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August 14, 2011

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Editorial

Cut off cellphones in prison cells

Two bills aimed at stopping prison workers from smuggling them to inmates should become law.

August 14, 2011

It was bad enough when we learned in December that mass murderer and renowned psychopath Charles Manson was sending texts to folks outside prison walls using a flip phone that he kept hidden under his mattress. Now comes word that California inmates may be friending your kids on Facebook.

Officials at the state Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation announced this week that they've made an arrangement with the popular social-media site to take down pages belonging to inmates that have been updated since the owners went to prison. It seems that convicts are using contraband cellphones with Web browsers to harass their victims or issue threats on Facebook. Prisoners who set up Facebook accounts before being convicted are allowed to keep them, but if they're updated while the inmate is still doing time, the company has agreed to take action.

That's nice. But what's to stop inmates from jumping to Google+ or Twitter? The problem doesn't lie with the myriad websites where prisoners can go to plot violent crimes, conduct drug deals, order gang actions, plan escapes or engage in other mischief; it's within the prisons themselves. More than 10,000 contraband cellphones were confiscated in California prisons last year, up from 1,400 in 2007.

A case making its way through federal court in Sacramento shows at least one way these phones are finding their way to inmates. Prison guard Bobby Joe Kirby is accused of collecting thousands of dollars in wire transfers from prisoners and their associates in exchange for smuggling cellphones and tobacco products into a correctional center in Susanville. Kirby is facing wire fraud charges, but in other cases in which guards or prison employees have been caught smuggling phones, they've gotten off with a slap on the wrist.

Two bills aim to solve this problem. The first, from state Sen. Alex Padilla (D-Pacoima), would make it a misdemeanor to smuggle a cellphone into a state prison, punishable by up to six months in jail and a $5,000 fine. In one of the occasional logical breakdowns that characterized his tenure, former Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger vetoed the bill last year because he thought it wasn't tough enough — Schwarzenegger wanted the crime to be a felony. Maybe it should be, but it makes little sense to reject a measure that would at least make penalties stiffer than they are now; moreover, Democrats in the Legislature have wisely put a moratorium on drafting new felony laws until the state's prison overcrowding crisis is solved. The other bill, from Sen. Elaine Alquist (D-Santa Clara), would permit random monthly searches of prison employees for contraband. Both bills passed the Senate unanimously; the Assembly should follow suit, and Gov. Jerry Brown should sign them.

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/opinionla/la-ed-cellphones-20110814,0,911870.story

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August 13, 2011

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Homeland Security sued over immigrant detention

The National Immigrant Justice Center in Chicago files a class-action suit against the use of immigration detainers, requests for local police to hold immigrants while their status is investigated.

A Chicago group has filed a class-action lawsuit in federal court against the Department of Homeland Security, charging that its practice of asking local police to detain immigrants when there's no evidence of illegal activity is unconstitutional.

At issue is the use of an immigration detainer, a key component of Homeland Security's Secure Communities program. It is a request from the department's Immigration and Customs Enforcement to another law enforcement agency to hold people so that ICE can investigate their immigration status and potentially take over custody.

"What the lawsuit alleges is that in the vast majority of cases with individuals who have detainers lodged against them, basically ICE says to the locals, 'We are instructing you to detain [an individual] after [your] authority has expired because we have initiated an investigation,'" said Mark Fleming, litigation coordinator for the National Immigrant Justice Center, the group that filed the lawsuit.

The lawsuit contends that people are being held without probable cause, violating the 4th Amendment right against unreasonable searches and seizures.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-immigration-suit-20110813,0,5098151,print.story

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Hate crimes against Latinos up 50% in California

In 2010, 1,107 hate crimes were reported throughout the state, compared with 1,100 in 2009. There were 119 hate crimes against Latinos reported to authorities, compared with 81 the year before.

In comparison, hate crimes against Jews, gays and lesbians and African Americans all dropped in 2010, according to the report, which was put together using data collection methods developed by the state Department of Justice and law enforcement agencies in all 58 counties.

“A crime that is motivated by hate is a crime against all people,” said Atty. Gen. Kamala D. Harris in a written statement on the release of “Hate Crime in California 2010.” “We will monitor and prosecute these cases to the fullest extent of the law.”

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

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Casey Anthony told to return to Florida for probation

ORLANDO, Fla (Reuters) - A Florida judge on Friday ordered Casey Anthony, the young mother acquitted of murdering her toddler, to report for probation by August 26 on a 2010 check fraud conviction.

Judge Belvin Perry rejected claims by Anthony's lawyers that she had already served her probation while in jail awaiting trial on a charge of murder connected to the 2008 death of her 2-year-old daughter Caylee.

The 25-year-old mother dropped out of sight in July after she left jail with no restrictions on her freedom after being acquitted of murder in nationally televised trial.

In his order, Perry took note of a widely reported celebrity poll in which Anthony overwhelmingly was found to be the most hated American, and authorized Florida corrections officials to keep Anthony's home address a secret.

"This Court is very mindful that it is a high probability that there are many that would like to see physical harm visited upon the Defendant," Perry wrote.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/08/12/us-crime-anthony-idUSTRE77B5K320110812

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How DHS is Countering Violent Extremism

Protect Your Kids from Cyber Predators

• Monitor computer activity – Keep your computer in an open area and be aware of what your children are doing, including who they're talking to and what websites they're visiting.
  
  
• Inform children of online risks - Discuss appropriate Internet behavior that is suitable for the child's age, knowledge, and maturity. Talk to children about the dangers and risks of the Internet so that they recognize suspicious activity and secure their personal information.
  
  
• Keep lines of communication open - Let your children know that they can approach you with any questions or concerns about behaviors or problems they may have encountered on the Internet.

National September 11 Memorial

The design by Michael Arad and Peter Walker has weathered a long process of changes intact enough to be effective.

If you were expecting the National September 11 Memorial to turn out to be a visionary or uncompromising monument to human tragedy and architectural destruction, you probably haven't been paying sustained attention to the process that created it. And who could blame you? The rebuilding effort at the World Trade Center site has been marked by enough grandstanding, backbiting and power grabs, among politicians and designers alike, to push even the most dedicated optimist toward utter cynicism.

At its core, though, the memorial — designed by architect Michael Arad and landscape architect Peter Walker and set to open next month on the 10th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks — has managed to preserve at least a kernel of genuine and affecting meaning.

The central idea of Arad's original design remains intact: to keep the footprints of the twin towers open to the sky as massive, sunken fountains. Approaching either of those voids through the long rows of oak trees that Walker added to the site and encountering the names of the 9/11 victims carved into a dark-bronze parapet along their outer edges, as I did earlier this week, is to be reminded in visceral fashion of the immensity of the events of that day and the sheer scale of what was destroyed.

Covering 7.5 acres in total, or just less than half of the World Trade Center site's original 16 acres, the memorial is the first part of the massive, many-headed reconstruction plan for ground zero to be completed. It will be joined next fall by a museum, designed by the Norwegian firm Snohetta, occupying a relative sliver of space between the memorial's twin voids.

Photos: 'Reflecting Absence': The 9/11 Memorial

http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/news/la-et-memorial-hawthorne-20110812,0,3919675,print.story

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LAPD to open Hollywood education center for at-risk youths

The grand opening of the Tomorrow's Future storefront at 5824 Santa Monica Blvd. will take place next Thursday in Hollywood. The center will provide special programs, speakers, bilingual tutors and training to neighborhood youngsters, officials said.

LAPD Capt. Beatrice Girmala said the center, funded by community donations, achieves two important objectives. It provides children with a haven from crime and gangs in an area close to their homes and schools. Symbolically, she said it, shows that LAPD officers do more than put up crime scene tape or slap handcuffs on people.

"This way, the community sees there's much more to us than that," Girmala said. Kids chosen for the project include immigrants from Mexico, Central and South America, many of whom speak English as their second language.

In addition to the language and cultural barriers, Girmala said, many of the youths will come from working-class backgrounds and will be "vulnerable to the lure of gangs, who attempt to intimidate and recruit children as young as 10-year-olds to pre-teens ... with the promise of better economic times and a kind of family that many do not find at home."

Girmala said there have been at least 10 gang-related killings in the neighborhoods near the center in the last two years, as well as dozens of robberies and assaults. The children at the center will be tutored and mentored by graduates of the Hollywood Police Activities League, retired teachers and LAPD officers.

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2011/08/lapd-opening-new-education-center-for-at-risk-youth-in-hollywood.html

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Editorial

Shelve Secure Communities

The Obama administration should stop making matters worse by tinkering with a failed program to identify and deport dangerous illegal immigrants.

Lawmakers in California, Illinois, Massachusetts and New York have sought for several months to withdraw from Secure Communities, a supposedly voluntary federal fingerprint-sharing program designed to identify and deport dangerous immigrants. The Obama administration is now trying to make the states' opposition moot — a tactic that may provide the legal basis for expanding Secure Communities but does nothing to improve the program's damaged credibility.

Launched in 2008 and due to be in effect nationwide in 2013, Secure Communities requires the FBI to share with the Department of Homeland Security the fingerprints of everyone booked into local jails. The department then checks the prints against its immigration database. But some state officials balked at the program, citing fears that it might hinder public safety more than it helps it.

This month, the Department of Homeland Security abruptly announced that it was canceling agreements with all local officials. It explained that it would no longer invite them to opt into the program because local police already send the FBI the fingerprint data of every detainee.

States signed up for Secure Communities because they thought it would make their neighborhoods safer by getting serious criminals off the streets. But the government's own data indicate that more than half of those deported under the program were undocumented immigrants with no criminal record or only minor ones — not violent felons.

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/opinionla/la-ed-secure-20110812,0,1508672,print.story

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Unreliable witnesses

A new California law will make it impossible for innocent people to go to prison based on unsupported testimony from jailhouse snitches.

Starting next year, California prosecutors can no longer win convictions in cases that rely solely on the uncorroborated testimony of jailhouse informants. That requirement — imposed by a bill, SB 687, that Gov. Jerry Brown signed into law this month — isn't groundbreaking, considering that more than a dozen other states already have similar laws. But it's an important step forward for California.

A series of articles in The Times and a 1990 grand jury report revealed that jailhouse informants were routinely granted favors or given money by prosecutors for what turned out to be false testimony. Dozens of innocent people were sent to prison in the 1980s based on unsupported testimony from snitches. Some convictions were later overturned, but not before many of those wrongly imprisoned spent years behind bars.

The California Commission on the Fair Administration of Justice recommended in 2008 that uncorroborated testimony by jailhouse informants be barred, and some district attorneys moved quickly to set their own restrictions. Other prosecutors, concerned that such rules would make it harder to win convictions, argued that they weren't necessary — judges were already required to instruct jurors to consider inmates' testimony cautiously. Responding to that faction's concerns, then-Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger twice vetoed bills to make reforms.

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/opinionla/la-ed-informants-20110811,0,7427662,print.story

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August 11, 2011

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ATF's gun surveillance program showed early signs of failure

Just a few months into Operation Fast and Furious, an agency official called for a strategy to shut down the program aimed at following guns into the hands of Mexican drug cartels.

In March 2010, the No. 2 man at the ATF was deeply worried. His agents had lost track of hundreds of firearms. Some of the guns, supposed to have been tracked to Mexican drug cartels, were lost right after they cleared the gun stores.

Five months into the surveillance effort — dubbed Operation Fast and Furious — no indictments had been announced and no charges were immediately expected. Worse, the weapons had turned up at crime scenes in Mexico and the ATF official was worried that someone in the United States could be hurt next.

Acting Deputy Director William Hoover called an emergency meeting and said he wanted an "exit strategy" to shut down the program. The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives for decades had dedicated itself to stopping illegal gun-trafficking of any kind. Now it was allowing illegal gun purchases on the Southwest border and letting weapons "walk" unchecked into Mexico.

But those at the meeting, which included a Justice Department official, did not want to stop the illegal gun sales until they had something to show for their efforts. Hoover suggested a "30-day, 60-day or 90-day" exit plan that would shut Fast and Furious down for good — just as soon as there were some indictments.

But indictments did not come for another 10 months. By then, two semiautomatics had been recovered after a U.S. Border Patrol agent was killed south of Tucson, and nearly 200 had been found at crime scenes in Mexico.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-atf-guns-20110811,0,5316659,print.story

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New Jersey

Amid Summer Crime Spike, Police in Newark Reach Out to Its Residents

More than 40 Newark police officers swarmed Avon Avenue between South 11th and 12th streets on a recent sweltering evening in the Brick City as they awaited marching orders on which part of the neighborhood they would be deployed to that night.

This summer the police have been coming to high-crime areas such as Avon Avenue in what is known as community roll call, part of the city's Safe Summer initiative – Newark's answer to crime rates that skyrocketed last summer.

“It forced us to do two different sides to this: No. 1 really reevaluate and change the way law enforcement was operating and push us a lot more out into the community,” Mayor Cory Booker said.

The city trended downward significantly in the number of crimes in Booker's first term. In January 2010, shootings were down 46 percent from 2006. And last March was the first month in 44 years with no homicides.

But last year the pendulum swung back. There were 35 homicides from June 1 to September 1, making it the worst summer the city had experienced in 20 years.

To ensure this would not happen this year and mitigate the loss of 163 officers, laid off in December due to budget cuts, the city launched the summer initiative at the beginning of June. Next to community roll calls it includes stricter enforcement of the curfew for minors, bringing mounted horse units on patrols, officers going on bus rides with neighborhood leaders who point out problems.

http://www.wnyc.org/articles/wnyc-news/2011/aug/11/newark/

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The Bahamas

Eight-point plan to assist Police Force in curbing crime and violence

NASSAU, The Bahamas -- The Royal Bahamas Police Force has developed and implemented an eight-point plan in order to reduce crime and criminality in The Bahamas.

The plan is tied to the Force's Neighbourhood Community Policing Program and includes the continued deployment of civilian support staff to departments and sections of the Force “where they are best suited” in order to release trained officers from administrative duty to operational duties, among other measures.

Addressing the opening session of the first Regional Community-based Policing Conference Tuesday, Police Commissioner Ellison Greenslade said enhancing police visibility in communities by deploying more officers to the front lines will better serve the public.

“Divisional Commanders and Department Heads will be assessed on their willingness and commitment to this fundamental improvement in their areas of responsibility,” Mr Greenslade said.

http://www.thebahamasweekly.com/Eight-point_plan_to_assist_Police_Force_in_curbing_crime_and_violence

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August 10, 2011

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Dougherty Gang: Here's why you need to be on the lookout

The Dougherty Gang's tale reads like part of a Carl Hiaasen novel, and it's just getting started: Sooner or later, they're going to get caught. The question is whether they'll be caught dead or alive.

The Florida siblings have been on the lam since Aug. 2, after they allegedly shot out the tires on a Zephyrhills police patrol car that tried to stop them for speeding. Police say the trio robbed a bank in Georgia a few hours later.

Law enforcement officials are turning to the public for assistance because they have no idea what the Dougherty Gang is likely to do next, especially as law enforcement closes in. One of the men reportedly text-messaged their mother: "At some point we all have to die."

The Pasco Sheriff's Office has identified the three as Ryan Edward Dougherty, 21, a sex offender; his sister Lee Grace E. Dougherty, 29, an exotic dancer; and half-brother Dylan Dougherty Stanley, 26.

Law enforcement officials released a video today that allegedly documents the trio during a brush with a Florida police officer that ended with gunfire. Officials released the video as part of the effort to nab the three, who they say could be anywhere.

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/nationnow/2011/08/dougherty-gang-heres-why-you-need-to-be-on-the-lookout-for-em.html

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San Diego attorney pleads guilty in 'baby-selling ring'

A prominent San Diego attorney pleaded guilty Tuesday in federal court to being part of what U.S. Atty. Laura Duffy labeled a "baby-selling ring."

Theresa Erickson, a lawyer specializing in reproductive law, pleaded guilty to wire fraud for allegedly transmitting phony documents to deceive both the San Diego County Superior Court and couples seeking to become parents. Two other people in the alleged ring have also pleaded guilty.

According to court documents, Erickson hired women in San Diego to go to Ukraine to be implanted with embryos created from the sperm and eggs of donors.

Once a woman was in the second trimester of pregnancy, she would return to San Diego and Erickson would "shop" the babies by falsely telling couples that a couple who had intended to adopt the baby had backed out of the deal. The new couple would then be charged between $100,000 and $150,000, according to prosecutors.

"These were people who desperately wanted babies," said Assistant U.S. Atty. Jason A. Forge.

Court documents mention a dozen unnamed couples who received babies in this manner from Erickson and the two co-defendants. Women who agreed to carry the embryos to term were paid between $38,000 and $40,000, Forge said.

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2011/08/san-diego-attorney-pleads-guilty-in-baby-selling-ring.html?track=icymi

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Grim Sleeper: LAPD expands serial killer probe to 230 cases

Los Angeles police detectives have significantly widened the number of cases they are reviewing as they search for more victims of the Grim Sleeper serial killer.

LAPD detectives are now looking at 230 missing persons cases and unsolved killings going back to the mid-1970s, seeing whether there are any links to Grim Sleeper suspect Lonnie David Franklin Jr., who has been charged in 10 killings.

Officials said they are not sure how many cases might ultimately be linked but that they considered it important to cast the largest net possible.

The bid to expand reviewable cases, whose number recently stood at 60, began three months ago as LAPD robbery-homicide detectives sought to include cases in South Los Angeles dating to May 1976, when Franklin got out of the Army. The previous effort was concentrated from the early 1980s until Franklin's arrest in July 2010.

During that time Franklin worked in the LAPD's motor pool and with the Los Angeles City Department of Sanitation.

The sources stressed it would be a slow process to pull the records and remaining evidence from archives and that it was likely that many cases might never be linked. Nonetheless, they said it could provide some answers to families about the fate of their loved ones.

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2011/08/grim-sleeper-lapd.html?lanow

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Florida

SHIFTING GEARS: School speed zones mean drivers have to slow down

BONITA SPRINGS — As Lee County school children head back to school Monday, local motorists will need to slow down and allow extra time when traveling near school zones.

Lee County Sheriff's officers will be watching for motorists who aren't watching out for kids. Speeding fines are doubled in school zones.

“We always ramp up patrol of school zones and school bus stops,” said Lt. Larry King, public information officer for the Lee County Sheriff's Office.

A recent memo put out by the Lee County Sheriff's Office reminds motorists to yield at crosswalks and never pass a stopped school bus when its red lights are flashing and stop arm is extended. Both directions of traffic are required to stop unless there is a raised or grass median dividing the roadway.

When school resumes on Monday, more than 600 school buses will be deployed in Lee County. Many of those buses have already hit the roadways in preparation for shuttling children to and from local schools.

http://www.naplesnews.com/news/2011/aug/06/school-speed-zones-drivers-means-slow-down/?print=1

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August 9, 2011

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California

D.A. sees no signs of 'intentional killing' by Fullerton police

Prosecutors are still probing whether officers used excessive force against a schizophrenic homeless man. The man's father says he suffered brain injuries from blunt force trauma and lack of oxygen.

Orange County Dist. Atty. Tony Rackauckas on Monday said that he's seen no evidence so far suggesting Fullerton police officers intentionally tried to kill homeless man Kelly Thomas, but that his office is still trying to determine whether the officers used excessive force in his death.

Rackauckas, speaking about it publicly for the first time, said the investigation is in its early stages and his office has yet to get a cause-of-death determination from the Orange County coroner's office.

"As far as intentional killing ... I have not seen any evidence of that in this case," Rackauckas said.

Thomas, 37, died several days after he was confronted by six Fullerton officers at the local bus depot last month. As they tried to search the schizophrenic homeless man, a violent altercation ensued that left him in a coma. Witnesses have described officers repeatedly striking him and shocking him with a stun gun.

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-fullerton-death-20110809,0,3644876,print.story

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Nevada

Sheriff's Citizens Academy set for September

Registration still is open for the Carson City Sheriff's Office's Citizens Academy to begin Sept. 6.

The Academy explains what the Sheriff's Office does, how they do it and why its done in a particular way, as well as explaining the importance of community policing.

Participants will learn about patrol operations, arrest procedures, defensive tactics, and the department's specialized units.

The Academy runs through Oct. 24. The first class will be held on a Tuesday evening. Subsequent classes are Monday evenings from 6-9 p.m. in the Ormsby Room at the Sheriff's offices 911 E. Musser St.

The Academy is open to adults, 18 or older, with preference given to Carson City residents. There is no charge for the class. There still are 20 slots open. The deadline for applications is Aug. 22.

For further information or to request an application visit the Carson City Sheriff's Office at 911 E. Musser St. or contact Volunteer Coordinator Ken Smith at 283-7810

http://www.nevadaappeal.com/article/20110809/NEWS/110809710/1001&parentprofile=105

Trutanich draws criticism with $2-million check

City attorney is accused of a political ploy for offering money to the Sheriff's Department for processing rape kits when the law says it must be used for consumer protection.

When does hand-delivering a check for $2 million for a worthy cause land you in hot water?

For Los Angeles City Atty. Carmen Trutanich, who is raising money for a possible run for district attorney, it was when he proposed using that hefty sum for a program that would help one of his political allies.

The money had come from a legal settlement won by city lawyers against an outdoor advertising company. Under state law, half of the settlement must be given to the county for consumer protection enforcement and, in the past, the county has doled out those funds to the district attorney's office — the office Trutanich may seek in next year's election.

But when Trutanich personally carried the $2,025,000 check to the county's chief executive, bodyguard in tow, he suggested using the money for a different purpose: testing DNA samples from rape victims.

As it happens, the head of the county agency that would have received the money under Trutanich's proposal — Sheriff Lee Baca — has been publicly urging people to persuade Trutanich to run for district attorney.

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-trutanich-20110808,0,6734254,print.story

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Police, neighbors piecing together Ohio rampage

A northeast Ohio man ran through his small-town neighborhood Sunday killing seven people, including his girlfriend, before he was shot and killed in an exchange of gunfire with police, authorities said.

A gunman killed seven people and wounded another, before being killed himself in a gunfight with police.

Police say the gunman shot his girlfriend in one home before 11 a.m. Sunday, then ran to a next-door neighbor's house, where he shot her brother and gunned down four neighbors in the Ohio town of Copley.

He then chased four people -- two through neighboring backyards -- shooting one of them before bursting into a nearby home, where two others had sought refuge.

Police said he shot his eighth victim in that home and left, only to get into a gunfight outside with a police officer and a citizen who had been a police officer. The gunman, whose name was not released, was killed.

Only one of those shot survived. Police said that victim was taken to an area hospital but did not disclose a condition or identity. None of the victims was identified and their ages were not disclosed.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-naw-ohio-rampage-20110808,0,7452835,print.story

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L.A. County may pull its own handoff when state inmates arrive

Officials say they are considering a plan to contract out the influx of inmates to a San Joaquin Valley lockup — but only as a last resort.

Los Angeles County officials are exploring an unconventional solution for handling the prisoners the state is passing off to them: passing them off to someone else.

By year's end, hundreds of criminals who would have done their time in state prisons are expected to go instead to county lockups as part of the governor's plan to thin the population in California's chronically overcrowded prisons.

Taking some of those inmates and shipping them out again is being considered as a last resort, county officials said. But it's being taken seriously enough that county staff have been seeking outside advice on the idea, and a team of sheriff's officials recently took a trip to the San Joaquin Valley to scope out a potential lockup.

L.A. County jails have faced hitting capacity before, resorting to early release and other solutions for shedding prisoners; but never before have inmates been housed out of county.

Asked whether he could think of any other county that has done so, state Sheriffs' Assn. President Mark Pazin said, "No, never and I've been doing this for 30-plus years. We just don't do that."

It would also undermine one of the much-touted arguments for Sacramento's plan to divert state inmates to local jails: that keeping criminal offenders closer to home and their family and friends gives them a better shot at rehabilitation.

"Oftentimes, individuals lose support when they're taken far away," said Oscar Hidalgo, a spokesman for the state Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation.

Receiving visits from loved ones is said to keep inmates motivated. And prison rehabilitation programs are often tailored to each region's unique problems. For example, Hidalgo said, programming in parts of Northern California may be more oriented toward drug rehabilitation, while those in Los Angeles would more strongly emphasize gang issues.

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-sheriff-prisoners-20110808,0,1194803,print.story

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Chief calls San Diego officer's death 'an assassination'

Officials release grim details of the shooting of Jeremy Henwood, 36, a 4th-year officer who served with Marines in Afghanistan. Bystanders came to his aid and helped officers quickly track down the shooter.

As a captain in the Marine Corps Reserves, Jeremy Henwood deployed to one of the most dangerous regions in Afghanistan, where Taliban fighters use roadside bombs and snipers to kill or maim as many American troops as possible.

Dozens of Marines were killed and hundreds were wounded, some grievously, during his tour.

But Henwood, 36, returned home in May without a scratch and was proud of his yearlong deployment. He was equally pleased to get back to the San Diego Police Department, which assigned him to patrol in City Heights, an up-and-coming blue-collar neighborhood that, like much of San Diego, is enjoying a sharp decrease in crime.

His tour of duty on a relatively tranquil home front came to a tragic end early Sunday, when he died of wounds from a point-blank shotgun blast the day before.

Police Chief Bill Lansdowne, a cop for four decades, had trouble finding words to describe the shooting by a petty criminal who drove alongside Henwood's patrol car and opened fire. The suspect was pursued and shot dead by other officers.

The slaying, said an ashen-faced Lansdowne, "was an assassination."

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-cop-killed-20110808,0,6754920,print.story

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Guarding child welfare

For decades, child welfare programs swung back and forth, depending on the latest outrage. The county Department of Children and Family Services needs a permanent leader who will stand up to the Board of Supervisors.

It starts with the death of a child. There is no event more tragic than the death of an innocent due to an adult's abuse or neglect. Now add government — too blind to the needs of its most vulnerable charges, perhaps, or too prone to snatch children from their homes and too unwilling or too clueless to help troubled families. The final ingredient: Public outrage and demands for change.

For decades, those were the factors that determined child welfare policy. High-profile cases of abuse at the hands of violent or addicted parents resulted in panic and waves of removals, supposedly in the interests of child safety. Abuse in foster homes led officials to send children the other way, back to their families. Instead of a ladder leading upward, child welfare programs seemed to operate like a pendulum, swinging back and forth depending on the latest outrage. Instead of progress, child welfare advocates faced the depressingly perpetual: abuse and neglect of children; the destructive cold war between politicians and bureaucrats; lack of adequate funding; policy changes spurred by child deaths rather than hard data.

But progress is real. Studies that follow children who were kept with their families or placed with relatives show that they do better in school, have fewer run-ins with the law and have better prospects for the future than their counterparts removed to foster care.

Los Angeles County now has the fewest children in foster care in years, but that by itself doesn't mean the county is doing the best it can. For the Department of Children and Family Services to do its work, it needs support and guidance — and breathing room — from the Board of Supervisors. Instead, the board forced out Trish Ploehn as department director in December, and has since then run through Antonia Jimenez and now Jackie Contreras. In May the board, demonstrating its inability to distinguish between management and oversight, took direct control of the department from county Chief Executive Officer William T Fujioka.

Now supervisors have appointed county welfare chief Philip L. Browning to temporarily lead the department. It's a good move; Browning is a well-regarded administrator. But what the department really needs, and soon, is a permanent leader who will stand up to the supervisors and not allow them to make panic, rather than progress, the key factor in department decision-making.

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/opinionla/la-ed-childwelfare-20110808,0,3774877,print.story

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Home sweet shopping cart

Just when you had given up all hope and thought that the authorities had the final word, for a moment at least, 'the universe bends toward justice.'

It looked like an anti-terrorist takedown: five cop cars, 10 police officers, a yellow skip loader and a 5-ton dump truck. They screeched to a halt and blocked off 6th Street in front of our soup kitchen in downtown Los Angeles. But their target this spring was not a suicide bomber or a hidden nuclear device; it was the four red shopping carts parked in front of our building. Those of us who had worked on skid row for a while were not surprised; we'd seen it all before.

It has been standard city policy since the mid-1980s to have the aforementioned convoy of skip loader, dump truck and police escort patrol the streets of skid row to confiscate the unattended possessions of homeless people — belongings deemed superfluous, excessive or simply trash. Often these sweeps would take medication, identification papers and family photos, the last vestiges of past lives.

Between 1989 and 2005, three lawsuits, two by civil rights attorney Carol Sobel, were filed and won in state and federal courts against the city of Los Angeles regarding the rights of the homeless. As a result, the police are required to give sufficient notice before removing property of the homeless, and the city must pay damages to homeless people for possessions that had been taken and dumped rather than stored for a certain length of time.

Despite these court victories and the periodic interdiction of homeless activists, the city and police have continued their policy of what amounts to theft from the homeless.

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-dietrich-justice-20110808,0,411742,print.story

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Security to be tight at ground zero site

Law enforcement officials say terrorists see the memorial site as possibly too tempting a target to resist.

NEW YORK - Few New Yorkers noticed earlier this summer when a dozen police horses boarded in a stable in lower Manhattan were loaded into trailers and moved uptown. The New York Police Department relocated the horses to build a temporary staging area for 220 officers newly assigned to protect ground zero.

The lower Manhattan force will eventually grow to 670.

A key job will be to perform airport-style screenings on the multiple thousands who will visit the Sept. 11 memorial at the site after it opens this fall, as well as to keep a watchful eye on all visitors with an array of closed-circuit cameras.

While the resurrection of the 16-acre property may be viewed by most Americans as a triumph of the nation's resolve, law enforcement believes terrorists see it as another chance to prove their tenacity.

"Without question it is a target, because it has tremendous symbolism," said James Kallstrom, a former top FBI official who headed the agency's New York City office in the 1990s. "Going back and attacking a landmark that was already attacked once is the ultimate challenge."

http://www.startribune.com/nation/127116603.html

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California

From street to surf: Community policing reaches youths

LOS ANGELES -- As morning broke over the city on a recent Monday, cops assigned to the Los Angeles Police Department's Southeast Division went about their normal routine, patrolling the streets. There was, as always, plenty to do. The division's 10-square-mile area has some of the highest crime and poverty rates in the city and is home to 120 documented gangs and three of the city's roughest housing projects.

But 18 miles and a world away, Officer Scott Burkett was working a very different beat. Having traded his uniform for a wetsuit, the 15-year LAPD veteran was in the water at Torrance Beach with about two dozen kids from the Watts-area neighborhood that Southeast patrols, teaching them to surf.

Surfing as crime-fighting strategy?

"It's about changing the relationship between the Watts community and the LAPD," said Southeast Capt. Phil Tingirides, a first-time surfer who got in the water as well. "To do that, we've got to get the kids, and we've got to get them early."

In recent years, the violent crime rates in the city's Southeast neighborhoods were too high to allow officers to work on anything but patrol, gang units and other traditional assignments, Tingirides said. But in 2009, after a few years of declines in crime, he asked Burkett to start a youth activities program.

"We got to the point where we felt we could move away from just violent crime suppression and make a move toward this sort of thing, which is about trying to impact the future instead of just throwing cops up against every crime that occurs."

http://www.sacbee.com/2011/08/08/v-print/3823309/from-street-to-surf-community.html

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Georgia

Gainesville school resource officers back in schools today

“They're actually a big asset to the community,” said Kevin Holbrook, public information officer for the Gainesville Police Department. “They deal with anything that may arise in the schools, and they also do a lot of education. It's not just being reactive but a little more proactive. It kind of falls under the community policing approach.”

Charles Newman has served as a school resource officer since 1994 and currently works at Gainesville High School.

“We are liaison officers,” he said. “Really we are a go-between between the police department and the school system. That's our No. l function.”

Some of the officers' daily duties include working on cases with Juvenile Court and the Department of Family and Children's Services.

“Counselors report if you have child abuse cases, neglect cases; we're the first ones they report to,” said Chris Coy, resource officer at Wood's Mill Academy.

http://www.gainesvilletimes.com/section/6/article/54121/

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