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From Los Angeles Times

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Firearms from ATF sting linked to 11 more violent crimes

Guns from Operation Fast and Furious were found at scenes in Arizona and Texas, the Justice Department acknowledges, widening the scope of the danger posed by the program.

by Richard A. Serrano, Washington Bureau

August 17, 2011

Reporting from Washington

Firearms from the ATF's Operation Fast and Furious weapons trafficking investigation turned up at the scenes of at least 11 violent crimes in the U.S., as well as at a Border Patrol agent's slaying in southern Arizona last year, the Justice Department has acknowledged to Congress.

The department did not provide details about the crimes. But The Times has learned that they occurred in several Arizona cities, including Phoenix, where Fast and Furious was managed, as well as in El Paso, where a total of 42 weapons from the operation were seized at two crime scenes.

The new numbers, which expand the scope of the danger the program posed to U.S. citizens over a 14-month period, are contained in a letter that Justice Department officials turned over to the Senate Judiciary Committee last month.

In the letter, obtained by The Times on Tuesday, Justice Department officials also reported that Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives officials advised them that the agency's acting director, Kenneth E. Melson, "likely became aware" of the operation as early as December 2009, a month after it began.

Melson has said he did not learn about how the operation was run until January of this year, when it was canceled.

The July 22 letter, signed by Assistant Atty. Gen. Ronald Weich, was sent to Sens. Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.) and Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa), the top members of the Senate Judiciary Committee. It was in response to questions posed to the Justice Department about Atty. Gen. Eric H. Holder Jr. and the weapons operation.

The program was intended to identify Mexican drug cartel leaders and smuggling routes across the border by allowing illegal purchases of firearms and tracking the weapons. Instead, many of the guns vanished.

Weich said that although the "ATF does not have complete information" on all of the lost guns, "it is our understanding that ATF is aware of 11 instances" beyond the Border Patrol agent's killing where a Fast and Furious firearm "was recovered in connection with a crime of violence in the United States."

Justice Department officials did not provide any more details about the crimes or how many guns were found.

But a source close to the controversy, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the continuing investigation, said that as early as January 2010, just after the operation began, weapons had turned up at crime scenes in Phoenix, Nogales, Douglas and Glendale in Arizona, and in El Paso. The largest haul was 40 weapons at one crime scene in El Paso.

In all, 57 of the operation's weapons were recovered at those six crime scenes, in addition to the two seized where Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry was killed.

Weich's letter also said a total of 1,418 firearms were circulated under the program. How many remain missing in the U.S. and Mexico is unclear. The total is considerably lower than earlier estimates, when authorities said that at least 2,000 guns had vanished.

Melson has told congressional investigators that he learned how the program operated in the field only after it was shut down in January.

But Weich wrote that the ATF had advised Justice Department officials that Melson "likely became aware on or about Dec. 9, 2009, as part of a briefing following a seizure of weapons in Douglas, Ariz."

Weich added that the ATF told the Justice Department that although Melson was not given "regular" briefings on the program, "periodic updates were provided to the acting director as determined to be necessary by the [ATF] Office of Field Operations. These briefings typically coincided with planned field visits or in preparation for meetings."

Weich added that Holder first spoke to Melson about the operation "in or about late April" of this year, after the attorney general learned of the program and during a regular briefing.

Senior Justice Department officials have insisted they did not know about the "operational tactics" of the program, and the Weich letter reemphasized that point. Weich noted that the officials were cooperating with investigations by Congress and the Justice Department inspector general's office, which reflects "our commitment to learning the facts underlying this matter."

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-atf-guns-20110817,0,7675961,print.story

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South Africa seizes children of Zimbabwe beggars

The babies are placed in state institutions for care the government says they can't get from their homeless mothers. It's not easy for the women to get their children back — or to live without them.

by Robyn Dixon, Los Angeles Times

August 16, 2011

Reporting from Johannesburg, South Africa

The young mother crossed the surging Limpopo River, the water up to her neck, like cruel hands trying to drag her under. Other women traveling with her were terrified, screaming, "We're going to die!"

Ruvarashe Chibura concentrated all her strength on the little bundle she held high in the air: her 15-month-old baby, Cynthia.

"I never cried. I had my baby over my head," she says now of that desperate crossing from her native Zimbabwe to South Africa. "I was afraid that Cynthia would be swept away."

But it wasn't until two years later that her little girl was swept away, this time by police and social workers in a country she had hoped would prove a refuge from the ordeals of her homeland.

Chibura and dozens of other unemployed illegal immigrants from crisis-ridden Zimbabwe have seen their children placed in state institutions. Their crime: begging at traffic lights with their babies at their sides.

For a Zimbabwean immigrant with no visa or papers, living illegally in a shabby city-owned building, South Africa's child welfare bureaucracy has proved as implacable as the river that nearly took her life three years ago. Chibura's daughter was taken into state care late last year, and now she says, despairingly, "she doesn't even remember that I'm her mother."

The government says its main concern is the best interests of the children. And even the mothers acknowledge that sitting by the road in traffic fumes in Johannesburg's desolate winter chill is a dismal environment for a baby.

"It's not good," says Memory Konjiwa, another young Zimbabwean mother whose child was taken into care.

But for the women, it's a difficult and lengthy process to get their babies back, because social workers and judges require proof that they are living in suitable, permanent housing, the very thing that most jobless Zimbabwean immigrants lack. They are told they will get their children back once they find a job, a nearly impossible task in a country where unemployment is estimated at 40%.

Simon Zwane, a spokesman for the Department of Health and Social Development, confirms that women must have jobs and housing before they can recover their babies, to prove they are capable of caring for them.

"We have taken babies into places of safety until parents can prove they can look after their babies, they have fixed places of abode and they have partners or they have found employment and they will not be on the streets with babies," he says.

Konjiwa, 26, spends her days remembering. Her 2-year-old son, Joe, is growing up fast without her in an institution far from the squalid building where she lives. She too carried her child across the Limpopo River.

"I can't survive without my baby," she croaks miserably. "I miss him more than anything."

Zwane says some women use their babies to beg. But Konjiwa and Chibura say they cannot feed their children without begging, let along afford child care while they seek money.

As many as 2 million Zimbabweans have flooded into South Africa in recent years looking for work after fleeing their country's economic collapse and political violence. They find they are not especially welcome, particularly in townships where xenophobic violence in 2008 saw machete-wielding mobs storm through, beating up Zimbabweans and other migrants, burning some to death.

Konjiwa, who left her older son, 4, in Zimbabwe with her mother, says passing drivers shout abuse, telling them to get out of South Africa or to get a job. Many shout "Kwere-kwere," an abusive term in South Africa for foreigners.

It would be unbearably bleak but for the coins dropped like pearls by some drivers, or the food and clothes that others donate.

"Everyone shouts at you, 'Find a job, find a job!' You feel shame that people are shouting at you. I just want money for my children. The fact that I don't have an ID or passport makes it hard to get a job because no one will trust you," Konjiwa says.

In October, police arrested her and another Zimbabwean beggar woman with their babies at traffic lights in the upscale suburb of Bryanston.

"At first I thought it was a joke," she says. "When I realized it was serious, I was so agitated. They just grabbed the babies by force and the babies were crying."

Konjiwa went to court to try to get her child back, but the judge told her she wouldn't get him until she had decent housing.

She lives in dire conditions, squatting in a freezing city building, with hundreds of other Zimbabwean refugees.

"We don't regard that as an appropriate environment to bring up children," says Zwane, the government spokesman. Authorities have accused some of the women of "renting out" their children to other beggars.

Kaajal Ramjathan-Keogh of Lawyers for Human Rights said that although roadside begging was against a child's interests, the situation was complex because unemployed Zimbabwean women often lack the means to earn money for food, and can't afford child care.

But she said the requirement that women find housing and jobs before recovering their children was unfair. "It seems like people are being penalized for being poor and for not having a home at whatever standards the social workers are holding them up to."

Chibura has been ordered to attend classes on how to look after her daughter. But she says she can't afford them.

"It's so painful," Chibura says. "I think about her every day."

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-zimbabwe-babies-20110817,0,3225170,print.story

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Immigration: Alabama goes down the wrong path

A new Alabama law against illegal immigration is among the most extreme of dozens passed by states. The U.S. must block such measures and work toward a federal solution.

August 17, 2011

Spurred by public anger over illegal immigration and the example set by Arizona, states passed more than 100 immigration-related measures during the first half of this year. President Obama condemned that appalling trend, but the administration otherwise took only modest actions to thwart it. It filed suit in Arizona, for instance, but has relied on immigrant and civil rights groups to challenge copycat measures in other states.

Then, this month, the Department of Justice sued to block Alabama from moving ahead with a new law that effectively turns police and civilians into immigration agents. Under the law, police would be required to arrest and jail anyone they suspect of being in the country illegally or face criminal liability and lawsuits. Landlords would be required to verify the immigration status of tenants or risk criminal charges. And public school officials would be forced to check students' immigration status and report it to district officials.

Understandably, the measure has galvanized fierce opposition. Immigrant advocates, civil rights and faith-based groups, and educators have denounced the law, vowing to fight it in and out of court.

State officials contend that the measure doesn't conflict with federal law because it would help immigration officials identify those in the country illegally. That's specious: Alabama can't deport those its law would target. Ultimately, federal agents and an already overburdened immigration court system would be left to contend with the additional cases.

It is true that some programs conflate the duties of local and federal officials in an attempt to control illegal immigration. The federal Secure Communities program, for instance, requires local law enforcement to submit fingerprints of detainees to the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security; information regarding the inmates' immigration status is then shared with police and jailers.

But that's a federal mandate imposed on local government. Unsavory as it is for some, it nevertheless preserves the federal government's sole power to enforce immigration law.

The Obama administration can't deport the estimated 11 million illegal immigrants living in this country. It must set priorities. That's hard to do when states pass laws that redirect federal resources. The Department of Homeland Security must be free to focus enforcement efforts on those illegal immigrants who pose a real danger to communities, not those who are merely in this country to work.

State and local authorities have every right to be frustrated with the lack of leadership from Washington on this issue. But the answer is federal immigration reform, not more bad law from the states. As the Obama administration properly moves to block those laws, it also needs to supply an alternative.

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/opinionla/la-ed-alabama-20110817,0,472725,print.story

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From Google News

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Father of 2 becomes hero in abducted girl's rescue

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) - The timing was just right for saving the life of a 6-year-old girl and for turning a 24-year-old mechanic and father of two young daughters into a hero.

It was coincidence that Antonio Diaz Chacon had come home from work early to spend time with his family Monday afternoon. It was also a coincidence that the family's washing machine had just gone out, forcing them to do laundry a block down the road at a relative's home.

Had it not been for that, Diaz Chacon wouldn't have been there to see the girl thrown into a van as another neighbor yelled for the would-be kidnapper to let the child go.

Diaz Chacon is credited with saving the girl after chasing the van through a maze of neighborhoods to the edge of where Albuquerque's sprawling housing developments meet the desert. It was there where the van crashed into a pole, the suspect fled and Diaz Chacon was able to rescue the girl and take her home.

He didn't think twice about his actions.

"The way he grabbed her and threw her into the van, I knew it wasn't right," he said, as a swarm of media stood outside his home Tuesday night to hear his story. The events were interpreted and relayed from Spanish to English by his wife.

"I knew I had to catch him. I had to get the girl back from him and take her home, back where she belongs," he said.

It all happened so fast on a sidewalk in the normally quiet mobile home park, where even on the evening after the abduction kids played freely in the streets on their bikes and push scooters as food vendors sold roasted corn and other snacks.

A pair of 911 calls came in quick succession.

On one, a frantic 12-year-old says her little sister is missing. On the other is Diaz Chacon's wife, Martha.

"We are outside of my mom's house here," she told the dispatcher. "We heard a man going, 'Hey, hey let her go. Let her go.' So we turn around ...

"The man came running to us and said, 'They stole a little girl.'"

Phillip Garcia, 29, had snatched the girl moments earlier, taking her away in a blue van, police said.

Diaz Chacon jumped in his black pickup and gave chase.

It wasn't until the van crashed and the driver got out that any sense of fear set in for Diaz Chacon.

"When he got down I was thinking, what if he has a gun," he said.

Garcia fled on foot, and Diaz Chacon reached the girl and told her he would take her home. Garcia then returned to his wrecked van and took off but was later captured by police, authorities said.

Hidden under a rock just 25 feet from the van was packing tape and a tie-down strap, police said.

Inside the impounded van were tostadas, a glove, a Leatherman tool, a black satchel, orange strapping similar to the strap found hidden under the rock, police said.

"This little girl was very lucky," police Sgt. Tricia Hoffman said. "We can only guess what would have happened to this child."

"Throughout the county we see situations like this and they do not end typically well," she said.

Police were among those who called Diaz Chacon a hero.

One of his daughters even shared the news about her dad's heroic actions with friends at school on Tuesday.

Diaz Chacon said he was proud to help. While he was chasing the van, he said, he thought of his own two girls - one 7 years old, the other 5 months - and how he would want someone to do the same for him.

"I told him 'I don't know how you could do it, just go after him, not knowing where he's going, what he's going to do?" his wife said. "But he saved a life." Garcia was charged with kidnapping, child abuse and tampering with evidence. Hoffman said Garcia is from Albuquerque and had a revoked license but she was unsure if he had a criminal record.

Garcia immediately "lawyered up," declining to give any statement to authorities, Hoffman said. Garcia remained jailed and no lawyer had yet been listed as taking the case, according to court officials.

There have not been any other recent child abductions or attempted abductions in the city, Hoffman said.

The girl told police she had gone to a neighbor's to pick up some tostadas and was walking home when the van stopped and the man grabbed her.

"She went to go to the neighbor's and on her way back we don't know what happened to her. ... When she was coming back or on her way, she just like disappeared," her sister said in the 911 call.

The girl was grabbed with such force, police said, that bruising had already begun to appear on her chest and back Monday evening. The girl told police the man put his hand over her mouth and she bit him.

She said the man shoved her on the floorboard to keep her head under the window view, according to the police report. She told police there were no backseats in the van and described other details consistent with the impounded van, police said.

She also described rolling in the van when it crashed, and breaking a fingernail. Police said they found what appeared to be a piece of fingernail in the van.

During her interview, police said the girl was concerned that she was unable to bring the tostadas home because she had left them in the van.

The Diazes said the girl's family had thanked them on Monday, saying they would always be grateful for what the young father had done.

Martha Diaz said she was grateful what could have been a parent's worst nightmare was not realized that day.

"Everything just worked out," she said, referring to the perfect timing of that afternoon.

"Even now we say, 'What if, what if we hadn't seen him? What if he would have been two minutes earlier.'"

http://www.buffalonews.com/wire-feeds/24-hour-national-news/article524832.ece

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Florida

Success Zone: Actual community policing in New Town

To witness some of the best in community policing, simply stop by a meeting in the New Town Success Zone.

Operation Safe Streets means more than arrests.

These police officers are partners, not occupiers.

For instance:

Add up all of these activities and more, and it's no wonder that crime has been dropping.

Citizens feel more open to giving tips to the police.

Relationships are being built with young men.

Lives surely are being saved and changed.

http://jacksonville.com/opinion/editorials/2011-08-17/story/success-zone-actual-community-policing-new-town

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From the Department of Homeland Security

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A Nation of Laws and a Nation of Immigrants

• We redesigned the Permanent Resident Card, commonly known as the Green Card, to include a radio frequency identification tag that allows Customs and Border Protection to quickly access the electronic records of travelers seeking to enter the United States and includes new security features that reduce the risks of counterfeiting, tampering, and fraud.
  
  
• We redesigned the Certificate of Naturalization, utilizing a tamper-proof printing process and embedding digitized photos and signatures.
  
  
• We added a machine-readable zone to the Employment Authorization Document (EAD) to make it easier for border control officers to more efficiently identify people who have already been approved for immigration benefits and who have been reviewed previously by USCIS officers.
  
  
• We have enhanced our partnership with the Forensic Document Laboratory which is dedicated exclusively to detecting fraudulent documents. As a result, we can better identify fake documents used to seek immigration benefits.

• Dozens of our Fraud Detection and National Security (FDNS) officers are aligned with local FBI-led Joint Terrorism Task Forces (JTFFs) to coordinate resources and provide immigration expertise to federal government agencies in support of terrorism investigations.
  
  
• Our FDNS officers furnish support to the National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC), the FBI's National Joint Terrorism Task Force, the Terrorist Screening Center, and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement's National Security Unit.
  
  
• We regularly exchange information with US-VISIT related to refugee claimants under existing data-sharing agreements with foreign-government partners.

Self Check is a voluntary, fast, free and simple service that allows you to check your employment eligibility in the United States. If any mismatches are found between the information you provide and your Department of Homeland Security or Social Security Administration records, Self Check will inform you of how to correct those mismatches.

Self Check is a service of E-Verify. Once you have confirmed your employment eligibility using Self Check, you are unlikely to encounter difficulties upon being hired by an E-Verify participating employer.

USCIS is releasing the Self Check service in phases. At this point the service is offered only to users that maintain an address in Arizona, California, Colorado, the District of Colombia, Idaho, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Nebraska, Nevada, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, South Carolina, Texas, Utah, Virginia, or Washington. The availability of Self Check will be limited for the initial launch as the service is tested and improved upon based on the outcomes of the initial implementation.

Available in 21 states:

If you do not currently maintain residency in one of the states listed, thanks for your patience as we work to improve and expand the Self Check service!

View the Self Check interactive preview

http://www.uscis.gov/portal/site/uscis/menuitem.eb1d4c2a3e5b9ac89243c6a7543f6d1a/?vgnextoid=2ec07cd67450d210V
gnVCM100000082ca60aRCRD&vgnextchannel=2ec07cd67450d210VgnVCM100000082ca60aRCRD

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From the FBI

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Buying a Car Online? Read This First

08/15/11

You can buy almost anything over the Internet—including clothes, a pizza, music, a hotel room, even a car. And while most transactions are conducted lawfully and securely, there are instances when criminals insert themselves into the marketplace, hoping to trick potential victims into falling for one of their scams.

Today, the FBI's Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) issued an alert about a specific type of cyber scam that targets consumers looking to buy vehicles online.

How the scam works. While there are variations, here's a basic description: consumers find a vehicle they like—often at a below-market price—on a legitimate website. The buyer contacts the seller, usually through an e-mail address in the ad, to indicate their interest. The seller responds via e-mail, often with a hard-luck story about why they want to sell the vehicle and at such a good price.

In the e-mail, the seller asks the buyer to move the transaction to the website of another online company….for security reasons….and then offers a buyer protection plan in the name of a major Internet company (e.g., eBay). Through the new website, the buyer receives an invoice and is instructed to wire the funds for the vehicle to an account somewhere. In a new twist, sometimes the criminals pose as company representatives in a live chat to answer questions from buyers.

Once the funds are wired, the buyer may be asked by the seller to fax a receipt to show that the transaction has taken place. And then the seller and buyer agree upon a time for the delivery of the vehicle.

What actually happens: The ad the consumer sees is either completely phony or was hijacked from another website. The buyer is asked to move from a legitimate website to a spoofed website, where it's easier for the criminal to conduct business. The buyer protection plan offered as part of the deal is bogus. And the buyer is asked to fax the seller proof of the transaction so the crooks know when the funds are available for stealing.

And by the time buyers realize they've been scammed, the criminals—and the money—are long gone.

Red flags for consumers:

• Cars are advertised at too-good-to-be true prices;
  
  
• Sellers want to move transactions from the original website to another site;
  
  
• Sellers claim that a buyer protection program offered by a major Internet company covers an auto transaction conducted outside that company's website;
  
  
• Sellers refuse to meet in person or allow potential buyers to inspect the car ahead of time;
  
  
• Sellers who say they want to sell the car because they're in the U.S. military about to be deployed, are moving, the car belonged to someone who recently died, or a similar story;
  
  
• Sellers who ask for funds to be wired ahead of tim

Number of complaints. From 2008 through 2010, IC3 has received nearly 14,000 complaints from consumers who have been victimized, or at least targeted, by these scams. Of the victims who actually lost money, the total dollar amount is staggering: nearly $44.5 million.

If you think you've been victimized by an online auto scam, file a complaint with IC3. Once complaints are received and analyzed, IC3 forwards them as appropriate to a local, state, or federal law enforcement agency.

http://www.fbi.gov/news/stories/2011/august/car_081511/car_081511

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