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From the Los Angeles Times

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In plea deal, youth gets 21 years for killing gay teen

Brandon McInerney avoids a retrial by pleading guilty to shooting Larry King. The jury deadlocked in the first trial, with some saying prosecutors were being too harsh in trying him as an adult.

by Catherine Saillant, Los Angeles Times

November 21, 2011

A teenager who fatally shot a gay classmate in the back of the head during an Oxnard middle school computer lab will spend 21 years in prison under a plea deal reached Monday, closing the books on a case that drew international headlines and ignited debate on how schools should handle sexual identity issues.

Brandon McInerney, who was 14 when he pulled a gun out of his backpack and shot Larry King two times at point-blank range, will be kept behind bars until he is 38 under the terms of the deal struck by Ventura County prosecutors.

In an unusual arrangement, the 17-year-old pleaded guilty to second-degree and voluntary manslaughter. In return, prosecutors agreed not to go forward with a second trial, which could have resulted in a life sentence.

The family of the victim, Larry King, broke their silence on the case outside court Monday, saying that they supported the sentence but believed school officials hold deep responsibility for what happened.

"Larry had a complicated life, but he did not deserve to be murdered," said the youth's father, Greg King.

McInerney's first trial ended in a hung jury in early September, with jurors torn between murder and manslaughter. Some jurors said they believed the district attorney's office was being overly harsh in trying McInerney as an adult and several showed up Monday wearing "Save Brandon" bracelets.

Greg King said he was satisfied by the deal reached with his son's killer, given the "unpredictability of juries."

"Twenty-one years is a long time" King said. "At the end of the day, this is something we can live with."

McInerney shot King in a school computer lab at E.O Green Junior High in Oxnard in February 2008, after days of conflict between the boys. Students and teachers at the trial testified that King had been dressing in women's accessories and wearing makeup, and was flirting aggressively with male students on campus who did not want the attention.

School administrators sent a memo advising teachers to give King his space, but to report safety problems. Teachers at the trial testified that when they tried to report growing tensions between King and several boys, school leaders shunned them.

The victim's mother, Dawn King, revealed for the first time Monday that she had contacted school officials four days before the shooting in an effort to solicit their cooperation in toning down her son's behavior. The boy had been taken from the Kings' home two months earlier by authorities because of problems at home.

She said she was told that her son had a civil right to explore his sexual identity.

"I knew, gut instinct, that something serious was going to happen," she said. "They should have contained him, contained his behavior."

Prosecutors said the first trial showed that the case was too emotional to take to trial a second time.

"The first jury was unable to keep their emotions out of it," Ventura County Chief Deputy Dist. Atty. Mike Frawley said. "This really tugged powerfully at people's hearts,"

During the first trial, prosecutors portrayed McInerney as a budding white supremacist who hated homosexuals and was enraged by King's sexuality and aggressive flirtations. Jurors rejected that contention and the hate crime allegation was dropped when prosecutors announced last month that they would retry McInerney.

Defense lawyers argued that McInerney was the product of a violent and dysfunctional home and had reached an emotional breaking point in response to King's advances. At Monday's hearing, McInenery's family left the courtroom without comment after the plea agreement was announced.

McInerney's mother, Kendra, sobbed loudly as her son, clad in a dark blue jail jumpsuit, answered "guilty" to the two charges — one of the few times he has spoken in the courtroom.

Scott Wippert and Robyn Bramson said their client is mentally preparing himself for state prison. He will be transferred to a state facility in January, when he turns 18. Though he will spend many years behind bars, Brandon McInerney is grateful that he will one day be free, his attorney said.

"Now he has a date he can circle on his calendar," Wippert said.

After the first trial, gay-rights advocates were largely silent. After Monday's announcement, the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network, which offers on-campus support for gay and lesbian students, said the plea bargain shows McInerney is being held accountable for his actions.

Bramson said she hopes the case has raised awareness that parents and school administrators need to be involved and aware of what is happening with their children at school. In this case, all of the adults failed, she said.

"This was so preventable and it shouldn't ever happen again," she said.

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-1122-gay-shooting-20111122,0,425342.story

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(Related article from July 2011)

Hate crimes against gay, transgender people rise, report says

The National Coalition of Anti-Violence Programs report says violent crimes against people in the LGBT community rose 13% in 2010, and that minorities and transgender women were more likely to be targeted.

by Lee Romney, Los Angeles Times

July 13, 2011

An 18-year-old gay man from Texas allegedly slain by a classmate who feared a sexual advance. A 31-year-old transgender woman from Pennsylvania found dead with a pillowcase around her head. A 24-year-old lesbian from Florida purportedly killed by her girlfriend's father, who disapproved of the relationship.

The homicides are a sampling of 2010 crimes against lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people compiled by a national coalition of anti-hate organizations.

The report, released Tuesday, showed a 13% increase over 2009 in violent crimes committed against people because of their perceived or actual sexual orientation, gender identity or status as HIV positive, according to the National Coalition of Anti-Violence Programs.

Last year's homicide count reached 27, up from 22 in 2009, and was the second-highest total since the coalition began tracking such crimes in 1996. Of those killed, 70% were minorities and 44% were transgender women.

The data are compiled by the coalition's 43 participating organizations and are not comprehensive. They include crimes reported to the groups by victims who did not seek help from law enforcement. In fact, 50% of the 2010 assault survivors did not make police reports, with minorities and transgender people the least likely to come forward, the report said.

Among the cases was an April 2010 attack on Cal State Long Beach transgender student Colle Carpenter, who was cornered in a campus restroom by an assailant who carved "It" on his chest. Jake Finney, project manager with the Los Angeles Gay and Lesbian Center, said campus police initially "were not clear that the word 'It' was a slur and indicated anti-transgender bias." The center contacted the FBI, which assisted in the investigation, and the crime was ultimately classified as hate-motivated, Finney said.

The 2010 murder count is second to the 29 logged in 1999 and 2008. Among the 2008 fatalities was gay Oxnard junior high school student Larry King. The classmate charged in that killing, Brandon McInerney, is on trial.

Coalition members said hate crimes tended to increase after other high-profile attacks and when civil rights advances for the LGBT community were publicly debated.

"As we move forward toward full equality, we also have to be responsive and concerned with violence that may run alongside of it," spokeswoman Roberta Sklar said. "We don't want to go back into the closet to avoid it."

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-lgbt-hate-crimes-20110713,0,3199857.story

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Terror suspect's mother apologizes, thanks N.Y. police for arrest

The mother of a Dominican-born U.S. citizen arrested in connection with an alleged terrorist plot targeting American troops, as well as post offices and police, apologized on Monday to New York City as she expressed shock over her son's arrest.

"I want to apologize to the city. I love the city," 56-year-old Carmen Sosa said as reporters thronged the apartment building in Manhattan's Hamilton Heights neighborhood where she lived with Jose Pimentel. Pimentel, 27, was arrested Saturday afternoon as he was putting the finishing touches on a pipe bomb, according to police.

"I'm very disappointed with what my son was doing. I didn't raise him that way. I feel very bad about the situation," said Sosa, who opened the front door of her apartment to reporters. "I thank the police," added Sosa, who works for a nonprofit organization helping find housing for the mentally ill. "They did what they were supposed to."

According to a five-page criminal complaint, Pimentel had gleaned bomb-making instructions from an online magazine, Inspire, and had been under surveillance for two years. He was driven by anger over the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and his views became so extreme in recent years that even close friends who shared some of his political views became worried, Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly said at a news conference Sunday night.

It is unclear when Pimentel converted to Islam, but Kelly said he appeared to have been especially enraged by the Sept. 30 killing by U.S. forces of radical American-born cleric Anwar Awlaki in Yemen. At that point, his bomb-making efforts took on a new urgency, the commissioner said.

But Pimentel's apparent radicalism went unnoticed by his family and by the people who knew him in Hamilton Heights, a heavily Dominican neighborhood on upper Manhattan's West Side where gentrification has yet to take hold. Many of the small-business signs are in Spanish, the language spoken by many of the people walking down the bustling streets.

Pimentel, who has an ex-wife, is believed to have moved in with his mother after returning to Manhattan from Schenectady, N.Y., where he had been for several years. Police said he came back to Manhattan, where he was raised, after his marriage ended. The building where he lived houses a mix of Dominicans and young people studying at nearby City College or Columbia University, such as Sean McKenna.

McKenna, 25, a Columbia graduate student in urban studies, told a reporter that Pimentel was often on the building's stoop smoking and sometimes making small talk with neighbors.

"If I read about a terrorist in New York, I would have been all worried, but knowing the situation, well, it feels amateurish," McKenna said of Pimentel, who is being held without bond. "He was the only person in the building I knew ... and he wasn't talking jihad."

Michael Echevaria, an assistant manager at a Manhattan retail store, said he knew Pimentel from junior high school.

Echevaria said whenever he came back to the neighborhood to visit his grandmother, he would see Pimentel hanging out on the stoop. "I thought that he was either homeless or a drug dealer at this point," said Echevaria, who is also Dominican and who said he worries that Pimentel's arrest could cause New Yorkers to view other Dominicans with suspicion.

"We don't need this," he said.

Pimentel's next court appearance is set for Nov. 25.

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

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Save money — hire police

Budgets may be tight, but cutting crime makes economic sense too.

by Greg Ridgeway and Paul Heaton

November 22, 2011

At a recent Capitol Hill rally for the administration's job creation bills, Vice President Joe Biden urged America to hire more police — even in this era of austerity — or accept that crime will increase.

His point is worth considering. Although crime in the United States on average has shown a historic decline since the early 1990s, a recent Rand Corp. report shows that a 10% increase in the size of a police force decreases the rate of homicide by 9%, robbery by 6% and vehicle theft by 4% each year. (The effect on rates of sexual assault is less clear.)

And crime is expensive to communities, businesses and victims.

Each homicide costs a community an average of $8 million, according to reliable cost-of-crime studies. At that rate, Los Angeles' homicides cost it more than $4 billion in 2006, or 2% of the city's total economic output. That bottom line includes obvious costs of crime: adjudication, coroners, medical costs and incarceration. Rand also figured in a factor for the intangible costs of victims' pain and suffering.

The high cost of crime to society suggests that adding police officers may give large cities a sizable return on their investments.

Rand's cost-of-crime calculator can estimate that return for a given community.

For example, in L.A. there were 480 homicides in 2006, when the city started an initiative to expand its force. Since then the force has grown by 8%, or 725 police officers. Homicides dropped to 293 by 2010. With homicide rates already in decline, it would be hard to credit all of the decrease to a bigger police force. But our research suggests that the added police can account for 7% of the 480, or 35 fewer homicides. That's $280 million in crime costs saved.

The 725 extra police cost Los Angeles about $110 million annually. When Rand researchers factored in all serious crimes averted by adding those police officers, savings to citizens in the city came to $415 million a year, a 280% return on investment. The savings don't accrue solely to the city but also to the individuals and businesses that would otherwise bear the costs of crime. Taxpayers indeed appear to be getting their money's worth for investing in an enhanced police force.

Other major U.S. cities could learn from L.A.'s example. Where police departments are small and crime burdens are large, taxpayers could reap a good return on investment by adding police officers. Rand research shows that one additional officer could reduce crime costs by $600,000 a year in Houston, Atlanta, Oklahoma City, Miami, Baltimore and Kansas City.

In the particularly understaffed police departments of Oakland and St. Louis, each additional officer could reduce crime costs by more than $1 million a year. In Flint, Mich., where the vice president originally pitched for more cops, each additional officer could save $4 million a year in crime costs to the community.

However, police investments don't make sense everywhere. Cities where police departments are big and crime rates relatively low might not see reductions that exceed the costs of new officers' training, salary and benefits. Such cities include El Paso; Honolulu; Madison, Wis., and Boise, Idaho.

Similarly, New York City's decision to shrink its police force by about 10% over the last few years makes sense in terms of return on investment. Another police officer there might reduce crime costs by $178,000, which is the cost of an officer's salary (about $50,000 to begin), benefits, equipment and training in the first year.

Ironically, budget pressures have forced many communities to lay off police just when good candidates abound. Five years ago, when unemployment rates were low, cities couldn't entice enough applicants. Municipal governments paid for ad campaigns and gave hiring bonuses. Now, with high unemployment rates, qualified candidates probably would line up without bonus incentives.

The time may be right for municipalities to add police officers despite having to cut from other city services.

Greg Ridgeway is director of the Center on Quality Policing and Paul Heaton is director of research at the Institute for Civil Justice at the Rand Corp. The study, "Hidden in Plain Sight, What Cost-of-Crime Research Can Tell Us About Investing in Police," written by Heaton, is available at rand.org .

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-ridgewayheaton-police-20111122,0,6994027,print.story

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From the Department of Justice

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President Barack Obama Grants Pardons and Commutation

WASHINGTON – Today President Barack Obama granted pardons to five individuals and commutation of sentence to one individual:

PARDONS:

· Lesley Claywood Berry Jr. ­- Loretto, Ky.

Offense : Conspiracy to manufacture, possess with intent to distribute, and distribute marijuana, 21 U.S.C. §§ 841 and 846.

Sentence : April 29, 1988; District of Minnesota; three years in prison.

· Dennis George Bulin - Wesley Chapel, Fla.

Offense : Conspiracy to possess with intent to distribute in excess of 1,000 pounds of marijuana, 21 U.S.C. §§ 841(a)(1) and 846 and 18 U.S.C. § 2.

Sentence : March 10, 1987; Middle District of Alabama; five years of probation and $20,000 fine.

· Ricky Dale Collett - Annville, Ky.

Offense : Aiding and abetting in the manufacture of 61 marijuana plants, 21 U.S.C. § 841(a)(1) and 18 U.S.C. § 2.

Sentence : March 7, 2002; Eastern District of Kentucky; one year of probation conditioned on 60 days of home detention.

· Martin Kaprelian - Park Ridge, Ill.

Offense : Conspiracy to transport stolen property in interstate commerce, 18 U.S.C. § 371; transporting stolen property in interstate commerce, 18 U.S.C. § 2314; concealing stolen property that was transported in interstate commerce, 18 U.S.C. § 2315.

Sentence : Feb. 1, 1984; Northern District of Illinois; nine years in prison, five years of probation.

· Thomas Paul Ledford - Jonesborough, Tenn.

Offense : Conducting and directing an illegal gambling business, 18 U.S.C. § 1955.

Sentence : June 12, 1995; Eastern District of Tennessee; one year of probation conditioned on performance of 100 hours of community service.

COMMUTATION:

· Eugenia Marie Jennings - Alton, Ill.

Offense : Distribution of cocaine base, 21 U.S.C. § 841(a)(1).

Sentence : Feb. 23, 2001; Southern District of Illinois; 262 months in prison, eight years of supervised release, $1,750 fine.

Terms of commutation : Prison sentence to expire on Dec. 21, 2011, leaving intact and in effect the eight-year term of supervised release with all its conditions and all other components of the sentence.

http://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/2011/November/11-opa-1519.html

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From ICE

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Program Global Shield keeps bomb-making chemicals out of terrorists' hands

Common chemicals like ammonium nitrate, also used as lawn fertilizer, can be transformed into improvised explosive devices (IEDs). We've seen instances of this in the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing that killed 168 people and the 2005 bombing of London's transportation system where more than 50 people died. IED attacks are on the rise, especially in Afghanistan, where IEDs continue to be the top killer of U.S. troops. In 2010, insurgents planted more than 14,000 IEDs – resulting in the deaths of 368 foreign soldiers and wounding more than 3,000 others.

Program Global Shield is an international effort to eliminate the smuggling of chemicals used in attacks like these. Conceptualized by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in 2010, the program is being led by the World Customs Organization (WCO) in partnership with Interpol and the United Nations' Office on Drugs and Crime.

"It is an unprecedented multilateral law enforcement effort aimed at combating the illicit cross-border diversion and trafficking of precursor chemicals used by terrorist and other criminal organizations to manufacture improvised explosive devices by monitoring their cross-border movements," said Kumar Kibble, ICE deputy director.

More than 70 countries participated in the pilot program, which took place from Nov. 1, 2010 to April 30, 2011. The information-sharing that has ensued has been priceless. Global Shield marks the first time that police and customs officials from around the world have joined forces to keep these bomb-making precursor chemicals out of the hands of terrorist and criminal organizations. To date, Global Shield partners have seized more than 33 metric tons of material used to produce IEDS and made 19 arrests in various countries across the globe. Those chemicals could have manufactured thousands of IEDs.

In June 2011, the WCO and its 177 members approved a proposal for the pilot project to become a long-term program, allowing global activities to continue indefinitely.

http://www.ice.gov/news/releases/1111/111121washingtondc.htm

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From the FBI

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Holiday Shopping Tips

In advance of the holiday season, the FBI's Internet Crime Complaint Center reminds shoppers to beware of cyber criminals and their aggressive and creative ways to steal money and personal information.

Scammers use many techniques to fool potential victims including fraudulent auction sales, reshipping merchandise purchased with a stolen credit card, sale of fraudulent or stolen gift cards through auction sites at discounted prices, and phishing e-mails advertising brand name merchandise for bargain prices or e-mails promoting the sale of merchandise that ends up being a counterfeit product.

Here are some tips you can use to avoid becoming a victim of cyber fraud:

• Do not respond to unsolicited (spam) e-mail.
  
  
• Do not click on links contained within an unsolicited e-mail.
  
  
• Be cautious of e-mail claiming to contain pictures in attached files, as the files may contain viruses. Only open attachments from known senders. Always run a virus scan on attachment before opening.
  
  
• Avoid filling out forms contained in e-mail messages that ask for personal information.
  
  
• Always compare the link in the e-mail to the web address link you are directed to and determine if they match.
  
  
• Log on directly to the official Web site for the business identified in the e-mail, instead of “linking” to it from an unsolicited e-mail. If the e-mail appears to be from your bank, credit card issuer, or other company you deal with frequently, your statements or official correspondence from the business will provide the proper contact information.
  
  
• Contact the actual business that supposedly sent the e-mail to verify that the e-mail is genuine.
  
  
• If you are requested to act quickly or there is an emergency, it may be a scam. Fraudsters create a sense of urgency to get you to act impulsively.

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