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From the Los Angeles Times

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Mexico still waiting for answers on Fast and Furious gun program

Top Mexican officials say the U.S. kept them in the dark. One official was stunned to learn that the cartel hit men who killed her brother had assault rifles from Fast and Furious in their arsenal.

by Ken Ellingwood, Richard A. Serrano and Tracy Wilkinson, Los Angeles Times

September 19, 2011

Reporting from Mexico City and Washington

Last fall's slaying of Mario Gonzalez, the brother of a Mexican state prosecutor, shocked people on both sides of the border. Sensational news reports revealed that cartel hit men had tortured Gonzalez, and forced him to make a videotaped "confession" that his high-powered sister was on the take.

But American authorities concealed one disturbing fact about the case from their Mexican counterparts: U.S. federal agents had allowed AK-47 assault rifles later found in the killers' arsenal to be smuggled across the border under the notorious Fast and Furious gun-trafficking program.

U.S. officials also kept mum as other weapons linked to Fast and Furious turned up at dozens of additional Mexican crime scenes, with an unconfirmed toll of at least 150 people killed or wounded.

Months after the deadly lapses in the program were revealed in the U.S. media — prompting congressional hearings and the reassignment of the acting chief of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives — top Mexican officials say American authorities have still not offered them a proper accounting of what went wrong.

Marisela Morales, Mexico's attorney general and a longtime favorite of American law enforcement agents in Mexico, told The Times that she first learned about Fast and Furious from news reports. And to this day, she said, U.S. officials have not briefed her on the operation gone awry, nor have they apologized.

"At no time did we know or were we made aware that there might have been arms trafficking permitted," Morales, Mexico's highest-ranking law enforcement official, said in a recent interview. "In no way would we have allowed it, because it is an attack on the safety of Mexicans."

Morales said she did not want to draw conclusions before the outcome of U.S. investigations, but that deliberately letting weapons "walk" into Mexico — with the intention of tracing the guns to drug cartels — would represent a "betrayal" of a country enduring a drug war that has killed more than 40,000 people. U.S. agents lost track of hundreds of weapons under the program.

Concealment of the bloody toll of Fast and Furious took place despite official pronouncements of growing cooperation and intelligence-sharing in the fight against vicious Mexican drug-trafficking organizations. The secrecy also occurred as President Felipe Calderon and other senior Mexican officials complained bitterly, time and again, about the flow of weapons into Mexico from the U.S.

Patricia Gonzalez, the top state prosecutor in Chihuahua at the time of her brother's 2010 kidnapping, noted that she had worked closely with U.S. officials for years and was stunned that she did not learn until many months later, through media reports, about the link between his death and Fast and Furious weapons.

"The basic ineptitude of these officials [who ordered the Fast and Furious operation] caused the death of my brother and surely thousands more victims," Gonzalez said.

Fast and Furious weapons have also been linked to other high-profile shootings. On May 24, a helicopter ferrying Mexican federal police during an operation in the western state of Michoacan was forced to land after bullets from a powerful Barrett .50-caliber rifle pierced its fuselage and armor-reinforced windshield. Three officers were wounded.

Authorities later captured dozens of drug gang gunmen involved in the attack and seized 70 weapons, including a Barrett rifle, according to a report by U.S. congressional committees. Some of the guns were traced to Fast and Furious.

Email traffic and U.S. congressional testimony by ATF agents and others make clear that American officials purposefully concealed from Mexico's government details of the operation, launched in November 2009 by the ATF field offices in Arizona and New Mexico.

In March 2010, with a growing number of guns lost or showing up at crime scenes in Mexico, ATF officials convened an "emergency briefing" to figure out a way to shut down Fast and Furious. Instead, they decided to keep it going and continue to leave Mexico out of the loop.

Communications also show that the U.S. Embassy, along with the ATF office in Mexico, at least initially, was also kept in the dark.

In July 2010, Darren Gil, the acting ATF attache in Mexico City, asked his supervisors in the U.S. about guns in Mexico but got no answer, according to his testimony before a U.S. congressional committee investigating the matter.

"They were afraid that I was going to either brief the ambassador or brief the government of Mexico officials on it," Gil said.

Part of the reason for not telling Mexican authorities, Gil and others noted, is the widespread corruption among officials in Mexico that has long made some U.S. officials reluctant to share intelligence. By late last year, however, with the kidnapping of Mario Gonzalez and tracing of the AK-47s, some ATF officials were beginning to tell their superiors that it was time to inform the Mexicans.

Carlos Canino, an ATF agent at the U.S. Embassy in Mexico City, warned headquarters that failure to share the information would have dire consequences for the U.S.-Mexican relationship.

"We need to tell them [Mexico] this, because if we don't tell them this, and this gets out, it was my opinion that the Mexicans would never trust us again," Canino testified to congressional investigators in Washington.

Atty. Gen. Morales said it was not until January that the Mexican government was told of the existence of an undercover program that turned out to be Fast and Furious. At the time, Morales said, Mexico was not provided details.

U.S. officials gave their Mexican counterparts access to information involving a group of 20 suspects arrested in Arizona. These arrests would lead to the only indictment to emerge from Fast and Furious.

"It was then that we learned of that case, of the arms trafficking," Morales told The Times. "They haven't admitted to us that there might have been permitted trafficking. Until now, they continue denying it to us."

In March, after disgruntled ATF agents went to congressional investigators, details of Fast and Furious began to appear in The Times and other U.S. media. By then, two Fast and Furious weapons had been found at the scene of the fatal shooting of a U.S. border agent near Rio Rico, Ariz.

As well, a second agent had been killed near the Mexican city of San Luis Potosi, sending the ATF hierarchy into a "state of panic," ATF supervisor Peter Forcelli said, because of fears the weapons used might have arrived in Mexico as part of Fast and Furious. So far, all the U.S. government has said in the latter case is that one of the weapons was traced to an illegal purchase in the Dallas area.

In June, Canino, the ATF attache, was finally allowed to say something to Atty. Gen. Morales about the weapons used by Mario Gonzalez's captors, thought to be members of the powerful Sinaloa cartel.

"I wanted her to find out from me, because she is an ally of the U.S. government," he testified.

Canino later told congressional investigators that Morales was shocked.

" Hijole !" he recalled her saying, an expression that roughly means, "Oh no!"

Canino testified that Fast and Furious guns showed up at nearly 200 crime scenes.

Mexican Congressman Humberto Benitez Trevino, who heads the justice committee in the Chamber of Deputies, said the number of people killed or wounded by the weapons had probably doubled to 300 since March, when he said confidential information held by Mexican security authorities put the figure at 150. The higher number, he said, was his own estimate.

A former attorney general, Benitez labeled the operation a "failure," but said it did not spell a collapse of the two nations' shared fight against organized crime groups.

"It was a bad business that got out of hand," he said in an interview.

Many Mexican politicians responded angrily when the existence of the program became known in March, with several saying it amounted to a breach of Mexican sovereignty. But much of that anger has subsided, possibly in the interest of not aggravating the bilateral relationship. For Mexico, the U.S. gun problem goes far beyond the Fast and Furious program. Of weapons used in crimes and traced, more than 75% come from the U.S.

"Yes, it was bad and wrong, and you have to ask yourself, what were they thinking?" a senior official in Calderon's administration said, referring to Fast and Furious. "But, given the river of weapons that flows into Mexico from the U.S., do a few more make a big difference?"

Still, Mexican leaders are under pressure to answer questions from their citizens, with very little to go on.

"The evidence is over there [north of the border]," Morales said. "I can't put a pistol to their heads and say, 'Now give it to me or else.' I can't."

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-mexico-fast-furious-20110920,0,1282076,print.story

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Remains identified as those of Michelle Le

The remains were identified by the Alameda County coroner's office, the San Francisco Chronicle reported.

Esteban had been a person of interest in the investigation, authorities said, because she had blamed Le for ruining her relationship with her boyfriend. Investigators also said they found Le's DNA on one of Esteban's shoes, along with evidence that she had been in Le's car and security camera footage of Esteban from the Hayward parking lot.

Searchers found remains and other items Saturday and Sunday near Pleasanton Sunol Road and Verona Road, said Sgt. J.D. Nelson of the Alameda County Sheriff's Department.

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

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From Google News

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Sentence for Terrorist Is Too Short, Court Rules

MIAMI — A federal appeals court ruled on Monday that the 17-year prison sentence imposed on Jose Padilla, who was convicted of terrorism conspiracy in 2007, was too lenient and sent the case back to the district court here for a new hearing.

In a 2-to-1 opinion, the United States Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit, in Atlanta, ruled that the sentence was “substantively unreasonable” and did not take into account Mr. Padilla's violent criminal history as a former gang member in Chicago. It also said the lower court did not take seriously enough Mr. Padilla's time at a Qaeda camp in Afghanistan, where he was trained to kill.

“Padilla poses a heightened risk of future dangerousness due to his Al Qaeda training,” the court said. “He is far more sophisticated than an individual convicted of an ordinary street crime.”

The appellate court also affirmed Mr. Padilla's conviction and that of his two co-defendants.

The government had appealed Mr. Padilla's sentence, which was 17 years and 4 months, seeing it as too great a departure from federal sentencing guidelines.

After a four-month trial in 2007, Mr. Padilla, a Brooklyn-born convert to Islam who grew up in Chicago, and two co-defendants were convicted of conspiring to murder, kidnap and maim people in foreign countries. Prosecutors said the three helped foster jihad as part of a North American cell that provided money, recruits and supplies to Islamic extremists. The sentences of Mr. Padilla's co-defendants stand.

Mr. Padilla, now 40, was first arrested in 2002 at O'Hare International Airport in Chicago on suspicion that he was planning to set off a radioactive dirty bomb. He was held in military detention in South Carolina as an enemy combatant for more than three years. Subsequently, he was transferred to civilian custody and was tried in federal court. His case became a focus of the debate over the Bush administration's approach to prosecuting terrorism.

The dirty-bomb accusation was eventually dropped and not raised in court.

Judge Marcia G. Cooke of Federal District Court, who presided over the trial, said at the sentencing in January 2008 that while she understood the gravity of the crimes, no evidence linked Mr. Padilla and his co-defendants to specific acts of terrorism. She also took into account his age, the sentences of other people convicted on terrorism-related charges and his time in the naval brig in South Carolina.

But the federal appeals court said Judge Cooke made several errors in calculating Mr. Padilla's sentence. For one, she “unreasonably discounted” his troubled past, which included 17 prior arrests and participation as a juvenile in an armed robbery that ended in the victim's death. Mr. Padilla served four years in juvenile detention.

The trial judge also overestimated Mr. Padilla's potential for turning his life around upon release from prison, the court stated. Mr. Padilla's terrorist training sets him apart from an ordinary street thug, the court argued. And while the appeals court said it was permissible to reduce a sentence on account of harsh conditions during pretrial confinement, Judge Cooke went too far when she shaved off more than nine years.

Mr. Padilla's lawyer presented evidence that Mr. Padilla spent long periods in isolation while in military detention and said he was subjected to interrogation, sleep and sensory deprivation, and temperature variations, among other things.

In her dissenting opinion, Judge Rosemary Barkett said Judge Cooke had properly weighed all of these factors, including Mr. Padilla's time in the brig, and did not abuse her discretion. Instead, Judge Barkett said, the appellate court was overstepping its bounds.

Both sides can ask the full appeals court to rehear the case or petition the Supreme Court to review the decision.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/20/us/jose-padillas-prison-sentence-too-short-appeals-court-says.html?_r=1&pagewanted=print

Community Policing, Afghan-Style

by Kelley B. Vlahos

Lal Mohammed says his 9-year-old son was stabbed and shot and left to die in a raid on his home. Another Afghan villager reported that a 17-year-old boy had been detained, beaten, and had nails driven into his feet. His injuries were so bad that his family packed up and left the country to get medical treatment.

A 13-year-old boy was walking home after evening prayers when he was allegedly gang-raped by a local commander and his henchmen.

Stunningly, the accused perpetrators in these crimes were not Taliban but local Afghans the U.S. military helped to recruit and arm as part of a local “community policing” effort to protect Afghans from the Taliban scourge.

In fact, the Afghan Local Police (ALP) program is the latest in a long line of controversial attempts to turn local strongmen and their militias into the “sons of Afghanistan” à la Iraq. It was the brainchild of the omnipotent Gen. David Petraeus, commander of U.S. Forces in Afghanistan, who has since left his post for greener pastures at the CIA, leaving this potentially explosive taxpayer-funded mess behind.

Mohammed said of his son's killing: “I have not been given any compensation or anything else by Americans or the Afghan government. No one has told me sorry or expressed their condolence about my only 9-year-old son, and for these reasons I hate them. I want to fight against them till the end of my life.”

This is not exactly the effect Petraeus was going for when he announced the ALP program in August 2010 and told the Senate Armed Services Committee in March 2011 it was a “community watch with AK-47s,” so “important that I have put a conventional U.S. infantry battalion under the operational control of our Special Operations Command in Afghanistan to increase our ability to support the program's expansion.”

However, since reports about abuses being carried out by these neighborhood watchmen were already bubbling up last winter in places like The Washington Post, Stars and Stripes, and The Associated Press, the always cagey Petraeus made sure he called it “President Karzai's Afghan Local Police initiative,” which is really disingenuous when two clicks of the mouse will show you that Karzai was averse to establishing these local constabularies and only agreed to the ALP after pressure and assurances that the authority of the program would reside within the Ministry of Interior (MOI) and be administered locally.

Stars and Stripes , hardly an unfriendly forum for the feted four-star, also recalled it differently:

Gen. David Petraeus, the architect of the surge strategy in Iraq, has pushed the initiative hard since taking command in Afghanistan in July, despite hesitancy among Afghan officials who worry the groups will prove impossible to control.

“He believes it's a potential game-changer,” said U.S. Army Col. Jeffrey Kulmayer, a staff officer at ISAF headquarters in Kabul who oversaw the Sons of Iraq program during 2008 and has a similar role in Afghanistan. “So do I.”

According to a new 120-page report by Human Rights Watch (HRW), the ALP is no “game-changer” in the U.S.-led war against the Taliban in Iraq, and it is likely mucking up an already muddy rural landscape filled with thugs, militias, and bandits of myriad tribal, ethnic, and sectarian associations. In several areas thoroughly described by HRW, it is making the overall violence and insecurity worse .

In addition to the ALP, HRW warns of the proliferation of local armed militias, or arbakis , run by tribal warlords and local power brokers who enjoy special relationships with U.S. Special Forces and U.S.-funded security contractors in restive northeastern provinces such as Kunduz. Many of these groups are former mujahideen who have been rejoined and activated by the National Directorate of Security (NDS), Afghanistan's intelligence agency. They are feared by the people as much as the Taliban — probably in some cases more — because they are well-armed, politically connected, and untouchable.

In its report, “Just Don't Call it a Militia: Impunity, Militias and the ‘Afghan Local Police,'” HRW found “serious abuses, such as murder, rape, arbitrary detention, abductions, forcible land grabs, and illegal raids by irregular armed groups in northern Kunduz province and the Afghan Local Police (ALP) force in Baghlan, Herat, and Uruzgan provinces.”

It's no surprise that region of the country has seen a serious uptick in violence over the last two years.

“The Afghan government has failed to hold these forces to account,” said HRW, “fostering future abuses and generating support for the Taliban and other opposition forces.”

Petraeus' Other Legacy: The ALP

Certainly, HRW wasn't the first organization to bring these troubles to light. Oxfam International, the UK-based charity and human rights organization, put out a report in May that found communities in these northern provinces were endangered by their own local security forces.

“The people recruited into the local police are essentially seen by communities as criminal thugs who have in the past been involved in criminal activity, many of whom have appalling histories of human rights abuses,” said Rebecca Barber, who authored the Oxfam report, “No Time to Lose: Promoting the Accountability of the Afghan National Security Forces" [.pdf].

“In some cases, the situation is so bad that we are hearing reports that community members are actually threatening to arm themselves against the Afghan local police.”

The HRW report goes deeper, showing us how Petraeus came into command in July 2010 and assured Congress and Karzai that his “Sons of Afghanistan” would succeed where every other reintegration and local militia program had failed. The report then details just how wrong he was, exposing the bitter truth about “population centric warfare” — that it's really all about tactical expediency and not the long-term security of ordinary Afghans.

On an even darker level, the report indicates that U.S. Special Forces were working closely with former warlords and gangs and in documented cases took the advice of corrupt power brokers and their connections among former insurgents over villagers who on paper were supposed to be guiding the local ALP program themselves. As a result, critics say, the vetting and oversight became an empty formality, and accountability quickly disappeared.

To make it worse, the rules of engagement for the ALP are said to be too vague and prone to vast misinterpretation regarding the officers' detention and investigatory powers.

The following is an example of how the ALP rolled out in Shindand district in Herat. As the original ALP directive states, recruits must be nominated within the local shura and vetted by the MOI and NDS. According to interviews with HRW, it didn't quite happen that way:

The Ministry of Interior directive creating the ALP states that recruits are to be vetted by the local shura , with the list then approved by the ministry. In practice it appears that some LDI (local defense initiative) members were enlisted into the ALP by US special operations forces without following the official vetting process. Lal Mohammed Omarzai, the district governor of Shindand, who has been publicly critical about the way ALP was set up in Shindand, told Human Rights Watch that current ALP members were “not properly vetted according to the MOI directive … as a result, it is difficult to hold anyone accountable when they commit crimes.”

According to officials in the Pul-e-Khumri district of Baghlan province, U.S. Special Forces helped to enlist former Hezb-i-Islami fighters, despite the resistance of local officials. Hezb-i-Islami was founded and led by notorious warlord Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, who is currently wanted by the U.S. for his alleged participation in al-Qaeda and Taliban terrorist attacks against U.S. forces in the country.

According to local officials, the initial recruits to the ALP in the greater Pul-e-Khumri area included former former Hezb-i-Islami (Gulbuddin) members, including a commander called Nur-ul Haq and a group of men who joined the government in March 2010 and began working with U.S. troops in August 2010.

Three members of the Baghlan provincial council, including Mohammed Rasoul Mohsini, told HRW that they were pressured to take on the men that the U.S. suggested on “a list” brought to the commission. Nur-ul Haq's men were reportedly already working with U.S. special operations forces before the list was created, according to the report.

Mohsini told HRW, “The establishment of ALP did not happen in accordance with the MOI directive. Instead the Special Forces went to the thieves and brought in arbakis.”

They [U.S. special operations forces] did not listen … and recruited 150 people. I spoke with Captain Andy from Special Forces. I told him that you are here to support Afghan people, not give them guns, they are criminals…. Captain Andy responded that they are not criminals. I was surprised that Special Forces are backing these people…. I made an argument that if you don't listen to us then there is no need for the provincial council, police, the governor … you are doing our job. I left the meeting. I am a representative of the people and they should listen to me.

Since the inception of the ALP in Baghlan, Haq's men have been accused of “sexual abuse, a night raid that resulted in the death of a boy, an extrajudicial killing, and an enforced disappearance, and have used their status as ALP to force resolutions to land disputes.”

Like something out of Khaled Hosseini's The Kite Runner, 13-year-old Zia J (a pseudonym) was returning from prayers on April 12, 2011, when he was allegedly yanked off the street by Abdur Rehman, ALP sub-commander, and his bodyguards. His family says the boy was gang-raped at Rehman's house and managed to escape the next day. His family has attempted to have Abdur arrested for this heinous crime, but “local challenges” have gotten in the way.

Gen. Gulab, the head of the ALP, told HRW, “I don't know the details of the case and how many people were involved since no investigation has been done. Both the provincial chief of police and I have requested U.S. Special Forces to summon Abdur Rehman for investigation, but they have not sent him yet.”

In February, Ghulam Jan, a political rival of a former Hezb-i-Islami commander, was shot dead in his home after several threats to him by Haq to leave his position as director of the National Solidarity Program, his relatives told HRW. Another man, Gharib Shah, 25, disappeared after a detention at Rehman's house, which is at a checkpoint, and never heard from again. An Omer Khel villager, Jummah Jul, reported that his land was stolen and his house was looted by Rehman and his men, a case that the report says is still being investigated by the Baghlan Criminal Investigation Division.

House raids and general intimidation have become quite common in the last year, but the most stunning of accusations came from Lal Mohammed, whose son was allegedly killed by Haq's men during a raid on his house. Mohammed himself was suspected of being Taliban, he told HRW interviewers, and held in a cell for three months until released without charge.

“Human Rights Watch is unaware of an Afghan government or U.S. military investigation into this raid and the circumstances that resulted in the death of a 9-year-old boy,” claims the report.

When The Washington Post attempted to interview Haq about the incident and “dozens” of other complaints, reporters were rebuffed — by U.S. Special Forces. “The local U.S. Special Forces captain who runs the local police program in the area declined to comment and would not permit Haq to leave the base for an in-person interview,” the Post said. This is interesting, because the Afghan National Police (ANP), not the U.S. military, is supposed to be “running” the ALP. Contacted by phone, Haq told reporters, “Those who told all these things to you, they have spoken from the tongue of the Taliban…. All these people in the government are supporting the Taliban. The head of the provincial council himself is a Talib.”

Meanwhile, a spokesman for U.S. Forces described the accusations against Haq as “interpersonal stuff” that U.S. troops are “interested in but not involved in.”

HRW describes a similar dangerous situation in Shindand in Herat province, already a hotbed of rival armed groups, Mafia-style organizations, and Taliban. Having a new, separate police force backed by the U.S. military on top of it all was like putting a match to fuel.

Unsurprisingly, there are already signs that the creation of the ALP has caused friction between the tribal and political factions in Shindand, an area already rife with political complexities. As Mohammed Qasim Stanekzai, head of the High Peace Council and adviser to the president, told Human Rights Watch, “In Shindand there have for many years been tribal issues, warlord issues, [and] special forces issues.”

What follows are numerous reports of retaliatory raids, abuse, theft, and cruelty, including the June 2011 story in which two teens allegedly suspected of planting improvised explosive devices (IEDs) were detained by ALP and beaten. One of them, his name withheld, had nails driven into his feet before he was released without charge.

Again, the vetting process was questioned, and Afghans complained that former fighters were being chosen for the ALP for their affiliation with the Americans, an accusation that when asked, an International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) spokesman flatly denied.

There have been similar complaints — tracked by HRW, Oxfam, and news reports — from Afghans in Takhar province and in eastern Paktika province. In some cases, American soldiers and officials, not so thoroughly convinced these guys were going to turn into Curtis Sliwa's Guardian Angels anytime soon, have spoken out about their own uneasiness with the program.

“It's [comparable] to heading to Compton [in Los Angeles] and hiring a gang to help you out,” Spc. Chad Cunningham, a squad leader with Company B, 1st Battalion, 87th Infantry, told Stars and Stripes in September 2010.

“They're definitely motivated,” said the specialist, who, as working with ALP there. “Whether it's for the good of their country or for personal reasons, I don't know.”

Five months later, answers to his question emerge.

“In Baghlan, all the developments have been bad,” a “U.S. official in Kabul familiar with the program” told The Washington Post . “They're supposed to be neighborhood watch with AK-47s. But these guys are setting up checkpoints, they're doing classic militiaman shakedown things.”

A year ago, Gen. Petraeus, with his 60-watt smile and groaning chestful of medals, was able to convince Congress that he could transplant his “Sons of Iraq” formula to northeastern Afghanistan. In order to do that, Washington kicked in enough money to hire 30,000 ALPs across the country. Currently there are some 7,000 in 43 districts. But now Petraeus is gone to head the CIA, where “protecting the population” means dropping bombs on it, and Afghanistan is more dangerous than ever.

Meanwhile, an ISAF spokeswoman told The Guardian on Sept. 12 that the HRW report “potentially provides a way ahead in refining and improving areas” in the ALP and that ISAF would work with Afghan partners to investigate the troubling allegations.

In a few years it won't be the West's problem anymore. Or so we think.

http://original.antiwar.com/vlahos/2011/09/19/when-afghan-militia-programs-go-bad/

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Holt urges Congress to keep COPS alive

On Monday morning, Holt stood in same spot, but for the opposite reason. This time, he visited the township to denounce Congress' latest effort to end the decades-old COPS program — the only federal program that supports community policing efforts.

Holt was joined at Monday's news conference by North Brunswick Mayor Francis “Mac” Womack, police and educational officials and several students to protest the House of Representatives' version of the 2011 Commerce, Justice and Science Appropriations Act that would end the Community Oriented Policing Services program.

The Secure Our Schools initiative, one of several funded through COPS, supports state and local efforts to improve school safety, including the costs of metal detectors, locks, lighting security assessments and security training.

“Republicans in Congress have proposed a bill to eliminate — not scale back, not trim, not reduce, but completely eliminate — the COPS program,” said Holt. “If this bill were to pass into law, North Brunswick would never again receive a single penny to support school safety and community policing.”

As of July, more than $18.1 million in COPS grants have been awarded to law-enforcement agencies in Holt's 12th District, which includes a dozen municipalities in Middlesex County.

Through another Secure Our Schools grant in 2006, North Brunswick was able to install a state-of-the-art camera system in each one of its district schools that allow principals and school security officials — and police — to monitor student activity.

Part of the grant was used to implement a comprehensive parent/guardian emergency notification system capable of sending alerts to thousands of phone numbers in a matter of minutes. The district also has used Secure Our Schools grants to improve outdoor lighting through the district and install E-ZPass-type security entrance card systems for students.

http://www.mycentraljersey.com/article/20110919/NJNEWS/309190031/Holt-urges-Congress-to-keep-COPS-alive

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From Yahoo News

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Study finds crime witness ID method can affect error rate

DES MOINES, Iowa (Reuters) - The method by which photos of suspected criminals are shown to witnesses can affect the accuracy of identifications, with photos shown in a sequence producing fewer mistakes, a study has found.

Gary Wells, a psychology professor at Iowa State University who was the study's lead researcher, said presenting photos one at a time, in a sequence, produced a lower error rate than when witnesses were shown a simultaneous array of photos.

Wells' study found witnesses identified a "known innocent filler" photo 18 percent of the time under the simultaneous procedure compared to 12 percent under the sequential procedure.

"We believe these results go a long way toward instilling greater confidence in the sequential procedure as something that improves the reliability of eyewitness identification evidence," Wells said in a conference call with reporters.

The Des Moines-based American Judicature Society issued the report on Monday.

Wells said that when witnesses were asked to look at suspects simultaneously, they tended to compare the lineup members and decide who looked most like the perpetrator.

The theory is that the sequential line-up prevents the side-by-side comparison process and instead forces witnesses to use a more absolute comparison of each photo to their memory, rather than compare lineup members to each other, Wells said.

The national study, conducted between 2008 and 2011, involved police departments in Austin, Texas; Tucson, Arizona; San Diego, California; and Charlotte, North Carolina.

Wells said mistaken witness identification remained a significant problem.

"In DNA exoneration cases, for instance, 75 percent of those who were exonerated with forensic DNA tests after being convicted by juries are cases involving mistaken eyewitness identification," Wells said.

He is hoping the report will encourage more law enforcement agencies to switch from simultaneous to sequential lineups. The full study is posted online at www.ajs.org.

http://news.yahoo.com/study-finds-crime-witness-id-method-affect-error-232443953.html

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From the Department of Justice

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Attorney General Eric Holder Speaks at the United Nations Secretary-General's Symposium on International Counter-Terrorism Cooperation

Remarks as prepared for delivery:

Thank you, Mr. President. It is a privilege to join with you – and with so many distinguished leaders and partners – in the city where I was born and raised, to discuss the future that we all seek and, together, must build.

I am honored to bring greetings from President Obama, and from my colleagues across the Administration and the Department of Justice. On their behalf, I especially want to thank the Secretary General for convening this symposium; for inviting me to join with Prime Minister Hasina, His Royal Highness Prince Al-Saud, Minister Jiménez, and Minister Natalegawa in opening today's discussions; and for his outstanding leadership in advancing the goals, and honoring the values, that our nations share.

In this time of uncommon challenges and evolving threats, our allegiance to these values – of liberty, privacy, opportunity, and justice – and the achievement of our collective security goals – have never been more important, or more urgent. Nowhere is this truer than in our work to confront, to prevent, and to combat global terrorism and counter violent extremism in all of its forms.

Just last week – not far from where we gather this morning – citizens across, and far beyond, this nation marked the tenth anniversary of the most devastating terrorist attacks ever carried out against the United States. As none of us will ever forget, on September 11 th , 2001, nearly three thousand innocent people were murdered – including citizens from 90 countries around the world.

On that fateful day, our nations stood together – bound by a common grief, as well as a collective resolve: to use every lawful tool and resource at our disposal – and to leverage the tremendous strength of our partnerships – to protect the citizens we are so privileged to serve; and to respond to national challenges with international action, with global solutions, and with a renewed commitment to collaboration.

Over the last decade, we have continued to stand – and, far too often, we have grieved – together. In London and Lahore; in Madrid and Mumbai; and, most recently, at the UN headquarters in Abuja – we have seen the heartbreaking costs of terrorism.

And we have learned – in the most painful of ways – that our security interests are intertwined – and that our counter-terrorism efforts must be, as well. Today, we know that our ability to ensure the safety of our people – and to seek justice on their behalf – depends on our willingness to work as partners, and to ensure that our different perspectives and approaches never distract us from our shared objectives, or become obstacles to fulfilling our collective responsibilities.

In this work, the United Nations has led the way – by developing an international legal and policy framework to foster collaboration and information sharing, to promote the rule of law, to protect civil liberties and – ultimately – to enhance our capacity to identify and combat terror threats. Let me be very clear: The United States is firmly committed to the rule of law approach enshrined in this framework and to strengthening the capacity of civilian courts around the world, which have time and again shown their effectiveness at bringing terrorists to justice.

In strengthening this international framework – and in winning this fight – every country represented here has an essential role to play – as a partner; as a convener; and as a direct provider of assistance, intelligence, and expertise to all those who seek to prevent terrorism from occurring and, just as importantly, endeavor to eliminate its causes as well.

I am proud to be part of this effort – and of the contributions that my colleagues across the U.S. Department of Justice, and at every level of the U.S. government, are making on a daily basis. From prosecutors and investigators, to policy experts and diplomatic leaders – many of our nation's most talented law enforcement and counter-terrorism professionals now serve alongside their counterparts, in countries all around the world.

So, today, as we explore new and innovative ways to reinforce existing relationships, and to forge new ones – I am here to pledge the best efforts of the United States in supporting this mission, and in fulfilling our commitment to work every day – in common cause, and with this community of nations and the United Nations itself – to achieve security, opportunity, and justice for all.

We are proud to stand with you. We are honored to count you all as partners. And we look forward to all that we must – and will – accomplish together in the critical days ahead.

Thank you.

http://www.justice.gov/iso/opa/ag/speeches/2011/ag-speech-110919.html

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From the FBI

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Latest Crime Statistics
Volumes Continue to Fall

09/19/11

The incidence of crime nationwide decreased again, according to our just released Crime in the United States Report. Overall, the estimated volume of violent crimes in 2010 dropped 6 percent compared to the 2009 figure, the fourth consecutive year it has declined. For the eighth consecutive year, the volume of property crimes went down as well—2.7 percent.

The report was compiled from data submitted to us by more than 18,000 city, county, university and college, state, tribal, and federal law enforcement agencies from around the nation. It contains information on the number of reported murders and non-negligent manslaughters, forcible rapes, robberies, aggravated assaults, burglaries, larceny-thefts, motor vehicle thefts, and arsons.

Violent crime offenses were down across the board—the largest decrease was robbery, down 10.0 percent. Property crime offenses went down as well—the largest decline, 7.4 percent, was for motor vehicle thefts.

Here are some highlights from Crime in the United States, 2010 :

• Total number of crimes reported: 10,329,135 (1,246,248 violent crimes and 9,082,887 property crimes);
  
  
• Most common violent crime: aggravated assault (62.5 percent of all violent crimes during 2010);
  
  
• Most common property crime: larceny-theft (68.2 percent of all property crimes during 2010);
  
  
• Top three crimes for which law enforcement reported arrests: drug abuse violations (1,638,846), driving while intoxicated (1,412,223), and larceny-theft (1,271,410);
  
  
• Total number of arrests, excluding traffic violations: 13,120,947, including 552,077 for violent crimes and 1,643,962 for property crimes (the number of arrests doesn't reflect the number of individuals arrested—some individuals may have been arrested more than once);
  
  
• Most common characteristics of arrestees: 74.5 percent of arrestees were male, and 69.4 percent of arrestees were white;
  
  
• How often firearms were used in crimes: in 67.5 percent of reported murders, 41.4 percent of reported robberies, and 20.6 percent of aggravated assaults; and
  
  
• Total losses for victims of property crimes, excluding arsons: an estimated $15.7 billion.

Beyond the crime count. The report contains what's called “expanded offense data.” This information involves additional details about some of the crimes—i.e., type of weapon used; locations of robberies; type or value of items stolen; and for the offense of murder, the age, sex, and race of victims and offenders, and, if known, the relationship of the victim to the offender.

It also contains arrest data on the above crimes, plus about 20 other offenses, including forgery/counterfeiting, fraud, gambling, weapons violations, drug violations, sex offenses, and driving under the influence.

You can browse through the statistics contained in the report and choose particular information you'd like to focus on—like national data, regional data, state totals, reporting agencies, cities and counties grouped by populations, and statistics from certain metropolitan areas.

We caution against drawing any kind of conclusions from the report by making direct comparisons between cities. Valid assessments are only possible with an understanding of various factors affecting each jurisdiction. For more details, read the Caution Against Ranking.

According to FBI Director Robert Mueller, Crime in the United States can provide “valuable insight into the nature and volume of crime in small and large communities alike.” It can also “offer a picture that experts can study, and as a result, produce new strategies or improve current methods of combating crime.”

http://www.fbi.gov/news/stories/2011/september/crime_091911/crime_091911

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