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From the Los Angeles Times

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FBI pays reward in capture of accused mobster 'Whitey' Bulger

But the identities of those who led the agency to the Santa Monica apartment where Bulger and Catherine Greig were arrested June 22 remain a mystery, according to news reports.

On Friday evening, the Boston Herald reported this statement from the FBI's Boston division:

"On Monday, Sept. 19, 2011, the Boston Division of the FBI received final authorization from the United States Department of Justice to pay the $2.1 million reward to those responsible for providing information which directly led to the arrest of former Top Ten Fugitive James 'Whitey' Bulger and his companion Catherine Greig. This information was generated as a direct result of the FBI's Public Service Announcement (PSA) campaign, which was initiated on June 20, 2011.

"The FBI offered $2 million for information leading to the arrest of Mr. Bulger, and $100,000 for information leading to the arrest of Ms. Greig. As of Friday, Sept. 23, 2011, the FBI has paid this reward money to more than one individual.

"To protect the anonymity and privacy of those responsible for providing information which directly led to the arrests of Mr. Bulger and Ms. Greig, the FBI will not comment further regarding this matter."

Bulger, 82, was on the FBI's 10-most-wanted list in connection with 19 homicides and other crimes in Boston. He has pleaded not guilty to the charges.

Greig, 60, has also pleaded not guilty in the case.

A Las Vegas man, Keith Messina, 45, said he tried to collect the reward because he spotted Bulger in Santa Monica in 2008 and called the television show "America's Most Wanted," according to news reports.

The FBI denied his claim and told his lawyer that the money was given to a tipster in Iceland, reports said.

Messina reportedly plans to file a lawsuit, seeking a share of the reward money.

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

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Putting pot in its place

With a Rand study showing an increase in crime after some medical marijuana dispensaries were shut down, L.A. needs a better policy toward such facilities.

September 24, 2011

A Rand Corp. study this week seemed to nip the conventional wisdom about medical marijuana dispensaries in the proverbial bud, contradicting statements from law enforcement officials that these facilities are magnets for crime. On the contrary, Rand researchers said, crime actually increased in the vicinity of hundreds of L.A. dispensaries after they were ordered to shut down.

Does this mean that dispensaries decrease neighborhood crime rather than increasing it? Unfortunately, despite Rand's analysis, we still don't know the answer. There are so many obvious problems with Rand's study that it's impossible to come to solid conclusions about crime either way.

First and most glaringly, Rand's findings are based on a large and unwarranted assumption: that the dispensaries ordered by the city to close their doors on June 7, 2010, when L.A.'s sweeping medical marijuana ordinance took effect, actually did so. There were thought to be about 600 dispensaries operating in the city at that time, of which 430 received notification that they would have to close. Rand looked at crime statistics during the 10 days before the ordered closure and the 10 days afterward, and compared the numbers for locations near facilities that supposedly closed and the 170 that didn't. Within three-tenths of a mile of the "closed" facilities, there were 59% more criminal incidents than there were within the same distance of those that remained open, and a 24% increase within six-tenths of a mile.

That's all very well, but there is no way of knowing whether those 430 dispensaries actually closed, and officials with the city attorney's office contend that many of them did not. Even if they did, the study really only tells us something about the immediate effect on crime of closing a medical marijuana facility, not whether these facilities increase crime on a long-term basis. If the dispensaries did close and if crime did go up nearby, it may be because, as the city attorney has argued, disgruntled former customers went on a rampage or because the facilities held fire sales to get rid of their inventory, driving more people to the area. Moreover, the 20-day time frame is too short for deriving reliable conclusions.

For all that, we don't think the Rand analysis is completely without value. It's a rare attempt to quantitatively measure the impact of L.A.'s marijuana dispensaries on crime, and it points out that the story we've been told for years by law enforcement officials should be regarded with a degree of skepticism. The city attorney's office has argued in legal filings that the number of dispensaries in the city must be limited in order to deal with the "well-documented crime" they draw, yet the connection to crime is actually far from well documented. Similarly, county Sheriff Lee Baca has claimed that the state's medical marijuana program "has been hijacked by underground drug-dealing criminals who are resorting to violence in order to control their piece of the action," yet he hasn't presented any crime statistics to back that up.

The lack of solid information about crime doesn't discredit efforts by the city of Los Angeles to limit and regulate dispensaries, although the lack of progress on that front is discouraging. After six years of trying to get a handle on a gray-market business operating between state and federal law, it's not clear that L.A. is any closer to eliminating rogue operators.

The main problem for the city is that it's trying to build its ordinances on shifting and uncertain legal ground. Its 2010 ordinance, among the toughest in the state, ordered the closure of any dispensary that wasn't registered with the city as of Nov. 13, 2007, the date of a previous moratorium that was later overturned in court. Yet a Superior Court judge found that restriction unconstitutional, so the city had to craft a new law earlier this year. This time, any dispensary that could prove it was operating as of Sept. 14, 2007, whether it registered with the city or not, could apply to take part in a lottery, which would choose 100 facilities from among those eligible and allow them to remain in business.

Predictably, this new restriction has attracted multiple lawsuits that have yet to be resolved, and the lottery is indefinitely stalled. Meanwhile, storefronts emblazoned with the green cross that denotes a medical marijuana facility open and close continually. The city has moved to close some down, yet many have delayed action with legal filings. Staffing shortages in the city attorney's office and other municipal departments have made identifying and citing these scofflaws a very slow process.

Whether or not these rogue dispensaries attract crime, they are a nuisance. A lack of oversight means they could be selling anything, including marijuana laced with dangerous drugs or chemicals. California voters intended them to operate as nonprofit collectives, yet it's not clear they're all doing so. Also unclear is the extent to which they're selling to minors or people with no legitimate medical need. L.A. is right to try to crack down; now its lawyers just need to figure out a way of doing so that passes court muster.

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/opinionla/la-ed-marijuana-20110924,0,3149399,print.story

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From Google News

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Mississippi

Columbus officers encourage community policing

September 23, 2011

Columbus police are asking residents for one thing: If you see something, say something.

A handful of residents attended the Ward 3 community meeting Thursday night at First Christian Church in East Columbus and discussed concerns within their neighborhoods.

A few residents did not wish to have their names published, but the general consensus is worry about Columbus High School students loitering on private property.

"They're sitting there on our curb, sitting and smoking all day long," one resident, who lives on Sycamore Street, said.

Another Ward 3 resident, who lives on Sycamore Street near the school, Kitty Page, expressed concerns about seeing people walking from behind houses.

"They go through the backyard. A lot of people across the street are at work. The other day, I counted seven of them," she said.

Interim Columbus Police Chief Selvain McQueen, along with other personnel from the Columbus Police Department, told residents they need to report anything suspicious they see to help police effectively patrol the area.

"If you see something, say something through 911," Assistant Police Chief Joe Johnson Jr. said.

McQueen echoed Johnson's words, noting the police department has 72 officers on staff and is not immune to a struggling economy.

"I'm here to tell you right now: When jobs go down, crime rate goes up," he said. "The way that we do more with less is we have to have partners. The police and citizens are partners."

One Ward 3 resident, who declined to give his name, said when he reports incidents, perpetrators retaliate.

"We've seen suspicious things going on and reported it and had windshields broken in," the resident said.

Lt. Carroll Culpepper of the CPD said residents can stay anonymous when reporting suspicious activity.

"It doesn't put you in a position of (being retaliated against)," Culpepper said. "Try to remain as anonymous as possible."

Billy Perkins, a Ward 2 resident, said sometimes he feels like he's "being interrogated" when calling 911 and asking for an officer to come to his residence.

"There's certain information that we've got to have," Capt. Fred Shelton, of the CPD Patrol Division, said.

"Come to the house; I'll give you it then," Perkins replied.

Shelton said if the caller hangs up without giving much information, an officer still will come to the location.

Columbus police plan to visit each ward in the coming weeks to speak with residents on crime-prevention strategies. The next meeting is planned for Sept. 29 in Ward 6. The location has not been finalized.

Property crimes trending down in Kalamazoo County

KALAMAZOO — The figures spell it out clearly: Violent crimes and property crimes reported in Kalamazoo County dropped in 2010 to their lowest levels in the past five years.

The reasons for the decrease, however, are a little harder to pin down, local police leaders say.

“If the trend is down, that is obviously a very good thing,” Kalamazoo Township Police Chief Tim Bourgeois said. “But I think it can be hard to analyze these numbers because of the different factors. I always think we have to take the increases and decreases in reported crime with a grain of salt.”

The crime statistics, gleaned from the FBI Uniform Crime Report and the Michigan Uniform Crime Report, show the number of property crimes — burglary, larceny and auto theft — reported to the four largest police agencies in the county dropped each of the last three years and decreased by 13 percent from 2009 to 2010, from 9,174 to 7,959.

The city of Kalamazoo saw the largest decline in property crimes last year — 18 percent — with nearly 800 fewer reported than in 2009.

The drop in violent crimes last year was not as significant countywide when compared to 2009. But the total number of murders, rapes, robberies and assaults recorded in 2010 — 1,070 — was the lowest tally in at least five years, statistics show.

Bourgeois, whose jurisdiction has seen a reduction in property crimes each year since at least 2006, said there are many possibilities for the drop in local crime.

“I find (the numbers) interesting but not compelling,” Bourgeois said. “What we can do is try to do the best with each crime as it's reported and investigate vigorously. When we look at numbers overall like this I think it can be misleading to just accept them at face value.”

Bourgeois theorized that one reason for the decline may not be driven by an actual reduction in crime at all but rather because police agencies are operating with fewer officers, and some incidents are being consolidated into a single report rather than a single report for each incident.

Inside his own agency, Bourgeois said the number of officers has dropped from 35 in 2006 to 28 now.

“The difference that I can tell you in my agency ... is at the beginning of that period (in 2006) we had five community policing officers out in very close contact with the community who regularly received reports of crime that would previously go unreported,” the chief said. “I do think that the fact that we have fewer police officers in that intensive community contact most definitely plays a part.”

Kalamazoo County Undersheriff Pali Matyas said many residents in his agency's jurisdiction are hesitant to call police because they're aware that agencies are financially strained and they don't want to be a “bother.”

“When the economy is bad ... and police forces are being cut left and right, people develop an attitude that they don't want to bother the police,” Matyas said. “People are less apt to call the police. I take phone calls every week from people who say, ‘I know your guys are busy, and I don't want to bother you.'?”

Still, Matyas said it is difficult to pinpoint one reason for the drop in local crime over the last half decade.

“Is the economy a factor?” Matyas said. “Probably not. Maybe people just aren't reporting it as often as they did in the past ... In the end, it's really hard to put your finger on why.

”You can point to several different factors ... but they're only going to be guesses.”

http://www.mlive.com/news/kalamazoo/index.ssf/2011/09/property_crimes_trending_down.html

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From the FBI

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Domestic Terrorism
Focus on Militia Extremism

09/22/11

Last March, nine members of an extremist militia group were charged in Michigan with seditious conspiracy and attempted use of weapons of mass destruction in connection with an alleged plot to attack law enforcement and spark an uprising against the government.

According to the federal indictment, the nine individuals planned to kill a law enforcement officer and then use bombs to attack the caravan of cars taking part in the subsequent funeral procession, hoping that this violence would incite a larger armed conflict with authorities. Fortunately, the FBI and the Michigan State Police intervened and took the subjects into custody before they could carry out their alleged plot.

It's just one example of the dangers posed by so-called militia extremists—the latest topic in our series to educate the nation on domestic terror threats that the FBI investigates today. Previous stories have focused on anarchist extremists, eco-terrorists/animal rights extremists, lone offenders, and sovereign citizen extremists.

Who they are. Like many domestic terrorism groups, militia extremists are anti-government. What sets them apart is that they're often organized into paramilitary groups that follow a military-style rank hierarchy. They tend to stockpile illegal weapons and ammunition, trying illegally to get their hands on fully automatic firearms or attempting to convert weapons to fully automatic. They also try to buy or manufacture improvised explosive devices and typically engage in wilderness, survival, or other paramilitary training.

Who and what they target. They usually go after the government itself—including law enforcement personnel, representatives of the courts, and other public officials, along with government buildings. When caught, most militia extremists are charged with weapons, explosives, and/or conspiracy violations.

What they believe in. Many militia extremists view themselves as protecting the U.S. Constitution, other U.S. laws, or their own individual liberties. They believe that the Constitution grants citizens the power to take back the federal government by force or violence if they feel it's necessary. They oppose gun control efforts and fear the widespread disarming of Americans by the federal government.

Militia extremists often subscribe to various conspiracy theories regarding government. One of their primary theories is that the United Nations—which they refer to as the New World Order, or NWO—has the right to use its military forces anywhere in the world (it doesn't, of course). The extremists often train and prepare for what they foresee as an inevitable invasion of the U.S. by United Nations forces. Many militia extremists also wrongly believe that the federal government will relocate citizens to camps controlled by the Federal Emergency Management Agency, or force them to undergo vaccinations.

One important note: simply espousing anti-government rhetoric is not against the law. However, seeking to advance that ideology through force or violence is illegal, and that's when the FBI and law enforcement become involved.

What is the FBI doing to combat the militia extremism threat? In addition to our lawful use of sophisticated investigative techniques, we've expanded our work with other federal agencies such as the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives and with our state and local partners. And we use intelligence and analysis to help identify gaps in our knowledge, emerging tactics and trends, and effective investigative strategies.

As always, the combination of intelligence, coordinated law enforcement efforts, and an informed public is the most effective way to counter the threats posed by domestic extremists.

http://www.fbi.gov/news/stories/2011/september/militia_092211/militia_092211

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