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Los Angeles
Everyday Heroes: Ex-gang member says he survived shooting to make a difference in kids' lives
by Barbara Jones
Shot in the chest and arm by a gang member wielding a .45, Steve Martinez figures he should have died on the street near San Fernando High School.
Two days later, however, bandaged and sore, he sat down with leaders of local street gangs and helped negotiate a deal to end the wave of violence then sweeping the northeast San Fernando Valley.
Now, nearly 20 years later, Martinez figures there's a reason he survived that point-blank attack.
"The more involved you are in the community, the more hope there is," said Martinez, 46. "Very few people are picked to do this. This is why I survived - to help people cherish life."
An unabashed optimist with an admitted "gift of gab," Martinez says he's dedicated his life to helping youngsters avoid the traps he fell into as a kid.
He grew up in a troubled home, the victim of physical and verbal abuse. A teenage Martinez joined a local street gang because the brotherhood offered him the support and affection missing from his family life.
Martinez lost interest in school as he embraced the gang culture and moved up in the ranks. He eventually got sucked into the criminal justice system as he got caught up in gang violence.
A criminal conviction sent him to a California Youth Authority facility, where he was able to earn his high-school diploma while serving his sentence.
Upon his release, he got a job and married a woman with three young sons, whom he's raised as his own. He also reconnected with his family, warning his younger brother to stay away from the gangs that had wrecked his life.
One afternoon, his brother called Martinez to come pick him up from school because gang members were hanging out nearby. When Martinez arrived and saw the gangsters bullying a younger kid, he made a U-turn, drove up to the tormentors and was shot before he could even get out of the car.
Martinez survived, which convinced him that he needed to take a more active role in protecting the neighborhood from violence.
He and activist William "Blinky" Rodriguez worked with City Councilman Richard Alarcón to broker a 1993 truce among 75 Valley gangs. Martinez also joined Rodriguez in working at Communities in Schools, a nonprofit that seeks to prevent youths from joining gangs and intervenes when they do.
The birth in 1995 of Martinez's only daughter, Vanessa, fueled his desire to keep kids safe in the Northeast Valley.
He raised money to buy holiday toys for needy kids and organized a drama program through Victory Outreach Church.
He also began working with kids in the parent centers at nearby Langdon Avenue and Rosa Parks Elementary schools, growing out his beard so he could play Santa Claus during their Christmas parties.
"He's very active," said Alberto La Torre, the family advocate at Langdon Avenue Parent Center, who has known Martinez for 14 years.
"He does very well working with kids because of his background. He knows how to talk to people and how to talk to kids because he can relate to them."
Martinez will be playing Santa again this year, at a neighborhood party for needy kids organized by the privately owned Western Beauty Institute.
And he hopes to continue his volunteer work at the parent centers, encouraging kids to stay in school and learn from his mistakes.
"There's no reason to accept the gang lifestyle," Martinez said. "I swallowed my pride and learned to be humble."
http://www.dailynews.com/breakingnews/ci_22180912
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Senate legislation aims to crack down on cyberstalking software
Associated Press
For around $50, a jealous wife or husband can download software that can continuously track the whereabouts of a spouse better than any private detective. It's frighteningly easy and effective in an age when nearly everyone carries a cellphone that can record every moment of a person's physical movements. But it soon might be illegal.
The Senate Judiciary Committee was expected Thursday to approve legislation that would close a legal loophole that allows so-called cyberstalking apps to operate secretly on a cellphone and transmit the user's location information without a person's knowledge.
The bill, sponsored by Sen. Al Franken, D-Minn., would update laws passed years before wireless technology revolutionized communications. Telephone companies currently are barred from disclosing to businesses the locations of people when they make a traditional phone call. But there's no such prohibition when communicating over the Internet. If a mobile device sends an email, links to a website or launches an app, the precise location of the phone can be passed to advertisers, marketers and others without the user's permission.
The ambiguity has created a niche for companies like Retina Software, which makes ePhoneTracker and describes it as "stealth phone spy software."
"Suspect your spouse is cheating?" the company's website says. "Don't break the bank by hiring a private investigator."
An emailed statement from Retina Software said the program is for the lawful monitoring of a cellphone that the purchaser of the software owns and has a right to monitor. If there is evidence the customer doesn't own the phone, the account is closed, the company said. The program is not intended or marketed for malicious purposes, the statement said.
But Franken and supporters of his bill said there is no way to ensure the rules are followed. These programs can be installed in moments, perhaps while the cellphone's actual owner is sleeping or in the shower. The apps operate invisibly to the cellphone's user. They can silently record text messages, call logs, physical locations and visits to websites. All the information is relayed to an email address chosen by the installer.
Victim's advocacy groups said Franken's bill is a common-sense step to curb stalking and domestic violence by weakening a tool that gives one person power over another.
"It's really, really troubling that an industry would see an opportunity to make money off of strengthening someone's opportunity to control and threaten another individual," said Karen Jarmoc, executive director of the Connecticut Coalition Against Domestic Violence.
A domestic violence case in St. Louis County, Minn., helped persuade Franken to introduce his bill. A woman had entered a county building to meet with her advocate when she received a text message from her abuser asking her why she was there, according to congressional testimony delivered last year by the National Network to End Domestic Violence. Frightened, she and her advocate went to the local courthouse to file for a protective order. She got another text demanding to know why she was at the courthouse. They later determined her abuser was tracing her movements with an app that had been placed on her cellphone. The woman was not identified by name in the congressional testimony.
Franken's proposal would make companies subject to civil liability if they fail to secure permission before obtaining location information from a person's cellphone and sharing it with anyone else. They also would be liable if they fail to tell a user no later than seven days after the service begins that the program is running on their phone. Companies would face a criminal penalty if they knowingly operate an app with the intent to facilitate stalking.
The bill includes an exception to the permission requirement for parents who want to place tracking software on the cellphones of minor children without them being aware it is there.
An organization representing software companies opposes Franken's bill because it said the user consent requirement would curb innovation in the private sector without adequately addressing the problem of cyberstalking. Voluntary but enforceable codes of conduct for the industry are more effective methods for increasing transparency and consumer confidence, said David LeDuc, senior director for public policy at the Software & Information Industry Association.
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2012/12/13/senate-legislation-aims-to-crack-down-on-cyberstalking-software/
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Feds to assess Columbus police on community policing
by MIKE OWEN
The U.S. Department of Justice has chosen the Columbus Police Department for a program that assesses "community policing" policies and suggests ways to improve, city officials announced Wednesday.
The Justice Department's Community Oriented Policing Service will begin sending representatives to Columbus in January to look over three aspects of how the department operates: community partnerships, organizational change and problem solving.
Police Chief Ricky Boren said he looks forward to working with the program, showing the visitors what his department does and learning what others do.
"We have always enjoyed a good relationship with the community here in Columbus, and our community policing takes top priority with that relationship," Boren said. "When this department comes in, we'll talk to them about best practices, not only in Columbus, but things that they know that work in other cities."
Mayor Teresa Tomlinson, who sought the assessment, said it will help fulfill a commitment made to the citizens when the 2008 Other Local Option Sales Tax was promoted.
Former Mayor Jim Wetherington was the catalyst behind the LOST tax. Three things he vowed to make priorities if the tax were passed were adding 100 new officers to the force, creating a crime prevention department and improving community policing practices, Tomlinson said.
"I want to be faithful to what he represented," she said. "I think we have done that with the 100 officers, and I think we've made great improvement in our crime prevention office. But I think where we can continue to improve is on the community policing aspect."
Tomlinson said the department already does a good job of working with the community through programs like D.A.R.E., Columbus Against Drugs and neighborhood watch groups. But the Justice Department's COPS program goes beyond that level and addresses things like patrol structure.
"While our police department does a great job with community outreach through neighborhood watch programs and the like, we have not yet effectively adopted community policing strategies into our patrol systems," Tomlinson said.
Corey Ray, who works for the COPS program, said representatives will come to Columbus in January to conduct a survey and assess department structure and policies.
"We will be looking at the police department's operations and its community policing history and programs," Ray said. The information gathered will be turned over to Tomlinson and Boren "for their use in updating or improving their community policing strategies."
Tomlinson said while there are no guarantees, once the assessment has been done on the department, it will become eligible to apply for Justice Department grants for community policing programs and technology.
http://www.ledger-enquirer.com/2012/12/12/2310589/feds-to-assess-columbus-police.html
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New Jersey
Shuttered Trenton police substations to reopen
by Erin Duffy
TRENTON — Two police precincts shuttered in 2010 in a cost-cutting move will re-open Friday, when city officials are expected to announce new strategies to combat escalating violence in the city.
Starting Friday, the East and West police substations will be manned and open 24 hours a day, beefing up the police department's presence in the two wards and allowing patrol units to report directly from the precincts, Police Director Ralph Rivera Jr. said yesterday.
“It doesn't make sense to pay a mortgage on those buildings and not utilize them,” he said. “It will add a visible presence, reduce response time and make the community feel safer.”
The announcement comes as the city continues to deal with a surge in violent crime that has led both Rivera and Mayor Tony Mack to reach out to state officials to request more State Police manpower or funding to hire more city officers. Trenton has seen 24 homicides so far this year, with 12 since September.
Rivera and his chief of staff met Monday with state Attorney General Jeff Chiesa and Col. Rick Fuentes, the superintendent of the State Police, to talk about bringing more state troopers to the capital city. Rivera said he could not discuss how many State Police the state might lend to Trenton, but said more officers could arrive in the capital city as soon as next week.
“We're putting together a plan now for intelligence-led policing to saturate grids where we have determined to have the most spike in violence,” he said. “We're working out the logistics right now and I'm hoping to have more State Police here as early as next week.”
For 20 hours on Tuesday into early Wednesday, State Police were among several agencies that participated in a task force with city cops, resulting in 12 arrests on charges ranging from outstanding warrants to weapons offenses.
As with the State Police enforcement, Rivera said he could not go into more details on the precinct reopenings or a revised policing plan Mayor Tony Mack has alluded to in the past two weeks, but said more information would be revealed Friday.
Officials will reopen the West precinct, located at Hermitage Avenue and Artisan Street, at 11 a.m. and the East precinct, at Greenwood and Cuyler avenues, at 1 p.m. and hand out toys to kids from 3:30 to 6:30 p.m. at each building.
“We understand manpower is low, but when I spoke to people in the community and told them it was opening back up, they were absolutely thrilled,” said Councilwoman Verlina Reynolds-Jackson, who announced the precinct reopening at a council news conference on city violence last week.
Rivera did not have details on the cost of reopening the precincts, but said they were within his department's $32 million budget.
The two precincts, built in 2006 under then-Police Director Joseph Santiago at a combined cost of more than $5 million, have sat empty for the past two years, unused save for the occasional community meeting. In 2008, the two substations were closed overnight as the police department tried to curb spending. As the city grappled anew with budget cuts and a multimillion dollar deficit in 2010, both were completely shut down.
Rivera said he's been interested in reopening and restaffing the two stations since being named police director in March.
“I saw we had two precincts there, two brand new precincts as far as I was concerned, two facilities strategically located in the east and the west,” he said. “I feel there's nothing sadder than seeing an empty police station rotting away, if you will. When you're already in a high-crime area, that's something that just adds to the despair of the community.”
Rivera said the move would strengthen community policing and give residents and businesses a greater sense of security, especially in the West Ward, portions of which are hot spots for gun battles and drug dealing.
Some disagree, though. Councilman George Muschal, a retired police officer, said the precinct construction was a waste of money in 2006 and would continue to divert police resources.
“You're going to take officers off the street or pay overtime to man it,” he said. “You take someone of the street, you have to turn around and pay overtime. Ain't no ifs, ands, or buts about it.”
“It's nothing to jump up and down about,” he continued. “It's smoke and mirrors to say we opened up police stations. It was the biggest mistake of that council's life to build two police stations.”
In the past, Mack himself was never a fan of creating and staffing precincts in each ward, campaigning against them in 2006 during his unsuccessful mayoral run on the basis that officers would be plucked from street patrols to man desks in the precincts.
Mack seemed more open to the idea at a City Hall coat drive yesterday.
“The plan is to increase visibility in those communities and to offer increased responses,” he said.
http://www.nj.com/mercer/index.ssf/2012/12/shuttered_trenton_police_stati.html
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From the FBI
Hate Crimes Accounting --
Annual Report Released
In 2011, U.S. law enforcement agencies reported 6,222 hate crime incidents involving 7,254 offenses, according to our just-released Hate Crime Statistics, 2011 report. These incidents included offenses like vandalism, intimidation, assault, rape, murder, etc.
The data contained in this report, which is a subset of the information that law enforcement submits to the FBI's Uniform Crime Reporting program, includes the following categories: offense type, location, bias motivation, victim type, number of individual victims, number of offenders, and race of offenders.
Highlights from the 2011 Report:
~~ Of the 6,222 reported hate crimes, 6,216 were single-bias incidents—46.9 percent were racially motivated, 20.8 percent resulted from sexual orientation bias, 19.8 percent were motivated by religious bias, 11.6 stemmed from ethnicity/national origin bias, and 0.9 percent were prompted by disability bias.
~~ Law enforcement agencies reported 7,713 victims of hate crime—victims can be individuals, businesses, institutions, or society as whole. Sixty percent of these 7,713 were victims of crimes against persons, while 39.8 were victims of crimes against property.
~~ Thirty-two percent of the 6,222 hate crime incidents reported took place in or near residences; 18 percent took place on highways, roads, and alleys; and 9.3 percent took place at schools or colleges. The remaining percentage took place at locations like houses of worship, parking lots, bars, government and office buildings, etc. |
New in Hate Crime Reporting
Beginning in 2013, law enforcement agencies reporting hates crimes will be able to get even more specific when reporting bias motivation.
For example, the new bias categories of gender and gender identity—which added four new bias types—were added to the FBI's hate crime data collection as a result of the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr., Hate Crimes Prevention Act. Other bias types were modified to comply with the race and ethnicity designations specified by the U.S. Office of Management and Budget. Data submitted under these new specifications will be part of the UCR program's new system, scheduled to go online next year. (The 2013 crime data will be published in 2014).
FBI's Role in Investigating Hate Crimes
Hate crimes continue to be the highest priority of the Bureau's civil rights program because of their heinous nature and their impact on victims and communities (see sidebar for case examples). We investigate hate crimes that fall under federal jurisdiction, assist state and local authorities during their own investigations, and in some cases—with the U.S. Department of Justice Civil Rights Division—monitor developing situations to determine if federal action is appropriate.
In addition to responding to hate crimes, we're also taking a proactive approach to hate crimes overall. We're integrating a cadre of analysts with our experienced investigators to not only establish a national threat picture but to identify risk factors that can be used by FBI field offices to assess the potential for hate crimes at the local level.
Increasing Hate Crime Awareness
Most of all, we're working to increase awareness of these crimes by establishing liaisons with civic and religious leaders and credible community organizations. Through our UCR program, we offer training to help law enforcement recognize hate crimes and also assist our partners in developing their own hate crimes training programs.
http://www.fbi.gov/news/stories/2012/december/annual-hate-crimes-report-released/annual-hate-crimes-report-released 
