~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
California Border Patrol agent fatally shoots woman
CHULA VISTA — A plainclothes Border Patrol agent clinging to the hood of a moving car shot and killed the woman behind the wheel in Chula Vista Friday afternoon, authorities said.
There were several witnesses to the 1 p.m. shooting, which occurred on Moss Street near Oaklawn Avenue in a residential area lined by stucco apartment complexes and small homes.
Border Patrol agents were in the neighborhood to serve a felony warrant when the agent was struck by the woman's car, said Border Patrol Deputy Chief Rodney Scott.
The agent was lodged in the windshield and carried several hundred yards on the hood of the Honda, he said.
“Fearing for his life, he discharged his weapon to get the vehicle to stop,” Scott said. He was the only agent who fired.
The agent was taken to a hospital with unknown injuries, although witnesses said he appeared to be OK.
Family members identified the woman as Valeria “Monique” Alvarado, a 32-year-old housewife who grew up in Chula Vista and lived in Southcrest. She died at the scene.
She had five children, ranging in ages 3 to 17.
“I love her to the fullest. That's my heart,” said her husband, Gilbert Alvarado, before choking up.
“She has a huge heart,” said cousin Bernice Ratcliffe.
Several family members sobbed and hugged each other after speaking with investigators, and they demanded answers.
“Where's the evidence my wife threatened a trained officer?” her husband asked. “I want justice.”
They said they didn't know what had brought her to that neighborhood.
Authorities did not release further information, including how the agent was struck.
Chula Vista police said the crash occurred on Moss closer to Broadway, and the car drove west, coming to rest near Oaklawn. A large dent was left in the windshield where the officer had impacted, police said.
Witnesses gave differing versions of how the shooting unfolded, including whether they saw the agent on the car.
Hector Salazar, who lives in the area, said he was standing at his mailbox looking through letters when he heard a man yell, “Stop!”
He looked up and saw a man in civilian clothing on the hood of a two-door car, aiming a gun at the windshield.
The man then started pulling the trigger, shooting about five rounds.
Salazar hit the ground, and moments later saw other plainclothes agents approach the car.
Eduardo Comacho, 22, was walking on Woodlawn Avenue with his friend when they heard about seven shots.
He saw a man in a red shirt, without a badge, holding his gun. He appeared shaken. Other undercover officers joined him, pulling out their badges as they walked.
“The lady was hanging out the door, barely moving,” Comacho said. The agents checked her pulse, and medics who arrived shortly after began CPR on her on the ground. Comacho could see what appeared to be bullet wounds in her chest, shoulder, arm and leg.
“He did not miss,” Comacho said.
Ayanna Evans, 19, who lives in a neighboring apartment complex, said she never saw the agent on the car.
She said she happened to look out the window to see the Honda backing up slowly, and a man in a red shirt walking toward the car.
“Then I heard, ‘Pop, pop, pop,'” she said. She yelled at her children and aunt with her in the apartment to get down.
Apartment resident Prince Watson said he also saw the driver going in reverse, with no one on the car.
“She wasn't speeding or driving erratic at all. I heard the agent say, ‘Stop.' He was in the street and started shooting and walking toward the car,” Watson recalled.
Authorities did not name who they were going to arrest, but said it was not the woman.
Christian Ramirez, an immigrant rights activist with Southern Border Community Coalition, said the shooting was “troubling.”
“The victim was not wanted by authorities and she was a U.S. citizen,” Ramirez said.
http://www.utsandiego.com/news/2012/sep/28/police-border-patrol-agent-fatally-shoots-woman/
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Massachusetts
How chemist in drug lab scandal circumvented safeguards
by Kay Lazar
State drug lab chemist Annie Dookhan labeled the vials as containing THC, the active ingredient in marijuana. But when another chemist ran the vials through a machine to confirm Dookhan's analysis, one had little THC, and another was mixed with morphine and codeine.
The second chemist sent the vials back to Dookhan to resolve the discrepancies, asking her to repeat the screening test the lab used to tentatively identify the drugs in an evidence bag. When she resubmitted them, the machine showed the vials contained pure THC.
The incident, detailed in a 100-page State Police report obtained by the Globe last week, illustrates one of the many ways Dookhan was able to circumvent safeguards intended to ensure that drug evidence was properly handled and analyzed by workers in a now-closed lab formerly run by the state Department of Public Health.
Forensics specialists interviewed by the Globe say the lab's procedures appear to have been fairly standard, including having two chemists test every sample, but they were still not enough to prevent an ambitious chemist's rampant breaches of lab protocol, apparently to boost her performance record. In the process, investigators say, Dookhan has jeopardized the reliability of drug evidence used in 34,000 cases during her nine-year career.
The 34-year-old chemist was arrested Friday and charged with two counts of obstruction of justice and one of falsifying her academic record, in allegedly lying under oath about having a master's degree in chemistry.
Dookhan was “dry-labbing” her screening tests. Put simply, she was skipping a critical first step, according to her admission to investigators, and instead often made a preliminary identification of drugs simply by how they looked and by the type of suspected drug that was checked off on a control card that accompanied the sample.
Typical lab protocols require an initial screening test, called a color test, in which a chemist applies a specific liquid to each drug sample to determine its identity by the color it turns.
That result is crucial for properly performing a second, more definitive test. It tells the chemist doing that second test what “control” drug to use to compare with the sample being analyzed.
“Dry-labbing is probably the most sinful thing that a chemist can do because it is essentially cheating,” said Thomas E. Workman, a criminal defense lawyer who teaches courses on scientific evidence at the University of Massachusetts Law School.
Workman would like to see cameras added to crime labs to record screening tests, with footage available on the Internet to prosecutors and defense lawyers to help ensure that proper procedures are followed.
Use of cameras is not standard practice in crime labs, said Ralph Keaton, executive director of the American Society of Crime Laboratory Directors/Laboratory Accreditation Board, an agency that certifies hundreds of crime labs nationally, including those run by Massachusetts State Police.
Instead, well-run labs use quality managers who check daily to ensure that staff members have properly calibrated machines and that protocols are being followed, said Ralph Timperi, who stepped down in April 2005 after 18 years as director of the Jamaica Plain state lab complex, which included the drug testing lab.
“There are different kinds of checks and balances, and a supervisory one is critical,” Timperi said. “You need someone walking around and observing what people are doing and looking for problems.”
It is not clear whether the drug lab continued to use quality managers after Timperi's departure. Alec Loftus, a Patrick administration spokesman, declined a request for a copy of the lab's policy and procedures manual, saying it was protected as part of the criminal investigation of the lab by State Police and Attorney General Martha Coakley.
But the State Police report suggests Dookhan herself may have, at times, served in another quality assurance role, as the lab's quality control chemist, who typically runs daily tests to ensure scales are calibrated and machines are running properly.
“These machines could have been used by other chemists, who did not even know that the machines were not properly verified,” said Workman.
That possibility, Workman said, would call into question a much larger universe of drug tests beyond the 60,000 Dookhan is believed to have run during her tenure.
Investigators have already identified 1,141 inmates of state prisons and county jails who were convicted based on evidence analyzed by Dookhan. And judges have freed, reduced bail for, or suspended the sentences of at least 20 drug defendants in the scandal.
Dookhan allegedly removed evidence from the lab's secure area without authorization, forged colleagues' initials on control sheets that record test outcomes, and intentionally contaminated samples to make them test positive, after they were sent back to her to re-check because she had “dry-labbed” instead of completing the required preliminary tests.
While colleagues were suspicious of her shoddy work habits and unusually high output and reported concerns to supervisors, little action was taken for more than a year, according to the police inquiry.
A one-page overview of the lab's routine procedures, provided to the Globe from someone familiar with its operations before it was closed in August, indicates that a primary chemist is assigned a sample from the lab's evidence room, weighs it, and performs testing to preliminarily identify it. That person then prepares vials of the substance to send to a secondary chemist, known as the lab's GC/MS person, who analyzes the vials in a machine to confirm the identification.
That process, known as gas chromatography–mass spectrometry, first separates drug samples into their component parts. For instance, it separates cocaine from the baking powder, laxatives, or other substances drug dealers typically cut the drug with to inflate its weight. Next, the machine analyzes the chemicals and prints out a characteristic pattern, similar to a bar code, that is used to identify a sample. For instance, it compares the pattern for the sample of presumed cocaine being tested to the pattern of a known sample of cocaine.
The GC/MS chemist analyzes the printout and records the results on a control sheet, which is initialed by that chemist and the primary chemist on the case, and then the primary chemist returns the original samples and all documentation to an evidence officer.
“The GC/MS [machine] produces a printed, recorded analysis of the sample, but unless you are highly trained you may not be able to know if it's traceable to a specific sample of evidence,” said Justin McShane, a Pennsylvania criminal defense attorney and senior instructor in gas chromatography-mass spectrometry at the American Chemical Society, a trade group of more than 164,000 chemists.
Because of the complexity, and lack of cameras recording the preliminary tests, McShane said, it is possible for an unscrupulous chemist to dupe colleagues and prosecutors and defense lawyers, who depend on the work but are rarely given more than a simple card that indicates whether the evidence was positive or negative for illicit drugs.
McShane said he routinely hears “horror stories” from chemists he trains about unrelenting pressure to test more samples. Dookhan allegedly confessed to State Police that she forged colleagues' initials and contaminated samples to “get more work done,” according to their report.
“You are judged by numbers in the lab,” McShane said. “There is a culture of pressure to get it done with no new resources. But there is no excuse for [cheating] at the end of the day.”
http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/2012/09/30/how-chemist-drug-lab-scandal-circumvented-safeguards/A29LZnAw1eW4hvjn4xX7rL/story.html
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Connecticut
New Haven residents weigh in on progress of community policing model
by William Kaempffer
NEW HAVEN — Police Chief Dean Esserman returned to the city nearly a year ago with a pledge to reinstitute meaningful community policing and repair the fractured relationship between officers and many residents in the city's poorest, largely minority, violence-plagued neighborhoods.
Since then, he has ordered the return of walking beats to every neighborhood, instructed beat officers to make “house calls” to check on crime victims, arrived at hospitals to support the families of homicide victims and stood with them at press conferences to announce justice through arrests.
The concept of community policing means different things to different people. The New Haven Register spoke with a cross-section of community members, leaders and activists to get their impressions of the state of policing in New Haven — and whether community policing has gained any traction.
AMONG FRIENDS
Lisa Siedlarz is chairwoman of the SoHu Block Watch in the East Rock neighborhood. Since the Block Watch started, she has worked with six police chiefs and acting chiefs.
Walking beat Officer Ron Perry already was a familiar face in East Rock when his bosses convened a meeting with a jittery community about a latest rash of burglaries.
He wasn't a featured speaker but introduced himself to those who didn't yet know him, and made an offer: If residents go on vacation, they should let their neighbors know — but also tell him, and he'd make sure to check on their house during his daily rounds.
“An offer like that really changes the perception not just of that one officer, but of the entire New Haven Police Department,” said Siedlarz.
Five years ago, when she started SoHu, which stands for “South of Humphrey” Street, the relationship was more strained, although not terrible.
That was at a time when the department created a large, city-wide squad of officers tasked with saturating neighborhoods as crime spikes emerged. That came at the expense of some of the city's walking and bike beats. East Rock lost its bike cop.
The relationship has improved since then. Former Chief James Lewis wouldn't give back a walking beat, which he didn't view as an effective policing tool, but he was viewed as engaged and responsive. Under former Chief Frank Limon, Siedlarz said, that “kind of faded away.”
Then Esserman came and gave back the beat cops.
While different chiefs have different styles, Siedlarz said, the neighborhood consistently has had strong district managers, New Haven's versions of precinct commanders. That has provided continuity through changes in administration, she said, and they always have been willing to “listen to us, hear what we have to say and try to accommodate us.”
Since their return, the walking beats have been popular and the officers engaged and friendly, she said. One, if given the opening, will bend people's ears about his beloved beagles.
“They're very nice, very good interactions. They stop and say ‘hi' to people,” said Siedlarz.
The kindness has been returned. The beats don't have a nearby home base to, say, keep a packed lunch, so Siedlarz's brother, who lives on Eld Street, offered space in a refrigerator in his garage.
And Siedlarz has received positive feedback from many members of SoHu. “People will come to the meeting and say, ‘I saw officer so-and-so today and we had a nice little chat.' I hear a lot of that.”
UNCERTAINTY
Barbara Fair is a longtime community activist, critic of racial disparities in the criminal justice system and advocate for criminal justice reforms.
For Fair, the verdict is still out on whether relations between the community and the police department have improved.
“I don't want to say it can't happen. It happened under (police Chief Nick) Pasture so I know it can happen,” she said, referring to the chief in the 1990s who first instituted a community policing model in New Haven. “But there's been so much damage, it will take some time to build it up.
“You can't treat people in a certain way for decades and expect it to change in a year. It takes time to build trust.”
She said she recently was disheartened to learn that police planned to crack down on groups of youths riding bicycles, which the department said is in response to a string of street robberies involving gangs of kids on bikes attacking, assaulting and robbing people. The department is formulating a plan to target groups, stop them, identify them and even seize the bikes, if warranted. Inevitably, she said, the people who would be stopped and hassled would be kids of color. That aggressive tactic would serve only to deepen the rift with the community, she said, that the chief has said he wants to heal.
“We have enough of a disconnect with police and our young people. We don't want to implement another policy that makes it worse,” she said.
Fair has worked for decades espousing criminal justice reform and has been a frequent critic of the department.
In her opinion, the solution to the problem isn't walking beats, a central plank in the city's community policing model, but a change in the policing culture. If officers leave the station and view every young black man as suspect, change will never happen.
Perceptions need to change on both sides, she said. Fair said she's holding out hope and believes in Esserman's intentions. She hasn't personally seen a marked difference in policing in the city, she said, but has been to enough meetings where residents express gratitude to officers for various good work that she assumes it is happening somewhere.
“So far, I don't see this friendly community policing officer,” she said. “I don't.”
EFFORTS RECOGNIZED
The Rev. James Manship is the priest at St. Rose of Lima Church in Fair Haven. His church has a large Latino population, including many people who are undocumented, and he advocates for their cause.
A family from St. Rose of Lima was ready to move out after their new upstairs neighbors brought with them drug dealing, loitering and fear. Police fixed it, said Manship.
He pointed to an effort of prevention through intervention.
“If there are known felons or people on probation, police just pay a visit to say hello,” Manship said. In that case, police were informed of an issue, kept an eye on the house, and met with the landlord and then the tenants to strongly explain appropriate behavior.
The problems stopped.
Fair Haven has unique challenges with its significant population of people who are not legal residents and sometimes are victims of crime because they are viewed as easy targets. The district manager has well utilized his Spanish-speaking officers to build bridges, the priest said. Manship said police continue to visit the church to engage with the parish and reinforce that the department doesn't care about legal status if a person witnesses or is a victim of a crime. On the street, police haven't given any reason to distrust, but people are still apprehensive, he said.
“You can't completely eradicate that from the back of people's minds,” Manship explained.
He supported the police department's efforts to crack down on a recent uptick of groups of kids on bikes robbing and assaulting people.
He viewed it as an effort to protect “hard-working people” from crime.
“I believe in Fair Haven,” he said. “Police are participating. Police are very proactive.”
CHANGES
Darrell Allick grew up “hustling” on the street and spent time in prison. After his brother's life was claimed by street violence in 2011, Allick started “Ice the Beef,” an antiviolence organization aimed at preventing deaths in New Haven.
When kids hanging out outside the 24-hour store on Dixwell Avenue encountered police, it usually ended with a threat of arrest for trespassing if they didn't move along, Allick said.
He watched the familiar encounter take place recently.
“This time it was completely different. They were all out there talking,” said Allick. “I see that all the time. I seen cops engaging with youth, talking to youth while they play basketball. Just talking.”
In his view, the walking beats, reinstituted last year, make a big difference. When he was growing up, a squad car would drive by occasionally. That afforded kids with time — time to talk, concoct plans to settle some score, pick up a gun to do it.
Now, as walking beats focus on known hot spots, no one knows when an officer will turn the corner.
Changing a police culture with 400 officers in the ranks will be difficult, Allick said. In his mind, there always will be cops who automatically assume a kid hanging on a corner is dealing drugs. “You want every police officer to be nice and friendly. Every police officer isn't going to be like that,” he said. At the same time, to judge all cops by the actions of a few “is not fair.”
The overall community, like police officers, is tired of violence, he said. The police department has made arrests in 15 killings this year. About half of this year's homicides have been solved. The rest are from older cases.
Allick said he believes community stakeholders and organizations like his play a role, but he “didn't want to take anything away from police” working hard to solve cases.
“We do have ‘no snitching' rules. People are still scared, but we're working on that,” he said. The community as a whole feels better when police arrest killers, he said.
He said Esserman has lived up to his promise so far. The walking beats are a good start and make a difference. “It's more than watching and patrolling, but also interacting with the community. Now we have an opportunity to get to know them, to get to trust them all over again.”
The community can't judge the department on past sins, he argues. “The community hates to give police credit. The things that they did in the past, you can't hold that against them year after year.”
MORE TO DO
Rabbi Eli Greer lives in the Edgewood neighborhood. His family runs an Orthodox Jewish school and is a major property owner in the neighborhood.
“We're definitely better off this year than we've been in the last two years,” said Greer. But people shouldn't read too much into that, he said, considering last year the city was “hemorrhaging in a war zone” with an absentee police chief before Esserman.
“It's fair to say that (last year's violent crime rate) is not a barometer residents should use to measure crime,” he said.
Greer said Esserman has done a good job of reinstituting “effective” policing in the city.
The department has its hurdles. Even as the city works on education reform, its past failure to educate a generation of youth created a disproportionate at-risk population that police now have to deal with, Greer said.
One thing that concerns Greer is the mass exodus of veteran officers who have retired because of concern about the expired labor contract, because they don't share Esserman's policing ideology, because of internal politics — or a combination of such factors.
“We should be keeping our 20-year veterans who have a huge skill set,” Greer said.
He views community policing as more than walking beats and attending meetings with updated crime statistics.
In his view, to implement modern community policing, there has to be greater partnerships, both technologically and on the ground. His suggestion is to build on a model in Baltimore, among other places, involving community patrols.
In New Haven, perhaps community volunteers could walk the beat with a New Haven cop. That would bolster community engagement and also provide a “treasure trove” of information to police from people whole actually live in a neighborhood.
“In order to do proper community policing, the community needs to volunteer their time,” he said.
Five years ago, Greer and supporters started an armed neighborhood patrol, claiming police had abandoned them to thugs. The hybrid model, he said, would be unarmed citizens walking or biking “alongside police officers who are dedicated to these neighborhoods.”
“That's where you have real community policing,” he said.
http://nhregister.com/articles/2012/09/29/news/new_haven/doc5067b9c0331c2650293658.txt?viewmode=fullstory
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
City Hall rally demands halt to NYPD stop-and-frisk tactic, passage of Community Safety Act
Legislation provides ‘transparency, oversight, and accountability' to prevent police abuse
NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
Fed up with what they believe are discriminatory practices by the NYPD, more than 800 New Yorkers rallied last Thursday at City Hall.
Among other things they called for is an end to stop-and-frisk, which overwhelmingly affects black and Latino youth and has become the most visible example of police discrimination and abuse of power.
“Stop-and-frisk makes youth of color feel like we are criminals and not welcome in our own city,” said Alfredo Carrasquillo of the Brooklyn-based VOCAL-NY, one of the groups that participated in the rally,
The problem is serious enough to demand an urgent solution. During the Bloomberg administration, the New York Police Department stopped more than 4 million people. Yet, nearly 90% of those stops did not result in summons or arrests.
To understand how Carrasquillo and thousands like him feel, one only has to know that 85% of those stopped were of black and Latino.
“New Yorkers are tired of waiting for justice and reforms,” said Yul-san Liem, a spokesperson for Communities United for Police Reform, which organized the rally.
“Our communities are standing up to reject discriminatory policing like stop-and-frisk abuses, surveillance of Muslim communities, and the lack of police accountability that have continued for too long,” she added.
But the rally was more than an act of protest against police tactics, it was also a powerful show of support for a legislative package of police reforms, known as the Community Safety Act pending in the City Council.
Composed of four bills, the package has the support of the majority of Council members. Its main sponsors are Brooklyn Councilmen Jumaane Williams and Brad Lander. In addition, rally organizers said the bills are endorsed by more than 50 community advocacy organizations throughout the city.
“The Community Safety Act represents reforms our city's police department needs, and the City Council must pass these bills,” Liem said.
One of the bills protects against unlawful searches, a second creates a strong ban on profiling by the NYPD and expands protections against profiling based on age, sex, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, immigration status, housing status, language and disability, in addition to race, religion or ethnicity. The third bill requires NYPD officers to identify themselves and explain their actions, and the fourth establishes an NYPD inspector general to provide independent oversight.
A hearing on the package will be held Oct . 10 at City Hall, followed by public hearings on stop-and-frisk practices in Brooklyn and Queens later in the month.
“Young people in many neighborhoods have come to expect that they will be stopped and searched on their way to school, when hanging out with their friends, and even inside their own apartment buildings,” said Vincent Warren, Executive Director of Center for Constitutional Rights . “The transparency, oversight, and accountability provided by the Community Safety Act will be a critical step towards preventing these kinds of abuses.”
The Legal Aid Society, Make the Road NY, Picture the Homeless, VOCAL-NY, New York Communities for Change and 21 other groups are members of Communities United for Police Reform, which is spearheading the campaign against police discriminatory practices and support of the Community Safety Act.
As Marie Pierre, Chair of NYCC Board, Brownsville Chapter , reminded the NYPD, their job “is to protect our communities not to target them.”
http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/city-hall-rally-demands-halt-nypd-stop-and-frisk-tactic-passage-community-safety-act-article-1.1170502?localLinksEnabled=false
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Oklahoma
Opinion
Public-police partnership day
NORMAN — Police Chief Keith Humphrey, in his push for community policing, always stresses police-public partnerships. Activities planned Saturday, Oct. 6, will go a long way to foster that relationship with citizens.
Officers are planning a series of events at the police department, 201 B W. Gray Street. The first, a Shred-A-Thon, with Absolute Data Shredding and Republic Bank and Trust from 9 a.m. to noon, allows residents to bring in sensitive financial documents for destruction. Shredding keeps such documents out of the hands of cybercriminals
At the same time, officers will accept unneeded pharmaceuticals and old or unwanted ammunition for proper disposal. No syringes, liquids or inhalers and no explosives.
Officers will also check car seats for safety and adjust cars for a fit for senior drivers. They won't test driving skills but will adjust controls such as brakes, accelerators, steering wheels and seat belts.
http://normantranscript.com/opinion/x708370728/Public-police-partnership-day
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
From the FBI
FBI National Academy --
Celebrating a Milestone
09/28/12
The FBI's National Academy, known as one of the premier law enforcement training programs in the world, graduated its 250th class earlier this month, and the graduates—like thousands who preceded them—returned to their police departments and agencies in the U.S. and overseas with new knowledge and many new friends.
“I have made some true friends for life,” said Kenneth Armstrong, detective chief inspector of the Strathclyde Police in Glasgow, Scotland, referring to his classmates from the 10-week program held at the FBI's training facility in Quantico, Virginia.
Established in 1935, the National Academy provides advanced investigative, management, and fitness training to senior officers who are proven leaders within their organizations. In addition to undergraduate and graduate-level college courses offered in areas such as law, behavioral and forensic science, understanding terrorism and terrorists, and leadership development, students forge lasting connections that strengthen global law enforcement partnerships.
“If you're a National Academy graduate,” said Special Agent Greg Cappetta, chief of the National Academy Unit at Quantico, “it doesn't matter where you go in the world—someone there has gone through the program and will be ready to help you.”
To date, more than 46,000 men and women have graduated from the program, and more than 28,500 are still active in law enforcement work. The 250th graduating class, consisting of 264 officers, came from 49 U.S. states and 24 countries.
“The amount of knowledge is so vast among National Academy students that there is pretty much no law enforcement problem that can't be solved,” Cappetta tells classes when they first arrive at Quantico. “Whatever problem you might be having in your police department, there is someone in the session that has gone through the same thing.”
Michael Connolly, a captain in the San Francisco Police Department who graduated with this most recent class, agreed. “Now I have nearly 270 new resources,” he said, “colleagues and friends who can help me solve the next problem, or maybe I can help them.”
Robert Ferrari, a lieutenant with the San Juan County Sheriff's Office in Farmington, New Mexico, added, “Being from a small town in New Mexico, I was feeling that some of the issues in my organization—tight budgets, management challenges—were just our issues. But then you come here and find out that a guy from halfway across the world in Africa is having the same problems. The National Academy gives you the ability to network with all these people,” Ferrari said. “This experience has given me a lot of encouragement as a leader.”
The program also emphasizes physical fitness, and students train with academy fitness instructors during their 10 weeks at Quantico to tackle the “Yellow Brick Road,” a grueling 6.1 mile run and obstacle course. Upon completion of the course they receive a yellow brick to signify their accomplishment.
“Law enforcement only succeeds if we build global partnerships,” Kevin Perkins, the FBI's associate deputy director, told this session's graduates. “With every brick you earned here,” he said, “we are building that foundation.”
“Everybody that has participated in the National Academy, whether current students or past graduates—we all have an extreme sense of pride about being affiliated with the FBI,” Connolly said. “We aren't agents, but we are now part of the fabric of the FBI. I think that's important, that we have something tangible that connects us to the FBI.”
http://www.fbi.gov/news/stories/2012/september/fbi-national-academy-celebrating-a-milestone/fbi-national-academy-celebrating-a-milestone
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
From the Department of Homeland Security
DHS and Wisconsin Bring Safety Messages to Billboards (and more) Across the Badger State
by Assistant Secretary Betsy Markey
Over the past year, I've had the exciting opportunity to introduce partnerships between the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and state and local governments in support of the “If You See Something, Say Something™” awareness campaign. Today is the fifth time that I have had the pleasure to personally announce a new partner in this important initiative.
This afternoon, I was in Madison, WI to join Governor Walker, Attorney General Van Hollen, Major General Dunbar and law enforcement and homeland security officials in announcing a new “If You See Something, Say Something™” partnership with the state of Wisconsin.
The “If You See Something, Say Something™” campaign encourages citizens to speak up if they see something that seems out of place – like an unattended bag – and gives individuals information about how to report suspicious activities. The Badger State will take a number of innovative steps to help deliver these important safety messages to its more than 5.7 million residents.
“If You See Something, Say Something™” messages will appear on digital billboards on major highways and thruways across the state, including I-94, WIS 57, and WIS 164, from Oshkosh to Westbend to Jefferson and a variety of other cities. Additionally, “If You See Something, Say Something™” campaign posters will be hung in a variety of venues around the state to engage a host of sectors and communities throughout Wisconsin. For example, in Madison, posters with photos of the state capitol will be on display, as well as posters with images of Lambeau Field in Green Bay. Pictures of Miller Park and Summerfest will also accompany these materials in Milwaukee.
With the help of the Milwaukee Police Department, the state's two fusion centers are launching a new website, WiWatch.org, where additional information about the campaign is posted and where Wisconsinites can report suspicious activity. Later this year, Public Service Announcements on television and radio will also air in Wisconsin.
Secretary Napolitano often says that homeland security begins with hometown security – and partnerships like the one we are announcing today are integral to these efforts. DHS is proud to partner with state governments like Wisconsin, local governments and the private sector on this campaign. Together, we can encourage the identification and reporting of suspicious activity so we can keep communities across Wisconsin, and around the entire country, safe. So, while you're driving, attending a sports game or shopping at your local store, remember: “If You See Something, Say Something"
http://www.dhs.gov/blog/2012/09/28/dhs-and-wisconsin-bring-safety-messages-billboards-and-more-across-badger-state
