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April, 2014 - Week 2

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New York

Nassau civilian academy uses exercises to teach about policing

by NICOLE FULLER

Guns drawn, the officers rounded the corner of a Massapequa Park elementary school chasing a shooter on the loose.

As the cops made their way down a hallway, chaos erupted all around them. The principal came running toward them. Victims screamed for help.

Adrenaline pumping, there was no time to assist the wounded. The group had an "active shooter" to find.

It was all very realistic, but there was no real danger.

The scenario was carefully planned by Nassau County police as a training exercise last week for county residents at the department's civilian police academy. The man posing as the gunman: an officer wearing a dark sweatsuit and baseball cap.

But the exercise still had hearts pounding, participants said.

"It's harder than it looks beyond any measure," said David Sabatino, 28, a coffee shop owner from Valley Stream who played the role of an officer. "It's way more manic. It's chaos; it's emotional . . . eye-opening."

The civilian academy, which started in 1997 as a way to teach the public about policing practices, began holding classes in February -- seven years after it became a county budget casualty. The 15-week seminar, which covers topics such as gangs, drunken driving and the use of technology to fight crime, was last held in 2007.

The academy was revived when the nonprofit Nassau County Police Department Foundation decided to pick up the roughly $10,000 cost, which covers overtime pay for police instructors, said Alexandra Nigolian, the foundation's executive director.

"It's a great program," she said. "It really brings the department and the community together. The department relies on its relationship with the community in their efforts in public safety."

About 40 students, drawn from a pool of more than 70 applicants, were selected by police and community affairs officials, who consider civic involvement a prerequisite. The class meets Thursday nights at the Nassau police academy at the former Hawthorne Elementary School in Massapequa Park.

Suffolk police host a 16-week civilian academy, which began about 12 years ago, officials said.

Nassau police Sgt. Richard LeBrun, a police academy instructor who also heads the civilian program, said the latter strives to inform residents "why police do things certain ways."

"These people are our ambassadors now," LeBrun said of his students. "They can go back in the community and explain why we take certain tactics."

The "active shooter" training provided to a recent class mirrored the training that all Nassau officers get, said Sgt. Michael Savino, a 28-year veteran who runs the department's active shooter training.

Nassau and police departments across the country used to set up a perimeter and call in special units -- the Bureau of Special Operations and Emergency Service Unit -- to handle such incidents, Savino said. That changed after the 1999 massacre at Columbine High School, with officials realizing those long-held practices wasted precious response time.

Now, every Nassau and village police officer is trained to respond to an active shooter scenario, Savino said.

Savino described -- and later presented through role play -- how officers are trained to remain composed and search for the gunman even as victims are crying for help.

"We keep walking," he said. "We can't stop and help someone when a shooter's in the other room killing 10 people."

In the training exercise, students were armed with guns with firing pins removed.

Afterward, Michael Morelli, 18, a college student and Boy Scout from Wantagh, said the class has given him a new perspective on policing.

"Someone's shooting at you; it's very stressful," he said. "You think the officer could just take them out in two seconds. It's not that easy."

http://www.newsday.com/long-island/nassau/nassau-civilian-academy-uses-exercises-to-teach-about-policing-1.7689467

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Massachusetts

Improved Boston Marathon public safety plans announced

by Meghan Colloton

Boston city officials released their detailed public safety plans for this year's Boston Marathon during a press conference at City Hall on Saturday. Mayor Martin J. Walsh and Boston Police Commissioner William Evans said runners and spectators can expect an increased police presence and more emergency medical services and emergency communications available on the day of the marathon.

Here are some of the specific improved public safety measures for the marathon:

Public Safety

- There will be an increased presence of uniformed and undercover police officers along the marathon route.

- More than 100 cameras have been installed along the marathon route in Boston. Around 50 “observation points” will be set up near the finish line to keep track of the crowd.

- Spectators are encouraged to leave large items, such as backpacks and strollers, at home. The items are not prohibited, but individuals may be subject to searches by officials.

- You can follow @bostonpolice on Twitter for marathon safety updates. You can also text “Boston” to 69050 if you are in an emergency.

Emergency Medical Services

- 13 ambulances will be positioned along the marathon route in Boston, which will support 24 ambulances providing service throughout Boston.

- 140 EMS personnel will be positioned along the marathon route in Boston. They can be found on bicycles, in utility vehicles, on foot patrol, and in medical tents, as well as crews covering the rest of the city.

- Four medical tents will be set up on the marathon route in Boston. The capacity of each tent has been increased to accommodate the increased number of runners.

- The Boston Public Health Commission (BPHC) will have a medical station on the Boston Common with a 30-bed ambulance bus ready if needed.

Emergency Communications

- Boston EMS will have personnel assigned to a coordination center at the State Emergency Operation Center in Framingham and the City of Boston Emergency Operations Center (EOC) monitoring the race.

- BPHC will have increased staffing.

- The Stephen M. Lawlor Medical Intelligence Center will be activated to coordinate activities among hospitals and assist with family reunification.

- The City of Boston's EOC will be available to provide situational awareness, resource support, and coordination for the response and recovery in the event of an emergency.

Transportation

For information about street closures and traffic advisories, visit here. City officials recommend that the public take advantage of the MBTA to and from Boston on Marathon Monday. For more information about the MBTA's schedule for the marathon, click here.

Trauma Counseling

The Boston Public Health Commission is offering a series of counseling sessions with trained clinicians to help people cope with the upcoming anniversary of the Boston Marathon bombings as well. Learn more about the counseling sessions here.

http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/2014/04/12/improved-boston-marathon-public-safety-plans-announced/qVvYYN7vweXqDdWS5JQWkL/story.html

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Maryland

Guest Column: Continue high standards for public safety

by Ellen Moyer, former mayor of Annapolis

If there is one thing I am certain about, it is that Annapolitans care about public safety.

During the last two years of my administration, I heard a lot from an inspired group clamoring, “Stop the gunfire now.” So, I am surprised there has not been a peep from them about the current mayor's budget that drastically cuts police and fire service, jeopardizes their national accreditation and devastates emergency management.

That's what happens when you use a false notion of cutting everything by 10 percent without regard to standards and community needs.

Take the police department, for instance. It has 114 authorized police positions. Over the last four years, the Annapolis Police Department has reduced its budget by 17 percent. It is now at bare bones to produce the public service expected by Annapolis citizens.

Using a national standard of percent of officers per 1,000 population, 114 is the minimum number required for this city. That number does not take into account the thousands of employees who are in the city daily or the fact that Annapolis enjoys millions of visitors annually. Cutting this number by 10 percent puts the city way below standards and seriously jeopardizes foot patrols and community service for special programs — not to mention accreditation.

When Del. Herb McMillan was on the City Council, he pushed for an increase in officers that brought the department total to 126. The APD became nationally accredited 10 years ago, a status enjoyed by few. Accreditation requires high standards and the APD is one of the best in the state. We should work to keep it that way.

The same kind of cuts relate to the fire department. It, too, enjoys the high standards necessary for accreditation. With an increasingly older population, reducing our EMS personnel below standards doesn't serve us well.

Thirteen years ago, the city primary election occurred on Sept. 11. I survived that election and went on to become mayor. Recognizing the terrorist threat to the nation, Rear Adm. Ron Marryott (once superintendent of the Naval Academy and director of the Naval War College) offered his services to the city. He chaired my security transition team with national experts who understood terrorist warfare. At the time, the city's risk assessment revealed we lived in a top risk area. We still do.

In my first budget in 2002, I created the Office of Emergency Management with an operations program recommended by Marryott and the security transition team. To secure assets to keep Annapolis citizens protected, we worked closely with the General Assembly and successfully secured an independent fiscal status for Annapolis similar to that enjoyed by counties for federal funding for natural disasters. This meant Annapolis would not be dependent on the county for dollars and cents. Independent status enhanced our grant revenue and secured access to money for equipment for public safety not forthcoming otherwise.

Now, the mayor's budget cuts the public safety departments in ways that reduce standards and changes our independent funding status making us dependent upon the county for resources once again. That may fiscally benefit the county, but it sure puts a program and fiscal hurting on Annapolis.

As time passes, memories of the disaster of Sept. 11 fade. Several years ago, I served on a national commission to explore issues related to economic and social recovery for vulnerable communities. In 2012, Annapolis, a vulnerable community, was chosen as one of seven cities in the nation to participate in a resiliency preparation model. While being prepared is a wise way to live, the city never participated.

Maybe Annapolitans no longer care about protection against crime and natural and man-made disasters, and the high standards enjoyed by our departments of public safety, but I find this hard to believe. According to a recent poll, public safety is the No. 1 item of interest to Annapolis citizens.

Standards make a difference in public service. Let's keep them high.

http://www.capitalgazette.com/opinion/columnists/guest/guest-column-continue-high-standards-for-public-safety/article_b9fdd52c-89f3-519c-b046-b8842ec914c8.html

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California

Public safety dispatchers saving lives

A job where multitasking is a must

by KELLI BALLARD

National Public Safety Telecommunications Week starts Sunday, honoring those who are on the other end of frantic 9 1 1 calls, for their dedication, skills and calm demeanor helping others during a crisis situation.

At the Porterville Police Department, there are currently 13 full-time and one part-time dispatchers who work 12-hour shifts answering emergency calls for fire, police and medical. On nights and weekends, they also answer all calls for the city of Lindsay.

“They're phenomenal at what they do,” said Sgt. Richard Standridge of the communications department at the PD.

It's difficult to completely grasp everything dispatchers do and the extent of their massive responsibilities, unless one is familiar with the job. In between numerous emergency phone calls, a few of the dispatchers told of their extremely challenging job. In fact, in about a 30-minute time frame, at least five or six emergency 9 1 1 calls came in, not counting the many other emergency calls — the sounds of sirens blaring indicating a 9 1 1 call and distinguishing it from other emergency calls.

Each dispatcher has three or more computers in front of them; one monitoring calls and taking information, one with a map and GPS system and another for other various tasks they perform. Surrounded by computers, with headsets constantly on and radios going off in the background, the dispatchers work quickly and efficiently answering various calls that can range from a medical emergency, an officer in pursuit, to hang ups and prank calls.

“Multitasking is probably the most important skill,” said Standridge.

Tina Brown has been a communication dispatcher for the PPD for more than 16 years. While she took calls and directed them to get the help and assistance they needed, she calmly and efficiently talked about her experiences saying the first couple of calls were difficult, but after time and experience it's not quite as tough.

“Multitasking,” Brown said is the most difficult part of the job, “and being able to type what they say as fast as they say it.”

“It's a little overwhelming with all of the computers, searches we do and the radio,” said Ashley Aandahl who has been a communication dispatcher for a little more than a year.

Dispatchers do not usually have any classes or training before being hired. Within the first year of being hired, employees need to attend a three-week dispatcher academy, and the rest of the training is hands-on.

“Realistically, the hands-on training gets them ready and the course ties it all together,” said Standridge.

“Somebody can tell you how to do something, but until you do it, it's totally different,” said Aandahl. She added that experiencing her first officer pursuit was the biggest accomplishment she had.

Within the last few months a new phone system and a new mapping system has been installed. The new mapping system will show new developments, homes, businesses and so forth which can be uploaded and used to help better locate and direct personnel for dispatching.

Dispatchers are literally the lifeline between people needing help and the officers and medical personnel being sent to aide them. Most people in a crisis situation do not call 9 1 1 calm, cool and collected, and it is the dispatcher's job to try and get the information as quickly as possible while trying to help calm the caller.

“I find using their name a lot helps [to calm] them,” said Aandahl.

Brown said she puts herself “with them. I place myself in a position where I don't care if they're guilty or not. I do what I can to calm them down,” be a friend.

Aside from the many urgent calls dispatchers receive daily, they also receive a lot of hang ups, disconnects and prank calls.

“We get lots of disconnected calls, lots of kids calling and lots of pocket calls,” Aandahl said.

With 9 1 1 hang up calls, dispatchers try to reconnect to the caller to see if assistance is still needed. If there is not a response, an officer will be sent to investigate the situation.

With cell phones, however, it's a lot more difficult to trace calls or reconnect with the caller. Sometimes they are able to do so if the signal from the cell towers is close enough. Many times, though, there may not be a way to get back in touch with the caller or send an officer to the area if a location was not provided.

Probably one of the hardest things to deal with as a dispatcher is not being able to get closure, Standride said and Brown and Aandahl agreed. After receiving and dispatching distress calls such as an ill infant, a vehicle collision and other incidents, most of the time the dispatchers do not get the closure of finding out if the victims were saved. This only adds to their already intense, yet rewarding jobs.

http://www.recorderonline.com/news/public-safety-dispatchers-saving-lives/article_85906362-c263-11e3-9130-0017a43b2370.html

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Hawaii

Police address cyber crime, gun issues

by Bret Yager

They operate out of foreign countries and often from the mainland, gleaning personal information and using it to file people's taxes for them. Most people would be glad for a helping hand around tax time, but not when the preparer diverts the return to a different address and cashes in.

That's what happened to four individuals in North Kohala this tax season. Police are trying to figure out who did it and what means they used, and they plan to work with the Internal Revenue Service in their investigation.

“The perpetrators are operating out of boiler rooms in Nigeria where we have no jurisdiction at all. Some are on the mainland,” Paul Kealoha, assistant chief of Area II Operations, told the Hawaii County Police Commission on Friday.

Interviewed after the meeting, Kealoha said he couldn't provide specifics about the cases because they are under investigation, but he said it is notable that four people were hit in one small community.

Police Commission Chairman John Bertsch called for a cyber crimes enforcement unit at the police department, with equipment and training dedicated to quickly evolving cyber threats.

Hawaii County Police Chief Harry Kubojiri said police do tackle cyber-related crimes, including child pornography, but he agreed that such efforts should be heightened.

“There is no doubt in my mind that's the direction the department needs to be going,” Bertsch said during a break in the meeting. “National crime trends show us the sophistication is just getting greater.”

West Hawaii had 215 burglaries during the past 12 months, down from 296 the year prior. Hilo saw an increase, meanwhile, from 577 incidents to 739, and an accompanying increase in auto thefts, according to Police Department data.

“There has been an increase in Toyota Tacomas being stolen,” Assistant Chief Henry Tavares said. “There are individuals, suspects we are looking at.”

Police are stepping up efforts to inform the community, working with neighborhood watch coordinators and a videographer to create a 30-second TV commercial on how people can safeguard their belongings and spot suspicious activity.

Bertsch said the recent national spike in gun purchases because of fear the Obama administration would curtail gun rights has led “to more people running around with handguns” locally. Bertsch said weapons-related violence is on the rise lately, and he pointed to recent stabbings, a shooting in Holualoa late last month and the firing of gunshots in Kailua Village last weekend.

Kubojiri said that such crimes are spiking nationally. His department has been inundated with requests for “active shooter” presentations around the island. Although he doesn't have the staff to keep up with all of the requests, police are planning to hold a presentation in West Hawaii in the next few months — preferably in a large venue where many people can attend, he said. Police recently held a presentation in Honokaa.

An active shooter is an individual who is killing or attempting to kill people in a confined or populated area, according to the Federal Emergency Management Agency, which offers courses in dealing with those situations.

“Communities and businesses want to know what they can do to prepare,” Kubojiri said. “We want to go around the island.”

http://westhawaiitoday.com/news/local-news/police-address-cyber-crime-gun-issues

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Massachusetts

Opinion

‘Stop-and-frisk' won't work for Boston

It's tempting to compare crime rates with New York's, but that measure can be deceiving

by Anthony A. Braga and Edward L. Glaeser

By anyone's count, Boston started off 2014 with too many homicides — 16 in the year's first three months, more than double the number during the same period in 2013. The violence has prompted calls from the community and city officials for Boston police to get tougher on crime, to find a better, firmer approach to stem the bloodshed. But heeding this natural gut response to the homicide spike would be shortsighted.

Those concerned will likely first turn to New York, which has homicide rates that are low and stable — since 2000, Boston has nearly always had more murders per capita. Yet looking only at homicides to measure safety can be deceiving. A deeper review of the past two decades reveals that Boston's targeted, community-based strategy to policing has yielded less dangerous, more livable streets without resorting to the draconian methods favored by the New York Police Department.

Boston and New York are vastly safer than in the early 1990s. At that decade's start, both cities experienced crack-related homicide epidemics, with more than 24 murders per 100,000 inhabitants. Less than ten years later, that number had fallen dramatically — New York cut homicides from 2,245 in 1990 to 633 in 1998; Boston saw an even bigger proportional drop, from 143 in 1990 to 31 in 1999.

Each city, however, took very different paths to achieve that dramatic decrease. Both employed a variant on the idea of “neighborhood policing,” which was described by William Bratton, who would later lead both cities' forces, as “a partnership with citizens and all relevant public and private agencies to identify, aggressively attack, and successfully solve problems that are engendering crime, disorder, and fear.” Yet within that definition, Boston chose to emphasize partnership, while New York focused in on the aggressive attack of disorder.

These decisions largely reflect the conditions on the ground at the time. From 1985 to 1993, homicide rates were nearly always, on average, about 50 percent higher in New York than Boston. The Big Apple is vast and more heterogeneous. The crack epidemic emerged just as New York transitioned from Ed Koch, a tough-talking mayor, to David Dinkins, who considered himself a racial healer. At least some voters blamed Dinkins for the drug scourge, and the city turned to Rudy Giuliani, who talked even tougher than Koch and interpreted his mandate as making New York safe at any cost.

The NYPD began hiring swaths of new cops, who were instructed in the “broken windows” approach of cracking down on petty crime in the hopes of preventing larger offenses.

It worked. Arrests soared, taking potential criminals off the streets, and crime dropped. But this strategy came at a cost — it only fueled a long-simmering anger between the NYPD and residents in New York's less affluent neighborhoods. One Baptist minister went as far as accusing Giuliani of being “a racist who is on the verge of creating a fascist state in New York City.”

Boston's approach to community policy, on the other hand, reflected the smaller, more tribal nature of our city. In the 1970s, racial hatred seemed like a more pressing problem than crime, and the subsequent election of mayors Ray Flynn and Tom Menino showed residents' desire to mend the city's social fabric.

Indeed, an important crime-fighting relationship built during the 1990s was the groundbreaking connection between the Boston Police Department and the African-American clergy who'd come together to form the Ten Point Coalition. Under Bratton's leadership — and later, commissioners Paul Evans and Ed Davis — the BPD found collaboration with the ministers and, eventually, the two parties were meeting regularly to share information about what was happening on city streets. More recently, that has evolved into BPD officers partnering with local residents to address problems, including gun violence, in hot spots such as the Bowdoin-Geneva neighborhood. But individuals, not just neighborhoods, could be targeted for interventions.

To be sure, both New York and Boston adopted strategies that put resources toward risky people and risky places, which is vital because, as the data shows, shootings — a more accurate measure of violence than murders; whether a victim dies can depend on factors as variable as pure luck — are usually highly concentrated among a small group of residents and committed at a small number of places. Recent studies done at Harvard demonstrated that only 5 percent of Boston street corners and blocks experienced more than 70 percent of shootings between 1980 and 2008. Indeed, the 2006 and 2013 shootings maps show highly similar concentrations of shootings across Boston's neighborhoods.

Moreover, according to the Harvard research, roughly 1 percent of Boston youth between the ages of 15 and 24 participated in gangs. Yet these gang dynamics generated more than half of all homicides. Gang members were involved in roughly 70 percent of fatal and non-fatal shootings as either a perpetrator and/or a victim.

New York's justly famous program Compstat let police use technology and data to see exactly where crime was occurring and where to crack down. BPD also targets risky places, as it does with its Safe Street Teams, but some of its most remarkable work has involved targeting high-risk people, with programs like Operation Ceasefire. In simpler terms, New York's targeting was a bit more Bloomberg high-tech, whereas Boston's has been a bit more focused on Menino-like face-to-face interactions.

In Boston, the power of social knowledge showed itself quickly. Consider efforts to end a series of shootings that erupted on Wendover Street in 1994. Partnerships, with probation officers and the violence-prevention group Streetworkers especially, gave cops the ability to target gang members, punishing them — and just them — for minor offenses. The message was clear: We're here because of the shooting, and until it stops, nobody is going to so much as jaywalk, nor make any money, nor have any fun.

Such highly targeted community interventions were replicated and expanded to great success. Importantly, these law enforcement efforts were balanced by offers of social services and job opportunities to gang youth made available through a well-coordinated network of community-based organizations and social service agencies.

Homicide rates in smaller cities are always more volatile. Also, gang violence is cyclical and especially so under the community approach Boston has taken. But the good news is that, since 1994, BPD has always managed to bring homicides back down.

Why? Because Boston's experience also tells us that these homicide epidemics are offset by other, broader benefits. Boston has both fewer police and fewer arrests per capita than New York. Its police force has also avoided controversial procedures like New York's stop-and-frisk program, which angered communities and a federal judge ruled in 2013 to be unconstitutional. The BPD's social skills were also on display in its more peaceful and effective handling of the Occupy movement, and, more recently, when parts of the Marathon bombing investigation were crowdsourced.

And, until the last few months, serious violent crime was down in Boston — by 30 percent between 2006 and 2012. Equally impressive, total arrests decreased by 33 percent during the same period.

The recent upswing in violence, however, can't be ignored. Crime has not traveled far in Boston — the neighborhoods such as Dorchester, Roxbury, and Mattapan that were prone to violence 20 years ago remain the same today. The police alone can't banish violence from these neighborhoods. Mayor Walsh must fight hard to improve education and economic opportunities in these places. Study after study has demonstrated that violent crime does decrease with economic success. Young people, only miles from one of the country's leading tech hubs, need to hear the case that selling software is more lucrative in the long run than selling drugs.

Moreover, Boston's broader “network of capacity” that prevents serious violence may not be as well connected and coordinated as it was in the 1990s. Many of the social service and community-based partnerships that worked so well are neither as well funded nor as focused as they were in the past. The city was safest when law enforcement, social services, and community-based groups responded together to the small number of people and small number of places that generate most of the violence. To this end, Walsh has taken a step in the right direction by appointing Suffolk County prosecutor Daniel Mulhern and former probation officer Leon Graves to coordinate and focus these non-law enforcement partners.

We won't judge the appropriateness of New York's methods for New York — it is a hard place to keep safe. On policing, however, Boston has shown itself to be far more innovative for years by working within the community to listen to its concerns and to build mutual trust. Now is the time for the community to return that trust.

Edward L. Glaeser, a Harvard economist, is director of the Rappaport Institute for Greater Boston. Anthony A. Braga is a criminology professor at Rutgers University and a senior research fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School. Braga previously served as chief policy advisor to Boston Police Commissioner Ed Davis between 2007 and 2013.

http://www.bostonglobe.com/opinion/2014/04/12/stop-and-frisk-won-work-for-boston/ubNghNG51bcCM3AOtArd8O/story.html

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New Mexico

Neighbors watching out for neighbors

by John Bear

I had scarcely arrived at a neighborhood watch party on East Catalina Lane in between Hawaii and North Florida Avenues and was taking a photo of the sign warning would-be thieves when a man approached me. "May I ask what you are doing?" he inquired.

"I'm taking a photo of the neighborhood watch sign," I answered. "I'm from the newspaper, and I'm doing a story on your neighborhood watch."

"Great," he said. "I just wanted to see what you were up to. That's what we do. We watch."

The neighborhood watch on Catalina is one of about 15 in the city and is one of the most well organized, according to Alamogordo Police Sgt. Tracy Corbett.

Neighborhood watch captain Debbie Raymond said the watch started last year, although it is her third in Alamogordo.

She said she went around her neighborhood and asked people if they were interested in starting a neighborhood watch program.

"I found out that everybody keeps an eye on everybody, no matter what," Raymond said.

She said it only takes one hour to have a meeting and have the police over to explain the neighborhood watch program.

"It's watching out for your neighbor," she said.

According to USAonwatch.org, the neighborhood watch program was started in 1972 by the National Sheriff's Association.

The program has evolved over the years to focus on disaster preparedness, emergency response and terrorism awareness in the wake of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, according to the site.

Corbett said the police department rarely gets calls to this particular block after the neighborhood watch began in 2013.

Raymond said before the watch began, her house had been broken into several times. Now, calls to police tend to be about abandoned bicycles, tipped over mail boxes and title issues with trailers for sale.

Raymond said the neighborhood watch program has been helpful on her block.

"Everybody loves it," she said. "I write up a little newsletter about what's going on on the block and I stick it in everybody's door. It takes me like five minutes."

Corbett said not all neighborhood watches are the same and people can form one to suit their neighborhood's unique needs.

She said residents should get four or five neighbors to commit and keep the area to be watched reasonable in size. Police will come out and help set it up and inform people about what they need to do to form a neighborhood watch and what to look out for in terms of suspicious activity .

"Your neighborhood watch will work how it works for you," she said.

For more information about crime prevention, scams or citizens wishing to start a Neighborhood Watch program in their neighborhood, contact Sgt. Tracy Corbett at 439-4300.

http://www.alamogordonews.com/alamogordo-news/ci_25555465/neighbors-watching-out-neighbors?source=rss

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New York

19th Ward Neighbors support community policing

Rochester, N.Y. -- Howard Bellamy said he doesn't worry about his safety; he has secured his home with cameras and sensors. Any movement on his driveway or near his house activates cameras in his house. That's how he caught someone trying to steal his snow blower from his backyard.

Bellamy said though he is disappointed that when he needed police because of vandals in his neighborhood, they didn't respond. He said after that, he stopped calling them to report problems.

He said when he moved to the city in the 1950's there were beat cops patrolling the streets. He said it was safer then. “Nobody got killed; we didn't have crimes like this.” Bellamy told 13WHAM News.

He said he doesn't answer his door at night and doesn't leave the house. He counts on his security system to let him know if something's wrong.

He said community policing is a good thing and he welcomes seeing more officers walking the beat in his neighborhood.

Diane Watkins grew up on Orange Street in the city and moved back into Rochester from Henrietta 20 years ago. She considers herself a city girl. She is also a strong supporter of her neighborhood. She is Vice-President of the 19th Ward Neighborhood Association.
She said people are upset about drug activity, and other crimes in their neighborhood. They'd also like to see quicker response times.

Watkins said when she grew up she knew all of the officers patrolling on her street by name. She said there was trust and no one was afraid to speak up. She hopes with five police sections, it will help rebuild trust in the department which has been strained because of recent incidents involving citizens videotaping arrests.

The city said the process of going to five sections will be gradual and will be complete by next year.

http://www.13wham.com/community/features/bright-spot/stories/19th-ward-neighbors-support-community-policing-183.shtml

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New Mexico

Full report from DOJ's investigation

by KRQE Staff

WASHINGTON (KRQE) – The following is from the Department of Justice investigation on the Albuquerque Police Department.

Following a comprehensive investigation, today the Justice Department announced its findings that the Albuquerque Police Department (APD) has engaged in a pattern or practice of excessive force that violates the Constitution and federal law. The department delivered a letter setting forth these findings to Albuquerque Mayor Richard J. Berry and Police Chief Gorden Eden this morning.

Reports:

•  Findings Letter (PDF)

•  Summary of APD Findings (PDF)

•  Remarks Prepared for Delivery (PDF)

•  View reports in your browser (scroll below)

The investigation was launched on Nov. 27, 2012, and was conducted jointly by the department's Civil Rights Division and the U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of New Mexico. The investigation examined whether APD engages in an unconstitutional pattern or practice of excessive force, including deadly force, as well as the cause of any pattern or practice of a violation of the law. This investigation did not assess whether any conduct violated criminal laws. Specific cases have been referred to the Criminal Section of the division for consideration.

The department found reasonable cause to believe that APD engages in a pattern or practice of excessive force in violation of the Fourth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. The department specifically found three patterns of excessive force:

•  APD officers too frequently use deadly force against people who pose a minimal threat and in situations where the conduct of the officers heightens the danger and contributes to the need to use force;

•  APD officers use less lethal force, including electronic controlled weapons, on people who are passively resisting, non-threatening, observably unable to comply with orders or pose only a minimal threat to the officers; and

•  Encounters between APD officers and persons with mental illness and in crisis too frequently result in a use of force or a higher level of force than necessary.

The department also found systemic deficiencies of the APD which contribute to these three patterns, including: deficient policies, failed accountability systems, inadequate training, inadequate supervision, ineffective systems of investigation and adjudication, the absence of a culture of community policing and a lack of sufficient civilian oversight.

The department's investigation involved an in-depth review of APD documents, as well as extensive community engagement. The department reviewed thousands of materials, including written policies and procedures, internal reports, data, video footage and investigative files. Department attorneys and investigators, assisted by policing experts, also conducted interviews with APD officers, supervisors and command staff, city officials, and with hundreds of community members and local advocates.

“We are very concerned by the results of our investigation and look forward to working with the city of Albuquerque to develop a set of robust and durable reforms,” said Acting Assistant Attorney General Jocelyn Samuels for the Civil Rights Division. “Our work to assist police departments around the nation is intended to advance important principles. Holding police accountable for constitutional practices improves public confidence, promotes public safety and makes the job of providing police services safer, easier and more effective. Public trust has been broken in Albuquerque, but it can be repaired through this process.”

Today's groundbreaking announcement marks a critical milestone in addressing problems that have plagued our community and the Albuquerque Police Department for years,” said Acting U.S. Attorney Damon Martinez for the District of New Mexico. “These findings come at a unique time for the city and the Albuquerque Police Department and provide a blueprint for changing the culture of the Albuquerque Police Department and for rebuilding broken relationships with the community it serves. Although there are difficult and systemic issues to resolve, we embrace these challenges and are very optimistic for the future of the Albuquerque Police Department.”

http://krqe.com/2014/04/10/justice-dept-investigative-findings-on-apd/

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Massachusetts

Police Address 'Vital Public Safety' Issue With Drug Take Back Day

Tewksbury Police are asking residents to bring their unused prescription drugs to the department on April 26.

With prescription drug abuse continuing to rise around the country, Tewksbury Police are taking part in a growing effort to get pills out of the wrong hands.

The Tewksbury Police Department is hosting a drug take back event on April 26 from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. at the station in an effort to properly dispose of unused or expired drugs.

"This initiative addresses a vital public safety and public health issue," police said in promoting the event. "Medicines that languish in home cabinets are highly susceptible to diversion, misuse, and abuse. Rates of prescription drug abuse in the U.S. are alarmingly high, as are the number of accidental poisonings and overdoses due to these drugs."

According to studies, the majority of abused prescription drugs are obtained from family and friends. In addition, prescription drug abuse can lead to heroin addiction.

Residents are asked to remove the pills from their prescription bottles and seal them in a plastic bag before arriving at the police station on April 26.

The pills should be ready for immediate deposit into the station's drug kiosk upon arrival, police said.

Anyone with questions about the drug take back day should contact the Board of Health at (978) 640-4473.

http://tewksbury.patch.com/groups/police-and-fire/p/police-address-vital-public-safety-issue-with-drug-take-back-day

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Florida

Florida overcriminalization costs taxpayers, hurts public safety

Special Report from Florida TaxWatch

Florida could save significant corrections costs by reducing prison sentences for nonviolent offenders, according to data analysis in a new report from Florida TaxWatch. The report, Overcriminalization In Florida, calls for the state to review options to reduce the prison population through downgrading offenses and implementing alternatives to incarceration for nonviolent, level one and two offenders.

"Florida's criminal justice system can do more to improve public safety beyond locking up all offenders," said Dominic M. Calabro, President and CEO of Florida TaxWatch, the independent, nonpartisan, nonprofit public policy research institute and government watchdog. "Nearly half of Florida's new prison admissions are nonviolent offenders charged with third-degree felonies, the lowest offense on the felony severity chart. Florida would be safer by rehabilitating these offenders without having them spend time in costly prisons, or crime colleges, where they are detained with dangerous, violent criminals."

The report calls for a review of third-degree felony offenses to determine if Florida is overcriminalizing certain low-level offenses. The report suggests that some third-degree felonies could be downgraded to misdemeanors, which still result in significant punishments for offenders while reducing taxpayer burden.

"The punishment should fit the crime and the cost," said Dan McCarthy, Director of the TaxWatch Center for Smart Justice. "Florida could save millions of dollars and improve public safety by reducing our nonviolent prison population through alternative adjudication."

Florida's prison population has increased by more than 400 percent in the last 35 years, though the state population has grown by slightly more than 100 percent. Currently the state has 1.5 million felons, but the state's crime rate is at its lowest point in more than 40 years.

"As the state's crime rate continues to fall and prison population rises, policymakers should work to implement sentencing reform that reflects this change," added McCarthy.

Read the full report here: "Over-Criminalization in Florida - An Analysis of NonViolent Third-degree Felonies."

http://www.floridatrend.com/article/17014/florida-overcriminalization-costs-taxpayers-hurts-public-safety

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From the FBI

New Top Ten Fugitive --‘Family Annihilator' William Bradford Bishop, Jr. Wanted for 1976 Murders

(Pictures on site)

William Bradford Bishop, Jr., wanted for the brutal murders of his wife, mother, and three sons in Maryland nearly four decades ago, has been named to the Ten Most Wanted Fugitives list.

A reward of up to $100,000 is being offered for information leading directly to the arrest of Bishop, a highly intelligent former U.S. Department of State employee who investigators believe may be hiding in plain sight.

On March 1, 1976, Bishop used a hammer to bludgeon his family, including his three boys, ages 5, 10, and 14. Investigators believe he then drove to North Carolina with the bodies in the family station wagon, buried them in a shallow grave and set them on fire. The last confirmed sighting of Bishop was one day after the murders at a sporting goods store in Jacksonville, North Carolina, where he bought a pair of sneakers.

“Nothing has changed since March 2, 1976 when Bishop was last seen except the passage of time,” said Steve Vogt, special agent in charge of our Baltimore Division. Vogt has teamed with local Maryland law enforcement officials to apprehend Bishop, a man described by investigators as a “family annihilator.”

“There is no indication that Bishop is dead,” Vogt said, explaining that the area where the bodies were discovered was searched extensively, and hundreds of individuals were interviewed at the park where the abandoned station wagon was later discovered, and there was no trace of Bishop.

The FBI, along with the Montgomery County Police Department, Montgomery County Sheriff's Office, and the Department of State formed a task force last year to take another look at the Bishop case and to engage the public in locating him. As part of that effort, a forensic artist created a three-dimensional, age-enhanced bust of what the fugitive may look like now, at the age of 77.

Naming Bishop to the Top Ten list is expected to bring national and international attention to the case in a way that was impossible decades ago. “When Bishop took off in 1976, there was no social media, no 24-hour news cycle,” Vogt said. “There was no sustained way to get his face out there like there is today. And the only way to catch this guy is through the public.”

“If Bishop is alive—and there is every chance that he could be,” said Tom Manger, chief of the Montgomery County Police Department and a member of the task force, “we are hopeful someone will call with the tip we need to catch him.” Manger added, “When you have a crime of this magnitude, no matter how long ago it occurred, the police department and the community never stop trying to bring the person responsible to justice.”

“No lead or tip is insignificant,” Vogt explained. “If Bishop is living with a new identity, he's got to be somebody's next-door neighbor.” Vogt, a Maryland native who remembers when the murders happened 38 years ago, echoed Manger's sentiments about never giving up trying to locate the fugitive. “Don't forget that five people were murdered,” he said. “Bishop needs to be held accountable for that.”

We need your help: If you have any information concerning William Bradford Bishop, Jr., contact your local FBI office, the nearest law enforcement agency, or the appropriate U.S. Embassy or Consulate. You can also submit a tip online.

Hiding in Plain Sight?

Although William Bradford Bishop, Jr. traveled extensively overseas through his job with the U.S. Department of State and spoke several foreign languages, investigators believe he may have assumed a new identity and be hiding in plain sight in the United States.

Even an experienced traveler might find it difficult to maintain a new identity in a foreign country, said Steve Vogt, special agent in charge of our Baltimore Division. “If you're a U.S. citizen it's usually easier to hide in this country,” he explained. “Americans overseas tend to stand out.”

“The reality is, he could be anywhere,” Vogt added. “But we don't want people to assume that he's out of the country and overlook the fact that he might be living in their community. People might see someone who looks like him and think, ‘It couldn't be him.' Well, it could be him,” Vogt said. “That's why we need the public's help.”

Vogt doesn't dismiss the possibility that Bishop died years ago, but currently there is no proof either way. “If he's dead, so be it,” Vogt said, “but until we know for certain, we will not stop searching for him."

An Unforgettable Crime

In 1976, Steve Vogt, special agent in charge of our Baltimore Division, was an 11-year-old living not far from where the Bishop murders occurred in Bethesda, Maryland. “I've known this case my whole life,” he said. “The murders received a lot of press attention back then. I think it's a mystery that has always haunted me.”

The Montgomery County sheriff and the county's police chief also grew up in the area, and both were receptive when Vogt called and suggested forming a task force to renew efforts to locate Bishop through a publicity campaign—efforts that ultimately led to Bishop being named to the FBI's well-known Ten Most Wanted Fugitives list.

Montgomery County Police Department Chief Tom Manger, who was born and raised in Baltimore, was a senior criminal justice major at the University of Maryland in 1976 when the murders took place. Like Vogt, he remembers being shocked by the brutality of the crime and intrigued by the facts—and the mystery—of the case.

“When Steve called, I was very supportive of his efforts to add Bishop to the Top Ten list,” Manger said. “The media exposure after all these years could greatly increase our chances of finding him.”

Manger and Vogt point to the successful capture of James “Whitey” Bulger, a Top Ten fugitive for 16 years before his capture at the age of 81—thanks to an FBI publicity campaign.

“All it will take is for one person who recognizes Bishop to pick up the phone and call us,” Vogt said. “Then justice can be served.”

http://www.fbi.gov/news/stories/2014/april/william-bradford-bishop-added-to-fbi-top-ten-list/william-bradford-bishop-added-to-fbi-top-ten-list

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From the Department of Honeland Security

Reaction on “Heartbleed”: Working Together to Mitigate Cybersecurity Vulnerabilities

by NCCIC Director Larry Zelvin

Information sharing is a key part of the Department of Homeland Security's (DHS) important mission to create shared situational awareness of potential cybersecurity vulnerabilities. DHS, through our National Cybersecurity & Communications Integration Center (NCCIC), actively collaborates with public and private sector partners every day to make sure they have the information and tools they need to protect the systems we all rely on.

When a cybersecurity industry report was published three days ago about a vulnerability known as “Heartbleed” – affecting websites, email, and instant messaging – that can potentially impact internet logins and personal information online by undermining the encryption process, the Department's U.S.-Computer Emergency Readiness Team (US-CERT) immediately issued an alert to share actionable information with the public and suggested mitigation steps. Subsequently, our Industrial Control System-Cyber Emergency Response Team (ICS-CERT) published information and reached out to vendors and asset owners to determine the potential vulnerabilities to computer systems that control essential systems – like critical infrastructure, user-facing, and financial systems. The National Coordinating Center for Communications (NCC) also provided situational awareness to communications sector partners for their review and action. Importantly, the Federal government's core citizen-facing websites are not exposed to risks from this cybersecurity threat. We are continuing to coordinate across agencies to ensure that all Federal government websites are protected from this threat.

While there have not been any reported attacks or malicious incidents involving this particular vulnerability confirmed at this time, it is still possible that malicious actors in cyberspace could exploit un-patched systems. That is why everyone has a role to play to ensuring our nation's cybersecurity. We have been and continue to work closely with federal, state, local and private sector partners to determine any potential impacts and help implement mitigation strategies as necessary.

Today we're also sharing some tips on steps you can take to protect your own personal cybersecurity and information online:

•  Many commonly used websites are taking steps to ensure they are not affected by this vulnerability and letting the public know. Once you know the website is secure, change your passwords.

•  Closely monitor your email accounts, bank accounts, social media accounts, and other online assets for irregular or suspicious activity, such as abnormal purchases or messages

•  After a website you are visiting has addressed the vulnerability, ensure that if it requires personal information such as login credentials or credit card information, it is secure with the HTTPS identifier in the address bar. Look out for the “s”, as it means secure.

Cybersecurity is a shared responsibility and when we take steps to ensure our own cyber safety, we are also helping to create a safer Internet for others.

For more cyber resources and tips, please visit www.dhs.gov/stopthinkconnect

http://www.dhs.gov/blog/2014/04/11/reaction-%E2%80%9Cheartbleed%E2%80%9D-working-together-mitigate-cybersecurity-vulnerabilities-0

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How Heartbleed bug weakened everyone's online safety

by Chester Wisniewski

Editor's note: Chester Wisniewski is a senior security adviser at Sophos Inc., Canada. He researches computer security and privacy issues and is a regular contributor to the Naked Security blog. The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of the author.

(CNN) -- This week, researchers from Google and the Finnish security consulting group Codenomicon disclosed a bug, called Heartbleed, in OpenSSL, one of the most ubiquitous encryption software packages in use on the Internet.

Two thirds of the web sites and applications that allow you to do online banking or communicate privately through e-mail, voice or instant message use OpenSSL to protect your communications.

That is why a bug in OpenSSL that can render the private information you are transmitting across the wire visible to attackers is a very big deal.

The bug itself is a simple, honest mistake in the computer code that was intended to reduce the computing resources encryption consumes. The problem is that this bug made it past the quality assurance tests and has been deployed across the Internet for nearly two years.

This brings into question all the secure conversations we thought we were having on affected services over that time. A big deal indeed.

How does something like this happen? Aren't there a lot of people looking at this code? It is open source after all; anyone can take a peek.

Usually the availability of source code to public scrutiny results in applications being more secure and one could argue that is what happened here. Researchers at Google were looking carefully at the code and discovered this mistake. Unfortunately, that discovery came two years too late.

Fortunately, most major Web services have already applied fixes to the affected Web servers and services. The bad news is that smaller websites as well as many companies' products that rely on OpenSSL may linger for many more years without a fix.

To a degree, we are at the mercy of the website operators and companies who make security products to apply these fixes to protect us.

Some are suggesting that everyone should change all their passwords. While it is never a bad idea to change your passwords, increase their strength and ensure they are sufficiently unique, you should only do this after confirming the site has been fixed.

Too little attention is paid to the critical nature of the free software that keeps the Internet moving. We expect this army of volunteers to write and maintain much of the code that enables our fast and free Internet, all without payment, without support, in essence without a thought.

Recently, companies like Google have begun making an effort to rectify this situation through programs like Patch Rewards. Google offers to pay researchers to find bugs in commonly used open source software, including OpenSSL, so the community can work together to fix flaws more quickly, resulting in a safer Internet.

All of us have come to rely on the Internet socially, politically and economically. The billions of dollars a year being made by the tech giants would not be possible without the millions of donated hours that maintain free and open software like OpenSSL, Linux, Apache Web server, and Postfix mail server.

Businesses, government and individuals all have something to offer that can help. This isn't a battle between Windows, Mac and Linux or some battle between free and commercial software. This is a fight for our privacy, security and our freedom to communicate.

For some of us what we can offer is coding talent, others financial support, and still others can test software more thoroughly to ensure the reliability and security of the resulting code.

The most important thing is to recognize the importance of our collective security and to realize that in the end we are all tangled together online. A weakness in one can affect us all.

http://www.cnn.com/2014/04/09/opinion/wisniewski-heartbleed-bug-endangers-all/

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How to protect yourself in Heartbleed's aftershocks

by Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols

Businesses should not only know about Heartbleed, they should have already implemented Heartbleed fixes by now. If your bank, favorite online merchant, or software provider hasn't yet, close your accounts and find new ones. That's my first bit of advice on how users should handle Heartbleed.

Heartbleed really is that bad. Your user-ids, your passwords, your credit-card numbers, everything you place online is potentially in play for hackers. You can not fool around with this.

So, as I said earlier, get ready to change all your passwords. Yes, every last damn one of them. Were your favorite sites vulnerable? You can check specific sites with the Heartbleed test , LastPass Heartbleed checker, or the Qualys SSL Labs test. The first two just check on Heartbleed while the last checks for other possible Secure-Socket Layer/Transport Layer Security (SSL/TLS) and awards sites a grade from A (the best) to F (failure).

ZDNet's sister site, CNet, also has a constantly updating list, Heartbleed bug: Check which sites have been patched , for the 100 most popular Web sites. I'm annoyed to say that some popular sites, as of early Thursday evening, April 10th, may still not be safe. These include sites you might expect to be behind the times — like some porn websites — but also such major household-name sites as CNN, the Huffington Post, and Weather.com.

Once you know your site has the bug fixed then you should change your password right? Wrong.

Ask the company if they really have patched their software AND installed new SSL certificates from their Certificate Authority (CA). Only once they've done both those things should you change your password. And let me remind you again, for pity's sake change it to a good password. This xkcd cartoon I cite in an earlier story on passwords actually gives great advice.

Next, if your favorite sites or services, such as Google, GitHub, or Microsoft support two-factor authentication, use it. Yes two-factor is usually a lot more trouble to set up than a simple password. So what? In an increasingly insecure world, you'll need it.

Done yet? Nope.

You should also clear out all your Web browsers' cache, cookies, and history. That's never a bad idea anyway. You don't want old memorized passwords walking into trouble at an untrustworthy site. To do this with the most popular browsers, follow these steps:

Chrome:

•  In the browser bar, enter: chrome://settings/clearBrowserData •  Select the items you want to clear. For example, Clear browsing history, Clear download history, Empty the cache, Delete cookies and other site and plug-in data.

Firefox:

•  From the Tools or History menu, select Clear Recent History. •  From the Time range to clear: On the drop-down menu, select the desired range; to clear your entire cache, select Everything. •  Click the down arrow next to "Details" to choose which elements of the history to clear. Click Clear Now.

Internet Explorer 9 and higher:

•  Go to Tools (via the Gear Icon) > Safety > Delete browsing history.... •  Once there, choose to delete Preserve Favorites website data, temporary Internet files, and cookies.

I know this is a lot of trouble. Take the time to do it.

You're going to see all kinds of e-mails soon about magic solutions to all your Heartbleed problems. Yeah, right. They'll all be spam either bearing malware or pointing you to sites that contain malware. There's no quick fix for Heartbleed.

Finally, start checking your bank and credit-card statements very, very carefully. If you've been compromised, chances are all too good that you'll find out by finding bogus charges on your credit cards.

Good luck. We're all going to need it.

http://www.zdnet.com/how-to-protect-yourself-in-heartbleeds-aftershocks-7000028311/

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New Mexico

Justice Dept faults Albuquerque police on excessive force

The U.S. Justice Department cited the Albuquerque police department on Thursday for engaging in what federal civil rights investigators call a pattern of excessive force, some of it deadly, against residents of New Mexico's largest city.

A 46-page report capped an 18-month inquiry by the Justice Department following public complaints over a string of police-involved shootings in recent years, many of them fatal, and what critics have called heavy-handed use of stun guns by officers in Albuquerque.

The investigation of Albuquerque's police by the Justice Department's civil rights division marked the latest of more than a dozen such probes of local law enforcement agencies across the country.

"We have reasonable cause to believe that officers of the Albuquerque Police Department engage in a pattern or practice of use of excessive force, including unreasonably deadly force," the Justice Department said in a statement, adding that such force was a violation of the U.S. Constitution.

The problem stems from a combination of "insufficient oversight, inadequate training and ineffective policies," the report said.

The Justice Department found that police often resorted to deadly force or the use of stun guns against individuals who posed little threat, including people suffering from mental illness. The report also said officers frequently became overly aggressive against suspects who put up little resistance, escalating encounters to the point where deadly force was more likely to be used.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/04/10/us-usa-newmexico-police-idUSBREA391N120140410

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Lower Sentences for Drug Offenses Could Come Into Effect Soon

by Michelle Arrouas

The U.S. Sentencing Commission said on Thursday that prison sentences for low-level drug offenders should be cut by an average of almost a year, unless Congress blocks the change, to help deflate the surging federal prison population

Prison terms for most drug offenses in the U.S. should be cut by an average of close to a year, the U.S. Sentencing Commission recommended Thursday.

The commission voted unanimously to cut lower-level drug penalties, and its recommendations will go into effect in November if Congress doesn't block them.

Around 70% of drug trafficking defendants would qualify for the reduction, and their sentences would be mostly cut by around 11 months, from 62 to 51 months on average, according to the commission.

The move is part of an effort to reduce the growing federal prison population, and the policy is supported by the Obama administration.

“This modest reduction in drug penalties is an important step toward reducing the problem of prison overcrowding at the federal level in a proportionate and fair manner,” the U.S. District Judge Patti Saris, the commission's chairwoman, said in a statement.

“Reducing the federal prison population has become urgent, with that population almost three times where it was in 1991.”

The lower prison sentences could cut the overall federal prison population by more than 6,500 inmates over five years, the commission said. Currently around 216,000 Americans are in prison for drug offenses.

http://time.com/59079/us-drug-offenses-prison-sentences-cut/

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Missouri

Highway shootings shake up drivers around Kansas City

by Shelby Lin Erdman

Amanda Fuller grips the wheel tightly as she drives through Kansas City after a series of shootings targeting drivers in the Missouri city over the past month.

"Every time I pass a driver, we are both looking at one another, as we are all on the defense with the recent shootings," Fuller said in a Facebook post on the city Police Department's website. She said she drives the Interstate 435-470 corridor, where most of the shootings have occurred.

"It saddens me and it is a shame."

Local and federal authorities, including the FBI and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, are trying to find out who is behind as many as 20 shootings over the past month. The shootings all occurred on major highways and roads around the city between March 8 and April 6, police said. No new shootings have been reported since Sunday night, but police say they expect the numbers to change as they investigate more incidents and rule out others.

A U.S. law enforcement official briefed on the case said Thursday that investigators are still trying to figure out if the shootings are related and, if so, how many might be connected. The official said federal agents used dogs on I-435 Wednesday to search for shell casings that might tie the cases together. They are not saying whether they found anything, or if the same caliber of firearm was used in some or all of the cases.

The official told CNN that there are similarities among the cases. The attacks seem to be concentrated in certain areas. Almost all of the shootings occurred on the freeway near entrance and exit ramps.

One of the victims, who asked to remain anonymous, told CNN affiliate KCTV on Tuesday that three bullets went through his driver's-side door Sunday night as he was heading east on I-435 near I-470.

A bullet struck him in the calf. "We just don't know if they're doing it until they finally kill someone, or is it just for fun? We just want to know why," the victim's wife said.

"It's unaimed, not targeted," motorist Ashley Quinn told KCTV. "You don't know who they are shooting at. It could be anybody."

Police are increasing their presence in the areas where the shootings have occurred, and some drivers said they were taking secondary roads, especially after nightfall.

Investigators are asking drivers to remain vigilant and to report any suspicious activity immediately. Many residents are confident police will figure out who is taking aim at drivers.

"It's not going to change my life." Kansas City BP service manager Chris Wilson said. "I still feel safe on the road. ... The police will probably catch whoever is behind these shootings."

Authorities are offering a $7,000 reward for information leading to an arrest in the case.

http://www.cnn.com/2014/04/10/us/kansas-city-shootings/

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Pennsylvania

Will new policing strategies help cut city's crime?

by Matt Zencey

In the next three months, #HBGNext will focus on crime: What is the city doing to reduce it and how can you help?

We'll be asking you about your experience with crime in Harrisburg, how safe you feel in the city and how you feel about different ideas for improving public safety.

For Harrisburg Police Chief Thomas Carter, preventing a repeat of last year's gun violence, when 16 people were killed, is a top priority. "We're going to be really tough. We're tired of gun crime," he told a Friends of Midtown meeting Monday evening.

Through the first week in April this year, Harrisburg had two homicides, or one every 50 days. That's a welcome contrast with last year, which saw five killings in just the first 69 days, or one every two weeks.

Criminal justice experts caution that homicide rates can vary a lot from year to year, for reasons having nothing to do with police activity. Nonetheless, Chief Carter is proud of his force's work so far.

"Our arrest stats are way up," he told the midtown group. "I want that."

A new philosophy

Carter, a veteran officer promoted to chief when Mayor Eric Papenfuse took office, is converting the department to a new operating philosophy, known as community policing.

Pushed by the new mayor, the new approach requires police to put more emphasis on connecting with residents they're protecting. Instead of just chasing bad guys, officers get out of patrol cars and talk to people and learn what's concerning law-abiding citizens.

Papenfuse has also hired David Botero to help get community groups more involved with policing and public safety. Botero attended Monday's Friends of Midtown meeting, to help their crime-watch efforts.

Asked about the city's new approach to policing, Penn State Harrisburg criminal justice professor Eileen Ahlin told PennLive, "It sounds like they're starting in the right place." To effectively fight crime, "You need community buy-in." She says community policing is one of the "evidence-based" crime fighting strategies proven to work.

Carter said Monday night that his force had already logged "a couple thousand community contacts." It's still early to tell how effective that new kind of police work is, but Harrisburg has some history to overcome.

Closing a gulf

Cindie Watkins, a Harrisburg resident now serving as citizen advisor to the PennLive editorial board, cautions, "too much distrust exists (on both sides) for such a program to be effective without proper training."

"They have to talk to us," Watkins said during a PennLive online chat featuring community liaison Botero. Police should "not view all of us as 'suspects.'"

In the same chat, PennLive contributor Tara Leo Auchey reported a different kind of gulf between police and residents. Last year, at community policing workshop, Auchey said she discovered police "didn't realize they weren't smiling, waving, talking to residents. They were focused on their jobs... They have their 'police face' on."

Citizens may have to break the ice, Botero said during that PennLive chat. "Introduce yourself; tell 'em about your block. Trust me, they will not only remember that, but surely value it."

A two-way street

His advice is a good reminder that community policing is a two-way street. As Botero said during the chat, "We are (or should be) always involved in some form of community policing; whether it's picking up trash, helping a neighbor, calling the cops/fire for a situation, etc."

Something as simple as walking your dog can help, Botero said. Dog walkers, he noted, are out in the neighborhood two or three times a day. "They may know more than the police."

The number one thing citizens can do, Botero and Chief Carter said again and again Monday night, is when you see something that looks suspicious — "call the police."

Don't worry if the incident seems too trivial for police to worry about – the police will sort that out later. They'd rather know than not know.

For serious crimes in progress, call 911. That includes suspected drug deals, Carter said. "Drug dealers, they carry guns," so the situation could turn violent at any time, he said. For less urgent concerns, call the non-emergency police number, 558-6900.

Preventing crime

While the city is getting tough on law-breakers, Chief Carter and Botero also promised new efforts to prevent crime.

A long list of factors contribute to crime, Botero said. His list includes poverty, poor education, blight, gangs, and drugs.

Carter said the city aims to offer numerous summer programs to steer youth away from trouble. When juveniles have idle time, he said, "they tend not be law-abiding."

"Youth engagement is a top priority," Botero said. "That's one of the answers."

Penn State professor Ahlin cautions that after-school programs have generally shown mixed results in preventing crime. Often, the outcomes depend on the individuals who are running the programs, she said.

One thing that definitely makes a difference, she said, is jobs. Harrisburg has tens of thousands of white-collar jobs filled by well-educated workers, largely from the suburbs. The challenge is creating jobs that can be filled by residents in the city's poverty-stricken neighborhoods.

Ahlin also recommends "hotspot policing," where police focus more intense efforts on areas where crime has spiked. Chief Carter says his force does use that strategy, which can help reduce overall crime by catching chronic offenders.

A formal anti-crime plan?

What about former mayoral candidate Nevin Mindlin's call for making blight a top crime-fighting priority?

Ahlin agrees that "tackling it slowly over time will prove beneficial... but you can't just focus on blight."

She agrees with Mindlin that it's a good idea for the city to do a comprehensive anti-crime plan.

To measure progress and judge effectiveness, Ahlin says, the plan would track things like arrests, calls for service, and non-crime police contacts with the community. It should also track "soft indicators," such as asking residents if they feel safer.

Ahlin says the key to fighting crime is "projecting the image that the community cares."

In his chat on PennLive, Botero told city residents, "We're here to work with you, and we're here to take back our streets, and do a better job of protecting our neighbors."

At #HBGNext, it's our goal to help you make sure that happens.

http://www.pennlive.com/opinion/index.ssf/2014/04/hbgnext_crime_chief_carter_com.html

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Pennsylvania

Lengthy investigation ahead in wake of Franklin Regional knife attack

by Tom Birdsong

Police face a lengthy investigation of the events leading to the stabbings of 21 students and a security guard at Franklin Regional Senior High School yesterday, Murrysville police chief Thomas Seefeld said this morning.

During a news conference at 6 a.m, Chief Seefeld, joined by Westmoreland County emergency management spokesman Dan Stevens and Franklin Regional schools Supt. Gennaro Piraino, said all evidence had been removed from the corridor of the high school where the stabbings occurred.

"The crime scene has been processed and now witnesses and victims will be interviewed," the chief said. "Our investigation will be lengthy."

The chief, asked about the victims of the knife attack, said he had been told that one person had to be taken back to surgery about 1 a.m. today. He didn't identify the person or the hospital where the person is being treated.

The chief also said investigators had not determined why 16-year-old sophomore Alex Hribal allegedly went on the stabbing and slashing rampage. The youth is charged with attempted homicide, aggravated assault and weapon possession. He is being held without bond at the Westmoreland County Juvenile Detention Center.

Asked about security at the senior high school, Chief Seefeld said, "The school district has a good security plan. As tragic as this was, it could have been worse."

Superintendent Piraino said the high school would remain closed until Monday. He said a restoration company would be hired to clean the corridor where the attacks occurred.

Students in K-8 should report to school today; only the high school will be closed, he said.

Mr. Piraino also said counseling would be offered to students and staff, starting immediately, at the Murrysville Alliance Church, 4130 Old William Penn Highway, and continuing Monday at the high school after it reopens.

Pressed about reports of bullying at the high school, Mr. Piraino said that was part of the investigation but would not comment further.

Representatives from the trauma center at Forbes Hospital will provide an update this morning on patients being cared for at the hospital as a result of the mass stabbing incident at Franklin Regional. A media briefing has been scheduled for 10:30 a.m.

http://www.post-gazette.com/local/westmoreland/2014/04/10/Lengthy-investigation-ahead-in-wake-of-Franklin-Regional-knife-attack/stories/201404100265

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Alaska

Keep all of Alaska's criminal records public

by Taylor Winston

Senate Bill 108 bars public access to criminal records when all charges have been dismissed or when a defendant is acquitted at trial. The bill aims to provide the defendant, presumed innocent until proven guilty, with privacy after being criminally exonerated. Victims of domestic violence, sexual assault, and child sexual abuse, and our communities will suffer if SB 108 becomes law.

Important information would be lost. Unless the offender is found guilty beyond a reasonable doubt in the criminal case, courts will hide the record that, one, police investigated and recommended charges; two, a prosecutor independently reviewed and agreed to file charges; three, a judge reviewed the complaint and independently found probable cause; or four, a grand jury voted to indict.

Last week the governor urged each of us, through his Choose Respect and Green Dot campaign, to be vigilant to report and act to stop domestic violence and sexual abuse. Community policing is an important public safety tool. Because the government cannot protect its citizens day-to-day, the public should be empowered with access to information for its protection.

Alaska's children will be more vulnerable. Family and other private attorneys will lose access to information necessary to develop their cases. Access to criminal court records would be barred anytime a prosecutor dismisses a matter due to:

• loss of key evidence • the death, relocation, or unavailability of a key witness • a falsely recanting witness • police or prosecutorial misconduct or mismanagement • jury nullification • a conviction reversed after an appeal • the state dismissing its case to allow a federal or other jurisdiction to prosecute • an offender pleading out in one criminal case in exchange for dismissals of other cases

Alaskans' sense of community and public trust will be diminished as they wonder what other information the government has hidden from public view. The media would be permitted to report on high-profile criminal matters as the case is tried, but they, citizens and researchers would be unable to refer back to official court records once a defendant is acquitted, the record now removed from CourtView and the court file made confidential. Alaska's freedom of information act, AS 40.25.110, promotes the general principle that public records should be open to public inspection and government operation should be transparent.

Once a criminal case has gone to a public trial, the record is a matter of public interest. Important statistical and historical information, and public's ability to detect and expose fraud and abuse, will be hampered. O.J. Simpson, Ted Stevens, Mechele Linehan and George Zimmerman are examples of the type of criminal cases which would be concealed by SB 108. What if we could not access official documents about these cases? Removing cases from public view and scrutiny would allow our state government to rewrite history to the public's detriment.

CourtView allows citizens greater access to court information and displays it in an objective format. Legislators evidently believe Alaskans cannot understand or use the information fairly or responsibly. Most of us no longer live in a small community where we can connect with each other face to face. We rely on technology and the internet for information and to retain our sense of community.

SB 108 as written sweeps much too broadly and would be dangerous. It could be rewritten to fulfill its intended purpose and to avoid these negative consequences. When a person is arrested but criminal charges are never filed, when a judge finds no probable cause to support criminal charges and dismisses a case, and when a grand jury convenes and finds there is not enough evidence for charges to proceed, those records could be purged from public scrutiny if the prosecution defects are not corrected within 120 days.

If you support freedom of information, the First Amendment, government transparency, and community safety, contact your state house representative to express concerns about SB 108.

http://www.alaskadispatch.com/article/20140409/keep-all-alaskas-criminal-records-public

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New Mexico

APD shootings, scandals led to DOJ investigation

by Jeff Proctor, Zach Pearl and Dean Staley

ALBUQUERQUE -The U.S. Justice Department's report and list of findings against Albuquerque's police force and its leaders — expected Thursday — follows years of simmering mistrust between this city's law enforcement system and its citizens.

The past several years here have been marked by three dozen police shootings — many of them resulting in the deaths of men struggling with mental illness, drug addiction or both — and tens of millions of dollars in judgements and out-of-court agreements to settle the city's end of police misconduct cases.

Public comment periods at City Council meetings have been dominated by the families of men shot by police and a small but determined band of activists demanding reforms at APD from their elected and appointed leaders.

A perception that neither the city's administration nor the leadership of the Albuquerque Police Department have been willing to address a deeply- rooted culture of violence that supported many of the questionable shootings has widened the divide between the community and APD.

Through it all, Mayor Richard Berry and his top aides, including three police chiefs, have insisted there were neither cultural nor systemic problems with APD.

In public remarks, Berry mostly stuck to a limited script when discussing his troubled police department. He used words like “innovative,” “proactive” and “progressive” time and again to describe the force and its longtime chief, Ray Schultz, who stepped down last fall.

On numerous occasions, Berry and Schultz referred to their police department as the finest in America.

That posture began to shift, ever so slightly, when civil unrest came to New Mexico's largest city last month. Hundreds of demonstrators took to the streets and shouted from the steps of police headquarters Downtown following the release of a police video that showed an APD detective with a troubled record and a SWAT officer opening fire on a transient man with paranoid schizophrenia in the Sandia Foothills.

The man, 38-year-old James Boyd, appeared ready to surrender to officers after a lengthy standoff when Detective Keith Sandy threw a flash-bang grenade at his feet. Boyd pulled two knives from his pockets. That's when Sandy and officer Dominique Perez fired three shots apiece at him from their modified assault-style rifles.

In a news conference last week, Berry called the Boyd shooting a “game changer.” It was the first time, after years of denying there was a police problem here, that the mayor conceded that the city needs the feds to help fix APD.

Berry and his administration had resisted intervention from Washington, D.C.

In August 2011, the City Council passed a resolution that would've invited the DOJ in to investigate APD. Berry vetoed it, citing a technicality in the measure the mayor said violated the state Open Meetings Act. Councilors disputed Berry's claim.

A year later, shortly before the DOJ announced its sweeping investigation of Albuquerque police, Schultz held a news conference at which he said a federal investigation was unnecessary because his department already had in place more than 90 percent of reforms Justice Department officials had ordered in other cities.

But it wasn't enough to keep the DOJ out. On Nov. 27, 2012, federal officials announced they would “peel the onion to its core and leave no stone unturned” in investigating APD.

Justice Department investigators have drilled down into APD's hiring and recruiting practices and the department's Internal Affairs work.

The tally now stands at 33 APD shootings since 2010, 23 of them deadly. They far outpace the number of police shootings in other cities.

Some of the men were shot in the back. Many were unarmed. And in many cases, officers didn't turn on their lapel cameras.

The APD Internal Affairs division ruled each of the shootings justified.

So did Bernalillo County District Attorney Kari Brandenburg, who, like some of her predecessors, used for years an “investigative grand jury” process for police shooting cases. The process was highly unusual, in that the grand juries did not have the authority to indict officers. Instead, they were simply asked to say whether the shootings were justified — after Brandenburg's top lieutenants presented grand jurors with instructions only on justified shootings.

Early last year, state District Court judges ordered Brandenburg to halt the practice. The judges cited a lack of statutory authority to use grand juries for the limited purpose of clearing police shooting cases. They also raised questions over the integrity of the process overall.

Brandenburg switched to a new system under which she and her chief deputies essentially review APD's investigation of officer-involved shootings and determine whether they are justified. The results and case documents are posted on the DA's website. Each case reviewed with the new system has arrived at the same conclusion: that APD officers haven't broken the law by shooting citizens.

As the shootings mounted, so did the allegations of a system-wide cover-up. Bad cops, activists said, were not being punished.

Other problems came to light, too: officers caught on lapel cameras beating suspects, committing crimes in uniform while on duty and posting offensive comments on social media.

One officer described his job as “human waste disposal” on Facebook. He later shot a man in the back, and the city paid out $300,000 to the man's family to settle a civil suit. The officer was suspended for three days for the Facebook comment.

When the wife of then-Public Safety Director Darren White got into a crash admitted she was on prescription drugs but wasn't tested for DWI, distrust of the department came to a boil again.

The mayor was being called to the carpet.

And a growing chorus was calling for him to oust Chief Schultz.

They fell on deaf ears.

As the outrage built, the mayor kept boasting about reforms he'd put in starting in late 2011 after the city commissioned a study from a law enforcement think tank.

The Police Executive Research Forum, of which Schultz was a prominent member, returned a laundry list of ideas for the $60,000 the city paid the group. Among them: hiring less confrontational officers with an eye toward solving problems instead of escalating them.

For many longtime APD observers, that, along with a failure in leadership, has been the crux of the problem.

They point to the previous decade when then-Mayor Martin Chavez and Schultz pushed to hire hundreds of officers to swell the ranks to of APD 1,100.

Some of the officers brought in during that surge have been at the center of the controversy.

One of those is Sean Wallace, a transfer from State Police who had already cost the state $500,000 for shooting and killing an unarmed drug suspect. He's shot two more unarmed men since joining APD, including Alan Gomez.

The young man was standing on his porch when Wallace shot him once during a SWAT callout. That cost the city another $900,000.

Wallace was hired the same time as Detective Sandy. It was 2007, and both men were fresh off a scandal for collecting pay from a private security firm while on the clock collecting pay from State Police.

APD said at the time that Sandy would not be given a badge of a gun. He'd be working as an evidence technician, then-Deputy Chief Mike Castro said.

Sandy's shooting of Boyd is now the subject of an FBI criminal investigation.

There are also common themes among the people who are being shot. Like Boyd, many have had serious mental health issues.

APD and city officials have said the unpredictable threat that the mentally ill can pose has played a role in the wave of shootings.

In 2004, a mentally ill man took Officer Carol Oleksak's gun away from her in Nob Hill and shot her in the head, leaving her with permanent damage. Officers fatally shot the man.

A year later in 2005, Officers Richard Smith and Michael King went to the home of John Hyde near UNM to check on the mentally man. Hyde then ambushed and gunned down the officers.

King and Smith had been close friends of Schultz. One former city official said Hyde's killing spree prompted Schultz to shift the department's focus from community policing to “officer safety.”

More recently, Christopher Chase opened fire on a police officer before stealing his car. Chase shot two more officers during a cross-town pursuit before officers fatally shot him.

With those memories, many Albuquerque police officers have been on edge over the past decade.

Many factors contributed to the problems APD is facing. And many reforms are expected from the DOJ on Thursday.

http://krqe.com/2014/04/09/apd-shootings-scandals-led-to-doj-investigation/

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Missouri

Police Department hosting community oriented policing courses

The Branson Police Department is partnering with the Downtown Branson Betterment Association to host a community oriented policing course.

During the event, police officers will discuss crime mapping, shoplifting, community oriented police and how residents can help in policing.

Courses are offered at 8 a.m. and again at 6 p.m. on Thursday, April 17.

For more information, contact admin@downtownbranson.org

http://bransontrilakesnews.com/news_free/article_d5534388-c029-11e3-b6ee-001a4bcf887a.html

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From the Department of Justice

Remarks by Associate Attorney General Tony West at the National Crime Victims' Service Award Ceremony

Thank you, Joye, for that kind introduction and for your outstanding leadership at the Office for Victims of Crime – and to your terrific staff for all they do to support victims and victim services. It's an honor to be here with all of you to recognize these 10 exemplary individuals, teams, and organizations for their selflessness, resourcefulness, and courage. This is a remarkable group of people, and I'm humbled by their contributions.

I consider it one of the many privileges of my office to help support our nation's victim advocates and service providers. I first worked with the victim advocacy community as a young federal prosecutor, enlisting their assistance with the children who were victim-witnesses in the sexual exploitation cases I prosecuted; and later, while working with the California Attorney General's office, when I encountered victims of elder abuse and neglect.

I have seen their passion for serving victims, and I have experienced firsthand the dedication and commitment of Justice Department colleagues like Karol, Mary Lou, and Joye, whose allegiance to victims of crime is as constant as it is contagious. Guided by their experience and wise counsel, and led by an Attorney General who has a deep and long-standing concern for these issues, the needs and rights of crime victims will always be honored, respected, and supported by this Department of Justice.

I'm especially proud of the work we're doing to expand the reach of victim services so that the lingering and varied after-effects of victimization – which often can impose burdens on victims that far exceed the trauma of the original crime – are mitigated in policy and practice.

Many of you here today are receiving your awards because of your creative, persistent and unrelenting search for ways to better serve the needs of victims, whether they are financial, psychological, or legal, or by making improvements in the handling of evidence to bring perpetrators to swift justice. You have also done remarkable work to prevent further victimizations, by identifying potential perpetrators and removing their threat.

About the Justice Department's work for victims: You have already heard about the Department's participation in the Presidential Interagency Task Force on Human Trafficking and our Vision 21 Initiative. The Department is also a critical member of the President's Task Force on Sexual Assault on Campus. Recently, on behalf of the Task Force, our Office on Violence Against Women hosted an extraordinary series of listening sessions for students and survivors to give their opinions on a wide variety of topics, prominently including how best to respond to diverse, under-served or historically marginalized victims.

Another group of under-served victims is our Nation's children. More than 60 percent of America's kids are exposed to some form of violence, crime, or abuse—ranging from brief encounters as witnesses to serious violent episodes as victims.

As part of the Defending Childhood Initiative, the Attorney General's National Task Force on Children Exposed to Violence issued findings and recommendations on how to reduce children's exposure to violence and prevent them from becoming life-long victims of trauma suffered in childhood.

One key recommendation led to the creation of our Task Force on American Indian and Alaska Native Children Exposed to Violence : a special effort aimed at examining and addressing the exposure these particular children to violence, in ways that recognize the unique government-to-government relationship between sovereign tribal nations and the United States.

And this Task Force is a little different from most government task forces with which you may be familiar. It's actually made up of two groups of experts. The first is a working group of high-level federal officials who work with tribal communities everyday. They are busily identifying and implementing policy and programmatic changes that can have a direct and immediate impact to improve kids' lives in Indian County right now, based on things we already know are broken and need not wait for more study to fix.

And this fall, after a year of public hearings and listening sessions, the second group – the Task Force's Advisory Committee, consisting of non-federal experts who deal with issues concerning Native children – they will produce a strategic plan of action to guide practitioners and policymakers at all levels that will serve as a blueprint for future action.

I am also happy to announce the release today of some new products from the Office for Victims of Crime that will expand the resources of the victim services field: a training course, Building Resiliency in Child Abuse Organizations, to help professionals combat the effects of secondary trauma and compassion fatigue; and four new videos in the series, Through Our Eyes: Children, Violence, and Trauma . The videos include the voices of victims talking about how their exposure to violence as children affected them. You can find them on OVC's Web site and YouTube channel.

So I'm proud of the work we're doing, but even more than that I'm proud to count all of you as our partners. You are helping to realize the promise of our justice system by working to give every victim a voice and the help they need and deserve. I commend you for your service to America's crime victims, and once again, I congratulate our award recipients – especially those who have turned their personal stories of victimization into stories of strength and beacons of hope, providing light and inspiration to us all.

It's an honor to be here with you; thank you very much.

http://www.justice.gov/iso/opa/asg/speeches/2014/asg-speech-140409.html

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From the FBI

Helping Victims and Their Families -- Psychologist Specializes in Kidnapping, Hostage Cases

A U.S. aid worker is kidnapped for ransom in Somalia. A terrorist group holds an American hostage in Afghanistan. Sometimes incidents like these make headlines, and sometimes they occur below the media radar. Either way, the FBI's Office for Victim Assistance (OVA) is there to help victims and their families.

When the FBI investigates crimes, federal law requires that we offer assistance and services to victims. In situations where Americans are taken hostage overseas, our go-to person in the OVA is an operational psychologist with decades of real-world experience.

Carl Dickens joined the Bureau in 2011 after a 32-year career in the military in which he spent more than 13 years in special operations and personnel recovery and deployed multiple times in support of combat operations. His insights and practical knowledge help investigators working to recover victims, and also help victims—and their families—resume their lives.

“My job starts the moment a person goes missing,” Dickens explained. “The FBI uses an integrative approach to hostage cases that not only supports individuals and their families but also synchronizes the investigative and operational elements working to get the person back.”

When the FBI is alerted to an overseas hostage situation, Dickens and his colleagues in the OVA's Terrorism and Special Jurisdiction Program coordinate with other FBI units and federal partners involved in the effort to recover the individual. The OVA will also locate the victim's family and dispatch a victim specialist there for support (the Bureau has victim specialists in all 56 of its field offices).

“Families of kidnap victims are dealing with one of the most stressful events in their lives,” Dickens said. “Unfortunately there are no roadmaps for a family when something like this happens,” he added. “While their loved one is being held, we try to offer families a sense of hope. We let them know there are people actively working to recover their family member and that we aren't giving up.” In addition to providing emotional support, the OVA team can assist with travel and lodging, emergency expenses, and provide notification about criminal proceedings.

Dickens understands how a hostage might react to the stresses of captivity, which can be helpful to those planning a rescue operation or preparing for the victim's safe return home. He can also help to assess the hostage's coping response and develop a post-captivity support plan for the individual's return.

Kathryn Turman, who leads the OVA, noted that the FBI has been increasingly called on to handle overseas hostage cases. “We knew we needed someone like Carl, and we were incredibly fortunate that he joined the FBI,” she said. “His practical knowledge helps investigators, and his efforts with recovered victims and their families make a significant difference in how well they are able to cope and move forward in their lives.”

Experience has taught Dickens that most hostages find an inner strength when they are in captivity. “Recovered victims are not broken or damaged,” he said. “They are just normal people who have gone through an abnormal situation. It's important for families to recognize that their loved one may be weak and shaken when they come home,” he explained, “but they are not broken.”

Helping victims and families find the way forward is “a noble profession,” he added. “To see the look on the face of someone who has been recovered, and to know that you were part of that effort, is very gratifying.”

Working for Families

“The FBI's comprehensive approach to victim assistance is very impressive,” said Carl Dickens, a member of our Office for Victim Assistance who specializes in international kidnapping and hostage situations. “And the OVA team is a consistent and supportive presence throughout the lifecycle of the case.”

“What's paramount is getting a hostage victim back safely,” Dickens said, “but it's also important for the families to know that we are on their side and able to support them in a variety of ways.”

From the time a loved one goes missing until his or her recovery and possible prosecution of the perpetrators, the OVA offers continued assistance to victims and their families. “Whether a case lasts for weeks, months, or years,” Dickens said, “our team remains available to provide support.”

More information about the Office for Victim Assistance

National Crime Victims' Rights Week

This is National Crime Victims' Rights Week, an annual event started in 1981 by the Department of Justice's Office of Justice Programs to promote victims' rights, honor victims of crime, and recognize those who work on behalf of victims. For more information about National Crime Victims' Rights Week, visit http://ovc.ncjrs.gov/ncvrw

http://www.fbi.gov/news/stories/2014/april/psychologist-specializes-in-kidnapping-hostage-cases/psychologist-specializes-in-kidnapping-hostage-cases

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FBI Honors Community Leaders -- Their Efforts to Improve Lives Lauded

The FBI and law enforcement agencies around the country diligently work for the good of the communities we serve and for the nation as a whole. But we can't do it alone—we also need the support of the people who live in those communities.

Today, at FBI Headquarters in Washington, D.C., we publicly recognized 58 individuals and organizations from communities around the country for giving us that support. The recipients of our annual Director's Community Leadership Award have made tremendous contributions toward crime and violence prevention, education and awareness programs, and efforts to enhance cooperation between law enforcement and all citizens.

Addressing the award winners during the ceremony, Director James Comey said, “You are the truly extraordinary among us....You see injustice in your communities and you take action—showing a true willingness to lead when others may choose to walk away.”

We present these awards publicly—first at the local FBI field office and then at this yearly national ceremony—with the hopes that others will hear the stories of the recipients and be inspired to create change in their own communities and help make their neighborhoods safer.

Here are just a few of those inspiring stories:

•  An Albuquerque civil rights advocate —whose goal is to convince people to be “change agents” in their communities—continues his four decades of work toward building coalitions to improve the lives of all Americans, regardless of race. •  A former law enforcement officer-turned-community activist in Atlanta uses the game of chess to reach disadvantaged youth by teaching them the practical skills and techniques needed to overcome life's obstacles. •  A Delaware social services agency focuses on meeting the needs of the state's growing Latino population through programs dedicated to the healthy development and education of children, youth, and their families. •  After the unsolved murder of her 14-year-old daughter, a Cleveland mother now assists other parents who have lost children to violence and creates educational opportunities for underprivileged youth. •  A non-profit organization in Las Vegas helps southern Nevada's homeless and at-risk veterans and their families with rapid re-housing, employment assistance, training, and other services. •  A Louisville cardiologist and civic leader —a voice for the local Muslim community—coordinates meetings and public service projects between Muslim, Christian, and Jewish leaders with the aim of reducing stereotypes within the community. •  A survivor of human trafficking and advocate for human trafficking victims dedicates her efforts in Milwaukee to ensuring adequate resources for victims and educating young people and adults on the issues of sexual violence, sexual exploitation, and sex trafficking. •  A Seattle man facilitates stronger ties between members of the Seattle-area Somali community and local and federal law enforcement by hosting numerous gatherings and fostering an environment of understanding and dialogue.

Congratulations to each of our award recipients for going above and beyond the call to service...for reaching out to those in need...and for supporting law enforcement's efforts to better our communities—and our nation.

http://www.fbi.gov/news/stories/2014/april/fbi-honors-community-leaders/fbi-honors-community-leaders

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California

LAPD officer wounded after gunman opens fire in police station: cops

An officer working at the LAPD's West Traffic Division station's front desk was shot in the shoulder, but managed to hit the shooter after returning fire.

THE ASSOCIATED PRSS

LOS ANGELES — Police say an officer has been wounded in a gun battle with a person who walked into a Los Angeles police station and opened fire.

Officer Sara Faden says the shooting happened about 8 p.m. Monday when someone with a gun entered the LAPD's West Traffic Division station and began firing.

The officer working at the front desk was hit once in the shoulder.

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/lapd-officer-wounded-gunman-opens-fire-police-station-cops-article-1.1749159

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Massachusetts

Fitchburg police to play bigger role in economic development

by Alana Melanson

FITCHBURG -- Economic Development Director Jerry Beck has struck up a partnership with the Police Department that will bring members out of their traditional police roles to help further economic-development efforts in the city.

Beck recently attended a Police Department COMPSTAT meeting, where he recruited acting Capt. Linda Swears, Sgt. Glenn Fossa, Detective Sgt. Ernest Martineau and Traffic Specialist Paul McNamara to be police leaders in the collaboration, which aims to make the city cleaner and safer, and to inspire community pride as a basis for successful and lasting economic development.

Beck said he came up with the idea after conversations with hundreds of residents, workers and business owners in the city took on two common themes -- a feeling of being unsafe downtown, and an overwhelming desire to be involved in changing the city.

People want the city to be safe, clean and well-lit, he said, and to be able to walk downtown at night and enjoy a revitalized city nightlife.

"There wasn't one person I talked to who said they didn't want to help with transforming Fitchburg," Beck said. "To me, that's a true indication the city wants to change."

He said he feels the police can have a "huge impact" in coming up with creative solutions, educating the public and inspiring young people, schools and businesses to be involved in making Fitchburg a better place to work and live, and to change the perception of the city.

Fossa said community policing, as a philosophy, has been discussed for many years, but in a top-down approach, through formal channels of communication and involvement. This time, he said, officers will be involved as an integral part of the citizenry, able to share ideas, discuss options and use their differing talents where and when they are needed.

Fossa said he will measure the success of the partnership by the number of people who come to see the "tremendous value" of Fitchburg as a place to live, whether longtime, new or prospective residents. He said the city needs to get the word out about its affordable-housing stock, natural and architectural beauty, and other assets if it is going to attract businesses and new residents, but there is "huge potential."

"A person who moved here from the Midwest told me something that continues to stick, and that is, sometimes Fitchburg is humble to a fault, in that we don't celebrate enough of our success or let people know how great Fitchburg is and can be," Fossa said.

He said there needs to be more city branding and more smaller aesthetic changes that can make a big impact for small dollars, and he's happy there is a plan under way to slow traffic on Main Street and bring attention to its businesses.

"It really will depend on the entire city -- and I mean the residents -- to see the value in getting involved, because we all have a vested interest in the city's success," Fossa said. "I think, sometimes, we don't always see it that way."

Swears said she's happy to see the partnership occurring, as well as Beck's enthusiasm to make real changes in the city.

"I live in Fitchburg, and I would like to be part of anything that's going to make the city a better place to live," she said.

http://www.sentinelandenterprise.com/news/ci_25519718/fitchburg-police-play-bigger-role-economic-development

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Massachusetts

Putting Twitter to the test

New report tracks how Boston police leveraged social media following marathon bombings

by Doug Gavel, Harvard Kennedy School Communications

The timely and effective use of social media in the hours and days following the Boston Marathon bombings may serve as a model for other law enforcement agencies in the United States, according to a report published as part of the New Perspectives in Policing Series by the Program in Criminal Justice Policy and Management at Harvard Kennedy School (HKS).

The new report, “Social Media and Police Leadership: Lessons from Boston,” spotlights the ways in which the Boston Police Department (BPD) successfully leveraged its social media platform throughout the investigation to keep the community informed and engaged. The report is co-authored by former Boston Police Commissioner Edward Davis, who is currently a visiting fellow at the Institute of Politics at HKS.

“The Boston Police Department has long embraced both community policing and the use of social media,” the report begins. “The department put its experience to good and highly visible use in April 2013 during the dramatic, rapidly developing investigation that followed the deadly explosion of two bombs at the finish line of the Boston Marathon.”

Davis and co-authors Alejandro A. Alves and David Alan Sklansky identify several key moments following the explosions when the BPD turned to Twitter to communicate critical information. Within one hour of the bombings, they explain, the department had sent out a tweet confirming what had happened along Boylston Street.

“In the ensuing hours, the department used its official Twitter account to request public assistance; to keep the public and media informed about road closures, news conferences, and police activities; to reassure the public and express sympathy to the victims and their families; and critically, within two hours of the explosions, to give the public accurate information about the casualty toll and the status of the investigation,” they write.

The department's official Twitter account was overseen by BPD's public information bureau chief, who with the assistance of several others, operated @bostonpolice as a 24-hour “digital hub” for communicating updated information and for correcting misinformation reported by other sources.

“BPD tweets rapidly became the most trusted source of information about the status of the investigation and were often retweeted hundreds, thousands of tens of thousands of times,” the authors explain.

The effective use of social media by the BPD in this case was largely due to the fact that the department had spent considerable time and effort for many years prior to the bombings in building trust with its audiences, Davis and his co-authors explain. In addition to @bostonpolice, the commissioner and his superintendents maintained personal Twitter accounts.

“The promise of social media for policing is not to transform or add to the work of law enforcement but to emphasize the deep connection with the community that has always been the focus of good police work,” the authors conclude. “One of the key lessons of community policing is that effective partnership with the community requires the police not only to talk but also to listen, and social media offer the police such a platform.”

Davis was the commissioner of the Boston Police Department for seven years, retiring in November 2013. Alves, who earned an M.P.P. degree from the Kennedy School in 2012, is a policy adviser and chief of staff in the Massachusetts State Senate and an officer in the Army National Guard. Sklansky is the Yosef Osheawich Professor of Law, University of California, Berkeley, School of Law.

The New Perspectives in Policing series is published in conjunction with the Harvard Kennedy School Executive Session on Policing and Public Safety, a project funded by the National Institute of Justice, Office of Justice Programs, U.S. Department of Justice.

To read the full report, Social Media and Police Leadership.pdf.

http://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2014/04/putting-twitter-to-the-test/

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New York

Eyes and Ears

Residents keeping watch in Johnstown

by MICHAEL ANICH

JOHNSTOWN -Two groups of residents on the city's west and north sides say illegal drugs and related criminal activity have no place in their neighborhoods, and they're willing to act as extra eyes and ears for city police.

The two neighborhood watch groups have been meeting this year - usually 12 to 15 people at a time - sharing their thoughts and working closely with authorities to report suspected criminal activities.

"I'm tired of the drug action going on right across from my apartment," said Gilbert Street resident Penny Sorell, speaking at a neighborhood watch meeting last week at the Hometown Market.

Richard Warner of South Melcher Street added, "I'm here because of the drug activity in the area."

Market co-owners Suzy and Mike Mathews started the neighborhood watch group, which meets periodically at the 9 S. Melcher St. store. Residents of that west side area of the city had attended three meetings as of Wednesday's session - about a dozen people at a time coming in to share stories about what they see on their streets.

The other neighborhood watch group for north-end residents has been meeting this year at the J.B. Waterway Bar & Grill, 102 1/2 Water St. That group - organized by Patricia Isabella - will meet again at 6:30 p.m. today.

Isabella, who says she has had items stolen recently from her 20 Water St. property, including copper, said her group has met a few times since January, but bad weather hampered attendance.

She said city police officers and firefighters have come to speak to her group. She is especially concerned because the north side is heavily populated with older residents.

"We are trying to promote better things in that area," Isabella said.

City police Chief Mark Gifford said watch groups in Johnstown are generally "informal" if they don't meet regularly. He said that "unofficially," if residents witness criminal activity, they should report it to police anyway. He said neighborhood watch activities should involve common sense.

"In this [South Melcher Street] neighborhood, most definitely the crime is associated with drugs," said Suzy Mathews.

She said she and her husband have provided the Hometown Market as a site for people to at least "vent" about the criminal activity, as they see it. Some people, she said, simply don't want to get involved.

"People are getting very frustrated and calling us and saying this is what's happening and nothing [as far as arrests] is happening," Mrs. Mathews said.

Gifford sent Patrolman Mike Millias, the city's crime-prevention officer, to speak with residents at the Hometown Market watch group's meeting Wednesday. The meeting was less of a formal meeting and more of an extended conversation involving residents telling the officer about various criminal activity they believe they've observed, ranging from drug sales to car break-ins to public urination in people's backyards.

Mike Mathews said he was glad for the police presence and encouraged by his watch group's participation. Those who attended sat at a small table and also stood as customers came in and out of the store.

Mathews said police Lt. Dave Gilbo said he was OK with the watch groups if members want to walk in their neighborhoods as patrols and observe activities. He said his group may start doing that.

Millias said the concern is always people getting "hurt like in Florida." He was referring to the Feb. 26, 2012, incident in Sanford, Fla., in which neighborhood watch coordinator George Zimmerman shot to death 17-year-old Trayvon Martin.

Millias told the watch group that just because they report something, the police can't immediately arrest someone. He said the department may have to introduce a confidential informant into the situation, investigate, and formally record the sale of drugs so the arrest stands up in court.

"The problem is you have to have probable cause," he said. "You need to have something."

Mike Mathews said people ask him why police can't simply enter the residence of a suspected drug dealer - like on the TV show "Cops" - if all indications are drug activity is taking place.

"'Cops' is a TV show, first and foremost," Millias responded.

Millias said he was "excited" when he was given the chance to use some his crime-prevention skills while community policing with the watch group.

One participant during the meeting told the officer about what he sees as a traffic problem in his neighborhood: no one completely stopping at a four-way stop.

"Basically, we got a good neighborhood," said attendee Dave Warner.

But he noted that although his kids are grown up, he doesn't think small children should be part of neighborhoods tainted by drugs.

"I don't feel they should be subjected to this," Warner said.

He discussed the ransacking of vehicles and the stealing of money from cars that he sees going on in Johnstown

"You've got to call us," urged Officer Millias. "A lot of people don't lock their cars."

Millias, who used to live on South Melcher Street, said there used to be certain "pockets of bad streets" in the city where crime was easily identified. Now, he said, it is "dispersed" all over.

The officer said part of the drug problem can be traced to criminals coming to this area from bigger population centers such as New York City.

Mike Mathews said he noticed several cars one time on one street that seemed out of place and he told a city officer, who looked up the plates. He said they came came back from places like Schenectady and Niskayuna.

"What are they doing here?" Mathews asked.

Millias said that many times, the officers don't have time to investigate what cars are parked in what neighborhoods. He said if they are parked illegally, the officer issues a ticket and moves on to his next duties. But he noted drug transactions are "like a schedule" sometimes.

One woman brought up the fact there is a registered sex offender on her block.

Millias often reminded those in attendance that people have certain rights. For example, he said a city resident can have a "party house" in the neighborhood - a "dump" that barely passes code. But even though this is "annoying," there's nothing the police can do if no laws have been broken, he said.

He said some residences play music loud, but when the officers arrive, it's turned down, so no ticket can be issued.

Mathews also talked about the topic of no supervision for little children wandering around downtown.

"That falls back on the parents," the officer responded.

http://www.leaderherald.com/page/content.detail/id/563306/Eyes-and-Ears.html

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Tennessee

Who is policing the Memphis Police Department?

by Nick Kenney

MEMPHIS, TN -- (WMC-TV) - The city says police officers may soon get some form of sensitivity training and also address the issue of citizens videoing officers with cell phone cameras.

But the breadth of civilian oversight of Memphis Police Department is the crux of the issue.

"Without civilian oversight of law enforcement it's just the police policing the police, and we all know how that works. It doesn't, clearly," said Paul Garner of HOPE.

A coalition of 12 community organizations called Memphis United is asking city hall for a civilian law enforcement review board in the wake of three incidents involving officers, including one last October on South Main that shut down a rap cypher on South Main.

"The fact is that the civilian oversight of law enforcement is not about demonizing police officers but about public accountability in a system that the public can trust and restore public confidence in," added Brad Watkins of the Mid-South Peace and Justice Center.

City of Memphis Chief Administrative Officer George Little says there is a citizens law enforcement review process already in place, but it fell dormant for lack of activity.

"There is civilian oversight, and it's the city council. There is civilian oversight for the police department and it's the mayor," noted City of Memphis Chief Administrative Officer George Little.

At its peak: three complaints, he says. But Little also says city hall will appoint members and reactivate the board to provide civilian oversight.

"We have processes in place. We think they are adequate. They need to be improved in terms of their operations," said Little.

Little says the civilian law enforcement review board is an appellate body with no subpoena powers. Memphis United says it should have the right to force witnesses to testify.

"Right now we have no accountability to the public of law enforcement," said Garner.

Memphis United says the city promised it an official answer to the civilian review request within two weeks.

http://www.wmctv.com/story/25186097/community-organizations-request-civilian-law-enforcement-review-board

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Florida

‘Jamaica Hill', Florida sees big drop in crime

Jones Town-born police chief celebrates successes after two years

by DESMOND ALLEN

ANDREW Smalling, the trail-blazing Jones Town, Jamaica-born police chief of Lauderhill, Florida, nicknamed Jamaica Hill after its dominant population, is happy with the way crime is trending — downwards — in the third year of his tenure.

In the first two years after he swore on his 95-year-old grandmother's Bible to protect the city, Lauderhill has seen an impressive 14

per cent drop in crime, noticeably in violent crimes like murder, rape, robbery and aggravated assault involving use of weapons.

Smalling, a well-read policeman who also lectures once a week in Criminal Justice at the Broward College in Florida, was sworn-in for the second time as chief of police in September 2011, 11 years after becoming the first black to be appointed top cop in the neighbouring city of Lauderdale Lakes.

The veteran cop of 28 years may have left Jamaica at age eight, with little memory of the sprawling slums of troubled inner-city Jones Town, Kingston, where he was born 52 years ago. But he is surrounded by Jamaicans in this teeming city of 70,000 people and must deal with the best and the worst of them. More importantly, he seems to be getting the better of the situation.

As he is wont to, Smalling came home last month to celebrate his birthday with his Jamaica-born wife, Pauline, who works as an administrative assistant in the Broward County Sheriff's Office and with the Broward Courthouse.

Smalling doesn't know if his spectacular success in the crime statistics is a suggestion that Jamaicans in Lauderhill want to see another Jamaican do well. But he is happy with the way things are going, he told the Jamaica Observer in an interview.

"In the first year of my tenure, overall crimes went down by five per cent — September 2012 over September 2011 — and the second year — 2012 over 2013 — it declined by nine per cent. It's important to note that within that overall 14 per cent decline, violent crimes went down by 24 per cent," he said.

Smalling attributes much of the success to his 140-strong police force's emphasis on intelligence-driven operations and insistence on accountability of the command staff for crimes in their area of responsibility.

'We have divided the city into north, central and east districts. Each district has its own crime profile. It is very noticeable that certain types of crime seem to take place more often in certain districts. For example, in one area there is a predominance of property crimes; in another, crimes related to business and in another, crimes against the person.

"With this knowledge, we are able to deploy our forces in a more intelligent and effective way. This approach makes it possible for us to be proactive in preventing some crimes," said Smalling.

He noted that the Predictive Policing Programme designed in California for crime analysis had worked very well in Lauderhill. The programme makes it possible to gain information on crime trends going back several years and for planners to see where crime is likely to occur.

"Criminals are creatures of habit, we know that. So based on the statistics, we place our officers where the crime is most likely to happen. Our patrols are assigned to very specific areas rather than having them moving about randomly. We more specifically target the patrols according to the time of day or night, weekend or public holidays or when schools are out and more truants are on the streets," Smalling said.

"It is very preventative. When criminals see the police right at the time and place where they would have struck, they often don't bother," the police chief said, adding that with financial and human resources not what they used to be, intelligence-driven policing had become more critical in the fight against crime.

Smalling's police force has beaten Jamaica to the introduction of body-worn cameras, using technology to fight criminals. Currently, two sergeants — one in the day and one at night — wear body cameras as part of an initial experiment before outfitting the entire street force.

"We believe this will be very helpful, especially in establishing the credibility of the department. It will respond to criticisms from the residents about the behaviour of officers while on duty and in use-of-force incidents. I look at it as not only protection for the citizens but also for the officers, because many of the complaints and criticisms are quite frivolous," said Smalling.

As a key measure, Lauderhill police department is increasingly more dependent on community policing. "This is a big one for us. I always tell my guys that although we still have to police the community in the traditional way, we have to remember that we are also part of that community. When people call us they are looking for solutions. Most of those 911 calls are from people who need our help.

"Very often we are the first to be called when people are having problems. I want my team to have it in their hearts that we are here to make the community better and to help to improve the quality of life of the people," he said.

Smalling believes that that approach has reaped much success for his department. "When I just got here, there were some serious trust issues, both on the side of the community and on the side of the police. We have been able to bridge that gap to a large extent, even though there is still some work to do in that respect. We have seen where residents are more willing to give us information on criminal activities."

He gave the example of a young woman who was shot in a crossfire as two gunmen had a shoot-out while she was taking her baby from a day-care centre. With information from the community, cops were able to nab the shooter within two days. This also helped the image of the police because the incident had attracted massive press attention.

Smalling said since the start of 2014, there has been no homicide in his city. Last year there were four, another sure sign of the improving situation.

He suggested that traditional policing would continue in tandem with new strategies. "The policy is not going to change in respect of knowing who your bad people are and focusing your effort on them. Generally, it's only two per cent of the population that causes crime in the community.

"My officers in the districts attend all the homeowners association meetings to hear their concerns and focus on those concerns. We have established an anonymous tip line using text messaging so that residents don't have to send information to our police system but instead through an organisation called Texas Tip 411. This is routed anonymously to police anywhere in the country and we have no way of knowing where the information is coming from."

Smalling said the text messaging programme works well with the young and so is heavily pushed in schools. At the same time, there has been an increase in school resource officers who work with the kids in painting murals on community buildings and in organic gardening — planting fruits and vegetables — to teach them responsibility. During those sessions, the students get to open up to police officers about home life and their aspirations. He notes that his resource officers have been able to achieve a great deal without more resources.

The chief said his department has also been reaping dividends from its Citizens Academy which works with volunteers one night

per week for three hours to train them about police work, get a bird's-eye view of the operations and develop mutual trust between police and community.

"The residents get to develop an understanding of the challenges we face as they interface with our specialised units such as SWAT, criminal investigation units and patrols. They also get a ride-along with the patrols to see their actual operation. Out of that we often see a real change of perspective. At the end of that, we give them further training and then put them in police uniform and a marked car (but no weapons) to patrol their community," said Smalling. "Their job is to observe and report to the police what they see."

The Citizens Academy, which is additional to the Neighbourhood Watch Unit — that is run by the community with the help of the police — reports not only on crime, but graffiti; loiterers; dilapidated buildings; garbage pile-up and the like.

Smalling has worked with the Jamaican police on introducing the school resources programme here and is full of praise for Commissioner Owen Ellington whom he describes as "a very intelligent, strategic and professional police leader".

http://www.jamaicaobserver.com/news/-Jamaica-Hill---Florida-sees-big-drop-in-crime_16416494

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Massachusetts

Who Is Most Likely to Dial 311?

by Rebecca Tuhus-Dubrow

on-emergency 311 call systems, used increasingly in U.S. cities, offer a number of advantages. They give citizens a quick, convenient way to kvetch about problems in their neighborhoods, and get a response. They enable city governments to identify patterns and address issues proactively. There's also an incidental boon: Massive amounts of accumulated data. A handful of social scientists have begun to see this data as a treasure trove. Specifically, they have started combing through it to see who is calling, and what this might tell us about the policies and culture of the cities in question.

These scholars see 311 calls as an innovative metric for assessing civic engagement. Calling is low-stakes and low-cost, but it presumably reflects a baseline level of belief in government as a benign force worth asking for help. What determines who reports potholes and graffiti, and who remains silent? Though the research is new, its authors hope that it could eventually influence the ways that cities interact with their residents.

For a January study published in the Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science , UC Berkeley's Amy Lerman and Yale's Vesla Weaver investigated whether New York's controversial stop-and-frisk practices might affect the likelihood of calling 311 in different communities. They looked at reams of data on both police stops and 311 calls, and—after controlling for race, income, and other factors—they actually found a positive correlation between the two. They say this correlation could reflect greater need in neighborhoods with a heavy police presence, or it could indicate that up to a point, police are perceived as protective. But in the areas with more aggressive and gratuitous stops — that is, the stops included frisks and did not turn up any illegal behavior — the positive relationship with 311 calls weakened. The authors concluded that intrusive policing made people less likely to reach out to the city government.

“That style of policing has real consequences,” Lerman said. “People come to distrust government generally.”

To tease out coherent meaning from the masses of data is a formidable challenge. Myriad factors influence a neighborhood's call rate, and some of these work against each other. Troubled low-income neighborhoods, for instance, are more likely to experience the need for services. On the other hand, homeowners, who tend to be relatively affluent, are thought to be more invested in their neighborhoods, which could lead them to make more demands.

Despite the challenges, Lerman and Weaver are not alone in their efforts. A forthcoming paper in Sociological Forum also examines the relationship between police contact and 311 calls, in Boston rather than New York. (Boston uses a different number, but “311” is shorthand for nonemergency call systems.) Authors Jeremy R. Levine and Carl Gershenson, doctoral candidates in sociology at Harvard, sought to look at call volume independently of neighborhood need. To do so, they devised a clever tactic: Focusing exclusively on requests for snowplows during snowstorms, the need for which would presumably be more or less evenly distributed throughout the city. (They found evidence that the city is not discriminatory in its initial provision of snowplow services.)

The authors consulted a 2010 phone survey of 1,718 representative Boston adults, which included a question about police contact. They found that, after controlling for other factors, contact with police correlated positively with calls to 311. Boston has been a pioneer in community policing, and Levine speculates that this collaborative style fostered willingness to contact the government. This conclusion is consistent with the work of Lerman and Weaver, which stresses the importance of the character of policing.

Levine and Gershenson also looked at a range of demographic information and found, most strikingly, that predominantly African-American neighborhoods were far more likely to place calls to 311. They hypothesized that the expectation of discrimination could result in more calls, in order to prod the government to provide appropriate services.

There seem to be tensions between these two hypotheses. Is calling 311 a sign of trust or suspicion? Or some window between the two — i.e., the callers believe that the government will respond to their requests but not that it will meet their needs without a nudge? Or perhaps the various theories simply mean that we can't yet be sure what to make of the fragmentary stories emerging from the data.

“How folks understand and interact with the government is complex; multiple processes can simultaneously be at play,” Levine wrote in an email. “This is an area where research has just cracked the surface… We need more data, and better data, to really start to parse out stronger causal stories of 311 calls.”

There are also philosophical questions about the meaning of 311. Not everyone sees the calls as chiefly a sign of civic engagement. After all, unlike attending a town hall meeting or volunteering, dialing 311 can be a strictly self-interested act that involves no interaction with the community. “You're treating the city as if it's a business to request services from,” said Brian McCabe, a Georgetown professor studying the effect of homeownership on 311 calls. “It's a consumer-driven model.” McCabe has a somewhat different take from the other social scientists, exploring the burdens placed on government by calls from homeowners.

Yet regardless of its larger meaning, as Levine and Gershenson note, use of 311 has important practical implications. In Boston, they report, these requests influenced how $161.8 million of public services — 8.6 percent of the city's budget — were distributed in fiscal year 2011. “The relationship between requests for and receipt of services is likely becoming stronger over time,” they write. “Under-engagement with local government means under-provision of services.”

http://nextcity.org/daily/entry/who-is-most-likely-dial-311

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North Carolina

Report: Licenses for undocumented immigrants would improve public safety

A report by the NC Budget & Tax Center reveals the economic and public safety benefits of issuing driver's licenses to undocumented immigrants in the Tar Heel State.

Upwards of 254,000 immigrants could benefit from a state law allowing undocumented foreigners to get a driver's license, the report says.

"More than 90 percent of North Carolinians use a car to get to work, either by driving alone or carpooling. Yet hundreds of thousands miss out on the opportunity to meet basic family needs and participate more fully in the state's economy," the BTC, a project of the NC Justice Center, says.

Alexandra Forter Sirota, the report's author, estimated that at least $8.1 million would be earned by the state in collecting the $4 charge for providing a license to new drivers, something that would help to cover the processing costs.

In addition, allowing undocumented immigrants to have licenses would save the state money, since estimates are that the losses incurred in traffic accidents involving unlicensed drivers could be reduced by $4.1 billion per year.

"When unauthorized immigrants have safe, legal access to transportation, it improves their ability to get to work regularly and on time and gives them greater opportunities to fully participate in local economies. This, in turn, benefits the state's economy," Sirota said.

The report also emphasizes that a growing number of states - 12 since 2013 - have adopted policies that support the idea of issuing licenses to undocumented individuals.

North Carolina stopped issuing licenses to residents who could not prove their legal immigration status in 2006 in part because many immigrants were coming to the state from elsewhere in the nation where they could not get licenses to acquire them here.

More than 221,000 licenses were issued to undocumented people with a taxpayer identification number, but those have been expiring over the years leaving thousands of drivers without a legal document giving them permission to drive.

The situation has resulted in undocumented people taking a risk by continuing to drive without a license and has exposed them to being arrested at any time.

http://latino.foxnews.com/latino/news/2014/04/07/report-licenses-for-undocumented-immigrants-would-improve-public-safety/

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Ban the Box: Employing Former Felons Will Improve the Economy and Public Safety

by Emily Wang

Seven years ago, I hired Ron Sanders, an unemployed, single dad with a felony record, to work in a community health center. Like the majority of those who are incarcerated, Ron had been addicted to drugs and homeless. But even when those days were long over and he had completed a college certificate program to become a community health worker, he still couldn't get a job. He couldn't even get an interview.

An overwhelming 65 million Americans with criminal records face significant barriers to employment each day. Most applications for employment include a box that asks, “Have you ever been convicted of a crime?” Check the box, and nowadays, the application most likely goes to the trash. In 2009, a team of Princeton and Harvard researchers found that having a criminal record in New York city reduced the likelihood of a callback or job offer by nearly 50 percent. It doesn't matter if you finished serving your time, committed a crime decades ago, or whether the crime would impact the quality of your work.

In the aftermath of 9/11, the background check industry skyrocketed. In 2007, private intelligence companies, like ChoicePoint, reported $253 million in employee-screening revenue and, last year alone, the FBI preformed a record 16.9 million criminal background checks, a six-fold increase from over a decade ago. Economists at the Center for Economic and Policy Research estimate that the United States has at least 12 million individuals with criminal records of working age, who account for about 1.5 percent of our unemployment rate, costing the economy between $57 and $65 billion in lost output.

Republican and Democratic lawmakers in 10 states and over 51 cities have already enacted Ban the Box policies, eliminating the check-box that asks about an applicant's criminal record. The federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission also ruled this year that employers cannot deny people jobs based on arrest or conviction records. Despite the groundswell of legislative action by states, Congress has not followed suit.

Enacting Ban the Box policies will not only improve the economy but public safety as well. For the hundreds of thousands of individuals who return home each year from prison, their chance of returning back to prison is two times lower if they have a job. As one Minnesota Republican state senator argued “unless there is some hope that [returning prisoners will] be able to … earn a wage, be able to support their loved ones—the recidivism rate of these individuals is extremely high.”

As an employer who has hired formerly incarcerated individuals to work in health care settings, I know seeing individuals for their full set of skills and experiences, and not just their check-box, makes good sense, no matter your politics. At the Transitions Clinic Network , a national network of community health centers who care for individuals recently released from prison, we have found that training former prisoners to become community health workers who serve patients returning home from prison reduces unnecessary emergency department utilization by 50 percent and, thus, reduces the costs of the health care system.

Let's be clear. Ban the Box laws do not forbid employers from doing background checks. They only put off the criminal history question until later in the hiring process, when a person has been deemed otherwise qualified for the job. The laws also don't change who is permitted to work in law enforcement, childcare or health care jobs. Absolutely none of this changes under Ban the Box laws. What changes is that job applicants get a fairer shot at gaining employment, regardless of their criminal history.

Before Ron got the job with me, he applied for seven jobs in San Francisco, got discouraged, and stop applying. In each application, he checked a box reporting his past felony conviction. Ron did not get a single interview, but the employers also did not have a chance to interview Ron and consider him for his own merits. Ron now leads a national network for community health workers caring for individuals returning home from prison. He is also housed, financially supporting his family, paying taxes, and in his own words, can finally “step out of the closet about his past.” Allowing former felons to prove their qualifications first and explain their convictions later gives these individuals who have already paid their debt to society a second chance.

Late last year, Senator Marco Rubio introduced the “Healthcare Privacy and Anti-Fraud Act,” which would bar individuals with felony convictions from working as navigators for Obamacare health exchanges. The rationale given for the legislation is “to combat fraud and protect consumers … [from] identify theft.” But the subtext is that individuals with criminal records, regardless of their ability to assist others in obtaining insurance, should not be able to assist their community and provide for themselves and their families.

As a nation, we cannot afford to exclude 65 million individuals from the workforce based on a box alone. Congress must Ban the Box entirely for the economic health, public safety, and our own moral standing.

Emily Wang is an assistant professor of medicine at Yale University and co-founder of the Transitions Clinic Network. She is a Public Voices Fellow with The Op-Ed Project.

http://www.psmag.com/navigation/politics-and-law/ban-box-employing-former-felons-will-improve-economy-public-safety-78407/

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More Deportations Follow Minor Crimes, Records Show

by GINGER THOMPSON and SARAH COHEN

With the Obama administration deporting illegal immigrants at a record pace, the president has said the government is going after “criminals, gang bangers, people who are hurting the community, not after students, not after folks who are here just because they're trying to figure out how to feed their families.”

But a New York Times analysis of internal government records shows that since President Obama took office, two-thirds of the nearly two million deportation cases involve people who had committed minor infractions, including traffic violations, or had no criminal record at all. Twenty percent — or about 394,000 — of the cases involved people convicted of serious crimes, including drug-related offenses, the records show.

Deportations have become one of the most contentious domestic issues of the Obama presidency, and an examination of the administration's record shows how the disconnect evolved between the president's stated goal of blunting what he called the harsh edge of immigration enforcement and the reality that has played out.

Mr. Obama came to office promising comprehensive immigration reform, but lacking sufficient support, the administration took steps it portrayed as narrowing the focus of enforcement efforts on serious criminals. Yet the records show that the enforcement net actually grew, picking up more and more immigrants with minor or no criminal records.

Interviews with current and former administration officials, as well as immigrant advocates, portray a president trying to keep his supporters in line even as he sought to show political opponents that he would be tough on people who had broken the law by entering the country illegally. As immigrant groups grew increasingly frustrated, the president held a succession of tense private meetings at the White House where he warned advocates that their public protests were weakening his hand, making it harder for him to cut a deal. At the same, his opponents in Congress insisted his enforcement efforts had not gone far enough.

Five years into his presidency, neither side is satisfied.

“It would have been better for the administration to state its enforcement intentions clearly and stand by them, rather than being willing to lean whichever way seemed politically expedient at any given moment,” said David Martin, the deputy general counsel at the Department of Homeland Security until December 2010. “They lost credibility on enforcement, despite all the deportations, while letting activists think they could always get another concession if they just blamed Obama. It was a pipe dream to think they could make everyone happy.”

Various studies of court records and anecdotal reports over the past few years have raised questions about who is being deported by immigration officials. The Times analysis is based on government data covering more than 3.2 million deportations over 10 years, obtained under the Freedom of Information Act, and provides a more detailed portrait of the deportations carried out under Mr. Obama.

The demographics of those being removed today are not all that different from those removed over the years. Most are Mexican men under the age of 35. But many of their circumstances have changed.

The records show the largest increases were in deportations involving illegal immigrants whose most serious offense was listed as a traffic violation, including driving under the influence. Those cases more than quadrupled from 43,000 during the last five years of President George W. Bush's administration to 193,000 during the five years Mr. Obama has been in office. In that same period, removals related to convictions for entering or re-entering the country illegally tripled under Mr. Obama to more than 188,000.

The data also reflect the Obama administration's decision to charge immigration violators who previously would have been removed without formal charges. In the final year of the Bush administration, more than a quarter of those caught in the United States with no criminal record were returned to their native countries without charges. In 2013, charges were filed in more than 90 percent of those types of cases, which prohibit immigrants from returning for at least five years and exposing those caught returning illegally to prison time.

“For years, the Obama administration's spin has been that they are simply deporting so-called ‘criminal aliens,' but the numbers speak for themselves,” said Marielena Hincapié, executive director of the National Immigration Law Center. “In truth, this administration — more than any other — has devastated immigrant communities across the country, tearing families away from loved ones, simply because they drove without a license, or re-entered the country desperately trying to be reunited with their family members.”

Administration officials say the deportations are a result of a decade in which Congress has passed tougher immigration laws, increased funding for enforcement and stymied efforts to lay out a path to legal residency for the bulk of nation's 11.5 million illegal immigrants. “The president is concerned about the human cost of separating families,” said Cecilia Muñoz, the White House domestic policy adviser. “But it's also true that you can't just flip a switch and make it stop.”

In the spring of 2012, Mr. Obama announced a way for illegal immigrants who came to the United States as children — so called “Dreamers” — to avoid deportation. Facing a new wave of protests, he announced two weeks ago a review of the administration's deportation programs in an effort to make them “more humane.”

Republicans immediately pushed back, warning that the changes he had already made had weakened enforcement. Despite the record deportations, they said his shift in emphasis to the border had resulted in a decline in the removals from the interior of the country — a trend borne out by the records. And while immigrant advocates and some leading Democrats are outraged by the administration's policy of penalizing illegal entry at the border, many Republicans have accused the administration of using those cases to inflate its deportation numbers.

“The administration has carried out a dramatic nullification of federal law,” said Senator Jeff Sessions, Republican of Alabama. “Under the guise of setting ‘priorities', the administration has determined that almost anyone in the world who can enter the United States is free to illegally live, work and claim benefits here as long as they are not caught committing a felony or other serious crime.” l

The information on 3.2 million cases, obtained from Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, log every removal handled by the agency but do not provide enough information to determine which cases represent repeated deportations of the same person.

In places like Painesville, Ohio, a small town on the shore of Lake Erie sustained for decades by immigrants who work in greenhouses and factories, the spate of deportations has been felt one person at a time.

Anabel Barron, who has lived in the United States for nearly two decades, was facing deportation after being stopped for speeding and driving without a license. Her record showed that she had been removed previously and she said she returned to be with her four American-born children. At a regular Tuesday night meeting of immigrants at a converted church, she was fretting about her coming hearing.

“I am afraid of being deported,” she said. “But for my children it's worse. They don't sleep the same. They don't eat. They don't want to go to school because they are afraid I am not going to be there when they get home.”

Promise Collides With Reality

Deportations began rising sharply in the final years of the Bush administration. Having failed to win comprehensive reform in part because opponents argued that sufficient progress had not been made in securing the borders, that administration undertook a sweeping immigration crackdown. It stepped up military-style raids on factories and farms and granted local police the authority to check the immigration status of foreigners they suspected of being in the country illegally. Deportations reached 383,000 in 2008.

Congress supported the moves, doubling the immigration agency's budget to $5.5 billion in 2008, and imposed a mandate that required the immigration agency to detain a daily average of 34,000 immigrants.

Mr. Obama attacked those policies during his 2008 campaign, saying, “When communities are terrorized by ICE immigration raids, when nursing mothers are torn from their babies, when children come home from school to find their parents missing, when people are detained without access to legal counsel, when all that's happening, the system just isn't working.” He criticized his Republican opponent, Senator John McCain of Arizona, for abandoning the push for immigration reform when it became “politically unpopular,” and promised to make it a priority in his first year in office.

But that promise collided with the reality of the recession and the bruising fight to get a financial stimulus package through Congress. “We did stimulus, and then, as we calculated the rest of the agenda, we saw health care as possible, energy as sort of possible, but super hard, and immigration as impossible,” said a former senior White House official. “The votes just weren't there.”

Like Mr. Bush, both Mr. Obama and his first Department of Homeland Security secretary, the former Arizona governor Janet Napolitano, believed that to win comprehensive reform, they needed to demonstrate a commitment to enforcing existing laws. The Obama administration set out to keep deportation numbers up, but to make enforcement “smarter.”

Immigration officials set a goal of 400,000 deportations a year — a number that was scrawled on a whiteboard at their Washington headquarters. The agency deployed more agents to the border, according to several former immigration officials, where finding and removing illegal immigrants is legally and politically easier. The administration attempted to tread more carefully in the interior of the country, where illegal immigrants have typically been settled longer. It ended the worksite raids and rolled back the local police's broad discretion to check foreigners' immigration status. Instead, it expanded a pilot project started under Mr. Bush that required the state and local police to check everyone fingerprinted during an arrest.

The change was made partly to address charges of racial profiling, but the new program — called Secure Communities — greatly expanded the pool of people who were checked, ICE officials said. And those found living in the United States illegally could be turned over to the immigration authorities regardless of the charges against them.

A June 2010 memo from the Immigration and Customs Enforcement director at the time, John Morton, for the first time set priorities for enforcement. They included any immigrants who had entered the country illegally, overstayed visas or had ignored prior deportation orders, regardless of their criminal history or how long they had lived in the United States. Although the memo was meant to focus enforcement, the categories were so broad, former officials of the immigration agency said, that they easily covered a third of the country's 11.5 million illegal immigrants.

The administration also broadened the use of expedited proceedings, which gave illegal immigrants limited opportunities to consult a lawyer, seek asylum or present extenuating circumstances to judges. The number of expedited removals nearly doubled from the Bush to the Obama administrations. The Obama administration also expanded the pursuit of people who had failed to comply with previous deportation orders. And a majority of them involved immigrants who either had no criminal history, or had been convicted for immigration or traffic offenses.“Even as we recognize that enforcing the law is necessary,” Mr. Obama said in a 2011 speech in El Paso, “we don't relish the pain that it causes in the lives of people who are just trying to get by and get caught up in the system.”

Torn Families in Ohio

Painesville, Ohio, 30 miles east of Cleveland, offers a snapshot of some people caught up in the system. Every Tuesday night at a nondenominational church downtown, several dozen immigrant families cram together to talk about ways they can help loved ones who are either facing deportation or who have already been removed. The stories spill out so fast, and they all seem to share the same general narrative arc — immigrant drives through red or yellow light, police officer asks for driver's license, immigrant lands in Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody, children reel from uncertainty.

“It's been hard without my husband here,” said Elizabeth Perez, a 35-year-old American-born woman and a former Marine who briefly served in Afghanistan. Her husband was deported to Mexico in June 2010 after the police detained him during a traffic stop and the authorities found 14-year-old misdemeanor charges for assault and marijuana possession.

As she spoke, her 3-year-old son was fidgeting wildly in her arms and tugging on her long hair. Her 4-year-old daughter had plopped onto the floor and began screaming for her mother's attention. “We were supposed to do this together,” she said, trying to quiet her restless brood. “Raise the kids, I mean.”

Esperanza Pacheco, who said she has lived illegally in the United States for 20 years, was detained with her husband three years ago for illegally re-entering the country. He was deported, but he was allowed to return after winning a court fight last year. And her deportation has been temporarily suspended. Still, she said, the ordeal hangs over her four daughters. The eldest of the girls, 16-year-old Esmeralda Moctezuma, piped up, “School is hard because we feel like people are pointing at us.”

An informal tally among the immigrants gathered that recent Tuesday night found a total of 22 people who either had a spouse who had been deported or were in deportation proceedings themselves. All told, those parents had 59 children. All but nine of the children were born in this country.

Five of them had fathers who were deported, and two of the men had died of exposure in the Arizona desert trying to make it back to their families.

The last word David Lomeli's three children had of their father was the note from forensics officials who found his remains in July 2012. It read, “Subject was lying on his stomach with his head facing north. He was lying on a ripped-open black trash bag. The body was in an advanced state of decomposition with the skull fully exposed. He was wearing blue jeans (no shoes, socks or shirt). Subject appears to have been at this location for approximately one month.”

Half a dozen of the children had dropped out of school to help fill the void left by their fathers' deportations. “It's like a light that was inside of them has gone out,” said Manuela Martinez, referring to her six sons.

In April 2010, an 11-year-old girl named Arlette Rocha, with long brown hair and a cherub's cheeks, was found hanging from the stairway at home in an apparent suicide some eight months after her father was deported to Mexico. Her mother had taken a job on the second shift at a local plastics molding factory, forcing Arlette to take care of three younger siblings.

When the family petitioned to have the father's deportation reversed, Dr. Archie S. Wilkinson, who had tried to resuscitate Arlette, wrote a letter to authorities, pleading with them to return him for the sake of her surviving siblings.

Dr. Wilkinson wrote that in his view, Arlette had been suffering “from the profound grief of missing her dad, and the extra burden placed on her when their family's main support was taken away.” He ended, writing, “Please give this family a chance.”

One teenager's plea reached all the way to the White House. Ivan Maldonado, 18, who lives in what has become a typical mixed-status immigrant household, was 3 years old when his parents illegally moved him and an older brother to the United States from Mexico. His parents had four more sons in Ohio. Then in 2010, their father was deported after the authorities found he had failed to obey a previous removal order.

His mother has been allowed to stay to take care of the children, and Mr. Maldonado and his older brother have been granted temporary legal status.

In 2011, Mr. Maldonado, who recently dropped out of high school to work at the same factory that once employed his father, went on a trip to Washington organized by advocates where he shared his story with Ms. Muñoz, Mr. Obama's lead adviser on immigration. “She told me she would never forget me,” he recalled. “It made me feel that maybe there was hope my dad might come home.”

Anger at Obama

The issue of deportations has reached the White House repeatedly, turning immigration into a contentious issue between Mr. Obama and the Hispanic and Asian communities that are a critical part of his political base.

“We assumed that a Democratic president who wanted to move immigration reform would not pursue a strategy of deporting the people who he was intent on legalizing,” said Deepak Bhargava, executive director of the Center for Community Change. “That was a totally wrong assumption. And there is a lot of anger about that.”

One of the first confrontations played out in March 2010, when immigrant organizations announced plans to hold a march in Washington to demand that Congress pass immigration reform and that Mr. Obama stop the expansion of Secure Communities. Three former administration officials said the White House quickly began an effort aimed at damage control, summoning leading immigrant advocates to meet with the president.

Having just emerged from a bruising fight for health care reform, the president saw the sudden pressure from immigration groups as a betrayal, the former aides said. But, at the White House meeting, the advocates also expressed betrayal.

“They were like: ‘This deportation thing is important. Families are being ripped apart,' ” recalled a former senior White House official, who requested anonymity to recount the meeting. “They're almost crying. Their faces are turning red. Every one of them had a story.”

Chung-Wha Hong, the former executive director of the New York Immigration Coalition, recalled that the president “kept saying that he was not above the law, and that if we were suggesting that he stop enforcing the law then there was no point in continuing the conversation.” She added: “We weren't asking him not to enforce the law. Our point was simply that there were things he could do to protect good people from bad laws.”

At some point, the former White House official recalled, the president made clear he had heard enough.

“Finally the president was like, ‘Hey, you know what? You don't have to convince me. I'm dealing with a Congress that won't move on this, and the politics they're looking at won't force them to move,' ” the former official said, recalling Mr. Obama's words, and adding, “So the thing we should spend our time talking about is what can you do and what can I do to change the political calculus.” The former official said that the meeting ended with Mr. Obama and the advocates both angry, and the immigration march in Washington went ahead as planned.

Last month, facing renewed pressure, Mr. Obama announced that he had ordered his new secretary of homeland security, Jeh Johnson, to review deportation programs. “When you hear enough stories about separating families or removing people who are not truly dangerous,” Mr. Johnson said, “it leads you to want to dig in to make sure you're getting the policy and the implementation right.”

Janet Murguia, the president of the National Council of La Raza, the country's largest Hispanic civil rights organization, joined a growing chorus of unions, religious groups and immigrant advocacy organizations that have labeled Mr. Obama the nation's “deporter in chief,” and demanded that he make good on his promises to protect immigrant families from unfair removal policies. The pressure has prompted similar calls from leading congressional Democrats, including some of Mr. Obama's closest allies, who are worried about, among other things, the impact deportations may have on Hispanic turnout in this year's midterm elections.

After ordering the review, Mr. Obama called the advocates together again. While the White House hoped to intensify pressure on Republicans for comprehensive reform, the advocates had all but given up hope, and have instead directed much of their attention — and outrage — at the administration.

Mr. Obama asked them to skip the stories of pain and suffering, not because he did not care, but because he felt it more productive to discuss strategy for winning permanent relief, people who attended the meeting said.

The odds were not good, Mr. Obama acknowledged. But he asked the advocates to stick with him another 90 days, and press hard on Congress. If those efforts failed to lead to reform, Mr. Obama said he would work with them on administrative relief. The advocates and others told the president that their communities had waited long enough.

“When the president told us he was going to only go after criminal aliens, we all said, ‘OK, go do that, but don't go after people whose only crime is that they're living here undocumented,' ” said Richard Trumka, the president of the A.F.L.-C.I.O. who attended the meeting. “But that's not what happened. Now immigrant communities are feeling under attack. And it's hard for them to focus on trying to win reform, when they're afraid they could be pulled over for running a red light, and get torn away from their families.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/07/us/more-deportations-follow-minor-crimes-data-shows.html?_r=0

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New Jersey

Paterson's 10th Avenue community meets with police to combat crime

by ALEXANDRA HOEY

PATERSON — Frustrated by the drug dealing and other crime that plagues their neighborhood, about two dozen residents and business owners from the 10th Avenue area met with police officers last week to ask for help.

"What do we do to remove the dealers that have been out there for years?" asked Willie Perkin.

Homeowner Collien Watson said the problems in the 10th Avenue area give Paterson a bad reputation because the street is one of the entrances to the city.

"We have to fix this," Watson said.

Thursday night's meeting at The Paterson Church of God was arranged by 4th Ward Councilwoman Ruby Cotton, who represents the 10th Avenue business area. The police department sent Capt. Richard Reyes, Lt. John Phelan and Sgt. Sharon Easton.

“Don't be afraid to reach out to us,” said Reyes. “Never once did I solve anything without the help of the community.”

“The police department needs to hear it from you,” said Councilwoman Cotton. “You can call me and I can call them but it's not the same.”

“If you don't tell us, we don't know,” said Phelan.

“To me it appears that because the community gives the impression that they may not care, the younger people do whatever it is that they want to do,” said Easton, who works in community policing. “We're really going to have to start to communicate with the community because somebody has to teach their child that you can't, for example, drink in public.”

The officers also explained that specific programs have been developed to address quality of life problems in the city, including the “Special Operations Group.” The initiative mostly addresses issues like double parking, loud music, large crowds on corners, and drinking in public and has helped more serious situations from escalating, said Reye.

“Because we were so focused on major crimes, these issues have been left unattended,” said Reyes. “We're addressing them now. It's like what we all learn from our parents: Take care of the little things, the big things take care of themselves.”

“So far it's working out really good,” he added.

Reyes also said that 20 new officers were just hired, and 20 more are being looked at for the next police academy class.

Community members were invited to give suggestions and prompt questions. Perkin, 41, asked, “What are we doing to get more people involved in meetings like this?”

"Many of the problems we have with the police department, we [the community] can work together on,” said resident Robert Marfil, who is also a member of the Passaic County's Sheriff Office.

Marfil said that he has taken numerous actions to improve conditions on his block. When he faced an issue with a local drug dealer, the police department used his house for surveillance, he said. Marlif also cleared an abandoned house next door and kept an empty garbage can outside to reduce litter, all of which he said has worked.

http://www.northjersey.com/news/paterson-s-10th-avenue-community-meets-with-police-to-combat-crime-1.842691

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From the Department of Justice

Associate Attorney General Tony West Delivers Remarks at the Strengthening the Relationship Between Law Enforcement and Communities of Color Forum

Thank you, Ron, for that kind introduction and for your effective leadership of COPS at this important time.

I'd like also to take a moment to recognize my other Justice Department colleagues here today, individuals with whom it is both a privilege and pleasure to serve: U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara, who hosts us in his district this morning; U.S. Attorney Loretta Lynch from Brooklyn; Assistant Attorney General for the Office of Justice Programs, Karol Mason; and Principal Deputy Director for the Office on Violence Against Women, Bea Hanson.

Let me also express appreciation to Reverend Al Sharpton, not only for joining us this morning but for his leadership, day in and day out, on issues of reconciliation and community restoration.

And, of course, my thanks to the Ford Foundation for hosting this important event in this beautiful space.

A special thank you goes to the mayor of this great city, Mayor Bill de Blasio, and to Police Commissioner Bill Bratton, for welcoming us to New York and for their commitment to building bridges between law enforcement and community. In the short time the Mayor has been in office, the Justice Department has established a productive working partnership with the City of New York.

Within weeks of assuming office, Mayor de Blasio helped broker a resolution to a long-running legal battle -- in which the Department of Justice filed a statement of interest -- over NYPD's stop-and-frisk practices, helping to ensure that reforms are in place throughout the police department to promote constitutional policing.

It really is a privilege to be here with so many distinguished law enforcement and civil rights leaders, friends and colleagues, to advance a critical dialogue on how we can work together to build safer and healthier communities. This is the first in a series of discussions that the COPS Office is convening to strengthen, establish and sometimes repair the fabric of trust between law enforcement agencies and the communities they serve in order to enhance public safety and justice for all.

I come to this discussion as one who has been privileged to work with law enforcement for most of my career -- for several years as a federal prosecutor in a U.S. Attorney's Office; as a lawyer in the California Attorney General's Office; and now as part of the United States Justice Department's leadership. That experience has left me both profoundly grateful for and humbled by the dedication and commitment of so many in law enforcement who serve to keep our communities safer places to live, to work and to play; and who do so with integrity and in compliance with the law.

Theirs is not an easy task, and their duties are often performed under difficult and dangerous circumstances. And the reality for most officers, I believe, is that policing is not a job; it's an honor and profession. It's about service. It's about promoting safety and security and fostering strong neighborhoods for the residents who live there.

I also come to this discussion as my father's son. He was a man born and raised deep in the Jim Crow south. And when the time came for his eldest child and only son to take up driving lessons, dad was my teacher, imparting all the familiar lessons of keeping my eyes on the road and signaling before I turned.

And then there were the lessons not found in any driver's manual; lessons informed by family history and community experience: When -- not if -- you are pulled over by the police for no ostensible reason, keep your hands visibly planted at 10 and 2 until instructed otherwise. Always ask permission before reaching for your license and registration, and even then verbally explain what you're doing. No quick movements. End every sentence with "sir." Speak only when spoken to and never, ever talk back.

Dad called these "survival skills," and I put them into practice on more than a few occasions, well into adulthood. I suspect that I'm not alone in bringing such divergent, perhaps even conflicting, perspectives to today's discussion.

Ours is a time when police departments are becoming increasingly diverse; when more and more police chiefs are embracing community policing as a core policing philosophy as opposed to an optional extracurricular activity; when the Justice Department, in the 20 years since the inception of the COPS Office, has invested more than $13 billion in grants to local law enforcement to promote strong police departments that implement approaches valuing the communities they serve, especially communities of color.

And yet it is also the case that ours is a time when, as the Attorney General said in his remarks, there are still too many pockets of America where folks are trapped in a vicious cycle of poverty, criminality, and incarceration; when negative contacts with the criminal justice system are disproportionately felt by communities of color -- especially young men of color, half of whom, one recent study showed, will have at least one arrest by age 23.

For Attorney General Holder and the Justice Department he leads, few things are as troubling or in need of our urgent attention as a criminal justice system that lacks integrity in the eyes of those it is supposed to serve. Because notwithstanding our success in reducing violent crime over the last three decades, the disturbing fact is that same time period has witnessed the prison population explode by 800%, with communities of color bearing a disproportionate share of that increase.

That, in turn, has only led to more suspicion, more fear and more resentment, giving currency to self-fulfilling narratives that say, on one side, law enforcement is a threat, not an ally; or on the other, that community residents tolerate and even encourage disrespect for the law.

And as demographics shift and neighborhoods change, it is becoming more clear that the communities law enforcement must serve, on which they must rely and to which they are accountable, are increasingly communities of color.

Indeed, according to the Census, by 2043, people of color will become the majority in our country. And by the end of this decade, the majority of young people in this country will be of color. Given that the point of greatest tension between law enforcement and communities revolves around how young people of color are treated by police, restoring the trust and repairing this relationship is not an option; it's a necessity if law enforcement is to fulfill its mission in the 21st century.

That's why today's convening is as necessary as it is significant. It allows us to seize the opportunity to build, rebuild and maintain that foundation of trust which is essential to effective, productive law enforcement.

Because we know -- from research and from experience -- that individuals who come into contact with the police or other law enforcement agencies are more likely to accept decisions by those authorities as legitimate, and obey the law in the future, if they feel they've been treated fairly, even when they are penalized by criminal sanctions.

So today is about turning what we know into what we can do. It's about exploring ways to do what my friend Pastor Michael McBride calls hitting the reset button, where we give ourselves the space to have a different kind of conversation, one where our narratives and histories inform the discussion but don't dictate how we move forward together. It's an opportunity to identify, as the Attorney General said in his remarks, promising strategies and actionable solutions that can facilitate lasting community confidence in law enforcement.

It's in that spirit that I'm pleased to announce today a major new Department of Justice initiative aimed at enhancing public safety by strengthening relationships between law enforcement and communities. Under a solicitation released this morning, we are committing up to $4.75 million to establish the National Center for Building Community Trust and Justice.

This initiative – which will be jointly supported by our Office of Justice Programs, COPS Office, Civil Rights Division, Office on Violence Against Women, and Community Relations Service – will expand our base of knowledge about what works to improve procedural fairness, reduce bias, and promote racial reconciliation. It will help communities address the challenges arising from suspicion, distrust and lack of confidence in our law enforcement agencies.

This effort will encompass a broad range of areas in which fairness and trust are implicated -- from stops and searches to wrongful convictions. A team of cross-disciplinary experts will fuel the initiative by conducting research, piloting and testing innovative ideas, developing models for rigorous evaluation, and disseminating the latest research and best practices to the field. And our U.S. Attorneys will lead coordination efforts with five pilot sites that will implement and test strategies focused on procedural justice, implicit bias, and racial reconciliation.

The initiative will engage an array of criminal and juvenile justice agencies, including law enforcement, probation, parole, and the courts; as well as community stakeholders, like faith-based groups and victim service organizations -- indeed, all of you in this room will be important to the success of this initiative.

Our goal is to build on the pioneering work already underway in some of America's most challenged areas and to open doors of cooperation that will ultimately lead to safer and healthier communities. It's the same aspiration that underlies the ambitious day ahead of us.

To be sure, none of this will be easy or come quickly. But the good news is you have already sown the seeds of success. You have, in the work that's already been done, begun to demonstrate what we can accomplish when we commit ourselves to improving public safety while strengthening community and respecting individual dignity.

Thank you for all that you do, and I look forward to all we can accomplish together.

http://www.justice.gov/iso/opa/asg/speeches/2014/asg-speech-140404.html