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From Los Angeles Times

Retired general who led campaign against drug gangs killed in Mexico

A recently retired Mexican army general who oversaw a controversial military operation against drug-trafficking was shot dead in a Mexico City suburb over the weekend, the military said in a statement (link in Spanish).

A tough-talking career soldier, retired Gen. Jorge Juarez Loera was in civilian clothes and in a compact civilian vehicle Saturday when he pulled over after being struck from behind in the Ciudad Satelite area of northwest Mexico City, witnesses told reporters. After exiting his vehicle and confronting the other driver, Juarez Loera was shot and killed, reports said.

Federal investigators have taken over the case from local authorities, reports said Tuesday. One possibility being investigated is "premeditated execution," said El Universal (link in Spanish). The general was considered an expert in drug-trafficking issues and had access to sensitive intelligence, raising the possibility he was targeted in the shooting, sources told the daily Reforma.

Juarez Loera rose to third in command in the Mexican military, and left his most recent post upon reaching the mandatory retirement age of 65 earlier this month.

Near the end of his 48 years of service in the Mexican armed forces, Juarez Loera oversaw Joint Operation Chihuahua (previously known as Joint Operation Juarez), the military-led campaign against drug gangs in the Mexican border state where violence-ravaged Ciudad Juarez is located. Homicide and human rights abuse claims against the Mexican military skyrocketed in Ciudad Juarez after President Felipe Calderon dispatched the army to combat the cartels in the region in late 2006.

Juarez Loera sometimes courted controversy in public remarks (link in Spanish). He once rebuffed critics of rising death tolls tied to the government's military-led campaign by saying that homicide victims should not be described as "one more citizen dead" but rather "one more delinquent dead."

Responding to complaints of heavy-handedness in the Chihuahua operation, Juarez Loera once boasted, " Mi orden de cateo es el marro ," or "My warrant is the sledgehammer."

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/laplaza/2011/05/general-drug-war-mexico-killed-chihuahua-military.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+LaPlaza+%28La+Plaza%29

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California homicides decline to lowest rate in 45 years

California's homicide rate continued to fall in 2010, reaching the lowest level since 1966, Atty. Gen. Kamala Harris announced Tuesday.

Preliminary figures gathered by the California Department of Justice from the state's largest jurisdictions show the number of homicides reported in 2010 declined by 9.6% from 2009.

That is the fifth year of declines in killings.

Homicide Report: Track killings in L.A. County

There were 1,335 homicides in 89 of the state's largest jurisdictions in 2010, according to the report, down from 1,476 in 2009.

The continuing drop reflects a trend seen in Los Angeles, where there were 293 homicides in 2010, down from 312 the year before, according to the state report

Overall, the number of violent crimes declined 6.4% in 2010 statewide, according to statistics gathered from 89 larger agencies that report about 65% of all crimes committed annually in the state.

Forcible rape declined 6%; robbery dropped 8.9%; and aggravated assault fell 4.6%.

"The decline in homicides and other violent crimes reflects the tireless efforts of our peace officers," Harris said.

Property crimes declined 2.2% in 2010; burglary dropped 0.9%; motor vehicle theft declined 7.2%; arson dropped 15%; and larceny under $400 dropped 4.9%. Only larceny of more than $400 rose, by 0.7%.

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2011/05/california-homicides-decline-to-lowest-rate-in-45-years.html

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Tim Rutten: A prison system we deserve

America generally — and California in particular — simply sends too many people to prison for too long relative to their offenses.

Tim Rutten

May 25, 2011

On Monday, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that California's prisons are so overcrowded they violate constitutional prohibitions against cruel and unusual punishment by systematically depriving inmates of minimal mental health and medical care.

Writing for the court's 5-4 majority, Justice Anthony M. Kennedy — a Californian — pointed to the use of "telephone-booth-sized cages without toilets" to house suicidal prisoners. A lower court earlier said that "an inmate in one of California's prisons needlessly dies every six or seven days due to constitutional deficiencies."

None of this comes as a surprise. The suits to which this ruling responds were filed more than two decades ago, and California has allowed these conditions to persist despite more than 70 lower court orders. California's 33-prison network was designed to confine 80,000 convicts, but at times over recent years it has held more than 160,000. On Monday, there were 143,435 inmates, which still is 180% of capacity, as Terry Thornton of the Department of Corrections told the Wall Street Journal. The court has given Sacramento two more years to cut the prison population by 33,630, which would bring the total to 109,805 inmates, or 137.5% of intended capacity — hardly a draconian requirement.

Monday's ruling is as much an indictment of this state's politics as it is of our correctional system, and it ought to prod us into considering a couple of unpleasant truths: One, America generally — and California in particular — simply sends too many people to prison for too long relative to their offenses. Two, this state's prisons are perhaps the prime example of our relatively recent popular impulse to insist on having things for which we don't want to pay — in this case, mass incarceration of nonviolent offenders. The situation has been exacerbated by the intrusion of another recent trend: the infusions of single-issue politics into our criminal justice system.

Sometimes this has amounted to wholesale overhauls, as with the 1990 Proposition 115 or the 1994 three-strikes initiative; sometimes, it involves people coalescing around a particular kind of crime and demanding huge increases in prison time for committing it. In either instance, prison funding is an afterthought.

Like the court's dissenters, California prosecutors and the Legislature's Republican leaders predicted that Monday's ruling will set in motion a wave of criminality. Given the significant number of prisoners incarcerated for nonviolent crimes or for violating their parole after conviction for such offenses, that doesn't seem inevitable. Moreover, Gov. Jerry Brown's plan to shift prisoners into county jails would seem a good hedge against a crime wave, providing the Legislature will fund it.

There again, though, we encounter the problem of chronic governmental dysfunction. On Monday, Senate Minority Leader Bob Dutton (R-Rancho Cucamonga) muttered darkly that the Democrats simply "are looking for any excuse they can to try to have more taxes." His solution was fast-tracking the construction of new prisons and persuading Washington to take custody of the undocumented immigrants serving time for felonies in California. In the current climate, there is no conceivable way either of those things is going to happen — hence, more wishful thinking.

If there's anything to which a fair degree of humility ought to attach itself these days, it's an opinion on the causes of crime and their remedies. About the same time the Supreme Court released its ruling in the California prison case, the FBI put out its updated set of national crime statistics. To the bewilderment of experts in virtually every camp surrounding this highly politicized issue, crime has continued to decline to the lowest levels in 40 years. These declines certainly confound those criminologists who are inclined to link crime to economic deprivation and joblessness. Despite the savagery of the current recession, for example, robbery rates fell by 8% in 2009 and by 9.5% last year. By the same token, the national prison populations actually have fallen over the last few years. So much for the incarceration-rate-is-destiny argument.

The issue California now confronts, however, doesn't really turn on solving this social scientific mystery. Our problem is, as the court pointed out, that overcrowding has reduced this state's prisons to a state of constitutional and human indecency — and that's a moral and legal scandal. Though it's been quoted with the frequency of cliche, Dostoyevsky's admonition remains true: "The degree of civilization in a society can be judged by entering its prisons."

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-0525-rutten-20110525,0,4019642,print.column

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From Google News

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Elizabeth Smart kidnapper could face life in prison

Ed Smart has told Reuters his daughter, now 23, considers it important to confront Brian David Mitchell in open court before he is sent to prison for her June 5, 2002 kidnapping and nine-month ordeal, a sensational crime that gripped much of America.

Mitchell, 57, was found guilty by a federal court jury in December of kidnapping and unlawful transportation of a minor across state lines to engage in sexual activity.

He faces a maximum sentence of life in prison.

"We are hoping that he does receive a life sentence because the last thing we want to do is hear about another girl that he has hurt like he did Elizabeth," Ed Smart said.

Mitchell's estranged wife, Wanda Barzee, was sentenced in May 2010 to a 15-year prison term after pleading guilty to conspiracy to commit aggravated kidnapping.

Smart, 14 when Mitchell took her at knifepoint from her upscale Salt Lake City home, testified during the self-styled prophet's six-week trial in federal court but did not directly address him.

Mitchell was ejected from the courtroom daily, including during Smart's testimony, for disrupting the proceedings with loud singing.

Smart returned to Utah two weeks ago after completing a mission in Paris for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, or Mormons.

Smart's terrifying abduction in the middle of the night from the bed she shared with her sister made international headlines, and a nine-month search for the missing teen was covered exhaustively on U.S. news programs.

In dramatic testimony, Smart told the court Mitchell woke her up with a knife to her throat and marched her into the foothills above Salt Lake City, where he pronounced her his wife, then raped her in a make-shift encampment.

She described her time as Mitchell's captive as "nine months of hell" in which she was at first kept chained by the ankle to a tree and raped nearly every day, often repeatedly, and forced to look at pornography and drink alcohol.

Smart was rescued on March 12, 2003, after passersby spotted her walking with Mitchell and Barzee, on a street in the Salt Lake City suburb of Sandy.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/05/25/us-smart-kidnapping-idUSTRE74O39120110525

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From the Department of Homeland Security

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Day 3 – Hurricane Preparedness Week: Wind Danger

• Reinforce garage doors. If wind enters a garage, it can cause dangerous & expensive structural damage.
  
• Be sure trees and shrubs around your home are well trimmed.
  
• Permanent storm shutters offer the best protection for windows. A second option is to board up windows with 5/8” marine plywood, cut to fit and ready to install. Tape does not prevent windows from breaking.

Day 2 – Hurricane Preparedness Week: Storm Surge

Day 1 - Hurricane Preparedness Week: What We're Doing to Prepare

• FEMA has three National-level Incident Management Assistance Teams that can deploy within two hours and arrive on scene within 12 hours to support the state, territory, local and/or tribal emergency managers. Each of FEMA's Regional offices also have at least one IMAT. Regions IV, VI and IX having two teams.
  
• Mobile Emergency Response Support provides mobile communications, logistics, and operations capabilities required for the on-scene management of all-hazard disaster response activities. FEMA can rapidly deploy any of its six MERS detachments to provide voice, video, and information services, operations, and logistics support to response operations, and joint federal and state response teams in resource-constrained environments.
  
• 28 National US&R Task Forces, and three Incident Support Teams, comprise the National US&R Response System. The Task Forces can deploy within six hours of activation, are self-sufficient for 72 hours, and are sponsored by state emergency management and/or local fire and rescue departments through cooperative agreements with FEMA. Teams are staffed, trained and equipped to assist state and local governments with the organization, skills, tools and equipment required to respond to structural collapse incidents and other search and rescue response operations.
  
• The Hurricane Liaison Team supports hurricane response operations through the rapid exchange of critical information among the National Hurricane Center and emergency managers at all levels of government, and responds to emergency management questions and concerns.
  
• FEMA's Disaster Emergency Communications Division has significantly enhanced state and local government's communications capabilities, supporting the development of communications plans. DEC has provided support in the establishment of 36 state specific plans to improve the nation's interoperability capabilities. An additional six state plans will be completed in FY2011.
  
• Enhancements to the National and Regional Response Coordination Systems, which provide overall federal support coordination for emergencies, information technology has improved FEMA's capacity to support and provide needed resource and guidance to affected states and communities during incident response.
  
• FEMA established a Movement Coordination Center to plan, coordinate, schedule, and track transport of resources (supplies, equipment, teams and personnel) necessary for timely support to incident operations.

• The National Disability Rights Network provides technical expertise to ensure that the access and functional needs of people with disabilities are incorporated into all aspects of planning for, responding to and recovering from disasters.
  
• Operation HOPE provides greater access to free financial counseling and information for disaster survivors, including: debt counseling, case management services, workshops, seminars and manuals for those seeking help at disaster recovery centers.
  
• The National Council on Independent Living will have access to Disaster Recovery Centers, to provide disaster assistance services to disaster survivors with disabilities.
  
• The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children can deploy assets to assist in the search for children missing as a result of a declared emergency or disaster.
  
• The American Red Cross will jointly lead the planning and coordination of mass care services, which will strengthen and expand the resources available to help shelter, feed, provide emergency first aid and deliver supplies to survivors of a disaster.
  
• Internal Revenue Service can support FEMA during large events with surge staffing support by activiating call center agents at pre-identified IRS facilities.
  
• The Office of Human Services Emergency Preparedness and Response, within the Department of Health and Human Servicess Administration for Children and Families, supports state and local disaster case management services through the Disaster Case Management Program.
  
• FEMA coordinated with 29 federal departments and agencies to finalize and update 263 Pre-Scripted Mission Assignments to ensure a rapid and responsive delivery of federal resources and capabilities such as heavy-lift helicopters from the Department of Defense, generators from the US Army Corps of Engineers, Disaster Medical Assistance Teams from the Department of Health and Human Services, and Emergency Road Clearing Teams from the U.S. Forest Service.
  
• FEMA has established a Private Sector Representative position to engage in information sharing and resolve private sector issues impeding the private sector from reopening during major disasters.
  
• FEMA tested a National Business Emergency Operations Center which was highly successful in incorporating private sector expertise and capabilities into national response efforts.
  
• FEMA hired Stakeholder Relations Specialists in each of the 10 regions to communicate, coordinate and collaborate with the private sector during disasters.

FEMA strives to achieve a Nation prepared through a comprehensive planning cycle that includes our federal, state and local partners, the private sector and citizens. While much work has been done in training, exercising and planning, several key training and planning initiatives have been undertaken going in to the 2011 hurricane season.

• FEMA offered its Hurricane Preparedness Course (L324) at the National Hurricane Center in Miami, Florida. One was targeted for the northeast states, one for the southeast states, and one for the gulf coast states.
  
• FEMA offered courses at the National Hurricane Conference in Atlanta, GA that included Debris Management; Planning for the Whole Community- Integrating and Coordinating the Access and Functional Needs of Children and Adults with Disabilities; Mitigation Planning Workshop for Local Government; Hurricane Readiness Course for Coastal Communities; and Hurricane Readiness for Inland Communities.
  
• FEMA's Emergency Management Institute offers online and classroom courses. For more information, visit http://training.fema.gov/ .
  
• FEMA is co-sponsoring an Interagency Logistics Course, in collaboration with the United States Army Logistics University. The course provides a strategic and operational overview of interagency disaster logistics. The first official course was held last year and three additional courses will have been completed for this year by May 2011.
  
• In September 2010, FEMA held its first ever National "Getting Real" Conference. The three day forum, hosted by FEMA in Baltimore, brought together leaders from the emergency management and disability communities to discuss strategies to integrate the entire community into planning for emergencies.
  
• FEMA developed a Disaster Case Management Program manual and application guidance to assist states in how to implement disaster case management. The application guidance will soon be released.
  
• FEMA completed Guidance on Planning for Integration of Functional Needs Support Services in General Population Shelters. This guidance was developed by representatives from federal, state and local agencies, voluntary organizations and the private sector to assist agencies and organizations engaged in sheltering, to enable individuals with access and functional needs to maintain their independence in general population shelters.
  
• Hurricane preparedness information and a hurricane preparedness webinar “Preparing Your Community for Hurricane Season” is available to Citizen Corps groups. For more information, visit www.citizencorps.gov.

• Last year, FEMA announced a new feature to the m.fema.gov mobile platform to make it easier for disaster survivors to apply for assistance. The platform was further enhanced, this year, to include information on locations of open disaster recovery centers, and we're working to provide open emergency shelters as well.
  
• National Disaster Recovery Program Database allows tribal, state and local governments, and emergency managers to view housing and recovery programs .
  
• The recently developed National Mass Evacuation Tracking Systems can help states track the movement of transportation-assisted evacuees, along with their household pets, luggage and durable medical equipment.
  
• FEMA completed enhancements to the National Emergency Family Registry and Locator System that will enable federal, state or local law enforcement officials assigned to missing person cases to access records entered into the system.
  
• FEMA's new web-based action tracking tool will allow users access to information to adequately manage requests and to identify the status of requests for commodities and other resources.
  
• FEMA added Geospatial Information Systems mapping capabilities to the National Shelter System and expanded data fields to assist emergency managers at all levels to plan evacuation routes, identify shelters that are outside hazard areas and close to needed services.
  
• This year, FEMA upgraded its Hazards U.S.- Multi-Hazard risk assessment computer software program. The software program can help state and local emergency managers anticipate potential infrastructure and building damage, amounts of debris and the potential injuries that could occur from hurricanes and other natural disasters

http://blog.fema.gov/search/label/Hurricanes

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