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From Los Angeles Times

Mexico's president offers to meet with anti-violence movement

President Felipe Calderon says he would like to try to bridge the gap with organizers of the March for Peace, which drew tens of thousands of Mexicans to the streets to demand a new strategy in the drug war.

by Ken Ellingwood, Los Angeles Times

May 10, 2011

Reporting from Mexico City

A day after tens of thousands of Mexicans joined in anti-violence protests, President Felipe Calderon offered Monday to meet with organizers to explain a government drug war that has produced growing worry as deaths climb.

In televised comments, Calderon said talks could help bridge the gap between his administration and leaders of Sunday's March for Peace, which drew crowds of violence-weary people to the streets to appeal for a new crime strategy.

Calderon offered no sign of backing away from his administration's military-led crackdown against drug cartels. The conservative president, under fire amid widespread carnage, has insisted that yielding to the country's violent drug traffickers is not an option.

"We can agree or disagree," Calderon said. "Of course that doesn't exclude the possibility and the responsibility to dialogue, to listen to each other and understand each other."

Many Calderon critics hoped the Mexico City protest might mark a turning point in the 4-1/2-year-old drug war, which has killed more than 34,000 people since the president deployed troops to tackle crime groups. Most victims have died in fights between rival gangs over control of lucrative drug-smuggling routes to the United States.

Calderon did not address a key demand of the protesters — the resignation of Genaro Garcia Luna, Mexico's public-safety secretary. A Calderon spokesman later praised Garcia Luna's role in leading improvements of the federal police.

In a separate manifesto, organizers called on the government to solve slayings and disappearances; drop its "war strategy" in favor of a focus on citizen safety; battle corruption, impunity and money-laundering; and address social ills.

The protest was led by Javier Sicilia, a left-leaning poet and writer whose 24-year-old son was slain in the city of Cuernavaca in March alongside six other victims.

The demonstration increased pressure on Calderon. But some commentators said Sicilia did not offer clear alternatives and asked why he demanded the firing of Garcia Luna, for example, but not other military or political leaders.

On Monday, there were new signs of violence. Authorities in the northern state of Durango reported discoveries of 11 bodies in a mass grave in the state's capital. At least 168 bodies have been unearthed there in a series of clandestine burial sites.

In addition, officials said six human heads were dumped next to a school in the capital, also named Durango.

In the northern state of Tamaulipas, where graves have yielded nearly 200 bodies recently, 12 gunmen and a Mexican marine were killed in a shootout at Falcon Lake, a dammed stretch of the Rio Grande straddling the border with Texas.

The gunfight erupted Sunday after Mexican naval personnel found a camp thought to belong to the Zetas drug gang, the Mexican navy said Monday.

Falcon Lake is where a U.S. citizen, David Hartley, was reported by his wife to have been pursued and shot by gunmen while jet-skiing last year. His body was not found. The area is used to smuggle drugs into the United States.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-mexico-violence-20110510,0,1498254,print.story

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Riverside County's homeless numbers up dramatically, new tally shows

The number of people in Riverside County who are homeless on any given day has increased an estimated 84% in the last two years, officials said Monday.

A countywide tally Jan. 24 found 6,203 people living in emergency shelters, transitional housing or places not fit for human habitation, such as sidewalks, cars and abandoned buildings. The last count in 2009 put the figure at 3,366.

The increase in the county's chronically homeless population was even more significant: from 969 people in 2009 to 2,515 in 2011, a 160% jump. The county defines chronically homeless as people with a disabling condition who have been without a roof over their heads for a year or longer, or who have experienced at least four episodes of homelessness in the last three years.

Ronald A. Stewart, interim deputy director of the Riverside County Department of Public Social Services, attributed the increases in part to the economic downturn, which he said began to be felt in 2009.

“Record unemployment and housing foreclosures made Riverside County one of the hardest-hit areas in the state and nation,” Stewart said in a statement. “This year's count clearly indicates the economic downturn has pushed more people out of their homes and has left them homeless longer.”

The county also made changes this year to its census methodology, which made for a more complete count, Stewart said in an interview. They included sending a homeless person out with every team that conducted the count, to help find the places where people sleep.

The last homeless census found that the population had declined from about 4,400 in 2007 to nearly 3,400 in 2009, a fact Stewart attributed to improvements in county services and efforts to secure more funding from the federal government to address homelessness.

“The biggest challenge really has become the scarcity of public funds,” he said. “For the county to step in and do anything more is just not on the table at the moment. We're working hard to continue what we have.”

To qualify for federal funding to assist the homeless, the U.S. Housing and Urban Development Department requires communities to count their homeless populations during a specific period every two years. Similar efforts took place nationwide earlier this year. More than 200 volunteers, city and county staffers helped conduct this year's count.

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

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From the New York Times

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Gunfight in Mexico Leaves 13 Dead

MEXICO CITY (AP) — Mexican marines patrolling a lake along the border with Texas discovered a drug gang's island camp, provoking a gun battle that left 13 people dead, the Mexican Navy said Monday.

And in a different northern state, investigators reported finding 11 decapitated bodies.

In the gunfight, which took place on Sunday, one marine and 12 men suspected of being members of the Zetas drug cartel were killed on Falcon Lake in the northeastern state of Tamaulipas, the navy said in a statement.

The navy said the gunmen opened fire when the marines discovered the camp, which the gang is believed to have used as a launching point for smuggling marijuana into Texas by speedboat.

The decapitated bodies of 11 men were found Monday in two places in Durango, the state attorney general's office said.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/10/world/americas/10mexico.html?_r=1&ref=world&pagewanted=print

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Emergency Alert System Expected for Cellphones

WASHINGTON — The emergency broadcast system is coming to cellphones.

Updating the national emergency alert system, federal officials planned to announce on Tuesday in Manhattan that some cellphone users in New York and Washington will soon be able to receive alerts by text message in the event of a national or regional emergency.

The service in those cities is scheduled to start late this year as a prelude to nationwide service next year, perhaps as early as April. To receive the alerts, users must have mobile phones with a special chip, which is currently included in some higher-end smartphones like the latest iPhones. The service will also require a software upgrade.

How quickly consumers are able to participate in the system depends on the rate of replacement of cellphones with the special chip and the software, officials said.

The emergency text messages will include alerts issued by the president, information about public safety threats and Amber Alerts for missing children. Text messages will be sent to customers of participating cellphone companies who are in an area affected by the emergency. Users can opt out of any of the alerts except the presidential messages.

The alerts are designed to mimic the familiar radio and TV broadcast alerts that for decades — accompanied by a shrill whistle and, in most instances, the message “This is only a test” — have advised Americans where to tune in for an emergency message.

Known as the Personal Localized Alerting Network, or PLAN, the new system will be a free service for people in New York and Washington who have enabled phones and are customers of Verizon, AT&T, Sprint or T-Mobile mobile phone systems.

“This new technology could become a lifeline for millions of Americans and is another tool that will strengthen our nation's resilience against all hazards,” W. Craig Fugate, the administrator of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, said in a statement.

Julius Genachowski , the chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, said the system was designed to minimize the ability of hackers or spammers to send fraudulent messages. The alerts could appear directly on a cellphone screen, for example, rather than appear as a text message notification, and would probably be accompanied by a special vibration or other kind of signal.

“We don't expect the alerts to be frequent,” Mr. Genachowski said. “They will be reserved for when they are truly needed, for tornadoes or for disasters like 9/11.”

Emergency authorities in several Asian and Pacific countries sent text messages warning of tsunamis after the March 11 earthquake in Japan.

Authorized government officials will be able to send emergency text messages to participating wireless companies, which will then use their cell towers to forward the messages to subscribers in the affected area. A New York City resident who is traveling in Chicago at the time of an emergency in New York would not receive a message; a Chicago resident who is a customer of the same phone company would see the text alert while in New York City, officials said.

The messages are also designed to avoid user congestion that often mars standard mobile voice and texting services.

Although cellphone companies in the United States are not required to participate in the system, officials said they expected that cellphone makers would promote the inclusion of the special chip as a selling point for new mobile phones.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/10/us/10safety.html?ref=us&pagewanted=print

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Police Dept. In Newark Is Facing U.S. Inquiry

NEWARK — The Justice Department is investigating claims that brutality, baseless searches, intimidation and false arrests are commonplace in the Newark Police Department, officials announced on Monday.

The reported abuses closely parallel those alleged last September by the American Civil Liberties Union of New Jersey , which called for a federal inquiry — a request that officials said helped prompt the investigation.

Federal officials took pains to describe the inquiry as a cooperative effort with the city, not a punitive one, and Mayor Cory A. Booker and his top police officials stood shoulder to shoulder at the announcement with Paul J. Fishman, the United States attorney for New Jersey, and Thomas E. Perez, who heads the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division.

After the civil liberties union's report was released, Mr. Booker and Garry F. McCarthy, the city's police director, called its accusations exaggerated and said no outside inquiry or oversight was needed.

But on Monday, Mr. Booker seemed to take credit for the investigation, saying repeatedly that his administration had requested it, with the message, “Please come in, we encourage you, we're asking you, we're welcoming you.”

When the civil liberties group leveled its charges, Mr. Booker said, “we said, ‘look, we've got to get the feds in here to start working with us' ” and restore public trust in the police.

“We will now get hundreds of thousands of dollars of free consulting, frankly,” he continued. “We will get a partnership that could dispel what could be the most extreme accusations.”

The conduct of the Police Department is crucial to the political fortunes of Mr. Booker, who is often mentioned as a potential candidate for higher office. He became mayor in a high-crime city in 2006, vowing to make the police more effective and responsive, and in his first years his most frequent boast was how the department had improved.

Crime dropped early in his tenure, but it rose last year, and has continued to climb this year, after budget cuts forced the layoffs of about 10 percent of the police force. Mr. McCarthy, it was announced last week, will soon leave to become Chicago's police superintendent.

On Monday, Mr. Booker and Mr. McCarthy cited improvements they said they had made in addressing public concerns, like ensuring that citizen complaints are documented and investigated, rather than ignored, as large numbers of them used to be.

Deborah Jacobs, executive director of the state civil liberties group, said that the city had “taken a few baby steps in the right direction,” but that the overall situation had not improved noticeably. And with the department stretched thinner, she said, misconduct may spread, as officers work under heavier burdens and lighter supervision.

Reporters pressed Mr. Fishman and Mr. Perez several times to cite specific cases that warranted federal investigation, but they declined. Mr. Fishman said that a preliminary inquiry had “resulted in information that we thought needed to have certain follow-up.” But he would not elaborate, and he gave only a broad description of what the inquiry would cover.

“The areas will include whether officers of the Newark Police Department have engaged in a pattern or practice of excessive force against civilians, whether they have engaged in a pattern of unlawful stops, frisks, searches or arrests, and whether there has been discriminatory policing,” he said.

Similar federal investigations — civil, not criminal — have occurred in other cities, including New Orleans and Seattle, and resulted in a range of recommendations to change police practices.

In its report last year, the civil liberties union documented 38 police misconduct lawsuits that Newark settled from the start of 2008 to mid-2010, paying some $5 million, and it found 51 new suits filed against the police in the same period. The suits came not just from civilians, but also from officers claiming they had been mistreated based on race, sex or even political alliances.

One case that was settled charged that officers had used excessive force against several people, including a woman who was videotaping them, and then threatened or tried to bribe people into dropping their complaints. In another, a man who had been arrested said an officer had beaten him severely for telling another man, who was being held in the same jail, where to file an internal affairs report about his treatment. Another charged that a man died after officers, who had beaten him in an altercation, refused to call for medical help.

As Mr. Booker noted on Monday, many of those actions took place before his tenure. But other failings charged by the civil liberties union occurred on his watch, including a lack of disciplinary action against most of the officers involved in those court cases.

The group said that in 2008 and 2009, the department's internal affairs office considered 261 complaints of serious misconduct by police officers, and upheld just one. In addition, many of the officers involved in the lawsuits against the department were not disciplined.

“The A.C.L.U.'s petition contained information that we considered, but we got information from a lot of sources,” Mr. Fishman said. “It was one factor, but by no means the decisive one.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/10/nyregion/justice-department-investigates-newark-police.html?ref=us&pagewanted=print

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From Google News

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More LI remains identified; DA says multiple killers

(Video on site)

HAUPPAUGE, N.Y. (WABC) -- There is a major twist in the investigation of the bodies found on Long Island's south shore. Authorities now say there could be at least three killers.

The shocking news came out Monday afternoon.

Suffolk County District Attorney Tom Spota announced that the human remains discovered along Ocean Parkway beaches are from eight victims, which are being divided into separate cases.

The dismembered remains of two more women have been found since police began scouring the brambles along Gilgo Beach in April.

One has now been identified as 20-year-old prostitute Jessica Taylor. Most of her body was found in Manorville in 2003. Remains of the other woman were also found in Manorville in 2000.

Police say these two murders are connected to each other, but not linked to the first four.

The next victim is an unidentified baby girl, between 1 and 2 years old. Investigators say there are no signs of trauma, but homicide has not been ruled out.

The eighth victim is an Asian man in his late teens or early 20s who police say died a violent death.

"What is now very clear is that the area in and around Gilgo Beach has been used to discard human remains for some period of time," Spota said.

The chilling new details have people in the beachfront community on edge.

"Maybe it is somebody who could live in this area," one resident said. "You really have to be a little more careful."

Two other victims, found in Nassau County, remain unidentified. Jersey City prostitute Shannan Gilbert, whose disappearance sparked the initial search, still has not been found.

http://abclocal.go.com/wabc/story?section=news/local/long_island&id=8122129&pt=print

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From the White House

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Supporting Military Families and Let's Move!

Today, First Lady Michelle Obama announced new collaborations to support our military families and ensure that everyone can get out and get moving.

Starting June 1, service members and their families will be able to visit the websites of the organizations to sign up for free sportsclub memberships and personal training.

The International Health Racquet & Sportsclub Association (IHRSA), an organization whose membership consists of sportsclubs throughout the nation, will work with its members to offer free memberships to immediate family members (ages 13 and older, where applicable) of actively deployed reservists and National Guard members.

They may also provide additional benefits such as childcare, children's programming, group classes, discounts for veterans, and discounts for active duty families. (The website will also offer a free digital subscription to Get Active! Magazine , a publication dedicated to promoting healthy living through exercise.)

And the American Council on Exercise® (ACE®), an organization that works to certify and support fitness professionals, is committing to a goal of providing at least 1 million hours of personal training and fitness instruction to family members of actively deployed reservists and National Guard members.

Such collaborations are important steps forward in making sure that military families have the support they need to stay active and healthy. The goal of Let's Move! is to solve the problem of the childhood obesity epidemic within a generation, and this announcement will help move one step closer to that goal through outreach to military communities across the country.

http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2011/05/09/supporting-military-families-and-let-s-move

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From the Department of Justice

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Illinois Man Admits Plotting to Bomb Federal Courthouse and Is Sentenced to 28 Years in Prison

WASHINGTON – Michael C. Finton, aka “Talib Islam,” pleaded guilty today to attempting to bomb the federal courthouse in Springfield, Ill., in September 2009 and was immediately sentenced to serve 28 years in prison, announced Todd Hinnen, Acting Assistant Attorney General for National Security, U.S. Attorney James A. Lewis of the Central District of Illinois, and Armando Fernandez, Acting Special Agent in Charge of the FBI Springfield Division.

At a hearing today in East St. Louis, Ill., Finton, 31, a U.S. citizen and resident of Decatur, Ill., appeared before U.S. District Judge David R. Herndon and entered a plea of guilty to one count of attempted use of a weapon of mass destruction (an explosive bomb) against property owned by the United States. Judge Herndon sentenced Finton to 336 months in prison in accordance with the terms of his plea agreement with the government.

“Michael Finton is one of a number of young Americans over the past two years who, under the influence of a radical and violent ideology, have sought to carry out acts of terrorism in the United States,” said Acting Assistant Attorney General Hinnen. “Although a coordinated undercover law enforcement investigation thwarted Mr. Finton's plot to destroy the federal courthouse in Springfield, this case underscores the need to remain vigilant against the threat posed by homegrown extremism.”

“Michael Finton tried to bomb our federal courthouse with the intent to kill innocent civilians, committed public servants and dedicated first responders,” said U.S. Attorney Lewis. “This terrible attempt was prevented through the excellent investigative work of the Springfield FBI Joint Terrorism Task Force and assisting law enforcement agencies.”

“The investigation of Michael Finton is a significant accomplishment in the FBI's mission to protect the United States from terrorist attack. The dedication and professionalism of the Springfield Joint Terrorism Task Force and the U.S. Attorney's Office in this case have made America safer,” said FBI Acting Special Agent in Charge Fernandez.

According to the plea agreement and other documents filed in court, Finton admitted that on Sept. 23, 2009, he traveled from Decatur to Springfield, where he knowingly took possession of a truck that he believed contained a bomb with approximately one ton of explosives. The explosive device was actually inert. Finton drove the truck to the Paul Findley Federal Building and Courthouse at 600 East Monroe Street, where he parked immediately outside the federal building and across the street from an office used by a U.S. Congressman.

At the time he parked the truck, Finton activated a timer connected to the explosive device, which he believed was large enough to destroy the federal building and the congressman's office. After Finton parked the van and armed the device, he locked the truck and got into a vehicle with an undercover law enforcement agent whom he believed was associated with the al-Qaeda terrorist organization. Finton then used a cell phone to attempt to remotely detonate the purported bomb after he and the undercover agent had driven a safe distance away.

Prior to Sept. 23, 2009, according to filed court documents, Finton met on several occasions with an undercover law enforcement officer whom Finton believed was acting on behalf of al-Qaeda. During a meeting on July 29, 2009, Finton proposed the federal building in Springfield as a target and proposed that two vehicle-borne bombs be used, the first to do the initial damage, and the second to attack the responders. Finton also suggested that if the bomb was big enough it might also “take out” the office of the congressman across the street from the federal building.

Finton has remained detained in the custody of the U.S. Marshals Service since his arrest on Sept. 23, 2009.

The case was investigated by the Springfield FBI Joint Terrorism Task Force and assisting law enforcement agencies. Assistant U.S. Attorney Eric I. Long of the Central District of Illinois, and Trial Attorney Alamdar Hamdani of the Counterterrorism Section at the Justice Department's National Security Division, prosecuted the case.

http://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/2011/May/11-nsd-590.html

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From the FBI

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Sitting in the small conference room across from the 31-year-old offender, the agents explained the ground rules. “There will be no tricks and no games,” they said. “We are going to talk about your life, including the murder. We want to know how you think about things and how you see things.”

There is nothing confrontational about the videotaped interview, which lasted for six hours. The offender—who consented to the meeting as part of a plea agreement to avoid the death penalty—talked openly, but perhaps not always truthfully.

“What they choose to share and disclose and what they choose not to disclose can be very revealing,” one of the agents said. “Sometimes it is difficult for them to face what they have done and to speak about it out loud.”

“From a behavioral standpoint,” the other agent said later, “we got a lot out of the interview.” Videotaped segments will be used by BAU staff when they train researchers, social workers, medical staff, and law enforcement personnel around the country about offenders who commit violent crimes against children.

“When you can illustrate a point by showing a video clip of the offender in his own words,” the agent said, “it is a very compelling teaching tool.”

http://www.fbi.gov/news/stories/2011/may/bau_050911/bau_050911

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