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From the Los Angeles Times

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L.A. County jails

February 26, 2011

The Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department is warning the public of a telephone scam being run out of county jail facilities by inmates.

The scam allows inmates to charge collect calls to unsuspecting consumers through the use of call forwarding, according to Deputy Robert Boese, and involves the use of the *72 function on telephones.

Here's how the ruse works: A person receives a telephone call from a person claiming to work for a public safety agency or hospital. The caller will claim that a relative of the recipient has been jailed or hurt in an accident, and then instructs him or her to call a telephone number that starts with the prefix *72 for more information.

The prefix activates the victim's call forwarding feature (if he or she is a subscriber). The victim's incoming calls are then forwarded to the telephone number that was provided by the scammer -- usually the number for a friend or relative of the inmate.

"So if I'm an inmate, all I have to do is make a collect call to your number, which is forwarded to the other number," Boese said. "The person on the other line accepts the collect call and the fee goes to your phone bill."

The Sheriff's Department discovered the scam when deputies began receiving an increasing number of phone calls from people complaining of calls from the jail that appeared on their phone bills, authorities said.

The Sheriff's Department and the California Public Utilities Commission say the scam is not confined to L.A. County jails. They say con artists on the outside are also cheating telephone service subscribers.

Consumers can turn off the call forwarding feature by dialing prefix *73. Authorities also suggest that people call their phone companies and ask if they have call forwarding features.

People who have been victims of the scam are asked to report it to the California Public Utilities Commission's consumer hotline at (800) 649-7570 .

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/

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Passenger on flight from Baltimore to San Diego was infected with measles, officials warn

Passengers aboard a Southwest Airlines flight from Baltimore to Denver and San Diego on Feb. 22 are in danger of contracting measles because one of the passengers was infected with the virus, San Diego County health officials said Saturday.

Passengers are being contacted by health workers and warned that if they have not had an anti-measles vaccination that they should be on the lookout for early symptoms: a rash, red eyes, a runny nose or a cough.

The infectious passenger left the flight in Denver. But even those unvaccinated passengers who boarded in Denver for San Diego are at risk because the measles virus can hang in the air and live on surfaces for up to two hours, officials said.

When the flight arrived in San Diego, there were 138 passengers.

Dr. Wilma Wooten, the San Diego County public health officer, advised passengers to call their doctors in advance of spotting any symptoms so that exposure to others can be limited.

While there is a vaccine to prevent measles, there is no cure once the virus takes hold. Bed rest, fluids and fever-control are the best treatments, officials said.

The measles virus can quickly infect people who have not been vaccinated. There are documented cases of people being infected who did not get within 100 feet of an infected person, Wooten said.

"Measles is so contagious that if one person has it, 90% of the people close to that person who are not immune will also become infected," Wooten said.

By law, a case of measles must be reported to health officials. That's how officials discovered that a person with the virus was on the flight.

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/

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Then and Now: Taking the measure of a criminal

The long arm of the law once checked feet, fingers and heads to identify repeat criminals. And then along came fingerprints.

by Steve Harvey, Los Angeles Times

February 27, 2011

Long before "CSI: Crime Scene Investigation," there was (drum roll, please):

BAI: Bertillon Anthropometric Identification!

Well, maybe the title wouldn't have been catchy enough for a TV show.

But the Los Angeles Police Department's adoption of the Bertillon system in 1898 began a short, colorful chapter in the struggle to single out habitual lawbreakers.

Until then, a lack of accurate records prompted many judges to treat career bad guys as first-time offenders, leading to their early release.

Fingerprinting was still about a decade away and DNA analysis almost a century off.

French criminologist Alphonse Bertillon's system measured dozens of parts of the body whose size couldn't be altered — for instance, the lengths of the head, the forearm, the foot and the middle finger (yes, flashing a middle finger was once an official part of the processing of prisoners).

The length of the head, from the bottom of the chin to the crown, was broken into small, medium and large categories, with medium ranging from about 7.4 to 7.6 inches.

The files were cross-indexed according to measurements, along with name, sex, race, birthmarks and scars.

Other cities also adopted Bertillon and the data were shared, which proved useful, The Times noted in 1909, because "Eastern crooks migrate to Los Angeles every winter."

"Anthropometrics" is the study of the human body's measurements.

No such system was needed in more primitive times because criminals could be branded, tattooed or maimed for easy identification.

Or they could face a worse fate. Hanging, a common sentence in the British Empire, for example, canceled any chance of repeat offenses.

But with criminal justice reforms (and more lenient sentences) in the mid-19th century, it became necessary to keep accurate records on offenders.

Early attempts weren't always effective.

In terms of evidence, an arrested person's name "counts for little," The Times pointed out a century ago. "He can change it every five minutes if he wants to. His age amounts to less, and his weight is almost worthless."

Photographing — or "mugging" — suspects also had its limitations.

"Prisoners frequently try to disguise their height an inch or two [downward] by pushing out their stomach" or "stand on tiptoes" to add to their height, The Times said.

Then there was the occasional suspect who bedeviled police photographers by "distorting his features and making faces."

One accused killer in New York had had his head shaved by the time police found him, and witnesses were unable to identify him.

So, The Times said, "it was necessary to keep him in jail until his hair grew out before he could be convicted."

Of course, some disguises were less than ingenious.

A few novice lawbreakers donned glasses that had false colored eyes imprinted on the lenses, allowing a brown-eyed person to appear to have blue orbs.

Police pointed out that the fake specs were "evidence enough" of criminal behavior and "hard to get rid of once a man is in the hands of the police."

In the 1890s, the LAPD's Identification Bureau displayed "a rogues' gallery" of local convicts at the old Central Police Station on 1st Street, "a motley array of pictures hung about on the walls or pasted on big sheets of cardboard in a glass cabinet."

As the city — and its crime — grew the gallery was taken down for space reasons, and the photos were transferred to file cabinets.

Before Bertillon, no one knew the number of rogues who appeared in more than one photo under aliases.

But using the new system, the police were able to ascertain that they had three mug shots, all under different names, of a bunko artist known as Kid Reagan.

Reagan, not surprisingly, initially "denied he'd ever been 'mugged' before," The Times said.

And police determined that a morphine addict who called himself George Murray, but also used the last names Mannheimer and Sherman, measured up in reality to be one Charles Cohen, an international "dip" (pickpocket). He was described as "a veritable Houdini with handcuffs and jail locks." There's no mention of whether he sneaked out of jail again to take on a new alias.

Although it had positive results, the Bertillon method involved a lot of paperwork. And there were questions about the ability of police officers to measure heads and other body parts.

In any event, the adoption of fingerprinting by Los Angeles police around 1910 led to the demise of Bertillon.

As the Baltimore Sun observed, going from "cumbersome anthropometry measurements to fingerprinting was sort of like going from a bulky box of vacuum tubes to a microchip. It was faster, more precise, with less room for error."

And more bad news for the likes of Kid Reagan.

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-then-20110227,0,6484578,print.story

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From the New York Times

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Suddenly, a Rise in Piracy's Price

At some point, Thomas Jefferson realized, you just can't do business with pirates any more.

For years, the infant American government, along with many others, had accepted the humiliating practice of paying tribute — essentially mob-style protection fees — to a handful of rulers in the Barbary states so that American ships crossing the Mediterranean would not get hijacked. But in 1801, Tripoli's pasha, Yusuf Karamanli, tried to jack up his prices. Jefferson said no. And when the strongman turned his pirates loose on American ships, Jefferson sent in the Navy to bombard Tripoli, starting a war that eventually brought the Barbary states to their knees. Rampant piracy went to sleep for nearly 200 years.

The question now is: Are we nearing another enough-is-enough moment with pirates?

On Tuesday, Somali pirates shot and killed four American hostages. A single hostage intentionally killed by these pirates had been almost unheard of; four dead was unprecedented. Until now, the first thing that came to mind about Somalia's buccaneers was that they were brash and mercurial. Just a few weeks ago they let go some Sri Lankan fishermen after they essentially said, “You're poor, like us.” They were seen as a nuisance, albeit an expensive one, but not a lethal threat.

Exactly what happened Tuesday is still murky. Pirates in the Arabian Sea had hijacked a sailboat skippered by a retired couple from California, and when the American Navy closed in, the pirates got twitchy. Navy Seals rushed aboard but it was too late. It's still not clear why the pirates would want to kill the hostages when their business model, which has raked in more than $100 million in the past few years, is based on ransoming captives alive.

“Of course, I do not know what the U.S. will do in response to this latest atrocity,” said Frank Lambert, a professor at Purdue who is an expert on the Barbary pirates. But, he said, “Jefferson advocated an armed response and eventually war against Tripoli for far less provocation.”

For years now, Somali pirates with fiberglass skiffs and salt-rusted Kalashnikovs have been commandeering ships along one of the most congested shipping routes in the world — the Gulf of Aden, a vital conduit for Middle East oil to Europe and the United States. More than 50 vessels are now held captive, from Thai fishing trawlers to European supertankers, with more than 800 hostages. Those numbers grow each year.

But the international response has been limited, partly because the most promising remedies are intensely complicated and risky. Western powers, including the United States, have sent warships to cruise Somalia's coast and discourage attacks. When a vessel is hijacked, ship owners cough up a ransom, nowadays in the neighborhood of $5 million, and most of that cost gets passed to the end user — consumers. Until recently, most hostages would emerge unharmed, albeit skinny and pale from being locked in a filthy room. The average time in captivity is around six months.

But recently the pirates have been getting more vicious; reports have emerged of beatings, of being hung upside down, even of being forced at gunpoint to join in raids. And now the pirates have gunned down four Americans.

“I think there's going to be some type of retaliation,” said a European diplomat in Nairobi, Kenya, who trades ideas on anti-piracy strategies with other diplomats and was instructed not to speak publicly about the issues. “I could see the Americans going after the pirate bosses, the organizers, maybe even blockade some of the ports that they use,” he speculated. “I don't think the Americans are going to invade Somalia, because of Iraq and Afghanistan, but they can use local allies.” Another obvious possibility would be American Special Forces, who have killed terrorism suspects in Somalia.

The American government isn't revealing its plans but officials suggest — as long as they are not quoted by name — that the killings of the four Americans could be a game-changer. “We get it,” said one State Department official. “We get the need to recalibrate.”

Any course of action, however, will confront two huge obstacles: the immensity of the sea and the depth of chaos in Somalia.

The pirates used to stick relatively close to Somalia's shores. But now, using “mother ships” — hijacked vessels that serve as floating bases — they attack ships more than 1,000 miles away. Sometimes that puts them closer to India than to home. The red zone now covers more than one million square miles of water, an area naval officers say is impossible to control.

Piracy Inc. is a sprawling operation on land, too. It offers work to tens of thousands of Somalis — middle-managers, translators, bookkeepers, mechanics, gunsmiths, guards, boat builders, women who sell tea to pirates, others who sell them goats. In one of the poorest lands on earth, piracy isn't just a business; it's a lifeline.

And this gets to the real problem.

“The root cause is state failure,” the American official said.

Somalia's central government collapsed more than 20 years ago, and now its landscape includes droughts, warlords, fighters allied to Al Qaeda, and malnutrition, suffering and death on a scale unseen just about anywhere else.

The United States and other Western powers are pouring millions of dollars into Somalia's transitional government, an appointed body with little legitimacy on the ground, in the hope, perhaps vain, that it can rebuild the world's most failed state and create an economy based on something like fishing or livestock. Young men then might be able to earn a living doing something other than sticking up ships.

But the transitional government has been divided, feckless and corrupt. Islamist rebels control much of the country. Few Somalis think the nation will stop being a war zone any time soon.

The shipping industry seems to know this.

“Until things change on land, you have to come down very hard on them at sea,” said Cyrus Mody, manager of the International Maritime Bureau in London.

Shipping companies are frustrated, he said, because while many pirates are apprehended at sea by foreign navies, the vast majority are typically released unless they are caught in the act of a hijacking a ship — which is a very narrow window because once pirates control a vessel, it's extremely dangerous to intervene.

“The laws have to be amended,” Mr. Mody said. “Why would a skiff be 800 miles off Somalia with a rocket-propelled grenade, a ladder and extra barrels of fuel? What are they doing? Fishing? These people need to be arrested and prosecuted.”

The last resort is military action. Many people ask: Why not storm ashore and attack the pirate bases? These dens are well known. I even visited one last year and met a pirate boss who was using millions of dollars in ransoms to build a land-based army that at first glance looked more disciplined and better equipped than Somalia's national army.

But the military option would not be pretty. The 800 or so captured seamen could be used as human shields. And no Western country has shown an appetite to send troops to Somalia, not after the Black Hawk Down fiasco of 1993, when ragtag Somali militiamen downed two American helicopters and killed 18 elite American troops. And a military attack could easily backfire. “They might kill a few pirates, but more would certainly spring up to replace them,” said Bronwyn Bruton, who wrote a widely discussed essay on Somalia. “The replacements would probably be even angrier and more violent.” In her essay, she advised the international community to essentially pull out and let Somalis sort out their problems on their own.

She added that collateral damage from a raid could be severe and “a lot of civilian casualties could actually wind up aggravating a much bigger security threat to the U.S. — terrorism.”

So it seems that Jefferson may have had an easier piracy problem to solve.

“I can offer a couple thoughts based on the U.S.'s dealing with pirates more than 200 years ago,” Mr. Lambert said. “If the U.S. response is a vigorous military response, it is likely to be difficult, costly, and prolonged” — a reference to the war that followed bombardment of the coast.

But, he warned, “If it is a continuation of the present policy (whatever that is), it is almost a certainty that we will see more or perhaps escalated atrocities. ‘'

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/27/weekinreview/27pirates.html?_r=1&ref=world&pagewanted=print

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Lawmakers Debate Effect of Weapons on Campus

PHOENIX — Along with the meaning of life and the origin of the universe, college students across the country have another existential question to ponder: the wisdom of allowing guns in class.

In Arizona, known for its gun-friendly ways, state lawmakers are pushing three bills this year focused on arming professors and others over the age of 21 on Arizona campuses. Sponsors talk of how professors and students are now sitting ducks for the next deranged gunman to charge through the classroom door. Some gun rights advocates go so far as to say that grade school teachers ought to be armed as well, although even this state is not ready for that proposition.

About a dozen legislatures nationwide, concerned about the potential for campus shootings, are considering arming their academies. Gun control advocates say Texas is probably the most likely to pass such a measure, with Arizona also in the mix.

Arizona's proposals to loosen restrictions on campus weaponry, coming so soon after the shooting rampage in Tucson that left six dead and 13 wounded, have prompted a fierce debate at the state's public universities, with significant brain power focusing on the issue of firepower. Administrators and campus police chiefs at Arizona State University, Northern Arizona University and the University of Arizona have all expressed opposition to allowing guns. Faculty members are circulating petitions against guns as well. Most, but not all, students also appear opposed.

Still, the state's powerful gun lobby, with allies galore in the Legislature, is pushing hard. The notion has been floated in previous legislative sessions, but this year proponents believe they may have the momentum to get it done.

“We can't rest on our laurels,” said Todd Rathner, who runs the Rathner & Associates lobbying firm and is working to have Colt named the state's official firearm. “We're making inroads, but I've been in politics long enough to know that the pendulum swings and there is no way to know if the pendulum won't swing in the other direction.”

Campus shootouts are a relative rarity, but they do occur. The most notorious shooting at an Arizona university took place in 2002 when a disgruntled nursing student shot three professors to death.

Anthony Daykin, the police chief at the University of Arizona in Tucson, where the shootings occurred, said his officers would be at a loss if they arrived at a shooting scene in a lecture hall holding hundreds of students and found scores of people pointing, and possibly shooting, weapons at one another.

One student who found himself in the midst of a campus shooting agreed. “I don't think two people having guns and firing them in public is that good of an idea,” said Nate Hightower, who was at South Mountain Community College in Phoenix in 2008 when a former student opened fire in a dispute with another young man, injuring three people.

On Feb. 14, there could have been a shooting at a Phoenix-area high school. Officials say a student had intended to kill a teacher, but a classmate told the authorities that the student had a gun before he could carry out his plan.

Keeping guns out, not allowing more in, is the answer, critics of the bills say. Others contend that allowing guns on campus will help ensure that universities stay relatively tranquil.

State Representative Jack Harper, who introduced a bill allowing professors to carry guns, said an Arizona State University professor, whom he has refused to identify, first raised the issue with him. “When law-abiding, responsible adults are able to defend themselves, crime is deterred,” Mr. Harper said in a statement.

That is the philosophy in Arizona as a whole, where gun laws are among the least restrictive in the country. If law-abiding people can carry guns one step outside the campus to keep criminals at bay, supporters ask, why not allow them to enter a university with their firearms? That is already permitted in Utah, alone so far in allowing guns to be carried on all state campuses.

“I think that every person has the right to bear arms no matter what the circumstances,” said Ashlyn Lucero, a political science student at Arizona State University who has served in the Marine Corps, is the daughter of a sheriff and grew up hunting.

Ms. Lucero carries her Glock pistol whenever possible and would carry it on campus if she could. “If I'm going out to eat somewhere, I usually have a gun with me always,” she said. “It's just one of those things that you never know what's going to happen.”

Thor Mikesell, a senior majoring in music who grew up hunting, is also a backer of allowing guns on campus. “There's no magic line, there's no magic barrier that makes me more safe on the campus than it is when I'm being a real person in the real world outside of the school,” he said.

Mr. Mikesell said he does not carry his gun with him all the time because his girlfriend objects. But he does not consider gun carriers extreme.

“This is not the 1890s' O.K. Corral shoot 'em up, bang 'em up,” he said. “These are not vigilante kind of people. Their interest is their personal security and the security of their family.”

The State Senate president, Russell Pearce, who recently said he would not prevent senators from taking guns into the Senate chamber despite rules against it, is an advocate for loosening as many gun restrictions as possible.

There are a bevy of other gun proposals this year, including measures that would allow guns in public buildings and make the Republican-dominated Legislature the sole arbiter of gun laws throughout the state. A Democratic proposal to restrict the sale of high-capacity magazines like those used in the Tucson shooting stands little chance of passing.

“Guns save lives, and it's a constitutional right of our citizens,” Mr. Pearce said of the guns-on-campus proposal. Speaking of the Tucson shooting, which took place at a shopping center and not on a university campus, Mr. Pearce, a former sheriff's deputy, said, “If somebody had been there prepared to take action, they could have saved lives.”

Carmen Themar, a program coordinator at the University of Arizona College of Nursing, was at the university on the morning nine years ago when a student began moving through the building and shooting professors. Despite the terror of the episode, she is not convinced that more guns would have prevented the attacks.

“Let's say we had guns on the campus back then,” she said. “We might have had a shootout, more bullets in the air, and bullets don't always go where they are aimed.”

Anne Mariucci, the chairwoman of the Arizona Board of Regents, the governing board for the state's universities, said she would prefer that universities be places where disagreements are resolved by debating, not squeezing the trigger.

“Yes, the world is a dangerous place these days, but I don't think you fight fire with fire,” she said. “I don't think that bringing guns on campuses is the image of the peaceful, civil discourse that universities are supposed to be about.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/27/us/politics/27guns.html?ref=us&pagewanted=print

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From Google News

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Immunity prevents Arizona lawmaker's arrest after freeway fight

(CNN) -- Police say they did not detain an Arizona state senator who was involved in a domestic violence incident over the weekend because state law gives him immunity from arrest while the legislature is in session.

Officers responding to the scene of a reported altercation on a Phoenix-area highway Friday night found state Sen. Scott Bundgaard and his girlfriend, Aubry Ballard.

Both had marks on them indicating they had been involved in a physical dispute -- constituting an act of domestic violence on the part of both individuals, Phoenix police spokesman Sgt. Tommy Thompson said.

Ballard was arrested and charged with misdemeanor assault. Bundgaard was not, but could later face charges from the city attorney's office, Thompson said.

Bundgaard, a Republican and the state senate majority leader, said the dispute began on the way home from a charity "Dancing with the Stars" fundraiser, after Ballard accused him of "inappropriately touching" his dance partner.

"She proceeded to throw my clothes and other things out of my car on a freeway as I took her home," Bundgaard said in a statement.

The senator said he tried to stop his girlfriend from punching him, which resulted in marks on her knees.

"I have never inappropriately touched a woman and never would. There was no domestic violence," Bundgaard said.

Ballard described the incident as "the absolute worst night of my life" in a statement released Saturday, saying she was trying to decide her next steps.

"To go from putting on a beautiful dress for a great date to a fundraiser to ending up on the side of a freeway? I don't have another tear left to cry," she said. "I'm still trying to get my mind around a few things: Scott's actions, the 17 hours I spent in jail awaiting processing, my bruises, scrapes and soreness and his statements to the media."

Bundgaard said he pulled Ballard out of the car, but denied ever hitting or pushing her.

Arizona's constitution says legislators are immune from arrest "in all cases except treason, felony, and breach of the peace" and allows them immunity from civil process while the legislator is in session.

Phoenix police said they will submit the case to the city attorney's office for review, Thompson said.

In his statement, Bundgaard said he will not hide behind his privilege.

"I waive any and all 'immunity.' If I did something wrong, charge me," he said.

http://www.cnn.com/2011/CRIME/02/27/arizona.senator.incident/

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