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From the L.A. Daily News

Man tracks down cop who nabbed serial cat burglar in Canoga Park 48 years ago

by Susan Abram

That spring, fear swept over Faust Avenue, and all across the neighborhoods of the west San Fernando Valley.

Children were told not to be frightened, but they could sense uneasiness in their parents' eyes. Fathers checked and rechecked window locks and doors. Mothers tucked their sons and daughters into bed extra tight.

It was 1964, and Cliff Berens was 9 years old when he saw his father do something out of the ordinary.

"He put a chain lock on the back door," said Berens, now 56. "My dad said: `It's nothing. Don't worry about it."'

But all those locked doors and windows couldn't stop the stories about a cat burglar who was prowling around the working-class Canoga Park neighborhoods such as Faust Avenue where Berens lived. His was a neighborhood where children rode bikes up and down until street lights turned on, and dads played touch football on front lawns.

Berens said he and his friends had heard a man was breaking into homes at night while families slept, taking money from wallets and purses.

Even the back door in Berens' home had looked as if it had been jimmied. And there was a rumor that a woman saw a shadowy figure in her kitchen, and she crept into her son's bedroom and placed her hand over his mouth, so he wouldn't scream if the burglar came into his room.

"It was the first time I ever felt scared," Berens said. "He was our monster. The parents had to be aware of it, but they didn't talk about it because they didn't want the kids to be scared. The whole thing was shrouded as if it didn't happen."

Fear persisted for weeks until a front page story ran in the Van Nuys News and Valley Green Sheet about a rookie police officer who had a bloody fight with a prolific cat burglar found in Canoga Park. The photo showed a young man dressed in a suit named Blaine Scott, his hands behind his back.

The monster, Berens said, had been arrested.

But almost 50 years later, Berens said he continued to wonder about the story, in particular about the young, rookie Los Angeles Police Department officer who single-handedly caught Scott.

Now an actor and director, Berens visited his childhood home on Faust Avenue recently.

"It almost seemed like it was a myth," Berens said.

So much so, that he wondered if it really ever happened at all. So he set out to search for the story in old newspapers, and in a moment of serendipity, discovered a retired LAPD homicide detective who helped Berens find the cop who caught the cat burglar.

Through his research, Berens learned that LAPD Officer Doug Burgis never received a Medal of Valor - the department's highest honor for heroism - for catching what the kids of Canoga Park in 1964 thought of as their monster.

Scott, who also was called Lane Scott in various newspaper accounts, was a 21-year-old man convicted of robbery and sentenced to five years at the California Institution for Men, in Chino. He escaped the prison farm on Feb. 12, 1964. It wasn't too long before he began burglarizing homes in the West Valley.

He had already crept into more than 100 houses over a period of just a few weeks, and all police had to go on was a footprint of what was likely the tread from prison-issued boots.

"We were lacking equipment," said Ron Whitt, a retired LAPD homicide detective who worked in the West Valley division. Whitt came on the force in 1967, three years after Burgis began. He said the cat burglar story was well known within the station, and Burgis was a hero. But Whitt said the challenge in the 1960s was communications equipment.

Back then, the LAPD had four divisions in the Valley: West Valley, Foothill, North Hollywood and Van Nuys. Police from West Valley patrolled Balboa west to the county line and from Mulholland to the north county line.

"We mostly worked one-man units," Whitt said. "If you needed backup, you'd have to wait 15 to 20 minutes. They didn't work too many two-man units then."

Burgis, young and full of confidence, had gone to visit with friends in Canoga Park one late night. But the friends were asleep so on the early morning of April 20, 1964, he decided he would do a little surveillance of his own. He had only been on the force eight months, when he parked his car near Balter Street and Lena Avenue.

After some time, Burgis saw a shadowy figure emerge from some bushes.

Burgis told the figure to stop. It was Scott.

Startled, Scott took off running and Burgis took chase. A chain-link fence came into view and Scott scrambled easily up and over it. Burgis climbed the fence and just as he was about to go over, saw Scott crawl back up the fence and land on Burgis' side.

Burgis chased him again and caught up to Scott, confronting him.

"I'm not going back!" Scott shouted at Burgis.

Scott pulled an 8-inch serpentine-blade knife and slashed Burgis across the chest, then took off running. Burgis followed and grabbed him from behind. Scott began thrashing within Burgis' arms, using the knife to cut into the rookie cop's left and right shoulder, leg, face and even buttocks.

Scott then broke away again.

Cut up and bloodied, Burgis pulled out his gun and caught up to Scott. He took his hand and pressed down on Scott's throat, then showed him his gun.

Dragging the subdued Scott with him, Burgis then went to the nearest house on Cantara Street and knocked. The resident wouldn't open the door.

He went to the next house, where Herbert Russell lived. Burgis showed Russell his bloodied-up badge on his belt. He told Russell to take his gun and hold it on Scott. A lady came to the door with her husband's shotgun and pointed it at Scott until police came, according to published reports.

Exhausted and sick, Burgis went outside to vomit. He was taken away in a panel ambulance to what is now West Hills Medical Center, and was listed in serious condition. Six days later, members of the Canoga Park community came to visit Burgis. They gave him a cake to help him celebrate his 22nd birthday.

Scott, who told police he lived on De Soto Avenue, was convicted of robbery and assault with a deadly weapon. The California Department of Corrections did not have any current information readily available on Scott's whereabouts.

Now 70 years old, Burgis runs several businesses including a Quartz Hill antique shop stuffed with colorful Depression glass bowls and drinking cups as well as paintings and turn-of-the-century furniture.

He chuckles over how the story of him nabbing the cat burglar gets a little embellished when he hears others tell it.

"That guy could run," Burgis said of Scott, shaking his head.

"Luckily, I was in good shape. I was 5-foot-11, 160 pounds."

Burgis said it didn't occur to him that his life was in danger. He didn't pull out his gun until after he was stabbed seven times. And in 1964, cops were allowed to shoot a fleeing felon.

"In those days, you don't know a hole in your head from the hole in the ground," Burgis said of his youth. "I was bleedin' like a stuck pig."

But because he voluntarily conducted surveillance, he violated orders for not telling a superior officer.

"It cost me the Medal of Valor, though I was given a commendation," he said.

Burgis spent about a year in uniform, then went on to work vice, before making detective. He worked the West Valley, Hollywood and other stations. At the same time, he also served with the California National Guard's 40th Military Police Company. In his last years, he worked the pawn shop detail, and became one of Mayor Sam Yorty's bodyguards from 1969 to 1973. In all, he spent 26 years on the force before retiring.

Burgis now serves as president of the Quartz Hill Town Council, and as president of the Quartz Hill Veterans of Foreign Wars Post 3000 Men's Auxiliary.

He said he was surprised to get a call from a man who was a child when the burglaries occurred. Berens was able to track down Burgis with the help of Whitt, who put out an inquiry on a blog viewed only by retired law enforcement members. Several detectives contacted Whitt, saying they remembered Burgis.

"He did some good detective work to find me," Burgis said of Berens.

"I was shocked he came all the way up here to talk to me."

The two men talked for hours, and Berens thanked Burgis for catching Scott.

"He's a great guy and he's our hero and should be given the Medal of Valor," Berens said of Burgis. "Blaine Scott brought darkness to our neighborhood."

http://www.dailynews.com/breakingnews/ci_20722456/man-tracks-down-cop-who-nabbed-serial-cat

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From the Washington Times

Syria denies responsibility in attacks that killed 108

by Albert Aji and Bassem Mroue

DAMASCUS, Syria — The Syrian government on Sunday denied responsibility for an assault on villages that left more than 100 people dead, blaming the killings on “hundreds of heavily armed gunmen” who also attacked soldiers in the area.

Friday's assault on the central area of Houla was one of the bloodiest single events in Syria 's 15-month-old uprising, and gruesome images of dozens of children killed in the attacks prompted a wave of international outrage.

The United Nations said that dozens of children under the age of 10 were among the dead and issued a statement appearing to hold the Syrian regime responsible.

The Security Council issued a press statement Sunday that “condemned in the strongest possible terms” the killings in Houla. It blamed Syrian forces for artillery and tank shelling of residential areas. It also condemned the killings of civilians “by shooting at close range and by severe physical abuse,” but avoided saying who was responsible for these attacks.

Britain and France had proposed issuing a press statement condemning the attack on civilians and pointing the finger at the Syrian government for Friday's massacre. But Russia called for an emergency council meeting, saying it first wanted a briefing by Gen. Robert Mood , the head of the unarmed U.N. observer mission.

Persistent violence has cast doubt about the future of international efforts to halt bloodshed between the regime and forces fighting against it.

The brutality of the killings became clear in amateur videos posted online that showed scores of bodies, many of them young children, in neat rows and covered with blood and deep wounds. A later video showed the bodies, wrapped in white sheets, being placed in a sprawling mass grave.

Gen. Mood told the Security Council that U.N. observers at the scene now estimate 108 people were killed in Houla, U.N. peacekeeping chief Herve Ladsous told reporters outside the council chamber. The U.N. counted 49 children and 34 women among the dead.

Foreign Ministry spokesman Jihad Makdissi disputed those accounts, saying Syria is being subjected to a “tsunami of lies.”

“We categorically deny the responsibility of government forces for the massacre,” Mr. Makdissi said Sunday during a news conference in Damascus.

Mr. Makdissi said “hundreds of heavily armed gunmen carrying machine guns, mortars and anti-tank missiles” launched a simultaneous attack against five army positions from several locations, starting about 2 p.m. and continuing for nine hours.

Three soldiers were killed and 16 were wounded, he said.

“There were no Syrian tanks or artillery in the vicinity,” Mr. Makdissi said, adding that gunmen used anti-tank missiles and “Syrian troops retaliated in defense of their positions.”

A Syrian military offensive on Sunday left 33 people dead in and around the restive town of Hama, with seven children among the latest victims, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

The London-based observatory said Monday that the central town had come under machine-gun and rocket fire just as the Security Council was meeting about the Houla massacre.

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2012/may/27/syria-denies-its-forces-killed-32-children-others/

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From Google News

'Atrocities' could trigger military intervention in Syria, Joint Chiefs chairman warns

The escalating "atrocities" in Syria could end up triggering a military intervention, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Martin Dempsey told Fox News on Monday -- following the massacre that left more than 100 dead.

The international community has scrambled to respond to the violence over the weekend, with the recognition that an international peace plan has failed to stem the fighting. The U.N. Security Council called an emergency session Sunday, with its members unanimously supporting a statement condemning the killings and blaming the Bashar al-Assad regime. Meanwhile, U.N. envoy Kofi Annan traveled to Syria for talks.

Dempsey said Monday, as he has in the past, that military options are being crafted.

"Of course -- there is always a military option," Dempsey said.

But he added that while military leaders are "cautious" about the use of force, the situation in Syria could demand it.

"You'll always find military leaders to be somewhat cautious about the use of force, because we're never entirely sure what comes out on the other side," he said. "But that said, it may come to a point with Syria because of the atrocities."

Asked whether the Libya model -- in which the U.S. joined with other allies to provide support to anti-regime forces -- could be applied in Syria, Dempsey said it's "risky to apply a template" anywhere.

"I'm sure there are some things that we did in Libya that could be applicable in a Syria environment or Syria scenario. But I'm very cautious about templates," he said.

It's unclear how seriously military options are being discussed. All along, administration officials have pushed more for sanctions, diplomacy and international pressure to compel Assad to leave power -- warning that a military intervention in Syria could be far harder to control than one in Libya, which was relatively isolated both diplomatically and geographically.

But the massacre in Houla on Friday renewed calls for international action, particularly after dozens of children were killed. The U.N. estimates 49 children and 34 women were killed in the attack.

Though the Assad government denied responsibility, the U.N. Security Council said the attacks "involved a series of government artillery and tank shellings on a residential neighborhood."

"Such outrageous use of force against civilian population constitutes a violation of applicable international law," the council said. "Those responsible for acts of violence must be held accountable. "

Sen. John McCain was vehement over the weekend in his call for greater international involvement.

"This is a shameful episode in American history," McCain, R-Ariz., told "Fox News Sunday," criticizing the Obama administration's policies as "feckless."

"And it's really an abdication of everything that America stands for and believes in. And on Memorial Day, we should be especially moved by this incredible inaction and failure to assert American leadership," he said.

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2012/05/28/atrocities-could-trigger-military-intervention-in-syria-joint-chiefs-chairman/