Josh Powell: 911 dispatcher admits to being 'clumsy,' 'faltering'

In the days after Powell killed his two young boys and himself in a fiery explosion, public outcry has condemned how social services, family courts and emergency responders handled the long-troubled Powell family saga.

But much ire has been directed at the 911 dispatcher . At first he did not seem to take seriously the initial phone call by the social worker, who said Powell locked her out of his home when she arrived with the boys for a supervised visit.

In an interview that aired Friday night, the dispatcher said, "I just wish that I had understood better what the circumstances were and the lethal quality of this call and all the dangerous potential that was there."

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

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'Speed Freak Killer' was paid $33,000 to guide search for victims

Guided by a serial killer on death row, San Joaquin County sheriff's deputies and public works employees were digging Saturday at suspected dumping grounds in two counties in search of the remains of victims of the notorious "Speed Freak Killers."

Condemned serial killer Wesley Shermantine, 45, drew maps of where he and late accomplice Loren Herzog buried as many as 20 victims of their drug-fueled murder spree that began in the mid-1980s and terrorized San Joaquin and Calaveras counties for more than a decade. Shermantine gave up the information in exchange for $33,000 provided by Sacramento bounty hunter Leonard Padilla, Padilla told The Times.

On Thursday, remains tentatively identified from dental records as those of Cyndi Vanderheiden, a 25-year-old Linden woman who disappeared from her home in 1998, were found in a remote area of Calaveras County, said San Joaquin County Sheriff's spokesman Les Garcia. Authorities are still awaiting the results of DNA analysis to confirm the identity.

Searchers using heavy equipment operated by county workers found the remains of another young woman Friday near the same site to which Shermantine had directed Padilla with maps mailed to the bounty hunter from San Quentin State Prison.

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2012/02/speed-freak-killers-paid-search-victims.html

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Following N.C. 'recipe' requires all-in effort

Wilmington leaders told that teamwork is the key

In the past seven years, more than 75 cities nationwide have been where Wilmington finds itself today. They've been frustrated by seemingly intractable street violence and drawn to the promise of the so-called "High Point strategy" to dramatically cut it.

Not all of them have succeeded, and experts on the strategy say there are a variety of things that have tripped up those efforts. The most common is skipping or changing one of the eight steps that are crucial to the strategy, said James Fealy, the police chief of High Point, N.C., where the method got its start.

"If you take an ingredient out of the recipe, it doesn't work as well," Fealy said.

Fealy was one of several High Point leaders who spoke to a Delaware group that visited the city last week to see if the strategy, which combines police work with community support, could be applied to Wilmington's violent crime problem.

Wilmington had the nation's third-highest violent crime rate among similarly sized cities in 2009 and 2010. Wilmington Police Chief Michael Szczerba said the department would try it, possibly as early as next month.

http://www.delawareonline.com/article/20120212/NEWS01/202120351/Following-N-C-recipe-requires-all-effort

The psychiatric emergency services at two county-run hospitals are so overcrowded that mentally ill patients have to sleep on mattresses on the floor, health officials acknowledged this week.

The packed conditions at Olive View-UCLA Medical Center and Harbor-UCLA Medical Center make it more difficult to de-escalate the emotions of patients who arrive at the hospital agitated and anxious, said Christina Ghaly, deputy director of strategic planning for the Los Angeles County Department of Health Services.

"We fully agree this is not an optimal placement," Ghaly said Friday. "This is not the best way to care for patients. But at the county hospitals, we are at the mercy of who comes to our door."

Ghaly said the issue of overcrowding is not new and that county health officials recognize that something has to be done to accommodate more people.

Olive View has 12 beds in its emergency room set aside for psychiatric patients but typically houses about 20 and occasionally has as many as 30, Ghaly said. The hospital cannot add full-sized beds because of fire safety concerns. So, in addition to sleeping on the floor, patients are regularly housed in an overflow area or in interview rooms, she said.

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-crowding-20120211,0,3005314.story

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In 1987, I started the Fund for New Americans at the California Community Foundation with the help of the Hilton, Irvine and Weingart foundations. The fund's purpose was to provide loans and services to illegal immigrants in Southern California who were seeking amnesty under provisions of President Reagan's Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986.

When Reagan signed the act into law, the word "amnesty" hadn't taken on all the negative connotations it has today. These days, especially during campaign season, amnesty is equated with "free lunch" or "get out of jail free"; it's a word uttered only by those who oppose the concept.

But 25 years ago, amnesty meant hope, dignity and a second chance for tens of thousands of Los Angeles-area residents. And in the many hours I spent observing English-as-a-second-language classes and immigration counseling sessions, what is only a nasty abstraction to many became very concrete to me. I saw the faces of amnesty, and it changed me forever.

To listen to its detractors today, you'd think amnesty was a free ticket to Disneyland handed out on street corners. But in 1987, the path to citizenship was difficult to navigate and, to many, prohibitively expensive.

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-shakely-amnesty-20120210,0,5902983,print.story

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Uzbek man guilty of plotting to kill President Obama

BIRMINGHAM, Alabama (Reuters) - A man from Uzbekistan living illegally in the United States pleaded guilty on Friday to terrorism and weapons charges involving a plot to kill President Barack Obama.

According to court evidence, defendant Ulugbek Kodirov believed he was acting on behalf of an Islamist militant group in his homeland and was plotting to shoot Obama while the president campaigned for re-election this year.

Kodirov 22, pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court in Birmingham, Alabama, to three charges as part of an agreement that spares him from a potential life sentence.

He still faced up to 30 years in prison and $750,000 in fines for providing material support for terrorist activity, being an illegal alien in possession of a firearm and threatening to assassinate the president.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/02/11/us-usa-uzbek-obama-idUSTRE8191UI20120211

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Detroit trying 'Broken Windows' community policing

DETROIT (WTW) — Loitering, cracked windshields and broken taillights — at times overlooked by a Detroit police force often overwhelmed with assaults, robberies and carjackings — are being targeted along with other minor violations to stop more violent behavior at what some consider its source.

"Broken Windows," a decades-old method of community policing, is on an 18-month trial run in two parts of the city, according to Police Chief Ralph Godbee.

One of the authors of a 1982 magazine article spouting the benefits of saving neighborhoods by putting more officers on foot patrols and focusing on issues that might appear insignificant in a city with one of the highest crime rates in the nation is working as a consultant on the project.

There were 344 homicides in Detroit last year, compared with 308 in 2010. Through Feb. 5, 36 were committed in the city — six more than at the same time last year.

Murder, rape, assault, robbery and other violent crime decreased by 7,300 reports last year. But Detroit's violent crime per every 100,000 residents remains high because the city's population has dropped by about a quarter million over the past decade.

http://www.wausaudailyherald.com/usatoday/article/38548167?odyssey=mod%7Cnewswell%7Ctext%7CFRONTPAGE%7Cs

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RPD to hold safe community meetings to better engage residents

Ridgecrest, Calif. — In an effort to help residents become more engaged in reducing crime in the city, the Ridgecrest Police Department is planning a series of safe-community meetings.

“During the past few years, we've managed to reduce the crime rate significantly,” said Capt. Paul Wheeler. “That's not only accomplished by hard work by the police department, it's accomplished by the cooperation and the assistance of the community.”

He said he reviewed the 2011 statistics and identified five areas with more problems than others.

“We're planning a series of about five meetings, and they're going to start in a couple of weeks,” he said.

Wheeler said the purpose of the meetings is to inform the public of what the trends are in their particular areas and how to protect themselves from the trends.

http://www.ridgecrestca.com/news/x2112939715/RPD-to-hold-safe-community-meetings-to-better-engage-residents

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Feb 10, 2012

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U.S. travel warning on Mexico is more precise on violent areas

The U.S. State Department has issued an updated travel warning for tourists planning to visit Mexico, adding information on drug violence on a state-by-state and city-by-city basis.

The new, more detailed warning comes in response to concerns expressed by Mexico tourism officials, who worried that previous travel warnings scared off U.S. tourists by generalized about the threat of crime violence in Mexico.

"The Mexico Tourism Board has long advocated for travel advisories which abide by three key tenets: context, clarity and specificity," said Rodolfo Lopez-Negrete, chief operating officer for the Mexico Tourism Board. "The revised U.S. State Department travel advisory regarding Mexico adheres to these principles and should serve as model for the rest of the world."

The latest warning notes that 47,515 people were killed in narcotics-related violence in Mexico between Dec. 1, 2006 and Sept. 30, 2011. The number of U.S. citizens reported to the Department of State as murdered in Mexico jumped from 35 in 2007 to 120 in 2011.

http://www.latimes.com/business/money/la-fi-mo-travel-warning-20120209,0,3509262,print.story

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Josh Powell sons' funeral: It's Westboro church vs. the public

That announcement was immediately met with howls of outrage and plans for counterprotests.

A new Facebook campaign, "Keep Westboro Church away from Powell Memorial," was launched to encourage the public to "go out in full force to help create a buffer so this memorial can take place peacefully” in Tacoma, Wash. Occupy Seattle also plans a counterprotest to protect the boys' grief-stricken relatives from Westboro's hate-filled message.

Margie Phelps, the daughter of the founder of the Kansas-based church reviled by many for its extremist views, took to Twitter to confirm the funeral protest plans, calling the area where the deaths happened "God's cursed WA-serial-killer-capitol of world" and labeling "beautiful" the headline "Westboro BaptChurch to protest Powell boys' funeral."

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

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They're the type of crimes you think of on the other side of the border -- in Mexico -- but beheadings and other drug-related violence are happening right here in the metro.

Last Fall it was Bethany teen Carina Saunders -- killed to send a message to girls involved in human and drug trafficking.

Just last week we told you about an alleged house of prostitution busted on the city's southwest side where poker chips were exchanged for sex. Police say that shows an apparent tie to Mexican human trafficking rings.

News 9 traveled to southern Arizona to see how big the problem with drug cartels really is and why we should be worried about it spreading into the metro even more.

"I wear a bulletproof best at night. I'm scared," said Arizona farmer Scott Blevins. His land is a mile off of Interstate 10 between Phoenix and Tucson. He says the Mexican drug cartels are so dangerous he has to protect himself. That includes a Glock strapped to his ankle.

http://www.news9.com/story/16904402/drug-and-human-trafficking-violence-making-its-way-into-oklahoma-city?clienttype=printable

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Feb 9, 2012

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White supremacists revive dream of a homeland in Northwest

Kevin Harpham's attempted bombing of a Martin Luther King parade in Spokane, Wash., reflects the foothold white supremacy has in the region.

Three sanitation workers found it along the route of a Martin Luther King Jr. Day march: a nest of wires in a backpack.

The homemade bomb was equipped with an unusual remote-controlled trigger and stuffed with more than 100 heavy fishing weights coated in rat poison. The Spokane County bomb squad disarmed it hours before the route would have been flooded with marchers last year.

If the device had detonated and the weights had torn into the intended victims, the poison would have prevented their blood from coagulating, all but ensuring their deaths, lab analysts concluded.

The intense manhunt that ensued led authorities to a remote cabin in the pine-shrouded hills north of Spokane. In it lived Kevin W. Harpham, an Army veteran who had posted venomously for years on a white supremacist website, the Vanguard News Network.

"Those who say you can't win a war by bombing have never tried," he wrote. "I can't wait till the day I snap."

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-mlk-bomb-20120209,0,3946003.story

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Islamic terrorism: It's not what many think, new report suggests

There were roughly 14,000 murders in the U.S. last year, according to the report, but the 20 American Muslims indicted in suspected terrorist plots — out of the 2 million Muslims in the United States — were not responsible for any of them.

“The scale of home-grown Muslim American terrorism in 2011 does not appear to have corroborated the warnings issued by government officials early in the year,” noted the report's author, Charles Kurzman, a sociologist at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

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

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911 Response Probed in Powell Killings

(TACOMA, Wash.) — Emergency call logs show that nearly eight minutes elapsed between when a social worker called 911 to report that Josh Powell's children were in danger and when sheriff's deputies were dispatched. By the time officers were on their way, the home was exploding in a gas-fueled inferno, with Powell and his two young boys inside.

The priority of the dispatch Sunday was "routine" instead of "emergency," which cost several minutes of response time, and when the deputies arrived 14 minutes later, there was nothing they could do. (See a Timeline of the Powell Family's Tragic Two Years.)

The Associated Press obtained the logs Wednesday night under a public records request.

Recently released audio recordings of the 911 calls raised questions about how the dispatch center handled the social worker's call regarding Powell, who was a person of interest in the disappearance of his wife two years ago.

The worker detailed how Powell had locked her out of his house during what was supposed to be a supervised visit with his sons, that she could smell gas, and that she feared for their lives.

Minutes later, Powell torched the home, killing himself and the boys.

http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,2106465,00.html

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Maryland

Cheverly police credit partnerships in crime reduction

The Cheverly Police Department is crediting a combination of residents with watchful eyes and partnerships with Prince George's County police for a decrease in crime since 2010 and to levels almost as low as in 1989.

Ann Barsi, who has lived in Cheverly for 13 years, said the town police's partnership with residents, such as through the Cheverly Watch Radio Program, has made the difference. The community policing initiative gives radios to residents to report crime in real time to Cheverly police officers.

“Everybody in town has talked about how this is something unique to Cheverly and that's become another arm of our police department that's really helping, and that's where we're getting that decrease in crime,” she said. “It's an extra sets of eyes that's saying, ‘Hey, something fishy is going on here. Come look.' ”

The biggest drops, from 2010 to 2011, came in burglaries and robberies, with a 67 percent decrease in robberies from 21 to seven and a 35 percent drop in burglaries from 67 to 43, said Cheverly Police Chief Buddy Robshaw, who started the radio program in September 2008. That year ended ended with 55 burglaries and 24 robberies. There were 267 criminal incidents total last year, compared with 263 in 1989, Robshaw said.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/cheverly-police-credit-partnerships-in-crime-reduction/2012/02/06/gIQAC0FsyQ_story.html

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Hawaii

MPD Seeks Help From Community

Maui Police Department officials discuss concerns in the Kihei District … drugs are the “number one issue in the community.”

The Maui Police Department (MPD) wants you--but it's not quite what you may think.

Meeting with approximately 25 Kihei residents, MPD Chief Gary Yabuta and his officers stressed that with limited resources and a high volume of calls, citizen participation is needed to ensure that those resources are targeted in the best manner possible.

Yabuta also told attendees that he has created a special assignment unit of three officers for use " when we are overloaded and need more officers on the streets." Officers in this unit are placed on special assignment to address specific concerns.

Among those concerns are park and beach patrols, and speed limit and other traffic enforcement based on community input.

According to Yabuta, the Kihei District, which is staffed with a total of 54 officers and civilian employees combined, receives 2,000 calls for service per month. The Kihei District--Ma'alaea, Kihei, Maui Meadows, Wailea and Makena--is geographically subdivided into five beats.

http://www.mauiweekly.com/page/content.detail/id/509350/MPD-Seeks-Help-From-Community.html?nav=13

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North Carolina

Wilmington fixes eye on crime-fighting model

HIGH POINT, N.C. -- Near the end of a two-day visit on Tuesday, this city's Jim Fealy had a police-chief-to-police-chief moment with Wilmington's Michael Szczerba.

"The bottom line is people in my community are safer, and that's all I care about," Fealy said. "I really believe this is the way policing should be done across the country."

Fealy was talking about the "focused deterrence" methods that his department has been using for about 15 years to wipe out violent open-air drug markets, cut violent gang crime and restore the community's faith in its police officers. Szczerba and eight others from Delaware had come to hear whether they could apply High Point's lessons to Wilmington's violent crime problem.

Szczerba said the strategy could indeed work in Wilmington.

"It's a process that isn't going to happen overnight, but we will be doing this," Szczerba said. "We won't end here."

http://www.delawareonline.com/article/20120208/NEWS01/202080342/Wilmington-fixes-eye-crime-fighting-model

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Feb 8, 2012

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West Virginia

Hackers post W.Va. police officers' personal info

CHARLESTON, W.Va. (AP) — Hackers affiliated with the Anonymous hacking group obtained more than 150 police officers' personal information from an old website for the West Virginia Chiefs of Police Association and posted it online.

William Roper, the association's president, told the Charleston Gazette (http://bit.ly/zLZxrB) the FBI is investigating. Roper is also the police chief of Ranson, W.Va.

Roper said a group called CabinCr3w hacked the website Monday and obtained the home addresses, home phone numbers and cellphone numbers of current and retired police chiefs. The association has a new website but members' information was stored on the old website's database.

"It's a tragedy someone was able to hack our website and obtain information that is useful to our members," Roper said.

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5il-cj-qXoaurp-tJkbwnw9KgdZgg?docId=be8ecbfc75a34ebda134078c9aa847bc

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Michigan

Editorial

Community policing needs city's support

Port Huron has some problems to resolve if the city is to position itself for prosperity. If the city's elected officials hope to avoid a fiscal crisis, they will have to figure out new ways for to reduce spending.

The status of one city service presents a dilemma. The City Council reduced the police department by three positions as part of last year's cost cuts.

This year, the council is looking for new ways to save money at a time when the police department has embarked on a promising strategy to fight crime.

Police Chief Michael Reaves unveiled a new plan in December that joins city police and residents in a community approach to waging war on neighborhood crime.

The plan divides Port Huron into 23 zones with a primary officer and secondary officer assigned to each of them. In making police more accessible, the strategy also calls for working more closely with Neighborhood Watch groups and churches.

A critical component is the creation of a special unit that fights illegal drug traffic. Reaves believes at least 90% of the city's crime problem is drug-related. Focusing on reducing the source of street crime seems to make good sense.

http://www.thetimesherald.com/article/20120208/OPINION01/202080324

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ICE Names Its First Public Advocate

Today, I am honored to be named U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE)'s first-ever public advocate. As ICE continues to implement detention reforms and other enforcement-related initiatives, my staff and I will serve as a point of contact for individuals, including those in immigration proceedings, NGOs, and other community and advocacy groups, who have concerns, questions, recommendations or important issues they would like to raise.

While this new role will be challenging, I believe it will reap significant rewards for ICE as well as for stakeholders. As we work to enact significant policy changes to focus the agency's immigration enforcement resources on sensible priorities, implement policies and processes that prioritize the health and safety of detainees in our custody while increasing federal oversight, and improve the conditions of confinement within the detention system, I will strive to expand and enhance our dialogue with the stakeholder community.

I have committed the greater part of my life to public service. Since 2008, I have served with ICE, first as an advisor and analyst on policies related to immigration enforcement, detention and juveniles, and most recently as the senior advisor for Enforcement and Removal Operation's (ERO) detention management division. Prior to that, I served as an attorney and was recognized as the Maryland Attorney of the Year for Pro Bono Service working with Community Legal Services of Prince George's County.

http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2012/02/07/ice-names-its-first-public-advocate

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Feb 7, 2012

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Female genital cutting sworn off by thousands of African villages

In some northern and eastern stretches of Africa and the Middle East, cutting the female genitals is seen as a coming-of-age ritual that ensures chastity and makes a woman marriageable. U.N. agencies have pushed to end practices that cut away all or part of female genitalia, saying they have no health benefits and cause severe pain.

There are also long-term risks for women who undergo cutting: The World Health Organization says female circumcision can increase the risk of childbirth complications, cause recurring infections or create the need for later surgeries to allow for sexual intercourse and childbirth.

Over the last year, Kenya and Guinea-Bissau passed laws banning female genital excision. In Ethiopia, Senegal and other African countries, thousands of villages have publicly declared that they were against it. U.N. agencies spent more than $6.1 million last year to combat the practice.

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/world_now/2012/02/female-genital-cutting-africa.html

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Susan Powell's son drew picture of his mother in trunk of car

A son of missing Utah mother Susan Powell drew a picture for a school assignment that depicted his mother in the trunk of the family vehicle, a lawyer for Powell's family said Monday.

The comments come a day after Powell's two sons died in an explosive house fire in Washington state believed to have been set by their father, Josh Powell, who was also killed in the blaze.

"Charlie drew a picture at school. You were supposed to draw a picture of something you had done during the summer. And he drew a picture of the family's vehicle, with Dad driving the car, he and Braden in the back seat, and Mom was in the trunk," Tacoma, Wash., attorney Steve Downing told the Los Angeles Times.

A member of the Cox family later told The Times that it was actually Powell's younger son, Braden, who drew the picture, but confirmed the other details.

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

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Powell sons had 'chop injury,' autopsy report says

Powell, a person of interest in his wife Susan's 2009 disappearance from their Utah home, is believed to have set his rented house in Graham, Wash., afire just after his children arrived for what was to have been a supervised visit Sunday afternoon.

He let the boys in but barred the social worker, and as she called authorities to say she'd smelled gas, the home erupted into flames.

But the medical examiner's report seemed to indicate that the children had been subdued before or during the blaze. The younger boy, 5-year-old Braden, had a “chop injury” to his head and neck, and his brother Charles, 7, had a similar injury to the neck, the autopsy report said.

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

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Ohio

Report of Union County rape brings calls for caution when drivers pull over

MARYSVILLE, Ohio — When a woman saw red and blue flashing lights mounted in the grill of the vehicle driving behind her on Paver Barnes Road in Union County, she pulled to the side of the road.

That's a natural reaction and is what drivers are supposed to do, authorities say.

But the vehicle was a white, extended-cab pickup truck that authorities said in no way resembled a cruiser. The woman told them that one of two men who got out of the truck was wearing a green Carhartt jacket, a checkered shirt, bluejeans and a John Deere baseball cap, so he didn't appear to be a police officer, said Chief Deputy Tom Morgan of the Union County sheriff's office.

The woman reported that the two men pulled her from her vehicle about 4:30 p.m. on Friday, drove her to another location and raped her. She eventually broke free and drove herself to a hospital about 12:45 a.m. Saturday.

http://www.dispatch.com/content/stories/local/2012/02/07/officers-urge-caution-when-pulling-over.html

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Connecticut

Mayor outlines policing plan

Mayor John DeStefano Jr. sketched out a broad strategy for improving the Elm City's public safety in his State of the City address at City Hall Monday evening.

The mayor set out two missions — establishing a clear strategy for reducing violence crime and reinvigorating community partnerships with the police — as part of a five-pronged plan to enhance the security of city residents. DeStefano's five strategies, which include creating a shooting investigation unit and reviving the ‘cold case' unit in the New Haven Police Department, as well as expanding the department's community policing efforts, drew praise from members of the Board of Aldermen. But members of the board also said they were waiting on the mayor to finalize the staffing structure and financial plans for the new initiatives before they could assess its financial viability.

“In 2011, we lost 34 people to violent crime,” DeStefano said in his address, referring to New Haven's 20-year-high homicide count. “It isn't normal. We must never think it's normal, or that someone deserved it, or most important that we can't do something about it. We can. We will.”

To address the city's violent crime — which dropped 11 percent in the first half of last year — DeStefano emphasized partnerships between the NHPD and state and federal law enforcement agencies, as well as city residents.

http://www.yaledailynews.com/news/2012/feb/07/mayor-outlines-policing-plan/

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New Jersey

Police Coordinating Interfaith Block Watch

The safety and security initiative is being undertaken by Sgt. Richard Schultz in the department's community policing office.

“With the number of instances that have occurred, we just can't sit back and watch,” said councilwoman Lisa Swain, who proposed forming an interfaith committee at the Jan. 24 council work session. “We really have to make sure we are on top of this, from the local level to the federal level.”

As it turns out, Fair Lawn police Sgt. Richard Schultz unknowingly laid the groundwork for such a community interfaith group late last year while performing his standard end-of-year functions.

“I was doing all the file updates for the alarm contacts and I realized I didn't have the contacts for the houses of worships,” said Schultz, who set out to compile a convenient mass reference list of Fair Lawn's houses of worship in case the need to quickly contact all of them ever arose.

http://fairlawn.patch.com/articles/police-working-on-forming-interfaith-block-watch

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St. Louis Police Dept. accepting applications for Citizens Academy

The St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department is in search of quality candidates for its Citizens Academy Class 2012-01.

The program, designed to strengthen the bond between the department and the community will begin March 7, 2012 and conclude with graduation on May 23, 2012. The class will meet Wednesday nights from 6-9 p.m.

The Citizens Academy is a twelve-week course with one night of instruction per week. Citizens will gain a better understanding of the inner workings of the department through instruction in the department's history and structure, predicting and analyzing crime patterns, gang intelligence, homicide investigations and community policing techniques.

Nearly all instruction is provided by commissioned police officers.

http://www.stlamerican.com/news/local_news/article_b0653f7a-5106-11e1-a657-0019bb2963f4.html

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Feb 6, 2012

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Explosive fire kills husband, two sons of missing Utah woman

Police believe Josh Powell deliberately set the blaze after a state social worker brought the boys for a supervised visit near Graham, Wash.

A case whose sad twists and turns perplexed authorities for more than two years took a last, tragic turn Sunday when what was left of missing Utah stockbroker Susan Powell's family died in a powerful and apparently murderous fire.

Her two young sons had just arrived for a supervised visit with her husband, Josh Powell, when an explosive fire ripped through his home near Graham, Wash., killing him, 5-year-old Braden and 7-year-old Charles.

Authorities said Josh Powell, who has been a person of interest in his wife's 2009 disappearance from their Utah home during a snowstorm, is believed to have set the fast-moving blaze.

"This is pure evil. This was not a tragedy. This is the murder of two young children," Pierce County Sheriff Paul Pastor told reporters.

A state Child Protective Services worker had dropped off the boys for what was to have been a supervised court-ordered visit. She was about to follow the children into the house when Powell blocked her entrance and locked the door, said Sherry Hill, spokeswoman for the Washington Department of Social and Health Services.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-father-sons-explosion-20120206,0,3814955,print.story

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Police call fire Powell's virtual confession to wife's murder

"This is not a tragedy. This is a double homicide," Pierce County Sheriff's spokesman Ed Troyer told The Los Angeles Times.

Josh Powell had been a person of interest in the disappearance of his wife, then a 28-year-old stockbroker who vanished from their former home in Utah in December 2009. He had denied any involvement, brushing off questions about why he took the boys camping in the middle of the night during a snowstorm on the night his wife vanished.

"This is a guy who murdered his two kids, and probably murdered his wife. I don't know what Utah police think, but as far as we're concerned, this is pretty close to a confession to the crime," Troyer said.

Powell had been seeking the return of the couple's two boys, 5-year-old Braden and 7-year-old Charles, who had been living, on court orders, with Susan Powell's parents since September.

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

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Helping your parents stay out of the nursing home

Aging parents and their children sometimes disagree over the issues of safety versus independent living. Here are steps you can take to make your parents' home safer.

Your parents say they couldn't bear to lose their independence. Their hearts are set on staying in their own home for the rest of their days. And you understand. It's what you'd like for them too. But they're not as young as they used to be. Not as strong and on top of things. And you can't help wondering if their plan is really wise, or even feasible. So you worry.

The question of what's best for mom and/or dad is one that bedevils many children with aging parents, says Dr. David Reuben, chief of the geriatrics division in UCLA's Department of Medicine. "One of the things older people want most is to stay in their own homes. But there's always a tension between autonomy and safety. Children may want to err on the side of safety, but parents may want to err on the side of autonomy."

Of course, the time may come when physical or cognitive limitations make independent living impossible. But until then, there are steps you can take to make your parents' home safer, their lives in it easier — and your concerns about them a little less daunting.

To make a home more elder-friendly, a safety assessment is a good place to start, says Myra Hyatt, a specialist clinical social worker at the Landon Center on Aging at the University of Kansas Medical Center in Kansas City. That means having an occupational therapist inspect your parents' home for safety concerns and suggest ways to deal with them. These are some of the main issues that often come up in such assessments.

http://www.latimes.com/health/la-he-parents-safe-at-home-20120206,0,6802055,print.story

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