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From the Los Angeles Times

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Congressman launching probe into local Muslim radicalization

Rep. Peter King, chairman of the House Committee on Homeland Security, says more young American Muslims are contemplating terrorism at the prodding of religious leaders in the U.S.

Washington Bureau

January 16, 2011

Reporting from Washington

The new chairman of the House Committee on Homeland Security is preparing a controversial investigation next month into what he calls a "very real threat" — the radicalization of young Muslims by local religious leaders.

Many officials have praised cooperation from Muslim religious leaders in the United States and blamed the growing number of young American Muslims willing to contemplate terrorism on radicals overseas reaching out through the Internet.

But Rep. Peter T. King (R-N.Y.) said he had heard an increasing number of stories from federal law enforcement officials that U.S. Islamic leaders have not cooperated with police or are fomenting young Muslims.

"There's a systematic effort to radicalize young Muslim men," King said. "It would be irresponsible of me not to have this investigation. If it was coming from some other demographic group, I would say the same thing."

U.S. Islamic leaders said King was unfairly tarring the Muslim community, which they said had helped U.S. law enforcement break up terrorist plots.

Rep. Keith Ellison (D-Minn.), the sole Muslim member of Congress, said in an interview that he recently approached King on the House floor and offered to volunteer himself and other witnesses as proof that several terrorist plots — including those in Times Square and in Virginia — were initially brought to the attention of federal law enforcement by Muslims.

"I walked up to him like a colleague and said, 'Pete, I'm kind of concerned about this,' " Ellison said.

King is considering Ellison's offer. But he remains unmoved by the growing criticism, saying his weeklong hearings will go forward.

King noted that Army Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, the suspected Ft. Hood shooter, had worshipped at a mosque in Falls Church, Va., where U.S.-born radical cleric Anwar Awlaki was once a spiritual leader. Awlaki is now believed to be living in Yemen.

King also cited three other cases: A young Muslim in the Washington suburb of Ashburn, Va., was arrested on allegations that he tried to blow up subway lines feeding the Pentagon; another young Muslim in Portland, Ore., is accused of attempting to detonate a bomb during a Christmas tree lighting ceremony; and a new Muslim convert in Baltimore is accused of planning to blow up an Army recruiting station.

He said there were signs in each of these cases of radicalization by local religious leaders, and added that 15% of young American Muslims in a Pew poll believed suicide bombing was justified.

"I also know of imams instructing members of their mosques not to cooperate with law enforcement investigating the recruiting of young men in their mosques as suicide bombers," he said. "We need to find the reasons for this alienation."

But Ellison pointed to a case in which five young men in Virginia traveled to Pakistan to join militant groups, only to "have their parents step forward to stop them" by tipping off police. He also mentioned Faisal Shahzad, who was arrested and sentenced to life in prison last year for trying to detonate a bomb in his SUV in New York's Times Square. It was a Muslim immigrant from Senegal who alerted police to the suspicious vehicle.

"The bottom line is you have people who desperately want to help protect their country," Ellison said, "and they are being nudged out of that opportunity because we're told we are the problem."

Corey P. Saylor, national legislative director for the Council on American-Islamic Relations, said two members of his organization had alerted police to possible terrorist plots.

Saylor called King's investigation a "witch hunt." But Ellison said, "I don't think Pete King is an evil person. He's concerned about public safety and homeland security. And there have been cases where Muslims have done awful things. But it's a narrow investigation, and it's going to make a particular group feel targeted."

William C. Martel, an international security expert and professor at Tufts University, said that though the threat of radicalization from abroad was greater, it was "prudent" to investigate radicalization inside the U.S. as well.

"We need to understand all of the forces, whether overseas or here at home," he said. "It's much more severe overseas, obviously. But I don't think it's a nonzero situation here. It would be prudent to understand what's going on here in this regard, too."

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-american-muslims-20110116,0,2574423,print.story

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Shooting victim arrested, accused of threat

James Eric Fuller, who was shot in the knee and back in last week's Tucson rampage, allegedly shouts, 'You're dead!' at a 'tea party' activist during a town hall meeting for victims and witnesses.

by Nicole Santa Cruz and Kate Linthicum, Los Angeles Times

January 15, 2011

Reporting from Tucson and Los Angeles

A man who was wounded in last week's shooting rampage in Tucson was apprehended by authorities Saturday after he allegedly threatened a "tea party" activist at a town hall meeting of victims and eyewitnesses of the attack.

James Eric Fuller, a 63-year-old Democratic activist, was arrested after shouting "You're dead!" at Tucson Tea Party spokesman Trent Humphries, said Pima County Sheriff's Department spokesman Jason Ogan. Fuller was shot in the knee and back Jan. 8 when a gunman opened fire, killing six and injuring 13, including Democratic Rep. Gabrielle Giffords.

Fuller, a disabled veteran and former campaign volunteer for Giffords, was charged with making threats, intimidation and disorderly conduct and was involuntarily committed for a psychiatric evaluation, Ogan said.

In an interview with Democracy Now on Thursday, Fuller linked the shooting to conservative leaders associated with the tea party, including Sarah Palin, Fox News commentator Glenn Beck and Nevada Senate candidate Sharron Angle. "It looks like Palin, Beck, Sharron Angle and the rest got their first target," Fuller said.

The town hall, organized for an ABC News special, "After the Tragedy: An American Conversation Continued," was held at St. Odilia Catholic Church, which two of the shooting victims attended.

Jim Kolbe, a former Republican congressman, said Fuller "was clearly more emotional about the town hall than anyone else" at the event. Near the end of the taping, the subject turned to gun control. Humphries, who has opposed gun-control laws, was being interviewed on the matter when Fuller interrupted. Deputies escorted him from the scene.

According to Kolbe, the incident "demonstrates the weariness that people have right now."

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-arizona-shooting-threat-20110116,0,1319855,print.story

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Black man's burden

African American men are still often judged by the color of their skin rather than the content of their character.

by Judy Belk

January 16, 2011

At some point, most African American men experience a painful social initiation. My son Ryan was 13 when his came. At the time, we were living in Oakland. I worked across the bay in downtown San Francisco, and Ryan was planning to take BART into the city to meet me for lunch. It was only his third or fourth time riding the subway alone, and even though he was practically 6 feet, he was known to get distracted, and I was a worrywart.

"Don't talk to strangers; don't miss the Montgomery Street stop; clue in to your surroundings. Move away from strange-acting folks."

Without missing a beat, he quietly said, "Mom, relax. I think some people think I'm one of the strange-acting folks. Other mothers are probably warning their kids to stay away from people like me."

My heart practically stopped. "Why do you say that?"

"Oh, I just noticed the last couple of times I was on BART, I could feel I was making several white women nervous when I sat near them."

"How do you know that?"

"I could just tell."

"I'm sure it's your imagination," I insisted. But deep down, I knew. I knew something had shifted, both in how the world viewed my son and in how he viewed himself. He couldn't put his finger on it, but he knew something was up.

Racism is like that. A dripping faucet of sorts. You ignore it until you can't anymore. I so desperately wanted to slow down the inevitable. Stop the drip. Couldn't he have just one more year of innocence in which he could believe that his black skin was nothing more than what it is — a physical attribute rather than the definition to others of who he is and what he can or can't do.

But Ryan was already one step ahead of me in coming up with coping strategies.

"Don't worry, Mom, I figured out a solution. I just take out a book and start reading, which seems to make everybody relax." One woman, he said, even asked if he was enjoying a particular book as much as she did.

As a black woman who loves two amazing black men — my husband and 23-year-old son — I have seen again and again how society either assumes the worst of them or treats them as an exception to their race and manhood. It is a minefield black men must navigate.

During Ryan's teen years, he struggled, sometimes lashing out at us. After reading "The Autobiography of Malcolm X," he concluded that my husband and I were "Toms" for our "bourgeois lifestyle" — a lifestyle he took full advantage of, I might add. Other times, his anger was directed at anyone who looked at him sideways.

One day when he was 16, he stormed into the house complaining to no one in particular: "Why does everyone assume that just because I'm black, I play basketball? That's just plain racist."

My husband, without looking up from the newspaper, responded nonchalantly, "Do you think it has anything to do with you being 6-foot-5?"

Ryan grunted something under his breath before lumbering off to his room. But we all knew that although that was undoubtedly part of the equation, it wasn't all of it.

Like so many other young black men, Ryan made it to adulthood armed with both the understanding and the burden of what it means to be a black man in America. He has no illusions. He knows that he has to be better than others at whatever he decides to do in life, and that he has to be more careful. That's the part I worry about most.

Recently, Ryan started graduate school at the University of North Carolina, where he is working toward his doctorate in history. The night he and my husband arrived in town to move him into his new apartment, they were stopped on the interstate by the police, allegedly for not moving to the outer lane when passing a police car that had stopped another driver.

Male relatives later told us that this particular stretch of road was treacherous territory for black men, especially for those driving cars with out-of-state license plates. My husband told me he was glad to have been there to model for Ryan how to behave during a police stop, something every black man needs to be prepared to handle. Like it or not, racial profiling still plays into many law enforcement decisions. Odds are that even as Ryan prepares for life as a law-abiding historian, this will not be his last unsolicited encounter with the police.

The days are long gone when I can protect Ryan from the inequities of life. But I pay attention to the news, and I worry. This winter I was not alone among black mothers to be dismayed when police identified a "person of interest" in the killing of publicist Ronni Chasen. The man, who ultimately killed himself, was thought to have possibly shot Chasen while riding his bike through Beverly Hills late at night. He was black.

This year, when my son was home for the holidays, I found myself in worrywart mode again. It was all I could do to resist making a motherly suggestion: Perhaps the city of Beverly Hills should be off-limits for any bicycle outings.

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-belk-black-men-20110116,0,6317965,print.story

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Broken-down-door policing

A Kentucky marijuana arrest presents a troubling threat to Americans' right to privacy.

January 16, 2011

A police officer smells what he thinks is marijuana and knocks loudly on an apartment door, shouting "This is the police!" When he hears noises that may or may not be the destruction of evidence, he breaks down the door, finds drugs and arrests the occupant — all without a search warrant. That occurred in Kentucky in 2005, and last week the Supreme Court was asked to overturn a lower court and rule that it was constitutional. It should decline the invitation.

The legal issue in the case is technical, but the implications for personal privacy are not small. If the court rules for the state, it will approve a significant new loophole in the requirement that police obtain a warrant before searching a home.

The narrow question before the court is whether — or when — police may take advantage of "exigent circumstances" that they create themselves. Exigent circumstances are conditions — imminent danger, the possibility that a suspect will escape or concern about the immediate destruction of evidence — that allow police to conduct a search without a warrant.

In this case, lawyers for Hollis King argued that although there may have been exigent circumstances, the police created those circumstances — the noise suggesting the destruction of evidence — by shouting and knocking violently on King's door, giving the impression that they were about to enter.

During oral arguments, Justice Stephen G. Breyer outlined what could happen if the court ruled for the police:

"Well, the police say, Oh, I don't want to get a warrant. It's such a bore. We have other things to do, I have a great idea; let's knock at the door, and as soon as he starts moving around … I know what! He's going to the … bathroom.... We'll hear that, and we'll be able to get in."

The state of Kentucky argued that King's conviction should be upheld because the police obeyed the law at every step. But Justice Elena Kagan noted that some courts had taken a more "holistic" approach to evaluating police behavior, one that asked the question: "Is the whole process by which the police operated with respect to this person reasonable?" The search of King's apartment fails that test.

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/editorials/la-ed-search-20110116,0,192199,print.story

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From the New York Times

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Guns and the Border

In December, the Obama administration signaled a welcome new resolve to block the torrent of illegal guns moving into Mexico and the hands of the drug cartels.

The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives announced it was seeking emergency authority to require 8,000 gun dealers near the border to report multiple purchases by any individual of high-firepower semiautomatic rifles that use a detachable magazine.

The bureau asked the Office of Management and Budget, which must sign off on the plan, to do so by Jan. 5. That date has come and gone without a decision.

The death toll in Mexico's drug wars is staggering — more than 30,000 people killed as of last year. The role of American-purchased guns in that carnage is also undeniable. In the past four years, more than 60,000 guns connected to crimes in Mexico have been tracked back to American gun dealers. About three-quarters of those weapons originated from gun shops in Texas, Arizona, New Mexico and California, the four states covered by the A.T.F. plan.

Administration officials insist that approval will be coming soon, and we hope that is the case. But the delay is worrying. (Before the A.T.F. spoke up, the idea had languished at the Justice Department for months.)

The gun lobby and some vocal allies on Capitol Hill have denounced the proposal, claiming that this reasonable effort to track down gun traffickers threatens Americans' gun rights and exceeds the A.T.F.'s mandate. The bureau's authority to demand information from a limited group of dealers shown to present elevated risks of crime has been upheld by courts in other cases.

The budget office needs to approve the A.T.F. initiative. And the White House needs to press Congress to provide the bureau with funding for more inspectors, as well as more authority to identify and shut down see-no-evil gun dealers. Not just at the border, but everywhere.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/16/opinion/16sun2.html?ref=opinion&pagewanted=print

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From Google News

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Arrest made in case of slain N.J. police officer

Jahmell W. Crockam is accused of shooting Lakewood Patrolman Christopher Matlosz Friday afternoon after the officer drove up to him and began to question him.

He was arrested without incident in Camden on Sunday morning, according to a law enforcement official with knowledge of the case who was not authorized to speak publicly.

The suspect had already been returned to Lakewood, where he was being held Sunday morning. He is expected to be brought before a judge on Tuesday. A judge has already set bail for him at $5 million, with no opportunity to post 10% of that amount in cash to gain his release.

Authorities plan to release details of the arrest at an 11 a.m. news conference.

Crockam, whose street name is "Sav," — short for "Savage" — had fled to Camden, a poor city on the opposite side of the state, just across the Delaware River from Philadelphia. A dragnet encompassing at least three states and more than 100 officers had been searching for him since the shooting Friday at 4 p.m.

Authorities have said 27-year-old Matlosz drove up to Crockam as Crockam was walking and began speaking with him in a non-confrontational manner when the suspect suddenly stepped back, pulled out a handgun and shot the officer three times.

The suspect fled on foot, touching off a massive house-to-house search that involved armored vehicles, officers clad in body armor, teams of search dogs and helicopters.

Crockam had been a fugitive since December 29, when the prosecutor's office obtained an arrest warrant for him on charges of possessing an illegal rifle and hollow-point bullets. It was not immediately clear whether Matlosz knew of the arrest warrant or whether that was why he approached Crockam and began talking to him Friday afternoon.

Matlosz had been on the Lakewood police force for four years, and was engaged to be married next year.

His fiancee, Kelly Walsifer, issued a statement expressing her devastation over Matlosz's death, which came about four months after the death of his father.

"Chris was my best friend and soul mate. We did everything together. In the last 4 years, we both lived our life to the fullest," the statement said. "He was my life and my world. He made me laugh, he made others laugh, and we have been surrounded by the best of friends and co-workers throughout our time together."

The statement continued: "He just lost his father and now it brings me some peace to know that he is with him."

http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2011-01-16-nj-shooting_N.htm

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Young AZ victim's dad: Boston girl received organs

BOSTON -- The father of the youngest victim of the Arizona massacre says some of her organs have been donated to a young girl in the Boston area.

John Green tells The Boston Globe in Sunday's edition that he received a phone call about the transplant, but says he doesn't know any other details about the donation.

He says the call "really lifted" his spirit and says he and his wife are proud parents once again of their daughter, "who has done another amazing thing."

Nine-year-old Christina Taylor Green was born Sept. 11, 2001.

She had just been elected to her Tucson school's student council, which is why she went to see Rep. Gabrielle Giffords.

A spokesman for the New England Organ Bank tells the Globe he can't comment on donations.

The Arizona Republic on Friday reported that Tucson's Bishop Gerald Kicanas told the crowd at Christina's funeral that her organs had been donated.

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/ap/nation/7383962.html

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Cleric: Muslims have role in relationship building

DETROIT (AP) — The cleric who became the public face of efforts to build an Islamic center near ground zero in New York is urging Muslims to play a role in shaping relationships with America.

Feisal Abdul Rauf began a national speaking tour Saturday in Detroit that he says is aimed at inspiring "interfaith understanding." The Detroit area is home to the largest Muslim population in North America.

The imam told about 400 people attending a diversity forum that backlash against Islam that arose from the mosque plan was "triggered by a mix of race, religion and politics in America." He says Muslims must help "depoliticize our faith."

The nonprofit behind the mosque plan announced Friday that Rauf's role would be reduced because it needs someone available locally to build a congregation.

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5g6lNh8ZQy_dYJ2z9EfwBcs3WJMfQ?docId=0cd352b35c7e49ec8bae86caa083b33c

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