War vets invade an urban village

Operation Oliver aims to fix up one of the city's seediest neighborhoods. Some volunteers are reminded of conditions in Iraq and Afghanistan

by Luke Broadwater, The Baltimore Sun

December 25, 2011

Earl Johnson's boots crunch broken glass from liquor bottles as he walks down an alley in East Baltimore's Oliver neighborhood.

He is just blocks from the site of the firebombing of a family who called the police on drug dealers and were killed for it, and just yards from some of the most memorable scenes of urban decay in television's "The Wire."

At his side are Rich Blake, 32, a Marine Corps veteran; and Jeremy Johnson, 34 , a Navy veteran. Like Earl (no relation to Jeremy), they are on a different kind of mission.

They've come to this neighborhood once synonymous with the worst of Baltimore to help it become something better. They call this mission Operation Oliver.

As the men walk, they pick up empty Seagram's gin and Bacardi rum bottles. They point to progress — refurbished homes, a painted playground — and to vacant houses and trash-filled alleys that still need work.

"A lot of the conditions from places we're deployed to, Iraq and Afghanistan, are not that much different from the conditions here in Oliver," says Blake, executive director of the 6th Branch, one of several nonprofit groups involved in Operation Oliver.

"We're not afraid to dig in and make a difference in a community that's got a bad reputation in the city," Blake says. "The discipline, the go-get-'em, let's-do-this-now, aggressive attitude — it really lends itself to community service in a way traditional organizations haven't been able to do."

Operation Oliver, which began in July, is a one-year commitment to the neighborhood, the veterans say. It involves cleaning up alleys, rehabilitating homes, organizing volunteers and notifying police about illegal dumping sites and drug dealing.

To say the idea has caught on would be an understatement. Word of the intensive yearlong service project has spread throughout Maryland — and the nation.

Some veterans, such as Earl Johnson, a former Army Ranger who served in Bosnia, Iraq and Afghanistan, have moved into the neighborhood. Others, such as Jeremy Johnson and Blake, live elsewhere but visit Oliver frequently. Nearly 1,000 volunteers, including more than 100 veterans, have joined the effort.

Universities and colleges have been quick to send help too. Even exchange students from France found their way there.

"It's their second day in America and they're painting alleys in Oliver," Blake says.

The improvement is noticeable. Nearly 50 homes are being rehabilitated through Earl Johnson's organization, the One Green Home at a Time Foundation, another of the partners. Five tons of trash have been hauled away, an area that was once a site of prostitution is now a playground, an organic garden is planned for a weed-filled lot, and the veterans take residents on weekly job-hunting trips.

The neighborhood of about 5,000 people is predominantly black, and more than 70% of Oliver's households earn less than $25,000 a year. Of its 2,600 properties, more than 1,100 are listed as vacant by the city.

The veterans' effort hasn't come without push-back. Their approach — hands on, no community meetings — has made established leaders bristle.

Nina Harper, executive director of the Oliver Community Assn., says she supports the veterans' work but is critical of what she sees as a lack of communication. If people see a bunch of veterans working in the neighborhood in their military-green Operation Oliver T-shirts, it could send a bad message to those looking to move in, she says.

"We don't want it to appear to be a war zone, because it's not," she says.

Earl Johnson, 30, says he wants to assure Harper and other residents that he and his volunteers are team players.

Still, he has been threatened. As the veterans cleaned up alleys and worked on vacant homes — leaving fewer places for drug dealers and prostitutes to set up shop — they encountered resistance.

One woman said her boyfriend was "going to put a bullet in my head," Johnson says.

He says the resistance has subsided as the neighborhood has improved. His wife, Zinitha, who once threatened to divorce him over conditions in the area, sees the place differently, he says.

"When we first moved in, my wife really didn't want to come out and associate with the neighborhood," Johnson says. "Now this neighborhood is no longer considered a bad neighborhood. This neighborhood is a good neighborhood that's going to be great."

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-hometown-baltimore-20111225,0,4000069.story

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

California could lose 1,500 inmate firefighters

A prison realignment program will send low-level offenders to county jails, depriving the state from using them to help clear brush, cut fire lines and stop infernos from spreading.

by Michael J. Mishak, Los Angeles Times

December 24, 2011

Reporting from Sacramento

When Gov. Jerry Brown and the Legislature shifted responsibility for thousands of state prisoners to county jails, some authorities said it would mean more offenders on the streets breaking the law.

Few saw another possible peril: the loss of more than 1,500 inmate firefighters.

Since World War II, the state has relied on nonviolent offenders serving time for such crimes as burglary, drug possession and welfare fraud to help clear brush, cut fire lines and stop infernos from spreading.

Fire officials say the prisoners, selected from a pool of those who exhibit ideal behavior in custody, can be as much as half the manpower assigned to a large fire.

"When things get busy, it's the first thing we run out of," said Andy McMurry, deputy director of fire protection for the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection.

Now, the realignment of inmate custody, developed to comply with a U.S. Supreme Court decision that overcrowding must be reduced in state lockups, is expected to keep thousands of those low-level offenders in county jails, where many could be released early because space is scarce.

Fire officials say they can sustain the number of inmate crews for now, but their forces will begin to shrink in 2013. The reduction, if fully implemented, would cut the inmate firefighting ranks by nearly 40%, according to the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, which operates the program jointly with Cal Fire.

State corrections and fire officials are working with local governments to head off that scenario with a separate training program for county inmates. But at a legislative hearing this month, county and local law enforcement representatives balked at the price tag — $46 per inmate per day.

Rather than stockpiling nonviolent offenders in county jails, some sheriff's departments are considering cheaper alternatives, such as releasing them with electronic monitoring.

"Some sheriffs feel they can get a better bang for their buck," Curtis Hill, a lobbyist for the California State Sheriffs' Assn., said at the hearing.

In addition, he said, some jurisdictions would rather have offenders doing manual labor than waiting around for a fire. Losing county inmates to fire crews would hurt "the capability of local communities to use that population for their own projects."

The issue is of particular concern to the Republican lawmakers who represent some of the state's most rural areas, which are more prone to wildfires.

State Sen. Doug La Malfa (R-Richvale) wondered whether there would even be enough eligible inmates left in county prisons to volunteer for fire crews.

"If our lowest-level offenders have been ankle-braceleted and are out, how do we get them to come back?" he said at the hearing.

State officials countered that nonviolent offenders would continue to receive two days off their sentences for each day spent in a fire camp.

Assemblyman Kevin Jeffries (R-Riverside) said in an interview that maintaining inmate firefighting ranks is critical to public safety. Without them, he said, large fires would be likely to burn longer, causing more damage and increasing personnel costs.

"There really are no other resources," said Jeffries, a former volunteer fire captain in Riverside County for nearly three decades. "It's boots on the ground that put fires out. If you go beyond the utilization of inmates, the price tag goes up dramatically."

Fire officials pledged to find a solution, arguing that the program's benefit is significant to both the state and the prisoners.

"For a lot of them, it's the first time they've done anything real positive in their lives," said McMurry, the Cal Fire deputy. "It's hard to put a dollar-and-cents figure on that."

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-firefighting-20111225,0,2361588.story

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Angry former ATF chief blames subordinates for Fast and Furious

In a deposition with congressional investigators, Kenneth E. Melson faults agents, supervisors and top aides for the gun sale program that has been linked to drug cartel violence.

by Richard A. Serrano, Washington Bureau

December 24, 2011

Reporting from Washington

In a confidential deposition with congressional investigators, the then-head of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives blamed agents, field supervisors and even his top command for never advising him that for more than a year, his agency allowed illegal gun sales along the southwestern U.S. border.

The deposition, which was taken in July and was recently obtained by the Washington bureau, shows that Kenneth E. Melson was irate. Even his chief intelligence officer at ATF headquarters was upset with the operation, dubbed Fast and Furious, but did little to shut it down, Melson complained. "He didn't come in and tell me, either," Melson said. "And he's on the same damn floor as I am."

But B. Todd Jones, Melson's replacement as acting director of the agency, said in an interview that Melson allowed overzealous field agents and supervisors to go beyond approved tactics.

Pointing out that the ATF has had five acting directors in the last six years, Jones said the resulting weak management structure has given some field agents a license to operate independently of Washington.

"There was a vacuum. Fast and Furious went off the rails, and there were plenty of opportunities to pivot so none of this would happen," Jones said.

Under the program, devised to help agents follow weapons from gun stores to Mexican cartel leaders, about 2,000 firearms were lost. Two were found after the killing of U.S. Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry last December. Hundreds more were recovered after violent crimes in Mexico

"Anybody, including Mr. Melson, who waits for things to happen or waits for information to come to them, that is something I personally am not a believer in," Jones said. "I'm a believer in management by walking around. If you're not hearing it, you seek it out. And there are a lot of ways to do that other than sitting in your corner office waiting for memos to come in."

Melson was transferred to a lower-level job at the Department of Justice on Aug. 30. Jones, the U.S. attorney in Minnesota, was appointed by Atty. Gen. Eric H. Holder Jr. as the new acting director.

At Holder's request, the Justice Department's inspector general began investigating Fast and Furious in February, a month after the controversial operation in the ATF's Phoenix field office came to light.

Jones expects the inspector general's report early next year. He said he will immediately refer it to the ATF's Office of Professional Responsibility for recommendations on job terminations or suspensions. "We sure will" be making some quick personnel decisions, he said.

Jones has visited about a fourth of the ATF's 25 field offices, and has brought in six new top managers. He said he is also working closely with Justice officials who oversee the ATF. "It's been tough on people, tough on morale. And yet I think we are pulling the car out of the ditch."

In his deposition, Melson said that the lack of management oversight went beyond his own agency to the Justice Department.

Once Fast and Furious broke into public view, Melson said, Justice officials strenuously objected when he wanted to disclose everything to Congress. "We were floating the idea and asking them to allow us to do that," he said. But he said he was told "it is a long-standing policy of the Department of Justice that we don't talk about ongoing cases."

Justice officials said they were never told about the Fast and Furious tactics and cite ATF internal emails as evidence.

Hours after Terry was killed south of Tucson, David J. Voth, the ATF group supervisor for Fast and Furious in Phoenix, sent an email to lead Agent Hope A. MacAllister. He titled the email, "no more rose colored glasses."

"If you have not heard a Border Patrol agent was shoot and killed here in Arizona," he told her. "The trace came back to Fast and Furious…Ugh...! Call as soon as you can, things will most likely get ugly."

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-fast-furious-20111225,0,5020063,print.story

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

ID errors put hundreds in L.A. County jails

Wrongful incarcerations totaled 1,480 in the last five years, a Times inquiry finds.

by Robert Faturechi and Jack Leonard, Los Angeles Times

December 25, 2011

Hundreds of people have been wrongly imprisoned inside the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department jails in recent years, with some spending weeks behind bars before authorities realized those arrested were mistaken for wanted criminals, a Times investigation has found.

The wrongful incarcerations occurred more than 1,480 times in the last five years. They were the result of a variety of factors, including officials' overlooking fingerprint evidence and working off incomplete records.

The errors are so common that in some years people were jailed because of mistaken identity an average of once a day.

Many of those wrongly held inside the county's lockups had the same names as criminals or had their identities stolen — problems that took days or weeks for authorities to sort out.

In one case, a mechanic held for nine days in 1989 on a warrant meant for someone else was detained again 20 years later on the same warrant. He was jailed for more than a month the second time before the error was discovered.

In another instance, a Nissan customer service supervisor was hauled by authorities from Tennessee to L.A. County on a local sex-crimes warrant meant for someone with a similar name.

In a third case, a former construction worker mistaken for a wanted drug offender said he was assaulted by inmates and ignored by jailers.

"I'm with criminals, and I was a criminal to them," said Jose Ventura, 53, who had never been arrested before.

The problems continue because of a breakdown not just by jail officials but by police who arrest the wrong people and by the courts, which have issued warrants that did not precisely identify the right people.

Sheriff's officials said they make every effort to avoid detaining the wrong suspects. They pointed out that the number of people wrongly identified as wanted criminals makes up a tiny fraction of the 15,000 inmates in the county's jails at any given time. The Sheriff's Department produced the tally of people who were jailed because of misidentification in response to a Times Public Records Act request.

The errors occur in jails up and down the state, and many of the misidentified inmates in the L.A. County sheriff's jails were arrested by law enforcement agencies outside the county.

In California, criminals are assigned a unique nine-digit number matched to their fingerprints. Some warrants issued by judges fail to include those identifiers, making it more difficult for police and jailers to determine whether they have the right suspect.

When those fingerprint numbers are included, police agencies sometimes fail to determine why the arrested person has a different number or no number at all. In those cases, authorities could catch the error by obtaining the wanted criminal's fingerprints from the state Department of Justice and comparing them with those of the person in custody.

"It's bureaucratic sloth and indifference," said attorney Donald W. Cook, who has represented more than a dozen clients mistakenly held on warrants issued for other people. "They don't want to take the heat for letting someone go who a cop has decided, no matter how tentatively, is the subject of a warrant."

Those mistakenly arrested told The Times that they were ignored when they pleaded with police and jail staff about their innocence. In the county jails, the Sheriff's Department has a policy to launch investigations when inmates protest during booking that they are not the wanted people. But records show the department conducted investigations for only a small fraction of the number of people who courts eventually ruled were not the right suspects.

Sheriff's officials said they are bombarded with false innocence claims from inmates. It would be impossible to check every claim, they said, and jailers' authority to release an inmate ordered detained by a judge is limited.

"People lie to us about who they are all the time," said sheriff's Cmdr. David Fender.

Victims of mistaken identification typically go through several rounds of checks before they land in L.A. County Jail. Arresting officers use the name, birth date and driver's license number of the person they stop to check for warrants. The first fingerprint check is usually done when officers bring the people they arrest to the police station where they are booked. From there, inmates are taken either to court or directly to county jail.

Once inmates arrive at the jail, officials there review the fingerprints again and compare what's on a warrant to the personal information for the inmate. But sheriff's officials maintain that their top priority is to hold people awaiting court hearings rather than questioning the validity of the arrests.

"It's not our position or authority to check the work of every police agency in the county," said sheriff's Capt. Mike Parker.

The number of mistaken identifications has been declining, but the department is still on pace to record nearly 200 wrongful detentions this year. For those who are jailed, the experience can be harrowing.

Ventura, the former construction worker, was pulled over on a traffic stop by Chino police and arrested on a warrant meant for someone else. Jailers stripped him and escorted him to a large shower area when he arrived at the L.A. County Jail.

Another inmate, he said, pushed him over so he could use Ventura's shower, leaving Ventura naked on the ground with back pain. Later, another inmate snatched his pair of jail-issued shoes and forced Ventura to apologize.

"Psychologically, I was already dead," he said.

Two days later, Ventura, a member of the Seventh-day Adventist Church, arrived in court. He preached to other inmates in his holding cell as they waited for their hearings.

Once in court, Ventura, a native of El Salvador, watched as his lawyer told a judge that police had arrested the wrong man. The 1994 warrant was for a Mexican national accused of drug possession at a time when Ventura's passport showed he wasn't even in the country, the attorney said. A Los Angeles Police Department official brought the actual suspect's fingerprints to court and concluded that Ventura was the wrong person.

"Mr. Ventura, our apologies," a judge told him as he ordered Ventura released. "Good luck."

Once released, those arrested have little recourse. State and federal laws generally protect law enforcement agencies from lawsuits over such detentions as long as officers were acting on a valid warrant and had a reasonable belief that they were arresting the right person.

Sheriff's deputies pulled over Phillip Reed, a South L.A. youth sports coach, who was on his way home from the grocery store in 2009.

A warrant listed Reed's name, date of birth and driver's license number, but Reed knew he was the wrong man. His younger brother, Marcus, had used Phillip's identity in the past, Reed said in a deposition. Reed had previously obtained a court document showing that another warrant had wrongly named him before.

He said he presented the document to the deputies who pulled him over — a claim that one of the arresting deputies later disputed. Authorities booked Reed even though the person listed on the warrant had a unique fingerprint number and Reed had no number.

That night, inside a county holding cell, Reed said he begged deputies to look inside his wallet, where he kept the judge's form.

In the corner of his cell, Reed recalled in an interview, he began to weep and pray: "I know this is not me. I don't know what else to do. God help me."

It wasn't until the next day that authorities discovered the error and released Reed.

In some cases, warrants contain only names, dates of birth and basic physical descriptions that can apply to multiple people. Many times, officers will encounter people who match most if not all of those details.

In 1989, Santiago Ibarra Rivera spent a week in jail before officials figured out that he was not the man wanted on a warrant for a deadly drunk driving accident. Rivera had no criminal record but shared a similar name and the same birthday as the man for which the warrant was meant.

When he was freed, authorities gave Rivera a court document showing that he had been exonerated. Years later, he lost the record when his wallet was stolen.

The warrant became a distant memory until March 2009, when San Bernardino County sheriff's deputies stopped Rivera while he was riding in a co-worker's car that was missing a front license plate. Deputies ran his name and the warrant appeared.

Rivera pleaded that he wasn't the wanted man and that he'd been wrongly jailed for the warrant once before. He told one of the deputies that he had other court papers at his home to prove it. But the deputies, he said, refused to stop there. According to one of the arresting deputies, Rivera's knowledge of the warrant only served to make him appear guilty.

Rivera said he complained first in San Bernardino County Jail and later in L.A. County Jail, where he was transferred, but was ignored in both lockups.

A review of Rivera's criminal history based on his fingerprints, readily available in law enforcement databases, would have showed that in 1989 he had been arrested and exonerated on a vehicular manslaughter case.

The old court file that contained the real suspect's fingerprints was in the court archives. Rivera languished behind bars as officials searched for them. He implored officials to find his records "as soon as possible because I have to return to my work."

When it was eventually confirmed that Rivera was the wrong person, Superior Court Judge Kathryn Solorzano apologized. "Mr. Rivera, I'm very sorry. I don't know how many days…"

"I think close to a month," Rivera's attorney interrupted, according to a transcript.

"That's terrible," the judge said.

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-wrong-id-20111225,0,4530093,print.story

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

From Google News

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Volunteer listeners, watchers can pack a punch for community policing

Watch. Listen. Call police.

It's a community policing prescription intended to help officers make Saginaw's mean streets safer.

We are all for the Saginaw Police Department's plans to have community volunteers add their eyes and ears to the fight against crime.

The more people watching and listening for trouble — and then reporting it to uniformed officers — the better. Police officers can't be everywhere at once. But with a little help from community friends, officers can respond to pinpointed sources of trouble.

Volunteers would be on the street reporting what they encounter and in the city's electronic monitoring station to watch and listen for trouble through the ShotSpotter gunfire detection system and other devices peppered throughout the community.

Those up to no good should get the message that there are a lot more people actively looking out for crime and suspicious activity than there have been.

They'd either behave themselves, move to other, less guarded neighborhoods or face a much higher likelihood of arrest.

Each of Saginaw's community police officers might have two four-hour patrols of volunteers in each of nine city sectors assigned to help them on each shift, police said.

The volunteers on patrol would receive some training, but their role would not be to apprehend crime suspects.

They would just watch and listen and report anything they think their local community police officer would need to know.

We've seen the concept work in Saginaw during the annual Arson Watch patrols throughout the city. They have tamped down the conflagration of arson fires set around Halloween. Those patrols, along with the Arson Watch blitz each year to board up vacant buildings, are a main reason why the term “Angels Night” has become a real replacement for what used to be called Devil's Night.

Over in the Northwest sector of the city, the Northwest Neighborhood Association conducts regular patrols, an extension of the Arson Watch effort, in clearly marked cars with flashing amber lights. Those volunteers say they don't have a community police officer. If not, they should be assigned one to help coordinate and focus this already active effort.

The Southwest Neighborhood Association also does patrols, although not in conjunction with its community police officer. Its watchers and listeners, though, do report trouble they see and hear to their area's assigned officer or to 911 Central Dispatch.

Arson Watch and these independent patrols are grassroots proof that people will volunteer to watch over their neighborhoods.

They're exciting forerunners of what we hope would be a corps of citizen patrols moving though Saginaw at key times.

It's a proven concept that, we are glad to say, both Police Chief Gerald H. Cliff and Assistant City Manager for Public Safety Phillip A. Ludos pledge to keep and to reinforce.

Police officers are trained to apprehend criminal suspects, deal directly with dangerous situations and to gather evidence and witnesses.

Community volunteers will help get those officers on the scene in time to do their jobs.

We're hoping for a huge impact with that kind of pinpoint accuracy in policing.

It's one thing to hear from your kitchen what might be gunshots — outside, somewhere — and then trying to decide whether to call police with that sketchy information.

It's something else entirely to have volunteers actively searching for sounds and signs of trouble — people who know what to do with that information, and who to call immediately.

That's community policing with a punch.

Disturbing new numbers accent what law enforcement, social agencies, Native leaders and politicians have long realized about Western Alaska: It struggles with far more than its share of violence and family dysfunction.

A picture of the challenge emerges from the Alaska State Troopers' just-completed annual report for 2010.

The sparsely populated, remote area logged between one-third and one-half of all cases handled by troopers involving sexual assault, sexual abuse of a minor, or assault.

If the cases were distributed evenly by population across Alaska, the numbers for Western Alaska would be far, far lower.

The common thread is alcohol abuse, troopers said.

"It's frustrating because you are trying to make a difference. You are trying to make an impact on these numbers," said trooper Capt. Barry Wilson, who heads the trooper detachment for the region. "But it takes time."

Troopers' C Detachment covers a chunk of Alaska bigger than the state of California, an area from the coast of the Bering Sea inland and from Kodiak Island to north of the Arctic Circle. It includes the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta, the Aleutian chain, and communities around the hubs of Bethel, Kotzebue, Dillingham, Nome and Kodiak.

Local police departments, not troopers, handle cases in hubs, some organized boroughs, bigger villages and urban centers including the cities of Anchorage, Fairbanks and Juneau.

But considering only cases handled by troopers, the skewed crime numbers are apparent.

More than 40,000 people in the Western Alaska detachment rely on troopers as their primary provider of public safety. That's about 17 percent of the 240,000 people who live in areas served mainly by troopers.

Yet according to troopers, C detachment in 2010 handled:

• 1,144 of 3,775 assaults investigated by troopers. That's 30 percent. ---------Almost 450 of those Western Alaska assaults were felonies, troopers spokeswoman Beth Ipsen said. • 171 of 322 sexual assaults. That's more than half. • 172 of 367 sexual abuse of a minor cases. That's 47 percent. • 23 of 83 suicides, or 28 percent.

Western Alaska includes some of the poorest villages. Other parts of the state see more burglaries and thefts, more vandalism and drunken driving. But no other regions come close to it for reports of violence and sex crimes.

'WILD AND OFF-THE-WALL THINGS'

Troopers in Western Alaska say they often must deal with more serious crimes than an urban police officer and need more specialized training -- for instance in how to interview Alaska Native children, and in crime scene investigations.

The nature and impact of crimes sometimes are different than in urban areas too, troopers say.

Rapes, for instance, usually are viewed as crimes of power and control, Wilson said. But in rural Alaska, sex crimes more often are connected to alcohol abuse and seem more situational, he said. Some perpetrators are viewed as the backbone of the village, the person who helps others out, until they drink and turn into someone else.

"Then we have DVs (domestic violence). We have assaults. We have people walking down the middle of the street with guns. We have all these wild and off-the-wall things," Wilson said.

Problems related to alcohol may get worse, troopers say. Two hubs, Bethel and Kotzebue, in 2009 liberalized their alcohol laws. Folks in surrounding dry and damp communities are finding it easier to get alcohol these days, troopers say.

Lt. Mike Duxbury, who oversees many of the villages in the detachment, recently dealt with a family struggling with multiple sexual assaults in the span of a few months. The mother had been sexually assaulted, two children were assaulted by a relative, and then one of the same children was sexually abused by a neighbor, who had been drinking.

"This is not unusual and it is a foundation rocker for the youngsters," Duxbury said.

The mother was caring and concerned but didn't seem to recognize how much trauma her family had suffered.

As Duxbury helped the family get services in Anchorage, she told him: "I'm trying to hold myself together for this child who needs my support and I'm about to cry at any moment and I can't figure out why."

'QUINTESSENTIAL TROOPER POST'

A suicide, a crime of violence or a sexual assault in Anchorage or Fairbanks or Juneau may hurt one family, or spill over and affect a few close friends or neighbors.

In rural villages, the impact is both deep and broad.

"It is in fact the whole village," Duxbury said. "Crimes of this nature destroy the foundation for folks."

In smaller villages, just about everyone is related by blood or marriage or connected in other ways, and everyone knows one another. They know who the perpetrator is, and who sent the person to jail, and why. They think back to when they were a kid, and were a victim of abuse themselves.

Wilson, who has worked almost 22 years for troopers, said he tries to reinforce to younger troopers the idea that they can't expect real change just by showing up in a remote village every now and then even if it seems like they are establishing relationships.

"It's going to take you doing that repeatedly, continuously. Weeks, months, years. Getting into the schools," Wilson said.

It's the troopers version of community policing -- a strategy that in urban areas assigns officers to a certain neighborhood and encourages them to attend community meetings and talk to residents in non-crisis situations. Troopers have been pushing this for decades but need to do more, Wilson said.

One goal is for a trooper to visit a rural village at least once a week for no particular reason. Troopers always descend when there's an alcohol-fueled attack or a teenager's suicide or a snowmachine rider lost in a storm. But they also need to listen in at meetings of tribal elders and stop by to chat with school kids, Duxbury said.

Working in C detachment is "the quintessential trooper post," said Duxbury, who used to work out of Aniak and often rode by snowmachine to surrounding villages. Troopers go to calls by boat and plane too.

The job is stressful and can be overwhelming for someone from an urban area.

In Western Alaska, there are about 50 troopers answering calls in the field, or one for every 807 year-round residents. That's actually better than in more densely populated areas. The Anchorage Police Department, for instance, has one patrol officer or sergeant for every 1,155 residents in the municipal police service area.

In Emmonak, troopers tried a new approach just more than one year ago. Two troopers now share the hard-to-fill position, each working two weeks on, then two weeks off.

Commanders worried that villagers would see that as diminished commitment. But they also wanted to make the job more appealing and improve retention.

It's working great, Wilson said. Two weeks of 12-hour days ground the troopers in Emmonak and surrounding villages. Now they're expanding the experiment to Selawik. Some senior troopers sought out the posts there.

A VICTIM SAVED

A priority for the state Department of Public Safety and Gov. Sean Parnell is boosting the number of communities with village public safety officers. They are not commissioned troopers, but work under the supervision of troopers.

Researchers have found that VPSOs make a difference. Sexual assault cases are more often prosecuted if they are involved in the response. And the rate of serious injury in assault cases diminishes when there's a VPSO.

Wilson said that's because the village-based officer will respond before things get out of hand.

Duxbury, a 22-year veteran, said despite all the disturbing statistics, every trooper has a story that makes the job worthwhile.

There was this one girl from a Yukon River village. Duxbury met her when she was a seventh-grader and had been sexually assaulted by a relative at fish camp. He got her trained with the Dragon Slayers, a volunteer fire- rescue squad in Aniak dominated by high school girls. She went to a boarding school and joined the U.S. Navy. He just heard from her, out of the blue.

"I helped one person get to someplace else and she's going to make a positive impact," Duxbury said.

http://www.adn.com/2011/12/24/2233181/many-more-sex-crimes-on-alaskas.html

.