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From the Los Angeles Times

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Germans see attack on U.S. airmen as possible act of Islamic terrorism

The suspect, an Albanian from Kosovo, will appear in federal court today. The attack left 2 dead and 2 wounded.

From the Associated Press

March 3, 2011

BERLIN -- The attack on a busload of U.S. Air Force troops at Frankfurt airport that killed two is being investigated as a possible act of Islamic terrorism, German federal prosecutors said Thursday.

Two airmen were also wounded late Wednesday when a man identified as a 21-year-old ethnic Albanian from Kosovo fired on the servicemen at close range.

"The suspect is accused of killing two U.S. military personnel and seriously injuring two others," federal prosecutors said in a statement. "Given the circumstances, there is a suspicion that the act was motivated by Islamism."

Federal prosecutors said they had taken over the investigation of the Wednesday afternoon shooting, and are working on conjunction with Frankfurt and federal police, as well as American authorities.

The suspect was taken into custody immediately after the shooting and is to appear later Thursday in federal court.

Frankfurt police spokesman Juergen Linker told the DAPD news agency that one airman remained in critical condition after being shot in the head. The other wounded airman was not in life-threatening condition, Linker said. Both men were being treated at the Frankfurt University clinic. None of the victims have yet been identified.

The attacker's family in northern Kosovo identified him as Arid Uka, whose family has been living in Germany for 40 years. His uncle, Rexhep Uka, said the young man worked at Frankfurt airport and was a devout Muslim.

Police said the attacker had an altercation with U.S. military personnel in front of a bus outside the airport's Terminal 2. They said the man started shooting, then boarded the bus briefly and was apprehended by police when he tried to escape.

The airmen were based in Britain, a U.S. Air Force spokesman for the Lakenheath airfield in eastern England said. They were bound to Ramstein Air Base from where they were to have been deployed to support an overseas operation, the U.S. military said, without elaborating.

The U.S. has some 50,000 troops stationed in Germany. It operates several major facilities in the Frankfurt region, including the Ramstein Air Base, which is often used as a logistical hub for operations in Afghanistan and Iraq.

In Washington, President Barack Obama promised to "spare no effort" in investigating the slayings.

"I'm saddened and I'm outraged by this attack," he said.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fgw-germany-shooting,0,1834496,print.story

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10 hospitalized prisoners to get prompt hearings under medical parole law, receiver says

The federal receiver overseeing California's prisons says inmates who no longer pose a threat to public safety will be scheduled for hearings under a law meant to save taxpayers the yearly $800,000-per-inmate cost of round-the-clock supervision.

by Jack Dolan, Los Angeles Times

March 3, 2011

Ten of California's sickest and most costly inmates — some are in comas, some are paralyzed — will be promptly scheduled for parole hearings, corrections authorities announced Wednesday.

An article in Wednesday's Los Angeles Times detailed how, despite being chained to bed frames, such inmates are guarded around the clock by multiple corrections officers at an annual cost to taxpayers of roughly $800,000 per inmate.

"You look at these inmates and say, 'This person is not going anywhere,'" said J. Clark Kelso, the receiver appointed by a federal court to oversee California's troubled prison health services.

Kelso said he met with Corrections Department Secretary Matthew Cate on Wednesday morning and the two agreed to schedule parole hearings for the 10, who are no longer deemed a threat to public safety.

Former Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger signed a medical parole law in September to spare taxpayers the expense of guarding such inmates. But as of last week, corrections officials had not scheduled a single parole hearing. They said they were still working on regulations to carry out the law.

The receiver's office and state prison officials have been at odds about how quickly to nudge these ailing inmates toward parole. The receiver has argued that paroling them right away would save money. Prison officials insisted they needed time to formulate rules and make sure the law is applied consistently.

Kelso said the department would no longer wait for new regulations to be written.

All of the 10 inmates selected by Kelso are being treated in hospitals outside of prison, where their care costs taxpayers more than $2 million a year on average. About 40% of that goes to salaries, benefits and overtime for guards, many of whom consider the assignment a plum job.

One of the 10 has been in a Central Valley hospital and under 24-hour guard for more than seven years, according to the receiver's office. Five are attached to ventilators. All are immobile, according to the receiver's medical evaluations.

Even after the receiver's announcement Wednesday, officials remained divided over the next step.

Corrections officials now say they need time to do their own medical evaluations. They also must find appropriate beds for the inmates in outside hospitals, department spokesman Oscar Hidalgo said Wednesday.

But the receiver's spokeswoman, Nancy Kincaid, disputed this. She said the inmates in question have already been evaluated and are already in the hospitals where they would likely remain following parole.

Neither office could say Wednesday exactly when the first hearing will occur.

State Sen. Mark Leno (D-San Francisco) sponsored last year's medical parole bill and has called the delays "maddening." On Wednesday, he said 10 inmates "is a decent start but hardly sufficient."

The Times story described 57-year old inmate Edward Ortiz, who is semi-paralyzed by a degenerative nerve disease. He's attached to a ventilator at one end of his hospital bed and chained by his ankles at the other.

Nevertheless, a guard is stationed at his bedside 24 hours a day and another is posted at the door. A sergeant is also on the scene around the clock to supervise.

Ortiz, a convicted child molester, is among the 10 whose cases will be heard first by the parole board, Kincaid said.

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-prisons-20110303,0,1311955,print.story

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Supreme Court sides with churchgoers who picketed military funeral

The justices say members of the Westboro Baptist Church in Kansas have the right to carry anti-gay and other signs at U.S. troops' funerals, however offensive their message may be considered.

by David G. Savage, Washington Bureau

March 3, 2011

Reporting from Washington

Ruling in a case that pressed the outer limits of free speech, the Supreme Court on Wednesday said that even anti-gay protesters who picketed the funerals of U.S. troops with signs reading, "Thank God for Dead Soldiers," cannot be sued.

In an 8-1 decision, the justices upheld an appellate court's decision to strike down a jury verdict against Fred Phelps and the Westboro Baptist Church of Topeka, Kan. Phelps and his family gained national attention — and stirred deep anger — for using military funerals as a backdrop to proclaim an anti-gay and anti-military message.

The church believes that the United States is too tolerant of sin and that the death of American soldiers is God's punishment.

Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. said that when the disputed words "address matters of public import on public property" and when the protest is conducted "in a peaceful manner, in full compliance with the guidance of local officials," they are protected.

Roberts cited past rulings that shielded offensive words and outrageous protests.

He pointed to the decision that freed protesters who burned the American flag and another that protected a Hustler magazine satirist who portrayed the Rev. Jerry Falwell in an outhouse. Last year, Roberts spoke for the court in striking down on free-speech grounds a law that made it crime to sell videos of illegal dog-fighting.

The "bedrock principle underlying the 1st Amendment," Roberts said in quoting the flag-burning ruling by the late liberal Justice William J. Brennan Jr., is that the government cannot punish words or ideas "simply because society finds the idea itself offensive or disagreeable."

The decision Wednesday drew a howl of protest from Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. — like Roberts, a conservative — who said that the father of the dead Marine who sued the protesters was "not a public figure" who could be expected to tolerate such an onslaught, but a private person who sought to "bury his son in peace."

"Our profound national commitment to free and open debate is not a license for the vicious verbal assault that occurred in this case," Alito wrote. "In order to have a society in which public issues can be openly and vigorously debated, it is not necessary to allow the brutalization of innocent victims."

Five years ago, Phelps and his daughters were sued after they picketed near the funeral for Marine Lance Cpl. Matthew Snyder, who died in Iraq in 2006.

Police had kept picketers at least 200 feet from the funeral procession. The demonstrators' signs included one that said, "Thank God for IEDs," a reference to the roadside bombs that have claimed many soldiers' lives in Iraq.

The messages did not refer to the late Marine. His father, Albert Snyder, testified that he saw the signs only when he watched television coverage in the evening.

A few weeks later, however, Snyder saw a posting on Westboro church's website that scorned him and said he had raised his son to serve the devil.

A jury awarded Snyder $11 million in damages for the emotional distress he suffered, but a judge reduced the amount to $5 million. A U.S. appeals court, siding with the Phelps family, said the verdict could not stand.

The Supreme Court took up the case of Snyder vs. Phelps. The issue was difficult for the justices because the public picketing targeted a private family funeral.

If the picketing had taken place at the Pentagon or Capitol Hill, no one would have questioned the Phelps' right to carry their signs, even with their offensive messages.

Lawyers for the father argued that the verdict should stand because he was a private figure, not a public person, and because the protest was a targeted assault on a private memorial service.

In the end, the justices concluded the picketing was more a public protest than a mean-spirited private assault.

The picketing, Roberts wrote, "is certainly hurtful and its contribution to public discourse may be negligible. But Westboro addressed matters of public import on public property, in a peaceful manner."

"On the facts before us, we cannot react to that pain by punishing the speaker," Roberts wrote. "As a nation we have chosen a different course — to protect even hurtful speech on public issues to ensure that we do not stifle public debate."

The decision does not appear to affect the laws in 43 states that seek to keep the protesters away from military funerals. In the past, the court has said that officials may regulate where marches and protests take place, so long as they do not ban them or their message entirely.

The Veterans of Foreign Wars said they were "greatly disappointed with the result."

"The Westboro Baptist Church may think they have won, but the VFW will continue to support community efforts to ensure no one hears their voice," said Richard Eubank, the VFW's national commander.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-court-protests-20110303,0,2444544,print.story

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RFK assassin Sirhan Sirhan's parole rejected

A California parole board in Coalinga on Wednesday rejected a parole request by the the man who assassinated Robert F. Kennedy.

Sirhan Sirhan has spent 42 years behind bars for the assassination in 1968 at the Ambassador Hotel.

This was his 13th parole hearing. The parole board has repeatedly rejected Sirhan's appeals for release for failing to accept responsibility or show remorse for Kennedy's death.

Sirhan's attorney, William F. Pepper, told the Associated Press that his client had no memory of the events and suggested a second gunman was involved in the crime.

Pepper, who is based in New York, gained publicity for his efforts to prove the innocence of James Earl Ray in the assassination of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.

Pepper says Ray, who was convicted of killing King two months before Kennedy was slain, was framed by the federal government and that King was killed in a conspiracy involving the FBI, the CIA, the military, the Memphis police and organized crime figures from New Orleans and Memphis.

Ray, who confessed to killing King and then recanted and won the support of King's widow and children, died in 1998.

Sirhan, now 66, shot Kennedy on June 5, 1968, moments after the New York senator had claimed victory in the California presidential primary. Sirhan was convicted and sentenced to death in April 1969. The sentence was commuted to life in prison with the possibility of parole when the death penalty was outlawed in California in 1972 before being re-instituted.

In Sirhan's case, he said on the day of the killing, "I did it for my country." At his trial, Sirhan said on the witness stand that he killed Kennedy "premeditatedly with 20 years of malice aforethought."

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

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Thirteen-year-old girl reported missing fled to avoid arranged marriage, authorities say

A 13-year-old Hesperia girl reported missing by her family on Feb. 22 apparently left to avoid being taken to Pakistan for an arranged marriage, San Bernardino County Sheriff's Department officials said Wednesday.

Detectives found Jessie Marie Bender safe and in good condition in an Apple Valley motel, where she was being hidden by another family member. Jesse and her three siblings have been taken into protective custody by county social services pending the outcome of the investigation.

Bender's mother had told detectives that her daughter did not want to go on a two-month family trip to Pakistan and ran away. She later told police her daughter may have been abducted by someone she had been corresponding with on Facebook, triggering a massive search for the teenager that included local law enforcement, the FBI, agents with Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the U.S.Marshals Service and detectives from the Los Angeles Police Department and Chicago Police Department.

After combing through cellphone records and computer data and interviewing her friends and families, however, sheriff's detectives found no evidence that her disappearance was related to her correspondence on Facebook and that the family's initial reports were false.

“Bender family members misled detectives and withheld critical information and as a result delayed the investigation and recovery of their daughter Jesse Bender," Sheriff's Department spokeswoman Roxanne Walker said in a news release. “It was revealed that a member of the Bender family concealed Jess in the town of Apple Valley out of fear that she would be taken to Pakistan for an arranged marriage."

The investigation is ongoing and will be forwarded to the San Bernardino County district attorney's office for review.

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

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L.A. mayor and police chief back federal ban on large-capacity ammunition magazines

Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, Police Chief Charlie Beck and other top officials voiced their support Wednesday for federal legislation that would ban large-capacity ammunition magazines such as the one used by the alleged gunman in the Tucson shooting rampage.

“It boils down to simple math: It's 20 lives,” said Beck, describing the difference between a 10- and 30-round magazine attached to a weapon.

The pending federal law — H.R. 308, sponsored by Rep. Carolyn McCarthy (D-N.Y.) — would ban magazines that hold more than 10 rounds. Chances of its passage are considered slim amid strong opposition from gun-rights advocates.

A large-capacity magazine was used in the January rampage in Tucson that left six dead and 13 wounded.

Displayed on a table beside Beck at a City Hall news conference Wednesday was an array of seized semi-automatic weapons. Such seizures have risen dramatically since a federal assault weapons ban expired in 2004, City Attorney Carmen Trutanich said.

Also among those expressing support for the ban on large-capacity ammunition magazines were several mothers who have lost children to shootings.

The City Council last month approved a resolution co-sponsored by Council President Eric Garcetti and Councilman Paul Koretz expressing support for the proposed federal law targeting large-capacity magazines.

City lawmakers are considering a separate proposal, authored by Garcetti, to ban the so-called open carry of handguns within the city limits. That provision would outlaw the carrying of legally owned handguns that are unloaded and kept in a visible place.

Under current state law, carrying such unloaded weapons is generally legal, though proposed state legislation would prohibit the practice. Gun rights advocates oppose the effort to restrict open carry of handguns as a violation of their constitutional rights.

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2011/03/la-mayor-police-chief-voice-support-for-federal-ban-on-large-capacity-firearms.html

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From the New York Times

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Afghan Tells of Ordeal at the ‘Center of Al Qaeda'

KABUL, Afghanistan — Abdul Khaliq Farahi's kidnappers attacked fast, smashing into his car to stall it, seizing him and executing his driver as he tried to make a phone call. Within seconds, they were driving away to a hide-out just 20 minutes away.

It was Sept. 23, 2008, and Mr. Farahi, the Afghan consul general in the Pakistani border town of Peshawar, was driving home from work. His kidnapping was one of a series singling out foreign officials that included the taking of an Iranian diplomat and an attempt to kidnap the American consul, Lynne Tracey, who escaped thanks to the quick reactions of her driver.

Mr. Farahi, 52, spent two years and two months as a captive of Arab members of Al Qaeda in Pakistan's lawless tribal areas. Questioned under torture for the first six months, he was moved 17 times. Apart from the first days when local Pakistani and Afghan militants handled him, he was always held by Arabs, he said.

He spoke for the first time at length about his two-year ordeal in an interview in a hotel in downtown Kabul, just yards from the presidential palace where he has been living as a guest of President Hamid Karzai since his release last November. Within days of being snatched, Mr. Farahi was driven deep into the mountains of South Waziristan, one of the most inaccessible of Pakistan's tribal territories, where Islamist militants run a virtual ministate beyond the control of the Pakistani government.

He found himself in a remote valley. Inside one of a few small huts, an Arab man was waiting for him.

“ ‘Whatever you need, we are ready to bring you,' ” Mr. Farahi recalled the Arab's saying. “ ‘We will start the questions tomorrow.' ”

“I understood this is the center of Al Qaeda,” he said. His interrogator was in his 20s, gave his name as Hassan and spoke English with a British accent, he said. “When I saw them, I realized they were Al Qaeda. I thought they would kill me, that first they would ask me questions and then they would kill me.”

By 2008, Pakistani and Qaeda militants were spreading their reach beyond their base in Pakistan's mountainous tribal areas into the heart of the country's main cities, and exposing the perilous weakness of the Pakistani state as they conducted assassinations, suicide bombings and kidnappings. Mr. Farahi said that seeing Al Qaeda up close brought home to him how powerful they were in Pakistan. “They could do whatever they wanted,” he said.

Pakistani militants had long been carrying out kidnappings to extort money and sometimes to exchange for prisoners being held by the government. They had gained the release of a number of high-level prisoners in exchange for the Pakistani ambassador to Afghanistan, Tariq Azizuddin, just months earlier. Al Qaeda, Mr. Farahi said he came to realize, was engaging in kidnapping for the same reasons.

“At the beginning, I could not understand why they took me,” he said, recalling his ordeal in sometimes imperfect English. “They would say: ‘You are a representative of America. Your government is not a Muslim government. We have the right to kill you. You are not Muslim.' ” They also accused him of working with the Central Intelligence Agency.

“Then later I realized they had aims to release their friends and get some money,” he said. “I concluded they organized the kidnapping.”

The group, which he sensed was large and had multiple sections, was led by an Arab in his 40s who had fought in Afghanistan against the Soviet occupation. The man gave different names; one was Abdul Haq, but it was not his real name, Mr. Farahi said. Mr. Farahi met him 12 to 15 times, until he was killed in a drone strike last spring.

There was another man in charge of security, an Arab from Saudi Arabia, about 30, who gave numerous names — Ali, Muhammad, Mustafa.

“For the first six months, they gave me a lot of torture and a lot of questions,” he said. “After that, they treated me better.”

He said he was blindfolded and handcuffed, his feet manacled and chained to his hands, or was made to stand for 12 or 13 hours in a locked room. Then he would be questioned for an hour or more.

He was allowed to go to the bathroom only after 24 or 30 hours. Sometimes he was suspended painfully for three or four minutes at a time by his arms. During one period, he was kept down a well, in a space dug out from the side of the wall, for four or five days at a time. The room down the well, he later came to understand, was designed for people to hide from American drones and other air activity.

The Arabs had very specific questions about intelligence subjects, American diplomats and civilian contractors, and Afghan government and tribal relations.

“They asked me hundreds of questions,” he recalled. “ ‘Where is the Blackwater center? Where is the center of the drones?' They asked me for details of the American Embassy in Islamabad. They asked too many questions, the location of the Afghan government intelligence. I did not know the locations.”

Although the Arabs seemed to live and operate on their own, Mr. Farahi learned that there was a close cooperation between them and the Pakistani militant groups. At one point, he was moved to a Pakistani village in another valley, indicating a level of interaction or cooperation with local Pakistanis, he said.

At one time two Pakistani Taliban, Pashto speakers, were among his guards, he said. “The Pakistanis know very well the Arabs are there, because this group of Al Qaeda was mixed with the Pakistani Taliban,” he said.

After six months he was moved to a big room where another prisoner was behind a curtain. “At the beginning, I thought he was an Afghan businessman from Herat,” he said. “But then I realized he was an Iranian diplomat.”

His fellow prisoner was Heshmatollah Attarzadeh, the Iranian consul in Peshawar who was kidnapped two months after Mr. Farahi in November 2008. They were held on and off together for the next year until Mr. Attarzadeh was released, after some delays, in March of last year.

Most of the time they were not allowed to talk to each other, but they found one place where they could, softly, so as not to attract attention. Mr. Attarzadeh had come to the same conclusion — that Al Qaeda had kidnapped him in order to win the release of prisoners and extort money from his government, Mr. Farahi said.

Pakistan officials have said Iran's government made direct contact with Al Qaeda and negotiated Mr. Attarzadeh's release. One Pakistani official said the Iranian government exchanged him for antiaircraft missiles.

A security official said the diplomat was exchanged for high-level Qaeda operatives, including Saiful Adil, an important figure who was the organization's commander for external operations and had been in Iranian custody since 2001, as well as some families of Qaeda members. A daughter and a son of Osama bin Laden were allowed to leave Iran at that time, and Pakistani officials said their release from house arrest was part of the deal to gain Mr. Attarzadeh's freedom.

The release of the Iranian gave Mr. Farahi hope. Six months later, he was released and deposited at the border near Khost in eastern Afghanistan. He says he does not know if any deal was made on his behalf, but officials in Afghanistan suggest that he was exchanged for money.

Mr. Farahi remains reticent about some things. “I was two years and two months with Al Qaeda in different places, and I realized so many things,” he said. “I learned too many things about that issue and about the terrorists. I will write a book about it.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/03/world/asia/03kidnap.html?_r=1&ref=world&pagewanted=print

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Suburb's Veneer Cracks: Mother Is Held in Deaths

TAMPA — The Tampa Palms neighborhood here is the kind of place people move to get away from crime.

Stucco homes with neatly trimmed lawns and spacious lanais nestle inside gated “villages” with names like Lancaster and Oxford Place. Real estate agents point out the proximity of “topnotch” schools, the 18-hole golf course and other upscale amenities that “cater to a perpetually-on-vacation-like lifestyle.”

But in recent weeks, the residents have become all too aware of how deceptive surface appearances can be. On Jan. 28, the police arrived at a two-story house on a quiet cul-de-sac in Tampa Palms to find Julie Schenecker unconscious on the patio, blood on her white bathrobe. Inside were the bodies of her two children, Calyx, 16, and Beau, 13.

Ms. Schenecker, 50, the wife of a high-level military intelligence officer, has been charged with the murders. When questioned, police said, she admitted to shooting her children and complained that they were “disrespectful and mouthy and that she was going to deal with it.”

To the police, the physical evidence suggested a chilling sequence of events. Ms. Schenecker appeared to have shot Beau with a .38-caliber handgun the previous afternoon while driving him to soccer practice, one bullet piercing the windshield and two striking his body. She then drove home and parked the van in the garage, where his body was found slumped inside the front passenger seat, the seat belt still buckled. Calyx Schenecker was on the computer in an upstairs bedroom when she was killed. Two bullets hit her, one in the back of the head and one in the face. The bodies of both children were covered with blankets.

Inside the house, the police said they discovered handwritten notes in which Ms. Schenecker, who has pleaded not guilty to the crimes, wrote about killing her children and then killing herself — the three days that she had to wait to receive the gun after buying it, she said in one note, had delayed the “massacre.” But she did not turn the gun on herself, and it was unclear why she was unconscious when found.

Since the killings, neighbors, teachers and others who knew the family have struggled to reconcile the outward trappings of a picture-perfect suburban life — the car pool, the soccer games and track meets, the Christmas card photos of a beaming couple with their two handsome, popular, high-achieving children, the family weekends spent boating or skiing — with an act so dark that, as one neighbor, Matthew Patchan, put it, “there's no words to describe it. It was stunning, unthinkable.”

Gary Bingham, who coached Calyx in track and field at King High School — “the fastest freshman I ever coached,” he said — knew Ms. Schenecker as an attentive mother who picked her daughter up from practice, attended team suppers and once surprised him with a birthday cake. He barely recognized the woman shown wild-eyed and shaking uncontrollably in a video taken as she was led from the house.

“I'm just looking at this person saying, ‘Who is that?' ” he said. In the time he worked with Calyx, he said, “the girl never once said anything negative to me.” Now he is kept awake at night by visions of the shootings. “You got to get that stuff out of your mind,” he said.

Daisy Questell, who taught Beau at Liberty Middle School, searches her memory for something she might have missed. But she comes up only with the easygoing boy who teased her about the no-chewing-gum rule, “never missed an assignment or got a bad grade” and never gave any indication of a problem at home. “I never heard anything about it, and you know how kids are, they say anything,” she said.

Yet such extreme violence rarely comes out of the blue, and since the killings, fragments of information have surfaced that hint that the family's veneer may have covered a more turbulent reality. Ms. Schenecker was involved in a traffic accident in November, her Mercedes rear-ending a trailer being towed by another car. Florida Highway Patrol troopers noted that she showed “signs of drug impairment,” including “dilated pupils” and “mush-mouthed speech.” But she was discharged from the hospital before blood could be drawn, according to the troopers' report.

Two days later, police detectives were sent to the Schenecker house after Calyx told a counselor that her mother had slapped her in the face. Ms. Schenecker did not dispute that she had hit her daughter, but she said that Calyx had called her “disgusting” and told her, “You're not my parent.” The detectives concluded that “there is no evidence of a criminal offense in this case.”

Others also noticed small things that at the time seemed insignificant, but now make them wonder. Mr. Bingham, the track and field coach, recalled that sometime in the fall, Calyx's father told him that arrangements would have to be made to pick her up after practice because his wife was undergoing “rehab.” Mr. Bingham did not inquire about the treatment. “It wasn't my job to ask, as a coach,” he said.

Lisa Pilch, who played Division 1 volleyball with Julie Schenecker at the University of Northern Iowa and kept in touch over the years, noticed at a reunion in 2009 that something seemed different about her college friend. “I just thought that she was a little subdued,” Ms. Pilch said. “I thought her eyes looked a little bit either distant or vacant.”

Forensic researchers who have studied mothers convicted of killing their children said that such women often leave a trail of clues behind them. “In almost every case there's obvious signs,” said Cheryl L. Meyer, a professor at Wright State University whose research team examined 219 cases of maternal filicide and conducted lengthy interviews with 40 of the mothers.

As disturbing as such crimes are, they represent a robust portion of child homicides in the United States. Dr. Meyer found more than 100 cases a year of children killed by their mothers in the 1990s, a figure she says is probably an underestimate. Other experts, basing their numbers on data from the Bureau of Justice Statistics, believe that the number may exceed 200 a year, though precise figures are elusive because the deaths are often misclassified.

Many mothers kill their children through some form of neglect or repeated abuse. But in a quarter of the cases Dr. Meyer studied, the mothers purposefully murdered their children. In a notorious 2001 case, Andrea Yates drowned her five children in a bathtub. In 1995, Debora Green, a doctor in Kansas, set fire to her house, killing her 6-year-old daughter and 13-year-old son. When a third child escaped onto the roof, Dr. Green told her to jump but made no effort to catch her.

The victims in most maternal filicides are infants or younger children. But mothers who kill purposefully sometimes kill older children, including teenagers, Dr. Meyer said. Delving into the lives of such women, researchers often find histories of mental illness, broken relationships, social isolation or other stresses that may have helped push them into violence. Many are devoted mothers, who plan to kill themselves and become convinced that their children are better off dead than left in the care of others.

Geoffrey R. McKee, a forensic psychologist in South Carolina and the author of “Why Mothers Kill,” said that in a severely depressed state, it was possible that a mother could misread the normal parent-child battles of adolescence. “The children can be pretty much as they always are, but if Ma has changed, then banter on the part of her children can be interpreted as mouthing off,” said Dr. McKee, who has conducted forensic evaluations in high-profile cases like that of Susan Smith, who was convicted in 1995 of killing her two children.

How much of what researchers have found might apply in Julie Schenecker's case remains unclear, although John Fitzgibbons, a prominent criminal lawyer in Tampa, said that the public defender representing Ms. Schenecker, Robert Fraser, is widely expected to offer an insanity defense for his client.

Mr. Fraser and the prosecutor, Jay Pruner, an assistant state attorney, have declined to comment on the case. The state has until early April to decide whether to ask for the death penalty. Ms. Schenecker, a former Army linguist, who in court appearances has wept quietly or sat stiffly, eyes closed, spent 20 hours in intensive care after her arrest, and remains in the infirmary of the Hillsborough County jail.

Ms. Schenecker's husband, Col. Parker Schenecker, an intelligence officer with the United States Central Command who was in the Middle East when his children were killed, has not spoken publicly about the crimes or about his wife, except to say, through a spokeswoman, that he visited her in jail late last month and informed her he was filing for divorce. When he was home, Mr. Bingham said of Colonel Schenecker, “It was all about being at home with the kids.” At a memorial service at the First Baptist Church here, Colonel Schenecker asked those who mourned the children to “please, don't forget how they lived.”

The students who were closest to Calyx at King High School also prefer to focus on the image of the teenager they knew, a girl with an outsize artistic talent, a quirky fashion sense, a passion for Harry Potter books and an openness to new things that led her to sample strange foods like ostrich burgers and try to persuade her friends to sign up for a marathon in Thailand.

They planted a willow tree for Calyx in the school courtyard. They speak happily about their friend, but say they see no purpose in delving into reasons for an act they cannot comprehend.

“I'm not in a place to make sense of it,” said Jena Young, 16.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/03/us/03tampa.html?ref=us&pagewanted=print

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Study Finds Criminal Pasts of Nursing Home Workers

WASHINGTON — More than 90 percent of nursing homes employ one or more people who have been convicted of at least one crime, federal investigators said Wednesday in a new report. In addition, they said, 5 percent of all nursing home employees have at least one criminal conviction.

The report was issued by Daniel R. Levinson, inspector general of the Department of Health and Human Services, who obtained the names of more than 35,000 nursing home employees and then checked with the Federal Bureau of Investigation to see if they had criminal records.

“Our analysis of F.B.I. criminal history records revealed that 92 percent of nursing facilities employed at least one individual with at least one criminal conviction,” Mr. Levinson said. “Nearly half of nursing facilities employed five or more individuals with at least one conviction. For example, a nursing facility with a total of 164 employees had 34 employees with at least one conviction each.”

Charlene A. Harrington, a professor at the School of Nursing of the University of California, San Francisco, said: “This sounds like a very important study. It cries out for additional regulation. Residents in these homes are so vulnerable.”

The inspector general said that no federal law or regulation specifically required nursing homes to check federal or state criminal history records for prospective employees. Ten states require a check of F.B.I. and state records, Mr. Levinson said, while 33 require a check of state records, and the remainder do not have explicit requirements.

Given the patchwork of requirements, people convicted of crimes in one state have been able to obtain jobs at nursing homes in other states. Moreover, Mr. Levinson said, “Some states allow individual nursing facilities to make decisions regarding the employability of individuals with criminal convictions, while others rely on a state agency.”

Senator Herb Kohl, Democrat of Wisconsin, who has investigated nursing homes as chairman of the Aging Committee, said: “The current system of background checks is haphazard, inconsistent and full of gaping holes in many states. Predators can easily evade detection during the hiring process, securing jobs that allow them to assault, abuse and steal from defenseless elders.”

The most common types of conviction were for crimes against property, like burglary, and drug-related offenses. But some nursing home employees had been convicted of crimes against persons, like assault.

Federal rules say that nursing homes must not employ people who have been found guilty of abusing, neglecting or mistreating patients. But F.B.I. records do not always indicate if the victim was a nursing home resident.

Most of the convictions occurred before the offenders began working in nursing homes. But for 16 percent of employees with convictions, the most recent offense occurred after they had started work in a nursing home.

Joshua M. Wiener, an expert on long-term care at RTI International, a nonprofit research institute, said nursing homes had historically had difficulty recruiting and retaining employees, especially nurse's aides, who he said were paid an average starting wage of $10 an hour.

Dr. Harrington said that many nursing homes did background checks in a perfunctory way, and that some did not check people who applied for housekeeping, food service or laundry jobs.

“Even some of the better nursing homes have problems with theft, rampant theft of residents' clothing and personal possessions, including jewelry,” Dr. Harrington said. “People convicted of crimes are often left alone with nursing home residents because the supervision of care is, in many homes, very inadequate.”

The new health care law offers $160 million to states to improve criminal background checks on prospective employees at nursing homes and other providers of long-term care.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/03/us/03nursing.html?ref=us&pagewanted=print

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From Google News

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12-year-old boy held in deaths of parents, injuries to siblings at Burlington home

Charles Long, 50, and Marilyn Long, 51, were found dead in their Burlington home Tuesday evening after the boy called 911 to report that three people had been shot.

Ethan, 9, and Sara, 5, were also found in the home. They were flown to an undisclosed Denver hospital.

Investigators said the children were in critical condition but declined to reveal their injuries. Their church pastor said the children had also been attacked with a knife.

• View a slideshow of the investigation into the killings of two parents in Burlington, Colorado .

They declined to release details but announced at 2:30 p.m. that the boy had been taken into custody.

"The case has been referred to the district attorney's office for the filing of formal charges," said CBI division director Steve Johnson. "We continue to hope for speedy recoveries of the two children in the hospital, and share in the sorrow that the Burlington community is feeling right now."

Under Colorado law, the boy, whose name is being withheld by The Denver Post because of his age, could face adult charges in the case. Before that could happen, a juvenile court judge would have to find that the boy is a juvenile delinquent who committed a serious crime of violence and that "it would be contrary to the best interests of the juvenile or of the public to retain jurisdiction" in juvenile court.

The boy was taken before a juvenile court judge and will be held for now in a juvenile facility.

Charles and Marilyn Long were deeply religious and attended a Free Evangelical Church a block from their home in town, while Charles also led a Seventh-Day Adventist prayer group.

Marilyn Long home- schooled their seven children, ranging in age from 5 to the mid-20s. All were well-known at the church, said pastor Ron Lee. Marilyn Long served as a youth minister, and the boy now being held in the killings helped by greeting parishioners before services and working with video equipment.

"He's the sweetest kid," Lee said. "He is very helpful; he's got a very pleasant personality."

Charles Long, who was a sheriff's deputy in Kit Carson County until 1994, was a delivery driver for Frito-Lay and was known to some kids in the neighborhood as the "Frito-Lay man" because he would occasionally hand out chips.

Until mid-2009, he wrote regularly on a health and fitness blog he created, and maintained a Facebook page where he extolled the Bible, gospel music — and rocker Ted Nugent. He noted the joys of living without television (though he also liked the film "Iron Man 2" and NASCAR auto racing). He was a unicycle rider and a guitarist.

"This is shocking to see," said Chantel Wilkinson, 39, who has lived across the alley from the Longs for about a year but rarely saw the family and didn't know the children well.

Her son, David Howell, 12, said there was no hint Tuesday evening of problems in the Long home. He saw three of the children playing outside about 5:30 p.m. as he took out the garbage.

"They were all talking, you know, smiles on their faces," David said.

A little more than an hour later, at 6:40 p.m., the 12-year-old Long child dialed 911 to report the shootings.

When police arrived at the home at 783 Lowell Ave., they found carnage.

The parents were dead, and according to Lee, both children had serious stab wounds.

The children were flown to a Denver hospital, but authorities declined to say which one or who was with them.

All day Wednesday, residents of the town of about 4,200 people drove past the home, which was surrounded by crime- scene tape. Some stopped and dropped off balloons or flowers.

Throughout the town, the reaction was the same: stunned sadness.

A little more than a week ago, Charles and Marilyn Long came into the Panaderia Mexican #2 restaurant for what was a regular weekly date night.

Only this time, they were celebrating his 50th birthday, and he ordered fried ice cream as his treat.

"They were a very quiet family," said Samantha Rios, 24, who frequently served the Longs' table. "It's rocked this place."

TSA staff jet blew it

by PHILIP MESSING

March 2, 2011

A passenger managed to waltz past JFK's ramped-up security gantlet with three boxcutters in his carry-on luggage -- easily boarding an international flight while carrying the weapon of choice of the 9/11 hijackers, sources told The Post yesterday.

The stunning breach grounded the flight for three hours Saturday night and drew fury from Port Authority cops, who accused the Transportation Security Administration of being asleep on the job.

"In case anyone has forgotten, the TSA was created because of a couple boxcutter incidents," said one PAPD source, referring to the weapons used by al Qaeda operatives to commandeer the jets they later slammed into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on 9/11.

The two TSA agents and supervisor who completely missed the blades at a security checkpoint "will all be disciplined and undergo remedial training," said spokeswoman Ann Davis.

The incident happened at around 10 p.m. Saturday as factory worker Eusebio D. Peraltalajara, 45, of Jersey City waltzed past the screeners on his way to a Dominican Republic-bound flight, the sources said.

Agent Ahmir Wilkerson, supervisor Anthony DeJesus and at least one other screener allowed his carry-on luggage -- with the boxcutters with razor blades -- to pass through the X-ray machine, police sources said.

Once aboard Santiago-bound Flight 837, flight attendant Fausto Penaloda, 40, asked him to stow his luggage in the overhead storage bin.

As Peraltalajara's shoved it into the compartment, Penaloda saw the boxcutters fall out of the bag, according to a police report.

He grabbed the boxcutters and alerted the captain and first officer.

They called JetBlue security, which raised the alarm to PAPD Emergency Service Units, the Joint Terrorism Task Force and the FBI, sparking an evacuation of the plane's 136 passengers and five crew members.

The PAPD's Canine Unit swept the plane for bombs and all of the passengers had to be rescreened.

Peraltalajara told authorities that he used the boxcutters for work at a Secaucus manufacturing plant and simply forgot that they were in his luggage. He was not charged with any crime.

The TSA spokeswoman Davis insisted that the traveling public was not at risk.

"There have been a number of additional security layers that have been implemented on aircraft that would prevent someone from causing harm with boxcutters," she insisted.

"They include the possible presence of armed federal air marshals, hardened cockpit doors, flight crews trained in self-defense and a more vigilant traveling public who have demonstrated a willingness to intervene."

Divers to search canal where bodies found

DELRAY BEACH, Fla. (WSVN) -- Divers are set to continue searching a South Florida canal, where the bodies of two children were found stuffed in luggage.

The Delray Beach Police Department's dive team plans to return there Thursday morning, one day after their gruesome discovery. The body of a little girl, believed to be between six and 10 years old, was found in a duffle bag floating in the canal Wednesday morning. Hours later, the body of a boy, believed to be between 10 and 12 years old, was found stuffed in a suitcase a half-mile away.

A homeowner was the first to alert police after noticing something suspicious floating in the canal.

Delray Beach Police said the canal is so large that the bodies could've been dumped from multiple locations. "This is really devastating, it's devastating for them, and for all of us as an agency," said Delray Beach Police Department Sergeant Nicole Guerriero. "It's horrific to think that something happened to these two children and this is the way that they were found. It's something that no one, as a police officer or as a detective, ever wants to see."

Police said the bodies didn't immediately match the descriptions of any known missing children. It is unclear how long the bodies have been floating in the canal.

The bodies have been transported to the medical examiner's office for autopsies.

http://www.wsvn.com/news/articles/local/21003685130124/

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Mickey Rooney Warns of Elder Financial Abuse in Hearing

by Margaret Collins

(Adds Rooney's court case in fifth paragraph, GAO report in seventh paragraph.)

March 2 (Bloomberg) -- Actor Mickey Rooney said Congress should pass legislation to protect elders from abuse in a hearing before the Senate Special Committee on Aging today.

“My money was stolen from me, by someone close,” said Rooney, 90, an entertainment legend whose credits include the “Andy Hardy” film series and movies such as “Night at the Museum.” “I was eventually and completely stripped of the ability to make even the most basic decisions in my own life.”

Rooney told other seniors who may be victims not to stay silent as he did for years. “You are not alone and you have nothing to be ashamed of,” he said.

Senator Herb Kohl, a Wisconsin Democrat and chairman of the aging committee, said he was reintroducing the “Elder Abuse Victims Act” today. The bill would establish an Office of Elder Justice within the Department of Justice and strengthen enforcement in cases of abuse. Kohl said he would also introduce another bill to address domestic abuse in later life.

Rooney received a temporary restraining order Feb. 14 in California Superior Court in Los Angeles against his stepson, Christopher Aber, who was allegedly harming Rooney physically and financially. Rooney is “extremely fearful of Chris, who has taken control of Mickey's personal and financial affairs,” the court document said.

“Allegations that Mr. Aber threatens, intimidates, harasses, yells and screams at Mr. Rooney are false,” said Aber's lawyer, John O'Meara, a partner at Bremer Whyte Brown & O'Meara LLP in Woodland Hills, California.

Abuse May Grow

A 2009 study estimated that 14 percent of non- institutionalized older adults had experienced some form of elder abuse in the past year, according to a report by the Government Accountability Office released today.

“As the American population ages, the extent of abuse will likely grow,” the GAO report said. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, persons age 65 or older will represent almost 20 percent of the population by 2030, up from 13 percent in 2008, the study said.

Stronger federal leadership may enhance the response to elder abuse, the GAO found. That's because Adult Protective Services programs in states, which are generally responsible for investigating, resolving and preventing abuse, face “daunting challenges,” while federal efforts have been “scattered across agencies” and “had a limited impact,” the GAO found.

One out of five Americans age 65 or older have been conned by investment scammers, a total of more than 7.3 million people, according to a June 15 survey of 2,022 adults by the Investor Protection Trust, a Washington-based nonprofit that promotes shareholder education.

Investment Scammers

Forty percent of children who have parents age 65 and older said they are “very” or “somewhat” worried their parents' ability to handle personal finances will deteriorate over time, the survey found.

To help protect seniors from fraud, securities regulators in 22 states are expanding a program to teach medical professionals how to spot victims of investment fraud.

The project will show health-care professionals how to determine when older patients are vulnerable to investment abuse and how to refer them to regulators, the Investor Protection Trust said in Nov. 17 conference call. The $712,000 initiative is funded by fines levied by participating states from financial firms found liable for misconduct, the group said.

Seniors with mild cognitive impairment, those who can perform daily functions but have trouble following medication schedules and managing finances, are a particular concern, the Investor Protection Trust said. About 22 percent, or about 5.4 million people, age 70 or older have mild cognitive impairment, according to a 2008 study by Duke University.

http://www.businessweek.com/news/2011-03-03/mickey-rooney-warns-of-elder-financial-abuse-in-hearing.html

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Mug Shot Program Promotes Prevention

by Buddy T, About.com

March 2, 2011

The side-by-side mug shots show the damage that meth, cocaine and heroin can do over the years, and sometimes in a few months.

The From Drugs to Mugs program is the work of Multnomah County Sheriff's Deputy Bret King, who also put together the Faces of Meth program which is also used as a prevention tool in schools in Oregon and throughout the country.

Appealing to Their Vanity

"The thinking is that this will give kids a tangible image of what can happen if they get involved in using hard drugs," King says. "We did want to appeal to their sense of vanity."

The From Drugs to Mugs program is a 48-minute documentary that features the startling mug shots as well as interviews with incarcerated drug addicts and experts who work with substance abuse on a daily basis - police, judges, medical examiners and addiction recovery specialists.

DVDs of the From Drugs to Mugs program are available on the website for $25, including shipping. Revenue from sales go to the costs of producing and shipping the DVD and to help the sheriff department continue making visits to schools throughout the Pacific Northwest.

See Also : See the Mug Shots

http://alcoholism.about.com/b/2011/03/02/mug-shot-program-promotes-prevention.htm

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From the FBI

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Statement Before the Senate Judiciary Committee

Good morning, Chairman Klobuchar, ranking member, and distinguished members of the committee. I am pleased to be here with you today to discuss the FBI's efforts to combat crimes against children.

Seventy-nine years ago this month, the FBI and its partners embarked upon an investigation into one of the most notorious crimes of the last century. On the evening of March 1, 1932, the 20-month-old son of famed aviator Charles Lindbergh was taken from his bedroom in the night. Two months later, the body of Charles Lindbergh, Jr., was discovered a short distance from his family's home in Hopewell, New Jersey. Our work on that case was the genesis for congressional consideration and ultimate passage of the Federal Kidnapping Act, which made transporting kidnapping victims over state lines a federal offense.

The investigation, conducted in support of the New Jersey State Police, saw the FBI's use of partnerships and other innovative tools of the day to solve that crime. When fingerprint, handwriting analysis, and other investigative tools failed to unveil the suspect, the FBI and its partners at the Treasury Department and the New York Police Department tracked the proceeds of the crime directly to the killer. In September 1934, Bruno Richard Hauptmann was arrested for the kidnapping and murder. Just four years after little Charles Lindbergh, Jr., was taken from his crib, Hauptmann was executed for his crimes.

In the last seven decades many things have changed. We now live in a world where cell phones and laptops abound. This globalization of our society clearly has its benefits, allowing us to learn, communicate, and conduct business in ways that were unimaginable just 20 years ago. However, an increasingly global world has also provided child predators with ready access to our most innocent citizens.

In that time, much has also changed in the way the FBI conducts its investigations. Ready response teams are stationed across the country and able to quickly respond to abductions. In today's toolkit, investigators will find cutting-edge forensic tools such as DNA, trace evidence, impression evidence, and digital forensics. Through globalization, law enforcement also has the ability to quickly share information with partners the world over and our outreach programs play an integral role in prevention.

The FBI has several programs in place to both educate parents and children about the dangers posed by violent predators and to recover missing and endangered children should they be taken. Through our Child Abduction Rapid Deployment teams, Innocence Lost National Initiative, Innocent Images National Initiative, Office of Victim Assistance, and numerous community outreach programs, the FBI and its partners are working to make our global world a safer place for our children.

Let me discuss a few of these programs in my testimony today.

CARD Teams

When every minute counts, the FBI's Child Abduction Rapid Deployment (CARD) program provides a quick and effective response.

Nationally, the FBI's CARD teams are comprised of 60 members; all experienced personnel capable of providing on-the-ground investigative, technical, and resource assistance to the investigating FBI Field division as well as our partners in state and local law enforcement.

Each CARD team consists of Crimes Against Children investigators who work closely with FBI Behavioral Analysis Unit representatives, National Center for the Analysis of Violent Crime coordinators, and Crimes Against Children coordinators. Relying on their expertise and experience, team members ensure that investigations move quickly, efficiently, and thoroughly.

In addition to their unique expertise, CARD teams are capable of quickly establishing an on-site command post to centralize investigative efforts and operations. Other assets they bring to the table include a new mapping tool to identify and locate registered sex offenders in the area, national and international lead coverage, and the Child Abduction Response Plan to guide investigative efforts. Representatives from the Behavioral Analysis Unit provide on-site interview and media strategies to round out the investigative effort.

Over the past four years, our CARD teams have deployed 65 times. In cases where children remain missing, the CARD team and our Evidence Response Team have provided forensic support for our local law enforcement partners and their prosecutors.

Innocence Lost National Initiative

While it is difficult to imagine, the average age of a child targeted for prostitution in the United States is between 11 and 14 years old. Once in the custody of a pimp, everything the child earns goes to the captor and attempted escapes often result in brutal beatings or even death.

In June 2003, to address the growing problem of commercial sex trafficking of children within the United States, the FBI joined the Department of Justice Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section and the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) to launch the Innocence Lost National Initiative (ILNI).

Each of ILNI's 41 task forces and working groups throughout the U.S. include federal, state, and local law enforcement agencies working in tandem with U.S. Attorney's Offices. Additionally, the program brings state and federal law enforcement agencies, prosecutors, and social service providers from all around the country to NCMEC for joint training opportunities

Task force operations usually begin as local actions, targeting such places as truck stops, casinos, street "tracks," and Internet websites, based on intelligence gathered by officers working in their respective jurisdictions. Initial arrests are often violations of local and state laws relating to prostitution or solicitation. Information gleaned from those arrested often uncovers organized efforts to prostitute women and children across many states. FBI agents further develop this information in partnership with the U.S. Department of Justice's Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section (CEOS) and file federal charges where appropriate.

For its part, the FBI's Crimes Against Children Unit also coordinates a national sting operation to combat domestic sex trafficking of children, entitled Operation Cross Country, multiple times throughout the year. ILNI task forces and working groups in 54 cities have participated in the operation by targeting venues such as the street tracks, truck stops, motels, and casinos where children are typically prostituted. Every case initiated through the ILNI is reviewed for possible federal violations, and where applicable, cases are presented to the United States Attorney's Office for prosecution.

Over 2,100 law enforcement officers have joined together to rescue child victims and apprehend those who victimize them. As a result, 248 child victims have been safely recovered during Operation Cross Country I - V, and 322 pimps engaged in the commercial sexual exploitation of children have been arrested. Operation Cross Country V was held in November 2010, during which 70 children were recovered and 885 arrests were executed, including 99 pimps.

To date, the ILNI has resulted in over 600 federal and state convictions and the location and recovery of over 1300 children. Investigative efforts have increasingly resulted in substantial sentences for those convicted, including three life sentences and numerous others ranging from 25-45 years.

One such example, the Precious Cargo investigation, targeted pimps involved in the sex trafficking of children and adult women to and from the truck stops of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. Over 150 victims were identified during the investigation, 45 of whom were identified as having been exploited while underage, the youngest of whom were 12 years old. In December 2005, 18 individuals were indicted for the sex trafficking of children, conspiracy, transportation, and money laundering. In December 2008, Terrance Williams, aka "Sleazy T," was sentenced to 45 years for his role in the enterprise; Eric Hayes, aka "International Ross," to 35 years; and multiple other defendants to sentences exceeding 25 years in length.

Innocent Images National Initiative

The Innocent Images National Initiative (IINI), a component of FBI's cyber crimes program, is a proactive, intelligence-driven, multi-agency investigative operation to combat the proliferation of online child pornography/child sexual exploitation (CP/CSE).

The mission of the IINI is to reduce the vulnerability of children to acts of sexual exploitation and abuse which are facilitated through the use of computers; to identify and rescue child victims; to investigate and prosecute sexual predators who use the Internet and other online services to sexually exploit children for personal or financial gain; and to strengthen the capabilities of federal, state, local, and international law enforcement through training programs and investigative assistance.

Between 1996 and 2009, there was a 2,535 percent increase in child exploitation investigations throughout the FBI. IINI currently has over 6,000 open child pornography cases. During fiscal year (FY) 2009 and FY 2010, we have made more than 2,000 arrests and achieved over 2,500 convictions. In addition and just as important, the FBI has identified 246 new children featured in child pornography in FY 2010.

In 2004, the FBI launched the Innocent Images International Task Force, which brings together law enforcement from around the world to address the global crime problem of online child exploitation. Currently, nearly 100 international officers from 42 countries participate on the task force, which allows for the real-time transfer of information and coordination of cases.
One such investigation, dubbed Operation Achilles, involved our partners in the Queensland Police Department in Australia and authorities in Canada, New Zealand, Belgium, Italy, and Britain. The three-year international investigation uncovered suspects who traded more than 400,000 images of children, from infants to adolescents, many depicting acts of violence and torture.

In all, 40 children were rescued, four websites were shut down, and 22 members of the ring were arrested. Fourteen of those were prosecuted using new statutes provided by our Congress. Seven of the 14 prosecuted received life sentences. An additional 100 individuals were ultimately arrested for allegedly buying material depicting sex with children.

Victim Services

In addition to its many investigative efforts, the FBI's Office for Victim Assistance (OVA) ensures that victims of crimes investigated by the FBI receive the services and notification required by federal law and the Attorney General Guidelines on Victim and Witness Assistance. The OVA manages the day-to-day operational aspects of the victim assistance program (VAP) in our 56 FBI field offices across the country, as well as in the FBI's international offices. In addition, OVA is responsible for providing training and information that helps to equip FBI agents and other FBI personnel to work effectively with victims

Among its many programs, OVA coordinates assistance and notification services for child victims of pornography and their guardians as part of the child victim identification program (CVIP).

The OVA forensic child interviewing program ensures that investigative interviews of child victims and witnesses of federal crimes are tailored to the child's stage of development and minimize any additional trauma. FBI child interview specialists directly assist with some interviews and provide detailed training to special agents and other law enforcement personnel on child interviewing.

The OVA also devotes special resources to ensure that child victims of sexual abuse, physical abuse, and neglect have access to assistance and services. Currently, 43 victim specialists are dedicated to serving victims of crime in Indian country.

Partnerships

It is important to recognize that we are not alone in our efforts to identify victims and bring their abusers to justice. As many of you know, few crimes bring law enforcement together as quickly as an endangered child. Even when the FBI is not the lead investigative agency, we provide significant resources to our federal, state, local, and tribal partners. We stand shoulder to shoulder, working to locate children and build cases against their offenders.

Any success that we have achieved has been through those partnerships and those relationships we continue to develop with our law enforcement partners and one of our greatest allies, NCMEC.

FBI personnel work at NCMEC and have access to the Cyber Tip Line, the "9-1-1 for the Internet." The public and electronic service providers use that line to report Internet child sexual exploitation. In FY 2010, FBI personnel assigned to the center have reviewed more than 75,500 tips—a 100 percent increase from 2009's activity.

At the FBI, we also seek to educate young people through a program we refer to as the Safe Online Surfing Challenge, an interactive online quiz that teaches middle school students about Internet safety. Since 2006, nearly 60,000 students from almost 400 schools in 39 states have participated

Over 1,000 law enforcement officers have been trained through the Protecting Victims of Child Prostitution Course at the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, which supports the Innocence Lost National Initiative.

In cases where children are taken by non-custodial parents and believed to be located internationally, we work closely with our FBI legal attachés stationed throughout the world and the U.S. Department of State/Office of Children's Issues to pursue all remedies for the safe return of the child.

Conclusion

Just as we worked so hard to solve the Lindbergh case all those years ago, today's FBI remains vigilant in its efforts to remove predators from our communities and to keep our children safe. I appreciate the opportunity to discuss those efforts with the committee and am now happy to answer any questions you might have.

http://www.fbi.gov/news/testimony/helping-law-enforcement-find-missing-children

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