Drinking test: Bill would require drinkers on Utah alcohol panel

His solution? A drinking test of sorts. But in this case, one has to drink to pass it.

A bill introduced by state Rep. Brian Doughty cleared a House of Representatives committee would require that at least two members of the state's five-member Alcoholic Beverage Control Commission be drinkers. Loosening liquor laws in the state has been one of Doughty's causes as a lawmaker.

The bill, HB 193, would require the governor to appoint two members to the commission only after signing an affidavit attesting to their drinking habits. The bill passed the committee on a 7-3 vote.

“At least two of the commissioners shall, for at least one year before being appointed and during their term, be consumers of an alcoholic product,” part of the bill reads.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nation/nationnow/la-na-nn-utah-liquor-laws-20120225,0,305943.story

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NYPD surveillance of students called 'disgusting'

The NYPD surveillance of Muslims on a dozen college campuses in the Northeast is a surprising and disappointing violation, students said Saturday in reaction to Associated Press reports that revealed the intelligence-gathering at Columbia and elsewhere.

"If this is happening to innocent Muslim students, who's next?" asked freshman Dina Morris, 18, of Amherst, Mass. "I'm the child of an immigrant, and I was just blown away by the news; it's disgusting."

Documents obtained by the AP show that the NYPD used undercover officers and informants to infiltrate Muslim student groups. An officer even went whitewater rafting with students and reported on how many times they prayed and what they discussed. Police also trawled college websites and blogs, compiling daily reports on the activities of Muslim students and academics.

http://online.wsj.com/article/APabcd06f6b9464445a24b6c44d4842601.html

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South Carolina

Violent crime drops in Rock Hill

On average, there was a 42 percent decrease in violent crimes for the 2001-11 period

Violent crime in Rock Hill decreased 27 percent in 2011, marking a steady downward trend in those crimes over a 10-year period, according to new police statistics.

There were 394 reported violent crimes in 2011, compared with 543 in 2010. Violent crimes include rape, homicide, aggravated assault and burglary. On average, there was a 42 percent decrease in violent crimes for the 2001-2011 period.

Although property crimes dropped in 2010, they picked up in 2011 by 13.9 percent. There were 2,785 incidents reported in 2010 compared to 3,173 in 2011.

However, the numbers were down 2.8 percent compared to the 10-year average.

"The numbers were still very, very good," Police Chief John Gregory said.

http://www.heraldonline.com/2012/02/26/3771422/violent-crime-drops-in-rock-hill.html

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Feb 25, 2012

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Death penalty: Cost of execution drugs -- and executions -- rises

The cost of executions is soaring, especially in the state that conducts the most: Texas. The reason? The necessary drugs have become increasingly hard to get.

A year ago it cost the Texas Department of Criminal Justice $83.55 for the drugs used to carry out an execution -- sodium thiopental, pancuronium bromide and potassium chloride.

Then last March the state was forced to replace sodium thiopental with pentobarbital after the U.S. supplier of the former drug halted distribution amid international protests. The same month, two death row inmates sued the state, alleging the decision to switch drugs was made in secret without public input; they called for a federal inquiry.

Switching to pentobarbital, also known as Nembutal, raised the cost of drugs for each execution to $1,286.86.

"While the cost of the other two drugs may have gone up, the difference is primarily due to pentobarbital,” Jason Clark, a spokesman for the Texas Department of Criminal Justice, told The Times on Friday.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nation/nationnow/la-na-nn-execution-drugs-20120224,0,5054440,print.story

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3rd-grader charged in classmate shooting made 'terrible mistake'

Reporting from Seattle — An 8-year-old girl who was shot in her elementary school classroom in Bremerton, Wash., is “out of the woods,” her doctor says, though she remains in critical condition on a ventilator.

Meanwhile, there are shattered lives all around her: The teacher who couldn't believe a gun had just fired, apparently accidentally, in her third-grade classroom. The frightened 9-year-old boy who had the weapon in his backpack, clad in an orange jail jumpsuit and breaking into tears at his court hearing. The boy's father, still looking stunned as he apologized.

“I just want everyone to know that my kid made a mistake. It was a terrible mistake," the father, Jason Cochran, said outside the courthouse Thursday after his son's bail was set at $50,000.

Students at Armin Jahr Elementary School in the working-class Navy town not far from Seattle were back at school Friday, and local news outlets were full of stories about how one goes about keeping guns out of third-grade classrooms — an exercise that produced no answers.

“You're not going to put a metal detector in an elementary school,” Frank Hewins, who chairs a Washington state committee on school safety, told the Seattle Times.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nation/nationnow/la-na-nn-bremerton-boy-shooting-20120224,0,5790173.story

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Michigan

Churches to assist police

Houses of worship will serve as hubs for cops

The Port Huron Police Department is looking to instigate change with a little help from the man upstairs.

Under its new community policing initiative, the department is signing up churches -- about 17 so far -- to serve as neighborhood hubs. The plan has divided the city into 23 zones, each with a designated team of officers.

Cpl. Lee Heighton said he's met with the pastors in Port Huron's South Side and attended some of their services -- and said for the first time in his 18-year law enforcement career, he feels a sense of empowerment knowing people are praying for him.

Not only does opening the relationship between the church and the police department make the officers more approachable to residents, it gives the officers a stronger sense of pride in their job, Heighton said.

http://www.thetimesherald.com/article/20120225/NEWS01/202250308/Churches-assist-police

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Feb 24, 2012

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'Sovereign citizen' movement now on FBI's radar

The Homeland Security Department has ranked the movement as a major threat. Its members reject the law, and some kill police.

With the FBI pounding on his door, and his wife and two children barely awake, Shawn Rice allegedly strapped on a bulletproof vest, grabbed a semiautomatic pistol and stepped out his back door on Dec. 22.

But dozens of FBI agents and local police had surrounded the ranch house in Seligman, Ariz., about 80 miles west of Flagstaff, and the only nearby cover was knee-high sagebrush. Rice ducked back inside, and warned the FBI to keep away.

After a tense 10-hour standoff, Rice, 49, was arrested. He now sits in a Las Vegas jail awaiting trial on federal money-laundering charges.

But it wasn't Rice's alleged offense alone that prompted the FBI's interest.

According to court papers, Rice was involved in the "sovereign citizen" movement, a group that has attracted little national media attention but which the FBI classifies as an "extremist antigovernment group." So-called sovereign citizens argue that they are not subject to local, state or federal laws, and some refuse to recognize the authority of courts or police.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-terror-cop-killers-20120224,0,6262803,print.story

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Number of deportation cases drops by nearly a third, report says

The drop recorded in the last three months of 2011 may reflect the administration's plan to focus its deportation efforts by weighing discretionary factors, including whether the person is a veteran, came to the United States as a child or is a college student.

The number of deportation cases filed by federal immigration officials dropped by nearly a third in the first three months of the fiscal year, according to a report by the Syracuse University Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse.

The drop recorded in the last three months of 2011 may reflect the Obama administration's plan to focus its deportation efforts by weighing a variety of discretionary factors, including whether the person is a veteran, came to the U.S. as a child or is a college student, according to the report. But experts said it's too soon to say if deportations overall will decline.

From October through December, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement initiated 39,331 deportation cases in immigration court, down from 58,639 the previous quarter, the report says. Filings are typically lower during the holiday months, but even adjusted for the seasonal drop-off the numbers are significantly lower, according to the authors.

Immigration officials said they have not had the opportunity to review the data to verify their accuracy but added that the numbers don't fully encompass the ways in which a person can be deported. The report, said ICE spokeswoman Gillian Christensen, is focused only on submissions for deportations made to immigration courts.

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-deportation-drop-20120224,0,1331594,print.story

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Onward online privacy

Initiatives by the White House and the California attorney general are good starting points.

Responding to a steady drumbeat of privacy violations online, the White House proposed a privacy bill of rights for Internet users Thursday that could give them more say over how personal information is collected and used. The initiative is a good starting point, as is a new effort by California Atty. Gen. Kamala Harris to require companies developing applications for smartphones and tablet computers to disclose their privacy policies. But they also highlight how tricky it is to set rules that guard sensitive personal information without hindering innovation or quickly becoming obsolete.

The "Consumer Privacy Bill of Rights" offers a sensible set of principles for online privacy, calling on Web companies to minimize their collection of personal data, help users make informed choices about the information they reveal, and not use personal data for new purposes without the user's consent. The point is to set privacy standards without telling companies how to meet them. That flexibility is indispensable, considering how rapidly technology is changing online.

One challenge is how to enforce those principles. The White House wants to put them into law, and that's a good idea — provided that lawmakers resist the urge to require or ban specific technolgies. Until then, the administration plans to work with industry groups and other interested parties on an optional code of conduct that will be legally enforceable. Why any Web company's legal advisers would allow it to agree to such a code is a mystery, especially if there's no guarantee that its competitors or disruptive new entrants will.

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/opinionla/la-ed-privacy-20120224,0,431372,print.story

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More remains linked to 'Speed Freak Killers' found in Northern California

More human remains were recovered Thursday near the Northern California site where two victims of a convicted serial killer were recently found, authorities said.

Crews using cadaver dogs located the remains after expanding a search area near the Calaveras County community of San Andreas, said San Joaquin County Sheriff's spokesman Les Garcia.

Investigators have been searching the area after Wesley Shermantine led authorities to the site earlier this month. The search area is on property that Shermantine's family once owned.

Authorities are investigating if the newly found remains are from another victim of Shermantine and Loren Herzog, dubbed the "Speed Freak Killers" for their killing spree in the 1980s and 1990s. Garcia said the remains will be sent to the California Department of Justice Bureau of Forensic Services for analysis.

http://www.foxnews.com/us/2012/02/24/more-remains-linked-to-speed-freak-killers-found/

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Florida

Dunbar stands up to violence

Group gets together to try and change attitudes.

The Dunbar community is in an uproar.

Fed up up with finding its young dead on the sidewalk surrounded by crime scene tape, and aware the Fort Myers City Council and Police Department don't have all the answers, Dunbar is taking matters into its own hands.

The main message when the Dunbar Neighborhood Watch got together Thursday evening – a message yelled numerous times from the podium throughout the night – was that it's up to parents to make absolutely sure their kids don't go down the wrong path. As master of ceremonies Ron Matthews said, a child's options are either to enter the workforce or prison – or end up dead.

The community also called on God to help families help themselves. They prayed that their children – many of whom stood on stage in braids and bright-colored shirts – would be kept safe from violence, and they prayed for the souls of those for whom it is already too late. Representatives from FMPD, the Lee County Sheriff's Office and the city of Fort Myers attended and received prayers as well, but neighborhood watch members who took the podium made it clear the responsibility to create change lies within the community.

http://www.news-press.com/article/20120224/NEWS0110/302240062/0/communities/Dunbar-stands-up-violence

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Feb 23, 2012

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Group takes flashlight walk against prostitution in Anaheim

Residents and supporters hope their presence sends the message that streetwalkers aren't welcome in a neighborhood that has seen a rise in the crime.

Flashlights in hand, the crowd of about 50 assembled off Beach Boulevard. It was 6:30 p.m. Wednesday and the residents were on a mission: to rid the area of prostitutes.

Along with the Anaheim Police Department, they hoped their presence among the apartments and motels that line this stretch of road would send the message that the streetwalkers weren't welcome.

Though prostitution has long been an issue in the area, the neighborhood has recently seen a rise in the crime. The dark carports and parking lots make the area an easy target, police say, and residents have been working with the department since August to address the problems.

The flashlight walk is meant to signify that the neighborhood won't tolerate this activity anymore, said Susie Schmidt, a senior crime prevention specialist with the Police Department.

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-flashlight-walk-20120223,0,872704.story

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Man convicted in terror case accused of ordering three beheadings

Congress members threatened with biological attack

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Several members of the Congress received mail threatening a biological attack and containing a suspicious powder later found to be harmless as law enforcement officials warned on Wednesday that more letters could be on their way.

A number of media organizations and TV shows, including the New York Times and The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, received mail postmarked Oregon warning that letters had been sent to the Washington or local offices of all 100 U.S. senators and that 10 contained a deadly pathogen, a law enforcement source said.

House of Representatives Speaker John Boehner, the top Republican in Congress, received a letter containing a powdery substance at one of his offices in his home state of Ohio, a Republican aide said, adding that the powder was harmless.

Letters containing powder were also received at the home-state office of two senators, according to Senate Sergeant at Arms Terrance Gainer, the chamber's chief law enforcement officer. Tests found the powder was harmless, Gainer said in a statement. He did not identify the senators.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/02/22/us-usa-congress-threat-idUSTRE81L21W20120222?feedType=RSS&feedName=topNews&rpc=71

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New Jersey

Civil rights group proposes crime-stopper tips

"The people that tell you not to snitch are the ones who are doing the crime. When you start pointing the finger and say, 'Look, that is not the type of behavior we want,' then you start to resolve some of the issues," said Montclair Civil Rights Commissioner Maurice Brown.

Brown and his fellow commissioners support better street lighting, community policing, community center programs, job counseling and placement assistance, neighborhood crime watch committees, and gun buyback programs supervised by the Montclair Police Department.

Underlying all of their suggestions is the fatal shooting of Ibn Futrell, 29, who was slain Feb. 7 on Mission Street.

"We're taking this extremely seriously," said 4th Ward Township Councilwoman Renée Baskerville, the commission's liaison with the Montclair Township Council. "We're giving it our priorities and following up on all of the suggestions."

http://www.northjersey.com/news/140105643_Civil_rights_group_tackles_the_topic_of_crime.html?page=all

Josh Powell's in-laws traveling to Olympia to discuss changes in child protection system

OLYMPIA, Wash. — Josh Powell's in-laws are traveling to Olympia to discuss changes in how the state handles child protection.

Chuck and Judy Cox plan to join Republican Sen. Pam Roach at a news conference Thursday. The Cox family had cared for Powell's two young boys until he killed the children and himself in a fire earlier this month.

Roach is introducing a measure that would prohibit a child custody award to a murder suspect.

Powell's wife, Susan, has been missing since 2009 but Utah authorities never publicly labeled her disappearance as a murder. Investigators also never called Powell a suspect.

Woman who compared animal-welfare work to liberation of concentration camps planned murder-for-hire of random fur-wearer, authorities say

Meredith Lowell, 27, to be held by U.S. Marshals Service pending hearing next week

Meredith Lowell, 27, of Cleveland Heights, appeared Tuesday in U.S. District Court in Cleveland, where a magistrate judge ordered her held by the U.S. Marshals Service pending a hearing next week, court records show. One of her defense attorneys, Walter Lucas, declined comment when reached by phone after the court appearance.

Investigators say the FBI was notified in November of a Facebook page Lowell created under the alias Anne Lowery offering $830 to $850 for the hit and saying the ideal candidate would live in northeast Ohio, according to an FBI affidavit filed with the court on Friday.

The affidavit says an FBI employee posing as a possible hit man later began email correspondence with Lowell, and she offered him $730 in jewelry or cash for the killing of a victim of at least 12 years but "preferably 14 years old or older" outside a library near a playground in her hometown.

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/woman-compared-animal-welfare-work-liberation-concentration-camps-planned-murder-for-hire-random-fur-wearer

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California

Quan's Anti-Violence Plan May Undermine Community Policing

Mayor Jean Quan's plan to reduce crime in Oakland's most violent neighborhoods may undermine a voter-mandated community policing program. Some of the city's problem-solving officers, a fleet of 57 officers assigned to work with residents on neighborhood beats, have been reassigned to work on Quan's 100-block initiative, according to problem-solving officers and other members of the force.

Quan's plan focuses law enforcement activity in the city's most violent neighborhoods. But with a shrinking patrol staff already struggling to respond quickly to emergency calls, the department has elected to "borrow" from the department's problem-solving roster, leaving the popular community policing program unmanned in some neighborhoods.

The department did not respond to repeated requests for comment and information, including exactly how many problem-solving officers are being used to staff the 100-block plan, how many have been moved from their beats and how long their assignments will last. The staffing shift has raised questions among community policing advocates, who worry that diverting the officers is leaving some neighborhoods behind.

http://www.baycitizen.org/policing/story/quans-anti-violence-plan-may-undermine/print/

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On Guard Against WMD
Inside the Biological Countermeasures Unit, Part 1

In 2006, to counter the threat posed by weapons of mass destruction (WMD), the FBI established the WMD Directorate. The directorate combines law enforcement investigative authorities, intelligence analysis capabilities, and technical subject matter expertise in a coordinated approach to deal with incidents involving nuclear, radiological, biological, or chemical weapons. The organization places substantial emphasis on preventing such incidents.

FBI.gov recently spoke with Special Agent Edward You in the directorate's Biological Countermeasures Unit (BCU).

Q: What is your unit's primary mission?

Mr. You: Just like our partner units who also work in countermeasures dealing with chemicals, radiological and nuclear material and infrastructure protection, our goal is to prevent acts of terrorism. In our case, that means bio-terrorism. But we must do that in a way that strikes a balance between security and supporting advances in scientific research and protecting public safety. Bio-security, from our standpoint, is preventing the illicit acquisition or misuse of the technologies, practices, and materials associated with biological sciences. We are also charged with protecting scientists and the institutions where they work.

http://www.fbi.gov/news/stories/2012/february/wmd_022112/wmd_022112

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Securing our Southwest Border

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Feb 22, 2012

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Washington State

Army avoiding PTSD claims? Madigan chief suspended amid inquiry

Community outraged over killing of baby in hail of bullets

Gang-related shooting claims 43rd homicide victim this year

Detroit — A toy Jeep lay among shards of broken glass Monday in the front yard of a home on the city's west side, where a shooting left a 9-month-old boy dead and an outraged community searching for ways to stop the violence.

Diamond Salter said she was asleep in her home in the 8400 block of Greenview Avenue early Monday when shots rang out. As her son, Delric Miller IV, dozed on a living room couch, bullets pierced windows and walls, striking the boy.

"I grabbed my baby and wrapped him up in a blanket … and ran in the basement," said Salter, 19. "I thought he was asleep because that's how I left him. I thought he was alive … I started feeling for him, and he wouldn't wake up."

Someone fired 37 rounds from an AK-47-type assault rifle into the home around 4:30 a.m., Police Chief Ralph Godbee said. The shooting was gang-related, he said.

In the hours following the shooting, family members arrived at the home, hugging and sobbing. It's a scene Godbee said has been repeated all too often.

The killing was the 43rd homicide in the city so far this year, up from 35 during the same period last year, Godbee said. It's also the second murder of a youngster in Detroit within the past three weeks.

http://www.detroitnews.com/article/20120221/METRO01/202210373/Community-outraged-over-killing-baby-hail-bullets

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Connecticut

Officials protest Secure Communities program

City and state officials gathered at City Hall Monday afternoon to protest Secure Communities, a federal immigration enforcement program they said would hurt community policing efforts in New Haven and damage the city's social fabric.

Mayor John DeStefano Jr., along with members of a Yale Law School clinic, State Rep. Juan Candelaria, members of the Board of Aldermen and other community leaders, held a press conference in which they called on U.S. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement to delay the implementation of Secure Communities in Connecticut. According to ICE, the program, scheduled to begin in Connecticut on Wednesday, is designed to prioritize for deportation proceedings undocumented immigrants who commit serious crimes and pose public safety risks. Officials at the press conference, however, argued that Secure Communities threatens to lead to racial profiling and erode trust between the New Haven Police Department and the city's large immigrant community, making effective policing difficult.

“Among the biggest responsibilities of New Haven city government is public safety,” said DeStefano, likening Secure Communities to the June 2007 ICE raid on city residents that resulted in a settlement paid to 11 of those arrested after they sued federal immigration authorities. “Now, for the second time in five years, the Department of Homeland Security is about to make New Haven less safe and less secure.”

Under Secure Communities, ICE officials are given biometric information collected by local police departments in routine arrests and then issue detainment requests to states for positive matches of people residing in the country illegally. DeStefano and other city officials said Secure Communities is “flawed and in need of correction,” and does not serve the purpose for which it was designed — often deporting residents with no criminal record or first-time offenders who have committed minor, nonviolent crimes.

http://www.yaledailynews.com/news/2012/feb/21/officials-protest-secure-communities-program/

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Feb 20, 2012

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Mexico prison brawl ends with 44 killed

Mexican authorities say inmates at the prison in Apodaca, near Monterrey, started fighting in one cellblock and then the violence spread.

Dozens of inmates were killed Sunday in a fierce brawl inside a Mexican prison, authorities said, the latest lethal incident in Latin America's overcrowded, poorly maintained jails.

Officials said at least 44 inmates died at the prison outside the northern industrial city of Monterrey.

Initial reports blamed the violence on efforts to transfer some inmates to another jailhouse elsewhere in the country. But it was also likely that the fighting involved rival drug gangs that increasingly dominate Mexican prisons. One guard was reported having been taken hostage, but none was reported killed.

Public security authorities in Nuevo Leon state, where Monterrey is, said inmates began fighting in one cellblock about 2 a.m. and the violence spread to a second block.

Relatives of inmates gathered before dawn for Sunday visiting hours and realized that something was badly amiss inside. They shoved against security gates to demand information; some told reporters they had heard explosions and seen smoke coming from the prison.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-mexico-prison-riot-20120220,0,985385.story

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Gun owners hope to win the right to carry concealed weapons

In an unusual twist, optimism among California gun enthusiasts stems from recent legislation banning them from openly carrying even unloaded handguns.

Chuck Michel's strategy for crime-fighting rests on the element of surprise: Keep the bad guys guessing who's armed and who's not.

"If 5% of the ducks could shoot back, you're not going to go duck hunting," said the Long Beach lawyer representing many Californians denied concealed weapons permits and, in his view, their constitutional right to self-defense.

For decades, that argument has fallen flat in the courtroom. Judges have routinely held that denying permits to carry loaded firearms in public does not infringe on gun owners' right to keep and bear arms.

But now, some gun owners hope that courts will soon reverse course and find that they have a right to secretly tote their weapons in public. Ironically, their optimism stems from a piece of gun control legislation that took effect last month and bans them from openly carrying even unloaded handguns.

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-right-to-carry-20120220,0,4684092.story

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Unsafe levels of lead still found in California youths

Despite enormous strides over the last 20 years in protecting children from the metal, health workers still find unsafe levels in thousands of youngsters every year. At the same time, programs to combat lead poisoning are being slashed.

One-year-old Nelly Gomez refused to eat. Anything she swallowed, she immediately threw up.

Thinking Nelly had indigestion, her parents took her to a nearby clinic in MacArthur Park. A blood test revealed a diagnosis that surprised and worried them: lead poisoning.

"I didn't know what was going to happen," said her father, Nelson Gomez, an unemployed construction worker. "As her dad, I felt desperate."

Despite enormous strides over the last 20 years in protecting children from lead, which can cause irreversible nerve and brain damage, health workers still find unsafe levels in thousands of California youths every year.

Now the number of cases could climb dramatically based on emerging research of the harm associated with low levels of the metal in children's systems. At the same time, government programs to combat lead poisoning are being slashed.

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-lead-poisoning-20120219,0,738166.story

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State tries to ease job hunts of ex-cons

The feared question that trips up one in six Ohioans — “Have you ever been convicted of a crime?” — will soon disappear from state job applications.

Gov. John Kasich's administration is working with private organizations to help knock down barriers created for past offenders by 800 sanctions attached to scores of laws. The state still will conduct criminal-background checks on job applicants, but only after initial screening based on qualifications.

The consequences of “collateral sanctions” are widespread: 1.9 million Ohioans have a crime on their record that is a barrier to employment after they've served their sentence.

Jose Torres and Jason Smoot, two Columbus men with records, hit that wall. Hard.

Torres, 35, a native of Colombia, can't get a good job even though he has a degree in economics and extensive experience in the restaurant business and as a language interpreter. Smoot, 24, is blocked from getting a job even with his family's business, Smoot Construction.

http://www.dispatch.com/content/stories/local/2012/02/20/state-tries-to-ease-job-hunts-of-ex-cons.html

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Wichita police bureaus add analysts to look for crime trends

An addition to local crime-fighting efforts is already paying noteworthy dividends, law enforcement officials say. Two months ago, crime analysts were assigned to each of the city's four police bureaus. They study crime data, looking for trends.

“Where is the latest trend?” said Capt. Hassan Ramzah of the Patrol East Bureau. “They're looking to identify the potential emerging crime wave.”

One recent example: a rash of thefts from vehicles in church parking lots in east Wichita, Lt. Doug Nolte said. Crime analysts quickly picked up on the fact that the thefts were happening at churches close to each other on the same day.

That information was relayed to officers, who notified residents and churches on their beats. “It helps us get a real picture of what's going on,” Ramzah said. “The hopes are that this will be very innovative for us and pay big dividends for us and prevent crime in the community."

http://www.kansas.com/2012/02/19/2222696/police-bureaus-add-crime-analysts.html

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