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From the Los Angeles Times

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Police link 6 more slayings to Grim Sleeper suspect

The new allegations bring to 16 the killings linked to Lonnie Franklin Jr. But officials do not plan to seek criminal charges now in the new cases, fearing that would slow progress toward a trial.

by Joel Rubin, Los Angeles Times

October 29, 2011

Los Angeles police detectives have linked six more slayings to the suspect in the Grim Sleeper serial killings after reviewing hundreds of unsolved homicide cases and missing person reports, as well as a cache of photos of unidentified women found at the man's home.

Law enforcement sources told The Times that the new cases bring to 16 the number of killings linked to Lonnie Franklin Jr., 59, , who is already charged with murder in the slayings of 10 women whose bodies were found on the streets of South Los Angeles over two decades. Police also have now identified a second woman who they say survived an attack from Franklin.

Police investigators had long suspected that they would eventually find that the person responsible for the Grim Sleeper slayings had killed more than 10 women. Franklin was arrested in July 2010 and linked to the 10 slayings by ballistic and DNA evidence.

Detectives continued look for additional victims, taking the unusual step of releasing photographs of dozens of women found at Franklin's home, hoping the public could help determine if they too were victims.

Three of the newly identified six victims were allegedly tied to Franklin through physical evidence, said a police source with knowledge of the investigation, who requested anonymity because the additional cases have not been made public. In two of those cases, ballistic evidence showed that the bullets used to kill the women were fired from a gun Franklin is accused of using in other killings, while DNA and ballistic tests connected him to a third woman, the source said.

Franklin's link to the other three cases is more circumstantial. Police concluded Franklin killed one woman based on a 911 call made at the time of the slaying to report the location of the body. According to the source, police have matched the caller's voice to Franklin's. Police believe Franklin made a similar call to dispatchers in one of the cases in which he has been charged. The remaining two victims recently linked to Franklin were reported missing years ago and have never been found. However, possessions of theirs were discovered at Franklin's house, leading police to the conclusion that he killed them.

Police have made the strategic decision not to seek additional criminal charges from prosecutors in the new cases, the source said. With the case against Franklin moving slowly toward trial as prosecutors and Franklin's attorney wade through massive amounts of complex evidence, adding more charges, police feared, could lead to long delays and unnecessarily complicate matters, the source said.

"There is some wisdom to that," said Laurie Levenson, a criminal law professor at Loyola Law School and former federal prosecutor. "Every life counts, but they have to balance the work it would take to thoroughly prepare these new cases against the benefit that would bring." Levenson added that the district attorney's office could decide to file additional charges in the future and that the new cases could serve as a "safety net" for prosecutors in the event that Franklin prevails against the current charges.

Prosecutors have alleged that Franklin, a former LAPD garage attendant and city garbage collector, sexually assaulted and then killed women on the margins of society — including some prostitutes and drug addicts — over nearly a quarter century. Seven of the women he is accused of killing died between 1985 and 1988 and the others between 2002 and 2007. That apparent dormant period led the L.A. Weekly to dub the killer the Grim Sleeper, although the detectives investigating the case have long been skeptical of the idea that the killer had taken a break.

Police at first speculated the killer may have been in prison during the gap in known killings, but that theory was tossed out when Franklin was arrested and investigators realized he had not been behind bars. That spurred them to launch the review of unsolved cases and missing person reports in search of victims that had gone unconnected to Franklin.

Franklin has pleaded not guilty and remains in custody. Along with 10 murder charges, he also is charged with one count of attempted murder.

Police officials would not comment about when the new cases occurred or reveal the identities of the victims, saying they would discuss them in detail at a meeting scheduled for Wednesday evening at Bethel AME Church, in the neighborhood where Franklin lived and where the killings occurred.

Franklin's attorney, Louisa Pensanti, angrily rebuked the department's plan to publicly announce findings of the new killings, but not seek new charges. "So, they're just going to yell out that he killed these people? Why would they make allegations like that and then not give us the chance to defend against them and to test their conclusions in court?"

At the meeting, detectives plan to renew their call for help identifying women seen in the hundreds of photographs and videos police discovered at Franklin's house. Fearing that some of the women may have been victims, police in December made the controversial decision to publish the faces of the roughly 160 women in hopes that people would come forward with information about them. Dozens of the women remain unidentified.

In April, detectives went public with their suspicions that Franklin had killed seven women who had been missing for years, plus a woman killed in a style similar to other victims. The fate of three of those women were of particular concern: Ayellah Marshall, a high school senior when she disappeared in 2005; Rolenia Morris, a 25-year-old who also was reported missing in 2005; and an unidentified woman whose photograph was found at Franklin's residence when he was arrested. Police found identification cards or photos of the three in a refrigerator in Franklin's garage, where photos of Janecia Peters, one of the 10 women Franklin is charged with killing, were also discovered. Police have said they suspect that Franklin kept mementos of special significance in the refrigerator since they were separate from the other photographs found elsewhere in his residence.

It was not immediately clear if any of the six women police have now linked to Franklin were part of that group of eight.

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-grim-sleeper-20111029,0,4224162.story

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Most of guns stolen from LAPD may have hit black market

Just three of about 30 weapons taken from a SWAT building have been found. Police had altered the guns to fire only plastic pellets, but it's possible to convert them back to lethal use.

by Joel Rubin, Los Angeles Times

October 29, 2011

All but three guns in a cache of weapons stolen earlier this month from an unguarded building used by the Los Angeles Police Department's SWAT unit remain missing and may have been sold or traded on the black market, police said Friday.

Police arrested two men on suspicion of committing the heist and three others for allegedly possessing the recovered weapons, said Cmdr. Andrew Smith. Much to police officials' dismay, however, the rest of the roughly 30 weapons stolen were not found in the suspects' possession.

Although the weapons, which included MP-5 submachine guns and large-caliber handguns, had been altered by police to fire only plastic pellets for training exercises, it is possible for them to be converted back to lethal use. LAPD Chief Charlie Beck and other police officials have downplayed that possibility, although gun experts and online tutorials suggest that the process is relatively easy and requires only a few parts.

The company that manufactures the conversion kits used by the LAPD has an instructional video on its website that walks a viewer through the steps of returning an MP-5 to its original form in about five minutes.

The apparent sloppiness of the involved SWAT officers seemed to worsen Friday, when police acknowledged that one of the three guns recovered was an AR-15 assault rifle, which also had been converted for training, that officers either did not know had been stolen or failed to report as missing.

The two men who allegedly broke into the building were "low-level burglars" who were looking to strip the building of copper wiring to sell to support their drug habits, Smith said. "They just happened to get lucky with the guns…and got rid of them as quickly as they could," he said.

Police are continuing to try to find the weapons, but don't know how many people may have bought guns from the men or any of their identities, Smith said. It is also possible the suspects have stashed the guns, police officials said.

While investigators pursued leads in the days after the incident, police officials opted not to announce word of the stolen weapons; they acknowledged the theft only after receiving inquiries from The Times.

At the time, Deputy Chief Michael Downing said officers on Oct. 12 left the weapons in locked carrying cases on the first floor of a vacant downtown building. The building, once home to garment manufacturing companies, had been donated to the LAPD for SWAT training exercises. Members of the elite unit, which is called on to handle hostage situations and other high-risk crises, were scheduled to train at the facility the following morning.

Although the thieves had to cut through bolt locks on three doors and force their way through a metal roll gate to get to the guns, the theft nonetheless was embarrassing for the SWAT unit. Serving in the unit is one of the most prestigious assignments in the department, and members are entrusted with specialized weaponry and trained to methodically think through the possible outcomes of situations before acting.

The decision to leave the guns in the building overnight violated department safety procedures, Downing said. "Appropriate measures" had been taken in response to the gaffe, he said, although he declined to say if any officers were facing discipline.

In light of the discovery of the AR-15 assault rifle, SWAT is conducting a thorough count of its weapons to confirm which ones were stolen, Smith said. Police officials, however, said last week that SWAT had already undertaken such a count to resolve confusion over the type and number of guns missing. Police initially reported that 21 of the submachine guns and 12 .45-caliber handguns had been taken. They later revised that to 15 of each, but made no mention of the rifle.

Anxious to recover the weapons, senior LAPD officials assigned several of the department's top detectives from the Major Crimes and Commercial Crimes divisions to the case. Their break came when detectives received a tip from an acquaintance of one of the suspects, said police sources with knowledge of the investigation who requested anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss details of the probe.

Thursday morning police raided houses where the suspects were thought to have stashed the weapons. At one point police were led to believe the guns had been buried in a backyard, but they found nothing when they dug, Smith said. It was not immediately clear where the three guns were discovered.

The two men arrested on suspicion of burglary are Richard Velasco, 29, and Gilbert Salcedo, 41. Gerardo Vasquez, 24, William Vasquez, 28, and Mauricio Hernandez, 31, were arrested on suspicion of possessing an assault weapon.

It was not known whether the burglars were aware they were breaking into an LAPD building. Police, however, made no secret of the fact that the facility was used by SWAT for training. The officers could be seen coming and going and sometimes put on public demonstrations there.

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-swat-20111029,0,7984747.story

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From Google News

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China defines terrorism to win global support

by CHARLES HUTZLER, Associated Press

BEIJING (AP) — China's legislature authorized new guidelines Saturday to define and combat terrorism, inching closer to international practices as the nation grapples with a sporadically violent rebellion in Central Asian border lands.

The resolution clearly sets China's legal definition of terrorism and the steps for formally declaring groups and individuals terrorists and for freezing their assets. The measure should help law enforcement prosecute terrorists differently from other criminals and to promote international cooperation on terrorism, said Li Shouwei, a criminal law expert for the legislature.

"Our country faces a real threat from terrorist activities, and the long-term, complex and sharp counterterrorism struggle is increasingly prominent," Li told reporters after the legislative session.

Separatist sentiment among Uighurs, a Turkic and traditionally Muslim ethnic group, in China's western Xinjiang region has occasionally erupted in riots, bombings and other acts of violence. Despite pouring in billions of dollars in investment and the migration of millions of Han Chinese into the largely poor, remote territory, China has been unable to squelch the violence. A raid on a police station and an arson-stabbing attack took place in July.

Many attacks seem unsophisticated and directed against symbols of Chinese government power, like court houses or troop barracks. The government and some security experts say that the violence is becoming more indiscriminate and is being carried out by militants trained and based across the border in Pakistan and with possible links to other radical Islamic groups.

"Increasingly the Chinese government has realized it must work with international partners to fight the existing terrorist threat to China," said Rohan Gunaratna, a terrorism expert at Singapore's Nanyang Technological University.

While Beijing has sought for much of the past decade to link the situation in Xinjiang with the broader U.S.-led efforts to fight jihadist groups, Chinese methods have often undercut its quest for wider support. Instead of prosecuting Uighurs as terrorists, authorities have preferred to accuse them of "endangering national security," charges frequently used against political dissidents.

Beijing has also restricted the practice of Islam and bandied the terrorist label against the Dalai Lama and supporters of the Tibetan Buddhist leader who oppose Chinese rule.

In a measure of its uneasiness with Beijing, the U.S. government refused to turn over Uighurs captured in Afghanistan and interned at Guantanamo Bay, though it repatriated the captured nationals of many other countries.

Pakistan, which abuts Xinjiang and is a long-term ally of China, generally assists Beijing in trying to clamp down on militant Uighur separatists. But the most radical groups, the Turkistan Islamic Party and its East Turkistan Islamic Movement offshoot, operate in Pakistan's tribal areas where Islamabad is unable or unwilling to act.

Gunaratna, the terrorism expert, said Beijing realizes it needs intelligence from Gulf coast countries, Germany and others to better deal with the Uighur threat.

The terrorism resolution is intended to bridge gaps between China and other countries. It defines terrorism as an act whose "goal is to create terror in society, harm public security or threaten national institutions and international organizations and by using violence, sabotage, intimidation and other methods to cause or intend to cause human casualties, great loss to property, harm to public infrastructure, chaos to the social order and other severe social damage."

Li, the criminal law expert, said the definition roughly aligned with those of other countries. Agencies involved in counterterrorism will apply that definition to determine which groups or individuals should be placed on terrorist lists, and once listed the government will freeze their assets, according to the resolution.

More importantly, Li said, the resolution helps to make sure that terrorists are charged as such and not with other crimes — an apparent reference to the prevailing practice of using state security charges instead of terrorism.

"By defining terrorist activities more clearly in regulations, it makes it easier to distinguish in practice terrorist crimes from other crimes," Li told reporters.

The measure itself is unlikely to end all differences. A host of government agencies, Communist Party bodies and the military are involved in counterterrorism and Xinjiang. Li suggested that differences among competing bodies meant that "the time is not mature for enacting a full counterterrorism law."

Community policing says Lock It or Lose It in NOTL parking lots this weekend

Committee members will be at community centre, Virgil sports park parking lots this weekend to help educate the public about car thefts, and thefts from cars

It's even easier if a vehicle is unlocked.

Yet when Cathy Wickabrod of the Niagara-on-the-Lake Community Policing Committee introduced the Lock It or Lose It program about three months ago, she discovered about half the cars she checked were not locked or had valuables in sight on a seat inside the car.

She chose a weekend in July, got permission from the town to put flyers on windshields in the Virgil Arena Sports Park, and checked about 30 cars.

The flyers let people know that their car has been checked, and remind drivers that an unlocked vehicle or an open window presents an easy target for thieves.

They also warn drivers to put their valuables out of sight—while thieves looking for money, a GPS, iPod or car stereo may go from car to car looking for the unlocked door that will provide easy access, if they see something valuable inside, they may decide to break in.

This weekend, members of the community policing committee will again check cars in the sports park, and have also received permission from the town to carry out their investigation and distribute flyers in the new community centre parking lot.

They also hope to target the Old Town in the future, aimed at reminding visiting tourists and residents of the danger of leaving their car doors unlocked.

The crime of car theft and theft from cars costs Canadians more than $1 billion a year, and that statistic, plus the disturbing results from their introduction of the Lock It or Lose It program, have prompted the committee to continue with it, says chair Bill Dickson.

The town fortunately doesn't see the kinds of crime that larger municipalities tackle, says Dickson, but stolen cars and thefts from vehicles are two crimes the community policing committee routinely hears about.

And while it may be impossible to completely prevent the thefts, vehicle owners can certainly take steps to protect themselves and make it harder for potential thieves.

The Lock it or Lose it program is a joint effort of the community policing committee, the Niagara Regional Police and the Insurance Bureau of Canada, intended to encourage drivers to take a few simple precautions to protect their vehicles and contents from theft.

The flyer also reminds drivers not to leave their vehicles running while they run errands, and not to leave spare keys where you think thieves won't find them—they will.

Half of all vehicles stolen are used to commit another crime, often chopped for parts or exported to be sold in another country—and thieves will take advantage of an owner's negligence by grabbing the first vehicle they find unlocked.

http://www.niagaraadvance.ca/PrintArticle.aspx?e=3350526

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