of support. But, unfortunately, the violence that preceded and provoked it was not an isolated incident.

Since last October, 163 officers have been killed in the line of duty nationwide – with more than a third of them killed by gunfire.

These losses – of mothers and fathers, spouses and siblings, children and colleagues – represent an alarming increase in police officer fatalities. After reaching a 50-year low in 2009, the number of U.S. law enforcement officers killed in the line of duty has surged.

Together, we have mourned the loss of heroes like Captain Chad Reed – of the Dixie County Sheriff's Office here in Florida – who was killed during a gunfight with a murder suspect; and Officer Thomas Wortham, a second-generation Chicago cop, who was shot and killed during a robbery attempt outside his parents' house.

Officer Wortham's mother, Carolyn, spoke at his funeral. Before a packed church, she said that, “It's OK to be sad…[and] it's OK to grieve. “But,” she reminded us all, “let's not be angry. Because anger saps your energy. And we have much to do.”

Without question, the work before us is great. And it couldn't be more urgent. If current trends continue, 2010 could end as one of the deadliest years for law enforcement in more than two decades.

The Justice Department is committed – I am committed – to turning back this rising tide; to meeting increased violence with renewed vigilance; and to doing everything within our power – and using every tool at our disposal – to keep you and your colleagues safe.

Those who commit acts of violence against law enforcement will be pursued. They will be prosecuted. And they will be punished in the harshest way we can. This is my pledge to you and to those who work for you.

We are committed to officer safety. And we're backing up this commitment with significant, strategic investments.

In Fiscal Year 2010, the Department provided more than $40 million to officer safety programs. The lion's share of this investment was allocated to our Bulletproof Vest Partnership Program, and is allowing for the purchase of nearly 50,000 protective vests. To better ensure officer safety, starting in Fiscal Year 2011, we will begin requiring agencies that receive this funding to certify that they have a written "mandatory wear" policy in effect for uniformed patrol officers.

But our officer safety efforts don't stop there. In fact, today, I'm pleased to announce the launch of a new Department initiative – called VALOR – that will enhance our work to prevent violence against law enforcement officers and reduce line of duty injuries and losses.

Through VALOR and related efforts, the Department will support much-needed research and analysis of violent encounters, and officer deaths and injuries. And we'll use this information to provide law enforcement with the latest information, and most effective tools and training, to respond to a range of threats – including ambush-style assaults. VALOR also includes an award of $800,000, made earlier this year, to develop training and technical assistance programs to help officers learn how to anticipate and survive violent encounters.

We are also awarding nearly half-a-million dollars to the IACP to help launch the Center for the Prevention of Violence Against the Police. This Center will serve as a clearinghouse for information on emerging trends and best practices in reducing officer injuries.

Beyond VALOR, we are expanding the Department's Smart Policing program – a true success story in fighting crime with innovative and evidence-based strategies – to six new sites. This brings the total number of demonstration sites to 16. Each of these communities works with a research partner to analyze data, devise crime-fighting strategies, and measure progress. I have every expectation that our new grantees – in Cincinnati, Ohio; Joliet, Illinois; Lowell, Massachusetts; Indio, and San Diego, California; and Baltimore, Maryland – will build on the Department's ongoing efforts to become, not just tough, but smarter on crime.

In addition to supporting your work, the Justice Department is also committed to supporting your families – especially in times of tragedy. That's why, this year, the Department awarded more than $2 million to Concerns of Police Survivors. For nearly three decades, C.O.P.S. has been there for law enforcement, helping thousands of families who've lost loved ones in the line of duty to heal and to rebuild their lives. From the very beginning – since she founded C.O.P.S. in 1984 – this work has been led by Suzie Sawyer. And I'm glad that Suzie is here with us today. So many of us have been privileged to work with her over the years. Not only has she grown C.O.P.S. from a small-town organization into a nationwide network of dedicated volunteers, she's also been instrumental in coordinating National Police Week activities each May. Earlier this year, Suzie announced her retirement. And, today, I know I speak for everyone here in saying "thank you" to Suzie – for your leadership, your service, and your dedication to law enforcement. On behalf of the entire Department of Justice, it's an honor to support your work.

Although I believe these new investments – to C.O.P.S., to our Smart Policing program, and to the VALOR initiative – are an important step forward, I also know that addressing the challenges you face requires more than simply moving money out the door. That's why the Department is also focused on improving information sharing with and among our law enforcement partners.

The cornerstone of this work has been the Law Enforcement National Data Exchange –what we all call N-DEx. This on-line system arms officers with critical, real-time information about suspects. In addition to developing this national resource, we're providing support – including nearly $2 million in fiscal year 2010 funding – to help more of you connect to it. N-DEx is a prime example of what can be accomplished when law enforcement works together across levels – and when law enforcement executives make information sharing a priority. We will continue to encourage the use of N-DEx, as well as greater participation in the Nationwide Suspicious Activity Reporting Initiative, known as “NSI,” which we administer in partnership and coordination with the Department of Homeland Security, as well as state and local law enforcement.

In launching NSI last year, we were guided by three key principles: partnerships, prevention, and the protection of privacy and civil liberties. By fostering increased partnership among law enforcement agencies, as well as private-sector entities, NSI is allowing officers to connect suspicious, but seemingly disparate, pieces of information. The result? Potential terror attacks are being identified – and prevented. And NSI's strong privacy and civil rights protections are reinforcing the fact that effective security efforts need not compromise our most essential values.

But NSI's continued success depends on your engagement. And I urge you to continue to make suspicious activity reporting a priority, and a common practice, in the departments you lead.

In addition to helping law enforcement collaborate and connect information more easily, we're also working to help you respond to emergencies more effectively. All of us have seen – most clearly on September 11th and in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina – that, in times of crisis, officers and first responders must be able to communicate quickly and across jurisdictions.

Over the last year, the Department of Justice has taken an active role to help ensure that the communication needs of state, local, and tribal law enforcement are met.

We've facilitated a series of discussions concerning the public safety broadband network, including the future of the D-Block. And, in partnership with the White House and the Departments of Homeland Security and Commerce, we're continuing to bring together leaders from law enforcement, the broader public safety community, and industry, to determine a path forward.

This is a Cabinet-level priority. It is a Justice Department priority. And I will continue to advocate for meaningful, affordable access to radio spectrum when and where you need it. This continues to be a personal priority for me.

Now, I realize that I've covered a lot of ground today. And while I have great hope for what can be achieved through these new initiatives and investments, I do not pretend that implementing the solutions we need – and securing the protections and capabilities that you deserve – will be quick or easy work. But I want you all to know that, at every level of the Justice Department, not only do we have your back, we are committed to your future and – above all – to your safety.

Let's make certain that the tragedies of the past year bring us closer to marking a new era of solidarity – a new beginning.

We are in this together. And the simple truth is that the goals I've set, and the responsibilities I've accepted, cannot be met without your help. I am grateful for your partnerships. I am counting on your leadership. And, in the critical days ahead, I look forward to all that we will accomplish.

Thank you.

http://www.justice.gov/iso/opa/ag/speeches/2010/ag-speech-101026.html

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From ICE

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All West Virginia counties to benefit from ICE strategy to use biometrics to identify and remove aliens convicted of a crime

CHARLESTON, W.V.-On Tuesday, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) began using a federal information sharing capability in all West Virginia counties that uses biometrics to identify aliens, both lawfully and unlawfully present in the United States, who are booked into local law enforcement's custody for a crime. This information sharing capability is part of Secure Communities-ICE's comprehensive strategy to improve and modernize the identification and removal of criminal aliens from the United States.

Previously, fingerprint-based biometric records were taken of individuals charged with a crime and booked into custody and checked for criminal history information against the Department of Justice's (DOJ) Integrated Automated Fingerprint Identification System (IAFIS). Now, through enhanced information sharing between DOJ and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), fingerprint information submitted through the state to the FBI will be automatically checked against both the FBI criminal history records in IAFIS and the biometrics-based immigration records in DHS's Automated Biometric Identification System (IDENT).

If any fingerprints match those of someone in the DHS biometric system, the new automated process notifies ICE. ICE evaluates each case to determine the individual's immigration status and takes appropriate enforcement action. This includes aliens who are in lawful status and those who are present without lawful authority. Once identified through fingerprint matching, ICE will respond with a priority placed on aliens convicted of the most serious offenses first-such as those with convictions for major drug offenses, murder, rape and kidnapping.

"The Secure Communities strategy is improving public safety every day by transforming the way ICE identifies aliens in the criminal custody of law enforcement," said John Morton, ICE Director. "Using this biometric information sharing tool enables ICE to prevent the release of convicted criminal aliens back into the community when they complete their sentences."

"The West Virginia State Police is pleased to become a part of this advanced identification program. With our recent addition of electronic fingerprint capture and submission capabilities, we are taking advantage of the most current technologies available to law enforcement to identify and capture the criminal," said Colonel Tim Pack, Superintendent of the West Virginia State Police. "As more agencies join this information sharing effort, federal, state and local entities are able to provide more timely collection data to rapidly identify and take appropriate action with the criminal alien element."

With the expansion of the biometric information sharing capability statewide in West Virginia, ICE is now using it in 746 jurisdictions in 34 states. By 2013, ICE plans to be able to respond to all fingerprint matches generated nationwide through IDENT/IAFIS interoperability.

Since ICE began using this enhanced information sharing capability in October 2008, immigration officers have removed from the United States more than 46,800 aliens convicted of a crime. ICE does not regard aliens charged with, but not yet convicted of crimes, as "criminal aliens." Instead, a "criminal alien" is an alien convicted of a crime. In accordance with the Immigration and Nationality Act, ICE continues to take action on aliens subject to removal as resources permit.

The IDENT system is maintained by DHS's US-VISIT program and IAFIS is maintained by the FBI's Criminal Justice Information Services (CJIS).

"US-VISIT is proud to support ICE, helping provide decision makers with comprehensive, reliable information when and where they need it," said US-VISIT Director Robert Mocny. "By enhancing the interoperability of DHS's and the FBI's biometric systems, we are able to give federal, state and local decision makers information that helps them better protect our communities and our nation."

"Under this plan, ICE will be utilizing FBI system enhancements that allow improved information sharing at the state and local law enforcement level based on positive identification of incarcerated criminal aliens," said Daniel D. Roberts, assistant director of the FBI's CJIS Division. "Additionally, ICE and the FBI are working together to take advantage of the strong relationships already forged between the FBI and state and local law enforcement necessary to assist ICE in achieving its goals."

ICE is currently using the federal biometric information sharing capability in jurisdictions in the following states: Arkansas, Arizona, California, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Iowa, Idaho, Illinois, Kentucky, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Maryland, Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, North Carolina, New Mexico, Nevada, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, South Dakota, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Virginia and West Virginia.

For more information, visit: www.ice.gov/secure_communities

http://www.ice.gov/news/releases/1010/101026charleston.htm

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All Arizona counties to benefit from ICE strategy to use biometrics to identify and remove aliens convicted of a crime

PHOENIX, Ariz.-On Tuesday, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) began using a federal information sharing capability in all Arizona counties that uses biometrics to identify aliens, both lawfully and unlawfully present in the United States, who are booked into local law enforcement's custody for a crime. This information sharing capability is part of Secure Communities-ICE's comprehensive strategy to improve and modernize the identification and removal of criminal aliens from the United States.

Previously, fingerprint-based biometric records were taken of individuals charged with a crime and booked into custody and checked for criminal history information against the Department of Justice's (DOJ) Integrated Automated Fingerprint Identification System (IAFIS). Now, through enhanced information sharing between DOJ and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), fingerprint information submitted through the state to the FBI will be automatically checked against both the FBI criminal history records in IAFIS and the biometrics-based immigration records in DHS's Automated Biometric Identification System (IDENT).

If any fingerprints match those of someone in the DHS biometric system, the new automated process notifies ICE. ICE evaluates each case to determine the individual's immigration status and takes appropriate enforcement action. This includes aliens who are in lawful status and those who are present without lawful authority. Once identified through fingerprint matching, ICE will respond with a priority placed on aliens convicted of the most serious offenses first-such as those with convictions for major drug offenses, murder, rape and kidnapping.

"The Secure Communities strategy is improving public safety every day by transforming the way ICE identifies aliens in the criminal custody of law enforcement," said ICE Director John Morton. "Using this biometric information sharing tool in Arizona enables ICE to prevent the release of convicted criminal aliens back into the community when they complete their sentences."

With the expansion of the biometric information sharing capability statewide in Arizona, ICE is now using it in 746 jurisdictions in 34 states. By 2013, ICE plans to be able to respond to all fingerprint matches generated nationwide through IDENT/IAFIS interoperability.

Since ICE began using this enhanced information sharing capability in October 2008, immigration officers have removed from the United States more than 46,800 aliens convicted of a crime. ICE does not regard aliens charged with, but not yet convicted of crimes, as "criminal aliens." Instead, a "criminal alien" is an alien convicted of a crime. In accordance with the Immigration and Nationality Act, ICE continues to take action on aliens subject to removal as resources permit.

The IDENT system is maintained by DHS's US-VISIT program and IAFIS is maintained by the FBI's Criminal Justice Information Services (CJIS).

"US-VISIT is proud to support ICE, helping provide decision makers with comprehensive, reliable information when and where they need it," said US-VISIT Director Robert Mocny. "By enhancing the interoperability of DHS's and the FBI's biometric systems, we are able to give federal, state and local decision makers information that helps them better protect our communities and our nation."

"Under this plan, ICE will be utilizing FBI system enhancements that allow improved information sharing at the state and local law enforcement level based on positive identification of incarcerated criminal aliens," said Daniel D. Roberts, assistant director of the FBI's CJIS Division. "Additionally, ICE and the FBI are working together to take advantage of the strong relationships already forged between the FBI and state and local law enforcement necessary to assist ICE in achieving its goals."

ICE is currently using the federal biometric information sharing capability in jurisdictions in the following states: Arkansas, Arizona, California, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Iowa, Idaho, Illinois, Kentucky, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Maryland, Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, North Carolina, New Mexico, Nevada, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, South Dakota, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Virginia and West Virginia.

http://www.ice.gov/news/releases/1010/101026phoenix.htm

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ICE launches revamped ICE.gov website

WASHINGTON - U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is pleased to announce the launch of its newly redesigned website, ICE.gov. The new website features the latest ICE news information and an enhanced media/image gallery. The new ICE.gov also includes in depth information about the ICE Office of Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) and the ICE Office of Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO).

"We need to communicate to the public about the outstanding work that the men and women of ICE are doing every day," said Brian P. Hale, assistant director of the ICE Office of Public Affairs. "The Web has proven to be an outstanding way to tell that story, and this new site will allow us to present ICE in a more informative, accessible and compelling way."

New functionality allows users to bookmark and share articles from ICE.gov, follow ICE on Twitter and view ICE-related videos on YouTube. Users can also subscribe to receive e-mail alerts on topics ranging from human smuggling to document and benefit fraud. ICE currently has more than 12,500 subscribers.

The new site also features ICE's Online Detainee Locator System (ODLS), a public, Internet-based tool, designed to assist family members, attorneys and other interested parties in locating detained aliens in ICE custody. The ODLS was launched on July 23, 2010.

"The site was developed with the needs of the community," said Luke McCormack, ICE's chief information officer. "We examined how visitors were coming to the site, what types of information they were most frequently looking for and how they interacted with the site. With that foundation, we developed a clean, modern interface that allows the public to find what they need in the simplest way possible."

For the most up-to-date ICE information, sign up for ICE e-mail alerts. You may also visit us on Twitter and YouTube.

http://www.ice.gov/news/releases/1010/101026washington.htm

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Member of the Krazy Locos criminal street gang sentenced to life for two 2 homicides, robbery and firearms charges

MIAMI - Manuel De Jesus Medina, 19, of Lake Worth, Fla., and a member of the Krazy Locos criminal street gang, was sentenced Friday to life in prison followed by a consecutive term of 420 months imprisonment, on charges related to two homicides committed in Palm Beach County during January and February 2009.

The investigation which led to Medina's sentencing was conducted by the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Office of Homeland Security Investigations (HSI), FBI, Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and the Palm Beach County Sheriff's Office.

The charges against Medina and other gang members arose from a joint federal-state investigation into the Krazy Locos gang, which was operating throughout Palm Beach County.

As set forth in the charging documents and documents filed with the court, Medina was a member of the Krazy Locos, also known as the "KL" gang, operating primarily in Palm Beach County. The Krazy Locos has been affiliated at times with another gang, the Making Life Krazy or "MLK" gang, which also operates in Palm Beach County. From 2007 through 2009, there were approximately 40 Krazy Locos gang members and associates.

According to court documents, the Krazy Locos organization made money through the sale of controlled substances, primarily oxycodone, Xanax, methadone, cocaine, crack, and marijuana.

With respect to the prescription medications (oxycodone, Xanax, and methadone), a Krazy Locos member would sponsor a patient, that is, pay for the patient's medical visit and prescription, in exchange for a portion of the prescription medication. The gang would then re-sell the prescription medication. Members of the gang also were required to pay taxes to the gang on a weekly basis and often resorted to criminal activity to secure the money to pay their taxes.

Medina was also charged for his involvement in two homicides. Counts one through four of the second superseding information charged him with a number of offenses related to his involvement in the homicide of a person known as R.F. on Jan. 9, 2009.

The second superseding information charged that the Krazy Locos is a criminal organization whose members and associates engaged in acts of violence, including attempted murder, obstruction of justice, extortion and distribution of controlled substances, and which operated principally in Palm Beach County. Counts five through 10 of the second superseding information relate to an attempted Hobbs Act robbery in Palm Beach County that resulted in the death of a Palm Beach County man, D.R., and the serious injury of another, A.R, on Feb. 22, 2009.

On Aug. 6, 2010, Medina pleaded guilty to all charges contained in the second superseding information. He admitted that he was the person who shot and killed both R.F. and D.R. and agreed to be sentenced to the statutory maximum sentence of life imprisonment without the possibility of parole, to be followed by 35 years imprisonment.

Medina also agreed to cooperate against the leaders of the gang and provided information regarding their involvement in the two homicides.

Medina was further ordered to pay $34,396.27 in restitution.

http://www.ice.gov/news/releases/1010/101025miami.htm

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From the FBI

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On the right is a latent print taken from the San Diego crime scene. On the left, the fingerprint in the IAFIS database matched to the crime scene print by a San Diego Police Department latent print examiner.

Two Cold Cases Solved Fingerprint Technology Played Key Role October 25, 2010 January 1972. A man was murdered—stabbed more than 50 times in his San Diego, California home. His house had been ransacked, and his car was stolen. Police recovered latent fingerprints from the crime scene, but at that time there was no national automated system available to match the prints. All possible leads were followed, but the case eventually went cold. October 1978. Similar story: A man was stabbed to death inside his home in Bird Key, Florida. The house had been burglarized, and his car taken. Police found latent prints on the victim's television set, but weren't able to search the prints on a national level. Investigators exhausted every lead, but they could never identify the perpetrator. What do these decades-old murder cases have in common? Two things. They were both recently solved by local law enforcement…with the assistance of the FBI's Integrated Automated Fingerprint Identification System, or IAFIS, a national repository of fingerprints and criminal history records launched in 1999. And both cases were chosen by our Criminal Justice Information Services Division (CJIS) to receive its “Hit of the Year” award.

The annual CJIS award was first presented in 2007 in an effort to share details among police agencies about major cold cases solved when IAFIS identified latent prints.

The 2010 Hit of the Year recognized the 1972 San Diego case, which was reopened in 2008 by the San Diego Police Department. Latent prints collected from the victim's house back in 1972 were submitted to IAFIS. The system came up with 20 possible matches. A San Diego Police Department latent print expert the compared the matches with the crime scene latents and made an identification—an individual who had been previously been tried and acquitted on murder charges in Texas. The suspect was located in Texas, and his prints were taken and compared to prints found on a cigarette lighter at the crime scene and in the victim's recovered car. The case went to trial with the fingerprints and other evidence, including DNA. And even though the trial ended with a deadlocked jury, the defendant eventually pled guilty to the crime in order to avoid a second trial.

Key members of the team responsible for closing the case included lead Detective John Tefft (now retired), Crime Scene Specialist Dorie Savage, and Latent Print Examiner Gloria Pasqual. Congratulations on a job well done! 

The 2009 Hit of the Year went to the Florida case. The Sarasota Police Department reopened the investigation in 2008 with the hope that current forensic technology would help solve it. The latent prints recovered from the television set were searched in IAFIS, and within 15 minutes, a response was returned with a list of possible suspects and their prints. A latent print expert from the Sarasota PD compared the prints and made a positive identification—a California man with extensive criminal records in multiple states. He was located in California and extradited to Florida. And with the help of additional evidence, including DNA evidence left at the crime scene, he was convicted of the crime.

Special recognition goes to Sarasota Police Department Detective Patrick Robinson and Crime Scene Unit Supervisor Jocelyn Masten for their excellent work on this case.

While there will never be any substitute for solid police work, today's forensic technology can be a great help in identifying violent criminals and getting them off our streets.

http://www.fbi.gov/news/stories/2010/october/latent_102510/latent_102510

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