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From the Los Angeles Times

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U.S. widens inquiry into abuse at L.A. County jails

Sheriff's Department seeks to curtail the extent of subpoenas, which seek data on workers since 2009.

by Robert Faturechi and Jack Leonard, Los Angeles Times

October 15, 2011

Federal authorities have widened their misconduct investigation into the Los Angeles County jail system, demanding internal Sheriff's Department documents detailing deputies' use of force on inmates over several years, as well as other records.

Sheriff's officials balked at the size and scope of the subpoenas when they were served several weeks ago and are negotiating with federal prosecutors to reduce the number of documents they must produce.

A source familiar with the demand said it sought the names of everyone who has worked in the jails since 2009, even janitors, and whether they have been disciplined for misconduct. Federal prosecutors also sought employees' Social Security numbers, dates of birth, home addresses, phone numbers and personal email addresses.

FULL COVERAGE: Jails under scrutiny

The records demand is the first sign that federal authorities are not simply looking into several individual cases of jail brutality and other misconduct but are taking a broader look at potential wrongdoing by deputies going back years.

"I was caught completely flabbergasted," Sheriff Lee Baca said of the growing federal scrutiny of his jail system, the nation's largest. "It's like your best friend digs up your favorite rose bed."

In an interview with The Times, Baca said the subpoenaed records were so voluminous that even federal investigators "would have had difficulty ferreting through it all." Nevertheless, Baca said, the county has begun collecting the records.

Federal officials declined to comment about the subpoenas or discuss details of the investigation.

Rebecca Lonergan, a USC law professor and former federal prosecutor, said the demand for the records suggests that investigators are looking for witnesses who would be willing to cooperate as they explore whether there might be a pattern and practice of deputy misconduct in the jails.

"The question becomes whether it rises to a supervisory level," said Lonergan, who handled police misconduct cases while supervising the U.S. attorney's public corruption section in Los Angeles. "If so, it may not be just the individual deputies who are culpable. It may be supervisors all the way up to higher-ups in the Sheriff's Department."

The subpoenas come amid renewed scrutiny over the county's jail system, which has been plagued over the last decade by inmate riots, killings, the formation of a gang-like deputies clique, early release of inmates, antiquated facilities and huge legal settlements. Over the last three years, the county has paid $8.4 million to resolve claims of excessive force and failure to care for inmates, a spokeswoman for Supervisor Gloria Molina said.

Last month, The Times reported that the FBI is investigating allegations of inmate beatings and other deputy misconduct. Among the claims under review are those made by an American Civil Liberties Union jail monitor who said she witnessed deputies knock an inmate unconscious and beat him for two minutes at the Twin Towers jail.

Agents are also investigating allegations that guards at the Men's Central Jail etched letters into the scalp of a black inmate, representing a Spanish-language racial slur. A third case under review involves an inmate who alleged that deputies broke his jaw and several other bones in his face during a beating at the Men's Central Jail.

The ACLU, which is a court-appointed monitor of jailhouse conditions, has produced sworn declarations from inmates and civilians who work in the jail, including two jail chaplains, who said they witnessed deputies deliver beatings.

Public concerns over the allegations gained momentum after The Times reported that an undercover FBI sting had ensnared a deputy who allegedly sneaked a cellphone to an inmate who was a federal informant.

Baca initially criticized the FBI after the undercover sting and defended his department's record in the jails.

In the last week, however, the sheriff struck a more conciliatory tone, saying he would welcome a wide-ranging federal civil rights investigation and acknowledging that some deputies have brutalized inmates.

Earlier this week, the Office of Independent Review, which monitors Sheriff's Department discipline, released a report detailing a dozen cases in which more than 30 jail employees were suspended or fired over the use of excessive force against inmates. The report concluded that other deputies "get away" with misconduct as a result of a code of silence, "lackluster, sometimes slanted and insufficiently thorough" investigations and a lack of physical evidence to support conflicting accounts of what happened.

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-fbi-jails-20111015,0,783053,print.story

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Reaction to Alabama immigration ruling hints at battles to come

A federal appeals court temporarily blocked portions of the law, even as it upheld others.

Blocked: The requirement that public schools check students' immigration status; and a provision that would let authorities file misdemeanor charges against immigrants caught without documents proving their legal status.

Upheld: The requirement that police assess drivers' residency status during traffic stops; a provision that makes it a felony for illegal immigrants to enter into “business transactions” with the state, such as applying for driver's or business licenses; and a provision that makes invalid all contracts knowingly entered into with illegal immigrants.

The following public statements capture the disparate reaction of people who feel strongly about the issues involved.

And they likely apture the tone of the fights yet to come.

Republican Gov. Robert J. Bentley:

“Today's decision by the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals is simply one more step in what we knew would be a lengthy legal process. As I have said on many occasions, if the federal government had done its job by enforcing its own immigration laws, we wouldn't be here today. Unfortunately, by failing to do its job, the federal government has left the problem of dealing with illegal immigration to the states. Alabama needed a tough law against illegal immigration. We now have one. I will continue to fight to see this law upheld."

U.S. Department of Justice:

“We are pleased that the 11th Circuit has blocked Alabama's registration provisions which criminalized unlawful presence and chilled access to a public education. We continue to believe that the other key provisions we challenged are also preempted, and we look forward to the upcoming consideration by the court of appeals of the merits of the appeal.”

Alabama House Speaker Mike Hubbard:

“Once again, we're pleased that the majority and most effectual parts of this law will remain in place. We've said from the beginning that Alabama will have a strict immigration law and we will enforce it. Alabama will not be a sanctuary state for illegal aliens, and this ruling reinforces that.

“We also remain perplexed and disappointed at the Obama administration's hypocrisy on this issue. It would be amusing if not so harmful to our country. While the federal government sues to prolong and exacerbate the illegal immigration problem, Alabama is taking action to ensure the laws of our land are upheld.”

Andre Segura, an attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union :

“We're relieved that the court has blocked the provision of the law that has had such a devastating impact on children's access to schools in Alabama, but we remain concerned about the provisions that are still in effect and will continue our legal fight.”

Alabama Atty. Gen. Luther Strange:

“We respectfully disagree with the Court of Appeals ruling temporarily enjoining additional sections of the Act, but are pleased that the Court has allowed the State to proceed enforcing some of the Act's central provisions. We will continue to vigorously defend the law as we proceed through the appeals process.”

And, of course, the plaintiffs:

The civil rights coalition that filed suit to block the law includes the Southern Poverty Law Center, the American Civil Liberties Union, the National Immigration Law Center, ACLU of Alabama, the Asian Law Caucus, the National Day Laborers' Organizing Network, AAJC, and the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund:

“We are pleased that the court blocked these damaging elements of the law. But portions of the law that remain in place will continue to exacerbate the humanitarian crisis in Alabama. In just two weeks that the law has been in effect, families have been fleeing the state, children have been pulled out of schools, and businesses have been put in jeopardy. This law sadly revisits Alabama's painful racial past and tramples the rights of all its residents.”

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/nationnow/

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Homegrown terrorism' case -- and its defendants -- are typical

When three young Muslim men from North Carolina were convicted in a federal terrorism conspiracy case Thursday, the outcome followed a well-established pattern in so-called homegrown terrorism prosecutions.

The three men -- Omar Aly Hassan, 22, Ziyad Yaghi, 21, and Hysen Sherifi, 24 -- were not accused of committing a terrorist attack. The three were convicted instead of conspiring to provide material support to terrorists. Yaghi and Sherifi were also convicted of conspiring to kill unspecified people as part of a terrorist plot cut short by the men's arrests in 2009.

Based on the results of a recent study of domestic Islamic terrorism cases, the three Muslims from the Raleigh, N.C., area are fairly typical of other Americans charged or convicted of jihadist terrorism in the post-Sept. 11 era.

For instance, 171 of the 188 terrorism cases studied involved no actual attacks.

The study, released in March by the New American Foundation and Syracuse University's Maxwell School of Public Policy, looked at the 188 cases of American citizens or U.S. residents charged in jihadist terrorism plots in the U.S. since Sept. 11. The study's opening sentence asks: "How real is the 'homegrown' Islamic terrorist threat?"

Of the four cases that did progress to attacks, the worst was at Ft. Hood, Texas, where Army Maj. Nidal Hassan is suspected of killing 13 people and wounding 32 in 2009.

(By comparison, the study points out that 73 people were killed in hate crimes in the U.S. between 2001 and 2009 -- and more than 15,000 slayings are committed in this country every year.)

A third of the 188 cases involved the use of an informant, the study found.

In the North Carolina case, the FBI recruited and paid three informants -- including a convicted felon -- and code-named them Jawbreaker, Hammerhead and Crosstown. Investigators amassed more than 750 hours of audio or videotaped conversations. In some, the suspects praised jihad and suicide bombings, and spoke of killing non-Muslims.

Half the defendants in the 188 cases were U.S.-born American citizens. A third were U.S. residents. Hassan and Yaghi are U.S. citizens. Sherifi, a native of Kosovo, is a legal permanent resident of the U.S.

In a third of the cases, defendants trained with weapons or attempted to acquire or manufacture weapons (though not a single case involved chemical, biological, radiological or nuclear weapons). The North Carolina men were convicted of providing material support to terrorists, in part, by firing weapons in a farm field -- which prosecutors successfully argued constituted military training.

One-fifth of the cases originated with tips from Muslim community members or stemmed from cooperation of the families of accused terrorists. According to the survey's authors, tips from Muslim communities and families alerted authorities to the activities of Daniel Boyd, an American–born convert to Islam, identified as the ringleader of the North Carolina case.

Two-thirds of defendants in the cases studied had pursued some college courses. The three North Carolina men had taken courses at technical, community or four-year colleges.

Finally, the study found that the number of Islamic terrorism cases involving U.S. citizens or residents has risen sharply in the last two years. There were 76 such cases in 2009 and 2010 alone -- or 43% of all cases since the Sept. 11 attacks.

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/nationnow/

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Topeka maneuvers over domestic-abuse law outrage survivors

Claudine Dombrowski tells of having her wrists broken, being hit on the head with a crowbar, getting chipped teeth and, at one point, needing 24 stitches to close a wound. Even when she left her boyfriend, she says, the abuse didn't stop. Ultimately, she says, she was left on total disability.

“I called the police, I did all the right things, I ended up in court, and on a good day, it got reduced from domestic violence to disorderly conduct,” Dombrowski, a Topeka, Kansas, resident and now an advocate for abuse survivors, told the Los Angeles Times on Thursday.

So Dombrowski was outraged when misdemeanor domestic abuse — already an insult, she thinks, for not being equal to an assault charge — went unpunished for a month in Topeka after a local funding dispute turned into a circular firing squad that caught battered women in the center.

The county didn't want to pay for prosecuting misdemeanor domestic battery; the prosecutor didn't want to take the cases without more resources; and the city didn't want to pay for handling the cases either.

Meanwhile, as many as 30 abuse suspects went free before the city of Topeka, in a legal maneuver, forced Shawnee County prosecutor Chad Taylor to resume prosecution of the cases — by dramatically pulling its own domestic abuse law from the books. The state has its own law, which the prosecutor would need to enforce.

“The fact that it happened just makes me feel pretty worthless, you know?” Dombrowski said. “We spend millions of dollars on public service announcements saying we [domestic-violence victims] don't have to live this way ... and you really do.”

Times have been tough for local governments. The economic buck stops with them because they don't get to run on debt the way the federal government does, and some of the collapses have been spectacular.

Harrisburg, the capital of Pennsylvania, threw up the white flag this week and declared bankruptcy after a failed $300 million incinerator project capsized the city's budget. The city manager for moribund Vallejo, Calif., has one assistant; she has to lock the door when she leaves, because there's no one else in the office.

But for women, the symptoms of the municipal budget crisis are especially stunning in the sleepy prairie metropolis of Topeka. There, the symbolic decriminalization of domestic violence has thrown a spotlight on a chronically underreported issue in a state where women's advocates are used to fighting uphill battles.

“We live in Kansas, where we are used to taking a lot of punches on the chin,” said Kari Ann Rinker, state coordinator for Kansas NOW, which recently saw the state legislature try to defund Planned Parenthood .

Republican Gov. Sam Brownback's conservative stances have led a few residents to derisively dub the state “Brownbackistan.”

But beyond the familiar battlefronts over abortion, domestic violence hits especially close to home. In 2008, Jana Mackey, a 25-year-old Kansas NOW lobbyist who volunteered to aid victims of sexual assault and domestic violence, was found slain in an ex-boyfriend's home.

“When I went in front of the county commission in Shawnee County about this issue [funding prosecutions for domestic abuse in Topeka], I brought everything I had, and I was emotional,” said Rinker. “Sometimes I'm accused of being less than professional. But I've tried to do this nicely, to fight this mentality in this state, and we've reached this point where we need to stop being nice and start rattling some cages to do so.”

Added Dombrowski: “If these people really cared about women, they would come up with the money. They wouldn't argue about it.”

The past month has been treacherous for domestic abuse survivors in Topeka, according to Becky Dickinson, program director for the Topeka YWCA Center for Safety and Empowerment, which she said saw an increase in the number of women needing help.

“It became a very scary and dangerous time for victims to get law enforcement involved,” Dickinson told The Times, adding that victims “were calling the police and seeing their abusers being arrested but getting released in 48 hours.”

In an abuse situation, Dickinson said, abusers are often the most dangerous after they've been arrested. They come home looking for revenge. Needless to say, Dickinson said, “victims were concerned” about the budget spat.

Dickinson said that in 2010, the Topeka YWCA helped 1,305 county residents with services and counseling for domestic and sexual violence, assisted with 586 protection orders, housed 190 women and children in a shelter, and received nearly 2,000 calls to its crisis hotline.

Those numbers are likely low. Domestic violence often goes unreported. So it's a dark irony that Topeka's new time in the international limelight comes during Domestic Violence Awareness Month . “Now Topeka is known as the domestic violence capital of the world,” Kansas NOW's Rinker said.

Whether the county prosecutor's announcement that it is resuming prosecutions will fix the problem remains to be seen; the prosecutor's office is expected to lay off almost a fifth of its staff by the end of the year, which could impact the prosecution of domestic violence cases that the office just resumed prosecuting.

“Even on a good day, it doesn't work,” Dombrowski said of Topeka's handling of domestic abuse victims. “And now it's even worse.”

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/nationnow/

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From Google News

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Burlington Restarts Community Policing Program

BURLINGTON, N.C. -- Six Burlington Police officers have ditched their cruisers to walk the streets in some troublesome neighborhoods thanks to a three-year federal grant.

The C.O.P., or Community-Oriented Policing, unit is back after a nearly 10-year absence. The city received a grant worth $885,000 to restart the program.

Two officers have been assigned to each of three neighborhoods: Tucker Street, Beverly Hills and around Beaumont Apartments. Those neigborhoods have the city's highest crime statistics.

The problem in Tucker Street, for example, is a glut of gun and drug violations.

"We are typically looking for anything that looks suspicious. A lot of times you have people walking behind buildings not wanting to be seen, so we check them out and ask them their names," said Officer Demario Chavis.

Besides looking for people normally not seen in the neighborhoods, officers regularly check in with those who do live there.

"Being outside of a car and working a smaller area, you get to know people by their first name. When they come to you with a problem, you are able to follow up on the problem to a solution," said Officer Ben Waller, who works the neighborhood with Chavis.

However, law enforcement is not all these C.O.P.S. do.

"We are a resource for these people. If there's a family in need, we might know people in the community that can help them," Chavis said.

So far, crime and drug problems are starting to decrease, and neighbors said they are happy to see the neighbohood get quieter and safer.

"I think the longer they stay around, the better it will be. It will be a safer place with people coming out with their kids," said Dwana Knox, resident.

The federal grant technically pays for the officers who replaced those who moved to the C.O.P. unit.

http://www.myfox8.com/news/wghp-burlington-restarts-community-policing-program-20111014,0,804880.story

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Budget cut may hamper police efforts in ethnic communities

Minneapolis — Budget constraints could force the elimination of a new Minneapolis police unit that provides community policing and terrorism prevention.

Officers with the Community Engagement Team are tasked with building ties with ethnic communities, and build trust so people will approach police when they see something out of the ordinary.

But within months of the unit's creation, the city may have to shut it down.

BUILDING TRUST, RELATIONSHIPS

Officer Kou Vang visits the New Millenium Academy in north Minneapolis to introduce himself to the mostly southeast Asian staff and students. Vang hands a thick stack of business cards to the dean of students.

"I'm here to build relationship between southeast Asians and officers. Let your staff know. Give me a call whenever you have any issues," Vang told New Millenium's Dean of Students Mike Vang, who is not related to the police officer.

Occasionally, Officer Vang said he has to teach people the basics of contacting police.

"I can talk to them and teach them little bit about how to call 911," Vang said. "Lot of them are new immigrants anyway."

The visit fits the philosophy of the Community Engagement Team.

"There's a growing understanding and awareness about a new tactic to try to reach out and build positive relationships with the community in the hopes that if they feel like they're part of the community, they're less likely to want to commit crimes," said Police Lt. Donald Harris, commander of the two-month-old unit.

Many of the unit's officers are of the same ethnicity as the community they're in charge of contacting. Officer Vang is there for the southeast Asians; there's a black officer to work with the African-American community, and so forth. The unit is headquartered at a former high school in north Minneapolis. Harris said it costs the police department less than half a million dollars.

He calls their mission terrorism prevention in all ethnic communities, but Harris said the unit's officers aren't trying to identify terrorists.

"They're not meeting with people because they think those people are terrorists, they're meeting with people to educate people about terrorism and how it works," Harris said. "They're meeting with people to build relationships so when people in the community see something out of the ordinary, they now have a resource that they can use to try to stop them."

The Minneapolis PD may still have some work ahead to gain the trust of some ethnic communities. In 2009, the city paid a Hmong family more than $600,000 after police officers mistakenly raided their home.

REDUCED BUDGET, REDUCED GROWTH

But the officers in the Community Engagement Team may not have time to build trust with communities. At a city council meeting Oct. 5, Minneapolis Police Chief Tim Dolan presented council members with Mayor R. T. Rybak's police budget for next year. Dolan said the mayor intends reduced growth in the department by $4.4 million next year in part through attrition and reassignment of 17 officers.

"We're at numbers at precincts now that I don't feel comfortable going any lower with those numbers," Dolan said.

Dolan told Minneapolis city council members that precinct officers lost through attrition would be replaced by officers in the Community Engagement Team.

Four days later, Hmong kids met in Farview Park on Minneapolis' north side to organize a postcard campaign in support of the Community Engagement unit — but in particular of Officer Vang.

The Hmong community had been advocating for two years for a daytime Hmong officer assigned to north Minneapolis. They finally got one as part of the Community Engagement unit. Pao Xiong, 13, said he felt betrayed when he learned the unit may be eliminated.

"We have been campaigning for two years to get a Hmong officer and we got it, but now they're going to take him away. It's like we done the job for nothing," Xiong said.

Hmong organizers said they've also approached city council members. The pressure seems to have had an effect. Harris said since Dolan's budget presentation, police department officials have promised him they've changed their minds, and the unit will be allowed to continue its work.

The Minneapolis city budget will be finalized in December.

http://minnesota.publicradio.org/display/web/2011/10/14/budget-cut-police-efforts-in-ethnic-communities/

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